Even those who came without Israel/Palestine in mind seemed to take the photojournalism in stride. I wasn’t sure how this would go, here in heavily-Jewish liberal Brookline where, as I’ve noted over the years, Israel’s faults just aren’t on most town residents’ radar. Indeed, a few BAOS visitors left quickly after glancing at my wall. Israeli soldiers tear-gassing nonviolent Bil’in protestors wasn’t what they were looking for.

I showed other photos, too, in somewhat separate spaces - abstracts, portraits, landscapes. Listening to two days of positive feedback about these was very exciting, especially since I’ve never shown my non-I/P work like this before. I even sold a few prints and photobooks, tempting me to try to do more so I can upgrade my camera equipment and software before my next Middle East visit.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestine, photography, photojournalism

This rift is reflected in a key issue that has sharpened since the disengagement, but whose roots go back to Gush Emunim: respect for the state. Growing segments of the religious community are abandoning the idea of a democratic state. Young settlement residents despise the idea, rabbis split hairs to explain that western democracy is a flawed product, and political leaders declare that a state that has betrayed its citizens does not deserve their loyalty.

One more sign of things to come.

Technorati Tags: Israel, religious right, Jewish State, theocracy

——————

Skip Sesling’s op-ed last week recycles old personal attacks about my efforts to make sense of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, he’s not alone. Some of the comments under my recent column on the TAB website also resort to character assassination, stereotype, and smug sefl-assurance. I don’t mind criticism of what I actually write, but it seems unfair to attack me for things I didn’t say and don’t believe.

Sesling is right about one thing, though. I no longer think the state of Israel can ever be both officially Jewish and substantively democratic. This painful awareness, which began to nag at me even when I was a young Zionist four decades ago, was central to my seminar at Ben Gurion University in 2006, when my students described with much regret their country’s inability to make democracy meaningful.

It is a very big leap, however, from my pessimism about Israeli democracy to Sesling’s absurd insistence that “Fox rejects all that is Jewish, which he calls self-enlightenment.” There is nothing in my column or anything else I’ve ever written to justify this mocking claim.

There is also nothing to justify his statement that “the one state Fox advocates is strictly a Muslim Arab state.” I would object to any outcome legitimizing official supremacy of one religion over another or denying the legitimate rights of Israelis and Palestinians alike.

The most mystifying part of Sesling’s column is his accusation that “Fox finds that Israel, Jews, Judaism and Zionism are all one entity.” He continues: “He should know better. Instead, he chooses to paint everyone who does not agree with his anti-Israel views as evil.”

Sesling has it backwards here: It is the Zionist movement that insistently conflates Israel, Jews, Judaism, and Zionism, as illustrated by the title of his own op-ed, “Anti-Zionism equals Anti-Semitism.” Zionists repeatedly claim that the Israeli state is an essential aspect of Judaism and that its actions are carried out in the name of the Jewish people. Indeed, Israel, which defines itself as the nation of the Jews, does not even recognize “Israeli” as a nationality.

In contrast, it is Israel’s critics, especially perhaps its Jewish critics, who insist that Jewishness and Zionism are not identical. Whether Jewish identity, Jewish culture, and Jewish safety are inextricably linked to Jewish statehood is an important question deserving discussion rather than dogma.

Sesling is also wrong when he says I paint those who disagree with me as evil. I rarely ascribe evil motivation or character just because someone sees the world differently than I do. Perhaps reflecting my training in social psychology, generally I think most people try to do the right thing given their understanding of the world and the circumstances in which they find themselves. The problem is that sometimes we’re wrong.

Our motives and assumptions do not always stem from the sources we ascribe them to. We find ways to justify beliefs and actions that neutral outsiders might think are erroneous or simplistic. We may distort or overlook even the meaning of words to avoid obvious inconsistencies. How else could we call Israel democratic despite the Jewish state’s refusal to endorse the principle of legal equality for all citizens? What does democracy mean, as my Israeli students understood, if not that?

And, sometimes, even decent motivations and accurate perceptons lead to bad outcomes. Israel’s domination of Palestinians is a bad outcome.

Although Sesling’s personal nastiness is annoying, more troubling is that his latest historical account is no more accurate than his similar attacks several years ago. That’s when he ridiculed my proposal that Brookline residents with differing viewpoints meet to talk things over. If you don’t share Sesling’s distaste for learning about alternative views, you can easily find lots of sources. One place to start is this Q&A: html://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/101conflict.shtml.

My column two weeks ago urged Brookline residents to hear what Joel Kovel had to say. From what I could tell, few who protested outside the Coolidge Corner Theatre bothered to go inside. That did not surprise me. But Kovel’s articles are available online. You might find his analysis interesting. You might not. But please — don’t let Skip Sesling tell you what’s worth thinking about.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Joel Kovel, Skip Sesling, social psychology, Zionism

I am not a Palestinian; I am not one of the oppressed.  I only hope I can use my privilege in an effective way in order to redeem the gift the people of Gaza have given all of us: the realization that the people do have power and can prevail even in the face of overwhelming power.

