How likely is it that UPZ will be kicked out?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I noticed that the ICC website lists ZOA as a "member," and UPZ as only an "affiliate member," and wonder if this differentiation signals a vulnerability for UPZ.  However, there other liberal groups among the full-members of the ICC that I would hope would aid the case of UPZ.

I simply find it very hard to believe that any Jewish organization would determine its policies based on the hysterics that emanate fr. ZOA & Mort Klein. BUt if the ICC is foolish enough to do so, then it will have provided a huge wedge with which we progressive Jews can divide the rightists from the more mainstream community.

Aipac is doing a pretty good job of that lately what w. its scandals & various forms of political overreaching & political brutalism. If the ICC also falls prey, they will help make martyrs of UPZ in the eyes of many thousands of college students & others in the mainstream Jewish community.

And if the ICC sees reason & doesn't side w. ZOA, then progressives have also won. What I'm afraid of is that the ICC will try to give ea. side half a loaf & place some restrictions on UPZ speech or action but not expel them.

Richard Silverstein
Tikun Olam>

Mr. Rosenberg, I will agree that Morton Klein is being foolish and just giving UPZ more legitimacy than it deserves as a tiny fringe group.

Will you agree with me that former Ambassador Dennis Ross' NYT op-ed piece demonstrates beyond cavil that that Jimmy Carter, whom you passionately defended recently, is either a fraud or a fool?

I agree that our tumbleweed Sage proved that he is either fraud or a fool by posting again and again already rebutted point.

For starters, Carter explained what P_a_l_e_s_t_i_n_i_a_n interpretation was, and, surprise! this interpretation was different that the one of former Ambassador Ross.

Initially, the accusation was that Carter was a plagiarist, suggesting that the maps were Ross's invention --- and that would put any statements of erstwhile Ambassodor in a dubious light. The second part was that Carter changed the captions -- the aforementioned crime of explaining a different interpretation.

With all seriousness, Sage thinks that if someone understand WHY Palestinians were not enthusiastic about agreement, unlike Ambassador Ross, he is "a fraud or a fool". Good illustration to the discussion on thuggish methods in political polemics.

Is Horowitz in on this somewhere?

This case you illustrate Mr. Rosenberg in regards to UPZ is a very distressing one! However, I am not at all suprised by it! it appears to me that their is a burgeoning battle brewing within the American Jewish society. The bully tactics used by rabid zionist to squash dissent amongst a growing number of pro-isreal/anti-occupation Jews is a great indication of the coming debate and battle within American society at large! If their is at all any positives to come out of the Iraq debacle it is that people,academics,politicians,grassroots org. etc in America are beggining to ask some very hard and relevant questions about our relationship with Isreal as it regards to our national interestand relationship with the broader middle east. So this vicious push back is expected.

I am new to this forum and have greatly enjoyed reading the articles and comments that follow.

"The bully tactics used by rabid zionist to squash dissent amongst a growing number of pro-isreal/anti-occupation Jews"

There is no dissent at all.
Huge majority of American Jews, American rabid zionists and Americans supported Clinton's plan that would end an occupation.
See description of this plan in article By DENNIS ROSS
"Don't Play With Maps"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/09/opinion/09ross.html?em&ex=1168578000&en=48903c27e21cf4a5&ei=5070

I often wonder why the American Jewish community gets its collective undrawers in such a knot on this topic.

We live in America.

If one supports the occupation of Palestinian territory, American Jews should go to Israel, become citizens, join the IDF and take part in the occupation of the Occupied Territories. Or for "real" believers, become a "settler" and build illegal outposts in the Occupied Territories.

If one doesn't support "the occupation", one should go to Tel-Aviv/Jerusalem (whereever one views the seat of Israeli government to be) and object to it.

American Jews - like all Jews around the globe - have the Israeli "Right of Return." We can go to Israel and immediately become citizens and therefore vote in Israeli elections for the Israeli regime of our choice.

Why on earth do these issues play out on AMERICAN campuses?

Having said that, I will add that I resent my AMERICAN tax dollars being spent supporting ISRAELI occupation.

Nevertheless, since I currently live, pay taxes and vote in the U.S., , I for one will be protesting the upcoming Bush escalation of the U.S. military occupation in Iraq tomorrow.

