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NOVANEWS


Rudoren writes up settler/colonist leader as ‘worldly, pragmatic’ wine-lover
Aug 18, 2012
James North
Are other readers of the New York Times as enraged as I am by the latest piece from the paper’s new Jerusalem bureau chief, Jodi Rudoren? It’s a glowing profile of settler/colonist leader Dani Dayan, suitable for framing on the Dayan family wall. A couple of weeks after Dayan was given ample space on the Times op-ed page to say the settlers are here to stay, Rudoren tours “Samaria” with Dayan and describes him as “worldly and pragmatic.”

In his mind, he and his family, just by living here in the West Bank rather than yielding it to become a Palestinian state, are a “shield” protecting those theaters and museums, and the survival of Israel itself…
Passionately ideological yet profoundly secular, he defies the caricature of settlers as gun-toting radicals who attribute their politics to God and the Torah — he travels the world collecting art and wine

There is not even the standard evasive Times boilerplate in the article making passing reference to the fact that the settlements are illegal under international law. No, they are “disputed.” And Rudoren does not ask Dayan’s unwilling Palestinian neighbors for a token sentence of rebuttal, let alone describe the fractional amounts of water from their own land that they can draw compared to Dayan and his ilk. Who cares if he likes art and nice wine?  What are he and his fellows and the Israeli army doing to make Palestinian lives miserable?
It was OK that Rudoren profiled Israeli human rights attorney Michael Sfard a month back, but lately she did a glowing profile of American Jews emigrating to Israel to join the army– “Enlisting from afar for the love of Israel”–a valentine to the Israel lobby group Nefesh b’Nefesh. Evidently this is her role: to pit leftist Israelis against rightist Israelis without giving Palestinians any voice. It’s the old internal Israeli argument all over again.

Rabbis for Human Rights says Israeli mob’s attack on Palestinians violates Jewish values
Aug 18, 2012
Philip Weiss
I am told there is no coverage of the attempted lynching of Palestinians in Jerusalem, by a mob shouting Death to Arabs, in the LA Times, Washington Post, or NYT so far today. Meantime, Rabbis for Human Rights North America has released this statement on the attack:

In the wake of a violent attack by Israeli teenagers on Palestinian youths, Rabbis for Human Rights-North America calls on rabbis, cantors, Jewish educators, and community leaders to teach our children that hate is not a Jewish value.
Today, a mob of dozens of Israeli teens attacked three Palestinian youths in Jerusalem’s Zion Square. One of the victims was beaten so severely that he required resuscitation and remains in critical condition. Witnesses described the scene as a “lynching” and said that the perpetrators shouted “death to Arabs” and other racist epithets.
As rabbis and cantors, we are shocked and embarrassed by the behavior of these teens. Regardless of our political opinions or our desired resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we have a responsibility to teach our children that Judaism condemns the shedding of blood, as all people are equal creations in the divine image.
We applaud the swift action of the Acting Jerusalem Police Chief, General Menachem Yitzhaki, in already setting up a special investigative team for the case. We urge the police and prosecutors to thoroughly investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of this horrific hate crime. And we praise the Magen David Adom rescue team who administered first aid, and the doctors and staff at Hadassah Hospital who continue to care for the victims. These medical personnel embody the Torah’s command, “You shall not stand against the blood of your neighbor.”
On this Shabbat, as we enter the reflective period of the month of Elul, we ask rabbis, cantors, and educators to spend a few minutes speaking with our children and our communities about today’s incident in Jerusalem. These conversations should emphasize that political differences are no excuse for bigotry. We pray that our children will help us to realize a world free of hatred or violence.

