I had two reasons to go to Yale Thursday night to hear the
group If Americans Knew. 1, The pro-Palestinian organization had been disinvited by
the Greenwich Public Library under pressure from the lobby earlier this year– before a
protest led to its reinvitation– and I was curious to hear its forceful leader,
Alison Weir. 2, A new group, the Arab Students Association at Yale, was sponsoring Weir and I like to hear Arab students at American universities.
They remind me a little of myself as a Jew feeling outside when I went to college 30 years ago.
I got there late and a documentary that Weir narrated, Occupation
101, was showing. It is a tour de force against the evils of the occupation,
and features Noam Chomsky, Rashid Khalidi, Ilan Pappe, Phyllis Bennis, Richard
Falk, Cindy and Craig Corrie, church leaders and B’tselem people too. The central
image of the film is when Nelson Mandela addresses Congress about the noble
struggle to end apartheid and the movie contrasts scenes of Palestine
and South Africa
that are eerily similar. Being on Weir’s side, I found the film disturbing and
inarguable. But at some point I started thinking, This is propaganda, and I had
an undercurrent of resistance–in much the way I imagine that Richard Witty is
always irritated by my blog and denounces it as propaganda. I felt that the
directors were stacking the deck, leaving stuff out, highlighting the worst.
There were lots of Israeli critics, but never a sign that Israel had
fulfilled some Jews’ dreams–no coins thrown in that fountain. I sensed a demonization
of the Israelis as people. I’m for sanctions against Israel , for cutting off aid till it
ends the occupation; but I also want compassion.
After the movie Nafez Al Dakkak, co-president of the Arab
Students Association,
got up to start the question period. He’s Palestinian, a fineboned man with a
studious/sophisticated look, cool glasses, a gracious manner. He wore a kaffiyah
over his shoulders like a shawl.
There were 150 people in the room and the questions were respectful
and inhibited. I could see that there were many pro-Israel Jews in the crowd, they were saying
nothing. Weir wore a dark blue suit and a light shirt. She is blonde and looks
to be in her late 50s. She has a very plainspoken and slightly tough manner.
She’s a crusader. I know the type and admire it. She made the following points:
Who is she? She is just a journalist who threw herself into
this before 9/11 and quit her job. Why will things change? It will only change
from the grassroots in this country. But that is happening. People don’t know
because of the media. The media will be the last to change. One state/two
state? One state, though good people disagree with her. How bad is it?
Frightful. Palestinian women are afraid to travel because they are subject to
strip searches on a regular basis. The right of return? This is a principle of
international refugee situations. Another reason we must not accept a bad peace
deal. “We rarely see injustice leading to long term peace.”
Why are the media biased? Weir became careful, offering a
number of reasons. The main one was the “emotional” investments of reporters.
She made something of the fact that the Israeli AP bureau is staffed by Jewish
and Israeli reporters who control what we see back here. It’s “human nature”
for them to have a bias. And many American journalists are also biased.
As is clear from my blog, I agree absolutely
with Weir’s
analysis. The Jewishness of the press is an important issue, and having
made my
living from the mainstream media, I’m more knowledgeable than she is.
Fellow Jews
have been the predominant element of my media cohort, from ownership to
reporting; and I have no doubt that that there is a conscious or
unconscious
attachment to the Jewish state in most Jewish journalists. The former
public
editor at the New York Times, Dan Okrent, who was once my editor at the
New
England Monthly, said in an exchange with Weir that he found her
statements calling
for diversity in the Times reporting staff –fewer Jews on this
beat–“offensive.”
I think she’s got a point. All Jews get recruited in Zionist support in
this
country. Yes there are dissenters. But to be a non-Zionist is so far
aberrant,
requiring a thorough process of rebellion, like mine or Tony Karon’s or
Joel
Kovel’s. Why just the other day, a liberal friend who works at the
Times said
to me of Israel,
Well you know, I always have that feeling for the place. He’d lived
there. I’ve
already pointed out liberal Eric Alterman’s attachment to Israel in
this
Nation piece. Joe Klein: “I am a strong supporter of
Israel.” Max Frankel: I wrote editorials to support the Jewish state.
