[GushShalom] Avnery on truth and abuse of antisemitism & the little racist in each of us
Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)
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Sat Jan 17 21:42:40 IST 2004
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[a] On truth and abuse of antisemitism & the little racist in each of us
Uri Avnery writes about the subject of his lifetime
[b] Palestinian children in Israeli hospitals - activists take care of the
families - Yosef Algazi in Ha'aretz about a too little noticed group
[c] "Welcome to Abu Dis Ghetto" painter detained for incitement
[d] Kate Raphael of IWPS was denied staying under Law of Return
(Tonight last chance to do something)
[e] Next week (24.1): a mass pro-Geneva demo in Tel-Aviv
\\// //\\ \\// //\\ \\//
[a] On truth and abuse of antisemitism & the little racist in each of us
Uri Avnery writes about the subject of his lifetime
Uri Avnery
17.1.04
òáøéú òì ôé á÷ùä àå á÷øåá áàúø
Anti-Semitism: A Practical Manual
A Hungarian Joke: During the June 1967 war, a Hungarian meets his
friend. "Why do you look so happy?" he asks. "I heard that the Israelis
shot down six Soviet-made MiGs today," his friend replies.
The next day, the friend looks even more jubilant. "The Israelis downed
another eight MiGs," he announces.
On the third day, the friend is crestfallen. "What happened? Didn't the
Israelis down any MiGs today?" the man asks. "They did," the friend
answers, "But today someone told me that the Israelis are Jews!"
This is the whole story in a nutshell.
The Anti-Semite hates the Jews because they are Jews, irrespective of
their actions. Jews may be hated because they are rich and ostentatious or
because they are poor and live in squalor. Because they played a major
role in the Bolshevik revolution or because some of them became
incredibly rich after the collapse of the Communist regime. Because they
crucified Jesus or because they infected Western culture with the
"Christian morality of compassion". Because they have no fatherland or
because they created the State of Israel.
That is in the nature of all kinds of racism and chauvinism: One hates
someone for being a Jew, Arab, woman, black, Indian, Muslim, Hindu. His
or her personal attributes, actions, achievements are unimportant. If he or
she belongs to the abhorred race, religion or gender, they will be hated.
The answers to all questions relating to anti-Semitism follow from this
basic fact. For example:
Is everybody who criticizes Israel an anti-Semite?
Absolutely not. Somebody who criticizes Israel for certain of our
actions cannot be accused of anti-Semitism for that. But somebody who
hates Israel because it is a Jewish state, like the Hungarian in the joke, is
an anti-Semite. It is not always easy to distinguish between the two kinds,
because shrewd anti-Semites pose as bona fide critics of Israel's actions.
But presenting all critics of Israel as anti-Semites is wrong and counter-
productive, it damages the fight against anti-Semitism.
Many deeply moral persons, the cream of humanity, criticize our
behavior in the occupied territories. It is stupid to accuse them of anti-
Semitism.
Can a person be an anti-Zionist without being an anti-Semite?
Absolutely yes. Zionism is a political creed and must be treated like any
other. One can be anti-Communist without being anti-Chinese, anti-
Capitalist without being anti-American, anti-Globalist, anti-Anything. Yet,
again, it is not always easy to draw the line, because real anti-Semites
often pretend just to be "anti-Zionists". They should not be helped by
erasing the distinction.
Can a person be an anti-Semite and a Zionist?
Indeed, yes. The founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, already
tried to enlist the support of notorious Russian anti-Semites, promising
them to take the Jews off their hands. Before World War II, the Zionist
underground organization IZL established military training camps in
Poland under the auspices of the anti-Semitic generals, who also wanted
to get rid of the Jews. Nowadays, the Zionist extreme Right receives and
welcomes massive support from the American fundamentalist evangelists,
whom the majority of American Jews, according to a poll published this
week, consider profoundly anti-Semitic. Their theology prophesies that on
the eve of the second coming of Christ, all Jews must convert to
Christianity or be exterminated.
