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Stephen Zunes's Speech from the Aug. 24 Panetta Protest
STEPHEN ZUNES - PROFESSOR OF POLITICS AND DIRECTOR OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES AT UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO
I recently talked to an Israeli friend named Leah, a survivor of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on her kibbutz, still grieving the murder and kidnapping of her friends and neighbors. She has been among the hundreds of thousands of Israelis protesting Netanyahu demanding a ceasefire. I told her I was going to be speaking here today and she said something to the effect that it was good I live in a progressive city.
I told her that was not actually the case. While the city councils of over 100 U.S. cities — including San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Davis, Hollister, Long Beach, Atlanta, Chicago, Dayton, Detroit, Minneapolis, Providence, Seattle, St. Paul, St. Louis, and Toledo — have come out in support for a ceasefire, the Santa Cruz City Council voted down such a resolution despite hundreds of people, over 80% of those who spoke, testifying in support. The resolution condemned the Hamas terrorist attacks and called for the release of hostages, but because it also called for a ceasefire, Mayor Fred Keeley, Vice-Mayor Renee Golder, Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, and Scott Newsome voted it down, apparently because they believed that the 68% of Americans, including the 85% of Democrats, who support a ceasefire were wrong and Netanyahu is right. And that Israelis like Leah are wrong and Netanyahu is right.
Leah, like so many other Israelis, is particularly disturbed that the bipartisan leadership of Congress has invited Netanyahu to address a joint session, something only a handful of world leaders have ever been invited to do. This would be Netanyahu’s fourth such address. No world leader, even Winston Churchill, has been invited four times. She wondered, why would so many Democrats, like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jefferies, want to give a soon-to-be-indicted war criminal that high honor. Why would they want to give him such a political boost as his popularity within Israel is plummeting? Why would they effectively be rewarding him after repeatedly rejecting Biden’s proposal for even a temporary ceasefire in return for the hostages? And why would they want to give Netanyahu such a public forum to repeatedly and unfairly attacked an incumbent Democratic administration like he did last time? Why would they resist the calls of hundreds of prominent Israelis — including a former prime minister, a Nobel Prize winner, the former Intelligence chief and others representing Israeli science, technology, politics, defense, law and culture — to cancel the invitation?
I don’t know the answer. But we need to make it clear to Jimmy Panetta you must not be part of this!
This may be difficult.
This past fall, as it became evident that 80% of the casualties from Israel’s ongoing bombing of Gaza were civilians, including thousands of children, demands that both Israel and Hamas end the fighting have been growing. Our Congressman Jimmy Panetta, however, would have none of it, as he — in his words — stood “shoulder to shoulder” with Israel’s far right government in its horrific bombing campaign despite thousands of calls from constituents calling on him to support a permanent ceasefire, a release of the hostages, and a withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces.
The Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, the Anglican Church, and mainline Protestant denominations have all called for such a ceasefire. Only the rightwing fundamentalist churches support the ongoing war. Panetta, however, is siding with the fundamentalists.
Would you tolerate a city council member of a Democratic Congressperson who sided with the fundamentalists on LGBTQ rights?
Would Santa Cruz County Democrats tolerate a city council member or a Democratic Congressperson who sided with the fundamentalists on reproductive freedom?
Why, then, can they get away with siding with the fundamentalists on war and peace?
Polls show a sizable majority of registered Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide. When the International Court of Justice ruled that there was indeed plausible evidence that Israel was violating the genocide convention, Panetta joined a rightwing minority of Democrats joining the majority of Republican in signing a letter denouncing the World Court.
Polls show that a majority of Americans, including two-thirds of Democrats, support halting all military aid to Israel as a result of its ongoing war crimes in Gaza. President Biden has refused, however. He has only agreed to suspend one shipment of certain kinds of bombs, such as a notorious 2000-pound weapon human rights groups have documented as responsible for numerous mass-casualty events, including leveling entire apartment buildings filled with civilians.
What was Panetta’s response to this limited move in the right direction. Panetta criticized Biden from the right!
While the vast majority of Congressional Democrats approved of Biden’s decision to delay this one shipment, Panetta joined 25 hawkish Democrats in criticizing the president, insisting that his $16 billion of other armaments he is sending to Israel isn’t enough, and he must also deliver these deadly explosives regardless of civilian casualties. Panetta ludicrously claimed that withholding some 2000-pound bombs goes against Israel’s right to defend itself, buttresses terrorist groups, allows them to steal humanitarian aid, and even emboldens antisemitism.
Furthermore, in an effort to cover up for the tens of thousands of civilian deaths made possible by Washington’s military, diplomatic, and financial support for Netanyahu, Panetta was among a rightwing minority of Democrats to support a Republican measure banning the State Department from citing casualty figures from the Gaza Health Ministry. He even voted to cut all U.S. funding for the principal United Nations agency providing humanitarian relief for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon while opposing any conditions on military aid to Netanyahu as he slaughters civilians with impunity.
