Why Hillary as secretary of state is a win for Israel

It may not be a glass ceiling, but Hillary Clinton's appointment as secretary of state has put a much-needed floor under the risky business of engaging the Arab-Israeli conflict in search of a lasting peace deal.

Rarely do you feel, from six thousand miles away, the smile evaporate from the faces of Israel's enemies. But that's exactly what many in the pro-Israel community experienced when the home page of the Sunday, Nov. 23 edition of the Washington Post Web site offered its candidate for Understatement of the Year with this headline: Some in Arab World Wary of Clinton.

Who's smiling now? Hint: not Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, who recently told a U.N. conference that Jerusalem is holy to two religions - Islam and Christianity, making it clear that there is no room for Jews in Jerusalem.

And I bet not North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il, who may sorely miss the time he spent together with former Clinton administration Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in North Korea in 2000. Upon leaving, Albright presented Kim - a huge fan of the NBA - with a basketball signed by Michael Jordan.

"It showed him we went through some effort to get the signature," Bob Carlin, a former North Korea analyst for the State Department who accompanied Albright on that trip, later told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "They realized it wasn't just an ordinary ball."

It's hard to believe Kim had the audacity to push forward with his nuclear ambitions. After all, "it wasn't just an ordinary ball" we brought him.

But more to the point, there are two main reasons that Clinton is a good pick for secretary of state: Israel and Joe Biden.

First, Israel. The U.S. State Department is made up of, generally speaking (and excepting people like John Bolton, of course, the finest U.N. ambassador by a long shot and true friend to Israel) career bureaucrats who are experts on Russia and convinced of the coming war with China. Then they go to Israel to negotiate a peace deal between Jews and Arabs. They don't speak Arabic, because they only deal with communist powers. And they don't speak Hebrew, although they have memorized the expression they use almost constantly during their trips to the Mideast, "oy vey."

Current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is book-smart brilliant. Unfortunately, the only kind of "settlement" she's aware of is part of a plea bargain. Albright knew her stuff - when it came to solving the age-old puzzle, "Why a basketball makes a great gift for someone who can barely dunk it in his kitchen sink?"

There was James Baker, whose stated philosophy concerning Israel was the clear, but clumsy, "F--- the Jews." (Hey, sometimes that kind of honesty is all we ask.) And of course we had Warren Christopher, last seen pushing Rice to force Israel into a cease-fire with Hezbollah in 2006 before Israel had the chance to get the Lebanese terrorists out of range of northern Israeli population centers. "Every day America gives the green light to further Israeli violence, our already tattered reputation sinks even lower," Christopher opined in the pages of the Washington Post.

Let's be honest. It's a low bar, but it's one that, say, John Kerry couldn't clear.

Will Clinton be tougher on our enemies than the dim bulbs of administrations past? Probably, and here's why: Clinton has an understanding of the Mideast negotiation process that is nearly unparalleled outside Israel. In an interview with the New Yorker magazine in January 2007, Clinton said this about getting those mythical concessions from Arab negotiators: "You do not get people into a process or to the table to make any kind of tough decisions, including compromises, unless the other side knows that your commitment to Israel is unshakable."

The phrase "unshakable commitment to Israel" may be common enough to be meaningless at this point, but Clinton wasn't declaring her unshakable commitment to Israel. She was making it clear that in order for negotiations to be successful, the Arabs must understand that they will not, under any circumstances, succeed in driving a wedge in between Israel and America. President George W. Bush knows this and has expressed the same sentiment - that while America will try to arbitrate Arab-Israeli negotiations, it is not on equal terms with the two parties.

Israel is one of America's closest and most important allies in the world. The Arab leaders want all Americans dead. Having clarity on that issue is what gave Bush his high approval ratings among Israelis. It wasn't simply saying he likes Israel; it was that he knows that support for Israel is absolutely necessary for successful negotiations. Clinton seems to know that too.

And as former New York Sun reporter Eli Lake notes, "Clinton has described the teaching of anti-Israel views in Palestinian textbooks as 'child abuse,' and held hearings on the topic in an effort to get the Bush administration to do more on the issue." No moral equivalency there. In fact, Lake reminds us, since becoming a senator, Clinton has criticized the Palestinians' anti-Semitic education and media, often loud enough for even the State Department - who were holding their hands over their ears like the "hear no evil" monkey - to hear.

