Weird. Here's a statement
by Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers saying the AFT opposes the academic boycott of Israel. OK. Some people don't like this kind of thing. But the AFT includes the gratuitous and erroneous statement that Hamas's "unilateral breach of the ceasefire" has "exacerbated the conflict." Gosh. Just go to the neocon thinktank WINEP; even they say that Israel broke the ceasefire with a raid last November.
Why doesn't the AFT come out for the destruction of the Gaza schools as a proportionate response to rocket fire while it's at it? And by the way does this make my Jewdar go crazy, and wonder whether Randi Weingarten is Jewish and was raised Zionist, unlike me? Yes.
Randi Weingarten is well known as a murderous Zionist fanatic and Israel-firster.
All right, Randy! Rolling up the shirtsleeves and making certain that "politics" doesn't intrude on academic "freedom." Using the bully pulpit of the AFT to rail against organized efforts to suppress the sancrosanct free flow of ideas in academia. You go, girl! Who could disagree with you on "academic freedom!"
Hey, Randy, while we're at it, maybe you can have a quiet conversation with your Zionist friends in Israel about how in 2007 the Israeli government denied 670 college-age Gazans (including 6 Fulbright scholars) visas so they could study abroad? Could it be that the Israeli government is attempting to prevent the best and brightest of Palestine from having access to the same Ivy League institutions their sons and daughters routinely graduate from? Could it be an organized effort to prevent a new generation of educated Palestinians who might someday frame the colonization of their homeland in an intellectual dialogue?
C'mon, Randy — let's take this to its logical conclusion. The professors in California should drop their boycott of Israel, if Israel drops its suppression of Palestine's best and brightest. Any other result would be . . . well, intellectually dishonest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/world/middleeast/10gaza.html?_r=1
GAZA — Miriam Ashour will turn 18 in November and speaks English with only the slightest of accents. She has a scholarship to study for a college degree in business administration at Columbia College, affiliated with the United Methodist Church, in Columbia, S.C.
But she will miss at least the first semester. She is among some 670 Gazans enrolled in schools abroad who have been denied permission to leave the territory.
That number includes six Fulbright scholars. Another two students, including Ms. Ashour, are sponsored by the Hope Fund, and a third by the Open Society Institute. At least 35 are enrolled in American institutions, according to an Israeli lobbying group, Gisha, which has sued the Israeli Supreme Court on behalf of the students.
Clearly WINEP is a secret Muslim-terrorist-anti-semite stronghold spouting hate.
/sarcasm
Chris Berel, Richard Witty — what say you? I throw down the gauntlet.
@Rick Pinto
I don't know about them, but I say:
Phil, if you are going to accuse other people of being illiterate, you should probably not support your position by mis-describing a source you are citing.
The WINEP cite you made says:
"Last week, Israeli forces entered Gaza, destroyed an underground border tunnel, and battled Hamas fighters, leaving several militants dead. In response, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired around eighty rockets into southern Israel, including the Israeli city of Ashkelon. Despite this breach of the tahdiya, or ceasefire, both Hamas and Israeli leaders have stressed their desire to deescalate the situation."
The creation of the underground tunnel under Israel's border with Gaza was a violation of the ceasefire. So "this breach" may have been referring to the tunnel as the start of a breach. Or they may simply have been wrong. Hard to say. It does not specifically identify Israel as the ones who first broke the ceasefire.
Of course, that sight also made it clear that the Palestinians have been violating the ceasefire fairly often:
"prior to last week's [November incident] spasm of violence, Palestinian organizations in Gaza had violated the tahdiya more than forty times by launching rockets and mortar shells and by detonating improvised explosive devices against IDF patrols along the fence separating Israel from Gaza."
So much for the Palestinians keeping the ceasefire.
As to the students. Tell them to get Hamas to make peace, or to get Hamas voted out in favor of someone who doesn't lob missiles, or to get permission to leave from Egypt, or to sneak out past the missiles coming through the smuggling tunnels.
The borders are closed for a reason.
