Cruel and usual: US solitary confinement

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Written by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella James Ridgeway and Jean Casella

Published: 22 March 2011 22 March 2011

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Cruel and usual: US solitary confinement

As incarceration rates explode in the US, thousands are placed in solitary confinement, often without cause.

The US does not keep data on the number of inmates in solitary confinement [GALLO/GETTY]

The spectre of Bradley Manning lying naked and alone in a tiny cell at the Quantico Marine Base, less than 50 miles from Washington, DC, conjures up images of an American Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, where isolation and deprivation have been raised to the level of torture.

In fact, the accused Wikileaker, now in his tenth month of solitary confinement, is far from alone in his plight. Every day in the US, tens of thousands of prisoners languish in "the hole".

A few of them are prison murderers or rapists who present a threat to others. Far more have committed minor disciplinary infractions within prison or otherwise run afoul of corrections staff. Many of them suffer from mental illness, and are isolated for want of needed treatment; others are children, segregated for their own "protection"; a growing number are elderly and have spent half their lives or more in utter solitude.

No one knows for sure what their true numbers are. Many states, as well as the federal government, flatly declare that solitary confinement does not exist in their prison systems. As for their euphemistically named "Secure Housing Units" or "Special Management Units", most states do not report occupancy data, nor do wardens report on the inmates sent to "administrative segregation".

Prosecutor, judge and jury

By common estimate, more than 20,000 inmates are held in supermax prisons, which by definition isolate their prisoners. Perhaps 50,000 to 80,000 more are in solitary confinement on any given day in other prisons and local jails, many of them within sight of communities where Americans go about their everyday lives.

Over the past 30 years, their numbers have increased even faster than the US' explosive incarceration rate; between 1995 and 2000, the growth rate for prisoners housed in isolation was 40 per cent, as compared to 28 per cent for the prison population in general, according to Human Rights Watch.

Likewise, no one can state with any consistency what these prisoners have done to warrant being placed in solitary confinement or what their isolation is supposed to accomplish.

As it stands, prisoners can be thrown into the hole for rule violations that range from attacking a guard or a fellow inmate to having banned reading materials or too many postage stamps.

In doling out months or even years in solitary, the warden and prison staff usually serve as prosecutor, judge and jury, and unsurprisingly they often abuse that power. The cases are shocking and they abound.

Isolating the mentally ill

At the all-solitary Colorado State Penitentiary, Troy Anderson has spent the last 10 years in isolation, never seeing the sun or the surrounding mountains, due to acting out on the symptoms of untreated mental illness.

Anderson has been diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, anti-social personality disorder, cognitive disorders, a seizure disorder and polysubstance dependence, and he has attempted suicide many times, starting at the age of 10.

His mental health treatment in prison has consisted largely of intermittent and inappropriate medications and scant therapy, most of it conducted through a slot in his solid steel cell door. By Colorado's own estimate, 37 per cent of the prisoners in its isolation units are mentally ill.

Steve Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights described the case of a 15-year-old boy named JP - accused, but not yet tried or convicted, of murder - who stands to spend up to two years in isolation in a Tennessee county jail because his family is too poor to afford his bond, set at $500,000. Although he had previously attempted suicide and been treated for mental illness, JP has spent his time behind bars "with no physical contact from a member of his family and no schooling".

His mother is allowed to "visit" him by seeing him twice a week for 30 minutes on a TV monitor. She has not touched her son in over a year. "The child has gone for over a year with no physical contact other than a correctional officer holding his arms when they move him."

This story is far from rare: Children in adult prisons and jails often end up in solitary because there is simply nowhere else to put them to prevent them being victimised.

Prisoner Michelle Ortiz was first admonished, then shackled and sent to solitary confinement as punishment for reporting her molestation and subsequent rape by a male guard at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. As the Columbus Dispatch reported: "When Ortiz reported the first assault to prison official Paula Jordan, the official told the inmate that the male guard was being transferred from the facility and was 'just a dirty old man'. That same evening, the male guard assaulted her again."

She was sent to solitary, reportedly, so that she could not tell other prisoners what had happened to her. Victims of prison rape, like children, are often isolated "for their own protection", or given a choice between solitary confinement and continued sexual assault.

Punishing jailhouse journalists

Timothy Muise, a prisoner at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Norfolk, protested to prison authorities about a sex-for-information racket being run by guards, in which certain prisoners were permitted to have sex in return for snitching on others.

