Jewish Peace News

Saturday, September 12, 2009

JVP response to the attacks on the signers of Toronto film fest protest letter

From Cecilie Surasky, Jewish Voice for Peace deputy director:

Below, you'll find links to two fact sheets that I invite you to
distribute widely responding to numerous lies and distortions being
spread about the protest letter signed by 1,000 plus artists and
filmmakers -including many Palestinians and Israelis- regarding the
Toronto International Film Festival's celebratory spotlight on tel
aviv . Many of JVP's advisory board members have signed it- and the
backlash has been terrible and very hard on a number of people. read
the fact sheet and you'll see the institutional jewish and right wing
pile-on. jimmy carter redux.

http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/article_1213.shtml
and
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/article_1212.shtml

From Racheli:
I'm also enclosing an email sent to its membership by J street, in a dishonest
effort to make gains. It's not a formal J street communication, but when it's organized and sent
out by some of the people at the very top of the organization, the difference isn't huge.

From: Jeremy Ben-Ami <mailto:jeremy@jstreet.org>
To: 'Jeremy Ben-Ami' <mailto:jeremy@jstreet.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 10:11 PM
Subject: Pro Israel Pro Peace Community Responds to Toronto Film Boycott

Jeremy Ben-Ami and Lilly Rivlin (as individuals) are
collecting signatures on the letter below regarding the Toronto Film
Festival. We feel it is very important for the pro-Israel, pro-peace
community to clearly articulate the lines that we will defend when it
comes to actions that de-legitimize the state of Israel itself. If
you would like to join us in this statement, please email your
approval to add your name (and affiliation for identification
purposes) to the letter to Isaac Luria (isaac@jstreet.org).

We are trying to gather the names of 100 prominent Jewish
Americans who are writers, academics, rabbis, activists and prominent
thought leaders of our community.

We intend to deliver the letter by Monday and to apprise the
media of the signatory list.

Please feel free to pass this effort along to others of your
colleagues/acquaintances whose voices would add to the scope of this
call.

Thanks so much for your consideration.

September 9, 2009

Paul Atkinson, Chairman of the Board
Piers Handling, Director and CEO
Toronto International Film Festival
2 Carlton Street, Suite 1600
Toronto, ON M5B 1J3 CANADA

Dear Messrs. Atkinson and Handling,

We, the undersigned, thank the Toronto International Film
Festival for choosing Tel Aviv for its inaugural City-to-City
spotlight and to indicate our support for you as Jews who support a
just and speedy two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.

Israel's growing and internationally recognized film industry,
centered in Tel Aviv, is rightly a source of pride for many Israelis
and others, like us, who care about Israel. Through their art, Israeli
filmmakers are presenting the world with a rich picture of Israel's
complex and layered society that goes deeper than simplistic
headlines.

We find protests and criticism such as that leveled at the
Toronto International Film Festival's decision to showcase Tel Aviv's
film industry shameful and shortsighted.

The cause of peace will not be served by demonizing Israeli
film and filmmakers as being part of the "Israeli propaganda
campaign." In fact, anyone who actually watches popular Israeli films
would know that the films are often vigorously critical of Israeli
government policy.

Some critics say their objection is to the Israeli
government's role in promoting the films and not the films themselves.
Israel, like some European governments, supports its film industry
financially and does not employ any political litmus test to determine
which films receive funding. Some of your critics, it appears, would
have us believe that Benjamin Netanyahu personally selected these
films for maximum propaganda effect. That, of course, is absurd.

We must also, however, express our dismay at the statement by
the Toronto International Film Festival's co-director that Tel Aviv is
"contested ground." Just as we firmly believe that a Palestinian
state must be established in territory beyond the pre-1967 borders, we
hope that Tel Aviv's legitimacy as an Israeli city has been long
established. Recognizing both these facts is essential to realizing a
two-state solution, which is the only way to secure Israel as a Jewish
democracy and provide the Palestinians with a state of their own.

