Response to David Drimer's letter to the editor

Response to a letter by David Drimer

David Drimer lives in an alternate universe, where Israel "wants nothing more than to be at peace," and is willing to build "an independent Palestinian state, to see that dream come to fruition." I don't really think that Drimer believes all that. How could he? Israel is an apartheid state, with separate laws, roads, and housing settlements for its Jewish population, and nothing but bullets for its five million Palestinians living under occupation. So all the evidence in the world isn't going to change Drimer's mind. 

In fact, any attempt to point out how brutal Israel is to Palestinians gets put in that grand, amorphous category of antisemitism. Suddenly, one is labeled a proponent of "ZOG," whatever that is, and Drimer is back to familiar territory. We can argue about what antisemites do beside yelling "Zog" to other white supremacists. And whatever criticism of the extreme racism used to ethnically cleans the Holy Land gets identified as just another "trope." It seems like there is a trope for almost any criticism of Israel. In fact, pointing out that there are a lot of tropes is probably another trope. 

So I am not going to descend into trope land. If Drimer can argue about what antisemitism is, why then he doesn't have to talk about what Israel actually does to its Palestinians living under brutal occupation. That behavior is simply indefensible if one cares at all about human rights. 

For it is indefensible to drive millions of Palestinian from their homeland. It is indefensible to destroy 170,000 Palestinian homes since 1948. Indefensible to cut down 9,300 Palestinian olive trees last year alone. Indefensible to murder civilians with drone and sniper attacks, with an average of 6 Palestinian children killed each month in 2021. No, Drimer would prefer not to go there. He can't really defend Israel; the American people know too much. 

Fred Nagel

Jul 2022 Hudson Valley 1

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Drimer’s letter from January 2022

Pro-Israel policies not the work of ZOG

The Jewish Federation of Ulster County agrees with Fred Nagel that it’s wrong for religious extremists to “inject their holy directives into all our lives.” (Our Founders did not favor religious extremism, December 24.) But Nagel further proclaims a theocratic element has “taken over our (US) foreign policy,” they declare “Israel has the right to steal land in Palestine,” and Israel commits “genocidal attacks in Gaza.” It’s not true, and it cannot be sourced except in anti-Semitic propaganda.

The claim references the most pernicious anti-Semitic trope: Pro-Israel US policies are the work of “ZOG.” ZOG is a white-supremacist acronym for “Zionist Occupied Government,” which reflects the belief the US government is controlled by Jews. This has resulted in slogans such as “Smash ZOG” or “Death to ZOG.” That’s simply loathsome hate speech, and it should be shunned by civilized society.

Israel does not steal land in Palestine. If Nagel means Judea and Samaria, often called the West Bank, it’s “disputed territory” under international law, annexed illegally by Jordan after the 1948 War with Israel. When the entire Arab world again attacked in June 1967, and Israel emerged victorious just six days later, Israel seized control of those “disputed” areas for security purposes. Subsequently, Israel has provided security, water and utilities and has supplemented food and health care on a massive scale for the benefit of area residents, even during armed conflict.

Israel has offered to support the creation of an independent state there no less than three times. Those offers have been rebuffed by Arab governments seeking to benefit politically from keeping the Palestinians trapped in permanent refugee status.

There is no “genocide” of Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis. Israel has every right to protect itself from violence at the hands of Palestinian entities which divert funds to build terror tunnels, fire rockets at residential Jewish neighborhoods and pay stipends to the families of terrorists who kill Israelis. Look no farther than the streets and football stadiums named after convicted terrorists to prove the truth of that.

Israel wants nothing more than to be at peace, and it’s willing to help build and assure the prosperity of an independent Palestinian state to see that dream come to fruition. The rest of the region is waking up to it, too. Israel is in varying stages of negotiations to normalize relations with the greater Arab world, primarily due to their common security interests. They all see Iran – the largest state exporter of international terrorism in the world – as a looming threat to peace. But Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist faction ruled by a dictator who refuses to call elections in violation of its own Constitution, is supplied with money, arms and rockets by Iran. A permanent peace remains elusive.

