Witch Hunt
After Ali Abunimah
and Hussein Ibish published in the Internet their letter against
Shamir, broad polemic pro and contra broke out in the
cyberspace. The following is a volume of the polemics on Shamir,
anti-Semitism, and policies of the Jewish supporters of
Palestine.
Lana Turner
My friends asked me
to comment on the letter of Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish. They
spoke against what they feared might be my anti-Semitism. I am
certainly pleased with their principled stand. As a Jew and a
man, I salute them. Any irrational aversion to Jews should be
certainly eradicated and condemned. While saluting their good
intentions, I consider their judgment to be somewhat premature.
It is based on my Easter greetings which they failed to
understand. Christopher Bollyn of The SPOTLIGHT stated it well.
He wrote:
"I realize that
neither of you are probably deeply immersed in Christianity, but
you must understand that Shamir …compares the Israelis, Jews,
and Americans to spectators of an execution that they can do
something to prevent. "I say to you, each one of us has to see
oneself as is he personally stands on Via Dolorosa, and decides,
whether the execution will be carried out. If we keep our mouth
shut, we deserve to be called 'Christ killers'. If we stop it,
we shall change history. The sins of the past, scarlet as blood,
will become white as snow,"
Shamir wrote. He is
demanding that Jews, Israelis, and Americans do something to
prevent the bloodbath that is occurring in Palestine as we
speak."
Indeed, while the
Jews of old provide background to the Passion, all of us are the
background of the present suffering of the Palestinians, which
was the theology behind my Take Two. In other words, all of us,
Jews and Gentiles alike, are 'the Jews' of the Palestinian
Passion.
I perceive the
excitement of Mr Abunimah and Mr Ibish could be generously
explained away by their relative innocence of theology and
history. They even put the exclamation mark of 'sic' after my
words, failing to recognize the quotation from the prophets
(scarlet sins and white snow) which is a part of Yom Kippur
liturgy. They are not attuned to read what I wrote.
Anyway, Ali
Abunimah and Hussein Ibish are entitled to their opinions. Their
concern for the purity of the Palestinian banner meets my
approval. However, my appreciation of their position is slightly
diminished by some additional facts. The present accusatory
letter is not the first, nor the second they composed in
connection with my humble self. In their previous letters, the
accusation of anti-Semitism was absent, but they called me
alternatively a Mossad agent, a pursuer of Arab money, and even
a false pretender to the high rank of an Israeli Russian
journalist and a Vesti columnist. Such insistence combined with
inconsistence makes one wonder if their goals were limited to
fighting anti-Jewish prejudice. If I were a suspicious man, I
would probably suspect their motives.
But I am ready to
give Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish full benefit of any doubt.
It is probable that they were motivated not by spite and envy,
not by a fear of competition or of 'rocking the boat', not by
working in cahoots with the Jewish lobby, but by nobler
feelings. They remind me of the young police officer in this
period piece movie, LA Confidential, who tries to arrest a blond
Lana Turner look-alike, and proclaims: "a hooker who looks like
Lana Turner is still a hooker, not Lana Turner." His colleague
stops him: "she IS Lana Turner!" The kid made a silly mistake.
In plain words, I
do not pretend to be a friend of Palestine: I am a friend of
Palestine. I am quite used to this sort of accusations, they are
the professional hazard for whoever is engaged in the struggle.
A fainthearted man should fight for the well-being of whales, as
it is a noble cause that brings no flak.
Now I shall refer
to other concerns raised by Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish. As
for my alleged comparison of the Jews with 'virus', I quote the
lines of Ellen Cantarow, who was present at the talk.
"I do want to
stress that the comment about "viruses" cited by Ali in his
letter was taken out of context. I was there; I heard the talk.
This is NOT what Shamir said. Which makes me feel that THE
JERUSALEM POST reference should be looked up in context. I do
not feel it wise, when one has not read the entirety of a text,
especially in a controversy like this one, to fan the flames by
circulating partial statements. For those on the limited list to
whom I send this note, in the Tufts talk Shamir referred to the
movie "Matrix," with its references to "organic" "mammals" and
to predatory viruses. He then said that the original Palestinian
population had an "organic" relation to the land in Palestine,
whereas the European-Jewish immigrants and colonists did not,
and in their consequent actions, expelling the original
inhabitants, destroying villages with beautiful architecture,
etc., could be compared to the "viruses" in "Matrix." I find
this in perfect keeping with his "Dulcinea" essay and other
pieces".
I would add to it,
that in my opinion every man, Jew or Gentile, can choose whether
to behave like a virus or like a mammal, or even as a vulture.
It is actually an idea deeply rooted in the Zionist discourse of
Hertzl and Borochov, who wished to reconnect Jews and soil as
the means of rejuvenation of the Jewish people. In my opinion,
it failed because the settlers did not connect to the native
inhabitants of the land.
Let us move on to
the blood-libel accusation in the Jerusalem Post, repeated by
Ali Abunima and Hussein Ibish. This Conrad Black newspaper
wrote: "One of NIF's beneficiaries is the Israel-Palestine
Friendship Center in Tel Aviv. The center promotes the
Palestinians' 'right of return' to their pre-1948 homes. Two
weeks ago, Russian-language journalist Israel Shamir told a
largely Jewish audience: 'Jews only exist to drip the blood of
Palestinian children into their matzas.' No one protested."
It is obviously
rubbish. I certainly did not say the words they attribute to me.
Have no doubt, the nice middle-class Jewish audience in Tel
Aviv, where the misquoted talk was given, would protest such
silly stuff instead of pouring their love on the speaker. The
purpose of the JP allegation was to smear these wonderful
people, who work very hard on charity lines to feed the hungry
and clothe the needy in the besieged villages. It is to be
regretted that Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish were deceived by
the right-wingers' blood libel against Israeli supporters of
Palestinian rights.
As for the blown
out of proportion question of whether I write for Vesti, one
answer was given by the brilliant columnist of a Jerusalem
newspaper, Kol Ha'ir, Haim Baram. He wrote: "Who cares if Mr
Shamir writes in Vesti or not? His articles are interesting and
his approach non-conformist. Somehow, I don't really believe
that you were out to vindicate Shamir, but rather to discredit
him. I reject your dubious endeavour (on behalf of the fascist
settlers?) with utter contempt."
Just for the sake
of clarity I may add that I was asked to discontinue my regular
column CONTRA in the Vesti newspaper after the Rape of Dulcinea
was published, at the request of a certain American Jewish
journalist attached to the staff of JP. It is a loss of income
and of means to access my Russian Israeli audience, but I can
bear it without regret.
What I do regret
that at the time Sharon is bombing Lebanon and re-conquering
Gaza I have to waste the much needed time of myself and of you
on such silly accusations. I thank all of you who wrote me
letters of support. Now enough of this stuff, I shall not refer
to it any more and I ask you to refrain from writing more to me
on this subject. Let us concentrate on the question of
Palestine.
As a Russian poet
wrote about a pilot arrested by Stalin after he returned to
Russia from the Civil war in Spain, "The insult hurts, but it is
not the issue: let my destiny befall me, it is the destiny of
mankind I am worried about."
