NOVANEWS
- Poor schmuck Harvey Pekar– gets to be censored on Israel posthumously!
- ‘Debate’ in PA Senate race is over who loves Israel more
- Hitchens rails against Occupation
- Message to Israelis who oppose BDS – go to Bil’in and see for yourself
- Inside the Cosmetics convention, Ahava boss denies the Occupation
- Today in Palestine: Palestinian attacked for talking to a Jew
- Beyond a ’strategic liability’–the special relationship has made the U.S. ugly
- Presbyterian engagement on Israel/Palestine creates ‘new rules’ for relationship with the Jewish community
- TIAA-CREF is the most ambitious divestment campaign yet
- TNR: Neoconservatives are liberals
Poor schmuck Harvey Pekar– gets to be censored on Israel posthumously!Posted: 22 Jul 2010Harvey Pekar was the bard of Cleveland, the famously-difficult author of comic books who died on July 11. An anonymous friend writes:
The interview is in Eric Herschthal’s piece on Pekar’s death, in the New York Jewish Week.
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‘Debate’ in PA Senate race is over who loves Israel morePosted: 22 Jul 2010The dueling ads for the Senate race in Pennsylvania by J Street and neo-conservative outfit the Emergency Committee for Israel, headed by William Kristol, has media outlets talking about a “proxy fight over President Obama’s Middle East policy, for the right and the left.” The Forward described the two groups as “trading barbs and pointed advertisements” over Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak’s record on Israel, and quotes conservative writer Michael Goldfarb of the committee as welcoming this “debate.”What the ads really tell us, though, is that there is no debate going on amongst political candidates when it comes to Israel and that the Israel lobby’s line is still reigning supreme in American politics. It is a demonstration of how little room there is to have a candid discussion on the United States’ policy towards Israel/Palestine.After the Emergency Committee for Israel aired a menacing ad accusing Sestak of being affiliated with a “front group for Hamas”–a reference to the Council on American-Islamic Relations–and for apparently not being sufficiently supportive of Israel, J Street hit back, sort of.J Street falls all over itself to point out that Sestak is indeed pro-Israel: “Sestak consistently votes for aid to Israel,” the J Street ad says, and as an admiral in the Navy, Sestak “helped strengthen Israel’s defenses.”This is anything but a debate over Israel. It’s a narrow discussion encased in a box between one group that supports sanctions on Iran (J Street) and another that just wants to bomb Iran.Sestak is indeed pro-Israel–he voted in support of the Israeli assault on Gaza, which eventually killed some 300 children, and signed onto the recent letter in the aftermath of the Israeli raid on the Gaza flotilla that signals support for the blockade, saying that it “was instituted to stop terrorists from smuggling weapons into Gaza to murder innocent civilians.”But is it really a good thing for Sestak to support Israel when it massacres 1,400 people during “Operation Cast Lead” and commits war crimes? Shouldn’t we be having a debate over Israel’s destructive policies of war, blockade, occupation and colonization that we fund?The day when candidates can truly debate whether we should be funding Israeli war crimes is certainly something that I want to see. The Pennsylvania Senate race, though, with J Street defending a candidate that is firmly pro-Israel, isn’t going to be it.As Australian-Jewish writer Antony Loewenstein recently commented, “if this is the way to move the debate forward in the US, we’re in deep trouble.” |
Hitchens rails against OccupationPosted: 22 Jul 2010Christopher Hitchens was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt. He frames the matter in the most simple, honest way: half the people in Israel/Palestine are being ruled without their consent (and it’s on a racial basis). The question I have here is how much of the Western battle against “religious barbarism” is driven by Western investment in Israel? If the Israel/Palestine issue were resolved, how quickly would theocratic nuclear aggression disappear as a concern? Just asking. Hitchens:
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Message to Israelis who oppose BDS – go to Bil’in and see for yourselfPosted: 22 Jul 2010 12:55 PM PDTThe first time I stepped into a settlement was during my military service. I did a job that let me go home every night, but every now and then we were required to do something they called AVTASH, or SetSec: settlement security. I was a guard in Ganim, in Kadim, in Homesh and in one other settlement whose name I do not recall. Every one of those settlements has been removed since then, as part of the Disengagement. We’d travel there in a military jeep. Somewhere near the city of Afula the officer who rode with us said we had entered Area A, and that we had to load our weapons. With our ridiculous guns we traveled through the car-part stripping facilities of Jenin, along ragged roads, until we came to the settlement. These were “quality of life” settlers and were quite nice, in a superficial acquaintance. I remember Homesh in particular. We were guarding in the winter, and the guard booth was covered with perennial fog that had a metallic aftertaste. Around us were mountains, Arab villages, and rock rabbits. I loved those guarding shifts.The next time I would enter a Palestinian area would be on the way to a demonstration in Bil’in. I took a rideshare bus which left from Tel Aviv’s central bus station. It was odd to be there without a loaded weapon, to hope that the soldiers wouldn’t stop me at the checkpoint. It was even stranger to see the Palestinian Authority flag. Not strange – frightening.Israelis don’t know Arabs. Left-wingers don’t, either. I met one at the university, another at work. I have never witnessed a meeting between an Arab and a right winger, but I find it hard to believe that it would be as amusing as a meeting between a left-winger and an Arab. They do a special dance at one another. And it’s mostly the left-wingers. They use a careful series of gestures to make it abundantly clear they are ok, and that they carry all of the right opinions. Having taken part of this very dance at least once I can tell how very embarrassing and inarticulate it can be. Arabs are not exempt of this, and perhaps they are even more committed to it. A meeting between a Jew and an Arab, even when it is full of good intentions – especially when it is full of good intentions – has explosive potential. The embarrassment remains with you thereafter, and you wonder if the problem is yours or if you just don’t like the person.Relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel are so very charged that I had a hard time even writing the actual word “Arab”. In such a situation, where an entirely reasonable word has already been linked to a euphemism of its own – they’re called “minorities” in the Israeli discourse – it is something of a shock to enter Bil’in. These are not “Israeli Arabs” but Palestinians, and the village looks exactly as you’d expect a Palestinian village to look like, just