Zionists Out of the Peace Movement

Below is an image of the cover of the September 26, 2011 issue of New York magazine.


See also:

• "The First Jewish President"
• "Update on 'The First Jewish President' "

Labels: Israel, Jews, Obama, US politics

Henry Herskovitz is reporting another apparent conflict of interest in the AATA "Boycott Israel" advertising controversy. In a section of his recent vigil report entitled "Disturbing News Flash" he writes:

On the heels of this conflict of interest existing with AATA Board members and Counsel, comes this: according to U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith's biography, "[Goldsmith] has also served in the leadership of several community organizations, including ... the B'nai B'rith Anti- Defamation League." We have also determined from a separate and reliable source that his leadership included Board membership on the ADL. How many foxes does it take to guard this henhouse? Will someone ask Judge Goldsmith whether he supports Israel’s claimed right to exist as a Jewish state (the ADL sure does), and whether that answer might influence his ability to render a fair verdict?

Judge Mark A. Goldsmith was nominated to the federal bench by Barack Obama while serving on the Oakland County Circuit Court. A little digging revealed more evidence of Goldsmith's potential bias in the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority case. Goldsmith's 2010 federal Financial Disclosure Report (Section VII) indicates that he doesn't own any US bonds but he does own Israel Bonds and they're the only asset for which he did not declare a value. Furthermore, Goldsmith and his wife sent their sixteen-year-old daughter to study in Israel. Can a man with such strong Zionist ties really be expected to preside impartially at a trial over the constitutionality of an advertisement graphically criticizing Israel as an apartheid state and calling for its boycott?

The Code of Conduct for United States Judges says:

CANON 2: A JUDGE SHOULD AVOID IMPROPRIETY AND THE APPEARANCE OF IMPROPRIETY IN ALL ACTIVITIES

1. Respect for Law. A judge should respect and comply with the law and should act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.
2. Outside Influence. A judge should not allow family, social, political, financial, or other relationships to influence judicial conduct or judgment. A judge should neither lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others nor convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge. A judge should not testify voluntarily as a character witness.
3. Nondiscriminatory Membership. A judge should not hold membership in any organization that practices invidious discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin.

Regarding Canon 2B, Goldsmith has or recently had demonstrable family and financial ties to Israel. It may be, too, that his social relationships unsuit him to preside at this trial. In the nominee's questionnaire Goldsmith submitted to the judiciary committee, he discloses that he became Vice-President for Religious Affairs of B'nai B'rith Barristers in 2009. "Advocacy for Israel" is second on B'nai B'rith's list of "Our Prime Issues". B'nai B'rith has publicly "condemned" supporters, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, of the international boycott of Israel. Furthermore, Goldsmith has been a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee since the 1990s.

Goldsmith is also evidently a "strictly Sabbath observant," devout adherent of Judaism; he is a cantor at his synagogue and a serious student of the Talmud. In his nominee's questionnaire Goldsmith reports that he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of Orthodox Rabbis of Greater Detroit. Goldsmith was profiled in 2011 in "Jewels of Justice: Timeless Jewish Values in the American Courtroom" in the American Jewish Spirit (emphasis added). Reportedly, at his federal investiture ceremony, "the newly appointed judge said 'he was grateful to the Almighty for allowing my plan to be part of His plan,' and in the words of an ancient Jewish prayer, thanked God for 'granting us all life, sustaining us and allowing us to reach this day.' ... 'I do believe with a complete faith, Judge Goldsmith said, 'that the Spirit above guides the spirit within.' "

Being devoutly religious should not per se be a disqualifying factor but one wonders how the "Spirit above" will guide Goldsmith's "spirit within" when it comes to Coleman v. AATA. He's been a member of Congregation Beth Shalom since 1987; he joined its Board of Directors that same year and served until 2005. He was the president of the congregation from 1997 until 1999. Congregation Beth Shalom describes itself as providing "opportunities for all ages that nurture our love of and commitment to Jewish life, our Synagogue and the State of Israel" and it hosts an "Israel Affairs" committee. There can be little doubt that the Congregation Beth Shalom agrees that Zionism is an affirmation of Judaism and "has its origins and roots in the authoritative religious texts of Judaism. ... Anti-Zionism, not Zionism, is a departure from the Jewish religion."

Regarding Canon 2C, Goldsmith's service (1986-1994) on the "Regional Advisory Board of B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League" (ADL), which was highlighted in his Senate confirmation hearing, sets off alarm bells. The ADL is decidedly and undeniably pro-Israel and that to the detriment of Palestinians. A case can be made that it "practices invidious discrimination" (although probably not in its membership) against non-Jewish people and Jews who are not Zionist (or insufficiently so).

In 2000, a Colorado jury awarded a $10 million judgment against the ADL to two people who had been defamed as "anti-Semites" by the ADL. That award survived all ADL appeals. Earlier, in 1999, the ADL was forced to pay $175,000 in an out-of-court settlement stemming from forty years of domestic political espionage by the ADL. The ADL has been active in lobbying against Congressional recognition of the Armenian genocide. This had led some Massachusetts communities to pull out of the ADL's bogus "No Place for Hate" campaign. Interested readers are urged to have a look at Professor Steven Salaita's book, Israel's Dead Soul. Salaita devotes an entire chapter to the ADL where he makes a compelling case that "according to its own public criteria, the ADL should classify itself as a hate group."

In light of all of the above, should Goldsmith recuse himself? You decide. Canon 3C(1) of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges says: "A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned ..."