Exile and the Prophetic: Jewish (Re)education
Aug 18, 2012
Marc H. Ellis
This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
Try this one out, after the Hitler Youth false start, if it was, because the Nazified young, or the attempt to Nazify them, were all around these mountain woods.  Had to be.  Too much Nordic scenery.  Vistas where the Nazi world view appeared real as the mountains.
Still, on the other side of the coin, listen to the German youth of today wandering in Jordan and Lebanon, being regaled with “Hitler was right stories” and how proud they must be to come from a land where Jews were on the run.  Admired for something they are so ashamed of.  How’s that for a reverse historical confrontation of the first order?
Imagine that one, these idealist young, wanting a different world and, at least, a different history – slate wiped clean – and find that they are celebrated for the hate crimes of the century and beyond.
Another boomerang, though, if American Jewish youth of a certain age remember, weren’t we celebrated after the 1967 war as if we had vanquished the Arab/Third World menace? This was long before September 11th, when another round began.  This time the links with Israel were turned around, at least for a few days.  I remember those first days when even the national media were asking how dangerous the American connection with Israel had become.  In the background, the Twin Towers smoldered.
Youth of all kinds are confronted with history they didn’t make.  Their thought, why not make news of our own rather than assume the burden of the past.  Because, at some point, even victories turn sour.  Few Jewish youth today burst with the kind of 1967 pride we once had, just the opposite.  An Israeli-toting rah-rah machine is almost as hard to find as a rah-rah pro-Vietnam war tee shirt.
The same question applies to 1967 as to Vietnam in our present historical understanding.  A Palestinian Memorial Wall in Jerusalem like the one that honors the fallen in Viet Nam in Washington, D. C.?
Deir Yassin Remembered, a group I once was part of it before it went south on Holocaust Denial Road, wanted Israel to erect a memorial to the victims of the massacre there in 1948, a massacre that Martin Buber referred to as a “black stain’ on Jewish history in a New York City lecture in the 1950s (if my now Austrian encased memory serves me well).  So when I co-edited a book on the subject, I found a Palestinian who envisioned a model for a Palestinian memorial to the fallen of Deir Yassin for the book.
Quite interesting for Jews to visit, even in a virtual way, a memorial to our victims.  Reversal of our innocence theme, big time.  It’s shocking really.  Try it.  Attend a Nakba commemoration and see how that fits with your self-image.  See how your colonial Jewish self that you thought was essentially de-colonized handles the message that you haven’t gone far enough.  You might walk out of the event with more anger and a sense of bewilderment than you thought possible.
I know, since I’ve been there on my global lecture tour trotting, Zimbabwe in the 1980s for example, at a conference featuring Third World theologians.  The evening’s entertainment was a powerful Zimbabwean dance group whose shouted refrain was the Jewish Israeli genocide of Palestinians.  This was part of their “freedom for South Africa” tour.  A few years later, outside of Chicago, I attended a church service that commemorated the Nakba.  I followed the printed hand-out and heard the amens all around.  I walked out of both events shaken to the core.
Well, if everyone has to sit through our theatrical and liturgical renditions of the Holocaust, why shouldn’t we sit through the Palestinian evocation of their catastrophe as part of our (re)(re)education as Jews.  (More about Jewish (re)education below.)
I happened onto a book some years ago where Israeli soldiers remembered their experience in the 1967 war.  To put it mildly, it isn’t the kind of romanticized memoir of the war that American Jews loved to read or still retain in our minds. Do we really think that the 1967 war didn’t include every type of disillusioned war stories that accompany every war?
Yes, then the October 1973 war, followed by the Lebanon war and beyond.  Israeli war stories aren’t always what we want to hear.  We don’t hear them, do we?
In the development of Holocaust consciousness – variously called Holocaust Theology – Israel’s victory in the 1967 war plays a huge role.  It was in the wake of the war that the Holocaust became central to Jewish identity.  Simply put, Jews named Jewish suffering when Jewish power was assured.
The connection between Jews in America and the Israeli soldiers in war is a fascinating one, the connection of connections, American Jews cheering Israel’s warriors on.  The Israelis doing the dirty work of war, which can’t be admitted as dirty, lest the romanticized myth of Jewish innocence, so crucial in the identity and public arena, falls away.  As in, the American Jewish/Jewish Israeli honeymoon is over.  Admittedly the divorce proceedings have already begun behind closed doors but then American and Israeli Jews were only seen snuggling in public view.  Seen any of that lover’s sweet talk lately?
Reading the Israeli narratives give an alternative view of the miracle of 1967.  The fear, close calls, buddies lost, wanton killing of Arabs, PTS for Israeli soldiers – again, everything we now know about war was there – for the victorious Israelis.  Of course, it was hidden from view even in Israel.  To admit weakness in any sector has been the (un)Sabra thing.  Now, the Sabra thing isn’t talked about much either.  The identity fad one day is in the historical garbage bin the next.  The 1967 war as “clean” violence. The American Jewish love affair with Israel. The Israeli love affair with Israel. Jewish innocence in the suffering of the Holocaust and in the empowerment of Israel. As if alone among the peoples of the world, Jews can assume power and retain innocence.  No one believes that anymore. Not even Jews.
After the innocence is gone, what to do?  The connection between the Holocaust and Israel – Holocaust consciousness itself – fading.  Israel continuing to invade and expand.  Not a picture that plays well anywhere.  Where do Jews go when victory is sullied and new histories pick up where eye witness testimony leads them?  It’s just a matter of time.  It is time.  Time has already moved on.
Jewish youth, now, when they travel the inversion is upon them.  The blank stare of my German students when Hitler’s glass is raised as a welcome salute.  Jewish blank stares when Palestinians around the world, their allies, and those who follow the news, demand answers to Israeli policies which they don’t really know, can’t control and don’t want to be confronted with.  That Jews aren’t innocent and don’t regal us with the Holocaust, it’s too late and there’s too much water under the bridge to use the Holocaust or the fear of Israelis for their security etc., etc.
You see the Jewish youth point?  Jewish youth are nowheresville and the Jewish community preparing them to answer the charges against them won’t do much in the long run.  It’s just encasing them in a further ignorance and deflection that their parents are already encased in.
Jewish (re)education.  It’s been going on for a long time.  Starting with the lead up to the Holocaust, continuing in the lead up to the birth of Israel, then from there follow the (re)education trajectory.  What does it take for Jews to survive history, to make history, to survive the making of history, all the while retaining the innocence platform?  It’s not easy.  It won’t be getting easier.
The “cosmopolitan” Jews that Yitzhak Rabin mentions in his autobiography – who couldn’t quite do the ethnic cleansing they were ordered to do.  They had to be (re)educated.  But think on a broader scale, what Jews have “learned” in the last decades, what we are still learning, the knowledge that is sponsored and the knowledge that is buried.  The inadequate language we have now.  How difficult it is for us to be honest – with others and with ourselves.
My German students having their history thrown in their face. Being saluted. Strange days for them and for us. Historical inversion, reversion.
The bridge with too much water flowing underneath it.  The sullied river that is now Jewish history.

