Tell the ADL to Stop Silencing Jewish Dissent
From Jewish Voice For Peace:
We’ve been witnessing a severe backlash by some mainline Jewish organizations, in particular the Anti-Defamation League, to silence JVP and our perspective. Just this week alone, two different ADLs refused to appear on the same stage as JVP representatives. This has happened a number of times before, and local chapters of the ADL claim that this is a directive from their national office. The ADL said that, with a JVP speaker on hand, the debate would become “too politicized.”
JVP and our sister organizations represent thousands of American Jews who vociferously support public and open debate within and outside of the Jewish community on the issue of Israel. For us, there are no sacred cows, no voices that deserve to be silenced. Vigorous dialogue is a central component of what it means to be Jewish.
The ADL’s stated mission it to protect the rights of Jews and fight bigotry wherever it appears. But the ADL has created an environment of fear and intimidation, in which thousands of American Jews are systematically silenced.
Take a moment and send a letter to Abe Foxman, the Executive Director of the Anti-Defamation League. Let him that you support open debate on the issue of Israel within the Jewish community, and that his organization needs to stop systematically silencing the voices of progressive Jews.
(c/o Angela G.)
Here is the problem.
Debates @ Jewish flaws – of which Israel is viewed as, largely – ARE necessary. Personal and national accountability are cornerstones of Judaism, and we should be constantly refining our conduct as a people through constructive criticism, debate and synthesis of ideas.
The problem is, once these dialogues become public affairs, our detractors surface like drunk frat boys at the girls’ dorm, pointing, hooting and hollaring; as though by exploring our flaws, we are somehow confirming whatever their warped little suspicions are.
In other words, people are watching what we say. And while we’re having this discourse under the auspice of pushing our civilization forward; others wait to flip it on us.
If we’re going to candidly discuss Jews f*cking up, we should circle up the wagons first.
Still…
Abe Foxman probably SHOULD be punched in the dick.
But how do we go about that? Homogenizing Jewish discourse would be a way of capitulating to these people, who are really quite unpredictable anyway and don’t exactly need any factual justifications to attack Jews. They are a nuisance — when I wrote a post awhile ago criticizing Little Green Footballs’ participation in the Jewish & Israeli Blog Awards, Stormfront or a similar bunch of assholes linked to me, even though my Jewish identity played a big part in the post and it essentially boiled down to a defense of Muslims (I had to redirect them to this) — but I don’t see how Jewish criticism of Israel does anything to help their cause.
Anti-semites will use any information at their disposal, whether it’s true or false or seemingly contradictory to their entire belief system. And they’d also certainly get some mileage out of pointing to some actual monolithic Jewish entity and body of opinion, if one were to exist.
I won’t be complaining to ADL about their decision not to share a stage with JVP. After visiting the JVP home page all I can say is I wish North American left wing Jewish groups exhibited even a quarter of the intelligence and depth as the UK based http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog does.
I don’t understand how refusing to appear at a debate with a group constitutes trying to “silence” that gruop.
I thought free speech means being allowed to speak when you want to and say what you want. I didn’t know it means being forced to hold debates with groups that insist on it.
Oh please, there is a difference between criticism and being a mouthpiece for Palestinian propaganda.
Seriously, I am a voice for peace becasue my criticism is measured and both sides receive it equally. On the other hand, people who write letters to Congress about continuing the funneling of money to Palestinians after they elected Hamas while in the next paragraph attacking AIPAC as inhumane are NOT a voice for peace.
Likewise, when their mission includes shutting down Caterpillar machine sales to Israel, they are simply acting as another mouthpiece for pro-Palestinian advocates who always seem to ignore the terrorism that brings about the house destructions in the first place.