My dear friend, you
HAVE landed yourself in a world of controversy, haven't you. I
have a very small streak of the same lunacy in me; it ruined an
academic career and still lands me in trouble on occasion. If we
ever meet again I'll tell you about the letter I published in
THE HARVARD CRIMSON against my department chairman when I was a
beautiful young graduate student. But - sigh - I guess the years
have worn down my sharp edges; I'm less reckless than you, who
seem still to have a young romantic rebel's heart. I assume
you're on the Al-Awda list and have read all the messages in
question. Here is one I just sent to those on the list who were
disturbed by the "Easter" essay:
My own view about
Shamir is that he's a brilliant and eccentric writer, sometimes
politically imprudent, not anti-Semitic. I don't think the
Easter essay was a bad essay, in fact it was an interesting
essay - but politically unwise. On the other hand one cannot
expect a poet-journalist and magic surrealist, if I may
characterize Shamir as such, to be a political tactician or a
person who doles out his views to fit his audience. That he is
an iconoclast is what attracts his readers and sometimes repels
them. Anyone who wants to come to hear Shamir may do so; those
who feel his view odious may stay away; those who want to
question him about them may do so.
I do want to stress
that the comment about "viruses" cited by Ali in his letter was
taken out of context. I was there; I heard the talk. This is NOT
what Shamir said. Which makes me feel that THE JERUSALEM POST
reference should be looked up in context. I do not feel it wise,
when one has not read the entirety of a text, especially in a
controversy like this one, to fan the flames by circulating
partial statements. For those on the limited list to whom I send
this note, in the Tufts talk Shamir referred to the movie
"Matrix," with its references to "organic" "mammals" and to
predatory viruses. He then said that the original Palestinian
population had an "organic" relation to the land in Palestine,
whereas the European-Jewish immigrants and colonists did not,
and in their consequent actions, expelling the original
inhabitants, destroying villages with beautiful architecture,
etc., could be compared to the "viruses" in "Matrix." I find
this in perfect keeping with his "Dulcinea" essay and pieces.
Still, it is
irrelevant, and i "I say to you, each one of us has to see
oneself as is he personally stands on Via Dolorosa, and decides,
whether the execution will be carried out. If we keep our mouth
shut, we deserve to be called 'Christ killers'. If we stop it,
we shall change history. The scarlet as blood sins of past will
become white as snow," Shamir wrote.
PJ Party: Israel
Shamir and Critics
by Harry Clark -
Religious Rhetoric - ----- Original Message ----- From: Ran
Greenstein To: ALEF
I suspect it is the
product of inability to deal with real issues, and a cheap
attempt to appeal to religious prejudices in order to mobilise
support for political causes. To use notions of blood guilt,
mixed with notions of greed and conspiracy to control the world,
especially at Easter (and Pesah) time, is an old trick aimed to
associate Jews (not Zionists or Israelis) with murder of the
innocent. While I normally reject the equation of anti-zionism
with anti-semitism, in this case it seems irrefutable. Only
someone completely ignorant of Jewish history and the history of
anti-semitism would fail to see it. My concern with this
approach is not merely that it is morally wrong, but that it is
also politically stupid, and serves to undermine the just cause
of the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle.
Ran Greenstein
Johannesburg, South Africa
-----------
Mr Greenstein,
since you say you've never heard of Israel Shamir, you may wish
to visit http://shamir.mediamonitors.net/index.html for a bio
and sample of recent writings, to judge how much he can "deal
with real issues" and knows about Jewish history.
Naim Ateek, a
Palestinian churchman who has invested his life trying to reach
a modus vivendi with his Jewish counterparts, said that Israel
was turning Palestine into Golgotha. Edward Dillon, whose piece
on "Today's Via Dolorosa" from The Link I excerpted in an
earlier msg (downloadable as a Word document; open
ftp://members.aol.com/AMEU/linktext/ViaDFTP.doc in your browser)
is also a veteran of ecumenical dialogue. Mr Greenstein, are
they just part of the easter-seasonal tide of anti-semitic
propaganda? Benny, as a scholar of religion surely you allow
religious discourse from religious people? Perfectly sincere
people are using the most extreme terminology available,
comparing the passion of Christ to the current passion of
Palestine. Shamir's use of the "Christ-killer" epithet is simply
a Jewish escalation of the more restrained Dillon piece, and it
seems Ateek's comment, to Shamir, goaded him into it, which is
admirable in a way. Typically, discussion of this rhetoric
focuses entirely on Jewish moral claims, and ignores Jewish
moral obligations, not to accept such language stoically, but to
have a defensible position on Israel-Palestine, and to
adequately address Jewish chauvinism before before casting
stones on their own behalf.
US Jews Mostly
Bankrupt
A minority of US
Jews support Palestinian rights, as shown by polls commissioned
by the US Jewish establishment (Haaretz, March 7), percentages
ranging from 20-35 on various questions. The establishment tried
to suppress those results. The polls also showed majority
support for Israel's actions, and Jewish institutions reflect
almost no dissent. In October, as Israeli atrocities ramped up,
I attended a talk on "The Future of Israel as a Jewish State" at
the University of Michigan Center for Judaic Studies, to hear a
Jewish Israeli academic call the "new history" of Benny Morris
et al. "nihilism" and "self-doubt" while the leading lights of
Judaic Studies gazed on benignly and a Jewish grad student
raised the only objection.
There is almost
weekly some disgraceful apologetic at Hillel, which has a
blue-and-white sign out front, "Israel, Our Prayers Are With
You." Most recently, Dennis Ross was managed like Stalin before
the Central Committee, allowed 30 min of breezy dissembling
about the total collapse of his policy, followed by
"discussion": no mike, questions only on index cards (pencil and
card on each and every chair) read by the moderators.
Recall the
extraordinary appearance at the Yale Political Union in March of
Elyakim Haetzni, co-sponsored by Yale Friends of Israel and the
Peres Center at Yale (Haetzni once called for Peres's
assassination, according to the Jewish Israeli grad student who
reported it to ALEF). This right-wing fanatic was not opposed by
any speaker, and advanced a "resolution" that "peace with the
Palestinians was not possible" which "carried" by a lopsided
vote, in a bizarre parody of debate. The grad student was
arrested after interjecting, when Haetzni proclaimed his
merciful attitude toward Palestinians, if that included the
massacre of 30 of them by his fellow settlers.
Progressive Judaism
The latest
expression of the "progressive Jewish" ("PJ") conscience is the
"Jewish Unity for a Just Peace" conference in Chicago May 4-5.
This appears to be the outgrowth of Not In My Name, which began
as angry, creative spark when a computer consultant and author,
Steven Feuerstein, appeared outside the confab of Jewish leaders
in Chicago last fall, where Barak spoke, with signs and
leaflets, his first experience of activism. I was impressed, but
when I saw a call for a conference, wondered when the dull gray
moths of PJ would arrive, led by Michael Lerner, Tikkun editor
and proud father of an IDF soldier, who has yet to oppose US
funding of Israel. I didn't have to wait long.
