The Jewish National Fund, which pays for the purchase of land for Jews in Israel, and of trees to cover up Palestinian villages, is holding a national conference in Atlanta. Activists picketed the conference, and several walked in on the conference yesterday, some identifying themselves as Jews. Among them is Lisa Adler, above, being pulled out of the room by a JNF'r.
Explains Israeli-American sociology professor Jesse Benjamin (pictured in the still, above):
"[JNF's] charter is racist in the sense that most 19th century organizations that were nationalist are racist... and it needs to be changed to catch up with the 20th and the 21st century. The land in Israel should be available to all of its citizens."
JNF is responsible for ethnic cleansing, he goes on, in that its purchases result in the expulsion of Palestinians from their land. (Thanks to Max Blumenthal)
wow, the scene in that room reminds me of beautiful lillian’s lament “Jews against Jews.”
the are not traitors they are the best of their people.
i thought i’d sneak in here the next day and plant my next comment at the top of the thread.
you are doing exactly the right thing jesse, exactly. the action itself was thrilling but more importantly the video is inspiring others to follow you. i don’ t think there’s much chance of influencing the individuals in this room but the trajectory of jnf is very doable imho. the image of the of this ‘parkland’ is being exposed for what it really is. the next generation is going to see that. hopefully rabbi’s raising money for this covering up of ethnic cleansing will eventually see this too.
i’m sorry your thread got highjacked by our resident advice giver. i hope your video gets wide exposure.
This type of activity is absolutely essential to achieving meaningful change in the Middle East. While we criticize and protest Israeli policies and actions, we must keep in mind the extent to which US Zionist organizations enable and support these actions. Without continued American Zionist support, I doubt that Israel could continue on its present course, and would likely have to reach some sort of accommodation with the Palestinians and the neighboring Arab states.
They would have been more effective if they went into the meeting quietly and handed out literature, then made themselves available for questions either in the lobby or outside.
The effect of a disruption usually does not change people’s views. Some content has to reach peoples’ ears for them to consider alternative views.
If they are committed to the effort, then they will do the quiet work, and not just the self-gratifying.
RW’s alternate history:
“In the early 1960s, black American college students would have been more effective if they had quietly waited outside the segregated lunch counters and restaurants, handed out literature, and made themselves available for questions.
“Causing disruptions by actually sitting in at the lunch counters and preventing people from eating did not change peoples’s views.
“The black students should have done quiet work, instead of being self-gratifying.”
>> RW’s alternate history
RW is a “humanist” who believes in “justice”. As long as events do not inconvenience Jews / Zionists / Israelis, they’re all good. The moment J/Z/I are inconvenienced, the world is darkened by maximalism, destabilization and revolution.
Thank goodness for “resilient and energetic” Palestinians – they know their place.
So the purpose of their demonstration was not to influence the views and approaches of those in the room?
But, to achieve some international acknowledgement?
James,
Your post demeans the college students that QUIETLY went into lunch counters and simply sat in.
Do you honestly believe that disruption is a superior organizing approach to discussion?
I got that you got a rush from seeing the disruption James.
And we “get” that you aren’t here to change minds and argue honestly, but get a rush from being a troll.
That’s Witty for you, PEP (progressive except for Palestine) to the bone.
I honestly convey my reaction to seeing a bunch of dissenters disrupt a meeting, yelling insults at the attenders, then whine about how they were mistreated by the attendees, rather than actually convey their views.
Its a cowardly form of dissent, a broadcast, a decision to NOT communicate with others that might have inconvenient perspective (to the dissenters).
Discussion implies two reasonable and equally positioned sides, which is why I would discourage discussion with you, and point out that zionists avoid discussion in general because they know that their perspectives are not based on facts and truth sustainable under discussion. They are based on power.
Like the majority of Palestinians are not terrorists, the majority of Israelis are not bigots.
There is a reasonable majority, but chased away.
“There is a reasonable majority, but chased away.”
