Tag: Palestinians

Why Did Early Political Zionists Want to Confuse Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism?

(This is the second in a series of posts discussing the recent debate over anti-Semitism vs. anti-Zionism.  You can find the first post here.)

I have a favorite book shop in the Palestinian section of Jerusalem.  It’s only a short walk from our favorite hotel just down the road from the Damascus Gate of the Old City.

Terry usually steps across the street to shop for children’s books while I search the long rows of “alternative” books on the history of Palestine, Israel, Zionism, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the political debates fueled by the post-Zionist movement, and much much more.

I never cease to be amazed at the ready availability (at least, if you know where to look) of anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian literature in the heartland of ethnocratic, political Zionism.  I suspect that I could never find these titles in anything but the most exotic, well-hidden American bookstore.

My regular pilgrimage to this wonderful, mental oasis — owned and operated by a most congenial Palestinian family, whose children can operate the cash register as easily as their parents — always concludes as I carry away arm-loads of new books to devour during our stay.

I like to read as many of these titles as possible while we are living with our Palestinian family in the refugee camp.  It allows me to share what I am learning and ask questions of my friends, Ayed and Ghada, to compare their personal knowledge with the things I am reading.

One of the books I read this past November was State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel, by Thomas Suarez, published by Olive Branch Press, 2017.  I encourage you to read it.

Suarez’s work is built upon extensive research in various national archives, and is bolstered with copious citations from these first-hand sources.

The esteemed Israeli historian Ilan Pappe wrote about this book:

The book is the first comprehensive and structured analysis of the violence and terror employed by the Zionist movement, and later the state of Israel, against the people of Palestine.

A German, Jewish physicist, Wolfgang Yourgrau had emigrated to Palestine but decided to abandon the Zionist project in 1948.  On the front-piece of

Wolfgang Yourgrau

his book, Suarez quotes Yourgrau from the February 1943 edition of the Orient.  Yourgrau wrote:

The growth of Fascism in Palestine at a time when the liberated nations will put it into its grave is a tragi-comedy.

These two citations will give you a sense of the story-line waiting to unfold when you pick of a copy of State of Terror. It’s a book that makes for horrific reading, especially for anyone not already familiar with the revolutionary, nationalist-racial movement known as Zionism.

Heck, I’ve studied this story extensively, and I still found myself horrified by the new things I learned while reading Suarez.

David Ben-Gurion

One of the themes Suarez documents is the efforts of men like David Ben-Gurion (Israel’s first prime minister) and his circle of cronies to identify anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

Weaponizing the charge of anti-Semitism so that it could be lobbed like a hand-grenade at anyone critical of early Zionism and their methods was a deliberate rhetorical strategy devised by Zionists in public debate.

Ben-Gurion and his comrades were shrewd.  People were especially sensitive to accusations of anti-Semitism before and during the Second World War.

Defenders of Zionism knew they could get away with such slanderous smears with minimal push-back in the era of Adolf Hitler.

But more importantly there was an important ideological basis for this particular word game.

The early Zionists insisted that their new state of Israel would become THE

Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the AIPAC policy conference, 2011

national homeland for all of world-wide Jewry.  Even today, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, can insist that when he opens his mouth, he speaks “not just as the prime minister of Israel but as a representative of the entire Jewish people.”

As the author of this piece in Haaretz (Feb. 12, 2015) says, the leader of Israel readily claims to “speak for all Jews whether they like it or not.”

Ben-Gurion and his cohorts believed what they wanted to believe: Israel was going to represent all Jews everywhere.  All Jews everywhere were automatic citizens, whether or not they had ever set foot in Palestine.  Zionist Israel would become the global, collective “Jew” standing astride the world stage.

By this logic, if you accept it, wittingly or unwittingly, criticizing Israel is transmogrified into criticizing Judaism and all Jews.  Anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism because there is no longer an independent concept of Jewishness apart from the life, health and prosperity of the new Zionist nation-state.

Consequently, from its very early days, Zionist leaders worked to exacerbate anti-Semitism (real or imagined) whenever and wherever possible in order to motivate immigration to the Promised Land — the only place for all Jews to properly belong.

Many people do not realize that before Israel was officially established, Zionist leaders refused to assist European Jews escaping the Holocaust unless they first pledged to settle in Palestine.  If you were a refugee fleeing the Nazis and you wanted passage to Canada or American, for example, David Ben-Gurion happily left you to your fate in Auschwitz.

Early Zionism also fomented anti-Semitism in order to encourage increased in immigration through fear.  Suarez provides documentation describing the well-known Zionist bombing of an Egyptian movie house for the sole purpose of stirring up anti-Jewish sentiment.  The resulting Arab attacks against Egyptian Jews prompted a sizeable increase in Jewish emigration from Egypt into Palestine.

In fact, Suarez documents internal conversations confirming that early Zionist leaders depended on something they called “the eternal crisis” of global anti-Semitism.  The never-ending threat of this “eternal crisis” became an important means of fueling the perpetual fear and insecurity that Zionists could exploit in motivating people to immigrate to Palestine, the only land where they could ever “be safe.”