We urge those protesting Tel Aviv's selection to reconsider
their actions. And we urge the Toronto International Film Festival to
stand strong in the face of efforts to turn their artistic celebration
into a political fight.

................................................................
--------
Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Z. Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
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Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
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Wednesday, September 9, 2009

"Get the f**k out of my country"

A friend of mine in Jerusalem posted this Facebook status update yesterday: "'Hey Arabs, get the fuck out of my country,' direct quote overheard as I was walking by a group of American religious kids here for a year studying in a religious seminary."

We're long past shock over hearing these kinds of statements from some (certainly not all) American Jewish kids in Israel, as anyone who saw or remembers the video "Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem on the eve of Obama's Cairo Address," made by Max Blumenthal and Joseph Dana, knows. You can read Max Blumenthal's explanation of why they made it here: http://maxblumenthal.com/2009/06/censored-by-the-huffington-post-imprisoned-by-the-past-why-i-made-feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem/. The video was censored by several websites, including YouTube and the Huffington Post, but you can hear excerpts from it in the beginning of this video, "Feeling the Hate in Tel Aviv: the Sequel to the Censored Video" at http://maxblumenthal.com/2009/07/feeling-the-hate-in-tel-aviv-the-sequel-to-the-censored-video/.

When "Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem" was censored on YouTube, the organization Jewish Voice for Peace sent YouTube a petition signed by thousands of people, calling the company out on their censorship and asking them to put the video back up. In their explanation for why the video should be shown, JVP said that "the way that these young Jews talk about Muslims and Arabs has become normative inside the Jewish world. We see the seeds of this kind of talk inside institutional Jewish life. Jewish leadership on local, national and international levels doesn't do enough to counter it....[An] example: a settler who advocates denying Palestinian citizens of Israel their civil rights is not marginalized for his views - instead he's become Israel's new foreign minister!" (You can read the full statement and defense of why the Blumenthal/Dana video should be posted and seen here; look to the bottom of the page: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/301/t/9047/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1990

Indeed: on Monday, the opening of a new neighborhood on confiscated Palestinian land in the West Bank was marked by a ceremony which several Israeli Cabinet Ministers attended. Uzi Landau, Israel's Minister of Infrastructure, reportedly said that "This land is ours and ours alone" ... "It is the Arabs who are occupiers." The full article is here: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1112932.html

Not only was his statement not repudiated, but other ministers attending the ceremony echoed these sentiments. Also in attendance was Supreme Court Judge Eliyakim Rubinstein, a man who, in his former capacity as attorney general, made decisions to dismiss indictments against settlers and pursue prosecution of peace activists.

The new neighborhood for which the ceremony was held on Monday is called Mevaseret Adumim and it links Israel's largest West Bank settlement, Ma'ale Adumim, with Jerusalem. Ha'aretz article describes the ceremony marking the opening of this neighborhood as a "celebration." Given that this new settlement represents the ongoing deterioration of human rights, justice, and even humane rhetoric in Israel, we can ask: what exactly are they celebrating?

Sarah Anne Minkin

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Ilan Pappe: A big thank you / electronicintifada.net

Ilan Pappe points out that the Norwegian government's decision to withdraw its investment in Elbit is a milestone: It's the first time that any *government* has taken steps that support BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions).

Perhaps the Israeli media sensed this, because, writes Pappe, this was "a unique day in the history of media coverage and discussion in Israel. All the electronic agencies, radio and television alike, discussed the occupation and the oppression of the Palestinians and more importantly, the possible price tag attached to it".

Whether the action taken by the Norwegian government will last in the face of pressure remains to be seen. Regardless, it's a leap forward, creating a momentum all of us need to help maintain.

