It’s good that Richard got this independently checked, although I strongly disagree with him that the Salvation Army’s decision is understandable. I very much doubt it would have made the same decision if the organization trying to book the venue was the Zionist Association of America, Hillel, or one of the countless groups that supports Israel. I would guess that the Salvation Army’s decision very much has to do with the well-known intimidation campaigns against pro-Palestinian organizations and individuals by Zionist groups, and that it chose to avoid the controversy and problems that would probably come with hosting an al-Awda event. The recent cancellations of appearances of public intellectuals like Tony Judt or Stephen Walt comes to mind.
An update on the Marcel Khalife affair
Richard Silverstein got through to the Kroc Theater run by the Salvation Army that had refused to host a Marcel Khalife concert. The explanation he got from them was that they could not rent the venue to the Palestinian organization al-Awda, which aims for the right of return of all Palestinian refugees.
I guess the Kroc doesn’t recognise UN General Assembly Resolution 194.
But then who can blame them, no one else seems to take any notice of that pesky little UN thingo.
Noor Hammad
A few organizations down here in San Diego are pursuing a discrimination case against the Salvation Army for refusing to host the Marcel concert. The event has, however, been relocated to another venue on the same day, and we look forward to a great concert!
Lulu – lucky you, Khalife is a remarkable musician! Glad to hear about the lawsuit, I wish it was not necessary against a charitable organization like the Salvation Army but a stand has to be made.
Supporting “the right of return” often equates to supporting the end of Israel. It’s a often nicer way to say you don’t support a two-state solution or simply don’t believe in Israel’s right to exist in the first place. It is often summed up very nicely with a map of Israel proper, the West Bank, and Gaza, all together and with no boundaries, suggesting one state–Arab. Oh look, how shocking–al-Awada’s website has just such a map, the little graphic in their banner–Israel proper, the West Bank, and Gaza, all in black. Where’s the two state solution in that? Where is respect for that pesky little UN thingo? Israel is a UN member state, and there are UN resolutions that call for justice and security for it, too, not just for Palestinians. A little map like al-Awda’s is akin to statements about “ending the occupation” which conveniently forget to mention that “occupation”, according to these people, means not just the West Bank and (still!) Gaza, but Haifa and Tel Aviv and Eilat and West Jerusalem and the rest it.
And you wonder why an organization that tries to be anodyne, like the Salvation Army, doesn’t want to deal with an org that flaunts that sort of “pro-Palestinian” agenda? Is it so incredibly hard for you to believe that maybe the people at the Salvation Army looked at al-Awada’s website, for even a minute, and *justifiably* and *sincerely* thought: “Wtf! We don’t want to be associated with people like this!”? Do you think the Salvation Army would have cancelled the show if Mr. Khalife’s organizer had been non-political, or been a pro-Palestinian org that advocated a two-state solution or did not subscribe to al-Awda’s (vile) views?
Is that even possible? No no no. Never!
Thanks for sharing your internal neuroses with everyone Dan. It just highlights more clearly how the greatest fear of Zionists is genuine racial equality. No wonder Israel and Apartheid South Africa were such great friends. Get over it buddy, one state where everyone is equal before the law is good for Jews and Arabs alike. When that happens, you’ll finally be able to stop freaking out just because a talented musician of the “wrong” race wants to give a concert.
Let me expand a bit on my view of this. I wrote in my blog that I personally would not have banned a concert hosted by Al Awda. But I could understand how a Christian organization having nothing to do w. the Mideast conflict might shy away fr. a group like Al Awda which has an anti-Zionist mission.
Another important fact to keep in mind–based on my conversation I believe the Salvation Army would have hosted the concert if CAIR was the host. It has a less sectarian, single-issue focus. And any number of other Arab organizations including local ones would have passed the vetting process I believe.
And I will be in the audience when Khalife performs here in Seattle (& in fact worked with Khalife’s manager to find a local venue for him).
On the other hand, I have been in touch with the Al-Awda organizers who dealt with this whole affair, and I will post their account shortly sometime in the next day or two. Suffice it to say, this is still a discriminatory decision on the SA’s part. I don’t think we have seen the end of this issue.
The day Al-Awda publicly fights for the right of return for Jewish refugees to their Arab homelands is the day I lend them my support. Richard is right with reference to CAIR, a much more respectable organization that isn’t actively trying to pick scabs. And after all, the Salvation Army is a private organization that owns the venue and can choose it’s acts. And your attempt to tie the Evangelical Christian organization in with the Zionist movement is, like many of your posts, has no factual base:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=11687
I really need to work on my grammar.
