[WCUSP] A message which WILPF should push with members, friends & acquaintances.

[marilyn lucier]

Dear Katharina and WCUSP friends,

I greatly appreciate the WCUSP emails and am writing to let you know of my
address change - it is <mjlucier at comcast.com> (though marilyn at ocugen.com
will continue to work through the month of August.)

With best regards, Marilyn Lucier
Santa Cruz WILPF

----------
From: KATHARLOW at aol.com
To: wcusp at wilpf.org
Subject: [WCUSP] A message which WILPF should push with members, friends &
acquaintances.
Date: Mon, Aug 14, 2006, 10:49 AM


Mercury News ’Äì August 11, 2006

It's time for Jewish dissenters to challenge Israeli policies

By Henri Picciotto

I grew up Jewish in Beirut. Although I left nearly 40 years ago, my memories
of Lebanon -- vibrant and multicultural -- have stayed with me. And so, my
wife and I had started talking about taking a trip there.

I would show her the neighborhood where I grew up, the beaches where I swam
in the warm Mediterranean waters and the small mountain hotel we loved to
stay at in the summer. I would also show her my school, where Jewish,
Christian and Muslim children learned and grew together.

After the past few weeks, we may never be able to take this trip. Israeli
bombings have killed more than 700 Lebanese civilians. Hundreds of thousands
-- more than one-fifth of the population -- have become refugees, uprooted
from their homes. Lebanon's civilian infrastructure has been systematically
destroyed.

We, as Americans, bear a special responsibility for this carnage. If
Washington would withhold its unconditional military, economic and
diplomatic support for Israel, the Israeli government would waste no time in
starting genuine negotiations. Current U.S.-backed cease-fire proposals are
so unfair to Lebanon that the Lebanese government has already indicated it
cannot accept the terms, which do not even include a full Israeli
withdrawal.

This one-sided U.S. policy is the result of a combination of factors, but it
thrives on the myth that all American Jews stand uncritically behind the
Israeli government.

Many believe that American Jews unanimously and unconditionally support the
Israeli government. That what we learned from the Holocaust is to shoot
first and ask questions later. That our commitment to justice and equal
rights is a quaint feature of our past.

There is a saying ``two Jews, three opinions.'' Now we are told ``1 million
Jews, one opinion.''

In fact, our community is profoundly divided:

 Hundreds, if not thousands, of Jews all over the country have demonstrated
to demand an end to the bombing of Gaza and Lebanon. In one of these
demonstrations, 17 Jewish protesters were arrested in an act of civil
disobedience.

 In the past few days, thousands of Jews have signed a petition demanding
that the United States intervene to stop the wanton killing of Lebanese
civilians by the Israeli war machine.

 Jewish organizations that sponsor such demonstrations and petitions, such
as Jewish Voice for Peace (on whose board I serve), are experiencing
exponential growth. Jews are looking for ways to express their outrage at
the actions of the Israeli government, and of the blind support accorded by
the Jewish establishment in this country.

We are appalled by the Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli cities, just as
we were the earlier attacks by Israel on Lebanese cities. We mourn the loss
of Israeli, Palestinian and Lebanese lives equally. We are outraged by the
destruction of Lebanese airports, roads and bridges, the bombing of homes
and private cars, the killing of children, and the other horrors visited by
the Israelis on their neighbors.

It is this kind of past Israeli behavior that gave birth to both Hamas and
Hezbollah, organizations that have strengthened immeasurably in recent
weeks. Israeli intransigence has made Israel a pariah state, and is the
biggest enemy of all the people of the Middle East -- Arabs and Israelis
alike.

Jewish American leaders work tirelessly to promote the myth of Jewish
consensus. Their tactics include refusing to rent space to dissenters,
threatening funding cuts when Jewish institutions question Israel's actions
and canceling meetings when they suspect debate might occur. Their most
ubiquitous weapon is the hurtful charge of anti-Semitism, hurled at both
dissenting Jews and Gentiles.

Many Jews question Israel's policies, but are afraid to speak out in their
congregations or even to their families. But the time has come for Jewish
dissidents to challenge the policies of the Israeli government. In the short
run these policies kill Arabs, mostly innocent civilians; in the long run,
they can result only in disaster for Israelis and Jews worldwide. Our
silence in this time of crisis is complicity. We need to help bring about
the peace that would one day make my visit to Beirut -- and the visit of all
Jews -- possible.

HENRI PICCIOTTO of Berkeley is a mathematics educator and chairman of the
board of Jewish Voice for Peace (jewishvoiceforpeace.org).

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/15250169.htm
_______________________________________________
Wcusp mailing list
Wcusp at wilpf.org
http://wilpf.org/mailman/listinfo/wcusp_wilpf.org
To post a message to all the list members, send email to Wcusp at wilpf.org.
To unsubscribe send a message to Wcusp-leave at wilpf.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/wcusp_wilpf.org/attachments/20060814/7e69f281/attachment.html