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December 18, 2013

U.S. academics should not boycott Israeli universities

Leave a Comment / David N. Myers, Opinion /

According to an announcement released Dec. 16, the American Studies Association (ASA), a group of some 5,000 university professors, has endorsed its national council’s call for a boycott of Israeli universities.

Two-thirds of the 1,252 members who voted approved the boycott, according to the release, and a third of the membership’s eligible voters participated.

The membership-wide canvass was unprecedented and was undertaken in part at the behest of boycott opponents, who said at a session during the ASA annual conference in Washington, D.C., last month that the matter was too sensitive to leave up to the 20-member national council, which unanimously endorsed the boycott.

The resolution is not binding on members and targets institutions, not individuals.

In its announcement, the ASA said it would invite Israeli and Palestinian academics to its 2014 national meeting in Los Angeles. ASA describes itself as “devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history.” — JTA

Like many readers of the Jewish Journal, I have followed with interest and foreboding the recent vote of the American Studies Association (ASA) on whether to boycott Israeli academic institutions. Some of my university colleagues are vocal in support of the boycott. They are decent people whose main motivation, as my friend and fellow UCLA historian Robin Kelley phrased it, is to create “the conditions for genuine intellectual exchange … grounded in a politics of inclusion, justice and equality.” I share that aspiration and also believe that those who favor a boycott have the right to express their views. Nevertheless, I strongly disagree with the substance of their position.  

It is not that we should support the continuing occupation of the West Bank. Hardly so. For the occupation entails the denial to the Palestinians of the very right that Zionism fought and won for the Jews: national self-determination. Moreover, it corrodes the soul of Israel and its reputation in the world. 

So why, then, oppose?  There are various reasons that have been mounted, including the central importance of free speech in academic discourse, the sinister resonance of boycotts in modern Jewish history and the fallacy of the historical comparison to apartheid South Africa, in which boycotts and sanctions were used to considerable effect. 

[Robert D.G. Kelley: U.S. academics should boycott Israeli universities]

I would like to focus on two other factors. First and foremost is the selectivity of focus. The logic invoked by ASA President Curtis Marez that “one has to start somewhere” in imposing boycotts as a means of punishing simply doesn’t hold water. Without absolving Israel of responsibility for the consequences of its destructive occupation, it is a spectacular act of audacity to single out that country as if it were the state that most violates the human rights of its residents. In a region filled with state actors with dubious records (think Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran, for starters), Israel surely does not deserve pride of place as the first or only one in need of reprimand. Were punishment meted out more equitably in the region, it might be a different matter. But the skewed and lopsided judgment to focus on Israel defies the basic principle of fair application of norms of justice.

Secondly, it has been stated often that within Israeli society, universities are the incubator and guardian of the most progressive values, precisely those that one would need in order to effect meaningful change from within. This is a rather abstract proposition, so let me offer a concrete example. At the end of December, I am to head to Jerusalem to participate in a conference titled “Did Something Happen to Zionism Along the Way?” The meeting will bring together a group of historians, including both fervent supporters and vocal critics of the State of Israel’s policies, to reflect on the historical path of the Zionist movement into the present. It is the kind of conference that would be difficult to mount in the United States because of Jewish communal sensitivities but which takes place on a regular basis in Israel. In fact, this conference will be held at and sponsored by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel’s oldest and most prestigious university. 

Some in the Diaspora may find it odd that a conference such as this would be held in Israel with the full support of an Israeli institution. But it is exactly the kind of open and honest historical inquiry in which Israeli academics routinely engage. They do so because they understand such inquiry to be an essential part of the probing self-critique that any healthy society requires.  

Far from boycotting such endeavors, we should enthusiastically support them. To do otherwise — by supporting the ASA boycott — is to stifle the admirable efforts of Israeli academics to challenge what they find to be broken and in urgent need of repair in their own society.  Likewise, support for the boycott surrenders to a bewildering selectivity of focus that masquerades as the pinnacle of morality but ultimately betrays its very
essence.

David N. Myers teaches Jewish history and is the Robert N. Burr Department Chair of the UCLA History Department.

U.S. academics should not boycott Israeli universities Read More »

Freedom march ends in tears: 150 Sudanese refugees imprisoned after fleeing 100 miles to Jerusalem

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

Update, December 19: ““>last weekend's record-setting blizzard, waving handmade signs in Hebrew and English and begging government officials to grant them asylum in Israel.

“No more prison! No more prison!” went one chant. Another: “Refugees' rights right now!”

