Why is Stand With Us assaulting American Jews? I use the term “assault” both in its figurative and literal sense. In tactics that echo those of the Israeli right-wing advocacy group, Im Tirzu, Stand With Us members have engaged in verbal and physical confrontations with activists from Jewish Voice for Peace in San Francisco-Oakland, Los Angeles and Seattle. I too have been verbally harrassed locally here in Seattle.
SWU appears to have appointed itself the watchdog of Zionist purity among the American Jewish community. It has singled out for special attention the fast-growing Jewish peace organization, Jewish Voice for Peace and attacked its activists both verbally and physically. At a San Francisco demonstration a few months ago, SWU activists on video were heard warning the JVP marchers that they would disrupt their family lives. Then a few weeks ago, at a JVP meeting in Berkeley, an Israeli-flag clad SWU leader Robin Dubner pepper-sprayed two JVP attendees in the face.
In Los Angeles, JVP is organizing a new chapter. The lead organizer, Estee Chandler, who is relatively new to Israeli-Arab peace organizing has already had an education it takes many of years to earn. An anonymous stalker left an ominous threatening flyer at her home displaying her picture, her employer, and names of child family members with the caption:
WANTED
Treason & Incitement Against JewsThe above-named suspect is wanted in connection with…acts of fomenting hatred…against the Jewish people and the Jewish State of Israel as the lead Los Angeles area organizer for the notoriously anti-Jewish and anti-Israel…Jewish Voice for Peace.
In this…capacity, the subject proudly uses her own presumed Jewishness as a weapon against the Jewish people and the Jewish State of Israel while conspiring with other well known anti-Israel groups to assist in Israel’s destruction and to otherwise engender hatred and incite…violence against the Jewish people and the Jewish State of Israel.
Suspect has been know to…consort with known antisemites [sic] and take care of her nephew xxx and neices [sic] xxxx.
There are several Los Angeles right-wing Jews who I can think of who would engage in such despicable behavior. One who comes to mind and who has bragged in the past of her involvement in similar acts is Allyson Rowen Taylor, a former associate director of Stand With Us who describes herself as “a founding member” of that group. She and others have been known to haunt left wing circles in Los Angeles and publicly harrass Jews they see as traitors to their race and Arabs they see as fellow travelers with Muslim terrorists. I’ve written about her public outbursts several times earlier here. Once at a public screening of the film about Daniel Pearl’s widow, A Mighty Heart, at which she trashed CAIR. One of her earliest acts of online stalking involved asking Adam Horowitz provocatively, who worked then for American Friends Service Committee:
Why do you hate being a Jew, why are you in favor of murdering Jews?
Of course and to be clear, I can’t conclusively prove that Rowen Taylor is behind this threat against Estee Chandler and JVP. But the language of the flyer and the brazen provocativeness of the act are of a piece with her past behavior and those of some of her individual personal allies.
I’ve written here that a past leader of the Seattle chapter of Stand With Us, David Brumer, wrote in an e mail that I should be spanked for my views. The latest Stand With Us-related attack, came from Robert Wilkes, who describes himself as an “Advocate at Stand With Us.” The SWU website lists him as a member of its media committee. In last week’s edition of the JTNews he wrote:
Israelis have awakened with heavy hearts from their delusion. They understand the self-evident reality that they can do nothing by themselves to reach a formal peace with the Palestinians. The Palestinians will not abide it short of annihilation of Israel as a Jewish state.
Those who think differently remain afflicted with the Oslo Syndrome. Many Americans do, and many of them are Jewish. They support pro-Palestinian groups and the BDS movement (boycott, divest and sanction), and seek to delegitimize Israel. They employ tropes such as “apartheid” and “Israeli-Nazi war machine” to create a smokescreen of twisted facts and history giving currency to Lenin’s adage, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
Among them are Seattle blogger Richard Silverstein, Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun, Naim Ateek of Sabeel Institute, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, the International Solidarity Movement — the list goes on. They hyperbolically depict Israel as a Nazi state inflicting a Shoah on the Palestinians. Well meaning? I cannot assume otherwise. Deluded? Without doubt.
