military – Jewish Independent

A day that changed my life

The author in the Sinai in October 1973, before his unit was attacked by two Iraqi planes, which caused the unit’s ammunition supply to explode, killing some soldiers and wounding others. (photo from Yom Shamash)

I would like to say that an event that happened 46 years ago left no marks on me and that I am over it. But then, I would not be honest. In fact, the experience left an indelible mark on my life and changed me completely.

In 1971, I returned to Israel – the country of my birth and early childhood – from Brazil with a Zionist youth group, to Kibbutz Zikim. I remember very well the prevailing thinking in Israel then. Four years after the victory of 1967, Israelis were quite confident. Egypt, the most powerful enemy Israel had, was neutralized. We were strong. We had conquered the Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan. All in six days. I had absorbed this attitude and felt secure in my little world.

And then the war of 1973 exploded.

I served in the Sinai before the war; I was in a Nahal Brigade unit in which part of my service was spent on a kibbutz. On Oct. 6, 1973, I was on the kibbutz. It was Shabbat, Yom Kippur. Because Israel was caught off guard, there was no time to set up the unit in an orderly manner. As soon as we arrived at our position behind a high dune in the Sinai desert, we started shooting. My tank had a long-range cannon; we could not see what we were hitting 30 kilometres away.

Because my job was to pull the cannon’s trigger with both hands, I could not block my ears with my fingers, as all my tank mates did. As a result, I have a significant and permanent hearing loss.

On Oct. 13, 1973, our unit was decimated by two Iraqi planes. There had been a lull in the fighting and we had been resting on the sand. Suddenly, the two planes swooped from the sky, dropped bombs and disappeared in a matter of seconds. Very quickly, our own ammunition started to explode. Pieces of shrapnel started flying. The only thing to do was to run away from this inferno. Some soldiers were wounded, some died, and all who survived were traumatized.

Looking back now from the vantage point of 2019, many of us wonder about the heavy loss of young lives. Israel lost about 2,700 soldiers in that war. What did they die for? Defending the Sinai? Those of us who served in the Sinai know well that there isn’t much there except sand, stretching for miles; there isn’t much there to defend. What I didn’t know in 1973 was that, for several months prior to the war, Israel’s then-prime minister Golda Meir had rejected numerous initiatives by Egypt’s then-president Anwar Sadat to negotiate a peace accord. Was it worth it holding on to the Sinai? Especially since, in the end, Israel wound up returning the Sinai anyway?

The same could be said about Lebanon – more than 1,200 Israelis lost their lives in Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. Was it worth it? We must ask this question of the parents of those soldiers who lost their lives. I wonder what they would say.

I am afraid that one day the West Bank and the Golan will return to their rightful owners, the Palestinians and the Syrians, and, years later, we will ask ourselves what the hell we were doing in these places, and in Gaza.

Two million Palestinians in Gaza and two-and-a-half million in the West Bank, who do not have the right to vote in Israel, will not disappear, and I see no reason why Israeli soldiers should be controlling the movements of Palestinians traveling within the West Bank and those wanting to leave or enter the Gaza Strip. If I told you that Israelis traveling from Tel Aviv to Haifa have to pass through Palestinian checkpoints, you would say this is absurd. And I would agree, but it is no less absurd than Palestinians going from Ramallah to Nablus having to pass through Israeli checkpoints.

And why are settlers in the West Bank consuming 10 times more water than the indigenous Palestinians? And why are Israeli soldiers protecting settlers – who should not be there in the first place – some of whom do not serve nor send their children to serve in the army?

There can be no peace in Israel until there is peace in Gaza and the West Bank. The occupation is a recipe for continuous wars and insecurity for all.

I recall clearly, at the end of the Yom Kippur War, returning my equipment at the army base. I pledged that I would never again wear a green uniform.

For a long time, I did not understand how and what changed inside me that October. No one talked about post-traumatic stress disorder; no one talked about personal feelings. But the recurring nightmares never stopped. The fear and anxiety stayed. Right after the war, I sought out a psychiatrist friend, who told me to leave Israel for awhile – I had planned to study in Jerusalem, but he said leave and decide later. I left. I came to Canada, started a new life, married, studied, had four kids, remarried, had a good career and am enjoying life with my wife, children and four grandchildren.

