Of course, this review is less-than-timely as the film came out 51 years ago, unless I can somehow argue the 50th anniversary of the making of the film merits this attention. But I won’t stoop to that (although I thought about doing so). Just thought that it was/is a quality film, – an anti-war/war film (I’m going to review and reflect on a few others in the next few days on this blog) and that while in many ways the subject matter and themes are distance from the Middle East magnet to which so many of us are drawn, there are still, some parallels, relevant reflexions to be made which will become clearer toward the end.
There are a number of quite fine post war Japanese films that deal with either the war or its aftermath in one way or another. The absolute-5- star-best of them – nothing comes close in my opinion – is Shohei Imamura’s Black Rain (NOT the film starring Michael Douglas). It is a tale of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing probing the themes of how people deal with life after the bomb has been dropped. The Burmese Harp is not quite of the same caliber, but still very good.
It explores the last days of World War 2 in Burma. A Japanese platoon is on the run. They are a tightknit group led by a captain, who is of all things a musican, not one of those tight-assed Japanese military types. Respected by his men, he still seems somewhat out of character, a humane Japaneser officer. He teaches one of his subordinates, Mizushima, to play a local instrument, the Burmese harp. As the film proceeds, the Japanese surrender, the platoon is placed in a p.o.w camp from where it is waiting to be shipped back to Japan.
Most of the story gravitates around Mizushima. He volunteers to go on a mission to convince a group of soldiers holding out on a mountain to lay down their arms because the war had come to an end. Mizushima risks his life to get to their outpost but none of the men are willing to lay down their arms. As is well known there were Japanese soldiers who `stayed at their post’ and continued to fight for the emperor into the 1980s and 1990s, some on isolated islands, others in the jungles of the Philippines or New Guinea. The men of the little unit holding out on the mountain top represent this somewhat demented, all to common military spirit otherwise known as fanaticism.
The willingness of Mizushima’s captain to face reality and to shift emotional and psychological gears to the demands of peace and reconstruction is contrasted with the gung-ho militarism of the mountain side platoon who only know how to fight to the death. For them, the words `the war is over’ can never quite be absorbed and changing gears to adjust to a world at peace a form of culture shock they can not comprehend. Death comes to them quickly as the British bomb the outpost to hell and everyone in the unit, save Mizushima, dies a glorious but unnecessary death as a result.
Now alone and somewhat dazed, Mizushima picks himself and looks for his platoon that has been transferred to a p.o.w. camp 200 miles to the south. On his journey he comes across a buddhist priest bathing in a river, steals his garb to better camoflauge himself and goes on his not so merry way to find his captain. Wherever he goes, he cannot escape the horrors and ugliness of war as he stumbles into piles of contorted bodies of dead Japanese soldiers again and again. Bowing to Japanese traditions of respect for the dead, of not leaving the bodies of the dead to rot in the hot Burmese sun, he takes it upon himself to burn and cremate as many as possible, saving the ashes in classic Japanese fashion.
But the task is too much for him. Too many Japanese soldiers blown to bits, killed everywhere and Mizushima simply does not have the time, the energy to bury them all, although he very much, and at a certain point, very much needs to do just that: bury/cremate every single one of them decently and honorably. In the midst of this extraordinary sadness – a soldier coming to grips with the horror of war – we are not told exactly when, he has something of an epithany, and decides to become the monk whose clothing he stole and to dedicate his life to scouring Burma for dead Japanese comrades that he hopes to respectfully send to the great beyond. He comes to understand the savagry of war and becomes a total pacificist, stays in Burma, refusing to accompany his platoon (which he finds, but avoids) home to Japan. He’s become a man with a mission, a mission of peace.
There is something else about this film that is quite moving – the role and the power of music to touch people where words can no longer penetrate because they have become inadequate to describe the scope of the horror or the depth of the emotional pain,…it is not entirely clear that music can either, but it seems to touch something very deep. There is a scene at the film’s outset that typified this very well. The Japanese platoon enters a Burmese village only to find themselves surrounded by British troops. The Japanese, trying to feign ignorance of the presence of the British, sing blithely along, while preparing for what they think will be a rather harsh battle.
Among the songs they sing is the Japanese version of `There’s No Place Like Home’. I’ve always thought this particular song one of the more pathetlcally maudlin songs I’d ever heard. But to hear it sung to the accompaniment of a burmese harp in Japanese and with such feeling, I can never be quite so cynical about the song again. And then the British respond in chorus, their way of telling their Japanese adversaries that the war had ended three days prior. Great scene. War begins with certain kinds of songs – you know `over there, over there, send the word over there that we’re going to bomb the shit of THEM’, whom ever `they’ are..but wars end with opposing armies humbled, singing `There’s No Place Like Home’ in chorus and wanting to end it all as soon as possible.
Seen in Japan a decade after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (to which the film makes an oblique reference), the Burmese Harp raises the question: was it worth it, was it worth it for Japanese armies to romp through Asia to even far off Burma. And the answer obviously is: it wasn’t. In the way that is underlines the grotesqueness, the horror of war, the results of war, it is a powerful anti-war film. I have to wonder (and will probably research) how Japanese audiences took the film.
And yet there was something missing. I kept waiting for it throughout the film, but `it’ never happened. How would the Burmese casualties of the war, the British, Indian opponent casualties to the war be treated? Yet the subject never came up, the fact that of the Japanese occupation of Burma, its savagry – it was not kinder there than anywhere else Japan conquered in Asia – was not addressed, almost as if it hadn’t happened.
The history explored, emotionally rich and humane as it content admittedly was, was extremely narrow and selective, as if there were no Burmese in Burma and no Japanese occupation. At the end of the film, we are shown Japanese p.o.w.s building a railroad bridge over a river but the 100,000 or so – we’ll never know the exact number – of Burmese (and British, Indian and American p.o.w.s) worked to death to extend the railroad from Thailand across Burma to strengthen Japanese logistics and communications is not touched nor are the innumerable massacres of Burmese villages thought to be giving refuge to guerillas or Brits. From this film you wouldn’t know that the Japanese were the oppressors in Burma and the Burmese their unwilling victims. Instead the film presents a stripped down version: this is war..as if the two sides were equal, two adversaries neither of which has justice on their side, neither of which is oppressing the other.
The emotional drama thus unfolds in a cultural bubble – and if this film is any indication – outside of which, the real world, the horror and oppressiveness of the Japanese Occupation is virtually non-existent. Selective memory: we mourn our dead, that’s about it; the suffering we have inflicted upon others is somehow conveniently pushed aside and hardly exists, if it exists at all. If Mizushima dedicated his life to honoring all the dead in Burma he’d have to spend 10 lifetimes cremating and collecting ashes.
