After every conversation concerning Israel/Palestine, the question arises. Is it getting any better? Is there any hope?
Well, not from the prospect of those of us who live in the United States. We have a biased media which, for whatever reason, seldom even acknowledges the real problem of occupation and brutality. We have a gutless government afraid of AIPAC and its powerful lobby, and we hear on television day and night the idiotic and unbiblical views of the Christian Zionist who tell us that Jesus cannot come again until Jerusalem is purged of non-Jews and the temple rebuilt. There are days when it seems as though there is no hope.
However, something is changing that may have a most significant effect on Israel’s imperialism. That is the changing attitude of the American Jew.
For many years, I have tried to pay attention to the American Jewish writers who were seeking to hold Israel to the moral standards of their Jewish faith and theology. My reading was limited to Marc Ellis, Michael Lerner and Noam Chomsky. In spite of their heart felt attachment to biblical Israel and the security of identity, these powerful critics kept calling Israel to accountability. In previous blogs, I have referred to each of them. Typical is Michael Lerner, editor of the leading Jewish magazine, TIKKUN:
Israel’s attempt to regain control of the refugee camps by denying food to hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, by raiding homes and dragging out their occupants in the middle of the night to stands for hours in the cold, by savagely beating a civilian population and breaking its bones---these activities are deplorable to any civilized human being. That they were done by a Jewish state is both tragic and inexcusable.[1]
This Jewish writer amazed me. Then I read Marc Ellis:
Can Jewish Israelis continue to torture and kill Palestinian youth ad infinitum? Can North American Jews continue to support these horrible acts?[2]
Noam Chomsky was more specific in spelling out Israeli atrocities.[3]
All of these were writing twenty to twenty-five years ago.
These leaders spoke to me but they seemed to make little impact upon their own Jewish community which continued to give Israel a pass on any treatment of its neighbors, no matter how abusive.
Now, suddenly, Ellis, Lerner and Chomsky have company. There are more Jewish writers than I can keep up with, such as:
Joel Kovel, who writes on the very first page of his book, Overcoming Zionism, published in 2007, “I write this book in fury about Israel and the unholy complicity of the United States and its Jewish community that grants it impunity” He goes on to condemn Israel’s theology and practice for its imperialist behavior.
Normal Finkelstein seeking to cut through the myth of ‘Purity of Arms,’ quotes the former director of the Israeli army archives, “In almost every Arab village occupied by us during the War of Independence, acts were committed which are defined as war crimes, such as murder, massacres, and rapes.”[4]
Tanya Reinhart writes, “Israel can continue to imprison the Palestinians, to bombard them from the air, deprive them of the means of substance, steal their land in the West Bank --- and still be hailed as the peacemaker in the Israel-Palestine conflict.”[5]
Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian writes, “The 1948 War of Independence involved one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. Around a million people were expelled from their homes at gunpoint, civilians were massacred, and hundreds of Palestinian villages destroyed. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called ‘ethnic cleansing’”.[6]
Last Saturday, I attended a conference in Atlanta and met Mark Braverman, the grandson of a fifth-generation Palestinian Jew who spoke of the “civil war” taking place in the hearts of many Jews, a war between their love for Israel and their recognition of the price paid by Palestinians for Israel’s “right to exist.” Growing up in Pennsylvania, he visited family in Israel for the first time as a teenager and was devastated by what he saw. After holding that pain inside for decades, with courage and scholarship, Braverman writes about Israel’s destruction of Palestine. “A growing number of Jews in Israel and outside the state see this, and for us the effect has been shattering; the shock, horror, and crisis of identity I experienced as a Jew witnessing the crimes being committed in my name are not unique.”[7]
I scratch my head and think, Wow, what is going on?
Then, the latest issue of THE NATION features as its cover story: American Jews Rethink Israel:
This year has seen a dramatic shift in American Jews’ attitudes toward Israel. In January many liberal Jews were shocked by the Gaza war, in which Israel used overwhelming force against a mostly defenseless civilian population unable to flee. Then came the rise to power of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, whose explicitly anti-Arab platform was at odds with an American Jewish electorate that had just voted 4 to 1 for a minority president. Throw in angry Israeli writings about the “rot in the Diaspora,” and it’s little wonder young American Jews feel increasingly indifferent about a country that has been at the center of Jewish identity for four decades.[8]
All this is new. Several years ago, I was invited to speak about the history of Zionism to a study group in Jacksonville, Florida. I had just begun when suddenly I was interrupted by a loud and dynamic voice. “Politics! This is all your politics and I resent it. I have a Jewish friend and if he were here, you would not be saying these things.”
He may have been right. I may have been intimidated if there were a Jew sitting in the room. However. I would have been wrong to be silent. What Israel was doing then and is still doing now is wrong and we are equally wrong to remain silent while it’s being done.
These authors are brave and they pay a great emotional and personal price for speaking out even when their concerns are for and not against Israel. They need our support.
Also, there are many authorities on Middle East affairs who tell us that unless something is done to curb Israel’s expansionism, Israel may be dragging us into a long disastrous war with the Muslim world that we are not going to win.
By the way, Marc Ellis has just published a new book. Judaism Does Not Equal Israel, which I have not as yet had time to read.
Thomas L. Are
October 27, 2009
[1] Michael Lerner, The Occupation: Immoral and Stupid. Cited in: Rosemary Ruether and Marc Ellis, Beyond Occupation, (Beacon Press, Boston, 1990.) p. 99.
[2] Ibid., p.116.
[3] Check out his, The Fateful Triangle.
[4] Norman Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict. Second Edition, Verso, 2003,)
p. 110
[5] Tanya Reinhart, The Road Map to Nowhere, (Verso, 2006.) p. 143
[6] Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. (Oneworld, Oxford, England, 2007.) Jacket blurb.