He was thrown into solitary for two-and-a-half months, brought up on disciplinary charges for "engaging in or inciting a group demonstration", and shipped out to another prison. It is far from unusual for prison whistleblowers to be silenced through the use of solitary confinement.

Maine prisoner Deane Brown, serving a lengthy sentence for burglary and robbery in the lockdown unit of Maine State Prison, began sending reports by letter then by phone to a community radio station; he called his reports "Live from the Hole".

He was reprimanded by the warden who said he was "disclosing confidential information through the media". Then Brown was suddenly whisked away to a series of maximum security prisons in Maryland, and ended up in a particularly brutal solitary confinement unit in New Jersey. Cases of jailhouse journalists being punished with isolation have surfaced in other states, as well.

At the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox were placed in solitary confinement following the murder of a prison guard. They maintain that they were targeted for the crime because of their membership in a prison chapter of the Black Panthers.

More than 38 years later they are still in solitary. Both men are now in their 60s, but the warden maintains they must be kept in isolation because they are "still trying to practice Black Pantherism" and he does not want to "have the blacks chasing after them".

'Bone-cold loneliness'

What conditions await these prisoners consigned to solitary for months, years or decades? A typical supermax cell runs about 2 x 3 metres and contains a toilet and sink, a slab of poured concrete for a bed and another slab for a desk.

Occupants may get a brief shower a couple of times a week and a chance to exercise in what looks like the run of a dog kennel three days a week. Food is shoved through a slot in the door. They get perhaps one phone call a month and an occasional visit, through a barrier, with an approved list of family and friends. They can select a book every so often from an approved list. On occasion, a TV inside or outside the cell blares programming at them, often of a religious nature.

If they are deemed to have misbehaved in some way they may be deprived of exercise, books or visits; if deemed a suicide risk, they can have their blankets and even their clothing removed. In one Louisiana parish prison last year, suicidal inmates were found being locked, alone and often naked, in so-called "squirrel cages" measuring 1 x 1 metre; one-fourth of the locally mandated size for caged dogs.

Wilbert Rideau, a renowned prison journalist (and now a free man), describes in his recent memoir In the Place of Justice the "bone-cold loneliness" of life in solitary confinement on Angola's death row.

He describes solidarity as being: "Removed from family or anything resembling a friend, and just being there, with no purpose or meaning to my life, cramped in a cage smaller than an American bathroom. The lonesomeness was only increased by the constant cacophony of men in adjacent cells hurling shouted insults, curses, and arguments - not to mention the occasional urine or faeces concoction. Deprivation of both physical exercise and meaningful social interaction were so severe ... that some men went mad while others feigned lunacy in order to get transferred to the hospital for the criminally insane."

On occasion, prisoners facing the possibility of a lifetime in solitary have asked judges to sentence them to death instead.

Europe vs. the US

In Europe, solitary confinement has largely been abandoned, and it is widely viewed as a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, in violation of international human rights conventions.

Recently, four British nationals who face terrorism charges successfully delayed their extradition to the US by arguing in the European Court of Human Rights that they would face life in a federal supermax prison.

But American courts and politicians have, for the most part, failed to take a strong stand against solitary confinement. There are signs, however, that the consensus may be shifting in the US.

In Colorado, which holds more than 1,500 prisoners in long-term isolation, a bill was recently introduced in the state legislature to curb the use of solitary.

The legislation would significantly limit the isolation of prisoners with mental illness or developmental disabilities, and would demand that prisoners be reintegrated into the general prison population before their release. In addition, it emphasises what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) - which is strongly supporting the bill - called "the staggering cost of using solitary confinement, rather than mental or behavioural health alternatives, as the default placement without regard to medical needs, institutional security or prisoner and public safety".

A similar bill introduced in the Maine state legislature last year ended with legislators agreeing to "study" the issue further, and legislation on solitary confinement is being floated in New Mexico as well. At the same time, cases have been brought before federal courts in both Louisiana and Colorado, challenging on constitutional grounds the decades-long solitary confinement of several of the nation's most isolated prisoners.

At the same time, the ACLU's David Fathi believes that a combination of legislation and litigation, grassroots activism and investigative journalism are producing "a breakthrough in public awareness".

