Jerry Haber and I, along with Verso Books, the publishers of A Time to Speak Out, have prepared the following statement from American Jews condemning the Gaza assault and Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. We hope that you will sign it and encourage others you know to do so as well. Roane Carey of The Nation has expressed some interest in publishing it there, if we succeed in getting a significant number of signatories. We hope you will help start a viral campaign by promoting this statement as widely as you can via e mail, websites and general word of mouth.

To sign, please send your full name, title (if you wish), & affiliation (if you wish) to this address. It is only for signatures and not for regular correspondence. For that, please e mail me or this site directly.

“We Shall Not Be a Party to Their Counsel!”

As human beings, we are shocked and appalled at the mass destruction unleashed by the State of Israel against the people of Gaza in its current military operation, following years of Israeli occupation, siege, and deprivation.

As Americans, we protest the carte blanche given Israel by the US government to pursue a war of “national honor,” “restoring deterrence,” “destroying Hamas,” and “searing Israel’s military might into the consciousness of the Gazans.”

As progressives, we reject the same justifications for the carnage that we heard ad nauseam from the supporters of the Second Iraq War: the so-called “war on terror,” the “clash of civilizations,” the “need to re-establish deterrence” – all of which served to justify a misguided and unnecessary war, with disastrous consequences for America and Iraq.

But as Jews of different religious persuasions, from Orthodox to secular atheist, we are especially horrified that a state that purports to speak in our name wages a military campaign that has killed over 1,000 people, a large percentage of them civilians, children, and non-combatants, with little or no consideration for human rights or the laws of war.

While the moral and legal issue concerning Israel’s right to respond militarily in these circumstance can be debated, there is near-universal agreement that its conduct of the military operation has been unjust and even criminal – with only the usual apologists for the Jewish state disagreeing.

As Jews, we stand united with another Israel, the patriarch Jacob, who cursed his sons Simeon and Levi for massacring the people of Shechem in revenge for the rape of their sister Dinah. Like Jacob, “we shall not be a party to the counsel of zealots. We shall not be counted in their assembly. (See Genesis 34. 49: 5-7).

As Jews, we stand united with the Jewish sages who rejected the zealotry of the Jewish “terrorists” at Masada, those who masked ethnic tribalism in the cloak of “self-defense” and “national honor.”

As Jews, we listen not only when the sage Hillel says, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” but also when he says, “If I am only for myself, what am I?” Hillel’s closing words also ring true in this hour of decision when a ceasefire is demanded of both sides: “If not now, when?”

Finally, as American Jewish progressives, and as human beings, we condemn Hamas and Israel for violating the human rights of civilians on both sides, although we do not necessarily declare these violations to be morally or legally equivalent. We affirm the rights of both Israeli and the Palestinian peoples to self-determination and self-defense, as we affirm the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Magnes Zionist freeze out by Blogger.com

It looks like the militant pro-Israel crowd may be engaging in hijinks against one of our intrepid progressive Jewish bloggers, Jerry Haber at The Magnes Zionist.  When he attempted to write a new post today he was informed that his blog had been frozen as a potential splog (spam blog).  Of course, Magnes Zionist is far from a splog.  In fact, Jerry provides a unique perspective on the Israeli-Arab conflict as a liberal Orthodox Jew and academic.

It is an absolute travesty that Blogger has taken this unjustified action against Jerry.  And this is an insult not just to him, but to all of his readers and the rest of us who rely on him as a unique voice in the Israeli-Palestinian online debate.

Jerry has a hunch that one of the right-wing pro-Israel trolls who frequent the web has reported him to Blogger and caused him to be shut down:

Not to be paranoid, but I think that my blog is the victim of the sort of electronic warfare that so-called Israel advocates take part in.

Considering the content of his latest post about a settler Goon who accompanied Jerry’s latest tour of Hebron’s settler Gan Eden (“paradise”), it’s highly credible that such a person could’ve engaged in such behavior.  The GIYUS/settler crowd probably finds such tactics entirely kosher in the war on behalf of their God-given right to occupy Palestinian land and single-handedly (well, almost single-handedly) prevent resolution of the I-P conflict.

If you blog, please consider publicizing Jerry’s tsouris.  If you have a Blogger blog consider that something like this could happen to you.  Find ways to publicize Blogger’s egregious conduct.  You can use this link to complain about Jerry’s treatment and demand reinstatement of his blog.  Even if you can’t help directly, visit Jerry’s site and send him encouragement.

He has set up a temporary Blogger blog that he can update (until the goons report this one as well).  I will update you about Blogger’s response to Jerry’s appeal for reinstatement of his blog.  Meanwhile, I’m encouraging him to shift to a different platform like WordPress.com where narischkeit like this won’t happen.

Bringin’ it all back home. That’s what some brilliant young Israeli peace activists have done in posting 10,000 electricity cut off notices on homes and apartments in Israel’s major cities in the past few days:

Fake electricity cut-off notices (Yediot Achronot)

In a clever and well-coordinated move (what happened to the Shabak?), seventy activists panned out through Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa, and plastered 10,000 electricity cut-off notices to the residents. Of course, the cut-off notices were bogus, but they served to literally bring home to the Israelis that Gaza has been threatened by Israel with a general electricity and fuel shut-off in reprisal for shelling Sderot.

