Israel is not a Jewish state

Today I read this article, one more article about the heinous crimes the state of Israel commits and then continues to call itself a "Jewish" state. This article reports that Israel is now admitting it harvested the organs of Palestinians murdered by the IDF without familial permission or any permission.

http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2009/12/21/israel-admits-stealing-palestinian-organs/

It suddenly dawned on me, as I have been studying the conflation of Judaism and Zionism, as I have been ranting that the actions of the state of Israel are not the Judaism in which I was raised, that we need to stop calling Israel a Jewish state.

By calling Israel a Jewish state, we become at best passive, and at worst complicit, in the justification this tyrannical regime has used and continues to use to commit its heinous crimes. We buy into the rationale that due to the suffering the Jews have endured over the century, we must create a "safe" place all our own. Forget the rage we would feel if the US declared itself a Christian state, forget the rage we would feel if suddenly, say in reparation for its mistreatment of its Roma people, Europe declared New York a Romani state, forget for a moment, in other words, the injustice of any ethnic state that exceptionalizes one group over all others.

And just focus on the fact that in the name of all Jews, a government has committed unspeakable crimes against an entire indigenous population and then justifies its actions via the conflation of its ideology with Judaism. Are you offended yet? You should be. You know - like the outrage you feel when you read about the heinous acts of other colonizers against indigenous people, Native Americans, the Aboriginal people, hey, what was Ghandi's fight all about - the Brits' treatment of the indigenous Indians, no?

So what makes Israel different? Allegedly, because it is Jewish. Well, today, I denounce that this is a Jewish state. For, as I believe I have ranted about before, the Judaism in which I was raised was a religion whose people prided themselves on being at the forefront of social justice movements, on being disproportionately represented in said movements, on being good people. We are, for example, still stunned when a Jewish American commits a crime or any despicable act (yes, I have heard head shaking over the fact that both Spitzer and Mr. Weiner are Jewish).

The Judaism in which I was raised taught me about Rabbi Hillel who said the entire Torah could be understood in one rule "What is hateful to you, do not do unto others."

What would Hillel think of the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians? What would he think of ethnic cleansing, home demolition, illegal organ harvesting, illegal detention, torture, murder of children, denial of basic human rights - all in the name of Judaism.

Now, believe me when I tell you that I have many problems with all religions, my own included. I find them to be, without exception, inexcusably misogynistic. See, e.g., "When God was a Woman" by Merlin Stone. So I am not religious, I do not attend services because, whatever else we add to the prayer book, the Torah contains, portions advocating ethnic cleansing, rape, slavery, general misogyny, war-mongering and, I could go on.

But by the time I was raised, modern American Judaism had turned itself into a social justice movement - with one exception: Palestine. At the mention of Israel, these social justice values get checked at the door, no questions asked. Why? Because Israel is a Jewish state.

Well, today, I let all my fellow Jews off the hook: Israel is not a Jewish state. Israel is a tyrannical, land-grabbing, colonizing regime. I will no longer allow it to use my background to justify its crimes. Join me.

Stop the JNF Campaign Website & Several Actions

Address: http://www.stopthejnf.org/about.html

Gotta love these actions:

Art Activists Plant Trees in Luxury Cosmetics Store linked to Israeli Land Grabs
http://www.100daystopalestine.org/2011/05/28/art-activists-plant-trees-in-luxury-cosmetics-store-linked-to-israeli-land-grabs/

Artists Plant Trees in Luxury Cosmetics Store linked to Israel Land Grabs

http://www.100daystopalestine.org/2011/06/10/artists-plant-trees-in-luxury-cosmetics-store-linked-to-israel-land-grabs/

Dream Job

After ten years, I have finally left the corporate world. Yeah! I will miss the perks, that is for sure. Nothing says "classist society" like corporate perks. But now I am about to embark on what I can only call my dream job. I have accepted a three year fellowship at U-Conn Law School's Asylum clinic. I start this Wednesday. Good-bye corporate craziness and hello real work. Time to feed the soul (ok, so not the "sole" - no more shoe shopping. Sigh. Good thing I did quite a number over the last ten years . . .)

