The IFC Media Project: Digging for the Truth About Israel/Palestine

by Latoya Peterson

So, I’ve noticed that a few readers have asked why Racialicious has been so quiet on the situation in Gaza. As the violence continues to escalate, it is hard to not post about what is happening.

However, as much as it troubles me to remain silent, it troubles me more to see the responses that the posts on Israel and Palestine receive. Generally, they are met with silence from normally chatty and informed commenters while the same six people rehash their opinions on thread after thread.

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why this occurs. Why are so many people reluctant to discuss what is happening in Israel and Palestine?

Perhaps, they are too intimidated.

After all, this conflict is rich and multilayered, and most people new to the discussion exhaust their knowledge base within the first few minutes, lapsing into silence while those with the longest memories tend to dominate the conversation. However, I do not believe this is a worthwhile tactic – while those in the know debate strategies and bring up failed resolutions and broken promises, the majority of the people blink and begin to disengage. There is too much information. The opposing sides are ruthless in their arguments. And most tend to watch the conversation dispassionately, or click away.

On this blog, we try to break down social issues using a more human aspect to explain points of global policy or racial theory. But that has not been working. So it occurs to me that there may be a fundamental lack of information about the origins of the conflict and what is at stake. So, the question becomes how do we get more people this information in a way that they will find it accessible?

When I tuned in to the first episode of the IFC Media project, I didn’t know what to expect. I know I didn’t expect Gideon Yago to go off on a tangent about “missing white girls” dominating the news, or to see IFC clearly tackle race-based reporting bias.

And I didn’t expect the program to send someone to track down the issues involved in talking about Israel.

I initially transcribed most of the program to talk about the race related aspects of the first episode. In the 26 minutes of the show, I have about seven pages of notes. However, with the current situation, I think I will focus solely on the discussion of reporting on Israel for this post, and revisit the other items at a later date.

Segment: The Third Rail of Journalism

The segment opens with what appears to be an old movie reel describing the creation of “a new Jerusalem.”

Mark Levine, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at UC Irvine begins his voiceover: “These are images of Israel I grew up with.”

Movie voiceover: “Over an area of some 500 square miles, Jews from around the world have been bringing about a miracle in the desert.”

Levine: “What an amazing country. I was taught that Israelis made the desert bloom, and created a paradise out of empty land.

Movie voiceover: “To live happily and courageously as free men and women.”

Levine speaks as a photo montage plays showing his growth and faith: “This vision of Jews and Israel shaped me as a kid. But by the time I traveled to Israel as an adult, I’d found something different. There were these other people there, the Palestinians, and they told an entirely different story. For them, the founding of Israel was a catastrophe, al-Naqba, which pushed them from their homes, and began a cycle of misery that continues to this day. Why hadn’t I heard about this other history in the news? The Israelis at least talk about it in their news.”

A segment of an Israeli news show plays.

Levine continues: “So I was curious. Why don’t we have this debate here in America? What shapes the way we talk about Israel? Why does there seem to be so much that we can’t talk about?”

Levine travels to Chicago to meet with Professor John J. Mearsheimer, the co-author of The Israel Lobby.

Mearsheimer: “One of the reasons – just one – but, one of the reasons that Osama Bin Laden attacked us on September 11th is because of our support for Israel’s policies against the Palestinians. But hardly anyone makes that argument. […] The real tragedy here is that Israel is becoming an apartheid state and the lobby is helping them drive itself off a cliff.”

Levine poses a question about how the lobby shapes the media and public landscape.

Mearsheimer: “First of all, there are a large number of people in important positions in the media who are deeply devoted to Israel. There are also a lot of people who are not inclined to support Israel no matter what it does and who would be willing to be critical. What the lobby does is that they monitor those people very carefully and everytime they say something that is critical of Israel, they land on them like a ton of bricks.”

Switching subjects, Levine says: “That ton of bricks fell on Rob Malley, when his efforts to bring the Palestinian point of view into the national debate drew the ire of the Israel lobby.”

Levine meets with Robert Malley of the International Crisis Group who explains: “You have to be careful when you talk about settlements […] You have to be careful about how you talk about Israeli actions in the territories.”

Malley notes that this discussion is very active and multifaceted in Israel, pointing out: “There was an Israeli government official who recently said ‘Either we end the occupation or the occupation is going to end us.’ “

A clip from the Daily Show airs about all the candidates attending the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) conference while on the Presidential campaign trail.

Levine’s voiceover from his hotel notes: “AIPAC. The New York Times called them the most important organization affecting America’s relationship with Israel. Why? What do they do?”

Levine calls Josh Block, the Director of Media Affairs at AIPAC and gets stonewalled. He is informed that AIPAC does not talk to the media. Block gets dismissive, calls him “Bro” and informs him this just isn’t something AIPAC does. Block: “I wish I was in a position where I was gonna help you, but I’m not.” Levine asks for someone else to speak to, Block shuts him down.

(Random note of awesomeness: Levine has a book open on the desk while he is speaking to Block called Heavy Metal Islam. This is a book he wrote about “Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam.”)

After hanging up, Levine asks: “AIPAC is an organization that gets coverage on every major network. Why do they have a policy of not talking to the press?”

Levine then goes to speak to Morris Amitay, former President of AIPAC.

Amitay: “AIPAC, I know, does not work to try to influence the media. AIPAC basically works with the administration and Congress on issues affecting Israel and the relationship between the two countries.”

Levine brings up the heavily covered convention. Amitay responds: “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean the media buys everything that AIPAC is advocating.”

Levine touches on “the ubiquitous feeling” that if you criticize Israel you find yourself on the wrong side of the pro-Israel lobby.

Amitay gives him a look, then says: “People who consider themselves friends of Israel, how [do they react] any different than any other interest group in Washington? You reward your friends and you try to defeat your enemies. Isn’t that the American way?”

(An IFC Note pops up on the screen: Since 1967, US Aid to Israel has totaled over $100 Billion.)

Levine goes into another voice over: “With our free press, journalists should be able to say anything they want about Israel, but they don’t. Is this the result of pressure from the lobby, or something deeper? When Ken Silverstein was at the LA Times, he wrote a potentially controversial article about the conflict. It never got published and he ended up leaving the paper.”

What Silverstein says here is illuminating (emphasis mine):

“Towards the end of the editing process, I had some very, very serious problems, where I felt like the piece had been significantly altered in ways that I wasn’t comfortable with. There was one key point that I really wanted to include that repeatedly was cut. [What was cut was] simply that one of the officials I interviewed who is with Hezbollah, we were talking about the question of Iran and the Holocaust came up, and he said ‘There’s no question this took place. I’m not denying that the Holocaust took place. My point though is that Europeans committed this crime and we paid for it with our land.’ And I thought ‘This is the Arab narrative.’

We don’t hear the Arab narrative very often at all. But it created a little bit of discomfort because it looked like it would be a little too ‘pro-Arab’ and I think that just made certain people nervous. And they just decided to ‘fix’ the piece. You know, it got to the point where I was just ultimately decided I would be uncomfortable publishing the piece as it was edited in its final version and I ended up just pulling the piece. “

Silverstein is currently at Harper’s.

A montage of videos culled from media coverage plays with varying people discussing actions to be taken against Hezbollah, the Palestinans, Arafat’s headquarters, and other targets, with Silverstein’s voice over: “There’s almost no point of view that would be pro-Israel, that would be deemed too extreme to appear in the American Media.”

Silverstein also says: “It’s hard to get my own head around it […] you’re always wondering do people consciously tell lies or not.”

Still traveling in search of answers, Levine explains in a voice over: “Despite tens of billions of dollars in aid to Israel and millions of lives at stake, Americans are still in the dark about what’s really going on.”

Levine ends up talking to Christopher Dickey, the Mideast Regional Director for Newsweek. The best points of the segment are made in their conversation. (Again, bold emphasis mine.)

Levine: “Why is it that the media has been so reluctant or unable or unwilling to get Americans to understand not only the reality that is there, but how we are implicated in it by our quote-unquote ‘special relationship’ with Israel?”

Dickey: “Is any news organization or reporter going to make it its cause to set the record straight on the Israeli occupation? So, instead of one report, we have lots of reports. We have daily reports […] If you do that then you’re not just telling the news. You’re creating a narrative and espousing a cause. It may be a worthwhile cause, but most American media don’t see it as their cause.”

Levine: “Perhaps one of the reasons why we have these boundaries that you can’t cross, these sacred cows about Israel, is because the sacred cows about Israel, and what it does, are actually in many ways the same sacred cows about who we are, and what we’ve done and what we do.”

Dickey: “There is a kind of understanding of America by Israel and of Israel by America that is almost unique. The fact that you’ve got two nations of immigrants, that you have a lot of different backgrounds, that there is, in a sense, original sin connected with the creation of the state, whether it is the extermination of the American Indians or the displacement of the Palestinians. All of that creates a kind of an affinity between the two that I think is much, much more complicated than the idea that a lobby, some insidious force […] just controls American people. It may know how to tap into that […] but that’s a different issue.”

Levine’s final words end the segment, and provide a much needed reality check on the current media situation:

“Israel was born out of the ashes of the Holocaust as a beacon of hope. But to really understand the country’s troubled present, we need journalists to look beyond one sided narratives and to offer up a more accurate picture of what’s happened in the past and what’s going on today.”

Share and Enjoy:

Comments

Monie wrote:

There are a few reasons why I haven’t commented about the latest conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

One; this has been going on since the 1940’s. It just seems like a never ending war.

Second: I’m a little disillusioned with the Palestinians. It seems they want the world to be on their side and yet they never seem to take any interest in anything that does not affect them directly.

As genocide is being committed by Arabs in Darfur against Blacks do the Palestinians speak out against it? If justice is the goal of the Palestinian people then why doesn’t that justice include people that don’t look like them?

I know so many African Americans who are in solidarity with the Palestinians. Yet can anyone mention any Palestinian group that has ever spoken out against injustices being done to African Americans?

I think the Palestinians really need to reach out to the people around the world who have supported them. They need to see the bigger picture of Human Rights and speak out whenever injustices are done.

Otherwise they run the risk of losing the support they have.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 12:28 pm ¶
vodalus wrote:

I know that I hesitate to get into any real discussion of the conflict because I’m afraid that my ignorance will come off as racist.

Great post Latoya.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 12:44 pm ¶
Restructure! wrote:

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why this occurs. Why are so many people reluctant to discuss what is happening in Israel and Palestine?

If you go to places outside Racialicious, the topic of Israel/Palestine is more popular and more discussed than typical Racialicious topics. However, the comments are generally idiotic, and people who have little knowledge about the topic are confident in their opinions (which are usually racist). I personally think that typical Racialicious readers realize that it’s intimidatingly more complex than that, and we are more aware of our ignorance and that it’s not as simple as “Arabs are terrorists” and “Israelis are the new Nazis”.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 12:48 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@ Monie & Vodalus –

Thank you both for being truthful. I’m not sure what silence wants me to do, but I can definately find pieces on the background of the conflict and black/Palestinan solidarity.

Look for some posts exploring those topics in the future.

@Restructure –

“Intimidatingly more complex” is a great way to put it.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 12:54 pm ¶
Lamees wrote:

Monie, im kind of put off my your comment. because the palestinans dont stand up against darfur ? or for african americans?

please, they are living and breathing through genocide-forgive us if we can’t stand up for other peoples rights in other places while bombs drop on our homes

Furthermore-they are in fact palestinans in the west who DO stand up against injustice everywhere! b ut thanks for your over generalizations.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 12:59 pm ¶
Melissa wrote:

I know the ancient history and the relatively recent history. I’ve lived in Israel and I speak the language(s). I have Israeli friends and Palestinian friends and I am neither Jewish nor Muslim (agnostic, raised Christian). I feel like I’m more qualified than many people to talk about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but I am always reluctant to speak about this issue.

I think that’s mainly because the conversation always seems so futile, and the situation always leaves me feeling soooo cynical. Most of the time, someone from one side of the argument is trying to get me to confirm their own understanding of the situation, to make sure I’m on the ‘right side.’ Most of the time, I exercise tact and change the subject.

In the interests of this post, I’ll share what I think today. That’s the other problem, everyday this situation changes, and with every change I adjust my own position. Warning, cynicism abounds.

I think the whole thing is a horrible cycle, and that it’s in the best interests of those in power to perpetuate the cycle.

- Israeli parliamentary elections are coming up, and no one wants to be seen as easy on terrorists right before an election.
- By being pummeled proportionately by the Israelis, Gaza has garnered sympathy and support that Hamas can capitalize on.
- As long as there’s some sort of crisis, Abbas gets to stay in power, even though technically, his term ended yesterday (learned that one this morning!).
- If there is no formal peace or recognition of the borders of the West Bank, then Zionist Israelis can keep quietly settling the area.
- The most viable alternative to Fatah is Hamas, and Fatah is not very popular these days, thanks to things like West Bank Settlements.

I don’t think there’s a conspiracy, I just think everyone is trying to work in their best interests. There’s probably more, but this is making my heart hurt. Which is probably the other reason I don’t talk about it much. It always seems so impossible, because I don’t believe there can be peace unless peace is in the best interest of those in power.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 1:02 pm ¶
Phrone wrote:

Yeah, this is a topic I have a hard time addressing. I feel that my sympathies are with the Palestinians, but I’m not familiar enough with any talking points to either fully articulate or defend that position.

There are two points I agree with most strongly in this article: the first being that a lot of people become disconnected or confused by the debate because it has such a long history, and the second being the connection between America and Israel in the idea of “original sin.” (Although I don’t think that term is strong enough.) I know that my personal, knee-jerk reaction to Israel would be that you don’t have a right to land that other people already live on; I would feel hypocritical, though, saying that, because the land that my house is on was stolen from Native Americans.

It’s definitely an intricate, confusing issue and there’s no clear, easy answers.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 1:06 pm ¶
Kavita wrote:

I don’t know about organizational ties between African Americans and Palestinians, but in terms of the arts, check out June Jordan’s “Moving Towards Home” and Suheir Hammad’s “Born Palestinian, Born Black” for poetic expressions of Black/Palestinian solidarity.

I guess I don’t comment because although I’m extremely concerned with this issue and the current violence, my overwhelming feelings of disgust, rage, shame, and hopelessness are hard to articulate. Also the debate is so polarized that it often feels fruitless.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 1:18 pm ¶
aimerrouge wrote:

I do not comment on this issue (here or anywhere else) because, I wonder about how the Palestinians are treated by the Isrealis. In my opinion, the coverage here in the United States is one-sided (i.e. pro-Isreal). Any attempt to discuss the possibility of the validity Palestinian concerns or the possibility they hands on both sides are unclean are quickly dismissed as anti-semetic.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 1:21 pm ¶
Slush wrote:

In my travels in the primarily Muslim countries of Bangladesh and Indonesia, there was a lot of public speculation about the Israel lobby and media control in America, that ranged from observations similar to those above to overblown cabalistic conspiracy theories. Living far outside America, it didn’t seem like an unreasonable conclusion to draw that in fact there was something incomprehensible about how such a minority interest could dominate so much of American policy. That is also, I think part of the Arab and Muslim narrative.

Also, I’m going to disagree with Aziza Hill in the other column that numbers of what the real Muslim population of the US is don’t matter. In the context of her discussion that’s true, but here, if the Jewish population of the US is only 6 or 7 million, then its comparison to a Muslim population of 2 or 5 million makes a difference that might demonstrate some powerful dynamics about race and culture in the US.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 1:48 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

It’s a tough subject to talk about. Whenever I write anything about I/P, it’s always very disconnected and rambling. That’s partly me, but it’s also because it’s such a big and difficult topic. And it’s painful to write about.

One unfortunate habit some people have is to find “moderates” to speak on behalf of their communities. But rather than Jews who recognize the legitimate points of criticism of Israel, too many Jewish moderates simply accept antisemitism as truthful. This is nothing but the claim that Jews control the media – with a Jew to Kosher the message.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 1:52 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:

This is a toughie Latoya. I’ve been bothered by these issues for year and I think it is terrible that two groups of people who have been so badly treated are at each other’s throats over who has rights to live where. It is so sad. I think the Arab gentleman in your posting sort of sums it up when he says that Europe created the problems and Arabs have to live with the consequences. I can see both sides, the Jews lived there thousands of years ago, were pushed out by the Romans and I think the Babylonians too, a few have stayed an been there ever since, most were forced to leave and go to strange places, get settled and were uprooted again and again over the centuries and then suffered one of the most horrific purges of humanity ever and then as a consolation prize they get their ancient lands back. But what about the people who have been living there ever since ancient times when they had to leave? The British and the Americans came in and said tough, you gotta go, and now we have this. It is tragic on so many levels. It is a shame they can’t find a way to share the land and live in peace. I have no solutions or deep insights and agree the lack of intelligent balanced discussion here is disgraceful. As is the fact that so many Palestinians are dying and being hurt in all this.