Panetta has joined the rightwing attack on international humanitarian law in denouncing the International Criminal Court and condemning the distinguished panel of British-based jurists and barristers who unanimously recommended indictments of Israeli and Hamas leaders for war crimes. In a statement, Panetta said, “There is no equivalence between Israel’s operations to defend itself and Hamas’ bloodthirsty attack on October 7, its continued use of civilian shields, its refusal to release hostages, and its failure to enter into a temporary ceasefire. It was Hamas that started this war and it is Hamas that could end this war any time by releasing the hostages.”
These are all lies.
1) The ICC never said there was equivalence. The Israeli and Hamas leaders are being charged with separate crimes, citing specific and distinct wrongful conduct by each. Indeed, the charges against the Hamas leaders are more serious.
2) Israel has made clear they would continue the war even if Hamas does release the hostages. That’s why there have been all these protests in Israel.
3) There is no evidence of widespread use of human shields by Hamas and the vast majority of civilian deaths have been nowhere near Hamas fighters or munitions.
4) And the ICC has no issue with Israel defending itself or fighting Hamas terrorists. They are only opposing violations of international humanitarian law.
Jimmy Panetta knows all this. He’s smart. He’s a lawyer. He is making stuff up in order to discredit this important international tribunal for the sake of defending war criminals.
Human rights advocates have also been angered by the Biden administration’s attacks on the International Criminal Court. While all 54 previous indictments were against military and political leaders not allied the United States, Biden was outraged that the ICC would actually indict two leaders of a U.S. ally. Biden, who finished in the bottom tenth of this law school class at Syracuse University, called the unanimous recommendation of the highly-distinguished panel of British based jurists “outrageous.”
To Panetta, however, Biden wasn’t attacking the ICC nearly enough.
Panetta became one of a small minority of Democrats to join a bill sponsored by rightwing House Speaker Mike Johnson to imposed sanctions on those working for the ICC.
The White House argued that Johnson and Panetta’s sanctions bill against the ICC were “not the right answer,” saying it “strongly opposes” the measure because it “could require sanctions against court staff, judges, witnesses, and U.S. allies and partners who provide even limited, targeted support to the court in a range of aspects of its work.”
Panetta, however, insisted that the Biden administration was wrong and the far-right Republican Speaker of the was right.
If you read Johnson and Panetta’s bill, the sanctions only apply if the indictments are against individuals in governments allied to the United States. No problem if the ICC targets Russia, Burma, Sudan, or countries Washington opposes. In other words. In the view of Panetta and his supporters, what matters is not the law, not the evidence, but the geopolitical alignment of the government of the indicted war criminals. In other words, Panetta and his supporters — like Trump and his supporters — believe that criminal justice should be politicized. He believes the international legal system should be a tool to go after your opponents, but should never be used against your allies, regardless of the evidence.
How does Panetta justify such an extreme stance? For one thing, he lies. For example, the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel were horrible enough as they were, but Panetta has insisted on repeating the lie that the Hamas terrorists “beheaded children.” Both U.S. and Israeli officials have acknowledged there was no such evidence of such a crime, but Panetta has continued to make that claim as a cynical effort to justify his support for the killing of Palestinian children.
Panetta’s rightwing agenda goes back to when he first came to Congress in January 2017. In his first foreign policy vote in Congress, he made clear his support for the Israeli occupation and colonization of the West Bank by siding with President-elect Trump in criticizing President Obama for not vetoing a unanimous UNSC resolution reiterating the illegality of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and demanding they not be expanded.
Panetta is also out to punish dissent by deliberately misrepresenting those of us who support Palestinian rights, corporate responsibly, peace and international law.
He claims that opposition to Zionism is inherently antisemitic and that colleges and universities which allow anti-Zionist groups to operated be punished in the same way as colleges and universities which who would allow overtly racist and antisemitic groups to operate.
He claims that those who advocate a single democratic state with equal rights for Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are calling for “genocide of the Jewish people.”
Meanwhile, in response to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations, and Israeli human rights groups like B’Tselem meticulously document racist and discriminatory policies by Israel’s far right government against Palestinians under Israeli military occupation meeting the international legal definition of apartheid, Panetta joined 40 other House members in signing a statement insisting that Israel is actually a “vibrant, progressive, and pluralistic democracy,” insisting that criticisms of the Israeli government’s racist policies are designed to “delegitimize” and “demonize” Israel and are somehow antisemitic.
Panetta doesn’t just want to slander us, however. He also wants us in prison.