See also Coleman v. AATA Update

Labels: Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, boycott, free speech, Israel, Jews, Mark Goldsmith, Obama, US politics

As I pointed out to a friend and fellow activist Sunday night, the current dispute over the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority's Board of Directors decision to reject a proposed bus advertisement by Blaine Coleman raises the matter of conflicts of interest in the AATA's decision-making process. After huddling in a closed session with AATA counsel Jerry Lax, the Ann Arbor Chronicle reports that the Board voted unanimously, with Board chair Jesse Bernstein and member David Nacht present and voting, to support a resolution endorsing a rejection of Coleman's proposed "Boycott 'Israel,' Boycott Apartheid" ad by the AATA's advertising contractor. It doesn't seem likely that the entire Board would go against the advice of legal counsel and, thus, it's reasonable to conclude that Jerry Lax supported the resolution too.

The problem is that Lax, Bernstein, and Nacht are, apparently, supporters of Israel, the very entity targeted by Coleman's ads. The Washtenaw Jewish News reported in December 2009 that Jerry Lax has served on the boards of the two local pro-Israel outfits: the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor and Temple Beth Emeth. Lax also added his name to a campaign advertisement of "Michigan Jews Who Support Senators Obama & Biden". Here's part of the text of that ad:

Stay focused on the issues:

Israel's security: "Let me be clear. Israel's security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable."
– Barack Obama, speech to AIPAC, June 4, 2008.

Iran's threat: "There is no greater threat to Israel – or to the peace and stability of the region – than Iran ... and my goal will be to eliminate this threat." – Barack Obama, speech to AIPAC, June 4, 2008.

Yes, those were the first two issues in the ad. No wonder those Michigan Jews supported "The First Jewish President."

As to AATA Board chair Jesse Bernstein, well, he's also on the Board of Directors of the Michigan Israel Business Bridge. 'Nuff said, right? Okay, but it won't hurt to mention that Bernstein is also a donor to Kehillot B'Yahad/Congregations Together (KBY), whose aims include: "STRENGTHENING THE JEWISH STATE". Bernstein also happens to be the chair of a Temple Beth Emeth's Long Range Sustainability committee. David Nacht's LinkedIn profile identifies him as a supporter of the Anti-Defamation League, a former Board member of Temple Beth Emeth, and a donor to the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County.

Inquiring minds want to know how much these guy's--all three associated with Temple Beth Emeth--support of Israel may have colored their judgment in favor of violating the First Amendment rights of Coleman. The vote also potentially put the AATA and, thus, taxpayers on the hook for an expensive legal fight it seems likely to lose.

12/11/2011 Update: Just days after this post was published the ACLU announced that it is bringing suit in federal court against the AATA on behalf of Blaine Coleman. It's a real shame and a bit of a mystery that the Board of Directors are not named as defendants in the complaint.

See also: "Is Judge Goldsmith Biased in AATA Suit?"

Labels: Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, boycott, free speech, Israel, Jews, Obama, US politics

It turns that when I wrote my brief post on "The First Jewish President" back in 2009 I missed a lengthy and revealing article in the Chicago Jewish News. The article is from October 24, 2008, and is entitled "Obama and the Jews" (the article is also archived here by If Americans Knew). The piece begins with a quote from "the former Chicago congressman, federal judge and White House counsel to President Bill Clinton," Abner Mikva: "I think when this is all over, people are going to say that Barack Obama is the first Jewish president".

See also: "Jews Could Decide Dems Presidential Nominee"

Labels: Jewish supremacism, Obama, US politics

He celebrates Passover, so why not Hanukkah, too?



Last night, the "first Jewish President" celebrated Hanukkah at the White House. Barack Obama underscored the nationalistic nature of Judaism by addressing opening remarks to Israeli ambassador Michael Oren and the people of Israel.

To cheers from the audience, Obama also noted, "One third of the Supreme Court is here." Of course, with his nomination of Elena Kagan, Obama himself helped ensured that an ethno-religious group comprising less than 2% of the US population would occupy three of the nine slots on the Supreme Court while the largest segment of the US population--Protestant Christians--is wholly unrepresented.

After a few more intros, Obama recited an abbreviated version of the Hanukkah story, neglecting to mention, of course, that the 'Maccabean revolt' that spawned the holiday was as much a religious civil war instigated by violent fanatics as it was a revolt against "the yoke of empire." Today, violent religious fanatics--Jewish and Christian--and their lackeys head an empire that far exceeds the scope of the Seleucid empire. That empire insures the Jewish state's existence and wages wars on its behalf in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

Also left out of the Obama's remarks is any mention of Israel's 2008-09 Hanukkah Massacre that killed 1,400 Palestinians or the millions of living Palestinians "who still suffer under tyranny and oppression". The clip ends with a saxophone performance by Joshua Redman. Too bad the White House didn't invite Gilad Atzmon and his sax, instead.

Labels: Gilad Atzmon, Hanukkah, Israel, Jewish violence, Judaism, Obama

At right: Official White House photo of the 2009 Seder.

As I've argued in several posts on this blog, Passover is part of a Judaic culture of death. Well, late last month the New York Times reported on "the story of the Obama Seder, now one of the newest, most intimate and least likely of White House traditions." One wonders how unlikely it is that Obama--the "first Jewish president"--would hold a Passover seder in the White House.

According to the Times, Obama's been celebrating them at least since 2008. That seder took place "at the bleakest point of the campaign, the long prelude to the Pennsylvania primary, which was dominated by a furor over Mr. Obama's former pastor" i. e. the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an anti-Zionist and liberation theologian who Obama betrayed.

