THESE ARE EXCERPTS FROM J STREET-sponsored debate at Princeton on the boycott/divestment/sanction movement. Although I do not favor BDS (I favor putting strings and conditions on aid to Israel as a means of ending the occupation of West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem), I think this is worth watching. Max Blumenthal supports BDS. J Street opposes it.
Why Do Jewish Organizations Ignore Glenn Beck?
Has anyone noticed that right-wingers are really exercised about anti-Semitism these days except when it emanates from right-wingers?
This week in Forbes, Abigail R. Esman pens an utterly over-the-top column called "World To Jews: Drop Dead."
Dead!
She claims that, even here in the United States, anti-Semitism is no longer a "fringe" phenomenon but has gone mainstream. Who knew?
Esman cites by name the trinity of Helen Thomas, Rick Sanchez and (Jewish film maker) Oliver Stone as evidence. Naturally, the 90-year-old Thomas is Esman's marquee example of anti-Semitism even though her offensive remarks were not made on television or radio but to a rabbi with a camcorder at a White House party. (It was almost surely a set-up by a right-wing "pro-Israel" Israel activist with an agenda.)
On the other hand, Esman does not even mention Glenn Beck, whose reach dwarfs anything the Thomas/Sanchez/Stone trio can even dream about. It was Beck who devoted a full week on his program, watched by millions, to raw, old-fashioned anti-Semitism.
Nor does she mention one of the most powerful right-wing figures in Hollywood, Mel Gibson, who, in addition to his well-known anti-Semitism, homophobia, racism and misogyny, is now reported to have told Jewish actor Winona Ryder that she is an "oven dodger."
Think about that one for a minute.
By the way, Gibson's new movie, produced and directed by his friend Jodie Foster, comes out in March. Unlike Helen Thomas, Gibson is still employable despite being a virulent bigot.
The silliest part of the Esman column is her assertion that anti-Semitism is a bigger problem in America than Islamo-hatred.
That is a lie, a slur against this country that at the same time trivializes the serious situation Muslims face. It's a situation that will become even worse when Muslim-baiting Congressman Peter King becomes chairman of a House committee and puts his subpoena power to work inciting against Muslims for being... Muslim. (The irony that this long-time apologist for IRA terrorism is suddenly seeking to expose terrorist cells in America is striking.)
Yes, anti-Semitism was once a problem in this country, a serious problem that contributed to dire consequences. During the 1930s and 1940s, there was so much anti-Semitism here that Jewish organizations didn't even press our government to do anything to rescue the Jews of Europe. At the very time when Hitler was planning and implementing the Final Solution, the leadership of the now stridently neocon and "pro-Israel" American Jewish Committee refused to leverage its considerable influence to encourage the Roosevelt administration to attempt the rescue of Europe's Jews -- instead, it did the opposite. Its policy was "ssssh, don't rock the boat."
At the worst moment of Jewish history, when we really needed a powerful lobby, it didn't exist. In fact, when the White House asked for Jewish input on what to do, the AJC and the other organizations maintained their policy of not speaking up. And that was because of their fear of anti-Semitism.
But that was then. This is now. (And now, they won't shut up: They're even invoking the Holocaust to prevent the United States from pushing hard to secure Israeli-Palestinian peace, warning about the dangers of Muslims and, even worse, J Street.)
How many Jews do any of us know who are afraid of being attacked because they are Jews here in the United States?
If Jews experienced the weeks of undiluted hate that Muslims experienced during the phony "Ground Zero mosque" controversy, we would be packing for Israel, or to whatever refuge would have us.
But Muslims are attacked. Their mosques are burned. And the right incites this hatred, using powerful media outlets (Fox News and hundreds of radio stations) to get the message across.
The pro-Israel lobby itself is, no doubt, quite pleased about the Islamo-hatred in this country (the ADL's Abe Foxman was the leading respectable agitator against the Islamic center near Ground Zero). For them it's a zero-sum game. Those who hate Muslims are more likely to admire Israel.
That is why the lobby is silent about Glenn Beck.
The lobby believes and teaches its adherents that anti-Semitism means opposing Israel's policies. Old-fashioned anti-Semitism, the kind that dripped like venom from Glenn Beck's week-long series, does not concern the lobby. It's okay to be anti-Semitic, so long as you are pro-Israel. (Note: Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi mass murderer, visited Palestine in the 1930's and professed admiration for Jewish accomplishments there. That didn't stop him from being an architect of the Final Solution, which was directed not at Israeli Jews but at those Jews closer to home.)
All this could be perplexing, but now along comes Max Blumenthal, a young writer, who begins the job of explaining how and why the lobby has changed the definition of anti-Semitism, and how and why it benefits from (and, in some cases, supports) Islamo-hatred.
Not surprisingly, top donors to AIPAC and its think-tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), are key funders of the anti-Muslim campaign. He writes:
Years before Tea Party shock troops massed for angry protests outside the proposed site of an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, representatives of the Israel lobby and the Jewish-American establishment launched a campaign against pro-Palestinian campus activism that would prove a seedbed for everything to come. That campaign quickly - and perhaps predictably - morphed into a series of crusades against mosques and Islamic schools, which in turn attracted an assortment of shady but exceptionally energetic militants into the network's ranks.Besides providing the initial energy for the Islamophobic crusade, conservative elements from within the pro-Israel lobby bankrolled the network's apparatus, enabling it to influence the national debate. One philanthropist in particular has provided the beneficence to propel the campaign ahead. He is a little-known Los Angeles-area software security entrepreneur named Aubrey Chernick, who operates out of a security consulting firm blandly named the National Center for Crisis and Continuity Coordination. A former trustee of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has served as a think tank for the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a frontline lobbying group for Israel, Chernick is said to be worth $750 million.
