Israel Palestine Blogs

We wrote a few days ago in Is the U.S. Consulate Cooperating in Silencing Palestinian Activists?

Mohammed Omer, the Gazan journalist and photographer, is scheduled for a U.S. speaking tour together with Ali Abunimah.  The U.S. consulate in the Netherlands, where Omer now resides, has put an extended hold on his visa application, effectively cancelling the tour.   Omer has lived in the Netherlands since 2008, after he was detained and severely beaten by the Shin Bet when he returned to Gaza from London, where he had been awarded the prestigious Gellhorn Award for Journalism.

We just got word that Omer got his visa. Thank you to everyone for your letters- they made a difference.

For those of you who believe that Jewish liberation and Palestinian liberation are inextricably intertwined, click here for “Four More Questions for Pesach” – a seder supplement I’ve just written for Jewish Voice for Peace.

St. Cloud church buys anti-Islam ad

“Moslems seek to influence a nation by immigration, reproduction, education, the government, illegal drugs and by supporting the gay agenda.”

Gay agenda?

This post: “St. Cloud church buys anti-Islam ad “Mos…” was originally posted at Talk Islam – a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission.

You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami released the following statement today:

J Street notes with concern the resolutions discussed and passed yesterday at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

J Street has consistently called for the UNHRC to take a more even-handed approach to the Middle East and to mature beyond its excessive singling out of Israel for criticism. We appreciate the lead taken by the United States and certain allies, notably in Europe, in advocating for such an approach within the UNHRC and in opposing measures which fall into this category of excess.

There are appropriate international fora, including UN bodies, to discuss, debate and call for an end to settlement construction and expansion. Such calls are in line with J Street’s support as a matter of principle for a viable two-state solution as being in the vital interests of securing Israel’s future as a democratic state that is the national home for the Jewish people, and in viewing settlement expansion as an obstacle to achieving that urgent goal.

Muslims Unwelcome in the US Military:

Before he enlisted, the recruiters in his home town of Bradenton, Fla., had told him that the Army desperately needed Muslim soldiers like him to help win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet ever since, he had been filing complaint after complaint with his commanders. After he was ordered not to fast and pray. After his Koran was torn up. After other soldiers jeered and threw water bottles at him. After his platoon sergeant warned him to hide his faith to avoid getting a “beating” by fellow troops. But nothing changed.

Then came the November shootings at Fort Hood and the arrest of a Muslim soldier he’d never met: Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, who is charged with killing 13 people and injuring more than 30 in a massacre that stunned the nation. And with it, things only got worse.

This post: “Muslims Unwelcome in the US Military: Be…” was originally posted at Talk Islam – a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission.

You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

The Times of India’s Ashis Ray offers his own interpretation of the Home Office report into Muslim blogging:

The Home Office on Tuesday also shortlisted 20 extremist political bloggers. The purpose of the Home Office’s probe was to devise methods so that the British government’s counter-terrorism communications reached UK-based Muslims who didn’t read or watch mainstream British media.

The top five extremist sites are said to be: Ali Eteraz, Islam in Europe, Angry Arab News Service, Indigo Jo Blogs/Blogistan and Daily Terror.

Shoddy, stupid journalism by Ray. Did he even bother reading the press release? Or is Ray suggesting that “pro-Islamic” must mean “extremist”?

I suggest Ali Eteraz, Yusuf Smith, our own Yakoub Islam, and As’ad Abu Khalil contact the journalist and the newspaper and demand a written apology. Islam in Europe, a blog which often leans into Eurabianism, may find it amusing or upsetting to be labelled an extremist Muslim blog. Who knows how many people have seen this and incorrectly thought of them as ‘extremist Islamist radicals’?

(Via an emailer.)

This post: “The Times of India’s Ashis Ray offers h…” was originally posted at Talk Islam – a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission.

