{"id":133803,"date":"2014-07-28T19:34:34","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T19:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=133803"},"modified":"2014-07-28T20:05:04","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T20:05:04","slug":"brothers-bethlehem-interview-glyn-secker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/brothers-bethlehem-interview-glyn-secker\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Brothers in Bethlehem (Interview with Glyn Secker)"},"content":{"rendered":"

jfjfp.com<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.bdsmovement.net\/<\/a><\/p>\n

You can listen to the original interview\u00a0HERE<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

We have the honor of interviewing Glyn Secker, member of the executive committee of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, a breakthrough organization founded by Jews dedicated to brotherhood between Palestinians and Israelis, exposing the corruption of the government in Tel Aviv, and promoting the BDS Initiative in hopes of placing pressure on the IDF. We discuss the history of JfJfP, his views on the ravaging conflict in Gaza and the West bank, the philosophy of Zionism and its distinct differences between the Jewish faith, and cover the international community’s response to the pogrom.\u00a0<\/em>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Haneul<\/strong>: You said that you have had some interactions with Tel Aviv and other places in Israel. Can you tell me about your excursion to Israel in 2010?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Glyn<\/strong>: We are implacably opposed to the siege of Gaza and the blockade, so we decided that it would be good if a Jewish organization sent a boat to challenge it. I have to say, we didn\u2019t expect to defeat the Israeli Navy, but we wanted to make a point. So, we bought ourselves a little boat and put onboard a number of significant passengers: a holocaust survivor\u201382 year old\u2013two Refuseniks, people who had left the Israeli Army on grounds of conscience and now campaigned against the occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. We had someone from an organization called\u00a0The Brave Family Circle<\/em>, which consists of Jewish, Israeli and Palestinian people who had lost close relatives in the conflict. This person had lost his daughter to a suicide bombing in Jerusalem.\u00a0\u00a0He and his wife had decided to find an organization that would not take them down the route of conflict, but of reconciliation. I think they were [its] early members or founders, where they developed their slogan, \u201cNothing will change until we talk\u201d. So, they talked and supported one another, and they argued for a peaceful and just resolution to the conflict. We had an American woman whose family had fled the Holocaust from Germany [and is] now living in the States. We had a German Jewess on board, some photographers, reporters, and so on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We boarded at Famagusta in Cyprus and sailed from there towards Gaza. We stood in international waters and as we were approaching Gaza, the Israeli navy came out to greet us\u2013the same warship that had greeted the Mavi Marmara\u2013and they dispatched two little gunboats, two landing crafts, and four high-powered RHIBs, all with a semi-commando crew on board. They radioed to us and asked us where were going, and I said that, \u201cWe\u2019re a British flag boat and we\u2019re in international waters. We are going to Gaza\u2019s port. We have no intention of entering Israeli waters and we require safe passage.\u201d They responded by saying that we were very welcome to go into any Israeli port, but there was a blockade around Gaza, and they wouldn\u2019t allow us to go [there]. I explained that that was illegal under international law, and that we were going to proceed to Gaza, and shortly afterwards, they surrounded us with their little fleet, boarded us, threw me off the helm, grabbed hold of Yards and Shapiro who were our Refusniks, removed his lifejacket from over his heart, placed a taser gun on [it], and pulled the trigger. He suffered a huge electric shock that was clearly designed to kill him. Well, luckily his heart was strong enough and it didn\u2019t. He had a full-body epileptic shock, and they then dragged him and his brother out of our boat and into [theirs] and processed them through the police stations and court procedures. I might add that they were never charged with anything because there was nothing illegal to charge them with. The rest of us turned the fuel off on the boats, because we wouldn\u2019t want it to sail under its own steam into Israel, so they could take us on the tow. They towed us at very dangerous speeds into Ashdod. We were all under arrest, they conducted body searches many times, and then put us in a sort of immigration prison\u2026 they really couldn\u2019t get rid of us quickly enough because we were on Israeli television before we left Famagusta. We had held a press conference, had Reuters, Associated Press and CNN, and all of the other major agencies there. We were on Israeli news for four days, continuously, and on world news services and across the internet for a couple of days, except, I might say, the BBC, who just blanked us out, which doesn\u2019t surprise us. So, they got rid of us as quickly as they could and put us onto free flights back to our home countries, and they were very careful to treat us very well because they had got a lot of bad publicity from the deaths that had occurred on the Mavi Marmara, and they didn\u2019t want any more bad publicity, particularly with a British boat staffed by Jews. We managed to make an international statement: that many Jews around the world\u2013a Jewish organization in the UK\u2013absolutely disagreed with Israel\u2019s policies and treatment of the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Haneul<\/strong>: Yes, and I remember that there was, not too long ago, an incident that happened with one of our [previous guests], Iara Lee, from IHH\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Glyn<\/strong>: That was the Mavi Marmara.