[Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] On Holocaust Remembrance Day: A call to stop falsely accusing activists of anti-Semitism

[ya'aQov]

Fortunately DG/DJ, M
​ahmoud​
Abbas knows better<http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/0428/For-Palestinians-empathy-with-Jewish-suffering-in-Holocaust-is-complicated-video>
​(​
and he authored a dissertation on
The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and
Zionism<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Side:_the_Secret_Relationship_Between_Nazism_and_Zionism>
​because he's able to learn, and change his mind.​






On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 8:50 AM, David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From Norman Finkelstein’s book *Knowing too Much *(2012):
> “The accumulation of evidence casting Israel in a harsh light has now
> reached critical mass. For a long while Israel attempted to deflect and
> dilute the impact of these damning facts by wielding the twin swords of The
> Holocaust and The New Ant-Semitism. It was claimed that Jews could not be
> held to conventional moral-legal standards after the unique suffering they
> endured during World War II and that criticism of Israeli policy was
> motivated by ever-resurgent hatred of Jews. However, neither of these
> weapons any longer intimidates.”
>    On Monday, April 28, 2014 8:08 AM, David Johnson <
> davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>   On Holocaust Remembrance Day: A call to stop falsely accusing activists
> of anti-Semitism
> By DONNA NEVEL
> 04/27/2014 23:06
>       inShare1
>   Select Language​▼
> Israeli government apologists shamelessly charge anti-Semitism as a means
> of discrediting those opposing its practices and behavior. [image:
> Palestinian protest Berlin]
> Protestors wave with Palestinian flags and shout slogans during a
> demonstration in Berlin Photo: REUTERS
> Since I was a child, my family marked Holocaust Remembrance Day with
> reverence for the memory of the victims, vivid awareness of anti-Semitism
> and bigotry, and celebration of resistance and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
> I also had etched into my consciousness from an early age that in
> remembering the Holocaust and the history of anti-Semitism, we are obliged
> to re-affirm our commitment to fighting injustice in any form.
>
> With this in mind, as Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches, I can’t help
> but be appalled by the reckless charge of anti-Semitism directed at those
> who seek justice and who call out Israel for its human rights violations.
>
> When people criticize Israel (or any nation-state, for that matter), it is
> fair to challenge them – on the merits of the argument. However, Israeli
> government apologists instead shamelessly exploit the charge of
> anti-Semitism as a means of discrediting and obstructing those opposing its
> practices and behavior.
>
> These attacks, sometimes drawing upon classic anti-Semitic images as in
> Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent speech to AIPAC, have most
> recently focused on trying to thwart political organizing on college
> campuses, by both students and professors, in support of policies and
> time-honored strategies – like Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) –
> intended to hold Israel accountable to international law and basic
> principles of human rights.
>
> Although this is certainly not a new phenomenon, these charges of
> anti-Semitism have become epidemic.
>
> There is a pattern: Israeli government behavior has gotten worse and
> worse, the movement to hold Israel accountable is getting stronger and
> stronger, and it appears the only way the Israeli government and its
> supporters think they can stop the momentum is to destroy the messengers,
> particularly since the facts of Israeli violations of human rights and the
> extent of its ongoing oppressive behavior against the Palestinian people
> are well-documented and pervasive.
>
> And these pro-Israeli government advocates know that there is no better
> way to shut people down and discredit them than by accusing them of
> anti-Semitism.
>
> These false calls of anti-Jewish hatred are an attempt to derail the
> movement for justice in Palestine/Israel and to destroy those supporting
> that movement. And, further, these trumped-up charges of anti-Semitism are
> particularly pernicious when directed at Palestinians or Muslims or others
> who already face extreme discrimination and racism.
>
> Calling criticism of the Israeli state anti-Semitic also makes a mockery
> of the term anti-Semitism and trivializes the memory of the Holocaust.
> Conflating anti-Semitism against the Jewish people with critiques of Israel
> as a state diminishes the seriousness of anti-Semitism when it occurs.
>
> As Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches, let us do justice to the memory
> of the Holocaust by recommitting ourselves to challenging injustice and to
> honoring, rather than demonizing and defaming, those who speak out and take
> action for peace and for justice in Palestine and Israel and anywhere
> across the globe.
>
>
>
> *The author a community psychologist and educator, is a long-time
> organizer for peace and justice in Palestine/Israel.She was a
> co-coordinator of the 1989 landmark Road to Peace Conference that brought
> PLO officials and Knesset members together to the US for the first time.
> More recently, she was a founding member of Jews Say No!, is a member of
> the board of Jewish Voice for Peace, and is on the coordinating committee
> of the Nakba Education Project, US.*
>
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>
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>


-- 

      ya'aQovziso
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