Dear Mayor de Blasio,
Your recent statements about Israel and about antisemitism at AIPAC and, before that, in NYC on Feb. 14th, are extremely troubling and damaging.
Just some of your remarks:
At AIPAC: “That reinforces my commitment to the survival and the security of the State of Israel. Because the Jewish people cannot be safe without the state of Israel…. Israel at its core is there to shelter an oppressed people.” In your attack on BDS, you said it is: “contrary to the progressive imperative to protect all oppressed people everywhere and always” and “affronts the idea of Israel as a guaranteed refuge for the Jewish people.”
On Feb 14th, while addressing a rally in NYC about combatting antisemitism, you said: “Democrats and Republicans with equal fervor need to say – Israel must exist so the Jewish people know they are always protected.” And you added: Maybe some people don’t realize it, but when they support the BDS movement, they are affronting the right of Israel to exist and that is unacceptable.”
You speak about Israel providing Jewish safety. Standing up for Israeli apartheid, as you have repeatedly done, does not promote safety. Quite the contrary. Our notion of safety is a city and a world in which all people feel and are safe. Yes, that means safety through solidarity with one another. That means safety by opposing all forms of injustice, which very much includes the injustice of occupation and the denial of a people’s right to live freely in their homes and their land.
Further, making blatantly false accusations of antisemitism, as you have done, toward those supporting Palestinian rights through Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)—which is a call made until Israel complies with basic principles of human rights and international law – does not promote safety for anyone – not for Palestinians, not for Jews, not for anyone. Those false accusations also do a grave disservice to the real struggle to challenge actual antisemitism when it occurs, and to the rise of white nationalist antisemitism (and Islamophobia and anti-Black racism), which is what we should be paying attention to.
In all your remarks, your lack of recognition of the Nakba (catastrophe in Arabic) of 1948, which refers to the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and land during the creation of Israel, reveals a gross disregard for the rights and well-being of the Palestinian people. That is also true about your lack of recognition (and denial) of the ongoing Nakba that Palestinians endure at the hands of a brutal Israeli government that disregards their basic civil and human rights.
As you know, a NYC council member just made an unconscionable statement on twitter that “Palestine doesn’t exist….Also, Congresswoman Omar is an anti-Semite.” It is your responsibility as Mayor to ensure that this kind of racist rhetoric is not permitted, and part of that means, through your own words and actions, you have to set a very different tone and leadership than you have done until now.
We do not know whom you think you are representing by your remarks, but please know you do not – do not – speak in the name of thousands upon thousands of Jews like ourselves whose notion of Jewish safety is inseparable from the safety of all our communities from NYC to Palestine.
We call upon you to think about, and to take action to ensure, the well-being of all our communities.
Signatories (list in formation)
Dorothy M. Zellner
Gail Miller
Carol Horowitz
Donna Nevel
Jane Hirschmann
Alan Levine
Sherry Gorelick
Helaine Meisler
Elly Bulkin
Nic Abramson
Leslie Cagan
Hannah Mermelstein
Rosalind Petchesky
Ira Glasser
Richard Levy
Michael S. Smith
Jenny Heinz
Deborah Sagner
Nina Felshin
Linda Gordon
Sarah Sills
Marjorie Fine
James Schamus
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Judith Solomon
Kathleen Peratis
Michael Letwin
Emmaia Gelman
Anita Altman
Elena Stein
Shaina Low
Terry Weber
Richard Blum
Jay Schaffner
Talia Baurer
Ellen Gurzinsky
Michael L Spiegel
Nora Eisenberg
Michael Glick
Daniel Strum
Tami Gold
Renate Bridenthal
Wendy Scribner
Robert Greenberg
Alan Barnes
Rosza Daniel Lang/Levitsky
Alice Sturm Sutter
Ann Cook
Jeremy Pikser
Luise Eichenbaum
Dave Lippman
Rasha Hamid
Ethan Young
Allison Brown
Linda J. Arkin
Carol Bloom
Laura Kogel
Ari Wohlfeiler
Blanche Wiesen Cook
Gayle Kirshenbaum
Mindy Gershon
Karen Smith
Thelma Markowitz
Mike Stein
Lana Dee Povitz
Naomi Brussel
Nina Mehta
Fania Smith
David Cornelius
Laurie Arbeiter
Sheldon Ranz
Alexis Stern
Naomi Allen
Jane Toby
Jake Ratner
Carol Weinshenker
Pierre Stambul
Joel Doerfler
Denise Rickles
Katie Unger
Rosemary Gelbach
Cheryl Qamar
Tzvia Their
Eleanor Bader
Gloria Brandman
Shelly Wise
Esti Marpet
Doreen Shapiro
Eric Jacobson
Tarak Kauff
Ellen Rachel Davidson
Martha Livingston
Irene Siegel
Elena Schwolsky
Michael Zigmond
Stuart Shapiro
Laura Wernick
Ann Rubin
Major Ken Mayers
Meredith Tax
Alicia Kaplow
Linda Cooper
Antonia Weidenbacher
Charles Rosen
Judith Pasternak
Allen J. Zerkin
Sarah Schulman
Audrey Bomse
Peter Belmont
Ann Shirazi
Jeff Olshansky
Nate Goldshlag
David Berger
Michael Myerson
Irena Klepfisz
Judith Eisenscher Schaffner
Ned Rosch
Elizabeth Block
Ellen Cantarow
Jerry Levin
Eli Kassirer
Brian A. Kates
Susan Sherman
Stacy Kaufman
Carol Marsh
Jarret Wolfman
Nick Cooper
Joyce Iskowitz Rosenthal Gaffney
Stuart Waldman
I count 66 signatures. But how many “Benjamins” can these folks bring to the fight? After all, this is capitalism!
This may be a textbook case of how BDS, when perceived as standing alone, the primary tactic, has undesired results. When perceived as being in conjunction with a campaign for human rights, such undesired results would be mitigated. A sustained and organized campaign for equality would have this advantage.
The most dangerous country in the world for Jews is Israel. More Jews have died there violently than all other countries put together since WW II. It’s become a huge ghetto for a people who once had an opportunity to do something really noble. Instead, they have done to the Palestinians what was done to them.
I’ve just asked to add my signature.
Speaking of New York.