This week’s postings@JfJfP.com


March 26, 2017
Sarah Benton

JFJFP-BANNERlong

At the end of this last week, 20th-26th March, 2017, we start with a new occasional feature – an interview with a JfJfP signatory. In such a way we a) accumulate a history of the group (though no two people remember the same events in the same way) and b) explore this particular way of being politically Jewish. First up is Ann Jungman, a founder signatory:
How I became a dissident Jew
We’ve posted the whole transcript which will pass into the archive. There is a shorter version – if you want a quick read contact postings@JfJfP.org.

This website, by definition, is against the position taken by Jewish establishments in the US and Europe. That establishment is increasingly functioning on a set of lies and delusions. Israel is occupying Palestinian land; martial law is governing Palestinians; if some Palestinians use violence it is because they are denied the right to self-determination. So why do they not speak out against this so damaging occupation?:
Jewish establishment can’t condemn occupation

The most shocking story about how the Israeli bureaucracy exercises its power over Palestinians is that of a boy with a heart defect who could not get a permit to keep his hospital appointment. He died. WHO pointed out that over half of the Palestinians who needed treatment by Israel’s better-endowed hospitals were denied permits:
Child dies for want of a permit

The Israeli human rights NGO Adalah published a list of their action priorities for 2017: forced displacement, discriminatory laws, ‘shoot to kill’ policy, education and employment gaps, shrinking civil society space. This is all the more important for activists outside Israel given the increasing squeeze that is being put on Israeli NGOs by the state:
Five campaigns for 2017

For strategic affairs minister Gilad Erdan, and many of his colleagues, the NGOs that support boycotting goods from settlements, or encourage foreigners to support BDS, are definitely enemies of the state. Foreigners who have shown any support for any form of BDS are already banned from entering Israel (their names have been put on a list for Erdan already). Now he wants a database of all Israeli sympathisers. And what will he do with this information?
Israel compiling massive database of every BDS supporter

The gulf between lay persons and authorities over BDS continues to reveal the special protection which western states offer Israel. The student council at Turin university had passed, by a large majority, a motion supporting the academic boycott of Israel. The conference they planned on this subject was banned by the university admin. In Switzerland a new law forbidding the government giving any money to any NGO which supported BDS was passed by the right wing majority in Switzerland’s parliament. There were vociferous protests:
More bans on BDS by big chiefs

These were reported on a new Twitter site, #bds fail. As ever with BDS, opponents are torn between saying the BDS campaign is nugatory and has failed already and that it is an existential threat to Israel and must be destroyed.

Omar Barghouti is the best-known advocate for the peaceful, but reputation-damaging tactic of BDS. There was much glee when it was discovered he had a [legal] tax-avoidance method. One could well understand why he might want to minimise the amount of money he gave the Israeli state to persecute Palestinians. Richard Silverstein has a different take – ‘every wealthy Israeli, and I mean virtually every one, has a tax avoidance strategy’.
Omar Barghouti is like every other Israeli

In another demonstration of how thoroughly Israel is losing its place among free and democratic societies is the decision to withhold the prestigious Israel prize from artist Yair Garbuz. He was nominated by three out of the four-person committee. It was referred to education minister Naftali Bennett, who refused to endorse the decision by the committee majority. Yair Garbuz became another enemy of the state when he gave a speech saying the country was being run by ‘handfuls’ of right-wing persons:
Critic of right-wing ‘handfuls’ denied Israel prize

Israel’s usp is that it is ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’. But, asks Joseph Levine, Jewish philosopher, can any state that is defined by ethnicity be democratic? Answer No. The citizens who are not Jewish will always be excluded:
An ethnic state cannot be democratic

No-one can argue that Israel’s military and discriminatory rule over Palestinians is with their consent. So it has to be enforced by violence. Israel’s spending on, and lucrative sales of, military ‘pacification’ techniques and weapons increased significantly last year. In the Daily Mail – ‘The increases have come despite, and perhaps partly aided by, Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestinian territory — with Israeli firms themselves highlighting that their products have been tested in conflict’:
Israel profits from more dangerous world

It is common amongst Israeli loyalists to cite Hamas as the obvious reason for backing Israel. This notion of Hamas obscures changes within Hamas. Its political leaders have managed to revise their charter and secure consent from enough of Gaza’s many factions. The enemy is no longer ‘the Jews’ but the occupiers. And other changes:
Hamas takes the antisemitism out of its charter

Yet Hamas remains far from the western fold. It retains, and uses, the death penalty. This used to be exclusively for ‘traitors’ (‘collaborators’ with Israeli intelligence). This last week it was used on drug-dealers. It would not be surprising if sedating/obliterating drugs were popular in Gaza’s urban areas:
Death penalty for drug dealers in Gaza

But here’s a turn-up for Gaza, where the news is usually distressing. Dance troupes, performing both ancient Middle Eastern dance and a little western, have been created in many urban centres, defying conventions about the wrongness of women ‘taking up public space’. There are male troupes as well – but that’s traditional. And other reasons for joining a dance troupe in Gaza are income and having something to do:
Women dancers take the lead

Pollsters aren’t the only ones who like to think that Jews constitute a discrete group with their own special agenda. Nonsense. Jews don’t have a set of values separate from the population at large. Hence the phenomenon of:
Jews for Trump

© Copyright JFJFP 2024