Palestinian girls study at an Israeli checkpoint after soliders deny them access to their school

How to Respond to Charges of Anti-Semitism

From Mondoweiss

Yesterday the Jerusalem Post published an attack on the awarding of a major international prize to Judith Butler, the philosopher and Berkeley professor of comparative literature, because Butler favors boycotting Israel. Butler wrote this response and, unhopeful that the Post would publish it, sent it to us. --Mondoweiss Editors.

The Jerusalem Post recently published an article reporting that some organizations are opposed to my receiving the Adorno Prize, an award given every three years to someone who works in the tradition of critical theory broadly construed. The accusations against me are that I support Hamas and Hezbollah (which is not true) that I support BDS (partially true), and that I am anti-Semitic (patently false).

Perhaps I should not be as surprised as I am that those who oppose my receiving the Adorno Prize would seek recourse to such scurrilous and unfounded charges to make their point. I am a scholar who gained an introduction to philosophy through Jewish thought, and I understand myself as defending and continuing a Jewish ethical tradition that includes figures such as Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt. I received a Jewish education in Cleveland, Ohio at The Temple under the tutelage of Rabbi Daniel Silver where I developed strong ethical views on the basis of Jewish philosophical thought. I learned, and came to accept, that we are called upon by others, and by ourselves, to respond to suffering and to call for its alleviation.

But to do this, we have to hear the call, find the resources by which to respond, and sometimes suffer the consequences for speaking out as we do. I was taught at every step in my Jewish education that it is not acceptable to stay silent in the face of injustice. Such an injunction is a difficult one, since it does not tell us exactly when and how to speak, or how to speak in a way that does not produce a new injustice, or how to speak in a way that will be heard and registered in the right way. My actual position is not heard by these detractors, and perhaps that should not surprise me, since their tactic is to destroy the conditions of audibility.

I studied philosophy at Yale University and continued to consider the questions of Jewish ethics throughout my education. I remain grateful for those ethical resources, for the formation that I had, and that animates me still. It is untrue, absurd, and painful for anyone to argue that those who formulate a criticism of the State of Israel is anti-Semitic or, if Jewish, self-hating. Such charges seek to demonize the person who is articulating a critical point of view and so disqualify the viewpoint in advance. It is a silencing tactic: this person is unspeakable, and whatever they speak is to be dismissed in advance or twisted in such a way that it negates the validity of the act of speech. The charge refuses to consider the view, debate its validity, consider its forms of evidence, and derive a sound conclusion on the basis of listening to reason. The charge is not only an attack on persons who hold views that some find objectionable, but it is an attack on reasonable exchange, on the very possibility of listening and speaking in a context where one might actually consider what another has to say. When one set of Jews labels another set of Jews “anti-Semitic”, they are trying to monopolize the right to speak in the name of the Jews. So the allegation of anti-Semitism is actually a cover for an intra-Jewish quarrel.

In the United States, I have been alarmed by the number of Jews who, dismayed by Israeli politics, including the occupation, the practices of indefinite detention, the bombing of civilian populations in Gaza, seek to disavow their Jewishness. They make the mistake of thinking that the State of Israel represents Jewishness for our times, and that if one identifies as a Jew, one supports Israel and its actions. And yet, there have always been Jewish traditions that oppose state violence, that affirm multi-cultural co-habitation, and defend principles of equality, and this vital ethical tradition is forgotten or sidelined when any of us accept Israel as the basis of Jewish identification or values. So, on the one hand, Jews who are critical of Israel think perhaps they cannot be Jewish anymore of Israel represents Jewishness; and on the other hand, those who seek to vanquish anyone who criticizes Israel equate Jewishness with Israel as well, leading to the conclusion that the critic must be anti-Semitic or, if Jewish, self-hating. My scholarly and public efforts have been directed toward getting out of this bind. In my view, there are strong Jewish traditions, even early Zionist traditions, that value co-habitation and that offer ways to oppose violence of all kinds, including state violence. It is most important that these traditions be valued and animated for our time – they represent diasporic values, struggles for social justice, and the exceedingly important Jewish value of “repairing the world” (Tikkun).

It is clear to me that the passions that run so high on these issues are those that make speaking and hearing very difficult. A few words are taken out of context, their meaning distorted, and they then come to label or, indeed, brand an individual. This happens to many people when they offer a critical view of Israel – they are branded as anti-Semites or even as Nazi collaborators; these forms of accusation are meant to establish the most enduring and toxic forms of stigmatization and demonization. They target the person by taking the words out of context, inverting their meanings and having them stand for the person; indeed, they nullify the views of that person without regard to the content of those views.

 For those of us who are descendants of European Jews who were destroyed in the Nazi genocide (my grandmother’s family was destroyed in a small village south of Budapest), it is the most painful insult and injury to be called complicitous with the hatred of Jews or to be called self-hating. And it is all the more difficult to endure the pain of such an allegation when one seeks to affirm what is most valuable in Judaism for thinking about contemporary ethics, including the ethical relation to those who are dispossessed of land and rights of self-determination, to those who seek to keep the memory of their oppression alive, to those who seek to live a life that will be, and must be, worthy of being grieved. I contend that these values all derive from important Jewish sources, which is not to say that they are only derived from those sources. But for me, given the history from which I emerge, it is most important as a Jew to speak out against injustice and to struggle against all forms of racism. This does not make me into a self-hating Jew. It makes me into someone who wishes to affirm a Judaism that is not identified with state violence, and that is identified with a broad-based struggle for social justice.

My remarks on Hamas and Hezbollah have been taken out of context and badly distort my established and continuing views. I have always been in favor of non-violent political action, and this principle has consistently characterized my views. I was asked by a member of an academic audience a few years ago whether I thought Hamas and Hezbollah belonged to “the global left" and I replied with two points. My first point was merely descriptive: those political organizations define themselves as anti-imperialist, and anti-imperialism is one characteristic of the global left, so on that basis one could describe them as part of the global left. My second point was then critical: as with any group on the left, one has to decide whether one is for that group or against that group, and one needs to critically evaluate their stand. I do not accept or endorse all groups on the global left. Indeed, these very remarks followed a talk that I gave that evening which emphasized the importance of public mourning and the political practices of non-violence, a principle that I elaborate and defend in three of my recent books: Precarious Life, Frames of War, and Parting Ways.

 I have been interviewed on my non-violent views by Guernica and other on-line journals, and those views are easy to find, if one wanted to know where I stand on such issues. I am in fact sometimes mocked by members of the left who support forms of violent resistance who think I fail to understand those practices. It is true: I do not endorse practices of violent resistance and neither do I endorse state violence, cannot, and never have. This view makes me perhaps more naïve than dangerous, but it is my view. So it has always seemed absurd to me that my comments were taken to mean that I support or endorse Hamas and Hezbollah! I have never taken a stand on either organization, just as I have never supported every organization that is arguably part of the global left – I am not unconditionally supportive of all groups that currently constitute the global left. To say that those organizations belong to the left is not to say that they should belong, or that I endorse or support them in any way.

Two further points. I do support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement in a very specific way. I reject some versions and accept others. For me, BDS means that I oppose investments in companies that make military equipment whose sole purpose is to demolish homes. It means as well that I do not speak at Israeli institutions unless they take a strong stand against the occupation. I do not accept any version of BDS that discriminates against individuals on the basis of their national citizenship, and I maintain strong collaborative relationships with many Israeli scholars.

One reason I can endorse BDS and not endorse Hamas and Hezbollah is that BDS is the largest non-violent civic political movement seeking to establish equality and the rights of self-determination for Palestinians. My own view is that the peoples of those lands, Jewish and Palestinian, must find a way to live together on the condition of equality. Like so many others, I long for a truly democratic polity on those lands and I affirm the principles of self-determination and co-habitation for both peoples, indeed, for all peoples. And my wish, as is the wish of an increasing number of Jews and non-Jews, is that the occupation come to an end, that violence of all kinds cease, and that the substantial political rights of all people in that land be secured through a new political structure.

Two last notes: The group that is sponsoring this call is the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, a misnomer at best, that claims on its website that “Islam” is an “inherently anti-semetic (sic) religion.” It is not, as The Jerusalem Post has reported, a large group of Jewish scholars in Germany, but an international organization with a base in Australia and California. They are a right-wing organization and so part of an intra-Jewish war. Ex-board member Gerald Steinberg is known for attacking human rights organizations in Israel as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Their willingness to include Israeli infractions of human rights apparently makes them also eligible for the label, “anti-Semitic.”

Finally, I am not an instrument of any “NGO”: I am on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace, a member of Kehillah Synagogue in Oakland, California, and an executive member of Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace in the US and The Jenin Theatre in Palestine. My political views have ranged over a large number of topics, and have not been restricted to the Middle East or the State of Israel. Indeed, I have written about violence and injustice in other parts of the world, focusing mainly in wars waged by the United States. I have also written on violence against transgendered people in Turkey, psychiatric violence, torture in Guantanamo, and about police violence against peaceful protestors in the U.S, to name a few. I have also written against anti-Semitism in Germany and against racial discrimination in the United States.

