Isn’t it bad enough that AIPAC controls Congress? Now they want to control YouTube as well …
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Is AIPAC trying to stop you from seeing this video?
Submitted by Ali Abunimah
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YouTube shut down the account that posted the original video. A new copy of the video should has appeared online and is viewable above. CODEPINK tweeted the new instance of the video:
The anti-war campaign group CODEPINK says the powerful Israel lobby organizationAIPAC is threatening to sue it over this video clip, a satirical version of an AIPAC policy conference promotional video.
“On 25 February, an AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] member called a CODEPINK staffer threatening legal action in response to a controversial video clip that he alleges was made by the peace group CODEPINK,” a CODEPINK press release states.
The video features real footage from AIPAC conferences interspersed with images of Israeli abuses of Palestinian rights, and voiceovers from supposed conference-goers.
One of the voices says “It’s exciting to see so many people together who understand that sometimes you have to violate other people’s human rights if you want to take their land.”
CODEPINK does not say if it made the video but the group’s co-founder Medea Benjamin commented:
It is absurd for AIPAC to threaten legal action over such an obviously satirical video. It is interesting that they are reacting so strongly to the clip, though. Perhaps it’s because the content is really an accurate reflection of AIPAC’s dangerous foreign policies. AIPAC does, in fact, advocate for bombing countries such as Iran and Syria; it fails to condemn Israel’s continued building of settlements and its human rights abuses against Palestinians; and it lobbies Congress to send billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel to continue the occupation of Palestine. … What are they trying to hide by silencing this video?”
CODEPINK spearheads annual protests at AIPAC’s policy conference. The Electronic Intifada sent an inquiry to AIPAC’s media office and this post will be updated if a response is received.
In THIS report you will find International responses to the photo in question ….
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Read HERE how the shadow ‘overshadowed’ Merkel’s visit to Israel ….
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The use of nazi symbols is illegal in Israel unless they are used on the face of the German Chancellor 😉
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All of these things make a Merkel-Hitler comparison awkward — so much so that, instead of just calling it “Picture of the Year,” we might do better to call it “Embarrassing Picture of the Year.”
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Benjamin Netanyahu casts Hitler mustache on Angela Merkel / Marc Israel Sellem
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at a press conference today with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he didn’t mean to point his finger in a way that would cast upon her face a distinctly Hitler-mustache-like shadow. But point he did — and Jerusalem Post photographer Marc Israel Sellem captured the moment in a photo that’s now gone viral.
The image has unleashed a tidal wave of laughter, praise and puns. BuzzFeed ran it under the tongue-in-cheek headline “There Is Nothing Strange About This Photo of Angela Merkel — And You’re Crazy If You Think Otherwise.” Gawker’s headline joked that “Angela Merkel Did Nazi This One Coming,” engendering a slew of comments like “Something’s not Reich here” and “Heil get you every time.” Inhabitants of the Twittersphere have been busy nominating it for “Picture of the Year,” while the photographer’s personal Facebook page has been inundated with back-slapping comments from friends (“Congratulations!” “Bravo!”).
But the photographer himself, and his employer, seem to be taking an altogether more bashful approach. Sellem initially uploaded the photo to his Facebook page, but then deleted it, according to BuzzFeed. The Jerusalem Post has said that it will not use the photo, with reporter Lahav Harkov taking care to clarify that the image did not (despite appearances) get posted to the Jerusalem Post’s Facebook page, and tweeting in quick succession:
There’s a whiff of embarrassment and defensiveness about these remarks — and that’s probably just as it should be. Looking at this photo, you can’t help but laugh. But you also, well, kind of cringe.
Likening Merkel to Hitler — even accidentally and non-verbally — is especially cringe-worthy given what a conciliatory posture the German leader has taken towards world Jewry, the State of Israel, and even Netanyahu’s right-wing government. She took time out of her election campaign to pay her respects at the Dachau concentration camp. She called for the people of Germany to show “civil courage” in the fight against anti-Semitism. She said that a boycott against Israel is “not an option.” She even came out in support of Netanyahu’s controversial demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as Jewish, calling that recognition “critical.”
All of these things make a Merkel-Hitler comparison awkward — so much so that, instead of just calling it “Picture of the Year,” we might do better to call it “Embarrassing Picture of the Year.”
The Jerusalem Post is right not to run such a photo. And their staff members are right to be (or at least publicly act) a bit bashful about the whole thing.
But, of course, the good sense they’re showing means almost nothing in practice. The image is out there, flooding news sites, social media sites, and even Getty Images. The sad fact is that today will be remembered not as the day a German leader received Israel’s highest civilian honor — oh yes, amidst all the laughter, did you not hear that Merkel received the Israeli Presidential Medal of Distinction from President Shimon Peres? — but as the day she was likened to her most notorious countryman.
Ironically, while accepting the medal from Peres, Merkel herself saw fit to bring up that countryman’s ignominious legacy. “In light of Germany’s responsibility for the tremendous suffering of the Jewish people in the Holocaust, receiving this award today is something of a miracle,” she said.
In other words, she acknowledged that the shadow of the Holocaust looms long and large over Germany’s relationship with Israel. Apparently, she just didn’t realize how literally that phrase applies.
The following is by far the best account of the massacre itself. It was originally posted six years ago…..
20 Years of Lessons after Al-Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre – A Memorial History for the 30 Palestinian Martyrs
The story:
The dawn of Friday 15 Ramadan 1414 a.h. / 25 February 1994 marked the first of three massacres perpetrated by Israeli settlers accompanied by the Israeli Army. There were more than 30 martyrs and 270 injured. The main massacre took place while the victims were performing al- Fajr (Dawn) Prayer at Al Ibrahimi mosque.
At 05:00 on February 25, around eight hundred Palestinian Muslims passed through the east gate of Al-Ibrahimi mosque to participate in al-Fajr prayer, the first of the five daily Islamic prayers. At that time of the holy month of Ramadan, there were many people who flocked the Ibrahimi Mosque to perform their prayers. The mosque was under Israeli Army guard.
That same day, a Jewish American Zionist physician decided to materialize the dream of the typical Zionist movement of annihilating the Arab existence in Palestine. Dr. Baruch Goldstein prepared for the move. It was during Ramadan when Dr. Goldstein decided to execute his old plan of vengeance.
Goldstein passed two army checkpoints at the dawn of February 25, 1994 from the northeastern gate of the mosque near privy. That privy could be the reason why Goldstein decided on that gate because he, probably, received his contemplation about Arabs from the Rabbis of Kach in Kiryat Arab where the Arabs were described as the demons of the privy. The privy of the mosque is important not only because it has two Israeli army checkpoints on its nearby mosque’s gate, but also because it is surrounded by Israeli army posts from the east and army patrols in the west. So Goldstein was acting from the deepest parts of the Zionistic ideology in liquidating the demons.
Goldstein was carrying his IMI Galil assault rifle, four magazines of ammunition, which held 35 bullets each and hand grenades. He thought about the best moment to execute the plan, maximize the number of casualties and secure the escape or rescue. The best moment, of course, was when the Muslim worshipers knelt on the floor with their backs towards Goldstein.
It was first a hand grenade that he threw among the worshipers causing casualties, confusion, and possibly an invitation to the Israeli soldiers in the halls and outside of the mosque to intervene for rescue. And in no time, the automatic massacre took place with the same kind of mercy that other Zionists like Goldstein shows all the time toward Arabs.
Standing in front of the only exit from the mosque and positioned to the rear of the Muslim worshipers, he opened fire with the weapon, killing 29 people and injuring more than 125. He was eventually overwhelmed by survivors, who beat him to death.
