Alison Weir provides the following report back on an event that almost didn’t happen:
After I was invited by the Social Justice Committee of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists (BFUU) to give a public presentation, extremist pro-Israel activists went to work to get the event canceled. They put up blog posts and even a Craigslist advertisement attacking me, exaggerating inaccurate claims about me by the ADL and, especially, the widely refuted JVP-US Campaign dossier on me.
This has become standard practice for Israel partisans who wish to prevent audiences from hearing my presentation.
A few individuals within the BFUU then took up the JVP-USC false claims, trying to get the event shut down before anyone had the chance to hear me directly. This effort threatened to succeed, but ultimately failed when members committed to social justice and free speech refused to cave in.
Activist songwriter-musician Vic Sadot, former Social Justice Committee Chair Cynthia Johnson, human rights worker Tom Luce, and current Social Justice Committee Chair Gene Herman – all longtime, respected Berkeley human rights activists – didn’t give in to the significant pressure, took a great deal of heat for this, and the event went on.
Nevertheless, they were nervous, particularly after seeing the Craigslist ad that seemed designed to foment hate against me and possibly provoke violence. At a recent event elsewhere in the area, a similar smear campaign had been undertaken against me (including another Craigslist ad), and a few Israel partisans showed up to disrupt the event — to the degree that the police had to be called. One Israel partisan then hit a woman videotaping the incident.
Fortunately, no protesters showed up this time, and I again spoke to a full house. The audience included many members of BFUU – which has a long tradition of peace and human rights activism – who came to hear me for themselves.
At the end of the talk, I was honored and extremely grateful to receive a standing ovation. Numerous audience members said they appreciated the talk, had learned new information, and bought my book. One person told me she hadn’t known any of the information before.
This success only happened because Vic, Cynthia, Tom, Gene and others were willing to stick their necks out, and because the BFUU congregation came down on the side of free speech and against censorship.
It would have been much easier for them to cancel the event entirely, or to bring a less “controversial” speaker. But they didn’t.
This is an example of what a few brave souls can do. Thank you.
UPDATE: I’ve just learned that the event was co-sponsored by Norcal Sabeel, another committed and courageous group.
February 18, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | Israel, JVP, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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“We in the Palestinian Solidarity Movement Have a Problem With anti-Semitism,” writes Gary Spedding, a pro Palestinian ‘lobbyist’ in the Israeli outlet Haaretz. Spedding claims to be a Palestinian solidarity activist but his activism is better described as that of an ‘Israeli agent.’ Spedding’s article provides us with an extraordinary view of Left duplicity and its disastrous role in the solidarity movement.
“For me,” writes Spedding, “being equipped to recognize and call out anti-Semitism can only strengthen my Palestine advocacy.” And why? Because“having a clear definition of anti-Semitism helps to reassure the Jewish community.” The first question that comes to mind is why a ‘pro’ Palestinian wants to ‘reassure the Jewish community?’ If Spedding really wants to appease the Jews he should join AIPAC or enlist in the IDF’s Unit 300.
Pro Palestinian pretender Spedding doesn’t want us to use “anti-Semitic Jewish power tropes” he doesn’t want us to ‘vilify’ those “Jews who do identify with Zionism.” The obvious next question is, ‘what in hell makes Spedding think that he is a Palestinian solidarity activist?’ This guy is a text book ultra Zionist merchant, probably an Hasbara agent.
Spedding’s criticism of the solidarity movement is identical to the British Jewish Lobby’s campaign against Corbyn. “Some activists have tried to hide their intentions, again playing semantics, by replacing the word ‘Jew’ with ‘Zionist.’ It’s now ‘Zionists control the media’ or ‘Zionists already decided who the next US president will be’ instead of ‘the Jews.” For once, I completely agree with Spedding. Instead of referring to ‘Zionist power’ and ‘Zionist control,’ which are, in fact, misleading terms, we must be honest and straightforward and refer more properly to the ‘Jewish lobby’, ‘Jewish power’ and ‘Jewish interests.’
In total congruence with ardent Zionist Alan Dershowitz, Spedding argues that“Anti-Zionist Jews are also not immune from being complicit in, and promoting, anti-Semitism. If a Jewish person is repeating an anti-Semitic trope it doesn’t suddenly make it kosher for others to repeat.”
Spedding confesses, “when people like me raise concerns about anti-Semitism we are often told that we are ‘useful idiots’ for the Zionists and their agenda.” Well, yes, Spedding is an idiot and a very useful one. He tells us everything we need to know about the dysfunctional Palestinian solidarity movement and the deceitful Left. He helps us to spot the enemy within.
Spedding meticulously repeats the Hasbara guidelines: “We must also stop using the Israel – Nazi Germany analogy.” He support his inane call by quoting Israeli Zionist political commentator, Noam Sheizaf: “Saying someone is a Nazi means he represents the ultimate evil – something that shouldn’t be negotiated or compromised with, but only fought.”
Spedding needs to understand that for many of us Israel, its Lobby, the Neocons and their Zionist interventionist wars do represent the ultimate evil.
Spedding continues, “Activists should walk away from rhetoric that encourages the conflation of right-wing Zionism/Israel’s policies with Judaism and Jewish identity.” Spedding forgot to mention my name here. I claim some of the credit for this ‘conflation’ and I am proud of it. Israel defines itself as the Jewish State, its tanks are decorated with Jewish symbols. Accordingly, each of Israel’s crimes and its Lobby must be interpreted in light of Jewish culture, Jewish identity, Judaism and Jewish heritage!