[7] Mark Braverman, Fatal Embrace, (Synergy Books, 2010) p.25
[8] Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss, American Jews Rethink Israel: A New Generation, and a New Lobby, Challenge Old Attitudes, The Nation, November 2, 2009. p.13.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
History (Part 4) - The Six Day War
The Question omitted by the media, never addressed by the politicians, and totally distorted by the Christian Right is: Whose land is it? All of these so called “authorities” on the matter of Israel/Palestine often proclaim, “Israel has offered to give land, (mostly small disconnected enclaves like city-states surrounded by Israel’s military), back to the Palestinians in exchange for the recognition of Israel’s right to all the rest of it including control of borders, air space and water. The question remains. When it comes to the West Bank and Gaza, Whose land is it?
The biggest myth concerning the occupied Palestinian territory is the claim that the Six Day War of 1967 was begun by Egypt and poor Israel only defended itself. Those who hold to the opinion that Israel was the victim claim to know more than some of Israel’s most respected leaders. For instance:
Yitzhak Rabin - “I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.”[1]
Mattiyahu Peled - Israeli General Staff - To pretend that the Egyptian forces massed on our frontiers were in a position to threaten the existence of Israel constitutes an insult not only to the intelligence of anyone capable of analyzing this sort of situation, but above all an insult to the Israeli Army.”[2]
Mortecai Bentov - Israeli Cabinet - 1972 - “Israel’s “entire story” about the “dangers of extermination” was “invented” of whole cloth and exaggerated after the fact to justify the annexation of new Arab territories.” [3]
Menachem Begin - 1982 - “The Egyptian army concentrated on the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.” [4]
Moshe Sharett - Former Prime Minister, writing years before '67 exposed the "defence/security" screen - “Israeli political and military leadership never believed in any insuperable Arab dangers to Israel. They sought to maneuver and force Arab states into military confrontations which the Zionist leadership were certain of winning so Israel could carry out the destabilization of Arab regimes and the planned occupation of additional territory.”[5]
Egypt was no threat. The U.N., the U.S., and Israel’s political leaders knew that Nasser had no intention of aggression but Israel had its excuse. Early Monday morning, June 5, 1967, Israeli jets flying low across the Mediterranean to avoid radar detection, turned south and struck the Egyptian air bases from Suez to Cairo. In less than three hours, the Israelis had broken the back of Egypt’s air force. By Wednesday, Israel had taken Jerusalem; then by Thursday, the Egyptians, who had fought a bloody battle in Suez and Gaza, surrendered. Three days later, Israel attacked the Golan Heights. By the end of the week, Israel’s occupation of Arab land was four times the size of Israel before the war. All the territory that had been allotted to the Palestinian Arab State by the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan was now under Israeli control.
During this war, Israel captured East Jerusalem, West Bank, the Golan Heights and Gaza Strip. Immediately the Israeli government and the fundamentalists, from Tel Aviv to Texas, referred to these occupied lands as “Judea and Samaria,” claiming some God endorsement for its actions. God outranks the Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory.[6] At any rate, the results of this war left Israel with 78% of what had previously belonged to the Palestinians.
So, when we hear something like, “Israel, after being attacked by its Arab neighbors, only kept the land it needs to defend itself,” which is exactly what I heard someone say last week, we would do well to remember just whose land are we talking about.
Thomas L. Are
October 16, 2009
[1].Paul Finley, Deliberate Deceptions, Facing the Facts about the U.S., Israeli Relationship, (Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago,. 1993.) p. 36.
[2]. Clifford A. Wright, Facts and Fables: The Arab-Israeli Conflict, (Kegan Paul International, New York, 1989.) p.132.
[3].Paul Finley, Deliberate Deceptions, Facing the Facts about the U.S., Israeli Relationship, (Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago,. 1993.) p. 36.
[4].Norman Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israeli – Palestinian Conflict, (Verso, London, 2003) p. 192
[5].Ralph Schoenman, The Hidden History of Zionism, (Veritas Press, Santa Barbara, California, 1988) p.59.
[6] Article 49 (1949) “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
The biggest myth concerning the occupied Palestinian territory is the claim that the Six Day War of 1967 was begun by Egypt and poor Israel only defended itself. Those who hold to the opinion that Israel was the victim claim to know more than some of Israel’s most respected leaders. For instance:
Yitzhak Rabin - “I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.”[1]
Mattiyahu Peled - Israeli General Staff - To pretend that the Egyptian forces massed on our frontiers were in a position to threaten the existence of Israel constitutes an insult not only to the intelligence of anyone capable of analyzing this sort of situation, but above all an insult to the Israeli Army.”[2]
Mortecai Bentov - Israeli Cabinet - 1972 - “Israel’s “entire story” about the “dangers of extermination” was “invented” of whole cloth and exaggerated after the fact to justify the annexation of new Arab territories.” [3]
Menachem Begin - 1982 - “The Egyptian army concentrated on the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.” [4]
Moshe Sharett - Former Prime Minister, writing years before '67 exposed the "defence/security" screen - “Israeli political and military leadership never believed in any insuperable Arab dangers to Israel. They sought to maneuver and force Arab states into military confrontations which the Zionist leadership were certain of winning so Israel could carry out the destabilization of Arab regimes and the planned occupation of additional territory.”[5]
Egypt was no threat. The U.N., the U.S., and Israel’s political leaders knew that Nasser had no intention of aggression but Israel had its excuse. Early Monday morning, June 5, 1967, Israeli jets flying low across the Mediterranean to avoid radar detection, turned south and struck the Egyptian air bases from Suez to Cairo. In less than three hours, the Israelis had broken the back of Egypt’s air force. By Wednesday, Israel had taken Jerusalem; then by Thursday, the Egyptians, who had fought a bloody battle in Suez and Gaza, surrendered. Three days later, Israel attacked the Golan Heights. By the end of the week, Israel’s occupation of Arab land was four times the size of Israel before the war. All the territory that had been allotted to the Palestinian Arab State by the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan was now under Israeli control.
