In early May, Cindy and Craig Corrie, parents of the late Rachel Corrie, learned that the Washington State Attorney General, Rob McKenna, was one of 10 state Attorney Generals to sign on to a March 30th letter to Secretary of State Clinton lending legal endorsement to the Israeli attacks in Gaza in December and January. Shockingly, the letter analogizes the Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and says that both attacks invited "disproportionate" responses–war. Cindy Corrie describes her response:
When the news broke on our various lists, there were many concerned folks here who set to work to find out what had occurred. The AG’s office started to get phone calls and emails. Through one, we learned that, in fact, the AG had signed the letter to Clinton, and we were sent a copy. As you will see, it comes from the ten "Chief Legal Officers" of their respective states and is stunning in its inaccuracies, omissions, and findings.
For us in Washington State (who had been working tirelessly since the Israeli attacks began in December with our expanding statewide network, the Save Gaza Campaign) this was too much.
We had seen something similar in our State Senate in January, when immediately after the inaugural week-end, a Christian-right member of the Senate with encouragement apparently from a Stand With Us group successfully introduced a resolution celebrating the wonderful democracy of Israel and the 60th anniversary of its first election–and also the Israeli-U.S. relationship. We got wind of this on the week-end, only a couple days before a vote, and tried to flood state senate offices with calls and emails and to get the resolution postponed, at least. While some receptionists seemed to get the message, the members themselves were all away watching the inaugural activities, apparently; because on Tuesday morning at 10 AM, when the State Senate reconvened, their first item of business was to pass this resolution unanimously–as bodies were still being pulled from the rubble in Gaza. Clearly, the resolution had been brought forward to lend support to Israel when a growing number were questioning Israeli military actions. Craig and I had gone off to the State Capitol to try to talk to people about this, and I managed to slip into the gallery as the vote was taken. Maybe half the Senators were on the floor. One walked in late and said he had just heard what had taken place and he thought the Senate might consider more carefully what it chose to address (something to that effect). But that was the only objection to this resolution celebrating Israel–no mention of the previous 22 day massacre in Gaza. Three co-sponsors spoke in favor of the resolution. And the twenty-five or so in the gallery from Stand With Us were asked to stand for recognition (like the boy scout troops and school groups that visit). This resolution, too, was to be sent to Secretary of State Clinton and–as a State Senator told us later–these resolutions are meant to reflect the "sense of the Senate."
I later found out that resolutions supporting Israel or Israel’s actions in Gaza had been introduced and passed at the same time in Colorado and North Dakota, too. Maybe there were more places. Craig and I were outraged by this–with the resolution and the timing of it. We did get a statement from the Senate Majority Leader saying that the passage of the resolution was a mistake and a promise to change the procedures for the remainder of the session so that resolutions with foreign policy implications would have to first go to committee for review.
Working with the Save Gaza Campaign, we tried to come up with more of a response, but felt that we delayed too long. So when this matter with the state Attorneys General surfaced, we were determined to act on it. Across the state, people who know anything about Gaza were and continue to be very disturbed by the AG letter, too. There has been a successful email and phone campaign. The AG was on a local NPR segment for an hour program–set up to talk about other matters, I’m sure–but the first 20 minutes were devoted to the AG Clinton letter.
Otherwise, there has not been media attention to the story, though we have tried. Concerned groups and individuals asked to meet with the AG.
Finally, in mid-July, we got our meeting with him and his Chief of Staff, Randy Pepple. Pepple is new to the AG staff, and it’s been widely publicized that his hiring signals McKenna’s interest in running for Governor in 2012 or for the U.S. Senate. McKenna is a popular, moderate Republican. Our meeting was quite extraordinary and powerful. Fourteen (many who had been in Gaza at various times), took just over an hour to set the record straight. We took with us the rebuttal to the AG letter written by George Bisharat and signed by nine other international legal scholars and attorneys.
As Tom Nelson, a member of Washington State Bar and the National Lawyers’ Guild Delegation that went to Gaza this year, said, we had just the right amounts of analysis, fact, and emotion. He thought it one of the best meetings of its kind that he had attended.
