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Uri Avnery on Gaza and Peace

THE ASSAULT ON AVNERI

“The Government Is Drowning Us All”

Uri Avnery attacked by rightist thugs

A disaster was averted yesterday (June 5) at Tel-Aviv’s Museum Square, when rightists threw a smoke grenade into the middle of the protest rally, obviously hoping for a panic to break out and cause the protesters to trample on each other. But the demonstrators remained calm, nobody started to run and just a small space in the middle of the crowd remained empty. The speaker did not stop talking even when the cloud of smoke reached the stage. The audience included many children.

Half an hour later, a dozen rightist thugs attacked Gush Shalom’s 86 year old Uri Avnery, when he was on his way from the rally in the company of his wife, Rachel, Adam Keller and his wife Beate Siversmidt. Avnery had just entered a taxi, when a dozen rightist thugs attacked him and tried to drag him out of the car. At the critical moment, the police arrived and made it possible for the car to leave. Gush spokesman Adam Keller said: “These cowards did not dare to attack us when we were many, but they were heroes when they caught Avnery alone.”

The incident took place when the more than 10 thousand demonstrators were dispersing, after marching through the streets of Tel Aviv in protest against the attack on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

Not only was this one of the largest peace demonstrations for a long time, but also the first time that all parts of the Israeli peace camp – from Gush Shalom and Hadash to Peace Now and Meretz – did unite for common action

The main slogan was “The Government Is Drowning All of Us” and “We must Row towards Peace!” – alluding to the attack on the flotilla. The protesters called in unison “Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies!”

The demonstrators assembled at Rabin Square and marched to Museum Square, where the protest rally was held. Originally, this was planned as a demonstration against the occupation on its 43th anniversary, and for peace based on “Two States for Two Peoples” and “Jerusalem – Capital of the Two States”, but recent events turned it mainly into a protest against the attack on the flotilla.

One of the new sights was the great number of national flags, which were flown alongside the red flags of Hadash, the green flags of Meretz and the two-flag emblems of Gush Shalom. Many peace activists have decided that the national flag should no longer be left to the rightists.

“The violence of the rightists is a direct result of the brainwashing, which has been going on throughout the last week,” Avnery commented. “A huge propaganda machine has incited the public in order to cover up the terrible mistakes made by our political and military leadership, mistakes which are becoming worse from day to day.”

Lying About The Gaza Flotilla Disaster

It’s been one lie after another in the US media about the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound relief flotilla. No matter that the Israeli media views the whole incident as a debacle for Israel, in this country the Israel-can-do-no-wrong crowd is on overdrive defending the operation. As usual, facts don’t matter to them.

Except they do.

The first thing you need to know about the Gaza flotilla disaster is that the intention of the activists on board the ships was to break the Israeli blockade. Delivering the embargoed goods was incidental.

In other words, the activists were like the civil rights demonstrators who sat down at segregated lunch counters throughout the South and refused to leave until they were served. Their goal was not really to get breakfast. It was to end segregation.

That fact is so obvious that it is hard to believe that the “pro-Israel” lobby is using it as an indictment.

Of course the goal of the flotilla was to break the blockade. Of course Martin Luther King provoked the civil authorities of the South to break segregation. Of course the Solidarity movement used workers’ rights as a pretext to break Soviet-imposed Communism.

The bottom line is that the men and women of the flotilla had every right to attempt to destroy an illegal blockade that Israel had no legal standing to impose and which was designed to inflict collective punishment on the people of Gaza. (There is no truth to the story that Israel would have delivered the goods on the ships to Gaza if asked; the Israelis never made that offer and, judging by years of precedent, would have blocked any delivery).

As for the Israeli argument that its soldiers were attacked, that is ridiculous. Israeli commandos were ordered to board a civilian ship in international waters and the government that sent them claims that the resisting passengers attacked them without provocation. This is like a carjacker complaining to the police that the driver bashed him with a crowbar that was under the seat. Neither carjackers nor hijackers should expect their victims to acquiesce peacefully.

Here are the facts about life in Gaza today — facts that only can be changed by breaking the blockade. These data come from the American Near East Relief Association (ANERA), which provides relief to Gazans to the extent permitted by the Israeli (and American) authorities. ANERA is neither “pro-Israel” nor “pro-Palestinian.” It has no political agenda at all. It merely determines what human needs are and tries to respond to them.

8 out of 10 Gazans depend on foreign aid to survive.

The World Food Program says Gaza requires a minimum of 400 trucks a day to meet basic nutritional needs – yet an average of just 171 trucks worth of supplies enters Gaza every week,

Clothes that were held in the port of Ashdod for over a year were released into Gaza but arrived covered with mold and mildew, unusable.

95% of Gaza’s water fails World Health Organization standards leaving thousands of newborns at risk of poisoning.

Anemia for children under the age of 5 is estimated at 48%.

75 million liters of untreated sewage are pumped into the Mediterranean Sea every day – because piping and spare parts are not permitted.

During the 2009 bombing:

More than 120,000 jobs were lost as Gaza’s industrial zone was destroyed… 15,000 homes and apartments were damaged or destroyed… 1/3 of all schools were destroyed.

None of these can be rebuilt, because construction supplies are kept out by the Israeli authorities.

Also, check this out from The Economist. It is a partial list of commodities allowed into Gaza and commodities banned.

So what is the blockade about?

It is not about stopping terrorism. Hamas has repeatedly offered Israel an indefinite cease-fire in exchange for lifting the blockade. And, on a half dozen occasions, Israel accepted the deal but did not live up to its side of it. In fact, the 2009 war began after Israel ignored its commitments under the Gaza cease-fire agreement, continued the blockade, and then provoked the resumption of attacks on Sderot through a series of targeted assassinations of Palestinians (Israel claims that no cease-fire agreement curtails its right to kill any Palestinian it deems to be a terrorist).

Israel asserts that it will not accept any long-term cease-fire agreement with Hamas because Hamas does not recognize its right to exist.

But Israel does not need the permission of anyone — let alone Hamas — to exist. All it needs from Hamas is an end to violence and that is precisely what Hamas is offering, in exchange for lifting the blockade.

This is not to say that Hamas need never recognize Israel. It should. But it is ridiculous to insist on recognition as a precondition for anything. Recognition would be the end result of negotiations, not a precondition for it.

But that is not what Israel wants. It wants to destroy Hamas because it is a terrorist organization. And that makes sense until one realizes that the African National Congress, Sinn Fein, the Israeli Irgun, the Algerian FLN and a host of other resistance movements were called terrorist organizations before negotiations brought them to power. Former Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir were both unabashed terrorists prior to their entrance into respectable politics. And so what? If dealing with terrorists — as Israel has repeatedly done with Hezbollah — will help achieve a worthy goal, why not do it? After all, if negotiations fail, one can always walk away.

But Israel will not change its self-defeating policies until we change ours. And there is no evidence that is happening (at least, not until after the November elections, for obvious reasons).