When my wife first read this, she may’ve presumed I wanted to ignore it. There is so much idiocy out there and so little time to rebut it all. But given that this was written in the community’s local Jewish media outlet I felt it was important to do so. I contacted the editor hoping and presuming he would allow me to reply. The answer wasn’t reassuring. So I contacted a federation board member, who clearly hoped she didn’t have to get involved. Then I contacted the newspaper’s board chair. He too passed the ball back to the editor. Finally, I offered a deadline for a reply and said I was willing to convene a beyt din if I didn’t have the opportunity to respond. That did the trick. My reply will be published in this week’s issue.
Needless to say, I affirm almost none of the views attributed to me above. In fact, those who read my comment rules know that I am very careful to prohibit almost all uses of Nazi-related terminology to describe Israel or its actions, by me or other commenters. That’s why Wilkes’ claims above are beyond ludicrous. Here is a portion of my reply to be published this week:
I have never written, nor do I believe Israel is a “Nazi war machine.” As a Zionist, I don’t believe in delegitimizing Israel. That’s just a slogan tossed around by extremists like him with no substance. Nor have I ever written or do I believe Israel “inflicted a Shoah on the Palestinians.”
As a teenager, I sat in my grandmother’s living room in Washington Heights asking about her family I never knew. She told me of her brothers and sisters who perished in the Holocaust. One heartbreakingly returned to Poland after emigrating here, telling her in disgust: “T’iz a genayvushe land!”
I once published an oral history of a Hungarian survivor of Auschwitz in the Los Angeles Times. I participated in, and was a technical advisor to Pierre Sauvage’s award-winning PBS documentary, Yiddish: Di Mameloshn.
Unlike Robert Wilkes, I don’t abuse the Holocaust to score political points. The memory of the six-million are too sacred for that.
Robert Wilkes doesn’t know me. If he’s bothered to read a single word I’ve written he hasn’t understood it. I’d prefer to think he hasn’t, and bases his calumnies about me on what others have told him.
But before I criticize the views of others I do due diligence and read what they’ve written. I quote their words and then critique them. Wilkes didn’t bother to do me that favor.
There is an odious, intolerant, violent process of demonization in this country that led to the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It’s also played out in the furor over the so-called Ground Zero mosque. Listen to Glenn Beck on any given night and you’ll hear about Jewish bankers, or Nazi leftists, or jihadi Muslims or similar venom against the feared minority du jour.
That’s what Robert Wilkes represents. He wants to turn me into a cartoon, a demon, someone you can hate as he does.
We Jews have given the world so much learning, culture, music, language, ideas. Do we have to give the world hate as well? Is that our legacy?
Judaism values one’s good name above all else. Someone who lies about another’s beliefs commits a grave form of gossip called motzi shem ra. Robert Wilkes has stolen my good name and I won’t let him do it. I want my good name restored to me.
Estee Chandler wants her good name restored to her as well. For the love of God, when will the Jewish community stop giving a megaphone to these haters? When will it stop encouraging them and turn a blind eye when they commit the kinds of acts they did against Chandler? What will it take for us to realize that Stand With Us, at least in its current form as represented by many of the acts enumerated above, is a poison? Will it take someone getting shot? Or will Jewish leaders even then take the position that FoxNews did after Glenn Beck incited death threats against a 78 year old politics professor, saying that the network had no responsibility for any of the hate spewed against her?
Well since your only “evidence” of SWU involvement is that you do not like SWU, we look forward to your next court demise for your libel and smears. We suppose it never occurred to you that the whole leaflet is a JVP provocation invented by the JVP itself to get itself attention. But then again, your entire pro-terror blog is little more than a pathetic attempt to get YOURSELF attention!
I guess you don’t know how to read since there is plenty of evidence for every incident I mentioned that SWU was either directly involved or may have been. You know, it’s interesting that you should suggest the canard that JVP harrassed & threatened its own organizer, because when I received a threatening e mail fr. a commenter who labelled himself a member of SWU, the director of SWU accused me of writing the comment myself. That seems to be a common theme of SWU & their friends like yrself. Blame the victim. I suppose if Estee had been shot you would’ve claimed she put another JVP member up to doing the shooting? Or would you finally suspend yr idiotic conspiracy theories & admit that SWU contains loony, violent, borderline personalities which the group can’t or won’t control.