Joe Lelyveld: son of a leading Zionist rabbi, I imagine he has pro-Zionist
feelings. Jeffrey Goldberg: leading American informant on the Jewish state, went over
and served in their army. Dan Schorr: mother lit candles for Palestine . I am saying that Zionism, and the
special role that American Jews are to play in its support, is embedded in
American Jewish life; andso it is important that non-Jewish Americans take prominent roles in
the issue.
Weir is a wan forthright person. The event was turning out
to be wan and forthright. Then right at the end it exploded. The last question
had been asked and answered when a short broad guy stood up in the back. His
name was Dror Hawlena.
He was a former Israeli officer, now a grad student in
ecology. He agreed that the occupation was destroying Israel . He had
come here tonight because he was against the occupation, looking for facts.
What he had seen was pure propaganda. “It is a pity. The occupation is not
good. Most of my soldiers think it’s really a bad thing. But this is the worst
way to present it… Both sides are shooting at each other.”
Weir asked him to name one fact that she got wrong. He did
not. Obviously what he meant was that he sought a more humane Israeli context
to balance the endless images of terrified Arab children. This film was as bad,
he said, as an Israeli film that would say that there were no Arabs when the
Jews got there, that they attacked the Jews, that they are suicide bombers.
“I fervently disagree
with you,” Weir said. “This is accurate.” What he had seen were the facts. “Why
would I be saying this?” she said, if it weren’t true. She wasn’t famous, she didn’t
have a big salary, wasn’t on CNN. I.e., her motivation is a missionary one. “These
are the objective facts.” She gestured at a huge graph she had projected behind
her from a powerpoint and seemed to have ready for just this demonstration. It
showed the deaths from violence of Palestinians and Jews in 2007: 13 Israelis,
384 Palestinians. You can’t argue with that.
Then Weir said something I thought meanspirited. “You’re an
Israeli officer. I don’t know what you’ve done…” The burden on people in his position
was to apologize, as Americans had apologized to the Indians.
“I’m nervous now,” Dror said, but he continued on about the
second intifadah, the attacks on Israeli neighborhoods.
Weir cut him off. “I don’t want one person who is a member
of the Israeli army dominating the conversation.”
I thought that unfortunate. Up to this point we’d gotten her
side of the story– my side– only. Our side had gotten to hold forth, at Yale,
at a time when we are essentially blacklisted from the mainstream. And suddenly
here is the personification of the other side, an Israeli officer studying at
Yale (who I’d learn had taken part in the peace movement), trying to counter her,
and she is doing him the same favor, doesn’t want to give him airtime, and why—I
guess because we are always getting his propaganda anyway, but maybe because
he’s a war criminal? Hmmm.
The presentation was over, and a crowd then formed around
Hawlena in a back row of the hall to hear him out. “I was evil. In this movie I
was pure evil. Where is the hope?”
What I saw next is really one of the most beautiful things
I’ve seen in these 2, 3 years of my self-appointed task of following the
American battle over the issue: several members of the Arab Students
Association came over to listen. One of them, Mahdi Shabbagh, the
ASA co-president, a tremendously personable Palestinian junior in a brown sweatshirt,
studying architecture, thanked him for coming. Nafez Al Dakkak explained the
importance of the movie to Hawlena. “When a soldier asks me for hawiya—“ that
every day occurrence of life in East Jerusalem ,
being barked at for identity papers—“that’s what we’re showing. The children in
that movie, this is me when I’m 12. It is my brother when he was seven. That is
the perspective.”
Hawlena said, “The Palestinians are doing war crimes also, she
is not showing that story.”
Al Dakkak nodded. “Google us and send us an email. It’s the
Arab Students Assocation. I’d love to hear your perspective.”
Hawlena left. The crowd reformed at the front of the room,
nearer to Weir.
I got a moment with Al Dakkak and asked about the propaganda issue. He agreed
that the film was a selection of facts. “What are the facts? Does he expect us
to show a full film of the past 60 years chronologically? Because we can do
that.” The facts are stunning. Al Dakkak had read Ilan Pappe this summer and been shocked. It is hard to
shock a Palestinian, but to read how systematic the ethnic cleansing had been—“When
you’re living in Palestine, you don’t feel a need to learn about the history,
and you need an Israeli historian even, to remind you that your case is so
just, so overwhelming—“
Another encounter group had now formed by the stage near Weir.
