-
-
- Video: Paterson, NJ raises the Palestinian flag over city hall … 2
- Princeton students ‘come out’ for Palestine to overcome shame attached … 3
- Jim from Newport Township, Illinois asks the wrong question 4
- There’s been a sea change in US opinion on the … 4
- Former AIPAC lobbyist assumes weighty mantle (and travel budget) of … 5
- Press Release: Isabel Kershner chosen to reveal future Israeli exonerations 5
- As Israel’s occupation drags on, boycotts are one way forward 1
- Both Massad, and ‘Open Zion’, ignore the experience of Middle … 12
-
- Israeli airport sorts passengers with ‘Jewish stickers’ and ‘Arab stickers’ 796
- ‘Newseum’ folds under pressure, will not include Gaza cameramen in … 314
- Two friends meet for 5 minutes in Jerusalem 227
- In photos: Gaza marches and rallies mark 65 years of … 149
- Glenn Greenwald brings facts and reason to ‘Real Time’, ruins … 148
- San Francisco bus ads condemn Israeli apartheid: backlash begins 121
- Washington Post’s racism map omits Israel 111
- Barbara Boxer’s visa bill for Israel comes under concerted attack 102
-
- International Criminal Court opens preliminary investigation into attack on Mavi … 96
- Barbara Boxer’s visa bill for Israel comes under concerted attack 84
- Abulhawa declines to ‘balance out’ several Israelis in ‘Al Jazeera’ … 74
- Washington Post’s racism map omits Israel 73
- Israeli airport sorts passengers with ‘Jewish stickers’ and ‘Arab stickers’ 69
- Uncompromising hope inspired by Ghassan Kanafani 63
- ‘Newseum’ folds under pressure, will not include Gaza cameramen in … 62
- Dershowitz should stop lying about Tutu’s record 56
-
- RT @ggreenwald: From AJ Editor RT @hash_said @WHarkavy It was a temporary glitch. It's back up., 7 hours ago
- RT @WHarkavy: .@Mondoweiss @ggreenwald Right now, at least, column and editor's note aren't on Al Jazeera site. Here's an alt link http://t…, 7 hours ago
- Jim from Newport Township, Illinois asks the wrong question http://t.co/dezeLR7gp1, 7 hours ago
- Princeton students ‘come out’ for Palestine to overcome shame attached to issue in U.S. http://t.co/LCs1vTVK44, 7 hours ago
- Video: Paterson, NJ raises the Palestinian flag over city hall for Palestinian-American Day http://t.co/jV4CaYbOnE, 7 hours ago
-
Recent Comments
click link to see last 100 comments- Both Massad, and ‘Open Zion’, ignore the experience of Middle Eastern Jews (12)
- Jim from Newport Township, Illinois asks the wrong question (4)
- Former AIPAC lobbyist assumes weighty mantle (and travel budget) of US Special Envoy on anti-Semitism (5)
- Rusty Pipes: That’s from the EUMC’s “Working” Definition of Anti-Semitism, which was...
- There’s been a sea change in US opinion on the conflict (4)
- David Samel: Thanks, Pamela, for your impressions. I would only add that I thought Bob Simon’s 2009 piece on...
- Kennedy’s insistence on right of return prompted Ben-Gurion to rewrite history: They fled ‘of their own free will’ (54)
- Hostage: Nowhere in this or the linked documents does it show that Kennedy (or any president) insisted on a the...
- New York City Council official urges Brooklyn College to hire ‘professor from Israel’ (12)
- Hostage: Whether professors believe that their expression of polemical political opinions should have consequences,...
- Widely denounced as ‘propaganda,’ Israel’s report on al-Dura calls attention to 950 other child killings (12)
- David Samel: who are the shameless manipulators, careerists, and opportunists, and who are the true believers? Is...
- Pamela Olson: That’s always an interesting question, Castellio — who are the shameless manipulators,...
Our Writers
More WritersBlogroll
The War of Ideas in the Middle East
Its international version of warning: "Don't fight, I will only hurt you more". I am very surprised that this made it to NY Times.
