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One Palestinian, one Jew, and two very different impressions of ‘Golda’
(JTA) — Like many other Diaspora Jews, I was curious to see the film “Golda,” which dramatizes Israel’s first female prime minister’s handling of what for Israel was the nearly disastrous Yom Kippur War of 1973. But I wanted to know what it would be like to see it with a Palestinian American.
So I called up my friend and colleague, Omar Dajani, professor of law at the University of the Pacific and a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team in peace talks with Israel from 1999-2003. We agreed to see the film the same night in our respective cities (he in San Francisco and me in Ottawa) and compare notes the next morning.
On the film’s artistic aspects — for instance, the excellent casting of Helen Mirren as Golda Meir and Liev Schreiber as U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; the less successful portrait of Moshe Dayan by Rami Heuberger, who missed the boat on the defense minister’s well-known charisma — our agreement was deep and broad. (And I succeeded in getting Omar on board with my favorite Israeli actor, Lior Ashkenazi, who plays David “Dado” Elazar, the IDF’s chief of staff.)
But finding common ground on the framing of the Yom Kippur War, the focus of the film’s narrative — proved much harder.
Most of the Israeli criticism of its country’s handling of events in October 1973 has focused on the Israeli intelligence failure in the lead-up to Egypt and Syria’s surprise attack. Israeli analysts refer to this blindspot as the “conceptzia.”
Talking to Omar, I soon realized that I, too, had been caught up in a conceptzia, albeit of a different sort.
I was only a baby when the Yom Kippur War broke out. But so much of my life was indirectly shaped by those three weeks in 1973. My first boyfriend had come to Winnipeg with his Israeli parents in part because of that war. Same with my seventh-grade crush, in Vancouver. Born two days apart, both were exactly a year old when the war changed things for so many Israelis. My husband had the reverse family story; he moved with his parents and sister to Israel a few months before the war broke out before they returned to Canada 18 months later. And my kibbutz “dad” (some youth movement-raised young adults, like I was, are gifted an “adoptive” family on kibbutz to connect with as they spend time in the country) served on the front lines in 1973. Just two months ago, we talked about his battle memories — still raw and unfiltered — until the wee hours of the night.
All these personal connections have meant that when I think about the Yom Kippur War, I feel instinctively protective. Protective of Israelis who were forced to endure the insult of being attacked on their holiest day of the year (for Jewish Israelis at least) — even if that holiness extends, for many, to simply bike riding on empty streets. Protective of the memory of the 11 boys who were killed on my aunt and uncle’s kibbutz — for whom a stunning tune to the Yom Kippur Prayer “Unetaneh Tokef” was written, and which I’ve led at my synagogue on High Holidays past.
Though I’m ashamed to admit it — given her comments denying the existence of the Palestinian people — I was also protective even of Golda’s legacy as a Jewish stateswoman.
But talking to Omar I was forced to consider another perspective. “As a film about the 1973 war,” Omar told me, “I found it infuriating. The film did almost nothing to set up the fact that the Egyptian offensive against Israel was taking place to a great extent on Egyptian territory.” Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was trying to get back the Sinai, after all.
Omar also stressed that Meir refused to entertain various opportunities for Israel-Egyptian peace in the years leading up to the war, a point made in a recent Jewish Telegraphic Agency article about the film. Sadat “was dying for a peace opening,” Omar said to me. “The film claims that Israeli-Egyptian peace in 1979 was a result of what Meir did, while I would argue that the peace agreement was in spite of what she did.”
I challenged Omar on the idea of the war being started on “Egyptian territory” given that the Sinai was (legally) occupied by Israel following the Six-Day War of 1967; he countered with a view of that war as having resulted from an offensive attack by Israel. I drew on the idea that Egypt’s closure of the Straits of Tiran and expulsion of United Nations peacekeepers may have justified Israel’s pre-emptive strike; he referenced Article 51 and Article 2 of the United Nations Charter regarding acceptable uses of force.
After 90 minutes of back-and-forth, I carefully strode across the proverbial debate stage and asked the question most often considered taboo in academic circles.
“Do you think,” I asked gingerly, “that our respective debating positions are a function of our ethnic allegiances?”
“Yes and no,” he offered. “On one hand, opposing Israel taking others’ land and holding it indefinitely whenever it feels it will serve its security purposes is not about being Palestinian; it is about believing in the international rule of law, and I’m an international law scholar.
“On the other hand,” he continued, “I’ve lived in Egypt and so I certainly recognize that my sympathies affect my tendency to see some acts that are unlawful as being justified. And so while I see how some people defend Israeli acts as justified even if they are unlawful, the same goes for me and Egypt. For instance, Sadat violated the ceasefire in the first place.”
Where does all this leave me? I suppose it served as a healthy reminder that we — analysts, scholars, writers, and human beings — have a set of complex commitments that stem from our understanding of how things are and how they ought to be. While we hope that those commitments are free of tribal ties, sometimes that’s just not possible.
