Roger Fisher, The Man Starting The Case For and the Case Against Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                           

Harvard lawyer Roger Drummon Fisher,(1922-2012 Illinois, lawyer), son of Walter Taylor Fisher (1892-1991 b:Chicago, lawyer)  and Katherine Drummon Fisher;  son of Walter Lowrie Fisher (1862-1935  lawyer)   in Wheeling, Ohio, West Virginia .  Three generations of lawyers. 

PBS had this program called  "The Advocates" on Sunday evenings.  The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group that had shown considerable bias against Israel, had offered this idea.  Roger Fisher(May 28, 1922-August 25, 2012)  was also a Harvard Law Professor but who supported the Arab side of the conflict with Israel.  He was all for the Palestinians.  Roger was the founder and executive producer of the program.  

Alan Dershowitz (September 1, 1938)  was up against Roger Fisher  on a PBS Show in Los Angeles with a live audience in 1970 when he was a young Harvard Law professor. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appointed as the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law in 1993.  He's an authority on the American Constitution.  

Palestinian refugees in 1967  Newly digitized archive photos from the UN agency UNRWA provide a visual insight into the lives of early Palestinian refugees. They were created in two main waves - from the Middle East war of 1948, and in 1967 when Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem

Dershowitz had his first visit of Israel before the show, visiting the Gaza Strip.  Dershowitz says he found himself sympathetic to the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza and families of 1948 that were separated then and those also in 1967.  He was there for several weeks, but came back with pride for Israel and ready for the debate. He was Israel's lead lawyer in the court of public opinion.  

           Ten years later after PBS's The Advocates:  In my living room in Safed in 1980  sitting on a single bed waiting for my lift to arrive at the port with our furniture.  The only window has bars on it because we were on a first floor and terrorists could enter without them.  I made arrangements from eastern Oregon's Ontario where we lived for housing and a 10 month re-training program to teach English in Israel.  We even took our female German shepherd with us.  We gave up a beautiful home and had never visited Israel before, but I had done a lot of reading; so much so that I had to make aliyah.  

I didn't just visit Israel for a couple of weeks.  I lived there for over 5 years before returning to the states from September 1980 to November 23, 1985.  My first 10 months were at a school studying Hebrew 6 days a week, then teaching in a junior high our English language.  We saw as much as we could during those 5 years.  I gave blood and in return I would get blood if needed.  I learned to shoot an A1 rifle and work with Israelis who drove around, spotters of trouble.  My German shepherd who also immigrated with me was with me during these drives and the most favorite on these drives. I voted in an election.   I shopped in supermarkets, took walks, bought a car, wrote plays and then produced them, acting as well in them.  We had started "Yiddish Theater in English." and Safed was our home where we did all this.  I scratch my head trying to figure out how these Quakers came up with such a taste of Israel--and in 2 weeks.  

Fisher started the debate stating that the American Friends found blame enough for all in their visit.  He went on with "There are no devils and no angels in the Middle East. " Then Fisher stated that he had 4 things that Israel should be doing.   (I can tell right away that those viewing what they were taken to see had no military background to know what to look for.) 

They believed the US should urge Israel to use military leverage.  Here was what he then stated.  

1. Allow Palestinian refugees into the West Bank and Israel itself.  

2. Israel should withdraw its forces as part of package settlement.  

3. Israel should abandon the policy of escalatory retaliation-2 eyes for an eye.

4. Israel should sit down with indirect talks, not insisting that the 1st talks be face to face.  

Then he trusted President Nasser and King Hussein to be his key witnesses.  Nasser began with a straight-out lie, ignoring the 3 No's at Khartoum:   I take it Fisher used quotes from these men.  They wouldn't have been a part of this live show.  That means that Fisher is the one who did the research was ignoring the Khartoum decisions that the Arabs were not ignoring.  They were following it quite well with loud and emphatic No, No, No!.

Quaker activists' work in March 2019.  Quaker schools are fertile ground for BDS and have become ground zero when it comes to pro-BDS faculty and students. The Quaker tradition of even-handedness and political neutrality has long passed; by the late 1970s the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) had effectively enshrined Palestinians as the “new Jews.” Support for Palestinian terror as “resistance” against Israel’s “structural violence” and against sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program is now customary.

