The MoveOverAipac conference is in 3 weeks. The organizers have just issued a statement to endorsers explaining the Helen Thomas invitation, and Thomas's withdrawal from the conference. Medea is Medea Benjamin of CodePink, who met with Helen Thomas yesterday, and Rae is Rae Abileah. Great women. Here it is:
Thank you for your support of Move Over AIPAC (www.MoveOverAIPAC.org) and your concern about Helen Thomas' participation. We'd like to clarify what has happened to date since it seems there have been many versions of what happened. CODEPINK has appreciated and admired Helen Thomas' courageous journalism since our start, honoring her with a pink badge of courage, and being one of the groups that organized "Jews for Helen" after she was fired. In inviting Helen Thomas to speak, it was our hope that her name would draw more attendance and excitement for the MOA events. Unfortunately, we did not talk over this invitation with the other coalition members and only found out--after the fact--that several groups and individuals thought it was a bad move on our part because the press would focus on Helen and not our critique of AIPAC. When we at CODEPINK told Helen's assistant about these concerns, her assistant called back and said Helen preferred not to speak. We want to make it clear that no groups within the coalition pressured us to "disinvite" Helen and that she was never disinvited.
This morning Medea met with Helen to make it clear to her that there was still an open, welcoming invitation for her to speak. Helen reaffirmed that she does not wish to speak at Move Over AIPAC and she did so on film, which we will post. She also stated she would prefer to attend the conference as a journalist and cover the events, and has agreed to speak at a post-AIPAC Policy Conference event at Bus Boys and Poets on May 4, which CODEPINK will help publicize.
Senator James Abourezk, who wrote an article saying that Helen was disinvited, has now put out this statement: "I understand that Helen Thomas does not want to speak at Move Over AIPAC and instead wants to cover it as a journalist. I encourage everyone who agrees with the premise of this gathering to move forward and help make this a successful event."
In reviewing the sequence of events, we realize that have erred in our communication with endorsing organizations and wish to apologize for this. We are relatively new to this movement for justice in Israel/Palestine and have much to learn from those of you who have been doing this work for decades. And we all have much to learn about how to work effectively, respectfully and in integrity with each other.
Move Over AIPAC is a unique hybrid experience - CODEPINK is coordinating the conference, events and actions, and has asked for endorsements, most of which have been endorsements in name only thus far. We assumed that there was trust in groups that we could make decisions about speakers, workshops, actions. To date we've had two meetings in Washington DC, two conference calls, and have sent out numerous emails to endorsers inviting suggestions for speakers, performers, and creative actions. We are appreciative to the input we're received thus far, but we hoped there would be more engagement from groups willing to help outreach and organize.
We hope that if there is something positive to come out of this, in addition to the clarity around Helen's wishes and her participation in Move Over AIPAC, it might be a renewed sense of interest in working together to make this event a success. So far we have only 130 registrants. We hope to reach 300 in the next three weeks and need everyone's help to reach that goal.
Moving forward, we'd like to establish clear lines of communication, particularly with partnering groups that are sending members to the conference and organizing to make it a success. ..
In Solidarity,
Medea, Rae and Shaden
This is a major cop-out. The people who claimed that the “media would focus on Helen Thomas” are simply afraid to defend the view that the organized Jewish community is a major social problem in this country. AIPAC is merely the tip of the iceberg. The bus ads and billboards in Seattle haven’t been suppressed by AIPAC, which works in Washington. AIPAC doesn’t suppress reflection on the US-Israel relationship in academia. Etc etc etc.
Some members of the media may well have focused on Thomas. Defending her would have broadened the discussion to the problem of communal Jewish power in this country, a problem that begins on the left, with refusal to defend Thomas.
This refusal is part of a larger left Jewish design to limit critique; to limit BDS, and critique generally, to “the occupation”; to acknowledge Israel’s egregious violations of international law and human rights, including war crimes; but to avoid criticizing Zionism, rather like describing WW2 and the Judeocide as violations of League of Nations collective security and the minority rights clauses of the Versailles treaty, without discussing Nazism.
The moral support for a broader critique is the Jewish approaches to universalism, the classical Reform anti-Zionism of Rabbi Elmer Berger; the Marxist internationalism in which Jews were prominent; and what the late Israel Shahak called the “modern, secular Jewish tradition” which he dated from Spinoza.
The Jewish left has no use for these either; it has no concept of its obligations as US citizens, only as “Jews”, members of “the Jewish people”, the ur-Zionist fiction. In religious terms “Jewishness” must include Berger’s categorical rejection of Zionism, at least from any liberal standpoint. In secular terms “Jewishness” is simply a form of privilege and discrimination, as we see in ceaseless, successful efforts to control the Palestine discussion.
“the view that the organized Jewish community is a major social problem in this country.”
That view is properly called anti-semitism.
What would you call the view that ‘the organized African American community is a major social problem?’ Racism.
What would you call the view that ‘the organized gay community is a major social problem?’ Homophobia.
The targeting of a community based on ethnicity, religion, race, orientation, language and immigration status is anathema to left and liberal principles. Jews are not an exception – unless you are against Jews.
good catch clencher. i agree. framing the power of the lobby as ‘organized Jewish community’ is a cop out and a distortion. jvp is part of the jewish community. the jewish community is all over the map. i’m sick and tired of people putting them in a box and claiming the lobby rules the box.
there are too many awesome jews running around littering our environment with massively cool stuff and opinion and positive life affirming advocacy. for the neocons to take claim over ‘the jewish community’ is one thing, we shouldn’t be buying into it.
beware of sheep in wolf’s clothing that’s my opinion. especially new posters who use other posters names.
the followup of that original opening was “The bus ads and billboards in Seattle haven’t been suppressed by AIPAC”
my response to that is ‘like hell they aren’t’
which works in Washington.
with very long tentacles.
My experience is that the Jewish community, even the OJC, is much more diverse than folks on the left or right actually think. Over all of it is a muffling blanket that disguises things, moves public discourse towards a muddly center that is relatively liberal on all issues and relatively right on Israel and Middle East issues.
But it’s not real.
“jvp is part of the jewish community. the jewish community is all over the map. i’m sick and tired of people putting them in a box and claiming the lobby rules the box.”
One could put the majority of the Jewish community in a box before the Great shift the last 10 years. They had allowed themselves to be put in a box and kept themselves there for it seems a variety of reasons.
Most of us are well aware of that. The majority of folks in Jewish Community were in a box on this issue for decades. The shift is happening and Mondoweiss is one place that is pushing the shift by leaps and bounds
i’d like to add that while code pink is not a ‘jewish organization’ both medea and rae are jewish and as such members of the american jewish community (rae is also israeli) as are many members of code pink.
and this is just one group. who, what group gets to wear the mantel of ‘the american jewish community’? who? this drives me nuts. it’s creepy. why should we buy into this concept there is some universal uniformity in the social program of american jews?
everytime we do this we rip off all our jewish allies who we honor and have led us in this struggle for justice. we throw them under a bus and essentially say ‘you don’t count as jewish’, or ‘you are an anomaly’..or jews are really like so and so (fill in abrams or kagan or whoever). it reinforces neocons speak for jews (THEY DON”T!) instead of proud young and jewish or jvp or medea or naomi or norm or phil or adam or whoever. how can we elevate our allies when we buy into some framing ‘the jewish community’ are all the ones we oppose. NO, i won’t be part of it.
edit: kathleen i just saw your comment and mine was written prior to reading it, it is not a response to yours per se, just unloading. i’m actually crying right now. this is how much it frustrates me.
And as Medea wisely admits she is very new to this movement but when Medea jumps on she is clearly a shaker and mover. But trying to pretend that there has been a large segment of the Jewish population involved before this last decade is bullshit. But I agree making generalizations about how things are now in regard to Jewish involvement does not stand. But it did for the four decades that I have been involved in lobbying, protest in D.C. , petitioning congress etc. The people who were going into the conflict to witness for decades were generally not Jewish. That has changed. The shift the last 10 years has been huge and is really shaking things up. A welcome shift.
Edward Said, Ilan Pappe (Jewish) ground breakers
Over all of it is a muffling blanket that disguises things, moves public discourse towards a muddly center
i agree, and we empower that muffling when we buy into a concept of uniformity instead of diverseness. people are individuals. how do we expect social change when there’s a persistent concept of fighting against the tide..when in actuality the wind is at our backs..we just don’t know it if we can’t see it… but we can feel it.
Crying is generally good. The movement has grown and continues to grow. No way to generalize now. But important to acknowledge the way it has been and the way it has changed.
We can still generalize about our MSM. That shift has not taken place. Shut down
it is starting to feel like the ground is getting broken everyday kathleen. it’s a completely different reality than 10 years ago. the ranks are swelling. it’s vision, we have to visualize the growth, recognize it (cuz they sure as hell do, ruet..).
That muffling blanket… see Mooser’s comment a few days ago where he said if you don’t retain anything else he says, retain that whoever Jew has the biggest money bags gets to claim they are speaking for all Jews. That’s the bad side of Jewish lack of agreement as to any single authority on Jews and Judiasm. It also doesn’t help when key Israeli spokes folks constantly conflate Israel with all Jews.
We can still generalize about our MSM.
even that is shifting enormously in the sense of considering what ‘main’ even means anymore. social media is overtaking traditional ‘mainstream’ especially for the youth. it’s getting very us against them. we should start calling it TSM for ‘traditional stream media’.
Total agreement. Keep pushing
“Edward Said, Ilan Pappe (Jewish) ground breakers”
Er… really? Edward Said? News to me.
Imagine that, On the one hand, we Jews are a major social problem in this country. We are powerful way beyond our numbers. Then others here say that we are all blindly in a box, save for you few who see the light. So, are we evil wizards who control the world as CitizenC and others here say, or are we all blind sheep who need Annie and Kathleen and Chaos to enlighten us?
blind sheep? where do you come up w/this stuff?
Was not implying that Edward Said was Jewish….on the front lines informing the public as much as facts could break through. Said on the front lines in support of justice for the Palestinians. Read many of his books
link to guardian.co.uk
“Above all, he was the most articulate and visible advocate of the Palestinian cause in the United States, where it earned him many enemies. ”
link to youtube.com
“whoever Jew has the biggest money bags gets to claim they are speaking for all Jews.”
Or the biggest megaphone. My point is that there is nobody to tell them “No”.
Facts are stubborn things. If someone said that the organized Cuban community in Florida and elsewhere was a major barrier to the normalization of relations with Cuba, no one would object or accuse the speaker of “anti-Cubanism.” Yet in the case of Israel…
the vast majority of cuban americans were born in cuba and fled seeking political asylum. the situation is a little different. but hey, if you called cuban americans a ‘major social problem in this country’ i would accuse you of being “anti-Cubanism.” we are a country of immigrants so calling out one group and accusing them of being a ‘major social problem’ is racist. and i am aware there are problems wrt cuban refugees in florida. that said, our relationship with israel is not what i think of as a ‘social problem’. it is a political problem and a foreign policy problem. and i do think the lobby is very much preventing us from having ‘normal’ relations with israel. i reject the idea the lobby represents all jewish americans.
Calling both the extreme Cuban element and the zionist element a political problem is the correct way to put it.
BUT …to be a “political problem” means there is an organized group exerting some power and influence in government.
An organized group dedicated to some agenda for a foreign country can be a ‘societal problem’ if they use propaganda to also mislead the public in a way where the public doesn’t see their agenda as dangerous to their own interest and therefore doesn’t activitly oppose it.