Such headline would never be allowed even couple of years ago.
Kathleen,
I think they rarely, if ever, choose to do this to Jews - the really ugly part is racial profiling.
“Nevertheless, they – the Mavi Marmara crew, went with the EXPRESS intention of PROVOKING Israel rather than helping Gazans.”
And to think that my grandparents, who were deeply involved in resistance work in Warsaw that organised food smuggling into Warsaw ghetto did it all to provoke Germans! (Using Miriam's logic).
Miriam, may I remind you that Zionists keep Gaza on a diet of under 1000 calorie a day, and that half of Gaza population is children?
Annie, yes, it alters the sense. This shows that English is not my first language.
"These Zionists are relentless – methodical and relentless. How is the US ever going to root these guys out?"
Your comment brings to mind "The Protocols of Elders of Zion". But in a reflective sense. I remember in Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" Al Pacino's character Roy Cohn threatens to sue and destroy his doctor for daring to even attempt to label him as homosexual. But he admitted to fucking men.
Pointing out that Zionists ( which they say is a veiled way of saying Jews) activities follow "Protocols" like a manual for gaining political clout will label you as an Antisemite..
But Zionists (who, by heavy margin, proudly identify themselves as Jews) brag about their political prowess and heavy duty influence and openly admit to ways (listed in "Protocols") that they use to achieve political ends.
Mooser is alive and well, just moved on to
pastures new....
Google Mooser420001 ;-)
My first thought was - Phil is in Europe! I can make it to Cambridge! Who knew that there is more than one Cambridge in the world? Bummer
Exactly Piotr.
One would have assumed that finding oneself repeating atrocities, and using templates of past bloody tyrants would give Zionists a pause for thought.
But apparently not.
This lovely piece of hasbara or self serving ethno-commercial found itself into British Library website:
"The Jews were an ancient people who had resided in Europe for more than two thousand years. The Jews were expelled from Israel by the Romans following the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70. They had a strong sense of vocation, of being covenanted by God to be a holy people with a special moral mission for mankind."
This "moral "mission must have expired for those Jews who became Zionists.
Not that I would dream of making comparisons with You-know-Who, but in September 1939 in a continent not-that-far-away there was a list with 61000 names of professors, actors, politicians, priests, doctors, in the word everybody, who was or could potentially be a leader. They (you-know-who) had names and addresses. Death Eaters would come in the middle of the night and drag those people away, many never to be heard again - there was no Internet, so life was easier.
Thank you for crystallising for me my sense of unease when I was reading the breathless reporting of dreadful, dreadful! discrimination against women in Israel and its speedy happy ending, and felt myself manipulated without being able to put my finger on it.
If you read in the local gazette about local police conscientiously giving mandates for littering to even most prominent local politicians, you don't immediately suspect that the whole suburb, police included, is a one large pedophile ring, do you? You have just been litter-washed.
And, as Prof. Ellis explained we have all been Wall-washed. And in Area C it is still an offence to own water-carrying containers, while Palestinian.
Well, IDF maidens will probe Keith Ellison's body orifices with sublety and regret, and after short detention for some bed bug festivities will put him on a next plain back to USA.
State Department will be very understanding of Zionist security sensitivities.
Which will make Israelis take bets between themselves as to how soon before can they do the same to Kerry.
Isn't Gilad a musician first and philosopher second? Running a blog, like Mondoweiss, is a full time job.
Citizen,
Try not to get yourself banned from here.
For all I know Oscar Shindler could have been motivated by notion of "pure German" sense of humanity or he could have had hots (a la Ahasureus) for a Jewish girl he was caught kissing .
People, including Phil, should be judged for what they do, and for consequences of their actions. And you can't but admire how Phil threw the conversation about Zionism wide open to non-Jews.
So Waltzer is on record as a supporter of action of "“helping people to leave who have to leave" .
I have an urge of running Mr. Waltzer tarred and feathered out of his place of abode, while a crowd of people (a la Marty Peretz at Harward) urge him on his way with chants of "Racist! Racist! Racist!"
Do I have his philosophical support to do so?
