Jewish AntiZionism

Not In My Name

My name is Steven Feuerstein. You can find out more about me at
www.stevenfeuerstein.com. I am an American Jew who has decided
he can no longer keep quiet in his criticisms of Israel, specifically in its
murderous policies towards Palestinians.

I encourage you check out the following thoughts and actions
assembled on this web site see if it fits with the way you are thinking
about the situation:

A speech I gave at an October 24, 2000 rally in Chicago; it sums up my
feelings to date.

AP coverage of my protest against Israeli Deputy Defense Minister
Ephraim Sneh. Thoughts from Michael Dahan, an Israeli political scientist, 
currently conducting post doctoral research at the Political Science 
Department, University of Cincinnati.

I am hoping to encourage other American Jews to speak out. The
message of a Jew criticizing Israel is a very powerful one. I believe that
if enough Jews speak out, the facade of homogenous, unwavering
support of Israel (no matter that country does) will crack. The result?
The people of the United States can have a rational debate about
the wisdom of our current policy of sending $3B a year to Israel,
much of it for weaponry.

If you are interested in discussing this further with me or joining me in my
efforts, please send me an email. If you have thoughts of your own that you
would like to have added to this site, please send those to me and I will
post them.

YOUR NAME, CONTACT INFORMATION AND ANYTHING YOU SAY
TO ME WILL NOT BE SHARED WITH ANYONE WITHOUT YOUR
PERMISSION.

My Speech
Why I Am Here Today
October 24, 2000 - University of Illinois - Chicago Campus

Steven Feuerstein

Computer software author (www.oreilly.com)

Vice President, Crossroads Fund (www.crossroadsfund.org, for identification
purposes only)

This is the first time that I am speaking out publicly against Israeli
policy. I was born and raised an American Jew, which means I was raised
to reflexively and uncritically support Israel. I became disillusioned years
ago, but limited my criticisms to within family circles which just got
family circles mad, really mad, at me.

Now I feel compelled to take a public stance and call on Israel to stop
killing and brutalizing Palestinians! And I believe very strongly that we,
the American Jewish community, must take the lead in calling on Israel to
change its policies, to stop the occupation of Palestinian lands, to seek a
lasting and just peace in its own country.

Why have I come to this point in my life? Because I am Jewish. Because Jews
are taught: THOU SHALT NOT KILL. The Torah does not say: Thou shalt not kill
only Jewish people. The Torah does not say: Thou shalt not kill only those
who agrees with Jewish people. And the Torah DEFINITELY does not say: Thou
shalt not kill anyone but Palestinians. The Torah, the guiding light of the
Jewish people, says:

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

And Jews are very big on this rule: you can break other sacred laws, such as
those honoring the Shabat, the Sabbath, if breaking that law will help save
a life. And yet, after thirty years of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian
lands, after thirty years of the Israeli domination over the Palestinian
people, we have come to this:

Israeli soldiers and Israeli settlers who are able to rationalize without
any noticeable effort, without any noticeable remorse, the persistent
shooting and killing of Palestinian children, the destruction of Palestinian
homes, and the continual, growing occupation and dissection of Palestinian
lands.

An Israeli government that, after years of "negotiations" with the
Palestinian Authority, is ready and able to imprison an entire people in
their small, isolated towns whenever the Israeli government feels it is
justified.

And the Israeli government explicitly justifies its actions as necessary to
save the Israeli state, to save worldwide Judaism. Well, I am hear today to
make sure that Israel and other American Jews and other Americans know that
this American Jew will not accept the killing of Palestinians IN MY NAME, ON
 MY BEHALF. Israel must stop killing Palestinians. Israel must seek a real
peace and to do that it must take real, concrete steps to demonstrate its
commitment to peace.

I am not an expert on the Middle East. I am an expert on the Oracle PL/SQL
computer language. I cannot "hold my own" in an extended and complex policy
discussion on the Oslo accords nor on the final status of Jerusalem. I am
really only good at telling you about the best way to write a bunch of code.