I am thinking too about the Oren post a few days ago that twist and misrepresents American history.
Conquers of old are the best example of how to destroy or take over a civilization or a people–they destroy it’s symbols and the story of it’s past and divide it’s peoples common ties.
So in many ways the political problem starts in those pockets of culture that seek to replace the true culture and the original principles that would be pasted down thru society by destroying it and replacing it with a ‘new’ story that gives them more, if not total control for their purposes.
This is exactly what we see at work in all the zionist efforts to ‘zionize’ America’s founding and past and their bizarre searches thur the lives of history’s public figures to see if they can find the slightest tie that might let them claim this or that noted figure was Jewish or zionist or a supporter of Israel.
I am from the South and I know people who would feel honor bound to kill you…not really kill you as in dead….LOL…but almost…for screwing with their family’s or country’s or region’s history.
i agree american.
“we are a country of immigrants so calling out one group and accusing them of being a ‘major social problem’ is racist.”
How about white/anglo-saxon suprematists? Can we call them racist and a major social problem (for blacks, for instance) in the past and/or present?
“What would you call the view that ‘the organized African American community is a major social problem?’ Racism.”
Not if it is true, and the claim is motivated by consideration of the evidence.
“What would you call the view that ‘the organized gay community is a major social problem?’ Homophobia.”
Not if it is true, and the claim is motivated by consideration of the evidence.
Of course, in both cases the burden of proof lies on the original claim, and we can reject it if no evidence is offered.
But to simply tag such a claim as a form of bigotry is equally wrong unless we have evidence that the claim was motivated by bigotry and not by some other failure of thought.
i disagree with annie that clenchner made a “good catch” there.
to imply or allege CitizenC’s proposition that “Jewishness” is a form of privilege amounts to anti-Semitism is a leap i didn’t make when reading him. does that make me and him both anti-Jewish racists?
hardly. It would be friendlier, and more accurate of you both, annie and clenchner, to have asked CitizenC how you might avoid drawing such an unfriendly conclusion from his phrasing of his thoughts, rather than jumping down his throat, ganging up on him. The very act of having jumped on him struck me as a form of cultism, of pushing him out of the circle of acceptable talkers and hearers, itself a form of intolerance i was shocked to witness in annie, but not in clenchner, who from the start indicated an attitude of willingness to jump to the defense of “all Jews everywhere,” to me a dead giveaway of Zionist proclivities…
in fact, i think clenchner doesn’t go far enough, nor does annie, in her:
“framing the power of the lobby as ‘organized Jewish community’ is a cop out and a distortion. jvp is part of the jewish community. the jewish community is all over the map. i’m sick and tired of people putting them in a box and claiming the lobby rules the box.”
Twice, annie used “the jewish community” to refer to Jews who are opposed to the agenda of Israel and AIPAC/’the lobby’. The very phrase, “the jewish community” is dangerouly misleading when applied to Jews opposed to “the lobby” and the fascist colonialist regime of Israel.
First, because “the lobby” has hoarded the term “the jewish community” so effectively that it IS COMMON SENSE IN AMERICA to imagine Jews are for israel and critics of Israel are antiJew racists. That’s part of the problem, so don’t blame CitizenC for such framing.
Second, anti-Zionist Jews critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and of Palestine, its land, water, trees, its inherent love of its millenia-present rightful stewards, presumably identify themselves by the nation-state in which they have lived and thrived, rather than by their “jewishness.” A german Jew probably identifies herself as a German before identifying as a Jew, in common discourse locally or internationally, unless, that is, she is a “friend of Israel” i.e. an unqualified supporter of whatever the hell Israeli leaders decide to do to Palestinians and their other neighbors.
My understanding as an American is that my status as a citizen, a taxpayer and voter in local as well as state and federal elections, and a holder of the U.S. passport, makes me primarily, in terms of my freedom, my rights and liberties, “an American” i.e. a person responsible to others on a multiplicity of levels that transcend any specific religious, economic, professional, ethnic or cultural “community” I may participate regularly in. I am of course a human being first, in principle, but in practical, relational, free-to-travel-wherever and think-and-say-whatever terms, I am an American, not a Christian or a Buddhist, not a teacher, a writer or a heterosexual. And while all those categories may fit an aspect of who i am, i am not going to freak and attack somebody who challenges any exclusive privileged entitlement members like myself of one or another category may falsely claim, or any offenses against others one or another Christian or group of Christians, or heterosexual males, has perpetrated. Audre Lorde didn’t offend me when she wrote her brilliant essay on compulsory heterosexuality. She enlightened me. So, when somebody challenges the legitimacy of Jews as a privileged minority, maybe honest Jews aren’t offended but actually examine the evidence, the history, for example, of how a political-economic-cultural elite of fork-tongued Jews, claiming the mantle of “True Judaism” or “God”s Chosen People” or whatever, “Zionists destined to rule over Eretz-Yisrael,” have devised a global network of local and national organizations of self-proclaimed “Jewish Community centers” with which to blaspheme against Arabs, Muslims and Persians, lie about their love of blacks and God and truth and justice and peace, seize the “H”olocaust as theirs personally while secretly in Israel mocking and impoverishing the very survivors of that holocaust they exploit to squeeze more wealth out of guilt-ridden EuroAmericans, Jews and nonJews alike, and set about ethnically cleansing a piece of land they have no more right to than i do, robbing and humiliating, starving and jailing thousands upon thousands of innocent Palestinians, and killing anybody who interferes, even American military personnel, with weapons provided by the Pentagon no less.
The term “the jewish community” for a layman like myself has historically meant people who hold themselves primarily accountable to other Jews, and NOT primarily to their fellow human beings or fellow national citizens of USA, Germany, France, Mauritania, wherever, regardless of ethnicity.
Gideon Levy not long ago wrote an essay about the worst anti-Semites on the planet, those running Israel. The recently deceased historian,
Tony Judt perhaps said it best:
“Israel’s reckless behavior and its insistent identification of all criticism with anti-Semitism is now the leading source of anti-Jewish sentiment in Western Europe and much of Asia.” (Reappraisals, p291)
my response to you is here.
“That view is properly called anti-semitism.”
Oh, I see, in America, nobody has a right to anti-Semitism, but in Israel, you have the right to a “Jewish democracy”.
Well, I keep on checking, but Citizen’s “anti-Semitism” (I’m quoting Clenchner) has neither picked my pocket nor broken my leg.
And besides, Citizen is supporting a Jewish woman in the style to which she would like to become accustomed, and I have every hope he will succeed.
Yes, CitizenC, and it’s (efforts to control the I-P discussion) is doing great damage to the US value of free speech, a value costly won by Americans, who happen to be 98% at least, Gentiles. Look at the number of crosses at Normandy, not merely at the rare Star of David.
CitizenC, here’s one Jew who agrees with you: link to counterpunch.org
Anyone and everybody has an inalienable right to is or her own opinion. Nobody should fire her. Finkelstein lost is tenure, because a ‘non-self-hating’ Jew claimed the moral high-ground.
Catch 20?
………
Daniel Rich, so, you are against the free play of ideas in US universities? That’s rich.
Finkelstein has been on the front lines for a long time. So admire him
“Anyone and everybody has an inalienable right to is or her own opinion.”
I disagree with the broader implications of this claim. Everyone has a duty to seek the truth and base their opinions on reason and evidence. Only then does a person have a “right” to an opinion.
Jamie Whyte’s splendid essay on the topic has vinshed from the internet, but bits of it can be seen here.
link to books.google.com.au
““Anyone and everybody has an inalienable right to is or her own opinion.”
Actually everyone does have a right to their ‘opinion’.
What they don’t have is the right to impose or even try to impose the ‘reality’ of their opinion on others in any way.
Yea, it would be nice if those ‘opinions’ were based on some sought out truth. But 40% of the world’s population has I.Q.’s that fall just at average and below…so you are asking for a miracle.
“Actually everyone does have a right to their ‘opinion’.”
What is the basis for this alleged right?
“Yea, it would be nice if those ‘opinions’ were based on some sought out truth. But 40% of the world’s population has I.Q.’s that fall just at average and below…so you are asking for a miracle.”
Asking people to base their opinions on evidence and reason is, often, asking for more than is ever likely to be delivered.
Asking them not to have opinions based on their own stupidity is similarly asking for a miracle.
But all I am asking is that people stop saying there is a right to hold stupid ideas.
Well, you know the old saying…opinions are like a**holes, everyone has one.
Everyone has right to say what “they” think. People can reject it or not.
Faulty opinons are only dangerous if the holder is in a position to impose them on others or has channels to make people think his opinions are fact….you know like our politicians and media do.
I’d be all for a no lie law or a ‘prove what you say law’…but who would enforce it….the same politicians and elite who lie with their opinons.
And if no one had a right to opinions we couldn ‘t call them liars in our opinion could we?
“Everyone has right to say what “they” think.”
That is a right to express an opinion, not a right to hold one.
What is the basis for the right to hold an opinion if one has not performed one’s epistemic duties?
The right to express, and the right to hold, an opinion is the right to individual self-determination, to freedom from the tyranny of a majority, and it precedes “epistemic duties” just as the rights listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights indicates, basically on the premise that we are all equally entitled to the basics of life support and “pursuit of happiness”, including freedom of association without having to answer to any “higher” material, better-armed authority.
Duty is something especially pooh-poohed in our era of what Marcuse called “repressive desublimation.” Hadn’t you heard? We’re entitled, if we’re scientists, for example, or curious simply, to devise deadlier and deadlier toxins and weapons of mass dest-ruction simply because WE CAN ! ! ! Isn’t that what makes FREEDOM so damned exciting and ALL-AMERICAN, BY GOD?
Nietzsche really anticipated Americanism more than any other “post-you-name-it” advocate. Eternal return of the same seems to indicate the real meaning of that old saw that ‘man’s reach must exceed his grasp or else what’s a heaven for?’ — i.e., we can see our tragic nature, but ultimately are stuck with it… no matter what we try to do to transcend it…. and, as long as we keep telling each other, we in the mightier societies, that we “are chosen”, then we can be comfortable dividing ourselves into those who are crassly opportunistic, like Israel’s leaders always have been, and those who have a sense of noblesse oblige, who feel the ?White ?Man’s Burden includes compassion and mercy towards our inferiors.