Racheli Gai.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10752.shtml

Ilan Pappe: A big thank you
The Electronic Intifada, 4 September 2009

Today was a unique day in the history of media coverage and discussion in Israel. All the electronic agencies, radio and television alike, discussed the occupation and the oppression of the Palestinians and more importantly, the possible price tag attached to it. It lasted only for 12 hours and tomorrow the obedient Israeli media will return to parrot the governmental new message to the masses that the "conflict" has ended and is about to be solved. On the one hand, you already have happy-go-lucky Palestinians in the West Bank (see the latest reports by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times and Ari Shavit in Haaretz). And on the other, alas, those who opted out from the blissful new reality: the oppressed Palestinians who still live under Hamas' dictatorship in the Gaza Strip.

Tomorrow we all will go back to the dismal reality in which Palestinian students are imprisoned daily without trial in Nablus, Palestinian children are killed near Ramallah, as also happened today. We will return to the reality of house demolitions as occurred two weeks ago in Jerusalem, of the continued strangulation of the Gaza Strip and the overall dispossession of Palestinians, wherever they are. But today of all days, those of us who happened to be here on the ground saw a light, a very powerful light, illuminating for a very short moment, the horizon of a different reality of peace and reconciliation.

And it was all due to the decision of the Norwegian government to withdraw its investments in the Israeli hi-tech company Elbit (due to the latter's involvement in the construction and maintenance of the apartheid wall). We have to keep a proportional view on this: only one section of Elbit, Elbit Systems, was affected. But the significance is not about who was targeted, but rather who took the decision: the Norwegian ministry of finance through its ethical council. No less important was the manner in which it was taken: the minister herself announced the move in a press conference. This is what transformed for a short while the media scene in the Zionist state.

Usually matters of foreign or military relevance are discussed in the Israeli media by generals or recruited political scientists from the local academia who provide the interviewers with what they want to hear as commentary. In this case, as one could gather from the questions they have posed to the individuals they invited, they wished to hear that the Muslim minority in Norway is behind this. Or that traditional anti-Semitism explains it and that the newly formed Elders of anti-Zion, with the new recruits -- the Iranian and Libyan governments -- concocted it. But since the target was a hi-tech company, the commentators invited to the live bulletins were either experts on economy and finance, such as the economic correspondents of the local dailies or captains of the local industry and hi-tech companies. The views of these commentators are a far cry from those usually expressed here in this and similar venues. But they do deal with economic realities and facts of life, and less
with
mythology and ideological fabrications. And they explained, on prime time, that it is actually the Norwegian sensitivity to human rights that begot this last action and quite likely similar actions will be taken in the future. For the readers of this site, this may sound boring or too elementary, but the average listener and viewer in Israel has not been exposed to such a clear deduction in the mainstream media by mainstream journalists and personalities for a very long time.

The significance of this alas, short lived exposure of what lies behind the apartheid wall and the fences that encircle the West Bank and the Gaza Strip stems from the seniority of Kristin Halvorsen, the Norwegian finance minister who herself announced the decision to divest. It is the first official act of this kind by a Western government. It is reminiscent of the first day when governments heeded the pressures of their societies in the West to act against apartheid South Africa. We were all moved, and rightly so, when brave trade unions took such decisions against Israel; we were all very hopeful when the International Court of Justice ruled against the wall and when courageous individuals, the last one being the filmmaker Ken Loach, took a firm stand against participating in anything which officially represents Israel. But now there is an evolution, a quantum leap forward and a momentum we have to keep and maintain!

This is a clear message for all the good people in the West looking for ways of helping the Palestinians in their moment of nadir. They want to march and sail peacefully to Gaza, they wish to facilitate more meetings between Israelis and Palestinians and are adamant despite all the hurdles to volunteer in the occupied territories. These are all noble actions but changing the public opinion in the West, is what people in the West can do best. And if one government has already shifted significantly the name and the rules of the game -- be it in a very minor decision that may still be revised under the tidal Zionist reaction, others will surely follow. For the time being all we can say is a huge thank you to a brave politician that will enter the pages of history as someone who paved the way to a better future for everyone in Israel and Palestine.

