[Peace-discuss] Commentary on Gaza, etc.

Sun Jan 11 17:11:48 CST 2009

And - in all probability - the local issues are also limited to
non-controversial issues in their eyes.  

From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of David Green
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2009 4:44 PM
To: LAURIE SOLOMON
Cc: Peace Discuss
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Commentary on Gaza, etc.

It has been submitted as a guest commentary. Their policy is that such
pieces are limited to those addressing local issues.

  _____  

From: LAURIE SOLOMON <LAURIE at ADVANCENET.NET>
To: Marti Wilkinson <martiwilki at gmail.com>; David Green
<davegreen84 at yahoo.com>
Cc: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2009 3:42:55 PM
Subject: RE: [Peace-discuss] Commentary on Gaza, etc.

I wonder if the same response would happen if it was submitted as a guest
op-ed  article or commentary.  I have the feeling that it is not really the
length of the remarks as much as the substance that would keep the N-G from
finding a way to publish it.

From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Marti
Wilkinson
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2009 2:45 PM
To: David Green
Cc: Peace Discuss
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Commentary on Gaza, etc.

Your commentary is very well thought out and written. If it's submitted to
the N-G as a 'letter to the editor' it will be rejected on the grounds that
it is over 250 words. That is the limit the News-Gazette places on
correspondence....Marti

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:47 AM, David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com> wrote:

This Commentary was submitted to the N-G, and thus has little or no chance
of being published. Despite the tone of the end of this article, I do not
support the thinking and tactics of JStreet and Brit Tzedek, which represent
Zionism lite. But their presence does at least make explicit the myth of
monolithic support for Israel among Jews, for whatever that is worth. A
successful and sustainable movement against Israeli/American criminality
will still have to be from a principled position that traces Israeli
behavior to American behavior in the Middle East and elsewere.

Rhetoric and Reality in the Israel/Palestine Conflict

Israel's invasion of Gaza has exposed as never before the distance between
rhetoric and reality. Israel's claim of retaliation is belied by its
previous incursions during the ceasefire, its long-term strangulation of
Gaza's economy-including throughout the ceasefire and in violation of that
ceasefire-and its overwhelming military might.

Hamas rockets can only go so far in rationalizing bombs dropped in crowded
neighborhoods. Palestinians' crime was to vote for Hamas after they were
betrayed by the Palestinian Authority, correctly viewed as collaborators
with Israeli occupiers. American neoconservatives dictate to Arabs that they
become democratic. But a free and fair election in 2006, making Palestine
the only democracy in the Middle East, was followed by Israel's arrest of
elected Hamas legislators.

At the local level, it's interesting to note the patterns of coverage and
comment. News from Israel/Palestine was absent from the News-Gazette for
several weeks in November and December, during which Jewish settlers in
Hebron (West Bank) carried out openly racist pogroms against Palestinians,
often recorded by cell phone cameras. There is no way to square these events
with the portrayal of Jews as victims. There were no rockets fired by
Palestinian children walking to school. Thus there was no coverage and no
large photos, because there were no Jewish funerals.

But Gaza can't be ignored, and only a lack of context can present Israeli
Jews as victims. History according to the Associated Press reports in the
News-Gazette begins with a Hamas rocket fired into southern Israel on
December 27th, not one minute before. The essential narrative of terrorist
Arab religious fanatics attacking innocent and democratic Jews must be
maintained. This can only be done through selective memory and chronology,
reinforced cultural stereotypes, and an unquestioned definition of terrorism
that excludes state-sponsored terror.

Local Jewish institutions and leadership, responsible for maintaining the
myth of Jewish innocence and Israeli righteousness, have been predictably
silent. Official Jewish perspectives are dictated by national-level
organizations, invariably supportive of Israeli (and American) wars. They
hope that with the help of the mainstream media that this will suffice,
without the annoyance of locally-generated rhetoric that might reveal
factually-based alternative perspectives. The job of local Jewish
institutions-religious and secular-is to selectively focus on historical
Jewish victimization and alleged current examples of anti-Semitism, such as
hate speech on Urbana Public Television. The moral high ground must be
maintained and political complexity must be ignored. Self-examination and
criticism is forbidden.

Nevertheless, at this moment there is a vital and ongoing debate among
various dissenting Jewish-identified organizations that constitute an aspect
of the broad peace and social justice movement. Participants promote
alternative perspectives critical of Israel's actions as judged in relation
to human rights and international law. They question the benefits that a
hyper-militarized Jewish state offer to Jewish-American identity, and
challenge the unconditional support and blank check that our own government
has offered Israel for the past four decades. Debate-honest, complex,
contentious, sometimes flawed and sectarian-has been generated from the
local level with grassroots organizations and the internet, and is now
reflected in the formation of national-level organizations such as JStreet,
Jewish Voice for Peace, and Brit Tzedek.

These perspectives increasingly test the suffocating party line of
established Jewish institutions and leaders that have with no exceptions
supported both Israeli and American military invasions and occupations for
decades. Dissenters will be studiously ignored or suppressed by Jewish
establishments at all levels for as long as possible. But dissent will
eventually-and sooner rather than later-become so pervasive and relevant
that it will have to be treated with seriousness rather than condescension,
especially in the face of Israeli policies that are starkly contradictory to
the liberal values supported by the vast majority of American Jews, and
indeed alienate most young Jews from dogmatic Jewish institutions.

Local Jewish leaders will no longer be able to carelessly play the
anti-Semitism card and exploit the implicit assumption of Jewish moral
superiority in order to silence their critics, Jewish or otherwise. An
international consensus for a legal resolution of the Israel/Palestine
conflict has been in place for three decades. At some point Israel and the
United States will be compelled to accept rather than reject it.

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