Spedding insists that “Palestine activists should stop obsessing over identifying whether someone is Jewish or not, with the assumption that Jews must be given a litmus test on whether they’re pro-Israel, and thus assumed to be untrustworthy.” I wonder if Spedding would communicate the same advice to an anti Nazi group in the 1930’s. Would he advise the group not to be suspicious of supporters who, for some peculiar reason, identify politically as ‘Aryans?’
“We on the left” says the presumptive Israeli agent, “must stop procrastinating about anti-Semitism.” And the reason: “The Jewish community is an oppressed group.” I couldn’t agree more. Jews are amongst the poorest people, despite the fact that they are amongst the hardest working people. Jews make up 99% of the West’s population; but their representation in the media, politics, banking and academia is imperceptible. The Left must bring this discrimination to an immediate end. Jews must be proportionally represented once and for all.
Spedding continues, “by tackling anti-Jewish oppression on the left we actually strengthen our movement and allow it to grow.” Corbyn tried to do just that and saw his party reduced to dust. Instead of fighting Jewish power and emancipating his Party from it, Corbyn tried to appease Labour’s Jewish paymasters and the Jewish Lobby. The outcome was disastrous. The British Left is now a nostalgic interest.
Spedding ends his horrendous rant by addressing his comrades: “I urge my fellow activists to be sensitive to the concerns of Jewish individuals and communal groups whenever concerns about anti-Semitism are raised.” I recommend the complete opposite approach. Those who air the concerns of anti-Semitism, people like Spedding, Max Blumenthal, JVP and others, should be presumed to be tribal activists, Israeli agents and/or controlled opposition operatives.
Gary Spedding comes just short of admitting to being guilty of all the above.
July 24, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | Israel, JVP, Palestine, Zionism |
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In 1992, Marc Ellis wrote an important article for the time, “Beyond the Jewish-Christian Dialogue: Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” which appeared in The Link, published by Americans for Middle East Understanding. Ellis found that “the Jewish progressive consensus position is a form of oppression vis-à-vis the Palestinian people.” The consensus of the time emphasized the “two rights of Jews and Palestinians to the land,” Israeli atrocities as “aberrations,” and the anguish of “the Jewish soul.”
Ellis instead recognized the genocidal import of Zionism and the state of Israel. “What if… the Jewish character of the state makes expendable, in a terrifying sense, makes logical, the end of indigenous Palestinian culture and community in historic Palestine?” He found that the “ecumenical dialogue” of liberal Christians and Jews had turned into “what one might call the ecumenical deal: eternal repentance for Christian anti-Jewishness unencumbered by any substantive criticism of Israel.”
The ecumenical deal has broken down somewhat as Christian churches have discussed Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and sold investments in companies doing business with “the occupation,” often with great trepidation, against furious Jewish hostility. The interfaith outreach of Jewish Voice for Peace attempts to re-establish the ecumenical deal on more limited but defensible terms.
Rabbi Alissa Wise, of JVP’s rabbinical council, delivered a talk entitled “There for Each Other: On Anti-Semitism, Christian Privilege and Palestine Solidarity” to the Friends of Sabeel North America conference in Vancouver, BC in April 2015.
Sabeel arose in 1993, from the efforts of Reverend Naim Ateek and other Palestinian Christians “to interpret scripture in light of the Palestinian experience under occupation. As local Christians studied together, they forged a Palestinian version of liberation theology, which upholds the Gospel call for freedom from political, social and economic oppression.” (http://fosna.org/about/who-are-friends-sabeel) Sabeel is Arabic for “the way;” it has offices in Nazareth and Jerusalem and affiliates in Europe, North America and elsewhere. Outside Palestine its conferences, political travel and educational material promote awareness and activism on Palestine among Christians; it is the voice of the Christian left, experienced and committed.
For this audience Wise recounted her life of terror as a Jewish American. While traveling to Jewish day school on a Catholic school bus some children asked to see her horns. “I thought they were just being silly. Today I hope I know a bit more about the history of anti-Semitism in the Christian world.”
At her day school, “education about the Nazi Holocaust was a centerpiece of our learning.” In high school she visited Holocaust sites in Europe with her Jewish youth group. “We were told stories of how the Christian world was complicit in Nazism and their crimes. I sobbed and wailed at each visit to the camps, horrified and disturbed.”
In rabbinical school, she nonetheless “adopted as her spiritual mentor” Dietrich Bonhöffer, the Lutheran pastor and theologian whose opposition to Nazism cost him his life. She was also inspired by the White Rose German student resistance group, who were likewise executed. The example of “those who benefit from the systems of power and oppression actively opposing and resisting it with their lives continues to feed me in this work.”
This work begins with anti-anti-Semitism. “I see you all working hard to get out from underneath the history of Christian violence against Jews.” She emphasizes “that there is nothing anti-Semitic about criticizing Israel and there is nothing anti-Semitic in the BDS call by Palestinian civil society.”
That being said, when I get asked how to deflect accusations of anti-Semitism I do caution people to ask themselves if they are in fact anti-Semitic. While there is nothing inherently anti-Semitic in critiquing Israel, that does not mean you do not also harbor anti-Semitic sentiments toward Jews. This is something worth exploring personally and perhaps also in your congregations or organizations.
Wise continues: while “anti-Semitism certainly does still exist… it has largely lost its power in the US…. Jewish people are not impeded in any material way from pursuing the life of our choosing.” Yet Wise spends three pages of a six-page text on a tour d’horizon of anti-Semitism, before deciding that “anti-Semitism is still real, if not very potent,” and we must “fight how accusations of anti-Semitism are being used as an effective weapon to silence debate on Israel.”
