Another entry in our series on Israeli racism. This enterprise began when Israeli apologists (on the megaphone network, it seems) scried a non-existent "anti-Semitism" into utterly innocent words and phrases published on this blog, simply because I had dared to bring up the "movers and art students" story.Racism, eh? Well, a noted Jewish after-dinner speaker once said that you can't go around telling folks to remove the splinters from their eye sockets when you've got enough lumber to build a replica of Abraham Lincoln's birthplace blocking your own vision. (I translate loosely.)
A critic asks me why I don't go to Israel and check things out for myself. I would like to do so, but funds do not permit. However, Shulamit Aloni is the the former Education Minister of Israel, so I presume that she knows the territory quite well. Here's what she has to say in a piece titled "This Road is for Jews Only: Yes, There is Apartheid in Israel":
The US Jewish Establishment's onslaught on former President Jimmy Carter is based on him daring to tell the truth which is known to all: through its army, the government of Israel practises a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp.And:
On one occasion I witnessed such an encounter between a driver and a soldier who was taking down the details before confiscating the vehicle and sending its owner away. "Why?" I asked the soldier. "It's an order--this is a Jews-only road", he replied. I inquired as to where was the sign indicating this fact and instructing [other] drivers not to use it. His answer was nothing short of amazing. "It is his responsibility to know it, and besides, what do you want us to do, put up a sign here and let some antisemitic reporter or journalist take a photo so he that can show the world that Apartheid exists here?"And:
Did man of peace President Carter truly err in concluding that Israel is creating Apartheid? Did he exaggerate? Don't the US Jewish community leaders recognise the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination of 7 March 1966, to which Israel is a signatory? Are the US Jews who launched the loud and abusive campaign against Carter for supposedly maligning Israel's character and its democratic and humanist nature unfamiliar with the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid of 30 November 1973? Apartheid is defined therein as an international crime that among other things includes using different legal instruments to rule over different racial groups, thus depriving people of their human rights. Isn't freedom of travel one of these rights?There's much more; follow the link. Anyone who wants to reproduce the art may do so; click on the image for a larger version.
In the past, the US Jewish community leaders were quite familiar with the meaning of those conventions. For some reason, however, they are convinced that Israel is allowed to contravene them. It's OK to kill civilians, women and children, old people and parents with their children, deliberately or otherwise without accepting any responsibility. It's permissible to rob people of their lands, destroy their crops, and cage them up like animals in the zoo. From now on, Israelis and International humanitarian organisations' volunteers are prohibited from assisting a woman in labour by taking her to the hospital. [Israeli human rights group] Yesh Din volunteers cannot take a robbed and beaten-up Palestinian to the police station to lodge a complaint. (Police stations are located at the heart of the settlements.) Is there anyone who believes that this is not Apartheid?
(Hey, megaphoners: I'm keeping to my once-a-day schedule. I did not post such pieces before you decided to attack me. In fact, I had hoped to shut down this blog. Can you define the term "self-defeating strategy"...?)
4 comments:
Joseph--I seldom post anything on any site, but feel obliged to express my appreciation for your courage in addressing this very touchy subject. I visit your site daily and always begin to experience withdrawal pains when I'm unable to do so. I would like to advise you to ignore the awful "megaphoners," but if they are the reason for your continued on-line presence, I really cannot do so.
Thanks for all you do and for being who you are.
Jerome
alas, typing this pretty well exhausts my computer skills.
Apartheid is defined therein as an international crime that among other things includes using different legal instruments to rule over different racial groups, thus depriving people of their human rights. Isn't freedom of travel one of these rights?
This incident she describes occurred in the West Bank, not Israel. And she doesn't call anyone a Nazi.
Apartheid arose from a racist intent, the circumstances on the West Bank arose out of self-defense. It's the difference between a death caused by murder and a death caused by malaria where both result in an identically dead corpse.
There are plenty of ways to insult that subset of Israelis you object to without that imagery, which can only give encouragement and legitimacy to real maniacs who happen across it.
It's hard to avoid the impression that your self-evident delight in 'getting away with it' contradicts your protestations of legititimate criticism.
It suggests an anti-semitism that is well considered, too careful in securing the pretense of a 'legitimizing' mask to rationalize or obviate racist intent.
But, I've just been looking at your latest, and, when that photoshopped propaganda poster first appeared, wasn't the target Microsoft? Then it was Republicans. In both cases there was some kind of a natural connection that made the picture believable, Microsoft the monopolist, the happy-to-be-thought-fascist Republicans.
But these pictures, the more I look at them, the more I think you agree, that you lose the irony somehow. In your pictures, here it isn't racism when we do it, despite your protestation. You make it work!
Until the day that you balance these slings and arrows at Israel ( with your star of David artwork, it is no different than calling everyone that has an American flag in their possession, porch, license plate, 4th of july parade, school, civic building, courthouse, tattoo, jewelry, sticker on a chills notebook, etc. a Nazi, because of the decisions of the few rabid hijackers in the white house), until that day that you balance your atrocious comparison to Hitler's gleeful, blood curdling, human agonizing, attacks on any jew no matter what, until that day that you balance your so called opinions with the honorary characteristics of the jewish race, you will be "rightly" perceived as a fucking racist fanatic by the occasional drifter on to your puny effort to call attention to the injustices by the current government in Israel.
Do not print this note stupid it is aimed at you only. The rest of the folks that are clapping their putrid hands in support of your shit. (my what anger you store up inside your body because of childhood hurts). You hypocrite, as if you wept like Jesus for the injustices of this world.
You are drifting farther and farther from the shore.
Sayanora as you grow smaller and smaller on the horizon until..until..pop..whoosh
Did you think that I would NOT respond to an organized attack? And as I made clear -- you did not read it -- Buzzflash really did use the same image to attack the Bush government. BF is selling refrigerator magnets with that image. Why am I then forbidden to do the same to the Israeli government?
How arrogant you are! You actually think I should view Israel as holy. It's all right if I assail my own government, or any other government. But not Holy Israel!
You are falling apart psychologically because you cannot bring yourself to face the truth: Israel is a racist state built on stolen land.
Attacks by "Terrorist" Palestinians are as nothing compared to what would happen if, say, someone tried to kick a Texan out of his home and forbade him from using certain highways.
Wake up, shmuck-face: ISRAEL CONDUCTS CBW EXPERIMENTS ON HUMAN BEINGS. One of their own top spies admitted it. He moved to Arizona because he can't live that racist country any more.
Human experiments. On victims targeted simply because they are not Ashkenazim. THAT'S the country you support.
And you dare -- YOU FUCKING DARE to call ME a racist?
YOU are the racist, asshole.
As for fading into the horizon: I normally don't care about readership numbers. In fact, I have often expressed a desire for fewer but better readers. But as it happens, you wrote this prediction on a day when my "hits" doubled.
I hope you meant it when you said "sayanora," racist.
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