For now, our policies are joined at the hip with Israel’s. We support the blockade of Gaza. We oppose any efforts at reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. We even back Israel’s opposition to the Arab Peace Initiative, which offers Israel full peace and normalization of relations with every Arab country in exchange for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

Enough is enough. The Obama administration needs to join the rest of the world in demanding an end to the Gaza blockade as a first big step toward the resumption of negotiations.

The attack on the flotilla was one of the most disastrous blunders in Israel’s history. At last, the whole world sees Israel’s policy of collective punishment for what it is — a means to perpetuate the occupation forever. Only the United States government has chosed to close its eyes.

The occupation is killing Israel. And we are on the sidelines letting it happen.

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Jewish Leader on Gaza Flotilla

uri

Kill a Turk and Rest : Uri Avnery

ON THE high seas, outside territorial waters, the ship was stopped by the navy. The commandos stormed it. Hundreds of people on the deck resisted, the soldiers used force. Some of the passengers were killed, scores injured. The ship was brought into harbor, the passengers were taken off by force. The world saw them walking on the quay, men and women, young and old, all of them worn out, one after another, each being marched between two soldiers…

exodus1947

The ship was called “Exodus 1947”. It left France in the hope of breaking the British blockade, which was imposed to prevent ships loaded with Holocaust survivors from reaching the shores of Palestine. If it had been allowed to reach the country, the illegal immigrants would have come ashore and the British would have sent them to detention camps in Cyprus, as they had done before. Nobody would have taken any notice of the episode for more than two days.

But the person in charge was Ernest Bevin, a Labour Party leader, an arrogant, rude and power-loving British minister. He was not about to let a bunch of Jews dictate to him. He decided to teach them a lesson the entire world would witness. “This is a provocation!” he exclaimed, and of course he was right. The main aim was indeed to create a provocation, in order to draw the eyes of the world to the British blockade.

What followed is well known: the episode dragged on and on, one stupidity led to another, the whole world sympathized with the passengers. But the British did not give in and paid the price. A heavy price.

Many believe that the “Exodus” incident was the turning point in the struggle for the creation of the State of Israel. Britain collapsed under the weight of international condemnation and decided to give up its mandate over Palestine. There were, of course, many more weighty reasons for this decision, but the “Exodus” proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I AM not the only one who was reminded of this episode this week. Actually, it was almost impossible not to be reminded of it, especially for those of us who lived in Palestine at the time and witnessed it.

There are, of course, important differences. Then the passengers were Holocaust survivors, this time they were peace activists from all over the world. But then and now the world saw heavily armed soldiers brutally attack unarmed passengers, who resist with everything that comes to hand, sticks and bare hands. Then and now it happened on the high seas – 40 km from the shore then, 65 km now.

In retrospect, the British behavior throughout the affair seems incredibly stupid. But Bevin was no fool, and the British officers who commanded the action were not nincompoops. After all, they had just finished a World War on the winning side.

If they behaved with complete folly from beginning to end, it was the result of arrogance, insensitivity and boundless contempt for world public opinion.

Ehud Barak is the Israeli Bevin. He is not a fool, either, nor are our top brass. But they are responsible for a chain of acts of folly, the disastrous implications of which are hard to assess. Former minister and present commentator Yossi Sarid called the ministerial “committee of seven”, which decides on security matters, “seven idiots” – and I must protest. It is an insult to idiots.

THE PREPARATIONS for the flotilla went on for more than a year. Hundreds of e-mail messages went back and forth. I myself received many dozens. There was no secret. Everything was out in the open.

There was a lot of time for all our political and military institutions to prepare for the approach of the ships. The politician consulted. The soldiers trained. The diplomats reported. The intelligence people did their job.

Nothing helped. All the decisions were wrong from the first moment to this moment. And it’s not yet the end.

The idea of a flotilla as a means to break the blockade borders on genius. It placed the Israeli government on the horns of a dilemma – the choice between several alternatives, all of them bad.

Every general hopes to get his opponent into such a situation.

The alternatives were:

  1. To let the flotilla reach Gaza without hindrance. The cabinet secretary supported this option. That would have led to the end of the blockade, because after this flotilla more and larger ones would have come.
  2. To stop the ships in territorial waters, inspect their cargo and make sure they were not carrying weapons or “terrorists”, then let them continue on their way. That would have aroused some vague protests in the world but upheld the principle of a blockade.
  3. To capture them on the high seas and bring them to Ashdod, risking a face-to-face battle with activists on board.

As our governments have always done, when faced with the choice between several bad alternatives, the Netanyahu government chose the worst.

Anyone who followed the preparations as reported in the media could have foreseen that they would lead to people being killed and injured. One does not storm a Turkish ship and expect cute little girls to present one with flowers. The Turks are not known as people who give in easily.

The orders given to the forces and made public included the three fateful words: “at any cost”. Every soldier knows what these three terrible words mean. Moreover, on the list of objectives, the consideration for the passengers appeared only in third place, after safeguarding the safety of the soldiers and fulfilling the task.

If Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, the Chief of Staff and the commander of the navy did not understand that this would lead to killing and wounding people, then it must be concluded – even by those who were reluctant to consider this until now – that they are grossly incompetent. They must be told, in the immortal words of Oliver Cromwell to Parliament: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

flotillaraidTHIS EVENT points again to one of the most serious aspects of the situation: we live in a bubble, in a kind of mental ghetto, which cuts us off and prevents us from seeing another reality, the one perceived by the rest of the world. A psychiatrist might judge this to be the symptom of a severe mental problem.

The propaganda of the government and the army tells a simple story: our heroic soldiers, determined and sensitive, the elite of the elite, descended on the ship in order “to talk” and were attacked by a wild and violent crowd. Official spokesmen repeated again and again the word “lynching”.

On the first day, almost all the Israeli media accepted this. After all, it is clear that we, the Jews, are the victims. Always. That applies to Jewish soldiers, too. True, we storm a foreign ship at sea, but turn at once into victims who have no choice but to defend ourselves against violent and incited anti-Semites.

It is impossible not to be reminded of the classic Jewish joke about the Jewish mother in Russia taking leave of her son, who has been called up to serve the Czar in the war against Turkey. “Don’t overexert yourself’” she implores him, “Kill a Turk and rest. Kill another Turk and rest again…”

“But mother,” the son interrupts, “What if the Turk kills me?”

“You?” exclaims the mother, “But why? What have you done to him?”

To any normal person, this may sound crazy. Heavily armed soldiers of an elite commando unit board a ship on the high seas in the middle of the night, from the sea and from the air – and they are the victims?

But there is a grain of truth there: they are the victims of arrogant and incompetent commanders, irresponsible politicians and the media fed by them. And, actually, of the Israeli public, since most of the people voted for this government or for the opposition, which is no different.

The “Exodus” affair was repeated, but with a change of roles. Now we are the British.

