Rob Browne at DailyKos urges Rabbi David Saperstein (of the Union for Reform Judaism), who is fasting for Darfur, to fast on behalf of the people of Gaza too--a crisis in which American Jews have far more influence than they do in Sudan. Browne writes to Saperstein that he is being "hypocritical":
Rabbi, it is my concern that the RAC's [Reform Jewish Religious Action Center's] lack of public outcry and advocacy regarding [the Gaza] crisis removes your legitimacy to discuss humanitarian concers elsewhere in the world. If you, the RAC, and the URJ (Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish religious movement in North America), cannot, or will not, use your power and significant influence with the Israeli government to alleviate the suffering that they have assisted in creating and maintaining, why would citizens or international leaders consider listening to your requests with respect to the behavior of other govenments.
PEP at its best, Progressive Except for Palestine. Young Jews, what do you think of this one-way compassion?
There is no comparison between Gaza and Darfur, look at the picture you posted in your Gaza contraband snippet. I wonder how many kids you can see riding motorcycles with cars on the street in Darfur. Why is there such an obsession with comparing Gaza to either the Warsaw Ghetto, the Holocaust, or Darfur. I know it sucks there, the situation is not good. But please there is no comparison.
Seriously what a lame excuse for an argument. So anyone who does anything to note one tragedy needs to note all tragedy? There is no logic in that. I give to three major local charities and give talks on them around the area. Does that mean I must now do them all to be legitimatized. Ridiculous.
Alleviate suffering of whom? Of Hamas terrorists and those who voted for them? Don't pretend you don't know that in their first and the only election Palestinians overwhelmingly voted for Hamas- the party of suicide bombers. The Israeli pullout from Gaza created condition for defacto Hamastan. If Israel pulls of the rest of Jewish biblical territories, it would become a little Iran in the Israel's backyard. Only self-hating Jews pretend that so-called occupation is an obstacle for peace, rather then Arab's desire to throw Jews into the sea, which they explicitly proclaimed in 1948 and never changed since then.
Mr. Weiss, I normally enjoy your commentary and in general agree at least in part because you manage to frame the suffering of Palestinians in an honest and–dare I say–Jewish way. But this is entirely unfair, even hysterical. Like Olive said, there are so many tragedies in the world that I think it's fair for someone to pick just one on which to focus over the others. Give the Rabbi a break, he's trying to draw attention to a truly awful situation, and he should be commended for it. Save your criticisms for times when they're really effective and appropriate, and I think they will be more effective.
I think the "hypocrisy" on Darfur is both innaccurate and frankly a petty diversion. YOU only focus on one issue at a time. Why are YOU neglecting the hundreds of wrongs that are occurring in different parts of the world, and in ways you may be said to intentionally distract from those wrongs. For example, you've not commented on the current state of Palestinian law that prohibits sale of land (a legitimate sale even) to a Jew. Is that intentional on your part? Probably to an extent, and probably not in fact. You focus on one thing and attempt to do your best at it, no?
From PulseMedia: Mahmood Mamdani is a renowned African scholar (of Indian origin) who was ranked by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world’s 100 leading public intellectuals. (He grew up in Uganda.) He wrote in his book “Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror” p. 300. Pantheon, 2009”
You (and I) got Darfur Wrong http://pulsemedia.org/2009/06/08/the-darfur-decep... The Darfur Deception http://pulsemedia.org/2009/06/08/the-darfur-decep...
MRW is there anything in the world which you don't think the Zionists and Jews are responsible for screwing up? You are such a broken record its just ridiculous.
The point Yoni is that Jews – especially Jews who say they care about human rights – should be concerned first about Israel-Palestine. After all, Israel is the Jewish State. And the world is full of problems, I don't see you logic. 1400+ people were killed. We shouldn't care now because of Darfur? And the reason for the comparisons is because it's valid. Israel does not want peace – it wants all of the remaining Palestinian land. And it locked up the Palestinians in Gaza. Israel Jews lord over the Palestinians like Masters to Slaves. Israeli society IS the modern-day fascist Germany. Just because large-scale industrial genocide is out of fashion doesn't mean Israel wouldn't do it if they could. After all, they carried out the next best thing – ethnic cleansing.
