by Mitchell Plitnick

Today, I’m asking my readers to please support the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The group has been working hard on some new legislation and it’s really important to help get this bill to the floor of the Senate and the House.

According to a report in Buzzfeed, [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Mitchell Plitnick

Today, I’m asking my readers to please support the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The group has been working hard on some new legislation and it’s really important to help get this bill to the floor of the Senate and the House.

According to a report in Buzzfeed, AIPAC has been working with congressional staff members for months on the bill, trying to find the formula for success. The bill would “…aim to prevent U.S. companies from participating in the (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel) campaign without infringing on Americans’ First Amendment rights to political speech. It would also try to make the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership being negotiated between the U.S. and E.U. conditional on whether the E.U. takes action to stop BDS.”

And how would they prevent US companies from participating in BDS? By “…authorizing states and local governments to divest from companies deemed to be participating in BDS,” and by denying “…federal contracts to such companies.” This bill should be at the top of the agenda for American activists in the United States who wish to see our country change its policies towards Israel and Palestine.

AIPAC hasn’t been doing very well of late. Their attempt to weasel a provision into another bill that would have allowed Israelis to enter the United States without a visa while Israel refused to make the same arrangement for US citizens raised a lot of hackles on Capitol Hill, even in some offices that are very AIPAC-friendly. The proposed provision was killed. AIPAC was unable to sway the Senate against the nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. Nor has it been able to significantly impact the Obama administration’s efforts to reach an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program.

There have been a lot of failures lately, including the failure to get Congress to push hard for an attack on Syria last year. But this bill, if it ever reaches the floor, could be the biggest bust of all, with some serious ramifications for the powerful lobbying group.

Let’s just start with the First Amendment issues this raises. If this bill ever sees the light of day, AIPAC is going to try to convince people that it is similar to the laws passed forty years ago in response to the Arab League’s boycott of Israel. Put simply, it isn’t.

Those laws–the 1977 amendments to the Export Administration Act (EAA) and the Ribicoff Amendment to the 1976 Tax Reform Act (TRA)–were drawn up narrowly, to apply only in the case of abetting or cooperating with a boycott directed at Israel by other countries. The mentions of boycott “by a foreign nation” or similar words are so frequent that the meaning cannot be missed. This is no surprise, of course; Congress is loath to dictate to US businesses, and it is especially tricky where a national interest is not clearly and immediately at stake. So these laws were contrived so that they only barred supporting boycotts by foreign countries against Israel.

In the case of BDS, no government is running this program, not even the pseudo-governments of the Palestinian Territories. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has not endorsed boycotts of Israel and is, itself, completely incapable of boycotting Israeli goods and services. It is in most ways a captive market to Israel. Hamas has, frankly, paid little attention to such measures, though they have encouraged them rhetorically from time to time.

There is a call for BDS from Palestinian civil society, but that is not covered by the 1970s laws. Moreover, any law that would target BDS would need to be constructed in such a way so that it would not have made boycotts of Apartheid South Africa illegal. Those boycotts also came in response to a call from the African National Congress. If businesses could not engage in such activities, there would be great outrage.

So the Arab League boycott is moot as a basis for anti-BDS legislation. The right to boycott is also not limited by what the government decides is an acceptable boycott and what is not. People, and businesses, are free to choose with whom they will do business. Congress making such decisions violates the very essence of the First Amendment, and it is highly unlikely that such a law could pass as a result and, if it could, even less likely that it could withstand legal challenges.

The bit about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is even more toxic. The point of TTIP is to make international trade between the United States and European Union easier, to reduce tariffs and lessen bureaucracy. The idea is to significantly improve the speed, and thus the volume and value, of trade between the two economic giants. Adding stipulations like ensuring that EU states are working against BDS is precisely what TTIP is designed to avoid. Whatever my own objections to TTIP (and they are many), it clearly holds great appeal for businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.

It is one thing for US citizens with influence in Washington to go along with the powerful lobbying forces defending Israel’s ability to act with impunity in the region; for the most part, that has not had a negative effect on trade. But this would be a very different matter. Now we are talking about AIPAC going up against powerful, domestic business interests. That is a whole new ballgame.

Even bringing the bill to the floor would demonstrate in a clearer way than ever before that AIPAC is willing to compromise US commercial interests and even one of the most cherished and basic freedoms the US prides itself on for the sake of Israeli interests.

Consider also that the overwhelming majority of boycott actions, divestment decisions and even popular proposals for sanctions against Israel have focused squarely on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. They have not targeted Israel as a whole, with the exception of some of the attempts at cultural and academic boycott. But these are not major concerns for Israel nor do they have the same impact potential as economic boycotts and divestment. So, the threat to free speech and to international trade that this bill represents would be demonstrably in the service of the settlement enterprise, the siege of Gaza and the occupation regime more generally. The mask would be off.

In reality, I very much doubt any such legislation is ever going to move forward, at least not from AIPAC. They know the problems as well as anyone and, while I don’t doubt that they are working constantly with their closest friends in Congress to see if something could work, I don’t think they’ll be successful. But if you want to see AIPAC suffer major damage, such a bill would do it. I can’t think of a better strategy to oppose AIPAC than to do everything we can to make sure this sort of doomed anti-BDS legislation hits the floor in Congress with a resounding thud.

Follow LobeLog on Twitter and like us on Facebook

by Mitchell Plitnick

In his speech at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Professor Steven Salaita, who was “de-hired” quite suddenly after the university’s chancellor faced strong pressure from major donors objecting to Salaita’s tweets about Israel’s massive military campaign in Gaza, issued this warning: “As the Center for Constitutional Rights and [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Mitchell Plitnick

In his speech at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Professor Steven Salaita, who was “de-hired” quite suddenly after the university’s chancellor faced strong pressure from major donors objecting to Salaita’s tweets about Israel’s massive military campaign in Gaza, issued this warning: “As the Center for Constitutional Rights and other groups have been tracking, this is part of a nationwide, concerted effort by wealthy and well-organized groups to attack pro-Palestinian students and faculty and silence their speech. This risks creating a Palestinian exception to the First Amendment and to academic freedom.”

At Ohio University, the disturbing reality of the different treatment accorded to pro-Israel, as opposed to pro-Palestinian views supports Salaita’s statement. Of course, the treatment of Salaita is, itself, rock-solid evidence of this point. That is especially true since the university’s chancellor, Phyllis Wise, has backed off her initial claim that Salaita’s de-hire was caused not by his views but by the allegedly “uncivil” way he expressed them. She has since admitted that she faced pressure from influential figures around the university, i.e. major donors.

But a report today in Ha’aretz on an incident at Ohio University offers an even clearer view. The president of the student senate at OU, Megan Marzec, used the opportunity of taking the ALS Ice-bucket challenge to make a statement about Gaza. She wore a shirt that urged divestment from Israel, stated that the blood in her bucket (which was, of course, fake) represented the Palestinians that Israel had “murdered and displaced,” and dumped the bucket over her head.

