Thousands Rally in Sheikh Jarrah!

2 Replies

By all reports, the protests against Palestinian home evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem have evolved into a political phenomenon that cannot be ignored. Last Saturday night, thousands of demonstrators came out in the largest joint Israeli-Palestinian protest on record.

For more: this Ynet article posted in Coteret, blogger Jerry Haber’s report on Magnes Zionist, and a piece from the Jerusalem Post.  My friend and colleague Father Cotton Fite is currently visiting Israel/Palestine; he attended the rally and has just posted impressions on his blog.  My good pal Rabbi Brian Walt also offers a thorough report.

An excerpt from Brian’s post:

I have attended several Israeli demonstrations but this was the first demonstration where there was a large presence of Palestinians, Palestinian flags, and speakers who addressed the crowd in Arabic.  The mixed crowd – Israeli Jews, mostly secular but some wearing kippot, Palestinian women in traditional dress, Palestinian and Israeli youth – felt wonderful, a rare experience of the reality in this country, two peoples living together on the land with two languages, two cultures and three or more religions.  It is very rare for the two peoples to share anything.   I think among the young people involved in this struggle it is truly an Israeli – Palestinian effort and their vision is one of a shared future.  One of the most prominent posters at these rallies reads: Jews and Arabs together, refuse to be enemies.  In Hebrew it rhymes: Yehudim v’Aravim, mesarvim lih’yot oyvim.

This image inspired something in me something resembling hope – something I haven’t felt re the Israel/Palestine conflict in a long, long time…

Rep. Brian Baird is the Bravest, Sanest Politician in the United States

7 Replies

Can I just say that Washington Rep. Brian Baird is my personal hero? Watch this recent interview with RTAmerica which took place on the heels of his third trip to Gaza. Among other things, Baird calls for the US to break the blockade with Gaza, for US envoy George Mitchell to visit Gaza personally, and to consider withholding “certain kinds of aid” to Israel if it continues to settle the West Bank and East Jerusalem.  Toward the end of the interview, he comments: “ignoring the plight of these good people is at our peril.”

On the international front, my personal bravery award goes to Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin, who was recently the first European Union foreign minister to visit Gaza in over a year.  He discussed his experiences yesterday in a powerful NY Times  op-ed:

The tragedy of Gaza is that it is fast in danger of becoming a tolerated humanitarian crisis, a situation that most right-thinking people recognize as utterly unacceptable in this day and age but which is proving extremely difficult to remedy or ameliorate due to the blockade and the wider ramifications of efforts to try and achieve political progress in the Middle East.

One can imagine how hard it is not to give in to despair and hopelessness in such an environment. However, what was most impressive and heartening during my visit was the resilience and incredible dignity of ordinary people.

Mobilization for Justice in Sheikh Jarrah

12 Replies

The protest in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem seems to be reaching a fever pitch. Organizers have now called for a rally this Saturday night that they hope will attract thousands.

From a Ma’ariv article by Hagai El-Ad, Executive Director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel:

This Saturday night (March 6, 2010) will witness one of the most important demonstrations in years, in the struggle for human rights and justice here…

The asymmetric legal situation in Israel, through the Absentee Property Law, makes it possible for Jews to return to property that was owned by Jews before 1948 — while Palestinian property return is completely impossible. This is both unjust and unwise. In Sheikh Jarrah, this has resulted in Palestinian refugees, originally housed in the neighborhood by the Jordanian government after 1948, becoming refugees a second time. Of course, unlike the settlers forcing the Palestinians out of their homes, the Palestinians cannot return to the homes they owned before 1948 — not in Jaffa, nor in West Jerusalem or anywhere else…

(What) is happening in Sheikh Jarrah is part of a larger process — the Hebronization of East Jerusalem … As if watching the replay of a movie whose ending we have already seen, here in front of our eyes the Hebron processes are taking place once again, this time in Jerusalem: the entry of settlers to the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood, the provocations and violence, the one-sided actions of the security forces – always serving the interests of the Jewish settlers over the rights of the Palestinian residents. And then, what follows: restrictions of movement, segregation, life becoming a nightmare, and all this in the name of “security considerations.” Shuhada Street in Hebron is already closed for Palestinians for years — a street that was part of the bustling heart of one of the largest Palestinian cities, and has become a ghost road in the service of extremist settlers, the human rights of local Palestinians thrown to the roadside.