Somewhere, a new Leon Uris is planning to write his next book, “Exodus 2010”. A new Otto Preminger is planning a film that will become a blockbuster. A new Paul Newman will star in it – after all, there is no shortage of talented Turkish actors.

MORE THAN 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson declared that every nation must act with a “decent respect to the opinions of mankind”. Israeli leaders have never accepted the wisdom of this maxim. They adhere to the dictum of David Ben-Gurion: “It is not important what the Gentiles say, it is important what the Jews do.” Perhaps he assumed that the Jews would not act foolishly.

Making enemies of the Turks is more than foolish. For decades, Turkey has been our closest ally in the region, much more close than is generally known. Turkey could play, in the future, an important role as a mediator between Israel and the Arab-Muslim world, between Israel and Syria, and, yes, even between Israel and Iran. Perhaps we have succeeded now in uniting the Turkish people against us – and some say that this is the only matter on which the Turks are now united.

This is Chapter 2 of “Cast Lead”. Then we aroused most countries in the world against us, shocked our few friends and gladdened our enemies. Now we have done it again, and perhaps with even greater success. World public opinion is turning against us.

This is a slow process. It resembles the accumulation of water behind a dam. The water rises slowly, quietly, and the change is hardly noticeable. But when it reaches a critical level, the dam bursts and the disaster is upon us. We are steadily approaching this point.

“Kill a Turk and rest,” the mother says in the joke. Our government does not even rest. It seems that they will not stop until they have made enemies of the last of our friends.

uri

Uri Avnery is the sage of Israel. The founder of the Israeli peace movement, Gush Shalom, Avnery calls for the reinvigoration of the peace movement by direct engagement.

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Atomic Fireball Threat Contained on Capitol Hill – Washington Post

By Al Kamen
Urgent! This warning just in from the U.S. Capitol Police:

Suspicious Characteristics Mailing (Atomic Fireball Hard Candy)

The Senate Post Office has recently seen an influx of flat envelopes containing “Atomic Fireball Hard Candy.” The candies are addressed to Senate Offices. The flat envelopes have been irradiated, x-rayed, opened and tested by Senate Post Office employees and the contents have been cleared and deemed safe for delivery. However, it is possible some of the envelopes may have loose or broken candies enclosed.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the United States Capitol Police Threats Assessment Section, at 202-224-1495.

Then, they may be safe, but a Senate aide notes: “Don’t try to bite directly into any whole jawbreaker, gobstopper, jolly rancher, or for that matter, atomic fireball, before you soften it up, as it can damage your teeth.”

The candies apparently were sent by The Matthew 5 Project, an Evangelical effort to promote international cooperation and reduce nuclear weapons. The message appeared in Senate e-mail boxes Thursday.

By Al Kamen  |  April 22, 2010; 12:37 PM ET

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Abeni Ministry – Helping Women in Adult Entertainment Industry

Abeni is a group of women who are dedicated to loving those working within the adult entertainment industry. We exist to be the face of Christ; sharing His love and coming along side them on their journey as well as serving them practically, emotionally and spiritually.
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Evangelicals Support Nuclear Reductions

Evangelicals Send Atomic Fireballs to Congress

For Immediate Release

April 12, 2010

Evangelical college presidents, denominational executives, pastors, veterans, professors, and missionaries are encouraging the Obama administration and Congress to engage in diplomacy with Iran and North Korea and to reduce US nuclear arsenals.  Citing scripture, Jesus, and foreign policy experts such as George Shultz, they claim “overcoming the nuclear threat requires international cooperation” and “nuclear weapons are a moral threat” that must eventually be eliminated. For emphasis they provided Atomic Fireballs with their statement, saying “Atomic Fireballs are great candy, but terrible foreign policy.”

Their historic Matthew 5 Project statement, which “calls on our nation to be willing to talk with and listen to antagonists,” offers strong support for the “new START” treaty.  The statement was sent to President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, Secretary of Defense Gates, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all 535 members of Congress.  Arguing that “Jesus is the realist,” the evangelical statement recognizes that even though “The United States has crucial disagreements with Iran, Jesus does not say talks should be refused until we approve of the conduct of the adversary.”

The statement also refers to the policy recommendations of George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, and other conservative national security experts who are now recommending the elimination of nuclear weapons.  “Nuclear weapons are a physical threat to the survival of human life on earth. Prominent national security experts have recently called for reducing and abolishing reliance on nuclear weapons, by verifiable international agreement, in order to enhance national security. This cannot be accomplished unilaterally; it requires international cooperation and verification.”  The statement and broad scope of endorsements reveal the growing sentiment among American Evangelicals that the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons is both theologically necessary and politically possible.

After laying out their biblical, theological, and political cases, the statement culminates in a call to action that encourages American churches to engage in interfaith and international dialogue and to “urge international cooperation in continued step-by-step reductions, working toward ways to verify abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide.”

ABOUT THE MATTHEW 5 PROJECT

The Matthew 5 Project is an Evangelical effort to promote international cooperation and reduce nuclear weapons through careful analysis of political realities and sound biblical and theological arguments (http://www.matthew5project.org/).

CONTACT

Glen Stassen, Ph.D.

Professor of Christian Ethics

Fuller Theological Seminary

135 N. Oakland Avenue

Pasadena, California 91182

626-304-3733 (work)

gstassen@fuller.edu

Rev. Paul Alexander, Ph.D.

Professor of Theology and Ethics

Co-founder, Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice

Azusa Pacific University

701 E. Foothill Blvd.

Azusa, California 91702

626-815-5434 (work)

palexander@apu.edu

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Israel Arrests Nonviolent Protesters

Friends,

Marwan is a friend of mine, we were at two nonviolent protests in the West Bank a couple of weeks ago.  I’m going to be uploading a video soon to YouTube that shows him explaining his commitment to nonviolence and his commitment to resisting the occupation.

Please go to Holy Land Trust’s Facebook page or http://www.holylandtrust.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=548&Itemid=90 and ENGAGE IN ACTIONS.

Peace,

Paul Alexander

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday – March 30th, 2010

Israel Arrests a Palestine Network Founder in a Non-Violent Protest Against Israel’s Denial of Christian Right to Worship in Jerusalem

Ramallah – March 30th 2010: The Palestine Network calls for the immediate release of Palestine Network Founding Member Marwan Fararjeh, PLO leader Abbas Zaki and all detainees and calls upon governments of the world for immediate pressure on Israel to suspend all acts of provocation by Israel including denying Palestinian Christians their right to worship in Jerusalem.

On Sunday, March 28th, 2010, Palestinians, foreigners and Israeli peace supporters went out on a nonviolent protest in teh Holy town of Bethlehem against Israel’s denial of Palestinians from the West Bank to enter Jerusalem to pray at the Holy places of Christianity during Easter.

