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![Demonstrators show their support for justice in Palestine during a rally in Anaheim on October 18 [LoayPhotography.com]](http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/12107273_1722179988002987_6244813809830116620_n.jpg)
Demonstrators rally for justice in Palestine in Anaheim on October 18 [LoayPhotography.com]
“The state of Israel maintains its illegal occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, and continues to expand its illegal Jewish-only settlements on occupied Palestinian land. As a Member of Congress, will you demand that our government cuts the annual US taxpayer-funded aid of more than $3,000,000,000, or will you support subsidizing the longest occupation in recent history?”
That was the question I submitted to the organizers of the LULAC/NAACP 46th Congressional District candidates debate. The moderators chose to ask a different question Palestine: What is your position on bringing justice and freedom to Palestine?
In their typical PEP stances, the candidates leaned far to the left most issues, except on Palestine. Click here to get tested whether you’re a PEP (Progressive Except on Palestine.)
All four candidates provided vague and predictable answers that lacked much substance. In a district heavily populated by Arab Americans and includes Little Arabia, none of the four candidates was able to directly outline how they’d want to support justice for Palestinians.
Bao Nguyen: “Israel, as I said earlier, is one of our greatest allies in the region and I support a two-state solution. Diplomacy is what America stands for and that’s the direction we need to go with.”
It seems as though Bao Nguyen wanted to avoid addressing this issue since he didn’t even use a quarter of the minute allocated to answer the question. He simply reiterated that Israel is America’s greatest ally. I am not aware of a large pro-Israel community in the 46th district, but perhaps this was his attempt to appease AIPAC and powerful pro-Israel individuals who don’t live in the district. Three out of the four candidates felt the need to mention that they support a (dead) two-state solution to answer a question about bringing justice and freedom to Palestine.
Here’s why even Jimmy Carter thinks the two-state solution is dead.
Jordan Brandman: “we actually need a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. We have not been able to even get close to that since Isaac Rabin was assassinated… The president is working hard, leading Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is committed to it and once we have an implementation of a two-state solution we will hopefully have peace in this region.”
Mentioning Palestine, without referring to it as “Palestinian Territories” or simply “Palestinians” passes as – and I use the term loosely – progressive nowadays. While Brandman’s answer wasn’t particularly progressive, acknowledging Palestine without feeling the need to blindly repeat an AIPAC talking point makes him the least PEP out of the candidates.
Lou Correa: “We must create the incentives for all sides, all interested parties, to come to the table and come up with a solution. I support the president’s role in mediating a solution that works for all sides. We can push as much as we can push to get people to the table but folks in that region have to want to have peace.”
As if a peace agreement brokered by the US would be an extracurricular activity out of the goodness of our hearts, both Lou Correa and Joe Dunn said that the Palestinians and the Israelis must want peace themselves. The reality on the ground is that Israel, with the support of our government, continues its expansionist policies and land theft through its illegal settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel implanted 400,000 Jewish settlers on Palestinian land covering approximately 42% of the West Bank. All while the US taxpayer continues to subsidize the Israeli occupation without accountability. Without US pressure on Israel, no peace agreement will come to fruition. We must hold Israel accountable or simply cut our annual American taxpayer-funded $3 billion military aid to Israel.
Joe Dunn: “…I do support the two-state solution… We have a significant role in bringing peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis… but it is tragic every time we see on TV whether it be Israeli children who are killed in a rocket attack or Palestinian children in a response attack, but they do have to want it themselves.”
Joe Dunn’s answer was the most condescending for parroting a pro-Israel talking point that gets repeated over and over every time Israel launches a war on Palestinians, including during last year’s war on Gaza. According to the UN, between July 7 and August 26, 2014, the duration of last year’s Operation Protective Edge, 2,251 Palestinians were killed (1,462 of the civilians) including 551 children. During the same time 5 Israeli civilians, 1 Thai national, and 67 Israeli combatants were killed. Such large scale offensive cannot be simply a response to rocket attacks which should be treated as a symptom of the military occupation rather than the cause of each Israeli assault on Gaza.