In 2018, Israel revealed their list of 20 social justice groups from around the world it was henceforth banning from the country because of their support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. A rabbi on their staff– the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) was taken by surprise.  How can they attack Israel with the BDS yet had helped Jewish refugees after 1938?  It happens that today, BDS is as bad as bullets are.  

Dershowitz reminded Fisher that when Arabs speak to Arabs they say one thing, but while they speak to the West, they say another thing.  To his people, Hussein of Jordan said, "Kill the Jews wherever you find them.  Kill them with your hands, with your nails, with your teeth."  (That, coming from the more placid of Arab leaders-and it was quite brutal !)  Well, you know he wouldn't let the West know how he felt. 

We find that Palestinian Qassam rocket firings increase sharply on the day following the killing of Palestinians by Israel. In addition, we show that the probability of Palestinian killings of Israelis (although not the number of people killed) increases following the killing of Palestinians by Israel. Thus, it appears that Palestinian violence does contain an element of retaliation, and that Israeli military operations against Palestinians lead to escalation rather than incapacitation. Consistent with previous analyses, we confirm that Israeli aggression, too, contains an element of retaliation, in that Israel is more likely to kill Palestinians on days following killings of Israelis by Palestinians. Together, these findings suggest that, contrary to previous analyses that characterized Israeli violence alone as retaliatory, the dynamics of retaliation in the Second Intifada are bidirectional. From PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (often abbreviated PNAS or PNAS USA) is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal.

During the May 2021 conflict in Gaza, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired over 4,300 rockets at Israeli civilians. In August 2022, Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired over 1,100 rockets at Israelis during the three-day escalation, according to the Israel Defense Forces.May 13, 2023

May 15, 2023, I published this:  After 5 days of fighting, Israel agreed to a truce with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) early Sunday morning. In total, 1,139 rockets were fired into Israel and over 430 were intercepted. Most of the rest fell in open areas. The Iron Dome had a 95% success rate. The IDF struck 422 PIJ targets and eliminated at least 4 high ranking PIJ commanders. One Israeli woman and one Palestinian laborer were killed by the rocket fire. Over a dozen Israelis were injured. [Can you imagine the US agreeing to a truce with Al Qaida or ISIS?]

Intifada, also spelled intifadah, Arabic intifāḍah (“shaking off”), either of two popular uprisings of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip aimed at ending Israel's occupation of those territories and creating an independent Palestinian state.  However, when a meeting is scheduled, the Palestinians do not show up.                                

The First Intifada or First Palestinian Intifada, also known simply as the intifada or the intifadah, was a sustained series of protests and violent riots carried out by Palestinians in the Palestinian Territories and Israel. It was motivated by collective Palestinian frustration over Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as it approached a twenty-year mark, having begun after Israel's victory in the 1967 Arab–Israeli War. The uprising lasted from December 1987 until the Madrid Conference of 1991, though some date its conclusion to 1993, with the signing of the Oslo Accords.                          

The Second Intifada  was a major Palestinian uprising against Israel. The general triggers for the unrest are speculated to have been centred on the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit, which was expected to reach a final agreement on the Israeli–Palestinian peace process in July 2000. Outbreaks of violence began in September 2000, after Ariel Sharon, then the Israeli opposition leader, made a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa compound on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem; the visit itself was peaceful, but, as anticipated, sparked protests and riots that Israeli police had to put down with rubber bullets and tear gas.

The Third intifada?  Since the collapse of the second intifada—a large and sustained Palestinian uprising—in 2005, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has smoldered. Hamas has launched miniature wars in the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian armed groups and individuals have carried out terrorist attacks in the West Bank, prompting a harsh Israeli military response. Palestinians have resisted in other ways, too—marching, protesting, and throwing rocks. Despite many violent flare-ups, however, both sides have avoided fighting that reaches the scope and scale of the second intifada, even though a negotiated settlement seems more distant than ever.                                    

Fisher specialized in negotiation and conflict management. He was the co-author (with William Ury) of the book Getting to Yes, about "interest-based" negotiation, as well as numerous other publications. After serving in World War II as a weather reconnaissance pilot, Fisher worked on the Marshall Plan in Paris under W. Averell Harriman. After finishing his law degree at Harvard, he worked with the Washington, DC, law firm of Covington & Burling, arguing several cases before the US Supreme Court and advising on several international disputes. He returned to Harvard Law School and became a professor there in 1958. 