As evening approached, they made a bold attempt to leave the main roadway and march up toward the Knesset (parliament) building. That's when a few dozen Israeli border cops stepped in, forming a human barricade around the group. All 150 refugees inside the circle either followed the cops' orders willingly or were tackled to the ground, one by one, and dragged onto two jumbo buses waiting to drive them back to their cold desert cells.

Many began sobbing near the end, while others chanted to deaf ears: “Freedom, yes! Prison, no!” A few left-wing Israeli supporters clung to the refugees' jackets, screaming, “They're HUMAN BEINGS!” as border cops ripped them away by their collars. News photographers elbowed past cops to capture the panic and agony in refugees' faces. The Reuters team even jumped onto the roof of a flimsy mobile home parked nearby (part of another man's protest outside Knesset headquarters) to capture the scene from above.

It was one half-hour of heartbreaking chaos — a quick, brutal end to the refugees' arduous journey across wintertime Israel.

“>their prison grounds along Israel's southern border, walking for six hours until they reached the Be'er Sheva central bus station for the night. At that point, tired and weak, some were forced to end their hunger strike. One was hospitalized, and two others treated, for exhaustion.

The next day, the group of 150 refugees and about 20 human-rights workers walked another six hours or so, until they realized they would need to take a bus to make it to Jerusalem by Tuesday morning, as planned. So they shuttled north to Kibbutz Nahshon and spent their second night in an underground bunker. “The migrants, who had marched dozens of kilometers in the last few days, look shocked,” wrote a reporter from Haaretz who stayed with them at the kibbutz. “They sit quietly feeling their aching, blistered feet, some of them bandaged.”

Their injuries had gotten so raw by Tuesday afternoon that a couple refugees collapsed during the Jerusalem demonstration. Another man had what appeared to be a seizure near the end of the protest — but he was so boxed in by tense border police and panicking protesters that it took at least 10 minutes to drag him out of the crowd into an ambulance.

“>passed earlier this month. In fact, the only reason the refugees were able to make their mid-December march at all — finally showing Jerusalem politicians the faces of the innocents they've been squirreling away to no man's land — was thanks to the new law.

The previous Anti-Infiltration Law, in place since early 2012, had allowed Israel to lock up African non-residents in the notorious Saharonim desert prison for at least three years without trial. But in September of this year, the law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Israel. So politicians came up with a seemingly soft alternative: Africans who have been at Saharonim for one year will gradually be transferred to “>Images of the march mirror some of history's most famous exoduses, and certainly conjure a Torah passage or two. “You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,” read one refugee's small sign.

The entire walk/ride to Jerusalem, Israeli aid organizers kept predicting that border police would probably show up “in a few hours” and arrest the lot of them. Cops and soldiers were indeed trailing the procession the whole time, making their presence known — but for whatever reason, they waited until the final hour to pounce.

At 9 a.m. on Tuesday, when the group was scheduled to arrive in a parking lot across from the Prime Minister's Office, only about seven security guards lingered nearby. Press corps who had gathered on the other side of a barricade were under the impression that the arrest would be quick and easy: “Don't cross the barricade,” a photographer from Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's largest daily, told me, “so the police will know you're not with them.”

By “them,” he meant the 50 or so “supporters from the left” who were waiting in the parking lot, beneath the giant Bank of Israel building, for the bus of refugees to arrive. The crowd had a very Occupy aesthetic: Drums covered in political stickers, rainbow mittens, an “animal liberation” sweatshirt. Vered Bitan, a freelance graphic designer from Jerusalem wearing cheetah gloves and funky sunglasses, held up a sign that said, in solidarity: “I'm not an infiltrator, I'm a refugee. Refugee is not a crime.” She motioned to the towering “65 years” logo that sits atop of the Prime Minister's Office. “Before, they were all immigrants,” she said of the people inside the office. “They were put in camps. But they forgot it.”

“>on his Facebook page:

Just as we are determined to protect our borders, we are determined to enforce the law. The law exists for everyone. The law is the law, and it certainly applies to illegal work infiltrators. The infiltrators who were transferred to a special facility can stay there, or return to their home countries.

According to a spokeswoman for Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, the prisoners were all bussed back to the “open” Holot detention center last night. This morning they will attend a hearing with an officer from the Ministry of Interior. Most likely, said the spokeswoman, refugees who were gone for under 48 hours will stay at Holot, and those gone for over 48 hours will go back to Saharonim.

On December 15, Hotline and partner organizations submitted a petition to the Supreme Court to overturn the new Anti-Infiltration Law. The government now has until December 25 to comment on the request for interim injunction.