Jewish Unity's
language and program are recycled from similar impulses during
the first intifada 10+ yrs ago, and the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon 10 yrs before that. Here we are in 2001, Sharon is PM,
Palestine is getting the Warsaw Ghetto treatment, and the
announcements only refer discreetly to a "variety of views" and
propose a lowest common denominator of "completely ending
occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip,"
all the while disingenuously protesting "mainstream" Jewish
organizational and media views (see
http://www.junity.org). PJ
follows, does not lead, events. "Jewish Unity" means Jewish
consensus, Jewish limits, the pale of acceptable opinion, beyond
which one cannot go. Marc Ellis has long denounced Lerner and
his PJ establishment. (Not in My Name continues independently,
with links to the SUSTAIN project of ending US funding of
Israel, and other interesting views:
http://www.nimn.org ) Jewish
Contribution to Right-Wing Politics and Ideology
In addition to
common humanity, the model of "Jewish identity" required is that
of classical anti-Zionism, or the "modern, secular Jewish
tradition" as Israel Shahak calls it: the classical liberal,
Enlightenment ideals of juridical citizenship, equality of all
citizens before the law, separation of church and state, etc.
Jewish engagement with this tradition includes Spinoza, Moses
Mendelssohn, Reform Judaism, the Jewish presence in liberal
causes, from social democracy to bolshevism, the extraordinary
Jewish cultural efflorescence in central Europe in the 19th
century, the epic migration to the US, and avid pursuit of the
opportunities of liberal society.
This model suffered
a catastrophic defeat in Germany 1933-45, but Zionism agreed
totally with that logic, if not its ultimate expression. Herzl
(and Zangwill and the Territorialists) were the last Zionists to
be concerned with the Jewish nation of eastern Europe, in their
quixotic fashion, with grandiose plans to evacuate millions to
Argentina, East Africa, Palestine, wherever. The Jewish masses
needed no false messiahs, and moved to the US.
After Herzl's death
Zangwill and the Ts left the movement, which recast itself as an
elite project of national renewal, concerned with "the problems
of Judaism, not of Jewry" in Ahad Ha'am's lofty phrase. The
Zionists agreed completely with the anti-Semites on the failure
of liberal society and need of a separate state for Jews. At the
Versailles conference the Jewish national movement politicked
for the British Mandate and its Palestine project, leaving the
fate of the Jewish nation in the former Russian imperial domains
to the American Jewish Committee, who sought minority rights
guarantees in the new states.
When the Nazis came
to power US Jewish activists started the boycott of German
goods; the Zionists responded with the Transfer Agreement. These
complex arrangements used the assets of wealthy German Jews to
export German goods through Palestine, earning foreign exchange
for Germany, breaking the boycott and handing the Nazis a major
practical and propaganda victory when the regime was just
finding its feet and vulnerable to world pressure. Transfer was
also a boomlet for the Jewish Palestine economy, and got a
relative handful of Jews out of Germany.
The Zionists
undermined the democracies' Evian Conference on Jewish
humanitarian relief after Kristallnacht because it detracted
from their national project. Throughout the war, in the US, the
UK and Palestine, they saved their political capital for the
coming struggle over Palestine, rather than expending it
agitating about the Judeocide and for rescue, (and collaborated
in various ways with the Nazis, as in the Kastner affair, etc)
In 1945-48 they
drove the British out of Palestine, conducted the Truman
Administration's Palestine policy like Leonard Bernstein leading
the New York Philharmonic, routed the indigenous Palestinian
forces, "colluded across the Jordan" with King Abdullah to
divide Palestine, and routed the Arab armies who reluctantly
entered the fray after May 15, expelling 750,000 or so
Palestinians by design and default.
The rest, as they
say, is history, of internal "Judaization"--indigenous
dispossession and ethnic cleansing--and malignantly aggressive
foreign policy. A quarter-century of occupation of the
territories conquered in 1967 culminated, in dramatically
changed international circumstances, in the collapse of the PLO
and its enlistment as Israel's quisling in administering
Palestinian bantustans. The pent-up frustration has finally
shaken that diabolical arrangement to its rotten foundations,
and it is unclear if Dennis Ross can put it back together as he
expects.
In sum, there has
never been a positive reason to be a Zionist. Israel's cultural
and intellectual accomplishents are fatally compromised by
Zionism; how could it be otherwise, given the daily headlines?
Yerah Gover, in "Zionism: The Moral Limits of Israeli Hebrew
Fiction", judges Hebrew literature. Israel Finkelstein and
Menahem Ussishkin are trying to overturn the biblical
interpretations of archaeology, against heavy resistance. The
"new historians", celebrated in the west, are marginal to
Israeli society. Ilan Pappe dismissed "post-Zionism", likewise
celebrated, as a cultural phenomenon of negligible political
impact.
he "Diaspora" must
be affirmed as the locus of positive Jewish accomplishment; see
Joel Finkel's admirable statement on the NIMN site. Jacob
Neusner once called Israel an "intellectual backwater of the
Jewish world" in the Washington Post. Zionism must be seen
simply as the Jewish contribution to modern right-wing politics
and ideology. It replaced the pre-modern "Jewish question" with
a new "Jewish state question." Whatever else it may be, Israel
is a rabidly chauvinist, militarist, religious, nuclear-armed
Jewish ghetto.
Solution States
The classical
anti-Zionist solution was a democratic, secular state in all of
Mandate Palestine. 5-10 yrs after the 1967 war, proposals for a
two-state solution became staples of diplomacy, except for
Israel and the US. A 2-state solution also became the
conventional wisdom of the Respectable Left in the US,
idealistic talk of a unitary state, and of the illegitimacy of
Zionism, being eschewed as unpragmatic. RL overlaps but is not
identical with PJ; Middle East Report is the leading voice; Prof
Joel Beinin of Stanford, long a pillar of MER, is a co-organizer
of the PJ conference. His 1990 book, "Was the Red Flag Flying
There? Marxist Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Egypt
and Israel, 1948-1965" eruditely reduces internationalist
history and outcomes to mutual acceptance of a 2-state solution.
Such pragmatism is
much a historical artifact as Ottoman banknotes. As the PLO was
inching toward its 2-state acceptance in Algiers in November,
1988, Israel was engorging Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza,
blasting the PLO out of Lebanon, killing its leaders in Tunis,
and crushing the Intifada. When the PLO, literally and
figuratively bankrupt, adopted Zionist practice and made the
movement the raison d'etre of the nation by becoming Israel's
quisling partner at Oslo, it was recognized in Israel as
Zionism's greatest victory since 1948, the end of hopes for
genuine Palestinian sovereignty.
A Palestinian state
entered Israeli political discourse precisely because it became
a fig leaf for apartheid. Israeli policy itself is raising the
classical solution of a unitary, democratic state in Palestine.
