No Breira
It could be argued that Breira's prompt demise following the dressing down of its board members at the Israeli embassy is a good indication that it didn't amount to much anyway. But compared to what? I know of no organization before Breira where (at least Jewish) American audiences could hear what Israeli "dissidents" from occupation policy had to say. And they wanted to be heard.
There were other initiatives in the ~3 decades since, but only now, especially in the past few months, does it seem possible that enough Jews with backbone will stand up, and be seen to be standing up through media with some guts, to form organizations capable of letting Israeli government representatives and their assets/agents know their rights and responsibilities. We should know pretty soon if enough of the lessons of the past have been learned. A very encouraging feature of the new neck stiffness is that it is popping up all over, rather than being confined to the US. The unwritten law that Jews elsewhere in "exile" have to recognize the authority of the American "Community" may be getting lost. High time!
I had avoided joining anything political after (in effect) leaving Mapam when I was told , just before leaving Israel for the US in 1950 to continue my war-interrupted studies, that they wanted me to infiltrate the American CP and report to Benni (see end of September 12, 2006 posting). Apparently I was one of the first members of Amnesty International on the West Coast, but didn't regard that as really political. When I got a letter from the (East Coast) organizer of Breira that Natan Yellin Mor had suggested that he ask me to start a Breira chapter in the Bay Area, I didn't.
My attitude toward the latter was not clear cut anyway. I had been reluctant to meet him, since, like others of my background, I had always regarded his Stern group/gang as more "fascist" and terrorist than Begin's outfit. But unlike Begin (or Shamir, who was not "the head" of his group after Stern was killed, as spun nowadays), Yellin Mor was very impressive as a person. I also knew that he was now on the editorial board of Simha Flapan's New Outlook magazine, thus committed to Israeli Arab peace (which he insisted to always have been). And I agreed to show him around Berkeley the next day.
When a public event of the just organized Breira chapter at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center was announced, I went without intent to join, but did. The featured speaker, editor of an "Israel/Palestine" publication who bore a strong resemblance to my brother, went through his persuasive talk in spite of seeming to be in real pain (as he then told me he was, badly). Probably more decisive for my joining were the two pickets with signs standing one on each side inside the community center's entrance in such a way as to create a bottleneck so the crowds trying to enter had to converge to single file. I didn't, and when the character holding the sign about "Munich" (i.e. peace=appeasement) saw that he would not come out ahead in a collision, he retreated against the wall. They were then identified as known Revisionists in the introductory remarks; and the one I had "persuaded" to move, I saw much later draped in an Israeli flag as part of a small group of (according to the SF Chronicle) "Jewish Defense League" members opposite a pro Iranian demo in front of the Israeli consulate; calling for Death to Israel, Death to Iraq and to the US (for friendliness to the late Iraqi dictator).
Also speaking at that Breira meeting was Asher, the rabbi of Temple Emanuel, who later turned out to be a phoney; not the only one. In the East Bay, Breira met separately. Even then, there was a variety of evidence of people tied to Raab , of the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council, who later made clear his preference for the Likud, with its worse occupation policy, in Commentary, already turned into a character assassinating smut sheet by neocon Podhoretz. So it was encouraging when still later Tikkun Magazine was started by Michael Lerner.
After the New Jewish Agenda started in the 80s, I joined it for a short period. It was more wide ranging along lines of "The Movement", of which I hadn't viewed myself as part. Neither looked serious to me, but that may have been my problem. There was at least one of the same agents/assets (raabs?) as at Breira, the major reason for leaving it soon. Regardless of whether that is to be accepted nowadays, or whether they really believe in what they are doing, I find them contemptible and don't like my feeling contempt for people.
After coffee (and bullshit) at Telegraph Avenue's Mediterraneum Caffe, Natan Yellin Mor had asked me which of the people at our table was the spy. Probably due to my underestimate of the student movement, I didn't think there were any at the joint, which made him laugh, and insist that I guess. My guess amused him even more, but if that started to irritate a little, I had to assume that he must have developed a more sensitive nose for that sort of stuff; some of which I inevitably aquired later when our solar research attracted the attention of powerful anti-solar interests; which counted (especially right wing) Israelis among their eager assets. What was done by one old Revisionist terrorist, e.g. in an arrogant exhibition of indifference (at least) to generating antisemitic reaction at our lab, did at least as much as Raab and the lesser raabs all over, to make me avoid any involvement with the "Organized Community" that had replaced any real Jewish community.
