At the end of the AIPAC policy conference, maybe during Joe Biden’s pandering speech, I sat biting into a napkin trying to keep from crying with a joyful sense of purpose that the conference had given me. This post is all about that joyful feeling, and what it might mean to those who come to this site.
This was my second AIPAC policy conference. The last one I walked around in a kind of shock. This time I felt more comfortable. For you are in a perfect bubble the whole time--but the pleasure is the knowledge that you can actually leave, and a different world is a couple hundred yards away.
The constituents of the bubble are nice, intelligent, conservative well-dressed Jews in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and they are all savvy and canny. When you talk to them, you find that no one needs to educate them about the situation. They have been following it all their lives. They only need to educate themselves about the latest Israeli government policy nuances; and then they are ready to go forward and lobby and testify. No one can ambush them or surprise them. They are tough, they know their stuff. There are some newbies at the edge of the crowd, but the rank-and-file are this aging population of faithful.
When they are gathered in the hall (as Mike Desch and Jim Lobe both pointed out to me), it seems like a plenary gathering in the Former Soviet Union. On the stage are the Politburo, 40 or 50 people at tables, most of them old and rich, with name cards in front of them, all revered by the people in the room. The people on the stage establish the new line. The degree of variation from that line will be minimal; the famous Jewish idea that if you have two Jews, you will have three opinions, does not hold here. For the entire conference is psychically built on one issue—Jewish survival—and on questions of Jewish survival, Jews defer to their leaders, as the Torah shows. There is utter orthodoxy. As I came into the hall for the Shimon Peres speech, two Jewish women (Rae Abileah and Medea Benjamin) were being dragged out kicking and screaming. Their opinions on Gaza were not welcome. The next day when two women interrupted Joe Biden’s speech, the whole conference rose as one to applaud and drown them out. Very Brezhnev.
The leaders of the bubble know that there is trouble outside. The best speech at the conference was by AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr, on how Israel is under attack. In true Soviet style, I will call it the “Predicate for Abandonment” speech. Eloquent and stirring, and Kohr delivered it beautifully (watch it here)--the aim of the speech was to rally the faithful. But the true awareness in the speech was that outside the bubble of the conference and Washington, things are changing, people are beginning to question the message. It was a Shakespearean speech in the sense of a leader-- and Kohr is a vibrant strong leader--reminding his followers about the threats against them in often poetic terms.
“What we are witnessing is something more than simple defamation. What we are witnessing is the attemped delegitimization of Israel—the systematic sowing of doubt that Israel is a nation that has forfeited the world’s concern, a nation whose actions are in the strict mening of the term, indefensible. This is more than simply spewing hatred. This is a conscious campaign to shift policy, to transform the way Israel is treated by its friends, to a state that deserves not our support but our contempt, not our protection but pressure to change its essential nature. I want to be clearly understood here. I am not saying that these allegations have become accepted. But they have become acceptable. More and more they are invading mainstream discourse… These voices are laying the predicate for abandonment. They are making the case for Israel’s unworthiness to be allowed what is, for any nation, the first and most fundamental of rights, the right to self-defense.”
Superb. Later Abileah, who was dragged from the hall, said she found Kohr’s words inspiring. “It was kind of exciting to hear how big our movement has become”
The takeaway of Kohr’s speech was that the people in the room must not let the delegitimization of Israel “penetrate the halls of congress and the councils of the president.” And that of course is AIPAC’s idea: we use our influence at the highest levels to maintain orthodoxy.
The amazement was how far these new ideas have actually touched AIPAC itself. As Benjamin and Abileah showed, they are even entering the hall. Several of the blogger/journalists in and around the conference were not on board the Zionist program, and there was a joke getting around about the “anti-Zionist minyan.” During the banquet Monday night Eli Lake (the excellent reporter for the New York Sun and now Washington Times who is very pro-Israel but who is not socialized (I excuse him because he reminds me of myself)) was calling out high-schoolish challenges to a table where some of these writers were sitting. He yelled at me, “What’s your twitter feed! What’s your twitter feed?” He yelled at Ali Gharib of Inter-Press: “Tell Jim Lobe [the sage at Inter Press] there’s a neocon cell in the Obama administration”—a joke, I guess, aimed at exposing our thinkng as conspiratorial.
