Let’s review shall we?

Reporters questioned the Reut Institute about their use of the terms “sabotage” and “attack” in a set of recommendations for how the Israeli government should respond to human rights group who said things they consider a threat. In response, Reut didn’t say, “We were misunderstood and we reject violence of any kind.” But they did suggest that what they mostly meant was sabotage and digging campaigns against individuals who work for human rights organizations- nasty work pioneered by NGO Monitor. (Which may be why one acquaintance at a human rights group that does work in Palestine said that the director sent an email to staff suggesting they come forward now with any personal information that could be used against them. Sad days indeed.)

Reut Institute’s Eran Shayshon got a chance to explain the report on The Current, Canada’s flagship radio morning program : CBC Listen here.

It’s interesting that out of the 92-page report (download it all here), Naomi Klein isn’t mentioned once. Yet Shayshon confidently says that Klein, and her opposition to “Israel’s right to exist”, is one of the main reasons that Toronto is considered a hub of delegitimacy. Only problem? Klein has never been opposed to Israel’s right to exist.

(Another problem? My guess is that there’s a second report or database somewhere that is full of names of people like Klein and specific organizations conspicuously missing from the published report. They knew issuing a list of enemies of the state would cause more of a firestorm, but it’s the obvious next step when you’re fighting a war. And it works in Israel and Palestine, why not the rest of the world?)

The report also says “there was an attempt to boycott the Toronto Film Festival because it thematically spotlighted Tel Aviv”. That’s a lie too. The Toronto Declaration explicitly did not call for a boycott of the festival. It opposed showing films under a celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv.

Mondoweiss has Naomi Klein’s response: What Shayshon says about me is a flat out lie. I have made a personal choice not to advocate any particular political outcome in Israel-Palestine. He can search all my writing and public statements, he won’t find anything. What I do advocate, and what the BDS campaign advocates, is for Israel to abide by all applicable international laws. Any political outcome — whether one state, two state or more — must abide by these universal non-discriminatory principles. Though I do have personal preferences, I have no secret agenda and would support any outcome that conformed to these principles. Shayshon’s other big lie is his claim that I oppose “Israel’s right to exist”; indeed that I “have stated it out[right].” Once again, I challenge him to find one single example in anything I have said or written that would in any way support this claim. He won’t find it. This lie could just be slander, and attempt to inflict more “shame” on BDS advocates, as the leaked internal document explained to all of us recently. But I suspect that if challenged, Shayshon would simply claim that to support BDS is to oppose Israel’s existence, a claim I have heard before. This is interesting. Since the unequivocal goal of BDS is to force Israel to abide by international law, what Shayshon seems to be saying by implication is that Israel cannot exist within the confines of international law. I would never make such an argument but it does explain the recent aggressive “lawfare” campaign taking aim at the very existence of these laws. One last point: if supporting boycotts against a place means supporting its annihilation (the claim being made here and elsewhere), what precisely are we to make of the Gaza seige, infinitely more brutal than anything BDS advocates? Does that mean Israel is denying the right of Gaza to exist?

Omar Barghouti got a “No thank you” response from the San Francisco area Jewish Community Relations Council head Rabbi Doug Kahn, the key author of recent McCarthyite Federation funding guidelines, but he did finally get his BDS debate– with well-known peacenik Rabbi Arthur Waskow–on Democracy Now. Meanwhile, here’s Barghouti’s Open Letter from Kabobfest:

by Omar Barghouti, a leader of the international movement to boycott Israel

Open Letter to Rabbi Doug Kahn

Executive Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council

It has recently come to my attention that pending the advice of a working group of which you were a member, the Jewish Community Federation has chosen to itself boycott groups advocating a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) program targeting Israel. As one of the founding members of the global BDS campaign, I cannot but note the irony of your use of boycott as a tool to suppress views that support the boycott against Israel. I can only conclude that you do approve of the efficacy and appropriateness of boycotts, as a non-violent form of activism and a catalyst for change, but condemn them when the change they set out to achieve is related to ending Israel’s occupation as well as its grave violations of international law and Palestinian rights.

For years, Palestinian civil society has been advocating the tool of boycotts, divestment and sanctions, or BDS, as a means of challenging Israel’s impunity and redressing the wrongs done to the Palestinian people by the violent and oppressive Israeli policies and actions. Wouldn’t you agree, given you in-principle embrace of boycotts, that this effective, non-violent form of struggle is far superior, morally speaking, to the “tactics” of white phosphorous, Walls, siege, forced displacement and apartheid?

However, while we may agree on the methods, I think there we hold sharply conflicting views about who the targets of a boycott should be and what violations of human rights would necessitate such methods. The Jewish Community Federation has chosen to flex its boycotting muscle to intimidate and muzzle dissenters and to suppress free speech by cutting off funds to (and negate the acceptability of) progressive Jewish activists and intellectuals who dare to believe that the Jewish community in the US is not a monolithic herd, and who put their commitment to human rights and their moral consistency obligations ahead of any perceived “tribal” allegiances. Through its sweeping threats, the JCF is in fact attempting to stifle the richly diverse views of Jewish Americans that seek to challenge, via BDS-related tactics, the legitimacy of Israel’s occupation and its egregious infringements of international law and human rights.

Is there any reasonable argument that can justify your position in support of a boycott against a documentary about a brave young human rights activist called Rachel, who was crushed to death by a bulldozer demolishing a Palestinian home? Isn’t it more appropriate, ethically speaking, to call for divestment from the company that manufactures this bulldozer knowing well its use in violations of international law? Isn’t the state that uses such bulldozers, among other means, on a regular basis to demolish thousands of Palestinian homes and impose other egregious forms of collective punishment against millions of Palestinian civilians a more worthy target for boycott?

Those such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, and many leading international cultural figures, academics, trade unions, NGOs and social movement actors who endorse the Palestinian civil society advocated BDS campaign believe that boycotts ought to be used not to suppress those who reveal the truth and stand up to injustice and oppression but, on the contrary, to end oppression and impunity. Boycotts ought to be used to bring about just peace, security and equal rights for all human beings irrespective of their identities.

Perhaps we can discuss the merits of our respective positions by engaging in a public debate, another hallmark of civil society. Though friends and colleagues in the Bay Area have searched long and hard, they have had such difficulty finding someone willing to debate whether boycotting Israel is justified or not. I turn to you because I see that you at least in principle agree on the appropriateness of boycott as a tactic. A debate, by definition, will allow both sides to be equally expressed without any a priori bias towards one position or the other. One possible title for this debate can be: BDS is counterproductive to the pursuit of just peace in the Middle East. Obviously, your side would defend the motion, while I would oppose it.

There is a room reserved at UC Berkeley’s Law School this Wednesday night, March 3rd at 6:30 If you agree, this will be a good chance to have a civil, mutually-respectful debate before the public. If you cannot make it, I hope that you can suggest a colleague of yours who can participate in such a debate to explain your Federation’s position.

If this is agreeable to you, colleagues in the Bay Area can get in touch with you or those you suggest to iron out the details.

Sincerely,

Omar Barghouti

The San Francisco Bay Area’s Jewish Federation has made it official.

Here in one of the most cosmopolitan, diversity-friendly and culture-loving places on earth, there is a new litmus test for Jewish identity and it has absolutely nothing to do with religious practice, cultural expression, personal history or the values you embrace. Membership in the Jewish community has been officially reduced to one and only one question- do you UNCONDITIONALLY love Israel?

Do you love Israel so much that you are willing to stand by and do nothing as it destroys itself and everyone it controls by repeatedly violating international law, sending its youngest citizens to enforce the 43-year occupation of another people,  imprisoning them, killing them with impunity, denying them the right to health and education and work and claiming it’s all in the name of security while taking more Palestinian land and water and trees each day.

In other words, are you willing to love Israel to death?

If the answer is YES, you’re in! If the answer is NO, and you have the chutzpah to embrace the principled, creative, peaceful methods of Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, and Gandhi as a way to pressure Israel to  help provide true democracy for all Israelis and Palestinians, then you’re out!

Prompted by the controversy over the showing of the film Rachel at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the federation just announced this stunning set of McCarthyite policy guidelines which seek to sever any public ties that ANY Bay area grantees -including progressive synagogues and arts and educational organizations-  have with groups that support Boycotts, Divestment or Sanctions in whole or part, or who “delegitimize Israel” (according to who exactly? The judges who hold the Federation purse strings, that’s who).

It’s meant primarily to banish one of the Bay Area’s largest Jewish organizations,  Jewish Voice for Peace, which supports divestment from companies that profit from the occupation, from the institutional Jewish world, but it will impact the ability of Jewish organizations to partner with Christian, Quaker or Muslim groups, many of which support some sort of BDS.

It is also specifically identifies groups or individuals, so that ideological dossiers will have to be developed to make sure panelists can be certified kosher before appearing on Jewish stages in the Bay Area.

Jewish filmmakers and thinkers like The Yes Men, Udi Aloni and Naomi Klein; poets like Adrienne Rich or playwrights like Tony Kushner and Wallace Shawn who, like Klein and Rich, sit on JVP’s advisory board; or even journalists like Time’s Joe Klein, are now banished from the institutional Jewish world here- unless they agree not to talk about Israel at all, then they’re fine.