It consisted of a half dozen Arab and Arab-American students and a tall Jewish Yale
freshman wearing a Star of David chain around his neck. He had taken up the
criticism: of the film as propaganda and of Weir for speaking about Jewish
influence in the media.
A couple of the Arab students tried to explain to him how true the film was to
their experience.
Aminah Zaghab, half-Palestinian, from Maryland ,
a pretty woman with no trace of an accent, said, “When my aunt was dying [in
the West Bank ] I had to sneak in. To see one
of my relatives dying! As an American citizen.” Her father was born in ’47, he
still has Palestine
on his passport, and so it fell to her to negotiate at checkpoints. “I have had
to get out of the car with machine guns pointed at me.” She trembled at the
memory. “If anyone got part of the fear and the terror, and was scared and
humiliated, or shed one tear, that is the point of this movie. If any one felt
that, that got the point across.”
A tall Arab kid said, “You all are lining up against this
guy,” and turned around to stand next to the Jewish kid.
Al Dakkak explained that when he hears a voice like the Israeli
officer’s, he can only think of that horrible sound in his mind as he walks
through Jerusalem, Hawiya hawiya—asking for his identity card. Israelis cannot
pronounce the Arabic correctly. And what is that hawiya? He has a blue i.d.,
but it does not allow him to go to an airport, it does not give him free movement
in Israel.
The blue i.d. means only one thing, that he is a “human being.” And it expires
in three years, which is to say, his personhood expires in three years. His
mother is anxiety-ridden.
“What would you tell my mother. She is 42. She looks at me. ‘Momma,
what?’ She starts crying. ‘I’m really worried your brother is not going to get
an i.d.’
“This is what the occupation is doing to us…Nobody in Palestine likes it when they
hear about a suicide bombing. The checkpoints are closed. I can’t go to school.
But we know why the suicide bomber is doing it. For retaliation. For their
father who was killed. For their mother who was raped.
“I don’t want to overwhelm you with information. But there’s
a lot that you guys don’t know.”
The tall Jewish kid said that Americans were naturally for Israel and that
AIPAC gets 84 percent of its money from non-Jews. [This is not true; I didn't correct him.] “Americans are not interested
in hearing bad things about something they feel good about. And Israel
is a democracy amid a sea of totalitarian countries.”
Al Dakkak nodded his head. It was not about Arab and Jew, there were
important connections between the people. “You know the basketball court next
to the King David Hotel?
I play there. I play with Jewish kids. My mom is a painter. The woman who
taught her to paint, she is Jewish. But I’m the lucky 25 percent not living in
poverty. And I haven’t seen my family in Gaza
in ten years… A lot of the people who are doing the work on this, they are
Israeli and Jewish. Norman Finkelstein– look what he has done. He has risked so
much, his whole career. I don’t think Palestinians would risk so much… And Alison
is risking all this, for a cause.”
It was 11:15. The Arab students were headed off with Weir.
I take three lessons from the event. 1. The film is
propaganda, and yet in its defense I would say that the underlying injustice is
such an enormity that it is susceptible to this form of treatment because
people like Weir and Paul Findley, the congressman on her board, are so angry
and ground down. I understand. I know why they’re angry. The media are full of
one-sided coverage from the other side–the regular talk about a "democratic Jewish state"–and If Americans Knew can't get on CNN. And
the occupation is a monstrous situation. There is a moment when an American church official
Tom Getman of World Vision Jerusalem
says that a psychological study of 1000 Gaza
children shows that they are so desperate that they have lost their will to
live. That fills me with anger about Zionism. That any Jew can hear that and
not be deeply disturbed, cannot speak out?
The rhetorical difficulty is that the issue of victimization is
not a simple one. Israel
acts this way out of a sense of victimization. The American Jews who license Israel have the
same sense of victimization. It is a psychological knot. So I guess I conclude that the way
for independent observers to attack this terrible puzzle is to try and bring
some nuance to the victimization narratives. I wish Weir had more nuance. I wish she spoke more transparently about her own path to this work.
