The Think Tank and the Conflict

Haaretz gives us Reut Institute’s take on the international campaign of delegitimization of Israel that we have been covering on Jewlicious for years. Reut, a think tank, considers this a strategic threat to Israel.

Reut says the campaign is the work of a worldwide network of private individuals and organizations. They have no hierarchy or overall commander, but work together based on a joint ideology – portraying Israel as a pariah state and denying its right to exist.

Um, yeah. Good morning!

Reut lists the network’s major hubs – London, Brussels, Madrid, Toronto, San Francisco and the University of California, Berkeley. The network’s activists – “delegitimizers” the report dubs them – are relatively marginal: young people, anarchists, migrants and radical political activists. Although they are not many, they raise their profile using public campaigns and media coverage, the report says.

The “delegitimizers” cooperate with organizations engaging in legitimate criticism of Israel’s policy in the territories such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, blurring the line between legitimate censure and delegitimization. They also promote pro-Palestinian activities in Europe as “trendy,” the report says.

What is Really Going on and Who is Leading it?

Reut Institute is obviously late on the uptake, but at least they have figured it out, unlike most of Israel’s leadership. Unfortunately, they misunderstand both the nature of the threat and its source.

First of all, they misunderstand the nature of the opponents. While it’s true that they have individuals acting without an apparent central hub, most of the organizing is done by a small number of people and they are almost always affiliated with Palestinian or Muslim groups, often non-profit, that exist in their respective markets. We’ve seen this in Toronto, where Jewlicious was able to show a number of things (there are a number of posts on our site that will provide this information – look up search terms like “Toronto” and “York University”):

* An organization or members of an organization called Palestine House were in some way related to the disruptions against the Toronto Film Festival.
* According to the National Post in Canada, Palestine House also became involved with Palestinian claims over the Dead Sea Scrolls in Toronto only 4 days after the PA wrote a letter to the Canadian government and the museum hosting the scrolls.
* Organizers of the film festival protest in Toronto, like Naomi Klein, had only months earlier visited the West Bank as honored guests of the Palestinians.
* There was behind the scenes involvement of a Palestinian law student who had previously served as an adviser to the PLO, mother organization of the PA.
* That same former adviser to the PLO had organized a one-state-solution conference at a Toronto university just weeks earlier.
* Among the speakers at that conference was an Israeli Arab who studies at Tel Aviv University and is a leader of the “boycott and divestment” movement. He subsequently went on a multi-city tour of North America to promote the divestment and boycott movement. Wherever he appeared, local university groups promoted the event.
* One of the key movers behind the protests in Toronto, John Greyson, was a board member of the Toronto Palestine Film Festival, which is also affiliated with Toronto pro-Palestinian groups.
* On various campuses across North America, the Apartheid Week and related campaigns are usually organized by the campus’s Muslim Student Union, as we saw at UC Irvine in previous years and in the disruption to the Michael Oren talk.
* When it’s not the Muslim Students Union, it’s some sort of Palestinian group (Peace in Palestine; Peace and Justice in Palestine; Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine, etc.) that takes the lead.
* Often, there is a direct connection between the student government on campus and the pro-Palestinian or MSU groups. It is not unusual to see activists run for student leadership roles, as we’ve seen at York University in Toronto and Concordia in Quebec.
* When they acquire those powers, it is typical to see them lead anti-Israel campus activities. It helps them in the elections that they are often affiliated with Left-wing groups on campus.
* There appear to be funds for many of these groups’ activities, such as a recent North American tour by Norman Finkelstein, promoted by Muslim, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel groups.

Along with plenty of financing to bring out speakers, organize activities, events and travel, the the level of sophistication of some of these attacks indicates that fairly knowledgeable sources are providing assistance.

There are two possibilities. One is that the Palestinian Authority is behind this and the other is some Arab government with connections to MSU organizations on campuses is driving this. It could also be that both are happening. Money appears to be coming from somewhere and I don’t believe the Muslim community in North America is established enough at this point to be driving these programs – they will be in a few years, however, thanks to the groundwork that is being laid and has been laid over the past couple of decades.

We have seen substantial infusions of Saudi money to various top-quality universities in the past couple of decades, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that part of their budget includes sponsorship of Muslim campus groups. With respect to disruptive events like the Toronto Film Festival protests or the anti-two-state-solution conference, it is very reasonable to assume the PA was indirectly or directly involved (as I mentioned above, Naomi Klein visited the West Bank months before the film festival protest of which she was one of the leaders and the anti-two-state-solution conference was led by a former adviser to the PLO).

What this means is that the delegitimization campaign against Israel is almost certainly being run by the the PA and one or more Arab governments.

However, the support is often indirect, or provided in a hands-off fashion which also permits for denial of any connection and the perceived sense that these are grass-roots activists. That does not change the fact that this is part of the war against Israel (put “endgame” into our search to read more about the PA’s war against Israel) and as Reut notes, a strategic threat to Israel.

The Wrong Solutions

With this in mind, Reut’s prescribed solution seems right, but it is in fact the wrong approach to fighting and solving this problem.