The Times also reports:

When Passover begins at sunset on Monday evening, Mr. Obama and about 20 others will gather for a ritual that neither the rabbinic sages nor the founding fathers would recognize.

In the Old Family Dining Room, under sparkling chandeliers and portraits of former first ladies, the mostly Jewish and African-American guests will recite prayers and retell the biblical story of slavery and liberation, ending with the traditional declaration "Next year in Jerusalem." (Never mind the current chill in the administration’s relationship with Israel.)

Top aides like [Senior Advisor to the President] David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett will attend, but so will assistants like 24-year-old Herbie Ziskend.

I guess White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Lee "Rosy" Rosenberg, who served on Obama's national campaign finance committee and is now the new president of American Israel Public Affairs Committee, celebrated Passover at home in Chicago.

Labels: Judaism, Obama, Passover, US politics

I recently looked at the archived version of the Chicago Tribune article, "Barack Obama: The First Jewish President?" and decided to Google the title. Below are links to two of the articles that came up.

• "Some Chicago Jews say Obama is actually the 'first Jewish president' " by Natasha Mozgovaya in Haaretz.
• "Barack Obama: 'America’s First Jewish President' " by James Petras.

Click here for an update to this post.

Labels: Jews, Obama, US politics

This post was gathering cobwebs in the drafts folder. I last worked on it on January 20, 2009. Wadad Abed did not support or attend the Batsheva Dance Company protest.

Dear Wadad Abed:

You joined a group of Zionist Jewish women in a Hasbara operation called Zeitouna. As a result of that experience you rejected your old notion "that the Holocaust was ... used to justify taking away" Palestine and you, instead, embraced tenets of the Holocaust Industry and told the Detroit Jewish News that, as a result, you "now accept[ed] Israel's right to exist."

Perhaps emboldened by your conversion to the Zionist cause, you teamed up with Zionist Aaron Ahuvia, the national secretary of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, as the sole Palestinian in the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice's "Imagine Process" and gave the thugs in the organization's leadership cover to make permanent the "suspension" of its Middle East Task Force and the ouster of the task force Chair, a fellow Palestinian.

In 2007, you became, literally, the voice of Zionist propagandist Laurie White at the Ann Arbor premiere of the Zeitouna movie. In 2008, you were reelected to the Board of Directors of the University Musical Society (UMS), when interviewed on the radio in connection with a concert hosted by the UMS you identified yourself not as a Palestinian, nor as a refugee but merely as "an immigrant [who] came here forty years ago." Shortly thereafter when local activists and the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) called for a boycott and protest of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, hosted by the UMS, you were silent and missing-in-action.

After weeks of relentless Israeli bombing in the Gaza strip that has already killed hundreds of people, most of them civilians or policemen, and injured thousands more, many of whom may yet die for lack of medical supplies and facilities, your words and actions have never stung more painfully. And yet, now, you have signed an open letter to Barack Obama where, among other things, you say: "Almost certainly, the only hope of a lasting solution is a single state in Israel/Palestine, committed to the civil and human rights of all peoples within its boundaries, irrespective of religion or ethnicity" and "It is time for constructive disengagement from Israel, financial, diplomatic, military. What worked in the case of South Africa, divestment and pressure, may finally work in the Middle East."

Does this mean that you have trimmed your sails and, for the sake of mere appearences you are acting like you care about the people in your homeland more than friendships with Zionists? Does this mean that, unlike Dr. King, your sense of justice is adjustable to the tenor of the times?

Or does it mean you have finally cast off the blinders that prevented you from seeing or acknowledging the harm you have done to the Palestinian liberation struggle and the people you have hurt? Will you now speak loudly and work conscientiously in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel and in particular, the boycott and protest of the Israeli apartheid Batsheva Dance Company, which is to be hosted by the UMS next month? Or will you find excuses to nurse old grievances and to continue to collaborate with Zionists?

Update: It turns that Wadad Abed also donated $250 to John D. Dingell For Congress Committee on March 24, 2006. This is the same Dingell who has openly bragged: "I yield to no man in my support for Israel. I have voted for hundreds of billions of dollars for it over the years I have served here" and "... during my 50 years in Congress, I have proudly supported more than $300 billion dollars in aid for the State of Israel."

See also

• "The Long Decline of Wadad Abed"
• "Israel vs. South Africa: Reflecting on cultural boycott" by Omar Barghouti
• "Some Important Developments in the Movement for a Cultural Boycott Against South Africa" by the United Nations Centre against Apartheid

Labels: BDS, Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, Obama, Palestine, Wadad Abed, Zionism

This is the first part of a two-part post on a quartet of Zionist letters to the editor that recently appeared in the Ann Arbor News.

One of the complaints that opponents of the Palestinian boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel frequently make is: "Boycotts aren't effective." Ruth R. Gretzinger's "why bother?" response (Ann Arbor News 2/12/09) to Henry Herskovitz's letter (AAN 2/3/09) is a fine example of this class of fallacious reasoning. Herskovitz wrote in favor of boycotts against Israel, generally, and in favor of boycotting the Batsheva Dance Company (BDC), in particular. The giveaway, of course, is that Gretzinger does "bother" because her fear is precisely that boycotts against Israel will be effective.