I also think that the observation of a similarity of feeling between America and Israel on the method of their creation is an interesting one and I had never thought of it that way. I had always thought of it as guilt for not doing more sooner during WWII for the Jews and because we helped push for the creation of the land we didn’t want to see our baby messed with, but I think the other notion makes a lot of sense.

I am very torn on this issue and though I think the rockets are not the solution, the Israeli response is so harsh and the Palestinians are so badly treated and isolated. I lean a little bit on the Palestinians side but I can sort of understand the Israeli sentiment and resentment and desire to keep what they have too.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 2:05 pm ¶
DivergentDana wrote:

“One; this has been going on since the 1940’s. It just seems like a never ending war.”

This. It seems like no matter how much of it I’ve been present for, I still haven’t been privy to the whole story because it’s been going on for so long. Furthermore, because it has, it seems immutable… if some of the most personally involved, dedicated political minds can’t detangle it, I definitely don’t feel qualified enough to speak on it at length. My family is similarly ill-informed, so I feel more confident talking about it with them — this round of fighting is, strangely enough, the first time we’ve discussed it. There’s also the distinct possibility that as an American and a Gentile, that there’s things that I just “don’t get” about the idea that Israel must maintain its current boundaries at all costs, besides the argument that Palestine is looking for nothing less than the total elimination of Israel and any compromise will be seen as an emboldening victory for them and capitulation on Israel’s part.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 2:13 pm ¶
gatamala wrote:

http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2009/01/poor-misunderstood-israel.html

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 2:18 pm ¶
Miriam Heddy wrote:

One issue for me is that much of the talk of “the Israeli lobby” and “Israeli money” and suggestions of a conspiracy of silence ends up skirting awfully close and, at times, even indulging in antisemitic stereotypes of the Jewish influence in the media and government.

I’m not, by the way, saying that criticizing Israel is antisemitic. But it’s very hard to do so–or to engage with that criticism–without coming into contact with the history of antisemitism in America and the ways that Israelis and Jews are often conflated categories.

Many of us end up just backing away slowly.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 2:32 pm ¶
Whit wrote:

To be honest, the conflict between jewish immigrants and palestinians goes back in the modern age all the way to the declaration of Balfour in 1917. That’s 92 years old. That kind of history can’t be neatly summarized or dealt with in any kind of quick, dismissive fashion. I’ve been struggling with this for years, and suffer topic fatigue. I kind of want to take advantage of a free birthright trip, because I won’t be able to afford it on my own, but on the other hand, I’ve already had to delete friends from Hillel off my facebook because they are so adverse to admitting that the state of Israel can make mistakes, that settlers are not entitled to paramilitary groups, that they violate the civil and property rights of non-Jews with their “settlements.” Having a nuanced discussion on this topic is seemingly impossible. I just don’t have the desire anymore.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 2:37 pm ¶
Maria_Elena wrote:

Latoya, I am in awe of you. You have been able to pinpoint and vocalize what was (for me) just an ambiguous haze of dissatisfaction regarding this issue.

I don’t have words for how appreciative I am of this post, but I am so thankful to you that you always strive for truth and honesty without agenda. I am sure you work tirelessly, but I hope you know how appreciated you are.

I have always felt lacking in knowledge regarding this conflict; but now I feel like I have a good place to start, and have a good sense of what to look for.

An agenda free press would never dumb us down.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 2:38 pm ¶
Lakergrrl wrote:

When I was little I was fascinated by the Jewish culture and by extension Israel. But as I started learning how the country evolved, the hawkish possibly terrorist type action by people now considered Israeli heros, the war of 1967, non adherence to resolution 242…I kind of became disenchanted with Israel (but still like the Jewish culture) and stopped trying to learn anything more about its conflicts. But now with everything going on I realized I should know more about the situation before I take any kind of stand on it. So I try and educate myself the best I can. I am just finishing up Jimmy Carters Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. So far its been the most objective book I’ve read so far.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 2:55 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:

Well I will comment, and these are my views. I am sticking to them and that’s final.

They are both wrong.

They both need to grow up.

They BOTH need to get it together for the CHILDREN, because the babies on both sides deserve better.

As a mom, I wish I could just take all their kids and keep them in my house and protect them while the adults who FAIL them kill each other.

I do think BOTH sides, not just Israel, need to be held accountable for their actions.

I don’t care WHY it started, it needs to end.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 3:02 pm ¶
9jah wrote:

Monie,

I think your frustration is a cop out or at least misplaced.

When you talk about the “Palestinians” I think about the innocent civilians being killed…who do you think about? More to the point whe exactly is it that never takes an interest in what else is going on? Civilians who may or may not have the greatest access to information or education where 2/3rds live below the poverty line? And how exactly do you know who cares about what?

I think if the post above demonstrates one thing it is that most people just don’t have a lot of knowledge about what’s going on, so unless you have a special media source I doubt you will learn from the MSM what Palestinians other concerns are.

And if you assume they have a right to speak out why is that contingent on their speaking out as to another issue? Is freedom not demanded for and its own sake?

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 3:06 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@Matt –

I spent 4 hours transcribing this show to make sure that people would not walk away with the same opinion you took.

The IFC media project *started* the talks about this all-powerful Israel lobby – only to find that the lobby doesn’t really bother with press, just with politicians. So if it isn’t the lobby, maybe it’s the head of the papers – but you find out that the head of the papers have all kinds of loyalties and even Jews who write about Palestine can’t get their opinions heard.

The final interview, with Dickey, cuts to the heart of the matter – (1) Is that newpapers and media aren’t going to bother to correct a narrative that is already in place, which makes sense considering our current news climate and (2) talking about the issues with Israel comes dangerously close to talking about the issues with the US that we stay sweeping under the rug. And that’s more or less why people don’t want to deal with it.

If we start pointing fingers at Israel, we might as well start airing our dirty laundry.

And that was the whole point of this piece.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 3:23 pm ¶
Atena wrote:

Latoya – thanks for this. This speaks to a lot of what I’ve been feeling for the past few weeks. If I let myself think about it for very long I become almost desperate about this incredible slaughter. I don’t say much about it online because my knowledge of the history and politics is extremely limited. All I can speak to is my understanding that it is not okay for so many innocent people to be killed, and for so many homes and so much infrastructure that people depend on to be destroyed. I can say that over and over again, but it doesn’t carry much currency in political discussions, and seldom outlasts the ‘If they would stop ______, then maybe we would stop ______.’

I look forward to more discussion and resources at Racialicious, hopefully.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 3:27 pm ¶
Kavita wrote:

@gatamala
Thank you for the link. I am not Palestinian, or Muslim, but I look at those children who look like my child and think, but for the grace of God, that could be my daughter.
Its 2009 and still some people’s children are valued more than others. And our American taxpayer dollars fund this. Rage. Shame. Disgust. Sorrow…

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 3:39 pm ¶
MrsRony wrote:

I don’t comment much publicly because everyone says it the wrong thing to do. But I don’t understand. Silence has never been golden. Anything remotely supporting Palestine is regarded as antisemitic. As if Jews are incapable of being wrong. I can see both sides but feel it has to be made right for both sides or as close as possible. The fact that so many can disregard cause and affect and moral responsibility is frustrating. To use God as justification is disgusting.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 3:49 pm ¶
Monie wrote:

Oh, and another reson I don’t normally comment about (and almost didn’t comment this morning) the Israel/ Palestine confict is because people get so darned pissed off if they disagree with you.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 3:50 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

“this all-powerful Israel lobby”

Latoya, but there isn’t any all-powerful Israel lobby. At all. So you start with a myth and then work toward a nuanced version of the myth.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 3:52 pm ¶
Ecosocialist Eritrea wrote:

@Latoya, you write: ” So, I’ve noticed that a few readers have asked why Racialicious has been so quiet on the situation in Gaza. As the violence continues to escalate, it is hard to not post about what is happening.”

Today, US-proxy Ethiopian forces left Mogadishu after having invaded Somalia and occupied it for two years. 16,000 civilians died and the UN labeled it earlier in 08 as the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe. You guys may have been quiet on Gaza, but the world has not. You and the world, however, have both been silent on Somalia, and the Congo, for that matter. You might argue that the “black-on-black” violence there does not fit the Western conception of race and identity that this site is somewhat based off. Don’t be fooled though into thinking thereare not disgusting intergroup power dynamics at play here. Somalia: Amhara and Tigrayan Christian forces battering Somali Muslims with the thumbs up from the US; Congo (simplified): White European capitalists paying rebel armies to pluder the Kivu region…Where is the rage against the US and Ethiopia, and the sympathy for Somalia?

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 3:53 pm ¶
Errie wrote:

This is an incredible post– I really think so. Thank you for taking the time to transcribe. And for not ducking the I/P issue, even when your posts may degenerate into 5 commenters yelling non-constructively at each other.

I absolutely think Israel is greatly at fault for many things. I believe that our American inability to realize this, to devalue lost “brown” lives, to only recognize lost Israeli ones, and to never criticize Israel represents the worst of America (America, being a place I love and yet *never* fail to criticize). Yet I find it increasingly difficult to maintain my sympathy for the Palestinian cause, because of the way groups like Hamas act– I am less and less convinced that the leadership of Hamas wants true peace.

Israeli civilians deserve peace and safety. But it makes me absolutely sick that Palestinians have been written off, dehumanized, made invisible by the collective American narrative. My friends are sent on Birthright trips, and come back with not simply a strengthened Jewish identity, but facebook albums of parties and beaches, and when I look at these pictures I can’t help but know that miles from these places exist walls and forgotten encampments of people who live in poverty and hopelessness.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 3:56 pm ¶
Eric Grant wrote:

I avoid commenting on this issue, or discussing it where I might discuss others because

-the ratio of productive discourse (that could maybe actually help someone) to established talking points or heartfelt venom is so low.

-it is far too easy to emotionally hurt–I don’t just mean tick off or offend–a supporter of one side by expressing even moderate support for the other.

-took me a while to figure this out, but I since I live a pretty darn secure and comfortable North American life, I have become much less sure that my views formed here would be the same if I lived every day in either Palestinian terriories/Palestinian Authority/the state of Palestine-yet-to-be or Israel.

-I think the blanket coverage of this conflict pushes out other troubles in the world that actually could be helped by a little more North American media attention.

May be worth noting: I live in Canada, and our governments don’t have the same history with regard to the region that the US does.

While I don’t know that I would characterize any coverage as purely “fair”, I think our general media atmosphere maybe swings back and forth between pro-Israel bias and anti-Israel bias more than it does in the US–I phrase it that way intentionally, I don’t usually see Palestinians or the Palestinian “side” treated as if it has much agency in news reports.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 3:59 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

Btw, here’s something about how hard it is to discuss antisemitism in the media (link goes to real player file).

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:01 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@Matt –

He talks to the guy who wrote the book on “The Israel Lobby” and distills that term down into AIPAC, a very real organization who lobbies on the behalf of Israel. How is that a myth?

@Ecosocialist Eritrea –

I have a lot of different people writing for me. But I can’t post on what I don’t receive content on. Our site is Western focused (I’ll even say US focused) because that is where we write from. And while I currently hear a lot of pressure from Palestinan activists and Arab and Palestinian bloggers, and have received pieces from Jewish bloggers, I haven’t heard a thing about issues in Africa.

But let me make this more simple – I get about 50 or so emails per day filled with tips with people asking me to write about something, or demands that xxx group isn’t heard from enough on the site.

And my response is always the same: write me something, and I’ll take it under consideration.

So, write me something.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:03 pm ¶
Slint Chico wrote:

One of the things I find useful in understanding the issues going on in the region is to look at progressive maps that show the expansion and contraction of both sides. This one is from the BBC. But there are several others out there.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7380642.stm

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:13 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

First off, Latoya, you seem to have missed how every reviewer trashed that book on the Israel lobby. The unanimous opinion was that it’s a pile of crap, with every footnote going to hearsay, rumor, and bs.

The book itself is nothing but the classic antisemitic myth of Jewish control.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:26 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@Matt –

Before you post another comment, go watch the show. It is availble on Itunes.

Again – the show starts with assumption (and a common one at that) of a big all-powerful Israel Lobby, which goes to the discussion of AIPAC, which is *an* Israel lobby that doesn’t speak to the press, which leads to a why the lobby doesn’t speak to the press segment, which leads to a “well, if the lobby isn’t fucking with the press, why doesn’t the press talk about this” segment, which leads to THE EXPLICIT MENTION THAT THERE ARE LOTS OF PEOPLE IN THE PRESS WITH DIFFERENT AGENDAS (effectively busting the Jews-control-all-media meme), which leads to the discussion of why all these different people prefer to use a very one sided discussion of facts even if they personally do not agree, which leads to the concluding segment, Dickey saying:

Dickey: “There is a kind of understanding of America by Israel and of Israel by America that is almost unique. The fact that you’ve got two nations of immigrants, that you have a lot of different backgrounds, that there is, in a sense, original sin connected with the creation of the state, whether it is the extermination of the American Indians or the displacement of the Palestinians. All of that creates a kind of an affinity between the two that I think is much, much more complicated than the idea that a lobby, some insidious force […] just controls American people. It may know how to tap into that […] but that’s a different issue.”

If you want to call Mearshimer anti-semitic, you may have a case. But Levine, Dickey, Malley and Silverstein raise a very logical and nuanced argument about the way this issue is treated in the media.

And dismissing the entire argument put forth in the 13 min segment without viewing the whole thing is pretty damn foolish.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:36 pm ¶
mw wrote:

thanks for the post, Latoya.

In university I was the news editor and later editor in chief for a “lefty” campus paper. With both large Arab and Jewish student populations there were certainly tensions — in fact after a demonstration against former Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (which resulted in a broken window and the cops tear gassing students), university administration imposed a moratorium on public discussion about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Our newspaper has felt first hand the grip of the Israel lobby. On numerous occasions there were campaigns of intimidation against us, inundating out inbox with letters, threatening to take legal action, etc.. Some of our editors were bribed with free trips to Israel, and expenses-paid retreats in order to influence our reporting.

After graduation, many cohorts spent time in the middle east. They say reporting on the conflict there is easier than in Canada. In the heart of the conflict there is room for debate. And simple words are less politicized. They are removed from the strong nationalism of the diaspora (on both sides).

Reporting on international affairs for mainstream news organizations has gotten increasingly difficult. According to the Canadian International Development Agency, Canada has only six permanent foreign bureaus working for major media outlets. Other reporters are parachuted in when a situation erupts and are ill-equipped to provide comprehensive, critical and contextual reporting.

All this to say, it is no wonder the average North American is uncomfortable discussing the Middle East.

As a post-script, I’d like to draw readers’ attention to a publication that aims to bring diaspora Palestinian and Israeli youth together. The publication is called “Yalla Journal”. It’s going into its third or fourth edition and is an excellent combination of fiction, poetry, reporting and thoughts on the conflict from diverse points of view.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:38 pm ¶
9jah wrote:

Matt,

Without judgment on your position (as you have not necessarily stated one and I don’t want to be prestigious), an objective eye MUST acknowledge that, irrespective of the merits of Isreal’s offensive or Palestine’s presumed preceding attacsks, that the U.S. press, politicians, conservatives, liberals or the average person treat Isreal’s position with kid gloves with no examination or debate, nay, with oblivion. almost.

This I think is what tugs at the mind of many uninvested folks. Isreal won’t let the press into Gaza (at least as of a week or so ago) – under what other circumstances would that happen?? Yet the backdrop of it is that there is an unyielding loss and destruction of life.

So the question is – why don’t we want to talk about it?

We fear reproach or wonder whether we really are antisemitic?

Or with respect to pols, is it a funding incentive to be quiet?

Do we maybe just not feel comfortable criticizing friends? Sorta like when your family member does something wrong and a person looks away?

People are sorting these issues but the impetus for the confusion – the self-censorship on all levels of the freest country in the world – is stark to everyone and is pretty undeniable.

ps. for what its worth not palestinan or even middle eastern

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:38 pm ¶
jetessence wrote:

As complicated as this conflict is, there is one aspect that always brings an element of clarity for me—an element that goes beyond the “who started it” argument: the deaths of civilians. When close to 900 people are being killed, I need to know why.

This past US election showed me that we are fortunate to have a tool like the internet. There is no need for us to heavily rely on the mainstream media–especially when the MSM was barred from entering Gaza.