Nagel’s opinions are based on hyperbole and easily dismissed, but he is shockingly inappropriate in embracing the most sinister of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

David Drimer

Executive director, The Jewish Federation of Ulster County

The Israel Lobby

One might say that the Israel Lobby isn't much worse than some of the biggest of corporate advocacy groups. Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Banks, and the weapons makers spend millions on campaign contributions and flood DC with their lobbyists. Is Israel doing anything different?

Well, most lobby groups don't spend a lot of time spying on the American people. Certainly not to the extent the Israeli Lobby does, using its huge collection of personal data to destroy the job prospects of college students and professors. In fact the lobby goes beyond that to infiltrate American human rights organizations, even using the Israeli spyware company NSO to trace their communications and locations. Pro-Israel reporters have infiltrated our major media, like Isabel Kershner for the New York Times, whose son served in the Israeli Army and husband works for an Israeli propaganda group (the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv).

The Israel Lobby has a close relationship with groups that fan Islamophobia in US campuses and communities. The Clarion Fund distributed copies of the racist film "Obsession" to millions of people in the same year it was awarded $18 million from the Donors Capital Fund, a group that links conservative causes to overseas funders operating in Israel. Jewish Voice For Peace has recently identified at least seven major foundations involved in creating and funding anti-Muslim sentiment in the US.

The Israeli Lobby is, in fact, much more destructive to our democracy than corporate advocacy groups.

Fred Nagel

Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes

Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes

In the West Bank of Israel/Palestine, there’s a housing shortage, but it’s limited to one ethnic group: Palestinians, and by design. “More than 1,000 Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, including around 500 children, are bracing themselves for the potential arrival of Israeli bulldozers that would demolish their homes…this large-scale expulsion would amount to an act of forcible transfer, which is a war crime and crime against humanity,” Amnesty International recently warned. “The imminent displacement of Palestinians from Masafer Yatta offers a stark reminder of the cruel strategy Israel has used for decades to maintain its cruel system of apartheid over Palestinians.”

Palestinians, many of whom have lived in the West Bank for generations, are being evicted from their homes so that they can be demolished to make way for Jewish-only settlements and businesses. Authorities often claim the homes were built without “permits,” even though they may have existed for decades. For Palestinians, their biggest investment is their home. They may spend thousands of dollars pursuing a permit, only to be denied, like most others – and see their homes demolished with short notice (minutes), with the owner liable to pay the cost, losing possessions and forced to live in a refugee camp or rented house. Imagine the emotional stress, especially for children.

Israel controls development in the West Bank, isolating Palestinian communities to keep them segregated from Jewish-only communities through discriminatory planning and housing policies. This is a denial of the basic human right to an adequate standard of living, including housing. By contrast, Israel provides subsidies and services to encourage Jewish Israelis to settle there; courts even approve Jewish communities built without permits.

Palestinians peacefully protest, but are often arrested and met by excessive force by the Israeli Defense, who use rubber bullets, stun grenades and live ammunition. Some become frustrated and feel they have no choice but to turn to violence, which politicians stoke. Yet Palestinians are often met by settler violence, abetted by the IDF.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented Israel’s apartheid laws, policies and practices. Per international law, apartheid is a crime against humanity committed by one racial/ethnic group that maintains an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination over another group. Dispossession of land and fragmentation of the population are components of apartheid. Learn more at www.amnestyusa.org/endapartheid.

Israel often claims its actions are to maintain “security.” But the real goal of its colonial project is to create a contiguous Greater Israel from the Mediterranean in the east to Jordan in the west – Jewish only, without Palestinians.

Israeli journalist Michel Warschawski quipped that “The symbol of Israel is no longer the Star of David, but rather the bulldozer.” Peace is difficult with unlawful demolitions. Israel receives almost $4 billion per year of US taxpayer money to enforce its brutal system of apartheid. Demand your members of Congress (202) 224-3121 hold Israel accountable.

