The International Jewish anti-Zionist Network--I am nominally a member--posted this open letter:
An Open Letter Regarding The 2010 U.S. Assembly of Jews: Confronting Racism & Israeli Apartheid
In less than a month, people from across the United States and beyond will be gathering at the 2010 U.S. Assembly of Jews: Confronting Racism and Israeli Apartheid (the "Assembly"). The Assembly is an historic event intended to build relationships, political clarity and Jewish anti-Zionist organizing and activism. It takes place at a time when recognition of the brutal nature of the State of Israel is growing, and increasing numbers of people are compelled to challenge its impunity. To date, the Assembly has over forty endorsers, anticipates two hundred participants, and has gained the interest of Palestinian, Palestinian solidarity and anti-racist movements in the United States, as well as the attention of mainstream Jewish media.
Given the stated purposes of the Assembly, we are expecting challenges to be leveled against it. IJAN, the main organizer of the Assembly, is already receiving criticism based on inaccurate assumptions or apparently different political goals. With this momentous event upon us, we would like to take a moment to make clear the principles, positions and goals of the Assembly and help correct or prevent misconceptions.
IJAN and the Assembly stand firmly against Zionism - the exclusionary colonial ideas, policies and practice that privilege Jews above, and at the expense of, Palestinian people. By extension we reject the Jewish nationalism that underlies Zionism, a nationalism that erases diverse Jewish histories and champions safety in separation, isolation and domination of others. We believe that true safety and long-term freedom can only be found in the emancipation of all people.
We expressly challenge Zionism's monopolization of our diverse Jewish histories, politics, cultures and religious practices. We take strength from and join in the long tradition of Jewish commitment to human emancipation. Against the Zionist betrayal of this tradition and the hijacking of Jewish history, the Assembly is a collective act of Jews reasserting and reconnecting with a long history of participation in social justice movements.
In the same way that we reject Zionism's inherent racism, we reject racism and hatred in any form and against any people or person. Thus we refuse to ally ourselves with anti-Jewish racists, white supremacists or Holocaust deniers. To do otherwise, would mean to embrace the Zionist strategy of conflating Judaism and Jewishness with Zionism, a tactic used to assume and even impose unconditional support of Jews for Israel regardless of that State's actions. In our unequivocal rejection of Zionism, we do not and will not take part in actions that conflate Zionism and Judaism, whether intentionally or thoughtlessly. We believe that supporting Palestinian self-determination requires challenging Zionist ideas, policies and practice, not the practice of Judaism.
To ensure that we are neither divisive nor obtrusive guests in Detroit, the Assembly will not endorse participation in any political activities other than those developed through the collaborative national process of the organizing for it. We request Assembly participants not to be provoked by those who may attempt to undermine the objectives of the Assembly, including by calling for our participation in activities outside of and contradictory to it.
In addition, IJAN will not align itself with those who either seek to use the struggle against Zionism for their own ends, individual or collective, or who proclaim themselves anti-Zionist but whose divisive actions serve only to further a Zionist agenda, undermining Palestine solidarity work and anti-Zionist organizing. Rather, the Assembly is intended to promote the building of organized forces of Jews who can multiply and amplify efforts to overcome Zionism and decolonize Palestine, by working with and in support of the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
To that end, we welcome all who are 1) interested in supporting the organizing of anti-Zionist Jews as part of the broader Palestine solidarity movement and anti-racist, anti-imperialist organizing in the United States and beyond, 2) committed to the principles reflected in the Assembly's purpose, goals, assumptions and expectations, and 3) able to express this commitment through participation that supports the goals and activities of the Assembly. While we welcome discussions on our continually evolving struggle to overcome the destructiveness, including of life and land, of Zionist principles, practices and policies, we will not tolerate attempts to disrupt, undermine, provoke or attack participants, speakers or facilitators.
