Put this up on my fb page
“Author and journalist Max Blumenthalhttp://maxblumenthal.com/ spoke Friday night here in Boulder about his new book “Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel”. He spoke at length about his experiences on the ground in Israel and in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories. Much of what he reported was similar to what some of us have read in Edward Said, Ilan Pappe’s, Former President Jimmy Carter and other informative books written about this issue over the last five decades. As well as hearing eye witness accounts from Art and Peggy Gish and others who have witnessed human rights abuses committed against the Palestinians over the decades.
This young man can share more facts about Palestinian oppression as a result of the illegal confiscation of Palestinian lands, creation of Israel, racist legislation, illegal settlements etc than anyone I have heard speak about this issue. All of which he has witnessed up front and close over the last six or seven years. Smooth delivery, calm demeanor, factual, humorous at times, humble and brilliant all rolled into one. He knocked it out of the park
I believe he inspired many to take off their protective blinders about the facts on the ground.
Here is my friend Professor Tom Mayer (emeritus) Dept of Sociology Univ of Colorado’s assessment of Blumenthal’s presentation.
“Hello peace and justice activists:
Max Blumenthal, author of Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel (2013), addressed a packed and attentive audience at the Boulder Friends Meeting House this evening. He spoke for about one hour and then answered questions for another hour. His main topic was the rightward drift of Israeli politics. As a result of this change racist, separatist, and authoritarian ideas are now thoroughly entrenched within mainstream Israeli ideology. Although these baneful practices have become more open and obvious, Blumenthal emphasizes that they were implicit in Zionist philosophy and practice from its very beginning.
I found Blumenthal’s talk particularly impressive for his broad knowledge of the nitty gritty details of Israeli politics, for his fluent but informal way of speaking, and for his willingness to take bold and uncompromising political positions. Blumenthal thinks that the solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict is easy to express but extremely difficult to achieve. The solution to the conflict is simply the establishment or true political equality. True political equality means a state in which all citizens have fully equal rights and no citizens have special political privileges. A truly equal state must be a democratic state, but it must not be specifically Jewish state which gives Jews special benefits.
When Max Blumenthal was asked how he came to write Goliath, he gave more or less the same answer as he gives in the Preface to the book:
“I began working on this book in May 2009, almost as soon as I completed the book tour of Republican Gomorrah, and I have conducted uninterrupted research for four years, through early 2013. When I began, Israelis had just elected the most right-wing government in their history in an election conducted during Operation Cast Lead, a three-week-long military assault on the Gaza Strip that left much of the besieged coastal enclave in ruins. A transitional period that began with the collapse of the Camp David negotiations in 2000 was accelerating, with extreme nationalist elements consolidating control over the key institutions of Israeli society, from the Knesset to the courts to the educational system and the army. Through my reporting, I attempted to illuminate the impact of this momentous transition on the people themselves— both Jews and Palestinians— charting its progression through the 2012 Israeli national elections, and against the historical backdrop of the cataclysmic events of 1948 that haunt the Holy Land to this day.”
During his talk Blumenthal said that it was Operation Cast Lead that finally broke his attachment to Israel. In his book Goliath (and also in tonight’s talk) Blumenthal describes how Israeli citizens cheered on the violent military attack on Gaza:
“Parash Hill is a scenic overlook near Sderot, which is one of the under-serviced development towns originally constructed in Southern Israel to accommodate some of the hundreds of thousands of Jews who arrived to Israel from Arab nations during the 1950s, often as impoverished victims of government-led campaigns on expulsion. Parash Hill offers sweeping views of the Gaza Strip, and beyond it is the Mediterranean Sea. Here, hundreds of Israelis gathered at the vista to revel in the violence. For them, the hill offered mezzanine seats for the bombing; they cheered or stared with silent satisfaction while the hometown team exacted blood vengeance on the Enemy. “Of course I’m happy,” a twenty-six-year-old Orthodox Jew told a reporter from the UK’s Sunday Times as he watched Israeli jets bombard the strip. “It would be better if innocent civilians weren’t hurt, but the ones who cooperate with Hamas— that’s their problem.”
A secular, middle-aged woman pointed to Gaza and calmly explained to Ulla Terkelsen, a Danish TV reporter, “They should just wipe the whole thing off the map.” With a dramatic wave of her hand, she added, “Yeah, I’m a little bit fascist.” A twenty-seven-year-old student surveyed the scene of picnicking Israelis and lamented, “People in Israel are addicted to violence.” (p.11)
One of the most appalling revelations in Goliath was not mentioned tonight by Blumenthal. This revelation concerns the teachings of certain extreme right wing rabbis about killing non-Jews. These rabbis published a widely read book justifying the killing of non-Jews, even the killing of non-Jewish babies:
“According to…Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira and Rabbi Yosef Elitzur, non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and may have to be killed in order to “curb their evil inclinations. If we kill a gentile who has violated one of the seven commandments [of Noah] . . . there is nothing wrong with the murder,” Shapira and Elitzur insisted. Citing Jewish law as their source (or at least a very selective interpretation of it) they declared, “There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.” (p. 303)
These are, to be sure, the ravings of right wing maniacs, but this murderous gibberish apparently garners a surprisingly wide and sympathetic audience within Israel.
