In this blog issue:
- Kristina Harrigan’s New Mexican My View about the Lannan Foundation’s speakers.
- New Mexican prints Iris Keltz’s inaccuracies about Israel’s Nation-State Basic law
- Announcements
- TBS’ Israel at 70 Speaker, Nirit Bernstein
- Santa Fe Jewish Film Festival presents Ronen Bergman
- Coming in January: SFMEW presents Asaf Romirowsky, MIddle East historian and Executive Director, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
Kristina Harrigan wrote a brilliant op-ed “Opening up the Lannan Foundation” in the New Mexican (Sept. 22) exposing the anti-Israel propagandists that the Lannan Foundation has lined up to speak over the next year (2018-2019). Our favorite quote from her article:
[Ilan] Pappé [speaking on January 23] is a notorious poster boy for opinion presented as history. By his own confession, his “history” is his own “narration” of “facts” as he sees them. If Lannan is absolutely determined to give him a podium, he should be classified with the novelists, not the historians.
Her full editorial can be found below. Yasher koach to Kristina! Write to the New Mexican to applaud her op-ed and reinforce one or more of her points.
2. Respond to the Letter of Iris Keltz
On September 24, 2018 the New Mexican printed an op-ed by Iris Keltz decrying Israel’s recently passed (July, 2018) nation-state basic law. Keltz’s My View is printed in its entirety below. The “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People,” originally introduced for consideration by the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) in 2011, passed after 7 years of debate and amendments. Many have misinterpreted its clauses and purpose to fit their biased views of Israel.
Background
Like many other countries (e.g. the UK) Israel does not have a constitution and instead relies on a series of “basic laws” that enshrine many of the same rights as the US Constitution. [Examples: 2 laws passed 20+ years ago that establish the core of human rights: Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty (1992), and Basic Law: Freedom of Employment (1994).] Basic laws must be passed and/or amended only with a supermajority vote in the Knesset; the amount of supermajority vote varies among the basic laws.
As with the US Constitution, wherein every clause or amendment does not necessarily directly refer to prior clauses or amendments, the basic laws stand on their own and relate to each other implicitly. Many negative commentators about Israel’s Nation-State Basic Law fail to acknowledge this and then draw incorrect conclusions about the Nation-State law. Keltz does the same.
There have been excellent critiques of the criticisms of the Nation-State Law. For example, by David Hazony (“Everything You’ve Heard about Israel’s Nation State Bill is Wrong“), who immediately identifies why many of the criticisms are wrong:
[…] a closer look at the criticism the bill has engendered will reveal it to be nothing more than prefabricated outrage from Israeli opposition parties, American Jewish liberals, and the usual chorus of anti-Zionists and anti-Semites.
To be sure, each of these groups have different core interests and each believes different things. But all have become totally reflexive in their rejection of anything coming out of the current government. It is, in fact, hard to imagine that in the current political climate, there could have been any version of the Nation State bill coming from this government that would not have set off alarms.[…]
But if youʼre a fair-minded person whoʼs troubled by the noise surrounding the law, or if youʼve read it but donʼt understand why it needed to be passed, I have a lot to tell you.
And by Bret Stephens of the NY Times, who states in his article, “The Jewish State’s Nation-State Bill Non-Scandal”
What the bill is not is the death of Israelʼs democracy — it was enacted democratically and can be overturned the same way. It is not the death of Israeli civil liberties — still guaranteed under the 1992 Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty and visibly reaffirmed by the large public protests following the billʼs enactment. And it is not apartheid — a cheap slur from people whose grasp of the sinister mechanics of apartheid is as thin as their understanding of the complexities of Israeli politics.
Keltz is clearly using “cheap slur[s]” and hyperbole. She seems to want Israel to be the US, though our histories, founding principles and purposes, and other cultural developments differ substantially. (This is not uncommon among Americans – who often when they see how other countries are structured immediately criticize anything we deem holy – separation of religion and state, direct representation, etc. See our previous discussion on this narrow-sighted understanding of the world here.)
Nevet Basker tells us what a nation-state is in her insightful article, “The Nation-State of the Jewish People“:
In a nation-state, the national symbols (such as the flag, emblem, and anthem) and culture (language, holidays) derive from the majority group’s national identity.
That last point emphasizes the Jewish national collective identity, beyond the religious one. Religions are characterized by theologies, moral codes, rites and practices, holy texts and liturgies, hallowed sites and clergy—and Judaism indeed has all of these. But the Jewish people also share a language, a culture, heritage and common history, and ties to a specific land, characteristics of ethnic groups or national communities. Israel is not a Jewish state in the same way that Greece is a Christian state—though [Greece] is – but rather in the way that Greece is a Greek state, the nation-state of the Greek people.
