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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September-October 2008, pages 46-47 New York City and Tri-State News Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism Holds First Major Event in New YorkBy Jane Adas
READERS OF the Washington Report are more aware than the general public of the efforts of some American Zionist organizations to suppress any criticism of Israel and sympathy for Palestinians. Such groups have pressured universities to deny tenure, demanded that art museums and theaters cancel exhibits and productions, agitated to dismiss teachers and administrators, and insisted that speaking invitations be rescinded. When the pro-Israel pressure group Stand With Us nearly succeeded in preventing the University of Michigan Press from distributing Joel Kovel’s Overcoming Zionism (available from the AET Book Club), Kovel and others founded The Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism (<www.codz.org>). CODZ held its first major event on June 7 in New York, a panel discussion on “Transformation of Palestine/Israel into a Single, Secular, Democratic State with Equal Rights for All.” Kovel’s advocacy for a single state based on human rights rather than ethnocentricity is grounded in a refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Among the cluster of possibilities of what a single state might be, Kovel favors a socialist orientation achieved through nonviolent strategies of reconciliation and mutual recognition. An ancillary goal, he added, would be the elimination of the conditions that have led Israel to be a serial violator of human rights. Kovel proposed the formation of a tripartite forum comprising Israel, Palestine, and global civil society, with the latter applying pressure to release the full moral force of the Palestinian struggle. Israeli-born Amaya Galili is doing her part to achieve reconciliation through her work as coordinator of educational programs at Zochrot (“Remembering”), an Israeli organization that works to raise awareness of the Nakba among Jewish Israelis. Working especially with high school students, Zochrot is teaching Israelis about destroyed Palestinian villages and giving refugees faces and names, with the goal of changing the political discourse in Israel. Former CIA political analyst Kathleen Christison addressed four major arguments against the one-state solution. She characterized as scare tactics the idea that a single state frightens Israelis, makes them more resistant to concessions, and pushes “soft Zionists,” those who criticize the occupation but not Israel, further to the right. “We must not trim our vision for fear of offending bigots,” she asserted. To the objection that Israel will never agree to dismantle the Jewish state because it represents the Israeli public’s deepest aspiration for Jews to be masters of their own fate, Christison countered that this is achieved only through controlling the fate of others, and ignores the injustice of 1948 and repression within Israel. Some, like Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein, argue that the international consensus is for two states, but Christison questioned whether a viable Palestinian state is any longer possible. The most difficult argument against a single state comes from Palestinians themselves, who fear that Israel would dominate such a state, and that turning away from the two-state solution would forfeit hard-won support. Pointing out that all the problems foreseen in a single state, such as economic imbalance, would exist in two states as well, Christison concluded that the notion that one must tolerate oppression because the oppressor is strong is absurd. Ali Abunimah, author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (available from the AET Book Club), observed that one or two states are not options on a menu. There already is one state in the area of Mandate Palestine, he noted, and it is Israel. However, Abunimah explained, Israel’s government is of and for less than half the people, because Jews constitute 48 percent, Palestinians 46 percent and “other” 6 percent of the population. Palestinians have no state, he continued, but do have two governments—one elected but now imprisoned in Gaza, and the other recognized by the U.S.—as well as more prime ministers per capita than any other people. To view as dangerous the notion of Israel becoming a state of all its citizens only proves, he maintained, that equality is incompatible with Zionism. Opinion polls show that only 50 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank prefer the two-state solution—which is odd, according to Abunimah, given that it is they who are the beneficiaries—whereas Palestinian citizens of Israel and in the diaspora strongly support one state. Abunimah sees the two-state solution, along with an endless peace process, as a standard refuge for well-meaning people, letting them off the hook morally for the reality Palestinians are living. He views one state, he said, as not only the most moral, but also the most pragmatic solution. Columbia Nakba Forum