During this war, Israel captured East Jerusalem, West Bank, the Golan Heights and Gaza Strip. Immediately the Israeli government and the fundamentalists, from Tel Aviv to Texas, referred to these occupied lands as “Judea and Samaria,” claiming some God endorsement for its actions. God outranks the Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory.[6] At any rate, the results of this war left Israel with 78% of what had previously belonged to the Palestinians.
So, when we hear something like, “Israel, after being attacked by its Arab neighbors, only kept the land it needs to defend itself,” which is exactly what I heard someone say last week, we would do well to remember just whose land are we talking about.
Thomas L. Are
October 16, 2009
[1].Paul Finley, Deliberate Deceptions, Facing the Facts about the U.S., Israeli Relationship, (Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago,. 1993.) p. 36.
[2]. Clifford A. Wright, Facts and Fables: The Arab-Israeli Conflict, (Kegan Paul International, New York, 1989.) p.132.
[3].Paul Finley, Deliberate Deceptions, Facing the Facts about the U.S., Israeli Relationship, (Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago,. 1993.) p. 36.
[4].Norman Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israeli – Palestinian Conflict, (Verso, London, 2003) p. 192
[5].Ralph Schoenman, The Hidden History of Zionism, (Veritas Press, Santa Barbara, California, 1988) p.59.
[6] Article 49 (1949) “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Netanyahu's Hilton Head
If it served his purpose, Netanyahu, the once again Prime Minister of Israel, could convince me that Hilton Head Island is a poverty stricken ghetto. After all, he would point out that when my county in North Georgia wanted to start a free medical clinic for those who had no insurance and little income, we went to Hilton Head to see how they helped their poverty stricken population. He would go on to declare that all over that Island homes are for sale and churches are offering food and clothes to those who live in poverty. The newspapers are full of work wanted ads and businesses are closing. Walk around Hilton Head and you will see teen agers in jeans with holes in the knees, AA operating full time and the streets full of people who have not worked at a job in years.
Apply Netanyahu logic and I am convinced. After all, he has the facts to build the case that Hilton Head is a poverty stricken ghetto. Then last week. I actually went to Hilton Head and saw what life there is really like. Wow. In spite of the fact that everything he could have said about Hilton Head is actually true, it is mostly a play ground for the super rich. The beaches are lined with multi-million dollar homes. Luxury yachts fill the harbors. Restaurants serve hundred dollar dinners for two and I could not count all the pristine golf courses.
What’s my point? Select the statistics and stories and you can paint even Hilton Head anyway you want it to be.
Now, what does that have to do with anything? I am frustrated by what I so often hear on the news and from right wing “Christian” pulpits about the Palestinians, such as: They are blood thirst terrorists. They are ungrateful, uncouth, unwashed and backward. All they want to do is destroy Israel and kill infidels. I even heard one news announcer say that the Palestinians have never had life so good as since Israel has been “helping” them. On and on it goes until the case is made that Palestinians are somewhat subhuman and nobody could live next door to them.
But, I have been there and the Palestinians are no more filled with hate than Hilton Head is filled with poverty. Palestinians are families seeking to give their children an adequate education, to offer them a degree of safety and dignity as they play in their own yard and to live a life free of bombs, assassinations, hunger, imprisonment and torture. Palestinians want the freedom to worship God without being denigrated and misrepresented by those who seek to remove them from their homes.
That is why I was so confused by Netanyahu’s speech to the United Nations. I realize that he was actually not speaking to the delegates, but to the American TV audience. The UN delegates knew him too well and they know the other side of the story. He actually compared the Hamas rockets that killed one person during the year leading up to the peace truce of last June to the Nazi blitz of British civilians during World War Two. (He failed to mention that 49 Palestinians were killed every month during that time by the IDF and settlers.) In describing Israel’s “care” in protecting the citizens of Gaza, he failed to mention the closures of the life line, denying food and medicines to desperate Palestinians. He presented the conflict as though it were a battle between two equal forces. He did not explain why Israel suffered 13 deaths, almost half by friendly fire, while more than 1400 Palestinians were killed, many of whom died a very painful death due to white phosphorus dropped on civilians by Israel.
Netanyahu even attacked the report of the UN Human Rights Fact Finding Mission appointed to investigate all violations of human rights laws in Gaza. While the Goldstone Report condemns the firing of rockets by Palestinian groups as “constituting war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity,” the weight of the report is focused on the actions of Israel:
NEW YORK/GENEVA – The UN Fact-Finding Mission led by Justice Richard Goldstone on Thursday released its long-awaited report on the Gaza conflict, in which it concluded there is evidence indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict, and that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possible crimes against humanity.[1]
The report includes facts that the prime minister would prefer that the American audience not hear, such as the deliberate firing on civilians, the shooting of families carrying white flags while trying to get to safer shelters, the bombing of hospitals and ambulances and locking Palestinians into buildings and blowing them up. One international human rights group after another accuses Israel of war crimes.
Palestinians are ordinary people, probably no better and no worse than the rest of us. But, in order to know that, you almost have to go there.
Thomas L.Are
October 8, 2009
[1] PRESS RELEASE, September 15, 2009, United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.
Apply Netanyahu logic and I am convinced. After all, he has the facts to build the case that Hilton Head is a poverty stricken ghetto. Then last week. I actually went to Hilton Head and saw what life there is really like. Wow. In spite of the fact that everything he could have said about Hilton Head is actually true, it is mostly a play ground for the super rich. The beaches are lined with multi-million dollar homes. Luxury yachts fill the harbors. Restaurants serve hundred dollar dinners for two and I could not count all the pristine golf courses.
