Total number of comments: 3416 (since 2009-09-12 00:56:04)
pabelmont
Retired. Married for 24 years to Palestinian-American, Quaker. Myself of Jewish descent, non-religious. Classical musician (cello). Run my own website, 123pab.com, for which I do all the programming (PHP, MYSQL). Favor an international intervention, as a "deus ex machina", to rescue Palestinians, Israelis, and USA from the tail-wags-the-dog AIPAC-et-alius. This probably means doing an end-run around USA's UNSC veto and doing more-or-less coordinated BDS at nation-state level. Non-Action on Global Warming is a far bigger threat to all the world than the 63-year non-action on Israel/Palestine. On this topic, I am truly hopeless: "I cry a tear for the soon to be late humanity."
Website: http://123pab.com
As to Israel's right to take property by eminent domain, no-one seems to recognize the (possible, likely, absolute?) violation of international laws of war for the occupier to destroy or "take" property except for reason of military necessity. That's not what happened here. I know, I know, law, shmlaw. But isn't it odd that these writers and commenters take Israeli ownership for granted? And, on the other hand, that Israel's newish requirement that foreigners seeking entrance to the occupied West Bank must get a military permit to do so, whereas they can visit "Israel" w/o one. In this single instance, it seems that State of Israel is identifying Territory of Israel, something which it doesn't always do, such as "Made in Israel" product labels for West Bank products/produce.
Fun and fair enough. The lesson behind the lesson is that the meaning of anti-semite (anti-Jewish felling or action of some sort) is always being defined by SOMEONE to suit a political purpose. That SOMEONE is not the totality of the Jews of the world. It is whoever has (already) the political power to make their definition stick.
The nasty idea that speech and political actions objecting to violations of international law by Israel constitutes hatred of Jews ("anti-semitism") is flat out wrong since so many Jews do it. But those are not the Jews who have their hand on the definitional microphone.
The "Israel is a democracy" argument is pish-tosh as an excuse for settlements. Quite the contrary.
However, Israeli democracy does justify (so I think) BDS aimed at all Israel. Because (unlike Iraq under Saddam and Iran today, whose "democracy" was/is suspect at best), Israeli voters could turn their government around and therefore the "pain" of BDS should fall like a fine rain over the entire country. Especially on all export businesses, travel of all persons, so that all Israelis feel the general disapproval and the BDS is CLEARLY AIMED at the settlements and occupation -- so the Israeli people will have a clear political path to follow to stop/satisfy the BDS.
I'm not hopeful of a BDS aimed initially at democratization of Israel or at Return. Those would be good goals LATER when the nations have already started BDS just in regard to settlements, and world PUBLIC opinion (and education) have improved on this matter.
I think Christians, as other religious folk, come in two principal flavors. One flavor is kind, generous people who care about other people and might be helpful to Palestinians and, inter alia, care about Palestinian Christians. This flavor might be, at best, SOFTLY in favor of Palestinian rights, but is quite numerous.
The other flavor is hard-right-ideologues who (in USA) care about doctrine, support Republican care-nothingism and make-America-a-Third-World-country-ism, many of whose Christian component seem wed to the idea of destroying the world through an Arab/Israeli war at Armegeddon which will usher in the coming of Messaiah. This flavor is HARD against Palestinian rights.
Hey, boyz and girlz, not a satire! Not at all! This is Israel's plan (predicted only, perhaps) for showing the ICC that it has jurisdiction to try its own folks for alleged war crimes, has investigated all and every possible alleged war crime -- and in very best of good faith -- and found no cause for a prosecution. The Al-Dura examination of long-ago facts was a trial run!
Will this, if it occur in real life, actually keep the ICC off Israel's back? Only time will tell. But if this prediction is not right, then who can exablain why Israel produced this Al-Dura statement at all?
[1] The committee went even further and hinted at Enderlin’s responsibility for the massacre of Jewish schoolchildren in Toulouse. “His report inspired many terrorists and contributed to the demonization of Israel and to the rise of anti-Semitism in Muslim and Western countries”, wrote committee members. “In some cases, the implications were deadly”. OK, I agree, it was the reporting of the shooting that did the damage (if any), not the shooting, and in any case, even if the report was true, the ill-effects due to the reporting show that it should not have been published in the first place.
OK, let's not print any more atrocity stories about anyone, beginning with the holocaust (tm).
[2] It took 13 years to get this straightened out? Why now? Are there other "investigations" by Israeli military slowly chugging their way along, so Israel can claim that all matters said to be under investigation are, in fact, and indeed, under -- slow -- investigation?
Also, food was growing scarce and supplies were not getting past Israeli forces to Palestinian Arabs.
Straightline, that link is:
link to sscnet.ucla.edu
Zionist overhead to say: "Right. We begged them to remain but they insisted on leaving and, so, we had no choice but to bulldoze their villages and refuse to allow them to return. They left us no choice, they forced us to do dirty deeds, the ingrates. And though we loved them so. And after all we did for them, too. So now, of course, after our dirty deeds, which they forced us to do by leaving us though we begged them to stay, they hate us and we could therefore never allow them to come back because they've become determined enemies of the State and People of Israel (sorry, I meant enemies of the State of Israel and Jewish People of the Whole Wide World)."
There were so many reasons why JFK might have been assassinated. This is another one. With so many enemies and such a bad investigation, we'll never know. All the JFK enemies were well-placed politically.
An uncle of mine once (1980s) infuriated me by saying to me and my wife, she Palestinian, "If there's no solution, then there's no problem." Lapid sounds like that a bit.
But all the Zios are saying the same thing: "We want what we want, we are not going to give it up voluntarily, we have no enemies to force us to give it up involuntarily, and we'll describe our reason for doing what we want as a need for 'security'." Oh, and "Forget about justice" which is what Lapid meant by: “He’s one of the founding fathers of the victimizing concept of the Palestinians.”
To him, Nakba and all the rest is a ploy, whereas, I suppose, all the "security" talk of the Zios (which, to me, are a ploy) are reality.
Slogans of doubtful utility:
(Attributed to Charlie "Engine Charlie" Wilson): "What's good for General Motors is good for America."
What's good for Goldman Sachs is good for America.
What's good for the Settlement Project is good for All Jews Everywhere.
Whoever condemns those Catholic priests (and bishops) who have grievously sinned is an anti-Catholic.
Whoever opposes the criminality (or stupidity) of the Israeli government is an antisemite.
Jews should not honor a Jew who dishonors Jews who do dishonorable things.
Jewish Press: "It’s a tough choice that Jews should not make other Jews make." (Hmmm: Whether or not to oppose the Settlement and Occupation Projects?)
"Soldier in the delegitimization war against Israel" ?? Not so fast with this inescapable Zionist-Expansionist rant.
Any Zionist who is content with an Israel territorially consisting of pre-1967 Israel (a non-expansionist Zionist) will see that battling the settlement and occupation projects is not anti-Zionist and THUS does not delegitimize Israel (however much it necessarily delegitimizes these two projects).
But the Expansionists desire to blackmail all Jews into becoming their enablers by use of the familiar "all Jews must stick up for all other Jews" rigamerole, suggesting that these two projects are noble expressions of Judaism, etc., blah-blah.
I'd hope that just a few Jews could begin to say:
Dickerson/MLK: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly"
"Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. . . ."
from Meditation 17 by John Donne
Everywhere, the people (or many of them) understand repression, colonialization, etc., and everywhere the governments and business interests (almost all of them) are "in bed" with the colonizers, the repressers. Doesn't it really feel, at long last, as if Marx et al were right to see capitalism and the partnership of capitalists with governments (especially bad wherever, as in USA, governments are bought and sold to the capitalists) as intrinsic evils requiring overthrow.
I never believed in overthrow, and do not do so today, and I've never read Marx for that matter, but Spain and Catalonia should be above doing business (and especially "security" business) with Israel. where is BDS when we need it?
"Made in Israel" however DOES allow consumers to make ethical choices. BDS should aim at all trade with Israel. Labeling stuff as "Made by Israelis in occupied territory" (and other stuff as "made in occupied Palestine by Palestinians") allows the "made in really and truly Israel" stuff to get off the hook.
Oh, well, progress is always slow. Good Show United Church of Canada!
In fact, Israel's gov't and its army have many times refused to honor court orders (e.g., orders to allow Palestinians inside Israel to return to their homes). I've always supposed that USA's courts would be obeyed when they ordered the gov't. I've always supposed that in this regard Israel was different.
However, in these days of "national security" and emergency, it is not clear. Anyhow, the USA's courts are kow-towing to the gov't whenever the latter runs up the flag of "national security", "classified information", "gov't secrecy", etc.
So perhaps the issue of the gov't disobeying the court does not arise because of the court's flabbiness.
Annie and Hostage and HarryLaw and others: great job!
NPR's on-line news reported this, but there seems to have been no report "on air" -- according to NPR's search mechanism.
What bent reporting we get from NPR. I just gave WNYC $1.00 with a message about "bent" reporting. Wonder if small-money means as much to WNYC as big-money must do.
I guess they try to serve as the USA's lackeys just as many commenters above believe ICC's prosecutor will do.
Think also what "civil war" promises for the Palestinians caught in the cross-fire and the deliberate lynching-style violence.