like the ones in the press photos. I came to the demonstration after Bassam Abu Rahmeh died. Old cars were driving down the main street, covered with pictures of him and Palestinian flags. A kid rode his bike with a Bassam poster waving in front of his face, blocking his field of vision. Suddenly when you’re there, afraid, you understand just how many layers separate you from this experience, just how much a Palestinian still seems to be a creature of evil intent. You’re still there, with your weapon loaded.Looking back it seems to me that this was an important demonstration. My criticism of the radical left was much sharper. Today I can’t even remember what it was. In his essay on nationalism Orwell described a condition of reverse-nationalism – the automatic, instinctive revulsion at one’s own country. Currently I have to double-check myself twice a day that that’s not where I’m at. Before Bil’in that was one of the things that infuriated me about the radical left, i.e. the demonstrating left.I’m not sure this is a positive condition, but it does seem to be a relevant one, and to encompass more than just my own personal experience. You have to be there, and go there yet again, to see how a Palestinian flag can suddenly be taken for granted, almost as if you’ve come to a safe harbor. If you’re a left-winger there is no doubt that Bil’in is safer than the nearest checkpoint or settlement. Your identification framework shifts.I think that most of us cannot understand the craptacular extent of the situation here. Keren, a friend of mine, phrased it well: for us, everything works. If we see cops down the street, they will obviously not harass us; we’re not afraid of a security guard or of a soldier on the bus. That’s not how it is for Arabs or, in some cases, for Mizrahi Jews. A young woman I know once told me about the calculus of stepping into a taxi: an older driver will try to lay you; a young driver will try, but only hesitantly; an Arab driver will try. This stunned me: the fact that entire chunks of my existence and hers were so radically different. A man doesn’t engage in this calculus, he doesn’t even know it exists. And what’s true for women is even more so about other populations. I am not sure that I can imagine how an Arab in this country perceives authorities, what it means to know that if you have a beer outdoors and a cop goes by, he’ll likely pour it out. As Keren put it, he’s entitled to, of course, but I don’t think this would happen to me.***It is for this reason that the debate about recent cancellation of performances in Israel make me tired, more than anything else. Because I don’t think it can actually, truly be explained. Singer Ninette Tayeb, Israel’s rags-to-riches darling, phrased it well in response to the cancellation of the Devendra Banhart performance: “why would you mix politics, which is the height of filth, with the purest thing, music, in the first place? I find it hard to understand this, I am quite agitated. What’s happening here is most upsetting.” How can you even explain to her that it’s not politics, that it’s people? She won’t understand. For her to start understanding she has to go through a checkpoint, and she’ll never-ever do that, because she does not understand.And it doesn’t matter whether or not you’re a left-winger, because even as a left-winger, the number of times you butt heads with the state is very low, if ever you do. Because, even as a left-winger, you don’t really understand how extensive the occupation is, how much it trickles into every part of your life. The Israeli rage about the boycott of products from the settlements demonstrates a bit of that. The left likes to mention the economic price of the occupation and of the fact that we don’t actually have any clue about the budgets being diverted to the settlements. That’s true, of course, but to be fair, the occupation also yields profits. The boycott of settlement products concerns the regime for a good reason – the Palestinians are a market, and apparently a serious one. Journalist Amira Hass suggested that the prohibition on conveying coriander, cardamom, cumin, and hummus is in place in order to make Israel a monopoly in the field. In other words, it is quite possible that Israeli companies enjoy the siege of Gaza and support its continuation. Our lifestyle here, the economic growth, the tax income, the very existence of some Israeli companies – these all require that Palestinians be kept in conditions of starvation.Ninette could not even say the word “occupation”. As far as she’s concerned, that’s politics. Her music can only remain pure, absent any politics, if Ninette can refrain from seeing the occupation. Orwell once wrote about the rough people, the ones who do the dirty work so the decent folks can sleep well at night. In Israel there is a whole army that does that work, and the decent folk can still live their lives without seeing it for even a moment.I have no issues with apolitical art. Quite to the contrary. But our fear of the politicization of art does not pertain to aesthetic considerations. It is merely the simple fear of knowing that our lives here are political. A band cannot visit Israel today without making what looks like a political declaration. “We tried to make it clear that we are coming to share a human and not a political message, but it seems that we are being used to support opinions that we do not share”, said Devendra Banhart. He is wrong. There is no need for an agent to use him. Performing here [in Israel] is a political statement, and it is the wrong political statement.Israelis like to claim that boycotting Israel only pushes Israeli discourse to the extreme. It is likely that they’re right, to a certain extent. But it seems to me that after 43 years, thousands of administrative detentions, thousands of casualties, and tens of thousands of homes demolished, Israel has lost the right to ask to be left to solve this problem alone. In fact, I am not sure that there is anyone who seriously believes that Israel is capable of doing so. This is why the cancelled performances gladdens me. Because it is only the beginning. When this snowball starts seriously rolling, and sanctions are imposed, Israel will no longer have any option but to make a decision. That keeps me optimistic. And I know this text will make many Israelis loathe me, and I know they will not understand. But, really, you’ve got to be there, by the Palestinian flag, with tear gas all around you, to start understanding. There is no other choice.Itamar Sha’altiel is an Israeli blogger and an ex-journalist. While he should been writing about literary theory and cognitive studies, in which he majored, living in Israel compels him to engage mainly with politics and human rights. This article originally appeared in Hebrew on the Friends of George blog, on June 16th, 2010, here. http://www.hahem.co.il/friendsofgeorge/?p=1613 it was translated by Dena Shunra [ http://Hebrew.shunra.net/] |