“The Foreign Ministry is built for the challenges of the ’60s, not the 2000s,” the report says. “There are no budgets, not enough diplomats and no appropriate diplomatic doctrine.”

Reut recommends setting up a counter-network, in which Israel’s embassies in centers of delegitimization activity would serve as “front positions.”

The report says the intelligence service should monitor the organizations’ activities and study their methods. The cabinet should also confront groups trying to delegitimize Israel but embrace those engaged in legitimate criticism.

That is the wrong approach, at least in North America. In Europe, the problem is so deep that rising up from the grass roots is going to be extremely challenging and any fighting needs to be on a governmental informational level. However, in North America any Israeli governmental activity should involve nothing more than monitoring and maybe every one in a while sending an informative helping hand to real grass roots activists.

Israel’s solution needs to be no less sophisticated than that of the Palestinians, and giving diplomats and the Foreign Ministry authority to handle this is NOT the way to go, because it will become – as everything in Israel always does – part of some public debate, and then even those of us who are really grass roots will be attacked for being part of Israeli propaganda. In addition, it is also very likely that the Foreign Ministry won’t know how to handle these sorts of situations. Israelis can be ham-handed when it comes to defending their positions, as we well know – the debacle with the Turkish ambassador to Israel, conducted by one of Israel’s most experienced diplomats, proved that conclusively.

A different possibility lies with organizations such as Stand with Us and CAMERA, both of which do excellent work and which already advocate for Israel. They represent one model of counter-activism against those who attack Israel. The problem these groups face is that they are large and have also taken a ham-handed approach to defending Israel. There is little in the way of nuance in their approach. For example, if a newspaper publishes an attack on Israel or even a mildly unfair article, these groups will send out an email blast to their members and the newspaper editor is then bombarded with dozens or hundreds of emails that sound very much like each other. On CAMERA’s site, virtually every major publication in the US comes under attack at one point or another.

The editors’ responses are not hard to imagine: they assume their critics are organized and therefore not as authentic as the lone voice or small group that created the protest or wrote the op-ed in the first place. The underdog gets sympathy while the well-organized complaints are deemed to be the bullies.

These groups can be effective in providing a knowledge base to activists and to spreading information to a broad range of people. It is hard for them to lead a grass-roots movement, however, because they have grown beyond that.

The Right Solution

What, then, is the solution? The solution is not complicated but will require some effort to implement. It is to answer grass roots with grass roots.

Fighting back effectively is often a function of knowledge combined with activism conducted by a small group of dedicated individuals. The knowledge part is critical because this conflict is extremely complex with endless data points, a confusing history and ongoing events that continue to shift the lay of the land. Acquiring knowledge isn’t enough. One has to predict how the other side will respond and then how the other side will response to our response to theirs. It is chess, in a way.

How do we get there? Every city and every campus with a Jewish population of any size can do this. It is a function of finding a person or two who are heavily invested in defending Israel and motivated by a desire to see justice done in relation to Israel and who can lead others.

That local Jewish community needs to set aside some funds to cover that individual’s time – not much money, but enough to make a part-time effort make sense – as s/he begins to find opportunities to meet people who care about Israel, to provide classes about the Arab-Israeli conflict and to identify both the types of people who can offer support and those who can lead. The goal of such an organization would be to grow, but not too large, to monitor local anti-Israel activism and combat it in creative, grass-roots ways.

You will notice that the Israeli government plays no role in any of this scenario.

That’s because the way to fight small groups of activists who appear to be independent is to fight with small groups of activists who are independent. The foreign ministry can assist by having some sort of expertise office where the group leaders can call to get information about historical and political matters that are hard to research or whose nuances can be confusing. They can offer help by ensuring the local groups know what the PA is up to or what the latest activities or disputes are about. However, they have to remain a passive resource and nothing more.

One way to ensure this is to create a closed website that would serve as a a knowledge repository for any activist who wants to participate. Such a resource would only be open to the local leaders and would provide answers to pertinent questions and issues along with links and resources and a knowledge base of the other side’s debating points and responses.

How does all of this get started? Simple. If you’re somebody who thinks you can lead a group like this and you care enough about it that you would be willing to face this sort of challenge for the next couple of years…then just get started.

What do you need?

* You need to find some local like-minded people. Ask your local rabbis – most will know members in their congregation who care deeply about these issues.
* You need to find a place where you can offer classes.
* You need to acquire as much knowledge as you can about the conflict.
* As you get going, you will need to find some benefactor in your town who can provide some financial assistance.
* Pay yourself a little, but use most of the money to offer classes.
* Hook up with local Hillels or universities that have professors who deal with these issues and who appear to be friendly to Israel. Get them to offer a class here or there.
* Attend every pro-Palestinian event in your area and observe. What are they saying, what are their claims, how do they go about promoting themselves.
* Sit with some of the smarter members of your group and figure out how to compete with these events and presentations.
* Learn to respond and beat them at their own propaganda.
* Expect that most of the time these days, you will be playing defense, but,
* After you become more confident, start thinking about how to play offense: how can Israel’s need and desire for peace be presented to the public; Are there speakers you can bring to your town; Can you get them publicity in your local papers?