You’re been banned for violating the comment rules.
It is not only illegal to incite violence, it is also illegal to make another person live in fear.
Despite the PR spin and damage control regarding “incitement” that Beck and Fox News employed in connection with his on-air remarks, he crossed another red line regarding “true threats”. The Supreme Court has ruled that “[t]rue threats encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. . . . The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats protects individuals from the fear of violence and from the disruption that fear engenders, in addition to protecting people from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur.”
For example, he accused government officials of conspiring with dangerous revolutionaries and advised that the so-called revolutionaries would have to be shot in the head, before they shot the government officials in the head. He alleged they were dangerous because Karl Marx was their George Washington and they are enemies of our system of government. He said they had to be taken as seriously as the Nazis, Osama Bin Laden, & etc. The full version of his remarks are here: http://www.toonthenews.com/beck6.html
On his own website, Beck down-played the remarks and (mis)directed his audience to a 22 second video clip. He offered an irrelevant explanation that some liberals had twisted his remarks and falsely accused him of calling on his audience to take up arms against the government. But he failed to address or defuse the threat hanging over the heads of the original target of his remarks, the so-called revolutionaries, like the 78 year-old professor. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/did-glenn-beck-really-tell-his-audience-to-shoot-people-in-the-head/
Beck’s remarks in the full 2-minute clip; the use of the swastika motif; and the death threats posted by registered users in The Blaze’s moderated comments section are very reminiscent of the “true threats” in the case of Planned Parenthood of Columbia/Willamette, Inc. v. Am. Coalition of Life Activists, 290 f.3d 1058 (9th Cir. 2002) That case centered on a “Deadly Dozen” wanted poster and the use of a “Nuremberg Files” website. Some of the specific death threats against the professor were outlined in an article that appeared in “The Nation”. http://www.thenation.com/article/157900/glenn-beck-targets-frances-fox-piven
The Blaze is not an amateur undertaking. It is registered to Oberon Media Inc. NY. Beck hired former HuffPo CEO Betsy Morgan to run website. The words “You are going to have to shoot them in the head” are not incapable of constituting a true threat as a matter of law. The Supreme Court of New York has ruled that if language alleged is capable of constituting a true threat (Cf. People v Bonitto, supra.): “It is conceivable that additional evidence may be offered at trial from which a jury could rationally find that complainant might reasonably fear for his safety. (People v Olivio, 6 Misc 3d 1034[A], 2005 NY Slip Op 50300[U] [Crim Ct, NY County 2005].) the question of whether defendant’s alleged utterance constituted a true threat must be resolved by a jury after trial.” See People v Hernandez, Docket No. 2005 NY Slip Op 25124 http://statecases.justia.com/new-york/other-courts/2005/march/2005-ny-slip-op-25124/2005-25124-htm-people-v-hernandez/
So, the question of whether or not Beck’s words and the comments posted by registered users of his website frightened the professor is one that would have to be answered by a jury after considering all of the evidence, not by Beck or the PR flacks at Fox News.
I stand corrected Beck’s website is registered to Mercury Radio Arts, in care of Network Solutions, Drums, PA. http://whois.domaintools.com/theblaze.com
Hmmm. A “race-traitor”, eh???? I wonder where they learned that?
It happens that I’ve met Noam Chomsky and Michael Lerner — so long ago that Staughton Lynd was pushing us to read Chomsky’s soon-to-be-published “American Power and the New Mandarins”, and Lerner was called “Mickey”. It is an honor to have found you.
To paraphrase a Bertold Brecht poem:
When the Regime came to burn the books, one author ran out, shouting, “Burn my books! Burn my books! Don’t leave me among the cowards who kept quiet!”
Incidentally, the NY Daily News had an interesting article on Sunday:
“On Friday, the holy day for Islam, Christian protesters in Tahrir Square joined hands to form a protective cordon around their Muslim countrymen so they could pray in safety.
“Sunday, the Muslims returned the favor.
“They surrounded Christians celebrating Mass in Cairo’s central plaza, ground zero for the secular pro-democracy protests reverberating throughout the Middle East.