Inside the Cosmetics convention, Ahava boss denies the OccupationPosted: 22 Jul 2010 09:41 AM PDTOn Monday, July 19th, Jodie Evans of CODEPINK and supporter Zissa went to the Cosmetics Professionals (COSMOPROF) Convention at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas to confront Ahava North America CEO Michael Etedgi for the second year in a row. Last July, Jodie and another woman did a bikini and mud protest in the Ahava booth at the convention. This year they were hoping to have a dialogue with Etedgi and to educate more cosmetics professionals about the illegal practices of Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories.The two women picked up their credentials, and then handed out Stolen Beauty AHAVA boycott fliers to conference attendees (as Jodie related to me later). They subsequently entered the convention hall, and as they walked towards the Ahava booth, Ahava’s CEO Michael Etedgi immediately recognized Jodie. Etedgi greeted Jodie by saying, “We know who you are. You are CODEPINK. You disrupted this booth last year and I have to ask you to leave.” The four-man security detail at the booth grabbed Jodie and Zissa, pulling the two women by their arms. As this was happening, Jodie looked Etedgi in the eyes and said, “I am not disrupting. I came to have a conversation with you.”Etedgi called off security, and he and Jodie had an exchange that lasted for about ten minutes. Jodie asked him why Ahava wasn’t moving its factory out of the Occupied Territories so that they would no longer be violating international law. He claimed that what he was doing was perfectly legal. In his opinion, the factory was in Israel. Jodie said that she had visited the West Bank, and the factory was clearly north of the internationally recognized Green Line that demarcated Israel from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Every government in the world—including that of the United States and with the exception of Israel’s—recognized this land as occupied.Etedgi argued that they were not “occupied” territories but rather “disputed” territories. He went on to claim that the dispute would be over when peace came and this question would be resolved because the land would all belong to Israel and there would no longer be a problem. He refused to answer any questions about the violations of rights of the people in the Occupied Territories. Etedgi stated that the factory was going to stay put. And then he threatened to bring legal action against CODEPINK and the Stolen Beauty campaign because we were defaming his company.During this interchange in the Ahava convention booth, the crowd watching the debate was growing, Zissa was chanting Stolen Beauty slogans, and when it was apparent that the dialogue was at an impasse, Etedgi finally told security to haul the two women away. They loudly objected to being ejected, and continued chanting “Ahava, you can’t hide, we can see your dirty side” at the main entrance until two building security guards escorted them outside and unceremoniously stuffed them into a taxi. Jodie and Zissa instructed the driver to take them around the building to the hotel’s main entrance.Jodie changed clothes, and headed back to the entrance of the convention hall, where she spent an additional two hours handing out over 1,000 fliers, giving out 500 STOLEN BEAUTY stickers, and educating passersby about Ahava’s illegal practices.Despite Etedgi’s pretense to the contrary, the factory is in an Israeli settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territory on land that belonged to the Palestinian village of Arab et Ta’amira. Additionally Ahava excavates mud from the shores of the Dead Sea near the Israeli settlement of Kalya. This is exploitation of occupied natural resources by an occupying power, a practice that is explicitly forbidden by the Geneva Conventions. Finally, Mitzpe Shalem and Kalya, two Israeli settlements in the Occupied West Bank, collectively own 43% of Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories, meaning that the company’s profits are subsidizing Israel’s illegal settlement project, which has been globally recognized as an impediment to a just peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.Ahava Cosmetics: Made by Israeli profiteers in Occupied Palestine.Nancy Kricorian is a writer and activist in New York, she is the campaign manager for CODEPINK‘s Stolen Beauty Ahava boycott. |
Today in Palestine: Palestinian attacked for talking to a JewPosted: 22 Jul 2010 08:12 AM PDTAnd other news from Today in Palestine:Land and Property Theft and Destruction/Ethnic CleansingIsraeli forces demolish Palestinian homes, shops
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Beyond a ’strategic liability’–the special relationship has made the U.S. uglyPosted: 22 Jul 2010I received one of the coveted invitations to Tuesday’s Nixon Center’s debate between Chas Freeman and Robert Satloff over whether Israel is or is not an American strategic asset. It was a sign of the intense interest in the topic (and perhaps too in Chas Freeman) that, in the dog days of summer, it looked to be the most popular Nixon Center luncheon of the year. The guest list seemed almost scientifically balanced: in apparently equal number were representatives from the sturdy Arabist Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and several more or less like-minded organizations, as well as from AIPAC, the ADL, the JTA. But with one exception, the audience was exceedingly polite throughout.In his prepared remarks, Chas Freeman described succinctly all that the US does for Israel, financially and diplomatically, then noted that the it gets in return virtually none of the strategic benefits one typically receives from allies. Israel is so unpopular in its region that its participation in any joint project is sufficient to drive others away. For his part, Satloff claimed that Israel is America’s best bargain for ally ever. In manner, he was almost smugly confident and self assured. At the outset he talked about his reluctance at accepting the invitation, wondering whether his participation would “lend legitimacy” to a question which is out there “on the fringes, (though not only there)” . He stated that the issue of Israel’s strategic value was never debated “in the Situation Room” and nor by a “vast majority” of military leaders and national security specialists agree, across the political spectrum. I suspect if Satloff was so certain of this, he wouldn’t have bothered to come.Like David Frum, (but for different reasons) I found the debate interesting but slightly unsatisfying. I think Freeman’s points are unassailable, but there would be many who would also be persuaded that Israel proved itself as a Cold War ally, demonstrating the superiority of American avionics (in dogfights with Syria) and, through its military strength, weakening the Soviet foothold in the region. (Walt and Mearsheimer also wrote there was much to be said for Israel’s strategic value during the Cold War.) And I would acknowledge that these points in Israel’s favor were not anticipated by the early Cold War strategists who felt, initially, that American support for Israel would be incredibly costly in geostrategic terms, in the short and medium term. Satloff of course also emphasized Israel’s technical prowess, its success in devolping drones so Americans can strike Afghan targets from computer screens in Nevada, and its high tech industry. All