Category: Palestinians

Israel is Worried About Young Evangelicals Opening Their Eyes to Its Crimes

I recently posted about Israel’s dependence on Christian Zionist support in this country.

The Brookings Institute (a conservative think tank) has also released a study examining Israel’s dependence on American evangelicals. The study also identified Israel’s new cause for concern — young evangelicals are

Israel bombs the offices of several news outlets in Gaza

turning away from their parent’s traditional pro-Israel politics.

Frankly, this article brings joy to my heart! I hope this new generation of evangelical young people will read my next book.

The article is entitled “As Israel increasingly relies on US evangelicals for support, younger ones are walking away: what polls show.”

Here is an excerpt:

As the recent eruption in Israel/Palestine brought attention to shifting Democratic attitudes toward Israel, including among younger Jewish Americans, Israel’s focus on the evangelical right as a cornerstone of U.S. support for the Jewish state has proven increasingly important. As our University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll research has shown, evangelical attitudes toward Israel account for most of the Republican Party’s support for Israel; without evangelicals, Republican attitudes on Israel do not substantially deviate from the rest of America.

These trends in American politics may explain the recent statement by former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer that Israel should spend more of its energy reaching out to “passionate” American evangelicals than to Jews, who are “disproportionately among our critics.” Criticizing Dermer,

Jewish settlers take over a Palestinian home in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah  April 16, 2021. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP)

Israel’s former consul general in New York, Dani Dayan, added that “our embassy in the United States capital has invested most of its energy in the relationship with conservatives, Republicans, evangelicals, and a certain type of Jews only.”

But a new survey commissioned by University for North Carolina at Pembroke researchers, carried out by Barna Group, has exposed what we have been finding for some time: younger evangelicals are much less supportive of Israel than older evangelicals, by a widening margin. The poll found a dramatic shift in attitudes between 2018 and 2021: support for Israel among young evangelicals dropped from 75% to 34%. This raises questions about the sustainability of the strong evangelical support for Israel that the Israeli right has cultivated for years and that proved reliable during the Trump administration.

Read the entire story here.

The Title of My Forthcoming Book on Christian Zionism

Often times, authors are not allowed to pick the title for their books. The publisher typically makes that decision.

I recently learned, however, that Wipf and Stock Publishers has decided to use the title I proposed for my next book. I am letting you know about this so you can keep your eyes open for it once it becomes available (perhaps in the fall).

The title will be Like Birds in a Cage: Christian Zionism’s Collusion in Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People.

For those unfamiliar with the term, “Christian Zionism” (CZ) refers to a large segment of the Christian church who believe that the modern state of Israel is God’s chosen nation, now preparing the way for Christ’s second coming.

May of these folks will talk about reading “the signs of the times” anticipating various beasts, the antichrist, and the final battle of Armageddon, all occurring in the land of Israel.

My argument with Christian Zionism takes a three-pronged approach.

First, I dissect the basic problems with CZ Bible-reading, showing why and how their approach to scripture is wrong. Bad methods can only produce bad results. CZ has no Biblical foundation.

Second, I trace the history of political Zionism — the branch of Zionism that gave birth to the Jewish nation-state — and its abusive treatment of the indigenous Palestinians.

Israel’s establishment was the last venture of western, settler colonialism. The goal was to create a Jewish supremacist state (yes, go ahead and make the

Illegal Jewish-only settlements & related programs funded by Christian donations from the US

implied comparison to white supremacy in this country), where Jews alone claimed all the rights and privileges of citizenship. The natives were displaced, replaced, and excluded by European, Jewish settlers who built a society only for themselves.

Third, I tell a number of eyewitness accounts detailing the unrelenting brutality of Israel’s military occupation in the West Bank. Captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel continues to violate international law by annexing large portions of this territory and building Jewish-only settlements on stolen Palestinian land.

The United States is Israel’s largest source of foreign aid, to the tune of nearly $4 billion each year.

Christian Zionists are the largest pro-Israel lobbying group in this country.

The logic is self-evident.