“‘In the name of Jesus and Muhammed, we unify our ranks,’ the Rev. Ihab al-Kharat told the crowd in his sermon.
“‘We will keep protesting until the fall of the tyranny,’ he said.
“Some of the worshipers began to cry as the congregation sang, ‘Bless our country, listen to the cries of our hearts.’
“Afterward, the crowd of both Muslims and Christians chanted ‘one hand’ – meaning ‘we are one’ – and held up a Koran and a cross.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/02/07/2011-02-07_muslims_turn_out_in_mass.html#ixzz1DO4D1qae
This amounts to organized stalking of opponents and critics. Are you quite sure these people are Jewish and not Scientologists?
It has nothing to do with the Scientologists. It is a terrorist tactic mimicking a din rodef, the death sentence pronounced on a Jewish traitor.
It is the functional equivalent of a Klansman burning a cross on your lawn. There are about forty Kahanist terrorist entities on the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals List http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/SDN-List/Pages/default.aspx So, it probably should be brought to the attention of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. http://www.justice.gov/jttf/
“In this…capacity, the subject proudly uses her own presumed Whiteness as a weapon against White people and the White State of America while conspiring with other well known anti-American groups to assist in America’s destruction and to otherwise engender hatred and incite…violence against White people and the White State of America.”
You weren’t the only one who thought of the Klan upon reading this post, Haver.
I almost feel sorry for these people – how very sad to go through life as consumed with fear, hatred, and resentment as they obviously do.
Let me close with a parting shot. The people who are really standing with Israel are those who seek its conversion to an equality-for-all society; it is those who cling to the morally bankrupt and criminal status quo who are Israel’s true enemies.
I like that first-paragraph very well. Very telling. I’ve always said that the Israeli & American Jewish far right (JDL, settlers, etc.) are racialist with echos in the racial politics of far-right & even the Nazi party.
The landmark Supreme Court case on “true threats” upheld a Virginia statute that outlawed cross-burning as a form of unprotected hate speech. The KKK and Aryan Nations have been seriously weakened in a series of actions filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and others. FYI, the SPLC has a page with an overview of some of the 9th Circuit cases under the heading “True Threats and the Internet” (at midpage) http://tinyurl.com/4co5vbh That is the District which includes California and the western United States.
Richard, JVP alleges that we at StandWithUs had something to do with at least two incidents, one in San Francisco and one in Los Angeles. I can tell you categorically that StandWithUs never planned, endorsed, encouraged, suggested, supported, or funded either of these activities.
In fact, in our internal emails after JVP issued each of its press releasea, we had to research and explain what the incidents were because we were unaware of it.
I’m sure you’d be one of the first to oppose finding someone guilty by association. Yet that’s the best you can come up with as “proof” for even one, let alone all of the JVP allegations.
It’s as if someone who read and circulated your blog did something that you never knew they were planning on doing and then you got accused of being involved their actions – worse, got accused of planning and being responsible for their actions.
It’s as if Muslims were accused of attacking the Jewish Federation here in Seattle because a Muslim committed the crime. You’d be all over it in that context (as would I), but you completely ignore the hypocrisy of spreading lies about StandWithUs when it fits your political agenda.
As I’ve said before, if spreading unfounded allegations is representative of your claims and assertions on so many points regarding Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it just shows how little your word should be trusted on these issues.
Let’s just introduce Rob Jacobs, director of the NW chapter of Stand With Us, who as usual mischacterizes much, leaving us lots of work to discern the wheat fr. the chaff. JVP doesn’t allege Stand With Us’ involvement in the Los Angeles incident as you claim. Can you find a single reference to SWU in this official statement fr. JVP? No. I have pointed out similarities bet. Allyson Rowen Taylor’s intimidating, assaultive behavior in the past & noted her connection w. SWU. Maybe you’re confusing me w. JVP, but there is no connection. I don’t represent JVP & they don’t represent me.
Nor does it allege SWU was the perpetrator of the Berkeley or San Francisco assaults. It actually has proven this with video of the perpetrators in both cases, who are both members of the local SWU affiliate.