What all four candidates failed to mention was the root cause of the conflict; it’s the occupation, stupid!
To think: This was missed in the 18,000+ word bloviation about the debate by the Bloviator!
Go to this page, Poseur:
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2015/10/ca-46-debate-all-of-the-democratic-candidates-look-to-the-left/
Search on “Palestine.” It will take you to Q15. What I wrote is clearly not as detailed — because mine was based on notes taken in real time, not review of a video — but it has the gist. Of course it doesn’t contain the same exact editorializing as Rashad’s does; that should and does vary by writer.
I welcome Rashad’s contribution to our understanding of the debate. You, by contrast, are just being a dim-bulb asshole.
The Bloviator skimmed over a major foreign policy issue in his grand bloviation. Maybe the Bloviator is also Progressive Except Palestine?
Maybe you guys could get a room and measure dick size in private. It’s really a bore in public.
Amen.
It’s old, gentlemen. Move on please.
The Poseur doesn’t recognize that the candidates skimmed over a major foreign policy issue and my notes and my reporting — both from that day — reflected that. The Poseur apparently doesn’t merely have trouble with understanding long articles, but also short comments. Try reading it again.
I favor pushing Israel to get out of the Occupied Territories in exchange for recognition (with the realization that some freelancers will still try to harm them and they’re just going to have to put up with some amount of it) — and using financial leverage seems like the most effective way to do it. Use of leverage means not cutting all aid at once, because after that there’s no good follow-up move. But Israel’s leadership is currently out of control — and we’re enabling it. And what happened in Gaza last year was an abomination, as I said at the time.
I’m sure that my overall views on the Middle East are more nuanced than Rashad’s, as I think that there is right and wrong on both sides and I believe that, despite the obvious problems with executing it, the Jewish people are entitled to a homeland. (So, by the way, are the Kurds — whose cause is itself problematic in practice.)
Some of the complaints from Israelis, diaspora Jews, and other supporters also impress me a lot more than they probably do Rashad. Other countries are perfectly willing to see Israel pay for its sins against international law while not being willing to pay themselves — you don’t see the U.S. talking reasonably about reparation demands of aboriginal Americans, for example, let alone slaves, let alone returning our part of the country to Mexico, etc. — and this probably has some roots in traditional anti-Semitism. And the same people complain that Arab countries have done a woeful job — even a counter-productive job — in advocating and providing for the welfare of Palestinians, but that tends to be under-emphasized by … well, by poseurs.
I do think that if Rashad and I actually had the power and authority to sit down and negotiate a just peace in the Middle East, we could probably do it before New Year’s Day. We have two great peoples there — both socially progressive for the region — and living in peace with mutual respect for the other’s dignity would be a great boon to both, and to the world.
I know that that was too long for your snide self to read, but your question deserved a decent answer. Before you ignorantly call it “bloviating,” try looking up the term.
So do I get to quiz you on your views now, or are you going to duck them using the “I’m a journalist not a public figure” excuse to play it safe and one-sided? Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to be anything other than a chickenshit.
The Bloviator net bangs on the interwebz but when he sees me at council he begs me to finish the portion of his public comments that was too bloviatingly long for the allotted minutes. Oy vey…
Yeah — I think that that was the point when I realized that you were not simply mostly worthless as an activist, but almost completely worthless.
And — “beg”? There was no begging. The only reason why I patiently stayed with you for a few minutes while you hemmed and hawed before you came up with your lame “I can’t, I’m a JOURNALIST” excuse (which if true should have been the first thing out of your mouth so that I could move on) was because I had thought that you cared enough about the welfare of Anaheim’s Latinos to read into the record something that would benefit them.
I overestimated you. But you are what you are.
Don’t you realize how silly it is for you to run around council chambers asking people to read the last two paragraphs of your public comment that you didn’t get to finish? I’ve never seen anyone so self-important (which is also why you Bloviate about twenty paragraphs on everything)
No, I don’t. It wasn’t about me; it was about should have been read into the record.