Judith Butler

Fresh discussion of one-state/two state, Iran, BDS and the meaning of democracy

From The Daily Beast 8/27/2012
How Bill Kristol and JVP Are Both "Israel-Agnostic"

by Peter Beinart Aug 27, 2012 10:30 AM EDT
Here we go again. The Republican Jewish Coalition and Bill Kristol’s Emergency Committee for Israel are demanding that the Obama campaign renounce the endorsement of a California rabbi named Lynn Gottlieb because she supports boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against all of Israel and serves on the rabbinical council of Jewish Voices for Peace. (She’s also attended a dinner with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and visited Tehran). Last year, Brandeis refused to admit a Jewish Voices for Peace chapter into Hillel. In 2010, the Anti-Defamation Leaguelisted JVP as one of the top ten “anti-Israel” groups in America.
To continue reading: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/27/how-bill-kristol-and-jvp-are-both-israel-agnostic.html 

Some interesting comments on the article:
Alan Levin
I applaud Peter Beinert's long journey to some of the more sensible position that he's taken towards Israel's occupation and oppression of Palestinians from where he was a numberof years ago. Here, sadly, he is being clever and equating JVP's principled and sensible positions with a hard line right-wing ideologue. He could do better. If he continues to follow his heart and use his intelligence he'll soon be on the JVP board.

Alice Rothchild
There are serious problems with all of these arguments.  The first lies in the US where one's credibility as a Jew no longer is based on living a life consistent with Jewish teachings and a sense of moral values and justice, but rather that one supports the policies of the Israeli government without question. Thus we see the highpitched hysteria of the Billy Kristols of the world and a serious policy of muzzling dissent within the Jewish community. Then we have the State of Israel which has descended into a state of increasing militarism, racism, and oppression towards its indigenous Palestinian population and the Palestinians who live under occupation. This tragic history is proof enough that a country cannot be a liberal democracy and preference one group of people over another while treating every threat as a post Holocaust existential trauma. While most Jews wring their hands over Palestinian aggression, there are many of us that welcome the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions as a nonviolent, creative, and historically powerful tactic to bring Israel and its supportersto their senses and to focus work on building human rights for all in the region, moving beyond our usual frightened tribal posture.

America First
Sir,
Thank you for another well written article. However, I don't even think you need to go this deep to analyze the absurdity of the zionist supremacists in the US. A country cannot bedefined as jewish and democratic at the same time. Just like it cannot be defined as christian and democratic. Israel has become an apartheid state. Nothing the propaganda machine does will change that reality.
The only relevant question for Americans is how can we save the US destroying itself by being the protecter of this apartheid regime?

Wrongway
Pure sophistry by Mr.Beinart.
Even Norman Finklestein recognizes that the BDS program and supporters of the BDS program are notagnostic in their antipathy to the Israeli state.  Mr. Finklestein clearly condemned the movement and their supporters for their dishonesty in arguing that BDS was agnostic in its support of an one or two state solution.  He recognized that the BDS movement supports an one state solution in which the state of Israel will be destroyed. Not only are some of its founders on record for calling for an one state solution, but also the movement's support for the return of 6 million refugees to Israel leadsto the destruction of the Jewish state. The fact that BDS argues that itis agnostic with respect to state arrangements, and does not support either a one or two state solution, is, as Finklestein stated, a deception hiding the real agenda of the BDS movement to bring about the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel and the formation of a new Palestinian Arab state in its place.
Likewise JVP and Lynn Gottlieb who support the BDS program cannot claim to be ambivalent about the continuation of Israel's existence when BDS' aims are the replacement of the Jewish state with a Palestinian Arab state. To suggest that the Republican Jewish Coalition or the Emergency Committee are "Israel-agnostic" is the product of a tortured logic which the writer ought to know is untrue.  The RJC and the Emergency committee are very supportive of the continual existence of the Israeli state as the nation state of the Jewish people.  To suggest otherwise is pure sophistry on Mr.Beinart's behalf. Using the same deceptivearguments of the BDS movement in supporting JVP and Lynn Gottlieb, Beinart displays his own intellectual shortcomings. I wonder if it was acoalition of Jewish Democrats calling on President Obama, would Beinart have suggested that the Jewish Democrats were Israel-agnostic using the same type of logic applied in this article?

douglasreed
Is the lobby that controls the foreign affairs agenda of the US congress an ‘Israel lobby’ or an ‘Israeli lobby’? The former is a pressure group controlled by American evangelical Christians whilst the latter is ostensibly controlled by the government of Israel.We do know from where the funding originates, but who actually controls the moneymen and is that a sufficiently legitimate reason to say that this lobby should actually be designated a foreign agent within the US and subject to rigorous supervision in order to prevent it from suborning the constitution and the lives of millions to the interests of a foreign state? These questionsare neither anti-American nor anti-European, anti-Republican nor anti-Democrat,anti-Jewish nor anti-Christian, anti-white nor anti-black, anti-Semitic nor anti-Muslim.They are pro-democracy, pro-civil and human rights and pro-religion. The warning is against either overt or covert manipulation of the democratic process that effectively gang-rapes the provisions of the American constitutionand the Bill of Rights, for which so many gave their lives so that we could enjoy freedom from the manipulation of power that we, unfortunately, see in government again today.

douglasreed
Bill Kristol is plain wrong. Funded and armed by an Israel-lobby-controlled US congress, the Netanyahu government feel invincible - able to attack the 75 millionIranian people, to bomb and kill as they see fit whilst the UN and the international community must stay silent as the hours and days tick by towards the start of an Israeli manufactured nuclear war that could contaminate the ME region, including the Gulf, for years. It would almost certainly cut Gulf oil supplies to Europe for a period of weeks or months, the consequence of which would be a doubling or trebling of the price of petrol and all transport costs throughout the EU. Eventually, the US would reopen any blockage in the Strait of Hormuz caused by the war, but not before immense damage would have been caused to European economies. The answer must be for the European parliament to warn Messrs Netanyahu, Barak & Lieberman that if they instigate an unlawful attack against Iran, then all bilateral trade between the EU and Israel will be immediately discontinued. In these potentially dangerous circumstances, it is necessary to use extraordinary economic force to prevent violent force that would affect all of us.

Israel Breaks Silence Over Army Abuses

How military occupation turns bored teenage recruits into sadistic abusers

From The Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-breaks-silence-over-army-abuses-8081393.html

Hafez Rajabi was marked for life by his encounter with the men of the Israeli army's Kfir Brigade five years ago this week. Sitting beneath the photograph of his late father, the slightly built 21-year-old in jeans and trainers points to the scar above his right eye where he was hit with the magazine of a soldier's assault rifle after the patrol came for him at his grandmother's house before 6am on 28 August 2007.
 

He lifts his black Boss T-shirt to show another scar running some three inches down his back from the left shoulder when he says he was violently pushed – twice – against a sharp point of the cast-iron balustrade beside the steps leading up to the front door. And all that before he says he was dragged 300m to another house by a unit commander who threatened to kill him if he did not confess to throwing stones at troops, had started to beat him again, and at one point held a gun to his head. "He was so angry," says Hafez. "I was certain that he was going to kill me."

This is just one young man's story, of course. Except that – remarkably – it is corroborated by one of the soldiers who came looking for him that morning. One of 50 testimonies on the military's treatment of children – published today by the veterans' organisation Breaking the Silence – describes the same episode, if anything more luridly than Hafez does. "We had a commander, never mind his name, who was a bit on the edge," the soldier, a first sergeant, testifies. "He beat the boy to a pulp, really knocked him around. He said: 'Just wait, now we're taking you.' Showed him all kinds of potholes on the way, asked him: 'Want to die? Want to die right here?' and the kid goes: 'No, no...' He was taken into a building under construction. The commander took a stick, broke it on him, boom boom. That commander had no mercy. Anyway the kid could no longer stand on his feet and was already crying. He couldn't take it any more. He cried. The commander shouted: 'Stand up!' Tried to make him stand, but from so much beating he just couldn't. The commander goes: 'Don't put on a show,' and kicks him some more."

Two months ago, a report from a team of British lawyers, headed by Sir Stephen Sedley and funded by the UK Foreign Office, accused Israel of serial breaches of international law in its military's handling of children in custody. The report focused on the interrogation and formal detention of children brought before military courts – mainly for allegedly throwing stones.

For the past eight years, Breaking the Silence has been taking testimonies from former soldiers who witnessed or participated in human rights abuses in the occupied territories. Most of these accounts deal with "rough justice" administered to minors by soldiers on the ground, often without specific authorisation and without recourse to the military courts. Reading them, however, it's hard not to recall the Sedley report's shocked reference to the "belief, which was advanced to us by a military prosecutor, that every Palestinian child is a 'potential terrorist'".

The soldier puts it differently: "We were sort of indifferent. It becomes a kind of habit. Patrols with beatings happened on a daily basis. We were really going at it. It was enough for you to give us a look that we didn't like, straight in the eye, and you'd be hit on the spot. We got to such a state and were so sick of being there."