As part of its Commemoration of 60 Years of Nakba, Columbia University held a panel on “The Catastrophe of Palestine” on April 28. Joseph Massad, professor of Arab politics, challenged every aspect of the event’s title: the Nakba is older than 60 years, he noted, because it began in 1881, when Jewish colonization started; one commemorates an event finished in the past, whereas the Nakba, unlike the Holocaust, is ongoing; and “catastrophe” is an inadequate translation for what is in fact a calamity of deliberate intention. Israel’s problem, Massad asserted, is that Palestinians refuse to accept the Nakba as an irreversible fact of history and continue to oppose it. Israel’s denial of Palestinians’ right to resist is not limited to guns, he pointed out, but also to art and scholarship at home and abroad. The presence of Palestinians “provokes Israel to expel them,” he pointed out, “since they won’t self-displace.” Israel, he added, calls on international Jewry to displace themselves as well and move to Israel. Massad said he views Zionism as an endorsement of anti-Semitism, since both believe Jews should not be in Europe. By Zionist logic, he declared, Israel’s Palestinian citizens are secondary to the two-thirds of world Jewry who do not live in Israel. Professor Gil Anidjar described himself as an “old Jew,” in contrast to Zionism’s “new Jew.” For most Israelis, he said, there must be separation—the only difference being that for those on the right Palestinians have to move, and for those on the left the border has to move. Brooklyn for Peace Nakba Forum
On May 21, Brooklyn for Peace hosted a forum entitled “May 1948: A New State for Israelis, a Nakba for Palestinians.” Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, said she sees the beginnings of a shift in perception in the U.S. whereby it is almost impossible to talk about Israel without also mentioning Palestinians. She attributed this to Palestinians telling their own stories through films, hiphop, and novels, as well as to an increasing number of Jews in the world who oppose Israel’s occupation on the basis of human rights, opening the door for others also to speak out. Zachary Lockman, professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, pointed out that the U.N.’s 1947 partition plan assigned 55 percent of the land to a Jewish state, but Palestinians comprised half the population of that new state. With no Jewish majority, Lockman maintained, Zionists needed to carry out ethnic cleansing to clear the land for the expected influx of Jews. When the Zionists expanded their portion to 78 percent of the land, 80 percent of the Palestinians who lived within the new boundaries became refugees. This concerns us, Lockman maintained, because since the 1960s the U.S. has been Israel’s enabler and provider, giving Israel more money per capita and on an absolute basis than any other country. Adam Horowitz, a founder of Jews Against the Occupation, noted that in his peace work, he has found that people are intimidated from becoming involved because they assume the situation is so complicated and has so much history, parts of which are ignored or actively denied. In fact, he said, it’s simple: European Jews were persecuted, they sought to colonize a populated land, the Palestinians resisted. Horowitz said he sees within the Jewish community a growing realization that Zionism can only be sustained by violence. Christianity in IraqThe woman asked that neither her name nor photo be published for fear of endangering her family in Iraq. She is a Roman Catholic nun who, on June 3 in New York, discussed Christianity in Iraq, where her order has existed since the 19th century. Her community has endured three crises, she said. Early in the 20th century the Ottomans attacked and martyred several of the sisters. During World War II they suffered famine and survived only by begging. The third crisis was during the sanctions under the Clinton administration, when the congregation felt forgotten by the world and even by God. Christians in Iraq traditionally enjoyed good relations with Muslims, she explained. She herself grew up in Baghdad with a Sunni neighbor on one side and a Shi’a on the other. Before the American attack and occupation, she said, Christians were free to practice their religion comfortably and enjoyed all rights. Sectarian conflict began only in 2003, and since 2005 priests have been kidnapped for ransom and six of them killed—the first one the day after the pope said Islam is a bad religion. Car bombings and kidnappings for ransom still occur every day, she said. Since 2003, she estimates, two million Iraqis have been killed, millions more displaced, and 80,000 Iraqis held incommunicado in U.S. prisons. Her message to Americans is simple: “We are human beings and we have the right to live just like you.” Jane Adas is a free-lance writer based in the New York City metropolitan area. |
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