From a JVP press release:
Last night, up to a dozen members of San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs, a right-wing Israeli advocacy group with a documented track record of aggressively taunting and intimidating grassroots peace activists, attended a Bay Area Jewish Voice for Peace community meeting at a South Berkeley Senior Center with the intention of disrupting, intimidating and possibly assaulting Jewish Voice for Peace members. Jewish Voice for Peace is the largest U.S. Jewish peace group dedicated to a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on democracy and full equality --- the Bay Area chapter is the founding chapter of the organization. Approximately 50 to 60 people were at the meeting, and you can read eyewitness testimonies here and here.
Wrapped in an Israeli flag, San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs (SFVI/SWU) member Robin Dubner, an Oakland based attorney, pepper-sprayed two JVP members in the eyes and face after they attempted to nonviolently block her ability to aggressively videotape the faces of JVP meeting attendees against their will. The members, Alexei Folger and Glen Hauer, were careful to make no physical contact with her or her camera prior to the attack.
Folger said, “I did not see it coming and all of a sudden there was gooey stuff all over my head and hand. I have never been pepper-sprayed before, my whole head felt like it was on fire.”
JVP had earlier this year filed a police report about a June SFVI/SWU protest at which JVP and (peace group) Women in Black members were intimidatingly videotaped and threatened by a StandWithUs supporter after being taunted with chants like “Nazi, Nazi, Nazi” or “Kapo,Kapo,Kapo”. Caught on a widely seen videotape was a SFVI/SWU supporter pointing his camera to the faces of silent peace vigil participants while saying “You’re all being identified, every last one of you…we will find out where you live. We’re going to make your lives difficult. We will disrupt your families…”
For that reason, JVP members were particularly concerned about protecting the safety of meeting attendees and preventing the videotaping.
Hauer, a retired attorney and member of San Francisco’s Congregation Sha’har Zahav who was treated for pepper spray explained, ”When one of the intruders [Dubner] continued standing and filming people despite the facilitator and facility manager repeatedly telling her that she could not, I first asked her politely to please put away the video camera, then several times told her to put away the camera, and then tried nonviolently to stay in front of the camera with my body. I could have taken the camera but decided instead to talk to the woman and to try to be the only person she photographed."
Hauer, who also leads groups on healing from WWII & the Holocaust, and speaks to churches about anti-Semitism as it relates to the movement for peace in the Middle East, went on:
“In my mind was the history targeting of Jewish peace activists by the right wing of the Jewish community--the posting of our photos on internet hate sites, for example, followed by acts of vandalism at our homes and places of work. There were many in the room for whom I care deeply. I could also see that many at the meeting were new to the work we were doing, and I did not want them to be scared away.”
Dubner was accompanied by up to a dozen other StandWithUs members--including Susan Meyers, Mike Harris, Bea Lieberman, Faith Meltzer, and Ross Meltzer--who repeatedly disrupted and aggressively videotaped the JVP meeting and JVP members against their will, wielding the cameras in an intimidating and belligerent manner. Despite repeated requests from the JVP meeting facilitator and other JVP activists to desist from recording and put away their videocameras, the SFVI/SWU activists – who had spread themselves throughout the room – continued to record and launch lengthy monologues while the presenters attempted to speak.
They were explicitly invited by the JVP facilitator to stay in the meeting and participate without videotaping but they refused. They also refused offers for floor time by the presenters. The manager of the facility asked the SFVI/SWU members to abide by JVP’s rules or face the police, and when SFVI/SWU refused to comply with JVP’s protocol, the police were called.
At one point, JVP members and presenters worked to restore calm and de-escalate by singing the Hebrew peace song, Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu (Peace will come to us) while waiting for the police to arrive. Most meeting attendees did not know until later that 2 people had been attacked with pepper spray.
When police arrived, Dubner was temporarily placed in handcuffs while other members of San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs remained inside the meeting blowing loud whistles, using videocameras to intimidate meeting attendees.
