The real face of Hamas is appearing and it ain’t pretty

Amira Hass in Haaretz on the growing intolerance of dissent by Hamas in Gaza: Senior Hamas officials may watch their language when they talk with representatives of the depleted left, but the real attitude shines through in the conduct of younger activists and people lower in the hierarchy. They don’t stand so much on pretense…

Finding a way to make Arabs invisible in Israel

The fact that Palestinians living in Israel proper aren’t equal citizens in the state proves the lie of Israel being a real democracy. Gideon Levy in Haaretz outlines the growing push to eradicate Arabs from the Knesset altogether: The State of Israel owes a great debt to the Arab public and to the members of…

Thank God for Goldstone

An Haaretz editorial that should be read by every Zionist organisation in the world; the smearing brigade should think again: Israel’s third report in response to the Goldstone report, which was submitted to the United Nations last week, consists of changes and updates in the Israel Defense Forces’ standing orders following Operation Cast Lead. The…

West Bank and Gaza separated by more than space

While American neo-cons (many of them Jewish) continue to push for a military strike against Iran and Israeli “democracy” decreases by the day – witness the story of a key Jewish dissident, Yonatan Shapira, being interrogated by Israeli intelligence for daring to support BDS. Hilariously, he’s asked to feel sorry for soldiers maintaining the West…

What are we doing to arrest Israel’s slide into authoritarianism?

There really isn’t anybody like Gideon Levy in Haaretz. His latest piece is stunning, and although it’s directed at Israeli Jews who look away as their country is declining towards fascism, his criticism could equally be targeting the Zionist Diaspora who largely remain silent when occupation deepens and outright racism is a daily fact of…

Speak to Hamas right now, says Haaretz

An editorial in Haaretz that speaks some sense (and will therefore be ignored by the Israeli government and its global support base): The writer David Grossman called on the government of Israel in these pages yesterday to cease its preoccupation with the number and identity of Palestinian prisoners who would potentially be swapped for captive…

BDS would only empower Israel’s nationalist right

The importance of the BDS against Israel is regularly covered on this site. Here’s a counter view, by Zvi Bar’el in Haaretz (essentially arguing that the world should not really do anything about Palestine but hope and pray?) How charming the boycott cry is. Boycott Israeli universities, Israeli products from the settlements, flowers grown in…

Israel makes it clear that Palestinians are not fully welcome

An Haaretz editorial on something that should outrage Jews the world over and yet elicits little more than silence: Dr. Immad Hammada and Dr. Murad Abu-Khalaf are both lecturers in electrical engineering born in East Jerusalem. Their families have lived in the city for generations. They both left years ago, each one separately, to study…

Finding some way to maintain the illusion of moving towards Jewish democracy

While the EU continues to back Israeli policies – ignore the mild rebukes over Gaza, this is close to business as usual – the Israeli rich are thriving, certainly helped by the recent acceptance into the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. What occupation? What growing intolerance of minorities? Liberal Zionists in Israel are still…

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