My following report was published on Mondoweiss today: Last year I was told a story about a friend’s visit to Israel on the Birthright program. After visiting Auschwitz and waving the Israeli flag, his group were shown around Israel. One night they were in the Jordan Valley and as the sun was setting a guide…
Showing all posts tagged settlements
The Israeli face to the world
A senior settler official, Danny Dayan, rejects a report by Peace Now that finds nearly half of the land occupied by Israeli settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank is private Palestinian property: Not a single Arab has been harmed [by settlement activities].
They won’t wait for political action
While the Obama administration wonders how to pressure Israel to cease settlement building – how about withdrawing the billions of dollars in annual aid? – concerned citizens are taking a stand: Britain’s main academic union voted overwhelmingly to boycott Israeli universities and colleges. The University and College Union passed the boycott resolution at its annual…
How many Jews oppose this?
What kind of Judaism is this? A perversion: Jewish settlers threw stones at a Palestinian car in the West Bank today, causing injuries, Palestinian medics and Israeli police said. Medics said two men were taken to hospital, one with a fractured skull, and four others were treated for minor injuries after the early morning incident…
If only they cared about the Arabs
The recently deceased Israeli writer Amos Elon wrote the following passage in 1967, a fascinating insight into where his country was already headed: Had they [Palestine’s Arabs] agreed in 1919, not to turn Palestine into “the” Jewish homeland, but to incorporate “a” national home for the Jews, as stipulated by the Balfour Declaration, a Jewish…
Forgetting that Israel is an occupier
Jewish anti-Zionist writer Shraga Elam emails just the latest example of mainstream Israeli racism: On 26.5.2009 “Channel 2” cameras photographed Betar players among them the star Amit Ben Shoshan singing very happily after they won the Israeli cup a song popular among their fans. A song that goes like this: What’s Salim doing here? Don’t…
Will Zionism be truly able to stop itself?
The Obama administration is allegedly giving the Israeli government a headache over its insistence that all settlement building in the West Bank must stop. No ifs, no buts and no exceptions. Strong words, to be sure, but the Israeli political elite doesn’t seem to be listening: The most surprising speaker at the conference [in Israel…
Repeating bad actions time and time again
This story – Israeli commandos killed a senior Hamas militant in the West Bank on Thursday – led an American colleague to make the following observations: It is a classic Israeli technique to respond to uncomfortable political situations (such as the current moment of too much talk of a “peace process” and of “two states”)…
The outposts are just the beginning
Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements are generating a great number of stories in the American and Israeli press, but little evidence that real progress is being made to remove them. Without doing so, get ready for long-term apartheid in Palestine. A smattering of recent headlines: The Washington Post – Backers of Jewish Settlements Put Squeeze…
Killing Arabs in the name of Judaism
The London Times writes about the growing radicalism of the IDF: During the Gaza war this year, Schmuel Kaufman, a military rabbi from a West Bank settlement, used to stride between the Israeli soldiers’ tents and urge them to fight what he deemed an “obligatory war” ordained by ancient scripture. “It’s a holy war to…