Debate Over Zionism a Distraction?

In my understanding, violent Zionism is a main root of the problems that exist between Israelis and Palestinians. Not Zionism necessarily, but a zionism that is violent, oppressive, tyrannical and brutal in nature.

Lincoln Shlensky, of Jewish Peace News, thinks that the debate over Israeli Zionism is a "red herring." Lincoln raises some very sensible arguments. Read on:

...the wrong topic -- Zionism and anti-Zionism -- is under debate. This ideological argument serves to distract attention from the desperate need for a renewed discussion of human and political rights that must set the agenda for any negotiations toward a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
[...]
the debate between Zionists and anti-Zionists is a red herring, in my view, a diversionary tactic that merely postpones crucial negotiations and decisions that could enable an equitable and peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians. The real debate needs to be over how to politically enshrine -- with the necessary help of the international community -- the rights of both Palestinians and Israeli Jews in a future political compact. Unless Israeli Jews can be presented with a plan, whether national or confederational, that guarantees their political freedoms and allows them to live without fear of being politically overwhelmed by shifting demography, then peace, with reparative justice for the Palestinians, will remain elusive. Without such an internationally backed guarantee of rights and security, negotiations can only be experienced as a zero-sum equation in which Israeli Jews have everything to lose. This far more important debate over how to assure the rights of Jews and Palestinians will not happen without the impetus of broad-based popular political activism, the involvement of the key global political players, and sincere compassion for both sides. Until widespread demand mounts for the negotiation of an internationally backed agreement that preserves the mutual rights and political freedoms of Israelis and Palestinians, the stronger party in the conflict will continue to prevail -- at an inexcusable expense to itself, to the weaker group, and to the entire region.

--Lincoln Shlensky

http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com/2009/03/is-zionism-problem.html

"To create a new...generation that really believes in peace."

Reposted from Jewish Peace News:

And Now For Something Completely Different

For a change of pace from our usual dose of death and destruction, an inspiring story:

The village of Ni'lin has paid a particularly high price for its struggle against the Wall and annexation of its lands, including two children who were shot and killed by the Israeli Army in the summer of 2008. Nevertheless, the people of the village continue to protest at least once a week against the Wall, joined by Israeli activists, in particular Anarchists Against the Wall, as well as international activists.

The article below tells the remarkable story of how the people of Ni'lin have put together an exhibit to honor International Holocaust Remembrance Day and commemorate the near destruction of European Jewry under the Nazis.

Activists who have been in Ni'lin recently told me that the reason they heard for the village committee putting together the exhibit was this: if Israeli activists care enough to come to their village to learn about the Palestinian struggle and act in solidarity with Palestinians, they feel obligated to learn Jewish history as well.

This is what solidarity looks like.

--Rebecca Vilkomerson

Ni'lin pays tribute to Jewish victims of the Holocaust
George H. Hale

BETHLEHEM – Every Friday, the West Bank village of Ni'lin is home to some of the most violent clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian, Israeli and international demonstrators.

Each week, activists from the village's Land Defence Committee stage demonstrations at the Separation Barrier which cuts off as much as half the village's farmland and water from its inhabitants.

As a reporter for a Palestinian news agency in Bethlehem, I too travelled to Ni'lin, but last weekend beheld a spectacle perhaps more remarkable than these weekly Barrier protests: Villagers had set up an exhibition to coincide with the United Nations-declared International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January, an exhibition organised by Ni'lin's Popular Committee Against the Wall.

Hassan Moussa, the exhibition's organiser, spoke to me over the phone from Ni'lin. And despite the hot-headed rhetoric coming from both sides that weekend (a number of protesters were tear-gassed just hours before), Moussa explained that the exhibit was organised with the most noble of intentions.

"This is a way of extending our sympathy for the Jews," and the Palestinians' way of extending that sympathy "to the Israeli people, themselves," he says.

"Nobody thinks war will lead to peace and security. It will lead to more violence and hatred and agony, as well as suffering to this area, which is neither in our interest, nor the Israelis."

Since late January the people of Ni'lin have opted to complement their demonstrations with something "to show the Israelis that we feel sorry for them."

As a Palestinian activist, Moussa says he also wants to convey his suffering: "My suffering will not lead to peace. When I lose my land, it's like losing your heart from your body."

The village's Municipality hosted the Holocaust Remembrance Exhibition at its headquarters in Ni'lin, where organisers say more than 1,000 visitors have paid tribute to the victims of Nazi atrocities committed against Europe's Jews.

