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- Resume builders: Be a broken record on Iran, cheer authoritarians … 0
- UN Committee: Israeli system ‘tantamount to apartheid’ 0
- Slater on Beinart 0
- And we live on… 0
- US official — we went to Israel first 3
- Israel lobby’s favorite senator tries to erase Palestinian refugee status … 23
- Israel takes 30 dunams of land near Salfit ‘for security … 4
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- BDS victory: South Africa strips Ahava’s ‘made in Israel’ label 713
- Video: Israeli mob demands all African refugees be deported from … 475
- Day after pogroms, Likud MK calls for internment camp for … 427
- Neverending Nakba: Israel breaks lull, attacks Gazan farmers 413
- ‘This is not fair play’: Mahmoud Sarsak’s family demands his … 389
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- The Messiah’s Donkey: Settlers fire on Palestinian villagers as the … 235
- Aharon Appelfeld’s rage at the German language (and Arendt’s need … 156
- US to differentiate between ‘personally displaced’ Palestinian refugees and their … 129
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- Feeling the hate in Long Island 97
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Recent Comments
click link to see last 100 comments- Did Israeli Eurovision contestant watch too much Juliano Mer Khamis? (54)
- Annie Robbins: GL, urban dictionary has PEP, just no explanation of progressive except for palestine....
- German Lefty: Annie, it looks like you got infected with the Eurovision virus. Great. The more fans, the better. The...
- US official — we went to Israel first (3)
- traintosiberia: OMG! Why I don”t have that Stockholm Syndrome yet! How long do I have to feign that I have it.
- Annie Robbins: a U.S. official…asked to remain anonymous owing to the sensitive nature of the issue. sensitive?...
- Carllarc: proof of ‘Israel firsters’, for sure
- Israel lobby’s favorite senator tries to erase Palestinian refugee status for millions (23)
- piotr: How many Jews who made aliya were actual refugees from Roman persecution? Thus the “Jew who taunted...
- Affirming a Judaism and Jewish identity without Zionism (113)
- yourstruly: what was that sound? the special relationship breaking down and the loud and sustained chorus that...
- MHughes976: I’m still a bit uncertain about what R.Brian means by ‘Zionism’: what proposition did...
- yourstruly: given, that the israel’s brutal occupation of palestine is why much of the arab/islamic world hates...
- Video: Israeli mob demands all African refugees be deported from the country (and anyone who disagrees deserves to be raped) (86)
- Blake: Q. Where are ya from? A. Everywhere but Palestine but Palestine is ours.
- Did Israeli Eurovision contestant watch too much Juliano Mer Khamis? (54)
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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
Oh, I can be snooty too:
"I am responding just to point to the fact that your comment shows clearly the lack of any knowledge about those who protect these migrants from Africa"
And by the way: I wasn't talking about the people in the video.
Dimadok, you say "all those who protect mostly economical migrants from Africa forget to care about the poores citizen of their own state, being Israel."
I can't be sure of course, but I my guess is that many of those who care about the African refugees were also against the policies that in recent years changed Israel into a much harsher capitalst society with large income disparity. So I think it is unfair to blame them for the situation of the Israeli poor.
It was more the words and the place where it was sung than the actual song itself, Annie
(Oh, and by the way, I had goosebumps way back in highschool when I heard Ofra Haza sing "Am Israel chai" in Germany, so I guess my inborn European anti-Semitism was repressed at the time.)
"Although geographically not in Europe, Israel is within the European Broadcasting Area and can thus participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. The boundaries of the European Broadcasting Area have their origin in the regions served and linked by telegraphy cables in the 19th and early 20th centuries. "
Funny: Iraq, Jordan and Syria fall into the EBA too.
Ah, I look forward to it every year: The busty chick saying "Shalom, this is Jerusalem calling, the eternal capital of the Jewish state." This year no doubt followed by "La Turquie zero points, Chypre, douze points"
OlegR:
"i have very little sympathy to German civilian casualties in WW2
And yes i am quite aware that the same phrase can be applied to Israel."
