Today I received an email inviting me to a rally to express solidarity with Israel signed by the major mainstream pro-Israel and Jewish organizations ranging from those on the extreme far right all the way to J Street. J Street!
J Street is, of course, the organization that was established as an alternative to AIPAC, the “pro-Israel” lobby that has long dictated U.S. policy on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. J Street now joins the consensus that sees Gaza as a black and white issue: Israel is right, Hamas is wrong.
I accept that because I have been around the pro-Israel community long enough to know that this is the conventional wisdom. (Although I would not necessarily have expected J Street to join the pro-war crowd.)
The shocking thing for me is the language that J Street and the others endorsed:
Show your support as we stand together in solidarity for Israel. Governor Deval Patrick and other community leaders will address rising concerns of war and the importance of a strong friendship between the U.S. and Israel. Together, we’ll rally for peace and separate fact from fiction, because Israel’s children deserve freedom from fear.
That is it. Not a word of compassion for the children of Gaza. President Obama’s statements are slightly better. But only slightly. The reigning orthodoxy seems to be that Palestinian lives don’t matter very much. If you press for an explanation of this thinking, you are told that these children are unfortunate victims of the fact that their parents elected a terror organization to govern them. And that Hamas shelled Israel first. (Should American children have suffered because our government launched a war on Iraq with no justification?)
On the second point – that Hamas started this – the evidence is sketchy at best. In fact, it seems that the facts point in a different direction. (See this timeline put together by the brilliant Emily Hauser for The Atlantic.) More to the point is that this conflict did not begin this month or this year. Israel has kept Hamas under blockade since 2007 and the Palestinians under occupation for much longer.
Israel controls Gaza’s land, air and sea entry points and the only items that get in are those that the Israelis approve. It is also worth noting that there truly is no such thing as a Gazan. Every person who lives there is a Palestinian or the descendant of Palestinians who fled to or were driven to the Gaza Strip when Palestine became Israel in 1948. Yes, Israel has the right to defend itself. But so do displaced people. (Neither has the right to “defend itself” by killing or terrorizing civilians.)
But the main point is not the historical one. It is that the most militarily dominant nation in the Middle East, a nuclear power at that, is bombing refugees and their descendants rather than seeking to end the conflict with them through negotiations. Israel will not negotiate with Hamas to end the conflict but it negotiates with it on prisoner exchanges and the occasional ceasefire. And, as this Haaretz article points out, negotiations on a long-term cease-fire were underway at the very moment that the Israeli air force dropped a bomb on the Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari and kicked off the current intense phase of the conflict. It was Jabari who was deciding on whether to go with the cease-fire.
But back to the first point: the children.
Does it need to be said that all children are innocent, that not one of any nationality deserves to be terrorized or killed as part of some strategic game? Yes, Hamas has been shelling southern Israel for years. That is indefensible. But no more or less indefensible than Israel’s attacks on cities in Gaza. Can anyone seriously believe that one less shell will fall on southern Israel because the Israelis are dropping bomb after bomb?
Besides, how is Israel’s argument that Hamas does it any kind of justification? Israel repeatedly says that Hamas is a bunch of bloody terrorists, no different than Al Qaeda. When did Hamas become Israel’s yardstick for moral acceptability? This is not the Israel I grew up on. Can you imagine Yitzhak Rabin saying, “Well, they started it. They attack kids so why shouldn’t we?”
This war is an abomination. Because both sides are wrong, and both sides are right and, above all, because all children have the right to live without fear. It must stop. The Obama administration needs to stop having its actions dictated by AIPAC and the donors it directs to the Democratic party. A second term president has no justification for such timidity (nor, in fact, does a first term president). Here is what a president dedicated to the U.S. national interest and not to scoring points with donors would work to achieve:
First there must be a ceasefire. And then unconditional negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians (obviously including Hamas because this is an Israeli-Hamas war). The goal need not be a final status agreement that will end the conflict forever because an intermediate step is almost as good, a long-term cessation of hostilities by both sides. No more shelling from Gaza. Nor more bombs from Israel. An end to the blockade of Gaza and to weapons smuggling into Gaza. An enforcement mechanism to ensure that neither side violates the agreement.