I was touched particularly by Ramzi Baroud whose father died in Gaza during the siege because he couldn’t get out for a medical diagnosis and by another participant who identified as a Jewish member of our local Temple Beth Hatfiloh. She said that as a Jew, she was “totally offended and disempowered” by the Attorney General’s letter to Clinton. “Somehow, I felt it was done in my name–that it was done for Israel and for Jews–and the letter is so divorced from the facts.”
We presented requests and we will wait a few weeks for McKenna’s response to those–until he meets with those who support his letter. But you’ll see that he made some small concessions already–to say that he would go to Gaza if the opportunity arose and that while it was unlikely that the same approach to such a letter would occur again, if he did get such a letter he would consult with individuals and groups represented in our meeting.
I think the change in approach he refers to must be with the NAAG (National Association of Attorneys General) whose DC office circulated the letter to the fifty state AGs with a deadline for return. Ten signed. We are trying to determine who authored the letter. We know it was the President of NAAG–the AG from Rhode Island–who told the DC office to circulate it. We know from FOIA that it was discussed by one of the AG’s at one of their earlier meetings.
Another interesting bit we learned through FOIA is that that there is an e-mail from the AG’s communications director, Dan Sytman, to Akiva Tor (Israeli Consul General at the Consulate in San Francisco) in which he refers to criticism from "anti-Israel groups" and a few paragraphs later says that the AG will be meeting with "some of those groups," including the parents of Rachel Corrie. So by inference the AG’s communications director has lumped Craig and me with "anti-Israel" groups–a label that most who objected to the AG’s actions would, I believe, feel was incorrectly applied to them and to Craig and me, and is objectionable. I have not read all of this FOIA but my daughter and others point out that Tor told McKenna that all he needed to do was say the word and they would have the Jewish Federation in Seattle ready for the call-in talk shows when they come.
I pointed out in the McKenna meeting that there were others he might turn to for information if he was interested in truth rather than simply "countering" criticism. I suggested that even our U.S. Department of State or some of the people in the room might be good resources. I quoted Michele Bernier-Toff, Managing Director of the Office of Overseas Citizen Services at the Department of State who wrote to us in March 2008, “We have consistently requested that the Government of Israel conduct a full and transparent investigation into Rachel’s death. Our requests have gone unanswered or ignored.”
I suggested to AG McKenna that if the Israeli Government couldn’t in nearly seven years get viable information to the U.S. Government about one American’s killing, that he might not want to rely on the Consul-General for information about all that happened in Gaza.
When the AG’s office wrote to Akiva Tor or to the Consulate, the staffer apparently said that AG McKenna was getting criticism from many "anti-Israel" groups and Cindy and Craig Corrie. Interestingly, Akiva Tor is one who later led the attack in San Francisco trying to censor the film Rachel– and me, from responding to questions about the film. Mr. Tor does not like the work we are doing in Washington State. I know it’s possible to get caught up in a story and to have it feel bigger than it really is. But I think it’s intriguing to see how pieces of the issue play out on a state level and then spill over–in this case to San Francisco.
I’ve been thinking about this problem. It’s money, and I’ve finally realized in part why. Christians give money to charities to alleviate suffering, meaning not exclusively but largely to Christian-based charities that work directly with affected parties (churches, Catholic charities, this-or-that, whatever). My Jewish friends prefer to make charitable donations (again, not exclusively, but in good part) not so much to private or Jewish based i.e. religious charities, but to political causes, believing that this is a better way to promote general welfare.
That’s not a conspiracy at all; it’s a difference of opinion about how best to promote general welfare: via political or direct channels of relief.
The problem is, Jewish political giving even by largely apolitical donors tends to give a hugely disproportionate amount of influence to anyone who claims to speak for Jews. Even Jewish friends who were totally appalled by Gaza gave money to political causes this year, but didn’t bother to protest or revoke their giving (assuming they could) when right-wing Zionists presumed to speak in their interests.
So, a question. How can well-meaning people of all religions settle this? I personally think the direct-aid channel is the best way to alleviate hunger, poverty, homelessness, etc. But I don’t want to lose political clout, either. Does this mean I should redirect charitable giving to politicians, solely to combat Zionist influence? That seems a purely anti-Semitic thing to do – and at the cost of people whose suffering I could alleviate.
What else can I do?
