Mazin Qumsiyeh at Brookline High School
After CAMERA and other Zionist groups tried to block Mazin Qumsiyeh’s planned presentation at Brookline High School last Sunday night, the school forced the sponsoring group, Brookline Peaceworks, to pay for police protection in case the event drew hostile picketers. As it turned out, though, the sole Brookline rent-a-cop got to relax on the high school steps overlooking the quiet below.
Across the street, the only organized group was the one I belong to, Jewish Voice for Peace, which showed up to support Qumsiyeh’s appearance. JVPers responded to sometimes-heated questioning by opponents, only some of whom seemed interested in the answers.
Inside, some 60 people came to BHS’s Martin Luther King Room to watch the film Occupation 101 and hear Mazin talk about the occupation in general and his own one-state approach more specifically. The audience was more supportive than not, which makes sense since the event was organized by the local Peaceworks group. Those more hostile mostly remained quiet until the question-and-answer period.
Listening to the questions and comments and watching the body language, it seemed clear that some in the audience did come simply to do verbal battle. Sometimes anger was barely controlled. Others, though, seemed open to hearing what the speaker had to say. Qumsiyeh did a good job reminding people they should check things out for themselves.
I found myself wondering, not for the first time, if there’s much point trying to engage committed Zionists who already know what they think. People can change their views — I’ve certainly changed mine. But neither Mazin’s book (Sharing the Land of Canaan) and presentation nor Occupation 101 seemed aimed at Israel’s hard-core supporters. The target audience instead is those who have already begun to question officially received wisdom and who are looking for an array of views about how to deal with the problem.
One of the questioners complained they were hearing only one side. Mazin responded, in part, that there are many more than two sides, since both Israelis and Palestinians each differ among themselves on core principles. I agree with that, and think there’s value in this kind of event. But I don’t think this is the way to reach the Zionist right-wing. That’s not Mazin’s goal, and not Peacework’s either really. Maybe it’s pointless, but since Zionist organizations are still effective at influencing US policy, approaches designed to make re-thinking Zionism more palatable remain important enough to try, despite the frustrations. That’s most likely to work, I suspect, coming from Jewish groups than from those focused more broadly on the general public.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Dennis - I have a question on terminology. You routinely refer to “right wing Zionists” but never, to my knowledge, apply that obvious pejorative to any Palestinian Arab group. I find your selective usage quite odd. On the one hand, many Zionists consider themselves liberal, left wing, etc. Most Zionists advocate a secure Israel in its aboriginal homeland (Brooklyn, contrary to the opinion of some, is not the ancient country in which Torah was written and in which the history of Jewish sovereignty unfolded) living peacefully with over a million Arabs (as they do now), both Christian and Muslim. Only a tiny fringe advocate violence or expulsion of Arabs.
On the other hand, virtually every segment of Palestinian Arab society is intensely religious, antisemitic (as evidenced in official Palestinian textbooks, TV, film, etc.), advocates violence and/or expulsion of every Jew from the Middle East (unlike the assured safe, life of Israeli Arabs, if a Jew with a kipah even sets foot in Jenin or Nablus, e.g., reasonable estimates would give him/her a few minutes at most before they are killed) and popularly elected a government in Gaza in 2006 that:
a) officially advocates genocide (the HAMAS Charter)
b) officially educates its children in race hatred and violence
c) discriminates - often violently - against women, gays and lesbians
d) maintains an economy based on croneyism - not socialism
e) is an official theocracy, preaching the inferiority of any other belief (including atheism)
f) denies due process of law (relying on sharia religious courts)
g) officially restricts freedom of the press and free speech
To even a casual observer, these elements of Palestinian society form a definition of a theocratic, fascist state. If that doesn’t deserve at least the appellation, “right wing”, I don’t know what does.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
See my response to Hillel Stavis in the next blog entry.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
In DC we had a similar situation a year and a half ago where some right-Zionist groups did their best to try to sabotage a forum on divestment from Israel at a local university. Their efforts resulted in a major article in the University newsletter and 200 people attending, instead of 20. 3/4 were either supporters or open minded. There was a quarter of obvious Zionists, some in their IDF t-shirts, but because of police who had made it known they would remove disruptors, they were polite. And I think it did result into a good dialogue and maybe some of the Zionists learned a little about the Palestinian viewpoint from a the American Palestinian students sharing the pain of their people in their own diaspora.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
[…] supporters. His appearance will likely raise the same tired objections facing Mazin Qumsiyeh, who spoke at Brookline High School last September despite frantic efforts to pressure school officials to ban […]