Don't cross comparison line - take it down a notch.
Cannot compare Holodomor with Mao revolution because the the quality of soil is not just so. Cannot compare European treatment of australian Aboriginies to american Indians because one have red skin and the other black (?dark brown) skin.
If this is the case, why bother with history at all? Why not have different nationalistic / political myths instead and be done with it.
We cannot learn from the history if we insist that the outcomes of historical events must match before the unfolding of historical events can be compared.
I see that logic of not comparing Nazis and Israelis to the logic of Popper who rolls the billard ball off the table, shelf, stairs, chair seat and is astonished, nay, flabbergasted! that the billard ball falls onto floor each time. He then sets out to proof that that unless you see the billard ball hit the floor you cannot possibly assume that it will - as crossing the comparison line is not something that he could possibly do.
Or something like that.
The day that final solution for Palestinians will come (and believe me, it will) the excuses of those who chose to not see the tragedy unfolding right in front of their eye will be whimpering and pathetic, and excuses of those who saw the tragedy unfolding but did not manage to stop it will not be much better.
How did it go in Saint Matthew 13?
41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear
The problem is, it will be too late for Palestinians by then.
Citizen, this made me speechless. Is ANY content not an infomercial these days?
I seem to remember that Yehuda Hiss has been re-instated?.....
Publishing this video is cruel.
"Those who feel the need to say that there is “nothing terribly unique” about the Holocaust are, in my opinion, driven by anti-Semitism. “Not terribly unique.” What an ugly, cavalier way of speaking about mass murder.
I can’t imagine saying there is “nothing terribly unique” about American slavery or Hiroshima or even Dresden. That kind of language is dismissive of peoples’ suffering."
You see it exactly backwards.
These types of comments - often spoken in anger, and designed to shake and reset moral compass - do not diminish suffering of Jews in Shoah - they protest elevating Jewish suffering in Shoah to be more than suffering of non-Jews when visited by genocide.
Did suffering of three million Jewish Poles who were killed by Nazis terribly unique when compared with the death of three million Slav Poles? Was suffering of six million European Jews who were killed by Hitler terribly unique when compared with the death of seven million Ukranians who were killed by Stalin ?
Too many accusations of anti-Semitism are simply accusations of not being sufficiently supplicatory to Jewish exceptionalism. While mere mention of Jewish exceptionalism ( which is a polite way of calling Jewish racism ) is considered ipso facto proof of anti-Semitism.
Muslim are not to be trusted with nuclear weapons (/sarcasm).
link to youtube.com
Your presumption that Palestinians (that you insist to call Arabs) would not agree to live somewhere else because of standard of living and blessings of democracy shows you are projecting and your blinkered view of human nature. Palestinans don't want to live in other Arab countries because they love their land and the soil where bones of their ancestors are resting since the beginning of time.
Amer Nasser wrote a poem in his diary few days before he died:
Point your bullet where ever you like in my body
I will die today, but my homeland will live tomorrow
Be careful, Palestine is a red line.
He was only seventeen.
I cannot find the reference for the above :-(. And I missed the edit window.
Ahava uses the argument of bringing employment to West Bank. But they fail to mention that they no longer employ Palestinians from Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Hi, I had a misfortune to see the impact on marriages where husbands dived headlong into the organising and participating in Charismatic renewal in Catholic Church around year 2000 in Brussels, Belgium. It was more than second job for them. It was all consuming and had impact on families - I spoke to wives left to hold families together. not caught up in a Millenial fever, they had hard time.
My point was that people can change the way they worship inside the faith, and those changes can have huge impact on the marriage.
Piotr, stop teasing and describe other complaints - we know that there were more! Buckwheat with bow-ties! I feel sorry for his cook already.
Religeous differences are deep and immovable for theologians.
For the rest of us they can be acknowledged as a deeply respected convictions of our loved one. It is only if they prevent us from having loving interactions or relationships, that they become troublesome.