Wise then discusses the actions in the California legislature and the University of California system, to define anti-Semitism in ways that limit free speech, and sharply curtail criticism of Israel. She states that “those of us who are Jewish… strongly feel the obligation—strategically and morally—to speak out when false charges of anti-Semitism are used to tar the movement.” The privilege and strategic choice of Jewish people is not opposing injustice in the name of “the Jews” but opposing it on general terms, as injustice for all.
After three-quarters of a page on the Jewish Zionist assault on free speech, Wise returns to anti-anti-Semitism, as if her empathy is exhausted. “What can you all do to confront and address Christian hegemony in the world, and in our work organizing for justice? I have frankly been surprised that I am often the person to raise this question, and hope to see organizations like Friends of Sabeel acknowledge, unpack and address Christian privilege, just as we at JVP… with Jewish privilege.” “Christian privilege” is not the force oppressing Palestine, rather Zionism is destroying Christianity in Palestine, and all else non-Jewish. The main sources of Islamophobia in the US today are Jewish, as a member of JVP’s board has attested in a book. (Elly Bulkin and Donna Nevel, Islamophobia and Israel)
Yet Wise calls for “study groups about the legacy of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in Christianity.” Wise asks: “Have you ever been given a school vacation or paid holiday related to Christmas or Easter when school vacations or paid Holidays for Ramadan or the Jewish High Holidays were not observed?” Wise carries on for four paragraphs about holidays, the weekend, Christmas ornaments and calendars. This trivializes the threat to Muslims, who face discrimination, physical assault and legal persecution, not mainly problems observing their religion. Christians who support Palestine need no lectures about Christian Islamophobia.
Such gambits allow Wise to claim religious discrimination because public life isn’t based on the needs of the religious fraction of the Jewish 2% or so of the US population. “On top of these types of reflections, I can imagine your communities working to support and encourage each other to ensure that your work advocating for Palestinian human rights does not rely on anti-Semitic ideas.”
Wise offers examples that “help elucidate the differences between a clear criticism of Israeli policy and its backers and anti-Semitic ideas often repeated by activists with no anti-Jewish intentions and lines emerging from Neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic organizations.” Thus:
A clear criticism of Israel would be: “Israel has a repeated and ongoing record of human rights offenses.”
A way to say this same idea in a way that reflects anti-Semitic sentiment, even unwittingly, would be to say: “Israel is a worse human rights violator than most or all other countries.”
A way that anti-Semitic organizations or people say the same idea: “Israel is the root of the world’s problems.”
JVP tells Sabeel what is permissible to say, just like the Jewish commissars it opposed in California. JVP is somewhat more permissive, but equally intent on propaganda and manipulation. Israel does not merely have a “repeated and ongoing record of offenses.” It is the only state on earth that is constituted on a racialist basis; it is growing daily more fanatical and violent within historic Palestine. Israel has provoked increasingly destructive wars ever since its founding, directly and through its influence in the US. In 2003 an EU poll of 7500 Europeans found nearly 60% held Israel to be the leading danger to world peace. For JVP any argument about Israel’s radicalism and extreme menace (including to itself) is prima facie anti-Semitism.
Her final example is:
A clear criticism: “Many Israeli soldiers justify their actions toward Palestinians by saying they are just following orders.”
A way to say this same idea in a way that reflects anti-Semitic sentiment, even unwittingly, would be to say: “Israelis are just like Nazis.”
A way that anti-Semitic organizations or people say the same idea: “Israel is worse than the Nazis. This wouldn’t be happening if the Nazis were successful,” and so on.
In 1969 Yeshayahu Leibowitz, philosopher and scientist at the Hebrew University, “began to talk of the inevitable ‘Nazification’ of the Israeli nation and society. By the time of the [1982] Lebanon War he had become an international celebrity because of his use of the epithet ‘Judeo-Nazi’ to describe the Israeli army.”
In 1974 Israel Shahak, a faculty colleague of Leibowitz, and president of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, stated:
I am not afraid… of the comparison with ‘that which befell the German people between the two world wars.’ I am not afraid to say publicly that Israeli Jews, and with them most Jews throughout the world, are undergoing a process of Nazification. [Jewish silence] includes – exactly as it did in Germany – not only those among us who are in my opinion real Nazis, and there are a lot of those, but also those who do not protest against Jewish Nazism, so long as they think it serves Jewish interest… I am trying to act before it is too late.
Hajo Meyer, a survivor of Auschwitz and an outspoken critic of Zionism and Israel, who passed away recently, gave a final interview in August.
“If we want to stay really human beings, we must get up and call the Zionists what they are: Nazi criminals,” Meyer said. The hate of the Jews by the Germans “was less deeply rooted than the hate of the Palestinians by the Israeli Jews,” he observed. “The brainwashing of the Jewish Israeli populations is going on for over sixty years. They cannot see a Palestinian as a human being.”
An analysis of Zionism and the Jewish people as Jewish race doctrine could doubtless be developed with academic rigor, though not by the luminaries on JVP’s advisory board, even as Ellis’s prospect comes to ghastly fruition: “the Jewish character of the state makes expendable, in a terrifying sense, makes logical, the end of indigenous Palestinian culture and community in historic Palestine.” Christian churches are burned within Israel; Palestinians are burned alive in their homes in the West Bank; Palestinians under occupation and Israeli citizens alike are gunned down without provocation; Muslims are banned from prayer in the Islamic holy site in Jerusalem, while Jewish religious fanatics who want to raze the site and build a temple swagger about guarded by Israeli soldiers. Wise and JVP refuse to fight back, rule out deeper analyses of Zionism as prima facie anti-Semitism.