But (as I say elsewhere) what is the tipping point when today's apartheid 1SS, usually called "occupation", becomes known inside Israel as "1SS" or else when a serious I/P negotiation begins to bring about a 1SS. By comparison, that is, to all the other "negotiation" we've seen since 1990. Where is the "push" going to come from to get a unilateral declaration of 1SS or a serious negotiation going? And why will that "push" and that tipping point not also trigger civil war?
When I imagine I/P in 20-50 years based on Israel's druthers, I see the same apartheid 1SS we have today. After a lot more squeezing, of course. Maybe more or less slow or fast expulsion of more Palestinians.
That is why I call, over and over, for international intervention. And when I think of intervention I can see two flavors.
One flavor is what I always talk about, international sanctions aimed to require Israel to conduct the occupation lawfully, that is, to remove all settlers, the wall, the settlements, and end the siege.
The other flavor might occur when the nations somehow decide that the "occupation" (that's what, today, we call the apartheid 1SS) has morphed into a "single undemocratic multi-ethnic state", and apply pressure on Israel to democratize -- allow non-discriminatory everything and especially voting (and without restrictions to require that parties and candidates be "Zionist").
The second flavor is mentioned somewhere above -- the nations forcing democracy on Greater Israel. But I ASK YOU -- which of these interventions would be easier to trigger, easier to define the goals of, easier to get agreement of the states to join it?
My answer is that the first, with its legalistic goals, is the easier to organize and to do. Not easy, merely easier. And not likely.
Well. talk them both up!
As to the earth and its ills: A few are to blame, but WE all are responsible.
As to Palestine, the Zionists and their pals, world-wide, and especially the American establishment, are very much to blame.
The Palestinians have no partner for creating the conditions for negotiations. They need a lot of countries, preferably big and rich ones, EU, BRIC, etc., to put significant pressure on Israel which will move Israel to real negotiation.
"Put" does not mean talking about putting.
The pressure I have in mind is pressure (BDS, sanctions) aimed at enforcing a demand that Israel remove all settlers, the wall, the settlements, the siege.
What is not needed (or at any rate not useful) is more talk.
Ellis: "If you’re thinking inversion, take a deep breath. For my children, the presence of Palestinian life symbolized their deep embrace of justice – and Jewishness. They knew that to be Jewish in our time is to be in solidarity with Palestinian people. There is no other way."
Amen. However, just in case there is some confusion, I would suggest that to love justice is not a sure sign of being Jewish. It is available to all. And not all Jews manage it. Not all anybodies manage it.
For me -- apart from a love for my mother's chopped liver and matzo-ball soup, alas no longer available to me -- my only "signals" of my own Jewishness (if any) are a love of justice and a love of language and precise and logical argument (not always achieved). And I'm sure you don't need to be Jewish for most of those.
"Harvard President Lawrence Summers smeared a similar effort as anti-Semitic in effect if not intent."
This is not news, but raises an important question:
Ellis: The people I met in Puerto Rico agreed that it’s time for a renewed dialogue and broadening of the interfaith dialogue into a solidarity of Jews, Christians and Muslims of Conscience. Otto’s passing might provide such an occasion.
I recall meeting mixed clergy in a Boston suburb in the 1980s with my wife, a Palestinian-American. We were talking about Palestine and the rabbi was trying to soften what we were saying -- or to get the Christian clergy to ignore it, I forget, But the message was clear: in those days (or at least at that meeting) "Jewish-Christian dialogue" was nothing more than a power-play to protect Jewish power in Palestine.
Making Jewish-Christian [-Muslim-Buddhist-etc.] dialogue a matter of conscience rather than for the protection of power, property, and empire, would be a wonderful thing, even if it failed, whereas making dialogue a means to propagate power, property, empire, and the suppression of conscience would be (and is, today) a bad thing, even if it succeeded, as, so far, generally, it has. (With apologies to Judah Magnes.)
"They saw their task as liberating Christianity from its captivity to power and empire."
Yes. And, more important, and I feel sure they saw their task as this too, liberating all people from their captivity to power and empire. The poor. The suffering. The captives.
We in the USA (and we in the I/P struggle) must also see our problems the same way -- as a problem of liberating all ourselves from the military power and economic power of empire, of oligarchy, of corporate control, of mindless environmental and human damaging. (Overturning "Citizens United" is a tiny but important first step for this.)
Some of us participate in empire and power. As you write, but it is true not only of many Jews, "As Jews we have been seduced by power and empire. When I listened to Otto and other Christian liberationists, I saw Jewish history flash before my eyes. The Jewish community was drowning in its own power, especially in the oppression of the Palestinian people. Our entire ethical tradition was at risk."
"The points they make against the ad are so off the mark, and often offensive, it’s hard to believe anyone could write them sincerely. (I’m deleting the names on the release because I don’t think it’s fair to blame them. I think people at the top should be held accountable for such nonsense.)"
Well, if the purpose of the counter-offensive were TRUTH-TELLING, they would be insincere. But the purpose of the counter-offensive is POLITICAL CONTROL, to force people to take sides -- on THEIR side. to frighten the fence-sitters. There are also a lot of people who (somehow!) know nothing about Palestine or the occupation or the settlements and DO KNOW about antisemitism. They want to round up THESE people. This is BIG-LIE stuff. And Zionists learned the BIG-LIE from the Nazis, and gladly and ruthlesssly use what they learned.
Phil, its is a lovely cartoon, just lovely. It expresses all our hopes. BUT TELL ME, has any other scientist followed his lead and refused to participate?
Remember this: the conference will be held and it will have become (IN PART) what it was not, originally, a REFERENDUM on the occupation, etc., and when it goes ahead, those who do NOT boycott will be SAID to approve. Of the occupation, not of science.
GELLER: "Stop US aid to Islamic states."
Wow! How about, stop USA's aid to ALL religious states! Look what Israel does w.r.t. the "rape" of Palestine!
But, yes, let's turn the M/E into even more turmoil by ending aid to Saudi Arabia (don't sell them airplanes, take the USA's soldiers out of there, and above all, don't buy their oil). And stop aid to Egypt (so it'll get really, really tetchy with Israel).
And stop all that aid to Iran! Gees I hate all that American aid to Iran!
Save a lot of money for the USA, hunh?
Thank you. Brilliant. "Speaking Truth to Power" is an old idea and not necessarily Jewish. I first heard the phrase when used by Quakers. But defending the little guy against the power and privilege of the powerful and privileged (always unearned because always excessive) is hard and dangerous work. I always thought especially well of Jews (should I say "us Jews"?) because of the Jewish work in the USA in the 1960s Civil Rights turmoil.
Some would have us believe that 1967 changed all that and that an Israel-centered "my country right or wrong, my mother drunk or sober" had replaced all other Jewish ethics in a large generation, and perhaps so. The younger generation coming along seems to be abandoning that.
The warning "don't marry outside the tribe" is a wonderful indication of how the Jewish establishment seeks to prolong ITS power by continuing recruits into the army of Israel-protectors. I'm glad I married a Palestinian Quaker. Instead.
"I am wondering about the reason for the change; my initial thoughts are that the Nakba was not widely know about and that there has been an increasing need to justify the taking of the West Bank."
My guess would be this: that originally, the Zionists were honest settler-colonizers who saw no need for further justification than a "need" for a homeland and a determination/will power/military power to achieve it. Subsequently, a religious overlay occurred as more "religious" Jews decided to overcome their religious/Talmudic scruples AGAINST the creation of Israel as a "Jewish state" and went there to live AND as the need to gain international support became more clear (the Hasbara era is -- to my thinking -- post 1967, maybe later).
Oppression is not Jewish? Are you sure? TheDersh (tm) was quoted here recently to the effect that Kahane's "values" were just as authentically "Jewish" as Beinart's "values". That means (to me) that a "tent" of "values" big enough for Beinart and Kahane (and Jabotinski and Begin and Shamir and Sharon and the current crop is a "tent" big enough to hold "oppression" as an authentic Jewish value.
I think what you mean is that the nicey-nice Jews who live outside Israel and who have, over the years, managed to conform their behavior (and their stated beliefs, and in many cases dank sei Gott their actual beliefs) to being good citizens and supporters of human rights, and the like, do not exhibit -- and often actually decry -- oppression.
There have been far too many rabbinic statements (made in Israel, to be sure, but authentic Judaism must, surely, be deemed to exist even inside Israel, mustn't it?) saying stuff like its OK to kill non-Jews with very little cause (to say nothing of the IOF's rules of engagement that permit long distance assassination of kids) to persuade me that "authentic Judaism" contains "multitudes" including oppression, terrorism, and much else that i dislike intensely.
It might be argued that what we are seeing (by way of oppression, terrorism, etc.) is not an expression of authentic Judaism but, rather, non-authentic or fake-Jewish actions, ordinary (human) (criminal) (mob) actions of the sort taken by people all over the world all the time, and although no "Jewish" are no worse than anybody else's bad behavior.
But in that case, why are Israelis "allowed" to hide under the flag of "Jewish" when demanding Biblical (and anti-anti-Semitic) sanction for their territorial grabbing -- whilst also "allowed" to hide under the flag of "ordinary human action" to cover their atrocities?
I'd wish the Scots to address that. And, oh yes, to address why the words of the Old Testament, seemingly believed by some Israeli Jews as promises by God, should be so regarded by Scottish Christians -- and allowed to trump international humanitarian law.
This "full court press" gives new(s) meaning to both "press" and "court". The FDD invites the (other) court-media to decide which side their bread is buttered on. Money as censorship rides again.
Fight the good fight, Newseum!
