Comments for Jewish Organizations Call For End to Gaza Bombings »
Posted By hyperbola 11 months, 3 weeks ago in ReligionInstead of offering unquestioning support of Israel's latest military venture in the decades-long conflict, four major Jewish organizations are calling for an immediate end to the bombings, and for humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.
One of the groups, Americans for Peace Now, the sister organization of the Israel-based Peace Now, called for "the government of Israel to end its military operation in the Gaza Strip and to act toward achieving a cease-fire."
And Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, called on the outgoing Bush administration "to initiate an international effort aimed at negotiating an immediate cease-fire."
These strong statements, along with ones from J Street (the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement) and the Israel Policy Forum (IPF), are in sharp contrast to many of the more hawkish traditional pro-Israel groups, who make no mention of a cessation of armed hostilities. The confident assertions from the four groups are a relatively new sort of campaign.
"You see a voice that is increasingly clear and has a significant resonance in the American Jewish community, and beyond the Jewish community, that takes a position, stakes it grounds, and won't be intimidated," said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator and the director of New America Foundation's Middle East Task Force, one of the four groups.
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truthiness11 months, 3 weeks ago
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"While … air strikes by Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza can be understood and even justified in the wake of recent rocket attacks," according to Ben-Ami, "we believe that real friends of Israel recognize that escalating the conflict will prove counterproductive, igniting further anger in the region and damaging long-term prospects for peace and stability."
a rational point. the right of all people to self defense is unquestionable. as is the right of all people to self-determination and liberty. which 'should' amount to a simple two state solution with a mutual non-aggression treaty.. but rational thought doesn't seem to operate in the middle east very well.
and kudos to hyper for finally offering a balanced article that supports his point from rational minds rather than finding the most extremist anti-semite and self hating wacko jews to quote.
now, an equally balanced article about the palestinian side of things and I might start to believe you are interested in peace and justice in the region as opposed to just hating on jews which your traditional M.O. leads me to believe.-
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Justice4All11 months, 3 weeks ago
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Yes, hyper get's a little passonate at times. But overall he is usally fairly balanced and I enjoy his articles and information. When people take a more objective approach their information is more credible.
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When people post insults or respond to facts and logic with insults I tune them out. The insults are simply rage at knowing they are wrong and have no facts to support their opinions. I think perhaps that's the religious approach. Strong belief in something but no facts to back it up. -
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hyperbola11 months, 3 weeks ago
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Do you consider this professor at Tel Aviv University to be a self-hating anti-semite? How about all the Israelis who made it one of Israel's most popular books? Anti-semites too?
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When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?
No one is more surprised than Shlomo Sand that his latest academic work has spent 19 weeks on Israel's bestseller list – and that success has come to the history professor despite his book challenging Israel's biggest taboo.
Dr. Sand argues that the idea of a Jewish nation – whose need for a safe haven was originally used to justify the founding of the state of Israel – is a myth invented little more than a century ago.
An expert on European history at Tel Aviv University, Dr. Sand drew on extensive historical and archaeological research to support not only this claim but several more – all equally controversial.
In addition, he argues that the Jews were never exiled from the Holy Land, that most of today's Jews have no historical connection to the land called Israel and that the only political solution to the country's conflict with the Palestinians is to abolish the Jewish state.
The success of When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? looks likely to be repeated around the world.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/10/09/when-and...-
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truthiness11 months, 3 weeks ago
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arguing that the jews were never exiled from the holy land makes him sound like a kook to me, since that is a matter of historical record.. the romans were very good about keeping records of everything, just like the US govt today. after the second major revolt, the roman's exiled the jews and destroyed the temple (leaving the current wailing wall)
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the part about no historical connection, definitly a kook, possibly self-hating (don't now well enough) since the sheer volume of historical documents and archaeological evidence connecting the hebrews to that land makes such an argument silly.
this is the land of the hebrews as much as it is the land of the palestinians.. which is why a two state solution is just and reasonable. anyone who argues for the elimination of israel, regardless of heritage, is either a hater or a nutcase.-
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hyperbola11 months, 3 weeks ago
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Sorry truthiness, but anyone who argues for a "jewish state" (especially one based on massive ethnic cleansing of christians and moslems) is no different than those who argued for a "white, democratic" state in South Africa.
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Your statements make it clear that you subscribe to "if it is my tribe, it cannot possibly be wrong" racism.
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codgerpriceComment removed: Retracted by user
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cherev11 months, 3 weeks ago
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Americans for Peace Now
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Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace
J Street
Israel Policy Forum
To describe these organizations as "Jewish" is certainly debatable since Judaism is a religion and none of these organizations has any connection to the Jewish faith; but to consider them "major" is an outright lie.
None of these organizations has vocally opposed Arab terrorist activities. They only criticize Israeli defensive or retaliatory actions. Consequently, their input now is worse than useless to bring about genuine peace.-
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hyperbola11 months, 3 weeks ago
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Ah the zionist marcarthyism again! How desperately afraid you psuedo-jewish zionists are of honest jews.
