[Peace-discuss] Two items

[David Green]

Subject: Student President of Hillel Chapter at U. of
Richmond Is 
Ousted After Criticizing Israeli Embassy

Chronicle of Higher Education
Wednesday, May 5, 2004
Student President of Hillel Chapter at U. of Richmond
Is Ousted After
Criticizing Israeli Embassy
By ERIC HOOVER

The organization that sponsors the University of
Richmond's Hillel
chapter removed the group's student president this
semester after she
sent a critical e-mail message to the Israeli Embassy,
in Washington.
Jilian R. Redford, a junior, had served as the Hillel
chapter's
president since the beginning of the fall semester. On
February 12,
after receiving an e-mail message from the Israeli
Embassy's office of
academic affairs, Ms. Redford wrote in a response:
"Could you please
stop sending me email after email about radical
zionist propaganda?"
In the message, a copy of which she gave to The
Chronicle, Ms. Redford
continued, "I don't know if you realize that Hillel's
mission statement
is based on fostering religious life on college
campuses and not
organizing marches, protests, or listening to speakers
who encourage us
to hate our Palestinian neighbors."
She also asked to be removed from the embassy's e-mail
list.
In an interview on Tuesday, Ms. Redford said that the
next day she was
summoned to the Weinstein Jewish Community Center -- a
Richmond-based
organization that oversees the university's Hillel
chapter -- to 
discuss
the e-mail message, which the embassy had forwarded to
officials at the
center
In a meeting, two staff members of the center asked
Ms. Redford to
apologize to the embassy, but she refused to do so,
according to both
Ms. Redford and Lisa Looney, the center's director of
university 
services.
Ms. Redford said that during the meeting Ms. Looney
and another staff
member told her that the embassy had demanded her
ouster. She said that
she was "grilled" about her opinions on Israeli
policies, and also that
one of the two staff members mentioned that Ms.
Redford, who had been
raised as a Southern Baptist, had converted to Judaism
only after 
coming
to the university.
But Ms. Looney disputed those assertions.
"The embassy had absolutely, unequivocally nothing to
do with the
decision," Ms. Looney said in an interview.
"Her political views never came up" during the
meeting, Ms. Looney 
said.
"All I wanted to see happen was for her to apologize
for the tone of 
her
letter, not the content." She said she had had a good
working
relationship with Ms. Redford before the incident.
Ms. Looney said that if Ms. Redford had not included
her title in her
e-mail message to the embassy, the center's staff
would not have
objected to it.
In a February 18 letter to Ms. Redford, Orly Lewis,
the center's
director of adult services, suggested that Ms.
Redford's goals were "in
conflict" with those of Hillel. "While all of us are
entitled to our 
own
opinions, in this instance you are representing the
Hillel organization
and not yourself," Ms. Lewis wrote.
The letter also referred to Ms. Redford's refusal to
invite to a Hillel
event a speaker the center had mentioned earlier in
the semester. Ms.
Redford said she had told a staff member at the center
that the 
speaker,
a faculty member at Richmond, was a "racist."
After Ms. Redford again declined to apologize, Ms.
Looney informed her
of her dismissal in a letter, dated March 3, that
called Ms. Redford's
conduct "both unprofessional and disrespectful."
Ms. Redford said Tuesday that she had mixed feelings
about her ouster.
"It feels good not to be a part of an organization
like that," she 
said.
"After the way they treated me, it made me want to
completely distance
myself from them."
Richmond's Hillel chapter receives its financing from
the center.
Previously, the chapter did not have a clear policy
governing the
election and removal of student leaders, according to
Leonard S.
Goldberg, Richmond's vice president for student
affairs. But following
the incident, the university helped students and the
center draft 
bylaws.
"I questioned whether an outside organization should
be able to fire or
terminate a student leader," said Mr. Goldberg, who
met with staff
members of the center this spring to discuss the new
policy. "We had a
cordial conversation, but I made it quite clear that
we can't have an
outside organization removing students."
Officials at the Israeli Embassy did not return calls
requesting 
comment
on Tuesday. 



________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message: 12
   Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 13:15:07 EDT
   From: MichaelLevin11 at aol.com
Subject: EI's Ali Abunimah banned by JUF-Chicago

EI's Ali Abunimah banned by Chicago Zionist
organization
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 4 May 2004

A few weeks ago, I registered online for the 2004
Israel Solidarity Day 
featuring the Walk With Israel, sponsored by the
Jewish United Fund of 
Metropolitan Chicago (JUF). This is an annual rally
held by the major 
Chicago-area Zionist organizations to raise money for
Israel. I did 
this 
because I wanted to get on the JUF mailing list, then
forgot all about 
it.

I was very surprised when a few days before the 2 May
event I received 
a 
personal letter by certified mail from Mr. Jay Tcath,
the director of 
the 
Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish
United Fund of 
Metropolitan Chicago (could they have come up with a
longer name?).