Some time ago, after he had testified to Breaking the Silence, we had interviewed this soldier. As he sat nervously one morning in a quiet Israeli beauty spot, an incongruous location he had chosen to ensure no one knew he was talking, he went through his recollections about the incident – and several others – once again. His account does not match the Palestinian's in every detail. (Hafez remembers a gun being pressed to his temple, for example, while the soldier recalls that the commander "actually stuck the gun barrel in the kid's mouth. Literally".)

But in every salient respect, the two accounts match. Both agree that Hafez, on the run after hearing that he was wanted, had slipped into his grandmother's house before dawn. Hafez showed us the room in his grandmother's house, the last on the left in the corridor leading to her room, where he had been hiding when the soldiers arrived. Sure enough, the soldier says: "We entered, began to trash the place. We found the boy behind the last door on the left. He was totally scared."

Both Hafez – who has never read or heard the soldier's account – and the soldier recall the commander forcing him at one point during his ordeal to throw a stone at them, and that the boy did so as feebly as possible. Then, in the soldier's words "the commander said: 'Of course you throw stones at a soldier.' Boom, banged him up even more".

Perhaps luckily for Hafez, the second, still uncompleted, house is within sight of that of his aunt, Fathia Rajabi, 57, who told us how she had gone there after seeing the soldiers dragging a young man behind a wall, unaware that he was her nephew. "I was crying, 'God forbids to beat him.' He recognised my voice and yelled: 'My aunt, my aunt.' I tried to enter but the two soldiers pointed their guns at me and yelled rouh min houn, Arabic for 'go away'. I began slapping my face and shouting at passers-by to come and help. Ten minutes later the soldiers left. I and my mother, my brother and neighbours went to the room. He was bleeding from his nose and head, and his back."

The soldier, who like his comrades mistook Ms Rajabi for the boy's mother, recalls: "The commander said to [her]: 'Keep away!' Came close, cocked his gun. She got scared. [He shouted:] 'Anyone gets close, I kill him. Don't annoy me. I'll kill him. I have no mercy.' He was really on the edge. Obviously [the boy] had been beaten up. Anyway, he told them: 'Get the hell out of here!' and all hell broke loose. His nose was bleeding. He had really been beaten to a pulp."

Finally, Hafez's brother Mousa, 23, a stone cutter who joined his aunt at the second house, recalls a second army jeep arriving and one soldier taking Hafez's pulse, giving Mousa a bottle of water which he then poured over Hafez's face and speaking to the commander in Hebrew.

"I understood he was protesting," says Mousa. This was almost certainly the 'sensitive' medic whom the soldier describes as having "caught the commander and said: 'Don't touch him any more. That's it.'" The commander goes: 'What's with you, gone leftie?' And he said: 'No, I don't want to see such things being done. All you're doing to this family is making them produce another suicide bomber. If I were a father and saw you doing this to my kid, I'd seek revenge that very moment.'"

In fact Hafez, did not turn into a "suicide bomber". He has never even been in prison. Instead, the outcome has been more prosaic. He no longer has nightmares about his experience as he did in the first two months. But as a former mechanic he is currently unemployed partly because there are few jobs outside construction sites and the Hebron quarries, where he says his injuries still prevent him from carrying heavy loads, and partly because he often does "not feel I want to work again". And he has not – so far – received any compensation, including the more than £1,100 he and Mousa had to spend on his medical treatment in the two years after he was taken.

The report by Sir Stephen Sedley's team remarks that "as the United Kingdom has itself learned by recent experience in Iraq, the risk of abuse is inherent in any system of justice which depends on military force". Moreover, Britain, unlike Israel, has no organisation like Breaking the Silence that can document, from the inside, the abuse of victims like Hafez Rajabi who never even make it to court.

But as the Sedley report also says, after drawing attention to the argument that every Palestinian is a "potential terrorist": "Such a stance seems to us to be the starting point of a spiral of injustice, and one which only Israel, as the occupying power in the West Bank, can reverse."

Breaking the silence: soldiers' testimonies
First Sergeant, Kfir Brigade
Salfit 2009
"We took over a school and had to arrest anyone in the village who was between the ages of 17 and 50. When these detainees asked to go to the bathroom, and the soldiers took them there, they beat them to a pulp and cursed them for no reason, and there was nothing that would legitimise hitting them. An Arab was taken to the bathroom to piss, and a soldier slapped him, took him down to the ground while he was shackled and blindfolded. The guy wasn't rude and did nothing to provoke any hatred or nerves. Just like that, because he is an Arab. He was about 15, hadn't done a thing.

"In general people at the school were sitting for hours in the sun. They could get water once in a while, but let's say someone asked for water five times, a soldier could come to him and slap him just like that. I saw many soldiers using their knees to hit them, just out of boredom. Because you're standing around for 10 hours doing nothing, you're bored, so you hit them. I know that at the bathroom, there was this 'demons' dance' as it was called. Anyone who brought a Palestinian there – it was catastrophic. Not bleeding beatings – they stayed dry – but still beatings."

First Sergeant, Combat Engineering Corps
Ramallah 2006-07
"There was this incident where a 'straw widow' was put up following a riot at Qalandiya on a Friday, in an abandoned house near the square. Soldiers got out with army clubs and beat people to a pulp. Finally the children who remained on the ground were arrested. The order was to run, make people fall to the ground. There was a 10- to 12-man team, four soldiers lighting up the area. People were made to fall to the ground, and then the soldiers with the clubs would go over to them and beat them. A slow runner was beaten – that was the rule.

"We were told not to use it on people's heads. I don't remember where we were told to hit, but as soon as a person on the ground is beaten with such a club, it's difficult to be particular."

First Sergeant, Kfir Brigade
Hebron 2006-07
"We'd often provoke riots there. We'd be on patrol, walking in the village, bored, so we'd trash shops, find a detonator, beat someone to a pulp, you know how it is. Search, mess it all up. Say we'd want a riot? We'd go up to the windows of a mosque, smash the panes, throw in a stun grenade, make a big boom, then we'd get a riot.

"Every time we'd catch Arab kids.You catch him, push the gun against his body. He can't make a move – he's totally petrified. He only goes: 'No, no, army.' You can tell he's petrified. He sees you're mad, that you couldn't care less about him and you're hitting him really hard the whole time. And all those stones flying around. You grab him like this, you see? We were mean, really. Only later did I begin to think about these things, that we'd lost all sense of mercy."

Rank and unit unidentified in report
Hebron 2007-08
"One night, things were hopping in Idna village [a small town of 20,000 people, about 13km west of Hebron], so we were told there's this wild riot, and we should get there fast. Suddenly we were showered with stones and didn't know what was going on. Everyone stopped suddenly; the sergeant sees the company commander get out of the vehicle and joins him. We jump out without knowing what was going on – I was last. Suddenly I see a shackled and blindfolded boy. The stoning stopped as soon as the company commander gets out of the car. He fired rubber ammo at the stone-throwers and hit this boy.

"At some point they talked about hitting his face with their knees. At that point I argued with them and said: 'I swear to you, if a drop of his blood or a hair falls off his head, you won't sleep for three nights. I'll make you miserable.'

"They laughed at me for being a leftie. 'If we don't show them what's what, they go back to doing this.' I argued with them that the guy was shackled and couldn't do anything. That he was being taken to the Shabak [security service] and we'd finished our job."

Quakers Divest from Caterpillar

 

Above: Click to learn about Caterpillar

Have you heard the wonderful news? After a roller coaster United Methodist divestment campaign ending in partial victory, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is so excited to announce that the Quaker Friends Fiduciary Corporation (FFC), which holds over $200 million in assets, has divested from Caterpillar! FFC divested $900,000 in shares of Caterpillar, which continues to feel the pressure from all sides for its production and sale of weaponized bulldozers to Israel, used to violate Palestinian rights and destroy Palestinian homes, schools, hospitals, olive groves, and lives.

Ann Arbor Quakers asked FFC to divest and issued this warm statement of thanks:

"Ann Arbor Friends welcome the decision by Friends Fiduciary Corporation (FFC) to divest from Caterpillar Corp. This is a significant step since FFC handles investments for over 250 Quaker meetings, schools, organizations, trusts, and endowments around the US. In taking this action, FFC is truly upholding the core commitment of the Society of Friends to peace. We ask Friends and people of faith everywhere to join us in expressing thanks to FFC and asking them to continue divesting from all companies that are helping to sustain the Israeli occupation."

FFC has a "zero tolerance for weapons and weapons components," and said, "We are uncomfortable defending our position on this stock."

FFC is not the first Quaker institution to avoid companies that support the Israeli occupation. In March 2008, the Board of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a US Campaign member group, approved an Israel/Palestine investment screen, stating:

"Investments should not be made in any company that provides products or services, including financial services, to Israeli governmental or military bodies… or to Israeli or Palestinian organizations or groups that are used to facilitate or undertake violent acts against civilians or violations of international law."
 

