It should not be thought that the ADL speaks for all U.S. Jews, or even
all Israeli Jews. Here are just two samples of Jewish opinion which
contrast sharply with that of the ADL. The first is a Jewish religious
response to Zionism, the second secular.
Carrol
http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/24728.php
Delivered by Rabbi Mordechi Weberman Under the auspices of the Palestine
Right of Return Coalition (Al-Awda NY/NJ), at the march in front of the
Israeli Consulate, on Friday July 26, 2002
There are those who ask us why we march with the Palestinians. Why do we
raise the Palestinian flag? Why do we support the Palestinian cause?
"You are Jews!" they tell us. What are you doing?
And our response, which I'd like to share with you this afternoon, is
very simple.
IT IS PRECISELY BECAUSE WE ARE JEWS THAT WE MARCH WITH THE PALESTINIANS
AND RAISE THEIR FLAG!
IT IS PRECISELY BECAUSE WE ARE JEWS THAT WE DEMAND THAT THE PALESTINIAN
PEOPLES BE RETURNED TO THEIR HOMES AND PROPERTIES!
Yes, in our Torah we are commanded to be fair. We are called upon to
pursue justice. And, what could be more unjust then the century old
attempt of the Zionist movement to invade an other people's land, to
drive them out and steal their property?
The early Zionists proclaimed that they were a people without a land
going to a land without a people.
Innocent sounding words.
But utterly and totally untrue.
Palestine was a land with a people. A people that were developing a
national consciousness.
We have no doubt that would Jewish refugees, have come to Palestine not
with the intention of dominating, not with the intention of making a
Jewish state, not with the intention of dispossessing, not with the
intention of depriving the Palestinians of their basic rights, that they
would have been welcomed by the Palestinians, with the same hospitality
that Islamic peoples have shown Jews throughout history. And we would
have lived together as Jews and Muslims lived before in Palestine in
peace and harmony.
To our Islamic and Palestinian friends around the world, please hear
our message --
There are Jews around the world who support your cause. And when we
support your cause we do not mean some partition scheme proposed in 1947
by a UN that had no right to offer it.
When we say support your cause we do not mean the cut off and cut up
pieces of the West Bank offered by Barak at Camp David together with
justice for less than 10 % of the refugees.
We do not mean anything other than returning the entire land, including
Jerusalem, to Palestinian sovereignty!
At that point justice demands that the Palestinian people should decide
if and how many Jews should remain in the Land.
This is the only path to true reconciliation.
But we demand yet more. WE demand that in returning the land back to
its rightful owners we have not yet done enough. There should be an
apology to the Palestinian people which is clear and precise. Zionism
did you wrong. Zionism stole your homes. Zionism stole your land.
By so proclaiming we proclaim before the world that we are the people of
the Torah, that our faith demands that we be honest and fair and good
and kind.
We have attended hundreds of pro Palestinian rallies over the years and
everywhere we go the leaders and audience greet us with the warmth of
Middle Eastern hospitality. What a lie it is to say that Palestinians in
particular or Muslims in general hate Jews. You hate injustice. Not
Jews.
Fear not my fiends. Evil cannot long triumph. The Zionist nightmare is
at its end. It is exhausted. Its latest brutalities are the death rattle
of the terminally ill.
We will yet both live to see the day when Jew and Palestinian will
embrace in peace under the Palestinian flag in Jerusalem.
And ultimately when mankind's Redeemer will come the sufferings of the
present will long be forgotten in the blessings of the future.
www.jewishfriendspalestine.org
***** >From the current web site of Jewish Friends of Palestine:
"SPOOFING" ALERT - Over the last couple weeks, people opposed to freedom
of expression for Jewish people have been sending out "spoofed" emails
in the name of "Jewish Friends of Palestine" containing virulent
anti-Semitic, anti-Arab, and Islamaphobic material in English, Arabic,
and Hebrew. This initiative firmly opposes Anti-Semitism, Anti-Arab
racism, Islamaphobia and all forms of hate and we are NOT responsible
for these "spoofed" emails. That these emails did not originate from us
can be confirmed by looking at the full headers of these emails. If you
receive an email from us, it will be specifically addressed to you
individually and will only go to you, not to multiple addresses.