For more on the refugees and their current living conditions, see: “ Freedom march ends in tears: 150 Sudanese refugees imprisoned after fleeing 100 miles to Jerusalem Read More »

Some Jewish questions for rabbis Jacobs and Rosove

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

Asking questions is a central aspect of Jewish tradition – indeed, formulating good questions is more important than trying to provide answers. Questions reflect the complexity of the human condition, as well as humility in acknowledging the inability to give ready answers in the face of this complexity

Unfortunately, in their attempts to respond to my article on misleading and immoral campaigns related to the complex issue of Israel’s Negev Bedouin citizens, Rabbis Jill Jacobs and John Rosove were quick to provide snarky “answers,” instead of posing good questions.

Before any exploration of this complexity, or acknowledging any possible errors by political advocacy groups such as T’ruah (formerly Rabbis for Human Rights, North America), Jacobs launches into a harsh attack, claiming that the issues I raised were nothing more than an effort “to defame lovers of Israel who dare to believe that the Jewish state can and should live up to the moral values of our tradition.” Nothing more? Surely, the head of an organization that proclaims Jewish moral values and promotes tolerance might avoid such dismissive and immoral language. Surely, public debate and criticism in the Jewish tradition cannot be reduced to defamation.

In the Jewish prophetic tradition, moral values do not exist in an imagined ideal, entirely detached from the complexities of the real world, and designed to tell others how they should act. In contrast, Jacob’s response skips over the complexities (yes, that word again) in the Bedouin’s transition from nomadic to modern conditions, the rampant crime and social problems (including oppression of women) resulting from polygamy, carefully argued rulings of  the Israeli High Court, the false and politicized claim to be “indigenous” in the Negev , and other crucial facts. 

In many ways, Jacobs’ “response” is actually a non-response.  She skips over most of the substance that I provided in my article, and omits any mention of “Jewish Voices for Peace,” a million dollar organization funded anonymously whose main objective is “driving a wedge” in the Jewish community over Israel. The involvement of a group that is at best agnostic on a “two-state” framework, and that cannot be said to “love Israel,” should worry Jacobs.

The one question in Jacobs’ attack is rhetorical, followed immediately by a demeaning and snarky pseudo-answer: “Does [Steinberg] really believe that 800 rabbis …. oppose ‘Jewish self-determination and sovereignty’? More likely, Steinberg resorts to such name calling in order to avoid real discussion and open debate about Israeli policy.” This is hardly consistent with “healthy debate” and “the best of our Jewish values.” I do, however, believe that 800 rabbis have been misled by a simplistic and detached narrative promoted by Truah and other political advocacy NGOs.   

In his post, Rabbi Rosove’s continues the abusive and insulting assault.  His recollection of a presentation I was asked to make before his synagogue group in Jerusalem could be politely termed “idiosyncratic.” He was “shocked and disappointed” that I spoke, as I do before dozens of groups every year, on the soft-power warfare led by NGOs that exploit the language of human rights. (See the latest round of discriminatory academic boycotts.) Had he remembered, Rosove might have admitted that our group had an intense and high-level discussion, reflecting the complexities involved, with many good questions on all sides of these very important issues.

Rabbi Rosove is right that “it is contrary to Jewish tradition to withhold legitimate criticism.” The same should hold true for voicing criticism of powerful NGOs that exploit the language of human rights and of campaigns that contribute to abuse, not love, of Israel.

Some Jewish questions for rabbis Jacobs and Rosove Read More »

Why Obama won’t pardon Pollard

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Mobile, News, Opinion /

Israel is abuzz with allegations of American bad faith in continuing to imprison convicted spy Jonathan Pollard even though recent disclosures have revealed that the U.S. itself has snooped on many friendly countries for years.

A Nov. 10 Jerusalem Post editorial described the situation as “an egregious double standard and a stunning example of American hypocrisy.”

In Commentary Magazine, Jonathan S. Tobin charged that the use of the Pollard case “to demonize Israel or to claim that the Jewish state behaved in a manner unbecoming an ally is undermined by the revelations about the United States’ own considerable efforts to snoop on its friends.”

And Pollard’s wife Esther complained to the Post that U.S. President Barack Obama wouldn’t free Pollard even as he participated in the traditional presidential ritual of pardoning turkeys on Thanksgiving. She objected that Obama would show “compassion and mercy to two lowly barnyard birds again this year, granting them a full pardon and sparing their lives” without showing her husband the same benevolence.

For more than 28 years, Jonathan Pollard has been serving a life sentence in American prisons for passing classified information to Israel. He is currently in poor health. Obama received a petition for executive clemency in October 2010, and has not acted upon it.

Many suspect the U.S. refusal to grant clemency to Pollard is evidence that Obama holds anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, or even anti-Semitic sentiments. They’re wrong.