The AFSC investment screen is based on a 29-company "no-buy" list -- originally compiled by the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church -- which includes Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, Veolia, and Hewlett Packard. In June 2011, AFSC also joined the "We Divest Campaign," which calls on financial giant TIAA-CREF to divest from the Israeli occupation.

Illinois Yearly Meeting and St Louis Monthly Meeting support the "We Divest Campaign."

And that's not all. Illinois Yearly Meeting and St. Louis Monthly Meeting of Friends also came out in support of the "We Divest Campaign," Sandy Springs Monthly Meeting called on FFC to divest from all companies profiting from violence in Israel/Palestine, and the Ann Arbor Meeting agreed to a call from its Palestine-Israel Action Group (PIAG) -- a member of the US Campaign -- to boycott companies supporting the Israeli military and Israeli settlement products, building on a similar decision by Britain Yearly Meeting.
 

Photo by PIAG member SOL METZ of devastation wrought by Caterpillar.

We are hopeful that these actions will put wind in the sails of the exciting divestment campaign at Earlham College, another Quaker institution. The campaign, led by US Campaign member group BDS Earlham, aims for "Earlham to divest from Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett Packard because they are profiting from Israeli violations of international law and principles of human rights."

The snowball is gathering momentum. Let us continue our support for courageous churches and other institutions that are putting their money where their mouths are.

RECOMMENDED: From Stephen Zunes

Obama Ad Condemns Israel Aid Opponents

By Stephen Zunes, December 14, 2011

Stephen Zunes

An ad on my Facebook page from barackobama.com reads, "Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich say they would start foreign aid to Israel at zero. Reject their extreme plan now!"
This struck me as odd for two reasons:
First, it is disingenuous and misleading. The actual position taken by these Republican presidential candidates is that all foreign aid should initially start at zero as means of reducing the deficit, to be immediately followed by the resumption of aid on a case-by-case basis. As they themselves have acknowledged, they would immediately resume aid to Israel and perhaps even increase it. Ironically, U.S. "aid for Israel" goes almost exclusively to U.S. arms manufacturers, with which the Republican candidates have a close relationship.

Secondly, millions of Americans—particularly younger voters who are the primary users of Facebook—support zeroing out aid to Israel on human rights grounds. The Obama campaign, therefore, is effectively labeling those of us who oppose the use of our tax dollars to arm the right-wing Netanyahu government, which has repeatedly used U.S. weapons against civilians, as "extreme." Presumably, they feel the same way about those of us who support a cutoff of aid to other governments that violate international humanitarian law as well.

In 2009, Amnesty International, citing war crimes committed by both Israeli forces and the armed wing of Hamas earlier that year, called on nations to suspend arms shipments to both. The Obama administration categorically rejected the proposal. The administration has also rejected calls by human rights groups to condition military aid and arms transfers to other countries that use U.S. weapons against civilians, including Colombia, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Azerbaijan, and Morocco. Recently, the Obama administration requested a waiver on human rights restrictions in the forthcoming foreign appropriations bill in order to resume arming the Karimov dictatorship in Uzbekistan, which has massacred hundreds of pro-democracy protesters and has literally boiled its opponents alive.

One can speculate whether, if Obama were seeking re-election in 1984, his campaign would similarly label those who opposed aid to the murderous Salvadoran junta as “extreme.” Or, if it were 1996, his campaign would have marginalized opponents of U.S. aid to the genocidal Suharto regime in Indonesia. The president’s re-election team for 2012 sure appears to think of us that way.
Republican candidates certainly have taken a number of extreme positions regarding Israel and Palestine. Gingrich, Perry, and Romney, for example, have aligned themselves with the far right of the Israeli political spectrum, opposing Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and opposing a freeze on illegal Israeli settlements. Gingrich has even said the Palestinians are an “invented people” and implied his support for mass population transfers.

I’ve searched barackobama.com and elsewhere, and nowhere does the Obama campaign appear to label such positions or similarly outrageous statements as “extreme.” However, if you oppose sending billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded aid to Israel—whether as a means of cutting the deficit, reducing cuts in social programs, or defending human rights—the Obama campaign considers it an “extreme plan” that should be rejected.

What is so bizarre about the Obama campaign’s hostility toward those who oppose aid to Israel is that Israel doesn’t need U.S. assistance to begin with. Israel, the region’s only nuclear power, has by far the strongest military capability in the greater Middle East, and it possesses the only significant domestic arms industry in the region. Israel also has, by far, the region’s highest standard of living, comparable to that of most European countries. Even putting human rights concerns aside, questioning why American taxpayers should be spending over $3 billion annually in aid to Israel at a time of massive cutbacks at home doesn’t seem unreasonable.

Furthermore, public opinion polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans believe U.S. military aid should be made conditional to human rights.

Most people for whom providing unconditional support for the Netanyahu government is their top priority are going to support the Republican nominee anyway. Meanwhile, there are millions of Democrats, independents, and even Republicans who question spending billions of taxpayer dollars to prop up that rightist Israeli government every year. Why risk alienating these voters by labeling their position “extreme”? Is it simply a headline thrown together by an overzealous young wonk in the campaign? Or is this part of a larger effort to stifle debate on the Obama administration’s policies of aiding governments that violate human rights?

Either way, it sends the message that the Obama campaign does not welcome concerns about human rights. In addition, it serves as a reminder for Americans who do care about human rights that neither party will provide a presidential nominee we can vote for.

Stephen Zunes, a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist and senior analyst, is a professor of Politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco. He is the author, along with Jacob Mundy, of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution (Syracuse University Press, 2010).

 

Minute on Israel Palestine

The Ann Arbor Friends Meeting wishes to share with you its position on handling the present conditions between Israel and its Arab brothers and sisters. This issue has been a difficult one for us to consider for many years. The fact that we were able to come to unity in this statement is something we are proud of. Please join with us in finding a way to peace in this crucial area of the world.

Bill Riccobono, Clerk, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting
Helen Fox, Convener, Palestine Israel Action Group, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting

Minute on Israel Palestine
Adopted by the Ann Arbor Friends Meeting (Quakers) July 17, 2011

The Ann Arbor Friends Meeting recognizes the complex international dynamics that feed the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, creating fear on both sides and putting both Palestinians and Israelis at risk. We are concerned about the safety and well-being of all affected by this conflict. We wish to ally ourselves with those in Israel and Palestine working to bring peace.

We believe that one key step towards stability and safety for both Israelis and Palestinians depends on a just agreement regarding the Palestinian lands that Israel has occupied, illegally, according to international law, since 1967. Successive U.S. governments have generously supported Israeli military occupation of these lands, and have turned a blind eye to illegal tax exemptions for U.S. charitable organizations that support Israeli settlements.

We urge our government to exhibit equal concern for the well-being of both Palestinian and Israeli people by:

¨ Supporting a United Nations resolution recognizing a Palestinian state

¨ Withholding U.S. tax dollars that support the Israeli military

¨ Enforcing U.S. tax law regarding charitable organizations that support Israeli settlements

We also urge Friends worldwide to unite with Britain Yearly Meeting in its call to boycott products made in Israeli settlements, “not as punishment or revenge, but as an external pressure to achieve change.”

With Britain Yearly Meeting, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting considers that “we should now act publicly, and, well-informed, be able to explain our action to others,” in order to “give hope to Palestinians and support to those in Israel who are working for peace.” We agree with Britain Yearly Meeting that “in the face of the armed oppression of poor people and the increasing encroachment of the illegal settlements in the West Bank, we cannot do nothing.” We too are clear that it would be wrong to support the Israeli settlements by purchasing their goods.

In order to exert more than symbolic pressure on the Israeli government to negotiate a just peace at this critical time, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting joins with religious and civil society organizations throughout the world in a boycott of corporations that support the Israeli military.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Supporting Documentation

Illegal U.S. Tax Exemptions
For more information about the U.S. tax law regarding charitable organizations that aid Israeli settlements, please see:
Tax Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank. New York Times, 2010, July 5
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/world/middleeast/06settle.html

Israeli settlement products
AHAVA beauty products are produced using salt, minerals, and mud from the Dead Sea – natural resources that are excavated from the occupied West Bank. The products themselves are manufactured in the illegal West Bank settlement Mitzpe Shalem. Please see CODEPINK’s “Stolen Beauty” campaign for action steps. http://www.stolenbeauty.org/

Other settlement products sold in the U.S. can be found here: http://www.meretzusa.org/boycott-these-settlement-products-sold-us

Some corporations that support the Israeli Military
Please join the American Friends Service Committee in divesting personal and institutional funds from these and other U.S. corporations that support Israel’s Occupation. http://afsc.org/resource/afscs-israel-palestine-investment-screen-and-tiaa-cref-divestment-campaign

Motorola
Intel
Caterpillar Corporation
Boeing
General Electric Corporation
Lockheed Martin
ITT Corporation
Volvo
Silicon Graphics
Blockbuster

The full, annotated list of corporations boycotted by AFSC and the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church can be found here: http://www.neumc.org/pages/detail/375

Visions of the Future

As the Palestinian Authority prepares to ask the United Nations for recognition of an independent Palestinian state this month, most of the UN member countries (with the notable exception of the U.S. and Israel) are ready to endorse the bid as a largely symbolic, yet positive step on the road to Palestinian independence.
http://www.france24.com/en/20110813-palestinians-set-strategic-date-statehood-bid-UN-diplomacy

Even within Israel, some applaud this initiative on the part of Palestinian (or West Bank) President Mahmoud Abbas. Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc, says in an advertisement in Ha'aretz (9-2-2011):

INSTEAD OF PANICKING...

