Israel’s latest war has proved to be a p.r. disaster. Geraldo Rivera has accused Israel of “war crimes” on Fox News. John Oliver has made the same accusation on HBO. MSNBC pundits Reid and Velshi are speaking openly of “apartheid.” Trevor Noah has said that Israel has not shown “responsibility” about its power to hurt Gazans. Even public radio hosts are expressing skepticism about the country’s goals.
That’s a clarion call for U.S. Jews to “stand completely” behind their Israeli “siblings,” the leader of the largest U.S. Jewish group says.
On a May 13 call about the conflict Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Union for Reform Judaism said the moral issues here are simple, and it’s time for American Jews to show “solidarity and love” with Israel by countering that bad press.
This is a moment, friends, that isn’t complicated. This is about the deepest connection that we feel with our siblings in Israel. And they are under attack and we stand completely with them. There will be time for complex discussions and arguments and debates [later].
Jacobs brought up the new Pew survey of Jewish life, showing strong support for Israel.
Our movement is still the largest movement in Jewish life and to this moment it’s the largest Zionist movement, and eight out of ten of those surveyed said that Israel was essential, was critical. We feel that and we need to express that.
I want to give just one piece of work to everyone on this call today. In terms of the media, I think we are losing ground. I don’t think our case is being made well in media and social media, so let’s all take it upon ourselves to be the people who communicate with our circles. our communities and raise the voice of solidarity and love… We are with all of our siblings.
Jacobs is plainly reflecting the opinion of his Jewish “siblings”: Jewish Israeli society is virtually united behind the bombing of Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu has gained political strength from the hostilities, and left-leaning Israeli Jewish leaders are not directly opposing the war effort.
Gideon Levy says that’s because the media don’t inform Israelis about the terrible suffering happening in the south.
“[T]he results aren’t being displayed. Israelis don’t have a clue about what’s happening in Gaza, not a notion of what the military is doing in their name. That’s why they’re clamoring for more, why they’re so certain of the justice of their cause.”
And while the blackout may be unifying Israel, world media are making the onslaught a public relations disaster for Israel.
The contradiction came up yesterday during an Israel lobby call. A supporter of Israel, Maura Resnick of the Y&S Nazarian Center at UCLA, asked about the imbalance between Israeli media and world media on an Israel Policy Forum call yesterday:
I understand that the Israeli media are not showing images of devastation in Gaza and of course we in the U.S. are seeing this all the time, and it is turning more public opinion against Israel. If these images were shown, would they influence Israeli public opinion abut the wisdom of this latest Israeli military assault?
Shira Efron, who works at a national security think-tank in Israel, said there’s a tradition of Jewish Israelis unifying and rejecting alternative views during a conflict. And right now they are sleeping well at night.
I think the dominant narrative in Israel and we’ve seen this before in previous rounds of fighting at least at the beginning of operations. there is a sentiment and largely for a good reason. it’s asymmetric warfare, we didn’t start this fight, from an Israeli perspective, their narrative [is], there are [Palestinian] civilians everywhere– headquarters, productions facilities, intelligence facilities are all imbedded within civilians… The IDF does go way [above] and beyond to warn civilians. So in the Israeli mindset that is enough….
We’ve seen it also in other surveys and polls. There’s less compassion than you would think for the other life and there’s a sentiment also in Israel, Hamas won the elections and … there’s this idea that Oh, the population of Gaza, they support the Hamas regime and therefore, what can you do?
Efron said that narrative only changes with drawn out wars and “really catastrophic” events, such as the 2006 bombing of a building in Qana, Lebanon, in which civilians had sought sanctuary, in which 57 were killed, 37 of them children.
“If you have one big incident then I think the mind shift changes,” she concluded. “But for the most part I think most Israelis sleep well at right.”
“Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Union for Reform Judaism said the moral issues here are simple, and it’s time for American Jews to show “solidarity and love” with Israel by countering that bad press.”
So a reform rabbi is suggesting that American Jews support an apartheid rogue nation that is committing war crimes and in doing so discard their Jewish morals.He wants them to tell lies and ignore the facts.
Well, we’ve known for a long time that “liberal Zionist” is an oxymoron.
2 of 2
“Let’s be clear. Israel’s crimes are not ‘first offences’ – they’ve been committing them for decades. And all Mr. Jack and other Government figures offer is pro-forma standardized words of no substance penned by scribblers in the Foreign Office or Tel Aviv’s propaganda HQ or, quite possibly, by Mark Regev himself who has returned after a stint as Israel’s ambassador to the UK to resume his vital work as Netanyahu’s media adviser, disinformation peddler and dirty tricks specialist. The stuff put out is pure garbage to be uttered by obedient politicians at all levels and especially those who adore the racist regime and the psychopaths who run it. Its purpose is invariably to demonize Iran and Hamas and smokescreen the obscenities perpetrated by Israel.
“Under Regev’s watch in January 2017 a senior political officer at the embassy, Shai Masot, plotted with stooges among British MPs and other maggots in the rotting political woodwork to ‘take down’ senior government figures including Boris Johnson’s deputy at the Foreign Office, Sir Alan Duncan. Masot was almost certainly a Mossad asset. His hostile activities were revealed not by Britain’s own security services but an Al Jazeera undercover news team.
“Regev was replaced last year by Tzipi Hotovely, a religious-nationalist extremist committed to the ‘Greater Israel’ project. After her performance as Minister of Settlement Affairs in the Israeli government many here will regard her as a war criminal. All Israeli settlements (let’s call them what they really are – ‘squats’) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are considered illegal under international law. Israel’s long-running squatter policy is a war crime for the reason that Article 8(2) of the Rome Statute defines ‘the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory’ as such.”
Aren’t the Palestinians also our siblings?
Wow, another rabbi calling for no peace, no change, but crowing about his and others’ Zionism. What’s “liberal” about him, anyway? “siblings”, really? btw, I just read that a ‘ceasfire’ has been agreed to… let us see how that works out.
“Israeli security cabinet approves Gaza ceasefire – reportsThe Israeli security cabinet has approved a ceasefire in Gaza, according to multiple press reports. …”
And another thing from the live blog:
“In his remarks before signing the anti-Asian American hate crimes bill, Joe Biden denounced racism as an “ugly poison” that has tarnished the country.
“I believe with every fiber of my being that there are simple core values and beliefs that should bring us together as Americans,” the president said of the bill. “One of them is standing together against hate, against racism — the ugly poison that has long haunted and plagued our nation.” …”
and: “He added, “I mean this from the bottom of my heart: hate can be given no safe harbor in America.”
Biden specifically urged Americans to speak out against hate in their communities. “Silence is complicity. And we cannot be complicit. We have to speak out. We have to act,” the president said. “Every time we’re silent, every time we let hate flourish, we make a lie of who we are as a nation.” …”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/may/20/us-politics-live-israel-joe-biden-bernie-sanders-covid-coronavirus
Hypocrisy.