Grass roots against grass roots. That’s the only way to fight back.

Back by popular demand - buy tickets to see the concert portion of Jewlicious Festival 6.0 while supplies last!
$25 Online Concert Tix Sat or Sunday / $30 at the door.

2/20 Saturday Night Bands (9 p.m.- 1 a.m.)
Kosha Dillz Band (NY)
Rinat (Jerusalem)
Electro Morocco (NY)
Moshav (LA)
and other special guests

2/21 Sunday Acoustic Series (11 a.m. – 3 p.m.)
Basya Schechter (of Pharaoh’s Daughter) (NY)
Rav Shmuel (NY)
Yael Meyer (LA)
Adam Weinberg (Miami)
And other special guests

Family Goy. Get it?

Season 8 Episode 2 of Family Guy, titled Family Goy had a very notable plot line wherein Lois, the mother on the show, discovers that her own mother is a holocaust survivor and that her and her children are in fact Jewish. Lois confronts her parents and her mother Barbara Pewterschmidt (née Hebrewberg née Hebrewbergmoneygrubber) explains:

Lois: Mom you’re Jewish?
Barbara Pewterschmidt: I’m sorry I never told you dear. When we were married your father made me conceal the fact so that we could get in to country clubs.
Carter Pewterschmidt: It was the right thing to do.
Barbara Pewterschmidt: It was the right thing to do dear

Indeed. In a similar vein, Culture Shuk revealed the story of Denise Brown, the founder of Dallas’ City Ballet who had kept her Judaism hidden for nearly 70 years. A French Jew, she had worked in the Resistance, survived the Nazi occupation and then married an American enlisted man who, according to the Dallas Morning News, insisted she not let his racist/anti-Semitic parents know she was Jewish.

Denise honored her husband’s request. His father and mother went to their graves never knowing that Gene’s wife is Jewish. “My father-in-law had some very weird ideas,” Denise says, managing a wry smile. “He told me that all the Jewish people have crooked toes…Denise kept her Judaism hidden from the larger community as well. She and Gene spent years raising their children at University Park United Methodist Church. A CPA who spent 35 years working as finance director for the city of University Park, Gene died in 1991. “I remember as a teen Dad going on about the ‘damn Jews,’ ” Evelyn says. “I said, ‘If you hate them so much, why did you marry one?’ And he said, ‘I was going to make damn sure she never acted like one.’ “”

Hobbled by the fear she felt under Nazi occupation, Denise never publicly acknowledged her Judaism until a grand daughter Madison’s Bat Mitzvah where Denise presented her father’s tallis, last worn during WWII, to Madison. Denise is still kind of scared:

“I am not ashamed of the fear I felt. I knew I didn’t want my children to live through another Germany, which could happen again.” She pauses, and says with a sigh, “To be honest, I still haven’t stopped worrying … that it could happen again.”

Never you mind Denise! In the diaspora, let alone in Dallas, jack booted thugs are always just around the corner. Hiding in fear of imminent anti-Semitism, hiding your Jewish identity, to quote Carter and Barbara Pewterschmidt, is “the right thing to do.”

It was the right thing to do dear.

2010 JEWISH FILM COMPETITION NOW OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS — FOR AMATEUR FILMMAKERS 18-26 – FILMS ON JEWISH SUBJECTS

Seeking the best in Jewish themed short films!

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This nationwide film competition is for young, “amateur status”* filmmakers . All films will be eligible for the the Grand Prize, 2nd place and 3rd place. Winners will be chosen by a panel of veteran filmmakers from Hollywood and New York. Selected films will be shown at Jewlicious Festival and Jewish Film Festivals around the world.

COST: FREE! – limit one film per filmmaker.

ELIGIBILITY: Films up to 30 min. in length.

* Principal filmmaker must not be a working professional in the field.
* Entrant must be aged 18-26 during the Jewlicious Festival.
* Film’s subject must pertain to Judaism, Jewish Identity or the “Jewish Experience”

PRIZES: $500 prize for winner or trip to festival, plus 2nd and 3rd Place prizes

ENTRY: Submissions will be accepted until Midnight, February 11th, 2010.

‘TO ENTER:

1.Send an email to JewishFilmCompetition [at] gmail.com with “REGISTER” in the headline.

2.In the body of the email, put your name, email address and film title.

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Have questions? Contact: jewishfilmcompetition [at] gmail.com

The sadness we all felt at the news that Rabbi Yonah had not won the Jewish Community Heroes contest was significantly mitigated today with news that our Hero had been selected as a member of this year’s Forward 50 (!!). The exclamation points are there because I had no clue this was even a possibility. I had to find out about it after receiving a cryptic IM from Dan Brown of e-Jewish Philanthropy who then pointed me to his post on the subject.

In the decade and a half since, the dramatic shift in Jewish leadership mirrors larger trends in our society. Just as we no longer go one place for our news, we no longer look to only one powerful person in a position of authority for leadership. This year, in particular, we’ve seen some of the most established organizations questioned from the outside and challenged from within, while those who are creating and innovating seem to have history’s wind at their backs.