But read the bloody comments! (4 so far, and all nutty.)
“Altogether now: Oy Veh!”
A rabbi setting one part of his congregation against another....Wow, did anyone else find that shocking?
That one is the best!!
You are right. Years ago I met a Pole in Japan, who told me: "Western Europeans always ask me why I hate Jews. I do not hate Jews, why would I? But they all think I must hate Jews because I am Polish." I asked him if he had seen the film Shoah, and that this film was a major factor behing the Westen European perception of Poles as anti-Semites. Later the film was shown at the auditorium of a Christian Japanese highschool nearby, where we both went to see it, but it was hard for him to follow because all the French, German, Jiddish etc. was subtitled in Japanese.
Who knows also how the film was edited: If there were 530 hours shot, there may have been many expressions of sympathy by Poles that were not included in the final version.
Ferguson deserves Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
What about the innovative use of tear gas canisters?
My kids are blond. They do not look like Hitler Jugend to me, but I will keep them away from the 'Holy Land' just to be sure. The hostile and racist mentality behind these remarks and behind the policies of the present Israeli regime should vanish from the page of time. I must be a 'born anti-Semite'.
I do not believe there were mercenaries in Lybia, but I just did not get the rest of the argument. And it was hard to follow: All these twitching an changing visuals (I am an old fashioned person, I do not adjust to these things.) And then trying to follow the sound (French) which did not agree in timing at all with the English subtitles. I did not get anything from it at all. But maybe this is just me.
I looked at it. Thought it was not very good or convincing. Sorry.
Does he keep these two letters in the same desk as where he keeps the ancient seal with the name Netanyahu? (One of his ‘ancestors’, before they changed their name to Milikovski.)
What a manipulator of the past this man is.
I think a lot of the silence of the world has to do with the fact that Khader Adnan is a member of Islamic Jihad. If he were a member of almost any other faction his fight against Israel's system of administrative detention would resonate more.
"Anyone who writes a book called “the end of history”and it not being sarcastic, is not an intellectual,but another miseducated moron and in thrall to idiocy."
Thanks, thanks, you took the words out of my mouth. The man is a pompous ass, and the attention his book got has always irritated me. (Perhaps even more than the attention given to that other monumentally ridiculous book, Goldhagen's "Hitler's willing executioner"s.)
I don't understand why everyone is giving Beinard such a hard time. He is after all willing to compromise. Yes, he is willing to give up his liberalism (!!) for Israel's security and for its status as a Jewish state.
Who could ask more? What do the Palestinians care for the right to return to their homes? What does full, equal citizenship mean to Arab Israelis? Nothing, compared to what Beinard is willing to give up. I wish there was just a little more appreciation here for the sacrifices this guy is making.
But Avi, you will need artificial light, and who will turn that light on and off on the sabbath?
I wonder to whom these messages are adressed? It cannot be to Europeans (apart from the fringe, psychotic Breivik type), as we in Europe know that this is such utter crap that it does not ring a bell. When things really hit on something, when there is a play on things that are really going on in a society, you cannot help but laugh, but this is just dumb.
The language is English not Hebrew, so the intended audience in clearly not Israeli. The intended audience is uninformed Americans then?
I thought I knew about the checkpoints, what they were like in a general sort of way. It turns out that I didn't.
I can't tell you how much these images shocked me. I have been following the treatment of the Palestinians quite closely for some years now (at least I thought I had) and I am still shocked by this. How would the general public react if they saw these images on their TV screens?
And what a wry humor all these men waiting in line have... Amazing.
