Jews Confront Jews in San Francisco

by shergald
Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 08:34:53 AM EST

The degree of polarization achieved within the American Jewish community by the topic of Israel was witnessed last weekend in San Francisco, when organizations of differing perspectives, peace activists from the Bay Area Women in Black and Jewish Voice for Peace, confronted members of StandWithUs/SF Voice for Israel. The peace activists were holding a silent vigil outside the main entrance to the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation while it was celebrating an annual event, "Israel in the Gardens." The StandWithUs group lined the street.

Here is a video of the confrontation:


Just in case the comments from the StandWithUs group cannot be read off the video, here is a sample:

"Nazi, Nazi, Nazi!" - this done as a group chant
"You're all being identified, every last one of you...we will find out where you live. We're going to make your lives difficult..we will disrupt your families...", all on above video.
"Sink the flotilla--and you on it!"
"Terrorists, terrorists, terrorists."
One man yelled (to someone who may have looked heat exhausted) "I hope you stroke out, old man!"
"Ugly bitches" said to older women.
"You're not a Jew! you gave up your Jewishness!"
"Witches in black! Bitches in black!" (hard to tell which one it was, or whether they alternated the chant)
"You fucking...!"
"Bin Laden loves you! you support terrorism!"
"Is there a coroner in the house? Women in Black are dead!"
"Is there a doctor in the house? Women in Black are sick!"
"End the occupation of our sidewalk."
"Remember 9/11, they were dancing in the streets."
"Asshole!"
"Anti-Semite!"
"Bigot!"
"Sharmuta!" this was chanted for a while (means "slut" or "whore" in Arabic and which was particularly shocking for Arabic speakers to hear)
"Commit suicide!"
"Anti-women, anti-gay, why support Hamas today!"
They were also lesbian-baiting, even though they were chanting "Anti-women, anti-gay, why support Hamas today?" One guy yelled "lesbian" at me and my friend (correctly assessing our sexual identity) and maybe the same guy yelled at someone else, "When's the last time you dated a man?"

Information about recent encounters with StandWithUs can be read at Muzzlewatch, a subsidiary of Jewish Voice for Peace, which also covered the weekend confrontation.

Watching these two groups interact, it is evident that the peace activists are parading quietly and reserved, apparently not responding to the jeers, while the pro-Israel StandWithUs group are highly aroused, hostile, and even threatening, at least verbally.

Watching these two groups, I wondered: what makes a Jewish person join one side as opposed to the other? Immediately the thought came, one side, the peace activists, must be Judaic, while the other, the pro-Israel group, must be Zionist. Other contrasts I thought of were the usual political ones, liberal-conservative, Democrat-Republican, but how can one know? A search for studies of personality trait differences among Jews that might affect their feelings toward Israel came up empty. A 2007 study claimed a generational factor, that attachment to Israel was declining among younger Jews, but that finding was contradicted the next year by another study that found no such decline. Besides, a look at the participants in the SF confrontation video clearly showed persons of all ages on both sides.

So what's the deal?

I returned to Muzzlewatch report on the SF confrontation and found this, written by Cecile Sarasky:

You will see a lot of Jews protesting Israel's actions silently, and look at the response. It's not considered, it's fearful and angry and hateful. There are numerous threats against the demonstrators. There is the Animal Farm scream that is in my headline, repeated and repeated. As Max Blumenthal says, American Zionism is turning into a tea party. This is exactly like the screaming I noticed at our silent demo outside the Waldorf IDF fundraiser back in March. The fervent lobby has lost its solid rank and file. It is left with the fringe.

So it was a mainstream versus fringe confrontation. Simple enough.

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An interesting perspective. Do you think that mainstream jewish opinion in the US is moving from its reflexive support of Israel for something more nuanced and critical ?

After all, while I know J Street exists, I have no idea how influential it is in comparison with aipac

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 09:53:52 AM EST
NEW POLL: American Jews Continue to Support Obama Push for Two-State Solution, Back Strong U.S. Engagement

Amy Spitalnick | March 22nd, 2010

WASHINGTON -American Jews continue to support the Obama administration's push for Middle East peace and seek strong U.S. leadership to resolve the conflict, according to a new poll released today by a pro-Israel, pro-peace group.

http://www.jstreet.org/blog/?p=937

The poll is too long to report all findings, and does not specifically mention two states (other polls I believe mention that a majority are for two states), but it implies many things about Jewish opinion concerning the Palestinians, like a majority being against colonial activity in East Jerusalem.

by shergald on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 10:43:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
PS: The short answer is YES. The fringe is loud but small as implied by Sarasky's comments.

by shergald on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 10:45:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Watching these two groups, I wondered: what makes a Jewish person join one side as opposed to the other?

One possible indicator that comes to mind is Altemeyer's RWA scale. I'm prepared to bet you € to $ that the shouters were single-high Authoritarian Followers organised around a smaller group of double high Authoritarian Dominants.

So it was a mainstream versus fringe confrontation. Simple enough.