So, with such an inauspicious start what is Gretzinger to do in the rest of her letter? Why, personally attack Herskovitz and then spread falsehoods, naturally. First, she accuses Herskovitz of being a "well-known rabble-rouser." In reality, Gretzinger has just paid Herskovitz a high compliment, for rousing the "rabble" from their Zionist-induced complicity, ignorance, indifference, and defeatism is precisely what Henry seeks to do.

As George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) says in It's a Wonderful Life to the villainous Henry Potter (Lionel Barrymore), a slum-lord and the richest man in Bedford Falls: "Just remember, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community." And so it is that Gretzinger and her fellow Zionists want the "rabble" to remain asleep-- to keep quietly working and letting Washington DC send their tax money to Israel at the tune of $6.8 million per day and to keep sending their children to die on foreign battlefields for the sake of Israel.

Next up, Gretzinger tells her readers that BDC members "are dancers, not soldiers" when, in fact, some of the dancers are soldiers. In an October 2006, Dance Magazine interview BDC Director Ohad Naharin said: "It seems to me that in Israel more of the young dancers are likely to have had military experience than in the U.S. In Israel when people really want to dance, they will find a military service that will allow them to dance. We have two soldiers in our junior company." Naharin is himself an Israeli Occupation Forces veteran.

Then Gretzinger strikes up the "art, not politics" tune. David S. Bach (AAN 2/12/09) joins in with: "To suggest a boycott of this dance troupe for the political actions of their government is to suggest that the world should have boycotted all things American for the last eight years." In response, it will suffice to quote Rabbi Tovah Shalom's online comments to Bach's letter:

It would have been a good thing to "have boycotted all things American for the last eight years." In fact, it's not a bad idea now and some people are doing just that. The fact is that almost all Americans are, to varying degrees, responsible for the actions of the US government. An effective boycott campaign might have motivated Americans to prevent the illegal invasion of Iraq and it might help end the illegal ongoing occupation of that country, not to mention Afghanistan.

An effective boycott of the US might restrain Obama, who wants increase the number of US combat troops. In his first week in office he authorized illegal missile strikes on Pakistan--a sovereign nation and, ostensibly, a US ally, at that--that killed two dozen people.

As for the insipid claim that "Through the arts and through cultural exchange come understanding." Well, Hitler and Stalin would have loved that one. Only someone incredibly ignorant of history could make such a claim. Ever heard of the Reichskulturkammer, Triumph of the Will or Arno Breker? How about the Proletkult, Socialist Realism, Bulgakov, or Solzhenitsyn? Every modern, repressive regime has been keenly aware of the importance of culture and promoted some works and artists while suppressing others. And the approved art has never found a shortage of "little Eichmanns," to quote John Zerzan, and dupes to lap it up. The monstrous Jewish state is no different and, thus, we have the Batsheva Dance Company and its fans.

Attorney and former city council member Joan H. Lowenstein, Zionist shill and past president of the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County, weighs in (AAN 2/13/09) with some classic guilt-by-association. Curiously, she starts out with something that, while perhaps an overstatement, is demonstrably true. An unsourced quote she attributes to "Iranian cleric Hojjatoleslam Ali Maboudi" says: "The Zionists brought Obama to power to help America pass through its current challenges."

Zionists certainly did play a major role in getting Barack Obama elected. As Shmuel Rosner, Chief U.S. Correspondent for Ha'aretz wrote in a blog post entitled "Obama supports Israel. Period.":

It is no secret that Jewish money plays a big role in the Democratic Party. "They don't have the number [of voters], but have the means to get the voters," a prominent Democratic operative told me last week. That's why I told the told the NY Sun that "I don't think his real motive is to win votes. It's, of course, Jewish money."

Not coincidentally, after the major party nominees were selected, a spokesman for the most visible component of the Israel Lobby gloated: "AIPAC is pleased that both parties have selected four pro-Israel candidates."

After being elected, the "first Jewish president" wasted no time in appointing Rahm Israel Emanuel as his Chief of Staff, the highest-ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States. Emanuel once served the Israeli Occupation Forces as a civilian volunteer and as Ali Abunimah notes, "Emanuel is one of the most hard-line supporters of Israel in the Congress and has been for many years." No wonder Obama backed Israel's Hanukkah Massacre in late December and January that killed over 1,300 Palestinians and left over 5,300 injured.

In the rest of her letter, Lowenstein lumps Herzkovitz with Bishop Richard Williamson and Hizbullah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem. As Lowenstein makes clear, these men have violated one or more of the nine commandments of the "Holocaust Religion" identified by Israeli journalist Shraga Elam. Though the offending Herskovitz quote is only: "Join the worldwide boycott against Israel."

Lowenstein helpfully instructs us that "It is not paranoid or alarmist to say that there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism - and of acceptance of anti-Semitism - in the world today" thereby suggesting that, yes, it is paranoid and alarmist. At times like these, the words of Dr. Norman G. Finkelstein are apt. In Beyond Chutzpah (p. 85) he writes:

Wrapping themselves in the mantle of The Holocaust, these Jewish elites pretend—and, in their own solipsistic universe, perhaps imagine themselves—to be victims, dismissing any and all criticism as manifestations of "anti-Semitism." And, from this lethal brew of formidable power, chauvinistic arrogance, feigned (or imagined) victimhood, and Holocaust-immunity to criticism has sprung a terrifying recklessness and ruthlessness on the part of American Jewish elites. Alongside Israel, they are the main fomenters of anti-Semitism in the world today.

