As Congress heeds Israel lobbyists, press blacks out Abunimah, Munayyer and
Blumenthal
US Politics
Philip Weiss on October 26, 2015 15 Comments
Yousef Munayyer
Last Thursday in Washington, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a
resolution against Palestinian incitement following a hearing featuring the
testimony of three Israel lobbyists on alleged Palestinian bloodthirstiness.
The hearing got wide press coverage.
The next day the Palestine Center held a conference near the Capitol featuring
analysis of the Palestinian rebellion from Yousef Munayyer, Ali Abunimah and
Max Blumenthal. That conference has gotten no press coverage at all. You’d
think that a diverse conference attended by a standing-room-only crowd and
seeking to explain the causes of Palestinian violence would get wide attention–
you’d be wrong. The Washington Post ran two pieces highly critical of Israel
this weekend, but one was by two professed Zionists, the other by an Israeli.
The mainstream is not ready for Palestinian and anti-Zionist voices.
Below are videos of Blumenthal’s and Munayyer’s comments. Abunimah’s will be
posted in a day or so; and I’ll pass them along then. (There were a dozen other
fine speakers on other subjects, including Laila el-Haddad, Andrew Kadi,
Radhika Sainath, Bill Corcoran, Omar Shakir, and Fouad Moughrabi; I’ll get to
those talks later.)
Munayyer said that “the escalated uprising in Palestine” is important because
it signals to the Israelis that the occupation is not cost free. But it also
has the potential to damage international solidarity for Palestinians.
His comments are in the last few minutes of the video. Israelis are not
absorbing the lesson that the occupation cannot be sustained, Munayyer said;
opinion polling shows that overwhelmingly they would prefer an even harsher
response to the violence than what Benjamin Netanyahu has delivered. So “the
radicalization and rightward drift in the Israeli polity continues.”
Then Munayyer spoke of the possible damage to Palestinian solidarity:
Where the challenge is here is whether or not the current uprising sets back
what I think have been very significant advances in global public opinion
around this issue, which has viewed Palestinians increasingly as the victims of
Israeli occupation and has viewed the Israelis overwhelmingly as the reason why
progress on the peace front does not continue. So I think for Palestinians it’s
important to keep in mind that to the greatest extent that this uprising
against occupation can be coordinated and can keep in mind the sensitivities of
international public opinion, which are central to the solidarity necessary for
the support for their cause– to the extent that that can be kept in mind in
this uprising, if the energy behind this uprising can be channeled toward the
kind of efforts that I believe have driven success for that change of public
opinion, namely the effort for boycott divestment and sanctions, the more
likely that this recent uprising can lead to positive things for Palestinians.
If, however, the rebellion continues as it has, “there are many challenges that
one can see, and unfortunately because of the brutality of the Israeli
occupation it is Palestinians that will continue to pay the highest price.”
Both Blumenthal and Abunimah said that the Obama administration has been the
very worst American administration in the treatment of Palestinians. Blumenthal
pointed out that even George W. Bush told the Israelis to hold off in its
attacks on Palestinians; Obama has been incapable of doing so.
Here’s the second part of Blumenthal’s speech, describing the latest
Palestinian attacks as a rebellion against Israeli policies of demoralization
and separation, and concluding that the conflict increasingly resembles Algeria
rather than South Africa.
Blumenthal said that in the name of “hafrada,” or separation– a policy liberal
Zionists heralded as paving the way to a two-state solution under Oslo– Israel
has in fact created a one-state reality that is a binational apartheid state,
with the huge military Qalandia checkpoint at the center. East Jerusalem has
become the center of Palestinian resistance. Israel has acted to remove all
institutions of Palestinian life from East Jerusalem, starting with Orient
House, to the point that the last symbol of Palestinian life is Al Aqsa mosque,
the focus of the rebellion.
“Who is rebelling?” The generation that grew up under hafrada: the Oslo
generation, ages 13-28, young people with no real political allegiances.
They are trying to reclaim an agency that’s been denied to them by lashing out
against their occupier. They are making a statement that peace without peace
that has been Netanyahu’s policy is not possible. They’re puncturing that
psychological security that Israelis have been enjoying in Tel Aviv.