Of course, it won’t matter in the end. Incredibly creative Jewish life forms are growing everywhere. In fact, an entire young generation of young Jews if growing up asking why Jewish institutions that seek to police free expression are even relevant to their lives? And supporters of various elements of nonviolent resistance, BDS, are already inside most major Jewish institutions.

In fact, it’s got to be a source of tremendous embarrassment that Dan Sokatch, the head of the New Israel Fund, was the head of the Federation until just a few months ago. The New Israel Fund would likely not be allowed to co-sponsor an event with a Federation grantee according to these guidelines because they serve as fiscal sponsor to the group that maintains the most important global database used for the BDS movement.

Here is the unintentionally humorous statement which begins by asserting the respect for diversity within Jewish life.

The Jewish Community Federation’s (JCF’s) core values include an abiding commitment to a secure Jewish community here and abroad, to the strong democratic Jewish State of Israel, and to mutual respect and diversity within Jewish life.   Consistent with its core values, the JCF funds a full spectrum of organizations that sustain and grow our community through pluralistic expressions and wide-ranging perspectives that affirm a broad and inclusive tent vital to a strong and dynamic Jewish community. This policy applies only to the grantor-grantee relationship between the JCF and other entities.

The JCF does not fund organizations that through their mission, activities or partnerships:

1. endorse or promote anti-Semitism, other forms of bigotry, violence or other extremist views;
2. actively seek to proselytize Jews away from Judaism; or
3. advocate for, or endorse, undermining the legitimacy of Israel as a secure independent, democratic Jewish state, including through  participation in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in whole or in part.

These principles also apply to grants from the JCF’s Endowment Fund.

In order to be eligible for funding, organizations that engage in Israel-related programming are required to produce documentation such as their policies, procedures, guidelines, and mission statement that demonstrate consistency with the JCF’s core values or – in the absence of such documentation – to abide by this policy and to initiate a process to develop organizational guidelines, policies and procedures consistent with it. There can be no uniform set of policies or procedures that is applicable to every organization.  Organizations are expected to adapt this policy to their unique circumstances.

This policy is not intended to discourage the presentation of a wide range of perspectives aimed at appealing to a broad cross-section of the community.    The JCF and our community are well-served by fostering diverse expressions through our cultural, educational, religious, social service and community relations institutions, and by promoting a strong commitment to civil discourse.

The JCF will review its policy and supporting guidelines with each grantee, address questions unique to that grantee, and explain how implementation of the policy and guidelines can be a benefit to the grantee and the community.  The JCF will also be bound by this policy in its own programming, partnerships and co-sponsorships.

ENFORCEMENT OF POLICY

In the event of a perceived violation by a grantee of the JCF policy, the CEO of the JCF  and its President and Officers will promptly review the situation, speak to the grantee, obtain the facts, understand the context, make a determination as to whether a grantee has violated the policy and – if it is determined that a grantee has violated the policy – take appropriate steps consistent with this policy. Where a grantee’s overall body of work has been consistent with the JCF’s core values, the grantee will be urged to swiftly address concerns that have been raised as a result of a specific program.

The JCF reserves the right to suspend funding and sponsorship, particularly in any case where it determines, in its sole discretion, that an egregious policy violation has occurred, there has been a sustained pattern of violating the policy, or insufficient remedial measures were implemented.

INTRODUCTION TO GUIDELINES

The Jewish Community Federation (JCF) has a long and proud history as a funder of arts and other diverse community organizations which seek to inspire and celebrate Judaism and Jewish life.  The JCF recognizes that art, by its very nature, may express a political statement, provoke a range of emotions, or promote ideas that are potentially controversial.  The JCF believes the community and our institutions will be well-served by establishing guideposts that help ensure consistency with the JCF’s core values and which are not aimed at squelching creativity, diverse expressions or critique around controversial topics.

Grantees are strongly encouraged to consult with the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) in advance of potentially controversial programs that could contain any of the elements described in the scenarios below.  Organizations ultimately make their own decisions, but broad consultation can help avoid conflicts with the policy, minimize surprise or polarization, and allow for the sharing of experiences before programs are set in stone.  To ensure broad consultation, when there is a question whether a particular program may violate the policy or on the interpretation of the policy, JCRC will consult with the JCF’s CEO, President and officers.

The following guidelines are intended to assist grantees with respect to programming as it relates to the policy statement.

GUIDELINES ON POTENTIALLY CONTROVERSIAL ISRAEL-RELATED PROGRAMMING

Programs Generally in Accord with JCF Policy

The following kinds of programs are generally in accord with the policy statement, but early JCRC consultation is strongly encouraged and the programming should be presented within an overall program strategy that is consistent with JCF’s core values:

1. Dialogue groups (i.e. non-public exchanges)
2. Private meetings
3. Presentations on topics other than the Middle East and Israel, that are not used to promote a BDS agenda or provide a forum for leaders of groups that espouse views inconsistent with JCF’s core values
4. Presentations by organizations or individuals that are critical of particular Israeli government policies but are supportive of Israel’s right  to exist as a secure independent Jewish democratic state and that do not espouse views inconsistent with this policy.
5. Panel discussions, speaker series intended for the same audience, cultural presentations, or educational programs portraying a range of diverse perspectives that, on balance, are consistent with JCF’s core values
6. Programs that are open to the community and welcome attendees regardless of their individual views
7. Participation in broad-based community coalitions on non-Israel-related issues provided that the coalitions do not become vehicles for undermining the legitimacy of Israel
8. Artistic presentations (displays, exhibits, films, performances) that may include critical perspectives of Jewish life or Israel and that, on balance, are consistent with JCF’s core values

Programs Not Consistent with JCF’s Policy

In addition to the specific areas covered by the policy statement, the following kinds of programs are not consistent with the policy statement:

1. Panel discussions, speakers series, cultural, artistic or educational programs that as an overall experience – i.e. based on the entire body of work – endorse or prominently promote the BDS movement or positions that undermine the legitimacy of the State of Israel
2. Individual programs that endorse the BDS movement or positions that undermine the legitimacy of the State of Israel
3. Co-sponsorship or co-presentations of public programs on Middle East issues with supporters of the BDS movement or others who undermine the legitimacy of the State of Israel

endorse or promote anti-Semitism, other forms of bigotry, violence or other extremist views;

actively seek to proselytize Jews away from Judaism; or

advocate for, or endorse, undermining the legitimacy of Israel as a secure independent, democratic Jewish state, including through  participation in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in whole or in part.

The Israeli Ministry of Hasbara and Diaspora Affairs has started a new project to recruit Israelis traveling abroad to the cause of ‘explaining’ the kinder, gentler side of Israel. The Hebrew website (http://www.masbirim.gov.il) is called ‘masbirim,’ which literally means ‘we explain.’ The word comes from the same Hebrew root as Hasbara (explanation). For some reason, Israel translates Hasbara as ‘public diplomacy,’ but there is no diplomacy involved at all.

Hasbara (explanation) follows the misguided notion that if Israel could only ‘explain’ itself, people would understand the context for the images they see on TV and the reports they read in the press about the horrors of the attacks on Gaza and the ongoing Israeli occupation. Under this philosophy, Israel need not change its behavior one bit, just spend more resources hoping the world will finally get it.

The new ads, targeted to the Israeli public, present three theoretical myths that people are said to have about Israel. The Globe and Mail explains,

The commercials, part of an initiative called Making the Case for Israel, were first seen this past weekend, and are aimed at the large number of Israelis who travel abroad each year. One ad says people around the world think camels are a common form of transportation in Israel, another alludes to the belief that the Israeli diet consists of kabobs grilled over a primitive barbecue, while a third notes that Independence Day fireworks are often mistaken for military action.

Yuli Edelstein, Israel’s Minister of Hasbara and Diaspora Affairs explains,

“We decided to give Israelis who go abroad tools and tips to help them deal with the attacks on Israel in their conversations with people, media appearances and lectures before wide audiences. I hope we succeed together in changing the picture and proving to the world that there is a different Israel.”

Mr. Edelstein has called the Israeli tourists recruited to this campaign ‘the Israeli Public Diplomacy Forces,’ a clear reference to the Israel Defense Forces, the country’s military.

Each one of the three commercials contains a sad irony that cannot be easily explained with more Hasbara.

A special prejudice appropriation prize goes to the fake-BBC commercial, where a fake-reporter shares with you a supposed myth about Israel: “This is the camel. The camel is a typical Israeli animal used by the Israelis to travel from place to place in the desert where the live. It is the means of transport for water, merchandise, and ammunition. It is even used by the Israeli cavalry.”

Whoever heard of a myth of Israelis riding camels?

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) on the other hand points to the “the tired stereotype of the Arab world as a place of deserts and camels, of arbitrary cruelty and barbarism,” and its consequences:

Dr. Shaheen remembers being taught in his Lebanese American home to be proud of his family’s Arab heritage. But at school, he remembers teasing, taunts and epithets: “camel jockeys,” “desert niggers,” “greasy Lebs.”

