Cracks in the wall

The American Jewish community's pretence of consensus on Israel is crumbling.

<snip>

"Reading the Independent Jewish Voices manifesto and other posts written by signatories, I've been struck by the similarity in themes and similarity of political developments within the American and British Jewish communities.

Over the past six months, two notable developments have set Israel and diaspora Jewry adrift. The first was Israel's war in Lebanon, whose failure caused grave paralysis both in the military and within the government. The second was publication of the Walt-Mearsheimer essay about the Israel lobby's influence on US Mideast policy.

This has become a multi-front war now, with new fronts emerging in seemingly spontaneous fashion. One of the new fronts is Jimmy Carter's new book, which Old Guard Jewish organisations seem to have in their shorthairs. Another is an essay, sponsored by the American-Jewish Committee, purporting to analyse the phenomenon of the "new" anti-semitism professed by liberal Jews who criticise Israeli policies. On yet a third front, three American Jewish peace groups, Peace Now, Israel Policy Forum, and Brit Tzedek, fought an epic battle against an AIPAC-sponsored Congressional bill to criminalise contact with Hamas - the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Bill.

Perhaps realising the importance of this victory, George Soros and other wealthy liberal Jews have been meeting for months to plan for the establishment of an independent Jewish lobby that will counter AIPAC's strident nationalist advocacy."

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The only place where I see cracks in the wall is on the Guardian website which has turned into the de facto website for anti-Israel Jews.

I think they print like 20 articles about Israel a day.

I agree with this comment from the site:

They print 20 per day? Twenty?
Name a day where they printed more than 5. in one day?

What is the acceptable number per day, or per month?
Concern for issues in the Middle East is "pathological"?

Therefore aipac, by that measure, is pathological, right?

AIPAC is an organization that deals with Israel/Middle East.

I don't see how you can compare the two.

And yes, the Guardian is pathological in their obsession with Israel/Jews.

First, give us an example of a day when they did 20 articles. That seems very far fetched.


For a newspaper, what is the correct number of articles per day (or per month) it should do on the Israel/Palestine conflict, in your opinon?

It seems odd that you are objecting specifically to this, since it is reporting on Jewish activism in regard to the conflict. It would seem that such reporting would be a good thing.

The Guardian is a newspaper that covers international news. If you think that somehow makes the Guardian pathologically antisemitic or anti-Israel, then cop an eyeful of other international newspapers like the NY Times, Sydney Morning Herald, and Ha'aretz...

btw, this is today's international coverage by The Guardian. I'm not quite spotting the antisemitism there or any obsession with Jews or Israel...

Saturday February 10 2007


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http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/0,,362455,00.html

Why cover a conflict in the Middle East when the world needs to know who the father of her baby is!
And how about that Calvin Klein. Just one story?? Why not cover that more in depth.
Why not a story on Princess Di's death? They haven't done one in months.

You have gone and pointed out that behind the drumbeat for war and continued occupation there is, in fact, no parade of american jews.

Waiting for the AIPAC proffesional blog response.

:popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:

edit:Whoops! Beat me to the soapbox. Can we have a link up there?

aipac said this in a recent letter to its supporters, conflating its goals & militaristic policies with "American Jewry".

"My fellow American," Howard Friedman, President of AIPAC, begins his letter of July 30 to friends and supporters of AIPAC, "Look what you've done"! After warning that "Israel is fighting a pivotal war for its life," by which he means Israel's wanton slaughter and all-out destruction in Lebanon, Friedman condemns "the expected chorus of international condemnation of Israel's actions" and Europe's call for "a cease-fire immediately." Then he exults: "only ONE nation in the world came out and flatly declared: Let Israel finish the job. . That nation is the United States of America--and the reason it had such a clear, unambiguous view of the situation is YOU and the rest of America Jewry."
http://www.stopaipac.org/aipaclebanon.htm

Many Jews were appaled and angered by Israel's actions during Israel's aggression against Lebanon, but for aipac, these folks just don't count. according to them, all Jewish people think alike on this. Where have we heard that before????


Alternate views: www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org

No one organization speaks for a whole group of people.
It is racism to ascribe a single view to a ethnic group.