Bill Clinton spent most of his Mideast-related energy attempting to drive Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu's career into the ground. Surprise! Guess who might be the next Israeli prime minister. That may seem to be a conflict, but Hillary isn't Bill. And she's isn't Barack Obama, who said this: "I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel." The Jerusalem Post's Shmuel Rosner correctly noted the outrage that would follow if Bibi had said something similarly disparaging about supporters and policies of the Democratic Party.

The other reason to cheer Clinton's appointment is Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who has vowed (threatened?) to be in on every foreign policy-related decision Obama makes as president.

Biden has spent 35 years in the U.S. Senate, and in that time has accumulated an almost perfect record on foreign affairs: he has, by any honest account, never been right. He opposed helping anti-communist and anti-Soviet groups during the Cold War. He called the surge in Iraq a "tragic mistake," and advocated splitting Iraq into three states, thus offering the state on a silver platter to Iran. And during his vice presidential debate against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, he said this: "When we kicked - along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said… 'Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know - if you don't, Hezbollah will control it.' Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel."

It took days to figure out what he meant to say, because he couldn't have meant what he said. It's preposterously wrong - and embarrassing, for the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It's possible Biden just uses the word "Hezbollah" whenever he refers to "the bad guys." For example, while Biden was at law school at Syracuse, he may have cheered, "Go Syracuse! Beat the Georgetown Hezbollahs!" Who knows?

Biden also famously, three weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, offered this at his committee meeting: "Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran." The New Republic's Michael Crowley recalled the immediate reaction of the room to this idea.

"He surveys the table with raised eyebrows, a How do ya like that? look on his face," Crowley described. Then, according to Crowley, one by one staffers begin to point out the obvious flaws in that idea: it's a transparent publicity stunt; the Iranians would send it back, embarrassing us; that day the Iranians were in Moscow negotiating an arms deal to which the U.S. was strongly opposed. "But Joe Biden is barely listening anymore. He's already moved on to something else."

A State Department career diplomat would defer to Biden. So would Obama, in some cases. So would most pushover bureaucratic underlings.

Clinton's confirmation can't come soon enough.

This originally appeared in the Dec. 5, 2008 issue of The Jewish State.

Mumbai tragedy will not stop Chabad

If there were a bright spot to the horrific terror attack carried out in Mumbai, it was the stark contrast between the perpetrators and the victims, illustrated so poignantly at Nariman House, the local Chabad's headquarters.

The testimonials at events held by our New Jersey Chabad-Lubavitch chapters go something like this: "I am not observant, but the rabbi and his wife treated us as if we were royalty"; "My kids were never happy in preschool until we enrolled them in the Chabad's preschool, where they are cared for as if they are the rabbi and rebbetzin's own children"; "This is my first time lighting Shabbat candles in 40 years"; "The Chabad center is the only place I don't feel judged"; etc.

The praise for Chabad is always effusive and proud, and it's not uncommon to see an audience at a Chabad event devoid of dry eyes, the participants having suddenly experienced a rush of emotion as their love of Judaism and its traditions is remembered and unearthed.

On Nov. 26, the siege of Mumbai by Islamic terrorists began, ending with the news that Mumbai's Chabad Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, were among the victims. And in this, the world should learn a very important lesson about us and our enemies.

According to the Chabad Web site, the Lubavitch mission is described thus: "Appropriately, the word Lubavitch in Russian means the 'city of brotherly love.' The name Lubavitch conveys the essence of the responsibility and love engendered by the Chabad philosophy toward every single Jew."

Of course, Chabad goes beyond "every single Jew": when I was a student at Rutgers, my roommate, the son of Cuban immigrants, and our friend, the son of Indian immigrants - neither of whom is Jewish - both spent time at the Rutgers Chabad House. The atmosphere of inclusiveness at Chabad must be experienced first-hand to be believed.

This, of course, is the polar opposite of the perpetrators of the Mumbai massacre: Jihad-obsessed Muslims. The Islamists' motto is not "convert or die." It's simply, "die." Their brand of Islamic outreach is to annihilate all nonbelievers, starting with Jews. Chabad's Jewish outreach is quite the reverse: everyone is welcome; every human being has intrinsic value and accordingly deserves the utmost respect.