2. The anti-Israel narrative is winning on campus. Apart
from a few Jews who had been in Israel–and the tall kid at the front of the room was one–
no one was speaking up against the grassroots feeling in that room. That grassroots mood
is going to change the country some day; for it seems to be gaining the moral high ground on campus. I have a copy of Dershowitz’s book, The Case for Israel , that
AIPAC handed out to students so they can indoctrinate themselves and make the
case. But where is that legion? It's my impression that the Jewish dogs ain't eating
the Zionist dogfood.
3. Arab kids are emerging in American institutions. They have a
special role to play and they're going to play it. They have a sense of the moment. It is hard to think of a more moving scene than the Arab
kids coming back through the crowded hall to talk to Hawlena. They did so in a space created for
them by my country's democratic imagination. The
Arab kids for once felt empowered. They were not inhibited or fearful.
And they were exhibiting the famous Arab hospitality. As
he left, Al Dakkak extended his hand to the tall kid with the Star of David.
“I commend your courage. You’ve been standing here for a
while. I’m very impressed. Very impressed.”
"I sensed a demonization of the Israelis as people"
It's the behaviour of the Israelis that allows them to be demonized. If they didn't keep acting as bigots, the charge wouldn't stick. Change in South Africa required the demonization – harsh and repeated criticism is a better expression – of the white South Africans. Below is a URL for the famous song "never met a nice South African" from the British satirical show, Spitting Image. It's the sort of unrelenting mockery and abuse of colonial politics that's needed for political change. Frankly every nation there ever was has seen itself unfairly treated and as a victim, including the Afrikaaners. The Israeli soldiers in that audience got the sort of abuse and questioning of their role that former conscripts in the South African army got in their post-service holidays in London in the 1980s, and that sort of abuse and questioning the absolutely necessary way forward here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de6V90jT4SQ
"The rhetorical difficulty is that the issue of victimization is not a simple one. Israel acts this way out of a sense of victimization. The American Jews who license Israel have the same sense of victimization. It is a psychological knot."
Israel resembles the abused child who, having grown up and become a parent, is unable to discipline her own child without employing the learned response of abuse. A tragic, unwitting cycle, and a hard one to break.
The willingness of the Arab students to talk to Hawlena shows that they are not rigid ideologues; they recognize that someone else who was there, even on the opposite side, has shared experiences and perceptions which can be an entrée to reasoned discussion. As did the hand of respect extended to the outgunned Jewish kid.
This is nuanced, riveting reporting. Reminds me of the Nicholas Kristof/Sheryl WuDunn dispatches from Tiananmen Square in 1989, which took one vividly into the streets of Beijing during the student rebellion which had lasting consequences. But thanks to its zionist blinders, the cataractic Old Grey Lady has no concept of these dramatic on-campus encounters which are shaping our cultural future.
The Revolution will not be reported in the Slimes; but in the blogs.
I wish the Palestinians had a Ghandi, but the people leading that event are not him.
Gandhi limited his actions to specifics.
When he opposed the pass law in apartheid South Africa (though only agitating against Indians as victims to the law), that was what he opposed.
When he agitated against the salt tax, he limited his agitation to that specific focus.
WHENEVER the slogan "Zionism is racism" is the underlying message, such dissent becomes inneffective for very good substantive reasons (both peoples remain and desire to self-govern), and it becomes malevolent and propaganda.
The right effort for Jews is to urge a kind and internally just Israel. The right effort for Palestinians certainly is to achieve statehood, self-governance, but ALSO to achieve a kind and just Palestine.
Those that advocate for single-state along civil democratic principles are inspired by the leadership of those that articulated the fourteenth amendment to the US constitution promising equal due process under the law (and its inspired modern European applications).
Those that propagate alone BETRAY the spirit of the fourteenth amendment. Rather than equal due process under law, they agitate for a political form of a justice, a requirement to conform, to apologize (not for an action, but for existence).
I'm not impressed by Allison Weir's "justice", from what I've read.
From "If Americans Knew" Top line
"For thousands of years there was no such conflict. In the 19th century the land of Palestine was inhabited by a multicultural population of Palestinian Arabs – approximately 86 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 4 percent Jewish. For centuries these groups had lived in harmony."
This is utter bullshit. In three large waves, Jews were expelled from the land: Roman, Islamic, Christian. To open a discussion resting on such obviously innaccurate assessment is a severe negligence.
