Monthly Archives: March 2009

American Gulag

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You need to read this new Amnesty International report on immigrant detention in our country. Even those who have some knowledge about this national shame will be jolted by AI’s findings:

– Tens of thousands of people languish in U.S. immigration detention facilities every year — including a number of U.S. citizens — without receiving a hearing to determine whether their detention is warranted.

– Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are being used to hold these people for months—sometimes years—in detention. The people detained include lawful permanent residents, undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and survivors of torture and human trafficking.

– Oversight and accountability is almost nonexistent and individuals in detention often lack treatment for their medical needs. 74 people have died while in immigration detention over the past five years.

If you’re looking for a healthy way to channel your rage after reading the report, you can send this letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, urging her to find meaningful alternatives to detention and ensure that conditions in detention are “humane and meet international standards.”

(…and then while you’re inspired to help change our deeply broken immigration system, send this letter to your congressperson and urge him/her to help pass the Dream Act in 2009. )

E1: End of the Two State Solution?

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e1-map-11

From today’s Ha’aretz:

Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has struck a secret deal with Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman for highly contentious construction on West Bank land known as E1, Army Radio reported Wednesday.

While this might not seem like major news to some, this report, if true, would be devastating to the peace process (such as it is…) In fact, settling E1 might well constitute the final nail in the coffin of the two state solution.

“E1” stands for East 1 – it is the administrative title given to the area east of Jerusalem and west of the West Bank development Ma’ale Adumim (see map above). Israeli settlement monitors such as Ir Amim and Peace Now have long cautioned against the dire consequences of settling this critical strip of land:

Construction of E-1 would jeopardize the hopes for a two-state solution. It would, by design, block off the narrow undeveloped land corridor which runs east of Jerusalem and which is necessary for any meaningful future connection between the southern and the northern parts of the West Bank. It would thus break the West Bank into two parts – north and south. It would also sever access to East Jerusalem for Palestinians in the West Bank, and sever access to the West Bank for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. Both of these situations are antithetical to the achievement of any real, durable peace agreement and the establishment of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.

The expansion of Ma’ale Adumim, as with the expansion of any other settlement, is a unilateral act which undermines and jeopardizes efforts to resume negotiations which are based on the principal of two states living side by side with peace and security.

It’s not such a stretch to imagine Netanyahu blithely giving E1 away to Lieberman as a political bargaining chip – he’s been hankering after this piece of earth of some time now. In fact, back in 2005 he choose a barren hilltop in E1 upon which to announce his candidacy for Prime Minister. This is what he had to say at the time:

This is Jerusalem, it’s our capital…Nobody can tell us to freeze building in our capital. What we need to do is to break this siege by building here.

You can see all of E1 quite easily from the top of Mt. Scopus. It’s beyond sobering to think the fate of the peace process might well hand upon a mere 12 square kilometers.

Trust me, this will be one to follow…

PS: Click here to send a letter to Secretary of State Clinton to ask her to make a settlement freeze a necessary part of the peace process going forward.

Exxon Valdez: A Dubious Anniversary

Gaza: Soldiers Are Speaking Out

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Once permission has been given to the destroyer to do harm, it does not discriminate between the guilty and the innocent. (Mechilta, Bo)

Today the NY Times reported on an issue that has gripped the Israeli press and public for some time now:

In the two months since Israel ended its military assault on Gaza…testimony is emerging from within the ranks of soldiers and officers alleging a permissive attitude toward the killing of civilians and reckless destruction of property…On Thursday, the military’s chief advocate general ordered an investigation into a soldier’s account of a sniper killing a woman and her two children who walked too close to a designated no-go area by mistake, and another account of a sharpshooter who killed an elderly woman who came within 100 yards of a commandeered house.

In reading these accounts, I’m especially struck by the powerfully defensive reaction of many within Israel – insisting that these were either isolated incidents or that they were simply untrue. Witness Defense Minister Barak’s recent statement on Israel radio:

The Israeli Army is the most moral in the world, and I know what I’m talking about because I know what took place in the former Yugoslavia, in Iraq.

I don’t know if Israel’s army is the “most moral” in the world. I’m not sure if I even know what that means. I don’t know what we really expect when we train young men and women to kill, give them the most sophisticated killing instruments on earth, then demonize their enemies before sending them off to battle.

Israel has long claimed its army follows the military war ethic of Tohar Haneshek (“Purity of Arms”). Whether or not this was ever true, there is seems to be growing evidence that in the heat of battle (or if you prefer, the “fog of war”), the difference between “legal killing” and “war crimes” becomes increasingly fuzzy to those who wield the weapons. And I’m fairly sure that this is the case whether or not the soldiers in question happen to be Jewish.

Even more disturbing are the reports from Israeli soldiers that the Israeli rabbinate is urging them to view this conflict as nothing less than a holy war. Richard Silverstein, blogging over at Tikun Olam, has translated some of the Hebrew press accounts, uncovering this jaw-dropping testimony from a commander named Ran:

The military rabbis sent us lots of material and in these articles the message was clear: we are the nation of Israel. We arrived by a miracle in Israel. God returned us to the Land (of Israel). Now we must battle to remove the non-Jews who disturb us in our conquest of the Holy Land. That was the main message. And the sense of many of the soldiers in this operation was that it was a religious war. From my perspective as a commander, I tried to talk about politics and various strains within Palestinian society. That not everyone in Gaza was Hamas and not every resident wants to conquer us. I wanted to explain to them that this war was not about Kiddush Hashem (sanctifying the name of God), but about stopping Qassam fire.

Expect more horrifying news in the coming weeks…

Green Mosque, Green Shul

A Peace Veteran Bears Witness

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kathykelly This past Wednesday, JRC’s Peace Dialogue sponored a visit by longtime peace activist and nonviolence practitioner Kathy Kelly, who traveled to Gaza during the recent war.

If you’ve never heard of Kathy Kelly, you should read her bio because she’s someone you need to know about. This recent article will give some idea of the territory she covered in her presentation.

As she’s has been walking the walk for decades, I was surprised (and somewhat appalled) when she told us that this was the first time she had ever been invited to speak to a specifically Jewish audience. I hope and trust it won’t be the last. Through word and deed, I believe this inspiring peace veteran has a great deal to teach us.

Jewish Brits Organize for Fair Trade

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fairtrade Kudos to the British Jewish community for mobilizing big time in support of Fair Trade!

Check out their impressive new Jewish Guide to Fair Trade – it has to be the most comprehensive resource of its kind. It’s even more remarkable when you consider that it is the product of a wide-ranging coalition that includes every major British-Jewish denomination.

This campaign is but one project of Tzedek, a British org that self-describes itself as

…a voluntarily led Non-Governmental Organisation that draws upon the skills and resources of the Jewish Community to better the lives of those less fortunate. Tzedek aims to nurture and empower open-minded Jewish community leaders to promote the fight against extreme poverty.

Their new guide is much more than just Jewish lip-service to Fair Trade. It’s filled with lots of substantive info, including Jewish sources and curricula.

Any chance that the large Jewish community on the other side of the pond might follow their lead?

Shalom Rav

A Blog by Rabbi Brant Rosen