Let’s not kid ourselves, it’s 2 separate things. People don’t give to political causes to help humanity, they give to have a say in policy. That’s also true of the finance industry people who contribute to Barney Frank, who regulates and deregulates them. But people with money get that way by not wasting it. The reputation of The Lobby is so fierce that people don’t think they can be beat, so even people who disagree with their policy don’t bother opposing them, and focus on other issues. If someone can wound The Lobby then everyone else smelling blood will swarm in and pick it apart. But someone else always has to go first.
You should actually look in to Jewish giving.
The reason that there are so many Jewish names on Harvard buildings (as Phil referred), or hospital wings, is because of millions of dollars donated for social welfare.
Political giving is relatively insignificant, and I mean insignificant.
I think it can be–not always–a bit of a fiction to distinguish between giving money to Harvard and other universities and giving money to politicians.
Both entities have a great deal of say over the shaping of public opinion.
And while it is no doubt true that Jewish contributions to politicians pale in comparison to Jewish contributions to general social services or charities, I think that distinction can be made of any ethnic group. The vast majority of American “giving” does not go to politicians.
Having said that, political contributions by Jews, at least to the democratic party, as a percentage are far, far above Jewish percentage in the general population. I have heard estimates of 50%. And by this, I don’t mean Joe Blow from Brooklyn giving $100 to his democratic congressman. I mean institutional political organizations.
And those institutions give in order to influence policy–just as every institution does so.
I didn’t write to Hillary Clinton, but after the 10 days of Hamas incremental escalation of shelling of first desert then Sderot then Ashkelon then to Beersheba, I also concluded that war had been initiated by Hamas, and that a strong military response was appropriate.
I changed my mind, confusedly, later in the process, when it became obvious that Israel had reduced the degree of discipline that it was undertaking to distinguish between civilian and military or military associated targets.
Richard, did you write to Clinton to rectify your mistake? If not, why?
Generally speaking, do you think your approach is essentially a religious/nationalist one — that is, do you think you are more concerned about Jews than Palestinians? If so, why?
I changed my mind only about the extent of the Israeli military response and the degree of indiscipline in rules of engagement and practice.
I did not change my mind that a military response was necessary, or that Hamas had functionally declared war on Israel, insisting by its escalation of shelling of civilians, that Israel respond militarily.
Richard, you didn’t answer the second question. What do you think? Are Israeli lives worth more than Palestinian ones? If so, is that because they’re Jewish? If not, then why do you side with Israelis reflexively, only to reconsider your position later?
There is nothing reflexive about my perspective.
I believe that in almost all circumstances, between individuals that are willing to listen to each other, there is a means to reconcile.
I don’t believe that Hamas is naturally willing to listen to Israel, towards reconciling, and I don’t believe that likud is.
Both require some external influences to do what is in their communities’ interests.
When dissidents apologize for terror in any way, for example, by equating intended attacks on Hamas militia with attacks on Gazan civilians, they willfully (knowingly) put Gazan civilians into danger and a state of being manipulated.
BOTH the likud over-reaction, AND the Hamas civilizational human shield, is repugnant.
I wish you would agree.
To NOT confront Hamas shelling civilians, for Israel not to do that, and for dissenters not to do that, amounts to an active encouragement of terror.
I’m sure that the Corrie’s don’t mean to encourage military assaults on civilians, but sadly, in the case of Hamas immediately after the cease-fire, their and Phil’s analysis did do that.
Gellian–
That’s the sort of question that Witty will never answer. At best, he might “respond” to it, but he won’t answer it.
When Hamas proposes a ceasefire and Israel turns it down and refuses to negotiate with Hamas, it could just as well be said that Israel is giving them a green light to shell Sderot. It is certainly saying that they would rather see Hamas shelling Sderot than actually conclude an agreement with Hamas whereby they wouldn’t do it.
There is also the question of the blockade on Gaza. Witty would never favor a blockade of harshness imposed on Israel until they stop their violence and oppression against Palestinians. The blockade as an act of war against the Palestinians in Gaza doesn’t register with him.
This is shameful. What the hell are the state AGs doing, getting involved in the US’ foreign policy? The Lobby has infested every nook and cranny of the US political system, and even has pull the puppet strings of our state attorney generals to get them to mindlessly spew hasbara. They should instead be investigating how taxpayer dollars are being siphoned off to fund the Palstinian apartheid, and to pay for modified Caterpillar bulldozers to kill Rachel Corrie.