The rest of the opening page is also utter bullshit. Not entirely untrue in specific details, but utterly misrepresentative of reality.
We would all have to be deprogrammed from this propaganda if it were known.
Reality nor peace is constructed by such.
To criticize Israel is gaining momentum. It is SO militarized. And the damage being done to the Israeli soul through the occupation is well publicised. . . . .Now the USA has turned out to be the most warfaring nation on earth. . . . . But it wars in faraway lands and most Americans can keep their innocence, and consider which war party to vote for. . . . Why is Israel (now being called the last Apartheid state) so closely aligned with the preeminent warfaring nation. . . . . Maybe the partnership is bad for Israel?. . . .An Arab as peacemaker is not hard for me to imagine. It could equally be Sadr or Ahmadinejad. . . . .Jews everywhere are hijacked into the Zionist camp, it is not only Americans. . . . .Nowadays, al least in the blogging community, the news on Jews and Israel is not very good. Maybe assimilation will start to be seen as peaceful? . . . . .The Neocons ruined it for the Jews, for Israel, and for the financial allies. . . . .And what type of people has Israel produced ??? Isn't it a crisis. The coercement, the stitching up, the invasion of privacy, all for Zionism. . . . And what does Zionism mean today?
I greatly appreciate the Arabs and specifically Palestinian Arabs that are willing to regard Jews, even Zionists, as human beings, with whom they will share a land (in whatever political format), and act accordingly.
Asking an Arab to go nonviolent is like asking a scorpion to change his venom. They just can't do it.
On the fourteenth amendment.
Israel includes the equivalent in its primary principles document UNEQUIVOCALLY.
The occupation is a unique exception to its fundamental principles, NOT an example of them.
That is part of the lie of Weir and Pappe.
Ah, a crusader.
A fanatic.
Unfortunate.
Perhaps it is better to be what I am – a cynical cold blooded bastard, who understands the system and that there are ways and then there are ahem wink wink nudge nudge ways of changing it for the better.
Legal and semi-legal.
"Asking an Arab to go nonviolent is like asking a scorpion to change his venom. They just can't do it.Posted by: sword of gideon | " . . . . . @SOG Doesn't the US have about 170 overseas military bases? . . . . . Haven't 100's of thousands women and children been killed in Iraq alone in the last few years. . . . . You don't want to think about it! . . . . . And using Depleted Uranium too! . . . . . Now there are millions more Arabs ready to fight . . .. . But don't despair, because now the US is starting on Pakistan. . . . . Where's the Jewish voice? Is it crying for peace? Or is it selling weapons? Offering military advisors? What about the Russsians? Aren't you going to slur them?
"In the 19th century the land of Palestine was inhabited by a multicultural population of Palestinian Arabs – approximately 86 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 4 percent Jewish. For centuries these groups had lived in harmony." — If Americans Knew
"This is utter bullshit." — Richard Witty
Well, if it's 'utter bullshit,' would you please kindly provide us with the factual specifics, as opposed to vague references to 'waves of expulsions.'
That is, if you can, with your unaided powers.
This is the web address of link to ifamericansknew.com
. . . . I did this unaided -:)
Jim, this is the money quote: For centuries these groups had lived in harmony."
Remember the Romans? Witty demands an expanded time frame. If you only consider, lets say 10 to 15 centuries, you are driving him nuts. That's a clearly antisemitic time frame, a selective perception.
Oh yeah, it was great fun being a dhimmi.
If the Zionist movement didn't exist, the Palestinians would have lived under a dictatorship. If Zionism didn't exist, millions of Jews would have lived under dictatorships. If the Palestinian Arabs would have embraced the Palestinian Jews and declared alliance upon democratic principles, this mess wouldn't have happened.
Due to multiple bad decisions, the non dhimmi status is being logistically lost. . . . . . .(Dhimmi – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . . . . . .Dhimmi had fewer legal and social rights than Muslims, but more rights than other non-Muslim religious subjects. This status applied to millions ………..en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi) . . . . . . . . . .In this case the answer lies with mentally/emotionally accomodating a billion muslims. . . . . . Dhimmi or no Dhimmi.
