tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92154388394652191702024-02-19T00:41:00.130-08:00Jews Against Israeli ChutzpahAndrew Epsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589342426463642194noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-17570689911511339402010-08-01T20:19:00.000-07:002010-08-02T09:24:40.753-07:00Tea Party for SchmucksIn the new movie <i>Dinner for Schmucks</i>, a financial analyst looking to move up in his firm is invited to take part in a cruel game, where an assortment of losers and lunatics are brought to a dinner designed to set them up for mockery. The analyst finds his useful idiot in the form of a doofy amateur taxidermist, whom he bonds with via a zany series of ensuing antics. In the feel-good ending, the analyst confesses that it was he who was acting like the true 'schmuck' all along. One is reminded here of the unusual game being played between Israel (and it's American supporters) and those wacky Christian Tea Party zealots. Their budding bromance is still in it's beginning stages, though it seems likely that this unlikely pairing also has two true 'schmucks'. Antics will surely ensue.<br />
<br />
This past week, the Israel advocacy (formerly civil rights) organization the Anti-Defamation League, which had previously warned about the <a href="http://www.adl.org/special_reports/rage-grows-in-America/tea-parties.asp">dangerous white supremacist potential of the Tea Party</a>, has now made common cause with them over <a href="http://www.adl.org/PresRele/CvlRt_32/5820_32.htm">objections to the proposed Islamic community center</a> to be built in downtown Manhattan (aka 'the ground zero mosque'). Their Islamophobia justifies itself with claims of protecting friends and families of 9/11 victims from "unnecessary pain" caused by seeing Muslims, warning the Muslims that their existence in the financial district will be "counterproductive to the healing process". Apparently, the proper way to heal a wound from 9 years ago is to continuously pick at the racist scab that has hardened over it. Some Muslim kids playing basketball at their community center causes some sort of irrational "pain" to racists, so the kids should obviously be the one's barred from the neighborhood. Perhaps the ADL doesn't realize that Muslim human beings feel pain too (such as when they're discriminated against), taking a stance akin to the one pescatarians have towards fish.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Meanwhile, 21 members of the new Tea Party congressional caucus, which one would assume opposes 'big government' spending such as is inherent in the US-Israel relationship, <a href="http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/07/26/tea_party_caucus_members_endorse_israeli_attack_on_iran">cosponsored a resolution</a> preemptively supporting an Israeli military strike against Iran, which they claim poses an existential threat to both Israel and the United States. Coming from a group that sees birth certificates and healthcare reform as taking on nearly apocalyptic dimensions, one wonders how seriously to take this perceived threat. One thing's for certain though, the threat to Iranians posed by either the US or Israel is very real; just today, Admiral Mike Mullen, the highest ranking US officer, acknowledged that <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/08/20108116405659976.html">the Pentagon has a plan to potentially attack Iran</a>, which would surely result in the deaths of countless innocent civilians.<br />
<br />
One shift demonstrated by the resolution is the Tea Party's moving away from the domestic-focused isolationism characterized by early movement leader Ron Paul and towards growing militarism and support for Israel, a shift that's occurring as the movement mainstreams itself and consolidates with the Republican Party. Even Paul's prodigal spawn, opthamologist turned Senatorial candidate and Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, has strongly <a href="http://spectator.org/blog/2010/04/22/rand-paul-and-israel">voiced his support for strengthening US ties to Israel</a>, referring to the "shared history and common values" that "unites us". It takes little effort for Rand Paul, who has <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/20/AR2010052003500.html">stated his opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act</a> (albeit before issuing a politically correct retraction), to find "common values" with a state that's carried America's segregationist history into the new millennium.<br />
<br />
Indeed, it is these "common values" that Israel and it's supporters are interested in highlighting, towards the goal of forging a Judeo-Christian civilization united against Islam. This is why the ADL's anti-mosque stance is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/inside-story-why-adl-is-o_b_666281.html">linked to their Israel advocacy</a>: they're attempting to foster support for racist policies in Israel amongst the increasingly powerful voices supporting Muslim, Arab, and immigrant disenfranchisement in America. Of course, this breed of Christian malcontent has also historically been an enemy of the Jews. Already, <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/rob_eshman/article/tea_party_dangers_ahead_20100323/">certain Tea Party members</a> have displayed their criticisms of Rahm Emmanuel and Rep. Anthony Weiner via slurs and swastikas, as well as expressed beliefs that Obama and his supposed socialist agenda are controlled by cabals of Jewish bankers. Other Tea Partiers, such as Rev. Ted Pike of the anti-Semitic National Prayer Network, have <a href="http://www.davidduke.com/general/ted-pike-dont-let-israel-firsters-take-over-destroy-tea-party-movement_15832.html">expressed fear</a> of the movement taking on an "Israel-first" tone (for Jew-hating, rather than Palestinian-loving reasons), rejecting the 'Judeo-' in their Christian civilization. As the Tea Party grows in size and influence, one wonders how their anti-Semitism will develop, potentially turning into a danger for Jews who shortsightedly made common cause with them. <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/rob_eshman/article/tea_party_dangers_ahead_20100323/">As some have pointed out</a>, they already show many similarities with last century's fascist movements, and we all know how great those were for the Jews.<br />
<br />
This inconvenient anti-Semitism is ignored in the name of forging a politically-useful coalition. Case in point, the Israeli government itself has promoted the following clip from notoriously schmucky Glenn Beck on <a href="http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/06/israeli-gov-promotes-glenn-becks-gaza-flotilla-screed/">their official website</a>:<br />
<br />
<object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ybgdWRxRBuE&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ybgdWRxRBuE&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br />
<br />
One wonders what they think about Beck's <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/menachem-rosensaft/glenn-becks-nazi-loving-t_b_604021.html">promotion of anti-Semitic instigator Elizabeth Dilling</a> or his libelous insistence that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/15/glenn-beck-jews-killed-je_n_648134.html">the Jews murdered Jesus</a>. 'Politics makes strange bedfellows' may be a clichéd truism, but getting down and dirty with blatant anti-Semites like Beck displays a particularly masochistic fetish on Israel's behalf. I wonder if they have a 'safe word' in case Beck gets too carried away with his bigotry. I suggest 'chutzpah'. <br />
<br />
It seems as if the end goal of creating a Judeo-Christian civilization is too valuable to waste time with small problems: for Israel, the Tea Party's anti-Semitism; for the Tea Party, Israel's Semitism. After all, which side would risk the rise of a Judeo-Islamic or Islamo-Christian civilization? The stakes are too high. As Tea Party congressional candidate from New Jersey <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/35695/a-tea-party-in-north-jersey/">Sergey Shevchuk said</a>, "We are in the final stages in the battle between good and evil in the world, and Israel is in the front line of this war, fighting on our behalf" (really, this guy needs to be on the next season of <i>Jersey Shore</i>, nicknamed "The Extermination"). Rep. Michele Bachmann, one of the Tea Party's sponsors of the Iran resolution, believes that if America doesn't support Israel over the Islamic hordes, <a href="http://minnesotaindependent.com/55061/bachmann-america-cursed-by-god-if-we-reject-israel">the entire US will be cursed by God and come to an end</a>. Yikes.<br />
<br />
Liberal Zionists: you might believe you can support Israel while laughing at and admonishing the antics of the right wing Tea Partiers, but the two are becoming increasingly similar in their agendas. More and more, supporting Israel in the US is becoming synonymous with backing the right wing policies of the Likud Party, to the disservice of the many dissident Israelis working towards change and the Palestinians who are denied their human rights. Perhaps now is the time to truly make a stand in the name of peace, rejecting Israel's Jewish supremacist government on the same grounds you'd reject a Christian supremacist government in the US. You would probably de-friend someone on Facebook for posting a Glenn Beck video; now will you de-friend Israel?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
(Expect a follow-up to this post later this week examining links between the American anti-immigrant movement and it's counterpart in Israel)adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00493236576456332525noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-78502660118137068212010-07-28T12:14:00.000-07:002010-07-29T00:02:11.458-07:00The 18 Families: Stratification in Israel<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Critics of Israel's violent behavior have tended to focus on questions of ideology: to what extent is the occupation an example of traditional colonialism? Does Israeli apartheid find its roots in Zionism? How does the (historical, and ongoing) ethnic cleansing of Palestine inform the national consciousness?</span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">These questions are certainly worth exploring, yet they often dominate the discussion at the expense of indicators which might be equally telling: who's making money, and how.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Israel is a deeply divided country. A </span><a href="http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3836900,00.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">recent report </span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> presented to the Israeli cabinet as the country files for membership in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found that the nation would be the most "unequal and poor" in the group. One-fifth of the population lives below the poverty line and only half the nation earns wages "suitable for a developed country." </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Eighteen families </span><a href="http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/07/13/18-israeli-families-control-60-of-nations-corporate-equity/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">now control fully 60%</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> of the equity value of all Israeli companies. Between 2005 and 2007, Israel produced more millionaires per capita than any other country. According to a recent article </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">in <a href="http://jstandard.com/content/item/israeli_wealthy_class_grows_transforming_a_country">the Jewish Standard</a>, </span><br />
<blockquote>Top managers can earn as much as $523,000 a month, compared to the $1,440 monthly income earned by the average Israeli, according to the Adva Institute. “Israel now worships the golden calf of the free market: privatization and sink-or-swim competition,” Yossi Melman, a senior writer for Israel’s daily Haaretz, wrote in a blog for the Washington Post.</blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The breakdown also has a racial/ethnic dimension. In 2004, the Adva Center </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><a href="http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=7351"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">released a report</span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> which found that Ashkenazi Jews per capita made 136% of Israel's national average salary, while Arab-Israelis only brought in 75%. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Israeli economist Shiv Hever with the Alternative Information Center explains the situation in some detail:</span></span><object height="306" width="500"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/vJrvnM9Thx4&hl=en_US&fs=1?rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vJrvnM9Thx4&hl=en_US&fs=1?rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="500" height="306"></embed></object><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">Activists are beginning to draw the lines between wealth accumulation in Israel and the state of perpetual war and occupation which characterize Israeli policy. "The occupation of Palestinians territories defines Israel's economy," argues Shiv Hever.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In her 2007 essay " </span> <a href="http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2007/06/laboratory-fortressed-world"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Laboratory for a Fortressed World</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">," Noami Klein described the relationship:</span></span><br />
<blockquote>Israel went from inventing the networking tools of the “flat world” to selling fences to an apartheid planet. Many of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel’s status as a fortressed state, surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of twenty-four-hour-a-day showroom—a living example of how to enjoy relative safety amid constant war. And the reason Israel is now enjoying supergrowth is that those companies are busily exporting that model to the world. Discussions of Israel’s military trade usually focus on the flow of weapons into the country—US-made Caterpillar bulldozers used to destroy homes in the West Bank and British companies supplying parts for F-16s. Overlooked is Israel’s huge and expanding export business. Israel now sends $1.2 billion in “defense” products to the United States—up dramatically from $270 million in 1999. In 2006 Israel exported $3.4 billion in defense products—well over a billion more than it received in US military aid. That makes Israel the fourth-largest arms dealer in the world, overtaking Britain.</blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The stratification of Israel's economy belies the founding ideology - which many believe still influences the nation - as a socialist state built on values of egalitarianism (for Ashkenazi Jews) and difficult but basic labor. The extent to which this was ever the case is debatable, but whatever remnants of a re-distributive economy existed during Israel's first decades was swept away by the winds of neo-liberal reform, when ruling classes in most countries asserted their power in the late 1970s and 1980s. Israel's elite, intimately tied to the "West" by financial and ideological support, eagerly joined the crowd.<br />
