A Jewish People's Liberation Organization?
On the "Jews Who Speak Out" e-mail list, we received a message that made us very happy. It was a link to a story on Tony Greenstein's Blog (kicker: "Socialist, anti-Zionist, anti-racist") entitled "The Self-Destruction of Mearsheimer & Walt," calling out John Mearsheimer for endorsing the vile anti-Semite Gilad Atzmon—as we have. The piece also calls out Mearsheimer and Walt on their essentially right-wing "wag the dog" thesis, making many of the same points that we made on World War 4 Report in our 2007 critique of Mearsheimer & Walt's book The Israel Lobby. It also links to a piece we didn't know about (on ZNet) in which Noam Chomsky dissents from the Mearsheimer/Walt thesis, again making many of the same points we made. We don't agree with Chomsky about everything, but we're with him on this one. So we congratulate Greenstein (and Chomsky) on being so astute.
What's really interesting is that the e-mail with this story was sent out to the list by an entity calling itself the "Jewish People's Liberation Organization from Zionism and Anti-Semitism," or J-PLO, seemingly led by one Abraham Weizfeld. A manifesto by Weizfeld, entitled "Not All Jews Are Zionists," is online at the website of the highly problematic Neturei Karta. As we have noted, this ultra-orthodox outfit has participated in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's lugubrious Holocaust-denial confabs in Tehran.
So we'd like to know more about the J-PLO. Jews do indeed need to be liberated from Zionism and Anti-Semitism. (Yes, Zionism is far more oppressive to Palestinians, but it is also oppressive to Jews.) But is the J-PLO entirely a vehicle of Neturei Karta? We don't oppose alliance with orthodox Jews who reject Zionism on religious principle (like the Satmars), but Neturei Karta is pretty wacky. And the broad principle of the Jewish liberation movement must be secular—with room for both believers and non-believers, orthodox and progressive.
We also aren't too crazy about the outdated name-check of the PLO, whose leaders have largely been co-opted into Israel's surrogate cops.
In any case, we want to start a dialogue. If any J-PLO partisans are reading this, please be in touch, or comment below...
About the Author
Bill Weinberg is an award-winning 25-year veteran journalist in the fields of human rights, indigenous peoples, ecology and war. He is the author of Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico, now available from Verso Books, and War on the Land: Ecology and Politics in Central America (Zed Books, 1991).
Comments
J-PLO
Marhaba, Bill Weinberg;
Ben Lorber refered me to your site and your reference to the J-PLO from the Jews Who Speak Out List. This is abraham Weizfeld and i am a moderator of the Jews Who Speak Out List with Stan Heller.
The J-PLO is not affiliated with Neturai Karta abut we have worked together to form up united counter-demonstrations to the Zionist rallies in Montreal and elsewhere. The NK opportunism at Tehran with Ahmadinijad was sad, to say the least.
Presently i am working in Nablus, Palestine with the Tanweer Cultural Enlightenment Centre, a secular independent public education centre.
Its site is at www.tanwer.org I have been here 2.5 months and have to return soon to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The J-PLO has existed since 1988 and has a yahoogroups service at jplo-olpj@yahoogroups.com with archives dating back to 2000 at its home page.
My personal address is saalaha@fokus.name and my published books are Sabra and Shatila at Amazon and The End of Zionism: the liberation of the Jewish People. My upcoming book will be my doctoral Thesis Nation, Society and the State: the reconciliation of Palestinian and Jewish Nationhood.
I seek to rebuild the Jewish Bundist tendency as an International to counter the Zionist International.
Pleased to be referred to your attention.
On Skype i am eibieman
Jewish People's Liberation Organization (J-PLO)
against Zionism and antisemitism
saalaha@fokus.name
abraham Weizfeld
From on site in Nablus, Palestine
http:/www.justin.tv/eibieman/videos/
YouTube: eibieman
Jews and Arabs are United - Israel'S Wrongs Must be Righted