During the protest, a small group of sixty peaceful demonstrators managed to cross the Separation Wall before they were surrounded by armed Israeli  forces.  At no time were any members of the protest violent or threatening to the soldiers, police and private security contractors, even as they were being forcefully detained. The Israeli security forces arrested sixteen participants of the demonstration, including A Palestine Network Founder and A Holy Land Trust Nonviolence Team member Marwan Fararjeh and his colleague Ahmad Al Azzeh. They also arrested PLO leader Abbas Zaki, a member of the Fateh Central Committee, Fadi Hamad, an Associated Press photographer, seven more Palestinians, four Israelis and an international demonstrator.   While Israeli quickly released five non-Palestinian protesters, the eleven Palestinians were detained.

As of Monday, March 29th we have received information that the eleven demonstrators are being held at the Ofar detention center near Ramallah, and will be held for four days.  The detained are reportedly in good spirits, and are grateful for the international support that they have received in challenging the occupation and its practices.


We call on the friends of Palestine to voice with their governments an urgent need for immediate steps to end the aggression on the people of Palestine, their land, and property.


Marwan Fararjeh A Palestine Network Founder arrested in a peaceful protest against Israel's denial of the right of Christians to worship in Jerusalem during Easter.


Marwan Fararjeh A Palestine Network Founder arrested in a peaceful protest against Israel’s denial of the right of Christians to worship in Jerusalem during Easter.

On Behalf of The Board of Directors of the Palestine Network:

Ramzi E. Khoury
Executive Director

For more information, contact:
Palestine (Arabic or English): Ramzi E. Khoury, Executive Director -  ramziekhoury@yahoo.com
Latin America (Spanish): Mauricio Abu Ghosh, Chairman of the Board of Directors -  Mauro@tsar.cl
Europe (French): Nabil Hajjar. Member of Board of Directors – nabil.el-haggar@univ-lille1.fr
(Danish): Mohammad Ibrahim, Member of Board of Directors – mohamad.ibrahim@live.dk

Press Officer: Diana Al Zeer: +97 (0 or 2) 569590300

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The Palestine Network is an independent network of Palestinians and friends of Palestine from all over the world who are engaged in supporting the Palestinian National Project of an independent and sovereign Palestine with Jerusalem its capital. The Palestine Network was launched during its Founding Conference (Feb. 23rd – Feb. 27th) in Bethlehem, Palestine, with 90 representatives from 23 countries.Pale

Peace Studies Programs

Michael Westmoreland-White compiled this, thanks Michael!

As a service, I thought I would list all the U.S.  colleges and universities that have programs with names like “peace studies,” “peace and global studies,” “peacebuilding and conflict resolution studies,” etc. I found there were enough that I decided just to  list the church-related ones and do the others in a separate post.   Typically, such programs are multi-disciplinary involving faculty from several departments including international studies, history, philosophy, religious studies, international law, economic development, and/or political science or sociology. The earliest such programs in the U.S. were in institutions related to the “historic peace churches” (Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, and Friends/Quakers), but it has spread beyond them.

American University in Washington, D.C.  Private research university related to the United Methodist Church and not to be confused with “American Universities” around the world which are usually sponsored by the U.S. State Department.  4400 Massachussetts Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20016.  Highly selective and quite expensive.  Offers an M.A. in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution that is highly regarded.

Arcadia University was until 2001 known by the somewhat ridiculous name of Beaver College, which is even sillier when you understand that this co-ed institution began life in 1853 as Beaver Female Seminary. (You can’t make  stuff like that up.) 450 South Easton Road, Glenside, PA 19038.  Originally founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church, Arcadia today is related to the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), but has an independent board and an ecumenical spirit.  Arcadia’s mission is to prepare students specifically for a shrinking, global society.  It has a College of Global Studies and students are encouraged to  do part of their studies abroad.  Offers an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution. One can also earn a joint M.A./M.P.H. (Master of Public Health) or a Certificate in International Studies presented with another undergraduate or graduate degree.

Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, 3003 Bentham Avenue, Elkhart, IN 46517.  AMBS offers an M.A. in Peace Studies.  They also offer this M.A. as a joint degree with a Master of Social Work degree.

Bethany Theological Seminary 615 National Road West, Richmond, IN 47374.  This is the official seminary of the Church of the Brethren, one of the Historic Peace Churches.  Peace and Justice emphases are found throughout the curriculum, but one can also get a Peace and Justice concentration for either the Master of Divinity or Master of Theology degrees.

Bethel College in North Newton, KS is affiliated with the Mennonite Church, USA.  It is a private, 4-year co-ed liberal arts college of about 500 students.  Tuition is currently just under $16,000 per year which is below that of most private colleges and about 89% of students receive some form of financial aid.  Bethel houses the Kansas Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution which both acts internally to administer the school’s Peace and Conflict Resolution program and externally sponsors projects in international peacebuilding.  Offers a minor in Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies or a Certificate in Conflict Management to be added to any other degree program.

Bryn Mawr College. 101 North Merion Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010.  Founded by Quakers and originally a women’s college, Bryn Mawr is still informed by Quaker values. It offers a B.A. in Peace and Conflict studies in a joint curriculum  with Haverford College and Swarthmore College.

Chapman University, One University Drive, Orange, CA 92866.  Founded (as Hesperian College) by and affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Chapman deliberately timed things to begin within one hour of Pres. Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration in order  to honor his vision of equal education for all people.  It is today a large, comprehensive university with seven consituent colleges or schools.  Offers a B.A. in Peace Studies at Wilkerson College of Arts and Humanities that includes a Model United  Nations option.  Courses in Peace, Conflict and Human Rights are also integrated into the M.A. in International Studies.  Other features include the Albert Schweitzer Institute  and the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Studies.

College of St. Benedict-St. John’s University 37 S. College Avenue, St. Joseph, MN 56374 is, as its name suggests, affiliated with the Catholic Church. The College of St. Benedict (for women) and St. John’s University (for men) are partnered liberal arts colleges located respectively in St. Joseph and Collegeville, MN–about 3 miles apart. Students attend classes together at both institutions.  They jointly offer a B.A. in Peace Studies.

Creighton University 2500 California Plaza, Omaha, NE.  It is a comprehensive Catholic university founded in 1878 by the Society of Jesus and still a Jesuit-run institution.  It’s College of Arts and Sciences has a multi-disciplinary program in Justice and Peace Studies (the order is very Jesuitical!) which offers a Justice and Society major  leading to a B.A. or a minor in Justice and Peace Studies.  There is also a $1,000 Justice and Peace Studies Scholarship  offered in honor of former Congressman Walter H. Capps.

DePauw University 313 South Locust Street, Greencastle, IN 46135.  Despite its name, Depauw is primarily an undergraduate liberal  arts college,  but it has a School of Music that offers graduate degrees.  Founded in 1837 by the Methodist Church as Indiana Asbury College, DePauw remains affiliated with the United Methodist Church today.  Offers a B.A. in Conflict Studies.