Dubner refused repeated requests by JVP members or the police to identify the substance she sprayed. A police officer later identified it as pepper spray and paramedics were called to help treat the victims of the attack. One of them, Alexei Folger, looked visibly red and swollen, as though she had been burned on more than half her face.
Immediately following the attack, Ms. Folger, not knowing the nature of the substance on her face, rubbed some of it on Ms. Dubner’s shirtsleeve at which point the physically powerful Ms.Dubner, who also wore a pen videocamera in her shirt pocket, started physically shoving the petite Ms. Folger. A Jewish Voice for Peace staff member stood between them to prevent further escalation or physical contact between Ms Dubner and the shocked and injured Ms. Folger.
This deliberate confrontation is part of a pattern of escalating intimidation and attacks against peace activists in the Bay Area. Earlier this year, the home of Tikkun Magazine editor Michael Lerner was covered in threatening posters. In addition to the videotaped harassment of Women in Black and JVP members, several months ago someone grafiited outside of the JVP offices “Jewish Voices for Palestine: Viva Barch Goldstein."
This is political violence, and unless there is public condemnation from the highest levels of mainstream American Jewish political institutions, it is going to get worse.
Isn’t Baruch Goldstein known to have been associated with Meir Kahane in this country? If so, then those are ‘terrorist’ words, for all intents and purposes, because Kahane and the JDL were identified as terrorist groups by the FBI, and still are. But Jeffrey Blankfort would know all about this much better than I.
Can you imagine if this were a Mexican American wrapping him or herself in a flag and doing this over the immigration issue? Which, of course, was the big complaint back in May-June 2006: that they were holding little Mexican flags in their demonstrations. How could they be American if they held, and identified with, someone else’s flag!
RE: “unless there is public condemnation…it is going to get worse.” – Colin Murray
MY COMMENT: Would it do any good to file a complaint against Robin Dubner with the The State Bar of California?
CURRENT RULES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT – link to rules.calbar.ca.gov
>> Wrapped in an Israeli flag, San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs (SFVI/SWU) member Robin Dubner, an Oakland based attorney, pepper-sprayed two JVP members in the eyes and face after they attempted to nonviolently block her ability to aggressively videotape the faces of JVP meeting attendees against their will. The members, Alexei Folger and Glen Hauer, were careful to make no physical contact with her or her camera prior to the attack.
Dubner was probably “generation to generation” fear-scarred so, given Folger’s and Hauer’s “junior form of terrorism”, she “asserted”. It’s what all good “humanists” do.
“It’s what all good “humanists” do.”
I am looking forward to Witty’s explanation about how the Jewish Voice for Peace community meeting was itself an act of violence and that Israel/StandWithUs were merely defending themselves.
Witty will respond by raising moral equivalence. In other words the “immoral delegitimization” of Israel on the part of the JVP gives rise to similarly “immoral” actions by their opponents.
I am immediately making another donation to Jewish Voice for Peace after seeing this video.
Thank NYT, etc., for this. They do not report on violence in East Jerusalem, in Arab Israel, etc., and the crazies think they can get away with anything. I hope the pepper-spray attacker goes to jail WIDELY ADVERTISED!
But if she was cleaver, it could go the other way.
Dubner & co display classic storm-trooper and neo-nazi behavior, and they have the nerve to call JVP activists ‘nazis’ and ‘capos’. The Zionist upside-down world is crazy beyond belief. Meanwhile, Haaretz reports not on this, but puts a non-story feeding the ‘rise of anti-semitism in the Diaspora’ hysteria on the front page — even though nothing but the identity of the victim/home owner can possibly distinguish this incident from a random act of vandalism. In contrast, Dubner knew exactly whom he was targeting, and why.
link to haaretz.com
she!
Methinks these brownshirts are guilty of projection.
Wait a minute, do I have this straight? Robin Dubner, an attorney, wrapped herself in an Israeli flag to commit this assault?
Mooser, it’s the flag of total impunity. Or so she believes.
Sooner or later the police need to be called and the perpetrators need to be arrested and put on trial. Only then will this be part of the public record.
There’s only one way to stop this kind of thing! All Jewish Americans must be declared to be citizens of Israel, and subject to Israeli law and control. Otherwise those JVP people will get out of hand.
