Silencing
Critics Not Way
To Middle East Peace
By Joel Beinin
07 February, 2007
San
Francisco Chronicle
Last
Sunday in San Francisco, the Anti-Defamation League sponsored "Finding
Our Voice," a conference designed to help Jews recognize and confront
the "new anti-Semitism." For me, it was ironic. Ten days before,
my own voice was silenced by fellow Jews.
I was to give a talk about
our Middle East policy to high school students at the Harker School
in San Jose. With one day to go, my contact there called to say my appearance
had been canceled. He was apologetic and upset. He expected the talk
would be intellectually stimulating and intriguing for students. But,
he said, "a certain community of parents" complained to the
headmaster. He added, without divulging details, that the Jewish Community
Relations Council of Silicon Valley had played a role.
[Editor's note: Diane Fisher,
executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Silicon
Valley, says that although she left a message for the school principal,
she never actually spoke to him, and any suggestion that the council
was responsible for the cancellation of Beinin's appearance at the school
is inaccurate and an "unlikely inflation of JCRC's influence."]
I was raised a Zionist. I
went to Israel after high school for six months to live on a kibbutz.
I met my wife there. We returned four years later thinking we'd spend
our lives on a kibbutz, working the land and living the Zionist dream.
Why did the council feel the need to silence me?
In fact, this was not our
first run-in. I have long advocated equal rights for the Palestinians,
as I do for all people. I criticize Israeli policies. I seem to have
crossed the council's line of acceptable discourse. Because I am a Jew,
it is not so easy to smear me as guilty of this "new anti-Semitism."
Instead, hosts like the Harker School, and others, are intimidated,
and open dialogue on Israel is censored.
In 2005, Marin's Rodef Sholom
synagogue caved to the council and revoked my invitation, unless my
talk could be accompanied by a rebuttal. Roy Mash, a board member, resigned
in protest. He asked in his resignation letter whether "given Judaism's
long and deep tradition of concern for justice and ethics, a Jewish
venue is (not) precisely the setting most appropriate for a speaker
like Dr. Beinin?"
I was indeed raised to believe
that being Jewish meant being actively committed to social justice.
I moved to Israel expecting to pursue that ideal. Yet much of what I
saw there called this into question.
I tended livestock on Kibbutz
Lahav, which was established on the ruins of three Palestinian villages.
The Palestinian inhabitants had been expelled and, because they are
not Jewish, were unable to return. One day, we needed extra workers
to help clean manure from the turkey cages. The head of the turkey branch
said we should not ask for kibbutz members to do the work because, "This
isn't work for Jews. This is work for Arabushim." "Arabushim"
is an extremely derogatory racial term.
I had participated in the
civil rights movement in America, picketing Woolworth's stores that
wouldn't serve African Americans. Yet in Israel I discovered the same,
stark racism. How could this bring peace between Palestinians and Israelis?
While still living in Israel, I began to speak out for equal rights
for Palestinians, as I had done for blacks in America.
Organizations claiming to
represent American Jews engage in a systematic campaign of defamation,
censorship and hate-mongering to silence criticism of Israeli policies.
They hollow the ethical core out of the Jewish tradition, acting instead
as if the highest purpose of being Jewish is to defend Israel, right
or wrong.
No one is spared. New York
University Professor Tony Judt also moved to Israel with notions of
justice. Judt learned, as I did, that most Israelis were "remarkably
unconscious of the people who had been kicked out of the country and
were suffering in refugee camps to make this fantasy possible."
In October, the Polish Consulate in New York canceled a talk by Judt
after pressure from the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish
Committee.
Even former U.S. presidents
are not immune. Jimmy Carter has been the target of a smear campaign
since the release of his latest book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."
Carter's most vociferous critics have not challenged him on the issues.
Rather, they discredit him with personal attacks, even insinuating that
the man who has achieved more than any other American president in Arab/Israeli
peacemaking is anti-Semitic.
Why discredit, defame and
silence those with opposing viewpoints? I believe it is because the
Zionist lobby knows it cannot win based on facts. An honest discussion
can only lead to one conclusion: The status quo in which Israel declares
it alone has rights and intends to impose its will on the weaker Palestinians,
stripping them permanently of their land, resources and rights, cannot
lead to a lasting peace. We need an open debate and the freedom to discuss
uncomfortable facts and explore the full range of policy options. Only
then can we adopt a foreign policy that serves American interests and
one that could actually bring a just peace to Palestinians and Israelis.
Joel Beinin
co-edited "The Struggle for Sovereignty: Palestine and Israel,
1993-2005."
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