Incredibly, as I was perusing through their site, I came across this astounding piece of claptrap where they tell us how terrorist organizations like Hamas have been known to change and then compares Hamas to the Irgun and Lehi. Right, must be because those groups also spent years launching suicide bombers into restaurants and crowded buses. I mean, what the hell? They are defending Hamas?! And comparing their actions, current situation and potential future to the Irgun?! They even justify the Palestinian majority vote for Hamas as merely a vote for change and do not ascribe any motivation to the notion that violence against Israel is a motive. I guess they weren’t listening when NPR was interviewing the Palestinians shopkeeper who had voted for Hamas and hoped that now they were going to be in power, they “would show the Israelis.” http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/article_292.shtml
The ADL is right not to agree to appear as a sister organization or provide any legitimacy to these groups by appearing with them or launching into a debate with them. Why sponsor detractors of Israel’s legitimacy? Why support, in any way, those who give strength to people who seek to destroy Israel and/or harm its citizens? Why give any benefit to a group that attacks AIPAC the way I’d expect some pro-Palestinian or neo-Nazi organization to attack them? They are not “progressive,” they are “naive-fools” who cause far more harm than good. They certainly aren’t helping peace, but helping war…after all, if you launch terror attacks for years against civilians, when you finally take over these “progressives” will sponsor you and send letters on your behalf while whitewashing your bloody history. Good for the ADL (even if Foxman can be way over the top sometimes), they should ignore these fools.
TM :Right, must be because those groups also spent years launching suicide bombers into restaurants and crowded buses.
Well there was Deir Yassin, and the Jerusalem Hotel, just minor terror. Oh and shady alliances with nazis, but they never worked out.
Dameocrat:
I’ll grant you Deir Yassin, but what reference are you making to the ‘Jerusalem Hotel’? You may not like statistics, but statistically speaking Palestinian terrorist attacks have been more numerous by quite a significant margin in comparison to the anomalies of attacks such as Goldstein. This is not to say that these anomalies are acceptable, far from it, but the last time I checked the Jewish community condemned such atrocities whilst the Palestinians remain silent and the world seems content to try to find ‘root cause’ when relating to Palestinian terrorist atrocities. Intellectual dishonesty of the highest order, if you ask me.
The comparison of Dir Yassin and current terrorist attacks going on in Israel today is a joke.
I am referring to the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. From Wikipedia:
King David Hotel bombing
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The King David Hotel bombing (July 22, 1946) was a bombing attack against the British government of Palestine by members of Irgun —a militant Zionist group. The Irgun exploded a bomb at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which had been the base for the British Secretariat, the military command and a branch of the Criminal Investigation Division (police). 91 people were killed, most of them civilians: 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 other. Around 45 people were injured.
The attack was initially ordered by David Ben Gurion, who was in the United States, but he later changed his mind and ordered the bombing to be cancelled. But Menachem Begin, the head of Irgun, went ahead anyway. Both Ben Gurion and Begin would later become Israeli Prime Ministers. The attack was commanded by Yosef Avni and Yisrael Levi.
The attack on the hotel was the largest attack against the British in the history of the Mandate. Some claim this act should be considered in light of the escalating violence in the region, and the continuing conflict between the three main forces in the region: British, Jewish, and Arab. In particular, the attack was made in retaliation for the British mass arrest programme Operation Agatha, after which a large number of seized documents were taken to the hotel. However, the bombing operation had already been planned before then………..
he British House of Commons responded:
* “On July 22, 1946, one of the most dastardly and cowardly crimes in recorded history took place. We refer to the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Ninety-two persons lost their lives in that stealthy attack, 45 were injured, among whom there were many high officials, junior officers and office personnel, both men and women. The King David Hotel was used as an office housing the Secretariat of the Palestine Government and British Army Headquarters. The attack was made on 22 July at about 12 o’clock noon when offices are usually in full swing. The attackers, disguised as Arabs, carried the explosives in milk containers, placed them in the basement of the Hotel and ran away.
The Chief Secretary for the Government of Palestine, Sir John Shaw, declared in a broadcast:……..
The astonished tone of horror at JVP’s positions is a silly tactic, and no more. It relies on a shared sense of ‘how could they! rather than on analyzing the position in question. This becomes clear when you leave the American Jewish bubble and read Ha’aretz a bit more: nothing JVP has to say doesn’t appear every week on the pages of Ha’aretz.
Ehud Barak himself said that if he were a young Palestinian, he would be a terrorist: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ehud_Barak
The word terrorist is accurate when speaking of Ben Gurion, Begin, Shamir, as well as Sharon and Rabin. All of them engaged in tactics explicitly designed to terrorize civilian populations to achieve political goals. That’s what a terrorist does.