But there’s that inconvenient third category of folks who defy polarities and declare all humans must have their equality defended against all state interference, all intrusions and impositions by self-selected elites, even those of which one is a born member. That’s the group of Jews I as a nonJew trust — but only so far. As they say in the marketplace, buyer beware. That saying doesn’t make you anti-capitalist of course. But you’re immediately labeled by the powers that be, MSM or whore politicians in Congress and state capitals, as anti-semitic, or a “self-hating Jew” when a similar self-protective hedge is voiced concerning the questionable trustworthiness or intellectual integrity of Jews who think Israel “has a right to exist as a Jewish state” — in other words, Jews who approve of Israel’s founders using intentional terrorist tactics in military operations against civilians in order to create such a state (and declare it a democracy! while developing an internal legal system similar in its ethnocentric viciousness and hypocrisies to Jim Crow in the southern USA and Apartheid in South Africa)
Anyway, as for Jews booting a Lebanese American off the speaking platform of the MoveOverAiPAC event, it’s perfectly logical really, since those Jews are trying to tell their fellow (unhumble and thus non-self-hating) Jews, as family member to family member — Look, the world is wondering why victims of the Shoah are perpetrating a slow-motion Shoah against a people totally innocent of that first Shoah, and that world is getting wise to the fact that the Jews perpetrating the (slow-motion) Shoah (ethnic cleansing as defined in the successful case against Milosevic) against Palelstinians are mostly NOT those who suffered under the Nazis, but the Jews (like Rabin, Peres, Dayan, Ben-Gurion among other Founding Fathers) who exploited Hitler’s existence in order to guilt-trip the West, with its namby-pamby anti-Semitism (limited quotas for Jewish immigrants from Nazi Germany) and its gratitude and debt to those Jews who did escape in time to help “the Allies” win WWII — Einstein, et al. — as well as the Jewish intellectuals and activists who indeed participated in numerous progressive causes (Buber, Heschel et al) , probably not anticipating the murderous ethnic cleansing terrorist regime and master of international infiltration and mass hypnosis Israel proved so adept at being from 1947 to the present, or from the 1890s to the present.
It is good that progressive Jews are at last finding the collective courage to stand up to “the lobby” publicly, although having spent some time in Marin County in recent years, I am appalled at how voiceless such Jews remain — even to the point that the anti-Iraq war “marin peace and justice coalition” mpjc.org has suppressed pro-Palestinians and anti-colonialist Jews from holding public events the mpjc would host or defend against — you might be surprised, or not — even Methodist, feminist ministers who’d demand either a police presence and/or the “necessary balance” of including a Zionist Jew to present “the other side of the issue” if she or her congregation were to permit the “I/P issue” to be discussed from a Palestinian perspective.
Which is why it would be great if Mark Braverman (read his book Fatal Embrace!) were to speak at the MoveOverAIPAC event, since he has made astutely clear how delusional Christians are who imagine “balance” exists in the “I/P issue,” in which a U.S.-backed-funded, massively armed with WMDs, colonialist-racist (oxymoronic hedonistic-Spartan-narcissist) regime is oppressing a basically weaponless, occasionally kitchen-pipe lobbing (at illegal occupiers of their own Nakba-fled homes in so-called Sderot) and stone-throwing — but mostly completely nonviolently — Jim-Crow/apartheid resisting indigenous people.
So, as for your visionary ideal-type linking indissolubly any “freedom of” or “right to” opinion-voicing with a corollary or twin-like universal ethos of epistemic duty, keep on dreaming, my friend. I agree with American we do have the right to have stupid opinions and to voice them. That’s why people with good ideas have to work really hard to get others to think carefully enough to recognize those ideas as good or better than the opinions they’d learned earlier to hold. Nothing good comes easy, though it feels good when in moments it seems to.
Well, that’s convincing.
I know know that the right is based in a long, rambling, sarcastic, rant.
(I haven’t thought about Marcuse for years. I had a go at “One Dimensional Man” when I was an undergraduate. Decided that there might be interesting ideas in there, but his rotten style was too obscure to tease them out.
Then read “Eros and Civilisation”. Astonishingly lucid. So much so that I could see straight away that it was a load of drivelling tripe. )
” We are relatively new to this movement for justice in Israel/Palestine and have much to learn from those of you who have been doing this work for decades. And we all have much to learn about how to work effectively, respectfully and in integrity with each other.”
I was always amazed and concerned that Medea had not jumped on the I/P justice issue even before Code Pink when she was an integral part of Global Exchange another organization that Medea Benjaman was a co founder of. I thought it was odd once Code Pink started (was at their jumping off day way back when in D.C.) that as they expanded the issues that they were involved in that Justice for Palestinians was not one of them. But whoa once Medea and team jump they jump in big. Both Rae, Medea and their Code Pink team do very important work for peace and justice. And they are very very wise women to acknowledge being new to the movement and giving kudos to all of the devoted folks who have come before us. This is a kind and wise way to go about acknowledging that work. Always giving credit where credit is due.
Great that Helen will be there reporting. I am sure it will do her soul good when she witnesses and listens to how the wall of silence is coming down due to the internet etc. The wall is still solidly up in our MSM
“Great that Helen will be there reporting. I am sure it will do her soul good when she witnesses and listens to how the wall of silence is coming down due to the internet etc. The wall is still solidly up in our MSM”
Kathleen, she will need a lot more than this for her soul. In the decades that she covered the WH, when was the other time she spoke out in favour of the Palestinians? That silly thing she was goaded into saying by the scumbag rabbi wasn’t of any consequence other than its having been blown out of proportion by Zionist holocaust-milkers. All of a sudden and for no valid reason, everyone, good or bad, is making her into a pro-Palestinian gladiator.
She has been one of the only White House correspondence to ask questions about the illegal settlements, the rights of the Palestnians, dead in Iraq, false claims being repeated about Iran. Have heard her
Phil originally said his reaction was that having Helen speak there and then was a bad TACTICAL move. At the time, I agreed with Phil. I still do. I’m glad to see the organizers now realize this wisdom and appear to generally agree now that “it was a bad move on our part because the press would focus on Helen and not our critique of AIPAC.” Of course that’s exactly what the MSM would do. They’d play Helen’s spontaneous response to the Zionist suddenly shoving his mike at Helen over and over. Helen’s clarifications since then, including the one in Hugh Hefner’s magazine, would not be mentioned. Look what the MSM has done with the Iranian leader’s public statement that the Zionist regime will one day vanish from the pages of history. Instead of a reference to the former USSR, it was turned into a rabid jew-hating assertation that all the Jews will be pushed into the sea. Every American has heard the latter mistranslation, and very few even know there’s an authentic Arabic translation–heck, they don’t even know the guy didn’t speak in English!
OTOH, Helen’s contemplated report on the event will be slammed by pointing to the messenger as a known anti-semite, that is, jew-hater. The content of her future report will be ignored by the MSM.
But, thankfully, Americans are slowly learning not to believe what the MSM says, same as with the US government. Every inch helps, towards one day actually having a government that is the result of the informed consent of its citizens.
“Phil originally said his reaction was that having Helen speak there and then was a bad TACTICAL move”
Totally disagree.
Hopefully folks keep promoting this event where ever they go on the web and elsewhere. Get folks there
Oh this one just popped up in my head. Going to contact Medea. She is great will almost always respond How about Charles Freeman as a guest speaker. Aye yi yi probably too late
Charles Freeman on You tube addressing the I lobby scalping
link to youtube.com
link to politico.com
“”The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth.”
Freeman’s departure echoed moments during last year’s presidential campaign when Obama – generally willing to ignore the daily political tempests – abandoned aides and advisers who drew strong, persistent criticism on the question of Israel, which became, in the politics of the presidential campaign, a proxy issue for more general toughness on Islamic terrorism.
He forced an informal advisor, former Clinton administration peace negotiator Rob Malley, to resign after he met with Hamas officials on behalf of the International Crisis Group. And he distanced himself from Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who had been, briefly, a high-profile campaign figure. Later Obama, asked about his views on Israel, dismissed Brzezinski as “not one of my key advisers.”
Freeman would be a great speaker. Baird too.
Just contacted Medea (which I have done many times) Seems like it would be very late to line Freeman up. But oh he would be so good.
Interesting to think that at the Netroots conference the I/P issue has never been a topic. Have politely hammered. They have had panels on Afghanistan, Iraq did not go last year but think they are still actively avoiding the issue. As well as Iran
Interesting to think that at the Netroots conference the I/P issue has never been a topic
i think they did a couple years ago but they didn’t post the video or livestream it.
How about Baird?
I could be wrong but don’t think so. Based on my knowledge (attended two of them) and communication with a few of the organizers Netroots avoids the issue
here’s netroots nation site: Israel Palestine Caucus
Thursday, July 22nd 4:30 PM – 5:45 PM
Caucus, Miranda 5
You might suggest that sooner or later their thrust is going to have also include calling out the “betrayal” of America by US politicians for Israel’s benefit.
Yes, that is getting into ‘real hardball’ territory. But that’s the bottom line here.
CP and all the other orgs can plead and plead for the human rights of Palestine till the cows come home and it will never do any good……if US politicians haven’t responded to the bombings of Gaza, the cluster bombs of Lebanon, the killing of American peace activists by Israel and other outrages…..by now…they aren’t ever going to.
Sorry they just won’t.
You will have to go after ‘them’, up front and personal and in plain language call them what they are.
Consider what is actually going on—US leaders take campaign donations from big Jewish pro Israel donors and some Jewish votes in return for allowing Israel to kill people, take their land and be immune to any punishment for any crime. Money for blood…blood money, it’s that simple.
Of course they and the zionist would scream anti semtism toward Israel if we called it and described it exactly as what it is , but really who cares? We are way past that now.
As long as we just talk about I/P only on a human rights and moral basis all they will do it their usual rationalization and political spin.
The fact is there is so much injustice in the world it’s hard to get the population to focus on one situation.
But show them how their country is being betrayed by their leaders for foreign interest and it’s a different story…that would set the majority of the US aflame….regardless of their various religious or political affiliations…being betrayed by your own government is a flash point for any citizens in any country.
As for this tactic being a threat to Jews as a whole, I don’t think so, I think the majority would jump on that bandwagon against foreign interest, even Israel, for simple survival community wise in the US if for no other reason.
The goal is to isolate the zionist and their politicians and make them the enemy of the public. The day politicians have to run campaigns on their loyalty to the US and not on their loyalty to Israel is the day the Zionist-US-Isr-I/P-Jewish issues will come to an end.
Again…money or fear….those are your only two tools against the US political system as it is today.
Please believe me when I say 90% of our politicians don’t give a damn what the public says or what it want..they only care if you have the power or money to help them or hurt them politically.
“having Helen speak there and then was a bad TACTICAL move.’
I disagree wholeheartly. Helen was the pitch perfect person to have at the event. Widely respected and reconizable until her run in with AIPAC she would have brought attention to the event… Having a bunch of academics say predictible and cautious things about the IL isnt going to make the news.
Tactically someone that people will talk about and who cant be fully written off due to her 60 year career is exactly IMO what they needed….and I cant think of many people better than Helen for that.
I am so relieved you said something, iamuglow! ! !
I agree totally, Helen Thomas, a NON-JEW, and a strong advocate for Palestinian rights, for decades longer than Medea and her crew have been on board this “I/P issue”, is a far more credible PRESENCE, as well, than any of the Code Pink activists. She certainly dresses with more dignity, as well, a matter I think Code Pink should take under advisement if they wish to advance their credibility as serious players on the field of power politics. (The way Mubarak’s wife suckered them into betraying the Gaza Freedom March, which was supposed to be a march of solidarity with the POLITICAL rights of Palestinians and not a CHARITY DELIVERY
I find somewhat tasteless and tactless the pretence at apology by Medea and crew at Codepink, where they wrote
“In reviewing the sequence of events, we realize that have erred in our communication with endorsing organizations and wish to apologize for this. We are relatively new to this movement for justice in Israel/Palestine and have much to learn from those of you who have been doing this work for decades. And we all have much to learn about how to work effectively, respectfully and in integrity with each other.
Move Over AIPAC is a unique hybrid experience – CODEPINK is coordinating the conference, events and actions, and has asked for endorsements, most of which have been endorsements in name only thus far. We assumed that there was trust in groups that we could make decisions about speakers, workshops, actions. To date we’ve had two meetings in Washington DC, two conference calls, and have sent out numerous emails to endorsers inviting suggestions for speakers, performers, and creative actions. We are appreciative to the input we’re received thus far, but we hoped there would be more engagement from groups willing to help outreach and organize.