I do not believe, however, that it is necessary to be a policy expert on the
Middle East in order to recognize that Israel is visiting a grave injustice
on the Palestinian people. One clear, physical expression of that injustice
are the settlements that Israel has built throughout Palestinian territory.
These settlements are obviously designed to maximize Israeli control over
Palestinians even as they are supposedly granting them their autonomy. These
settlements are provocative and as long as they exist, there will never be
peace between Palestinians and Israeli Jews.

So I call on Israel to unilaterally announce the stoppage of any new
settlements and to immediately begin dismantling the existing settlements. I
believe that if Israel takes this one step, Palestinians will recognize the
real possibility of justice, stop the al Aksa intifada, and work with Israel
for a lasting peace.

Israel, with the seemingly unanimous support of American Jews, is now able
to rationalize ignoring one of its most sacred beliefs - THOU SHALT NOT
KILL. The clear and most awful result is death and destruction for
Palestinians, but there is another victim of this degenerate Israeli policy:

The killing of the Jewish spirit of justice and love of life.

The survival of the Jewish people, of Judaism, it seems to me, is very much
dependent on the way that Israel responds to the current crisis and whether
it can admit its mistakes, whether it can make a real gesture towards peace
with Palestinians.

But Israel will not change its policies unless and until the United States
changes its policies, and applies real pressure to the Israeli government.
That is the reality. Our government sends over $3B of our tax dollars every
year to Israel, much of that for military aid. Israel cannot, in the current
state of affairs, survive without us. Our government can insist on
substantial changes in Israeli policy. But it will not do so unless American
Jews speak out, and call for that change.

And that is why I call on the many other American Jews who feel like I do to
take a public stand and criticize brutal Israeli policies. Yes, it is hard
for American Jews to criticize Israel. When we do, we are intimidated and
harassed by our very own community. But it is even harder for me at
least to tolerate the killing and torture and destruction that is being
done in my name.

I believe, in conclusion, that the more I (and others) speak out, the more
other American Jews will feel they can speak out.  We can then create a
"safe place" in the public eye for Jewish criticism of Israel, which will
allow a real debate to occur in this country, and hopefully a real change in
our policy towards Israel and Palestinians.

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Protesting Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh
I also am maintaining as consistent  presence of possible at protests
against Israeli actions and at appearances by Israeli officials. Here is an
AP photo from a recent action:

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/p/ap/20001024/us/palestinian_protest_2an.html


AP caption: Steven Feuerstein stands with members of the Chicago Palestinian
community protesting the speaking engagement of Israeli Deputy Defense
Minister Ephraim Sneh Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2000, at the 13th Annual Dinner of
the Chicago Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. (AP Photo/Stephen J.
Carrera)

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The Janus Face of Israeli Democracy
by Michael Dahan, an Israeli political scientist, currently conducting post
doctoral research at the Political Science Department, University of
Cincinnati.

People representing all sides have written much since violence has erupted
between Israeli Jews, Palestinian Israelis and Palestinians. What is missing
is a true soul searching on the part of Israel and its Jewish citizens as to
what led to the violence, rather than the knee jerk nationalism that is
usually the Israeli reaction to Palestinian violence. I owe to my children
the same degree of honesty that I expect of them. If the Israeli soldier who
shot 12 year old Mohammed al Durra and his father in cold blood has
children, then I suggest he try and explain to them why he pulled the
trigger, and he should not be surprised if a Palestinian does the same thing
to an Israeli child. The same goes for the Israeli policeman who shot 17
year old Asil Asleh in cold blood, an Israeli citizen and member
of the "Seeds for Peace" initiative.