However, I won’t lobby Foxman. Waste of time. I’ll be quietly towards the center of my shul’s Israel committee where I can block any future cooperation with the ADL and AIPAC…. much better!
The astonished tone of horror at JVP’s positions is a silly tactic, and no more. Yes. Although, to be fair, JVP’s astonished tone is equally silly. “Silencing”? Grow up — unless the ADL is at the centre of an international conspiracy to control the world’s thought processes, or at least a government or two, the ADL has no capacity to silence anyone. It has the capacity to speak out, and to refuse to speak. JVP has exactly the same power. Use it responsibly.
The word terrorist is accurate when speaking of Ben Gurion, Begin, Shamir, as well as Sharon and Rabin. All of them engaged in tactics explicitly designed to terrorize civilian populations to achieve political goals. That’s what a terrorist does. Um, no. None of those folks were any more terrorists than Hitler, Stalin, Clinton, Selassie, Mitterand, or Walesa.
You see, the latter were heads of governments, not terrorists. The actions they took were state actions, condemnable under international law, and admissible under the world’s state system. Terrorists are something different. They’re non-state groups who engage in organizsed violence. They’re such a conundrum because they’re not part of the state system — diplomacy doesn’t work, they don’t have seats in the United Nations, there are no borders to attack, no currency to sanction, no international presence to address.
There are, it’s true, some silly folks out there who think “terrorist” == “guy who does really bad things”. In the grown-up world, by contrast, the term actually has a meaning attached to it. Nutty, huh?
All of the names I mentioned engaged in terror activities before the state of Israel existed.
Although, to be fair, Sharon’s real military service did take place after Israel’s birth, before then he was only a member of paramilitary organizations as a youth.
BTW, your definition of terrorist is biased. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist.
The bias, naturally enough, comes from states, who often speak in one voice when condemning non-state actors who use violence. And yet, those very same states, often fund, supply and give diplomatic support to other non-state actors. Witness the US and the contras, the US and the Afghan mujahideen, Israel and the Phalange in Lebanon, Israel when it set off bombs in Egypt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_affair), and on and on.
The point being that when states are permitted to get away with the legitimacy of thier own violence when compared to others’, they inevitably commit atrocities as bad or worse as the ones they condemn in non state actors.
They even speak about it in the same horrific tone, witness Israel’s IDF chief Dan Halutz: “if you nevertheless want to know what I feel when I release a bomb, I will tell you: I feel a light bump to the plane as a result of the bomb’s release. A second later it’s gone, and that’s all. That is what I feel.”
Cold, calculating killers and terrorists. All of them. And nonetheless legitimate representatives of their people who must be negotiated with if you want the violence to stop.
“The word terrorist is accurate when speaking of Ben Gurion, Begin, Shamir, as well as Sharon and Rabin.”
The word relationship is accurate when speaking of marriage, friendship, S&M, gay/lesbian, and having an Asian woman make poopie all over your face.
But in my humble and religiously oriented opinion, they’re not the same…not even close.
I find it funny that anti-Israel types can parrot the same 2-3 incidents of terror committed by Israelis, but due to the sheer volume and ferociousness of Palestinian/Islamic/Arab terror, can only lump it all under “terrorism” – although mostly it’s excused as a response to oppression and occupation.
Dameocrat:
Firstly, I would caution the use of wikipedia if you wish to be taken seriously regarding historical fact; that wikipedia is ‘open source’ is a credit to the sharing of information worldwide, but with little or no formal editorial controls the information contained therein can sometimes be quite lacking.
To wit, I am always amused when people use the bombing of the King David Hotel as evidence of Israeli terrorism. Firstly, the King David Hotel was a MILITARY target. That civilians were killed was indeed regrettable and unfortunate, but as I recall a warning was given prior to the detonation of the explosives. Speaking as someone who lives in the UK, the King David Hotel bombing is very rarely if ever used in debate with regards to Israel largely due, in my opinion, to these facts.
Now, I would be interested to know where I can find evidence of Palestinian terrorists having attacked purely military targets and when they have given warning prior to detonation.
Israel’s 2-3 incidents of terror? how about Grapes of Wrath, the Peres initiated operation explicitly designed to terrify hundreds of thousands of Lebanese to leave thier homes in 1996? Israel’s military history is full of such incidents – and educated Israelis (as I am) know it full well, because our newspapers and television reported it all in real time.