I encourage everyone (especially Americans) to view sources outside of the American media. I would suggest BBC world news, Haaretz, and even Al-jazeera (which has been surprisingly balanced in this latest conflict). I would also encourage folks to visit human rights organizations like B’Tselem. (check out this link for links to other human rights organizations

http://ladypolitik.livejournal.com/549.html )

Is it a lot of work? Well, compared to sitting down to a 30-minute program that does all the thinking for you–yes. Is it overwhelming? At times yes. But how many more times are going to spend looking back at history and wondering, “Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t we do anything to stop it?”

In terms of debates on the issue, I’m so over it. I have no interest speaking to others who seek to turn disagreements into accusations of anti-semitism or an anti-Israel stance. Too often, lobbing false accusations of anti-semitism where there is none (and I’m not saying valid accusations do not exist in these debates) squashes a real discussion about the issues because people get afraid.

Well, I’ve come to a point where I will simply ignore those folks (who tend to be in the minority) and speak to others who, despite their disagreement with me, share a common interest in seeing the loss of civilian life decreased and an end to the fighting.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:38 pm ¶
jetessence wrote:

Correction

*But how many more times are we going to spend looking back at history wondering, “Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t we do anything to stop it?”

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:40 pm ¶
Slush wrote:

Mearsheimer also made an interesting point in your transcription where he brought up how Osama bin Laden’s reasons for attacking the US were about our Israel policies. Mearsheimer says it was ‘just one of the reasons,’ but from what I remember of bin Laden’s videos and whatever, I would describe it as the main, or one of the main reasons. But for sure, a discussion recognizing that motivation was suffocated and translated into “they hate our freedom.”
While that is far from the only instance of an analysis failing to get any play in the mainstream media, it is a telling one.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:41 pm ¶
9jah wrote:

@ Matt,

Btw I understand your frustation in the fact that all these jewish folks are being used to legitimize pov you may not agree with and in fact may consider antisemitic (tokenism is quite sad) however, i hope you acknowledge the underlying issue which is that typically fair minded, seemingly neutral people have a very difficult time voicing their opininos IMO out of fear of rebuke. If it is rebuke worthy fine, but not every negative assesment of Isreal’s position is malicious. just my op.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:44 pm ¶
mw wrote:

@Monie:
“As genocide is being committed by Arabs in Darfur against Blacks do the Palestinians speak out against it? If justice is the goal of the Palestinian people then why doesn’t that justice include people that don’t look like them?”

I disagree. In my experience with Palestinians and supporters in Canada there is solidarity, fundraising and action on all these issues.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:48 pm ¶
Jess wrote:

Part of the problem is the conflation of Israel and the Jewish people runs very deep in some circles. And there’s the whole history of anti-Semitism to contend with.

I don’t buy the “original sin” argument as much because there are other settler-states — South Africa was one — that didn’t have near the same level of institutional support from the US. Heck, Cuba falls into that category, as does almost all of Latin America.

That said, there is an affinity of policy, sure.

More importantly, though, one reason I think it may be tough to talk about Israel in terms that take the Arab narrative into account is the historical connection between the two that happened to be with a group in the US that conquered its own marginalization.

That is, I know a ton of people (Jews) with Israeli relatives — myself included. Many of those people in turn are descended or related to people well-known in the US. Heck, one in every 5 people or so in New York is Jewish, so the odds of being connected go way way up.

Now, there isn’t any similar phenomenon among Arabs in the US. There isn’t a city with 1 million Arabs in it and there isn’t a city with 1 million people from one country in the Arab world. Imagine the difference if, say, Los Angeles had a million Syrian Arabs in it.

Further, imagine if that group managed to become “white” in the sense of getting rich enough to have an Arab equivalent of Brandeis.

Then you have the Holocaust narrative, which adds a whole layer of baggage there.

Since most Jews in the US are Ashkenazi, they’re white people, basically. So it’s easier for people to identify with them as mainstream folks. Ask any non-Jewish American how many Jews s/he knows, and s/he’ll tell you a few, proabably, especially if they’re from a big city. Ask how many Arabs and if you get “one” as an answer I’d be surprised unless they tell you it’s the food cart guy.

Arabs look different, they have a different culture that is more exotic than that of Jews who have been here from the get-go, so it’s harder for people to identify.

As to media narratives, it’s pretty easy to see why it gets sort of stuck. Noam Chomsky puts it well when he says a common problem is that we see conflicts as two-sided, when they aren’t.

I’ll give a real-life example of just the kind he was talking about:

back in the 80s, Yasser Arafat got on Nightline. Now, Arafat is dark, he wears that keffiyeh (this is before it became a common article), the shades, he always has that 5-oclock shadow going. He wears a military uniform. He speaks with an accent.

Now, we pair him up with Eliot Abrams. Clean cut, white dude, suit.

And for the Israelis their foreign minister at the time — or one of his deputies. No accent, white dude. suit.

Who gets taken seriously by the public?

If I want the American people to take the idea of peace seriously, I am going to put the head of Peace Now on the show. White guy, no accent, looks like a college student. People take that more seriously than a guy who is a) unfamiliar-looking and b) wearing a uniform of a “hostile” organization.

But the Peace Now people got on Nightline maybe once in like 10 years.

This isn’t because of any grand conspiracies on the part of media people. It’s because of the way it’s structured. For instance, the requirement that an Arab voice on TV speak passable English (unless you can convince someone to spring for an interpreter — not likely) automatically limits the pool of interviewees. And not too many (American) reporters knew Peace Now even existed, at least initially. (I’m talking about the 80s, remember).

(For those that don’t know, the guys you see in the Man on the Street shots are lifted from local TV a lot of the time with voice-over done later on. It costs little to have the Arabic-speaking local intern/assistant do 60 seconds of translation of relatively simple stuff, but it’s pricey to get an expert for an hour and a half).

And that’s just the structural problem.

We haven’t even gotten into the fact that most people don’t, when pressed, see the conflict as affecting them. I mean, besides some relatively abstract thinking, can anyone here (who lives in the US) honestly say that they do something different today than yesterday because of this?

The 7-11 is still open, my car still runs, the taps work and Top Chef is still on at 10pm. The subway still runs. Not one thing in my day is different (except in my head). I bet the answer is the same for a lot of people. It ain’t fair but that’s life, you know?

I know there’s a moral dimension, and I know that there are policy implications that affect me, but on my day-to-day it just doesn’t. And I have kin in Israel.

That may be the real problem with stuff like this, and with talking about it.

Sorry to ramble so.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:48 pm ¶
9jah wrote:

post no. 36: “prestigious” in second line should say “presumptuous”…sorry

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:48 pm ¶
Errie wrote:

Matt…its one thing to disagree with The Israel Lobby book (there is a lot to disagree with)…but I don’t understand how you are denying that an Israel lobby exists. It’s really bizarre actually. Unless I am just misinterpreting you.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:54 pm ¶
Nora wrote:

Monie,
1) Ralph Bunche was the first person of color to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He helped create a resolution to the problems in Palestine. He talked to Israelis about how the Jews and African-Americans were united in their struggle. African-Americans and the Jewish lobby have a long history. I don’t blame African-Americans, I’m just saying that African-Americans are not solely for one group in this situation.
2) This reminds me of another post Latoya, I believe, wrote. On postsecret.com, there was a postcard that read it made someone angry that more African-Americans did not support action in Darfur. It’s not oppressed groups JOB to stand up for other oppressed groups.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 4:58 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:

I find it hard to argue for either side because there’s no reason for them to be doing this to each other, just like there’s no reason for the conflict in Darfur, the Congo…I am not talking about world peace either, but it’s hard to argue for either group when you can see the huge mistakes both have made. I just find neither one’s actions redeemable.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 5:05 pm ¶
Monie wrote:

@mw & Nora – Thanks for the info.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 5:08 pm ¶
Ecosocialist Eritrea wrote:

@Latoya,
While I understand that it might be difficult for someone in your position to write or cover all topics, I sort of find it baffling that you, as a blogger/journalist, need to receive content on a topic to cover it. Yes, you can write about what interests you or what you know and all that jazz, but there’s an opportunity cost to everything…When Racialicious posts an episode review of Heroes (which I love btw) every week, but for two years fails to once mention that US weapons are being used to kill Somalis deemed worthless as part of the “war on terror,” well, I’m sorry, I think there is a problem. I am only mentioning this because of your intro to your Gaza piece where you write that “it is hard to not post about what is happening.” It is problematic if you need someone who writes on issues in the Horn of Africa to incite your concern that 16,000 Somalian civilians have died in the past two years (many of them in brazen attacks by US and Ethiopian forces on Somalian civilian centers). This isn’t a solely Racialicious problem, but a problem with the Western media as well. Where are the untold stories or stories of grave humanitarian consequence?

Thousands of people have been writing on Somalia, Ethiopia, and US militarization of the Horn of Africa, so I hope you seek these forums. What is happening in east Africa is happening under exertion and pressure of the US; it fundamentally concerns everyone who calls the US their home.

As to me writing something, maybe I will submit to you one of these days. But that you need to wait for someone like me to write on issues of injustice, horn of africa identity politics, and the US war on terror is beyond me…

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 5:09 pm ¶
by wrote:

I took a Middle-Eastern studies course in collage about a decade ago; from what I can tell, things haven’t really changed much between the Isrealies and the Palestinians since then. I think people are reluctant to “chat” about/debate about/discuss this issue for the same reason the conflict remains intractable- the history as well as the current geopolitical situation that underpins what we are seeing over there today is enormously complicated.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 5:12 pm ¶
9jah wrote:

@ Ecosocialist Eritrea,

write…her…yawn…something.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 5:16 pm ¶
sk wrote:

thanks for this nuanced and characteristically thoughtful post.
i want to underwrite the perspectives expressed above about the difficulty of engaging in these discussions, because they are so toxic and tend to degrade so quickly into smears, or tit-for-tat “x started it” discussions.
one of the most troubling aspects of these discussions for me is the naturalization of the conflict, that is, the notion that “these people” have been “fighting forever,” that it’s an ancient tribal war, or whatever, and so engagement with it is ultimately futile.
it is not. it is a political situation, forged by political decisions, and any viable solution will have to be political. there is a long history here, yes, but mutual hatred and violence is not inevitable, and no people are naturally or historically predisposed to hatred and violence.
anything else i would have to say on the subject would come from a place of deep, deep sadness and heartsickness at the ongoing killing, and that would only be:
stop. stop now. please, please stop.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 5:27 pm ¶
Natalie wrote:

I feel a lot of pressure to have something better to say about the conflict than I because I am a Middle East Scholar, and I am a non-Jew, non-Arab currently living in Israel.

My view is, I think pretty moderate, but I get frustrated when people from either side of the issue assume they know what I’m going to say and seem like they’re just waiting to attack me. I love Israel, and I feel very strongly that what’s happening in Gaza is wrong, and I feel like I keep getting pushed to admit that holding one of those views means I don’t hold the other.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 5:29 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@Ecosocialist –

1. Look above you. The tagline for this site is “Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop culture.”

That’s what we write about, and that’s what we do. All the extra stuff we write about identity and politics and globalization? That’s extra stuff, born out of the writer’s strike and a heavy political season. And while I think that readers appreciate this, don’t ever think for a second that it is something we are obligated to do.

2. Look around again. There is one ad on the site, for Carmen’s newsletter. Our site is not supported or funded and even though I say this once a week, people tend to get pissy if we don’t cover absolutely everything under the sun. We are not CNN. We are not Gawker. There isn’t a stable of bloggers hanging around all day waiting for the news to come in.

What you have is nine volunteers who dedicate their time and energy to produce content based on their interests. And they, like myself, do this around day jobs, other paying gigs, family obligations, and the intent to have a social life. So what you get on this site is exactly that: what is submitted. This year, I had five people contact me to cover Heroes, four of which dropped out. The fact that there is Heroes coverage every week is due entirely to the work ethic of Arturo Garcia.

This is also why sometimes, you don’t see things here that one thinks would be here. No one has watched Battlestar Galactica, so there is no review in progress. There was a request for a particular Ugly Betty but the writer dropped the ball on that one, and there was no one else to pick it up. This is what happens when you run a site and produce daily content. Are there things I’d like to cover? Sure – but I don’t deal with the complaining about lack of coverage. You don’t see something you want? Submit it. Don’t want to submit it? It won’t be here unless someone else gets around to it.

3. I am a blogger/journalist though I prefer the term writer. Here’s what writers do – they write for pay. I’ve got a contract sitting right in front of me, right now, for a deadline in two days. So in the next two days, how much time am I going to spend writing for pleasure (as I mostly do for Racialicious) versus writing to pay some bills?

4. Once again, for the umpteenth time, we are not the freakin’ media. I understand your frustration well. It is annoying to see major issues swept under the rug in favor of Britney Spear’s latest meltdown or an article on cats being too fat. But this is definately the wrong tree to throw your baggage down on as we are neither newsblog nor world events blog. We cover these as much as we can. But if the AP wins their case and makes it so that bloggers violate copyright by quoting more than what the AP thinks is fair use we aren’t affected. We deal with pop culture. That’s our beat.

5. I am sure that there are thousands of people writing about what is going on, but is there a pop culture or identity hook? There is the rub in writing for Racialicious. This is not a political blog and our audience is an interesting mix of teenagers, scholars, career academics, hip-hoppers, people *in* the media, and lay people who just so happen to like to watch a lot of TV and movies. In order to make a far away conflict relevant to them, you need to have a hook.

Which again, comes back to having people pitch the site. I tied Tangland’s series on microcredit into James Bond and globalization, but that is only because she came with content in hand.

6. “maybe I will submit to you one of these days. ” If I had a dime for everytime someone has said this, the site would be funded. It’s really easy to criticize what the site does not take on, but it is far more difficult to actually put paper to pen and write something compelling.

So, I’d like to thank Nadra, Fatemeh, Thea, Jessica, Andrea, and Arturo (the regulars), Joanna, Neesha, Angry Asian Man, Highjive, Tami, Brigitte, G.D. & the Post Bougie Crew, Alex, Jenn, and everyone else who takes the time to write something up and send it in.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 5:30 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

@Latoya
This is great, thank you. This is just the sort of question we (the Racialicious community) should be asking about now. I think Christianity is another, major unspoken factor in the silence over Gaza and Palestine in general. Biblically-focused Christians (and I am including mainstream Christians here, not just the easy-target fundamentalist nut jobs) often think of Israel as a biblical fantasy land rather than a modern state. A huge segment of mainstream Christians are unable to distinguish between the biblical Israel, which is an important element of their faith and the contemporary state, founded by English decree in 1948. The idea that these two countries are the same–or rather, that the latter is the prophesied reemergence of the former–keeps a rational conversation on ice. Since 1948 Christians have been one of the most reliable streams of tourist income for the modern state of Israel. And benign-sounding Christian/Jewish alliance organizations raise millions of dollars for Israel every year.

Given that Christianity is the majority religion in the United States it is unfair and inaccurate to blame Jews (in general or Jewish organizations in particular) for the US American fixation on Israel. There is more to meets the eye here. However, it is complete nonsense to assert that there is no such thing as an Israeli lobby that wields terrific power to shape American politics–especially when the candidates speeches in front of AIPAC are so fresh in everyone’s minds. If you want to get elected President of the United States you have to go eat rubber chicken at AIPAC and swear you will bleed for Israel (as much for the benefit of Biblical Christians as Jews) and that is just a fact of process. That does not mean that a secret cabal of Jews are blah blah blah. It means the same thing that it means for the Auto industry or Big Tobacco: powerful lobbies exert enormous force on our political system.

I can completely understand the fear that criticisms of Israeli influence on American politics will tip over into hoary old anti-Jewish cliches. But that is one of the reasons to have this conversation, not the opposite. I also echo the weariness and shift into cynicism around discussing Palestine. But people are dying in Palestine. Babies are dying in Palestine. Right now. So I have to believe that finding a way to have this conversation is possible.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 5:35 pm ¶
Nora wrote:

Seattle Slim – I find the argument that we should be on neither side just as futile as radical Zionist/Palestinian arguments. It’s easy for you to say that they just need to stop, but it doesn’t work like that. It’s like saying that Darfur just needs to stop or human rights violations in China just need to stop. Everyone wants peace, but no one wants to sacrifice. We (I’m assuming you’re American) have the privilege of not having to deal with the repercussions of our countries actions. I think it’s irresponsible to sit back and say they should just stop when our country had a huge part in bringing about this mess in the beginning.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 5:48 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

Errie, #44:

but I don’t understand how you are denying that an Israel lobby exists. It’s really bizarre actually. Unless I am just misinterpreting you.