http://www.eccmei.net/j/
------
Zionism doesn't define Jews - it divides us
by Gabor Maté
Thursday December 12, 2002 at 02:24 PM
Globe and Mail December 12, 2002
Given its horrific 20th-century connotations, anti-Semitism is a serious
charge. It was levelled against critics of Israel on this page recently
by three people who have demonstrated a strong lifelong commitment to
humanitarian values. Lawyer Clayton Ruby, labour leader Jeff Rose and
physician Philip Berger wrote that they feel "anti-Semitism has emerged
as a powerful force" among some left-wing opponents of Israeli policy.
As a Jew and a former member of a Zionist youth movement, I understand
the affinity the three writers have for Israel. I can also see why the
blindly murderous attitudes and actions of some in the Palestinian
resistance trigger a powerfully defensive emotional response in the
Jewish community.
But the flaw in their argument is rooted in a confounding of Jewish
identity with the Jewish state. They write of an "artificial distinction
between Israel and Zionism, on one hand, and Jewish identity on the
other."
The modern identification of Jews and Israel emerged largely as a
reaction to the Nazi genocide. Although it may represent the majority
view today, it should be not taken for granted. Historically, it never
has been. It is unlikely to persist.
From its beginnings, political Zionism faced opposition within the
Jewish world. The Zionist identification of a people with a state is
incompatible with the real position of most Jews as freely chosen
citizens of other countries. Long before Roman times, Jews formed widely
dispersed religious, cultural and ethnic groups whose commonality was
not based on geography or politics. Only their spiritual practices were
centred on Palestine.
Some Jews saw in political Zionism a vulgarization of Jewish Messianic
tradition that would debase Jewish moral life. The Russian-Jewish writer
and "spiritual Zionist" Ahad Ha'am, who emigrated to Palestine, was one
of the first to recognize the ethical costs of a project to establish a
Jewish state at the expense of the indigenous Arabs. "If this be the
Messiah coming," he wrote in the first years of the last century, "then
I don't want to see him arrive."
Zionist theory denied the legitimate presence of an emerging, indigenous
nation in Palestine. Zionist practice ensured its dispossession and
exile. "We may be a people without a home," said a disillusioned German
Zionist in 1925, "but alas, there is not a country without a people. . .
. Palestine has an existing population of 700,000, a people who have
lived there for centuries and rightfully consider the country as their
fatherland and homeland."
Ahad Ha'am's dark prophecy of an anti-Messianic future has been fully
realized. My medical friend and colleague Philip Berger would be
appalled if he saw with his own eyes, as I have, the disastrous
humanitarian and health consequences of a policy that grants settlers
from New York six times as much fresh water per capita as native
Palestinians.
Human-rights lawyer Clayton Ruby would be outraged to witness the
proceedings of military courts where tortured Arabs are accused,
convicted and sentenced without the right to know the evidence against
them.
Unionist Jeff Rose would be shocked at policies that de facto make
Palestinian labour groups illegal, exposing their organizers to the
threat of incarceration.
It owes nothing to anti-Semitism that Israel is the subject of more
critical scrutiny than are the neighbouring Arab autarchies,
dictatorships and pseudo-democracies. No one mistakes the true nature of
those regimes. No credible voices are raised in their defence, nor do
the abhorrent Palestinian suicide bombings have any serious apologists.
Only Israel's relentless and ultimately self-destructive expansionism,
militarism and state violence find many supporters.
The Palestinians continue to be disenfranchised, dispossessed and
humiliated. Mr. Rose, Dr. Berger and Mr. Ruby, were they to drop their
self-generated fear of leftist anti-Semitism, would be inspired by the
words of the Israeli officer who chose this week to join dozens of his
comrades in jail rather than serve in an army of brutal occupation: "I
will do my time in a visible prison for a few months for refusing to
enlist in Israel's academy for prison guards: the IDF, Israel's 'Defense
Forces' which have been imprisoning an entire people for 35 years."
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