That's brilliant Morris. Lets accomodate a bunch of psychotic lunatics who live in the 7th century. But pure dumb luck puts them on top of most of the worlds oil reserves. Personally I don't give a shit, they could race camels, fuck their child brides, and wipe their asses with their left hands to their hearts content. But the world has to pay attention. Because of oil.
Maybe some jealosy there. People living in a safe environment, within a clan and with extended families. No alcohol. No crime. . . . . Financially it would be far cheaper to just buy their oil. Instead of having wars. . . . .
And … The majority of western health problems can be traced to, or exasberrated by not toiletting in the squatting position.
Gandhi was a powerful symbol of change, but the change happened because the British Empire was at its weakest: during WWII they had a possible mutiny of large numbers of Indian POWs in German camps to fight for Hitler. England didn't want Sepoy War II after WWII.
Point is, until America continues to need Israel as it's proxy in the Middle East, the Zionists will win. There has to be a change in Washington about how to handle the Middle-East. Ancient Yehudi elite tried to survive and prosper by aligning with Babylon the superpower du-jour, and doing its dirty work as a vassal state. A strategy used by all nations fighting for survival in a difficult world.
But maybe the world is changing, the polarisation is lifting thanks to the internet and fine blogs like yours, so there's hope. I hope that the inevitable change will be as bloodless as possible.
Dror Hawlena says: He is disturbed because
he didn't hear a,presentation of facts about the bad things done by Palestinians and good things done by sympathetic Israelis
Dror may be the kind of person Palestinians would want to share their Binational state with. But, thats not the point.
The point is that this war,one that is a just war in pursuit of Palestinian goals,is like all other wars. Bad things happen and we don't have all the nice people lined up on one side and the nasty ones on the other…
There are no doubt good folk in the IDF.
(Just as there have been good folks in every oppressor army through out history)
Many former IDF people have gone on to become strong voices for Palestinian rights..
I hope Dror will follow suit. But Allison Weir is right,the real propaganda is presenting the conflict as war between sides who are morally equivilant. This ,whether intentionally or not, works to present Israel as a misunderstood nation forced by a need for security to do bad things…
The oppressors need to own their deeds..
a multicultural population of Palestinian Arabs – approximately 86 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 4 percent Jewish. For centuries these groups had lived in harmony."
I amend according to SOG's hints.
The above is an insult to Zionsts and Jews alike, since it equates Dhimmi status with living "for centuries in harmony". Was the Spanish Golden Age for Jewish communities relatively good, were Jews tolerated, was life better than elsewhere in Europe for religious dissidents? Or is this only historical propaganda of Jewish historians to influence 19th Christian Europeans, as some suggest?[The wonder of science, focus and selection]
New lectures on scholarship and power.
Scholarship in line with political imperatives = good scholarship.
All other readings and foci = bad scholarship.
I'm really curious about Phil's criticism of this event.
The Israeli narrative is continuously presented without nuance or context in this country.
Why is it propaganda to tell the story from the victim's side? Do we truly expect the victim's story to include a plea for psychological understanding of their oppressors?
"They humiliate and oppress us daily, but they don't *mean* to…"
Rarely does one read about the group psychology component of Israeli's violent military occupation. I think that piece is the elephant in the room, and that it's critically important for Israelis who care about justice and morality to explore.
But really, is it the responsibility of the victims to unpack that?
"The principle holds that no citizen loses his property or his rights of citizenship and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which (Palestinians in Israel) have much more legitimacy than the Jews…. If all nations would suddenly claim territories in which their forefathers lived two thousands years ago, this world would be a madhouse." -Erich Fromm, Jewish Letter, 2/9/1959
Or perhaps if no Gandi a Russian naval base in Gaza would do the trick.
How A Russian Naval Base In Gaza Could Contribute To World Peace
http://homo-sapien-underground.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-russian-naval-base-in-gaza-could.html
"The American Jews who license Israel have the same sense of victimization. It is a psychological knot. So I guess I conclude that the way for independent observers to attack this terrible puzzle is to try and bring some nuance to the victimization narratives."