An eyewitness said that when Goldstein was executing the massacre and people attacked him, there was a soldier who attempted to come closer to the scene. But instead of “rescuing” Dr. Goldstein, the Israeli soldier shot his bullets in the air and then escaped from the inside eastern door of the northern hall to the previously known “women praying area.” In the opinion of the eyewitness, the soldier could have rescued Goldstein by killing 5 or 10 more Palestinians, but it appeared that his personal safety was above any blood value.
Al Ibrahimi massacre (a.k.a Hebron massacre) is not the last one. Muslims and Jews are and will remain candidates for victimization. But the cause will always be the same: “The Nazi style laws of the Zionists occupation in Palestine.”
Reports after the massacre were inevitably highly confused. In particular, there was uncertainty about whether Goldstein had acted alone; it was reported that eyewitnesses had seen “another man, dressed as a soldier, handing him ammunition.” The Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said that the attack was the work of up to 12 men, including Israeli troops. However, Israeli Army denied that and confirmed that Goldstein had acted alone without the assistance or connivance of the Israeli guards posted at the mosque.
News of the massacre immediately led to riots in Hebron (Al-Khalil in Arabic) and the rest of the occupied territories. Additional Palestinian Muslims were crushed to death in the panic to flee the mosque and in rioting that followed.
Now that was history, a bloody history that marked Feb 25 of every year with memorials of the Palestinian Martyrs massacred that day for nothing but being Palestinians. So, what are the lessons learned from this?
First we will look at the ideology behind this massacre (and all the Zionist massacres), then how it is treated among Zionists. And last but not least, how does the media look at Zionist (terrorists) and how do they handle such massacres compared to other terrorist acts and massacres.
The sympathy which Baruch Goldstein enjoys among the Gush Emunim, whose influence is more pervasive than that of the Kahanists, can only be explained by a shared ideology. However, Gush Emunim leaders enjoy Rabin’s friendship and strong influence in wide circles of the Israeli and diaspora Jewish communities. Therefore it is their version of this ideology which is more important. Gush Emunim’s thinking assumes the imminence of the coming of the Messiah, when the Jews, aided by God, will triumph over the Gentiles. Consequently, all current political developments call be interpreted by those in the know as destined either to bring this end nearer or postpone it. Jewish sins, the worst of them being lack of faith in Gush Emunim ideology, can postpone but not alter the predestined course of Redemption. The two world wars, the Holocaust and other calamitous events of modern history serve as stock examples of such a curative punishment for Jewish sins. Such explanations can go into a lot of specific detail. The rabbi of Kiryat Arba, Dov Lior (who attended Goldstein’s funeral and praised him), blamed Israel’s relative failure in its 1982 invasion of Lebanon on the lack of faith manifested through signing a peace treaty with Egypt and “returning the inheritance of our ancestors [i.e Sinai] to strangers”.[…]
The fundamental tenet of Gush Emunim’s thinking is the assumption that the Jewish people are “peculiar”. Lustick discusses this tenet in terms of their denial of the classical Zionist claim that only by undergoing “a process of normalisation”, by emigrating to Palestine and forming a Jewish state there, can the Jews become like any other nation. But for them this “is the original delusion of the secular Zionists”, because they measured that “normality” by applying non-Jewish standards. According to Gush Emunim, “Jews are not and cannot be a normal people”, because “their eternal uniqueness” is “the result of the covenant God made with them at Mount Sinai”. Therefore, according to Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, one of their leaders, “while God requires other normal nations to abide by abstract codes of ‘justice and righteousness’, such laws do not apply to Jews”.
Harkabi quotes Rabbi Israel Ariel, who says that “a Jew who kills a non-Jew is exempt from human judgement, and has not violated the prohibition of murder”. The Gush Emunim rabbis have indeed reiterated that Jews who kill Arabs should be free from all punishment. Harkabi also quotes Rabbi Aviner, Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Kook and Rabbi Ariel, all three of whom say Arabs living in Palestine are thieves because since the land was once Jewish, all property to be found on that land “really” belongs to the Jews. In the original Hebrew version of his book Harkabi expresses his shock at finding this out. “I never imagined that Israelis would so interpret the concept of the historical right.”
Gush Emunim’s plans for governing non-Jews in Israel are also based on “theological” principles. According to Rabbi Aviner; “Is there a difference between punishing an Arab child and an Arab adult for disturbance of our peace? Punishments can be inflicted on Jewish boys below the age of 13 and Jewish girls below the age of 12…But this rule applies to Jews alone, not to Gentiles. Thus any Gentile, no matter how little, should be punished for any crime he commits.” From this dictum, it is only a short step to slaughtering Arab children.
Even Israel’s Supreme Court compared Kahane to the German Nazis. The prominent Orthodox dissident, Professor Yeshayahu Leibovitz, said that the mass murder in Hebron was a consequence of “Judeo-Nazism”. But Gush Emunim’s ideology is no less like that of the Nazis than Kahane’s.
Celebrating the Hebron massacre:
Why do we hate them?
When you see the Israelis and Zionists from different parties and sections of the Israeli society, including their army, as well from around the world, gathering annually at the grave of Baruch Goldstein to celebrate the anniversary of his massacre of Muslim worshipers in Al-Khalil (Hebron), how can you but “LOVE” them?
Militant Jews have gathered at the grave of Baruch Goldstein to celebrate the sixth anniversary of his massacre of Muslim worshippers in Hebron.
The celebrants dressed up as the gunman, wearing army uniforms, doctor’s coats and fake beards.
Goldstein, an immigrant from New York City, had been a physician in the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba.
Waving semi-automatic weapons in the air, the celebrants danced, sang and read prayers around his grave.
“We decided to make a big party on the day he was murdered by Arabs,” said Baruch Marzel, one of about 40 celebrants.
The tribute was a macabre twist on the Jewish festival of Purim, when it is a custom to dress in costume and celebrate.
Massacre in mosque
In 1994 on Purim, Goldstein stormed a mosque and fired on praying Muslims in the West Bank city’s Tomb of the Patriarchs – a shrine sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
Twenty-nine people died in the attack, and the angry crowd lynched Goldstein in retaliation.
Israeli extremists continue to pay homage at his grave in the nearby Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, where a marble plaque reads: “To the holy Baruch Goldstein, who gave his life for the Jewish people, the Torah and the nation of Israel.”
About 10,000 people had visited the grave since the massacre, Mr Marzel said.
Note: the above news story is ten years old.
Not only that. The Israeli government allocated a special site for the grave, in the Tourist Park in Kiryat Arba settlement. Over the years, the grave has become a site of pilgrimage. Tens of thousand people from all over the world go to pray and honor this terrorist memory. The local religious council of Kiryat Arba settlement declared the grave site a cemetery. During the Feast of Purim, Goldstein friends celebrate the feast near his grave to honor him, in appreciation of what he did!
Following the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York and the arrest of several Muslims who were charged with the crime, the American media were flooded with news stories, analyses and commentaries that warned of the coming “Islamic threat.” “Investigative reporters” and “terrorism experts” alleged on television talk shows and op-ed pages that the accused perpetrators of the bombing were part of an “Islamic terrorism network” coordinated by Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, or other Middle Eastern bogeymen. […] Contrast those reactions with the media’s response to the massacre in Hebron. No analyst suggested that the event reflected the emergence of a global “Jewish threat. ” No terrorism expert was invited to discuss on “Nightline” or the “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” the rise of a “global Zionist terrorism” organization manipulated, say, by the Israeli Mossad. No scholar alleged that the massacre by a Jewish settler suggested that Western and Jewish values were somehow incompatible.
If one really had wanted to apply the journalistic methods that were used in the case of the World Trade Center bombing, it would not have been so difficult, after reviewing the biography of Rabbi Meir Kahane by Robert I. Friedman, to point to the strong ties between Baruch Goldstein and the other “fanatics” in the Jewish settlements and members of the Israeli political establishment, especially in the Likud party. One could even have reminded American readers that Kiryat Arba, where Goldstein resided, was actually the brainchild of a pre-1977 Labor government.