So we shouldn't care about the lives of Jews everywhere since Israel is the JEWISH State. We shouldn't care about Israelis since every Israeli government has never wanted peace and only expansion. And Israel kills far more Palestinians than the other way around. Your logic is bullshit. You keep reiterating hasbara nonsense like "Israel left Gaza." No shit moron, but they controlled the borders and kept carrying out operations into Gaza. They blockaded Gaza. No one here buys your lame ass poor-Jews argument.
The Rabi is so concerned with the splinter in his brother's eye that he doesn't notice the log in his own.
No. Jews should notice there is a country that calls itself the JEWISH State. The notion that a Jew could be so oblivious to the humanitarian crisis caused by the Jewish political ideology of the moment – Zionism – is ludicrous. This IS Progressive-Except-For-Palestine. It's hypocrisy. Not because Israel speaks for all Jews but because if you're a JEW you KNOW what Israel is and you KNOW the conflict. That's where his interest will be drawn. So he has to willfully ignore all of this. It's like that bullshit movie Waltz for Bashir or something or The Lemon Tree. This is classic sanctimony.
Great logic — anyone who focuses on Israel is doing so to cover up for atrocities elsewhere.
I'm glad you spotted that and saved me the trouble, MRW. I blogged excerpts from that review three or four days ago.
There's no comparison because the people of Gaza once upon a time could buy motorcycles and the people of Darfur never have been able to? In both cases, human-rights abuses are taking place at the hand of a government and in both cases, there is a foreign power trying to divert attention away from the issue.
No, what he's saying is that it's hypocritical to talk about the abuses taking place in one country whilst completely ignoring (and in some cases even supporting) abuses taking place in other places
There is oil in the Darfur region which is why there is fighting. The humanitarian meme is an excuse for us to be there putting our fingers in the pie for control. Once again heart strings are pulled for the service of the money men, in other words once again the Jewish network is used to benefit a few of the Madoff types on top. link to gasandoil.com
What a great line!
Hey Yoni C, why don't you try to respond to his details, supporting what he says? We're not all hasbara jews watching this blog.
Waltz with rabid Jews, such racial music! Hip hop, logic flop. Shmaltz louts.
No one can possibly take Jews seriously on issues of genocide in Darfur or else until they show acknowledgment, remorse, contrition, and atonement for the massive Jewish crimes (including targeted assassinations, mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide) against humanity since the 1850s both in E. Europe, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and the ME. Harvard Book Store: Mamdani, Darfur Haaretz Confirms: Two Separate Holocausts Nevertheless, studying Sudan and Darfur can help explain the lies and distortions of Zionist identity politics: Modern Identity Creates Ancient Origins.
Untrue. Arabs STEAL vehicles, they don't BUY them. Car theft (and theft of trucks, tractors, etc) is a NATIONAL ENTERPRISE among "Palestineans". The other point, though, is correct. "Palestineans" live MUCH MUCH better than MILLIONS of people in other places and get undue support – mainly from people who are more anti-Jewish than pro-Arab. It is confusing for some of you…
Correct. How many people have been MASSACRED in Darfuf by Islamic forces in the name of ALLAH THE MERCIFUL? How many have been killed in Gaza in the same period, no matter how you view their killing? If MondoLies had any interest in improving the human condition, it would harp on Islamic Crimes in Darfur. Instead, MondoLies is obsessed with an imaginary "Palestine". This is telling…
You accuse others of being anti-Semitic yet you don't realise how racist your comments are. Stop trolling. No-one gives a crap what you have to say anymore
Thors, you are such a broken record.