<br />
Perhaps they learned a little too much from the United States in the process: perpetual war means perpetual profits, no matter the cost in blood visited upon the occupied Palestinians and Israeli civilians when chickens start coming home to roost.<br />
<br />
Focusing just a little more attention on the political economy of the conflict may help demystify it. It'll also undermine some essentialist categories that get thrown around, which end up reinforcing violent and exclusionary constructs like the state. It's not necessarily "Israel" which acts with aggression, but a segment of the elite which mobilize the state apparatus to repress the legitimate aspirations of the indigenous population - aspirations which might interfere with the smooth process of profit-making. This is not to say that even the poorest Ashkenazi Israeli is not in some way implicated - like in the United States, most benefit from stolen land. But some benefit a lot more than others. Many of Israel's poorest may also have an interest in toppling the current system, no matter how much better even the worst off in Israel are doing compared to people in Gaza and the West Bank.</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></span></div>Andrew Epsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589342426463642194noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-39860263491494493182010-07-22T12:29:00.000-07:002010-07-22T12:29:45.343-07:00Birthright Brooklyn<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjOTfjMeTS37LJMWeGIv8-mxEgf9liq2YEUPXRQBLlob82bDjs5Nwpy8qqlcbeKortxiUKiMDmW2d50aVWu9FkR0boWPC8j-AWxwcVLLbLL41HVj37JXWDCyNj_LvnIOifsV7JPeSPN49f/s1600/Birthright__Yeah__right____by_adamndirtyshame.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjOTfjMeTS37LJMWeGIv8-mxEgf9liq2YEUPXRQBLlob82bDjs5Nwpy8qqlcbeKortxiUKiMDmW2d50aVWu9FkR0boWPC8j-AWxwcVLLbLL41HVj37JXWDCyNj_LvnIOifsV7JPeSPN49f/s640/Birthright__Yeah__right____by_adamndirtyshame.jpeg" width="427" /></a></div><br />
Here's a classic comic by yours truly from 2007, posted in dedication to <a href="http://jewsagainstchutzpah.blogspot.com/2010/07/interruption-as-intervention-why-i.html">BrooklynVegan, JellyNYC, and Chuck "the Hipster Senator" Schumer</a>. Expect more new and classic comics to be posted soon. Yes, I draw comics too. I contain multitudes.adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00493236576456332525noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-16636961777096392662010-07-21T15:26:00.000-07:002010-07-21T15:26:14.639-07:00In Honor of 'The Twelve Spies': Speaking Out Against Atrocity on Tisha B'avYesterday marked Tisha B'av, a Jewish holiday remembering some of the very bad things that happened to the Jews on this day throughout history, the original set being known as 'the five calamities': the destruction of the first temple by the Babylonians, the destruction of the second temple by the Romans (supposedly creating the Jewish diaspora), the Roman crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt, desecration of the temple grounds following the Roman siege of Jerusalem, and the original calamity, the slander of 'the twelve spies' against the land of Israel and their subsequent punishment by God. The last guys were probably some of the first people ever referred to as 'self-hating Jews'. More on them later.<br />
<br />
Some of the other calamities to befall the Jews on this tragic day have been the Pope's declaration of the first crusade, expulsion from England in 1290, expulsion from Span in 1492, start of World War I, and the transfer from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka. On Tisha B'av in 2010, or the 9th of Av, 5770 on the Jewish calender, calamities continue, although this time around some of them take the form of having to bear the ethical, spiritual burden of the oppressor. An <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hcGFF2KkoF5R2DPopRpNQ7SzGzbA">Israeli tank attack on Gaza</a> which killed one supposed militant also left ten wounded, two of them children (a fact buried in many news stories). Israeli Border Police in the Al Baqa'a valley near Hebron <a href="http://palsolidarity.org/2010/07/13126/">dismantled a cistern and irrigation pipes</a> used to grow vegetables, while the farmers who came to protest were cleared away by ear drum shattering sound grenades. In Jaffa, settler extremists <a href="http://settler%20extremists%20also%20attempted%20to%20burn%20down%20jaffa%27s%20historic%20hassan%20bek%20mosque%20./">attempted to burn down the historic Hassan Bek mosque</a>; like the other times when settler's have attacked this mosque, no arrests have been made. On the eve of the holiday, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-destroys-west-bank-village-after-declaring-it-military-zone-1.303098">the IDF demolished 55 homes</a> in the West Bank village of Farasiya having declared it a military area, while the Israeli courts <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i3DzC0m0snyehBQmZFencI3hJM6w">sentenced an Arab man</a> to prison for raping a Jewish woman based on the fact that he had led her to believe he was a Jew (both admit the sex itself was consensual). Meanwhile, it was revealed that <a href="http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7xKq0heBgvE2zHZeX6wtQajUL2gIQNWv9%2b2%2bS41%2bJxPQmy5ntf9TbtceG0JYz%2bRb6AVaDOy4Uqg1mUW1/Fne6RT3MC9%2bQZ8gdA6YbE6/2WV8%3d">even more Israeli courts would be built</a> on top of to-be-demolished sections of historical Maman Allah cemetery, which has seen sections desecrated previously to make way for hotels, bars, and parking lots.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
What a terrible irony that a holy day mourning the demolition of the first and second temples would be marked by desecration of sites revered by Muslims, to make way for racist courts no less - a legal system built on the dead. The expulsion of Jews from England, Spain, and Warsaw now commemorated via ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their own villages and farmland. Traditionally, Tisha B'av is a day of fasting, not only from food and drink, but from entertainment, from bathing or using cremes/oils, from sitting or sleeping comfortably, from wearing leather, from fucking. Many observant Jews also refrain from working. Perhaps there should also be a fast from acting as the oppressor. Indeed, Israel hasn't taken time off from it's military routines since 1973, when Egyptian and Syrian forced attacked Israel during the other holy day of fasting, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, something Israel could really use right now. Yom Kippur can't come fast enough this year.<br />
<br />
This year saw Tisha B'av being used by right wing rabbis to rouse the rabble. If part of the fast for observant Jews is refraining from work, shouldn't they take the day off from their jobs emotionally provoking crazy people? Settlers gathered near an abandoned IDF base near Hebron to hear <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138690">rabbis press for a movement to 'save the base'</a>; the way they spoke about it, this ugly utilitarian military facility, one of hundreds, might as well have been the third temple. In Jerusalem, rabbis politicized the traditional reading of "Lamentations" by <a href="http://arielzellman.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/tisha-bav-women-in-green-and-pardes/">lamenting the "settlement freeze"</a>, a disingenuous method of mobilizing their bases given the fact that settlements currently <a href="http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1486">continue to be expanded</a>. They were joined by <a href="http://www.womeningreen.org/">Women in Green</a>, who are not environmentalists, but a pro-settlement group snidely playing off the name of the human rights organization <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/women-in-black-marks-20th-year-but-occupation-continues-1.236160">Women in Black</a>.<br />
<br />
Rabbis in both Jerusalem and Hebron expressed heartfelt desire to construct the third temple, which doesn't sound so bad, until taking into account the very specific place they feel they just <i>have</i> to build it: on the site where the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque currently sit, one of the holiest sites of Islam. Who knows how many other Muslim holy places they'd have to bulldoze to make way for all the tourist parking and temple gift shops. What seems as an insane proposition that might destroy any sort of peace with Muslims, based on kooky biblical prophecy, is actually supported by <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138655">almost 50% of Israelis</a>, with 27% agreeing that the State should take active steps towards it's construction (48% are against active construction, with the rest unsure). Certainly there's got to be some space in the desert with ample room for parking where they could build a temple (one that hopefully wouldn't look like America's crass mega-churches), but there's three dependable factors that time and again get in the way of any sensible Israeli decision: Location, location, location! Speaking to Haaretz, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/dreaming-of-the-third-temple-in-a-conflicted-land-of-israel-1.302924">Tel Aviv's Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau</a> explained, "All the Prophets spoke about the fact that [the Temple] had been destroyed by fire and would be rebuilt by fire in the future." One hopes that this fire doesn't come in the form of the holy sites of other religions reduced to history's ashes.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, other Jews were doing a much better job at honoring the spirit of Tisha B'av by being actively involved in struggles for justice. The <a href="http://www.icahd.org/eng/">Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions</a> was engaged in <a href="http://www.opednews.com/Diary/Tisha-B-av-9th-of-Av-Expe-by-Eileen-Fleming-100719-246.html">rebuilding a few of the 18,000 homes</a> destroyed by Israel. ICAHD spokesperson Meir Margalit explained, "We are here because we are embarrassed and ashamed of our government. A decent person cannot handle what this government puts innocent people through. We are doing this for both sides; for the innocent families and to keep the moral values of Judaism alive." Rae Abileah of CODEPINK Women for Peace decided to <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/why-i%E2%80%99m-fasting-on-tisha-bav.html">fast as a statement in support of Palestinian human rights</a>, echoing the sentiment of a group of American rabbis who have started <a href="http://fastforgaza.net/">Jewish Fast for Gaza</a>. Israeli youtuber gangreentv put together <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/israel-on-tisha-bav-2010.html">a special Tisha B'av video remix</a> of the Flobots song "Handlebars" in protests of recent legal clampdowns on free speech and citizenship. While the mainstream Jewish Telegraphic Agency ignored all of these actions, they did mention a nice sounding Tisha B'av protest that united Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and seculars in <a href="http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/07/20/2740133/multi-religious-rally-commemorates-tisha-bav-bp-oil-spill">condemning the US government's poor handling of the BP oil spill</a>; the holiday marked the third month anniversary of the environmental calamity.<br />
<br />
Finally, I'd like to return to the so-called calamity of 'the twelve spies' I referred to in the first paragraph. I didn't remember this story from my Jewish education, so I had to refresh myself via Wikipedia. It's quite interesting, I think:<br />
<blockquote>God had promised the Israelites that they would be able to conquer the land with its incumbent Canaanite nations, but the Israelites wanted to scout out the land for themselves. Moses specifically instructed the spies to report back on the agriculture and lay of the land. During their tour, however, the spies saw fortified cities and in-dwelling giants, which frightened them and led them to believe that the Israelites would not be able to conquer the land as God had promised. Ten of the spies decided to bring back a false report, emphasizing the difficulty of the task before them. Two of<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> the spies — Joshua and Caleb</span> — did not go along with the majority and tried to convince the Israelites that they could conquer the land, but the Israelites believed the majority's conclusions.</blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Israelites' acceptance of the false report amounted to the acceptance of <i>lashon hara</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">(slander) against the Land of Israel. This was considered a grave sin by God</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. Corresponding to the 40 days that the spies toured the land, God decreed that the Israelites would wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Moreover, the entire generation of men who left Egypt</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> during the Exodus</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> would die in the desert, save for Joshua and Caleb who did not slander the Land.</span></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The sin of the spies produced the annual fast day</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Tisha B'Av</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. When the Israelites accepted the false report, they wept over the false belief that God was setting them up for defeat. God declared, "You cried for no reason, and so I will establish for you weeping for all generations." The night that the people cried was the ninth of Av</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, which became a day of weeping and misfortune for all time.</span></span></blockquote><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;">I quipped earlier that the spies may have been the first people to be labeled 'self-hating Jews', and like many Jewish critics of Israel today who get slapped with that label, I think they were correct. It was truly a stupid, unnecessary decision for a wandering tribe of recently freed slaves to try to conquer a fortified nation of <i>giants</i>. I also like to believe that perhaps the spies who rebelled against Moses' authoritarian leadership saw it as ethically unsound to conquer another people's land, even if it's supposedly commanded by God (who, conveniently, only Moses spoke to). In Deuteronomy 20:16-17, God says:</span></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"...in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them - the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites - as the LORD your God has commanded you."