“No Jewish State” Requested at Ann Arbor City Council

If you want to solve a problem, you need to get to its core to make the necessary corrections. Window dressing goals and tactics will provide window dressing solutions. In the case of justice in the Levant, these solutions, e.g. “end the occupation”, do not address the core issue which needs to be cracked if justice is to be served. City Council Reporter Dave Askins of the Ann Arbor Chronicle writes:

Henry Herskovitz addressed the council on the topic of conditions in Palestine. He described how the current mainstream media portrays the peace talks as stalled, which is really a euphemism for doing nothing, he said. They begin, they stall, then they’re terminated. Herskovitz allowed that the group that demonstrates on Washtenaw Avenue every Saturday outside the Beth Israel Temple, calling for a boycott of Israeli goods, might seem small. But he expressed confidence that just as a white-supremicist state had failed in South Africa, a Jewish-supremicist state would fail in Israel.

Full speech below signature, and video available here (talk begins at 34:50)

Veterans for Peace and Michigan Peace Team

Elliott Adams, past president of the national Veterans for Peace, shared a podium with the venerable Fr. Peter Dougherty of Michigan Peace Team, and spoke to about 40 students at Michigan State University this week. This writer now considers Mr. Adams to be a friend and associate, and Father Peter is, well, he’s the kinda personality whom, if you came away disliking him, it’s about time you took a long look in the mirror.

Both presenters gave award-winning accounts of what’s currently happening to Palestinians in Gaza, and if one listened carefully, one even heard the “B” word – boycott. Good for them, but asking “What we can do?” is different from asking “Why” bullet-pock-marked buildings and bombed out buildings exist? One of our vigilers often asks, “What are European Jews doing in the Palestine?” Now, there’s a start to provide a solution!

Expressing a tiny bit of anger, a Palestinian student bristled at the claim made by a classmate that Israel was only reacting to Kassam rockets when it committed the Hanukkah Massacre in Gaza last year. He suggested that perhaps 62 years of racist, military rule might have explained the rocket attacks in the first place. Of course, it is well-established that Israel, not HAMAS, violated a ceasefire that had held for six months to begin its deadly (as documented in the Goldstone Report) assault on Gaza. In any case, the classmate and two buddies departed the room shortly after this young Palestinian man challenged their mythical assumptions. If you can’t stand the heat …

Six Vigilers
Israel is the Villain, Not the Victim
Henry Herskovitz
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friend

Speech at City Council

November 15, 2010

Good Evening,

The current mainstream news media is now reporting that the so-called peace talks in Palestine are stalled. But Americans are beginning to realize that the term “peace talks” is a euphemism for doing nothing. How many times have we heard that negotiations begin, then they are stalled, then they are terminated? Time passes, and peace talks are “restarted”. I don’t think that Americans are buying this, and they’re getting more and more tired of seeing their tax dollars going down a rathole, when there are potholes in Ann Arbor that need fixing.

What about the accepted peace community? We only hear “End the Occupation”, as if that mere slogan will bring justice to Palestine. Consider: The Gaza Strip is no longer occupied. Jewish families no longer live there in Jewish only settlements, nor send their kids to Jewish only schools, nor shop in Jewish only shopping centers.

But who can argue that a just peace has been restored to the beleaguered residents of Gaza? A call to end the occupation is merely cover for protecting a Jewish state, and these peace groups have an agenda that thereby get exposed.

Oddly enough, peace activists like Jonathan Cook and Alan Hart get inspiration from the words of the most militant Zionist, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As the noose of public opinion slips tighter and tighter around his Israel, he gives us the key to achieving justice in Palestine when he demands from Palestinians that they must accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

Israel has been defining itself since its Declaration of Statehood in 1948 as a Jewish state. The father of the Zionist movement – Theodor Herzl – wrote Der Judenstaat, The Jewish State, in 1896. And now we have Netanyahu exposing the nerve center of his racist state for all to see.

That’s the nut that needs to be cracked. Just as white supremacism failed in South Africa, just as Aryan supremacism failed in Europe, so will Jewish supremacism fail in Palestine.

Y’know we appear to be a small group standing Saturday morning after Saturday morning in front of Beth Israel Congregation. But we represent just the tip of the iceberg of those in the world who know what it will take to bring a just peace to the region. Join us in just saying NO to a Jewish State in Palestine.

Thank you