I can only speak of how I view things, as an Israeli and a human being, and
how I think the Israeli government should act, thus my comments are directed
towards Israel. As a political scientist the question that I ask myself is
not why the violence broke out, but why it had taken so long to do so.
Frustration has been building for a long time on the Palestinian side -
frustration about the economic conditions in the Palestinian National
Authority (PNA), frustration with the lack of progress in the talks,
frustration directed towards their own leadership, frustration at the
continued Israeli presence in certain areas, the continuation of the
settlements, home demolitions, Palestinian prisoners and a myriad of other,
smaller day to day frustrations that have been growing like a festering
wound over the past months.

Palestinian Israelis too have dealt with frustration for so long that it has
become a way of life. Their continued status as second class citizens within
Israeli democracy, the lack of equal rights and equal opportunity in the
work force, society and the economy. The two-sided attitude towards Israeli
Arabs, among all Israelis, secular, religious, the political Right and the
"enlightened" Left can only lead to the type of rioting we have witnessed in
the past days. Why do the police use live ammunition when dispersing Arab
demonstrators, and nothing when dispersing Israeli Jews? Why have no Israeli
Jewish leaders spoken out and condemned acts committed by Jewish rioters
against Palestinian Israelis throughout Israel proper (Nazareth, Tiberias,
Acre, Jaffa, and Jerusalem)? The murders of Palestinians by Israeli
Settlers? And the Left feels "betrayed" by the demonstrations on the part of
Israeli Arabs. Where does one find such immense hubris to make such
statements? Why are Jews allowed to express their discontent in
demonstrations, and when Arab Israelis do the same, they are considered
traitors by politicians on the Left and Right alike? It is exactly this
hubris that lays at the foundation of a two faced democracy as practiced in
Israel, and which has had a central role in the creating the atmosphere for
the violence in the PNA and among Palestinian Israelis.

All Israeli citizens (including Palestinians) are equal, at least on paper.
In practice, there is very little equality, as can be seen in almost every
aspect of Israeli society, from health services to schools, from land
ownership and land zoning to the workplace and the universities.
Palestinians Israelis are "good Arabs" as long as they stay out of the face
and consciousness of Israeli Jews. Demonstrations by Israeli Arabs are more
often than not broken up with violence, live ammunition, and tear gas, not
to mention the use of rubber bullets, or rather rubber coated metal bullets.
We only need to look at the brutal use of force by the police in the past
days, and the use of violence months ago in northern Israel to support this
claim. "Committees of Enquiry" usually absolve the police of any wrongdoing,
even when faced with video taped evidence to the contrary (as was the case
months ago with the use of violence leading to deaths by police in and
around a school in a northern Arab town). If individual officers are found
guilty they are often punished with the disciplinary equivalent of a slap on
the wrist. What else can actions like these breed except for anger and
frustration? Under these conditions, what right does the political
leadership of Israel have to have "expectations" of its Palestinian
citizens? This dual attitude towards Arabs in general and Palestinians in
particular has stood at the very basis of Israeli internal and foreign
policy. Under these conditions, this wave of violence can be easily
understood and explained. Yet Israelis express surprise and disappointment
by the demonstrations on the part of Arab citizens, while quickly excusing
criminal actions on the part of Settlers in the Occupied Territories, and
mobs of Jews.

Until the Israeli people and leadership come face to face with the daily
discrimination directed towards Arabs, then the frustration and violence
will continue to grow, erupting from time to time. Until Israel learns how
to keep the negotiations with the Palestinians free of hubris, paternalism
and sheer "chutzpa" then the negotiations will not advance. Until Israel can
treat her Arab citizens as full fledged members of Israeli society, than
they should not dictate to them morality and ethics. Until Israel stops
dehumanizing all Arabs, whether they are Palestinian Israelis or
Palestinians, then we will be seeing more of the same in the future.

The only way to end the escalating violence is for Israel, her politicians
and citizens, to take a good hard look at themselves and come to terms with
the consequences of their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Mutual respect is
the only way for peace to reign in the region. Only by immediately ending
the continued occupation of Palestinian territories, can the peace process
continue. The only other option is the insane violence that we witnessing
now.