If this is true, it may at least bring this form of "no-touch torture" out of the shadows of the prison walls and into the light of the public square.

James Ridgeway is a senior Washington correspondent with Mother Jones Magazine. He is the author of 16 books and has also worked for the New York Times Magazine, The Economist, Harper's, The Nation and the Village Voice. 

Jean Casella is a freelance writer and co-editor of Solitary Watch.

UN body can help bring international justice for Gaza conflict victims

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Written by Rachel Campbell, Amnesty International Campaigner for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories Rachel Campbell, Amnesty International Campaigner for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Published: 22 March 2011 22 March 2011

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UN body can help bring international justice for Gaza conflict victims

This month, Amnesty International's petition was presented to the President of the Human Rights Council © Amnesty International

Today, the UN Human Rights Council will meet to begin debating a crucial report on seriously flawed Israeli and Palestinian investigations into grave violations of international law committed during the 2008-2009 conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel.

By the end of the week it will vote on a resolution on what should be done next. If it does the right thing, its actions could take the conflict’s victims a step closer to achieving the justice denied to them for over two years – this time at an international level.

The report being debated this week is the second report from of a committee of independent experts which the Human Rights Council asked to assess these domestic investigations.

In the report, issued last Friday, the committee concluded for the second time that Israel has not investigated the actions of the military and civilian leaders who planned and commanded its military operations, and that it has not been transparent about the investigations it has conducted into alleged violations of international law during the conflict.

The committee also found that the Hamas authorities have failed to conduct investigations into the actions of Palestinian armed groups, specifically the firing of rockets into Israel.

Importantly, the committee noted that the needs of victims have yet to be addressed. They quote one Gazan resident, who provided information to the investigation, describing the Israeli investigations as “superficial, not significant, and misleading to the international community.” The person decided to testify anyway “out of a belief that we are civilians and innocent”.

An Israeli woman, a victim of rocket attacks in southern Israel, voiced her frustration when she said: “I have no Court, no one to represent me, no one to sue. Is that real justice?”

Last Friday, Amnesty International also published its own updated assessment of the Israeli and Palestinian investigations, together with its recommendations for what should happen next.

The assessment reiterates our view, shared by other human rights organizations, that more than two years after the conflict, both the Israeli and Hamas authorities have failed to undertake credible, independent investigations meeting international standards.

The devastation caused by that conflict was unprecedented: over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, and thousands more were injured. Three Israeli civilians were killed by indiscriminate rockets fired by Palestinian armed groups.


A young man in Gaza during the conflict © Sharif Sarhan
In September 2009, the report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, led by Justice Richard Goldstone, found that both sides had committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, and called on both sides to conduct credible, independent investigations within six months.

As Amnesty International’s assessment was published, our appeal for action calling on the Human Rights Council to make justice for the victims a reality – and not merely an aspiration – had gathered 108,927 signatures since its launch in January.


Amnesty International’s petition calls on the Human Rights Council to vote for effective action to end impunity for crimes committed during the conflict.

Simultaneously, Amnesty International members are telling their governments – including members of the Human Rights Council – that after two years of inaction, it is startlingly clear that neither the Israeli nor the Hamas authorities have any intention of carrying out credible investigations and bringing perpetrators to justice.

We are urging the Human Rights Council to adopt a resolution effectively telling the UN Security Council to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court, because we believe this is the only way to ensure justice for the Palestinian and Israeli victims.

Recent events have demonstrated that such a step is possible. Only last month the UN Security Council referred the situation in Libya to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

This swift decision served to highlight the international community’s unwillingness over the last two years to address impunity for crimes committed during the Gaza conflict. Double standards are unacceptable; the UN must show consistency and take the same steps for justice for the victims in Gaza and southern Israel.

Last week, the Organization of the Islamic Conference proposed a draft resolution on behalf of the Palestinian Authority for the Human Rights Council to consider. Worryingly, it is inadequate and risks hindering the process towards international justice unless it is significantly amended.

The draft resolution recommends that the report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission, published a year and a half ago, should be referred again to the UN General Assembly. But the Goldstone report was already endorsed by the General Assembly back in November 2009!

To take effective action, the Human Rights Council must now refer the committee of independent experts’ reports to the General Assembly, which can refer the situation of the Gaza conflict on to the Security Council, the UN’s most powerful body.