Thanks Shmuel. When people say "we" and "our" (as politicians often do) they are blurring meaning. It recalls the famous joke, Tonto to Lone Ranger, "What do you mean 'we', white man?" Usually, "we" means a part of the whole of humanity. And this writer does not apparently mean to celebrate the unity of all people who hold Jerusalem/Al-Quds holy (or who hold it national, either). "We" and "our" is us-against-them lingo.
I am thinking about the people in Boston who for a brief moment felt the fear and anger that a terrorist attack generates, but who were not invited by the "we" and "our" spouting politicians and MSM to consider the Yemenis and Pakistanis, etc., who DAILY feel the anger and fear engendered by USA's drone attacks.
It's tough not to be tribal. It's tough to willingly see your own privilege (always undeserved). It's tougher still to relinquish that privilege.
Apart from applause for Beinart (or not), if he really said that Israel need not be concerned with what's good for USA's Jews (and other Jews), then he's set up a delicious non-symmetry: the members of the Jewish People (tm) (I don't believe there is such a thing, but these guys seem to) have a duty, each of them, providing they live outside Israel, to protect each other. That is why American Jews are so desperately concerned to protect Israeli Jews. However, according to Beinart, Israeli Jews do not have a corresponding duty to protect scattered (used to be called "diaspora") Jews such as American Jews.
This non-symmetry is audacious, but cut from the same cloth as everything else Israel does, including the anti-Jewish terrorism that Einstein complained of in his 1948 letter to the NYT.
No-one should buy this drivel.
"[Peter] wants [Israel] to represent Peter’s Jewish values.... I like Peter’s Jewish values. I would much prefer that they [Israel] represent Peter’s Jewish values than Meir Kahane’s Jewish values because I like Peter’s Jewish values more than Meir Kahane's, but I can’t tell you that Kahane's are any less authentic."
This is indeed close to the admission that there are some VERY SICK Jewish values, which are authentic, and which would justify anti-Semitism. Kahane was a gangster, and thereby embodied authentic Jewish values. Nuff said.
Except to add that Israel's governments have for many years also been gangsters and TheDersh (tm) wants to protect Israel, its bad acts obviously included. As a lawyer, he might (possibly) have not wished to protect (non-client) Jewish gangsters operating in violation of USA's laws -- but seems quite content to protect Israel while it manifestly operates in gross violation of human rights law, laws of war, etc.
What a complex human being! Wow! Complex! Many sided! Maybe even Renaissance! Even Machiavellian! Wow!
The following is very important, because it tends to honor the use of Holocaust and Nazi and "never again" symbols as morally admissible persuaders for pro-Palestinian views on the Israel/Palestine conflict.
" Nathan Guttman described Siegman’s shift on Israel in relation to his background: “Siegman’s journey to the far-left corner of the Middle East worldview began with his early childhood, hiding in a cellar in Belgium as his family evaded the advancing Nazi troops until finally leaving occupied Europe. He told The New York Times in a previous interview that it was this childhood experience that helped him understand Palestinian fear.”"
She's a shill for Israel. Nuff said. Other than to oppose the pro-Israel VISA legislation in every way.
Great subject and column. And another thing -- Israel is a very good democracy, or so we are taught, (I'd amend with "for Jewish Israelis and ignoring the exile of 750,000 potential voters in 1948") and we are taught that China and Iran are, as democracies, considerably imperfect. What this means to people is different.
To some enthusiasts of "no sunlight between Israel and the USA", the idea that "Israel is a democracy" means that sanctions are impermissible, because democracy is such a wonderful means of governance (forgetting the "democratic" USA's banks nearly destroying the world economic order) that democracies can do no wrong and sanctions are therefore unfair, immoral, and fattening.
To me, sanctions are licit only against democracies, because dictators and oligarchies are rich and can survive sanctions. In other words, sanctions against democracies are an invitation to the voters to change national policy. Won't necessarily work, but could. And the targets of the sanctions are the people who are (nominally) in charge.
Some people think that terrorism against USA targets -- when responsive to USA's armed presence and terror attacks in the Muslim world -- are a form of violent sanctions against the USA by mostly powerless people. Intended to get the attention of the American people. There has in fact been some re-thinking about drone attacks. Such re-thinking might be regarded as a proof (or at least a suggestion) that sanctions against democracies might work -- and be valuable morally.
As to ICC, he is probably worried that [1] it won't work (ICC will not receive Palestine or will not handle whatever case Palestine presents) and [2] USA and Israel will again tighten screws on PA (not a small matter for a corrupt and bankrupt PA).
As to "We are awaiting the Arabs' phone call", this is not necessarily a fib -- Israel may have been waiting for an abject surrender, although its diplomacy has eschewed any peace whatever with {Palestine, Lebanon, Syria} for so long that Tel-Aviv may never, even in private, have decided what degree of abject-ness would be acceptable. So that, when the phone DID ring (Saudi Arabia 2002), no-one answered.
Israel has made treaties ("peace") with Egypt and Jordan, but has a lot of conquering left to do (in its search for water I'd suppose) in regard to P-L-S.
An Israeli claim: "Israel is a democracy in which all individuals are free to express their opinions, whatever they may be. The imposition of a boycott is incompatible with open, democratic dialogue.”
Interesting. and yet, as I (mis?) understand it, one can be severely punished by the verdict of an Israeli court of law for advocating boycott (that's "advocating", not 'imposing"). So this high-principled speaker, cheering Israel's "democracy" precisely in the context of boycott, seems to have got it wrong.
Gosh. Did he make a mistake, or was the claim of Israeli democracy and freedom to express all opinions a deliberate obfuscation? (Or does he merely mean, you are free to say what you want, but, of course, there might be costs associated with saying certain things.)
See also echo at rt.com: link to rt.com
Are these paywalls -- however intended -- a form of censorship? Connected people -- people with no trouble paying -- pay and can read, and the rest of humanity cannot?
But, then, these publications may be "establishment" so that they are establishment echo-chamber stuff, like as not, and in that case not so interesting. Except as an indicator of what's bouncing around the establishment echo-chamber.
We, too, have an echo-chamber.
Good point, no such thing as "diaspora" for the Jews, because "diaspora" requires dispersion from a single home, which the people who anciently followed the Jewish Teachings did not have.
There is, however, a Palestinian "diaspora", because there were a Palestinian people and Palestinian community living on a land which they called home, presumably something Israel wishes to deny, saying there never was a Palestinian people, never, not recently and not from Time Immemorial.
When in 1966 my mother (of Jewish stock) mentioned to her grocer (Palestinian, in San Francisco) that her son (me) was going to marry a Palestinian woman, the grocer said, "Tell me her name and I will tell you where she is from". On learning (after an exchange of letters, we avoiding the high expense of telephone calls in those days) that her name was "Totah", he said, "she is from Ramallah. she is my cousin."
I tell that story to suggest that Palestine was always a community, a small town sort of place, where people were inter-related and knew each other. Not a place of recent immigrants (as NYC is, where I live today). NYC is a melting pot, as Israel is (in its Jewish aspect), but Palestine was established over long time, a nation.
The rabbis who are having trouble talking about Israel are presumably not the ones who support the GoI in all its doings, who promote sale of Israel Bonds (if this still happens), etc. Support of Israel is a form of talking about Israel, but not a form of criticizing Israel.
This 1919 statement should be published to all Jewish congregations so they can start a discussion about whether the Zionist project makes any better sense today, when we can see the results, than it did in 1919, in prospect. Also, Judah Magnes's statement (in prospect)
If (as Walt says, and as most agree) Israel is the single player which matters and is also dead-set against a 2SS which Palestinians could agree to, so that he sees no pathway toward the 2SS that he and many others have been preaching (as he says for 15 years), then the question for Walt and for all others now abandoning 2SS is -- what power can overcome Israel, still the single player which matters, so as to convert the present apartheid 1SS into anything else, for instance, a democratic 1SS?
I am asking these F/P experts to identify a mechanism for achieving a change in status quo.
I, myself, do not see such a mechanism, either to produce a democratic 1SS or a just and lasting 2SS. I consistently preach the necessity for multi-national BDS-like pressure on Israel, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.
Talk of 2SS and "peace process" has been a smoke-screen for Israeli expansion and a fig-leaf for F/P folks to not look at reality. So, OK, they (talk and process) are no longer universally recognized as satisfactory smoke-screen or fig-leaf. If and to the extent this is true, so far so good. But now what? No state wants to mess with Israel. Even Turkey, which has many reasons to "stick it to" Israel, is backing off.
I see no mechanism for progress away from status quo (except Israeli efforts to expand even farther).
Comments?
The decision by Hawking, or by any other person -- and let's hope for more to join Hawking -- is more than an opportunity to stand with Palesatinians, afront Israel, and educate the public; it is one way that principled people can stand up to the dreadful inactivity (or complicity) of the governments and corporations who are "in bed" with Israel. He is educating every other conference attender, and one may hope that some will join him. Being first to stand up is hard, and when anyone does stand up, it makes it all the easier for the next person to stand up.
Dickerson: "The Democratic Party has done nothing to support Palestinian freedom from occupation because the overwhelming majority of Democrats (excluding Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards) are what Robert Naiman refers to as “two state fakers”.
But, at the convention, a lot (maybe a majority) of Democratic delegates tried (but failed, against "the machine") to prevent a "plank" on an undivided Jerusalem.
I don't know what that was all about, but those people were in public, people could -- and do -- know who they were, and they were voicing a view against Israel. That's SOME daring. Might mean something.
