Talking Back to Mondoweiss: 92nd Street Y, J Street, and Perfidy Mar 7 2011

the event at 92nd St Y was scheduled to be video-linked to at least one other location. Temple Sinai in Pittsburgh placed radio ads on the local NPR affiliate -- a week before, then again for two days before the event. It was advertised as "open to the entire community," to hold a "civil discussion" of Israel-Palestine conflict.

I attend most of the J Street events at Temple Sinai or the nearby Jewish Community Center, and have come to know and respect the founder of the local group, Nancy Bernstein, and also have become acquainted with other regular participants in discussions that J Street conducts about every 6 weeks. I'm usually the only non-Jewish person in the group; early on, another non-Jew attended but he has not returned.

The meeting yesterday evening was scheduled to begin at 7:30 but I didn't arrive until 8:00: I was not sure it was a good idea for me to attend; I was afraid I would embarrass myself or say something out of line, so I called a dear friend to discuss with her the advisability of participating in an event that might get heated. I told her that I called her at 6:45 pm so that I would be talking when I should be leaving for the meeting, and our discussion would force a decision-by-default. We talked until 7:45, then I decided to go anyway, hurriedly jumped into the car and got to the event just in time to hear the Rabbi explain that 92nd St Y had "inexplicably" canceled the event in NYC, so we would not hear Christiane Amanpour.

Instead, four members of the congregation who were going to moderate the 92nd Street program, were called upon to pinch hit: each of the four spoke for 5 minutes (the Rabbi timed each and kept the event under tight order). Then, members of the audience were given one minute (timed by the Rabbi) to ask a question, and the four member panel responded. Only 4 or 5 questions from the audience were handled in that way.
Although the event was advertised to and for the broad community, once again, I'm pretty sure I was the only non-Jew among the 50 to 75 participants. No person who was not Jewish made any comment or was heard.
Phil and Adam, you know that I am an antisemite; that's why you banned me.
I wasn't always an antisemite. Years ago I lived in the home of a Jewish family who were members of Temple Sinai. My position in the family was as a companion to the family's elderly matriarch; I had accompanied her to Temple Sinai on numerous occasions. I loved Ida K. and she loved me, like mother and daughter.

Perhaps that's why it is so painful to hear hate and mendacity that I heard last night at Temple Sinai.

God bless Dr. Naftali, who spoke first, and, I thought, laid a foundation for what seemed to suggest a very different approach to the issue. Naftali said he wished to speak "not about what has happened but what is possible." He told the audience he was born in Haifa in 1951, and that from his early childhood he remembered how much he enjoyed the fine wood and beautiful details of the home where he lived with his parents, holocaust survivors. The house had been the home of a Palestinian family. He knew that in one part of his being; it was a fact like any other that a child knows. Dr. Naftali said that he matured, he realized that "the catastrophe of others was the price of his good life." Naftali spoke of the excitement and joy of the 1967 war, and also of the thrill of fear that he can still feel from that event. He marked it as the moment when Israel lost its soul. He called the twelve years after intifada (? or Oslo? my notes are fragmented) a "moral wasteland" for Israel.

In discussing his military service, Naftali noted that he lost 3 friends, who for some unknown reason were in Beirut when Israel started "that disgusting and immoral war" against Lebanon that was waged "for no reason other than to maintain dominance of power."

Similarly, Naftali registered abhorrence at the Gaza campaign, in which he lost three dear friends -- Dr. Abuelaish's children, who were known to him and were friends of his. This was the ONLY TIME in the entire duration of the event that Dr. Abuelaish was mentioned.

Then the other three persons began their comments. It was appalling. Nancy was first; even she slid into the standard Israel first rhetoric that someone like me recognizes all too frequently. Jewish people seem to have silos of thinking and speaking, and a rehearsed set of statements; it's as if their brains are cast in a mould that can comprehend and express only a pre-formed thought process and is incapable of even acknowledging that a different way of assessing facts, or a different set of facts, might exist. Nancy's comments were otherwise unremarkable: "growing up in DC I know the pain of My People . . .two-state is possible; 2400 people in DC; 500 students from 128 colleges -- the BEST colleges; 700 people lobbied Congress; Israel faces a threat to its Jewish character . . ."

