Julie Wiener's 7 year old daughter "decided" (are 7 year olds autonomous? I dont know; but she surely reflected her mother's love of Israel) to have an Israel-themed birthday party in New York. At least a couple of people boycotted the party. Weiner sees the boycott movement gaining traction all around us. Her piece is "Battered by Boycotts" for the New York Jewish Week. I have left out her many arguments against BDS (singling out; Abu Ghraib, etc) but her longwindedness and fretful tone show that the South Africa progressive movement is beginning to gather at last. And even "progressive Zionists" are feelin the heat:
I’m talking about the streets of New York City, where, as efforts to boycott the products of Israel (and the settlements) intensify, a simple trip to a dance performance in Chelsea (Batsheva Dance Troupe), a café in Soho (Aroma), a Ricky’s cosmetics shop in Brooklyn (Ahava skin products) — or, in my case, to a 7-year-old’s birthday party in Queens — can quickly turn into a political act.
There seem to be an endless variety of competing Israel-related boycotts and counter-boycotts (known as “buycotts,” they’ve actually helped boost sales of boycott targets like Ahava) out there. Some, like the international Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement target everything in any way connected to the Israel Defense Forces (in short, almost everything Israeli), while others focus on the settlements (www.gushshalom.org). Not to mention the ever-growing array of efforts to promote purchases, investments or loans (www.lendforpeace.org) that benefit everything from the entire Israeli economy (buycottisrael.ca) to Fair Trade Palestinian-made olive oil (www.canaanfairtrade.com) to organic, sustainably-raised honey, fruits and spices produced by Jews and Bedouins in the Negev (www.negevnectars.com)....
for those of us who love Israel yet also worry that right-wing intransigence, settlement building and problematic treatment of Palestinians are major (albeit hardly the only) obstacles to peace, it’s hard to know exactly where to stand. Not to mention that it’s exhausting and frustrating to feel like one has to take a stand every time one sees a blue-and-white flag, let alone goes to the grocery store. It’s dispiriting and depressing to feel as if one can never just relax and celebrate the many positive aspects of Israeli culture, without being constantly reminded of the suffering Palestinians...
Oh cruel, cruel world!!
Ok, occupyresist, you made my comment, for which I thank you. Now I’ll make Witty’s comment: “All this boycotting will only make things tougher on the Palestinians! So if you care about them, don’t even try to do anything for them! ” (And that’s a quote, too!)
Oh that’s all right, Richila, don’t thank me, glad to help you out. Since you have a habit of making up completely false quotes for us, it’s the least I can do to make one for you.
Mooser,
C’mon, you’re not doin’ him any justice at all.
Let me give you a lesson in the field of Wittycism, as I’ve come to understand it. I’m sure Orwell would have run screaming from a computer screen, torn all his hair out after trying very, very hard to fathom how such an entity exists without overheating or spontaneously combusting from the amount of energy it takes to keep all those blatantly contradictory thoughts in one head:
You’re supposed to make the “some are more equal than others argument” while littering the post with one or more of the following words:
*humane
*compassionate
*demean
*dehumanize
*understanding
*inform
*persuade, ….and of course, the signature “NOT” in caps.
And don’t forget to litter the comment with superfluous quote marks, used in the most mendacious ways.
But you should also throw in a bit about “peoples” being “self-determining” in the way that Latvia is Cohen.
My thoughts exactly. Substitute German for Israeli flag, German for Israeli culture, and the Holocaust for the suffering Palestinians and you know how I have felt all my life, being born in West Germany long after the war. And someone should remind this woman about why Judge Goldstone was prevented from attending his grand-son’s Bar Mitzvah in South Africa.
Good point, Antidote: someone should remind this woman about why Judge Goldstone was prevented from attending his grand-son’s Bar Mitzvah in South Africa.
Actually, I think they relented at the last minute, but, still, it was an international incident and I’m sure Julie Wiener wasn’t up in arms over it.
I think you’re right
Gee, all those positive aspects of Israeli culture starting to grate on NYC nerves. Quel horreur!
Back in the day before Hitler came to sufficient power, some mothers use to have birthday parties for their little towheads–they even happily served a cake with a big sugary swastika on top. This didn’t always go over so big, and some invited guests never even came to the party. The proud mom would wring her hands at the injustice of it all. Very upset she’d be that certain neighbors couldn’t put her precious birthday kid first.
What’s wrong with adults? Why can’t we share our joy, our culture?
Those Palestinians need to be shoved behind a fence so their suffering won’t upset the complacency of the Israel-lovers.
