Charlotte L. Kates could care less about the Palestinians.
If she did, she would not support suicide bombings and urge Palestinian control of Israel itself. All her creepy, one-sided and confrontational attitude does is antagonize people who might otherwise be willing to listen to her concerns about the Palestinians. In fact, she makes it easy for me if I choose to cease all criticism of Israeli policies. She told the New York Times, ?It is not our place in the United States to dictate the tactics Palestinian groups use in the liberation struggle.?
She must likewise believe that ?it is not our place in the United States? to consider facts when making judgements about the crisis in Israel. By her standards, I no longer need ?to dictate the tactics? of the Israeli government in dealing with the current conflict.
Come October, Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., will likely become the site of a three-ring circus when New Jersey Solidarity hosts the Third North American Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement. Thank Kates for reserving space at Rutgers so that hundreds of student activists can gather to ?organize against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.?
Not only is New Brunswick 50 miles north of where I live, but it appears Kates? family lives in or around Collingswood, N.J., a Philadelphia suburb on the other side of Camden. The New York Times, in its July 18 profile of Kates, relates that as a teenager, a supermarket clerk spotted her handing out copies of The People?s Weekly World, a communist newspaper, at a Collingswood train station. She started to learn about communist society while reading up on it during a family trip to Philadelphia. If you call to ask for her parents? phone number in Collingswood, the operator will tell you they have an unlisted number. All this means that Kates? family is probably more or less my neighbor; Kates, 23, now lives in a Rutgers dorm where she is a law student. So far, Philadelphia and South Jersey get along fine, and residents of both states move back and forth across the Delaware River without disruption or fear of terrorist attacks. (With the exception, of course, of Sunday night traffic jams, which are attributable to return shore traffic during the summer.)
New Jersey officials have been pressured to cancel the conference at Rutgers, but Governor McGreevey supported the decision of Rutgers president Richard L. McCormick to allow the conference to be held there. Whatever arguments can be dredged up for or against the site of the conference, Rutgers and New Jersey Solidarity are clearly a mismatch. A university setting is a place for intellectual inquiry to pursue facts and information, not to set out with preconceived notions.
These people have their minds made up. They are not fair-minded folks whose criticism is based on the truth. Whether their activism is based on anti-Semitism is debatable at this stage, but what?s not debatable is that they operate out of ignorance. To her credit, Kates does not identify only with the Palestinians as underdogs, but with anyone who is oppressed in some way. However, she and her friends do not understand ? and probably do not want to understand - that poverty is not the driving force behind the Palestinian uprising. It is primarily driven by religious and ideological fervor. On the question of anti-Semitic motives, one has to wonder if Kates ? who drapes a red kaffiyeh around her shoulders - has organized or will plan conferences for oppressed people of Tibet, North Korea, Liberia, the Sudan, among others, along with Palestinian women who are vulnerable to honor killings.
Interestingly, I have had more rational e-mail exchanges with Arabs than I have had with those who are neither Arab nor Muslim. Because this is personal for them, the Arabs are not in this for some idealistic exercise and the fair-minded ones among them can recognize their side?s shortcomings.
It is also strange that she hopes to become a lawyer. Yes, lawyering is about advocacy, but it is also about facts and the law. As mentioned before, she supports mass murder of Jews in Israel. In this country, murder is a violation of the law.
Which gives me an idea: If she moves to her ?Palestine? to advocate for the Palestinians, she can specialize in prosecuting Palestinian men who commit honor killings against Palestinian women.
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Bruce Ticker is a freelance writer and former journalist living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He can be reached at brucetic@aol.com.
If she did, she would not support suicide bombings and urge Palestinian control of Israel itself. All her creepy, one-sided and confrontational attitude does is antagonize people who might otherwise be willing to listen to her concerns about the Palestinians. In fact, she makes it easy for me if I choose to cease all criticism of Israeli policies. She told the New York Times, ?It is not our place in the United States to dictate the tactics Palestinian groups use in the liberation struggle.?
She must likewise believe that ?it is not our place in the United States? to consider facts when making judgements about the crisis in Israel. By her standards, I no longer need ?to dictate the tactics? of the Israeli government in dealing with the current conflict.
Come October, Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., will likely become the site of a three-ring circus when New Jersey Solidarity hosts the Third North American Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement. Thank Kates for reserving space at Rutgers so that hundreds of student activists can gather to ?organize against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.?
Not only is New Brunswick 50 miles north of where I live, but it appears Kates? family lives in or around Collingswood, N.J., a Philadelphia suburb on the other side of Camden. The New York Times, in its July 18 profile of Kates, relates that as a teenager, a supermarket clerk spotted her handing out copies of The People?s Weekly World, a communist newspaper, at a Collingswood train station. She started to learn about communist society while reading up on it during a family trip to Philadelphia. If you call to ask for her parents? phone number in Collingswood, the operator will tell you they have an unlisted number. All this means that Kates? family is probably more or less my neighbor; Kates, 23, now lives in a Rutgers dorm where she is a law student. So far, Philadelphia and South Jersey get along fine, and residents of both states move back and forth across the Delaware River without disruption or fear of terrorist attacks. (With the exception, of course, of Sunday night traffic jams, which are attributable to return shore traffic during the summer.)
New Jersey officials have been pressured to cancel the conference at Rutgers, but Governor McGreevey supported the decision of Rutgers president Richard L. McCormick to allow the conference to be held there. Whatever arguments can be dredged up for or against the site of the conference, Rutgers and New Jersey Solidarity are clearly a mismatch. A university setting is a place for intellectual inquiry to pursue facts and information, not to set out with preconceived notions.
These people have their minds made up. They are not fair-minded folks whose criticism is based on the truth. Whether their activism is based on anti-Semitism is debatable at this stage, but what?s not debatable is that they operate out of ignorance. To her credit, Kates does not identify only with the Palestinians as underdogs, but with anyone who is oppressed in some way. However, she and her friends do not understand ? and probably do not want to understand - that poverty is not the driving force behind the Palestinian uprising. It is primarily driven by religious and ideological fervor. On the question of anti-Semitic motives, one has to wonder if Kates ? who drapes a red kaffiyeh around her shoulders - has organized or will plan conferences for oppressed people of Tibet, North Korea, Liberia, the Sudan, among others, along with Palestinian women who are vulnerable to honor killings.
Interestingly, I have had more rational e-mail exchanges with Arabs than I have had with those who are neither Arab nor Muslim. Because this is personal for them, the Arabs are not in this for some idealistic exercise and the fair-minded ones among them can recognize their side?s shortcomings.
It is also strange that she hopes to become a lawyer. Yes, lawyering is about advocacy, but it is also about facts and the law. As mentioned before, she supports mass murder of Jews in Israel. In this country, murder is a violation of the law.
Which gives me an idea: If she moves to her ?Palestine? to advocate for the Palestinians, she can specialize in prosecuting Palestinian men who commit honor killings against Palestinian women.
--------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Ticker is a freelance writer and former journalist living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He can be reached at brucetic@aol.com.