Recent weeks have seen the appearance of a group called the Zionist Freedom Alliance at UC Berkeley. It is not clear at this point what the group’s affiliation is with Tikvah, however all the major members of Tikvah work with the Alliance, which sponsored Israeli Liberation Week.
The Zionist Freedom Alliance reflects the desperate and doomed status of right-wing Zionism in the United States. In tactics, it adopts thuggery, aggression, and violence in the style of Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the terrorist organization the Jewish Defense League (which Tikvah links to on its Facebook group). It also romanticizes the Irgun, a Zionist militia group which carried out dozens of attacks on civilians in the 1930s and 40s. In rhetoric, it pretends social justice, national liberation, and anti-imperialism. Overall, it symbolizes a failing attempt to maintain victim status for the State of Israel, which possesses the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East as well as the world’s 5th most powerful military.
The ZFA’s main goal is to provide a “revolutionary space” for Jewish youth through which they can support Israel. It arose to “fill the void… by establishing a campus network that would proudly champion Israel’s national rights.” One of its organizers at Berkeley, Gabe Weiner, a founder of Tikvah who was involved in a recent attack on Arab students at Berkeley, tells right-wing website Arutz Sheva that the purpose of the group is to confound anti-apartheid activists who are accustomed to support for Israel being couched in neo-Conservative language. Thus, the group attempts to explain Israel as an anti-imperialist force which is being screwed over by “the same people who invaded Iraq,” as Yehuda HaKohen, one of the speakers at their 10-person Berkeley rally stated on Nov 12 (pictured above). These historically inaccurate and baseless claims are supposed to confuse the Palestinian solidarity movement, which has consistently stood against Israeli oppression for 60 years and has encountered similar opposition throughout that time.
Because there is no longer any substance to the right-wing Zionist argument in the United States (that is why it is such a marginal movement within the American Jewish community, and may even be stronger amongst Christian Evangelicals than Jews in the US–AIPAC and similar lobby groups are now faced with dovish competitors like J Street), we see a shift to a war of images. It is no longer about building a Jewish movement, but about building ambient support for the Israeli occupation amongst Americans as a whole. Not only right-wing organizations like the ZFA and its satellites like Tikvah follow this approach, but so do new propaganda firms like BlueStarPR, who aim to create “positive images” of Israel by emphasizing its technology sector and its alleged status as a liberal democracy in the Middle East while refraining from mentioning the occupation.
These approaches, from right and left, all share one thing in common. They completely ignore the existence of the Palestinian people. Zionism does not know how to reconcile itself with the existence of Palestinians, nor can it conceive of co-existence between Jews and Arabs. Those Israelis who acknowledge the existence of Palestinians have now earned the enmity of their right-wing neighbors who accuse them of being self-hating traitors. Growing internal tensions in Israeli society have led to violence, including the assault of left leaders and academics and recent reports by the Shin Bet that left leaders may be assassinated soon by right-wing Zionists from the settler movement. On the other hand those who continue to ignore the Palestinians typically promote genocidal actions in their political pronouncements like the expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine, or their “extermination,” to borrow a term from the ZFA’s website. In other words, their only resolution is an incitement to violence against Arabs and Palestinians.
In times like this, it is imperative for people to stand up against the radicalization and violent rhetoric of the Zionist right in the United States. These organizations go through phases. The Jewish Defense League, inspired by Meir Kahane, was once considered a terrorist organization in the United States. In 2001, two of its leaders were arrested for plotting to bomb the office of Congressman Darrell Issa (major Jewish American organizations condemned the plot). Given the racist expletives and slurs that the ZFA and Tikvah attackers shouted last night when they assaulted Palestinian students at Berkeley, I am concerned by how this right-wing ideology can embolden people to violence. One anonymous commenter on a Daily Californian article notes that one of the attackers attended a Jewish fighting camp this summer called iCommando sponsored by aish Campus. In fact, one board member of Tikvah today writes on his Facebook that he is “waging the war against organized crime (SJP).” In response, a student at the Hebrew Academy of San Francisco writes, “need ammo? men? i suggest an alliance.” War? Ammo? At a University?