Rabin’s bone breaking strategy? Extrajudicial assassinations of political leaders? The Iron Fist policy in the territories in the mid-’80s – before the Intifada?
Plan Dalet, which expelled the civilians of Ramle and Lod in 1948? The expulsion – and looting – of most of Haifa’s Arabs after the fighting had stopped?
Judging by the body count, Palestinian fighters have a lot of catching up to do to meet the deadly ferocity of the Israeli side in the violence. During the first Intifada, the ratio was 25:1. At the height of the second Intifada, it was 3:1.
Palestinian violence appears remarkable only when the context of occupation and ongoing Israeli violence is masked. And this is precisely what you are intent on doing: removing Israel’s responsibility from the equation by calling her actions remarkable when impossible to hide from, and allowing the rest to remain obscured.
I grew up playing in the ruins in a former Palestinian village. Makes it harder to ignore context.
(and I’m very pro-Israeli – I seek Israel’s continued existence, in its post messianic, post militaristic phase.)
Hum:
‘Terrorists are something different. They’re non-state groups who engage in organizsed violence. They’re such a conundrum because they’re not part of the state system — diplomacy doesn’t work, they don’t have seats in the United Nations, there are no borders to attack, no currency to sanction, no international presence to address.’
Point well made, and I too have little time for those who wish to draw some kind of moral equivalence between terrorists and state leaders. But here is the problem as I see it; many of today’s terrorists are largely state funded or supported and, as such, actually represent irregular military troops in my mind. It seems to me that our problem is that we need states at large to take responsibility and not allow terrorists sanctuary within their borders.
Actually, Kristallnacht was ‘precipitated’ by the killing of a German official by a Jew named Grynzpan. So for Dameocrat and others who can’t or won’t acknowledge that vast differences in number of incidences, scope of incidences, intent of incidences, ferocity of incidences and level of support by other members of the group are key to making distinctions between groups, there is ‘justification’ for the Holocaust.
Charles:
‘And this is precisely what you are intent on doing: removing Israel’s responsibility from the equation by calling her actions remarkable when impossible to hide from, and allowing the rest to remain obscured.’
No, sorry mate, that’s not what I’m doing at all. The indiscriminate killing of civilians through terrorist atrocity is not the same as military response to terrorism. Israel has a responsibility to negotiate for peace with honest brokers, but as a state the first responsibility is to protect her citizens. Surely you must agree with that.
And whilst we’re on the topic of responsibility, what about the refusal to accept partition as voted by the UN in 1947? What about 1956, 1967, 1973? Seems to me that Isral is hardly the only one in this equation, and the sooner the PA and Arab states start taking some responsibility for this situation the sooner we can achieve peace.
Let’s you and I make peace…. I think that the Palestinian violence is despicable too; but greater power does give one greater responsility over one’s actions, and this applies to individuals as well as nations. I judge Israel to a higher standard not because I’m a racist, but because she is wealthier and more powerful, and thus more able to act generously at this time in history.
I suspect our positions aren’t as far apart as our rhetoric!
Charles,
The incidents you cite…I believe each one (though I could be wrong) occured during a time of WAR. 1948…Lebannon…Israel was fighting a defensive campaign…was provoked…and took military action to defend herself. Are civillians caught in the cross-fire of war? Yes. Is that terrorism? No.
Charles:
‘I suspect our positions aren’t as far apart as our rhetoric!’
On this yes, you are correct. I hold Israel to a higher standard in private because I am a Jew and our Torah and G-d requires a higher standard. In public, however, I will never stop striving to highlight the inaccuracies and intellectual dishonesty of the treatment of Israel in relation to the Palestinaim. When the media highlights Israeli action and decries her response to terrorism whilst ignoring Palestinian violence I don’t think they are helping matters but only exacerbating a difficult situation.
I feel confident that, when both side take responsibility for this issue, peace will be achieveable.
bad argue, charles. the whole question starts with this: ‘let’s unite our power and throw them to tha sea’.
the central difference between israel and pa ‘war attacks’ is sorta of this:
israel defense-attack has objective targets and tries to kill the less as possible while pa attack-defense has subjective targets, coward methods and tries to kill the more is possible.