In The Holocaust Industry, (p. 3) Finkelstein argues:

"The Holocaust" is an ideological representation of the Nazi holocaust. Like most ideologies, it bears a connection, if tenuous, with reality. The Holocaust is not an arbitrary but rather an internally coherent construct. Its central dogmas sustain significant political and class interests. Indeed, The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a "victim" state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable benefits accrue to this specious victimhood--in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified.

The second part of this two-part post will respond to the letter (AAN 2/13/09) of David Shtulman. Click here to read the second part of the post.

Labels: anti-Zionism, BDS, boycott, critical thinking, Henry Herskovitz, holocaust, Norman G. Finkelstein, Obama, University of Michigan

I was curious to see what the "local cadre of the Zionist state terrorist infrastructure," i.e. the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County (now the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor), are saying about Israel's Hanukkah Massacre in Gaza. The Federation refers to it as the "Gaza situation." On their web site, I found a national Federation statement that says in part:

United Jewish Communities/the Federations of North America expresses its solidarity with the State of Israel at this critical time as Israel engages in Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. ...

"This is not the first time that Israel has been under attack and is not likely to be the last time. ... During this crisis, UJC Israel coordinates closely with our partners and with the Government of Israel regarding realities on the ground. We are monitoring the situation on an ongoing basis and should things deteriorate, we will consider additional needs including possible emergency fundraising efforts. ..."

Israel has turned Gaza into the world's largest prison and dropped more than 100 tons of bombs on Gaza just in the first day and, yet, Israel is "under attack." Go figure.

The new JFGAA Executive Director is David Shtulman, a dual US-Israeli citizen, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) veteran, and, in all likelihood, a current IOF reservist. Naturally, there is no indication that the local Federation repudiates any part of the above statement or its pathetic claim to Israel's victim status. On the contrary, in his weekly shabbat message--wittily entitled "The New Year Enters with a Bang!"--Herr Shtulman refers to the Israeli attacks as an "Israeli counter-attack on Hamas."

Shtulman next pulls a predictable role reversal of the Judaic culture of death with the unsourced claim: "Hamas has often responded with the mantra, 'We will win because we love death and Israel loves life.' " If Hamas uses this "mantra" frequently then it is pretty strange that it is not attributed to Hamas in the New York Times even once. In fact, in searches using two different databases, the phrase "we love death" turns up in the NYT archives only three times between 1851 and the present. The "mantra" never made it onto the news pages of the NYT.

In two instances, it appears in editorials by Jewish neoconservative pundit David Brooks. In March 2004, Brooks attributed it to Al Qaeda and by September of that year he had expanded it to the "fringes of the Muslim world." The third instance, was just five days before Brooks' second invocation of the "mantra." At the invitation of the NYT "Op-Ed page," in his proposed "conclusion to President Bush's [2004 RNC] address," former Bush I speech writer Daniel McGroarty attributed the phrase "to the statement the terrorists released to claim responsibility for the carnage ... in Madrid."

Terrorism: A Documentary and Reference Guide by Burns and Peterson (Greenwood, 2005), which includes Hamas, has only one documented reference to terrorists loving death and that is a statement attributed to "al-Qaeda in Europe" in connection with the Madrid bombings. It says: "You love life and we love death." There are two problems, though.

First, this is one of at least two statements claiming responsibility for the 2004 Madrid bombings. The apparently first alleged claim of responsibility by al-Qaeda does not say anything about loving death. It was discredited by the pro-Israel group, MEMRI. More importantly, a "two-year investigation into the attacks has found no evidence that al-Qa'ida helped plan, finance or carry out the bombings, or even knew about them in advance," which would indicate that both of the claims of responsibility are fabrications.

It is plausible that Shtulman's claim began as an Israeli false flag operation to smear Islam (see also the "Gil Affair" and "Israeli Psyops Against EU and US"). If that is the case, then it is awfully helpful to have someone to discredit the competing claim of responsibility. In this case the guy doing the discrediting, author of the MEMRI analysis, was Yigal Carmon, an IOF Colonel who served at least twenty years (1968-88) in the Israeli intelligence service. In sum, there is nothing credible linking Shtulman's "mantra" to Hamas. But since when have supporters of Israel ever cared about the truth?

Shtulman expresses surprise at the very unsurprising: "following a full week of heavy bombardment and hundreds of deaths, the majority of western newspapers and most European governments are still standing firmly with Israel." He notes that "the 'moderate' members of the Arab League – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority especially – while critical of Israel are placing the blame squarely on Hamas" and he helpfully identifies the real enemy to peace in the Middle East: Iran. Again, none of this is surprising--all of these "moderates" are bought, paid for, and/or propped up by the US government and have colluded--openly or otherwise--with Israel and the US on several occasions.

Shtulman continues: "Although civilian suffering is inevitably great, this is not a war against the civilian population." The only thing inevitable about the Israeli massacre is that when you attack densely populated neighborhoods with massive aerial bombings and missile attacks, you will kill civilians. It bears pointing out that since Gaza has no recognized sovereignty, no standing army, and almost nothing but small arms, a case can be made that everyone Israelis kill in Gaza is a civilian.

Shtulman closes with: "We must never become immune to the horror of war or accept it as anything but the last resort. But we also must accept that sometimes it is the only resort and hope that when it is over it will open a window to a more peaceful time for all." We have here a fine example of the Jewish "art of moral anguish" so admired by Barack Obama, the first Jewish president. Echoes of Rabbi Robert Dobrusin's justification of torture can also be heard.