It’s also downright disgraceful to see how Rachel’s parents are treated by the Zionist brigade. I agree completely with the posters of Mondoweiss who claim that everytime a Zionist badmouths Rachel Corrie, it calls attention to the moral deficiency of their side.
Its interesting how these people come out of the woodwork on this type of issue when it has nothing to do with their responsibilities. I imagine they all had some promises made by some pro Israel groups to instigate this silly letter.
One thing that does intrigue me however. The letter quotes, 730 Isarelis killed by Hamas rockets since 2005 and the number of rockets themselves in the thousands, can anyone find any data to collaborate these figures. I looked but the numbers didn’t even come close.
That the AG of ten or so US states would sign their name to the letter, with it’s cartoon hasbara take on the facts of the I-P situation, is truly horrifying to me. The responsive letter Phil refers to lays out the essential facts these AGs overlooked. Witty still won’t admit that Israel broke the lull leading up to Israel’s assault on the Palestinian collective. So, Israel is attacked by the Palestinian collective just as the US was attacked by Imperial Japan? And we should be giving kudos to Israel for being more humanitarian than the US who declared war on Japan after it attacked us at Pearl Harbor? Nice to know our top elected and appointed leaders, including those with a legal education, are using trash bin comixs for their version of reality.
As every Jew knows, Jews have a tradition of using comixs to further their aims:
link to jpsinteractive.org
Now, let’s see, what popular Comic Book sports a hero out to save the day for helpless Palestinians, for example? Er, any comic book? Where’s even the Maus for
the Pals? Too much to ask of American underground?
How many of you know about the comic book Palestine?
link to holycr4p.com
I didn’t know about the comic – but it’s on its way now. Thanks for the cite!
I think one silver lining to this revelation is that 40 AGs did not sign on to the letter, whether through tardiness or the realization that it is none of their business trying to provide legal cover for foreign country’s actions!
@Gellian Does this mean I should redirect charitable giving to politicians, solely to combat Zionist influence? That seems a purely anti-Semitic thing to do – and at the cost of people whose suffering I could alleviate.
I don’t see how that would be anti-Semitic ? On this site we’ve long ago agreed that anti- or non-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.
Good point, Ahmed. Excellent, actually. I suppose what I’m also wondering is, if I give my (limited) amount of money to politics instead of charities, who wins? Not the people who need help the most, I want to say, thinking of the charity recipients who would get it through private charities. On the other hand, if enough of us did it, we could help Palestinians out, who are I think without a doubt suffering more than any other group of people on planet Earth.
Would the best solution be, give money to Palestinian charities? That would work except Israel blocks the money and confiscates the goods. And you might even be accused of funneling money to terrorism!
Help!
Without having read what others have said to this article:
Congratulations Cindy and Craig Corrie. Very well done.
The very best to both of you.
Hey Gillian–
I wouldn’t give a nickel to a politician. I would direct my money directly to a “feet on the ground” charity–buy some food for the food bank, give 100 bucks to a family that got burned out, that sort of thing.
That’s just me, now, telling you what to do with your money. :)
Sorry, I mean Gellian.
No offense taken. I agree – we should help people with our money. But then how do we combat the servility of our politicians? money is the only way. It’s totally crazy. Our politicians have literally sold their power to a foreign country, and it’s neutering to think we can’t get it back.
I grant that there are many Zionist Americans, and our politicians are their politicians, too. I’m sure they don’t disagree with the stances our politicians take. I just have a very, very hard time believing all those polls their constantly trotting out to tell us how much Americans love Israel and want to continue supporting its special relationship.
Are people here familiar with Paul Findley’s Council for the National Interest, “a 501 (c) 4 non-profit, non-partisan grassroots organization advocating a new direction for U.S. Middle East policy”? Any views on how effective they are, or could be with more money?
link to cnionline.org
People are in prison today who tried to direct their charity to helping people, because the people were Palestinians.
Witty:
“AND the Hamas civilizational human shield, is repugnant.”
That’s an apology for state terrorism if I’ve heard one.
You think its a good thing that Hamas militia goads Israel into a military response, then hides, while Gazan civilians don’t get to?
How should they resist occupation? What would you recommend? (I don’t defend human shields, by the way.) Peaceful only?