I hope you're right. One way to substantiate it is to look into the organisation of the protest and counter-protest. The shouters may well have been bussed in from fairly far afield. Creationists are known to bring friendly audiences in by the busload from the nearest fundagelical churches when they want to pull a propaganda stunt like this. I would strongly suspect that the pro-Israel pro-Apartheid lobby is equally familiar with that form of astroturfing. You, or someone at Muzzlewatch, might want to dig into that - if you can show that the bad guys had to bus people in all the way from - say - LA while the good guys could gather their crowd just from SF, it would be pretty damning evidence for your conclusion that this is a confrontation between a mainstream/popular/grassroot movement vs. a fringe/insiders/astroturf group.

(As an aside, you might want to make a notice that it's also available in green, so those ET'ers who aren't regulars over at Booman can drop over there and read the Boo'ers take on it. Hurria's comments over there are quite interesting.)

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 01:27:22 PM EST
Yes, Hurria is a well informed guy who often brings insights into the nature of political and cultural interactions between Arabs (not only Palestinians) and Jews.

I could email Cecile Sarasky and ask about the busing theory. Actually so could anyone. She is accessible.

An alternate depiction of the confrontation could easily have been left versus fringe, but I'm betting that after the Gaza Flotilla incident, it's becoming more mainstream.

by shergald on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 03:48:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]
PS: Google brought this up. The StandWithUs people were likely locals:

About SAN FRANCISCO chapter    

  StandWithUs/San Francisco Voice For Israel, the Bay Area chapter of SWU, is a grass roots community based organization that takes to the streets to respond to enemies of Israel in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Our mission is to stand up to anti-Israel speech wherever it may surface. Over the past two decades, those in the Bay Area who support Israel's struggle to survive in the face of unrelenting terrorism have been too quiet in confronting public attacks on Israel (and attacks on Jews masquerading as anti-Israel statements). The time has come to respond to these attacks by taking our message to the community in the time-honored tradition of peaceful protest, to counter the lies and to educate our neighbors. Israel's very existence is under attack, but Jews will no longer march quietly to their deaths.




by shergald on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 03:50:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
If you just spend 30 minutes scouting the web for video materials incriminating Muslims or Palestinians, you'll be able to find heaps of amateur film which portray these groups as primitive racists.

Now, if somebody posted that kind of material on this blog, I'm guessing that the group would react by denouncing the material (and the person who posted it) as promoting vile pro-Israeli propaganda.

But nobody on this blog (except perhaps me) is denouncing this video and thread as being vile pro Palestinian propaganda.

by Lynch on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 04:23:25 PM EST
Self-hating Jews are a problem, aren't they?
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 04:51:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Do you understand English?
by Lynch on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 04:58:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Do you understand humanity?
by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:09:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Let's pretend for a moment that I do.

Lynch:

spend 30 minutes scouting the web for video materials incriminating Muslims or Palestinians

In thirty minutes on Internet, you can probably find material purporting to incriminate just about any group of people. Which leaves you with the job of assessing that material and deciding if it is useful information, manipulation, propaganda, or whatever else.

The video above shows one set of American Jews disagreeing with another about Israel. You haven't even attempted to demonstrate why you claim it is "vile Palestinian propaganda". All you have done is emit empty noise -- mostly designed to position yourself as a courageous loner up against "the group" on "this blog".

But tell us why there are Jews who criticise Israel.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:26:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
afew: In thirty minutes on Internet, you can probably find material purporting to incriminate just about any group of people. Which leaves you with the job of assessing that material and deciding if it is useful information, manipulation, propaganda, or whatever else.

That's precisely my point.

The video above portrays Jews draped in Israeli flags behaving in a grotesque manner towards another group of (what would appear to be) peaceful demonstrators (who may or may not be Jews).

The language (which is reproduced in type underneath the video) coming from those draped in Israeli flags is vile and repugnant. It cleary degrades Israelis.

From a rhetoric point of view (in my opinion) this video contributes very little substance to the larger debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

by Lynch on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:39:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
If that was precisely your point, you forgot to put it. Your point seemed to be that you were denouncing the video as "vile Palestinian propaganda".

Lynch:

this video contributes very little substance to the larger debate

I'm not going to argue with that.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:46:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It gives publicity to the Jewish led peace movement in the US, which others might be inspired to join, and that might include some of the visitors here at ET, at least the American ones. Then again, there are Jewish peace activist groups similar to Woman in Black and JVP in European countries, certainly Britain and Ireland. Well, why not expand that to all peace groups.

by shergald on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 08:16:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]
AFAICT, the video and corresponding material quite clearly states the affiliation of the hecklers. And unless I'm mistaken, StandWithUs is an American organisation, whose membership is drawn from American residents.

So I don't really see how that is in any way disparaging of Israelis, except perhaps in the sense of illustrating that they keep some rather unsavoury political bedfellows. Given that the non-heckling protesters are clearly identified as Jews, I also fail to see how it disparages Jews. The choice of draping themselves in Israeli flags was presumably made by StandWithUs, so I fail to see how any sober person could view that as an indictment of anything other than extremely poor taste on part of the organisers.

this video contributes very little substance to the larger debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

That's certainly true. It also doesn't contribute anything meaningful to the larger debate on Sino-American relations. But that's rather beside the point, because it does contribute to our understanding of the American internal debate on the Palestinian issue. Which is actually quite interesting (certainly a lot more interesting than hearing yet another report on the ongoing IDF vs. Hamas tit-for-tat, which, while important to document, is rather predictable and has already been analysed in painstaking detail on ET).

