Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

Netanyahu seeks Iran conflict, extremist reaction to knock out Obama

Feb 29, 2012

Philip Weiss

netanyahu
Netanyahu

Brilliant post by Andrew Sullivan off the report by AP that Israel has told the US that it would attack Iran without any warning to the US. A sinister read, but given Israel’s record during the “clash of civilizations” era, it’s hard to argue with. Extended excerpts:

So Israel would, without warning, put US troops and Western civilians at direct risk of terrorist assaults, would likely tip Pakistan into even more outright hostility to any cooperation with the West, and rally the Iranian opposition to its foul regime…. My own fear is that global recruitment for Jihad would boom as well – reversing all the gains of the last three years. The war would also galvanize Islamist parties in the new Arab democracies, giving Israel more ammunition in blocking any rapprochement between the US and the Muslim world. And following this essential blackmail, the Israeli government would doubtless rally much of the US Congress, the entire GOP, its media outlets (like Fox, and the Washington Post), and a key part of the Democratic fundraising machinery to side entirely with Israel against the US president.

I don’t think you can understand the Republican strategy for this election without factoring in a key GOP player, Benjamin Netanyahu… A global war which polarizes America and the world is exactly what Netanyahu wants. And it is exactly what the GOP needs to cut through Obama’s foreign policy advantage in this election. Because it is only through war, crisis and polarization that extremists can mobilize the emotions that keep them in power. They need war to win.

Here’s a prediction. Netanyahu, in league and concert with Romney, Santorum and Gingrich, will make his move to get rid of Obama soon. And he will be more lethal to this president than any of his domestic foes.

Sullivan makes a similar point as Max Blumenthal in this must see interview on Real News:

“Netanyahu is more immersed in the American political process, in the culture wars, and in the Republican primary than any foreign leader in recent modern history, and he’s doing so because he wants regime change in two countries, the first country is Iran, the second country is the United States.

He wants to replace Barack Obama with a Republican. He tried the same thing when he was Prime Minister in the 1990’s against President Bill Clinton. He leaned on Gingrich, he leaned on people who were seeking to impeach President Clinton using Israel as a partisan wedge issue the same way the Christian Right uses abortion and gay marriage.

And this campaign is the fulfillment of Netanyahu’s strategy to use Israel and now Iran as a political tool to unseat Barack Obama. And Newt Gingrich is just one candidate who is assisting this effort. Mitt Romney is also happy to assist this effort and he has surrounded himself with neoconservatives who have a seamless connection to Israel and to the Israeli military intelligence establishment and to Netanyahu’s advisors…….in the words of former AIPAC researcher Keith Weissman, they are advancing the ‘War of the Jews’, that’s his words.”

Did ‘Atlantic’ coverage lead to release of Fadi Quran after five days in administrative detention? Updated

Feb 29, 2012

Philip Weiss

The expression, If Americans Knew would seem to apply more than anyone these days to Robert Wright, the Atlantic journalist who today reports that his friend Fadi Quran has been released from administrative detention, five days after Wright reported Quran’s arrest in Hebron in the Atlantic, also with cold outrage.

Why is he outraged? Wright has been to Shuhada Street in Hebron, seen the central street of the city shut down, and Palestinian businesses destroyed, for apartheid. And Wright lacks the ability to lie to himself about this central moral issue in our politics. Wow; what a force is knowledge (and what if Jeffrey Goldberg had used his power at the Atlantic in the cause of human freedom not ethnocracy). Wright:

Fadi Quran, the Palestinian activist whose arrest I’ve followed in recent days, was released from jail last night. But he wasn’t released because Israeli authorities have admitted that the charges against him are false (though they certainly seem to be ). He’s been released on bail, and an investigation continues that could still result in an indictment…

The Israeli foreign ministry says Fadi was arrested for “obstructing a law enforcement officer, assault and resisting arrest.” The two videos below–the only evidence I’m aware of–don’t seem to support that charge.

