Mayor Pete - An Unacceptable Stance on Israel-Palestine
I returned from a
wonderful Seder last evening to a terrible shock! Mayor Pete, who I thought was incredibly
insightful and intelligent, has a glaring hole in his beliefs that is SIMPLY
UNACCEPTABLE to me. See: Democrats are
increasingly critical of Israel. Not Pete Buttigieg .
I will do my best to share my concerns now. Unless I get word, showing significant
progress on this issue by Tuesday, April 30th, 2019, my blog: MayorPete.blogspot.com will solely contain
this writing, and I will speak out against Mayor Pete on this issue. It is that important to me, as will be explained
below. I welcome responses at: ElectingMayorPete@gmail.com.
Last May, South Bend Mayor Pete
Buttigieg went to Israel with the American Jewish Committee and two weeks later
discussed his trip with that organization. At
the time Israel was killing Palestinian protesters at the Gaza fence– 60 on one
day within days of
Buttigieg’s visit, getting global attention —
yet Buttigieg repeatedly praised Israel’s security arrangements as “moving” and
“clear-eyed”, said the U.S. could learn something from them, and blamed
Palestinians and Hamas for the “misery” in Gaza.
He also faulted fellow Democrats for
making snap judgments based on “90-second cable news versions of what’s going
on over there.”
I would note that
the American Jewish Committee is
hardly a “disinterested party” in issues related to complete support of the
Israeli Government. In the views of
organizations such as it, criticism of Israel is routinely seen as “Anti-Semitism”. In that sense, I am completely a self-hating
Jew and am Anti-Semitic. See: How
U.S. Politicians Use Charges of Anti-Semitism as a Weapon .
Reality
Sports and Wellness similarly sends professional athletes to Israel.
Organizations
such as the American Jewish Committee do
not send people such as Pete Buttigieg on trips which give a balanced perspective
on Israel and the Palestinians.
(note: see the discussion of
Birthright below). While it is often
proclaimed that such trips are “not political” or are “neutral” or similar,
they give a strongly pro – Israel
Government perspective. The views of
moderate Palestinians are given little, if any exposure or support.
Is
it any wonder that Mayor Pete is “pro-Israel”?
He has been brainwashed by limited exposure towards alternate perspectives,
such as those discussed below.
Sheldon
Adelson is an extremely large contributor to the Republican Party,
including Donald Trump. He also is a
major contributor to various causes supporting the Israeli Government. Individuals such as Mr. Adelson, speak and
strongly support the positions of the Israeli Government.
Who speaks for
the Palestinians to Mayor Pete? Has he
talked with The American Muslims For
Palestine ? I went to the
Chicago chapter’s annual dinner recently.
Please – read my writing:
Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, American Muslims
For Palestine and Respect. I,
an American Jew, a grand-nephew of Israel’s first Nobel laureate, amongst close
to 400 Palestinian, Muslim-Americans, was treated with incredibly wonderful
respect and support. Professor Marc
Lamont Hill, who was fired from CNN recently because of his allegedly Anti-Semitic
remarks, spoke to his Palestinian, Muslim audience. He did not speak for us Jews, a tiny
minority of the audience. His words, while
not directed to us Jews, were supportive of both Palestinians and Israeli (and
other) Jews.
I strongly
suggest that Mayor Pete, if you care, as you seem to in so many other ways, that
you listen to the words of some of the people I have noted below, such as: Professor
Hill, Michelle Alexander, Jewish Voice for Peace and/or many others. In private, if necessary, speak with some
who strongly disagree with your current perspective of Israel.
The next section of this writing focuses upon
killings and injuries towards both Israeli Jews and Palestinians. It should be noted that at best, the ratio
of killings of Palestinians is about 8 to 1.
Commonly, the ratios are much more skewed towards the killing and
injuring of Palestinians.
Total fatalities in the
history of rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza into Israel: 44
Civilians: 30 (including 2
killed at military posts)
Soldiers: 14
Rocket fatalities only: 23
Total fatality-producing
strikes: 32 (19 rocket, 13 mortar)
https://ifamericaknew.org/stat/rocketdeaths.html
Since
2001, Palestinian
militants have
launched thousands[1][2][3][4] of rocket and mortar attacks on
Israel from the Gaza Stripas part of the
continuing Arab–Israeli
conflict.