This is just as dangerous intra-religiously (spelling?) as between faiths. Catholic husband that spends their mornings in church celebrating Mass, while wife runs around like a dervish getting their children ready, only to see him back in Church in the evening, and at a spiritual ( and child free) retreat at weekends, is endangering his marriage just as surely as a Muslim husband who promised his wife monogamy in marriage, and then found religion to start courting 16 year old.
LOL - ironic
"Real Jews" - when I hear adjective "real" before the national/religious assignation it always alert me to be on the lookout for deeply conservative / nationalistic / fundamentalist stance: Real Catholic, real Pole, true German.......etc.,
Annie Robbins is Jewish? I never thought about it. What relevance does it have?
Cant you see that this is the whole point of the exercise? To make likely supporters of human rights for Palestinians think twice about coming? Israel would like to put their Palestinian population in one giant Communication Management Unit.
The prisoners are NOT Jewish!!!!
Annie, the destruction of established societies is something that will take generation to repair, keeping societies poor and internally conflicted, and not able to take charge of their natural resources. This is as true in Africa as it is in Middle East.
Increased lawlessness plays into the hasbara that Arab societies are backward and barbaric.
And what they are undoubtedly, is lawless and dangerous since Western interventions.
This sad story from the Scotsman :
"THREE British women are recovering in the Libyan city of Benghazi after being kidnapped and sexually assaulted earlier this week.
Two of the women are sisters of Pakistani origin and were assaulted in front of their father. They were all members of a pro-Palestinian aid convoy bound for Gaza who were travelling through Libya.
(...)
Huseyin Oruc of IHH, a Turkish humanitarian relief organisation which negotiated the release of the kidnapped group, said the women were attacked and robbed. He said their alleged abductors included a taxi driver and a group of men in military uniforms.
(...)
The five had been travelling with a convoy taking ten ambulances to Gaza. With sea routes to Gaza cut, they had opted to drive the ambulances through Europe to Morocco, and then along the North African coastline to Gaza.
The convoy was stopped at the Libyan border with Egypt by Egyptian officials last week, and after waiting a week the five decided to fly home, driving 200 miles to Benghazi and arriving in the early hours.
A group of armed men at an army road block captured the five, subjecting the women to an hours-long ordeal before being found. Police say one of the women was found with her captor 40 miles from Benghazi, where she was freed and her attacker arrested.
Officials said four men had been arrested in connection with the incident.
(...)"
A bit like Fords car, where you could choose, but had to love black ("any colour you like as long as it is black") and indistinguishable really from polish democracy under communism, where you had plurality of parties, as long as (both of them) were approved by PZPR ( Polish United Workers Party) and professed their undying love for and unshaken faith in dictatorship of proletariat.
Lysias, the bit in a Bible that bothers me a lot is:
Exodus 12:
. 35 Now the children of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, and they had asked from the Egyptians articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing. 36 And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they granted them what they requested. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.
Skip the God bit, and you have a story of Jews living between ordinary Egyptians on the good enough footing that Egyptians, when asked, lend them "Articles of gold, Articles of silver and clothing". Jews leave them penniless and quick foot it across the dessert! No wonder they are chased - that was some grand, premeditated and coordinated plunder of their ordinary, foolishly trusting gentile neighbours.
And operation "oil stain" was launched on Thursday in response to killing by Israel of Gaza Palestinians on Tuesday and Wednesday.
However you wrap it up, the Occupier starts it up - every time.
Add to that the spend per head and access to medical services, social services, mental health services, not to mention the spend on municipal services like pavement repairs and rubbish collection.
Every bit of protein that Gaza obtains by fishing is a profit lost by the Israeli merchant selling food to Gaza. It makes absolutely no sense for Israel to allow fishing of the coast of Gaza. Occupation costs money, and Palestinians must contribute their share.
I cant find a reference right now, but I believe that the overall, there is no cost to Israel. They are monopoly sellers of virtually all goods coming and going into the Occupied Territories, and natives have very little room for negotiation.
No Hostage, it's Freudian slip.
You know, Israel is Alaska, and Israelis are Inuit and Yupic, a bit strange in habits, somewhat isolating themselves in their communities, but to be defended with American blood..... actually, I take it all back - its a lousy attempt at analogy, and really offensive to Inuit and Yupic.
