Here are two more straws in the wind showing that the discourse about the issue in the U.S. is changing. 1, North Carolina Democratic Party considers a resolution blasting Israel for “illegal occupation” — no, that didn’t happen in New York– and 2, there is a sharply anti-Zionist piece at Huffpo by Moriel Rothman based on the planned destruction of Susiya in the West Bank, saying that Israel is a perversion of his Jewish values. (Rothman is also on the news, by the way, the big demo in Susiya yesterday).
Matthew Boyle at the Daily Caller:
The North Carolina Democratic Party (NCDP) is seriously considering passing a resolution that would criticize Israel for its “illegal occupation” of Palestine, the latest in a long line of controversial moves coming out of one of the major battleground states President Barack Obama’s team is banking on to win re-election.
The resolution didn’t pass at this weekend’s NCDP state convention, but was tabled and referred to the executive committee for further consideration later. It attacks the United States for providing Israel with “$3 billion annually in military aid,” while the “Israeli occupation, disenfranchisement and impoverishment of significant numbers of the Palestinian population, and Israel’s overwhelming military might and its role as the only nuclear power threaten stability in a region witnessing increased demands for democracy and an end to autocratic rule.”
Here is Moriel Rothman at Huffpo saying that Israel is a perversion of his Jewish values:
Yes: Israel is a state in which people who are Jews are given more rights and privileges than people who are not Jews (let alone the Israeli-controlled West Bank and East Jerusalem, where the majority of non-Jews are barely given rights and privileges at all).
Yes: Israel is a state in which archaic, hyper-masculine and exclusionary readings of Jewish texts are wielded against women and non-Orthodox Jews, as well as against non-Jews.
But Israel is not a Jewish state in any value-based — or valuable — way. The Torah, the backbone of the Jewish people and religion, has a wide range of commandments and imperatives, some chauvinistic and some universalistic, some peaceful and some violent, some which contradict others. However, the most repeated commandment in the Torah, appearing in different forms 37 times, is the imperative to “love the stranger,” for we were strangers in the land of Egypt.
In addition to this religious dictate, Jews over history and throughout the centuries have learned in the most difficult — and sometimes horrific — ways what it means to be a stranger.
The Israeli State — and to be clear, I am not referring to the State as synonymous to Israeli people, many of whom indeed practice some form of loving strangers — the Israeli State has not only failed at any sort of “loving the stranger,” but it has, especially recently, constructed policies that are hateful and oppressive to “strangers” living in our midst..
Jewish history has been transformed by Israeli policy from a rich, complex legacy of human suffering and triumph to a stale combination of archeological findings and Biblical quotes, wielded together as weapons against human beings who happen to not be Jews, to expel them from their homes and to strip them of their land and their dignity.
I refuse to accept such a perversion of my history, religion and culture.
I once wrote that young Jews were going to respond in fury to the bill of goods they were sold in Israel, and I wonder if Rothman is not evidence for that belief.
About Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
North Carolina is the home of many military bases. I wonder what they think about the push to have Obama pardon Jonathan Pollard.
It’s way more than that, Les, and besides, the WH spokesman said last week or the week before that nothing’s changed about Pollard.
North Carolina is the home of Duke University (Durham) and the oldest Black university in the South, Shaw University (Raleigh), site of the 50th anniversary of SNCC two years ago. SNCC was started in Greensboro, NC. The conference featured a Who’s-Who of the Civil Rights movement. Who was a member of SNCC from its beginning, and who was on the honorary committee two years ago with Andrew Young, Danny Glover and Marion Edelman, among many others? Alice Walker.
The same Alice Walker that Alan Dershowitz smeared as a Neo-Nazi and a terrorist in the Jerusalem Post last week for defending Palestinians.
It was not lost on anyone that he omitted the final “N” word, but the alliteration was there.
Duke gets a lot of money from Arab donors, particularly the Saudis. They’ve always been major donors to Duke and a lot of the King’s family uses Duke Hospital. Duke always had a large Arab and ME studies department and I noticed in one of the bulletins some time back that they had expanded it and have a program for ‘educators’ where Duke takes them to the ME to study at the Saudi university.
Phillip,
Do you know if other democratic state parties have considered similar resolutions?
It seems to me though that Rabbis for Human Rights has opposed the system’s mistreatment of Palestinians for a while already?
A group in WA state tried to pass a similar resolution at the Democratic state convention.
I sent a letter to the top four officers of the NCDP this week urging them to adopt the resolution. …I have doubts about whether they will actually adopt it but this certainly is a good ‘first’.
I haven’t investigated to see who is behind putting it forth but I believe it might be related to the Presbyterian and Methodist churches position and debates on Israel and I/P.