We hope that if there is something positive to come out of this, in addition to the clarity around Helen’s wishes and her participation in Move Over AIPAC, it might be a renewed sense of interest in working together to make this event a success. So far we have only 130 registrants. We hope to reach 300 in the next three weeks and need everyone’s help to reach that goal.”
First of all, for Phil in the intro to this thread to praise Medea and Rae, and fail to praise Alison Weir for raising a critical point about responsible and egalitarian communicating between and among activists is cloyingly absurd. Then annie and kathleen having a cuddlefest over how bright Medea is and how wrong CitizenC was, how “anti-semitic” he was, just floored me.
Why is it that activist Jews admit they are new to “the I/P issue” and smugly rewrite the manner in which they reframed the MoveOverAIPAC event, unilaterally deciding to push aside a highly visible and courageously vocal critic of Zionist greed, deceit and brutality who is NON-Jewish, by the way, a Lebanese-American?
What does it tell you about the level of solidarity of such activists with the Palestinian people when they continue to use the mainstream media phrasing of the issue of Palestinian sovereignty and Palestinians’ fundamental unalienable rights as human beings easily the equal of any other national or ethnic group on the planet?
Even on this website, maybe your fingers are tired from typing, but i find it disrespectful of you towards Palestinians to refer to their revolutionary liberation struggle as “the Israel/Palestine conflict”, giving priority to the name of the oppressing regime that is dishonestly claiming entitlement to seize the resources and erase the history of Palestine. When I visited Palestine last year I showed one of my hosts a map of Israel and the occupied territories to discuss my itinerary, and he said to me calmly, “This map is wrong, you know.” I said I didn’t understand. He said, passing his hand over the whole of the map, “This is not Israel, this is Palestine.”
To refer to Israel as a respectable member of the United Nations and to refer to its treatment of Palestinians, both in the occupied territories and those in Palestine ’48 who comprise one out of five of the citizens of the so-called “only democracy in the Middle East” is to collude in a form of political ethnocide that belies fidelity to the values of Judaism of which CitizenC so concisely spoke.
The phrase “the I/P issue” while practical as speedy shorthand reveals an odd sort of prioritizing — technospeed as more important than accuracy in discourse, and a discourse in most urgent need of precision and consistency on the part of those purporting to be wishing to help Palestinians.
As an American citizen, i hate that my tax dollars paid for bullets that killed Vietnamese, Iraqis, and, yes, Palestinians, and that we are letting the tail of Israel wag the dog of history’s most-destructively armed empire. The U.S.-subsidized racist colonialist project of Jewish political Zionists bent on stealing Palestinians’ homeland should give writers on Mondoweiss pause about the jargon they casually sprinkle in these posts.
Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the immoral basis of the so-called “Jewish state” of Israel
i’m just going to skipover the dress code part of your comment.
Then annie and kathleen having a cuddlefest over how bright Medea is and how wrong CitizenC was, how “anti-semitic” he was, just floored me.
first off i adore and massively love medea, she is a massive hero of mine as is helen. but…i didn’t refer to her as ‘bright’ in this conversation because largely i think her judgment in this particular incident was not at up to par. in fact after holding back my comment from an earlier thread i sent it to phil and chewed him out (really). i don’t see the upside in throwing my friends under the bus. i appreciate how difficult it must have been to be under the onslaught of criticism they must have endure but personally i would have stuck to my guns and stood by their first instinct which was to invite a pillar of the community, helen!, to speak.
but, that said, we all make mistakes . we’ve had this conversation before on this site. i recall a hail of criticism before because code pink was late to the party. SO FRIGGIN WHAT? i’m so over the purity patrol. OVER IT. we need to empower our strong beautiful voices and medea and rae are strong beautiful voices. yes, they make mistakes yes it would be preferable if we were in unity all the time, whatever. nobodies perfect. this is a hard call and i have every (ABSOLUTELY) confidence at each moment they made the choice they thought was the best. needless to say i don’t agree with all there choices but we have to move on and forge the best path to the future. seriously, move past it. don’t alienate people who give their life to better humanity because they make a wrong move.
perhaps i will publish the post i didn’t post but sent to phil. i didn’t post it because criticizing a ally (one i adore) is not in our best interest. whatever our regrets or criticisms are wrt this faux pas we must realize this learning curve is probably much harder for medea and code pink. ultimately helen’s voice needs to be heard and it will be. just breathe and do not be so judgmental.
the most important lesson to be learned here is this is a movement is to free palestine and therefore when push comes to shove or one feels one is between a rock and a hard place to defer to palestinian judgment and authority..take a breath and consult those leading the movement. hopefully that will occur to those making decisions if something comes along again. but please let us not divide over these bumps in the road.
and ps, i still think referencing american jews as being a social problem is wrong. we have to QUIT handing the mantel of those who speak for the jewish community to our adversaries. as far as i am concerned SHRINK the neocons and EMPOWER the voices on our side (medea and rae are DEFINITELY on our side). we own the narrative, or at least we should. visualize and empower equality and justice will follow.
“… I agree totally, Helen Thomas, a NON-JEW, and a strong advocate for Palestinian rights, for decades longer than Medea and her crew have been on board this “I/P issue”, is a far more credible PRESENCE, as well, than any of the Code Pink activists.”
Bethlehem, what has Helen Thomas done in her advocacy of Palestinian rights over the past decades? For years whenever I saw her on televised WH press briefings, I thought she was Jewish because of her accent and I would have never known that she had Lebanese roots had it not been for that misfortunate video that made her into an instant Joan of Arc fighting for Palestinian freedom. I agree that she shouldn’t have joined the anti-AIPAC thing or reporting of it because she’s not really into it.
And while I think Code Pinks tactics were questionable when I first attended their early and subsequent actions I have talked to Medea about why they do this (wear pink cause a stink etc) And the reasons are legitmate in my book.
I also think Medea’s willingness to be honest about “being new to the movement” is honorable. Too many people want to grab attention and take credit where credit is not due. I have witnessed this need and deception pull many political groups apart at their core. Always wise to acknowledge the people who have worked had for decades on a particular issue. Keep the ego in check and keep the movement together.
While Medea has admitted being relatively new to what many refer to as the “movement” What I honor and celebrate about Medea is her creativity, commitment and ability to pull people together and harness that energy. Take a look at the Move over Aipac site. They have set it up so that folks can take action, contact congress people etc. This conference clearly involves a great deal of work. I honor her, Rae and the Codepink team as well as other groups involved for their efforts. We need this
annie,
three points:
1. I agree with you that authentically egalitarian (anti-racist, anti-Eurocentric) Jews are rising to the occasion in sufficient numbers, finally (when Palestinians haven’t been as decimated, so far, as American Indians were by the Protestant Reformation’s heirs, from Hamiltonians to Jeffersonians, slaveholders and real estate speculators all, even those “freeing their slaves in their wills”), to force our crippled MSM to give a few column inches to their challenge of the dominant framing about “the Jewish people” that our post-UNCharter Zionist wanna-be-19th-century imperialists have managed to shove down our collective craws. Nevertheless, AIPAC/IL still runs the show, and more Palestinians’ (and internationals’) blood will spill in Palestine as long as Jews of conscience fail to marshall “their” (ethno-identified) numbers with greater effectiveness — and that includes incarnating sufficient humility to gladly ride shotgun for or accompany a few steps behind, rather than insist on taking the wheel from Palestinians themselves. Anarchists Against the Wall, JVP and whoprofits are just three such strong Jewish activist groups that aren’t about tooting their own horns. I don’t see Medea NOT tooting her own horn yet, sad to say. I’d like to see more of Code Pink’s grassroots activist decision-makers given more airtime than Medea, rather than this leader-fetish that plays right into the royalist, monarchical psyche of the Western world, in which the globe’s sole superpower pretends to identify with its historical origins of defying King George when the last few White House occupants have, with Congressional blessing, aggrandized to the “unitary executive” totalitarian powers dwarfing those of past kings. Even the Civil Rights movement tragically subordinated its most important leaders, especially the women, to the MSM’s “journalism 101″ demand for “identifiable leaders” at the huge expense of delays in the maturation of entire generations of potential activists, but that’s another discussion for YourBlackWorld. (Is it too late, by the way, to ask Mark Braverman to speak at MOA?)
2. “do not be so judgmental” This isn’t about judgment, but about activists with the greatest visibility being willing to demonstrate the greatest dignity, humility and honesty when it comes to accepting criticism for their shortcomings — and having the grace to openly admit errors without diluting such admission with back-handed generalizations designed subtly to put critics on notice, as Medea did in the above lengthy quotation. Criticism includes self-criticism, and to react defensively, or to insist, “O we mustn’t air our dirty laundry lest the enemy exploit our divisions” is and has been proved a counterproductive form of fatalism, of surrendering to fear and doubt, and ironically, it embraces divisiveness as unavoidable and therefore chooses to sweep it under the rug rather than deal with it. Like my Mom used to tell me when i didn’t like something i had to do or endure in the tests life threw my way: Deal with it, child! If Medea is to be a worthy spokesperson across-the-board for whatever cause she steps up to a microphone to declaim, she has to get used to dealing with what goes with it, thick-skinned and warm-hearted through and through, especially when it comes to real egalitarian activism, which demands more tolerance of discomfort and inconvenience than patriarchy trains us to endure. Medea may earn, and re-earn, our respect; she is not entitled, because of her history with this or that good deed under her belt, to automatic respect. Effective and credible “leaders” follow the people’s lead, and don’t presume to rest on past laurels. “Leaders” are a dime a dozen. Heroes are something else, as which we all should be learning from attending closely to the nonviolent struggle of our Palestinian sisters and brothers.
3. Annie, your voice is a good one to find online, and i think a lot of folks appreciate you but don’t say so. i’d just caution you about letting your friendship with an activist, or your affection for this or that group, get in the way of your independent critical thinking as an activist in what is a painfully and exhilaratingly creative endeavor in refining our human and trans-species perceptions, conceptual framing skills and our diplomatic arts. “visualize and empower equality, and justice will follow” sounds like too much effort. Equality, as Jacques Ranciere has argued in book after book, should be as spontaneous to us as our next breath, or our heartbeat, and then all that is “personal” in our lives and all that is “political” will function simultaneously as what we are, as the Native Americans so beautifully put it, “all our relations,” or as Thich Nhat Hanh says, “interbeing.”
for the time being i am just going to address your #3. thank you.i absolutely consider myself an independent critical thinker altho i realize there are a lot of people smarter than me. criticisms i have of the movement and people in the movement i generally don’t hash out in public online. rarely even in list servers and sometimes not even in emails.
