[Peace-discuss] Qumsiyeh on Duke conference, etc.

Tue Oct 19 11:18:52 CDT 2004

Below is also a letter in response to the article at
the bottom, a particularly over-the-top example from a
liberal Jewish journalist.

[Excerpt from Mazin Qumsiyeh's Yahoo list Human Rights
- 10/18/04]

This past weekend, the 4th annual student conference
on divestment was 
held 
(http://palestineconference.com).  The far fewer
demonstrators (from a 
New 
York group called Amcha) than expected were not
interested in any 
public 
dialogues but in posturing, shouting, and blowing the
shofar. To me the 
most 
inspiring was the heterogeneity of the attendants of
the conference 
(religions, ethnicities, gender, age, background etc)
contrasted with 
the 
extreme homogeneity of those who came to support
Israeli apartheid :-) 
Human 
Rights and anti-Apartheid secular and ultra orthodox
(Naturei Karta) 
Jews 
mixed with Muslims observing the fast in Ramadan and
Christian clergy 
and 
laypeople, atheists and socialists.  It was truly
inspiring.

Many Zionist publications and organizations (ADL,
fronpagemag, JP etc) 
reported untruths, innuendos and lies.  This was
expected and is 
getting 
tiresome and obvious to most people.   The good thing
was that the 
conference proceeded well, accomplished its original
and organizational 
goals and even more (as the publicity created provided
great 
educational 
opportunities).   Below are links to news stories
about this event.

Kudus to the organizers and to Duke Students, faculty,
and 
administration 
and to all the attendees.  Now we need to follow-up,
grow and expand. 
Join!! 

For examples of actions:

- Contact local churches and urge them to get involved
(start with 
local 
Presbyterian and Anglican churches as their hierarchy
took good 
positions, 
for Catholic Churches, site the Bishopâ*™s Conference
Report)

- Visit http://qumsiyeh.org/activistmanual/ and look
under topics like 
media 
work, divestments etc

- Invite the Wheels of Justice to your area:
http://justicewheels.org

- Start your own divestment and/or campaign on campus
(you can start 
with 
material from other campaigns, a petition, create a
website etc). See 
http://www.divest-from-israel-campaign.org/

- Work with http://www.palestineconference.com, 
http://academicsforjustice.org,  and
http://boycottisraeligoods.org

Editor:

	I want to congratulate Ron Grossman (Perspective,
10/17) for the most outlandish playing of the
anti-semitism card on your pages in quite some time.
Moreover, his historical propaganda is impeccable.
Yes, it is true that on numerous occasions the
Palestinians were asked to give up significant
portions of their land for a Jewish state, and they
refused—most recently in 2000. Thus, it has been taken
by force, and they have been expelled. By the way, it
is simply not true that “hundreds of thousands” of
Jews were “driven out of Arab countries.”

     But my personal favorite whopper is Grossman’s
rendition of the 1967 war, which “began when Egypt’s
president promised to destroy the Jewish state.” If
Nasser did say that, he had no capability of doing it,
as Israeli military leaders well knew. Actually, the
war began when Israel actually did destroy Egypt’s air
force, in an aggressive war that had been planned
since Israel’s successful but aborted effort in 1956.
Thus began 37 years of occupation, settlement,
confiscation, annexation, and expulsion. As a Jew, I
applaud the decision of the Presbyterian Church to
divest. It is easy to see why Grossman left teaching
history, but why did he go into journalism? Perhaps
the question answers itself.

RELIGION, MORALITY AND POLITICS IS KERRY A GOOD ENOUGH
CATHOLIC? IS BUSH TOO GOOD A BORN-AGAIN CHRIS

QUESTIONS OF CONSCIENCE
Putting Israel in a ghetto

By Ron Grossman
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 17, 2004

If I were a Christian, I'd be a bit uncomfortable when
the subject of Jews and guilt came up. No matter how
committed to the Palestinians' cause, I'd try to make
it absolutely clear I'd listened to both sides before
deciding who was right and who was wrong in the
bloodstained Middle East.

An accusing finger can come back to haunt those who
point it. Given the history of 2,000 years of
church-sponsored anti-Semitism, you would think
contemporary Christians would gingerly take the moral
high ground--lest memories be awakened of pogroms and
inquisitions.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seemingly has no such
inhibitions. Its general assembly voted to cleanse the
denomination's investment portfolio of companies doing
business with Israel. The decision was taken without
asking Jewish groups for their side of the story, an
approach that raised eyebrows even in some
Presbyterian circles.

In philosophy, that approach is called a priori
reasoning. It assumes truth can be found by simple
deduction and without gathering data--it went out with
the scientific revolution.

In psychology, that approach is called prejudice.