Annie, I know and agree - in every society there is a silent component that acts well, or indifferent, or evil depending on which way the wind is blowing.
There is also a core of social and political thinkers and writers that are the leaders of new intelectual movements. Each country has them. Some pay a big price for their stance. These people are in Israel as well.
Seafroid,
What does Torah has to do with Palestinians? What is practiced in Israel imbueds Jewish population with justice and morality exclusively, while everybody knows (sarcasm alert) that Gentiles, like the rest of animal kingdom, have no souls.
Shorter Eyal Qarim: If it's good for the Israel, prohibitions against immorality are lifted.
"btw, I heard that all the DC stores have run out of knee pads."
..................... and Donkeys
Danaa, Scylla and Charybdis of this blog are Gilad on one side and treating Holocaust ( and developments leading to it ) as a historical event on the other.
The number of people who self identify in Israel as non-religeous/secular is shrinking: from about 40 percent in 1970 ties to 20 percent forty years later. With them, the social and geographical space for LGBT community is getting smaller.
Jeremy,
I understood your article in the spirit in which it was intended.
The scary part is that Israel has not yet finished with Palestinians, not by the long shot.
I am more petrified by trajectory of sociopolitical development of Israel than by current ( however abhorrent) and past positions it had adopted.
Annie,
There is a level of consciousness that must be reached by population for that magic "everybody knows" point to be reached: it has been researched and is considered to be 10% of the population.
So you only need to convince 10% of Americans that their Congress will do ANYTHING for Israel while allowing Americans to be screwed. That point, so distant when Mondoweiss started, is fast approaching.
Now, with three views on the YouTube:
link to youtube.com
Eljay,
In its time, when service was not so different from slavery, it was comfort to think that one's crappy lot in life had a deep spiritual meaning. Not so different from AA meeting really, or even pastoral support in the hospice.
"“US interests” are not our interests. They are the interests of the people who own our workplaces and hold our mortgages. It takes an act of wilful ignorance to convince oneself that those interests are anything but directly our own interests and those of working people around the world.
I think the fight for Hagel is the fight for a right of ordinary American citizen to influence (or at least have a damn hard try) the USA policy using English rather than have it decided in Hebrew.
While I agree with your sentiments entirely, I see no chance of you making headway politically, if politics of your country are decided abroad in a foreign language.
Well, Polish people were terrorised and killed in Auschwitz ( and don't you dare to minimise their, or their families' suffering) and they don't live in terror of Christmas trees. So the Christmas tree is what you make it. Same with menorah in the window, which for some people is a sign of Jewish people showing their Gentile neighbours a finger.
It is not the occasional racist bigots that are the problem. It is racist and/or bigots in positions of power - intellectual or elected - that are the problem.
Sameeha,
What an important and interesting point.
Please do not be discouraged at conservative social attitudes. Progress is being made, even if it is not as fast as some of us would like to think.
For all the western sense of superiority with women equality, we need to remember just how new they are. 6 generations ago, women's presence at western universities was rare, if not unheard of. 5 generations ago, secondary education for girls was a middle-class privilege and consisted of languages and household accounts. 4 generations ago women worked only till they got married. My mother's generation seen universal voting rights for women. My generation still needed husbands permission to take the bank loan! My daughters just don't see what the fuss is all about - they take equality for granted.
All this progress was against backdrop of societal and religious establishment disapproval. You are very much on a right trajectory, just impatient. Changes are coming from generation to generation.
There are only two levers that can stop women's progress: removal of education, and removal of contraception. If you can get free access to both, women can fight for their place in society on equal terms.
Nie wiedziałam!
Funny, I made precisely the same observation on Shmuel Rosner's New York Times Lattitude blog, and the dog ate my comment
I wonder if a cake is at the bottom counter - the white square parcel that soldier is seen pushing away from the boy second before the attack. Mohammad is approaching the checkpoint empty handed. Did they take his cake and made him go back and wait before calling him over again into the checkpoint?
My impression is that at video at 24 seconds the guard's position jumps from where he checks the documents to where he is suddenly at a bottom counter.