Maybe he "gets it" and at least he's making fun of it. But where is the "Israel is lawless and the USA supports that lawlessness" part? I mean, even Kerry and Obama (and N'yahu) SAY they support 2SS, which means they are all (occasionally) talking in public about it, regardless of what they really think-mean-intend.
Perhaps in USA's MSM, it is an act of bravery even to raise 2SS as an act-of-comedy. But is that a pathway, an encourager or facilitator, toward serious (non-comedic) discussion in the MSM of the impediments to 2SS? Is it like having a Palestinian guest on the show -- altho, granted, Edwards doesn't LOOK Jewish, so that's a near first on TV.
But, hey, the joke about 2SS as "two Israels" was pretty close to the mark, pretty close to the "generous offers" of non-militarized bantustans. I rest your case.
Sadly, sounds right. Shed more tears for Palestine.
Exceptionalism may mean several things. One is that someone is exceptionally ethical.
I have nothing against recognition -- if and where recognition is due -- of individual Jewish (no, not exceptionalism, but) stand-up-edness for human rights, civil rights, justice, etc. Obviously many Jews, and many others, have exhibited those qualities. But also obviously, many have not, and many of the PEP variety, again Jews and others, have good records on some issues and bad records on Palestine. I usually think that ethics should be universal. Not all Jews, and not all anyone-elses, necessarily think (or behave) that way. tribalism gets in the way for many people. Obviously.
Exceptionalism may mean several things. One is that someone deserves immunity and impunity.
The USA and Israel have wrapped themselves in this, operationally, but what it all really means is "might makes right, and we're embarrassed to say so, so we say we are exceptional and deserve to be outside the rules others are asked to follow." This is worse than preposterous.
The agreement on USA and Israeli exceptionalism is perhaps the sick joke behind the anodyne words that "there is no daylight between Israel's and the USA's interests, values, etc." Means we're both crooks and crooks gotta stand together.
Perhaps we will not, after all, go to war this time. But where did that (so called) "red line" come from. Remember the "WMD" thang and Saddam Hussein and Iraq and all the fun we had because someone invented a reason (nukes, possession of) that was made out to be a satisfactory justification for the USA to go to war? A reason (rationale) that was never questioned, as such, even by the one or two senators who voted against going to war? Why did people accept the WMD rationale then, and why did they (seem to) accept the "red line" or "chemical weapons, use of" rationale now? what's the matter with people's thinking?
So, glad that we are -- some of us, some of the establishment, some of the BIGs -- resisting yet another war. But be nice to see some rational thinking instead of all these knee jerk rationales.
Meanwhile, there is the threat of climate change, a threat apparently going unanswered, apparently of no concern to the establishment, to the BIGs, to those who count present profits and see no reason to be concerned with tomorrow. Ah, yes, tomorrow, and if people are dying and markets stop working, transportation stops working, things that require co-operation stop working, and the BIGs cannot sell anything anymore, and they lose all political power -- they can at least console themselves that they did, at least, bring down the world-system by preventing action on climate change.
I wonder if anyone's has studied the prevalence of organized Israeli crime in America, including and not limited to [1] spying on our government and [2] industrial spying (no-one has any trouble mentioning Chinese industrial spying). My guess is that there is plenty. Jes' sayin'. So -- no -- it's not enough to justify turning away all Israelis, but tit-for-tat? Any day, for me.
Keller and NYT are absolutely, even quintessentially, part of the establishment and his loyalty is to the club, a club which has never had human rights as even a minor goal.
This is a club which includes those important war-loving elements, BIG-WAR-FIGHTING (DoD, the Generals, the Blackwaters, the Halliburtons, etc.), BIG-ARMS (Boeing, McDonnell-Doughlas, etc.), BIG-ZION. The establishment also contains other BIGs, such as BIG-OIL and BIG-GAS (think FRACKING), and BIG-BANKS, and they may or may not like a proposed war in Syria (which has no oil), but we (sitting outside the establishment) hear little demurring -- unless the Pentagon's lack of enthusiam is a signal of some back-pressure inside the establishment.
And let us never forget that those who love war have pretty much arranged not to pay much in the way of taxes, so the out-of-pocket expenses of war are either borrowed or fall on lesser folk who are among the tax-payers.
But whether or not the USA discovers that our national interest (doubtless expressed in terms of our own or Israel's "national security") requires that we enter this war, never forget that the USA faces a massive threat (many, many times greater than whatever threat Syria poses to anyone), and does absolutely nothing to head off disaster. I speak of climate change.
So Keller and NYT are in the "whatever we decide" (is good for us? is good for the world?) school and presumably go along with our decision ("our decision"!) to do nothing to slow climate change.
Go figure.
This is funny. Google is now preventing the otherwise achievable peace. Google acting alone prevents Israel from doing what it should have done years ago.
It is similar to how delivery of fancy rockets for Hezbollah is a danger for Israel by making war less likely -- less likely because Hezb would be able to strike back painfully in the event of Israel's next (scheduled?) aggression against Lebanon. Curiously, whatever rockets Hezb already has have not been fired at Israel in anger (at strikes on Syria for example). Assuming some fancy rockets have been delivered, or will be, th'm durn rockets alone may prevent Israel from doing what it should not do -- and should not have done with apparent belief in its immunity and impunity in past years.
These canny Scots are on the right track, and I am glad of their intervention. However, it has the same problem -- and also without any justificartion -- as the EU-19
How come they ask for EU action to secure ONLY that Israel cease expansion of existing settlements? Why not ask for EU action to secure the 100% roll-back of settlements which is described as a goal earlier in the document?
Why ask the EU ONLY to force Israel to stop building more settlements when all of them are illegal? Is this refusal to demand government action to secure a lawful revision of an otherwise unlawful regime something in the European genes? Is it a matter of politeness? Is there a a rule that you can ask for this much but must under no circumstances ask for that much? Do these Scots feel that the EU having failed to complain (adequately) about the Israeli settlements build already are thereby constrained not to ask for their removal now? Are police allowed, in Scotland, to arrest people AFTER crimes have been committed? Or only beforehand?
What is it? And how can they (and we too -- Obama never asked for more than a cessation of increases of settlements) get over it?
The idea of a swap doesn't need to be so horrible. But it needs to be voluntary, and between quasi equals.
Therefore, the "peace" needs to go in THREE parts.
FIRST, a two state peace treaty which splits the land along the 1967 lines, the settlers gone, the wall down, and the settlement buildings subject to destruction at whim by Palestine. TOTAL sovereignty for both states. Palestine cut OUT of the Israeli electric and water systems, Israel no longer using most of the West Bank aquifer.
[PS: Not sure what to do about water for Gaza. Its aquifer seems trashed beyond salvage, by Gazans and by Israelis.]
SECOND, a land-swap which gives Palestine a wide highway between Gaza and West Bank, and gives Israel a narrow access to the Western Wall (and no more).
THIRD, and thereafter such other and further land-swaps and other deals (Palestinian Right of Return deals, for example) as shall please both sides. If at all. (This is where Israel seeks to retain some of the settlements near Jerusalem so that it can return the former settlers to them, and to avoid having those settlements dynamited by Palestine.)
THIS IS A DEAL THAT REQUIRES INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE ON ISRAEL. But then so does any other deal since Israel is evidently pleased with and willing to retain forever the present 1SS-apartheid deal.
Phil, nicely put. NPR's dual-loyalty is nailed, but (no doubt) will not be admitted.
Can you think of a way to stick to NPR this particular blatant display of dual-loyalty, NPR's Melissa Block's willingness to identify the political and familial associations of Arab-connected folk "on air", but NPR's general across-the-board unwillingnes to do the same for Israel-connected folk?
Of course, NPR (Melissa Block) did not say the words "dual loyalty" although it may have been implied to any reasonable hearer's ear. But why bring up his wife at all if not to inject the idea that familial (and maybe also ideological or political [Alawite]) "loyalty" or "affiliation" may skew the reliability/credibility of a talking-head's presentation.
Handschu guidelines seek to restrict NYPD investigations of people "who were involved in political activities". But "living-while-Muslim" is not a political activity and is not, therefore, apparently, covered by the guidelines. I think we need guidelines for police (and hardly just NYPD, but starting here in NYC and wherever else NYPD casts its nets) when investigating ANYTHING OTHER than crimes that have already happened.
The recent Boston bombing (or was it "devicing") may not have been political -- that is, it may not have been done for any purpose of persuading Americans (or Bostonians, or marathon runners and their friends) to take or refrain from any political action.
I don't like a rule that is too narrow. I want to restrict the police in all preemptive (rather than after-the-fact-of-crime) investigations. Hence we should seek to CANCEL that limiting word, "political".
* * *
As to the Boston Bombers moving on th NYC, how would spying on NYC Muslims have prevented the Boston folks from doing their thing (had they been successful)?
Should Manning go free? Should Pollard go free? Both spies. One worked FOR the USA and profited no enemies that I can see (tho it embarassed the USA). The other stole secrets which he gave to Israel (which I'd call an enemy, for all the harm it's done its neighbors and thus the USA -- but who am I to decide such things?) that Israel traded to USSR (an enemy, sez USA).
A lot of secrets are kept to give administration folks a free hand to misuse money, misuse authority, conduct essentially private foreign policy, etc. Blackwater a private presidential militia? Well, who gave it how much money? We don't know, secret. Who told it what to do (or did anyone?) We don't know. No control of money or tasks. Blackwater militiamen were exempt of all legal recourse by anyone. Like Israel, they enjoyed total impunity and immunity. And as we have been taught, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Private militia if not ROGUE militia. Such things should not be secret.
