Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 614 (since 2009-10-01 14:26:50)

Pamela Olson

Mondoweiss.net supporter

Pamela Olson is the author of Fast Times in Palestine. She blogs here and lives in New York.

Website: http://fasttimesinpalestine.wordpress.com/

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  • Israelis sling racial epithets to mark 45 years of a Jerusalem ‘unification’
    • Pamela Olson May 22, 2012 at 1:33 pm

      That's the question, isn't it? When the masks come off, when the pretenses fall, who are we, really? The terror of this question wreaks untold havoc in this world, because people will do almost anything to avoid it.

      The funny part is, once you drop the BS and look, it's really not that bad. We're striving creatures in an infinitely interesting universe. If we'd chill the f--k out, we could just enjoy it. Why not?

  • A tale of two festivals
    • Pamela Olson May 20, 2012 at 1:43 pm

      Brilliant juxtaposition -- "Why won't those people whose necks are under my boot smile and cooperate and make me feel better about the fact that I have my boot on their necks? They're so unreasonable! No wonder there's no peace!"

  • Kristol: 'I don't see it as a huge problem'
    • Pamela Olson May 20, 2012 at 1:29 pm

      Brilliant. This should turn into its own post.

      Of course, the problem with Zionism is that the whole premise starts with, "What's good for the goose is not good for the gander. Because we're the chosen gander." (Always convenient for colonizers to think of themselves that way -- Manifest Destiny, anyone?)

      I've heard "centrist" Zionist friends say very bluntly, "'Never again' means never again for the Jews, full stop," and "Yes, I would kill 1,000 gentiles if it would save one Jew."

      I don't even want to repeat what I've heard right-wing Zionists say to my face. There's no other class of people I associate with who feel free to express such opinions in public. It's baffling.

  • The left lacks an analysis of the neocon rise
    • Pamela Olson May 15, 2012 at 11:56 am

      Maybe you can write a post about this, either for this blog or your own? It's a fascinating debate, and one that's too often overlooked. Either way, the convergence of Big Business needing imperalism to "thrive" and Big Zion needing imperialism to exist is certainly convenient for both. And devastating to all the rest of us.

  • Report: Palestinian prisoners reach deal to end historic hunger strike
    • Pamela Olson May 14, 2012 at 7:50 pm

      What's going to happen if Israel steals Palestinian land and deliberately shoots non-violent protestors, sometimes maiming or killing them? What's going to happen if it turns out Israel shot out the eyes of hundreds of children during the second Intifada? What's going to happen if the route of the Israeli Wall steals vast areas of farmland? What's going to happen if the "humanitarian corridors" through the Wall turn out to be a farce, a slow method of strangulation, theft, and ultimately, ethnic cleansing? What's going to happen if Israel builds a psychotic Wall right up against people's houses, through their neighborhoods, to make it impossible for people to see the sunset or build a house on their own land for their children or go to their apricot orchards for picnics? What's going to happen if Israel kidnaps hundreds of Palestinians, taking them away from their lives and loved ones for hours, days, years, with no charge or trial, no legal recourse, and treats them worse than animals?

      Oh wait... all of that already happened.

  • US military officers taught to target civilians and wage 'total war' on Islam
    • Pamela Olson May 11, 2012 at 12:20 pm

      When I worked at a think tank called the Institute for Defense Analyses in Washington, we occasionally had "experts" come in to give us talks, like Dennis Ross, who lied and misrepresented almost everything he said. I would be sitting in the audience fuming, and when I tried to ask a question, Ross would just roll his eyes and deflect. What was I supposed to do? I was a 26-year-old from Oklahoma, he was an "expert." Everyone in the audience was beaming at his every word, delighted and honored that His Holiness of Serious Power and Influence had deigned to grace us with his presence. (Washington is a shockingly provincial place and -- no big news -- everyone worships power like kids worshiping candy.)

      That wasn't the worst, though. The worst were the "Arabists" (or "Muslimists" I guess) who would come in and, unapposed, say things like, "This is how Muslims think. They think the Muslim world is Dal al Salaam, or House of Peace, while the rest of the world is Dar al Harb, or House of War. They're always trying to expand the House of Peace and destroy or subjugate the House of War. It's how they see things."

      I would be thinking, "Funny, I was just in Palestine for two years, and no one ever said a single word about Dar al Salaam or Dar al Harb. They just wanted their f----ing olive trees back."

      I didn't last long in Washington.

  • A portrait of a former Zionist (Part 1)
    • Pamela Olson May 9, 2012 at 12:24 pm

      I know -- but even in an imagined checkpoint in Jordan, the people on both sides of the checkpoint have Jordanian citizenship.

    • Pamela Olson May 9, 2012 at 11:36 am with 5 replies

      Beautiful writing, thank you. People should be "sensitive" to horrific injustice. It's people like us, who've been dealing with it for too long, who have the aberrant reaction (somehow "normalizing" it in our minds).

      Also, a checkpoint in Jordan is completely different from one in Palestine -- Jordanians aren't militarily occupying another people's land and stealing their land and resources, nor putting people into ghettos and cages. It's not that he's just upset because the oppressors are Jewish. It's apples and oranges.

  • Israeli military raids office of human rights organization 'Stop the Wall'; steals computers and hard drives
    • Pamela Olson May 9, 2012 at 7:53 pm

      They never gave money to any branch of Hamas. They gave money to charitable organizations -- the same charitable organizations that received money from the UN and USAID. If the HLF is guilty, so is the US government. But the US government isn't being sentenced to 65 years in jail. An innocent man, loving father, and committed activist is.

      According to his daughter (another lovely and committed individual):

      According to the appellate brief, there’s a major fact that undermines the prosecution’s claim that Hamas controlled the zakat committees: “The United States Agency for International Development—which had strict instructions not to deal with Hamas—provided funds over many years to zakat committees named in the indictment, including the Jenin, Nablus, and Qalqilia committees,” writes my father’s attorney, John Cline. He continues stating that in 2004, upon the release of the HLF indictment, “USAID provided $47,000 to the Qalqilia zakat committee.”

      link to counterpunch.org

      The US government interned lots of Japanese-Americans during WWII. Didn't mean they were guilty of anything.

