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
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
Allowing our country to become another apartheid Israel
Rather than promoting freedom or democracy, our country actively supports Israel's constant military attacks, home demolitions, detentions of minors, and destruction of infrastructure. How can a country that celebrates the inalienable rights of its citizens, turn around and pay billions to Israel for denying basic human rights to its non Jewish population?
The website OpenSecrets.org explains part of it. Most members of Congress are feeding at the trough of the Israel Lobby, and are well paid to look the other way. They are scared too. The lobby threatens to defeat any candidate who even mentions Palestinian suffering.
Another supporter of Israel's apartheid is the right wing Evangelical Church. Christian fundamentalists believe that Jesus will appear when all Jews are returned to the Holy Land. And that fits nicely with their plans to restore the supremacy of conservative, Christian, Republican males in the United States.
A third interest group that favors Israel is made up of Jews who believe that the next Holocaust is bound to happen. In their fear, they assume that an ethnically cleansed Israel is the only safe place for them to ever live. For this sanctuary, they are willing to sacrifice the lives of five million Palestinians who are simply in the way.
To change US policy in Palestine, we have to reform Congress. It should be illegal for the Israel Lobby to spend millions bribing our representatives. At the next town meeting held by your House or Senate member, why don't you ask them how much the Israel Lobby pays them each year. Let's put an end to this interference in our elections by a foreign country.
Challenging the Christian right in the US should also be a priority. A theocracy based on Christianity would be as morally reprehensible as one based on Jewish Supremacy. We must protect the rights of all our minorities: immigrants, gays, Jews, Blacks, and Asians. To end Israeli apartheid, we must win the battle against fascism here at home. We cannot allow our country to become another apartheid Israel.
Fred Nagel
Have you no shame?
Law students graduating from CUNY Law School enter a hostile world. The curriculum is all about standing up for the poor and oppressed in society, using one's legal skills to speak truth to power.
But the powerful in our society have learned to use their influence and money to make such goals difficult indeed. Our representatives in government rarely stand up for the powerless. Our media has no interest in home grown oppression. And our colleges have become dependent on the very rich to fund them. There is hardly room for idealism in the neoliberal world we have created.
So when a young CUNY graduate has the courage to give a commencement speech about the victims no one wants to hear about, all hell breaks loose. Five million Palestinians suffer under a ruthless apartheid occupation, and our country pays for the whole human rights catastrophe. But that subject is taboo, especially in the minds of all the politicians who are generously funded by the Israel Lobby. For ours is a democracy hanging by a thread. The very richest get to speak for us all. How else to explain the obscene disparity between the billionaires and everyone else?
Maybe Fatima Mohammed's commencement address to her class will be the tipping point. Perhaps the American people will finally ask the right question of the Israel Lobby: "Have you no shame?"
Fred Nagel
Israeli aggression
Since 2006 I have been supporting The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Occupied Palestine. I am outraged at the massive Israeli army attacks on Jenin refugee camp and The Freedom Theatre. While it is impossible to assess the true extent of the damage while the Israeli army bars entrance to the camp, we know rockets were fired into the Theatre's courtyard and the Theatre was broken into and occupied by Israeli troops. We know the refugee camp infrastructure -- streets, sewers, electricity -- has been destroyed. We know many have been killed, more injured, and hundreds arrested. This nightmarish invasion has blocked ambulances and assistance to civilians, terrorized inhabitants, and forced thousands to flee their homes. There is no excuse for this war on a civilian population. The Israeli actions are war crimes.
I am equally outraged that our government's main reaction is to repeat well-worn, empty phrases about Israel's "right to defend itself" to cover up its unstinting support for Israeli aggression. Israeli land thefts, settler violence, military raids, and thousands of arrests are the authors of resistance from a people simply insisting on their right to live in dignity. Israel is not defending itself, it is, as Israeli politicians have made so clear recently, embarked on an all-out attempt to drive Palestinians out of their homeland and annex more territory.
We must insist the US stop enabling Israeli impunity and end the funding of $3.8+ billion/year of our U.S. tax dollars to Israel’s out-of-control military.
Felice Gelman
The Freedom Theatre
Dear Representative Pat Ryan,
I am writing with urgency to ask you to immediately demand an end to the Israeli forces' murderous collective punishment of Palestinians.
The IDF could not do what it’s doing without the US’s $3.8 billion per year. Therefore we, US citizens, and you particularly, as a Congress representative, have a moral responsibility regarding how that massive funding is used.
Right now, the IDF is brutally attacking the Jenin refugee camp as if they intend to obliterate it—which perhaps they do. There have been numerous civilian casualties including elderly people and children.
Here is an excerpt from The Freedom Theatre’s update today. TFT, in the heart of the refugee camp, is a major cultural institution devoted to creating original theatre with local young people.
“The Israeli army blew the entrance of The Freedom Theatre at approx. 02:00 this morning. They took the Naghnaghiye family to the theatre stage including the father of the 14-year old Sadeel that was killed by the army last week, and Adnan, the technical manager of The Freedom Theatre. They locked the entire family including elders and children inside the theatre and interrogated them there. Some members were held until the late morning. Adnan was taken by the army and there’s no further news on his status.” (See the full update below.)
Representative Ryan, you and I have met several times. We are neighbors in Gardiner. Through me, you are no more than two degrees of separation from Adnan. Some years ago I taught theatre at TFT and drove with Adnan to a deeply moving performance in a Bedouin village.
The people in the Jenin refugee camp are not faceless “terrorists”. They are human beings who have endured unthinkable trauma and oppression for generations.
Israel’s rightwing government claims it is taking these violent actions in order to keep Jewish Israelis safe. A far more moral and more effective way to achieve that goal would be to stop denying Palestinians basic human rights and grant them citizenship.
I ask you to respond to the specific points I am making. It is not helpful to receive your standard response on this topic, defending Israel’s actions.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Jo Salas
To support and not silence Palestinian voices
What is being done to rectify this harm? “Reviewing our yearbook content and procedures going forward.." is absolutely important for the future. I would like to know specifically, in regards to the remaining academic year and graduation, what steps Arlington will take to support and not silence Palestinian voices and challenge colonialism and genocide.
Regards, John Francis Mulligan |