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:51:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
If you just spend 30 minutes scouting the web for video materials incriminating Muslims or Palestinians, you'll be able to find heaps of amateur film which portray these groups as primitive racists.

It is probably worthwhile to point out that this video does not portray Jews, or even Israelis (which are not, Israeli agit-prop to the contrary notwithstanding, quite the same thing), as primitive racists. It portrays the particular group of pro-Apartheid bigots called StandWithUs as primitive racists. That is not an entirely trivial distinction.

Now, if somebody posted that kind of material on this blog, I'm guessing that the group would react by denouncing the material (and the person who posted it) as promoting vile pro-Israeli pro-Apartheid (FIFY) propaganda.

Feel free to put that theory to an empirical test.

That aside, having watched the first half of the video, I don't actually see or hear anybody (other than the obviously mentally disturbed gentleman with the funny moustache and the camera) acting outside the bounds of acceptable counter-demonstration conduct. Their views may be nauseating, but their conduct fails to piss me off.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:08:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuXFVec-Qc4&feature=player_embedded">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuXFVec-Qc4&feature=player_embedded</a>
by Lynch on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:18:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm not quite sure how that video is relevant to the present thread, or to the hypothesis you put forth in the original top-level comment.

As an aside, you might want to familiarise yourself with our YouTube embedding macro.

Fixed it for you.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:25:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Thanks for the embedding tip!
by Lynch on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:27:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Read the New User Guide. It's in English.
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:32:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi-c6lbFGC4&feature=fvst">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi-c6lbFGC4&feature=fvst</a>
by Lynch on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:22:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Try posting the embed code or at least the URL.

by shergald on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:28:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]

FIFY.

I'm not quite sure what makes you think that ET would find pointing out that video objectionable. I would expect it to be quite well known among those ET regulars who follow news from the Near East. And I would not particularly expect those ET'ers of being fond of Hamas.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:29:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i08L09V0_sg">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i08L09V0_sg</a>
by Lynch on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:25:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

FIFY.

This video is actually sort of objectionable, because the introduction repeats a couple of lies-by-omission. Specifically, the reason Hamas terminated the truce was that Israel kept extrajudicially executing Palestinians within Palestinian jurisdiction. Having another country extrajudicially execute your citizens on your territory is normally considered a valid casus belli. It certainly would be if Hamas did it to the Likud leadership.

And the fact that Hamas is listed as a terrorist organisation by the US State Department means only that the US State Department doesn't like them, since that list is not subject to any sort of meaningful review for factual accuracy. On that note, I have to wonder why the viewers aren't told that the fascist paramilitaries operating in Colombia aren't on that list, while ANC used to be on it - at least until they started winning...

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 05:38:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]
ML Rosenberg in the article I deleted two days ago covered some of the reality pertaining to Hamas. As Jimmy Carter reported from Syria a few years ago, Hamas sued for ceasefires with Israel on numerous occasions and twice instituted a voluntary ceasefire lasting a month, to no avail. Israel persisted in attacking Gaza, often killing civilians, even children. Hamas retaliated with rockets. When Israel was cajoled into the Egypt negotiated ceasefire, it lasted only 4 months during which time both sides ceased activity. A few rogue group shot a few mortars, but that was it, until the fourth month when Israel killed six Hamas militants inside of Gaza. The ceasefire was broken and Hamas rockets resumed.

How timely. It was just two months before the Israeli election. Netanyahu, the Likud candidate, had been claiming that Kadima (Olmert, Livni the candidate) was "soft" on Palestinians (whatever that could possibly mean).

The attack on Gaza which began in December 2008 and killed 1,400 mostly civilian Palestinians, including over 300 children was Kadima's answer.

IMO, Hamas is just another Israeli red herring intended to keep Israel on a militaristic footing and to distract from its ongoing colonization of the Palestinian territories.

by shergald on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 08:37:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
A little off the subject Jake, but since it was mentioned.

I won't argue the merits of the State Dept. terrorist organization list designation process, which may or may not be influenced by a number of factors as I suspect most such "lists" are. However, as far as I can tell the AUC (United Self Defense Forces of Colombia; right wing paramilitary org. if you like) is on the State Dept's terrorist list for 2010 and has been for some time, along with the FARC and ELN.


I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears

by Gringo (stargazing camel at aoldotcom) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 11:45:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Then I stand corrected on that point. Thanks for the clarification.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Jun 10th, 2010 at 09:31:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Ordinarily I wouldn't have given it a second thought. However, I was involved with Colombia terrorist issues for a while and pretty sure the AUC was still on the list.

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears
by Gringo (stargazing camel at aoldotcom) on Thu Jun 10th, 2010 at 05:32:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]
A shergald diary with more than 2 comments.  Maybe the recent uproar was worth it.  Yaaaaa us!!

I love the smell of roast chicken in the morning!
by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 08:00:57 PM EST


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