</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It is quotes like this that have led Richard Dawkins to remark, "The God of the Old Testament is one of the most unlikable characters in all of fiction." Seriously, what a schmuck. I have to give it up to progressive rabbis who have to somehow try and find redemptive qualities in a statement like this, and shudder from the knowledge that right wing rabbis unapologetically take this sort of cruel, blood-thirsty language at face value, replacing the Canaanites and co. with the modern day Palestinians. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps there should be a holiday to honor dissenters such as the spies, who have popped up throughout Jewish history to speak out against injustice, stupidity, and chutzpah, even if it went against popular opinion and the word of God himself (sorry for the gendered pronoun, but the patriarchal lunatic God quoted above is definitely a bro). God punished the spies' disloyalty by forcing them (and everyone who listened to them; take caution blog readers) to wander 40 years in the wilderness, and suffer terrible tragedy on that day for generations to come; today</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/boycott-the-knesset-1.302259">Israeli dissenters who advocate for boycott, divestment, or sanctions</a> from any Israeli individual or institution could be facing criminal charges, and terrible tragedy for Israelis and Palestinians continues to occur year-round as a result of occupation, militarism, and racism. Perhaps this is still part of the old man's punishment. Or perhaps not. Regardless, who will step up to be the 'twelve spies' of today? </span></span>adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00493236576456332525noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-79286446165505178732010-07-18T18:41:00.000-07:002010-07-18T21:32:59.055-07:00Birthright by Choice, Meshuggeneh Christians, and Bar Mitzvahs for PalestiniansThis past week, America's Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Jewish establishment leaders united to speak out against a controversial new bill that they claim could prove to be devastating in it's effect of alienating the Jewish 'diaspora' from the Israeli state. Rabbis have made dramatic sermons about the bill, using strong words like "unjust", "tragic", and "catastrophe" to emphasize the true gravity of the situation. They've even pressed some US senators to make the bold move of addressing these concerns to the Israeli government. Is this finally marking the emergence of a popular movement by American Jews to remove themselves from complicity in Israel's crimes against the Palestinians? Has the brief web life of this blog already served to mobilize the masses to say 'ya basta' to Israeli chutzpah?<br />
<br />
Before I start getting delusions of grandeur, or before anyone starts thinking the mainstream Jewish establishment has that kind of ethical backbone, I should specify that the divisive new bill has nothing to do with war crimes, land theft, or Palestinians, but rather <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/opinion/16newhouse.html?_r=1&src=mv">Jewish conversion protocol</a>. Already, the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate oversees all official conversions within Israel, but the new bill would further strengthen their control, potentially effecting the legitimacy of conversions done outside of Israel and hence the ability for converts to immigrate there via the Law of Return. Certainly, this gesture is hurtful and insulting to the diversity of Jewish religious practices, some of which offer a progressive alternative to Orthodox's traditional misogyny and homophobia. It also means on a practical level that Johnny from Cleveland, who converted because he really liked <i>Defiance</i>, read the wikipedia entry on Kabbalah, and wants to marry Sheila Schwartz, can't as easily move to Israel to claim Palestinian land as his 'birthright'.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Admittedly, the above caricature is not descriptive of the many sincere converters who feel a deep connection to the religion, and certainly I'm not suggesting Orthodox conversion is more authentic, but this imagined example does serve to point to the ridiculousness of the Law of Return in the first place. Inherent to the Law's flawed reasoning, Jews everywhere are connected to the land of Israel via an ancient ancestry that even atheist Jews can't deny; thus, Jewish immigrants are just 'returning' after a 2000 year vacation. During that time other groups may have come to water the plants and take in the mail, but the land is essentially ours by merit of our bloodline's inheritance. This essentialist notion of Jews as a race sits uneasily next to the fact that Jews can also be a religious identity that one can inhabit by choice. Can someone have a Jewish birthright if they're born something else? Maybe if I change my last name to 'Hostess' I can get a taste of that family's cupcake fortunes (though I guess for this analogy to work, the Hostess family would have stolen their cupcakes from Little Debbie, who now lives in a blockaded refugee camp).<br />
<br />
Since, in the eyes of many, Israel is facing a 'demographic timebomb' via too many Arab babies, wouldn't government officials want to increase the Jew-to-gentile ratio by any means necessary, creating a Hebrew National sausage party even if it meant letting in some Reform converts? Alas, it seems as if many recent immigrants aren't quite Jewish enough, and they want to be sure to balance quantity with quality. Through the Law of Return's broad criteria for who can be eligible for claiming birthright, Israel has seen the truly surreal influx of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/israels-neonazis-stoke-debate-on-jewishness/2007/09/10/1189276633737.html">actual neo-Nazis</a> with vague Jewish ancestry. Certainly, Palestinian refugees must recognize the cruel irony that they're being prevented from returning to land they or their parents grew up in in deference to the rights of Nazis, the same racists who helped drive Ashkenazi Jews out of Europe and into Palestine in the first place.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the Chief Rabbinate has come to embrace <a href="http://www.redress.cc/palestine/jcook20100129">the mass immigration of recent converts from the northeastern Indian States of Manipur and Mizoram</a>, known as the Bnei Menashe. They claim to be one of the lost tribes of Israel, exiled 2700 years ago before Judaism in it's current form even existed, and came to rediscover their inner Jew in the 1950's when one member of the group had a vision instructing him to lead his people to Judaism and the newly founded state of Israel. Skeptics, such as anthropologist Dr. Shalva Weil of Hebrew University, claim that the 'lost tribe' concept was introduced to them by Welsh Christian missionaries in the early 1900's, whose goal was to fulfill biblical prophecy about the return of the lost tribes signaling Jesus' second coming. Of course, according to this literal reading of the book of Revelations, once this happens those that accept Christ will be sent to heaven while Jews and everyone else will suffer lakes of fire, plagues, and monsters. Not metaphorical, but <i><a href="http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Roman%20Catholicism/beast_of_revelation.jpg">actual monsters</a></i>. Perhaps those missionaries were kinda fair-weather friends.<br />
<br />
Western Christians are still pivotal in the manipulation of the Bnei Menashe community, with the apocalypse lovin' American Evangeical community <a href="http://www.ifcj.org/site/PageNavigator/eng/programs/on_wings_of_eagles/who_we_serve/bnei_menashe/">funneling millions of dollars</a> through a group called the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews to facilitate Bnei Menashe immigration to, where else, illegal Israeli settlements. According to Israeli human rights organization <a href="http://www.yesh-din.org/site/index.php?page=index&lang=en&id=">Yesh Din</a>, the Indians are being placed in settlements deeper into the West Bank deemed too dangerous by many other settlers (before the disengagement, several hundred of them had been set up in Gaza settlements as well). Another group pivotal to the Bnei Menashe's exploitation, the right wing Shavei Israel (headed by former Netanyahu advisor Michael Freund), insist that settlements are the only places where the Bnei Menashe are welcomed, though certainly the original Palestinian inhabitants have yet to greet them with house warming gifts.<br />
<br />
So why is the Chief Rabbinate facilitating the fast-tracking of Bnei Menashe immigration while blocking American Reform and Conservative converts? For one, the Bnei Menashe are being unscrupulously propped up in contentious danger zones that American Jews are too scared and/or too PC to move into (and also Americans generally have greater financial resources than rural Indian villagers, who can't afford a nice loft in Tel Aviv). And since they don't pass the blood test to qualify for automatic ethnic-based citizenship, the Bnei Menashe are being put through Orthodox conversion protocol, turning them into the 'quality Jews' the Rabbinate craves.<br />
<br />
While the Bnei Menashe cite customs and folklore that they say bear similarity to Jewish rituals and stories, their culture is completely unique unto itself. Therefore, the Jewish education they receive from outsiders is riddled with problems of racism and cultural erasure, exemplified by this quote from a Bnei Menashe woman in India talking about Orthodox requirements for female modesty in the form of long skirts: "It's not very comfortable, and almost all the girls in the city wear pants. But if it's essential, we'll make the effort." They're also exposed to a messianic form of Judaism that shares some of the Evangelical's beliefs about the approaching end times and an apocalyptic battle to be waged in Jerusalem; such are the beliefs of <a href="http://www.elijah-project.com/RabbiAvichail.html">Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail</a> who runs one of the re-education camps. I only hope that the Jewish version of the story doesn't end with us getting eaten by monsters.<br />
<br />
Interestingly, the actual conversions are no longer able to take place in India, since missionary style conversion is forbidden by Indian law (supposedly it's forbidden by Jewish Law too, although that doesn't seem to apply to aggressively pursuing 'lost Jews'). Now, Bnei Menashe are transported by train <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3831308,00.html">to nearby Nepal for the conversions</a>. I wonder if they cross paths with the Israelis who flock to Kathmandu after their army service to smoke hashish and try to forget about the trauma of war. I wonder if the former soldiers see the eager Indian converts leaving their villages to live in combat zones and think they're hallucinating.<br />
<br />
As I mentioned before, the Bnei Menashe have to undergo conversion because DNA testing has shown no genetic link between them and other Jewish communities. However, <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100603/full/news.2010.277.html">a recent study</a> has shown that most Jews share close genetic ties to indigenous Druze, Bedouins, and Palestinian Arabs. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/25/medicalscience.genetics">Another study</a> has documented that Palestinians and Middle Eastern Jews are almost genetically identical.<br />
<br />
Perhaps the solution to the Palestinian refugee and the Jewish demography problems is for the Palestinians to claim a Jewish identity based on common ancestry. If the genetic claim doesn't hold sway (as the Chief Rabbinate has in the past rejected Bnei Menashe due to <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7108970.ece">"generations of co-mingling with other nations"</a>), perhaps the Jewish state can just go about converting all of them, by strict Orthodox standards, of course. They claim the land is Jewish, so why not the indiginous people that came with it? Christian conquerers always balanced colonial violence with 'civilizing the savages' through preaching God's word, why shouldn't 'the chosen people' chose some others to come aboard? Co-existance is a lot easier when others share the same beliefs as you. Chuck Schumer <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/11/schumer-strangle-gaza-economically/">practically suggested this solution himself</a> in his notorious strangulation speech, saying "They don’t believe in the Torah, in David... You have to force them to say Israel is here to stay." Certainly they can be forced to have bar mitzvahs too.<br />
<br />