You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

Norman Finkelstein may be a curmudgeon who can barely contain his contempt for institutions he feels have violated the public trust. But look past the attitude and sometimes poor choices (which, after all, Finkelstein’s nemesis Dershowitz has in spades) and he’s an excellent, even obsessively detailed scholar, and certainly no anti-Semite. And he’s fundamentally morally right. We Jews especially should be outraged.

Finkelstein is someone possessed with the intense and justified anger of a son of concentration camp survivors who saw his parents’ devastating experiences exploited while they received little support. He rails against not just the financial but also the ideological exploitation of the Holocaust. And I think he has the rage of disappointment of the loyal Jewish son who believed all the words about all Jews working to stop injustice, and discovered they weren’t true.

(Many of his charges are by now well-documented by numerous scholars and accounts, but it goes so far against the  cinematic swelling violin background music of our favorite Holocaust narratives, that we still can’t even imagine elderly Israeli Holocaust survivors and their families protesting in the streets because they are living in poverty, while prominent lawyers and various advocacy organizations pocket millions and Israel continues to take Palestinian land while crying anti-Semitism every time someone says “No!”. And so Finkelstein becomes the target of our collective discomfort. He’s essentially a whisteblower for corrupt Jewish organizations and it’s no wonder that many of us, in the Jewish community and beyond, don’t want to listen. To be fair, it’s also true that he doesn’t seem concerned about getting more people to listen.)

Finkelstein lost tenure at DePaul. He most recently got disinvited by the Greens in Germany. And this morning, word that the global shunning continues in Chicago, where event organizers report that since he’s not allowed to speak at DePaul (part of his severance agreement-amazingly), they found, and then just lost, an alternative venue:

I’ve been very involved in organizing Norman Finkelstein’s April midwest tour, which will include Purdue, Beloit, Michigan State, and Chicago events (DePaul, Northwestern, UofC). Unfortunately, today I received this news from our friends and partners at DePaul:

As you know, former professor and academic Norman G. Finkelstein is scheduled to speak in Chicago on Friday, April 16th. SJP DePaul and friends have been working diligently for this event, from securing a venue, booking his flight and hotel, and fundraising from scratch to make this event happen successfully. Everything was finally coming together, and we were all excited. Unfortunately, today we received horrible news. The event coordinator received the following email from the venue we had secured for the event:

“Good morning Shirien,

We had a Parish council meeting this past week, I notify everyone on the up coming events that are held at our church, and of course, your event was one of the topics

A few of our board members are attorneys and they are the ones that look into almost everything from the individuals that rent the gym out and if they are covered insurance wise.

they looked deeper into the Professor that will be speaking at our church and they insisted that we couldn’t be affiliated with the ideologies of Mr. Norman Finkelstein so I am sorry to say that the church is going to have to cancel and will not be able to rent the gym the night of April the 16th 2010

Please again I am very sorry for the inconvenience.”

Write a nice note to St. George Greek Orthodox Church to let them know Finkelstein should speak:

Deno Diamantakos
DDiamantakos@tempel.com

And if you have an alternative venue idea for April 16 in Chicago, contact organizer shiriendamra@gmail.com

You need to play this at your seder.

The Idelsohn Society has released a breathtaking mix tape for Pesach, weaving together such musical liberation classics as The Kiddush (Richard Tucker), The Four Questions (Socalled), Passover Time on the Range (Moe Jaffe & Henry Tobias), Passover (Joy Division), On My Way To Canaan’s Land (The Carter Family), Freedom (Charles Mingus), I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, (Nina Simone), Where Can I Go? (Ray Charles), I’m Set Free (The Velvet Underground). Defintely something for everyone.

All who are hungry, give a listen!

(H/T to Josh Karsh for discovering this gem).

Chappell and Mrti after their release from prison (AP)

Pay close attention to this item. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s an important one:

Two international activists, Ariadna Jove Marti (from Spain) and Bridgette Chappell (Australia), who are living in Bir Zeit in the West Bank (it’s near Ramallah, and well within the Palestinian Autonomy), were arrested by the IDF last month. The two were about to be expelled from Israel, and as it happens in most cases, they appealed against the decision to the Israel Supreme Court.

