… and a special salute to these brave and life-affirming young Jews holding their important message up outside the Combined Jewish Philanthropies Board in Boston.
14 thoughts on “Shana Tova to all Jewish readers”
Comments are closed.
Just World News with Helena Cobban
Info, analysis, discussion – to build a more just world
… and a special salute to these brave and life-affirming young Jews holding their important message up outside the Combined Jewish Philanthropies Board in Boston.
Comments are closed.
Good on them.
Jews who oppose the Likudnik hardline are a very precious resource for all of us, but especially for other Jews, who don’t seem to realise that Israel’s behaviour and the amoral support it receives from organised Jewry in the diaspora is far more likely to result in increased antisemitism than a saner, more generous approach to settling the issue of Palestine.
It is understandable that ‘never again’ drives a certain panicky, reactionary herd behaviour in many Jews, and I’m sure it underlies at least in part the actions of these protestors. Jews need to decide which road is more likely to lead them to safety. It would be nice to see the official organs taking the high road for once, but that can only happen if this sort of protest becomes more widespread.
There is a young Jewish journo here in Australia, Antony Loewenstein, who has just released a book called ‘My Israel Question’ (with cover kudos from Fisk, Pilger, Mearsheimer) which relates his personal journey toward a position which condemns official Israeli policy and behaviour. It has become a best seller and has opened up a previously tightly controlled debate in the Aust media about Australia’s relationship with Israel and the role of our home-grown Lobby. He is surfing the wave Mearsheimer/Walt began in the US but was active on his blog well before they published their article.
http://antonyloewenstein.com/blog/
My sense is this debate is opening up all over the West, and it is young Jews, sick of the intolerance of many of their elders, and cognisant of the dangers this attitude entails, who are crucial in drivivng it forward.
Good on them.
This is great, but what a shame it is such a sparse crowd.
After Israel began its destructive aggression against Lebanon we had a number of demonstrations in front of the Israeli consulate, which it so happens is just around the corner from my office, so of course I went to all of them. The largest – and in my view the best one – was put on by a coalition of Jewish groups and took place during mid day on a week day. There were several hundred people attending, and most of them seemed to be Jews. It was the only demonstration in which some participants – in this case all Jews – deliberately blocked the street and were arrested in a planned action.
Across the street was a counter demonstration consisting of maybe thirty or forty people whose only statement consisted of some very warlike signs, and an attempt to drown us out by beating on drums, blowing a shofar, and playing heavy metal on a boom box and full volume. Pretty Pathetic.
“…young Jews, sick of the intolerance of many of their elders…”
I don’t know about the rest of the country, but around here, while there are some very dedicated active and vocal Jews in their 20’s and 30’s, the majority of those who are devoting much of their lives to opposing Israeli policies and actions, and working for justice for Palestinians (and Iraqis and Lebanese too these days) are in their 50’s and 60’s.
Below is a link to one of the Israeli consulate protests.
http://www.zombietime.com/israeli_consulate_protest_july_13_2006/
Contrary to Shirin’s (admitedly vague and ambiguous) description, the demonstrators appear to be about in equal numbers.
The messages on both sides are interesting. The pro-Israel messages are all pro-peace, and the pro-Palestine messages are mostly hateful and pro-war. So it looks like Shirin is misleading us on the types of signs held at the rallies.
And then there was this protest. Just curious, Shirin, did you go to the demonstration in the link below?
http://www.zombietime.com/stop_the_us_israeli_war_8_12_2006/
You know, the one where people held signs saying “Nazi Kikes out of Lebanon?”
Precious or not, there have no counterparts on the Arab and moslem side. Were any Arabs demonstrating against the Lebanese or Iranian missions? Hell no.
A monolith of close mindedness and bias.
Judging from pictures, these protestors seem to mostly be women. I have noticed a similar imbalance elsewhere.
Glenn, thanks for the link to Antony L’s blog. I hadn’t seen it before.
Joshua, it seems very likely that the demonstration Shirin mentioned was different from the one in that first “Zombietime” link. As Shirin had noted, there were a fairly large number of antiwar demonstrations in her home city.
Also, re that second “Zombietime” web-page you linked to there: The photo at the top, of that particular very hateful placard, may or may not have represented the tenor of the entire demonstration. As you scroll down, indeed, it seems clear that it did not. (Perhaps that placard wasn’t even being held by a bona-fide supporter of the group or groups that had organized the demonstration. That is something that does sometimes happen.) But your friends at “Zombietime” felt they wanted to lead that web-page with that image…
So who puts together these “Zombietime” web-pages, anyway? I went to their homepage and they said absolutely nothing about themselves. It seems like a very weird, secretive, and quite possibly Islamophobic bunch of people to me.
Sometime, though, do try to get back to us with your views on the main post here. For example, tell us if there is any part of the Boston group’s call for “In the New Year, Support Justice, Not War, In Palestine and Lebanon” that you disagree with?
Meantime, happy New Year!
“The photo at the top, of that particular very hateful placard, may or may not have represented the tenor of the entire demonstration.”
It did not.
“Perhaps that placard wasn’t even being held by a bona-fide supporter of the group or groups that had organized the demonstration.”
It was not. In fact, people can be and have been thrown out of demonstrations for that kind of thing. We have one particularly infamous resident anti-Semite here – his name is Joe Webb, and he has been around for about ten years – who goes to all the demonstrations dressed as Uncle Sam with various representations of Stars of David as swastikas, and other offensive items, and likes to try to attend Arab community events, where he is generally shunned. He has been thrown out of a number of demonstrations, and has been banned by A.N.S.W.E.R., but he is extremely combative – possibly dangerously so – therefore attempts to remove him are often too disruptive and risky to warrant really pressing the issue. The bottom line is that he is never welcome, yet more often than not he is there to be photographed and paraded around by those who wish to demonize supporters of Israel’s victims. One year his photograph was “featured” on the front page of the Jerusalem Post, much to his pride.