So on the whole, I dislike and distrust secrecy so much that I think that we in the USA, often called the strongest country, would do well to abolish secrecy altogether and follow Pericles in his funeral oration
I'm sadly "out of it" as to contemporary culture. No TV, no cable. far as I see, NPR has not broken with Israel yet * * *.
Gee, and weren't we all trained from infancy to know that Hollywood was a project of * * * people who might be expected to be supporters of Israel? Perhaps expectations should change a bit. And perhaps Hollywood's "hitting" some somebodies while they're (seen as going) "down". And perhaps there is an allure in truth telling.
The issue is not (to my mind) the fact of state violence (that is what police, armies, prisons, et al., are for) -- but the fact of state violence assessed as ILLEGITIMATE.
The USA and Israel are notable for use of illegitimate state violence, indeed for the apparent abandonment of any standard of legitimacy or mechanism of limitation to avoid illegitimate use of state violence.
These two states are not the only ones, but are notable, and the oddly-chosen word "exceptionalism" perhaps describes the mental set by which these states say (to their detractors and their consciences) "We are special, what we do MUST BY DEFINITIION be legitimate because we are exceptions to the rule -- the rule that illegitimate use of force is natural, a danger to be avoided.
Jews are not the only people who profit from illegitimate state violence. The USA's major early use of state violenmce, including assassination and instalation of dictators, was to benefit banana companies, oil companies, mining companies.
I am not sure that american Jews profit from Israel's state violence, but it appears that many of us think so -- and the very, very few, very, very rich Jews who largely fund the Israel Lobby evidently think so.
And yes, we (and all other Americans) should learn the truth and speak up about it, rock the boat a bit. Indeed.
Fab. (No rant this time: ☺) [& # 9 7 8 6 ;] [w/o blanks]
Important story, Didn't know an Israel-concerned LAWFARE group was likely involved, Shurat Ha-Din:
One sees, from this HOME PAGE lead paragraph that involvement with TIAA CREF is not part of Shurat Ha-Din's nominal area of concern * * * or that their nominal area of concern is a smoke-screen,
Wonder if TIAA CREF is headquartered or incorporated in a STRIKE SUIT protection state. Would be lovely to try to bankrupt Shurat Ha-Din, assuming it has threatened TIAA CREF, as it apparently tries to bankrupt other groups.
What an awful story, Alex. Thanks for helping to make these things public.
"He has been locked up there for 11 years, despite the fact that in 2010 a judge ordered his release." This quote means that, like Israel, the GoUS ignores the orders of its judges -- just as it ignores the human rights of prisoners it has no right (and not much interest) in continuing to hold.
Have the 86 prisoners who could be released to Yemen been asked WHERE they'd like to be released to? If they have a well-founded fear of unlawful imprisonment in their home country (Yemen), perhaps they'd like to be released within America or elsewhere in the Middle East. they shoukld eb ASKED. As asylum from Guantanamo and from USA-connected Yemen.
Waiting for a 1SS is better for the Palestinians? really? And does that mean ANY 1SS? After all, we've got a splendid 1SS right now, and within that splendid 1SS, the settlers (i.e., those of the post-1967 OPTs) are pushing, pushing, occasionally murdering, the remaining Palestinians, doubtless [1] to obtain more land-without-people, which they'd later calim to own, and [2] also to persuade the remaining Palestinians to leave the OPTs entirely.
I am not a fan of Apartheid (rhymes with HATE). So I don't like the present 1SS. And where is the deus-ex-machina that's going to democratize Israel's 1SS? Magic?
When I call for international state-level BDS aimed at compelling Israel to remove settlers, wall, settlelement, and siege, (and thus pave the way for 2SS), am I not ALSO calling for magic?
And which form of magic should we work for? Both, at the same time? Maybe.
I can describe the GOAL of the international intervention that I call for, and I just did, above. What would be the GOAL of the international intervention seeking to democratize the present 1SS? What sort of "democracy" would satisfy the I/C? And what sort of time-line? Would Palestine have to act (in a sort of abdication of non-existent sovereignty) to demand official and democratic 1SS? And when Israel refused or pretended, what then?
I invite the 1SS folks to describe any one or more mechanisms toward their goal and to assess the likelihood of success (and the year of success).
I am by no means confident about 2SS, far, far from it. But I'd like some persuasion from the 1SS-ers. And I wonder about the land. Who will own which parts of it when the smoke clears. Where, if anywhere, will sheep and goats graze? Where will olives still be harvested? And if the exiles of 1948 are NOT part of the mix, if expulsion is retroactively OKed by the deal, why not another dose of expulsion from time to time to keep the demographics of the fledgling "democracy" in order, ehh? Assuming (as there now is) a Zionist voting majority at all critical moments? Can you imagine those fine enthusiasts of a "Jewish State" with a "Jewish majority" giving up on that? What would make them do that?
Che Spirito, you ask: What is the sound made by two Zionists in a forest if there is no fish-on-a-bicycle to hear them? And what is the sound of one hand waving goodbye? All good questions for these two.
"Are two staunch Zionists really the poles of the American conversation on a Jewish state? Where are the Palestinians? Where is anti-Zionist Ben Ehrenreich or Max Blumenthal? Don't they count?"
This is NOT a question of American foreign policy, not a question about the propriety of this or that Jewish state, but of Zionism liking itself (or licking its wounds).
Wouldn't it be a gas if [1] Zionism were in serious crisis, or dead, and also [2] the 2SS were dead, and a 1SS apartheid were inevitable, in place, and infinite?
The Palestinians are the victims of Zionism, the (other) anti-Zionists are its enemies, but the mere existence of enemies of Zionism was not the question.
The question was whether or not the strength of Zionism was being depleted: is the movement (O noble Zionism!) in crisis? Dost doubt thyself, O Zionism?
The enemies might seek to create or fuel a/the crisis, but the crisis itself (if any) lies inside the movement (or maybe in former Zionists who've jumped ship). So a convocation of Zionists to consider their own movement is exactly reasonable.
If that was the question, Is Zionism in Crisis?! Because, there are other more interesting questions for Americans, Jews, and others to consider.
Glad to have a quasi-definition of "disputed territories" -- namely, Israel wants them and is prepared to (or has already) made them off limits to Palestinians. What a wonderful thing is de facto sovereignty! Or, conversely, what a dreadful thing is the world's backing-down, presumably largely at USA's request, from its undertakings under Geneva Conventions, to "ensure respect" for the Conventions "under all circumstances" which, here, means acting (not merely talk-talk-talking) to compel Israel not to violate G-4 by its settlements program, land confiscation, etc.
The meaning of "2SS is dead" also gains some clarity. In the absence of any power willing (and able, but ability is always in question until an attempt is made to act) to compel Israel to remove the settlers, settlements, wall, and siege, then, YES, 2SS is dead, for, surely -- as far as certainty goes in this world -- Israel is not about to do any of those things voluntarily.
Two questions for us all to ponder: [1] why do the nations continue to sit on their hands and [2] why did they initially sit on their hands w.r.t. settlements? Is/was it nuclear blackmail by Israel? Is it economic power of USA (such as applied now via sanctions to Iran, and such as our ever-so-clever banks applied to EU's banks, ruining Europe)? Or do the nations (other than the most-powerful-prisoner-in-the-world/USA) just act in their own interest and see no reason to intervene on Palestine's behalf -- or in the interest of a rule of law they don't see themselves profiting from?
Not many Orthodox Christians in Gaza. I was glad to see the young blond girl who -- if Palestinian as I suppose -- is a reminder that Palestine was a (military) invqasion/meeting place over many, many centuries, including north European Crusaders way back when.
James Canning: I do not know how to distinguish a nation's "true best interests" from its [untrue?] [not-best?] "national interests".
The very notion of a "national interest" -- whether USA's or Israel's or any other democratic nation's -- is incomprehensible to me. The "national interest" (a non-sensicval or tqautological bumper-sticker slogan if ever there were one) is a minute-by-minute averaging over all private interests, or in realpolitik terms, an averaging over all the private interests THAT MATTER (mostly the interests of the CEOs of large corporations and banks and hedge funds, plus a Koch or Adelman or Bloomberg or two).
So what Israel's interest is depends on whom you ask. The settlers like the settlements "jez fine". It seems that the settlements are also in the USA's "national interest" (i.e., what BIG-ZION wants and what no other BIG such as BIG-OIL, BIG-ARMAMENTS cares to oppose).
Words, words, words -- altho welcome words from a (former:natch!) big-shot. I much doubt he speaks for, or in accord with the deep thought and desires of, N'yahu or ther others. When he (or any other (former) big-shot) proposes either [1] that Israel withdraw from OPTs, roll-back all existing settlements, or the like or [2] USA, UNSC, EU apply force to Israel to do these things -- because Israel will not do them as acts of free will -- then it will make sense to listen. As with the EU-19 mere words are small comfort.
"What an ongoing calamity Zionism is for the American Jewish community."
How right, Phil.