Fortunately, many people, both then and now, have seen through the web of lies and illogic at the root of Zionism’s language games.  The Jewish authors mentioned in my previous post well describe how to untangle this web of misrepresentations.

Israel does not represent all Jews or all of Judaism.

Zionism is not the same as Jewishness or Judaism.

Orthodox Judaism can be thoroughly anti-Zionist

In fact, the earliest and most vocal anti-Zionists were orthodox rabbis and their congregations who saw the identification of a nation-state with the aspirations of their revered religion as nothing short of blasphemy.

Anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism.

They are not synonyms.  They are two separate things all together.

It’s not hard to see how the ghosts of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Menachim Begin live on in the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu, AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and the current crop of pro-Israel spokespeople attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar.

The US Congress is powerfully haunted by the illogic, deceit and deliberate misconceptions planted by pro-Zionist apologists.  As Mark Twain said, A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is still lacing up its boots.

However, that only means that those who know and speak the truth, people like Ilhan Omar, Rebecca Vilkomerson, Phyllis Bennis and numerous orthodox rabbis will need frequent encouragement never to give up.

I pray that my readers will join their ranks and defend the universal principles (applicable to all people in all nations) of human rights, dignity and justice for all, without discrimination.

 

When is Anti-Semitism Not Anti-Semitism?

Answer 1: when the alleged anti-Semite is actually defending Palestinian human rights by highlighting the oppressive, anti-Palestinian policies implemented by political Zionist parties in the state of Israel.

Answer 2: when the alleged anti-Semite is criticizing Israel’s political Zionist policies that discriminate against and overtly oppress the Palestinian people within Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Answer 3: when the alleged anti-Semite is criticizing specific actions taken by and/or specific policies advanced by a Jewish individual or a Jewish organization that intends to support and defend the anti-Palestinian policies of political Zionism in the state of Israel.

An anti-Semitic cartoon from pre-war Germany

Anti-Semitism has historically been defined as belief or behavior that is hostile, discriminatory or prejudicial against Jews as a religious or ethnic group simply because they are Jews.

Sadly, since the rise of Donald Trump and the political victories of extreme right-wing groups in Europe, the vile beast of anti-Semitism appears to be growing and spreading its hateful influence.  That is very, very troubling.

But another cause for sadness is the pernicious way in which political Zionism has deliberately muddied the waters through its longstanding propaganda tactics of confusing anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.

It is no accident that Rep. Ilhan Omar is this very day (Wednesday, March 6, 2019) being reprimanded (though her name is not mentioned) on the floor of the House of Representative through a bi-partisan Resolution

Graffiti found by Rep. Omar in a public bathroom

condemning anti-Semitism within the halls of Congress (read the text here), at the very moment she is receiving death threats and public excoriation for her criticisms of the pro-Zionist Israel lobby in this country.

Political Zionism’s confusion of (a) conscientious antagonism against the discriminatory practices of an exclusive, ethnocratic, Jewish-only state with (b) a “belief or behavior that is hostile, discriminatory or prejudicial against Jews as a religious or ethnic group simply because they are Jews” is one of the most stone-cold, cynical exploitations of human suffering imaginable.

I’m sorry, but it’s not much different from Jack the Ripper dressing himself up as a virginal washer woman innocently roaming the London streets.  Anyone perceptive enough to see through his disguise risks immediately being tackled and beaten up as one more would be rapist.

On the one hand, the mainstream victory of Zionist polemics in manipulating the terms of public debate is a remarkable achievement in public relations, deserving of the highest accolades in the halls of modern propaganda.  As long as we remember that propaganda prefers to work for liars and con-men.  People who stand for the truth never need propaganda’s trickery.  In that respect, Josef Goebbels would be proud of what political Zionism has wrought.

On the other hand, these tactics also pave the way for government officials to strip people of their civil rights, especially the freedom of speech.  We see this trend already embedded in Israel, Canada, France and the United States where bills outlawing the BDS movement as anti-Semitic are being passed faster than a crippled snail at the French Grand Prix.

Here is the million-dollar question, however:  How is criticizing Israel any different than criticizing Russia, which is every pundit’s favorite punching bag nowadays?  It isn’t.

How is criticizing a powerful lobbying organization that devotes itself to promoting American financial aid, arms shipments, as well as domestic and international support for the state of Israel any different than criticizing comparable organizations that do the same for China or Cuba or Kazakhstan?  It isn’t.

The root of the problem is political Zionism’s successful confusion of Jewishness with Zionism in the public mind.

Unpacking that problem will require more space and time.  I will have more to say about this problem, but for now please take some time to read and/or listen to the following excellent defenses of Rep. Omar and her criticisms of the Israel Lobby in America offered by two outspoken American Jews who also criticize AIPAC, Israel and political Zionism.

Who is going to call them anti-Semites?!

Well, actually, many political Zionists will call them “self-hating Jews.” But that, too, is a discussion for another post.