I remember listening to a lecture by the late Rabbi Avigdor Miller, after which he took questions, as he always did, on any subject from the audience. One questioner asked Miller if it was permissible to be nice to Jews, but not be so friendly or considerate to non-Jews.

Miller answered that not only was this not permissible, the question was moot: there is no such animal, he said. You are either a nice person, or you aren't.

Chabad lives by the same motto: you can't pick and choose when to be nice person. Because of this, there is nothing but warmth around Chabad.

When I was a reporter for Greater Media Newspapers, in Freehold, I often drove to the Chabad House in Manalapan for afternoon prayers. One year, before Hanukkah, the yeshiva students there gave me a bunch of menorahs to hand out to my Jewish co-workers. I doubted there would any takers, since I was sure that anyone who wanted to light a menorah would already own one. Of course, I was wrong. The woman who worked at our front desk was practically giddy when I walked in with a bag of menorahs. She was Jewish, and immediately began calling the extensions of all the company's advertising executives she knew to be Jewish, asking them if they would like a menorah.

I took the editorial side of the office, and sheepishly asked the reporters I thought were Jewish if they needed a menorah. When I had originally expressed my doubts about the menorahs to the Chabad students, they smiled and told me it was no problem - I should feel free to return any unused menorahs to them. They enjoyed seeing me walk into the Chabad House the following week with no menorahs to return.

Chabad takes to heart the Jewish directive to be a light among the nations. And here's the lesson to our enemies: Chabad will continue to shine.

Violence and tragedy will never defeat the Jewish spirit. Radical Islam's adherents can learn this lesson one of two ways. They can learn it the hard way, by continuing to try to destroy Israel and attempting to wrest a devoted people from our beloved God. They will fail.

Or they can learn this lesson the easy way, by watching as Chabad's work continues, undaunted and resolute, to spread love in the face of hate.

This originally appeared in the Dec. 5, 2008 issue of The Jewish State.

The making of a freedom fighter: How Shoaib Choudhury became Bangladesh's pro-democracy Muslim Zionist

For most of his allies and advocates, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury's story began on Nov. 29, 2003.

That was the day that Choudhury, preparing to board a plane from his native Bangladesh to Tel-Aviv to address a writer's conference, was arrested, beaten, starved, and tortured by the Bangladeshi authorities, who didn't take kindly to Choudhury's brand of peaceful Islam and support for Israel and the Zionist movement.

Choudhury is currently on trial for his life, though the intervention of his friend, Illinois native Dr. Richard Benkin, as well as Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), helped put a stop to the yearlong episode of imprisonment and torture, and in all likelihood kept Choudhury alive.

But Choudhury's life in Bangladesh, before he became a symbol for the struggle against Islamism from within the Muslim world, shaped his views on religion and politics, giving him a unique worldview that led to his status as a hero to the West and a nemesis to his neighbors.

Choudhury was born Jan. 12, 1965 in Sylhet District, in eastern Bangladesh near the Indian border. His father, Ghulam Ather Choudhury, worked for the American Life Insurance Company in Bangladesh (ALICO) until Bangladesh gained its independence in 1971, when he went into business. His mother, Sharifa Choudhury, was a housewife. Both his parents are deceased, his mother having died during Shoaib's imprisonment.

Choudhury has three siblings: brother Sohail Choudhury, and sisters Ahktari Choudhury and Seema Choudhury. The family had an upper middle class upbringing.

Choudhury attended St. Joseph's School in Dhaka until college, when he studied at the University of London. He later received his master's degree in journalism from London as well.

Choudhury's father was a voracious reader, and his curiosity set an example for his family.

"My father was always a person who taught us to be respectful to other religions," Choudhury told The Jewish State, "and not to believe in hate speeches in the mosques during Friday prayers, [which included] provocations saying 'Jews and Christians are your enemies, kill them and remain a good Muslim.' My father was a great reader and has built a moderate private library at our residence, which was always the initial source of information and inspiration for us."

Choudhury's mother was from a well-to-do family, which stressed art and music over politics. Choudhury combined the influence of his father and mother, and founded a film club in Dhaka.