The other two speakers were repugnantly and repulsively anti-Palestinian. One of those two, a past head of the local AIPAC, insisted that "Israel wants peace," then recited a list of headlines from Palestinian Authority media with the purpose of demonstrating that there IS no partner for peace. He said that Palestinians had squandered every opportunity for peace, listing from 1937 to the present the 6 or 7 opportunities that Palestinians had jettisoned. The former AIPAC leader was incensed at the notion that the US administration should be involved in pressuring Israel to make peace; it's condescending and patronizing." [So why was he a part of AIPAC, whose mission is to lobby US Congress on behalf of Israel?] He insisted that "settlements are not the issue; it's not about land," but rather, about the "existential threat to the Jewish people," and, his coup de grâce: the Palestinian Authority refuses to teach their children about the Holocaust. "We need to look into the education of Palestinian children; they need to learn about the holocaust."

Nancy affirmed Mr. AIPAC's declaration-- "Many children are not exposed" to holocaust education." She registered disappointment that no Palestinians were in the audience or on the panel, and said that future events would attempt to change that.

Mr. AIPAC said "J Street is the wrong tool to use,"

Most of the discussion between the panel members and between panel-and-audience devolved into "J Street good" "J Street bad" inside-Jewish-baseball attacks and counter-attacks.

As I recall them, the questions from the audience raised these issues:
Question 1. "Most Palestinians are Jordanian, so shouldn't they go back to Jordan." Responders corrected the Questioner's misapprehension, and asserted that "Jews should be able to live in Palestine and Palestinians should be able to live in Israel."

Question 2. "Al Jazeera reported that Wikileaks revealed that Palestinians made many, many concessions that were ignored." Response: [this is a direct quote]: IN THEIR MINDS they made concessions -- they've lost so many wars, they SHOULD make concessions." The responder continued, The Israelis are wise to proceed as they have; I trust Israel's government; they have been elected by the people.

Question 3. "First, Israel treats people badly. My second point, when Gershom Gorenberg spoke here he told us that settlements are illegal, and that Israel knows that the settlements are illegal." Can you comment? [I was at the Gershom Gorenberg talk. He showed on the large screen the document stating that the Israeli settlements are illegal. He came upon the document in archives that he spent five years attempting to search.]

My notes about the response to that questioner say only that Mr. AIPAC said, "thank god for Christian zionists."

I'm afraid I didn't stay and mingle after the panel was dismissed and people made their exits. I should have at least offered Dr. Naftali my hand in support; he was badly outnumbered. As I recall, 'Naftali' is a Sephardic name. I further recall David Sasha's explanation of pilpul-- it is an Ashkenazi technique, not practiced by Sephardic scholars. Facts are sometimes inconvenient things; Dr. Naftali has taken account of facts as they are, not as the received (Ashkenazi) narrative declares them to be. Since his mind is not pre-formed, he is able to make adjustment for other versions of reality without losing his identity.

And as I review my notes on the questions, it is heartening to see that most of the questioners were, like Dr. Naftali, far more rational and critical in their understanding than were three of the four panelists. "If the people lead, the leaders will follow."

The Rabbi closed the event with a brief explanation of a Torah passage (sorry, I don't have the citation) -- about two kinds of argument: "argument NOT for the sake of heaven," and "argument FOR the sake of heaven." He urged the group to argue FOR the sake of heaven.

AbuLaish to Sue Israel over Killing of His Daughters

They Do Not Want to Know the Truth

from DailyKos, by Assaf, who posted the video of Abulaish talking with the Israeli journalist. Assaf also posted some comments of his own, below the transcript.

Transcript of first 2 minutes:

Eldar: ...we have on the line Dr. Abu El-Aish, we have been talking with him over the past period... he [his home] was just shelled, his family is wounded, maybe I can replay...

Dr. Abu El-Aish: No one can get to us... (unclear)... Ya Rabi, Ya Rabi (my god).. [he continues to cry throughout while Eldar talks to the audience]

Eldar: They killed his family, over the past few days we have been... I think I'm a bit overwhelmed too because,... (tearing up) Dr. Abu El-Aish is a Tel Hashomer physician, [to the doctor] Abu El-Aish we are now in the studio, [back to the audience] and he kept fearing his family would get hurt, once this week he went on air to Gabi Gazit [another anchor], because this was the only way [apparently referring to the previous near-miss incident].... In short, he was now hit, who was hurt Abu El-Aish?