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Haneul<\/strong>: That was it? Oh, okay. It was very, very different treatment. Several people died\u2026 there were [around] 109 people\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Glyn<\/strong>: The autopsies made it clear that a number of them were shot in the back, and some of them were shot from above, down through the forehead, so they were clearly assassinations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Haneul<\/strong>: My God\u2026 that\u2019s insane, and you wonder with that kind of behavior the Israeli Defense Forces used\u2026 there have been calls, I read recently today, where [British Foreign Minister Phillip] Hammond said that people are losing sympathy for the Israeli government, and there\u2019s also condemnation coming from both Israelis abroad and within Tel Aviv and Haifa, as well as with Palestinians living in Israel. They\u2019ve all been protesting over the past week about this siege. What are your opinions on that particular issue?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Glyn<\/strong>: Well, I think that it\u2019s very good and important that these demonstrations take place and continue. Last Saturday, the one that was in London was enormous. It was so big that people were unable to count it properly. It was between 50-100,000 people. It marched from Downing Street outside Parliament, down to the Israeli embassy, which is [essentially] a four-mile walk. It was very, very impressive, and with those sorts of numbers, you realize there were people there who are not the normal, politically aware or active group. I heard that tourists watching the demonstration just hopped off the pavement and joined it. There is widespread support, but, of course, large demonstrations on their own are not sufficient to change government opinion, and in the UK, we know that too well because when Tony Blair announced the invasion of Iraq, the demonstration in London was estimated by the media to be a million, if not two million\u2013again, they lost count, and it wasn\u2019t the only one in the country. There were huge demonstrations in other main cities, and internationally. There\u2019s a fantastic film that\u2019s just been produced called \u201cWe are Many\u201d, showing how the movement was truly international and actually led to the reticence of the UK and American governments to intervene in Syria recently, but then those huge demonstrations didn\u2019t stop Tony Blair and George Bush [from] attacking Iraq with disastrous consequences. So, the other side of the movement, if you like, which goes hand-in-hand with the demonstrations, is the\u00a0Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement<\/a>. Now, with our Jewish organization, our policy is that it\u2019s important to target the boycott so that it focuses on any organization or institution, whether it\u2019s commercial, military, or academic, which is responsible for maintaining the occupation of Palestinian territories. Whether it\u2019s responsible for the serious discrimination or oppression that occurs of Palestinians inside Israel, which is, if you like, pre-1967 Israel, and also the oppression of the Bedouin in the Negev, who are Israeli citizens subject to ethnic clearances\u2026 getting pushed out of their villages under the Prawer plan. It\u2019s now had its name updated, but it\u2019s still the same strategy\u2026 pushing them into townships, which have no basic services\u2013sewage, water, education, health\u2013and really uncomfortably reminds one of the bantustans under the White regimes of South Africa.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, we\u2019re very much in favor of this carefully targeted boycott movement. We\u2019ve been very active\u2026 we\u2019ve provided the legal advice for the boycott, \u201cActions against Veolia\u201d, which was a very big French-Israeli international cooperation for waste disposal, and they were bidding for contracts for disposal of the whole of the whole of North London\u2019s waste\u2013it was an enormous contract\u20134.9 billion pound sterling, and the legal advice was that it was quite within the legal rights of those local authority governments to exclude Veolia from the bidding process because they were involved in the violation of human rights in Palestine. They were excluded and didn\u2019t get the contract. We have been putting pressure on G4S, along with others\u2026 I mean, we were very much working along with other organizations on this boycott actively. We were not claiming total credit for it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve also been involved in the Action against G4S, which is a security company that completely messed up the London Olympics\u2019, [and] they control the security of the prisons in Israel, and are therefore involved in the maltreatment of Palestinian prisoners that are held without trial or administrative detention, where, Palestinian children as young as twelve are held, having been arrested in the middle of the night, sometimes held in solitary confinement for a couple of weeks at a time, physically maltreated, amounting to torture, being forced to sign confessions in Hebrew, which they don\u2019t understand… All of this was catalogued by a team of British lawyers, funded, organized and published by the\u00a0British Foreign Office<\/a>, which found Israel guilty of committing violations of international law, including rights of a child, and G4S is implicated in this. So, now, the campaign has been so effective that G4S has announced that they\u2019re not going to renew any of their contracts for work in Israel, which is very good. The boycott movement is spreading across the States, so big Presbyterian and Methodist churches are boycotting the occupation. Dutch banks and pension funds are doing likewise, and it\u2019s beginning to have a real impact financially on Israel. That was the strength of the boycott movement, which, coupled with the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, brought an end to the regimes [there]. We hope that this tremendously peaceful and powerful movement will have the same