(Andrew’s mom posting here: with thanks to Brad Brooks-Rubin’s post, “A Winograd of Our Own” for inspiring me.)
I sat at my kitchen table today reading an invitation, addressed to my husband and me, to the Annual Israel Bond dinner for Western Massachusetts. I assume we received the invitation because, having joined our local conservative synagogue, we were put on the mailing list of the Western Mass. State of Israel Bonds organization.
On the cover of the invitation are photos of this year’s honorees, none of whom is familiar to me. I think these folks and I don’t hang out in the same circles. Inside the invitation, the guest speaker is announced: Professor Kenneth Stein, “an advisor on Mideast Affairs and colleague of Jimmy Carter for many years [who] has broken with him and has publicly and expertly critiqued the ex-president’s provocative work.” An insert to the invitation, a “personal” letter from two of the honorees who are fellow congregants at my synagogue, urges me to show my love of Judaism and Zion by purchasing a bond. “Supporting Israel takes many forms,” they tell me, listing things like “teaching our children a love of Judaism and Zion” as one of several examples. It is clear, of course, that the particular form they wish my support to take is purchasing an Israel Bond. However, the letter writers are savvy enough about the liberalism of their audience in this part of Western Massachusetts to acknowledge that “Here in the Diaspora, we do not always agree with the policies of the government of Israel, however, as Jews, we must be united in affirming our commitment to our people and our homeland.”
Here is my RSVP.
Dear Honorees,Tribute Committee, and others involved,
Thank you for your invitation to attend a dinner honoring various members of the Western Massachusetts Jewish community who, presumably, have demonstrated their devotion to “Judaism and Zionism” by contributing their money to Israel Bonds as well as engaging in other pro-Israel activities. You suggest that if I help “fill in the seats at the Israel Bonds dinner,” and invest in as large a bond as I am able to, I will be showing my support for Israel.
I would like to ask you: what Israel would you have me support? Would you like me to support the Israel that went precipitously to war in Lebanon, bombing Lebanese civilians, homes and roads, putting its own population at risk, leaving its own soldiers vulnerable and incurring many casualties of both dead and wounded? Should I contribute to the Israel whose Prime Minister is now stubbornly fighting to retain his position in spite of the devestating Winograd Report and a rally in which over 100,000 people urged him to step down? You would have labeled me a “Jewish anti-Semite” had you taken note of me — and a small minority of fellow Western Mass. Jews — who, when the war in Lebanon broke out, did NOT lend our voices to the chorus of supporters of this folly, who urged diplomacy and negotiations instead, who voiced the same concerns then that the Winograd Report now takes the government to task for.
Would you like me to invest in the Israel whose soldiers all too often kill or wound innocent Palestinian civilians? The Israel whose security police, in January, killed a 10 year old Palestinian girl (Abir Aramin) when they fired rubber bullets at some school children who they claim were throwing rocks at them? Abir’s father, a leading member of a Palestinian/Israeli peace organization (Combatants for Peace) that urges both Palestinians and Israelis to lay down their arms and talk, spoke out after her killing to affirm his commitment to continue to work with his Israeli colleagues toward a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Would you like me to invest in the Israel that built a wall which deprives many innocent Palestinian farmers access to their fields, which makes travel from one West Bank town to another difficult and often impossible? A wall which, if it truly existed for security and not as another tool to appropriate land, would have served its purpose equally well if it had been built along the 1967 borders? Should my money go to the Israel which gives guns to 18-year old kids serving in the IDF and puts them in charge of checkpoints where they have to make judgment calls that are morally and politically laden, and where their major job is to control (and often humiliate) Palestinians who are for the most part trying to shop, go to work, go to school, get medical care, visit family, attend weddings?
Would you like me to invest in the Israel that continues to build new settlements and expand old ones, over even the occasional objections of the US government, creating ever more “facts on the ground” while giving lip service to various peace proposals such as The Road Map and the latest Arab League Peace Plan? The Israel which closes its eyes to the proliferating illegal settlements that spring up all over the West Bank?
