The ADL: The Organization That Cries Wolf
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- Written by Josh Ruebner, National Advocacy Director, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation Josh Ruebner, National Advocacy Director, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
- Published: 22 October 2010 22 October 2010
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My late grandfather was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. Many other members of my extended family were not so fortunate and perished in the Holocaust.
Organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), established in 1913, were designed to fight against this scourge of anti-Semitism in particular, and racism in general. However, sadly, the ADL has long since strayed from its original core mission "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all."
In recent decades, the ADL has racked up a checkered history of spying on domestic peace and justice organizations, fanning the flames of Islamophobia, and ironically defaming many who speak out against Israel's human rights abuses of Palestinians and dare to believe that "justice and fair treatment to all" should also apply to Palestinians.
Last week, the ADL added to its clownish "boy-who-cried-wolf" reputation by publishing its list of what it calls the top ten "anti-Israel" organizations in the United States. Unsurprisingly, the organization for which I work--the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation--made the list.
The US Campaign is a national coalition of more than 325 organizations working to end U.S. support for Israel's illegal 43-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, and to change U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality. Hardly the white robe-wearing, cross-burning stuff that the organization should be challenging.
If the ADL considers supporting human rights and international law to be "anti-Israel," then it reveals more about the organization's narrow-mindedness, McCarthyite silencing tactics, and support for Israel's oppressive treatment of Palestinians than it does about our alleged motivations.
Indeed, it would seem that for an organization to be considered "pro-Israel" by the ADL, it would need to march in virtual lock step with Israel's ongoing efforts to colonize and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem, besiege the Gaza Strip, repress nonviolent Palestinian organizers (both citizens of Israel and those living under Israeli military occupation), and deny the claims of Palestinian refugees to their right of return home.
In the ADL's absurd reckoning, many Israeli organizations doing work on the ground analogous to our work in the United States must be "anti-Israel" as well. Gush Shalom promotes a boycott of Israeli settlement products. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (whose U.S. affiliate is part of our coalition) rebuilds Palestinian homes destroyed by the Israeli military. B'tselem meticulously records each time Israel kills an innocent Palestinian civilian (more than 3,000 over the past ten years, many of whom are killed with weapons provided by U.S. taxpayers). Anarchists Against the Wall supports the nonviolent, popular demonstrations of Palestinians in the West Bank against the construction of Israel's Apartheid Wall. Zochrot documents and marks former Palestinian villages depopulated and razed by Israel when it was established in 1948.
There are dozens of such Israeli organizations that work admirably and conscientiously to dissent against their government's dismal human rights record and apartheid policies toward Palestinians. Although Palestinian citizens of Israel (who comprise approximately 20% of its population), such as civil rights advocate Ameer Makhoul, continue to face intense repression when trying to exercise their democratic right to dissent, at least these Jewish Israeli organizations are able to provide hope that liberal Israeli civil society will one day be strong enough to change its government's oppressive policies.
Just as these Israeli organizations dissent from their government's subjugation of Palestinians, so too do organizations such as ours dissent from U.S. diplomatic and military support for these Israeli government policies. It is this dissent--both in the United States and in Israel--that the ADL is attempting to stamp out by publishing its top ten list of so-called "anti-Israel" organizations.
Fortunately, the ADL is swimming against the historical tide. Millions of people around the world were awakened to the brutality of Israel's policies during its 2006 war on Lebanon and 2008-2009 war on the Gaza Strip. Unprecedented numbers of people, including, as the ADL correctly notes, some Members of Congress who have appeared at our events, are speaking out against these policies. Across the globe, a movement of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel's policies--similar in strategy and tactics to the movement that helped bring down apartheid in South Africa--is flourishing.
The ADL's ineffectual campaign to cow groups such as ours into silence through the publication of a blacklist will backfire. As the ADL itself acknowledges, groups such as ours are helping to change the discourse about our county's policies toward Israel/Palestine in profound ways. Such transformations in public opinion are always a precondition to policy change. It is only a matter of time until politicians in the United States catch up to these attitudinal changes and end U.S. support for Israel's brutal policies toward Palestinians. Only then will Israel feel compelled to negotiate with Palestinians in good faith and treat them as human beings with equal rights. Nothing could be more deeply "pro-Israeli" and "pro-Palestinian" than this.
Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service (CRS).
Rachel Corrie case: Israeli soldier in bulldozer 'did not see her', not one word of remorse
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- Written by Harriet Sherwood in Haifa Harriet Sherwood in Haifa
- Published: 21 October 2010 21 October 2010
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"I wanted to keep Rachel's humility and compassion for everyone in my heart today, but it was very hard as I did not hear one word of remorse from this witness today. That saddens me." - Cindy Corrie
Driver of machine that crushed 23-year-old American to death in Gaza in 2003 tells court he only saw her after the incident
Rachel Corrie's parents, Craig and Cynthia Corrie Rachel Corrie's parents, Craig and Cynthia, stand next to a photograph of their daughter at the start of their civil case against the state of Israel earlier this year. Photograph: Stefan Zaklin/Getty Images
The Israeli soldier at the controls of the bulldozer that crushed the pro-Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie told a court today that the first time he saw her was when fellow protesters were already tending to her dying body in the dirt.
Giving evidence for more than four hours in the civil case brought by Corrie's family against the state of Israel, the former soldier repeatedly insisted that had not seen the 23-year-old American standing in front of his 66-tonne Caterpillar bulldozer before she was fatally hit.
"I didn't see her before the incident," he told the court in Haifa. "I saw people pulling the body out from under the earth."
The soldier, named only as YB, gave evidence from behind a screen after a ruling by the judge for "security reasons". A gagging order was imposed on identifying details, although it was disclosed in court that YB is a 38-year-old Russian immigrant who learned Hebrew after arriving in Israel at the age of 23 and now works for a food processing company.
The Corrie family had requested that they be given dispensation to see YB give evidence, which was refused.
Rachel Corrie was protesting against the demolition by the Israeli military of Palestinian houses in Gaza when she was crushed to death in March 2003. An internal military investigation concluded that no charges should be brought.
YB, who was in communication with his unit command and a second bulldozer on the scene, told the court that he was told through his headphones that he had hit someone. "I reversed … There was this thought that something wasn't right … It looked like I hit someone."
In evidence that frequently contradicted his own earlier affidavits, YB said he reversed the bulldozer 25-30 metres. "After I reversed I saw they took out a body." He was "absolutely certain" Corrie's body was between the bulldozer and a mound of earth he had been ordered to flatten, contradicting earlier evidence given by two other military witnesses.
Asked if anyone from his unit went to the aid of the fatally injured protester, YB said: "No, we weren't allowed to leave [the vehicle]." Asked why he didn't call a military ambulance over his radio, he said: "That's not my level of command."
He recalled being warned that morning that there were civilian protesters in the area, and some might be armed. "Did you see any of them armed?" asked Hussein Abu Hussein, the family's lawyer. "I can't answer that, I don't remember," said YB.
Later Abu Hussein asked: "Did they carry anything that made them look like terrorists?" YB said: "They carried a loudspeaker and a sign."
"Did you suspect they were dangerous?" YB said: "I suspect everyone."
YB said he carried on working even though he knew there were civilians around "because these were our instructions. I'm just a soldier, you just carry out orders … I told the commander there were people around. The instruction was don't stop, keep working. It was not my decision, it was the officers'."
YB had offered no explanations, said Abu Hussein. "You continued driving forward, you pushed the dirt and you buried her. You didn't see anyone. You have no explanation of how [Corrie] was killed."
After the hearing, the lawyer told reporters: "The more we hear the more the impression is that someone tried to whitewash what happened."
Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother, said she was "glad to get this day behind me". Although the driver was a key witness, she said, "my sense is that there are other people on the ground and in the rear who also have responsibility and were giving orders, and allowed these things to happen to Rachel and continue to happen".
She brought a book of her daughter's writing to court, she said. "I wanted to keep Rachel's humility and compassion for everyone in my heart today, but it was very hard as I did not hear one word of remorse from this witness today. That saddens me."
The international community's final test
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- Written by Mustafa Barghouthi, The Electronic Intifada, Mustafa Barghouthi, The Electronic Intifada,
- Published: 21 October 2010 21 October 2010
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Much like previous rounds of talks, these negotiations were dominated on one side by an Israeli government that controls the land, roads, airspace, borders, water and electricity, as well as the trade and economy of the Palestinian side, while possessing a powerful military establishment (now the third military exporter in the world) and a robust gross domestic product, which has tripled in the last decade.