Can a Jew be anti-Semitic?
That sounds like an oxymoron. But history has known some instances
of Jews who became ferocious Jew-haters. The Spanish Grand Inquisitor,
Torquemada, was of Jewish descent. Karl Marx wrote some very nasty
things about the Jews, as did Otto Weininger, an important Jewish writer
in fin-de-siecle Vienna. Herzl, his contemporary and fellow-Viennese, wrote
in his diaries some very uncomplimentary remarks about the Jews.
If a person criticizes Israel more than other countries which do the same,
is he an anti-Semite?
Not necessarily. True, there should be one and the same moral standard
for all countries and all human beings. Russian actions in Chechnya are
not better than ours in Nablus, and may be worse. The trouble is that the
Jews are pictured and picture themselves (and indeed were) a "nation of
victims". Therefore, the world is shocked that yesterday's victims are
today's victimizers. A higher moral standard is required from us than from
other peoples. And rightly so.
Has Europe become anti-Semitic again?
Not really. The number of anti-Semites in Europe has not grown,
perhaps it has even fallen. What has increased is the volume of criticism of
Israel's behavior towards the Palestinians, who appear as "the victims of
the victims".
The situation in some suburbs of Paris, which is often cited as an
example of the rise of anti-Semitism, is a quite different affair. When North
African Muslims clash with North African Jews, they are transferring the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict to European soil. It is also a continuation of the
feud between Arabs and Jews that started in Algeria when the Jews
supported the French regime and Muslims considered them collaborators
of the hated colonialists.
Then why did most Europeans state in a recent poll that Israel
endangers world peace more than any other country?
That has a simple explanation: Europeans see on television every day
what our soldiers are doing in the occupied Palestinian territories. This
confrontation is covered more than any other conflict on earth (with the
possible exception of Iraq, for the time being), because Israel is more
"interesting", considering the long history of the Jews in Europe and
because Israel is closer to the Western media than Muslim or African
countries. The Palestinian resistance, which Israelis call "terrorism", seems
to many Europeans very much like the French resistance to the German
occupation.
What about the anti-Semitic manifestations in the Arab world?
No doubt, typically anti-Semitic indications have crept lately into Arab
discourse. Suffice it to mention that the infamous "Protocols of the Elders
of Zion" have been published in Arabic. That is a typically European
import. The Protocols were invented by the secret police of Czarist Russia.
Whatever inanities may be voiced by certain "experts", there never was
any widespread Muslim anti-Semitism, such as existed in Christian Europe.
In the course of his fight for power, the prophet Muhammad fought
against neighboring Jewish tribes, and therefore there are some negative
passages about the Jews in the Kor'an. But they cannot be compared to
the anti-Jewish passages in the New Testament story about the crucifixion
of Christ that have poisoned the Christian world and caused endless
suffering. Muslim Spain was a paradise for the Jews, and there has never
been a Jewish Holocaust in the Muslim world. Even pogroms were
extremely rare.
Muhammad decreed that the "Peoples of the Book" (Jews and
Christians) be treated tolerantly, subject to conditions that were
incomparably more liberal than those in contemporary Europe. The
Muslims never imposed their religion by force on Jews and Christians, as
shown by the fact that almost all the Jews expelled from Catholic Spain
settled in the Muslim countries and flourished there. After centuries of
Muslim rule, Greeks and Serbs remained thoroughly Christian.
When peace is established between Israel and the Arab world, the
poisonous fruits of anti-Semitism will most probably disappear from the
Arab world (as will the poisonous fruits of Arab-hating in our society.)
Aren't the utterances of the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir bin
Muhammad, about the Jews controlling the world, anti-Semitic?
