Free Palestine

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I go to the annual AIPAC gathering in Washington in May of 2011, drawn once again by my desire to not be a “good German.”  This urge to not stand idly by and turn a blind eye when evil is being perpetuated nearby has informed and at times commanded my actions in response to gross injustice all my life.  I’m now 70 years old.  A grandfather.  Semi retired.  I am a child of the Holocaust, although I was raised exclusively in the U.S., in the Bronx, the son of a Jewish NYC fireman who was the aide and driver for the first African American NYC fire department battalion chief.  My father’s best friend was killed in WWII.  My uncles served in the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force.  My parents were liberals and Zionists.  Everyone I knew was.  We were told by genuine marketing geniuses that Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land.” 

Never again was a rallying cry, a declaration of faith, meaning at first, never again would Jews go like lambs to slaughter.  And never again would Jews be oppressed and murdered without broad and effective Jewish resistance.  And never again would we be “good Germans” and, as otherwise reasonably good and moral people, stand idly by while evil was being perpetuated in our neighborhood. 

The United States and our allies should have bombed the rail lines the Jews were being moved on.

I wish the Israeli Jews and the Palestinian Arabs were working on the problems of being one state, but I also wish we worked as one world, and, of, course the reality is as it has been, more or less since 1947.

I had a rather intense personal experience at the aipac banquet that bibi addressed on sunday evening, which i attended with 9 other anti-aipac activists, five intending to speak out and five videographers.  at the banquet a crowd of over 10,000 people listened to familiar right wing israeli lies and distortions about palestinians, democracy in israel, muslim terrorists, borders, security, partnership with the U.S., the glories of warfare, the benefits of aggression, and how israel just wanted peace, although it also wanted all of jerusalem, all the land it could possibly steal west of the jordan, and to deny the internationally recognized right of return for palestinian refugees so as to maintain a jewish voting majority in a “democratic” apartheid state.  there were 325 US senators and congressional reps in attendance at the banquet.  all would also listen to bibi address and lie to a joint session of congress just a day and a half later.  also in attendance were dozens of foreign dignitaries and over 250 college student government presidents, each of whom had been flown into d.c. by aipac , put up in hotels, and subject to the familiar miseducation that aipac is so stunningly effective at.  


in advance of our attendance at the banquet we discussed and prepared for how we would exercise our constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech and dissent.  because bibi had been saying for some time that a variety of things were “indefensible,” the 1967 borders, for example, or israel not having a jewish majority population, we decided to make indefensibility our theme and prepared to speak out, one after another, on what was truly indefensible, i.e, stealing land as indefensible, bombing schools as indefensible, and the one i was assigned, denying the nakba being indefensible.


and so, about half way through bibi’s speech we stood up, one at a time, unfurled our banners, and began to speak as the videocameras rolled.  (and if you attended the banquet and were one of the little piggies who committed the assaults and batteries on any of the five protesters, denying us our civil liberties, and in some instances indecently sexually assaulting female protesters, here’s where you should get just a teeny bit nervous, because we have you all on film, but i digress).  


i was the last protester to speak.  i stood up, unfurled my banner, and called out, “denying the nakba is indefensible.”  i said it loudly.  i repeated it often.  the banner was snatched from my hands, two paid security guards came and took me by the arms to escort me out of the hall, and that’s when the assaults began.  as the security men led me from the convention center floor, a phalanx of about 200 men formed between me and the exit i was being guided toward the exit, spitting on me, choking me, pulling my tie, kicking me, reliving my own little nakba.

Some years ago I went to an AIPAC fundraising dinner in Boston, specifically intending to speak out on behalf of the Palestinian people.  This was not intended by me as an act of civil disobedience, but as an act of conscience.  When I had travelled in the Occupied Territories/Palestine and asked the good people I met there what I could do to help end their oppression by the Israeli state, to a person they said, “Change US policy, expose AIPAC.” So when I heard AIPAC would be in Boston raising money I felt a virtually uncontrollable desire to act, to speak truth to power, to be as un-good a “good German” as I was capable of being.

The AIPAC affair itself was predictable.  The room was immense, with amazing loudspeakers, twin jumbo screens, senators, congressmen and women, security, free flowing alcohol, and nearly 700 wildly applauding AIPAC toadies and sympathizers.  Israel was wonderful.  The United States was wonderful.  The terrorists, the Muslims, the Arabs, the fundamentalists, the mullahs, the leaders of Arab nations, Hamas, the protesters outside the hotel, the sponsors of divestment actions against Israel, were all detestable abominations.  The words “terrorist,” “9/11,” “Islamic,” “Arab,” and “enemies of freedom” ran together repeatedly like the refrain of an advertising jingle.

During the incredibly jingoistic, intolerant, uncompromising, arrogant, ass-kicking keynote speech by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen [R-FL], lead sponsor of HR4681, the so-called Palestinian Anti-terrorism Act of 2006,” (the one that will cut off humanitarian aid to Palestine until the PA halts “all anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian Authority-controlled electronic and print media and in schools, mosques, and other institutions it controls, and replaces these materials, including textbooks, with materials that promote tolerance, peace, and coexistence with Israel,”) it was clear to me what I needed to say.  Because believe it or not, in over two hours of speeches and declarations, the Palestinian people, the invisible people, the suffering, oppressed, subjugated, ethnically segregated people with the Israeli boot on their collective throats, had never been mentioned once!!

“The people missing from this meeting are the Palestinian people,” I yelled out as loudly as I could.  “The Palestinian people are the painful crippling pebble in Israel’s shoe!” I yelled out like some wild eyed schizoid street preacher.  “Without justice for the Palestinians there can be no peace for Israel.”   Upon which I was promptly grabbed by some heroic AIPAC supporters, the plain clothes security detail I had identified earlier, and three guys who appeared out of nowhere and were each the size of an SUV.  As I was being escorted out, I placed some of the handouts I had prepared on one of the reception tables, where they were picked up by security no sooner than I had left them.  I was in no position to argue.

So what can you do to help advance the cause of peace and justice in Palestine and Israel and to provide some modest support to the many Palestinian, Israeli, and U.S peace activists who labor so passionately and conscientiously to realize a new vision for Israel and Palestine?  I suggest you visit the occupied territories and see for yourself what it is like there.  In lieu of that, find an organization that speaks to your wishes and hopes for the mid-East here, and then support it.  Or write me and we can talk together.  Bruce