As Chaim Levinson reports in Haaretz, while trying to defend the arrests and deportation, the state argued before the court that the two activists

…belong to the International Solidarity Movement, an organization “that supports an ideology that is anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian and universally revolutionary.”

There are two precedents here, and I can’t overstate their importance:

A. The main charge against the activists had nothing to do with national security, but with the ideas they expressed (the state even presented before the court quotes taken from an internet site!). The “crime” involved words, not actions.

It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first (but certainly not last) attempt to present critic of Zionism or support for the Palestinian cause as illegal, and what’s even worse is that the actual arrest was carried out not by police and under orders from the state attorney, but by the army.

It takes a very flexible definition of democracy to describe a regime which makes questioning the dominant ideology a criminal offense.

B. The arrest of the two activists took place in the Palestinian Autonomy’s territory (area A according to the Oslo agreement). Israel often claims that the situation in the West Bank cannot be labeled as Apartheid, since the Palestinians have their own state-like entity. But as we saw in this case (as well as in others), Israel does not respect this autonomy, and its security forces are acting freely within the Palestinian towns and villages, even in cases which have nothing to do with Israeli national security.

——————————–

This time, the court was very critical of the “evidence” presented by the state, and it ruled that it will hear the two activists’ plea. However, as we have come to know in the past, courts cannot hold for a long time against government or security forces’ policies. If the current trends continue, we are not that far from a day in which questioning Zionism might lead to imprisonment – something which was unthinkable not that long ago.

I really don’t think people are aware enough of what’s going on in Israel right now. The rise of racism, the rapid escalation in human rights, the attacks on freedom of speech, the campaign against human rights activists – this is a country on a very dangerous path. As Taayush’s Amos Goldberg wrote in Haaretz a few days ago, It is happening here and now.

Saudi woman poet lashes out at clerics in ‘Arabic Idol’

Tonight, Hissa Hilal, a mother-of-four from Saudi Arabia, takes to the stage in the last round of a competition that she has taken by storm with a scathing critique of the conservative clerics who hold sway in her country. Her poetry has earned her the praise of the judges, the acclaim of the viewing public – and more than a few death threats.

…. In a 15-verse work, she railed against preachers who “sit in the position of power”, “frightening” people with their religious edicts.

“I have seen evil in the eyes of fatwas, at a time when the permitted is being twisted into the forbidden,” she said, with only her microphone and her eyes visible against the uniform black of her burqa. The clerics, she went on – and, by extension, suicide bombers who wrap explosives around their waists – “are vicious in voice, barbaric, angry and blind, wearing death as a robe cinched with a belt”.

This post: “Saudi woman poet lashes out at clerics i…” was originally posted at Talk Islam – a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission.

You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

'Warning: PLO agent in White House–the Land of Israel is OURS!' (Gili Yaari/Flash 90 European Pressphoto Agency)

This striking image accompanied the NY Times article about Bibi Netanyahu’s stem-winding speech at the Aipac conference in which he made some typically bellicose claims. Among them:

“The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years, and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today,” Mr. Netanyahu said to the group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “Jerusalem is not a settlement; It’s our capital.”

It may be Bibi’s capital, but the rest of the world doesn’t seem to see it that way. And if no one but you recognizes it as your capital then for all intents and purposes it isn’t. Bibi, of course, purposely elides East and West Jerusalem in order to fudge the division between them that all but he and other Israeli rightists acknowledge.

In other words, the world has no problem with West Jerusalem being Israel’s capital as long as East Jerusalem becomes Palestine’s capital. That’s the sticking point.  And as far as the world is concerned, Jewish construction in East Jerusalem IS settlement.

A word about the image: it represents the views of a minority of Israel’s extreme right-wing and not the majority of Israelis as proven by a Haaretz poll this week which found that Israelis have a favorable impression of Obama.  But just as we have the Tea Partyers here, Israel has its extreme pro-settler lunatics.  We should keep in mind just what these people believe and represent and not fool ourselves into believing they are like us or can be reasoned with.