But the suffering of the Jews – that has to be out in the open, shoved in everyone’s face, with weeping and waiting and tearing garments and building more and more museums to display it. The whole world has to heed the suffering of the Jews!
The letter-writer, in her self-centeredness, should recall that the greatest suffering of the Jews took place when other people turned their backs so they wouldn’t be disturbed while shopping and attending parties.
Cruel indeed. How much happier to live somewhere (as most Americans live) where you do not need to be aware that other people think that “your people” are criminals. (What, are there people who think the USA wars in Iraq, etc., are criminal? I never knew!)
This sort of awareness-raising is a point, maybe the chief point, of BDS. First little Miss-7 becomes aware (or her mother does) that all is not Kosher in Israel, and then, with luck, she starts to think and to read, etc. soemone tell her about MondoWeiss.
“Director Mike Leigh Cancels Israel Trip in Protest” — NYTimes
link to nytimes.com
JERUSALEM (AP) — British filmmaker Mike Leigh has canceled a visit to Israel to protest against a proposed loyalty oath for new citizens.
The bill, passed by Israel’s Cabinet last week, would require non-Jewish immigrants to pledge loyalty to a “Jewish and democratic” state — language widely seen as discriminatory toward Israel’s Arab minority.
Leigh, the award-winning director of “Naked” and “Secrets & Lies,” was to participate in a film festival next month. He is Jewish.
Writing to the school sponsoring the event, Leigh said he opposed Israel’s policies on Gaza, but called the loyalty oath the “last straw.”
The school’s director, Renen Schorr, says Israeli artists face growing international isolation because of Israel’s political situation.
I still don’t understand how anyone can be simultaneously progressive and Zionist. It is impossible. Zionism means the eradication of people off their land to make way for other people and no matter how much people want to pretend like a prettier image of that can somehow be unpacked, it can’t.
Seham, these are the most bi-polar people in the world. I remember a dinner conversation last year with a Zionist who was arguing for us to put more American lives at risk for Israel, while girlishly saying, “but actually, I’m a liberal on all other matters!”.
So, let me get this straight, I said, when it comes to Israel, you’re a rock-ribbed, hard-right Republican ready to send American soldiers into harm’s way because you’re Israel first, a liberal second, and maybe an American third. The whole table was stunned by her naked hypocrisy.
“I still don’t understand how anyone can be simultaneously progressive and Zionist.”
It’s not hard at all! First off, you have to consider the fact that “progressive”, as it is used in today’s American political discourse, means nothing, or rather, means whatever anybody wants it to mean at the time. Once you can encompass that fact, it’s easy to see how the word can be combined with anything.
Just as eugenics was once “progressive”, there is nothing to keep us from ‘progressive segregation’ or even a ‘progressive theocracy’ or ‘progressive military dictatorship’, or even ‘progressive slavery’.
I thought progressive Zionists were the ones who wanted more progress in driving the Palestinians into Jordan or Latvia.
It’s pretty stupid of this Judith Wiener to try to make her 7-year-old daughter’s birthday party both Israel-themed and non-political. You just can’t have it both those things. It makes all of her proclamations of being peace-loving as empty as her self-proclaimed oxymoranic “progressive Zionism”
And why drag 7-year-olds into politics and ethnic nationalism anyway?
Exactly. Why be so obvious about it? She should have settled for a more subversive cherry tomato theme and usb-sticks as party favors.
My thoughts also. What kind of demon child 7 year old wants to have an Israel party anyway? Isn’t impregnating children with supremacist ideologies illegal? Somebody should call Child Protective Services.
In contrast to Seham’s post, I don’t understand how anyone can be progressive and regard Zionism as inherently racism.
It is an apt example of self-determination in the most progressive sense.
Its policies towards occupied and citizen Palestinians is more than questionable.
I understand Seham’s post. The creed is in the deed.
“The creed is in the deed.”
Wow! Well said! Exactly; it doesn’t matter what Zionism tells us about itself , we can see what it is by what it does.
Does it matter whether or not Zionism is inherently or intrinsically racist? Contemporary real-world Zionism is racist. If some Zionists believe that it could exist without being racist, I invite them to prove it. Citizen said it well. “The creed is in the deed.”
“It is an apt example of self-determination in the most progressive sense.”
That’s like describing Germany’s invasion of Poland and France etc as progressive in the sense that it was exporting German culture and thus promoting multi culturalism.
Its policies towards occupied and citizens was more than questionable.