The exhibition of posters and texts, provided by an Israeli Holocaust museum, details "the genocide that was committed against the Jewish people during the 1930s and 1940s in Germany and in other parts of Europe," Moussa explains.

"We admit that there was terrible pain inflicted on the Jewish people as a result of this genocide," he says. "We are feeling sorry for this genocide."

Moussa added that "the Palestinians have no connection at all with that genocide… It is our fate to live on this land so we have to live in peace—only peace can bring security," he explains.

"We feel sorry for you," Moussa says when pressed for his message to the Israeli people. "Our hand is extended in peace; we are ready to make peace with the Israeli government."

"We want peace for the people of Israel, and the people of Palestine and the people of the world, as well," he says. "This is our way to express this message; it is our message to the whole world."

The exhibit is not only intended for Israelis, though a number have attended. "Frankly speaking, the people who came and visited the exhibition, [for the] first time saw something about this genocide," Moussa says. "They heard some from their history books, but this is the first time they saw the pictures."

The most common Palestinian reaction after seeing the horrifying images, Moussa tells me, is that "they feel sorry; they feel really sorry for the [Jews], once they see the posters."

One in five of the village's 5,000 residents are estimated to have viewed the exhibition, with hundreds more from Israel and elsewhere in the West Bank. It is still open to the public at the village's municipality building.

"We received so many visitors," Moussa says. "Even some Israeli activists came to have a look at the exhibition." Particularly interested were those Israelis whose ancestors survived the Holocaust: "They came and they appreciated the idea."

"And they expressed their sorrow for us," Moussa notes. "Their message, as well as my message, is to create a new type of generation that really believes in peace."

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* George Hale is a journalist with Ma'an News Agency, a Palestinian newswire. He lives in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

Source: Common Ground News Service, 26 February 2009, www.commongroundnews.org.
Copyright permission is granted for publication.

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Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
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Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
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Jewish Peace News sends its news clippings only to subscribers. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or manage your subscription, go to http://www.jewishpeacenews.net

Conflict in Israel/Palestine: How the Establishment Media Distorts Reality

I subscribe to Jewish Peace News, which I believe provides an important perspective, and a truly critical analysis, on some of the current issues surrounding the states of Palestine and Israel. The conflict between Israel and Palestine is one of the most pressing issues of the day. These are two different groups of people who are each struggling, albeit in different ways and for different purposes. It is essential, for a just resolution of the conflict, to have access to the most complete set of information possible, and to represent the reality on the ground truthfully and accurately. The portrayal of the conflict in news stories and articles must strive toward objectivity, and it must keep away from promoting the agenda of one of either of the groups - for example, by omitting relevant facts and details. The following is from JPN:

An article yesterday (June 30) in the New York Times included this update on the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza: “The deal, mediated by Egypt, has been violated by dissident Palestinian groups that have fired rockets or mortar shells at Israel.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/world/middleeast/30mideast.html)

The following news item gives an account of other violations, most of which came from Israel and most of which preceded the rocket attack on Sderot on June 24th.

Judith Norman


UN: Israel violated truce 7 times in one week
By: Roi Mandel
Ynet
27 June 2008

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3560972,00.html

Since it went into effect last week, at least eight violations of the new ceasefire agreement with Hamas and the Palestinian factions have been recorded, a UN source told Ynet on Thursday [June 26th]. According to the source, seven violations were committed by the IDF, while the Palestinians are responsible for just one.

However the UN report does not include the Qassam fire launched towards the Negev during the day. ‘It is important that both sides honor the ceasefire, in order for it to be the first constructive step towards a wider and more extensive peace process between the sides,’ the source said.

Most of the offences committed by the IDF include shots fired by soldiers at Palestinian farmers attempting to reach their land near the border security fence. According to the UN, on June 20 an IDF patrol shot at Palestinian farmers near the fence east of Rafah. The soldiers fired for ten minutes in order to drive the farmers away, but no injuries were reported.
...

Defining the Discourse

I recently signed up to receive email updates from Jewish Peace News. JPN is a spin-off of Jewish Voice for Peace. I like the letters that I have received so far. They are thoughtful, and well composed. The following is no exception:

This article by Noam Chomsky raises the important but extremely difficult problem of comparing “intentional” and “unintentional” civilian casualties. Can we equate American troops who accidentally kill Iraqi civilians with foreign terrorists who intentionally kill American civilians? Can we compare the deaths of Palestinian children caught in the line of Israeli fire with the deaths of Israeli child victims of suicide bombers?