Israel will not change its behavior until the USA stops financing their military. The US government will not cut Israel’s foreign aid budget without consistent, long-term pressure to this end from American citizens.

Here is the logic  that led me to write Like Birds in a Cage.

My prayers and my hopes are focused on educating American evangelicals, convincing them that not only does Israel not deserve the church’s support, but that Israel is a rogue state built on ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

No Christian, no congregation, no denomination, no non-profit organization, no country can ever support a nation like Israel with a clear conscience.

I hope you will look for my book and buy copies for you and your friends when it comes out. My Palestinian friends need your help.

Max Blumenthal: “To distract from Gaza slaughter, Israel lobby manufactures antisemitism freakout”

Max Blumenthal is one of America’s foremost investigative journalists.

He also happens to be Jewish, and has written two important books about Israeli militarism and the depth of Jewish Supremacy throughout the Jewish Israeli population.

I highly recommend his books, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel and The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza if you want a good picture of life in modern Israel and the Gaza strip.

Mr. Blumenthal is also the chief editor at The Gray Zone, an important, independent news site.

Today I discovered that he has written a story which I have been searching for.

In the heat of the current wave of accusations about “rampant” antisemitic attacks — all of them stirred up by pro-Palestinian demonstrations during Israel’s recent bombing of Gaza — I have been searching for someone who has investigated the details of these alleged attacks.

Today I found it.

Below is an excerpt from an actual investigation into the specifics of these charges. As I suspected, and as often happens, pro-Israel/pro-Zionist activists (like the Anti-Defamation League[ADL] and the Jewish Defense League [JDL]) have been manipulating and misrepresenting the evidence.

Yes, there have been isolated instances of antisemitic speech, like the  outrageous, offensive Tweets declaring that “Hitler was right.”

But for the most part, the facts are quite the opposite of what the ADL and JDL have been reporting.

Max’s article is entitled, “To distract from Gaza slaughter, Israel lobby manufactures antisemitism freakout.” Here is an excerpt:

With deceptively edited videos and dubious allegations, the Israel lobby has

The video of a man who said he was attacked for wearing a yarmulke shows that he was the aggressor and actually wearing a hoodie

manufactured an antisemitism epidemic to turn the media’s gaze away from dead children in Gaza.

Following an 11-day assault on the Gaza Strip in which the Israeli army killed over 220 people, including more than 65 children, and days of videotaped rampages of Jewish extremist mobs against Palestinian people and property inside Israeli cities, Israel lobbyists in the US and Canada have launched a carefully coordinated public relations campaign to deflect outrage.

Having failed to successfully defend massacres of entire families in their homes and the deliberate demolition of civilian residential towers and media offices in Gaza City, the US Israel lobby and the Israeli government it advocates for have manufactured an epidemic of antisemitic violence with the goal of portraying American Jewry as the true victim of the crisis.

These two veterans of the Israeli Defense Forces, living in New York City, went out looking for pro-Palestinian demonstrators to attack. They threw the first punch.

Led by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Israel lobbyists have portrayed a series of street scuffles between supporters of Palestine and pro-Israel activists as anti-Jewish pogroms. In nearly every case, no evidence exists to substantiate claims that Jews were targeted as Jews for violent assault. There is ample proof of deception, however, as video and photographic evidence reveals pro-Israel elements provoking demonstrators, initiating violence and falsifying or embellishing their testimonies. . . 

Now, as the Israeli police round up hundreds of young Palestinians citizens of Israel for participating in protests against their own dispossession, the New York Police Department has begun doing the same, arresting Palestinian American youth, jailing and investigating them for “hate crimes” over their involvement in videotaped tussles with pro-Israel demonstrators.

In many high-profile cases, however, video and photographic evidence examined by The Grayzone contradicts the allegations made by pro-Israel forces and reveals the stories of several accusers to be highly deceptive, if not entirely false. . . 

You can see the entire article here.

 

The Bombing May Be Over, But the Devastation Remains

Israel and Hamas may have reached a “ceasefire,” but Palestinian suffering continues unabated.

