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2006-01-19—Green Party-Divestment

 
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Gary Acheatel

 




Open Letter to Green Party
on Israel Divestment Campaign


jewishsightseeing.com
, January 19, 2006


Editor's Note: The following was excerpted from a letter sent to the Green Party's National Committee by party member Gary Acheatel of Ashland, Oregon, who is the founder of Advocates for Israel.  

By Gary Acheatel

Resolution 190 is short in words, so I'm going to be brief in expressing opposition.

Resolution 190 seeks to modify Israeli behavior by urging “divestment from and boycott of the State of Israel until such time as the full individual and collective rights of the Palestinian people are realized.” It would thus punish Israel and its population without taking any steps to modify Palestinian violence that also contributes to the sorry cycle. It does not condemn attacks directed against the Israeli civilian population by numerous organized militias including Hamas, Hizbollah, and groups affiliated with the Fatah, such as Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade. It does not seek an end to the blatantly racist incitement to violence which the Palestinian Authority tolerated and sustained and which is also a major culprit in fueling ongoing hostility.

That the resolution is one-sided is inarguable. In this, it violates basic fairness and adds inertia to the conflict. It diverts from the noble work of developing a logic of reconciliation to which the Greens ought to be contributing.

Greens who voted for this resolution have to answer the following question: Why would they bring no pressure on those who have butchered thousands of Israeli civilians (Jewish, Muslim, and Druze) who have been killed or maimed in peaceful venues such as restaurants, buses, and markets by their terror campaign? Let's face it, a population under such an assault moves to the right to pressure their political representatives to launch counter-attacks that bring additional suffering to the Palestinian population, and the beat goes on. We could and should spend hours discussing — chicken and egg — the genesis of the conflict, but if we want to elaborate a viable and just end, let's at least be intellectually honest enough to recognize that both sides have grievances that must be addressed.

In its struggle against suicide bombers, Israel is facing a highly organized, noxiously reactionary, religiously fundamentalist, and essentially fascist movement that would deny basic human rights to women, gays and lesbians, and anybody with whom it does not agree, including other Muslims. It is a movement that elaborates an agenda antithetical to any principal held dear by the Green Party.

Yet, with Resolution 190, the party joins in a movement inspired in the decades old Arab boycott of Israel that would bring to its knees the only society in the Middle East that is democratic, tolerant of ethnic and religious diversity, feminism and gender liberty, where freedom of thought is encouraged. Israel is the only society in the Middle East with thriving and influential environmental movement, and where the comunitarianism of the Kibbutz remains a model that inspires any forces striving for a decentralized, sustainable alternative economy.

In short, Israel is the only society in the region in which a Green activist would feel at home advocating for a better future. Israel and its policies certainly have their flaws, and Israel, as all countries, must be held to account for those. But if the Green's political agenda for the Middle East is followed, Israel as we know it would cease to exist, to be replaced by what? On what basis do the advocates of Resolution 190 assert that a Middle East without Israel would represent progress, rather than calamitous setback?

There are practical political consequences to Resolution 190 that also must be considered by the Green Party. For starters, Proposition 190 risks harming the Green Party’s good repute and its ability to organize all people of good faith around its common sense and future looking agenda.