I wonder if when marginalization is not effective, then victimization is placed on the table. There has been an American history of members of the American Jewish
community attempting and being successful at preventing people with a different view/focus from speaking: Desmond Tutu (Minnesota)"My Name is Rachel Corrie" (New York, Florida, Canada), Phillip Munger (Alaska) Jimmy Carter (Democratic convention)… I know that at times a simple phone call can stop an event, and at others a smear campaign is begun. I know that swiftboating people like Weir is not uncommon. I know that many are completely unaware and taken aback by the intensity and the anger this topic can generate and many groups/newspapers don't want to wade in these waters (Daily Kos). I sense that when segments of the American Jewish community cannot stop the voice, a progression to calling for "balance" or moving the discussion to "victimization" moves the focus away from or dilutes the focus of the original speaker. I remember at a Caterpillar board meeting speaking with a man who said divestment is wrong…that we had to talk about peace and that he was traveling around Iowa and Illinois talking to church groups about "discussion and working together" as the nuns who had been working on this issue for years wanted Caterpillar to quit selling their bulldozers to Israel…
The balance of justice and of power has not rested with the Weirs, Tutus, Mungers and Caterpillar questioning nuns of the world. As Rep. Shelley Berkley several years ago told a group of her Jewish constituents,they had more power than their numbers warranted and they needed to insure it stayed that way (in Congress). David Ross, speaking in Des Moines, sees no need to balance the number of Jewish American voices on his negotiating team. He sees no conflict of interest. In fact, he suggests that having an Arab-American on his team meant that this single voice packed more punch, was listened to intently…Will he believe the same when the tables are turned, or will he want balance or want his voice to be heard as the ecology student at Weir's event would like?
When the N.Y. Times prints an op-ed piece by Richard Perle do they demand that they be allowed to place "balance" material within his opinion piece? Do they insist that some bone be thrown toward the victims of his policy successes? I wonder if this is a requirement the Times places on Perle. What about Dore Gold, Danielle Pletka, Elliot Abrams, John Bolton? If one of them were to write an opinion piece, will the Times insist that publication cannot occur unless editors can inject a "balance" statement – reflecting concerns of the "victims" of their policy pushes.
When Cindy Corrie submits an op-ed piece,accepted by Times editor David Sanger, a condition is placed: that a line about tunnels be included. There were no tunnels under the Nasrallah house. Why does the Times demand this line of her? Is it for the same reason that Obama had to backtrack from his Iowa statement on Palestinian suffering? And,should that editorial read: by Cindy Corrie, Michael Neumann and David Sanger?
Are any other American voices held to this standard?
Walt/Mearsheimer are marginalized. Desmond Tutu cannot speak in Minnesota. Cindy Corrie cannot publish her opinion in the N.Y. Times unless she agrees to their edits. The Palestinian voice has been marginalized in America, the U.S Liberty guys are going to their graves feeling deserted by their government and Caterpillar keeps rolling along…and the IDF ecology student wants an audience to know that the Israelis are victims, too.
Ouch.
Comment, Witty?
Phil
Nuanced oppression? Which part of present day Palestinian experience is justified by the past suffering of their oppressors? If you can come up with the answer to that, it might help us understand where you think Ms. Weir goes wrong.
My own pathway is as a white South African who opposed Apartheid – I don't recall anyone ever suggesting that criticism of Apartheid needed to be nuanced …….
Richard Witty said:
"This is utter bullshit. In three large waves, Jews were expelled from the land: Roman, Islamic, Christian. To open a discussion resting on such obviously innaccurate assessment is a severe negligence."
From Schlomo Sand (Israeli Historian):
http://mondediplo.com/2008/09/07israel
"An Israeli historian suggests the diaspora was the consequence, not of the expulsion of the Hebrews from Palestine, but of proselytising across north Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East….
Then there is the question of the exile of 70 AD. There has been no real research into this turning point in Jewish history, the cause of the diaspora. And for a simple reason: the Romans never exiled any nation from anywhere on the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean. Apart from enslaved prisoners, the population of Judea continued to live on their lands, even after the destruction of the second temple. Some converted to Christianity in the 4th century, while the majority embraced Islam during the 7th century Arab conquest.
Most Zionist thinkers were aware of this: Yitzhak Ben Zvi, later president of Israel, and David Ben Gurion, its first prime minister, accepted it as late as 1929, the year of the great Palestinian revolt. Both stated on several occasions that the peasants of Palestine were the descendants of the inhabitants of ancient Judea …"
So come again? The exile? Really???