effect to liberate the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Haneul<\/strong>: Yes, and I think that [it] is the best way that citizens can get involved. I [read] a message from a friend of mine, which was like, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you just go over to Palestine and do something about it\u201d, and I was like, \u201cI can do that right here\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0First, we can start with a few of the organizations that are a part of the BDS movement, some of which I\u2019ve collected from the march in London. One of the groups is\u00a0Counterfire<\/a>, which is working towards putting sanctions on the government and economic sectors of Israel. They can find whether or not companies are involved in the boycott. There are others from the\u00a0Black Students Campaign<\/a>, which are a coalition of students in London from different universities working to boycott the following groups: Veolia, Hewett-Packard, Ahava, Golan Heits Winery, Victoria\u2019s Secret\u2013so, a lot of girls are gonna be out of luck on Valentine\u2019s Day next year if they want to participate\u2013Eden\u2026 Sodastream is another big one. A lot of these companies were mentioned in a Salon article, which specifically talked about how they were involved and where the factories were producing goods and services in illegal settlement areas, or with companies that were directly tied to the IDF and Israeli government. There was also one organization that mentioned Marks & Spencer in a six-point bulletin which mentioned what they had been doing to actually engage in funding the government and economic sectors of Israel, including the IDF, and also talked about how they would support the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now, I want to get a notion from you, based on your information. There have always been talks and plans ever since 1947 of a two-state solution, and what this would help to do is to join forces between the Israeli and Palestinian people, but that agreement has been broken in 1948, and then in 1967 \u2014 2000 when the had the [correction: 1st<\/sup>\u00a0and 2nd<\/sup>] Intifadas. I would like for you to speak about what you think that Israel and Palestine should do so that they could create either a two-party state with two peoples, or a one-party state with two peoples.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Glyn<\/strong>: It\u2019s a complicated situation. We can all say that, ideally, it should happen. My personal ideal was that there should be one country in which everyone lives in freedom and security. Free to practice their own religions, to associate safely, and to have access to employment, education, and health services, all on an equal basis. Reality, on the ground, is a very far distance from that. So, it\u2019s necessary to start from the real political situation now, because it\u2019s necessary to identify where we can apply pressure to get movement in the situation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a long time, a large number of people, including us, were focused on the two-state solution, and that is still the focus of many major government organizations, and it\u2019s still put forward as a practical solution. On the other hand, there are a large number of people who range from very well informed academics to activists on the ground, confronting the reality on a day-to-day situation\u2026 legal groups, and the\u00a0Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions<\/a>, and so on, who say, \u201cLook, the situation now is so dire, and the land has been so fragmented and divided up by Israeli settlements that have expanded up in just the last 10-12 years from 300,000 people to over half a million. The settlements have been placed in a way that divides up East Jerusalem from the West Bank. Gaza is divided off. The area is fragmented into areas A, B, and C. The wall itself doesn\u2019t follow the 1967 borders, but follows deep incursions into the occupied Palestinian territories, and therefore, people are arguing that the two-state solution is no longer viable on practical, concrete terms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the one hand, if we say a two-state solution could be achieved, that could only come about if major powers that influence politics in the Middle East were to put their weight behind it\u2013basically America, Britain, and Europe, and that would require a considerable change in policy on America\u2019s behalf to force a change in Israeli politics. This kind of change would have come about if [Israel] had pulled out of Gaza and dismantled settlements in order to do that. That was a small movement by comparison that would be required for achieving a two-state solution for the West Bank and the whole Palestinian territories. So, it\u2019s possible, but it\u2019s difficult.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, all of the governments that we\u2019ve talked to and have regular meetings with\u2026 all of the foreign embassies in London\u2013we meet with diplomats there\u2013we have meetings ourselves with the British Foreign Office. We have a program of logging at the European parliament, we meet European members of parliament and the European Commission, and all of them are focused on a two-state solution, and we say that, \u201cWell, if you wanted to do that, you\u2019ve got to put some muscle behind your fine words,\u201d because Israel does not respond to fine words; they can ignore them\u2013until someone can put some economic and financial muscle behind that claim for a just solution\u2013Israel would take no notice. We think that is important. On the other hand, when you recognize that politics moves on, that the two-state solution is to crumble as a real possibility because Israel, led by the settlers, is, as fast as they can, creating facts on the ground in order to prevent the two-state solution possibility. So, we have to recognize that and seriously consider if the two-state solution is possible, either because it\u2019s been eradicated as a possibility, or because the major powers won\u2019t take action to instigate it.<\/p>\n

