[Peace-discuss] Forum in Daily Illini

[Green, David]

The following piece appeared in the Daily Illini today, Friday, in response
to a semester-long discourse:

Conflicting versions

David Green

The tension that many Jewish students feel on college campuses reflects the
conflicting narratives of Israelis and Palestinians and a growing general
awareness of Palestinian grievances. But it also reflects a buried conflict
within Jewish-American culture, between liberal Judaism's support for human
rights and social justice, and Zionism's historical reaction against
enlightenment values in favor a Jewish version of ethnic nationalism. This
turn is highlighted by institutionalized discrimination against Palestinian
citizens of the Jewish state, and by the imposition of apartheid in the
occupied territories.

         The latter process had its origins in Jewish settlement well before
the Oslo accords of 1993. It increased in intensity with closure and
economic strangulation well before the first suicide bombing, and is
culminating with the "separation wall" within Palestinian territory. Nobody
who has carefully studied this history takes seriously the notion that
Israeli policies are driven by the need for security.

Beginning in the 1970s, Israelis leaders-with the support of American
leaders-rejected Palestinian initiatives for a just two-state solution along
the lines of 1967 borders, along with the international consensus that
supported such proposals. Israeli leaders' commitment to colonization
proceeds with full awareness of the inevitable sacrifice of hundreds of
Jewish lives and thousands of Palestinian lives.

	As Jewish-Americans, we support Israel with our tax dollars, private
contributions, and institutional ideologies. We are also instructed by some
leaders of our mainstream institutions to support the neoconservative "war
on terrorism," by which the U.S. policy to rule the world by force is tied
to Israel's domination of the Palestinians and the region. Thus Jews
retaining enough discernment to oppose the invasion of Iraq were warned of
"anti-Semitism" within the anti-war movement, meaning that those who opposed
the war made the obvious connection between American and Israeli
policies--albeit with a clear understanding that the Israeli tail does not
wag the American dog. While there has never been a greater affinity between
a U.S. administration and extreme right-wing Israeli policies, leaders of
Jewish institutions express their "moderate" views by muting criticism of
Sharon, demonizing Arafat, and disregarding the "regrettable" everyday
brutality of the occupation.

	Jewish-American support for American and Israeli policies also
implies ignorance of or consent to Israel's role as a willing international
ally for American-backed authoritarian and murderous regimes from South
Africa to Iran to Indonesia to Latin America, ad nauseum. Israel sold arms
to the Neo-Nazi generals of Argentina while Jews were being imprisoned and
disappeared in large numbers, proving that beyond crass exploitation of the
Holocaust, attention to Jewish suffering can be selective when political
expediency demands it.

       Many Israeli Jews are appalled by a culture of militarism. They
assert that Israel is no longer a country with an army, but "an army with a
country." That American Jews generally know little or nothing of such
debates reflects the biases of the mainstream media and our institutional
media, and an unwillingness to explore serious journalistic and scholarly
sources.

	In this context, it is not surprising that illuminating efforts by
DI columnists are met with unsupported assertions, accusations, and
non-sequiturs. Within the organized Jewish community, the choices of Jewish
students are to adhere to the party line or remain silent. In politically
civilized society, alternatives present themselves to those concerned with
perpetuating our best ethical traditions.


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