Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Krugman and Brooks: Eye to eye for once?

Krugman: "The Rambo Coalition" and Brooks: "The Vietnam Passion"

Two NY Times Op-Ed columnists who are usually at odds presented cases today against Bush and Kerry that are remarkably consonant with each other. Krugman, whose columns I read avidly, calls Bush's attempts to smear Kerry indicative of a "Rambo" mentality that projects a vision of the world at once simplistic and ultimately blindered and destructive. Brooks, whose columns I often cannot stomach, writes of the disappearance of Kerry the outspoken moralist and his replacement by Kerry the diplomatic double-speaker. Both of these criticisms, it seems to me, are valid. And yet, I'd still take Kerry over Bush, because I've seen what the Bush White House has done at home and abroad in four years, and I'm much less fearful of what a Kerry administration might do by obsequious and overly cautious omission. In short, give me a politically weak president any day over an ideologue.

ei: The writing on the wall

ei: The writing on the wall

Mitchell Plitnick, who is one of two co-directors of Jewish Voice for Peace, published this article about Israel's separation wall on the Electronic Intifada's Web site. His analysis of the Hague Court's ruling on the wall, including the lone American dissenter's reasoning, is informative, as is his general approach to understanding the problem of the wall as an ethical one. It is not, as he explains, legitimate to claim that the wall represents an actual threat to Israelis, as some peace activists claim; in fact, the wall has indeed reduced the number of Israeli civilian casualties by blocking access to would-be Palestinian suicide bombers. The real problem for Israel, he contends, is that the wall is increasing the nation's pariah status as an occupier, encouraging illegal settlement policies, and fomenting anti-Arab xenophobia and oppression that is rotting the ethical basis of Israeli society. For the Palestinians, of course, the wall is making life extremely difficult for individual civilians and next to impossible for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

Monday, August 23, 2004

My letter to Presbyweb.com

To: Editor, Presbyweb.com

August 23, 2004

Dear Mr. Cornelder,

I am writing in response to an August 12th letter by Diana Appelbaum of the Boston Israel Action Center published on Presbyweb's letters page. In her letter, Ms. Appelbaum calls upon the Presbyterian Church USA to distance itself from the San Francisco Bay Area organization Jewish Voice for Peace. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) recently supported the Presbyterian Church’s decision to consider divesting from companies whose business in Israel harms innocent people, whether Israeli or Palestinian (see JVP’s letter of support). One such company mentioned by the Presbyterian Church is the Caterpillar Corporation, which sells the armored bulldozers that have been used by Israeli forces to demolish thousands of Palestinian civilians’ homes since the outbreak of the Intifada in 2000, in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions’ protection of occupied populations.

In her letter to Presbyweb, Ms. Appelbaum invents an egregious analogy in which she compares Jewish Voice for Peace’s status in the Jewish community to that of a hypothetical pro-eugenics organization within the Presbyterian community. It would be hard to imagine a more offensive charge to hurl at Jews, whatever their political persuasion, whose collective (and often family) history includes victimization by the eugenics policies that accompanied the Nazi genocide. Tellingly, Ms. Appelbaum's thuggish rhetorical tactics are supported by no information about Jewish Voice for Peace or its political positions other than her mention that the San Francisco Jewish Federation did not allow the group to have a booth at a recent pro-Israel rally.

A little bit of history: since the end of the Oslo negotiations in 2000, and the election of the hawkish Ariel Sharon as prime minister of Israel, Jews have had to decide whether they support or oppose the current Israeli administration’s hard line tactics in the Occupied Territories and its internationally condemned expansion of Jewish settlements there. Not surprisingly, this ethical and political quandary has led to increasing polarization within the American Jewish community, and a circling of the wagons by those who support Israel no matter how it behaves. Fortunately, there are many Jews within Israel and in the U.S. who recognize that the best way to support peace and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians is to work to abolish the injustices that extended occupation has wrought. Yet such a recognition has not always sat easily -- and less so since the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians erupted in earnest -- with some established Jewish organizations that confuse legitimate support for Israel with unheeding support for all of its government’s policies.

As an example of this hardening of positions, Jewish Voice for Peace regularly was permitted to have a booth at pro-Israel events sponsored by the Jewish Federation in the late 1990s. Since the outbreak of the current conflict, however, Jewish Voice for Peace has often clashed with the Federation and its political arm, the Jewish Community Relations Council, when these institutions have promulgated policies that appear narrowly one-sided in their approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Because of its opposition to such policies, Jewish Voice for Peace has increasingly been excluded from Federation activities, even as the Federation has, by direction of some of its largest Jewish donors, cut checks to Jewish Voice for Peace.

All of this suggests that the Presbyterian Church is in fact correct to build alliances with a group such as Jewish Voice for Peace, which has refused to join some of the most established American Jewish organizations in granting the Sharon government a green light to pursue unjust policies. Jewish Voice for Peace speaks for and with the many American Jews who understand that any resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be equitable in order to endure the test of time. Despite Ms. Appelbaum’s outrageous and politically self-serving claim that Jewish Voice for Peace “work[s] actively for the destruction of the Jewish state,” one visit to our Web site or a review of our activities since the group’s founding in 1996 should be enough to convince an unbiased observer that we mean what we say: we stand for the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live together peacefully and democratically.

The Presbyterian Church USA has demonstrated its ability to dispassionately analyze the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to take actions that support a just and peaceful resolution. Such fair-mindedness has undoubtedly not been well received by some. Jewish Voice for Peace knows very well what it means to take a just and equitable stance that angers established interests, and to stick to it in the face of baseless (and sometimes base) attacks.

