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Jewish Voices of Dissent on Gaza
As the dust is settling on the barren Gazan landscape, it is appropriate to listen to the voices of Jewish intellectuals who have forcefully spoken against the Israeli government actions in Gaza. Their opinion helps bring a much needed perspective on the situation.
Uri Avnery, one of the most outspoken leaders in the Israeli human rights community, a former Israeli soldier and member of the Knesset writes, "In this war, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. The disparity between the forces, between the Israeli army - with its airplanes, gunships, drones, warships, artillery and tanks - and the few thousand lightly-armed Hamas fighters, is one to a thousand, perhaps one to a million. In the political arena the gap between them is even wider. But in the propaganda war, the gap is almost infinite."
"Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government ("The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets") has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are retaliation for the siege that starves the 1.5 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all."
The Qassam rockets fired at Israeli towns were the excuse for the more than 1,400 people, many of them civilians, killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and for the thousands of maimed.
In a speech in the House of Commons on Jan. 15 MP Gerald Kaufman said, "My parents came to Britain as refugees from Poland. Most of their families were subsequently murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust. My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home in Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed."
"My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for the murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians don't count."
The IDF claim that maximum care had been taken to minimize civilians lost of lives. Sara Roy, a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, wrote recently in the Christian Science Monitor, "One Palestinian friend asked me, 'Why did Israel attack when the children were leaving school and the women were in the markets'?"
"And what will happen to Jews as a people whether we live in Israel or not? Why have we been unable to accept the fundamental humanity of Palestinians and include them within our moral boundaries? Rather, we reject any human connection with the people we are oppressing. Ultimately, our goal is to tribalize pain, narrowing the scope of human suffering to ourselves alone."
With the cease-fire now in effect, it is fair to ask what has been the result of this tragic war. Has it made Israel safer, has it destroyed Hamas, has it eliminated the threat of Hamas firing Qassam rockets into Israeli towns and cities? Has it made the population of Gaza more moderate? Let's listen to Gideon Levy.
Writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz Levy states: "On the morrow of the return of the last Israeli soldier from Gaza, we can determine with certainty that they had all gone out there in vain. This war has ended in utter failure for Israel.... We have gained nothing in this war save hundreds of graves, some of them very small, thousands of maimed people, much destruction and the besmirching of Israel's image.... The conclusion is that Israel is a violent and dangerous country, devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignoring the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot to international law."
Or, as Sara Roy also states, "Israel's victories are pyrrhic and reveal the limits of Israeli power and our own limitations as a people: our inability to live a life without barriers. Are these the boundaries of our rebirth after the Holocaust? As Jews in a post-Holocaust world empowered by a Jewish state, how do we as people emerge from atrocity and abjection, empowered but also humane? How do we move beyond fear to envision something different, even if uncertain? The answers will determine who we are and what, in the end, we become."
106 Comments so far
Show AllExcellent!
well said.
"And what will happen to Jews as a people whether we live in Israel or not? Why have we been unable to accept the fundamental humanity of Palestinians and include them within our moral boundaries? Rather, we reject any human connection with the people we are oppressing. Ultimately, our goal is to tribalize pain, narrowing the scope of human suffering to ourselves alone."
*well the astute observer knows that the problem is more than just recognizing them as humans-since humans treat innocent non humans far worse than the most despised criminal. I recall an interview with an israeli soldier--might have been a refusnik but whatever the case, he made a comment about "being evil, like an animal."
Perhaps it was just a lack of familiarity with english but I have never heard of an evil animal. Except human ones of course. But humans dont like to consider themselves animals-they are "better" than that. Just as those jews that believe they are the Chosen people of the One True God. Having people recognize that your adversary is also human is certainly not enough-since much of what Israel and any dictator does involves mental cruelty. They know perfectly well the palestinians can be affected by it.
When slaughterhouse workers kick pigs, break the legs of chickens, or gouge their eyes out for sport, the workers know perfectly well they are causing suffering-and take pleasure from that knowledge. That's the difference between a human and a feral cat with a mouse.
The Israel problem is mainly one of thinking their group is superior in value to all others(non humans included, since its clear that cats and dogs and other species are also going through hell in gaza, and they can never be a suicide bomber --except when a bomb is strapped to them or sewn inside their stomachs).