very Dan Senor– though it’s never explained why Israel needs to occupy the West Bank and starve Gaza for its computer industry to thrive. Satloff seemed pleased to contrast the relative peace around Israel with the situation in the Gulf: See, Americans, for the cost of a mere $100 billion in aid, the Levant plus Egypt is relatively pacified, while the Gulf is full of war.I think Freeman was excellent, but what I believe is his most salient point he expressed tangentially, and in segments, and in truth is not the kind of thing that can be argued well in debate, because it is grounded in sentiment and inference rather than cold facts. I would put it this way: that the nature of Washington’s alliance with Israel, and especially the extreme deference to Israeli sensibilities that seems inextricable from it, had pulled the United States into an ever expanding arc of conflict with the Muslim world, a conflict that is far from inevitable and in fact unnecessary—and that this conflict has made us a target of terrorism and has already eroded our constitutional liberties, as well as costing us hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of dead and wounded. Freeman noted that several terrorist operatives have mentioned American support for Israel as an important motivator for their actions, but they have other, also serious, reasons for their hatred. Would the United States have had troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, the residue of the first Iraq war, without Israel and its lobby? A case could be made either way. I don’t believe we would be at war with Iraq now without Israel, though the proponents of that war now work overtime to claim that no, Iran was always Israel’s preferred target. We certainly would not be working ourselves into a froth over the remote possibility of an Iranian nuclear deterrent without Israel’s prodding.But how exactly do you quantify the cost of appearing as blatantly hypocritical (about democracy, about human rights) to hundreds of millions of Muslims? Satloff can and did claim that Arabs (quietly) support a war against Iran and say that when Arab governments complain about American support for Zionism, it is more or less meaningless. Perhaps it is; the governments are weak, autocratic, not very effective and hardly beloved by their own people.The question period was slightly more expansive. Joe Klein (who I would depict as near neutral in this debate) asked in his signature fashion a pointed question to each figure. I asked Satloff whether his calculus might change if the two-state solution negotiation were to end (or to be generally acknowledged to be over) and Israel was seen, more clearly as a state denying political rights to four million people under occupation. His answer surprised me: there has been a two state negotiation going on since 1937 (the time of an early British partition proposal) and it’s still ongoing. He could not have made it clearer that Israel and its American spokesman enjoy the pretext of a peace process—it can go on forever!– while Israel, which got its state 62 years ago, continues to settle and seize the land it wants.Satloff was full of condescending praise for the Obama administration for “correcting its error” of asking for a settlement freeze in Jerusalem as a prelude to negotiations. Indeed, he smugly noted that Obama had learned the error of his ways very quickly, so deserved double praise! Generally I found Satloff an interesting character, exuding confidence, expressing forceful talking points at every turn. And they all take a moment to unravel—yes, what he said is a kind of half-truth, and the other half is false. But if the statements come cascading out, expressed rapidly and cogently enough, it can work. I imagine that being in a room with Netanyahu has the same effect.The one volatile moment came when someone with an Israeli accent (from the guest list I surmise it was Amitai Etzioni, but I’m not certain) challenged Freeman for claiming that one of the things America had learned from Israel was targeted assassination and torture. He was vehement, and mentioned (a good debating point) the Phoenix program in Vietnam. Freeman replied that he had heard first-hand from Israelis about Israeli assassinations and torture, Israelis who had grown repulsed by them. The element that isn’t revealed in the exchange is a complex one—what our interrogators have learned from Israeli ones, whether the entire Israeli colonizing discourse about Muslims, and sex and shame has fed into Abu Ghraib type atrocities. I believe it has, but connecting the dots can’t done in a debate.In his post on this, David Frum says that Freeman didn’t play the part of coldly calculated realist. I think there’s something to this, and Chas, though he certainly has excellent realist credentials, does argue and think in terms of values as well. So do most realists I know. Coming away from the debate, I felt more strongly that the question of Israel in the United States is going to be decided on the basis of values, as much as strategic costs and benefits. That’s a realm where Israel as a democracy has an overwhelming advantage, and where Israel as an apartheid occupier has none whatsoever. |
Presbyterian engagement on Israel/Palestine creates ‘new rules’ for relationship with the Jewish communityPosted: 22 Jul 2010Last week we posted the first part of Mark Braverman’s report on how the Presbyterian Church dealt with the ongoing controversy over its position on Israel/Palestine at its General Assembly. Here is the second part.There were two groups of Jewish attendees at the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Minneapolis early this month. One was composed of several members of Jewish Voice for Peace, Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and me. We were there at the invitation of the denomination’s Israel Palestine Mission Network to support passage of the Middle East Study Committee Report, “Breaking Down the Walls” and other Middle East-related overtures, including divestment from Caterpillar, recognition that Israel’s policies constitute Apartheid, and endorsement of the Palestine Kairos document. The other group was made up of people from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, and the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies. They were working closely with Presbyterians for Middle East Peace, a group of Presbyterian pastors and seminary professors that had formed for the purpose of opposing these overtures. The strategy they followed was to allow the Presbyterian group to lead the charge, with the Jewish organizations keeping a low profile. Blocking or gutting “Breaking Down the Walls” was the main objective of this ad hoc alliance. The alliance failed to accomplish either objective. I believe that they were surprised at this outcome – Jewish advocacy groups having the final say on Christian words and actions with respect to Israel and Zionism is a time-honored pursuit. It has been rewarded with success for generations.Sixty five years ago, the Christian world stood before the ovens of Auschwitz-Birkenau and said, “What have we done?” Since then, Christian-Jewish relations have been driven by the Jewish