Tcath wrote, "Your name is of course familiar to us as
a result of your 
frequent and visible public appearances and
statements, which manifest 
a 
strong anti-Israel hostility," and added, "we are thus
notifying you 
that 
we are not accepting your application for
registration. Should you 
nonetheless
decide to try and gain entry to our program, you will
be precluded from 
doing
so."

This is an extraordinary threat, because the "Walk
With Israel" is held 
in 
a public park. While private groups can get permits to
hold events on 
public property in Chicago, they cannot abolish the
public's 
constitutional 
right to free speech. But that is exactly what the JUF
has tried to do 
in 
the past.

At the 2001 Walk With Israel, I and one other person
staged a peaceful, 
silent presence on public property. We were subjected
to threats of 
violence, abuse and harassment, including being spat
upon, by marchers 
and 
by JUF security. We were also photographed and
followed by event 
officials.

You can read Jay Tcath's letter below, as well as my
response to it:


26 April letter from Jay Tcath to Ali Abunimah

The Jewish Community Relations Council
Jay Tcath's letter to Ali Abunimah. Click here for
enlargement
of The Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago
Ben Gurion Way
1 South Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois, 60606-4694
April 26, 2004, By registered mail
Mr. Ali Abunimah
1507 E. 53rd Street, #500
Chicago, IL 6061 5

Dear Mr. Abunimah:

We are in receipt of your on-line registration
application for the 2004 
Israel Solidarity Day featuring the Walk With Israel,
sponsored by the 
Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago.

Your name is of course familiar to us as a result of
your frequent and 
visible public appearances and statements, which
manifest a strong 
anti-Israel hostility. We know too that in the past
you have personally 
expressed such views by demonstrating on the very site
of these Walks 
for 
Israel.

We also know that you provided a false residential
telephone number in 
your 
application for registration (773-555-1212, which of
course is really 
the 
information exchange).

Israel Solidarity Day is a private event with the
purpose of 
demonstrating 
and rallying support for Israel. That is a purpose
that you have 
repeatedly 
demonstrated a sharp antipathy towards, and we are
thus notifying you 
that 
we are not accepting your application for
registration. Should you 
nonetheless decide to try and gain entry to our
program, you will be 
precluded from doing so.

Our community and our organization have worked long
and hard for peace 
and 
reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians and
are still hopeful 
that 
that dream may yet be fulfilled. It is clear that you
and we differ so 
much 
on both the tactics and the objectives of that search
for peace that it 
is 
best for all parties that we take this step.

Sincerely,
Jay Tcath
Director

4 May letter from Ali Abunimah to Jay Tcath

Mr. Jay Tcath, Director
Ali Abunimah's letter to Jay Tcath. Click here for
enlargement
The Jewish Community Relations Council
Of The Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago
1 South Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60606-4694
4 May 2004, By certified mail

Dear Mr. Tcath,

I am writing in response to your letter of 26 April,
which informed me 
that 
you had rejected my online registration for the 2004
Israel Solidarity 
Day 
featuring the Walk With Israel, sponsored by the
Jewish United Fund of 
Metropolitan Chicago. Your threat that I would be
"precluded" from 
entering 
had I tried to attend the event is quite extraordinary
given that your 
events are held on public, Chicago Park District
property. In fact, I 
had 
no intention of attending the Walk With Israel. I had
simply registered 
because I wanted to get on your mailing list. I regret
that you and 
your 
lawyers spent your valuable time thinking of ways to
keep me out.

I needed no further discouragement from attending your
event than my 
experience at the Walk With Israel in 2001. At that
time, I and one 
other 
person staged a peaceful, silent presence on public
property. We were 
subjected to threats of violence, abuse and
harassment, including being 
spat upon, by marchers and by JUF security. We were
also photographed 
and 
followed by event officials.

Your letter accurately pointed out that we have major
differences in 
approach. I would like to focus however on the common
ground, since we 
both 
want peace. I would like to propose that we host a
joint event next 
year 
entitled "Walk With Palestine and Israel." The message
of the event 
would 
be peace, and an end to all violence regardless of its
victims or 
perpetrators. Specifically we would declare our total
opposition to 
Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians, and our
opposition to Israeli 
attacks on Palestinian civilians which have killed
collectively more 
than 
3,500 people in the past three years. We could call
for the full 
implementation of the Road Map as written, without
objections or 
alterations from either side.

We could raise money for Israeli and Palestinian
victims of violence; 
for 
example, we could support the rehabilitation of
Israelis injured in 
Palestinian suicide attacks, and provide funds for
some of the tens of 
thousands of Palestinian civilians, a large number of
them children, 
maimed 
by the Israeli army. We could also invite the Jewish
National Fund for 
Israel to advise us on tree planting initiatives in
order to replant 
some 
of the tens of thousands of olive and citrus trees in
the Occupied 
Territories uprooted by the Israeli army and by
Israeli settlers.

If we could stand together under such a common theme,
it would send a 
powerful message to all the people in the country
between the 
Mediterranean 
Sea and the River Jordan that peace and reconciliation
is possible. I 
look 
forward to discussing this idea with you at the
earliest opportunity.

Yours Sincerely,


Ali Abunimah
Co-Founder




	
		
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