      A lot of Zionist organizations here in America, though, do proudly and openly channel money to settler thugs, terrorists, and lawbreakers. And I don't notice anyone prosecuting them. Another classic case of projection -- of Zionists accusing everyone else of exactly what the Zionists themselves do.

      Keep running and running and running (what a madhouse your mind must be!), but reality will catch you sooner or later.

    • Pamela Olson May 9, 2012 at 11:15 am with 7 replies

      It's easy for a sociopath to justify anything.

      There was never any proof -- or even evidence, other than an anonymous Israeli "expert" who could "smell Hamas" -- that the Holy Land Foundation was involved in terrorism. The only thing presented in court was that they gave to zakat committees -- the same committees that receive funding from USAID and the UN.

      The prosecution showed tapes of suicide bombings to a jury from Texas, without any evidence that the HLF had anything to do with them. It was a farce, a complete miscarriage of justice, and it's a black stain of shame on our country. Innocent families were torn apart, and continue to be torn apart, when all in the world they have ever done is try to help Palestinians.

      The Israeli/Zionist establishment didn't like it. So they figured out how to destroy them in the post-9/11 hysteria. You must be so proud.

  • Palestinian students at Israeli college say they were forced to stand to honor war dead
  • 'Let go of two-state solution insanity' -- says Illinois congressman who supports transfer
  • As prisoners' hunger strike grows, solidarity expands in Gaza
  • Tail has stopped wagging, so dog can stop talking about war with Iran
  • Shmully and guilt
    • Pamela Olson April 26, 2012 at 10:18 pm

      Reading this was like reading George W. Bush's book, Decision Points. (A family member gave it to me for Christmas two years ago.) Psychedelic, creepy, crazy-making. A fully internally consistent world is created, and all you have to do to believe it is disengage completely from actual observable reality. Once you do, anything is possible. Black is white, up is down, freedom is slavery. No land was stolen. Israel doesn't take water, it gives water. Phil, you're not a humanist, you're a traitor.

      Glad you've stopped falling for it. But I know how disorienting it is to fall back into that rabbit hole for a while.

  • Knesset members celebrate latest E. Jerusalem settlement by posing on evicted Palestinian family's sofa
  • What '60 Minutes' & Bob Simon got right and wrong
    • Pamela Olson April 24, 2012 at 1:17 pm with 1 replies

      Hey genius (@Mayhem) -- read what the Shin Bet itself said (this was in my comment, btw):

      "The security fence is no longer mentioned as the major factor in preventing suicide bombings, mainly because the terrorists have found ways to bypass it."

    • Pamela Olson April 23, 2012 at 6:06 pm with 8 replies

      What Bob got even more wrong was saying the Wall "succeeded" in stopping terrorism. That wasn't the case. Even the Israeli army conceded that the main factor that stopped terrorism wasn't the Wall but Hamas' decision to end suicide bombings and enter the political fold.

      "The security fence is no longer mentioned as the major factor in preventing suicide bombings, mainly because the terrorists have found ways to bypass it... [T]he main reason for the reduction in terrorist acts over the past year is the truce in the territories, as partial as it may be. The fact that Hamas, in general, stopped engaging in terror activities changed the picture.

      "The Islamic Jihad network in the West Bank upgraded its capability and was responsible for the murder of 23 Israelis in 2005, but during that time, Hamas - the leading terror orgnanization in recent years - has scaled back its engagement in terror. Its focus on the political arena and the preparations for the Palestinian parliamentary elections have limited its active involvement in terror to a large extent. The Shin Bet holds Hamas directly responsible for only one fatal attack in 2005..."

      link to haaretz.com

      The Wall was never (primarily) about security. I wish people would quit repeating that trope. Think about it: Even the Israeli government knows that Hamas entering the political fold *reduced* terrorism *far* more than the Wall. And what did they do? Make it impossible for Hamas to enter the political fold while continuing to build the sodded Wall on other people's property.

      Their priorities are clear.

  • Bono in Jerusalem: 'Hope Is Like A Faithful Dog'
  • Rifle-bashing lieutenant-colonel solves Jewish problem created by Freud and my mother, says author of 'Indecent Proposal'
    • Pamela Olson April 19, 2012 at 2:06 pm

      I don't know. These people seemed to believe it quite genuinely.

      That said, one of them moved to Denmark, where people are apparently more sane than in the halls of the US Ivy League (he's a professor), and he's since become a more robust humanist and disavowed his earlier racism-masquerading-as-concern.

    • Pamela Olson April 18, 2012 at 12:50 pm

      Even massacring 9 unarmed Turkish activists in international waters, including an American teenager, was A-OK. I couldn't believe the spin on that one. It literally made me dizzy.

    • Pamela Olson April 18, 2012 at 12:48 pm with 2 replies

      I've talked to a few Jewish Israel supporter friends who have said to me quite frankly that the lesson of the Holocaust is Never Again for the Jews. Full stop. Even if we have to kill a thousand non-Jews to save one Jew, that's OK. Tribe first.

      I think it's a super massive moral and intellectual failure on the part of my friends, and all who think like them. Engelhard is clearly another unabashed tribalist. "And 'round and 'round we go..."

      That said, most of the Jewish people I know feel that the lesson is Never Again for Anyone. It's unfortunate that an outspoken minority of tribalists keep claiming to speak for them.

  • Jodi Rudoren heads for Jerusalem
    • Pamela Olson April 17, 2012 at 1:35 pm with 1 replies

      A new era, indeed. Fresh eyes are always shocked. It takes a while for people to learn to normalize the occupation in their minds, to numb themselves to the horrors, the blatant injustices. Some people use the learned control over their emotions to tell a more clear and compelling story. Other people use it to make it easier to toe the usual party lines and ensure their job security.