First, “I’m Jewish, And I Find the Hypocrisy of Republican Islamophobes Hounding Ilhan Omar Breathtaking,” in Newsweek magazine, by Rebecca Vilkomerson, Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, a staunchly anti-Zionist organization.

Here is an excerpt:

“It has never been more important to be able to distinguish between the critique—even the harshest critique—of a state’s policies (Israel,) and discrimination against a people (Jews.)  Israel does not represent all Jews.  Not all Jews support Israel. Speaking out for Palestinian human rights and their yearning for freedom is in no way related to anti-Semitism, though the Israeli government does its best to obscure that.  And yes, there are anti-Semites who support Palestinian rights. They have no place in any movement for justice, which Palestinian leaders of the movement have made very clear.”

Second, “The Democratic Party Attacks on Ilhan Omar are a Travesty,” in The Nation magazine, by Phillis Bennis, another staunch anti-Zionist Jew.

Here is an excerpt:

“Attacks on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar are rising. One of the first Muslim women elected, Omar is also black, an African immigrant, a former refugee from Somalia, and wears her hijab in the halls of Congress. She is under attack from the leaders of her own party for anti-Semitic statements she never made, for anti-Jewish prejudice she never expressed, for hatred of Jews she doesn’t hold. And the Democratic Party leadership is considering a resolution whose early text, at least, while not mentioning Omar by name, is clearly aimed at accusing her of precisely those things, despite the fact—ignored by the Speaker of the House and other top officials—that she never said or believed any of those words.

“The most recent attacks on Representative Omar are based on her answer to a broad question about anti-Semitism during a recent town hall meeting at Busboys & Poets in Washington, DC. I was there, sitting just a few feet from Omar, asking a question during the Q&A. She never said that Jews have dual loyalty. She never expressed “prejudicial attitudes” or supported “discriminatory acts” against Jews or anyone else. And yet that is the language being proposed for a Democratic Party–sponsored resolution aimed at undermining Omar’s credibility, and likely that of Rashida Tlaib, the other Muslim woman just elected to Congress. Like Omar, Tlaib, who is Palestinian, stands forthrightly in support of Palestinian rights, against the power of the pro-Israel lobby and other lobbies that use money to influence Congress to support guns, environmental destruction, and Israeli violations of human rights—and she stands against racism and anti-Semitism.”

 

 

Yes, AIPAC is Much Too Powerful

Yesterday the New York Times published an article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg entitled, “Ilhan Omar’s Criticism Raises the Question: Is Aipac Too Powerful?”

Her article offers a clear answer to the question.  You can read an excerpt

Israel’s prime minister speaks to the annual AIPAC convention

below (all emphasis is mine). You can read the full article by clinking the title above:

“When Representative Ilhan Omar landed a coveted seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Stephen Fiske began working the phones to Capitol Hill.

“Alarmed by messaging that he saw as anti-Semitic and by Ms. Omar’s support for the boycott-Israel movement, Mr. Fiske, a longtime activist with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, began texting and calling his friends in Congress to complain. He is hoping Aipac activists will punish Ms. Omar, a freshman Democrat from Minnesota, with a primary challenge in 2020.

“On Wednesday, House Democratic leaders will mete out one form of punishment: Spurred by outrage over Ms. Omar’s latest comments suggesting that pro-Israel activists ‘push for allegiance to a foreign country,’ they will put a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on the House floor.

“”Many other people involved in the pro-Israel community, a lot of Aipac-affiliated members, there’s a lot of concern; there’s a clarion call for activism,’

A bi-partisan meeting of Congressional leaders with Israel’s prime minister, hosted by AIPAC

said Mr. Fiske, who is the chairman of a political action committee that backs pro-Israel candidates…

“’It is so disingenuous of some of these members of Congress who are lining up to condemn these questioning voices as if they have no campaign finance interest in the outcome,’ said Brian Baird, a former Democratic congressman from Washington State, who became a vocal critic of Israel, and Aipac, after a constituent of his was killed by an Israeli Army bulldozer in Gaza while protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes in 2003.

“’If one dares to criticize Israel or dares to criticize Aipac, one gets branded anti-Semitic,’ Mr. Baird added, ‘and that’s a danger to a democratic republic…’

“Mr. Fiske’s Florida Congressional Committee is one of a string of political action committees with anodyne names — NorPac in New Jersey, To Protect Our Heritage PAC outside Chicago, the Maryland Association for Concerned Citizens outside Baltimore, among others — that operate independently of Aipac but whose missions and membership align with it.

“Countless individual Aipac members and other pro-Israel donors give on their own — including megadonors like the billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a onetime Aipac backer who has started a harder-line rival to the group…

“[I]n a recent article in The Nation, M.J. Rosenberg, who worked for Aipac in the 1980s and is now a critic of the organization, described how ‘Aipac’s political operation is used precisely as Representative Omar suggested,’ including during policy conferences, when members gather ‘in side rooms, nominally independent of the main event,’ to raise money and ‘decide which candidate will get what.’…

“In 1982, Aipac activists organized to oust Paul Findley, an Illinois House member who had embraced the Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat. The To Protect Our Heritage PAC, run by Aipac activists in Skokie, Ill., backed Richard J. Durbin, according to Marc Sommer, a PAC official.