More on Tunisian Jews from Peace Corps-Tunisia friends who served with me as volunteers and staff 1966-1968
This from Dan Cetinich in California – an author and film maker. His history The Bosnian War: 1992-1995 in the D.U. Library
“Dear Robbie,
I read your e-mail concerning Sylvain Hayoun’s highly chauvinistic defense of Israel. It’s typical of defenders of Israel and reveals his anti-Arab racism, since he does not mention anything positive about the Palestinians, saying only in passing that they support Israel’s democracy. His views reflect those of Israel: the Palestinians are second-class citizens in their own country. And he sees all Arabs in that racist light.
Your response was on the mark, especially when you brought in Albert Memmi, whom I also highly respect. If you wish, I can say a few things about my experience there. It mainly had to do with Max Chemla, [a Tunisian Jewish friend of both of us, now in Paris r.p.]with whom I often socialized there and whom you know too. He never expressed any of the sentiments of Sylvain. At that time I was a supporter of Israel, but I slowly started to reevaluate my prejudices under the influence of my students at the College de Jeunes Filles de Carthage and the three wonderful sisters of my Saudi friend Khalid al Fawzan, a fellow student from the Jesuit University of San Francisco, whom I reconnected with on an Easter vacation trip to Paris in 1968.
The attitudes we all shared then sprang from a Western bias, Robbie. I remember “L’Express”‘ glowing support of the Israelis in the aftermath of the 1967 war. In my novel about the CIA in Paris in 1960-1961, I did research on the rarely discussed events of October 17, 1961, when peaceful Algerian demonstrators were brutally attacked by the police under Prefect Maurice Papon, who rounded up Jews during World War II. Algerians were clubbed, shot at and thrown into the Seine in the center of Paris. And the French people on the whole supported the police or did not want to be reminded of what happened. This has been the attitude of the West in general about the unknown Other, which happens to be anyone of another skin color or religion. Is it a universal quality of human beings? I don’t know, as I’m not an anthropologist like Boas or a sociologist like Weber.”
2. Phil Jones – lives in Washington D.C. Author of 5-6 novels. I’ve read parts of two of them, thought them quite fine although he has yet to get one published. Hopefully he will. We roomed together briefly at the outset of our stay in Tunis. Not knowing hot from mild peppers, and believing that `small’ was milder and `big’ was hotter, we put in a load of small peppers into a meat sauce. The sauce was so hot that just looking at it caused one to break into a sweat. Aestetically lovely…it was largely inedible.
“Robbie,
This is a very good response. Who is this “Sylvain?” A Tunisian? French? [Phil – Sylvain claims to be of Tunisian Jewish origin. no reason to doubt that claim – rp]
Your point about the overall response of Tunisians and the Tunisian gov’t to anti-semitism is, as far as I know, right on target. Yet, in the past, I came across a website for Tunisian Jews who had left Tunisia because they felt forced out in some way. I can’t remember the name of that website now, but I will try to locate it and send you the address. I don’t think the complaints on this website negate anything you said, but you should at least be aware of these complaints. Are they true? I dunno. In today’s world, some complaints are valid, and some are just fucking whining and self-pity because we live in a culture of complaint and victimhood. Hard to figure out which is which in many cases.
3. Name withheld by RP
I’d agree with you, Rob; however, remember that I was one of the less [politically] `engaged’ volunteers and that I was more aware of men than politics!
4. Although not an email, i got a call about this from a friend – one of the few – with whom I often converse in French. He was especially pleased to see mention of Albert Memmi, of whom we both expressed our respect and spoke about for some time.
The US in the Middle East – Can’t Negotiate Unilaterially Anymore, But Can Go To War on its Own (or with Israel)
In Response to Kirk Feffers, Denver Peace activist:
1. Despite a precipitously slow but steady global decline, the US still has, as we all know, enormous power. What has intrigued me is why the Europeans (in what is called the Quartet: U.S.,E.U.,U.N, Russia) have essentially let the U.S. walk all over their faces (the Russians too) in the Middle East. It isn’t a quartet, or hardly that, but a `solo’ operation with the US dragging the other three along, sometimes willingly, sometimes complaining rather mildly.
What I cannot prove but am looking for evidence of, and thus sharing with you (collectively) is that some deal was cut in the 1990s when the Europeans (read: Germany, France and Italy) couldn’t resolve the Yugoslavia mess militarily. The U.S.. went in to `save’ them but only at a price and I believe the price was European subservience to U.S broader Middle East plans – especially the Israeli Palestinian situation. At the very least it suggests a great European reluctance to play an enhanced security role in the world independent of the U.S. The Europeans are neither ready or willing to play such a role and thus are stuck in letting the U.S charge ahead as it has since the collapse of Communism.
What is the `hole’ in this theory? that the Europeans didn’t come along in Iraq. ok. But if you follow policy in the rest of the region (Iran, Israel-Palestine) these countries and the rest of the Quartet are subservient more or less to American interests and march in lock step. This is even true of the Russians despite their anger at the proposal to place anti-satelite missiles in Poland and the Czech republic (which is simply a way for the u.s. to divide the `old europe’ – w. europe from the `new’ former Soviet satellite states). Russian thinking goes something like this: let the u.s. screw things up in the middle east…with all its oil and gas, its position can only strengthen as a more `reliable’ source of energy.
2. Anyhow getting to the point, .Despite its awful record on Middle East peace making – to the contrary – it has fanned the flames of war in the region and the US Congress, egged on by the New York Times and Senator Joseph Lieberman in particular seem to be at it again with Iran – I don’t see the U.S.. out of the Middle East negotiating process. Although the U.S. has lost a great deal of political capital in the region, so much so that as a fair broker, unfair broker, it can no longer impose its will unilaterally, it still has a lot of clout. The danger still exists that to bypass compromises with its allies it will instead go to war without their consent or participation, despite the dangerous consequences of so doing. Remember who’s in power in Washington.
Still, the other countries will have more of a role in future negotiations if and when they take place. The U.S. will try to limit their role over tradition and plain old fashioned imperial arrogance. But the days of the U.S. simply dictating Middle East policy I believe are over and painful as it will be, Washington will have to make compromises. This will make the political situation even more complex. Of course Washington will try to make the fewest compromises possible and then break them but still I believe we’re in another ball game from where we were only a few years ago.
All this sounds contradictory, I know, but it is the situation that is contradictory, more than the logic here presented. The US is facing new pressures at present and is following contradictory policies. Condoleeza Rice makes (admittedly feeble) peace gestures on day and almost immediately her `undersecretary’ of state (acting more like a political commissar), undercuts and contradicts her efforts the next in line with Cheney’s and Bush’s thinking.
