My speech to a Justice for Palestine vigil

For an interfaith gathering at the University of Maryland.

I was honored to be asked to speak last night at a vigil at the University of Maryland organized by its chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace chapters. It followed an “All Day For Palestine” event, teach-ins, and an interfaith prayer.

We had to pass through metal detectors to reach the field where the event took place. Students were not allowed to have loudspeakers—or, apparently, even lighting. The newspaper said that roughly 500 people attended, which seems right.

A dear friend wanted me to record my speech for him, but I forgot to hit the “record” button. I had prepared bullet points but couldn’t see them in the darkness, so I can’t be sure exactly what points I made or in which order. This is my best attempt to reconstruct the speech from memory and those bullet points—for my friend and for anyone else who cares to read it.

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Brothers and sisters, friends, I want to start by addressing the people of Palestine. You have shown the world that human beings can be capable of more strength, faith, and courage than most of us could ever imagine. We love and honor you. We mourn for every man, woman, and child slaughtered with US arms and US dollars in the name of democracy.

But the people of Palestine didn’t sign up to be anyone’s inspiration. They didn’t enlist for this sacrifice. They were drafted into it after the Second World War by a world order that was and is dominated by Western powers. Those powers took their land—not out of idealism, as we were told, but for reasons of control and hegemony.

Those of us who try to promote justice for Palestine—which I think describes most of us here—often find ourselves facing a barrage of mind games and word games. Here’s why that’s on my mind tonight: I write and speak often about Palestine, so I’m used to nasty correspondence. But I got more this weekend than I expected, because what I’d written on Friday felt pretty mild. After some biased coverage from CBS News, some allies and I circulated a petition asking CBS to put a camera crew at the Hebron crossing, to show people what happens there so they can make up their own minds.

That’s it.

Judging by the responses, you’d think “make up our own minds” was hate speech. I’m sure you’ve experienced this, too: even if all you say about Palestine is “Gosh, it’s too bad about the children,” the responses can be vitriolic.

Let me quote some of the emails I received. (Don’t worry, I’ll leave out the bad language and personal insults.) One accused me of “flaming the fire that is ... causing the unprecedented rise in antisemitism and just plain old Jew hatred everywhere.”

Another said, “Many more countries should be called out for their atrocious stances on racism, woman’s rights, religious rights, and freedom of any kind ... be fair and balanced.”

One self-described expert wrote, “Do you understand that Jews cannot enter any Palestinian area without the risk of being killed or kidnapped?” (Apparently he hasn’t heard of “settlements.”) Another said, “People are getting sick and tired of your one-sided complaints.”

See what they’re doing? Every day we’re told that even mild criticism of Israel makes you an awful person who promotes “Jew hatred,” who’s unfair and unbalanced, who makes people “sick and tired.”

They want us to feel badly about speaking up for Palestine—as if it’s wrong to oppose the killing of children or the mass starvation and homelessness of an entire population.  They want us to feel ashamed for telling the truth.

But you know what? I’m done. I refuse to let anyone make me feel ashamed for telling the truth. Nobody will make me feel badly about demanding justice.

I’m proud of speaking up, and I hope every one of you is proud too. Please don’t stop.

But I will say this: I think a few of these comments arise out of genuine pain and fear. Western interests have spent 75 years manipulating the emotions of an innocent people who had barely survived an unthinkable trauma.

I know; I lived through some of that manipulation. It wasn’t just in school or on the evening news. It permeated the culture.

When I was eight years old my parents took me to see a movie about Israel that was very popular at the time. The theme song began, “This land is mine, God gave this land to me ...” ( Talk about “extremist rhetoric.”)

Those Western forces—who never had any special love for the Jewish people—instilled fear in millions to promote their cynical objectives. Today, they’ve frightened them so much that defending innocent infants feels like hate rather than humanity. That’s no way to live.

But I can have compassion for them and still know they’re tragically misguided.

People act as if we, not they, are too selective with our empathy. Psychologists call that “projection.” They tell us we should mourn all the innocent dead. I do—with all my heart and soul. The other side may dehumanize; we will not. As the anticolonialist revolutionary Omar Mukhtar reportedly said, “They are not our teachers.” We will not stoop to their level.

The Jewish and Islamic traditions both say that to kill one innocent person is to destroy an entire universe. “One innocent person”; that’s an individual measurement. As individuals, I mourn each innocent soul equally. Each is precious. Each is to be grieved for. Each is a universe, infinite.

But the freedom struggle is not about individuals or individual lives. It’s about a system—a system of colonialism, apartheid, and genocide. It’s about entrenched and globalized racism. It’s about the debasing of international courts, diplomacy, and organizations—especially those that rightly condemn Israel’s illegal occupation, its wanton cruelty, and its many violations of international and moral law.

This has been a shocking year—for the sheer volume of lives lost, for the magnitude of the violence, and for the nakedness of the genocidal intention displayed by Israel and supported by the US.  

It’s been shocking on the home front, too. I’ve been shocked by what I’ve seen and heard from people I know, from politicians, from public figures …

I thought I had a pretty good idea how things work around here. Friends, I didn’t know the half of it. In the last year I’ve seen my country exposed as a shadow—no, the shadow of a shadow—of the image it presents to the world. Sure, I knew about its militarism, colonialism, racism, and hypocrisy. I wasn’t even surprised by its support for the first waves of slaughter against Gaza. Saddened and horrified, yes, but not surprised.

But what shocked me then, and shocks me still, is its unending support for relentless genocide—day after day, week after week, month after month—with only the most translucent veneer of empty rhetoric to cover it.

And I’m surprised by the brazenness with which America’s global military machine wields its power, not only around the world but here in America. All other institutions in this country—media, police, employers—bow before it. That includes educational institutions.  This machine openly suppresses our rights—especially your rights as students who deserve to speak and think freely while pursuing peace and justice.

The weaponization of antisemitism: I have to say, I did see that coming. But they’ve taken it to new levels.

Which makes this a good time to talk about my own background: My father’s parents came from a Jewish village in what was then Russia and is now Ukraine. My mother’s mother was French. My maternal grandfather was born in a covered wagon headed west. (Three out of four of my grandparents were immigrants, but no white American has ever asked me “where I’m from.” Hm.)

My maternal great-grandfather fought in the US Civil War. My paternal great-grandfather was a senior rabbinical judge in Russia who presumably made judgments based on halakhic law. (If you don’t know what halakha is, it’s the Jewish version of shar’ia—without all the bad publicity.)

I’m proud of my Jewish grandparents, who came to a new land with nothing. My grandmother was one of the strongest people I’ve ever known. My grandfather was a tailor and a left-wing union organizer who as a young man helped his entire village escape from the pogroms.

You know what “pogrom” means, right? “It’s the Russian word for, “Cossacks doing to Jewish villagers back then what settlers do to Palestinians in the West Bank today.”

And so, here we are, one year later. What happens next? Nobody knows the future, least of all me. But I can offer some observations before I go:

I was a child during the integration of the segregated, apartheid American South (although that’s still a work in progress). People said black people would never be able to vote, or even to eat in the same restaurants as white people. They said it was impossible. But it happened.

I worked in communist Europe, where I saw the Soviet empire collapse—something else people thought was impossible. But it happened.

I spent time in South Africa, where people once thought apartheid was permanent and that there would be a bloodbath if it fell apart. They said a peaceful transition was impossible. But it happened.

And so, while I can’t back it up with facts and figures, I sense something coming—something people say is impossible. My head and my heart both tell me that not only is a free Palestine possible, it is inevitable. I see the people of Palestine, and I see all of you here tonight, and I know that you’ll keep the faith and continue the struggle until that day comes. Deep inside, I feel it.

And so, I tell you now that I am certain—in my body and my soul—that justice will prevail and Palestine will be free.