On April 4, 1977, President Anwar Sadat and his wife, Jehan, were welcomed to the White House by President and Mrs. Carter. Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by Islamic fundamentalists dissatisfied with Sadat concessions during the peace process. 

Throughout his career, Fisher made significant efforts to seek peace in the Middle East. Among these efforts included his involvement in Sadat's trip to Jerusalem and the Camp David summit that led to an Israeli–Egyptian peace treaty.In this latter case, he helped devise a process called the one-text, where a facilitator shuttled back and forth between the parties, refining a proposed document until it could not satisfy the parties interests more effectively at which point the parties either approve the document or agree to start from scratch. President Carter and Secretary of State Vance created 23 drafts in 13 days before they had a proposal to which both sides could say yes.

                                                 

Carter was not a president who stood up with Israel.  He wrote a book that shocked most of us:   Palestine:  Peace Not Apartheid.  He's very accusatory to Israel in it. Said of the book, "The general parameters of a long-term, two-state agreement are well known, the president writes. "There will be no substantive and permanent peace for any peoples in this troubled region as long as Israel is violating key UN resolutions, official American policy, and the international “road map” for peace by occupying Arab lands and oppressing the Palestinians. Except for mutually agreeable negotiated modifications, Israel’s official pre-1967 borders must be honored. As were all previous administrations since the founding of Israel, US government leaders must be in the forefront of achieving this long-delayed goal of a just agreement that both sides can honor."

Since the publication of former President Jimmy Carter's book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, the Carter Center has seen a wave of resignations. More than a dozen people have left in protest, saying the book puts too much blame on Israel. Carter could have been influenced by Fisher's outlook.

Biden’s release of frozen Iranian funds (6 billion) undermines US sanctions worldwide, by Eric Mandel-I just saw him speaking on JBS, interviewed by Shahar Azani.  

The downside is what  Dr. Eric Mandel, American, has noted;  in that most all Americans are not that interested in Israel and really don't understand what's happening. His example was that they didn't even know that Israel didn't have a constitution.   Dr. Eric Mandel is the founder and Director of MEPIN™, the Middle East Political and Information Network™. MEPIN is a private Middle East research analysis read by members of Congress, their foreign policy advisors, members of the Knesset, journalists, and organizational leaders. Dr. Mandel regularly briefs members of Congress and their staffs about the current geo-political situation in the Middle East, and meets with members of the Israeli leadership and their advisors. He is the Northeast Co-Chair of StandWithUs, an international organization dedicated to educating the public about Israel, while fighting the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) against Israel.

No, The case is FOR Israel.  Israel has the right to exist and to not be attacked, which it is constantly. Carter, former Sunday school teacher, and Fisher,  had pre-conceived ideas of Jews to start with, and were very misguided in their judgement if you ask me and (thank G-d), many others.   

Resource:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1012115107

https://hls.harvard.edu/today/roger-fisher-1922-2012/

Book:  Defending Israel by Alan M. Dershowitz, p.14-24

Book:  Letters From Israel by Nadene Goldfoot

https://afsc.org/news/quakers-jews-and-israels-bds-blacklist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fisher_(academic)#

https://www.npr.org/2007/01/26/7022490/a-key-critics-problem-with-jimmy-carters-book

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/quaker-activists-84222

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Intifada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Intifada

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/third-intifada-israeli-palestinian-conflict

Can Our Leaders Psychoanalyze Our Enemies?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

I just watched a discussion with Dr. Eric R. Mandel as the person interviewed on JBS program with Shakar Azari,   In the News, Iran Nuclear Talks.  In it, Dr. Mandel was explaining that there is a difference in thinking patterns of people in the Middle east Islamists like Iran compared to the USA.  What we've been doing is thinking that they are thinking like we do.  They're slightly different, especially about "lying, and when it's permissible".  They have a few different scruples (my word).  I wondered if our psychologists are aware of this;  that depending on what part of the world you are from can determine how your thinking patterns are?  