“Two years later, Aipac activists mobilized to replace Senator Charles Percy, then the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a backer of a deal allowing the sale of sophisticated military planes called Awacs to Saudi Arabia, with the Democrat Paul Simon. Mr. Simon wrote in his memoir that Robert Asher, an Aipac board member in Chicago, asked him to run.

“The back-to-back victories established Aipac as an organization not to be trifled with. In the more than three decades since, Aipac has helped create and maintain a staunchly pro-Israel Congress…”

Mr. Levy Highlights the All-Pervasive Racism of Israeli Politics

Rabbi Meir Kahane (1932-1990) was an American-Israel orthodox rabbi,

5/18/1989, MAY 19 1989, NOV 7 1990, DEC 22 1991 Land Mark Inn, Rabbi Meir Kahane, who wants Arabs deported
Credit: The Denver Post

murdered by an assassin in New York City on November 5, 1990.

Among his several claims to “fame,” he was co-founder of the Jewish Defense League, and a convicted terrorist (along with other members of the extremist JDL) who advocated the complete elimination of all Palestinians from Israel.

He emigrated to Israel in 1971 and founded the Kach political party, a racist, far-right, anti-Arab organization whose extreme-Zionist ideology he represented as a member of the Israeli Knesset from 1984 – 1988.

Even though the Kach party no longer exists, Israel’s orthodox community is filled with “Kahanists” who maintain a vocal presence in Israeli politics.  They are Israel’s equivalent of the Klu Klux Klan, with a sizeable, noisy membership, openly campaigning for the expulsion of all black people from their country.

With national elections on the horizon, Meir Kahane still has many devotees loudly demonstrating in favor of his racist policies.

Gideon Levy’s newest piece in Haaretz describes the role of Kahanist-style racism as it interacts with Israel’s garden-variety racism in the current political campaign.  The article is entitled, “The Kahanists Make It Easy to Ignore Everyone Else’s Racism.”

I have excerpted Levy’s piece below.  You can read the entire story by clicking on the link above.

“Kahanism is bad for racism. It gives racism a bad name, which it doesn’t have in Israel. It shakes Israeli racism out of its tranquility and correctness, exposes it and generates opposition to it. On the other hand, this opposition is good for respectable racists, allowing people who aren’t all that less racist to be portrayed as moderate and moral — downright champions of human rights.

“The influence of the Kahanists on public debate should not be underestimated. Because of them, one can live comfortably in the settlement of Shilo and dare to talk about principles…

“Kahanism allows the rest of the racists to feel good; we are not like them…

“These Israeli neo-Nazis are genuinely repulsive and despicable…

“But contaminating the debate isn’t the worst damage they wreak. They conceal the other racism, institutionalized and accepted racism, which causes more harm

Dr. Michael Ben-Ari

to its victims. To live in a country that imprisons 2 million people and to be shocked by Ben Ari [see my note below] is outrageous. To be part of a society that abuses an additional 2 million people while clicking one’s tongue over a threat to an Arab waiter is arrogance.

“Most of the Zionist parties are full partners in the Israeli race project; some even have founding shares. They are partners to the crime — from the ethnic cleansing in 1948, through the military government in the Little Triangle and the Galilee, to the days of military tyranny in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They have no moral right to condemn the Kahanists, because sometimes the Kahanists are only saying what the others are thinking.

“Of course there are degrees of evil and of racism… When Europe boycotts its extreme right — which is, by the way, more moderate than Israel’s non-extreme right — it’s relatively enlightened leaders who are doing so. Here, it’s respectable racists boycotting disreputable racists.”

[Dr. Michael Ben-Ari is an Israeli politician currently running for the Knesset.  As a disciple of Meir Kahane, he was a member of Kahane’s Kach party.  He once tore up a copy of the New Testament on the Knesset floor, calling it a despicable book responsible for the Holocaust, which belonged “in history’s trash can.” He resides in the illegal, Jewish-only settlement of Karnaei Shomron just west of Nablus in the West Bank.  This colonial-settlement is located on Palestinian land forcefully confiscated from four different Palestinian villages.  Read more about it here.]

Dr. Josef Mengele Lives on in Israel Today

Dr. Josef Mengele (1911 – 1979) was a German SS officer who served as a

Dr. Josef Mengele, officer in the Nazi SS

“doctor” in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.

You may recall that he is best remembered for conducting unspeakable experiments on his patients, using living people as his test subjects.

You can find a brief summary of his atrocities in human experimentation here.

The Middle East Monitor now lets us know that Dr. Mengele never truly died.  Or, at least, his disciples live on in the state of Israel today where human experimentation continues.

Only now the test subjects are not Jews but Palestinians.