Neat-o.

I was going to call this piece “Abbas Plays Poker” but then Khaled Abu Toameh wrote a piece in the J Post called Abbas’s Big Bluff in which he argues that Abbas has called for Palestinian elections now with the knowledge that Hamas won’t participate. Khaled doesn’t quite make the point that this is a way for Abbas to stay in power, but that’s exactly what it is.

That touches on the big bluff. The bluff is not the one directed at Hamas, but the one directed at the international community and especially the Obama administration. For years and years American foreign policy has been built around the premise that there is a Palestinian partner for peace. After Arafat died and Abbas became the new leader of the Palestinians, the word came out from American diplomatic circles and parroted by the media, that Mahmoud Abbas was a moderate and sympathetic to the West.

Well, Abbas has now told the world that he is planning to quit. He is so darned frustrated with the non-progress of the peace talks, and especially with the Americans’ inability to “freeze” all Israeli building activity not only in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, but also in east Jerusalem. He’s had enough of this and now he’s going to leave. Unspoken in the threat is that there isn’t anybody else who is “moderate” and of a leadership capacity to replace him. Salam Fayyad, for example, the current PM of the Palestinians is considered capable, but a technocrat who is not particularly beloved among the Palestinians. Others like the young guard, Dahlan and Barghouti are either not ripe yet or in prison. Abbas is the only known quantity and since the conventional wisdom places him as a moderate, losing him would spell the end of the known and entry into the unknown. Chaos is sure to follow, is the assumption among many diplomats in the West.

Let’s call this Bluff #1.

At the same time this news is coming from the Palestinian leader, there is now a news-leak published today in Ha’aretz, that Salam Fayyad’s decision to create the infrastructure of a state may have actually received such a warm reception in the West, that not only EU countries are receptive to taking the next step and actually permitting the declaration of a Palestinian state but even the Obama administration has secretly consented to support the creation of such a state.

The plan specifies that at the end of a designated period for bolstering national institutions the PA, in conjunction with the Arab League, would file a “claim of sovereignty” to the UN Security Council and General Assembly over the borders of June 4, 1967 (before the outbreak of the Six-Day War, during which Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza).

Fayyad is also seeking a new Security Council resolution to replace Resolutions 242 and 338 in the hope of winning the international community’s support for the borders of a Palestinian state and applying stronger pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.

Let’s call this Bluff #2.

A good set of bluffs deserves a third bluff that isn’t of the same order, but helps to define the critical importance of the key bluffs it is supporting. Let’s call it Bluff #3:

Following Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ announcement that he would not run for another term, a senior Fatah official told Ynet that if serious progress was not made soon in peace talks, the organization would consider reverting to popular warfare.

The source said Saturday that more and more Fatah operatives were calling for a return to violent resistance.

“We are not talking about terror attacks and weapons, but we are talking about protests and (throwing) stones, like the anti-fence protests, and about strikes and protests by the people, so that the world understands that the next step will be unpleasant and we go back to the way things were before Oslo.”

Wanna bet that senior official is Saeb Erakat?

UPDATE: The day after this post was written, it was reported that Abbas was threatening to dissolve the Palestinian Authority and declare the peace process dead. Bluff #3a, anybody?

Okay, back to my first post about the Palestinian endgame – wherein I propose that in this upcoming period which is supposed to last several years has the Palestinians entering a new stage in their war against Israel, one where they continue to delay a peace deal until they end up with a world that supports a single state solution. In the discussion that followed, I was asked why Fayyad would propose a state if I was right. My response was that it’s a win-win threat to make. It scares the Israelis and may get them to make additional concessions to avoid this outcome, and if it doesn’t scare the Israelis and somehow a Palestinian state comes into being, the manner of its coming into being will ensure that they can proceed to demand the rest of Israel. The process of seeking to make Israel into part of Palestine continues in one way or another.

Well, here we are and things are moving apace, certainly faster than I predicted. Let’s review:

**Across the world, Palestinian groups are teaming up with scholars, unions and other leftists to push hard on an academic, cultural and economic boycott movement. They are garnering minor successes, some failures as well but mostly a ton of publicity much of which depicts Israel in hideous terms.

**The same groups have come to use the language of apartheid to attack Israel.

**These groups are parading Jewish sympathizers as the face of their movements.

**The Sixth Fatah Congress voted not to come to peace with Israel unless all of Jerusalem is Palestinian. In the same Congress they voted to keep refugee camps open for propaganda purposes, they voted to incorporate into Fatah one of the most violent groups in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria and they voted to continue to push against Israel internationally using the apartheid model. They also informed the world through statements by people like Dahlan that contrary to previous Palestinian claims, the Fatah charter had never been changed to remove the paragraphs calling for elimination of Israel and denying the Jewish connection to Israel.

**Throughout the years during which Arafat and then Abbas ruled over the Palestinian Authority, the hysterical Israel bashing in the schools and Palestinian media has continued unabated.

