Thursday, February 8, 2007

Resisting the Israel lobby

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Jews who speak out can be deluged with with verbal abuse, hate mail and intimidation.

February 8, 2007 02:40 PM

Abe Hayeem

Criticism of Israel's human rights contraventions - and particularly any mention of boycotts - elicits an immediate and powerful barrage from the pro-Israel lobby. Editors of national newspapers and journals can expect to be inundated by letters from Israel supporters, often copying their arguments word-for-word from the numerous websites that push the Israeli embassy line.

At the same time, critics can be deluged with hate mail couched in lurid language. The SHIT List ("Self-Hating Israel-Threatening") website exemplifies the extreme verbal abuse and intimidation heaped on Jews who speak out.

Israel is invariably portrayed as the victim, despite its record of killings, assassinations and destruction in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, and its relentless land grabs over decades in the occupied territories, exhaustively documented by human rights organisations.

The lobby can operate at the highest levels of city government as was seen in February 2006 when the group Architects & Planners for Justice in Palestine - formed to highlight the complicity of Israel's construction industry in the occupation - was launched in the office premises of the Richard Rogers Partnership.

The presence of a mole at the meeting resulted in sensational articles in the British press claiming (inaccurately) that a boycott of Israel was being planned, practically leading to an international incident involving the Chief Rabbi and Lord Weidenfeld.

Despite only a brief reference at the meeting to the possibility of targeted action against the firms building the illegal separation wall and West Bank settlements, Lord Rogers was summoned to New York to face a tribunal of city senators and heads of Jewish organisations, since he had recently been appointed to design the Jacob Javits Conference Centre worth $1.7 billion. Javits was a well-known Zionist, though the centre was being built by public funds. New York is jokingly referred to as an outpost of Israel.

Under threat that he would be removed as architect, and unjustifiably invoking anti-boycott US laws (specifically enacted to protect Israel from trade boycotts), Rogers, even though had said he was not in favour of boycotts, was forced to bend under pressure from the distinctly McCarthyite proceedings. The pro-Israel lobby would of course hotly deny that signing a "loyalty to Israel" clause is a prerequisite for obtaining major architectural commissions in New York.

To be outspoken does not bode well, even within local Jewish communities. I was expelled from Rivers of Babylon - a group that I performed with - because of my views as a peace activist. Even though politics were not discussed within the group, which was formed to revive Iraqi Jewish music and song, the director, a childhood friend, asked me to leave due to a threatened boycott of the group's concerts from the fervently Zionist Indian Jewish community.

An editor from a pro-Israel freebie newspaper phoned to tell me he was not publishing my letter responding to two correspondents who had advocated wiping out Gaza and expelling the Palestinians, because I did not "love Israel" and was beyond the pale.

It is important that alternative Jewish voices are heard in the media and in the community, to counteract the efforts of BICOM, (the British Israel Communications and Research Centre) which has close links with the Israeli embassy, AIPAC in the United States, and all organisations engaged in "pro-Israel advocacy", including the three major political "Friends of Israel" groups (Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat), also reflected in the inaction of the Blair government over Israel's war crimes.


Click here for a full list of articles in the Independent Jewish Voices debate.


Abe Hayeem is an architect, peace activist and founder member of Architects & Planners for Justice in Palestine.

Links to articles by Abe Hayeem: Red Pepper, Architecture Week, Archibase

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