Israel is still keeping the Palestinian students down in the same old way. God forbid they study in the USA
like Israeli students can.
link to gisha.org
On an up note, Gisha was formed by Israelis–shows they are not all like Chris Berel and Witty–Chris's Stools. They actually live in Israel and think like Phil!
"The borders are closed for a reason."
And Thommy is just as proud as if he was right there at the checkpoints. Brave Thommila!
When America finally turns its back on Israel, the Zionist supporters can be proud of their gratuitous nastiness (always at it's worst when dealing with Palestinian children or young adults) and bigotry and the part it played in that process. Thom, do you really think that Americans reading your posts will say "Yes sir ree bob, them Israelis is nice folks, sure got to support them for sure?
Phil's phools remain the willfully ignorant bunch they have always been.
If Gazan's are restricted from exiting Gaza, what makes the students special? Why are they exempt? Hamas has caused the closure of the borders. It is Hamas who doesn't care about the education, at least not the free education, of palestinians.
Stop firing missles and the palestinians have freedom.
The spiritual fathers of hamas, the German Nazi leadership, could care lesss what the Jews did. Their goal was Genocide. Therefore it is no wonder that the goal of Hamas is Genocide.
The AFT, an admirable organization in many ways, is one of the main heirs of the Jewish labor movement now that the U.S. garment industry is no more.
Whereas ILGWU may have had a more Yiddishist, Bundist (non-Zionist) flavor, much of the AFT's leadership has had strong labor Zionist views for some time. Albert Shanker was very close to Bayard Rustin and the Scoop Jackson Democrats and he shared their hawkish views regarding the Soviet Union and Israel's Arab neighbors.
The cease-fire itself was broken by both sides. To state that Israel broke the cease-fire on November 4th is a half-truth. If there was NO tunnel near the Israeli border for the purpose of an abduction or other offensive use by Hamas, then that would be accurate. There was certaintly a tunnel near the border, from everything that I've read.
From November 4 to November 18, there were skirmishes, each describing as in retaliation from the other. From November 18, until December 18, the cease-fire was restored, indicating an intention on BOTH sides to do so.
On December 19th, the cease-fire officially ended. On December 18th, Hamas permitted Islamic Jihad to resume shelling, and on or about December 23rd, Hamas resumed shelling. The cease-fire had officially ended, so its innaccurate to state on that basis that Hamas broke the cease fire. But, it is accurate to state that Hamas initiated hostilities, after the period of the cease-fire.
It didn't have to. Israel did not respond militarily for 9 days while the shelling continued, incrementally warning Hamas that continuing the shelling would result in a military response. Hamas CHOSE to continue the shelling.
Accuracy is most important. Finkelstein and I argued over this very same point. Either Phil applies the same sources as Finkelstein, or learned of the discussion from him (or from me conveying the correspondence I had with Finkelstein).
The source of my data was from the New York Times and Haaretz, from daily reads.
I don't know where Phil and Norman derived their conclusions from. Distrust (or trust) of the New York Times is at best a first step, not a last one. Rumor, repetition of what you want the story to be, is the worst.
Chris HasBerel, glad to see you pop up like a Whack-A-Mole game. For the record, Hamas did hold off on rocket attacks for over a year under the terms of a cease fire, which Israel unilaterally breached. Hamas got nothing for it except more hasbara. If you care to invoke the analogy, well, go ahead, my man — the German Nazi leadership is the spiritual father of the IDF, not Hamas. The IDF is engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing, which is the most disturbingly ironic thing about the greatest humanitarian tragedy of our time. Will history categorize the Zionists in the same category as Nazis with the fullness of time? You should lay awake at night wondering about it, Chris.
Berel: "Stop firing missles and the palestinians have freedom."
Absolutely, prime example: look at the great freedom the Palestinians in the West Bank have. I wish all Zionists were afforded those same freedoms.
"Stop firing the missiles and Palestinians have freedom"
Is this freedom like in West Bank?
Door Gunner: Git some! Git some! Git some, yeah, yeah, yeah! Anyone that runs, is a VC. Anyone that stands still, is a well-disciplined VC! You guys oughta do a story about me sometime!
Private Joker: Why should we do a story about you?
Door Gunner: 'Cuz I'm so fuckin' good! I done got me 157 dead gooks killed. Plus 50 water buffalo too! Them's all confirmed!
Private Joker: Any women or children?
Door Gunner: Sometimes!
Private Joker: How can you shoot women or children?
Door Gunner: Easy! Ya just don't lead 'em so much! Ain't war hell?
—-
Seems like any Palestinian at all is considered a terrorist…and a Palestinian with a scholarship or diploma is considered a well-educated terrorist.
The beauty of the circular Zio-logic is irrefutable. Gee, why don't these people make something of themselves and pick themselves up by their bootstraps and quit trying to blow everybody else up?! It's not like *we're* doing anything to piss them off.
nice one Eva..the trolls only see what they want though
maybe that was written by the American Zionist Hebrew School Teachers Association.
June 19 Ceasefire:
- Israeli army troops near the border east of the southern Gaza town of Rafah opened fire towards Palestinian farmers working in al-Amoor, according to U.N. sources. No injuries reported.
- Israeli troops east of el-Maghazi camp opened fire towards Palestinian farmers, according to U.N. sources. No injuries reported.
- Israeli marine vessels fired towards Palestinian fishermen west of Beit Lahiya, according U.N. sources. No injuries reported.
June 21
- Israeli marine vessels opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats west of Beit Lahiya, according to U.N. sources. No injuries reported.
- Israeli troops at the border north east of the el-Maghazi camp opened fire towards Palestinian farmers, according to U.N. sources. No injuries reported.
June 23
- Palestinians fired a mortar shell into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli army. No one hurt.
- Israeli troops near the border north-west of Beit Lahiya opened fire at a group of people collecting wood, seriously wounding a 70-year-old man, according to U.N. sources.
June 24
- Islamic Jihad militants fired rockets into southern Israel, the militant group and the Israeli army said. No casualties. The rocket fire followed Israel's killing of two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, an area not covered by the ceasefire.
June 25
- Israeli troops east of Rafah opened fire toward farmers, according U.N. sources. No injuries reported.
June 25
- Israeli troops stationed near Khan Younis opened fire towards Palestinian farmers. An 82-year-old farmer was seriously injured, according to U.N. sources.
June 26
- Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group belonging to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, fired one rocket into southern Israel, the group and the Israeli army said. (Reporting by Adam Entous; edited by Richard Meares)
@_
Where did the "U.N. Sources" get their information?
Quoting "U.N. sources" doesn't mean much if what it means is "Palestinians told the U.N. who parroted what the Palestinians told them".
A big problem with blog sites is that they end up being a big game of telephone in which "Source X reported that source Y said" gets knocked down to "Source X reported". Like when whoever it was reported Hamas provided casualty figures reported in the Lancet as though the Lancet was an independent source of the information.
How very destructive a move by the AFT: unthinkable.
Meanwhile, I wonder about people who are only "liberal," ie, generous and benevolent, about causes that concern them.
Randi Weingarten Discusses Her Life as a Lesbian Labor Leader
By: PAUL SCHINDLER
10/11/2007
http://gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18910191&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=6
Quoting "U.N. sources" doesn't mean much if what it means is "Palestinians told the U.N. who parroted what the Palestinians told them".
LOL. Apologize harder.
From reading the post I know Randi Weingarten is a union spokesperson and from reading comments Randi may be female and Jewish. Regardless of her gender and religion, an ideology based on class could be what informs her opinion. Teachers can, and probably should, have bonds stronger than gender and religion, however if their solidarity is not applied equally to other nationalities and ethnic groups, then perhaps some other idea or emotion clouds such rationale for an individual.
Apparently this is not the first time that the American Federation of Teachers have come out with the call "Israel Can Do No Wrong"
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=11446
"The IDF spokesman said…"
Lt. Calley said
My dad always said, "Consider the source."
The UN source said