Why stop there? If Palestinians stubbornly won't come to Judaism, certainly there's other groups that can be brought in to help hold onto the all-important Jewish majority. According to one of the studies cited above, Jews and Italians also share genetic linkage, so let's convert them, ship them to settlements, and maybe we could finally have kosher pizza that doesn't taste like cardboard. There must be other 'lost tribes' waiting to be re-discovered as well. According to Dr. Weil, "There might be billions of lost tribes out there by now. Because 28,000 were dispersed by Sennacherib and Shalmaneser, kings of Assyria. Through natural increase, this could be half the world today." Imagine, half the world living in Israel, and there would still no vacancies for Palestinian refugees.adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00493236576456332525noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-35784171019041560762010-07-12T14:32:00.000-07:002010-07-19T06:02:58.826-07:00Interruption as Intervention: Why I Fucked with Chuck<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Yesterday, as I found myself deep in a sea of Williamsburg hipsters awaiting a "Pool Party" concert at East River State Park, a rather unexpected "special guest" was announced by an entirely too enthusiastic emcee for the artfully apathetic aesthetes who dared not display any sentiment beyond irony. I assumed maybe we'd be graced by some luminary of the scene (spending the last five years in Binghamton, NY prevents me from naming whom that might be). </span></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Imagine my surprise when he announced Senator Chuck Schumer. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Now, I have a very visceral reaction to some politicians. I'd like to think it comes from the proud populist tradition of publicly shaming the scoundrels of State who rarely face even the most mild rebuke in their pampered existence, yet see fit to unleash misery on working people throughout the world. But maybe it's not so grand as all that. More likely, I was simply overcome by the need to rebuke this vulture.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a name='more'></a>Schumer is a widely-known hack. He's </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/17/the-15-biggest-congressio_n_360514.html?slidenumber=zb6sd3SJTkc%3D&slideshow#slide_image"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">taken in more money</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> from hedge fund, private equity and securities and investment industries than any other congressperson in either legislative body - a total of over $2.1 million from the financial sector. And Wall Street has been getting a good return on their investments. According to a December 1</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">3, 2008 article in The New York Times entitled, </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/business/14schumer.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"A Champion of Wall Street Reaps Benefits," </span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Schumer was instrumental in securing the $700 billion bailout for his banking buddies, while NY's working class was being decimated by layoffs and foreclosures. They write,</span></div><div><blockquote>An exceptional fund raiser — a “jackhammer,” someone who knows him says, for whom “ ‘no’ is the first step to ‘yes,’ ” — Mr. Schumer led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the last four years, raising a record $240 million while increasing donations from Wall Street by 50 percent. That money helped the Democrats gain power in Congress, elevated Mr. Schumer’s standing in his party and increased the industry’s clout in the capital. But in building support, he has embraced the industry’s free-market, deregulatory agenda more than almost any other Democrat in Congress, even backing some measures now blamed for contributing to the financial crisis.</blockquote></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This is all, of course, totally predictable. A capitalist politician will first and foremost tend to the needs of his greatest benefactors - the good people of Wall Street who see to his re-election every six years. As counter-culture as Chuck might be for "</span><a href="http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2010/07/did_you_meet_se.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">allowing people to pose ironically with him</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">," his presence at the Williamsburg "Pool Party" was probably not so divergent from his generally pro-business stance. With new luxury condos sprouting up around East River State Park, these events - which attract a young, culture-producing populous with expendable income - don't exactly hurt the property values nearly as much as the trash dump that concert organizers claimed was almost put there instead. (The noxious neighbor probably found a different area to collect city refuse where property values were already low). </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Williamsburg is friendly turf for the likes of Chuck. For those unfamiliar, th</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">e Washington Post describes the neighborhood in "</span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/20/AR2007022001912.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">A Condo Tower Grows in Brooklyn</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">," </span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote>Much has been written about gentrification and its discontents, but in few places has the speed and finality of that transformation been more startling than in Williamsburg, a formerly working-class Brooklyn neighborhood of 180,000 people along the East River. A wall of luxury glass towers is rising for 25 blocks along the "East River Riviera." Wander inland and check out the needle condo towers with three-bedroom places retailing at $1,135,000. Overnight, another preserve of working-class American culture is rendered unaffordable to thousands of families -- and to the hipsters themselves. Want to know the next move? Toll Brothers, the nation's preeminent McMansion builder, has built a new luxe waterfront condo. Its ad features a preppy and distinctly unpierced blonde and the line: "Williamsburg, All Grown Up."</blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> The article quotes CUNY anthropologist Neil Smith, a scholar of gentrification. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">We are witnessing the corporate and geographical restructuring of cities -- the wealthy are suburbanizing the center and pushing the poor to the fringes, and it's turbocharge," he argues. This process is familiar to the residents of the West Bank, where Israeli settler expansion - </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/world/middleeast/06settle.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">funded by generous U.S. tax breaks</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> - pushes the indigenous Palestinians into increasingly marginalized ghettos.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Which brings us back to why I fucked with Chuck.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The aforementioned grievances seem trivial to what the good senator said just weeks ago, in the aftermath of Israel's massacre of humanitarian activists aboard the Free Gaza flotilla.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><object height="310" width="380"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/H7DB49aDL0c&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/H7DB49aDL0c&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="380" height="310"></embed></object></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<blockquote>" And to me, since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas, while certainly there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death, to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go, makes sense." - Schumer</blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Only a monster could see the human devastation of Gaza, the suffering of siege, blockade, bombardment and humiliation, and declare - in full sincerity - that the best approach is to strangle them further. Beyond the sheer depravity of it, Schumer should also be aware that it calls for collective punishment of a civilian population, a breach of international law and a crime against humanity. What chutzpah.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So, when Schumer took the stage, I had only one option to prevent the gag reflex from choking me to death. And that was to yell at him. And then yell at him some more. The adrenaline prevented anything particularly articulate but I managed to get the most important parts out. Free Gaza. End the blockade. Strangling a people is a war crime. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Clearly flustered, Chuck first tried to shush me, a task made more difficulty by his mic cutting in and out. A few people in the crowd - anxious for an uninterrupted Schumer opening act - managed to hurl a few shut-the-fuck-ups my way over their stifling apathy. Realizing I would not relent, Schumer finished with something along the lines of, "This is not about politics. It's about enjoying our freedom." He hurried off stage.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">With such a high per capita volume of smart phones, I expected someone to take a video, or at least blog about it and my desire for a you-tube-able moment trumped my instinct to ignore the entire scene. While full video is still yet to be found, some internet denizens caught hold of the confrontation. In various posts and comments on <a href="http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2010/07/did_you_meet_se.html">Brooklyn Vegan</a> and <a href="http://www.sentimentalistmag.com/2010/07/12/deerhoof-and-xiu-xiu-take-on-joy-division-jelly-pool-party-07-11-10/">Sentimentalist Mag</a>, I've been called a "debbie downer," "fat," inciting a "political heckle fest" and - much to the chagrin of the staff of Vestal Parkway's Cost Cutters (can't beat $10 wednesdays) - of having a "bad haircut."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
More seriously, interrupting criminals of U.S. and Israeli imperialism has been <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9inM0T6q9I">gaining ground of late among solidarity activists</a>, and while it falls short of a movement strategy, I am inspired by its bravery in confronting demons. This is not because of some crypto-fascist hatred of the first admendment and its blessings of liberty, but because the very politicians who stand behind the bill of rights also position themselves well-above democratic accountability essential to any actual exercise of such a right. Schumer, whose stamp of approval is on every piece of legislation transferring a new batch of weapons to Isarel and providing ideological cover when Israel employs those weapons on Palestinians, is never confronted for his barbarity. The media, in its well-documented subservience to imperial power, asks few relevant questions. And the people, should they be so roused, find the channels of communication to major politicians blocked by insurmountable obstacles. No such problem exists for bankers and CEOs, of course, who always have a friendly ear with Chuck.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9baeWusccwlTVIEJPBcZiGGIEx1FJ2iWAC9J-CCsvw9qbQVv_tRAGp42tgj0VrDgasyHgAHFUPYH2HJIyYMKir-90DLEfUT4vhboNJxA6dAhYnOramOmalzVZJe3hrH2dk2mCi8qUPaw/s1600/freespeech.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9baeWusccwlTVIEJPBcZiGGIEx1FJ2iWAC9J-CCsvw9qbQVv_tRAGp42tgj0VrDgasyHgAHFUPYH2HJIyYMKir-90DLEfUT4vhboNJxA6dAhYnOramOmalzVZJe3hrH2dk2mCi8qUPaw/s320/freespeech.gif" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>So what came of all this? One solidarity-fist from a comrade in the crowd, a few boos and one really pissed off concert organizer whose day was apparently ruined by the Senator's hurt feelings (as she told me before flipping me off and calling me a "little shit"). But I can rest easy knowing I made Chuck's day just that much worse, as he's done for so many others throughout the world.<br />
<br />
Oh, and I forgot to mention that this all came right before Xiu Xiu took the stage. While they didn't play their true patriotic classics like "Support Our Troops" (below), I wonder how Chuck feels about opening for them. In any case, it's hard to be a "debbie downer" when you're waiting on Xiu Xiu (not exactly the feel good band of the summer). Jamie Stewart, your politics seem righteous, but where was the love yesterday?<br />
<br />
<object height="310" width="380"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PfF8lZCxtSk&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PfF8lZCxtSk&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="380" height="310"></embed></object>Andrew Epsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589342426463642194noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-17382094460764621322010-07-10T13:54:00.000-07:002010-07-11T00:19:54.182-07:00Israel's LOLocaustThere's an old Jewish joke, recounted by Woody Allen in <i>Annie Hall</i>, about two old ladies vacationing in the Catskills. Eating dinner, one turns to the other and says, "Boy, the food here is terrible," to which the other replies, "Yes, and such small portions!" I think that essentially sums up my feelings on Israeli comedy. It's generally not funny, groaningly obvious, and often seriously racist towards Palestinians. At the same time, if some Israelis didn't take themselves so seriously, they would be too busy making viral videos to worry about fulfilling biblical prophecy.<br />
<br />
Sadly, instead of inhabiting the transformative role comedy has the potential to play, much Israeli comedy right now seems to compliment, rather than scoff at, the injustices of perpetual occupation and apartheid. Take the IDF (please!). This past weekend, a group of soldiers <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIrVofeRh0g&feature=player_embedded">uploaded a video to YouTube </a>that they may be <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/idf-soldiers-face-penalty-after-uploading-hebron-dance-video-to-youtube-1.300205">facing disciplinary reprisals for</a> (the real farce is getting disciplined for making memes rather than, say, demolishing homes). In the video, a group of soldiers is patrolling in Hebron, guns drawn, the Muslim call to prayer playing in the background. Suddenly, the prayer is replaced with the Ke$ha song "Tick Tock", featuring lyrics such as "Don't stop, make it pop / DJ, blow my speakers up" (if only the 'blowing up' the IDF commits were merely audio, not visceral). The soldiers then proceed to engage in what the sharp analysts at Haaretz call a "Macarena-like dance", suggesting the soldiers are veterans of virtually any mid-to-late 90's bar mitzvah. It would be one thing if this was just another ill-conceived scene in the <i>Disaster Movie</i> franchise, but these are actual soldiers currently engaging in an illegal and immoral occupation, potentially provoking the besieged local Muslim population by drowning out their prayers with cheesy American electropop. Forgive me for not LOLing.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Another comedy gem, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOGG_osOoVg">"We Con the World"</a>, skewers the activists murdered aboard the Mavi Marmara, topically released only 4 days after the massacre, recorded before the bodies were even in the ground. In the video, a satire of "We Are the World", a poorly-wigged ensemble portraying activists, Arabs, and Bruce Springsteen sing about how there is no humanitarian crisis, interspersed with <i>actual footage from the raid</i>. Some sample lyrics:<br />
<blockquote>There comes a time / when we need to make a show / For the world, the Web and CNN / There's no people dying / So the best that we can do / Is create the greatest bluff of all</blockquote><blockquote>We must go on pretending day by day / That in Gaza, there's crisis, hunger and plague / Coz the billion bucks in aid won't buy their basic needs / Like some cheese and missiles for the kids</blockquote>This possibly marks the first time in history that deniers of human suffering have chosen the song parody as the medium with which to communicate their repugnant message. Perhaps the Turkish government can learn something from this, and release a song parodying that other all-star 1980's charity single, re-purposed for the Armenians: "Do They Even Know It's Not Genocide?" At over 2 million views, "We Con the World" has proven itself as a model for disseminating truly sick propaganda worldwide, giving a whole new meaning to the term 'viral video'. Don't be mistaken though, this was no amateur project made by some kid with a Youtube account. It was produced by (and starred) Caroline Glick, a senior member of the DC-based <a href="http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.xml">Center for Security Policy</a>, Deputy Managing Editor of <i>The Jerusalem Post</i>, and a former foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu. It's like Goebbels channeling "Weird Al" Yankovic and "David After Dentist". <br />