The response from the organized Jewish community on the OU campus was swift and quite typical. Ha’aretz quotes the leader of a pro-Israel campus group, Becky Sebo: “Her video has kind of torn the campus apart. My initial response was complete shock. We’ve never had any BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement on our campus, have always had a very open, welcoming community.” Now, she said, “Jewish students in particular are feeling very singled out by the video. Many Jewish students are feeling concerned about their safety and how other students will respond to these accusations against Israel.”

This hyper-sensitivity represents a complete reversal of reality, among other things. There is not a single report of Jewish students being harassed, much less assaulted, as a result of Marzec’s video. But Marzec herself has drawn death threats and hate mail. So much so that Homeland Security has gotten involved on campus. Of course, the pro-Israel groups, no doubt quite sincerely, condemned and called for an end to such acts. But let us ask the question: who has legitimate reason to fear for their safety?

There are also other dimensions to this story. Consider the words of Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Center on Extremism. “The students who want to present a non-biased pro-Israel view have their work cut out for them because there are going to be a lot of efforts to delegitimize their point of view. I anticipate we’ll see more anti-Israel activities than ever before.”

Just read those words, and the thinking is revealed. “A non-biased pro-Israel view.” That is an obvious oxymoron. If the view is pro-Israel, or if it is pro-Palestinian, it is, by definition, biased. What Segal implies here is that any unbiased view would be pro-Israel and any other conclusion can only come about as the result of bias.

And then there’s this whole argument about “de-legitimizing,” whether it is about Israel or of points of view. The working definition of this “de-legitimization” seems to be centered around any argument against Israeli policies, against Zionism, or against any kind of support for the Palestinians. The point of debate, of argument, is to establish that your view has more merit than the opposing one. That should be encouraged (as, indeed, Jewish tradition does), not feared. And certainly, it must not be stamped down.

The shallow arguments get even better. The Director of the OU’s Hillel (a national Jewish student organization), Rabbi Danielle Leshaw, demonstrated just how far the so-called “pro-Israel community” has departed from Jewish traditions and more universal values of open discussion and debating difficult issues.

“Your video marginalizes and isolates students,” Leshaw wrote in an open letter to Marzec published in The Post. “It makes Jewish parents want to bring their kids back home to the safety of the Jewish suburbs …. you need to step down, and give somebody else the chance to lead our Ohio University student population. Somebody that won’t polarize, or divide, or marginalize, or ‘other,’ or cause hysteria, or make students feel unsafe.”

Leshaw, it must be noted, is far from a conservative voice, and she is, herself, no stranger to criticizing pro-Israel programs. She also strongly disagrees with Marzec’s view of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Her call for Marzec to resign as student senate president is “Not because of your politics, but because of your lack of awareness, compassion, and mostly, because of your lack of vision.”

Let’s unpack Rabbi Leshaw’s thinking. Just how does Marzec’s video “marginalize and isolate students?” She presents a political statement, at a time when the Israeli military was acting in so brutal a manner that even their American colleagues, who are themselves quite familiar with killing civilians, were shocked. One wonders: If someone had done the exact same video during Russia’s aggression against Chechnya 15 years ago, would anyone have been concerned that Russian students were marginalized and isolated? Of course not, mostly because they wouldn’t have been and because everyone would have been applauding the strong statements against the massive damage being done to civilians, and rightly so.

Marzec’s video, Rabbi Leshaw says, “…makes Jewish parents want to bring their kids back home to the safety of the Jewish suburbs?” That is a familiar and tired argument, one that got badly worn out during the battles for school integration and during the civil rights movement. Just substitute “White” for Jewish, and the sentence says the very same thing. It is irrational fear of the other, something that needs to be confronted, not accommodated.

Rabbi Leshaw also says that Megan’s video makes “alumni want to pull their funding.” I wonder if she thought about that complaint before putting it in her letter. An apparently liberal woman believes that donors should have the ability to stop students from making controversial political statements? Would she have said the same about protests against the Vietnam War or for women’s rights back in the 1960s and 70s? Because surely there were those alumni who took similar offense to bra-burning demonstrations back then. No, it is only opposition to Israeli policies that merits such kowtowing, I suspect.

Rabbi Leshaw also says that Megan’s video “makes people threaten” the university and its programs, a disturbing echo of Israel’s self-serving and unsellable (outside of the US and Israel, that is) claim that all those Palestinian deaths were Hamas’ fault. Defying such bullying is why Rabbi Leshaw thinks Marzec should step down, rather than seeing it for what it is: precisely the sort of action that a student leader must take if they are to ever be leaders for social change outside the university. The same would be true if this was a pro-Israel statement. Those who support Israel’s policies or feel they must defend Israel should also not give in to any attempts to intimidate them into silence. It is not the opinion that matters, and on that point, Rabbi Leshaw claims to agree. So would she have the same objections if the issue was not Israel? Given her professed values, it seems doubtful.

Megan Marzac sees the Israeli occupation and then the shockingly brutal onslaught on Gaza. She believes that these should be opposed and future incidents prevented, and believes that the global Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement is the best way to achieve that. She lacks neither awareness nor compassion. Her statement was one of condemnation of repeated and ongoing human rights violations. That demonstrates considerable awareness and compassion, whether you agree with her views or not.

Is it Marzac’s lack of vision then? Well, it is fair to say that her identification as student senate president gives the impression that she was doing this with some sort of sanction from the senate, which apparently was not the case. That’s an error, but such a mistake is hardly grounds for her removal, especially since she subsequently made it clear that this was her own action.

In any case, the notion that strong support for the Palestinians and even harsh criticism of Israel is somehow threatening to Jews has to be challenged. It is a false accusation, but more importantly, it is one in a long list of bullying tactics that seek to silence support for the Palestinians on campus and more broadly, in the public discourse. Those tactics include attempts to legislate against boycotts of Israel (all of which have failed thus far), manipulating organizations by threatening their funding, harassing media outlets when they give space for pro-Palestinian views, and claiming victimhood when they themselves are the victimizer.

Megan Marzac did what student activists should do: she made a bold statement. The response from the allegedly pro-Israel community has been nothing short of the worst kind of bullying, even aside from the extremists who have threatened her with physical harm. Do these people believe that Israel’s case is so weak that it cannot withstand public debate? It seems so, but that is only true because they are making the wrong argument. They are working to make Israel an exception to international laws of war, and supporting Israel’s regular violation of Palestinian rights through Israel’s occupation regime (as thoroughly documented by many Israeli human rights groups like B’Tselem, Yesh Din, Gisha and others). These so-called pro-Israelis are trying to defend Israeli military actions that regularly kill far more civilians than combatants, leave infrastructure devastated and make already impoverished people even more desperate.

What if they tried making the honest case that what is really needed is, quite simply, equal rights for all and a homeland where Jews and Palestinians can flee to if they are facing persecution and where both peoples can express and live their national identity, in whatever political configuration? Maybe then they wouldn’t resort to bullying tactics because they’re so terrified of an honest, open discussion in the public arena.