desire for safety and protection on the one hand and the powerful Christian drive for penitence for millennia of anti-Jewish doctrine and behavior on the other. For Jews, the establishment of the State of Israel has provided the focus of this quest for physical security, dignity, and self-determination. For their part, Christians set about developing a revised theology that renounced the notion that Christians had replaced the Jewish people as God’s chosen, and that granted implicit and in many cases explicit theological justification for political Zionism. The result is that Christian-Jewish “interfaith” relations today follows clear rules – rules that serve to insulate Christians from any appearance of anti-Jewish feeling and that protect the Jewish community from any possible challenge – or even perceived challenge — to unconditional support for the policies of the State of Israel. These rules are playing out in the academy, in the pews, in interfaith relations on the highest levels, and in everyday encounters. They are rendered more powerful by never being stated or acknowledged.The rulesFundamentally, there are two rules:1. “Sensitivity” to “the Jewish perspective” and Jewish self-perception (as defined for all Jews by groups who claim to represent the whole) is paramount. How an action or statement may make some Jews feel trumps all other considerations, values or objectives.2. The superior right of the Jews to the land is never to be challenged. One can nibble at the edges — talk about the rights of Palestinians, the need for the land to be shared, etc. But don’t come close to violating rule #1 – you can’t make us uncomfortable, you can’t bring us too close to looking at the core reasons for the conflict, at the awful consequences of an ethnic nationalist project that has displaced an indigenous population and has created a system that meets the UN definition of the crime of apartheid.Until recently, these rules have dominated the interfaith discourse in the United States and Western Europe. American Jewish advocacy organizations such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-defamation League, the local and national Federations of Jewish Agencies, and the Jewish religious denominations have relied on these rules in mounting opposition to any actions of Christian denominations perceived to be anti-Israel. Through a combination of charging that the Presbyterian Church’s “anti-Israel” actions and statements are anti-Semitic and expressing outrage over the denomination’s “betrayal” of a historic friendship, these organizations have managed to bully the church into withdrawing or watering down efforts to take effective action in opposition to Israel’s policies and to our own government’s support of these policies.What happened at the Presbyterian General Assembly early this month is an indication that the rules are no longer working.“We will remain partners”On Friday, July 9, 2010, by an 82% majority, the General Assembly approved “Breaking Down the Walls” — modified but still preserving its strong condemnation of Israel’s human rights violations. That same day, the Jewish groups who had opposed the report, writing under the umbrella of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, issued a public letter. It reads, in part: “In recognizing Israel’s security needs while striving to remain faithful to the church’s Palestinian Christian partners, the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has embraced a more thoughtful approach to Middle East peacemaking.” The letter noted that although several areas of “serious concern” remained, “the General Assembly has modeled a more inclusive voice on the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We fervently hope that the new Middle East monitoring committee will meet the GA’s charge for authentic balance in the study of and teaching about the complexities of the Middle East. We will remain partners in this pursuit.”What a change in tone and tactics! The letter is almost conciliatory, markedly milder in tone than the statements that preceded the conference. Recall that in a website posting in March the Wiesenthal Center called the report a “poisonous document,” one that amounted to “nothing short than a declaration of war on Israel.” Prior to the General Assembly, the gloves had come off – in addition to the Christian Century article I described in Part 1 of this posting, the Middle East Study Committee report and other overtures had been subject to a barrage of attacks, including circulating an internet petition that asked signers to send the following message to Presbyterians: “I am deeply disturbed by the dangerous campaign to delegitimize the Jewish State and her supporters launched by a committee that is dominated by activists openly hostile to Israel. They are poised to place the policy of PCUSA on a collision course with Israel’s survival.” In December 2009, the Central Conference of American Rabbis characterized the Kairos document as a supercessionist and anti-Semitic, declaring that “those who would associate themselves with this document and the religious foundation upon which it is based would be erasing years of Christian soul searching and repentance as if they had not been. We expect more from our interfaith partners.”Contemplating the July 9th JPCA letter, we might ask, where is the outrage, where is the demonization? What has happened to the bullying, the ultimatums, the preaching, the threats of pulling out of the relationship? Where are the charges that the denomination is making war on Israel and delegitimizing Judaism itself? Reading the letter, one might assume that the church had performed major surgery on the report, removing any shred of language that could be seen as critical of Israel or that threatend its existence or the continued financial and diplomatic support of our country. Or we might assume that, somehow, any such language was now carefully balanced by equal language providing reassurance of support for Israel.But in fact, the prophetic heart of the document remains. The reason for the change in tone of the American Jewish response is simply this: the church didn’t back down.What has changed?Look at what has changed and what remains in the Middle East Study Committee report:The report opens with a re-affirmation of previous General Assembly Policies & Statements, preceded by a preamble:“Given the daunting and mounting obstacles to the viability of a “two-state solution,” and following from the above principles, the 219th General Assembly (2010) affirms with greater urgency our historic Presbyterian stances with specific regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling for