Since leaving Israel in 1974, I have been back twice for visits, in 1998 and 2008.

What happened on Oct. 13, 1973, changed me and shaped my views, my values, my activism, my appreciation for what is important in life. Perhaps one of the most important lessons I learned is that war is never the best option to resolve conflicts. Taking land from others is never a way toward peace. Military strength is not a guarantee of security.

I wish I could be optimistic about the future of Israel, but I am not. For me to have any optimism at all, at a minimum, the occupation would have to end.

Yom Shamash was born in Israel. At the age of 6, his family moved to Brazil. He returned to Israel as a member of the Hashomer Hatzair group and settled in Kibbutz Zikim, south of Ashkelon. In British Columbia, he worked as a public school teacher in Surrey and, since retirement, he has been working as a translator and babysitter.

ניסויים מוצלחים באמצעות מזל”טים

נסיעה טובה: ניסויים מוצלחים להעברת משלוחים באמצעות מזל”טים בארה”ב וקנדה (Webagentur Meerbusch via Pixabay)

בחודשים האחרונים בוצעו ניסויים מוצלחים להעברת משלוחים באמצעות מזל”טים ברחבי ארצות הברית וקנדה. זאת על ידי גורמים מסחריים וממשלתיים שונים. הניסויים מתבצעים כחלק מפעילות להפוך בקרוב את השירות של השימוש במזל”טים למסחרי ורווחי. כפי שפירסמנו בעבר הרגולציה בקנדה לביצוע ניסוים באמצעות מזל”טים הרבה יותר קלה, מאשר זו שבארה”ב. זו הסיבה למשל שאמזון החליטה לבצע את הניסויים במזל”טים בצד הקנדי של הגבול, לא רחוק ממטה החברה שבעיר סיאטל שנמצאת בצד האמריקני.

בקנדה בוצע בתקופה האחרונה ניסוי מסחרי ראשון ומוצלח על ידי רשות הדואר הקנדית (קנדה פוסט), בשילוב רשת בתי המרקחת לונדון דראגס ויצרנית מקומית של רובוטים אינדרו רובוטריקס (ממחוז בריטיש קולומביה). אינדרו רובוטריקס משתפת כבר פעולה עם רשות החלל האמריקנית (נס”א), רשות החלל הקנדית ורשות התחבורה הקנדית. באמצעות מזל”ט קטן הועברו תרופות חיוניות מוונקובר איילנד לביתו של חולה בשגר באחד האייים הסמוכים – סולט ספרינג איילנד שבבריטיש קולומביה. כלי הטיס הבלתי מאוייש עבר את ששת הק”מ מעל הים באחת עשרה דקות בלבד. השותפים לפרוייקט מאמינים כי כאשר השימוש במזל”טים להעברת משלוחים יהפוך למסחרי, אחת הדרישות המיידיות מהשוק תהיה העברת תרופות וציוד רפואי חיוני, למקומות שנמצאים במרחק ממרכזי הערים.

ניסוי דומה בוצע בחודש לאחרונה בארה”ב על ידי הצבא האמריקני, בשיתוף פעולה עם המכון לטכנולוגיה של מדינת ניו ז’רזי. שני הגופים ביצעו שני ניסויים עם מזל”טים שטסו למרחק של עד קרוב לק”מ, מעל הים ליד ניו ז’רזי. כלי הטיס העבירו מנות חירום ומארזי מים לצבא האמריקני. זאת כדי לבדוק את האופציה של העברת אספקת חירום לאזורי לחימה בלתי נגישים, וכן לאזורי מוכי אסון בארה”ב.

מספר ניסויים נוספים בוצעו בארה”ב בתקופה האחרונה להטסת מזל”טים ללא ציוד בשלב זה. בקייפ רובטרס שבמדינת קליפורניה בוצעה טיסת ניסוי למשך כדקה של מטוס ללא טייס, הנחשב הגדול ביותר מסוגו כיום, בארה”ב ואולי אף בעולם כולו. משקל כלי הטייס נאמד בכחצי טון. הפרוייקט שייך לחברת הסטרט-אפ אלראוי אייר מסאן פרנסיסקו. החברה בודקת אפשרות להעביר מטענים כבדי משקל של למעלה ממאתיים ק”ג. אלראוי אייר נערכת לשתף פעולה עם חברות המישלוחים האמריקניות הגדולות בעולם: פדקס, די.אייץ’.אל ויו.פי.אס.

