Is it pro-slavery to support the Palestinian struggle? A response to Charles Jacobs of the so-called American Anti-Slavery Group

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The article I take up here by Charles Jacobs, which is appended to my
comments, appeared in the October 5 Boston Globe.  David McReynolds of the
War Resisters League sent it to the 107disc  antiwar list for reading and
discussion.  I read it and responded.

Dear David,
I guess the article by Charles Jacobs. entitled "Why Israel and not Sudan is
Singled Out" is worth reading but  then I'll read just about anything so I'm
a poor judge.

But why does Jacobs, who is described as president of the American
Anti-Slavery Group, single out  Sudan rather than Israel? Why does this
even-handed fellow make no criticism of Israel at all and indicate no
support for the Palestinian struggle?

His entire argument, in fact, is permeated by the assumption that some
country must be singled out, while fiercely denouncing those who allegedly
make a different choice ("Israel and not Sudan") than he does (Sudan and not
Israel).

Does it have anything to do with the fact that Sudan has been a target of
American bombing which destroyed a pharmaceutical factory that produced most
of the country's medicines and which the regime has not been able to
replace?

Is it because the U.S. government has been backing rebels against the regime
for many years-- coming from the Black Christians of the South, who have
been savagely oppressed over many decades, including by the present
government?

Does it have anything to do with the fact that Sudan is listed by the State
Department as a terrorist nation like Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and
other prime targets of U.S. aggression?

Why does he enthuse over  "Black" rebellion in Sudan against the Muslim
central government, but have not one positive word to say about Palestinian
resistance to Israel?  By his reasoning, isn't this anti-Muslim or
anti-Arab?

Why is his fire focused on the government of the Sudan,  one of the poorest
countries of the world which receives no U.S.  aid and suffers from U.S.
sanctions, while he endorses no criticism of Israel, the strongest military
and economic power in the Middle East, which receives billions in military
hardware from the United States free of charge every year?

Why does Jacobs endorse former Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers --
a direct participant as a member of the Clinton cabinet  in U.S. support to
Israel and U.S. aggression against Iraq -- who is now attempting to use
baiting about anti-Semitism to intimidate student protesters on his Harvard
University campus?  What interest does an "American Anti-Slavery Group" have
in doing this?

Why does Jacobs endorse the smear, backed by a plethora of university
presidents with a clear conflict of interest in the matter,  that calls for
divestment from Israel are anti-Semitic in effect if not in intent?  While
he opposes divestment from Israel,  there is no indication that he opposes
sanctions on Iraq for example.  Aren't they anti-Arab in effect if not in
intent? Does Jacobs believe that calls for divestment from South Africa
under apartheid were oppressive of white people?  What possible interest
would an "American Anti-Slavery Group" have in adopting this position?
He doesn't really seem to be aiming at a united front against slavery.

And why does the head of a so-called American Anti-Slavery Group seem to
suggest at one point that Americans have no moral authority to criticize
Israel because of  the U.S. rulers' criminal record?  Does he think they
have the moral authority to criticize Sudan?  If they have no right to
critiicize other countries, why is there an American Anti-Slavery Group led
by none other than President Jacobs? Does he think that Germans, for
example, have no right to criticize the U.S. war against Iraq because of the
crimes committed by the German state before and during World War II?

Why does Jacobs claim that there are much worse problems in the Middle East
than the oppression of Palestinians, and then  talk only about Sudan. which
is not in the Middle East but the Horn of Africa, a different geographical
region of the world?

Why does he falsely claim that there has been no indignation from Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch about the violations of human rights in
Sudan?  He seems to be well-informed enough to know that this statement is
completely false.  Why does he make the claim that progressives in the
United States directed no fire at the Jordanian regime when it slaughtered
Palestinians in "Black September" in 1970, when this is demonstrably untrue?
Why does he seem to condemn the Jordanian regime circa 1970 but not Israel
circa 2002?

If Jacobs is dedicated to opposing slavery, why is he so sensitive to any
criticism focused on Israel and "the West"?  Do they have clean hands in
this matter?  Wasn't Sudan a colony of Britain for many years?  Didn't
imperialism use the divisions between Arabs and Blacks, which are now
tearing the country apart, as part of the basis of their rule?  Isn't
imperialism using these divisions today to strengthen its position in the
Horn of  Africa, and undermine the independence and sovereignty of all the
peoples of Sudan?

Why does opposition to slavery in  Sudan require denouncing everyone who
criticizes Israel?

In fact, the continued existence and even growth of slavery in the world
today is a product of imperialist domination and the devastating crises it
is imposing on  Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and other parts of
the world..  Every backward and reactionary institution and prejudice --
including slavery, monarchy, the oppression of  women (the Taliban didn't
invent the oppression of women and it seems to have survived their fall),
and anti-Semitism --  has its most powerful  line of defense in Washington
and Wall Street.

In fact, the struggle of the Palestinian people against Israel  is one of
the front-line battles for human rights in the world today, just as was the
struggle to topple apartheid in South Africa, and victory in that battle
will be a blow to every form of oppression in the world.  Shouldn't an
opponent of  slavery be able to recognize that fact?

It  sounds like the American Anti-Slavery Group  is rather more interested
in countering criticism or opposition to Israel  than in opposing slavery or
any other injustice in the world.

Frankly,  I think Mr. Jacobs is running a scam.

Yours in struggle,
Fred Feldman






----- Original Message -----
From: <DavidMcR@xxxxxxx>
To: <107disc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <socialistsunmoderated@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
<asdnet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2002 8:35 PM
Subject: [107disc] Why Israel, not Sudan, is singled out


A troubling article, worth reading. The sender may have an agenda of her own
- the critique of Israel is based on heavy US funding, the military
alliance,
etc. (and her assumption there was no massacre in Jenin depends entirley on
how you define massacre). But the issues raised remain troubling.

David

<< > From:  Wendy Leibowitz
 > Sent:    Wednesday, October 9, 2002 3:27 PM
 > To:  Garry Lee Wright; Brian. Whitaker@guardian. co. uk; Simon.
 > Tisdall@guardian. co. uk; William Thro; Mark Thompson; Eric Leibowitz;
 > Sandy Leibowitz; Arnold Leibowitz; Judith Ingram; Bertie Van Gelder;
Gene;
 > Hal Davis
 > Subject:     Why Israel, not Sudan, is singled out
 >
 > Boston Globe
 > 10/5/2002
 >
 > Why Israel and not Sudan, is singled out
 >
 > By Charles Jacobs, 10/5/2002
 >
 > HARVARD PRESIDENT Lawrence Summers recently criticized those on his
campus
 > who speak in the name of human rights but selectively censure Israel
while
 > ignoring much greater problems in the Middle East. He described the
 > divestment campaign against Israel on his campus as anti-Semitic ''in
 > effect
 > if not intent.'' But human rights (and media) attention is often
 > disproportionate to the severity or urgency of human conflicts. What
 > determines their focus is not mainly anti-Semitism. Nor is it the level
of
 > horror. It is the racial, religious, and cultural character of the
 > perpetrators, not the victims, that determines the response of
Westerners.
 >
 > An instructive case is Sudan. Atrocities there exceed every other world
 > horror. For 10 years the blacks of South Sudan have been victims of an
 > onslaught that has taken more than 2 million lives. Colin Powell calls it
 > ''the worst human rights nightmare on the planet.'' Yet with the
important
 > exception of the black Christian community here, there has been a
 > disturbingly muted reaction from well-known American human rights
 > champions.
 > The media cover the deaths in Sudan only occasionally.
 >
 > Do rights activists and editorialists care more for Palestinians than for
 > blacks? Surely not. It is the nature of the conflict, I propose, not the
 > level of horror, that determines the response of Westerners.
 >
 > In Khartoum, a Taliban-like Muslim regime is waging a self-declared jihad
 > on
 > African Christians and followers of tribal faiths in South Sudan.
Non-Arab
 > African Muslims are also targeted for devastation. Two million people
have
 > been killed - more than in Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, and
 > Burundi combined. Tens of thousands have been displaced, and 100,000,
 > according to the US Committee on Refugees, forcibly starved.
 >
 > Western lack of interest is all the more stunning as Khartoum's onslaught
 > has rekindled the trade in black slaves, halted (mostly) a century ago by
 > the British abolitionists. Arab militias storm African villages, kill the
 > men, and enslave the women and children. Accounts by journalists and
 > others
 > depict the horror. In these pogroms, after the men are slaughtered, the
 > women, girls, and boys are gang raped - or they have their throats slit
 > for
 > resisting. The terrorized survivors are marched northward and distributed
 > to
 > Arab masters, the women to become concubines, the girls domestics, the
 > boys
 > goat herders.
 >
 > It is hard to explain why victims of slavery and slaughter are virtually
 > ignored by American progressives. How can it be that there is no storm of
 > indignation at Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, which, though
 > they rushed to Jenin to investigate false reports of Jews massacring
 > Arabs,
 > care so much less about Arab-occupied Juba, South Sudan's black capital?
 > How
 > can it be that they have not raised the roof about Khartoum's black
 > slaves?
 > Neither has there been a concerted effort by the press to pressure
 > American
 > administrations to intervene. Nor has the socialist left spoken of
 > liberating the slaves or protecting black villages from pogroms, even
 > though
 > Wall Street helps bankroll Khartoum's oil business, which finances the
 > slaughter.
 >
 > What is this silence about? Surely it is not because we don't care about
 > blacks. Progressives champion oppressed black peoples daily. My
hypothesis
 > is this: to predict what the human rights community (and the media) focus
 > on, look not at the oppressed; look instead at the party seen as the
 > oppressor. Imagine the media coverage and the rights groups' reaction if
 > it
 > were ''whites'' enslaving blacks in Sudan. Having the ''right'' oppressor
 > would change everything.
 >
 > Alternatively, imagine the ''wrong'' oppressor: Suppose that Arabs, not
 > Jews, shot Palestinians in revolt. In 1970 (''Black September''), Jordan
 > murdered tens of thousands of Palestinians in two days, yet we saw no
 > divestment campaigns, and we wouldn't today. This selectivity (at least
in
 > the United States, does not come from the hatred of Jews. It is '' a
human
 > rights complex '' - and is not hard to understand. The human rights
 > community, composed mostly of compassionate white people, feels a special
 > duty to protest evil done by those who are like ''us.''
 >
 > ''Not in my name'' is the worthy response of moral people. South African
 > whites could not be allowed to represent ''us.'' But when we see evil
done
 > by ''others,'' we tend to shy away. Though we claim to have a single
 > standard for all human conduct, we don't. We fear the charge of
hypocrisy:
 > We Westerners after all, had slaves. We napalmed Vietnam. We live on
 > Native
 > American land. Who are we to judge ''others?'' And so we don't stand for
 > all
 > of humanity.
 >
 > The biggest victims of this complex are not the Jews who are obsessively
 > criticized but the victims of genocide, enslavement, religious
 > persecution,
 > and ethnic cleansing who are murderously ignored: the Christian slaves of
 > Sudan, the Muslim slaves of Mauritania, the Tibetans, the Kurds, the
 > Christians in Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt.
 >
 > Seeking expiation instead of universal justice means ignoring the
 > sufferings
 > of these victims of non-Western aggression and making relatively more of
 > the
 > suffering of those caught in confrontation with people like ''us.'' If
the
 > Israelis are being ''profiled'' because they are like ''us,'' the slaves
 > of
 > Sudan are ignored because their masters' behavior has nothing to do with
 > us.
 >
 > In the United States it is not predominantly anti-Semitism that causes
the
 > human rights community to single Israel out for criticism. It is rather
 > our
 > failure to apply to all nations the standards to which we hold ourselves.
 > The effect, as Summers correctly said, is anti-Semitic. But it is also
the
 > abandonment of those around the world in the worst of circumstances whose
 > oppressions we find beside the point.
 >
 > Charles Jacobs is president of the American Anti-Slavery Group.
 >
 >
 > This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 10/5/2002.
 > © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. >>


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