Ilan Pappe is chair in the Department of History at the University of Exeter.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Naomi Klein: Boycotting Life as Normal in Israel

Naomi Klein was in Israel and Palestine in June doing a tour with her latest book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, just out in Hebrew and Arabic. Klein endorses the strategy of BDS - Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions - to pressure Israel to end the occupation and obey international law. JPN editor Rebecca Vilkomerson wrote about hearing Klein speak here.

Cecilie Surasky, Deputy Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, sat down with Klein and her Hebrew/Arabic publisher, Yael Lerer, in Israel to talk about boycott: what is the goal, how is it done, and what does it mean for Klein to visit Israel and boycott it at the same time?

Klein says, "This is not a boycott of Israelis. It's a boycott of pretending that everything is normal in Israel...for foreigners like me, however you choose to come to Israel, you are making choices, and you are taking a side...This state is like a giant gated community. It has perfected the art of constructing a security bubble, and that is, in a sense, its brand."

She continues, "It's a brand that is sold to Diaspora Jews like me. It says: "we can keep you safe, we can create, in a sea of enemies, a bubble of safety for you to enjoy, to have a wonderful beach holiday, to go to film festivals, and book festivals -- even as we bomb Gaza, even as we turn the West Bank into a chain of mini-Bantustans, surrounded by walls and expanding settlements, and roads Palestinians don't have access to." These are two sides of the same coin: the bubble of normalcy, the brutality of enclosure. So it is not a politically neutral act to partake of that bubble."

The interview, published on Alternet, is available here.

And in other boycott news this week, the government of Norway announced that it is divesting -- that is, withdrawing its investments -- from the Israeli arms firm Elbit because Elbit is implicated in the construction of the separation barrier in the West Bank. This article from Ha'aretz on Norway's divestment and Israel's expectedly negative response says that a combination of Palestinian, Israeli and Norwegian groups have targeted Norway to divest over the last few years. WhoProfits.org, the website created and maintained by the Israeli Women's Coalition for a Just Peace, says that Elbit is one of the main providers of the electronic detection fence for the separation wall.

Sarah Anne Minkin

Shir Hever: Did Leviev's Empire Succumb to boycott? / alternativenews.org

As Leviev's empire hits the rocks, an obvious question to ask is whether this is due to boycott efforts. Shir Hever bases his contention that the boycott has played a role in the company's plunge on the fact that other Israeli companies with much greater debt are not falling apart. In other words: Debt in and of itself isn't a cause for crisis. It's the inability to refinance a debt that's the problem, and it's very likely the case that Leviev's inability to refinance is connected to boycott pressure.
Hever end his essay by saying:
"One thing is certain: the brave people who took to the streets to demand boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel and Israeli companies received a clear message that their efforts are not in vein. Private companies that seek to make easy profits in Palestine while ignoring the injustices and illegality of Israel's crimes there, will have to think twice about their investments. They may be required to pay a price in actual money for the moral deficit in their accounts."

Racheli Gai.

Did Leviev's Empire Succumb to Boycott?

Shir Hever, Alternative Information Center

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/2135-did-levievs-empire-succumb-to-boycott.html

On 31 August 2009, Lev Leviev, the sixth richest Israeli according to Forbes Magazine, convened a press conference and announced that his company Africa Israel will be unable to meet its financial obligations and repay its debts on time. Leviev's debt is estimated at nearly Euro 1.4 billion. While this tycoon said in August 2008 that "I will meet all of my obligations, to the last penny," he admitted in the latest press conference, one year later, that he made serious investment mistakes.

Though Leviev originally made his fortune in the diamond industry, Africa Israel is the flagship of his business empire. The company is well known for its widespread real-estate investments, but also for the fact that it builds in Israeli settlements, or colonies, in the West Bank. The company's construction projects in areas such as Ma'ale Adumim, Har Homa, Adam and Modi'in Ilit contribute to the ongoing efforts to dispossess Palestinians from their lands, to expand illegal Jewish settlements, entrench Israeli control, and place obstacles to ending the occupation and achieving peace between the Palestinians and Israel.