I agreed with most of the things that Max Blumenthal said, but not with everything. One of the things that I did not agree with was his assessment of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) strategy. He described BDS as “the only game in town” for securing justice to the Palestinians. I think BDS is an important endeavor, and I fully support it, but I do not think it is the only game in town or even the most important method of securing justice for the Palestinians. Weakening the alliance between the United States and Israel is, I think, the key to transforming Israeli politics. Israel can continue its outrageous oppression of the Palestinians mainly because it can rely on generous US economic, military, and diplomatic support. If this were not forthcoming, then the government of Israel would come under enormous pressure to change its apartheid policies.
There is now a reasonably good chance of weakening the US-Israel alliance. It is becoming increasingly evident that this alliance is dangerous to the USA. The Israel connection was an important factor that propelled the USA into attacking Iraq twice. The Netanyahu government is now trying to induce a US attack upon Iran. Many Americans now understand that the lock-step alliance between the USA and Israel spells war. We who seek justice for the Palestinians and peace in the Middle East (and elsewhere) should capitalize on this important political opportunity.
Peace and Justice,
Tom Mayer “
Kathleen
November 16, 2013 11:09 am
Denver rising and rising.
Pushing back against attacks by the Denver editorial board who wrote that the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinian ads posted by BDS Colorado on Denver buses were false. The Denver Post not allowing the many letters written in opposition to these claims to be put in the paper. Will be a protest of the Denver Post on Nov 20th https://www.facebook.com/pages/Colorado-BDS/183535921686012
Kathleen
November 16, 2013 11:44 am
Please sign this petition challenging the Denver Post editorial claiming that the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinian ads on some of Denver’s buses are false. The Post has not allowed letters of opposition to these false claims into the pages of their biased paper.
$3 Billion a year to Israel. I hate to inform you, but that is about 0.05% (1/200th) of our national budget. Were it dispersed equally among all the cities which have those anti-Israel signs, it would probably buy each city a whole traffic light. Yep! One whole traffic light, but certainly not a fancy one.
You have to get a sense of proportion. The $3 billion in aid to Israel is more for show than real effect.
RoHa
November 16, 2013 9:04 pm
Certainly enough to buy a “Left Turn” sign for Albuquerque.
From a friend in Albuquerque.
Boulder streets rising too:
Put this up on my fb page
“Author and journalist Max Blumenthalhttp://maxblumenthal.com/ spoke Friday night here in Boulder about his new book “Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel”. He spoke at length about his experiences on the ground in Israel and in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories. Much of what he reported was similar to what some of us have read in Edward Said, Ilan Pappe’s, Former President Jimmy Carter and other informative books written about this issue over the last five decades. As well as hearing eye witness accounts from Art and Peggy Gish and others who have witnessed human rights abuses committed against the Palestinians over the decades.
This young man can share more facts about Palestinian oppression as a result of the illegal confiscation of Palestinian lands, creation of Israel, racist legislation, illegal settlements etc than anyone I have heard speak about this issue. All of which he has witnessed up front and close over the last six or seven years. Smooth delivery, calm demeanor, factual, humorous at times, humble and brilliant all rolled into one. He knocked it out of the park
I believe he inspired many to take off their protective blinders about the facts on the ground.
Here is my friend Professor Tom Mayer (emeritus) Dept of Sociology Univ of Colorado’s assessment of Blumenthal’s presentation.
“Hello peace and justice activists:
Max Blumenthal, author of Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel (2013), addressed a packed and attentive audience at the Boulder Friends Meeting House this evening. He spoke for about one hour and then answered questions for another hour. His main topic was the rightward drift of Israeli politics. As a result of this change racist, separatist, and authoritarian ideas are now thoroughly entrenched within mainstream Israeli ideology. Although these baneful practices have become more open and obvious, Blumenthal emphasizes that they were implicit in Zionist philosophy and practice from its very beginning.
I found Blumenthal’s talk particularly impressive for his broad knowledge of the nitty gritty details of Israeli politics, for his fluent but informal way of speaking, and for his willingness to take bold and uncompromising political positions. Blumenthal thinks that the solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict is easy to express but extremely difficult to achieve. The solution to the conflict is simply the establishment or true political equality. True political equality means a state in which all citizens have fully equal rights and no citizens have special political privileges. A truly equal state must be a democratic state, but it must not be specifically Jewish state which gives Jews special benefits.