"Dr. Eric Mandel is the founder and Director of MEPIN™, the Middle East Political and Information Network™. MEPIN is a private Middle East research analysis read by members of Congress, their foreign policy advisors, members of the Knesset, journalists, and organizational leaders. He regularly briefs members of Congress and their staffs about the current geo-political situation in the Middle East.                                       

He also meets with members of the Israeli leadership and think tanks.    Dr. Mandel is a regular columnist for The Jerusalem Post, contributor to The Hill and The Forward, and regularly appears on i24 TV news, writing and speaking about America’s geopolitical challenges in the Middle East; Iran, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

He was an excellent speaker and explained how such people in our government high up just didn't get their ambitions and how far they have gone in dealing with the nuclear energy and other problems.  

From my experience in reading and writing about Israel's history with Persia/Iran and other adversaries that we've had, I can certainly see his point.  It is especially important to understand Iran today, being they had been holders of a vast empire.  They'd like to get back to that point.  

The Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy said that "The psychological views delineated by Aristotle were the dominant paradigm for Muslim philosophers, as modified by Hellenistic variations expressing Platonic perspectives. The 9th to the 12th centuries is the period of rigorous philosophizing that characterizes classical Islamic philosophy, and it is the period and subject with which this article is concerned. It is divided as follows:"

"1. Sources and First Expressions: Al-Kindî and Razi

Aristotle's philosophy of mind in Islamic philosophy is a combination of what we would today call psychology and physiology, and is not limited to investigations of our rational faculty. However important, the “mind” or intellect, with its practical and theoretical aspects, is only part of the falâsifa's “science of the soul.” Their main sources are found in three Aristotelian treatises: On the Soul (De anima), On Sense and Sensibilia (De Sensu et Sensibili), and On Memory and Recollection (De Memoria et Reminiscentia). The last two belong to a series of nine short physical treatises, called accordingly Parva Naturalia, and include two that deal with the related topic of dreams and prophesying by means of dreams."

As a defender of Israel, he wrote: In October, I wrote an article for the JewishMedia News Service www.jns.org, and I say that our young people sound like they are very apathetic to Israel, and I ask, why?                                                                           

, “Young American Jews and Israel,” citing a statistic from a recent Cohen and Kelman poll: 50 percent of young American Jews would not consider the destruction of Israel a personal tragedy. In contrast, 80 percent of their elders                                                                             

      — American Jews over the age of 65 — reported that Israel’s destruction would be a personal tragedy for them. I based the article on an observation by Daniel Gordis in his new book, “The Promise of Israel.” He writes: ““…when the ingathering of exiles after two thousand years does not strike a chord of sheer awe, Jews have lost sight of the real significance of Israel’s recreation. When Jews the world over do not recognize that the delegitimization of Israel affects them…a renewed discourse is desperately needed.”             

"One problem is a lack of information. There are people across the age spectrum who want to advocate for Israel but don’t feel comfortable with their level of knowledge or in speaking up. That’s where I help, he said. "          

"The people who are our adversaries have their own set of facts. Winston Churchill said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” Once a lie is put out to the public, there is no accountability, and the media go back to the same people again and again to ask for facts and quotes, even if they are not true."

                                           

           There are pathological and compulsive liars.  I fell for one on line today, showing a picture of 4 sisters; and I fell for it; I clicked and all of a sudden the computer went crazy, bells, ringing, noise, and it said, "DO NOT TURN YOUR COMPUTER OFF.  And I did and was saved.  I'll never do that again.  You can't even trust your metallic computer these days, and I knew better.  What does that say of me?  Gullible.  So we gullibles who like people must be cautious, especially when we're watching news on TV.  

Not only is this so true of the people who run our government, but us too, analyzing  things we watch and read and citing from what perspective they are coming from in their presentations.  We have to beware of becoming like the worker ants who just react without any personal thinking.  

Resource:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-mandel-3007a0144?challengeId=AQHYnHGDHTEIRgAAAX3Z4Z9prh4yaQnliNVkGMaZyeIPdoVdWmowN2Qv_lQEQIuXveXJUmLK1oj8PLgOXbsFecDoenW3eyI8kA&submissionId=08b481eb-da95-c216-6d25-45d06149cc3d

https://www.jpost.com/author/eric-r-mandel

https://mepinanalysis.org/

https://www.jns.org/writers/eric-r-mandel/

not secure:  http://www.jewishledger.com/2012/12/conversation-with-dr-eric-r-mandel-%E2%80%A8/