<br />
To make matters worse, the Israeli Government Press Office <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/06/israel-youtube-gaza-flotilla">forwarded the offensive clip</a> to hundreds of foreign journalists, then claimed it was an accident and issued a half-assed apology: "Press Office director Danny Seaman said the video did not reflect official state opinion, but in his personal capacity he thought it was 'fantastic'." One is reminded of Michael Scott, the boss on TV's "The Office", known for his reckless forwarding habits. Echoing Seamen, Scott defends his offensive behavior in a brash manner befitting either a TV sitcom or the Israeli Press Office: "When I said that I was king of forwards, you got to understand that I don't come up with this stuff. I just forward it along. You wouldn't arrest a guy who was just passing drugs from one guy to another."<br />
<br />
Perhaps Seaman truly deserves the title 'king of the forwards', as just two weeks earlier his office was responsible for <a href="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=176595">forwarding another email to journalists</a> detailing a high class restaurant and Olympic-sized swimming pool in Gaza. Although the restaurant's English-language menu highlighted the fact that it was aimed at foreigners and perhaps some corrupt Palestinian bureaucrats, the email's agenda was to belittle the fact that the vast majority of Palestinians are suffering greatly from the Israeli blockade. Seaman was even more flippant in his comments this time around, stating that, "Serious journalists understood it for the irony involved and laughed at it. Those who were insulted by it, I guess they deserve to be insulted," adding 'deserved' insult to the Palestinian's 'deserved' injury.<br />
<br />
Israeli comedy programs also add to this insulting stance towards people they have already dispossessed, bombed, and brought to the brink of starvation, caricaturing whole populations as terrorists. Case in point, the Glick-produced <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/LatmaTV">LatmaTV</a> which features a "Daily Show" type news segment called "The Tribal Update". A typical 'joke':<br />
<blockquote>"The Association for Civil Rights in Israel petitioned the High Court to prevent the extension of the Trans-Israel highway because it will cross illegal Bedouin villages. Our reporter also found out that another petition is in the works to remove the locks from all doors in the country so as not to harm burglar's livelihoods, and young women will be required to walk alone in dark alleys to protect the interest of rapists."</blockquote>Another segment features a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBRwU3y5ZD4">comedian donning blackface</a> to bizarrely portray strong Israel-supporter Barack Obama as hating "those dirty Jews" and planning Israel's destruction, in song. A sample lyric: "Blow up now, cease to be / or go drown in the sea / So the Koran can rule / yes rule us all." Truly as hilarious as it is accurate.<br />
<br />
Israel's more moderate "Daily Show" derivative, "Eretz Nehederet" (or "Wonderful Country"), frequently contains racially offensive material (such as their skit about <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_fgQItmlmk">the Haitian earthquake</a>), and although <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israeli-comedy-show-satirises-gaza-violence-1297579.html">the Israeli state and military are also open targets for satire</a> in addition to Palestinians and human rights activists, ratings come before truly thought-provoking content. Says Noa Yeblin of the <i>Maariv</i> newspaper, "Such skits may make Israelis laugh but they are unlikely to really make them think. If anything, the show's wartime performance underscores the absence of hard-hitting satire at a time when it is badly needed."<br />
<br />
When Israel was founded, the Zionists saw the state as sparking a golden age of Jewish culture. If that's the case, how come Israel's cultural production when it comes to comedy is so embarrassingly inferior in comparison to the comedic output of 'diaspora' Jews? Beyond the tastelessness and the propaganda, Israeli comedy just seems to lack the wit and ingenuity of legendary Jewish talents such as Groucho Marx, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Joan Rivers, Rodney Dangerfield, Larry David, Philip Roth, Isaac Babel, Sholem Aleichem, Sarah Silverman, David Cross, Jon Stewart, and countless more. Although Ashkenazic ethnocentrism tends to focus on the cultural contributions of Jews of European descent, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewry has also produced an impressive array of comedic talent, including Jerry Seinfeld, Sasha Baron Cohen, Peter Sellers, Hank Azaria, and Jon Lovitz, to name a few. Israel's top comedic achievement, on the other hand, seems to be <a href="http://celebs.electronicnewsnetwork.com/sacha-cohen/borat-israeli-comedian-lawsuit.php">some guy named Dovale Glickman</a>, who claims he invented Borat's 'wa wa wee wa' catchphrase.<br />
<br />
Some insight into this question can perhaps be gained by examining the history of Jewish humor, which was developed over hundreds of years of living with anti-Semitism and poverty, where jokes kept people 'laughing to keep from crying.' Some elements of what comprises traditional Jewish humor are discussed by William Novak and Moshe Waldoks in <i>The Big Book of Jewish Humor</i>:<br />
<blockquote>"Jewish humor tends to be anti-authoritarian. It ridicules grandiosity and self-indulgance, exposes hypcrisy, and kicks pomposity in the pants. It is strongly democratic, stressing the dignity and worth of common folk."</blockquote>It seems as if the cost of coming into a position of power over others via having a state has not just been on the spiritual level for Israelis, but on the comedic level as well. To put it in vaudevillian terms, Zionism was a flop. They traded the ability to zing for the ability to possess, rubber chickens for machine guns. The slapstick lunacy of the Three Stooges tragically morphed into the lunatic violence of bombs dropped on schools and hospitals.<br />
<br />
Perhaps Israel can learn something from another aspect of Jewish comedy: self-deprecation. Sigmund Freud wrote on Jewish comedy, "I do not know if there are many other instances of a people making fun to such a degree of it's own character." Rather than this humor being self-hating, as <a href="http://www.masada2000.org/list-A.html">some Zionists claim</a> ("[Woody Allen] exemplified a pathetic, anal-retentive Jew and now suggests that the brave Israeli soldier behave the same"), it can positively be seen to reflect a healthy self-critical analytic lens that Israel could certainly use more of.<br />
<br />
I'm sure there are many individual Israelis who are funny (certainly there are <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgTLXgWy7RE">funny Israeli Arabs</a>), but until their comedic cultural production is more endeared to empathy, their comedy will likely always feel false and disingenuous, like the mean-spirited taunts of a schoolyard bully. <br />
<br />
As Lenny Bruce said, "The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour - ha ha ha ha ha - they'll take you away, man. You can't."<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
By the way, if anyone does know of any good, critical Israeli (or Palestinian) comedy, please don't hesitate to let me know.adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00493236576456332525noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-58984105721975364932010-07-05T21:34:00.000-07:002010-07-06T23:19:52.317-07:00The Jewish Agency and the Death of 'the Diaspora'This past week, the Jewish Agency for Israel <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" href="http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/06/29/2739825/jewish-agency-officially-passes-plan-to-overhaul-its-mission">officially undertook</a> what has been seen by some as a radical shift in the organization's agenda. Instead of focusing on pushing aliyah (immigration of Jews to Israel), they are now re-branding with the goal of fostering a global Jewish identity centered on connection to Israel. The entire "strategic vision", tiresome ambiguous language and all, is available to read on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" href="http://blogs.jta.org/philanthropy/article/2010/06/18/2739680/first-look-the-jewish-agencys-new-strategic-vision">Fundermentalist blog</a> (despite the kitschy name, the blog is firmly ideologically Zionist; Islamic and Christian fundamentalists beware, your Jewish equivalents are winning on the pun front). You can also connect via their hip new online presences on <a href="http://twitter.com/jewishagency">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/jewishagencydotorg">Youtube</a>, and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/JewishAgency?v=info">Facebook</a> (possibly the only Facebook group listed as being founded in 1929).<br />
<br />
While the Anti-Defamation League <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" href="http://www.adl.org/Israel/campus_antiisrael/default.asp?m_flipmode=1">condemns</a> the blaming and targeting of 'diaspora' Jews for the crimes of the Israeli state, the Jewish Agency is fanning the flames of anti-Semitism by telling the world that yes, Jews and Israel are basically one and the same. With agencies like this, who needs racist skinheads? Indeed, instead of offering inclusive 'Jewish Education', they offer "Jewish-Zionist education" (and yet, the Agency is against hyphenation when it comes to mixed marriages). In actuality, not only does this betray the diverse beliefs and practices of the worldwide Jewry they claim to represent, but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Agency_for_Israel">their organization's own history</a>. Originally founded to represent Jews under the British Mandate, the then-named Jewish Agency for Palestine brought together both Zionist and non-Zionist Jews, the latter of whom advocated for unity rather than partition from the indiginous Arab population. Historical mistakes give way to historical revisions, and thousands of years of Jewish history is now reduced to serving a hundred year old nationalist ideology.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The Jewish Agency's overhaul is coming at the heels of Peter Beinart's much talked about article in the New York Review of Books, <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/">"The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment."</a> In the article, Beinart, a commited Zionist, voices concern over how many young American Jews are not as connected to Israel as their parent's generation, with many having "a near-total absence of positive feelings." For mainstream organizations for whom Jewish identity is quantifiably measured by the number of Israeli flags one owns, the studies cited by Beinart are a cause to panic. However, rather than following Beinart's line of reasoning, which faults the decline on these organization's all-or-nothing support for conservative Israeli policies conflicting with the liberal values of young American Jews, the Jewish Agency has decided to bypass legitimate questions of ethics in favor of selling their pandering, over-simplified identity politic that assumes their targetted demographic is entirely amoral idiots. To use <a href="http://www.holidays.net/passover/four_sons.htm">a Passover analogy</a>, they are speaking as if young Jews are all 'the simple son', and anyone who criticizes the Zionist project is 'the wicked son' and falls outside the limits of what can constitute a Jewish identity. I might as well get my foreskin reattached.<br />
<br />
This philosophy is really nothing new, but still, the strategic de-emphasis on aliyah to Israel in favor of further boosting the centrality of Israel in the modern Jewish identity is significant for several reasons. For one, they recognize that Israel's survival does not only depend on guns and tanks, but on the dissemination of propaganda throughout the gentile world justifying it's use of guns and tanks, and in America, advocating for continued unconditional aid to purchase said guns and tanks. They recognize that barriers preventing Jews from assimilating into Western societies are mostly disappearing, so if they're going to be rubbing elbows with the goyim, they might as well be guilted into serving as de facto spokespeople for Israel. Just last year, the Jewish Agency released this <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/jewish-agency-pulls-controversial-lost-jews-ads-1.266852">offensive ad campaign</a> suggesting that the children of mixed marriages were "lost Jews"; their new strategy seems to ignore those sort of awkward racial purity concerns, and even references the possibility of having 'multiple complimentary identities', although implicitly the Jewish part of the identity must be an ardent Zionist.<br />
<br />
Secondly, they acknowledge that today "the vast majority of Jews live in freedom [from anti-Semitism]", and thus aliyah is now "a choice that grows from Jewish identity and from spending extended periods of time in Israel." This conflicts greatly with Israel's reason d'etre, which is that a Jewish state is neccesary to serve as a safe haven that persecuted Jews can flee to. It also conflicts with the hype surrounding 'the new anti-Semitism' that Jewish Agency head honcho and chutzpah hawker Natan Sharansky saw as a major threat to 'diaspora' Jews just a few years ago, ominouisly warning about it in a Jerusalem Post article entitled <a href="http://www.hagalil.com/antisemitismus/europa/sharansky-1.htm">"Anti-Semitism in 3D"</a> (to be fair, although there hasn't been a resurgance in pograms, Sharansky did predict the revival of 3D movies). Today, Sharansky sings a different shpiel, claiming that "the main danger facing the Jewish world today is a weakening of the connection of young Jews to their people and to the State of Israel." If this is our 'main danger', we should always be so lucky.<br />
<br />