This same Israeli "partner" now also boasts a general public that has shifted dramatically to the right, and to which an apartheid system for Palestinians has become an acceptable norm.
On the other side is the Palestinian Authority -- one that paradoxically holds little real authority, and exists as a sort of fiefdom within the Israeli matrix of control. Further debilitating the PA is a protracted internal Palestinian division, total dependence on foreign aid and a decline of democracy and human rights. Finally, the Palestinian Authority is constantly pressured to provide security for its occupier while failing to provide any protection whatsoever to its own people from that same occupier.
How did we get here? The answer, in large part, has to do with the continued and unabated construction of settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in the 17 years since the Oslo agreement.
A "Progressive Hero?" Time to Think Outside of the Boxer
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- Written by Stephen Zunes Stephen Zunes
- Published: 21 October 2010 21 October 2010
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The failure of progressives to make major inroads in electoral politics in the United States today could not be better illustrated than a recent decision by Democracy for America, a million-member political action committee founded by former Vermont governor Howard Dean which claims leadership in the support for progressive candidates for office, regarding a veteran U.S. senator facing reelection in November.
The senator has strongly defended Israeli attacks on civilian population centers in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Lebanon and has categorically rejected calls for linking the billions of dollars in U.S. aid to human rights considerations. The senator has attacked reputable human rights organizations and leading international jurists for daring to document war crimes committed by Israeli forces (in addition to those committed by militant Islamists.) The senator has openly challenged the International Court of Justice on the universality of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, co-sponsoring a Senate resolution attacking the World Court's landmark 2004 decision. The senator has led the effort in the Senate to undermine President Obama's efforts to halt the expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, insisting that Obama refrain from openly challenging Israel's right-wing government to suspend its illegal colonization drive. The senator has attacked supporters of nuclear nonproliferation for calling on Israel to join virtually every other country in the world in signing the NPT. The senator has endorsed Israel's illegal annexation of greater East Jerusalem and expansion of settlements in violation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions, as well as Israel's construction of a separation barrier deep inside the occupied West Bank to facilitate their annexation into Israel and virtually eliminate the possibility of the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. The senator defended Israel's illegal attack in international waters of a humanitarian aid flotilla, even after a United Nations investigation revealed that five people on board, including a 19-year old U.S. citizen, were murdered execution-style. Indeed, this senator has consistently sided with Israel's right wing government against those in both the United States and Israel working for peace and human rights.
How did Democracy for America respond to the senator's reelection campaign? Not only did they give her their enthusiastic endorsement, they gave her the coveted honor of "Progressive Hero of 2010." The senator, Barbara Boxer of California, has for years angered progressives here by her strident position in support of some of the most militaristic tendencies in Israel.
There was a time -- such as during the Vietnam War or during U.S. military intervention in Central America in the 1980s and the Vietnam War earlier -- that such callous disregard for human rights and international law would have exempted a member of Congress from ever getting an endorsement from a major progressive organization, much less such an exemplary designation, however progressive their domestic agenda may have been. For example, during their long Senate careers, Democratic senators like Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson took leadership on such progressive causes as civil rights, labor, and the environment, but they were widely despised among grassroots Democrats for their outspoken support for the Vietnam War.
Indeed, imagine if, during the 1980s, Barbara Boxer had taken positions on Central America comparable to her current positions in the Middle East: supporting billions of dollars worth of unconditional military aid to the rightist Salvadoran junta and the Nicaraguan Contras; attacking Amnesty International and the United Nations for documenting human rights abuses by these U.S. allies; attacking the World Court for its ruling against the U.S. war on Nicaragua; or, defending the murder of humanitarian aid workers by U.S.-backed force. Democrats who did support the Reagan administration's policies -- who became known as "Death Squad Democrats" -- were subjected to widespread protests by their constituents and were challenged by progressives in the primaries and by progressive third party opponents in general elections.
