[ssf] Fisking IS Re: [sheffield-anti-war-coalition] Fw: Prominent Jews call for open debate on Israel

[adam bashid]

  "Whenever Amira Hass tries to explain her vocation as an Israeli 
journalist -- as a journalist of any nationality -- she recalls a 
seminal moment in her mother's life. Hannah Hass was being marched from 
a cattle train to the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen on a summer's 
day in 1944.

   'She and the other women had been ten days in the train from
   Yugoslavia. They were sick and some were dying by the road. Then my
   mother saw these German women looking at the prisoners, just looking.
   The image became very formative in my upbringing, this despicable
   *looking from the other side*. It's as if I was there myself'

  Amira stares at me through wire-framed glasses as she speaks, to see 
if I have understood the Jewish Holocaust in her life.

  In her evocative book *Drinking the Sea at Gaza*, Hass eloquently 
explains why she, an Israeli journalist, went to live in Yassir Arafat's 
garbage-strewn statelet.

    'In the end' she wrote 'my desire to live in Gaza stemmed neither
    from adventurism nor insanity, but from that dread of being a
    bystander, from my need to understand, down to the last detail, a
    world that is -- to the best of my political and historical
    comprehension -- a profoundly Israeli creation. To me, Gaza embodies
    the entire saga of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; it represents
    the central contradiction of the state of Israel -- democracy for
    some, dispossession for others; it is our exposed nerve.'

It is the summer of 2001. Amira Hass is sitting on the windowsill of my 
colleague Phil Reeve's home in Jerusalem and behind her the burnished 
dome of of the Al-Aqsa mosque glitters in the sunlight. Yet she does not 
live in Jerusalem but in Ramallah -- with the Palestinians whom many of 
her people regard as ''terrorists'', listening to the Palestinian curses 
heaped upon ''the jews'' for the confiscations and dispossessions and 
murder squads and settlements -- which make her among the bravest of 
reporters.

Her daily column in *Ha'aretz* blazes with indignation at the way her 
own country, Israel, is mistreating and killing Palestinians. Only when 
I meet her, however, do I realise the intensity -- the passion -- of her 
work.

    'There is a misconception that journalists can be objective,' ...
       she tells me, the same sharp glance of comprehension.
    'Palestinians tell me I'm objective. I think this is important
    because I'm Israeli. But being fair and being objective are not the
    same thing. What journalism is really about -- it's to monitor power
    and the centres of power.'

If only, I kept thinking, the American journalists who report in so 
craven a fashion from the Middle East -- so fearful of Israeli criticism 
that they turn Israeli murder into *targeted attacks* and illegal 
settlements into *Jewish neighborhoods* -- could listen to Amira Hass ...

... Hass found herself fascinated with the difference between 
Palestinian images and reality.

     'Their towns were being potrayed in the Israeli press as a *nest of
    hornets*. But I really wanted to taste what it means to live under
    occupation -- what it is like to live under curfew, to live in fear
    of the soldier. I wanted to know what it was like to be an Israeli
    under Israeli occupation.' ...

    'It was this idea of not intervening, not changing anything. And
    luckily, this combined in me with journalism.'

Hass is possessed of the idea that change can only come through social 
movements and their interaction with the press -- an odd notion that 
seems a little illogical.

But there is nothing vague about her vocation.

    'Israel is obviously the centre of power which ''dictates''
    Palestinian life. As an Israeli, my task as a journalist is to
    monitor power. I'm called *a correspondent on Palestinian affairs*
    but it's more true to say that I'm an expert in Israeli occupation.'

Israeli reaction, she says, is very violent towards her.

    'I get messages saying I must have been a *kapo* [ a Jewish
    death-camp overseer for the Nazis ] in my first incarnation. Then
    I'll get an email saying:

         "Bravo, you have written a great article -- Heil Hitler !"

    Someone told me they hoped I had breast cancer.

         "Until we expel all Palestinians, there will be no peace'"

          ... some of them say. I can't reply to them -- there are
    thousands  of these messages' "

    -- Amira Hass
----------------------------------------------------------------------

"When Eva Stern's grandfather Aaron Hersh climbed off the transport at 
Auschwitz extermination camp in 1944, along with her mother Hannah and 
two aunts from their ultra-orthodox Jewish family, he was still holding 
his prayer shawl.

   'A Polish prisoner warned him he'd die if he didn't hand it over, bit
    he refused.' Eva says
   'Then a German officer ordered my grandfather to give the shawl to him
    while he was waiting in line for selection for the gas chambers. He
    again refused. So he shot my grandfather in the head. That's how he
    died.'

In the warmth of a Manhattan hotel lobby, Stern speaks quickly, in an 
almost subdued voice, recalling the terrible story which her mother told 
of the family's journey from Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz.