“visualize and empower equality, and justice will follow” sounds like too much effort. Equality, as Jacques Ranciere has argued in book after book, should be as spontaneous to us as our next breath, or our heartbeat, and then all that is “personal” in our lives and all that is “political” will function simultaneously as what we are
i agree, equality should be as spontaneous to us as our next breath, or our heartbeat, but unfortunately for many of us it isn’t. that’s just the facts of life and that includes where we place ourselves and our contemporaries in this struggle which brings us right around to the conversation of the power of the lobby and the frustration i was expressing upthread. i am going to put aside the issue of palestinian voice and palestinian leadership as it pertains to this conversation for the moment because we have both previously expressed out regards for their hierarchy in the movement for their own freedom.
anyone would be a fool not to acknowledge who holds the reigns in our foreign policy wrt israel. we can argue til the cows come home whether it’s the leaders, the lobby the ‘organized jewish community’ or whatever. it is their side not ours. in most regards we are not equal in that conversation and we are not treated equally by the media, the politicians whatever. we need to elevate the conversation, fast and strong. very very strong. zionist power relies and depends on the ILLUSION everyone is behind them and most american support them and that is an illusion we empower by imagining them as millions of organized people. we have to visualize our power as equal to theirs because in all the important ways we wield the most power. our weapons are stronger because we have truth on our side, we have the global community on our side, we know it and they know it. and do we visualize ourselves as equal to them? for the most part no, we don’t. we need to visualize ourselves as huge with the wind on our backs. when i say ‘empower equality’ i mean our own. but i don’t think you would understand that the way i do because you’ve completely passed the mantel of what defines jews in our society over to the zionists. hey, why stand up and be counted when you can shrink to the point of not even counting yourself as part of a community.
“the lobby” has hoarded the term “the jewish community” so effectively that it IS COMMON SENSE IN AMERICA to imagine Jews are for israel and critics of Israel are antiJew racists.
common sense eh? way to throw all our jewish allies under a friggin bus. we have completely opposite views on this. i am visualizing a fast growing non zionist youth (believe me reut is visualizing it too and they are scarred) with strong powerful leaders. i envision ‘the jewish community’ as teaming with human rights activists. i visualize them, i empower them and i regard many of them as leaders. you? you’ve already given up on them as jews. you regard yourself as american, fine. me too. everyone can go hog wild imagining ‘the jews’ as being led by abrams and kagan and saban or whoever. when i think jew i think naomi and adam and phil and norm and medea and dana and noam and yonathan and shai and the list goes on and on and on. that is who i see. i visualize expanding their influence.i empower them because they represent truth and where truth expands justice follows.
so no, we don’t agree on everything. i see your point. i see perhaps i misunderstood citizenc’s point and perhaps i was too swift to judge his meaning. but here is a big difference between you and me, i won’t be accusing you of being a cultist. we all choose our own battles and you are not on my front burner.
see ya round.
annie,
two things:
1. “zionist power relies and depends on the ILLUSION everyone is behind them and most american support them and that is an illusion we empower by imagining them as millions of organized people. we have to visualize our power as equal to theirs because in all the important ways we wield the most power. our weapons are stronger because we have truth on our side, we have the global community on our side, we know it and they know it. and do we visualize ourselves as equal to them? for the most part no, we don’t. we need to visualize ourselves as huge with the wind on our backs. when i say ‘empower equality’ i mean our own. ”
very well stated. i’m beginning to better understand your perspective.
2. “but i don’t think you would understand that the way i do because you’ve completely passed the mantel of what defines jews in our society over to the zionists. hey, why stand up and be counted when you can shrink to the point of not even counting yourself as part of a community.
“the lobby” has hoarded the term “the jewish community” so effectively that it IS COMMON SENSE IN AMERICA to imagine Jews are for israel and critics of Israel are antiJew racists.
common sense eh? way to throw all our jewish allies under a friggin bus. we have completely opposite views on this. i am visualizing a fast growing non zionist youth (believe me reut is visualizing it too and they are scarred) with strong powerful leaders. i envision ‘the jewish community’ as teaming with human rights activists. i visualize them, i empower them and i regard many of them as leaders. you? you’ve already given up on them as jews.”
you misunderstood me; i failed to speak clearly. by “common sense in america” i was referring to the success the hasbarah campaign has had so far in convincing Americans to see or look no further than Paul Newman’s blue eyes in Exodus, or the later award-winning Schindler’s List, combined with the unpublicized contracts “the lobby” has extorted from virtually all our Congresspeople, the refusal to sign for which Cynthia McKinney got, as you love to say, thrown under the bus — and later nearly murdered when the idf navy pirates rammed the Free Gaza movement’s boat in international waters, the Dignity, three times on Dec. 30, 2008. Mondoweiss wouldn’t exist and be such a treasured online resource, for me as well as for you, if the “commonsense American” perception of which i speak weren’t such a huge and tragically murderous fact for Palestinians 24/7/365, now, would it? It would be unnecessary. Mondoweiss exists, i thought, BECAUSE the “commonsense” understanding of the “I/P issue” in the USA is so f’ing WRONG, COSTLY, DEADLY, IMMORAL AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVELY DANGEROUS TO THE ENTIRETY OF HUMANITY. So, yes, i agree that your visualizing a more egalitarian Jewry in America becoming the predominant nature of Jewishness, self-identified, is a good idea. But we aren’t there yet, by a long shot. Israeli leaders felt so comfortable and confident about their domination of public opinion, not only in the U.S. but in the EU as well, to have a trained killer openly execute six of the 9 people slaughtered on board the Mavi Marmara. That kind of blase butchery in international waters proved a pretty good calculation for the perpetrators in Israel’s rightwing cabinet ministries, at least in terms of how well-trained their dogs in the U.S. Congress are concerned — and that is again what i’m talking about. Yes, more and more self-identified Jews are stepping up. Good. The supertanker of history is turning away from that deadly waterfall of doom at the flatworld’s edge. But it’s still by and large headed for the fall. I am terribly worried for the people on board the next flotilla — terribly worried ! ! The kind of cynical monsters at the helm in Israel have a largely well-trained circus audience for citizens; the vocal and effective critics are about as effective as PETA activists in steak-eating McDonald’sLand, to date. So i’mless sanguine than you, perhaps, about the Audacity of Hope sailing safely into Gaza Port, or what’s left of it. I do hope I’m wrong, of course. But, only one member of Knesset had the courage to be a FreedomRider for Gazans in the first flotilla. And look how they’ve pilloried her.
I do hope the big wheels who will be aboard the next flotilla have enough influence the chickenhawks of Zionville will refrain from replaying their Cowboy movie of last May. We’ll just have to wait and see, and keep plugging away at getting the truth better and better broadcast than the lies have so far been.
i had a feeling my comment about dress was “off-color” – no pun intended. it was completely irrelevant to the issue under discussion and you were wise — and kind — to ignore it.
Yes, BethlehemOlivesRedeem, I got what you meant by “common sense” in your first mention of the term above. In politics, “common sense” is manufactured and peddled incessantly. It’s power comes from intentional withholding of relevant information to John Q Public, which, thanks to the internet, is becoming more difficult for the PTB. This makes me think of the old Beatle’s, “What if they called a war and nobody came?” Cherry-picking information to be distributed to the masses, along with “the big lie,” most convenient to peddle simultaneously, currently a “war” on terrorism assumed to only grow from a backward “towel-head,” who hates without reason,
is the usual flag flying, courtesy, the old-Brit “Huns!” studied by Adolph and Bernays, the latter himself studied by Goebbels, and since woven non-stop by Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, and Israel Firsters everywhere. Who will be the next demon now that OBL is dead? The Arab Spring complicates things for the ideologues of “common sense.” The surprise came about, of course, because they believed their own lies, all foisted under the guise of “common sense.”
I am very pleased at this initiative to focus attention on AIPAC. I have long felt that the center of Zionist power is the US, not Israel. To be successful, the pro-Palestinian, pro-peace and justice movement has to break the link between organized American Jewry and Zionism. The fact that many Jewish-American individuals support Palestinian human rights may be morally significant, but is woefully inadequate to offset the power of organized American Jewry. I fully support BDS, however, I feel that this new approach could be of equal and possibly greater significance. Both efforts are mutually reinforcing.
Me too, Keith; it’s been so since Harry Truman made it so; he really was Cyrus2. I don’t think Cyrus left us his diary notes to let us know what he thought of how the Zionists took advantage of what he thought were his good intentions. We do know that Truman deleted the adjective “Jewish” from the state of Israel he was unilaterally recognizing.
Jus a follow-up; we do know what Truman thought about the Zionists banging on his door, and that he made it apparent that while treating Jews as individuals, as he did to even allow the Zionists leader in his office at the end, thanks to his old hat Jewish seller partner, he ended up regretting his folding to the rabid Zionists, although, yet again, he was happy they didnt’ t put their dollars & MSM attention to Dewey. Truman is the first obstacle to US defending itself. It’s been the same ever since. And his daughter really couldn’t sing or play the piano well.
Truman also told the Freedom Riders to the racist JimCrow South — almost precisely 50 years ago today (anniversary coming up later this month) — to mind their own business and stay home. He integrated the U.S. military, but that was pragmatism, not principle at play. Black nonviolent resistance was a major factor in that shift. But that fact went unwritten in the history books in our arrogant “Leader of the Free World” land.
“The fact that many Jewish-American individuals support Palestinian human rights may be morally significant, but is woefully inadequate to offset the power of organized American Jewry.”
Exactly and that is the crux of the problem.
USA does not need AIPAC, but Israel does:
link to alternet.org
“The fact that many Jewish-American individuals support Palestinian human rights may be morally significant, but is woefully inadequate to offset the power of organized American Jewry.”
Exactly and that is the crux of the problem.
DITTO.
with its money.
link to jta.org
We’re talking BILLIONS here — just think of all those job opportunities if your background and your religion fits, AND you convey absolute devotion and allegiance to Israel ‘regardless‘ of massacres she commits.
job opportunities and JFNA sponsored events like:
TribeFest[!]
link to tribefest.org
Tribefest Session: Obama & The Jewish Vote: A Look Towards 2012
Speaker(s)
Matthew Brooks [Republican Jewish Coalition]
David Harris [National Jewish Democratic Committee]
William Daroff [Vice President for Public Policy and Director of the DC office: JFNA (ex-Republican Jewish Coalition)
link to tribefest.org
Wish someone could get hold of the audio of this session?
A little from a blog from someone who did apparently go:
2:41PM “Obama is the most supportive President of State of Israel. This is based ‘demonstrable facts’ most notably financial support of Israel and sanctions levied against Iran.” – David Harris from National Jewish Democratic Committee. No perceivable boos in the crowd. Sign of Democratic audience or simply respect for moderator William Daroff‘s request for civility?
2:55PM David’s picture of Obama’s relationship with Israel doesn’t match reality. Tremendous strain in Israel/American relationships. – Matthew Brooks from Republican Jewish Coalition. Goes on to say American Jews and Israel need not be self-reflective about commitment to peace, whereas “Palestinians and extremist Islamists clearly do.” Such a request by Obama Administration illustrative of disconnect with American Jews.
3:00PM “Jstreet is one of most dangerous and offensive organizations in the Jewish community.” HUGE applause. “Nothing more than radicalized… (he stops and restarts) they wrap themselves in veneer of being ‘pro-israel.’” – Matthew
“I don’t talk about other organizations unless they attack me. That said, the width and breadth of our community is vast. If people want to gather under that rubric and believe in it, ‘go and be happy.’ I doubt we would cohost an event with Jstreet in the future.” – David
I’m surprised at the naivete of these remarks. JVP is not part of “the Jewish community” if we measure it by, say, membership in the Conference of Presidents. The groups in that body are the mainstream organized Jewish community, and their similarities are far more important than the differences. Their influence on ME policy is clearly a major social problem. 9/11 was mainly an attack on US patronage of Israel.
J Street is not in the Conf of Presidents, but it is clearly trying to be a mainstream player.