One of the most frustrating things about Mearsheimer and Walt’s book is that it never defines any Israel lobby. Instead, it talks about a “loose coalition” without ever feeling the need to define it. When they want to prove how powerful it is, they expand that to include pretty much the whole US – while still pretending to talk about an Israel lobby. In that way, yes, it becomes a mythical thing. There are Jewish organizations that lobby for Jewish interests as they see them. They disagree about what Jewish interests are. They really aren’t powerful.

AIPAC (in particular) is best thought of as a modern court Jew. European nobles often had Jews in their courts. Among other reasons was that the Jew would get all the blame when the peasants had reason to hate the nobles.

It is true that many in the US see a lot in common with Israel. The Puritans explicitly described themselves as new Jews. And the tendency has continued through Ronald Reagan using a very Jewish image in describing the US as “a shining city on a hill.” But even that’s only a tiny part of anything – and it’s also a significant part of the American version of the anti-Israel narrative. More than anything else, American media portrayals are dominated by trying to get the story in under a word limit.

Latoya, I’ll watch it when I get a chance.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 5:51 pm ¶
jen* wrote:

@Jess – awesome insight. I think you’re right about the perception/conflation of Jew-Israeli-White, as being more common than a perception of Arab peoples as White. Especially with the “terrorist threat” that is generally pushed to the door of all Arabic people.

Also, not being directly affected is the truth. That’s the mindset we *ALL* have to get out of, if we’re to care about anyone other than ourselves. And that’s a step that no one’s really been encouraged to take in a society that prizes everybody getting their OWN stuff/making their OWN way [by any means necessary]. We’re reaping the financial consequences of that right now.

I tend not to comment on these issues because it seemed that if I had anything to say that wasn’t in favor of Israel, I’d be labeled anti-semitic. Which I know is not the case. I just never understood why *anyone* would think things would turn out ok if we just went to some sovereign nation and said, “Hey, we just won a war with someone else – we’re gonna take your land and give to these other people. K, bye.”

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 6:08 pm ¶
EH wrote:

I don’t know much about the issue so I keep quiet on it myself. Personally a lot of people I know don’t seem to know much about the issue but they have an opinion anyway.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 6:16 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:

Latoya,
Just wanted to thank you for all of your hard work. I was going to jump on Ecosocialist for messing with you, but you covered it yourself, girl. You do such a great job, write such good essays, provide a safe room for discussion and do this all while maintaining a full time job, a boyfriend and a social life. Shoot, I can barely get to work and feed my cat. So thank you again. You are awesome and I for one will promise to never criticize you for what is not here, and if I want something, I will be sure to submit something.
Virtual Hug,
Lisa

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 6:18 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

I agree that we (that is, Americans) should be on neither side. This is not our conflict. We should stay out of it, or provide aid only in humanitarian ways.

That’s the ideal. In reality, we’re giving Israel $3 billion a year in military aid.

We’re in the middle of it, whether we like it or not.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 6:37 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

@Matt
Since you seem to be referencing my argument here re: the dispersal of unquestioning support for Israel beyond the American Jewish community I have to ask: why is that only “a tiny part of anything”? The examples you gave–of the European founders of the US referring to themselves as the “new Jews” and one of the most popular US Presidents of the 20th century using explicitly Jewish imagery–are not “tiny.” They are huge. And very telling. You are making my point here.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 6:43 pm ¶
Josh wrote:

“So, I’ve noticed that a few readers have asked why Racialicious has been so quiet on the situation in Gaza. As the violence continues to escalate, it is hard to not post about what is happening.”

Here’s a question: How come Racialicious didn’t say a word when Israel was getting hundreds of rockets thrown its way in the months preceding the current conflict?

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 7:11 pm ¶
queerhapa wrote:

Thanks for writing this, Latoya. The conflict in Gaza makes my heart hurt.

@jen*: I mostly agree with this sentiment of yours: “I just never understood why *anyone* would think things would turn out ok if we just went to some sovereign nation and said, “Hey, we just won a war with someone else – we’re gonna take your land and give to these other people. K, bye.””

Except I would modify it to be “Hey, we just won a war with someone else – we’re gonna take your land and give to these other people WHO WE BASICALLY STOOD BY AND LET GET DECIMATED AND WHO WE STILL DON’T WANT IN OUR COUNTRIES. K, bye.”

And I think that addition speaks a whole lot to the complexities of Israel/Palestine, i.e. guilty feelings last a long fucking time, and continue to cloud rationality.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 7:37 pm ¶
napthia9 wrote:

I have trouble talking about I/P regardless of how much I feel I know about the situation. I can respond to something I disagree with, but talking to people who’ve made statements I agree with is (perversely) harder. Either they’ve said something vague like “the violence must stop!” which is a trap because they haven’t revealed anything that isn’t mutually agreed upon by all parties, or I start to worry that they’ll continue to say something extreme that I won’t agree with and that gives “my” side a bad name. So one thing that makes me feel awkward about talking about I/P is that it seems like everyone talking about I/P is an extremist until proven otherwise.

I wouldn’t say that the original sin of stealing Palestinian land is totally unacknowledged by USers, just that many USers seem to react to that either by insisting that all Israelis be involuntarily relocated, or by insisting that the violence stop before any reparations can be made (and this is where ignorance of history sets in: it is always the Palestinians who are responsible for stopping/starting the violence, and the Israeli govt is always reacting to the need to protect innocent civilians). The validity of the initial Palestinian complaint is lost to the desires to appear “moderate” (ie assert that both sides have done wrong and that these wrongs are equally wrong) and to the desire to simply achieve peace of any sort, regardless of what the terms are.

Of my Jewish friends, I’ve noticed that they’re far more likely to volunteer a critical position of Israel if they have one when the issue of either their religion or Israel arises. This tends to make me, a Gentile, more comfortable, because they’ve made it clear that there is a difference between Israel and Jewishness, so I don’t worry that I look like I’m criticizing all Jews instead of a group of political leaders and their supporters (many of whom are not Jewish, as Joseph points out).

The flip side is that with my closest friend, I am very reluctant to discuss I/P with her precisely because she is Jewish but never volunteered a position on I/P. (We met as kids, thought we were exactly alike in every respect, realized that we weren’t, and silently agreed to never discuss our differences if no common ground could be found in order to preserve the feelings of sameness and being understood.) Regardless of what I think her feelings on I/P will be, I’m worried that one of us will learn something we’d rather not about the other and that bringing up I/P will end our friendship. (Or at least, change the nature of our friendship to something I won’t like as much.)

Another reason I find it difficult to talk or get deeply involved with the I/P conflict is because I see the US’s role as being a participant, and many of calls to action made to USers re:I/P involve putting the US in the role of a mediator. I simply don’t see how the US can participate in peace talks as a facilitator when they have been using that role to control the situation, so how can I get involved in calling for action when that action still presumes the US can play an objective role? I’m paying attention to the conflict, but where do I use this knowledge if I feel like the govt beholden to me is one which -shouldn’t- be taking a leadership position? I feel like I’d prefer it if the UN were responsible for mediating talks, but that has its own problems, namely that the US’s position in the UN prohibits the UN from doing much re:I/P without the US’s OK.

This has gotten quite long, so I’m going to wrap up with an addendum to Joeseph’s point. I’m no expert, so I’m open to correction on this score, but one of the first things I read about the creation of Israel mentioned that many gentiles in America and Europe really pushed the idea of a separate nation for Jews mainly because they didn’t want to deal with anti-Semitism in their own country. (In other words, they didn’t want to make their country’s culture less anti-Semitic, often because they themselves were anti-Semitic.) I also think that because one of the major US narratives re:US superiority rests on the US “saving” Europe from the Nazis, who are obviously evil in a particularly un-American fashion because they are intolerant of Jews, the connection between US nationalism and support for Jews is very strong, even among USers who are also strongly anti-Semitic.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 7:51 pm ¶
Fatemeh wrote:

Latoya, this is a great post. Thank you for doing a great job bringing the conflict to Racialicious readers in a “big picture” and race-focused way that aims to explain rather than point fingers.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 8:42 pm ¶
Jess wrote:

@napthia9

I’ll tackle your last bit, and say that (as you probably expected) that the situation is more complicated than that.

Barbara Tuchman wrote a whole book about the long relationship of Britain with the Levant, and she covers a lot better than I could in this space holw there are intertwined narratives of the Bible (which touches on Christians, Muslims and Jews alike) and the more modern narrative of colonialism. Remember the area was one of the spoils of WW I to the Brits, and before that it was under the Turks, though they never made a serious attempt at colonization in the way the Europeans and Arabs did.

In any case, there are a couple of issues you bring up about anti-Semitism. First, I don’t think in Europe too many people were thinking “Hey, putting the Jews in their former nation in Palestine would allow us to be anti-Semites.”

Rather, there was the issue of moral imperative (the Holocaust) but even more important was a trend that had taken place since WW I, which was many nations and peoples getting their own countries. Remember, the Czech Republic traces its modern nationhood to 1918, as does (did) Yugoslavia, and Hungary in a different way, and Romania, et cetera.

So in that sense the creation of Israel was right in line with those kinds of nationalist movements. The original Zionists modeled themselves quite consciously on those organizations (which is one reason for the heavy Marxist/Socialist slant early on).

Then there’s the more right-wing strain. That is, the whole concept of people having their own nation (delineated by borders and having all that stuff that goes with being a country) is based on a rather right wing notion of what makes a people and a culture– it’s basically assuming that the bigots (and later the Nazis) were correct. Your blood is your destiny, as, for instance, an Italian, your loyalties will always be towards Italy, no matter what. Obviously this is kind of silly on its face (there was no “Italy” prior to 1880) and assumes some kind of ur-Culture we are all a part of by virtue of our genetics.

If you take that line, of course, the problem is whether anyone who isn’t a (insert nationality here) can be a citizen of (insert country).

Which brings us to Israel. Part of the problem from the founding of the state was what position you end up taking. If we say that it is a Jewish state, we have to decide what that means. And that’s a sticky question. Does it mean a state for Jews only? What about the Arab population? The Christians? The Druze? What’s the blood quantum for being a Jew?

While Jews would tell you your mother has to be Jewish to count, the law of return takes a slightly more expansive view. In fact, it uses the same definition the Nazis did. (A granparent). So I could make aliyah if I wished.

Oh yeah — how religious should the Jewish state be? Jewish version of Iran or something else?

And you’ll get a different answer depending on the Jew you ask, how old they are, and what country they are from.

Told you it was complicated.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 8:47 pm ¶
Rchoudh wrote:

The I/P conflict has its basis in the politics of colonialism and capitalist exploitation of the third world. Like many other parts of the world today the effects of colonialism still linger to varying degrees.

After the end of WWI when the Ottoman state was dismantled Britain and France made a mad dash to colonize the rest of the middle east, which they were previously unable to do (with the exception of Algeria and Morocco by France) due to the presence of the Ottoman state. The Sykes-Picot Agreement allowed Britain, France and Imperial Russia to divide the Ottoman spoils into small powerless statelets with artificial borders. Many of these statelets were later “ruled” by puppet leaders appointed by the colonial powers whose only way to rule their populations was through state terror (as can be seen alot of these states today continue to ruled by unpopular corrupt puppet leaders who continue to rule by deception and terror).

Ruling through puppet leaders wasn’t enough however for the colonizers to exploit the new colonies. If angered enough populations have the potential to overthrow puppet leaders, thereby throwing grand schemes of world domination into chaos.

That’s why through the Balfour Declaration a Jewish Homeland was first declared in the Middle East. The colonialists (Britain in particular) believed that the Jews could serve as greater allies due to closer ideological and religious affiliation.

After WWII the Holocaust tragedy led to a greater number of Jews to migrate to Palestine (like many others I always wondered why Germany, responsible for oppressing and massacreing the Jews, did not compensate by giving up a piece of their territory to those they victimized. My theory is that even though it was defeated Germany still remained a capable threat if its population was made to believe that they suffered terribly under defeat. WWI is evidence of how they were later able to mobilize themselves into becoming a credible threat once again. Meanwhile Palestine posed no significant threat to the Allies which is why it had to bear the burden of the resettling of a displaced population).

The state of Israel was born due to the significant increase in migration. By this time America had stepped in as the new superpower and took over what Britain had earlier set out to do. By building up Israel’s military and economy and forming closer relations, America believed that the rest of the Middle East, especially the Arab states, would remain too weak and divided to form an effective coalition towards political, economic, and military independence. The constant threat of Israel retaliating against such a coalition would keep the Arab states incapable to really developing themselves without Western intervention. On top of that all these states continue to be ruled by spineless selfish dictators who have no interest other than lining their own pockets with foreign “aid money” and allowing America to politically and economically dominate these states’ affairs. This is really just a new form of colonialism taking place today.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 8:57 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:

I’d like to have a way to talk about conservative intimidation of Palestinian/Palestinian-friendly groups or the Aspers’ corruption of ‘journalism’ in Canada without either confirming for someone that there IS a Jewish conspiracy or being accused to saying that there is one. Clearly there isn’t some evil cabal. But there is harassment, libel, all kinds of crazy stuff done on behalf of Israel, and it adds up.

For me it boils down to the fact that its really hard to talk about a group of people f*&#g another group of people over, say, through ethnic cleansing, when the former has a legacy of marginalization. We’re not used to dealing with the nuances that come with that.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 9:01 pm ¶
Jehanzeb wrote:

I am really offended by Monie’s comments. She says that she has become disillusioned by the Palestinians because “it seems they want the world to be on their side and yet they never seem to take any interest in anything that does not affect them directly.”

“They?” So are you talking about every single Palestinian on the face of this Earth? Then Monie asks how come Palestinians don’t show their solidarity for Africans in the same way that Africans show solidarity for Palestinians. This a generalization, Monie, and even if it were true, are you going to ignore the fact that nearly 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza are killed?

I didn’t know showing Love was about “give and take.” I didn’t know it was quid pro quo. I understand how you feel, believe me, because whenever an issue concerns the country where I originate from (Pakistan) I don’t usually see a lot of Arabs discussing it. I may complain about it, but I’m not going to hold a grudge against the countless victims that suffer in their countries. Sorry, but that’s childish.

It’s true that we don’t hear enough about Darfur, but it would be wrong to say that not a single Muslim does something about it. There are Mosques that hold fundraisers for Darfur. Muslims participate in Walks for Darfur fundraisers. I agree that the Muslim community needs to do a lot more — this is a problem within the Muslim community and something we’re all trying to fix. Palestinians aren’t getting any support from other neighboring Arab and Muslim nations either.

Furthermore, Monie wrote: “I think the Palestinians really need to reach out to the people around the world who have supported them. They need to see the bigger picture of Human Rights and speak out whenever injustices are done. Otherwise they run the risk of losing the support they have.”

No, Monie. With all due respect, you run the risk of losing the understanding of helping and reaching out to others. Look at the bodies in Gaza and you will see mutilated bodies of children. You will see schools and Mosques bombed. And you’re not going to say anything about it other than criticize the Palestinians for not “reaching out” enough? What did those children do to earn your grudge against them? What did those children do for you to get so bitter towards other people that look like them or carry the same label of “Palestinian.”

It’s easy for us to point fingers and say so-and-so doesn’t support us enough and vice versa. But the Palestinians have been suffering from Israeli military occupation and oppression for decades now. If no one is helping them, then how are they even going to begin thinking about helping others in places like Darfur?

You say that Palestinians need to speak out whenever injustices are done. Don’t look at others, look at yourself. You should ask NOTHING in return from showing your Love to certain people. You can point it out respectfully, but you shouldn’t ever develop a grudge or bitterness towards an entire group of people, especially when they’re victimized by the violence that is going on RIGHT NOW.

Peace.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 9:13 pm ¶
Titanis walleri wrote:

“I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why this occurs. Why are so many people reluctant to discuss what is happening in Israel and Palestine?”
Because the topic swarms with trolls, idiots, and assholes on both sides.

“Biblically-focused Christians (and I am including mainstream Christians here, not just the easy-target fundamentalist nut jobs) often think of Israel as a biblical fantasy land rather than a modern state.”
Or they view it as a trigger to start the apocalypse (and I’ve seen it expressed almost as blatantly as that. They positively salivate when things start heating up in the Middle East…).