Tom Midgley

Bear the cross of non-violent resistance

The tragic death of Shireen Abu Akleh is another of the multitude of instances in which Palestinians harm themselves through violence. Once again they have played into Israel’s hands through this self-defeating, non-pragmatic “strategy.” To wit: had some Palestinians not fired their weapons, Israel could not so easily deflect claims that an Israeli bullet killed the journalist. By so doing, the Palestinian militants made it simple for the Israeli Prime Minister to insinuate that a stray Palestinian bullet killed Abu-Akleh (see Jonathan Cook article, June/July 2022, paragraph 5).

The right of systematically oppressed people to resist by any means short of terrorism is unquestionable. But violence against Israel’s military clearly is futile, and Israel’s ability to pin the blame for Palestinian casualties on Palestinian violence renders that form of resistance not only ineffective but also self-defeating. The only hope for Palestinians is to steadfastly bear the cross of non-violent resistance. Israel probably will continue to “crucify” many who dare to do so, but it will then become crystal clear to the international community that savage Israeli repression – not Palestinian violence - is responsible for those homicides.

This is not to tell the Palestinians what to do: some already realize that disciplined non-violent resistance is their only way to salvation. One only hopes that their view soon will become the consensus.

Gregory DeSylva

Two human rights groups wrote this letter to the editor

There is a sense of frustration in our society, especially when our media gives us around the clock coverage of Ukraine. What can we do to stop Putin's war crimes of aggression and occupation?

It is ironic that the war crimes that the US could end are the ones we never hear about. Take the slaughter and famine in Yemen: a million people without homes, and tens of thousands of children starving. Saudi Arabia would stop the carnage if the US said that it would no longer fuel their planes, supply their bombs, or protect them in the Middle East. 

The seventy year siege of Palestine has been going on much longer. Over eight million have been forced to leave their homeland in one of the world's largest diasporas. Palestinians remaining have faced a rigid apartheid state, one condemned by Amnesty International and Harvard Law School. In the words of Nelson Mandela, "The United Nations took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system…but we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” 

Far from opposing Israel's war crimes against Palestinians, our country protects Israel at the UN and supplies it with $4 billion a year in military aid, most of which is used on helpless Palestinians. Why isn't the US leading world pressure on Israel to end its apartheid, as well as striving to preserve human rights and freedom in Ukraine?

Jewish Voice For Peace - Hudson Valley
https://jvphudsonvalley.blogspot.com

Middle East Crisis Response
https://mideastcrisis.org/

Sick to death of religious orthodoxies

Bible thumpers are making our societies a living hell. Never content with just having strong religious beliefs, these thumpers want to inject their holy directives into all our lives. They are against abortion, but instead of simply not getting one themselves, they want to deny every women's right to choose. The same is true about LGBTQ rights. Thumpers are never satisfied establishing guidelines for their own lives.

Despite the fact that a large majority of Americans favor a woman's right to have an abortion, they are obsessed with criminalizing it. Gay and transgender rights also have strong public support, but that doesn't matter to the hard right evangelical minions and their hopelessly corrupted mega church leaders.

Another gang of biblical extremists have taken over our foreign policy. Old Testament thumpers demand that Israel has a right steal land in Palestine because God said it belonged to them two thousand years ago. And the slaughter of Palestinians fits right in. Israel's genocidal attacks on Gaza come right from God's warmongering advice to his chosen people. "Destroy them and all their possessions. Don’t have any pity. Kill their men, women, children, and even their babies. Slaughter their cattle, sheep, camels, and donkeys (Samuel 15:3)."

Our nation's founders were already sick to death of religious orthodoxies back when they wrote the Constitution. It was supposed to protect us from zealots bossing everyone around with their interpretation of God's will. We must organize once again to defeat these narrow minded, mean spirited holy fanatics.

Fred Nagel

Pot calling the kettle black!

To the Editor:

Congress and the Administration roundly criticize and sanction China for its alleged human rights abuses against the Muslim Uighurs. Meanwhile they support Israel lock stock and barrel in its blatant oppression, dispossession and outright apartheid against the Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! The hypocrisy is simply stunning.

Gregory DeSylva