I’ve been a peace activist for a long time – longer than the 40 years I have lived in New Rochelle – and it’s very rare for me to see my elected official move in the right direction regarding US foreign policy. I do see it now.
Last week, Representative Jamaal Bowman withdrew his support for the so-called Israel Relations Normalization Act. I’m a 40-odd year resident of Rep. Bowman’s district, and it’s only now that my voice and progressive Jewish values are finally being heard and applied. It’s a welcome change after so many years of being ignored by our previous representative, Eliot Engel, who unconditionally supported and cheered on the Israeli government’s violations of Palestinian human rights.
Representative Bowman, on the other hand, has taken the time to listen to the full diversity of constituent opinions around Palestine/Israel – including Jewish and Palestinian opinions. He knows that Jewish opinion is not monolithic, and not represented by AIPAC or other right-wing groups that claim to speak for us all. In the face of intense pressure to do otherwise, he is withdrawing his support from the Israel Relations Normalization Act, a bill that endangers the struggle for justice and peace in the Middle East.
The real goal of the Israel Relations Normalization Act is to isolate Palestinians and alleviate pressure on Israel to begin respecting their human rights. Israel wants the benefits of peace while it simultaneously continues to systematically oppress Palestinians and violate international law.
The Israel Relations Normalization Act is a full endorsement of the Trump/Kushner Abraham Accords. The bill explicitly seeks to pursue damaging deals that are centered around arms sales and political trade-offs between authoritarian regimes, all in exchange for sidelining and isolating Palestinians. Indeed, U.S. General Miguel Correa, who was involved in the negotiations of the Abraham Accords, admitted that the plan would put Palestinians “on an island”.
So far, these deals have included weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates, US recognition of Morocco’s illegal occupation of the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara, the undermining of democratic movements in several countries, and the sales of surveillance technology, including the now U.S.-banned Pegasus spyware.
Does this sound like progressive policy? Does it sound like it will achieve peace? I am glad that Congressman Bowman does not think so.
Through these deals, the U.S. is giving another green light to Israel to continue its systematic violations of Palestinian human rights. Just weeks ago, Amnesty International joined Human Rights Watch, and Israeli human rights groups, in saying what Palestinians have for years: Israel is an apartheid state. The U.S. should not be pursuing political favors and deals on behalf of an apartheid regime. We should be conditioning and withholding the $3.8 billion in military funding that we send to the Israeli government every year to ensure that our tax dollars are not supporting these human rights violations. Like every other country, Israel must be held accountable to human rights standards and international law.
What Bowman’s decision symbolizes is the commitment of progressives to stop allowing an exception for Palestine and Palestinian rights. A growing number of progressive groups have called on Congress to reject the Abraham Accords, and self-proclaimed progressives in Congress should listen. Indeed, Democratic voters and Jewish voters are increasingly critical of US support for the Israeli government. Last year’s Gallup poll determined that a majority of Democrats supported “putting more pressure on Israel” to make compromises for peace with Palestinians. And a more recent poll showed that a plurality of Democrats want the US to decrease its military aid to Israel.
We need Congress to embrace policies that uphold the basic rights and the needs of all people, no exceptions. Every progressive should join Representative Bowman in pledging a “no” vote on this dangerous bill. If we want a future with genuine safety and justice for Palestinians and Israelis, we must abandon policies that sideline Palestinians and instead embrace a human rights-based approach.
He did waver somewhat recently from what I remember, which was very disappointing, so I will have to give him the benefit of the doubt and have a “wait and see” attitude. Any Congressperson who believes in democracy should put their greed and desire to please the zionists aside, and do the right thing for people who have been struggling to have their basic freedom, and live without fear of having their lands stolen, and their kids killed. Why it is so hard for these congresspeople, to choose democracy over support for an occupier, is hard to understand.
The same congresspeople who are outraged that Putin is trying to occupy and seize lands, have been enablers of Israel, and have accepted the very same crimes for decades. Hypocrites.
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“Israel’s former attorney general, Michael Ben-Yair, was even clearer. ‘We established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day,’ he said in 2002.
“Ami Ayalon, the former head of Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence service, has said his country has ‘apartheid characteristics’. Shulamit Aloni, the second woman to serve as an Israeli cabinet minister after Golda Meir, & Alon Liel, Israel’s former ambassador to South Africa, both told me that their country practices a form of apartheid.