Dr. Abu El-Aish: My girls, Ya Allah, Ya Allah

[around 1:00 into clip]

Eldar: He has eight children whom he has protected throughout the war, at his home in Beit Lahiya, maybe the only thing we can do is to ask someone who can, maybe in the IDF, Abu El-Aish can you tell me where your house is, maybe they will enable ambulances to get there

Dr. Abu El-Aish: (unclear) ...to save them, to save them, but they are dead already they were hit in the head, it was in their heads [died] on the spot, on the spot, Shlomi, Ya Allah, ... what have we done, what have we done [repeatedly]... they killed the family... [more screams in the background]

The elipsis (...) marks in the anchor's speech are mostly not ommissions, rather Eldar was himself shaken and kept jumping mid-sentence to start new ones.

An IDF infantry regiment apparently responsible for the shelling,
has quickly claimed that there was sniper fire from the doctor's house. Previous such claims during this war (most notably with the UNRWA shelter
bombed a week ago killing from 30 to 40 civilians) have turned out to be bogus. They appear to be little more than a standard cover-all designed to hold until public attention turns elsewhere.

Meanwhile, as if on another planet, Israel Foreign Minster flew to the US in order to sign a cease-fire agreement with... Secretary Rice. I wonder how this is supposed to help stop the killing.

Please help stop this. Call your Senators. Call your House members and ask them to support the Kucinich bill to end the fighting. Call your Israeli consulate: apparently America is the only place whose opinion might matter to them, so please let them know what you think.

Please help stop this. There is no reason for this to go on even one more second.

UPDATE:

At the end of the clip Eldar asks to leave the studio and continue talking with the doctor in private. If I am not mistaken this happened Friday night (tonight) which is prime time news time of the week in Israel.

I understand there may be tech difficulties playing the clip. Mine didn't auto-play because of some missing media player upgrade, so I had to click a link inside the video frame (second link; the first one goes to a download page).

Also if there's anyone Youtube-savvy enough to cut the clip and post it there and bring the link here, that would help - thanks.

Also, if you are a native Arabic speaker and think I made a mistake transliterating the doctor's name, please let me know.

UPDATE 2:

My friend Tom to whom I sent this story, sent me back a related story running today on Democracy Now: Palestinian NASA astrophysicist from Gaza, whose 10-year old son was killed. This happened on the 3rd day of bombing - but the story is first aired today. He was just making arrangements to bring his family to America.

Thanks to the hands that brought this story to the rec list. I post this story here, because the world - and that includes the DKos world - needs to know what is happening,and that the people getting killed in Gaza are people just like you and me, stuck between the hammer and the anvil. The reality is complex, every reality is complex. The Israeli anchor was visibly shaken almost beyond words, and tried to help the doctor and his family, regardless of his own opinion about the war, Hamas, who's to blame, etc.

To the shrill few who have nothing but "Hamas fault, Hamas fault" to say to all these stories: even my 3-year-old toddler is beyond the stage of denying any responsibility for his actions.

I have been an IDF combat soldier, I have been to Gaza, there is no way in heck the IDF and Israeli government should be allowed to explain away all of this. The IDF spokesman unit in particular has lost all credibility over the past 8 years.

So grow up already.

(and to those who think this is a great occasion to say how Israel is the worst thing that happened to mankind: besides being wrong, you are not helping, in case you haven't noticed)

Y Net


Bereaved Gaza doctor to sue Israel

Izzeldin Abuelaish, who lost daughters in Operation Cast Lead, says state leaves him no choice

Uri Misgav
Published: 12.23.10, 20:31 / Israel News

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, who lost three daughters when the IDF fired shells at his home during Operation Cast Lead, will file on Sunday a massive damages claim against the State of Israel.

Gaza Conflict
Gaza doctor: I shall not hate / Ali Waked
Dr. Izeldeen Abuelaish, who lost three daughters during IDF offensive, war writes of hope, faith in humanity despite pain
Full Story


"I didn't want to file the lawsuit, and until now I didn't want to discuss it," he told Yedioth Ahronoth in a phone interview from Toronto, Canada, where he immigrated following the tragedy. "I tried to take every step that would allow me to close this with love and goodwill, but they didn't leave me a choice. According to the law, the statute of limitations will apply to this case within a few weeks – but there is no statute of limitations on the blood of my daughters. It will stay with me forever. It's a catastrophe that's impossible to forget."


