Monthly Archives: October 2009

Iran: Setting the Record Straight

Posted on October 6, 2009 | 11 Comments

brant-ayatollah1

I’ve read and heard about some silly misinformation being spread around regarding my trip last year to Iran – and I’m thinking it might behoove me to set the record straight.

I will say at the outset that I gave a Yom Kippur sermon on this topic and I blogged extensively from Iran. If you haven’t read these posts yet, please do so. They will give you a pretty good sense of the why, what and how of my Iran experiences.

Right off the bat: I did not meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Now that I’ve gotten that straightened out, I’d like to address one particular quote of mine that’s being bandied about out of context:

While I prefer not to weigh in on the rhetorical hairsplitting debate on [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s notorious 2005 threat to wipe Israel off the map, I’ll only suggest that our attitudes and foreign policy must be based on real intelligence and understanding, and not fear-based, knee-jerk assumptions.

I still think this quote should pretty well speak for itself, but apparently I need to explain further.  I know of at least two instances in which this quote was used to somehow imply traitorous intentions on my part – i.e., that I prefer not to “weigh in” on the serious threats posed by Iran toward the Jewish state.

To those who doubt where my ultimate loyalties lay, I was actually referring with this quote to the rhetorical debate over the actual Farsi meaning of Ahmadinejad’s words from this oft-quoted speech. There has been an important ongoing debate as to whether these words were intended as a threat of genocide against the Jewish state or a predication of the eventual dissolution of the “Zionist regime” from within.

A recent blog post by Juan Cole represents this point of view well:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did quote Ayatollah Khomeini to the effect that “this Occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time” (in rezhim-e eshghalgar-i Qods bayad as safheh-e ruzgar mahv shavad). This was not a pledge to roll tanks and invade or to launch missiles, however. It is the expression of a hope tha the regime will collapse, just as the Soviet Union did. It is not a threat to kill anyone at all.

As I myself am not a scholar of Farsi, I don’t consider myself qualified to weigh in on this debate, but I do believe that “our attitudes and foreign policy must be based on real intelligence and understanding, and not fear-based, knee-jerk assumptions.” I continue to stand by this assertion – I’m simply not a fan of fear-based foreign policy.  I am well aware that there are those who will say, “maybe Iran does intend to destroy Israel or maybe it doesn’t, but can we really take that chance?” I’m more inclined to say it this way: “when we jump to conclusions and base our reactions on fear rather than true understanding, we may ultimately cause our deepest fears to actually come true.”

By the way,  I encourage you to read Cole’s entire post, entitled “Top Things You Think You Know About Iran That Are Not True.” Whether or not you agree with his analysis, I believe his perspective provides a thought-provoking corrective to so many of the fear-based assumptions currently being bandied about regarding Iran.

Here are a few excerpts:

Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.

Reality: Iran’s military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.

Belief: Isn’t the Iranian regime irrational and crazed, so that a doctrine of mutually assured destruction just would not work with them?

Actuality: Iranian politicians are rational actors. If they were madmen, why haven’t they invaded any of their neighbors? Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded both Iran and Kuwait. Israel invaded its neighbors more than once. In contrast, Iran has not started any wars. Demonizing people by calling them unbalanced is an old propaganda trick. The US elite was once unalterably opposed to China having nuclear science because they believed the Chinese are intrinsically irrational. This kind of talk is a form of racism.

PS: By the way, did I mention I didn’t meet with Ahmadinejad?

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Posted in Fear, Genocide, Iran, Iran Trip 2008, Israel, Politics, War

Israel, the UN and the Perennial Double-Standard

Posted on October 4, 2009 | 5 Comments

iccTikkun has published an important interview conducted by Rabbis Michael Lerner and Brian Walt with Justice Richard Goldstone that should be read by anyone concerned with the (now ill-fated) Goldstone report.  Among other things, it contains a fascinating analysis of the perennial double-standard issue:

Rabbi Michael Lerner: OK.  Let me give you one of the frequent criticisms of the Goldstone report that I’ve heard and that I’d like to put to you.  Not that it’s inaccurate but that it’s a reflection of a prejudice because of selective prosecution. The UN gives this attention to the sins of little countries or powerless countries, relatively powerless countries, while never daring to do a comparable report on big guys like the human rights violations of the United States in Iraq, of Russia in Chechnya, China in Tibet. The argument goes that when one picks on historically oppressed groups like Jews for their sins while ignoring the far greater sins of the more powerful, the UN participates in a kind of double standard that in other contexts would be seen transparently as racist or illegitimate.  So that even though you, Judge Goldstone,  were perfectly fine in what you did, the actual investigation itself by virtue of selecting this target by a body that doesn’t target the more powerful is a reflection of prejudice.

Justice Richard Goldstone: Generally I agree with the criticism.  I think the powerful are protected because of their power.  But it’s not prejudice it’s politics. It’s a political world.  There’s no question of not investigating countries because of who they are for religious reasons or cultural reasons, it’s because of their power.  They use their power to protect themselves.  It doesn’t mean that investigations [in countries] where politically they can be held are in any way necessarily flawed or shouldn’t take place.  The same argument was raised by Serbia in particular.  They said, “Why was the international criminal tribunal set up for us? It wasn’t set up for Pol Pot, it wasn’t set up for Saddam Hussein, it was set up for Milosevic.” And my response at the time when it was put to me by the Serb minister of justice, as I remember very well, was if this is the first of the lot, then I agree with you, it’s an act of discrimination, but if it’s the first of others to come then you can’t complain, you have no right to complain because you’re the first.  And if crimes are being committed then at least, to go after those that one can go after politically is better than doing nothing.