JVP is even farther outside, but it aims to be part of “the community” as JVP people have expressly stated on this web site. JVP’s approach is to limit critique to the minimum–thus it acknowledges Israel’s war crimes, in legal terms. It limits activism like BDS to “the occupation”. It says next to nothing about Zionism itself. And it tries to control set limits for debate outside “the community”, to suppress any perception that the organized Jewish community is a major social problem.
From the earlier post:
The moral support for a broader critique is the Jewish approaches to universalism, the classical Reform anti-Zionism of Rabbi Elmer Berger; the Marxist internationalism in which Jews were prominent; and what the late Israel Shahak called the “modern, secular Jewish tradition” which he dated from Spinoza.
Some MW sophisticates seem to think judging “Jews” (whatever that means today) by their universalist traditions is anti-semitism, which is naive at best.
ok. perhaps i am misunderstanding you if you think JVP is not part of “the Jewish community”.
what percentage of the american jewish population do you think aligns itself with the goals and aspirations of the Conference of Presidents? what percentage of the american jewish population are you considering in the american jewish community?
when you say if we measure it by, say, membership in the Conference of Presidents do you mean you are measuring the american jewish community by the Conference of Presidents? and if you do why would you do that? do you really think they speak for all the jews in america? aren’t you throwing the other jews under a bus? don’t they matter? aren’t they also part of ‘the jewish community”.
why don’t you just say the conference of presidents is creating a major social problem in this country if that is what you mean? and why do you ascribe the problem as beginning with the left? don’t you think the left is reacting (ineffectively) to the extremists?
What is the percentage?
Does anyone actually know?
How many Jews actively or passively, politically support zionism and Israel.
If you listen to the zionist they all do except for the terrible ‘self hating Jews”.
Has any survey been done that is even half way accurate?
How many christian zios actually support Israel to the point they would agree with the suborning of US national interest for Israel and their religion?
I have never seen a study or survey that specifically concentrates on these questions.
Maybe the people that commission all the polls on this issue don’t really want to know what the real numbers are.
i remember a poll not long ago asking americans if they would approve of going to war w/iran to defend israel and the overwhelming answer was ‘no’.
The NYT says AIPAC has 100,000 members—I assume they are talking about dues paying members. But who knows really, those who speak for AIPAC tend to puff it up in terms of support.
BTW– the NYT topic section is a good resource for AIPAC articles and coverage and it has a blog runner section for AIPAC coverage also. Of course again, you can’t really believe everything that’s written– but it does give one a really good look at the AIPAC propaganda at work and the uber zionist who push it.
link to topics.nytimes.com
While I admire a lot of the work Code Pink has done in the past, this is not the first time in relation to Palestine solidarity work they have jumped in feet first, made unilateral decisions and divided the movement.
They did the exact same thing during the Gaza Freedom March, when a number of their members without consulting other solidarity groups or the majority of protestors, struck a deal with Mubarak’s wife, Suzanne. The “deal” allowed just 100 protestors out of the 1400 protestors to enter Gaza.
The majority of protestors were outraged that Code Pink did this (and in my opinion, I think the majority were right to be outraged by Code Pink’s behaviour). Rather than respecting the unity of the FGM, Code Pink undermined it and they played into the hands of the Mubarak government who simultaneous portrayed itself as being benevolent, while portraying the 100 to be chosen as “good” protestors and the 1200 other protestors as “bad”. It resulted in protests against Code Pink and the blockading of the buses which were scheduled to take the chosen 100 into Gaza. In the end only 86 or so people went. Here’s Phil’s account of what happened at the time: link to mondoweiss.net
Code Pink, if they are going to do coalition and movement work, clearly need to learn how to work as part of a coalition – they obviously need to learn how to consult and engage democratically in consensus decision making rather than making unilateral decisions which may end up undermining solidarity movements.
I did read about some breakdown between Norman Finkelstein who pushes for staying focused on international decisions about the issue and Medea Benjaman. Trust both of their intentions just different approaches
I was there in Cairo and Red’s report is accurate about Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin’s truly shocking unilateralism and piss-poor attitude toward cooperative decision-making and even judicious sharing of information and communications among the various organizations. The night before the buses to Gaza were scheduled to arrive, scores of us in a furnitureless meeting room of the hotel we used as the central planning location crowded onto the floor and listened to a surprisingly manipulative and belligerent Code Pink “facilitator” announce cloyingly to us CP’s deal w/LadyMubarak, as if we were supposed to be thrilled with two buses instead of twenty or thirty buses required for all 1,400 would-be marchers – a deal that converted a political action for the Human Rights of Gaza’s 1.5 million citizens into a Humanitarian Aide delivery and a Third-World Ghetto Tourism thing to soothe white consciences or to write home about. (The next morning was insane, with young and old “activists” standing in line with their luggage insisting they had a “right” to go on the bus, after Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein announced she was NOT going to go on the buses because the deal was a violation of the principles of solidarity the march was supposed to embody. I also found shocking to witness, of all people, Waldon Bello, yelling from the steps of the front bus that this was “a matter of individual choice, for each person to choose for themselves” whether to go on the bus or not, as if this were a Consumerist Movement! ! ! After i and several others sent messages to him on the bus, apparently he had a change of heart and stepped off the bus..) Anyway, at that crowded room, people spilling into two hallways and an adjacent room, the facilitator spokesperson for CP proceeded to call on people for their feedback, and then dismiss any criticisms of the decision, even going so far as to rudely snap at and ask for the credentials of one soft-spoken critic, “And who are you?”, insulting the head of the South African delegation. I don’t recall the facilitator’s name but she told us all we could disagree or dislike the decision but that there weren’t enough of the close to 1,400 activists present in the room to reverse the decision. (There were about 60 more of us in that crowd than were involved in the behind-the-scenes decision; apparently two or three CP activists are worth 20 or 30 times more than non-CP activists.) This was the level of logical consistency articulated by CP spokespeople/leaders, who seemed disproportionately pleased with their political effectiveness, as if they had pulled a fast one on the dictator’s wife, and not the reverse. In that same meeting, Medea herself assured us all that “No Code Pink people will go on the buses,” and that each international group could choose two members to go on the buses and list a few more contingent riders if one of the two didn’t show up, or whatever. The ironic punchline to this tale is that over a dozen CP activists got on the two buses, and they tried everything they could to persuade the hundreds of people in the morning crowd to board the buses, and ended up themselves trying to fill the seats, finally departing with more than ten empty seats and a huge crowd of activists disappointed and wondering how the Gazans, who had telephoned asking people to not compromise with Mubarak, the Zionists’ shill, would take all this.
As if all that weren’t evidence enough of Medea having a huge learning curve on not only this specific “I/P issue” but more basically how to take a leading role in helping to organize overseas intergroup actions without crossing boundaries and usurping power that nobody ever ceded to them. I spoke privately with several Code Pink members in Cairo who were also dismayed at Medea’s and (co-founder what’s-her-name’s) unilateralism, and who spent much of the rest of that night, before the buses showed up, trying to get CP leadership to reverse if not reframe its decision. To top it off, last year Medea came out with a video featuring herself and a guy standing beside her making it sound as if Code Pink were responsible for some incredible successes in Cairo, when in fact it was groups like the Scottish and South African campaigns who with a lot of disciplined collective discussions and mini-actions and intergroup contacts, hammered out the excellent Cairo Declaration for global action against Israeli Apartheid.
In short, it’s great that CP and Global Exchange have done lots of wonderful work, yes. and continue to do so. Yes. But for Phil and annie to personalize this MoveOverAIPAC issue by prefacing it with personal praise of Medea is to bizarrely distort the lens through which to examine and analyze our collective decision-making critically and self-critically. Phil’s claim that Helen “didn’t want to talk” at MOA but just “wants to report” is like saying we 1,385 internationals didn’t want to march arm and arm with the Gazans but were happy to stay in Cairo, warmly, fuzzily gratified in our hearts at Medea et al.’s bold and creative stroke of genius in managing to finagle two entire buses plus a supplies truck out of the First Lady of Egypt. It is to laugh.
prefaced? my first comment was over two hrs after the post went up and it mentioned neither medea or code pink. i have a right to express my opinion and there was plenty of opportunity for others to express theirs.
this is phil’s site, he has every right to voice his views. this post wasn’t about what happened in cairo but we did have posts on it at the time and this is not the first time we have heard about events that took place there. both you and red have expressed yourselves wrt cairo on this thread.
i’m sorry if you have a problem with people personalizing their views. i don’t know what else to say to you. you’ve got the opportunity to turn this into a rant against medea and code pink if you want to, it’s your prerogative. i’m not really seeing the upside of that. i think it is always better to go forward from the place where your standing, hindsight is hindsight. i suggested before you not be so judgmental but clearly that went over like a lead brick.
Phil’s claim that Helen “didn’t want to talk” at MOA but just “wants to report” is like saying we 1,385 internationals didn’t want to march arm and arm with the Gazans but were happy to stay in Cairo
sorry, i missed phil making the claims you’ve got in quotes or else i read it and forgot about it. could you please direct me to it.
thanks
you’re right, it wasn’t phil, it was the three authors of the Medea, Rae, Shaden piece that Phil quoted at length, or that he presented i guess. In fact, the fact that Medea said it, and not Phil, makes my point all the more relevant.
your impolite characterization of my lengthy note as “turning this into a rant against medea” totally misses the point… you said, “hindsight is hindsight, i think it is always better to go forward.” i think such jargon is actually typical from White House pressmen trying to shut up MSM reporters trying to get at inconsistencies in the Fuehrer’s rhetoric and actions, it comes from apologists for empire like Ari Fleischman and other cronies of the US-Israel axis of evil …. Like the adulterer or wife-beater who said during the divorce, ‘why are you picking on me about the past, past is past. We should be moving on here.’ Well, i am with the Native Americans who insist the past is present, not strictly past. When somebody has wounded another, that past deed doesn’t vanish until that other is healed and freely forgiven the perpetrator. We in the Judeo-Christian tradition, according to psychotherapists working with perpetrators of child molestation, for example, are far too inclined to forgive perpetrators when their victims are still reeling and disoriented with fear, shame, alienation, self-doubt, confusion, inability to focus or feel safe. When a movement leader takes an action that dismays, shocks, hurts, outrages more than just a few of her allies, but many — including those among her staunchest admirers — it behooves fellow activists to have the grace and intelligence to patiently consider the ramifications of that — especially if she takes another, similarly unilateral decision, albeit one with perhaps less immediate consequences to those most likely to suffer unanticipated repercussions from those in power.
Enough said.
My point is, Medea, in deciding for all the groups involved in MOAipac planning, did pretty much the same kind of snafu organizational communication-cum-decision-taking she pulled off in Cairo, claiming to make a decision that represented or respected the views OF A FEW without inviting the many to the table to discuss the issue and arrive democratically at a consensus.
i don’t have a problem with “people personalizing their views.” Again, you have neatly [surgically?] excised part of my words from their fuller context. I don’t think it is advisable or productive, especially for someone purporting to be serving, in a truly collaborative manner, a movement of diverse participants, to heed the complaints or concerns of a few and then make a decision affecting everybody without having consulted as many people as she could have. How that amounts to a “rant against medea,” rather than a legitimate expression of concern about a person you repeatedly praise instead of sticking to the question of her specific performance in this or that specific action, past or present, escapes me. It seems as if you prefer ‘activism lite’, in which all of us sing kumbaya and have nothing negative or critical to say when somebody we trusted to act not only on our collective behalf but to refrain from acting thusly without first ensuring we all, or mostly, agree the action is the best path to take. You can personalize all you want til the cows come home, but don’t dismiss point-specific arguments as “ranting.” Doing so makes you sound more like the one doing the ranting, in a fit or frenzy of impatience with disagreement. Don’t you know, disagreement is the heart of democracy?