What are the other possibilities in terms of a one-state solution? Then you\u2019re presented with two unsavory scenarios. One is the scenario of Bennett, the extreme, right-wing settlers\u2019 voice in Israel who says, \u201cBring on a one-state solution! We\u2019ll pin the Palestinians into little townships. We will keep very firm military control of them. We will have them as migrant workers\u2013they\u2019ll be good for the Israeli economy\u2013and we will be in control.\u201d The other opposite argument of a one-state solution comes from the Palestinian side that says, \u201cWe\u2019ll go down the South African route.\u201d That was a one-state in which there were the Bantustans, and it was demonstrated that an apartheid economy cannot function efficiently in the modern world, and it can\u2019t function politically, and the apartheid structure in South Africa collapsed, and the argument goes that the a one-state apartheid structure that occurs in Israel and Palestine would collapse, too. So, we have to be mindful of that as another scenario.<\/p>\n

What we do is argue all the time for a reconnection in practical terms. We argue that the open community and average governments restrict Israel\u2019s right to access European trade agreements because Israel violates the moral principles that is required for all European states to meet in order to access them. Those are some of the arguments that we make. If there is some movement in that field, then it will gain momentum, I believe. We are rather pragmatic, and it is difficult.<\/p>\n

Haneul<\/strong>: Yeah, pragmatism sometimes doesn\u2019t mix well with politics, but the people that truly want to make a difference can use their pragmatic sense of\u2026<\/p>\n

Glyn<\/strong>: I\u2019ll give you an analogy, with one of your friends saying, \u201cWhen are you going to Palestine and get active?\u201d Well, what that really means is getting involved physically. Well, you can be active physically by helping to rebuild Palestinian homes, which is what the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions does. The other physical thing you can do is replanting olive trees and so on\u2026 all very good stuff, but actually, the implication of people who make those statements is getting involved militarily. Israel is not worried about that. In fact, this present conflict was initiated by Israel. A number of weeks before the three Jewish youths from settlements were abducted and then killed when they were hitchhiking back home, two Palestinian youths, a 16 year-old and a 17 year-old\u2013I think they were out on the Nakba Day celebrations\u2013were shot. They weren\u2019t throwing stones even. One of them was shot in the back, so they were just killed by the Israeli army. That\u2019s what sparked off the current cycle of violence. I can\u2019t prove it, but my suspicion is that was what lay behind the abductions of the Israeli youths. Then, the result of that was Israeli extremists abducted a Palestinian youth and killed him, setting fire to him, creating enormous rage in Palestinian society, and very provocative\u2026 I believe that was what was behind the collapse of the truce that had existed between Hamas and Israel. There had been very few rockets fired into Israel for very many months, and Hamas had actually been controlling the more extreme groups firing those rockets, but after this ratcheting up of conflict and violence, then those rockets began to be fired again in much greater numbers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I believe that was what the Israeli strategy intended to achieve because they\u2019ve got their eye on the defense system. They\u2019ve got tremendous military forces; they\u2019re the fourth most powerful military in the world, whereas the Palestinian military doesn\u2019t even register on the scale, and they then have an excuse to say that, \u201cWe\u2019re defending ourselves\u201d and start attacking Gaza. Nobody\u2019s going to respond to that in a very forceful way. They have no \u201cchoice\u201d, with respect to their own political supporters, and the resolve of that is it puts enormous strength on the unity government that was established between Hamas and Fatah under the PLO and therefore, pulling the ground from under the Israeli government\u2019s feet, because historically, they\u2019ve always said, \u201cWe can\u2019t make peace with the Palestinians because there\u2019s no unified government to make peace with.\u201d Soon as a unified government pops up, what are they going to do? Do something to destroy that unity. That\u2019s what I believe this whole attack on Gaza is about.<\/p>\n