Once that is achieved, Israelis and Palestinians can move on to the next step. Or not. Because the main thing is simply to stop the killing.
The alternative is looming just out there. It is a missile or bomb landing on a school and killing hundreds or kids. It is terrified parents. It is kids wetting their bed in fear as the bombs explode in the distance. It is simply endless death.
In God’s name, why would anyone join a rally to support such abominations?
POSTSCRIPT: Check out Jewish Voice For Peace. It is unambiguously opposed to this war and will not participate in Jewish community “solidarity” rallies.
MJ, I’m on your side here, and you’re one of the few voices I trust to tell the truth on Israel/Palestine, but I wish you’d be more specific about this:
“An enforcement mechanism to ensure that neither side violates the agreement.”
What would this be? This is not a rhetorical question. Please reply.
Israel should show the same concern for casualties on the Arab side that HAMAS, who indisriminately fires rockets into Israeli population centers, shows for Israeli casualties. That is what I call a “proportionate response”. Russia also called on Israel to make a “proportionate” response, so I agree that Israel should be able to do what Russia did in Chechniya. I also think Israel can learn from the two sides in the Syrian civil conflict on how to deal with civilian populations on the side of the enemy.,
This is a reply to Y. Ben-David. Do you really think that what Russia did to the Chechens was justifable and proportionate? That is monstrous. Is all this death and destruction nothing for you but a means to the end of total control over people who are in your way? Do you simply wish to wipe them off the map as nuisances b/c you want to possess a certain piece of land? How did you reach the point of such hatred and heartlessness, such inability to see anyone’s point of view but your own? You were not born that way; I will not believe that. Somewhere there must be some corner of decency that admits the suffering of others.
I suggest you read Ilan Pappe’s book,The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
If Hamas is a terrorist group like you claim it to be, then you must admit that Israel itself was created on terrorism. Let us not forget the Irgun ,Haganah andStern gangs that started terrorism in the land of Palestine. I suggest you review your history . Since when have a people been denied the right to fight against occupation? Or is Israel sacrisant? Your ignorance is repulsive
Amen! So few people in the US know any history of this whole thing. We are stymied from spreading it by the media’s capitulation to the Israel lobby. One feels so isolated; it’s good to hear someone else somewhere speak out.
As to history, please recall the Einstein/Arendt (and many others) letter to the New York Times (1948)warning against support for Begin’s Herut party (which the letter called fascist). And here we are, today. Lebensraum and all. disgusting.
Phyllis Bennis (Fellow and the Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC) explains the root of Israeli current violence in Gaza:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=9138
aipac and other similar Israeli 5th columnists and their hasbara troll flunkies are doing what their zionist employers instruct them to do; independent thought and actions are not in their job descriptions.
64 years into the farce called “peace talks”, “oslo accords”, the horror cabinet of musical chairs, aka israeli government, continues to violate ALL the UN resolutions, and to drop massive bombs (500 tons dropped on Gaza during “cast lead”) and rockets, cluster bombs (tipped with DU?), white phosphorus, also the use of Palestinian children as human shields by the israeli soldiers vs the hamas rockets that with few exceptions, have landed in empty fields or the sea. That in itself should give one pause: who is really firing those rockets at a time of the wide proliferation of GPS? Israel has no interest in peace. It’s why Jabari and the negotiated truce had to be bombed by an Israeli missile.
Chris Hedges speaks the truth – or the closest truth – to the cruel reality of this kind of horror. (Chris Hedges: Assault on Gaza Is Not a War, it is Murder) I am not educated on the Gaza conflict, and have only a faint glimmer of the suffering this is causing all of the innocent, living beings that are now under fire. Israel, be damned. And by extension, that includes Amerika.
Haha, first of all missiles are going both ways and citizens of Israel are dying too. Also, it’s spelled, America. Not educated on Gaza? Well knock me over with a feather. I’m moving on to a better educated group. See ya. Remember, carry a big stick and cower in the corner when real men step in the room. Pussies!