From 2004 to 2014, these attacks have killed 27 Israeli civilians, 5 foreign
nationals, 5 IDF soldiers, and at least 11 Palestinians[5] and
injured more than 1900 people,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel
Israel saw an astronomical rise
in the number of projectiles fired at its southern communities in 2018, with a
staggering 28 times more attacks launched from the Gaza Strip than in 2017.
According to the summary of the
year released Monday by the Israel Defense Forces, there has however been a
reduction in terrorist attacks and subsequently in the number of Israeli
fatalities, along with intensified military activity in the Gaza Strip.
According to the IDF, 16
Israelis were killed in attacks in 2018 — nine civilians and seven members of
the security forces. This is a fall from previous years, with 20 Israelis
killed such attacks in 2017, 17 in 2016 and 28 in 2015. Even so, 199 Israelis
were wounded in attacks in 2018, as opposed to 169 in 2017.
Between January 1 and November 6, 2017, Israeli security forces killed
62 Palestinians, including 14 children, and injured at least 3,494 Palestinians
in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, including protesters, suspected assailants
or members of armed groups, and bystanders. Palestinians killed at least 15
Israelis during this same time, including 10 security officers, and injured 129
in conflict-related incidents in the West Bank and Israel.
In 2017, Palestinian armed groups launched 10 rockets into Israel from
Gaza as of October 31, causing no casualties but generating fear and disruption
in affected cities and towns.
In the West Bank, as of November 6, Israeli security forces fatally shot
42 Palestinians and wounded at least 3,279, including passersby, demonstrators,
and those suspected of attacking Israelis.
Israel
continued to provide security, administrative services, housing, education, and
medical care for about 607,000 settlers residing in unlawful settlements in the
West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Israel’s building of 2,000 new settlement
housing units in the period between July 2016 and June 2017 marked an 18
percent decrease over the same period in 2015-2016, but Israeli authorities
approved plans for 85 percent more housing units in the first half of 2017 than
all of 2016, according to the Israeli group Peace Now. International
humanitarian law bars an occupying power’s transfer of its civilians to
occupied territory.
Building permits are difficult, if not impossible, for
Palestinians to obtain in East Jerusalem or in the 60 percent of the West Bank
under exclusive Israeli control (Area C). This has driven Palestinians to
construct housing and business structures that are at constant risk of
demolition or confiscation by Israel on the grounds of being unauthorized.
Palestinians in these areas have access to water, electricity, schools, and
other state services that are either far more limited or costlier than the same
services that the state makes available to Jewish settlers there.
Of the 381 Palestinian homes and other property demolished in
the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) in 2017 as of November 6, displacing
588 people, Israeli authorities sought to justify most for failure to have a
building permit. Israel also destroyed the homes of families in retaliation for
attacks on Israelis allegedly carried out by a family member, a violation of
the international humanitarian law prohibition on collective punishment.
As of June 30, Israeli authorities held 315 Palestinian children
in military detention.
As of October 2017, Israel held 453 Palestinian administrative
detainees without charge or trial, based on secret evidence, many for prolonged
periods. Israel jails many Palestinian detainees and prisoners inside Israel,
violating international humanitarian law requiring that they not be transferred
outside the occupied territory and restricting the ability of family members to
visit them.
Palestinian
Bedouin citizens of Israel who live in “unrecognized” villages in the Negev
suffered discriminatory home demolitions on the basis that their homes were
built illegally, even though most of those villages existed before the state of
Israel was established or were created in the 1950s on land to which Israel
transferred Bedouin citizens.
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/israel/palestine
Israeli forces stationed on the Israeli side of
the fences separating Gaza and Israel responded to demonstrations for
Palestinian rights on the Gaza side with excessive lethal force. Between March
30 and November 19, security forces killed 189 Palestinian demonstrators,
including 31 children and 3 medical workers, and wounded more than 5,800 with
live fire.