The great majority
Of the world's nations
Are about to
Vote for recognizing
The State of Palestine

If you can't beat them,
Why not join them?
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/weekly_ad/1314967339/

But the Netanyahu government seems to be trying its best to spread fear and panic. Israeli columnist Uri Avnery says that in the minds of the government coalition, dominated as it is by settlers and their allies:

"September is not just the name of a month, the seventh in the old Roman calendar. It is the symbol of a terrible danger, an unspeakable existential menace. In the next few weeks, the Palestinians will ask the UN to recognize the State of Palestine. They have already mustered a large majority in the General Assembly. After that, according to the official assessment of our army, all hell will break loose. Multitudes of Palestinians will rise, attack the “Separation” Wall, storm the settlements, confront the army, create chaos."

To combat the "barbarians at the gates," the Israeli army is training settlers in violent self-defense, which can easily spill over into aggressive offense against peaceful protesters. And since Palestinians will surely continue their nonviolent protests, more tragedy is sure to result. http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1314963921/

Avnery suggests that the government's fear-mongering serves not only to block the formation of an independent Palestinian state, but to divert the public from the huge social protests against Israeli living conditions that have taken place over the past few months. The Israeli education system, the health system, and the social services are all in dire need of reform. The billions of dollars that would fund such efforts can only come from the military budget and from the massive economic support the government provides the settlements. Israel cannot build a humane social welfare system for its own people and block a Palestinian state at the same time. How better to resolve this paradox than whipping up fear and paranoia?

Meanwhile, in Gaza, there is widespread skepticism that the PA's bid for independence will bring positive change. Mohammed Rabah Suliman, a 21 year old Palestinian student and blogger, writes eloquently from Gaza that his generation, especially, "does not seek more UN resolutions and international declarations. Not even a declaration of a state. A state itself is rather what we desire. A state that we can touch, see and live in. We long for the reunification of the more than 11 million Palestinians living in the world. We want to see facts on the ground and tangible results. We crave for the land which has been relentlessly ripped apart in flagrant violation of dozens of resolutions already passed — and then promptly ignored — by the very same UN to which the PA now turns." http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinian-youth-gaza-skeptical-about-pas-un-bid/10284

Palestinian Americans, too, have called on their allies everywhere to reject the PA's plan. "In recent months, a consensus has emerged among Palestinian experts and organizations that the UN statehood bid is useless at best, and highly damaging to Palestinian rights at worst":
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/palestinian-americans-unequivocally-reject-pas-un-statehood-bid

Controversy and dissent are to be expected around such a central issue of peace and human rights. But when both supporters and deniers of justice for Palestinians agree for opposite reasons, how should Friends respond?

Certainly we must speak out. But rather than responding with exasperation, confusion, worry, or worst-case scenarios, what if we focused solely on the positive? If you're in favor of UN recognition of a Palestinian state, what good things might come from that -- for both sides? Are you passionate about a one-state solution? What could that look like for all its new citizens? What positive changes in the larger, global order would address the suffering of Palestinians as well as the concerns of Israelis whose social system is collapsing around them? What could the region look like in ten or fifteen years if the peace you envision were achieved?

Focus on the light,

Helen Fox
Convener, Palestine Israel Action Group
Ann Arbor Friends Meeting

LETTER OF SOLIDARITY

Dear Friends,

PIAG's Dispatch for August is devoted to a message that was
meticulously stenciled in large letters on three kilometers of the
"separation wall" between Israel and the West Bank. The "open
letter," written and read aloud on YouTube by South African
theologian Farid Esack, is a beautiful statement of solidarity
between South Africans who lived through apartheid and the
Palestinian people today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1skU_nVaMl8

Esack speaks of the similarities between Palestinians and black South Africans during the South African struggle for independence, but points out that the oppression of Palestinians is worse:

White South Africa did of course seek to control Blacks. However it never tried to deny Black people their very existences or to wish them away completely as we see here. We have not experienced military occupation without any rights for the occupied. We were spared the barbaric and diverse forms of collective punishment in the forms of house demolitions, the destruction of orchards belonging to relatives of suspected freedom fighters, or the physical transfer of these relatives themselves. South Africa's apartheid courts never legitimized torture. White South Africans were never given a carte blanche to humiliate Black South Africans as the Settlers here seem to have. The craziest Apartheid zealots would never have dreamt of something as macabre as this Wall. The Apartheid police never used kids as shields in any of their operations. Nor did the apartheid army ever use gunships and bombs against largely civilian targets. In South Africa the Whites were a stable community and after centuries simply had to come to terms with Black people. (Even if it were only because of their economic dependence on Black people.) The Zionist idea of Israel as the place for the ingathering for all the Jews – old and new, converts, reverts and reborn is a deeply problematic one. In such a case there is no sense of compulsion to reach out to your neighbour. The idea seems to be to get rid of the old neighbours – ethnic cleansing - and to bring in new ones all the time.

Esack's letter also touches on profound general questions such as
the nature of morality, the limits to objectivity in situations of
oppression, the irony of resisting evil when it is considered
unfashionable, and why Palestinian liberation represents the
"unfinished business" of South Africa's struggle for a moral society.

If you would like to read or keep the text, it can be found here, on
the site of Jewish Peace News:
http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com/2009/04/farid-esacks-open-letter-is-inscribed.html

Speak out,
Helen Fox
Convener, Palestine Israel Action Group (PIAG)
Ann Arbor Friends Meeting
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Flotilla II

PIAG’s dispatch for July follows the fate of the second Freedom Flotilla to Gaza that is (today, July 5) languishing in the port of Athens, prohibited from sailing out of the harbor by Greek authorities on the dubious premise that the eight ships carrying humanitarian cargo and well-wishes from friends around the world, are “not seaworthy.”

One of the 320 activists from 22 countries who have booked passage on the flotilla is the novelist and poet, Alice Walker. She writes: “Our boat, The Audacity of Hope, will be carrying letters to the people of Gaza. Letters expressing solidarity and love. That is all its cargo will consist of.

If the Israeli military attacks us, it will be as if they attacked the mailman. This should go down hilariously in the annals of history. But if they insist on attacking us, wounding us, even murdering us, as they did some of the activists in the last flotilla, Freedom Flotilla I, what is to be done?” http://alicewalkersgarden.com/blog/

Alice Walker’s solidarity with the Palestinian people arises from her conviction that Palestinians are facing the same kinds of racist violence that her grandparents suffered in the U.S South two generations ago. In sailing on the Audacity of Hope, she is “paying off a debt to the Jewish civil rights activists who faced death to come to the side of black people in the South in our time of need.”

Israel's right wing government has gone to great lengths to stop the flotilla and to convince ordinary Israelis that the ships pose a grave danger to the state. Israeli news has been filled with fear mongering and lies: that the flotilla is a serious threat to Israel’s security; that the ships are full of terrorists; that the Palestinians are doing splendidly without humanitarian assistance, and so on. Writing in Ha’aretz, columnist Gideon Levy – one of the few voices of calm – reflects that Israel has become “a society of force and violence,” both in its actions and its rhetoric. Simply describing the flotilla passengers as “social activists and fighters for peace and justice” is difficult, Levy writes, “since they have already been described as thugs.” The media and government have employed “all the buzzwords: danger, chemical substances, hand-to-hand combat, Muslims, Turks, Arabs, terrorists and maybe some suicide bombers.” This is a recurring pattern, Levy says, “first demonization, then legitimization (to act violently).” http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-has-become-a-society-of-force-and-violence-1.370407

In addition to its disinformation campaign, Israel seems to have sabotaged at least one of the ships in the flotilla. Apparently, divers cut a piece out of the propeller shaft of the Irish vessel, an act that would have caused the ship to sink, had it not been discovered in time. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0630/1224299796875.html

In a message sent to news editors around the world, Israel’s Government Press Office warned international journalists to stay away from the flotilla, lest they be banned from entering Israel for up to ten years, a threat that even Israel’s Foreign Press Association called “a chilling message to the international media,” that raises “serious questions about Israel’s commitment to freedom of the press.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/world/middleeast/27israel.html?scp=1&sq=journalists%20gaza%20flotilla&st=cse

The U.S. government, too, has spoken out against the flotilla, calling the nonviolent action “unhelpful,” “unnecessary,” and a “provocation” to the Israeli military, despite the fact that Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal according to international law. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/06/166868.htm

Most recently, the Greek government, which is in no position to defy powerful countries that might help save its floundering economy, has refused to let any of the ships docked at the port of Athens to leave the harbor.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/07/201172143643709749.html

Why does such an innocuous mission so disturb the Israeli government and its allies in the Obama administration? Is nonviolent resistance so powerful that it can strike fear into two nuclear armed nations? Apparently so.

