UNMIA

During the long discussion about the outrageous “Three Jerusalem Women” presentation sponsored in part by MEPJA (Middle East Peace and Justice Alliance), and in part by the UNM Humanities department, we not only published the articles and video on the UNMIA website, but the UNM Daily Lobo printed comments about the event.

The first article it published was a protest by Dotan Kennedy, and Israeli student who was present at the event. Then the rabid anti-Israel Lobo regular, Brian Fejer posted his standard anti-Israel statement, something stupid about the “Zionist Regime”. Kennedy made a brief answer to that. In the meantime UNMIA members posted two publishable comments, neither of which was posted on the Daily Lobo. Next it published four glowing accounts of the events, mainly by MEPJA members, and rejected two more comments critical of the event.

The “independent” Daily Lobo’s effort was evidently to make the Israeli student look like a lone and unreasonable dissenter in a flood of loving and approving comments about the publicly sponsored anti-Israel propaganda. At least two other people wrote to voice their protest of this event, but their comments didn’t appear in the Lobo. All but perhaps one of the people who found …

When this article was published, this letter had not been published by the Lobo. However, it was included in the printed Lobo on Friday, November 16. We would like to think that our complaints had an effect and caused the Lobo to publish an opposing view at last, but maybe it was just a coincidence, and maybe the Lobo was going to publish it all along.

November 13, 2007

Editor,
You published two letters from the “Middle East Peace and Justice Alliance” in the Nov. 13 “Daily Lobo.” Lori Rudolph decries that the Palestinians are “overlooked … and falsely represented as terrorists by our media.” Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh provides the usual weary indictments of Israel including a new one: the inability of Christian Palestinians to access their holy places in Jerusalem.

Rudolph has it wrong. The Palestinians have been afforded an extremely favorable press. The BBC and CNN International, including Christiane Amanpour, slavishly detail alleged Israeli abuses while barely mentioning Palestinian irredentist hatred, anti-Jewish indoctrination of children, and homicide bombing of civilians. The “New York Times” routinely provides pro-Palestinian stories and photos.

Answering Hughes-Fraitekh I point out that the Palestinians and other Arabs have received cruel treatment not from Israel but from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, …

Lynn Provencio’s reply:

Interestingly, Ms. Gossage mainly takes issue with my characterization of the Arab speakers, that I criticized their comments and personal stories as being politically motivated rather than being stories of alternative peace efforts. She says I don’t show proper sympathy for their afflictions. This is especially true in the case of Ms. Wejdan. Ms. Gossage says I twisted facts to show them in a bad light. However, she didn’t say what facts were twisted or what was the correct interpretation, except in the case of Ms. Wejdan’s return trip to Gaza from the US.

As for the reasons behind Ms. Wejdan’s not being allowed back into Israel the first try, when she returned from the US, we are speculating where we have no facts. While I made the comment about associations rather off-handedly, it makes sense. Ms. Wejdan was a student sponsored by a prestigious American scholarship program, and her PA papers were good enough for her to go into Israel from Gaza and pass through customs at Ben Gurion and then Kennedy Airport on her way to the US. Her sponsors have extensive experience in bringing foreign students to the US to study, including Palestinians. Why did she …

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 …