There is one today--for Jews. Israeli policy is also raising
darker possibilities. As demographic and economic factors
imperil Jewish statehood, the Israeli establishment contemplates
"transfer" of the Palestinians, both those under occupation and
even its own citizens ("A Very Moving Scenario", Yair Sheleg,
Haaretz, March 23).
Israel Shamir finds
the comparison with apartheid unfair to white supremacy, which
never used tanks and helicopter gunships against black
townships, calling Zionism "creeping genocide" ("Mamilla Pool",
http://shamir.mediamonitors.net/april242001.html ) What might
induce the millions of undesirables to assent to the "moving
scenario" isn't explained, but walking or loping genocide will
certainly help.
Since Oslo, there
have been periodic calls to restart the Palestinian solidarity
movement as a struggle against Zionist apartheid, like the South
Africa liberation movement. Edward Said recently called ("Time
to Turn to the Other Front", Al-Ahram, March 30) for depicting
the Palestinian struggle as one of liberation. Said rejects a
two-state solution, calling for a bi-national state, recognizing
that Zionism is wrong in principle. It cannot be so only outside
the Green Line.
I am not concerned
with immediate outcomes in Israel/Palestine, but with raising
the level of discussion in the US. The PJ conference claims a
media spotlight is shining on it. Let it then issue, among other
things, a ringing affirmation of universalist values, an
unequivocal condemnation of Zionism as a form of racism, and a
warning against Jewish chauvinism, not a 25-yr old call to "end
the occupation."
Let it lead, not
follow, the minority of US Jews who disagree with the Israeli
government and their own establishment. Let it be as radical as
Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, and Edward Said. The gulf between
such action and the PJ mindset measures the failure of left
Jewish intellectuals to educate about Zionism, to question the
legitimacy of a Jewish state, due to misguided pragmatism, or to
their own chauvinism.
Universalism
The Israel lobby, a
galaxy of formally and informally related, mostly Jewish
institutions of all sorts, has obviously not invented the
characteristics of US society that it so enhances and supports
on Israel's behalf, namely, its imperial reach, its militarism,
its racism. Yet to consider the relationship of US policy on the
Arab-Israeli conflict to Jewish activity is to encounter PJ yet
again, or its intellectual outer works, the Respectable Left.
The RL (in addition to Middle East Report Stephen Zunes is an
acolyte on this point) claims that Jewish activity makes no
difference whatever, that US policy would be exactly the same in
its absence. RL truncates Marxist outcomes to a two-state
solution in the Middle East, but in the US is all rigorous
political economy, rejecting national factors like Lenin and
Trotsky attacking the Bund.
This claim is
preposterous to the naive observer, and it trips at the starting
line, in the nascent Israel lobby's virtuoso orchestration of
the Truman Administration's Palestine policy 1945-48, when it
prevailed over the unanimous wish of the foreign policy
establishment and elite opinion generally.
t would also fail
at the finish line, in the extraordinary Zionisation of Middle
East policy under Clinton: unprecedented intervention to make
Martin Indyk a US citizen to head the Middle East desk at the
National Security Council and his "dual containment" of Iran and
Iraq. Richard Murphy, ex-State Department official, attributed
DC entirely to the Israel lobby, urging Clinton to open
negotiations with it, like treating with a foreign power.
Iraq sanctions are
openly violated. Iran has concluded detente with its Arab Gulf
neighbors despite US efforts to foment division, and is leading
the race for Central Asian gas and oil exploitation, as US firms
clamor for access to Iranian markets. The true "fateful
triangle" is the Jewish state, the US Israel lobby, and the US
national security state.
Denial of US Jewish
organizations' responsibility in US Middle East policy is
related to suppression of universalist ideas of Jewish identity
in relation to outcomes in Israel/Palestine. When you cannot
accept the former you have no reason to explore the latter; when
you cannot talk of the latter, you have no positive examples to
counterbalance the former.
Also undeniable is
that the PLO's stewardship of the Palestinian cause has been a
total disaster. The "cult of the gun" that Edward Said derided
decades ago blossomed into Arafat's national security statelet
with its myriad police and intelligence services. As Israel has
overplayed its irredentist hand, every official gunman could
become a patriot by pulling the trigger. The possibility of a
non-violent, popular, Gandhian struggle like the first Intifada,
and the early phase of the current one (still asserted at
times), is overwhelmed in feeble military sallies and Israel's
head for an eye, jaw for a tooth response.
Of course the PLO
and the Palestinian people have tried peace, in many ways, and
Israel has always responded with literal or figurative war, most
recently in exploiting the Oslo regime. Recent non-violent
efforts have met with repression, precisely because they are
more threatening. Baruch Kimmerling condemned the violence of
the IDF and settlers, the ceaseless engorgement of Palestinian
land, the siege-like control of movement, the infinite
harassment and humiliation, and the immoral, stupid bombings
within the Green Line, while affirming the Palestinians' "Right
to Resist" the flagrantly immoral and illegal, 34-year old
occupation (Haaretz, March 27).
For what polls are
worth in occupied Palestine, Palestinians are deeply embittered,
no surprise ("73% of Palestinians Support Suicide Bombings",
Daniel Sobelman, Haaretz, April 24). Many apparently feel there
is little choice between the Oslo treatment and the Warsaw
Ghetto treatment even in the short run. Our task is addressing
not Palestinian tactics, but the US govt, whose support alone
enables Israel to oppress and abuse them, which is
overwhelmingly responsible for the perpetuation of the
conflict.
In that task,
Palestinian supporters in the US have also failed. Rather than
assert democratic values, and criticise the corruption and
incompetence of the PLO, supporters merely chanted a stupid
slogan, "recognize the PLO". They were totally unprepared when
the PLO walked off a cliff at Oslo. Eight years later, as Oslo
collapses and the solidarity movement rebuilds, it faces a huge
moral and practical deficit, having now to assert democracy and
accountability, above all, to reach the American people
effectively, after Oslo's crippling precedents.
Edward Said
recounted ("Time to Turn to the Other Front", Al-Ahram, March
30) a decision by leading Palestinian businessmen and
intellectuals late in 1982 to undertake a comprehensive
information campaign in the West, recognizing that informing
those publics is half (or more) of the battle. The campaign did
not materialize for reasons Said cannot recall. In "These Are
the Realities" (Al-Ahram, April 19) Said calls for a "movement
of everyone" for Palestinian liberation, including elements of
the US Jewish community and the Israeli public.
PJ is parochial,
not universalist. The JUNITY agenda begins with a presentation
on how Jewish traditions inform peace activism, and the balance
of the program is much concerned with Jewish outreach and
education. Its favored mode of interaction is the "Arab-Jewish
dialogue", which it enters from a position of moral equivalence,
or even superiority, e.g., " 'We' have suffered, you have
suffered, let's talk." (See Edward Said's scathing account of
"dialogue" in "Peace and Its Discontents"). Jewish Unity invites
a favored Arab-American, Ali Abunimah ("Working With Our
Allies") to certify its presentation.