“It is an apt example of self-determination in the most progressive sense.”
False. You don’t get to applaud self determination while subjugating and oppressing millions of other people in process. You can close your eyes to the horrors of Zionism all you want, it doesn’t make them disappear, Witty.
Any more then Germans closing their eyes made you-know-what disappear.
The one listen Witty needed to learn from his ancestors and boy has he failed them.
“In contrast to Seham’s post, I don’t understand how anyone can be progressive and regard Zionism as inherently racism.”
See what I mean?
I don’t buy it.
If the “creed is in the deed”, then Palestinian nationalism would be an undesirable goal, given the long history of terror on civilians that accompanied it, and officially.
The principal of self-determination is larger than the application.
I don’t know if the over-defensiveness of Israel is necessary or not, if it really is an either/or situation.
To the extent that dissent describes Zionism as evil, rather than a/the specific application of Zionism, they abandon the principle of self-determination in favor of some other “vision”.
I am interested in the preservation AND the reform of Israel. And, that is the only dissent that I can join. It is a COMMON view among American and Israeli liberals.
Again, the boycott is unclear whether it is seeking Israel’s reform or Israel’s elimination.
TOTALLY unlike Zionism’s history? You blithering hypocrite.
The only “either/or”is:
Either Israel reforms OR it gets consigned back to the dustbin of history.
The “terror on civilians” is generally called resistance.
Israel can only reform if it consigns ethnosupremacist ideology of Zionism to the dustbin.
Please don’t feed the troll.
Witty, you sure can take the ‘sophisticated’ out of sophistry.
RW
Your “Zionism” is a fantasy! That which exists involves explicit DENIAL of self-determination to Palestinians. The only thing “progressive” about it is that it’s progressively gobbling up what’s left of Palestine!
Are there any nursing homes in “THE Jewish state?” The seem to be missing out on a particularly addled and delusional client of the appropriate age bracket.
“I don’t understand how anyone can be progressive and regard Zionism as inherently racism.”
Ok, let me TRY to explain it in very simple words..I have absolutely no problem at ALL with Zionism!!! I would have loved, and maybe cherished Zionism, if only ( emphasis on only) it wasn’t self determination on someone Else’s land..stolen land..
“I don’t understand how anyone can be progressive and regard Zionism as inherently racism.”
Seeing as you’re not progressive, that is hardly surprising. No racist thinks they are racist.
“It is an apt example of self-determination in the most progressive sense.”
You prove my point. There is nothign progressive about ethnic and religious discrimination, ethnic cleansing, mass murder and land theft.
“In contrast to Seham’s post, I don’t understand how anyone can be progressive and regard Zionism as inherently racism.”
It’s like the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out. This is what Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, wrote to Otto von Bismarck:
It certainly wasn’t limited to Herzl. Arthur Ruppin’s embrace of eugenics and anti-semitism is explained at length here (Since most of the direct quotes are in German, I won’t paste any excerpts – suffice it to say he saw semites as an inferior race and sought to extract Jews from that category, although Middle Eastern Jews were immutably semitic).
www.tau.ac.il/tarbut/…/bloom/EtanBloom-PhD-ArthurRuppin.pdf
And this gem from Jabotinsky:
That’s three Zionist leaders who were racist against Jews and we haven’t even gone into Arabs yet.
“It is an apt example of self-determination in the most progressive sense.”
What sort of self-determination are you talking about?
The type that leads stamp-collectors to identify themselves as a “people” or a “nation”,
or
the type that is invoked when a particular group claims the right to establish a state?
If the first, you are talking pointless nonsense, and if the second, it doesn’t apply to Zionists.
You are straining to deny self-determination to a people.
Your words are perceived as a threat, and therefore must be defended against.
There is no good justification for unnecessary harms on those that don’t seek to deny Israeli/Jewish self-governance, and there is no justification for Jim Crow type treatment of Arab citizens and residents in Israel, but the phrase “Zionism is racism” is a formula that Israel will not adopt.
The only way a single-state will justly emerge is by election. And, that will only occur if there are significant non-nationalist parties in both the West Bank and in Israel. And that will only occur if they are organized and along principles that Israelis and Palestinians can equally invest in.
The dissent path will NOT succeed. It is too small and too punitive.
The psychology of losing “we’ve got them on the run”, plays in both communities, and morally very very badly. Both Palestinians and Israelis “dignity” is at stake (falsely).