There’s no need for ADL to show up and give credence to a group that represents hardly anyone.
“Are civillians caught in the cross-fire of war? Yes. Is that terrorism? No.”
It goes beyond civilians simply being caught in a crossfire:
“The IDF’s open-fire policy throughout this intifada has resulted in extensive harm to Palestinian civilians who were not involved in any activity against Israel. These incidents are not “exceptional” cases, but rather they constitute a large portion of the casualties throughout the Occupied Territories.”
http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/200203_Trigger_Happy.asp
It is terrorism if deliberate harm is ccaused to non-combatants. Part of Israel’s strategy is to have the Palestinians ‘go on a diet’ by depriving them of their own tax revenues, restricing travel and economic activity, and pressuing donors to stop humanitarian aid. Palestinian civilians are not innocent bystandards, they are the openly proclaimed target of this campaign.
It is terrorism if deliberate harm is ccaused to non-combatants.
No, of course it isn’t.
Hitler caused much deliberate harm to non-combatants, but he was certainly not a terrorist; he was the German chancellor. Stalin did the same, but we do not call him a terrorist, either; he was the Premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Or perhaps you have new uses for us. Stalin, the terrorist leader? Pol Pot, the Cambodian terrorist? Something of a stretch, isn’t it? Sometimes states do bad things, and we bring the full force of international law against them — whatever that’s worth. The bad things they do doesn’t eject them from the sphere of international law, which is the sphere that terrorist don’t live in. In fact, that’s sort of the point of what makes terrorists rogues: the international system has no way to deal with them.
(Cue long discussion of how the U.N. is broken, etc., etc.)
this is such BS. Any other country would have turned “palestine” into a parking lot by now. Just compare to how the US operates in Iraq or Afghanistan. The disparity in force is a what ,100000- 1?While the casualty ratio in this intifada is 3-1.Targeting civilians ,I dont think so.
Holy shit! Come on Mobius, you actually agree with Charles’s crap? Where are you in this discussion? You let Charles and Dameocrat and Xin walk all over your fucking history. Terrorism?! You let him play games like calling Ben Gurion and Rabin terrorists?
Progressives indeed. No wonder you guys end up whining when a pro-Palestinian-mouthpiece-organization-hiding-behind-their-Jewishness is called on it by other Jewish organizations. You actually believe there is some truth and substance to their bullshit.
Hey Charles, while you try to play games with your injured and dead ratios, here’s an interesting something to mull over. Do you know how many Jews have been killed by Arabs in this past century in the Arab-Israeli conflict? Hint: far more than Palestinians killed in this last century. In fact, Jordan killed more Palestinians in one month than Israel – with a far stronger army – has killed in one intifadah lasting 3 years and one war lasting (so far) 5.5 years that was launched by the Palestinians. I would bet that if you include the total Palestinian dead by Israeli hands since 1900, you would end up with a number approximate to or lower than Jordan’s toll in September 1970. That number would be lower by more than half than all of the Israeli dead in the past century.
The funny thing, Charles, is that with all of your misinformation you missed the attacks by a Jewish militia that could be considered terrorist attacks. That’s right, dude, you can count these attacks on about two hands over a period of decades, and these groups were acting on the complete fringes of the yishuv.
Come on Mobius, don’t make others do your work for you, respond to these false attacks. If you can’t, maybe you should ask yourself why. Really, responding to this bullshit should be Israel 101 and you, as the person who founded this site and go around proclaiming to the world that Israel is an apartheid state engaged in war crimes should evaluate why you’re not able to respond – or worse, actually buy it.
Hey, look at this link. Yup, Hamas reminds everyone of Jewish groups.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3225214,00.html
Hum:
‘In fact, that’s sort of the point of what makes terrorists rogues: the international system has no way to deal with them.’
No, sorry, I don’t buy this argument at all. The problem is that the international system refuses to recognise the majority of terrorists for what they really are; state sponsored irregular troops. Whilst the UN that the multilateralists are so fond of sits around and debates ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ we could have been reaching consensus and ensuring that no safe haven is granted to terrorists or supported by states.
The sad fact is that the international community is fully capable of dealing with terrorism but chooses not to as it provides the perfect whipping post for the states which they don’t agree with and seek to limit the power of; the US and Israel.