בניסוי בפורט וורט שבמדינת טקסס מזל”ט קטן עלה לאוויר למשך מספר דקות ונחת. פרוייקט זה של חברת בל הליקופטר טקסטרטון האמריקנית בשיתוף פעולה עם חברת המשלוחים הגדולה של יפאן – ימאטו.

ואילו אוניברסיטת פיירבנקס שבמדינת אלסקה בשיתוף פעולה עם חברת שירותי צינורות, ביצעו ניסוי ראשון באזור פוקס. הניסוי הכלל הטסת מזל”ט למרחק של למעלה משישה ק”מ. שני הגופים מעוניינים לאפשר לספק ציוד רפואי לאזור צינור הנפט טרנס אלסקה. ובמקביל לבצע מעקבים אווירים על מה שמתרחש באזור.

מזל”ט הוא כלי טיס בלתי מאויש שלא נושא עליו טייסים. הכוונה והבקרה על כלי הטיס נעשית על ידי הפעלה מרחוק. רוב המזל”טים מיועדים לשימושים צבאיים, אך יותר ויותר נעשה בהם שימוש גם ליישומים אזרחיים. כמו למשל: משטרה, אבטחה, בקרת תנועה, מחקר מדעי וצילום.

בשימושים הצבאיים מזל”טים משמשים לאיסוף מודיעין, יצירת הטעיה וכן לירות חימוש מדוייק במטרות קרקעיות. בין המדינות המחזיקות במזל”טים לתקיפות צבאיות: ארה”ב, ישראל, סין, הודו, מדינות אירופה וקנדה. האיראנים אגב הואשמו לאחרונה בכך שהם השתמשו במזל”טים להתקיף את מתקני הנפט של ערב הסעודית. המזל”טים הגיעו מאזור תימן והפציצו שני מתקני נפט סעודיים.

The dangers of drones

An image of drones filling the sky from Reva Stone’s Falling. (photo from Reva Stone)

Multi-awarding-winning Winnipeg artist Reva Stone researched drones for three years and then began creating art to share some of what she had learned about how the technology affects our lives. The exhibit erasure, which comes from that research, features three works – Falling, Atomic Bomb and Erase. It is on display at the University of Manitoba’s School of Art Gallery until April 26.

“I’m very much an observer of what’s going on with new technologies, so when I saw the impact that UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] were starting to have – especially with war and changing the nature of war – I applied for and got a Canada Council [for the Arts] grant to do a lot of research and reading about what actually is happening,” Stone told the Independent.

She went so far as to get two quadcopters, to understand what they really sounded like, and hoping to use them in her art, which she has.

“I was working on this, and then I started thinking about our skies filling up with these commercial and militarized drones and how they were basically machines … that could fall out of the sky … that could crash into each other, that could bring down an aircraft. We were filling up our skies,” she said. “And then, about two years ago, I was reading and realized that we were now targeting not other countries, but targeting humans.”

photo - Artist Reva Stone’s exhibit erasure warns about the use of drones in our society — Artist Reva Stone’s exhibit erasure warns about the use of drones in our society. *(photo from Reva Stone)*

Stone ended up making five or six individual pieces that deal with different aspects of the use of drones, but relate to one another. Depending on the exhibition venue, she decides which ones will work best together in a particular space.

Originally, drones were developed for spying purposes for the military. Later versions were outfitted with weapons for protection and assault. More recently, commercial drones have been developed. Now, anyone can buy a drone for as little as $20. This easy accessibility is challenging our society, contends Stone, causing hazards to planes in airports, affecting people at parks and disrupting the peace.

“Drones are becoming these things that fly in the air that have no human controllers … that are almost autonomous,” she said.

Stone often uses computers, movies, motors and speakers to help fully immerse visitors in her art pieces.

The work Falling, she said, “is an animated video that I made that has to do with what I see as a very new future, wherein UAVs are ubiquitous, because of civilian, military, commercial and private use.

“It’s almost slow motion or balletic on a massive screen,” she said. “There’s constant falling out of the skies, sometimes flipping as they fall. Sometimes, there’s a drone that has exploded in the sky … sometimes, small and far away and, sometimes, they’re so big when they fall through the sky that they look almost life-size and you’ll have to back away from the screen … that will be the feeling you get. Then, sometimes, there are these little windows that open up and you look through, into another world, and that world is more about what we’re fighting about – the fact that we are actually using these to make war. Other than that, some of them are commercial, some are cute, some are scary looking … and it’s like a continuous rain coming down.”

Atomic Bomb is also a film.

“I started with an early atomic bomb explosion,” said Stone. “It was a 30-second film and I made it into an almost 20-minute video. I really slowed it down and altered the time to give the impression that the person in the exhibition space is looking at a still image caught in time. I show this video together with texts that I found speak to the history of the use of radio-controlled airplanes and UAVs, and to longheld ideas about collateral damage – the relationship between … the use of atomic bombs and the use of drones and collateral damage, which, to me, is a huge issue with the use of drones as military.”

photo - A single frame from Reva Stone’s Atomic Bomb video piece — A single frame from Reva Stone’s Atomic Bomb video piece. *(photo from Reva Stone)*

The first text is from Harry Truman, the American president who made the decision in the Second World War to use the bomb, and it reads: “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished, in this first attack, to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.”

The next one is from John Brennan, Central Intelligence Agency director from 2013 to 2017: “There hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities we’ve been able to develop.”

According to Stone, “This is just bullshit. But this is part of the cleaning up of the media presentation of all these ideas and all these things I’ve been researching, that I’ve been noticing going on over time. And, it has actually made me change the name of the work. I was going to call all three of them a totally different name. Recently, maybe a month ago, I changed it to erasure because of the erasure of people, the erasure of a lot of critical dialogue that’s been happening since I started researching in 2015 … how we are mediated, what we are presented with as a culture. The info is so mediated by how it’s reported, and if it’s reported.”

Stone wants “her audience to consider how the capabilities of such technology may be turned against citizens and how governments might, and do, get away with employing them in the name of patriotism in ways that ultimately test the ethical and moral values of its citizenry,” notes the exhibit description. “With news cycles moving so rapidly, the reports of deadly events quickly fall from memory, seemingly erased from public consciousness.”

The third piece, Erase, is interactive. Stone said it is based on what, in her view, the Obama administration practised – the targeting of individuals based on algorithms, mostly guilt by association.

“With this one, I’m actually replicating the procedure,” she said. “I have my two quadcopters that are doing the surveillance and capturing people in the exhibition space, unbeknownst to them. Then, they get captured and saved.

“Then, it’s a process that goes on, that they get played back. And you begin to realize that you’re under surveillance, the people in the space. And, every so often, a target comes up over one of them, one of the captured images. It’s really intense and an explosion occurs, and that person actually comes out of my captured list. That person will never show again. They’ve been erased.”

The exhibit erasure opened Feb. 7. For more information about Stone and her work, visit revastone.ca.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

קרן קיימת קנדה הפסיקה לתמוך בפרוייקטים צבאיים בישראל לאור חקירה של רשות המס הקנדי

(jnf.ca)

קרן הקיימת בקנדה הפסיקה להעביר תרומות לפרוייקטים צבאיים בישראל לאור חקירה מתמשכת של רשות המיסוי הקנדית (סי.אר.איי). זאת עלי פי תחקיר של רשת השידור הטלוויזיה של קנדה (הסי.בי.סי).

רשות המיסוי הקנדית בודקת מזה מספר שנים את פעילותה של קרן קיימת קנדה, לאור מידע שהתקבל לידיה כי הארגון עבר על כללי המס הקנדי למתן תרומות מצד קרנות צדקה. קרן קיימת קנדה כך התברר תרמה כספים לפרוייקטים הקשורים לצה”ל בניגוד לכללי המס בקנדה. במקרה כזה קרן קיימת קנדה לא זכאית לפטור במס, וכן גם התורמים שלה עצמם לא זכאים לפטורים במס.

יש לציין כי קרן קייימת קנדה לא העבירה תרומות לרכישת ציוד צבאי לצה”ל, אלה תמכה בעיקר פרוייקטים ותשתיות צבאיות, לשיפור הביטחון וחיי הקהילה של החיילים במדים ובני משפחותיהם, אך לפי חוקי המיסוי בקנדה גם זה אסור. מנכ”ל קרן קיימת קנדה לאנס דיוויס לא ענה על בקשתי באמצעות אימייל, לקבל את תגובתו בנושא המדובר.