A similar process to what has already happened in Hebron is now happening in Jerusalem. Sheikh Jarrah now has police checkpoints at the entrance to the neighborhood. During certain hours on Friday the entrance to the neighborhood is generally blocked, but is open to Jewish worshipers. In contrast, Jews wishing to enter Sheikh Jarrah to express solidarity with the Palestinian families are prevented from entering the neighborhood. Violence against Palestinians ends with arrests — of Palestinians. The mechanism of dispossession and the construction of security excuses are already at work. And all this is happening right here, in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Brian Walt has also written a powerful post about a recent protest in Sheikh Jarrah. This is what I wrote about the situation there last December:

International protesters refer to these actions as “ethnic cleansing.” If that seems like too incendiary a term, what do we prefer to call it? And more critically, what are we going to do about it?

A BDS Wake Up Call?

5 Replies

A recent report from the Forward:

With anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions efforts gaining visibility, the Jewish community’s main public-policy coordinating body is for the first time confronting the BDS movement as a specific and stated priority.

At its recent annual plenum, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs passed a resolution stating that BDS should now “be regarded with the utmost seriousness and urgency.”

“This is a very serious matter,” JCPA’s executive director, Rabbi Steve Gutow, told the Forward. “We need to wake up, whether we are on the right, left or center.”

The JCPA, an umbrella body representing Jewish community relations councils across the country and more than a dozen leading national Jewish groups, adopted the anti-BDS resolution at its plenum in Dallas on February 23. Gutow said that JCPA member groups are planning to create a permanent body that would respond to the activities of the BDS movement.

My two cents: creating a permanent body to combat the “negative branding” caused by BDS is a waste of Jewish communal resources.  I just don’t believe that the old counterattack tactics will work any more (if they ever did).  I’d suggest that if the Jewish community really wants to “wake up” to the challenge presented by BDS, then we need to honestly confront the fundamental reasons for its growth in the first place.

The BDS movement was founded in 2005 by a coalition of Palestinian groups who sought to fight for Israel’s human rights violations through nonviolent direct action. It arose out of their frustration over Israel’s continued refusal to comply with international law on any number of critical issues – and the oppressive manner in which it has occupied and ruled over Palestinians. I can’t help but think that by treating BDS simply as a PR threat to be fought, we’re utterly misunderstanding the essential of the point (and strength) of this movement.

By all accounts, this campaign is rapidly gaining support. It’s not a stretch to assume that the longer this oppressive status quo is allowed to continue, the longer Palestinians will resist – and the longer they will seek international support for their resistance.  One year ago, I predicted as much on this blog: BDS will grow as long as very real injustices remain unaddressed.

When will we wake up to this painful reality?

An Israeli Voice of Sanity on Iran

4 Replies

Avner Cohen asks exactly the right questions in a Ha’aretz editorial:

What if our leaders and pundits had reacted to the Iranian nuclear program in a completely different way than they actually have? What if they had not viewed an Iranian bomb as an “existential threat” and instead treated it as something that, even if it became a reality, would be a major global political problem, but not a military threat – because Iran (like every other nuclear state) would never be able to use a nuclear bomb as an operational military weapon?

What if Israel had treated Iran’s nuclear project as an exhibitionist, even childish, attempt by a nation mired in a deep identity crisis to exploit the prestige and mystique of nuclear power to create a national ethos of technological progress at home, as well as a diplomatic miracle cure that would enable it to challenge the West and move to the center of the international stage?

And his answers are spot on. Click here to read.

Tel Aviv: “One of Your Own Kind, Stick to Your Own Kind…”

18 Replies

In past posts I’ve raised questions about the implications inherent in the establishment of a Jewish state – and the problems that invariably seem to arise in relations with Israel’s non-Jewish citizens and residents.

How do we American Jews  react, for instance, when we read that Israel is concerned about a “demographic threat” to the Jewish state? (That is to say, what would we say if  our President raised questions about the “demographic threat” of a particular minority group to the “American character” of our country?)

And now:  what would we say if an American city funded a campaign to discourage girls from dating or marrying boys from another ethnic group?

From Coteret (an Israeli news/media aggregator):

Maariv reported reported on February 23 that the Tel Aviv municipality  launched  a “counselling program” to “help”  Jewish girls who date and/or marry Arab boys.

Grassroots and governmental campaigning against interfaith mingling is  nothing new in Israel…But this is the first time officially sanctioned racism, funded by taxpayers, has come to Tel Aviv, Israel’s liberal heartland.

I’m not asking these questions to “bash Israel.”  I’m genuinely concerned by certain realities that seem intrinsic to ethnocracies. If we truly do cherish values inherent to American civil democracy, how do we react to news such as this?   Do we simply put these values on the shelf out of our desire for a Jewish state?  Or can we understand these kinds of measures in a way that is consonant with our most essential civic beliefs (beliefs, by the way that have been quite kind to the American Jewish community)?

