Now the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's Ami Eden is attacking J Street for having the temerity to suggest that the Israeli attack on Gaza lacked "sanity and moderation" and other supposed crimes. This is a historical battle. Once again, Jewish leadership takes the wrong side, and J Street continues to show bravery and fortitude. It has drawn a line, over the slaughter of Palestinians, and Jews of conscience are going to come to the organization for this reason. I know what the Jewish leadership wants: to cripple J Street in the eyes of its own Jewish funding base. I don't think this will work, though I think it could have a great effect. "J Street" is an American organization. In the end, it will have to appeal to non-Jewish Americans too. And I think Gaza gives it the ability to frame such an appeal in a way that Americans of conscience, not just Jewish Americans, will respond.
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Any implication of siding with Hamas is a politically abusive advocacy.
If you wish to hold justice as your goal, then shelling civilians must be high on your list of repugnant policy.
Are you suggesting J Street go after progressive goy money the same way that AIPAC and other hard Zionists go after Christian Zionist goy money? Is J Street Zionist or anti-Zionist? It's Zionist, of course, therefore having J Street and AIPAC control the limits of anti-Zionist dissent will result in what we have in the US Congress: Pro-Zionist Democrats limiting anti-Zionist dissent on the Left and pro-Zionist Republicans limiting anti-Zionist dissent on the Right. The net result = maintenance of the Judeofascist status quo.
Where's the well-organized anti-Zionist Jewish group that subscribes to a non-supremacist interpretation of Judaism? Does such a group exist? Zionism is Jewish supremacism, any way you cut it.
I shall ignore witty's meaningless pompous term, "politically abusive advocacy", since he has no sense of accuracy and no desire for it, so why bother.
My thought is this. Phil says, ""J Street" is an American organization. In the end, it will have to appeal to non-Jewish Americans too", but I sincerely hope and increasingly believe that 'Americans' (whoever they may be) will be no more ready to support fraudulent zionism lite with a thin trendy paint job like Phil offers, than they are ready to support the honest thug version.
Rowan, I know you're all bent out of shape of late, but calling Phil a lite zionist is a low blow, don't you think?
He came out and said he was anti-zionist just last month. He challenges the lite zionist organizations like J Street, APN, etc on their hemming and hawing.
Seriously, what can Phil do to convince you, start lobbing molotov cocktails at AIPAC's offices?
nauseated,
do you prefer the stale, censored, politically correct debate that has been the status quo for a couple of decades in America now, and has allowed the Jewish Zionists to ethnically demagogue and racially network their way to the top of the heap through nepotism so they could abuse their advantage as they are currently doing in Gaza? If so, you are part of the problem.
"If you wish to hold justice as your goal, then shelling civilians must be high on your list of repugnant policy."
I have never thought that I will agree wholeheartedly with Richard.
And then the horrible thought entered my head that he does count 12 dead Israeli as civilians but does not include 1000 Lebanese or 500 Gazans in the concept of civilians…..
It is important to understand why the rocket fire is happening in the first place. Israel invaded Gaza during the 1967 war, expelled Palestinians from the most arable 40% of the land on which it planted COLONIES. The Palestinians on the remaining 60%, which included vast numbers
ethnically cleansed in 1953 from the area which is now under Hamas rocket fire, were subject to population movement controls with commercial, educational, and social access to the outside world strictly controlled by Israel. Hamas, and every other Palestinian organization, resisted this outrage, and in 2005 their resistance finally convinced the Israeli government that the colonies were too much trouble to protect, and that their efforts would be better exerted in the West Bank.
The withdrawal of colonies by the Israel government in no way constituted an end to its occupation because it maintained control of Gazan borders, including its seaward boundary onto international waters. Palestinian groups continued firing rockets at Israel in an attempt to force Israel to the negotiating table to stop its occupation of their land. Let me repeat: Israel never ended its occupation of Gaza. The Israeli government had, and still has, absolutely no intention of ending its occupation of Gaza, and instead it began a starvation blockade.