The occasion for Chomsky addressing these questions is the assassination of Imad Moughniyeh, a senior figure in Hizbollah who was linked to several terrorist attacks on Americans and Israelis. Chomsky notes the hypocrisy apparent in the US media and government, which condemned Moughniyeh’s crimes on the one hand while remaining silent about much more serious crimes committed by the US or Israel, although these crimes were often what prompted Hizbollah’s retaliatory actions.

But is it really hypocrisy? Apologists for the US and Israel explain that unlike Hizbollah, the US and Israel do not intentionally kill the civilians who die as a result of their actions (for instance, the Palestinians who die as a result of Israel bombing Gaza’s power supply).

No, says Chomsky: the US and Israel (generally) do not intend the deaths of these civilians. Rather, the civilians die because the US and Israel often barely notice, much less care, that our actions will kill people. We hold the lives of these victims too cheaply to even register them. As Chomsky writes: “We are aware that it is likely to happen (if we bother to think about it), but we do not intend to kill them because they are not worthy of such consideration.”

This aggressively and viciously dehumanizing attitude might be distinguishable from a specific intention to kill, but is it really any better?

Judith Norman [of Jewish Peace News]

Noam Chomsky: The Most Wanted List
February 28, 2008
Source: TomDispatch

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16669

On February 13, Imad Moughniyeh, a senior commander of Hizbollah, was assassinated in Damascus. "The world is a better place without this man in it," State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said: "one way or the other he was brought to justice." Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell added that Moughniyeh has been "responsible for more deaths of Americans and Israelis than any other terrorist with the exception of Osama bin Laden."

Joy was unconstrained in Israel too, as "one of the U.S. and Israel's most wanted men" was brought to justice, the London Financial Times reported. Under the heading, "A militant wanted the world over," an accompanying story reported that he was "superseded on the most-wanted list by Osama bin Laden" after 9/11 and so ranked only second among "the most wanted militants in the world."

The terminology is accurate enough, according to the rules of Anglo-American discourse, which defines "the world" as the political class in Washington and London (and whoever happens to agree with them on specific matters). It is common, for example, to read that "the world" fully supported George Bush when he ordered the bombing of Afghanistan. That may be true of "the world," but hardly of the world, as revealed in an international Gallup Poll after the bombing was announced. Global support was slight. In Latin America, which has some experience with U.S. behavior, support ranged from 2% in Mexico to 16% in Panama, and that support was conditional upon the culprits being identified (they still weren't eight months later, the FBI reported), and civilian targets being spared (they were attacked at once). There was an overwhelming preference in the world for diplomatic/judicial measures, rejected out of hand by "the world."

[... read more]

The Role of Media in Human Rights Disasters

I received the following in an email from Jewish Peace News. It is a stark reminder of the critically important role that the media and news outlets play in disseminating information about human rights disasters. Whether in Israel, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, The USA, China, South or North America, Asia, or Africa, investigative journalism can have a major impact on the conduct of governments in regard to military action and other matters of humanitarian concern. From The Jewish Peace News Network:

[To subscribe to Jewish Peace News: www.jewishpeacenews.net]

One morning, in 1992, when I was working on the staff of Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, we received notice from our contacts in Gaza of a new tactic adopted by the Israeli armed forces. After numerous court cases had stalled (though not prevented) their use of home demolitions in retaliation for Palestinian individuals' alleged involvement in attacks against Israelis, the army experimented with the following alternative: claim that persons wanted for perpetrating alleged attacks are hiding in their family homes, notify the families (at about 5am) that they must evacuate immediately and use tanks to shell the homes, supposedly in order to "flush out" the wanted persons. At the time, this was a highly significant development because it trashed even the meager (and in hindsight largely misplaced) hope of defending human rights through recourse to Israel's High Court of Justice.

After formulating a press release, we spent the day negotiating with the Hebrew press, trying to get it to report this information coming only from Gazan sources (which we knew to be reliable). One of our contacts, at the news desk of a major evening paper, was closely related to a government minister and she immediately called him to verify. His answer was brief and dismissive: "I don't believe it." Not only did the paper shelve the item but over the next few days it did not report on any of the developments following the shelling which---in this newspaper's version of reality---had never taken place.

In the following piece from Haaretz, Gideon Levy describes the version of reality currently being produced by Israel's media, one which is totally devoid of direct reports from the Gaza Strip.