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Alan Dershowitz, once one of the salient minds of the Jewish community, is becoming the cranky old man of the pro-Israel right. His cache as defender of Israel has carried him far into prestige…but he’s not the sharp mind of his youth anymore. In this video, Dershowitz interrupts a Haaretz interview with Hadar Susskind, J Street legislative director, to bark the pro-Israel equivalent of “Hey you kids, get off my lawn!”

The fact that Dershowitz was standing next to J Street’s press liaison, Amy Spitalnick, meant Dershowitz’s mistatements were debunked on arrival:

• J Street is not formed in opposition to any group, AIPAC or otherwise. It was created to supplement, which is very different than to replace or to oppose.
• Some of Israel’s strongest supporters are J Street supporters, rather than Israel’s enemies as Dershowitz claims.
• J Street never hosted former U.S. Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski, whom Dershowitz considers an enemy of Israel.
• J Street is not endorsed by Norman Finkelstein, nor does J Street seek or want such a thing.

Dershowitz repeats, as he did during a debate with Jeremy Ben-Ami at the 92nd Street Y, that J Street’s founders and supporters should join AIPAC for the sake of a unified voice. A unified voice which Hadar says doesn’t and cannot exist (amen and amen). No one organization speaks for the whole of the community, and if Dershowitz believes it then I am disappointed he isn’t attacking Mort Klein and the ZOA, who attack the mainstream for not supporting the settlers enough.

But fine, Dershowitz, have it your way: I eagerly await an invitation from AIPAC to merge with J Street. And I personally await for my invitation to join the NYC Jewish Community Relations Council where I and my J Street NYC team will be greeted as equals and valued pro-Israel leaders in their decision-making.

…Any day now.

WASHINGTON -American Jews continue to support the Obama administration’s push for Middle East peace and seek strong U.S. leadership to resolve the conflict, according to a new poll released today by a pro-Israel, pro-peace group.

The J Street sponsored poll, conducted March 17-19, in the aftermath of escalating tensions between Israel and the United States after Israel announced new housing construction in East Jerusalem during Vice President Biden’s recent trip, was released today as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered major policy speeches here.

Like previous surveys, this poll finds solid support in the Jewish community for J Street’s position that peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a core Israeli and American interest and that the United States should take an active leadership role in achieving peace.

The survey is available online at www.jstreet.org/poll

American Jews by a four-to-one margin, 82-18 percent, support the United States playing an active role in helping the parties to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, with 73 percent of American Jews supporting this active role even if it means that the United States were to publicly state its disagreements with both the Israelis and the Arabs.

And by a 71-29 percent margin, American Jews support the United States “exerting pressure” on both the Israelis and the Arabs to make the necessary compromises to achieve peace. An earlier J Street poll last March found a similar level of support.

A majority of all American Jews, 52-48 percent, still support an active role even if the United States were to publicly state its disagreements with only Israel. American Jews are evenly split on support for exerting pressure on only Israel, a notion that J Street opposes.

“This poll and the others before it show that American Jews, who remain staunch supporters of Israel, recognize that peace is vital for Israeli and American interests, and that the United States must play an active and engaged diplomatic role if we are to end the Middle East conflict,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street.

Obama’s approval in Jewish community is holding steady at 62 percent. Gallup reported 64 percent approval rating in an October 2009 poll. Obama’s approval rating among Jews is 15 points higher than among all Americans, 47 percent, according to a Gallup poll conducted during the same period.
And in a hypothetical 2012 matchup against his most vociferous Republican critic during the last few weeks on Israel, Obama beats former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin by 70-18 percent.

Notwithstanding nearly two weeks of sustained attacks on the Obama administration by many Jewish leaders and organizations, 60 percent American Jews believe that it was Israel’s announcement of new housing in East Jerusalem that caused damage to U.S.-Israel relations, and 55 percent say the United States was right to strongly criticize the Israeli announcement of new housing in East Jerusalem during Biden’s visit.