“Israel’s leading human rights group, B’Tselem, published a groundbreaking report last year that described ‘a regime of Jewish supremacy’ over Palestinians that amounted to apartheid. Another Israeli group, Yesh Din, gave a legal opinion that ‘the crime against humanity of apartheid is being committed in the West Bank’. The reckoning is not confined to the political class. ‘The cancer today is apartheid in the West Bank,’ AB Yehoshua, one of Israel’s greatest living writers, said in 2020. ‘This apartheid is digging more & more deeply into Israeli society & impacting Israel’s humanity.’
“Those views may be disputed by many in Israel, even a majority. But Aipac & other US groups – which have spent years shoring up support in America for rightwing Israeli governments intent on maintaining their particular form of apartheid – are not concerned about truth.
Hardline pro-Israel groups are lashing out now in fear that the narrative in America is finally shifting. Americans no longer uncritically accept the idea that Israel is desperate for peace & that the occupation is temporary. More and more Americans now see the system Israel has constructed as oppressive & its governments as disingenuous.”
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“Yet Amnesty explicitly said that it is not drawing direct parallels with the old South Africa. Its report accuses Israel of crimes against humanity under international laws, including the 1973 Apartheid Convention & the 1998 Rome statute of the international criminal court, which defines apartheid as systematic racial domination.
“That did not stop American politicians from piling in with accusations that Amnesty ‘hates Israel’, although not always to the best effect. The Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas exposed his tenuous grasp on the situation by denouncing the human rights group for ‘attacking a free democracy where Jews, Christians, & Muslims live in peace’.
“If the critics of the report have read it at all, they rarely engage with its detailing of Israel’s system of military rule, segregation & forced removals that treats Palestinians as an inferior racial group. Instead critics are more focused on smearing Amnesty.
“A Wall Street Journal editorial, ignoring the report’s substance, called it a ‘libel’ against Israel & claimed that Amnesty is in the company of Hamas, Hezbollah & Iran because the human rights group ‘all but says the Jewish state shouldn’t exist.’
“For those charges to stand up, you have to believe Israel has been led by antisemites who hate their own country. In smearing those who lay out a reasoned case that Israel is guilty of apartheid under international law, American critics are conveniently sidestepping years of damning judgments by Israeli leaders.
“As Yossi Sarid, a former Israeli cabinet minister, ex-leader of the opposition, & member of the Knesset for 32 years, put it in 2008: ‘What acts like apartheid, is run like apartheid and harasses like apartheid, is not a duck – it is apartheid.’
“Leading Israeli politicians have warned for years that their country was sliding into apartheid. They include two former prime ministers, Ehud Barak & Ehud Olmert, who can hardly be dismissed as antisemites or hating Israel.
“’As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish or non-democratic,’ Barak said in 2010. ‘If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.’ (cont’d)
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“If we want a future with genuine safety and justice….We…. must embrace a human rights-based approach.”
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Doing so will usher in an important turning point.
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Important! must read!
Amnesty says Israel is an apartheid state. Many Israeli politicians agree | Chris McGreal | The Guardian
“Amnesty says Israel is an apartheid state. Many Israeli politicians agree”By Chris McGreal, The Guardian, Feb.5/22
“While some in Washington DC & US media decry Amnesty’s conclusions, it’s a different story among some Israeli leaders”
EXCERPT:
“Who speaks for Israel? Rightwing lobby groups in Washington & US politicians would have Americans believe that it is them – & not Israel’s own former prime ministers & others who actually live in the Jewish state.
“Earlier this week Amnesty International released a report making a 280-page case that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constitutes apartheid. The response in the US was a wave of orchestrated outrage – outrage that not only denies what many prominent Israelis say is true but, in effect, denies their right to say it.
“A joint statement by American groups that claim to be pro-Israel – including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), a powerful rightwing lobby organisation – accused Amnesty of seeking to ‘demonize & delegitimize the Jewish & democratic State of Israel’, a formulation frequently used to imply antisemitism.
“A joint statement by American groups that claim to be pro-Israel – including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), a powerful rightwing lobby organisation – accused Amnesty of seeking to ‘demonize & delegitimize the Jewish & democratic State of Israel’, a formulation frequently used to imply antisemitism.
“Groups that made little criticism of Israel’s military collaboration with South Africa’s white minority regime now profess concern that Amnesty’s report diminishes the suffering of black Africans under apartheid.
“As the Guardian’s correspondent in Jerusalem during the Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s, the second intifada, after covering the end of white rule in South Africa, I was struck by how frequently prominent Israelis drew comparisons between the occupation & apartheid. I also noticed how hard pro-Israel groups in the US fought to delegitimize any such discussion. (cont’d)
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