New School discussion on American Jewish relationship with Israel

by on October 9, 2012 14
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The New School has posted this full recording of the discussion on Saturday afternoon. (h/t Alex Kane).

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Israel/Palestine

{ 14 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. LeaNder says:
    October 10, 2012 at 1:35 am

    Carefully chosen freeze, video frame?

  2. Inanna says:
    October 10, 2012 at 1:51 am

    NF says a lot of things here that make me a lot happier with him in terms of his relationship with other Palestinian solidarity activism, particularly the line about wanting to persuade and not being enemies etc. This is what I want to see – that we as activists and supporters of Palestinians can disagree without the name calling and demonising each other.

    That said, I still have a huge problem with NF”s notion of ‘reality’. He’s not a realist, he’s an actualist. He’s saying to the Palestinians that he is defining reality and they must settle for it. What he is defining is actuality, which one can see in the international laws he cites (let’s put aside the conflicting legal principles in terms of what applies to UN resolutions re: Palestine and international humanitarian law). However, that is not all ‘reality’ is. Reality is a constantly unfolding process that can have a multiplicity of possibilities. Anna makes that point when she points out how far BDS has come in a short time and how it’s affecting the debate. You can look at possibilities and be a realist. But to cut off possibility, as NF does, means that he is an actualist, not a realist. As such, he just becomes someone else who is telling the Palestinians what is ‘good’ for them and I find that rather paternalistic because usually whenever someone is dictating what ‘reality’ or ‘realism’ is, they are usually doing so from a position of power. Anna makes that point really nicely when she talks about Jewish privilege. NF ignores the new reality that is unfolding on the ground in Palestine outside of Oslo and UN resolutions. That is real too.

    Here endeth my attempt at teaching Ontology 101.

    • pabelmont says:
      October 10, 2012 at 10:39 am

      Does NF preach “freeze time”? Settle for what you have (or can get) now (however small)? Not at all. He tells us that the answer to the re-partition of Palestine is the “international consensus” of the pre-1967 line. Palestine to get “ALL of WB, Gaza, and EJ”. “ALL”. This is not “actuality” and it is not “reality”. It is a legal position (the ICJ (2004), UNSC 465 (1980)). It is also an international consensus. But Israel does not agree. American Jews, those dreadful liberals, may agree, but Israel does not agree.

      Worse, Israel is NOT settling for what they have, they are constantly taking MORE and pushing the Palestinians into LESS.

      Peace requires running the clock backward. At least to 1966. Maybe to 1947. Maybe to 1920. Anyone who can find a sufficiently powerful GANDALF to undo the passing of time will have a magician of such puissance that he/she/it can roll time back as far as you like.

      But, take care, Israel has its own sense of entitlement, carefully honed, and its own sense of victimhood, also carefully honed, and — of course — its Sampson Option. BDS is not yet GANDALF. AIPAC, there is GANDALF working on the other side.

      • Inanna says:
        October 10, 2012 at 7:02 pm

        I disagree with what you write here. NF does support a certain version of ‘actuality’ – one that is offered by international law in the context of 242 – that entrenches Jewish privilege. The actuality is that Oslo and two-states has become what Edward Said criticised long ago. You can’t go back to the future. You have to move forward from where you are considering what is actual now and what is possible from now.

        As for the Samson option stuff – cue eyeroll. It’s a comfortable fantasy that Israelis indulge in. But my belief is that either Israel bring about justice for Palestinians and learns to live as part of the Middle East or it will be destroyed by its own internal contradictions without any need to posit a fantastical world where Iran/others are aiming bombs at it to destroy it. You know, we Middle Easterners are more rational than apocalyptic thinkers think we are. We want to liberate Palestine, not destroy it.

  3. Liambrown says:
    October 10, 2012 at 5:33 am

    As you can see in the recording Norman does not at any point say that BDS is against International Law. In fact, he was involved in BDS before there was a BDS movement.

    Will you now retract your assertion that Norman claimed BDS was against the law, Philip?

  4. Ira Glunts says:
    October 10, 2012 at 8:41 am

    Anna was glorious especially at minute 39. Every Jewish activist should listen to minutes 39 to 45.

    • Kathleen says:
      October 10, 2012 at 10:23 am

      Read what Anna had to say when Mondoweiss put up a post. She is spot on but does try to spin or is just misinformed about the Palestinian movement beginning and somehow ending with Jews getting involved. I have caught this undertone with other young Jewish activist. More myth creating attempts and total bullshit. While she points out that Finkelstein and Chomsky have been involved for decades. She then states “when so few Jewish or other Americans did” This demonstrates a naivete that there is some excuse (not much media attention on this effort for decades) for but also seems to be trying to ignore the efforts of thousands of mostly non Jews who have met with Reps, petitioned their Reps, pushed legitimate information on college campuses, churches, schools, gone to Israel (Christian Peace Maker team), This push has been taking place for at least three decades mostly in non Jewish groups. Anna seems to be somehow unaware of that fact. Clearly she is correct in her analysis that far more Jews have become in the Palestinian solidarity movement the last five years. But to discount the efforts of thousands of non Jews here in the states who for decades have been meeting with Reps etc on this critical issue is arrogant or just naive.

      • Kathleen says:
        October 10, 2012 at 11:55 am

        Just looked up Anna’s age 33 the age of my middle daughter. I have knows group of non Jews who have met with their Reps over this issue with as many as 30 people in the group before Anna was even born.