There are protests EVERYWHERE tomorrow.

MJ: There's a protest in DC in Lafayette Square, just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. Think you can make it?
January 11, 2007, 06:00 PM

"There is no dissent at all.
Huge majority of American Jews, American rabid zionists and Americans supported Clinton's plan that would end an occupation."

The dissent exist, and its growing and spreading amongs jews and non jews in America and has been firmly implanted elsewhere(europe,Isreal etc). Despite what you feel about what occured at camp david, the occupation is beggining to take its toll.

I concede that a tremendous opportunity was lost at camp david! However, to take the simplistic (whether intentional or not) view that the Palestinians "rejected a generous peace" is rather ridiculous and intellectually skewed. You can argue however legitimately whether one side is more to blame then the other, yet doing this would accomplish nothing in my opinion. This debate or argument is merely an obstacle to getting to the core debate in this very complicated issue.

Sharon rejected a generous peace. His ostentatious armed visit to the Temple Mount as defense minister did exactly what it was intended to do: create huge unrest that would take down the Unity Government and create an opening for him to take Likud to power.

To argue that Sharon/Likud/the Settlers Movement ever intended to honor the Camp David accord is to ignore the reality as it manifested on the ground. Sharon did everything he could to sabotage it. As did the Settlers in continuing to establish illegal settlements that Sharon refused to block. More than one side is refusing to face reality here.

There are eliminationists on both sides, and each is fully convinced that God wants each to control every foot of Israel/Palestine.

Thank you Mr Webbfor your intellectual honesty! Refreshing.....

Dennis Ross speaks of mythologies, It appears to me that their exist some very entrenched mythologies on both sides! I will not cheat myself out of an honest and vigorous intellectual debate by blindly signing on to one mythology over another or otherwise exhausting all my time debating these mythologies.

In regards to reality, nothing is more clear to me as "reality" then the need to have a serious debate about the Isreali/palestinian conflict. At various times both sides have had reasons (relevant and irrelevant) to not pursue peace wholeheartedly and seriously. This notwithstanding, it has become clear with all that is happening in the middle east that Isreal should do whatever reasonably within its power to solve their conflict with the palistinians as quickly as possible. There is a storm brewing out there in the world and Isreal should position itself not to feel the brunt of this storm. Isreal cannot hinge its survival on unbrideled support from the U.S. as this support will dwindle as America begins to reasses its position globally. Furthermore, America should be pushing this very resolution far more vigorously and honestly then it has done in the past. If not, we will continually and painfully see the the consequences of our inaction.

davai,

He was not a member of cabinet, leave alone defense minister
at that time. He was in opposition.

Exactly.  It was a campaign stunt.  Someone needs to explain Arafat's wisdom in responding to a campaign stunt by the opposition party rather than to a proposal by the actual Israeli government.

Sharon was in opposition government at the moment in time when he visited the temple mount (but still a representative of Knesset with no legitimate business onthe temple mount). It was a political stunt that worked.
But just before that, Sharon WAS minister of infrastructure at one point. And Minister of Housing at another point -- both portfolios that put him in perfect position to aggravate problems in West Bank and Gaza by accelerating settlement. And he did.
Housing portfolio is obvious - encourage building of settlement for more "facts on the ground." Infrastructure was more subtle but included water management and for those that don't know it, a large portion of the settlements built during that period are built directly atop the natural acquifier that lies beneath the northern part of the West Bank -- and which is now being walled off to prevent Palestinians from gaining access to fresh water for agriculture and daily living.

Arafat? No angel. but Sharon? No peacemaker. Bullheaded warmonger is more appropriate. I would even go so far as to label him genocidal bully.

Oh... and why wasn't he Defense Minister then? Because when he WAS Defense Minister in the early eighties he perpetrated an actual genocide at Sabra and Shatilla during the Lebanese invasion. The Kahan Commission in Israel which investigated the matter found that he bore "personal responsibility" and recommended his dismissal from the post of Defense Minister.

BTW, What was Arafat proposal?
" Why he authorized the enormous escort for Sharon on his "excursion"?
Well, I visited Israel and went there too. So, what's the problem with Sharon going there ?
How could Barak don't let him go there?