With all this transpiring I am heartened by the support and condemnation of mainstream Jewish student leaders on campus. I want to point out that this is not an issue which affects only Arabs, Palestinians, or anti-apartheid activists. It endangers all students and promotes misperceptions that could potentially incite to violence. The Daily Californian, for example, mysteriously found it necessary to note that “all three men [attackers] are Jewish.” The fact that they are Jewish is irrelevant. They are extremely marginal elements in the Jewish and campus community at Cal, and their organization has already been removed from the Jewish Student Union. The lack of attendance at their rally reflects the fact that they have no substantive support whatsoever either from the campus Jewish community, or the community at large. While it is re-assuring to know that they lack any support on campus, it is disturbing that this lack of support may only frustrate them to use even more extreme means to physically hurt students they disagree with.
I second SJP’s call for campus administrators to respond to these events immediately and to ensure the safety of students by pursuing disciplinary action against the attackers. I also call upon the ASUC Senate to eject SQUELCH! Senator and Tikvah President John Moghtader, who the Daily Cal reports participated in the incident as well. It is worth noting that two of the attackers have refused on several occasions to meet with members of SJP in order to discuss ways of preventing tensions on campus. Last month they also participated in a similarly aggressive disruption of an SJP event involving John Dugard and Norman Finkelstein (video right). They clearly have no interest in working to defuse these tensions themselves, so it is time now for the campus community to collectively work to protect our safety and to stand against that kind of aggression and violence on campus.
and again, what do you know about other SJP members that you are afraid could become extreme? nothing, apart from the fact that many of them are Arabs.
(I guess, apart from knowing me, and you assume I am extreme based on a post that warned anyone thinking of retaliating that “We should all be working as best we can to prevent this and to restore calm and peace to our campus”. Wow, that sure is radical).
y’all
i am not saying you are to blame for being attacked, nor am i saying that nothing should be done about the assaults on campus. however, i do think that your specific responses are a mistake you are making. i bother to say my opinion b/c unfortunately this does relate to me, since what you are doing (intentionally?) is to make those people more important than they really are and thereby suggesting we (jews/iaraelis) are all them.
my critique of you is that in my eyes sjp – astonishingly – seem to replicate the jewish anti-defamation league. look at you, you respond hysterically to things like a 5-man “rally” where people talk about the UN, for christ sake!
occupy yourselves with “retaliating” to those people in blogs like this if you have nothing else to do, fine — but my problem with this is that by so doing you further establish their positioning in front of you, not dismantling it. THIS is where i think you should exercise some ignoring (and just to make it clear for tom – not in relation to the assaults. this blog is not about the assaults).
now, the ADL are in this business longer that you and doing it better – and they are still pathetic and damaging.
like the ADL you hysterically yell “racist” at me for not agreeing with you. sweet. glad you found some easy target who tried to dialogue with you. guess i’ll leave you to your “everybody who disagrees is an anti-arab” attitude. so ADL of you.
(so tom, it is you, and not “the arabs” that i am addressing. call me an anti-semite, go ahead, enjoy).
“i bother to say my opinion b/c unfortunately this does relate to me, since what you are doing (intentionally?) is to make those people more important than they really are and thereby suggesting we (jews/iaraelis) are all them.â€
“unfortunately,†and as this does relate to you, have you considered that perhaps before “correcting†the colonized on how they should go about achieving their liberation, you should FIRST check your fellow colonizers on the intellectual and moral incoherence of their stance?
Just a question, sister. I really want to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re an ally, but you’re making it really hard…
Yael,
1. the correct slur would actually be self-hating jew, not antisemite ;-) believe me, I have practice with that.
2. Look, the point is that you ask for respectful answers, but it feels like you don’t act respectfully yourself. I’m sure you read the academic texts you work on very carefully, but it always seems like you criticize us before you read what we’ve said properly. For example, you say that “what you are doing (intentionally?) is to make those people more important than they really are and thereby suggesting we(jews/iaraelis) are all them”.