Hamas agreed to a ceasefire with Israel and stopped firing rockets in exchange for Israeli cessation of the starvation blockade. Israel violated its terms of the ceasefire by not lifting its blockade, and when the ceasefire period was ending, attacked Hamas, again in violation of the ceasefire. Hamas was foolish enough to respond in kind to the killing of its people, and again started firing rockets on Israel which allowed Israel to claim to be the victim providing the pretext for the current attack. Why do they fire rockets at Israel? They do so because it is absolutely the only method they have to remind Israelis that they are committing a grave injustice against innocent people. If they did not, their people would rot in their open air prison, out of sight and mind not only of Israel, but of the world.
European Jews escaping the Holocaust in Europe began establishing colonies in Palestine after the Second World War. They committed a grave injustice against Palestinian Arabs by doing so, but let us remember why they did so in the first place: Europeans tried to exterminate their people. What would you have done, faced with two choices, either stay amongst Europeans who just killed 60% of your people, and from whose murderous gaze you were lucky to escape, or invade and colonize Palestine? I damn sure know that I would have chosen the latter.
My simplistic summation of the problem is as follows. Israelis feel guilty about ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their land, what Palestinians call 'the Nakba'. If Israelis negotiated for peace in good faith with Palestinians, they would have to acknowledge that they are the cause of Palestinian suffering. They would rather starve and bomb them into submission. And lest this seem a harsh assessment, consider this: what people would have the moral courage to say "We're sorry. Can we come to some agreement where we can stay in peace with you?" It is much easier to face bullets than one's own conscience: not your people, not my people, not their people, not anyone's people could make this gesture. This is why impartial American, i.e. without the Israeli Lobby, arbitration of the conflict is so vital. They can't do it on their own.
You, the reader, should not take my word for anything. The Israeli attack on Gaza has been accompanied by an intense public relations and propaganda campaign to obscure its origins, and Israel's culpability. DO NOT TAKE ANYONE'S WORD FOR ANYTHING: look for yourself. I am confident that people who keep an open mind will not like what they see. And if you are American, you will be shocked at the role our government is playing in perpetuating this madness.
Of course Phil is a zionist lite. Don't kid yourself. He's in bed with zionists lite whom he regards as shining beacons of something or other, like MJ Rosenberg, and it sure isn't anti-zionism. Maybe he could be called anti-zionist in a rather trivial sense, of not liking the place and wishing it didn't exist, but since it does exist, you won't hear him calling for its abolition, now, will you?
Colin Murray provides the correct context and analysis in this thread. And, if Witty wishes to hold justice as his goal, then shelling both Palestinian and Israeli civilians must be high on his list of repugnant policy, along with its context, the policy of slow starvation of Gaza
ever since it had its free election, especially more recently.
Thanks for constructive contributions by Colin and Rowan and anonn. My 2 shekels is that while it's understandable that Jews fleeing persecution couldn't place themselves in Palestinians' shoes, I also feel that they were exploited by the Zionist movement that had in place plans for expulsion. I no longer have patience with the "understandable reaction to the Holacaust" argument–not because it doesn't have a grain of truth, but because I feel at this point that it's used disingenuously. I'm not saying anything intelligent people don't already know.
Nor do I have much patience with Zionism lite, but I think Phil's broad appreciation of dissidence speaks louder than either (what I feel are) his optimism and his tendency to see the movement in liberal/Jewish/realist terms rather than broadly leftist terms. I'm an unrepentant Finkelsteinian/Chomskyan, and I must say I'm surprised that that seems relatively anomalous on this blog. Having said that, the Lerner/Tzedek factions never fail to disappoint in their apparent belief that the solution to these profound geopolitical problems is to be found in Sunday School.
Phil says J Street should reach outside the blindered community, that is, reach out to American goys too. His boyhood buddy, Witty, says right off the top of his beanie head: "Any implication of siding with Hamas is a politically abusive advocacy."
Who's the Hitler youth here? Who the mature adult?
Phil is a mensch. Witty's a racist little yanker.
We don't care what their respective mother's think of them.
Finkelstein claims no longer to be a marxist, but I don't know if he has another "ism". I think he is still basically just a sort of latent marxist. Chomsky on the other hand has diligently avoided marxism throughout his political life if favour of something he refers to as "anarchism" which I think explains why he is both globally popular and globally ineffectual.