Yes and no. They certainly illustrate the difficulty of pinning anti-
Semitism down. From a factual point of view, the man was right when he
asserted that the Jews have a far bigger influence than their percentage of
the world's population alone would warrant. It is true that the Jews have a
large influence on the policy of the United States, the only super-power,
as well as on the American and international media. One does not need the
phony "Protocols" in order to face this fact and analyse its causes. But
the sounds make the music, and Mahathir's music does indeed sound anti-
Semitic.
So should we ignore anti-Semitism?
Definitely not. Racism is a kind of virus that exists in every nation and
in every human being. Jean-Paul Sartre said that we are all racists, the
difference being that some of us realize this and fight against it, while
others succumb to the evil. In ordinary times, there is a small minority of
blatant racists in every country, but in times of crisis their number can
multiply rapidly. This is a perpetual danger, and every people must fight
against the racists in their midst.
We Israelis are like all other peoples. Each of us can find a small racist
within himself, if he searches hard enough. We have in our country
fanatical Arab-haters, and the historic confrontation that dominates our
lives increases their power and influence. It is our duty to fight them, and
leave it to the Europeans and Arabs to deal with their own racists.
[b] Palestinian children in Israeli hospitals - activists take care of the
families - Yosef Algazi in Ha'aretz about a too little noticed group
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:50:56 +0200
From: rayna moss <legalese at netvision.net.il>
Subject: Children Tel Hashomer, Ha'aretz Article, Friday 16.January
English
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/382720.html
Hebrew
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml?itemNo=383561
`An island of sanity'
They are required to obtain entry permits, to be at the bedside of their sick
children, and arrive at the checkpoints without any personal effects to
shorten the wait there. A day in the hospital with Palestinian parents from
Gaza
By Joseph Algazy
"I visited Tel Hashomer Hospital on Friday. As usual, most of the work
was carried out in the intensive care unit, to which I brought cooked food
and non-perishables (tea, coffee, sugar). The telephone cards were
grabbed up, and even though I had brought a sufficient quantity, none
were left for the other departments. All the adults in all the departments
received food. I brought disposable diapers in two sizes - for newborn
infants and for 2- year-olds."
This was the report that volunteer Nava Harnam made to her colleagues
about her most recent visit to Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. For
more than a year now, she has been part of a group of volunteers that has
been regularly helping to care for Palestinian children from the Gaza Strip
and the West Bank who are hospitalized there, and to assist the parents
who are looking after them. Physicians for Human Rights has taken the
entire project under its organizational - and material - wing.
"In October 2002, I got a phone call from Widah al-Khatib, a Palestinian
resident of Beit Iba, a small village west of Nablus. He told me that the
parents of a 2-week-old infant from his village, Shihab Ishtawi, who was
born with a heart defect and was hospitalized at Tel Hashomer, were
crying for help," relates the coordinator of the volunteer group, Bilha
Golan, describing how it was conceived and how it works. "When I met
them the next day they were very worried about the baby's condition, and
because they had left three small children behind in the village. To my
astonishment, I discovered that for several days they had not eaten
properly, had not bathed and had not changed clothes. Later I found out
that other parents of Palestinian children from Gaza and the West Bank
who are also inpatients at the hospital live in the same conditions."
Golan decided to relate her experiences at the hospital to the public via the
Internet communications network of the Actleft human rights organization,
and called upon people to volunteer to help the families of the hospitalized
children. In this way a group was organized, which works mostly in the
intensive care, oncology, thoracic and cardiac surgery and rehabilitation
units at Tel Hashomer. It is now comprised of about 12 people - women
and men, Jews and Arabs.
One of them, T.G., a conscripted soldier, came to visit Shihab Ishtawi at
the hospital every day. Often he enlisted buddies from his unit to his aid.
"After a few days, the mother had to go home to take care of the rest of
her children," says Golan. "The father, Ka'ed Ishtawi, remained at [the
child's] side. From him we learned about the obstacles encountered by
family members who care for a Palestinian child hospitalized in Israel. He
praised the hospital, but complained of the difficulties he encounters on
the way to it.