Nonsense. Israel gets nothing but love from American politicians and most pundits, where even the gentlest of criticism is met with hysterical denunciations.
>> Its a cowardly form of dissent, a broadcast, a decision to NOT communicate with others that might have inconvenient perspective (to the dissenters).
When a group of Jewish “dissenters” disrupts a meeting, they are cowardly non-communicators. When IDF soldiers disrupt peaceful humanitarian protests and shoot high-velocity tear gas canisters at protestors’ heads and live ammunition into their bodies, they are bravely facing down “destabilization” and “maximalism”.
Your hypocrisy couldn’t be any more clear. Thanks for that.
By coincidence I caught a movie on late night TV last night, Deacons for Defence, and learned something new about the civil rights movement. Based on the real life story of the Deacons for Defence and Justice who successfully used armed resistance to the Ku Klux Klan in parts of the South where the police refused to protect their rights. They (the Deacons) have been largely forgotten in histories of the civil rights movement, with all emphasis being placed on MLK and non-violent methods.
We continually return to issues of violence and non-violence here, I suppose we need to. I’m not advocating equivalent armed resistance in Palestine, but I won’t condemn it either – at least attacks on non-civilian targets. Israel shows none of the restraint the British did in responding to zionist terrorism in the late 1940s, or for the most part was shown by the state in the civil rights/anti-Vietnam demonstrations in the 1950s and 60s. How many Kent State Shootings has Israel perpetrated by now? Hundreds, at least.
Richard Witty seems to categorise this intervention as vanity-driven violence. Yet
the sort of resistance and campaigning RW advocates will amount to nought, and I can only presume that is the intention. Sometimes it is necessary to be loud, and brash, and disruptive. This is an issue of life and death and many zionists seem willingly oblivious to that. There is a need to wake them to the urgency of the situation.
Or to quote Cher, “snap out of it.“
I don’t advocate for resistance. I advocate for persuasion.
I don’t advocate for resistance. I advocate for persuasion.
Said the spider to the fly.
I don’t see any choice and remain an advocacy of democracy.
Do you honestly?
The Jewish people attending that event were dissenters, not resistance fighters.
Did they achieve anything except to evoke a Pavlovian reaction here?
Could they have achieved more by other methods?
You don’t want to even ask those questions?
Richard: Your contention that Jesse Benjamin and the other demonstrators were too aggressive is at least arguable.
But then you completely undermine yourself by calling the demonstrators “cowards” and suggesting they are motivated by “self-gratification.”
Here you contradict your own stated values. You want us to speak nicely to people at the JNF, despite its crimes (about which you have nothing at all to say). But then instead of speaking nicely to us, you call us “cowards” and “self-gratifiers.” How do you ever expect to persuade any of us?
Your double standard is once again obvious. You ignore the crimes on your side, (such as the physical assaults the small band of demonstrators suffered at the hands of the JNF), while repeatedly criticizing us.
This ludicrous double standard was also evident in your comments on Phil’s profile of Lillian Rosengarten. You had nothing to say about the Israeli naval armada that captured a nonviolent little boat with 9 people in it, most of them elderly, and tasered at least one of them, the great Yonatan Shapira.
Instead, you found fault with Lillian for not accepting a sandwich from her attackers!
Remember: by your own standards you are not allowed to be snarky in your responses to me and others. You must quietly and nicely try and ‘persuade,’ ‘make the better argument.’
>> You must quietly and nicely try and ‘persuade,’ ‘make the better argument.’
The onus is on everyone but the hypocritical, supremacist “humanists” to “make ‘better wheels’” or “humanize ‘the Other’”. To suggest otherwise is to be destabilizing and revolutionary.
It’s all part of a twisted mindset in which rewarding criminals for their crimes equals “justice”, and on-going oppression and theft is applauded for the opportunity for “resilience and energy” it provides.
The choice to disrupt rather than to listen and to talk is cowardly.