And how very confused the American Jewish community has become as: [1] its earnestly promulgated duty to protect the world's (other) Jews from (other) calamities has been deemed to create a duty on American Jews to create, support, and defend (to the point of moral and logical incoherence) the State of Israel, by, inter alia, lying, suppression of truth telling, defamation, etc.; [2] its earnestly promulgated duty to stick together -- American Jews to support all other Jews -- has been deemed to impose a duty on all American Jews to protect Israel -- not from doing wrong but from being known (initially by the Goyim, ultimately by themselves) for doing wrong; and [3] its wrongfully and slyly promulgated duty to adopt the protection of Israel as a replacement for all (previously taught) moral, ethical, and religious Jewish teaching has closed its eyes to Israel's reality -- an eye-closing much helped along by the energetic American suppression of truth-telling where Israel is concerned.
And then they call Israel (which made exiles of half the people of The Land in 1948) a "democracy".
And they called it, also, a "Jewish State". As to this, I wonder. I am no Jewish scholar, and I invite people who are to comment, but I've read a sentence here or there which makes me wonder.
Is Israel acting like a "Jewish State" when it passes a law to punish people for preaching (that is, speaking) boycott -- violating a Jewish principle of "zaken mamreh" which allows a "rebellious elder" to "go up and down the countryside to preach that the "court in Jerusalem" had erred." Surely, the entire settlement project is an act of "the court in Jerusalem" (or something far less authoritative) and to speak against settlement, while still paying the taxes which "the court in Jerusalem" demands to support the settlements, is protected political speech -- though apparently not in today's Israel.
This is a story about honest, hard-working working men, USA diplos, who knew their job, and we're complaining that that job had to do with power and money and other corruption (and with lying and prevaricating) and not with morality, justice, human rights, etc. "Jez' doin' my job, ma'am." A story that needs to be told.
Meanwhile, my reading (or my hope, if you prefer) is that Obama talks-the-talk but secretly encourages Turkey and EU to set an independent line -- because Obama cannot or will not -- and there is no other way toward either the soft-and-fuzzy stuff like H/R and justice or toward what some hard-liners consider real American interests that USA's support for the occupation endangers.
But it is uphill work being an EU-ocrat-for Palestine. Even those (retired) high officials who will criticize EU policy will not recommend a coercicve policy aimed at ending the occupation (or ending the settlement project).
Annie and Gilad - Rice is an honest employee who does her job as her boss directs her. If she didn't like her job (the lies, the anti-H/R, pay too low, whatever) she could quit. What's hateful is that the USA is run by a cabal that creates job-descriptions like Rice's. Or like Obama's come to that. Poor man believes he must "go along to get along", was raised in intensly political Chicago, and has no self-view as a statesman (or at least no such self-view that transcends his view of himself as a politician trying to herd cats to get legislation accomplished).
Blaming Rice will not fix the system, but it sure is fun! And one rather wonders why she said that about spending her time working for Israel. Maybe that was on orders, too, like Kerry's comparing the 9 Mavi Marmara dead to the Boston bombing victims. Baby-steps to crack the USA-Israel monolith.
It's only re4sonable that rice spends most of her time working for Israel. Gee, gotta do somwething in your spare time, and the USA is so big it gets wg=hat it needs without UN intervention.
Do wish she'd spend some time announcing that, since Israel's "legitimacy" was finally and permanently established, she was not going to spend any more time defending it, allowing her time to work to correct Israel's sad lapses of judgment, its stumbling baby steps on the path toward grown-up-edness in the international area, you know, like its 45 year old settlement project. And its apartheid system, something that the USA is hard-pressed to describe accurately whilst declaring that USA's and Israel's interests and values are identical.
"Or should I say [of Tom F] an American liberal innocent abroad." No. No-one so highly paid has any right to be and remain an innocent. He has access to all important information. He can talk to anyone. He's no innocent.
Maybe sometimes pretends to be. Maybe gets paid to act "innocent".
Tom F , knows what's what and acts a part. In effect, he is paid (his iron-rice-bowl depends upon) to act a part. To support the AIPAC-USA line.
Hardly innocent. Part of the Zionist-media-cabal.
It would be so simple, so "nice", and such a savings of time and money if Israel would ask, when you apply for a VISA, "do you harbor pro-Palestine (or anti-Israel) feelings or opinions?" and deny the VISA if you do. Also advise of whatever email search they intend to perform upon arrival. OF COURSE you give them your password if you use your password to log-in to your email-server -- they can make you use THEIR computer and do a keystroke capture. Or make a video of you typing your password on your own computer.
Thaty they do NOT do this shows that their purpose is to harass. similarly, sending people home before they've visited is pure harassment. Why should your political opinions matter? Security is different from thought police. One would have thought.
Wow! $1M per Jewish family to leave Gaza. And how much did Israel pay to induce 750,000 Palestinians to leave their homes in 1948? Not much, and none of it given to the Palestinians.
Today there are, perhaps, 600,000 Israeli Jews living in Golan and OPT (WB). How much to induce them to leave? What? gun-point not enough? Oh, so sorry. Hey! USA! Got $600,000,000,000 lying around? Oh, per household, average household size 4? Only $150,000,000,000 (that's $150B, spelled out all nice and zero-ey!).
Ooooh, them taxpayers! But I forgot: in the USA, no-one who has real money really pays taxes, so it's OK. Really! But, then again, why should USA pay Israel so it can induce its settlers to go home (BTW, they have a homeland to return to, unlike the Palestinian exiles of 1948), when they were present in OTs illegally and everyone knew it and many said it? Ohh, I get it, "politics".
Phil: You say you will argue that Israeli actions have foreclosed 2SS? Does that mean that you wish to accept the irrevocability of the so-called facts-on-the-ground (FOTG) which constitute the settlement project? I hope you will at least compare and contrast, with attention to likelihood,
Unlikely Scenario 1:
Unlikely Scenario 2:
Likely Scenario:
The prexy doesn't approve the message but also doesn't veto it. So raw Zionist power is on the wane a bit, here. But the prexy sees in the bill a "one-sided narrative." Could be, I 'spose.
Wish I'd studied the debate and the language of the resolution. If, for instance, the one or both centered on the illegality of the settlement project, it's hard to see what the "other side" could be. In that case, BDS was aimed at a clearly illegal state policy abetted by corportions, corporations which can be attacked. BDS attacks mostly corporate aiders-and-abetters.
But in our modern world, law-enforcement by BDS may indeed seem "one-sided" given the USA's fierce attempts to invalidate the international law involved -- sort of "repeal by neglect" due to 45 years of non-enforcement of the anti-settlement provisions of Fourth Geneva Convention.
In that reading of modern history, BDS can be said to amount to a civil-society movement to resurrect neglected law.
Bamila (as she tells us she is called in Palestine) has written a fantastic book. It has, at least for me, put very personal, realistic, human, up-close flesh on the horrid bones of occupation. What were for me quasi-abstract Israeli crimes have become flesh-cringing reality. And her light touch nevertheless makes it possible to keep reading. I've been "with" the I/P on the side-lines here in America since 1980 and have never been moved as much as by this book.
Israel has been transferring prisoners from OPTs to Israel "forever" and it is well-known (altho rarely cited by folks like us, who decry broad items like "settlements project"). Since it does continue, it must be presumed (hint, hint, wink) that G4S which services prisons inside Israel is participating and will not be "clean" of the contagion until it does NO BUSINESS inside Israel.
This is another example of how misguided BDS folks are who try to apply BDS only against industries operating within the OPTs (and Golan, I hope), Israel's war-crimes are everywhere in Israel and BDS should attack the whole shooting-match (hmm, nice choice of words there!).
Makes you wonder if the guys who write that stuff are thinking, moralizing beings (in which case their thinking and moralizing are really dismal), or if they are mind-dead frightened automatons (who feel, no thinking to it at all, "Oh my God, the Nazis are coming, the Nazis are coming, to take me out of my soft featherbed here in America and fling me into eternal fire if Israel be not first saved"). For example, can you see this bozo calling for an end to sanctions against Iran on the grounds that Iran is a world-leader in technology and innovation? Or praising Hitler for figuring out, so very, very technologically and innovatively, how to produce and then to get rid of lots of dead (Jewish) bodies? No, confess it, you cannot imagine him doing it, and either can I.
Anyway, the prize for real technology and innovation goes to the Palestinian who long ago first figured out how to get the mamoul out of the mamoul mold.
If Kerry really thought it through, then he was -- on purpose, "with logic aforethought" -- characterizing the (portion of the) Israeli military which carried out the attack on Mavi Marmara as terrorists -- or as criminals -- like the people who attacked the crowd in Boston. And, of course, characterizing the passengers on Mavi Marmara as innocent bystanders. Weeeeeeel, they were in international waters at the time, and they were unarmed (I think) and bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza (I think).
In reply to many of these stories of religious violence in Israel, in Jerusalem (said by so mnay to be a holy city): Some say there is a Jewish people, One Jewish People. Others say there is no such thing. (This is all for-or-against the idea that Israel is "the State of THE Jewish people".)
Perhaps there is no (singular) Jewish people but many groups of Jews who (as groups) have sufficient similarities of behavior to warrant being classified as "a people-let". Perhaps we could say that secular Jews (people like me whose ancestors were religiously Jewish but who are not so themselves) are a "people-let". And intolerant, punitive, self-righteous horrors like the spitters, rock-throwers, and beaters described in previous comments are another "people-let".
My take is that there are MANY such "people-lets", but no single Jewish "people". And all the many "people-lets" are "real", "authentic", do arise out of their several different histories, etc. The spitters, rock-throwers, beaters are quite charmingly similar to Saudi and Iranian religious police in horrible behavior and attitudes and show us that orthodox extremists, whether Jewish or Muslim or Christian or white-Supremicist or Martian are more similar to each other than to seculars (again, whether of Jewish, Islamic, Christian, or other backgrounds).
