Community Alert! Supremacist program coming soon to Eugene. We have learned that a multi-media program over a year in the making with funding from the Israel Action Network (an organization formed to “counter assaults made on Israel’s legitimacy”) will be presented on February 6 at Temple Beth Israel. We have serious concerns about this. Here is the substance of their announcement: “The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Lane County created a multi-media presentation which has been developed over the last 18 months. The JCRC is a committee of the Jewish Federation of Lane County, and it supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state. The JCRC has for many years also supported a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This presentation is rich in content and thoughtful and humane in its approach to the conflict. It is being offered to churches and other community groups in 2014.” From exhaustive study of the history and key issues, Al-Nakba Awareness Project arrives at different envisioned pathways, hoping to secure freedom, justice and equality in the Holy Land - not simply “peace” at the cost of these other, fundamental objectives. Without these prerequisites, pacification might be possible by depleting and exhausting the Palestinian resistance but an honorable and enduring peace will elude the region. Toward the goal of peace based in equality and justice, we provide public education about Palestinian rights under international law, including truthful accounts of the history of the Israeli occupation of historic Palestine including forced expulsion of its indigenous population as documented by Israeli historians based on Israel’s declassified archives, the United Nations, the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, Palestinian records, international human rights monitoring organizations, and prominent Middle East correspondents such as Robert Fisk, David Hirst and Alan Hart. These expulsions have continued for 65 years and continue today. We have provided the community with over two dozen public events featuring films and outside speakers, some internationally known, both Jewish and non-Jewish (al-nakba-history/whoarewe/sponsoredevents.html). Our work has involved regular exchanges and debates with the main presenter and members of the Jewish Community Relations Council, in which we find that they consistently misrepresent many well-documented facts in their public statements and written information. We specifically differ from them by supporting the Palestinian-initiated international BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement and its goals including the right of return of the refugees, as well as a single, integrated democratic state. The latter appears to most observers to be the only viable solution given the current “facts on the ground” and the only solution that would meet the requirements of justice under international law. Their event announcement promises more of the same old same old. It declares Israel’s “right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state” despite its 20% Palestinian minority. When President Obama recited these same words, we emailed a question to him, “Mr. President, as a member of a 13% minority, how would you feel if foreign leaders referred to the United States as a “white country”? And democratic? Israel has no constitution, with over 50 laws that discriminate against its non-Jewish Israeli citizens (adalah.org/eng). It would be no exaggeration to compare this with a claim by pre-1960 Alabama to be a “white and democratic state.” Their announcement further declares support for a two-state solution, proposed in the Geneva Initiative long-negotiated with the unelected PA excluding the 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza, the refugees and the foreign diaspora, over 4 million of whom have UN-registered land claims against Israel whose rights would be ignored. This “solution” would establish a tiny, fragmented Palestinian Bantustan into which 6 million or more Palestinians would be squeezed, without sovereignty over its borders, airspace or water supply. It would deny the refugees’ right of return to their homeland and properties as required by international law, and allow Israel to continue its effective control of the entire area (al-nakba-history/solutions/peaceprocessproducts.html). Another tell-tale preview is their choice of the word “humane.” We speak of “humane” treatment of farm animals, “humane” treatment of prisoners, and the “Humane” Society for rescue and care of stray dogs and cats. We do not speak of “humane” relations with our next door neighbors or our brothers-in-law. It is not a word we use with social and political equals. “Humane” is not a substitute for justice. The Palestinian people demand justice and equality, and that is what we support. When advocating on behalf of an oppressed population, we must support what they want and deserve under law, not contrived pleasant-sounding substitutes and patronizing appeasement. We do not believe that this program will provide the public with honest knowledge or advance the goal of peace under justice and equality, and would like to be included to present alternative viewpoints in this or future presentations of this program. Since their program is not human rights-based, we hope that CALC (Community Alliance of Lane County) will decline to distribute public announcements of this and anticipated future repeats, and that our faith community and other organizations will decline to host or sponsor these events without including our counter-perspectives. The community needs to know that this program does not represent all American or International Jews. Other organizations such as Jews for Palestinian Right of Return hold views closely aligned with ours.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 08:10:33 +0000
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