Oh, but for purposes of Hasbara, these appropriations of prejudice do not matter.

The remaining two fake commercials cannot help but remind me of Gaza.

Here’s the fake French-language newscaster: With a background of Israeli airforce planes flying above a city and leaving behind a white streak and of a multitude of fireworks noisily lighting the evening sky, the newscaster says, “We have just learned that at this moment war noises have been heard in several Israeli cities. Our special correspondents report shootings and strong explosions which can be heard throughout the whole country.”

The strong explosions being heard throughout the land bring to mind this January 10/09 witness account from Israel’s war on Gaza (Sleep hard to come by in bombarded Gaza):

At 12:15pm I’d noted and photographed the white stream of chemical clouds billowing over large expanses of eastern Gaza…

And later at 3:20 am:

In the hospital room where I tried to sleep between an ambulance shift and morning obligations, the tank shelling and firing is in the room, landing on my pillow.

It’s the shells, which crack and blast. The staccato gunfire. The drones’ whine, in menacing pitches. The fighter plane’s sudden, thundering presence.

The drone ramps up the decibels, a train wreck of disharmony.

And the inevitable whoosh before the explosion, an F-16 launch which erupts a crater where someone’s house, or a market, or a mosque once stood. The blast an hour ago was a market, another nurse tells me. “It was a beautiful market, sold everything, everything we need,” she says.

I have saved the Spanish-language fake commercial to the end because it tops the cake, so to speak. Here’s the fake Spanish-language newscaster: ‘In Israel in the majority of the homes there is neither electricity nor gas, so that Israelis continue using primitive cooking methods such as bbq.”

You gotta be kidding me! This looks like a bad joke, when you compare to the Palestinian reality, not the Israeli myth. From last year’s The Atlantic’s In Gaza, Eating Under Siege:

And then there’s the question of fuel for cooking. The borders sometimes allow cooking gas to enter, sometimes not. As the power facilities have been bombed several times, electricity is very sporadic. Many families have small generators, but most of the gasoline for these must also be piped in through the tunnels, which is very expensive. Faced with the frequent impossibility of finding any kind of fuel for cooking, many families have recurred to their grandmother’s memories, fashioning traditional adobe ovens on the roofs and balconies of their modern apartment buildings.

Lest you think that these were Gaza’s temporary troubles in 2009, I give you 2008:

Umm Jamal Al Baba, a 60-year-old from Rafah camp, stands visibly tired in a queue of hundreds for bread. “I can no longer make bread in my house - there is no gas for cooking, no electricity.”
Now that rice had disappeared under the siege, or priced out of the reach of most people, bread means survival for Palestinians in Gaza Strip.
In Gaza, It’s Darkness at Noon, IPS, Jan 23, 2008

and yes, 2010:

Cooking gas rationing continues…
(UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Occupied Palestinian Territory, February 2010 report)

If the commercials are bad, imagine the talking points for the Israeli traveler. Peace Now secretary-general Yariv Openheimer complained that the new Israeli government website were these videos are housed contains information that would move Jewish Israeli public opinion towards an uncompromising right. According to the JPost,

He noted that the site does not encourage advocating the two-state solution, it talks about the need to keep Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights, and it suggests that evacuating settlers would harm their human rights.

Let’s see how these ideas are developed by the Israeli tourists who choose to join the “Israeli Public Diplomacy Forces.”

– Sydney Levy

They’re baaaaack - Israel’s “most influential” think tank tells Israeli government to “attack” and “sabotage” global peace and human rights groups (as opposed to domestic groups which are already under attack.)

I wrote last month about the Reut (pronounced Ray-OOT) Institute’s report on what they see as the new existential threat to Israel. No longer military, the report said, the primary threat to Israel is political. Israel must fight a “delegitimization network” of peace and human rights groups based largely in four international “hubs”: Toronto, Madrid, London and the San Francisco Bay Area (where Jewish Voice for Peace is located.)

(Now, more of the report is available on-line, including a cool animated PowerPoint! Read terrific in-depth pieces on the new material by Ali Abunimah and Richard Silverstein.)

There are many astonishing elements of the report. One is the blame it places on others including the global left for the increasing political viability of a one-state solution. In fact it is Israel’s never-ending expansion of settlements that has made a two-state solution seem more and more unlikely by the day, not the global human rights movement. What groups like Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) seek to delegitimize is the occupation and massive inequality and human rights violations committed against Palestinians, not Israel itself. Even most Palestinians, polls show, want their own viable state over a one-state solution. (JVP is neutral on the issue of one state or two or three for that matter, supporting any resolution consistent with international law which is largely supported by both parties.)

If the Israelis really wanted the Palestinians to have a state of their own, they could have made it happen years ago and the entire world would have cheered, and since 2002, they would have had full relations with all their Arab neighbors. But instead, the Israeli government has used endless peace negotiations as a way to expand settlements while keeping the international community at bay.  If the one-state solution marks the greatest existential threat to Israel, as the Reut report suggests, the Israeli government has no one to blame
but itself. The global peace and justice movement is the symptom, not the cause.

Secondly, the report actually dares to suggest “sabotage” of groups like Jewish Voice for Peace who are part of an international peace and justice  human rights network and who actively support Israeli and Palestinian activists on the ground (our sites include: www.December18th.org, www.FreeEzra.org, www.TheOnlyDemocracy.org etc..). We take this very seriously. Perhaps this is the way NGOs are
increasingly handled in Israel, especially under Netanyahu. But it’s certainly not how the government, and especially a foreign government, is expected to respond to law- abiding NGOs here in the United States (Ahem, Cointelpro and other efforts notwithstanding). And frankly, we won’t stand for it.

Plus it’s just a stupid idea.

How a report that says in one breath that Israel’s future lies in branding itself as a high-tech, eco-conscious and cultured democracy while simultaneously suggesting “sabotage” and “attacks” on law-abiding peace groups is stunning.  Instead of driving a wedge between “soft” and “hard” critics of Israel, as the report suggests, promoting these kinds of war-like responses against human rights groups will backfire and turn the most casual critics of Israeli policies into supporters of much harsher measures. This, after all, is
the primary legacy of Cast Lead, Israel’s massive attack on Gaza’s entrapped population.

If the Reut Institute really wanted to offer some helpful advice on how Israel might stop the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, they might start by advising the Israeli government to end the
occupation.

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East just sent out this action alert. The video features some of the photos in the exhibit.

Dear Friends,

On Monday, Feb. 15th, Cinema du Parc received an email insisting that CJPME’s Photo Exposition, Human Drama in Gaza, be immediately removed from the Cinema.  The email was from a legal representative of Gestion Redbourne PDP Inc., the owners of the building housing Cinema du Parc.  The Cinema has hosted dozens of expositions in the past three years, and this is the first time that such action has been taken.  This move on the part of Redbourne seems entirely political, to muzzle the message of Human Drama in Gaza.

If you live outside Montreal, click here to protest this action.

If you live in Montreal, click here to protest Redbourne’s action and to support the Cinema and the Exposition.

More Info

CJPME’s Human Drama in Gaza Photo Exposition features 44 photos, taken before, during and after last winter’s 22-day assault on Gaza by professional photographers from Israel, Palestine, and the West.  Produced by CJPME, and funded through private donations, the Montreal stop at Cinema du Parc is the first in a series of cross-Canada shows.

The Montreal Exposition began on Friday, Jan. 15th and was originally scheduled to continue through through Sunday, February 28th. The Exposition is open from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on weekdays, and from 3:00 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. on weekends.  All the photos and captions used in the Exposition can be found here, and a video trailer introducing the Exposition can be found here.

Cinema du Parc has been great partner in the hosting of the Exposition in Montreal, and is standing its ground in the face of Redbourne’s action.

Im Tirtzu, the New Israel Fund, the Palestinian-led non-violent protest movement against the Wall, and the launch of our newest blog, www.theonlydemocracy.org.

Cross-posted at Huffington Post

By JVP Executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson and  Jesse Bacon, JVP Board Member and co-editor of theonlydemocracy.org.

Over the last week there has been a significant outcry in Israel and in some Jewish circles in the US about an ugly, anti-Semitic, and sexist ad campaign against the US-based New Israel Fund (NIF), a key funder of Israeli civil society and human rights groups.

The originator of the campaign, the far-right group Im Tirtzu (meaning “if you will it,” which is a fragment of a famous sentence of Herzl’s about the founding of Israel,) has drawn condemnation across more of the political spectrum than usual. What has caused the most outrage is a picture of an evil-looking Naomi Chazan, board president of the NIF, with a horn coming out of her head, a classic anti-Semitic trope. But more attention should be paid to the text of the ad: “Without the New Israel Fund, there could be no Goldstone Report, and Israel would not be facing international accusations of war crimes.”

This breathtaking leap of logic blames the allegations of possible war crimes not on the fact that they took place, but that they were investigated and written about–in a report, it should be said, that also accused Hamas of possible war crimes. This is the crux of the argument of the campaign against the NIF, and by extension the Israeli human rights organizations that it funds: Telling the truth is less important than defending Israel. And by extension, Israel should be able to do whatever it wants, up to and including killing civilians, as long as it doesn’t become a public relations problem.