Hajo Meyer was a self-proclaimed Reform Jew in the classical, anti-Zionist mold, who rejected the idea of the Jewish people and its state ,and accepted the status of Jews as a religious minority (or secular citizens) in modern liberal terms. That outlook belongs to the legacy of the Enlightenment and Jewish emancipation, from pre-modern Jewish religious society, as well as from gentile restrictions.
In late July Jewish Voice for Peace rolled out a new web site. The substantive “frequently asked questions” were reduced from eight to five. One omitted question was: “Are you Zionist, anti-Zionist, post-Zionist or something else?” JVP requires gentiles to condemn anti-Semitism, but Zionism is, or was, merely a “FAQ,”, while Jewish moderns condemned it on principle.
Commenting on this now-vanished public, and internal JVP material, New York University law student Amith Gupta argued that “JVP has taken at least 4 different positions on Zionism, implying a lack of any principle regarding racism and colonialism against Palestine in particular and the Middle East as a whole.” “JVP’s statements imply a lack of principled positions regarding racism against Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims, while taking a staunch position against perceived racism toward the Jewish community. This is a racist double-standard.”
Yet Zionism is not only racism and settler colonialism in Palestine, but the Jewish people, eternally distinct, separate, unintegrable. As anti-Semitism has been driven to the margin, and all society opened to Jewish accomplishment, separatism has been deliberately cultivated. The Judaic scholar Jacob Neusner coined the term the “Zionism of Jewish peoplehood,” to describe Jewish attitudes in the United States. “The Jewish people is my homeland. Wherever Jews live, there I am at home.” Neusner described himself as “on the margins of the group,” and has few illusions about it. “I wonder if history can provide an example of a Jewish community more ethnocentric, and less religiously concerned, than our own.” (Stranger at Home, p. 31)
We who preach brotherhood so self-righteously to our fellow citizens preserve in our hearts the least edifying part of our heritage, the hostility to gentiles… One hears Jews speak frequently of all non-Jews as goyim… One sees the preservation of Jewish neighborhoods and social facilities as unwalled ghettoes in towns where Jews are freely accepted into the social life of the general community. (p. 32)
The “Zionism of Jewish peoplehood” is most crucially the “Israel lobby,” after the celebrated article and then book by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, about the lobby’s decisive, detrimental influence. JVP vilifies the “Israel lobby” critics as anti-Semites. The first article in JVP’s 2004 collection Reframing Anti-Semitism warned that “the relative success of Jews in the United States and some parts of Europe has spawned some reactionary rekindling of late 19th/early 20th century Jewish conspiracy theories, harkening back to the infamous Russian forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” The publication of The Israel Lobby checked such talk, and JVP introduced the term guardedly in its work, but it dislikes the argument and its proponents, as shown by its attack on Alison Weir.
Weir’s short book Against Our Better Judgment. The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel has sold nearly 20,000 copies, extraordinary for a dry, factual, self-published work. Weir was denounced as an anti-Semite by JVP and the US Campaign to End the Occupation for granting interviews to far-right journalists whose work is full of anti-Semitic tropes. A petition in support of Weir gathered 2,000 signatures, including many prominent Palestine movement people, many Palestinians in Palestine, and many members of JVP and US Campaign member organizations.
As Weir pointed out, the same journalists had interviewed dozens of people in the Palestine movement, whom JVP and End the Occupation have not attacked. Clearly, the Israel lobby critique, in the form of Weir’s book and her public following, were the reasons for the attack, not anti-Semitism. The movement people interviewed by these journalists include many Jews, which suggests that the journalists’ anti-Semitism is a crude, ugly misapprehension of the real problem of the Israel lobby, not principled. In any case anti-Semitism has no more political prospects than Islamic religious law, is utterly marginal, as Wise admits.
Wise “personally, at least, finds [anti-Semitism] to be an extremely small problem, much smaller than the issues of Jewish privilege and Islamophobia issues.” But Wise devoted most of a talk to a Christian audience to this extremely small problem.
My work alongside Christians is an important challenge to those dangerous and disempowering messages I learned growing up. I no longer believe Jews are inevitably alone in the world, but in fact quite the opposite. I now see just how much we are there for each other.
Wise and JVP are “there” to impose the new ecumenical deal: no critique of Zionism, in Palestine or in the US Israel lobby, only of “the occupation;” and constant flagellation about Christian privilege and anti-Semitism.
For this Wise claims inspiration from Pastor Bonhöffer and the White Rose students, who gave their lives fighting Nazism. Such aggrandizement, extravagantly moralized, is a frank statement of Jewish superiority. Physicians, heal thyselves.
Harry Clark can be reached at his web site, http://questionofpalestine.net
October 17, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Islamophobia, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Alissa Wise, Anti-Semitism, Israel, JVP, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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A month ago, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) issued a call for a Herem (excommunication, Hebrew) against the remarkable activist and writer Alison Weir. The call was distributed internally amongst JVP’s chapter leaders and was leaked to me by a few JVP dissenters. The publication of the call led to a massive surge of resentment towards JVP within the dissident movement. JVP was compelled to explain their move.
