This is huge. Beth Elohim is the biggest Reform temple in Brooklyn. I've seen Combatants for Peace at Beth Elohim, and I've heard the rabbi talk about Darfur. Well Rashid Khalidi is speaking there next month-- "one of the world's leading scholars of the contemporary Middle East."
Obama did this. Gaza did this. Khalidi who believes that Palestinians live in a state of enslavement in the West Bank. Khalidi whose relatives fled scared across Gaza last month. Khalidi whom McCain tried to demonize in the last weeks of the campaign and whom Obama couldn't embrace. The American Jewish community is dividing. At long last. The Republicans will get the neocons and Netanyahu. The Democrats will keep the liberal Jews, including Michael Walzer. And J Street, which is co-sponsoring the Khalidi talk.
Will the Israel lobby break up in time to save the two-state solution? It doesn't matter. The only question, as Adam Horowitz said at Temple University the other night, is What are the principles of the solution? Are they about equality?
This is indeed a watershed. Opening a synagogue to Rashid Khalidi represents a spirit of intellectual inquiry that has been missing for so long — as well as the willingness to reach out across a divide. It sounds meaningful and important. Well done, Beth Elohim.
'The Republicans will get the neocons and Netanyahu. The Democrats will keep the liberal Jews, including Michael Walzer.'
OMG, the antiquated Demonrat/Repugnican axis, still implausibly invoked in contemporary political commentary. This is about as pertinent, and gripping, as the Anti-Saloon League versus the publicans. Great-grandma and grandpa felt strongly about the matter, I was told as a toddler.
Neither of these obsolete, decrepit political claques has a single thing to contribute to our future, or Israel's either. They are the last people to ever get a clue about anything. Laugh at them, and they'll go 'poof' in a puff of smoke, like comic-book bad guys.
We don't believe in you no more; you're dead.
You might want to send Michael Walzer back
I went to a pro-peace pro-Israel demonstration today in the Amherst Mass town commons, organized by Hampshire College students that have criticized the Hampshire divestment movement as harrassing and racially and politically marginalizing those that differred with the message and tone.
There was a counter-demonstration next to the site of the main demonstration which was rowdy, confrontational, and periodically bigoted.
The speakers at the demonstration advocated for a two-state solution, no comment or consensus on borders. Very little mention (some) of Palestinian suffering, Gaza or settlements.
Rashid Khalidi is NOT in that rancorous camp. He is a humanist, seeking humane solutions. He's an example of an individual that IS assertive on behalf of Palestinian interests, but NOT violently threatening, and not apologizing for terror.
Most likely he's spoken at a number of synagogues. He would be welcome at mine.
"Rashid Khalidi is NOT in that rancorous camp. He is a humanist, seeking humane solutions. He's an example of an individual that IS assertive on behalf of Palestinian interests, but NOT violently threatening, and not apologizing for terror."
I'll be nice and not name names…but some people are too rigid & politically unsophisticated to grasp this point. They think it's either/or.
No, that's not the case at all Witty.
You have never once applied these standards to your own constituency.
That lameass story you told us about your dinner with the Hampshire student's family is a perfect representation of your personality and politics.
Bourgeois, empty, hypocritical. You're only interested in having a conversation with walls – Apartheid walls.
I take it back on my opinion of Khalidi.
I saw a presentation he made at the National Lawyers Guild in which he consistently ignored the role and behavior of Hamas relative to Israel.
what Khalidi or anybody says doesn't matter. There's a strong chance the territories might be absorbed by Egypt & Jordan. All of this will become moot…
Witty consistently ignores the power dynamic at play:
Nuclear, militarily subsidized and conscripted, first-world Israel
vs.
Economically and militarily restricted, stateless, third-world Palestine
He treats the two sides as equals; worse, he characterizes Hamas, an entity with probably a thousandth of the resource capacity of Israel and its backers, one relegated to using foodstuffs and fertilizers to produce munitions with 19th century technology, as if they were supreme arbiter in this conflict.
Beyond dishonest, it's wrong. And no legitimate anti-war movement benefits from that kind of apologia. Its role is only to provide cover for future massacres, by shifting the responsibility from the powerful to the scapegoat.
witty re khalidi and hamas;
Hamas is a direct product of israeli occupation – both literally and figuratively. it is not for khalidi to bring them to heel – certainly not now – so close on the heels of the gaza atrocities. That kind of soul-searching on the part of the palestinians can be done once the occupation is over and done with. What you are asking for is akin to asking Japanese americans to keep apologizing for nanking and pearl harbor as the price for bringing up the innocent victims of hiroshima.
To understand hamas – look at the picture of Lieberman at the top of the page. That's the attitude that brought hamas about. hamas is the face – and essence – of justice denied for too long and the deep suffering of too many that went unacknowledged by Israel. On the day israel – and its so-called friends in the US – will be willing to offer an apology for the sin that beget the country, and start taking steps to a post-tribal, post-racist future – – on that dayt hamas' hold will start to weaken.
One small problem before the kumbaya singing begins – that day is probably too far off in the future to be of any comfort to you.