At least Omar and I both agree that the most pressing contemporary humanitarian issue in Israel-Palestine is that of the grinding occupation and the human rights abuses that flow from it. We also both see Israel’s current judicial crisis as in part a reflection of those circumstances. And ultimately we agree that to be human is to care deeply about both one’s own and about the other, whoever they are. I suppose that’s a start.
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The post One Palestinian, one Jew, and two very different impressions of ‘Golda’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Democrats Demand Release of Pro-Hamas Columbia University Activist Mahmoud Khalil From ICE Detention
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
Democrats in the US Congress are largely defending a leading anti-Israel agitator at Columbia University in New York following news of his arrest and detainment by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian from Syria who completed post-graduate studies at Columbia in December, was apprehended by federal authorities on Saturday night and transported to an immigration jail in Louisiana. The pro-Hamas activist was informed that his green card had been revoked and that he would be deported from the United States.
In a statement, the US Department of Homeland Security said ICE agents arrested Khalil “in support of” an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump aimed at combating antisemitism on university campuses.
“Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting US national security,” the department said.
US President Donald Trump defended Khalil’s arrest and said it will be the first of many.
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitism, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Many are not students; they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
However, a federal judge in New York City on Monday ordered that Khalil not be deported by the Trump administration until the court ruled on a lawsuit presented by his lawyers. According to ICE, the activist is currently being held at the Lasalle Detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil’s case is set to be heard on Wednesday.
Many observers criticized Khalil’s arrest and detainment, arguing that the Trump administration both violated his right to due process and undermined free speech. Critics also argued that the Trump administration does not possess the right to unilaterally revoke green cards from legal residents.
Congressional Democrats largely condemned the ICE arrest of Khalil, arguing that the Trump administration should release the pro-Hamas activist immediately.
“The warrantless arrest of any legal permanent resident seemingly solely over their speech is a chilling, McCarthyesque action in response to the exercise of first amendment rights to free speech,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY).
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, lambasted the arrest, posted on social media that detaining a legal resident “for exercising his right to free speech is something we’d expect from Russia — NOT AMERICA [sic].”
The official BlueSky account of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee accused the Trump administration of seeking retribution against Khalil for expressing “his First Amendment rights in a way Donald Trump didn’t like” and condemned the White House for practicing “straight up authoritarianism.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), one of the most outspoken critics against Israel in Congress, said that Khalil’s arrest is part of a broader effort “to shred our constitutional rights to free speech and due process.” In addition, Tlaib spearheaded a letter to US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, demanding that Khalil be “freed from DHS custody immediately.” Thirteen other Democrats signed the letter.
The letter argued that Khalil has “not been charged or convicted of any crime” and that the Trump administration targeted him “solely for his activism and organizing as a student leader,” as well as his efforts in opposing Israel’s “brutal assault of the Palestinian people in Gaza.” The missive also claimed that the arrest of Khalil represents another example of the Trump administration’s purported “anti-Palestinian racism” and accused the White House of trying to dismantle the “Palestine solidarity movement in this country.” The lawmakers warned that the Trump administration’s tactics against Khalil “will be applied to any and all opposition to his undemocratic agenda.”
Some observers noted out that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one of the most vocal opponents of the Jewish state in the US Congress, did not sign onto the letter calling for Khalil’s release. Though Ocasio-Cortez has spoken out in defense of Khalil, some on the political left have repudiated her for not taking more strident anti-Israel stances in the 16 months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel. The lawmaker came under fire by some of the political left last summer for calling for the release of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza.
Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) also repudiated the arrest, writing that Khalil is “entitled to First Amendment protections like everyone in this country.”
Despite the widespread backlash over Khalil’s arrest, many congressional Republicans praised the announcement, arguing that the Trump administration has taken aggressive action to protect Jewish Americans and clamp down on antisemitism.
While at Columbia, Khalil spearheaded multiple pro-Hamas demonstrations on campus. He was a participant in Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a constellation of 100 anti-Israel campus organizations calling for the Ivy League institution to cut ties with the Jewish state.
In the aftermath of Khalil’s arrest, video circulated online showing the activist leading a takeover of a campus building at neighboring Barnard College. During the unsanctioned demonstration, activists spread pamphlets glorifying the Hamas Oct. 7 massacres across southern Israel.
In addition, Khalil helped lead the infamous Hamilton Hall takeover on Columbia’s campus in the final weeks of the 2023-2024 school year.
US Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) defended Khalil’s arrest, saying, “If you are on a student visa and you’re an aspiring young terrorist who wants to prey upon your Jewish classmates, you’re going home.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) condemned Democrats for “fighting for a pro-Hamas foreigner who has made life hell for Jews on campus.”
