From an email:
Marcy Winograd is the co-founder of the LA Jews for Peace collective and a long-time anti-war activist in Los Angeles. Inspired by author Joel Kovel’s book Overcoming Zionism, she is interested in assembling and publishing an anthology entitled: From Zionism to Humanism: Personal Stories of Jews Who Dare to Speak Out…
We were brainwashed, indoctrinated, fooled. Zionism is not the way. You can’t steal people’s land, erect a country on the basis of religious or cultural superiority and ever think you will be at peace. It is wrong. Zionism hijacked us, robbed us of our humanity, and conned us into thinking Israel equaled Judaism. — Marcy Winograd
Humanism, not Zionism, is the path to peace.
There’s plenty more like this. The usual propaganda — she accuses Israel of “indiscriminate bombing of civilians” — mixed with first person self-hatred.
I know, it’s a trite thing to say, I should answer her arguments instead of slamming her ad hominem. But my answers are all over this blog, and — trite or not — how else can you characterize this:
Though I identify with persecuted Jews, I grow up longing to be part of the dominant culture. I hang little red and green lights on plastic Christmas trees and rarely visit temple except to hava nagila at the boys’ bar mitzvahs or to pray on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when we never atone for the sin of theft, slaughter, or occupation.
Winograd’s parents considered themselves “world citizens”, she says, and I presume that she would describe herself similarly (perhaps with a more up-to-date phrase). She feels deeply for the victims of Sabra and Shatila, for the “Lebanese children”, etc.
But somehow the fact that almost the entire Arab world, comprising 23 nations with about 350 million people (and that doesn’t include non-Arab Iran), is dedicated to the violent replacement of a small democratic state containing 5.5 million Jews (and 1.5 million Arabs) with yet another Arab dictatorship simply doesn’t strike a chord in her.
Why should it? She has no Jewish connection. If the temple where she goes to “hava nagila” and all the rest of them were to disappear tomorrow it wouldn’t matter at all. The fact that there is only one Jewish homeland is not important either, to a world citizen like Ms. Winograd. It, too, could disappear. A world citizen is at home anyplace.
Nevertheless, she makes a big deal about her Jewishness — in the context of her anti-Zionism.
Insofar as it gives her an audience for her recitation of lies and distortions about history and current fact, insofar as it perversely lends credence to her false accusations, she is happy to be Jewish.
She mentions persecuted Jews and the Holocaust. Although she can put herself in the place of Palestinian refugees, can she imagine being a Jew with nowhere in the world to go? It may come to pass again, if humanists like Marcy Winograd have their way.
Do us (the Jews) a favor, Ms. Winograd. Say the Shehada. Learn some Arabic, put on the hijab. Spend a few years in an Arab country. Then as a Muslim Arab anti-Zionist, you will be entirely normal.
And we won’t have to listen to your crap about being Jewish.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Marcy Winograd, LA Jews for Peace
While I don’t agree with the entirety of Marcy’s views about Israel, it is intolerance like the above and the accompanying screed that make peace in the Middle East more difficult to achieve. That peace is not going to happen by ousting one group or the other, and is not advanced by telling one group or another that they don’t belong because they disagree. Can you really sincerely deny that Israel has perpetrated unjust violence on the Palestinians, denied them electricity, humiliated them and made life unnecessarily difficult? Do you justify what Israel has done with a “collective punishment” argument? How about the fact that according to today’s LA Times,
In short, with valid and longstanding grievances, injuries, deaths and violence everywhere, how can you preach the very intolerance that you perceive only on one side?
We can go around in circles on this; for example, I can say that restrictions on Palestinians that make life difficult for them have made life possible for Israelis that would have been terror victims. However, ask yourself this:
If, for example, Qassam missile firings, attempts to tunnel under the border between Israel and Gaza, etc. were to stop, would not Israel stop shooting at the missile teams, restricting the electricity (electricity used to make the rockets), etc?
And if Israel were to stop its activities in opposition to Palestinian terrorism, what would the Palestinians do?