Recognizing that Palestinians are human is just a naive catch phrase.
You have to be more aware of the underlying philosophy that governs human cruelty.
"To be humane is to be cruel, vicious and unrestrained, like humans.
To be inhumane is to be compassionate, restrained, moderate, like non humans."
Actually, and i understand and appreciate your comments, Webber, but most jews don't think of themselves as 'chosen' by God. Many jews are, in fact, atheists. God is not a big part of the thinking here at all. It is much more of an ethnicity than a religion in many ways.
The 'chosen' has been more used over the years as an almost black humour idea of "why did you choose me, thanks alot"...Ironically spoken, because of being persecuted throughout europe for such a long time.
I am not a pro-israeli government jew and never have been. But the misunderstanding of 'chosen' is something i wanted to comment upon. Personally, i think nation states are very 19th century. It is time we connected as human beings first and above all else. Actually, the idea of a 'promised land' was always a universal metaphor. How could it not be, since the Bible isn't a history book.
Perhaps most Jews don't think of themselves as chosen by God, but there are certain groups of 'fundamentalist Jews' who certainly do. And fundamentalist Christians do. These groups seems to have a very strong influence in the Israeli and US governments. It might not be the main reason for Zionist criminality, but it is a factor.
.The actions of the Israeli govt seem rather straightforward and not at all religious. Empire building and expansion of territory...
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Actually, Choseness and the love of Israel is a foundational aspect of Judaism.
Rabbi Norman Lamm, a leader of Modern Orthodox Judaism writes:
The chosenness of Israel relates exclusively to its spiritual vocation embodied in the Torah; the doctrine, indeed, was announced at Sinai. Whenever it is mentioned in our liturgy - such as the blessing immediately preceding the Shema....it is always related to Torah or Mitzvot (commandments). This spiritual vocation consists of two complementary functions, described as "Goy Kadosh," that of a holy nation, and "Mamlekhet Kohanim," that of a kingdom of priests. The first term denotes the development of communal separateness or differences in order to achieve a collective self-transcendence.... The second term implies the obligation of this brotherhood of the spiritual elite toward the rest of mankind; priesthood is defined by the prophets as fundamentally a teaching vocation."
Rabbi Akiva used to say, "Beloved is man, for he was created in God’s image; and the fact that God made it known that man was created in His image is indicative of an even greater love. As the verse states [Genesis 9:6], 'In the image of God, man was created.')" The mishna goes on to say, "Beloved are the people Israel, for they are called children of God; it is even a greater love that it was made known to them that they are called children of God, as it said, 'You are the children of the Lord, your God. Beloved are the people Israel, for a precious article [the Torah] was given to them ..."
Most Jewish texts do not state that "God chose the Jews" by itself. Rather, this is usually linked with a mission or purpose, such as proclaiming God's message among all the nations, even though Jews cannot become "unchosen" if they shirk their mission. This implies a special duty, which evolves from the belief that Jews have been pledged by the covenant which God concluded with the biblical patriarch Abraham, their ancestor, and again with the entire Jewish nation at Mount Sinai. In this view, Jews are charged with living a holy life as God's priest-people.
Joehope ---- Are you saying that the Jewish religion contends that the Jewish nation must acheive transcendent communal differences from other nations?
He is saying that certain believers of Jewish religion make that contention. Just that the Catholic pope is not representative of Christian belief as a whole, and just as Ayatollah Khomeini is not representative of Muslim belief as a whole, the people he is quoting are not representative of Jewish belief as a whole.
RFLOH Actually in Shi'a Islam there is a hierarchy but in Sunni Islam no hierarchy exists. Islam is not like Catholicism in the fact there is a spokesperson for the religion such as the equivilant of the pope. In Islam there is the belief that the believer speaks directly to God and there is no earthly authority in between. However, like Catholicism Islam recognizes Jesus and the Virgin Mary and the same prophets. Jesus in Islam is not the son of God but a revered prophet and this is the main difference.
I used Khomeini simply because he would be a figure that most here would be aware of. I didn't mean to imply that Khomeini is the equivalent of the Roman Catholic pope.