And then they should be conscripted into the IDF to serve as “point men” and women for IDF patrols in hostile territory, especially whenever an area is suspected of being mined or contains ambush terrain.
Well, Citizen, if America becomes a “Christian nation” how else can American Jews, “unshriven and unannealed” avoid becoming second-class citizens, except by being declared extra-territorial subjects of Israel? It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.
Sometimes I wonder, may God forgive me for it, if an awful lot of the screeching about ‘anti-Semitism’ isn’t just a way of diverting attention from what Jews do to other Jews.
this is sad, but inevitable. i see no way policy can change unless it comes via the jewish community. the pressure within that community that comes to bare upon those who seek peace against the status quo has not reached it’s zenith in the least. one of the overriding memes of right wing zionists is the mantel they represent the community as a whole. that’s something they won’t give up w/out a fight. they know their greatest threat comes from within, from other jews..jews who walk in peace. they know it, i know it, israel knows it. they do not seek to change anything but to keep things the same. the occupation the same, the settlements, the expansion. they want to do it in one voice and if it isn’t their voice they will silence their opposition in any conceivable way. we’re going to see a division thruout the jewish community and we’re going to see it in much louder, which is ultimately inevitable.
i certainly do appreciate these brave people who stand up for peace. my heart goes out to you. thank you so much.
” i see no way policy can change unless it comes via the jewish community”
Change what policy? Aren’t such incidents — clearly illegal no matter who does it — not rather the result of a lack of law enforcement wrt all matters Jewish? As if disrupting a gathering and spraying organizers with pepper spray was some internal Jewish family dispute not subject to US laws that regulate the conduct of individuals and groups? Just like local and federal authorities turn a blind eye to events like Kahane memorial celebrations even though he is the founder of a terrorist organization.
i am very tempted to say something very vile but i won’t. the policy of servicing israel. i was not focusing on the specific policy of the police last night but instead the confrontations that will likely take place within the jewish community.
yes, the woman should have been arrested but that wasn’t my focus.
rather the result of a lack of law enforcement wrt all matters Jewish?
i do not really know about that. i’ve been in situations w/the police before where they have been reluctant to take sides citing ‘civil matter’.
I don’t think this classifies as a civil matter. I don’t see a case for self-defense here.
Using Pepper Spray in California:
Misuse of tear gas in California comes with state penalties of up to a $1000 fine and/or up to three years in prison, not to mention a possible felony conviction on record. Examples of misuse include using tear gas on people in anger, spraying it as a joke, or possession of tear gas by prohibited persons. [...] To be legally purchased, possessed or used in California, any canister must have a label that says “WARNING: The use of this substance or device for any purpose other than self-defense is a crime under the law. The contents are dangerous–use with care.”
link to safetyprotectionfirst.com
This may have been a copy-cat act in the wake of Netanyahu being heckled in New Orleans – with much fall-out in the international press. The idea was presumably to provoke violent transgressions by JVP members against pro-Israel hecklers disrupting a JVP speaker (possibly the reason why Dubner took along pepper spray in the first place?), film the response and get it out there to discredit JVP. Didn’t work out that way and just produced more bad press for the pro-Israel camp. In that case, Dubner’ performance also demonstrates that not every member of the Jewish community is turned off by displays of Zionist violence as witnessed in New Orleans – the guy ripping apart the poster with his teeth like a maniac, the young female protester being subjected to a dangerous choke-hold by another audience member – but rather assumes such unhinged reactions are normal and to be expected from people who don’t share the same political/tribal views.
Remember the original Brownshirts: many Germans, including German Jews, did not take them seriously because their behavior was so obviously appalling and out of line. The most effective weapon against them is the rule of law. The Jewish community does not exist in a vacuum.
“There were dozens of witnesses, but Berkeley Police have not reported charges against Dubner. The members of Jewish Voice for Peace have good reason to be concerned about being videotaped by StandWithUs activists, who have repeatedly harassed Jewish Voice for Peace members in the past, including threats and the posting of Jewish Voice for Peace members’ photos on Israel advocacy websites.