In “Waiting for Godot on the Gaza Flotilla,” Mark Levine writes that the political and strategic implications of the unarmed flotilla are quite real. “They symbolize that Palestinians and their international supporters are refusing to play by Israel's rules, and are forcing the Israeli state to reveal the basic, ugly immorality of an occupation that has always presented itself as a necessary if unfortunate act of self-defense. In short, the flotilla constitutes a provocation, a declaration to Israel that it does not own every aspect of Palestinian existence and that Palestinians too have their international supporters who, if not as militarily and financially powerful as the U.S. government and the various arms of the Israel lobby, are coming into their own as a force to be reckoned with. . . And for Israel, losing power over Palestinians would mean not merely the end of the occupation, but the end of Israel as an ethnocentric Jewish state . . .” http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/201163012414324986.html

All this drama reminds me of the outrage that George Fox incurred with his simple act of refusal to take off his hat in the 17th century courtroom to the judge -- or in fact, “to any, high or low.” “Oh, the rage and scorn, the heat and fury that arose!” he writes. “Oh the blows, punchings, beatings, and imprisonments that we underwent for not putting off our hats to men!” Jessamyn West explains in her preface to The Quaker Reader: “The dangerous principle [a judge] sees – and fears – is . . . that of the individual who dares question the authority of the state over the person.”

As Alice Walker waits in Athens for the outcome of this small, yet weighty challenge to the violence of the state, she writes to the people of Gaza – and to us:

The whole world
is watching
Gaza
& it is
wondering how
things
will
turn out.

They are making
it hard
for us to move
Gaza
& sometimes
we are
in despair
but I remind
us
that you
of all people
understand
obstruction.

They know this place
we are in, I say,

of not
being able to move.
They know it
intimately.
This place of stalemate
& stagnation, so unbearable
to any heart
that’s free
is where they
hourly
live.

They will forgive
us
if we do not
arrive
on time.

© Alice Walker, from “Sailing the Hot Streets of Athens, Greece.”
http://alicewalkersgarden.com/blog/

PIAG'S DISPATCH FOR JUNE

PIAG's Dispatch for June comments on the recent speeches by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama on current prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Much has been made of their differences: Obama believes that Israeli withdrawl to the "green line" with mutually agreed-upon land swaps is fair, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144336 while Netanyahu insists that "Israel will not return to the indefensible lines of 1967." http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/05/24/full-text-of-netanyahu-speech-to-congress/ Obama's speech was a bit more inclusive, acknowledging, at least, that both sides have greviences, and that each will have to make compromises.

However, as Uri Avnery, former member of Israel's Knesset remarks, "Netanyahu's message could be summed up in one word: NO. NO return to the 1967 borders. NO Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. NO to even a symbolic return of some refugees. NO military withdrawal from the Jordan River - meaning that the future Palestinian state would be completely surrounded by the Israeli armed forces. NO negotiation with a Palestinian government "supported" by Hamas, even if there are no Hamas members in the government itself. And so on – NO. NO. NO." http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1306359471/

For Quakers, perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Netanyahu's words is the premise of Israeli exceptionalism that underlies his demands. In his speech to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) Netanyahu reminded his admiring audience that "Israeli innovators help power computers, fight disease, conserve water, and clean the planet." Democracy was a Jewish invention, he told them. Israel has made paraplegics walk and is working on a cure for cancer. Israel has invested more than $50 billion in the US, bringing business, jobs, medicine, food -- even Hummus -- to the American people.

On the other hand (according to Netanyahu), Israel's neighbors have nothing to recommend them except perhaps their longing for Israeli-style freedom and democracy. They do not allow women to drive. They imprison journalists. They bomb churches. They contain a young Israeli soldier in a dark dungeon without even a visit from the Red Cross. They refuse to accept the Jewish state.

In short, "Israel is not what's wrong with the Middle East. Israel is what's right about the Middle East." Since Israel always does exceptional good in the world, and since it can always be trusted to be on the side of the righteous, Israel deserves our exceptional support.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/05/24/full-text-of-netanyahu-speech-to-aipac/

But Quakerism -- and indeed, the U.S. itself -- was founded on a different premise: that all people, not just the "exceptional" people, deserve the blessings of justice, compassion, understanding, and equality. Everyone deserves a fair hearing. Everyone's security is vital to peace. Since there is "that of God" in everyone, claims of inherent superiority cannot be assumed in settling disagreements - or at any other time.

Fortunately, Netanyahu does not speak for all Israelis, much less all Jews. According to Juan Cole, a slight majority of Israelis preferred Obama's speech to Nethanyahu's. http://www.juancole.com/2011/05/israelis-support-obama-over-bibi.html

And Jewish Voice for Peace called for grassroots action to counter the "shocking" 29 standing ovations that the U.S. Congress gave to Netanyahu's address. http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/blog/take-action-no-applause-for-netanyahu

Add your voice. Work for peace with justice.

A New Political Landscape

PIAG's Dispatch for May celebrates the easing of Gaza's long isolation, and the empowerment of the people in the region to not only bring greater equality and justice to their own countries, but to their neighbors as well.

Last week the rival factions of Fatah (in the West Bank) and Hamas (in Gaza) reached an agreement to share power -- a deal sponsored by the new, interim Egyptian government that took power after the country's (mostly) nonviolent revolution. Kieron Monks writes in Al Jazeera, "Riding the crest of its own wave, Egypt is a good ally [for Palestinians] to have at the moment. [Egypt's] status is restored as the Arab world's most powerful voice, and the Palestinian issue has assumed priority status surprisingly quickly after the revolution. A new attitude to the conflict is developing, exemplified by new foreign minister Nabil el-Arabi's recent statement: "It is time to stop managing the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, it's time to end it."

What's especially interesting about the shifting balance of power is that Egypt no longer feels any obligation to provide preferential trade agreements with Israel, including "gas deals worth US$700 million more than the current contract. Egyptian politicians have been publicly asserting that they are under no obligation to maintain this disadvantageous agreement, and with the urgent need to introduce a minimum wage, welfare and greater social equality, the country cannot afford it. Should Israel's most essential imports be threatened, that vulnerability will strengthen the Palestinians' hand."
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/201154141251179755.html

As if to celebrate the new political landscape, the New York Times reports, "Daniel Barenboim, the Israeli conductor, led an orchestra of two dozen elite musicians - volunteers from the Berlin Philharmonic, the Berlin Staatskapelle, the Orchestra of La Scala in Milan, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris - into Gaza on Tuesday. They played, on a makeshift stage, with obvious emotion and exceptionally well, before an invited audience of several hundred that rose to cheer not just afterward but also from the moment the players walked into the hall. Organized under the auspices of the United Nations, the free concert . . . demonstrated the volcanic changes overtaking this region. Just weeks ago such an enterprise would have been unthinkable. Gaza's borders with Egypt and Israel were shut tight. But the concert came amid talk by the new authorities in Egypt about permanently reopening the border crossing at Rafah; and at the same time as an Egyptian-brokered pact between Hamas and Fatah - the Palestinian faction heading the West Bank - which promises further easing of Gaza's longtime isolation. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/arts/music/daniel-barenboim-the-israeli-conductor-in-gaza.html?_r=1

All power to the people.
Helen Fox
Convener, Palestine Israel Action Group
Ann Arbor Friends Meeting

GOLDSTONE'S REPORT AND "RETRACTION"

PIAG's Dispatch for April discusses the confusing and contradictory comments made by Judge Richard Goldstone about his own 2009 report to the UN Human Rights Council on abuses by Israel and Hamas during Israel's siege on Gaza.

In 2009, the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict headed by Judge Goldstone http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf reported, among other findings, that Israel had committed human rights abuses and possible war crimes during "Operation Cast Lead," including indiscriminate and/or deliberate attacks on the civilian population, purposeful destruction of infrastructure, and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. The report was condemned by Israel as "biased," and discussion of its findings was largely suppressed in the US media.