Despite the euphoria of Gaza’s residents at their unexpected opportunity to stock up, there’s no guarantee the breach in the wall will remain. Israel might act at any moment to stop the shopping spree, as might Egyptian officials if they feel threats of destabilization at home. Under the circumstances, opposition to Israel’s closure policy remains important.

Today’s small demonstration, sponsored by Jews for Human Rights in Gaza, ewish Voice For Peace Boston, and the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights, took place outside the Israeli Consulate in cold downtown Boston.

We tried to bring medical and other supplies inside, to give to the consulate to pass along.

Didn’t get very far.

So we just kept walking around.

Listened to a pep-talk.

Held signs.

Another demonstration is planned for Saturday across the river in Harvard Square. This will be in solidarity with Saturday’s planned convoy of Israeli peace activists and others who will try to bring in carloads of supplies through Gaza’s Erez Crossing.

Technorati Tags: Gaza, Rafah, Israel, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestine

I may submit a longer response to Sesling to the TAB, or at least a letter to the editor, but in the meantime I can point you to this response I wrote after he blasted me a few years ago on the same topic. His latest effort shows he continues to misquote and misinterpret at will.

The most mystifying part of his response is this accusation:

Fox finds that Israel, Jews, Judaism and Zionism are all one entity. He should know better. Instead, he chooses to paint everyone who does not agree with his anti-Israel views as evil.

Sesling has it backwards here: It is the Zionist movement that conflates Israel, Jews, Judaism, and Zionism, as in the title of his own op-ed: “Anti-Zionism equals Anti-Semitism.” Hard-core Zionists repeatedly insist that the Israeli state is an inherent and essential aspect of Judaism. Israel repeatedly claims its actions are carried out “in the name of the Jewish people.” It is those of us who no longer consider ourselves Zionists who believe Jewishness and Zionism are, or should be, two different things.

More another time.

Technorati Tags: Skip Sesling, Israel, Joel Kovel, Zionism

Technorati Tags: Chuck Morse, Hillel Stavis, Israel, Joel Kovel, one-state solution, Overcoming Zionism, Palestine, Zionism

The primary theme running through the comments is that, as history shows, Jews need a state of their own to be safe. On the TAB site, Steven Feinstein puts it this way:

Zionism is essentially “affirmative action” for the Jewish people. After centuries of persecution in Arab countries, and pogroms and then the holocaust in Europe, the Jewish people need and deserve a country of their own…This might seem unjust to some, but it is necessary and just, given the circumstances.

I don’t think the treatment Jews received in Arab countries is really comparable to European pogroms and the Holocaust, but even if it were true, that does not mean the Jews “deserve” a country of their own. Zionism developed as one of several historical options, and in hindsight it doesn’t look to me like the right option. By moving to the US instead of to Palestine, for example, my European grandparents set in motion generations of Jewish Americans living reasonably equal and even relatively charmed lives. The safety of American Jews is a lot more certain than the safety of Israeli Jews, especially if Israel remains a Jewish-priority state at Palestinian expense. Ultimately, improved equality and safety — for Jews as well as for non-Jews — depends more on reinforcing equality and democracy throughout the world and opening all states to those victimized elsewhere than on creating isolating pockets offering false hopes of protection.

The affirmative action analogy has some initial appeal, but it fails because statehood and affirmative action have different purposes. Affirmative action, designed in its clumsy way to counter individual discrimination and institutional inequality, is not applicable to national sovereignty. Groups have no fundamental right to statehood the way individuals have a right to equality. Indeed, thousands of national and tribal societies around the world lack states. I’d be glad to see every cultural and geographic group have more sovereignty and to eliminate the nation-state entirely, but in the meantime those who run the nation-state system will not tolerate thousands of mini-states. I’m not sure Jews have more claim to a state than the Kurds, the Druze, the Iroquois, or any other group.

Feinstein continues:

…you know very well that the Arab world has much more serious problems than the State of Israel. Arab leaders, just like countless dictators and despots before them, point their fingers at the Jews to distract their long-suffering people from their real problems. And you are complicit. More people die from malnutrition in the world each year than have ever lived in Palestine. Is dismantling the State of Israel the most pressing concern…?

Again, I think this is beside the point. That Israel is not the primary source of global oppression does not let its supporters off the hook. Unlike most other countries in this category, Israel claims to be a democracy, thus raising the standard, and its actions are made possible by US tax dollars. My own interest in this issue stems as well from my Jewish identity, which makes me recoil when Israel does things I disapprove of “in the name of the Jewish people.”