Sorry, Rob, but a leader of yr Bay Area affiliate, Robin Dubner, is pictured on the video, and the other thugs were also SWU members. In the video of the protest harrasment another image of the guilty party & audio of his intimidation. So either you’re ignorant of this or denying the Bay Area affiliate is an affiliate of SWU. Which is it? At any rate, this is a typical dreary performance on yr part.
Again, these are not “allegations” regarding the Bay Area offenses. There is video & there are police reports. The images of the perpetrators are available to you & they are members of your affiliate chapter. Now, perhaps you may wish to reevaluate yr relationship w. this affiliate. But as of now it is affiliated w. SWU & therefore its acts are a reflection of SWU until Roz Rothstein says otherwise.
As far as someone blaming me for things I didn’t do or say, your own member, Robert Wilkes, did that last week in the JTNews. That’s why I had to rebut him in this week’s issue.
Rob, where’ve you been? Pam Geller, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes and your own members said precisely this when the federation was attacked.
Here’s a tip, Rob. If you come here & tell my readers they shouldn’t trust my views, it makes them trust them more. Because it’s YOU & SWU they don’t trust, not me. So keep it comin’ Rob. You & Robert Wilkes just make me look good.
In contrast with the other Chapters, the SWU “About the San Francisco Chapter” page reads more like a Roller Derby team taking to the streets than a non-partisan, professionally-led non-profit educational organization. https://www.standwithus.com/CHAPTERS/SAN%20FRANCISCO/
Before you make any public statements about gathering personally identifiable information about someone for the purpose of disrupting their social and family life, consult your own lawyer for legal advice. If for any reason you choose to ignore that advice, make sure that you don’t engage in any pretexting in California. Only utilize licensed private investigators who understand privacy rights as provided in California law. If you ignore that advice, your private internal emails are almost certain to become part of the discovery materials in a class action lawsuit (especially if you go around pointing out that they contain some sort of exculpatory evidence).
Some plaintiffs sued the ADL for spying in the San Francisco area a few years back. I understand that they got a lot more than a free tee shirt. So, the SWU might want to see if the ADL is willing to share their “lessons learned” from that experience.
Richard, correcting a typo,
Wow, I just reread your blog. Incredible. Forget guilt by association. Let’s try hallucinating. You refer to an Allyson Rowen Taylor, who once was involved in StandWithUs (yes, I know that a few years ago in an earlier response, before I knew of her involvement at the launch of StandWithUs, I said I did not know who she was). You state that she might have done this because this is the kind of think you think she’d do. You then admit that you have absolutely no evidence at all for the assertion:
“Of course and to be clear,” you write “I can’t conclusively prove that Rowen Taylor is behind this threat against Estee Chandler and JVP. . . . But the language of the flyer and the brazen provocativeness of the act are of a piece with her past behavior . . .”
You “can’t conclusively prove” that she was involved in this act? You have absolutely no proof that she was involved in the act, other than you have a vendetta against her as you do against David Brumer and, on occasion, me.
Yet it goes on. You then continue to use the absolutely unfounded allegation to connect StandWithUs to the poster against Ms. Chandler.
Wow. Really off the deep end.
Richard, you continue to create proof on your own of the completely unreliable content of your blog.
I actually listed specific incidents of verbal assault & intimidation committed by Rowen Taylor & noted similarities to the attack on Chandler. That’s evidence. It may not be evidence you accept but it’s evidence. You’ve also missed another nuance of what I wrote, which is that Rowen Taylor has close allies who I know well & they could also very easily have perpetrated this attack. So, no I don’t have fingerprints of the scene or video of who planted the flyer. But I know the MO of some of yr more lunatic members in LA & the other places I mentioned & it fits perfectly with this assault.
Why don’t you actually get Rowen Taylor to explicitly deny that she had any hand in this & that she doesn’t know anyone else who did (note carefully & precisely what I’ve asked you to have her address). I’d like to see that statement. I’ll even publish it here (though I didn’t say I’d believe it).
Vendetta? Who has a vendetta against whom? Did I call Brumer “deranged?” Did I say he had an obsession for “gay porn?” Did I say he needed mental intervention (I think it was you who said that). As for Rowen Taylor, someone who asks a friend of mine why he wants to help kill Jews, you bet that troubles me & I’m going to point it out here. But that’s not a vendetta. That’s just what I do here in this blog every day. I’m a watchdog for the violence, abuse & hate perpetrated by people you associate with on a regular basis.