Earlham College 801 National Rd. West, Richmond, IN 47374, is a 4 year liberal arts college related closely to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).  It’s educational philosophy is shaped by both the liberal arts tradition (rather than a technical or research university) and by the perspectives of Friends’ beliefs–viz., that there is “that of God in everyone,” that all are equal and must be treated with equal  dignity, the commitment to search for Truth, to live simply, and to work for peace with all.  Earlham offers an interdisciplinary B.A. in Peace and Global Studies (PAGS), modified from its original Peace and Conflict Studies program.  All in the program must take courses in economics, history, philosophy, politics,  and sociology/anthropology.  Within the major, students choose one of the following focuses:  Conflict Transformation, Religion and Pacifism, Social Theory and Social Movements, International War and  Peace, African-American Civil Rights, Women and Social Change, Environmental Studies,  or a Student-Designed focus.  Earlham’s PAGS program is affiliated with both the Indianapolis Peace Institute and the Plowshares Project, which is a collaborative effort between the peace studies programs  of Indiana’s 3 Historic Peace Church-related colleges:  Earlham (Friends), Goshen (Mennonite), and Manchester (Church of the Brethren).

Earlham School of Religion 226 College Avenue, Richmond, IN 47374.  Since Unprogrammed Friends do not have pastors, this is one of the few Quaker seminaries and the oldest one.  It offers both an M.Div. and an M.Min. with a Peace and Justice concentration.

Eastern Mennonite University 1200 Park Rd., Harrisonburg, VA 22602 is a Mennonite Church, USA related university containing an undergraduate liberal arts college and a theological seminary and graduate school.  The undergraduate program offers a B.A. in Peacebuilding and Development  and a minor concentration in Peacebuilding.  The seminary offers a Certificate in Theology for Peacebuilding which can be added to either the Master of Divinity or Master of Arts in Religion degrees.  One can also earn and dual M.Div./M.A. in Conflict Transformation. Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding runs a Graduate Program in Conflict Transformation leading either to a 15 hr. Certificate in Conflict Transformation or an M.A. in Conflict Transformation. (You have to wonder why more Christian seminaries, of whatever denomination, do not offer concentrations and degrees in peacebuilding and conflict transformation–for healthier congregations if nothing  else!)

Fresno Pacific University 1717 South Chestnut Avenue, Fresno, CA 93702.  Founded in 1944 by Mennonite Brethren (a Pietist offshoot of the Mennonite Church), Fresno Pacific is the only accredited church-related university in California’s Central Valley.  The undergraduate college offers a minor in Peace and Conflict Studies.  The graduate school offers an M.A. in Peacebuilding and Conflict Studies as well as Certificates in Church Conflict and Peacemaking, Mediation, Restorative Justice, School Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking, Workplace Conflict Management and Peacemaking, and a Personalized Certificate in Peacemaking and Conflict Studies.

Goshen College 1700 S. Main Street, Goshen, IN 46526. Is a liberal arts college closely affiliated with the Mennonite Church, USA.  It offers a B.A. in Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies and a minor in Peace and Justice studies.  International education and service learning is emphasized throughout the curriculum for both faculty and students. (Most faculty spend their sabbaticals in service rather than just in writing.) Goshen is a participating member of the Plowshares Collaborative.

Guilford College,5800 W. Friendly Avenue, Greensboro, NC. 27410.  Founded  and closely related to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) first as a boarding school, then, beginning in the 1880s, as a 4 year liberal arts college.  Quaker values still inform the school, including its  educational philosophy.  Offers both a B.A. and a minor in Peace and Conflict Studies.  Related programs include a B.A. in International Studies and one in Justice and Policy Studies.

Gustavus  Adolphus College 800 W. College Avenue, St. Peter, MN 56082.  Founded in 1862 as a Lutheran boarding school, it is now a four year liberal arts college closely affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S.  Offers a Peace Studies minor.

Hamline University 1536 Hewittt Avenue,  St. Paul, MN.  Closely associated with the United Methodist Church.  The undergraduate college offers a B.A. in Social Justice.  The Law School has a Center for Dispure Resolution which offers several conflict resolution certificates.

Haverford College. 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA 19041.  Founded in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Haverford is a most selective liberal arts college. Though not formally related to any Friends Meeting today, Haverford’s educational philosophy and atmosphere is still deeply shaped by Quaker values and numerous Friends are still found among its faculty and students.  Haverford hosts a Center for Peace and Global Citizenship whose programs include a B.A.  in Peace and Conflict Studies  in cooperation with Bryn  Mawr College and Swarthmore College.  In the next year or so, Haverford will be reorienting to offer a B.A. in Peace, Justice, and Human Rights.

Juanita College 1700 Moore Street, Huntingdon, PA 16652.  Founded in 1872 by the Church of the Brethren on the Juanita River.  Instead of Majors and Minors, Juanita College emphasizes a core curriculum of  liberal arts with additional “programs of emphasis.”  It’s Department of Peace and Conflict Studies offers 3 such “POEs”: A B.A. in Communication and Conflict Resolution, one in Peace and Conflict Studies and one in Peace and Conflict Studies with a secondary emphasis.

Manchester College 604 College Avenue, North Manchester, IN 46962.  Affiliated with the Church of the Brethren, Manchester is a small, selective, Christian liberal arts college.  Established in 1948, the Peace Studies Institute and Program in Conflict Resolution at Manchester actually began the field of peace studies which has now spread even beyond Christian circles.  Manchester offers a B.A. in Peace Studies with concentrations in either interpersonal/intergroup conflict studies, international and global  studies, or an individualized concentration.  There is also a Peace Studies minor. Manchester’s Peace Studies Institute and Program in Conflict Resolution is part of the Plowshares Collaborative that coordinates the peace studies programs of all three Historic Peace Church-related colleges in Indiana: Earlham, Goshen, and Manchester.  The Institute publishes Nonviolent Social Change previously called the Bulletin of the Peace Studies Institute.

Manhattan College Manhattan College Pkwy., Bronx, NY 10471.  Manhattan College is a Roman Catholic liberal arts college in the Lasallian tradition in 1853 in Riverdale, the Bronx, New York (despite its name, the school is no longer on the island of Manhattan).  Offers a B.A. in Peace Studies that is multidisciplinary and deals with arms races and war, economic, political and social justice, conflict creation, management, and  resolution, nonviolent philosophies and strategies of resistance, and world community and world government.  The first course in peace studies was offered at Manhattan College in 1958 and it has had a complete B.A.  program since 1971. The program offers several prestigious fellowships, internships, and scholarships, semesters in Washington, D.C. or the New York legislature in Albany.  There is a Model United Nations option and plenty of placement counseling beyond graduation.

Messiah College One College Avenue, Grantham, PA. 17027.  This is a small liberal arts college founded by and closely related to the Brethren  in Christ Church, a Pietist offshoot of the Mennonites.  Through its Sider Institute for Anabaptist, Wesleyan, and Pietist Studies, Messiah offers a Minor in Peace Studies.