I'm just saying that the "chosenness" of the Jewish People is inseparable from their relationship to Israel by definition. Do you disagree? It has nothing to do with Orthodox views vs. Reform views. It has to do with why the Jews call themselves the chosen people.
In 1999 the Reform movement stated:
"We affirm that the Jewish people are bound to God by an eternal covenant, as reflected in our varied understandings of Creation, Revelation and Redemption....We are Israel, a people aspiring to holiness, singled out through our ancient covenant and our unique history among the nations to be witnesses to God's presence. We are linked by that covenant and that history to all Jews in every age and place."
Okay, please, read that again. Even the Reform movement of Judaism says "We are Israel, a people aspiring to holiness".
Israel and Jewishness are inseparable. Orthodox, ultra Orthodox, Reform, it doesn't matter. Israel and Jewishness are inseparable.
To say Israel isn't important to Jewish identity is like saying America isn't important to native American identity.
Far too many Jews are taught to hide their love of Israel.
Israel is our homeland. We should be proud. There is nothing wrong with that.
There is no point in talking to the terminally deluded.
the bible ia not a real estate contract, however hard ones try to believe it is..
Get used to it.. Zionism has corrupted Judaism, as many of the great Jewish Intellectuals warned in the early 20th century, Einstein amongst them.
Zionism is an obsolete and inherently wicked imperial doctrine that has blighted the lives of millions in the Middle East and world wide..
It is why the Palestinians continue to suffer and it is why Israel is so loathed today.
It is high time that we woke up to our collective responsibility, stopped being so guilty about something none of us did or would have done, called Zionist Israel out for what it really clearly is and got on with working together to bring the evil regime down, for the safety of ALL in Palestine/Israel .. and ourselves..
Joey,
There's no god.
I'll let you talk to Him about that.
...& which god was that? The one of war and slaughter? or, the one of compassion?
Scholars believe more than one god is being spoken of in the bible.
Actually one of the commandments is about 'not having another god before one' So one might conclude that god knew there were other gods, and was jealosly guarding his property. Not much has changed. Hmn!!!
&, were they really gods??? or visitors??? with superior technology!!!
.Only a few days earlier Joe Hope noted that he was not steeped in Jewish cultures or traditions, that he found out about his Jewish roots late in life. Now , suddenly, he becomes a "mavin" on the subject.
Methinks there is something very, very strange and not quite right about Joseph Hope....Sort of like an old bottle of milk in the fridge, one takes a chance at peril.....
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
I don't think there is anything unusual about a person having questions about their heritage, especially when they uncover new information about their family history. I suggest reading To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking by Rabbi Harold Kushner. It was recommended to me by another CD poster. It answered most of the questions I had about what it means to be a Jew. I'll be the first to admit it is complex and confusing topic.
BTW a few trip to Wikipedia to gather a some quotes doesn't make me a "mavin", but thanks.
Readytotransform: "Personally, i think nation states are very 19th century. It is time we connected as human beings first and above all else."
---Beautifully said thank you!
The Jews wrote a story of their own people. They were not deeply concerned with anyone else. This would not have been a problem, any more than the Navajo Creation Myth is a global problem, except that Muslims ripped the Jews off. Muslims claim that the Jewish Creation Myth---the Torah--- is really about them, and that the Jews stole it from them (it takes hubris to be a thief, on this scale). Christian-Jewish relations were once envenomed by thie kind of debate:"It's mine," "No, it's mine" ; but Christians have grown up. In another ten million years, Muslims may grow up, too.
We become what we have detested!
The Muslim nations need to recognize Israel's right to exist and defend itself. Israel needs to recognize the fact that Palestinians were expelled from land that their families lived on for generations.
If the 2 groups could sit down to peacefully discuss peace, they would be better off.
Most Muslim nations already recognise Israel's right to exist - within the borders granted by the United Nations before the 1967 "Six-day War" prompted Israel's colonialist expansion. That colonial exapansion, together with the open racism of many Israelis towards their "dirty" Arab neighbours, is the main cause of the current mess. So what if Hamas wants to destroy the Jewish state? They cannot and will not achieve that goal, and sooner or later will have to abandon it.
The ball is in Israel's court. Israel's leaders just love to say: "We have no partner for peace". It's high time the Israeli people started looking for leaders who will try somewhat harder to find a partner.
