J Street came under great pressure inside the Jewish community to have Israeli officials at its conference 2 months back. Otherwise, well– it wouldn’t be a member in good standing of Jewish leadership. Still, Israeli ambassador Michael Oren refused to go to the conference, as part of the Jewish center-right’s campaign to delegitimize J Street. Tzipi Livni also did not attend the conference, but a couple of senior members of her party, Kadima, did attend. One was Member of the Knesset Meir Sheetrit.
Sheetrit is in the news today. Haaretz reports that the Israeli government stripped thousands of Palestinians of residency in 2008. As former interior minister, Sheetrit played a prominent role in this effort. Emphasis ours:
Last year set an all-time record for the number of Arab residents of East Jerusalem who were stripped of residency rights by the Interior Ministry. Altogether, the ministry revoked the residency of 4,577 East Jerusalemites in 2008 – 21 times the average of the previous 40 years…
According to the ministry, last year’s sharp increase stemmed from its decision to investigate the legal status of thousands of East Jerusalem residents in March and April, 2008. The probe was the brainchild of former interior minister Meir Sheetrit (Kadima)..
Officials at Hamoked, which obtained the ministry data via the Freedom of Information Act, said they were concerned that some of those who lost their residency rights may not even know it.
"The phenomenon of revoking people’s residency has reached frightening dimensions," said Dalia Kerstein, Hamoked’s executive director. "The Interior Ministry operation in 2008 is just part of a general policy whose goal is to restrict the size of the Palestinian population and maintain a Jewish majority in Jerusalem. The Palestinians are natives of this city, not Johnny-come-latelys."
Sheetrit, however, insisted that the operation was necessary. "What we discovered is just the tip of the iceberg," he said. "The State of Israel pays billions of shekels a year in stipends to people who don’t even live here. We sent notices to every one of them about the intention to revoke their residency; we gave them time to appeal. Those who appealed weren’t touched."
The ministry data shows that 89 Palestinians got their residency back after appealing.
Here is another gem from Sheetrit:
We must take a neighborhood in Gaza and wipe it off the map”Cabinet Minister Meir Sheetrit, AP, 10th Feb 2008
As an aside, at J Street Sheetrit was also very concerned about the Haredi Orthodox not working in Israel, and the separate education system for the religious. As for the Palestinians, there was the attitude: we offered them everything and they still wouldn’t sign.
The left, the progressive voice in Israel, can certainly not be found in the Knesset, not from any Jewish MK. There is no Israeli Kucinich.
J Street made its choice, and it was not the progressive one. Progressives should not let themselves be coopted by this false-flag organization.
Kadima is a break off party from Likud and to look to it to find the Israeli Kucinich is silly. Maybe Labor is not Kucinich enough for you and maybe even Meretz is not Kucinich enough for you, but Hadash should definitely be Kucinich enough for you. They have four members of the Knesset, one of whom is Jewish- Dov Kheinin.
I said “Jewish MK” but Kheinin definitely counts.
Yes wondering jew, you should just look for different shades of Cheney
That’s the great big joke about Israel. The demand one thing, and act in another. J Street must invite Israeli officials! …so that those officials can very publicly snub and denigrate J Street by not showing up (no matter that J Street pretty much gives Israel what they want — but then so does Obama, and he’s still a “sekrit Arab Muslim!” in their eyes because hey, if they take the pressure of the “goyim,” they might start thinking for themselves)
And then there was the Durban conference. Israel screeched and demanded that people boycott the conference — and then quite a number of Israelis showed up, ostensibly to spit on Muslims. But Zionism isn’t racism! You better not say so!
I don’t know ANY progressive Zionists that declared that Kadima was their model. I know Ben-Ami stated sympathies with Kadima, but that was considered odd by the few associated with J Street that I know at all.
And, I don’t know of ANY progressive Zionists that regard the forced dispossession of long-time East Jerusalem residents as good.
Accurate representation (framing) is important.
Witty? What we need are progressive Zionists who regard the forced dispossession of long-time East Jerusalem residents as criminal, not merely “not good.”
Like I keep saying, your perspective is always framed as, “Is this best for the Zionist state?” And to hell with Palestinian considerations.
What policy domestic and foreign is really best for the Germans? Is it the same as the question, what is best for the Israelis? Witty?
Are you German citizen? why do you bring them up in the majority of your posts?