As a USA "taxpayer" (ahem, retired), I hate to see my (tiny contribution to the USA's) $3B/year going to support and protect and educate these spitting, rock-throwing, beating charmers -- and it comforts me not at all to know that the money goes largely to support the USA's own -- its very, very own -- BIG-DEFENSE which, with BIG-ZION, BIG-BANKS, BIG-PHARMA, BIG-OIL have so much to say about who gets entitlements in the USA.
Catholics -- presumably including bishops and cardinals -- have not feared to enter American politics on issues related to Catholic faith, belief, and practice: abortion and birth control issues come to mind. If they are willing to enter politics on these issues but not on the issues of peace and justice and human rights in Palestine (but will do so on the same kinds of issues in Argentina) -- what are we supposed to conclude, except that their morals and ethics and religious duties of charity and care-taking are opportunistic rather than intrinsic.
Some unkind folks have suggested that Catholics failed sufficiently to oppose Hitler during WWII. Well, perhaps they did so fail, but it must be recalled that Hitler was a very frightening and violent opponent. Shall we assume that Israel, today, is as frightening and violent an opponent of charity, peace, morals and ethics, etc., as Hitler was in the 1940s?
I'd hope not. So, with you, I invite Cardinal Sean to reconsider his silences and his too-selective speech.
Hostage: Very good indeed to hear that an IN-OFFICE international politician, Javier Solana, acted to secure international action -- rather than mere words -- on I/P. Thanks for the info.
It appears that even the ICJ's 2004 opinion neither creates nor recognizes existing obligations which require nations to "ensure respect" for the Geneva Conventions (that is, pressure Israel to comply). The nations certainly act that way -- to say nothig of acting as if there were positive disincentives [presumably USA] to action.
ICC would act -- at best and at most -- against individuals, such as the former leaders now (perhaps still that is) under indictment in Turkey for the Mavi Marmara outrage. It would not authorize anyone to take military action. NATO might be able to take military action, as it has elsewhere, but last time I looked, the USA had its thumb on the NATO scale, same as UNSC.
So sanctions looks best. Gradual and increasing. Withdrawal of embassies. Cessation of commercial air traffic. Ending of VISA permissions and sending Israeli nationals home. Ending agricultural trade. Ending or curtailing tourist traffic to Israel.
Sanctions as an enforcement tool for a demand. What demand? For me the right demand is that, within one year, Israel remove all settlers, raze or dismantle all settlements buildings and the wall, and lift the siege on Gaza.
This demand would either produce very costly Israeli action (acquiescence in the demands) or result in great pain in Israel. Probably backfire for a while in the form of evfen wiorse pressure on Palestinians. But even if the USA did not join in the pressure, the American public would learn a lot that they do not now know. And Education is everything in this matter.
HarryLaw -- Could you comment on Essay 1 (and on Essay 2) ?
Funny how people protect themselves from criticism by refusing -- after their bad acts -- to accuse themselvs of the worst. Imagine the increased impact of this statement if the former hot-shots had said something like this:
These tepid world leaders are still in the trap, for they still speak of stopping the building of new Israeli settlements and fail to adopt the language of extirpating the existing settlements -- root and branch. Finding bravery and clarity is going to be a slow process if no-longer-serving world leaders can be so timid. Or so knowingly and intentionally complicit.
It is good to hear (once again) OUT-OF-OFFICE politicians saying sensible things that they never dared to say whilst in office.
However, since they seem to have raised some questions, how about asking lots of questions?
One question is this: if a single EU member state wishes to apply sanctions against the Israeli occupation, or against the (illegal) settlers, wall, settlements, and siege of Gaza, would EU rules allow that state to do it?
I agree with your "take". Jewish oil-on-water is acceptable, Arabic/Palestinian is not. But not all Jewish moralizing is acceptable, as you note.
"For Temple Israel the question remains if the reason for their study [of divergent views on I/P within the congregation] is to keep the congregation from imploding or to fashion action that confronts the state of Israel on behalf of the Palestinian people." But another reason may be to suppress the conversation by holding the "study" and asking congregants to keep quiet in the meantime. I guess that falls within your "to keep the congregation from imploding" but censorship has its own name. Maybe the study is untertaken to "buy off" the big-old-money hard-right-Zionists who would withdraw support if the pro-Palestine Jews started sounding off, especially pubicly. Another reason for exercising censorship.
The sad reality is, likely, that Hamas (and PA?) would prefer that Palestinians fear THEM more than they fear Israel. Or fear their retaliation for collaboration more than they fear whatever blackmail Israel uses to compel/induce collaboration.
And anyhow, the civilized people of the world don't see Warsaw Ghetto Jewish anti-collaborationism as unreasonable: after all, they were facing a monster, as (we all know and may freely declare) the Nazis were, whereas the Palestinians only face the
(relatively)benign Israel (a lie we may nevertheless all freely declare).This smells a bit like the usual these days, the idea that protection of "Jewish values which include support of Israel" means that attacking Israel means attacking Judism or Jewish values or Jews.
What's interesting and valuable is how often these words and attitudes, even though still held (or at least, still protested as if held) are being held in parallel with a view that these are OK topics to talk about -- quite "as if" American values (w.r.t. "support for free speech") could actually trump the "Jewish values" of support for Israel. (Often seems like there is an assertion in some quarters that suppression of free speech is a Jewish Value.)
Only curmudgeons like me still feel like adding, to "Jewish values including support for Israel" things like "my country right or wrong, my mother drunk or sober" to help explain how these so-called Jewish values (you know, we Jews are all one large family and we stick together, and Israel is an enormous part of that "we") amount, these days, to support for a clearly criminal enterprise (and I mean that only w.r.t. illegal means-of-occupation items such as settlements, siege, wall, torture, etc.).
We need a discussion in America (and certainly also, in parallel, among Jews) about how to love and support a criminal "friend" whilst also demanding that the criminality stop. That is the difference between a co-conspirator who offers material support to the criminal and a friend who maintains friendship while demanding the criminal stop the crime.
A tremendously important issue, perhaps Marc can deal with, is to find a way to focus on and MAKE JEWISH COMMON CAUSE AGAINST the criminal aspects of Israeli national life today -- certainly including the settlements, siege of Gaza, wall, torture, indefinite detention without charge or trial, etc. -- in such a way as to ENLIST rather than REPEL those Jews (especially in USA) who wish to retain a fond feeling for some aspect of Zionism, some part of some dream.
I am daily troubled, and of course made aware, of the lasting power of those Zionist dreams. Here's Matthew Diller, dean of Cardozo Law School, a very Jewish school, speaking about a group of students who had given its International Advocate for Peace Award to Jimmy Carter:
NYT 4-10-2013.
Now a law school dean must know about Israel's expulsions of Palestinians (1947-50) and refusal-to-readmit (1947-present) and Israel's stark either illegality or (if not actually illegal) flying in the face of the ethical commitments of the international community. He does not condemn Israel for these, nor does he state whether these acts (I have not even gotten to the settlements, wall, and siege yet) are consistent with "Jewish values" which he says include (but are not limited to to) "support for Israel".
So we have a culture where officials in Jewish institutions support Jewish values -- without telling us what they are except to say that they include "support for Israel".
So, I invite Dean Diller to come out with a statement which manages to describe, either as to his own "Jewish values" or as to "Jewish values" more generally, how he squares all of these "Jewish values" with Israel's actuality (as distinguished to some mystical pie-in-sky nicey-nicey view of Israel, maybe Israel as it should have been, tellig us what aspects of Israel's actuality he supports and which parts he deplores.
And since the award to Jimmy Carter was from a "conflict resolution" group at a law school, perhaps that group can give some thought -- and perhaps a three-day conference -- on conflict resolution within American Jewish communities on the topic of how much and in what respects American Jews do (or in any sense "should") support Israel and in which respects -- out of a duty to honor and support "Jewish values" American Jews should distance themselves from Israel.
All recent Israeli governments have "believed in" (you know, not said they desire, but acted in order to create) the present apartheid 1SS arrangement. Now if the PA just erases itself (say the PLO moves back to Tunis and does all Palestinian UN work and other diplomacy), and the PLO says it wants a 2SS on the 1950-1966 "green line", the fat will be in the fire. However -- and this is a big one -- the nations have been playing the role of the ethically anesthetized for so long that they would probably merely blame the PLO for makig unreasonable demands, or for not negotiating in good faith, or some such, and close their eyes to the apartheid.
BDS ain't much but it's all we've got.
Huge victory! And the Zionist students who opposed, and who said, "suffering has occurred on both" sides, completely missed the point that the resolution relates to ILLEGAL OCCUPATION, not to suffering (not to suffering today, yesterday 1940-45, or ancient -- surely there must have been suffering anciently, by BOTH sides, as when the walls of Jerico came tumbling down). And not to taking sides, either. unless it be the side of international law and legitimacy against lawlessness.
A friend of mine, Israeli turned American, told me her opinion of the horribleness of the holocaust for its victims -- it was the constant dread of being hunted. Getting killed randomly, as in a war, she seemed to say, was not so bad as living day-after-day-after-day knowing that you were being hunted in order to be tortured and/or killed. (She also included Pol Pot's Cambodian mass people-killing and some other examples as "holocausts": for her it was not a singular event.)