PJ, as formulated
for years at Tikkun, may be collapsing under the weight of
circumstances. If the Jewish Unity conference began in tired PJ
terms, the proposals now on the web site go beyond it on many
issues, including one that emphasizes working with others. As
Marc Ellis wrote of PJ attitudes, "Jewishness is important, but
it is not enough." We need, not PJ slumber parties, but a
conference to found an all-party movement, not to celebrate
Jewish (or anyone's) ethics, but to begin with hard thought
about how and why we have arrived at the present disaster,
surely the prerequisite to charting the way out.
he maturation of
Arab-American politics is also necessary. As long as Jewish
groups brings to the table the most effective initiatives like
the Campaign Against Home Demolition, or congressional proposals
against Israel's funding, they may bring their presumption with
them (compare those projects to the content of ADC or Al-Awda
sites). This is in part a function of inherent Jewish access to
the oppressor camp, as well as greater experience in US
political culture.
Shamir's Critics
This is the
landscape in which Israel Shamir appeared, a fresh, eloquent
voice, some of whose rhetoric raised some Jewish hackles.
Stanley Heller at least attached his name to his objections (see
http://www.thestruggle.org/interview.html ). In a later
e-mail he explains that then he was 95% satisfied with Shamir's
views, but after the Easter "Christ-killers" remark, became
neutral. Heller does not state his views on Naim Ateek, or
Edward Dillon, Palestinian and US churchmen, who both compared
the passion of Christ to the passion of Palestine; he doesn't
understand or care that Shamir's statement was an angry, Jewish
escalation of his friend Ateek's statement to him. Heller notes
that Shamir "was heavily criticized for this by reknowed
Palestinian media critic Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish." Like
many, I've admired the work of Ibish and Abunimah in speaking
out and rallying a new generation of activists. They are correct
to be concerned about the rhetoric of criticism of Israel and of
US Jewish support for it. There has been a sad escalation in
ethnic and religious attacks from the Arab side since last fall,
which only matches the Zionist side, but cannot be countenanced
if we hope to campaign against Zionist depredations.
Shamir's (and
Ateek's and Dillon's) rhetoric is not mine; I'm neither a Jewish
provocateur nor a practicing Christian. But with artistic
insight Shamir addresses the origins of Jewish chauvinism in
"chosenness" and distinctions between Jews and non-Jews in
Talmudic Judaism, as well as pointing to its genocidal
potential. Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky also feel Jewish
religion is the foundation, whatever Zionism later added or
expressed in secular terms.
This is not a
subject US Jews like to consider. It is not a subject I like to
consider. What satisfaction is there in pointing out others'
faults? But while my tax dollars support institutionalized
atrocities rationalized by Zionist ideology, I will consider it.
The fire-breathing Birmingham (MI) Temple, home of famed
Reconstructionist Rabbi Sherwin Wine, declined to sponsor an
appearance of Mezvinsky, co-author with Shahak of "Jewish
Fundamentalism in Israel," without a "balancing speaker," and
"Israel Shahak does not represent mainstream Israel, you know"
(Mezvinsky began his talk in Ann Arbor by quoting critiques of
Jewish religion from Haaretz). Of course, Shahak's critiques
have long been anathema to the Respectable Left at Middle East
Report.
In their "Dear
Laurie" letter to the Al-Awda list, Abunimah and Ibish show no
confidence in the discrimination and intelligence of the
Arab-Americans whom they presume to lead, seem to expect mass
ignorance instead. They also show that their denunciation of
Shamir was not the spontaneous eruption of conscience:
"we received a
large number of messages from long-standing allies of the
Palestinians in the Jewish community who had felt extremely
uncomfortable about Shamir"
One such msg I saw
practically squealed with delight and praised Abunimah and Ibish
for their "courage", but there is nothing less courageous in the
US than charging someone with anti-semitism.
A simple msg to
Al-Awda noting that some had reservations about Shamir's
rhetoric, with perhaps an explanatory comment, would have
sufficed. But the Abunimah/Ibish statements against Shamir are
shrill, self-righteous, almost hysterical, in contrast to
Shamir's measured and tolerant response. Stung by the PJ lash,
A/I gallop madly past any thought on the origins of the Easter
msg. They seize upon a sentence in the Jerusalem Post about one
talk to denounce Shamir as a voelkisch agitator, a view flatly
contradicted by a member of that audience (which they have not
acknowledged that I have seen).
Israel Shamir in Toledo
Shamir spoke in
Toledo on April 18 because I forwarded an e-mail about his
availability to a member of the Greater Toledo Arab-American
Association, which organized a solid program on very short
notice. Maryse Mikhail, their elder stateswoman, with her
husband Ramzy had just endowed a lecture on Middle East Peace at
the University of Toledo. Noam Chomsky gave the first lecture in
early March to a packed ballroom of 1,200.
The evening of the
lecture I went to Toledo and met Shamir and the GTAAA for
dinner. The GTAAA are a fine group of patriots, responding in
the Arab nation's hour of need, and upholding the better
impulses of their adopted land. The organizers knew all about
the "controversy", had packets of Shamir's writings to
distribute, including Stanley Heller's interview. They had the
media all over Shamir, notices and interviews on the evening TV
news, reporter from the Toledo Blade at dinner and the talk.
There was a story in the Blade the next day, and an editorial
(not an op-ed) on April 28 about a unitary, democratic state in
Palestine
http://www.toledoblade.com Shamir's talk was perfectly
unexceptionable, exemplary in many respects. He discussed
"Jewish supremacism" briefly, and democratic values, including a
single state in Palestine, inter alia, for 25-30 minutes; he
took questions for nearly an hour. 100 or so came, mostly
Arab-Americans. One organizer commented that it was the first
time any of them had considered a unitary, bi-national state in
Palestine (as opposed to the Arafat regime). Another comment was
how constructive it was for Palestinians to hear an Israeli Jew
who is on their side (even if they didn't like all they heard;
"he's just another Zionist," snapped one elderly man to me as he
stalked out at the end, and other Palestinians had criticisms).
After the talk
there were refreshments and conversation, and several of us
accompanied Shamir to a local restaurant. Christopher Bollyn,
whose citation by Shamir Stanley Heller had noted with alarm
("He did respond, but very disturbingly used as a quote of
support a writer for "Spotlight" which I understand to be a far
right anti-Jewish publication!") was at the lecture and with us
the rest of the evening. Bollyn, in his account, has some
experience in the Middle East; as a teenager in the mid-1970s he
wound up in Iran, broke, and rode a bicycle through Turkey,
Syria and Jordan to Israel. There he worked on a kibbutz and
married (and later divorced) an Israeli woman. He speaks fair
Arabic and Hebrew.
