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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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Vancouver artist who subverts Barbie and Ken claims antisemitism is behind her removal from a group exhibition
Dina Goldstein received conflicting accounts of the last-minute decision by the gallery.
The post Vancouver artist who subverts Barbie and Ken claims antisemitism is behind her removal from a group exhibition appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘I’ll F—k You Up’: A List of Attacks, Threats, Explicit Calls for Violence at Pro-Hamas University Encampments
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
Videos from recent pro-Hamas protests and encampments on university campuses show demonstrators attacking and threatening Jewish and pro-Israel individuals, as well as making explicit calls for violence.
On some campuses, administrators have decided to call in police forces to remove the encampments. Others have been more hesitant to do so or have been refused help by the city.
The encampments have reportedly made some Jewish students feel unsafe on campus. The Algemeiner documented an extensive list of pro-Hamas and antisemitic statements made at the Columbia University encampment shortly after it was set up. However, some observers have argued those statements are not representative of the movement as a whole.
Meanwhile, many voices have argued for the removal of the encampments on the grounds that members of them have attacked and threatened pro-Israel or Jewish students. But others don’t believe any physical threats or attacks have taken place. Journalist Glenn Greenwald, for example, called the idea of such attacks “a massive hoax that they’ve been perpetrating for months.”
Here is a non-exhaustive list of some of the recent physical attacks and explicit calls for violence on campuses that suggest such fears are not simply a “hoax,” although debate will likely continue over how representative these incidents are of the larger anti-Israel movement.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a girl from a nearby school was kicked in the head and knocked unconscious. She had to go to the emergency room.
A video shows anti-Israel protesters detaining a pro-Israel student at UCLA. When he tried to escape, they chased him down, with at least one person exclaiming “get him,” and surrounded him again — making it impossible for him to leave.
In this video you can see he’s trying to escape a protestor blockade preventing access. He is running from them and they chase him down and surround him. Like they’re on a hunt. https://t.co/cDG7PVe9p4 pic.twitter.com/mKaIiaUpYz
— Parmis (@ParmisLJavan) May 1, 2024
Footage shows a woman following around a man — who was not engaging with her — and attempting to tase him.
A student journalist at Yale University was poked in the eye with a Palestinian flag by a protester. She had to be brought to the hospital.
At The George Washington University (GW), students acted out a “people’s tribunal,” where they charged the president of the university, Ellen Granberg, along with other members of the administration with various crimes. “Guillotine, Guillotine, Guillotine, Guillotine,” members of the encampment chanted.
A leader of the “people’s tribunal” said, “Bracey, Bracey [referring to school provost Christopher Bracey], we see you. You assault students too. Off to the motherf—king gallows with you.” She also said, “As you already know where I am sending her [to the guillotine], her and her f—kass bob.”
At the George Washington University Gaza Solidarity Encampment today, the protesters held a “People’s Tribunal” where they put President Ellen Granberg, Provost Christopher Bracey, the Board of Trustees, @GWPolice, and many others on trial.
Is it normal for students to want to… pic.twitter.com/M8F543q0MV
— Stu (@thestustustudio) May 3, 2024
Also at GW, when pro-Israel activist and Israel Defense Forces reservist Rudy Rochman came to campus, he was surrounded and people chanted, in Arabic, “God winning, Allah will take your life,” according to his video of the incident.
At DePaul University, an anti-Israel demonstrator displayed “10 fingers, followed by seven fingers [referencing Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7], and then the throat-slitting gesture in front of Jewish students.”
A visibly Jewish person filming an encampment at City University of New York was surrounded by a group and assaulted. When his kippah fell off, a member of the mob threatened, “Pick up the f—king hat, I’ll f—k you up.”
A group of anti-Israel protesters stole a man’s Star of David headscarf and beat him near the Met Gala in New York on Monday.
At Emory University, a protester threw a sign at the head of a police officer while a group was trying to push the officers back against a door.
Protesters were roaming around UCLA looking for Jews to harass and confront. “Where the Jews at, my n—a,” one exclaimed.
Demonstrators at Columbia University took over a building violently and held janitors there against their will.
Send information about additional incidents to jelbaum@algemeiner.com.
The post ‘I’ll F—k You Up’: A List of Attacks, Threats, Explicit Calls for Violence at Pro-Hamas University Encampments first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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ADL Blasts Emerson College for Bailing Out Pro-Hamas Protesters
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas demonstrators at Columbia University in New York City, US, April 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has implored Emerson College in Boston to enforce its “own policies” and discipline pro-Hamas agitators there who have staged unauthorized demonstrations protesting the Israel-Hamas war and calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.
For nearly three weeks, college students have been amassing in the hundreds at a growing number of schools, taking over sections of campuses by setting up “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” and refusing to leave unless administrators condemn and boycott Israel. Footage of the protests has shown demonstrators chanting in support of Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel, and even threatening to harm members of the Jewish community on campus. In many cases, activists have also lambasted the US and Western civilization more broadly.
At Emerson College, the administration has accommodated protesters, going as far as dispatching staff “to all precincts” to bail out those whom police have arrested for trespassing — according to a statement issued by President Jay Bernhardt. Emerson has also asked the local district attorney not to try their cases and will give free housing to protesters “required to stay in town for court appearances,” where they will live following the conclusion of the academic year.
“The president of Emerson is going out of his way to make sure students who broke the law and violated Emerson’s own policies face no consequences,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “This capitulates to the most extreme voices and rewards their disruptive conduct. The Emerson community deserves better. ADL calls upon the president of Emerson to reverse this decision and urges the Suffolk District Attorney to enforce the law.”
Pressure for granting protesters “amnesty” is building at the University Massachusetts Amherst, where the student government recently passed a resolution condemning the school for requesting police assistance in demonstrations there, an action which resulted in over 50 arrests. The student government is also demanding the university adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, a measure which could purge Jews and Zionists from the American academy, experts have told The Algemeiner.
Emerson College is not the first school to excuse the behavior of pro-Hamas protesters.
The University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) has made major concessions to anti-Israel protesters in exchange for the termination of their anti-Zionist demonstrations on campus, continuing a gradual normalization of the BDS movement against Israel.
Details of the settlement were disclosed by the university on Friday. It includes shuttering UC Riverside School of Business “global programs” in Israel — as well as the US, Brazil, Jordan, Egypt, Vietnam, China, and Cuba — appointing potentially anti-Zionist students to a task force on the university’s endowment, and exploring the possibility of banning Sabra Hummus, which is co-owned by the Israeli food manufacturer Strauss Group, from campus.
UC Riverside’s apparent capitulation followed a precedent set by Northwestern University last week, when the school announced the establishment of a new scholarship for Palestinian students and an investment committee in which anti-Zionists students and faculty may wield an outsized voice.
Brown University has also yielded to anti-Israel protesters, promising to hold a vote on divesting from companies linked to Israel.
Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington agreed to divest from companies linked to Israel, according to a “Memorandum of Understanding Between the Evergreen State College and the Evergreen Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” which the school posted on its website. Per the agreement, the school will issue a statement dictated by the protesters. The statement, a portion of which includes pro-Hamas propaganda, will “be reviewed by negotiators and a faculty representative before it is released.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ADL Blasts Emerson College for Bailing Out Pro-Hamas Protesters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