America's drone-killing has put people in Pakistan and perhaps in Yemen in constant dread. We Americans are doing this. We. Us. We should be aware and take responsibility.
Weiss: "But today Jewishness has a more complex resonance. We have power".
This troubles me. What do you mean "we", white man? (NB: I have met Phil, and it is my impressiion that he is a "white man" as that phrase is used. So am I.) True, a lot of Jews have power, and they may want to stave off anti-Semitism or some other sort of backlash aimed against that having-power by being quiet about Jews-having-power, whilst showing it constantly in various ways.
We know Stamberg wants to hide Jewish presence -- and we know that because she DOES it. OK, that's Stamberg. Weiss, OTOH, wants to call attention to Jewish power. OK, that's Weiss.
Weiss and Stamberg are not the same. Grouping them as "Jews in America" or whatever is not helpful. Hence my objection to that "we".
Maybe it is part of that sickness we've seen elsewhere of Jews feeling [1] they are one big family [2] they must protect everyone in the family whatever their crimes or other behavior, [3] if one branch -- Israel -- goes off a deep end, lines up and dives off a cliff, then it is the duty of the rest to follow and support, (and dive). Garbage.
We human beings, Jews among us, are moral creatures, not lemmings. When some of us behave badly, it is the duty of the rest to oppose, not to "support our family" be it human-family, personal-family, Jewish-people-family.
Were my parents supposed to support and defend Bugsy Siegel just because he was Jewish? C'mon! And are Jews supposed to refuse to prosecute Jewish child-molesters just because the accused were Jews (and not Catholic Priests), and also just because there were not two witnesses?
As to "being Jewish", at least as to that aspect of "being Jewish" which is religious, my sense is -- and I invite comments -- that neither religion, nor Judaism CAUSED or even importantly PARTICIPATED in the Zionist project -- on the contrary, religious Jews opposed Zionism -- but that, contrariwise, the Zionist Project has to such a great degree hijacked Judaism -- replacing it as a religion in the minds of many Jews and others -- so that people get confused and think Judaism reduces to pro-Zionism and that anti-Zionism is anti-Jewish-ism and that being Jewish implies a duty to support Israel.
Let's try always to clear away confusion.
There ebb and flow of "the fix" seems all ebb and no flow. International BDS? Pie in the sky.
Some of the (minor?) prophets, as MLK Jr., were splendid universalists. Some wanted the USA to withdraw from the war -- then taken by the USA deep into Vietnam and Cambodia. Some today want the USA to withdraw from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from its especially lawless drone attacks and torture and kidnapping and disappearance and detention without charge or trial or end.
Terror is terror, the dread of daily terror killing is an especially horrible dread which many throughout the world feel but from which most Americans have been spared. Those of us Americans who do not feel that dread should take some time to try to imagine it, for it is a condition of life which our government's armies and militias bring to many parts of the world -- in our name.
I agree with Butler that the Palestinian Right of Return (PRoR) should be honored in the observance rather than merely in the breach (and international breach as well as USA's and Israeli).
Contrary to much opinion: Jewish privilege could -- in principle -- be consistent with an Israeli democracy in which ALL Palestinians are allowed to (return to and) live in their own country. But such an Israel cannot be a big country, not as large as pre-1967 Israel ("Israel") -- maybe 1/3 as large. Because, if all Palestinians return to their own place of residence-as-of-1947-50 (so that, among others, most Gazans, being refugess/exiles from "1948", return into what is now Israel), but new-smaller-Israel occupies only a part of that territory, then, in that case, the number of returnees into smaller-Israel will be smallish, and the Jews living in that stylishly compact space will be a clear majority. Ain't a-gonna happen does not mean impossible.
I know it is useless to say this, but I want people to be honest about what they want, waht they think possible/impossible, etc.
The problem is that Israeli Jews want numerical dominance AND a large country. And I agree that that is inconsistent with RRoR. Unless democracy is -- as at present with regard to the exiles -- thrown out the window,
"The big guy at 1:47 or so in the NY Yankees hat is totally on to the question, won't play ball. What do you wish Israel?
Peace. Peace. Just peace. "
Well, hmmpf, what about "justice"? What about stop the Israeli criminality?
The idea that the students were ejected because they were Jewish is preposterous, as there were any number of Jewish (indeed, easily seen to be Jewish) people at tthe meeting including one speaker.
They might have been ejected because they were pro-Zionist. That is not religious discrimination. If they were not making a disturbance (or reasonably anticipated or marginally feared to make a disturbance) then they should not have been ejected. This talk was held in a public (government) building and the government is forbidden by the constitution to interfere with (political) speech.
From the report: "Nadya Drukker is the Director of the Brooklyn College Hillel. Typically, she does not encourage Jewish students to attend pro-Palestinian event." I think this is horribly misleading, deliberate mis-speaking by Nadya Drukker. Surely she means "Zionist students" or "my Jewish students", not "Jewish students." And we akll know the trouble many Jewish students have been having getting permission to have pro-Palestinian meetings inside Hillel premises. We all know -- for sure -- and so do Hillel leaders that there are plenty of anti-Zionists and non-Zionists among Jews and among Jewish students.
The world is over-filling with people. Coincidentally, many of these people (Americans, among them) are burning fossil fuels furiously and thereby bringing on climate change -- and, so many say, mass starvation as agriculture changes (dropping toward zero where there is too much heat or drought).
But for the moment it is feasible -- and usually not illegal -- to raise animals in the numbers that carnivorous people "need" and to do so in the crowded and "efficient" ways that the animal rights people deplore. And while all this raising of food-stuff animals continues in the manner it does, including feeding the beef animals with grains (instead of grass) which REDUCES methane contributions to climate change (as compared to grass-fed cattle) (to my surprise), growing as many cattle as we do still contributes a tremendous amou nt to methane to the atmosphere.
Here the horror many feel at the industrial manner of treating captive food-stuff animals reminds us of the horror we (at Mondo) feel at the Israeli manner of treating captive Palestinian people.
Perhaps if there were a sufficient tax on fossil fuel production (i.e., removal from the inert state in the ground), the production of pesticides and fertilizers (which use petroleum as a feed-stock) would be reduced and agriculture would use less fossil fuels and meat-producers would find corn and other grains used to feed cattle, etc., a good deal more expensive than it is today -- in a more-or-less subsidized "farm" economy. If food were (even) more expensive than it is today, people might think twice about eating meat, about having (multiple) babies, and about living beyond a reasonable lifetime -- all good things (to think about).
Liberal Zionists are Zionists and -- with few exceptions -- want to preserve Israel much as it is, without PAIN to Israeli Jews. They don't much care about PAIN to Palestinians in Israel, in OPTs, in exile. (Think how little liberal Americans "care" about Native American rights. Gives you an idea, and we aere not in any way threatened.) Talk is cheap, and Israel and Israelis have NEVER cared what anyone else said. (Think of all the admonitory UNSC resolutions they've ignored.) Talk is a game to them.
All proponents of Palestinian rights must move for the most severe sanctions possible against Israel aimed (at least) at: [1] removal of all settlers, [2] removal of wall, [3] removal of all settlement buildings (this is big!), [4] ending the siege of Gaza.
Just because we desire and work for sanctions doesn't mean we will be successful, doesn't mean sanctions will begin right away, or be applied uniformly, or be applied immediately. Sanctions if and when they come must come from many countries and will start at different times, follow a trajectory of increasing severity for each participating country, but at a different speed, etc.
And note that the full spectrum of people desiring and acting for sanctions will include people of many different perceptions of the importance, the direness, the need for severity, etc.
But if we ask for less than a major push, I think we will fail to show how severe we believe the problem is and how important we believe a solution is.
So-called Liberal Zionists (that is Zionists who believe in stealing another people's country, creating a permanent Palestinian diaspora in exile, etc. -- but in some other respects have tender consciences) want to prevent action by offering talk ("engagement"). As noted above, talk doesn't work here. There's been talk for 45 years. What good has it done? PLO recognized Israel's "green-line" borders in 1988. 25 years have gone by. Arab League and Saudi plan is more recent, but also fully ignored.
Israel recognizes only the power of force, of economics, not of talk.
Amen.
Citizen, we are agreed, around here, about the marvelousness of this claimer-to-be-a-light-unto-the-world. The more deeply unpleasant thing (except perhaps for any Jews who find it particularly horrible to contemplate THIS Israel, the Israel-on-the-ground, the Israel-in-fact) is the fact that the WORLD knows all this, or could know it all, and does nothing about it.
The world's capacity to stand idly by Israel/Palestine is matched only by its capacity to stand idle as climate change marches ahead, at full steam, unopposed, toward a holocaust far, far worse than Palestine's fate, and than that other holocaust.
Excellent. One thing: "having been conquered by your religion, are now praying with you." Maybe I'm wrong, but my sense is that no-one was conquered by any religion, tho maybe someone was persuaded by lessons in a religion hitherto unknown to him.
People are conquered by the SWORD, not by a RELIGION. As a rule. Even if the sword is weilded by someone wearing a big CROSS on his chest (Crusades) or a big 6-point star on his chest (Palestine, 1948). The Palestinians were conquered, and the British were expelled, by Jews (or people claiming to be Jews), but not by Judaism.
Curiously, in some funny way, Judaism itself seems to have been a bit transformed by 1948 and 1967 until Judaism has been conquered by those same Jews, the ones who conquered the Palestinians.