Photo: Megan Marzec, president of Ohio University’s student senate, at a Sept. 1o meeting.

by Henry Precht

Lidice was a town in German-occupied Czechoslovakia that not too many people will remember now. It was there early in World War II that partisans assassinated the local Nazi commander, Reinhard Heydrich. In revenge, the Nazis executed the community’s males: 173 men over the age of 15. In addition, [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Henry Precht

Lidice was a town in German-occupied Czechoslovakia that not too many people will remember now. It was there early in World War II that partisans assassinated the local Nazi commander, Reinhard Heydrich. In revenge, the Nazis executed the community’s males: 173 men over the age of 15. In addition, 184 women and 88 children were sent to concentration camps; 153 women returned, 17 children.

Later, in 1944 in France there was the village of Oradour-sur-Glane where a Nazi commander was believed to have been kidnapped. One hundred forty-two inhabitants were massacred by SS troops and the village destroyed. (Its ruins remain as a monument.) It turned out that the German bureaucracy had gotten confused and originally intended Oradour-sur-Vaynor for destruction as the locus of the kidnapping. Mistakes happen in time of war.

After the war the victorious nations, responding to these and other Nazi atrocities, joined together to draft the Fourth Geneva Convention. The first three conventions, dating from the turn of the 20th century, were an attempt to “civilize” the conduct of warfare. The fourth convention deals with the treatment of civilians in war. The crimes of Lidice and Oradour are banned as collective punishment under paragraph 33. The US, Israel and 194 other nations have signed up.

It seems to me that collective punishment is precisely what Israel with US-supplied weaponry has been inflicting on its Palestinian enemies on and off since territory was seized in the 1967 war. The present surge in violence, including a ground invasion, started when three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped — an awful crime without pardon. Hamas was blamed without a shred of evidence produced. Over 200 people from all walks of life were jailed without charge — except that they were associated with Hamas. Then, in an apparent revenge attack by Israelis, a Palestinian youth was burned to death. Another Palestinian boy, an American citizen, was badly beaten by police and arrested. Six Hamas militants were killed in Gaza.

Tensions mounted. Hamas fired its rockets at Israel, harming no one. That unleashed Israel, which retaliated with heavy firepower, killing over 250 persons at this writing and wounding many more. “Collateral damage which we tried to avoid,” says Israel. One person has since been killed this week on the Israeli side: a volunteer at an Israeli military base near the border. Crowds of Israelis cheer on the bombing in Gaza. Collective punishment in a small space crammed with 1.8 million people, I say. American politicians from the president down only say Israel “has the right to defend itself,” and urge both sides to cool down. No mention of a violation of international law.

Back to the Geneva Convention and its rules. One of them is the requirement that an occupying power (like Israel) will “protect” the inhabitants under its control. That would seem to mean, at a minimum, not bombing Gaza’s water facilities and depriving 1.8 million people of fresh water. Mistakes happen in time of war; yet they can be avoided by not taking risky actions that can be reasonably foreseen to harm innocents.

Another of the Convention’s prohibitions (article 49) is that an occupying power shall not transfer its citizens into occupied territory. That is what makes Israel’s construction of settlements on Palestinian land a violation of international law. Virtually all the world, including Washington, agrees on that charge.

Then why doesn’t “the world” act to enforce international law? In good part because Washington has blocked any such move at the United Nations. Europeans tend to follow our lead, although its dutiful subservience has been weakening of late.

In light of the flaccid official stance private groups and some public entities have begun to use other means of putting pressure on Israel to conform to international standards. This is the “Boycott, Divest and Sanction” movement that advocates cutting ties to Israeli and foreign entities that support the occupation of Palestine. Banks and firms in Europe have moved against Israeli businesses and their cooperating outsiders, for example, Caterpillar, which sells bulldozers used to level homes of Palestinians. Some religious groups have taken similar action.

International isolation worked against apartheid South Africa — in a not dissimilar situation. If ordinary Americans understood the hardships of Palestinians under Israeli occupation, they might generate sufficient pressure to move our leaders towards a more morally balanced posture. As long, however, as our politics are so closely bound up with contributions from special interests, any change will come only very, very slowly.

Photo: Palestinians inspect the remains of a house which was destroyed during an air strike in Central Bureij refugee camp, in the Middle Area of the Gaza Strip, July 15, 2014. Credit: Shareef Sarhan/UNRWA Archives

Follow LobeLog on Twitter and like us on Facebook

by Mitchell Plitnick

On June 14, members of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) will gather in Detroit, Michigan for their biennial General Assembly meeting. A lot of eyes will be focused on this gathering, particularly those who have managed to maintain interest in the Israel-Palestine conflict in the wake of the [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Mitchell Plitnick

On June 14, members of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) will gather in Detroit, Michigan for their biennial General Assembly meeting. A lot of eyes will be focused on this gathering, particularly those who have managed to maintain interest in the Israel-Palestine conflict in the wake of the collapse of the “peace process.”

The Presbyterians are going to revisit a vote on divestment from companies profiting from Israel’s occupation that failed in 2012 by a mere two votes. Given that narrow margin of victory (the final tally was 333-331 with two abstentions), many believe it might just pass this time. As a result, pro-divestment groups have reinvigorated their efforts to support Presbyterian divestment, while opponents have redoubled their efforts to oppose the resolution.

Leading the charge against the PCUSA’s proposal is none other than the ostensibly pro-peace J Street. One can find, even in the Jewish weekly, The Forward, opinions on the absurdity of J Street’s stance. But the opposition of even so centrist a group to the proposal sheds light on efforts to oppose any and all efforts to exert material pressure on Israel to change its policies.

The arguments against the PCUSA’s divestment proposal begin with opposition to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS). That movement is a very broad one, and it includes strident anti-Zionists and one-staters as well as Zionists and two-staters. In general, it is fair to say that the only common thread that unites them all is the notion that the most focused effort right now must be directed at changing Israeli policy, and that to do so, economic and political pressure must be exerted.

I agree with that notion; indeed, I have been arguing that the Palestinians have ample material reason to make great compromises — while Israel does not — for over fifteen years, and that economic measures are the best way for citizens of other countries to bring that pressure to bear. Personally, I don’t agree with many of the more prominent and visible BDS tactics, such as academic boycotts of Israeli universities and some of the more over-zealous efforts to pressure artists from performing in Israel. My differences on these tactics are based on my own judgment of their efficacy.

But you simply cannot find a more unassailable proposal than the one the PCUSA is bringing forth. Knowingly or not, opposing it can only mean one thing: supporting the status quo, fighting to maintain the occupation. Of course, that is not J Street’s intention; but it is the outcome of their stance.

The PCUSA will be deciding whether or not to divest from three well-known corporations – Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard (HP) — due to the fact that their business with Israel helps support the occupation. Motorola sells advanced communications technology to the Israeli military, which are routinely and specifically used in the Occupied Territories. HP “…manages all Information Technology (IT) including its operational communications, logistics and planning including the ongoing naval blockade of the Gaza Strip,” and also provides scanning equipment used by the Israeli military specifically at checkpoints in the West Bank. Caterpillar has long been a target for divestment because it sells Israel a great deal of heavy equipment, some of it customized, that is used to both build settlements and destroy Palestinian homes.