This is the sort of open letter that's necessary when the solidarity movement makes tactical and strategic alliances with the likes of Gilad Atzmon, Mary Rizzo, and whatever clown runs Xymphora, which, if the enemy could produce intelligent agent provocateurs--it can't--would be a likely candidate. Here is the underlying mindset: "Oh sure they're bigots or want a smoother-functioning empire like Walt etc but listen who cares what kind of world they want to create they are against occupation." Here is the underlying mode of operation: total opportunism. The issue is complicated enough for a monograph, and much too complicated for a blog post. It involves a surrender to Zionism's conflation of Jews and Zionism, the abandonment of Jewish history, an ignorance, usually deliberate, of materialist analysis, and a misapprehension of the nature of the Lobby and Israel's relationship to American imperialism, which can not be reduced to tribal identification or vulgar economic determinism. I'll keep it short and say thanks to IJAN for doing the work that needs to be done.
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Happy birthday max.
you were born in the USA 26 years ago ( Mazal tov) . you are an American and you are also Jewish. you could choose to be a Zionist, to support and advocate on behalf of the Jewish state,. or you could choose to be a none Zionist and to not support and advocate on behalf of the Jewish state. You could also choose to become an Anti-Zionist which to my understanding means to reject and fight the Jewish state of Israel.
The difference between you as none-Zionist and your none– Jewish friend who may be none-Zionist is that you are entitled to become an israeli citizen whether you are a zaionist or not.
As an anti Zionist, are you really striping yourself from your right to become Israeli citizens?
I think that rejecting the right to become an Israeli citizen is a legitimate stand one as a Jew should be entitled to hold. The right of return law of the Jewish state of Israel forces you as a Jew to take an active stand, but I’m not sure Anti-Zionism is the answer. maybe you should be more targeted as being anti the Jewish-right-of-return law.
Thanks Nili.
I am aware of my choices, but don’t see their relevance.
You write, “The difference between you as none-Zionist and your none– Jewish friend who may be none-Zionist is that you are entitled to become an israeli citizen whether you are a zaionist or not.“
To clarify, this blog is anti-Zionist, not non-Zionist. Anti-Zionism means moving against the ideology that stabilizes a certain set of relationships between people in a given place: in this case, settler-colonialism in cis-Jordan. I can’t “strip” myself of the right to become an Israeli citizen, but in any case, I am more interested in creating a different kind of political arrangement in Israel/Palestine, offering 11 million Palestinians full citizenship rights wherever they want to live on the land, be it in a two-state solution with right of return or a one-state solution. After that we can worry about me and my rights.
You write, “I think that rejecting the right to become an Israeli citizen is a legitimate stand one as a Jew should be entitled to hold. The right of return law of the Jewish state of Israel forces you as a Jew to take an active stand, but I’m not sure Anti-Zionism is the answer. maybe you should be more targeted as being anti the Jewish-right-of-return law. ”
I agree with the first sentence. Not with the second or the third. Nothing “forces” me to take an active stand. Some things push me in that direction, including the theft of identity occasioned by Zionism, including a universal struggle for rights and justice of which the anti-Zionist struggle is one component. If it’s a just struggle, it’s just, and it doesn’t matter if I’m Jewish, Zoroastrian, vegan, or whatever.
As for your suggestions, you seem to think this is about “me.” This is about creating just institutional arrangements for the people living in the land of Palestine, for the camp–dwellers, for those living in Diaspora. This is about disarming a client state of the empire. This is about de-fusing the most explosive flash-point in the world. This has very little to do with the personal purity of a 26 year old blogger living in Gaza.
I feell that much of the Zaionist anti-Zionist discoution totali niglect to aknowledge the difference between an israeli born jew and a none israeli jew. one can dispute the moral stand of a preferred jewish imigration to israel. but no-one can have a say about the rights of these born on that land.. thous Jews born in Israel, who are the majority of isralies living in israel today, do not need any justification and do not need to legitemize their occupation of that land.
Israel, like most of the other countries in the middle-east could have chose a different order of governing other than democracy and no-one (other then the Jews) would have the right to interfear.
human rights activist are often confusing thier obligation to look out for individuals rights and thier political views. Their acts are often just as colonialist as thier ensestors they so harshly critesize . most human rights activist try to inforce thier moral amd social justice in countires other than thier own.
Human right activist who are Jewish, on the other hand, have the right and the obligation to mingle with the business of Israel and the Palestinian for that matter, only and only because of that “right of return law” which position them as passive participant of that state. “The right of return law” is the one you should fight to change as an anti-Zionist Jew. And as long as this law is in place any Jew, where ever they may be, have the right to actively object or support anything that have to do with Israel.