I could continue along these lines. But I think you get the idea. By this time, perhaps you have stopped reading and decided that I’m a self-hating Jew, even though I’d like to reassure you that I take my Judaism very seriously AND that I care deeply about Israel and its right to exist, albeit not at its current borders. Or perhaps you have read what I’ve written but have filtered it through the counter-arguments that enable you to push aside the painful realities of the Israel that you support. I know many Israelis have been killed by suicide bombers. I know there are many in the Arab world who would like to see Israel cease to exist. I also know there are continual raids by the IDF into Palestinian homes, where fathers, brothers, sons are seized and imprisoned in Israeli prisons. I know too that there are targeted assassinations of presumed Palestinian “militants” occurring much more often than we hear about in the US papers. The occupation has created a cycle of retaliation and revenge that has gone on for 40 years now.
But in this situation it is the Israelis who have the power. It is the Israelis who can move toward a political, not a military, response and eventual solution. It is the Israelis who can stop building settlements, who can make a different set of “facts on the ground” which might lead to a just and fair solution. I am not interested in a “peace” which is only a euphemism for “quiet”, for keeping the Palestinian rockets at bay, for keeping the suicide bombers out of Israel, for maintaining a veneer of false calm that enables Israelis to get on with their daily lives while the Palestinians continue to suffer economic hardships, daily humiliations, and erosion of their human rights. That kind of “peace” is not a just or fair solution.
There are groups of Israelis who are working for real peace, for a fair and just resolution to the conflict. It is those Israeli (and Jewish-American) organizations that I choose to support. The Israel I support is that of Combatants for Peace, MachsomWatch, Refuser Solidarity Network, The Parents’ Circle, and (in America), Jewish Voice for Peace, Rabbis for Human Rights and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom.
So I regret that I will not attend your dinner, nor will I buy a bond for Israel until you can show me that the money will go to support the Judaism and Israel that I believe in: a community of justice, compassion, committed to human rights of all people.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Schamess
Author Archive for Steffi
Andrew’s mom here again…
The flap continues about Carter’s talk at Brandeis University. According to The Jewish Week it is possible that major donors to the university have withdrawn their financial support because of the school’s decision to invite former President Jimmy Carter to speak. The university stands to lose a considerable amount of money because these people were among the wealthiest givers to Brandeis. Although the figure of five million dollars is quoted in the article, this amount has not been confirmed. In addition, the school’s senior vice president for communication, Lorna Miles, denies knowing anything about it and contends that she has “not heard anything from donors.” However, the article notes that a student member of the faculty-student committee that invited Carter claims Miles was the person who provided him with the information that the school had “already lost” the $5 million, and at a February 5th faculty meeting, the school’s chief fundraiser referred to a “brewing problem” with donors.
Rebecca Spence, writing in The Forward, reports that Brandeis administrators have now refused permission to student groups who want to bring Norman Finkelstein, noted left-wing professor who is critical of Israel, to the campus, while a committee formed to deal with the issue of visiting speakers on Middle East politics has “put a hold” on an appearance from Daniel Pipes, a right-wing pro-Israel hawk.
The university’s policy vis-a-vis criticism of Israel has been, at the least, highly ambivalent. In spite of considerable ire from mainstream Jewish organizations, Brandeis awarded an honorary doctorate to Tony Kushner, another outspoken critic of Israel. But on another occasion President Reinharz (who managed to be out of town when Carter appeared) removed an art exhibit that included some paintings by children from Palestinian refugee camps which were clearly unflattering to Israel.
It is a cliche to say that universities ought to serve as venues for the open exchange of ideas. The many justifications for defending free speech on this and other campuses don’t need enumerating here. But since this is Brandeis University, it could be useful to imagine how Justice Louis D. Brandeis himself might have regarded the “balagan” (Hebrew for mess, uproar, major muddle) that his university finds itself in. Judge Brandeis was a leader in the early Zionist movement in the United States. His Zionism was rooted in the liberalism of his times; he saw it as a movement that would serve to embrace all Jews, whether they chose to live in their as-yet-to-be-established Jewish “homeland” or not. When, in July 1918 the Zionist Organization of America met at its convention in Pittsburgh to formulate the seven “resolutions” that would frame its policy in pursuit of this homeland, Brandeis was a highly influential contributor to the final result. The first of these resolutions informs us that one of the tenets of the Jewish homeland would be “Political and civil equality irrespective of race, sex, or faith, for all the inhabitants of the land.” (Whoops!! Has anyone told the current ZOA leadership about this?) The second resolution affirms the establishment of ownership and control of the land and of all public utilities by “the whole people.” If one accepts the premises of the first resolution, then of course it follows that “the whole people” must include all those living in the Jewish homeland, “irrespective of race, sex or faith.” (Whoops again, ZOA people.) And so on. The only one of the resolutions which specifically allots primacy to the “Jewishness” of the state is the last one, which specifies that Hebrew shall be the language of public instruction.