The problem is something else entirely:

Obama hardly pardons anybody.

So far, Obama has granted only 40 pardons and commutations, mostly for minor offenses (and none relating to convictions of more than five years). In fact, he offered exactly zero commutations for the first three years after his election. In toto, no more than two percent of pardon applications are treated favorably by his administration. (Ronald Reagan’s number was 20 percent.) And Obama’s only pardon in all of last year? Another Thanksgiving turkey.

By contrast, George W. Bush extended clemency to 200 people, and Bill Clinton did so for 459 people. No president in a century has been as stingy with mercy as Obama.

The president’s unlimited pardon power, which is ensconced in the American Constitution, exists to correct excessive sentences and show compassion to repentant convicts. Pollard is hardly the only one deserving the president’s compassionate treatment. Perhaps most egregiously, thousands of men and women currently serve inhumanly long sentences for non-violent drug crimes.

With an African-American president, and an African-American attorney general, the Obama administration should actually be extra sensitive to the injustices of the American penal system. Nearly 40 percent of incarcerated Americans are black.

Or perhaps that’s the problem. Maybe Obama doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as a black liberal softie when it comes to crime. Do we really have to wait for a Republican president who’s willing to have a “Nixon-goes-to-China” moment in order to fix the insane reluctance to pardon deserving convicts?

My recommendation to those concerned with Pollard’s plight is as follows: Make allies. Work together with African-American, prison-reform, drug-policy, and other groups that would like to see the pardon spigot loosened.

No amount of pleading from Bibi, linkage with Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, hunger strikes, demonstrations, or petitions from American congressmen is going to make a whit of difference with a president who has never commuted a life sentence for anyone and doesn’t appear open to changing his policy.

We’ve agitated, correctly, for a “pardon for Pollard.” But we’ve been focusing on issues related to Pollard when we should have been looking at the pardon power itself. It’s not too late to change strategies.

David Benkof made aliyah in 2010. He teaches Hebrew at a yeshiva in Jerusalem, and constructs the weekly Jerusalem Post crossword puzzle which appears in the Jewish Journal. He can be reached at DavidBenkof@gmail.com.

Why Obama won’t pardon Pollard Read More »

What LA wants to know: Top 10 local Google searches of 2013

Leave a Comment / Blogs /

Ever wonder what Angelenos are curious about? Wonder no more! Google compiles a list each year of the top searches by city. Let's analyze what local inquiring minds turned to the internet to research over the last 12 months ::Spoiler alert:: crime and sports (and crime IN sports) are major themes.

10. Mayweather vs Canelo

image via wikimedia

This fight was one of the most popular ever–with $20 million made in ticket sales and at least another $100 million made in pay-per-view sales. Tickets were so hot that some  were being offered online for as much as $29,000.

Mayweather made $41.5 million to just show up to the fight, while his competitor, Canelo, was only guaranteed $5 million. Both competitors, however, helped to draw such huge crowds.

9. Amber Alert

image via dallascityhall.com

According to the Department of Justice, “The AMBER Alert™ Program is a voluntary partnership between law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters, transportation agencies, and the wireless industry, to activate an urgent bulletin in the most serious child-abduction cases. The goal of an AMBER Alert is to instantly galvanize the entire community to assist in the search for and the safe recovery of the child.”

So far, there have been 40 in California this year, including national headline-grabbing alerts such as that of Hannah Anderson, who was abducted by a family friend.

8. Government Shutdown

 Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com

Gandofini was an American actor best known for his role as mafia crime boss, Tony Soprano. He won numerous awards for the show including 3 Emmy Awards, 3 Screen Actors Guild Awards, and 1 Golden Globe.

Gandolfini died on June 19, 2013, aged 51, during a brief vacation in Italy. An autopsy confirmed that he died of a heart attack–shocking fans and co-workers.

6. Aaron Hernandez

Aaron Hernandez is arraigned on charges of murder and weapons violations in Attleborough, Massachusetts, after being arrested, June 26, 2013. Reuters/Mike George/Pool

Hernandez, who was a tight end for the New England Patriots, was charged with murder and weapons violations in connection with the killing of Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player from Boston.

Lloyd was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds to the back and chest in an industrial park one mile from Hernandez's house. Lloyd and Hernandez had gotten into a dispute earlier in the week at a nightclub.

Subsequent to his arrest, Hernandez was released from his contract with the Patriots.

5. Boston Marathon

An explosion erupts near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, one of two explosions in an attack in Boston Monday. Photo by Dan Lampariello/Reuters

During the Boston Marathon on April 15, two pressure cooker bombs exploded near the finish line killing three people and injuring over 250 others on Boylan Street. On April 19th, an enormous manhunt throughout Watertown ended in the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two suspects (the other being his deceased brother), who was injured, but survived.