There are those in Israel who see the Agency's new identity-before-aliyah approach as a gamble that probably won't work, such as <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/magazine/anglo-file/sharansky-s-new-vision-for-jewish-agency-comes-under-fire-1.298206">chairman of the World Zionist Organization Avraham Duvdevani</a>, who stated, "Israel's demographics mean we cannot afford to wait for Zionism to come about as a by-product. Aliyah is this country's oxygen." As an advocate of settlements, Duvdevani's oxygen analogy is apt, as the destructive power of fire also requires oxygen to spread. Many of those making Aliyah today, especially those from particularly marginalized groups, are set up in West Bank settlements, serving as human shields for IDF bases and an expansionist agenda. Even within the 67 borders, Israel is probably the most dangerous place in the world for Jews right now, evidenced by the large numbers of Israelis doing a reverse aliyah and emigrating out of their own country. Is it a surprise American Jews don't want to make the shlep? The Jewish Agency's head of global affairs, Misha Galperin, was also concerned, insisting that "we were once a people without a homeland; we can’t become a homeland without a people." If only people is the issue, certainly there's thousands of Palestinian refugees who would jump at the chance to return to their homeland. Too bad they aren't 18-35 year old American Jews. Perhaps they could increase their demographic desirability by watching more Judd Apatow films?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/jewish-agency-s-new-plan-for-the-diaspora-proves-its-irrelevance-1.298188">As Haaretz points out</a>, the Agency's new vision does acknowledge that we are living in a time when Israel "inspires, alienates, and compels", although the only reason given for that alienation is a murky concession of "growing social gaps in Israel which weaken the Zionist ideal of building the state as a light unto the nations." As a Jew who believes in learning something besides 'how to construct a ghetto' from my ancestry's history of oppresion, there is a lot more regarding Israel that I'm critical of besides that it isn't living up to my Zionist ideals of state-building. Frankly, I don't have any 'Zionist' ideals, because the label doesn't define me, nor does it define a growing number of dissident Jews both in the 'diaspora' and Israel. <br />
<br />
Throughout this post I used quotes around the word 'diaspora' because I see it's usage as problematic. Over several hundred years, Jews have made themselves at home in places as far-apart and different as Hungary, Austria, Iran, Iraq, Russia, France, Morroco, Spain, Turkey, Syria, England, Poland, Ethiopia, India, China, Cuba, Venezeula, America, Palestine, Israel, and elsewhere. Various powers regarded us as not truly belonging in these places, thus emerged the concept that we were in diaspora, that there was a true, mythical homeland where we really belonged and until then we lived as strangers in stranger lands. But the truth is, the cossacks, Nazis, and Christian nationalists were wrong, and Jewish culture belonged and flourished wherever it existed, and wherever it now exists. There is no center. There is no true national or cultural homeland that is worth justifying the misery and oppression of another people. And there is no diaspora. Jews, welcome home.adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00493236576456332525noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-43740433396044821072010-07-02T21:46:00.000-07:002010-07-02T22:27:28.919-07:00ElectionsI'm breaking the tradition this blog has begun to develop in its short life of longer articles, but for the sake of a more active posting schedule and simply to share something awesome, here's an incredible poem by my friend Ben Crossan, who breaks down the imperial hypocrisy and genocidal logic of America and Israel's relationship to Gaza. Really brilliant.<br />
<br />
"Don't get it twisted, that's what Gaza is, an open air prison we think we can play cops and robbers in."<br />
<br />
<object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ae2AHw8ECAA&hl=en_US&fs=1?rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ae2AHw8ECAA&hl=en_US&fs=1?rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object>Andrew Epsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589342426463642194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-87704404920680064612010-06-29T09:25:00.000-07:002010-06-29T09:27:25.709-07:00Racism Wrapped in Rainbow FlagsSunday's annual LGBT pride march in NYC featured many of the typical opportunists leeching off the festivities, corporations and politicians seizing the chance to hawk their wares or pander for votes during what used to be the commemoration of a radical anti-police riot at the Stonewall Inn. Fitting in well with these shameless self-promoters was <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3911573,00.html">the state of Israel</a>, represented via their New York Consulate and the Tel Aviv municipality. They marched waving an equal number of Israeli and rainbow flags, suggesting somehow an equivalence between a racially-based state and a symbol of diversity.<br />
<br />
Participating in the delegation was gay porn actor-cum-mogul (no pun intended) <a href="http://news.avn.com/company-news/Michael-Lucas-to-March-with-Israeli-Youth-in-NYC-Gay-Pride-Parade-401221.html">Michael Lucas</a>, producer of films such as "Men of Israel", "Shameless Holes", "Piss Sluts", and "FARTS!". Recently, the <a href="http://www.advocate.com/uploadedImages/michaellucas.jpg">Zoolander lookalike</a> has found a second calling in politics, acting as an apologist for Israel and basher of Muslims in mainstream gay publications such as <a href="http://www.advocate.com/Politics/Commentary/Michael_Lucas_Throw_Israel_Under_the_Bus/">The Advocate</a>, formulating ingenious strings of buzz words such as: "The world should understand that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is not a conflict between two political entities. It’s a conflict between two worlds — one that is stuck in the Middle Ages and one that belongs to the 21st century. It’s a conflict between civilization and barbarism; between freedom and oppression; between democracy and dictatorship; between human rights and violations of human rights." This past year, he started a sort of <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3871457,00.html">Birthright Israel for horny gay dudes</a>, getting tourists exclusive access to "sexy soldiers" on IDF bases.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, Israel's state-sponsored attempts at pride march co-option were met with resistance. Toronto's <a href="http://queersagainstapartheid.org/">Queers Against Israeli Apartheid</a> dissident bloc was at first banned (and then <a href="http://www.muzzlewatch.com/2010/06/24/under-pressure-pride-toronto-reverses-censorship-of-israeli-apartheid/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Muzzlewatch+%28MuzzleWatch%29">unbanned</a>) from this year's march following a campaign by B'nai Brith, supposedly under the justification that the term 'apartheid' was offensive (nevermind that the comparision has been made by former Israeli Prime Ministers <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/ehud-barak-calls-endless_b_446411.html">Barak</a>,<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/30/israel">Olmert</a> and <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2010/06/not-just-barak-and-olmert-ben-gurion-predicted-apartheid-40-years-ago.html">allegedly even Ben-Gurion</a>). In Madrid, Israel's official delegation was banned from participating as organizers expressed dismay over the flotilla massacre, much to <a href="http://www.advocate.com/Politics/Commentary/Michael_Lucas_on_Madrids_Bad_Pride/">the chagrin of Russian-born Michael Lucus</a>, who quipped, "Europeans are not very smart."<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
The goal of Israel's LGBT-targeted marketing campaign is to brand their state as a queer oasis in the middle of an otherwise hostile Middle East. Take for instance the workshop planned for last week's US Social Forum by the organization StandWithUs, titled <a href="http://organize.ussf2010.org/ws/lgbtqi-liberation-middle-east">'LGBTQI Liberation in the Middle East'</a>. From the description alone, it doesn't seem so bad; certainly, homophobic injustice occurs everywhere, and activists should stand in solidarity with others fighting for their liberation. However, when one takes into account that StandWithUs is not an LGBT rights organization but one described in <a href="http://www.standwithus.com/ABOUT/">their mission statement</a> as being dedicated to "ensuring that Israel's side of the story is told", a duplicitous political agenda becomes apparent.<br />
<br />
Thankfully, a number of <a href="http://www.helem.net/">actual</a> <a href="http://www.alqaws.org/">Middle Eastern</a> <a href="http://www.aswatgroup.org/">LGBT</a> <a href="http://pqbds.wordpress.com/">organizations</a> took notice, and penned a strongly written <a href="http://pqbds.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/arab-queers-say-no-to-pinkwashing-at-the-ussf/">letter to the USSF</a> demanding the cancellation of this workshop, which the USSF respected. Unlike StandWithUs, I'll now allow these organizations to make their case in their own words:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Stand with Us has no connection with the LGBT movement in the Middle East apart from ties to Zionist Israeli LGBT organizations, yet it claims to speak for and about our movements. It has no credibility in our region, and as organizations working in and from the Middle East, we condemn its attempt to use us, our struggles, our lives, and our experiences as a platform for pro-Israeli propaganda.</blockquote><blockquote>Since Israel’s brutal wars on Gaza and Lebanon in 2006 and particularly after the recent unprovoked attack on the flotilla of activists going to Gaza, the Israeli government has found itself increasingly marginalized by international condemnations and weakened through the growing success of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. To remedy this, it has launched a massive PR campaign using organizations such as Stand with Us to convince the world that Israel is not a brutal settler-colony state, but rather a free democracy where human rights in general, and LGBT rights in particular, are respected and upheld. Stand With Us deceptively uses the language of LGBT and women’s rights to obscure the fact that institutionalized discrimination is enshrined within the state of Israel.</blockquote><blockquote>Our struggle is deeply intertwined with the struggle of all oppressed people, and we cannot accept that we are being used as a tool to discredit the Palestinian cause. Stand with Us would have everyone believe that the Palestinian cause is an unworthy one because of the homophobia that exists within Palestinian society, as if homophobia does not exist elsewhere, and as if struggles for justice are predicated on some sort of inherent “goodness” of the oppressed, rather than on the principles of freedom, justice, and equality for everyone, everywhere. Stand with Us would have us all compartmentalize our beliefs, lives, and identities so that solidarity with the queer struggle would preclude solidarity with others.</blockquote><blockquote>While Stand With Us is quick to point out the oppression of queer Palestinians under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, it conveniently forgets that those same queers are not immune to the bombs, blockades, apartheid and destruction wrought upon them daily by the Israeli government, and that Israel’s multi-tiered oppression hardly makes a distinction between straight and gay Palestinians.</blockquote><blockquote>We refuse to be instrumentalized by anyone, be it our own oppressive governments or the Zionist lobby hijacking our struggle to legitimize the state of Israel and its policies, thus providing even more fodder for our own governments to use against us. If you want to learn about our movements and struggles, engage with us, rather than with those who will use us as pawns in Israel’s campaign to pinkwash its crimes.</blockquote><br />
As a Jew, I find myself disturbed by Israel carrying out it's crimes in my name, and can only imagine how it must feel for queer Palestinians to have their existence co-opted by a state who would just as soon blockade, fence off, and bomb them.<br />
<br />
In response to their workshop's cancellation, StandWithUs lashed out in <a href="http://www.standwithus.com/app/iNews/view_n.asp?ID=1518">a particularly nonsensical manner</a>, claiming that the USSF, by listening to the voices of reputed Middle Eastern LGBT organizations, had effectively "shamefully silenced the suffering of Middle East gays because of their own hateful intolerance." It also became clear that while their workshop description taken alone might suggest a discussion of homophobia throughout the entire region, including Israel, they had always planned on using it as a platform for promoting Israel's "outstanding record on LGBT issues" and status as a "refuge for persecuted gays in the Middle East." Are either of these claims even remotely true?<br />
<br />
Like most societies, Israel struggles with institutionalized homophobia, and it helps neither Palestinian nor Israeli queers to pretend otherwise. A <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/homophobia-in-israel-still-high-but-declining-slowly-says-survey-20090806-ebkb.html">Haaretz poll</a> showed that nearly half of Israelis view homosexuality as a perversion, and hate crimes are common, such as the highly publicized 2009 incident where a gunman murdered 2 and injured 11 in <a href="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-13521.html/">a gay youth meeting</a>. Israel's own LGBT pride celebrations have come under attack, both from non-state agents in the form of stabbings, stonings, and posters in Haredi neighborhoods offering money for any pride participant killed, and from official government sources, such as the Interior Minister, who last year signed a letter <a href="http://www.medindia.net/news/Tel-Avivs-Gay-Pride-Opposed-By-Israel-Minister-And-Rabbis-52785-1.htm">calling it an 'abomonation'</a>, and from the police, who this year <a href="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/06/25/israeli-police-reject-proposed-gay-pride-parade-route-through-jerusalem/">rejected the pride parade's proposed route</a> since it passed by a yeshiva. Although much fuss is made over queer Israeli's 'right' to serve in the IDF (and shoot at queer Palestinians), same-sex marriage will remain non-existent as all marriage is required to be under the auspices of the religious authority, a policy leftover from the Ottomans. How progressive.<br />
<br />
As for the claim that Israel is a safe haven where persecuted queers from across the Middle East can seek refuge, in actuality, queer Palestinians who flee to Israel risk deportation, jail, and house arrest. Israel refuses to grant asylum to them <a href="http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2002/02/21/ezra_selim/">even in cases where it's known they could be murdered</a> if deported back to their original communities. Much of the Israeli LGBT establishment also struggles with anti-Palestinian racism, and in the tolerant gay 'bubble' of Tel Aviv, many queer Palestinians end up <a href="http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/2085-palestinian-gays-under-the-hijab-in-israel">"living and working on the streets."</a> Arab queers were even <a href="http://arabwomanprogressivevoice.blogspot.com/2009/08/gay-palestinians-are-too-hot.html">prevented from speaking</a> at the memorial for those killed in last years shooting, the justification given that "we can't go so far." Tolerance, it seems, has it's limits.<br />