As to direct Israeli government involvement, I had been shown that clearly enough, too; e.g. when, while showing an Israeli visitor around, I was dumbfounded when at the Berkeley Hillel house there was an item on the bulletin board attacking a Jewish American woman (who had given an earlier talk to Breira at Hillel) in a really shamefuk, personal manner. The person in charge, when asked how something that hateful fits in a house named after Hillel (known most widely for his emphasis on neighborly love), he said that anything from the Israeli consulate gets posted automatically. Bnai Brith runs the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Hillel and likes to be referred to as a human rights organization. Believe it or not.
When in 1980, in Europe, I submitted a memorandum requesting an inquiry (and if that can't be done, to make a formal complaint) to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations, I held the US government responsible also for actions of lesser governments used, specifically including the (Begin) Israeli one. In Tours (France), I had been offered an invitation to a Bnai Brith meeting, on whether French (and presumably other ) Jews owe him/it l'inconditionalite. Having that Berkeley Hillel message printed (typed?) that explicitly may have been for my personal benefit or for antisemitism generation. Other things were more obviously for my benefit, like the appearance of two men from Lebanese Major Haddad's outfit, the forerunner of the once famous Israeli-run Southern Lebanese Army, at the café frequented by, and next to the store of, my two late cousins; the premature death of one of whom I had good reason to attribute to Israeli terrorist assets in what I referred to as the lowest depth of depravity in this harassment.
It may be worth recalling here that this took place shortly after Shamir was made foreign minister by Begin, the first Revisionist prime minister, who had started the disastrous 1982 Lebanon war, that led to Hizbollah, thus to the preposterous one last summer. For the first, successful war, in 1948, I, a non Zionist, Arab-respecting Jew, had been one of three Palestinians ( as we were called in Nottingham) to respond to the (unenforceable) call to interrupt studies and return for army service in the War of Independence. There joining a unit that had faced the real Lebanese army. Later we were part of the force that drove Kawukji's army from Galilee back to Lebanon. While Blau, the only Revisionist (allegedly super Zionists) among the eleven of us, stayed in Nottingham. Also, that Yellin Mor told me, and later published (unlike Shamir) that they had approached the German Foreign service during WW II with an offer of cooperation; while I had volunteered to serve on the Allied side.
That could serve as another reminder of something gone badly wrong in Israel. And that "exile" Jews who served (or whose family members served) only in the Allied armies need not have moral qualms against standing tall in the face of intimidation from those "former" terrorists and their raabs.
There were other initiatives in the ~3 decades since, but only now, especially in the past few months, does it seem possible that enough Jews with backbone will stand up, and be seen to be standing up through media with some guts, to form organizations capable of letting Israeli government representatives and their assets/agents know their rights and responsibilities. We should know pretty soon if enough of the lessons of the past have been learned. A very encouraging feature of the new neck stiffness is that it is popping up all over, rather than being confined to the US. The unwritten law that Jews elsewhere in "exile" have to recognize the authority of the American "Community" may be getting lost. High time!
I had avoided joining anything political after (in effect) leaving Mapam when I was told , just before leaving Israel for the US in 1950 to continue my war-interrupted studies, that they wanted me to infiltrate the American CP and report to Benni (see end of September 12, 2006 posting). Apparently I was one of the first members of Amnesty International on the West Coast, but didn't regard that as really political. When I got a letter from the (East Coast) organizer of Breira that Natan Yellin Mor had suggested that he ask me to start a Breira chapter in the Bay Area, I didn't.
My attitude toward the latter was not clear cut anyway. I had been reluctant to meet him, since, like others of my background, I had always regarded his Stern group/gang as more "fascist" and terrorist than Begin's outfit. But unlike Begin (or Shamir, who was not "the head" of his group after Stern was killed, as spun nowadays), Yellin Mor was very impressive as a person. I also knew that he was now on the editorial board of Simha Flapan's New Outlook magazine, thus committed to Israeli Arab peace (which he insisted to always have been). And I agreed to show him around Berkeley the next day.
When a public event of the just organized Breira chapter at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center was announced, I went without intent to join, but did. The featured speaker, editor of an "Israel/Palestine" publication who bore a strong resemblance to my brother, went through his persuasive talk in spite of seeming to be in real pain (as he then told me he was, badly). Probably more decisive for my joining were the two pickets with signs standing one on each side inside the community center's entrance in such a way as to create a bottleneck so the crowds trying to enter had to converge to single file. I didn't, and when the character holding the sign about "Munich" (i.e. peace=appeasement) saw that he would not come out ahead in a collision, he retreated against the wall. They were then identified as known Revisionists in the introductory remarks; and the one I had "persuaded" to move, I saw much later draped in an Israeli flag as part of a small group of (according to the SF Chronicle) "Jewish Defense League" members opposite a pro Iranian demo in front of the Israeli consulate; calling for Death to Israel, Death to Iraq and to the US (for friendliness to the late Iraqi dictator).