Still: the bubble has not broken. The most contradictory bubble moment came when I asked an AIPAC member about whether Brian Baird, the Washington congressman who has visited Gaza, is a threat to Israel in Congress, and the member said that Baird was a special case, he just happened to represent the district where Rachel Corrie was from, and Baird was compelled to speak for her. “No matter what you think about the Corrie case, even if you think it was just a traffic accident, it was also a tragedy.” My breath was taken away. Rachel Corrie was a beautiful young woman whose murder has touched countless progressives. Hers is just like the martyrology of Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, the Jewish martyrs to the civil rights movement who are mentioned again and again in AIPAC as our nobility.
The comment was especially upsetting because a few hours before I had seen Craig and Cindy Corrie. They had come to the convention to talk about their daughter’s story. They were joined at lunch that day with members of Code Pink and Palestinian activists and leftwing bloggers and Rabbi Weiss of Neturei Karta, a motley assembly if ever there was one, Weiss undoing his black slicker as he came in from the rain. Cindy Corrie said she was trying to find out who makes the teargas canister that maimed Tristan Anderson and killed Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahme. Craig Corrie told the group that he had been demonstrating that morning outside the conference and gotten into a discussion of aid to Israel with an AIPAC member. The man had ended up hugging him and “he was shaking in my arms,” Corrie said. “He was personally shaking in my arms.”
Suffice it to say that these religious moments happened outside the bubble. Inside the bubble the attitudes are tough and focused. I blogged earlier about asking AIPAC members how they felt about a Palestinian state. It is way down the list, after Iran, and there are so many conditions on that state it is ridiculous. It can’t be a terrorist state; and Palestinians are terrorists, etc.
“I understand,” one big friendly older guy said to me, “that everyone wants to try to point a finger at Israel over Palestinian conditions, and we have to take that issue away from them in the political discussion.” I said, “Well the reason we need to remove that issue is that it’s a true fact that the world blames Israel for Palestinian suffering.” He said, “The Palestinians are responsible for everything that’s happened to them. They’ve chosen to be led by…”
I said, “Wait, you’re analyzing it; I’m just saying, the world blames Israel.”
He rallied. “That’s like a homeless person blaming his parents for the way they raised him. People have to take responsibility for their situation.”
I am trying to convey how thick are the clouds of denial about any degree of Jewish responsibility for Palestinian suffering. It is amazing that in this context Eival Givady, an Israeli general who is apparently Kadima, would come off as liberal, and David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, would come off as fair-minded, and Aaron David Miller would come off as a raving radical. When of the three, Miller is the only one outside the bubble. (And within a day or so I must get to his great speech at the policy conference).
While I was talking to the nice older guy who made the homeless analogy, his wife was texting. Then she leaned over to say that she had escaped a little town Germany in 1939, a few months after her stepfather was picked up during Kristallnacht, and she’d grown up in Shanghai. Her husband explained to me that they are involved in AIPAC in order to make sure that their 16-year-old grandson remembers the Holocaust. The grandson has told them that he believes in talking to Hamas and Iran. So they brought their grandson to the concentration camps in Germany in order to show them what “talking” to evil people leads to.
As I sat there next to them, I remembered the most important line in Avraham Burg’s book, The Holocaust Is Over, Let Us Rise From Its Ashes. I cite this line frequently, but not enough. Burg says that the Jews forgave the Nazis too quickly, in part so as to get reparations, and the result was that they projected their unhealed rage on to the Arabs, and made them Nazis. This teaching is true for the neoconservatives/Eli Lake on Saddam Hussein and the AIPAC policy conference and Marty Peretz re Ahmadinejad. This feeling of Jewish existential hazard is so overpowering to these people that they are incapable of absorbing the central lesson of the American experience in the Middle East in the last five years: that after suffering thousands of dead from suicide terrorism, the U.S welcomed the perpetrators of that violence into a government in Iraq. No, the Jewish experience of suffering and persecution is too vivid and large, it crowds out all other human episodes of suffering right now.
Talking with the Holocaust survivor, I understand that fully. Out of filial honor of that suffering, countless speeches at AIPAC end with Holocaust remembrances.
A Jewish friend of mine outside the bubble was upset by the matter of Jewish identification. At lunch after the conference, she said that this is a sick form of identification for young people--to go through life thinking themselves as victims, when they’ve hit the jackpot in terms of human civilization in the United States. I love that, jackpot. She said that when someone lectured her about Israel recently, she said, Why don’t you move there if you think it’s so great; you don’t want to move there, you like it here, and why do you like it here, you like living in a diverse society.