Now, Judge Goldstone has entered a retraction of sorts, saying in a Washington Post op-ed that his report would have looked different if Israel had been cooperative and allowed his committee access to information during its fact-finding mission. Now that Israel has conducted its own investigation, he says, it appears that what looked like war crimes were simply unintended consequences. And Hamas has not conducted any investigation of its own behavior at all.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/reconsidering-the-goldstone-report-on-israel-and-war-crimes/2011/04/01/AFg111JC_story.html

Former AFSC Program Director in Israel/Palestine, Adam Horowitz, finds Goldstone's remarks "confusing" at best. While it is true that Hamas has not conducted a credible investigation by independent experts as the Goldstone Report recommends, neither has Israel. How credible is a country's investigation of its own military's behavior, he wonders. In an incident where IDF soldiers used a Palestinian child as a human shield, Israel's report explained that the soldiers involved were probably fatigued, and that "they had done nothing to degrade or humiliate the boy." The soldiers involved in the crime were sentenced to the minimum -- three months and a demotion. Part of the problem, Horowitz says, is that the Israeli investigators were part of the same office that would be responsible for providing legal counsel to the IDF's Chief of Staff and other top military brass. Judge Goldstone had pointed out this uncomfortable conflict of interest in his report, yet he ignored the issue in his recent retraction. Why?
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/04/goldstone-op-ed-praises-israeli-investigation-of-gaza-war-crimes-but-un-committee-paints-a-different-picture.html

Meanwhile, amid this flurry of reports and counter-reports, the IDF's recruitment to racist violence continues. Ha'arez reports that Israeli twelfth-grade students took part in a simulated shooting attack in which the targets were figures decked out with the Arab keffiyeh headdress. The incident took place at a military base last week during the annual senior class trip. The students were being escorted to a commanders' base in the Negev as part of an "IDF preparation" project, which is sanctioned by the Education Ministry. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/students-on-trip-to-idf-base-simulated-shooting-targets-with-arab-headdress-1.353728

Work for a saner world,
Helen Fox
Convener, Palestine Israel Action Group
Ann Arbor Friends Meeting
---------------------------------------------------------------

QUAKER WEBSITES AND BLOGS on Palestine/Israel:

1. QUAKERPI www.quakerpi.org is the national website for Quakers interested in PI issues. It is maintained by Anne and Fred Remley in Ann Arbor, Donna Schumann in Olympia, WA, and Roger Conant in Mt. Toby, MA. It is the most comprehensive of these sites.

2. PIAG'S BLOG www.quakerpiag.blogspot.com/ is a site where I post these dispatches and PI articles from time to time. This site allows responses from the public. Please comment!

3. PIAG's own web page www.quaker.org/piag/ represents much of the work PIAG has done over the past three or four years.

4. In addition, PIAG maintains a presence on the Michigan Peace Network site http://www.michiganpeacenetwork.org/ Many of our educational materials appear in their "Resources" section.

More reactions from Israel and Palestine on the Middle East Uprisings

PIAG's Dispatch for March continues our report on the reactions of Israelis and Palestinians to the uprisings for democracy in the Middle East.

Israeli columnist and former Knesset member Uri Avnery writes, “among ordinary Israelis, there was quite a lot of spontaneous sympathy for the Egyptians confronting their tormentors in Tahrir Square . . .” Yet “even in the few halfway intelligent talk shows, there was much hilarity about the idea that ‘Arabs’ could establish democracies. Learned professors and media commentators 'proved' that such a thing just could not happen – Islam was ‘by nature’ anti-democratic and backward, Arab societies lacked the Protestant Christian ethic necessary for democracy, or the capitalist foundations for a sound middle class, etc. At best, one kind of despotism would be replaced by another.”

The most common conclusion among Israeli pundits, Avnery continues, “was that democratic elections would inevitably lead to the victory of ‘Islamist’ fanatics, who would set up brutal Taliban-style theocracies, or worse. Part of this, of course, is deliberate propaganda designed to convince the naïve Americans and Europeans that they must shore up the Mubaraks of the region or alternative military strongmen. But most of it was quite sincere: most Israelis really believe that the Arabs, left to their own devices, will set up murderous ‘Islamist’ regimes, whose main aim would be to wipe Israel off the map.”

Yet within all this fear and uncertainty, Avnery sees political and moral opportunity: “When entire peoples rise up and revolution upsets all entrenched attitudes, there is the possibility of changing old ideas. If Israeli political and intellectual leaders were to stand up today and openly declare their solidarity with the Arab masses in their struggle for freedom, justice and dignity, they could plant a seed that would bear fruit in coming years.” http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/20110218154413928

Palestinian reaction to the events in the Arab world is a mixture of frustration, concern, hope, and pride. In a fascinating article, Hossam el-Hamalawy, an Egyptian journalist, writes that Palestine’s Second Intifada was the inspiration for the uprising in Egypt:

“The Egyptian revolution, rather than coming out of the blue on 25 January 2011, is a result of a process that has been brewing over the previous decade -- a chain reaction to the autumn 2000 protests in solidarity with the Palestinian intifada. . . Mubarak's iron-fist rule and the outbreak of the dirty war between the regime and Islamist militants in the 1990s meant the death of street dissent. Public gatherings and street protests were banned and if they did take place, confronted by force. Live ammunition was used on strikers. Trade unions were put under government control. Only after the Palestinian intifada broke out in September 2000 did tens of thousands of Egyptians take to the streets in protest -- probably for the first time since 1977. Although those demonstrations were in solidarity with the Palestinians, they soon gained an anti-regime dimension . . .” http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11838.shtml

The obvious, if often unspoken question on everyone’s mind is whether the popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Morocco, and other countries in the region will embolden the Palestinians to rise up again. Reserve Brigadier General Michael Herzog warns in Ha’aretz of a “tremendous earthquake shaking our region. . . Where will the popular revolutionary energy released in our region lead? Israel should take into account that this energy, now directed inward, will at some point be directed at it as well. In the Arab street, there is deep empathy for the Palestinians. . . This is especially true during a protracted diplomatic stalemate. Moreover, because of the stalemate, with the banner of liberty raised in our region, the Palestinian public could embark on a popular anti-Israeli uprising. Israel would then face a difficult test, against the background of serious diplomatic isolation and the wave of international recognition of Palestinian aspirations for statehood.” http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-must-bear-in-mind-that-the-revolutionary-energy-will-hit-it-as-well-1.346132

Egypt, Israel and Palestine

PIAG's Dispatch for February reports on Israeli reaction to the pro-democracy uprising in Egypt, and on concerns from Palestinians and US liberals about the new government that might come to power.

ISRAELIS
Israelis are concerned that in calling for Mubarak to preside over an orderly transition, the US has abandoned its staunch ally in the Middle East. An opinion piece by Aviad Pohoryles entitled "A Bullet in the Back from Uncle Sam" accused Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of pursuing "a naive, smug, and insular diplomacy heedless of the risks." Who is advising them, he asked, "to fuel the mob raging in the streets of Egypt and to demand the head of the person who five minutes ago was the bold ally of the president ... an almost lone voice of sanity in the Middle East? The politically correct diplomacy of American presidents throughout the generations ... is painfully naive."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/31/us-egypt-israel-usa-idUSTRE70U53720110131

PALESTINIANS
While the small and tentative concessions offered by the Mubarak regime might signal progress to some, Palestinians and their allies have serious concerns that the new Vice President, Omar Suleiman, has been a willing accomplice in the repression of the Palestinians. According to secret documents leaked to Al Jazeera -- the Palestine Papers http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestine-papers -- the Mubarak regime, with Suleiman as its point person, has played a key role in dividing Palestinian factions, pressing the Palestinians for unprecedented concessions during the recent peace process, and sealing the Egyptian border during the Gaza War, trapping 450,000 Palestinians and resulting in the death of 1500, most of them civilians. http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/20112512042978473.html

US LIBERALS
As the Muslim Brotherhood emerges as one of the leaders working to resolve the standoff in Tahrir Square, some Americans who support the Egyptian people's uprising have expressed concern that free and fair elections could result in a fundamentalist religious state, much like Iran after the uprising against the Shah in 1979. Juan Cole, a Middle East historian at the University of Michigan, explains why this analogy is incorrect. Although the Muslim Brotherhood developed a terrorist wing in the 1940s, that faction was quashed by both the government and the Muslim Brotherhood itself. In addition, secular opposition groups in Egypt are strong, and all favor human rights and parliamentary democracy.
http://www.juancole.com/2011/02/why-egypt-2011-is-not-iran-1979.html

PIAG urges readers to take *one* action this week to support the courageous demonstrators in Tahrir Square or to advise the Obama administration to take a stronger stance against the dictatorship. A talking point: Every day the U.S. buys nearly $3 million worth of armaments from U.S. companies to aid Mubarak's police state. Tear gas canisters thrown at Egyptian demonstrators last week read, "Made the U.S.A." Is this the way to "keep the peace" in the Middle East?

Conflict Transformation in Israel Palestine

The New Year suggests the need for new thinking. The Israeli Palestinian conflict seems so entrenched, so hopeless, that it might be well to step back and consider what peace-builders with experience in other “intractable” conflicts can teach us.

John Paul Lederach, a professor in the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University and a trainer and consultant for peace-builders in many conflict-ridden countries, tells us that the most significant challenges in peace-building are the result of three critical factors: first, who talks to whom in behind-the-scenes dialogue; second, how deeply the issues of structural injustice are considered in the peace negotiations; and third, how long the process of conflict transformation is carried on after “peace accords” are finally set in place. Each of these factors is important to consider as we search for ways for Quakers to get involved in a lasting peace-building process.