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 9:27 pm ¶
Rchoudh wrote:

@ Jehanzeb

You are completely right and I would just like to add that it’s up to all of us individually to become aware of whatever issues happen anywhere in the world and to bring awareness of them to others beginning with our family and friends. Raising awareness about these issues within each other’s communities is the first thing we all need to do because even though these events happen thousands of miles away they can very easily lead to repercussions within our own lives later on. Besides we all have the capability of harboring empathy towards fellow human beings. Even if no repercussions take place empathy and compassion are still good enough reasons to raise awareness.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 9:36 pm ¶
Jehanzeb wrote:

@ Titanis walleri,

You wrote: “Because the topic swarms with trolls, idiots, and assholes on both sides.”

So does that mean we should not talk about it and ignore the thousands of people who are suffering in Gaza right now? Please try to help me understand what you mean. What do you suggest we do? How should we approach the issue?

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 9:37 pm ¶
Kuriusjurge wrote:

I don’t want to talk about who’s to blame. But I agree with Monie’s points. Can you really wish for peace and justice for Palestinians, but not for Israelis?

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 10:25 pm ¶
Kuriusjurge wrote:

@Jehanzeb
I think what Monie is getting at is that that it’s funny how people protest and go crazy over the war in gaza but many countries- the same ones that are muslim like Sudan and many of the Same members of the Arab League like Sudan have emergency meetings on Gaza. But there’s no meeting or real condemnation of the massacre of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of black africans in Darfur. I thought of of these people were for Justice and peace.

To be blunt its hard for me to take anyone seriously when the only bodies they care about are certian ones.

There was a time when dozens of Israelis were being killed or maimed at a time weekly. I didn’t hear of of these people who claim to be disgusted by death, saying anything then. Not the UN(except for a token statement or resolution), not the Arab League, and all these protestors.

So can you really demand in principle peace for one people or nation and not another?

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 10:44 pm ¶
Tarik wrote:

Latoya thank you for this excellent post. I believe I may have briefly engaged on a related topic several months ago but do not post “regularly” on this topic. To answer your question about why many people do not more actively discuss this issue, my theory (beyond many of the other very good and plausible reasons expressed above) is that people often feel discouraged or intimidated from engaging in discussion about the issue because of what they perceive to be a “need” to be an “expert” on the issue. What I mean by that is, clearly there IS a lot of history behind this conflict, and to become truly conversant on this issue one would need to take many years studying the history, diplomacy, etc., behind the conflict.

Although more information and knowledge is always better than less, on the flip side an unfortunate by-product is that too much information can obscure the core issues. As someone who does feel somewhat conversant on the history of the issue, I have become more convinced that the more important and pressing perspective to take (yet one often NOT discussed) is really rather simple – and that is viewing the conflict through the perspective of fundamental and unalienable human rights.

When you look at the totality of the situation using a human rights paradigm, it is really quite obvious that Israel (as a matter of policy) has been (and continues to) systematically violate fundamental human rights law by virtue of their control of almost all aspects of ordinary Palestinian life. One can “internet debate” for days and days about the Balfour Declaration, the 1967 war, the culpability of Arab states like Jordan and Egypt, and on and on, but the fact of the matter is that Israel has and continues to violate fundamental human rights and basic principles of international law on a regular basis. And they do so and have done so with the solid backing of the United States and the United States’ taxpayer.

These violations of international law are not things that the pro-Israeli lobby and its supporters would like people to dwell on. Instead, they benefit from a “debate” characterized by a usually subjective, values-based clash about differing interpretations of historical events (i.e. what were the causes of the 48 war, the 67 war, the breakdown of Clinton’s peace talks, etc.). Not to say again that such historical context is NOT important, but when one focuses on the human rights law, it is quite clear where the vast majority of culpability lies.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 10:59 pm ¶
ktrujillo wrote:

“Because the topic swarms with trolls, idiots, and assholes on both sides.”

And previously rational individuals often become completely irrational at the mere mention of this complex topic….which is disconcerting and disheartening.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 11:04 pm ¶
Monie wrote:

@Jehanzeb and everyone

I certainly didn’t mean to offend you or anyone else. LaToya asked a question and I attempted to answer it.

I understand the situation the Palestinian people are in at the moment and was not really speaking in terms of expecting anything of anyone at this very moment. I was thinking more in a long term way.

But as I said my intent was not to offend.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 11:05 pm ¶
Pheagan wrote:

Thank you for this. The point about the solidarity that America feels with Israel, the original sin, that really hits home.

The media in America definitely seems pro-Israel and any other viewpoints about the situation seem stifled. I’ve noticed this in particular when it comes to Chomsky articulating his views on the situation. I went to Hofstra, and that’s a school that advertises when the president sneezes, and Chomsky has gone there several times and word on his speeches are absolutely moot. Also, I remember reading an interview with him, and he’s not even talking about Israel, and the reporter comes down on him like the proverbial ton of bricks about his views. He schools her.

This isn’t to say I agree completely with his viewpoint, just that I have seen it shut down in more than one place, and this is a guy who is otherwise absolutely celebrated for his political views.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 11:37 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

@Jehanzeb
Cosign.

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 11:46 pm ¶
Daniel wrote:

@Jehanzeb – cosign. I also think part of the problem is the fact that the racist western media is only interested in what people of color have to say about things that directly affect them. When was the last time you saw a Palestinian pundit on TV get asked a question about anything that had nothing to do with the region? There is an underlying racist tone to the news of the idea that only white/western/christian people can analyze and understand the world in an abstract way. The rest of us are just reacting to the fact we’re getting bombed, beat, or our welfare checks cut: we care about us and only us, which is why we need Massa to come and save us from ourselves.

@Kuriusjurge, what are the root causes for the conflict in Sudan? I suggest to you the two main root causes are 1. widespread and worsening droughts and poverty causing large displacements of people, and 2. A history of CIA involvement in getting one side to fight another during the Sudanese civil war.

I am sensitive to genocide, being the grandchild of survivors. But the Sudan conflict is different, because if you stop the killing but don’t also stop the poverty and solve the real issues of resource allocation, you’re just going to cause large numbers of people to die from starvation or thirst instead of murder. I am all for ending the conflict and solving the resource issues, but it’s not anywhere near as simple as people make it.

This may also be an unpopular opinion, but I also believe that the conflict in Darfur is exploited for political means. I think this happens because 1. They get to talk about how evil the “Arab” Sudanese (despite the fact that Arab versus non-Arab is not a racial distinction in Sudan) are, and this reinforces their propaganda and worldview about Muslim/Arabs as villains, and 2. for exactly what you just did – they think it makes people they support (e.g. United States, Israel) look less evil in comparison.

I do not understand what is so complicated about this conflict. Palestinians are living in a slum and using basically homemade weapons that are, compared to F-16Is, harmless. Israel imposed a blockade against Gaza in an attempt to undermine a democratically elected government, then when they responded by launching mostly harmless rockets, they decided to kill large numbers of Palestinian men, women, and children, and somehow that’s okay?

The US and Israel are both built on genocide. The US relied more on extermination and the Israelis more on dispossession (a factor of the changing times more than anything, I suspect).

@Phrone, I resolve the hypocrisy in a simple manner. I don’t believe that the wealthy are entitled to their wealth, or that anyone is entitled to live better than their neighbor. I believe in, support, and will fight for indigenous peoples to not only have the same legal rights as other US citizens, but to have the same quality of life as anyone else: which would require the dismantling of the racist system we have now and it also requires disregard for the current distribution of wealth. I also believe in and support Palestinians having the same quality of life as Jews living in the area. I don’t think that states have rights, I think rights belong to the people, and that people should have the freedom to live in equality and harmony with their neighbors. The reality is that Palestinians have never been offered this.

The reality is also that non-Jews in Israel are second class citizens — to say nothing of the Palestinians, who are denied return or citizenship — and while the tide is turning, non-European Jews (Mizrahi) in Israel still have fewer opportunities available to them as Jews of European descent. And that is just inexcusable and I cannot understand how any anti-racist can support that.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 12:59 am ¶
Sobia wrote:

I think there is a definite fear of being labeled anti-Semitic if one criticizes Israel. I know a professor (a secular Muslim) who organized a conference in which there was a talk on the killings of Palestinians in Jenin. As a result a Zionist organization tried to have her fired from her tenured position. Her university didn’t fire her, though she did notice that their defense of her was half-hearted nonetheless. Additionally, she received death threats from people of the same organization. (And no, this talk was not anti-Semitic)

Death threats, intimidation, and harassment will stop anyone from speaking out. When it comes to spreading hate and fear toward Muslims its a matter of free speech, but when it comes to criticizing Israel’s policies towards its oppressed people its hate.

All this is of course nonsensical. Criticizing a government’s actions is not hating the people of that country. Pakistanis could say the same thing of criticism of Pakistan. After all, Pakistan and Israel are the only two countries in the world created for a particular religious group. Labeling criticism of Pakistani policies as Islamophobic would be nonsensical to anyone. This should not be tolerated in the case of Israel either and valid criticisms of its policies toward its oppressed people should occur without fear.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 1:01 am ¶
Ike wrote:

I think people don’t discuss it because it’s been happening for years and they don’t really know what all the fighting is about. I couldn’t even read all of this post, because I’m just so tired of the topic (I know… sad).

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 1:07 am ¶
Jehanzeb wrote:

@ Kuriusjurge,

Who said that Palestinians and Muslims only wish peace for the Palestinians and not the Israelis?

Did you attend any of the Gaza protest rallies? I attended two of them and we had support from Jews, Christians, Muslims, and others. The Palestinians and Muslims that spoke at our rallies strongly emphasized that “this is NOT a dispute between Muslims and Jews.” There were other sides that promoted peace and coexistence between Muslims and Jews.

Have you ever attended a Mosque? Every Friday, Sudan is mentioned in the prayer, along with Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kashmir, Chechnya, and other parts of the Muslim world that suffer from oppression. Like I mentioned, we have fundraisers at my Mosques for Darfur.

Regardless, the Muslim community needs to own up to their failure in speaking loud enough about Darfur. After all, Muslims are killing Muslims! This is not in our name, this is not what Islam teaches. Muslims will raise this issue in their communities and they will admit that we’re not outspoken enough about it.

When Israelis get bombed, it gets plenty of media coverage. Trust me, Kuriusjurge. They had a “Stand with Israel” rally in my city and they received an overwhelming amount of news coverage. Not only that, but they receive pre-game coverage as well. My friend’s words were cut out of the newspaper and the media only gave our huge rallies less than 50 seconds of news time. They also interviewed the older Palestinians only — the ones who could hardly speak English.

The majority of the mainstream media is on Israel’s side. No U.S. politician can ever be elected president without kissing up to Israel. Criticizing Israel results in political suicide.

Visit my blog to read about what happened to my friends at the “Stand with Israel” rally. Tell me if you heard that on the news.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 1:08 am ¶
tmj707 wrote:

I should be asleep so I’ll be quick. And it seems pretty easy for me.

Israel is wrong! You don’t go into a place someone else is living in, declare it yours, BUILD A WALL to keep out who you feel is abhorrent…ridiculous. You do that if you’re the US, Britain, France etc.

I agree with the poster above that America and Israel stick so close together because they have done/are doing the same thing. Game recognize game.

What kind of sheep are we as a citizenry that we simply allow this? The mere hint of a criticism of Israel wafting through the air is enough to get you shunned.

If a group of people suddenly came thru US customs, took up space in California and declared that state their true home and the rest of us wldhave to get out…all hell would break loose. As it has over there.

The Palestinians may not be the perfect victim or arab terrorist some folks want them to be. They are bound to be flawed, as is every other group or culture of people is…if Hamas is using the current sympathy of the world to its own favor, can we expect any less, us of the home of the free and brave…But Palestinians don’t deserved to be shunted to second class citizen status, beaten, abused, disenfranchised. period. for no reason. Nobody does.

Oh, and you think those people who died in the Holocaust would want this? Is this not perpetuating the same thing Jews fleeing persecution ran from? Duh! I’d like to see those wwjd t-shirts and bumper stickers applied to this situation. Jesus would not want this. For real.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 1:26 am ¶
Restructure! wrote:

Re: Israel lobby

I don’t think it’s necessary to posit an “Israel lobby” to explain Washington’s actions. It’s not a “minority interest”, as Americans in general overwhelmingly support Israel over Palestinians. 48% of Americans sympathize with Israel, while only 13% sympathized with Palestinians.

There also seems to be a non-trivial religious influence (emphasis mine):

In a July 2003 Pew survey, fully 44% of Americans expressed their belief that God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jewish people. In a Pew survey a year ago in August 2005, 22% of Americans said that their religious beliefs were the biggest influence in determining their support for the Jewish state. And among Americans who sympathize with Israel, one-in-three Americans said their sympathy arises from their religious beliefs.

That religious-based support is by no means confined to — or even centered on — Americans of the Jewish faith. In the same 2003 survey, 36% of U.S. adults expressed the belief that creation of the state of Israel is a step toward the Second Coming of Jesus.

That survey also finds that white Evangelicals are significantly more pro-Israel than are Americans in general — with more than half of saying they sympathize more with Israel in its dispute with the Palestinians, compared with 40 percent of Americans overall who held this view. Further, white Evangelicals who self-identified as political conservatives were more than three times as likely to back Israel as were Evangelicals who identified themselves as moderates. However, in terms of support for Palestine, Evangelicals differed little from the general American population, which, as noted earlier, voices very weak support for the Palestinian cause.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 1:30 am ¶
jaye wrote:

I have a lot to say on the topic, but it seems people get especially toxic about this issue. I almost feel like I’m going to make someone cry if I am interested in having an open-ended discussion where I ask questions about the roles on both sides. And very emotional words get thrown around on this topic…which is fine, it’s a very tragic situation. But it seems like those words get thrown around not to further the discussion or to explore the emotions, but rather to shut down the debate. I like the emotional heaviness of a lot of the comments here on racialicious, but I feel like on the I/P topic especially, the emotional heaviness is used to attack people, and I find it becomes very unreasonable very quickly, and it escalates incredibly quickly, something I don’t find on most other topics. If I am more on one side than the other, it feels like I am really hurting people’s feelings, rather than trying to understand a very difficult issue…so it’s just easier to stay out of it.

I agree with Miriam Heddy:

“Many of us end up just backing away slowly.”

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 1:41 am ¶
Logan wrote:

So…. for me, its probably more complex than this deep down, but on the surface, I just can’t support one side or another. I’m well aware of the history on both sides, and its one of those things where, I can’t fault the Isralies for wanting to exist, and I can’t fault the Palestinians for feeling that they had their land taken from them. I can’t support any actions taken by Palestinian terrorist groups, nor Israel sending military forces into Gaza to route out said groups. Its not that I don’t care, I just can’t say flat out one side is right or one side is wrong, and don’t want to argue, for example, against Israel’s current movements into Gaza with limited conviction in my words.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 3:38 am ¶
Nate wrote:

Joseph – just a point: isreal wasn’t founded by ‘English Decree’. In ‘47 the brits ‘gave back’ their league of nation mandate. Largely becuse of the cost of governance but also the ongoing conflicts that ahd alreayd erupted between the Jews and Arabs, but also the terrorist/freedom fighting (pick your flavour) actions against british officials, troops and civillians.

In respect of media coverage of isreal, its probably a little more nuanced in the UK as there are still strong establishment/cultural links to the ex-mandate and trucial states elites (sandhurst, oxbridge) and, also that the UK media (while not perfect) is a bit more diverse, in terms of the range policital opinions expressed, and who is actually on the box, doing the presenting.

There’s a reason why Al-Jazeera employs a lot of ex-BBC staffers. And theire arebn’t that many mainstreem US outlets who have boots on the ground in Gaza – for example – Alan Johnston (I hope I have his name right).

Cheers

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 6:23 am ¶
terryuno wrote:

The root of the problem is racial solidarity instead of people just being judged as human being. We have exactly the same problems in the U.S and the U.K where people especially minority groups will defend people who do wrong merely because they share the same skin colour or religion. Racial solidarity is really just racism.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 8:07 am ¶
ms four wrote:

I started out life as a regular American gal with a vaguely pro-Israeli slant, like many Americans, and because of growing up in a town with a lot of Jewish friends who had spent time in Israel.

A year and a half ago, I moved to Egypt, where you can hardly say the word “Israel” without someone spitting. Egypt, which gets the second highest amount of US (after Israel), mostly to buy peace with Israel. And Egypt, which has gotten a plot of pressure from other Arab countries for being “pro-Israeli.”

My opinion here has changed, and I think it took moving here for me to understand just how terrible Israeli policies and actions are. But that doesn’t mean I’m pro-Hamas either. Sadly, though, these Israeli actions seem to making many Palestinians support Hamas because they’ll engage.

But while I adore Racialicious, this is just not the place for this conversation, not for me. (And kudos to you for diving in, Latoya!)

