Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: fyi: my letter in LA Times - 5/4/09
LA Times edited it some but, it's the first one re: Holocaust-Gaza
comparisons.
(they cut out the reference to 150-200 of my extended Dutch family members
who were killed in the camps.)
Karen
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-monday4-2009may04,0,6403205.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Letters
Letters to the editor,
The Queen Mary, Holocaust-Gaza comparisons and Abu Zubaydah
May 4, 2009
Holocaust comparison
Re "Holocaust, Gaza images stir furor" April 30
Because I am a Jew and the granddaughter of a survivor of Bergen-Belsen, I
too sent out graphic images of Jews in the Holocaust and pictures of
Palestinians caught up in Israel's recent Gaza offensive to friends, family
and colleagues. I sent them because I was so disturbed by and ashamed of the
Israeli assault on Gaza in the name of the Jewish people.
I learned about the plight of the displaced Palestinian people from my
survivor grandfather, Henri van Leeuwen, a deeply religious Orthodox Jew who
was firmly committed in words and deeds to maintaining a distinction between
anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.
If he were alive today, he would be horrified by UCSB's actions against
Professor William I. Robinson, and even more horrified by Israel's
reenactment of the Warsaw Ghetto on the people of Gaza.
Karen Pomer
Los Angeles
::
Although I may not be happy about a UCSB professor criticizing Israel for
its relationship with its Arab neighbors, he certainly has the right to do
so.
However, for him to compare the Israelis' treatment of Palestinians with
Nazism is so hateful and far from the truth that his authority to teach
young people should be revoked.
Israelis have never advocated the destruction of the entire Arab race.
Israelis have never set up ovens to burn Arabs. Israelis have never taken
the human fat of Arabs and turned it into bars of soap, nor their flayed
skin into lampshades. Serial numbers have not been involuntarily tattooed
onto their skin.
All of that was done by the Nazis to Jews.
There is a line between disagreeing with a country's actions and spreading
hate. Where is Robinson's hatred of what the Sudanese are doing in Darfur?
Where is his condemnation of Hamas? Where is his criticism of the Chinese,
the Saudis, the Iranians, the North Koreans and all of the other egregious
injustices in the world today?
Having Robinson teach college students is wrong. Michael Waterman
Encino
::
Why is it all right to speak about Israel and its victimhood but not about
Palestine and its victimhood? What are supporters of Israel afraid of? Is
admitting that sometimes Israel has made mistakes, continues to make
mistakes and will make mistakes in the future somehow going to destroy its
foundation?
To pretend that Israel is always right and the Arab world always wrong is a
childish position. I support Robinson in his attempt to bring some
perspective and balance to the equation.
Carol Marshall
Anaheim
::
Robinson may be a scholar who teaches students to question their beliefs,
but he is also an authority figure who determines students' grades based on
his own evaluation of their written and oral arguments. Is it a surprise
that by boldly declaring his personal views on a highly sensitive and
debatable issue, he intimidated two students so much that they dropped his
class?
Robinson's e-mail may not qualify as anti-Semitism by some standards, but it
does lower the bar for academic professionalism and intellectual
responsibility.
Jason Mandell
Los Angeles
***
From: Sid Shniad
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1082174.html
Sadly, Israel is no longer democratic
"There is no mention in this law of the promise that appears in the
state's formative document, the Declaration of Independence, that
"The State of Israel will ensure complete equality of social and
political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race or
sex."
By Shulamit Aloni
Haaretz: 01/05/2009
Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin and philosopher Asa Kasher, two respected men around
here, published an article entitled: "A just war of a democratic state,"
(Haaretz, April 24, Hebrew).
A remark about the first part: There are wars that are necessary for
self-defense or to fight injustice and evil. But the expression "just" is
problematic when speaking of war itself - which involves killing and
destruction and leaves women, children and old people homeless, and
sometimes even kills them.
Our sages have said: "Don't be overly righteous." And there is absolutely no
question that dropping cluster bombs in an area populated by civilians, as
we did in the Second Lebanon War, does not testify to great righteousness.