Haneul<\/strong>: Oh, no, no, no\u2026 you\u2019re 100% right. Your organization and executive committee gave a statement about that on June 19th<\/sup>, which gives a lot of good information. You also mention that there was a hunger strike, if I\u2019m not mistaken, taking place around the same time in which the three Jewish teenagers were kidnapped and killed. So, it makes me think about the timing of these incidences. Whenever you see in politics [something] happening, and then, right after that, something else happening to counteract it, it takes away the focus on that [initial] event. You also mentioned a very good point about the unity government between Fatah and Hamas [\u2026] they were experiencing some economic growth at one point in time before this particular event happened. In 2011, they experience 15% growth and 7% in 2012\u2026<\/p>\n

Glyn<\/strong>: If you\u2019re talking about the West Bank, they\u2019re not Gaza. Gaza has been impossible to measure because there has been a little bit of growth and then Israel attacks the infrastructure as they did in [Operation] Cast Lead and Pillars of Defense, and they destroyed their power systems, communications, sewage and water systems as they\u2019re doing now in this current massacre, so, I mean, Gaza\u2019s growth\u2026 Gaza is 70% dependent on United Nations food. Well, um, sorry that I interrupted you.<\/p>\n

Haneul<\/strong>: No, no, no\u2026 you made a very good point\u2013a very salient [one], because I want to make sure that I get this right and present the facts, as they should be. I know that, when you have any country trying to develop or trying to do anything, or trying to unify, there\u2019s always going to be someone that comes along with a sledgehammer to break things up, and that\u2019s the key issue that I wanted to raise in this\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0I had written. It seems to me that all of these issues were diversionary tactics.<\/p>\n

I wanted to raise one question about the administration of Netanyahu, Peres\u2026 all of the people in the seats that initiated Operation [correction: Protective Edge]. What do you think is the difference between Judaism, Israeli, and Zionism? This is really important for a lot of people because I hear so many times in different social media outlets\u2013Twitter and Facebook\u2013[they say] \u201cOh, the Zionists are this, or the Zionists are that,\u201d but it doesn\u2019t speak for the whole Jewish population from around the world. From your perspective, how do you see these terminologies and what would you like to comment about them?<\/p>\n

Glyn<\/strong>: Okay, I\u2019ll try to do a thumbnail sketch. We stand in a completely different picture of Jewish culture. In the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century in Eastern Europe\u2013that whole area which was Russia and the eastern European states\u2013there was a very powerful Jewish movement. It was called the \u201cBund\u201d. It was a trade union, social, and a political movement, and it had tens of thousands of members, Jewish workers, and it was part of that whole revolutionary movement and period, which led to the overthrow of the Tsars. The Bund aligned itself mostly with the Mensheviks, the Formists, Rather than the Bolsheviks, but it was involved in that whole revolutionary period, and its whole argument and position was to end racism to which anti-Semitism was a part. It was necessary to change that part of society in which the Jewish community lived. They did not seek a nationalist and separatist solution. That movement was very active, very powerful, but when the Russian Revolution collapsed and you had the dreadful rise of Stalinism, then many of those people fled and by the by, a number of them fled to America and became very much part of the Black Civil Rights movement in the States, and obviously, many of them flew to Europe and the UK as well, but because that movement collapsed, it then left way for another Jewish movement, which was also developing at the time\u2013the Zionist movement.<\/p>\n

There was a range of Zionists: there were the humanist Zionists, but it was actually the very hardline Nationalist Zionists that took control. Their program, right from the beginning, was to carve out territory for the Jewish state, and they propped on Palestine because the Bible provided a wonderful ideological tool, which they could use. So, the Bible was interpreted literally because [it] is full of tremendous contradictions and conflicts between families, which can get quite violent, and in these interpretations if you\u2019re going to derive from it a set of moral criteria, the moral criteria that the founding Rabbis, which was particularly Rabbi Hillel:\u00a0that which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.<\/em>\u00a0That was the basis of Jewish observers and practitioners internationally\u2026 all of the countries which Jewish communities were established.<\/p>\n