I have copied an excerpt from the article below.  You can find the full article, “Israel Pharmaceutical Firms Test Medicines on Palestinian Prisoners” here.

“Israeli Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian revealed yesterday that the Israeli occupation authorities issues permits to large pharmaceutical firms to

Palestinian activists protest in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners

carry out tests on Palestinian and Arab prisoners, Felesteen.ps reported.

“The Hebrew University lecturer also revealed that the Israeli military firms are testing weapons on Palestinian children and carry out these tests in the Palestinian neighbourhoods of occupied Jerusalem.

“Speaking in Columbia University in New York City, Shalhoub-Kevorkian said that she collected the data while carrying out a research project for the Hebrew University.

“’Palestinian spaces are laboratories,’ she said. ‘The invention of products and services of state-sponsored security corporations are fueled by long-term curfews and Palestinian oppression by the Israeli army.’

“In July 1997, Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported remarks for Dalia Itzik, chairman of a parliamentary committee, acknowledged that the Israeli Ministry of Health had given pharmaceutical firms permits to test their new drugs of inmates, noting that 5,000 tests had already been carried out.”

Meet the Israeli Politician Who is Not Afraid to Call Out Israel’s Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing. What Would AIPAC Make of Him?

As a news-junkie who has traveled throughout Israel and the West Bank a number of times, I can assure you that — despite the unchanging nature of their apartheid Zionist policies — the Israeli public is allowed to criticize their government in ways that will get you linched as an anti-Semite in the United States.

As exhibit A, simply recall the recent condemnation of Rep. Ilhan Omar who had the temerity to state the obvious on Twitter:  AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is a pro-Israel lobby that both facilitates and destroys political careers in Washington, D.C.

Read my posts about this subject here, here and here.

Below I have excerpted an interview from the Israeli daily newspaper, Haaretz, entitled “The Knesset Candidate Who Says Zionism Encourages anti-Semitism and Calls Netanyahu ‘Arch-murderer’.”

Israel’s political scene is preparing for national elections to be held in April.  Dr. Ofer Cassif is running for parliamentary office (Israel’s Knesset) as the Jewish representative for the far-leftist Hadash party, a party that includes both Jews and Palestinians.

I have excerpted the interview below (with minor rearrangement of two paragraphs for continuity).

“Cassif, 54, who holds a doctorate in political philosophy from the London School of Economics, teaches political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,

Members at the Hadash party primaries

Sapir Academic College in Sderot and at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo. He lives in Rehovot, is married and is the father of a 19-year-old son. He’s been active in Hadash for three decades and has held a number of posts in the party.

“As a lecturer, he stands out for his boldness and fierce rhetoric, which draws students of all stripes. He even hangs out with some of his Haredi students [conservative Orthodox Jews], one of whom wrote a post on the eve of the Hadash primary urging the delegates to choose him…

“Cassif is third on the slate of Knesset candidates in Hadash (the Hebrew acronym for the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), the successor to Israel’s Communist Party. He holds the party’s “Jewish slot,” replacing MK Dov Khenin. Cassif is likely to draw fire from opponents and be a conspicuous figure in the next Knesset, following the April 9 election…

“…Cassif, who was one of the first Israeli soldiers to refuse to serve in the territories, in 1987, gained fame thanks to a number of provocative statements.

Dr. Ofir Cassif, Hadash candidate for israel’s Knesset in the upcoming elections

The best known is his branding of Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked as “neo-Nazi scum.” On another occasion, he characterized Jews who visit the Temple Mount as ‘cancer with metastases that have to be eradicated.’…

“Is Netanyahu an arch-murderer?”

“Yes. I wrote it in the specific context of a particular day in the Gaza Strip. A massacre of innocent people was perpetrated there, and no one’s going to persuade me that those people were endangering anyone. It’s a concentration camp. Not a ‘concentration camp’ in the sense of Bergen-Belsen; I am absolutely not comparing the Holocaust to what’s happening.”

“You term what Israel is doing to the Palestinians ‘genocide.’”

“I call it ‘creeping genocide.’ Genocide is not only a matter of taking people to gas chambers. When Yeshayahu Leibowitz used the term ‘Judeo-Nazis,’ people asked him, ‘How can you say that? Are we about to build gas chambers?’ To that, he had two things to say. First, if the whole difference between us and the Nazis boils down to the fact that we’re not building gas chambers, we’re already in trouble. And second, maybe we won’t use gas chambers, but the mentality that exists today in Israel – and he said this 40 years ago – would allow it. I’m afraid that today, after four years of such an extreme government, it possesses even greater legitimacy.