There has been a flurry of human rights and other social issues bearing down on the Dems in NC lately so they may be connected or the same group. When have time will find out more about who’s involved.
Although not Jewish myself, I certainly understand the pain that many Jews experience in seeing their “love your stranger” faith contested by present-day usurpers with a different doctrine. I can equally understand the pain that many in the Democratic Party feel about having its platform hijacked by war advocates. I am not too hopeful. I admire Phil’s eternal optimism.
Optimism creates hope. Hope is essential, it generates momentum.
@ mudder,
Hope is a glimmer of light in the darkness surrounding us. Without it…, well, you know…
I see the slamming of this resolution as anti semitic is in full swing in the GOP and zio groups.
But here’s the whole text of the resolution…..it’s straight forward and nothing controversial about it except to Israel firsters.
WHEREAS, U.S. provides Israel $3 billion annually in military aid;
WHEREAS, the Israeli occupation, disenfranchisement and impoverishment of significant numbers of the Palestinian population, and Israel’s overwhelming military might and its role as the only nuclear power threaten stability in a region witnessing increased demands for democracy and an end to autocratic rule;
WHEREAS, Israel uses this aid to continue its illegal occupation, demolition of Palestinian homes, expansion of existing illegal settlements built on expropriated Palestinian land, and a continued blockade of essential goods from Gaza, a blockade causing a UN documented humanitarian crisis;
WHEREAS, U.S. military aid has caused increased violence and insecurity to Israelis, Palestinians, and helps subvert any prospect for peace;
WHEREAS, Israel’s human rights violations and its illegal occupation and settlements violate International and U.S. law, including the U.S. Arms Export Control Act of 1976; and
WHEREAS, the escalating tension between Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arab world in the Middle East threatens the peace and stability of the region and the world;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the North Carolina Democratic Party hold its elected congress members and senators accountable for helping end our government’s role in continuing the Israeli Palestinian tragedy by making the human rights of both peoples central to U.S. foreign policy by ending Israel’s illegal occupation, by advocating for a viable Palestinian state, and membership of that state in the United Nations;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the North Carolina Democratic Party urge its Congressional delegation to support the following principles that will insure a just and secure peace for both peoples, including:
Bringing all parties, including Hamas, to the table to negotiate an end to the Israeli Occupation and a secure peace based on the 1967 borders;
An immediate end to settlement expansion and removal of existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem;An end to Palestinian house demolitions;
A halt to further construction of the wall;
An end to the Gaza blockade;
The establishment of a nuclear free zone in the Middle East;
Redirecting U.S. Military aid to Israel to promote social and economic development for peace in both Israel and Palestine;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the North Carolina Democratic Party press our NC Congressional delegation to demand the State Department implement Federal legislation that prohibits use of U.S. military aid to support human rights violations, breaches of international law and UN Security Council Resolutions’
@ American,
But you forgot the most important one:
WHEREAS, Israel is under constant existential threat [not just any threat, mind you] and has the right to defend itself [never mind 'our' attacks].
By the way…just when did Israel co-opt and simultaneously redefine ‘existential’?
For the first forty years of my life, the word only seemed to surface in connection with that post-war French philosophy associated with Sartre. I once tried to read him, but either gave up or just got bored. Never really did get a handle on it…
Anyway, ‘existential’ sort of peacefully mouldered away in my mental attic. There was this bothersome ‘I don’t really understand this’ note attached to it, and I suppose that trapped somewhere with a text on the matter for a week, I might have set myself to addressing that issue, but it wasn’t really pressing, and outside of that connection, the word simply never came up.
And then — suddenly — the word revived. Israel was not just facing a threat, or even a threat to her existence, but an ‘existential threat.’ ‘Existential’ was there constantly. It was as if I’d somehow been involuntarily teleported to Paris in 1952.
It’s always created this weird association for me. In some uncanny way, John-Paul Sarte — dead and buried as he may be — is threatening Israel.
