The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and Jewish Voice for Peace thank Representative Hank Johnson for his participation in the event “Progressive for Palestine: Is the US Ready to Rethink Policy on Israel,” which took place yesterday in Philadelphia during the Democratic National Convention.
Representative Johnson offered insightful comments on the diminishing prospects for a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, citing Israel’s ongoing settlement activity – which violates international law and official US policy going back decades – on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, a point consistently made by both the Obama and Bush administrations.
Representative Johnson analogized this settlement activity to that of termites hollowing out and undermining a structure, noting that settlement expansion has made the creation of a viable Palestinian state in the occupied territories all but impossible. From a plain reading of his remarks, it was clear that Representative Johnson was referring, as he clarified afterward, to a “corrosive process, not the people.”
A video of Representative Johnson’s remarks can be found here (at 34:45).
This analogy was taken out of context in an article with a misleading headline written by a journalist with a longstanding record of anti-Palestinian reporting. The effect of this deliberate misreading was to distract from the important observations made by Representative Johnson regarding the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise and what life is like for millions of Palestinians living under Israel’s nearly 50-year-old repressive military occupation regime.
Representative Johnson is among a growing number of Members of Congress who are speaking out in support of Palestinian rights and a just peace between Palestinian and Israelis. We thank Representative Johnson for his continued fight for the human and civil rights of all people, including Palestinians.
“We thank Representative Johnson for his continued fight for the human and civil rights of all people, including Palestinians.”
Listening to the MANY speakers at the Democratic convention EMPHASIZING the central importance of equal justice for all people as a CORE value of the Democratic party, it’s OBVIOUS to any reasonably informed person that Israel’s actions, policies, and values bear no resemblance to those of the Democratic party.
The ONLY realistic explanation for the absolute avoidance of this fact by all these passionately exhorting Democrats, and all the establishment media figures reporting on them, including the “liberal” media, is the well-known factor of money. There is no other sensible explanation.
Hopefully the tide of information and public awareness will continue rising, and ultimately free these captives from their financial chains. Hopefully a great MANY of them WANT to break free from those chains. Hopefully they will take heart from the example of Representative Johnson.
Agreed and Representative Johnson should be thanked and honored for speaking out as he did. But what we’re seeing goes well beyond “the well-known factor of money” you mention. It goes to the monolithic power and influence of the Israel and Zionist lobby over the politicians, candidates, Dems and Republicans and U.S. cultural and educational institutions.
This may help explain Rep. Johnson’s need to apologize for his comments and the tepid, apologist description the relevant events by JVP and U.S. Campaign.
Of course, two-state and one-state solutions are meaningless to begin with, until adorned with policy proposals like right of return to and of land, pulling back the settlements, reparations for Palestinians, withdrawing US support for Israel until they take action to resolve the situation and so forth.
The apology seems like it must have been forced on Rep. Johnson, because he takes back the essence of what he said. Termites at work is a pretty benign analogy to the the settlers and their enablers, the Israeli people, who are complicit in what Rep. Johnson describes. Supposedly Israel is a democracy and could elect officials who would take action against the settlers. But they haven’t, sitting idle, even encouraging the criminal behavior. Marauders, pillagers, plunderers, thieves would be more accurate than termites.
And what’s this “corrosive process”. That’s meaningless. Of course, it’s the Israelis who are building settlements and stealing land, attacking Palestinians and their land and trees and crops, with the support of the Israeli people government, police and military. And most of those Israelis not doing the settling are by act or inaction supporting the settlers, as discussed above.
I feel sorry for Rep. Johnson that he felt the need to apologize. I feel sorry for JVP and U.S. Occupation that they don’t have the intestinal fortitude to name the miscreants responsible for the “article with a misleading headline written by a journalist with a longstanding record of anti-Palestinian reporting” And they shouldn’t have supported the apology when it wasn’t necessary for anyone, except perhaps Rep. Johnson for some unexplained reason and the Israel Lobby.
Holding Israel responsible for its decades of wrongs against the Palestinians and the true interests of most people in the U.S. is going to involve taking away much support for the Jewish homeland that many Jews in American apparently treasure. If you sow the wind…..
I get the feeling that JVP and U.S. Occupation are very ambivalent about their feelings in that regard. They sure seem to be pulling punches in this article.
This is the same Congressman who asked if Guam would “tip over and capsize” if more military personnel were stationed there.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/guamtip.asp
https://youtu.be/cesSRfXqS1Q
Article:
“(…) Palestinians living under Israel’s nearly 50-year-old repressive military occupation regime.”
Not 50-, but 68+ y/o repressive, etc…
I could understand if lawyers representing termites sued Johnson for comparing them to ILLEGAL SQUATERS!