500lbguerilla
04-26-2006, 08:04 PM
Can we criticize Israel without being labeled anti-Semitic?
The shape of what's to come
By Banks Albach
http://media.www.thespartandaily.com/media/storage/paper852/news/2006/04/26/Opinion/Can-We.Criticize.Israel.Without.Being.Labeled.AntiSemi tic-1877210-page2.shtml?sourcedomain=www.thespartandaily.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com
A few weeks ago, the Financial Times ran an editorial titled, "Why can't we talk about Israel?" It's a fair question, though anyone who tries runs the risk of being labeled anti-Semitic.
The Times was commenting on a wave of claims of anti-Semitism that clobbered two professors and foreign policy scholars who wrote a paper criticizing America's unconditional support for Israel. In it John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University claim that the Israeli lobby's influence on Congress is harmful to our foreign policy and this is a major reason for Middle Eastern antagonism toward America.
It's no mystery that the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the largest Israeli lobby, wields enormous influence in Washington. According to it's Web site, "Through more than 2,000 meetings with members of - at home and in Washington - AIPAC activists help pass more than 100 pro-Israel legislative initiatives a year."
So what's wrong with a critical analysis of yet another interest group buying access to Congress?
Predictably, author and Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, who is an unconditional supporter of Israeli policy, led the charge against Mearsheimer and Walt. Dershowitz compared them to conspiracy theorists and bigots and called on American Jews to demand they be treated equally with other Americans.
Earlier this semester, I wrote a column criticizing Israel's hard-line response to the newly-elected Hamas Palestinian government. The day it ran, someone asked me why I thought I was qualified to comment on that miserable and bloody conflict.
Any interest group that lobbies my government to the tune of nearly $3 billion per year is well within my range of criticism. And any government that engages in questionable foreign policy with my country's name attached to the sales receipt is well within the sphere of my written word.
Mearsheimer and Walt also forecasted that there would be a backlash to their thesis. In fact, it addressed the very question of why anyone who criticizes Israel is immediately labeled anti-Semitic.
An article by Michelle Goldberg on Salon.com highlighted the lashing Howard Dean got during his 2004 presidential campaign after he charged that the United States should take a more even-handed stance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sen. Joseph Lieberman said he was selling out Israel.
Likewise, Goldberg also pointed to the trail of criticism that followed Steven Spielberg's latest film "Munich," a critical cinematic account of Israel's response to the 1972 Palestinian massacre of Jewish Athletes that displeased many Jews and Israelis. Mearsheimer and Walt have simply analyzed one of the world's most powerful lobbies. They looked at AIPAC's media influence and strategy, its donor base, and its connections in Congress, among members and their staff. Admittedly, their findings are slightly monolithic and probably give the Israeli lobby more credit than it is due. Nevertheless, Dershowitz borders on hysteria in his rebuttal to their piece, even laying guilt on them for the fact that some neo-Nazis are using the report as ammo.
The truth is our support for Israel is damaging to U.S. foreign policy and it's also a substantial drain on American taxpayers. It damages our legitimacy abroad, because we slap Israel on the wrist for its heinous acts while we breathe fire down the backs of the Palestinians for their terrorism.
Richard Cohen, a Washington Post columnist, came up with this strange attempt at a reason:
"Israel's special place in U.S. foreign policy is deserved, in my view, and not entirely the product of lobbying. Israel has earned it, and isn't there something bracing about a special relationship that is not based on oil or markets or strategic location but on shared values."
We share values with Western Europe and steadily more of Eastern Europe. Should we turn on the cash tap for them? Or should we reassess our aid to an industrialized country, with a solid economy, prolific social institutions and a parliamentary democracy second to nearly none? Better yet, maybe we should dangle our aid in front of Israel like a carrot, the same we are doing to the Palestinians.
This would level the burden of reconciliation between the Palestinians and Israel. If the Bush administration hopes to force the Hamas government into decisions by turning off the financial tap, why doesn't it threaten to cut off the $3 billion in aid if Israel doesn't withdraw and dismantle all of its illegal settlements in the West Bank?
In the meantime, Dershowitz and others should stop being victims, because they aren't. The only victims I've heard of lately were lying dead in the streets of Tel Aviv and the Gaza Strip.
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/709806.html
World Council of Churches denounces settler attacks on Christian volunteers in Hebron
GENEVA - The World Council of Churches denounced on Wednesday two attacks on Christian volunteers in Hebron, and called on Israeli authorities to punish the Jewish settlers responsible.
In both cases, the attacks occurred as the volunteers were helping Palestinian children on their way to school, said the Geneva-based WCC, the world's biggest grouping of Christian churches.
Israeli authorities should stop the "abusive, unlawful and violent behavior by settlers toward Palestinians and internationals," Peter Weiderud, the WCC's director for international affairs, wrote in a formal protest to the Israeli ambassador to Switzerland.
The council groups nearly 350 mainstream Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches representing more than 500 million followers. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member.
Israel's embassy in the Swiss capital, Bern, acknowledged receipt of the protest, but was not immediately able to comment.
Wiederud's letter expressed "alarm and concern" with the attacks, and said they were part of the larger problem of "settler and other occupation-related attacks against Palestinians in Hebron, in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem."
The WCC said a Swiss lawyer was "stoned" by a young settler in Hebron's Tel Rumeida area April 1, suffering a head wound requiring seven stitches. A German social worker and a Norwegian sociologist were attacked in the same neighborhood April 20 by 15 young settlers, but neither suffered serious injuries, the WCC said.
The three volunteers were escorting Palestinians attending the Cordoba Girls School, which is situated opposite the Beit Hadassah settlement. "Its pupils and teachers are frequent targets of stone-throwing, kicking and spitting by the settlers," the WCC said.