Unfortunately all this effects the Middle East negotiating process in which a new balance of forces does exist, but proceeds at a snail’s pace. And at the same time there are some initiatives for peace, there are all kinds of scenarios and plans for more war. The danger of yet more Middle East war – and soon – exists. While in the U.S., Europe and Israel, the media continue to savage the Palestinian people with sanctions as cruel as those enforced against Iraq in the 1990s for voting for Hamas, leading to the humanitarian crisis and sectarian warfare in Gaza, Israel, with the continued flow of U.S.. aid, continues to build and strengthen colonial settlements (what else can it be called?) in the W. Bank, works feverishly to complete the Wall, retains 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners in its prison system, blithely continues the Nazi-like policy of targeted assassinations, etc. etc….it goes on its merry way.
No pressure is being put on Israel to negotiate – none…and if Israel is not preparing for peace than it and the U.S. are once again colluding for war, which is what I suspect happening at present. Will it be to a stunning blow to re-enforce Israeli military prestige that hits Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas in Gaza all at once? Will it be some fool-hearted attack (using conventional or nuclear weapons) on Iran (since the U.S. feels some restraints in doing it there are some reports that Cheney, in his evil wisdom is encouraging the Israelis to do it)? Or will it be some other yet to be defined form of military or political subversion…whatever…Israel remains, as Uri Avnery recently put it `a floating arsenal without a rudder’ and the times are very dangerous..and it appears that the Europeans, the UN and Russia will not intervene to stop any of this aside from a few insipid statements.
All we can do is expose the scoundrels’ plans, scenarios as we learn about them and counter their march for war with calls and plans for peace.
Oh yes, Happy 4th.
Tunisia’s Jews – a Letter to the Editor
Explanation: A week ago Sylvain Hayoun wrote an opinion piece in the Boulder Daily Camera criticizing one that Ida Audeh had written. The exchange was mostly about Israel. Ida claimed Israel is a failed state, Sylvain considers it a great success. In his argument Sylvain suggested that Tunisia, a place where I spent 2 1/2 years as a Peace Corps Volunteer, treated Jews badly, that he lived in a repressive environment. This did not correspond with the realities I experienced there. Below is my response.
Response Sylvain Hayoun’s Op Ed: Israel A Successful State:
There are some points Sylvain Hayoun makes in his response to Ida’s piece that are misleading.
The picture that he paints of Tunisia’s Jewish Community does not correspond to the realities I experienced there as a Peace Corps Volunteer 40 years ago.
There is a Jewish community in Tunisia. True, it is much smaller than in the past, but it still exists. Despite a somewhat despotic president (Ben Ali), Tunisians are a tolerant, urbane people whose Islam is a far cry from Saudi Wahhabism, Jews have lived among the Tunisian Arab majority for a long time with very few problems including after independence in 1956. Jewish institutions are protected by law, and perhaps even more importantly, anti-semitism is foreign to the spirit of most Tunisians.
Tunisian Jewry produced one of the more interesting liberal thinkers of the mid 20th Century and sociologist of French Colonialism – Albert Memmi. He is still alive and I had the pleasure of listening to an interview with him last November on the French radio where he suggested that charges of rampant anti-semitism in France are overstated. His book The Colonizer and the Colonized made an impression on me and in some ways it is a useful guide to understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as Tunisian-French relations.
There is a beautiful synagogue in downtown Tunis – a few steps from where I taught at L’Institute Bourguiba des Langues Vivantes (an annex of the University of Tunis). One of the oldest synagogues in the world exists on the island of Djerba. In an attempt to terrorize Tunisia’s Jews and punish Tunisia for its tolerant policies, Djerba’s synagogue was blown up a few years ago by an Al Qaeda bomb attack, a both a tragedy and a vicious and politically stupid act. The entire nation rallied to rebuild it.
My very, very, very tolerant (tolerant to the foibles of two American young men in their 20s) landlord, Monsieur Cohen Salel was Jewish. His daughter has become an internationally renowned scholar. I knew and met frequently with Jews in Tunis and Sousse. Tunisian Jews were attracted to Zionism already and were torn between staying in Tunisia and leaving but were generally pulled more towards Paris than Tel Aviv.
To suggest that Jews were driven out of Tunisia, or that they suffered from some systematic anti-semitism or discrimination is simply historically inaccurate. I can’t help thinking it little more than propaganda to so distort the Tunisian reality.
Many Jews did leave. They were leaving already in the 1960s. But, like in Algeria (where the separation and the history is far more tragic and violent), most Tunisian Jews did not leave to go to Israel. They went to France instead. Far more went with other North African Jews to Paris where there are whole neighborhoods of Tunisian Jews. Like Algeria’s Jews, those in Tunisia had, since the late 19th Century largely assimilated to French culture and to a considerable degree identified with French culture and as a logical extension to French Colonialism. When the period of French Colonialism ended in the 1950s many Tunisian Jews left. But to suggest they were forced out by oppression is overstating the case to a very considerable degree.
Many stayed and the years I lived there (late 1960s) the Tunisia’s Jews did very well and did not live in fear. Many of the Peace Corps Volunteers in the my group were Jewish. I can’t remember the number, never did a count but of 250 of us or so I think 25-30 were Jewish. None of us – to my knowledge – were ever discriminated against either as Americans or Jews. Just the opposite.
It is true that at the outbreak of the June 1967 Middle East War there was much rioting and that the British Embassy was burnt down, the US Embassy attacked and some Jewish shops were vandalized. The Jewish shopkeepers were compensated for their losses after calm was restored.
Jewry in the broader Arab world was caught in a historic vice between rising Arab Nationalism – which was seen throughout the region as a vehicle to achieve the dream of modernism and Zionism, the creation of a Jewish State. Tunisian Jews found themselves in a similar position, but of all the Arab countries that tried to limit the negative impacts of that historical collision, I believe Tunisia did about as good a job as any.
Speaking Engagements, Iraq, 9-11 Conspiracies
The invitations to speak about the Middle East keep coming. I do not solicit them. They are not every day but about once every two to three weeks. I am surprised at their consistency and have begun to farm out some to others, both on the principle that there are other voices that need to be heard on the Middle East and due to time constraints. There are already two upcoming events just in July – a radio interview on KGNU (July 10) with LeRoy Moore and a talk at the Boulder Unitarian Church (with Ibrahim Kazerooni) on July 22. Three others for September are shaping up – one in Colorado Springs, another organized by Jewish law students at D.U. and a third, it appears, a panel discussion by the Mizel Museum in Denver, none solicited by me.
The last two were interesting.
1.
In early June (June 2) I spoke to a United Church of Christ group in Denver, thanks to Kate Goodspeed. I turns out that her daughter Sarah, was a former student of mine at Metro State College and one I remember well. Hadn’t seen Sarah for a long time but she once gave me a Buddhist prayer flag which hangs on a basement wall and it was good – even moving to see her. The event went well – it was to mark the 40th Anniversary of the Occupation and the 1967 War. It was well attended 35-40 people in the room coming just after the Sunday morning service. I spoke for about a half hour – main points: there is no way to hide that what Israel is doing in the West Bank and Gaza is an Occupation, it is cruel and oppressive and should end, that a framework – UN resolutions (242, 194) exists to provide a solution and has for decades but that the clock is ticking and time is running out. Oh yes, I also sang a song – Le Deserteur – sang it in French, and then translated it. Seems that both the audience and I survived that experience. The questions centered around suggestions that Israel had no one on the Palestinian side with whom to negotiate. I tried to address them. Ibrahim K. was kind enough to show up despite his bad knee and participated. I believe that on the whole the audience was receptive to the talk. Have to ask Kay for feedback but have been too busy till now. I was impressed with the seeming fact that when not addressing either a predominantly Jewish or Arab audience that people are receptive and open to my remarks and that Americans want to hear more about it. The questions are honest and even the hard ones are not difficult. It seemed an educated audience.
2. `Frequently Wrong But Never In Doubt?’
Last night (July 1) Ibrahim Kazerooni and I spoke in Boulder at a Veterans for Peace meeting on current US policy in Iraq. It was at a condominium club house, a very hot evening (temperature in the high 90s) but again, good attendance 40-50 people. The organization is made up of mostly Vietnam era vets. Because they know the horrors of war and have no illusions about the political excuses used to cover wars of aggression, they tend to be a savvy group. Our basic message – told in somewhat different ways – but coming to the same point was that the US might downsize the troop levels in Iraq but that they will not give up the bases which are being consolidated into a number 4-5 mega bases and that all appearances suggest that these bases are there to stay and the US will let Iraq descend into more chaos. From their bases – modern version of Crusader fortified castles – the US will intervene in the region as they see fit. Virtually none of the major presidential candidates are addressing this issue – save Kucinich and much as I like him he does not appear to be a `major’ candidate again. The Colorado Congressional Delegation – in particular Udall and Salazar but also the others – are consistently lousy on these issues. Salazar, a freshmen Senator seems to take his lead from more experienced Democratic Senators and Udall, with an eye on the presidency, will not do anything too principled on this issue.
Ibrahim put his remarks within the context of US imperial domination of the region. I spoke about how US military strategy shifted after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 to a more direct military presence.
Overall the talks seemed well received although there was one outburst.
Dr. Bob McFarland, something of a fixture in the Boulder progressive community, who has a regular radio program on KGNU, lost his cool and presented his version of the 9-11 conspiracy theory which he sees as key to understanding the present mess. Later I asked him why he had gotten so angry, why couldn’t he simply present his position more calmly. This provoked another outburst, reminding me that McFarland seems to have been pickled in conspiracy theories for as long as I have known him, which is several decades.
To give him credit, he comes by it honestly. Early on, before many others even suggested such a possibility, McFarland argued that the US had plenty of information that Pearl Harbor would be bombed, and essentially let it happen to provoke public opinion so that Roosevelt could enter World War II. If this is today not a hard core theory, still, it is not an argument that can be simply dismissed. Is he simply stuck in the same paradigm and sees it repeating itself everywhere? Perhaps this has colored his thinking on other events since, but he has latched on to the 9-11 conspiracy theory and basically lives for it. He’s become obsessed with the issue. Chomsky, who doesn’t take seriously the idea that Bush was behind 9-11, is referred to as `a double agent’, a suggestion that there are certain flaws in McFarland’s thinking. I doubt I’m seen in a much different light.
It must be admitted that McFarland is not alone; he has a fair amount of support within the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center and my sense was, more people agreed with him in the room than with my sharp criticisms of this movement. Still, 9-11 conspiracists have a factional manner of people who are convinced that they have found THE issue, the truth and then become true believers. Reminds me of a line from a Cheryl Wheeler song of one of her friends who was `frequently wrong but never in doubt’.
These ideas permeate the peace movement in Colorado and from what I have heard from a few friends in other places (California) elsewhere as well. By way of example, had a long talk with a Denver friend this morning about this (and other things) – someone for whom I have a lot of respect and she defended McFarland too.
Changes…Always Difficult
What follows below are two pieces – the first, the 2002 Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice’s position paper on the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis, the second – my response to the current difficulties that the organization is experiencing, which are, the more I think about it, quite common, and happening to peace groups, both local and national, throughout the country
1. Toward a Resolution of the Palestinian – Israeli Conflict
Consensed Statement of the Spokescouncil of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center — January 17, 2002
We at the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center are deeply pained by the ongoing violence, breakdown of peace talks, and loss of respect for the welfare, dignity and lives of both Palestinian and Israeli people. We recognize the complexity of this situation and have struggled for over a year to issue a position statement.
We believe that a legitimate dialogue and effort toward peace is possible when the fundamental interests of Israelis and Palestinians are honored. These include Israel’s desire to exist as a secure state, and also the desire of the Palestinians for a secure state of their own; a plan for Jerusalem that recognizes and honors the spiritual and historical connections of both Israelis and Palestinians to contested areas of the city, such as the Temple Mount; and the difficulty in amending the suffering of Palestinians driven from their homes.
Many news sources agree that during the past 15 months, over 800 Palestinians and 200 Israelis have been killed. Moreover, about 16,000 Palestinians and 2,500 Israelis have been wounded. These estimates are huge numbers in an area that is home to about 3 million Palestinians and 6 million Israelis. In addition, while damage done to Palestinian towns, farmlands and orchards and to Israeli civilian areas pales in comparison to the number of dead and wounded, these economic losses greatly impact people’s lives. This tremendous human tragedy is hard to contemplate, especially given that the sides were close to reaching an agreement in Taba in January, 2001. Unfortunately, the negotiations have not been reinitiated and the already bad situation has since become far worse.
We call for an immediate resumption of the peace talks.
We call for both sides to comply with international law, including the Geneva Accords and all pertinent UN Security Council resolutions.
We support the nonviolence movement in Palestine and Israel and echo the call of numerous groups (including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Rabbis for Human Rights, B’Tselem, Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, and A Jewish Voice for Peace) for an end to the violence in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza; an end to deliberate acts of aggression and retaliation; an end to denying statehood to any people.
We call for equal access to basic resources – including water – and freedom for people to walk safely in the streets. All types of violence – from Palestinian suicide bombings to the everyday violence of Israel’s occupation and collective punishment – must cease and the human rights of all people must be respected.
We call for Israel to end its illegal occupation and to withdraw all Israeli settlers from Gaza, the Golan Heights and the West Bank including East Jerusalem. We realize that the end of the occupation and the removal of the settlers cannot be accomplished overnight and that interim steps must be taken to stop the ongoing violence.
