Madison Rafah Journal

Success in the Irish talks was the result not just of determination and time, but also a very different United States approach to diplomacy.

ALI ABUNIMAH, The New York Times, August 28, 2010

Chicago

GEORGE J. MITCHELL, the United States Middle East envoy, tried to counter low expectations for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations by harking back to his experience as a mediator in Northern Ireland.

At an Aug. 20 news conference with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, announcing the talks that will begin this week, Mr. Mitchell reminded journalists that during difficult negotiations in Northern Ireland, “We had about 700 days of failure and one day of success” — the day in 1998 that the Belfast Agreement instituting power-sharing between pro-British unionists and Irish nationalists was signed.

Mr. Mitchell’s comparison is misleading at best. Success in the Irish talks was the result not just of determination and time, but also a very different United States approach to diplomacy.

The conflict in Northern Ireland had been intractable for decades. Unionists backed by the British government saw any political compromise with Irish nationalists as a danger, one that would lead to a united Ireland in which a Catholic majority would dominate minority Protestant unionists. The British government also refused to deal with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, despite its significant electoral mandate, because of its close ties to the Irish Republican Army, which had carried out violent acts in the United Kingdom.

(Read on …)

"O you who believe, stand up firmly for justice as witnesses to Almighty God." (Holy Qu'ran, al-Nisa "The Women" 4:135)

We bear witness to the absolute horror and tragedy of the Holocaust where over twelve million human souls perished, including six million Jews. We condemn any attempts to deny this historical reality and declare such denials or any justification of this tragedy as against the Islamic code of ethics. We condemn anti-Semitism in any form. No creation of Almighty God should face discrimination based on his or her faith or religious conviction.
Statement by American imams and Muslim leaders

Justin Elliott, Salon, Aug 23, 2010

Earlier this month eight American imams and Muslim leaders took a trip to the Dachau and Auschwitz concentration camps accompanied by the Obama Administration's envoy to combat anti-Semitism, Hannah Rosenthal, and its official representative to the Muslim world, Rashad Hussein. At the end of the emotional trip, the imams released a joint statement (.pdf) condemning Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism.

It all seemed like a perfectly good idea, which is why some were surprised that Abe Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League — which counts Holocaust education and battling anti-Semitisim as core missions — actually lobbied against the participation of U.S. officials in the trip.

(Read on …)

We should not forget that Gaza is another “democracy” in the Middle East: it was precisely because Hamas won free elections there in 2005 that both the Palestinian Authority and Israel reacted with such vehemence.

TONY JUDT, The New York Times, June 9, 2010

Intelligence Squared US, February 9, 2010

PRE-DEBATE VOTE:
FOR: 33% AGAINST: 42% UNDECIDED: 25%

POST-DEBATE VOTE:
FOR: 49% AGAINST: 47% UNDECIDED: 4%

Israel believes America's special relationship is vital. It is, certainly, to Israel. But what about for the US? Israel has no oil, enemies in many places, and a tendency to defy Washington when it perceives its own interests to be threatened, which is not infrequently.

In a zero sum Middle East, does America's coziness with Israel cost us in good will with Muslim world, including those oil-rich Arab states whose dollar holdings come back to the US in the form of investments and loans, which the US economy needs – especially now?

But there's an important connection between the US and Israel – that goes deeper than finance or energy convenience. It's a foundation of mutual loyalty and shared values – democracy being only the most obvious. There has also been a history of shared intelligence, military cooperation, and significant cross-fertilization of scientific knowledge. To sacrifice these connections to improve relations with the Arab world would be an act of betrayal — of an ally — and of what we say we stand for.

(Read on …)

Jewish Voice for Peace, 11 February 2010

Midnight arrests. Defamation of human rights organizations. Expulsion of journalists. Human rights demonstrations broken up with violence. Censored films. Confiscated laptops.

That's just a fraction of the reality on the ground in Israel/Palestine that stands in contrast to the official story about 'the only democracy in the Middle East.'

That's the story we hear when AIPAC tries to justify the billions of dollars in military aid Israel receives. That's the story many of us grew up with.

But something is happening in Israel. The success of the Palestinian nonviolent resistance movement has led to a crackdown on Palestinians and those who support them that is unlike anything we've seen before.

In fact, on a recent trip to Israel/Palestine, activists on the ground who we work with said they needed our help. They said: "Please help us get the word out. The crackdown is growing worse by the day, yet most of what happens is invisible to the media, policymakers, and individuals. We need you to make these stories visible so we can work together to stop what's happening."

That's why we're launching The Only Democracy? today. Jewish Voice for Peace members wanted there to be one place where anyone in the world who cares about the struggle for equality and democracy in Israel/Palestine could read about and support the true heroes of today. The recent attacks by the right-wing group Im Tirtzu on the New Israel Fund are merely the tip of the iceberg.

(Read on …)

Mr. Judt was a committed left-wing Zionist as a teenager. He spent summers in Israel on a kibbutz and was active in the Jewish youth movement. But he later soured on the Zionists’ utopian vision. As he recounts of the time he spent with young soldiers, “the insouciance with which they anticipated their future occupation and domination of Arab lands terrified me even then.”

Mr. Judt has been quoted frequently on the Palestine-Israel conflict, especially the US Israel lobby, in the Madison Rafah Journal.

PATRICIA COHEN, The New York Times, February 8, 2010

In one of the short personal reminiscences that the historian Tony Judt has been writing for The New York Review of Books he mentions that he was part of the “lucky generation” born in the affluent West after World War II, free to indulge in daydreams and passions.

Mr. Judt’s world, sadly, has contracted considerably. Now 62, he learned about 16 months ago that he has a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and since then he has lost the ability to move nearly every muscle in his body, including those that help him breathe and swallow. As he unsentimentally detailed in the first of these reminiscences published last month: “I cannot scratch an itch, adjust my spectacles, remove food particles from my teeth, or anything else that — as a moment’s reflection will confirm — we all do dozens of times a day.”

(Read on …)

On January 21, 2010 54 members of Congress sent a letter to President Obama calling for an end to the Gaza blockade by Israel and Egypt. You can thank Tammy Baldwin for signing this letter and supporting an end to the suffering in Gaza here.

Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss, February 4, 2010

Israel lobbyists are calling the 54 brave congresspeople who signed the letter to Obama against the Gaza blockade "the gang of 54," and trying to light a fire under em. One of them has cold feet. From Arutz Sheva wire:

(Read on …)