Dan,
You see, I never thought that calling for nations to act upon UN Resolutions was a bad thing, but maybe that’s just me!
Perhaps you’re right and justice for Palestinians is “vile”.
Noor Hammad
Noor, “justice” for either party in the conflict is no such thing if it means ignoring or actively trying to deny the other party’s legitimate claims. Both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict have legitimate claims. Both are the good guys and both are the bad guys.
Organizations that claim to want “justice” and claim to work for the so-called right of return, when they are really just working to rally opinion against Israel, are vile, yes, because they ignore Israel’s legitimate claims, and the Jews’ legitimate claims. From the cursory glance I took at al-Awda’s website, I got the impression they were more *against* Israel than *for* anything. I could be wrong, but aside from this blog I generally don’t linger on any website that throws around words like apartheid and colonialism in relation to Israel–they just end up being radical or derivative lefties, or in any case, completely uninformative.
Anyway none of this is on point. The point is Issandr just assumed the theater’s actions were the result of intimidation by this weirdly all-powerful, all-and-always-effective Zionist Lobby. Like Abe Foxman hisself has drawn a veil of fear across America! And what I was saying is, somewhere in your lines of thought, it ought to have occurred to you that they might have had any number of legitimate and understandable reasons to not want to be associated with a radical political org. Which is pretty much what Richard Silverstein said of them, in his comment.
I’m sure this msg is chock-full of typos but I’m not reading over it.
Maybe it’s just me, Noor, but last time I checked there’s one of those pesky little clauses in Resolution 194 that says these refugees need to be “willing to live at peace with their neighbors.” When Hamas decides to nix that even more pesky little line from their constitution referring to the “war against the Jews” maybe you’ll have a shot… Good luck sweetie!
Dear Ms Gorsky,
1.From which line of the Hamas constitution have you drawn your quote that calls for a “war against the Jews”.
2. You assert that the reason Palestinian refugees have not been allowed their right of return is because they don’t want to live at peace with their neighbours. What is your basis for this conclusion?
3. How do you explain Israel’s refusal to satisfy the other 14 points of Resolution 194?
Noor Hammad
Dan,
The situation in Palestine is not as 50/50 as you make it seem. There is one major bad guy who has refused to acknowledge or act on even the most unambiguous directives derived from international law that the international community (with the exception of its one major ally and the occasional pacific reef state) have ordered it to act upon.
Justice is not the bargaining chip of a nation who is in clear violation of international law.
There is ONE illegal state in this conflict. When it satisfies the resolutions instituting the most basic tenets of international law, then it may ask for its grievances to be resolved with the victims of their criminal actions. NOT the other way round.
Noor Hammad
From which line of the Hamas constitution have you drawn your quote that calls for a “war against the Jews�.
Article 11 of the Hamas Charter:
“…nevertheless, the Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim).”
If a tree can be Jewish, can a human be coniferous?
[…] Arabist has a different take: It’s good that Richard got this independently checked, although I strongly disagree with him […]
[…] something on his blog, unfortunately, which seemed to sympathize with the venue’s reasoning. The Arabist and MuzzleWatch seem to disagree. Here is the explanation by the concert organizers regarding what […]
We’re really, really happy that the Khalife concert was re-located and re-scheduled. It’s a shame because the venue is so great- however, the Al Awada folks, while dedicated to their cause and rightly so, can be a little difficult to work with and some of the other Arab-centered organizations I am affiliated with here in SD, tend to treat them rather gingerly,
Imagine a Jewish pro-Israeli group being denied a venue unless a pro-Arab spokesperson was included on the program. The cries of anti-Semitism would be heard from one end of the country to another, The ADL would be screaming about the denial of free speech, the abrogation of constitutional rights; Alan Dershowitz would have a law suit filed in five minutes.
But, of course, its not a Jewish group its an Arab group, and because they are Arabs and not Jews, or not white, Anglo-Saxon members of the NRA, or African-American members of the NAACP, or even neo-Nazis wishing to march through the streets, their rights can be trampled upon with impunity.
The ugly racism of it all is quite clear, as is the clear demand for ideological conformity. Note the argument of Dan above. He’s off arguing about Israel/Palestine. Yet this is not Israel and the issues at stake do not concern Israel, they concern the United States and how we are to live as Americans. But this crucial fact never enters his empty little Zionist head.
