James Moran and Elik Elhanan have guts

(see below for suggested specific timing for viewing this video)

James Moran is a Congressman from Virginia, a Democrat who courageously made it possible for a hearing in the Rayburn Office Building to take place March 8th on the situation in the occupied territories and Israel. I suspect Mr. Moran can expect to get a number of calls complaining about this and it is a sad comment on the situation regarding Israel in Congress that this minimal act might be the subject of criticism.

Using OpenCongress, my favorite site for background checks on members of the House and Senate, I found the following entry on James Moran under the heading "Jewish remarks" (interesting that this should be a heading in itself). The text says...(comments in parentheses are mine)

Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq he told an antiwar audience in Reston, Virginia on March 3, 2003, that "If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this. The leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is going, and I think they should."(Isn't this a fact? It is documented in Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby)

This remark proved controversial. Writing in the December 22, 2003 edition of The Nation, Letty Cottin Pogrebin charged that "Representative James Moran of Virginia stirred up another incendiary canard-Jewish influence-by attributing America's war with Iraq to 'the strong support of the Jewish community.'"

On November 13, 2007, during Moran's Town Hall on "Is Iran Next?", he said that a piece of legislation that he led, attempting to control the development of bunker buster nuclear weapons, was headed off by lobbyists at the last minute before passage. When pressed by a questioner for the name of the lobbyist, he said "AIPAC." He went on a great length to say that AIPAC (notice the need to do everything but apologize to AIPAC) was playing by the rules and doing its job effectively in our system, and he did not question their right to do so. It was clear that he did not want this to be taken as an anti-Jewish remark. The context for bringing up the topic was administration preparation for war with Iran.

Elik Elhanan has an even greater share of guts because he is a veteran of the IDF who came to his senses and now testifies (as he did at the March 8th hearing) against the policies of Israel regarding the Palestinians. He is a member of Combatants for Peace, an Israeli group with a nice graphic showing two people walking toward each other while throwing away their weapons. He gives a powerful account of the premier position of the military in Israel and how he came to see reality. First, go to 15:00 in the video to hear Elik (el-EEK) introduced and his description of the militaristic basis of Israeli society. Then, skip to 40:30 in the video to hear Elik respond to the question "how did you get out of that paradigm (of militarism), was there a moment when you came to your realization?"

Laila el Haddad is also worth hearing but she is more widely known while Elik may be unknown to readers of this blog, as he was to me before watching this video.

anti-Semitism, the Dual Purpose Slam

My last post was about the failure to count Jews in the tally of Congress by religion by the New York Times. For this I was accused of coming "dangerously close" to anti-Semitism.

Right now, in Israel, a Palestinian family in East Jerusalem is being ordered to open their residence so that Jewish Israelis may move in. The subtitle is Authorities expected to force Palestinian family to evacuate house after 11-year court battle leans in favor of American millionaire and settler patron.

Though I haven't read the current issue of the New York Times, I would be willing to bet this story from Jerusalem will not be mentioned in it, or any other American newspaper.

There could be no better occasion to look at the function of anti-Semitism. I have touched on it before here and here, but today I want to address its dual purpose of diverting attention from the real thing, the racism in Israel, while at the same time gagging those who speak against Israel in the United States. In fact, the word has become so over-used for this dual purpose that you should use it as a flag to read deeper when you see it mentioned. Read deeper because you may well find that within the story, there is a very good lead worth following on legitimate criticism of Israel and the accused may well be a responsible party worth finding out about.

I'll call this dual-use of the word anti-Semitism the Dual Purpose Slam (DPS) for short.

To use DPS is like throwing peanut butter - some of it is bound to stick to the target and it takes a while to wash it off. Nowhere is this more effectively used than in defense either of Israel itself or of those who support Israel.

If there is anyone who holds a copyright on the word, it is Abe Foxman, a man who has built an empire from a word - the mighty Anti-Defamation League, a well funded organization that sets itself up as the finger-pointer in chief to call out anti-Semites in the United States. It looks like it is spreading out into "bullying" these days from the look of the website. Could any organization appear to be more benign?

For an excellent look at Foxman, please view the movie Defamation, made by a native Israeli who sets out to find out why anti-Semitism is constantly used in the Israeli press yet he has never encountered it. Coming to the U.S. to interview Foxman, he has a difficult time substantiating any of the cases of anti-Semitism he is given by the ADL, though he finds it in other places. This is a must-see movie.

The red herring function of DPS is to keep the Jew in the mind of Americans as the eternal victim worthy of the benefit of the doubt, while in far off tiny Israel, deliberate expulsion of Arabs, never to be seen as victims but only as terrorists, presumed aggressive and guilty, can proceed without interruption. Arabs, like Jews are Semites so the bald fact is that the most virulent form of anti-Semitism is being practiced by Jews on another group of Semites, on a massive scale, picking up momentum and actively supported by the United States.

So we have suppression of any and all discussion of Jews that is not flattering and fawning in the United States, while at the same time Jews as Israelis perform the ungliest project of anti-Semitism in the world today.