It is perfectly legitimate for the PCUSA or any other group to divert their own funds from supporting such practices. Indeed, that is, theoretically, just what is supposed to happen in a free market, open society system. The only way one can possibly equate economic action to oppose, both rhetorically and practically, such business practices is by equating opposition to the occupation with being anti-Israel. That is something that the PCUSA certainly does not wish to be. The Presbyterians are grappling internally with something that should not be a contradiction: being a friend to Jews and supporting the right of all people to freedom and justice. No Jewish individual or organization should be telling them that a decision to take their money out of international corporations that are profiting from Israel’s occupation is somehow anti-Israel.

The arguments against the Presbyterians action are, sadly, quite duplicitous. First, they collapse all economic actions against the occupation or against Israel as a whole into one category and then claim, without basis, that one particular strand of BDS activists represents all of them and, by extension, taints any economic action against the occupation. Such arguments fail a basic test of avoiding fallacious thinking, but they are, without a doubt, persuasive, especially on emotional issues.

At a recent J Street summit, the group’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, echoed such a view, albeit in a more subtle fashion. “Some will say that you have to go toward the path of BDS…and negative punishment that raises the cost, that drives home that this [continued Israeli occupation] is a path that has consequences,” Ben-Ami said. “That’s not the path for J Street. That’s never going to be the path that we go down. We believe that there’s a better way to talk to friends and family than to wield the big stick and bash people over the head. We have to talk with them out of love and out of concern, and we have to bring our message in a way that will really resonate.”

But in fact, the PCUSA proposal does not punish Israel in any way. Far from “bashing” anyone over the head, it is a way of removing one’s own support from abhorrent practices. None of the business activities that the PCUSA objects to have anything to do with Israeli security; they all have to do with maintaining the occupation and the concomitant, daily human rights violations endured by the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. The PCUSA is saying that they will take their investments elsewhere after a decade of trying to convince these corporations to stop doing this sort of business. One must emphasize, again, that the Presbyterians did not at any time implore these or any other corporations to stop or to limit the business they do with Israel that does not support the occupation.

Only by defining, as many supporters of the status quo do, the ongoing occupation as an Israeli security measure, and thereby excusing it and blaming the Palestinians for their own lack of freedom and rights can one justify opposing the PCUSA’s measures. To be sure, there is no shortage of Jewish or Christian groups who do just that (the Orwellian-named “Presbyterians for Middle East Peace” is a shameful example of the latter). But J Street is supposed to be different. They are supposed to see the occupation as a detriment to Israel’s security and not a boon; they are supposed to see it as a threat to Israel’s future.

I’ve said before that I’ve known Jeremy Ben-Ami and many other people involved deeply with J Street for many years. I know they are not intentionally acting against peace and against Palestinian rights. But they are attempting to square a circle that cannot be bent in that direction by trying to both shield Israel from the consequences of its 47-year old occupation and, at the same time, pressing to end the occupation with nothing more than words.

It doesn’t work that way. Indeed, Ben-Ami and J Street are actually putting forth the very dangerous notion that somehow Israel is different from any other country. Governments don’t make decisions from a sense of morality or ethics; they make concessions or take risks because of pressure, whether that pressure is internal or external, military or economic, political or diplomatic. That is as true for Israel as it is for the United States, Russia, China, Zimbabwe, Luxembourg, Uganda, Chile or any other government, democratic or dictatorial. To pretend otherwise is unrealistic and counter-productive.

If one wants to see a future where Israeli Jews live in peace and security, the occupation must end. But Israelis, both the leaders and the public, are (in some ways, understandably) reluctant to make anything close to the necessary concessions and agreements. Only pressure will change the stance of the Israeli government, as is the case with any government. Opposing such pressure means supporting the occupation. J Street doesn’t mean to do that, but it is what they will be doing at the PCUSA’s General Assembly. The chance for some kind of peace lies in the hope that enough of the Presbyterians at the GA can understand that.

This article was first published by LobeLog and was reprinted here with permission.

Photo: Activists from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) demonstrated last year (June 28-July 3) at the Presbyterian Church (USA) GA in Pittsburgh. Credit: Rae Abileah

Follow LobeLog on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

by Mitchell Plitnick

On May 24, an unidentified shooter opened fire at the Jewish museum in Brussels, killing four people.  Two of the victims were Israelis, and the other two remain unidentified, other than being described as a volunteer and an employee of the museum, respectively.

Nothing is really known yet [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Mitchell Plitnick

On May 24, an unidentified shooter opened fire at the Jewish museum in Brussels, killing four people.  Two of the victims were Israelis, and the other two remain unidentified, other than being described as a volunteer and an employee of the museum, respectively.

Nothing is really known yet about the identity or motive of the shooter.  A video of the incident offers very little in terms of defining the ethnicity of the murderer.  But never fear, because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman know very well who is responsible.

Almost immediately after the attack in Brussels was reported, Netanyahu stated that it was “… the result of constant incitement against Jews and their state. Slander and lies against the State of Israel continue to be heard on European soil even as the crimes against humanity and acts of murder being perpetrated in our region are systematically ignored.”

Lieberman, who has his eye on the prime minister’s office, followed up by saying that “…activity termed ‘pro-Palestinian,’ activity that once again, just like in those dark days, calls for the boycott of ‘Jewish goods,’ and aggressively targets the only democracy in the Middle East, is nothing but anti-Semitic.”

Lieberman, as is his wont, stated bluntly what Netanyahu merely implied: the shootings were caused by support for Palestinians, and, indeed, opposition to the settlements.  If you engage in such activity, you are killing Jews.

That may seem like an extreme reading, but examine Lieberman’s words in particular.  He does not merely critique boycotts, but everything labeled “pro-Palestinian activity.”  In targeting “the boycott of ‘Jewish goods’” Lieberman, himself a settler, intentionally fails to differentiate between calls for boycotts of all things Israeli and the increasing European practice of clearly identifying products from the settlements.  This would have the effect of excluding settlement products from European programs to minimize export barriers for Israeli products, as well as letting consumers decide if they wish to purchase such products.

Being realistic, it is certainly possible that support for the Palestinian cause was at the root of this attack.  But that is only one of many possibilities, and thus far, there is no particular indication that this possibility is stronger than any other. Belgium Interior Minister Joelle Milquet has not yet officially termed this an anti-Semitic attack, but he did say “there are strong grounds for presuming so.”

Of course that is true. An attack at a Muslim institution, a feminist office building, a multicultural center, or a LGBT center would and should all carry the same presumption.  But the shameless, cynical and, quite frankly insulting use that Israel’s current leadership puts anti-Semitism to defies logic, or even the most basic justification.

