I know I should stop wasting time writing about Jewish Israel-hatred — there’s nothing that can be done to fix these people’s craziness — but I came across something that makes clear how well the other side understands the value of Jewish allies.
You may remember that in July the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival put on a program in which the film Rachel — about pro-Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed when she fell in front of an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003 — was presented. Rachel’s mother, Cindy Corrie, also spoke. After an outcry –Â it was, after all, a Jewish film festival, funded in part by contributions to the Jewish Federation of San Francisco, the festival allowed one pro-Israel speaker, Dr. Michael Harris, to speak for a few minutes.
The audience, packed with activists from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and other groups, heckled and shouted at Dr. Harris. You can read what I wrote about it and see a video here.
Incidentally, Corrie’s parents came to Fresno in September 2005:
The Corrie events and exhibits in the Valley were held in multiple locations: Fresno City College, CSUF, KFCF radio and KNXT television (the station of the Catholic diocese!), the Mennonite Brethren Church, Arte Americas (I’m not sure what the relevance was supposed to be), the Center for Non-Violence (Peace Fresno), the Reedley Peace Center, and of course several events at the Islamic Cultural Center, which appears to have been the primary sponsor of these events.
Anyway, after the San Francisco event, Paul Larudee, a member of ISM (the group that brought Rachel to Gaza), a co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement — we’ve had them here in Fresno too — and of course a member of JVP, wrote about the event. After describing the thuggish behavior of the audience approvingly, Larudee wrote,
It was astonishing. Although the audience was by no means all Jewish, a large number clearly were, and the sense of many of the attendees was that their relative immunity from the charge of anti-Semitism gave them license to be more vocal.
There you have it. They are insulated from criticism because they themselves are Jewish. They have license to be hateful, because after all, one can’t hate one’s own people.
Can one?
Technorati Tags: San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Rachel Corrie, Cindy Corrie, Michael Harris, Paul Larudee, Jewish Voice for Peace