Swarthmore College 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA 19081. Swarthmore is a most selective, private, liberal arts college founded by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).  Today the school is non-sectarian, but Quaker values still inform its educational philosophy.  The Peace and Conflict Studies Program at Swarthmore offers a B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies.  As well, students in any major can add a minor in Peace Studies.  The program at Swarthmore is multidisciplinary and participates jointly with the Peace and Conflict Studies programs at Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College, the Tri-College Consortium.  Swarthmore’s library boasts  one of the largest collections of primary documents related to peace and justice movements in the  world.  It is part of the Greater Philadelphia Higher Education Peace and Social Justice Consortium. Swarthmore also  hosts the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility.

University of Notre Dame 54801 Juniper Road, Notre Dame, IN 46556.  The University of Notre Dame du Lac (or just Notre Dame) is a private, Roman Catholic national research university in Notre Dame, IN, near the town of South Bend and 90 mi. East of Chicago, IL.  Admission is highly competitive. Over 70% of incoming students graduated in the top 5% of their high school class.  Once an all male school, women, first admitted in 1972, now comprise 47% of the undergraduate student population. Once nearly all white, minority enrollment has more than tripled in the last 20 years.  Notre Dame houses the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.  Through the Kroc Institute, students may earned a B.A., M.A., or even Ph.D. in Peace Studies–in a multidisciplinary setting working with several departments in Notre Dame.  This is one of the very few places offering a Ph.D.  in Peace Studies.

University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110.  The University of San Diego (USD) is a private, comprehensive Roman Catholic university in the City of San Diego.  It offers over 60 degrees (Baccalaureates, Masters’, and Doctorates) in six separate schools. One of those schools is the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies.The Kroc School at USD contains an Institute for Peace and Justice, a Conference Venue, and a Trans-Border Institute.  The Kroc School offers a minor in Peace Studies for undergraduates and an M.A.  in Peace and Justice Studies for graduate students.  Each year one or two distinguished peace scholars (who  are usually also activists) are brought to USD as Joan B. Kroc Peace Scholars.

University of St. Louis, One Grand Blvd., St. Louis, MO.  SLU is a medium sized Catholic university in the Jesuit tradition.  Now offers a Certificate in Peace  and Justice Studies.

University of St. Thomas 2115 Summit Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105.  The University of St. Thomas is a comprehensive university founded in 1885 by Archbishop  John Ireland. It’s an archdiocesan university.  They have a B.A. and a minor in Justice and Peace Studies.

Villanova University 800 E. Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, PA 19085.  Villanova is a medium sized Catholic university in the Augustinian tradition.  Has a Center for Peace & Justice Education.  Offers either a minor or concentration in Peace and Justice Education. The Center publishes the Journal for Peace and Justice Education.

Walsh University 2020 E. Maple St., North Canton, OH 44720.  A Catholic university founded by the Brothers of Christian Instruction.  The Department of Social Sciences offers a Peace Studies minor.

That’s all the specifically Christian colleges or universities in the U.S.  with Peace Studies programs that I have found.  If I have missed some, please alert me and I’ll add to this list.  In a later post, I”ll add in programs at schools without a faith-based perspective, including the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Believe it or not these programs are quite controversial.  During the Bush years, many conservative magazines and websites ran articles and advertisements  against these programs, saying that they had declared war on America!  Let’s face it:  Peacemaking is subversive of the status quo–regardless of which party controls the government or  who lives in the White House (or any other nation’s seat of government). When peacemakers come on the scene: Jesus or Buddha or Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. or Aung San Suu Kyi or Thich Nhat Hanh or Badshah Khan or Dorothy Day–they are always seen as troublemakers and disturbers of the peace, rather than as peacemakers.

Kids for Peace & Justice – Watch this Video!

Nathan and Kharese for Heifer International and World Vision

PCPJers commemorate Pentecostal martyrs at School of Assassins

Dr. Rick Waldrop and a small delegation from Cleveland, TN will be
participating in the School of the Americas Watch commemoration and
demonstration at Ft. Benning, GA, this weekend, Friday and Saturday, Nov.
20-21.

The primary rally and direct action will take place on Saturday
at 11:00 a.m. at the main gate of Ft. Benning.

If other PCPJers are attending, Rick Waldrop like to meet with you
for organizational and logistical purposes on Friday afternoon, 4:00 p.m. at
the Howard Johnson Hotel, 1011 Veterans Parkway, Columbus, GA, or call Rick at 423-2846346.

They will be commemorating and paying homage to the many Pentecostal
and Charismatic martyrs who died in the multiple armed conflicts throughout Latin America under the repressive military regimes which were headed, in many cases, by “graduates” of the infamous SOA, the School of the Americas, or School of the Assassins.

THEY ARE ALSO CALLING ON THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO CLOSE THE SCHOOL OF AMERICAS.

American Jews Rethink Israel

By Adam Horowitz & Philip Weiss
This article appeared in The Nation.

October 14, 2009

AVENGING ANGELS

This year has seen a dramatic shift in American Jews’ attitudes toward Israel. In January many liberal Jews were shocked by the Gaza war, in which Israel used overwhelming force against a mostly defenseless civilian population unable to flee. Then came the rise to power of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose explicitly anti-Arab platform was at odds with an American Jewish electorate that had just voted 4 to 1 for a minority president. Throw in angry Israelis writing about the “rot in the Diaspora,” and it’s little wonder young American Jews feel increasingly indifferent about a country that has been at the center of Jewish identity for four decades.

These stirrings on the American Jewish street will come to a head in late October in Washington with the first national conference of J Street, the reformation Israel lobby. J Street has been around less than two years, but it is summoning liberal–and some not so liberal–Jews from all over the country to “rock the status quo,” code for AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee).

Sure sounds like a velvet revolution in the Jewish community, huh? Not so fast. The changes in attitudes are taking place at the grassroots; by and large, Jewish leaders are standing fast. And as for policymakers, the opening has been slight. There seems little likelihood the conference will bring us any closer to that holy grail of the reformers: the ability of a US president, not to mention Congress, to put real pressure on Israel.

First the good news. There’s no question the Gaza conflict has helped break down the traditional Jewish resistance to criticizing Israel. Gaza was “the worst public relations disaster in Israel’s history,” says M.J. Rosenberg, a longtime Washington analyst who reports for Media Matters Action Network. For the first time in a generation, leading American Jews broke with the Jewish state over its conduct. New York Times columnist Roger Cohen said he was “shamed” by Israel’s actions, while Michelle Goldberg wrote in the Guardian that Israel’s killing of hundreds of civilians as reprisal for rocket attacks was “brutal” and probably “futile.”