      We'll see which way she goes. Not only is it a new person -- she's also starting in a new age, with much more sophisticated readers than her predecessor started out with.

      Hope springs eternal...

  • It’s not normal and you don’t get it
    • Pamela Olson April 16, 2012 at 7:40 pm

      This sounds really familiar! And very well put. When my parents came after I'd lived in Palestine for a year, they would look at things that had become "normal" to me and start crying. I had to remind myself not to be impatient with them -- that theirs was actually the normal human reaction to all this!

      I wrote a little about it here: link to fasttimesinpalestine.wordpress.com

  • Wanton Israeli attack led Shadid to rebuild his Lebanese grandparents' home
  • 'I've been duped' -- America's travel guide Rick Steves says our media black out the brutal occupation
    • Pamela Olson April 7, 2012 at 3:01 pm

      ProudZionist [Translation]: "Let me get this straight. Someone found out new information and changed his opinion based on that information? My mind is TOTALLY BLOWN!!!!!!!!!"

    • Pamela Olson April 7, 2012 at 2:58 pm with 3 replies

      He probably has no idea what kind of hornet's nest he is walking into... So many people I met in Washington were interested in what I had to say, then after a day or two, suddenly weren't interested at all anymore. People who were apparently unschooled in how deeply unacceptable it is to be open-minded about this, until someone "informed" them. I always imagined Daniel "Lead" Pipes going around brandishing a giant wrench at people who stepped one toe almost out of line. Whatever it was, it was very effective.

      But it's becoming less effective as time goes on -- in fact, it's starting, slowly, to become counter-productive. Once there are more people out there talking sense, the Zio-gangsters seem more and more, well, insane. They disgust anyone with a spine and an ounce of intellectual curiosity and integrity. Their days of hegemony are so numbered.

  • Connecticut Senate hopeful calls congressman a ‘whore’ for AIPAC in televized debate
    • Pamela Olson April 7, 2012 at 2:44 pm

      Yeah, that figure is off by almost an order of magnitude. A lot of people have been killed since 2000 (and a lot more before 2000), but it's more on the order of 10,000 people. Still way too many, but it doesn't help our case for people to get these figures wrong.

      More than 66,000 imprisoned, and millions horribly oppressed, and probably about 66,000 injured, and more than 66,000 driven out ("voluntarily" and otherwise), and more than 66,000 imprisoned between the Wall and the Green Line... I could go on. But getting a figure like that so wrong still doesn't help.

  • Israeli army raids West Bank village, arrests minors and steals gold jewelry
    • Pamela Olson April 7, 2012 at 2:36 pm

      Loot and pillage thine enemy. Doesn't the Bible say that?

      A fascinating study was done where Israeli school children were asked whether it was good that Joshua ransacked and destroyed Jericho and massacred its people. Most said it was fine, and among the ones who didn't think it was fine, they said things like, "They shouldn't have killed the animals, they could have taken them and used them for the benefit of the Jewish people."

      These are young children. Terrifying. The author of the study was, of course, sacked by Tel Aviv University:

      link to independent.co.uk

  • A twitter debate on Israel/Palestine and racism
    • Pamela Olson April 2, 2012 at 2:59 pm with 1 replies

      If Latinos (or anyone else) were immigrating to the US under the banner of an organization with a declared intention to drive us out of our homes and take over our land, of course we would have a right to resist that. If they succeeded in driving us out of our homes and taking over our land, we would have a right to return.

      It's all so devilishly simple.

      Israel had the back luck of being one of the last Western projects of mass expulsion, just at the point when such things were becoming gauche. And its only real defense is, "But other people did it and got away with it in the past! Why not us? I'm not racist, you are! Saudi Arabia sucks! Waaah! Screw it, I'm gonna watch Mad Men."

  • Scenes from Qalandiya, Land Day 2012
    • Pamela Olson April 2, 2012 at 3:13 pm

      People risk their lives in non-violent actions trying to gain the basic human rights that you take for granted, only to be met with racist violence and resounding silence from so-called "progressives" the world over, and far too often, a deeply mourned death -- and you accuse them of celebrating death because of this?

      Your mind must be like a house of mirrors.

  • My spirit is American (a religious manifesto)
    • Pamela Olson April 2, 2012 at 3:28 pm

      If you find meaning in LSD, or in (what you see as) meaninglessness, or in philosophy or science or psychiatry, that's your religion (according to Phil's definition). He didn't say it necessarily had to do with god (which is another problematic thing to define!).

  • ‏The story of the land
    • Pamela Olson March 30, 2012 at 1:52 pm

      Heartbreaking, infuriating, and uplifting at the same time. In a word: Palestine.

      Beautiful writing, thank you for sharing. You really capture the feelings well. The cruelty and thoughtless disregard Israelis have for this land they supposedly covet is indeed mind-blowing. I will never understand such gleeful hatred, such single-minded destruction. An Israeli mind has to be like a carnival ride inside a house of mirrors to make sense of their own actions, or at least distract themselves enough not to think too deeply about what they are doing. A truly pitiful and limiting place to live.

      I always feel nervous in Israel and relaxed in Palestine. In Palestine, even if their reality is harsh, at least they are living in reality, dealing with it. Israelis are so deep in denial it makes them tense and mean, brittle and on a hair-trigger. (Not all Israelis, of course, I'm talking about the ones who support the occupation wholeheartedly, who carry out its policies without a twinge of sorrow or regret.) You get the feeling that if you say one wrong word to an Israeli, he will snap. While Palestinians are more secure in reality, so you can relax more around them. Israel is a very useful place to learn about the mentality of oppressors, and why they always lose in the end. Reality and the human conscience are both stronger, in the long term, than a gun and a sneer.