What’s my point? Select the statistics and stories and you can paint even Hilton Head anyway you want it to be.
Now, what does that have to do with anything? I am frustrated by what I so often hear on the news and from right wing “Christian” pulpits about the Palestinians, such as: They are blood thirst terrorists. They are ungrateful, uncouth, unwashed and backward. All they want to do is destroy Israel and kill infidels. I even heard one news announcer say that the Palestinians have never had life so good as since Israel has been “helping” them. On and on it goes until the case is made that Palestinians are somewhat subhuman and nobody could live next door to them.
But, I have been there and the Palestinians are no more filled with hate than Hilton Head is filled with poverty. Palestinians are families seeking to give their children an adequate education, to offer them a degree of safety and dignity as they play in their own yard and to live a life free of bombs, assassinations, hunger, imprisonment and torture. Palestinians want the freedom to worship God without being denigrated and misrepresented by those who seek to remove them from their homes.
That is why I was so confused by Netanyahu’s speech to the United Nations. I realize that he was actually not speaking to the delegates, but to the American TV audience. The UN delegates knew him too well and they know the other side of the story. He actually compared the Hamas rockets that killed one person during the year leading up to the peace truce of last June to the Nazi blitz of British civilians during World War Two. (He failed to mention that 49 Palestinians were killed every month during that time by the IDF and settlers.) In describing Israel’s “care” in protecting the citizens of Gaza, he failed to mention the closures of the life line, denying food and medicines to desperate Palestinians. He presented the conflict as though it were a battle between two equal forces. He did not explain why Israel suffered 13 deaths, almost half by friendly fire, while more than 1400 Palestinians were killed, many of whom died a very painful death due to white phosphorus dropped on civilians by Israel.
Netanyahu even attacked the report of the UN Human Rights Fact Finding Mission appointed to investigate all violations of human rights laws in Gaza. While the Goldstone Report condemns the firing of rockets by Palestinian groups as “constituting war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity,” the weight of the report is focused on the actions of Israel:
NEW YORK/GENEVA – The UN Fact-Finding Mission led by Justice Richard Goldstone on Thursday released its long-awaited report on the Gaza conflict, in which it concluded there is evidence indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict, and that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possible crimes against humanity.[1]
The report includes facts that the prime minister would prefer that the American audience not hear, such as the deliberate firing on civilians, the shooting of families carrying white flags while trying to get to safer shelters, the bombing of hospitals and ambulances and locking Palestinians into buildings and blowing them up. One international human rights group after another accuses Israel of war crimes.
Palestinians are ordinary people, probably no better and no worse than the rest of us. But, in order to know that, you almost have to go there.
Thomas L.Are
October 8, 2009
[1] PRESS RELEASE, September 15, 2009, United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Israeli Road Signs
I haven’t seen anything about it in the mainstream media. I saw it first in a Middle East magazine:
The Cairo-based league of Arab States has denounced a July 13 decision by the Israeli Transportation Ministry to eliminate Arabic and English names of cities and towns on its signs and use only Hebrew ones.[1]
Israel says that replacing signs with Hebrew only names will take place gradually. However, already, all over Palestine road signs show Arabic names blacked out.
Such a program failed to catch the attention of the American television or newspaper news, but, it’s all over the internet.[2]
In a similar move in 1971, Golda Mier had the green lines, denoting the border separating Israel from Palestine, removed from all Israeli maps, even though her supporting justification stretched credibility. She declared:
It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine… and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.[3]
Today, Israel’s right wing Likud Party is doing everything it can to turn her illusion into a reality. Israel’s goal is far deeper than creating confusion for a returning Palestinians refugee. It is one more effort to wipe out an entire culture.
Few in America care that 2,500 Palestinian cities, towns and villages will have “Jewish only” names. In the meantime, tensions rise. Arabs living in Israel say, “The Minister errs if he thinks that word laundering can erase the Arabs existence in Israel and their link to the land.”
To Palestinians, it’s another major slap to their dignity. To us, we won’t even notice, except those preachers who take groups on Holy Land tours will no longer be able to escort them to the home of Jesus of Nazareth and feel that Biblical connection. From now on, he will be known as Jesus of Natsrat. To Israel, it’s just another fact on the ground.
Thomas Are
September 13, 2009
[1] Mohammed Omer, Israel’s Latest Attempt to Wipe Palestine Off the Map., The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September 2009, p.11.
[2] Google, Israel Changed Road Signs.
[3] Naim Ateek, Justice and Only Justice, (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1989) p. 36
The Cairo-based league of Arab States has denounced a July 13 decision by the Israeli Transportation Ministry to eliminate Arabic and English names of cities and towns on its signs and use only Hebrew ones.[1]
Israel says that replacing signs with Hebrew only names will take place gradually. However, already, all over Palestine road signs show Arabic names blacked out.
Such a program failed to catch the attention of the American television or newspaper news, but, it’s all over the internet.[2]
In a similar move in 1971, Golda Mier had the green lines, denoting the border separating Israel from Palestine, removed from all Israeli maps, even though her supporting justification stretched credibility. She declared:
It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine… and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.[3]
Today, Israel’s right wing Likud Party is doing everything it can to turn her illusion into a reality. Israel’s goal is far deeper than creating confusion for a returning Palestinians refugee. It is one more effort to wipe out an entire culture.
Few in America care that 2,500 Palestinian cities, towns and villages will have “Jewish only” names. In the meantime, tensions rise. Arabs living in Israel say, “The Minister errs if he thinks that word laundering can erase the Arabs existence in Israel and their link to the land.”