“But you know what, put aside ‘genocide’ – ethnic cleansing is taking place there. And that ethnic cleansing is also being carried out by means of killing, although mainly by way of humiliation and of making life intolerable. The trampling of human dignity. It reminds me of Primo Levi’s ‘If This Is a Man.’”…

“Israel commits murder on a daily basis. When you murder one Palestinian, you’re called Elor Azaria [the IDF soldier convicted and jailed for killing an incapacitated Palestinian assailant]; when you murder and oppress thousands of Palestinians, you’re called the State of Israel.” (all emphasis is mine)

 

Israel Imprisons Palestinian Legislator without Charge, Detained for 20 Months and Counting

Israeli leaders, and their Zionist cohorts, frequently describe themselves as “the only democracy in the Middle East.”  But as Gideon Levy points out in his lasted piece at Haaretz, this claim can only be accepted if we redefine “democracy” to mean “an ethnocratic state providing democracy to Jews while confining all others to a police-state devoid of liberty or due process of law.”

Levy’s article is entitled, “Remember: Israel is Still Holding a Palestinian Law Maker as Political Prisoner Indefinitely.”  I have excerpted his article below.  You can read the entire piece by clicking on the title above.

Palestinian legislator, Kalida Jarrar, being imprisoned indefinitely, without charges or trial, in an Israeli military prison

“Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar has been incarcerated in an Israeli jail without a trial for 20 months. Another period of ‘administrative detention’ will soon expire. Will she come home?

“Khalida Jarrar is Israel’s No. 1 female political prisoner, the leader of the inmates in Damon Prison, on Mt. Carmel, and the most senior Palestinian woman Israel has jailed, without her ever having been convicted of any offense.

“The public struggle for her release has been long and frustrating, with more resonance abroad than in Israel. Here it encounters the implacable walls of the occupation authorities and the startling indifference of Israeli public opinion: People here don’t care that they’re living under a regime in which there are political prisoners. There is also the silence of the female MKs and the muteness of the women’s organizations.

“Haaretz has devoted no fewer than five editorials demanding either that evidence against her be presented or that she be released immediately. To no avail: Jarrar is still in detention and she still hasn’t been charged…

“…Reminder: On April 2, 2015, troops of the Israel Defense Forces raided the Jarrar family’s home in El Bireh, adjacent to Ramallah, and abducted Khalida, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

“She was placed in administrative detention. In the wake of international protests over Israel’s arrest without charges of a lawmaker who was elected democratically, the occupation authorities decided to try her. She was indicted on 12 counts, all of them utterly grotesque, including suspicion of visiting the homes of prisoners’ families, suspicion of attending a book fair and suspicion of calling for the release of Ahmad Saadat, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who has been in prison for years.

“The charge sheet against Jarrar – an opponent of the occupation, a determined feminist and a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee – will one day serve as the crushing proof that there is not even the slightest connection between “military justice” and actual law and justice…

“…During Khalida’s last arrest, recalls her husband, IDF soldiers and Shin Bet security service agents burst into the house by force in the dead of night. They entered Suha’s (their daughter) room and woke her up. He remembers how she shouted, panic-stricken at the sight of the rifles being brandished by strange men in her bedroom wearing black masks, and how the soldiers handcuffed her from behind. As Ghassan replays the scene in his mind and remembers his daughter’s shouts, he grows distraught, as if it had happened this week.

“Not knowing know what the soldiers were doing to her there, and only hearing her shouts, he tried to come to his daughter’s rescue, he recalls. He says he was almost killed by the soldiers for trying to force his way into Suha’s bedroom.

“After the soldiers took Khalida, preventing Ghassan from even kissing her goodbye, despite his request – he discovered his daughter, bound by plastic handcuffs.”

 

 

Rep. Omar Speaks Truth to Power and Pays the Price

Newly elected Representative Ilhan Omar is being accused of Tweeting anti-Semitic slurs for speaking the truth:  AIPAC (the American Israel Public

Rep. Ilhan Omar

Affairs Committee) is among the most powerful lobbying organizations in this country.

Working in coordination with the Israeli government, AIPAC deploys sizeable financial and public relations resources in order to destroy any and all congressional voices that are critical of Israel.  They don’t hesitate to destroy the political careers and personal reputations of anyone with sufficient moral backbone to criticize Israel’s inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people.

Please watch the 4-part Al-Jazeera documentary, “The Lobby,” to see for yourself how insufferably dishonest pro-Israel lobbying groups can be.  I have discussed it in a previous post, “Discover Why Pro-Israel/Zionists Groups Fought to Stop You From Seeing This Documentary.”  You will find embedded links to the documentary there as well.

Two recent articles also provide helpful information with some historical context to the campaign of public shaming Rep. Omar has suffered for speaking the truth.  They are:

“Pro-Israel Lobby Caught on Tape Boasting That Its Money Influences Washington,” by Ryan Grimm at The Intercept.

“Democratic Party Insiders Create Group to Promote Israel to Progressives,” by Alison Weir at MPN News.  This well-researched piece is particularly apt in that Weir highlights AIPAC’s influence within the upper

Rep. Rashida Tlaib

echelons of the Democratic Party specifically designed to stop politicians like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from ever criticizing Israel.

The two excerpts below come from the two articles mentioned above.  The first is from The Intercept, the second is from MPN News.