Indeed, on one level, the Bibi-Yvet (the Israeli nicknames for Netanyahu and Lieberman) response to the Brussels murders contains a hint of desperation.  The mammoth, pioneering study on global anti-Semitism, carried out by the Anti-Defamation League, and seized upon by Netanyahu (as was surely the report’s intent), was met with a great deal of skepticism, rather than the supportive outrage Netanyahu and the report’s authors had hoped.  Here was an opportunity to capitalize on a real hate crime.

At this writing, though, three days have passed and there has been no public sign that the investigation has gotten very far. The murders were clearly well-prepared for and the murderer, whatever his motive, knew what he was doing.  It is not beyond the realm of possibility that we will never know what prompted him to act, or who he truly is.  Already, more and more fanciful theories are being bandied about in the media.  But, surely more distressing to all concerned, the coverage is already starting to fade.

If this attack was indeed related to Israel’s occupation, it’s only more important to reject the notion that pro-Palestinian “incitement” is the root cause.  No matter the motive, this crime was the worst kind of murderous act, targeting innocent civilians in a most cowardly fashion.  No Palestinian I know would think this any less heinous than anyone else.  And I know plenty of the so-called “inciters,” Palestinian and otherwise.

The very term “incitement,” which has been sheepishly adopted by the United States and sometimes also European governments, is being rendered meaningless by Israeli propaganda efforts.  Every Nakba memorial, every Palestinian act affirming their own connection to the land or recalling the injustice visited upon them by Zionism is called incitement.  There are certainly examples of bigoted, false and threatening statements in Palestinian media.  But the same kind of statements are also issued by the Israeli government and certain Israeli media, as Yizhar Be’er, head of the Israeli media watchdog Keshev points out.  But “incitement” has now become just another buzzword, meant to frighten people, to enhance Israeli propaganda efforts painting Israel as the eternal victim, and to cow critics into silence.

Maybe the attack in Brussels had something to do with the Israel-Palestine conflict.  Maybe it was connected to the burgeoning populist right in so much of Europe.  To me, the latter explanation seems more likely as tensions between the Jewish Belgian and Muslim immigrant Belgian communities are very low, while there is a growing and well-organized fascist/racist white supremacist fringe in Belgium that is very focused on anti-Semitism.  But we simply don’t know yet.  What we do know is that the attempt by Netanyahu and Lieberman to turn this tragedy into anti-Palestinian propaganda is morally repugnant.  It’s up to sensible people to make it politically unviable as well.

Photo: A still from security camera footage of the man who shot four people on Saturday at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. 

Follow LobeLog on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

by Mitchell Plitnick

In part one of this piece, I began sketching the picture that emerges from the words of U.S. diplomats to an Israeli reporter. There’s more here, and the image is one of the United States as the party ultimately responsible for the failure of not only this [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Mitchell Plitnick

In part one of this piece, I began sketching the picture that emerges from the words of U.S. diplomats to an Israeli reporter. There’s more here, and the image is one of the United States as the party ultimately responsible for the failure of not only this round of peace talks, but also the previous rounds. I’ll resume here by completing the analysis of what was reported in YNet.

On the Israeli demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state,” the group of anonymous U.S. diplomats told Israeli reporter Nahum Barnea:

We couldn’t understand why it bothered him [Mahmoud Abbas] so much. For us, the Americans, the Jewish identity of Israel is obvious. …The more Israel hardened its demands, the more the Palestinian refusal deepened. Israel made this into a huge deal — a position that wouldn’t change under any circumstances. The Palestinians came to the conclusion that Israel was pulling a nasty trick on them. They suspected there was an effort to get from them approval of the Zionist narrative.

Seeing this in print truly shocked me. There were three objections to this idea from the Palestinians. Those where there all along, yet the U.S. speakers seem aware of only one of them: the validation of the Zionist narrative over the Palestinian narrative. The other two objections were that such recognition (unprecedented in international relations, one hastens to add, and something that Israel demands only from the Palestinians and no one else) would necessarily give a Palestinian stamp of approval to discrimination against non-Jews in Israel, most of whom are Palestinian; and that it would, by definition, preclude the question of the return of Palestinian refugees, a matter Abbas may be resigned to, but which he wants to deal with in negotiations in the hope that some redress for the refugees can be settled upon.

For these reasons, the recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” is a major red line for Abbas. It was so when the issue was first mentioned by Ehud Olmert years ago, and has been true for all the time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been talking about it. This is no secret, everyone on all sides knows what the issue is and why it is controversial. Everyone, that is, except the U.S. team assigned to mediating these talks.

The U.S. reveals a level of incompetence here that is staggering. It’s true that many cynics like myself have long claimed that U.S. diplomats cannot be helpful in Israel-Palestine because they are much more concerned about keeping Israel happy than pressing for the politically difficult choices that must be made for any agreement, and/or they just don’t understand what’s going on. But even for us, this interview adds a new dimension: the U.S. team is not only way out of their depth in dealing with Israel, they apparently have no idea that this is even the case. That combination of ignorance, enormous hubris and basic incompetence is the only explanation for the way these people are speaking about the collapse of the peace talks, which went exactly as most observers, across the spectrum, said they would go.

Ultimately, this picture forces the question: just what do we expect the Israeli government to do? Even if the Israeli leadership was more moderate, do we expect them to take huge political risks simply out of the goodness of their hearts, or because of threats that remain theoretical?

Why, I wonder, do we expect Israel to behave differently than any other government? There is a serious imbalance of power between Israel, a stable country with functioning political systems, a relatively well-to-do economy, and by far the strongest military in the Middle East, and the Palestinians, who have no infrastructure, no government, an economy barely sustained by international aid and no means of self-defense.

That means that Israel, like any other powerful entity, yields nothing without a demand. And that demand cannot merely be spoken, nor can it be based on abstract notions of justice and peace. Those principles move people to create the pressure that leads to change, but values like peace and justice do not cause governments to change their policies in and of themselves.

The Netanyahu government is the most stable leadership Israel has had in decades. Netanyahu himself has spent more time in the prime minister’s office than any Israeli leader except for David Ben-Gurion. He’s not there because he is a peacenik. Do we expect him to act in direct violation of the wishes of his constituency, especially when most Israelis, while supportive of a two-state solution in the abstract, have repeatedly demonstrated, in polls and at the voting booth, that they are not willing to risk or sacrifice much for that peace?

Do we truly expect Netanyahu or any other Israeli leader to take steps that most Israelis believe, rightly or not, will put lives at risk, and that will, inevitably, create unprecedented political turmoil in the country? Do we expect Netanyahu, just out of a sense of morality, to take a step that will mean the loss of some significant water supplies for Israel and that, given the shifting nature of the Arab world today, may or may not really lead to regional peace? One can fathom Israel taking that risk, but only if there is a compelling reason. There isn’t one right now.