Thanks for adding some more about the Haan. And yes, he was Dutch, not Polish. (I suppose 'Holland' sounded like 'Poland' during the interview.) In the Netherlands he is more known as a writer, not as an anti-Zionist activist and it was thought for years that his assasination was related to his (quite open) homosexuality. His killer however came forward in the eighties and had this to say: "I have done what the Haganah decided had to be done. And nothing was done without the order of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (who later became the second president of Israel 1952-1963)... I have no regrets because he (de Haan) wanted to destroy our whole idea of Zionism" He denied allegations that De Haan's assassination was related to his homosexuality: "I neither heard nor knew about this", adding "why is it someone's business what he does at his home?" According to Gert Hekma, Zionists spread a rumour he had been killed by Arabs because of his sexual relations with Arab boys
"If she were as smart as her freaking degree in whatever pretends, she would have clearly understood that the religious journey would not end in an exclusively Jewish state, but in a spiritual homeland within truly democratic Palestine."
Thanks, that was terrific. I may hare to borrow that sometimes when talking to people who are so easily bowled over by those historical and religious claims.
I was hoping to make you reconsider some of your more rigid beliefs, but I guess I failed. Cheers Woody.
Rationaliy/irrationality and good/evil are unrelated categories. Being kind can be irrational. (Why hide a Jewish girl like my grandparents did, when it only endangered themselves and their children?) And evil deeds can be rational. (You can really profit from massacring and taking over the property of an ethnic group that is weaker than you.) Your disdain for religion and your constant suggestions that religious people are more prone to do evil things than atheists like yourself stem from your obsession with rationality. There is no need to think in this way, as the link you make between irrationality and evil is baseless.
Oh, so now irrationality is the root of all evil. Well, I guess you and I just believe in different ‘goshes’. Your ‘gosh’ seems to be rationaity my ‘gosh’ happens to be kindness.
I know a lot of irrational people who are are kindness itself. Irrationality is not evil. It can even be a lot of fun. Where is your sense of humor? (Rigid rationality is boring... That is a major objection I have to it)
“And you yourself, Tanaka-san, are a Shintoist of course, even if you deny it."
"Nope, not even close at all. I am an atheist. I was raised Roman Catholic (as were my parents before me), but I freed myself from those mental chains in my early 20s, oh, those many, many, many years ago."
I was blind but now I see. From the rooftops I will sing. I was bound but now I'm free. (Strings, growing stronger and stronger and finally trumpets…)
(Actually, I did not expect you to take the Shintoist bit seriously, but then, rationalists and humor... Not a happy marriage.)
" I find, however, find Shinto to be interesting."
Interesting, yes, and DEFINITELY irrational. (And therefore evil?)
If some nasty secular ideology doesn't agree with your delusion that religion is the root of all evil, you just conflate the ethnicity of the adherents with their local religion, and miraculously, religion is now the root of all evil again. By your reason Nazi's were Christians, Stalinists too, Khmer Rouge were Buddhists, Maoists were Confucianists (except if they are Shining Path, then they are Christian again, how funny). And you yourself, Tanaka-san, are a Shintoist of course, even if you deny it.
Haunting. Very beautiful and very sad. I will remember this.
One lie and distortion after another in Netanyahu's speech. The most idiotic perhaps the 'proof' of his own ancient roots in the country: An ancient seal with the name Netanyahu that was found near the western wall.
Well, the seal should have said Miliekovski to prove anything because THAT was his grandfather's name before he CHANGED it to Netanyahu. What a joke.
"There won’t be peace until Indonesian and Moroccan Muslims and Christians and the people in Sabra and Shatila are allowed back into Jerusalem."
What the hell are you talking about? Am I missing something?
Bernard Henri-Levy is a joke. See: link to timesonline.co.uk
Even J.K. Rowling gives him an appearance as a long-winded magician-philosopher named Bertrand de Pensées-Profondes. (Author of "A Study into the Possibility of Reversing the Actual and Metaphysical Effects of Natural Death, with Particular Regard to the Reintegration of Essence and Matter.")
Thanks, that was enlightning. I have always wondered why Jenin is so often mentioned as "Pallywood"when in fact so many people were killed.