While Israel violated the ceasefire almost immediately, the western press says nothing about it. [I will be posting about this common scenario very soon.]

The recent missile exchange killed 12 Israelis and at least 288 Palestinians, including 69 children and 40 women. More than 8,900 others were injured in Gaza, many with life-threatening wounds.

Israeli bombing damaged or destroyed 187 Gazan schools, including 55 kindergartens and 132 elementary schools.

This man lost 14 family members in a single strike. Of course, all human lives are sacred. We are all created as the Image of God. But this one man lost more family members than were killed in the entire state of Israel.

Watch below to learn about his story:

How Zionism Contributes to Antisemitism

Racist attacks against Jewish people, often in public and broad daylight, have increased in tandem with the worldwide demonstrations condemning

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, center, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, speaks in front of civic and faith leaders outside City Hall on May 20, 2021, in Los Angeles, condemning recent antisemitic attacks. (Marcio Jose Sanchez AP)

Israel’s bombing of Gaza. Support for the Palestinian people, in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, is more vocal and active than ever before.

But arguing for the equality of Palestinians is no excuse for antisemitism. Antisemitism is a form of racism.

The organization Jewish Voice for Peace defines antisemitism as “discrimination against, violence towards, or stereotypes of Jews for being Jewish.” They endorse the standard, historical definition of anti-Jewish racism. Racism demeans and violates others because of who they are in and of themselves.

Three suspects wanted in an antisemitic attack in Times Square on May 20 2021 according to police. (Credit NYPD)

Whenever someone attacks a Jewish person, whether overtly or covertly, simply for being Jewish, he is being antisemitic.

That mindset is unacceptable. It is sinful. It deserves to be condemned. Antisemites must be called to account. People guilty of this sin need to confess and repent, person to person, face to face, if possible.

Unfortunately, pro-Israel, pro-Zionist activists have introduced a new, troubling factor into the public understanding of antisemitism. And I am afraid that it is backfiring on the entire Jewish community.

Nowadays the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other, similar Jewish defense organizations have embraced a new definition of antisemitism that confuses the state of Israel and the policies of political Zionism with the Jewish people.

Israeli Zionism has consistently encouraged this confusion with its claims to represent world Jewry.

Israel defines itself as THE Jewish State for all Jews everywhere. It acts on behalf of the Jewish people.

Therefore, since it is a Jewish state, criticism of Israeli state policy equals criticism of the Jews. (This is not my formulation. Pro-Israel activists have a long history of arguing explicitly for this identification.)

But this argument creates a host of problems.

Logically, this identification of Israel = Jews is an example of something called a category mistake. It’s like identifying an elephant with an orange

Two suspects wanted in an antisemitic attack in Times Square on May 20, 2021, according to police. (Credit NYPD)

and saying they are the same thing. Elephants are in the mammalian-animal category. Oranges are in the fruit-plant category. Any argument that concludes by saying, “Therefore, elephants are fruit like an orange” would obviously be ridiculous.

But this is the same line of illogic followed by pro-Israel activists today when they condemn the recent outbreak of antisemitism. (Watch these two recent interviews with an ADL representative. He implies this same confusion here and here.)

A nation-state, like Israel, is a political entity. Jews are a collective of human beings, made as the Image of God. Criticizing the actions of a nation-state has no logical relation to discrimination against Jews as Jews.

I am afraid that this is where pro-Israel activists, like the ADL, have stabbed their fellow Jews in the back.

Anyone who attacks a Jewish stranger, believing that it is an appropriate expression of anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian commitment is guilty of the same category mistake as their pro-Israel opponents.

While I condemn all racism, discrimination, and violence, I have to point out that the antisemites now attacking Jewish citizens (and their property) are also following the pro-Israel line of argument to its illogical conclusion. If Israel represents all Jews everywhere, then any Jew anywhere can be held responsible for Israel’s crimes.