In the section containing new recommendations, the following changes were made to two key recommendations (added text is in brackets, deleted text is in strikethrough):f. [Endorses the Kairos Palestine document (“A Moment of Truth”) in its emphases on hope for liberation, nonviolence, love of enemy, and reconciliation; lifts the document up for study and discussion by Presbyterians; and directs the creation of a study guide for the document through the appropriate channel of the General Assembly Mission Council.] [Commends for study the Kairos Palestine document (‘A Moment of Truth’), and endorses the document’s emphases on hope for liberation, nonviolence, love of enemy, and reconciliation. We lift up for study the often neglected voice of Palestinian Christians. We direct the monitoring group for the Middle East to create a study guide for the document].”b. Calls on the U.S. government to exercise strategically its international influence, including [the possible withholding of military aid as a means of bringing Israel to] [making U.S. aid to Israel contingent upon Israel’s] compliance with international law and peacemaking efforts.”The report then proceeds with an introductory section titled “Rationale.” Here is an excerpt:“We deeply value our relationships with Jews and Muslims in the United States, Israel, and the predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle East. Yet the bonds of friendship must neither prevent us from speaking nor limit our empathy for the suffering of others. Inaction and silence on our part enable actions we oppose and consequences we grieve. We recognize how great a burden past misguided actions by our government have placed on Christians throughout the Muslim world. We recognize that massive amounts of U.S tax money are feeding the various conflicts in the Middle East—including two current wars of arguable necessity and Jewish settlements in Palestine.We also recognize that our concern to end support for both violence in all its forms and the ongoing occupation and settlement of Palestine places demands of integrity on how the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) uses its own resources and investments. Let us be clear: we do affirm the legitimacy of Israel as a state, but consider the continuing occupation of Palestine (West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem) to be illegitimate, illegal under international law, and an enduring threat to peace in the region. Furthermore, we recognize that any support for that occupation weakens the moral standing of our nation internationally and our security.”Another introductory section is comprised letters to five stakeholders, including fellow Presbyterians, American Muslim friends, Palestinian friends, and Israeli friends. There is this from “Letter to Our American Jewish Friends:”“For decades we have worked side-by-side in innumerable causes in our own nation for the sake of justice and human well-being. And yet, with the introduction of the corporate engagement process in 2004 (and the use of the word “divestment”), this relationship has been seriously tested.We want to be sure to say to you in no uncertain terms: we support the existence of Israel as a sovereign nation within secure and recognized borders. No “but,” no “let’s get this out of the way so we can say what we really want to say.” We support Israel’s existence as granted by the U.N. General Assembly. We support Israel’s existence as a home for the Jewish people. We have said this before, and we say this again. We say it because we believe it; we say it because we want it to continue to be true.And, at the same time, we are distressed by the continued policies that surround, sustain, and consolidate the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, in particular. Many of us come to this work out of a love for Israel. And it is because of this love that we continue to say the things we say about the occupation, the settlement infrastructure, and the absolute death knell it is sounding for the hopes of a two-state solution, a solution that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has supported for more than sixty years.We also want to make it clear that what we say in moral criticism of policies and actions of the Israeli government should not be used as a battering ram against Israel’s right to membership in the community of nations nor to deepen anti-Semitism or any categorical blame of the Jewish people for the ills of the world. As those whose faith originated in the synagogues of the Fertile Crescent, our love of our common heritage is precious. Anti-Semitism has no place in faithful Christian expression.”The above gives a sense of how disingenuous is the JCPA response. They are spinning a victory when in fact the most “poisonous” and “anti-Israel” recommendations remain in the report. What has changed is some nuance of wording in the recommendations concerning Kairos and U.S. aid to Israel, and the removal of the Jewish and Palestinian narratives that were judged to be “out of balance.” Read the language of the Letter to American Jews –this is the “poisonous document” that wants to make an end to Israel! If it wasn’t good enough before its adoption by the denomination, why is it good enough now? Given this, one has to wonder about the meaning of the JPCA statement that “we will remain partners in this pursuit.” I believe that these organizations, having failed to achieve their objective, are more than ever determined to block denominational activism. Indeed, the denomination can expect a continuation of attacks and pressure. Nothing has changed. This spinning of victory says one thing: we lost this one. We’ll be back.But there is a profound change to be observed in the denomination. Despite the enormous, organized and close to six-month effort of the organized American Jewish community to influence the voters at the General Assembly and to demonize the report, the denomination endorsed it. The modifications to the document were proposed not in response to Jewish lobbying, but because the committee liked the report – understood its value and importance — and made some changes in order to help ensure its passage. The resulting acceptance of “Breaking Down the Walls” shows that “the rules” no longer apply.This is hugely important because of what it means for the future and continuation of denominational activism and how that will support grassroots efforts at the congregational and community levels. It means that the charge that principled criticism of the State of Israel is anti-Semitic no longer holds water. It means that emotional blackmail about friendship betrayed no longer sends Christians scurrying to disavow offending actions or language. The charge that criticism of Israel stems from anti-Semitism was always nonsense — as was the obscene charge that language from Palestinian liberation theology that likens the oppressed of Palestine to Jesus on the cross is a revival of the charge of Christ-killers. Are there anti-Semites among us? Certainly — but surely they are not steering the ship. When Presbyterians — of all people the most committed (many would say to a fault) to order and to considerate, thoughtful procedures — commission a group at great expense to spend two years studying the problem, including traveling to the region to see the situation with their own eyes, this is not done in an effort to “erase Israel.” To accuse the denomination of being motivated by anti-Jewish feeling and a desire to destroy Israel just won’t wash.What kind of partnership?The JCPA letter talks about the partnership continuing – but what kind of partnership? What does this “partnership” have to do — to use the language of the Study Committee report — with breaking down the walls that divide people?Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, Director of Interfaith Affairs for the Wiesenthal Center, who was present at the General Assembly, published an article in the Jewish Journal.com on July 13, five days after the JPCA letter, entitled “Lessons One Rabbi learned from Presbyterian Church (USA).” His tone to the Jewish readership is different than that of the JCPA letter. In the article Rabbi Adlerstein divides Presbyterians into “friends” – those who worked to get rid of what were in his view the “worst” parts of the report — and the unfriendly “heavily pro-Palestinian Middle East Study Committee.” He accuses the report of accepting the “Arab” narrative and “ignoring” the Israeli, and of blaming everything on Israel’s – here the quotation marks are his — “occupation.” Characterizing the Palestine Kairos document as “a template for anti-Israel activism in churches on both sides of the Atlantic” (it is not), a document that justifies suicide bombing and supports replacement theology (it does neither), the Rabbi takes the General Assembly to task for not repudiating this “notorious” document but instead recommending it for study in churches. Reading this article by Rabby Adlerstein, we have a glimpse of how this “partnership continues.”The Middle East Study Committee report passed because of Presbyterians’ faithfulness to justice. It passed because the Assembly believed the heart of the report — that justice was being violated. Presbyterians are working to break down walls – between Israelis and Palestinians, between Jews and Christians, and yes, between Christians and Christians – “that stand in the way of the realization of God’s peaceful and just kingdom.” But as fast as the Presbyterians are breaking down walls, Rabbi Adlerstein is working to throw them back up. In the Jewish Journal piece he issues a call for more “friends” who will continue to battle against all those who seek to “erase” Israel. His world remains a world divided between “pro-Israel” and “anti-Israel.” He closes the article speaking about how the “most painful” part of being at the General Assembly was “listening to Jews who came to passionately endorse every anti-Israel initiative. Our community needs to work harder to understand how to retrieve Jews who today stand at the forefront of delegitimizing Israel [sic] efforts.”Rabbi Adlerstein is referring to Jeff Halper, the JVPers, and me. He doesn’t get it. We are no more anti-Israel than are the overtures themselves. We were in Minneapolis to support the report and the other overtures because, like the Presbyterians who invited us, we fervently wish for a future of dignity and freedom for Palestinians and for security and peace for the citizens of Israel. We were there because we wish for a time when we as a people can tear down the walls that we have built to separate us from humankind and that cut us off from a recognition of the suffering that we are causing.Is there a future for a Presbyterian-Jewish “partnership?” Will the wide range of American Jewish organizations listed in the JCPA letter follow the lead of the Wiesenthal Center and continue to adopt an “us and them” attitude? Will they continue to fight the growing movement, at the grassroots and at the highest levels, to bring an end to the illegitimate and destructive policies of Israel? If the Presbyterians are to have true partners in their pursuit of social justice, perhaps they can be found among the 30 American rabbis who wrote to Judge Richard Goldstone when he was blocked from attending a family Bar Mitzvah in South Africa. Or perhaps the church can be joined by by the Jewish writers and artists who brought out the public letter to protest the San Francisco Jewish Federation’s attempt to establish an “anti-Israel” blacklist, or by the 100+ Jerusalem Jews who wrote in outrage to Eli Wiesel when he claimed Jerusalem exclusively for the Jewish people. (For links to these documents, go to “Signs of Hope from the Jewish community.”) Perhaps the denomination could reach out to those Jewish Israelis who, in a cry for help to save them from their own government’s policies, are calling on the world to support the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (LA Times, August 20, 2009, “Boycott Israel”).These are potential “Jewish partners.” But I put the term in quotations as a strong caveat. Seeking out “Jewish partners” should not be confused with engaging in “interfaith dialogue.” The struggle for justice in Palestine is not an interfaith project. It is not about repairing the damage of 2000 years of Christian anti-Jewish behavior and maintaining vigilance about anti-Semitism – although these are important and valid activities. Confusing the pursuit of justice in historic Palestine with interfaith reconciliation has provided the basis for “the rules” for over six decades. The struggle for justice in Palestine is, rather, about building a universal community to confront the full range of urgent issues facing humanity and the planet. We are standing before the prophetic work that must unite us—the fact of being Christian, Jew, or Muslim is not important. (But while we’re on it, what about the potential Muslim partners? See my friend Jim Wall’s recent blog where he takes up this question.) What matters is whether we are for triumphalism or community, for exploiting the poor or freeing them from poverty, for despoiling the earth or honoring and preserving it.That’s the partnership I’m interested in. We find it amply described in the Old and New Testaments, the Kur’an, and the Dhammapada. The call for social justice is one that rings out in all our traditions, and it is a call that the Presbyterian Church (USA) answered in Minneapolis. It is the call issued by Reverend Martin Luther King almost 50 years ago from his jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama:“…the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.”King was lifting up a time when the church was “not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.” Recall that King was responding to an appeal from fellow clergy to back off from civil disobedience. They were asking him to him to work through channels and existing relationships with the white community, arguing that this would yield better results than nonviolent resistance. In his letter King was speaking to the church, but his message went out to all of America – reaching across faith communities and eventually transforming the entire society. For the civil rights movement, the church was the bellweather. It was the organizing force at the grassroots that changed the political wind and brought about the change that politics had failed to achieve.All of us – Presbyterians, Jews (of all persuasions), Muslims –felt that wind blowing in Minneapolis. Moisten a finger — put it in the air – and you will feel it too.Mark Braverman is the author of Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land. His website is markbraverman.org. |