Ha! Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (MondoLies even interviewed him) is an EXPERT at retrieving stolen vehicles! When Israeli elites find their Volvos and Mercedes missing, they call Ahmed Tibi who calls his contacts in Pal towns and, voila, in a few hours the car is returned! I dare MondoLies to ask Tibi about this… I can even bring references to high-level incidents where Tibi has done this. You simply know nothing about life in Israel. If the Pals would disappear, crime rates in Israel would plummet, perhaps 90%. Check it out for yourself.
Bullshit. I know fourty or so people that are working seriously and hard on Darfur for benevolent and politically astute motives, not your cynical attribution.
Nobody should ignore suffering, no matter where it occurs. But we all have a responsibility to put our own house in order. It is so easy to focus on an issue that has less ambiguity for you, that doesn't have the same personal costs, that allows you to feel self righteous without real self examination. We should question that.
What nonsense. Why would we fast for Gaza where they were firing thousands of rockets at Israelis? Where they hatched and attempted terror attacks daily? Would you fast for Mexicans if they were firing rockets at your house? Then again when people like Joachim Martillo aka ThorsProvoni post their Jew hatred on here, its no surprise to read the venom here.
Ethnic cleansing? There are about a billion Arabs and growing all the time.
As if Jewish Zionist hasbarah about Jewish rights to Palestine or about the unique Jewish tragedy of the Holocaust isn't a broken record! Until Jews collectively show some signs of acknowledging that Jewish behavior in Central and E. Europe since approximately 1850 that Zionism has always been wrong and evil, decent people whether Jewish or not have the ethical obligation to treat Zionists and Jews babbling about genocide like puppies that just pooped on the living room carpet. It is necessary to shove Zionist noses into the stench of Zionist lies and make sure that Zionists are treated with completely deserved scorn and contempt. Obviously, many should be imprisoned for aiding and abetting Zionist terrorism with concomitant seizure of all assets.
The case of Stalin's genocide being masterminded by Jews is so laughable one of your proofs goes, "Yagoda was demoted and executed, and was replaced as chief hangman in 1936 by Yezhov, the "bloodthirsty dwarf." Yezhov was not Jewish…" Although it's okay to acknowledge that some of the Red Terror apparatchniks were Jewish, that's no evidence of a "Jewish" genocide any more than Zionism is a "Jewish" movement (actually, I do find it offensive when Zionism is passed off as such). Also, the Ha'aretz article says the Holocaust was less industrialized, methodical and documented in the Soviet Union than in Eastern Europe. We all knew that already. The testimony doesn't paint a picture of a Ukrainian holocaust independent of the Germans and Desbois doesn't even try to argue that. His "two Holocaust" remark only means the Germans operated in a more haphazard fashion.
so, is Nazi the buzzword that made my first message moderated?
guess not
If you're a rabbi at the URJ and you say nothing about Israel's persecution of the Palestinians, rather take on a safe cause against a regime that has no defenders in the political class, it does show moral cowardice. Also, what are supporters of the Palestinians supposed to do about the death penalty in the PA? Ask Israel to do a regime change? Because in case you haven't got it, there is no leftwing anti-Zionist who supports the PA. And the fact that Israel trains PA security ought to tell you they're not bothered by that law. The IDF can confiscate Palestinian land anytime it wants.
I am hardly the only person that has observed that the Soviet government was more not less Jewish after the purges. Slezkine, Volkogonov and Harshav have all made the same observation at one time or another. Yezhov was not Jewish but was blessed with a politically active Jewish wife who worked the Jewish networks of trust within the Soviet hierarchy. Kaganovich outlived Stalin in the Soviet government. In general these networks like those in the USA have a predilection for non-Jewish shills. In addition, a lot of Soviet Jews did not have Jewish nationality. I have identified some Soviet institutions, where in theory the Jewish percentage was less than 10% even though in reality it was closer to 90%. The nature of Jewish identity among Jews in the Soviet hierarchy is fairly active area of scholarly debate and research, but I did notice when I was working in the Russian Federation that a large percentage of former Soviet believers discovered their inner Zionist with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Lev Kopelev considered Jews to be the main planners and perpetrators of the Holodomor and felt quite guilty about the role that he played in starving peasants. In my experience, he was very much an exception among Soviet Jewish officials.