In a tactic that Abbie Hoffman would’ve been proud of, these young people have thought of ways to dramatize the suffering that the IDF’s proposed utility cut offs would cause for Gazans. Very little seems to seep through the protective shell that Israelis have erected to keep themselves from having to know anything about what happens in the Territories. Kol ha-kavod to these guerrilla peace activists for forcing, if only for a few moments, Israelis to contemplate the effect of their own actions on their neighbors.

Jerry Haber seems to be on a roll with posts like this lately. I’ll bet that his son, who belongs to Breaking the Silence, had some part in these festivities. If so, more power to him.

Haaretz translates the text of the mock power shut off notices:

The notices posted Thursday by the activists read: “We wish to inform you that there will be a wave of cessation and severance of electricity. We have no choice but to cut off power and we are forced to do it because in your cities reside the commanders of an army that harms civilians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”

“For humanitarian reasons, the cessation of electricity will not be permanent and should leave you to consider: should the flow allotted be directed to hospitals, water systems, sewers or private homes? We apologize for the temporary inconvenience this might cause you and emphasize that this is a necessary defense move,” read the notices.

Jerry provides some background on this protest action and those sponsoring it and a well-earned blast of opprobrium for the heinous acts of the Occupation:

This protest action was sponsored by a coalition of lefties calling themselves, the Front for the Liberation of Gaza. They include some of the “Anarchists” who have been protesting the systematic expropriation of the lands of Bil’in every week. Lately they have also been involved in protesting the Israelis-only road 443, the most notorious of the roads of hafradah (Hebrew for “separation”; I wouldn’t dignify the ideology behind it with the term “apartheid”) And many other groups were involved.

Remember when Israelis justified checkpoints and closures by saying that they were “inconveniences” at worst? Well, apparently, the inconvenience of removing posters on their doors has been driving some of them nuts. Imagine what they would do if some of them had to stand in line for hours to get past a checkpoint? Of if their wives died in labor, or their children were stillborn because they did not have the right permit? Some of them would be fighting each other to sign up for the Masada suicide terrorist brigade.

Ah, ain’t nothing like creative non-violent protest….And it’s on the rise in Israel. From Hebron, from the Olive Harvest, from ICAHD’s rebuilding demolished houses, Taayush, Mahsom Watch, Breaking the Silence, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Palestinians who protest the hafradah fence (sorry: the land grab wall) weekly….the list goes on, never enough to cover the war crimes.

My favorite response to the action, was, “Nu, higzamtem”, roughly translated as “Come on guys, you exaggerated this time.” They exaggerated? Israel is about to increase the pressure on an entire civilian population, and the Anarchists are the ones being accused of going overboard! Such is the moral rot in Israeli society today.

These young Israeli Gandhis can’t bring peace. They can’t stop the Occupation. But they can be moral witnesses. They won’t have to explain themselves to their grandchildren as will we.

How appropriate that at a time when Jews are celebrating the deeds of a band of religious zealots, who fought a foreign occupying force that dimmed the lights of the Temple, a group of latter-day Maccabbees have arisen to oppose non-violently a foreign occupying force that threatens to dim the lights of Gaza.

Happy Hanukah to you too, Jerry

Meanwhile, the Israeli Supreme Court has temporarily delayed the implementation of this collective punishment/war crime for Gazans. If they deny the IDF the right to enforce this punishment a little of my faith in the Bagatz (Supreme Court) will be restored. If not, what can I say–it’s just more of the same moral miasma.

I just plain don’t feel much like writing a full blown post today. But I’ve been reading some terrific material at other blogs and would like to point you to some important reading.

First, Muzzlewatch reports on the odd development at George Washington University of an Israeli visiting instructor quitting in a huff when her students (some Jewish) accused her of being a pro-Israel partisan instead of a dispassionate academic. It seems that the University has accepted funding for several positions (including this one) from a foundation run by notorious pro-Israel ideologue and former AIPAC staffer, Mitchell Bard.

Jerry Haber does some terrific sleuthing to discover that Hannah Diskin, the instructor in question, is not affiliated with the Hebrew University as the original Washington Jewish Week story contends. Rather, she is affiliated with the West Bank’s Ariel College, an unaccredited Israeli institution.

I would like to know who are the sugar daddies funding Bard’s academic positions. Could it be that they might be AIPAC megadonors, which would mean that AIPAC is surreptitiously (and indirectly of course) attempting to slant the teching of Israel and Zionism in the college classroom. Perhaps a view of the Foundation’s IRS 990 form might tell us something on that score (I haven’t done this yet).

Sol Salbe links to another terrific piece of investigative journalism by Daphna Berman (who broke the Other Israel Film Festival story recently) in Haaretz. She investigates a juicy scandal simmering at the Shalem Center, home of American-Jewish neocon demi-god and Wall Street Journal darling, Michael Oren. After reading this, it seems to me that Shalem is nothing more than a warmed over version of the Hudson Institute. The most riveting fact (besides the inter-office sex and director’s directives about the precise angle at which to staple reports) in this expose is the worship by the three Shalem founders of Meir Kahane during their college days at Princeton. How can such an institution command any respect with this intellectual/political pedigree?

I just read Jerry Haber’s recap of this article and he has one hilarious comment on the hot sex at Shalem:

Of course, there is the usual nepotism associated with family businesses. Yoram’s brother, David, worked there for twelve years in an executive position…until he was forced to leave because of an affair he conducted with one of his subordinates. (At the time he was working on a book on the Ten Commandments – or maybe, for him, the Nine)