Salon had an interesting article a few days ago. The comments also show the “crumbling of the consensus”. Commenters take the writer to task for a stereotypical headline:
Author rattles Jewish leaders
Peter Beinart’s views on Israel upset the American Jewish community
link to salon.com
moriel rothman has captured the essence of judaism (better, of humanism) with his -
“in addition to the religious dictate {love the stranger for we were strangers in the land of egypt}, jews over history and throughout the centuries having learned in the most difficult — and sometimes horrific — ways what it means to be a stranger”
zionism being a latter day form of settler colonialism, therefore represents nothing but a hijacked & perverted judaism used to justify the theft of an indigenous people’s homeland. judaism turned on its head, actually, in that instead of loving the stranger (ie. the palestinian), the zionist entity israel oppresses and humiliates the stranger.
and now, as the world catches on to the magnitude of the zionist entity’s crimes against humanity, israel is becoming increasingly desperate at forestalling the inevitable (its delegitimization), what with its obsessive pursuit of one war after another, with iran but its latest target and never mind that such a war could precipitate wwiii en route to the abyss.
so in order to prevent this unthinkable, isn’t now the time for all jews/humanists not only to speak out against zionist israel’s subjugation of the palestinian people, but to take on zionism, the ethnosupremacist credo, without which there’d be no israel, and a credo which, while its adherents insist it’s true to the faith, in reality they’ve hijacked judaism by putting the theft of a piece of land before “love the stranger”, judaism’s moral essence.
what it boils down to is that jewish anti-zionists are the ones who are carrying on the faith, whereas, zionists not only have abandoned it, they’re anti-jewish.
Q:… is seriously considering …
R: Ahw, c’mon. Come back when you’ve done it.
Moriel is like an injured animal, vicious and ready to attack anything? When will many reform Jews, like Moriel, who feel they are outside of the consensus and mainstream, understand that they are causing major long term damage to all Jews? Enough with the me, me, me mentality Moriel!
giladg
Would you explain, please, what “major long term damage to all Jews” people like Moriel Rothman are causing, as you see it? And I didn’t detect any “me, me, me mentality”, would you highlight those parts of the piece for me?
giladg says:
” Enough with the me, me, me mentality”
LOL…that is too funny gilad! A zionist telling someone else enough with the me,me,me?
‘Me first, me only’, is the zionist oath.
>> When will many reform Jews … understand that they are causing major long term damage to all Jews?
Holy f*cking cluelessness! It’s hateful and immoral Zio-supremacist turds like giladgeee who are going to cause “major long term damage to all Jews”, but he’s too hateful and immoral – and, quite frankly, stupid – to realize it!
>> Enough with the me, me, me mentality Moriel!
Right, and more with the giladgeee, eee, eee mentaliteee Moriel!
What a joke this guy is!
@ giladg,
Q: … that they are causing major long term damage to all Jews?
R: Wakie wakie! Israel is causing more harm to Jews outside of its ever expanding, non-defined borders [and its own citizens], than vice versa. But you knew that, didn’t you?
>>>I once wrote that young Jews were going to respond in fury to the bill of goods they were sold in Israel, and I wonder if Rothman is not evidence for that belief.<<<
This just isn't a counter reaction among Jewish/Americans regarding Zionism, but its also a debate within the US 'establishment' over the US special relationship with Israel that's beginning to be discussed in broad daylight, the ultimate horror of the Zionists.
Before the Iraq war even began, the deceased General Odom declared such a stupidity in the footing a 'strategic disaster' in the making, which in execution was not only unparallelled in US history, but will probably take decades for the US to recover from.
Not long after 19 March 2003, considering the complicity of Israel and its front groups in promoting the Iraq war, I believed the same could be said for Israel. As this story played and continues to play a host of unintended consequences, it will all end far more badly for Israel than it will for the US.
Bravo for Moriel Rothman – a real antidote for any criticism of Judaism itself as a religion/ideology that is fundamental to zionism (ala Shahak school).
I’ve heard other zionists use the “love the stranger” commandment to say that Israelis should welcome those Palestinians who live in Israel, implying that “stranger” is synonymous with foreigner. Well, I don’t interpret Rothman’s use of the word “stranger” to in any way make that implication. The fact is, the Palestinians are the native people and most Israelis are the “strangers” in that sense, I would not be surprised at all if Rothman agreed with me. Interestingly, from what I hear of Palestinian culture, its generous and hospitable towards “strangers” far more so than Israeli culture, much more living the commandment.
OTH, the NC Democrats “considering” a resolution hardly balances the antisemite Zionist Jews cancelling free speech at North Carolina State U. by blocking tenure for Terri Ginsberg b/c she supports Palestinian rights. The NC Supreme Court has just refused to review the very dubious techniques UCSU has used to try and shut Gingberg up. The same antisemite Zionists are attacking Prof. David Klein at USC-Northridge, but the USC administration has stood behind him . . . so far.
Academics have historically been at the forefront of international fights for personal liberty precisely b/c their speech has been fiercely protected by the university system. Taking a page from Hitler’s play-book, the Zionists are working hard in America to silence academic free speech.
Terri’s blog: link to ginsbergvsncsu.wordpress.com
Terri has been supported by: British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, Jewish Voice for Peace-Westchester, WESPAC Foundation, Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism, and Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine.