{"id":369,"date":"2007-11-30T15:04:30","date_gmt":"2007-11-30T15:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/11\/november-surprise.html"},"modified":"2007-11-30T15:04:30","modified_gmt":"2007-11-30T15:04:30","slug":"november-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/11\/november-surprise.html","title":{"rendered":"November (Peace) Surprise?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I took part in a phone conference earlier this week with Gil Hoffman<\/a>, the chief political correspondent for the Jerusalem Post<\/a> to hear his reflections on the Annapolis conference–a conference for which expectations were so low that everyone is coming away pleasantly surprised by the outside chance something may actually come of it. Gil began his remarks by observing that every 30 years, in November, something extremely significant for Israel\u2019s future takes place. In November 1917, it was the Balfour Declaration<\/a>, stating the British government\u2019s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In November 1947, it was the United Nation\u2019s vote to partition the territory of the Palestinian Mandate<\/a>, effectively creating the State of Israel. In November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat<\/a> became the first Arab leader to visit Jerusalem, laying the groundwork for the Camp David Accords and the possibility for Israel to make peace with her neighbors.
\nWho knows, Gil said–perhaps the Annapolis Conference of November 2007 will go down as the turning point that led to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians?<\/p>\n


\nNow as a rabbi, I\u2019ve never been one for gematria<\/em> (Jewish numerology) but I\u2019d like to believe Gil has a point. He spoke of the surprising stability of the Olmert government, despite Olmert\u2019s legal problems and personal unpopularity. He spoke of the international commitment to finding an alternative to Hamas\u2019 go-it-alone approach that has destroyed Gaza and will be in evidence when donors meet in Paris next month<\/a> under Tony Blair\u2019s auspices to try to shore-up the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. He spoke of Saudi Arabia\u2019s participation in the event and the fact that the Saudi foreign minister clapped after Olmert\u2019s speech (even if he refused to shake the Prime Minister\u2019s hand<\/a>). He spoke of the sense of urgency that there needs to be a moderate alternative in the Middle East, with the cautionary tale of Iraq burning on the doorstep.
\nAre these enough? I wish I shared Gil Hoffman\u2019s optimism, but I would dearly love to be surprised by what this November has brought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took part in a phone conference earlier this week with Gil Hoffman, the chief political correspondent for the Jerusalem Post to hear his reflections on the Annapolis conference–a conference for which expectations were so low that everyone is coming away pleasantly surprised by the outside chance something may actually come of it. Gil began…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-israel-and-palestine"],"yoast_head":"\nNovember (Peace) Surprise? - Virtual Talmud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/11\/november-surprise.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"November (Peace) Surprise? - Virtual Talmud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I took part in a phone conference earlier this week with Gil Hoffman, the chief political correspondent for the Jerusalem Post to hear his reflections on the Annapolis conference–a conference for which expectations were so low that everyone is coming away pleasantly surprised by the outside chance something may actually come of it. Gil began…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/11\/november-surprise.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Virtual Talmud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-11-30T15:04:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rabbi Joshua Waxman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"November (Peace) Surprise? - Virtual Talmud","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/11\/november-surprise.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"November (Peace) Surprise? - Virtual Talmud","og_description":"I took part in a phone conference earlier this week with Gil Hoffman, the chief political correspondent for the Jerusalem Post to hear his reflections on the Annapolis conference–a conference for which expectations were so low that everyone is coming away pleasantly surprised by the outside chance something may actually come of it. Gil began…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/11\/november-surprise.html","og_site_name":"Virtual Talmud","article_published_time":"2007-11-30T15:04:30+00:00","author":"Rabbi Joshua Waxman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/11\/november-surprise.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/11\/november-surprise.html","name":"November (Peace) Surprise? - Virtual Talmud","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-11-30T15:04:30+00:00","dateModified":"2007-11-30T15:04:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/b2c907457be70b05b78f556cde42041f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/11\/november-surprise.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/11\/november-surprise.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/11\/november-surprise.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"November (Peace) Surprise?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/","name":"Virtual Talmud","description":"Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, where politics and pop culture meet 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/b2c907457be70b05b78f556cde42041f","name":"Rabbi Joshua Waxman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6ea\/6eaad0ba16ec89046c9580c3b08d2e4cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6ea\/6eaad0ba16ec89046c9580c3b08d2e4cx96.jpg","caption":"Rabbi Joshua Waxman"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/author\/jwaxman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}