Why call it ranting? That sounds like patriarchal rhetoric to me, the sort of Reaganesque finger-wagging designed to silence what one doesn’t want to hear or have others hear and maybe agree with, partly. i’d say you are much more believable when you stick to a focus of debate with discussing evidence or relevance reasonably. Saying you don’t like my bringing something up or that it seems off-topic is one thing i can respond to sincerely trying to clarify my intent, but delegitimizing with a pejorative term just muddies the waters.
ok , well i’m working my way thru your Fuehrer’s rhetoric/child molestation logic with in my usual fit of frenzy and impatience . when i’m done figuring it out i’ll get back to you.
forgive me my bad analogy or metaphor. please don’t waste your time trying to dignify my attempts at communication when they prove graceless or grossly inept. you have better ways to spend your time, annie. thanks
Back in July, 2008, Richard Silverstein pondered the question, “Who speaks for American Jews?”
He discussed at length the results of a J-St poll, and the place of AIPAC within the lives of Jewish Americans; here’s a taste:
“I found several results of the J Street poll alarming. Forty-eight percent were more likely to vote for a candidate who called for supporting Israel if it launched a pre-emptive attack on Iran. Not enough American Jews understand that US national interests may diverge from Israel’s.”
I’d add that not enough American Gentiles understand that US national interests may diverge from Israel’s. And that the US mainstream media and virtually all successful US politicians do their constant best to tell the American public that US interests and Israel’s interests are identical. To me this is treason. Helen Thomas agrees with me. And I now change my mind: She should be asked to speak in every place possible while she still has her mental faculties. She has certainly earned that right by virtue of her long reliable front row seat career in DC. Let the chips fall where they may. It’s going to be hard to turn her into another David Duke.
The fat comment section beneath Silvertein’s article is worth as much as the article itself.
link to guardian.co.uk
This ego v. ego stuff is not good. Please stick with the notion of giving the world the scoop on the US-Israeli relationship, and AIPAC’s hand in it.
At one point the polls of Jewish opinion on attacking Iran were so embarrassing that one group sent out the word to cool it. At the annual AIPAC mtg some yrs back the crowd was literally screaming for an attack on Iran, to the embarrassment of the meeting’s chiefs, with world media present. Iran has also been a hot topic at “the GA”, the “general assembly” of Jewish Federations in North America, the local cadres of organized Jewry.
One source of data is the American Jewish Committee polls. They’re on the AJC web site. It looks like about half of American Jews belong to a synagogue or temple; the largest portion are Reform, the next largest Conservative (just recently surpassed),
a minority Orthodox, and a few splinter movements. Broadly speaking, roughly half of American Jews belong formally to “the community” though the proportion of committed and active is surely less.
There or elsewhere you can find that while a majority favor a two-state soln what they mean by it is highly unjust and repressive. They oppose sharing Jerusalem. They want an arrangement that ratifies most of Israel’s land and settlement grabs. They oppose the 67 line as a border. They feel that “the Arabs want to destroy Israel”. Back in the 90s the ACJ used to ask how many favored cutting Israel’s US aid and the answer was around 10%; they no longer ask that question. Even if the number has tripled it is not impressive.
Broadly speaking the Presidents Conf does speak for American Jews, far more than JVP. There is a higher level of public awareness, and additional Jewish debate, but no revolt among the organized ranks. J Street, and the Beinart-Halevi exchange under AJC auspices reported today, don’t challenge fundamental premises. Some claim there is a disaffected, silent minority, esp among the young, but many flock to J Street, the latest liberal Zionist deception; another view is that the organized leadership is passing to the most dogmatic and inflexible elements as liberals are disaffected. So far, at least, there isn’t the slightest diminution of the power of Presidents Conf views.
Our ME policy is a disaster, and much of it is due to Israel. The IL may have made the margin of difference in the Senate vote on Gulf War 1 in 1991. The “dual containment” of Iraq and Iran and the Iraq sanctions regime were invented by Martin Indyk, WINEP alumnus and Clinton ME officer on the NSC, later ambassador to Israel. 9/11 was an attack on US patronage of Israel above all. Gulf War 2 was due to a coalition of gentile radical nationalists and the Jewish neocons against “realist” skeptics. The chief victims of the alarming erosion of civil liberties are the designated enemies of Zionism, Arabs, Muslims and Anglo activists and supporters. The US-Israel relationship is an ongoing catastrophe for the US and the world, and the responsible parties are indeed a major social problem. The list of suspects begins, if it does not end, with the organized Jewish community, and as far as one can tell, most Americans of Jewish background support them.
Only in the philo-semitic climate of the US would such a stmt be denounced as anti-semitic, which these days is just Jewish hate speech, often internalized by gentiles. The problem today is Jewish chauvinism, overt uber-Zionism, or contrived, indefensible “fears”. The gentiles are fearful this time. Dealing with Jewish power begins with the Jewish paths to universalism, anti-Zionism, as I have said twice. The problems begin on the left, in my view, because of something called the “Jewish left”, which has been imposing itself since 1967. This was in sharp contrast to the early 1960s Jewish elements of the New Left, who wanted to appeal to all of society. They had little to complain about, as Jews.
After the June 1967 war, the “Jewish radicalism” movement arose; see Porter and Dreier, eds., “Jewish Radicalism: An Anthology” (Grove, 1973). The left Jewish sensibility is not politically uniform; it exists in more and less sophisticated forms; but it is clearly recognizable..Today Jewish Voice for Peace is the leading example.
Inter alia, JVP appears to have no sense of its members’ obligations as US
citizens. “We are trying to create a space in the Jewish world where
we can express our criticism as Jews without needing to apologize for
ourselves,” said JVP’s Rebecca Vilkomerson. . JVP’s web site states:
“Jewish Voice for Peace members are inspired by Jewish tradition to
work together for peace, social justice, equality, human rights,
respect for international law, and a U.S. foreign policy based on
these ideals.” While JVP cites universal, secular standards, it
substitutes “Jewish tradition” for democratic citizenship in measuring
its obligations. Why is “Jewishness” the desideratum, and what does it
mean? What can it mean?
Religious Jewishness is recognizable, subject to certain limitations,
like a clear affirmation of belonging to a religious minority, not to a
national group. The great anti-Zionist Reform Rabbi Elmer Berger was
unapologetically Jewish, grounded in a firm sense of Jewish religious
liberalism deriving from modern Jewish emancipation. This liberalism
upheld “justice, equality, human rights and respect for law” by
strictly separating Jewish religiosity from any national claims, by
categorically rejecting Zionism.
From this principled foundation, Berger could confidently regard the
mainstream as mad dancers around a golden calf, didn’t fret about his
“identity” and “acceptance”, unlike JVP. He opposed Zionism in
principle, not merely an “occupation”, unlike JVP. (See this writer’s
“When Palestine Was at Stake” for a comparison of the liberal Arab
nationalist, Zionist binationalist and Reform anti-Zionist positions
in the 1940s, link to sites.google.com
But JVP is not a religious group; it has a new “rabbinical council”,
but it was not started as a religious group and does not identify
itself as one. Yet JVP proferrs “Jewish identity” as basis for
upholding universal norms, as if “Jewish identity” was a universal
category. Since Yiddish culture in the US has disappeared, in
the normal process of development, can being “Jewish” in
secular terms mean anything other than a form of
of privilege?
The Israeli ex-patriate jazz musician Gilad Atzmon dismisses adherents
of left Jewish identity politics who insist on being “recognized by
the community.” “I wonder why. What is it that they
need from the Jewish community? Why don’t they just get on with the
socialist agenda and join the human family as ordinary people?”
“Recognition is something you may aim to achieve,
nevertheless, it isn’t something you can ever demand.” “Seemingly, it
is ‘identity’ that concerns such people, who think that “identity
reflects on one’s authenticity…It is the other way around. Identity
and identity politics alienate from one’s reality, not to say
authenticity.”
[block quote this para]
“Identity” is nothing but “Identification”.. Searching for Identity is
not a genuine search into the notion of one’s authentic self.
Identity politics aim at setting measures of Identification, it sets
categories of belonging, it demands recognition and it opposes any
form of authenticity or real self. It prefers gathering and grouping
rather than meditation on the self. In fact, people who possess a
genuine notion of a real self do not crave the acceptance of any
community, neither Jewish nor any other. People with real self are
recognised for who they are rather than accepted for what they claim
to be. (Gilad Atzmon, “Between the Shtetl and the Big City. One
Hundred Years of Jewish Solitude,” Sunday, October 4, 2009; see
link to gilad.co.uk
Chauvinist identity politics has produced the familiar, circumscribed critique of the “left” over the past several decades: two-state/strategic asset/anti-occupation, which is designed to conceal Jewish agency within the US, and Zionism itself. JVP stages mock-”debates” with J Street over BDS, when J Street avows support for “Israel’s qualitative military edge” and all other US support. To acknowledge that
such an interlocutor would obviously oppose BDS, that the real issue is whether Israel should be coerced at all, would acknowledge the futility of JVP’s attempt to lobby within “the community”. In any event, JVP advocates BDS only against “the occupation”.
It condemns Israel’s war crimes but reduces that criticism to plea-bargaining by failing to address the Zionist and US Jewish roots of the problem, rather like viewing WW2 and the Judeocide as violations of treaties on collective security and minority rights
while ignoring Nazism. It drives Helen Thomas from the temple of polite society, a fallen woman. Etc etc
“Jews” (and gentiles) are not ethnic identity ciphers but citizens of liberal society. The views of Elmer Berger and the other universalists are the standards of citizens responsibile for the depravity of their government and society. Here is a reading list: Elmer Berger, “The Jewish Dilemma”, a heroic defense of liberalism and emancipation against the rising Zionist tide in 1945. And his battle diary, “Memoirs of an Anti-Zionist Jew”, published by the Institute for Palestine Studies in 1978. Isaac Deutscher, “The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays”,. Maxime Rodinson, “Israel, a Colonial Settler State?” and “Cult, Ghetto State”. Deutscher died in August, 1967, having lived to see Zionism enter its maturity, with perfect clarity. Rodinson defended the CSS thesis vs the Union of Jewish Students in France in 1964, and his classic essay was produced on the eve of the 1967 war, in a special issue of Les Temps Modernes (J P Sartre, ed).
At the time of his premature death in 2001, Israel Shahak was considering a book on Spinoza, the most rigorous of the 17th c rationalist philosophers, who was expelled from the Amsterdam Jewish community for his free-thinking ways. Shahak saw Spinoza as the progenitor of the “modern secular Jewish tradition” as he called it. This idea was the unlikely destination of a life that begin in Warsaw in 1933, thru the Warsaw Ghetto, Bergen-Belsen, post-war Palestine and Israel, a destination entirely self-discovered, surely one of the remarkable moral and intellectual journeys of our time. In the absence of his book on Spinoza, see his other published works, incl with co-author Norton Mezvinsky. See also Ari Bober, ed., “The Other Israel”, about the Israeli Matzpen, whose founders
were contemporaries of Shahak.