דיוויס כן הודיע לכתב חדשות של רשת השידור הקנדית כי קרן קיימת קנדה הודיעה לתורמיה, כי היא הפסיקה לתמוך בפרוייקטים צבאיים בישראל כבר לפני כשנתיים. זאת, לאחר שהתברר לארגון כי הוא נמצא תחת ביקורת של רשות המיסוי הקנדית.

לפי מסמכים ופרסומים רבים של קרן קיימת קנדה, הארגון תמך לאורך השנים בפרוייקטים רבים הקשורים בצה”ל וחייליו. ובהם: פיתוח של בסיס הדרכה בנגב. פיתוח של כיתות לימוד, אולם אירועים וחדר הקרנות בסיס של חיל הים בבת גלים. שיפוץ והרחבת אולם אירועים ומועדון לחיילים בבסיסי חיל האוויר בפלמחים ונבטים. הקמת מגרש משחקים עבור ילדים (שמתגוררים עם בני משפחותיהם) בבסיס חצרים של חיל האוויר. שידרוג מרכז מבקרים, שיפוץ הכיכר המרכזית והמרכז ארצי לאימונים בבסיס צאלים. הקמת מתקני נוחות לחיילים בשדה תל נוף של חיל האוויר. עזרה בהקמת כביש ביטחוני בקדש ברנע (ליד הגבול המצרי) לשיפור הנגישות לכוחות הביטחון של ישראל. עבודות לשיפור כבישים ביטחוניים של כוחות הביטחון באזורי הגבול בנגב המערבי. בניית נקודות מפגש ירוקות בבסיסים צבאיים לאפשר לחיילים לראות את בני משפחתם בנוחות. וכן עזרה ותמיכה בצעירים בבתי הספר התיכוניים במסגרת הכשרתם הקדם צבאית (פרוייקט גדנ”ע).

עוד מתברר שקרן קיימת קנדה תמכה אף בפרוייקטים ששנמצאים מעבר לקו הירוק. ממשלת קנדה מתנגדת לבנייה ישראלית של התנחלויות כשטחים הכבושים לדבריה, שהן הפרה של אמנת ג’נבה הרביעית. עוד קובעת ממשלת קנדה כי: “ההתנחלויות הישראליות בשטחים הן המכשלון חמור להשגת שלום כולל, צודק ובר קיימא”. בית המשפט בקנדה קבע כי ארגוני צדקה קנדיים לא יכולים לפעול בניגוד למדיניות הציבור.

בין פרוייקטים בשטחים שמעבר לקו הירוק שקרן קיימת קנדה תמכה בהם: פיתוח החפירות הארכיאולוגיות של האולם המרכזי במנהרות הכותל בירושלים, העברה של תרומות לפני כארבע שנים לרכישת כלים להכנת הקרקע לבניית מאחז בגבעת עוז, שהוגדר אפילו על ידי ממשלת ישראל כבלתי חוקי. ופיתוח הפרוייקט הגדול ביותר של הארגון הקנדי בישראל – פארק קנדה ליד לטרון. רופא קנדי (בפנסיה) שנולד באחד הכפרים הפלסטינים עליו נבנה פארק קנדה, התלוננן פני רשות המיסים הקנדית על תרומות של קרן קיימת קנדה לפרוייקט.

יצויין כי במאי לפני כשנתיים ביקרה בישראל משלחת של קרן קיימת קנדה, ברשות דיוויס. חברי המשלחת ביקרו בין היתר בבסיס צה”ל בצהלים ובבסיס משמר הגבול במכמש, שאליהם הועברו תרומות מהארגון.

Foxtrot steps on toes

Itay Exlroad as Dancer Soldier. (photo by Giora Bejach, Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics)

An audacious work of art that melds raw emotion and absurdist allegory into a blistering assessment of contemporary Israel, Samuel Maoz’s Foxtrot deserves to be seen and demands to be discussed.

Winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival – where Maoz’s taut debut, Lebanon, won the Golden Lion in 2009 – and eight Ophir Awards (Israel’s Oscars), including best film, director and actor, Foxtrot uses a small-scale story to examine some of Israel’s deepest issues: the concept of military sacrifice, the oppression of Palestinians and the legacy of the Holocaust.