  • Another two-stater goes one-state
    • Pamela Olson March 29, 2012 at 11:34 am with 2 replies

      "no Israeli politician will be able to retreat to the 1967 lines as long as Hamas will not radically change its views"

      What does Hamas have to do with it? When they were running for office in 2005, they made lots of noise about accepting a two-state solution. It's Israel that won't change its views, and therefore destroyed (and continues to destroy) any hope of a two-state solution.

  • Wrong planet
    • Pamela Olson March 29, 2012 at 11:32 am

      “The wars of Israel […] are mitzvah wars”

      So convenient! I think I'll try that one, too:

      "Whenever Pamela Olson has a conflict, God is on her side, therefore anything she might do, no matter how much it contradicts anything God has ever been reputed to say, is just fine."

      I like this business! Maybe I should change my career so I can spout this bullshit with some kind of institution behind me...

  • Sen. Cardin tells how he and Hillary Clinton muscled foreign ambassadors to block 'anti-American' Palestinian statehood
    • Pamela Olson March 29, 2012 at 1:21 pm

      I once set up a meeting with the head of the Palestine division at Brookings, just after I moved to DC from Palestine in 2006.

      Her name was Tamara, and I assumed she would be Palestinian. It turned out she was a Jewish-American woman who had studied in Tel Aviv. Of course this didn't necessarily mean she was obtuse about Palestinian rights and aspirations, and American complicity in Israeli crimes. But after talking to her for a while, it was clear she was just another typical Washington Zionist hack, albeit in sheep's clothing (talking nice about the two-state solution without doing anything about it, etc.).

      I lost quite a few illusions that day. Silly me, I thought "think tanks" actually thought.

  • Gutless Leon Wieseltier
    • Pamela Olson March 23, 2012 at 10:56 am with 1 replies

      The old guard American Zionists are getting sloppy in their defensive anger mixed with out-of-touch arrogance that comes from decades of privilege and deference. The world they created is crumbling, (too) slowly but surely.

  • One crazed murderer sparks Zionist calls for European migration to Israel
    • Pamela Olson March 22, 2012 at 7:03 pm

      I don't really understand your outrage. I fully condemn what he did -- that should go without saying. Anyone who executes children is a psychopath and a murderer. I over-stated by implying that it was ONLY because of Israel, and for that I apologize -- I should have been more careful in my choice of words. His psychopathology is the primary mover in his horrific killing spree. But Israel's very public and very gruesome crimes against humanity gave him a target, something to focus on, even if he (as I said) took his rage out on completely the wrong thing.

      Israel's crimes endanger Jews all over the world. Not because it's right, but because it's the kind of thing that unhinges people, especially if they were barely hinged to begin with.

      Al Qaeda's crimes also endanger Muslims all over the world, for the same reason. Hamas's rockets self-evidently endanger Palestinians, because it unhinges Israelis who smack everything in sight, never stopping to wonder to themselves whether killing more innocents will, in fact, make them more secure.

      How is this controversial?

      Note: It may sound it this note that I think "both sides" are equally wrong. Of course I don't think this is the case, any more than a bully who hits and a smaller girl who hits back are equally wrong. See: link to mondoweiss.net

    • Pamela Olson March 22, 2012 at 12:44 pm with 22 replies

      What's ironic about all this is that the victims of this crime were endangered BECAUSE OF ISRAEL. The gunman said it himself -- he was doing it to protest Israel's brutality. Engaging in brutality of your own is, of course, entirely the wrong way to go about protesting brutality. (Wish someone would tell that to the US government...) But Israel's brutality is enough to unhinge even normal people -- for people who are already disturbed, it can push them right over the edge.

      The miracle, as I've said many times, is that more innocents haven't been targeted in mad rage, given the sheer number of innocents targeted every hour of every day by Israel.

    • Pamela Olson March 22, 2012 at 10:45 am

      "Hundreds of French Jews have bought apartments in Israel. It’s their “pied-a-terre” in case the situation gets darker in Europe..."

      Where is the Gazans' “pied-a-terre”? I think they need it about now...

  • Because they are not numbers
    • Pamela Olson March 22, 2012 at 12:57 pm

      Thank you for telling these stories. I know the stories, the deaths, the rich and unique lives and futures snuffed out, come far too fast to be able to tell all of them. That's part of the tragedy of killing on this scale, it can pave the way for a terrible numbness. But every one -- every single one -- is a story and has a story just as rich as any other life, with its networks of friends and family, its hopes and dreams and talents and insecurities and odd fascinations.

      How can we grieve enough, and still go on and enjoy our own rich lives, in Gaza and elsewhere? Because surely that's why we're here, to learn and enjoy and enrich an already fabulously rich world, not to be buried in grief. And yet simply letting all these lives pass by, unlamented and unmemorialized beyond their own personal circles, feels wrong and disrespectful. It feels like silence and complicity.

      I guess all we can do is tell as many stories as we can, as well as we can. Eventually, little by little, the world may finally wake up. But meanwhile, so much suffering, so much pointless suffering. So much cruelty with no one to answer for it, just teenagers pushing buttons on the orders of psychotic old generals, then going home for Shabbat dinner, while another child lies in pieces on the sidewalk.

  • The 'folly' of the 'war lobby'-- What if NYT's top-pick comments reflect popular opinion?
    • Pamela Olson March 22, 2012 at 12:02 am with 1 replies

      I've been saying this for years. It's the same with almost every foreign policy article in the NYT. You read the article and cringe. Then you look at the top reader picks -- which are entirely sensible! -- and ask yourself: "Who in the hell annointed these yahoo pundits to spin bullshit that even their readers don't believe?"

      It's all a shell game. The American people are smarter than all those well-paid vapid ranters who are lobby-tested and corporate-approved. But somehow, with their giant megaphones, they make their own bullshit seem somehow "inevitable" and at the same time make us all feel hopeless and powerless and alone.