Yes, that is a thoroughly reprehensible conclusion, but it is no more reprehensible than the Zionist argument which says, “Israel is a Jewish State, therefore those who criticize Israel’s slaughtering of Palestinian civilians are antisemitic; they are also responsible for instigating the current outbreak of antisemitic attacks.”

Perhaps, the pro-Israel purveyors of this New Antisemitism (as it is called) should give themselves an ironic pat on the back.

Their deliberate, cynical conflation of Israel with world Jewry and Judaism has penetrated the collective subconscious of those pro-Palestinian activists who don’t stop to think any more clearly than they do.

The result is more tragedy and manipulation on both sides.

Leader of Israeli Jewish Mob Admits, “Today We Are Nazis.”

During the recent violence in Israel/Palestine, mob rule seemed to be the norm in many Israeli neighborhoods, especially after dark. Both Jews and Palestinians fell victim to racist attacks.

Israeli Jewish extremists wave Israeli flags amid a night time curfew in the central city of Lydd Oren ZivPicture AllianceDPA  [Notice that the Jewish demonstrators are violating the curfew. Yet police are standing with them making no attempt to enforce the order.]
Two days ago, the Electronic Intifada printed an extensively documented story about the Jewish mobs that were roaming the streets of Palestinian communities and assaulting residents.

The article, “‘Today we are Nazis,’ says member of Israeli Jewish extremist group,” was written by Ali Abunimah and Tamara Nassar. It includes extensive video evidence and other documentation verifying their claims.

Here is an excerpt:

Israeli Jewish extremists used instant messaging services to organize armed militias to attack Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Voice messages, texts and other communications indicate they coordinated attacks in cities where Palestinians live in close proximity to Jews – including Haifa, Bat Yam and Tiberias in the north, and Ramla and Lydd – Lod in Hebrew – in the center, to Beersheba in southern Israel.

Settlers from Jewish-only colonies in the occupied West Bank also joined the coordinated attacks, with the apparent knowledge and collusion of Israeli officials.

They communicated via WhatsApp and Telegram, as well as Facebook groups.

In many cases, extremist organizers said they relied on either the active or passive support of Israeli authorities.

Israeli research organizations Fake Reporter and HaBloc intercepted messages from some of those groups and reported what they found to Israeli police as a “ticking time-bomb.”

“It’s painful to know that despite our attempts, very little was actually done,” Fake Reporter said.

“No one in the authorities could claim that they did not know,” HaBloc said.

In screenshots from the groups posted by Fake Reporter, members talked about types of weapons and made plans for where to meet up in order to attack Palestinians and burn mosques. They engaged in virulent racism and incitement against Palestinians.

The messages were released in the context of recent attacks by extremist Jewish Israelis on Palestinians, their homes and businesses as Israel escalated its attacks on the occupied West Bank and Gaza over the last week.

“We are no longer Jews today,” one user wrote in a Telegram group titled “People from Holon, Bat Yam and Rishon Lezion go out to bring war.”

“Today we are Nazis.”

These towns are suburbs south of Tel Aviv.

You can read the entire article here.

When Are Palestinians Allowed to Defend Themselves?

American and Israeli officials repeatedly remind us that “Israel has the right to defend itself.” It is the standard refrain whenever Israel unleashes another conflagration upon the people of Gaza.

In fact, it is the perennial explanation for anything and everything the Israeli military does that results in the death or injury of Palestinians, whether in Gaza, the West Bank, or Israeli proper.

Israel’s right to self-defense is the diplomatic equivalent of Abracadabra, making all details, questions, and specific circumstances irrelevant when it comes to reporting events on the ground in Israel/Palestine.

Regardless of the situation, no matter the sequence of events, whenever Israeli power meets and defeats a Palestinian standing in its way, the bloody outcome is always chalked up to Israel’s right to self-defense.

But when do Palestinians have the right to defend themselves?

When are they finally given permission to stand up and say, “Enough is enough! We are not going to take this oppression anymore.”

By what law does Israel and its allies serve as judge and jury in adjudicating these “rights” on the world stage, determining the guilty and the innocent from their bastions of power and privilege?