"Equipped with a hospitalization certificate from a hospital, a sick child's
father, mother, grandfather or grandmother applies to the Israeli-
Palestinian liaison committee and asks for an entry permit into Israel. After
a few days they get the permit, but it is valid for only one day - from
morning till evening. It can happen that the application is rejected `for
security reasons.'"
According to Golan, a resident of Moshav Beit Shearim and a public
health nurse in Zarzir in the north, the Ishtawis came to the hospital
without any personal effects in order to make the passage through the
checkpoints easier for them
selves and to spare detailed searches of their things and the consequent
delay. At the entrance to the hospital, the parents deposit their identity
cards. As they usually have to stay there - with the staff's knowledge - for
days or weeks, they avoid leaving the hospital complex so as not to risk
arrest as illegal sojourners.
NIS 20 in their pockets
"At the hospital, close to where their dear ones are patients, the
Palestinians are protected, but the moment they leave, they are
vulnerable," says Golan. Thus, for example, Ka'ed Ishtawi was caught
outside the hospital when he went to get some food for himself and was
arrested by security personnel who took him to the Ramat Gan police.
With the intervention of the volunteers, who explained his situation, he
was released.
During the recent Ramadan month of fasting, Ishtawi went home, but then
the baby's condition worsened and he was called back by the doctors. He
was delayed at roadblocks, and only after Golan contacted the Civil
Administration was he able to get to the hospital and be at his son's
bedside.
In the end, however, despite all the doctors' efforts, his son died. "The fact
that their baby died was unbearably difficult for his parents, but they
know that the doctors and nurses at the hospital gave their baby the best
medical care and did all they could to save him," says Al-Khatib.
On their way to Tel Hashomer, patients and their relatives who reside in
Gaza pass through the Erez checkpoint; West Bank residents go through
the Oranit roadblock. In either case, they are detained for anything from
half an hour to two hours and often much longer. In an attempt to shorten
the procedures there, most of them enter Israel without any personal
effects, even though they will remain at the hospital for days or even
weeks. Many of them, because of their economic distress, come into Israel
with barely NIS 20 in their pockets. The volunteers try to provide them
with what they need.
Harnam, a retired teacher who lives in Herzliya, relates that on her shift on
Friday two weeks ago, she brought along cooked food, disposable
diapers, bars of soap and telephone cards. Like others in the group, it is
she who pays for these items out of her own pocket. Her husband drives
her to the hospital.
Last Friday, one of the volunteers, Amal Shehadeh of Haifa, a master's
student of translation at Bar-Ilan University, came along with her aunt with
cooked food that her aunts had made, in her father's car. Sometimes
neighbors also volunteer to prepare the food that is delivered, and add
soap, sweets and toys for the sick children.
Last week the volunteer group took care of 18 children. The needs of the
parents who are tending them are great.
Apart from the contributions provided by the members of the group, it
also receives donations. In the explanatory page that is distributed to new
volunteers, it says that the group members "do not give out money,
cannot provide medications, treatment, entry permits into Israel,
sojourning permits or payments to the hospital."
Two ambulances, one body
Yousra Dib, who lives in the Al-Zeitun neighborhood in Gaza, made
arrangements by telephone to have an ambulance from Gaza bring her
grandson - 3-month-old Abed al-Rahman Dib, who had died the previous
day of cancer that had spread throughout his body - home from the
hospital. She found out that under the new security regulations, the Red
Crescent ambulance from Gaza would not be allowed to enter the hospital
grounds. When the vehicle arrived at the hospital gate, therefore, another
ambulance, from the hospital, transported her grandson's body to it.
According to Dib, the doctors had treated her grandson devotedly and
also told the family to bring his 4-year-old sister Nura to the hospital for
examination.