  • A Growing Movement: Six days in Canada during Israeli Apartheid Week
    • Pamela Olson March 20, 2012 at 8:40 pm

      Thanks so much for this report, Frank. When I've done tours during the past year, this is my experience, too. People are engaged, intelligent, outraged, and asking the right questions.

      When I got started almost ten years ago, there were hecklers and arguers and protesters at every single Palestine event on the Stanford campus. Nowadays I hardly ever have hecklers, and they're usually polite and sometimes even strangely apologetic. Or just nuts and everyone pities them. They're moving ever closer to the fringe. Wish they'd move faster, but that's why we have to keep working.

      I wonder sometimes what all our energies might go toward if we weren't so tied up in damage control. Hopefully a generation down the line will find out.

  • When victims retaliate: A response to Bradley Burston
  • 'WSJ' runs 4 letters rebutting Oren's claims on Palestinians
  • Chair of DNC says: 'Israel is our rightful place... a place for us to go'
    • Pamela Olson March 15, 2012 at 11:59 am with 1 replies

      Her thing about even the bus drivers being Jewish was cribbed from Thomas Friedman. He wrote an almost identical sentence in the 1980s.

      What I don't get is why they are so obsessed with seeing working class members of their own religion. It's not enough to be an elite? They need a working class theme park, too? Such a powerful American figure saying these things strikes me a bit like Saudi royals being fascinated to see a Muslim driving a taxi in New York. "You mean there are places where we aren't coddled and revered? Neat! Keep up the good work, ye lowly, in case something ever happens to drive us from our thrones!"

      I'm over-stating, obviously, but it has some of this flavor...

  • The myth of Israel's favorable treatment of Palestinian Christians
    • Pamela Olson March 15, 2012 at 12:20 pm

      I'm so excited to read her book -- I really can't say enough, she's amazing. I was lucky enough to meet her last time I was in Ramallah, and it made me wish I lived there so we could hang out!

  • Elite Israeli 'sniper squad' raids Palestinians in prison, injures 11
    • Pamela Olson March 14, 2012 at 6:53 pm

      What, it was too challenging for them invading civilian homes in the dead of night and terrifying old people and children? Now they want to attack Palestinians who are already imprisoned?

      What a sad, sorry joke. There's really nothing else to say. I'm feeling speechless and sad today. I just read the Hunger Games, which was horrifying because 22 people were killed for no reason but a political show of force.

      Gaza has that beat in the past week. The Hunger Games in real life, with drones and Hellfire missiles.

  • IDF fundraiser at Waldorf Astoria raises $26 million
  • Obama could only take Netanyahu on when Dennis Ross, Bibi's backchannel, was incommunicado
    • Pamela Olson March 14, 2012 at 4:28 pm with 1 replies

      He's a dancer. Dennis the dancer. Slippery as a fish. That's why Washington loves him. They can't stand straight answers based on observable reality.

    • Pamela Olson March 14, 2012 at 11:33 am with 3 replies

      When I worked at a think tank in Washington, Dennis Ross was a special guest one day, giving his usual bullsh-t talk, and by the end smoke was pretty much coming out of my ears while everyone else in the room was nodding appreciatively, with stars in their eyes. (The power-worship in Washington is nauseating.)

      I called him out on one of his more glaring inaccuracies. He just sneered and looked at the audience as if to say, "Who is this silly person?" Then he completely dodged the question.

      What could I do? He had everyone's ear. I was just a 26-year-old who had actually lived in the Middle East. A lot of people in my think tank actually considered that a bad thing -- I'd "spent too much time with Arabs," "gone native," "lost my objectivity."

      Is that what they call learning about reality from reality itself?

      Yes, yes it is.

  • Egypt is looted, and the U.S. press calls it 'reform'
    • Pamela Olson March 14, 2012 at 11:25 am with 1 replies

      I've been saying this since college, when I did a research paper about IMF/WB-directed 'development' in the global south and the internally-directed development of the 'Asian tigers,' which actually did increase those countries' wealth, security, and power. Point for point -- literally every bullet point was the opposite for IMF/WB-directed development than what the Asian tigers did. And of course, all the countries essentially taken over by the IMF/WB ended up worse off than before these IFI's (International Financial/F---er Institutions) stepped in.

      I wondered then, as I do now -- are they stupid or evil?

      I still wonder the same thing about much of the Bush Admin...

      Very sad -- so many people suffer because of these fools/brigands.

  • The spoils of lawfare, or please do not pet the Islamists: Shurat HaDin's 2012 'Ultimate Mission to Israel'
  • Exclusive Excerpt: Miko Peled's 'The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine'
  • ‏A letter from under attack
    • Pamela Olson March 11, 2012 at 11:08 am

      Waleed, I'm so sorry you have to endure another brutal politically-motivated killing spree, and I'm sorry you have to interfere with people as deeply mired in self-righteous denial as Izik. People of conscience and consciousness are with you, and the future will be brighter for all of us. Inshallah. Thank you for sharing your experience. I hope you will continue to do so until the world finally wakes up and learns to listen.

    • Pamela Olson March 11, 2012 at 11:05 am with 10 replies

      Izik: Kindly convey this message to everyone in Israel who is sad about children (Palestinian and Israeli) being killed:

      Stop occupying, oppressing, stealing from, and brutalizing millions of overwhelmingly innocent people, and then pretending (even to yourself!) that you're not. History has shown it's not a good method of bringing peace or security, mental or physical, to anyone.

  • Anthony Shadid was shot by an Israeli soldier, he said
    • Pamela Olson March 11, 2012 at 10:52 am

      Anyone who has spent significant time in Palestine -- anyone -- knows that Israelis are far more likely to shoot random people simply because they are or look like Arabs and/or journalists than Palestinians are likely to shoot random people simply because they look like Israelis. Roughly 100 times more likely.

      But keep clinging to that 1% and ignoring the 99%, like you've obviously been doing for decades.

