Ha Navi Goldstein, David is currently working with Sawnat to write her autobiography.
David Goldstein, a friend and fellow Jew, has castigated me for criticizing Kshama Sawant’s support for the Boycott Israel “Peace” Movement.
(नेता* is leader in Hindi)
He challenged me to react to the motion she unsuccessfully tried to get the Seattle City Council to pass condemning Israel for the war in Gaza.
David was kind enough to forward her resolution. So, here it is with my comments and an offer to Sawant. If she really wants peace, then she should donate $18 (a number that means life in Hebrew) to the major peace movement. Peace Now. I will double that with my own contribution.
By Kshama Sawant
On Monday August 4th at Full Council, I shared a draft letter with Councilmembers calling on Obama
Dear Councilwoman
I am a semite, a brother of the Jews and the Arabs. Would you join me in demanding that Hamas recognize Israel’s right to exist and stop fiiring rockets? Or is your only stand that the Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel need to just accept that they are going to get hit?
and members of both houses of Congress to condemn the continuation of violence in Gaza. Elected officials in the U.S. have failed to step up and speak to the conflict. It is the duty of all people, irrespective of their position or status, to speak out against humanitarian crises. In the past, the City of Seattle has passed resolutions opposing Apartheid in South Africa, the War in Iraq and even the Federal Government’s approval of genetically modified salmon. I have encouraged all of my fellow Councilmembers to provide input and to sign on to a statement that will help us move this discussion forward, nationally. Peace in Israel and Palestine is essential to peace within the region. In order to assure that peace, Israel’s violence in Palestine must immediately cease and the targeting of civilians must end on both sides.
Dear President Obama, Members of the House of Representatives, and Members of the Senate,
As the most recent wave of *Israeli bombardment of Gaza enters its 28th day, many of us globally watch in horror as the death toll soars. News reports indicate that more than 1,888 Palestinians have been killed, while more than 9,400 have been injured. Hundreds of Palestinian children and civilians are counted among the dead in this humanitarian catastrophe. Sixty-three Israeli soldiers have also died, along with two Israeli civilians and a Thai worker.
I must admit to find your motion a bit strange. You make it sound as if Israel’s action was one sided. I assume you know that Hamas governs Gaza and that their bombardment continued for months before Israel’s bombardment beaction? Do also know that Hamas insists that its only goal is the destruction and of Israel and its replacement with a state under Islamic law?
Yesterday, Israel attacked a United Nations school* sheltering some 3,000 displaced people in Rafah, in Southern Gaza, killing 10 people and prompting United Nations Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon to declare the attack “a moral outrage and a criminal act.” The U.S. State Department also issued a denunciation saying, “The United States is appalled by today’s disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school.”
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is reaching a critical breaking point. The 139 square mile territory contains 1.8 million people who literally have nowhere to go** and no place to hide from Israeli attacks. The UN reports that medical facilities are “on the verge of collapse.” An attack on Gaza power plant has left more than half the population without electricity, and more than 270,000 people are reportedly crammed into 90 UN shelters. Without an immediate end to all hostilities, the Palestinian death toll will continue to rise rapidly.
We also condemn the indiscriminate rocket attacks by Hamas against the civilian population living in Israel. We stand in solidarity with the ordinary people of Israel*** and their desire for security, and in particular with the Israeli anti-war movement.
Security and peace will never be achieved on the basis of the current occupation and blockades. The path to protecting the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people as well as the ordinary people of Israel lies first and foremost in ending the illegal building of settlements in the Palestinian territories and an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
We call on President Obama, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate to issue a formal statement denouncing Israel’s siege and blockade of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank. We also call for an immediate end to all U.S. government military aid for Israel.
All through your opus, I was struck that you show no compassion for my cousins .. the Arab people living
“I’ve been in this game for most of my adult life. In the end, the security forces have to do the hard work, sometimes also the dirty and unpleasant work. But the job of the security forces is to create the conditions so that the political echelon can do something with it, and the quiet that was achieved in recent years was an opportunity that the political echelon should not have missed. So you can call Abu Mazen a peace rejectionist. I say that he is not a peace rejectionist. He is not an easy partner for peace, but let’s admit the truth–are we easy partners?” –Yuval Diskin, former head of the Shin Bet, in a 2013 interview in Yediot Ahronot by Dror Moreh, director of the documentary film “The Gatekeepers.” Yuval Diskin is one of the six living heads of the Shin Bet, Israel’s security force, who were interviewed in the 2013 Israeli film the Gatekeepers. All six have come to state the obvious: Israel will be secure only when there is peace with the Palestinians.
under Hamas. Do you care for them? Do you castigate their government for refusing to stop bombing Israel?? Do you ever look at how much harm that Hamas has done to those of us Semites who are united behind the need for two states?
What about the not so “ordinary people of Israel.” Do you stand in “solidarity” with Yuval Diskin (left) as well? My guess is that you have no interest in Jews like Mr. Diskin or myself, people who value Israel’s survival and are working for peace.
In case I am misjudging you as just another demagogue, here is an offer … go to this website and join Peace Now. I will even do this .. if you donate $18 (a number that means life in Hebrew) I will double that with my own contribution.