Nili,
Very little of our discussion focuses on the right of return. We are discussing the institutional nature of the Israeli state, its binding ideology—Zionism—and its actions and history, namely, first, ethnic cleansing, then wars, occupation, and now siege and politicide. Those actions and history are real.
On the question of rights. No one is arguing that Israeli-born Jews should leave. You will not find that such a statement in my writing, not even a hint of it. “Restitution” doesn’t mean leaving. It means sharing and reparations. The question of “justification” is different. Jews did something very wrong 62 years ago. They created a state on stolen land. They did, there is no arguing that, and so you’re right, no one needs a “justification” for that. There is none. There are ways to make amends. Do you think that’s inappropriate? Why? Do you think it’s right to assume that Jews have more right to the land than the Palestinians who were there first? Why?
You write, “Israel, like most of the other countries in the middle-east could have chose a different order of governing other than democracy and no-one (other then the Jews) would have the right to interfear.” This surprises me. In random order, my political representatives support Israel; my tax-dollars go there; my ethnic community steals my identity to support it; I am a human being. Only the third reason for interfering excludes non-Jews from invoking it. The other three are totally reasonable reasons to interfere. There is something wrong going on. Can human beings help make it better? What’s wrong with that, all the more so when they are partially responsible for it? Is there something wrong with trying to make the world a better place?
You write, “human rights activist are often confusing thier obligation to look out for individuals rights and thier political views. Their acts are often just as colonialist as thier ensestors they so harshly critesize . most human rights activist try to inforce thier moral amd social justice in countires other than thier own.” But political views are precisely about what rights people have and how to secure them. Most human rights activists work to secure justice both domestically and in foreign countries, and if your argument in favor of non-interference is that we shouldn’t interfere in other countries on principle, you should first direct your attention to the American government with sends billions to Israel and supports it militarily, politically, and economically. If it’s wrong to interfere, it’s wrong to interfere. Once we’re actually in a position of non-interference, I think human rights activists will be pretty happy. You do accept that we are responsible for our own governments, right? I don’t understand your argument. If my government is supporting awful human rights abuses, then I should work to stop my government from doing so. That legitimates political action by all Americans. Now, I hope you agree that responsibility doesn’t stop there, either though. Suppose my government is pretty innocent [probably never happened but…]. Should I sit around and let people suffer if I can do something about it? What kind of argument can you make in favor of that? I don’t understand what you’re telling me, Nili, except to tell me that in spite of all of the above, Israeli politicide isn’t my business. But it is. As an American, as a Jew, and as a human being. The question isn’t, why am I interfering. The question is, how could I do otherwise?
[…] International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network open letter The International Jewish anti-Zionist Network–I am nominally a member–posted this… […]
We are getting here into an intellectual discussion which to my opinion, is not the most important act. Again I think that what you are doing by physically posting yourself at the center of this conflict (and yes taking on the financial toll of that action, like artist do when making art) is far more important. there is one point however that I do find compelling ‚( interestingly enough it have much to do with art and science as it have to do with politics.)
As a member of a democratic order you may be (which you are at the moment) a “defeated” minority. The majority in your country chose an imperialistic colonialist approach. You can oppose it and you may act upon it in your own country, but once you go to other people’s land, even in order to defend them from your contry’s action, you committing both a none democratic action and a colonialist act. When your country do things that you oppose you (as anti colonialist in particular) may only fight it from within. If other country is compromising the human right you believe in, you may open your home and offer amnesty to all refuges. And if moral issues are a part of it you may brake some laws in your own country to assist these people ‚like offer a freedom fighter in exile to use your own social security number to allow him to sustain his action (or just to make a living), or help smuggling them through a border line. You may also go to an oppressor country and try to help thous who are victims according to your own moral standards but, you will be doing so as an outlaw and as a colonialist.
“We are getting here into an intellectual discussion which to my opinion, is not the most important act.” As you wish Nili, but ideas inform actions and we think. then act then reflect then act again. There is no rigid wall between an “intellectual discussion” and an act. The “act” in this case stands for a politics which is distilled in words and thoughts, which are formed though “intellectual discussion.”
You write, “The majority in your country chose an imperialistic colonialist approach.” Wrong—in fact no president has gotten a majority of the vote in a long time—ever?—and no one offers a choice. There are usually two imperial candidates. Understandably, many people don’t bother voting.