Therefore, we call for an international presence to be deployed immediately throughout the area. The U.S. must withdraw its veto and allow UN forces to enter Israel and Palestine and to police the border. The current U.S. position opposing the placement of international forces simply allows the cycle of violence to continue unabated. This position also ignores the precedent of the successful peacekeeping efforts of UN forces along the Israel-Egyptian and Israel-Syrian borders. Until and unless there is an international presence, including U.S. peacekeeping members, the violence is likely to continue and worsen and more innocent lives will be lost.
The United States Government supports Israel both militarily and fiscally. Therefore, as U.S., citizens, we have a responsibility to call for the cessation of the use of U.S.-supplied arms to perpetuate violence in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. We have the responsibility to see that the United States supports only policies and acts of social justice, not retaliation and domination.
2. My response – written in an email to the Middle East Group at the peace center (mailed June 29, 2007). I have modified it slightly as more thoughts came to me last night.
I’d like to share some thoughts with you. I was out of state most of the week and only came back this evening.
Comments on your statement…the pressures on the Peace Center:
A. Although the statement is 5 years old, it remains strategically relevant. i wouldn’t touch it for the moment, perhaps later.
B. The tensions…no surprise..really…it is a result of the fine work the peace center is doing, not only on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also on Iraq, Iran…etc. The reward you get for this is to be subject to constant attacks and pressures which I suspect will continue if not intensify.
Although there are some differences – actually some key ones – between the work of the Peace Center and what was for a number of years the Denver-based organization called Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace – or CCMEP – there are some important similarities:
As long as CCMEP was concentrating their work on opposing the then-sanctions against Iraq, they had a certain amount of support and were not, to my knowledge, attacked in the media, or if so, rather mildly. The work done to counter the sanctions against Iraq was dynamic and creative and reverberated throughout the region.
Once their focus was expanded to include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they were targeted, savaged in the local media, and attacked by local politicians including now Mayor John Hickenlooper.
Many of the members of CCMEP visited Israel and the Occupied Territories…they saw the occupation, were offended by its inhumanity and returned to Colorado determined to expose and address the Occupation’s injustices
Something similar is happening to the RMPJC now…i would anticipate that the attacks will continue and perhaps be more insideous. It happens when the moral legitimacy of the Occupation is openly criticized.
There were other factors at play that resulted, more or less, in the collapse of CCMEP, but let’s leave them aside for the moment.
3. Something else is going on, on a deeper level I believe.The best way I can describe it is as follows: when the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center came together, it did so on the basis of a certain international – and local political chemistry, the local element centering around closing Rocky Flats as a nuclear weapons’ producing plant. Around that chemistry, with an extraordinary team of people, the Peace Center took off. This is a peace center that has built itself from the ground up, with local funding, locally developed initiatives – locally produced spiritual and organizational food. It has been able to maintain itself as a viable, functioning, dynamic organization for a quarter of a century. This is, from the point of view of peace organizations that come and go like trains in the night, that are plagued with financial and factional struggles as a general rule, a most impressive and hopeful sign. Perhaps some day we’ll learn how it was they accomplished this.
Although I have not followed it closely, my sense is that it has been able to maintain a relatively stable base until now. But now, there is a different chemisty because the peace movement is in a new era, a post cold war era. Yes, we’ve been in it since 1989, but social movements don’t always change as quickly as events, even good ones.
How much of the organization’s old base will remain in this new situation? Hard to tell, but it is not surprising that some of the elements of the older/former movement resist the current direction. Some simply find it difficult to adjust with the times – and in these times, one of the global moral issues – it is international and pervasive – is opposition to the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and sympathy and support for the Palestinian aspirations for a viable state of their own. Regardless of the difficulties in addressing this issue here in the USA, this movement is expanding worldwide and will continue to do so in my opinion despite all the twists and turns of the Palestinian movement itself and the overall situation in the Middle East.
You know, on a certain level, peace movements are like people: they have a birth, a life, a death and at certain times, movements go through identity crises and either survive or collapse as a result. What propels the changes? Essentially the new situation – the world or a portion of it as it exists and as it is being shaped.
The question here are:
Can the Peace Center make the adjustment to the new realities
Does the base exist (membership, finances, etc) to sustain the new direction.
In the end, the starting point for good peace work is the current situation: What is going on in the world and why? How can we as peace activists, as a peace movement, address the current situation politically (by this term I specifically mean – on a human level, eliminating the causes of war and oppression) and improve it, eliminate the structural causes of oppression and inhumanity – using at the end of the day – the only tool at our disposal: influencing public opinion as a part through public activities and education – whether we are conscious of it or not – of a global movement for peace and social justice. What organizational/structural forms are relevant to best addressing the current situation?
I am not surprised – and do believe – that the Peace Center is losing some of its former base, but at the same time, look at the new energy…the new participants, the new dynamism. It is not clear if the growth factor is outpacing the losses. In this new turn, will the RMPJC be able to maintain the momentum it has had until now in this transition phase?
Of course I don’t know, but I think – with careful planning, a thoughtful approach and most important, an active political program such as the one it is currently trying to impliment, that it can and will grow again, with a new more vibrant constituency. Further, over time, those who resist the new direction – meaning more open criticism of the Occupation – will come to understand the justice and principle of the position and will join in the effort one way or another.
But then what is organizing about? It is long, hard patient work – learning the truth – that doesn’t happen over night – and sticking to it through hard times and easier ones. And it is about building a base, figuring out how to involved more social forces and individuals to address the issue. At the same time that the Peace Center might be losing some supporters – it has gained new friends and influence. New individuals and social forces are forming. That they do not have politics identical to that of the Peace Center is almost irrelevant to my way of thinking – they are getting on board, involved, in their own way with their own signature. While other factors enter into it, I firmly believe that these developments would not have happened in Colorado without the work of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center.
4. Concerning the Peace Center’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is the source of much of the tension, or so it seems:
From what I have seen of its activities, those in which I have participated and others, the position of the Peace Center on this issue is in line with mainstream thinking IN THE WORLD on this issue – that is criticism of the Israeli Occupation – of its injustice, its inhumanity – and support for UN resolutions on resolving the conflict.
This is NOT a radical position. It is a just position although as we all know in this country it is controversial.
Furthermore there something happening, something coming together in the Peace Center, in its Middle East group, that is important: it is a working group that includes Palestinian-Americans, Jewish Americans, Americans that are NEITHER Jewish or Arab…all working together. Key to my thinking about how to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli issue is to base the work within the framework of the peace movement. With its experience, its vision for world peace, its history of fighting militarism and bigotry, its humane vision for the future, there is no better place, no more objective place for this movement to have a spiritual and organizational home. In the end it can whether the attacks and criticism because it is – at its heart and soul – a movement profoundly opposed to racism and discrimination of all kinds, and because its adversaries, hiding behind certain ideological veils, while denying it, themselves, either consciously or not, support and foster bigotry and discrimination. All that will come out in time even if it s vociferously denied.