These are familiar themes to many readers fo this site, Jewish privilege, Jewish Holocaust identification, Diaspora Jewish presence and dual loyalty. And let’s be clear, the policy conference is a festival of dual loyalty.
What I have to add today is that when I was talking to that Holocaust survivor, I held her hand and thanked her for telling me her story. I took my anti-Zionism and tried to plant it in the middle of this field of Zionism. At my last AIPAC policy conference, I felt myself to be outside the community that was in the room. But this time, I accepted all these people as my tribe. The torment at the heart of my writing here is that I grew up in tribal ways; and I recognized that woman as an older Jew like my parents and my parents’ friends—in fact I even ran into one of my parents’ friends there!--and the basis of my napkin-biting moment is that AIPAC brought me home to this identification. I put aside my assimilationist feelings, my intermarried goyim-loving feelings, and got back to the fact that this is the community I was raised in and love and have grown out of but still love; and I am not going to be deracinated.
And as a member of the tribe, I say: you have gone down the wrong path. Like the adherents of Communism, these Jews have formed a religious identification with an ideology. They are making a tragic error. They have identified themselves with a human rights abuser that has imposed Jim Crow conditions and apartheid and worse on 3 million Palestinians. AIPAC is now demonizing Iran to Congress so as to distract our country from the problem, as they helped to demonize Iraq before, and they are causing incalculable suffering. Hans Blix and others say that an attack on Iran will only set the nuclear program back a few years.
Israel’s behavior is a Predicate for Abandonment; Kohr is right. But their answer to the Predicate for Abandonment is a bubble and bribery. The congressmen who are brought in, the presidential candidates—are all bribed to support Israel.
There are better bases for interaction than bribery. At the all-night Passover/Nakba vigil this spring in Philadelphia that Adam Horowitz and I attended, we were asked to write down one word to explain ourselves. Horowitz’s word was “accountability.” Accountabilty not just to Jews but to the world. What I felt as Joe Biden pandered to these incredibly powerful and influential Jews who have camped outside the “halls of Congress and the councils of the President,” was that I am just as drawn to matters of Jewish history and power as all the people in the room. Horowitz and I, who run this site, are both Jewish and unconfused about our identities. We love our traditions and people and we understand the tremendous power they have in human civilization. We went to AIPAC because we aim to play our part, too, in Jewish history; and we will.
The spin from Israel becomes harder and harder to stomach. It's as if they expect the world to buy this crap indefinitely while ignoring what we know about Israel and what we have seen with our own eyes. Israel must imagine that the world is back in 1956 , there is no television, no internet and Israel controls all images of the conflict. By magic, one mention of the Holocaust can nullify the massacre of a family.
How can the country which refused an investigation into Jenin 2003 and Gaza 2009 be taken seriously when it talks about yearning for peace ? Israel is right now advertising to have more settlers move to the West Bank while at the same time saying it wants to live side by side with the Palestinians. As if.
Israel continues as if this will be possible into eternity. The Yesha model has no reverse gear and the whole thing looks like a slow motion car crash. It reminds me of the economic boom of the earlier years of this decade. As long as the party went on the banks kept dancing. Peres doesn't care – he's not going to be around when Israel falls down.
The Progressive recently published its 100 year centenary issue. IF Stone wrote the following in the magazine in 1975
" If we do not pursue the path of reconciliation the Jewish people will be transformed within a generation; we cannot harden our hearts against our Arab brothers and remain the kind of people we have been proud of being for 2000 years "
RE: "…I sat biting into a napkin…"
MY COMMENT: Didn't your mommy tell you not to do that! (LOL)
You use the word 'tribe' (or 'tribal') three times above, and with some pride. Please stop doing this: it is in effect a weasel word, avoiding defining what the Jewish collective actually and literally is — certainly it is not a 'tribe.' On another point, I am interested that you refer to the good moments as 'religious.' ("Suffice it to say that these religious moments happened outside the bubble.") I would encourage you there, since I no longer think that religiosity is necessarily going to lead back to exclusivity. As I said on an earlier thread today, I am looking at a way to overcome the existing state of affairs regarding religious worship.
The entire corrupt two-party regime in Washington exists inside a similar, Soviet-like bubble, who's time — just as was Communism's — is limited. Anyone who comes out of the corrupt milieu of either, be it the neo-Soviet Zionist bubble or the neo-Soviet Washington buble — has zero moral authority to lecture anyone about anything. They are both part of a corrupt, rotting edifice. Dare I say an evil edifice. Dare I say an evil empire. If America is ever going to be a force for good in the world again, it must flog these corrupt creatures from the temple.