This is all very complicated. The closest issue like it in US popular culture is abortion: the people who feel most strongly about are not the people to talk to about it if you want a reasoned perspective. There is a complete inability to recognize or even understand the other point of view (I’m guilty of this myself, as a staunchly pro-choice woman).

@Ecoterrorist: I actually know a little bit about what’s going on in Somalia with Ethiopia and US dollars, and I agree it’s a big deal. But you’re off-base badgering Latoya. She invited you to write something on the issue–accept it, or back off.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 8:22 am ¶
ms four wrote:

Oops! Meant of course to say that Egypt gets a lot of US aid, ie money.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 8:24 am ¶
Slush wrote:

@Restructure –
I think the argument is that Americans support Israel because of very specific and targeted Israeli/Jewish lobbying. The fact that more Americans sympathize with Israel only reflects the one-sided reporting on it. Yes, it creates a cycle, but the fact of evangelical support for Israel doesn’t do much to undermine the analysis of a very powerful lobby.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 10:06 am ¶
Jess wrote:

I didn’t think Monie intended to offend anyone, and others have done well to point out why her comment was rather uninformed. (I didn’t think it was malicious).

And I do see the frustration, and while the Israeli government has systematically violated the rights of Palestinians, it’s also fair to say that the Palestinian leadership hasn’t been up to snuff on a lot of this stuff.

The corruption. for example, that lost Fatah the elections in the West bank and Gaza, wasn’t forced on them. The local Fatah leaders weren’t forced at gunpoint to take bribes. And they weren’t forced to hire people who would. Yasser Arafat was, unfortunately, no Mandela.

And Mandela- and Gandhi-caliber people don’t appear by the busload, either. Israel and Palestine needed someone like that. They didn’t get that.

Hamas was less corrupt, but it is crippled by the idea that it will somehow make Israel disappear. It can’t and thus far the organization has offered no really clear vision of how to get to a single state or what that government would look like. There is simply a vast difference between waging an armed struggle and governing. Firing rockets into Israel was a rank provocation, and the Hamas leadership knew it. But they chose to let the lower-level operatives do something that would provoke a response.

(As a strategy it isn’t new. the IRA and Mao both outlined very clearly why provocation is supposed to be part of the armed struggle. One could get into a whole long treatise on the influence of revolutionary Marxist thinking on ostensibly fundamentalist religious groups).

The problem with the Hamas plan is that it sort of assumes that the Jewish population is a minority ruler a la South Africa. It isn’t. Even without all the support from the US the best you could get would be a stalemate — see Yugoslavia for what that looks like. Not good.

The Israelis too, are crippled by a vision of a state that excluded the local Arab population. It’s the same problem the Scots and English ran into when they tried to colonize Ireland, or the whites (Boers) in South Africa. You aren’t always in a position to just wipe everybody out and saying “I deserve this because our people suffered, so screw you” cuts no ice when you think it through.

The fact that Western governments were unable to see why Hamas got elected in the first place — or rather, refused to accept the reasons why — shows just how blind they are, and the Israelis also.

Then there’s the attitude among many Jews in the US and Israel that violence — “strength” is the only thing anyone understands. For Ashkenazi Jews in particular, this is born of a horrific experience in Europe. The problem is you condemn yourself to repeating the same thing over and over. And that is one of the very real tragedies here.

There are two responses to injustice: one is to make sure it never happens again to anybody. The other is to say that you and yours will be protected and devil take everyone else. Unfortunately, since WW II too many Jews decided on the latter.

That’s what makes it frustrating, I think.

@Rchoudh
I think the reason the Germans didn’t offer up a piece of territory was because the Zionists didn’t want it. The Brits offered (pre WW II) a chunk of Africa, the Japanese tried to convince (Jewish) people to go to Manchuria, and the Russians tried to force them into a Jewish territory in the far east.

None of these was popular or successful. And it makes sense it wouldn’t be– I mean, how many Kurds would sign on if you said “We want you out of here but there’s a nice stretch of Nebraska you might like and it looks sort of similar to where you were.”

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 10:24 am ¶
CVT wrote:

That last bit comparing the creation and history of Israel with that of the United States (the “original sin”) was very interesting to me. It makes perfect sense, in a way, yet I had never heard that stated outright before. I think that simple explanation holds more power than any other – it’s the same reason so many white folks want people to not talk about race and pretend that we’re “post-racial” – because to acknowledge race in this world, is to acknowledge your own un-conscious racism. To acknowledge the flaws of Israel is to bring questions back on our own “just” state . . .

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 10:52 am ¶
Jehanzeb wrote:

Sobia brings up a great point. Many people accuse you of being anti-Semitic whenever you criticize Israel. Remember Tariq Ramadan? He is banned from entering the United States just because he donated money to a Palestinian charity organization. Apparently, people interpreted that as donating to “terrorism,” therefore he must be anti-Semitic.

If Mr. Ramadan donated money to Israel, he wouldn’t have been banned from the U.S. It’s a shame that a Muslim intellectual and academic would be denied to speak in the United States.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 10:58 am ¶
nosnowhere wrote:

i am a u.s. palestinian who got my start in organizing doing local black / arab solidarity organizing. i know plenty of other palestinians engaged in similiar work or ideals. palestinian hiphop music emerged because u.s. hiphop music spoke to the palestinian experience of ghettos, cops and poverty.(check out the documentary slingshot hiphop, it would be incredibly appropriate to review on this site–http://slingshothiphop.com/).

i grew up in metro detroit which has the highest concentration of arabs outside the middle east, yet i didn’t learn anything about my culture or history in school. i didn’t learn about the history of palestine from my family, there was a really pervasive silence around it that my generation of cousins and siblings has broken. i had to research, read books and study on my own to figure things out, and it was important to me so i learned. i also learned that you have to know your shit and be able to articulate it so you can advocate for your people, because as soon as you say that you’re palestinian, people have tons of questions for you. we are forced to become experts on this topic because of how personal it is. can you think of topics that other people classify as “political” that are actually personal to you? it’s unfair that palestinians are asked to be so levelheaded and non-emotional when we’ve got generations of refugees, countless massacres, and an ongoing genocide on our shoulders.

also–60 years is not that long.

i appreciate this post and the time it took to type it out–i didn’t think i would see something like this here, i saw a link and randomly checked it out. one critique i have is the centering of jewish people’s voices–i think showing the diversity of opinion jewish people have about israel is important as a first step as well as a way of protecting yourself, but it really bothers me that jewish people have more credibility than palestinians in both rightwing and leftwing arenas–when do we become credible enough to be trusted to speak on our own experiences?

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 11:03 am ¶
Matt wrote:

Joseph:

Since you seem to be referencing my argument here re: the dispersal of unquestioning support for Israel beyond the American Jewish community I have to ask: why is that only “a tiny part of anything”? The examples you gave–of the European founders of the US referring to themselves as the “new Jews” and one of the most popular US Presidents of the 20th century using explicitly Jewish imagery–are not “tiny.” They are huge. And very telling. You are making my point here.

I wasn’t aware I was referencing your argument. I was referring to Latoya’s comment #34. Had I read yours, I would have appreciated this:

Given that Christianity is the majority religion in the United States it is unfair and inaccurate to blame Jews (in general or Jewish organizations in particular) for the US American fixation on Israel. There is more to meets the eye here.

But I would have gone insane with this:

However, it is complete nonsense to assert that there is no such thing as an Israeli lobby that wields terrific power to shape American politics

I’m not sure how you can hold both these views at the same time. They seem completely contradictory to me.

Anyway, you asked a question about the American Puritan vision of a “shining city on a hill.” Yes, that is huge – when talking about America. It is, however, unrelated to American Jews’ views of Israel. Or the Zionist view of Israel. Or the Israeli view of Israel. It’s part of an American, Christian habit of folding Jews into an ostensibly “Judeo-Christian” narrative. But that’s a narrative that’s as often at odds with Jewish views. If it is anti-antisemitic at times, it’s as often antisemitic. As I said, this Puritan view America has of itself is also a big part of the Evangelical anti-Israel narrative.

LeVine (and it’s “LeVine” not Levine – I can only presume it’s because he has issues with being Jewish) says right up front:

I was taught that Israelis made the desert bloom, and created a paradise out of empty land.

I don’t know about you – I wasn’t taught that. Then again, like most Americans, I didn’t go to Hebrew School. That’s probably where LeVine heard that along with a lot of other things he ignores here. When I was in high school, we got a pretty good education about the founding of the US, but we stopped with WWII. Our textbook continued to Vietnam, but I don’t recall that it mentioned the founding of Israel. “Made the dessert bloom” is a phrase I’ve rarely heard from pro-Israel people (and usually in a very specific context regarding demographics). It’s much more often, in my experience, been a strawman offered up by anti-Israel people. And the actual Zionist narrative? What do Jews actually say about Israel? Why is it that nearly all Jews support the existence of Israel? I don’t hear that very often except from Jews. It’s one of the reasons so many Jews supported Obama, actually – because he “got it” in a way few American politicians do.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 11:20 am ¶
Restructure! wrote:

@Slush:

My point is that even without one-sided media reporting, religious beliefs (i.e. Christianity) would cause Americans to support Israel over Palestinians. If you believe that God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jews, then you probably support the state of Israel over those that challenge the legitimacy of that state.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 11:32 am ¶
ms. four wrote:

I’m not sure it’s correct to say Americans favor Israel. Not anymore, anyway.

A recent poll shows that a full 71% of Americans actually think the US government should *not* take sides in the conflict:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/30/democracy/

That’s more than in Spain (59%) and only a bit less than France or the UK (79% each).

What was really interesting in this study was that it found that Egyptians are actually *more* negative about Israel than Palestinians!

Here’s the link right to the report on the countries: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/jul08/WPO_IsPal_Jul08_countries.pdf

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 12:49 pm ¶
Beth wrote:

At least where I live the social pressure to offer unwavering support for Israel is overwhelming. The extremists are mainstream, and have driven everyone else out of the conversation.

This is reason I don’t discuss my views, in comments or really any time I’m not alone in my car, is that the responses to anyone who does offer an opinion on this topic other than Obama-style unwavering support get ripped to *shreds*, even in the most relativist circles around here. It’s not that my opinions are not based on both ancient and relatively recent history and a logical foundation of ethical analysis, it’s that they are. Because of this, I have learned to keep them to myself.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 1:34 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

@Matt
Thanks for getting back to me–we are saying a lot of the same things here re: the influence of the Christian narrative on the US American social/political support of Israel. Restructure!’s post fleshed this out beautifully as well. You are right to point out that this narrative is also often used to justify anti-Jewish sentiment. But I think there is a weird disconnect among some biblically-based Christians that allows them to romanticize Israel and simultaneously disdain actual Jews. I don’t claim to understand this logic but the one does not preclude the other. If it did you wouldn’t see the support of Israel that you do among evangelical Christians. (Who would lose their minds if their sons brought home Jewish girls but nevertheless raise millions of dollars for Israel every year. Go figure.)

As for my point about AIPAC…I’m not sure why you think this is contradictory. AIPAC exists. This is empirically true. A few months ago the candidates for President dutifully went there and made speeches in support of Israel, as they always do. Why do you think they did that? Why was Obama’s support of Israel made into a campaign issue by Clinton? Why must US American presidential candidates talk about Israel at all? As I have said (twice now) I do not believe for a second that this phenomenon is part of some vast Jewish conspiracy–that is ridiculous. I strongly believe that knee jerk support for Israel has as much to do with a certain population of Christians as it does Jews in any case. But it is still entirely reasonable to question why the ultimate exercise of US American democracy, the election of our president, so often turns around what is happening in a specific foreign country. We can’t wish away a lobby as powerful as AIPAC simply because the implications of its existence are unflattering. US Presidential candidates aren’t making a great effort to speak at the Knights of Columbus, now are they?

My criticism of the influence AIPAC has on US American politics is a criticism of our political system–NOT a fantasy of mysterious Jews in a dark room, secretly running things. Even if you disagree with me that much should be clear to you.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 2:14 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

Let me answer the more important question first:

AIPAC exists. This is empirically true. A few months ago the candidates for President dutifully went there and made speeches in support of Israel, as they always do. Why do you think they did that? Why was Obama’s support of Israel made into a campaign issue by Clinton? Why must US American presidential candidates talk about Israel at all?

AIPAC exists. They aren’t nearly so powerful. They are, as I said, more akin to the medieval court Jew. Candidates always go to AIPAC, yes. It’s also rare that a candidate skips the NAACP. The media just reports on AIPAC differently. It becomes a media narrative that is one of the major ways antisemitism is reified in our society. There are ways in which Americans care what candidates say about Israel – but because it’s a test case for the candidates views on just war theory.

But I think there is a weird disconnect among some biblically-based Christians that allows them to romanticize Israel and simultaneously disdain actual Jews. I don’t claim to understand this logic but the one does not preclude the other. If it did you wouldn’t see the support of Israel that you do among evangelical Christians.

Evangelical views of Israel aren’t necessarily what you think they are. The mainstream evangelical movement has done a lot to get rid of the uglier views of Jews (based on supercessionism or millenarian dispensationalism) that they used to have. In fact, one criticism of Bush has been that he’s a supercessionist, although he apparently doesn’t know the word.

Evangelical support for Israel is more often based on (what Christians see as) a Biblical imperative to be caring toward Jews than on apocalyptic fantasies. It comes out of an ecumenical movement.

My criticism of the influence AIPAC has on US American politics is a criticism of our political system–NOT a fantasy of mysterious Jews in a dark room, secretly running things. Even if you disagree with me that much should be clear to you.

Well, yes and no. There are several arguments people make all the time that amount to or imply Jewish conspiracies, even as they say that’s not what they mean. M&W are a prime example. (Notice, for example, that such criticism, ostensibly of the US, is always labeled as “criticism of Israel,” with the sentiment that you can’t criticize Israel without being labeled an antisemite used to justify attacks on Jews in America.) And also, the “loose coalition” can be far worse than the concrete conspiracy, because it’s a lot harder to not be a part of such a loose coalition. Care about antisemitism and you’re immediately labeled some Franken-Dershowitz.

I do think people can and do argue passionately for the Palestinians without finding a need for any of this. It’s not a topic that really needs to be used.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 5:02 pm ¶
octogalore wrote:

Latoya — to answer your Q about why I personally don’t get into these conversations, it’s that there tends to be a “correct” position on many of the blogs I contribute to, and variance from that hasn’t seemed productive enough to want to delve in, frankly. I don’t think there’s a clear right and clear wrong, but I do think based on the history, there’s a conclusion that seems right enough to me that I am not too interested in debating it.

And wrt Ecosocialist’s scolding: WTF? Basically, what Latoya said. Eco, do you provide funding for Racialicious? If not, then you’re not a shareholder and don’t have a vote. Even if you do, you should be aware that the coverage is extraordinarily complete and competent in fulfilling the blog’s mission statement. Additional areas of coverage should be viewed as optional and entirely in the discretion of the folks running the blog.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 5:48 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

“Evangelical support for Israel is more often based on (what Christians see as) a Biblical imperative to be caring toward Jews than on apocalyptic fantasies.”

I can’t state it any more politely… that’s delusional. It’s just wish fulfillment.

You can’t separate the “caring” from the apocalypse. Most of these people look on Jewish people as strange, magical, totemic creatures, either evil, debased and deluded (liberal American Jews) or noble and deluded (Israelis). They “care” because of their teleology, not in spite of it.

A telling quote from an Alternet article on Christian Zionists:

“AFSI’s executive director, Helen Freedman, confirms the increasingly Christian cast of her coalition. “We have many good Jews, of course,” she says, “but they’re in the minority.” She adds, “The liberal Jew is unable to believe the Arab when he says his goal is to Islamize the West. . . . But I believe it. And evangelical Christians believe it.”

And is this the kind of “caring” evangelicals are supposed to have towards Jewish people? It’s just one example of deeply institutionalized Christian anti-semitism.

I have some hardcore Pentecostalists in my extended family. They’re not bad people. They “care”. But their ideas about how the world should be run are completely insane and I’m terrified about what would happen if they ever got more power. They repeat these things about Israel they hear in church with a weird gleam in their eye, as if they were anticipating a particularly exciting season finale of Battlestar Galactica.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 6:30 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

@Matt
The theme of this thread is (Latoya please correct me if I am wrong) “Why don’t we talk about Palestine/Israel around here?” People, including me, have answered that question in various ways.

But you haven’t done that.