These anti-democratic attacks on any person or organization that dares to criticize Israeli policy — attacks which go all the way to Israel’s Knesset where Tzipi Livni’s Kadima party just withdrew a proposal to investigate the New Israel Fund in lieu of a Foreign Affairs Committee investigation — are rightly alarming to anyone who cares deeply about promoting a healthy Israeli democracy.

Clearly, the civil liberties of Israelis, that is, Jewish Israelis, are still viewed at least in some quarters as precious, even as the rights of Palestinians are ignored. As Didi Remez reported from the court room after the arrest of Israelis at a protest against Palestinian evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, the prosecutor announced grandly, “freedom of movement is still a basic right” to general laughter in the courtroom, and so had to add, “I mean for Israeli citizens.”

But this is not a question for Israeli Jews alone.

The growing McCarthyism in Israel is proportionate to the rise of the Palestinian-led non-violent protest movement against the Wall in places like Sheikh Jarrah, Bilin, Nilin, Nebi Saleh, Al-Masara, and seemingly an additional village each week. It’s also a reaction to the growth of the worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which is gaining victories and new adherents every day, strengthened in part by unassailable data published by Israeli human rights groups. Just as in Apartheid South Africa’s day, Israel’s society seems to be turning more bluntly racist and repressive as it faces mounting challenges from all sides. The sumud (steadfastness in Arabic) of the Palestinian people in their non-violent resistance is a potent weapon against the Israeli Occupation, and Israel has responded by cracking down not only on the occupied Palestinians but also on the civil rights of Israelis who show any solidarity or sympathy.

The protest movement has been growing even as there has been a dramatic increase in repression against Palestinian villages that are being punished, not only by tear gas, sound bombs, and rubber bullets, but by nighttime raids and accelerating arrests of leaders of the movement. This is a testament primarily to the fortitude of countless Palestinians who feel they have no choice as they lose their lands and livelihoods to the path of the Wall and settlement expansion, but also to the unwavering support of the Israeli and international solidarity movement, which continues to be present at each and every protest and court hearing.

The controversy over the NIF is part of a continuing and accelerating trend within Israel of the silencing of dissent. That many Jewish groups and some Israeli Knesset members are defending Israel’s democracy is laudatory. But where is the chorus of voices when Palestinians are the subject of racist attacks in Israel? Where is the outrage when Palestinian freedom of movement and freedom of speech and freedom to live without arbitrary arrests, destruction of property and loss of life continues to be ignored every day?

The attacks on democratic expression inside Israel are directly related to the Occupation and the lack of equality, along ethnic lines, of Palestinians and Jews in both Israel and in the Occupied Territories. Would perpetual Occupation be just fine if Israelis could just keep on living on their side of the Wall, attempting to emulate a quiet European lifestyle? Much as most Israelis might want that–Im Tirtzu, you might say–it cannot be. The two stories, of Palestinians and Israelis, are too intertwined.

Our organization, the U.S.-based Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), works with partners on the ground in Israel and Palestine who fight for real democracy. Months ago they alerted us to the increased crackdowns on democracy rights activists. This week we are launching a new blog, theonlydemocracy.org, to highlight the voices of both Palestinians and Israelis who continue, against such tremendous odds, to fight for human rights and equality for all people.

At JVP, we speak out on the loss of democracy on all sides. We speak for Palestinian political prisoners, and we speak out for the Shministim, high school seniors who refuse to enter the military. We speak out for Goldstone, and we speak out for BDS campaigners and protestors against the Wall who are arrested without charge. We hope that anyone troubled by the attacks on NIF will join us.

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• Right-Wing U.S. Groups Target Israeli Universities (trueslant.com)
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with a few self-haters like Goldstone and a cast of thousands thrown in for good measure…

One wonders when the Anti-Defamation League or the Simon Wiesenthal Center will start a commission to investigate why in some progressive quarters, being called a self-hating Jew has started to become a point of pride. And why, worse, others simply shrug off charges of Jew-hater. Perhaps it is because the wielders of such venomous charges are so ridiculous, such caricatures in their reflexive protection of an Israel that has no accountability, that any thinking person immediately knows the wackos are at it again.

This shift in the culture is nothing to rejoice about. In fact, it’s something of a worst-case-scenario for those of us truly concerned about the fate of Jews.

Wacko Exhibit A: Andrew Sullivan. I’m loving the newly unleashed (former AIPAC and later, liberal pro-Israel Israel Policy Forum) MJ Rosenberg now that he’s gone over to Media Matters. His whole piece is a fun read:

By M.J. Rosenberg - February 9, 2010, 10:20AM

I knew that Andrew Sullivan’s abandonment of the hard right position on Israel was driving his old buds at the New Republic crazy.

Andrew was once TNR’s wunderkind, the youngest editor in its history. Smart, cool, Oxford educated and a gentile Zionist. (Sullivan himself has written that he was pro-Israel long before he got to TNR).

Sullivan left TNR and its whacked out publisher, Marty Peretz, on good terms although Sullivan must have known that there was one condition for remaining on those good terms: he must never attack Israel’s policies.

But, after Gaza, the increasingly liberal Sullivan could not take it anymore. He remains pro-Israel but was, and is, utterly disgusted by Israel’s behavior in Gaza. Plus, he can’t stand the neocons.

And so the break with TNR had to come. And here it is from Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor and bosom buddy of publisher Peretz.

Here’s my summation. “Andrew Sullivan always had theological problems with Jews because they don’t get the Trinity. For awhile he laid that aside. But now his virulent hatred of Israel and people like Krauthammer has caused him to revert to who he originally was. He is a Jew-hater.”

The title of the piece is “Something Much Darker: Andrew Sullivan Has A Serious Problem.”

It’s a classic. I know most of you won’t read the whole piece. Wieseltier’s prose is impenetrable. But try.

I hope Sullivan is not bothered by the Wiesel’s diatribe although I suspect he may be. No one likes being called an anti-semite or a racist. But consider the source: the TNR ghetto where every gentile is either a current Jew-hater or a future one.

God, it must drive Peretz and the Wiesel nuts that their once fair-haired (and now no-haired) boy is one of the most influential thinkers in America while they have been relegated to that microspace where Michael Goldfarb, Jonah Goldberg, and John Podhoretz reign supreme.

Exhibit B: Van Jones who had the temerity to go to the West Bank and actually report what he saw! And for that, he is being attacked by at least one blogger as a “Jew-hater”. The damning quote according from a 2002 radio interview?

Van: I came over here very concerned about Israeli children living in fear.. nobody is winning here.. WHAT I’VE SEEN HERE GOES FAR BEYOND WHAT COULD BE CONSIDERED FOR SAFETY.. ABSOLUTE HOUSE ARREST FOR EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN A CITY.. 24/7 FOR WEEKS AT A TIME.. NONE OF THIS COULD RATIONALLY BE CONCEIVED OF AS DEFENSE.. I HAVE BEEN A LIFELONG OPPONENT OF ANTI-SEMITISM.. NOW NOT TO SPEAK OUT HERE IS ANTI-SEMITIC. WE OWE IT TO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.. AND PALESTINE.. TO PUT AN END TO THESE KIND OF ABUSES.. THERE IS NO DIVISION BETWEEN US POLICY TOWARD IRAQ AND TOWARD ISRAEL-PALESTINE.. THE US GOVERNMENT ON THE WRONG SIDE OF SANITY..

And this proves he hates Jews? Really?

The terrific global news service, Inter Press Service, has an interesting article which suggests that in light of concern about waning American power, the US-based Israel Lobby, namely the American Jewish Committee and a few others, is setting up shop in the EU to replicate their success in making criticism of Israel out of bounds. They’re urging that funds to human rights groups that criticize Israeli policies as racist or defacto apartheid be cut off. Hmmm.

Given the undeniable disaster thus far known as Obama and company’s efforts to make peace in Israel and Palestine, it is meaningful that the balance of power is shifting globally. As good as the AJC may be at invoking real forms of anti-Jewish hatred  to shut decent people up about Israel, they won’t get the welcome reception they’ve had here in the US. Meanwhile, since it’s absolutely clear that Israel won’t give Palestinians the rights to which they are entitled without pressure, let’s rejoice that finally, the question may not have to be resolved in the halls of Congress after all.

MIDEAST:

Pro-Israel Lobbies Work on Europe

David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Feb 2 (IPS) - Defenders of Israel’s aggressive stance have for many years been recognised as a powerful force shaping United States foreign policy. A less well-known fact is that the pro-Israel lobby has been making a concerted effort to strengthen its presence in Europe.

The lobby’s determination to make an impression on European Union policy-makers was exemplified by a new booklet published on Jan. 28.

Titled ‘Squaring the Circle?: EU-Israel Relations and the Peace Process in the Middle East’, the booklet advocates that EU should “rebalance its priorities” and pursue closer relations with Israel regardless of whether progress is made in resolving the conflict with the Palestinians.

Unlike the plethora of publications on EU affairs that quickly fade into obscurity, there are good reasons to believe that this one will not go unnoticed in the corridors of power.