It's a tribal identity if they feel it is. There's nothing wrong with that. Maybe there is a better word to describe it, but that's for them to decide. I liken it roughly to respecting what names people like to be called. If someone wants to be called 'Mike' instead of Michael, it's a matter of basic respect to at least try to remember that and address them as they wish. The problem is actions that their extremists take that violate law and decency and negatively affect other people, e.g. lying America into horrific wars that serve only foreign colonial Zionist interests.
We love our traditions and people and we understand the tremendous power they have in human civilization. We went to AIPAC because we aim to play our part, too, in Jewish history; and we will. I think that's a fantastic attitude and a worthy and authentic embrace of Life.
Lovely
Interesting. Now that you're now agin' 'em, you might lead 'em.
Shit. Pressed Submit comment too fast again. Meant to correct to this: Interesting. Now that you're not agin' 'em, you might lead 'em.
Wonderful, insightful post. One observation and suggestion: when you make observations and seek historical context, you frequently refer to Soviet history and experience (twice above). To me, Soviet experience and history are in no sense positive or even plausible points of reference for what is or should be going on in America. Soviet idealogy, soviet authoritarianism, Soviet group-think, are wholly inconsistent with American values and history and experience. Your recent forays into Lincoln's history have been insightful and very positive, and are, in my mind, a very valuable examination of American historical context. I guess I can see how Neocons who started out as Communists might draw on Soviet history and experience as relevant, within their strange bubble, but this is a reason to oppose the Neocons. So my suggestion is, in light of all the times you are reminded of Soviet experience and history in considering your issue, you might turn your analytical lights on why this is, because it is not obvious how and why political conventions dominated by foreign leaders that remind of Soviet plenary meetings are dutifully attended by half of our Congress. Are the methods and processes of establishing and enforcing group-think talking points, in support of authoritarian leaders loyal to a cherished ideology, which Jefferson (and America as I understand it) would have classified as a form of tyranny over the human mind, a historical trait of your tribal community? Are they recent adaptations of behaviors learned by abusees from Nazi abusers? Are they a 20th century phenomenon associated with authoritarian idealogues, generally? What is behind this model for thought control? We need to understand it, if we are burst that bubble.
Wonderful report, Phil. Keep up the good work. Ira
This report warmed my heart. I went to see the Rachel Corrie documentary at Sundance and her parents spoke at the end. What absolutely decent people, no wonder Rachel cared so much. One of the things that they discovered during this process of trying to get a legitimate investigation of their daughters death was that at different levels, those responsible would just do their small part and not push it on or see it through. I think I have come to see the true nature of evil in all of us as "indifference". And so I thank you both Phil and Adam, for the strength of your convictions to see this through. You are truly human and truly decent!
that report was worth the $25 i donated. phil, the problem we all have is to wrongly identify ourselves with this or that when our true nature is beyond all identifications. in your case, you think you are jewish. you think that is what you are. is being jewish the real you? all these self-identifications are like passing clouds. you are the sky.
-“Soviet idealogy, soviet authoritarianism, Soviet group-think, are wholly inconsistent with American values and history and experience.” True. That’s what makes left-liberals and Neocons/Neoliberals (and Big Government pseudo-conservatives) so dangerous to America. -“I guess I can see how Neocons who started out as Communists might draw on Soviet history and experience as relevant, within their strange bubble, but this is a reason to oppose the Neocons” Not just Neocons, but also Neolibs and many activist leftist Dems, who started in the same place.
-“it is not obvious how and why political conventions dominated by foreign leaders that remind of Soviet plenary meetings are dutifully attended by half of our Congress” Because half of Congress is neo-Soviet. Big Government has little variation from country to country, and if not constantly cut-back or Constitutionally chastned, it eventually consumes everyone to feed itself. Unfortunately, the Left insists the Constitution is an “evolving document,” — because it wants to override the restraints laid down by the Founders. The Left (and the Big Government Right) are both wholly inconsistent with American values, history and experience. Only libertarians are consistent with America’s founding values, which have been over-ridden by government-worshippers and Zionists.
Thanks Phil. beautiful post. I see the zio-nauts have prepared us with yet another Nazi documentary on PBS this evening.