Abuelaish, a Palestinian gynecologist, has worked in Israeli hospitals for nearly two decades. On January 16, 2009, in the height of Operation Cast Lead, the IDF fired two shells into the window of his home, killing three of his daugters: 20-year-old Bessan, 15-year-old Mayar and 14-year-old Aya. His 17-year-old niece Nour was also killed in the attack, and his 18-year-old daughter Shada and other family members were injured. The Israeli public heard the horrifying incident in a live broadcast, as Abuelaish was preparing at that moment for a phone interview with an Israeli television channel.


Abuelaish instructed his lawyer to avoid a lawsuit and reach a settlement with the security forces, which would include recognition and compensation. But no such settlement was reached: The Defense Ministry's legal adviser, Ahaz Ben-Ari, announced this week that Abuelaish does not deserve compensation.



"Despite the severe outcome, from a legal standpoint our stance is that the operation during which Dr. Abuelaish's family members were hurt was an operation of war," Ben-Ari said. "Therefore, the State of Israel does not carry the responsibility for the damage it caused."



'Palestinians and Israelis are Siamese twins'

Attorney Michael Sfrad, who represents Abuelaish, called the ruling a disgrace. "The Defense Ministry's decision does not only demonstrate cruelty and insensitivity, it also lacks wisdom," he said. "The State of Israel will suffer an immense blow from such a lawsuit, and eventually it will have to pay compensation. I am not just angry as Dr. Abuelaish's lawyer, I am ashamed as an Israeli."


Abuelaish told Yedioth Ahronoth that he has not lost hope for reconciliation and peace. "I wake up in the morning and hear my daughters telling me, 'don't be angry, turn the anger into something positive. Save lives, continue with the message that you brought us up with,'" he said. "I swear to God and swear to my daughters that I will not stop until I meet them and can tell them, 'I brought you justice, and your blood wasn't (spilled) for nothing but changed something in the world.'


"The situation will not change if we don't change something in our heart, thoughts and soul. We need to think of our children and our future," he added. "Palestinians and Israelis are like Siamese twins – attached at the heart and at the head. We must move forward, build bridges and get over barriers. We have no choice."



A Defense Ministry spokesperson said in response that "The Defense Ministry's hearts go out to the family that was stricken by the tragedy. Unfortunately, we can only act according to the law, and we will gladly assist Dr. Abuelaish as much as we can correspondingly."

Just take a look at the photo of Abu Laish that YNet chose/cropped/published: it makes him look like an animal. God damn Pisrael.

But it gets worse:

Report: Hamas may have murdered children of Gaza doctor

* Posted by Israel Insider on January 20, 2009 at 10:00pm
* View Israel Insider's blog

Medical evidence indicates that the shrapnel that hit a member of the family of Gaza gynecologist Ezzaldeen Abulaish came from a terrorist weapon, not the military-grade ordnance used by the Israel Defence Forces.

Abulaish lost three children and a niece in an explosion that he ascribed to an Israeli tank shell.

Channel 1 Israeli government television reported Sunday night that medical imagery taken at Barzilay Hospital, where his wounded niece was taken, indicates that a round object that appeared to be a ball bearing was lodged in her brain. Ball bearings are used by Hamas in their munitions along with other sharp objects to maximize their lethal effects. The IDF uses nothing similar in its tank shells.

The IDF admitted that shells were fired at a sniper in or near the building. However, it is also conceivable that the Gaza Doctor, who was an outspoken critic of Hamas, and on excellent terms with Israeli reporters and medical personnel, was in fact targeted along with his family, by the Islamic terrorist organization.

Hamas used the fighting as a cover for settling scores with political enemies and what it termed "collaborators" by summary executions. At least 8 Fatah activists were reported lynched by Hamas, and the possibility that Hamas might have set off a bomb to kill an Israel-friendly peace activist and get Israel blamed for the event can hardly be discounted. Similar murderous actions are suspected of having been carried out near the UN school where victims were killed by an explosion not considered consistent with an IDF shell that fell near but not on the school.

Hezbollah is believed to have exploited a similar incident in the village of Kana in the 2006 to get Israel blamed for killing women and children, some of whom may have been dead before the explosion.

The possibility that Abulaish may have been targeted by Hamas is increased by the fact that the Doctor had been featured prominently on Israeli TV just a day or two before worrying that an Israeli tank was near his house. In that case the IDF moved the tank and marked the house as not being a target.

The evidence has been turned over to the military's ballistics experts, and a final determination is expected to be issued in the coming days.