There is a place for respectful disagreement about the Palestinian Israeli conflict. Threatening and pepper spraying those who disagree with you goes too far.
Call on the Berkeley Police Department to arrest and charge Robin Dubner.”
See online petition:
link to humanrights.change.org
Even more, and I know this firsthand. You cannot possess pepper spray in CA, you can’t buy it without a license card, and you have to take a course before you get a license. The police administer the course, and you have to sign something that says you will be responsible for all damage should you use it when not in danger.
This woman is a licensed attorney. JVP should complain to the Bar. If they have a police report that shows what she did, they can make her life a living hell.
I agree. I wonder if there is a “let’s keep it in the family” component to reticence to bring charges. When political violence is not punished, a public precedent is set that it is ok and it will get worse.
Keeping it in the family is one problem, but in this particular case there appears to be a bias on the side of the police officers who were called to deal with this. Maybe it’s just a matter of taking sides with a middle-aged female attorney rather than a group of peaceniks. But, as pointed out by other commenters, it is unlikely that the same person wrapped in a Mexican or Palestinian flag would have got away with being ‘temporarily handcuffed’ anywhere in the US.
This is how it will finally all fall apart. Will any Jew be willing to go to Israel to escape persecution when the ones persecuting you are your fellow Jews?
It will go the way of any supremacist ideology, ostensibly created to help its ethnic fellows, but in the end just as repressive of those of its own kind who disagree with its ideology as it is of the “lesser” people.
the whole ‘delegitimization campaign’, they are going after their own first, that’s my hunch. this propaganda they have been spreading that ‘israels delegitimizers’ are under the throes of influence from muslim or arab front groups (or whatever it is they say) is bs. they don’t want to advertise it but look at what they do not what they say. they are hitting back and look where they are hitting. the mosque lingo is all couched in fancy polite speech but not so for jvfp. this is their biggest threat, jews would do not fall in line.
The promising thing is that these tactics will probably backfire.
Bingo, tree. You nailed it.
It’s quite instructive that it’s these so-called fellow “Jews” who are doing this.
In the eyes of Israel’s defenders that’s not anti-Semitism, or self-hatred or some such nonsense, of course. It’s legitimate because it’s done in the name of Israel.
what a perfect example of how the MONSTER behaves … turning its supporters into monsters too, and seeking to legitimize their conduct while trying to delegitimize the conduct of the peaceful opponents … this is Brown-shirt stuff, for sure … Meir Kahane redux … it is the strongest type of attack upon zionism itself, yet its perpetrators are so drunk on their delusions and militant radicalism they don’t see how they undermine their own cause – we can only hope these idiots keep it up and continue the process of delegitimizing zionism and Likud fascism in the eyes of the world
exactly
insightful
Could this be a reaction to the Young Proud Jews disruption of the Netanyahu speech? Stand With Us sees all justice organizers, especially Jews, as targets to be silenced b/c Israel’s “speech” was interrupted.
Such tactics will only enforce their isolation. And rightly so.
It is not equivalent. Pepper spray is considered a legal weapon, especially in CA. Civil disobedience is protected by the Constitution. Maiming someone else is not.
Disrupting a planned meeting…a problem
I’ve seen nothing about arrests in this case – why not?
I didn’t mean to suggest “equivalence.” I meant, as someone else has suggested, that Stand With Us was responding to the disruption of Bibi with their own disruption of JVP.
This video is clearly intended to demonize Israel/StandWithUs not reach out and communicate.
Wrapped in an Israeli flag, San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs (SFVI/SWU) member Robin Dubner, an Oakland based attorney, pepper-sprayed two JVP members in the eyes and face after they attempted to nonviolently block her
If this Dubner is an attorney file a grievance with the disciplinary committee of the bar association. You can be a lawyer or a but courts “try” to prevent you from being both.