I’d make a point about the difficulty of a small number of people, armed with usually just three minutes apiece to cover what may be multiple topics, to battle against a City Council whose members can take as much time as they’d like to respond (generally with defamation and lies.)
I DON’T CARE “how silly it looks.” That’s just a matter of ego. I care whether it adds to or detracts from the justice in the world. But you sure did give a great insight into what governs your own choices.
But what’s the point of talking to you about political battles? You’re a conscientious objector — except for the being conscientious part.
By the way, at the end of this comment I asked you to respond to someone else’s comment. You didn’t. Why? Because you can demand that others address difficult issues but you won’t do so yourself? I answered your “tough question” on Middle East policy, now you can address mine. Here is that other person’s comment again, if you missed it, ready for your commentary:
What’s going through your mind as you think about replying, O employee of a subsidiary of Village Voice media? Maybe the same sorts of concerns that were going through those four candidates’ minds? Take a stand, slugger!
Ha! That the Bloviator frames the invitation as a Si Se Puede moment lost for me shows how bloviatingly self-important he is. Lord, what shall I do now with Anaheim’s raza knowing I didn’t read the Bloviator’s paragraphs! *Gasps!*
Hey, Bloviator: Your professional class Latino friends have lost all credibility with most of the Anaheim mothers affected by police violence. Probably had something to do with Jose’s gesture at Amin’s bday bash in 2012 when he asked APD top brass to stand in unison with the family members whose lives they shattered by taking their sons. You know who couldn’t stand in that moment? Dead brown bodies.
Do you recall the content, Gabriel? Seems relevant to knowing whether it was worth having on video for later use. You think that it was there for my own gratification — or to call them on something where they had screwed up? (Hint: the latter.)
I wouldn’t necessarily blame you for not reading it; “I’m a journalist” is actually a good excuse. (It just wasn’t your excuse, because you could have said that immediately and I’d have moved on.) I blame you for wasting a couple of minutes reading it to yourself and deciding what to do when I could have been trying to find someone else to do it.
You need to spend a little less time in bistros supping and sipping with Gustavo if you want to class-bait me, Gabriel. I’m not familiar with the 2012 event and I know better than to take your word about it as true. But you’re right that dead brown bodies can’t stand up. That’s why I try to challenge the policies that endanger them when and where I can — which includes at the City Council podium — without giving a shit about how silly some poseurs may think it looks.
I’m sure that the mothers of those dead brown bodies appreciate your hard work on their behalf by putting out your 23-page pamphlet with a radical Marxist Press on Victor Jara. (Actually, they probably don’t; how many of them pay attention to martyred Chilean poets? They have more recent tragedies on their minds.) As a longtime academic, I do see the value in teaching about Jara, even to what we might charitably call a “limited audience,” so I’m not going to give you shit for it: go where you feel you are called.
But having spent lots of time writing academic articles that few people read, I’ve come to believe that it’s worth investing more time in actual praxis, which includes being willing to take on powerful interests in ways that they really hate. They don’t mind your writing a pamphlet on Victor Jara, Gabriel; they do mind when I and others in my professional class bring lawsuits against them. (Just see who does and doesn’t get ripped apart in the anonymous comments of the powerful — that’s a clue as to what they want to eliminate.)
What I will give you shit for is that you choose a small slice of the political work to be done — a particularly safe slice, and one where it’s easy to remain pure at the cost of being ineffective — and give shit to people who make a different choice, as if there’s only one respectable approach to bigotry and corruption and that is sniping at it from the bleacher seats. It’s asinine and immature.
THE ONLY TIMES that I give you and Gustavo shit are when (1) you give OTHER people shit, from your larger megaphone, for choosing to contribute to the fight for justice in ways (generally ones that put them at risk) other than the ones you choose and (2) for FAILING to use your influence to lead in a positive direction — like dealing with real contemporary issues rather than with events of 70 to 100 years ago, or valorizing nihilism and cynicism as the power response to abuses of power — rather than digging in and fighting for what you supposedly believe. And you DESERVE that shit.
