..While the numbers of Jews engaged in critical protest against occupation is growing, their demands are changing, too. Previous outpourings of Jewish activism often took place under the banner of “two states.” While today’s activists have a range of views, it is no longer a given that a “two-state solution” is a consensus position — nor even a real possibility given the vast expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. While this summer’s protests necessarily focused on the current bombing campaign, many also have addressed underlying, fundamental issues: the siege of Gaza, the Occupation, and the Nakba and Palestinian refugee Right of Return. (The recently launched Nakba Education Project U.S. (NEP) has received many requests for resources from activists and educators.) JVP and many Jewish activists recognize that these issues must be in the forefront as part of the longer-term, sustained organizing work as partners in the broader movement for justice. The Palestinian-led call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) is a critical part of this ongoing work. In fact, many of the civil disobedience actions across the country have targeted companies that profit from the occupation. In Seattle, JVP and Queers Against Israeli Apartheid blocked the entrance to Boeing’s defense factory while other protesters staged a die-in and read the names of Palestinians who had been killed. JVP activists were also arrested inside the headquarters of Boeing in Chicago. Boeing, listed in 2012 as the second biggest arms supplier worldwide, has sold Israel F-15A fighter jets and Apache AH 64 helicopters currently being used in attacks on Gaza. While our own hearts and bodies are with these activists and with radical analysis, it’s also important to acknowledge a significant shift within Jewish-American liberal Zionism that has become evident this summer. High-placed liberal pundits who could always be counted on to support Israel in times of perceived crisis — Roger Cohen of the New York Times, Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine, Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic, to name only a few — have been writing of their unease and even alarm over Israeli violence against Gazans and over the decline within Israel of what they regard as Jewish and as democratic values. These commentators always make a point of couching their critiques within assurances that they love and support Israel. Nonetheless, as they have witnessed an Israeli government that clearly has had no interest in pursuing peace with the Palestinians and that has tolerated blatant calls for ethnic cleansing (and worse) within its ranks, and seen how even the mildest dissent within Israel has been squelched, they have had to grapple with the contradiction in their abiding belief in a state that can be ethnocratically Jewish and a democracy. - See more at: mondoweiss.net/2014/11/support-community-continues#sthash.mKevsj5I.dpuf.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 07:16:02 +0000
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