The same thing can be said of using phosphorus bombs against a civilian
population.
Apparently, according to the Yadlin and Kasher definition of justice, in
order to eliminate terrorists it is just to destroy, kill, expel and starve
a civilian population that has no connection to the acts of terror and no
responsibility for them. Perhaps had they adopted a more decent and less
arrogant approach they would have tried to explain the reasons for the fury
and intensity that brought about the shocking killing and destruction, and
even apologized for the fact that these exceeded any reasonable necessity.
But after all, we are always right; moreover, these things were done by "the
most moral army in the world," sent by the "democratic" Jewish state - and
here is the meeting point of the two concepts in the title of Yadlin and
Kasher's article.
As for the army's morality, it would have been better had they remained
silent and thereby been considered wise. This is because the statistics on
the destruction and harm to civilians in the Gaza Strip are familiar to
everyone, and not divorced from the oh-so-moral behavior of our army in the
occupied territories. In the context of this behavior, for example, the army
operates with great efficiency against farmers who demonstrate against the
theft of their lands, even when the demonstrations are not violent.
The long-term evidence of abuse by soldiers against civilians at the
checkpoints - including repeated instances of expectant mothers who are
forced to give birth in the middle of the road, surrounded by armed soldiers
who laugh wickedly - is no secret either. Day after day, year after year,
the most moral army in the world helps to steal lands, uproot trees, steal
water, close roads - in the service of the righteous "Jewish and democratic"
state and with its support. It's heartbreaking, but the State of Israel is
no longer democratic. We are living in an ethnocracy under "Jewish and
democratic" rule.
In 1970 it was decided that in Israel religion and nationality are one and
the same (that is why we are not listed in the Population Registry as
Israelis, but as Jews). In 1992 it was determined in the Basic Law on Human
Dignity and Liberty that Israel is a "Jewish state." There is no mention in
this law of the promise that appears in the state's formative document, the
Declaration of Independence, to the effect that "The State of Israel will
ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its
inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race or sex." The Knesset ratified
the law nonetheless.
And so there is a "Jewish state" and no "equality of rights." Therefore some
observers emphasize that the Jewish state is not "a state of all its
citizens." Is there really a democracy that is not a state of all its
citizens? After all, Jews living today in democratic countries enjoy the
full rights of citizenship.
Democracy exists in the State of Israel today only in the formal sense:
There are parties and elections and a good judicial system. But there is
also an omnipotent army that ignores legal decisions that restrict the theft
of land owned and held by people who have been living under occupation for
the past 42 years. And since 1992, as we mentioned, we also have the
definition "Jewish state," which means an ethnocracy - the rule of an ethnic
religious community that strictly determines the ethnic origin of its
citizens according to maternal lineage. And as far as other religions are
concerned, disrespect for them is already a tradition, since we have
learned: "Only you are considered human beings, whereas the gentiles are
like donkeys."
From here it is clear that we and our moral army are exempt from concerns
for the Palestinians living in Israel, and this is even more true of those
living under occupation. On the other hand, it is perfectly all right to
steal their land because these are "state lands" that belong to the State of
Israel and its Jews.
That is the case even though we have not annexed the West Bank and have not
granted citizenship to its inhabitants, who under Jordanian rule were
Jordanian citizens. The State of Israel has penned them in, which makes it
easy to confiscate their land for the benefit of its settlers.
And important and respected rabbis, who are educating an entire generation,
have ruled that the whole country is ours and the Palestinians should share
the fate of Amalek, the ancient tribe the Israelites were commanded to
eradicate. At a time when a "just war" is taking place, racism is rife and
robbery is called "return of property."
We are currently celebrating the 61st anniversary of the State of Israel. We
fought in the War of Independence out of a great hope that we would build a
"model society" here, that we would make peace with our neighbors, work the
land and develop the Jewish genius for the benefit of science, culture and
the value of man - every man. But when a major general and a philosopher
justify - out of a sense of moral superiority - our acts of injustice toward
the other in such a way, they cast a very heavy shadow on all those hopes.
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