When Max Blumenthal was asked how he came to write Goliath, he gave more or less the same answer as he gives in the Preface to the book:
“I began working on this book in May 2009, almost as soon as I completed the book tour of Republican Gomorrah, and I have conducted uninterrupted research for four years, through early 2013. When I began, Israelis had just elected the most right-wing government in their history in an election conducted during Operation Cast Lead, a three-week-long military assault on the Gaza Strip that left much of the besieged coastal enclave in ruins. A transitional period that began with the collapse of the Camp David negotiations in 2000 was accelerating, with extreme nationalist elements consolidating control over the key institutions of Israeli society, from the Knesset to the courts to the educational system and the army. Through my reporting, I attempted to illuminate the impact of this momentous transition on the people themselves— both Jews and Palestinians— charting its progression through the 2012 Israeli national elections, and against the historical backdrop of the cataclysmic events of 1948 that haunt the Holy Land to this day.”
During his talk Blumenthal said that it was Operation Cast Lead that finally broke his attachment to Israel. In his book Goliath (and also in tonight’s talk) Blumenthal describes how Israeli citizens cheered on the violent military attack on Gaza:
“Parash Hill is a scenic overlook near Sderot, which is one of the under-serviced development towns originally constructed in Southern Israel to accommodate some of the hundreds of thousands of Jews who arrived to Israel from Arab nations during the 1950s, often as impoverished victims of government-led campaigns on expulsion. Parash Hill offers sweeping views of the Gaza Strip, and beyond it is the Mediterranean Sea. Here, hundreds of Israelis gathered at the vista to revel in the violence. For them, the hill offered mezzanine seats for the bombing; they cheered or stared with silent satisfaction while the hometown team exacted blood vengeance on the Enemy. “Of course I’m happy,” a twenty-six-year-old Orthodox Jew told a reporter from the UK’s Sunday Times as he watched Israeli jets bombard the strip. “It would be better if innocent civilians weren’t hurt, but the ones who cooperate with Hamas— that’s their problem.”
A secular, middle-aged woman pointed to Gaza and calmly explained to Ulla Terkelsen, a Danish TV reporter, “They should just wipe the whole thing off the map.” With a dramatic wave of her hand, she added, “Yeah, I’m a little bit fascist.” A twenty-seven-year-old student surveyed the scene of picnicking Israelis and lamented, “People in Israel are addicted to violence.” (p.11)
One of the most appalling revelations in Goliath was not mentioned tonight by Blumenthal. This revelation concerns the teachings of certain extreme right wing rabbis about killing non-Jews. These rabbis published a widely read book justifying the killing of non-Jews, even the killing of non-Jewish babies:
“According to…Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira and Rabbi Yosef Elitzur, non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and may have to be killed in order to “curb their evil inclinations. If we kill a gentile who has violated one of the seven commandments [of Noah] . . . there is nothing wrong with the murder,” Shapira and Elitzur insisted. Citing Jewish law as their source (or at least a very selective interpretation of it) they declared, “There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.” (p. 303)
These are, to be sure, the ravings of right wing maniacs, but this murderous gibberish apparently garners a surprisingly wide and sympathetic audience within Israel.
I agreed with most of the things that Max Blumenthal said, but not with everything. One of the things that I did not agree with was his assessment of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) strategy. He described BDS as “the only game in town” for securing justice to the Palestinians. I think BDS is an important endeavor, and I fully support it, but I do not think it is the only game in town or even the most important method of securing justice for the Palestinians. Weakening the alliance between the United States and Israel is, I think, the key to transforming Israeli politics. Israel can continue its outrageous oppression of the Palestinians mainly because it can rely on generous US economic, military, and diplomatic support. If this were not forthcoming, then the government of Israel would come under enormous pressure to change its apartheid policies.
There is now a reasonably good chance of weakening the US-Israel alliance. It is becoming increasingly evident that this alliance is dangerous to the USA. The Israel connection was an important factor that propelled the USA into attacking Iraq twice. The Netanyahu government is now trying to induce a US attack upon Iran. Many Americans now understand that the lock-step alliance between the USA and Israel spells war. We who seek justice for the Palestinians and peace in the Middle East (and elsewhere) should capitalize on this important political opportunity.
Peace and Justice,
Tom Mayer “
Denver rising and rising.
Pushing back against attacks by the Denver editorial board who wrote that the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinian ads posted by BDS Colorado on Denver buses were false. The Denver Post not allowing the many letters written in opposition to these claims to be put in the paper. Will be a protest of the Denver Post on Nov 20th
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Colorado-BDS/183535921686012
Please sign this petition challenging the Denver Post editorial claiming that the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinian ads on some of Denver’s buses are false. The Post has not allowed letters of opposition to these false claims into the pages of their biased paper.
Please sign
https://www.change.org/petitions/the-denver-post-publish-a-response-to-your-biased-editorial-on-ethnic-cleansing-in-palestine
$3 Billion a year to Israel. I hate to inform you, but that is about 0.05% (1/200th) of our national budget. Were it dispersed equally among all the cities which have those anti-Israel signs, it would probably buy each city a whole traffic light. Yep! One whole traffic light, but certainly not a fancy one.
You have to get a sense of proportion. The $3 billion in aid to Israel is more for show than real effect.
Certainly enough to buy a “Left Turn” sign for Albuquerque.