This is a powerful combination and in the concrete struggles of the past two years the kernel of a working team has gelled. It is the process that has been set in motion of working together, of cooperation, of a certain dynamism that comes from NOT agreeing on every point, but finding common ground that gives the work its vitality. It – the Israeli-Palestinian issue is also a complex issue – and it is being explored from many sides, without illusions and from what i can tell -despite differences in approaches – very honestly, and therefore it is becoming something of a social force in the region on the issue. Thus it will be challenged.
I am not a big player in the Peace Center, but I support it, think I am a member, have worked with the Middle East working group and hope that it will continue. It has become a vital center of peace work concerning the Middle East in this region, a focal point, a lightening rod. It seems some people are upset about the path it has taken. For myself, I have waited for 35 years for a peace organization in Colorado to take up these issues (all the Middle East issues – not just israel and palestine) in the manner in which the peace center has done so.
I very much hope it continues along the path it has embarked upon and if it does, I will continue – time and energy permitting – to work with it. I, for one, think it has been a great beginning.
rob prince/colorado progressive jewish news.
Citizen Gabbay…A New Shaul?
June 24, 2007
Citizen Gabbay…A New Shaul?
1.
I awoke Thursday to several early morning phone calls. With an air of disbelief and some cynicism, several friends asked if I had seen the Rocky Mountain News story (June 21, 2007) on Shaul Gabbay, director of the Institute for the Study of Israel in the Middle East (ISIME) at the University of Denver. He is soon to become a US citizen.
No, I hadn’t. Hard to, as I don’t read the paper.
Ever since Holger Jensen, their S. African born international affairs reporter, left the paper, I stopped reading the Rocky regularly. Hard as it might be it to believe, I am getting along famously without its many pearls of wisdom. Although admittedly difficult to confirm, my hypothesis remains that `The Rocky’ and Jensen parted ways in part because of his unsparing criticism of the Israeli Occupation and the opposition that his reporting triggered in Denver. Jensen also took Arafat, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas regularly to task. No radical, his views seemed to more or less mirror those of the State Department. Still he was one of the fairer and more knowledgeable commentators on foreign affairs to grace this state, and, I still regret his departure from the paper and wonder about why and how it happened.
Jensen’s tenure at The Rocky ended with a small note in publisher John Temple’s insipid weekly column that went something like: So long Holger, it’s been good to know you. Bye bye, a pretty demeaning departure notice for a nationally syndicated Scripps Howard columnist. Was some kind of post nuptial agreement or deal cut? a generous retirement/severance package in exchange for Jensen’s silence? I don’t know, but it is said that a group of Denver rabbis danced the hora to mark Jensen’s departure/demise and that a number of Jensen’s former colleagues at the News’ editorial department shed no tears either.
2,
The same newspaper that shed crocodile tears over Jensen’s departure ran a sympathetic story on Shaul Gabbay, the director of the Institute for the Study of Israel in the Middle East (ISIME), in the June 21 Rocky Mountain News edition. Gabbay is about to become a US citizen. Congratulations Shaul! He is photographed improvising on the piano and quoted asserting his commitment to a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s all touching albeit a bit curious, the Rocky Mountain News’ human touch emerging. The picture of an Israeli-now-turned American moderate on Israeli-Palestinian peace making emerges.
The Rocky story comes a few weeks after Gabbay circulated an email of his travels to Israel, his meetings with a number of Israeli think tanks and peace organizations. It was forwarded to me by some locals in the peace movement who, wanting very much to believe, were [perhaps too easily] moved by its content and seeming re-commitment to peace. In line with the Rocky story, the email suggests a conscious effort on Gabbay’s part to reposition himself somewhat on the Israeli-Palestinian debate from his outspoken almost reflex-like, slavish and very public defense of Israel’s policies – he has been considered nothing less than Israel’s mouthpiece in the Rocky Mountain region – to someone of a more moderate, peace-seeking position. `Maybe he has changed?’, a friend wrote me. Of course, while not impossible that he has experienced a political epiphany, it is rather unlikely, even if he and those around him have put no small amount of political energy into giving the appearance of `a new Shaul’.
3.
While never that close to ISIME (although its office is located near mine), several years ago I was involved in a joint event (the sponsoring organizations being Priority Peace – a short lived Denver peace group – and ISIME) which brought an Israeli and a Palestinian supporter of the Geneva Accord to Denver. It was a good¸ well attended event which enriched the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in this region. I was – and remain – committed to genuine dialogue among those interested in Israeli-Palestinian peace making but have been repeatedly struck by how stilted, how controlled, how unrepresentative have been many of those `dialogues’ – so much so that they weren’t dialogues at all. I believe that the Geneva Accord event was an attempt to break such a mold and was not surprised to hear afterwards, that some of the Denver rabbis who were in attendance didn’t like it.
The new, kinder, softer Shaul comes after a somewhat trying year for both ISIME and Gabbay, culminating in a minor crisis last summer during the abortive – but highly destructive – Israeli air and land offensive against Lebanon. Much work had been done – with whose help I do not know – to shape his image as a media star and to vigorously promote his many public appearances. As he had done repeatedly in the local media in the past, Gabbay was prominently in the public eye unabashedly supporting Israel’s side of that conflict.
Even before the Israeli attack on Lebanon, there was much skepticism about ISIME and Gabbay. As a result, ISIME’s credibility as an even handed, serious academic institution whose goal is conflict resolution and Israeli-Palestinian peace making was largely shattered. The Rocky Mountain News seems to be a part of an effort to put Humpty Dumpty back on the wall.
Of course he has every right to take such an indefensible position – even if it disappointed local Jewish moderates who had hoped for a more constructive approach. The problem lies elsewhere. Gabbay wanted and couldn’t have `his cake and eat it too.’ It’s a little difficult to defend targeted assassinations, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Wall, the continued oppressive Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, to cynically hammer away the same clichéd half truths one has heard for the past 40 years to justify Israeli policies – and at the same time, claim to be a moderate with friends and connections in the peace movement. That contradiction could not last forever and in the summer of 2006 it blew up in his face.
A few months after the fighting in Lebanon had died down, in the fall, I learned that even at staid DU, some of those involved in ISIME were critical of Gabbay’s public role, and with ISIME’s public advocacy of Israel during the 2006 summer war in Lebanon. Gabbay had made a number of public statements and ISIME’s email list had been used to garner support for Israeli actions. Although he was reappointed as executive director of ISIME the decision was taken not without criticism and controversy. Although I only learned about it several months after the fact (without soliciting info on the subject) concerns were expressed that the institute had produced no significant research on the Middle East, (true enough) that it was one-sided in its support of Israel and that it lacked credibility within the larger community as an objective, academic oriented institute. These criticisms echoe those informally shared with me by many DU students disappointed by the lack of academic support they got in their efforts to do serious study of Middle East issues.