See also:
"We love death": Projecting the American Culture of Death onto Islam

Labels: critical thinking, David Shtulman, hasbara, Islam bashing, Israel, Obama, Palestine, Zionism

Barack Obama: The First Jewish President?
Chicago circle nurtured him all the way to the top

by Tom Hundley
The Chicago Tribune
December 12, 2008

Original URL: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-jews-wrapdec12,0,1483597.story
Archived at: https://web.archive.org/web/20090126003035/http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-jews-wrapdec12,0,1483597.story

Writer Toni Morrison famously dubbed Bill Clinton "the first black president"—a title he fervently embraced.

Abner Mikva, the Chicago Democratic Party stalwart and former Clinton White House counsel, offers a variation on that theme. "If Clinton was our first black president, then Barack Obama is our first Jewish president," says Mikva, who was among the first to spot the potential of the skinny young law school graduate with the odd name.

"I use a Yiddish expression, yiddishe neshuma, to describe him," explains Mikva. "It means a Jewish soul. It's an expression my mother used. It means a sensitive, sympathetic personality, someone who understands where you are coming from."

Obama, of course, is a Christian. And his middle name is Hussein. In the presidential election, he won 78 percent of the Jewish vote and about 70 percent of the Arab-American vote, according to unofficial exit polling. Obama collected 52.8 percent of the overall vote.

Putting aside which of the three great Abrahamic religions can lay claim to Obama's soul, it is clear that his political career, from its South Side inception to the audacious run for the White House, was nurtured and enabled by a close-knit network of Chicago Jews.

Mikva and his friend Newton Minow, the former Federal Communications Commission chairman and Kennedy-era New Frontiersman, were there at the beginning. Minow first heard about Obama in 1988 from his daughter Martha, a professor at Harvard, where Obama was studying law. Minow, senior counsel at Sidley Austin, offered him an internship and later a permanent job at the white-shoe firm, but Obama declined, saying he was planning to go into politics.

When Obama graduated, Mikva, then a U.S. appeals court judge in Washington, tried to lure him with a prestigious clerkship, but Obama turned him down too. That, according to Mikva, took some chutzpah.

Both Mikva and Minow say they sensed back then that Obama was something special. They made a point of staying in touch.

Obama's circle of Jewish patrons and advisers widened further in 1992 when he became involved in a voter registration drive that brought him into contact with Bettylu Saltzman, a liberal activist (and daughter of the late Philip Klutznick, a former commerce secretary and shopping mall developer). Saltzman says she knew from the moment she met Obama that he would someday be president. She introduced him to David Axelrod, who saw something similar.

Axelrod designed the strategy in which Obama first won the backing of white liberals and then reached out to blacks. Jews made up a significant number of the first constituency.

"As Jews got to know him, they recognized a kindred spirit, not someone who came down from Mars," Mikva said.

Rabbi Arnold Wolf, of KAM Isaiah Israel synagogue across the street from Obama's Chicago home, was another early backer. Like Mikva, he sees what he called Obama's "Jewish side."

"Obama is from nowhere and everywhere—just like the Jews. He's black, he's white, he's American, he's Asian, he's African—and so are we," Wolf said.

Certainly, Obama is comfortable with Jews, especially Jews from Chicago. Axelrod will remain at his side as senior adviser, and Rep. Rahm Emanuel will be White House chief of staff. Billionaire Penny Pritzker, who has known Obama since the mid-1990s and served as his campaign finance chairwoman, was said to be under consideration for commerce secretary until she took herself out of the running.

But Jews haven't always been comfortable with him. The once-solid alliance between Jews and blacks that was forged during the civil rights movement has frayed in recent years. During the primary campaign Sen. Hillary Clinton was far more popular among Jewish voters, many of whom were worried about Obama's close friendships with influential Palestinian thinkers, including his former Hyde Park neighbor Rashid Khalidi, now at Columbia University.

Mikva and Minow recall trying to help candidate Obama reassure skeptical Jewish audiences that he would be a genuine friend to Israel.

"He was frustrated," Mikva said. "And I remember I told him that it wouldn't matter if your name was Chaim Weizmann [first president of Israel], there are some Jews who won't vote for you no matter what you say because they are Republicans."

Obama jokingly asked if it would make a difference if he called himself Baruch Obama, noting that the Swahili name Barack and the Hebrew Baruch derive from the same linguistic root. Both mean "blessing."

Throughout the presidential campaign, Obama did and said what was necessary to court the Jewish vote. In March he made the pilgrimage to AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying organization. There he pledged unwavering commitment to Israel's security. In July he traveled to Israel and was photographed with Israeli leaders.

Even without the Jewish vote, Obama would have carried New York, California and Illinois, three key states with large Jewish populations. Florida was a different story.

The battleground state had cost Al Gore the 2000 election and was carried again by President George W. Bush in 2004. Florida's Jewish population tends to be older and more conservative. Florida's Jews also were the target audience for an Internet smear campaign that portrayed Obama as a secret Muslim with ties to terrorists.

The Obama campaign spent heavily in Florida. It also got a boost from comedian Sarah Silverman, who organized The Great Schlep, a tongue-in-cheek Internet campaign to get young Jews to visit Florida and persuade their grandparents to vote for Obama.

Obama won Florida. Exit polls suggest the Jewish vote there was in line with the Jewish vote elsewhere.

Having gained the trust of mainstream American Jews, one question now is whether Obama will be the president to finally deliver a decent settlement for the Israelis and Palestinians.

"I think he's going to try. We've had presidents whose hearts were in the right place—Clinton and Carter," Mikva said. "But Barack Obama really has a way of bringing people together."

