My following essay appears on the American website Mondoweiss today: The drive from East Jerusalem to Tel Aviv takes around one hour. It’s a stinking hot day and I’ve come from Ramallah in mid-August 2012. Despite flying into Ben Gurion airport in the morning I am stopped and initially refused entry by the Israeli border…
Showing all posts tagged Hamas
Sharing the art of writing in Gaza
Moving piece by Jamal Mahjoub in Guernica about his visit to Gaza with the PalFest literary bandwagon: The Islamic University is the best funded of the four universities in Gaza. It is also the only one that is not secular. Our first day, we are given a tour of the segregated campus, our male guides…
“After Zionism” events hit London
I’ll soon be speaking at two major events in London for my just released book, After Zionism. 21 August at the Frontline Club: With a new coalition formed in Israel, a prospective reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah and a new leader in Egypt it could be said the century-long Israeli–Palestinian conflict is entering a new…
Israeli racism and inequality in its DNA
My following article appears in Lebanon’s Al Akhbar: “Moshe was simply not willing for the State of Israel to run him over anymore.” Moshe Silman, a son of Holocaust survivors, was an Israeli man who died last week after suffering second and third-degree burns on 94 percent of his body. In an Israeli first, a…
On Peter Singer’s ambivalence towards Zionism
Here’s a very interesting profile, by Dan Goldberg in JTA, on famed philosopher Peter Singer. Despite the almost obligatory disparaging comment about dissident Jews – feeling insecure much, Zionists? – I’m pleased the group I co-founded, Independent Australian Jewish Voices, continues to elicit debate: He’s been brandished “the most dangerous man on earth,” accused of…
Calling for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and Zionist lobby remains silent
If most mainstream politicians dare write or say anything overtly critical of Israel, they’ll be hounded. But if you advocate ethnic cleansing, as Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill) did recently, they’ll be deafening silence: Those Palestinians who wish to may leave their Fatah- and Hamas-created slums and move to the original Palestinian state: Jordan. The British…
Top leader of Hamas speaks to leading American Jewish newspaper
Now this is interesting. Forward is granted an “unprecedented” five hour interview with… Mousa Abu Marzook, Hamas’s second-highest-ranking official. Here’s one explanation from an Israeli journalist: What [Abu Marzook] really wants is for Jewish Americans to convince the Israelis that Hamas is not like an animal. Perhaps, but the content is revealing. This is not, despite…
What’s the next capitalist car? Hamas?
Fascinating example of the corporate world trying to appropriate a political position (via Foreign Policy): In 2003, Volkswagen launched its first ever SUV, the Touareg. ”˜”Touareg” literally means “free folk” and is the name of a nomadic tribe from the Sahara,’”… they wrote… in a press release, explaining their decision to borrow the name of the nomadic…
One state solution in Palestine is coming…one day
This is today’s Israel, as explained by Noam Sheizaf in +972: For some reason, people find it hard to accept that the current situation is desirable for Israelis. It certainly isn’t optimal, but considering the alternatives, it is probably the best. It’s enough to come on a week’s visit to Israel to understand the appeal…
What being “pro-Israel” can mean
Via the Guardian: The owner of a Jewish newspaper in Atlanta has said he deeply regrets writing a column suggesting that Israel consider “a hit” on… Barack Obama… if he stands in the way of the Jewish state defending itself. Andrew Adler told the Guardian he wrote the column in the weeklyAtlanta Jewish Times… “to get a reaction”…