While ISIME has invited a slew of people, experts to speak at DU, the pro-Israeli bias of most of them stood out in glaring fashion. The very few Arabs and fewer Palestinians invited to participate over the years were often cherry-picked, unrepresentative types. In recent months, in response to criticisms, ISIME has tried to clean up its act a bit. To date, the results have been rather modest, at best.
Put less kindly, ISIME and Gabbay himself were seen as more or less an Israeli public relations operation, little more. Whatever hope remained that ISIME might represent a new, more balanced, fairer voice on Middle East issues essentially evaporated some time ago. This was not a perception limited to a few voices within ISIME but is echoed throughout Denver, not least within the state’s peace movement. As the institute is based at the Graduate School of International Studies within the University of Denver, both GSIS and DU are implicated at least on some level as well. Perhaps that is why there was some push for change?
So while congratulating Shaul Gabbay on attaining US citizenship…he’ll have to do more than improvise on the piano or write an email to convince some of us that there is content to his changed image. The question remains: is the new Shaul any different in substance from the old one. Time will tell.
An initial search to see if any mainstream media reported on the De Soto Report came up empty. If `Google’ is accurate, a week after the report become public, leaked to the British media, no American source of information deemed it newsworthy. A few bloggers here have taken up the issue, but at this point, that’s about it. I assume the bloggers learned of the De Soto Report’s existence as I did, from the British media. Both The Financial Times (6/14) and The Guardian (6/13) ran stories. The on-line Guardian article also provided a link to the report itself which was labeled as `confidential’.
The De Soto Report is the informal name given to what is more accurately called the `End of Mission Report, by Alvaro De Soto. Until a few weeks ago De Soto, a career lifetime diplomat from Peru, was the Under-Secretary-General United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and the Personal Representative of the Secretary-General of the UN to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority Envoy to the Quartet. (the US, EU, UN and Russia) Put another way, De Soto, no diplomatic lightweight, was the UN’s point man to the Israelis and Palestinians. As such he was potentially an important diplomatic player in facilitating peace making between not only the Israelis and Palestinians but also Israel, Syria and Lebanon. That might have been the case had it not been for the Bush Administration and his own boss, former, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, constantly pulling out the rug from under him and redefining and limiting the scope of his mission until it was, according to De Soto, largely irrelevant.
De Soto appears to have written the report on his own initiative, much to the embarrassment of the United Nations, the Bush Administration and the Quartet. Frustrated by the UN’s inability to learn from its own experiences and mistakes – `at the UN’, where, he tells us `no wheel shall go un-reinvented’- de Soto felt what seems to have been a moral obligation to at least leave a paper trail of his tenure and of the plethora of road blocks that were placed in his peace-making path.
As a UN internal document, it wouldn’t have meant much, just another report filed – or simply thrown out – but as a leaked document that has been highlighted in two major English newspaper, it comes alive. While it is doubtful the report itself will lead to much change on the ground, written by `an insider’ – and a man with long standing diplomatic credentials – it gives credence to those (myself included) who long thought that the `Road Map’ has been a cynical process all along.
But more, it documents, blow by blow, in a carefully written analysis to degree to which the Bush Administration, while claiming to support the Road Map has done everything its power to undermine, freeze the process. It must have infuriated – nothing less – the Bush Administration in particular for its expose and deeply embarrased the European Union and the United Nations as well. The European Union and the United Nations, most especially through its former Secretary General, Kofi Annan, come off as little more than US patsies, easily pushed around, pliant very junior partners at best. Willing tools, little more. It suggest that the degree to which the US uses (and abuses) the UN to pursue its foreign policy goals is virtually unlimited.
Few will be surprised that neo-con Undersecretary of State Elliott Abrams spared no efforts to smother any momentum towards peace, including threatening to withdraw UN funding if de Soto pursued plans to simply talk to Hamas but that Secretary of State Condolezza Rice repeated intervened as well along the same lines might be more revealing. In the end De Soto saw the quartet’s efforts as little more than laughable – a cover for Bush Administration’s policies – now come to fruition in the Palestinian violence in Gaza – to split Hamas off from the Palestinian Authority, and so weaken the Palestinian movement that it would be more pliable to a US-Israeli unilaterally imposed solution.
The moral depravity of the Europeans and the United Nations to simply rubber stamp Bush Administration’s decisions was even more pervasive and startling than I would have imagined. There was virtually no resistance to the US efforts to establishing the sanctions which have squeezed the Palestinians to near death. Despite a few symbolic gestures of protest rather late in the game, Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General from Ghana, comes off as little more than a pliant Bush Administration water boy (with a grand title to soften the indignity). Same goes for the Europeans that let the Bush Administration walk all over them at will. Russia, which participates in the Quartet, also comes up malleable, complicit.
The willingness of the Europeans and the UN to accept this role, is curious. My speculation: In the case of the Europeans, they have been locked into some kind of grand deal with the US since they were forced to come begging to Washington for military aid in dealing with the war in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. That crisis revealed the E.U.’s inability or unwillingness to deal with regional security issues on its own. In exchange for US military aid, the Europeans acquiessed to US policy in the Middle East to a considerable extent. If that consensus broke down with the 2003 US led invasion of Iraq, it has held – remarkably well – with the policy toward Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
De Soto gives credence to what was only all to obvious from watching the flow of events – even from here in Denver – that the Bush Administration had forced through an international boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian government that has had `devastating consequences for the Palestinian people’. In the report De Soto accuses the United States – under the umbrella of the Quartet- of using `undue pressure’ to impose a one-sided, pro-Israeli agenda of diplomacy in the region that has `hindered efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Evenhandedness is non-existent: The Quartet policy was to “take all the pressure off of Israel. With all the focus on the failings of Hamas, the Israeli settlement enterprise and barrier (the wall) construction have continued unabated’
As a result of its record, De Soto argues that the Quartet has lost its `impartiality’ (it never had any), that it had failed to hold Israel to its obligation under the Road Map – the grand scheme which De Soto remained committed to despite its flaws and shortcomings. Having already sacrificed much of its credibility, De Soto argues that as a result, the UN has lost much influence and prestige as an international peace making body in the Middle East, especially among the Palestinians. For the sake of its reputation and future peace making efforts, De Soto recommends that the UN pull out of the Quartet.
