Asher Responds to Seattle Times Article

Dear Mr. Rosenthal,

I just finished reading your article, “Biden campaigns for Patty Murray.” I and others from the Washington State Progressive Electoral Coalition were present at the protest handing out press releases about our intention to support a progressive independent candidate for US Senate, Dr. Richard Curtis. I am sorry you were not interviewing those who attended the protest as I would have welcomed the opportunity to speak with you.

It certainly must be newsworthy that the “Left wing” of the Democratic Party is willing to walk away from the Democrats to support an independent candidate more in tune with their progressive values than Senator Patty Murray, many from within the single-payer movement. In your article, you misrepresented this group as “supporters” who want to “pass a health-care package quickly.” I think you will find that, quite the contrary, the single-payer group is extremely unhappy with the health-care reform package promoted by Sen. Murray and the administration, which in fact is a payoff to the insurance industry. If you did some homework, you would find that Sen. Murray is one of the largest recipients of donations from insurance lobbyists.

We are also tapping into voter outrage against the two-party system that many feel is now owned and controlled by the corporations. This message is also resonating with some within the Tea Party Movement who, until this candidacy, have not had another mechanism through which they could voice their anger. The excerpt below from the Washington Post shows our potential to reach into the Tea Party Movement with the message of our independent candidate.

Hundreds of independent tea party groups have sprouted up nationwide over the past 12 months. Their members hold divergent political views, and their leaders have publicly quarreled over tactics. But the factions have largely united around a common cause: a don’t-tread-on-me brand of fiscal conservatism and a belief that the government, first under President George W. Bush and now under Obama, has recklessly plunged deeper into debt and overstepped its constitutional powers. “If you take 1,000 so-called tea partiers and ask them what this movement is, you’ll get 1,000 different interpretations,” said Mark Williams, a talk-radio host and chairman of the Tea Party Express.  – CBS News

A large part of this debt, which gets little press coverage, is the cost of the so-called “War on Terror” which, to date, has cost Washingtonians over $21 billion. That $21 billion would have gone a long way in the state of Washington. David Swanson, co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.com and author of Daybreak, Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union addresses the “imperial presidency” and the abuse of constitutional powers which many thought would be part of the promised “change.” By electing Obama, the American public voted for change but got more of the same. There are a lot of reasons why you are seeing this frustration percolating within the electorate, Mr. Rosenthal. I hope you will do some investigative reporting and get to the reasons why.

We will be holding an official press conference the first week in March, time and place to be determined. I have attached the press release we circulated yesterday. Please make note of the impressive list of endorsements Dr. Curtis has received since February 7 when the Senate Search Committee of the Washington State Progressive Electoral Coalition first asked him to run. We are in the process of setting up a campaign website but background information on Dr. Richard Curtis can be found at his website.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Maryrose Asher
Interim Campaign Coordinator

Countering Israeli Propaganda Regarding a “Jewish State”

Statements by Golda Meir, one of the founders of the state of Israel and its fourth prime minister (March 1969 – April 1974), best reflect the attitude of Zionists toward Palestinians.

In a speech to the Knesset, reported in Ner (October 1961):

Anyone who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen.

From the Sunday Times, June 15, 1969, and The Washington Post, June 16, 1969:

There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.

From Le Monde, October 15, 1971:

This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.

In order to have a Jewish state, you have to maintain a Jewish majority. It may seem like an oversimplification of a complex issue but this is, in essence, the heart of the conflict. The dilemma for Israel is how to consider itself a democracy while holding to the ideology that Israel is a Jewish state, not a secular one. The two concepts are at odds with each other. If you eliminate the growing Arab population, or severely curtail it, you have a way to maintain this ideology. The question needs to be asked, “Is Israel embarking on its own ‘Final Solution?'”

Western culture is familiar with the image of the Bedouin warriors and that is the image conjoured up when thinking of this area of the world. However, less known, but extremely important to this conflict, is the story of the fellaheen or peasants. It is they who are at the center of this conflict and who are paying the price even today.

Palestine has always been a country of farmers. Archaeologists have excavated agricultural sites near Jericho which date back to 8,000 BCE. Before the first wave of Jewish immigrants came in the late1800s, the indigenous people of Hebron were producing grapes, blown glassware, water bags, and candies. In Nablus, they produced olives and had small soap factories, so not quite the wasteland as the Zionists portray. For more information, please read Palestinians: The Making of a People by Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal.

Historian Frank S. Sakran in his book Palestine Still a Dilemma writes, “The people today called Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs, who have been fighting the Zionists and State of Israel which Zionism created in 1948, are largely the descendents of the Canaanites, the Edomities, and the Philistines who lived in Palestine when it was invaded by the Hebrews in ancient times. But the Hebrews finally left or were driven out two thousand years ago.”

This is a reference to the Roman destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. From that point on, the Jews were dispersed from the land.

Ezekiel 22:15-16, “And I will scatter thee among the nations, and disperse thee through the countries; and I will consume thy filthiness out of thee. And thou shalt be profaned in thyself, in the sight of the nations; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.” (The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text; The Jewish Publication Society of America)

The biblical references show only with the return of the Messiah would God’s “chosen people” be gathered again in Jerusalem. While the Christians interpret the Messiah to be Jesus Christ, a Jewish carpenter, the Jews have not recognized a fulfillment of the Old Testament messianic scriptures and still await the promised Moshiach.

From http://judaism.about.com/od/denominationsofjudaism/a/netureikarta.htm:

According to Neturei Karta, it is a sin, an affront against God, for Jews to establish a Jewish State in the Land of Israel. They believe that Jews must wait for the Messiah to bring about the end of the Jewish exile from their Promised Land.

Neturei Karta adherents do not recognize the current State of Israel. They do not carry Israeli identity cards, pay taxes, receive benefits, serve in the armed forces, or recognize the authority of the court system.

Some Neturei Karta members have actively engaged in the State’s downfall in the past. Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, the author of Neturei Karta’s prayer book, served in Yasser Arafat’s cabinet as Minister for Jewish Affairs. In 2006, Neturei Karta leaders visited Iran, praised Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and expressed solidarity with anti-Zionism sentiments voiced in Iran.

It is estimated that there are 1000-5000 members of this Neturei Karta, with most of them living in Jerusalem (Batei Ungarin and Meah Shearim neighborhoods). Other members of the sect live in Bnai Brak, London and Brooklyn.

Obviously, there is diverse opinion even among Jews as to whether Israel is indeed the Jew’s “God-given” land.

The only rational solution to this conflict is the replacement of this Zionist state with a democratic, secular state—a state which guarantees the rights of all its citizens. Even the concept of the need for a Jewish state is archaic. Zionism is an ideological concept which has run its course and it is due time to move on from colonialism and the subjugation of indigenous peoples.

Anti-Zionism: Analytical Reflections, Roselle Tekiner, Samir Abed-Rabbo, Norton Mezvinsky, editors, is a collection of essays written by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Israelis and Americans, as a tribute to Rabbi Elmer Berger for “diligently defending for over forty years, the great spiritual values of the Jewish faith against the ideology that falsely equates political Zionism with Judaism.” These essays challenge the concept that Israel is a peace-loving democracy and that the continuing state of Middle East hostilities is due to intransigient Palestinians and rigid hostility of Israel’s Arab neighbors. The authors, all respected authorities, argue that political/historical Zionism, systematized by Theodore Herzl and codified in the legal, political, and socio-economic structure of Israel, is the principle obstacle to peace.

The Jewish people must take to heart the words from the Passover Haggadah:

Each drop of wine we pour is hope and prayer that people will cast out the plagues that threaten everyone everywhere they are found, beginning in our own hearts: The making of war, the teaching of hate and violence, despoliation of the earth, perversion of justice and of government, fomenting of vice and crime, neglect of human needs, oppression of nations and peoples, corruption of culture, subjgation of science, learning and human discourse, the erosion of freedoms.

“Never Again,” the rallying cry of the Zionists, must take on a more universal meaning. The world must never again stay silent while those in power decide who lives and who dies. And, just as the Germans have had to pay reparations for what they did to the Jews, the Zionist Jews, whether in Israel or in the United States, must also pay for their active support of Israel’s war crimes. It may seem improbable at this point in time, with the genocide of the people of Gaza occurring at this very minute, but that day of reckoning will come.