If my anger at Marcy Winograd for using her (entirely genetic) Jewishness as an excuse to repeat the propaganda of those who want to perpetrate another Holocaust is ‘intolerance’ similar to the intolerance displayed by Hamas, you should read the Hamas Covenant here and you will see the difference.
Yes, we can go around in circles on this, but how are clever or slick or angry arguments going to advance the cause of peace? The only way that’s going to happen is if people on each side listen to each other, realize neither side is going away, and holds dear to their set of historical grievances. It is a fantasy for either side to think it can “win” in this crisis by destroying the other side, whether with military, suicide bombings, bulldozers, or settlements.
I’m sorry I couldn’t attach the link to the LA Times article from today: it said, in essence, that Israel was using its military courts to unjustly and cynically take land owned by Palestinians — even before 1948 — and turn it over to the Israeli settlers. How can that displacement — especially without compensation — be justified? How does that help the cause of peace? The phrase “no justice no peace” really does have meaning.
Do you really believe that the fact that electricity is needed to build rockets justifies Israel cutting off that basic resource to all who live in a certain geographical sector? Is “group punishment” OK with you? Where does that slippery slope end? After all, only people who have enough to drink and eat can build rockets; should Israel cut off the food and water of every inhabitant of Gaza? Only able-bodied people can build weaponry; should Israel destroy and prevent the construction of hospitals and clinics?
I noted the virulent hatred that seems to ooze from some of the posts about Marcy — it is with ignorance and unfounded contempt that you say she is merely “genetically” Jewish — and of course, the advice that she convert to Islam is offered as one of the most hurtful insults one can hurl. I ask you, sir, how is someone so full of hatred and intolerance supposed to endeavor to make peace with a neighbor you may not like, but you have no choice but to live with.
You said
“The only way [peace is] going to happen is if people on each side listen to each other, realize neither side is going away, and [stop holding] dear to their set of historical grievances”
Israel has made many efforts, from accepting various partitions, through Oslo and the Clinton-Barak proposals. The Palestinians have always responded the same way, with terrorism. It’s very one-sided, isn’t it? You are right that peace will only come when both sides are ready for it — did you read the Hamas covenant? Are these people ready for peace?
You said
“Do you really believe that the fact that electricity is needed to build rockets justifies Israel cutting off that basic resource to all who live in a certain geographical sector? ”
Can you imagine England supplying electricity to Germany during the Blitz? A few months ago, Hamas snipers picked off an Israel electric company worker on a pole near the border. Why *should* Israel supply anything to a nation that is making war against it?
You said
“I noted the virulent hatred that seems to ooze from some of the posts about Marcy — it is with ignorance and unfounded contempt that you say she is merely “genetically†Jewish — and of course, the advice that she convert to Islam is offered as one of the most hurtful insults one can hurl.”
She herself writes that she has no connection to Judaism, and she indicates that as a ‘world citizen’ and ‘humanist’ she does not see herself as a member of the Jewish people. So genetically Jewish is what she is. She is prepared, though, to use the fact of her Jewishness as an argument against the state of Israel — after all, if even a Jew condemns it, it must be as evil as she says.
Speaking of ignorance, it’s obvious that she is totally ignorant of the history of the conflict, the fact that almost since Jews started coming to Palestine, the Arabs started trying to kill them and drive them out. Read Ami Isseroff’s article linked in my post “More on Marcy” and you can read some of the historical details that Marcy doesn’t know.
So, yes, I hold her in contempt — because she is willing to empathize with those who seek to murder Jews but not with Jews, because she is prepared to parrot their propaganda but not learn the real history, because she cares about everybody’s self-determination and human rights except those of the Jewish people, and because — above all — she uses the fact of her Jewishness to help those who would be as quick to kill her as any other Jew.
My advice that she convert to Islam was not meant as an insult. I respect Muslims, who after all take a consistent point of view. I feel contempt for Jews who apparently hate themselves (or whatever– I’m no psychologist) enough to take the side of those who want to destroy them.