6 thoughts on “Jewish Organizations Harass Jewish Peace Activists – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Wow, Richard, this stuff you and Cecile are reporting is pretty icky. But it actually gives me a sort of bitter hope. These kinds of emails – anonymous no less – can only be the work of profoundly insecure people. I think these guys know that they are on the wrong side of history, and they are acting like morons in response. They know that the times and the attitudes are changing, and they don’t have any better way to try to fight that change.

    Too bad that good people are getting harassed…but then again, Arab and Arab-American peace activists have been seeing this sort of thing, and much worse, for years now.

    I just think that any movement using such petty measures is fundamentally impotent.

  2. Not meaning to nitpick, but I think to stress the “at home” angle is a little old-school and difficult to comprehend — to what email address would it have been preferable for such a message to be sent? The email was vile, no question, but it was delivered to an email address on a server, not to someone’s home mailbox. Harrassing or nasty emails are no more or less welcome when sent to someone’s aol address, earthlink address, corporate address, etc. There is no such thing as a “home” email address.

  3. Thanks for exposing those who vilify critics of the Israeli occupation. And thank you for the news that Israeli refusniks have a Break the Silence Tour in the US. All of this is encouraging as I have long believed that the occupation is so terribly dangerous and damaging for both Israel and the US as well as the Palestinians. Yet it is very difficult for a non Jews to criticize Israel. So I can only hope that American Jews and Israelis will lead this country to a foreign policy in the Middle East which repudiates the occupation and settlements.

  4. I think to stress the “at home” angle is a little old-school and difficult to comprehend

    Perhaps I didn’t make myself sufficiently clear but here’s my thinking. These are two Jewish professionals. They either don’t know ea. other at all or only know ea. other in a professional context. IF they have exchanged any communication at all, it’s been through their work & via e mail sent fr. one work computer/email address to another.

    That means that Rowen Taylor would’ve needed to find Horowitz’s home e mail address. It’s a much more intrusive form of communication than sending it to a work e mail. It’s an invasion of privacy and harassment.

    Let me tell you a little story. I once wrote a letter to the editor of the JTNews here in Seattle criticizing AIPAC for paying mere lip service to the Road Map, while opposing many of its provisions. Before I knew it, there not only was a long letter fr. the group’s co-presidents (including someone I’d thought of as a friend) in the paper denouncing me for being deluded; but an AIPAC staffer had researched my home address and sent me a press release there. I found that offensive. I never asked to receive anything from AIPAC. I don’t want them sending me anything anywhere, but especially not at home.

    The problem is that no one in that AIPAC office thought twice about pulling such shenanigans. When I worked at Jewish federations I would never send someone a personal communication in any form unless I knew them or knew they wanted to receive it. Presuming that you have the right to invade someone’s personal space in this manner is the height of chutzpah.

    I don’t know about you. Maybe if you were a Jewish communal professional you wouldn’t mind another Jewish professional looking up your home e mail and sending you an unsolicited harassing e mail accusing you of wanting Jews murdered. As for me, I see it differently.

    There is no such thing as a “home” email address.

    We’re gonna have to disagree on this one as well. If you work you have a work e mail. You also prob. have a personal home e mail address. You accept that the world’s gonna come to you via yr work e mail. Not so, your personal e mail. That’s usually meant for a more limited & personal audience.

    I’m not talking about technical issues of which servers are used. I’m talking about where you are likely receive &/or read the communication. She had to go out of her way to secure his personal e mail. She could’ve easily, if she’d wanted, sent it to his work e mail since two professionals working on Mideast affairs would know ea. other’s work mail addresses & perhaps e mail addresses as well. But a peronal e mail address wouldn’t have been readily available to her. That denotes a measure of connivance which bothers me.

  5. I absolutely agree with Leila that these folks are deeply insecure.
    I have progressed from hating them and being a little afraid of being caught in their cross-hairs, to feeling sorry for them.
    In addition to what you say, Leila, about they are recognizing they are on the wrong side of history, I think many of these people are terribly confused and hurting. I am not in any way making a justification for their behavior – toward Jews – even less am I justifying their behavior toward Palestinians – but I think the Influence peddlars, the policy wonks, the Dershowtiz’s have so perverted history, that some people lose all rationality. We criticize Israel so we must want them dead. Their whole self is tied up in Israel, they don’t know what it means to be a Jew, except to have somebody ‘persecute’ them, the next Holocaust is round the corner…It must be a terrible, pathological existence.

    I do think they are getting shriller and more hysterical as they realize they are an idea whose time has gone.

    ellen

  6. Hi there,

    Came across your blog through Ur-Shalim at Global Voices…

    Great prose.

    Just added your superb site to my blogroll in the “Amerikka and the Okkident” category…

    Hope you don’t mind!

    😉

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