For me, in 1992, knowing and understanding what was really going on meant finding, following and assessing an array of alternative sources. While Levy is totally justified, in my view, for exposing and condemning the passive and perhaps criminal collusion of Israel's media, many non-government and alternative organizations continue today, as then, to publicize directly what the established media fails to report. Aside from giving a sense of the slanted UN-reality presented by Israeli media coverage and consumed by most Israelis, Levy's article underlines the importance of the wide scope of activism collecting, reporting and transmitting systematically hidden information.

Rela Mazali


Racheli Gai added:

It's very common (almost a cliche) to point out how open Israeli newspapers are, and how so much stuff which one dares not mention in the U.S., for instance, gets discussed in mainstream Israeli media. While this has a grain of truth - it's mostly limited to opinion pieces, and - as Levy's piece shows - isn't particularly true of ongoing coverage (or lackthereof) of the "facts on the ground".

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Twilight Zone / A great darkness has fallen


By Gideon Levy
Haaretz
Last update - 23:35 08/03/2008
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/961666.html


Operation Warm Winter ended without a single Israeli journalist setting foot on the Gaza side of the Erez border crossing with Israel. Even the military correspondents, who usually recount the brave acts of our forces from inside their jeeps and armored vehicles, were not taken this time to report on the raids in Jabalya and Sajiyeh. A handful of other correspondents, those who are still interested in what the Israel Defense Forces leaves behind after its campaigns of killing and destruction, stayed home. They have been holed up in their houses for over a year and a half already.

Don`t believe the microphones you sometimes see in TV reports on Gaza, adorned with the logo of the Israeli television channels. They are meant only to deceive us. Don`t believe the meager reports in the press from Gaza that are written by Israeli correspondents. They are all done by phone, with all the limitations that involves. Not one local journalist, neither Jewish or Arab, neither Shlomi Eldar nor Suleiman al-Shafi, neither Amira Hass nor this writer, has passed through the Erez terminal since the end of November 2006.

The press in Israel is under a major blackout: The IDF is not allowing it to do its job. Gaza, an hour-and-a-half drive from Tel Aviv, is outside the range of journalistic coverage. Daring Israeli correspondents have traveled to Iraq and Lebanon, Syria and Iran, to report to their readers what is happening there - but not to Gaza. It`s as though the Strip, which is central to our diplomacy and security, and where everything that happens affects the Negev and the rest of the country, has been declared a closed military zone, as though it were beyond the Mountains of Darkness.
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We were in the refugee camp in Jenin during the height of Operation Defensive Shield, we were in Bethlehem when it was besieged, we were in Gaza when armed gangs walked around on every street corner, we were in Beit Hanun when Israel shelled it with artillery, we were in the home of Salah Shehadeh the day after the one-ton bomb was dropped on it, we were in the house of the paralyzed girl on a respirator, Maria Aman, the day after most of her family was killed by a criminal missile. One stormy summer`s day IDF soldiers even fired at our car in Tulkarm. But we haven`t been in Gaza for months.

This blackout on the actions of the IDF and the Shin Bet security services, and the fact that the Israeli press is forbidden to cover what is happening in the Strip, has been accepted with exemplary silence. The press bowed its head, submissive and obedient, as in the bad old days when it maintained other disgraceful silences, from Qibya to Kafr Qasem.

Was it too much to expect some signs of protest on the part of the media regarding the ongoing closure, whose end is not in sight? Should it accept as self-evident the explanations of the defense establishment to the effect that it is `dangerous` in Gaza and that there are warnings about journalists being kidnapped? Can anyone determine that Nablus, which can still be covered, for example, is less dangerous? How much less? And why not close the West Bank to coverage as well, and forget about journalism?

Doesn`t the powerful press have means of democratic protest at its disposal, to use to fight the evil decree? Apparently this decree is not evil in the eyes of most leading media figures. A rare coalition, almost wall to wall, seems to be very pleased with Gaza being closing off to coverage: When the readers don`t want to read, the government and the defense establishment don`t want things to be read or broadcast, and the reporters, editors and publishers don`t want to anger anyone either. They are all very pleased with the fact that Gaza is beyond the pale. Thus Israel has covered its eyes and looked away from what is happening on the other side of the fence, and a great darkness has fallen on the abyss.

