A Superb Article on Gaza

If you're interested in learning what the mainstream media doesn't tell you about the conflict in Gaza, I invite you to visit my other blog, Greener Times, to read Maryrose Asher's excellent article, "Countering US-Israel Propaganda Regarding Gaza". The introduction is shown below.

Before I begin, I would like to give you some personal background.

I first went to Israel in the fall of 1986 just before the first Intifada. My husband worked at the time as the Associate Endowment Director for the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco and we were invited to go on a mission with one of the groups. Newly married, and having converted to Judaism so we could be married by my husband’s father who was the rabbi of the largest reform congregation in San Francisco, I went with the usual expectations of any average American.

My ignorance regarding Israel was lost during that trip. I saw the racism, the apartheid, and the mistreatment of the Palestinians. As part of the trip we went to Hebron where I heard racist comments from the mouth of a Jewish settler that matched any I heard in the south while vacationing with my grandmother in the late 1950s. We also visited an Arab school in East Jerusalem where the libraries were empty and the classrooms dismal. I secretly exchanged addresses with two of the Palestinian teachers and had to lie at the airport when Israeli security asked me if I had taken any contact names home with me. If you have ever gone through Israeli security, you know how intimidating the experience was.

We came back and started working with New Jewish Agenda. I was elected Northwest Regional Representative, representing chapters in California, Oregon, and Washington (although the active chapters were primarily in California). Living closest to Stanford University and University of California - Berkeley, our members voted for cutting aid to Israel. Quarterly, I had to travel to New York to meet with the national folks and did my best to argue for the national organization to take this position. As expected, our chapters were viewed as too radical. The decision eventually split the organization and New Jewish Agenda folded soon after we moved to Seattle in 1990. Jewish Voice for Peace headquartered in San Francisco now has many of the same members but is continuing to have the same internal debates.

Now that you know a little about me, I hope you will understand if what I write shows a little less patience, and balance, when writing about US-Israel propaganda. The mainstream media and mainstream Jewish organizations provide you with enough information regarding Israel’s position so I will try to really provide “balance.”

I feel this is important for me to try to do. Joe Mowrey, a Palestinian rights and human rights activist living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, wrote, “I am finding that even many very antiwar progressives are being lured into a belief that what Israel is doing is a surgical strike against militants in Gaza...”