Any analysis of public statements and writings by some of the major political and spiritual leaders of the Jewish settlers, including the rabbis who head the movement, would reveal a fanatical hatred and racist attitudes toward non-Jews in general, and Arabs and Palestinians in particular.
Instead, most journalists and analysts adopted the official Israeli line and described the massacre as an “isolated” case of Jewish “extremism,” an act of a “lone gunman,” a “lunatic,” a “madman” who does not represent Israeli society or, for that matter, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories. Journalists, like the Israeli government, stressed that killing of innocent civilians violates the moral tenets of Judaism.
The above was originally posted by Haitam Sabbah six years ago.
Robust democracies do not just tolerate criticism; they welcome it as a part of freedom of expression.
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Why does Israel feel threatened by humanitarian workers?
Anne Irfan *
Humanitarian workers habitually find themselves unwelcome, detained or turned back at Israeli-controlled border crossings. (Joe Goldberg)
The Israeli detention of and denial of entry Western activists, academics and humanitarian workers sympathetic to Palestinians has received particular attention in recent years, following the targeting of high-profile figures including Richard Falk, Norman Finkelsteinand Noam Chomsky.
During the first week in February, I was on the receiving end of Israeli detention practices myself when I attempted to enter the occupied West Bank from neighboring Jordan via theAllenby Bridge border crossing.
Once on the Israeli-controlled side of the crossing, I was detained and interrogated for 12 hours before being denied entry and sent back to Amman. I have been given a five-year ban on entering Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Israeli authorities also detained and interrogated my friend and fellow traveler, who had never previously visited the region.
For those who follow events and developments in Palestine, my experience will be unsurprising; stories of random and unexplained clampdowns are depressingly familiar.
The opacity, lack of due process and disregard for human rights that characterize Israeli detention practices also typify the occupation authorities’ actions in the West Bank (including occupied East Jerusalem) and Gaza.
Nevertheless, the nature and manner in which I was detained and interrogated remain of value for what they reveal about the Israeli occupation and how it continues to operate in 2014.
Opacity
Most fundamentally, the Israeli detention of “undesirable” travelers provides a terrifying insight into the daily lives of millions of Palestinians, who go without the protections of a Western passport.
For all the fear and horror of my experience, I ultimately knew that the worst thing the Israeli authorities could do was detain and eventually deport me.
Palestinians have no such guarantee.
Moreover, during my detention and multiple interrogations I came face-to-face with the impunity and unaccountability of the system, maintained by way of total opacity.
On a superficial but symbolic note, all the Israeli occupation personnel wore badges with information in Hebrew only — a language which the majority of detainees and travelers through this crossing will not be able to read. We were given no information or explanations as to what was happening.
No recourse
When I was eventually informed that I had been denied entry, one reason given was “some information we found.” My request for further details was denied.
As anyone who has passed through a checkpoint in the West Bank will know, this impunity and arbitrariness is a central part of how the occupation works, and how it continues to exert power.
The time one has to wait, and whether or not one is allowed through, can all too often depend on the mood and character of whoever is on duty.
Entry can be denied with no reason and if this happens, there is no recourse.
My detention was also indicative of Israel’s increased targeting of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
My interrogators questioned me about this work at length, fixating particularly on pushing me to provide the names and contact details of Palestinians I knew in the West Bank (disappointingly for the Israeli staff, I was unable to oblige as nearly all the Palestinians I know are in the diaspora).
They were also interested in my journalistic work, asking me about the articles I have previously written for The Electronic Intifada.
While I had thought that a state facing a supposedly serious security threat might have a better use for its resources than interrogating a London-based humanitarian worker, it was interesting to discover just how gravely any work with Palestinians is regarded.
Unsurprisingly, my current employment with a poverty-relief organization that operates in sub-Saharan Africa was of little interest.
Strategic clampdown
On a similar note, the detention of international humanitarian workers is part of a strategic clampdown on non-violent activism. It was clear from how I was treated that the border staff did not believe I posed a physical threat.
I was frisked but not strip-searched and my belongings only went through the normal security checks. Although I was detained, interrogated and watched, I was not closely physically guarded.
Most of the time I was able to walk around the “waiting room” and go to the bathrooms without a guard accompanying me. My friend, who was also interrogated, was not searched at all throughout the detention period.
After 12 hours the Israelis announced that she was allowed to enter, although she chose to return to Jordan too.
This treatment is inconsistent if the border staff genuinely believed that I might pose a physical threat. It would appear that the intellectual threat is of greater concern.
Insecurity
Finally, the behavior of the Israeli border staff towards Westerners of Arab descent can be seen as a microcosm of the broader disregard with which Israel now routinely treats its international relations.
The incident sparked unprecedented fury, with the then foreign secretary David Miliband issuing a strongly-worded statement and expelling an Israeli diplomat from London (“Britain expels Israeli diplomat over Dubai passport row,” BBC News, 23 March 2010).
Notwithstanding the diplomatic row with a supposed ally, identical policies continue to operate in Israel.
Despite the ostensible show of strength that is central to detention practices, what my experience has ultimately revealed is the insecurity that lies at the heart of the Israeli state.
Robust democracies do not just tolerate criticism; they welcome it as a part of freedom of expression.
We are all used to hearing that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East,” according to a whole range of definitions. For now at least, those definitions continue to be stretched to the point of being unrecognizable.
*Anne Irfan holds a masters degree in Middle Eastern history. She is based in London and works in international development.
Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip appear to amount to apartheid due to its systematic oppression of the Palestinian people and de facto expropriation of their land, a United Nations investigator said in a report.
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UN rights envoy points to apartheid in Palestinian areas
According to UN special rapporteur, Israel violates Palestinians’ rights in West Bank, Gaza through occupation, confiscation of land, ‘ethnic cleansing’ of East Jerusalem.
Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip appear to amount to apartheid due to its systematic oppression of the Palestinian people and de facto expropriation of their land, a United Nations investigator said in a report.
Richard Falk, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said that Palestinian rights are being violated by Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory and “ethnic cleansing” of East Jerusalem.
Gaza, despite the disengagement of Israel in 2005, remains “occupied” under an unlawful Israeli blockade that controls borders, airspace and coastal waters, and especially hurts farmers and fishermen, he said. The humanitarian situation in the Hamas-ruled enclave is dire amid fuel shortages, he added.
Palestinian protest in Jordan Valley (Photo: AFP)
UN member states should consider imposing a ban on imports of produce from Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Falk said in his final report to the UN Human Rights Council after serving six years in the independent post.
In a section entitled “acts potentially amounting to segregation and apartheid”, he analyzed Israeli policies, including “continuing excessive use of force by Israeli security forces” and unlawful killings that he said are “part of acts carried out in order to maintain dominance over Palestinians”.
Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to military laws, while Jewish settlers face a civil law system, he said. Israel also violates their rights to work and education, freedoms of movement and residence, and of expression and assembly, he said.
Ten years ago the UN’s International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s separation wall inside the West Bank is illegal, he noted. Israel says it is a security barrier.
“It seems incontestable that Israeli measures do divide the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory along racial lines, create separate reserves for Palestinians and expropriate their land,” Falk wrote in his 22-page report.
“The combined effect of the measures designed to ensure security for Israeli citizens, to facilitate and expand settlements, and, it would appear, to annex land is hafrada (the Hebrew word for separation), discrimination and systematic oppression of, and domination over, the Palestinian people.”
There was no immediate reaction from Israel, which boycotted the council it accuses of bias for 19 months, returning in October 2013. The Jewish state left after accusing the forum of bias when it set up a fact-finding mission on the settlements.