Hello again

It is now 18 months after my trip. A lot has happened during those 18 months, including my decision to leave the corporate law world and focus 100% of my time on refugee rights and asylum work.

But also including my making good on my promise as a I stood amidst those evil JNF trees that day to make reparations. For those of you who haven't yet, please explore www.stopthejnf.org. You will see all of the actions going on 'round the world - JNF, I am afraid you are busted.

I decided to restart the blog and open it up publicly for one reason: as I have woken up and realized the meaning of true peace and the justice that MUST accompany it, I continue to feel a duty to try to help others who were victims of Zionist brainwashing also wake up.

To that end, I hope the blog is widely read. I hope people will contemplate and debate, ask questions and provide further information.

HOWEVER, I absolutely will not tolerate the following:

1. name calling
2. personal attacks
3. disrespectful postings

If we are truly desiring peace (and if you don't, please don't bother reading/posting here, you have plenty of hate blogs in which you can participate), then we must learn to respectfully disagree and dialogue with each other. Its our only hope.

"[E]ven if we win the war, in the end we won't be able to look ourselves in the mirror."

This is a quote by the Israeli Chief of Staff from 2003 in response to the occupation and the checkpoints. It is a key question. What is this state created in the name of Judaism? Who are these Jews that are oppressing, murdering, and ethnically cleansing another people? Who is this government that has established an apartheid, fascist state?

It is not uncommon for abused little boys to grow up to become abusers (little girls tend to internalize abuse and become self-abusive), relating more to the power of the oppressor than the passivity they read into victimization. To some extent, the Israel is this phenomenon on a macro level. While I understand the heartbreak of learning these facts, it is crucial that American Jews stand up and say "no more" and to refuse to be a part of an ongoing genocide. How often have we imagined what would have happened if the German people had done this 60 years ago? Is there some reason that we do not demand the same of ourselves? It is no longer sufficient to claim "I never knew what was happening." There are books at your local Borders and Barnes and Noble stores, there are films, there are websites, there are Palestinians who will be ecstatic to talk to you. You do not even have to go to Palestine. And once you are educated, you have the responsibility to say "not in my name" and to not be fooled by the "anti-Semitic" labels that are put on each criticism of the state of Israel.

All states are answerable for their actions. All governments bear responsibility to treat human beings with dignity and respect basic human rights. Israel has violated her responsibility to such an extent that she is guilty of the commission of numerous war crimes under international law. These statements and calls for accountability are anything but anti-Semitic. Instead, the call to act as righteous human beings towards another group of human beings should be the only demand any religion can make. No religion should be allowed to hide behind its gods to confiscate land, destroy homes, murder people, separate families, oppress a population, encage a population, or deprive a population of its basic human rights. In this way, Judaism is no different but must be held to the same standards.

Arguably, given our history of oppression, we might demand that we hold ourselves to an even higher standard. Are we not, after all, disproportionately represented in most civil rights movements? Are we not disproportionately represented in unions and other fights for human rights? If American Jews do not stand up and demand that Israel be brought to justice, demand human rights for Palestinians and an end to the occupation, then the only conclusion can be that such disproportionate representation is a cloak to hide and distract the world from the war crimes against humanity the Jewish state is committing.

I thank you for accompanying me on my journey. It is only the beginning of my work for justice for the Palestinians. I hope that you will join me.

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement

The last meeting of our trip was with Omar Barghouti regarding the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel (BDS). The BDS call was initiated on July 9, 2005. This was the first anniversary of the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion against the Wall. As became clear to us, the international community has completely failed the Palestinians in that it grants Israel such impunity that Israel is literally getting away with murder. Even the highest Israeli court has ruled that the wall is illegal and yet, the wall remains. Highest court on land said wall illegal and no one did anything. Instead, Israel continues to confiscate or destroy Palestinian homes, lands, trees, and property. Moreover, the oppression, harassment, attacks and apartheid system still remains. So the Palestinian civil society came together and realized that if world cannot stop the wall, or Israel’s other blatant violation of international law, they needed to resort to civil society as the South African black community did.