Some further quotes from Brandeis might help us imagine more fully what he might have to say about the current flap at his eponymous university.
“The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees.”
“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
“Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.”
“No danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is an opportunity for full discussion. Only an emergency can justify repression.”
“In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action.”
My guess is that Justice Brandeis would not be pleased with what is happening at Brandeis University right now. And those donors who in the past have given to the school because it bears his name, dishonor him now by witholding funds only because the university has chosen to allow the exercise of free speech he so eloquently defended in the quotes above. Furthermore, the donors seem to have forgotten that they are giving to an educational institution, not to an organization that exists for the purpose of promulgating a particular ideological position.
Of course, it’s easy to wax indignant about the issue of the donors at Brandeis, and the potential ramifications of the university’s caving in to that pressure. But how about the issue of the attempted boycotts of Israeli universities by European academics? The first of these was initiated in England, in 2002, and although that one and the others that have arisen periodically since then (in 2005, e.g.) have been variously debated and ultimately voted down, it is an issue that continues to crop up. Mona Baker, an Egyptian professor at the University of Manchester in England who publishes two journals, did succeed in “firing” two Israeli professors from her editorial board. Juan Cole, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education provides many clear and well reasoned arguments as to why “the shunning of Israeli academic institutions” is wrong — one of which is that academics of ALL
political persuasions are thereby punished for what their government is doing. Although the donors’ witholding of funds at Brandeis is not precisely analogous to academics denying the opportunity for contact and communication to their counterparts in Israel, in both cases there is a constriction placed on encounter with opinions and positions different from one’s own. Isolating any academic institution involves obstructing face-to-face contacts, denying presentation at conferences and the dissemination of journal articles that allow one to argue that one’s position has merit. This does not mean that every ideologue need be provided with an audience for his/her vitriol. But both individual institutions and the collective academic community have an obligation to make space for dialogue, for the transmission and evaluation of information, ideas and research findings through open exchange. Academic institutions have an obligation to expose students to conflicting ideas, to help them live with ambiguity, to stimulate them to ask questions and seek answers in non-dogmatic ways. The donors at Brandeis think they can use their money to exercise control over the university’s mission. The academics who promote boycotts use what I’m sure they think is the moral high ground to exercise inappropriate control over the mission of academia in general. Neither should prevail.
In my previous post about the Combatants for Peace speaking tour, (”A lot of dismay, a little bit of hope, and two great guys”) I mentioned that the Israeli combatant, Elik Elhanan, had lost his sister, Smadar, in a suicide bombing. Elik’s mother, Nurit Peled-Elhanan, has written an enormously moving piece for The Electronic Intifada on the death of Abir Aramin, daughter of her son’s colleague Bassam.
I had said in my post that it didn’t matter whether a bullet fired by Israelis or a rock thrown by Palestinian kids killed Abir: the ultimate cause of her death was the Occupation. In some sense that is true, but Peled-Elhanan makes the point that Israelis do not go to jail for killing Palestinian children. At least, she says, the Palestinian killer of her daughter blew himself up too — and if he hadn’t, he most certainly would have been imprisoned, if not killed, by the Israelis. Justice should be done. To mete out punishment to the perpetrator is to acknowledge the seriousness of the crime, and killling Palestinian children is generally not a crime in Israel: it is all too often simply “collatoral damage.” Says Peled-Elhanan, “The soldier who killed Abir is probably drinking beer, playing backgammon with his mates and going to discotheques at night. Abir is in a grave.”