A few things about the demonstrations in front of the Israeli consulate:
1. I attended all of them, and at none of them were the numbers even remotely equal. The counter demonstrations never had more than, at most, forty or fifty people. Photographs are notoriously deceptive (remember that huge, “joyful mob” that supposedly toppled the statue of Saddam in Firdus Square?)
2. Zombie.com’s (or whatever it is called) characterization of Al Awda as “a group devoted to dismantling Israel and replacing it with a Palestinian state” is false. As for its characterization of A.N.S.W.E.R., even if it were correct, so what?
3. As I said before, the main “message” of the counterdemonstrators was to attempt to drown out our messages by making meaningless noise – banging on things, playing heavy metal at full volume over a boom box, blowing police whistles non-stop, and one guy blowing a shofar (what was the point of that?). They also appeared fond of screaming enraged epithets at us, while we mainly ignored them. Other messages were things like “Arise oh Israel and smite your enemies”, and other “peaceful” signs. But perhaps my favourite was “Hizbollah out of Lebanon”. Huh?!
Yes edq, it is mostly women like Shirin that do the screaming, the men do the violence, see this update on the Oslo anti-Israel gangs from jpost:
The terrorists who shot at an Oslo synagogue on Sunday also planned to kidnap Israeli ambassador to Norway Miriam Shomrat and cut off her head, Norwegian press reported on Friday.
According to Army Radio, Norwegian security services had been tracking the four suspects who, when apprehended, were found in possession of equipment necessary to implement their plan. Two of the suspects were reported to be Pakistani nationals, one was Turkish, and the fourth Norwegian.
Sunday’s shooting caused damage to the synagogue but wounded no one. Police who arrived on the scene after the incident identified at least ten bullet holes in the shul’s windows and exterior wall.
In the past few months, Oslo has been the scene of a number of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist incidents, including an attack on the synagogue last month, where an unknown perpetrator smashed glass windows and scrawled graffiti on the site after defecating near the entrance.
Sunday’s shooting came less than a week after an Al Qaida plot targeting the site was uncovered. Following the exposure of an Italian cell’s intention to attack the synagogue, police had said that they would take steps to secure the synagogue, but did not detail what they intended to do.
Michael Freund contributed to this report.
“Also, re that second “Zombietime” web-page you linked to there: The photo at the top, of that particular very hateful placard, may or may not have represented the tenor of the entire demonstration. As you scroll down, indeed, it seems clear that it did not.”
I just spent the last half hour looking at his site and he definately shows a bias. I only looked at his representation of the anti-Iraq-war protests.
Joshua – if you support the war in Iraq, then please go enlist. They need you.
Yes indeed, I can certainly see why you would find these particular Jews to your liking, as opposed to us “latte sippers”, but I do have a question. What exactly is it that makes them “brave” in your eyes? I mean as far as I can tell the only thing that they are risking is, perhaps, lunch (which, it appears several of them could afford to miss).
Also, just for clarification, I think that “Zombie” is an individual, not a group. I also find your resorting to claims of “Islamophobia” interesting. If the single example you linked to is intended to demonstrate “Islamophobia” then I’d like to know where you stand on Yassir Arafat’s regular claims of Israeli expansionism based on the 10-agora coin (a real exercise in creative thinking, and maybe even, the “A” word).
http://www.meforum.org/article/215
Susan,
I never supported the Iraq war, so I’m not sure what the point of your post was.
JES, hi, welcome back.
I think these young people are brave because they’ve been defying the very strongly upheld norm inside the US Jewish community against criticising Israel in public, and I know several of them have had to put up with strong criticisms and problems from people they love dearly in their families.
I think they’re brave in the same way, for example, that the “Women in Black” in Israel are brave… and I know the WiB get some truly horrible insults hurled at them by their fellow Jews.
As for the latte-sipping approach to life, I think it’s far, far preferable to any kind of a call to make “huge personal sacrifices” in order to maintain an unjust dominion over another people in their own homeland. Let everyone, Israelis and Palestinians, be in a place where they can sip lattes in comfort and safety with their friends, in elegant shopping malls, I say!
Much more enjoyable and useful than maintaining a bloated military in order to protect land-grabbing settlers and dominate and oppress the rightful owners of those occupied lands, don’t you think?
Actually, most Jews who participate in anti-Israel rallies, vigils, protests really don’t have to put up with very much. You’re not going to have too many people agree with you for sure, and you may have people sharply disagree with you. So what?
Contrast that with dissidents in countries that refuse to recognize Israel, who are often jailed or worse should they dare say “Gee, why don’t we normalize relations with a country with whom we have no claims of any sort against? Even if we don’t agree with all of their policies, why not allow tourists to travel, business people to enter into economic relations, students to attend universities?”
The most recent victim? Salah Choudury, a journalsit from Bangladesh who has repeatedly denounced Muslim extremism and been an advocate of tolerance and interfaith and cross national dialogue. He now faces charges of “sedition,” which in Bangladesh are punishable by death.
That is a hell of a lot worse than the fact that someone’s relatives may not be pleased with them the next time they talk about how they “took a stand” by holding a vigil outside of a philanthropic organization that has some of the most wide ranging charitable programs to help the needy that you will find anywhere.