Skilfully strewn with ironies all the way to the final shot, Foxtrot was shortlisted for the Academy Award for best foreign language film but did not receive a nomination.

The film begins with a middle-aged man (the sublime Lior Ashkenazi, who played a fictitious prime minister last year in Norman and Yitzhak Rabin in this month’s 7 Days in Entebbe) opening his door to the worst possible news for a father with a son in the army. Even as the gravity of the situation and the intensity of his response wallops us in the face and grabs us by the collar, Maoz counter-intuitively undercuts the emotional naturalism with precision camerawork and a stylized set design.

It appears, at first, that the filmmaker is evoking the surreal, detached and alienating experience of being struck with a life-changing bulletin. But we get the nagging feeling, from Ashkenazi’s character’s black-humour interactions with the army representatives to the off-centre introductions of his wife and daughter, that there’s more on tap than the melodrama of domestic tragedy.

Indeed, Maoz pulls the rug out from under us, then cuts from the climate-controlled setting of a high-in-the-sky condo to an isolated checkpoint in the barren, forgotten north of Israel. This is where the son, Yonatan, is assigned the “mission” of guarding a remote, nonessential road with a handful of other bored young men.

The tilted shipping container that comprises the soldiers’ base and barracks fronts on a puddle-strewn mudfield, which they must trudge across to the checkpoint. The roadblock itself is cartoonishly minimalist, resembling a set you’d see onstage more than a military installation, and putting us in mind of surrealist (anti-)war films like Apocalypse Now and Catch-22.

Nothing happens in this God-forsaken spot, and everything happens here. Each detail has significance, though one must pay close attention because it may not be clear until events play out. In fact, the meaning of a close-up or sound cue often remains obscure until the movie is over, at which point the viewer is required to arrive at his or her interpretation.

Two key events occur at Yonatan’s base: one at the checkpoint involving a carload of Palestinians heading home from a party and the other in the barracks when the soldiers are killing lonely downtime. The latter scene, in which Yonatan relates an anecdote from his father’s youth, is the most astonishing passage in this taboo-trampling movie.

photo - Left to right: Danny Isserles as Official Military Officer, Yehuda Almagor as Avigdor, Michael’s brother, and Lior Ashkenazi as Michael — Left to right: Danny Isserles as Official Military Officer, Yehuda Almagor as Avigdor, Michael’s brother, and Lior Ashkenazi as Michael. *(photo by Giora Bejach, Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics)*

Yonatan has rendered his memory into a graphic novel, and Maoz brings it to life in the form of animation. This harrowing episode connects the Holocaust – and the self-reliance, persistence, shared sacrifice and residual faith that survivors applied to building the Jewish state – to a modern Israel, where idealism has curdled into a pursuit of temporary pleasures, and worse offences.

To be sure, in every land and every age, older generations castigate young people for ignoring tradition and abandoning their core values. But this parable takes place in Israel, so Yonatan’s father’s hormone-driven rashness hearkens to Esau swapping his birthright for a bowl of stew.

Threaded through Foxtrot is a critique of Israel’s leaders for maintaining a culture of cynicism and corruption that results in the unnecessary deaths of young soldiers. Furthermore, each loss is described as heroic regardless of the circumstances.

This is not unique to Israel, of course, but it’s harder to push back against the military spin when you’re a small country surrounded by enemies than a superpower. Maoz satirizes PR functionaries in the opening scene, in fact, and never stops spearing sacred cows.

Maoz’s triumph, finally, thanks in large measure to Ashkenazi’s unexpectedly vulnerable performance, is tracking the human cost amid the not-quite-real scenarios and sociopolitical commentary. Foxtrot is an altogether remarkable work, not least because it is a beautiful film about ugly truths.

Foxtrot is in Hebrew with English subtitles, runs 113 minutes and is rated R for some sexual content, including graphic images and brief drug use. It opens at Vancity Theatre on March 23, and runs to April 1.

Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.

Boost defence of peace

Pierre Trudeau once compared living next to the United States to sleeping with an elephant. “No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt,” Trudeau told the Washington press in 1969.