Israel does not fear that its ongoing occupation will brand it as an “apartheid state”; in many people’s eyes, it already is one. And international opprobrium may have manifested in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, but to date, that campaign has not done any harm to the Israeli economy. Maybe one day it will, but right now, BDS is not pressuring Israel to change. While international anger over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has caused a few financial institutions to pull away, capital is still flowing in on the whole. And most of Europe joins with the United States in maintaining strong business ties to Israel. All of these conditions might change, and when/if they do, that might constitute real incentive for Israel to change its approach. That is surely the hope of the BDS movemet. But right now, Israel is not feeling that pressure and does not expect to feel it in the near term. Its sometimes hysterical reaction to BDS is carried out on the level of a propaganda war, not as a strategic political issue.

However, Israel is concerned about the Palestinians dragging their leaders to the International Criminal Court (ICC). So they are preparing their defenses, and they will respond to the Palestinians with harsh measures if they try. Again, at this point, all this is potential, and not actual pressure. If the ICC actually attempts to try Israeli leaders for war crimes, this may change Israel’s thinking, but that is a long way off, and still depends on the Palestinians actually deciding to go that route, though recent developments do make it seem more likely that the Palestinians will do so.

What about this possibility, raised by one of Barnea’s contacts?

There’s great potential for deterioration here, which could end with the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority. Israeli soldiers will have to administer the lives of 2.5 million Palestinians, to their mothers’ chagrin. The donating countries will stop paying up, and the bill of $3 billion a year will have to be paid by your Finance Ministry.

That’s a possibility, but here’s another one: the PA collapses, Israel is forced to assume control and the cost, and Netanyahu, or his successor, appeals to Capitol Hill to help defray the costs by restarting the program of economic aid to Israel that was discontinued in 2008, and even expanding it significantly, as would be necessary, since economic aid to Israel was always much smaller than military. The argument will be couched in supporting our good friend, Israel, and also that paying Israel is the only way to maintain stability without having to put U.S. boots on the ground. There are various ways the U.S. could help defray these costs, and, again, Israel does not fear the Palestinians turning their cause into one for civil rights within Israel. They believe — again rightly or not – that there is enough support around the world for a Jewish state and that, when push comes to shove, this will supersede concern for Palestinian rights.

These factors come together to eliminate any perceived pressure on Israel to compromise. This, more than anything else, is what the United States fails to understand. Ultimately, the U.S. got almost everything wrong in this latest effort, to such an extent as it made their predecessors seem well-informed. But what is most important is this: if you’re not prepared to create the pressure that is required for Israel to make concessions and deal with the fights, in Jerusalem and in Washington, that this will involve, then don’t bother even starting such a process.

Obama seemed to understand this at the beginning of his first term. He tried to pressure Israel into a settlement freeze. But he underestimated the forces that would oppose him, and when he failed, he essentially pulled back. But then he let Secretary of State John Kerry convince him that his personal rapport with the Israelis would make a difference. He was as wrong as you could be. And the result is a politically emboldened Netanyahu and great despair in the Occupied Territories.

And if Israeli policy is so entrenched, U.S. policy seems all the more so in light of Kerry’s humble but dogged effort to make a change in the U.S. approach. The United States has been embarrassed here, and this was one of the most costly episodes, in terms of U.S. credibility, in this conflict where U.S. support for Israel while pretending to be an “honest broker” has been draining U.S. credibility for decades.

Yet despite that, no one expects anything to change in Washington. One last quote from Barnea’s interlocutors: “The boycott and the Palestinian application to international organizations are medium-range problems. America will help, but there’s no guarantee its support will be enough.”

So, if we had any doubt about what comes next, that little tidbit dispels them. Yes, Obama is fed up with Israel, and Kerry is frustrated. Both men are well aware that Netanyahu has repeatedly made the U.S. looked foolish. Kerry has been personally and directly insulted by several Israeli officials just in recent months. But the U.S. will still shield Israel as much as it possibly can.

So when Obama says he’s taking a time out, many have read that as him throwing up his hands and saying “Fine, Israel and the Palestinians can just fight this out themselves.” But that’s not what will happen. Diplomacy may stop, but the $3 billion a year of military aid will continue. So will diplomatic support at the United Nations, where the U.S. will continue to veto every significant UN Security Council resolution that tries to promote an end to occupation. And the U.S. will continue to act as Israel’s advocate in the UN General Assembly, with the Europeans, with Arab states…with the world. In the end, stepping back from this shuttle diplomacy is just another way for the U.S. to make matters worse.

Maybe out of the ashes of this embarrassment something better will rise. But that will only happen if the United States and every other outside player finally learns the lesson of why all these efforts keep failing. The initial indication, as Barnea kindly informs us, is not promising.

by Mitchell Plitnick

The story of Stephen Hawking’s decision to pull out of the Israeli President’s Conference just got more interesting. A major United States newspaper, the Boston Globe, published an editorial offering strong support for Hawking, and, while not supporting or opposing boycotting Israel as a tactic, took [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Mitchell Plitnick

The story of Stephen Hawking’s decision to pull out of the Israeli President’s Conference just got more interesting. A major United States newspaper, the Boston Globe, published an editorial offering strong support for Hawking, and, while not supporting or opposing boycotting Israel as a tactic, took a firm stance in saying that the boycott tool is a legitimate, non-violent means to protest Israeli policies. It actually called the “overreaction” to Hawking’s decision an impediment to finding a resolution to this vexing conflict.

Perhaps the most important part of the Globe’s editorial was this: “The movement that Hawking has signed on to aims to place pressure on Israel through peaceful means. In the context of a Mideast conflict that has caused so much destruction and cost so many lives, nonviolence is something to be encouraged.”

This is a truly groundbreaking shift in the US discourse around the Israel-Palestine conflict. Among many infuriating tricks the supporters of Israeli policies (be they supporters of hard-line Likud policies, or supporters of endless negotiations as pushed for by the previous Kadima governments) have employed over the years, one has recently become more prominent: casting support for Palestinian rights as a tactic designed to “destroy Israel,” thus blanketing even non-violent actions in language that defines the action as being violence by other means. The point is that once actual Palestinian violence diminished, it was crucial that Israel still be seen as somehow facing an “existential threat.”

For years, the mantra has been that the Palestinians are bent on destroying Israel, and their whole movement is nothing more than a cover for their raging hatred of Jews. This mode of thinking, in various forms, resurged, for understandable reasons, during the second intifada, which witnessed by far the most inter-communal violence since the 1948 war (however imbalanced that violence might have been).

So, in 2005, towards the end of that bloody uprising, 171 Palestinian civil-society groups issued their call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) directed against Israel. “These non-violent punitive measures,” the appeal asserted, “should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people‘s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law.” The groups defined that compliance as ending the occupation, ending discrimination in form and practice against Palestinian citizens, and “Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”

One may agree or disagree with those goals, and certainly anyone who disagrees is perfectly justified in opposing the BDS movement. But supporters of Israeli policy are not entitled, on one hand, to berate the Palestinians for using violence to end the occupation and address their dispossession while, on the other, to condem them for using non-violent means such as these proven methods to achieve their goals.