Now, the post you are responding to says “the right-wing Zionist argument in the United States [...] is why it is such a marginal movement within the American Jewish community, and may even be stronger amongst Christian Evangelicals than Jews”. It says “I am heartened by the support and condemnation of mainstream Jewish student leaders on campus”. It says “The lack of attendance at their rally reflects the fact that they have no substantive support whatsoever either from the campus Jewish community”. And my response to you said “We not only know “this group does not represent even a fraction of jewish or israeli politics†– this is what the whole post is about”. And instead of “occupying ourselves with retaliating”, my post very clearly says the opposite, it warns against retaliation. It calls for people to “to prevent this and to restore calm and peace to our campus”. The way you read us is like criticizing Fanon for supporting white supremacy.
If you want to disagree with us, fine, but you give the impression that what we write isn’t worth reading seriously and carefully.
3. Do we make mistakes? We definitely do. As they say in Hebrew, “מי ×©×œ× ×¢×•×©×”, ×œ× ×˜×•×¢×”” – he who doesn’t do anything, never makes mistakes. I appreciate and respect criticism from allies who are really on our side, who really know what we’re doing, who are really trying to support us and help us accomplish our goals. I feel your criticisms are based on a very superficial knowledge and understanding of who we are and what we do. When you say SJP will drift to extremism without Yaman, what is that based on? When you say we intensify violence – do you know our full range of activities, what emails we sent, who we met, what we did? You don’t, but again, you give the impression that what we do isn’t worth learning about before it is criticized.
4. Over and over and over again you blame the victim. What does it mean to say ” you respond hysterically to things like a 5-man “rally—? three of our members heard the ultra-racist lyrics in this rally, and decided to hold up a flag, and for this they were hit and called racial slurs. Why do you feel such a need to criticize “hysterical” Palestinians who are quietly and non-violently protesting racism against them? This is very offensive, as Yaman said, and it does make you sound like the “good cop” to Tikvah/ZFA’s “bad cops”. Tikvah tried to get them to remove the flags by force, and you are chiding them for holding it up. How about supporting them, being their allies, putting yourself in their shoes? And how about occasionally trying to sound supportive instead of 100% critical? Seriously.
5. And I think you need to take Seth’s last comment very seriously. Growing up in Tel-Aviv (or even in the affluent Ramat-Aviv, if I remember correctly) you (like me) benefited from a lot of privileges on Palestinians’ behalf. The land you were living on may have belonged to the destroyed village of Sheikh Muwwanis (which covered a lot of the area of what is now Ramat Aviv). The clean water you drank came not only from the Sea of Galilee, but also from the “Mountain Equifer”, that is – from the West Bank. You (like me) had access to a good high school which enabled you to come and study at Berkeley. All these are privileges which you shouldn’t take for granted – I think you could reflect on them and on what it means for you to be a true ally to Palestinians, before you criticize them as “hysterical” and extreme. I’m saying this not to make you feel guilty, but because I think we reach a much more empathic and profound political stance by recognizing our own privileges.
Just to demonstrate how you read posts, I’m going to write the way you responded to my post that WARNED AGAINST retaliating: I will take one word WHICH YOU USED TO SIGNIFY SOMETHING YOU OPPOSE, and pretend that’s something you actually meant, so as to reduce you to a caricature of a violent extremist.
So in your post you said you wanted Tikvah members to be “attacked”, and called for more “assaults on campus”. My advice to you is to calm down. Yael, this is an example of your violent and extreme rhetoric and if you don’t tone it down, someone could end up getting hurt. Quit being be such a fanatic.
How do you feel when you read this distortion of your words? respected? listened to? now try and think how Yaman feels when he writes this group is “marginal” and you tell him he thinks it represents the Jewish community, or how I feel when you cross out the words “do not even consider” that preceded the word “retaliating”, in order to twist my words to fit into some caricature.
in her beautiful op-ed, http://www.dailycal.org/article/103721/perspectives_on_fight_in_eshleman_hall
Avital pointed out that ZFA’s opposition to the UN isn’t some kind of irrational rant, but a deliberate attack on a specific UN agency, UNRWA, for supporting Palestinian refugees. http://www.zfa.org.il/opinions/new_paradigm.html
http://socialistworker.org/2009/01/05/confronting-islamophobia