First excerpt: “A debate about the power in Washington of the pro-Israel lobby is underway, after Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., responded sharply to reports that Republican leader Kevin McCarthy was targeting both Omar and fellow Muslim Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan.

“Omar quoted rap lyrics — “It’s all about the Benjamins baby” — to suggest McCarthy’s move was driven by the lobby’s prolific spending. Asked specifically who she was referring to, Omar responded, “AIPAC!”

“The debate over the influence of pro-Israel groups could be informed by an investigation by Al Jazeera, in which an undercover reporter infiltrated The Israel Project, a Washington-based group, and secretly recorded conversations about political strategy and influence over a six-month period in 2016. That investigation, however, was never aired by the network — suppressed by pressure from the pro-Israel lobby.

“In November, Electronic Intifada obtained and published the four-part series, but it did so during the week of the midterm elections, and the documentary did not get a lot of attention then.

“In it, leaders of the pro-Israel lobby speak openly about how they use money to influence the political process, in ways so blunt that if the comments were made by critics, they’d be charged with anti-Semitism…  

“…Without spending money, Ochs argues, the pro-Israel lobby isn’t able to enact its agenda. “Congressmen and senators don’t do anything unless you pressure them. They kick the can down the road, unless you pressure them, and the only way to do that is with money,” he explains.”

Second excerpt:  “Some Democratic heavy hitters have formed a new pro-Israel organization focused on progressive Democrats. The new group, “Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI),” is the latest in a long line of groups working for Israel in the United States.

“New York Jewish Week reports that the group was formed “to counter the drift

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)

— if not dive — away from support for Israel within the party.” Israel partisans are concerned at the growing support among Democrats for Palestinian human rights, as awareness of the situation has grown in recent years.

“Numerous humanitarian agencies have documented Israeli human rights violations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Christian Aid, the International Red Cross, and others.

“In addition, videos of Israeli settlers destroying Palestinian crops, Israeli soldiers beating people, including children, and killing unarmed protestors have become increasingly available on the Internet.

“This has had a perception-shattering impact.

“For many years surveys showed that more Americans sympathized with Israel than with Palestinians. But growing knowledge of the region among progressive Democrats has now reversed the numbers within that group. A 2018 Pew survey found that “nearly twice as many liberal Democrats say they sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel.”

“In addition, the New York Times reports, Israel partisans were jolted by the election of  Representatives Ilhan Omar (MN) and Rashida Tlaib (MI), who support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) who has called the occupation of Palestine a humanitarian crisis.”

History tells us that AIPAC, with the covert support of the Israeli government, will  do everything it possibly can to defeat these brave, new congresswomen when they run for reelection.  The current character assassination of Rep. Omar is only the first volley of pro-Zionist dirty tricks.

I can’t vote for any of these women, but I have written them letters of support, thanking them for their honesty and encouraging them not to give up.  I hope that you may take similar steps yourself.

No, Mr. President, Israel’s Border Wall Has Not Worked

President Trump regularly appeals to Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims about the supposed success of Israel’s border wall with the West Bank as ironclad evidence in favor of his own border wall plans with Mexico.

The problem is, it’s not true.

The wall dividing Israel from the West Bank has not “worked” to stop terrorism, but then that was never its actual intent.  It has, on the other hand, been very successful in accomplishing its actual purpose, which Israel will never acknowledge in public.

Here’s why:

First, it is true that after Israel began construction of its separation/annexation wall during the Second Intifada in 2000, terrorist attacks within Israel came to a slow but steady halt.  But in 2001, Hamas leaders (the organization headquartered in Gaza largely responsible for the suicide bombings) claimed that their decision was driven by internal, political considerations and had nothing to do with Israel’s wall.  Check out this 2001 article in the British newspaper, The Independent, “Hamas Orders Halt to Suicide Bomb Attacks.”

Of course, Hamas leaders could be lying about their motives in order to save face.  But I suspect not, for the simple reason that Israel’s wall is not much of a barrier to the determined terrorist.

I have seen people climb over the wall quite easily.

Long stretches of the wall are nothing more than a fence, mostly strung up in far-flung, isolated areas.  It would be easy for a would-be bomber to dig under, climb over or cut through this fence at any number of spots where they would never be seen, or long-gone by the time a border patrol appeared.

This is why I believe Hamas is telling the truth.  They chose to stop their bombing campaign because it was costing them support for their cause in the international community and creating division within the membership of the Palestinian Authority.

Second, regardless of all this, touting the awesome success of Israel’s “wall” makes for great P.R. among the Zionist community.  It also provides a good illustration of a classic logical fallacy.  It’s just a shame that logic never stood in the way of a Zionist hoping to score political points – especially when that Zionist’s name is Benjamin Netanyahu.

Perhaps you have heard of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.  If not, I’ll clue you in.  It’s a Latin phrase meaning “after this, therefore because of this.”  Its purpose is to point out the invalid assumption that just because one event follows after another event, we cannot assume that the first event was the cause of the other.

