Total number of comments: 38 (since 2010-04-21 21:18:43)
Parity
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Website: http://www.parityforpeace.org
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Please change "a quarter of a million" to "three-quarters of a million."
Your first link is linking to one of your old articles instead of to the Tablet article. Please fix this. Thanks.
I really like the tone of these NorCal Sabeel ads. They stress the positive: peace with equality and justice, Israelis and Palestinians working together. They are a great contrast to the negative ads Stand With Us has put out.
There is something wrong with this sentence: "Literacy in Palestine is the lowest in the world, say experts." According to UNDP, the adult literacy rate in Palestine is 93.8%. There are countries with higher and countries with lower literacy rates.
A number of years ago, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (my representative) told a group of us sitting in her office in Washington, DC, that other members of Congress had told her that when they had to choose between supporting Israel or supporting the United States, they chose Israel. We did not press for names, and I am sure she would not have given them to us if we had.
Thank you for publishing this piece. I sometimes forward the article that a Mondoweiss article refers to rather than the Mondoweiss piece because I don't want readers to be put off by the tone of the commentary following the piece. I'd prefer have a more elevated discussion. Some comments add new, relevant information, but you have to wade through a lot to get to them. Bottom line is that the tone of some of the commentary may be hurting our cause.
Not only is Bronner's willingness to moonlight for a West Bank firm doing PR work for Israel an indication of bias, but his bias is reflected in his writing, as in this Times article republished in SFGate:
"Every year in mid-May many Palestinians mark what they call the nakba, or catastrophe, the anniversary of Israel's declaration of independence in 1948 and the start of a war in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their homes through expulsion and flight" ("Palestinians hit Israel with wave of protests," SFGate, May 16, 2011)
link to sfgate.com
In this sentence he inaccurately calls the nakba an anniversary (a day), rather than an event lasting more than a year. He inaccurately puts the focus on the Palestinians' reaction to Israel's declaration of independence rather than on the Palestinians' experience of ethnic cleansing. He ignores the expulsions and flight of some 370,000 Palestinians that occurred during the civil war preceding the declaration of independence and makes it seem that the expulsions and flight were the result of war rather than a campaign that went alongside the wars. His sentence both belittles and ignores the Palestinian experience.
CNN had some balance after all in that after Netanyahu's speech they had two split-screen commentators who took the sails out of his speech as well.
MSNBC ran Abbas for a few minutes then let some commentator take over! I did not want to listen to the commentator instead of the speech, so I switched to CNN, which ran the entire speech. Then CNN had Richard Haas (Jewish?), president of the Council of Foreign Relations, comment on the speech. He did his best to downplay the speech and try to deflate all the hopes raised. Such bias!
A solution that should be considered is two states with identical borders that would then form a condominium or exist as parallel states. Visit www.parityforpeace.org and google "parallel states solution" for details on how two states on the same land might work.
Yes, we tried to make up for past sins by giving the Jews state--and they blew it.
I just got this from MTA:
"This is in response to your recent e-mail to MTA New York City Transit concerning the “Be On Our Side” advertisement in the subway system.
"We regret if you found some of our advertisements objectionable. We do recognize that some of our customers may find certain advertisements offensive. As a result, in March of 1994, the MTA board enacted advertising guidelines designed to better regulate advertising within the transit system. While some may find certain advertisements offensive, they do not violate the guidelines. Please also be aware that advertising on our buses and in the subway system fall under the jurisdiction of CBS Outdoor (Viacom), a private company contracted by MTA Department of Real Estate. Their number is (212) 297-6400 and they are located at 405 Lexington Avenue, NY 10174. As such, you may contact CBS Outdoor in writing or via phone with regard to your concerns."
Organizers of the Be On Our Side ad have suggested that we go to all the sources listed by Geller for people to call and, instead of saying we are against the ads, say we are FOR the ads--that they are positive, meet the guidelines, and inform people of how their taxes are being spent (that's my spiel, anyway). I have done that.
For your convenience, here are the places to contact:
"1. The ad placement is handled by CBS Outdoor. Please send an email toemmanuela.chanoine@cbsoutdoor.com to register your concern about this ad campaign.