My post on the failure to list the number of Jews in Congress is a perfect example of this in action. Jews are members of a religion, just as are Catholics and Protestants and Muslims, but unlike Catholics and Protestants they are not mentioned. If they are not mentioned they are not noticed. If they are not noticed then what they may do in Congress will be more likely to pass un-noticed. To draw up a list of Jews is, thanks to thorough schooling on the Holocaust in America, to think of Nazis taking identities for shipment to the death camps! You can see how this works - it's a fool-proof cover that relies of images in the head completely pushing facts off the stage.

Jews in the United States may not be mentioned as a group - any attempt to do so will result in protests, perfectly reasonable, that Jews are not a monolithic group but just Americans like the rest of us and should not be characterized as holding any one view.

That's true! But in Israel, we have a group of Jews who ARE together in pushing an odious project of ethnic-cleansing and a major financial support for that effort along with a significant support in Jews making aliyah to join in the settlement project come from the United States.

So the perfect cover is achieved. You have a large group that is heterogeneous but that contains a dedicated (to the point of fanaticism) sub-group within it that can definitely be characterized as supporting everything that Americans should detest and reject.

It is the project of Abe Foxman and others who use the DPS (Dual Purpose Slam) to take advantage of this mixing of the Israel-first folks with the general group to protect the Israel-first folks.

Think of it as paint.

You have many cans of paint, most are filled with white or off-white paint. But there are also some cans of coal-black paint. Mix all the paint together. That coal-black paint is still in there but the mix looks pretty much white. Someone says, "there's black paint in there!" and you respond with outrage - "BLACK PAINT! Why any fool can see that this paint is white!"

Now here is the critical difference in my paint analogy from the American Jews it represents. There is no way the black paint can come out of the mix. American Jews who are wholeheartedly racist, filled with hate and eager to see the eviction of Palestinians from Palestine can easily come out of America, go to Israel, become Israelis with dual citizenship and be kicking out Palestinians with a matter of weeks. Or they can remain in America funding Israel or calling out supporters of the Palestinians as anti-Semitic.

Do you see how this works? It's truly a marvel, works only for the Jews and is a direct result of Holocaust education. It's an invisible force-field.

The ultimate irony is that Jews in America will only be fully American when they can no longer use this invisible shield, yet Holocaust education is a deliberate attempt to keep the shield up - keeping Jews a people apart.

Many American Jews are revolted by Israel claiming to represent them and are acting to make the distinction between Judaism and Israel very clear, but, though growing in number, they are still a minority. They have a majority of American Jews working against them by doing all they can to support Israel.

I fully support the former group of Jews and oppose the latter. The Jewish group conducting a racist experiment in the Middle East will ultimately collapse, I hope in the way that South Africa did, with the acceptance of the futility of the effort rather than through violence.

In the meantime - I encourage all Americans, Jewish or not, to deny support to the state of Israel, because what it stand for is un-American.

It is sustained only because of American support and the Dual Purpose Slam of anti-Semitism in the United States is Goliath - on Israel's side.

Catholics counted, Protestants counted but not Jews?

Today in the New York Times there was an article that broke down the membership of the U.S. House and Senate into demographic groups...the number of men and women, age groups, etc.

What struck me was that in the "religion" category only Catholics and Protestants were mentioned, not Jews (there is only one Muslim, so that omission is understandable). As a result, 47 of the members of the House/Senate were missing in the religion tally.

This was too much for me. The Jewish members of the House and Senate are uniformly cheerleaders for Israel with absolutely no countering presence. I wrote the following comment on the article to the NYT. No other comments mentioned this omission.

There is a glaring oversight (in this article) - 47 members are unaccounted for in the tally for religion and Jews are not mentioned. Why is the change in Protestants and Catholics of interest but not of Jews? In light of the fact that Israeli settlements and that country's flouting of international law and the actions of the UN is front and center as a cause of the isolation of our country in the world and an incitement to attacks against us - and that the loudest voices for Israel in Congress are Jewish (Lieberman, Kantor, Schumer, Harman, etc.) Judaism should certainly be listed as a religion because it would be interesting as an indication of change in the strength of the Israel lobby. Can anyone name a single Jewish member of Congress who is not a supporter of Israel? The only Jewish candidate that fits that description, as far as I know, was Marcy Winograd who was defeated by Jane Harman. Since there is only one Muslim in Congress, it's understandable that that religion is not mentioned.

The foregoing is doubly important in that a House investigation of Muslim extremism is about to begin where there is but one Muslim in Congress to temper an examination by Congressmen and women who have shown themselves not just indifferent, but hostile to the Palestinians, giving approval to any and all actions of the Israeli government. Congress has yet to have even the most cursory investigation of the power of Israel to direct U.S. foreign policy regarding that country and its neighbors. Even the attack on the USS Liberty was hushed up. I, for one, want my Congress back from the Israel lobby. It's something all Americans should desire.

My comment has not been published.

the natives are restless

After the release of the Wikileaks "Palestinan Papers", the following had to come...

copied from Ali Abunimah

NOTICE

We the Palestinian People

Find you have failed to keep your oath to represent the Palestinians


PA…YOU’RE FIRED!