Here, Omar took the time to stress what we had learned in the past two weeks of traveling throughout Palestine: in the west, people mostly talk about Palestinians armed resistance, ignoring the fact that most Palestinian resistance has been nonviolent, civil resistance. Nor did the Palestinian learn nonviolent civil resistance from Ghandi. And while Mandela was a big inspiration, the Palestinians have their own long history of nonviolence from which to draw. Throughout the past 100 years, Palestinians have held many boycotts, divestments demonstrations, tax revolts (using the “no taxation without representation slogan) etc.

Omar also addressed one of the most difficult parts of BDS: the Palestinian campaign for cultural and academic boycott. He told us that, unlike in S. Africa, Israel’s academic institutions are an indispensable part of the regime of occupation, colonization and apartheid. Without its academy, Israel cannot survive as an apartheid, occupier, oppressive state. In South Africa, this most sacred part of society was sports. For Israel, it is the academy: the most sacred structure in Israel. And academy has played a key role in the oppression/occupation/apartheid with such deep complicity that the military and academia are one and the same. (I believe it is also Shlomo Sands who discusses the complicity of academia with respect to archeology in his new book “The Invention of the Jewish People.”)

Omar also told us that, to the Palestinians’ surprise, BDS was successful from the beginning. Today, he believes it is because they hit just the right combination of elements:
1. BDS addresses basic rights of Palestinians everywhere. BDS does not address political solutions (1 v 2 state solution). Instead, it looks at 3 basic rights:
• The refugees: right of return per Resolution 194. This is largest group of Palestinians, constituting 60%. (Even in Gaza, 80% of Gazans are refugees).
• The Palestinians in the ’67 Occupied Territories: ending the occupation and colonization, including in the Golan Heights.
• The Palestinians in ’48 Israel: they have been deleted out of definition of Palestinians, especially in western world. Here, BDS aims to end the system of discrimination in Israel against Israeli Palestinians, including against the internal refugee population who cannot go back to their villages.
2. BDS is a nonviolent civil form of resistance.
3. It addresses Israelis directly in that it calls on conscientious Israelis to join Palestinians in this campaign. This is a form of recognition so that whatever the political solution is, it future includes conscientious Israelis.

This combination is the reason for BDS success. BDS now has the support of major trade unions around the world (including Irish, British, Scottish, Canadian, Norway, Belgium, France, Italy, and South Africa). And after the Israeli massacre in Gaza, those international unions who were hesitant to join did join. BDS also has the support of many groups in civil society internationally, including in the west.

One important thing about Israel, is that Israel has not invented the weapons to combat BDS. They have tried everything but nothing is defeating BDS. Israel knows how to deal with confrontational nonviolence resistance, i.e. Bil’in (the refugee camp in which there is an anti-wall demonstration every Friday, to which Israel responds via tear gas canisters and detentions). But with BDS, the Israelis are completely lost. They have tried the cry of anti-Semitism charge but this has not stuck because there is a disproportionately high number of western Jews joining BDS plus the campaign is based on Israel’s violation of international law and basic human rights. Plus, there is no duplicity here, in other words, whatever languages are used, whatever groups sign on, there is one set of BDS guidelines.

Also, after the Gaza massacre, BDS took off even faster. In 2009, BDS reached new circles and media, the US being most important example. Omar reported that at the AIPAC conference in May, 2009, the director said that while everyone talking about Iran, we have threat at home, BDS and this is beginning of the end unless we do something about it. In addition, before the national J-Street conference, student conferences were held at which students dropped the “pro-Israel” from their slogans, saying such slogans are not popular on campus and so they would lose many supporters if they continued using them. Also, at the J-Street conference, there was a panel/workshop on how to counter BDS on campus. Instead of coming up with ways to counter, however, J-Street adopted part of BDS, thinking that if they pushed for the boycott of certain domestic products, they would circumvent the entire boycott. Finally, the NY Times published Mustafa Barghouti’s article defending BDS. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/opinion/17iht-edbarghouthi.html). In addition, Mr. Barghouti and Anna Baltzer were both on the Daily Show with John Stewart. The times they are a changing.