First, it was published by the Centre of European Studies, the official think-tank for the network of Christian Democrat and conservative parties that dominate European governments.

Secondly, its author, Emanuele Ottolenghi, has already demonstrated his capability to catch the eyes of politicians by penning several pamphlets for Labour Friends of Israel, a group that boasts of the top figures in Britain’s ruling party among its members.

Ottolenghi is the director of the Transatlantic Institute. Also styling itself as a think-tank, this Brussels-based institute was set up by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in 2004.

“The AJC is the foreign policy wing of the Israel lobby,” says Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, a researcher in Scotland’s University of Strathclyde, who monitors the activities of hawkish pro-Israel groups for the website neoconeurope.eu “The two places that it has decided to focus on most are Latin America and Europe. This is because it has a sense that American power might be in decline.”

The AJC has been successful in convincing the EU that many criticisms of Israel can be considered as a general slur on Jews. In 2005, the EU’s Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (which has been subsequently renamed the Fundamental Rights Agency) published a working definition on anti-Semitism, admitting that it had been drawn up in consultation with the AJC and the like-minded Anti-Defamation League.

According to this definition says that criticisms of Israel, which contend that the establishment of that state was a “racist endeavour” or which compare Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians to the behaviour of the Nazis during the Second World War, should be considered as anti-Semitism. Ottolenghi’s new booklet invokes that definition to call on the EU to declare campaigners critical of Israel ineligible for funding from those sections of Union’s budget dealing with the promotion of human rights and democracy. It is “curious,” he argued that EU financial support has gone to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) “whose work depicts Israel as a racist society and an apartheid regime.”

“In other words, EU Commission money is helping certain NGOs spread a message that, according to another EU agency, is considered to be anti-Semitic and thus against EU values,” he wrote.

Ottolenghi has been active, too, in urging the EU to adopt a tough line against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. His book ‘Under a Mushroom Cloud,’ which was published last year, posited the theory that Arab leaders are unconcerned by how Israel had developed nuclear weapons of its own decades before Iran started work on its nuclear programme.

“Arab leaders sleep soundly under the shadow of Israel’s nuclear umbrella; it is Iran’s nuclear quest which gives them nightmares,” Ottolenghi wrote. “They know - they have always known - that Israel’s military prowess serves its survival and does not seek to impose a political diktat on its neighbours. The same cannot be said of Iran, with its hegemonic ambitions, and its desire to refashion the region.”

Yet since the book was published Arab governments sponsored a resolution on Israel passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The resolution noted that Israel is the only state in the region that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a 1968 agreement designed to curb the spread of nuclear weapons. This was the first such call directed at Israel approved by the IAEA, an official body of the United Nations, in 18 years.

Along with the AJC, several other pro-Israel lobby groups have opened new offices in Brussels over the past decade. These include the European Jewish Congress and B’nai B’rith. Another group, the European Friends of Israel (EFI), has been formed as a cross-party alliance of members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

During Israel’s offensive against Gaza last year, the EFI circulated briefing papers that defended the killing of Palestinian civilians. According to the EFI, it was impossible for Israel to avoid civilian deaths because Hamas, a Palestinian resistance movement, had ordered its members “to discard uniforms and dress in regular clothes that made them indistinguishable from the civilian population”.

Michael Gahler, a German Christian Democrat MEP who describes himself as pro-Israel, said that such lobby groups have “always been very influential” in Europe. Gahler argued, though, that the groups should not ignore the widespread opposition in Europe to Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territories. “They should be here and listen,” he told IPS. “They should not only be a loudspeaker.”

Luisa Morgantini, a former vice-president of the European Parliament and a veteran Palestinian solidarity activist, said that all forms of racism and anti-Semitism must be opposed.

But Morgantini also suggests that pro-Israel groups are exploiting the history of Jewish suffering in Europe to dissuade its modern-day politicians from taking robust action against Israeli oppression in Palestine. “They are using the holocaust as blackmail,” she said. “It is time for us to stop this blackmail.”

-Cecilie Surasky

Last year we wrote about Canada (not Minnesota’s) Carleton University when their Apartheid Week poster was banned by the school administration. They didn’t realize at the time that the poster featured weaponry made by multinational companies that are part of the college’s investment portfolio. Well now they know. Here is their new campaign video which re-tells the story of the censorship of the poster and the reasons behind their new divestment campaign.

The banned poster below. This year’s divestment version of the same poster here.

Richard Silverstein at Tikun Olam says it best:

The Only Democracy in the Middle East™ has struck again: the English editor for the independent Palestinian news agency Maan, American Jared Malsin, was detained along with his girlfriend at Ben Gurion airport on his return to Israel from a European vacation.  During the detention it became clear that the Shin Bet intended to expel him from Israel as a security risk.  It provided no justification whatsoever.  And when Malsin notified the U.S. embassy of his predicament and they called to inquire, security officials lied by claiming neither individual was in custody and that they were probably “enjoying a night on the town in Tel Aviv” and had simply forgotten to notify them.

Actually, the immigration department did have a justification, exactly the one you’d expect from….China or Iran: Malsin apparently wrote news stories that “criticized the State of Israel.”

Really. But my favorite part of this story, which evolves by the minute, is that Malsin, a Yale graduate, apparently first came to Israel through Birthright, the program that gives free plane tickets to Israel to young Diaspora Jews in an effort to win their everlasting love. In my book, becoming a journalist who accurately covers the assault on democracy is the perfect way to show your everlasting love. It’s the only way to make it better. But that’s just me. I wonder if Malsin knew he’d become the subject of his own story.

-Cecilie Surasky

According to Israel’s influential Reut Institute, I’m a kind of general in the new battlefield for Israel’s survival. After all, I live and work in a “Hub of Delegitimacy” (the Bay Area); I write a blog that criticizes McCarthyism as it relates to Israel; and I am part of an organization (Jewish Voice for Peace) that actively supports divestment from companies that profit from the occupation, and defends the rights of Israeli and Palestinian human rights activists, including those who call for BDS.

A few weeks ago, Reut briefed the Israeli diplomatic corps about this new war of legitimacy in the realm of academia, culture, and politics, which Israel is not prepared for. I actually agree with Gidi Grinstein, Reut’s director, who suggests in Haaretz that without moral legitimacy, Israel is in existential danger. But of course, it’s Israel’s unaccountable status quo- of illegal occupation and legalized discrimination- which is at risk. It is repression and inequality, pure and simple, which thousands of people like me oppose-not Israel itself (which leads me to the conclusion that people like Grinstein actually believe, and this is the real issue that must be interrogated and challenged, that Israel literally cannot exist without occupation and discrimination encoded in its DNA. )

To be expected from someone in pathological denial, Grinstein attributes the global opprobrium over Israel’s human rights practices to a massive Iranian-Hezbollah-Hamas plot, sympathetically comparing Israel to a racist and a totalitarian regime:

Rather than seeking to conquer Israel, they would aim to bring about its implosion, as with South Africa or the Soviet Union, by attacking its political and economic values.

…Turning Israel into a pariah state is central to its adversaries’ efforts. Israel is a geopolitical island. Its survival and prosperity depend on its relations with the world in trade, science, arts and culture - all of which rely on its legitimacy. When the latter is compromised, the former may be severed, with harsh political, social and economic consequences.

The suggested response? (Thankfully, I spend my days safely in my “hub” and not in Israel-Palestine, so it doesn’t involve arbitrary detention or the confiscation of my computer.)

Israel’s delegitimacy is propagated in a few global metropolises - such as London, Madrid and the Bay Area - that are hubs of international NGOs, media outlets, academia and multinational corporations. Therefore, an extraordinary effort is required to respond to and isolate Israel’s delegitimizers. We must play offense and not just defense.

The most effective barrier to fundamental delegitimization is personal relationships. In every major country, Israel and its supporters must develop and sustain personal connections with the entire elite in business, politics, arts and culture, science and academia. This requires not only an overhaul of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, and particularly of its larger embassies, by infusing them with significantly larger operating budgets, but also the mobilization of our civil elite in Israel and overseas for the task.

And this gets back to my new job title as general, and why this approach of befriending elites so they will act as ideological gatekeepers won’t work. The truth of the matter is that there are thousands and thousands of “generals” like me- from teenagers in Athens to Birthright graduates in Great Neck to church members in Ireland to grandmothers in Ramallah to college professors (and rabbinical school students) virtually everywhere.  We’re all generals and we all have an internet connection.

This is a force for change and accountability that cannot be “decapitated” through relationships with elites and exerting McCarthyite pressure. We’ve all bypassed the elites in the state/media/law/culture etc.. who have failed miserably to bring a just peace. The era of centralized power, and the associated power of the gatekeeper, is quickly ending. Today it is quick-moving, under-funded, decentralized, non-hierarchical, grassroots activism that is winning and unstoppable.

