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A Pro-Peace Rally This Sunday
By Daniel Sieradski / January 7, 2009
I’m holding a peace rally this Sunday. Here’s the press release, should Jewcy readers in the metropolitan area wish to attend:
On Sunday, January 11, a coalition of New York-based Jewish and Zionist organizations will be holding a mass demonstration outside of the Israeli consulate on 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue in unreserved support of Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip. AIPAC, the ADL and several other groups will join forces to proclaim in the name of American Jewry that it is Israel’s right and responsibility to decimate Hamas, even at the cost of hundreds of civilian Palestinian lives and thousands more injured. Also on Sunday, a mass demonstration by pro-Palestinian activists will transpire in Times Square, where protesters will condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza and — in all probability — justify Hamas’ attacks on Israeli civilians as a legitimate response to Israel’s blockade of Gaza, its multiple violations of the 2008 ceasefire agreement, and the international community’s failure to adequately address these matters. Both of these groups will likely demonize one another — the Jews decrying the Palestinians and the pro-Palestinian activists maligning the Jews — each engaging in gross displays of hatred, and advocating not in favor of peace, but in one side’s victory over the other. We wish to propose a third way: A counterdemonstration to both the pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations. That is, we wish to propose a pro-peace demonstration. We invite individuals who favor an immediate ceasefire, oppose the occupation, support the two state solution, and who believe in the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security to join in action against those who justify violence and hatred on either side, and against those who claim a monopoly on representing our voices in this matter. We wish to see not just a contingent waving Israeli flags and another waving Palestinian flags, but also a contingent waving Israeli and Palestinian flags together, carrying peace signs and banners with slogans like, “Fighting for peace is like f*cking for virginity” and “Peace cannot be achieved militarily.” We call on all organizations — Jewish, Arab and otherwise — which advocate in favor of peace, dialogue and coexistence to join in this action by encouraging their constituents to come out in full-force. (If your organization is interested in cosponsoring this event please be in contact.) Those who truly believe in peace should and must make a showing and demonstrate that there are significant number of us who differ from both sides in their responses to this latest round of violence. We have been granted permission by the NYPD to assemble south of the consulate on 2nd Avenue near 41st Street from 11AM-1PM. I hope to see you there.
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Nice job of cutting through the pseudo-intellectual bullshit. Keep up the good work!
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Actually, on closer inspection, he never gives a full justification, but based on comments like this: "You will call for a withdrawl so Hamas can declare victory and rearm for the next conflict", or his claim that Olmert’s refusal to start this war earlier makes him morally degenerate pretty strongly imply that it’s not just dictionary-definition pacifism that he’s objecting to, but rather any criticism of any military action against Hamas, unless the criticism is that we’re not warring enough.
Well, certainly that’s not what pacifism is, but Alcove-One’s justification for why pacifism doesn’t work applies equally well to any non-Hamas-killing action. Furthermore, his original formulation doesn’t work either since not everyone who favours peace in this specific instance is necessarily a pacifist.
This "objectively pro-" business leads to conclusions that EVERYONE thinks are absurd.
No, it does not lead itself to absurdity; you forced it to an absurd conclusion using verbal legerdemain, hoping that careless readers wouldn’t notice you were cheating. Specifically, you tried to pull a fast one by re-defining "pacifism" to mean "any action or philosophy which does not immediately translate into deaths of Hamas fighters."
However, "pacifism" usually has a rather more narrow and specific meaning than that, doesn’t it?
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Well, Orwell is dead, so I can’t take it up with him. But if you’re using it, then you must agree with it, so I’m taking it up with you, since you seem inclined to believe he was being reasonable when he said it.
I’m not talking about Israelis, I’m talking about anyone: any able-bodied young North American Jew is, in your formulation, depriving the IDF of necessary fighting men. Are twenty-something North American Jews who don’t drop everything to join the IDF "objectively pro-Hamas"? How about those orthodox kids who get exemptions to study Torah? My point is, not every single decision we make has to be directly in service of taking the lives of Hamas members for us to be anti-Hamas.