And if not, then how will we respond?

The Politics of Archaeology Unearthed

17 Replies

This just in from AP:

An Israeli archaeologist said Monday that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about the era.

If the age of the wall is correct, the finding would be an indication that Jerusalem was home to a strong central government that had the resources and manpower needed to build massive fortifications in the 10th century B.C.

Just dig a little deeper, however and the plot thickens even more. The researcher in question is Eilat Mazar (above), an old school Israeli archaeologist whose essential goal is to prove the historical veracity of the Bible.  She’s made no bones (sorry) about this over the years.  In a 2006 interview with Moment Magazine, she made this very telling comment:

One of the many things I learned from my grandfather was how to relate to the biblical text. Pore over it again and again, for it contains within it descriptions of genuine historical reality.  I work with the Bible in one hand and the tools of excavation in the other. That’s what biblical archaeologists do. The Bible is the most important historical source and therefore deserves special attention.

The only problem with this is that the Bible is not a history book – it’s religious literature.  There certainly may be kernels of historical fact to be found in these narratives, but I’d say it’s exceedingly problematic for an archaeologist to assume ipso facto the historical veracity of the Bible.  Mazar’s comment that she works with a Bible in one hand and her tools in the other speaks volumes about her fundamental bias.

It’s also noteworthy that Mazar worked until recently for the Shalem Center, a partisan Israeli think-tank.  Among other things, the Shalem Center believes archeology should support “the claim that the Bible can be viewed as a work whose historical narrative is in large part accurate, and (strengthen) the ancient connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.”

It’s striking to compare Mazar’s approach to that of Israel Finkelstein, who comes from a new school of Israeli archaeologists who are aren’t driven by political ideology and are willing to go wherever their research takes them.   In a nutshell, Finkelstein and his colleagues have argued convincingly that it’s impossible to say much of anything about ancient Israel until the 7th century BCE (around the time of the reign of King Josiah). This casts doubt on the historical veracity of the Biblical narrative from the period of the Patriarchs/Matriarchs through the reigns of David and Solomon. These claims have largely been accepted as normative by most mainstream archaeologists outside of Israel.

If you are interested the current thinking of Israeli researchers who are unfazed by nationalist bias, I highly recommend Finkelstein’s 2002 book (with Neal Asher Silberman), “The Bible Unearthed.” Also check out this 2001 piece from Salon, which explores the deeper socio-political implications of Israeli archeology.

Ajami: A Review

1 Reply

Just saw “Ajami,” the Israeli entry for Best Foreign Language film, over the weekend. I recommend it highly, though it’s not a movie for the emotionally faint of heart.

“Ajami” is a crime drama with a “Babel”- like structure – it unfolds in five chapters, each telling a separate narrative from the point of view of different characters. It portrays a powerfully claustrophobic world, in which ordinary people struggle to better their lives against exceedingly tall odds.

Almost everyone in this film is trapped in some sense. At least two of the film’s protagonists are literally house-bound: one is being targeted for murder by a Bedouin gang and the other is a resident of the occupied West Bank working on the other side of the Green Line. Another character, an Israeli policeman, is searching in vain for his brother who has gone ominously missing. There are also two fatally star-crossed love affairs: one between a Palestinian and a Jewish Israeli and another between an Arab Muslim and an Arab Christian.

More than anything else, I experienced this film as a portrait of ethnic and religious communities in constant, tragic collision with one another. At times, it’s sometimes difficult to keep all of the complicated rivalries straight. There is tension between Bedouins and Palestinian Arabs, Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories, citizens of Arab Jaffa and citizens of Jewish Tel Aviv, Arab Muslims and Arab Christians. The Israel portrayed here is not simply a Jewish state – it is nothing less than a simmering multi-ethnic powder keg.

As a portrait of Israeli society, it’s a decidedly non-redemptive vision. You watch the drama play out, knowing deep down that nothing good will possibly come of any of this. And yet what I loved about this film its genuine heart. You can’t help feel a deep compassion for the humanity of these characters, no matter how flawed or broken they are. Even though it’s technically a crime drama, there are really no heroes and villains in “Ajami” per se – just ordinary, imperfect individuals doing their best to survive under increasingly dire circumstances.