**There has been no positive response to any Israeli actions towards the Palestinians. For example, about 25% of checkpoints have been removed, an entire PA army has been subsidized and armed and Israel protected the PA government from Hamas in Judea and Samaria/West Bank. The rhetoric against Israel remained aggressive and negative.

**Last year, Mahmoud Abbas said “no” to an offer of peace and a state by Israel that included the Taba Plan based on the Clinton Parameters and additionally addressed the complex problem of coming to a settlement on Jerusalem by offering to internationalize it.

**Abbas came up with a new demand once Netanyahu came into power: no negotiations until total settlement freeze. A few months earlier he rejected a generous offer by Olmert. An aide to Abbas told the Washington Post that the delay was intended to bring down Netanyahu’s government within two years. The apparent basis for this thinking is that Obama will not stand for an Israeli government that isn’t offering peace.

**Abbas has now announced that he is tired of the games and since Israel won’t play along with him, he is not running in the Palestinian election he called for January.

**A warning trial balloon is floating higher and higher now with the claim that the Palestinians will not only declare a state, but will get the UN Security Council to vote for acceptance on such a state that includes all of east Jerusalem, 1949 armistice lines and superseding UNSC resolutions 242 and 338 which effectively means that all of the West Bank/Judea and Samaria up to the Green Line becomes the new Palestine.

Whew.

Well, the bluffs here are as follows: #3, returning to low ebb civilian violence against Israel; #2 declaring a Palestinian state; #1 Abbas going away.

#3 may happen, but is unlikely to happen because the Palestinian economy is doing well right now and people are tired of the fight. They’ll get some good demonstrations in there, but a full-blown society-wide civil insurrection seems highly unlikely. The Palestinians also need to be careful not to start using suicide bombings again because it worked against them last time.

#2 may happen, but everybody must know that there is absolutely no way that Israel would ever again leave the Western Wall or the Temple Mount. Since the trial balloon floated here provides the Palestinians with everything the Jordanians and Egyptians held in 1949, including the Temple Mount and the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, there is no way Israel would ever permit this to happen. In other words, the world would be signing off on an interminable war. I doubt that any serious thinking western diplomat would ever let their governments go that route.

#1 Abbas wants sympathy and to achieve this he is striving to look like the underdog while underscoring how important he is to the peace process. He wants to be courted back to the dance by the powers out there because it gives him further leverage in any future peace discussions. It’s called playing hard to get.

It is plain to see that the Abbas/Fayyad duo are a pair of shrewd operators. Despite the heartwarming calls of “moderates” by European and American diplomats, however, the entire panoply of Palestinian activities over the past several years points to a different type of campaign against Israel. This time they are using supposed moderate stances in public while ensuring that their anti-Israel activities abroad and with their own population become more robust.

What is most worrisome is that they appear to be following the “stages” plan in which the idea is to move forward against Israel in stages, as circumstances permit, using every new stage as the starting point of a new cycle of doing whatever needs to be done to get to the next stage. The ultimate goal has not changed and that’s the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state in favor of an Arab-led Palestinian state.

So I say, let Abbas go. Drop him like a hot potato. So much for bluff #1.

Tell Fayyad that Jerusalem will have to be negotiated in good faith because even if a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood takes place, or especially if one takes place, then there won’t be any chance of a settlement, just a war. So much for bluff #2.

Low-ebb intifadahs are not an existential threat to Israel. Violence will rebound against the Palestinians. So much for bluff #3.

Finally, tell Israelis not to panic. Ignore the bluffing. Get Iron Dome and other anti-missile systems into place; continue to build the neighborhoods ringing Jerusalem but keep the upper hand by stopping contruction in Judea and Samaria/West Bank anywhere outside of the 3% envelope near the Green Line offered by Barak at Taba; put on a diplomatic counter-offensive informing the western powers that the red line is the Jewish part of east Jerusalem – a red line that leads to inevitable war.

Then, offer the Taba plan to the Palestinians again. Do it publicly and loudly.

Repeat this loud offer of peace and a Palestinian state every time somebody complains there isn’t peace. Because there could be peace tomorrow…if the Palestinians would stop believing and being led to believe by naive American administrations and pro-Arab European diplomats that their endgame will lead to either 1949 armistice lines with the right to pursue the rest of Israel, or a single state from the river to the sea.

UPDATE: Two days following this post, it was publicized that Abbas was angry at Fayyad for proposing a two state solution to world leaders as the Ha’aretz article reported. Fayyad’s office sent a denial to the media, claiming that no secret arrangements had been made with world leaders about a two state solution. Bluff? Truth? Delaying tactic?

Follow up: More About the Palestinian Endgame, where I include evidence about Palestinian intentions from Fayyad’s own two year plan…

Hmmm. An Open Letter?

The Anti-Hate Declaration: An Open Letter to the Toronto Palestine Film Festival
September 25, 2009

Let me state for the record that I am merely expressing my opinions and I do not advocate a boycott against TPFF. This is merely a protest letter.