Poor kid. Looks like he lost his rag with bunch of killers.
Mondonut, the water issues are dictated by Oslo Accords, which of course Palestinians agreed to. So did Israelis, but Israelis, after agreeing to Oslo Accords, totally disregarded (and continue to disregard ) the accords, with water issues being prime example.
During second world war, a lot of intelligence about German behaviour was discounted and disbelieved by British, because it "just didn't make sense".
In a cognitive dissonance created, the brain seeks to restore cognitive equilibrium and refuses to acknowledge that which is less believable.
And that is the reason why Americans will believe the toy pistol story. Realising that vast tracks of Israel are populated by Israel Keyes doppelgängers will take that much longer.
Not sure of America, but word sterilisation, in my mind, means surgical and permanent. Here we are talking of reversible, albeit long term, contraceptive.
I remember reading that nurseries established to look after children of Ethiopian immigrants suddenly had no admissions - and would close classes as the children grew and moved up.
The whole thing was screaming social engineering.
And I question the premise that it was "just" contraceptive. There must have been a crafty, well thought out, and well designed, web of effective bureaucracy to ensure near universal compliance.
Toy guns make security forces as nervous as real ones.
So do rocks, and flags, and upraised fists, and chants, and headscarves, and angry looks, and….
..............breathing
Could you please explain your answer ? Elaborate on your thought proces ?
Thank you. A very important point.
How similar is that spirit to that of Polish Uprisings in nineteen century against the curse of foreign occupation. Love of the country is a force that makes men and women willing to die. It cannot be disappeared by Zionist wishful thinking. It will only be destroyed if Palestinians are destroyed. Poland was occupied for 123 years. It rose again.
Thank you for your writing.
Does not look like Banksy's work at all.
This notwithstanding, the image is evocative, at least to Christian.
RoHa,
You have my vote for Cassandra award for year 2012.
I didn't realise that Mondoweiss now has comedy section.
Scott,
Palestinians will NEVER be allowed to join in ruling government coalitions. By hook or by crook, they will be excluded
The official limit is, as of this year, 5773.
This does not mean that there will be no announcement, in near future, by academics from Tel Aviv University, of a special (sarcasm alert) Ape DNA, which belonged to Apes with larger skulls, penises, and especially luxuriant fur.
According to Wikipedia, for what it is worth, Maher's mother is Jewish, and father is Catholic.
Who are ghazzawis?
Brzezinski also called Hezbollah a "so-called terrorist organization". Which means that at least some see Hezbollah for what it is: a legitimate resistance force against Israeli aggression. And if they see that, then they also see Hamas as a legitimate resistance force. It just cannot be said out laud if you are not comfortably retired.
Anybody with a heart and knowledge of Jewish fate in Europe is shocked by the historical parallels between Gaza and Warsaw Ghetto. To not see it you need to be either totally ignorant of history, or utterly convinced that Jewish ( or Arab, for that matter) suffering is superior by the definition due to supremacy of the race that is being maltreated. ( Sort off Rudogen's "The Gazans have a deep culture of resistance and aspiration to martyrdom, they're used to it from Cast Lead and other conflicts, and they have such limited lives than in many ways they have less to lose. And I've been surprised that when I talk to people who just lost a relative, or who are gathering belongings from a bombed-out house, they seem a bit ho-hum")!.
Of course, to get to similarities between Gaza and Warsaw ghetto, you need to examine the desintegration of universal humanist values of both societies - Germany in 1930's and Jewish Israelis since 1940's. If we can learn anything about debasement of victors and societal upper-handers, we need to discuss the similarities between two societies. Otherwise we will just wring our hands and speak, again, about the human capacity to committ evil, as if it was something baffling, and not a predictable trajectory in a hospitable environment.
This is a superb video from RT ( via Juan Cole) where Abby Martin gives it with both barrels, after Israel attacked Media Tower in Gaza:
link to youtube.com
Rudogen's did not cry when reading about death or injury of a child. She cried because she read a dispatch written by Dahlia Litwick: link to slate.com