What’s wrong with Keltz’s article?
Many things – indeed so many that it would take a long essay to point them all out. We’ll spare you – instead we suggest you read the op-ed in full, find an error that speaks to you, and write a letter to the editor of the New Mexican refuting Keltz’s poor reasoning, errors, and purposeful misinterpretations. Here are just a few examples of errors and poor reasoning. The underlined portions at the beginning of each bullet point are quotes from Keltz’s article.
- This law implies that the concept of Jewish is definable…Who dares to tell me that my granddaughters, birthed by a non-Jewish mother, are not Jewish. Israel doesn’t. if a grandparent was Jewish, or you are married to a Jew, you can make aliyah (become an immigrant) to Israel and choose to become an Israeli citizen. For religious reasons Keltz would have a beef with orthodoxy everywhere. But for democracy reasons in Israel she shouldn’t have a problem with this.
- But the new law never mentions Palestinians — or other minorities.The state is only “interested in developing Jewish settlement as a national interest.” These two statements are delivered out of context as a non-sequitur after Keltz quotes David Ben-Gurion (from when he was 21 in 1918). Arab Palestinians are not specifically mentioned in the Nation-State law, but they are included in the Israel Declaration of Independence and other Basic Laws. The Declaration of Independence proclaims, and the Israeli Supreme Court has upheld this as critical for the interpretation of all Israel’s laws (italics added):
The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
Mentioning “Palestinians” wasn’t the purpose of the Nation-State Law, it was, again to quote Bret Stephens, “to codify into Israel’s Basic Laws — akin to a constitution — aspects of Israeli identity long taken for granted by Israelis and outsiders alike.” Indeed this is fully in accordance with the 1947 UN resolution 181 establishing “Independent Arab and Jewish States.”
Non-Jewish Israelis (is this what Keltz means by “Palestinians” or does she have something else in mind?) are protected under other basic laws: Human Dignity and Liberty, and Freedom of Occupation. Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza (is this what Keltz means by “Palestinians”?) could have their own state and basic laws if they’d come to the negotiating table in a sincere way. But as of right now they’ve refused to do so, and are therefore ruled under the Fourth Geneva convention (more on this below).
As David Hazony so clearly states, referring to Arab Israelis (20% of Israel’s population):
More to the point, what democratic country on earth offers national self-determination to twenty percent of its citizens? With few and minor exceptions, the U.S. gives no minorities any such right. In Israel, such a right is something the Jewish majority has never granted and never promised, and never could have or should have, since day one.
[Keltz’s quote on “Jewish settlement” is incorrect and misleading – something the New Mexican’s editors could have determined through fact checking. A proper translation is the following: “The State views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value, and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and strengthening.” This clearly is intended for the final State of Israel borders – whatever the territory ends up after a peace settlement with the Palestinians. It does not mean settlement in the West Bank as Israel detractors like Keltz insinuate – smaller towns in Israel are also called settlements.]
- With the passage of this law Israel has chosen apartheid over democracy. This “apartheid vs. democracy” false choice propaganda has been perpetuated by members of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. A better analysis of this is from former South African journalist Benjamin Pogrund in his March 31, 2017 “Why Israel Is Nothing Like Apartheid South Africa” in the NY Times. Pogrund concludes as follows:
South African apartheid rigidly enforced racial laws. Israel is not remotely comparable. Yet the members of the B.D.S. movement are not stupid. For them to propagate this analogy in the name of human rights is cynical and manipulative. It reveals their true attitude toward Jews and the Jewish state. Their aims would eliminate Israel. That is what’s at stake when we allow the apartheid comparison.
Since Keltz doesn’t tell us her definition of apartheid (it could mean anything she wants it to mean) let’s use the South African definition: “a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race.” What is the “race” here? Jew? But Keltz has already told us she doesn’t know how to define it. Palestinian? Would that include Arabs and Jews? Lighter skinned or darker skinned? Arabs from North Africa, Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudis? Most “Palestinians” who are current “refugees” and even Arab Israelis were immigrants or descendants of immigrants who flooded the former “Palestine” when the Jews started to develop the land in the early 1900s. Clearly Keltz is just flinging this term rather than thinking it through with any rational argument.
- Share the land — yes! Take over the land and create a nation-state for one religion — no! If her assertion were true – that the Nation-State law creates a one-religion nation, then maybe there would be a kernel of objection here. But it doesn’t (see above). It is Palestinians who insist that all Jews leave the West Bank, and have created difficult conditions for Christian Arabs, many of whom have left Palestinian-controlled areas because of these conditions.
- Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, as well as those living in Israel proper [must] have the right to citizenship and to equality before the law. Actually, this is only true to those who live in Israel proper as citizens, who Israel calls Arab-Israelis. As we’ve shown above, this already exists. Those living in the West Bank are (as Keltz undoubtedly would agree) “occupied,” and exist under a different set of international laws than Israel’s citizens. (See Pogrand’s article cited above.) The Fourth Geneva Convention states, “The occupying power must respect the laws in force in the occupied territory,
unless they constitute a threat to its security or an obstacle to the application of the international law of occupation.” The problem here is that there was no state of Palestine – ever – in the past. So, technically, the Palestinian territories should be ruled under Ottoman and/or British law. Is that what Keltz wants? Further, most Palestinians (2.8 million) live in areas “A” and “B” as defined under the Oslo Accords, and are ruled by the Palestinian National Authority already. Only about 150,000 live in area C, fully under Israeli control.
What you can do
Take one of these points, or another you find yourself in the Keltz My View, and send a letter to the editor of the New Mexican educating its readership (and editors, who could have done a better job fact-checking the assertions Keltz made).
You can write a letter once a month and one My View every three months. We require the letter writer’s name, address and phone number to be considered for publication. We also encourage writers to include a photo of themselves.
Send letters and op-eds to: letters@sfnewmexican.com. Any questions? Call 986-3063.
Note that these are criteria you should keep in mind when writing to the New Mexican for publication:
- The content should not be libelous, or advocate harm or hate of any individual group.
- Any facts cited should be accurate. Include the source of the facts (if not for publication) after the letter or op-ed or in your cover email/letter.
- Strictly stick to the word limits: 150 words for a letter to the editor and 600 words for an op-ed (“My View”). The shorter the letter or op-ed the more likely it will be published quickly.
More information on how to write an effective letter to the editor can be found on our website here.
3. Announcements
A. TBS upcoming lecture on Cannabis – Nirit Bernstein
Saturday, October 13th at 7:30 pm, Temple Beth Shalom, 205 Barcelona Rd. Dr. Bernstein is a Hebrew University cannabis medical researcher. She will speak on 50 SHADES OF GREEN: Cannabis from Innovative Regulations to Breakthrough Uses. This is part of the TBS Israel at 70 series. Free and open to the public.
B. Jewish Film Festival presents Rise and Kill First author Ronen Bergman In conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Manak
Tuesday, Oct 16, 7:30 PM, The Screen,1600 St Michaels Dr, Santa Fe, NM 87505. The first 
definitive history of the Mossad, Shin Bet, and the IDF’s targeted killing programs, hailed by The New York Times as “an exceptional work, a humane book about an incendiary subject.”
C. SFMEW presents Asaf Romirowsky on why the BDS Movement harms Palestinians (and could harm New Mexico)
Coming the first week in January (date/location details are being finalized), Asaf Romirowsky is an historian of the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for
Peace in the Middle East. He is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and a Professor [Affiliate] at the University of Haifa.
Romirowsky is co-author of Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief and a contributor to the The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel. Romirowsky’s publicly-engaged scholarship has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The National Interest, The American Interest , The New Republic, The Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, Ynet and Tablet among other online and print media outlets.
Asaf holds a PhD in Middle East and Mediterranean Studies from King’s College London, UK.
Watch for the exact date/time/venue in forthcoming SFMEW emails/postings.
Full Text of Kristina Harrigan’s My View in the New Mexican, September 22, 2018:
“Opening up the Lannan Foundation series”
.
The Lannan Foundation will offer 12 programs in its 2018-19 season. Seven will feature novelists or poets, one author focusing on prisons, one focusing on climate and four programs apparently involving politics overseas. Of these four, three will feature speakers with rabid anti-Israel views and a history of fake factual representations.
First off was the now-postponed presentation from Khury Petersen-Smith and the Rev. William Barber II, which had been set for Sept. 12. Petersen-Smith is a vocal opponent of Israel. He was the co-author of a piece printed in Ebony magazine on Aug. 18, 2015, which I believe is loaded with fake “facts.”
One outrageous example is the assertion that Israel is “sterilizing Ethiopian Israelis without their knowledge or consent.” This is false and any Google search would have shown it to be so. While Ethiopian women immigrants to Israel received an injectable form of birth control that lasts for three months, it was not forced on them nor was it administered without their consent or knowledge.
Equally false is the old canard that Israel engages in “ethnic cleansing.” The increase in the Arab population of both Israel and the West Bank is almost twice as high as the increase in Egypt and equals that in Saudi Arabia. Israel’s Arab population increased 15 percent in the seven years between 1997 and 2004. When a former Israeli foreign minister suggested moving the border between Israel and the Palestinian Authority so that an Arab village would shift from Israel to the Palestinian Authority, the villagers refused, citing better economic prospects, less corruption and greater political freedom in Israel.