But still, the Israeli diplomatic corps simply cannot befriend enough of us, and give away enough free trips to Israel, to make a difference anymore. And now they know. Be prepared for a bumpy ride.
-Cecilie Surasky

First Jewish Week’s James Besser, and now the writer Letty Cottin Pogrebin, known to many as a feminist hero and Jewish activist, has written a groundbreaking piece in the Jewish magazine Moment. Her essay, “Jewish McCarthyism Strikes Gold(stone)”, in which she decries the shameful campaign against Richard Goldstone who investigated the war with Gaza on behalf of the UN, is remarkable because of where it appears, a respected Jewish magazine read by members of all branches of American Judaism. More evidence that the Jewish center is shifting and that the starry-eyed love-affair we American Jews have had with our fantasy of Israel is ending. Pogrebin writes:

Some weeks after the report’s release, a rabbi friend emailed me asking what I thought of it, promising me “confidentiality.” He knew how perilous it can be for a Jew to go public with an opinion that diverges from the “mainstream,” meaning the views expressed by “Jewish leaders” of “major Jewish organizations” and others who purport to speak for “the Jewish community.”

To understand the price for breaking ranks, just look at how mercilessly Judge Goldstone—a proud Jew and declared Zionist—was vilified, not by gentile anti-Semites or Arabist Israel-haters but by Jews in the Israel-right-or-wrong mafia who, rather than address the troubling issues raised in the report, resorted to character assassination to delegitimate its lead author.

Regarding Goldstone’s final report, she concludes:
I wish the document’s charges were being actively discussed and convincingly rebutted by an internal investigation, but debate has been effectively squelched. Smears and death threats have done little to erode Judge Goldstone’s prestige among those familiar with his lifelong commitment to truth and justice. But the ad hominen attacks have deeply wounded him, his wife, two daughters and four grandsons who must relate to their Jewish friends and colleagues under a cloud of McCarthyite slander.

Of course, on the surface, such a deliberate and calculated attempt by a significant portion of the Jewish and Israeli leadership to destroy the life of another Jew, who by all accounts is not just a great human being but a true friend to Israel, makes absolutely no sense. But as we see in this older but must-read Nation article, Israeli historian Idith Zertal shows in Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood that the builders of the state of Israel, like Ben-Gurion, long acted as though the interests of the Zionist project far outweighed the interests of individual Jews, whether Mizrachi Jews from Arab countries or traumatized Holocaust survivors. The stories are sadly numerous: From the tragic 4,500 Holocaust survivors on the famous Exodus ship, who through Ben-Gurion’s intervention were forced to stay on the boat for 7 months (Chaim Weizmann convinced the French Prime Minister to take them in as refugees, but Ben-Gurion thought they were more useful to him if they remained on the ship and helped build sympathy for a future Israel) — to the coerced “recruitment”  of exhausted Holocaust survivors into the Haganah, the Jewish underground militia that fought the war of ‘48.

Certainly anyone who has witnessed protests by elderly, poverty-stricken Israeli Holocaust survivors and their families against an Israeli government that failed to care for them would find this history believable. Or those aware of the cavalier attitudes towards Jewish life exemplified by the settlement project itself. And so on and so forth…

In that sense, Pogrebin’s piece is striking for what it doesn’t say explicitly but necessarily plants in the minds of Jewish readers: perhaps it’s long past time to assume the interests of most Jews are aligned with the interests of Israeli governments when it comes to valuing the lives of Jews, let alone our cousins, Palestinians. As a Jew essentially sacrificed at the altar of toxic nationalism, Goldstone sadly has plenty of good company.

-Cecilie Surasky
cecilie@jvp.org

Is space opening up or shutting down for professors who criticize Israel or express sympathy for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement?

One answer is that academic McCarthyite group CampusWatch is, unfortunately, still in business. In fact, they just published yet another hopefully meaningless attack on the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) and keynote speaker at their October conference, the preeminent Middle East scholar (and famously, former-friend-of-Obama) Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University’s Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies. Why do they want PARC to stop receiving funding from the Department of Education? Because in his speech at a conference on Palestine, Khalidi criticized Israel, and worse, criticized Campus Watch! Comical, yes. Imagine, one of the country’s most respected Middle East scholars having the audacity to criticize Israel and CampusWatch at a conference called “Palestine: What We Know.” CampusWatch’s Jonathan Schanzer smears Khalidi with a charge he denies, that he was ever an official spokesperson for the PLO, and insists:

While Khalidi undoubtedly has the right to express his opinion, the American public has as a right to know that they paid for it. PARC receives controversial Title VI funding from the U.S. State Department and the Department of Education for “Palestinian studies.” By inviting Khalidi, PARC spent fungible taxpayer money to bring a notorious former spokesman for a terrorist organization to Washington to rail against Israel and complain about a group that critiques him.

Meanwhile, Nora Barrows-Friedman’s new article in the Electronic Intifada about academic freedom suggests the answer to the question, is there more space on campus for debate on Israel/Palestine?, is both yes and no.

UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, says:

“There seems to be diverging trends in relation to academic freedom for those who express sharply critical views of Israel or Zionism,” Falk remarked. “On the one side there is growing sympathy for the Palestinian struggle, and this is exhibited by the spreading BDS campaign. On the other side, there are increased efforts by organized Zionist groups to exert covert and overt pressure on university administrations to punish those seen as critics of Israel. As a result, we can expect some inconsistent outcomes in this period.”

Caught up in that tension are professors like UC Santa Barbara’s William Robinson who called down the wrath of the Anti-Defamation League and others for criticizing Israel’s attack on Gaza: in June 2009, the university threw out charges of faculty misconduct. And Columbia’s Joseph Massad and Barnard’s Nadia Abu El Haj who both survived extensive campaigns to deny them tenure.

But Barrows-Friedman introduces us to two lesser-known stories about professors who are still fighting for tenure.

Margo Ramlal-Nankoe, former professor of Sociology at Ithaca College in New York, said that after she started addressing issues of human rights abuses in occupied Palestine — especially after the start of the second Palestinian intifada — she was warned by faculty members at the college that she was “risking” her career and “would suffer repercussions from the administration.” Ramlal-Nankoe told The Electronic Intifada (EI) that the verbal threats eventually led to alleged racist and sexist attacks, and an open death threat from a faculty member who protested Ramlal-Nankoe’s support of a department colleague whose husband was Palestinian. “He [made] a cut-throat gesture with his hand across his neck to me,” Ramlal-Nankoe said. She was later denied tenure in 2007.

This is just the beginning of her tale, and Ramlal-Nankoe appropriately filed suit, which is still in process. Also filing suit,  and also unresolved, is Terri Ginsburg:

Film studies professor Terri Ginsberg, similarly fired in 2008 by North Carolina State University (NCSU) in what she says was a punishment for her outspoken criticism of “Zionism, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and US Middle East policy,” believes that institutionalized censorship on the Palestine-Israel issue in the academic realm is eerily reminiscent of the McCarthy era of the 1950s and ’60s. “So many of the dynamics and methods of discrimination perpetrated against today’s scholarly critics of Israel and US Middle East policy derive from and continue, in updated fashion, practices initiated and implemented during that shameful period,” she says.

As Falk says, my sense is that this is a transitional period and that the tide has already shifted on campuses, with defenders of Israel’s occupation already feeling desperately outnumbered. Hopefully the fact that the cases of Ginsburg and Ramlal-Nankoe started some time ago means that more and more administrators are refusing to succumb to such McCarthyite tactics.
-Cecilie Surasky

Call it the nightclub bouncer (aka threatened manhood) school of diplomacy.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a former bouncer who now merely plays on a larger stage, summoned Israeli ambassadors to the homeland to berate them for being too soft and for not defending Israel’s honor when criticized. They must stop “groveling”, as the BBC reported:

He told a shocked audience of some 150 envoys in Jerusalem to “stop turning the other cheek” whenever Israel was insulted, Israeli media report.

The envoys were reportedly given no right of reply at the conference.

“We received a monologue without being able to hold a discussion,” one unnamed ambassador told Ha’aretz newspaper.

AFP added that he said:

“The era of grovelling is over,” he concluded. “We must be on good terms and respect the host nations, but we will not tolerate insults and challenges.”

“We will not turn the other cheek. There will be a response to everything.”

Ha’aretz later editorialized against his “bullying” and suggested he get fired. If US Ambassador Michael Oren is an example of gloves off, one has to wonder what ‘gloves on’ means. If Lieberman was actualy respected by the Israeli diplomatic corps, I’d be worried.

The latest contretemps with Turkey gives us a clue regarding the Lieberman school of diplomacy. Christian Science Monitor reports in “Why Israel humiliated Turkey in response to a TV show,” Turkey’s ambassador was summoned to a meeting at the Israeli Foreign Ministry to address , among other things, “a TV show that portrayed Israeli intelligence agents holding a woman and her baby hostage.”

Breaking with diplomatic protocol, Israeli officials failed to include the customary Turkish flag on the table between them and the Turkish ambassador, whom they seated on a low couch. To rub it in, they instructed the press members in attendance to note that they were sitting in higher chairs and the usual diplomatic niceties were conspicuously absent.

Gloves off indeed.