In fact, religious tolerance was a pillar of the Choudhurys' household, despite the xenophobic tendencies of hard-line Islamist teachings.

"In our family, in particular, there was no anti-Semitic notion," Choudhury said. He added that his parents were vigilant in their rejection of the negative stereotypes on non-Muslims. "Friends of my father were Hindus, Buddists, Christians etc., [some were from India], who were quite frequently visiting our residence and they became almost part of our family."

As a student, Choudhury contributed articles and poems regularly to the local press, which paved the way for his entrance into the news industry. He began his professional journalism career in 1989 as a correspondent for TASS, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union. That same year, Choudhury married his girlfriend of several months, Shahnaj, to whom he is still married, and with whom he has two children: daughter Priyanka, and son Hanzalah.

In 1996, TASS (which had by then been absorbed by the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia, Itar-Tass) closed its Bangladesh bureau. Choudhury then joined the newsroom at Dhaka's leading English language daily, The New Nation.

Choudhury's political opinions clashed with his next employers, the Daily Inquilab, an Islamist-run newspaper. Choudhury soon discovered that the Inquilab's owners were wrapped up in dishonest business practices, as well as provoking anti-West attitudes among its readers.

"My difference with them took final shape when, in 2002, they asked me to attend an anti-U.S. rally in Dhaka in favor of Saddam Hussein," Choudhury said. "I refused to attend the rally and, subsequently, the owners forced me to leave Daily Inquilab."

It was this last incident that convinced Choudhury to start his own newspaper to counter the "hate speech" that was flowing daily from the other Bangladeshi news outlets, who Choudhury called wolves in sheep's clothing. Choudhury was a partner in the Inquilab's television station, and began a protracted legal struggle to sell his share back to the other partners.

"I made [up] my mind to tell the truth to the people and present unmolested and untwisted information on Israel, Jews, and the Western world to the readers," Choudhury said.

Choudhury's work had an immediate effect, he noticed. Some of his friends began echoing Choudhury's perspective on issues of religion and politics. The Weekly Blitz, the paper Choudhury founded and runs to this day, has not changed its mission or its presentation since its founding, Choudhury is proud to point out.

And prior to Choudhury's arrest in 2003, he maintained good relationships with his colleagues.

"But, when they came to know about my arrest and subsequently my role against Islamist militancy and radical Islam, they try to maintain a kind of distance with me, although many keep personal-level relationships with me," he said.

But his arrest, and the common attempts on his life, have turned Choudhury into a pariah. His newspaper has struggled because local businesses are afraid to advertise in it, lest they be considered Zionist collaborators.

"Free expression in Bangladesh," Choudhury said, is therefore still very much a work in progress. His trial continues, and currently Choudhury's attorneys are in the process of cross-examining the plaintiff's witnesses. Canadian attorney Irwin Cotler is Choudhury's attorney abroad, and the Bangladesh Minority Lawyers Association is working with him in Dhaka.

Though day-to-day life has improved somewhat for Choudhury, he still retains scars from his earlier treatment -- such as the ill effects from an eye infection that went untreated while he was in solitary confinement -- and his life is never safe, considering the innumerable incidents of violence directed against him and his family since 2003. (In late March, as this paper reported, Choudhury was kidnapped by a particularly vicious Bangladeshi paramilitary group called the Rapid Action Battalion. While Choudhury was being abused and interrogated, Benkin contacted American officials, such as Kirk and N.J. Rep. Steve Rothman, who secured Choudhury's release.)

Choudhury's pro-democracy agenda was developed watching Bangladesh's struggle for independence and then democracy. Bangladesh began as a parliamentary democracy, but its founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in 1975. The struggle for the country's leadership played out with a series of military coups, and Bangladesh was then subject to military rule, its hopes of democracy dashed until 1990, when General Hossain Mohammad Ershad was ousted.

"From all these political ups and downs, I learned a lot about the risk of dictatorial rule, as well how politicians play with the people, taking the advantage of people's mandate in democracy," Choudhury said. He remains committed to the cause, and expects the same of the country's political leadership. For the nation to prosper, he said, instead of corrupt leaders, "we need dedicated and committed people."