:-)


The poster immediately after my last post is not in any position to say whether or not I have any Palestinian friends. Nor are they in a position to say whether or not I am actively involved in any other forms of activism on the Palestine/Israel issue besides online activism. This person simply is not in a position to know any of this about me. They also are also not in a position to say whether or not I am an anti-Semite. The only reason for making any of those assumptions and/or accusations is to try to smear me and intimidate me as a way of trying to silence me. It will not work.

Peace Now is not a Palestinian freedom and equal rights group. It is Likud lite. It is not working for Palestinians' liberation from Israeli government control. I applaud its stance on the freezing of settlement building. But ts stance on US welfare to Israel is that it should continue with no strings attached, but it wants strings attached to any money we give to the Palestinians. However, it appears to support continuing the occupation after Israel withdraws. This is an anti-Palestinian organization that wants to try to achieve peace for Israel through a very limited accommodation of Palestinian rights. But it still sees the Palestinians as not entirely human, and certainly not the equals of Israelis. Peace now, and by extension, its supporters, don't believe in equal rights for all. They don't believe in holding everyone to the same standard. They advocate protecting priveledge for some people at the expense of others, and they draw their lines for who is treated in what way, according to each person's ethnicity and religion. This is an entirely racist attitude and belief system.

Now let's examine the article posted by this person, that they are suggesting could be written about my agenda on the Mudcat...

During a recent visit to several university campuses in the U.S., I discovered that there is more sympathy for Hamas there than there is in Ramallah.

Listening to some students and professors on these campuses, for a moment I thought I was sitting opposite a Hamas spokesman or a would-be-suicide bomber.

Please show me where I have expressed support for Hamas or suicide bombing. Then please go see what I have actually had to say about what I think should be done with Hamas.

I was told, for instance, that Israel has no right to exist

Please show me where I have said Israel has no right to exist.

that Israel's "apartheid system" is worse than the one that existed in South Africa

This is entirely true. Even South Africans say that this is true. It is no more anti-Semitic to criticize Israel's apartheid than criticizing South African apartheid was anti-White.

and that Operation Cast Lead was launched only because Hamas was beginning to show signs that it was interested in making peace and not because of the rockets that the Islamic movement was launching at Israeli communities.

This is partially true. Hamas was trying to get into negotiations at the time that Israel started the attack on Gaza. If Israel had really wanted peace and security, it wouldn't have broken the cease fire, and it would have been willing to negotiate with Hamas. Cast Lead was also launched because of the upcoming Israeli elections, as a further effort to utterly destroy any and all forms of Palestinian civil infrastructure to make it impossible for the people in Gaza to establish their independent state, to render them entirely dependent on foreign aid, to try yet again to break their will and any desire they may have to resist whatever Israel wants to do with them and their land, and to make their lives as completely hellish as possible so they will want to leave.

I was also told that top Fatah operative Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life terms in prison for masterminding terror attacks against Israeli civilians, was thrown behind bars simply because he was trying to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Please show me where I have expressed any opinions about Marwan Barghouti whatever.

Furthermore, I was told that all the talk about financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority was "Zionist propaganda" and that Yasser Arafat had done wonderful things for his people, including the establishment of schools, hospitals and universities.

I don't believe I have ever characterized it as "Zionist propaganda" and I would be interested in seeing any posts in which I have done so, if I have. However, I would characterize talk about financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority as, A: the pot calling the kettle black (when this criticism comes from the government of Israel and its supporters), and B: not relevant to any questions of Palestinian freedom and equal rights for Palestinians, C: an attempt to change the subject from Palestinian freedom and equal rights for Palestinians, and D: yet another racist double standard by those who support the government of Israel. And Arafat did establish schools, hospitals, and universities with money given to the PA by other countries, including the US. And the government of Israel bombed them to smithereens.

The bad news is that these groups of hard-line activists/thugs are trying to intimidate anyone who dares to say something that they don't like to hear.

This is, of course, a perfect description of the person who posted this article in this thread.

When the self-designated "pro-Palestinian" lobbyists are unable to challenge the facts presented by a speaker, they resort to verbal abuse.

Well, that's a relief! I have never, ever self-designated as "pro-Palestinian". Other people keep trying to designate me as such, but I only self-designate as a human rights activist and a supporter of human rights and equal rights for everyone.

When the self-designated "pro-Palestinian" lobbyists are unable to challenge the facts presented by a speaker, they resort to verbal abuse.