TIAA-CREF is the most ambitious divestment campaign yetPosted: 22 Jul 2010On July 9, 2004, the International Court of Justice found Israel’s Wall built on occupied Palestinian land to be illegal under international law. Israel disregarded the Court’s decision and continued to build wherever it pleased. It was one of Israel’s many violations of international law that the international community failed to enforce, and it was the last straw.A year later, on July 9, 2005, Palestinian civil society called for the international community—individuals, organizations, companies, and governments—to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights, believing it to be a powerful form of non-violent resistance to injustice.Amid a growing global effort to heed the call of Palestinian civil society, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is asking TIAA-CREF, one of the largest financial service institutions in the US, to divest from the Israeli occupation. One of the most ambitious divestment campaigns so far, it is not a direct boycott of Israel but rather a call for divestment from five major corporations—three American, one French, and one Israeli—that profit from Israel’s violations of international law.These violations include building segregated roads and rail systems that entrench violations of international law, constructing illegal settlements on Palestinian land, destroying Palestinian homes as acts of collective punishment or ethnic cleansing, severe daily oppression, and wildly disproportionate attacks that devastate civilian areas and regularly kill women and children.TIAA-CREF was chosen for three main reasons. First, they care about socially responsible investment. Their motto is “Financial Services for the Greater Good,” and they have a “social choice” account for people who wish to invest only in companies that are certified as being socially responsible. They have already divested from four companies that profited from the genocidal policies in Darfur.Second, it is huge—the largest fund of its kind in the world. Its holdings in the five targeted companies—Caterpillar, Elbit Systems, Motorola, Veolia, and Northrup Grumman—total more than half a billion dollars. A successful campaign would not only be a heavy financial and public relations burden for these companies, it would also set an important precedent for others to follow.Finally, TIAA-CREF has 60 offices in the US and 15,000 client institutions in the academic, research, medical, cultural and nonprofit fields. You can find networks of TIAA-CREF participants almost anywhere you go, and each has a voice in where they wish their money to be invested.It will undoubtedly be a long and arduous campaign, but it is already moving faster than anyone anticipated. JVP publicly announced the campaign and sent a letter to TIAA-CREF earlier this month. A representative got back to them quickly, declining to divest and explaining, “Our responsibility to earn a competitive financial return on the retirement savings entrusted to us by 3.7 million participants obliges us to invest in a diverse line-up of companies across all sectors of the global economy.”They went on, “We believe that concerns about the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are best addressed by U.S. foreign policy and lend themselves less to using one’s shareholder status to influence portfolio companies,” and stated that divestment from the Sudan had been in accord with US foreign policy whereas divestment from Israel’s occupation is not.The arguments they put forth—that the bottom line is more important than social responsibility, and that they will not undertake actions unless they fall in line with US foreign policy—lend themselves to easy repudiation. The first directly contradicts TIAA-CREF’s motto while the second implies that divestment from South African Apartheid was wrong as long as the US government had friendly relations with that government. It effectively neuters the free will and conscience of any individual, organization, or company that disagrees with any aspect of US foreign policy.JVP never expected them to agree to divestment on the first salvo. But the letter was encouraging in that it arrived so promptly, and that they took the campaign seriously enough to feel the need to justify their investment choices. TIAA-CREF also agreed to meet with representatives of the campaign, including Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Law, Barbara Harvey of JVP-Detroit, and Valerie Hoenin of the Sisters of Mercy, on July 21.The meeting took place a day after the CREF annual shareholder’s meeting, in which nearly ninety percent of concerns raised by members revolved around divestment from the occupation, with strong audience support. JVP also delivered 1,300 postcards signed by people who support divestment. The board seemed surprised and impressed by the depth and breadth of the campaign. Not a single audience member voiced opposition to it, which indicates changing tides indeed.JVP is circulating a petition of support for their campaign, which 15,000 people have already signed. Interested individuals can view the petition and sign it here. If successful, this campaign, which has barely begun and already has tremendous momentum and support, might be looked back upon as a turning point in the global effort to delegitimize Israel’s occupation.Pamela Olson was a journalist based in the West Bank for two years and is now living in New York writing a book about her experiences called Fast Times in Palestine. |
TNR: Neoconservatives are liberalsPosted: 22 Jul 2010Adam Kirsch, a literary critic who is also published in the New York Review of Books and Tablet, has a semi-whitewash review in the current TNR on the history of neoconservatism in foreign policy. The good old polemical word “cabal,” going back to 17th c. England, is once again said to be essentially anti-Semitic. The word Israel appears briefly, and in a parenthesis.Kirsch is honest that neoconservatism comes out of the Jewish community, and he says that neoconservatives have sometimes gone too far, they were wrong about how the Iraq war would go. But people of good will must “sympathize with neoconservative aspirations and anxieties.” They care more than most about freedom, and why not? The freer the society, the more Jews thrive.
This is an expression of Jewish selfishness. Michael Otterman tells me that there are 5 million refugees in Iraq, 2.7 internally, 2.5 outside the country. So an Arab society is demolished, 20 percent of its population is uprooted, surely including the educated/privileged; imagine such a thing happening in the U.S.– 60 million people? But Kirsch can dispose of this rapidly as a “failure” of liberalism. It’s not liberalism. It’s an ideology informed by militant Zionism, and therefore indifferent to Arab refugees, Arab souls.I notice in Robert Kaplan’s tricky/snarky book The Arabists that he repeatedly ignores the Palestinian refugees and describes Israel’s creation as a triumph of American liberalism.Well I am a liberal Jewish American, and I sympathize with Arab “anxieties” in the face of unending violence. |
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would it be possible to translate your website into spanish because i have difficulties of speaking to english, and as there are not many pictures on your website i would like to read more of what you are writting