Also speaking at that Breira meeting was Asher, the rabbi of Temple Emanuel, who later turned out to be a phoney; not the only one. In the East Bay, Breira met separately. Even then, there was a variety of evidence of people tied to Raab , of the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council, who later made clear his preference for the Likud, with its worse occupation policy, in Commentary, already turned into a character assassinating smut sheet by neocon Podhoretz. So it was encouraging when still later Tikkun Magazine was started by Michael Lerner.
After the New Jewish Agenda started in the 80s, I joined it for a short period. It was more wide ranging along lines of "The Movement", of which I hadn't viewed myself as part. Neither looked serious to me, but that may have been my problem. There was at least one of the same agents/assets (raabs?) as at Breira, the major reason for leaving it soon. Regardless of whether that is to be accepted nowadays, or whether they really believe in what they are doing, I find them contemptible and don't like my feeling contempt for people.
After coffee (and bullshit) at Telegraph Avenue's Mediterraneum Caffe, Natan Yellin Mor had asked me which of the people at our table was the spy. Probably due to my underestimate of the student movement, I didn't think there were any at the joint, which made him laugh, and insist that I guess. My guess amused him even more, but if that started to irritate a little, I had to assume that he must have developed a more sensitive nose for that sort of stuff; some of which I inevitably aquired later when our solar research attracted the attention of powerful anti-solar interests; which counted (especially right wing) Israelis among their eager assets. What was done by one old Revisionist terrorist, e.g. in an arrogant exhibition of indifference (at least) to generating antisemitic reaction at our lab, did at least as much as Raab and the lesser raabs all over, to make me avoid any involvement with the "Organized Community" that had replaced any real Jewish community.
As to direct Israeli government involvement, I had been shown that clearly enough, too; e.g. when, while showing an Israeli visitor around, I was dumbfounded when at the Berkeley Hillel house there was an item on the bulletin board attacking a Jewish American woman (who had given an earlier talk to Breira at Hillel) in a really shamefuk, personal manner. The person in charge, when asked how something that hateful fits in a house named after Hillel (known most widely for his emphasis on neighborly love), he said that anything from the Israeli consulate gets posted automatically. Bnai Brith runs the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Hillel and likes to be referred to as a human rights organization. Believe it or not.
When in 1980, in Europe, I submitted a memorandum requesting an inquiry (and if that can't be done, to make a formal complaint) to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations, I held the US government responsible also for actions of lesser governments used, specifically including the (Begin) Israeli one. In Tours (France), I had been offered an invitation to a Bnai Brith meeting, on whether French (and presumably other ) Jews owe him/it l'inconditionalite. Having that Berkeley Hillel message printed (typed?) that explicitly may have been for my personal benefit or for antisemitism generation. Other things were more obviously for my benefit, like the appearance of two men from Lebanese Major Haddad's outfit, the forerunner of the once famous Israeli-run Southern Lebanese Army, at the café frequented by, and next to the store of, my two late cousins; the premature death of one of whom I had good reason to attribute to Israeli terrorist assets in what I referred to as the lowest depth of depravity in this harassment.
It may be worth recalling here that this took place shortly after Shamir was made foreign minister by Begin, the first Revisionist prime minister, who had started the disastrous 1982 Lebanon war, that led to Hizbollah, thus to the preposterous one last summer. For the first, successful war, in 1948, I, a non Zionist, Arab-respecting Jew, had been one of three Palestinians ( as we were called in Nottingham) to respond to the (unenforceable) call to interrupt studies and return for army service in the War of Independence. There joining a unit that had faced the real Lebanese army. Later we were part of the force that drove Kawukji's army from Galilee back to Lebanon. While Blau, the only Revisionist (allegedly super Zionists) among the eleven of us, stayed in Nottingham. Also, that Yellin Mor told me, and later published (unlike Shamir) that they had approached the German Foreign service during WW II with an offer of cooperation; while I had volunteered to serve on the Allied side.
That could serve as another reminder of something gone badly wrong in Israel. And that "exile" Jews who served (or whose family members served) only in the Allied armies need not have moral qualms against standing tall in the face of intimidation from those "former" terrorists and their raabs.
posted by solar_sol | 6:56 PM
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