Read Blumenthal's piece and suddenly the anti-Muslim mania and the indifference to Glenn Beck and other right-wing anti-Semites make sense. It's all about discrediting Muslims for Israel's sake. (This is, of course, a great irony because the "pro-Israel" lobby consistently and forcefully supports policies that undermine the survival of the Jewish state.)
Nonetheless, anti-Muslim types from the wacko racists (like Pam Geller and Daniel Pipes), to the neocon hate mongers (David Horowitz, Steve Rosen, National Review Online, Rachel Abrams, Jennifer Rubin, Charles Krauthammer, Martin Kramer and Commentary), to the organizations (the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, Steve Emerson investigations, CAMERA, the David Project, and, of course, AIPAC) are deeply implicated in the anti-Muslim crusade. Blumenthal writes that they are:
... obsessively fixated on the supposed spread of Muslim influence in America... [Their worldview] reflects an aggressively pro-Israel sensibility, with its key figures venerating the Jewish state as a Middle Eastern Fort Apache on the front lines of the Global War on Terror....
It's all very ugly, and incredibly stupid. How can any Jew give a pass to any anti-Semite simply because he professes love for Israel? And how can anyone take seriously a "love" that is predicated on, and continually fuels, sheer hatred? As my mother always said, "if they don't like black people [today I'd add Muslims, gays, immigrants, etc.] they don't like you either." To me, that touches the essence of Judaism and it is precisely why Jews are, and have always been, liberals and progressives.
And that is part of what unhinges Glenn Beck. Even a degree from Glenn Beck University cannot un-teach the lessons we learned over the last 2,000 years. We know the game Beck is playing and no one should insult our intelligence by pretending it's about George Soros.
The lobby had better wake up.
POSTSCRIPT: I was wrong about Abe Foxman and ADL. It was worse than I thought. First, he condemned Beck. And then, almost immediately, and probably after huge ADL donor, Rupert Murdoch complained, he retracted his criticism and called Beck "a strong supporter of Israel and the Jewish people."
My apologies for not conveying the full extend of the ADL's support for Glenn Beck and his anti-Jewish tirades.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
Rabbi Justus N. Baird: What if Jews Knew That Americans Love Them?
Kari Ansari: The Muslim Family Response to Hatred
Mohammed Abbasi
www.aobm.org
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/29/the-sun-admits-publishing_n_802213.html
Hey MJ care to explain how Max's "Feel the Hate" videos are any less a set up by an anti-Israel activist with an agenda?
But Muslims are attacked. Their mosques are burned. And the right incites this hatred, using powerful media outlets (Fox News and hundreds of radio stations) to get the message across."
One can only hope that one dat HP editors pay heed to Mr. Rosenberg, and stop the incessant negative articles on Islam. My family has experience openly verbal attacks has never seen before.
Palestinian leader praises Ha'aretz saying it "represents us"
Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon (Hebrew only, not online) quotes Nabil Sha'ath, head of the Palestinian Arab negotiating team, as saying:
I would like to thank the people who write in Haaretz, which we read every day; we know that you are with us and that you represent us.
The B'Sheva newspaper (Hebrew) says that he made this quote in Ramallah during a meeting of "The Geneva Initiative" and paraphrased him as saying that they read Haaretz every day and that it faithfully represents their cause.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haaretz?wasRedirected=true
What Palestinian products are you buying to support Palestinians?
Also your placing of quotation marks around the Occupation is quite ignorant. Are you trying to say its not an actual occupation?
The status quo being theft of more and more land and forcing the indigenous people out. Day after day, Year after year. Decade after decade. Regardless who is the current Israeli leader, the theft continues.
BDS is working and it must be continued. To back off now would be a terrible mistake.
On the other hand, talks have been a failure for longer than 63 years. Talks have been used to mislead and delay for 63 years. Several Israeli leaders have remarked that talks are just a delaying tactic. To resume talks is what the Israelis and the apologists want. Because talks can go on forever without any change in the status quo.
I also noticed that Dan May of Princeton was given a whole 60 seconds on this short clip, while the detractors of Israel got at least triple the time.
I agree with J-Street's outlook on what BDS is, it is a movement that is focused on the demise of Israel, to use J-Street's words, *Seeking to wipe one nation and replacing it with another, I will take no part in that*
"BDSMovement.net is born out of the need to offer all those interested and active in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement a shared space for information, analysis, exchange of ideas and experiences. This website is overseen by the steering committee of the Palestinian BDS National Committee and has been adopted as a tool of the ICNP (International Coordinating Network on Palestine) to support efforts of networking and coordination.
Since the Unified Palestinian call for BDS, launched in July 2005, BDS initiatives have been multiplying all over the world. Building and strengthening a global BDS movement has become a core aim for many involved in today’s solidarity work for Palestine. As well as the growth of diverse actions on the ground, an increasing number of websites are taking up the issue. This site aims to give an overview of the Palestinian calls for BDS, the myriad local initiatives and resources online, related background information and analysis to inform and guide visitors and activists."
http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/68
Some of us even read that rag Haaretz (reluctantly).
There's your proof.
And The BDS Movement without a doubt
seeks the delegitimization of Israel,
with the sole purpose of Israel's destruction,
in stages.
I find the German version powerful :
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.
Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestierte.
-- Martin Niemöller
This sums it up. I hope someone listens to you!!!!