  • Ahmed Moor in WaPo: Harvard One State conference 'informed by the uncontroversial view that all people are created equal'
    • Pamela Olson March 3, 2012 at 12:29 pm

      Fantastic stuff. I'm so amazed by Ahmed and all the other organizers of so many incredible events, from PennBDS to Occupy AIPAC... It's such an exciting time to be active on this issue.

      P.S. Just a small reminder -- Fast Times in Palestine is free this weekend in honor of Occupy AIPAC. Please feel free to get your copy and spread the word. Thank you!

      link to amazon.com

  • Nine 'Shalit exchange' political prisoners re-arrested in February
  • 'Fast Times in Palestine' to sponsor OccupyAIPAC
    • Pamela Olson March 3, 2012 at 12:24 pm with 1 replies

      Today's the day -- Please feel free to download a FREE Kindle copy of Fast Times in Palestine, and spread the word! One by one, we can bring the realities in Palestine to American minds: link to amazon.com

      (It'll be free on Sunday, too, btw)

    • Pamela Olson March 2, 2012 at 3:00 pm

      I'd love to see you there, but unfortunately I won't be making it down to Washington this weekend. Wish I could -- it was a lot of fun last year, and this year should only be better! The movement is growing by leaps and bounds...

    • Pamela Olson March 1, 2012 at 8:13 pm

      Great, I look forward to meeting them in Austin, inshallah!

    • Pamela Olson March 1, 2012 at 8:13 pm with 1 replies

      Mid-May would be the best time, with events surrounding Nakba day. Any leads or details will be much appreciated!

    • Pamela Olson March 1, 2012 at 8:12 pm

      Hi Oscar,

      There's no mechanism for buying through the Mondoweiss site, but if you buy in March, part of the money will go to the organizers of Occupy AIPAC. Perhaps in another month I can do a similar sponsorship with this site...

    • Pamela Olson March 1, 2012 at 3:39 pm with 3 replies

      I'll be touring in Austin, TX in April and England in May, inshallah. If you have any contacts in either area who might like to host a Fast Times event, or if you'd like to meet up and/or be kept in the loop of what's going on in your area, please feel free to be in touch! (pamolson @ gmail)

  • 'Christ at the Checkpoint' conference brings Evangelical leaders to Bethlehem
    • Pamela Olson February 27, 2012 at 7:37 pm with 1 replies

      This is amazing, Porter. Thank you so much for your vitally important work trying to remove the scourge of Christian Zionism from Christianity. There is nothing Christian about "Christian Zionism"! It's a bizarre, racist death cult with a frightening amount of power. But it's full of many otherwise good people who just don't know any better... yet.

  • Freedom Funnies: 'You Can't Just Continue'
  • Why young Palestinians chant the word 'thawra'
    • Pamela Olson February 22, 2012 at 3:14 pm

      It is so humbling to know Palestine and Palestinians. Truly amazing place and inspiring people, I wish I could find words to do them justice. And what is being done to them defies any words in my vocabulary.

  • Dog-bites-man story in NYT leads readers to say, tail wags dog
  • The journey to the border
    • Pamela Olson February 8, 2012 at 6:08 pm

      I've visited 30 countries, Dimadok. Nowhere -- not Belarus, not China, not Russia, not Croatia, not Syria, nowhere -- was I treated with one-tenth the sadism that characterizes passing through an Israeli border if you are suspected of the thoughtcrime of supporting human rights for Palestinians (and it's much worse if you actually are Palestinian). And the kicker is, we don't even want to go to Israel. We want to go to Palestine, where we will be welcomed and treated with kindness by our brothers and sisters (and in many cases mothers, children, spouses, teachers, childhood haunts), and where the people should be FREE.

    • Pamela Olson February 8, 2012 at 2:24 pm

      Thanks for reading, LeaNder, and for your kind words :)

    • Pamela Olson February 8, 2012 at 11:19 am with 18 replies

      Well done, Sarah, beautiful writing. Even though I'm a non-Palestinian American, and thus never had to go through half of what you (and others) have to go through, the borders were what finally broke me and made me leave Palestine. It still twists my stomach into proto-ulcers every time I have to cross that border. Those brainwashed sadists are, sadly, quite good at their jobs... :(

  • Bruising Judt, Fukuyama says Arabs aren't ready for liberalism
  • Alumni donor threats and more Nazi analogies as the world awaits Penn BDS conference
    • Pamela Olson February 3, 2012 at 2:48 pm

      Most thieves manage to convince themselves they deserve it. Even sociopaths don't enjoy cognitive dissonance.

    • Pamela Olson February 3, 2012 at 1:52 pm with 4 replies

      I'm so proud to be a small part of something that pisses Alan Dershowitz off so much. And all the Dershbags like him. When they're frothing at the mouth with this level of embarrassing incontinence, you know they are running scared. Onwards and upwards. The "white Southern gentlemen" didn't go quietly, or quickly, but they can no longer legislate based on race, and this too shall pass.

  • Israel shuts down charitable organization, kindergarten and soccer club in Silwan
  • Dennis Ross: Still present, but not accounted for
  • Quoting Israelis, 'NYT' front pager says Iran will take a military strike lying down (won't even raise oil prices!)
    • Pamela Olson January 27, 2012 at 9:20 pm with 1 replies

      Check out the comments section on Ethan's article, though. Of the 20 or so I read, 90% were sensible, against any attack on Iran, and highly critical of Israel.

      As usual, NYT's readers are more intelligent and informed than their reporters. Bronner is an absolute disgrace.

  • Video: 140 Israelis endorse Methodist church's upcoming divestment resolution
    • Pamela Olson January 27, 2012 at 12:37 pm

      Hooray for the Methodists! Always an open-minded crowd, much less stiff and hypocritical than most.

      We have a joke in our home town: What's the difference between a Baptist and a Methodist?

      A Methodist will speak to you if you run into him at the liquor store.

      (All in good fun... I'm sure they have "meth" jokes about us.)