This is not about Israel/Palestine, its about the meaning of Free Speech and Democracy in America.
Zionist Ideologues, not unlike Dan, pressure and scream anti-semitism at the drop of a hat. For them the rights enshrined in the Constitution mean nothing, for them it’s support Israel in the exact manner we want you to support Israel or be damned.
The fact that we are a democratic republic based on free speech for all, on the notion of the open marketplace of ideas and open debate, on the notions of pluralism and equality matters not a whit. All they care about is that all those who support Palestinian rights be silenced, in any way possible.
Ideologues of all stripes have always held democratic pluralism and free speech in contempt, for it allows ideas differing from their own to be argued and considered in same light as their own. This they cannot stand.
Zionism and its thuggish followers are no different. Scratch one and a little man in jack boots jumps out.
“All they care about is that all those who support Palestinian rights be silenced, in any way possible.”
You argue as though Palestinian voices are all equally valid. No one would be starting up petitions of Hamas was denied a venue in the US. And yet it would be unheard of if CAIR was denied the space. These are two different organizations that support Palestinian rights, and on the continuum of extremity, Al-Awda is firmly planted between the two. Al-Awda advocates for a goal unattainable without acts of violence that would spark nothing short of war, and they acknowledge this both implicitly and explicitly. A Jewish organization that had settler’s rights as it’s sole mission would never get space anywhere outside of a synagogue, and even then I don’t know a single one that would let them hold an event without some sort of opposing view being represented.
So in conclusion, you’re wrong and your desperate attempts to point out a Zionist conspiracy strangling America are pitiful and, while not ostensibly anti-Jewish, specifically echo the claims of those who advocated for our extermination (and therefore are rejected by those of us who have yet to be convinced that such a genocide is no longer possible). In other words, freedom of speech doesn’t prevent the rest of the world from being disgusted and appalled by your speech.
To the “anti-zionist Jew” who doesn’t even have the belief in his convictions to sign his name:
You make my own argument for me. The notion of which Palestinian voices are “valid” and which are not is entirely immaterial. One does not first determine the “validity” of a voice (and God knows how that might even be accomplished) before according that voice the right to be heard. And it is certainly not left to the opposition to make that determination. (and by the way CAIR was just recently denied a voice, attacked as a conduit for terrorist money).
As to your hypothetical claim that a setter’s groups would never find a venue outside of synagogue, would you please name one instance of that ever occurring? Nor have I ever once encountered any pro-Zionist group – in a synagogue or out of one – ever once demanding on the pain of canceling the event that a pro-Palestinian voice be included for “balance.” You will clearly say anything, make any claim, no matter how baseless.
You baldly claim the right to determine the validity of any one voice before according it the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and thereby demonstrate your complete ignorance of the 1st Amendment – which, by the way, does not exist to protect the speech we all agree with, for that speech needs no protection. It is there to protect the rights of those we disagree with.
Your ending on a note throwing me in with the Nazi exterminators for supporting the free speech rights of those you disagree with is typical: scratch a Zionist and out steps an ugly little fascist. It never fails.
The Salvation is a religious/cultish organization, not the federal government.
It is impossible for a private organization to violate the 1st amendment.
To the knuckle-dragging moron who posted #’s 23 and 24:
Do you really believe that only the Federal Gov’t can, or should, be held responsible for violating one’s civil liberties?
How is it that at this late date in our history there can still exist someone so entirely ignorant?
Pretty disgusting to put colonialist settlers on the same moral plane as refugees just seeking their right to go home. Home to the place the settlers’ predecessors kicked them out of at gunpoint no less. No comparison.
“Do you really believe that only the Federal Gov’t can, or should, be held responsible for violating one’s civil liberties?”
No, but you keep on citing the Salvation Army as violating Al-Awda’s 1st amendment rights, but the first amendment only applies to the federal government. Did I mention that the Salvation Army is merely an arm of the Christian church? That means it’s private and can decide for itself who can or cannot play in their auditorium. Do you think the local Islamic Cultural Center five blocks down the street should be forced to book the Klezmonauts if AIPAC says so? Should my synagogue be forced to book some shitty christian rawk band like DC Talk because (insert name of one of a million christian hardliner groups) says so? I think we are both agree the answer is ‘no’.
