HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
|
Diplomats, Activists Complain U.S. Jewish Groups Failing To Mobilize for Israel |
|
By Benyamin Cohen NEW YORK, Apr 10, 2002 -- Jewish communities across America took to the streets Sunday in a show of support for Israel. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations announced a solidarity rally in Washington D.C. on Israel Independence Day next week. But Israeli diplomats, along with Jews active in communal and campus pro-Israel activities, say that American Jewry's efforts on Israel's behalf are too little, and too late. About 10,000 people demonstrated Sunday in support of Israel at the United Nations building in New York. The demonstration was organized not by mainstream Jewish organizations, but by an ad hoc group of right-wing activists, including - Betar, Rabbi Avi Weiss from the Bronx and his Coalition for Jewish Concerns-AMCHA, and Americans for a Secure Israel. Shai Rubinstein, Betar's central emissary in North America, told Ha'aretz that the demonstration was also an indirect protest against the impotence of the Jewish leadership. The Jewish public waited in vain, so we set out to organize the demonstration, he said. Ha'aretz also cited a sermon on the concluding day of Passover by an Orthodox rabbi in Brooklyn, who cried out, "The Jews of New York will be called to judgment for their silence during this hour of distress for Israel." Israel's consul general in New York, Alon Pinkas, offered a secular version: "The situation in Israel weighed down on the holiday vacation of American Jews and their leaders, but not enough to cause them to interrupt it." And an unnamed senior Israeli diplomatic official in the United States told of his two-word response, three days after the deadly Seder night attack at a Netanya hotel, to an urgent telegram from Jerusalem asking for a report on what the Jewish community was doing: "Not much." Ha'aretz quoted Pinkas as criticizing the ineffectiveness of Jewish organizations. "All they know how to do is convene meetings and listen to briefings on the situation in Israel," he said. "Even in the information campaign directed at the American media, Jewish involvement is not being felt." An NBC News/Wall St. Journal poll, released Tuesday, indicates that 45% of Americans say they sympathize with Israel while only 14% side with the Palestinians. According to a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, released on Monday, Americans were four times as likely to support Israel as the Palestinians. Although surveys show American Jewish support for Israel is also on the rise, some activists consider the communal response inadequate and ineffective. "Showing up at your local JCC for a rally is one thing. But actually traveling to Israel and showing your support is entirely a different beast," Israeli-American Dana Asher said. "Israel is bleeding right now -- politically, emotionally, and economically -- and it needs the help of the American Jewish community." Jewish communal leaders are accused of not attending to the gravity of the crisis, and are in fact distancing themselves from direct action. The complaints include the fact that annual federation-sponsored solidarity missions to Israel are being scrapped, popular teen trips to the region are being canceled, and support for Israel is being reduced to lip service. "Synagogue sermons are not enough," explains Jewish activist Mort Berger. "I would like to say that now is the time for action. But I'm afraid that time has already come, and we're showing up late." At an event in Minneapolis, Susan Shapiro, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, said letters, phone calls and e-mails to elected representatives are crucial. "I urge you to use your voice," she told the 2,000 in attendance at Minneapolis's Temple Israel. "When your voices are heard, we will be that much closer to our vision of a land of peace." But many, like Berger, feel that rallies and are only a way for American Jews to feel a little less guilty. "At the end of the day, a solidarity demonstration is basically pointless," Berger says. "At the end of the day, people are still dying and suffering in Israel. And not only that, but these rallies receive very little press, are outnumbered by the pro-Palestinian rallies, and have zero effect on the goings on in Israel." "We need to make Aliyah, to visit Israel, and to pump some much needed money into their economy," Berger added. "We need to show the world we're not afraid. We're resilient and we will not give up." Pro-Palestinian demonstrations heat up college campuses At the University of California, Berkeley, and at dozens of other college campuses across the U.S., college students marched on Tuesday in opposition to Israel's policies. Berkeley was the scene of the biggest demonstration, with a thousand protestors occupying a classroom building. In a scene reminiscent of the 60s, in the very same place where anti-Vietnam rallies were held, the pro-Palestinian students say they're adopting the same kind of activism. Some students hung a Palestinian flag from a third-story window, while others marched in the hallways of the building, which houses classrooms for Middle Eastern studies. Campus police eventually arrested 79 pro-Palestinian protesters who had occupied the building. Micah Padant, who calls himself an anti-Zionist Jew, spoke at the Berkeley rally. "The Jewish people will never have shalom, peace, and safety until we pursue justice for the Palestinian people," he told the crowd, while wearing a black "Free Palestine" t-shirt and a yellow armband with Arabic letters written on it. Padant was criticized by Jewish students who fear that the new pro-Palestinian activism has anti-Semitic overtones that could lead to violence in America, just as it already has in Europe. Adam Weisberg, the director of the Hillel Jewish Student Center of Berkeley, said that recently someone hurled a cinderblock through the Center's glass front door. "Anti-Semitic graffiti was scrawled there as well," he said. "There was an attack on two identifiably Jewish members of the community shortly thereafter." Tuesday, American Jewish students, observing the annual Holocaust Memorial Day, read aloud the names of victims of the Holocaust. They were confronted by Arab students accusing Israel of creating a new Holocaust with the actions of the IDF in Palestinian cities - only with the Palestinians as the victims. They also called for the university to divest all Israel-related investments. "This really should be Holocaust prevention day," said Sarah Weir, a 23-year-old cognitive science major. © Israel Insider, 2002. All rights reserved. |
--------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST
==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
