This is astonishing. From the JTA, Ties to the ADL are proving to be a problem for a Massachusetts court nominee. The nominee has “a long track record in civil rights advocacy.” But his organization tried to dismiss the Armenian genocide at a time when Turkey and Israel were getting along; and progressives are calling him out for his PEP-ness, progressive except Palestine.
A nominee for the top court in Massachusetts is facing opposition in part because of his affiliation with the Anti-Defamation League.
Joseph S. Berman, 49, a regional leader of the New England ADL and a commissioner for the national ADL since 2006, was nominated as a judge for the state Superior Court in October by Gov. Deval Patrick.
At an emotionally charged hearing last week, Marilyn Pettito Devaney of the Governor’s Council — the elected eight-member panel that is voting on the nomination — said she had the votes to deny Berman the appointment.
Devaney, who lives in Watertown, a Boston suburb with a large Armenian population, added that if she belonged to a group that denied the Holocaust, she would resign…
Robert Trestan, director of the New England ADL, said “the attack” on Berman and the ADL was a surprise.
Yes, as Bob Dylan said, a change in the weather is known to be extreme.
Berman gets a character reference here from a Boston attorney whom we quoted yesterday, speaking at a pro-Israel fundraiser for Obama on the west coast, repeatedly criticizing the Obama administration for its Iran and Israel policies.
Berman was among the most persuasive leaders urging the group to acknowledge the massacre as a genocide, according to Jeffrey Robbins, chair of the New England ADL, who testified at the hearing.
Berman, a partner at the Boston firm Looney & Grossman, is a commercial litigation lawyer with a long track record in civil rights advocacy.
Robbins, quoted in the Hill yesterday:
He said that, in pursuit of a deal, the administration took “crude, petulant and harmful swipes at Israel” that were “difficult to understand from a friend.”
Robbins also criticized Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim that Israeli officials were disparaging the emerging deal without being fully briefed on its details.
“Stuff that seems aimed of fomenting a view of those who are concerned about Israel as somehow obsessive-compulsive or worse,” he said.
The news: the Israel lobby is on the defensive.
Time to point out that Obama is not taking swipes at Israel, but at Netanyahu and Likud, and points to the right. And why shouldn’t he?
It is well to view all this as ALSO pointing out to the American public that there **IS** “space between American and Israel” (contrary to Biden’s constantly sung song) and “on Israel’s security” too, although it is Israel than claims the Iran deal hurts Israel’s security, and the USA which (I suppose) denies it or just doesn’t care.
Anyhow, what we are seeing (and what we need to be saying) is that there IS SPACE BETWEEN. The hitherto thought-to-be Siamese Twins are, in fact, unrelated.
Nice. About time.
“Devaney, who lives in Watertown, a Boston suburb with a large Armenian population, added that if she belonged to a group that denied the Holocaust, she would resign…”
That’s exactly right.
“the administration took ‘crude, petulant and harmful swipes at Israel’ that were ‘difficult to understand from a friend.'”
What a juvenile view of the world. israel is not the USA’s “friend.” Friendship exists between individual people, not states. These people need to grow up.
Off topic a bit, but did anyone else see this hatchet job on the entire Palestinian people in the Boston Globe:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/11/24/rally-shows-pervasive-palestinian-anti-semitism/tfrQGd8HuJ2by7m2jp0HiI/story.html
It’s Jeff Jacoby’s reaction to the Al Quds University “controversy” that basically says Palestinian values are the same as Nazis. I wrote a letter to the editor:
Dear Editor,
I’m an American woman who lived in Palestine for two years during and after the second Intifada, working as a journalist based in Ramallah. Reading Jeff Jacoby’s op-ed, I was shocked at the racism and essentializing that got past The Boston Globe’s editors in the years 2013. The ease with which anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bigotry slides off today’s op-ed pages is a sad parallel to the “acceptable in polite company” anti-Semitism of old. It should be condemned just as soundly.
I can’t, in 200 words, offer systematic proof that Palestinians aren’t, as a collective, fascist, hate-filled, genocidal maniacs who can never make peace simply because of who they are, and thus don’t deserve fundamental human rights (such as freedom, fair trials, self-determination, etc.) like the rest of the world. (None of these rights is granted to Palestinians under Israeli occupation.)
But when such grandiose and damaging accusations are thrown around, I would encourage people of conscience and reason to dig a little deeper before accepting (and publishing!) what amounts to a blanket condemnation of an entire civilian population — a characterization I find deeply unfair and inaccurate, given my long experience living among Palestinians, and also profoundly damaging to prospects for genuine peace in the region.
Sincerely,
Pamela Olson, author of Fast Times in Palestine
More on-topic:
The American Studies Association recently held an open and rigorous meeting about the academic boycott of Israel. The members are overwhelmingly in favor, and less and less terrified of the only real tactics the opposition has: Intimidation, punishment, and harassment.
“In the intellectual world, the resort to force is not a position of strength. Saturday evening at the ASA showed the power of reasoned, moral argument. And there is no going back from that. In the struggle for justice for the Palestinian people, a turning point has been achieved.”
Changing times, indeed.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/taboo-boycotting-israel-has-been-broken/12949