I was sitting in the small kitchen of a Palestinian family living in the Dheisheh refugee camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem. As in so many Palestinian homes, three generations shared the tiny space together, continuing to bear witness to the aggrieved ancestors who fled their home in 1948. Terrified of the approaching Israeli army, they hoped to escape the bloodshed that had taken so many others before them.

Now they lived in fear of night raids and random shootings carried out by the Israeli army in their refugee camp.

My friend served as translator as the matriarch of the family updated me on the family story. Five of us were crowded together sipping coffee in the living room. The woman’s two sons sat in chairs on either side of me. She held a shy granddaughter on her lap while the child’s mother stood back in the kitchen listening to our conversation.

Both men were home briefly from the local hospital. They had returned to eat lunch and would go back for more treatment when they were finished. Each of them was wrapped in fresh bandages, one around his waist, the other on his leg. Neither could walk without assistance.

They both were recovering from gunshot wounds given to them by Israeli soldiers.

They were walking home after dark when neighbors warned them to be careful. The IDF (Israeli Defense Force) was conducting another night raid, breaking down doors, invading homes, pulling people out of their beds and arresting them for unknown “offenses.”

As these brothers got close to home, flashlights peered from around a corner shining abruptly into their faces. Quickly running up the short flight of stairs to the front door, shots rang out.

Opening the door and falling inside, both men had been hit. One in the leg. The other in the abdomen. Two expanding pools of blood now decorated the kitchen’s linoleum.

Israeli soldiers burst in after them and ran-sacked the house. The place was torn apart. Chairs, a baby’s crib, and bedding materials all ruined. I asked for permission to photograph the damage to make some small record of their claims.

After determining that the brothers were not the men they were looking for, the soldiers walk out leaving the panicked grandmother and wife to deal with their wounded, bleeding menfolk on their own.

Fortunately, neighbors who owned a car quickly got the two men to the local hospital where they received emergency medical aid. This was not their night to bleed to death as victims of Israel’s “shoot first and ask questions later” policing policy.

But there will be other nights. And many, many future opportunities to be crippled, wounded, maimed, or die at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

The family is now left to cover the medical expenses for themselves. No one receives a Sorry We Shot You letter in the mail. No one from the Israeli government ever comes around to say, “Oh, sorry. We shot you by mistake. Our bad! We meant to kill someone else. Let us pay your hospital bills.”

Nope. If you are a Palestinian, it’s all on you. After all, your mere existence is a pain in the ass to Israel’s ever expansive settler colonial enterprise. The soldiers had hoped you would bleed out on the kitchen floor. Couldn’t you take the hint? That’s why they didn’t give you any medical assistance at the time.

This is daily life for the Palestinians living in the West Bank. Gaza stories are even more horrific than this. But that will have to wait for another post some other day.

Imagine living in this fragile environment, under this type of interminable threat day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Not just in one location, but in many, many places all throughout your homeland where dozens and dozens of others are abused in similar ways over and over again with no end in sight.

No one ever comes to your assistance. No one stands up for you. No one defends you. No one tells Israel that they have to stop mistreating you, now.

So, one day, you decide to stand up for yourself. You are not going to take it anymore.

The only question is: when will the rest of the world wake up and recognize that Palestinians have a right to defend themselves?

“Our Lives Don’t Matter to the World”

Today I have been in contact with one of my Palestinian friends in the West Bank (what Israel calls Samaria and Judea).

A demonstration in Bethlehem

Street demonstrations have been organized in several cities to show the people’s outrage over the Israeli attacks against worshipers praying in the al-Aqsa mosque.

They are also protesting Israel’s massive bombing campaign in Gaza now killing men, women, and children.

The fact that Israel claims that Hamas has launched over 1,100 missiles into Israel demonstrates how amateurish and ineffective the Hamas rockets

Israeli soldiers in Bethlehem streets

really are. They lack targeting abilities and the vast majority explode in unpopulated areas.