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The shape of what's to come
By Banks Albach
http://media.www.thespartandaily.com/media/storage/paper852/news/2006/04/26/Opinion/Can-We.Criticize.Israel.Without.Being.Labeled.AntiSemi tic-1877210-page2.shtml?sourcedomain=www.thespartandaily.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com
A few weeks ago, the Financial Times ran an editorial titled, "Why can't we talk about Israel?" It's a fair question, though anyone who tries runs the risk of being labeled anti-Semitic.
The Times was commenting on a wave of claims of anti-Semitism that clobbered two professors and foreign policy scholars who wrote a paper criticizing America's unconditional support for Israel. In it John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University claim that the Israeli lobby's influence on Congress is harmful to our foreign policy and this is a major reason for Middle Eastern antagonism toward America.
It's no mystery that the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the largest Israeli lobby, wields enormous influence in Washington. According to it's Web site, "Through more than 2,000 meetings with members of - at home and in Washington - AIPAC activists help pass more than 100 pro-Israel legislative initiatives a year."
So what's wrong with a critical analysis of yet another interest group buying access to Congress?
Predictably, author and Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, who is an unconditional supporter of Israeli policy, led the charge against Mearsheimer and Walt. Dershowitz compared them to conspiracy theorists and bigots and called on American Jews to demand they be treated equally with other Americans.
Earlier this semester, I wrote a column criticizing Israel's hard-line response to the newly-elected Hamas Palestinian government. The day it ran, someone asked me why I thought I was qualified to comment on that miserable and bloody conflict.
Any interest group that lobbies my government to the tune of nearly $3 billion per year is well within my range of criticism. And any government that engages in questionable foreign policy with my country's name attached to the sales receipt is well within the sphere of my written word.
Mearsheimer and Walt also forecasted that there would be a backlash to their thesis. In fact, it addressed the very question of why anyone who criticizes Israel is immediately labeled anti-Semitic.
An article by Michelle Goldberg on Salon.com highlighted the lashing Howard Dean got during his 2004 presidential campaign after he charged that the United States should take a more even-handed stance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sen. Joseph Lieberman said he was selling out Israel.
Likewise, Goldberg also pointed to the trail of criticism that followed Steven Spielberg's latest film "Munich," a critical cinematic account of Israel's response to the 1972 Palestinian massacre of Jewish Athletes that displeased many Jews and Israelis. Mearsheimer and Walt have simply analyzed one of the world's most powerful lobbies. They looked at AIPAC's media influence and strategy, its donor base, and its connections in Congress, among members and their staff. Admittedly, their findings are slightly monolithic and probably give the Israeli lobby more credit than it is due. Nevertheless, Dershowitz borders on hysteria in his rebuttal to their piece, even laying guilt on them for the fact that some neo-Nazis are using the report as ammo.
The truth is our support for Israel is damaging to U.S. foreign policy and it's also a substantial drain on American taxpayers. It damages our legitimacy abroad, because we slap Israel on the wrist for its heinous acts while we breathe fire down the backs of the Palestinians for their terrorism.
Richard Cohen, a Washington Post columnist, came up with this strange attempt at a reason:
"Israel's special place in U.S. foreign policy is deserved, in my view, and not entirely the product of lobbying. Israel has earned it, and isn't there something bracing about a special relationship that is not based on oil or markets or strategic location but on shared values."
We share values with Western Europe and steadily more of Eastern Europe. Should we turn on the cash tap for them? Or should we reassess our aid to an industrialized country, with a solid economy, prolific social institutions and a parliamentary democracy second to nearly none? Better yet, maybe we should dangle our aid in front of Israel like a carrot, the same we are doing to the Palestinians.
This would level the burden of reconciliation between the Palestinians and Israel. If the Bush administration hopes to force the Hamas government into decisions by turning off the financial tap, why doesn't it threaten to cut off the $3 billion in aid if Israel doesn't withdraw and dismantle all of its illegal settlements in the West Bank?
In the meantime, Dershowitz and others should stop being victims, because they aren't. The only victims I've heard of lately were lying dead in the streets of Tel Aviv and the Gaza Strip.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/709806.html
World Council of Churches denounces settler attacks on Christian volunteers in Hebron
GENEVA - The World Council of Churches denounced on Wednesday two attacks on Christian volunteers in Hebron, and called on Israeli authorities to punish the Jewish settlers responsible.
In both cases, the attacks occurred as the volunteers were helping Palestinian children on their way to school, said the Geneva-based WCC, the world's biggest grouping of Christian churches.
Israeli authorities should stop the "abusive, unlawful and violent behavior by settlers toward Palestinians and internationals," Peter Weiderud, the WCC's director for international affairs, wrote in a formal protest to the Israeli ambassador to Switzerland.
The council groups nearly 350 mainstream Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches representing more than 500 million followers. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member.
Israel's embassy in the Swiss capital, Bern, acknowledged receipt of the protest, but was not immediately able to comment.
Wiederud's letter expressed "alarm and concern" with the attacks, and said they were part of the larger problem of "settler and other occupation-related attacks against Palestinians in Hebron, in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem."
The WCC said a Swiss lawyer was "stoned" by a young settler in Hebron's Tel Rumeida area April 1, suffering a head wound requiring seven stitches. A German social worker and a Norwegian sociologist were attacked in the same neighborhood April 20 by 15 young settlers, but neither suffered serious injuries, the WCC said.
The three volunteers were escorting Palestinians attending the Cordoba Girls School, which is situated opposite the Beit Hadassah settlement. "Its pupils and teachers are frequent targets of stone-throwing, kicking and spitting by the settlers," the WCC said.
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