Israel, PLEASE Stop Killing Palestinians!
I have set up a separate web site where you can read about my position and get in touch:
October 25, 2000
AP picked up my presence and sign at an evening (10/24/2000) protest:
AP caption: Steven Feuerstein stands with members of the Chicago Palestinian community protesting the speaking engagement of Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2000, at the 13th Annual Dinner of the Chicago Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. (AP Photo/Stephen J. Carrera)
It was an interesting evening, as I recount below:
I had a busy day today. I was invited to speak at a rally at the
University of Illinois Chicago campus (near downtown) protesting
Israeli attacks on Palestinians [meanwhile, more Palestinians
die. Here is an excerpt from a report by Suzanne Goldenberg
published in the London Guardian: Malake Kafishe was seven months'
pregnant and happily looking forward to the birth of her second
child. Then, last Thursday night, as on so many nights in Hebron's
old city lanes - among the fiercest battle grounds in the West Bank
- she heard gunfire. She froze. There was shooting, and then I heard
the helicopter gunships coming in and my heart just stopped.' She
began to bleed and ran for the stairs, stumbling over the last few
rungs and collapsing in a heap on the doorstep. Her family rang for
an ambulance. Because of the shooting and a curfew imposed on 40,000
Palestinians in Hebron's old city, it took an hour to arrive. Two
soldiers insisted on examining Ms Kafishe. There were four more
checkpoints before the ambulance arrived at Alia hospital. At each
roadblock, soldiers swung open the vehicle doors and peered at the
ashen-faced woman inside. By the time she reached the hospital, a
journey that normally takes five minutes, one and a half hours had
elapsed. The baby was dead. The doctor told me If you had got here
20 minutes earlier you could have saved the baby',' she says.]
So I spent the morning writing my speech, which seemed a little
weird. I so like to be spontaneous! I will send out the speech under
separate cover (FT13), but the best-received part of it went like
this:
"Why have I come to this point in my life? [speaking out on the
issue] Because I am Jewish. Because Jews are taught: THOU SHALT NOT
KILL. The Torah does not say: Thou shalt not kill only Jewish
people. The Torah does not say: Thou shalt not kill only those who
agrees with Jewish people. And the Torah DEFINITELY does not say:
Thou shalt not kill anyone but Palestinians."
Many people came up to me afterwards to thank me for the talk; the
Chicago Sun Times and a Metro News reporter also followed up for
more quotes. I was immediately reminded (from my days of being a
full-time activist in the 80s around El Salvador) of how hard it is
to package up one's words so that you get your point across in an
unambiguous way that cannot be chopped up and distorted by the media
(even if unintentionally).
We found out at the rally that the Deputy Defense Minister of the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would be appearing this very night at
the Chicago Sheraton for a fundraiser organized by the (can you
believe it?) Chicago Friends of the IDF. This was exactly the kind
of event I have been feeling was absolutely CRUCIAL to have a Jewish
presence at. I arrived at 6 PM; a crowd of 50 protesters stood on
the north side of the street, held back by barricades and police.
The hotel was on the south side, with a whole bunch of policepeople
and taxis between us.
I stood next to the crowd holding up my sign: I AM JEWISH AND I WANT
ISRAEL TO STOP KILLING PALESTINIANS. Now, doesn't that seem like a
non-controversial enough position to take? The reporters, however,
were quite interested and I did several interviews. One well-dressed
couple came out of the hotel and after watching us for a moment,
came across the street, expressed their support and stayed for ten
minutes.
By 7 PM, traffic had quieted down and I figured that the event must
have started, so I left the protest, went down the street, folded up
my placard, put it under my jacket and strolled into the hotel,
unrecognized by the police who lined both sides of the street. I
strolled up to the escalator leading up to the ballroom and told the
fellows standing there that I wanted to hear the deputy minister
speak. Suddenly a security guard appeared at my elbow and said
"Him?" to a women thirty feet away and scurrying towards
me. "Do I know you? Do you know me?" I called out to her.