Israel has gone too far this time in Gaza. If Israeli political leaders don't change course now, they will find themselves in a few years in the same position as the white rulers of South Africa in the era of apartheid - utterly alone in the world
The Israeli political leaders are already utterly alone in the world except for the strong support of the American government and clueless American public. The Zionist/Israeli lobby (not to mention the unofficial "lobby" of the ruling class of American Zionists) is just a shade stronger than the South African pro-apartheid lobby was.
Upending that power needs to be a grass roots movement. It won't start at the top. It must start with people like us, speaking openly and publicly about our ideas, exchanging them with others and nurturing them in places like this where we can speak freely. If we keep doing that, it will be socially and eventually politically accepted to speak ill of Zionism and to challenge the Zionist power structure, and the tables will then turn.
Bravo! Very well said RuleUtilitarian.
In every formulation it needs to clearly stated that Palestinian lands and population will quickly be restored and that israel has no right to commit atrocities excused by self defense(legally self defense does not exist if a nation is stealing land). Nations are free to recognize israel when THEY freely decide israel is an honorable,worthy and viable nation. That Palestine legally ( I do not condone violence) has the right to war in order to restore its territory.KeLeMi evokes------- the bush/Obama ( Rahm Emanuel)doctrine.
It doesn't matter whose doctrine it is.
Practically, without recognition, negotiations aren't going anywhere. Negotiations are not possible if one side refuses to recognise the existence of the other side.
Also, you're confusing the right to go to war with the refusal to recognise. Countries go to war, they still recognise each other.
KeLeMi wrote:
The Muslim nations need to recognize Israel's right to exist and defend itself. Israel needs to recognize the fact that Palestinians were expelled from land that their families lived on for generations.
COMMENT:
Let me get this right now: Palestinians were expelled from land that their families lived on for generations. "Expelled," as in "to drive or force out or away" as definition #1 in Random House.
Yeah, that is a comprehensible statement.
So now, this refers to people that had lived on the land for generations who were "expelled," many of their towns bulldozed out of existence, driven from their homes, their businesses, their farms. Expelled. Got it. That, of course, doesn't include those who were simply murdered by the invaders as they swept through the land.
Now, let's try for more comprehension: the Zionists, the vast majority of whom were from Europe and had not even ancestral connection for hundreds of years to the land at best, came into Palestinian land with guns and tanks and "expelled" the people that had lived there for generations, and yet the nation that invaders created, Israel, has a "right to exist"?
Right to exist? Hell, George W. Bush never told a bigger lie.
There is no rational "Right" for invaders who murder or drive people from their lands and homes, and no amount of irrational rationale can make it so.
As for sitting down "to peacefully discuss peace," that would be akin to hoodlums breaking into my house, killing many of my family, driving the rest of us into a tiny dog pen in my own back yard and then having some neighbor leaning over the back fence telling me that I should sit down "to peacefully discuss peace" with the murdering, thieving hoodlums who occupy my house and much of my yard.
I'd strap bombs to my own belly and try to kill as many of the bastards I could before I'd do that.
Or, as one man who could stand up on own hind legs and be worthy of the name, Emiliano Zapata, once said: It is better to die on your feet that to live on your knees.
I like the analogy...
Although i agree with your assessment of the situation from a humanitarian justice perspective...
There is more to the picture than that..
From a geopolitical perspective... The British, during their pre WWII empire building days, established Palestine as a colony...
while they were busy propping up puppet regimes and royal kingdoms in the middle east and Arab lands...
They were redrawing the geopolitical map of the region based on access to the oil, gas, and water...
Hence the british invasion of Iraq three times and the creation of Kuwait and the UAE...
Israel is just a pawn on the board, albeit with extraordinary military power and strategic positioning...
The British wanted a western toe hold in the Near East with Israel... But things didn't go according to plan...
When Britain lost their hegemony of military and financial power at the end of WWII, the USA picked up the slack...
Now Israel is the client state for the US to develop and field test Military and computer technology, & "stir the pot" in the region...
If you think of israel as a "forward-operating base" for the British and American empire builders, they is it's "right to exist"...
Rarely do the concerns of individual citizens or the dispossessed natives enter into the equation when there are resource wars to be won...
That being said... It has been three generations (sixty years) since the creation of the nation/state of Israel...
There are many who were born there and are now considered "native" to the land of Israel, just like the dispossessed Palestineans...
If there was a war or UN resolution to dissolve Israel... Where would they go? To the US? England? Or be refugees in a free Palestine?
Despite the historical and ongoing atrocities committed by the Israelis and the Americans against their own indigenous populations...
I don't think the solution is for all gringos to leave Turtle Island... or for Jews to go back to Europe... There is no Magic Restart Button...
However, I do believe that there should be reparations in land and money for what was destroyed, and so they can rebuild anew...
If we can give the banksters a few trillion no questions asked, we can give a few hundred billion to their victims and decendents...
The Israelis would rather lose a thermonucear war than a conventional ground war on Israeli soil, even if it takes them down with it...
GoldenMean wrote:
There are many [Jews] who were born there and are now considered "native" to the land of Israel, just like the dispossessed Palestineans...
If there was a war or UN resolution to dissolve Israel... Where would they go?
COMMENT:
In consideration of a one state solution, there are, indeed, many Jewish Israeli's who are natives, and while I don't doubt for a second that many, possibly all of the beleaguered Palestinians might wish them to all disappear, I doubt that any but the most bitter would actually consider the sort of ethnic cleansing that the Israelis have done with them.
So where would they, the Israeli's, go? Nowhere. No one is seriously proposing throwing all the Jewish Israeli's off the land and giving all the land back to Palestinians. Rather, the proposed one state solution is simply to put all of the lands now called Israel and the lands Palestinians are now on and all of the people on those lands into a single nation as a democratic, constitutional republic.
However, as I've noted elsewhere, I can't imagine the wealthy power elite who currently rule Israel agreeing to a single state, and I can't imagine that any two-state solution will be acceptable to many Palestinians. Thus, the outlook for the innocent Palestinian victims of this theft of their country is bleak.
I wish those Jewish voices of dissent the best of luck as they're gonna need as much of it as the progressive/liberal dissent including myself out here in Tulsa will need it very very badly.
Your voices are the last hope for Israel (and perhaps Jews worldwide.)
After these neverending crimes against humanity I can only think that all Israelis and their supporters are genocidal monsters.
There is a vast difference between an Israeli and a Zionist. Many Israelis abhor what their Zionist government and military is doing. If you want a true understanding of the situation in Israel and Palestine, go to Israeli dissidents. You won't find that level of understanding and honesty in the United States, that's for sure.
But 80% of Israelis voted in favor of the last attempted genocide.
Hyperbole alert: Since when did the deaths of 1215 people become a "genocide"?
500,000 dead Palestinians over eighty years might qualify. I am willing to take it to International Criminal Court ,what about you joehope?
Where did you get this number from? It has nothing to do with reality. Why don't you take this to a criminal court.
By the way, the palestinian population in Israel and the occupied territories increased from about 1.2 million in 1967 to about 5 million today.
It's called having babies and doesn't make up for the dead.
What is your point?
.The internet is such a good source of date, why notuse it?
http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2006/05/post-1967-palestinian-israeli-deaths.html
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Thanks Anais. Now I understand where the number quoted by Glenn Ford came from - UN estimates of Avoidable mortality or excess mortality: "the difference between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics". So 500,000 has been derived from "avoidable mortality" estimates, and has nothing to do with the number of people killed in the conflict. This is a wonderful example of how palestinian propaganda often twists the facts to come up with absolutely preposterous claims.
Why don't you compare the avoidable mortality numbers in the palestinian territories to any one of the Arab surrounding countries. You'll find them to be very similar. Are 20 million deaths in Egypt from 1950 until now, calculated in a similar way, also a result of "Zionist genocide"? Since the claim was about mortality in the past 80 years, it's also useful to remember that before 1948 palestine was controlled by the British, and between 1948 and 1967 the palestinian territories were controlled by Egypt and Jordan.
