Wieseltier is in the money:
New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier has been awarded with the $1 million Dan David prize [from a foundation at Tel Aviv University], Israel’s pre-eminent award for individuals who have made “an outstanding contribution to humanity.”
In its announcement, the Dan David Prize Board called Wieseltier ”a foremost writer and thinker who confronts and engages with the central issues of our times, setting the standard for serious cultural discussion in the United States.”
Wieseltier’s latest column denies the validity of Palestinian resistance to occupation in defending Israel’s separation wall– which Palestinians call the apartheid wall, as it seeks to take as much land as it can with as few Palestinians on it, carving out places for Jews on occupied lands.
These comprehensive fortifications. . . make Israel safer. Since the threats encircle Israel, the barriers encircle Israel. Their efficacy from the standpoint of security cannot be denied. . . . It was not until Palestinian “resistance” chose to rely on suicide bombers that the big, cold wall was raised. . . . About the racial character of the wall the Palestinians are wrong. . . .
The spectacle of the Jewish state behind walls is a melancholy sight. . . Of course Tel Aviv and its environs, the metropolitan miracle on the coast, is the antithesis of a confinement–it feels like the future, even if sometimes also like a fool’s paradise.
Zionists patting other Zionists on the back for being Zionists.
What a farce.
Lotta ways to earn $1M. This hasbara prize is like a book contract, sorta, and a lot easier (if you already hold a mcrophone). Wonder what Joan Peters made on “From Time Immemorial”.
Wieselter is not really defending the wall as it exists, after “party line” preamble defending the concept of security through fortifications.
This is the half-empty glass of Zionist liberalism. The situation is not nice. Wieselter has a very light hand describing the oppression, but he acknowledges that (he reminds me a Polish member of Parliament who visited a farm and partook in some farmwork, and she told the reporter “when you stand knee deep in what you know and I understand…”). But of course, even as a citizen of the last remaining superpower, he cannot imagine doing something about it.
“The spectacle of the Jewish state behind walls is a melancholy sight. . . ”
Indeed. In designing the wall to keep Palestinians out, among other things, the wall has also had the powerful symbolic effect of walling in the Jewish state. This symbolism isn’t lost an a watching world. Warsaw comes to mind except in this case it’s Israeli Jews who have built their own wall around a ghetto-state where they’re living a life of make believe in places like the “metropolitan miracle on the coast.”
sure this has already been seen
msnbc
‘Force to be reckoned with’: Israel’s settlers dig in ahead of Obama visit
Leaders of the settler movement see clouds gathering as Obama’s visit draws closer. But they remain defiant.
“We understand that Obama as a second term president is much more dangerous to the settlements than the first term Obama and we need to keep our eyes wide open,’’ Dilmony said.
“When he comes here he should meet us, the settlers, and see the situation for himself,” Dilmony said.
On only point is Dilmony likely to be in agreement with the US administration.
“Peace can only come from the people who live here,’’ he said.
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/16/16975361-force-to-be-reckoned-with-israels-settlers-dig-in-ahead-of-obama-visit?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=1
I have no respect for obama….he is going to a nation that actively tried to defeat him….now he going there to get…the talk