<br />
However, there are members of Israel's queer community who are willing to speak out, and <a href="http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/2668-no-pride-in-occupation-tel-aviv-pride-parades-focus-on-protest-progressive-social-change">this year they've organized 2 alternatives</a> to Tel Aviv's mainstream pride parade, the Community Pride Parade: Parading for Change and Just Before Pride: Alternative Radical March. The organizers recognize the necessity of understanding oppression intersectionally, and that struggling against homophobia also means tackling racism in all it's forms. As the organizers of Just Before Pride wrote on their website,<br />
<blockquote>"We decided to march this year in view of the growing hate crimes against gender-political-social-class minorities in Israel and in the occupied territories, and in the face of the Gay Pride parade in Tel Aviv municipality, which neither represent us nor our values...We recognize the vital and imperative connection between the LGBTQI struggle and political struggles of other minorities that suffer systematic oppression in the state [of Israel] and the occupied territories."</blockquote>Participants in pride celebrations everywhere can learn from what these dissident Israelis are trying to accomplish in creating an inclusive space that challenges attempts at co-option like what happened here on Sunday. Next year, in New York!adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00493236576456332525noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-38468067838567546942010-06-28T15:11:00.000-07:002010-06-28T15:18:52.537-07:00Violent Origins & Contemporary ApologistsIn the brief but excellent philosophical/political polemic "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Violence-Big-Ideas-Small-Books/dp/0312427182">Violence</a>," Slavoj Zizek engages in an interesting thought experiment on Zionism. He presents the reader with the following unattributed quote:<br />
<blockquote>"Our enemies call us terrorists... People who were neither our friends or our enemies... also used this Latin name... And yet, we were not terrorists... The historical and linguistic origins of the political term 'terror' prove that it cannot be applied to a revolutionary war of liberation... Fighters for freedom must arm; otherwise they would be crushed overnight... What has a struggle for the dignity of man, against oppression and subjugation, to do with 'terrorism'?"</blockquote>Those familiar with the eccentric Lacanian knows his favorite mode of argument is to present the reader with the seemingly obvious, only to settle on a completely inversion conclusion. The above quote might immediately be attributed to a present day Islamist militant, but its source is actually Menachim Begin, when he lead the Igrun paramilitary group in its resistance to British mandate control. Begin would later become Israel's sixth prime minister.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><div>Zizek continues with a second example which helps illustrate how far Isreal has come from its early rhetoric. Consider the following passage:</div><blockquote>My Brave Friends. You may not believe what I write you, for there is a lot of fertilizer in the air at the moment. But on my word as an old reporter, what I write is true. The Palestinians of America are for you. You are their champions. You are the grin they wear. You are the feather in their hats. You are the first answer that makes sense - to the New World. Every time you blow up an Israeli arsenal, or wreck an Israeli jail, or send an Israeli railroad sky high, or rob an Israeli bank, or let go with your guns and bombs at the Israeli betrayers and invaders of your homeland, the Palestinians of America make a little holiday in their hearts.</blockquote>This passage doesn't come from an underground jihadi website. It was written, in fact, by Ben Hecht, the famous Hollywood screenwriter of the 1930s and 1940s who penned dozens of classics. All Zizek has done is replace the word "Jews" with "Palestinians," and "British" with "Israelis."<br />
<br />
David Ben-Gurion, Israel's George Washington so to speak, had this to say during the same period: "We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."<br />
<br />
It's hard to imagine Israel's well-oiled public relations industry embracing such statements from its own historical luminaries. Israeli's foreign ministry along, with U.S. propaganda outfits like Stand With Us and the mega-lobbying group AIPAC, prefer to present Israel as a small, beleaguered sanctuary of democracy and human rights and Zionism as the most peaceful of nationalist movements.<br />
<br />
It's founders held no such illusion, for it was their blood, sacrifice and, yes, terror that birthed a nation. Could you imagine Netanyahu making the following statement, which Ben-Gurion did as Prime Minister?<br />
<blockquote>"If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our god is not theirs. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country."</blockquote>This is an understanding which unsettles the liberal conscience on three counts - rejecting the liberal consensus that peace can be made between the colonized and the colonizer, admitting the legitimacy of the Arab position, and, perhaps the worst offense, nonetheless remaining a strident Zionist.<br />
<br />
But there is a certain truth here, perhaps more desirable even than liberal obfuscation. It also renders the seemingly inexorable right-wing move of Israeli politics more understandable. As the barbarity of the Israeli government against Palestinians, Lebanese, Turkish activists, etc., continue to undermine any hope of a liberal/humanist defense of Israel, the only argument which can remain is purely partisan nationalism.<br />
<br />
This reminds me of a late night argument I had a few months back with a strong supporter of Israel who otherwise considered himself quite radical. After cycling through the standard litany of liberal Zionist apologetics - each of which I refuted with pretty uncontroversial evidence - he finally admitted that I was indeed correct, that the government of Israel was engaged in massive violence and repression, and even that Zionism itself represents little more than colonialism to the indigenous population. "Still," he concluded, "I'm a partisan for Israel. I'm a partisan for the Jews."<br />
<br />
One could engage in an entirely different argument on how Israel's actions may prove destructive to actual Jewish people in the long-run, but that's for a different post. What I find interesting here is that this is the final retort of Zionism. And frankly, it's far more honest than the smokescreen of democratic values and human rights that present day Israeli apologists employ and which early Zionists - who saw first hand the violence it takes to create a nation - would likely have found laughable.<br />
<br />
The question is, of course, where do you take the argument from there?Andrew Epsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589342426463642194noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-82074145498544064222010-06-27T12:30:00.000-07:002010-06-28T13:07:30.075-07:00Zionism or International Law: On Which Turf Do We Battle?Among the publishing class of Israel’s critics, a boundary (by no means inseperable) exists in how best to approach a critical analysis of the situation, and in turn, which path toward a solution. For the likes of Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky and organizations such as the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, philosophical discussions about Zionism are fine for the classroom, but changes in policy are the goal. Finkelstein often points out that the entire “international community” (meaning for these purposes global institutions and popular opinion) is fairly unanimous on the basic contours of the issue: Israel is required by law to retreat to the 1967 borders, end the occupation, and arrive at a just and consensual settlement to the refugee question (whether full right of return or reperations). The International Criminal Court has ruled against the apartheid wall, and every mainstream human rights organization is in basic agreement about the systemic abuses of Palestinians by the IDF.<br />
<br />
Yet there is no such consensus on Zionsim, they contend: national liberation movement or racist colonialism? Fallen from grace or corrupt from the start? Activists in the Finkelstein camp may recognize the inherent problems with such international institutions as the U.N. or NGO’s (Finkelstein himself remains an avowed Communist, surely grasping how distant such bodies are from his ideals), but see no use in arguing from a weak and divided position. Should international law actually be followed (an untested proposition to be sure), conditions for Palestinians would surely ameloriate. Deal with the possible, they say, not the ideal. As Hussein Ibish of the American Task Force on Palestine summarizes <a href="http://platypus1917.org/2010/04/08/which-way-forward-for-palestinian-liberation-2/">in a recent debate</a>,<br />
<blockquote>“If you are involved in Palestinian national liberation for decades, as I have been, then it is clear that to have an effective political program you need a clear and well-defined goal. Without it, you can have no coherent strategy, and, without a coherent strategy, you cannot be effective. Things will just be random and ad hoc, and whatever momentary victories take place end up getting lost in the ether. So the question, ‘What is our actual goal?’ is crucial.”</blockquote><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
On the other side, you have scholars like Joel Kovel (“<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Zionism-Creating-Democratic-Palestine/dp/0745325696">Overcoming Zionism</a>"), Ali Abunimah (“<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Zionism-Creating-Democratic-Palestine/dp/0745325696">One Country</a>“) and Gabriel Piterberg (“<a href="http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/nopq-titles/piterberg_g_returns_of_zionism.shtml">The Returns of Zionism</a>“), who are more radical in the acute definition of the word: a problem finds its solution only when the very core is addressed. Zionism itself, they say, is an exclusionary doctrine, wholly incompatible with universal democratic rights. Israel, so long as such an entity exists as a Jewish State, will necessarily continue abusing the Palestinians. International law, peace settlements, two-state solutions – these are diversionary, they say. Their best case scenario is a repeat of South Africa, where formal apartheid yielded to de facto apartheid. Kovel argues in a recent debate published in <a href="http://platypus1917.org/2010/04/08/which-way-forward-for-palestinian-liberation-2/">The Platypus Review</a>,<br />
<br />
<blockquote>“The Israeli occupation is not accidental. It has a law of motion that can be discerned if you take into account the history of Israel itself. So, clarifying aims is a matter of gaining perspective, really. You cannot gain any real perspective unless you are willing to commit yourself to certain ends and adopt the means consonant with those ends.”</blockquote><br />
This is obviously a simplistic review of the debate, and one that doesn’t include the voices of Palestinians on the ground who should be differed to on such questions. But the schism so much as it exists in a relevant way in North America presents certain questions and implications for solidarity activists.<br />
<br />
Here’s some questions that occur to me:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul><li>If one postures as anti-Zionist in North America, this necessitates a fundamentally anti-colonial position which interrogates one’s position as a settler on stolen land in a much more immediate space. Claiming anti-Zionism but supporting or reinforcing the United States as a legitimate political entity is, as far as I can tell, an uncritical hypocrisy.</li>
<li>Engaging international law also presents complications, particularly if one identifies as anti-capitalist. Situating the conflict as an issue of human rights (as most major organizations do), rather than imperialism/colonialism/racism wrought from the capitalist system, may miss the point.</li>
<li>Similarly, a settlement based on a two-state solution raises the issue of national liberation. Zionists often contend that activists support national rights to Palestinians, while criticizing or dismissing the national liberation movement which founded the state of Israel. Of course, should you argue on the grounds of the international consensus, you can make the very valid point that national liberation and colonial expansion are too very different things. But again, at what point in history do we locate the “Fall” of Zionism from legitimate national liberation movement to colonialism/imperialism?</li>
</ul><br />
There are people who could present exhaustive responses to these questions. Let’s hope they find their way to our little blog.Andrew Epsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589342426463642194noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-3719371357080579692010-06-24T11:57:00.000-07:002010-06-28T19:18:44.605-07:00No Country for Old MenHaim Bajayo is a living witness to history. Born in 1935 in Hebron to a Jewish family, Bajayo witnessed how a neighborhood where Jews and Muslims lived together peacefully was transformed by racist nationalism into a cultural battlefield.<br />
<br />
Hebron today is within the borders of the occupied West Bank, and is home to some 86 Jewish settler families living amongst tens of thousands of Palestinians. These families, unlike Bajayo’s and other indigenous Jews, moved in following Israel’s 1967 land grab, and brought with them plenty of IDF soldiers to ensure their safety and <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=6aLsz14aKJsC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">the Palestinian’s misery</a>: the IDF significantly restricts Palestinian freedom of movement, have indiscriminately fired on civilians, and protect settlers when they engage in communal violence against Arabs.<br />
<br />
The attitude of the settlers sits in direct contrast with many local Jews from Bajayo’s generation. Case in point, on Wednesday, a left wing Knesset delegation was greeted with <a href="http://palsolidarity.org/2010/06/12811/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+palsolidarity+%28International+Solidarity+Movement%29">an insane barrage of irrational hatred</a>:<br />
<blockquote>One man was accused of drinking Jewish blood because he was drinking a can of Arabic coke. The settlers shouted ‘This is not Palestine, it is not Arab land and you’d better get used to it!’.<br />