So Netanyahu seems to believe that Israel’s dignity is challenged if the PA recognizes Israel as Israel rather than the Jewish state of Israel. And, the Palestinians dignity is challenged if someone speaks of Zionism in laudatory terms as an example OF self-determination.
You are straining to justify self-determination of one people at the expense of another.
Your words are perceived as vile and offensive, becasue they are.
” but the phrase “Zionism is racism” is a formula that Israel will not adopt.”
Israel has not only adopted it already, but embraced it and based their laws on it.
“The only way a single-state will justly emerge is by election.”
You mena, referrendum.
“The dissent path will NOT succeed. It is too small and too punitive.”
But it wil succeed, you just don’t want it to.
“The psychology of losing “we’ve got them on the run”, plays in both communities, and morally very very badly. Both Palestinians and Israelis “dignity” is at stake (falsely).”
The psychology of losing “we’ve got them on the run” is somethign you invented and then dressed up with quotes as though to imply it is an official policy or agenda.
“So Netanyahu seems to believe that Israel’s dignity is challenged if the PA recognizes Israel as Israel rather than the Jewish state of Israel.”
No, Netanyahu is simply stalling for time and demanding that the Palestinians agree to surrender all claims on behalf of the refugees.
“And, the Palestinians dignity is challenged if someone speaks of Zionism in laudatory terms as an example OF self-determination.”
Only if your idea of Zionist self-determination includes occupation, ethnic cleansing and mass murder, which is what you really are getting at.
My words are liberatory.
They are the expression of LIVE – AND – LET LIVE.
The perspectives desiring self-governance include:
1. Halacha
2. Jewish secular nationalist
3. Civilist (of varying priorities)
4. Palestinian secular nationalist
5. Sharia
IF the numbers of those that would accept a civilist government comprise a dominant majority (sufficient to marginalize nationalist requirements), then a single-state is relevant, and Zionism is irrelevant.
IF the numbers of those that would not accept a civilist government comprise more than say 25%, then war is the inevitable result and partition is then more democratic.
If you want to convince the world that self-governance is optimized by a single state, then form and/or support moderate civilist non-nationalist parties in Israel and Palestine.
My expectation though is that you are not that forward thinking, not that committed to democracy that you would undertake that work.
Thank you Julie Wiener for your service to the BDS movement. It really is good advertising when one whines about the harsh effects of BDS on birthday parties in New York and propagates the range of participation, depending on their ostensible (or real) attachment to Israel (and/or their jobs), that one can engage in to help end the oh-so-bothersome “Palestinian suffering” you seem to adamantly NOT (RW™) want to be remotely exposed to.
What an appropriate surname Julie has, assuming it’s pronounced with a long “i”!
I’d like that someone explains to me what sense does it make to boycott products made in the illegal settlements/colonies but not all Israeli products when Israel (as whole, society, gov’t, establishment and institutions) is actively and forcefully behind the settlement enterprise? What nuance am I missing here..
None TGIA.
Well, I guess the logic of a settlement-only boycott flows from the idea that Israel’s crimes began in 1967, rather than ’47/’48. I don’t subscribe to that, but many do – primarily those who have an unhealthy fixation with the two-state outcome.
Sumud,
What about the 3 generations of native Israelis, how do they fit in with your 1 state solution? How are we going to guarantee their rights after this state is created? Will we be able to assure there western lifestyle is not threatened by less liberal types of government?
“Liberal?” That’s rich coming from you. Homophobe, heal thyself.
“Will we be able to assure there western lifestyle is not threatened by less liberal types of government?”
Let me rephrase this..
“Will we(!) be able to assure there(sic) western lifestyle is not threatened by the less liberal types such as the ultra Orthodox, the Haredi, the ideological/religious settlers and other subsets and varietes?”
So you are for a 2 SS also atheist? you are helping me prove my point quite well, TY.
“Will we be able to assure there western lifestyle is not threatened by less liberal types of government?”
It worked for Germany’s unification.
First yonira, you need to know I don’t have a particular ideological preference for either a 1 or 2 state outcome. I’m not Palestinian or Israeli, it’s ultimately not my choice to make. But I can see the writing on the wall, Israel just doesn’t want a viable independent Palestinian state to emerge, so I’ll make no efforts in that direction. It’s a decision based on pragmatism, not ideology.
Sabras of course have to be part of a one state solution. A new single state has to be strictly secular and have a constitution that protects the rights of ALL its citizens. That doesn’t mean an islamist or ultra-orthodox party couldn’t participate politically, but it would have to be clear that the state would *always* remain secular.