I must confess,
however, that I was shocked to find that Bollyn is virulently,
irretrievably, rude. After we'd been seated for some time at the
restaurant, Bollyn twice rearranged people to be closer to
Shamir, the second time elbowing me aside, brandishing his
camera with zoom lens like a bishop parting his flock, bumping
me down one place at the table. He then proceeded to dominate
the conversation with unoriginal questions. Shamir twice
proferred the plate of nachos to me, as if in compensation, and
once said, "Christopher, you know what you oppose, but not what
to stand for." After laughing all the way back to Ann Arbor, we
did the only decent thing and passed his name to Dear Abey at
the Auntie Deportment League. I looked briefly at a copy of The
Spotlight and found no smoking guns; a curious piece about
"suppression of white culture" was mainly about schoolkids not
being able to put confederate flags on their backpacks. But I do
not vouch for The Spotlight and Liberty Lobby and all their
connections and antecedents. I don't monitor far-right
defamation groups; I've never understood the difference between
CAMERA ("Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and
Analysis") and FLAME ("Facts and Logic About the Middle East").
Writers are routinely cited for all kinds of purposes and Shamir
cannot be blamed for it. The question for Shamir's critics is
whether and why they have marginalized him with Arab-Americans,
a refugee from Paul Findley's congressional district, and
(presumably) a libertarian crank? When did any of these critics
stimulate an editorial in a mainstream paper about a secular
democratic state in Palestine? Of course, many (most?) PJs don't
want such a state...is that part of the problem?
Nor can I account
entirely, or even mostly, for Israel Shamir, beyond his web page
and recent writings, his talk, and a bit of conversation, the
vast majority of it unexceptionable. I've read his web site bio
and I don't really care about anything else. All that should
matter to anyone is that he has illuminating things to say about
the disaster in Israel/Palestine.
If Shamir's PJ
critics were honest about the state of Israel and US Jewish
support for it, they would be absorbed in addressing US Jewish
institutions and realize how absurd their gleeful pursuit of
Shamir is. They would "out" the chauvinism passing for scholarly
activity at Jewish academic centers across the land, make
indignant representations to Yale University, its Political
Union and Friends of Israel for bringing a racist to "carry" an
(unopposed!) "resolution" defaming the Palestinians, among
myriad examples. Let the "Jewish Unity" conference this weekend
in Chicago be marked by raucous, emphatic disunity, by real
debate about Zionism, about "Jewish identity", history,
obligations, actions, not affirmation of comforting, familiar
formulas, not spinning wheels, but a real advance toward the
peace and justice in Palestine that we all care deeply about.
From: "Frank
Rosenthal" frank@purdue.edu
To: "Steven
Feuerstein"
steven@stevenfeuerstein.com,
Dear Friends: I
also was disturbed by Israel Shamir's condescending and
accusatory response to Ali Abunimah. Mr. Shamir is apparently
unware of how much many of us value our alliance with the
Palestinian American community and specifically how much we
value the work of Ali Abunimah. Also I feel that Shamir's long
response to Ali and Ibish did nothing to address the concerns
that they raised. Those of us who object to Shamir, are not
objecting to his criticism of Israel and his support of
Palestinian human rights. That's fine. What we object to is his
use of this issue to promote an anti-Jewish agenda (e.g.
portraying Jews as Christ killers). And we object to his
portraying the conflict as a religious conflict rather than a
political one. These positions are not only wrong but they are
also very divisive and detrimental to the organizing work we are
doing in support of the Palestinian struggle and for a just
peace. Frank ***************************
Frank S. Rosenthal,
Ph.D. From: Steven
Feuerstein
mailto:steven@stevenfeuerstein.com Sent: Wednesday, April
18, 2001 1:29 PM
Friends - I know
Ali Abunimah well. He is one of the smartest and more principled
human beings I have, in fact, ever met. I am some 13 years older
than him, but every time we are together I think to myself: "I
want to be like him when I grow up." Maybe that's why I felt so
disgusted by Israel Shamir's response to concerns raised about
him by Ali Abunimah & Hussein Ibish. In this response, Shamir
says (in part) that: "If I were a suspicious man, I would
probably suspect their motives. But I am ready to give Ali
Abunimah and Hussein Ibish full benefit of any doubt. It is
probable that they were motivated not by spite and envy, not by
a fear of competition or of rocking the boat , not by working in
cahoots with the Jewish lobby, but by nobler feelings." I agree
with Shamir that there are more important things to do than to
write emails. One of those things is to challenge unprincipled
and baseless attacks on individuals. The above paragraph
reflects, I believe, a severe ethical and intellectual lapse on
Shamir's part and reinforces my concerns about him. Ali and
Hussein raised serious concerns. Shamir replied with personal
attacks and word games. I also also astonished that Shamir would
rely on a reference from a journalist at Liberty Lobby's
Spotlight to support his views and reputation. Liberty Lobby is
an extreme right-wing organization with fascist and neo-nazi
inclinations. Any friend of Liberty Lobby is no friend of mine.
SF Date: Thu, 19
Apr 2001 11:22:54 EDT From:
rer137@aol.com
Subject: Re:
"witch-hunt"
How is it a
"witch-hunt"? I do not know Israel Shamir, but I have met Ali
abu Nima and he and Steven Feuerstein are friends. Shamir, in
his typical fashion, leveled an "insinuendo" as Mayor Daley
would call it against Ali. What is wrong with defending your
friends against implied slander?
Message: 6 Date:
Thu, 19 Apr 2001 17:15:55 -0000 From: "fouzi slisli"
fouzislisli@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Re:
"witch-hunt"
Dear friends I
thought manifestations of backward tribalism were an issue and a
concern only among our Arab nation. Apparently not. This is not
a question of being on Shamir's side or on A. Abunimah et al. I
actually know of all of them but have never met anyone of them,
and the issue for me is not which side to take. The issue for me
is that Abunimah and Ibish stated their "CONCERNS" and
"SUSPICIONS" with Shamir's piece, but you are not allowing
Shamir to state his "suspicions", although his was milder than
Ali's and Ibish's were. The latter were serious charges, but
it's their right to put them forward, of course respecfully and
cordially. Nobody seems to acknowledge that Shamir did not evade
the charges, either. He answered them. He was respectful and
went through the points one by one. He did not attack Ali and
Ibish, but after explaining his position he wondered why he was
being suspected, not for any retribution I must say but simply
to air the question. Now Ali and Ibish could make a statement
and clarify their position and why they aere suspicious of
Shamir's writing. They could tells us if Shamir convinced them
or not. They asked Shamir to do it, it's just tactful yhat they
return the gesture. My question is why are you taking a
defensive position on their behalf ("What is wrong with
defending your friends against implied slander?")just because
Shamir wondered aloud why is he being suspected and quoted out
of context? I am amazed that people are going for the jugular
because of an "insinuendo." Respectfully Fouzi
Message: 7 Date:
Thu, 19 Apr 2001 10:23:29 -0700 From: "Adam Gutride"
adam@legalmatch.com
Subject: FW: Re:
About Israel Shamir [2]
In response to
Fouzi Slisli, please see the message below from the al-awda
listserv about Mr. Shamir, where the debate has been raging much
more vigorously than on this list. As I wrote directly to Ali
Abunimah, I can understand why the idea of Shamir--Russian
Israeli Jew who attacks Zionism and supports Palestinians--has
such a pull on many Palestinians. But Ali's comparison to
Arab-American and right-wing Israelophile Joseph Farah--see
below--is exactly right. In addition, we are now seeing another
front opening in the PR war about the intifada: that Palestinian
resistance to Israeli aggression is part of a larger campaign of
anti-Jewish attacks throughout the world. See the article in
Ha'Aretz today "Intifada spurred an increase in anti-Semitic
attacks" http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/htmls/kat19_3.htm. So the
real problem with Palestinians supporting Shamir is that
American Jews, who might be convinced to be allies with
Palestinians (and whom we are trying so hard to organize) have
their fears of Arab anti-semitism reinforced, throw up their
hands, and decline to help us.