The Globe editorial appeared a day after my weekly column at Souciant.com did. There, I wrote the following: “Ultimately, one can support or oppose a boycott. But the BDS movement was conceived as a way to advance the Palestinian cause without physical violence. There are good reasons, not based in a lack of understanding of the conflict, much less in anti-Semitism, why people support the boycott. Do pundits really want to send the message that a non-violent method is unacceptable? What options does that leave for the Palestinians, now that they have irrefutable proof that the Israeli government is farther away than ever from a willingness to end the occupation and the United States is more feeble and feckless than ever? Oppose the boycott if you wish, but trying to make it illegitimate is self-defeating and inspires more violence.”

Israel’s supporters have constructed a paradigm that states that the only method that can be used to oppose the occupation and promote Palestinian rights is to ask Israel, very nicely, to grant these things. The Globe editorial is proof positive that this paradigm is crumbling.

Challenging the notion that Israel should only be persuaded (with carrots), and never pressured (with sticks or at least the withdrawal of carrots) to end its occupation and oppression of Palestinians has had some watershed moments in recent years. Most notably in the United States, perhaps, was the publication of John Mearsheimer’s and Stephen Walt’s paper and book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Hawking’s action and the shift in discourse that the Globe’s implicit legitimization of the BDS movement may well mark the beginning of another.

The more such popular, cultural, economic, and political pressure on Israel to change course is seen as acceptable, the more possible it becomes for US Middle East to change, as well. And that, in turn, increases the possibility that the Israeli public and elite will reassess the country’s current trajectory and where it is taking them. That, to be sure, is still a very distant dream. But our policy has largely been formed by interest groups leading and the government following. As our discourse shifts more, even some of our most feckless politicians will eventually have to follow.

by Mitchell Plitnick

As President Barack Obama’s first trip to Israel approaches, one senses desperation from the Ramallah headquarters of the Palestinian Authority. Obama’s scheduled stop in the West Bank has all the trappings of an empty gesture masking the real goal of creating coordination between the President and Israeli [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Mitchell Plitnick

As President Barack Obama’s first trip to Israel approaches, one senses desperation from the Ramallah headquarters of the Palestinian Authority. Obama’s scheduled stop in the West Bank has all the trappings of an empty gesture masking the real goal of creating coordination between the President and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the issues of Iran and Syria. Meanwhile, protests in the West Bank are spreading as Palestinian hunger strikers inspire defiance against Israel’s ongoing occupation.

In that context, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is seriously trying to convince Obama to focus attention back on the question of Palestine and the occupation. Abbas’ advisor Muhammad Ashtiya told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz on Monday that the PA is trying to get Obama to jumpstart the peace process by putting forth a formula for talks that “…will guarantee the end of the occupation in the territories of ’67.” Such a formula would make it unrealistic to talk “…while the Israeli government continues to build settlements and establish facts on the ground that will thwart a future agreement.”

In other words, the Palestinians would drop their (entirely reasonable) “preconditions” in favor of the US setting them. It’s hard to see Obama doing this to say the least. But Ashtiya is right in saying this is the only way for talks to resume. That’s why they won’t.

The very next day, US Secretary of State John Kerry revealed the itinerary for his first trip overseas in his new job. The Middle East leg will include Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar, but not Israel. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland explained that Kerry did not want to disrupt Netanyahu’s coalition-building process. While that may be true, an Obama Administration that would even consider the sort of steps the PA is currently suggesting would want to push Netanyahu toward a coalition that would accept a US framework. Any notion that Obama was considering a step like that at this time is contradicted by Kerry’s demurral.

Perhaps at some point later in his second term Obama will try to fix the mess we call the Israel-Palestine conflict. But right now the task involves too many pitfalls and too few promises. Obama knows Netanyahu will buck any serious effort at US mediation, just as he knows that former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni taking the reins of talks with the Palestinians is nothing more than window dressing. Netanyahu has some incentive to appear more reasonable than he has for the past four years, but very little to actually try to forge a deal with the Palestinians. The Israeli public is nervous about the status quo, but that has more to do with their view that their government is isolating them from the rest of the world through brash statements and provocative actions than any sense of urgency to end the occupation.

Obama knows that Congress will revolt at the behest of AIPAC at any perceived pressure on Israel. With major battles over taxes and budget cuts looming, nuclear issues with Iran and now North Korea coming back to the fore and a Republican contingent determined to undermine his every move, Obama is not going to risk aggravating the Democrats in Congress that he absolutely must keep in line.

So Abbas is shouting into the wind here. The same sense of calm that keeps Israelis comfortable enough to refrain from pushing their government toward a resolution of the conflict also makes contemporary crises like Syria and the disposition of Hezbollah in Lebanon seem far more urgent. Yet this too, like Iran, is a bone of contention with congressional Republicans. Obama has no wish to increase his foreign policy difficulties.

Abbas’ options are becoming very limited. Israel has quietly and slowly been easing the siege on Gaza and while the situation there remains grim, there can be little doubt that even incremental improvements (which have largely consisted of some small imports of building materials and considerably larger imports of Israeli products) strengthen Hamas’ hand. As Palestinian reconciliation remains far off, Abbas is feeling domestic pressure from his political rivals. Add to that increasing protests, hunger strikers and the continuing, gradual growth of the global Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions movement (BDS), and Abbas is getting boxed in. Without some opening which only Obama can create, the credibility of Abbas’ program of negotiating with and reassuring Israel is dwindling to zero.

The Palestinians need the United States to bring forth a plan — Abbas and Ashtiya are not wrong about that. But Obama is not going to do that and risk alienating many in his own party unless it turns into something Israel wants. Netanyahu obviously doesn’t want it, and it’s not immediately apparent what Israeli leader would. But if the Palestinians — through non-violent but firm means such as the International Criminal Court, the BDS movement and continued appeals to Europe and Arab and Muslim countries that have relations with Israel — can increase pressure and make Israel’s populace less comfortable with the status quo, perhaps Israel will put forth a new leader with a peace mandate along the lines of that which they gave to Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak.

In that context, a president like Obama might have more options. But as it stands now, the Palestinian strategy should be based on the US being an obstacle, not a help.

Photo: President Barack Obama watches as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (right) shake hands at a trilateral meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, N.Y, Sept. 22, 2009. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza) 

Speaking with Mitchell Plitnick, Rosen, co-chair of the Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace, stressed that the views both in his book and [...]]]> via IPS News

Rabbi Brant Rosen leads a congregation in Evanston, Illinois and is author of the new book, Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi’s Path to Palestinian Solidarity.

Speaking with Mitchell Plitnick, Rosen, co-chair of the Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace, stressed that the views both in his book and in this interview are his own and do not represent his congregation. Excerpts follow.

Q: How has your personal view of Israel changed in the past four years?

A: I had seen the conflict as two peoples having two legitimate claims to the land of Israel-Palestine and the only way out of the morass is two states for two peoples. I had identified with Israel as a Jew; that was my narrative growing up. I have deep familial relationships there, visited Israel many times, and even considered moving there.