In the meantime, I think you should start trying to understand what hamas is on the larger scale of things, and you'll then see why this is hardly the time for someone such as Khalidi to tear into them.
Even poor Suzanne is exuding Zionist hubris one minute, gloating over our (non-Zionist/anti-Zionist) exclusion from "mainstream" (ie two-party corporatist zionist) American politics, and the next minute trembling with fear behind her bed sheet, hysterically frightened of the unyielding fury about to be unleashed by the Islamist menace, that is if we don't fight more wars with the enemies of Zionism RIGHT NOW!
Any American should understand plainly that Zionism is real, omnipresent, and actually dangerous, while Islamic fanaticism is distant, pathetic, and mostly a mirage.
But this is a thread about (bland moderate) Rashid Khalili at a Brooklyn synagogue. So let's talk about Hamas!
Marshmallow is soon to be a goon without a cause. haha!
Fess up, marshmallow, you know the whole thing is gonna be moot soon. And THAT has you worried. :-)
Islamic fanaticism, an offshoot of islamic fascism, is responsible for the 100+ murders of Iraqis per day. Additionally, it is responsible for the murder of countless palestinians suspected of aiding Israeli. It is responsible for much of the murder and mayhem in Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and saudi Arabia.
Hamas is responsible for its own decisions as to method and goal.
It is possible to be intensely critical of BOTH state and factional terror.
Israel MUST defend its civilians from unilateral acts of war (even if it looks reasonable to "resist"). It is an obligation of a state.
Hamas has a path to reconcile, but it has decided that it is better to war (or the current CORRUPT deniability, of allowing other factions to do the shelling).
Dissent looks bad in this regard. The contrast between a pro-Israeli peace rally that asserts "Lets implement a FAIR and mutually consented peace", and "Zionism is racism, LEAVE", is stark.
Those that were dissenters motivated by a sense of compassion, cannot join the "resistance" movement unless they become fanatic (and thereby lose their compassion).
Its absolutely true that the settlements are a big obstacle.
I consider the effects of the blockade to be inhumane to Palestinian civilians, but I consider that Israel's effort to control borders is rational and appropriate for a state in relation to a state at war with it.
What state opens its borders to another entity that is in a state of PERMANENT and DECLARED war?
Does Rashid Khalidi think that that is of any relevance? At least Barghouti is COMMITTED to non-violence.
For reference, I met two that enthusiastically attended the pro-Israel pro-peace rally, that also signed the divestment petition. When they signed the petition, they determined that they were supporting decency for Palestinians, NOT aggression towards Israel.
@ Witty
"Its absolutely true that the settlements are a big obstacle.
I consider the effects of the blockade to be inhumane to Palestinian civilians, but I consider that Israel's effort to control borders is rational and appropriate for a state in relation to a state at war with it."
How are the settlements part of Israel's rational effort to control borders? How can any rational person
ignore the always on-going expansion of existing settlements and continual stake out of new ones?
Who is continually instigating war?
"For reference, I met two that enthusiastically attended the pro-Israel pro-peace rally, that also signed the divestment petition. When they signed the petition, they determined that they were supporting decency for Palestinians, NOT aggression towards Israel.
Commenting on this and your other remarks above…it suggests to me that the pro-Peace movement is, for whatever reason, not as well organized as the Jew haters. Either that, or you're giving these two too much credit.
I'm starting to think the real schism is in the Pals' inability to run their own state–so you have people wavering because they don't know what the right solution is.
If this Egypt/Jordan absorption concept becomes more likely, it should end the moral confusion, imo.
On the two individuals that I met that signed the Hampshire petition, the point was that the petition was described to them as a method of reform, when the proponents of the petition meant it as a method of condemnation. The two individuals, like I, oppose the state sponsored settlement effort, but are also supportive of Israel's well-being.
Richard—in other words, SJP et ilk are DELIBERATELY misrepresenting their own goals and objectives?
No surprise there. It still concerns me that on campuses, Islamist apologists are better organized. Or so it seems.
Since when was a call for divestment meant to slow or stop named policies one disagrees with not a method of
reform?
Did the divestment movement against apartheid S Africa's regime policies not reform that regime? Reform and condemnation are not mutually exclusive as Witty and Suzanne appear to say. Is dividing the players between "pro-Israel" and "Jew-haters" a reasonable characterization of all the disputing parties and their respective stated intent and mission?
Its a distinction between an effort in which there is the possibility of co-existence and reconciliation, and one that is impossible.
Its possible to be assertive in one's dissent, without being offensive and in cases violently harrassing.
As most anti-israeli/zionist posters use terms identical in intent with antisemitism, it is unreasonable to expect us to separate them.
It is unreasonable to assume you are able to think at all, Chris.
Poor lad.
"a state in relation to a state at war with it."
A state in relation to a state at war with it? Richard Witty, are you so fundamentally dishonest that you actually believe this kind of rubbish? There is only one state in this "war". The other side is a people under decades of crushing occupation who have in fact been consistently denied not only a state, but denied any modicum of self-determination. In fact, the Palestinians have been systematically denied most fundamental elements of a state.