So, the hardline Zionists initially found themselves in opposition with the Orthodox Jewish communities from around the world, because they were not in favor of founding a Jewish state. One of the reasons for that [was] they found it heretical\u2013sacrilegious\u2013to do that before the Coming of the Lord. In Judaism, of course, the Lord has not come to Earth, not recognizing Jesus as the Son of God, and therefore, if the Lord has not come to Earth, it is sacrilegious to found a Jewish state. There\u2019s a small group of people that believe that powerfully and is often found in the Palestinian demonstrations in London\u2013Neturei Karta<\/a>\u2013so, the original Zionist program was organized\u00a0in spite of<\/em>\u00a0instead of\u00a0with<\/em>\u00a0the Orthodox Jewish communities around the world.<\/p>\n

They were quite ruthless in their objectives, and their informing theorists\u2013one of them was a fellow by Ze\u2019ev Jabotinsky, who developed a theory called the\u00a0Iron Wall<\/a><\/em>, which was composed of three components: Jewish labor, Jewish projects, and Jewish land. These were to be obtained legally, financially, socially, and if necessary, by force, and that\u2019s what has happened.\u00a0\u00a0The land was acquired by force. It included in 1948 the disaster of a town called Diad Haziz in where the community was either murdered by two organizations\u2013the Irgun Gang and the Stern Gang, which were led by the early founding people of Israel. They were commanders in those organizations with the early army\u2013the Palmach\u2013They set about terrorizing a number of the Palestinian villages in the Fertile Crescent which were to become Israel, and caused the Palestinians who were, in 500-530 villages, peaceful, unarmed, with no military organization, to flee and panic, and each time that they committed an atrocity, which they did in about 12 of the villages, they would leave some of the people to run free to some of the other villages to cause panic [there], and that\u2019s how the\u00a0Nakba<\/a>\u00a0occurred. You can read about that in work of the new Jewish historians\u2013people like Avi Shlaim at Oxford University here and Finklestein, and they based their works on the documents released by Israel after the 30-year war. So, the hard Zionists, and I would describe the settlers at the moment as fundamentalist Zionists; they\u2019re so extreme\u2013are maintaining the policy of Jabotinsky, the policy of\u00a0Eretz Israel<\/a><\/em>, which is\u00a0Greater Israel<\/em>, taking control of the whole of the land from the end of the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, and wanting to ethnically clear Palestinians as much as they can from [it]. So, you have to draw a very clear distinction between very large numbers of Jews\u2013some of who are in Israel\u2013there was a very brave demonstration by\u00a0Democracy Now!<\/a>\u00a0in Israel, where many of them were beaten up by the settlers and other extremists. They were demonstrating against Protective Edge. There are Jews in this country and in Europe and in America,\u00a0Jewish Voice for Peace<\/a>, which numbers 100,000 on its email list, who argues the same politics as we do, with 1,800 Jews in this country in a population of 300,000 Jews, they were small, but significant.<\/p>\n

We think that we speak for many more Jews than the members of our organization. We know that there are lots more Jews that sympathize with us. It\u2019s very interesting that during Operation Cast Lead, the Jewish community here managed to pull out a demonstration of something like 40,000 Jews in support of the operation around 2008-2009. In response to our demonstration of 50-100,000, on the next day,\u00a0Sunday<\/span>, they only managed to get 1,500 to their demonstration. The Times of Israel actually wrote an article criticizing the Jewish leadership here for not doing better. It\u2019s not actually whether the Jewish leadership here could do better, or wanted to do better, I think the ground support that wants what the [Israeli] government is doing, is beginning to slip away.<\/p>\n

Haneul<\/strong>: You know, there were two things I wanted to mention, based on your point\u2026 Firstly, you had the vote today; we had the international community vote on who was going to condemn the violence in the Gaza Strip. You had the United States [that said] \u201cNO\u201d\u2026 We\u2019re not going to condemn\u201d, and then you had many European nations say, \u201cWe don\u2019t know yet\u201d, so they abstained. Then you had Cuba and Sierra Lione, which is experiencing\u00a0General Buttnaked<\/a>\u00a0and Ebola right now say, \u201cYES, let\u2019s have an investigation\u201d, so it just goes to show the moral fiber of what is happening in the international community and this enraged me a bit.<\/p>\n

Glyn<\/strong>: Venezuela said that they would not trade with Israel during the current period\u2026 you know, things are moving. It\u2019s interesting.<\/p>\n