Controversy
Falk, an American law professor who is Jewish, has long been a controversial figure. After taking up the post in May 2008, he compared Israeli forces’ actions in the Gaza Strip to those of the Nazis in wartime Europe.
Months later, he was detained at Ben Gurion airport and deported by Israeli authorities after being barred from crossing into Palestinian areas to carry out his investigation.
Last June he said he would not resign and accused critics of calling him anti-Semitic to divert attention from his scrutiny of Israeli policies. UN Watch, an activist group that Falk labels as a ‘pro-Israel lobbying organization’, and the United States had called for him to quit.
Falk said in his latest report that businesses and countries should examine who profits from the “settlements of Israel and other unlawful Israeli activities” and take appropriate steps.
“Considering the fact that the European Union remains one of the most important trading partners for the settlements, with annual exports worth $300 million, a ban on settlement produce would have a significant impact,” he said.
His previous appeals for divestment have brought results and have encouraged governments to be more vigilant, he said.
Royal HaskoningDHV, a Dutch company, ended a contract with Jerusalem’s municipality to build a wastewater treatment plant in East Jerusalem and a Swedish-Norwegian bank Nordea excluded Cemex from its investment portfolio due to its extraction of non-renewable natural resources from Palestine, according to Falk.
When Yuval Steinitz demands NIS 100 million to confront an international boycott, he ought to take into account a local boycott, too, that will be even more costly and will cause internal bleeding.
By Yossi Sarid
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Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus burn boxes of Israeli produce during a protest calling for a boycott of Israeli products . Photo by AP
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Did somebody say “boycott” and the only one to hear was Benjamin Netanyahu? It’s not Israel, but rather its stepchild state that’s being threatened with a boycott. For 47 years, the rebellious irredenta has worked to erase the line, and that’s what happens when you’re in a frenzy to erase – the line is smeared, you get a messy blotch, and no trick of law, language or diplomacy can fix it.
Even the “boycott law” debated this week by the High Court of Justice would never have come into being without the magic phrase “area under its control.”
In other words, the wily legislature was referring not to Israel itself but to those areas that were never annexed to it but tagged along with it.
What haven’t we tried, over the decades – we asked nicely, we asked not nicely, we asked just one thing: Don’t go for the two birds in the bush, we don’t even have the one in hand yet and it needs help to survive. But they didn’t listen to us. We called out in the wilderness, and now the wilderness is stirring.
Once I flew El Al to Tunis via Rome. I was environment minister (now called environmental protection) at the time, and I’d been invited to meet with colleagues from around the Mediterranean Basin. Along the way, I was offered a glass of wine. I happened to look at the bottle and what did I see: Made in Hebron. I didn’t drink, because wine is really a matter of taste: I’m no Ahab; wine from Naboth’s vineyard stings my palate. After returning to Israel, I wrote to the head of the airline, which in those days was a “national” one: You may not cause a passenger to sin with yayin nesekh, “libational wine,” even if it is made by Jews. I have my own kashrut rules.
Much wine has been spilled since then, and last year, as my birthday approached, I began dropping hints: Grandpa Yossi, who really likes to drink homemade bubbles, would love to receive a SodaStream machine, with all the flavoring syrups. Until I suddenly learned that the SodaStream factory is in Ma’ale Adumim. I canceled my order, and even Scarlett Johansson couldn’t make me change my mind.
You be the judge of me, before they come to put me on trial: If I oppose, with all my heart and soul, the settlements that jeopardize our peace and well-being, then why should I support their businesses of my own free will? Isn’t it bad enough that my legally paid taxes are now going to help 35 isolated settlements – outside the “blocs” – thanks to the “new politics” of Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett? So what if I say I’ve had it with their wine and their carbonated water?
Recently I was interviewed on a radio station whose main listenership is in the territories. They wanted to talk about John Kerry’s statements which are perceived here as a threat. I let them down: I didn’t get all filled with patriotic spirit, and I didn’t express solidarity with that view. How could I object to his warning when we’ve been saying the same thing ourselves for so long?
When Yuval Steinitz demands NIS 100 million to confront an international boycott, he ought to take into account a local boycott, too, that will be even more costly and will cause internal bleeding.
No longer will there be false shows of reconciliation. Rather, we shall take up positions and prepare to fight for our home; no longer shall we be one head anointed with pure olive oil, when olive trees are being burned and uprooted.
A boycott is better than fine oil; no more will “brothers sit together,” for my definition of brotherhood derives from values, not blood. The government has noticed the change that is afoot. That’s why it is scrambling for rearguard legislation.
Delegitimization, my foot. Netanyahu tried to prop up that scarecrow yet again this week. Israel is legitimate. About that there is no debate. Only its occupation is illegitimate. So yes to a boycott, in order to remove the gangrene and save the healthy tissue.
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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.
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There is an English language publication called Torah Tidbits which is circulated in synagogues throughout the world. In it is a weekly column by ‘Rabbi’ Nachman Kahana, brother of the evil Kahana. I never was one that believed that ‘blood is thicker than water’, but I guess it’s true.
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Here, in part, is what he wrote this week…
An Arab entered a bank, just as the automatic mechanism closed the safe. To his threatening demand to receive cash, the teller told him that the safe could not be opened until the following morning. When the Arab became very nasty, the manager physically threw him out into the street.
While the Arab was nursing his wounds, the teller approached him saying: “Didn’t I tell you that the safe is closed until tomorrow morning?” The Arab turned to the teller and said: “Yes. You told me, but he explained it.
“It is senseless to tell our enemies of the folly of their ways. They will understand only when it is explained to them, in the spirit of “Fear of the Jews was upon them.”
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WHY is it assumed that this particular Arab is our enemy? What does this brand of hatred have to do with the weekly portion of the Torah?
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When will the Rabbinical Community wake up and realise that this is NOT Judaism?
I risked imprisonment and death in order to study at Washington University.
Last summer I was thrilled to learn that I had earned admission and a scholarship to the Brown School of Social Work. But I almost could not be here – for one reason.
I am a Palestinian from Bethlehem.
I risked imprisonment by Israel and death to study in the United States
Murad Owda *
Israel’s wall around the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem restricts the basic freedom of thousands of Palestinians every day.
I risked imprisonment and death in order to study at Washington University.
Last summer I was thrilled to learn that I had earned admission and a scholarship to the Brown School of Social Work. But I almost could not be here – for one reason.
I needed to go to the United States consulate in Jerusalem to apply for my visa. Bethlehem is only six miles from Jerusalem, but it is extremely difficult to get there because less than a decade ago Israel built a giant wall between the cities.
I went through the proper bureaucratic channels to apply to enter Jerusalem. The Israelis denied me permission – on four separate occasions. They claimed I was a security threat – but offered no explanation why. I have never committed any crime or been to jail.
When I explained the situation to the American officials they told me that’s not their problem. In order to apply for a visa I needed to be at their consulate at 10AM on 16 July.
So I had to sneak around like a criminal, evading soldiers. I went miles away to find a small opening. I went through hills. I went through thorn trees. I crawled through a sewage pipe – knowing that others caught in such pipes have suffocated to death after Israeli soldiers discovered them and shot tear gas into the pipes or sicced dogs on them.
When I arrived in Jerusalem I washed myself with a bottle of water, covered my cuts and bruises with an extra pair of clothes I had in a backpack and went into the consulate to talk with the American officials. Then I immediately hid in a friends’ house for three days, not daring to go outside.
Although an extremely limited boycott, which only targets institutions and not individual academics, Wrighton stated that he was “deeply troubled and dismayed” because “the boycott directly violates academic freedom.”
What about my academic freedom? What about the tens of thousands of Palestinian children and teachers whose movement to and from their schools is impeded by the Israeli military?
Forget academic – what about basic freedom? Israel made my family stateless refugees in 1948 until now. It steals our lands. It steals our water. It denies us freedom of movement. It taxes us without representation. It subjects us to arbitrary violence and detention without any meaningful due process. It allows fanatical, armed religious settlers to torment us and applies a separate code of law to Palestinians than it does to Jewish Israelis.
Why is Chancellor Wrighton unconcerned about violations of both my academic rights and my basic human rights, but he is “deeply troubled and dismayed” that perhaps a handful of Israeli academics may have to pay for their own airplane tickets if they decide to participate in an ASA conference?
I commend the ASA for heeding the call of the Palestinian people for boycott, divestment and sanctions against institutions that are complicit in sustaining the Israeli system of ethnic discrimination and domination.
This nonviolent movement helped change the unjust apartheid system in South Africa – and it can also support our struggle to end apartheid in Palestine so that all can enjoy equal rights, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion.
*Murad Owda is from Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem, Palestine, and an MSW student at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
While demanding that Zionist political ideology not be questioned, J Street has long opposed key Palestinian rights and promotes anti-Palestinian views among its youth wing, including the view that refugees are a “demographic threat” and must be excluded from their native land on the sole grounds that they are not Jews.
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J Street attacks Presbyterians over study guide questioning Zionism
Ali Abunimah
The Israel lobby group J Street has launched a blistering attack on the Presbyterian Church USA over its new study guideZionism Unsettled, claiming that the publication promotes “polarization” and “intolerance.”
Zionism Unsettled, published last month by the church’s Israel/Palestine Mission Network (IPMN), is a 74-page study guide examining the role Zionism and Christian Zionism have played in shaping attitudes and events in Palestine and its region.
It is intended to help church congregations and others to learn and talk about Zionism and the devastating impact the practice of the ideology has had on Palestinians, as The Electronic Intifada previously reported.
J Street “deeply offended”
In a statement yesterday, J Street said it was “deeply offended” by Zionism Unsettled, asserting that “one has to question the IPMN’s motives in publishing this ‘resource.’”
J Street claimed the guide’s authors “had no intention of encouraging thoughtful reflection on Zionism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or Jewish perspectives on Israel. Instead, reductive and divisive thinking of this kind exacerbates polarization and intolerance, both of which are not in short supply in this conflict.”
J Street protested that the guide “offensively intimates that Zionism is racist, pathological and the very root of the conflict in the region.”
“An approach that belittles or demeans Jews, Israelis or Palestinians makes no contribution to ending this conflict,” J Street concludes.
While demanding that Zionist political ideology not be questioned, J Street has long opposed key Palestinian rights and promotes anti-Palestinian views among its youth wing, including the view that refugees are a “demographic threat” and must be excluded from their native land on the sole grounds that they are not Jews.
“Anti-Semitic”
While J Street does not outright accuse Zionism Unsettled’s authors of anti-Semitism, its angry attack is scarcely more temperate than the Anti-Defamation League, which claimedthat the study guide “may be the most anti-Semitic document to come out of a mainline American church in recent memory.”
Both of these approaches reflect an extreme intolerance for any diversity of opinion about Zionism, especially among Jews.
“As a Jew, I’m especially appreciative that while [Zionism Unsettled] is strongly critical of Zionism, it doesn’t flinch from extensive Christian self-criticism,” Rosen writes at his blog.
Rosen is a contributor to a longer, forthcoming book – Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land – on which Zionism Unsettled is based.
Rosen, co-chair of the Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace, continues: “The guide is particularly candid in its examination of the oppressive legacy of the post-Constantinan Church, replacement theology – and Christian anti-Semitism in general.”
Critique of “extremist elements”
Donald Wagner, National Program Director of Friends of Sabeel–North America, responded to J Street’s attack with an invitation for renewed dialogue.
In an email to The Electronic Intifada, Wagner, an ordained Presbyterian minister, says that J Street’s response “is what we might expect from CAMERA, AIPAC, and other extremist groups, but not from an organization that strives to position itself as an alternative to these purveyors of the tired old anachronistic diatribes.”
Wagner adds that Zionism Unsettled is “a critique of the extremist elements of political Zionism, including those of [Christians United for Israel founder] Rev. John Hagee that have crept into our Evangelical communities or their liberal models that we find in our mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic denominations.”
“As a Presbyterian who contributed to this new study guide, I’d like to challenge J Street to a more thoughtful, honest, and open public conversation of the difficult and complex issues it raises – but only after J Street’s leaders have actually read the document.”
Wagner’s suggestion that J Street leaders had not even read the document they are condemning is understandable given the fact that Zionism Unsettled addresses in detail all the points J Street raises in its statement.
Ecumenical deal
Wagner urged that “It is time for us all to face up to the dangerous tendencies within political Zionism and the Christian Zionists who prefer to excuse the human rights abuses perpetrated on Palestinians daily and in doing so actually negate the spiritual and moral claims of justice that we share as faith communities.”
A “dialogue of justice” will be difficult, Wagner says, but would be preferable to “the so-called ‘ecumenical deal,’ where large dinners and polite discussions abound but where equal justice for Palestinians and Jews is off the table.”
“We look forward to hearing from J Street and will welcome a new dialogue with you,” Wagner urges.
It will be interesting to see whether J Street is capable of rising to that challenge, especially as the Presbyterian Church USA heads into another debate and vote on divestment from Israel occupation profiteers at its general assembly this summer.
Abed, a resident of Gaza City, tells Ynet that taxi and bus drivers had been forced to raise prices by half a shekel, but no one had the half-shekel coin to give change to their passengers. So, he says, the drivers improvised. They began to carry small items to make up the change – chewing gum, candles, pens, cookies and candies. The passengers pay the driver in full shekels, and get half a shekel’s worth of products in change.
Import-ban on copper leads Palestinians in Gaza to smelt Israeli currency into electrical wiring, causing half-shekel coin shortage.
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Gazans have been running low on Israeli coin currency for a while, partly due to an Israeli-imposed ban on copper imports. The creative solution engineered by Gazans was to melt down change to create copper wire. But no one could have expected the result – half-shekel and 10 agorot coins have become a rare commodity.
The coins’ absence did not impact the day-to-day life of the average Gazan, as most prices were in full shekels. However, gas prices rose last month, after the tunnels used to bring fuel in from Egypt were sealed off, and as a result the price of public transport also went up.
Abed, a resident of Gaza City, tells Ynet that taxi and bus drivers had been forced to raise prices by half a shekel, but no one had the half-shekel coin to give change to their passengers. So, he says, the drivers improvised. They began to carry small items to make up the change – chewing gum, candles, pens, cookies and candies. The passengers pay the driver in full shekels, and get half a shekel’s worth of products in change.
Abed noted that the locals have become accustomed to the unusual arrangement. Nowadays, nearly every taxi in the Strip is equipped with an assortment of low-cost items to make up for the missing change.
Another creative solution pioneered by the change-less cabbies – changing the fare price depending on the direction. Abed explained the new system: “The ride from Gaza City to Deir al-Balah costs, for example, four and a half shekels, but the drivers only charge four for this direction. The return ride cost rises to five shekels, and that way the passengers four and a half shekels each way.”
According to Abed, the passengers in the Strip have become used to frequent improvisations and are treating the latest change nonchalantly. “Gaza residents have much bigger problems than a shortage of half-shekel coins, and so they don’t really care that cabs have become a sort of kiosk.”
All right, look – I said something that was personal. I said something that was about my belief that we have to defend the state of Israel. And I think that has everything to do with the alliance that we have with Israel, the history we have, particularly as New Yorkers, the deep, deep connection we have, personally, to Israel.
And I think it’s also a matter of protecting democracy. I think Israel stands as a pluralistic society that deserves respect, and it’s been under attack. And I think it is our job to support it.
So that’s me speaking as the mayor of a city that is the closest to Israel of any city on earth and has one of the largest Jewish populations of any city on earth. And I think it is a fair role for me to play.