During the majority of time that you’re doing something even modestly productive, I’m happy to applaud you. (Hey, can I find your Jara pamphlet online, or would I have to buy it? I’d like to read it and I expect that I’d enjoy it.) But you guys just can’t live and let live, being supportive as part of a popular front, because YOU’RE more concerned about not looking silly and YOUR BOSS is, when you get right down to it, extremely bourgeois.
I wouldn’t hold that latter against you, though: we all have to make compromises. Just stop pretending that you’re the exception.
Multiple paragraphs of evasion courtesy of the Bloviator!
Oh, are you here to finally take a stand on that comment on the Palestine post, as I’ve asked you to do twice now? (Make that three times now.)
I guess that I may just have to spoon-feed you. Here was the comment on which I wanted your response:
Man up, Gabriel, and tell us where you stand on it. Don’t check with Corporate first.
Middle East policy…where Americans of all political persuasions can be wrong together.
David Zenger:
I think you mean elected officials of all persuasions. The general public is more divided on this than elected officials, who are all rabidly “pro-Israel.”
Yes, that is exactly what I meant. Thanks.
Thanks for the explanation, Rashad, of why Palestinians and their supporters found the candidates’ answers unsatisfactory. (Way for the moderators to water down your question too!) I see on second hearing how Senator Dunn’s remarks were particularly biased against Palestinians, making all Israeli violence seem like retaliation, and forgetting the underlying violence of the occupation. I’ll bring this up when I interview Joe soon, perhaps he will clarify or rephrase.
What I had jotted down in my account of the debate was that all the candidates except Lou had expressed support for the “two-state solution.” (And Lou was so vague that Joe THOUGHT all four of them had said they supported it.) I didn’t realize, nor apparently the candidates, that the two-state solution was considered by many to be a hopeless vestige of the past. So I read with interest your Jimmy Carter link – actually, a Juan Cole interview with Jimmy Carter. I guess the idea, which even Secretary Kerry is starting to hint at, is that with the burgeoning occupation Israel is becoming an irreversible single state, with apartheid characteristics, and the next struggle is to somehow force Israel out of apartheid. Here’s Juan’s last paragraph:
“Carter is beginning a fight against liver cancer, which he will no doubt pursue with the same steely-eyed determination he has shown in all of his political and social crusades. His forthright declaration of the end of any hope for a two-state solution is a twilight jeremiad about the darkness to come. There is going to be a single state in Israel-Palestine, he is saying. And Palestinians are not going to have the rights of citizens in it — just as the Bantustan KwaZulu remained under South African suzerainty even as its people had their South African citizenship revoked. It isn’t acceptable to the former president. It shouldn’t be acceptable to anyone. “
While the root of the problem manifests in the occupation and expropriation of Palestine, the foundation is based on American ignorance of what the “Jewish State” is, ie., an apartheid nation of so-called Jews with their racial superiority ideology. It won’t last much longer as the rest of the world already knows that America is a mercenary for the Zionist war machine that thrives on creating hatred between Christians and Muslims.
Jewish control of the media in the US is still strong enough to hide that truth from the average dimwitted American. But, the day will come when the Zionist false flag provocateurs will be exposed for what they are; traitors to America. Hopefully that will happen before they bankrupt the American government and leave the world with a nuclear holocaust.
I see that we are off to a good start. Any comments on this, Gabriel?
*Joe Dunn ….said it right to begin: “Support the two-state solution!” We also support strongly the Greg Diamond position: Israel needs to get the hell out of the “Occupied Settlement Areas” in exchange for Peace in the Middle East. Additonally, when Israel
leaves those areas…they should not be able to bulldoze perfectly good housing to keep
Palestinians from living there. The Israeli’s, Lebanon and Syria also need to share the
water in the Golan Heights. Can’t wait to see the next Republican Debate Club on this
issue. You can bet that the Joe Dunn response will seem like springtime in the rockies
compared to what they come up with.