   'She was only seventeen and tried to save one of her sister's children
    by holding it in her arms. But another prisoner snatched it away and
    gave it back to her sister -- because they would all die if Mengele
    saw both women with a child. So her sister and her children were all
    selected to die. And my mother lived.

    At least seventy members of her family were murdered. She was taken
    to Ravensbruck concentration camp and was eventually liberated by the
    Red Army. The incident with the child had the greatest impact on her.
    I can honestly say that my mother hasn't slept for fifty years.'

But it is the death of her grandfather Aaron Hersh -- a Talmudic scholar 
by the age of twenty who was shot after refusing to surrender his 
*tallit* -- that has marked Eva Stern's life.

With anger painfully suppressed, she opens a thick file on the seat 
beside her. Entitled *Israel's occupation 'Grapes of Wrath' and the Qana 
Massacre*, it is her own work, a compilation of news reports and 
photographs of Israel's 1996 bombardment in which more than 170 
civilians were killed, 107 of them at Qana, 55 of them children. Stern 
flicks her finger in fury at one of the pictures; it shows Israeli 
soldiers standing in front of their battle tanks on the Lebanese border. 
The caption reads:

        'Israeli soldiers
         briefly halt their shelling
         to commemorate Holocaust Day'

And Stern looks at me so that I can see the extent of her fury.

   'What would my grandfather say to this ?

    What were those Israelis *thinking* as they were putting on their
    prayer shawls ?

    Where they paying:

        "Father who art in heaven,
         help me kill as many *Arabushim* as possible" ?

    Do they now have a right to kill without any guilt ?'


*Arabushim* -- a racist term for Arabs in the Hebrew language -- was 
later used in an Israeli newspaper interview by one of the artilleryman 
who fired into the UN base of Qana. Stern has included an English 
translation of the interview from *Kol Ha'ir* in her file, a set of 
documents that she has sent to the UN, to the Lebanese delegation to the 
UN, and to prominent American journalist in New York. She hoped to 
persuade the latter to mark the first anniversary of the Qana massacre.

Her sense of outrage is brave and lonely: although many American Jews 
are troubled by the behavior of Israel's right-wing government and the 
bloody adventures in which Israel has been involved in Lebanon and in 
Palestine, most do not take kindly to Stern's concern for the truth to 
be told. But she is unremitting:

   'My feelings started slowly. I always had a problem with unquestioned
    obedience to authority -- that's why I always got into trouble in
    class. And when I thought about the atrocities committed by the
    Israelis, I felt that as an American tax payer and an American Jew, I
    had an obligation to speak out.

    If ordinary Germans living under total oppression can be held
    responsible for crimes committed by the Nazis -- because they did not
    speak out -- how much more responsible are we who live in a country
    where we have the freedom to speak out ?

    If ordinary Germans were guilty for not speaking out then surely we
    are also guilty in remaining silent about Qana. Because we don't live
    in fear of death squads.

    What I am doing is not courageous -- it is the decent thing to do.

    If enough Germans had spoken out at the time, perhaps the Holocaust
    would not have happened.

    I'm not saying that the level of atrocities committed by the Israelis
    is on the same scale or in any way comparable to those of the Nazis.
    Of course not, But I know that I have paid as a taxpayer for the
    shells that rained down on Qana. And therefore if I'm silent, I'm no
    better than those Germans.

    Israel claims to be the representative of the Jewish people. It's
    important for people to know that they clearly do not speak for world
    Jewry.

    They clearly do not speak for me. So I have a duty to speak out'

    -- Eva Stern

    -- Robert Fisk :: The Girl and the Child and Love

GERALD ALI wrote:
> Make history ---------------------------
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> Fwd: Prominent Jews call for open debate on Israel
> 
> From second article below---------------''''A parallel struggle is under way in the US where the American Jewish Committee published an article accusing liberal Jews such as the historian Tony Judt of fuelling anti-Semitism by questioning Israel's right to exist. The essay by Alvin Rosenfeld said that "one of the most distressing features of the new anti-Semitism" was "the participation of Jews alongside it". 
> 
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> Prof Judt told the New York Times: "The link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is newly created." He feared the two would become so conflated that references to anti-Semitism and the Holocaust would be seen as "just a political defence of Israeli policy".'''''''
> 
> 
> So the question of what is meant by '' anti semitic'' still has to be clarified.
> And what really are they talking about ?
> 
> First published: in 1877, by MacMillan & Company, London. This edition was printed in USA; This Edition is reproduced from the "First Indian Edition (1944), published by BHARTI LIBRARY, Booksellers & Publishers, 145, Cornwallis Street, Calcutta. 
> Composed by Tariq Sharif, [more recently for publication on the internet] "WATERMARK", Gujranwala, Pakistan.
> First Indian Edition (1944),    
> Quote ---   '''   In further course of time a third great system of consanguinity [blood relationships] came in, which may be called, at pleasure, the Aryan, Semitic, or Uralian, and probably superseded a prior Turanian system among the principal nations, who afterwards attained civilization. It is the system which defines the relationships in the monogamian 
> 
> 
> -----------------------------------------
> Follow the Debate at http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/index.html
>          Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) is a network of individuals who wish to have a platform for critical debate on major political questions, the situation in the Middle East in particular. The initiative was born out of a frustration with the widespread misconception that the Jews of this country speak with one voice - and that this voice supports the Israeli government's policies. 
> 
> In the year that sees the 40th anniversary of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, our project is to create a climate and a space in which Jews of different affiliations and persuasions can express their opinions about the actions of the Israeli government without being accused of disloyalty or being dismissed as self-hating. The need for such debate becomes even more urgent as the situation in the Middle East continues to deteriorate. 
> 
> From a wide range of backgrounds and with a wide range of views, we all share the belief that the interests of an occupying power should not count for more than the human rights of an occupied people, together with 
> 
> 1. a commitment to human rights 
> 
> 2. the conviction that Palestinians and Israelis have a right to peace and security 
> 
> 3. a condemnation of racism in all its forms, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia 
> 
> Our founding principles are set out in our Declaration "A Time to Speak Out - Independent Jewish Voices"  . 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------
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> http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2005881,00.html
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> 
> The Guardian      Monday February 5, 2007
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> Prominent Jews call for open debate on Israel
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> · Pinter and Farhi among signatories to open letter 
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> · Institutions accused of not representing community 
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> By Julian Borger
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> A group of prominent British Jews will today declare independence from the country's Jewish establishment, arguing that it puts support for Israel above the human rights of Palestinians. 
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> Independent Jewish Voices will publish an open letter on the Guardian's Comment is Free website calling for a freer debate about the Middle East within the Jewish community. Among the more than 130 signatories are Stephen Fry, Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh, Jenny Diski and Nicole Farhi, as well as leading academics such as Eric Hobsbawm and Susie Orbach. 
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> "We come together in the belief that the broad spectrum of opinion among the Jewish population of this country is not reflected by those institutions which claim authority to represent the Jewish community as a whole," the letter says. Jewish leaders in Britain, it argues "put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people" in conflict with Jewish principles of justice and compassion. 
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> The statement does not name the institutions it is criticising. But one signatory, Brian Klug, an Oxford philosopher, writing an accompanying article on Comment is Free, singles out the Board of Deputies of British Jews for calling itself "the voice of British Jewry" while devoting "much of the time and resources of its international division to the defence of Israel". 
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> Mr Klug also criticises Britain's chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, for telling a pro-Israeli rally in London last year: "Israel, you make us proud." 
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> "Others felt roughly the opposite emotion," Mr Klug writes. 
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> The emergence of the group, which calls itself a "network of individuals" and can be found at www.ijv.org.uk comes at a time of ferment over attitudes towards Israel, stoked by the war in Lebanon and the bloodshed in the occupied territories. The question of whether radical opposition to Israeli policies necessarily amounts to anti-Semitism is central to the debate. 
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> The row was brought to a head in recent weeks by the resignation of board members of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research (IJPR) after it emerged that its director, Antony Lerman, had voiced support for the merging of Israel with the Palestinian territories into a single bi-national federation and a repeal of the "law of return" giving the right of anyone of Jewish descent to Israeli citizenship. 
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> Stanley Kalms, the former head of the Dixons Group, stepped down as the IJPR's honorary vice president, saying Mr Lerman's views made his position "untenable". Writing in the Jewish Chronicle, Lord Kalms called his views "dangerous and unacceptable" and "contrary to my concept of the role of the diaspora - to support the State of Israel, warts and all". 
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> The row has brought furious exchanges to the Jewish Chronicle's letter pages. "Some of our biggest mailbags lately have been prompted by prominent Jewish public figures voicing dissenting views of Israel, which typically provokes angry rebukes from other members of the community," David Rowan, the editor, said. 
> 
>  
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> A parallel struggle is under way in the US where the American Jewish Committee published an article accusing liberal Jews such as the historian Tony Judt of fuelling anti-Semitism by questioning Israel's right to exist. The essay by Alvin Rosenfeld said that "one of the most distressing features of the new anti-Semitism" was "the participation of Jews alongside it". 
> 
>  
> 
> Prof Judt told the New York Times: "The link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is newly created." He feared the two would become so conflated that references to anti-Semitism and the Holocaust would be seen as "just a political defence of Israeli policy".