Do you think these folks were trained in an illegal Jewish Settlers camp in the Palestinian occupied territories? These folks sure have a violent streak
Whoa was reading some of the Hebron Fund Raiser bull
link to mondoweiss.net
WE’RE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT NOW!” The outpouring of hate against Israel and the Jews after the flotilla incident was absolutely unprecedented. Jews around the world and other Lovers of Israel suddenly felt just like the Jews of Hebron – the Jews the media loves most to hate. We therefore decided to hold our annual fundraiser as a unique, united Zionist response to this situation. We must bring together the various groups that work for Israel in a show of confidence in the future of a united, large and strong Israel!
The whole world is concerned with the supposed suffering of the Arabs of the Gaza strip.
Yet while the Arabs build and open luxury hotels and state-of the-art shopping malls, the Jews of Hebron live in impossible conditions – with families with 6, 7 or more children living in 2-3 room apartments.
While the Arabs of Gaza are free to build wherever and whatever they like, our children are arrested for planting gardens and installing park benches in violation of the “building freeze”.
Our gardener – Yitzchak Imes, who tenderly cared for the Machpela Gardens – was brutally gunned down together with his wife and two neighbors in a recent terrorist attack.
While investors are free to invest in and develop the Gaza strip, Hebron properties purchased by Jews – whether in 1809 or in 2005 – are not free to be used by their legal owners.
While the Arabs of Gaza, their incessant construction and their terror regime are all subsidized by many “civilized” countries and NGO’s to the tune of billions of dollars per year, the tax deductible status of the meager donations to Hebron’s Jews comes under repeated scrutiny – for no good reason except for racism and Anti-Semitism.
Here’s why our opponents are wrong:
1) Settlements are legal. When the US signed the 1924 San Remo accords, they became co-signers of the British Mandate in Palestine which calls for “close settlement of Jews upon their land.” The area in question included the West Bank!
2) Support for settlements is tax deductible! The fact that this administration may decide to fly in the face of US law and commitment does not negate the tax deduction on donations to Jewish causes on the West Bank. Even the NY Times wrote: “…the tax code encourages citizens to support nonprofit groups that may diverge from official policy, as long as their missions are educational, religious or charitable.”
In a series of events – in both Hebron and in New York – we raise our voices and take out our checkbooks in protest against the evil discrimination against the Jews of Hebron and Eretz Yisrael.
In Hebron on the Succot holiday, we celebrated the end of the building freeze – as promised by the Israeli government. Our Hebron Music Festival on Sept. 27th was attended by over 35,000 guests including hundreds of US donors and Israeli political leaders.
Now the time has come to do the same in New York City.
On November 16, join us in launching the Hebron Aid Flotilla!
Our event will be honoring some very special people:
“Gevurat Ha’Imahot” (Bravery of the Matriarchs) Awardee IDF Capt. Caroline Glick (ret.), who will also be our keynote speaker was named by “Maariv” as “the most prominent woman in Israel”. As chief diplomatic correspondent for Makor Rishon newspaper, deputy editor of the Jerusalem Post, editor of the political satire website “Latma TV” and a senior Middle East Fellow at Washington’s Center for Security Policy, Glick made history with her “We Con the World” video clip exposing the hypocrisy behind the Gaza Flotilla.
“Whoa was reading some of the Hebron Fund Raiser bull”
I’m not sure whether to laugh or vomit.
their missions are educational, religious or charitable.
Their missions are political. The UN Security Council does not rule over educational, religious or charitable issues.
Why was this mace allowed into the building?
In New York City, pepper spray is an illegal weapon. I wonder what the law says in San Francisco and whether the police will do anything. Given that the assailant is a fanatical right-wing pro-Israel bigot, it’s safe to say she enjoy the support of people like Jane Harman, Alan Dershowitz, etc.
If, by contrast, the attackers in this case were Arab or Muslim, we can be confident the case would already have made headlines as an act of terrorism.
It is illegal to possess in CA as well unless you take a police course, get a license, sign a legal doc that says you will never use unless you’re in danger, and that you will be responsible for the legal and medical ramifications of using it inappropriately or to harm someone not harming you. I got one of those licenses, and carried a monster canister of it in my car (with a pin, like a hand grenade, to keep it from going off) because of car-hijackings/robberies and I was driving a convertible.