The exclusion of Gaza from Israeli coverage is critical. Just when millions of viewers and readers the world over are having their perception of the country shaped by the terrible pictures being broadcast from Gaza, occasionally in an exaggerated manner, they are witnessing an almost total absence of coverage from the Israeli side. It is one thing to hear or read that the IDF killed, assassinated and prevented some action, and another thing to see the results on the ground. Someone - and it must be an Israeli journalist - also has to reach the stricken and bleeding places after the missile has fallen, the shell has landed, the bulldozer has destroyed, the water has run out, the fuel is finished and the electricity is turned off. Someone has to tell the Israeli reader that when the IDF announces that it dropped a bomb on `unoccupied huts,` as it did the day after the assassination of Shehadeh, it was in fact a house of several stories filled with residents, including many child!
ren.

The need to see and to know the results of Israel`s activity in Gaza as well as the terror of the Qassams, in which the local press incessantly wallows, does not have to be related to one`s political views - not at all. The need to know should be a natural need for both the right and the left. Yes, sometimes it is not easy to look at the results of our actions, but if we don`t know what has gone on, how will we judge and assess? Do we accept the idea that an average newspaper reader in Oslo and a TV viewer in London will see more than we do about what is being done in our name? Is it enough to cover Sderot while blatantly ignoring what is happening in Gaza, in order to satisfy the needs of the wise media consumer?

But the prevention of Israeli coverage of Gaza and the acquiescence of most local media to this situation, with almost no sign of protest, are only one part of the picture, the less serious part. The deliberate covering of our eyes has gone even further this time.

This past Sunday something important happened. Part of the local, popular press that shapes mass opinion - the Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv dailies, to be specific - decided that the killing of over 60 residents of Gaza in one day by our soldiers is not a story. The proof: There is no mention of it, not even implied, on the first pages of these two newspapers, their obvious showcase.

One`s eyes refused to believe it. Not a single word. Maariv`s first page showed a huge picture of a wounded IDF fighter, a threatening headline stating, `In the cross hairs: Hamas` leaders,` plus information about the number of Qassam and Grad missiles that fell on Sderot and Ashkelon, and a promise: `It`s not war yet.` As if to say: We`re only in the `promo` stage. Only on the margins of page 3, in tiny letters, was there a first mention: About 95 Palestinians killed since Wednesday. A first picture of the killing and the outcry in Gaza on page 6.

Yedioth goes even further, as if to say: Everything that Maariv can do, we can do better. Not a word on the first page about the dozens of Palestinian dead. Only a huge picture of a wounded soldier being evacuated by helicopter (when in Gaza the ambulances do not even have gas to allow them to evacuate their wounded). The headline: `Hundreds of fighters deep in Gaza,` a promise that `this is not `the` major operation,` a confession from the mother of one of the two soldiers who were killed (`I dreamed that they were informing me that my son had been killed`), and the number of rockets landing in Sderot and Ashkelon. The first mention of Palestinian dead appeared only on the margins of page 3, in small letters.

`A city without defenses` - that is, of course, Ashkelon. There is nothing else in the region, and not a single picture, please note, not a single image in Yedioth of the killing and suffering in Gaza in all the pages of the newspaper - except for a tiny photo of a demolished house. Among all the photos of Sderot and Ashkelon, the heart-rending confessions and the human-interest reportage about the fear and the relatively light destruction in these two cities, there was no room to print even one photo of bleeding Gaza? Of one wounded child? Of one fearful mother, as in Sderot? One picture that would illustrate to some degree, at least, the dimensions of the mass killing we have sowed? One picture like those that adorned the first pages of most of the newspapers in the world that day? No. Not here. Not in `the newspaper of the country.`

These two newspapers now boast new, relatively young and promising editors. The days of Rafi Ginat at Yedioth and Amnon Dankner at Maariv are over. Instead we have highly regarded editors who give us reason for hope: Shilo De-Beer at Yedioth, and Doron Glazer and Ruti Yuval at Maariv. What did they think when they opened their papers on Sunday morning? That this is professional journalism? That this is the proper service they owe their readers? That they don`t deserve to see with their own eyes at least a hint of what happened in Gaza?

This is how one shapes the opinions of the public - and also how one brainwashes it. Penetrating op-eds convince the already convinced, and only the flow of information determines one`s awareness. The local popular press, almost free of censorship, highly professional and in part also selling well, opted for the gravest thing of all: self-censorship, of the kind that will never arouse any signs of opposition.

One day, when the historian or researcher burrows in the archives of these newspapers and tries to understand what happened here, he won`t be able to understand a thing. He will only know that we had a press here that betrayed its role.


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Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Alistair Welchman
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Jewish Peace News sends its news clippings only to subscribers. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or manage your subscription, go to www.jewishpeacenews.net