Yes, the rooster crows every morning just moments before sunup.  That doesn’t mean, however, that Mr. Sunshine is hovering below the horizon, waiting for Mr. Rooster’s signal.

In other words, correlation is not proof of causation.

Just because suicide bombings ended soon after Israel began building its separation wall is not proof, in and of itself, that suicide bombings ended because of the wall.  We must search for other evidence to prove this claim to be either true or false.

I think that the wall’s easy permeability – any determined bomber could get through if he/she wanted to – tips the scales in favor of believing Hamas’ own explanation:  they chose to stop using that particular tactic.

So, NO.  When president Trump says over and over again that these walls are always 99.9% effective, he is simply one presidential blow-hard mimicking another presidential blow-hard’s propaganda point. But then, both of these men, Trump and Netanyahu, are 99.9% die-hard political opportunists and only 0.1% intelligent thinkers – and I suspect even that figure is too generous for Trump.

Third, without going into the background here, political Zionism has a very, very long history of believing in the need for a literal wall of some sort to isolate Israel from the bloodthirsty Arab hordes around them.  Their current isolation/separation/annexation barrier is the product of Zionist colonial racism.  If you want to learn more about this issue, read Avi Shlaim’s important book, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (W.W. Norton, 2000).

The only way in which this wall has actually “worked” has been its success in illegally expropriating more land for Israel, in stopping Palestinian farmers and herdsmen from tending their flocks, their fields and their orchards, in dividing villages and families.

Israel’s wall is only one more Zionist tactic for stealing Palestinian land and oppressing the people of the West Bank.

In that way, it works marvelously.

Forward Magazine: “Does Israel Have the Right to Exist?”

Yousef Munayyer has an excellent article in the Forward entitled “‘Does Israel Have a Right to Exist’ Is a Trick Question.”  Mr. Munayyer provides an

Yousef Munayyer

excellent demonstration in critical thinking and the value of recognizing a leading question when asked.

Asking this question, do you recognize Israel’s right to exist?, is a favorite “go-to” strategy for Zionist apologists when debating critics of Israel.  It can arise in different forms.  Another favorite is the Zionist accusation that non-Zionist criticisms of Israeli policies “delegitimize” the state.

What does that mean, “to delegitimize Israel”?

The implied answer is that critics of Israel’s Zionist policies are denying Israel’s right to exist.  It’s another rhetorical trap.  Don’t fall for it.

Below is an excerpt from Mr. Munayyer’s article.  You can find the entire piece here.

“The truth is that no state has a ‘right to exist’ — not Israel, not Palestine, not the United States. Neither do Zimbabwe, Chile, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or Luxembourg have a “right to exist.”

“States do exist; there are about 200 in our world today, even though there are thousands of ethno-religious or ethno-linguistic groups.

“And these states don’t exist because they have a ‘right’ to. They exist because certain groups of people amassed enough political and material power to make territorial claims and establish governments, sometimes with the consent of those already living there and, oftentimes, at their expense.

“Most people understand this. I’ve never heard anyone demand to know whether Switzerland, or even the United States, has ‘a right to exist.’ States come and go over time; borders can change, names can change, regimes can change and yes, discriminatory systems underpinning regimes can change, too. But one state demands to be beyond reproach through a mythical ‘right to exist’: Israel.

“Can you imagine asking indigenous Americans and indigenous rights activists — fighting for the rights of a population whose languages, societies, culture and possessions were categorically decimated in the process of erecting the United States — whether the United States has a ‘right to exist’?

“That you can’t imagine this is testimony to the disingenuousness of the question. For this question is asked — almost always of critics of Israel’s policies — not for the purposes of debate and discourse, but rather, to create a gotcha moment, to undermine the credibility of the person questioned.

“It is intellectually dishonest and intended, almost always, to silence critics and criticism of Israeli policies.

“Worse, factors like the unfortunate though all-too-often-commonplace conflation of the State of Israel with Judaism and world Jewry, coupled with the awful history of persecution Jews have faced, mean that anyone who doesn’t answer the question about Israel’s right to exist with an unequivocal ‘yes’ risks being portrayed as an eliminationist radical worthy of labels like ‘anti-Semite’ and otherwise marginalized.

“In other words, it’s a set-up.

“Criticizing Israel’s policies toward the Palestinian people, including during its establishment and since, in the form of discriminatory policies against refugee repatriation, should never be conflated with eliminationism. The policies of all states should be open to criticism.

“…it is humans, not states, that have a right to exist. This includes all people: those who identify as Israelis and Palestinians alike, along with seven billion others.

“People also have a whole set of other rights — human rights, which states cannot deny. These include the right to free movement, the right to consent to being governed, the right to enter and exit their country, the right not to be tortured or collectively punished, and so on.

“It is by guaranteeing these rights and only by guaranteeing them that states derive their moral legitimacy; it is not from some mythical ‘right to exist’ or even the historical need of their people, but rather from the extent to which their policies respect the rights of people.

“The question should not be ‘Does Israel have a right to exist’ but rather, ‘Is the way in which Israel exists right?’”