(Cecilie Surasky is the Communications Director for Jewish Voice for Peace and a New Voices fellow with the Academy of Educational Development.) (plus other recent articles from A JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE) It is my first morning at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India and I am at a workshop on Palestinian women and the occupation. In the audience is a woman who I first think might be Israeli. She could easily be one of my friends and I feel an immediate kinship with her. She tells me she is 34 and has lived her whole life in Gaza except for college. I ask her if I can interview her. She cautiously eyes my card, on which I have purposely written in thick, visible letters: Jewish Voice for Peace. “I don’t know, she says. “Do you support the occupation?” It seems such a surreal question. How could anyone support an occupation? The very word evokes domination, a kind of cruelty. No, I say, we want to end the occupation. We want a peace that is just. I ask about the checkpoints. She describes sitting in her car. The young Israeli soldiers are in sniper posts. You can’t see them, but they can see you, she explains. They signal it’s time to go by shooting their guns. She waits a long time until the soldiers yell, “OK, now the dogs can go!” You think, “Do I want to be called a dog, or do I just want to go?”, she tells me. “I don’t care, so I start my car and they yell ‘No! Not you, I said dogs!” So she turns her car off, and sometime later they say, “OK, now humans can go!”. She starts her car and they look at her and the others and say “No! I said humans.” And she turns her car off and waits until finally this category of Palestinian, neither human nor animal, is allowed to pass. “This,”she says,”is my only contact with Israelis.” And this, I think, is my first contact with someone from Gaza. The WSF and the new anti-Semitism The World Social Forum (WSF) is the populist answer to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Instead of a gathering of the world’s mostly wealthy, white, and male heads of state and captains of industry in Davos, the WSF is a cacophony of anti-globalization/human rights activists from all over the globe. The roughly 100,000 participants represent every imaginable cause –from Indian untouchables and Bhutanese refugees to child trafficking and sexual minorities. They are visible in the regular marches that seem to appear out of nowhere down the main thoroughfare, at the 500 information booths, in more than 1,000 workshops, and on the political posters filling every inch of available wall space. I have come because my New Voices human rights fellowship has decided to send the fellows to the WSF. But I have an additional reason for being here. The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) has cited the WSF as one of the centers of what it and others refer to as the “new anti-Semitism”, and these charges have been picked up by various journalists as evidence of a dangerous new trend on the left. Upon closer reading, most of these accounts make little if any distinction at all between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel, or even anti-Zionism. The SWC description of the “anti-Jewish” atmosphere at last year’s WSF in Brazil is one of these accounts. And yet, their description of the WSF is so disturbing, even frightening, that I am prepared to encounter at minimum silent hostility, and possibly even physical attacks from my fellow attendees. I have come to the WSF to be loudly and visibly Jewish, to make a presentation that deconstructs the theory that Jews single-handedly dictate U.S. policy in the Middle East, and to see for myself this purported new tidal wave of Jew-hatred from the rest of the global left. The conference is not what I expected It is therefore a bit surprising to find that the Israel-Palestine conflict and the occupation are not more prominently featured at the conference. Out of hundreds of ongoing marches, I witness only one small pro-Palestine march, which includes a prominent Israeli leftist marching in the front row. Out of about 500 information stalls, only two represent Palestinian human rights groups: PENGON, which is working to tear down the wall Israel is building through Palestinian land, and Al-Haq, which is launching a campaign identifying collective punishment as a war crime. Of the thousands of political posters, I see only one series, Al-Haq’s powerful posters on collective punishment, related to the issue. I attend most of the workshops I can find on the Israel-Palestine issue. What I also do not hear (or see) is anything I would consider anti-Semitic. In a global conference of 100,000 people, one expects to hear an enormous range of political perspectives, including the occasional extreme or intolerant remark. Given that I am prepared for the worst, I am shocked that the overwhelming majority of what is said in workshops is milder than the articles and essays one can read in Israeli newspapers on any given day. Two realities, one anti-Semitism industry After I return home, the Wiesenthal Center publishes an alarming piece entitled “Networking to Destroy Israel” in the Jerusalem Post. The article claims that this year’s WSF was “hijacked by anti-American and anti-Israeli forces” and leads me to wonder whether we attended the same conference. In this piece, and for the second year in a row, they strangely declare themselves the only Jewish NGO to attend the WSF.