The former PM’s son, current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems to be recognizing that, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, the beast is as uneven-tempered as it has been in living memory.

The United States is currently led by a man whose foreign policy compass swings from tweet to tweet. There is no way to predict what position he will take next, having repeatedly besmirched NATO and other agencies of internationalism. The European powers have explicitly or implicitly taken the once-unthinkable position of deeming the United States no longer a dependable ally.

In successive major policy speeches last week, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan laid out somewhat new directions for the Canadian government, both seeming to concur, at least implicitly, that the United States is not the reliable ally it once was.

Sajjan promised a $62 billion boost to defence spending over 20 years, which would seem to be good news for Trump, who has criticized NATO member-nations for not pulling their weight. However, it came on the heels of Freeland’s speech a day earlier, in which she expressed concern that Americans seem prepared to “shrug off the burden of world leadership.”

It is easy to criticize American leadership – under any administration – and, admittedly, while the possibility of U.S. intervention might have given some dictators and oppressors cause for pause, American power has also strengthened dictators and oppressors when it has been in their interests. Nonetheless, the abdication of American leadership creates a frightening vacuum.

Jewish tradition includes the value of lo ta’amod al dam rei’echa, the prohibition against passivity in the face of violence to others. This rather universal concept seems likely to be diminished under the Trump presidency.

“The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership puts in sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear and sovereign course,” Freeland told MPs. “To say this is not controversial: it is a fact.” She added: “To put it plainly: Canadian diplomacy and development sometimes require the backing of hard power.”

This is a stark shift in Canadian policy of the past 40 or so years. Without openly saying so, Canadians have been happy to keep military budgets low, knowing that our neighbour would have our back if push came to shove. Canada has little to fear in the form of foreign invasion, although our sovereignty in the Arctic could come under threat by Russia (or even the United States) at almost anytime.

More immediately, what our deflection of military might has created is a limited ability to act in ways on the world stage that reflect Canada’s stated values, which include the pursuit of justice (in Jewish tradition, bakesh shalom v’rodfehu) and the protection of human dignity. Again, when faced with Russian aggression in Ukraine and the Middle East, or with the barbarity of ISIS, or civil war in Syria, or countless other tragic flashpoints globally, Canada has been satisfied to allow our closest ally to set the terms on the ground.

We have been able to have our cake and eat it, too, for many years, calling our approach “soft power,” which means moral suasion based on a degree of global respect Canada has achieved, while leaving “hard power” to our NATO allies. Our role in Afghanistan is an exception, and a source of pride for those who believe that the people of that country should live free from oppressive entities.

This is an imperfect example, of course, since Afghanistan remains riven by terrorism and political division. That average Afghanis, particularly women and minorities, are better off now than under the Taliban is unquestionable. While our presence there has had tangible results, in the global context, it is a somewhat symbolic engagement. Our military has limited capacity to engage similarly in another theatre and would certainly be stretched to the limit if we were to be called into two or more conflicts.

Canada does not – and should not – aspire to be a global military powerhouse. But to maintain self-defence capabilities and to act on our values in a difficult world – at a time when the great power we counted on to do this on our behalf is recanting – requires us to make financial commitments.

We must balance these commitments with our ability to fund social programs and other policies of national pride. Any increased international role should be focused on trying to prevent conflicts, supporting peace efforts and on providing humanitarian and other economic aid.

Serving his country

The Grade 1-3 class of Israeli dancers from Richmond Jewish Day School who participated in Festival Ha’Rikud on May 14. See more photos below. (photo by Lauren Kramer)

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In every community, and ours is no exception, there are folks who frequently capture the spotlight for their work while others quietly get things done behind the scenes, flying below the media radar. In our Kibitz & Schmooze profile, we try to highlight members of our community who are doing outstanding, admirable and mention-worthy work out of view of the general public. If you know of profile subjects who fit this description, please email [email protected].

For Victoria resident Ed Fitch, the Canadian Armed Forces did more than make him a major-general. It made him more of a Jew.