<a name='more'></a></blockquote>American survivors of the relatively tame <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cola_Wars">Cola Wars</a> are probably surprised that this simple brand choice conjures up such intense feelings, since by our standards, Mountain Dew is ‘extreme’. Perhaps their racist mentality can best be summed up by a slight modification of a familiar slogan: ‘Do the Jew’.<br />
<br />
If Haim Bajayo had a slogan, it would probably simply be ‘coexistence’, a sentiment he is literally taking to the grave. This week, the 75 year old Jew visited with Hebron Mayor Khalid Al-Useili to <a href="http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=294067">ask permission to be buried in the city’s Muslim cemetery</a>, to honor the neighborly spirit he remembers from times past, and from the stories he was told by his grandfather. Bajayo explained:<br />
<blockquote> “I want to be buried in Hebron. I won’t go to a Jewish cemetery at any rate, because it’s under the settlers’ control. I’m requesting a modest burial spot in a Muslim cemetery.”</blockquote>Contrast this with the attitude of the Israeli government, which is uprooting an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem to ironically make way for the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance. To make matters worse, this week a complaint was filed <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/arab-lawyer-files-claim-against-museum-of-tolerance-over-improper-grave-removal-1.297947?localLinksEnabled=false">alleging negligent excavations of the bodies</a>. Perhaps instead of a museum they should be building tolerance's graveyard.<br />
<br />
This week was not Bajayo’s first visit with a Mayor of Hebron. In 1977, as settler encroachment into the area was increasing, he met with then-Mayor Fahd Al-Qawasmi to turn over his family's long-held property:<br />
<blockquote>“As long as [the settlers] are in Hebron, there is no chance of reaching an agreement” to end the six-decade conflict, he told the mayor. “I don’t want any of my property or my house back as long as Palestinian homes and lands are not returned. The same day the Palestinians regain what was taken from them in 1948, I’ll come to you and say, ‘I have a house … registered in the real estate department.’” </blockquote> Elsewhere, the issue of deeds past haunts Israel like a phantom. Palestinian refugees who possessed property within Israel’s pre-67 borders are consistently denied their ownership by the courts, while settlers aiming their sights at Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood are successfully <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/magazine/friday-supplement/the-orthodox-jews-fighting-the-judaization-of-east-jerusalem-1.298113">claiming ownership of houses previously occupied by Jews during Ottoman rule in the 1800s</a>. Compared to the other precedent often utilized, the Jewish kingdom circa 200 BC, this seems almost reasonable, but not quite. It’s complicated: Palestinian refugees from 48 were settled there by Jordan and UNRWA in the 50s, before a shady ruling in the 70s granted the neighborhood to Jews, who then in the 80s signed an agreement with the Palestinian residents establishing them as protected tenants.<br />
<br />
Since last summer, a settler-affiliated company, Nahalat Shimon, with the help of Jerusalem’s Mayor, have been evicting these long-term residents to make way for religious extremists who refer to the neighborhood as Shimon Hatzaddik. And you thought hipster gentrification was obnoxious.<br />
<br />
One hopeful development, however, is the rise of <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/magazine/friday-supplement/the-orthodox-jews-fighting-the-judaization-of-east-jerusalem-1.298113">a new movement of Jews protesting weekly in favor of protecting Sheikh Jarrah’s embattled residents</a>. Unlike those from Haim Bajayo’s generation who can remember a peaceful past, most of these new protesters are young, and many are religious. In America, the perception is often that it is the religious Jews who are preventing peace, while the secular Israelis are more reasonable, more tolerant. As activist Amos Goldberg explains, this is a misconception:<br />
<blockquote>“…we have to remember that the greatest wrongs against the Palestinians were perpetrated not by the settlers, but by secular nationalism. To pin the blame on the settlers is a type of internal cleansing process that you find in Israeliness.”</blockquote>For other religious activists, the settler movement represents a perverse version of Judaism they need to counter by representing true Jewish values. Ben Sasson explains:<br />
<blockquote>“From my point of view, being in Sheikh Jarrah is the full and supreme realization of my religious existence… When I don’t show up on a Friday, I feel as though I have not put on tefillin in the morning. When I am here, I am fighting against the expulsion of people who will become refugees for a second time, but also against the settlers − because they are trying to expel me from the boundaries of legitimacy. They are double enemies: They are trying to plunder the homes of the Palestinians and, by contrast of course, also the religion to whose God I pray.</blockquote><blockquote>…If you take away their Uzis and kick out the police, sit us down and remove the media − they will leave with their tail between their legs. In the Middle Ages disputations were held between learned Jews and Christians. Sometimes the Jews won, in which case they had to escape to avoid being killed. If you bring [the settlers] for a disputation now, I will win. All the Jewish sources are on my side. Their whole activity is twisted. What they are doing is desecration of God’s name, in the most explicit way.</blockquote><blockquote>…Ezekiel 33: ‘O mortal, those who live in these ruins in the Land of Israel … and you shed blood, yet you expect to possess the land!’”</blockquote> Religious and secular activists have come under attack from both the state and right wing thugs, and <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/poll-half-of-israeli-high-schoolers-oppose-equal-rights-for-arabs-1.264564">polls show the increased mainstreaming of racist views in Israeli society at large</a>, but regardless they have been persistent in demanding human rights and dignity for their Palestinian neighbors. Sadly, the very question of whether they will have any Palestinians as neighbors is now at hand.<br />
<br />
<object height="385" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5DEjsb1gLC0&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5DEjsb1gLC0&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00493236576456332525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215438839465219170.post-61908289379956844212010-06-23T11:51:00.000-07:002010-06-28T19:17:00.960-07:00The Two Exploitations of Gilad ShalitTomorrow, <a href="http://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/adam_dickters_continuum/making_waves_gilad_shalit">according to The Jewish Week</a>, a flotilla will pass down the Hudson and East rivers, ending at the United Nations. Unlike the ‘Free Gaza’ flotilla that serves as it’s inspiration, it will not be carrying any humanitarian aid, no mid-afternoon nosh for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Rather, this flotilla’s mission is to draw attention to the plight of Israeli soldier Gil Shalit, who has been held prisoner by Hamas since 2006, to teach delegates that Gaza is not “a besieged utopia of wine and roses”.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, a pro-Hamas news outlet reports that <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/hamas-says-gilad-shalit-watches-world-cup-in-captivity-1.297728">Shalit is intently following the World Cup</a> to allegedly take his mind off the fact that the Israeli government has thus far refused to accept Hamas’ offer of a prisoner swap.<br />
<br />
Like in soccer, Israel’s supporters and Hamas are embroiled in an aggressive game of kicking Shalit’s plight back and forth, trying to score the most symbolic points. One can’t help but feel for Shalit, as propaganda wars rarely actually care about their human ammunition.<br />
<br />
Another Jewish Week writer, Jonathan Mark, contends that <a href="http://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/route_17/israel_surrenders_blockade_eased_without_shalit">Israel’s easing of the blockade was a mistake</a> since they didn’t get Shalit released in return. It is unclear what connection prisoners of war have with <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/obama-welcomes-ease-of-gaza-blockade-urges-israel-to-expand-goods-inflow-1.296945?localLinksEnabled=false">withholding toys from all of Gaza’s children</a>, but it does put Jonathan Mark conspicuously in league with the Grinch.<br />
<br />
But of course, shifting the attention away from the humanitarian crisis (of which toy shortages are sadly the least of Gaza’s woes) by bringing up Shalit is all part of the game, which is why the reactionary ‘Free Gilad’ flotilla is embarking now, in the aftermath of renewed international interest. The last time I remember hearing so much about Shalit was around the time of the widely condemned 2008 siege. How convenient.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
This diversionary tactic is most blatant in popular ultra-nationalist Israeli rapper <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP2OCs1fRgQ&feature=player_embedded#!">SHI 360′s recent Youtube video “United”</a>, where he raps “Wanna talk about aid? What about Gilad?” The statement contains no actual rhyme, even less reason. One man’s strife has thus been elevated not only to the level of the suffering of 1.5 million people in terms of importance, but above and beyond.<br />
<br />
Certainly, there are some reasoned and reputable human rights advocates who have spoken out on Shalit’s behalf, among them <a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/06/24/gaza-allow-shalit-contact-family-international-red-cross">Human Rights Watch</a>, <a href="http://www.btselem.org/english/Press_Releases/20070625.asp">B’Tselem</a>, and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/15/un-gaza-war-israel-hamas">Richard Goldstone</a>. But these advocates also speak out against Israel’s abuses and mistreatment of prisoners, something that Israel’s apologists never do.<br />
<br />
Last year, in fact, some of Shalit’s ‘supporters’ protested by physically preventing visiting Palestinian families from seeing their loved ones at Israel’s Megiddo prison (a few weeks earlier, they had used Shalit’s name as an excuse to block aid shipments to Gaza). In response to these actions, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote a powerful piece in Haaretz informing these protesters of <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/return-gilad-shalit-but-not-at-any-price-1.282907">the dire situation of prisoners in their own backyard</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>About 7,700 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israel, including about 450 without the benefit of a trial. Most of them are not murderers, although they are all automatically labeled as such here. The demonstrators at Megiddo would do well to realize this. Some of the prisoners are political detainees in the full sense of the word, from members of the Palestinian parliament imprisoned without trial, which is a scandal in and of itself, to those behind bars because of their “affiliation.” Innocent people are among them as well as political activists and nonviolent protesters.</blockquote><blockquote>Some prisoners received disproportionate sentences from the military justice system, treatment that in no way resembles a fair trial. At the Megiddo prison, at whose entrance the Shalit campaign’s leaders demonstrated, minors are also imprisoned, and not in a separate facility as required. They were sometimes sentenced to a year in prison for every stone they threw, even if they didn’t hit anyone and caused no damage. There are also wretched Palestinians who were caught staying in Israel illegally and were willing to risk everything for one day of work. Some also were falsely accused by soldiers or collaborators and were powerless to defend themselves in the military judicial system, which views every Palestinian as suspicious.</blockquote><br />
There’s extra irony in the fact that Shalit’s supposed supporters would block Palestinians from meeting with their imprisoned relatives, as that’s one of the grievances they make against Hamas. Additionally, as Levy writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Some of the prisoners from Gaza have not had family visits or a single telephone call for at least three years. That’s not Hamas. That’s us. Not all prisoners from the West Bank are allowed visitors, and many of their families are “forbidden.” The Israeli propaganda machine, which portrays prison as if it were a rest home, is also deceptive. It should be remembered that most of the Palestinian prisoners decided to take the fate of their people into their hands to fight a criminal occupation, even if they sometimes used methods that were even more criminal. According to the Palestinians, they are serving their people precisely as Shalit, a soldier, served his.</blockquote><blockquote>Hamas’ current struggle to have the prisoners released began after all other avenues to secure their freedom proved fruitless. Israel should have moved to release most of the prisoners a long time ago as a confidence-building measure and goodwill demonstration, not as a subject for cruel bargaining and haggling, which sends the depressing message that we can only be dealt with by force. Israel chose to cut off other avenues, leaving only kidnappings and bargaining as an option.</blockquote><br />
Another grievance, made in Jonathan Mark’s Jewish Week piece and elsewhere, is that Hamas has prevented the Red Cross from seeing Shalit. Perhaps while they’re at it, the Red Cross could also inspect Israel’s inaccessible, but well-known ‘secret prisons’. Unfortunately, <a href="http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/1181-the-red-cross-and-israeli-mps-prevented-from-knowing-location-of-secret-prison">even Knesset members aren’t allowed to inspect those</a>.<br />
<br />
As tomorrow’s flotilla shmoozes through the posh enclave of the Hudson valley, I too will hope that Gilad Shalit is freed, along with the thousands of prisoners in Israel and the 1.5 million Gazans living in what has been called a giant <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100312/FOREIGN/703129867/1135">‘open-air prison‘</a>. Only Gilad Shalit the man can ever be freed though; ‘Gilad Shalit’ the political symbol is only useful perpetually imprisoned, a bizarro guard stationed at Gaza’s gates. Is ‘Shalit’ Hebrew for ‘Schiavo’?adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00493236576456332525noreply@blogger.com4