Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 8 (since 2010-06-17 15:27:30)

joskenone

83-year-old gay South African activist now living in Melbourne

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• Streisand to sing at Israeli soldier benefit in LA
  • joskenone November 28, 2011 at 7:53 am

    Time to build the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign somewhat further. Streisand is just the right (is that the "right" word) sort of person to have BDS practised against her. Time at her age that she grew up and started living in the REAL world, not just the world of "let's pretend!". More publicity on this issue will go a long way to exposing these people for what they really are.

• Gabe Schivone and the new hyphenated-Jewish identity
  • joskenone September 8, 2011 at 9:58 am

    The question: "Who is a Jew?" is admirably answered by a book written by Shlomo Sand: "The Invention of the Jewish People". It should be read by Jews and others who are zionists, Israelis, those living around the world with Jewish connections and people questioning their identities.
    The whole Israeli Jewish state becomes a very interesting exercise because when one analyses what Sand writes about Jewish dispersal and movements around Europe, particularly Eastern Europe and Russia, Jewish identity becomes open to many interpretations. I am a Jew, born to Jewish parents, one born in Australia, one born in South Africa, and their parents and grandparents born in Lithuania, East Prussia, Germany, UK, Australia and other countries. Who is a Jew???

• Israeli intel firm behind Pennsylvania's 'terror' bulletins on peace, environment, LGBT groups
  • joskenone September 19, 2010 at 3:49 am

    It would be extremely interesting to know whether these same arrangements exist between Israel and Australia. Australian politicians of both mainstream "hues" are great supporters of the zionist state and many have had sponsored trips to Israel, including the current prime minister.
    So it is more than likely that such arrangements are common practice between Israel and those countries with which it has such cosy relationships.
    Also Vanunu was in Australia before he left and was abducted in Europe by the Israelis.
    And, of course, also don't forget that J Edgar Hoover, who persecuted homosexuals during the McCarthy era and long afterwards, was ultimately found to be a homosexual himself!

• Martin Indyk on the peace process: hoping against hope
  • joskenone August 30, 2010 at 9:19 am with 1 replies

    Martin Indyk is just another old-fashioned Australian zionist and comes from a long line of old-fashioned Australian zionists.
    How can anybody negotiate for a solution when the main party to the so-called negotiation is a 200 tonne bully with his foot firmly planted on the neck of the 40kg dwarf?
    Nobody ( meaning Israel and the United States of America) has any intention of serious negotiation for a Palestinian state because they know that this has not been a possibility for the last 60-odd years.
    Also because the Israelis control the whole area and intend to occupy it altogether one way or another - unless there is a world-wide protest against the brutal apartheid state.
    As ever, the only solution to the intractable problem is a one-state secular unified Israel/Palestine and at the moment neither the Israelis nor he Palestinians will consider this as a possibility.
    So, as the saying goes "La Luta Continuo" or words to that effect! (apologies if the spelling is incorrect!)
    Mannie De Saxe, Melbourne

• Kovel: Zionism's dreary burden on Jewishness
  • joskenone August 23, 2010 at 8:53 am

    I consider myself to be one of Isaac Deutscher's "non-Jewish Jews", having been born to Jewish families from Lithuania, East Prussia (as it was in the 19th century) England and Australia, and my parents, one born in Australia and one born in South Africa, and I do not practise any religion because I am an atheist of long standing. This doesn't make me "not Jewish" - I don't deny or refuse my ancestry!
    I ponder on the meaning to many of us of the word "Diaspora" and what its relevance is in a situation where we are internationalists who don't consider Israel as the "homeland" or the place we are able or willing to "return to".
    It is enough to ponder the criminality of having lived in South Africa where I was born and lived for 50 years, and in Australia for over 30 years, with both countries involved in illegitimate conflicts in Angola and Namibia (then South West Africa) during the apartheid years and currently the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with their ongoing tragedies.
    Why would one want to be part of an illegitimate war in Palestine as well, and which no one outside the region has tried to stop once and for all.
    I have never denied that I am Jewish but do deny that I have anything to do with Israel, the so-called Jewish state!
    It seems it is too much to ask for a change of heart and mind while so many around the world support the zionist apartheid state, Jews and Christians alike!
    Mannie De Saxe, Melbourne, Australia

• notes on my racism (part 2)
  • joskenone August 4, 2010 at 10:22 am

    If Jews make lousy teachers, what about Tom Lehrer? Gonna get the bomb, Vatican Rag and so many others - nobody teaches like he does!

    Mannie De Saxe

  • joskenone August 4, 2010 at 10:18 am

    Remember to check out Jane Elliott's "Blue eye, Brown eye" racism testing programmes.

    A few home truths for all of us in these sessions!

    Mannie De Saxe

• One possible framework for a single state in Israel/Palestine
  • joskenone June 17, 2010 at 10:47 am

    Mannie De Saxe (joskenone)
    Mbeki's thoughts are not plausible under any circumstances. A man who denied that AIDS comes from HIV all the years that he was president of South Africa during which HIV rates of infection became the highest in the world can just not be taken seriously, no matter what he thinks on any particular topic. Under Mbeki's presidency South Africa lurched from one crisis to another such that the ANC government under its present much-married president is much discredited and many of Mbeki's former cabinet ministers disgraced themselves by suggesting that AIDS could be cured with beetroot and garlic and lemons.
    Anything Mbeki says about Israel and Palestine can not be taken with anything more than a grain of salt.
    And the situation in Palestine has gone beyond the point of no return with the religious settlements in the West Bank.
    The only solution which is possible is a unified democratic non-religious state where all citizens live with equal rights - but this will not happen in my life time. It is enough of a surprise that it more or less happened in South Africa in my life time, but South Africa is riven with crime, corruption and still the highest HIV rates of infection in the world and the soccer World Cup won't help alleviate the poverty and crime endemic in the country at this time.

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