Mannie Blog, LGS, SPAIDS, InterSection, Israel/Palestine, Jewish Issues

Violence begets violence and the Israel/Palestine tit for tat killings leave one wondering how much longer the world will allow the state of events in that tiny strip of the middle east to continue. The USA seems determined to ensure that it's client state Israel continues to increase it's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and mouths platitudes about the "road map" while continuing to feed arms to Israel. The hypocrisy leaves one speechless and the world looks on!

Having attended the meeting on Sunday night I had to come home and get
things off my chest, so I typed the item below and posted it on my weblog
site. Regards, Mannie De Saxe ------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: Self To:
josken@zipworld.com.au Subject: anti-semitism Date sent:
Mon, 18 Aug 2003 00:39:48 +1000

On Sunday 17 August 2003 we attended a forum at the St
Kilda Library in Melbourne. The topic was "anti-semitism 2003
- a growth industry?"
There were three speakers from the platform and then the
discussion was thrown open to the floor with the speakers
answering questions put to them and then summing up at the
end.
What the outcome for me was that the discussion had centred
around the equating of anti-semitism with anti-zionism and
attacks on the left for being anti-semitic.
I did not get up and voice my opinions, but left the meeting
very angry.
As a South African born Jew and a gay man, I know about
vilification and discrimination and racism and anti-semitism in
the South African context.
This is the country whose apartheid government worked
secretly with the Israeli government to develop and test nuclear
weapons durning the 1060s and 1970s. This is the apartheid
government which was blatantly anti-semitic (as indeed were
many of the non-government white supporters of the
government) and in which a Jewish serving army psychiatrist
performed the most horrific medical procedures on gay (and
Jewish) men in the army that many are suffering the
consequences to this day, 10 to 20 years later. Of course many
committed suicide, because it all became so intolerable for them
that they had nothing left to live for.
Anti-semitism? I experienced it in all the countries in which I
have lived, worked, travelled - South Africa, the UK, Australia,
USA, France and many others.
None of this anti-semitism was brought on by the events in
Israel between 1948 and the present.
I came away from this meeting feeling that the people from
Melbourne who were present were, by and large, zionists of
some sort or another. The few exceptions of which I was aware
were a Palestinian, my non-Jewish partner and myself.
One of the speakers who was the person whose comments in
articles or letters had been the main reason the forum was
called had the audacity to sneer at a document issued by some
"comrades in Canberra"! As one of the signatories to that
document I was disgusted by the speaker's tone of voice and
presentation of arguments.
The meeting gave me an insight into why I am an anti-semitic
Jew (in the company of Chomsky and many others!) - I simply can't stand
the intolerance of these zionist Jews to opinions which differ from theirs
and which are critical of the Israeli government. A whole evening devoted
to discussing Israel in relation to anti-semitism when the very air we
breathe around us on a day-to-day basis reeks of intolerance to non- anglo
groups. One of the more interesting facts which I dug up while looking for
information about world Jewry was that the country with the largest Jewish
population was the USA, and there the christian fundamentalists are
rabidly anti-semitic. If these Jews in Melbourne are so pro-Israel, why
don't they go and live there??? I ask myself why the Australian Jewish
News is not called The Australian Zionist News. When I have written to
that journal about issues other than Israel, because I believed it to be a
newspaper for the Jewish community of Australia, I discovered it was
nothing of the sort! Just because I couldn't pay for some community
announcements, my requests for publication were denied. I have no patience
left for such intolerance and am therefore intolerant myself!

------- End of forwarded message -------

# posted by Mannie : 12:59 AM

This was a statement we formulated and posted early in 2003.
Jews against oppression and occupation

Statement

We Australian Jews do not believe that the Israeli state is acting in the
best interests of Jews – either in Israel or those who live in other parts
of the world.

Israel’s dispossession, discrimination against and murder of Palestinian
people are crimes that should not be accepted by any human being. These
crimes have also increased the insecurity of Jews everywhere.

We believe that the fundamental cause of the current conflict between
Israel and the Palestinian people is the dispossession of the Palestinians
and their oppression at the hand of the Israeli state.

We call for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli military forces from the
West Bank and Gaza.

We call for a total Israeli withdrawal, including all settlements, from
the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

We regard the equation of opposition to Israeli actions with antisemitism
as preposterous.

We call on Jews everywhere (and everyone else) to show solidarity with the
Palestinian people and to campaign for an immediate and total Israeli
withdrawal from the Occupied Territories.

Home | Release | Letter | Statement | PDF | Signatories | Contact

Nothing that has occurred since this was published has caused us to change our minds. Our hope is that more people will come to join us and support our approach to the ongoing intractable problem.
The Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza numbers around 4.5 million, and the number of Palestinians living in other countries, mostly Jordan, number about 4.8 million.

One of the issues which is of major concern is the Palestine/Israel conflict, which shows no sign of being resolved. As soon as anyone says something about the actions of the Sharon government one is accused of being anti-semitic.
There are many groups around the world which have been formed to oppose what is going on in the Middle East today, and many of them take the form of "Not in our name".
They are mostly Jewish groups and they have obtained signatures in large numbers on statements which are critical of the actions of the USA and Israel in relation to the solving of the problem of two groups living in the same land and both laying claim to it.
As a South African Jew I have witnessed the transformations which can occur in societies such as those we had in South Africa, where, in the previous apartheid regime, everyone was classified by "race".
In the end, when the ANC and other groups made the country ungovernable, the white minority was forced to make concessions which ended with the collapse of the apartheid regime and the election of the first democratic government in that country.
This means that there are now 11 official languages, and most different groups live side by side in one country under a state of comparative harmony.
If this could be achieved in a country of approximately 40 million people, it does not seem that it is beyond the bounds of probability that it could be achieved in a country the size of Israel/Palestine where the combined population is probably of the order of less than 20 million.

We are currently looking at issues concerning ageing gays and lesbians in our communities and the discriminatory practices they might encounter.
We are also involved with local government areas to find out what services they do - or don't - provide for sexual minorities and what discriminations occur.
We are also involved with the political issues of the day, both nationally (in Australia) and internationally.
Some of the issues we wish to investigate in depth are gay and lesbian suicides and gay and lesbian hate crimes associated with homophobia. We will address issues of religion and how this promotes homophobia