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And here’s what he said ….
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De Blasio on Backing AIPAC: Yes, It’s My Job
By J.J. Goldberg
New York City mayor Bill De Blasio just appeared on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” and was asked in the last few minutes about his January 23 speech to an AIPAC gathering at the New York Hilton, where he told the pro-Israel lobby he would “stand by you” whenever he’s needed “’cause that’s my job.” His response to Hayes was pretty eloquent. (The show is rebroadcast at 11 p.m. Eastern; look for this segment around 11:57.)
My transcription of the exchange, enabled through the magic of DVR, appears below.
The mayor’s 6-minute AIPAC speech (audio recording after the jump) drew some pretty sharp criticism from the left (and, less noticed, from the right as well). It even got Jon Stewart in trouble with the left for interviewing De Blasio and not grilling him about it.
Hayes, a former Washington editor of The Nation, makes it fairly plain in the way he poses the question that he sympathizes with the critics. But De Blasio stands tough: It’s not just that Israel deserves support as a “pluralistic society” that’s “been under attack.” Perhaps just as important—and legitimate—he’s the mayor of a city that “has one of the largest Jewish populations of any city on earth.”
New York City has had a foreign policy of its own for more than a century, going back through the legendary Fiorello LaGuardia and police commissioner Teddy Roosevelt, representing the interests and values of the peoples that make up this melting pot. And an immigrant metropolis, like a nation, has underlying overseas interests and commitments that can transcend the personal views of an individual chief executive. Yes, that’s part of Hizzoner’s job.
Hayes:
Final question. I want to ask you how you see your job. You gave a speech to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The speech wasn’t on the schedule, it was off the record, but the contents were reported. And one of the things you said was that it was part of your job description to be a defender of Israel.
Obviously we’re not going to resolve the very complicated issues vis a vis Israel and Palestine, but I gotta say, as a New Yorker I thought, I don’t know if that’s true. I voted for this guy and I don’t know if it’s part of the job description for him to be the defender of Israel. He’s got enough on his plate.
I mean, is he the defender of Ukrainians in the streets who are crying out for their rights? Is he, you know, the defender of the Taiwanese against the One China policy? Is it – is it really your job? Is that your job description?
De Blasio:
All right, look – I said something that was personal. I said something that was about my belief that we have to defend the state of Israel. And I think that has everything to do with the alliance that we have with Israel, the history we have, particularly as New Yorkers, the deep, deep connection we have, personally, to Israel.
And I think it’s also a matter of protecting democracy. I think Israel stands as a pluralistic society that deserves respect, and it’s been under attack. And I think it is our job to support it.
So that’s me speaking as the mayor of a city that is the closest to Israel of any city on earth and has one of the largest Jewish populations of any city on earth. And I think it is a fair role for me to play.
Just yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once more drew attention to the power of BDS by tweeting an attack on activists and falsely claiming that BDS targets Jews rather than targeting Israel’s abuses against Palestinian rights
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Israel is losing the fight against BDS
Ali Abunimah
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From 24 February this year, through the month of March, campuses and organizations all over the world, including in Brazil, Europe and across North America will be marking thetenth annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW).
IAW, an international series of events, has become a major focal point to rally support and build up organizing for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) on Israel.
The tenth IAW comes at a time when the BDS movement has seen unprecedented growth and attention from world media as well as from Israel and the governments and institutions complicit with its ongoing crimes against Palestinians.
Yet Israel is losing its fight against BDS.
Israel worried
Just yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once more drew attention to the power of BDS by tweeting an attack on activists and falsely claiming that BDS targets Jews rather than targeting Israel’s abuses against Palestinian rights:
He once more called for the Israeli state to fight back and “delegitimize the delegitimizers.”
Israel out of options
Netanyahu’s renewed call was absolutely nothing new. He is simply repeating the Reut Institute’s 2010 strategy – launched four years ago this week – to fight back against so-called “delegitimizers” – people who support Palestinian rights – with a strategy of “sabotage and attack.”
Yet four years and millions of dollars later, the Reut Institute strategy, adopted by the Israeli government and Israeli lobby organizations all over the world, has utterly failed to stem the growth of support for Palestinian rights and the nonviolent movement designed to see them implemented: boycott, divestment and sanctions.
In recent months, top ministers in Netanyahu’s government have repeatedly declared that BDS is the “greatest threat” Israel faces.
No mere PR problem
Netanyahu’s lashing out indicates that Israel has no strategy and no message that can cover up this evident truth: Israel does not have an image problem that can be fixed with better PR or by defaming those who criticize it.
Israel has a reality problem, with occupation, apartheid, colonization, racism and the systematic denial of the rights of indigenous Palestinians solely on the grounds that they are not Jewish.
This year’s IAW will be another opportunity to see how the movement to end these abuses is growing.
Watch the trailer above and visit apartheidweek.org for more information, including a listing of events.
Arlo Guthrie Remembers Pete Seeger: “He Would Just Wave His Hand, and You Could Hear People Singing”
The iconic folk singer shares memories of his colleague and friend
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AP Photo
Folksingers Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger during a memorial service for actor Will Geer in New York City on May 12, 1978
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When Pete Seeger died on Jan. 27 at the age of 94, the world lost more than a folksinger, more than a songwriter, more than a moral leader who gave a soundtrack to social causes for three generations. We lost an artist who was uniquely American, the product of a musical tradition that was passed down by hand. Seeger took the torch from musical greats like Woody Guthrie and passed them down to a new generation of musical legends, including Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp and Woody’s son Arlo, with whom Seeger played for 50 years.
Arlo Guthrie, a folk legend in his own right, spoke with TIME about his friend and music partner who inspired generations with his music and activism.
TIME: Can you tell us about the first time you met Pete Seeger?
Guthrie: I could if I could remember, but I was just a little kid, probably about 3 or 4 years old. I really have no actual date or time in my mind I can go back to and say, “This is when I actually met him.” My father had entered into the hospital part of his life in the mid 50s, which was about the same time I probably met Pete. My mother had introduced me to a lot of my father’s friends because she believed that I would get to know the guy my dad was better through his friends than just in the hospital visits.
When I thought about this later on in life, I realized that Pete and my father and that crowd of people that included Lead Belly, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee — all of these guys had grown up before recorded music. The songs that they knew circulated by word of mouth, not by radio or by records or any electronic media. They were handed down from one person to another, from generation to generation. It was not the kind of music you could take a course on; you couldn’t get a degree in it. Nobody went to school for it. It was the kind of music you heard around the campfire or hanging out with friends. It was very different from the music we were hearing on the radio.
What was it like to play with him?
Probably around 1968, when I was around 18, we did a concert together at Carnegie Hall. That is a tradition we continued, pretty much up until last November. Every year for about 30 years Pete and I had a regularly scheduled show the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving. We took over that tradition about a decade ago without Pete, but every once in a while he said that he wanted to come and play.
I remember watching how he handled the audience. I wouldn’t have used the words master in those days, but he had an authority over the audience that allowed them to relax and sing along with him. My eyes just opened up and I couldn’t believe what was happening in front of me. He would just wave his hand, and you could hear people singing. Of course over the decades that I worked with him, I began to realize that this isn’t something you’re born with; it’s something you can learn. Other people have learned how to do that from him over the years. Anyone who has ever seen him knows what I’m saying, and someone who has not will find it hard to believe. It was almost as if he had some extra sense that allowed that kind of response. There’s no one else I have ever seen in my life that has had that, on any country, on any continent or in any city. Nobody came close.
He was well known for his banjo playing, but he also played the guitar very well. Did he have a favorite instrument?