The call for Herem is deeply rooted in Jewish culture. Throughout their history, Jews have called for the expulsion of some of their most articulate and sophisticated minds. Spinoza, and Uriel Da Costa are famous examples. Christ, another dissent voice, found himself nailed to the cross for advising his people to love their neighbours. Though Rabbinical Jews rarely call for a herem, contemporary so-called ‘liberal’ Jews are obsessed with that ugly, primitive medieval ritual. Since I immersed myself in solidarity matters two decades ago, I have been witness to the relentless chasing, harassing and slandering of every Jew who crossed the 100 IQ barrier. First it was Israel Shamir, then Paul Eisen, and then Norman Finkelstein who dared speak the truth about the Jewish Left and BDS operating as a secret society (cult). Consistent with their Jewish heritage, ‘progressive’ Jews like to employ a ‘Sabbos Goy’, a gentile who is willing to surrender to their whims. The liberal Jews at JVP have used Ali Abunimah as their favourite ‘partner’. He has apparently been happy to provide his Palestinian voice to issue the Palestinian stamp. Although rabbinical Jews employ the Herem solely against Jews, liberal Jews, fuelled by peculiar sense of righteousness, extended the Herem to include some ‘Goyim’. For years they have attempted to excommunicate me (an ex-Jew). They chased Free Gaza Founder Greta Berlin. Currently their target is Alison Weir and, in a surprising move, the American people whom JVP has outrageously dubbed a racist collective.
A rapidly growing number of activists and commentators see JVP and the Jewish liberal attitude as a corrosive, yet dominant, element within the solidarity movement. The publication of the leaked JVP’s call for herem against Alison Weir drew a lot of negative attention. JVP and its Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson could have easily saved what was left of their reputations by issuing an apology and perhaps vowing not to engage in herem tactics. But such a humane and reconciliatory approach would be totally foreign to the culture JVP succumbs to. For JVP to word such a statement would mean an engagement in genuine self-reflection, pretty much thinking the unthinkable. It just wasn’t going to happen. Instead JVP offered another clumsy and lousy attempt to ‘justify’ its primitive call for a herem. Lacking elementary imagination, this progressive synagogue re-cycled its banal Judeo-centric diatribe. JVP’s new statement achieved little except to offer another view into tribal morbidity. Their statement has nothing to do with peace or the Palestinians but is, instead, an embarrassing manifestation of goy hatred and anti white inclinations. They reveal, yet again that liberal Jews are not the solution. They are, actually, the core of the problem.
In their new diatribe against Weir, JVP’s board informs us that they have chosen not to work with her because their central tenet is “opposition to racism and oppression in all its forms, and she (Weir) has consistently chosen to stay silent when given the opportunity to challenge bigotry,” which they find “repugnant.”
It is amusing to find out that the people who are operating within a racially Jewish exclusive club are preaching against ‘racism.’ Yet, what was Weir’s crime exactly? Apparently, Weir has been ‘a friendly guest’ of ‘white supremacist’ Clay Douglas on his hate radio show, “the Free American.”
Without even addressing the horrid labels that JVP and liberal Jews often attribute to others (gentiles), I wonder whether JVP would have the same reaction if Weir appeared on Israeli TV. Israeli TV is suffocated with Jewish supremacy and racism. Of course, the answer is NO – JVP has yet to call for a Herem against a single activist for appearing on Israeli TV or any other Jewish supremacist outlet. I guess that in the eyes of ‘liberal’ Jews at JVP & Co., Jewish racism is somehow kosherish.
“Clay Douglas,” according to JVP, “is concerned primarily with the survival of the White race and sees malign Jewish influence everywhere.” To start with, ‘seeing Jewish influence everywhere’ has now become mainstream news and for good reason. Furthermore, if it is bad for a white person to be primarily concerned with the survival of his ‘race,’ should we apply the same ethical standard to all identities and sectarian activism? Would JVP also denounce a lesbian activist for caring primarily for her sisters and their libidinal and cultural survival? Would JVP denounce Jews who primarily care about the survival of their ‘race’? I guess that within their liberal tribal mindset, universal ethics evaporate wherever the ‘White’ appears. I admit that I am puzzled by this brutal tribal animosity towards Whiteness, particularly the vile language that some Jewish progressive ‘peace’ activists use. If JVP truly believes in diversity, shouldn’t it include Clay Douglas in its phantasmic multi layered society? Seemingly ‘White’ people are unwelcome within the imaginary Jewish liberal ‘diverse’ universe. What a shame, some of my best friends are white. In the mirror I look pretty white, almost as white as Rebecca Vilkomerson and her junta of progressive Rabbis.
Apparently the JVP are really upset with Weir because back in “August 25, 2010”, Weir “was silent when Douglas invoked the Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. Now the real picture begins to emerge. In the eyes of JVP’s rabbinical board, unlike Ali Abunimah, Weir has refused to operate as a Sabbos Goy. Her sin is venal: rather than fighting for Judea, Weir is an American patriot devoted to the education of the American people.
While reading the JVP pamphlet I asked myself what is the principle that makes one call for equality ‘kosher’ and another call for equality a ‘racist’ and ‘chauvinist’ crime? JVP fails to provide any guidance. Perhaps this bunch of progressive Jews believes that their hatred of Whites will make them into a popular movement. Possibly, they believe that anti White politics is good for Palestine. I wonder whether the JVP grasps that such a belligerent approach may backfire? Following the mass outrage over JVP’s conduct, some people have already completely disassociated from cliques that are formed by or connected with any Jewish organisation or politics.
Complete disregard for logic is by now entrenched in JVP thinking. Towards the end of the statement, JVP comments “Weir and IAK have a fundamental political framing that the U.S. is not implicated in the same racist and white supremacist structures as Israel.” One would assume that, if true, this view attributed to Weir and IAK should be discussed and examined in scholarly manner. Apparently not in the JVP’s synagogue -“this ‘tail wags the dog’ theory is a form of chauvinistic nationalism that absolves American interest in perpetuating injustice–not just in Israel but in other regions around the world.” It would take a lot of imagination to grasp why the JVP regards arguing that the U.S. is ‘not implicated in the same racist and white supremacist structures as Israel’ is ‘chauvinistic’ and ‘nationalist.’