Of course none of this will bring Abir — or Smadar — back. I say this as a mother who has lost a child: my younger son Gil died in his 30’s of cancer. He was not a victim of violence, and I cannot imagine what it must be like to live with the terrible added burden of the moral and political ramifications of your children’s deaths. But a loss is a loss is a loss, and I can only say to these other mothers — to Nurit and to Abir’s mother Salwa — I DO know about your grief. I DO know what it is like to live with the “if onlys,” the “what ifs,” the business of a young life left unfinished. There are far too many of you, Israeli and Palestinian parents alike, who are living with that grief.
But there is this: almost none of the Palestinian children who have died because of the Occupation are considered newsworthy enough (in America, at least) to be anything more than part of an occasional statistic. “Three children killed..” “A young boy died after…” “Seven children were killed when…” They are nameless numbers at best. Bassam’s role as a Combatant for Peace gave his daughter a place in the news that very few other Palestinian children have had. She has a name. Abir. Abir Aramin.
I will be saying kaddish next week on the 7th anniversary of my son’s death. I will say it also for Smadar, and for Abir.
It’s Andrew’s mom here, blogging for the first time ever. What brings me to this is a very intense three days spent in the company of Elik Elhanan and Souliman Al-Hamri, the Israeli and Palestinian coordinators of Combatants for Peace, who were here (in Western Massachusetts) as part of a 22-city tour sponsored by Brit Tzedek v’Shalom. I was fortunate enough to get to spend a lot of time with Elik and Souliman, including a one-hour drive to Stockbridge when my husband and I took them to meet up with their contact for Albany, NY, for the next stop in their tour.
The Combatants for Peace movement (abbreviated from now on as C4P) is a joint initiative of Palestinians and Israelis who have in the past used violence against one another — the Israelis during their army service, and the Palestinians in a variety of ways in their struggle against the Occupation. Each of the combatants arrived at the personal decision to renounce violence for different reasons: a sudden revelatory moment when the “enemy” turned out to be little children playing in the sand; a long prison term in which time for reflection led to a choice to work for peace rather than perpetuate violence; the realization that to take revenge for one death only led to more killing, more deaths.
Elik’s sister was killed by a suicide bomber, but he says he does not want anyone else to die “in her name.” Souliman spent 4 years in an Israeli prison, during which time he resolved to pursue his education when he got out, and to find non-violent ways to work toward freedom and justice for the Palestinians. As the organization’s brochure says, “After brandishing weapons for so many years, and having seen one another only through weapon sights, we have decided to put down our guns, and to fight for peace.”
When they arrived here, Elik and Souliman were reeling under the news they’d just received that the 10-year-old daughter of Bassam Ariman, a colleague of theirs from C4P, had been killed by an as-yet undetermined object that struck her in the head as she left her schoolyard and went to buy candy at a store nearby. There was a demonstration of some sort going on nearby and the Israeli Border Police were firing rubber bullets and lobbing stun grenades. Palestinian boys were, in response, throwing rocks. Elik and Souliman were visibly shaken when they informed their audiences of what had happened. It has since hit the news, with the father being interviewed on All Things Considered [1/22], and an article in today’s New York Times [1/23]. There was, and to date [1/23] still is, a question as to whether the child was hit by the grenade or a rock. Her family is pressing for an investigation, which they rightly deserve. But in my view, which weapon actually killed Abir Ariman doesn’t matter. The cause of her death is the Occupation, period. It is to her father’s enormous credit that he says her death will only make him work harder for peace, and to continue to renounce violence as the way to achieve justice. And it is to Elik’s and Souliman’s credit that they continued with their tour, still able to talk about dialogue, about a search for peace, about justice for the Palestinians, and about remaining committed to non-violence.
But these are not naive or unrealistic men. Elik’s criticism of the Israeli government’s policies in the Occupied Territories was devestating and harsh, as was his commentary about the treatment of Israeli Arabs within Israel. Souliman, who is an administrator in Fatah, was somewhat more restrained (perhaps because he was aware that he was talking to Jewish audiences and felt he needed to be more tactful), but he presented these audiences with a view of a Palestinian that they rarely, if ever, get. In fact, one of the most common responses I’ve gotten from friends and acquaintances whenever I talk about the various peace movements here and in Israel goes something like: “Fine, but they’re all Jews, or all Israelis. Where are the Palestinian peaceniks?” For anyone who came to the four events we held with Elik and Souliman (a talk in Amherst open to the public, a meeting with students at the local high school, a brunch with invited community Jewish leaders, and a Shabbat pot-luck dinner with members of the Jewish community at large), that question was answered.