To Palestinians, it’s another major slap to their dignity. To us, we won’t even notice, except those preachers who take groups on Holy Land tours will no longer be able to escort them to the home of Jesus of Nazareth and feel that Biblical connection. From now on, he will be known as Jesus of Natsrat. To Israel, it’s just another fact on the ground.
Thomas Are
September 13, 2009
[1] Mohammed Omer, Israel’s Latest Attempt to Wipe Palestine Off the Map., The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September 2009, p.11.
[2] Google, Israel Changed Road Signs.
[3] Naim Ateek, Justice and Only Justice, (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1989) p. 36
Friday, August 28, 2009
Rachel Corrie - A Trigger Event
In spite of being condemned by Amnesty International, International Red Cross, Save the Children, the International Court of Justice, it’s own B’Salam and such world leaders as Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu plus numerous Resolutions by the United Nations, Israel still does everything it can to make life miserable for the Palestinians: including bypass “For Jews Only” roads, checkpoints and closures, a separation wall, settlements, land and water confiscation, imprisonment, torture, home demolitions, brutality by military and settlers, and the theft of 77 percent of its lands, the issue of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is a taboo subject in the US. (Wow! What a sentence. It took up the whole paragraph. I just couldn’t find a place to put a period.)
We can talk about human rights violations in China or an out of control government in North Korea, but we can’t talk about Israel, either in the media, or Congress or from our pulpits.
People often ask, “What good does it do? You write your little blogs, show a heart wrenching video every chance you get and thank God for Jimmy Carter, but when you have done it all, nothing has changed.” I remember being asked that same question during the Viet Nam war. Yet, thousands of insignificant preachers in pulpits all across the US kept questioning the morality of continuing to sacrifice so many lives for such an uncertain cause. People, by the dozens would ask us, “What difference does all your preaching make?”
Then suddenly, a 1972 photograph appeared… just a picture of an absolutely terrified little girl, probably nine years old, completely naked, severely burned, and running from a napalm attack. That picture became a trigger event. Almost overnight, Americans turned against the war. But it wouldn’t have happened had not thousands upon thousands of ordinary people continued to declare their hopes for peace in spite of so many asking, “What good are you doing?”
Another example of “What good are you doing?” which sounds more like an accusation than a question, follows the multitude of white preachers and teachers who joined their black brothers and sisters in proclaiming the evils of segregation and discrimination. Then suddenly, Rosa Parks said, “I’m sorry, but I am tired and I am not going to move to the back of the bus.” Had it not been for those pulpits crying out for justice, she would have probably been simply arrested and the whole incident ignored by the media. However Rosa Parks became a trigger event following years of seemingly useless education.
Now, across the land, more and more ordinary people are beginning to speak up for the Palestinians. I had hopes that the story of Rachel Corrie would have become the trigger event to wake up America.
Rachel Corrie, a young human rights activist from Olympia, Washington dared to hope for a change. She went to Rafah in the Gaza Strip and joined a group dedicated to preventing the demolition of Palestinian homes by the Israeli military. Early afternoon, March 16, 2003, wearing a fluorescent jacket, she went out to face a sixty ton bulldozer with a seven pound bullhorn, somewhat like the student in Tiananmen Square. Only, she faced a Zionist, “chosen by God.” to steal someone else’s land. After stopping and considering his options, the driver revved up his 410 horsepower machine of destruction and crushed her to death. Rachel Corrie was 23 years old.
In the meantime, home demolitions continue in the seized territories, not by the dozens or even by the hundreds, but by the thousands, usually at night without warning with little time for the owners to salvage their belongings.
A month before her death, Rachel Corrie emailed home:
No amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can’t imagine it unless you see it and even then you are always well aware that your experience is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army would face of they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells and, of course, the fact that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown., I have a home. I am allowed to see the ocean…”[1]
Two weeks later, she wrote:
I really can’t believe that something like this can happen in the world without a bigger outcry about it. It really hurts me.[2]
So, Rachel Corrie became one more martyr for justice. The rest of us will keep on plugging away, asking others to join us while we wait for the trigger event that will change things in spite of those who keep asking, “What difference are you making?”
Thomas Are
August 28, 2009
[1] Huwaida Arraf, Rachel Corrie (1979-2003): An American Martyr for Palestine, Quoted in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2003, p.13
[2] Ibid., p.12
We can talk about human rights violations in China or an out of control government in North Korea, but we can’t talk about Israel, either in the media, or Congress or from our pulpits.
People often ask, “What good does it do? You write your little blogs, show a heart wrenching video every chance you get and thank God for Jimmy Carter, but when you have done it all, nothing has changed.” I remember being asked that same question during the Viet Nam war. Yet, thousands of insignificant preachers in pulpits all across the US kept questioning the morality of continuing to sacrifice so many lives for such an uncertain cause. People, by the dozens would ask us, “What difference does all your preaching make?”
Then suddenly, a 1972 photograph appeared… just a picture of an absolutely terrified little girl, probably nine years old, completely naked, severely burned, and running from a napalm attack. That picture became a trigger event. Almost overnight, Americans turned against the war. But it wouldn’t have happened had not thousands upon thousands of ordinary people continued to declare their hopes for peace in spite of so many asking, “What good are you doing?”
Another example of “What good are you doing?” which sounds more like an accusation than a question, follows the multitude of white preachers and teachers who joined their black brothers and sisters in proclaiming the evils of segregation and discrimination. Then suddenly, Rosa Parks said, “I’m sorry, but I am tired and I am not going to move to the back of the bus.” Had it not been for those pulpits crying out for justice, she would have probably been simply arrested and the whole incident ignored by the media. However Rosa Parks became a trigger event following years of seemingly useless education.
Now, across the land, more and more ordinary people are beginning to speak up for the Palestinians. I had hopes that the story of Rachel Corrie would have become the trigger event to wake up America.