The only hit I got when I searched for "checkpoint" and "sexual abuse" was the following: "According to Assiwar, there were reports of rape by Israeli forces
during the first Intifada, but they have not received reports of rape
during the second Intifada. Gila Svirsky of the Coalition of Women
for Peace told us that she commissioned an informal study and found
cases of sexualized verbal abuse, but no reports of physical sexual
abuse. We were not able to determine whether rape occurs because
it is so stigmatizing. Zahira Kamal related an incident in Hebron
where Israeli soldiers forced women to undress and ‘pose’ while the
men masturbated. Veiled women have been forced to remove their
veils, a shaming and denuding experience. They have also been
subject to inspection by security dogs, which is seen as ‘polluting’.
Sexual harassment, sexual violence and the reluctance of Palestinian
women to report incidents of sexual violence must be understood in
their political and social context. Israel has created a network of
spies and informants within Palestinian society. Israeli agents sometimes seek to force women into becoming informants by threatening
to expose or to spread rumours about their lack of “honour” and
virginity. Assaults on women’s reputation thus represent a means by
which women are forced into betraying their national cause. If a
women agrees to provide information to spies out of fear that her
sexual behaviour will be exposed or compromised, she may save
herself from becoming a victim of an “honour crime”; however, she
nonetheless risks being killed as a collaborator. The link between
The Gendered Impact of War and Occupation V60.
sexuality, “honour” and the nationalist struggle suggests that
Palestinian women who are victims of sexual violence may be highly
reluctant to bring the matter to light.
Sexualized abuse can also be inflicted secondarily on women
through de-masculinizing forms of humiliation inflicted on men.
One woman recounted a chilling story about the siege of Jenin by the
Israeli army. Israeli soldiers encircled a community centre and
ordered all the men to leave the building with their hands in the air.
They then ordered all the women and children to leave the building
in a separate group. However, the Iman of the community remained
behind with the women and children so that he could assist his
disabled elderly mother exit the building. Upon seeing the Muslim
cleric, a number of Israeli soldiers began to laugh and joked that he
clearly did not know if he was a man or a woman. They ordered the
cleric to strip naked and then forced him to carry his elderly mother
out of the building into a waiting vehicle that was full of women. This
intentional infliction of mental anguish and humiliation upon the
cleric amounts to psychological torture and has produced untold
anguish for the cleric and his family. His wife, who was forced to
witness the incident, remains traumatized."
link to osaarchivum.org
Hi Donald,
I was just wondering about the "wholesale fondling of breasts" of Palestinian women at checkpoints. I have read Breaking the Silence testinomies, and stories of women of Machsom Watch and so on but never came accross this. (Humiliating fathers in front of their children and so on, yes, but not this.) Have you? If it is really that prevalent how come I have not heard it reported?
Or is anyone else here able to point to some links that document such behavior?
Here is some more information on House of Dolls:
House of Dolls is essentially the Israeli equivalent to The Diary of Anne Frank in the United States and Elie Wiesel’s Night in Western Europe. Ka-Tzetnik 135633 became Israel’s official literary witness to the Holocaust, similar to the role Elie Wiesel has in Europe and America. House of Dolls is required reading in the Israeli school curriculum, and gives students their first exposure to the Holocaust. But there is a problem. Considered a Holocaust classic for many years, scholars now consider House of Dolls to be pornography and made up.
Ka-Tzetnik 135633's work now considered "fiction" and "graphic and barbaric"
Na’ama Shik, a researcher at Yad Vashem, says, “It was fiction. There were no Jewish whores in Auschwitz.” House of Dolls, however, is treated as historical fact throughout Israel. “His books were so graphic and barbaric,” says Sidra Ezrahi, professor of comparative Jewish literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “…if this is what they have chosen to leave in the Israel curriculum, it’s a scandal.” It was House of Dolls that inspired the 'Stalag' genre of Israeli fiction.
I know that House of Dolls in the Israeli highschool curriculum, but it is a work of fiction (seriously!). More related to the Stalag-porn novels than to The Diary of Anne Frank.
During the Apartheid era, white mistresses would coerce their black maids to take such three-monthly injections to 'help' them. But is was well known that their real motive was to keep the black birthrate down.