Growing up in Montreal, Fitch says he took his Judaism for granted. At 17, when he joined the armed forces, it was a wake-up call. “I realized if I didn’t respect my own religion, how could I expect anyone else to? It was the beginning of my journey to become more Jewish,” he says.

photo - Retired major-general Ed Fitch — Retired major-general Ed Fitch. *(photo from Ed Fitch)*

Fitch was open about his Judaism and, over the course of an illustrious career that saw him rise high through the ranks, he helped create institutional change that would benefit other Jews, too. There had last been a Jewish chaplain in the forces in 1945, and Fitch was determined to change that. “I made a proposal to the armed forces’ governing body for chaplains in 2003, and I asked them, do you want to be followers or leaders? Build it, and they will come!”

The result was the appointment of Rabbi Chaim Mendelsohn to chaplaincy and, a few years later, the succession of Rabbi Captain Lazer Danziger. “Rabbi Danziger will be leading Shabbat services at Alberta’s Area Support Unit Wainwright (one of the country’s busiest army bases) … with a full minyan!” Fitch says with delight.

Fitch’s proposal didn’t just benefit Jews in the armed forces. Today, there’s a Muslim chaplain serving, as well.

Fitch served Canada for 43 years in a career that spanned from 1966 through to his semi-retirement in 2006. During that time, he received the Meritorious Service Medal for his work in the former Yugoslavia, facilitating NATO’s entry. He was also appointed an Officer of the Order of Military Merit in June 1999, the military equivalent of the Order of Canada.

As a colonel in the mid-1990s, Fitch was in the former Yugoslavia when the United Nations’ peacekeeping force, of which he was part, was contracted out to NATO. “It was an astounding change that had never happened before: an in-place transition from a UN command to a NATO command,” he reflects. “It was December 1995 when we all removed our UN badges and rolled over to this NATO force, with a completely different set of rules. As a combat engineer on the land force, I was the guy on the ground preparing for the incoming 50,000 troops who needed minefields cleared, bridges built and accommodations created.”

At 50, Fitch was promoted to brigadier general and was in command of a division of 12,000 members of the military and civilians, and a land mass that stretched from Thunder Bay to Vancouver Island and up into the Arctic. “My staff enjoyed telling me that it was the largest military district in the world – happily, a fairly benign one,” he jokes. The division’s responsibilities were domestic – attending to forest fires and tornadoes – as well as deployed operations, and Fitch regularly prepared troops of 1,000 to 2,000 to fly to Bosnia, Afghanistan and other countries where they were needed.

In 2001, Fitch was appointed major-general, a rank third from the top in the Canadian Armed Forces, and relocated to Ottawa. Here, he supervised planning the restructuring and modernization of Canada’s army reserves.

Fitch had just relocated to Victoria when, in 2006, he was called up from the Supplementary Reserve in support of Operation PODIUM, the Canadian Armed Forces’ support to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. His primary duty was the leadership of the Games Red Team, a project in which he and his team synthesized a terrorist cell and created practice scenarios to prepare Olympics planning staff for a potential attack.

“Our goal was to improve the capacity of the armed forces to deal with some potentially devastating situations,” he explains. “The model behind it is, train hard, fight easy. We disciplined ourselves to be real and started giving Olympics planning staff gentle problems, upping the ante to present them with tougher and tougher problems.”

When asked if he ever experienced antisemitism in the armed forces, Fitch says that his rise through the ranks is evidence there is none. “What the forces did with me proves there is no antisemitism,” he says. “I think the Canadian Armed Forces is the purest meritocracy in this country.”

After the Winter Olympics, when his full retirement came into effect, Fitch dedicated himself to community work. As a qualified civil engineer, he was instrumental in helping with the construction of the Centre for Jewish Life and Learning (Chabad), the first new synagogue to be built on the island since 1863. He volunteers with the Victoria Jewish Cemetery Trust and the Vancouver Island Chevra Kadisha, and serves as chair of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ national community security committee. He’s been house committee chair and treasurer of Congregation Emanu-El and a board member of the Jewish Historical Society of British Columbia.

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The 14th annual Festival Ha’Rikud took place at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver May 12-14 and Israeli dancers from Richmond Jewish Day School (RJDS), Vancouver Talmud Torah, Temple Sholom, Or Chadash, Orr Ktanim and a group from Miami entertained a packed house in two performances. The theme for this year’s festival was friendship and a celebration of Israeli culture in its Canadian context, in honour of Canada’s 150th birthday. Dancers delivered polished performances that testified to many hours’ practice and a great fondness for Israeli folk dancing.