Rachel Corrie, a young human rights activist from Olympia, Washington dared to hope for a change. She went to Rafah in the Gaza Strip and joined a group dedicated to preventing the demolition of Palestinian homes by the Israeli military. Early afternoon, March 16, 2003, wearing a fluorescent jacket, she went out to face a sixty ton bulldozer with a seven pound bullhorn, somewhat like the student in Tiananmen Square. Only, she faced a Zionist, “chosen by God.” to steal someone else’s land. After stopping and considering his options, the driver revved up his 410 horsepower machine of destruction and crushed her to death. Rachel Corrie was 23 years old.
In the meantime, home demolitions continue in the seized territories, not by the dozens or even by the hundreds, but by the thousands, usually at night without warning with little time for the owners to salvage their belongings.
A month before her death, Rachel Corrie emailed home:
No amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can’t imagine it unless you see it and even then you are always well aware that your experience is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army would face of they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells and, of course, the fact that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown., I have a home. I am allowed to see the ocean…”[1]
Two weeks later, she wrote:
I really can’t believe that something like this can happen in the world without a bigger outcry about it. It really hurts me.[2]
So, Rachel Corrie became one more martyr for justice. The rest of us will keep on plugging away, asking others to join us while we wait for the trigger event that will change things in spite of those who keep asking, “What difference are you making?”
Thomas Are
August 28, 2009
[1] Huwaida Arraf, Rachel Corrie (1979-2003): An American Martyr for Palestine, Quoted in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2003, p.13
[2] Ibid., p.12
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Anti-Semitism
Last summer, I had an occasion to visit a synagogue. I had preached in protestant churches for forty-three years and had never attended a Jewish worship service. Well, that is not entirely true. When Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, the local synagogue invited the public to a memorial service, so I went. As you might imagine, it was a moving experience. But, I had never participated in a regular Sabbath day service.
So, I invited myself to attend Friday night worship with a Jewish friend. My biggest surprise was encountering two armed guards at the door. When my host saw me staring, somewhat in shock, at loaded pistols worn by greeters at a house of worship, he apologized. I said nothing, but I was thinking that the apology needed to come from my side. The thought that in Atlanta, in 2008, his pre-school daughters had to walk through armed guards, with weapons showing, in order to be safe in worship made me aware that anti-Semitism was not yet dead. I was embarrassed and later sent the synagogue a small check to help pay for those guards.
At the same time, I think the state of Israel, created as an answer to anti-Semitism, has become the cause and source of anti-Semitism’s revival. That insight is not original nor limited to me. Twenty years ago, Yehoshafat Harkabi, former Israeli Chief of Military Intelligence referring to Israel’s treatment of non-Jews, wrote:
Israel threatens not only Israel but Jews throughout the world. These actions weaken the Jew’s ability to defend themselves against anti-Semitism. It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish State, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism. Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also by Jews throughout the world. In the struggle against anti-Semitism, the front line begins in Israel.[1]
Just last month, Alan Hart, referring to Ariel Sharon’s harsh treatment of the Palestinians in an effort to break their will and crush their hope, referenced Harkabi’s fears, and wrote:
What Harkabi had feared could happen was happening. Israel’s “misconduct” was awakening the sleeping giant of anti-Semitism…The possibility of a new and virulent wave of anti-Semitism being provoked by Israel’s behaviour at some point in a foreseeable future was a real one.[2]
It’s time to admit that Zionism is a failure. Zionism was built upon the proposition that there was no place on earth where Jews could live in security. Thus, they needed their own theocratic state… in Palestine. The truth of the matter is that Jews then and now have lived all over the world in peace and security. Today about 16 million Jews have chosen to live outside Israel, compared to the six million now living in Israel and in illegal settlements. There has never been a time when there were not more Jews choosing to live in America than in Israel, including now.[3] (And I am glad. One of my favorite doctors is Jewish.)
And why have Jews not chosen to live in Israel? Two reasons, I think. First is that Israel is a Zionist state, not a Jewish state. Zionism violates the moral and ethical values which make up the heart of Judaism.
Also, Zionism fans the flames of anti-Semitism which has plagued Jews throughout their entire history.
I belong to a group called the North Georgia Progressives. (Some people think the name itself is an oxymoron.) Next month, we are having a speaker from the Anti- Defamation League of B’nai B’rith who is to speak to us about anti-Semitism. I will be very respectful. After all, I will be introducing him and praying for his effectiveness. Anti-Semitism is a sick and sinful evil and should be put to death. But, if he equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, I will caution him that he might be waking up the sleeping giant which should be left to die in its sleep.
Thomas Are
August 22, 2009
[1] Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel’s Fateful Hour, (Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1988.) p. 220.
[2] Alan Hart, Zionism, The Real Enemy of the Jews, Volume One (Clarity International,, Atlanta, 2009) p. 40.
[3] According to the American Jewish Yearbook, Vol. 50, by the end of 1949, there were a million Jews living in Israel compared to five million living in the US.
So, I invited myself to attend Friday night worship with a Jewish friend. My biggest surprise was encountering two armed guards at the door. When my host saw me staring, somewhat in shock, at loaded pistols worn by greeters at a house of worship, he apologized. I said nothing, but I was thinking that the apology needed to come from my side. The thought that in Atlanta, in 2008, his pre-school daughters had to walk through armed guards, with weapons showing, in order to be safe in worship made me aware that anti-Semitism was not yet dead. I was embarrassed and later sent the synagogue a small check to help pay for those guards.
At the same time, I think the state of Israel, created as an answer to anti-Semitism, has become the cause and source of anti-Semitism’s revival. That insight is not original nor limited to me. Twenty years ago, Yehoshafat Harkabi, former Israeli Chief of Military Intelligence referring to Israel’s treatment of non-Jews, wrote:
Israel threatens not only Israel but Jews throughout the world. These actions weaken the Jew’s ability to defend themselves against anti-Semitism. It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish State, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism. Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also by Jews throughout the world. In the struggle against anti-Semitism, the front line begins in Israel.[1]
Just last month, Alan Hart, referring to Ariel Sharon’s harsh treatment of the Palestinians in an effort to break their will and crush their hope, referenced Harkabi’s fears, and wrote:
What Harkabi had feared could happen was happening. Israel’s “misconduct” was awakening the sleeping giant of anti-Semitism…The possibility of a new and virulent wave of anti-Semitism being provoked by Israel’s behaviour at some point in a foreseeable future was a real one.[2]
It’s time to admit that Zionism is a failure. Zionism was built upon the proposition that there was no place on earth where Jews could live in security. Thus, they needed their own theocratic state… in Palestine. The truth of the matter is that Jews then and now have lived all over the world in peace and security. Today about 16 million Jews have chosen to live outside Israel, compared to the six million now living in Israel and in illegal settlements. There has never been a time when there were not more Jews choosing to live in America than in Israel, including now.[3] (And I am glad. One of my favorite doctors is Jewish.)
And why have Jews not chosen to live in Israel? Two reasons, I think. First is that Israel is a Zionist state, not a Jewish state. Zionism violates the moral and ethical values which make up the heart of Judaism.
Also, Zionism fans the flames of anti-Semitism which has plagued Jews throughout their entire history.
I belong to a group called the North Georgia Progressives. (Some people think the name itself is an oxymoron.) Next month, we are having a speaker from the Anti- Defamation League of B’nai B’rith who is to speak to us about anti-Semitism. I will be very respectful. After all, I will be introducing him and praying for his effectiveness. Anti-Semitism is a sick and sinful evil and should be put to death. But, if he equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, I will caution him that he might be waking up the sleeping giant which should be left to die in its sleep.
Thomas Are
August 22, 2009
[1] Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel’s Fateful Hour, (Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1988.) p. 220.
[2] Alan Hart, Zionism, The Real Enemy of the Jews, Volume One (Clarity International,, Atlanta, 2009) p. 40.
[3] According to the American Jewish Yearbook, Vol. 50, by the end of 1949, there were a million Jews living in Israel compared to five million living in the US.
Friday, August 7, 2009
History (Part 3) - Partition and War
Modern Zionism was born around 1900. Theodore Herzl in his book, The Jewish State, claimed that Jews could have no safe place in which to live other than in their own state. Of course, millions were safely living in the United States, but he wanted Palestine. He promoted the slogan, “A people without a land for a land without a people.” Neither side of it was true. Jews were living all over the world with security and dignity and were not a people without a land. Neither was the other side of it true. Herzl’s personal delegation to Palestine reported back to him, “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man.”[1] Palestine was occupied.
I ask myself, how I would feel in a similar situation. I can’t imagine it but it would be as if suddenly, without knocking, a government official came into my house and announced, “The United Nations has decided to give Georgia back to the Indians.” He then said, “The government has provided for your safety by establishing a refugee camp in Texas. No, you will not have time to gather your things or get in touch with relatives. A bus will be leaving at 3 o’clock today. Your house, land and business now belong to the Cherokees.” When I start to argue, he holds up his submachine gun and says, “Get on the bus. It’s for your own good.”
And what if that same officer announced that France thinks this whole program is a good idea and will donate, in the interest of democracy, huge sums of money to help the Native Americans landscape this backward territory into the garden they always dreamed it could be?
That’s pretty much the way it happened to the Palestinians and many of those refugees are still living in camps behind barbed wire fences and cement barrels. They wait for the world community to recognize the injustice of it.
Other than a self-serving interpretation of the Bible, there seems to be little rationale and even less justice in giving 56 percent of Palestine to the State of Israel. When I imagine myself in a similar situation, I become outraged by the thought of being dispossessed. I may be forced to yield to such a fate, but I would never accept it, even if the rest of the world looks away in indifference.
Mahatma Gandhi said,
What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct…A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. As it is, they (the Jews) are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.[2]
Post World War II brought a migration explosion. Meanwhile, political leaders searched for a painless way to make it up to the survivors of the holocaust. Zionism had a plan…a homeland for Jews. They had even picked the place: Palestine. Everyone seemed eager to compensate Jews. What did not enter into the guilt mix was what to do with the Palestinians already living in Palestine. Zionist chose to claim, and the non-Arab world chose to believe, that there were no “non-Jewish populations” in Palestine of any significance.
In February 1947, the British Government referred its Palestine problem to the U.N. One year later, the U.N. announced a plan to partition Palestine. Israel accepted the plan. The Palestinians rejected it, claiming that the Holocaust was not their doing. Why should Arabs be forced to suffer for Hitler’s crimes? Why should Arabs have to give up 56 percent of their land, including nearly all of the best agricultural and citrus lands, 80 percent of the cereal areas, 40 percent of all Arab industry, and all the sea shore to some 560,000 Jews who actually owned less than 6 percent of the land, while only 43 percent would remain for the 1,320,000 Palestinians?
Until this day, that question has not been addressed. In fact, it is not even discussed in the United States. Yet, that question is the heart and cause of all the present day Arab/ Israeli conflicts.
On May 15, 1948, the State of Israel was established on land partitioned by the United Nations. (Of course, the UN did not own it nor were Palestinians invited to the vote.) They were up-rooted from their homes forever, given no compensation and many were separated from their families, including parents who never again saw their children.
Israel called it the War of Independence and it is celebrated all over Israel and the United States as a great day to remember. Palestinians called it Al Nakba which means, The Catastrophe.
Within a few days, Israel had 60,000 troops in uniform and armed to the teeth. All the Arab resistance forces added up together were only about 25,000. Palestinian villages were reduced from 550 to 121. The Palestinian population was reduced from 700,000 to 125,000. Many of those who survived are still there, looking across the hills at the homes that used to be theirs, now occupied by Jews.[3]
Arnold Toynbee said of it:
The treatment of the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 and 1948 was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis...though not comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality.[4]
And, Golda Meir could say:
It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine...and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.[5]
Just a bit of history, easily ignored by most Americans including many of our friends and neighbors.
Thomas Are
August 7, 2009
[1] Avi Shliam, The Iron Wall, Israel and the Arab World, (W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2001) p.3.
[2] The Origin of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Published by Jews for Justice in the Middle East, P.O. Box 14561, Berkeley, CA. 94712, p.7.
[3] Exact figures are hard to obtain. However, I have been conservative in my numbers which are based on the history cited by Fred J. Khouri, The Arab Israel Dilemma, Third Edition, (Syracuse, N.Y., Syracuse University Press, 1985), p.77. and Paul Findley, Deliberate Deceptions, (Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago, Illinois, 1993.) p. 13.
[4] Na’im Ateek, Justice and Only Justice, Orbis Press, Maryknoll, New York, 1989.) p.32.
[5] Na’im Ateek, Justice and Only Justice, Orbis Press, Maryknoll, New York, 1989.) p.36
I ask myself, how I would feel in a similar situation. I can’t imagine it but it would be as if suddenly, without knocking, a government official came into my house and announced, “The United Nations has decided to give Georgia back to the Indians.” He then said, “The government has provided for your safety by establishing a refugee camp in Texas. No, you will not have time to gather your things or get in touch with relatives. A bus will be leaving at 3 o’clock today. Your house, land and business now belong to the Cherokees.” When I start to argue, he holds up his submachine gun and says, “Get on the bus. It’s for your own good.”
And what if that same officer announced that France thinks this whole program is a good idea and will donate, in the interest of democracy, huge sums of money to help the Native Americans landscape this backward territory into the garden they always dreamed it could be?
That’s pretty much the way it happened to the Palestinians and many of those refugees are still living in camps behind barbed wire fences and cement barrels. They wait for the world community to recognize the injustice of it.
Other than a self-serving interpretation of the Bible, there seems to be little rationale and even less justice in giving 56 percent of Palestine to the State of Israel. When I imagine myself in a similar situation, I become outraged by the thought of being dispossessed. I may be forced to yield to such a fate, but I would never accept it, even if the rest of the world looks away in indifference.
Mahatma Gandhi said,
What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct…A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. As it is, they (the Jews) are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.[2]
Post World War II brought a migration explosion. Meanwhile, political leaders searched for a painless way to make it up to the survivors of the holocaust. Zionism had a plan…a homeland for Jews. They had even picked the place: Palestine. Everyone seemed eager to compensate Jews. What did not enter into the guilt mix was what to do with the Palestinians already living in Palestine. Zionist chose to claim, and the non-Arab world chose to believe, that there were no “non-Jewish populations” in Palestine of any significance.
In February 1947, the British Government referred its Palestine problem to the U.N. One year later, the U.N. announced a plan to partition Palestine. Israel accepted the plan. The Palestinians rejected it, claiming that the Holocaust was not their doing. Why should Arabs be forced to suffer for Hitler’s crimes? Why should Arabs have to give up 56 percent of their land, including nearly all of the best agricultural and citrus lands, 80 percent of the cereal areas, 40 percent of all Arab industry, and all the sea shore to some 560,000 Jews who actually owned less than 6 percent of the land, while only 43 percent would remain for the 1,320,000 Palestinians?
Until this day, that question has not been addressed. In fact, it is not even discussed in the United States. Yet, that question is the heart and cause of all the present day Arab/ Israeli conflicts.
On May 15, 1948, the State of Israel was established on land partitioned by the United Nations. (Of course, the UN did not own it nor were Palestinians invited to the vote.) They were up-rooted from their homes forever, given no compensation and many were separated from their families, including parents who never again saw their children.
Israel called it the War of Independence and it is celebrated all over Israel and the United States as a great day to remember. Palestinians called it Al Nakba which means, The Catastrophe.
Within a few days, Israel had 60,000 troops in uniform and armed to the teeth. All the Arab resistance forces added up together were only about 25,000. Palestinian villages were reduced from 550 to 121. The Palestinian population was reduced from 700,000 to 125,000. Many of those who survived are still there, looking across the hills at the homes that used to be theirs, now occupied by Jews.[3]
Arnold Toynbee said of it:
The treatment of the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 and 1948 was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis...though not comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality.[4]
And, Golda Meir could say:
It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine...and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.[5]
Just a bit of history, easily ignored by most Americans including many of our friends and neighbors.
Thomas Are
August 7, 2009
[1] Avi Shliam, The Iron Wall, Israel and the Arab World, (W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2001) p.3.
[2] The Origin of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Published by Jews for Justice in the Middle East, P.O. Box 14561, Berkeley, CA. 94712, p.7.
[3] Exact figures are hard to obtain. However, I have been conservative in my numbers which are based on the history cited by Fred J. Khouri, The Arab Israel Dilemma, Third Edition, (Syracuse, N.Y., Syracuse University Press, 1985), p.77. and Paul Findley, Deliberate Deceptions, (Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago, Illinois, 1993.) p. 13.
[4] Na’im Ateek, Justice and Only Justice, Orbis Press, Maryknoll, New York, 1989.) p.32.
[5] Na’im Ateek, Justice and Only Justice, Orbis Press, Maryknoll, New York, 1989.) p.36
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