If we change this to say "when the supporters of the Israeli government are unable to challenge the facts presented by a speaker, they resort to verbal abuse, for instance, by calling people 'anti-Semites', regardless of whether or not this label actually fits. The unfortunate side effect of this practice has been to render the term, anti-Semite, almost completely meaningless.

On one campus, for example, I was condemned as an "idiot" because I said that a majority of Palestinians voted for Hamas in the January 2006 election because they were fed up with financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority.

Please show me where I have ever condemned anyone as an "idiot" in a discussion about Palestine/Israel, or used any language that even resembles this.

On another campus, I was dubbed as a "mouthpiece for the Zionists" because I said that Israel has a free media

Please show me where I have ever used language like this in reference to anyone.

There was another campus where someone told me that I was a 'liar" because I said that Barghouti was sentenced to five life terms because of his role in terrorism.

Well, I would definitely say that the person who posted this article is a liar, not because of anything they ever said about Barghouti, but rather because they have lied repeatedly about me. For instance, by calling me an anti-Semite, and comparing me to the people described in this article.

And then there was the campus (in Chicago) where I was "greeted" with swastikas that were painted over posters promoting my talk. The perpetrators, of course, never showed up at my event because they would not be able to challenge someone who has been working in the field for nearly 30 years.

Please show me where I have ever done anything even remotely resembling this.

What struck me more than anything else was the fact that many of the people I met on the campuses supported Hamas and believed that it had the right to "resist the occupation" even if that meant blowing up children and women on a bus in downtown Jerusalem.

Please show me where I have ever said that I support Hamas, and that I support their killing of innocents. And then, please go and read what I have actually said on the subject (many times).

I never imagined that I would need police protection while speaking at a university in the U.S. I have been on many Palestinian campuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and I cannot recall one case where I felt intimidated or where someone shouted abuse at me.

This one's pretty libelous. Please show me where I have ever threatened anyone with physical violence. I would point out that I have been threatened with material and potentially physical harm by one poster here in the Mudcat, and it was a very credible threat. Other posters (one of whom has posted to this thread) have posted my first, middle, and last names here in the open forum as an intimidation tactic, and people have used other threatening tactics and methods of intimidation. It's the people supporting the Israeli government in the Mudcat who have been acting like brown shirts. I have not seen anyone here in the Mudcat who has been advocating for Palestinian freedom and equal rights for Palestinians who have used tactics like those. And falsely comparing me to the people who behaved this way toward the author of this article is also an act of harassment and intimidation, which would make the person who posted the article one of the people in the Mudcat who behaves like a brown shirt.

The majority of these activists openly admit that they have never visited Israel or the Palestinian territories. They don't know -and don't want to know - that Jews and Arabs here are still doing business together and studying together and meeting with each other on a daily basis because they are destined to live together in this part of the world. They don't want to hear that despite all the problems life continues and that ordinary Arab and Jewish parents who wake up in the morning just want to send their children to school and go to work before returning home safely and happily.

This is entirely irrelevant to the question of Palestinian freedom and equal rights for Palestinians, and is included as yet another attempt to obscure and mischaracterize the reason for peoples' activism on behalf of the Palestinians.

Over the past 15 years, much has been written and said about the fact that Palestinian school textbooks don't promote peace and coexistence and that the Palestinian media often publishes anti-Israel material.

While this may be true...

Actually, it's not true. It's yet another great big huge stinking racist lie. The Palestinian textbooks absolutely do promote peace and coexistence, and they do not contain any anti-Israel material whatever.



If the person who posted the above article in this thread can't come up with any posts in which I have done any of the things that person is accusing me of doing, everyone will know that nothing that person says can be trusted, either.

The person who posted the above article has provided an example of a Palestinian who agrees with their perspective on Palestine/Israel. This is not an effective strategy, because for every Palestinian who agrees with them on this subject, I can produce at least a thousand Jews from all over the world who agree with me on this subject. (And I have provided quite a few right here in this thread: http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=118542&messages=57a )

When people are accused of being anti-Semites and they try to prove they are not by pointing out that they have Jewish friends, the immediate response from numerous people is always that their using the fact that they have Jewish friends as proof that they are not anti-Semites, is absolute proof that they really are anti-Semites. It happens every time. So if using the excuse that one has Jewish friends to deny one's anti-Semitism is proof of anti-Semitism, the use by the person who posted the above article of their Palestinian friends as proof of their not being racist towards Palestinians, must therefore be absolute proof that this person is racist towards Palestinians.