Instead you have modeled the exact behavior that so many posters here have said is the reason this conversation never gets off the ground at Racialicious (or anywhere). So instead of getting drawn into a corner with you (again) I’ll quote the academic (and founder of the Arab American Institute) James Zogby from his recent Washington Watch column. He answers Latoya’s question succinctly:

“As in past Mideast conflicts, both the media story line and political commentary here in the U.S. has closely followed Israel’s talking points on the war. This has been an essential component in Israel’s early success and in its ability to prolong fighting without U.S. pushback. Because it recognizes the importance of the propaganda war, Israel fights on this front as vigorously and disproportionately as it engages on the battlefield.

Here’s how they have done it:

1) Define the terms of debate, and you win the debate. Early on, the Israelis work to define the context, the starting point, and the story line that will shape understanding of the war. In this instance, for example, they succeeded by constant repetition, in establishing the notion that the starting point of the conflict was December 19th, the end of the six-month ceasefire (which Israel described as “unilaterally ended by Hamas”). In doing so, they ignored, of course, their own early November violations, and their failure to honor
their commitment in the ceasefire to open Gaza’s borders. They also ignored their having reduced Gaza into a dependency, a process which began long before and continued after their withdrawal in 2005. Because they know that most Americans do not closely follow the conflict and are inclined to believe, as the line goes, “what they hear over and over again,” this tactic of preemptive definition and repetition succeeds.

2) Recognize that stereotypes work. Because, for generations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been
defined with positive cultural images of Israel and negative stereotypes of Palestinians, Israel’s
propagandists have an advantage here that is easy to exploit. Because the story has long been seen as
“Israeli humanity confronting the Palestinian problem,” media coverage of any conflict begins with how “the problem” is affecting the Israeli people. As Golda Meir once put it, “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children, but we can never forgive them for making us kill their children.” And so, it was not surprising that, despite the disproportionate suffering of the Palestinians, media coverage attempted to “balance” the story,
giving an extensive treatment, with photos of anguished and fearful Israelis and the impact the war was having on them. Early on, when media treatment mattered most, Palestinians were reduced, as always, to mere numbers or objectified as “collateral damage.”

3) Anticipate and count on your opponent’s blunders. Hamas’ stupidity played into Israel’s strategy. From the outset, Israel could count on the fact that Hamas would launch rockets and issue the kind of threats that Israel could then parley into sympathy in the West. Knowing that these would most certainly come, and could be exploited, was an advantage in their propaganda war.

4) Be everywhere, and say the same thing —and make sure your opponents remain as invisible as possible. Israel begins each war with a host of English-speaking spokespersons (many born in the West) available at any time for every media outlet (it’s no accident, for example, that Israel has an “Arab” Consul General in Atlanta – that’s where CNN is). The work of their propaganda operation, which spreads multiple spokespersons in venues across the United States with consistent talking points, guarantees success. At the same time, they are able to deny media access to Gaza, only allowing the Western reporters to operate near the war zone under IDF supervision, guaranteeing Israel the opportunity to shape every aspect of the story
while removing the possibility of independent verification of the horror unfolding in Gaza.

5) Give no ground. Since half of the story will be determined by what political leaders say and do, the political apparatus in Washington is also pressed into service, ensuring that White House and Congressional leadership will “toe the line.” Statements issued by Congress, therefore, reflect the talking points and, together, the Israeli spokespersons, the political commentators, and the Congressional statements serve as echoes of one another.

6) Deny, deny, deny. When events and reality break through, contradicting the Israeli-established narrative, creating stories that run counter to the imposed story line, the propaganda machine works overtime to deny, deny, deny (saying quite boldly, “Who do you believe, me or your lying eyes?”), and/or concoct a counter-narrative that shifts the blame (“We didn’t do it, they made us”). In this instance, that means asserting that the death of Palestinian civilians is always the fault of someone else, or that reporters or their opponents are staging the photos of grief (as if to say, “Arabs don’t really grieve like we do”).

7) The last refuge…. When all else fails, point to a few examples of outrageous anti-Semitism, generalize them, suggesting that that is what motivates critics. It stings, and may be over-used, but it can silence or put critics on the defensive.”

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 6:51 pm ¶
Evan Carden wrote:

In reading the responses (through 101), I was struck by the fact that all refrences to anti-semitism come in exactly two flavors: a general discussion of anti-semitism, usually with a disclaimer that criticizing Israel doesn’t equal anti-semitism, or discussion about how if you bring up any anti-Israel position, you’ll be immediately villified as anti-semitic and those evil zionists will threaten your job and maybe your life.

There are no actual accusations of anti-semitism, not in more than a hundred responses.

Interesting.

In reading several blogs that specifically talked about this, I’ve seen exactly one accusation of anti-semitism and about three hundred warnings that the accusation is coming.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 6:55 pm ¶
Sobia wrote:

@Joseph:
cosign

@Evan:

I think a lot people who commented here were thinking of a non-Racialicious context – about the conversation outside of this particular circle.

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 11:33 pm ¶
helen wrote:

i knew that the slant on here would be against israel.
as much as this site identifies itself as such, it is not a fair and open-minded thing.

israel is a “minority interest” is it. firstly, it is the interest of all the jews in the world. i know even that number is minor to you all. but you know what, it would have been at least 5.5 million more, plus their descentdents, if it were not for the holocaust. then perhaps you wouldnt think of israel as minor.

the god that the christians look up to is jewish. thats over 2 billion people who follow the first testament. that doesnt sound minor to me. (oh i know many of you like to forget this. me, i’m proud of it. christ was a good man. i dont think he would not be happy about these comments.)

let me tell you something else about this “minor interest.” this group has made a lot of contributions. a lot. very, very far from minor.

and when the time comes that they start killing jews again in my hometown, or yours, there has to be a place where we can run. World War 2 told us, we cant count on any country for safety. at least now, until it gets destroyed, israel will take us.

the head of iran wants to demolish israel. he says there was no holocaust. not one of you. not one thought of mentioning that. i guess it was so long ago, it doesnt matter. sixty years ago, they tried to demolish this group of people. and they came close.

oh, ms peterson, how about i start saying that there was no slavery. i say it didnt exist. i say blacks made it up just to get sympathy for their group. you are the editor of this site.

if palistinians are people of color, so are israelis. do you think the sun avoids hitting the israelis?

ms peterson, as the editor of this blog, i think you have an obligation to make sure it is unbalanced. i dont think youre doing that.

most of these comments are anti israel. i hope you dont find an excuse not to post this one.

Mod Note – (1) When did anyone deny the holocaust happened? I don’t see that anywhere on this thread, nor are we discussing anything about Iran. Talk about a strawman. (2) We’ve already published two essays exploring the intersection of Jewish identity and a person of color identity – you need to read up before you start throwing stones. A large part of the conversation that happens here about Jewish & Muslim identity is about the complexity between white and non white identities of both Jews and Muslims. (3) I don’t really give a fuck what people like you think I am doing with the site I run because you didn’t bother to address the post. I don’t care what dissenting opinions pop up as long as they are thoughtful and contribute to the overall conversation. Yours falls far short.

I am posting this to provide a bit of contrast to the conversations that happen. Readers, some of you may be frustrated with others on the page, but please note, I only allow through people who genuinely want to engage with the topic. As for you , Helen, don’t bother posting here again. Further comments will be deleted. – Latoya

Posted 14 Jan 2009 at 11:54 pm ¶
eddie p wrote:

History moves on. U.S. holocaust sympathy for Israel and the underlying military/ strategic support is ties to the babyboomers, and their days are numbered.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 12:24 am ¶
Ashram Goyaziz wrote:

Not a dispute between muslims and jews? I think you’re patently wrong.

I watched the Vancouver Gaza protest march by me, there were signs with swastikas on them and they clearly equated the star of david (not the flag of Israel but a black star of david) with a Nazi swastika (rotated 45 degrees). I’m sorry but if this was about Israel it would’ve been done right (with the stripes and in blue), instead this was saying Jews are Nazis.

Don’t act like the protesters are all saints, don’t pretend that this situation is anything less than complicated.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 12:39 am ¶
Asha wrote:

I’m a little late on this conversation, but I wanted to put my two cents in. I studied the conflict in depth in graduate school, from its beginnings with the first wave of Eastern European settlers sometime around the turn of the century, if I remember correctly, until now. I don’t comment on it, partly because last time I did I got into an argument with someone who was very pro-Israel (after going on a birthright trip) about whether a two-state solution is actually viable, and partly because the history is so deep and complicated that I don’t really see a solution.

To me, it seems like the pro-Israel position of the US (and someone feel free to correct me) is a relatively recent thing, like in the last 10 or 20 years. From 1955 to 1981, the UN Security Council passed almost 70 resolutions condemning or deploring Israel’s use of force against its various neighbors and the Palestinians. It also refused to recognize the outcome of the 1967 war. This is not to say that the Security Council is the same as US policy, but it does say something that the US didn’t veto any of these resolutions.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 12:57 am ¶
Rchoudh wrote:

@ Jess

I would like to know if Germany ever did offer up a piece of its territory or not. I always wondered whether only various other parts of the world other than Europe were offered up as pieces of territories to the Jews. Besides the places you mentioned I am also aware of India volutantarily offering up a piece of territory as well Argentina. If you know whether any part of Europe was ever offered as territory I would appreciate it if you’d let me know.

I understand that the Zionists ultimately chose Palestine as a homeland but I also believe that they took into consideration various factors such as the population of the Gentiles among whom they would be living with as well as how politically and economically viable these populations were (in other words if these populations were to later resist the Jewish resettlement upon their land how powerful would they be in resisting it). Finally I also believe that there was an assumption floating around between the Zionists and colonialists that the Palestinians would give up resisting and eventually abandon Palestine and resettle themselves within the surrounding Arab states.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 1:00 am ¶
Evan Carden wrote:

@ Sobia

Uh, so was I. That was why I began the conversation examining these comments, but since I’m not sure what the mods policy is, I also included my experience on sites where I know such accusations would be permitted.

Of course the plural of anecdote is not data, but I’m getting a little tired of hearing about how this conversation is shut down via accusations of anti-semitism when I rarely, if ever see actual accusations of anti-semitism and when I do, it tends to come from people so batshit insane that I have a hard time believing anyone takes them seriously.

So, I’m really asking, to those of you who assert that someone will accuse you of anti-semitism if you criticize Israel and thereby shut down a conversation, can you give me some examples? Not just of the accusation, but someplace where it stopped/derailed the conversation?

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 1:21 am ¶
Jo Parks wrote:

You don’t hear about it because the Israel lobby is one of the most powerful lobbies in the US- if you say anything against Israel you’re branded anti-semitic even though Israel continues to settle illegally on Palestinian territory and enacts an embargo that leaves many Palestinians without access to clean water, medicine and food. The UN is useless because Israel ignores them – the only country Israel pays attention to is the US because this is who is supplying them with the arms they’re using to murder Palestinians. Israel might have somebody’s God on their side but that land is legally Palestinian. Israel say Hamas is the reason for their air attacks but there is also an election coming up in Israel and the ruling party’s popularity has gone from ‘rock bottom’ to ‘through the roof’ since this attack began. The sad thing about terrorist attacks by Hamas is that this is the only thing that keeps the suffering of Palestinians in the news.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 2:54 am ¶
Jess wrote:

@Asha–

The position of the US (as opposed to the UN) was relatively neutral towards Israel until about 1967. Prior to that, American policymakers didn’t think much about Israel per se. The big crisis in the area pre-1967 was the Suez, which had little to do with Israel directly.

You have to remember that support for Israel had nothing to do with Jews per se and everything to do with the Cold War. The US was ambivalent about aid to Israel for 20 years until the Israeli military proved itself useful in 1967.

Before that, it was a tossup between Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia (which still gets a lot of support and aid) and Lebanon, to counter what was seen as Soviet influence through Syria. But such alliances tended to shift– Egypt, for instance, went back and forth.

After 1967, when it was clear the Israeli military was going to be the major power in the region, the US decided to start really pouring on the aid.

For everyone here who wants to understand the way “Israel lobbies” work, I suggest a couple of things that might help.

Juan Cole has a great piece on it at JuanCole.com.

Then there’s the book “The Holocaust and Collective Memory” as well as “The Holocaust Industry” — both are good companions to each other, though Finkelstein (who wrote the latter) is a bit overblown.

Couple those with “It Ain’t Necessarily So” by Matthew Sturgis. He has a fascinating section on the biological relationship between Jews and Palestinians — it’s closer than either side will ever admit.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 8:18 am ¶
Sobia wrote:

@Evan:

I already gave an example where a professor I know received death threats as well as came very close to losing her job.

Jimmy Carter got labeled an anti-Semite for writing about Israeli apartheid – a concept many Jews in Israel even acknowledge.

John J. Mearsheimer (author of The Israel Lobby) has been labeled a self-hating Jew.

David Horowitz published a book a couple of years ago identifying 101 “dangerous” left-wing professors in the US, included in those Muslim professors as well as those who were pro-Palestine. (http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/02/leftwing_profes.html)

I have heard from countless academics that they cannot criticize Israel because they risk either being fired or reprimanded.

And check out Helen’s outrageous and delusional comment above.

Things are starting to change a little but not enough. When you can end up in a book labeling you a danger to your country because you hold such views then you have to tread carefully.

Just a general note: I am not sure if it is possible to be anti-oppression and blame the Palestinians the just as much as the Israelis. Palestinians are the oppressed, Israel the oppressor. And this oppression is decades old. To blame Palestinians the same would be like blaming North America’s indigenous people as much as their European colonizers because they fought back when the European colonizers came over and tried to kill them off.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 9:44 am ¶
jen* wrote:

“ms peterson, as the editor of this blog, i think you have an obligation to make sure it is unbalanced. i dont think youre doing that.”

Latoya – I just wanted to quote Helen and actually *mean* what she wrote. Thanks!

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 10:40 am ¶
Matt wrote:

John J. Mearsheimer (author of The Israel Lobby) has been labeled a self-hating Jew.

Huh? I’ve never seen him labeled a Jew.

Latoya, this thread is officially dead. Whatever your intentions, it seems all anybody got out of the article is that powerful Jews silence debate.

And the idea that maybe Jews have a right to talk about antisemitism? Attacked constantly here.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 10:44 am ¶
Evan Carden wrote:

@ Sobia, Um, yes. I’m sure those instances are all examples of people being called anti-semitic, but not ones where it has stiffled debate. You’ve heard about all the examples above and so have I. Has Carter stopped making his case because he was accused of anti-semitism? What about Horowitz? Mearsheimer?

Sidenote: Mearsheimer, as far as I can tell is in fact Catholic, which makes anyone calling him a “self hating Jew” someone who did not do the research.

Yes, I acknowledged instances like Helen with my my “batshit insane” comment above. However, how has it stiffled debate? Moreover, please note, for all the accusations/strawmen/general craziness, there’s no mention of anti-semitism.

I’m sorry that your professors feel they can’t criticize Israel without being punished, but how do they know that’s the case? And what field are they in that criticizing Israel would be relevant (I’m assuming you’re talking about in the classroom, since out-of-school behavior is no one’s business but there’s)?

I guess my problem is that, to me, what this sounds like, a lot of the time (less so here because we’re mostly discussing why we don’t comment on this, which because I patently do, shameless plug: http://ecarden.blogspot.com/search/label/Israel I haven’t addressed) this sort of thing feels to me like a variation on saying: “Look out, he’s going to play the race card!”

@ Matt, no offense man, but seeing as how we’re having a perfectly civil disagreement, would you mind not declaring the conversation “dead”

I can’t talk for anyone else, but the reason I comment less frequently on this than you might expect is that I’ve never, not in multiple years of making and watching arguments about this seen anyone change anyone else’s mind. That’s not a realistic goal, but changing the way we talk about this so that we include more people, especially the undecided people and so we don’t drive away people on the “other side” who are interested in having an actual conversation. It’s less fun than righteous rage, but more productive.

@ Sobia, final note, please don’t tell me what it’s possible for me to be based on my support for the state of Israel. I also support the United States, that doesn’t make me pro-oppression because of our history with Native Americans/slavery/Jim Crow or pro-Wars-of-choice because of Iraq. It is possible to support a nation, but not agree with all its actions. It’s also possible to support the lesser of two evils and still be both anti-oppression and a liberal.

That wasn’t quite on the point of your response, but I found I couldn’t write a direct response without getting into a discussion of the history, and this isn’t really the place for that.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 12:38 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

@ Matt, no offense man, but seeing as how we’re having a perfectly civil disagreement, would you mind not declaring the conversation “dead”

From where I sit, it’s not civil at all. It’s filled with claims of Jewish power and insistence that Jews not be allowed to talk about antisemitism.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 1:37 pm ¶
Evan Carden wrote:

@ Matt, I don’t see anyone insisting that Jews can’t talk about anti-semitism anymore than I see anyone being accused of anti-semitism. Can you point out the comments I’m missing?