But Israel has only becomes more hardened. There’s been a steady rise in racist
and belligerent attitudes. Three-quarters of Israeli Jews favor ethnically
cleansing Israeli Palestinians, four out of five would boycott Arab businesses.
And the vigilantism that marked Jewish-occupied Hebron has now come into
Israeli cities. At the same time that settlers have taken over the political
structure.
The “snuff films” showing Palestinian killings are “illustrations of Zionism in
its terminal phase,” Blumenthal said. Netanyahu is at the hollow center of
Israeli politics, and any fanaticism he can muster will rise to the surface
because he has to hold off his right.
The result is a “low level and extremely gruesome civil war. I worry that we
are moving from a South Africa scenario to an Algeria scenario, and that is the
challenge for everyone in this room.”
Here’s part I of Blumenthal’s talk:
As for that House Foreign Affairs hearing, the committee heard testimony from
two neoconservatives and a neocon-lite last Thursday: Elliott Abrams, Jonathan
Schanzer and David Makovsky. The subject was “Words Have Consequences:
Palestinian Authority Incitement to Violence.” The committee then passed a
resolution “that would condemn the Palestinian Authority for ‘anti-Israel and
anti-Semitic incitement.’”
Here’s some of Abrams’s testimony:
Nor do poverty or economic problems explain why you pick up a knife a start
stabbing and killing this week. So, why now? The most logical explanation is
Palestinian lies about the Temple Mount, about how Israel is undermining it and
attacking it and defiling it. Those lies are being repeated in Palestinian
media and worse yet by the top Palestinian leadership.
Code Pink had a demonstration against the testimony, or as they phrased it:
“Activists repping #Palestine in horrible Congressional hearing today.” One of
those activists is the former neoconservative Scott McConnell, below.
Scott McConnell at Code Pink demonstration against neoconservative witnesses to
House Foreign Affairs Committee, Oct. 22, 2015
About Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
As Congress heeds Israel lobbyists, press blacks out Abunimah, Munayyer and
Blumenthal
US Politics
Philip Weiss on October 26, 2015 15 Comments
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Yousef Munayyer
Last Thursday in Washington, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a
resolution against Palestinian incitement following a hearing featuring the
testimony of three Israel lobbyists on alleged Palestinian bloodthirstiness.
The hearing got wide press coverage.
The next day the Palestine Center held a conference near the Capitol featuring
analysis of the Palestinian rebellion from Yousef Munayyer, Ali Abunimah and
Max Blumenthal. That conference has gotten no press coverage at all. You’d
think that a diverse conference attended by a standing-room-only crowd and
seeking to explain the causes of Palestinian violence would get wide attention–
you’d be wrong. The Washington Post ran two pieces highly critical of Israel
this weekend, but one was by two professed Zionists, the other by an Israeli.
The mainstream is not ready for Palestinian and anti-Zionist voices.
Below are videos of Blumenthal’s and Munayyer’s comments. Abunimah’s will be
posted in a day or so; and I’ll pass them along then. (There were a dozen other
fine speakers on other subjects, including Laila el-Haddad, Andrew Kadi,
Radhika Sainath, Bill Corcoran, Omar Shakir, and Fouad Moughrabi; I’ll get to
those talks later.)
Munayyer said that “the escalated uprising in Palestine” is important because
it signals to the Israelis that the occupation is not cost free. But it also
has the potential to damage international solidarity for Palestinians.
His comments are in the last few minutes of the video. Israelis are not
absorbing the lesson that the occupation cannot be sustained, Munayyer said;
opinion polling shows that overwhelmingly they would prefer an even harsher
response to the violence than what Benjamin Netanyahu has delivered. So “the
radicalization and rightward drift in the Israeli polity continues.”