Surprising argument given that JVP attempts to define the discussion of Jewish racism and the Jewishness of Israel provide proof that JVP is itself a Jewish chauvinist, supremacist apparatus dedicated to the concealment of the roots of the conflict in Palestine. In fact, the JVP is far worse than Israel and ultra Zionists – while Zionists manifest their Jewish symptom proudly, the ‘liberal’ Jewish ‘allies’ at JVP invest all their time and energy in suppressing discussion of that very dangerous symptom.
JVP is clearly desperate to prove that that IAK and Weir are immersed in supremacy. They quote the IAK webpage: “[Alison Weir] founded an organization to be directed by Americans without personal or family ties to the region who would research and actively disseminate accurate information to the American public.”
JVP deduces from this innocuous statement that “according to Weir and If Americans Knew, only non-Arab, non-Muslim, non-Palestinian, and non-Jewish voices can be trusted to speak the truth, based solely on their ethnic or religious identity.” In psychoanalytical terms this is called projection. JVP attribute their own exclusivist, chauvinist and racist symptoms to Weir and IAK. It is the board of JVP that is made up of Jews only. No Arabs, No Palestinians, No Muslims, let alone White Goyim are racially qualified to be part of the leadership of this disgusting collective. Even the Israeli Knesset has as its 3rd biggest party an Arab party and is more diverse and pluralist than JVP’s Knesset.
Apparently their mental segregation causes these ‘liberal’ Jews to fail to recognise that Weir and IAK are driven by a true inclination towards justice. In order to produce an impartial reading of the conflict, Weir formed an organisation of people less inclined to prejudge the situation because they are not somehow tied to the region, spiritually or physically. This is what people out of the Jewish ghetto do sometimes when they are interested in forming a genuine and truthful judgment. They require that the parties not have a stake in the conflict. JVP interpreted IAK statements as racist only because JVP itself is bounded to Jewish racist thinking.
It is sad that JVP missed a great opportunity to amend its ways. Instead of presenting an exemplary case of humanist universal virtues devoted to pluralism and diversity, they responded with a spectacularly gruesome manifestation of Jewish bad behaviour. “Despite her support for Palestinian rights, Weir ultimately does a disservice to the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.” Jews are claiming the exclusive right to tell others what is good for those who are oppressed by their own Jewish State.
June 19, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Ali Abunimah, Israel, Jewish Voice for Peace, JVP, United States, Zionism |
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I have long been hearing that some JVP leaders have initiated whispering campaigns against me. This began many years ago (and long before the latest accusations, which are in a letter from JVP, excerpted below). In fact, I first heard of the director of JVP accusing me of anti-Semitism, behind my back, during the first year of my public statements about Palestine. Such actions seemed related to my political positions on Palestine, which were different from JVP’s:
I endorsed Palestinian refugees’ right of return, favored ending US aid to Israel, was aware of pro-Israel neocons’ role in pushing the US into the Iraq war, and did not deny the significance of the Israel lobby.
The whispered attacks against me were troubling, but I tried to ignore them and continue my work.
Then, with the publication of my book last year, “Against our Better Judgment: The hidden history of how the US was used to create Israel,” the attacks seemed to escalate. It appeared that some JVP leaders were attempting to thwart my talks and prevent people from learning the facts that my book and my talks contain.
(It is very important to note this is not representative of all JVP members – many of whom are colleagues and supporters. Some have put on excellent speaking events for me.)
I finally decided to write an article about this situation – “Please help us overcome the accusations against If Americans Knew,” but did not name JVP, in the hope of preventing damaging division and distraction in the movement for justice in Palestine.
Before publishing this piece, I tried to clarify the situation with JVP, and emailed the national leaders asking about their statements about me. I hoped that by communicating with JVP directly the situation could be resolved. In reply I received a letter from a law firm on JVP’s behalf (a partner in the firm is the JVP board chair and was the signatory on the letter).
I was surprised at the McCarthyist, guilt-through-association attacks this letter contained, and I was amazed at the great effort someone had made to monitor my every move over the past 14 years of hundreds of speeches, articles, and interviews.
JVP sent their accusatory dossier on me to about 50 chapters around the country, and has been disseminating this and other accusations widely. I’ve just finished an extremely busy three-week speaking tour. In several locations I learned that JVP had tried to block my talks. Fortunately, they failed in almost all locations and my presentations were received extremely well; one audience even gave me a standing ovation.
By the way, although JVP is a membership organization, there is no indication that the general JVP membership was informed or involved in these actions.
Below is JVP leaders’ dossier on me, with my rebuttals below each section.
It is interesting to note that despite what seems to be a long and surprisingly intent focus on ferreting out supposedly negative information about me or potential mistakes I may have made, none of their accusations include anything about my own articles or speeches.
Instead, all their charges are based on alleged “guilt by association.” Even this McCarthyist tactic, however, is based on falsehoods, as I am not even associated with those they try to claim. Please see below:
JVP: “Jewish Voice for Peace has chosen not to work with you because our central tenet is opposition to racism in all its forms,”
This is not true. Among other things, JVP works with Zionists, an ideology that people throughout the world feel is profoundly racist. Many people find JVP’s action objectionable and will not work with JVP for that reason. At If Americans Knew, however, we believe in a broad tent, and have published JVP articles on our website, posted a link to the organization from the very beginning, and have occasionally worked with JVP members and several JVP chapters.