Update: I think this post was shortsighted, too focused on the MSM. There has been a wide campaign on Fadi Quran’s behalf. Jake Horowitz at policymic:

Fadi’s upcoming release brings a culmination to a dramatic international advocacy campaign which began last Friday, when he was arrested and imprisoned by Israeli authorities. In just four days, Fadi’s story spread like wildfire in the media, on Facebook and Twitter, and via PolicyMic and Change.org. A Free Fadi Quran Facebook page has garnered 1,295 Likes, and many supporters changed their profile pictures to stand in solidarity with Quran.

Over at Change.org, Stanford student Lila Kalaf spearheaded a campaign to petition for his release which generated 2,392 signatures, including activist Noam Chomsky, Stanford Middle East professors Joel Beinin and Khalil Barhoum, and Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research Institute Clayborne Carson.

Here is Lila Kalaf’s petition.

The Rosh Hashanah sermon on Fire Island

Feb 29, 2012

Philip Weiss

Fire Island NY
Fire Island, NY

I keep wanting to get to this story, and today I will.

At the Penn BDS conference earlier this month, there was a panel of Jews speaking on “BDS, Hillel, and the Question of Anti-Semitism,” and Rebecca Vilkomerson of Jewish Voice for Peacebegan her remarks with a wonderful story:

Rebecca Vilkomerson
Rebecca Vilkomerson

It wasn’t that long ago that there were quotas on the numbers of Jews at universities, covenants to keep Jews from living in certain neighborhoods, and places of employment where Jews need not apply. So it’s really a bit of a balancing act of being sensitive to Jewish history and trauma without pulling punches about today’s reality. And while Jews in the United States have more political, economic, cultural and intellectual status than perhaps ever before, the Jewish narrative is still about vulnerability.

I just want to tell a little story. For Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, I was invited to spend it in Fire Island, a little island off the coast of New York City where people have summer homes. They did a beautiful job. They opened up the fire house in the town, and we were sitting, and some guy who was a cardiologist was playing the role of the rabbi, and the yoga teacher was playing the role of the cantor.

And I was sitting in the service and really enjoying it, looking out at the ocean and sort of congratulating myself on this do it yourself service that I was in. And then they announced that someone was going to come up and give a little sermon. And this was at the end of September, shortly after the [Palestinian Authority’s] UN bid on Palestinian statehood. And this guy, I don’t remember exactly what he was, but he was the chair of the department at Columbia University. And he got up and he gave a talk about how the fact that this vote could come up at the UN was proof that the Jews were not considered fully human in this society and never would be.

So you know my head was exploding. Also I started looking around and saying, Here is a guy who is at a pinnacle of American intellectual success preaching to a group of people who by virtue of the fact that they were in this synagogue for a day were there because they were rich enough to have second homes, or being invited by other people rich enough to have second homes, people who live very comfortable, very successful lives, and there they all were nodding along.

So you know I think that’s part of our job as progressive Jews, those of us who are Jewish, is taking responsibility for challenging that narrative. And I think as a coda to that story, afterwards there was a little Kiddush, like a little reception with food, and someone asked me what I thought about the sermon, as people are wont to do, and I thought, oh God I don’t feel like dealing with this right now, having all these strangers mad at me. But if have to, I have to. I started talking about why I didn’t like it at all. And why I thought he was totally wrong.

And a bunch of them came up to me, and said, thanks so much for saying that, that was so important, I felt so uncomfortable when he was talking but I didn’t know exactly why.

So it’s not that hard once you start talking about it, but if you don’t talk about it then that narrative sort of stands. So it really is a process within the Jewish community of having to talk about it.

But we do all need to hold I would say collectively, and that means all of us in the BDS movement, the idea that anti-Semitism in our society is still real, maybe not very potent at the moment, and at the same time recognize and fight how accusations of anti-Semitism are being used as an effective though I would say less and less so weapon to silence the debate on Israel. And of course it would be hard to choose just one example of how participating in the BDS movement for example is equated with anti-Semitism.

Barghouthi and Erakat can reach young Americans

Feb 29, 2012

Rob Buchanan

Omar Barghouthi
Omar Barghouthi

Noura Erakat
Noura Erakat

Noura Erakat and Omar Barghouthi spoke on “legality and morality” at Israeli Apartheid Week last night at NYU.

