In the wake of the disruptions at the Federation General Assembly in New Orleans, I posted some thoughts at my blog. You can read them by clicking here.
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In the wake of the disruptions at the Federation General Assembly in New Orleans, I posted some thoughts at my blog. You can read them by clicking here.
Kahane was right !!!!
I don’t doubt that the Jewish Voice for Peace demonstrators at the General Assembly in New Orleans are motivated by high ideals. But aside from raising the JVP’s profile nationally, I don’t see the heckling of Prime Minister Netanyahu as moving most Jews toward a more dovish stance on the Israel/Palestine issue.
I think that polite questions to the PM or a more quiet protest, perhaps displaying placards stating the need for peace talks over and above settlements, might have been more useful. I would also disagree with the JVP’s agnosticism on the issue of one state versus two. But I’ll repeat my appreciation for Max Blumenthal’s quip that the ADL should be called the “Defamation League”—in this case for naming the JVP in the “top ten” of anti-Israel extremist groups.
Dear Ralph,
Sadly your response is too typical of the failed, middle-ground, armchair politics of Meretz. In addition to porposing polite questions of the PM in New Orleans, Meretz has employed polite questions of the occupation in Israel, etc.. Meanwhile others who are scorned by Meretz have been protesting Israeli human rights abuses with Palestinians for the last eight years in the Occupied Territories, until many years later Meretz finally recognized it should join them in Sheikh Jarrah.
One only hopes that it will not take Meretz many more years to recognize that a desperate situation requires dramatic means, not just polite, milquetoast questions and staid placards.
If not, others will continue to lead, and Meretz will continue to follow, until it fades completely into obscurity.
Ted
This is now the second blog post that I have read on this website in which Mitchell Plitnick has white washed JVP’s overall role on the Jewish left.
The simple fact is that JVP does not even support a two state solution! By taking such a position – along with its consistently one-sided criticisms of Israel – JVP has forfeited its right to call itself (at least not with a straight face)a peace organization.
Whatever one’s views of the tactics that were used by those who disrupted Netanyahu’s speech, surely it is worth noting that the group that planned this action isn’t even committed to Israel’s continued existence.Yet somehow, Plitnick chose to overlook this rather inconvenient fact.
Yes, Mitchell, we all know that you left JVP over your alleged differences with its political views (differences that never seemed to prevent you from issuing a constant stream of propagandistic statements on behalf of JVP over the course of many years).
My real question is why Meretz USA would want a JVP apolgist to be one of its regular bloggers.
MUSA has many fine bloggers – all of whom issue tough- minded, yet fair, criticism of Israeli policies – but do so without granting legitimacy to far left organizations that cannot even summon up the “courage” to support Israel’s right to exist.
I don’t know why Abe Bird could issue the phrase “Kahane was right!”
Kahane epitomised the rabid ultra nationalistic and foaming at the mouth “holier than thou” mentality which is at the heart of the settler movement today. These fanatics will stop at nothing to achieve their goals, including the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin (15th anniversary a few days ago). Yigal Amir the cowardly assassin who shot Rabin in the back is derived from Kahane style “ideology”.
I note that some conspiracy nerds are now trying to make a case that Kahane was the first victim of Al Qaeda as if to add some sort of legitimacy to his deplorable career.
Dear Ken,
I am not writing to defend Mitchell in any way, but these kind of attacks on any kind of progressive thinking demonstrate the shameful positions taken by the “Zionist left” (note oxymoron).
Mitchell can certainly speak more on this, but to my knowledge, JVP does not support one state.
On the other hand, it is very revealing that calls for equal rights for all people in a given geographic area, normally a straightforward position supported by the left, are so frightening and angering to much of the “Zionist left.” If Israel granted equal rights to all peoples living within its geographic boundaries (whatever those boundaries may be), certainly it would change the nature of the state, ending priveleging of Jewish rights over the rights of other peoples. It is sad that equality is what people who believe they are progressive are battling so desperately against in the case of Israel.
Ted
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