Rebecca Spence at the Forward wrote about the blog. She also cites our friend and dauntless researcher Richard Silverstein at Tikun Olam, who published our story about Adam Horowitz getting an “anonymous” harassing email at home from a high level American Jewish Congress staffer. As Richard pointed out, why was she monitoring Adam’s private emails in the first place? (Richard has done more original reporting on the story.)
I should point out, however, that our biggest beef isn’t the many hate mails we get. Really, who can count them? The biggest beef is getting disinvited to speaking engagements, seeing media stories get killed (yes, it happens), getting barred from major Jewish institutions, pulling down art shows, seeing supposedly reputable Jewish organizations pressure third parties not to speak to groups like JVP or Tikkun. The list goes on and on. Not to mention the general practice of tarring and feathering of non-Jews who dare begin to speak the truth we all know about our miserable foreign policy and Israel’s shameful history of violating the human rights of Palestinians.
In fact, this whole issue became such a problem for us at JVP, getting in the way of our ability to do our actual work, which is about ending the conflict, that last year our board approved a proposal to launch a campaign to help publicize and put an end to these kinds of attacks.
But I should emphasize that this is happening because these folks are afraid. They are afraid of the growing number of Jews, all over the world, including many of the sacred symbols of the Jewish community like rabbis, Holocaust survivors or IDF soldiers, all willing to speak the truth in public settings. The 40th anniversary of Israel’s occupation is coming up. The last 6 or 7 years has been a remarkable period of devastation for both Palestinians and Israelis. On these issues, our so-called leaders have let us all down.
Left-wing Critics of Israel Launch Blog To Combat Alleged Intimidation
Rebecca Spence | Fri. Feb 09, 2007
In the wake of an increasing flurry of attacks leveled against left-wing Jewish groups by their right-wing counterparts, one dovish group is fighting back.
Jewish Voice for Peace, a San Francisco-based organization, recently launched a blog to track what it describes as a growing epidemic of intimidation and harassment from fellow Jews seeking to stifle open debate over America’s policy on Israel. The inception of the daily blog, MuzzleWatch.com, comes as one influential centrist organization, the American Jewish Committee, is facing fierce criticism for publishing an essay charging that Jews on the left, with their vocal criticisms of Israel, are helping to breed a virulent new form of antisemitism.
“As we’ve become more effective and more visible, there’s definitely been an increase in the backlash,” said Cecilie Surasky, communications director of Jewish Voice for Peace, which in the last year has grown from a local Bay Area group into a national organization with five chapters in major cities, including Boston and Washington. “Groups aren’t fighting fair,” she said.
While internecine squabbles within the Jewish community are nothing new, the tenor of hostilities between groups on opposite ends of the political spectrum seem to be reaching a fever pitch not felt in years. As left-wing activists contend that they face increasingly hostile attacks from hawkish groups, right-wing critics charge that their Jewish foes present a growing danger to Israel, already under siege from the international community and facing the prospect of a nuclear threat from Iran. Even a branch of the Israeli government has weighed in, with the consul general of Los Angeles, Ehud Danoch, asserting in a report he issued to the Israeli Foreign Ministry that Jewish groups, presumably left wing, are harming Israel’s image by sponsoring tours of ex-Israeli soldiers who speak out against alleged Israeli human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories.
(more…)
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