Demonstrations Tomorrow As Debate Spreads Over Israel's Attack On Gaza

[Joanne98]

As dissenting Jewish voices in America are increasingly being heard, as they have long been heard in Israel, the hawkish, rightwing-oriented establishment epitomized by AIPIC is growing increasingly irrational. A rational discussion is trying to break through, but a rational discussion is the last thing that AIPAC establishment wants. There are demonstrations against Israel's attack on across the country tomorrow, in Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Portland, OR, Sacramento, CA, Urbana, Ill as well as around the world.
Even Time magazine's cover proclaims, "Why Israel Can't Win", while the accompanying cover story asks, "Can Israel Survive Its Assault on Gaza?" As with the Wall Street meltdown, the old ideology has visibly self-destructed, yet it's defenders still fight on, not realizing they've already lost. Unfortunately, in neither instance does that mean that sanity has yet won. But debate is spreading where there was only silence before. And the growing outspokenness of Jewish-American opposition to what is being done in our name--as well as to Israel--is a heartening sign. Some examples:

An article in the New York Jewish Week, "Fresh Rift Emerges Over War Response", emailed out by J Street, discussed the heightened level of controversy that J Street has elicited:
"Other peace groups issued statements, but they're not seen as serious people," said the leader of a major pro-Israel group this week. "But J Street includes serious people with serious connections with the new administration, and people are very worried. They don't have much power now, but there's a feeling that they could gain a lot of influence in the new Congress and with the new administration."

Rosanne Barr, loudmouth Jew extraordinaire, kicked off her new local radio show on KPFK Pacifica with a blistering attack on warmongering and bigotry of all kinds taking primary aim on how she feels her faith has been distorted and abused. (Listen here.) It was truly refreshing to hear a pro-peace, anti-imperialist Jewish voice without one second of defensiveness in a 60-minute program. How soon can they start syndicating her?

On Democracy Now! yesterday, Amy and Juan had Former Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk on to discuss his new book, Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East. But they also had on Norman Finkelstein, author of several books, including The Holocaust Industry and Beyond Chutzpah, and Martin Indyk just about had a cow. He was, quite literally, incapable of arguing with Finklestein, and tried to make a virtue of necessity by presenting it as a matter of honor and principle that he would not debate Finklestein. But he lost embarrassingly, anyway. Details--or should I say, morsels--on the flip.

Paul Rosenberg :: Demonstrations Tomorrow As Debate Spreads Over Israel's Attack On Gaza
First, we see what an affront it is that an Israeli apologist has to appear with a knowledgeable critic:

AMY GOODMAN: We turn first to Ambassador Indyk. Can you explain why you think Israel began this assault almost two weeks ago now?
MARTIN INDYK: Good morning, Amy. Thanks very much for having me on the show. I feel a little bit sandbagged here. I was not told that I was going to be in some kind of debate with Norman Finkelstein. I'm not interested in doing that. I'm also not here as a spokesman for Israel. But I will try to answer your questions as best I can.

And then we see why, as Indyk trots out the official narrative of Israeli blamelessness:


I think that what happened here was that there was a ceasefire, an informal ceasefire, between Hamas and Israel that had lasted for about five months. Hamas decided to break that ceasefire with a prolonged series of rocket attacks on Israeli civilians in southern Israel. And the Israeli government responded with overwhelming force, designed, as they have said, to try to reestablish deterrence, to prevent Hamas from doing that again, and to try to get a ceasefire in place that would prevent Hamas from smuggling in offensive weapons into Gaza, the better to attack Israel.
And Finkelstein knocks it down:


AMY GOODMAN: Norman Finkelstein, your assessment of why Israel attacked now?

Continued>>>
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10820