Mr. Gold, president of the Jewish Federation of Ulster County, thinks I am lying about Israel. But the "facts" he presents are nothing but ham-fisted distortions. How about: "Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy full rights under the law, including freedom of worship, access to healthcare, education and the courts"?
Human Rights Watch describes a very different reality in Israel and the occupied territories: "Across these areas and in most aspects of life, Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians. Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain that the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land has long guided government policy."
Or how about Amnesty International? A recent 280 page report finds that: "Israel is imposing an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination against the Palestinian people wherever it exercised control over their rights, fragmenting and segregating Palestinian citizens of Israel, residents of the OPT and Palestinian refugees denied the right of return. Through massive seizures of land and property, unlawful killings, infliction of serious injuries, forcible transfers, arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement, and denial of nationality, among other inhuman or inhumane acts, Israeli officials would be responsible for the crime against humanity of apartheid, which falls under the jurisdiction of the ICC [International Criminal Court]."
Numerous studies have shown that Palestinian residents of both Israel and the Occupied Territories face dozens of Israeli laws that discriminate against them. According to Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace laureate from South Africa: "I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces. Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government." The quote is from the Jerusalem Post - March 10, 2014.
So how dumb does Mr. Gold think the American people are? It's apartheid, and shamefully, the Jewish Federation of Ulster County is part of it. Maybe we all are. According to a statement by Jewish Voice for Peace: "Let's be very clear: the U.S. is complicit in this. We send $3.8 billion in annual military funding to the Israeli government; we shield the Israeli government from accountability at the United Nations; we object to investigations into Israel's war crimes at the International Criminal Court; and we silence BDS activists here at home who try to speak out for Palestinian rights."
Fred Nagel
Mr. Gold and his ham-fisted distortions
Once We were Proud and Supportive
Once We were Proud and Supportive
by Tarak Kauff
I was born in 1942 to a Jewish family while WWII was raging. My mother hated not only the Nazis but the German people for allowing that to happen. She never forgave them. Never would she buy or touch anything made in Germany. In 1948 the Jewish State of Israel was founded. My family were fiercely proud and supportive of what we felt was the heroic Zionist achievements in Israel. We knew nothing about Palestinians. All we knew was that Arabs hated Jews and did terrible things. At a young age I decided to join the US Army and “become a man.” I spent three-and-a-half years, mostly in the 101st Airborne division as a paratrooper, and now I’m an 81-year-old veteran. After my military discharge I became involved in efforts to stop the Vietnam War. I also started to hear negative stuff about Israeli treatment of Palestinians, which of course I was in denial about. The Arabs were the bad guys after all. Nonetheless, I began to do some research and soon saw that there might actually be something to the criticism. Eventually I went to the West Bank with a team of US veterans along with a former IDF paratrooper to experience the reality for myself. Four of us on that team were Jewish. I made two trips a few years apart. What I saw and experienced directly confirmed much of what I had researched, and it wasn’t pretty.
I’ll cut to the chase. The Zionist State of Israel has betrayed the very essence of everything good and decent about being Jewish. Instead of being kind, compassionate and empathetic to the oppressed and dedicated to truth, Israel has become a most vicious oppressor. I saw Palestine children brutalized. They are killed on almost a daily basis. Children! Many are languishing in Israel prisons for throwing rocks at occupying soldiers or for just being suspected of that. Israeli soldiers often break into Palestinian houses in the dead of night, terrorize the family and arrest children. And there is no such thing as a fair trial. If you are arrested, you are guilty. Palestinians are considered vermin.
And the armed settlers with their hatred and biblical stupidity—“God gave us this land”—are the worst. Yes, their god is a real-estate agent in the sky. Idiocy. And there is no excuse for it—none. Just as there was no excuse for what the Nazis did and what they became—arrogant monsters. How ironic that I saw such a similar phenomenon in Israel, especially in my direct confrontations with the IDF and the rabid settlers. Now I understand my mother’s revulsion to everything German. I’m a Jew and I wanted to see the truth, to actually see the reality apart from the mythology and the hasbara. The reality is that Israel has become an anathema to the humanistic tradition of Judaism. Instead it is sadistically violent and ruthless, as were the Nazis, but it is the arrogance most of all that repulses me.
Finally, I suggest that people who want to defend Israel first spend some time in the West Bank as an objective observer. As many have, you will then see the truth. It may shock and disturb you, but you will become a better, more honest person because of it.
Tarak Kauff
NYC Veterans For Peace
by Tarak Kauff
I was born in 1942 to a Jewish family while WWII was raging. My mother hated not only the Nazis but the German people for allowing that to happen. She never forgave them. Never would she buy or touch anything made in Germany. In 1948 the Jewish State of Israel was founded. My family were fiercely proud and supportive of what we felt was the heroic Zionist achievements in Israel. We knew nothing about Palestinians. All we knew was that Arabs hated Jews and did terrible things. At a young age I decided to join the US Army and “become a man.” I spent three-and-a-half years, mostly in the 101st Airborne division as a paratrooper, and now I’m an 81-year-old veteran. After my military discharge I became involved in efforts to stop the Vietnam War. I also started to hear negative stuff about Israeli treatment of Palestinians, which of course I was in denial about. The Arabs were the bad guys after all. Nonetheless, I began to do some research and soon saw that there might actually be something to the criticism. Eventually I went to the West Bank with a team of US veterans along with a former IDF paratrooper to experience the reality for myself. Four of us on that team were Jewish. I made two trips a few years apart. What I saw and experienced directly confirmed much of what I had researched, and it wasn’t pretty.
I’ll cut to the chase. The Zionist State of Israel has betrayed the very essence of everything good and decent about being Jewish. Instead of being kind, compassionate and empathetic to the oppressed and dedicated to truth, Israel has become a most vicious oppressor. I saw Palestine children brutalized. They are killed on almost a daily basis. Children! Many are languishing in Israel prisons for throwing rocks at occupying soldiers or for just being suspected of that. Israeli soldiers often break into Palestinian houses in the dead of night, terrorize the family and arrest children. And there is no such thing as a fair trial. If you are arrested, you are guilty. Palestinians are considered vermin.
And the armed settlers with their hatred and biblical stupidity—“God gave us this land”—are the worst. Yes, their god is a real-estate agent in the sky. Idiocy. And there is no excuse for it—none. Just as there was no excuse for what the Nazis did and what they became—arrogant monsters. How ironic that I saw such a similar phenomenon in Israel, especially in my direct confrontations with the IDF and the rabid settlers. Now I understand my mother’s revulsion to everything German. I’m a Jew and I wanted to see the truth, to actually see the reality apart from the mythology and the hasbara. The reality is that Israel has become an anathema to the humanistic tradition of Judaism. Instead it is sadistically violent and ruthless, as were the Nazis, but it is the arrogance most of all that repulses me.
Finally, I suggest that people who want to defend Israel first spend some time in the West Bank as an objective observer. As many have, you will then see the truth. It may shock and disturb you, but you will become a better, more honest person because of it.
Tarak Kauff
NYC Veterans For Peace
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