I’ve written before about what a grave mistake the US/Israel/Fateh coup against Hamas was. Their election was more about punishing Fateh corruption and the good job Hamas have done provisioning social services. Had they been permitted to continue in government, it would have been a valuable experience – they would have had to learn how to govern a population that is not only islamist muslim, but also non-islamist muslim, christian and secular. If they’d tried to introduce any policies that were too conservative, they would have lost electoral support. So I think being in government would have had a naturally moderating effect on Hamas (and I think the same mechanism would take place in a single state). At the same time, Fateh would have had to clean up their act and root out corruption in an effort to get re-elected.
But as is, no new elections have taken place, Hamas and Fateh are both ruling by decree and both retarding/attacking the development of a civil society that is an integral part of a democratic society. This is not good for a future single state. So a first priority on the way to such a state needs to be getting Palestinians back on track and participating in, experiencing, and building up their democracy and democratic institutions. At a certain point, Israeli politicians have to realise that one-state is inevitable, and it’s in their interest that when Israel and Palestine merges, Palestinians will be coming from, and fully experienced in a rich democracy.
What do you think yonira? Pie in the sky, or not a bad way to go?
*I also think yonira, that the world would be watching the early years of a single state very closely to make sure everybody’s rights were being protected.
Sumud, I see what you mean but still..A crime is a crime whether it was committed in 48 or 67..Israel is the culprit either way, as a whole not only the settler variety..I don’t get their reasoning at all.
TGIA ~ Of course I agree w/ you, a crime is a crime. I think there’s a certain nostalgia among zionists for the period 48-67, and this involves a wilful ignorance of Al Nakba. It was a relatively uncomplicated era: the Israeli narrative had total primacy and support on the world stage and the Palestinians hadn’t yet re-grouped and (significantly) asserted their history and their rights. This all started to change in the years immediately following 1967..
“It’s dispiriting and depressing to feel as if one can never just relax and celebrate the many positive aspects of Israeli culture”
I hope it is!! I “pray” for it to be dispiriting and depressing! Siding by, backing and supporting apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide (call it slow, drip by drip or to a drumbeat, I don’t care) and still be feeling good (or indifferent) about it should be paid for at least with as little a price as being “dispirited and depressed”..Actually you know what? Eat crap!
Don’t understand how anyone for whom liberty, justice and equality are held to be inalienable rights can love Israel?” I’ve been there once only and nothing repulsed me more than the sight of the cars of Palestinians being stopped, its occupants rudely lined up on the sidewalk and searched by gun-toting Israeli soldiers; nothing more, that is, except looking at x-rays of the wrists of a 12 year old Palestinian at a UN cliinic at the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, his wrists (compliments of the IDF) being nothing more than bags of smashed bones. Anger, disgust, that’s what I felt, but love? Most definitely not! Nor did I feel any connection to Israel nor its settlers (all Israeli Jews). Why not? Because none of us will be free until the last chain is broken, that’s why.
A friend had a relative visitor arrive recently from Israel whom I knew – and liked – from a previous encounter. I asked my friend, an ex-Israeli, if I could talk to the visitor who happens to be a relatively well known psychologist in Israel. She demurred, saying he is “totally not political” and is mostly into the art and cultures scene if Tel Aviv (I guess she figured I’ll grill him on the political landscape there and maybe his own attitude? ouch…). I replied that when you are from Israel you are, by definition, a political being, regardless of who or what you maybe as a person, and Israelis abroad should – and probably do – expect that. And that I happen to appreciate this individual’s insights in general. In response she said “that’s exactly why it’s maybe better not to talk just now, especially as he is staying for only a very short time”.
Why this story? because I think the time is coming when one cannot say one is from Israel without it being taken a a political statement. That’s just the way it was with south africa. If you were from there at the time of the apartheid, you were expected to elaborate, explain and/or clarify your own position, no matter how apolitical, young or old.
As for celebrating what’ s positive about Israel, the mother in question should not have been surprised that some would take that to mean ‘celebrating what’s left when we take apartheid out of the equation’, concluding it ain’t worth the trouble. Maybe not everyone enjoys tiptoeing around those giant elephants in the room – especially with little kids running around…..
Excellent point Danaa,
A number of wonderful people I have come across recently have been quite reticent to admit they were from Israel. I find that a tragedy, because Israelis traveling abroad and experiencing genuine shame.
I had the same experience with an Iranian taxi driver once, when I asked him where he was from. I assured him he had every reason to be proud of his heritage.