At least some in the Israeli establishment display humanity towards the Palestinians: A group of retired Israeli generals has launched a campaign urging the army to remove West Bank roadblocks, warning on Wednesday that the travel restrictions sow Palestinian hatred of Israel and stymie the peace process. The 12 top former commanders say the hundreds…
Showing all posts tagged Gaza
Little to celebrate
David Grossman, Salon, February 11: Today, Israel is an intolerably opaque place. The public atmosphere is turbid, sometimes horrifically so. This did not, of course, begin with Ehud Olmert, nor during the last war. For many years we, the Israelis, have been sunk in internal strife, to the point that we have lost our ability…
Pea-brained Zionists
Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, February 10: What is Israel’s military strategy in Gaza? That is a question no one raises anymore. There is no strategy. There are retaliatory measures to react to Hamas’ mood.
Complicit in silence
My following article appeared in yesterday’s Guardian Comment is Free section: During the current Israeli siege of Gaza – correctly described by Saree Makdisi as “strangulation”, Israel’s ambassador to Australia issued a plea for understanding the Jewish state’s position. The ambassador, Yuval Rotem, argued that, “the people of Gaza are not the enemy”. He also…
The need for Jewish dissent grows
Lynne Segal, Guardian Comment is Free, February 5: Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) celebrates its first year with its eyes on Gaza, demanding an end to the Israeli blockade and, on the uneven playing field of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an end to human rights abuses on both sides. IJV was formed a year ago to raise…
An accidental war
My latest New Matilda column is about the recently released Winograd Report in Israel and what it says about the institutional failures within the Jewish state: The release last week of the Israeli Government’s Winograd Report was designed to reveal the failures of the Lebanon adventure and hold military and political leaders to account. Prime…
The Zionist rationale
Saree Makdisi, The Nation, February 1: Gazans have been ground into poverty by years of methodical Israeli restrictions and closures; 80 percent of the population now depends on food aid for day-to-day subsistence. With the aid, they were receiving “enough to survive, not to live,” as the International Red Cross put it. Without it, they…
Blind dedication will no longer do
The launch last year of the British Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) – a group formed to speak out against Israeli aggression and mindless Zionism – led a group of us here in Australia to institute Independent Australian Jewish Voices (IAJV). We had a wonderful response and are currently planning a number of events for 2008.…
Let the corrupt fall
Israel’s Winograd Commission has reported on the 2006 Lebanon war and concluded “we are all guilty.” The fact that the Israeli leadership is likely to survive the report reflects the dysfunctionality of the Jewish state. Clearly launching an immoral and futile war and massacring innocent civilians is all in a good day’s work for Ehud…
Jews for forced removal
While the international community continues to try and ignore the reality of Hamas in Gaza – now suggesting that Fatah should control the border between Gaza and Egypt – one of Israel’s leading Rabbis calls for ethnic cleansing: Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger has been quoted as calling for Gazans to be transferred to the…