James Zogby, director of the Arab American Institute, a Washington lobby, said Arab-Americans also were optimistic that Obama was uniquely positioned to achieve a breakthrough.

"He gets it. He really gets it," Zogby said of Obama's understanding of the core issues. "He believes in reconciling diverse communities."

See also:

• "The First Jewish President"
• " Update on 'The First Jewish President' "
• " Update II: The First Jewish President"

Labels: Jews, Obama, US politics

Synopsis: Rabbi Robert Dobrusin puts on a good show of opposition to torture but, ultimately, it is clear that, in truth, he believes that torture can be "justified" as an "act of self-defense."

Have a good look at the photo at right. It is probably the only visible opposition to torture that you will ever see outside of Ann Arbor's Beth Israel Congregation (BIC). The banner is displayed by members of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends (JWPF) in support of Torture Awareness Month, sponsored locally by the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice (ICPJ).

The ICPJ is headed by none other than BIC member Ruth Kraut. All the evidence suggests that Kraut has been unable to persuade BIC members to join either the local ICPJ anti-torture campaign or the parent campaign by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Kraut has, apparently, been more successful in getting ICPJ to shun Sabeel's upcoming conference in Detroit. She reportedly told the ICPJ directors that "as a Jew" she felt uncomfortable with Sabeel. Indeed. In any case, none of Ann Arbor's other synagogues are on board with the anti-torture campaign, either. This is not surprising.

You see, Jews have a problem with torture--they support it. Not all of them, of course, but as Felice Gaer, director of the American Jewish Committee's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, puts it: "There was a shocking silence of the Jewish community on the issue of torture, and there is still a lacuna on this vital issue, to my eye." One of the world's most prominent proponents of torture is Alan Dershowitz, a Jew and an ardent defender of the Jewish state. According to a 2006 scientific poll conducted for the BBC in 25 countries, Israel led the world in public support of torture with a majority of Jewish Israelis in favor of its use. Further, Israel is the only state in the world to have legalized torture. In the US, last November, three Jews in the Senate crossed party lines to save Michael Mukasey's nomination as Attorney General. Mukasey, "a believer and devout Jew," notoriously refused to state in confirmation hearings that the form of torture known as waterboarding was illegal under US law.

However, BIC's spiritual leader, Rabbi Robert Dobrusin, has not been entirely silent on the torture issue. He gave a sermon on the subject on June 7 whence he told the congregation:

At the Board meeting last month, the board of Beth Israel Congregation voted to join a new effort in the Jewish community called K'vod Habriot, respect for human dignity. This effort, was launched by Rabbis for Human Rights - North America, and begins as part of an interfaith effort to address one particular issue, an issue which is a critical one for our nation.

He doesn't say why BIC, apparently, stayed out of the two "interfaith effort[s]" I have mentioned above. Nor does he say what "nation"--"the Jewish people ... as a nation" or America--he is speaking of but that soon becomes evident.

The position is clear: that this country should not engage in torture of prisoners in any situation and that there should be no ambiguity to this prohibition. In the past few years, several different letters against torture have been produced, one of which was signed by hundreds of Rabbis across the political and religious spectrum. This month has been designated as Torture Awareness Month ...

When Rob Dobrusin talks about torture he means the United States and he means Americans: "... the K'vod Habriot network has been formed to make a statement to our government that United States sponsored torture is wrong and must be prohibited by law." The absence of any discussion of torture in Israel in Dobrusin's sermon, except indirectly by reference to an article by Yehezkel Dror, is striking ("torture" is not mentioned in Dror's op-ed--"When Survival of the Jewish People Is at Stake, There’s No Place for Morals").

It is striking because of the centrality of the Jewish state to Beth Israel, lit. "House of Israel". BIC is part of Conservative Judaism and here is some of what Ismar Schorsch, former chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary--the flagship institution of Conservative Judaism, has to say about "The Sacred Cluster: The Core Values of Conservative Judaism":

The centrality of modern Israel heads our list of core values. For Conservative Jews, as for their ancestors, Israel is not only the birthplace of the Jewish people, but also its final destiny. Sacred texts, historical experience, and liturgical memory have conspired to make it for them, in the words of Ezekiel, "the most desirable of all lands (20:6)." Its welfare is never out of mind. Conservative Jews are the backbone of Federation leadership in North America and the major source of its annual campaign. They visit Israel, send their children over a summer or for a year, and support financially every one of its worthy institutions. Israeli accomplishments on the battlefield and in the laboratory, in literature and politics, fill them with pride. Their life is a dialectic between homeland and exile. No matter how prosperous or assimilated, they betray an existential angst about anti-Semitism that denies them a complete sense of at-homeness anywhere in the diaspora.

Dobrusin echoed these remarks when he told his congregation in a sermon delivered on the most important day of the Jewish liturgical calendar that "the two most vital places of myth" in Judaism are "the State of Israel and the synagogue." He then described the "State of Israel" as "not only a haven ... but a place of inspiration for all of us" and declared that "As Israel faces difficult times, it is essential that we rally behind her to insure her survival as a Jewish state." On January 2007, he wrote in the Ann Arbor News: "Beth Israel Congregation affirms without any hesitation or equivocation the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state". Furthermore, BIC reportedly displays the Israeli flag in the synagogue. They dissemble to visitors about JWPF. They send their kids to Israel and pose them with Israeli soldiers with the Rabbi's blessing. And when Israel turned Lebanon into a "free-fire zone" in 2006, BIC leaders responded by publishing on their web site a photo of four Israeli flags along with a statement of support for the "people of the State of Israel at this time of crisis" and stating that "We pray for the safety of those who defend Israel …"

So, Rabbi Dobrusin and BIC are not usually shy about speaking about Israel. Why, then, the recent reticence? Perhaps to speak truthfully about torture in Israel would be a shande far di goyim--an embarrassing exposure of the false pretenses of Israeli democracy and high Jewish moral standards.