It echoes from the long centuries when church leaders
and ordinary believers were convinced certain truths
were self-evident: The Jews were eternally damned
because their ancestors killed Jesus. Their Passover
matzo was made with the blood of gentile children.

>From that perspective, it didn't make sense to try
talking out one's differences with such consummate
sinners. Better to isolate them. So in 1290, King
Edward I sent England's Jews into exile. Spain's
Ferdinand and Isabella did similarly in 1492. In 1555,
the pope ordered Rome's Jews shut behind ghetto walls.

We moderns like to think that kind of irrationality is
long since behind us. We believe something can be
learned from those with whom we profoundly disagree.
So had the Presbyterians asked, I would have suggested
a few points to consider before deciding the way to
bring peace to the Holy Land is to economically punish
one side.

I offer them as well to the Anglican churches, which
reportedly are also considering divesting in Israel.
Other mainline Protestant denominations may well
follow suit.

In 2000, then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak put a
proposal on the table. The Palestinians would get
statehood, Gaza and virtually all of the West Bank,
while Jerusalem would be divided between the parties.
President Bill Clinton endorsed the plan. Moderate
Arab countries nudged Yasser Arafat to cooperate.

But Arafat turned the offer down cold. He didn't make
a counterproposal. He simply said no. Shortly, a new
cycle of violence began that continues to the present:
Palestinian suicide bombings and rocket attacks,
Israeli military reprisals. The loss of life on both
sides has been horrific.

In 1937, the British offered to partition the Holy
Land between Jews and Arabs. A decade later, the
United Nations made a similar proposal.

Both times, the Jews said yes, the Arabs said no. In
1967, Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza--in a war
that began when Egypt's president promised to destroy
the Jewish state.

Afterward, the Israelis offered to swap the occupied
territories for a peace treaty. Had it been accepted,
there wouldn't have been Israeli settlements in Gaza
and the West Bank. But the Arab nations said no.

By citing that record, I'm hardly suggesting the
Israelis are blameless. They, too, have been wrong
sometimes--politically, strategically and morally. To
me, it's clear the settlements have to go if there is
to be peace.

But the history of the conflict ought to remind us
that almost all human disputes follow a rule of thumb:
One side is rarely all right, the other all wrong.

I don't get a feeling that principle is high in the
consciousness of the Palestinians' most vocal
supporters. They insist, for instance, that a peace
arrangement must take into account the plight of
Palestinian refugees displaced by the Arab-Israeli
wars, which seems just.

But what about Jewish refugees--the hundreds of
thousands who were driven out of Arab countries or
fled mobs reacting to the news of Israel's
independence by killing Jews?

Those refugees arrived in Israel penniless, forced to
leave their property behind as the price of being
allowed to leave countries where their ancestors lived
for thousands of years. I haven't heard church groups
saying the suffering of Jewish refugees must be taken
into account in any peace settlement.

During the negotiations of 2000, the Israelis proposed
dividing Jerusalem's Old City, with its holy sites
sacred to Muslims, Christians and Jews. Arafat
countered that there never had been a Jewish Temple
there. Denying the religious heritage of someone
sitting across the negotiating table wouldn't seem the
way to make peace.

You might think Christians would repudiate the
Palestinian leader's pronouncement, simply out of
self-defense. By Arafat's account, the Gospel
narratives of Jesus' visits to the temple must have
been falsified: If there was no temple, how could he
have chastised the moneychangers?

Unless I missed something, I don't recall any protest
by church groups quick to criticize Israel--and now,
to call for a unilateral economic blockade.

In the middle of a heated argument, it is helpful to
recall that the closer we are to one side of a
dispute, the harder it is to view the other
dispassionately. We can't see our allies objectively
when the emotions overrule reason--of which
proposition, I offer myself as Exhibit No. 1.

Conscious of the long and painful history of
anti-Semitism, I am quick to conflate criticism of
Israel with hatred of Jews. Especially when Christian
denominations are involved, I'm tempted to connect
dots that might not be truly there. In more sober
moments, I realize that contemporary church leaders
could have reached their positions on the Middle East
honestly, even though their predecessors preached
bigotry.

But it does take an effort on my part, so here is a
suggestion for encouraging my rational side.

Pay some attention to a sore spot of mine. That decree
of Edward I expelling the Jews from England has never
been rescinded. In the 17th Century, an attempt to get
the ban overturned was blocked in Parliament.
Afterward, Jews were quietly allowed to return.

But the blot and the insult remain.

So why don't Christian denominations that take a
stance on the Middle East balance it with a call for
Edward's order to be formally revoked? It would be a
nice symbolic act, especially for Presbyterians and
Anglicans, whose religious roots trace to Great
Britain.

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