I have been inspired by the letters of protest and boycott against the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and have come to realize that as a member of the international internet, film, culture and media arts communities, I am deeply disturbed by the Toronto Palestine Film Festival’s decision to host a celebratory film festival in 2009 with an emphasis on certain types of Palestinian films. I protest that TPFF, whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Palestinian propaganda machine.

In 2009, Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza, was accused by the UNHRC’s Goldstone Report of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. In response, a Hamas minister announced to the press that the Palestinians were using “primitive rockets” and were actually aiming at army bases. This disingenuous response after the launching of 8000 rockets at Israeli civilian centers, including towns as far as Ashdod and Beersheva is clearly unsatisfactory and serves as no defense.

Not to be outdone, Fatah, the main party behind the Palestinian National Authority headed by Salim Fayyad and Mahmoud Abbas, held their Sixth Congress, in which they voted to maintain the right to “armed struggle:”

“The Fatah movement clings to the Palestinian people’s right to resist the occupation by all legitimate means, including the right to implement the armed struggle”

and especially to implementing:

“activities for escalating the international campaign for boycotting Israel, its products, and its institutions, utilizing the experience of South Africa.”

Fatah also voted to confront Israel if negotiations failed by

“the development of the struggle against apartheid and Israeli racism.”

Conveniently, the Palestinians are refusing to hold negotiations with Israel, as per the statements of a senior Palestinian official who divulged that Abbas plans to freeze talks with Israel because the Palestinian leadership believes this will cause a crisis with the US and bring down Netanyahu’s government within 2 years.

Perhaps even more disturbing than this intended campaign to equate Israel with South African apartheid as part of a strategic propaganda push at a time when both sides should be negotiating for peace, is Fatah’s vote to keep Palestinian refugee camps open. These are camps that have been around for 62 years and have seen 3 generations of people living in destitution and to a large extent on UN funds and donations. Importantly, this is also the only group of refugees on the planet whose refugee status extends beyond the first generation as per the UN’s own UN High Commission for Refugees. As the vote shows, these camps could be shut down, but they are not going to be and Fatah explained why: propaganda.

“Fatah considers it essential to preserve the refugee camps until the [refugee] problem is resolved, so that they will serve as fundamental political evidence…”

Using “refugee camps” and claims of “apartheid,” it is evident that Fatah and its political child, the Palestinian Authority, intend to pursue an international strategy of using propaganda modeled after the struggle against South African apartheid to attack Israel and promote the Palestinian cause. This will certainly deflect valid criticism of the Palestinian refusal to accept Israel’s offers of peace in 2000, 2001 and 2008 and continued reluctance to negotiate. Instead the idea seems to be to refocus the media and public opinion on “refugee camps” and “apartheid”- even if the refugees could move elsewhere and Israel has no apartheid.

Infuriatingly, this propaganda plan could well be a mere stop-gap in a larger endeavor to destroy Israel as Fatah spokesman Fahmi Al-Za’arir stated recently:

“It is not possible to rule out or to marginalize the military option…We know that every warrior has a [period of] rest – and also we know that this does not mean the end of the national battle, but only a wait to obtain the goals, and to give the leadership sufficient opportunity for political activity.”

Fatah violence against Israel was endemic after Israel’s peace offer of 2000 and aborted peace offer of 2001. Some reports at the time indicated that Fatah was responsible for more attacks against Israelis than all other Palestinian groups combined.

It needs to also be noted that the recent allegations by the United Nation’s Human Rights Council’s Goldstone Report that the attacks from Gaza against Israel may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity may also refer to Fatah since many of these attacks took place under Fatah rule of Gaza.

All of this is relevant to Toronto in September 2009 when the second Toronto Palestine Film Festival is scheduled to launch. On the Festival’s Advisory Board are Richard Fung and John Greyson who protested and boycotted (respectively) the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. Their reasons, stated in separate letters and interviews, strangely echo Fatah’s propaganda efforts. Specifically, comparisons between South Africa and Israel are made, as is the charge of apartheid against Israel.

Also on the TPFF board are members of CAIA, the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, at least two of whose publicly listed members, Mazen Masri and Jenny Peto, have been involved in the protest and boycott against the 2009 TIFF and its City to City program which highlighted Tel Aviv cinema. CAIA has been active for Palestinian causes in Toronto, often with another organization called Palestine House which “conceived” the TPFF. Both appear to advocate or at least support a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict which would likely eliminate Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.

On its website, TPFF states that it,

“welcomes audiences of all backgrounds to experience the vibrant heritage, resilience and culture of the Palestinian people, while celebrating film as an art form and means of expression.”

Yet surface claims such as this are contradicted by John Greyson, who, in his Open Letter to the TIFF, gave an entirely different explanation of the intent of a screening which he helped organize for TPFF. He wrote,

“I’m helping organize a screening in September for the Toronto Palestinian Film Festival…that profiles Ezra Nawi, the queer Israeli activist jailed for blocking army bulldozers…a strategic, specific choice, and one that has triggered many productive discussions.