Sincerely,

Lincoln S..., Founding Member, A Jewish Voice for Peace
shlensky.org

Sunday, August 22, 2004

Haaretz: Still Torturing Palestinians

Posted to Jewish Peace News on 8/22/04:

In response to a hunger strike recently initiated by Palestinian prisoners protesting their treatment in Israeli prisons, Israeli Minister for Internal Security Tzahi Hanegbi declared the other day, "For all I care, they can starve to death." Hanegbi's callous comment should remind us that an alternate carceral world of Israeli-Palestinian relationships is mainly hidden from the eyes of the international press and the public. That world has its own laws and customs, many of which continue to fail the crucial ethical tests of a democratic society.

Recent Israeli Supreme Court decisions have banned the formerly common practice of torturing detainees, suggesting that things have changed over time in the carceral underground; but a document recently uncovered during a Haaretz investigation reveals that the practice of torturing prisoners has not ended (see first article below). Torture is universally prohibited under the legal principle of jus cogens (or customary law), according to Human Rights Watch, but even more specifically under the Convention Against Torture (which the US signed in 1994, but which has come under increasing verbal assault by American political pundits who seem ill-inclined to protect basic human rights), and various other international laws.

In defining torture as a crime against humanity, the Convention states that "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." For a very useful account of the international legal prohibitions against torture, see Human Rights Watch's Q & A on torture. Israeli authorities, for their part, must comply with their nation's own Supreme Court rulings and international laws prohibiting torture. Until that happens, and until Israel recognizes the importance of treating its prisoners humanely (see Uri Avnery's article, second below), international observers must protest vociferously for the rights of those who have no freedom to do so themselves. --LS

Sunday, August 15, 2004

A Critique of Ralph Nader's Response to ADL's Abe Foxman

In his response letter to ADL director Abraham Foxman, Ralph Nader mentions Jewish Voice for Peace and other Jewish groups (Tikkun, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Refuseniks, etc.). I think this bespeaks success of Jewish dissenter organizations in getting across an alternative message about the American Jewish response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Much of what Nader says about dissent on Mideast issues rings true -- particularly his argument that members of Congress who may be deeply troubled by Sharon's policies don't have the freedom to disagree with them publicly without becoming targets of AIPAC's powerful political lobbying machine.

On the other hand, what Nader says (and what Thomas Friedman and many others before him have said) about US policy being held hostage to Israeli policy is erroneous. Over the years, the US has pursued policies in the Middle East that serve our government's narrow ideological and economic interests. That successive US administrations have tended to hew closely to Israeli policy is less due to politicians' concern for the American Jewish vote (although this may be the case in certain circumstances) than to the geopolitical coalescence of American and Israeli interests. These interests have to do with asserting a political order in the Middle East that both Israeli and US administrations have seen as useful to their own hegemonic aims -- no matter how shortsighted such approaches tend to be. It is vital that thoughtful critics of Israeli and American policy in the Middle East be able to articulate this distinction, and not the inverted and mystifying view that Israel simply controls the US, an argument which runs parallel to Judeophobic myths of the past.

As for Nader himself -- I am gratified that his political campaign refuses to walk in lock step with the Republicans and the Democrats on foreign policy matters. I'm pleased that his political antenae have picked up what the mainstream parties refuse to avow: that many critical-minded Americans (including a great many dissenting American Jews) reject the current US policy in the Middle East. John Kerry, by contrast, has done an extremely poor job of creating and articulating a meaningful distinction between his perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and those of George Bush's administration. Indeed, the Democratic candidate seems to model his policy positions and, just his disturbingly, his rhetoric, ever more perfectly on the Republicans' examples.

Would I vote for Nader for this reason? I don't think so. I have been impressed by Nader's consistency in advocating a 'third option' that would scramble the "Tweedledee and Tweedledum" character of the American two-party system. He has certainly focussed attention on domestic issues that the major parties ignore, particularly universal healthcare and a living wage -- and now, on our deeply misguided Middle East policy. I fully agree with Nader that having only two options necessarily impoverishes Americans' political choices and reduces our ability to understand how political issues are framed in public discourse.

On the other hand, Nader's candidacy may achieve the opposite of its putatively progressive goals if he ultimately contributes to Bush's reelection this year. The current administration has shown itself to be an arch-conservative wolf in moderate sheep's clothing that places corporate interests above the public interest. We can ill-afford four more years of this administration's wanton mendacity and destructive social and foreign policies. Nader can argue that these are the stakes in any election cycle and that the creation of a viable third party cannot wait; I would counter that he may do more harm than good for the third-party option if he serves as the spoiler in an election as deeply ideological as this one. I have been far from impressed, moreover, by the way Nader has gone about martialing support for his candidacy by accepting donations from big-donor Republicans who view him as a useful spoiler for the liberal vote (see, for example, this Newsweek expose).

In short, I thank Nader for bringing new attention to failed Middle East (and other) policies that the Democrats and Republicans cannot be allowed to sweep under the carpet. I particularly appreciate his mention of JVP and other progressive Jewish and/or Israeli groups. And I recommend that he devote his energy to badgering the major parties into reconsidering such issues and formulating saner policies. But this doesn't mean that I'll vote for Nader. In fact, I very much hope that Nader withdraws from the running -- but only after he collects as much Republican cash as he can get and gives the Kerry campaign a black left eye.

--Lincoln