Ron Paul: We’ve Already Declared War on Iran
link to juancole.com
the Hebron Fund people are absolutely disgusting
link to hebron.com
Making fun of the slaughter of human rights activist on the Mavi Marmara by Israeli soldiers.
the Hebron Fund people are absolutely disgusting
link to hebron.com
Making fun of the slaughter of human rights activist on the Mavi Marmara by Israeli soldiers.
How do they keep this number at watches at you tube stuck at 425. This was the number yesterday in the afternoon
protesting the Hebron illegal settlement fund raiser
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
The same way HuffPo splits up any anti-Israel story into successive posts so that it doesn’t look like the issue got 17,000 comments, which the Mavi Marmara story did.
interesting
Who are these storm troopers wrapped in the flag of the fascist settler-entity Israel? Certainly not Jews. Couldn’t be, what with their attacking nonviolent peace-loving Jews at a Jewish Voice for Peace gathering. But if not Jews, what? Zionists. Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say Zionist extremists? No, because Zionism, the Zionist’s ideology, stands for the conquest of Palestine, the Palestinian’s homeland and any and all such conquests are extremist acts. Wouldn’t it be preferable for us to to appeal to the better instincts of these Jewish extremists? Once again, not Jewish or false Jews, being that the true Jew always sides with the slave, never with the slavemaster, whereas, these extremists support the Zionist-entity Israel in the conquest of Palestine and the enslavement, thereby, of its indigenous people. As for appealing to their better instincts, until Israel is delegitimized and Palestine is free, such appeals will be a waste of time and energy. Right now we should concentrate on BDS along with anything else (peaceful) that brings out the hate and fear in the enemy camp. And make no mistake about it, these Zionists are a breed apart, not Jews, not Americans, and not humanists. They’re Israel-firsters!
If anything displays the utter weakness, if not total bankruptcy, of Israel’s claims that it can award itself whatever territory it desires while displacing and attacking centuries-old communities, it is the increasing neo-fascism of its supporters. Their hatred and fear of rational arguments and the circulation of evidence of Israel’s criminal acts is so intense that they have apparently concluded that violence and intimidation (wonder where they have learnt these tactics?) is the only way to suppress the truth. They must fear the obvious implication of citizens being able to make up their own minds on Israel’s conduct, as they lose control of the poisonous propaganda they assume is their right to spew out in the American media. The fact that they have no shame about it, that they think it is acceptable in a foreign country which was founded on the principle of equal opportunity, only further demonstrates how deeply corrupt they have become, and mired in a fascist mindset.
Yes. “The fact that they have no shame about it, that they think it is acceptable in a foreign country which was founded on the principle of equal opportunity, only further demonstrates how deeply corrupt they have become, and mired in a fascist mindset.” What does it mean when an American attorney thinks its appropriate to mace a peaceful meeting and take facial pictures when they are told it’s not allowed? There’s a reason
why Robin Dubner thought she could get away with that, and she wrapped herself in that reason: Israel’s flag, the same worn by Sarah Palin when she campaigned for a top slot in the US government; the same won she has worn again, when making the main speech as a Tea Party public conference. US patriotism today is wrapped in that flag, the flag of a foreign state; that’s kosher–Uncle Sam today is very kosher.
If Dubner is a practicing attorney the JVP should complain to the state bar association, and also file a civil and/or criminal lawsuit against her.
Dubner vs. San Francisco case (2001)
link to articles.sfgate.com
link to openjurist.org
Ignorance of the law and civil rights violations clearly doesn’t apply in her case as a mitigating factor
What a disappointment! I was sure that by the time I got up this morning (to avoid being shot at sunrise, I never get up that early) there would be some Witty comments on this post. But he seems to be preserving an uncharacteristic silence.
Cat got your tongue sandwich, Witty?
lol
Oy! and I thought the use of pepper spray against activists was just a rising local police fetish… I guess I can only offer tons of support and this bit of advise: Antacids dissolved in water, then wash the eyes and skin with it. It’s not immediate, but it helps.