1. Who talks to whom? Most conflict resolution work involves bringing people together across enemy lines for negotiation, dialogue and/or mediation. But most of the time, people meet others of relatively equal status: top-level politicians and military leaders meet their counterparts; mid-level religious leaders, academics, and heads of NGOs meet others like themselves; and community people meet other community folks as they hear each each other's concerns and hopes, enjoy meals together, and “refuse to be enemies.” The trouble is that political leaders don’t have the benefit of personal dialogue with ordinary people; NGO heads don’t get to discuss their concerns with the military; community people aren’t invited to academic conferences, and so on. Building these kinds of vertical relationships of respect and understanding are critical, especially in efforts to end protracted, violent conflict. Dialogue must go on at all levels, both within equal status groups and between them. Peace-building is an organic system that requires attention to all its channels of communication, not just among people whose interests and points of view are similar. In Northern Ireland, Quakers conducted dialogues with and between politicians in confidential settings that were critical to the emerging peace process.

2. How to address the “justice gap”? Lederach points out that people take up direct, physical violence when they are trying to address perceived injustice at economic, social, cultural, and/or political levels. As the conflict escalates, the direct violence eventually reaches a saturation point. People get fed up with killing each other when they realize that the physical violence has made them worse off than they were before. At this point, peace negotiations begin. However, these talks, and the “peace accords” that eventually follow, rarely address the structural issues that started the conflict in the first place. In the case of the Palestinians, the obvious structural injustice is land, or the right of return, but it also includes the economic gap between Palestinians and Israelis, and the discriminatory attitudes of many Israelis toward their Palestinian neighbors. Even if land claims are one day settled, the income disparities and the racism that so often justifies them must be squarely addressed.

3. How can relationships be transformed after “peace breaks out”? Former combatants too often see peace accords as an “end-game,” without paying sufficient attention to long-term community building and reconciliation. The term, “conflict transformation” suggests that the relationships between groups must be fundamentally reconfigured for peace to be lasting. Relationship-building means that people on both sides must be adaptable, vigilant, and willing to change. Conflict transformation requires support infrastructure that enhances people’s capacity to respond to relational needs, rather than being limited by static events and legal agreements. Regardless of whether the Israelis and the Palestinians settle for a two-state or a one-state solution, they will need to develop relationships that respect and value each other as neighbors and/or fellow citizens. It can’t be done? Just look at Europe -- at each other's throats in two world wars, and before that, centuries of violent conflict. Now we have the European Union.

What roles do Lederach’s insights suggest for Quakers? In our efforts to help resolve the IP conflict, we should not dwell solely on ending the Occupation, pressing for an end to settlement construction, or using the power of nonviolence to force both sides to the bargaining table. While these efforts are important and necessary, they leave out the three crucial areas of conflict resolution and transformation described above. Can Quakers find ways to address the relationship-building necessary in the region, and the political and economic power imbalance at the global level that so often leaves “free” people struggling with poverty, despair, and interpersonal violence?

Work for peace -- with justice, dialogue, and respect,
Helen Fox
Convener, Palestine Israel Action Group
Ann Arbor Friends Meeting

The "peace process"

PIAG's dispatch for December reports on the status of the Israeli Palestinian peace process, and comments on some suggested solutions to the current impasse.

A bit of background: The Obama administration has been trying all year to bring both sides to the negotiating table, but Palestinians have refused to talk as long as Israel allows the construction of illegal, "Jewish-only" settlements to continue unabated. To understand why the settlement issue is so critical to Palestinians, see PIAG's map cards http://www.fosna.org/content/mapcards which detail the loss of Palestinian lands to Israel since 1948.

To encourage Israel to agree to at least a three-month settlement freeze, the Obama administration recently came up with a bright idea: the US would sell Israel $3 billion worth of fighter jets and veto any anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/15/AR2010111506596.html

PIAG wonders why the Obama administration believes that weapons of war will promote the atmosphere of trust that is so necessary for peace talks to succeed. Is this a blatant "bribe," as some columnists claim? Or does the US really think that a conflict of this magnitude and depth can be solved by threat and intimidation?

Neve Gordon, professor of political science at Israel’s Ben Gurion University bluntly comments on Obama's offer: "Imagine a sheriff offering the head of a criminal gang the following deal: ‘If you agree to stop stealing from your neighbours for three months, I’ll give you cutting edge weaponry and block any efforts by other law enforcement authorities to restrain your criminal activities.’ http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2010/11/15/neve-gordon/one-sided-deal/

If this is the best that the U.S. can come up with, we might think what’s needed are some new ideas. But so many good ones have already have been proposed. The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA) has published a collection of a dozen proposed solutions by Palestinian and Israeli authors: http://www.passia.org/ The U.S.-based J Street has come up with a “borders and security first” approach: http://www.jstreet.org/ And Yuval Rabin, son of assassinated Israeli prime minister Itzak Rabin, crafted a peace plan that he believes will "minimize the impact of the spoilers." http://bitterlemons-api.org/inside.php?id=5

But Jeff Halper, who has studied the conflict for decades, says it is relatively easy to come up with proposals that incorporate all seven elements that are critical for a just and lasting peace: the terms must be inclusive of both peoples, allow each their national expression, provide economic viability to all parties, be based on human rights, international law and UN declarations, squarely address the right of return, be regional in scope (rather than limited to Palestine and Israel), and address the security concerns of both sides. Any number of solutions that include these elements would be viable. The problem, Halper says, is that Israel will never agree to end its Occupation: “There will be no negotiated settlement, period.” While PIAG is not quite that pessimistic, we note that signs do point in that direction.

So how will the conflict be resolved? The Palestinians, fragmented and suffering from weak leadership, are unlikely to organize strong, non-violent tactics that could break the deadlock. Nor can the international community force Israel’s right wing government to bargain in good faith, given the unshakable, "pro-Israel" position of the U.S. Congress. Yet Halper believes that as early as next year, something will happen to break the impasse, creating a context in which a just peace is possible.

This "game-changing break" could come in the form of a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinian Authority along the 1949 armistice lines – unlikely, Halper thinks, because of the leadership vacuum. The other possibility Halper sees is the resignation or complete collapse of the Palestinian Authority. If that happens, Israel, not wanting Hamas to gain control over the West Bank, would use its military might to re-take all of the Territories, and then be obliged under international law “to economically support four million impoverished Palestinians with no economic infrastructure whatsoever,” an impossible burden. Strangely enough, this nightmare scenario would put Palestinians and their supporters into the driver's seat, especially if the international community intentionally refrains from providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, who would inevitably suffer in the violence and chaos of the re-Occupation. http://www.middleastpost.com/2523/palestine-2011-jeff-halper/

As Quakers, we view this scenario with alarm. While a game-changer is surely necessary to break the stalemate, urging an even greater disaster onto the Palestinian people is neither moral nor pragmatic. Even if Israel were forced to negotiate on Palestinian terms to avoid its own economic collapse, we do not see how the resulting "peace agreement" would promote justice, security, or economic cooperation, not to mention reconciliation.

PIAG urges you to speak out before the situation degenerates further. Visiting members of Congress, appealing to FCNL to lobby on Capitol Hill, writing letters to the editor, joining the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, vigiling, educating, all are principled ways to insist that peace is possible.

The arts, religion, and culture

As the stalemate in the peace talks continues, with the Israelis refusing to stop settlement construction, the Palestinians refusing to talk until the theft of land and resources is halted, and the Americans preoccupied with November elections, PIAG’S dispatch for November reports on issues in the arts, religion, and culture.

CULTURAL PRESERVATION
In Gaza, concern is mounting over the difficulty in preserving important archeological sites and artifacts, as Israel continues to ban materials that Palestinian curators need to pursue their scientific work. Indiscriminate bombing during the seige of Gaza has also threatened sites important to Palestinian history and the world storehouse of cultures: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11588.shtml

CULTURAL CONFUSION
Journalist Ali Abunimah expresses his frustration with Barack Obama, who had no qualms about wearing the religiously mandated head convering when visiting Israel's Wailing Wall, but has turned down an invitation to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, a site sacred to Sikhs, on the grounds that the required head covering would make him look like a Muslim. Of course, Sikhs are not Muslims, but Americans have been known to confuse the two, perhaps because Sikh turbans remind them of Hollywood depictions of Arabs in film: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-223210418534585840# While Abunimah's anger at Obama over this issue may seem petty, it reminds us of the danger, both physical and political, of U.S. Islamophobia, and the willingness of many Americans to downplay or excuse our own or our allies' aggression against Muslims.
http://aliabunimah.posterous.com/obama-expands-his-islamophobia-to-include-sik#more

CULTURAL BOYCOTT AS NONVIOLENT TECHNIQUE
Palestinians have called on the international community to engage in a cultural and academic boycott of Israeli artists and intellectuals whenever and wherever they appear abroad: http://usacbi.wordpress.com/ In Ann Arbor last month, a group of activists joined this international effort by protesting the Jeruselem Quartet at Rackham Auditorium: http://www.annarbor.com/community/neighborhoods/um_campus/two_groups_merge_to_protest_jersusalem_quartet/
While it may seem unfair to target a small group of Israeli musicians who themselves may have qualms about their government's actions, boycotts of academic and cultural institutions are time-tested nonviolent techniques that exert political pressure on oppressive regimes, and are especially effective against countries that attempt to project a benevolent, cultured image, in contrast to their targets, who, they claim, are unworthy or of no consequence.