JVP: “and you have chosen repeatedly to associate yourself with people who advocate for racism.”
We have not done so.
JVP: “You have been a repeat guest of white supremacist Clay Douglas on his hate radio show, the Free American. Clay Douglas is concerned primarily with the survival of the White race and sees malign Jewish influence everywhere. His racist, anti-Jewish, and anti-gay rhetoric can be found across the front pages of his multiple websites. In the course of your appearance with Clay Douglas on August 25, 2010, for example, you were silent when Douglas invoked the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and engaged in a racist diatribe against Jews. Your repeated appearance on this show (April 23 and August 25, 2010; February 9 and May 18, 2011) show that you knew his extremist views and chose to continue the association.”
Over the past 14 years I have given probably hundreds of interviews to diverse people of all ages and backgrounds from across the political spectrum, as do most writers and analysts. I try to focus on the information I feel audiences need to hear, speak as intentionally as possible, and stay on target – surprisingly difficult during interviews, as others have no doubt also experienced.
I do not vet who may or may not listen to my information and have even gone on Israeli right-wing radio. We wish our important facts to reach every possible person, and I endeavor to be polite to all my hosts, even when they are hard-core Zionists.
I always use this airtime to the best of my ability to give important facts about Palestine to listeners of all backgrounds and beliefs in an effort to counter the media misinformation about the region and about Muslims.
Some sectors of US society are specifically being targeted by misinformation that is causing an alarming growth of Islamophobia in this country, some of it taking violent turns.
I feel it is critical that our facts, which counter this Islamophobia campaign, reach every portion of our diverse population, particularly those that are most vulnerable to this anti-Muslim propaganda.
As best I recall about this particular radio show from five years ago, Douglas was from Oklahoma or somewhere similar, seemed to have had a hard life and was, I suspected, a bit down and out.
In his somewhat wandering, occasionally conspiracy-tinged questions, Douglas touched on a lot of out-there thoughts, but I recall that he differentiated between Jews and Zionists, spoke strongly against violence, decried Israeli oppression, and seemed to be striving to be a fair person. When one time he failed to distinguish between Zionists and Jewish people in general, I corrected him.
(I’m told that some of those who seem to wish to “get me” are saying that he used an offensive term at one point, but I don’t recall anything of the sort. They may be referring to the term “Morlock” that he once used that I wasn’t familiar with, apparently from an HG Wells book, which Douglas used to refer to the global elite who exploit everyone, he said, including people who are Jewish.)
While someone has posted a transcript of one show (which may or may not be accurate), I actually went on his program several times, when I could squeeze it in (he asked me many times but I usually didn’t have time to do it). My purpose was to use this opportunity to convey to his audience as much important information as possible in the limited airtime available to me – the plight of Palestinians, my trips to the region, the media distortion on Palestine, how much money we give Israel, our responsibility to bring justice and peace, the real facts about Islam, the importance of opposing all racism, the fact that there are many Jewish-Americans who oppose Israeli oppression, etc.
This is what I try to convey to audiences whenever and wherever I can, as I believe that ending the long-standing injustice and horror in Palestine is the best way to protect human rights, security and peace for all parties and, indeed, the world. I believe the issue is too urgent to become distracted.
My goal is to try to reach everyone with the fundamental principle that all racism is wrong and to provide facts that will counter the falsehoods being given to them about Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Iranians, and others.
I don’t pretend that I am perfect and that all my responses will be flawless; all I can do is try my hardest. I apologize if there were cases where I should have done better.
It should go without saying (but apparently doesn’t) that appearing on anyone’s show or consenting to be interviewed by someone never denotes association with or endorsement of that person’s views, as surely everyone knows. Authors, politicians, and others go on a great many shows of diverse people, from the left to the right, and such appearances do not indicate agreement or disagreement with the host.
Jon Stewart invited John McCain, an advocate of war against many people in the Middle East, onto Stewart’s very powerful TV program and conducted a friendly, softball interview with him. Stewart gave McCain considerable airtime and even appeared to agree with McCain’s statement that the US should follow Israel’s example regarding torture, because “Israel doesn’t torture.”
This does not mean that Stewart is “associated” with John McCain. Yet, according to JVP’s illogical reasoning regarding my “guilt,” JVP should also be attacking Stewart. Why does JVP find Jon’s Stewart’s showcasing of McCain, a powerful individual with a track record of pushing wars and violence, acceptable, yet see my appearance on a tiny Internet radio show, with a host who apparently opposes both, as reason for attack.
JVP: “Your troubling associations and choices further include giving interviews to a range of far-right outlets including The American Free Press, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group”
See my answer above discussing the critical importance of giving facts on Palestine to all sectors of U.S. society.
Once again JVP is searching through my multitude of interviews for something negative to use against me and again must resort to alleged guilt through alleged (but false) association. JVP fails to mention that many diverse people have been interviewed by the American Free Press, including Cindy and Craig Corrie, Rachel Corrie’s parents.
Incidentally, it is important for people to be aware that the SPLC, like the ADL, is an unreliable source, and has changed considerably from its early valuable work: please see “King of the Hate Business,” “An Open Letter to the Southern Poverty Law Clinic: Do You Equate Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism?,” and “Will the SPLC Rise to the Challenge? New Frontiers in Hate Crimes.”
JVP: “and the anti-gay, anti-Jewish pastor Mark Dankof. One of your articles appeared in an anthology that was promoted by the infamous Holocaust-denial organization, the Institute for Historical Review. We see no evidence that you have disavowed any of these outlets or institutions.”