What kind of conversations would those be? Are those the conversations that would make Israel into a state that has no Jewish identity? In the same letter, Greyson stated that the fight against Israel reminds him of the fight against South Africa. A filmmaker who boycotted a film festival for showing Israeli films as part of a program about an Israeli city, and who earlier boycotted a gay and lesbian film festival in Tel Aviv because of its location, makes a “strategic, specific” film selection for TPFF that depicts Israel critically. This is the same individual who writes in his letter that he is moved to act against Israel because of similarities to South Africa. Isn’t this exactly what Fatah sought in voting to “escalat[e] the international campaign for boycotting Israel…utilizing the experience of South Africa.”

TPFF’s mission statement states that the festival seeks to “celebrat[e] film as an art form and means of expression,” but this seems to be an empty statement given the absence of certain types of films. Films boycotted and protested by TPFF Advisory Board members at this year’s TIFF’s City to City program presented views critical of Israel, Israeli society and the conflict between Arabs and Israelis. However, there appear to be no films presented at TPFF that present Palestinian violence against Israel from a critical standpoint or that positively show or depict Israeli peace efforts and offers of a state to the Palestinians.

Also seemingly absent are films that seriously depict challenges faced by minorities in Palestinian society, unless the blame is placed on Israel, and despite the thousands of terrorist attacks by Gazan Palestinians against Israeli civilian communities over a period of the last 8 years, attacks that have been accused by the UNHRC’s Goldstone Report of allegedly amounting to severe human rights violations including war crimes and crimes against humanity, the films at TPFF that discuss Gaza are almost exclusively critical of Israel.

The TPFF states that it was “conceived to introduce Toronto audiences to the richness and diversity of Palestine and Palestinians” and yet this frame for its films ignores not only the suffering of thousands of Israelis who have endured thousands of rocket attacks for many years, but its 2009 program seems to also avoid films about Palestinians inside Gaza who were made to suffer severely – including torture and death – by Hamas, or films about the tragedies of many Christian and gay Palestinians who live in challenging conditions or have left to other countries because of intimidation or violence directed at their own communities by other Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. There also appears to be no mention of the Jordanian decision to revoke the citizenship of their Palestinians citizens. At TPFF there is apparently only one enemy to the Palestinians: Israel.

The TPFF’s programming emphasis on films that attack Israel while minimizing or eliminating films about topics such as challenges for minorities in Palestinian society, Palestinian actions against Israeli civilians, Palestinian demonization of Israel and its supporters, and the harsh realities for some Palestinians because of Hamas rule in the Gaza strip, is like rhapsodizing about the beauty of the beaches or the superb cuisine in Cuba without acknowledging the corresponding despotic and sometimes brutal regime that governs the island.

I do not protest the individual Palestinian filmmakers included in TPFF, nor do I in any way suggest that Palestinian films should be unwelcome in Toronto. However, especially in the wake of the past 8 years of brutal assaults and alleged war crimes on Israel from Gaza and the West Bank, as well as dozens of successful suicide bombings (and many more attempted ones that failed) against Israeli civilians from Fatah-affiliated groups, as well as the intense international demonization of Israel which often blends into demonization of Israel’s supporters, particularly Jewish ones, and the ongoing efforts to ignore serious peace overtures that have been made to the Palestinians by Israel, and especially the glossing over of the difficulties facing Palestinian minorities in their own society, it would appear that the frame TPFF has created for Palestinian films knowingly or unknowingly has politicized its entire festival and is playing Fatah’s and the Palestinian Authority’s propaganda cards.

That is disturbing because it makes me think that they are forcing audience members to cross an imaginary line that hovers between authenticity and integrity on the one side and propaganda on the other. TPFF, by selecting films that reveal only a segment of Palestinian life, by putting on a face of that society that selectively exposes only part of a larger picture, and by having advisory board members who have attacked the Tel Aviv program at TIFF while promoting films for TPFF (John Greyson’s mention of the Nawi film in his first Open Letter) has made their festival into a political forum mere months after Fatah voted to keep the refugee camps open and Hamas conducted operations continuing attacks against Israeli civilians culminating in a war launched by Hamas (Operation Oil Stain) against Israel that drew an inevitable and expectedly strong Israeli response.

What comes to mind are the words of Mahmoud Dahlan who protested the death of a 5 year old Palestinian boy killed by errant Palestinian rockets aimed at Israeli civilians, “What took place…is a national scandal… We should put an end to this by any means, by force, or by pursuing and convincing.” Force or pursuit may be appropriate for a Palestinian strongman but not for people who seek peace and justice in North America. Convincing is the way to act! The TPFF must be convinced through this protest to present an even-handed depiction of Palestinian society and the violence it has used against Israel and sometimes even other Palestinians in furtherance of its own goals.

[Based on the "protest" and "boycott" letters to the Toronto International Film Festival]

For more Jewlicious.com reading about this:

The original investigative post connecting the Palestine House Media to the “protest” letter writers to the Toronto Film Festival

National Post in Canada reports about our inquiries regarding the strange phone number used for Palestine House activities

Palestine House and an Activist respond to the question of their involvement in the protest and boycott against the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.