Amnesty International members have called for justice for Palestinian and Israeli victims of the conflict © Pierre-Yves Brunaud (Picturetank)
Moreover, the resolution is one-sided since it deals only with violations carried out by Israel while ignoring the fact that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups fired indiscriminate rockets into southern Israel. Any effective resolution must apply to both sides; it cannot be selective.

Amnesty International members have been making all efforts to convey to members of the Human Rights Council that they must use this – realistically their last – chance to help ensure that Palestinian and Israeli victims of the conflict finally obtain justice.

They must take heed of the conclusions of the committee of independent experts, condemn the Israeli and Hamas authorities’ failure to investigate serious crimes under international law and prosecute suspected perpetrators, and adopt a resolution which will help deliver an international justice solution for the victims.

Video: Amnesty International’s Philip Luther on the need for international justice for the victims of the Gaza conflict

Israeli Military Intelligence monitoring foreign left-wing organizations

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Written by Barak Ravid Barak Ravid

Published: 21 March 2011 21 March 2011

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Military Intelligence monitoring foreign left-wing organizations

IDF officers say special department has been created to monitor left-wing groups that the army sees as aiming to delegitimize Israel; department will work closely with government ministries.


Military Intelligence is collecting information about left-wing organizations abroad that the army sees as aiming to delegitimize Israel, according to senior Israeli officials and Israel Defense Forces officers.

The sources said MI's research division created a department several months ago that is dedicated to monitoring left-wing groups and will work closely with government ministries. In recent weeks, the head of the new unit has been taking part in discussions in the Prime Minister's Office about how to prepare for the possible arrival of a Gaza-bound flotilla in May.

The undefined and potentially broad scope of such a venture, which IDF sources say is focusing on how to respond to maritime convoys aimed at breaching Israel's Gaza blockade, has some Foreign Ministry officials concerned that the army is overreaching.

"We ourselves don't know exactly how to define delegitimization," said one ministry official. "This is a very abstract definition. Are flotillas to Gaza delegitimization? Is criticism of settlements delegitimization? It's not clear how Military Intelligence's involvement in this will provide added value."

Military Intelligence officials said the initiative reflects an upsurge in worldwide efforts to delegitimize Israel and question its right to exist.

"The enemy changes, as does the nature of the struggle, and we have to boost activity in this sphere," an MI official said. "Work on this topic proceeds on the basis of a clear distinction between legitimate criticism of the State of Israel on the one hand, and efforts to harm it and undermine its right to exist on the other."

The new MI unit will monitor Western groups involved in boycotting Israel, divesting from it or imposing sanctions on it. The unit will also collect information about groups that attempt to bring war crime or other charges against high-ranking Israeli officials, and examine possible links between such organizations and terror groups.

MI decided to create the unit in the wake of investigations of Israel's deadly takeover in May 2010 of a maritime convoy aimed at breaking the Gaza blockade, which found that the country's intelligence agencies failed to provide information that could have helped Israel adequately prepare for the violent resistance that naval commandos encountered aboard the Mavi Marmara.

The unit's other spheres of responsibility have yet to be clearly defined, but are expected to involve pinpointing the subjects that Israel's other intelligence agencies should investigate, sources said.

The quality of intelligence information about groups aimed at delegitimizing Israel has improved and the quantity has increased in recent months, said an official in the Prime Minister's Office.

"There is a demand for such information," he said. "Officials need information on such topics, and it hasn't always been available in the past, because there was a lack of awareness pertaining to this topic in the intelligence community. The new unit's orientation will be to collect information and carry out intelligence research for the Foreign Ministry and other government ministries.

The unit has the support of Brig. Gen. (res. ) Yossi Kuperwasser, the director general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry and a previous head of MI's research division. During the second intifada, he pushed for the intelligence community's large-scale involvement in public advocacy and diplomatic matters, a stance that was criticized by other MI officers.

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“Miral” Asks Questions The Israel Lobby Does Not Want You to Hear

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Written by James M. Wall James M. Wall

Published: 21 March 2011 21 March 2011

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“Miral” Asks Questions The Israel Lobby Does Not Want You to Hear

by James M. Wall

In an early scene from the new motion picture Miral, the school principal Hind Husseini, tells a group of teenage Palestinian girls that “an uprising some people call an intifada has started”.

Miral whispers to a student next to her: “It means ‘stand up straight’”.