Israel has fabricated claims against Iran — senior U.S. official
Aug 18, 2012
Philip Weiss
In the Washington Post, no less. Just curious: Will any Democrat seize on this information to oppose Romney’s bellicosity? And try and dial down the war talk? Will Debbie Wasserman Schultz, head of the DNC, say, Americans don’t want another war, and Romney is pushing it! Don’t hold your breath. Post’s Karen Brulliard:

U.S. officials say Israeli leaders are sincere about the need to act quickly, but they said they do not think Netanyahu has made the decision to strike. Rather, the Israeli leader is trying to pressure the United States.
“They are deadly serious, as is the president, about the need to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” a senior U.S. official said. “But there has been far too much talking — background leaks and fabrications — that hurt the cause.”
 

In September, the agendas collide
Aug 18, 2012
Annie Robbins

Abbas at UN
Abbas at UN last yer

When I first read the report ‘Israel demands statement from Obama about Iran attack by Yom Kippur‘ —

“Obama to say clearly that the United States will take military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program either at the UN General Assembly on September 25…”

I immediately recalled the news I had seen earlier about President Abbas petitioning the UN General Assembly in September to upgrade the Palestinian Authority’s UN status to that of a non-member observer. As the New York Times stated a few days ago:

That would give the Palestinians access to organizations like the International Criminal Court, where they hope to pursue claims against Israel on matters like settlements

So let’s connect some of the dots. Check out this trajectory:
August 4, 2012CBS: Abbas to move on UN membership bid in September:

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will take a first procedural step toward seeking U.N. recognition of a state of Palestine when he addresses the General Assembly in late September, but has not decided when to ask for a vote on his request, the Palestinian foreign minister said Saturday.
Timing is seen as crucial in the Palestinian bid to be recognized as a non-member observer state by the U.N. General Assembly

August 8, 2012AFP: US ‘pushing Palestinians to delay UN bid’

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — Washington is pressing the Palestinian leadership to delay a fresh bid to seek upgraded UN status until after the US elections, a senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday.
“There are pressures from the United States and some Arab parties to delay the voting until after the United States presidential elections, due in November,” PLO Executive Committee member Saleh Raafat told Voice of Palestine radio.
On Saturday, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said president Mahmud Abbas would on September 27 make a fresh request to upgrade the Palestinians’ UN status from that of an observer entity to a non-member state.
The request is to be made exactly a year after Abbas tried to obtain full member status. Despite his high-profile effort, the request was never put to a vote in the UN Security Council, where the United States had pledged to veto it….

Thursday, August 9, 2012, Jweekly: New U.N. statehood bid for Palestinians?

The Palestinian Authority is considering a bid next month to be a U.N. “non-member observer state.” P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas is ready to take the step, and has the backing of the Arab League, but has not yet decided when he will go ahead, according to the Associated Press.