"2. Email the Mayor. link to nyc.gov
"3. Call the MTA at 212-878-7000 [now it's 212-878-7132] and, in response to the prompts, press 1, 3, * and then either 2 for the press office and/or 4 for corporate affairs. Leave a message. You can also email them at link to mta-nyc.custhelp.com"
My note: The MTA now directs people to this telephone number: 212-878-7132, where you can leave a message easily.
My recollection from newspaper reports is that Obama asked that the fighting stop in time for his inauguration and Israel did him that favor, probably wanting to get off on a good foot with the new president. It's hard to see why Obama would have wanted Israel's reports badly enough to arrange some kind of quid pro quo. A president-elect gets regular and thorough briefings on foreign affairs as a matter of course. Israel would have had an incentive to brief him for no other reason than to be able to select whatever facts would support its actions. Obama said he did not think he should intervene while another person was still president. If his failure to speak arose from a lack of courage--well, what have we come to expect? In my opinion, there was likely no quid pro quo.
My recollection from newspaper reports is that Obama asked that the fighting stop in time for his inauguration and Israel did him that favor. It's hard to see why Obama would have wanted Israel's reports badly enough to arrange some kind of quid pro quo.
Couldn't we just get around the technicalities by emphasizing the word used in the Balfour Declaration: homeland, not state (even if the writer had statehood in mind).
I'm sorry that I could barely hear the video even though I had my volume turned to the highest setting.
Back in the 1960s my husband, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), learned about the Arab attack on Israel on May 15, 1948. It made quite an impression on him. A few years ago, when he brought this fact up, I pointed out the Arabs and Jews had been fighting in a civil war for some six months, during which hundreds of thousands of Arab Palestinians had been forced out. That was news to him! Imagine! Of course, the archives of the period had not been opened up by then--still you'd think the professor would have known about the flight.
Maybe it was the archival document showing Haganah's Plan D, of 10 March 1948, that was necessary to force a look at the reasons for Arab flight. Plan D gave permission to the Haganah to fight in parts of Palestine that had been assigned to the Arabs, to expel the villagers and to raze their villages. The leadership of the Yishuv made a momentous decision when they decided to fight beyond the borders assigned to them in UN Res. 181 and try to gain more territory by force. THEY HAD A BARE MAJORITY IN THE UN -PROPOSED "JEWISH STATE" (1,000 more Jews than Arabs, if the Bedouin had been counted). THE DECISION TO TRY TO ENLARGE THE TERRITORY FOR THE JEWISH STATE COMMITTED ISRAEL TO ETHNIC CLEANSING, FOR THERE WAS NO WAY TO HAVE A JEWISH MAJORITY ON EXPANDED TERRITORY WITHOUT EXPELLING THE ARABS.
I believe that the
Joel Brinkley, whose foreign policy column is syndicated in 50 newspapers, defines the Nakba (which he lowercases) as "the Arab world's 'day of catastrophe,' the day Israel was founded" ("In the Arab world, it's not just about Israel anymore," Insight, San Francisco Chronicle, March 6, 2011)
link to sfgate.com
Joel Brinkley, is a professor of journalism at Stanford University and a Pulitzer Prize-winning former correspondent for the New York Times. He describes himself as having spent many years working in the Middle East. His mischaracterization of the Nakba shows how little effort the mainstream press has made to understand the Palestinian story and how reporters feed on each other's ignorance.
We Americans have killed a person who did us harm, who may well have thought 9/11 was bringing us to "justice" and finding some "closure" against what we had done to Muslims. Unless we pursue justice in the sense of making the world a fairer place, rather than seeking retribution, we will continue to find ourselves in an endless cycle of violence.
Having seen "Miral," I am still waiting for the blockbuster that will be the Palestinian equivalent of "Exodus." That said, I am happy to report that a couple at my church, who are not activists on Israel-Palestine, made an announcement to the congregation (about 25 people) that they should see "Miral." They were so moved by the film, the husband brought a miral flower (or something like it) together with a palm branch and placed both on the altar.
Phil, you communicated well the fears that Jews have. The good news is that Jews who work with the Palestinians for justice lose their fear. As the Bible says, "Perfect love casts out fear" (John 4:18).
The good news is that the rating has been changed from R to PG-13. See link to latimesblogs.latimes.com
We need to get a courageous progressive to run against Obama in the primaries. How about Dennis Kucinich?
Phil, why did you lump Feingold in with all the good people? He was an Israel-firster--the only thing I had against him.