If you are so well educated on Gaza why not stick around and try to show more people why your point of view is a valid one instead of calling names and ducking out when someone says something you don’t agree with? That’s debate which might have the effect of influencing American policy; the other is bullying which will simply make people hostile to your cause. I wouldn’t think that’s your goal, is it?
I agree with you and am a great admirer of Chris Hedges. This *is* murder, and, even more reprehensible, it’s timed to help Netanyahu’s re-election. That fact that it will probably succeed is a further indication of the horrifying situation in Israel. The fact that so few people in the US know the history of and current conditions in Palestine shows what a tight grip the US Israel lobby has here. Obama today said in a public statement that the US fully supports Israel in its effort to stop bombs from falling on people’s houses. He can’t be unaware of the thousands of Palestinians houses that have been destroyed, sometimes with the people in them, by the IDF using American armored bulldozers. It was a sad demonstration of the immorality of American policy in this conflict.
Here’s the link to the awesome speech, an indictment of Israel and the USA:
it is really surreal yet all too common to see all the ways in which people will try to justify occupation/ethnic cleansing, the israelis compllaining about palestianian violence is like the u.s. cavalry complaining about indian violence ‘how dare they resist genocide!’ seems to be their apologist attitude
The Jews were doing just fine until they were victims of genocide, by some little group in Germany. It’s not ” surreal” it’s crystal clear to them.
one evil does not excuse another, that is pretty simple, but have fun defending mass murder,racism,ethnic cleansing if that’s your thing
Yeah it does, if you want to survive. Oh, that’s right, you’re not competitive. You’re about to be run over so don’t move. Just stand there and be hit by the train.
”jim” did you just call israel evil? yes thast’s what you said by saying one evil does excuse another, well at least you admit it
Yep, we all are! Lets be clear. All war is evil, but remember, love your enemy, turn the other cheek. And never see another sunrise. At least I admit civilization is not civil.
The Jews were certainly not doing just fine until the “little group in Germany” by which I assume you mean the Nazis. A little study of Jewish history amply demonstrates that. But the Nazis were not Palestinians. If the Jews wished to take revenge they should have carved Israel out of Germany and displaced those who had fought for the Axis. The displacement of Palestinians started long before WWII–in 1882 in fact–and was abetted by the British, French, and Americans. The history of that displacement is rife with massacres, Jim Crow laws, invasions, and terrorist attacks. All the shouting in the world can’t change the past, and the situation will never be resolved until that is acknowledged.
Exactly right! The parallel is exact.
It is all about the Israeli elections in 2013. It is disgusting that we have educated Jews, whose grand-parents suffered at the hands of the Nazis supporting a genocide!
Yeah, all about the elections. My goodness, of course it wouldn’t have anything to do with Hamas just lobbing bombs into civilian areas of Israel to begin with. Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaida, are so uncivilized they just move on and kill each other if they’re not trying to kill Americans and Israelies. If Hamas wants to continue this foolish behavior they will have to realize they’re bringing a stick to a gun fight. You want to act like barbarians? No problem, thank you for showing your face. We’ll be sure to slap that smile right off.
Defensiveness and bravado are a sign that you aren’t sure of your arguments. If you think Hamas is bringing a stick to a gun fight, you’re admitting that the Israelis are the ones using the more destructive weapons. But I’d like to know the reason for the hostile defensiveness and apparent disregard of Palestinian history. You mentioned flying planes into buildings. Palestinians didn’t do that. Do you think all Muslims or all Arabs are the same? From Morocco to Indonesia? And that you know what their motivations are?
Amen!
Hamas is a piece of crap terrorist organization carrying out work for a larger piece of crap, Iran! I hope we blow the $h!t out of both of those cancers. Or are you not wanting to fight for liberty and freedom that these uncivilized idiots want to take away from us?
Partners for Progressive Israel is pretty cool too: http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Statement-on-the-violence-in-Israel-and-Gaza.html?soid=1101124262940&aid=dyRPtn90aOE
You make it sound as if Hamas will just stop shooting rockets if Israel promises to stop bombing terrorists. That’s naive and ignorant of history. The false equivalency you draw is similarly silly. Hamas might not be the evil creature Israel paints it as and Israel might not be a shining star (the IDF’s social network chest-beating is sickening) but the two are not the same. One side aims for combatants. The other shoots indiscriminately at civilians.