  • New checkpoint method: gassing Palestinian cars with unknown chemical
    • Pamela Olson January 27, 2012 at 12:46 pm

      This depressing, spreading, fascist bulls--t never ends. It just grows and grows and grows and grows. We're like frogs in slowly boiling water.

      But at some point, something's gotta give.

  • Iran sanctions backlash-- oil buyers ditch dollar
    • Pamela Olson January 27, 2012 at 12:40 pm

      Hoo boy. Our special-interests-based political system, with the Israel lobby right at or near the top, is driving our country over a ledge. How stupid are we to let this happen? I just hope the next hegemon is less bloodthirsty and idiotic...

  • Bad career move by Tilda Swinton
    • Pamela Olson January 25, 2012 at 1:41 pm with 4 replies

      Absolutely. I meant "conventionally thrive in." We can all find our inroads if we're a little bit brave and stand firm in our convictions. Then we have to find each other, because the media doesn't cover such people :P

      Not to mention, people like Tilda and Jimmy Carter have found paths to renown and influence without kowtowing to anyone. I wish more people were so brave!

    • Pamela Olson January 25, 2012 at 12:49 pm with 15 replies

      It's not just Washington you have to be subservient and dishonest to thrive in. Hollywood, too.

  • Good career move by Susan Rice
  • Video: Atlanta Jewish Times publisher's tearful anti-apology
  • Seeing Rawan Yaghi on Skype
    • Pamela Olson January 24, 2012 at 1:45 pm

      Richard Witty has a point -- for Americans to understand Palestinians, they have to identify with them, so the key phrase is indeed "that I can indentify with."

      That's why I wrote a book that's not just horror and terror, even though that's the book that begs to be written, and not only written but screamed from the rooftops. Unfortunately, the unvarnished truth simply bounces off most Americans. You have to give them a spoonful of sugar, otherwise the medicine never goes down. The Holocaust movie The Pianist starts out with the guy well-dressed and doing something we readily recognize as highly-cultured. Otherwise what follows has much less impact on Westerners. Sad but true.

      I just did a giveaway of the electronic version of the book on Amazon, and to my pleasant surprise, it was downloaded over 9,000 times. That's a lot of people with a story of Palestine suddenly in their hands. I'll look forward to hearing their thoughts. link to amazon.com

      BTW -- if you'll be in New York on Monday, Jan 30 at 7pm, I'll be giving readings from my book at the Half King Bar in Chelsea. Would love to see you there. It's a venue that usually hosts mainstream authors, and my reading is unabashedly about Palestine (no pretense of "balance"), so the bar is taking a risk. Here's hoping it goes well. link to thehalfking.com

  • Obama begins push for Jewish support in 2012 by touting the 'unbreakable bond' between Israel and the US
  • Publisher of the 'Atlanta Jewish Times' suggests Mossad should assassinate Obama
  • Today in Pittsburgh, Jesse Lieberfeld, 17, will deliver a hammer blow to American Jewish support for Israel
  • Sundance Film Festival to feature doc on system of control in longest-running occupation
    • Pamela Olson January 16, 2012 at 12:15 pm

      More sophisticated sparring partners? Good luck with that... we're talking about Zionists here. They are masters at fooling themselves, and bullying the weak-minded. But that's all they got. It's why they're losing despite boatloads of money in a world of freely shared information.

  • 'I better not call Betty' -- My long path to unreasonable optimism about the conflict
    • Pamela Olson January 16, 2012 at 12:20 pm

      Hi Kevin. I understood what you meant (despite my perhaps poorly-worded comment), just wanted to play around with the words we use a little. "Abandoning self-care" can sound scary to your average American. I prefer to use "enlightened self-interest." It's not about asking for martyrs, just for people to be more aware of what actually brings them happiness and fulfillment, given how inextricably connected we all are in so many ways, from quantum mechanics to the neighborhood to the global environment.

      Thanks again for your thoughts, it was a pleasure to read.

    • Pamela Olson January 15, 2012 at 5:29 pm

      A lovely and heart-felt essay, thank you. I'm not sure what you mean, though, by abandoning self-care. It seems to me that if we are quiet and observant enough, we realize that we don't end at our skin, and caring for others is a vital extension of caring for ourselves. Who can be happy when they know people just like them (strangers can become friends in an instant, as we all know) are suffering based on lies?

      Israelis are suffering, too -- cognitive dissonance is one of the most painful sensations, and many Israelis are infused head to toe with denial of clear and present realities. I would hate to live in such a world of hate, paranoia, and self-deception. Palestine is a much more pleasant place to spend time than Israel, despite the occupation.

      Working for truth and justice just seems like common sense. The creative and the connective are a lot more fun than the self-absorbtive (in the narrowly selfish sense).

  • 'NYT' Travel section features visit to another planet
    • Pamela Olson January 15, 2012 at 3:32 pm

      Not sure what you're playing at, but I lived in the West Bank for two and a half years, and though there are anecdotes of "normalization" of the occupation such as the ones you put forth, that doesn't mean the occupation isn't a gross, horrifying, never-ending series of violations of basic human rights. If a black South African was friends with a white South African who stole another black South African's land, does this mean Apartheid was OK?

      You are just being silly.

  • Leveretts: False flag in Iranian hit likely disguises U.S.
  • A personal appeal-- PennBDS needs your help
  • The trespassing Jew
    • Pamela Olson January 9, 2012 at 2:23 pm with 1 replies

      Hooray, another Phil story! Like a prize in the cracker jack box. (Though lord knows how many pearls we are missing due to fear of wordiness.)

      Your neighborhood sounds like quite the collection of characters, and always something lovely to do in the woods. Meanwhile you're also running the best blog on Israel/Palestine and the US relationship to it in the world (to my knowledge). May all our lives be so rich.

      Here's to a 2012 full of joy, good work, and pleasant surprises.