Dear Laurie,
1) Of course we
raised these concerns with Shamir privately. Hussein
remonstrated with him at length at a meeting three weeks ago to
moderate his anti-jewish language and show greater concern for
the sensitivities of American political discourse. He dismissed
those suggestions out of hand and subsequently made the
lamentable "christ killers" and "jews-as-viruses" statements.
The man appears to be impervious to constructive criticism.
2) Some people in
our community have in their responses to our note revealed a
great deal of hypocrisy. A principal argument deployed is to ask
us who are we to tell a Jew how to speak to Jews or others about
Jews. And that because Shamir identifies himself as Jewish then
what he is saying is fine or true or permissible. This sort of
argument has come particularly from some of those who howled
with anguish at the virulently anti-Arab writings of Joseph
Farah, an Arab-American, who has been embraced by some
slow-witted Zionists as the true, authentic voice of and about
Arabs. The same is true of Abdel Hadi Palazzi, an Italian who
identifies himself as a Muslim cleric, and who advocates the
most extreme right-wing Israeli positions vis a vis Jerusalem.
We are sorry to say that some in our community have received
Shamir in precisely this spirit. We also note that we received a
large number of messages from long-standing allies of the
Palestinians in the Jewish community who had felt extremely
uncomfortable about Shamir and who were growing more and more
alarmed and alienated by our community's apparent unqualified
embrace of everything Shamir has been saying.
3) It is important
to point out that this "conflict" and "imbroglio" results from a
very focussed note of objection to three statements attributed
to Shamir. At no point in our note of concern do we in any way
attempt to speculate as to the motives or the mentality of
Israel Shamir. Nor do we characterize the entirety of his work.
What we said then and we are happy to repeat now is that Shamir
has been introducing themes such as "Jews as christ killers" and
"Jews as viruses" into our conversation that are at best highly
problematic and counterproductive no matter the context in which
they are introduced. Given the Arab American community's
enthusiastic embrace of Shamir, we strongly feel that it is
vital for at least some people in our community to express
reservations about these themes and to clearly state that the
Palestinian movement has no need for arguments which are based
on the villification of others.
4) We think it
would be astonishing if people could not see the difference
between our principled and focussed objection to specific
comments attributed to Israel Shamir and Shamir's own shameless
rant impugning our motives. Is there anyone who thinks that it
is reasonable for such a man to be allowed to say that Ali
Abunimah and Hussein Ibish "probably are not working in cahoots
with the Jewish lobby"? How generous of him to allow for this,
and how ridiculous that he would think that he can get away with
it. Sadly much of the response to our concerns has given Shamir
the impression that he can in fact get away with this kind of
sly accusation. At any rate a comparison of our note and
Shamir's note is sufficient to demonstrate who is raising
serious and legitimate concerns and who is flinging wild
accusations.
5) While some
people may disagree with us, we continue to believe that the
moral content of the conversation on behalf of Palestinian
rights is a serious concern. It is disturbing to us that a man
about whom we know very little and who has increasingly employed
rhetoric which is indefensible should be uncritically championed
by our community. At the very least we felt we had an obligation
to register our objections publicly and to alert our colleagues
to this disturbing pattern. It is a pity that some people have
reacted in a purely emotional manner.
Yours, Ali &
Hussein
PS: Regarding
Shamir's statement: "Just for the sake of clarity I may add that
I was asked to discontinue my regular column CONTRA in the Vesti
newspaper after the Rape of Dulcinea was published, at the
request of a certain American Jewish journalist attached to the
staff of JP."
For your
information, Ali spoke with Pavel Perelmutter an editor at Vesti
this morning. Mr. Perelmutter said that Shamir has never had a
regular column in Vesti, but that it has published his articles
from time to time "with no system" and "with no obligation."
--- In
Al-Awda@y..., "King/Irani"
<capcino@c... wrote:
Dear All, Has Mr.
Shamir killed anyone? Would that we would direct this much
passion to the indictment of Ariel Sharon, or calling a halt,
via civil disobedience or direct action, to US arms shipments to
Israel.
I do not know Mr.
Shamir personally. I was most impressed with the first two or
three of his articles I saw, particularly the "Acid Test Failed"
and the "Rape of Dulcinea," plus another one whose title I
forgot, maybe it was "Winter Fool, Summer Fool" or something
like that. I did, however, find some of his language in the last
two articles too rough and too close to the discourse of
conventional anti-Semitism. But having corresponded by email on
several occasions and by telephone once with Mr. Shamir, I do
not in the least get the sense that he is mean-spirited,
ill-intentioned, an anti-semite or bigoted in any fashion. He is
definitely an iconoclastic writer, he is clearly very well read
and has a unique and compelling perspective on historical events
and political motivations. As a cultural anthropologist, though,
I'd say he does not recognize some implicit but nonetheless
powerful cultural clues and connotations in contemporary US
political discourse, and hence says things that are then
perceived as scandalous.
On the other hand,
I DO know Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish personally. I admire
and respect both of them greatly and think that they are among
the leading lights of their generation in the Arab American
activist/intellectual community. I could never characterize
either one of them as mean-spirited or given to intrigue for the
sake of intrigue. They are both "stand-up guys" and I have to
take their concerns and opinions seriously since I know them and
their work and thus have no reason not to trust what they say.
So this has left a
lot of confusion in my mind. Perhaps the way out of it is to
recall the old Arab saying: "al-`amal bin-niyyah" (The act is in
the intention).
In my gut, I do not
believe that it was Mr. Shamir's intention to be anti-semitic or
offensive or to stir up venemous feelings. His response today
indicates that some of his comments may have been taken out of
context, and that another, (the one reported in the JP), was
completely fabricated. Having little respect for the JP, I'm
inclined to take his word on this one.
I also do not
believe that Ali and Hussein acted on any motivations other than
noble ones. I do not know if they raised these concerns and
critiques personally with Mr. Shamir before sending out the
message. I would hope that they had, and assume that they did.
Unless there are
other dimensions and facts that I do not yet know, and I am open
to hearing more dimensions and opinions if it is with the
intention of learning from and transcending this situation, my
suggestion is that we put this episode behind us, that those who
share concerns about justice in Israel/Palestine and the
cessation of oppression, war crimes, US military and other aid
to Israel, man's inhumanity to man, and racist discourse of all
kinds, can get back to focusing on the big issues. Or, as they
said in the Civil Rights era: "Keep your eyes on the prize."