Warsaw versus Gaza, a country expanding into territory to its east and displacing natives to make room for a specific “elite” class, pogroms, the imprisonment of individuals ostensibly on the basis of their race and/or religion… yeah, why does he keep bringing up Germany when we’re talking about Israel?
How is that an analogy? Israel forcefully removed their “elite class” from Gaza years ago.
There were no “Elite” Germans in the Warsaw Ghetto either.
The Germans merely enforced a blockade on the Warsaw ghetto from the outside, bombed them from the outside, and pretty much de-developed them from the outside.
Sounds an awful lot like what the Israelis are doing to the Gazans, who dare to resist Israelis brutal siege and occupation.
Yes Witty, we do not agree with Kadima, we just invite them to our inaugural opening and give them prominent seats …lol
This is a very good definition of “progressive ” Zionist. Witty doesn’t know of ANY progressive Zionists that regard the forced dispossession of long-time East Jerusalem residents as good.
But do they find it bad? Maybe, maybe not. Do they protest (other then to critics of Israel)? Of course not. Will they support any kind of action that could force change on Israelis? Absolutely not under any circumstances.
Zionists don’t know what’s best for them . . . otherwise, there never would have been an Operation Cast Lead in the three weeks prior to Obama’s inauguration. The arrogance of impunity was such that there was a belief that US-taxpayer-fueled war crimes against women and children could be covered up with full-throttle hasbara.
There is a suppressed majority in this country that recognizes Israel as a rogue nation. You can see it in the comments column of any hasbaric-heavy op-ed in Fred Hiatt’s Washington Post or a Krauthammer screed. Ten-to-one that we have to stop supporting Israel. Also, the rare times the topic comes up before a studio audience on TV or before a live audience in a campus setting, there’s always jeers for the Zionist saying the IDF is the most moral army in the world, and spirited applause for the other side. The internet is empowering the masses.
Over at Orange, where the votes are safely anonymous, they invariably run heavily to the anti-I position.
Yes, that’s why the special relationship calls for the hate crime bill; we really need to
go after internet rebels just as we went after Julius Streicher. The First Amendment says so.
I tell you what Citizen, if they want to play that way it is a two way street. I will go after every bastard that spews hate speech from their quarter, and believe me there will be more in court on their side.
Would you please articulate the portions of that hate-crimes legislation which you believe outlaws criticism of Israel?
You can google the actual legislation awaiting Obama’s signature online; I read it, and it leaves the door wide open for the government to go after those who criticize
Israel, Zionism, and any Jewish organization. Once passed, at the least, it will
have a chilling effect. Better really watch your verbiage.
Here’s a summary:
link to aljazeera.com
PS. Certain Christian fundi groups are protesting the bill as they see the bill as written could be used to go after ministers who preach against homosexuality
on sundays.
Obama signed the hate crimes prevention bill into law last October 28th (it was stuck in the latest military appropriation bill).
link to cnn.com
The AG praised the key mover of the bill, the ADL in a speech to it recently;
Holder said, “The stubborn persistence of anti-Semitism saddens me” What is anti-Semitism? ADL’s Office of Global Anti-Semitism in the U.S. State Department says “anti-Semitism” means any “strong criticism” of Israel or its leaders, or claims that the Jews had Christ killed. Holder says any such anti-Semitic “hate speech” even as “a casual joke made in private when the speaker thinks no Jewish person is listening,” is very, very bad. It “should scald the conscience of every American.” He also promises that Muslims will be vigorously protected under America’s new hate law, just as they are in Canada, Britain, France and Australia.
“ADL was founded in 1913 by B’nai B’rith (“children of the covenant”) to oppose anti-Semitism. According to its website, the ADL now opposes any bias that may “tear at the fabric of our society and fragment communities.” Its model statute includes bias based not just on race, color, religion, national origin and gender but also, with this bill, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.” Citizens link to Al Jazeera
It seems to me that the ADL should try to push this in Israel, it would have a lot more application among the more virulent racist Zionists – the same goes here in the USA.
If it becomes illegal to state that the people who pressured the Romans to put Jesus to death were Jews, we may need alternates. Will it be legal to blame the crucifixion on Hindu mobs inhabiting Jerusalem? Sorry to say, the event took place before Mohammed’s time so it can’t be blamed on Muslims.
