The puffery of Israel “activists” and a woefully reckless ASUC resolution

November 2nd, 2007 by yaman | Posted in Comment |

On Wednesday evening, the ASUC Senate, in a vote of 11-7-2, narrowly passed SB75, a resolution “affirming the US-Israel relationship.” Among other things, the resolution suggested that the “relationship” between the US and Israel was based on “shared ideals” including “commitments to freedom, equality, and tolerance for all people.” The resolution, void of any mention whatsoever of the occupation of Palestinian land and of the actual nature of that mystical “relationship,” further stipulated that the ASUC Senate supports a “diplomatic relationship” while it does not support any “specific policies” of Israel.

Some Senators rushed through the bill to celebrate Halloween. Scary, huh?

While the resolution was heard for about two hours, it would be a mistake to say that the issue was discussed comprehensively. It was disheartening to see many senators itching to get out of their seats so they could drop by the various Halloween parties that were happening around campus–it was even worse to see those who didn’t care to pay due attention to the issue at hand decide to vote yes rather than to abstain. One gets the impression that there is a general sense of apathy on one side of the senate chambers, a sense which, besides being irresponsible for any elected official, also seems to imply that some senators don’t recognize the gravity of their decisions. If not for them personally, then for others on campus, in the wider community, and around the world.

Out of Berkeley on Wednesday night, the imagined progressive capital of the US, the ASUC Senate passed a regressive and reckless resolution that ignored the realities of the US-Israel relationship. That relationship is not about “shared ideals,” but about the billions of dollars in aid and military supplies that go from the United States to Israel every year. It is defined by the control and influence that the United States wields in Israel and around the Middle East in general. It is deeply connected to US impediments to just conflict resolution in the area of Palestine. That relationship is precisely what has allowed Israel to continue its oppressive policies against the Palestinians for the past 60 years. To pretend that the relationship exists primarily in some other form is nothing more than self-delusion. The United States’ relationship with Israel is no different from its relationship with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the Shah in Iran: it is based in US imperial interests.

But, two senators took it upon themselves to divorce the reality of that relationship from a mythology of their own regarding “shared ideals.” The evaluative framework from which this bill emerged focused on these romantic “ideals” and paid no attention to how empty those ideals historically have been both in the United States and in Israel since their very inception. In truth, talk about those so-called ideals is totally worthless if one does not care to implement them in practice. Nothing regarding the total failure of the United States and Israel to care for these ideals either within their countries or abroad was mentioned in the resolution. That doesn’t make the resolution wrong: it simply makes it stupid. The image it projects is as absurd as one might imagine a photo-op with President Bush asserting his commitment to equality for all in New Orleans in the midst of the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina. In both cases, the subjects in question are so disconnected from reality as to render themselves irrelevant. On the Palestinians, who quite literally are starving in Gaza right now thanks to those glorious Israeli and American “ideals,” the ASUC said: let them eat cake.

One student, John Moghtader, expressed frustration that “just because Israel is embroiled in a conflict, everything we do has to be involved in that conflict.” My message to confused students like him is this: if you want people to stop talking about the occupation when Israel comes up, then end the occupation. If you are an American sick of hearing about Iraq, then end the war in Iraq. But do not fake disappointment or express annoyance when the issues come up. Recognize that there are very legitimate reasons why they do keep coming up, and recognize that the issues in question won’t go away until you do something about the problem, not the people pointing it out.

Earlier in the night Moghtader and some of the sponsoring senators repeated a number of times that supporting Israel as a country did not necessarily mean supporting all of its policies. Some seemed to concede that “some” Israeli policies were problematic. All of these claims to me seemed highly disingenuous, considering that I have never seen any of those students protesting with us against the Israeli occupation, or, for that matter, taking any active measures to end it. To the contrary, many of the students who supported the bill I have seen in the past protesting against our anti-occupation protests. What kind of dissent this is, I don’t know: but coyly invoking it while belittling dissent is apparently effective.