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Explaining the Long — and Largely Untold — History of Jewish Opposition to Zionism
A THREAT FROM WITHIN: A CENTURY OF JEWISH OPPOSITION TO ZIONISM,
by Yakov M. Rabkin,
While many in Israel and in Jewish communities in the U.S. and other countries now promote the idea that Zionism and Judaism are, in effect, the same and that opposition to Zionism constitutes “anti-Semitism,” the historical fact — largely untold — is that, for most of its history, Zionism has been a decidedly minority movement among Jews throughout the world.
Since its inception as a political movement in 1897, both Reform and Orthodox Jews rejected Zionism’s basic premise of creating a Jewish state in Palestine and having Jews either emigrate to it or, at the very least, consider it “central” to their Jewish identity.
An overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jews, unwilling to accept the restoration of a Jewish state in Palestine by means other than divine intervention, considered Zionism a false messianic movement. Most Jewish liberals and socialists, having accepted the faith of the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on optimism, reason and progress, rejected Zionism as a reactionary philosophy. ....
... In the forward, Joseph Agassi, professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University, notes that, “The author raises questions about the myth that Israel protects the Jews around the world and constitutes their natural homeland. This book rightly shows that this myth is anti-Jewish.-
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hyperbola11 months, 3 weeks ago
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... Zionism gained support in areas where social and political conditions were unfavorable to Jews, particularly the Russian Empire. Indeed, Rabkin argues that Zionism has far more in common with the emerging nationalisms which swept Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries than anything to be found in Jewish tradition. ...
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... This instrumentalization of religion, writes Israeli historian and political scientist Zeev Sternhell, is not specific to Zionism but can be found in many varieties of organic nationalism propagated in Europe from the mid-l9th century onward. Rabkin declares that, “While keeping intact the social function of religion in order to unify the people, Zionism eliminated its metaphysical content. In the same way religion became a vital element of many varieties of nationalism; for example, neither the Polish variant nor 1’Action Francaise made any efforts to disguise their Catholic traits, Sternhell defines this trend as ‘religion without God,’ religion that has preserved only its outward symbols.” ...
..Zionist leaders took as their model the nationalisms which emerged in largely undemocratic societies and seemed to have little understanding of the dynamics of free, open societies such as France, England and the United States. .... But few Zionists were aware of a countervailing reality, such as that of France, where in a slow and deliberate process, the state made use of an existing legal and political framework to create a nation. They had never experienced the kind of tolerant nationalism that could allow for a clear distinction between nation, religion and society — the model that enables large Jewish communities to thrive in France, England and the U.S. today (and where a substantial number of rabbinical critics of Zionism can be found)....
In Israel itself, the gulf that separates the secular from Judaism in all its forms has widened. Israeli newspapers are full of caricatures of Orthodox Jews, not unlike the anti-Semitic stereotypes current in Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Israeli historian Noah Efron declares: “This kind of hostility is not novel. Nowhere are Haredi Jews as feared and hated as in Israel. ...
The use of violence, Rabkin points out, was to be found among Zionists from the very beginning, against both indigenous Arabs and Jews who dared to challenge the emerging Zionist consensus..... Albert Einstein was among the Jewish humanists who denounced the Betar youth movement in 1935, describing it as being “as much a danger to our youth as Hitlerism is to German youth.”-
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hyperbola11 months, 3 weeks ago
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Terrorism has frequently reared its head among extremists within the ranks of Zionism. The bombing of the King David Hotel, the assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte and the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin are well known. The political assassination of Jacob Israel De Haan (1881-1924) is less well known... Rabkin laments that, “... the sad tale of De Haan reminds us that the terrorism the Zionists brought with them from Russia to Palestine in the early years of the 20th century would ultimately be turned against their descendants in the closing decades of the century ... Indeed, aside from the Hagganah, which was responsible for the assassination of De Haan, several armed organiz¬ations — such as Lehi and Irgun — perpetrated terrorist acts. Their leaders, Itzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin, went on to become prime ministers of Israel. What united these military organizations was the conviction that it was necessary to inculcate fear and to terrorize the adversary, all in the name of establishing a nation. Ironically, the same approach was later to be adopted by the Palestinian terrorists.” .....
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... Fortunately, Rabkin shows, more and more prominent Jews are rejecting such efforts at thought control. A veteran of American Jewish organizations who has taken a critical distance from his institutional past, Henry Siegman, regrets what he calls “Jewish community McCarthyism” and has said that for many Jewish organizations, “if you do not support the government of Israel, then your Jewishness and not your political judgment will be called into question.”
Professor Rabkin has written a scholarly work which brings alive for the reader a complex history which has been largely ignored. No one who reads this book will ever again believe that Zionism and Judaism are the same, or that Zionism enjoys the level of support among Jews in the United States and elsewhere in the world which it claims.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/11/19/explaini...
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