Which is precisely what Miral does in this film now under attack from leading organizations in the Israel Lobby.

Miral’s mother is dead. Her father enrolls her in Jerusalem’s Dar El Tifel, a school and an orphanage begun and run by Hind Husseini, a cousin of Feisal Husseini, and a member of a prominent Palestinian family.

The film is  is based on an autobiographical novel written by Rula Jebreal, a Palestinian journalist.

Miral had its official US opening at the United Nations auditorium March 14. (It had earlier been shown in film festivals around the world).

Prior to the UN screening, the AJC hit the film with the tactics all too familiar to anyone or any group which schedules an event, film, or discussion that does not meet the AJC seal of approval.

An American Jewish Committee press release issued before the screening quoted AJC Director David Harris, who complained that “the Israeli Mission to the UN was not even given the minimal courtesy of being consulted in advance about the wisdom of showing such a film”.

Adam Horowitz, reporting for Mondoweiss, concluded:

As per usual, the AJC is only echoing the Israeli government, which has called the premiere “scandalous” and is protesting it within in the UN. .  .

A member of the Israeli delegation to the UN who had seen the film told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that the film is “scandalous.”

“There’s no historic context, not at all, nothing,” the diplomat said, noting that the film was laden with instances of Israeli cruelty to Palestinians. “You can see us bombing a house in the film, but you don’t see why – maybe this was the house of a suicide bomber that killed 30 Israelis. We don’t know.”

Miral is scheduled to open in US theaters later this month, the Lobby permitting. And even if the film gets by the Lobby, will you find it on your local mall screens?

You should.  A movie about a teenage girl falling in love with a revolutionary fighter, facing torture and rebelling against both her father and her school principal?  Sounds like just the sort of picture your average American teenager might want to see. It also  has the advantage of being a true story a younger generation needs to see.

Will you be able to see it for yourself, and perhaps share the experience with your teenagers?  (The film is now rated PG-13, after an appeal reduced it from an R rating).

Whether the film makes it to a theater near you will depend on whether the AJC, and its allies in the Israel Lobby are able to persuade, or possibly, coerce, your local theater manager to book a different film.

The Lobby campaign against Miral’s UN premiere failed. The evening was a smashing success, an outcome the AJC wanted to avoid.

The Agence France Press (AFP) reported that the screening had all the trappings of a major Hollywood red carpet opening.

Sean Penn, Robert De Niro, Josh Brolin and Steve Buscemi on Monday turned out to support award-winning American-Jewish director Julian Schnabel at the premiere of Miral, the story of two Palestinian women after the creation of Israel in 1948.

The Israeli mission to the UN had said that showing the movie in the UN General Assembly hall was “clearly a politicized decision” that “shows poor judgment and a lack of even-handedness.”

But UN General Assembly president Joseph Deiss of Switzerland turned down the Israeli request to cancel the event. A spokesman said Deiss hoped that showing the film would “contribute” to a settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. . . .

The film, with Indian actress Freida Pinto of Slumdog Millionaire fame in the lead role, is based on an autobiographical novel by Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal that traces the Arab-Israeli history from a Palestinian perspective.

Like Jebreal, the lead character Miral grows up in an orphanage in East Jerusalem set up by a socialite from a wealthy Palestinian family, who one morning in 1948 came across 55 children who escaped a village taken over by radical Jewish militants.

The “socialite” (a term she would not like) is Hind Hussenni, who rescued 55 children whose families were killed at Deir Yassin. They did not “escape”. They were driven in an Israeli army truck to Jerusalem where they were left on the street.

Julian Schnabel is a New York-based Jewish painter who has only recently applied his artistic eye to films. In  addition to the 2007 Cannes prize winning, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, he directed Basquiat, the true story of a young American painter, a film praised by the late Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel as “one of the year’s best movies”.

His third film, Before Night Falls, was based on the true story of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, who like Basquiat, died at an early age. Javier Barden portrays Arenas in a deeply moving performance.

In a recent interview, Schnabel, pictured here with the Rula Jebreal, was asked to contrast his view of the occupation before, and after, making Miral.

He responded:

It was an epiphany. I was totally naïve, totally in the dark and I believe so many of the American Jewish population are totally in the dark. We cannot believe that a Jewish person would behave like that. It’s not the Jewish way. We have suffered so much that if anybody should understand the Palestinian problem, it should be Jewish people. I was so disappointed and ashamed at certain moments.