She frowned. I repeated that I would like to hear the IDF official
speak. She said I needed a ticket. I said oh and walked off, trailed
by the guard. I went outside the hotel and stepped to the sidewalk.
Then I opened up my placard. The protesters across the street
cheered loudly. Cops and security guys looked around in
bewilderment. I walked down the sidewalk, towards the corner and
intending to join the protesters across the street, waved on by the
cops.
Suddenly the cops were saying: "What? You want to hold
him?" And they did, stopped me there, then walked me around the
corner to get me out of sigh of the protesters who were, well,
protesting loudly at me being detained. After a while, two hotel
security officers joined the cops, and then Lieutenant told them to
take me down to the river walk (the sidewalk down by the Chicago
river, below street level. I was DEFINITELY not happy about that and
stopped before the stairs and demanded that they tell me what was
going on.
The hotel security wanted me to hand over my ID so they could issue
a warning that if I ever set foot in the hotel I would be arrested.
Otherwise they WOULD press charges. "Why? What did I do?"
"You trespassed. The hotel is private property. You were not
there on hotel business." So I debated with them back and forth
about that one for a while, as in: "So if I stopped at the
front desk and asked for a room, it wouldn't be trespassing?"
They stuttered about that one for a bit and I said: "Well, I
did stop at the front desk and ask for a room." "No you
didn't. We have cameras." "Great, let's check the
cameras." More stuttering, then: "You folded your sign and
hid it. You were being deceptive." The cops pleaded with me to
hand over my ID, don't make trouble. "THEY'RE the ones who are
making trouble. I'd already left the hotel. They didn't have to stop
me." The cops really didn't want to arrest me. I pushed
it as far as I could, until the head of security said "All
right, turn him around." [for handcuffs] then decided to let
them take my information. There didn't seem to be much point to
getting arrested by that point. I don't have a frequent guest card
with Sheraton, anyway. No points lost. Though I will call and make a
reservation and see if it raises any flags.
So I handed the hotel fellow my "business card". That's in
quotation marks because my card is, well, a hoot. It is dominated by
the wacky photo montage of yours truly produced by my son Chris and
featured at my website (www.stevenfeuerstein.com), plus website
address and phone number. I can't even begin to guess what went
through this guy's head as he looked at it, but that head shook
slowly and he demanded a drivers's license.
As they jotted down my ID (which I must assume will be passed right
on to the Jewish Defense League, which also had a snoop at the UIC
rally), another guy walked up and tried to snap a Polaroid of my
face. The heck with that! I raised my sign in front of my face, and
the cop told him to forget the picture. Then the cops escorted me
the LONG way around to my car, so that I wasn't in front of the
protesters again. We chatted about the Presidential elections (one
of them guessed right off that I'd be voting for Nader. I guessed
right off that they'd be voting for Bush. One of them agreed that he
might be incompetent, but he will "make decisions from his
heart." Hokey, dokey!) and kids. They were nice enough, and
they really liked my car, a Honda Insight (electric-gas hybrid).
I plan to make more such appearances. Do you know of any
Chicago-area Jews who would like to join me? Please pass the word,
and tell them to drop me a note.
I think for the next time out I will make a large banner that says
simply:
THOU SHALT NOT KILL
October 24, 2000
I have just returned from a rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where I gave the following speech (afterwards, I was interviewed by the Chicago Sun Times and a Metro News Reporter; I was also braced by a member of the Jewish Defense League who wanted to know how to get in touch with me. I BET he does!):
Why I Am Here Today
This
is the first time that I am speaking out publicly against Israeli
policy. I was born and raised an American Jew, which means I was
raised to reflexively and uncritically support Israel. I became
disillusioned years ago, but limited my criticisms to within family
circles – which just got family circles mad, really mad, at me.
Now
I feel compelled to take a public stance and call on Israel to stop
killing and brutalizing Palestinians! And I believe very strongly
that we, the American Jewish community, must take the lead in
calling on Israel to change its policies, to stop the occupation of
Palestinian lands, to seek a lasting and just peace in its own
country.