Panetta was one of only two Democratic House members in northern and central California to support a bill effectively criminalizing support for boycotts against companies profiting from the Israeli occupation and illegal settlements. The American Civil Liberties Union came out strongly in opposition, noting how it would “impose civil and criminal punishment on individuals solely because of their political beliefs about Israel and its policies,” that it would “include penalties for simply requesting information about such boycotts,” and therefore “seeks only to punish the exercise of constitutional rights.” David Cole, the ACLU’s national legal director and a Georgetown law professor, noted how the bill would “prohibit even the act of giving information to a U.N. body about boycott activity directed at Israel” and it “threatens severe penalties against any business or individual who does not purchase goods from Israeli companies operating in the occupied Palestinian territories and who makes it clear — say by posting on Twitter or Facebook — that their reason for doing so is to support a U.N.- or E.U.-called boycott.”
Moderate pro-Israel groups like J Street oppose the bill as well, since it would “undermine decades of U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, bolster the settlement enterprise and harm the prospects for a two-state solution.”
Panetta, however, opposes campaigns for corporate responsibility. He believes the profits of corporations supporting the Israeli occupation and illegal settlements are more important than the civil liberties of his own constituents. He would rather send us to prison than allow us to exercise our constitutional right to boycott.
So, those of you in the media covering this gathering today: Don’t call this an anti-Israel demonstration. Don’t even call this a pro-Palestinian demonstration. Call it a demonstration in support of peace, justice, civil liberties, and the rule of the law. Call it a protest against those like Jimmy Panetta who seek to undermine these principles.
The problem with Panetta is not that he is too “pro-Israel.” His policies are not only contributing to the mass murder of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, he is supporting policies that make Israel more isolated and makes Israelis more vulnerable. He is supporting policies dividing the Democratic Party and making Republican victories this November more likely.
We live in one of the most liberal Congressional districts in the country. Yet, looking at Panetta’s record, it’s pretty clear that our representative is among the most rightwing Democrats in Congress.
Meanwhile, the Santa Cruz County Democratic Central Committee keeps supporting him, even endorsing him against progressive Democratic challengers in the primaries who support human rights and international law.
In 2020, Panetta was challenged by progressive Democrat Adam Scow, who recognized that the Israeli occupation must end and that the U.S. needed to apply some tough love against Israel’s far right government if there would be any hope for peace. Scow, who had previously worked at the progressive Jewish magazine Tikkun, recognized that Palestinian rights and Israeli security are not mutually-exclusive but mutually dependent on the other.
Santa Cruz County Democratic Central Committee, however, endorsed Panetta’s renomination, even placing thousands of door hangers at the homes of Democratic voters just days before the primary encouraging them to vote for Panetta against Scow.
This has discouraged well-qualified Democratic challenges subsequently, knowing that the party establishment in Santa Cruz County and other counties in the district would do their best to stop any challenge to the militarist incumbent.
We will continue to fight, however.
How many of you were here in the 1980s? Would you have tolerated a congressperson who supported the genocidal wars in Central America?
How about the 1960s-70s? Would you have tolerated a Congressperson who supported the genocidal wars in Indochina?
How about today? Are you willing to tolerate a Congressperson who supports a genocidal war against the people of Gaza?
Again, the problem with Panetta is not that he is “too pro-Israel.” The problem is his siding with Netanyahu and his far-right allies against Israeli peace and human rights advocates.
The problem is that he sides with the far right AIPAC against not just progressive Jewish organizations like JVP and If Not Now, but even moderate Zionist groups like J Street.
In Israel/Palestine and here in the United States, you have Jews, Palestinians, and their allies working together in support of peace and justice. Panetta, however, is working hard to undermine such efforts in order to promote the agenda of Netanyahu, the Republicans, the arms manufacturers, the militarists, and the anti-Arab anti-Muslim bigots.
There are diverse opinions here today regarding the nature of Zionism, whether there should be two viable states peacefully living side by side or one binational state with equal rights for all, and other issues.
We are united, however, in expressing our outrage that we have a Congressman who supports war crimes.
We are outraged that we have a Congressman who supports the mass killing of civilians because they are Palestinian.
We are outraged that we have a Congressman who attacks international law and the institutions and individuals who seek to enforce it.
We are outraged that we have a Congressman who wants to punish those campaigning for corporate responsibility.
We are outraged that we have a Congressman who refuses to recognize that the lives of Palestinian civilians are just as precious as those of Israeli civilians.
And we are outraged that we have a Congressman who supports providing a soon-to-be-indicted war criminal with the high honor of speaking before a joint session of Congress.
Here’s where there is hope, however:
Either by forcing them to change their policies or defeating them in the primaries, progressive Democrats have been able to overcome militarist Democrats who supported the Vietnam War, the Central American wars, and the Iraq war. We can do it today.
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