This article you've linked is manipulative and disingenuous.

The piece was originally posted on the Counterpunch website (but has since been reprinted extensively on a wide variety of interesting websites).

If you (or anyone) could provide a link to the full text of the actual letter that Mr. Walsh takes out-of-context excerpts from, that might be helpful.

His "translation" of what Mr. Friedman really means leaves something to be desired.

Obviously there are a variety of views within the Jewish community. AIPAC has had major public disagreements with numerous Jewish people.

Using this article filled with out-of-context quotations and overblown editorializing in order to show that AIPAC is "racist" is a weak argument in my opinion.

then it would be good idea if Mr. Friedman would simply release the full text of the original letter, showing where Mr Walsh misquoted him would be very helpful. Maybe you can ask for it. PM me when you get a copy.

I don't think Walsh misquoted him.
Incidentally, the use of capitalization is also originally from the letter, not from Mr. Walsh.

The context was simply this, aipac thinks it was a good thing that the US stood alone in opposing a quick cease-fire. Most of the rest of the world would have supported it, and did not stand with Bush on this. i think many many americans would have chosen a position different than what Friedman and aipac, and not be representative of all of "american Jewry".

And how do you know the quotes were out of context if you haven't even read the letter in its entirety?

You may be referencing a time I defended another poster's use of it. In that instance, I believe that MEMRI did provide a citation so that one could read the original source material in Arabic if one was capable of doing so.

I find it odd that there are so many websites that reference this supposed letter but they are all clearly using the same Counterpunch story as their source since they all include only the excerpts that John Walsh included in his story.

The quotes are out of context in the sense that we don't have the entire letter to read so that we may understand the full context.

More importantly, however, I dispute the claim that AIPAC is somehow engaging in racism based on quotations from that letter.

CAIR makes statements purporting to speak for the American Muslim Community. Is it racism for CAIR to ascribe a single view to all American Muslims?

Obviously neither American Jews nor American Muslims have uniform opinions about issues.

I'll request a copy of the letter from them, but you might want to try so on your own. I am not a member (is this a surprise?) so i didn't get their original.

I have seen full copies of their praise for Bolton, for Daniel Pipes, despite their extreme policies. They think it is a terrible tragedy that Bolton was not able to cling on to his position at the UN. Yet we must remember, Bolton could not even be confirmed by a Republican Senate, because he was so extreme.

Seems like they only speak for a small number of people.

it ain't so.

Mr. Pappe seems to have beat Jimmy to the punch a bit, but has gotten far less attention.

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
by Ilan Pappe

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In his latest work, renowned Israeli author and academic Pappe (A History of Modern Palestine) does not mince words, doing Jimmy Carter one better (or worse, depending on one's point of view) by accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity beginning in the 1948 war for independence, and continuing through the present. Focusing primarily on Plan D (Dalet, in Hebrew), conceived on March 10, 1948, Pappe demonstrates how ethnic cleansing was not a circumstance of war, but rather a deliberate goal of combat for early Israeli military units led by David Ben-Gurion, whom Pappe labels the "architect of ethnic cleansing." The forced expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians between 1948-49, Pappe argues, was part of a long-standing Zionist plan to manufacture an ethnically pure Jewish state. Framing his argument with accepted international and UN definitions of ethnic cleansing, Pappe follows with an excruciatingly detailed account of Israeli military involvement in the demolition and depopulation of hundreds of villages, and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Arab inhabitants. An accessible, learned resource, this volume provides important inroads into the historical antecedents of today's conflict, but its conclusions will not be easy for everyone to stomach: Pappe argues that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine continues today, and calls for the unconditional return of all Palestinian refugees and an end to the Israeli occupation. Without question, Pappe's account will provoke ire from many readers; importantly, it will spark discussion as well.

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description

Since the Holocaust, it has been almost impossible to hide large-scale crimes against humanity. In our communicative world, few modern catastrophes are concealed from the public eye. And yet, Ilan Pappe unveils, one such crime has been erased from the global public memory: the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948. But why is it denied, and by whom? The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine offers an investigation of this mystery.

http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851684670/sr=1-1/qid=1171151782/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-0699805-2027260?ie=UTF8&s=books