Why
have I come to this point in my life? Because I am Jewish. Because
Jews are taught: THOU SHALT NOT KILL. The Torah does not say: Thou
shalt not kill only Jewish people. The Torah does not say: Thou
shalt not kill only those who agrees with Jewish people. And the
Torah DEFINITELY does not say: Thou shalt not kill anyone but
Palestinians. The Torah, the guiding light of the Jewish people,
says:
THOU SHALT NOT KILL
And
Jews are very big on this rule: you can break other sacred laws,
such as those honoring the Shabat, the Sabbath, if breaking that law
will help save a life. And yet, after thirty years of the Israeli
occupation of Palestinian lands, after thirty years of the Israeli
domination over the Palestinian people, we have come to this:
Israeli
soldiers and Israeli settlers who are able to rationalize without
any noticeable effort, without any noticeable remorse, the
persistent shooting and killing of Palestinian children, the
destruction of Palestinian homes, and the continual, growing
occupation and dissection of Palestinian lands.
An
Israeli government that, after years of "negotiations"
with the Palestinian Authority, is ready and able to imprison an
entire people in their small, isolated towns – whenever the
Israeli government feels it is justified.
And
the Israeli government explicitly justifies its actions as necessary
to save the Israeli state, to save worldwide Judaism. Well, I am
hear today to make sure that Israel and other American Jews and
other Americans know that this American Jew will not accept the
killing of Palestinians IN MY NAME, ON MY BEHALF. Israel must
stop killing Palestinians. Israel must seek a real peace and to do
that it must take real, concrete steps to demonstrate its commitment
to peace.
I
am not an expert on the Middle East. I am an expert on the Oracle
PL/SQL computer language. I cannot "hold my own" in an
extended and complex policy discussion on the Oslo accords nor on
the final status of Jerusalem. I am really only good at telling you
about the best way to write a bunch of code.
I
do not believe, however, that it is necessary to be a policy expert
on the Middle East in order to recognize that Israel is visiting a
grave injustice on the Palestinian people. One clear, physical
expression of that injustice are the settlements that Israel has
built throughout Palestinian territory. These settlements are
obviously designed to maximize Israeli control over Palestinians
even as they are supposedly granting them their autonomy. These
settlements are provocative and as long as they exist, there will
never be peace between Palestinians and Israeli Jews.
So
I call on Israel to unilaterally announce the stoppage of any new
settlements and to immediately begin dismantling the existing
settlements. I believe that if Israel takes this one step,
Palestinians will recognize the real possibility of justice, stop
the al-Aksa intifada, and work with Israel for a lasting peace.
Israel,
with the seemingly unanimous support of American Jews, is now able
to rationalize ignoring one of its most sacred beliefs - THOU SHALT
NOT KILL. The clear and most awful result is death and destruction
for Palestinians, but there is another victim of this degenerate
Israeli policy:
The
killing of the Jewish spirit of justice and love of life.
The
survival of the Jewish people, of Judaism, it seems to me, is very
much dependent on the way that Israel responds to the current crisis
and whether it can admit its mistakes, whether it can make a real
gesture towards peace with Palestinians.
But
Israel will not change its policies unless and until the United
States changes its policies, and applies real pressure to the
Israeli government. That is the reality. Our government sends over
$3B of our tax dollars every year to Israel, much of that for
military aid. Israel cannot, in the current state of affairs,
survive without us. Our government can insist on substantial changes
in Israeli policy. But it will not do so unless American Jews speak
out, and call for that change.
And
that is why I call on the many other American Jews who feel like I
do to take a public stand and criticize brutal Israeli policies.
Yes, it is hard for American Jews to criticize Israel. When we do,
we are intimidated and harassed by our very own community. But it is
even harder – for me at least – to tolerate the killing and
torture and destruction that is being done in my name.
I
believe, in conclusion, that the more I (and others) speak out, the
more other American Jews will feel they can speak out.
We can then create a "safe place" in the public eye
for Jewish criticism of Israel, which will allow a real debate to
occur in this country, and hopefully a real change in our policy
towards Israel and Palestinians.
© 2000 Steven Feuerstein. All rights reserved.