Even devoted friends of Israel Leon Wieseltier and Michael Walzer expressed misgivings about the disproportionate use of force, and if Reform Jewish leaders could not bring themselves to criticize the war, the US left was energized by the horror. Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of Code Pink, threw herself into the cause of Gazan freedom after years of ignoring Israel-Palestine, in part out of deference to her family’s feelings. In The Nation Naomi Klein came out for boycott, divestment and sanctions; later, visiting Ramallah, she apologized to the Palestinians for her “cowardice” in not coming to that position earlier.

These were prominent Jews. But they echoed disturbance and fury among Jews all around the country over Israel’s behavior. Rabbi Brant Rosen of Evanston, Illinois, describes the process poetically. For years he’d had an “equivocating voice” in his head that rationalized Israel’s actions. “During the first and second intifadas and the war in Lebanon, I would say, ‘It’s complicated,’” he says. “Of course, Darfur is complicated, but that doesn’t stop the Jewish community from speaking out. There’s nothing complicated about oppression. When I read the reports on Gaza, I didn’t have the equivocating voice anymore.”

In the midst of the war, Rosen participated in a panel at a Reconstructionist synagogue in Evanston organized by the liberal group Brit Tzedek v’Shalom and read a piece from a local Palestinian describing her family’s experience in Gaza. “It was a gut-wrenching testimonial. It caused a stir in the congregation. Some people were very angry at me; others were uncomfortable but wanted to engage more deeply,” Rosen says. The rabbi has gone on to initiate an effort called Ta’anit Tzedek, or the Jewish Fast for Gaza. Each month over seventy rabbis across the country along with interfaith leaders and concerned individuals partake in a daylong fast in order “to end the Jewish community’s silence over Israel’s collective punishment in Gaza.”
Grassroots Jewish organizations have experienced a surge in interest since the Gaza war. The Oakland-based Jewish Voice for Peace has seen its mailing list double, to 90,000, with up to 6,000 signing on each month. Executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson says JVP is finding Jewish support in unlikely places, like Hawaii, Atlanta, South Florida and Cleveland.
Jewish youth have played a key role. A group of young bloggers, notably Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Spencer Ackerman and Dana Goldstein, have criticized Israel to the point that Marty Peretz of The New Republic felt a need to smear them during the Gaza fighting, saying, “I pity them their hatred of their inheritance.” Rosenberg is overjoyed by the trend. “None of them, none of them, is a birthright type or AIPAC type. You’d think that one or two would have the worldview of an old-fashioned superliberal on domestic stuff, pure AIPAC on Israel. But they are so hostile to that point of view.”

Dana Goldstein personifies this spirit. A 25-year-old former writer and editor for The American Prospect, she grew up in a Conservative community with close ties to Israel and has made her name doing political journalism. Years ago she vowed never to write about the Middle East; it was a thorny topic, and she felt nothing was to be gained by addressing it. But when Gaza happened, she felt she had to speak out. “The Israeli government is doing little more than devastating an already impoverished society and planting seeds of hatred in a new generation of Palestinians,” she wrote in TAP. Gaza was especially dismaying to her because Barack Obama’s election had felt like a new moment. “The Jewish community helped elect Obama, and Obama had a different way of talking about the Middle East,” she says. Mainstream Jewish organizations’ steadfast support for Israel’s assault seemed very old school to her.

In this sense, Gaza is the bookend to the 1967 war. Israel’s smashing victory in six days ended two decades of American Jewish complacency about Israel’s existence; many advocates for the state, including neoconservative Doug Feith and liberal hawk Thomas Friedman, found their voices as students at around that time. In the years that followed, American culture discovered the Holocaust, and the imperative “Never again!” gave rise to the modern Israel lobby: American Jews organized with the understanding that they were all that stood between Israel and oblivion.
“Younger people don’t have the baggage of 1967,” says Hannah Schwarzschild, a founding member of the new organization American Jews for a Just Peace. “They are applying what they’ve been taught about human rights, equality, democracy and liberal American Jewish values to Israel,” she adds, “and Israel-Palestine is moving to the center of their political world.”
The shift is most pronounced on campuses, where being pro-Palestinian has become a litmus test for progressive engagement. Last winter a battle over divestment from the Israeli occupation rocked Hampshire College, and many students spearheading the movement were Jewish. One of them, Alexander van Leer, explained his support for divestment in a YouTube video: “I spent last year in Israel, where I firsthand saw a lot of the oppression that was going on there. And it hurt me a lot coming from a Jewish background, where I’ve been taught a lot of the great things about Israel, which I know there are, but I was saddened to see the reality of it.”

The Hampshire students are part of an international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement that demands Israeli accountability for human rights violations. “Gaza gave BDS a huge boost,” says Ali Abunimah, author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. “It is shifting power between Israel and Palestinians. It shows there is a price for the status quo.”

The growing impact of the BDS movement can be glimpsed in several recent events. Palestinian activists and Code Pink pressured the international human rights organization Oxfam to suspend the actress Kristin Davis (Sex and the City), who had been serving as a goodwill ambassador, over her sponsorship of Ahava, a beauty products company that uses materials from the occupied West Bank (Davis’s commercial relationship with Ahava came to an end soon thereafter). Under similar pressure, a Brazilian parliamentary commission said Brazil should have no part in a proposed agreement that would bring increased trade between Israel and several South American countries until “Israel accepts the creation of the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.”
Then there was the Toronto International Film Festival in September, at which a number of prominent figures, including Jane Fonda, Viggo Mortensen, Danny Glover, Julie Christie and Eve Ensler, signed a declaration opposing the festival’s association with the Israeli consulate and a city-to-city program featuring Tel Aviv as part of a campaign by the Israeli government to “rebrand” itself after the Gaza conflict. The declaration read, in part, “especially in the wake of this year’s brutal assault on Gaza, we object to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann have all characterized as an apartheid regime.”

Not so long ago, “apartheid” was a hotly disputed term when applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now even advocates for Israel, such as entertainment magnate Edgar Bronfman and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, have warned that Israel faces an antiapartheid struggle unless it can get to a two-state solution, and fast. Nadia Hijab, a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, says such statements are a sign that the BDS movement is gaining traction. “The Palestinian national movement does not have power,” she says. “BDS is the only source of nonviolent power and is leading to an increasingly sophisticated discourse, but it’s early days yet.” Vilkomerson of JVP sees hope: “I think [the sanctions movement] will lead Israelis to shift. People do not want to be pariahs.”

n short, the change in the liberal-left discourse has been remarkable. Illinois writer Emily Hauser says she sees it in her synagogue. People once turned their backs on her after she published op-eds assailing Israel over its actions during the second intifada. Today many thank her for voicing their concerns. “The suffering of the [Palestinian] people there is a very, very powerful thing for people to be talking about. The community as a whole is far less likely to throw you out,” she says.