JVP’s attempt to tar me by claiming that a group once promoted an anthology that contains a piece by me is a truly bizarre way to attack me! My articles have been included in at least four, perhaps more, anthologies, and every anthology has included highly respected authors, including Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, and many others.
It is revealing that JVP’s accusation against me fails to mention that Rev. Dankof has also interviewed peace activists Ray McGovern and Jennifer Lowenstein, Israeli professor and author Ilan Pappe, and journalist and commentator Dilip Hiro, among many others.
For some reason JVP ignores our outreach policy against discrimination (iakn.us/1JV1KST):
“We are happy to provide information and speakers on Israel-Palestine to individuals and groups of all religious, ethnic, racial, and political backgrounds. If Americans Knew supports justice, truth, equal rights and respect for all human beings; and we oppose racism, supremacism, and discrimination of any and all forms.”
JVP: “Our movement must be built on a foundation of love, justice and equality for all people.”
That sounds excellent. I hope JVP will live up to these principles and will stop attacking people like me.
Our own statement of principles, posted on the If Americans Knew website, affirms:
“We believe all people are endowed with inalienable human rights regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, or nationality. We believe in justice, fairness, and compassion and in treating all human beings with respect, empathy, and in the manner in which we would wish to be treated.”
JVP: “It should not and cannot win by fueling or endorsing any form of hate, whether against People of Color, gays, Jews, Muslims or anyone else.”
I certainly agree. It also should not include hatred of Christians, conservatives, or people whose views or facts we, or one, may dislike. I truly hope JVP believes in this important principle, and that it is not like the ADL, whose definition of “hate” is often based on political stances it dislikes on Israel. I have a life history (iakn.us/1JV1KST) of opposing all bigotry.
JVP: “At Jewish Voice for Peace, we are particularly sensitive to the long history of anti-Jewish oppression”
We are acutely sensitive to historic suffering and oppression, which is why we are working on the horrific and long-lasting occupation and oppression in Palestine, which is going on right now and which we have the opportunity and obligation to stop. We deeply believe in ‘never again,’ and apply it to all people without exception. I have always opposed all forms of bigotry, and one of my very first essays was “Choosing to Act: Anti-Semitism Is Wrong.”
JVP: “as well as the ways that Palestinian liberation work is frequently tarred with false charges of anti-Semitism.”
Exactly like JVP’s false charges against me.
JVP: “Just as we call out the hateful associations of those who seek to perpetuate injustice against Palestinians, as a movement we must also hold the line against those who promote the false notion that Palestinian liberation can be won at the expense of others.”
Rather than spending our time “calling out” fellow activists in McCarthy-like witch hunts based on guilt through alleged association, we should work to provide the compelling facts that will end the tragedy.
I’ve just completed a three-week speaking tour, and was deeply pleased to see the following message from an organizer at one of my talks who received this from an audience member:
“I thought the presentation last night was awesome. She brought sunshine, hope, love, and so much courage to all of us. She is very brave to write and speak such truth in these times. So many have come before her and failed. It was wonderful to know there is still such a powerful voice for the actual history in the Middle East. She was an inspiration.”
JVP: “JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE”
I hope that at some point JVP will change its name to Jewish Voice for Peace and Justice, since peace cannot come without justice. Israel frequently claims that it desires “peace” – i.e. Palestinian submission. It is our responsibility to advocate for justice, freedom, equality, and human rights for all.
I hope JVP will desist from its attacks on those it dislikes, and will instead focus on the often excellent work it is doing and that its members want.
I feel strongly that we all contribute important things to the movement for justice and peace in Palestine. It is time to stop fighting among ourselves, for JVP and others to stop their witch hunts against deeply committed writers and activists, for JVP to stop its attempted censorship and domination of the Palestine movement, and for all of us to get on with our desperately important work.
That’s what I intend to do.
—Alison Weir
~~~
May 5, 2015
Dear Ms. Weir
Jewish Voice for Peace has chosen not to work with you because our central tenet is opposition to racism in all its forms, and you have chosen repeatedly to associate yourself with people who advocate for racism.
You have been a repeat guest of white supremacist Clay Douglas on his hate radio show, the Free American. Clay Douglas is concerned primarily with the survival of the White race and sees malign Jewish influence everywhere. His racist, anti-Jewish, and anti-gay rhetoric can be found across the front pages of his multiple websites.
In the course of your appearance with Clay Douglas on August 25, 2010, for example, you were silent when Douglas invoked the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and engaged in a racist diatribe against Jews. Your repeated appearance on this show (April 23 and August 25, 2010; February 9 and May 18, 2011) show that you knew his extremist views and chose to continue the association.
Your troubling associations and choices further include giving interviews to a range of far-right outlets including The American Free Press, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group, and the anti-gay, anti-Jewish pastor Mark Dankof. One of your articles appeared in an anthology that was promoted by the infamous Holocaust-denial organization, the Institute for Historical Review. We see no evidence that you have disavowed any of these outlets or institutions.
Our movement must be built on a foundation of love, justice and equality for all people. It should not and cannot win by fueling or endorsing any form of hate, whether against People of Color, gays, Jews, Muslims or anyone else.
At Jewish Voice for Peace, we are particularly sensitive to the long history of anti-Jewish oppression as well as the ways that Palestinian liberation work is frequently tarred with false charges of anti-Semitism. Just as we call out the hateful associations of those who seek to perpetuate injustice against Palestinians, as a movement we must also hold the line against those who promote the false notion that Palestinian liberation can be won at the expense of others.
Jewish Voice for Peace
May 28, 2015
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Ethnic Cleansing, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Jewish Voice for Peace, JVP |
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