The Daily Lie

Exposing Naomi Klein’s Boycott Denial

Response to the “protest” letter against TIFF, 2009

Response to John Greyson’s letter to TIFF, 2009

Olmert’s offer to the Palestinians

Abbas choosing to stall on peace talks. Again.

The PA did not change its charter as per their Oslo obligations. This was recently publicly confirmed before the Fatah conference by two of Fatah’s leaders including Dahlan.

Israel’s peace offer at Taba.

Six Day War Anniversary Post

Nope. This isn’t about a free Birthright Israel trip (although registration for winter begins Sept. 8th and you can go with us – more info here), or any kind of flashy contest with cool prizes. The Ticket to Jerusalem Project is a simple concept, really. All you have to do is create any kind of artwork called “Ticket To Jerusalem”. Do it on a thick horizontal piece of paper, 8×3″ (20×8 cm), the size of conventional airplane ticket or boarding pass. Attach a stamp, add a return address and mail it WITHOUT an envelope to: Radik Shvarts, PO Box 245614, Brooklyn, NY, 11224, USA. The project deadline is January 1st, 2010 and all entries will posted online. Most of them will also be exhibited internationally and featured in a book titled “Ticket To Jerusalem” that will be published in 2010. Every person, whose artwork is featured in the book will get a free copy.

That’s it! So far the site features a pretty eclectic collection of 41 pieces of ticket art and, and… I don’t know what to say. It’s kind of sweet because there seems to be no underlying political message. No one’s trying to sell you anything, it’s just this very whimsical thing that is a pure celebration of creativity. OK so it is sponsored by the UJA Federation of New York, and COJECO (a central coordinating body in the Russian Jewish community of NY that works towards successul integration of Russian Jews into American Jewish life) but so what? Good on them for being involved in something that’s this much… fun!

Join The Pre-Trip Mailing List

Yo! It’s that time of the year again. Time to start thinking about going on a free Birthright Israel Trip next winter. If you are between 18-26, Jewish and have never been on a peer-based trip to Israel before, start thinking about floating in the Dead Sea, visiting the Kotel in Jerusalem, sipping a cappuccino in Tel Aviv and hiking and touring the width and breadth of Israel. For free. Registration is going to begin in September but you can give yourself a leg up by pre-registering at IsraelOnTheHouse.com. Don’t think about it. Just do it. It doesn’t cost anything and signing up does not obligate you in any way. Now here’s the fun part. Ready?

Select “Jewlicious” as your referrer and you will be able to go on a co-branded Jewlicious trip. What does that mean? Well, you will get all the usual good stuff mandated by Taglit-Birthright Israel, all the remarkable creative programming and planning skills of the team at IsraelOnTheHouse.com AND further enhancements introduced by the witty, knowledgeable and irreverent folks that you know and love here at Jewlicious.

How has that manifested itself in the past? Unplanned excursions to less frequented locales, special live music events by local indie acts, a variety of hip, interesting speakers, the ongoing commentary of people passionate about Israel, all kinds of awesome stuff and really, really good hummus. Seriously, it’s that good. So… yeah. Sign up now, select “Jewlicious” and by all means feel free to contact us with any questions you might have.

this trip is a gift from Taglit-Birthright Israel.

New York International Fringe Festival Comedy Sex and the Holy Land

One cannot ignore the correlation between sex and Israel that exists in the hearts and loins of the tens of thousands of parentally unsupervised diaspora youth that visit Israel every year. Many will explore the hills, valleys and bodies of water that dot the country while engaging in a similar exploration of each others bodies. Many will note the sheer sexiness of the terrain and the sun kissed people that inhabit it. A good number of diaspora women will have, uh… physical interactions with refreshingly forward Israelis, though a much smaller number of diaspora men will be so fortunate (Israeli women don’t tend to be very attracted to boyish, soft in the middle Jewish guys). Thus it is no surprise that Sex and the Holy Land, a play opening at the New York International Fringe Festival this week is focused on the adventures of Lili, a female protagonist. A similar play focusing on a guy’s adventures would read as follows: “Tried to get with soldier chick. Fail. Tried to get with girl medic. Fail. Tried to get with bartender girl. Fail. Finally got with that slut from Fresno who wanted to cheat on her boyfriend. Bitchin!” Yeah. Boring right? But from a woman’s perspective? Hotness. And funny too apparently.

From their press release:

SEX AND THE HOLY LAND is the tale of Lili’s plunge into a stereotype-shattering sexploration of Israel. Her two best friends and a string of Middle Eastern men lead Lili out of enslavement by the Greek Chorus of Jewish Mothers ruling in her mind. It is a coming of age comedy about liberation, religion, and love… Marking 23-year-old playwright Melanie Zoey Weinstein’s New York debut, SEX AND THE HOLY LAND was inspired by Weinstein’s study abroad experience in Tel Aviv in Spring 2007, following the Second Lebanon War. “It was a time of disillusionment and questioning for myself and many of my friends,” said Weinstein. “We were experiencing Israel for the first time as adults outside of the Jewish institutions in which we were raised.”

Sex and the Holy Land will be performed 5 times at the New York International Fringe Festival starting August 18. If you go see it, let us know what you think!