Why was Sharon's 'walk' to the Temple Mount on September 18, 2000 a reason to begin murdering people?

Short Answer:

• Sharon was the Commander of Unit 101 in October of 1953
• Sharon was the Israeli Defense Minister on September 16, 1982

It wasn't the walk, but instead the man doing the walking. This isn't about Israel, it's about Sharon, a man who has had far too much innocent blood on his own hands to be a credible terrorist fighter. It's about Likud, and about policies of retribution properly described as many eyes for an eye. This is a strategy which will never lead to peace.

Truthfully, there is no justification for the Second Intifada, but that is not to say Israel is an innocent bystander, they are deserving of scorn too. Arafat was a terrorist. If Palestinians had followed Ghandi instead of men like Arafat, the doors to peace would have been hammered down by the world a very long time ago. This does not excuse men like Sharon. Sharon is the flip-side of the same coin Arafat was minted upon.

Long Answer:

To continue on denying the truth is to guarantee there will be no peace.

Neither Arafat or Sharon are worthy of veneration. Hopefully history will mercilessly taint both of their posterities with the ignominy befitting murderers of innocents, motivated by desire to acquire and hold onto political power. It is dishonest to claim that Sharon caused the second intifada. That had innumerable causes which stretch back farther than I have lived. Still, it is just as dishonest attempting to portray Sharon blameless. His march along with 1000 armed Israelis to the Temple Mount, and subsequent politicised rhetoric there, claiming he had come in peace was indeed the final outrage that poured gasoline onto the already smoldering wreckage of the Clinton/Barak/Arafat Mideast peace initiative, igniting it into flames. If tomorrow, Haniya wrapped himself in the midsts of 1000 armed Hamas members as his phalanx, and marched into West Jerusalem loudly claiming he was on a mission of peace, how would the Israeli government react? Without doubt, they would call in air support and armor to support massive infantry mobilisation and movement into Jerusalem, justifying it as a righteous battle against terrorism. On September 10, 2000 Ehud Barak was interviewed for a CNN special:

"We are open to negotiate Jerusalem, since it was announced at Camp David, original one, 22 years ago, by Menachem Begin, sitting with President Sadat, that when the time comes to permanent status negotiation, Jerusalem will be put on the table.

We don't love it, but it's part of our life. But I made it very clear, more than once, that no Israeli prime minister will ever be able to sign a document that conveys the sovereignty over Temple Mount to Chairman Arafat.

Ehud Barak, interview by Christianne Amanapour, "Special Event-Arafat and Barak: The Quest for Peace", CNN, September 10, 2000

Just eight days later, Ariel Sharon, who was trailing Barak in the upcoming elections by a significant margin 'visited' the Temple Mount. During a News Show noting the second intifada's fourth anniversary, CNN stated that on September 18, 2000, Sharon who was:

"...accompanied by 1,000 Israeli police, visited Jerusalem's Temple Mount. They entered the compound of the Al Aqsa Mosque, an area sacred to Judaism and Islam though rarely visited by Jews.

Within hours, Palestinian rioters began to face off against the security forces. It was the start of what is now known as the second or Al Aqsa Intifada. An independent commission headed by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell said Sharon should have been able to foresee the trouble, though he was not the direct cause of it."

Jonathan Mann, "Anniversary of the Intifada", CNN News, September 18, 2004

That was kind of Mitchell, giving Sharon a reaganesque alibi...he's so lamebrained , he hasn't the capacity to possess logic processes needed to complete a beginners paint by numbers conclusion. This hardly seems appropriate in this instance. Two weekends after Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, CNN's Mark Shields awarded Sharon his "Outrage of the Week":

"Even the severest critics of Arial Sharon, the hawkish leader of the opposition Likud party in Israel, acknowledge that General Sharon is a smart and savvy man. So when Arial Sharon led a small band of right-wing politicians to the Temple Mount, a most holy place in Jerusalem, revered by both Muslims and Jews, he had to know his visit would incite hostility. Deadly riots followed and they have sabotaged the fragile hopes for permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and that is an outrage."