The fact that an enemy is vile, with no regard for lives, doesn’t mean that every military operation launched against them is wise, moral, or remotely likely to achieve its aims. The point I’m making isn’t even about morality; obviously I don’t support the war, but I’m sure there are many people who do for good and wise reasons. I’m simply objecting to your characterization of everyone who doesn’t support it as being in league, morally at least, with Hamas. This is also not hard stuff. People can reasonably disagree with each other on how best to deal with Hamas, without one side having to claim the other is actually on the side of Hamas.
Those are his words not mine.
After wadding through your posting, let me focus on one point:
"In Alcove-One’s understanding of the situation, going to university, or becoming a doctor, or trying to start a band, rather than joining the IDF to fight Hamas, is going to benefit Hamas…"
Once again, take that up with Israeli policy of mandatory conscription of most able bodied men and women. Along with being doctors and rock band members, Israelis must serve to protect their nation from the likes of Hamas.
To avoid service on a large scale would benefit Hamas and every other enemy of Israel…..big time.
How about just having moral clarity in supporting a just war against a vile enemy who along with no regard for Jewish lives, have no regard of their own people’s safety.
This is not hard stuff Jer. Even staunch liberals in Israel see this conflict as neccesary.
Ironically, it’s not an argument I actually want to make. Or, rather, while I believe what I said to be true, I wouldn’t use that to claim that supporters of the bombing are "objectively pro-Hamas", mainly because I think it’s a term that has more use as a propagandistic term for brow-beating opponents than as a descriptor. If Hamas is evil, and I suspect most of us here on this website think they are, to claim that someone is objectively pro-Hamas is to claim that they are pro-an evil movement. It marginalizes their opinion by associating them with a morally repugnant group. In Alcove-One’s understanding of the situation, going to university, or becoming a doctor, or trying to start a band, rather than joining the IDF to fight Hamas, is going to benefit Hamas (that’s one less rough guy with a gun, right?). That means that, if you seriously want to claim that any action or philosophy which does not immediately translate into deaths of Hamas fighters is objectively pro-Hamas, then anyone who does not quit their day job to take up arms is objectively pro-Hamas. And we all know what we should think of people who are objectively pro-Hamas.
It’s a cheap way to dismiss your opponents, and I don’t want to use it even to score a point against someone who is using it. Rather, I would say that the course of action Alcove-One advocates is counter-productive (immoral too, but I don’t see him being swayed by that argument). It expresses the same idea, that it may well end up strengthening Hamas rather than weakening them, but without the implication that actually Alcove-One is secretly on Hamas side, and therefore should be dismissed as a terrorist-enabler.Â
Similarly, I would hope that people who do support the war stop trying to label us peaceniks as being in some way on the same side as Hamas simply because we don’t approve of the strategy Israel is taking against them. It does no one any good to pretend that people who are repulsed by Hamas’s views and actions are actually secret Hamas supporters because they are also repulsed by Israeli actions. A completely reductive approach leads to absurd conclusions.
That’s a pretty good argument, Jer.
"Do you really think that being in favour of a cease-fire is objectively pro-Hamas"
Yes, a cease fire to them means a time out to regroup and rearm.
"Was Israel’s failure to do what it’s doing now "morally degenerate" back in July"?
Sadly, yes. Allowing your citizens to suffer constant rocket attacks in order to appease killers and their left-wing friends who only protest when Israel fights back is morally wrong. They get points for not waiting until their was a direct hit on a kindergarden but I am no fan of the Olmert government.
"…..you have to wonder if it’s more or less "degenerate" to bomb schools or to leave them standing……avoid civilian targets versus, well, targeting them."