It was whatever allowed the accompaniment to sound in the way he wanted. He also was a wonderful player of the recorder. There were moments in the concerts we did where he would play some Native American tune or an Irish tune, and you could hear a pin drop in a crowd that would fill some of these larger venues. You couldn’t hear a thing but this wafting air from that flute-like instrument, and it was just magic.
In later years he began to have difficulty singing. About 10 years ago, he must have been in his 80s, he said to me, “Arlo, I can’t do those big shows with you anymore. I can’t sing like I used to sing. I can’t play like I used to play.” I just looked at him and I said, “Pete, look at our audience. They can’t hear like they used to hear. It shouldn’t be a problem.” And he laughed and he said, “Maybe you’re right.” And every once in a while he would keep coming out, and that’s where he would transfer his own voice and say, “I can’t sing anymore, but you can sing.” And he would lead everybody in these songs. Those were wonderful times.
How did Pete approach writing songs?
He was the kind of songwriter who could remember a tune or a song that he’d heard somewhere in life, and he had a catalogue of hundreds of thousands of songs. I don’t know where the ones that he wrote came from, but I know that he had an awful lot to draw on that was part of his knowledge. He was quite a music scholar. Whenever I wanted information on a song, Pete was the first guy to go to: “where did this tune come from?” or “what about these lyrics?” and he’d say, “You know back in 1782, there was a guy…” and he’d know the names of the people who wrote the songs and where the songs originated. He was fascinated by it and it was natural for him. Every once in a while, as the occasion permitted or demanded, he would just come up with lyrics, write something and try it out.
Did you have a favorite Pete Seeger song?
Not really, although if I did, it probably wouldn’t be one of his most well known songs. He wrote some really hauntingly beautiful melodies. I’ve recorded some of the ones I always loved. And like any musician, he had songs and melodies that were important to him, but he didn’t think were for the public, and he would sing those and play those, either backstage or just goofing off with other people. There was a song called “Melody of Love,” and he just loved playing it. It felt good to play. There were songs like that that were part of our relationship that were never public.
Off the stage, what was it like to be in a room with Pete?
It was funny. I remember one time we went to play this venue Wolf Trap outside of Washington, D.C., which is one of these big, shed-type venues. We went downstairs to the dressing rooms before the sound check and there was food backstage, and there was a big chocolate cake sitting on the table. Pete he cut what I thought was a fairly reasonably sized piece of cake, then he left the piece and took the rest of the cake into the dressing room. He came out 20 minutes later with a big smile on his face, and he looked around and said, “Anyone want that last piece of cake?” His wife was yelling, “You can’t do that.” It was very funny.
Just recently he had gone into the hospital for some surgery. His kids called and asked if there was something I could do. I said, “Buy him a cake.” They were brought up to eat very healthy, so the Guthrie family sent a chocolate cake to Pete. Because at 84, who the hell cares? The man needs cake. After the surgery, his family went out and bought him another cake. It was not a very good idea to get between Pete and a cake, and no one ever did.
He has been noted for his heroism, standing up to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955, especially when we look back on that episode with some distance. But at the time, it must have been a frightening experience to be hauled before Congress, refuse to testify and be held in contempt and nearly imprisoned. Did he ever talk about that time?
Not really to me personally. I was with him on occasions when reporters would bring that up. I have to tell you, though, just two days ago, somebody posted a release from the Kennedy Library of a letter I had written to President Kennedy about Pete. I have no memory of it; I must have been 13 or 14 years old. I said something like, “Dear Mr. President, do what you can for my buddy Pete.” So I was aware of it at the time, but I don’t remember him really talking about it very much.
I’m sure he didn’t look forward to those kinds of confrontations because he wasn’t a confrontational guy. But he would not back down, either. He wasn’t looking for trouble, but he wasn’t purposely avoiding it.
What do you think drove his lifelong effort for his many causes and convictions?
Pete had a real vision of what the country was about. He came from a long line of Puritan stock. His family had been in the country a very, very long time, and he had a sense of history. He wasn’t just a scholar of music; he was also a political scholar and a historical scholar. He loved the idealism of a nation founded on the principles he thought were important, and he spread that wherever he went.
I think to be asked about his religion, or about his beliefs, or about his political thoughts, was such an insult to him, because it was insulting to every American. He had a way of taking these personal events in his life and moving them forward so that they included everyone. If it had just affected him, he wouldn’t have said anything; he wouldn’t have written about it; he wouldn’t have made a big deal. But because it affected everyone, he was involved. I think that’s one of the things that motivated him about the environment, the war in Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement. Sometimes he was right; sometimes he was wrong, but he was right most of the time. And he set out to make the country in what he imagined it was meant to be, what it could be. Whatever was going on, he was there because he had a sense of how it impacted everyone. It was not just personal. It was America.
He said something wonderful a few years ago: “My job is to show folks there’s a lot of good music in this world, and if used right it may help to save the planet.” That seems to perfectly capture what he did with his life.
He really believed that the more people do things together, the quicker you can get things done. That is not a concept he invented; that’s a concept the United States invented. That’s why it’s called the United States. These commonwealths or provinces didn’t stand a chance against the big economies of the world. But together, they could do incredible things. Of course that’s history, but you have to apply that. So his fight for unions did not arise from some ideology. He saw that as being American.
A lot of people ascribe political reasons to his becoming involved in different causes, but they were bigger than that. They were not an ideology; they were part of his soul, and part of the American soul.
What will be the lasting legacy of Pete Seeger?
I think it’s too soon to tell, but I think for me personally it is the incredible feelings that can change a moment in time when people sing. When people voice their opinions together in song, or at a meeting, or in a congress, there are moments that change everything. I remember walking down the street with Pete and half a million other people at the rallies in the 60s and the empowerment that people felt singing together, walking together, standing side-by-side. It changed my life, and it changed everyone’s life who was there, whether they became singers or writers or insurance brokers. Whatever they did in life, those feelings remain an integral part of who they are. They know what’s possible because they were there to feel it. That is the legacy Pete leaves me personally.
The greatest violator of the above has been elected to chair the elections of the Human Rights Commission …. They should not even be allowed to sit on that Commission.
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Ambassador Prosor becomes first Israeli to chair elections to UN Human Rights Committee
Israeli ambassador to UN unanimously nominated by representatives of 170 countries to chair significant elections, says ‘central role Israel plays to advance human rights is the real answer to anyone calling for boycotts against us’.
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Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor made history Tuesday when representatives of 170 countries unanimously nominated the Israeli diplomat to preside over the elections for the UN Human Rights Committee.
Prosor became the first Israeli diplomat nominated to supervise UN elections. Representatives of the Israel delegation to the UN said that choosing Prosor to chair the elections process is a sign of the popularity the current Israeli ambassador enjoys in New York.
“It is a great honor to chair the elections for the Human Rights Committee. The central role Israel plays to advance human rights around the world is the real answer to anyone calling for boycotts against Israel.”
Prosor chairing the elections (Photo: Tal Trachtman Alroy)
Israel has been making inroads at the international organization after a few years in the diplomatic dark. A few months ago, Israel rejoined the Human Rights Council in Geneva and a few days ago it was admitted into JUSCANZ, a key UN group which advises the Human Rights Council as wel as other UN bodies.
Israel was previously admitted to the group in 2010, but recently joined its sessions in New York.
Elections to the Human Rights Committee occur once every two years. The UN Human Rights Committee is the diplomatic body charged with monitoring human rights developments across the globe. The committee meets is composed of 18 experts and meets three times a year for four-week sessions in New York and Geneva.