They are an excellent one-two combination. Both are young and very well-spoken, both smiling, insistent and unflappable. Their poise alone makes you cringe–how can people this rational and composed have emerged from the horrific mess we have wrought?

Her presentation on the legal differences between Palestinian and Jewish ‘citizenship’ is totally devastating (she has a job at Georgetown but wants to be teaching at a law school–will any hire her?).

He’s urbane and witty, with a slick, designy powerpoint–I think good for reaching young people. They really seemed effective and appealing to me, capable of changing minds. Who else young and Palestinian, or Palestinian-American, is out there doing a better job?

Will the US act as Israel’s proxy against Iran?

Feb 29, 2012

Philip Weiss

Obama Net
These two leaders are to meet March 5

Benjamin Netanyahu is coming to meet Barack Obama on Monday March 5, during the AIPAC conference. And it is a good question which leader feels he has more power in the encounter. It’s an election year. Netanyahu will feel emboldened by all the Jewish “voters” he meets at AIPAC the day before.

“Netanyahu will ask Obama to threaten Iran strike,” Barak Ravid reports in Haaretz.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to publicly harden his line against Iran during a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on March 5, according to a senior Israeli official.

Israel wants Obama to make further-reaching declarations than the vague assertion that “all options are on the table,” the official said. In particular, Netanyahu wants Obama to state unequivocally that the United States is preparing for a military operation in the event that Iran crosses certain “red lines,” said the official; Israel feels this will increase pressure on Iran by making clear that there exists a real U.S. threat.

Jerry Haber says this thinking is nuts, and that he’d rather live with a bomb than have anyone pursue such aggression:

Iran is an enemy of the State of Israel, but it is not an existential threat to Israel, nor has it threatened Israel with nuclear destruction. But even it had, that would not be a legal or moral justification for an act of aggression against Iran – unless the possibility of an Iranian attack was imminent, and other non-violent diplomatic options had run their course. By diplomatic options, I do not mean sanctions, I mean negotiations, including multilateral negotiations that include Israel and Iranian pledges not to build nuclear weapons or to eliminate current stockpiles.

….[Iran] is doing what many other countries have done in the past – develop[ing] nuclear energy, and even a nuclear weapon capability. Why should there be one law for North Korea and Pakistan, and another for Iran? Why should Israel reserve the right to prevent any Arab country from going nuclear, or from joining a nuclear-free zone?

The Jews I know seem to be divided between those who support sanctions and those who support military action. Maybe I hang out with the wrong crowd. I support neither. The drums of war have started again, and the madness should be stopped now. If either Israel (or its proxy, the US) attacks Iran, it will be difficult for any moral person to defend the right of such a rogue state to exist.

Why I’m presenting at Harvard’s one-state conference

Feb 29, 2012

 Rabbi Brant Rosen

Avraham Burg
Avraham Burg

The Harvard Kennedy School is hosting a “One State Conference” this weekend and already the usual suspects are crying foul. Since I’m going to be speaking on a panel at the conference on Sunday, I thought it might be a good idea to weigh in with some thoughts.

I’ll begin with the stated vision/goals of the conference, according to student organizers:

To date, the only Israel/Palestine solution that has received a fair rehearsal in mainstream forums has been the two-state solution. Our conference will help to expand the range of academic debate on this issue. Thus, our main goal is to educate ourselves and others about the possible contours of a one-state solution and the challenges that stand in the way of its realization.

Sound reasonable? Not according to self-appointed Jewish community watchdogs like the ADL andNGO Monitor and the ubiquitous Alan Dershowitz and Jeffrey Goldberg.  According to the ADL, such a conference could only be interested in “the elimination of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people.”  Dershowitz referred to it as an “anti-Israel hate fest.” Goldberg thinks organizers share “a goal with Hamas: the elimination of Israel as a homeland and haven for Jews.”

Reading these incendiary words such as these, I can’t help but be struck by the abject hysteria that gets regularly mistaken for public relations by the American Jewish establishment.