You write, “You can oppose it and you may act upon it in your own country, but once you go to other people’s land, even in order to defend them from your contry’s action, you committing both a none democratic action and a colonialist act.” See Nili this is the relevance of the “intellectual discussion.” Through intellectual discussion we see that words mean specific things, and not other things. The words that I have now expended in this dialogue, running to the thousands, establishing that Zionism means racism and murder, you don’t wish to engage with. Instead, you have chosen other words: that I am undemocratic and colonial. But democracy accords inalienable rights to individuals. If my democracy doesn’t forbid me from going to Gaza, then there is nothing undemocratic about doing so, even within your circumscribed historical and conceptual universe. Non-democratic means something. It doesn’t mean going against the will of the majority, and the will of the majority can hardly be ascertained in a capitalist system with a system of mass indoctrination and manufacture of consent. I am surprised that you think so little of the American people that you think they want their tax dollars to support murdering Palestinian children. I don’t think they do. As for the charge of “colonialism,” colonialism means the extraction of surplus through direct rule and its transfer from a colonial territory to a metropole. Am I complicit in that? No. So you are wrong.
You write, “When your country do things that you oppose you (as anti colonialist in particular) may only fight it from within.” But you offer no reasons for it. All I can conclude is that my work makes you uncomfortable. Not my problem, and not the point.
You write, “If other country is compromising the human right you believe in, you may open your home and offer amnesty to all refuges. And if moral issues are a part of it you may brake some laws in your own country to assist these people ‚like offer a freedom fighter in exile to use your own social security number to allow him to sustain his action (or just to make a living), or help smuggling them through a border line. You may also go to an oppressor country and try to help thous who are victims according to your own moral standards but, you will be doing so as an outlaw and as a colonialist.”
So I am “outlaw and…colonialist,” for going to another country to visit, while breaking no laws and using no violence. Kind of makes me wonder what Israelis are then, for going to another country and murdering and stealing the land and establishing a state? “Outlaw and colonialist”? Nili you are so desperate to avoid the substance here: to avoid terms like land-theft, settler-colonialism, Zionism, ethnic cleansing, massacre, siege, occupation. Why? Do you think it’s OK to do these things? These things are the point, not me. Do you think it’s OK to chop off a 5-year old boy’s head because he is Palestinian? If so, let me know. It will make this dialogue easier.
What I can tell you is ‘Go to Hell’. Jews, sane Jews, will survive you as they survived the Nazis and their cooperators. Criticism regarding Israel is OK, but demonizing her with your cheap lies is a sin, crime and Anti-Semitism. In your case it is Auto-Anti-Semitism (AAS) or Self-Anti-Semitism (SAS).
Most of the Jews in the world support Israel by spirit, politics and virtue, and see her by their on human characteristics. Denying the Jews’ right for a national and political home in the Land of Israel is one of the highest spot of racism of modern days. The Arabs people have already 22 states, one of them sited on 75% of Palestine and called Jordan. The notion that you deny the Jews their right just because you think that the Fatah and Hamas are new original Arab peoples is a sad joke, but at the same time you deny the Jews that sat on that land for at least 4000 years, the right for their own free and prosperous state.
Shame on you, traitors !
Now that you have been living amongst us for a while and felt the true intensity of the situation, let me take you to a short ride on the highway. One chose to go into a war in order to win, but when you go into a peace process you go in to lose.The problem with making peace is that you are not dealing with a real “mother” and the one that stole the baby (the famous Salomon court case) you are dealing with two parents. each love and want the best for their child and each see the other one as doing wrong with the child (the most common divorce case).
We need a divorce. The Palestinian and the Israelis need to end that arranged marriage which never worked to begin with. In criminal court there is right and wrong, in family court there is the best interest of all involved. The sooner all sides agree that we are not trying to win a criminal case of stolen property but a divorce case with children in stake the less damage will be done.
Doing peace is not about accepting and agreeing and loving. making peace is about not accepting and not agreeing and not loving. It is ugly and it is messy but it needs to be done.