Then, on Wednesday, Lannan will feature Nikhil Pal Singh. He has denied Jews’ historic ties to Israel and repeats the “ethnic cleansing” libel as well as the “apartheid” accusations of Petersen-Smith. Even ancient Roman triumphal arches testify to the Jews’ millennia-long roots in Israel — long before there were any Muslims anywhere in the world. The triumphal arch of Emperor Titus shows his soldiers carrying the menorah from the Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70, 501 years before the birth of Mohammed. While the Romans expelled Jews from Jerusalem in the next century, Jews returned to the land during the centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire and have lived there without interruption to the present.
On Jan. 23, 2019, the featured speaker will be Ilan Pappé, aided and abetted by Dima Khalidi. Pappé is a notorious poster boy for opinion presented as history. By his own confession, his “history” is his own “narration” of “facts” as he sees them. If Lannan is absolutely determined to give him a podium, he should be classified with the novelists, not the historians.
Pappé will be introduced by Dima Khalidi. She is a full-throated supporter of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement, and compares its activities to the anti-apartheid movement. No less an authority than Richard J. Goldstone, who was so instrumental in ending South African apartheid, rejects any such comparison.
In November 2015, The New Mexican printed a story in which Patrick Lannan (“Falk’s war: Lannan Foundation lecture,” Pasatiempo, Nov. 27, 2015) stated that the foundation chooses “to air perspectives that go underrepresented in the U.S. media climate.”
Would it be so difficult for Lannan to imitate Al Jazeera, no friend to Israel, which broadcast a discussion among two pro-Israel and two pro-Palestinian speakers in November 2017?
Full Text of Iris Keltz’s My View in the New Mexican, September 24, 2018:
“The choice has been made”
Why does a law passed across the world in the Israeli Knesset declaring Israel a state for “the Jewish people” feel like local news? This law implies that the concept of Jewish is definable. Who decides on the definition? The Nazis? Circumcision only applies to half the Jewish population. Is Judaism an ancient monotheistic religion, or are Jews people with distinct DNA? Who dares to tell me that my granddaughters, birthed by a non-Jewish mother, are not Jewish? Who decides if the rabbi who oversaw a Jewish conversion is kosher enough? Or if a rabbi had the right to perform a Jewish marriage ceremony?
In 1918, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, investigated the question of Jewish identity in a richly documented book, Eretz Israel Past and Present, published by Poale Zion Palestine Committee. He concluded that “the Arabs of Palestine are none but those ancient Jews who were forced to convert to the religion of Arab Bedouin, who had conquered the land in the seventh century. The Arabs of Palestine, were hidden converts in whose veins ran Jewish blood.”
But the new law never mentions Palestinians — or other minorities. The state is only “interested in developing Jewish settlement as a national interest. …” They hope worldwide Jewry will see Israel as a donations destination or plan B — if Jewish life ever fell apart in the U.S., we could buy real estate and move there.
With the passage of this law Israel has chosen apartheid over democracy. This is unacceptable to most American Jews who have thrived in a pluralistic democracy known as the United States. This xenophobic legislation undermines Israel’s Declaration of Independence (May 14, 1948). “The state will insure for the complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race, or sex. …” The non-Jewish population of Israel have been waiting 70 years for this reality.
Zionism emerged in Europe at the end of the 19th century as a response to pogroms and anti-Semitisim. I choose to believe that the early Zionists were concerned with seeking a safe haven for Jews and did not intend to create a genocide for another people. Because of a historic connection, Palestine became the chosen destination. However, there was a problem; Palestine was already inhabited. If European Jews had moved to Palestine with the thought of settling the land alongside the indigenous population, Palestine could have become a multiethnic, multicultural pluralistic democracy.
Share the land — yes!
Take over the land and create a nation-state for one religion — no!
A nation is an imaginary construct based on a collective identity. Israel’s multiethnic population could be its strength. Diversity within the Jewish community includes Europeans, Americans, Russians, Africans, Arabs and more. Similar diversity exists within the Muslim and Christian community. The leader of the Syriac Christian community in Jerusalem, a tailor by trade, claims they are the original Christians. They speak a language similar to the Jewish-Palestinian-Aramaic spoken by Jesus.
The meaning of nationalism, statehood, Zionism and Judaism can be debated in perpetuity, but the highest moral code informs us that justice must be the law of the land. Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, as well as those living in Israel proper have the right to citizenship and to equality before the law. Let’s hope Israel can still live up to the promise of being a light in the world.
Iris Keltz has lived in the Rio Grande Valley since the late 1960s. She is the author of the award-winning book, Unexpected Bride in the Promised Land: Journeys in Palestine and Israel.
SFMEW is a beneficiary organization of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico