At Oxford, Shimon Peres Is Drowned Out by ‘Free Palestine!’ and Is Visibly Shaken

by on November 22, 2008 21

This piece in a British student publication suggests that mostly Anglo-Arab students attacked the Israeli president during a speech, one calling him a "war criminal," another speaking on behalf of thousands of Palestinian farmers whose land has been stolen to build settlements; and some were led from the hall. The English just told us who to vote for for president; and I ask you how long before this spirit also comes fully to the U.S. When Jeffrey Goldberg says that Hillary must affirm right now that the U.S. stands by "the original Zionist" vision and has always stood by it, he is hearing these footsteps, and is fearful. How long did the Clintonites endorse the colonization of the West Bank?

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
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{ 21 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Tommy says:
    November 22, 2008 at 12:55 pm

    The only way to end US support for Israeli aggression and acquisition will be through confrontation with the leadership of a moderate regime. A strong attack against the US Israeli policy to the Obama administration cannot be challenged from the now discredited neo-conservative point of view. A moderate point of view will be more vulnerable to public demonstrations against the inhumanity and unfairness of the current policies. A strong opposition to US Israeli policy can now make a difference.

  2. observer says:
    November 22, 2008 at 1:06 pm

    As much responsibility as the Palestinian leadership itself must bear for the current situation, none of this would have happened if the U.S. government had lived up to its responsibilities as guarantor of the Oslo Accords and self-proclaimed chief mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. U.S. refusal to force Israel to live up to its legal obligations to end its colonization drive in the West Bank and withdraw from the occupied territories in return for security guarantees has led much of the Palestinian population to give up on the peace process and embrace groups like Hamas, which demand control of all of historic Palestine.

  3. otto says:
    November 22, 2008 at 1:49 pm

    Once again, the problem is not just the colonisation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian arabs since 1967, but the colonisation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian arabs since 1917. The problem, in other words, is the 'original Zionist vision'.

  4. morris says:
    November 22, 2008 at 2:10 pm

    How has zionism ended up as fanaticism?
    All over the net it is saying they have taken over America.
    Where's the leading light unto the nations?
    Are we knocking on Armageddons door?

  5. STROKIN' MY UZI says:
    November 22, 2008 at 2:52 pm

    **************************
    DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS:

    [What Ariel Sharon Said]

    Occupied Jerusalem: 3 October, 2001 (IAP) — According to Israel radio (in Hebrew) Kol Yisrael, [Shimon] Peres warned [Ariel] Sharon Wednesday that refusing to heed incessant American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians would endanger Israeli interests and "turn the US against us."

    At this point, a furious Sharon reportedly turned toward Peres, saying "every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it."

    The radio said Peres and other cabinet ministers warned Sharon against saying what he said in public because "it would cause us a public relations disaster."

    SOURCE –

  6. Richard Witty says:
    November 22, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    "As much responsibility as the Palestinian leadership itself must bear for the current situation, none of this would have happened if the U.S. government had lived up to its responsibilities as guarantor of the Oslo Accords and self-proclaimed chief mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. U.S. refusal to force Israel to live up to its legal obligations to end its colonization drive in the West Bank and withdraw from the occupied territories in return for security guarantees has led much of the Palestinian population to give up on the peace process and embrace groups like Hamas, which demand control of all of historic Palestine."

    I think this is true. The US dropped the ball. The Clinton administration was muddling with the conflict, at least sincerely attempting to move it forward. If you look at the change in the status and positions taken from 1993 – 2000, a GREAT deal of progress was made in changing attitudes and in proposal.

    For example, even as Rabin was lauded for his genuinely brave willingness to negotiate and treaty with the PLO and Fatah, in 1993 he barely acknowledged that a peer Palestinian state was contemplated even.

    By 2000, they were negotiating over specific boundaries, with the eye towards reconciling most (not all) of important contending concerns.

    My personal view is that the Bush administration, in concert with the Sharon administration, enabled (as in an addictive enabling) the worst of Israeli rationalization and cynicism to continue. (That is the rationalization that a hundred yards, a hundred yards there, adds up to nothing. It doesn't. It adds up to strategic hundreds of square miles.)

    ANY move towards genuine transfer of full sovereignty to 67 lines, requires the FULL attention of the US, and military. So long as the US is still in Iraq in great numbers, and engaged in Afghanistan in great numbers, it will be DIFFICULT for the US to live by its word, whatever word it gives, if it includes support.

    Its not that US military would be on the ground in Israel/Palestine, but that so long as attention, $, personnel are engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, US backbone will be mushy.

  7. Sword of Gideonthe point. says:
    November 22, 2008 at 4:15 pm

    I love the irony of this . Shimon Peres is seen in Israel has weak. With an amazing willingness to concede point after point after point to the arabs. that's why he never won an election. But I'm curious about something. How come pro_Israel speakers barely make it off college campuses intact. Yet the Islamists have free reign. How does that square with the all powerful elders of zion conspiracy that Phil and his merry band of storm troopers seem to have wet dreams about.

  8. Colin Murray says:
    November 22, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    Gideon: How come pro_Israel speakers barely make it off college campuses intact. Yet the Islamists have free reign.

    Colin: People on college campuses are generally far more informed than average citizens, and your extremists are in favor of ethnic cleansing: theft of land and water by threat and application of violence. Your only innovation (and it is a unique and effective one, I'll give you that) is to do it one house, one block at a time. Once people with a normal moral center get a clue what is going on, they turn against the traditional myths they have been fed, and justly give visiting Israeli politicians a hard time when they get the opportunity. And Shimon Peres is no 'moderate'. Is there an Israeli political party that has been part of a ruling coalition that HAS NOT supported colonization of Arab lands? I don't mean 'talking the talk', wailing with wanton abandon about the 'settlers' while gesturing their helpless disapproval, I mean 'walking the walk'. The differences between Israel political parties are degrees of virulence and haste in carrying out the ethnic cleansing campaign. Some like to keep it more 'under the radar'.

  9. Colin Murray says:
    November 22, 2008 at 5:37 pm

    Revision of last sentence: Some like to keep it more 'under the radar' by fobbing off public responsibility to those with less shame, like Netanyahu. It helps them sleep better at night.

  10. morris says:
    November 22, 2008 at 6:01 pm

    20/11/2008 For the sixteenth consecutive day, besieged Gaza is still taking the blows of Israel’s battering ram amid international silence and Arab apathy.
    The United States, which closely supports Israel against Arabs as well as its stranglehold on 1.5 million Gazans, has asked four oil-rich Gulf States for close to 300 billion dollars (300,000,000,000 dollars) to help it curb the global financial meltdown, Kuwait’s daily Al-Seyassah reported Thursday. The daily said Washington has asked Saudi Arabia for 120 billion dollars, the United Arab Emirates for 70 billion dollars, Qatar for 60 billion dollars and was seeking 40 billion dollars from Kuwait. The United States plans to use the funds to help the ailing automobile industry, banks and other companies suffering from the global financial turmoil. The four states are estimated to have amassed close to 1.5 trillion dollars (1,500,000,000,000 dollars) in surplus in the past six years due to high oil prices that rocketed above 147 dollars in July. Source

  11. Sword of Gideonthe point. says:
    November 22, 2008 at 6:05 pm

    But Colin, shouldn't the dreaded zio-nazi lobby. scourge of all that is good and holy in the world be able to handle this. After all, the jackbooted Jew nazi's ( which is kind of ironic since the holocaust never really happened, right ) should be able to handle a few kids. How do you explain that. After all if speaking out against Israel is akin to a death sentence how does this happen.

  12. Colin Murray says:
    November 22, 2008 at 6:18 pm

    You are making the mistaken assumption that I buy into silly 'Jewish world conspiracy' tinfoil-hat crap. Or maybe you aren't, and are trying to avoid answering my question by posing a ridiculous one of your own.

    Is there an Israeli political party that has been part of a ruling coalition that HAS NOT supported colonization of Arab lands?

  13. Eurosabra says:
    November 22, 2008 at 7:46 pm

    Colin: We don't give a damn whether you believe the conspiracy crap–people here seem to advocate policy changes beyond the divestment of aid to Israel (which can go, as no state as such "owes" support to another state as such) which will have the unavoidable result of the eradication of the State of Israel, and its replacement by an Islamic dictatorship.

    However, since A)it is impossible to convince the die-hard anti-Israel crowd otherwise and B)such viewpoints are currently powerless in the USA and the Middle East and C)We're Middle Easterners, who believe that everything is the will of Allah and sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you and D)We have to get some of that Levantine good living in–SOG chooses mainly to post diatribes.

    I agree you raise an interesting question, but one that Israelis feel makes little difference–Hamas/Jihad hunt us all.

