Wednesday, November 17, 2010

If you Plant Ice You're Gonna Harvest Wind. Heckling the Hecklers at JVP

On Sunday night Nov 14, a group of pro Israel supporters attended a Jewish Voice for Peace meeting at the South Berkeley Senior Center. The Jewish Voice for Peace meeting was a celebration of a group of 5 activists who had heckled Netanyahu's appearance at the GA in New Orleans, a fact carefully omitted from subsequent JVP incident reports. The group, calling themselves "Young Jewish and Proud" is already inspiring parodies across the web.

Inspired by famed community organizer Saul Alinsky whose 1971 publication Rules for Radicals stresses “the difference between being a realistic radical and a rhetorical one.”, the pro-Israel activists used the meeting as an opportunity to heckle the hecklers- to give them "a taste of their own medicine".
From 'Rules for Radicals"
Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.
Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules.
Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack
ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

The activists succeeded. Frequent interruptions made it impossible to continue the meeting, and it was effectively shut down, with many people simply walking out. Conflicts over filming and photography escalated into a much publicized attack, followed swiftly by a cyber-attack directed towards the victim, a 58 year old disabled woman. Robin Dubner, an attorney, ethical vegetarian and animal rights activist who frequently speaks for the silenced voices in our community was physically isolated and attacked, and responded by pepper-spraying her assailants. JVP tweeted, spammed and mass marketed their version of the events across cyberspace in an effort to intimidate the pro-Israel activists into submission. It has failed. The truth can not be silenced.

How ironic that the group that claims to be "muzzled" celebrates the "muzzling" of people that don't share their point of view. How ironic that the group that claims to be "muzzled" refuses to allow comments on their blog.

JVP phoned the incident into the Berkeley police department as a " riot". 6 squad cars, 1 firetruck and an ambulance showed up at the scene. One assault. One pepper spraying. Two brief musical interludes reminiscent of the Titanic.

And hopeful a reminder to all (or at least to the smart ones) that the only real way to achieve peace is with dialog, mutual respect and compassion.

4 comments:

Jon said...

Here's a link to one of those parodies you mentioned:

http://www.divestthis.com/2010/11/young-jewish-and-proud-oy.html

Feel free to share it with any JVBUE (Jewish Voices for Beating up the Elderly) folks you run into.

Jon

Anonymous said...

Last year, the Bound Together Anarchist Collective (of which Jean Pauline of Bay Area Women in Black- another "peace group" is a member) sent this out, targeting synagogues with disruption

"I have strongly suggested to many different so-called action groups, that we immediately institute a program of visits to every synagogue in the USA, on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings, and rise in each congregation and - in dignified firm and unemotional voices- repeat "STOP THE KILLING"-- We need to go in groups of 3-4, to insure that we have 1 person as a defensive shield, and one as a video camera witness, recording everything. Jews especially should be doing these actions. We will face harsh treatment, and possibly physical attack, but our message must be resolute and continue week after week.
I see no possible legal impediment to this. The public, and certainly Jews- cannot be barred from entry to the services, and it will be extremely hard for the Synagogues to enforce exclusion. If they do, we can speak on the front steps, on the street, in the parking lot.
The Jews of America must be confronted with their clear responsibility- far more than complicity-in the mass murders, occupation, and forced starvation of the people of Palestine.
If any of you wants to work on this, just let me know."
Thanks,
DR

The hard left clearly feels that this tactic belongs to them alone, and that no one, heads of state, places of worship, academics, is immune....

Anonymous said...

I have a copy of the Berkeley police report. Both of the JVPers who attacked Robin signed a statement saying that they did not want to arrest Robin.

Alexandra Folger: "I do not want to arrest her, I just want her to leave."

Glen Hauer: I don"t want to press charges because I understood that if I did she would also place me under citizen's arrest."

So much for all their self-righteousness. They knew they were guilty of assault, battery, and attempted robbery (of Robin's camera.)

Steffy said...

JVP and similar covens will lie, cheat, and steal for their cause and the people they have the dubious fortune to be sexually attracted to.