The shift in my views was a gradual thing, but the breaking point was Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009 (this was the name Israel gave to its assault on the Gaza Strip at that time). I came to realise this was not a conflict between two equal parties but an essential injustice that began with the birth of the state of Israel and has continued since that time. It is a situation of one very powerful party bending the other to its will.

I become more involved in Palestine Solidarity work, reaching out to Palestinians, some of whom were friends and others who were activists in this area. So many of them reached out to me when I spoke out on Gaza, and I wanted to learn from them what their experience of this issue was.

Today, I know where I stand, very much a rabbi in the Jewish community, still serving my congregation, still motivated by Jewish values, but also someone who stands in solidarity with Palestinians in their struggle for human rights, equal rights and dignity in the land they either live in or seek to return to.

Q: Jewish Voice for Peace is one of the leading groups involved in targeted divestment from Israel’s occupation, a part of the Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to bring public economic and political pressure on Israel. How do you see the future of this movement?

A: I think the movement is growing by leaps and bounds, attracting more and more people. When the U.N. vote on Palestine’s non-member status hit, it drowned out another story I thought was actually more important: Stevie Wonder backed out of a fundraising concert for a U.S. group called the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.

He is the latest celebrity to express his support for the Palestinian cause by cancelling such concerts following a long list of artists and entertainers who have cancelled shows in Israel. Whether they did it because of public pressure or because they believed it to be right, it shows the power of the boycott movement.

To create political change, leveraging people power is the best method; historically, this has consistently been the case. The fact that Israel reacts so harshly against it shows its potential. When Hillary Clinton says 3,000 new settlement units are “not helpful”, that doesn’t get Israel’s attention.

On the other hand, when Jewish Voice for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine and a wide range of church groups succeed in getting a large holding company to divest from the occupation, that’s front page news in Israel. That is a sign that this has a great impact, when used in a smart and concerted way.

Contrary to the frequent accusations, BDS is not anti-Semitic. I think the argument that it unfairly singles out Israel from other human rights abusers is disingenuous… The question is not whether Israel is legitimate; it exists and is part of the international community. But if Israel acts in an illegitimate way, citizens around the world have the right and responsibility to leverage what power they can to get them to cease.

Q: Do you think the recent call by 15 mainstream Protestant leaders of many different denominations for an inquiry into whether U.S. aid to Israel is in compliance with existing U.S. law is a significant new development?

A: Yes. I think the most important thing is that the leaders are standing firm and are not backing down despite being excoriated and being called everything up to and including anti-Semites. That is important because up until now the covenant on religious relations has been that you can talk about anything BUT Israel, and this time they’ve broken with that.

They have until now been bullied by the Jewish establishment. This can usher in a new relationship where we can talk about anything, not only the things we have in common, but also these issues, like Israeli policy, where we don’t always agree. I’m proud that JVP stood behind the statement.

Jewish leaders said they would walk out of a planned interfaith summit, and demanded a separate summit to discuss these issues. I thought this was very damaging, this is not something resembling dialogue.

The Church leaders have issued a second statement saying they would be happy to meet with Jewish leaders about this, that we’re happy to talk, but we are not going back on what we said. This is very healthy; this is real dialogue, which occurs when you focus on the painful issues you don’t agree on.

It’s very important that Christians see that many Jews do stand with them when they make statements like this. The Jewish establishment does not represent the Jewish community. The Jewish community is much larger and more complex than these unaccountable representatives whose names most Jews don’t even know.

*Rabbi Brant Rosen blogs at Shalom Rav

The article is a look into the possible reasons that Israel has pushed back the nuclear timeline for Iran. I quote Tony Karon at length (which appears at TB) and list my own thoughts (some via Jim):

That notion — [...]]]> I have a new piece up at Tehran Bureau, the PBS/Frontline project on Iran.

The article is a look into the possible reasons that Israel has pushed back the nuclear timeline for Iran. I quote Tony Karon at length (which appears at TB) and list my own thoughts (some via Jim):

That notion — that you can’t whip up your own population into a fearful frenzy, then not do anything — tracks with comments made in the past by top Israeli officials casting aside the “existential threat” meme. Along with Barak, former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy sounded a confident note in late 2009: “It is not within the power of Iran to destroy the state of Israel — at best it can cause Israel grievous damage. Israel is indestructible.”

But there are other possibilities to consider, most of them speculative. Perhaps Israel was merely gloating about its covert actions against Iran. Many mainstream commentators suggest Israel is behind the Stuxnet computer worm that damaged Iranian centrifuges as well as a campaign of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Maybe, as Jim Lobe suggested to me in a conversation, there was some kind of quid pro quo between the U.S. and Israel over the public extension of Israel’s nuclear clock.

There are certainly many pawns on the board to trade between Israel and the U.S. at the moment: an Israeli settlement freeze (whether including East Jerusalem or not), the fate of imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, a U.S. offer of an Israeli wish list of military hardware (as discussed in earlier failed talks on a freeze), or maybe even some sort of agreement for Israel to drop mounting preconditions for yet another round of direct talks. All are possibilities, though some quite unlikely.

It’s worth noting, that as a source close to high-ranking Israelis put it to LobeLog, Israel has shifted its focus from the threat of Iran to the threat of “delegitimizers.” The latter is an amorphous and misleading catchall phrase that the Israeli right and their Stateside defenders use to indict the motives of anyone who even comes near the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

I also add that Paul Pillar, writing on the website of the National Interest, has an interesting post listing some possibilities:

One is that they are more or less straightforward reflections of careful, straightforward analysis by Israeli experts of the actual state of the Iranian program. Not every statement by a public official needs to be a disingenuous manipulation of the facts in pursuit of a policy objective. Sometimes we need to resist the tendency to overanalyze someone else’s motives.

Given Israel’s track record, I’m skeptical of this lack of skepticism. But some of Pillar’s other possibilities track with the ones I enumerated, and all are well worth reading.

Matt Duss at The Wonk Room, meanwhile, picks up on an interesting Der Spiegel interview with new IAEA chief Yukiya Amano. Duss notes that Amano told the German daily, “Despite all unanswered questions, we cannot say that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program.”

You’ll recall, of course, that Amano told U.S. officials that “he was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision” — including Iran — according to U.S. diplomatic cables. As Duss points out, this aligns perfectly with the view Amano espoused in his Der Spiegel interview — because the “U.S. court” on this particular “key strategic issue” corresponds with a public acknowledgment by the CIA (PDF) that the U.S. does “not know whether Tehran will eventually decide to produce nuclear weapons.”

On the other hand, the Wall Street Journal‘s neoconservative editorial board recently declared (falsely) that Iran had already “announced its intention to build a nuclear bomb.”

As I wrote on Tehran Bureau, none of the recent developments seem to have had much impact on U.S.-based Iran hawks, who are perfectly content to keep beating the war drums. No matter what Iran does or how its nuclear program advances (if at all), the hawks want to attack it. No matter how effective sanctions are, they will never be enough.