Then Munayyer spoke of the possible damage to Palestinian solidarity:
Where the challenge is here is whether or not the current uprising sets back
what I think have been very significant advances in global public opinion
around this issue, which has viewed Palestinians increasingly as the victims of
Israeli occupation and has viewed the Israelis overwhelmingly as the reason why
progress on the peace front does not continue. So I think for Palestinians it’s
important to keep in mind that to the greatest extent that this uprising
against occupation can be coordinated and can keep in mind the sensitivities of
international public opinion, which are central to the solidarity necessary for
the support for their cause– to the extent that that can be kept in mind in
this uprising, if the energy behind this uprising can be channeled toward the
kind of efforts that I believe have driven success for that change of public
opinion, namely the effort for boycott divestment and sanctions, the more
likely that this recent uprising can lead to positive things for Palestinians.
If, however, the rebellion continues as it has, “there are many challenges that
one can see, and unfortunately because of the brutality of the Israeli
occupation it is Palestinians that will continue to pay the highest price.”
Both Blumenthal and Abunimah said that the Obama administration has been the
very worst American administration in the treatment of Palestinians. Blumenthal
pointed out that even George W. Bush told the Israelis to hold off in its
attacks on Palestinians; Obama has been incapable of doing so.
Here’s the second part of Blumenthal’s speech, describing the latest
Palestinian attacks as a rebellion against Israeli policies of demoralization
and separation, and concluding that the conflict increasingly resembles Algeria
rather than South Africa.
Blumenthal said that in the name of “hafrada,” or separation– a policy liberal
Zionists heralded as paving the way to a two-state solution under Oslo– Israel
has in fact created a one-state reality that is a binational apartheid state,
with the huge military Qalandia checkpoint at the center. East Jerusalem has
become the center of Palestinian resistance. Israel has acted to remove all
institutions of Palestinian life from East Jerusalem, starting with Orient
House, to the point that the last symbol of Palestinian life is Al Aqsa mosque,
the focus of the rebellion.
“Who is rebelling?” The generation that grew up under hafrada: the Oslo
generation, ages 13-28, young people with no real political allegiances.
They are trying to reclaim an agency that’s been denied to them by lashing out
against their occupier. They are making a statement that peace without peace
that has been Netanyahu’s policy is not possible. They’re puncturing that
psychological security that Israelis have been enjoying in Tel Aviv.
But Israel has only becomes more hardened. There’s been a steady rise in racist
and belligerent attitudes. Three-quarters of Israeli Jews favor ethnically
cleansing Israeli Palestinians, four out of five would boycott Arab businesses.
And the vigilantism that marked Jewish-occupied Hebron has now come into
Israeli cities. At the same time that settlers have taken over the political
structure.
The “snuff films” showing Palestinian killings are “illustrations of Zionism in
its terminal phase,” Blumenthal said. Netanyahu is at the hollow center of
Israeli politics, and any fanaticism he can muster will rise to the surface
because he has to hold off his right.
The result is a “low level and extremely gruesome civil war. I worry that we
are moving from a South Africa scenario to an Algeria scenario, and that is the
challenge for everyone in this room.”
Here’s part I of Blumenthal’s talk:
As for that House Foreign Affairs hearing, the committee heard testimony from
two neoconservatives and a neocon-lite last Thursday: Elliott Abrams, Jonathan
Schanzer and David Makovsky. The subject was “Words Have Consequences:
Palestinian Authority Incitement to Violence.” The committee then passed a
resolution “that would condemn the Palestinian Authority for ‘anti-Israel and
anti-Semitic incitement.’”
Here’s some of Abrams’s testimony:
Nor do poverty or economic problems explain why you pick up a knife a start
stabbing and killing this week. So, why now? The most logical explanation is
Palestinian lies about the Temple Mount, about how Israel is undermining it and
attacking it and defiling it. Those lies are being repeated in Palestinian
media and worse yet by the top Palestinian leadership.
Code Pink had a demonstration against the testimony, or as they phrased it:
“Activists repping #Palestine in horrible Congressional hearing today.” One of
those activists is the former neoconservative Scott McConnell, below.
http://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/CR7ZeptWwAAdc0j.jpg
http://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/CR7ZeptWwAAdc0j.jpg
Scott McConnell at Code Pink demonstration against neoconservative witnesses to
House Foreign Affairs Committee, Oct. 22, 2015