As a result of these construction projects, Leviev's business empire came under a massive and well-coordinated worldwide boycott campaign. Although it is difficult to organize a consumer boycott on a real-estate company, because that would amount to convincing people not to live in certain areas, supporters of the Palestinian cause for justice and freedom found creative ways to apply pressure on Africa Israel.

As the crimes of Africa Israel became infamous throughout the world, international pressure on the company began to mount. Demonstrations took place in New York City, including in front of Leviev's store on Madison Avenue. Leviev's diamonds were shunned in Dubai, and UNICEF refused a donation from him, saying "We are aware of the controversy surrounding Mr. Leviev because of his reported involvement in construction work in the occupied Palestinian territory." The UK embassy in Tel Aviv decided not to buy its office from Africa Israel while on 23 August 2009, it was revealed that Blackrock Inc., a large British investment firm, decided to divest from Africa Israel. Eight days later, Leviev convened the press conference in which he announced his inability to repay his debts.

The question that naturally arises is whether the efforts of the boycott campaign were what eventually toppled one of Israel's biggest tycoons. There is no way to answer this question based solely on financial data. Company financial reports do not include a clause for "losses because of boycott." Also, it is unrealistic to assume that the massive losses of Africa Israel result solely from the boycott—it is clear from company reports that the primary reason for debt is the depreciation of real-estate assets, which the company bought at tremendous leveraging. The international capitalist crisis impacted the value of the company's assets, making the huge company seem like a sinkhole of debt.

While it would be irresponsible to contend that Africa Israel accumulated a significant amount of its Euro 1.4 billion debt as a result of the boycott movement, this does not mean that the boycott movement did not play a key role in toppling the company. After all, a company doesn't go into crisis because of heavy debts, but only when it cannot refinance its debts and borrow money to cover previous commitments.

The "big five" Israeli tycoons include Eliezer Fischman with debts estimated at Euro 4.2 billion, Israel Corp of the Ofer family, with debts worth Euro 7.5 billion, Delek Group of Yitzhak Tshuva, with debts amounting to about Euro 8.1 billion and I.D.B of Nochi Dankner, with debts estimated at Euro 14.9 billion. Africa Israel has the least amount of debt amongst these tycoons, but was the first to fall, partially because its image was destroyed along with its fortunes, and because investors were wary of lending money to a company beset by protests, and facing possible litigation for crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories. The other Israeli tycoons are not subject to widespread boycott campaigns, and are so far able to obtain sufficient credit from investors to keep doing business, despite the international crisis.

In, fact, the impact of boycott cannot be directly measured in numerical terms. The educational, mobilizing and psychological impacts are always more powerful than the direct economic impact. What can be measured, however, are the decisions of companies that clearly state their decisions to withdraw from illegal projects, like the statements of Blackrock regarding Leviev, or Veolia regarding the illegal light rail in Jerusalem, or companies that succumb to economic pressure faster than companies in similar financial dire straits, such as Africa Israel succumbing before Israel's more indebted tycoons.

It is too early to say what the consequences of Leviev's fall could be. His creditors are mostly Israelis, and many were invested in his companies through their pension funds. The fall could be painful for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Israelis. Some of them might dedicate a moment of thought, as a result of losing money, to the reasons behind the boycott campaign, and to the fact that the crimes committed by their government and complicit corporations can affect them personally. Some may realize the occupation of Palestine is not free.