And y’all need to stop fetishizing Palestinian refugees like sorority girls fetishize kids from Darfur. And you claim that it’s me that’s the orientalist… You pap smears reek of hypocrisy. And by the way, when are the Mizrahi Jews going to get their homes back? Or is that violation of international law not sexxxy enough for you?
Again, to the pathetic jerk who claims to be an anti-Zionist:
First, the Christian church is hardly a singular entity so to call the Salvation Army an “arm” of that broadly defined faith is a claim beyond ignorance and well into paranoid lunacy. Next, no doubt, you’ll claim the JDL to be an arm of the Jewish faith.
Second, just to be exact, the venue is managed by the Salvation Army not owned, but more to the point the concert in question was already arranged to take place at that venue before the demand was made to place an Israeli on the stage or be canceled. This was not as you so stupidly claim an incident where some group is demanding out of the blue to use some private group’s stage and then crying foul – an agreement already existed. But bigots such as yourself rarely allow fact to get in the way of your argument.
And finally, yes, we have the paranoid and gratuitous attack on Palestinian refugees. Of course, if anyone dared such an ugly comment concerning Jewish refugees you’d be screaming Nazi anti-semitism like a stuck pig.
For the record, I believe in the right of return for all refugees, of this conflict, Jewish or Palestinian. But it is interesting that you a partisan of Israel should bring up the rights of Mizrahi Jews, who along with Ethiopian Jews (to say nothing of Israeli-Arabs), are systematically discriminated against in Israel, the so-called land of the Jews.
One more thing, you must be a complete idiot to believe the 1st Amendment applies only to the Federal government It is the first section of the Bill of Rights! How did you ever come to such a idiotic notion?
It applies to all government actions, not just Federal but state and local as well. But your entirely legalistic argument on this point misses the target on just about everything. Our democracy is based on the belief in the free marketplace of ideas and debate, the importance of which is enshrined in the 1st Amendment. So to deny or hinder someone in the expression of that, especially after one has agreed already to rent them the space to do so, is clearly a violation of that principle. The law suit now taking place may not argue on exact 1st amendment grounds (I have no idea if they do or not) but the principles involved certainly rest on the spirit.
The notion here is that once you agree to rent your facility to a group then let the damn thing continue. That should apply to Arabs as well as Jews.
Ask any Con Law expert, ANY OF THEM. The first amendment applies ONLY to the federal government! Yes, no shit it’s part of the bill of rights, do you know what the bill of rights is? It’s the first ten amendments to the constitution. THE FEDERAL CONSITITUTION. LOOK THAT SHIT UP ON WIKIPEDIA. LOOK UP “first amendment” “freedom of speech” “bill of rights” “us consistution” ANY OF THEM. They all refer to the same goddman law that has jurisdiction over the actions of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the federal government. The Salvation Army is NOT the federal government. SO THEY CAN’T, AND BY CAN’T I MEAN IS LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE, VIOLATE ANYONE’S FREEDOM OF SPEECH. That’s the way western democracies work!
And if you think I support the way Israel handles minority groups, aka ME, you couldn’t be any more wrong.
Dear brainless shithead,
Instead of reading Wikipedia, which an idiot such as yourself would take as gospel, why not try an actual law school? Perhaps Cornell. Note the later section concerning the 14th applying to the first:
“The First Amendment has been interpreted by the Court as applying to the entire federal government even though it is only expressly applicable to Congress. Furthermore, the Court has interpreted, the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting the rights in the First Amendment (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendmenti) from interference by state governments. See U.S. Const. amend. XIV (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendmentxiv).
I doubt any of this would make a difference to such a blighted moron such as yourself as your clearly state in your last post that since the Constitution is Federal it can only apply to actions by the Federal government. No doubt your thinking is still very popular in some sections of Mississippi, but actually the goddamn question was settled at Appomattox a long time ago. Or are you still a supporter of slavery and Jim Crow segregation? As to the SA violating other’s right read again what I wrote and then try to squeeze a few thoughts through that disease-ridden brain of yours.
And frankly, as far as I can tell, you’d support Israel down to the last drop of everyone else’s blood.
The 14th amendment, not the first, applied free speech to local and state government. However, you still have to address the fact that the Salvation Army still doesn’t fall under this jurisdiction as they’re a private organization and not public.
Try reading what I wrote and stop arguing like you are nine years old. The 14th extended the 1st to cover states – that means the 1st covers states. Period.
As to the SA, again read what I wrote above. It is very clear.