Wolf Blitzer and Josh Marshall are strong voices against white nationalist violence. Yet Blitzer once wrote that the Deir Yassin massacre in Palestine was a “spurious myth.” And Josh Marshall named his son after an Israeli general who committed ethnic cleansing. Charlottesville is a moment of truth. If you’re going to stand up for liberal values here, you need to criticize Jewish nationalism there.
Kareem Estefan and Carin Kuoni write, “The recent controversy over the Queens Museum’s handling of an event sponsored by the Israeli Mission to the UN has been condemned on the grounds of anti-Semitism. The evidence provided for this charge of anti-Semitism is that the director of the Queens Museum, Laura Raicovich, edited a book entitled ‘Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Agency and Cultural Production.’ As co-editors of this anthology we wish to address that charge.”
On Wednesday, Israel’s government agency responsible for assigning journalist credentials revoked the press card of a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic, citing the reporter as a member of the Palestinian “resistance.”
President Trump’s initial statement on Charlottesville, which blamed violence “on many sides,” has taken on a life of its own. All of this has made various Israeli leaders rather uncomfortable because while Israel is supposedly engaged in combatting anti-Semitism, it is more truly in an international ideological fight against the left. And Trump is making it difficult to make this argument without looking like a Nazi.
A recent article in Mondoweiss criticized Noam Chomsky saying his view of Israel is the romantic one he embraced in his younger years. Marc Ellis comments on the role nostalgia plays in politics, from Jerusalem to Charlottesville.
Rabbi Brant Rosen’s 2012 book, Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi’s Path to Palestinian Solidarity, is out in a second edition, detailing his decision to leave an Evanston, Ill., congregation over Israel issues. His friend Liz Rose– who once came into his office and announced, “I’m losing my fucking mind” over Israel — says the book is a powerful guide for Jews setting out on the journey away from Zionism.
Lincoln Center went forward with Israeli-government-sponsored play this summer. But BDS campaign scored victories. Four newspapers that ran an ADL op-ed claiming that the BDS movement is bigoted against Israelis were compelled to correct the error to make it clear the target is a government that persecutes Palestinians.
Haaretz reports for a first time, Israel could charge an entire family for murder after a Palestinian who killed three Israelis posted his intent on Facebook. Reportedly, the family saw the post and were debating how to intervene when the slaining happened: “The military prosecution is expected to indict five relatives of Omar al-Abed, who stabbed to death three Israeli civilians in the settlement of Halamish last month. The five would be charged with failing to prevent a crime. According to sources in the prosecution, the family members were aware of Abed’s plans to carry out an attack but did not try to stop him. Expected to be charged are Abed’s father, Abed al-Jalil, his mother, Ibtisam al-Jalil, two of his brothers and another relative. As far as is known, the main piece of evidence against the family is a Facebook post Abed wrote a few hours before the attack. ‘I am writing my will and these are my last words. I am young, I have not yet reached the age of 20, I have many dreams and aspirations,’ he wrote.”
When Nakba of Palestinians is your muttered policy– when you realize you may have to carry out another ethnic cleansing, as the Israeli right believes– it’s silly to moan about Nazis somewhere else. After all, you’re holding a very similar policy, and they’re likely to be your only allies. Yossi Gurvitz explains Netanyahu’s silence about Charlottesville.
Marc Ellis writes: Charlottesville and White nationalism have brought the issue of monuments commemorating the fallen to the forefront. Often remembrance is a form of denial. Jews are very present in the movement to oppose white supremacy and were involved in opposing white nationalism in Charlottesville. Yet, Jews have our own history to struggle with as well. Where and how the memory of our own suffering is portrayed is crucial to the Jewish future. It is hotly contested as well.