Nowadays, however, so-called "progressive" organizations like Democracy for America seem to care little about the fate of people of color in faraway lands. There simply isn't much concern if an influential senator on the foreign relations committee defends those who use white phosphorous, cluster munitions and other illegal weapons against civilian neighborhoods and defames conscientious supporters of human rights who speak up for the rights of non-combatants. For groups like Democracy for America, support for the international legal conventions which arose from the ashes of World War II are apparently not that important.
U.S. policy toward Israel and its neighbors has traditionally been a weak spot for many otherwise liberal senators. Indeed, Russ Feingold, Patty Murray, Harry Reid, and a number of other Democrats facing tough reelection fights this year have, like Boxer, alienated many in the peace and human rights community by their support for the militaristic policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. According to the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli occupation and other groups opposing U.S. support for Israel's rightist government, however, Boxer is tied with lame duck Senator Evan Bayh as having the most right-wing record of any Democrat in the Senate. Even more significantly, only about a half dozen Republicans are as bad as Boxer; none are worse.
And she does not embrace such a hard-line militarist position due to pressure from her ethnically diverse and relatively liberal California constituency. While an overwhelming majority of Democrats still strongly support Israel's right to exist in peace and security, there is growing unease at unconditional support for Israeli policies which have violated international legal norms, jeopardized the peace process and resulted in the deaths of many hundreds of innocent civilians. Polls show most Democrats -- including Jewish Democrats -- oppose the hard-line Netanyahu government's policies (a trend particularly strong among younger voters), while most Americans who support the current right-wing Israeli leadership are voting Republican anyway.
Indeed, just as the Iraq War made it easier for Democratic voters to recognize that one can be a patriotic American and still oppose the United States invading and occupying an Arab nation, it is also increasingly clear that one can oppose similar Israeli policies and still support the state of Israel. There is also a growing awareness that just as such militaristic U.S. policies have hurt our strategic interests in the region, similar Israeli policies are threatening that country's legitimate security needs as well.
Unfortunately, California's senior senator has a hard time recognizing this. And Democracy for America -- along with MoveOn and number of other supposedly progressive organizations -- doesn't seem to have a problem with backing those who support the self-destructive policies of Netanyahu, though they would refuse to support those who backed the same kinds of policies under Bush.
Indeed, Democracy for America, MoveOn, and others who are so enthusiastic about Boxer, Feingold, Murray and other Democratic hawks are not unlike Bush supporters: They are so enamored with their candidate that they ignore the reality of their policies. Their candidate supports illegal invasions of Muslim nations at the cost of thousands of lives? No problem. Their candidate attacks the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and other international bodies which try to enforce international humanitarian law? No problem. Their candidate repeatedly makes demonstrably false claims in order to justify illegal military operations? No problem. Their candidate tries to discredit Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Red Cross, and leading international jurists for publishing empirical studies which counter the lies she spews out in trying to justify the war crimes of foreign right-wing governments? No problem.
This does not mean that, with so much at stake this election year, that progressive organizations should necessarily endorse third party candidates and allow Republicans to win critical races. Indeed, it is important to recognize that the Republican nominee challenging Senator Boxer is no better regarding Middle East peace. For example, at a recent event in Los Angeles, Carly Fiorina declared, "We must stand up unequivocally and declare that Israel is our most important friend and ally in the Middle East and that we will stand with her always no matter what" the right-wing government might do. Like Boxer, she criticized the administration for joining the rest of the international community in calling for a moratorium on the expansion of Israel's illegal colonization efforts in the occupied West Bank.
The problem is that one of the most right-wing members of the Senate on one of the most critical foreign policy issues of the day is labeled a "progressive hero" rather than the lesser evil that she is.
Yes, "evil" is a strong word. But what else can you call defending the mass murder of Lebanese and Palestinian children? Or allocating unconditionally billions of our tax dollars every year to provide the weapons and ordinance for the murderers? Or opposing restrictions on the export of cluster bombs to countries which use them against heavily populated areas? Or criticizing the UN and other international bodies simply for trying to fulfill their mandates to enforce international law? Or attacking prominent jurists and human rights workers for documenting war crimes she denies ever took place? Or claiming that the murder and beatings of humanitarian aid volunteers in international waters constitutes legitimate self-defense?