Here's a link that I found to a scientific study conducted in the university of Beirut.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2603010
This study compared disparities in child health in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Quoting from the article, "The three top ranked countries in child health disparities were UAE, Saudi Arabia and the OPT". UAE is the United Arab Emirates, OPT: Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Or check out the UN population database:
http://esa.un.org/unpp/
You'll see that in the palestinian territories life expectancy has been remarkably similar to Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Jordan throughout 1950 to this day. Check out infant mortality rates in this database: lower than Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, about the same as in Syria.
joehope wrote:
Hyperbole alert: Since when did the deaths of 1215 people become a "genocide"?
COMMENT:
Answer to question: since genocide was defined.
genocide: 1.: the use of deliberate systematic measures (as killing, bodily or mental injury, unlivable conditions, prevention of births) calculated to bring about the extermination of a racial, POLITICAL, or cultural group or to destroy the language, religion, or culture of a group.
-from Webster's Third New International Dictionary. Unabridged, 1986, the most used reference for definitions in US courts of law.
Uppercase added for emphasis.
Israel is using, systematic measures to exterminate political opposition to Israel within Palestine. There is no total number of deaths that constitute genocide, to suggest there is, is hyperbole.
Horrified wrote:
But 80% of Israelis voted in favor of the last attempted genocide.
COMMENT:
80% is also the number polled in the US who supported the genocidal Iraq war just prior to GW Bush's second election.
Israeli's and Americans seem to have something in common: a willingness to support their government murdering people for their benefit.
Yeah, I'm horrified too. There is much to be horrified about, especially when the US is heavily responsible for Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people as well as its own genocides in the Middle East.
US citizens can't simply blame their government for these genocides, can't escape the fact that all US taxpayers are guilty of murder. It is after all, a government of and by the American people who willingly pay for all this murder and will show their support for the genocides once again by April 15.
George Markley wrote:
There is a vast difference between an Israeli and a Zionist.
COMMENT:
Any Israeli who moved into a house or business building or on a farm who didn't buy that property at a fair price from its willing original Palestinian owner is a Zionist.
Any Israeli who moved into the various recent settlements on Palestinian land is a Zionist.
Any Israeli who picks up a weapon, civilian or soldier, and uses that weapon on Palestinians is a Zionist. Any Israeli who doesn't protest the actions of the Israeli government is a Zionist.
Difference? Not so much.
Too often in cases of injustice, people focus on the idea of accepting the oppressed group into the tribal circle that claims superiority, instead of attacking the supremacy belief that nurtures the tribalism in the first place. But it isnt about humaness, because humans discriminate based on all sorts of criteria(race, age, gender, appearance, wealth, religion, height, weight,). The concept of universal human rights is only 1-200 years old, and even today it doesnt really apply(i.e palestinian rights being less in value than jewish rights).
This has nothing to do with being human.
Accepting black slaves as human didnt bring about equality. Attack the belief in supremacy and knock the believer down a few pegs to reality(humans are not special to the universe--they dont get saved from lava flows or the forces of gravity), that would be more effective.
The problem with israel is the belief that jews are special and have special rights. Its supporters ignore palestinian misery because they think about jews first, not justice.
Even Noam Chomsky, on Democracy Now, when asked about divestment, danced around it. He supports the existence of Israel as a jewish majority state, even while talking about all the injustices committed by israel.
"To be humane is to be cruel, vicious and unrestrained, like humans.
To be inhumane is to be compassionate, restrained, moderate, like non humans."
I believe boycott is the only thing zionists fear. It is worth a try.It is very ethical and karmic. Whenever we write we must be wise enough to consider the ultimate outcome of our words and we must focus our intentions on a quick positive outcome for the situation... Emotional cursing should only be expressed if you sincerely believe it will have a positive outcome. I am concentrating into embarassing congress and the media to support peace and speak truth.
Arabs deny Auschwitz. Once that's done, the most-obvious reason for the Jewish state disappears.
It is extremely important that Jewish intellectuals and activists (whether Israeli or not) make their opposition to the Zionist maniacs known. It seems very likely that the Israeli power machine sees any rise in old-fashioned Antisemitism as a great propaganda boost, and as more leverage to pressure non-Israeli Jews to come to Israel in fear of supposedly coming pogroms. Committing atrocities in the name of the "Jewish State" in Gaza will provoke quite a few people into blaming all Jews. Anti-Zionism is a political option based on universal principles of human justice.
Antisemitism only feeds the beast.
The very idea of a "Jewish State" is inherently racist.