August 9, 2012 5:23 PM EDT, International Business Times: US Begs Palestinians to Procrastinate On Statehood Bid, Gets No For An Answer

“There are pressures from the United States and some Arab parties to delay the voting until after the United States presidential elections, due in November,” PLO Executive Committee member Saleh Raafat told Voice of Palestine radio, according to AFP.
But Palestinian leaders say they are adamant about insisting on a vote, and will push ahead with their plans. Raafat told Voice of Palestine that Palestine will “reject this demand and insist on heading to the U.N. in September.”
At least count, over 150 countries were slated to vote “yes” to Palestinian statehood, according to a spokesman for the Palestinian Authoirty’s Mission to the U.N. That number is more than enough to pass the measure and elevate Palestine from observer to non-member state status.
Israel, in return, has threatened to annex much of the West Bank if Palestine’s statehood comes to a vote.
It’s been rumored that the Palestinians would make another push to have the U.N. vote them into statehood status at the U.N. General Assembly meeting in September, but now the U.S. is trying to convince the Palestinian Authority to delay the vote.

August 10, 2012, Haaretz, YNET, +972, Reuters via this site: Barak to US: Be afraid, be very afraid of ‘the sword at our throat’

The Israeli press went on steroids over the weekend pushing an attack on Iran, and it’s gettingmass coverage.

August 13, 2012, NYT, Jodi Rudoren: Palestinian Seeks Diplomatic Allies

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, asked diplomats from two dozen countries on Monday to support the Palestinian Authority’s renewed bid for observer-state status at the United Nations, calling it “a test of the whole rule of law.” Speaking in East Jerusalem to envoys from countries in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East, Ms. Ashrawi asked them not only to vote for the future United Nations resolution on observer-state status, possibly this fall, but to provide the Palestinian Authority with a financial “safety net” when, she predicted, “Americans decide to cut off aid” because of the bid. The Palestinians’ plan is to petition the United Nations General Assembly, where passage is all but assured. That would give the Palestinians access to organizations like the International Criminal Court, where they hope to pursue claims against Israel on matters like settlements.

August 14, 2012, Maariv: Israel demands statement from Obama about Iran attack by Yom Kippur

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak expect US President Barack Obama to say clearly that the United States will take military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program either at the UN General Assembly on September 25, which is the eve of Yom Kippur, or on some other public platform by that date.

August 14, 2012, Times of Israel (via our site): Obama set to assure Israel that, if all else fails, US will attack Iran ….

American and Israeli officials are working to arrange a meeting between US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at which the White House will assure Israel that the US will use force to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons drive by next June at the latest if the Islamic Republic has not halted its program by then, Israel’s Channel 10 news reported on Tuesday night.
The meeting will take place in New York or Washington at the end of September or the very beginning of October, the report said. ……
Despite incessant reports from Israel asserting that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are strongly inclined toward ordering an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in September or October, the US administration tends not to believe that Israel would go ahead and attack Iran alone and in defiance of the US, the report said. Nonetheless, Washington is not certain of what Israel may do.
……..
It would be unthinkable for Israel to strike at Iran before any such Obama-Netanyahu meeting, the report said, and similarly unthinkable afterwards — since Obama would provide the necessary reassurance for Israel to hold its fire.
Netanyahu is already tentatively scheduled to fly to the US at the end of September to address the UN General Assembly.

August 14, 2012, YNET: Arab League to present UN with new PA bid?

The Palestinian Authority is pursuing a new bid for statehood ahead of the next UN General Assembly meeting in New York City in September

August 14, 2012Mondoweiss : Mearsheimer: 7 reasons Netanyahu & Barak might like war with Iran

4. Iranian nuclear weapons are an important issue for sure, but it is even more important that we be able to continue expanding settlements in Judea and Samaria and prevent a two-state solution. Threatening a war with Iran has done much to take the Palestinian issue off the front burner in recent months. An actual war – especially since it will be protracted – will insulate us from meaningful criticism for at least a few years. By then, the two-state solution will be dead and buried. All of this is very important if Obama wins a second term, because then he will start leaning on us again to allow the Palestinians to have a viable state of their own.

And now check out Joseph Dana’s twitter: August 15:

What’s the point of Israel’s psychological warfare against Iran? —Simple, ensure we don’t talk about Palestinians

August 16, 2012, Xinhua: Islamic Summit Endorses Palestinian Bid for UN Membership

The Islamic Summit held in Saudi Arabia this week endorsed the Palestinian bid for UN membership, a senior Palestinian official said Thursday.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian efforts to achieve the status of Non-member State at the UN received unanimous support from 57 countries in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) who participated in the Mecca summit.

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