More persuasive means of dissent is possible.
Lillian’s comment on not accepting sandwiches (the headline of the post by the way) was reminiscent of a personal experience, in which I was arrested in a mass arrest of anti-Vietnam demonstrators and was denied a sandwich.
You present their experience as a cause celebre, when apparently their treatment was moderate compared to what could have been. Complaining about being slightly roughed around (I know a taser is not that), is naive.
Their effort was courageous, willing to take risk for the benefit of others.
Its non-violent civil disobedience, willing to accept the consequences of the actions, even if excessive.
I don’t trust what I read here even from honest Phil, so I won’t make a judgement on the veracity of statements of the degree of harm that they experienced.
Eljay,
Any action that is less than informed persuasion is dismissed.
That is the significance of making the better argument, that the perspective actually gets listened to by more than the gullible and converted.
Richard: Calling us “gullible and converted” is snarky. Can you dispense with the insults, and just make the better argument?
Propaganda appeals to the gullible and the converted, both anti-Zionist and Zionist. I thought that that was a large component of your thesis, that Israel right-or-wrong advocates were gullible and converted.
I contend that the left appealing by propaganda, rather than persuasion, is similar.
You differ?
I’ve stated my recommendations for more effective dissent at length.
In particular to regard BOTH narratives as true, that the either/or approach is the innaccurate one.
That the orientation of dissent should be on current human rights considerations, NOT 1948.
And, that the effort of dissent should be for interaction and integration to the extent that it is possible rather the isolation as represented by BDS of academia and cultural institutions and communities.
Further, that dissenters should encourage the development of moderate non-nationalist civil political parties.
Sober, responsible, effective work, that will make change. The presence of non-nationalist parties would give Palestinians a path to full participation in government. And there would be significant constituencies that would join such parties, particularly commercial interests that need Palestinian as well as Israeli talent.
But, it is NOT disruptive in orientation, but productive, invested rather than divested.
To personally divest from something that one was never invested in is not a change. And, to organize divestment of another is to seek isolation.
Day by day, it begins to appeal to me, if Israel continues to turn further to the right. But, only reluctantly, not with anything but internal conflict.
>> Any action that is less than informed persuasion is dismissed.
>> That is the significance of making the better argument, that the perspective actually gets listened to by more than the gullible and converted.
You have made it clear that the onus is on everyone but Israelis to make those ‘better arguments’ and you have set yourself up as arbiter of what constitutes ‘better arguments’. Your bias is far too obvious.
I thought propaganda was falsehood and massaged “facts”. These protesters were attempting to introduce real, unmassaged truth as opposed to the glib lies of the JNF, to an audience raised and fed on nothing but propaganda, unwilling (quite obviously from their responses) to face reality, or to have the Israel of their imagination supplanted and replaced by the Israel of fact.
Your contention of the “left appealing by propaganda” is simply your own propaganda and disinformation.
The presence of non-nationalist parties would give Palestinians a path to full participation in government. And there would be significant constituencies that would join such parties, particularly commercial interests that need Palestinian as well as Israeli talent.
You may know a thing or two about New England (I don’t know enough to judge), but if you believe the above, you know absolutely nothing about Israel. There is no arrogance like the arrogance of the ignorant.
I don’t trust what I read here
Or bother to do any research or provide any substantiated evidence to the contrary. Merely casting aspersions is intellectually lazy and dishonest.
Richard: Your flip tactics have even annoyed Shmuel, the most patient of men. Is it finally time to reconsider your approach?
Maybe you could take another look at Wondering Jew’s posts and comments? He takes the issues seriously, and is courageous enough to recognize when he’s not sure.
“Richard Witty seems to categorise this intervention as vanity-driven violence.”
Now wait a minute! If I am not mistaken, Richard has his own history with demonstrating, and everybody must judge others in the light of their own experience. It can’t be helped.
I think Richard is telling us a great deal more about his own attempts at political commitments and how he handled them than he is telling us about these “dissenters”.
Shmuel,
Have you tried starting such a party?
Certainly, EVERY dissenting approach is an uphill one. The significance of forming a non-nationalist party is that it is the picture of what a single state would look like.
If you don’t feel that a party could form to accomplish that, then you must have virtually no hope in a single state.
I didn’t create the dilemma of the difficulty of persuasion to live and let live between two communities that are at loggerheads.
Avram Burg suggested similar a few months ago. Although Phil loved his decolonizing the mind book, he dismissed, even ridiculed the prospect of such a non-nationalist party.
Shmuel,
Even your dismissal of my suggestion is incomplete. Do you mean that such a party would have difficulty forming and achieving votes, or do you mean that such a party would be suppressed?
I thought that you acknowledged that any of the proposed solutions could not be accomplished without deliberation and time. And, if you are going to be patient, better that you patiently construct something that will make permanent change, no?
Uphil or not.
Please explain to the unconverted.
“Did they achieve anything except to evoke a Pavlovian reaction here?”
How the hell does Pavlov enter into it? Were these “dissenters” saying that Jews will salivate at the sound of a bell?
“Pavlovian”, sure, Richard.
Also,
The extent of my research includes daily reads of Haaretz, Steve Walt’s columns, here, NY Times, American Prospect, the Nation, Washington Post.
The audience for your commentary is within a cul-de-sac. Whenever the audience extends beyond the cul-de-sac the cadre come out and declare that the movement is being coopted (consider the articles on the increased Jewish involvement in the Sheikh Jarrah demonstrations).
It will take skill and impressions from beyond your own circles for the message and goal to extend to the general public.
It is NOTHING to organize a disruption of a meeting, beyond feel good.
As far as my “activist credentials”, I’m a long-time non-violent activist, beginning with anti-Vietnam protests, and including anti-nuclear, many environmental, cooperative movements, alternative currency movements.
My most innovative and bold was establishing the Green Island Cooperative Library, a collection of spoken audio on dissenting themes run as a subscription model, similar to netflix. Phil’s parents were early members/customers. In spite of a complete collection of Noam Chomsky lectures over a four year period, Phil was NOT a member/customer.
I contributed an inheritance to the project and it failed. I abandoned a “successful” accounting career because I had moral qualms about saving rich people money on their taxes.
I’m not a Mandela, and I’m not an insignificant dismisable liberal either. I acted, and continue to.
I seriously regard the militant only approach as an inevitably failed one. Impossible to realize shifts in Israeli or American Jewish opinion except among former or residual Jews. And, impossible to realize a critical mass movement based on consistently applied principles.
The significance of consistently applied principles, is that without that, a movement to isolate Israel is a racist movement, not an affirmation of law.
” In spite of a complete collection of Noam Chomsky lectures over a four year period, Phil was NOT a member/customer”
Well, if that doesn’t tell any right-thinking person everything he needs to know about Phil Weiss, why, I don’t know what will! C’mon, what kind of guy doesn’t buy a complete Chomsky-on-tape to listen to in the Volvo?
Anyway, Richard, you doth protest way too much. Right on cue, too.
You’re such an insufferable narcissist Witty.
Your idea of research is to scan headlines and filter out those that don’t promulgate your fantasy about Israel being a beautiful jewel.
Do you really think that Haaretz, Walt’s columns, the NY Times, American Prospect, the Nation, and Washington Post are beyond the readership of the other commentators here?
Your reference to a cul-de-sac si nothing more than code for criticism of Israel. You’re an apologist for racism, white supremacy and human right abuses.
“It will take skill and impressions from beyond your own circles for the message and goal to extend to the general public.”
No, it will take honest reporting from the likes of the NYT and MSM, and corruption of our lawmakers to be put to an end.
“I abandoned a “successful” accounting career because I had moral qualms about saving rich people money on their taxes.”
But you have no qualms about saving racists and war criminals from justice, so long as they are from Israel.
“I seriously regard the militant only approach as an inevitably failed one.”
That’s clearly not true Witty. You are perfectly happy with Israeli militancy.
“Impossible to realize shifts in Israeli or American Jewish opinion except among former or residual Jews. ”
Actually, it’s very easy. That’s what polls are for.
“The significance of consistently applied principles, is that without that, a movement to isolate Israel is a racist movement, not an affirmation of law.”
Yes Witty, I am sure you were also opposed to the boycott of South Africa on the grounds that it was a racist movement, not an affirmation of law.
As if you ever gave a crap about the law.
1. Why does anyone care what witty thinks?
2. Zionists have a state, and their buddy the US an empire. The Left does not.
Even your dismissal of my suggestion is incomplete. Do you mean that such a party would have difficulty forming and achieving votes, or do you mean that such a party would be suppressed?
We’ve been through this before. Such a party would be unconstitutional (Basic Law: Knesset), as would all proposed legislation to change Israel’s “Jewish and democratic character”. Israel is an ethnocracy (or ethnic democracy, if you prefer Smooha’s definition), with structural safeguards to prevent equality between all citizens. There is merit to struggling “within the system” to the extent that the system (legal as well as political) allows it, but all who engage in that struggle will tell you that it cannot stand alone, precisely because of the inherent inequality of the system itself. Pressure, both internal and external, are crucial to any possibility of significant change.
What the left needs is a head, not an anger.
“I abandoned a “successful” accounting career because I had moral qualms about saving rich people money on their taxes.”
And you poured your inheritance down a failed publishing scheme, and your son ran off and joined a cult. Okay, a Jewish cult, if that makes you feel better.
I’m not sure why your insistence on telling us how you mismanaged your own life is supposed to convince us of either your veracity or sagacity, Richard. But if you think it helps, don’t let me stop you. Phil certainly isn’t.
Nice!
Almost every comment in this thread is either by Richard Witty, a response to Richard Witty, or someone talking about Richard Witty.
When I look at the sad, short RECENT COMMENTS list, all I see are posts by Richard Witty, responses to Richard Witty, or people talking about Richard Witty.
Is that what this site is supposed to be about? Is this why people post here, so they can watch Richard Witty suck all the oxygen out of the room? This site has the potential to be a valuable contribution, but not when one person is allowed to sabotage it at all.
As long as that person is still posting here, I will make no more monetary contributions to this site.
Agree on the oxygen sucking. RE: JNF, I’m glad they were not welcomed in Atlanta, and it was Jews telling them where to go. They are so cocky they didn’t even have security in place. This complacency is ending…
Obviously you think that resistance furthers the Palestinian cause. I think your comment, “this complacency is ending”, will cement the attitude of Israelis to approach the question more defensively, and then suppressively.
The “oxygen sucking” is created by the absence of skeptical questioning on the part of the left, as to their own objectives and methods.
The movement is literally cursed by its failure to distinguish its goals, and to limit its goals to legitimate mutually accepting efforts.
With your dedication, actually bother to accomplish something of merit. Don’t spin out in anger and vanity.
How old are the JNF members? Are they uneducated, unintelligent emotionally immature people who can’t be held responsible for their own beliefs? From what you say, apparently so. That’s been your clear consistent message for as long as I’ve seen you post. No Israeli and no American Israeli supporter is responsible for his or her own beliefs or actions.
Welcome to history witty… the occupation has been going on since before the 40s and resistance will never cease. No one really cares what you think, writing from imaginary liberal ideals removed from reality.
Phil ~ this isn’t an accurate description of the JNF.
In at least one instance (Canada Park) the JNF have been active inside the occupied West Bank, and there is no possible way they purchased that land, because the owners were expelled by the IDF during the 1967 war. JNF Canada never told their donors the park they were funding was not in Israel.