I asked my friend if he thought these tragic events were the beginning of another Intifada (Arabic for “uprising.” Since the 1980s, there have been two intifadas in Israel-Palestine.)

He said, “Yes. I think it’s already begun.”

Israeli soldiers are attacking and arresting many unarmed, peaceful demonstrators. But this is standard fare in the Occupied Territories.

Palestinians have no civil rights whatsoever.

My friend asked me why the US president won’t tell Israel to stop the Gaza bombings.

You can read his words for yourself:

People here are fed up. I hope this will be over soon. Lives are lost. This seems like the only route for us to get attention. (Israel’s) persecutions and more grabbing of lands and rights are unbeatable now.  They (Israelis) keep pushing and killing and we are asked to keep quiet and peaceful. They push and kill but our lives don’t matter to the world, and this so-called civilized country (the US) is calling us the terrorists and poor Israel has the right to defend itself. The US administration calls the security of Israel a matter of American national security. Isn’t there a courageous journalist to ask the speaker of the house,  “Why is that so?”

I wish I could tell him that Palestinian lives DID matter to the United States.

But, then, I would by lying.

Chris Hedges: Israel, the Big Lie

Chris Hedges has written an extensive article detailing Israel’s flagrant continuation of war crimes against the Palestinian people.

You can find the entire piece at SheerPost. I heartily recommend reading it in its entirety. Below is an excerpt. All emphases are mine:

Nearly all the words and phrases used by the Democrats, Republicans and the talking heads on the media to describe the unrest inside Israel and the heaviest Israeli assault against the Palestinians since the 2014 attacks on Gaza, which lasted 51 days and killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children, are a lie.  Israel, by employing its military machine against an occupied population that does not have mechanized units, an air force, navy, missiles, heavy artillery and command-and-control, not to mention a U.S. commitment to provide a $38 billion defense aid package for Israel over the next decade, is not exercising the right to defend itself. It is carrying out mass murder. It is a war crime. . . 

. . . The current attacks have already targeted several residential high rises

Bombing in Gaza

including buildings that housed over a dozen local and international press agencies, government buildings, roads, public facilities, agricultural lands, two schools and a mosque.

I spent seven years in the Middle East as a correspondent, four of them as The New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief. I am an Arabic speaker. I lived for weeks at a time in Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison where over two million Palestinians exist on the edge of starvation, struggle to find clean water and endure constant Israeli terror. I have been in Gaza when it was pounded with Israeli artillery and air strikes. I have watched mothers and fathers, wailing in grief, cradling the bloodied bodies of their sons and daughters. I know the crimes of the occupation—the food shortages caused by the Israeli blockade, the stifling overcrowding, the contaminated water, the lack of health services, the near constant electrical outages due to the Israeli targeting of power plants, the crippling poverty, the endemic unemployment, the fear and the despair. I have witnessed the carnage. 

I also have listened from Gaza to the lies emanating from Jerusalem and Washington. Israel’s indiscriminate use of modern, industrial weapons to kill thousands of innocents, wound thousands more and make tens of thousands of families homeless is not a war: It is state-sponsored terror.  And, while I oppose the indiscriminate firing of rockets by Palestinians into Israel, as I oppose suicide bombings, seeing them also as war crimes, I am acutely aware of a huge disparity between the industrial violence carried out by Israel against innocent Palestinians and the minimal acts of violence capable of being waged by groups such as Hamas. . . 

. . . Israel is in breach of more than 30 U.N. Security Council resolutions. It is in breach of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention that defines collective punishment of a civilian population as a war crime. It is in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention for settling over half a million Jewish Israelis on occupied Palestinian land and for the ethnic cleansing of at least 750,000 Palestinians when the Israeli state was founded and another 300,000 after Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank were occupied following the 1967 war. Its annexation of East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights violates international law, as does its building of a security barrier in the West Bank that annexes Palestinian land into Israel. It is in violation of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 that states that Palestinian refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.

This is the truth.  Any other starting point for the discussion of what is taking place between Israel and the Palestinians is a lie. . .