Nili, as Israelis say, or I don’t know about 1 percent of your population says, yesh g’vul. I have painstakingly showed you why your (1) analogies (2) strategies (3) vision are flawed, immoral, cloistered, unrealistic, and intolerable. But you now repeat them in the form of an analogy. I don’t know why. Here are the problems with the analogy. What is the “arranged marriage”? Who “arranged” it? Who has agency here? Who is the victimizer, and who is the victim? Why do you insist that Israel is not stolen property when it is? Why do you insist on lying, Nili? I am not going to dissect the problems of the analogies between the I-P conflict and “criminal court” versus “family court.”
Suffice to say that Israel has NEVER been interested in resolving the situation to begin with. Furthermore, it has never been interested in “making peace,” it has never been interested in “divorcing.” It has been interested in murdering the owners of the property in dispute, confining them to ghettos and concentration camps, and then wondering why in God’s name it should be criticized so hardly for doing so.
Now, you persist in this illusion, this fiction, that the Israeli people are interested in peace or justice. But they are not. They refuse even 22 percent of historic Palestine to the Palestinians, as every single respectable scholarly work on the entire peace process proves without an iota of decent evidence to the contrary. They prefer land to peace and will kill Palestinians, Americans, Europeans, and even Jewish Israelis in their pursuit of that preference. You write about the “best interest of all involved”: what is the “best interest” of the araboushim whose stolen land Tel-Aviv sits on? Lay that out for me Nili and then perhaps we’ll be able to figure out how to proceed in this dialogue.
Because I am not sure how to do so. You don’t want to see Zionism. You don’t care about the Palestinians. You simply want it all to stop, you don’t want to think about things that hard, you definitely don’t want to give up your privilege, you don’t want to give up any land, which you consider your birthright although your parents stole it from Arabs with machineguns, and you don’t want to consider those Arabs full human beings. You don’t care about history or morality, but about the future, and think for some reason that you, writing from Brooklyn, are taking me on a “short ride on the highway” by instructing me that the problem isn’t stolen property but divorce. But the only way to get to a just future is an accurate diagnosis of both the past and present, and you refuse accurate diagnoses in favor of what I am not even sure. Oh we are high Nili but we are not on the highway. You can tell me all you want about your children, but you are creating a future of hell for them. Why?
Would you give up your home in brooklyn? would you send your parents back to where they (or their parents) came from? It may not be just, but in America people are losing homes only because they lost a few payment after losing their job and after being cheated out of all their life saving. There is not ethnic struggle there but is it less painful or more just? I know you dont like analogies but it is always good to put things in light of others if only for the “view”.
I actually happened to feel much more at home with muslim arabs , then with american wasps in Fairfield Connecticut. and when I see these pictures of a “terrorist” on the news, all I can see is a child, a victim, abused by humans pride and arrogance. I don’t need to be a jew or any other thing. I dont think that our democracy is so much better, I don’t try to win a just case. and I am writing to you from brooklyn since next week I will be back in israel to stay. I am both an american and Israeli, and I feel morally much more in ease as Israeli then as an American. Israel may have taken others land but ‚historically speaking, it was taken from it to begin with, All of israel colonialist action are taking place with in touching borders and with real threat involve. I dont agree with most of it but nevertheless it is way more just than anything the usa is doing. As an american, and as Ant-zionist Jew Max, you should go home and fight for justice in America, what ever wrong we as israelis are doing is dwarfed compare to what we as americans are doing. But if you are interested in making peace we can keep on talking.
Nili,
In rough order, paraphrased, your points are that (1) there are other issues in the world; (2) I should deal with the “fight for justice in America”; (3) I am asking Jewish Israelis to go home; (4) Israel is addressing its security needs by stealing land. I have addressed (1), (2), (3), and (4) in extensive mind-numbing detail, laying out the moral, factual, historical, and logical arguments you are making, laying out why they are flawed, etc. Which you know. You ignored the responses, which were thorough and conscientious, and now you repeat the arguments as though they haven’t been rebutted. In internet-speak, this is known as “trolling.” You are welcome to be morally corrupt and annoying. Not my business. Go back to Israel and watch your country fall apart. But what it is my business to do is to respond, and in non-internet speak my response to you is to tell you to fuck off. Shalom!