The United States was aware of the shipments “in real time,” Israel’s Channel 2 news reported, and was thus able to thwart them. The TV report added that “it has to be assumed that Israel knew too, and was updated by the United States.” Finally, the Channel 2 report suggested that this may have been some kind of sting operation against the Iranians, since “it could be that whoever did this was not acting against Israel’s interest.” *
Israeli Arm Dealers Planned to Breach Iran Embargo
By Umberto Bacchi
Reuters
US and Greek authorities reportedly foiled an attempt by Israeli-based arm dealers to smuggle spare parts for fighter jets to Iran
US and Greek authorities foiled an attempt by Israeli-based arm dealers to smuggle spare parts for a fighter jet to Iran via Greece in violation of an international embargo, a newspaper has revealed.
Two separate shipments containing replacement parts and ammunition for F-4 Phantom aircraft were seized by Greek officials in December 2012 and April 2013, Kathimerini newspaper reported.
The daily said it had access to a probe carried out by the Homeland Security in the US in cooperation with the drugs and weapons unit of Greece’s Financial Crimes Squad.
According to the probe, both cargos originated from the Israeli town of Binyamina-Giv’at Ada, about 60km north of Tel Aviv.
They were shipped to Greece by courier, but investigators believe the final destination was Iran, as Tehran has a large fleet of F-4 Phantoms.
Containers loaded with spare parts for the jet fighter were received by a phoney company registered under the name Tassos Karras SA in Votanikos, near central Athens.
A contact number for the company belonged to a British national residing in Thessaloniki who could not be immediately traced, Kathimerini reported.
An Athens court ordered the seized cargo be handed to US authorities in November.
Sanctions against Iran were imposed by the US after the Islamic revolution in 1979. The embargo was later adopted by other nations and expanded in 1995. The UK has had a national arms embargo in place on Iran since March 1993.
Much praise has been bestowed on Abe Foxman since he announced his retirement as head honcho of the ADL. Much praise that indeed he is not worthy of. Not unexpected were the praises of Obama and others in high positions …
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When publications such as The Forward refer to him as ‘ a man of his time’ or the ‘Jewish Pope’, that’s going way too far. In reality, Foxman was a spokesman for American zionism and the State of Israel. He did not speak for the American Jew or any other Jew for that matter. In fact, every time he opened his mouth it caused great embarrasment to the Jewish community at large. Much like his cohorts at the Wiesenthal Centre, Foxman did not always hunt down anti Semites, but rather he created them to assure his position and justify his hugh salary.
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From the Forward’s Editorial: Foxman’s singularity was rooted in his upbringing. His experience as a child of Holocaust survivors seared into him a primal knowledge of political evil; his rescue by a “righteous Gentile” left him with the eternal gratitude of one who owes his life to the kindness and courage of others. This dichotomy shaped Foxman in a way unique to his times: He was deeply suspicious of those he thought would do serious harm to the Jews, but he was also willing to believe in redemption, or at least the power of apology. That upbringing should have made him a loving and trusting man, not the hatefilled liar that he became. Yes, as stated, ‘he was deeply suspicious of those he thought would do serious harm to the Jews’, But unfortunately this seemed to include all non Jews and many Jews as well. His cries of anti Semitism were tantamount to the cries of the little boy who cried wolf.
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His position put him in the perfect situation to demonstrate to the world that the Jewish people are a caring people, that the cry of ‘Never Again’ applied to all of humanity. He could have marched for the Civil Rights of Black America, against the unjust wars that the US was involved in, but instead closed his eyes to all of the injustices surrounding him and created an imaginary world full of demons that were out to get him. He himself was that demon, far from the Saint that is spoken of in articles such as the one presented below. He could have become a man that world Jewry could look up to rather than despise. He made his bed, so to speak, he seems comfortable in it, but can he sleep nights knowing that the devil lurks under that very bed?
Time’s Up: By the time he retires, at age 75, Foxman will have been employed by the ADL for 50 years, as national director since 1987.
Abraham Foxman is a man of his time. The man of his time. Foxman is so intertwined with our personification of American Jewish leadership that when he announced February 10 that he would retire as leader of the Anti-Defamation League — not until 2015, of course — the reaction seemed universal. Abe was the ADL. Abe is the “Jewish Pope.” No one can speak for the Jewish community like Abe.
Even President Obama weighed in, heaping praise upon the man he must have tussled with in private because Foxman sure wasn’t shy about disagreeing with this, or any, president in public.
Foxman’s singularity was rooted in his upbringing. His experience as a child of Holocaust survivors seared into him a primal knowledge of political evil; his rescue by a “righteous Gentile” left him with the eternal gratitude of one who owes his life to the kindness and courage of others. This dichotomy shaped Foxman in a way unique to his times: He was deeply suspicious of those he thought would do serious harm to the Jews, but he was also willing to believe in redemption, or at least the power of apology.
He came of age when a Jewish refugee to America could parlay smarts and determination into educational degrees and then professional success. By the time he retires, at age 75, Foxman will have been employed by the ADL for 50 years, as national director since 1987.
Foxman has exploited his long tenure to make himself indispensable not just in the United States, but on the world stage, amassing a list of contacts that would make any diplomat envious. He intuitively grasps what worries American Jews, and also what makes them proud, and so he takes a tough approach to Israel’s perceived enemies while positioning the ADL to uphold an expansive view of liberal tolerance at home.
And he has made himself the arbiter of anti-Semitism the world over. Those of us in the media can count on Foxman to issue a press release scolding some obscure European politician for an ill-chosen phrase within moments of its utterance. He was asked about this role in a meeting in April 2013 with Forward staffers, and shrugged: “Do I seek it? No. Does it happen? Yes.”
History can decide whether Foxman sought the spotlight or it sought him. (We lean toward the former.) Certainly his accessibility and volubility contributed to his ubiquity, but there’s something else. Over the years — the decades, really — Foxman has amassed the confidence and the chutzpah to speak for millions of Jews on ADL’s core issues of discrimination and anti-Semitism, and much, much more.
Sometimes, Foxman led but didn’t listen. He violated the ADL’s own values by opposing the proposed Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan, and displayed a surprisingly tin ear in his dismissal of the Pew Research Center’s findings. But those missteps match his view of leadership: forceful, perhaps imperious, never in doubt, built on the assumption that there is a prevailing and correct view shared by most American Jews.
That kind of leadership may not be relevant anymore. The community is far more diverse than it was a half-century ago, less prone to accept one leader’s pronouncement or point of view, more secure and therefore more skeptical. It’s probably a good time for Foxman to gracefully leave his position and cede it to another style and generation of leadership.
The Jewish community owes an incalculable debt to Abe Foxman. “I’ve been very, very lucky about what I do,” he told the Forward. We all are.
BDS was the ‘talk of the town’ on Israeli TV last night. The guest was the author of zion’s latest attempt to discredit the movement and link it to terrorist activities within Israel. The man was Edwin Black, the book he wrote is called Financing The Flames.
It was a direct hit against all NGOs involved in supporting the Movement with the outright accusation that Tax-Exempt and Public Money Fuel a Culture of Confrontation and Terrorism in Israel, pulls the cover off the robust use of tax-exempt, tax-subsidized, and public monies to foment agitation, systematically destabilize the Israel Defense Forces, and finance terrorists in Israel. In a far-flung investigation in the United States, Israel and the West Bank.
He singles out a few of the NGOs in question; such as the Ford Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the New Israel Fund.
The host of the program he appeared on was a bit confused by the statements issued by Black and literally made him look like a fool. It was definitely a case of the smoke from those flames blowing right back into his face.*
According to Black’s ‘logic’ it’s OK for the US government to send Israel 30 Billion (plus) Dollar$ a year to finance the illegal settlements and terrorist activities, but funds collected to combat this (PEACEABLY) is terrorism?*
Just look at the reviews for the book, they say it all…. It is truly comforting to watch the defenders of zion literally grasp at straws to support the insupportable. If this is the best they got, then victory will truly be ours very soon!
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VENCEREMOS!
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If you think you can stomach it, here’s a video of Black ‘fanning the flames’ …
Desertpeace 