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| Martin Davies image. www.daviesart.com |
“Here’s the logic: “unattractive” behaviour by some Jews can legimitise antipathy to all Jewish people, unwarranted as that may be. What it’s really saying is that Jews are not free to engage in the full range of behaviour that is allowed from other groups (although Muslims would feel a kinship here) because if they act in a way other people find unacceptable, then it legitimises an illegitimate view of all Jews.” Michael Visontay
G’Day. All sides agree that resolution of the Israel/Palestine dispute is central to ending the ‘war on terror’ and to reconciliation between Muslims and Judeo-Christians. The Ashrawi debate drew Australia briefly into world debate on the matter.
On the eve of Bush’s thank you visit to Blair in Britain, Sidney Blumenthal, a senior adviser to President Clinton, wrote an explosive piece in The Guardian alleging that, under pressure from Sharon’s backers in the United States, Bush broke an agreement with Blair to sponsor the middle east roadmap for peace (Bush and Blair – the betrayal. America’s first loyalty was to Ariel Sharon, not the prime minister). He wrote:
Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst, revealed to me that the text of the road map was ready to be made public before the end of 2002:
“We had made commitments to key European and Arab allies. The White House lost its nerve. It took Blair to get Bush to put it out.”
This man knows what he’s talking about. In addition to his CIA role, Leverett is a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the national security council, an author of the road map, and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
“We needed to work this issue hard,” he says, “but because we didn’t want to make life difficult with Sharon, we undercut our credibility.”
… The key to the road map’s success was US support for the Palestinian prime minister, Abu Mazen, indispensable as a partner for peace, but regarded as a threat by both Sharon and Arafat. At the June summit on the road map, Bush told Abu Mazen:
“God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them; then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did; and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act.”
Abu Mazen was scheduled to come to Washington to meet Bush a month later. For his political survival, he desperately required US pressure on the Sharon government to make concessions on building settlements on the West Bank. Abu Mazen sent a secret emissary to the White House: Khalil Shikaki. I met Shikaki in Ramallah, where he gave his account of this urgent trip. He met Elliot Abrams and laid out what support was needed from Bush if Abu Mazen – and therefore the road map – were to survive.
Abrams told him, he says, that Bush “could not agree to anything” due to domestic political considerations: Bush’s reliance on the religious right, his refusal to offend the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the demands of the upcoming election. Shikaki pleaded that Abu Mazen presented “a window of opportunity” and could not go on without US help. “He has to show he’s capable of doing it himself,” Abrams answered dismissively.
Inside the NSC, those in favour of the road map – CIA analysts Flynt Leverett and Ben Miller among others – were forced out. On September 6, Abu Mazen resigned, and the road map collapsed.
***
In my view, the Ashrawi controversy has liberated Jewish Australians who do not support Sharon and his policies – and believe that his approach is inimical to peace – to express their views to the wider public.
There is NOT a united pro-Sharon position among Jewish Australians, but those who do back him and what he stands for seem to have the power, money and clout to dominate public debate and wield enormous political and financial power behind the scenes.
The Ashrawi debacle has exposed this secret power and liberated Jewish Australians who disagree with the big boys to assert their right to have a say outside the Jewish community.
Hungarian Jew George Soros, a billionaire US investor, recently blamed the policies of Sharon and Bush for the rise of anti-semitism in Europe.
“There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that,” Soros said. “It�s not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself in anti- Semitism as well. I�m critical of those policies.”
“If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish,” he said. “I can�t see how one could confront it directly.”
Soon after, he declared that he would donate millions to the progressive website Moveon which is backing Democrat liberal Howard Dean for US president:
Mr Soros says a “supremacist ideology” guides the White House. He hears echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary: “When I hear Bush say, ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ it reminds me of the Germans.”
It conjured up memories of the Nazi slogan, “Der Feind hoert mit” (The enemy is listening): “My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitised me,” he said.
Soros’s Open Society website has just published a piece about corruption:
Corruption has no easy definition�behavior tolerated as normal, or at least necessary, in one place may be seen as deviant and punishable by fines and jail time in another. Yet all forms of corruption, even the seemingly trivial, erode the bonds of society. Corruption must be recognized for what it is: a looming global crisis.
The Summer-Fall 2003 issue of Open Society News reveals the variety of forms corruption can take and how its impact can be felt from Angola to Kazakhstan to Washington, D.C. It describes the pressure and intimidation that potential whistleblowers face from friends, colleagues, and authorities who extract benefits from corruption as it seeps through society. It focuses on the undisclosed deals between multinational corporations and governments.
Meanwhile back in Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald spectrum editor, Michael Visontay, in a deeply felt and honest piece, argued in the SMH today that several commentators, including myself, were legitimising anti-semetism:
Here’s the logic: “unattractive” behaviour by some Jews can legimitise antipathy to all Jewish people, unwarranted as that may be. What it’s really saying is that Jews are not free to engage in the full range of behaviour that is allowed from other groups (although Muslims would feel a kinship here) because if they act in a way other people find unacceptable, then it legitimises an illegitimate view of all Jews.
As I’m at home NOT writing my book I responded by email:
Hi Michael
Very thought provoking piece this morning. A question that arose from it for me was: What’s the ethics of exercising your right to free speech when it involves threats of seriously adverse consequences to others if they exercise the right to theirs? The Voltaire question.
I strongly disagree with your assertion that anything I wrote implied a legitimation of anti-semitism. The opposite is true. I fear what might happen if what seems to me to be political correctness gone mad doesn’t loosen up. We know what happened in 1996 and beyond re Aborigines and refugees. This fear is shared by several Jewish Australians of my acquaintance, who believe extreme elements of the community have hijacked the entire voice of Jewish people in Australia, to the extent of trying to silence Jewish voices to do not agree with their position.
Regards,
Margo
Ashrawi and Brandis: the great debate has provoked lots of emails, and Antony Loewenstein has agreed to guest edit a discussion Webdiary entry on the issues raised. Many readers, Jewish and non-Jewish, are relishing the opportunity to discuss this extremely sensitive and fraught issue in an open, safe way.
Have a good weekend.