You can say “fuck off” and go back home, your friends in Gaza and those you despise in Israel can not do that. they disagree much more than we do and yet they need to talk because the only other option is to keep on killing each other. The privilege of “fuck off” is a privilege many dont have. both me and you are lucky enough in that respect. and until the day all humans are free to “fuck off”, talking, agreeing to disagree and letting go is the only way.
hope I’ll get to see you in person one day, and to your friends in Gaza you may give my e-mail, it is not the best way to communicate but its a way.
Nili,
I thank you for giving me an opportunity to highlight one more thing about the Liberal Zionist. I had missed this. It is the affliction with talkitis, or speech process-itis. Its symptoms are inanity and moral breakdown. You seem to think that the problem between Israeli Zionists and Palestinians is one of a rupture in communication, which causes killing. This is typical, and totally wrong. It is the killing and the occupation that continue, mounting in intensity, and the peace process that distracts from them, and does not aim to resolve them. The peace process endlessly processes, but that is its point. It is not to arrive at peace. “Peace” will not come from an implied equality of victimization between “those [I] despise” in Israel and Gazans.
Israelis, mainly, I pity–you are too blind to see that you are fucking your country, and what’s worse you may even be earnest enough to think that the problem can be resolved with sufficient “e-mails” between you and my friends here in Gaza. They are not so stupid.
You just passed out an opportunity to talk with me because I am stupid and blind . Who then are you going to talk to, or maybe you have other solution in mind other then having me agreeing with everything you say. If we were to meet anywhere half way between your truth and main I will be already sitting there waiting for you to show up. The problem with you, Chomsky and alike is that with your righteousness you are undermining everyone’s else truth. and as long as your believes are the only truth, you are no different than any religious fundamentalist. The rode to violence is very short from that point. Violence is rooted in frustration and in a strong belief in one truth . it is valid to try to argue your point of view as long as you respect the fact that others are entitle to disagree with you .But if you can only see yourself as being right, nothing good can come out of it.
Israel is going to remain a Jewish state for quite a while. The question is were the borders are going to be set between the Palestinian state, that can assume the right of return to all Palestinians, and the Jewish state that for now assume the right of return only for Jews. you can help draw that map with me or you can let Gush-emunim do it for you.
mean while I will keep my “fuck off” privileges because I know just how weak I am.
Nili,
You seem to think “truth” is an agreeable middle distance, a compromise, between two ways of looking at the world. Try this. Suppose someone rapes and kills your child. You claim that they have raped and killed your child and demand justice. The rapist/murderer, on the other hand, insists that it seemed consensual, he didn’t know your child’s age, the child fought back when the murderer was killing him. What was the child doing so near to the predator/murderer anyway? And didn’t the child know that this is a neighborhood known for its surfeit of rapist/murderers, and in any event, don’t you know that it is so difficult to bring rapists/murderers to justice, especially when the sheriff refuses to enforce the law against rape and murder when it comes to the specific cretin-killer who ended your child’s life?
How do you propose you “meet anywhere half way between” your truth of your child being violated and murdered and the murderer’s disgusting justifications for it? Does your truth and its insistence on justice undermine the murderer’s “truth” of the reasonableness of his actions? Would this make you “no different than any religious fundamentalist”? Should you “respect the fact that others are entitled to disagree with you” that your child was raped and murdered? Is there something wrong with a situation wherein “you can only see yourself as being right” by insisting on the truth of horrible atrocity being perpetrated against your child? No, no one plays that game.
Israel is not going to remain a Jewish state. It is not going to remain a Jewish state because we are going to win. You can be “we” too. Or you could. Frankly, I don’t care, because we are going to make you be “we.” We are going to cut Israeli economic links with the Western world. Israeli cultural institutions will be shunned. Israeli leaders will be heckled. Israel will be turned into a pariah state until liberal Zionists like you ideologically combust amidst your contradictions and surrender your Zionism so that you can live like normal human beings and the Palestinians can too. You can help push from this end. Or you can stay on that end, and we’ll all hope that in a couple years, or 5, or 10, when we win, the transition doesn’t occasion civil war. Your call, and not one that “dialogue” will help you figure out. Not with me, at least.
I was going to let this through, but then realized that you wrote: “You, max decided to join one side, just remember that both are slaves of emperors, never intended to fight one another.”
Israeli Jews never intended or thought inevitable a fight with the people whose land they were stealing. Amazing.