UNMIA

On Tuesday, November 20, three UNMIA people went to the Peace and Justice Center to join Justice First’s discussion of Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace or Apartheid”. The crowd was small because of the Thanksgiving holiday, and there were four members of Justice First and an anti-Israel Jewish student from Arizona. Still, it was a hot discussion, as you might well imagine, and probably hotter because it was a small group. Justice First made an audio recording of the discussion, and you can probably contact them for a copy, if you are interested.

The Justice First co-leaders, Vicki Johnson and Mike, opened with a video presentation that Vicki had made for the discussion, and a handout featuring the main points and maps of Carter’s book, and a listing of the major factual errors in his book.

Rather than going into the debate and arguments of the evening, which were the sort that you would expect, this discussion brought up other issues that might be worth mentioning here…

The obvious question is, why go debate these things? Why go to discussions where the only attendees are devotees on one side or the other, and neither will change the other’s mind?

We constantly present factual …

By Lynn Provencio (UNMIA and Israel Coalition): Tuesday evening, a small group from the Israel Coalition (a local community based Israel Advocacy group) went to the “Israel Lobby” discussion held at the Peace and Justice Center by Justice First, a local Palestinian Advocacy group. The discussion went very well, and it appeared that everyone was both pleased and a little surprised at what a good discussion it turned out to be.

The Zionists were nervous at first, not having walked into the heart of local anti-Zionist action before. Some had been to an event or two before, and had a better idea of what to expect, but none were quite prepared for the open discussion and friendliness that they found. Likely some of the Justice First attendees were equally surprised to find that Zionists were in their midst and were normal people.

The opening film, which discussed the controversy surrounding Mearsheimer and Waltz’ book “The Israel Lobby”, was made in the Netherlands and was in Dutch, with English subtitles. However, the film’s producers conducted interviews in English with the books’ authors (with no Dutch subtitles), with a Jewish anti-Zionist, a Jewish neo-Zionist, an anti-war military analyst who felt Israel was a strategic …

On Tuesday, October 16 at 7:00pm, the local “Justice First” group, which is dedicated to helping implement the Arab solution to the Jewish problem, will be holding a discussion at the “Peace and Justice” center at 202 Harvard, SE.

From the calendar listing on the “Peace and Justice” website, the event will be a “Discussion of the pro-Israel lobby and how it affects US foreign policy in the middle east, sponsored by Justice First!. Two new books by ADL director Foxman and political scientists Mearsheimer & Walt have just been published - what are their arguments? Info: JusticeFirst.info”

While UNMIA won’t be attending this event in any official capacity, local supporters of Israel and the “Israel Lobby” might be interested in attending and rounding out a discussion that promises to be very lopsided, otherwise.

To join the discussion in a constructive way, it’s naturally necessary to know at least a little about the views of the two sides. Both books are available for sale, of course, and there is quite a bit about both books and the authors on various websites and magazines. As a starting point, we are including the authors’ statements about their own work.

Abe Foxman writes …