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 2:40 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

@Matt
You are giving yourself a lot of credit for being “powerful” enough to kill this thread. Although I think at this point it is perfectly clear that was your intention.

Again: the point of the thread was not to endlessly debate the pros and cons of Israel but to ask a more subtle question–What keeps this important debate a nonstarter on this blog. Everyone, except you and a notable few, have attempted to answer that from their position as members of this community. I appreciated hearing these comments even when I didn’t agree with them because they help me to understand how things that are important to me fit (or don’t) into the Racialicious community.

But based on the pattern of your posts you don’t really care about this community. You drop in and demand to frame the debate and when your bullying is resisted you stamp your feet and storm off. That is troll behavior. Given the parameters laid out by Latoya in her initial post this thread has been really successful. 121 (so far) posts on a topic that touches on Palestine/Israel is unprecedented in my experience. I hope it means we will be opening up the issue again. But either way you do not have the power to dominate this discourse.

@Evan Carden
Please refer to Latoya’s original post. If the thread is premised on asking the community a question then there are no “wrong” answers. If one of the reasons people hesitate to post is fear of being labeled “anti-semitic” then it is within the theme of the thread for them to say so. It is not an uncommon response here for someone to express an initial fear of being perceived racist/ethnocentric/sexist/etc. as a reason not to comment. That phenomenon, NOT actual accusations of anti-Jewish sentiment, is what is being discussed here. So your demands for examples are inappropriate and derailing. (Of course there have been such accusation made during this thread anyway. See: Matt #102, Helen #108, Ashram #110 for e.g.)

Also: I don’t know whether your affectation of writing “Um…” is intended to be patronizing or not, but it is. Especially when employed in conversation with valued poster like Sobia. I know you are young but that is no excuse. Mind your manners.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 4:44 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@All –

Everyone back away from the keyboard, this is starting to get a bit too heated.

The ultimate point of this thread for me was to figure out why Israel/Palestine threads had few respondents, if anyone. The fact that so many of you felt confident enough to participate is heartening, and I appreciate everyone who took the time to lodge an on-topic informed opinion.

Joe is right, I did just ask for opinions, because this thread is ultimately going to shape how I discuss the issue from now on.

Are some opinions kind of fucked up? Yes, undoubtedly. But take a look at the wars happening on other threads. Considering what I was expecting, this is mild.

And the discussion about silencing is a valid one, but here at least, I can promise you that the only person who has the power to shut down a thread is me. And since we get hate emails everyday, throwing a few more on to the pile isn’t going to make much difference.

A final note – please remember that this is a place for *discussion* more than anything else. I don’t ask for much beyond the fact that you remain on topic and respectful. The subjects we talk about here are very personal and touch on very deep feelings of identity so I understand a lot of reactions.

But I also need people to remember the reason for this space. It isn’t for everyone to agree. It is for people to have space to discuss. Even if it gets uncomfortable sometimes.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 5:05 pm ¶
Evan Carden wrote:

I apologize if I offended anyone.

However, I remain unclear on where I have not minded my manners. Is it simply the fact that I prefaced my comments with ‘um’ that is bothering you?

It wasn’t my intent to “demand” examples, merely to make it clear that I wasn’t asking a rhetorical question, I was hoping for an answer, which I was given.

My assumption that the point of the discussion was not merely to list reasons this topic is uncomfortable, but to examine them. As I appear to have been wrong, I apologize.

Mod Note – No, we can examine too – I think most of the fire is out on this thread anyway. Just try to keep it cool, things are easily misinterpreted on the internet. – LDP

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 5:32 pm ¶
Sobia wrote:

Just one more point Latoya…sorry to keep this going but I just need to clarify.

@ Evan:
“please don’t tell me what it’s possible for me to be based on my support for the state of Israel.”

You need to re-read my post. I didn’t say anything like that.

Re: Mearsheimer

My bad…I had read that somewhere else. I should have double checked it.

Though I have thought of other examples but will leave them for now.

@ Joseph
Thank you Those ‘Ums’ were really grating on my nerves but I just didn’t know how to address it.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 5:36 pm ¶
Evan Carden wrote:

@Sobia, you’re right. I misread your comment and I’m sorry.

@Joeseph In my first comment, I mentioned I’d only read to 101. But having looked at 102, 108 and 110 I see plenty in each of those comments which might derail a conversation, but I don’t see any accusation of anti-semitism. Or at least not towards anyone in this discussion.

Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 6:12 pm ¶
Ilana wrote:

Latoya, I commend you for writing this. Racialicious talks about Israel and Jews so infrequently that it’s nice to get some coverage at all. (By the way, I don’t mean that as a criticism of the blog, of which I’ve been a reader for several years now. Just stating my observation.)

I tried to get through all the comments, so as to be informed, but I made it only partway down the page.

Like many Jews, I have a deeply conflicted view of the situation, and my ties to Israel and strong and lie close to the bone. I have visited my family there several times. My family are not middle eastern, we are ashkenazim. So technically, we are not “native” to the land. But it is all we have. When my relatives fled Europe, they had two choices: Israel or America.

It pains me deeply to see the suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of the IDF. But what pains me more is the apathy of the Arab world to the plight of the Palestinians, unless (like Iran, who backs Hamas) it is convenient for them: by supporting Palestine they can decimate Israel.

I live in Toronto, and wake up every morning to newspapers where every article on the situation is biased toward Palestine. On the rare occasion that some brave columnist writes a piece that takes into account Israel’s viewpoint, they are subsequently decried the next day, for supporting the “New Nazis”.

Thank you for your brave coverage. It is more impartial than much of what I’ve seen.
All I can do is pray for peace. For all of us, Jewish and Muslim alike.

Posted 16 Jan 2009 at 12:45 am ¶
Free wrote:

I know that I’m coming to the discussion late, but I really had to think about my response because some of the comments were really pissing me off – and they still do. So this is my best effort at self-censorship.

1) So you don’t care about who started it and say it doesn’t matter and that each side equally wrong.
– To say that ignores and lets Israel off-the-hook for the crime of Ethnic Cleansing. Do you know about Theodore Herzel or David Ben-Guirion (who was a monster)? Have you read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe? I have to wonder because your position is breathtakingly callous and ignorant. To say that it doesn’t matter is to dismiss the pain and hardship and Palestinians. History matters.

2) The, I feel uncomfortable discussing the issue.
– I receive emails from my girlfriend is keeping me informed of events in Gaza City. Last week, a bomb fell near her sister’s home and blew out the doors and shattered all the windows. Thank goodness no one was killed or injured. Just two days ago, they were hiding in their basement from the IDF and begging the UN to help them. But the UN couldn’t come. They found a way out and are now at a relatives home and I hope they will remain safe. My friend is frightened and has trouble sleeping, eating, working – living her life. Imagine what her family must feel. Your discomfort seems self-indulgent and is like a puff of wind in comparison.

I am ready and willing to discuss this issue with anyone. But I will not accept the dismissal of history and the glossing over of Ethnic Cleansing.

Posted 16 Jan 2009 at 5:27 pm ¶
Jess wrote:

@Rchoudh–

sorry, i am a bit late. To answer your query, lots of places were offered up to Jews to settle in at various times. The problem was the one I mentioned — it just ain’t the same.

The Germans never formally offered a piece of land, no. The original are of Jewish settlement in Europe was largely in Poland (and after WW II would have ended up divided between Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia, and Czechoslovakia). But even that was because the Western Europeans had kicked us out three hundred years prior.

The idea that the Palestinian Arab population would resettle elsewhere was on and off for a long time. Some people had the idea of putting them in reservation-like areas, some thought to just push them out to Jordan/Iraq/Lebanon/Syria/Egypt. Some thought they should be allowed to live in Israel as second class citizens. And a small minority thought they should be allowed to live there as full citizens (the old Israeli Communist Party took that position, IIRC).

But who was thinking what when changed year by year, and that depended on political alliances and objectives that had little to do with the Palestinians a lot of the time.

Anyhow, you have to remember, the whole point of Zionism isn’t to get land (Stalin offered that). It’s to get a specific piece of land. Just like the Serbs or Croats wouldn’t have liked getting resettled, nor did the minorities in Russia who were resettled on land that one could argue was better (Stalin tried to make that case) — people want to go where they feel their ancient connections even if it isn’t necessarily so. Often such mythologies are relatively harmless, and just as often they aren’t.

After all, the Palestinians are there precisely because they don’t want to move — and shouldn’t be asked to.

Posted 16 Jan 2009 at 7:35 pm ¶
Tarik wrote:

I would say that this has been a really successful thread for the reasons noted above. Its also interesting for me to read opinions and thoughts about the issue from a lot of obviously very intelligent folks.

I did want to say this to you Matt. And don’t take this personally because its certainly not meant to be: I would suggest that a reason a lot of people don’t like to talk about this issue is, frankly, because of behavior like yours.

You had a lot of interesting things to say in this thread and I have read interesting things you have said in other threads before as well. But when you try and demagogue the discussion through a mix of self-pity and attempts to frame reactions here as some sort of attack on jews or “jews’ right to talk about anti-semitism”, its a big turn off, and comes across as being not genuine and frankly just plain lame. No one likes to be on the receiving end of innuendos or suggestions that they are anti-jewish or anti-anyone, and that is exactly what you were trying to do in your last few posts here, and you know it.

Like I said, this isn’t meant to be a personal attack on you. You’re probably a pretty nice guy and you are obviously quite intelligent. But when you try and color other people as anti-jewish through veiled innuendos, you should expect to be called out on it.

Posted 17 Jan 2009 at 2:53 pm ¶
Shalom wrote:

Ilana, I read your comment and feel exactly the same way.

Latoya, thanks for posting this. The comments don’t all directly address the question you intended but I believe it’s still beneficial to have a place to comment and read up on other’s viewpoints (although I didn’t manage to get through all the comments either!)

I think it’s incredibly important to question groups that have a strong influence in US politics. That being said, the fact that it was even implied that Jewish people have a large control over the US media disgusts me.

I’ve made a concerted effort to read the news from many sources so that, as a Jew, I stay informed and keep my natural defensiveness for Israel in check. I’m sure there are many news sources I haven’t accessed but I am incredibly surprised to read that so many people think Israel is not criticized enough in the media. From what I’ve read it seems that the number Israeli deaths are just not mentioned in MANY articles. In this current situation, many more Palestinians have died but that is no reason to not include the number of Israelis that have also died.

The most noticeable bias I’ve seen in the headlines has been the exclusion of the fact that Hamas had been sending rockets into Israel, BEFORE Israel attacked (in defense.) This makes me question the argument being made that the media always sides with Israel.

I’ll just leave it at that for now.

I do hope to read more racialicious pieces on this conflict as well as more looking at anti-semitism. The coverage on Islam and how Muslims are portrayed in the media is fantastic but a more balanced representation would be appreciated.

Posted 17 Jan 2009 at 5:54 pm ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:

I am really late to this post, but I am VERY impressed by the majority of the comments here.

As a person who was raised to love Israel based on biblical teaching, I changed my view point in the 1990s working with the Irish Republican movement who had ties with the Palestinians. FYI, Palestinians, internationally, have very close ties with all sorts of PoC movements.

As to the crux of the question of this post, I dont talk about it too much, but sometimes for different reasons.

Fear of being labeled an anti-Semite is one, although I have Jewish ancestry myself. Matt gave us the perfect example of why I avoid this subject, especially around people I dont know.

Another reason is that so many people have strong opinions on the subject, yet dont even have a basic understanding of the history or the politics of the area. I remember getting into one such debate years ago with a couple of Americans who were very pro Israel, but couldnt name the current Israeli leader, didnt know anything about 1948, 1967, the invasion of Lebanon. They didnt even know the name of the Israeli lawmaking body, yet they were willing to get very passionate about the subject.

How do you talk about an issues when so many of it’s partisans, on both sides, dont have a rational point of view or the knowledge to be able to discuss the issue in the first place.

Online it is usually a joke because it turns into an instant flame war.

Again, I am very impressed with the over all tone on this post. It is probably the best post and comments I have seen on this subject in 12 years of internet debate I have had on the subject.

PS.

@Joseph, cosign everything you said. You are obviously a vetern at these discussions and know your stuff.

Posted 18 Jan 2009 at 1:23 am ¶
Dana wrote:

This is a very interesting discussion. I’ve wondered in the past if part of issue in the US with understanding or sympathizing with Palestinian justice claims is in part due to the perception that Israelis are ‘white’ and European and modern like us, while Palestinians are ‘brown’, (perceived) Muslim and other.
Any thoughts on this?

Posted 18 Jan 2009 at 8:24 am ¶
Angela wrote:

@Joseph
Cosign.

@Dana.
Those are my thoughts. I believe that this is a large part of the story. That and the original sin idea at the beginning of this thread. I have quickly read through many of the posts and wanted to also comment on the lack of discussion on places like the Congo and Darfur. Our “modern” society has been living with the “white” narrative for too long. Israel is a colony and the US and many other European nations, who helped to create this colony are aligned with the colonists. What is happening in Congo, Dafur, Sri-Lanka etc. is happening to brown people by other brown people (at least that is the way it is portrayed) and therefore isn’t at the center of media discussion unless it is to point out how backwards the “brown” people are.

It doesn’t matter how complex the “racial” makeup is of the actual people. We live in a soundbite media that isn’t into introspection or deep analysis. Of course, history is always important but it is full of all the wrongs which are often ugly and inconvenient to national interests. Many people have no knowledge of the history of this place let alone other parts of the world.

These narratives will play out that way until POC decide to stop seeing themselves as so different and unite under this flag and begin putting out much more visual content that tells our stories or narrative in a way that isn’t the traditional “the one who overcame it all” narrative. Unity is what makes “whiteness” so powerful and the creation of “whiteness” is probably the most destructive idea to ever take hold.

Posted 18 Jan 2009 at 6:09 pm ¶
Rchoudh wrote:

Sorry for being late to this also.

@Jess

Ok thank you for clearing that up about Jewish resettlement plans in different lands.

@dana

I agree with your comment because it is a valid if often unspoken one. I do believe there is a distinction made in America between the two groups based on how familiar they are or aren’t. In an earlier post Jess had already explained about how Jews have been living in the US longer than Palestinians and are more well established. Judaism as a religion is more familiar to Americans and Joseph mentioned about why American Christians generally support Israel because they view it as a biblical state. Finally people often assume Jews are stereotypically all white and of European extraction, based on encountering more Jews of this background here than non white Jews.
In comparison, Americans have generally not been familiar wth Islam and Muslims. Now due to war on terror alot of negative misconceptions have arisen demonizing Islam.
And you’re right alot of Americans stereotypically assume all Muslims look “brown” including Palestinians (speaking of I remember reading about how actress Natalie Portman once wrote to Harvard’s newsletter stating that it was wrong to characterize all Palestinians as looking brown since alot of them are oftentimes indistinguishable from Israelis). Also Muslims are a smaller minority in America than Jews, and most Muslim populations here are situated in major cities, thus contributing to the unfamiliarity.

@LP

I forgot to thank you earlier for all your time and effort to write and research this post. It is well appreciated and through it I learned something new (the concept of original sin).

Posted 18 Jan 2009 at 10:35 pm ¶
Rchoudh wrote:

One other thing I’d like to add is the Hollywood factor. Jack Shaheen, in his book “Reel Bad Arabs”, reveals how Hollywood portrayed Arabs (which is conflated with Muslims) to be. In his words, Arabs/Muslims were either predominantly bomber terrorists or billionaire sheikhs. Women were portrayed, especially in older Hollywood films, as bellydancers. Nowadays Arab/Muslim women are often portrayed as what I like to call burqa clad background characters (Jim Carrey’s latest flick has such a character).

In contrast to this Jewish characters in Hollywood flicks do not always have to deal with their ethnic/religious identity exclusively defining them unless it was necessary. Thus you have a whole range of characters, from the Jewish survivor of the Holocaust to the brother/sister characters in Friends, whose Jewish identity was just acknowledged not made to define and stereoytpe the characters.

All of this combined can be used to explain why a certain number of Americans support Israel and/or feel more familiar to it than to Palestinians.

Posted 18 Jan 2009 at 11:19 pm ¶
Random Thought wrote:

In the 60s-70s, Palestinian guerrilla groups showed solidarity with the Black Panthers … they trained some of them. See Turki, Fawaz “The Disinherited.”

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 7:27 pm ¶

The IFC Media Project: Digging for the Truth About Israel/Palestine

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