        We should not forget Paul Findley who was out on the front lines of this issue taking shots from the I lobby long before many individuals. He lost his congressional seat in part to his support of Palestinians and his criticism of Israel and the I lobby in 1982 when Anna Baltzer was 5. Many non Jews out on the front lines decades ago just never received any media attention

  5. FreddyV says:
    October 10, 2012 at 8:47 am

    I didn’t watch the entire debate, but skipped forward to the interchange between Baltzer and Finklestein.

    I don’t know why Finklestein is being considered fringe of late. His two state arguments are sound and realistic. One striking point was that Israel’s occupation is cost free. Pressure on the US veto at the UN and the $3bn could easily tip the balance here.

    Anna’s arguments I found were great, but somewhat idealistic. One state could easily be achieved by dismantling the Israeli regime, but there’s no carrot or stick to make this happen. I don’t think BDS will reach a broad enough audience for Israel to care financially and I don’t think it’s powerful enough to spur the Israeli public to sufficient discontent that a new political player who could change the current situation would appear.

  6. Chespirito says:
    October 10, 2012 at 11:01 am

    Anna Baltzer is the realist here. Most of the debate on Israel/Palestine in the US has been between rival factions of the Israel lobby, and what little debate falls outside this intramural zone has adopted, very uncritically, liberal Zionist parameters. There will never be any progress inside this sclerotic little bandwidth. Only by opening up the debate and LISTENING to and working with Palestinians, Palestinian-Americans, as well as Americans with no ethnic or religious tie to the region will any change be made in US policy.

    And this, US policy, is I think the big issue that even excellent panels like this one lose sight of a little too quickly. Instead of investigating how we can get Washington to change its outsized role in this conflict (lavish, unconditional, one-sided support for Israel), the discussion glides swiftly to questions like one-state versus two-state, Zionism or anti-Zionism. What about taking some responsibility for what our own country is doing? People who want justice for Palestine need to develop a language and rhetorical line on this, a set of arguments that candidly discuss US security and strategic interests, knowing that the Jeffrey Goldbergs of the world will instantly call this argument “Lindberghian”. This is of course the crassest hypocrisy; Jeffrey Goldberg and other mainstream pundits have never hesitated to use US national interests to justify all sorts of reckless and violent policies, but the moment this type of argument is used to uncouple the US from Israel, get ready for shouts of “Lindbergh!” and the like. National interest however is a huge weak spot for those who favor the “special relationship” with Israel. Although Americans will never care that much about the ethnic cleansing in Palestine (it gives me no pleasure to write that), Americans might well wake up a little when asked to contemplate that the $5bn that could have closed Wisconsin’s budget gap instead got spent on Israel (a wealthy country) and Egypt in order to bankroll humanitarian disaster, ethnic cleansing, an overweening military, and all for a net national security liability to the US. There should be no squeamishness about making arguments from enlightened self-interest; these are complementary, not antagonistic, to the moral and legal arguments.

    Anyway, Norman Finkelstein has done so much terrific work and I admire him tremendously but he comes off as a bit of a scold and a discourse-cop, trying to patrol the borders of what should be acceptable to say and do. That’s not going to go anywhere.

  7. pabelmont says:
    October 10, 2012 at 11:48 am

    As to talking about “cultural Zionism”, well, it IS important in one way only (since it is history and not present or likely future fact): Judah Magnes argued for cultural Zionism (a Jewish homeland, NOT a state) arguing that it was worth striving for even if the effort failed whereas (in his view) a STATE built on bombs and bayonets was so horrible that it was not worth doing even if it succeeded. Today we can say, “especially as it turned out”. The value of talking about “cultural Zionism” is, IMO, to give the Judah Magnes warning, so vastly well borne out in the history of militant STATE Jabotinsky-style and Bibi-style and settler-style Zionism.

  8. pabelmont says:
    October 10, 2012 at 12:34 pm

    As to the costs of occupation, NF says what seems unexceptionable — Israel will change only after the costs of continuing its present path become too great to bear. And we, and BDS, are the means (the only means) to change the costs to Israel.

    The occupation will end, and some or all settlers will be removed, and some or all settlements will be dismantled, and some or all of the wall will be removed (and checkpoints, etc.), and something (more or less) will be done about return of the exiles of 1948 — IF AND WHEN AND AS pressure (from all directions) is brought to bear on Israel.

    NF believes that the pressure will be most intense and useful when the STATED GOAL (of BDS, etc.) is the return to the pre-1967 borders and other international-law-consistent goals. I agree.

    However, [if and] when Israel finally is made to move, the pressure will necessarily have become very large indeed. Above I referred to that pressure as GANDALF and MAGIC. I meant that the pressure would have to be VERY large. Large enough, by the time it matures, that anger at Israel might allow or require a change in the goal-posts. But as to that we must wait and see. Presently NF (and I) believe that there is no reasonable goal-post other than a return to the pre-1967 lines. And I would add, “without minor territorial exchanges based on illegal Israeli usurpation,” because that only justifies Israeli occupation illegalities. (But that’s me talking. As NF says, politics is different from personal feeling.)

  9. AndEps says:
    October 10, 2012 at 4:24 pm

    I agree with much of what Finkelstein says here, but I did not hear him address how international law addresses right of return…