ML: For example, there haven’t been any comparable investigations of human rights violations by Syria, by Saudi Arabia, by Egypt — admittedly these are against their own populations.

RG: I think that what distinguishes this from that is that these war crimes are committed in a situation of international armed conflict.  It’s not going to be a civil war situation.

ML: And you don’t think there is something inconsistent or one-sided and prejudicial in investigating this type of crime but not internal crime?

RG: I think it’s a double-standard more than prejudice.

ML: So you would agree that there’s a double-standard.

RG: Absolutely.

ML: And that it should be changed, but that doesn’t invalidate what you do.

RG: This is why.  The best way of changing it is for every nation to join the International Criminal Court.

It’s an extremely compelling argument. Is it a double-standard to only investigate the human rights abuses that are politically possible to investigate? Probably. But it doesn’t mean that investigations such as this are not important and it certainly doesn’t mean they are ipso-facto anti-Semitic.

We in the Jewish community are right to shine a light on this kind of hypocrisy, but I sense this accusation only goes so far. Are we willing to admit that after a certain point, the double-standard argument essentially serves as a way of avoiding certain painful truths about Israel’s conduct?

As Justice Goldstone correctly points out, the best way to ensure that the UN and the ICC fulfill their mandates is for all nations – particularly the most powerful – to agree to be held accountable for their actions.

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Posted in Anti-Semitism, Gaza, Human Rights, Israel, Palestine, Politics, UN

Reading Goldstone

Posted on October 1, 2009 | 6 Comments

richard_goldstone

Why should we trust the Goldstone report if it was produced by the UN Human Rights Commission – a body which has a notorious history of focusing overwhelmingly on Israel to the near exclusion of other potential human rights abusers around the world?

I posed this very question to Fred Abrahams, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s emergencies division who, together with B’tselem Executive Director Jessica Montell, participated in a remarkable conference call organized by Ta’anit Tzedek yesterday.

Fred, who is currently in Geneva attending the UN discusion of the report, answered that there is ample reason to be concerned about the HRC’s undue attention on Israel, but that this particular mission presented a very real “opportunity” for the council to prove otherwise.

In fact, Justice Richard Goldstone initially refused to chair the mission until it was agreed that Palestinian wartime behavior would be investigated in addition to Israel’s.  Indeed, in the end, both sides were taken to task in the report’s final recommendations. It was a shame, Fred said, that Israel’s abject dismissal of Goldstone might actually be thwarting the HRC in its first genuine attempt to realize its true mandate.

For her part, Jessica pointed out that B’tselem did have some concerns about possible bias in the report - a point she also made in a recent Jerusalem Post article. She did add, however, that Goldstone largely confirms the findings of B’tselem’s own investigations, including the huge number of civilian casualties and the targeting of civilian neighborhoods and Gazan infrastructure that had no clear military objective.

I’ve started reading the Goldstone report myself – all 575 pages of it – and encourage you to do the same (but recommend that like me you save some trees by reading it off your computer screen.)  My initial impression: this report is an honorable and good faith attempt to elucidate the facts of what occurred. Quite frankly, it makes for compelling and often devastating reading.  I am certainly aware that it is not a perfect document, but in the end I cannot accept that it deserves to be dismissed without due consideration  (let alone be painted as “blood libel.”)

And I will only add that after reading the report, I consider Richard Goldstone to be a heroic individual who should be lauded for taking on this enormously difficult task with such moral courage.

I was particularly moved by his willingness to address the critical context of this tragic crisis. Witness this excerpt from his opening statement to the UN upon presenting the report:

The Mission decided that in order to understand the effect of the Israeli military operations on the infrastructure and economy of Gaza, and especially its food supplies, it was necessary to have regard to the effects of the blockade that Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip for some years and has been tightened since Hamas became the controlling authority of Gaza.

The Mission found that the attack on the only remaining flour producing factory, the destruction of a large part of the Gaza egg production, the bulldozing of huge tracts of agricultural land, and the bombing of some two hundred industrial facilities, could not on any basis be justified on military grounds. Those attacks had nothing whatever to do with the firing of rockets and mortars at Israel.

The Mission looked closely and sets out in the Report statements made by Israeli political and military leaders in which they stated in clear terms that they would hit at the “Hamas infrastructure.”

If “infrastructure” were to be understood in that way and become a justifiable military objective, it would completely subvert the whole purpose of International Human rights Law built up over the last 100 years and more. It would make civilians and civilian buildings justifiable targets.

These attacks amounted to reprisals and collective punishment and constitute war crimes.

The Government of Israel has a duty to protect its citizens. That in no way justifies a policy of collective punishment of a people under effective occupation, destroying their means to live a dignified life and the trauma caused by the kind of military intervention the Israeli Government called Operation Cast Lead. This contributes to a situation where young people grow up in a culture of hatred and violence, with little hope for change in the future.

Finally, the teaching of hate and dehumanization by each side against the other contributes to the destabilization of the whole region.

A transcript of our conference call will be posted on the Ta’anit Tzedek website soon. I’m excited to report that Ta’anit Tzedek is sponsoring a conference call between Justice Goldstone and Jewish clergy on October 18.  We have a great deal to learn from him and I look forward to reporting on our conversation.

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Posted in Anti-Semitism, Gaza, Human Rights, Israel, Jewish Fast for Gaza, Palestine, Politics, UN, War