Phil, I see you're predicament about where you come from and where you are going, but you are just in your efforts for the future. Your site allows me to have insight into the complicated Israel issues and provides a perspective that is not extremist, in either direction. Thanks.
So it's not Pat B who is akin to McCarthy, but those who say he is–I agree. I think Ed & Citizen would agree with me. Also, anybody else see an analogy of the bubble Phil's talks about an our recent subprime mortgage bubble? And, now, Obama's persistent creation of a new bubble to cure the old bubble? Lastly, why should non-Jewish Americans continue to rubber-stamp, and fund with their blood and treasure Zionism, which mimics Manifest Destiny and Nazi philosophy in its basic assumptions? Else why were those Germans hung at Nuremberg? Why is SOP in academia to despise "old white guys?" Who would not today applaud those handful of Germans who stood up against Hitlerite views? Why are they today viewed as the real German patriots, rather then the traitors that got hung or shot in the then currency? How is it possible today to honor the White Rose, but not Rachel Corrie?
The real index of zionist reaching for straws is when they came up with the notion of "self-hating Jew." Both the Jews and the Palestinians are semitic peoples–the Palestinians more so than the Jews since more Jews share white European blood, which is perfectly obvious (not to mention a larger sense of individualism, also taken from the non-jewish & european-originating non-jewish peoples. The "if you don't like it here, go somewhere else" response always goes in tandem with the "my country right or wrong" response. American Jews, as distinguished from Jewish Americans, see this most clearly–except when it comes to israel. Rachel Corrie would have been marching with Doctor King, and she would have been against the Vietnam War; as well, she would have been against giving Indians infected blankets, and against Johnny Reb; yet now, somehow she's just not worthy, a mere stupid hillbilly kid who didn't even know enough to hide like Anne Frank.
It's not surprising that Jewish Zionists apply a different standard to the goyim. Just read YNet/JPost/Haaretz commentary. Anytime a Palestinian civilians (especially children) or non-violent protesters are harmed or killed, they dismiss them as foolish or terrorist sympathizers. The only reason we're still mulling over these observations (that Zionism is racism, fascism, etc.) is because there's nothing else to do about it. The Jewish Establishment in the US has money and power. Everyday civilians do not have the money and platform to make a difference.
Do you have any more insight into how to persuade those in power (who are not predominately on the right, not neo-cons) to plausibly shift their view? And to what? I am pleased at what I read in Haaretz, that King Abdullah of Jordan is working intimately with Mahmoud Abbas to clarify the Arab League proposal to language that does not contain ambiguity that Israel must fear, but clarity and acknowledgement of real needs. Peace is constructed by such efforts. I'm not sure if peace is constructed by Code Pink "kicking and screaming" rather than paying their way in (as you did) and dialoging directly. To me, the big differences between the paranoid approach and the reconciliation approach is the confidence that the civil Arab world will in fact fully recognize Israel, fully implement normal economic and diplomatic relations, AND very importantly, marginalize radical and contemptuous approaches to Israel's existence and needs. While at the same time, remaining assertive about the importance of Palestinians and other Arabs' needs.
I understand they are still puzzled. They instilled such positive values in their daughter and she still became a raving hate monger who ended as a darwinian statistic.
The critical Jewish history and power at this point lies in finance:
. I have long been extremely frustrated that so many people in the US seem to use a completely false understanding of the 20s, 30s, and 40s to define their politics. It would not be unreasonable to argue that the violence of Jewish Bolshevism and Jewish Zionism grew out of a frustration with Czarist policies that blocked the path of many Russian Jews to the wealth and power to which they felt entitled because of the history of high Jewish status in historic Poland.
It might be rational, but it would be unreasonable.
I was afraid there might be a contact high. "and I am not going to be deracinated." Cause compared to being "Jewish" everything else is just a pale imitation. Gee, I don't think of myself as "deracinated" (although I am going bald and have fewer molars these days) I think of myself as a Jew, plus!
"If America is ever going to be a force for good in the world again, it must flog these corrupt creatures from the temple." Ed, baby, you ain't gonna get no reverence for the cross in a temple. And you and "the rest of us" couldn't flog your goddam way out of a knish! "Dare I say an evil edifice." A towering indictment from an evil orifice!
So AIPAC is gonna make a 360, and after an education in the sins of Zionism, turn around and demand ethical, legal and humanitarian concessions from Israel as the price of US support? Ho-Kay. And "Jewish history and power will have a part in this? Gee, I am gonna have to start being much nicer to Ed. He may have a good point I'm ignoring because of his unpleasant style.