  14. Colin Murray says:
    November 22, 2008 at 10:16 pm

    Eurosabra:
    "…aid to Israel (which can go, as no state as such "owes" support to another state as such…"

    Colin:
    I wish extremists on this side of the Atlantic agreed with you. Letting the 'aid' go would be a satisfactory solution to us. We would prefer one with a more positive outcome for your region than merely ceasing our economic and political subsidies, but we certainly won't be rude and insist on it.

    ******
    Eurosabra:
    I agree you raise an interesting question, but one that Israelis feel makes little difference–Hamas/Jihad hunt us all.

    Colin:
    I interpret your assertion that 'my question is one that Israelis feel makes little difference' to mean that you claim that Israelis see little correlation between Zionist colonization, backed by unanimous consent of all major political parties for the last 60 years, and "Hamas/Jihad hunting you all". Don't you think the whole 'colonization thing' might have a little something to do with "Hamas/Jihad hunting you all?" They were BORN in the crucible of Israeli ethnic cleansing imposed by systematic terror supplemented with judicious use of torture and murder. Hamas in particular was deliberately nurtured at birth by the Israeli government as a counterweight to PLO attempts to organize coherent resistance to the occupation. Your government created them. If you truly want their dissolution, it might help to understand their origin. Step one, in the same sense that a drunk begins recovery by first admitting he has a problem, is to admit that the colonization program plays some small role in Hamas' antipathy. Of course, if this is too difficult and you don't want our help, we are quite content to cut off the liquor supply, err, I mean the subsidies.

  15. Rowan Berkeley says:
    November 23, 2008 at 1:12 am

    Eurosabra and SoG are just playing 'soft cop, hard cop' with you, Colin.

  16. Richard Witty says:
    November 23, 2008 at 6:44 am

    Colin,
    Israeli actions do have something to do with Hamas/Islamic Jihad, and at least a portion of sympathy for them certainly is a result of Israeli excesses.

    The problem though is that it is not clear if Hamas/Islamic Jihad is cynically using the condition of the Palestinians for the PURPOSE of propaganda for their own political prominence and agenda, or if the opposition to Israeli excesses is the limited and actual purpose.

    Its the distinction between "do we have a conflict and can argue to resolve?" or "do we hate you existentially?" or "are we only cynical power-seeking assholes?"

  17. D. says:
    November 23, 2008 at 11:25 am

    "Its the distinction between "do we have a conflict and can argue to resolve?" or "do we hate you existentially?" or "are we only cynical power-seeking assholes?"

    That's always the question with any politician. But I'm sure you would agree that it's the Palestinian people who are best placed to decide this, not some Jew in America.

  18. Rowan Berkeley says:
    November 23, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not answer to the same leadership. Fact.

  19. Richard Witty says:
    November 23, 2008 at 4:10 pm

    Israel has to respond VERY differently to a government/faction that is willing to work things out, than to a faction that is firmly committed to its elimination.

    Its night and day. No negotiation on fundamental questions are possible with a faction that is sworn to its elimination.

    They can do cease-fires for six months every two years is all.

  20. Eurosabra says:
    November 24, 2008 at 12:53 am

    Colin,

    The newspaper Falastin wrote of "Jews, sons of clinking gold, the lowest of all peoples" as early as 1913, and mob violence was directed against Jewish "settlement"–largely the quietist, pietistic indigenous settlements–from 1921 and 1929, and in large-scale (company-and-batallion-sized) military operations from '36-'39. So opposition to Zionism has been Islamist-inspired total war against Jewish life in Israel/Palestine as such since about 1917, the year the Turks played with deporting everyone, and remarkably consistent in method, policy, and goals–even the Fatah Charter most generously allows "Jews resident before 1917" to remain–in other words, former dhimmis, as dhimmis.

    I actually don't want help from anyone committed to such ahistoricism as you've posted above, because it can do more harm than good. Either Israelis and Palestinians will reconcile, or one will prevail, or–more likely–we'll muddle along like Levantines between the usual elites and the usual angry young men.

  21. ifnotnowwhen says:
    November 26, 2008 at 6:44 pm

    Gee, when will the original Americans get their day in court, the ones
    that have lived here before the native Americans occupied their
    land, or rather G-D's land, mother Earth with her buffalo children?

    Whatever, just make sure Americans have their bankrupt wallets open to pay the bills.

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