American Jews agree that the United States should speak out publicly when it disagrees with Israel, yet some do show discomfort when the United States publicly disagrees only with Israel.

• 44 percent agree that the United States should publicly express our disagreements and request Israel to change certain policies, while 40 percent say the U.S. should keep such disagreements private.

• 42 percent say that ending the conflict requires the United States to serve as an honest broker and state our disagreements with both Israelis and Palestinians when it is necessary, while 39 percent say public criticism of Israel sends the wrong message to Israel’s enemies.

• 53 percent say the relationship between the U.S. and Israel must be a two-way street that allows an honest public discussion and even criticism, while 47 percent say the Obama administration should work closely with Israel, make a conscious effort to move away from public demands and unilateral deadlines, and defuse tensions.

“The American Jewish community is wrestling now with the difficult challenges and choices that advancing peace will entail,” said Ben-Ami. “As the Obama administration moves forward towards its goal of achieving Middle East peace, they should be reassured that significant numbers of American Jews support their efforts and recognize that these efforts benefit the shared national interests of both the United States and Israel.”

Gerstein | Agne Strategic Communications designed the questionnaire for this survey of 803 self-identified adult American Jews, conducted March 17-March 19, 2010. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percent; the margin of error in the split samples is +/- 4.9 percent. Gerstein | Agne contracted the research company Mountain West Research Center and Opinion Outpost to administer the survey by email invitation to its web-based panel, which is regularly updated and consists of nearly 900,000 Americans.

The demographics (such as denomination, synagogue attendance, age, region) and political measures (party identification) in this survey reflect other surveys of American Jews, including the 2009 Gallup Survey (reported on January 11, 2010), the 2008-2009 American Jewish Committee Annual Surveys, and the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey.

Gerstein | Agne is a Washington-based strategic research firm that conducts public opinion research for non-profit organizations, charities, civic institutions, candidates for elected office, and Fortune 500 companies. Jim Gerstein has conducted extensive public opinion research with American Jews and was involved in the Clinton Administration’s outreach to the Jewish community. He has also conducted public opinion research in Israel, and was a member of the American team that oversaw the polling, focus groups, and paid media efforts for Ehud Barak’s 1999 campaign for Prime Minister.

Mohammed Omer, the Gazan journalist and photographer, is scheduled for a U.S. speaking tour together with Ali Abunimah.  The U.S. consulate in the Netherlands, where Omer now resides, has put an extended hold on his visa application, effectively cancelling the tour.   Omer has lived in the Netherlands since 2008, after he was detained and severely beaten by the Shin Bet when he returned to Gaza from London, where he had been awarded the prestigious Gellhorn Award for Journalism.

A similar silencing happened earlier this month in the Bay Area where I live, when the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem never responded to the visa application of Mohammed Khatib, founder and leader of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall.  He was scheduled to speak at the Sabeel Conference and at universities throughout the area.  He had been arrested by Israeli forces in 2009 on charges of throwing stones (this 36-year-old Catholic High School teacher), and later released when it was proven that that he was abroad at the time of the alleged incident. He was arrested again in January, this time charged with possession of “incitement materials.” We never got to see him. By not responding, the U.S. Consulate effectively cancelled his trip.  .

The American Civil Liberties Union has described the practice of denying visas to foreign nationals whose views the government disfavors as “ideological exclusion”, which violates our First Amendment right as Americans to hear constitutionally protected speech.  In the case of Omer and Khatib, inaction has had  the same effect as denial of their  visas, except without the explanation that a denial would require.

So it makes you wonder whether the U.S. Consulate is acting in concert with Israel to keep Palestinian nonviolent activists from getting the word out about the reality of Occupation.

We in the Bay Area were deprived of our chance to hear Mohammed Khatib speak, but there is still a window of opportunity to call on the U.S. Consulate in the Netherlands to approve Omer’s visa application so that his voice can be heard here.