I’m sure there will be those who understand this film as a reflection of the hopeless political situation in Israel/Palestine. But I think the true genius of the film is how it works on so many levels: as a crime thriller, a family drama, or a slice of socio-political commentary. Whichever way you choose to take it, it’s not a pretty picture. As befits a film directed jointly by a Jewish Israeli and a Christian Palestinian, however, it’s an exceedingly courageous statement.

What the US Should Do About Iran

2 Replies

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been engaging in a bit of lively back and forth with one reader over my 2008 Yom Kippur sermon on Iran. I haven’t posted on Iran in some time, but that certainly doesn’t mean I’m not following developments there with great interest.

I do believe the Islamic regime’s increasingly brutal crackdown on human rights is a sign that it is taking the challenge of the Green Movement very, very seriously.  For our part, the the US administration appears somewhat paralyzed – issuing tepid statements, wary of throwing too much support to the Greens lest they get accused of meddling in Iranian politics yet again.  Meanwhile, the regime-change drumbeats of the right continue to grow ominously louder and louder.

Still, it would be mistaken and foolhardy to assume the only choice we have is between doing nothing and doing too much. In this regard, I commend to you this very insightful and helpful article by Dr. Trita Parsi and Alireza Nader of the National Iranian American Council.

Here’s my edited version:

(Between) the extremes of doing nothing and doing everything, there is a middle ground: providing the Iranian pro-democracy movement with breathing space, rather than engaging in risky and imprecise exercises that would directly involve America as an actor on the Iranian scene. The United States can achieve this through a few simple steps.

First, the United States should tread carefully when it comes to issuing military threats. Under the shadow of a foreign military threat, the uphill battle of the Iranian pro-democracy movement becomes even steeper, as the Iranian regime is quite adept at exploiting foreign threats to stifle criticism at home…

Second, the United States should avoid sanctions that put a burden on the Iranian people, rather than the Iranian government. Broad-based sanctions that hit the entire economy hurt common citizens far more than the powerful elites. Any new sanctions should demonstrate not only international discontent with the conduct of the Tehran government, but also an effort by the United States to keep from harming average Iranians…

Third, Washington should slow down the diplomatic process. Negotiation with Iran in and of itself is not the problem; engagement doesn’t legitimize the Iranian government, as only the people of Iran can do that. But in spite of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s latest offer to accept the International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear deal, Iran remains in political turmoil. It is questionable that Tehran can make enduring decisions on issues of this magnitude under these circumstances…

Fourth, the international community, including the White House and U.S. State Department, should be vocal in excoriating Iran’s human rights abuses. Condemning abuses should not be confused with interfering in internal Iranian affairs…The Iranian government is, perhaps surprisingly, very sensitive in this area, due to its ambition to be perceived as a regional leader. This sensitivity should be utilized to make advances on the human rights front in Iran…

Finally, Washington should exercise patience and view Iran as a long-term factor in shaping U.S. national security interests across the Middle East. The green movement will not and cannot adjust its action plan to suit the U.S. political timetable. But if patience is granted – which includes avoiding a singular focus on the nuclear issue at the expense of all other considerations – Washington will access a far greater potential for change.

Thank You, Rep. Baird

3 Replies

Yet another American political voice calls to lift the Gaza blockade. From yesterday’s NY Times:

The United States should break Israel’s blockade of Gaza and deliver badly needed supplies by sea, a U.S. congressman told Gaza students.

Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington state, also urged President Barack Obama’s Mideast envoy to visit the Hamas-ruled territory to get a firsthand look at the destruction caused by Israeli’s military offensive last year.

Rep. Baird’s statement on Gaza, from his website:

(Rocketing) from Gaza doesn’t necessarily mean that any response, regardless of scope, target or impact on civilians, is necessarily justified, moral or strategically prudent.  This kind of misleading duality itself reflects the thinking, on both sides, that can make peace so hard to achieve and violence so easy to justify.  The fact is, there were and are many alternative responses possible and it is a false dichotomy to suggest, as some have, that if one criticizes the actions taken by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank then one is necessarily ignoring the rocket attacks from Gaza or somehow siding with or enabling terrorists.

In my judgment what has happened in Gaza and what goes on in the West Bank every day endangers U.S. integrity and security and ultimately strengthens hard line extremists at the expense of moderates and to the detriment of long term Israeli security.   I also believe, having traveled and met with people throughout the region, that this adverse effect is not confined to Palestine but extends to varying degrees throughout the Islamic world and beyond.

I understand that people may disagree strongly with this perspective, but I am certainly not alone in expressing it.  Many people have contacted my office to convey support for what we have said about our visit and this includes many friends of Israel within our own country.

Click here to thank Rep. Baird for his courage.