At the hospital, Tsarnaev was formally charged with the use of a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of poverty resulting in death. He has pleaded not guilty to 30 charges.

4. Christopher Dorner

Christopher Dorner, realizing he left his key at the front desk. Photo by Irvine Police Department/REUTERS.

Dorner, who was terminated from his job with the LAPD  in 2009, went on a killing rampage. On February 3rd, he killed the daughter of former LAPD Captain Randal Quan as well as her fiance.

On February 11th, Dorner was formally charged with the murder of a police officer and the attempted murder of three others.

On the 12th, Dorner tied up a couple who discovered him in their Big Bear residence. He then fled the scene. In the ensuing chase and gunfight with two San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputies, he killed one and wounded the other.

Eventually, Dorner barricaded himself in a cabin which police deliberately set on fire. Although Dorner never made it out alive, it wasn't the fire that killed him–it was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

3. Cory Monteith

DFree / Shutterstock.com

Monteith was a Canadian actor and musician who was best known for his role as Finn Hudson on the hit Fox series, Glee.

Despite Monteith's squeaky-clean image on the show, the 30 year old had suffered from trouble with substance abuse since age 12. In March of 2013, he went into treatment once again for his addiction.

At the time, his girlfriend, Lea Michelle (his co-star on Glee) thought it was the best course of action. When he emerged, they both said he seemed to be on the up-and-up.

Sadly, on July 13th, he died of an overdose of heroin and alcohol in a Vancouver hotel room.

2. Dodgers

Ffooter / Shutterstock.com

On September 19th, the Dodgers clinched the Western Division title as well as overcoming the largest deficit they had ever faced while still winning the title. They ended up advancing to the National League Championship Series. However, they lost to the Cardinals in six games.

1. Paul Walker

Featureflash / Shutterstock.com

Walker was an American actor who was most well-known for his role as Brian O'Conner in The Fast and the Furious film series.

In the middle of filming the 7th installment of the series, Walker was the passenger in a car with his friend, Roger Rodas (a former professional racer) when the car crashed into a light pole and tree as the two were leaving a charity event on November 30th.

The car burst into flames. Both Rodas and Walker were killed in the crash–Walker, from a combination of traumatic and thermal injuries.

Although filming was temporarily suspended, Walkers look-alike brother, Cody, was asked to complete the film in his brother's place.

What LA wants to know: Top 10 local Google searches of 2013 Read More »

Watch “Israel Apartheid”: Why word choice matters

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Food, Mobile, Recipes /

With the American Studies Association's resolution this week to ” target=”_blank”>officially  called for a boycott of settlements, but not Israel as whole.

That is an exceptionally powerful statement coming from the head of the PA. And it's one of very few international voices (and one that should be listened to) that has tried to make it clear that there is a difference between Israel and the settlements.

Once again, if the president of the West Bank says this, his is a voice that should have some merit in this discussion.

However, let's get back to the verbiage being used to describe Israel. The current word du jour is, “apartheid.”

As much as my politics don't always align with Israel's policies, Israel, as a state, is not an apartheid state.

Definitions are really important when using words that bring to mind such a horrific level of brutal violence and oppression.

Israel, the state, does not resemble Apartheid South Africa. Anyone who says so is sorely in need of a history lesson.

The settlements are a problematic obstacle to peace in their current state. There are examples of terrible things happening in the settlements and surrounding cities in the West Bank. But once again, even Abbas recognizes these as a separate problem (and entity) than Israel.

Recently, Orit Arfa, one of our bloggers, hit the mediasphere with a parody of Miley Cyrus's video “We Can't Stop”–execept Arfa's is called “Jews Can't Stop.”

It is an anthem of the immature, “This is miiiiiiine, not youurrrrs,” tantrum of many of the settlers. It does not futher their cause, but rather deligitimizes any inkling of truth about their situation.  It makes settlers, and therefore, Israelis, and by extension, Jews, look really, really bad.

But there is another video making the rounds that puts together a more cogent argument for the state of Israel and things like the border fence on the West Bank.

Ari Lesser, an American musician, managed to squeeze a huge amount of history into a six minute rap called, “Israel Apartheid.”

In it, Lesser makes clear why Israel and Apartheid are not the same thing.

Unfortunately, he doesn't address the issue of the settlements in this video, but perhaps there just wasn't enough time to make that argument in this particular song.

What Lesser successfully does is make a mature, well-researched, well thought-out argument as to why the current framework for discussion is skewed. And unlike Arfa's words of incitement, Lesser's words are food for thought.