  • Cooking magazines dish on new trend: labeling Arabic food Israeli!
    • Pamela Olson January 7, 2012 at 3:11 pm with 1 replies

      I posted this comment on the Bon Appetit page. No bets on how long it'll stay up:

      "This recipe looks great, but it's hardly an Israeli food. It's a North African dish that I've mostly had cooked by Bedouins. Israelis started cooking this dish after it was brought into the Jewish sphere of the country by Tunisian Jews. (Palestinians and Bedouin have been cooking it for centuries.)

      For the record, hummus, felafel, shawarma, cous cous, and fattoush (sometimes bizarrely called "Israeli salad") are not Israeli foods either. These foods have been prepared by Arabs for centuries before Israel ever existed.

      It's bad enough that Israelis colonize Palestinian land. Please don't help them co-opt the culture and cuisine, too. It's dishonest and quite frankly offensive to many people whose land and homes were stolen in the 20th century and continue to be stolen and/or destroyed in the 21st."

  • F. W. de Klerk on why apartheid will fail in Israel/Palestine
    • Pamela Olson January 5, 2012 at 1:51 pm with 7 replies

      Hm, you are not paying much attention, are you? The Palestinian and Israeli economies are far more intertwined than you seem to understand. Israelis have a captive market in the Palestinians, they take and use Palestinian water and land for their own benefit, they dump off their grade B and freshness-date-expired products on Palestinian stores who have few other options, they have half a million Israeli citizens living on Palestinian land (that's a lotta real estate), they control the electromagnetic spectrum of the West Bank and Gaza as well as dozens of holy sites and tourist attractions on Palestinian soil... and that's just the things I can think of off the top of my head. The occupation is phenomenally profitable for Israel. There's a reason they're hanging onto it so hard, and it ain't just for "security" and the Bible.

      Israelis are not demanding too much land? LOL

      Most Palestinians would support a FAIR two-state solution based on international law, if Israel would allow it. But they won't. Hence the problem.

  • Kristol is going to 'punch' Obama administration, in Palm Beach and Vegas
    • Pamela Olson December 15, 2011 at 1:43 pm with 1 replies

      Did anyone notice that if you look up the article mentioned in the third bullet point ("Clinton got it badly wrong: Israel isn't Iran..."), and actually read it, it's a snarky article that calls Israel out on its outrageous behavior in ways even worse than the Obama Administration could ever dream of? For example, it says:

      "First, Iran isn't considered a democracy: It openly and proudly adopted a system of government in which a religious scholar is the supreme leader. Israel, in contrast, wears a facade of democracy even as a select group of religious scholars who are only ostensibly committed to the law dictate the state's way of life."

      And:

      "Israel is neither Iran nor Egypt, because it won't face the threat of sanctions for undermining human rights, freedom of the press, the status of women or nongovernmental organizations."

      And:

      "Clinton's remarks are a clear warning sign, the last crash barrier before the final descent to the bottom of the slippery slope. But like in Iran and Egypt, this intervention is seen in Israel as a hostile act. After all, Israel is a mature, independent country, and it is entitled to decide for itself what kind of democracy best suits it - even if it is a suicidal democracy."

      Who the hell does these guys' fact checking? Oh wait...

  • What are they smoking? Wiesenthal Center lumps Abbas appearance at U.N. with 'neo-Nazis and crackpots'
    • Pamela Olson December 13, 2011 at 6:37 pm with 1 replies

      Yeah, I was gonna say -- when a Zionist mentions the Jewish connection to the Holy Land, how often do they qualify that by saying it's also holy to Christians and Muslims? Like, never. Their whole game is that they want the whole game. Anyone who doesn't go along with their fantastical self-centered non-sequitur it's-all-ours-by-any-means-and-for-any-reason-necessary nonsense is, by definition in the right-wing Zionist dictionary, an "anti-Semite."

  • Football in Burin
    • Pamela Olson December 9, 2011 at 1:40 pm

      You're right, except for one thing: Those hilltops are not barren. The settlers have to steal and destroy many forests, orchards, springs, caves, and gorgeous hiking and picnic spots to build their fortresses of madness.

  • Welcome Annie Robbins as Writer at Large
  • A point for the Israel lobby theory, from Panetta
    • Pamela Olson December 5, 2011 at 11:52 am with 1 replies

      I think this is somewhat similar to the "nature vs. nurture" debate. There's a little from Column A, a little from Column B. But yeah, the test comes with the two interests come in conflict with each other. But even then it's hard to say, because nearly everything Israel does (or wants to be done) makes money for US defense contractors. A sick and destructive kind of symbiosis.

    • Pamela Olson December 5, 2011 at 11:50 am with 6 replies

      But this theory still raises the question, Why does the US government go along with Israel's every scheme?

  • A brief story of dispossession, American-style – and what you can do about it
    • Pamela Olson November 30, 2011 at 3:12 pm

      Where is the link to sign the petition? I couldn't find it in the text. In general, I think it's a big problem with the new design that links are nearly impossible to see. Can you underline the links like you did in the last design? Would be much appreciated!

  • So you want to be a neoconservative? C'est facile!
    • Pamela Olson November 14, 2011 at 12:48 pm

      They didn't have to market that hard, apparently. As the line goes in Holiday Inn, "The lady must have been willing." They waited until Americans wanted war (i.e., revenge) and then swooped in en masse. And the Defense "community" and journalists were just fine with it.

      I hope they don't succeed again with this Iran nonsense. It will be like Bush's second term. One term could be seen as a tragic mistake. (I know Bush probably didn't really win that one, but enough people voted for him to make it close.) Two terms proved we were idiots. We deserve what we get, but why should the rest of the world suffer so much?

      A supposedly very smart guy in my think tank recommended Kagan to me specifically, and I couldn't deal with his short-sighted arrogance. Where do you even begin with someone like that? Guess my friend is smart only in a very limited sense -- the perfect type loved by Washington and major universities. (All he said about my book was that it made him hungry for Palestinian food.)

  • Dennis Ross announces he is leaving the Obama administration in December

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