You should ask the New York Times to make a correction on Kershner's 2009 date. We should ask for corrections--or at least write to the editor or the public editor--every time we see a mistake.
Jeffrey and Henry, thanks for all the historical insights to what Jim has written. We need to get after Members of Congress who plan not to run again. Might they be willing to show more spine?
Jeffrey, you said, "He will likely pardon him WITHOUT any freeze in settlement construction or promise of doing so down the road." Haaretz reported, in its Hebrew edition, that Netanyahu is offering a settlement freeze in exchange for Pollard's release. See reference to this in the following op-ed in the English edition:
link to haaretz.com
This Haaretz article reports that Netanyahu is offering to freeze settlement expansion in exchange for Pollard's release. The information first appeared only in the Hebrew edition of Haaretz.
link to haaretz.com
At the confirmation hearing for Hillary Clinton to become Secretary of State both she and Chairman Kerry said Hamas broke the truce. I was amazed! How can we rely on our government to make good decisions when they don't have their facts straight?
This summer I talked with an Israeli reporter specializing in Gaza who made a film, "Precious Love," about the efforts of an Israeli medical time to save the life of a Gazan baby with an immune disorder even as Operation Cast Lead was taking place. Although he was a reporter for Gaza, he seemed unaware that Israel broke the truce. With reporters like that, how can we expect the Israeli public to have any other view than that Operation Cast Lead was justified?
Ben, Res. 194 gave the right of return to Palestinians willing to live at peace with their neighbors. Presumably, Israel would have the right to deport a refugee who was not willing to live at peace.
One way Israel could continue to be a Jewish state and still fulfill its obligation to allow the Palestinian refugees to return would be to allow a Palestinian state to exist in a condominium relationship with Israel. A condominium in international law is two states having sovereignty over the same land. In this case, it would be the whole area that once formed Mandate Palestinian. Palestinians and Israelis could live anywhere they wanted to in the condominium and legitimately claim the whole area between the Mediterranean and Jordan as theirs. Each nation would govern its own population, and a condominium government, in which there was equal representation between between the states (thus taking demographic worries out of the equation), would deal with all areas of common concern. See my website www.parityforpeace.org for details.
Phil, you said, "the world gerrymandered a state that was Jewish, by about 600,000 to 500,000 non Jews." You must have been including Jerusalem as part of the Jewish state, but Jerusalem was to be a separate, internationally administered entity. UNSCOP'S figures for the Jewish state were 498,000 Jews and 407,000 "Arabs and Others" (link to mideastweb.org
But note this statement by UNSCOP (same source): "In addition there will be in the Jewish State about 90,000 Bedouins, cultivators and stock owners who seek grazing further afield in dry seasons." If you add the Bedouin to the "Arabs and Others" column, Jews outnumber "Arabs and Others" by only 1,000 in the area designated for the Jewish state.
According to UNSCOP (same source), the Arab state would have 10,000 Jews and 725,000 Arabs. Combining UNSCOP's figures for the two states, I calculate that 35 percent of the total population of "Arabs and Others" would be living under Jewish hegemony. If the Beduouin are counted, the figure rises to 40 percent.
Is it any wonder the Arabs rejected partition?
Dershowitz also got the partition figures reversed, I noted in the last Mondoweiss video of him (the "literary" discussion with the Palestinian author). Perhaps this misconception is widely held in the Jewish community. And to think that Dershowitz is considered by many in the Jewish community to be an expert. One can't trust anything he says.
I agree.
Maybe we could use this PR stunt to contrast, through pictures, the easy and merry life of Israelis with the suffering of the Palestinians.
I think you meant to say "Jews" instead of "rich."
"She told me that the wealthiest people in Italy are rich."
I have skimmed the entire report and think these findings are worrisome:
There has been an 8-point drop in the in the attitude that Americans should not take either side in the conflict (from 74% in 2004 to 66%) and an 11-point increase in those saying the U.S. should take Israel's side (28%, up from 17% in 2004), while the percentage of Americans thinking we should take the Palestinians' side is 3%. On a scale of how people feel about a country, with 50 being neutral and 100 being very warm and favorable, Israel scores 57 and the Palestinians score 3. How do we ever turn things around with the media so skewed toward Israel? And this is after Operation Cast Lead and Israel's thumbing of the nose to Biden and Obama.
It disturbs me that you comment on articles without having read them carefully.