[Peace-discuss] Forum in Daily Illini

[Ricky Baldwin]

Wow!  Go get 'em, Dave!

Ricky
--- "Green, David" <dlgreen at uillinois.edu> wrote:
> 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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