Most of you who read this blog don’t need me to review the points they made about the terrible consequences of the Occupation. But there were a couple of particularly interesting responses to questions from the audience that are worth passing on.
When asked about the “problem” of demographics in Israel: i.e., the ratio of Jews to non-Jews, and how Israel will remain a “Jewish” state — (a topic on which I hope to blog in the future) — Elik said what the government really wants is not Jews per se, but “people like us,” meaning, as he explained, educated, European/Western middle class people. “Why else would they take 350,000 people from the Soviet Union,” he said, (many of whom were known even at the time to have lied about being Jewish in order to leave the USSR), “while they are now refusing to take 12,000 Ethiopian Jews who still want to come to Israel?” The “racism” is also “classism.” Elik pointed out that even Jews from the Arab countries are still treated like second-class citizens.
When asked about being a “refusnik” in Israel, Elik noted that a large number of Israeli kids are now getting out of military service by claiming everything from “sweaty palms,” to fear of showering with other men, to mental disability, to very minor physical ailments. The IDF is apparently allowing these kids to be excused from serving. “It’s very easy to get out of the Army,” Elik said. He gave some rather astounding percentages (something like 40%, but don’t quote me on this!) of how many kids either don’t serve at all, or get out of the service long before their tours of duty are completed. It’s striking to me that these young men don’t want to take a principled stand for their unwillingness to serve, but apparently don’t feel the need to “defend” their country, either. I didn’t get a chance to ask them about what the situation is for female recruits but it would be very interesting to have those statistics.
And lastly, Elik’s answer to the (of course expected) question about Jimmy Carter’s use of the term apartheid: “It is a foolish question to waste time on and detracts from the real issues. So in South Africa apartheid is ‘a, b, c and d.’ Maybe in Israel we don’t have that same pattern. Probably it is ‘a, b, f and g.’ Is it worth debating while people are dying?” (Thanks for this direct quote to Carolyn Toll Oppenheim, our chapter co-chair, who took extensive and detailed notes on Elik’s and Souliman’s talk.)
When asked about the rise in power of Hamas, Souliman said he felt it was the unilateral disengagement from Gaza that tipped the scales in favor of Hamas, since the Israelis still control the resources such as water and electricity, as well as travel both within and in and out of Gaza, etc., and there was no viable Palestinian-run infrastructure put in place in what was already a fairly chaotic situation.
Later, in our conversation in the car en route to Stockbridge, Souliman talked about the differences between the first and the second Intifadas. The first one, he said, was highly organized and well planned, with actions decided upon and executed under the general leadership of Fatah. There was much less violence, with strikes and other economic boycotts being used often and effectively. By the time of the second intifada, the unifying administrative infrastructure had been destroyed, primarily because of the fragmentation of Palestinian society resulting from the system of checkpoints throughout the Occupied Territories. Souliman explained that this fragmentation, as well as the disintegration of the economy, gave rise to old tribal and clan hegemonies within the towns and villages, which in turn stimulated old rivalries and led to the increased power of fringe groups within the political spectrum. He also commented that because of this factionalism, the second intifada has made much more use of violent tactics, which require only guns, not organization. “We were disciplined,” he said of his experience as a participant in the first intifada. “We were focused and united.”
Elik and Souliman were very, very well received on this stop of their tour, but that’s not surprising — we know we have a large segment of left-wing Jews here. But they said they were surprised and pleased to find their reception at the previous 8 cities (they have about 13 more to go on their tour) had also been largely positive. They were sure they’d be facing much more difficult audiences: they thought all American Jews were, as they put it, AIPAC supporters. So although one wishes that they were not preaching to the choir, it is nonetheless good to know that they are heartened by the amount of support they find here, and they feel they have been able to mobilize a lot of sympathizers to become more politically active. Although their public talk here in Western Mass. was in was in a “neutral” place (a community center, not a synagogue), they said all of their venues up until then had been synagogues, where they encountered only a very few instances of outright confrontation and hostility. That’s the hopeful part. The dismaying part is the rest of it. But if Elik, Souliman and Bassam Ariman can keep up the good fight, I guess I can too.