What does all this mean for the US political institutions that affect Middle East policy?
There are signs Washington is feeling the changes. Several members of Congress visited Gaza, and some dared to criticize Israel. After Democrats Brian Baird, Keith Ellison and Rush Holt returned, they held a press conference on Capitol Hill led by Daniel Levy, a polished British-Israeli who has played a key role in the emergence of J Street. The Congressmen called for Israel to lift the blockade. After first-term Representative Donna Edwards visited Gaza and called for a vigorous debate about the conflict here, old-line lobbyists came out against her. But J Street rallied to her side, raising $30,000 for her in a show of support.

Alas, those are the highlights. There have been few other courageous profiles. President Obama tried to change the game by speaking of Palestinian “humiliations” in his June speech in Cairo and calling for a freeze in Israeli settlement growth as a condition for progress toward a two-state solution. But the Israeli government has defied him, secure in the knowledge that Jewish leaders in Washington will back it. Dan Fleshler, an adviser to J Street and author of Transforming America’s Israel Lobby, says he’s frustrated by the lack of movement. “What I predicted in my book–that Obama could lay out an American policy and if Israel was recalcitrant about it, and if he took Israel to task in a serious way, he would get enough political support–well, he hasn’t tried it yet.” Fleshler is hopeful that the call for a settlement freeze isn’t the last test. “Other tests are coming up.”

Another longtime observer of Jewish Washington says the only thing that’s really changed is the presidency. That’s big, but it’s not everything. “Obama is strong and popular (still). He has a majority in Congress. Many in Congress feel that their political fate depends on his success. That is what generates the change in atmosphere here. So yes, there is significant change. But I think it has to do more with the atmosphere created by Bush’s departure and by the new policies of Obama than with generational shifts in the way Jews view Israel or talk about Israel.”
And so when Obama has seemed to lose his nerve–say, when he helped to bury the UN’s Goldstone report, which said Israel committed war crimes in Gaza–there has been very little resistance in the Jewish community to his capitulations. When Netanyahu was reported to have maligned Obama aides David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel as “self-hating Jews,” there was little outcry in the American Jewish community. And when we asked Representative Steve Rothman, a liberal Democrat, whether he welcomed J Street, he said he didn’t know enough about the group to say, before reciting the same old mantras about the “Jewish state”: “It’s always good for more people to get involved to support America’s most important ally in the Middle East…. As our president and vice president have said, Israel’s national security is identical to America’s vital national security.”

This is the treacherous landscape that J Street has stepped into, where it has been outflanked on occasion by both the right and the left. During the Gaza conflict, it issued a statement condemning not only Hamas but Israel, too, for “punishing a million and a half already-suffering Gazans for the actions of the extremists among them.” It was a brave stance for a fledgling Jewish organization trying to build mainstream support, and it brought down the wrath of community gatekeepers. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, wrote in the Forward that the statement displayed “an utter lack of empathy for Israel’s predicament,” calling it “morally deficient, profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment and also appallingly naïve.” Ouch.

More recently J Street has tacked in the other direction. During the Toronto festival it quietly began collecting signatures for a letter blasting the protest as “shameful and shortsighted.” Although never released as a letter, the initiative didn’t endear J Street to the growing grassroots movement. Which is not to say that progressives are not hopeful about its emergence. Rosenberg points out that in its more than fifty-year existence, AIPAC never got the positive publicity J Street got after just one year–a long, favorable portrait in The New York Times Magazine. “All the constellations are coming together. [Executive director] Jeremy Ben-Ami and Daniel Levy have a plan and a message, and they know how to work the media,” he says.

J Street is trying to position itself so that it is the only game in town for liberal Jews, affording Jewish advocates for the two-state solution the big political tent they’ve been lacking to this point. Rabbi Yoffie, for instance, will be addressing the J Street national conference, overlooking his ferocious criticism of the organization in January. “Let’s have a broad and generous definition of what constitutes pro-Israel,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, in explaining his pragmatic shift.

The conference is sure to combine culture, youth and politics in such a way as to make AIPAC look about as à la mode as the former Soviet Union. “This is a watershed moment in terms of how people look at institutions,” says Isaac Luria, J Street’s campaigns director. “The old legacy institutions are dying.” Nadia Hijab says this has been J Street’s main achievement, transforming the terrain for left-leaning Jewish groups by taking on the traditional lobby in the mainstream political arena, mobilizing money and message. “J Street is a positive development as an alternative to AIPAC,” Hijab says. “It’s not comparable to AIPAC yet, but in the American context it is very smart.”

Political dynamism is precisely what J Street hopes to display at its policy conference. Expected speakers include Senator John Kerry and former Senator Chuck Hagel; 160 members of Congress will serve as hosts for J Street’s first annual Gala Dinner. It might not rival the famous “roll call” of luminaries attending AIPAC’s annual conferences (more than half of Congress showed up last May), but it is an impressive show of firepower all the same.

The ultimate issue is whether J Street will have any effect in bringing about a two-state solution, an idea that, despite official support, has been neglected in Washington nearly to the point of abandonment. Dana Goldstein is thrilled by the possibility that the rubber will finally meet the road. “J Street has had a great influence on intellectual progressives in DC,” she says. “There is now a lobby group that engages ideas that have been out there without political will. They are the political arm to this movement.”

Some critics on the left argue that conditions on the ground have already made the two-state solution unreachable. There are more than 500,000 Israeli settlers occupying the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with more arriving every day, and Gaza remains under siege. Add to this the political scene inside Israel, where Netanyahu has balked at Washington’s request for a settlement freeze, and you could say that in the sixteen years since the Oslo Accords were signed, the possibility of two states in historic Palestine has never been as far off as it is today.
Abunimah sees the new organization as having little impact. “A kinder and gentler AIPAC does not represent serious change,” he says. “J Street is supposed to represent a tectonic shift, but it operates within the peace process paradigm and doesn’t challenge it at all.” Still, J Street has clearly panicked conservative Jews. And the Israeli embassy fired a warning shot across J Street’s bow in October, when it warned that the lobby group was working against Israel’s interests.

For its part, J Street knows these are desperate times for the liberal goal of a two-state solution. As Israel becomes more and more isolated globally, the Israeli government and the traditional lobby have only gotten more intransigent. At the AIPAC policy conference last spring, its executive director warned that Israel’s enemies were establishing a “predicate for abandonment” that only AIPAC’s faithful could reverse. Don’t expect such hysteria at the J Street conference, but behind all the hoopla, the organization will similarly be trying to preserve the old ideal of a Jewish state. “Getting Israel another thirty F-16s won’t help us combat the legitimacy issue [with] people who are trying to undermine the right of Israel to have a state.” Luria says. “Jews need a state. And that legitimacy window–the cracks in that window are getting wider. They’re dangerous. Dangerous.”

About Adam Horowitz
Adam Horowitz is an editor of the website Mondoweiss, which covers the Israel-Palestine conflict.

About Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss is the author of American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps (Harper Perennial) and an editor of the website Mondoweiss, which covers the Israel-Palestine conflict.


            

    

    

     
    










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