Now Omar also pointed out that the BDS movement distinguishes between universities or other institutions and individuals. The boycott call is against institutions (whereas in South Africa, it was against everyone and everything.) The Palestinians do not believe in blacklists because they smack of McCarthyism. Nor are they out to make judgments about good versus bad Israelis. Instead, BDS’ main point is to target Israeli institutions due to their complicity in maintaining racist, apartheid system in Israel. (this despite the fact that out of 9,000 academics, only 407 have ever even come out with a statement remotely opposing the occupation, without using the word.)

For those interested in learning more about the complicity of Israeli institutions, I would direct you to the following websites:

http://www.bdsmovement.net/; http://www.pacbi.org/.

Suffice it to say here that in addition to being built on top of destroyed Palestinians villages, at some Israeli universities, only those who serve in the army get dorm rooms. Of course, few Palestinians serve, so these students are SOL. Further, the universities have been instrumental in developing tactics of “war” (read: terrorism) inflicted on the Palestinians.

Of course, inevitably BDS activists get asked the question of “why single out Israel?” But the real question is why is the west singling out Israel. The Palestinians are simply demanding that Israel be treated like any other country, no better and no worse. Instead, today, Israel is the only colonial state that gets billions of US aid (Sudan, for example, doesn’t get any). Moreover, there are many other human rights violators that are worse but they are not US allies that get aid. In other words, western governments must stop supporting Israel in its oppressive, occupying regime.

And for you lawyers out there, Omar stressed that a boycott campaign must first be based on thorough research. BDS is meticulous in its research on who/what to boycott. To date, the Israeli lobby has not found ONE ERRONEOUS FACT in BDS campaigns. For information on what products to boycott, see http://www.whoprofits.org.

Imwas - a/k/a Canada Park

On our last day, we, among other things, visited the former “Canada Park.” Canada Park is a park funded by the Jewish National Fund - Canada. The JNF and the Israeli horrors are intricately connected. Rather than the nice charitable fund we all thought, the JNF is the custodian for the 93% of the land in Israel that is state owned and that only Jews can lease or build. Remember all those $2.00 trees we purchased to make the desert bloom? Well, to hide the destruction of the hundred of Palestinian villages in 1948 and 1967, the JNF planted those trees over the sites of the destroyed villages. If you know what you are looking for, when you go to these parks, you can see the ruins of the villages. I have posted pictures below from the remains of one of the villages, Imwas, on which Canada Park was built. The wheel is an olive press. The cacti are what the Palestinians typically used in their villages to denote property lines. The headstone is a Palestinian grave stone, with Arabic writing on it. The stones are the stones left after the Israelis demolished the village.

When Canadians discovered this outrage, there was an outcry. Zochrot has also taken action. Zochrot is an Israeli organization working to raise awareness to the Nakba as well as to the refugee issue and the refugees’ right of return. Their main work is educating Israelis about Nakba. They are now coming across stories from Israelis who were there in 1948, and even participated. Israelis don’t study the Nakba, don’t visit places destroyed or hear testimonies. Destroyed villages are not on maps, and there are no signs. Zochrot is trying to expose knowledge, history and geography. They believe that Israel needs to acknowledge the Palestinians’ loss and take responsibility, which is essential to reconciliation in future. We met with Zochrot earlier in the trip.

One of Zochrot’s projects was Canada Park. They filed a lawsuit to put up signs commemorating Imwas. They succeeded and the Israeli government, surprisingly, put up the Imwas signs. Subsequently, the signs were blacked out with paint. Zochrot went back to court but the Israeli government’s position was that the original court order was to put up signs, which they did, not maintain them. Eventually, between the outcry and the Zochrot action, the name of the park was changed, officially, to “Ayalon Park.” There is a movement to revoke the JNF Canada’s non-profit status. If you want to read a short summary of this issue, go to http://www.countercurrents.org/cook220609.htm I am going to try to get some more sleep now. More about our meeting with Omar Barghouti and some closing thoughts later.