Haneul<\/strong>: Funny enough, after the Latin American tour by President Putin, a lot of these BRICS nations are starting to coalesce in opinion. One of the first\u00a0people<\/a>\u00a0to come out was [Envoy of Middle Eastern Affairs] of the CCP [Wu Sike], you know, of all places for human rights and dignity, the CCP is like, \u201cWe don\u2019t like this! Please stop bombing Gaza!\u201d It makes you think of exactly what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

Glyn<\/strong>: We\u2019re very anxious to say, as a Jewish people, that what Israel is doing is validly not in our name. We\u2019re absolutely appalled at the gross mistreatment of the Palestinians and of human rights. At the moment, one child an hour is dying. That\u2019s unbelievable! I just framed this sentence, that not only is it doing awful things to the Palestinians, but it\u2019s doing awful things to the Jewish soul, because a people that oppress another\u2026 if you have to maintain oppression, first of all, you have to categorize a group of people that you oppress as less than human, because you have to find a way of encompassing and rationalizing that oppression, and you have to adopt the practical mechanisms of [it]. So, you become a practical and psychological oppressor and become\u00a0enchained<\/em>\u00a0by your own oppression, and that\u2019s a terrible thing. It\u2019s also the case that, because of that experience, large numbers of people, particularly large numbers of middle class people [have been] leaving Israel over quite a few years now. There\u2019s been quite a steady stream of people leaving Israel. What happens, is that they move to Israel, but don\u2019t destroy their original passports so they move back again. It\u2019s a tragic state of affairs\u2026 it really is.<\/p>\n

Haneul<\/strong>: It really is. At the rally, I had the displeasure of looking [Palestinian] people in the eye, when they were reading out the list of names [of children killed], I felt like I had to apologize on behalf of the United States. I\u2019m not sure how many Americans were out there at the time, but it\u2019s heartbreaking when you know that these people are losing the people that they love, as well as [seeing] a demographic of people from all over the MENA region\u2013you had Israeli, Turkish, Saudi Arabian, Libyan\u2026 people from London, people from outside of London and people from parts of Europe, all coming together with a common consensus. That is a true representation of democracy and of what people want when they fight for solidarity, the little guy, and the underdog. That\u2019s one reason why I wanted to invite you on the show, because we needed to show people that the distortion that is happening within Western and mainstream media\u2013CNN, BBC, whom have completely blacked out what has been going on and propping up support for people like Barack Obama\u2013we have to show the real feelings of the people dealing with issues in Israel and Palestine, and so that\u2019s why I appreciate you coming on.<\/p>\n

Glyn<\/strong>: I\u2019d just like to reemphasize the core of our organization, which is: we are peaceful, we don\u2019t advocate violence, we condemn killings of all sorts, we strongly believe in human rights\u2026 that\u2019s the core of our beliefs that unite all of our signatories and our members who come from a wide spectrum of beliefs, some of whom are very religious Orthodox, some of whom are Atheists, some whom are Conservatives with a capital \u2018C\u2019, some are apolitical, some are socialists, some are none of these things, and the uniting factor is just the belief in human rights and pursuing a powerful and peaceful resolution, and it\u2019s the Palestinian call for boycott, which is what our whole movement legs at the moment\u2026 tremendously impressive. I would like to end on one thing: what inspires us is the humanity of the Palestinians and their personal strength and determination to keep going\u2026 [One famous playwright said] that, \u201cWhatever happens, stay human\u201d, and it\u2019s that steadfastness and staying human of the Palestinians which is so important, because it inspires it all. I don\u2019t know personally [how] I would feel if the Palestinians were defeated and collapsed. Where does that leave me as a Jew? I would be deeply, deeply disturbed by that, because our byline of our organization [is] \u201cTwo peoples, one future\u201d\u2026 for me, [that] is a deeply philosophical statement.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

The Last Defense<\/a>
\nSPEAK YOUR MIND
\nVOICE YOUR OPINION
\nKEEP YOUR SANITY
\n____________________<\/p>\n

Mixcloud:\u00a0http:\/\/www.mixcloud.com\/thelastdefense<\/a><\/p>\n

Twitter: @thelastdefense<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

jfjfp.com http:\/\/www.bdsmovement.net\/ You can listen to the original interview\u00a0HERE. We have the honor of interviewing Glyn Secker, member of the executive committee of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, a breakthrough organization founded by Jews dedicated to brotherhood between Palestinians and Israelis, exposing the corruption of the government in Tel Aviv, and promoting the BDS Initiative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":133804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-133803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news","9":"category-war-terrorism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}