Here’s a related problem. Every single Israeli serves in the military, which from one point of view (not necessarily mine) means every single Israeli is a soldier — and also a voter in their democracy, which puts in place the military policies that their armed forces pursue. That’s not true of Palestinians.
Yeah, Witty, your “reasoned, dispassionate, humane” self comes out now, eh?
I don’t buy your ridiculous rhetorical premise.
At least it’s up front, unlike your usual rhetorical obfuscations.
And I welcome that. Much more honest.
Richard, I guess it was equally “reprehensible” that the American irregulars did the same thing while fighting the British? Do you want them to die in a hail of bullets and bombs by the fourth or fifth most powerful armed forces in the world?
This might not be an exact analogy, but I think it makes a universal point –
“GIVE US YOUR BOMBERS SIR, AND YOU CAN HAVE OUR BASKETS”
Try to listen to the whole video it is only approximately 10 minutes
It was reprehensible for Hamas militia to shell civilians in the first place. It was reprehensible for Hamas to escalate the shelling UNTIL they “succeeded” in getting Israel to respond militarily. And, it was reprehensible of them to hide when the people were exposed to the military response that they invoked.
And, it is reprehensible for the left to condone it in ANY way.
At the time it was happening, Phil consistently refused to condemn the Hamas shelling. Maybe he thought it was good. Maybe he thought it was just understandable. Hopefully, he didn’t secretly hope for an Israeli over-reaction.
But, he was silent on the question, as was the majority of the “solidarity” left.
Gellian–
What the American citizenry wants or doesn’t want is of no concern to many politicians. If that were true, there would be little debate on a public option for healthcare–approved by substantial majorities of the electorate.
And I don’t think for one minute that the average citizen is capable of raising the amounts of money it would take to influence those politicians vis a vis the corporate interests that owns congress.
I believe that the only way I can make the world a better place is to help individuals. Along the I-P question, I will be attempting to influence my employer–a small town, small midwestern college–to recruit some Palestinian students from the OT’s. The college already recruits Asians, Europeans, Israelis, and Africans.
If I had the dough, I would set up a scholarship fund for a Gazan student.
So
Some Gazan students already have scholarships, but Israel won’t let them leave the Strip to accept them. This is a situation where the political situation makes it impossible to give meaningful help to individuals. Only a political solution will help, only a forceful solution.
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You keep using that word “disproportionate” I don’t think it means what you think it means. In international law “disproportionate” applies to the ratio of military advantage gained by an action compared to damage to enemy civilians caused by the action. As a term of international law, it has nothing to do with “how many they killed when they attacked us versus how many we killed when we attacked them”.
If another country declares war on you, even without firing a shot, you can attack them without it being disproportionate as long as your military purpose outweighs the civilian damage.
The relevant treaties ban disproportionate attacks, but they really mean disproportionately heavy attacks.
Blowing up a civilian building with 500 civilians and the only military objective is a single enemy soldier armed with a knife is clearly disproportionately heavy. Blowing up a military building with 500 heavily armed soldiers, and an armory, and an iPod belonging to a civilian might be disproportionately light, but international law doesn’t ban it.
One way to judge whether an attack is proportionate, is whether other countries would have made the same decision as to whether to attack under the same circumstances. If they would, then it is proportionate.
Shingo is shopping a quote around where an Israel diplomat unfortunately used sarcasm. He was making the point that Israel’s attacks are disproportionately light compared to what other countries would do in response to similar attacks by terrorists. The ambassador said ““To those countries who claim that we are using disproportionate force, I have only this to say: You’re damn right we are. Because if your cities were shelled the way ours were, if your citizens were terrorized the way ours are, you would use much more force than we are using”.
Many dishonest and anti-Semitic commenters end the quote after “damn right we are”. The full quote makes it clear that he is saying that Israel uses less force (i.e., disproportionately small force) than other countries would, not more.
This of course points out the danger of using sarcasm and using a specific meaning (disproportionately small) of a word (disproportionate) that is often used with another meaning (disproportionately large).
The danger is that dishonest people will quote the words and ignore the context and/or tone and effectively lie about what you meant while technically telling the truth about part of what you said.
Not that this is new, the same type of people talk of “splitting the baby” when they mean “dividing something” despite the fact that Solomon didn’t actually intend to split the baby.