"a large percentage of former Soviet believers discovered their inner Zionist with the collapse of the Soviet Union" – This proves what, exactly? Former Soviet officials discovered their inner capitalist and neoliberal when they sold off state assets. And let's not forget how the US govt. discovered the evil of Saddam Hussein after August 1990. It's no big secret that politicians can be ideologically flexible. You're convinced Jews were in charge of the USSR, yet outside of the 1948-1953 period when Stalin was interested in removing the Brits from the middle east, he was hostile to Zionism and even set up the Jewish Autonomous Region in Birobidzhan. The Zionist run USSR encouraged Jews to move to a remote eastern part of Russia near Korea and on top of that even the JAR leadership was purged in the 30's. While Zionism was a secular movement, it sought religious legitimacy wherever it went. The USSR was no better to synagogues than Russian orthodox churches. Also, the first part of my response was moderated. I cry foul.
In 1948, as is fairly well-known, Ben Gurion declared the independence of Israel from Britain, and aligned Israel with the US, thus permanently marginalising any pro-Soviet elements that might have remained in the Israeli Labor Party. Naturally enough, Stalin, having disposed of the Trotskyites, did his best to dispose of any remaining zionists in the Russian Communist apparatus, they now being considered 'anti-Soviet'.
Jew-hatred comes more often in the form of ignorance, Naf. BTW, who is "we" in the "why would we fast" This past week a law made it through the first reading in the Knesset that would give African refugees without documentation 7-20 years in prison. Those who might assist them, i.e. make their life more comfortable in any way, also would face 7-20 years. Seeing as Darfur is one of the regions which Israel has insisted on sending refugees back to (despite repeated comparisons of the situation for Jewish refugees), to their own death and disappearance, I find just as large a contradiction in that this move would not be directed towards Israeli policy on Asylum, instead on something vague that might be able to be blamed on Muslims. Oh look – you've already broadened the scam to "jew-haters" in general, how lovely. I was in Sderot last week – it was much more pleasant than the refugee camp I was living in in Nablus. Don't think rockets are so bad. Darfur is definitely worse than both – and Israel's policy on Darfur (as well as weapons sales) are killing more people than in Palestine or near Gaza. Get a grip. If Israel is so important to you and the story of refuge and all of the horrible things happening to "us" – maybe you should work for CURRENT refugees.
(Rowan's being sarcastic and showing the stupidity of your argument in the first post)
You have a point but it should not be forgotten that the missionary attitude is also this. The attitude of I'm a good person and I can help. Sometimes the best way to help is to mind your own business.
Clearly you know nothing about refugee status. People can claim refugee status once they have left the land in which they are endangered. After that, they are not refugees but merely fast-track immigration shoppers. Israel most definitely does NOT return people to Darfur – you are plainly lying on this point. Israel COULD (but I think does not) deport illegal immigrants to the last country they came from, provided that they are not endangered there. Every country makes use of this understanding of refugee status. Israel tends to ALLOW refugees from Darfur who have been smuggled into Israel by Bedouin Arabs from Egypt, even though, they probably should be sent back to Egypt. In short, Israel is VERY GENEROUS to refugees from Darfur and DJAOBUS IS A LIAR. Your Nablus is not a refugee camp, it is a UN-sponsored terrorist base, but that is a matter for another day…
A totally ridiculous argument that brings the antisemites like Joachim Martillo out of the woodwork. There is no comparison between Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, many raped and hacked to death, and Gaza.
The Rabbi does what's good for the Jews as so many other Jews. When are Americans finally going to do what's good for Americans?