Tellingly, the gist of Dobrusin's argument with Dror is not that he is entirely wrong in his premise: "When Survival of the Jewish People Is at Stake, There’s No Place for Morals." And he certainly does not object anywhere to Dror's manifest Jewish exceptionalism. Dobrusin's argument is that you can't or shouldn't openly commit to Dror's position in advance.

Dobrusin writes:

Professor Dror later says that: "... human history refutes the idealistic claim that in order to exist for long, a state, a society or people has to be moral." This, also regrettably, may be true. Unfortunately, it is not always clear that survival goes along with moral behavior for a nation or an individual.

But what his entire article misses is the difference in Jewish Law between lichatcheela and bidayavad, decisions we make "before the fact," intentional actions, and those which we must take in a given circumstance to face difficult realities.

He later says (emphasis added):

Some might ask: Doesn't making torture illegal tie the hands of our military in the event that an act of torture might possibly save thousands of Americans? Think about how we would respond if, God forbid, our family members were in danger. We would do what we thought we had to do, and then would seek to defend ourselves as having committed a justified act of self-defense. But we don't go into situations saying that morals don't matter in how we live our lives.

The implicit answer to the question Dobrusin poses is: No, "making torture illegal" does not "tie the hands of our military ..." It's obvious that he believes that torture can be "a justified act of self-defense." His beef with torture is not with torture per se but with the failure to maintain the pretense of morality--always say you're against it but torture if you have to. Not unlike the contortions of UM Regent Andrea Fischer Newman et al. this is simply a sleight of hand employed to dishonestly claim the high ground.

Not coincidentally, this is also the position the Israeli Supreme Court took when they ruled on torture in 1999 in The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel vs. The Government of Israel et al. To quote Alan Dershowitz, "the Supreme Court left open the possibility that a member of the security service who honestly believed that rough interrogation was the only means available to save lives in imminent danger could raise this [necessity] defense." This is exactly what Dobrusin has done--he has left open an ex post facto or bidayavad exception for torture.

As he explained elsewhere:

... there is a distinction in Jewish law between lichatcheela and bidayavad. Lichatcheela refers to something which is intended from the beginning. That is to say, can we plan to do a certain thing or is it prohibited? Bidayavad refers to something which is already done. Can we benefit in a certain way from something we have done for another purpose or something which we have done not knowing it was prohibited? Often times, actions which are prohibited lichacheela in Jewish law are permitted if it is in a bidayavad situation.

Torture to Dobrusin's mind is "prohibited lichacheela [sic]" but not necessarily "in a bidayavad situation" i.e., after it has already occurred. Thus, he cannot bring himself to clearly and consistently speak against torture anytime, anywhere, or for any reason. It would have been a simple matter to do so but he did not.

So, how does Dobrusin stand with respect to the "international law" he mentions? Where the Rabbi allows for torture as a "justified act of self-defense," the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is unequivocal: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture" Art. 2, Para. 2.

Rabbi Dobrusin's sermon is not a complete loss, though. After all is said and done, he arguably provides us with a fine example of the "art of moral anguish" that Barack Obama claims to have "learned ... from Jews" and that is surely worth something.

I'll close now with an aside about Yehezkel Dror's article. Much of the global Jewish community is claiming that Iran represents an existential threat to Israel. It is interesting then to read Dror saying (emphasis added):

When the requirements of existence conflict with other values, therefore, realpolitik should be given priority. From the threat of a disastrous conflict with Islamist actors such as Iran, to the necessity of maintaining distinctions between "us" and "others" in order to limit assimilation, this imperative ought to guide policymakers.

Dror just likened the "threat" posed by Iran to the "threat" of assimilation. Now, bear in mind that the title of his article is "When Survival of the Jewish People Is at Stake, There's No Place for Morals." So, how far is Dror prepared to go? He further writes:

... a people that has been regularly persecuted for 2,000 years is entitled morally, in terms of distributive justice, to be very tough in taking care of its existence, including the moral right and even duty to kill and be killed if this is essential for assuring existence — even at the cost of other values and to other people.

It requires no great leap in logic to justify killing to prevent assimilation per Dror's argument. You would kill to stop "The Holocaust," wouldn't you? Well, the "silent Holocaust"--assimilation--is "killing America's Jews," according to an op-ed by Ephraim Buchwald and published in the LA Times. But, Dror is just an isolated nut, right? Here's what his bio in the Jewish Daily Forward says:

Yehezkel Dror, the founding president of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, is a professor emeritus of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A recipient of the Israel Prize, he served as a member of the Winograd commission of inquiry into Israel's war with Hezbollah in 2006.

In my next post I plan to analyze the "Rabbinic Letter on Torture" signed by Rabbi Dobrusin and the "Jewish Statement Against Torture."

See also:

• Israelis No. 1 in Supporting Torture
• Jews and Torture
• Jews and Torture Update
• Chuck Don't Need No Stinkin' Facts
• Jews and Torture Update II

Labels: Beth Israel, halacha, Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, Israel, Jewish supremacism, Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends, Obama, torture, US politics