I find it fascinating that these concerned institutions and individuals are more than willing to rail against the wide-eyed extremists and useful idiots participating in this conference, yet cannot take the time to ponder what might have brought us to this point in the first place.  Has Abe Foxman, for instance, ever called out Israel over its settlement policy that has by now made a mockery of a viable two-state solution?  Is Alan Dershowitz willing to bring half as much righteous anger to the concern that Israel is fast creating “one state” all by itself?

I wrote recently about the “ever-closing window” on the two state solution. We might still argue about whether or not the window has closed yet, but I think we can all agree that the prospect for a viable, equitable two state solution for Israel/Palestine is in serious jeopardy.

As I pointed out in my post, sooner or later we’ll be forced to choose between a patently undemocratic Jewish state that parcels out rights according to ethnicity and a democratic state in which equal rights are enjoyed by all its citizens. Given this scenario, is it unreasonable that people of good will might desire to open conversations and suggest fresh, creative approaches that might ensure a better future for Israelis and Palestinians?

It’s even more ironic when you consider that notable and respected Israeli figures have been discussing a potential one-state solution for some time. While the American Jewish establishment grows apoplectic at the very thought, Israeli society seems more than secure enough to tolerate the discussion.

As far back as 1991, for instance, respected Israeli/American political scientist Daniel J. Elazar promoted a one-state “federal solution” for Israel/Palestine (most notably in his book, “Two Peoples – One Land: Federal Solutions for Israel, the Palestinians, and Jordan”). Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli political scientist who was Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem under Teddy Kollek from 1971 to 1978, has publicly advocated the idea of a bi-national state for several years. A more recent Israeli advocate of one state is Avrum Burg, former Speaker of the Knesset and chairman of the Jewish Agency, who wrote about the subject in a widely read 2011 op-ed in Ha’aretz.

It is even less widely-known in the American Jewish community that prominent numbers of the Israeli right wing, such as former Minister of Defense and Foreign Minister Moshe Arens andcurrent Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin, have suggested the desirability of some form of a one-state solution. Granted, the solution advocated by Arens and Rivlin – an undivided state that nonetheless retains its exclusively Jewish character – differs significantly from the federalist or bi-national models promoted by Elazar, Benvenisti and Burg. Still, I believe these unlikely bedfellows share critical aspects in common: the conviction that a two-state solution in unworkable, a willingness to pursue fresh creative ideas, and – contrary to what many might claim – a hard-headed political realism.

Many of the conference’s critics have pointed out that secular multi-ethnic states simply do not work. Goldberg claims that it “barely works” in Belgium and Dershowitz points out that it failed in India and the former Yugoslavia.  Fine. If this is the criticism, then let’s put this issue on the table and discuss it – as we most certainly will be doing this weekend (most likely at the panels entitled “Nationhood and Cultural Identity: The Preservation of the Peoples” and “What are the Obstacles to the Realization of a One-State Solution?”). But must we seek to marginalize the conference for simply seeking to have the conversation?

There are also criticisms that the conference is too “one sided” and that the presenters are unduly “biased.”  In truth, the presenters in the conference represent a spectrum of opinions on this issue. Some (like Ali Abunimah) have openly advocated a one state solution, others (such as Stephen Walt) support a two state solution and some (like me) are agnostic on the issue.  But I know many of the presenters personally and have long admired many more. Contrary to the venom being slung their way, these are thoughtful – if sometimes controversial – people of good will.  While we are a diverse lot, I believe we share a common desire to broaden this scope of conversation and an eagerness to bring fresh new thinking to a painful and paralyzed status quo.

The student organizers of the conference have released an open letter to their critics. Here’s an excerpt:

The aim of this conference is to explore the possibility of different solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Invoking inflammatory language like “anti-semitism” and “destruction of Israel” to describe the ideas and speakers of the conference is not only incorrect and defamatory but serves to prevent rational discussion of ideas and preempt the effective exercise of speech.

I look forward to reporting on my experiences at the conference.

This post was first published at Brant Rosen’s site, Shalom Rav.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *