The cognitive dissonance of Jack Dresser

It is clear that some people should keep their opinions to themselves, yet they continue to speak with all the gusto of a preening politician.  Some of you may know Mr. Dresser, others may need an introduction. 

Jack Dresser is a virulent anti-semite and pro-Islamist, defending sharia law and jihad through TV interviews with our local imam here in Eugene, Oregon, Kahlid Alfallatah.  Dresser is co-founder of our local Al-Nakba Awareness Project, a group dedicated to re-writing history to show Palestine as a historically non-Jewish area.  For years he has been a vocal opponent of Israel and Jews, he sets up a little booth at our Saturday Market and passes out anti-semitic propaganda.  His favorite anti-Israeli whipping boy/poster child is Rachel Corrie, who he claims was killed by Jews.

In the Register-Guard, the local Eugene newspaper on March 29, an editorial by Jack Dresser appeared, talking about his favorite subject, Rachel Corrie and Jews.  There is so much wrong with what he wrote it would take too much space to address all his claims, but his main point about the group Rachel was murdered by, the ISM needs to be answered.  The ISM was the group Rachel was a member of, and their responsibility in her death is important to understand.

First is Dresser's editorial, then my reply.


From the Register-Guard March 29 by Jack Dresser

Rachel Corrie’s story is one America needs to know, too

Lord Leebrick Theatre Co.’s production of “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” recently ended, ably directed by Carol Dennis with Rachel’s role well-performed by Nicole Trobaugh. We thank the theater for staging this important work, now translated into some half-dozen languages and staged in over a dozen countries to date.

We agree with Craig Weinerman’s March 9 guest viewpoint that more context for the events leading to Rachel’s death was needed, and we provided some basics on one-page handouts to theater-goers at each performance. On the first two nights our handouts corrected misinformation on the theater’s website and playbill, which managers agreed to remove after speaking with the Corries.

Following this, what Weinerman described as our “aggressive and defamatory anti-Israel advocacy” on new handouts included the mission statement of the International Solidarity Movement with which Rachel worked, which describes itself as “a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli apartheid in Palestine by using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles.”

It continues, “Founded by a small group of primarily Palestinian and Israeli activists in August 2001, ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by providing the Palestinian people with two resources, international solidarity and an international voice with which to nonviolently resist an overwhelming military occupation force.”

We added, “Martin Luther King once said, ‘The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.’ By joining the ISM, Rachel was not simply following personal beliefs and youthful idealism, but was engaging directly in shaping this historical arc, defending the weak from abuse by the strong, challenging cruelty and injustice, and supporting fundamental human rights under international law.

“Everyone has a right to life, liberty and security of person” — Article 3, Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property” — Article 17(2), Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” — Article 49, Fourth Geneva Convention.

“Any destruction by the occupying power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons ... is prohibited, except where such destruction is made absolutely necessary by military operations” — Article 53, Fourth Geneva Convention.

In addition, we corrected one playbill statement defining the intifadas as “attacks by Palestinian militants on the state of Israel,” defining them rather as “popular uprisings against the Israeli occupation.” The first intifada followed Gandhian principles and Palestinian resistance for some 2½ decades has been largely nonviolent against Israeli occupation of their land, on their land. Israeli state violence has vastly exceeded violence by Palestinians (see http://www.ifamericansknew.org/).

We also provided a list of informative websites for theater patrons who might wish to explore more thoroughly the conditions opposed by Rachel and the ISM and/or become more involved. On the back of the sheet we provided our own mission statement advocating “freedom, justice and equality in the Holy Land” — not exactly radical ideas.

Weinerman’s characterization of the context in which Rachel was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer while attempting to protect a Palestinian family’s home from demolition as “a counterterrorism operation” would be comical did it not reflect an ongoing tragedy for many thousands of Palestinians in addition to Rachel. Since 1967, over 25,000 Palestinian family homes and over a million fruit and olive trees — the mainstay of their economy — have been destroyed by Israel to establish illegal settlements, the segregation wall and a network of Jewish-only roads on Palestinian land, some 600 checkpoints on Palestinian roads that suffocate Palestinian commerce and social relationships, and other activities illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention (see http://www.icahd.org/).

Sympathetic identification with Rachel’s death was compared with — and by implication reduced by — the “equally tragic” stories of eight Israeli victims of suicide bombings named and described by Weinerman. They too are certainly tragic.

The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has recorded the deaths of children on both sides since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000 (see www.rememberthesechildren.org). Through the end of 2010, 124 Israeli and 1,457 Palestinian children had been killed. We encourage readers to examine these records online, organized in parallel columns by month, specifying the name, age and cause of death of each victim.

Ninety-three Palestinian children had been killed before the first Israeli child died.

One hundred and five Palestinian children had been killed before the first suicide bombing, which killed two Israeli teenagers at a gas station.

Following discontinuation of suicide bombings by Hamas in 2005, eight Israeli and 671 Palestinian children have been killed.

Rachel died to protect Palestinians. Each Palestinian child also had a name, unknown and invisible to American consumers of our pro-Israel press. Each had parents and family, who remain voiceless. We too would like these other stories told. And as for Rachel’s parents as “critics,” they must now also serve as proxies for some 3,000 grieving Palestinian parents.

Jack Dresser is national vice chairman of the Veterans for Peace working group on Israel/Palestine and co-director of Eugene’s Al-Nakba Awareness Project.

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Here is my reply dated March 31

Rachel Corrie was used by Islam to advance the Palestinian agenda

In the guest editorial by Jack Dresser titled “Rachel Corrie’s story is one America needs to know, too” (3-29) I agree the story of Rachel Corrie is indeed one to be known, but with all the facts presented, not just the biased hatred of Israel and America presented by the play.

First, who is the International Solidarity Movement and what do they stand for?  Founded by American married couple Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro along with Canadian-Israeli Neta Golan with the goal of sending anti-Israeli activists to Gaza and the West Bank.  Another mover in the ISM is George Rishmawi, head of the Grassroots International Protection for Palestinians.  He does the coordination and training of ISM volunteers once they arrive in the Palestinian areas. 

The ISM has a long history of associations with groups such as Islamic Jihad, the military wing of Fatah and the genocidal Hamas, who’s charter calls for the death of the Jews and the destruction of the state of Israel.  Rachel Corrie, as idealistic as she was let herself be drawn into the ISM, her hatred of Israel the driving force she nurtured and the ISM the group who would help her achieve the dream of stopping the “Israeli occupation”.

She was recruited to stand in front of a bulldozer, ostensibly to stop it from tearing down a home of a Palestinian.  In reality she was protecting the home of a known terrorist, and that home was above a network of tunnels used to smuggle weapons which were then fired against innocent Israelis.  Whether she knew this or not we will never know, we only know that she died in service of her Palestinian masters.

The death of Rachel Corrie is a tragedy, not only a loss of a young life but it is also a loss of perspective on the issues which foment this kind of behavior.  The ISM is not the kind of organization which sees both sides and acts accordingly, it brews it’s own brand of anti-semitism and Jew-hatred and inculcates the minds of the idealistic protesters to where there is only one path to redemption: give your life for the greater good.  The dead protesters gain nothing, it is the ISM who benefits the most, using their deaths as propaganda to recruit more visionaries to the cause.

The claim that the ISM is a non-violent group, akin to Ghandi or Martin Luther King, Jr is a lie, presented only to convince us that they really want peace and will do everything short of violence to achieve it.  Unfortunately history shows the ISM to be following more the lines of Muhammad than Ghandi. March 2003 saw Israeli troops raid the offices of the ISM in Jenin in the West Bank.  The IDF captured Shadi Suqiyeh, a senior member of the fundamental group Islamic Jihad who was known to have planned numerous foiled attempts against Israel.  

In April 2003 two suicide bombers from Britain met with ISM members before blowing themselves up in a Tel-Aviv pub.  Are these the non-violent approaches the ISM champions as per Ghandi or King?  As one of their leaders said on Al-Jazeera recently “We recognize that violence is necessary and it is permissible for oppressed and occupied people to use armed resistance and we recognize their right to do so.”  Not exactly the words to Kumbayya.
The tragic tale of Rachel Corrie is part of the decades-long animosity between two different ideologies: Judaism and Islam.  Her telling of the conflict, based in her own biases and prejudices reflects only one small part of the terror all sides experience.  The propaganda against Israel, presented with no context only serves to demonize, not to educate.  There are always at least two sides to every story and it is a shame the play about her life as an activist shows only hatred and hate-mongering against a people deserving of more than derision and scorn.

Rachel Corrie did not die to protect Palestinian children, she died to advance the program of Islamic genocide against Jews, through the ISM.  She died not a martyrs death, but the death of an innocent who knew not the real story.

May God bless Rachel Corrie.