When those schools are being used as launching sites and being used to store deadly bombs they become a legally legitment target. The real criminal conduct falls on Hamas which not only uses civilian sites as depots but when the IDF actually alerts people to an upcoming attack, Hamas orders women and children to the roof of the target while the fighters scramble for cover.
Why?
Because they know people like yourself will condem Israel and not them.
You will call for a withdrawl so Hamas can declare victory and rearm for the next conflict. You may not like Hamas but Hamas needs you in order to win.
Please do not help them.
"..Is pacifism on the part of Palestinians objectively pro-occupation.."
Pacifism when used against a liberal democracy with a conscience like Israel is highly effective. Martin Luther King and Gandh owe most of their success to the flawed but essentially decent and democratic nations they were protesting against; the USA and the UK.
That is why MLK ands Gandhi were successful and Sophie Schole of The White Rose resistance against the Nazis was not. Only rough men with guns were able to defeat Nazism. Only rough men with guns will be able to defeat Hamas.
To do less is to provide aid and comfort to Hamas and prolong the suffering of all concerned indefinietly which is morally degenerate.
Hence, the original Orwellian quote:
"Pacifisim is objectively pro-fascist"Â
It was a rhetorical question, whose aim was to show that by applying the same logic, you can get that pacifism is objectively pro-anything-you’re-not-using-violence-to-stop. My point was, just as there are non-violent ways to oppose the occupation, there are non-violent ways to oppose fascism (which Hamas is not – but they can be opposed non-violently too). And, just as it is preferrable for Palestinians to use non-violent means to oppose the occupation, it would be preferrable for Israel to use non-violent means to oppose Hamas. I offer this not as a defense of pacifism, per se, because I am not a pacifist, but merely to point out how stupid and reductionist this "objectively pro-whatever" line of argument is. There are lots of things we oppose without busting out violence.
He said it was objectively pro-fascist. Not to be confused with pro-occupation. Unless you’re talking about Hamas’ totalist occupation of the Palestinian government in Gaza.
Is pacifism on the part of Palestinians objectively pro-occupation? I have tons of respect for Orwell, but not everything he said was necessarily a winner.
Hey, is everyone familiar with the Latin phrase quid pro quo? Good!
In my view, the de-Jewing of Gaza was a pretty fuckin’ substantial quid put forth by Israel. Granted, there remain many additional quid‘s desired by the Palestinian side: a West Bank under
Muslim control— oops, I meant Arab control — the matter of partitioning Jerusalem into an Israeli capital and a Palestinian capital, the right of return, and so on. But the whole point of quid pro quo bargaining is that each side makes incremental concessions, rather than giving up everything at once.ÂSo my question is: Exactly WHAT was the quo given by the Palestinians in return for Israel’s above-mentioned quid, namely dismantling all the Jewish settlements in Gaza?
‘Cause it appears to me that the Palestinians did not bring to the table anything REMOTELY proportional to the Jewish withdrawal from Gaza — such as, for example, offering to scale down the demanded "Right of Return" so that it would apply only to Gazan Arabs born prior to 1948 and to their children, but not to any subsequent generations. Or, gosh, maybe amending the Hamas constitution so that it was no longer dedicated to the annihilation of the Zionist Entity?
And if the Palestinian quo amounted to nothing more than a temporary ceasefire during which they dug tunnels to smuggle in as many weapons as they possibly could, then in my humble goyish opinion it’d be rather distasteful to see this proposed peace rally with Israeli and Palestinian flags side-by-side. Because when you reward people with friendly gestures and goodwill that they’ve done absolutely nothing to earn, you are (a) engaging in the "soft bigotry of low expections"; and (b) setting yourself up to be a sucker.
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Keep rockin’Â Mobius.Â
Howie Katz: Check these folks out: http://www.abrahamsvision.org/
It’s bad enough that large swaths of the Jewish community want us to be Israel-Firstniks, but now you want we should also be Palestine-Firstniks as well?
I’m totally going to be there!
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