None of the student speakers in support of the bill were particularly compelling, except Igor Tregub, who spoke very intelligently and with much passion. The performance of many of the rest brought to mind a complaint I have long held about “pro-Israel activists:” their utter lack of originality. Such lack of creativity is something that I feel is very common to those who make up the vanguard of the status quo. Virtually all of the arguments put forward by those present on Wednesday evening I have seen before in StandWithUS, BlueStarPR, or AIPAC literature. Not to mention that expensive propaganda booklets explaining all the nice and pretty things about the “US-Israel Relationship” were passed out to all of the senators.

I don’t know how “pro-Israel activists” function, so I’m not sure why exactly they tend to follow this pattern. But for those who have doubts, I would simply suggest examining the editorial published by Erez Cohen a co-chair of the Israel Action Committee, in the Daily Californian today, in response to one by Matthew Taylor earlier:

The Palestinian leadership has rejected every one of these international proposals, but Mr. Taylor decided not to mention this—his denial of historical fact is offensive.

And from Josh Klaristenfeld and Monica Wulff, former co-chairs of the IAC, in 2004:

It is time for some honest debate, because frankly, the utter denial of historical fact is offensive.

And from Oren Lazar, yet another former co-chair of the IAC in 2001:

Oren Lazar, a junior majoring in political science and co-chair of the Israel Action Committee, said students need to be accurately informed on the issue.

“Israel has tried to come up with solutions with evidence in its willingness to make peace and give land for peace,” he said. “I hope that students will learn more about the situation, but (the demonstrators’) denial of historical facts is offensive.”

And again by Lazar in 2001:

“The denial of historical fact in all of their protests is offensive,” Lazar said.

Their denial of our intelligence is, in fact, quite offensive.

Neve Shalom is a community of Jews and Arabs living together in the 1948 borders of Israel. Here’s an idea of coexistence which finds grounding in Israel of all places, but not the ASUC Senate.

As for other supporters of the resolution, at this point in time, anybody who can suggest that the US government is “aspiring for peace” in the Middle East must be insane. I find it even stranger that one might want to prove that the Israeli government has a “desire for peace” by pairing it with the US. Rather than use this argument to protect current policies of the American and Israeli governments, it would be more prudent and convincing if these “activists” abandoned their puffery about “desires” and “ideals,” and actually did something to demand peace and justice in real life. Rather than putting themselves with governments, in the same camp as corrupt and violent people like President Bush and Israeli PM Ehud Olmert (and even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, for that matter), it would have been inspiring to see that number of people who showed up to support that bill, including the Senators who voted for it, supporting instead actual human beings like the Israelis and Palestinians fighting side by side in Bil`in, or living side by side in Neve Shalom, or working side by side in the human rights organization B’tselem, rather than supporting an abstract “relationship” between governments.

The ideals of the Declaration of Independence at work in Guantanamo Bay.

If anything, the Israeli and American governments today are not “partners for peace,” but partners in crime. In Iraq, the privatization of combat has taken place in order to escape the law. The friendly little country we are now occupying will soon be host to an American-only palace. In Guantanamo, it is okay to abandon so-called American “ideals” if we use different words to describe people. Israel, on the other-hand, is already well on its way repeating what the American government did throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries to the people who originally inhabited this land. It is already the case that Arabs who lived in what is now Israel prior to 1948 cannot get citizenship or even return if they have left. Native Americans did not get citizenship in the US until 1924. Ideals, in Israel, are so motivating that they stop people dead in their tracks at checkpoints. In Israel, prominent members of the government can call for the deportation of 20% of the population–the Arab part–and the murder of innocent people without worrying about their careers.

But in the ASUC Senate, mildly alarming facts like these are not nearly as invigorating as a resolution like this stipulating that the Senate shout “Go Bears!”

Go Bears, indeed–if you can get over the shame.