My late grandfather was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. Many other members of my extended family were not so fortunate and perished in the Holocaust.
Organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), established in 1913, were designed to fight against this scourge of anti-Semitism in particular, and racism in general. However, sadly, the ADL has long since strayed from its original core mission "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all."
In recent decades, the ADL has racked up a checkered history of spying on domestic peace and justice organizations, fanning the flames of Islamophobia, and ironically defaming many who speak out against Israel's human rights abuses of Palestinians and dare to believe that "justice and fair treatment to all" should also apply to Palestinians.
Last week, the ADL added to its clownish "boy-who-cried-wolf" reputation by publishing its list of what it calls the top ten "anti-Israel" organizations in the United States. Unsurprisingly, the organization for which I work -- the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation -- made the list.
The US Campaign is a national coalition of more than 325 organizations working to end U.S. support for Israel's illegal 43-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, and to change U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality. Hardly the white robe-wearing, cross-burning stuff that the organization should be challenging.
If the ADL considers supporting human rights and international law to be "anti-Israel," then it reveals more about the organization's narrow-mindedness, McCarthyite silencing tactics, and support for Israel's oppressive treatment of Palestinians than it does about our alleged motivations.
Indeed, it would seem that for an organization to be considered "pro-Israel" by the ADL, it would need to march in virtual lock step with Israel's ongoing efforts to colonize the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem, besiege the Gaza Strip, repress nonviolent Palestinian organizers (both citizens of Israel and those living under Israeli military occupation), and deny the claims of Palestinian refugees to their right of return home.
In the ADL's absurd reckoning, many Israeli organizations doing work on the ground analogous to our work in the United States must be "anti-Israel" as well. Gush Shalom promotes a boycott of Israeli settlement products. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (whose U.S. affiliate is part of our coalition) rebuilds Palestinian homes destroyed by the Israeli military. B'tselem meticulously records each time Israel kills an innocent Palestinian civilian (more than 3,000 over the past ten years, many of whom are killed with weapons provided by U.S. taxpayers). Anarchists Against the Wall supports the nonviolent, popular demonstrations of Palestinians in the West Bank against the construction of Israel's Apartheid Wall. Zochrot documents and marks former Palestinian villages depopulated and razed by Israel when it was established in 1948.
There are dozens of such Israeli organizations that work admirably and conscientiously to dissent against their government's dismal human rights record and apartheid policies toward Palestinians. Although Palestinian citizens of Israel (who comprise approximately 20% of its population), such as civil rights advocate Ameer Makhoul, continue to face intense repression when trying to exercise their democratic right to dissent, at least these Jewish Israeli organizations are able to provide hope that liberal Israeli civil society will one day be strong enough to change its government's oppressive policies.
Just as these Israeli organizations dissent from their government's subjugation of Palestinians, so too do organizations such as ours dissent from U.S. diplomatic and military support for these Israeli government policies. It is this dissent -- both in the United States and in Israel -- that the ADL is attempting to stamp out by publishing its top ten list of so-called "anti-Israel" organizations.
Fortunately, the ADL is swimming against the historical tide. Millions of people around the world were awakened to the brutality of Israel's policies during its 2006 war on Lebanon and 2008-2009 war on the Gaza Strip. Unprecedented numbers of people, including, as the ADL correctly notes, some Members of Congress who have appeared at our events, are speaking out against these policies. Across the globe, a movement of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel's policies -- similar in strategy and tactics to the movement that helped bring down apartheid in South Africa -- is flourishing.
The ADL's ineffectual campaign to cow groups such as ours into silence through the publication of a blacklist will backfire. As the ADL itself acknowledges, groups such as ours are helping to change the discourse about our county's policies toward Israel/Palestine in profound ways. Such transformations in public opinion are always a precondition to policy change. It is only a matter of time until politicians in the United States catch up to these attitudinal changes and end U.S. support for Israel's brutal policies toward Palestinians. Only then will Israel feel compelled to negotiate with Palestinians in good faith and treat them as human beings with equal rights. Nothing could be more deeply "pro-Israeli" and "pro-Palestinian" than this.
Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service (CRS).
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26661.htm
Israeli President Shimon Peres has acknowledged that Israel's existence depends on its friendship with the United States.
"We cannot exist alone. For our existence we need the friendship of the United States of America. It doesn't sound easy, but this is the truth," he said.
Nobody outside militant Zionism organizations supports the occupation. If youre demanding people accept the occupation as a prerequisite for the acceptance of Israel then your demands will simply be laughed at and dismissed.
If you choose to define the existence and legitimacy of Israel by the single policy of the occupation of Palestine then Israel will have no right to exist.
If thats the path you want to choose, then go for it!
And it's not as if the Zionist plan to 'dis-establish' Muslim states and break them up into ethnic national mini-states is any big secret.
So take your fake outrage elsewhere..
Palestine was created as a Homeland for the Jews by the League of Nations. The West Bank was illegally taken over by Jordan in 1948 and retaken by Israel after the 1967 war.
A summary is available here: http://www.acpr.org.il/ENGLISH-NATIV/02-issue/grief-2.htm
Israel is 62 years old. The West Bank has never been part of Israel in that time.
There's reality, there's deception and then there's this deep tar pit of thuggery that Zionism has thrown itself into and now wears as though it were a ten thousand dollar suit. Just don't sit in the nice chairs, please.
"GAZA - The Viva Palestina convoy of almost 150 vehicles, 370 people from 30 different countries and $5 million of aid entered Gaza on Thursday.
Amidst scenes of jubilation from thousands of Palestinians there to greet the convoy, Kevin Ovenden, the convoy director, expressed his joy at being in Gaza once again. “We have driven more than 3,000 miles to bring this essential aid and to break this illegal siege of Gaza.
"The convoy set out four weeks and five days ago from London. It travelled through France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Syria. Everywhere the reception was fantastic and the generosity of well-wishers unsurpassed. Towards the end there was a frustrating delay in Syria whilst negotiations at the highest levels were conducted with the Egyptian authorities. In the end it was all worth it as the Egyptian authorities decided to allow passage of the whole convoy, sadly excluding just 17 members of the convoy including George Galloway. "
http://www.jeremiahhaber.com/2010/10/why-breaking-silence-is-short-listed.html
I wish the US Campaign all the success in its efforts. I think the silly attacks by the ADL are a true badge of honour.
Are you suggesting that the ADL is wrong?
I suggest to you to start lay on facts and well judgments efforts rather than being falsely led by Palestinian demagogic slogans.
which has always been anti J.ew.ish and now is anti I.sr.ael. So good for ADL defending I.sra.el rights to self defense and revealing those who want her demise.
Though its likely deliberate.
-Palestinian chant.
Unless and until a politician's seat in Congress can be lost BECAUSE he or she has been in lockstep support of Israel's actions re Gaza, settlements, Lebanon, etc., there seems to be little reason to be hopeful that, soon, our policies will change regarding the rights and territories of the Palestinians. As things stand today, there is campaign money to be won and no perceivable drawback to our political class' support of all doings Israeli.