-Cecilie Surasky

James Besser is a respected Washington correspondent for NY Jewish Week whose reports appear in many other Jewish media outlets as well. He is a pro-Israel partisan in the sense that many Jewish-media journalists are, many sincere and some feigning extra enthusiasm just to keep their positions. I have no idea whether he is the former or the latter. But in the case of Gaza, for example, he says he “doesn’t disagree” with the assertion that Israel “was justified” in its use of overwhelming military force during Cast Lead. Which is why it’s so remarkable to see a blog post by him called “Stifling Debate about Gaza”

Besser points to Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper which recently editorialized what to much of the world seems obvious, that Operation Cast Lead has been completely ineffective in achieving greater security for Israel. “The time has come,” said Ha’aretz, “to rethink Israeli strategy in Gaza.” Citing its ineffectiveness, they then call for open crossings between Israel and Gaza.

After quoting Ha’aretz, Besser says:
What I’m wondering: wouldn’t any American Jewish group making such an argument be tarred as a violator of the pro-Israel orthodoxy, shunned, called “dangerous” to the Jewish state?

I’m not saying Israel’s Gaza policy is wrong.

From my safe perch in  Washington, I honestly don’t know what the best solution is to the Gaza-West Bank split, the tightening grip of Hamas on the strip and the fact the terrorist group doesn’t show any sign of moving beyond its goal of wiping Israel out.

I am saying there’s something disturbing about the growing determination to stifle debate in an American Jewish community with a multiplicity of pro-Israel views. Israelis engage in vigorous debate about these issues all the time, but apparently our own leaders believe that support for Israel is so shaky here that we can’t raise issues like whether or not the Gaza blockade is in Israel’s long-term security interests.

I also find it peculiar that when Jewish leaders here talk about Gaza, the only question they address is whether or not Israel is justified in taking harsh measures (their answer: of course, and I don’t disagree).

Lost in the  debate: is there any evidence these policies are working?  Does history suggest they are likely to work in the long term, or just the opposite?  Justifiable policies that produce negative results don’t strike me as a great idea, but perish the thought that we actually talk about that.

This isn’t tangential or a concern pertinent only to Gaza. His point about the refusal to allow debate about the effectiveness of these polices is the heart of the matter, because (aside from the fact that the massive attack on civilians and civilian infrastructure was also grotesquely immoral), if we did, we might have to confront the likelihood that Israel’s military leadership and successive governments, along with the right-wing settler infiltration of those institutions, are actually working entirely at cross-purposes with the majority of American Jews and Israelis who really do just want peace, presumably with a modicum of fairness. What if, by most of American Jewry’s standards, these repressive measures are a massive failure wherever they are deployed, but by their standards, the ongoing chaos and misery, and absence of any peace negotiations, is a huge success?
-cecilie surasky

My Muzzlewatch stump speech has long talked about the parallel Middle East battle happening on the level of language and imagery:

While Israelis and Palestinians struggle over land, water and basic human rights in the Middle
East, a proxy battle is being waged here in the United States. Instead of Qassam rockets and
F-16s, the weapons are words, images and the internet. Instead of orchards and city streets, the battlefield is academia, journalism, politics, arts and publishing. And instead of calling it what it is–a struggle between those who unconditionally support often disastrous US-Israeli policies, and those who do not– the debate is framed as being about national security, the war on terror, and the clash of civilizations.

This battle is actually global, though the stakes in the US are obvious- unconditional diplomatic and financial support for Israel while it pursues its dream of a Greater Israel. But either way, it is framed as a battle between those who care about Israel/Jews, democracy and Western values, and those who threaten them. This framing benefits right wing Israel advocacy groups by erasing any legitimate Palestinian claims, collapsing all forms of resistance, including nonviolent civil society, under the banner of ‘terrorism.” Further, it means that Israel’s human rights record, and the US support which makes it possible, is removed from consideration

Recently, the Israeli think tank, the Reut Institute, has come up with its own version of this analysis which it is presenting to Israeli diplomats. Their frame is that this is a grassroots battle over the legitimacy of Israel (whatever that means), thus delegitimizing virtually any resistance to human rights violations and systemic inequality.

Substitute “Enemy Command HQ” for “Hubs of Delegitimacy.” Instead of “enemy armor outflanking our infantry,” use “resistance networks outflanking the IDF to attack Israel’s very legitimacy.” Instead of bombing Israeli embassies - picketing Israeli stores and taking Israeli products off supermarket shelves.

Pair Iran’s nuclear program, an existential threat to Israel, with the simultaneous creation of an existential political threat, and you are talking in a new type of language, and a new type of warfare in which the IDF is not equipped to engage in, and perhaps shouldn’t be engaging in.

A new report by the Reut Institute, a Tel Aviv-based national security and socioeconomic policy think tank, maps out the “new battlefield” in which Israel finds the legitimacy of its very existence attacked by a wide array of organizations and individuals in global centers like London, Toronto, Brussels, Madrid and Berkeley.

What are the recommended weapons to attack this decentralized “guerilla war”? Not equality. Not ending the occupation. Rather:

Reut’s report distinguishes between “soft critics” of Israel and “hard-core delegitimizers,” and posits that the hard-core group, made up of anti-Zionists, anti-Semites and radical Islamists, is always trying to coopt the “soft critic” group into a more radical position. Their goal is to blur the difference between legitimate criticism of Israeli policy and Israel’s basic legitimacy. Reut’s team suggests an effort should be made by Israel’s defenders to drive a wedge between the soft and hard core critics of Israel in London. The soft critics are human rights groups like Oxfam that are critics of Israeli policy but not necessarily of its legitimacy.

According to Calev Ben-Dor, a member of the Reut mission to London, the perceived lack of options for those opposed to Israeli policy and wanting to “do something” to help Palestinians creates an “option vacuum” which often leads “soft critics” (those unhappy with specific Israeli policies) to adopt the positions of “hard delegitimizers” (who seek to undermine Israel’s existence). A successful fight against delegitimization will have to include suggestions for how to drive a wedge between these two groups, Ben-Dor says.

Other recommendations presented by Reut to counter the hubs of delegitimacy are to break the “all-or-nothing” dynamic of criticism of Israel, place more Israeli diplomats in the hubs, be wary of “strange bedfellows” such as right-wing and evangelical organizations, brand Israel away from its image as purely a place of conflict, support anti-boycott campaigns (buy Israeli products), establish a “price tag” for attacking Israel and punish boycotters, promote Israel Studies Departments at universities, increase visits to Israel, and even persuade the Histadrut labor federation to get more involved with foreign trade unions.

What does delegitimize actually mean in this context? Why on earth would wanting equality mean delegitimizing Israel, if in fact that’s what they are referring to? Grassroots activism is the reason the US is in a constant process of becoming its promise, a land where all people can pursue life, liberty and justice. And just as I would like to see the United States become the country of full rights as described in the constitution, I’d like to see Israel become the country of its founding documents which promised “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex”.

While of course there are genuine anti-semites who have insinuated themselves into the movement for Palestinian rights- and they should be stopped and expelled, which I have seen Palestinian advocates do with my own eyes on repeated occasions– most people simply seek basic equality and an end to occupation. That’s not deligitimizing Israel, it’s using global activism to raise the overall level of humanity for all of us-including Israelis.

In the meantime, I note with amusement, that Reut’s prescription includes yet more Brand Israel projects and “establish[ing] a “price tag” for attacking Israel.” I think they can check that one off the list. At the very least, maybe it will cause Israeli ambassador Michael Oren to stop attacking Israeli “soft critics” J Street and Hannah Rosenthal, and work instead to drive a wedge between them and everyone to their left.

-Cecilie Surasky

What is it about Atlanta and Israel?

First, in response to a firestorm of criticism and vilification, Atlanta resident and iconic film star Jane Fonda issued a mea culpa about the wording of a petition she signed protesting the Toronto International Film Festival’s celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv. She said she signed it, “without reading it carefully enough, without asking myself if some of the wording wouldn’t exacerbate the situation rather than bring about constructive dialogue”. To her credit, Fonda did not remove her signature. But it was still an extraordinary move that reflected the intense pressure she was under. (This level-headed group of Atlanta Jewish leaders rose to her defense.)

And now, Jimmy Carter, reportedly in an effort to ease his grandson’s political path to a Georgia state Senate seat, has written an open letter of apology to, well, the entire Jewish people.

An open letter to the Jewish community at the season of Chanukah from former President Jimmy Carter:

The time of Chanukah and the Christian holidays presents an occasion for reflection on the past and for looking to the future. In that vein, I wish to share some thoughts with you about the State of Israel and the Middle East.

I have the hope and a prayer that the State of Israel will flourish as a Jewish state within secure and recognized borders in peaceful co-existence with its neighbors and with all the Moslem States, and that this peaceful co-existence will bring security, prosperity and happiness to the people of Israel and to the people of the Middle East of all faiths.

I have the hope and a prayer that the bloodshed and hatred will change to mutual respect and cooperation, fulfilling the prophetic aspiration that the lion shall lie down with the lamb in harmony and peace. I likewise hope that violent attacks against all civilians will end, which will help set a better framework for commencing negotiations. I further hope that peace negotiations can soon commence, with all issues on the negotiating table.

I have the hope and a prayer that just as Chanukah is the Festival of Lights, the State of Israel will fulfill its destiny as a light unto the nations.

We must recognize Israel’s achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel. As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.