What was best for the Zionists was stopping the missiles being fired from Gaza, Caste Lead did that. DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT SUPPORT THE KILLING OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
Don’t kid yourself either, there is no majority that recognizes Israel as a rogue nation, not even in a campus setting. There are very vocal opponents of Israel who come to EVER event which is Israeli related. Then they rudely interrupt and heckle anyone who says anything remotely to their disliking.
A vocal, unruly, and moderately well organized group doesn’t equate to a suppressed majority.
Great! So why did Israel break the cease fire? That stopped the missiles quite handily.
And incidentally? You do support the killing of women and children if you support Operation Cast Lead. We don’t need another case of Wittypocrisy running rampant.
All Hamas had to do was reign in on the rockets, no Cast Lead. Olmert made it perfectly clear an ass kicking was in store if they didn’t stop the rockets.
don’t wage war from civilian areas, less collateral damage.
Hamas never broke the truce, despite constant Israeli shelling during the truce, despite dozens of farmers being shot dead during the truce, and despite the fact that Israel NEVER began the process of lifting the midieval siege they placed on the tiny territory.
Hamas even arrested people for firing rockets into Israel.
Only after Israel began launching airstrikes on the strip did Hamas retaliate.
So if you think Cast Lead was good for Israel because it stopped the rockets, then why not support the cease fire with Hamas, and work towards a real peace with the Palestinians?
Did stopping the missiles stop the process of ethnic cleansing yonira? We are not talking about a “suppressed majority” in the USA, or didn’t you know that? We are talking about the Palestinians and the slow genocidal process of a rogue fascist/racist state. Just in case you were unaware of it. So you can be happy yonira because we are not only addressing the symptom of missiles out of Gaza, but the reason why Palestinians are there and are being killed with impunity. It is a novel idea, ti is called going to the root of the problem, not the stuff of quack remedies suggested by the compliant status quo.
Hamas had already stopped the rockets from Gaza unti Israel attacked and killed Gazans. The blood of any Israelis killed in the resulting fire is on Israel’s own head.
Hamas never broke the truce, despite constant Israeli shelling during the truce, despite dozens of farmers being shot dead during the truce, and despite the fact that Israel NEVER began the process of lifting the midieval siege they placed on the tiny territory.
Hamas even arrested people for firing rockets into Israel.
Only after Israel began launching airstrikes on the strip did Hamas retaliate.
So if you think Cast Lead was good for Israel because it stopped the rockets, then why not support the cease fire with Hamas, and work towards a real peace with the Palestinians?
This is the new hasbara . . . an extention of the myth that it was a “defensive action” on the part of Israel.
The suggestion is that by killing women and children in Gaza and setting the civilization back to the stone age, Israel has won peace from the humbled Hamas terrorist faction. In other words, Operation Cast Lead was mission accomplished!
Israelis always think that collectively, they’re the smartest people on the planet, and hasbara is an “explanation” to the dim-witted goyim of its “measured” actions. Look, goyim, the IDF is “the most moral army on earth,” Hamas used women and children as “human shields,” the IDF took “every precaution to warn citizens” by dropping leaflets and sending text messages to its victims in advance . . . yada, yada, yada.
The intellectual dishonesty will be Israel’s undoing. A microcosm of this was the Fletcher v. Barghouti debate. George Fletcher flopped around pathetically, with no way to rebut the decimation of Gaza. He had to resort to namecalling, bluster, hasbara and dishonesty to counteract the cold hard truth.
The educated elite in this country are seething with anger. Not those in the fly-over states — they’re clueless thanks to the MSM. But Phil and Adam are right . . . there is a sea-change going on. Soon it will be a tidal wave.
“The educated elite in this country are seething with anger. Not those in the fly-over states — they’re clueless thanks to the MSM. But Phil and Adam are right . . . there is a sea-change going on. Soon it will be a tidal wave.”
The “educated elite”? Really? Seems like that elite is in Israel’s back pocket as much as it always has been.
I really don’t see too much difference between, say, the I-P editorial policies of the New York Times and my homestate paper here in flyover country, the Des Moines Register. However, we do lack elites such as Dershowitz and any number of well-known east coast establishment types.
Not everybody in the fly-over states are clueless thank you.
The vast majority are. Vast, vast majority. Like 99.9%, granted. But not all of us :)
pineywoodslim, the NYT doesn’t really represent the educated elite anymore. Hasn’t since at least as far back as Judith Miller.
I must clarify my position. . .
