An important by Jonathan Cook in The National that reveals the depressing state of intellectual debate in Israel. If you aren’t for the state, get out of the country, so the thinking goes. Dissent is frowned upon, to put it mildly: An Arab member of the Israeli parliament is demanding that a newspaper be allowed…
Showing all posts tagged Judaism
Whatever you do, make sure you keep on saying that Israel is a democracy
Throughout the current Anat Kamm case in Israel – where predictably Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick calls the paper behind the story, Haaretz, a friend of Israel’s enemies and “supporting treason” – Zionists in the West still cling onto the same old myths. Take the New York Forward: There is a larger issue here: the…
The Fayyad plan is still-born
Joseph Massad in the Electronic Intifada on the fools who have hope in the US-backed and armed Palestinian Authority to bring “democracy” to Palestine: The Palestinian Authority is pregnant! Indeed, it is the unelected and American-imposed Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad who is pregnant. He told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in a recent interview that…
Here you are, liberal Jews, BDS is for you
How the Magnes Zionist blogger, an Orthodox Jew in Israel, offering 13 reasons why “liberal Zionists” should back the BDS movement. Here’s the thing. Jews who now oppose any kind of pressure on Israel and somehow hope the Jewish state will give up the occupation by choice are on the wrong side of history, willing…
This is how BDS starts to gain momentum
Jewish Voice for Peace reports on a major development in the US to hold Israel to account, no matter the whinging of the Zionist lobby: Being a part of the tremendous coalition… effort to pass a divestment bill at Berkeley was quite simply an ecstatic experience. As my colleague Sydney Levy said, “The movement grew by…
Thinking about removing Zionist colonies is the easy part
So, if most Israelis actually back the removal of settlements (and polls have suggested similar results for decades), why have colonies simply expanded so much for so long? Talk is cheap, actions are what matter. And on the ground, Israeli Jews are complicit in the occupation and have been since 1967 (if not before): A…
How many Israelis view journalists doing their job
Gideon Levy on how the Israeli public truly views the latest controversy over press freedom, Anat Kamm, Uri Blau and censorship: If it depended on public opinion, Kamm and Blau would be executed and Haaretz would be shut down on the spot. The general who gave the assassination orders revealed by Kamm and Blau has…
Zionists tell Washington that blind support is the only acceptable path
Obama, you have been warned: World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder has publicly questioned United States President Barack Obama’s commitment to Israel’s security, in a letter he reportedly drafted with the approval of his close friend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Our great country and the tiny State of Israel have long shared the core values…
Hamas is not above murdering its enemies
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem rightly condemns the thuggish behaviour of Hamas: B’Tselem strongly condemns the execution today of two Palestinians convicted of collaboration with Israel, by the Hamas government in Gaza. The death penalty is immoral and violates the basic right to life of every human being. B’Tselem holds that under no circumstance must…
Goldstone barred from his grandson’s bar-mitzvah
Almost comical and yet utterly parochial and pathetic: Judge Richard Goldstone, who authored a damning report accusing Israel of committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip, has reportedly been banned by pro-Israel activists from attending his grandson’s bar mitzvah in his native South Africa. According to the report circulating on Web logs, the South African…