Richard, if we were talking about Palestinians, you would say that "persuading" and "those in power" are mutually exclusive. (Well, that's what you would have said a few months ago. Now you just go on making oatmeal). You don't "persuade" those in power. Is it only the natural superiority of Jews that allows you to posit that Israelis will act in ways completely contrary to their own espoused philosophy and all of history, or is that what is supposed to make it true? But, please, don't answer, I've got plenty of hot cereal.
That's absolute nonsense: there is no comparison between, on the one hand, respecting people's desire to use whatever proper names they wish, and, on the other hand, respecting their desire to use whatever loaded descriptors they wish.
the Nazi view, of blaming communists for everything, is in the majority here, Joachim.
Mooser, you aren't getting Ed's usage. Think Classical Reform…very Classical Reform, with organs, and stained glass, and Hebrew set to the etheral harmonies of Lebinowski and Mendelsson… And when Ed is done praying next door for your salvation at high Latin Mass, I'm sure he will honor your freedom of concience and gladly stand with you in defense of the Christian West!
Doppler, I strongly recommend Paul Gottfried's work on the questions you raise. *After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State* and many of this other writings discuss the ideological orgins of the modern Left. Unlike Nazism, the radical Left was never decisively discredited. Leftists who migrated to anti-Communism still kept their contempt for "peasantry" and the bourgeois, a belief that news should be carefully tailored to guide the masses to the correct opinions on topics too complex for them to understand, and a religious devotion to utopian ideologies and an enthusiasm for the use of massive state power to fulfill them.
Phil, I love this type of commentary that combines the personal and the political. It's clearly your forte. The problem is not "Jewish Power" per se but the abuse of Jewish Power which Zionism and Israel lobbying clearly constitute. The Jewish community has done and will do many wonderful things for humankind–maybe more than any other group but Zionism sure ain't one of them. Israel's "Light unto the Nations" is White Phosphorus. "Accountabilty not just to Jews but to the world." Interesting. I guess a lot of what makes us who we are is who we hold ourselves accountable to.
My chosen method of dissent is appreciating of the other, reason, and calling each other's bluff on the PR elements of their proposals. So, if Israel is sincere about peace and justice, then when the PA and Jordan and Egypt and others construct a proposal that incorporates Israel's rationally documented objections, they call Israel's bluff. "Do you mean what you say? Do you mean that you want normalization, peace?" In contrast, when Code Pink makes a lot of noise and says nothing new, they don't state "we want peace". They state, "we are indifferent to how peace is actually constructed. We just want notoriety." (Sorry to say, as well-meaning as they may be.) Certainly, when Hamas shells civilians at the end of the cease-fire, they abuse the description of Islam as "peace".
It may be too late for the Jewish religion to survive the Israeli b Zionism intact. A level of cultural insanity has been reached and sustained with the settlers and the IDF so that escalation of inhumane genocidal violence is now automatic. Think the picnicers watching Gaza being bombed, think of their cheers and dancing in response.
Israel is a terrorist state, a militarized society, and their survival depends on being the aggressor all the time…they cannot integrate. Time is not on their side, not even birth rate. they are a minority in a sea of Arabs and history teaches us but we do not listen, that whatever rises up, one day it will fall on its face. Zionist state can survive for another 100, 200, 300 years, then what? They will still be a cancer that need to be isolated and removed surgically. I feel sorry that innocent descendants will pay for the crimes for their forefathers. Educate yourself from non-fox news to know who is the aggressor, terrorist and who always does not keep his word!
I think saying they are on the wrong path allows for more honest confusion about motives than really exists. AIPAC has its eyes wide open about what it chooses to defend and promote in the Holy Land, even if it doesn't represent itself as such. There is no mistake here; they are on the path they want to be on.
"that after suffering thousands of dead from suicide terrorism, the U.S welcomed the perpetrators of that violence into a government in Iraq." Those outside america are always astonished at such comments. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Even the CIA admitted that. It was published in the international press even if not in the US. And one really does wonder how able Americans are to see the rest of the world clearly with comments such as hitting 'the jackpot in terms of civilization' referring to being an American citizen. A little travel through the developed world shows quite clearly that the average citizens of a number of countries have a far, far better quality of life and far greater opportunities to advance, than does the average American. In many ways Jews suit America …. this is a nation, which, like the Jewish religion, believes it is meant to be a 'light unto nations' and to do God's work. For the rest of the world this is not just truly spooky, it is dangerous.