May we work and pray for that better day.

Hag Semach and Happy Chanukah.

Few people anywhere have endured more vicious demonization regarding the Israel issue than Nobel-prize-winning former US president Jimmy Carter. It is a sad statement that the man who did more for peace for the Israelis than any other U.S. president, is now vilified as an anti-Semite in Jewish communities across the land, most notably for titling his book Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid. In fact, Carter is one of Israel’s few true friends who remains impressively committed to doing whatever he can to bring about some kind of resolution, rather than taking the easy road by giving the self-destructive government more of what it wants- arms and money to occupy more land.

And now, forced to do this?

The crux of Carter’s open-letter apology is this: “.. we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel.”

Frankly, I’m of two minds about the issue of Israel’s stigmatization. On the one hand, it actually gives me great personal pain to see how much Israel is hated all over the world. Despite the obvious, the massive unnecessary death and suffering that has caused the hate, I am deeply sad because I picture my now dead grandparents and everything they imagined Israel might be–the best Jewish values embodied in a state- compared to what is. It’s scary because we Jews are undoubtedly less safe when the world hates Israel, and it’s heartbreaking to see anyone hate an entire country so much, no longer able to even see the many remarkable Jewish Israelis, including those who would give their lives for the most basic principles of fairness and equality.

On the other hand, what has become absolutely apparent is that stigmatization might be the only thing Israel does respond to, since no other form of pressure seems to have made a dent in the government’s strategy of working in collaboration with settlers to appropriate land, slowly ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their homes, and so much more. Israel and its unconditional supporters have left us with no choice. And they see that they, not those of us trying to set Israel on a course of justice, are the ones who have stigmatized Israel.

That said, of course this apology from one of the world’s greatest peacemakers is a capitulation.  And the whole business of speaking to the “Jewish community” is so corrupt, I wish Carter hadn’t engaged in such a game. Who gets to judge Carter’s apology on behalf of we Jews? Not you or me.

Of course, the New York Times has determined it’s Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, (the people who want to build a Museum of Tolerance on top of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem);  Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League (the group that fought Congressional recognition of the Armenian genocide because it might be bad for Turkish-Israeli relations); CAMERA (the folks who claim credit for stopping $1 million in donations to a Boston-based NPR affiliate for reporting not deemed sufficiently pro-Israel) and most shocking of all? The hate-filled crazies at the ironically named Shalom International, where they proudly called Muslims “Nazis” in regular dispatches, and sport a lovely picture of members with a sign that says “Islam is not a religion.”

How sad indeed. These are our moral arbiters? And Carter has decided to play their game, which he must know by now you can never win. With judges like these, the deck is stacked.

But to Carter’s credit, he shows no signs of shutting up, which is, after all, the only way he could ever earn full acceptance from the Hier/Foxman crowd.

–Cecilie Surasky

The (Israeli) Alternative Information Center’s Michael Warschawski has this to say on the use, and the empyting of all meaning, of the charge of anti-Semitism:

An Outrageous and Pathetic Weapon Against BDS: Stop Instrumentalizing Anti-Semitism!

Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney .

Every time the State of Israel is confronted with substantial international criticism for its political behavior and its violations of basic international standards, it counter-attacks by using the infamous tool of accusations of anti-Semitism. One remembers the campaign on anti-Semitism launched by Ariel Sharon and his friends throughout the world, Jews and non-Jews, after the murder of Muhammad al-Dura in Gaza in September 2000, in order to create a diversion (in the very words of Roger Cukierman, then chairman of the French Jewish umbrella organization—CRIF) and to transform the victim into a victimizer and the victimizer into a victim: for more than two years, western media “exposed” the anti-Semitism of the critics of Israel instead of denouncing the massacres committed by the Israeli military in Gaza and the West Bank.Sixty five years after the end of WWII, the ashes of the victims of Nazi genocide have not yet disappeared from the sky of Poland, and the accusation of anti-Semitism remains connected to one of the bloodiest crimes of the twentieth century; as French journalist, Daniel Mermet, one of the targets of this campaign, pointed at, “no accusation can be worse, and even after you are proved not guilty of charge, the bad smell of such an accusation will be with you forever.”

The massacre in Gaza, a year ago, provoked a world-wide outrage, bigger even than in 2000-2002. The U.N. was forced to appoint an inquiry commission, and its report—the Goldstone report—is devastating for Israel. Moreover, for the first time since the establishment of the State of Israel, an international campaign calling for sanctions against Israel for its innumerous violations of international law, has been successful in drawing huge public attention and initiating a great number of mobilizations and initiatives around the world.

For the Israeli government and its friends, the time has come to take from the shelf the rusty old weapon of anti-Semitism accusations, a message that was heard loud and clear by the Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney. At the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, held in Jerusalem on 16 December, the Minister stated: “We have articulated and implemented a zero tolerance approach to anti-Semitism.” So far so good, but he continued: “We have defunded organizations, most recently like Kairos, who are taking a leadership role in the boycott (against Israel).”

Accusing Kairos, an umbrella organization that includes most of the Christian churches in Canada, of anti-Semitism is ridiculous and pathetic. Ridiculous, because the record of Kairos is crystal clear on that issue of BDS and it its position is not the one that Minister Kenney accuses it of, and pathetic, because it is a re-heated dish that will not work a second time.

Already in 2004, there were signs indicating that the instrumentalization of anti-Semitism by Israeli propaganda machine was losing its efficiency and even becoming counter-productive; no doubt that, five years later, only a few people will accept to be blackmailed by such an outrageous false-accusation.

Worse, however, is that this old/new maneuver by “friends” of Israel like Kenney, is a symptom of the banalization of anti-Semitism. If everything is anti-Semitism, then there is no anti-Semitism at all. But, unfortunately, anti-Semitism has not disappeared from our world, and manipulating it for goals that have nothing to do with it, is playing right into the hands of the real anti-Semites.

To Jason Kenney, one must say very clearly “stay out of our struggle against anti-Semitism, and do not try to manipulate it for causes totally foreign to the anti-racist values which are motivating it. It is too important and too serious to be instrumentalized by your political agenda.”

We are proud of the success of the international BDS campaign. Minister Kenney may disagree with it, but hands off of any accusation of anti-Semitism concerning our campaign. Anti-Semitism is a dangerous threat to the public health of our societies and so are accusations that are manipulated for a political agenda that has nothing to do with it.

Or so claims what Alternet’s Josh Holland calls a “ridiculous” new study by the Institute for Global Jewish Affairs. Holland writes:

Given how ubiquitous unsubstantiated charges of anti-Semitism have become in the debate over the Middle East conflict, I’m tempted to ignore the Institute for Global Jewish Affairs’ recent “report” supposedly exposing the liberal blogosphere as a teaming hotbed of raw Jew-hatred.

It’s easy to dismiss. It may dress itself as some sort of empirical research project, but the “study” is transparently devoid of any informational value, intellectually bankrupt and clearly the product of working backwards from a conclusion arrived at on ideological grounds.

But I won’t ignore it, because the strategic decision to pin one’s political opponents with charges of anti-Semitism only dilutes the power of that word. Then, like the boy who cried wolf, when real anti-Semitism rears its decidedly ugly head the word loses its all-important power to shame. I’m Jewish, and I don’t fear sharp-elbowed criticism of Israeli policy on websites, so it’s not in my interest to allow it to be conflated with true anti-Semitism, which is absolutely no joke.

Most of what passes for anti-Semitism in this new “report” is nothing new to readers of Muzzlewatch, and you should read Holland’s full piece where he does a fantastic job of dissecting the terrible methodology of this blatantly propagandistic report. But this is the part of Holland’s analysis I find most heart-breakingly sad and true:

It’s a slanderous report, and just to bring home the point of how dangerous it is to minimize real anti-Semitism by bitching about mean commenters on websites: I’m on various list-servs with progressives who write about Israel and Palestine — most of them Jewish — and when the report was issued our reaction was: ‘what do you have to do to get on this list — why weren’t we included?’

When you have progressive Jewish writers looking at charges of anti-Semitism as a badge of courage, it’s time to re-think your tactics.

And what other tactics do those geniuses over at the (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Institute for Global Jewish Affairs have to offer us?

In “How to Fight the Campus Battle against Old and New Anti-Semites:
Motifs, Strategies, and Methods”, author Manfred Gerstenfeld seems to have absolutely no idea that Israel is consistently in violation of international law. He therefore consistently conflates authentic anti-Jewish hatred with virtually all criticism of Israel, making the following suggestion for embracing campus-based tactics that require a “low investment of human and financial resources and a potential high return in terms of damage to the enemy”:

• The methods to be used in the battle against anti-Semitism on campus should include counterattack, ridicule, exposure, “name and shame,” monitoring, documentation, mobilizing lawyers for arguing, as well as legal actions. Crucial battles against anti-Semitism are often fought with one hand behind the back. This facilitates free anti-Semitic lunches for the attackers.

Of course, those tactics are already in use everywhere on campuses, just ask Daniel Pipes. Are they likely to help those of us who sincerely want to fight anti-Semitism, seeing it as linked to all forms of bigotry? Guess.