"They found a hole in the heart of my 2- year-old daughter Ranya, who
suffers from Down syndrome," explains Iman Irba'I of the Sheikh Radwan
neighborhood in Gaza. "She is the youngest of my eight children. My
husband is unemployed. After great efforts, the Palestinian Authority
agreed to pay for the surgery and for the girl's hospitalization in Israel. I'm
worried, but I'm confident that the child is getting the best medical care."
Golan and her colleagues stress that since the day it began, the group's
volunteer activity has been carried out with the agreement and full
cooperation of Tel Hashomer's management and the various units. As an
example of the facility's openness, Golan cited the case of Muhammad Kot,
9, from the environs of Nablus, who suffered from pernicious anemia and
urgently needed a bone marrow transplant. While the Palestinian
Authority paid for the costs of the hospitalization and care - about NIS
95,000 - the hospital underwrote the cost of the transplant itself - over
$50,000. The transplant was successful and Kot will receive follow-up care
at the hospital.
"Through the bone marrow transplant, the child received life," says Dr.
Amos Toren, head of the pediatric hemato-oncology and bone marrow
transplant unit at Tel Hashomer. "In recent years we have performed 5
bone marrow transplants on Palestinian children from the territories. The
medical team relates in the most natural way to this medical activity, and
the hospital management gives it full backing."
Touching encounters
In the pediatric intensive care department, the parents of the Palestinian
children have at their disposal a waiting room, a kitchenette and two small
bedrooms, one for men and one for women, where there are bunk beds.
Last Wednesday a Jewish man wearing a skullcap and his wife sat down
to rest in this waiting room. The man made efforts to engage the
Palestinians who were also sitting there in a conversation.
"Sometimes, we overcome the communications difficulties with the help of
people who know both languages, Arabic and Hebrew, and sometimes we
use English, and when there's no alternative, we use gestures like in a
silent movie," explains one of the Palestinian mothers.
"The attitude and the atmosphere in the department are really contagious.
Girls who are doing National Service help us willingly," relates volunteer
Rina Moss. "The illnesses of their children bring Israeli parents close to
the Palestinians. Thus, for example, not long ago a mother from central
Israel was standing in despair near the door to the intensive care unit
where her 10-year-old daughter was being treated for a brain hemorrhage.
The father of a Palestinian child who noticed her distress brought her
some hot tea that he made himself and started a conversation with her.
The two of them sat there, relating their troubles to each other and
comforting each other. It was a wonderful scene."
Moss also tells, however, of a certain group that distributes food only to
the parents of sick Jewish and Israeli Arab children, but not to Palestinians
from the territories. The Palestinians spare no praise and gratitude for the
doctors, the nurses and the volunteers. They are wary when they speak
about the difficulties at the roadblocks at the entrance to Israel and do not
say anything specific about the conditions of their life in the territories.
Indeed, to the direct question of whether they hate Israel and the Jews, a
young Palestinian woman replies: "We hate, but not everybody, not the
ones who treat us like human beings, for example, here at the hospital, but
those who make us suffer."
Says volunteer Shehadeh: "The people who come to the hospital and
witness the medical care that their dear ones are given suffer from an inner
conflict because of the gap between the reality in which they live in the
territories, and the reality that they encounter here at the hospital."
"The reality in the territories," adds Golan, "is familiar to me from the
weekly volunteer medical project in which I have participated. The
occupation creates a destructive reality, whereas here at the hospital, there
is an island of sanity."
Physicians for Human Rights,52 Golomb Str, Tel Aviv 66171, Israel
Tel: 972 3 6873718
[c] "Welcome to Abu Dis Ghetto"
For spraying this sentence on the nine meter high wall which cuts right
through Abu Dis (suburb of Jerusalem) Israeli painter Angela Godfried
was detained by the Border Guards. At the police station she was told:
"This is incitement; if you say 'Ghetto', you say we are Nazis." "But isn't it
true you are creating a ghetto?" answered Godfried...