2% population in U.S. – tooooooo much influence here. Fight your own blood lusty wars.
People are "beginning" to question. Many have been "questioning" U.S. support for Israel no matter what they do for a very very long time. The questions and those who question are expanding. Getting a bit more coverage due to the internet.
Phillip have to admit I do not understand or support this "tribe" no matter what they do thing. I grew up Irish French Catholic. I do not support the killings that have taken place in the name of Christianity. I do not support any oppressive actions of the French or Irish governments. I do think this allegiance no matter what a group of people do is a big part of the ongoing support that Israel continues to get no matter what they do
Phillip many have come before you, Medea and the other lady who protested at the Aipac conference. It is a mistake and very arrogant to think that this movement is "new" A very wise move to thank those who have tried hard and sacrificed to some degree their own careers to bring attention to this oppressive situation. Vanessa Redgrave being one of those people http://www.librarything.com/author/saidedwardw But then Redgrave proceeded with an impassioned propagandistic speech: "You should be very proud that in the last few weeks you stood firm and you refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world and to their great and heroic record against fascism and oppression. I salute that record and I salute all of you for having stood firm and dealt the final blow against that period when Nixon and McCarthy launched a worldwide witchhunt against those who tried to express in their lives and their work the truths that they believed in." And with resolute she concluded: "I salute you and I thank you, and I pledge to you that I'll continue to fight against antiSemitism and fascism." Former President Jimmy Carter being another person who has taken great risk making a stand on this issue http://www.librarything.com/author/saidedwardw Along with Edward Said http://www.librarything.com/author/saidedwardw And so many more people have been trying to shed light on the I/P issue for decades.
I understand the traditions of 'my' people- being raised in a kosher home and having a traditional Jewish education. I was raised by a father and mother who taught us that we must always consider how others feel abiut what belongs to them. Even if someone is anti semitic we are not to treat them unkindly or steal anything from them even if w are given the opportunity to do so. Read Ezekial 13- verse 19 for a truly psychic reading of what the materialistic Jews of that and times to come would be in for if they didn't mend their selfish, un- compassionate, unethical behavior. . Even the building of the wall is foretold with the kind of "un-tempered" mortar to be used. I see the metaphor of the mortar as the false beliefs and absence of substantial humanistic values we now see extant in organizations like AIPAC.
phillip weiss…..you are a faggot
There is no military solution to the conflict. The only ones who will profit are those who make military vehicles, weapons, bombs, bullets. Right-wingers have to be removed from the sphere of influence, through love, and vigorous intellectual disbursement of the facts.. hardline right wing Islam is an obstacle.. but also right-wing Judaism and right-wing Christianity (especially in the United States), they all inadvertently work together to keep the status quo alive, and the threat of mutual annhiliation becomes that much closer..
I'm really glad you are feeding the anti-Semites red meat, Weiss. That's all we need: a "self-identifying" Jew to give them a platform to vent their distorted notions and fantasies of Jewish power and Israeli evil. Can't you just go back to loving the goyim and leave us alone? It would be nice.
Where did this meeting take place?
Forget that – I commented on the wrong post – delete this and the last one please!!
90 % of the people who call themselves Jews are descendants of the Khazars. Only about 9 or 10 percent of you are a Semitic people called the Sephardic Jews. That is why the term anti-Semitic does not make any sense. So 90 percent of the worlds "Jews" have no birthright to live in Palastine. When the Jews accept the teachings of Jesus Christ we will have peace in the world. Also, are you aware that Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany was financed by the Warburgs and other wealthy Jewish bankers. Most Jews in Europe at the time had no desire to relocate to the desert in Palestine, so the elder Zionists had to make life very uncomfortable for the average Jew in Europe. Hence, they financed the Nazis which acted as a facilitator for the migration of Jews to the Holy Land.