Are you seriously suggesting that Israel aims for combatants? Israel is committing genocide and has been for decades.
BS!!! Martha. They’re not the ones blowing up bus loads of civilians. Flying airplanes into buildings, and throwing missiles anywhere they want.
Right on!
Amazing what they get away with, isn’t it…..
Question: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections? ?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East routinely violates the international borders of another sovereign state with warplanes and artillery and naval gunfire?
Answer: Israel .
Question: What American ally in the Middle East has for years sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies (a practice sometimes called exporting terrorism)?
Answer: Israel .
Question: In which country in the Middle East have high-ranking military officers admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed?
Answer: Israel .
Question: What country in the Middle East refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?
Answer: Israel .
Question: What country in the Middle East created millions of refugees and refuses to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses?
Answer: Israel .
Question: What country in the Middle East refuses to pay compensation to people whose land, bank accounts and businesses it confiscated?
Answer: Israel .
Question: In what country in the Middle East was a high-ranking United Nations diplomat assassinated?
Answer: Israel .
Question: In what country in the Middle East did the man who ordered the assassination of a high-ranking U.N. diplomat become prime minister?
Answer: Israel .
Question: What country in the Middle East blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship, the USS Liberty, in international waters, killing 34 and wounding 171 American sailors?
Answer: Israel .
Question: What country in the Middle East employed a spy, Jonathan Pollard, to steal classified documents from USA and then gave some of them to the Soviet Union ?
Answer: Israel .
Question: What country at first denied any official connection to Pollard, then voted to make him a citizen and has continuously demanded that the American president grant Pollard a full pardon?
Answer: Israel .
Question: What Middle East country allows American Jewish murderers to flee to its country to escape punishment in the United States and refuses to extradite them once in their custody?
Answer: Israel .
Question: What Middle East country preaches against hate yet builds a shrine and a memorial for a murderer who killed 29 Palestinians while they prayed in their Mosque.?
Answer: Israel .
Question: What country on Planet Earth has the second most powerful lobby in the United States , according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East deliberately targeted a civilian U.N. Refugee Camp in Qana , Lebanon and killed 103 innocent men, women, and especially children?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East is in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council resolutions and has been protected from 29 more by U.S. vetoes?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East receives more than one-third of all U.S. aid to the world yet is the 16th richest country in the world?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East receives U.S. weapons for free and then sells the technology to the Republic of China even at the objections of the U.S. ?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East routinely insults the American people by having its Prime Minister address the United States Congress and lecturing them like children on why they have no right to reduce foreign aid?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East had its Prime Minister announce to his staff not to worry about what the United States says because “We control America ?”
Answer: Israel .
Question: What country in the Middle East was cited by Amnesty International for demolishing more than 4000 innocent Palestinian homes as a means of ethnic cleansing?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East has just recently used a weapon of mass destruction, a one-ton smart bomb, dropping it in the center of a highly populated area killing 15 civilians including 9 children?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East routinely kills young Palestinian children for no reason other than throwing stones at armored vehicles, bulldozers, or tanks?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East signed the Oslo Accords promising to halt any new Jewish Settlement construction, but instead, has built more than 270 new settlements since the signing?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East has assassinated more than 100 political officials of its opponent in the last 2 years while killing hundreds of civilians in the process, including dozens of children?
Answer: Israel .
Question: Which country in the Middle East regularly violates the Geneva Convention by imposing collective punishment on entire towns, villages, and camps, for the acts of a few, and even goes as far as demolishing entire villages while people are still in their homes?
Answer: Israel .
THE WORLD DESERVES TO KNOW WHERE EVIL COMES
lets wait after the us elections and then we move!!
Are you the only sane voice? I hope someone in the White House is listening.
J Street is a joke. They’re just another cog in the US Israel lobby wheel now. But WTH is Deval Patrick doing at the rally? Is he up for re-election? Can’t get elected if the lobby blackballs you.