by Adam Horowitz on September 9, 2009 · 11 comments
It’s the first day of school here in New York City and it’s gotten me in the mood to catch up on some reading. Luckily, two of Mondo’s favorites have new books worth checking out.
The first is Max Blumenthal’s expose of the Republican Party Republican Gomorrah. Nation Books describes it as "a bestiary of dysfunction, scandal, and crime from the heart of the movement that runs the Republican Party." Sounds juicy. I haven’t had a chance yet to read the whole thing, but if you’re familiar with Blumenthal’s work then you have an idea of what to expect. Here’s a peek:
Also new is an update on Antony Loewenstein’s important book My Israel Question. Now in its third edition, Loewenstein has updated the book to include as in depth look at the Israeli attack on Gaza in the winter of 08/09, and how the ongoing debate over Israel/Palestine is playing out in Australia.
by Adam Horowitz on September 1, 2009 · 4 comments
We’ve been following the story of Silwanon this site. Specifically, the ongoing Israeli effort to force Palestinians from the area to ensure a corridor of Israeli control stretching from Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley. Meron Rappoport has a great piece from the neighborhood which reveals some Israeli feelings about the hotly contested area. From the Guardian website:
A few minutes later two teenage girls, aged 17 or 18, come walking up the path. They’re not orthodox, and one can see that they’re not local. One of them stops in front of the camera. Film me, she pleads. Would you like to be interviewed, we ask. She says yes. She’s from the town of Gan Yavne, and came to visit Jerusalem, City of David. Why here, we ask. Because this is where King David was, she says. It’s a very important place for the Jewish people. It’s such a shame there are Arabs here, though. But very soon all the Arabs will be dead, God willing, and all of Jerusalem will be ours. She walks on.
Two minutes pass by, and an ultra-orthodox Jewish family comes striding up the path. The husband, all in black, asks Ilan: say, do both Jews and Arabs live in this neighbourhood? Both Palestinians and Jews, Ilan replies, but most residents are Palestinians. It’s only temporary, the ultra-Orthodox man reassures him, pretty soon there won’t be a single Arab left here.
I exchanged glances with Ilan and Michael. We’ve been here for less than 15 minutes, we haven’t asked anyone on what they feel about Arabs or the future of Jerusalem, we only stood for a short while in the street. Hate flowed toward us like a river to the sea, freely, naturally.
The piece is titled "Fifteen minutes of hate in Silwan." Remember Max Blumenthal’s video Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem? Remember how he was criticized for not showing "real" Israelis? One can only imagine what the video would have looked like if he did.
Above is a trailer for an upcoming documentary from Max Blumenthal and the exciting new website The Daily Nuisance. It is the culmination of the work that Blumenthal and others have been doing to cover an important story not being told in the press here in the US – Israel’s repression towards dissent and its [...]
As a contributor to the film Cruel but Necessary: Israeli Opinions about the Settlements and Obama, I wanted to add some perspective on the debates that have developed on Mondoweiss. Those who find the interviews unfair seem to fit into two categories: the first disagree that the views shared in the video are representative of Israelis, and the second agree that they are, but think these perspectives should be kept private. I want to respond to both of these.
Seham writes: So far this is turning into the year that American Jews made hajj to Palestine, whether to break the siege on Gaza or to participate in and document the resistance to Israel’s land grab in the West Bank….
Update: Max Blumenthal crossed posted this video and story on The Huffington Post. Even though HuffPo promoted it this morning over their Twitter feed, it has been taken down without explanation. We’ll post more as we get the details. Max…
Two readers have already passed along Roger Cohen’s startling account of participation in the Tehran protests yesterday, during which Cohen retreats to an alley to escape gassing and barely suppresses his thrill at being part of this democratic history-making. Two…
A disturbing trend is emerging on YouTube – videos that show Israel in a bad light are being taken down. The first example was Max Blumenthal and Joseph Dana’s Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem video, which was removed after being…
One of the criticisms of the Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem video was that the people in it seemed to be from the US, and not “really” Israeli. We can only imagine what the video would have looked like if…
By Max Blumenthal On June 5, when several hundred Israelis marched from Tel Aviv’s Yitzhak Rabin Square to the Israeli Defense Ministry to protest the anniversary of the Six Day War, I was able to meet some of the country’s…
I want to offer my response to the Feeling the Hate In Jerusalem on Eve of Obama’s Cairo Address video. Phil was in Gaza when the video came in and I was editing the site by myself. I’ll admit the…
The Max Blumenthal/Joseph Dana video continues to bounce around the internet and has inspired several response videos. Here is one of the best so far: Not all are so light hearted. This response in particular shows that the original clearly…
Max Blumenthal reporting for Mondoweiss from Jerusalem: On Wednesday, June 3, I went to the Knesset to speak to two of the deliberative body’s most ideologically opposed members. First, I spoke to Alex Miller, a backbencher in Avigdor Lieberman’s incipient…
Max Blumenthal’s latest video was posted on the Huffington Post and quickly taken off by site administrators. Blumenthal shared that an administrator told him the video didn’t have “any real news value.” Well, with that in mind, here are some…
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‘This Time We Went Too Far’
Norman Finkelstein has just published an important new book on the Gaza conflict of 2008-2009, 'This Time We Went Too Far.' Go to orbooks.com to get it.