The entire 52 page report is worth the read and is available on the home page of this website
Israeli peace poem says it nicely:
There has been some `discussion’ if one can call it that – about Hamas in Gaza. It is pretty low level nonsense, fear mongering. The attack used to be against Palestinian secular leftists (DFLP, PFLP) that were vilified. Now Hamas. One does not have to agree with Hamas (I don’t – from what I know of their ideology and practice) to recognize that they have a base and are a part of the Palestinian nation. All the efforts to purge/smash them – and to punish the Palestinians for voting for them in a democratic election – i believe will come to naught (just more carnage and destruction in the name of fighting terrorism). The Palestinians will chose their own political leadership, not Israel or the Bush Administration.
What follows is a poem by the Israeli peace group `Gush Shalom’. I like how concise, how humane it is. One of my friends has commented that it is not particularly good poetry. Actually he put it somewhat more crudely. Perhaps it ain’t Milton or Shakespeare…but the ideas resonate all the same. The phone number and address below are for Gush Shalom.
Not everything
That is bad
For Palestine
Is good for Israel.
The split in
Palestine
Is bad for
Israel.
We need peace
With the entire
Palestinian people –
All their sections,
All their territories,
Supporters of Fatah
And supporters of Hamas,
In the West Bank
And in the Gaza Strip.
972-3-5221732.
Help us pay for
Our activities and ads
By sending checks to
Gush Shalom, P.O.Box 3322
Tel-Aviv 61033.
www.gush-shalom.org
info@gush-shalom.org
Ad published in Haaretz
June 22, 2007
The US and Israel – Allies Forever?
The US and Israel – Allies Forever?
That (the above title) is what one of the email letters to Haaretz asked in response to the news that the United States has agreed to increase military aid to Israel – as if that were physically possible – over the next ten years `to assure a qualitative [Israeli] edge that would permit Israel to replenish Israeli arms used last summer in Israel’s second war against Lebanon and to deal with `the new challenges’ it faces – a rather vague and ominous suggestion that the region is – as it seems – heading more in the direction of war than peace. Read more…
AIPAC Mindset?
Today an email came from an old friend, like many I knew, he used to live in Colorado but moved on. Colorado is that kind of place. People pass through but for a variety of reasons, few, at least few of my good friends, stay. I’ve long ago gotten over being `lonely’ about it, although I am not sure why. On a human level, with a few notable exceptions, the best of the bunch have long gone.
In any case, after looking at the blog, he asked the following:
“Something that I want you, myself and others to think about is “how in the world can AIPAC exert so much influence if it does not represent the opinions of the overwhelming majority of US jews as the surveys you cited show?”. Is it thru fraud and misrepresentation of their mission as protectors of the Jewish homeland? Is it through the inordinate financial backing by rich Isreali and non-Israeli warmongers and weapons dealers? How do they get the power that compels all presidential hopefuls of both parties to come and prostrate themselves on the altar of the AIPAC convention?”
To assume that these questions are somehow anti-semitic, the knee-jerk reaction of many Jews when such questions are posed, is to both to avoid an obvious fact (that AIPAC does have considerable clout) and to dismiss the profoundly reactionary influence that it and like organizations have on US Middle East policy in the blind defence of Israel.
Some light on, and to Rabbis for Human Rights
Les Canges
(Canges is a concerned secularist for peace and was the first Bar Mitzvah of Congregation Rodef Shalom)
The last time I attended anything at a synagogue was some four years ago when I went to an election rally at the Hebrew Educational Alliance for the honorable Joseph Lieberman, then running as a democrat for president of the country. I was forced to wear a kippah (yarmulke). I watched as the crowd steered him from expressing some grudging admiration for Hanan Ashrawi to denouncing all Palestinians, especially “homicide” bombers. It was the first time Senator Lieberman disappointed me, which he now does on an almost daily basis. Read more…
Why a Blog, Why A Website? Some Thoughts
I probably should have written this entry in the beginning, for openers, but didn’t.
In the end it (it = blogging, the website) comes down to a number of broad themes.
1. Finding a voice, my voice…For whom do I write? Think?
I must admit first and foremost I write for myself, to work through the humanitarian, political and historical challenges unfolding in the Middle East, to struggle with myself, to come to understand the issues and relevant movements better, to reflect upon them. I basically have come to trust my own political judgement more or less but questions remain. How to help build a peace movement? What at 62 years of rich life experience, little of which has been marketable, can I contribute? Can I be honest with myself? Believe it or not, blogging – sharing one’s ideas in some kind of public arena, helps and is important. Read more…
Americans for Peace Now-Arab American Institute Survey on Attitudes of American Jews and Arabs.
(thanks to Carolyn Bninski for posting this survey)
A recent survey done by Americans for Peace Now and the Arab American Institute reveal patterns in both the Jewish and Arab-American communities that are not new. Indeed the results have become rather common – specifically while generally pessimistic (realistic?) about the prospects of Middle East peace
• They rate President Bush’s Middle East peace efforts (if one can call them that) as poor
• They both are looking for a presidential candidate that is serious about Israeli-Palestinian peace making
• Very high percentages (98% of Jews surveyed, 88% of Arabs surveyed) support Israel’s right to exist within secure borders
• 90% of Jewish Americans surveyed and 96% of Arab Americans surveyed support the right of the Palestinians to a `secure and independent’ state of their own
• An overwhelming percentage of both groups believe that achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians is `important to US strategic interests’.
• 87% of Jews surveyed and 94% of Arab Americans surveyed support a negotiated 2 state solution between Israelis and Palestinians with most Jews and a great majority of Arab-Americans seeing an end to the Israeli occupation of the 1967 territories as necessary for peace
• In the same vein a majority of both groups look positively upon both the Saudi Peace Initiative and Arab League Peace Initiative (which are more or less the same – based upon UN Resolution 242)
• Perhaps more surprising – given all the noises of AIPAC, ADL – and Senatorial hawks like Joseph Lieberman – was the fact that a full 73% of American Jews and 79% of Arab Americans support a US policy of negotiations with Iran, with only a distinct minority – less than 25% – that support preparing for war or some kind of military strike.
How to interpret these statistics?
Hollywood Florida
Apparently the students at De Paul University are not taking the President’s denial of tenure to Norman Finkelstein lying down. They have been been demonstrating in large numbers, have had a protest sit-in, have been dispersed by the police, have set up a website to update the world and seem intent on continuing their protests. There is another prof involved, also denied tenure whom the student are also supporting.
So the largely Catholic student body are standing up for their progressive Jewish prof, whose competency in his subject matter no one – not even the university president – seems to question. I might be mistaken, but the support that Finkelstein is enjoying, seems unprecedented. Of course it remains narrow – an indication of the modest weight that the peace movement enjoys in mainstream American society on this issue. It also gives a good sense of the degree to organizations like AIPAC/ADL/AJC enjoy broad based support and influence that some one like Deshowitz could influence a tenure decisions at a Catholic college in Chicago.
I wonder if there will be other Catholic voices that join in the protest?
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 