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) also lauded the detainment of Khalil, writing that “obtaining a US visa is a privilege, not a right. Friends of Hamas — don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
In the year following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 slaughters across Israel, Columbia University has emerged as a hotbed of anti-Israel student activism. Last spring, anti-Israel students and faculty erected a student encampment, protesting the university’s ties to the Jewish state. Moreover, Columbia has suffered an exodus of financial support from Jewish donors and alumni, alleging that the university has dragged its feet in combating antisemitism on campus.
Last week, the Trump administration cut $400 million in grants originally intended for Columbia, arguing that the university has not done enough to protect Jewish students. Mounting pressure from the Trump administration reportedly caused the university to collaborate with ICE to detain Khalil.
The post US Democrats Demand Release of Pro-Hamas Columbia University Activist Mahmoud Khalil From ICE Detention first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran’s President to Trump: I Will Not Negotiate, ‘Do Whatever the Hell You Want’
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian attends a press conference in Tehran, Iran, Sept. 16, 2024. Photo: WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Majid Asgaripour via REUTERS
President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would not negotiate with the US while being threatened, telling President Donald Trump to “do whatever the hell you want,” Iranian state media reported on Tuesday.
“It is unacceptable for us that they [the US] give orders and make threats. I won’t even negotiate with you. Do whatever the hell you want,” state media quoted Pezeshkian as saying.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations, a day after Trump said he had sent a letter urging Iran to engage in talks on a new nuclear deal.
While expressing openness to a deal with Tehran, Trump has reinstated the “maximum pressure” campaign he applied in his first term as president to isolate Iran from the global economy and drive its oil exports down towards zero.
In an interview with Fox Business, Trump said last week, “There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal” to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran has long denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, has warned.
Iran has accelerated its nuclear work since 2019, a year after then-President Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy.
The post Iran’s President to Trump: I Will Not Negotiate, ‘Do Whatever the Hell You Want’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syrians Riot in Front of Jewish Museum in Munich Amid Rise in Antisemitic Incidents
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
Three young Syrian men rioted in front of the Jewish Museum in Munich this past weekend, spitting on photographs of Israeli hostages and deceased soldiers before one of the assailants threatened security personnel with a knife.
The incident, first reported by German media, was one of the latest antisemitic cases in a country that has experienced a surge in open hatred toward Jews since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
During the Gaza conflict, the Jewish Museum has displayed photographs of hostages taken by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during their Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel as well as deceased Israeli soldiers, along with candles, to honor and remember them.
On Saturday afternoon, three men — Syrian citizens living in Austria — vandalized the memorial by spitting on it while shouting antisemitic slogans, the German newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Jüdische Allgemeine reported.
After witnessing the attack, two employees from the Jewish community’s security service tried to stop the assailants, who responded aggressively. One of the three men, a 19-year-old, allegedly kicked one of the employees before drawing a knife.
Several police officers assigned to protect the Jewish Center, located next to the museum, noticed the incident and intervened. Soon afterward, more than 30 officers arrived at the scene. Police and security guards had to threaten to use their firearms before the teenager dropped the knife.
According to local police, the man and his two accomplices, a 20-year-old and a 31-year-old, have all been arrested and are under investigation for threats, assault, defamation, and insulting the memory of the deceased.
The Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office has taken over the case, with senior prosecutor Andreas Franck, who also serves as the antisemitism commissioner of the Bavarian judiciary, overseeing the case.
Germany has experienced a sharp spike in antisemitism since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
In just the first six months of 2024 alone, the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin surpassed the total for all of the prior year and reached the highest annual count on record, according to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
The figures compiled by RIAS were the highest count for a single year since the federally-funded body began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015, showing the German capital averaged nearly eight anti-Jewish outrages a day from January to June last year.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2023, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
However, experts believe that the true number of incidents is much higher but not recorded because of reluctance on the part of the victims.
“Only 20 percent of the antisemitic crimes are reported, so the real number should be five times what we have,” Felix Klein, the German federal government’s chief official dealing with antisemitism, told The Algemeiner in an interview in 2023.
Earlier this year, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the ongoing discrimination faced by the Jewish community, calling it “outrageous and shameful.”
Last month, Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag, passed a motion to address antisemitism and hostility toward Israel in schools and universities, seeking to combat a surge in pro-Hamas demonstrations on campuses and antisemitic incidents across the country.
Jewish students at German universities widely expressed a growing sense of insecurity and uneasiness following Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel, amid a slew of incidents purportedly meant to protest the war in Gaza.
The recently passed parliamentary motion stipulates that the federal government — in collaboration with the ministers of education and the German Rectors’ Conference, an association of state and state-recognized universities — must ensure that antisemitic behavior in educational institutions results in sanctions.
“This includes the consistent enforcement of house rules, temporary exclusion from classes or studies, and even … expulsion,” the motion reads.
The post Syrians Riot in Front of Jewish Museum in Munich Amid Rise in Antisemitic Incidents first appeared on Algemeiner.com.