The Israeli army also launched intermittent air
and artillery strikes in the Gaza Strip, killing 37 Palestinians between March
30 and November 19, including at least five civilians. Palestinian armed groups
fired 1138 rockets and mortars indiscriminately toward Israel from Gaza as of
November 13, according to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information
Center, a major increase over previous years, killing one person and injuring
at least 40, including civilians.
Israeli authorities continued to expand settlements in the
occupied West Bank and to discriminate systematically against Palestinians and
in favor of settlers, in providing services, allowing freedom of movement, and
issuing building permits, among other actions. During 2017 and the first eight
months of 2018, Israeli authorities approved plans for 10,536 housing units in
West Bank settlements, excluding East Jerusalem, and issued tenders for 5,676,
as compared to approving plans for 4,611 units and issuing tenders for 592
units in all of 2015 and 2016, according to the Israeli group Peace Now.
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities destroyed 390 Palestinian homes
and other property, forcibly displacing 407 people as of November 19, the
majority for lacking construction permits that Israel makes nearly impossible
for Palestinians to obtain in East Jerusalem or in the 60 percent of the West
Bank under its exclusive control (Area C).
As of November 19, lethal force by Israeli
forces resulted in the killing of 252 and injuring of 25,522 Palestinians in
Gaza, OCHA reported. Many of the injuries were life-changing, including
hundreds of cases of severe soft tissue damage, some necessitating amputation
of limbs. Most of the killings took place in the context of protests, where
Israeli forces, following orders from senior officials, used live ammunition
against people who approached or attempted to cross or damage fences between
Gaza and Israel. Israeli officials rejected the international human rights law
standard in policing situations that prohibits the intentional use of lethal
force except as a last resort to prevent an imminent threat to life. They
argued that live ammunition was necessary to stop breaches of the fences, which
they claimed was a Hamas strategy to enable militants to kill or capture
Israelis, without sufficiently addressing why lesser measures would not have
worked.
One can interpret the numbers above in various
ways. No matter how one does this, one
must conclude that the number of Israelis wounded and killed is far, far less
than the similar numbers of Palestinians killed and injured.
There is also a substantial increase in Israeli houses
constructed and a significant destruction of Palestinian homes.
----------------------------------------------
Jeff
Halper
I am the head of the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions (ICAHD), and after more than 20 years fighting Israel's policy of
demolishing Palestinian homes, I am witnessing one of the largest campaigns of
demolitions since we started our work. In East Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley,
throughout the West Bank (where not only homes are demolished: my friend Ata
Jabar's entire farm was destroyed by the Israeli authorities recently) -- and
not only in the Occupied Territory: WITHIN the Green Line Israel is systematically
demolishing entire Bedouin communities to clear the land for Jewish
settlements, and in the Galilee and the Triangle in the north homes of
Palestinian citizens of Israel are being attacked.
The scale of demolition makes protest and resistance impossible.
ICAHD has led the resistance. We have stood in front of bulldozers coming to
demolish Palestinian homes, and, with the families, their neighbors and
hundreds of Israeli and international activists, we have rebuilt almost 200
homes demolished by Israel. We have published reports on demolitions,
participated in UN meetings on the issue, made films and toured throughout the
world with families, enabling them to tell their stories. But all our work is
dwarfed by the resurgence of demolitions taking place today, and I have to
admit to a feeling of helplessness. By our count and that of the UN, Israel has
demolished some 55,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territory since 1967.
Add to that the 60,000 homes destroyed in the Nakba in 1948 and in its wake,
plus thousands more inside Israel until today, and the picture that emerges is
ethnic cleansing.
I don't know how to react anymore. Because demolitions
have gone on for so long and are so many, it is no longer an issue. We cannot
get activists out to resist (who can keep up with the pace and scale?), and
after all these years we cannot get the media to cover demolitions either - it
is already not "news." Demolitions is not an issue highlighted by
Palestinian support groups abroad (the US Campaign, PSC and the others), nor is
it covered much by the radical media, Democracy Now, the Real News and other
outlets.
ICAHD has ot been able to keep up either. Our
activists have drifted away to other, more immediate things that pop up: Khan
al-Ahmer, Gaza, other important but reactive events. We no longer have funding
since donors do not invest in political organizations when there is nothing
happening politically (another success Israel has had in shutting down all
meaningful political support for the Palestinian cause). And our message is
growing thin: indeed, how many times can you come back to an audience or write
an article abut the same thing?
Our response, as I've written many times, is to pull
back from activism on the ground. ICAHD still rebuilds, we still visit
families, we still resist whenever we can and we still speak out, but we have
come to the conclusion that protest is pointless unless it is attached to a
political program. We don't want to abandon these families and the thousands
more who homes will be demolished by Israel, but we have come to understand one
fundamental fact: unless we join with others to formulate and effectively
campaign for a political program to end Israeli rule and oppression (and I
don't mean some vague "rights-based approach" but a real political
program -- the establishment of a single democratic state between the River and
the Sea), then our activism, outrage and protest is meaningless. Not pursuing a
political program -- THAT is truly abandoning these families to their fate.
In the meantime we at ICAHD
continue as best we can to call attention to, and resist, this tragic, cruel
Israeli POLICY (backed by the courts) of home demolitions. Any help you can
offer, getting us access to media, for example, is welcomed. In the meantime,
ICAHD has joined with the One Democratic Campaign (ODSC) in its campaign for a
one state solution to this colonial travesty.
There are a lot of resources you
could look to, if you really care about Israel-Palestine. Criticizing the Israeli leader Netanyahu, as
you do, is helpful. You do, however,
ignore the obvious facts that the problems pre-date the current Israel leader
and are much larger than him.
It is very peculiar that
currently six individuals are attacked by far the most recently. You are, of course, familiar with the three
women in The House of Representatives who speak out the most. Additionally I would suggest:
Michelle Alexander
wrote an incredibly good editorial for the New York Times entitled: Time to
Break the Silence on Palestine . You should read it.
Angela Davis
has written about Israel-Palestine and recently drew the ire of the Birmingham
Jewish establishment. See: her speaking out on Palestine here or elsewhere.
Professor Marc Lamont Hill is writing and speaking a lot in incredibly
good ways such as: here
, Also see his Breakfast Club or the interview
that got him fired by CNN
These six individuals are all
people of color. All, except Professor
Hill are women.
Where there may be issues with
your candidacy, they seem to be primarily related to race. Various specific things related to you being
South Bend’s mayor (, such as the firing of your police department head,) seem
to relate to issues with black people. Issues related to Israel-Palestine relate to
race also, mostly in a slightly different way.
There are several groups you
should become familiar with.
Christians
United for Israel through its leader John Hagee, the founder and
senior pastor of Cornerstone
Church, a San Antonio megachurch is probably more
influential upon support of Israel and any other group including AIPAC. “ It is the largest pro-Israel organization
in the United States,[1] with
5.3 million members.2 “
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christians_United_for_Israel
.
Jewish Voice for Peace
(from JVP’s website) - The violence between Israelis and Palestinians is often
falsely presented as a conflict between two equal sides with irreconcilable
claims to one piece of land.
In reality, this is a conflict over territory between a
nation-state, Israel, with one of the world’s most powerful and well-funded
militaries, and an indigenous population of Palestinians that has been
occupied, displaced, and exiled for decades.
Although Palestinian citizens of Israel are entitled to vote and participate in Israeli
political life, and several Palestinians are members of the Knesset (the
Israeli parliament), they do not receive the same treatment as the Jewish
citizens at the hands of the government. Israel still applies over 50 laws that
privilege Jews over Arabs (as documented by Adalah: the
Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights).
Pinkwashing
is an explicit strategy taken up in recent years by the government of Israel to
portray Israel as a leader in gay rights and a gay tourism destination to
improve its human rights image while deflecting attention away from the
extreme violence of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Through a campaign called “Brand Israel,” Israel has tried to
change its public image, promoting itself as a “modern democracy” – and
projecting a “LGBT-friendly”
image is just one part of this.
J Street J Street organizes and mobilizes pro-Israel, pro-peace
Americans who want Israel to be secure, democratic and the national home of the
Jewish people. – Note: J Street is less “radical” than Jewish Voice
for Peace.
Birthright
– is an organization whose self-definitions include:
The Birthright Israel journey is committed to a
culture of open discussion and dialogue about all issues: identity,
geopolitics, religion, and Jewish life.
PLEASE – read the writings below. “open discussion” does not seem “open” to me.
Close to 25% of Israel’s
citizens are non-Jewish. Palestinian Israeli
citizens are both Muslim and Christian.
Discriminatory laws favoring Jewish citizens remind me of places such as
South Africa under apartheid and even occasionally Nazi Germany.
Sixty Five Israeli Laws That Discriminate
Against non-Jews is written by Ray Hanania, a suburban Chicagoan who is
Christian Palestinian American. Hanania’s
wife is Jewish.
For example, Zachary
Lockman, then a Harvard history professor, contended in a 1988 letter to The
New York Times that
some 92 percent of Israel's land area is administered in
accordance with ... [regulations which] prohibit these lands from being
purchased, leased or worked by Arab citizens of Israel.6
More recently, speaking
on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, William Quandt of
the University of Virginia charged that
Israel was established as a state for Jews. It has of course an
Arab minority who have citizenship rights, but the specific way in which land
is owned in Israel is predominantly that the Jewish Agency purchases land on
behalf of the Jewish people and then leases it out to its Jewish citizens.
Arabs cannot have access to that land that's owned by the Jewish
Agency. They can keep land they have privately owned before the State of Israel
was created. There's a small amount of private property that can be traded and
Arabs can buy that as well as Jews, but most land is held in trust for the
Jewish people, so yes there is a legal basis for what we would flat out call
discriminatory practices.7
Palestinian Israeli citizens are
significantly limited in their rights to buy land in much of Israel.
I will not go into detail concerning
the issues of the movement of Palestinians within the West Bank in comparison
to the rights of Jewish residents of Israel (including the West Bank). Special roads exist for Jewish residents.
There are numerous areas one could
easily go into related to how Palestinians are treated both within Israel and
in the West Bank and Gaza.
Gaza:
The territory is 41 kilometers (25 mi) long,
and from 6 to 12 kilometers (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide, with a total area of 365 square kilometers (141 sq mi).
With around 1.85 million Palestinians on some 362 square kilometers, Gaza ranks as the 3rd most densely populated polity in the
world.
According to the 2010 census, South Bend has a
total area of 41.877 square miles (108.46 km2), of which 41.46 square miles (107.38 km2) (or 99%) is land and 0.417 square miles (1.08 km2) (or 1%) is water.
If South Bend was as densely populated
as Gaza, it would have over 536,000 people living in it.
Both Mayor Pete and I would like for a
two-state solution, with a lasting peace resulting in Israel and in
Palestine. We both agree that Mr.
Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace. We strongly
disagree, though as to what is preventing peace!
I see a reality in Israel, and the
additional land under its control, where Israel, with United States
support, wields incredible power over the
Palestinians. Israel is currently in a
tremendous position where it could negotiate a lasting peace, because of the
power imbalance that exists. Israel
itself, has a population which is projected in the next several decades, to
become majority non-Jewish. If the
entire West Bank and Gaza were to become a Palestinian State, the state would have
far less land total than Israel would have.
The Palestinians cannot bring peace to
Israel-Palestine. They have no
military. They have little money. They have no political power. Contrary to the public perception, the
violence that exists, is substantially the Israeli army killing unarmed Palestinians; automatic weapons against stones or nothing
besides human beings.
I can not and will not support Mayor
Pete until and unless I see him looking at Israel-Palestine in a very different
way than his speeches have proclaimed.
I was about to donate more money (I have donated several times recently
to the campaign). While I believe that
Mayor Pete is a much better candidate in most ways that others such as Bernie
Sanders, shortly I will have to change my allegiances.
I have provided a lot of sources for
where Mayor Pete can reach out to educate himself. He is a very bright man! I hope that he will do the right
thing! I am not optimistic! I hope that I am proved wrong.
If anyone should wish to contact me,
they can email to me at: ElectingMayorPete@gmail.com. This writing will be posted, both at: MayorPete.blogspot.com and at: georgesworldonthewater.blogspot.com
.
Thank
you! I hope that my words are
heard! I hope that voices such as those
of Professor Marc Lamont Hill and those speaking for Jewish Voice For Peace,
people who are much better read and more eloquent than I am, will be heard.
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