Mark Shields, "Capital Gang", CNN News, September 30, 2000

One month later, amidst the still ongoing Al Aqsa Intifada, the USS Cole was bombed in Aden, Yemen:

In the span of a few hours last Thursday, Middle East gunfighting and its bastard cousin terrorism burst back into our lives with split-screen bulletins and double-deck headlines that hammered home again both the volatility of that region and the vulnerability of the entire world. It was a reminder that the horror facing the 21st century will be the one left unresolved in the 20th: after the end of the great confrontations between shifting alliances of nation-states, we are still faced with the bloody terrors wrought by ethnic, religious and tribal hatreds.

The Middle East violence began with skirmishes after Israeli superhawk Ariel Sharon visited the disputed holy site in old Jerusalem, escalated with the gut-wrenching televised death of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy shot as his father tried to shelter him, and then erupted when seething Palestinians (whom Yasser Arafat seemed at first unwilling and then unable to control) murdered and mutilated two Israeli soldiers. Prime Minister Ehud Barak ordered a military retaliation, which halted his lonely reach, or perhaps overreach, for a comprehensive peace.

The same afternoon that Israel's helicopters were shelling near Arafat's compound, suicidal terrorists on a small boat crept up to an American destroyer refueling in Yemen, stood at attention and set off an explosion that killed 17 crewmen. Later came a less effective attack on the British embassy in Yemen, along with fears that a new terrorist jihad could threaten innocents around the world.

"Fires Of Hate-Just when the world was beginning to feel like a safer place...", Time Magazine, October 23, 2000 issue (CNN hosted archive)

Although Bush and Cheney did not publicly politicise The USS Cole bombing on the campaign trial for the upcoming US Presidential election, right-sided pundits seized upon it as new evidence that the Clinton Presidency had been a failure, not one of them honest enough to mention that this was a problem created by the Reagan Admin, ignored in Afghanistan after the Soviet's fall by GHW Bush, who also increased America's target visibility to al Qaeda with his ineptitude that led to the First Gulf War, and the long-term commitment of an American Military presence in Saudi Arabia. Nor did they mention the GOP Congressional Majority helped to handcuff the Clinton Administration's effort to fight international terrorism by hijacking Terror Prevention Legislation, denying enactments as unconstitutional excesses, which by post 911 standards, seem to be not in the least a governmental overreach into individual Liberty. These offered enactments included, transparent International banking procedures, which Phil Ghramm blocked as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, as well as authorizing the use of roving wiretaps after acquiring a judge issued warrant in suspected terrorism investigations, and forcing taggants to be added in the manufacturing process of many mass-produced precursors used in do-it-yourself bomb making. Bob Barr took the lead in the House's opposition, but was ably backed by many GOP congresspersons. On the Senate side the obstruction was enabled by Senators Dole, Hatch, Inhofe, Craig, Kyl, Roberts, Allard and Bond among others. The Republicans chose instead to misuse Terror Preventive Legislation as a vehicle to substantially decrease Habeas Corpus rights of Federal Inmates, which had zero effect on preventing acts of terrorism since terrorists are not worried about potential punishments after they have acted.

As the Israeli elections grew closer, Sharon had successfully erased his trailing of Barak and had even gone out way ahead:

At the end of September, disagreement at the negotiating table transformed into confrontation in the streets, the apparent catalyst a visit by Ariel Sharon to a holy site Jews called the Temple Mount, in the Old City -- a site sacred to Muslims, too, who call it the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctity.

The following day, as the Muslim protests continued, Israeli forces killed several Arabs, the first deaths in what over succeeding months became known as the Al Aqsa intifada -- a throwing off the yoke, taking its name from a mosque in the Noble Sanctity. The conflict spread throughout the Palestinian territories, and particular flashpoints: Israeli positions guarding Jewish settlements scattered throughout Gaza and the West Bank. In October, Barak declares a time out in the peace negotiations, insisting he will not be coerced by violence. Talks aimed at creating a national emergency government with Ariel Sharon collapse when Mr. Sharon demands the right to veto any decisions regarding the peace process.

Mike Hanna, "Israel Decides Election Tomorrow", CNN News, February 5, 2000

Sharon won easily, and had punked any short-term chance of a successful Israeli/Palestinian Peace Process in his campaign.

"The government that I will form will work to strengthen and bolster united Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, and the eternal capital of the Jewish people, on which we always swear: If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy."

Ariel Sharon, Post Election Victory Speech, February 7, 2001