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.
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