As I already wrote, the more attention you & Robert Wilkes devote to me and more lies & distortions spread about my views the more people want to read that “unreliable content.” So thanks for the exposure. Reasonable people appear to disagree w. you because my readership goes up significantly year after year.
OK, Richard, I have read the website of “Stand with us”.
– They seem to believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is run ning the Egyptian pro-democracy movement, since they suddenly became so very interested in the MB a few days ago. Nicholas Kristoff (NY Times) and other honest reporters at Tahrir Square say, essentially, “baloney”.
– They seem to back Netanyahu’s support for Mubarak. Maybe your SWU correspondent can explain exactly what their stand is on democracy.
– They argue that peace in Palestine/Israel will happen only if we, Americans, unconditionally support the Israeli government.
– It has become clear, after the Palestine Papers, that the Palestinians had no Israeli partner for peace. Whenever a peace agreement was close, the Israeli government collapsed.
– SWU supports the Wall in the Occupied West Bank, arguing that the Wall only takes up 3% of the territory. A prison wall takes up less than 5%, but it still makes a prison.
– I have seen the Wall that splits Palestinian olive groves in Beit Sahour. I know what I saw; I do not believe SWU
– SWU wants to “advertise” that Palestinian leaders are blocking a peace agreement. Did Palestinians built the “Jewish-only” settlements and roads? Did Palestinians continue to build settlements even after the President of the United States asked them to stop?
That was enough to form an opinion of SWU. If Mr Jacobs can point to something good and helpful that SWU does, please let him point. I got tired of wading into slime.
You got it just about right.
Richard
Can I ask what Palestinians have done for you in return for all your tireless devotion. What about Philip Weiss, Mark Elf, Norman Finkelstein? I don’t know much about the former two but I know Finkelstein is a “confirmed bachelor” and he is a tireless advocate for a race that persecutes his kind.
Unlike you apparently I don’t ask for anything from anyone in return for my views. I don’t expect anyone to give me anything. I speak for justice for Israelis AND Palestinians. As for who and what you know, you don’t know nuthin’.
You don’t know anything about me. I’m not exactly a fan of IKsrael of Neoconservatism but I am increasingly wary of the Palestinian Solidarity Movement. I think that they have more motives than simply securing justice for the Palestinians. Especially among the ultra PC crowd because Israel is the last example of a European settler state in a non white territory and Arabists have hijacked the movement too. They are using new found solidarity for the Palestinians to whitewash and promote their culture. And of course dinosaurs (Paleoconservatives) are jumping on the bandwagon just because it’s an excuse to bash jews.
You forget. You’ve written 2 comments before here which express very similar views to many who’ve commented here. I think you know very little about the Palestinian Solidarity Movement. Besides I don’t even know what that means. For example, if you include me in that group, you’re wrong. My soldidarity is with the movement for justice–for both sides, Israeli & Palestinian. I’m not an advocate for one side over the other, which is why I was so annoyed by the lies that Robert Wilkes wrote about me.
This is nonsense. In fact, this is so incoherent & ignorant it occurred to me you are a troll attempting to pose as a hybrid of an Israeli critic & Palestinian critic.
If you want to generalize about this subject you need to do a lot more research & reading than you have. You really know nothing about this ‘movement’ you’re attacking.
This is the most anti-democratic “Jewish” blog I have ever seen. Banning people for expressing dislike of your opinions? Ban me too!
Read my comment rules and violate them & I’ll be happy to make you happy.
Your response to the incident was simple and direct, Richard!
There is no Jewish peace movement and there never has been, just Zionist aggression and betrayal. Oh well, now they are on the verge of what they have sought for so long. Too bad , if it’s a bust. I think many of us aren’t going to want to debate it anymore as they have no one to blame but themselves. Cut them and theirs loose. It’s not our fight, they can sort it out from the rubble on their own.
Hej!
I never knew who ms chandler was nor about the fliers until I stumbled on this ridiculous accusation. I would not know esteem if I fell on top of her. Your lies may call for a libel lawsuit.