(I personally saw participants from Brit Tzedek and Yesh Gvul, to name just a few, and Jewish Voice for Peace is listed in the official program.) They go on to cite a litany of statements, including mine, as proof that the WSF is a place where people who want to destroy Israel meet to plot and recruit. Employing a form of twisted logic that would make Donald Rumsfeld proud, they essentially claim that absence of any blatant anti-Semitism is not proof that there was none, but merely an indication of a more sophisticated kind of anti-Zionism in which sympathetic Jews such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) play a starring roll. The account is so riddled with errors — I am misquoted, JVP is described as “campus-based”, all of my colleagues are given the wrong attributions, and quoted either inaccurately or out of context — that it is pointless to list them all. It contains bits of truth but strings together isolated statements to make them sound like a tidal wave of hatred at worst, part of what they call an “orchestrated” campaign to destroy Israel. All this begs the question of why a group such as the SWC would want to fuel hysteria about anti-Semitism in general, especially in regard to the left. The SWC has an important history of hunting down former Nazis, exposing the activities of neo-fascists and other right-wing hate groups, and fighting genuine anti-Semitism. But the SWC is like many other mainstream Jewish organizations in the United States that have expanded their mission from fighting the oppression of Jews by others to attempting to silence critics — including other Jews — of Israel’s human rights record. These organizations’ new role as arbiters of acceptable opinion –effectively protecting some Jews from the criticisms of other Jews and non-Jews — is a far cry from their proud past. In the strange parallel reality reflected by these organizations and in the SWC op-ed, the mere mention of the heartbreaking reality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians is proof of an insidious plan supported by other Jews to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. In their world, it is evidence of bias simply to point out causality — that groups like JVP or Al-Haq exist not because we are anti-Jewish or anti-Israel, but to end the injustices of Israel ‘s occupation and treatment of Arabs. To even the most casual observer, this is shocking for a community with a long tradition of protecting free speech, and an even longer tradition of embracing debate. It is also confounding given the now commonly held opinion in Israel and the U.S. that the occupation and militarization of Israeli culture is bad not just for Palestinians, but also for Israelis. More insidious, by fueling the fires of fear through hyperbolic statements, (an easy thing to do with a people with our history of suffering and persecution) these groups who say they represent all Jews play a critical role in giving the current Israeli government permission to violate virtually every moral and ethical standard central to the Jewish tradition in its effort to put down the Palestinians. They make peace ever more distant by perpetuating the myth that Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, have nothing to say to each other and are incapable of recognizing each other as full human beings with similar wants and needs. They get under our skin and make Jews believe that indeed, the world is out to get us and we can trust no one. Acts of Lovingkindness at the WSF, the untold story In my own experience as a very out Jew at the conference, I felt no hate. Instead, I met a number of Palestinians and Arabs who, on some fundamental level, expressed the pain of separation. “I am Muslim, and we were raised to respect the Jewish tradition, ” a Palestinian woman living in Jordan told me. “We used to live next door to Jews, and we were friends.” After I spoke at a session about suspending military aid to Israel until it ends its occupation, and identified myself as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, a Palestinian woman thanked me and a distinguished Lebanese man from Jordan came up and gave me a huge hug and a kiss. Two of the Arabs that the SWC op-ed quoted most prominently in their description of what they called a campaign to destroy Israel were environmental scientist Rania Masri and activist journalist Ahmed Shawki. Thirty minutes after meeting me for the first time at the Forum, Ahmed Shawki offered to loan me the new digital camera given to him by his wife. He knew I was eager to take pictures and the airline had misplaced my luggage. Knowing nothing of my politics, only that I was from a Jewish peace group, he gave me his digital camera. The next day, the bag containing my passport, credit cards, and his camera was stolen. Our mutual friend and colleague from Lebanon, Rania Masri, handed me a hundred dollars from her wallet and absolutely insisted I take her ATM card and PIN number so I would have money for the rest of the trip. And Ahmed? To this day, Ahmed refuses to accept payment for the camera that was stolen. This is the real story of Jews, Arabs, and the World Social Forum that needs to be told; that is, the ways in which we so quickly and easily recognize each other’s fundamental humanity. As one young Arab-Israeli woman — who will never be quoted in an article about the rising tide of anti-Semitism — said so eloquently and passionately the last night of the conference, “Yes, I experience discrimination in Israel. But my friendship with Jewish Israelis is proof that it is a lie when both sides tell us we can’t live together. We can live together. You must not believe the lie.” Separation Wall Hearings, Academic Freedom The Senate had scheduled hearings on the Israeli “separation wall”, and the only speakers were to be from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a distinctly pro-Israel think-tank. After receiving many calls, e-mails and faxes in protest, in response to a call from the US Campaign to End the Occupation, JVP has learned that the Senate plans to schedule a second hearing, with a wider variety of speakers. The Senate will soon be considering a bill which has already passed the House, HR 3077, which would set up a governmental advisory board to monitor Middle Eastern Studies in universities, and would tie Title VI funding to the recommendations of this board. Please contact your representatives and oppose this major threat to academic freedom. Join Jewish Voice for Peace Jewish Voice for Peace now has a global e-network of over 7,500 Jews and allies working for a just peace in the Middle East. Become an official member of Jewish Voice for Peace and help create a U.S. foreign policy that promotes peace, democracy, human rights and respect for international law. State Department Representative Condemns Settlements In a keynote address at a State Department-sponsored conference on the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs David Satterfield issued one of the administration’s harshest statements to date on Israel’s settlements. “The fact is that settlements continue to grow today, encouraged by specific ongoing government policies and at enormous expense to Israel’s economy. And this persists even as it becomes clearer and clearer that the logic of settlements and the reality of demographics could threaten the future of Israel itself as a Jewish democratic state,” Satterfield said.”Settlement activity must stop, because it ultimately undermines Israeli as well as Palestinian interests.” “As Israeli settlements expand, those settlements that began immediately after June 10th, 1967 and their populations increase, it becomes ever more difficult to see how two peoples can be separated into two states.” All People Are Chosen Alan Senauke Alan Senauke is a Zen Buddhist priest and teacher in the tradition of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Alan serves as head of practice at Berkeley Zen Center in California, where he lives with his wife, Laurie, and their two children, Silvie and Alexander. Since 1991 Alan has been a leader of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, where he continues to work on national and international issues of peace, human rights, structural violence, and the development of a Socially Engaged Buddhism. In another realm, Alan has been a student and performer of American traditional music for forty years. All people are chosen. All lands are holy. In the middle of the journey of life I have come to this unreasonably naive position. My naivete may be the fruit of twenty years of Zen Buddhist practice. It may be a late blooming genetic trait, seeds planted deeply by grandparents and teachers: Eastern European Jews who fled pogroms and Japanese priests came here after a World War II to work in the fresh soil of America. They all struggled in this barely friendly country and found a way to thrive. All people are chosen. I believe it in my bones. This began as a meditation on Israelis and Palestinians, but it is just as true for Americans and Iraqis, Sinhalese and Tamils, Burman and Karen. It goes beyond all religious, cultural, or tribal teachings. Because all people are chosen, there are no Chosen. Jews, Christians, and Muslims see the image of God in our human form. The Buddha spoke of unique opportunity of human birth. Because we have a body and mind, because we all taste suffering, we can also free ourselves from suffering, and help others. From earliest memory I was told that Jews (like me) were chosen. Chosen for gifts of intelligence and creativity; chosen for unwanted gifts of hatred and discrimination. My parents and grandparents were careful to distinguish between things Jewish and things gentile. Then Lenny Bruce came along in the 60s and deconstructed the whole deal. I heard his Jewish/Goyish monologue when I was a kid. At one point he says, “All Italians are Jewish.” This puzzled me until I went to Italy. Lenny Bruce was exactly right. Since then, having traveled and encountered various cultures, I would add Tibetans, Armenians, Lebanese, Indians, and Cajuns are Jewish. The list goes on and on, drifting into meaninglessness. For several years I’ve been involved in a local Jewish-Palestinian dialogue group. Members come from a variety of backgrounds. We have vast differences in personal history. But our urgent words, worry for the future, and passion for peace, transcend all difference. All lands are holy. Two Zen sayings come to mind. The first is: “There is no place in the world to spit.” If we are aware that every place and every being is as precious as we are to ourselves, there is no room for thoughtless action dividing us from each other. We take