Palestinian victims may be outnumbered by victims elsewhere in the world, but victims are victims. At a time when Israel’s closure of the Gaza checkpoints causes hunger and tragedy for hundreds of thousands of civilians, it seems to me immoral to minimize the pain as well as the responsibility.

The second TAB commenter, Cheryl Mavrikos, ends with this:

Those who share your point of view have unfortunately learned very little from history and utterly fail to understand the political dynamics of the Arab world. What is more tragic is that those who view the conflict one-dimensionally proselytize as “political awareness” that which basically amounts to a personal failure of character.

Mavrikos attributes disagreement to either failure to understand or failure of character. Our differences seem to me instead to reflect  different priorities. For all these commenters on my posting, the priority is what is best for the Jewish people. I understand that urge, but my priority is to do what justice requires, taking into account both universally applicable principles and an effort to balance individual circumstances.

Jewish suffering cannot justify oppressing Palestinians. I do think intense need requires solutions. No group of people should be dispensable. But the solution cannot ultimately mean a state for every group, especially states where non-preferred groups are subjected to institutional discrimination and repression. I’m not yet persuaded a single state for Israelis and Palestinians will ever become possible, but I am persuaded that any state based on supremacy of one group over another does not deserve support.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Joel Kovel, one-state solution, Overcoming Zionism, Palestine, two-state solution, Zionism

Here in Brookline we love controversy. From Town Meeting to the weekly TAB to school classrooms, we disagree publicly, and usually respectfully enough, about issues large and small — parking rules and sidewalk snow, high-stakes testing and racial profiling, presidential power and the war in Iraq. Next Tuesday, though, the town’s tolerance will be tested when Joel Kovel challenges conventional thinking about Brookline’s one undebatable topic: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Kovel, a former psychiatrist, is both an academic and an activist. A Bard College professor of social studies, he was the New York Green Party’s senatorial candidate in 1998 and lost his bid to be the Greens’ 2000 presidential candidate to Ralph Nader. He writes frequently in journals that Brookline’s liberal and left-of-liberal residents are likely to read. During his Boston visit he’ll speak elsewhere about topics such as ecosocialism.

It’s Kovel’s new book, however, that’s aroused the pro-Israel forces’ ire. In Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine, Kovel explores in dizzying detail a broad array of themes certain to discomfort Israel’s 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 him.

Kovel’s critics did briefly persuade the University of Michigan Press to stop distributing his book, which is published by Pluto Press, a small publisher in the United Kingdom. Michigan soon backed down and resumed distribution, but Kovel’s critics have not given up. One of the things I learned during the years I wrote a regular TAB column was the lengths to which some of Israel’s supporters will go to keep the public ignorant about Middle East realities.

I like to think I was a bit more open-minded when I was a teenage Zionist myself. According to the left-humanist Zionism I had internalized, Israel’s manifestly unjust policies toward its own Arab citizens, obvious even before the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, would someday give way to a humanist, socialist society in which Jews and Arabs would live as equals. At least that’s what I thought when I moved to Israel for what I intended to be the rest of my life.

When I returned to the US in 1973 I was no longer a Zionist. Some combination of growing political awareness, nagging logical questions, and personal transformation had turned me away from what had been the primary focus of my life. But actively rejecting the very rationale for a Jewish state was just too big a leap.

In 2002, my TAB column addressed the questionable arrest a year earlier of Amer Jubran during a Coolidge Corner protest against Israel Independence Day. For a while I tread cautiously and somewhat inconsistently. I tried to spark discussion in Brookline while catching up on the political landscape and then, in two visits to Israel and the West Bank, the physical and personal landscape. My explorations, which included re-connecting with old friends and meeting Israeli and Palestinian students, professors, activists, and others, confirmed my long-time suspicion that Israel’s identity as a Jewish state — at Palestinian expense — fails the test of justice.

Despite its sharp clarity, Joel Kovel’s book was not an easy read. His careful critique of just about everything the Zionist movement taught me four decades ago was painfully direct. Although neither Brookline Booksmith nor the Brookline Public Library carries the book despite the attention it’s received, several essays on his website provide a good sense of Kovel’s position. Kovel will talk about the book on January 22 at 7 pm, unless his critics pressure the Coolidge Corner Theatre to cancel.

Kovel addresses the dilemma of liberal and left Zionists who still imagine, as I no longer can, that a Jewish-but-democratic state is possible. Along the way he enumerates universal principles of justice to support his thesis that Zionism’s logic could only lead to a state built on inequality and expulsion. Dropping my own Zionist identity meant rejecting the position that what matters most is what’s good for the Jews. Along with Kovel and a growing number of other Jewish Americans willing to rethink long-held assumptions, it seems clear to me today that justice is the appropriate bottom line.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Overcoming Zionism, one-state solution, Palestine, Joel Kovel, Zionism