Reblogged because of the connection with the debate on Zionism, anti-Semitism and support (or its opposite) for the Israeli state in its current form.

I’ve blogged several times about the opposition to Israel and its persecution of the Palestinians by Jews and liberal Israelis, and the immense courage these people show as they are not only reviled as anti-Semites, but also as ‘self-hating’, and ‘not real Jews’. In a poll conducted a few years ago, a majority of Israelis responded that they believed that Israelis who sided with the Palestinians should be stripped of their civil rights.

In this interview from Democracy Now, the news programme’s anchor, Amy Goodson, talks to Rae Abileah, a young American Jewish woman, who was tackled and physically assaulted when she heckled Binyamin Netanyahu when he made a speech to Congress four years ago in 2012. Abileah is a member of Code Pink, and the daughter of an Israeli father. She states that she travelled to Israel, and saw for herself the oppression of the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including the Jews-only roads. She returned to America determined to speak out against it.

Netanyahu was given 29 standing ovations when he spoke to Congress, four more than Barack Obama. Abileah heckled him, shouting demands to end the occupation and persecution. She was wrestled to the ground by members of AIPAC, the American Israel lobbying organisation. This was so violent, that she had to be taken to a hospital to be treated for a shoulder and neck injury.

In the interview she not only discusses the incident, and her motivation in her personal experience of the persecution of the Palestinians, but also about the reluctance to speak out against it in many Jewish communities. She says that there is a ‘culture of fear’ that prevents many Jews from doing as she does. She states that Jews must get beyond the religious narrative, which supports Israel. This is not because she herself is an atheist or anti-religious. She says that she believes that Israel and its policies violate the fundamental tenets of Judaism as written in its sacred texts, and particularly Israel’s mission of tekunah olam, healing the world.

Watch the interview here: Democracy Now Interview with Jewish Heckler against Netanyahu | Beastrabban\’s Weblog

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