equal care of every place. The second saying is: “If you create an understanding of holiness, you will succumb to all errors.” Just as all lands are holy, we can see that elevating one place, one people, or one practice as holy, splits the world in two. Holiness plants poisonous seeds of us and them. From such seeds war and hatred grow. In the name of what is holy, the soil of the Holy Land has endlessly absorbed the blood of crusaders, defenders, martyrs, and countless ordinary people. Holiness becomes a cover for hatred and hunger for power. It causes people to do strange things: some people drive others from their homes and fields; some strap explosives around their body and turn themselves into bombs; others create a wall scarring the earth for hundreds of miles in an foolish effort for security that echoes the imaginings of Franz Kafka. From his own experience. Martin Luther King Jr. understood this mechanism of hate and delusion all too well. …hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back …that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that is the tragedy of hate, it only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off, and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love. The Buddha said “I teach about suffering and the end of suffering.” He also taught that we co-create reality. Prophets of the Bible and Koran taught about justice and generosity. As we consider the history of Jews and Arabs in the Middle East, we can see this. If we meditate deeper on a history based on my tribe and your tribe, my religion and your religion, and so on, we see this is a terribly dangerous delusion spiraling into hatred and killing. But as King said, “Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person.” My one visit to Israel was brief, just a few months after the start of the Al Aqsa Intifada. It was impossible to ignore the tensions, but I loved the ethnic stew of Jerusalem of Jews, Eastern European, Middle Eastern, African, American. I soaked up the street energy in the narrow streets and crowded souks. I walked quietly through Mea-arim, and imagined myself in my hometown. Our group of peace activists was warmly welcomed in the homes of Jews and Arabs. We sat in a weekly circle of peace-activist Jews, Muslims, Christians, and on a small plaza overlooking the Western Wall and the great mosques. Mostly I walked and talked with people. Despite the tensions, the presence of heavily armed Israeli military everywhere, I felt connected to the weathered rocks and to the people living and working among them. It’s naive I know, but Jews and Arabs don’t seem all that different to me. Both people are chosen. They love their families above everything, work hard, and tend to wear their passions on their sleeves. Warm of heart and quick to anger. More related than either wants to admit. This seemed so clear. But can they live together? There must be a path of justice to end killing and violence that is both open and hidden. Justice involves renunciation–letting go of holiness…and letting go of privilege, of power over others. If all people are chosen one must treat each person as no different than oneself. Despite precepts, commandments, and wars, the basic fact is that human identity goes deeper than tribal or national identity. And that identity as yet remains out of reach for Israelis, Palestinians, for Americans, and several billion other beings. This is just where we should dig in and do the difficult work of peace. Take Action! Protect Academic Freedom The Senate is considering a frightening bill, already passed by the House, that threatens to put academic freedom in danger. The bill would create an unprecedented seven-person International Education Advisory Board, appointed by members of Congress, which would have oversight over the content of course materials and even the hiring of faculty in international area studies and foreign language programs. The purpose of the board is to stifle and censor legitimate criticism of US foreign policy in America’s universities. Go here to tell your representatives to say NO to this new form of academic McCarthyism. Following are links to highlights from Jewish Peace News, the free news service offered by Jewish Voice for Peace. Get pre-selected stories from global news sources sent to your email box regularly, with incisive explications prefacing each article. Go to your personal subscriptions page to sign up now. Hamas calls for wave of suicide attacks after 15 Palestinians die(UK Guardian) Hamas Vows Retaliation After Gaza Attack (http://ga3.org/ct/r1aVtZK1lBtP/) Analysis: What was the purpose of the IDF’s operation?(Ha’aretz) Ze’ev Schiff On Why Israel Chose to Attack Gaza Now (http://ga3.org/ct/qpaVtZK1TB5M/) The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism (The Nation) A Jewish Deconstruction of Collapsing Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism (http://ga3.org/ct/a1aVtZK1TB5N/) Send questions, comments or concerns to the JVP staff at info@jewishvoiceforpeace.org ————————————————– Visit the web address below to tell your friends how to sign up with Jewish Voice for Peace. http://ga3.org/join-forward.html?domain=jvfp&r=gdaVtZK1BQvT If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Jewish Voice for Peace at: http://ga3.org/jvfp/join.html?r=gdaVtZK1BQvTE ————————————————–
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