The views of all these people were well to the left of anything in the US in the period after 1967, and the ex-patriate Israelis continue to be, such as Ilan Pappe, Gabriel Piterberg and Gershon Shafir, who go beyond two-state/strategic asset/anti-occupation, address Zionism and acknowledge the “Israel lobby”, which is our chief responsibility, not theirs.
Remarkably, the Move Over AIPAC gathering is the first time ever that a national demonstration has been called opposite the annual AIPAC mtg and the obsequious tribute rendered by half of Congress and the top of the executive. The expulsion of Helen Thomas shows why it has taken decades to reach this point, and that the forces which delayed it are still influential.
That’s far more than I intended to say when I first responded on this item, and have no more for the forseeable future.
CitizenC, thanks a lot; you’ve said a large mouthful. My hope is that everyday Americans will see what you see, at least eventually.
CITIZEN C- Very interesting comment. A lot to digest. Many topics for future discussion.
So many falsehoods, so little time. Let’s start with the non-trivial fact that the author is clueless.
the Move Over AIPAC gathering is the first time ever that a national demonstration has been called opposite the annual AIPAC mtg and the obsequious tribute rendered by half of Congress and the top of the executive.
I was present at protests outside AIPAC conference already many years ago. The web even remembers, here it is, Protest against AIPAC
If you check the list of supporting organizations, you will find the group I was a member of that time, Stop US Tax funded Aid to Israel Now, a group that can be described as anarchist in orientation and did mostly direct action and street theater (the name kind of says what needs to be said) as well as Jews Against The Occupation, the New York group that was one of the earliest groups post-Oslo that pioneered the link between radical politics and Jewish activism, as many of the leading activists were LGBT Jews with a history in LGBT organizing. But I am sure you were always “to the left” of them.
There can be all kind of debates between leftist activists about how to organize. The opinion of arm-chair right-wing poseurs like you and Atzmon is not part of it. You are are working over time to weaken the movement by attacking and belittling the work of dozens of people who devote a great chunk of their life to practical civic organizing, including but far from limited to the end of apartheid in Israel, and calling for their exclusion, because they don’t worship your “universal” all-American cant.
When you write a decent article dissecting the fantastic, chauvinistic aspects and bogus claims of your “American Citizen” identity to “universalism” I’ll start listen to what you have to say about “Jewishness.”
Just a little addition. The protest in 2005 was a follow up to a protest in 2002, as you can see if you scroll down that link I give about. In the picture, you can see a SUSTAIN activist doing street theater against US support for Israel in 2002. But according to the “revisionist” school of arm-chair activism, the left never heard of AIPAC until it was informed about it by the latest judeophobic posse.
EVILDOER- Are you trying to squelch the discussion? How else to explain the wildly excessive vitriol? “There can be all kind of debates between leftist activists about how to organize. The opinion of arm-chair right-wing poseurs like you and Atzmon is not part of it.” “But according to the “revisionist” school of arm-chair activism, the left never heard of AIPAC until it was informed about it by the latest judeophobic posse.” While I can understand a certain amount of pique at having your 2005 demonstration slighted, let us not use a single issue combined with personal umbrage to discourage new people from making serious comments worthy of consideration and discussion.
We have, in my opinion, begun to have more in depth examination of the relationship of Diaspora Jews to Zionism and Israel. The thread “Where does Israel end and the Diaspora begin? Or Zionism end and Judaism begin?” took the discussion to a new level. I think the comments by CitizenC indicate that he/she has done considerable reading on the topic, hence, his/her opinions are at least somewhat well informed, whether or not you or I agree with any of the specific points. Are you suggesting that those CitizenC references, Rabbi Elmer Berger, Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, have nothing worthwhile to say on the topic? As for Gilad Atzmon, he is a bit more hit and miss, however, I feel some of what he says is quite insightful, certainly not to be dismissed out of hand. In short, I hope you will be a little more understanding of new commenters who are expressing sincere opinions on a difficult and emotionally charged topic
It’s up to you to be as kind as you want. Telling Jews that they have an “inauthentic” self or a weak self if they see themselves as Jews even if they do not go to synagogues regularly is not a “discussion.” It is an insult. If you want to insult people, you should be able at least to take the heat.
And I am sorry to disagree, but I see no new level. There is a Zionist ideology that sees all Jews as potential citizens of a Jewish state in Palestine. We know that this ideology exist for about 100 years. We know that a significant number of US Jews see themselves as such and see Israel as fundamental to their identity. We know that for 30 years at least. Zionists have been shouting that from rooftops. So it isn’t much of a secret. So what have you recently discovered? Other than insults directed at precisely those Jews who either don’t, as myself, or are in some process of rethinking it, as most JVP members are. What is new?
And I am having a pique about you reducing the matter to “my” demonstration being slighted. It is not about “my” demonstration. I was one of thousands. It is about revisionism, airbrushing the past to fit the argument.
EVILDOER- It is most interesting that you didn’t find the discussion on “Where does Israel end and the Diaspora begin….” unusually informative. I did, and so did quite a few other commenters. Danaa, LeaNder, MRW, Hu Bris, and Jeffrey Blankfort made significant in-depth comments, the likes of which I had heretofore not seen on Mondoweiss concerning this subject. A dissenting note was your comment where you implied that either the discussion or Atzmon was “openly Judeophobic,” a different way of saying anti-Semitic. You employ the same phraseology here, “…the latest judeophobic posse.” Gracious me, surrounded by “judeophobes” right here on Mondoweiss. Who would have guessed?
Your overreaction to these comments brings to mind a recent post by the man himself. Below the quote is the link to the article by Gilad Atzmon. Enjoy!
“And what is at the root of their hysteria? For some peculiar reason, both Zionists and UK Jewish so-called ‘anti Zionists’, insist that discussing ‘Jewishness’ is a taboo which should never be explored, certainly not in public, and definitely never outside of the ghetto.
But isn’t it all just more than a little suspicious? After all, please consider that the Jewish ‘anti Zionists’ operate politically under a Jewish banner; they also clearly carry their Jewish identity with pride; and, like the ‘Jews only state’, they also run a ‘Jews only club’ – yet they want to try to stop us from questioning what this club actually stands for. They want to take it further and even try to stop us from discussing and grasping what the Jewishness of Israel is all about.”
link to dissidentvoice.org
Look Keith. The bottom line is this. There are a lot of problems with JVP. I disagree with them on many things. I even criticize them when I think it is useful.
But they are doing a great deal of lifting. They certainly do more lifting that the 63% of Americans (almost all good “universalist” American citizens) who repeatedly express support for Israel in the polls. But they even lift more than most (though certainly not all) of the 17% of Americans (Americans, not Jewish Americans) who express a more favorable opinion of Palestinians, most of whom don’t do anything at all, and many of whom don’t do much beyond kvetching, including in online forums.
And the anecdotal evidence is that one of the things that motivates them doing so much more than most good “universalist” Americans, is their understanding of their Jewish identity.
While you are sitting back here snickering, quoting and praising material that questions their loyalty to the blood soaked American empire, psychobabbles about the deep evil inside them, and treats them as a sinister organization that is oppressing your poor self and your favorite saxophonist.
Enjoy it! But let me give you one final sinister tribal advice taken from a truly evil source. The Talmud.
Your actions will bring you closer. Your actions will lead you further away.
EVILDOER- “While you are sitting back here snickering, quoting and praising material that questions their loyalty to the blood soaked American empire, psychobabbles about the deep evil inside them, and treats them as a sinister organization that is oppressing your poor self and your favorite saxophonist.”
Where do you come up with this crap? I have long stressed the inherent evilness of the US empire, and have continued to emphasize the importance of imperial geo-strategy as it relates to the Middle East, and to the global environment in general. I have always maintained that resistance to Israeli human rights abuses and resistance to empire go hand in hand. I have always stressed a moral perspective, and have gotten into arguments when I opposed the “Israel is a problem for US Middle East policy” line of thought. Bad for empire? Terrific, says I. Your quote above is such a distortion of reality, you should be ashamed in making it. It indicates that you may be incapable of rationally discussing the reasons for organized American Jewry’s support for Zionism and Israel. As for me, I continue to feel that the center of Zionist power is the US, not Israel, hence, discussing why this support exists is critically important.
link to dissidentvoice.org
I had not seen, or was even aware of Atzmon’s post before you linked to it. In fact, I had never heard of Atzmon until a few days ago.
KEITH, I always was hysterical, irrational, and overreacting. It is my nature and you’ll just have to get used to my failure to meet your universal standards on these matters. But the truth is this is all the result of my inbred need to please. I am trying to help you prove the point that you want to prove based on my “overreaction.” Am I not doing well?
I don’t however remember discussing here the reasons for organized American Jewry’s support for Zionism and Israel. I was discussing the reasons, or at least some of the reasons mentioned in this thread, as to why JVP organizes on a Jewish basis.
I didn’t say you were insensitive to the existence of our wonderful evil empire. But since JVP has been accused here of having “no sense of its members’ obligations as US citizens,” and I, being irrational and hysterical as I am, expected that someone who “has long stressed the evils of the the US empire” would consider it his duty to speak up in the face of such accusations. But I am glad to know that I was wrong. I now realize that the cause of my error was my own unamerican tendencies. Please direct me to the nearest rehabilitation facility.
Oh crap! There’s a “Citizen C” now, in addition to “Citizen”? And I, of course, am answering the wrong one? I give up. They let anybody comment here.
“… Telling Jews that they have an “inauthentic” self or a weak self if they see themselves as Jews even if they do not go to synagogues regularly is not a “discussion.” …”
I don’t totally understand what you are getting at with this statement? However, I do think the discussion over the past few days delving into the issue of diaspora Jews, Zionism and Israel — has touched a nerve for many.
Many of us are now interested in going beyond just exploring the organizational structure of the Israel Lobby — which we all know is not only AIPAC — acknowledging it also includes elements of the Evangelical movement, aswell as the MIC. But the Jewish political establishment is firmly entrenched in Democratic politics — and that’s why it’s even more important for me (anyways) to try and understand the dynamics and the real game that’s being played.
We live in interesting times. Now that the veil of deception has been lifted on Israel — in thanks partly to Netanyahu’s and Lieberman’s arrogance and loose lips (and to YouTube) — we are finally getting a taste of what many in the American Jewish community really feel about finding a fair and honest settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians. I don’t think generalizing is a good thing, but even I was shocked at the amount of American (supposedly liberal) Jews who, for example, supported the attack on Gaza. There’s something else going on here — and it may not be pleasant — but I don’t think hiding from it will do any good.
I think generalizing is a good thing. Because there is nothing really to say without it. The problem is of course, the quality of the generalization, and whether one is aware what is being generalized about whom.
So we have someone speculating that the members of JVP have an “unauthentic self.” And you don’t understand why this is insulting. OK. Maybe you only pretend not to understand what we are talking about in order to defend your fragile sense of self which is unable to come to terms with your deep chauvinist aggressive impulses.
But wait, how terrible of me to try to insult you that way! We should keep the discussion civil, which means that we should both agree that only non-present members of JVP (Thank God neither of us is!) can be insulted. If they get touchy it will only prove how fragile their self is anyway. I therefore apologize for what I said earlier. It was totally out of line.
Nope, you’re still not explaining yourself. Where’s the argument relating JVP with the term “unauthentic self”? I really can’t find it?