In 1492, Chemor, chief Rabbi of Spain, wrote to the Grand Sanhedrin, which had its seat in Constantinople, for advice, when a Spanish law threatened expulsion.2 This was the reply: ” Beloved brethren in Moses, we have received your letter in which you tell us of the anxieties and misfortunes which you are enduring. We are pierced by as great pain to hear it as yourselves. The advice of the Grand Satraps and Rabbis is the following: 1. As for what you say that the King of Spain obliges you to become Christians: do it, since you cannot do otherwise. 2. As for what you say about the command to despoil you of your property: make your sons merchants that they may despoil, little by little, the Christians of theirs. 3. As for what you say about making attempts on your lives: make your sons doctors and apothecaries, that they may take away Christians’ lives. 4. As for what you say of their destroying your synagogues: make your sons canons and clerics in order that they may destroy their churches. [Emphasis mine]
5. As for the many other vexations you complain of: arrange that your sons become advocates and lawyers, and see that they always mix in affairs of State, that by putting Christians under your yoke you may dominate the world and be avenged on them. 6. Do not swerve from this order that we give you, because you will find by experience that, humiliated as you are, you will reach the actuality of power. (Signed) PRINCE OF THE JEWS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.” 2. The reply is found in the sixteenth century Spanish book, La Silva Curiosa, by Julio-Iniguez de Medrano (Paris, Orry, 1608), on pages 156 and 157, with the following explanation: “This letter following was found in the archives of Toledo by the Hermit of Salamanca, (while) searching the ancient records of the kingdoms of Spain; and, as it is expressive and remarkable, I wish to write it here.” — vide, photostat facing page 80. ~ The above was quoted from Waters Flowing Eastward by Paquita de Shishmareff, pp. 73-74
Have you ever read YNet/JPost/Haaretz commentary? Do you live in the same world as I do? Every time non-violent civilians get hurt is terrible, and the media says it is terrible. "they dismiss them as foolish or terrorist sympathizers." I live in Israel for 29 years and I NEVER heard such comments from the media. Strahl, you are fake. You are trying to make us evil as to give your life meaning. We are not evil, and you are not moral.
Dear Phil, I went to demonstrate outside last year and got spat on and yelled out, took me weeks to recover. How do we deal with this horror, shame and anger? You entered the beast, and found this: "AIPAC brought me home to this identification. I put aside my assimilationist feelings, my intermarried goyim-loving feelings, and got back to the fact that this is the community I was raised in and love and have grown out of but still love; and I am not going to be deracinated." This is preciesly it, it's a matter of identity. I returned from one of many speeches at a church last year talking about being a Jew challenging Israel, and being met with openness, interest and gratitude (they like me, they really like me!) and my wife (Jewish) only half jokingly said, "are you becoming Christian?" I hadn't considered that, but didn't miss a beat: "No, I'm becoming Jewish." This is the way, the only way for me now, to be Jewish." And its Jewishness and not Judaism that's on the line here — the religion, like any of them, can go either way, but ethnic identity seems core (and it can go either way) and you've identified that this is what it is about. I think we need another word than "tribe," though. It ocnveys the slap on the back wink wink us and them and we're better and smarter and don't let on the secrets. I first confronted it as an adult when a slimy insurance salesman used it on me — you're a member of the tribe, right? – thinking he could sell me that way. I thought, is this what that's about? We need a better word, and not "Jews of Conscience," I get where Ellis is coming from and don't disagree but that's too close to conceited, superior and judgmental. We're a movement, and despite the 2 Jews 3 opinions problem, which is everywhere you look, we're getting somewhere, the clarity of the issue cuts through it. And besides, we're outside of our bubble of isolation. It's not assimilationist and goyim loving (although I plead guilty, and it's a guilty pleasure, walking out of the ghetto, why not, there's a whole world out there, and I love it), its being in the world, and its solidarity with liberation movements, and it works (in a selfish, pragmatic way, it works simply by getting us out of our exceptionalist victim bubble!) AIPAC's on the ropes, and we're powerful. And we need your amazing ability and talent to be in that hall and feel the connection you feel with the Jews there. My question is: it was a good experience for you, but does that mean you work there, do we focus on the Jewish community represented by AIPAC? Do we focus on the Jews in the U.S. at all besides picking up people joining our own parade as we march down the street? I love leaving the Jewish bubble but not only because it's personally liberating but because it seems to me this is where the potential for political change is, this is where I can be effective.
You could always join Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel.
As long as you define yourself as a member of a tribe you accept the glue that holds the tribe together, which is the permanent sense of victimhood and entitlement; I respectfully suggest that your positions, on two state vs one state, the right of refugees to return, and settlements in the occupied territories, can not stray too far from the consensus becuase then you would truly be cast off, and the psychological disconnect too hard to bear…
blah blah blah. leve Palestina. End of story.