photos from: Heidi: +972-54-437590 & Mahpuz +972-57-748932
to contact Angela ph: +972-67-366393
[d] Kate Raphael of IWPS was denied staying under Law of Return
(Tonight last chance to do something)
-----Original Message-----
From: IWPS [mailto:iwps at palnet.com]
Sent: Sat, January 17, 2004 12:58 AM
Subject: Defend the Right of Palestinians to International Jewish Support
Defend the Right of Palestinians to International Jewish Support
An Israeli administrative judge today rejected the petition of international
peace activist Kate Raphael to remain in the country in order to establish
residency under the "Law of Return," which guarantees all Jews the right
to live in Israel. Saying that "I fear the appeal is without good will," the
judge ordered her to leave the country today, January 17, as agreed under
the terms of her release from Hadera prison one week ago.
Kate was arrested on December 31, along with three other internationals,
at a nonviolent protest against the destruction of olive groves in Budrus
village in Ramallah District. She was jailed for 9 days. In the last two
weeks, seven men who are organizers in the village have also been
arrested and are held virtually incommunicado in military prisons. The
Ministry of Interior and the judge are attempting to deny Kate's right to
live in Israel/Palestine because she does not support the apartheid policies
of the government. This is part of the campaign to isolate Palestinian
activists from the outside world and crush their resistance. However, we
maintain that Jews who stand against injustice must have equal rights with
Jews who support it.
Kate will leave the country as agreed, in order not to jeopardize her future
ability to live in Palestine or Israel. She will attempt to return as soon as
possible in order to file her application for residency with the Ministry of
Interior.Our lawyer is requesting an immediate hearing on the appeal of
the deportation order against her. Your support is urgently needed:
Call or fax the Ministry of Interior (by Sunday morning if possible) and
demand that they repeal the decision to cancel Kate's visa and deport her.
Tell them to let her return to the country to live and work for peace.
Minister of Interior Avraham Poraz
Fax No. (972) (0)2-566-6376
Phone (972) (0)2-670-1402
sar at moin.gov.il
To Minister of Interior Avraham Poraz
Fax No. 02-566-6376
Please repeal your decision to cancel the visa of Kate (Kathryn Eve)
Raphael and deport her from Israel. As a Jew, she has an equal right with
every other Jew to live in Israel. Moreover, she is doing important
volunteer work to promote a better society and support nonviolence in
Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Kate has said for a long time that she wanted to live in Israel/Palestine.
She requested information about aliyah before she left San Francisco in
July. She said when she entered Israel on November 30 that she was
considering making aliyah. She was unable to file her application for a
residency visa before she was arrested on December 31 because the
Ministry of Interior was closed.
Israel should welcome Jews like Kate who want to come to Israel to build
true democracy and peace.
Sincerely,
[e] Next week (24.1): a mass pro-Geneva demo in Tel-Aviv
òáøéú áàúø
http://www.eurointeraction.co.il/geneva/?Mn=start
YES TO AN AGREEMENT!
In Support of the Geneva Initiative
Saturday January 24th, 19:30, Tel-Aviv
Intersection of Ibn-Gvirol and Rokach ("Sportek")
[due to winter activities at Rabin Square, the demonstration is taking place
at a new location]
Free Parking
For more information and Transportation: 03-7655070
--
Reservist refusers don't receive the IDF salary compensation for lost
income. Many of them have a family to maintain. With an increasing
number of refusers, the Keren Yesh Gvul (specific fund for
compensations) is emptying rapidly. If you want the refusniks also in
the future to receive at least something, send a cheque to:
"Keren Yesh Gvul", POB 10276, Jerusalem 91102, Israel.
More information at http://www.yesh-gvul.org/
--
ôòåìåú ðîùçåú îùåèôåú éùøàìéåú-ôìñèéðéåú ðâã äçåîä
éåðúï 066-327736 - ôøðö'ñ÷ä 064-494030
For participating in ongoing joint Israeli-Palestinian
protest actions against the wall, call:
Jonathan:066-327736 or Franceska:064-494030
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