Best to all,
Laurie Message: 8
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 18:05:39 -0000 From: "Charity Crouse"
charitycrouse@hotmail.com Subject: Re: Re: "witch-hunt"
i don't know if
this continued back and forth is necessary. i think that ali and
hussein raised some concerns and they were recognized and
commented on, and israel responded and raised some concerns and
they were commented on. many don't agree, but we aren't always
going to agree. i think furthering this "defense" of anyone's
points back and forth is just going to divert us from what we
need to be doing. hopefully, israel will take some of the many
comments on what his comrades deem the effectiveness or
destructiveness of his comments under consideration, and ali and
hussein can take stock in the fact that their concerns were
taken seriously and spurred a discussion that should now be
applied. as i see it, there were many strategic points raised
that i think we can depersonalize from israel, ali and hussien
and talk about in a manner which will further our collective
political aims. specifically, i'm thinking of the points raised
concerning the following things:
--effective methods
for communicating points, linking struggles and spurring
critical and constructive dialogue without appearing to condone
or promote sexist, racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic
stereotpyes by drawing on them for imagery purposes and without
speaking in such a hyperbolic manner that misinterpretation can
overshadow necessary and effective points. this is not to say
that metahpor isn't powerful, but i think that we have begun to
think critically about how methods of communication can build or
hinder our further collective movement --the need for multiple
and varying voices to be offering their perspectives on issues
and engaging others. having one spokesperson for a cause or a
"demographic" within that cause is not what a movement based on
justice, peace and democracy is about. rather than continuing to
go on about Israel's merits or detriments, or Ali and Hussein's
intentions, we should be encouraging others to cultivate their
own voices and educate themselves so that they can function as
spokespeople relative to their experiences. it's one thing for
me to say i think that Israel's comment were sexist, but if i
and others can not find a way to offer an alternative then we're
really not helping to change the world; we're just bellyaching
--thinking strategically about issues that we can take beyond
our groups and use to bring awareness to issues in the Middle
East and how the U.S. impacts Israeli policy. i'm thinking in
particular about the short discussion in the Pro-Zionist lobby,
which also delved into the problems with anti-Semitism and
Jewish/Arab representation issues as well as the need to educate
people, including Jews, to the implications and the power of
Pro-Zionist lobbyists. for a while, i was very excited by the
level of discourse that was taking place around that issue. i
felt like we were getting to a point where might be thinking
strategically, and with the Jewish Unity for a Just Peace
Conference coming up, this was inspiring to see and hopefully
will be better targetted once we can get together and
brainstorm, face-to-face, without the dubiousness of internet
personnas clouding our ability to place faith in the sincerity
of one anothers motivation.
Message: 5 Date:
Thu, 19 Apr 2001 09:17:58 -0700 From: "Mashney"
ami@mashneylaw.com Subject: Re: Spotlight on Spotlight
That goes without
saying that many of us, in a knee jerk, shallow and
politically-correct reaction, mindlessly parrot smears directed
against those who remain outside the poisonous tentacles of the
Zionist Lobby. Regardless of their honorable intentions, these
people end up hampering rather than helping our cause by
assisting Zionist in smearing those who resist Zionism. Winston
Churchill once said that he was willing to ally himself with the
devil to defeat Hitler. I don't remember anyone smearing
Churchill as a diabolical veil worshipper. We need all the
allies we can get. Our first priority is to defeat Zionism.
Every other consideration is secondary to that. We cannot
defeat the Zionist Entity without first defeating Zionism.
Sami B. Mashney
=====================
From: "john davies"
I have reviewed the
Spotlight's website, and can find no evidence in the reporting
or the books listed for purchase, of any racism of any kind. The
attached article gets to the point of ethnic cleansing and
massacre using only the terms Zionist and Israeli, not
"Jewish". There seems to be a general anti-bureaucratic and
anti-big government theme, unfortunately to my way of thinking
linked to the Kyoto climate change treaty. But the
anti-corporate fascism themes of multinational corporate
planning, monetarism, free trade, civil resistance, nutrition,
health, are all freely debated in my own community.
I may not agree
with their underlying political ideology, or with their lobbying
against the Kyoto climate change agreement, but what I see here
presented is good critical investigative reporting.
John Davies
_________________________
From:
ahabunim@midway.uchicago.edu Reply-To:
Al-Awda@yahoogroups.com To:
Al-Awda@yahoogroups.com Subject: [AL-AWDA] Re: Spotlight on
Spotlight Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 16:19:17 -0000
John, You obviously
haven't reviewed "The Spotlight" very carefully. I found plenty
of evidence of extreme right-wing and neo-fascist views, such as
the article entitled "Tidal Wave of Aliens Aim at Southwest."
But that was really one of the most benign. There is the section
on the site that posits that the world is run by a group of high
power Jewish families and other "luminaries" who meet secretly
each year called the "Bilderberg Group," among many other
things.
John, you say you
"can find no evidence in the reporting or the books listed for
purchase, of any racism of any kind." In order to give you the
benefit of the doubt I will assume you simply overlooked the
prominent link to a periodical called "The Barnes Review" (TBR)
to whose newsletter one can subscribe directly from the site.
(If you go to spotlight.org, on the right hand side is a column
called "Other Features" where you will see a link to "TBR
Supressed History").
If you follow the
link, one of the real gems you will find in the current issue of
"TBR" is an article called "Concentration Camp Money" by one
Jennifer White. Here are the first two paragraphs of this
article:
"Far from being the
"death camps" as you have heard so often, places like Auschwitz,
Dachau and Buchenwald were not in the business of extermination.
They were work camps, critical to the German war effort. But did
you know that the Jewish workers were compensated for their
labor with scrip printed specifically for their use in stores,
canteens and even brothels? The prisoner monetary system was
conceived in ghettos such as Lodz, carried to camps such as
Auschwitz and Dachau and still existed in the displaced persons
camps that were established by the Allies after World War II.
Here is the story of the money the court historians do not want
you to even suspect existed."
"Piles of
incinerated corpses were indicting images at Nuremberg, used to
prove that the German-run concentration camps during World War
II were intended for purposes of exterminating the Jews of
Europe. How ever, a plethora of documentary evidence, long
suppressed, shows that prisoners were relatively well-treated,
compensated for their hard work and allowed to purchase luxuries
to which even the German public did not have ready access. This
is not the image of abject deprivation that the Holocaust lobby
would like you to entertain."
Another article in
the latest "TBR," by one John Tiffany begins like this:
"Some Mexicans and
Mexican-Americans want to see California, New Mexico and other
parts of the United States given to Mexico. They call it the "reconquista,"
Spanish for "reconquest," and they view the millions of Mexican
illegal aliens entering this country as their army of invaders
to achieve that takeover."
If this is not
racism of some kind, I'd be hard pressed to imagine what is.
Ali Abunimah
Message: 8 Date:
Thu, 19 Apr 2001 11:25:11 -0500 From: "Maan M. Hamze"
mmhamze@pleiades.net Subject: A Shamir Controversy or a
case of Historic Ignorance?
Dear Moderator; I'd
like to ask you to help stop the argument raging on Israel
Shamir on your list.
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