One thing is certain: the brave people who took to the streets to demand boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel and Israeli companies received a clear message that their efforts are not in vein. Private companies that seek to make easy profits in Palestine while ignoring the injustices and illegality of Israel's crimes there, will have to think twice about their investments. They may be required to pay a price in actual money for the moral deficit in their accounts.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Jewish gunsmoke tourism

For years, Israel has marketed itself to Jewish tourists as (among other things) a (slightly, safely) risqué, racy experience of "true grit". A Reuters item by Erika Solomon, published Friday August 21 (http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE57K1BC20090821?sp=true) reports on a new West Bank tourist attraction which takes this vein to extremes, meanwhile exposing its underpinning of militarism-racism-machismo. A stark testimony, in my view, to Zionist, Israeli war-worship, the magnetic—-and as it turns out lucrative—-appeal and excitement of this mix also allows a reflection of the kind of warped purposes that the concept of "Israel" has come to serve for many non-Israeli Jews. And, conversely, of Israelis' and Zionism's abiding stereotyping of "the usual Jew abroad", as phrased by the settler entrepreneur whose project is featured in the article. Verging on parody, this appalling initiative epitomizes what I see as some of the most aberrant, self-destructive aspects of the
complex play between Israel and diaspora.

The report, titled "'Terrorist' targets popular at West Bank gun range", describes a Jewish owned and operated firing range, in the midst of the occupied Palestinian West Bank, where Jewish tourists practice shooting cardboard cutouts, which they've first shouted down as "terrorist[s]", using "everything from handguns to M-16 combat rifles". One such tourist group, for instance, included "15 clients from 10 to 50 years old". A participant interviewed by Solomon commented on the dubious moral content, saying, "'It was sad to hear young kids express such racism.' … In the group before his … excited children shouted to their parents about being able to 'shoot the Arabs.'"

However, Sharon Gat, the owner of the company that "normally specializes in counter-terrorism and defense training for private security firms and the Israeli Defense Forces" says he is teaching Zionist values; "'I don't want to play games with a terrorist, I want to kill him.'"

Explaining the appeal of his site, he says, "'The usual Jew abroad is not like us. … They learn to be doctors and lawyers. There's an impression that they want to earn money and not that they're strong people. … I thought it would be nice to be next to the people who have fought in all the wars and fought for Israel. It gives you pride in being a Jew." Which, apparently, is not to be had from being a doctor or a lawyer.

(My thanks to Ruth Hiller of New Profile for bringing my attention to this item.)

Rela Mazali

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Bil'in as a model of Palestinian civil disobedience

A NY Times article on August 27 <http://bit.ly/19rRit> discusses the Palestinian village of Bil'in, a site of frequent confrontations between protesting Palestinians and the IDF over the Israel's separation barrier, which has foreclosed access by villagers to much of Bil'in's historic farmland and olive groves. Bil'in has become a model for Palestinian civil disobedience in the Occupied Territories, attracting a series of visits from high-profile public figures such as Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, but also from less obvious political players like Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group, and Jeff Skoll, founding president of eBay, as well as from a wide range of international state and grassroots leaders.

In recent months, Bil'in has been the subject of a series of night raids by IDF forces bent on breaking the back of the village's protests by arresting the town's leaders. But villagers have not ceased waging weekly protests in the village's streets -- and extending their efforts to remove Israel's separation barrier by taking the fight into Israeli courts, where in 2007 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled the route of the barrier "highly prejudicial" to Bil'in (subsequent Supreme Court rulings, however, have ratified the building of new Israeli settlements on land confiscated from Bil'in). Protests in Bil'in have often been creative: Bil'in's children, for example, participated in a recent "We Want to Sleep" demonstration captured on a YouTube video <http://bit.ly/HGJWx>.

Bil'in maintains a blog on its Web site, which makes for highly informative reading <http://bit.ly/XMuEI>. The site, which makes mention of allied political struggles around the world and asks site visitors to not forget the plight of Gaza, offers activist resources and suggestions for supporters who want to help the village defend itself against Israeli occupation and ever encroaching land confiscation by Israeli settlers.

--Lincoln Z. Shlensky