The NY Times does not represent what I refer to as the educated elite. That’s why they’re bleeding subscribers. The Times is constantly failing in its responsibility as “the newspaper of record” and following Jayson Blair and Judith Miller, it has zero credibility with people as well-informed as those who inhabit the Mondoweiss site. (Add to this, Tom Friedman’s smarmy column claiming that Americans have been trying to help Muslims for 20 years, or any Ethan Bronner front-page story on I/P and you get a sense of why I haven’t paid for a copy of the NY Times in the last four years.)
The credibility of the MSM has been in decline since its stupendous failings with “Nigerian yellowcake,” “weapons of mass destruction,” and “they hate us because of our freedoms.” Anyone on this site who believes the American mainstream press is a source of truth on the I/P situation, please chime in. Phil made an excellent point a few months ago that many American journalists are trust fund brats who don’t have to worry about next month’s mortgage, and who are free to sign up as scribes for the pro-Zionist position. The other journalists who do worry about the monthly mortgage are too scared to write truth about Israeli transgressions, lest they be ostracized from the profession.
On the “flyover states” comment, I apologize. I’ve always despised the Hollywood elites who coined this term (“flyover states” being the necessary four-hour annoyance that must be endured to live a privileged, bicoastal LA-NY lifestyle). The Hollywood types are all too happy to hoover up money from the heartland, while depicting its citizenry as rubes, philistines and racists (how ironic). What I meant was that prominent voices in our great nation are being suppressed while our tax dollars are being extracted to perpetuate an apartheid that goes against every moral fiber of our existence. Free speech? We have the most suppressed speech in the civilized world! Hate speech, anti-semitism — Dershowitz and Foxman stand ready to club you into submission and destroy you if you make a single criticism against Israel’s conduct in Operation Kill Kids.
Meanwhile, most of our countrymen are fully doped up on the MSM stories about Tiger Woods banging some cocktail waitress to care about our Middle East issues. On Google News right now, there’s 39,500 stories about Tiger’s infidelities versus 3,500 on Israel/Palestine.
Meh. I used to take offense to the term, but now that I’ve had some insight into the rest of the US and the rest of the world… it actually sort of applies, at least nowadays. And it applies because people in the Midwest, in spite of complaints they might have about being dismissed, want the notions behind the phrase to apply. They want to live small town, parochial lives, following the lead of either coast but considering New York and Los Angeles and Washington DC to be somewhere distant and irrelevant to their “perfectly safe” lives in the heartland. And of course, those of us urban dwellers who happen to live in this region get vilified for breaking that mold. So why not give the people what the want? If the vast majority of people in flyover states want to be rubes, philistines and racists, so be it.
Why are people like Sheetrit, or Livni or Oren, invited in the first place? They have a long record of standing firm for injustice and the status quo. For J Street to have any meaning whatsoever, it should be more selective. How far is it from inviting Livni to inviting Barak, or even Bibi?
I think its a vain attempt to bring conservative Zionists into the so called “moderate” J Street camp.
In a sense, J street only exists because they know that the current AIPAC dominated Zionism on capital hill will only lead to the destruction of Israel.
Unfortunately, J Street does not offer a real alternative to this reality.
I don’t think J Street should be the be-all and end-all. If it’s meant to be a lightning rod to distract people of conscience, an AIPAC-lite in sheep’s clothing, it’s another stupid idea. It calls attention to the I/P situation, creates a dialogue, and urges people to rethink their convictions.
Progressives will bolt J Street in droves if it starts to tow the AIPAC line, more than that of Jews for Peace.
” It calls attention to the I/P situation, creates a dialogue, and urges people to rethink their convictions.”
I agree with you completely here Oscar.
J-Street as an organization is basically AIPAC Lite, however, what J-Street has done is unprecedented, and that is to finally open up debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a much larger audience than before.
Just look at some of the things being said lately about Israel in the MSM after Gaza and after J-Street. Its pretty much stuff I never thought I’d be hearing until AFTER Israel finished the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
That’s nice, but it’s rather important to keep in mind that this exposure now happens in spite of J-Streets agenda, not because of it.
You know what Chaos…
Your right haha.
“Progressive Zionism” is an oxymoron. What on earth is progressive about support for ethnic cleansing and occupation? What’s different about these white racists/white supremacists is that their rabbis tell them its okay for to be a racist, a permission granted uniquely to Jews.
You are a bot aren’t you Les?
Don’t worry, yonira. Your exclusive access to trollbot software is decidedly secure.
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