*
Suspend and terminate the Oslo Accords
*
Dissolve the Palestinian Authority – Abbas must resign
*
End the Blockade of Gaza
*
End all security arrangements with Israel
*
Release all Palestinian political prisoners from Palestinian jails
*
Unify the resistance – Build a national platform upon which to coalesce Palestinian political parties and formations in their resistance to apartheid, colonialism and ethnic cleansing



Notice of termination served on February 28, 2011 4:00-6:00 p.m.

at the General Delegation of the PLO Mission to the U.S.

1320 18th Street, NW - Washington, D.C.

Issued by the United States Palestinian Community Network-DC

all wolf since 1948

The most powerful statements are often brief, such as this one that correctly states the situation of Zionism taking the lands of the Palestinians while posing as a people desiring peace. That "peace process" has now been thoroughly exposed as the fraud that this picture represents. What Israel has always wanted is a peaceful exit of the Palestinians from their lands. As the peace sham has come apart, the wolf-like nature of Israel is increasingly on display.


A very impressive and informative poster seen in a San Francisco area rapid transit station from www.bdsmovement.net

American Jew says she hates what Israel is doing

Want to feel the teargas and see the effect it has? Join a protest at the West Bank town of Bil'in in the spring of 2010 starting at 23:00 of the video below.

But above all, listen to the Israeli from Tel Aviv who participates in the protest. Listen to the Australian and the American who have come so far from home to support justice by way of the International Solidarity Movement.

The American, a Jew, says (at 31:25)

I'm ashamed of it (the American flag)...the way we aid Israel, give them carte blanche and we don't do anything for the Palestinians except spew a lot of rhetoric.

INTERVIEWER: Why would you come here?

A couple of reasons. I'm Jewish, so I hate what Israel is doing especially because they claim to be the home of the Jewish people and it isn't, it's Zionism. It's everything against what Judaism stands for so I come to put a different face on Judaism and I believe we are supposed to stand for the oppressed wherever they are...and as an American because my money is used against the Palestinians and so it's important for me to come and stand with the Palestinians and work with them.

The first half of this video is a visit to the home of a Palestinian slain while protesting in 2009. The video is one of almost 100 videos called Sleepless in Gaza and Jerusalem - something anyone who wants to get to know the Palestinians and their situation should watch.

Obama abases himself for Israel

I'm sorry to say that one of my senators in Congress is Mark Kirk, the man more heavily financed by the Israel lobby than any other Congressman when he was a representative from Illinois and still their poster-boy as a senator.

He considers himself a champion for Israel and has lately been spouting the kind of nonsense one could expect - that Israel is America's strongest ally, that it is the only democracy in the Middle East etc.

Things are changing in the world around him, however. Events have occurred that make him look even more foolish and out-of-touch than before.

The uprisings of Arabs in many countries in attempts to throw off their autocrats have upset the carefully arranged applecart that provided a tight lid preventing democracy for millions. With the ouster of Mubarak, Israel is worried that the U.S. payoff that provided Egyptian compliance with the oppression of the Palestinians may fail to work. At the same time, the U.S. was put in the awkward position of having to support the ouster of the man it had happily supported for three decades.

The release of the Wikileaks "Palestine Papers" provided proof, if any were needed, that the Palestinian Authority was quite willing to sell out the Palestinian people in negotiations with Israel. The Palestinian Authority, by the way, is paid with U.S. funds to (here's that same phrase again) keep a lid on Palestinian unrest by way of a U.S. trained police force (remember that Palestinians may not otherwise be armed and that Israeli settlers in the occupied territories are armed).

The revelations were also significant because they showed not only that the PA is a puppet but that Israel had no interest in the puppet giving away the Palestinian store. The reason is that Israel wants all of the Palestinian land and always has, making the charade of the so-called Peace Process clear to all...except Mark Kirk.

Finally, and most significant, the President of the United States, after desperately talking to Palestinian President (though his term has expired) Mahmoud Abbas on the phone for the better part of an hour, failed to persuade him to withdraw a request for a UN Security Council vote on a resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

Obama's desperation was understandable because the resolution was essentially a statement of what is official U.S. policy, put forward by the Palestinians in a clear attempt to force the U.S. to show its dedication to Israel rather than its own policy. It was the little boy shouting that the emperor (the "honest broker for peace") had no clothes (was actually in Israel's pocket).

It worked. The result was the incredible veto two weeks ago of U.S. policy by the U.S. at the United Nations. In effect, the U.S. slapped itself in the face publicly for Israel and defied the world by alone opposing (1-14) the rest of the Security Council. To make it even more absurd, the U.S. representative to the U.N., Susan Rice, then said the U.S. still does oppose the Israeli settlements but the solution to the problem lay in the (now thoroughly discredited) peace process!

So Mark Kirk's pronouncements about Israel are now clearly seen to be what they have always been - meaningless statements that serve only to cover for the power of the Israel lobby in America, that power now confirmed by the President kneeling before it in the U.N.