Indeed, when it comes to this critical issue in foreign affairs, Boxer is closer to her right-wing Senate colleague Jim DeMint (R-SC) than she is to the liberal Pat Leahy (D-VT), closer to the fundamentalist Christians United for Israel than the liberal Churches for Middle East Peace, closer to the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation than the liberal Institute for Policy Studies, and closer to the rightist American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than the liberal Zionist group Americans for Peace Now.
This is not about the supposed power of "the Israel Lobby." Any right-wing lobby will appear all-powerful if there is no progressive counter-lobby. Boxer takes the positions she does not because AIPAC forces here to do so against her will, but because she can get progressives to campaign for her, donate money to her, and vote for her anyway regardless of her contempt for human rights and international law. She and other right-wing Democrats will not change unless and until liberal groups stop labeling them "progressive heroes." Peace and human rights activists in the 1980s ended US support for the Nicaraguan Contras and the Salvadoran junta by refusing to support Democrats who, like Boxer, defended war crimes by right-wing allies and trashed human rights activists who exposed them. As a result, a number of them lost their re-election campaign and were replaced in the subsequent election by progressives, while others, fearing the same fate, changed their positions.
Progressives routinely find themselves having to support candidates who are less than perfect. Indeed, no one can support perfection under the current system. However, it is profoundly disappointing that, as we enter the second decade of the 21st century, there are still prominent Democrats who do refuse to respect the Fourth Geneva Convention and other basic tenets of international law, such as the UN Charter's recognition of the inadmissibility of any country expanding its territory through military force. You can't get more fundamental than that. Indeed, that principle is the foundation of the post-WWII international legal system, which Boxer appears to be doing her damndest to undermine. In short, progressives here in California who refuse to back Boxer are not "single-issue" voters, for this is not about a single issue: these are fundamental principles at the heart of international law and human rights.
And, however one may choose to vote in the California Senate race come November, to label Barbara Boxer as the "progressive hero of 2010" is just plain wrong.
Settlers start 600 new homes after ban ends: watchdog
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- Written by BBC News BBC News
- Published: 21 October 2010 21 October 2010
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A construction site in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, 20 October Construction in West Bank settlements has resumed since the freeze expired on 26 September
Jewish settlers have started building more than 600 homes in the West Bank since a building freeze expired last month, an Israeli pressure group says.
The pace of building is four times faster than before the ban was put in place, Peace Now says.
Recently re-launched Middle East peace talks could collapse over Jewish settlement building on occupied land.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has vowed to leave the talks unless Israel renews its partial construction freeze.
More details on the 600-plus new homes being built by Jewish settlers will be released in a report on Monday, Yariv Oppenheimer, a spokesman for Peace Now, told the BBC.
Another Peace Now official, Hagit Ofran, added:
"I estimate that work has started at about 600 housing units [since the end of the construction freeze], and I'm looking to complete the survey in order to know the exact number, and it is [at] different stages of construction. In some places, it is only levelling the ground that has started and in others, it's the very foundation that is now being dug."
A separate count by the Associated Press news agency estimated that ground had been broken on at least 544 new West Bank homes since 26 September, when Israel lifted its 10-month freeze on most new settlement building in the West Bank.
Palestinian spokesman Ghassan Khatib said the figure was "alarming and is another indicator that Israel is not serious about the peace process, which is supposed to be about ending the occupation".
But Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel wanted to "proceed to move forward in the peace process and all the difficult issues, all the core issues of the conflict are on the table, including the sensitive issue of settlements.
"In the interim, the limited construction under way will in no way impact upon the final contours of a peace agreement. Ultimately, it's not about settlements it's about reaching a historic peace settlement," he added.
An organisation representing Jewish settlers told the BBC they were not counting houses and the settlements needed to grow at a natural pace.
US pressure
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been under pressure from the Obama administration to extend the slowdown.
Earlier this month, Mr Netanyahu offered to renew the freeze if the Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish state, but the Palestinian leadership dismissed the proposal as unfair and unnecessary.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements. They are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
The Palestinians - backed by the Arab League - have pledged not to return to direct talks without a full settlement construction freeze, but have given US negotiators until early November to try to break the impasse.
The talks, which resumed in Washington in September after a break of almost 20 months, are facing imminent collapse in the bitter row over settlement building.