If you haven’t seen the half-hour Canadian documentary (1991) on the park, you must:
link to palestineremembered.com
First Sumud you are absolutely right in this instance, and there is plenty more instances of property not being bought, but being stolen, with the owners banned from reclamation.
Outside of that I have one other thing to say, we need to go toe to toe with these people in their meeting places, here and elsewhere in the states. If one of them decides they want to put their hands on you (because they did in this instance) you do not need to take that from them, if necessary you knock them right on their ass. As for RW give the advice where it belongs, to people who think they can push, shove, pull, and punch dissent out of existence. As Jesse Benjamin said in his statement, this “non-violent marching in peace syndrome” which the Palestinian people are now participating in is unsustainable, and the way Israel is moving toward further oppressive escalation resistance will get rougher, it is just a matter of time – AND IT IS PERFECTLY FINE AND ONLY HARDENED HYPOCRITES WILL CONDEMN THEM WHEN VIOLENT SELF-DEFENSE BREAKS OUT.
Yes, Sumud’s point is important. Note also that the violence is aimed at the smallest women in the group…
* The Guardian, Thursday 7 October 2010
We welcome Ed Miliband’s statement that Labour’s foreign policy should be “based on values, not just alliances” (Leader’s speech, 29 September). For too long Britain has blindly followed the US in supporting Israel, right or wrong. There is one, immediate decision Ed Miliband can make which will show that these are not empty words. Both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were patrons of the Jewish National Fund. We urge Ed Miliband to break from this tradition.
The JNF is actively complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. For example, it established the Canada Park in the West Bank on the ruins of the villages of Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nuba. Today in Israel’s Negev region it plays a major role in the establishment of exclusively Jewish settlements and the demolition of “unrecognised” Arab villages.
The JNF was founded in 1901 with the aim of purchasing land “for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands and properties”. To this day it refuses to lease or rent land to anyone who is not Jewish. In 1953 and 1961, Israeli legislation made the JNF responsible for the land allocation policies of the state itself. In 1995 the Israeli supreme court, in the Ka’adan case, ruled that the JNF’s partner, the Israeli Lands Administration, could no longer discriminate against Israeli Arabs by refusing to lease or rent state lands to them. This was held to be equally applicable to the JNF. The response of the JNF was that Israel was first and foremost a Jewish state not a state of its own citizens. Ed Miliband stood as the candidate of change in the Labour party. Now is the time to show that these weren’t just words of spin.
Tony Greenstein
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi
Emeritus Professor Moshe Machover
Michael Mansfield QC
Dr Chris Burns Cox
Professor David Pegg,
Leon Rosselson
Dr Sue Blackwell
Pete Firmin,
Abe Hayeem
Professor Myriam Salama-Carr,
Dr Rumy Hasan
Roland Rance
Dr Monica Wusterman
Deborah Fink
Jackie Alsaid
Ken Baker St Jerome Publishing
Professor Mona Baker
David Bangs
Dr Judith Brown
Ruth Clark
Adam Darwish
James Dickins
Greg Dropkin
Jackie Fearnley
Alf Filer
Naomi Foyle Brighton Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Kenny Fryde
Terry Gallogly
Anne Gray
Cliff Hanley
Rosamine Hayeem
Bob Jarrett
Ros Levy
Kevin Moore
Beryl Maizells
Zoe Mars Chair, Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign
John Metson
Safiya O’Donnell
Nicola Ostreicher
Ernesto Paramo
Dinah Rahman
Roger Reeve
Professor Dee Reynolds
Michael Sackin
Miriam Scharf East London NUT
Michael Shanahan
Ruth Tenne Israeli Human Rights Activist
Yvette Vanson
link to guardian.co.uk
The response of the JNF was that Israel was first and foremost a Jewish state not a state of its own citizens.
Which is exactly why BYahoo’s demand for recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” is so important to the Zionist program of ethnic cleansing.
It is very impressive to see the Latino community getting involved as well as the comments that revolve around social justice.