I was at the airport one day, leaving with Rula. I respect the security, when they check your bags. But they took her bags and put them through an X-ray machine not once but three times. We went to a second checkpoint and they made her strip and, the last minute, let her come on the airplane Jon Kilik [the film's producer] and I were taking.

And it felt just like apartheid, there was absolutely no reason for it. It was pure racism and prejudice. It was cruel and I was ashamed of everybody in that airport.

Schnabel and Miral have supporters in the more liberal US Jewish press. Danielle Berrin wrote in her blog for the Jewish Journal:

That the film Miral, a portrait of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seen through the eyes of an orphaned Palestinian girl is earning the early ire of mainstream Jewish groups is not at all surprising.

It makes perfect sense that a film told from the Palestinian perspective would rouse cries of condemnation from the American Jewish Committee, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and others for being “one-sided” as AJC’s executive director David Harris wrote earlier this week, protesting the screening of the film for the U.N. General Assembly in New York (since when do Hollywood movies have an obligation to objectivity?).

Another knee-jerk reaction came from SWC founder Rabbi Marvin Hier who called the screening of the film “anti-Israel” in a widely- released statement.

But this early condemnation is short-sighted and unfair. And not just to the film itself, but to the conversation American Jews might be having about Israel. That conversation, if it has any hope of pushing past party-line radicalism and a peace process stalemate, demands and deserves more than one perspective, as well as a deeper understanding of the ‘other’ – which a film like ‘Miral’ provides.

As the lack of mainstream media coverage of Miral‘s premiere indicates, the Israel Lobby continues to intimidate American journalists and politicians, but there is also an increasing number of American Jews who are beginning to reject the one-sided rigidity of the Lobby.

One major journalist who has escaped the clutches of AIPAC is David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker magazine for 13 years, who wrote in the magazine’s current issue that the 44-year Israeli occupation of Palestine is “illegal, inhumane, and inconsistent with Jewish values”.

Remnick was recently profiled in the Huffington Post by Jewish columnist MJ Rosenberg:

David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, is arguably the most influential Jewish American journalist. Now 50, Remnick became editor at 37 after an impressive career covering the collapse of the Soviet Union for the Washington Post.

His book about that incredible period, Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, won a Pulitzer in 1994.

Over the years he has written about Israel and the Palestinians with some regularity. Although he claims no special expertise in the area (other than being a strongly identifying Jew), his editor’s “comments” indicate that he knows the issue well. In fact, his pieces are usually far more sophisticated than the news and opinion pieces that the supposed experts regularly produce for the prestige newspapers and journals.

Over Remnick’s past 13 years as editor of the New Yorker, his attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have evolved. In the early years, Remnick’s views were decidedly mainstream. Though no Likudnik, he did give Israel the benefit of the doubt in most situations.

Back then, he clearly believed that although Israel often blundered, even badly, it still was sincerely seeking peace. Of course, holding those views was significantly easier a decade or two ago than it is today.

Today those views seem only to be held by either true believers (the “Israel can do no wrong” crowd) or politicians determined to ingratiate themselves with donors whose politics can be summed up as “Israel First.” There aren’t a whole lot of those donors but it doesn’t take very many to intimidate politicians. And intimidated they are. .  .  .

Remnick is treading the path blazed last year by Peter Beinart, another influential Jewish American writer who had been editor of the New Republic at 24.

A year ago, Beinart broke with the AIPAC crowd with a blockbuster piece in The New York Review of Books explaining how the combination of right-wing Israeli policies and the mindless chauvinism of AIPAC and its allies had succeeded in alienating young Jews from Israel.

The inevitable downfall of what Rosenberg calls “the AIPAC crowd” will arrive when more artists like Schnabel and more journalists like Remnick start their own journey to explore why a 44 year Occupation of an entire population has been tolerated by the American government.

In his interview with Deadline: New York, Schnabel describes his journey of discovery.

I didn’t understand the implications at the beginning of this journey. I never make a movie to illustrate what I already knew, I make a movie to find out about my subject, whether it’s discovering Cuba by making Before Night Falls or learning about locked-in syndrome making The Diving Bell And The Butterfly. I won a Sloan Award  for science. I don’t know a damn thing about science but I know how to ask questions.