Defending his participation in the latest flotilla operation in an attempt to
break Israel’s naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, Gabriel Matthew
Schivone, an American university student, stressed in a late June
Ha’aretz
opinion piece that he is one of a growing number of young American Jews seeking
to disassociate himself from Israel.
There is, however, a rather large
factual wrinkle with Schivone’s account – he appears to have falsified his
Jewish identity.
RELATED:Opinion: What do ‘Flotilla Folk’ do and why?Law students take public diplomacy into the legal arenaWriting in an August letter to the editor in
Ha’aretz,Valerie Saturen, a peace activist and acquaintance of
Schivone, noted, “In his editorial about joining the flotilla to Gaza, Gabriel
Schivone represented himself as a Jewish college student. I feel I must point
out that this is not his true identity, but one he has created in order to
generate insider credibility, shield himself from accusations of anti-Semitism,
and resonate with a target audience.
“Gabriel is not Jewish, whether in
terms of ethnic ancestry, religious belief or cultural identity. He has never
identified as a Jew until it became useful in advancing his political agenda.
When asked why he did this, he explained that he has a distant Jewish relative
and that ‘you use what you have.’” Schivone’s reported hoax was first analyzed
on the website of CAMERA, a US-based media watchdog organization that tracks
anti-Israel bias in the press. In his CAMERA article, Yishai Goldflam wrote,
“Schivone emphasizes his Jewish identity no less than eight times, and
repeatedly emphasizes the influence of his identity on his anti-Israel
activity.
“As Saturen suggests in her letter, international anti-Israel
activists place a premium on the participation of Jews in their activities. In
this case, the flotilla organizers seemingly scored big – a Jewish participant,
and writing in an Israeli media outlet, to boot. Claims of anti-Israelism and
anti-Semitism are thus defused.”
Responding to Saturen’s letter, Schivone
wrote to
The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, “Not only is it sorely inaccurate and
frankly abusive in its attempts to deny someone their identity and humanity, it
is a distraction from the main purpose of the public discussion initiated in the
first place, namely to highlight – in order to resist – the brutalization of
Palestinians and the ongoing destruction of Palestinian life under occupation by
Israel, fully enabled by the United States.”
Schivone defines himself as
a “Chicano Jew.” When asked specifically if he converted to Judaism or if his
parents or grandparents are Jewish, Schivone told the
Post “I mean that I
foremost am a person of color -- a ‘Chicano’ simply means someone of Mexican
heritage and ancestry, with cultural ties to Mexico and to the preceding
indigenous lands, and with national ties to the United States... I am a first
generation immigrant youth in the US.
“At the same time I also retain
Jewish heritage and ancestry, from parts of my family who are from
Mexico.
My Jewishness is publicly relevant only on narrow issues [such as
Israel’s claim that it is his state, which he regards as both a false and racist
doctrine]; far more importantly my Jewishness is irrelevant on broader issues,
such as when it comes to US support and participation in Israeli crimes against
the Palestinians.”
Schivone is listed as a member of the Arizona branch
of “Jewish Voice for Peace” on the campus of University of Arizona in
Tucson.
Schivone’s alleged use of a fake Jewish identity recalls the
German case of Edith Lutz last year. Lutz, a former school teacher, claimed to
have converted to Judaism, and proceeded to use her invented Jewish credentials
to garner enormous attention in the German media to publicize her voyage to
violate Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Lutz was a passenger aboard the Irene
catamaran in 2010 during last year’s flotilla.
Many German newspapers,
including the widely viewed television program ARD-Magazin Monitor, which
featured a broadcast in which Lutz was named as a representative of “Jews from
Germany,” devoted extensive coverage to Lutz. The dogged reporting of German
Journalist Henryk M. Broder exposed Lutz as a fraud, prompting Broder to
comment, “Edith Lutz is definitely a Jew, like a smoked pork chop is
kosher.”
The ARD declined to concede at the time that its method of
journalistic verification was flawed, and the message of German Jews against
Israel spread across television sets in Germany.
Prof. Alvin H.
Rosenfeld, Director of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary anti-Semitism
at Indiana University, told the
Post on Tuesday that “Israel’s defamers and
delegitimizers include large numbers of misguided Jews, manipulative Jews,
malevolent Jews, and other Jews of assorted bad faith. With Schivone, we now see
phony Jews added to this notoriously disreputable bunch.”