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Total number of comments: 6235 (since 2009-08-04 05:43:29)

Shmuel

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• Israel still holds 1000s of political prisoners, including 27 Palestinian members of Parliament
  • Shmuel May 15, 2012 at 5:41 am

    I am not asking what human rights groups write about it
    i am interested in your opinion of it.

    I haven't studied the subject; Amnesty has. I tend to trust their assessments.

    And again, your point?

  • Shmuel May 15, 2012 at 2:23 am with 2 replies

    Shmuel what do you think of an American prison system?
    In comparison.

    US prison systems are frequently criticised by human rights groups such as Amnesty International; see e.g. link to amnesty.org

    Your point?

  • Shmuel May 14, 2012 at 4:54 pm with 7 replies

    MARTON: I was in a coffee shop. I asked the waiter who was really nice [what he thought about the hunger strikers] He said, 'Is is still going on? What do they want?' He didn’t know.... We don’t have the exposure that we hope to have. [Here are strikers going 77 days without food] risking their lives, and there are very small echoes of this in the Israeli media.

    On Israeli attitudes to the hunger strikers and Palestinian prisoners in general, see Amira Hass: link to haaretz.com

    From Hass' article:
    

    In faraway, frozen Finland - otherwise known as the infirmary of Ramle Prison - the lives of four detainees who have been on a hunger strike for at least 60 days hang in the balance. Nearly 2,000 inmates in the Nafha, Ashkelon, Gilboa and other prisons around Israel have been on hunger strike for two weeks. The very fact of their decision to refuse food and their willingness to risk being punished by the authorities stands as a reminder of their humanity.

    The Israel Prison Service does not have to make much of an effort to conceal this mass action from Israeli eyes. The great majority of Israelis label all incarcerated Palestinians as conscienceless murderers or common terrorists, at the least. They have little interest in acts of personal or collective courage on the part of Palestinian detainees that serve as reminders that they are human beings.

    Administrative detainees have been held without trial for years under emergency regulations inspired by the British Mandate. It's not important. Hundreds of prisoners from the Gaza Strip haven't seen their families for six or more years. Why should anyone care?

    ...

    Israelis are not satisfied with the various measures to worsen their prison conditions. When it comes to Palestinians, punishment is not enough. Prison must also be never-ending revenge that extends what Israel tries to do outside its walls as well: to break up the collective, to weaken the individual, to deter others from resistance to the foreign regime.

    The hunger strike is, in effect, a protest against these goals. Not all of the Palestinian prisoners have joined it. In prison, as outside of it, Palestinian political and social cohesion has declined, and many of the inmates lack the cultural and social awareness of their predecessors. Nevertheless, the hunger strike underlines the fundamentally political nature of the collective of Palestinians incarcerated in Israel.

    When Gilad Shalit was in captivity in Gaza, the cancelation of visits for Gazan prisoners in Israel was presented as "proportionate pressure." After his release, Israelis don't care that this sort of proportionality goes on, and that family visits were not restored. So what? Why should we care that Palestinians are kept in isolation for years on end and barred from seeing their families for three, five or 10 years? Any normal prison administration would welcome prisoners' demand to go back to studying through the Open University. Studies reduce stress and tension levels in prison. But the name of the game here is submission.

• 'Orgy in the desert' fails to wed young Jewish woman to Zionism
  • Shmuel May 18, 2012 at 7:59 am

    I think RoHa should not be ridiculed for having made a mistake.

    Well, it's not as if RoHa ever points out other people's mistakes or anything. We should really cut him some slack. Nobody's prefect and mitsakes will happen, especially in a nedium such as tis.

• On the sidewalk in Hamburg-- 'Hier wohnte'
  • Shmuel May 16, 2012 at 12:04 pm

    But sometimes you do nail them to trees if they represent the enemy that ruined your country an murdered millions of your compatriots.

    I just saw your commenter profile, Oleg. Do you really consider yourself a "Humanist"? In what sense? I don't think I've ever met a humanist who views individual human beings merely as "representations" of a collective, or holds such a dim and compartmentalised view of humanity.

  • Shmuel May 16, 2012 at 10:51 am

    I don’t believe you Shmuel.
    How can you understand it?

    Unlike you, I don't have a limited supply of empathy.

    The things that they committed out of their rage and the madness of war are not for you to judge or excuse or forgive or condemn or to say anything at all.

    This statement is entirely in keeping with the kind of moral relativism (nihilism?) you often express here.

    By the time that i reach German civilians my empathy is spent ,
    i have non left to give.

    Talk about self-righteousness. You can unflare your nostrils now.

  • Shmuel May 16, 2012 at 10:14 am

    You can’t understand that kind of rage Shmuel i can’t understand it
    not entirely but i can’t and won’t judge it or pity it’s victims.
    Not when we are talking about Nazi Germany.
    I have no human empathy towards it’s population like i already stated.

    Some atrocities committed by Allied troops (and partisans) were certainly committed out of rage, but that's just one explanation/justification - ranging from a sense of lawlessness, the expectations of comrades, naked sadism, fear, the feel of power, following orders, etc.

    You say that you can't and won't judge, but you have. You excuse the actions of the perpetrators on your side, because they were enraged at the atrocities committed by the other side. You have decided that they are beyond judgement, which is, in itself, a judgement. You have also judged the victims as inherently guilty if not individually (problematic in itself) then collectively, and unworthy of empathy.

    Unlike you, I can understand that kind of rage (or fear or weakness), but I won't justify the actions. I think the world owes the Soviets a great (and largely unacknowledged) debt for their decisive role in defeating Nazi Germany, and find the heroism they displayed inspiring. That doesn't mean we have to excuse the war crimes they committed in the process, or deny their innocent victims the empathy they deserve.

  • Shmuel May 16, 2012 at 9:05 am

    Unfortunately the allies did not have the benefits of smart bombs
    to differentiate between fathers and sons.

    You don't nail people to trees with bombs.

  • Shmuel May 16, 2012 at 8:06 am

    You want to forgive and forget that’s your right.

    Innocent people require no forgiveness; their murderers and oppressors do, and I'm far more interested in justice than forgiveness.

    As long as we're quoting Scripture, how about Deuteronomy 24:16:
    לֹא-יוּמְתוּ אָבוֹת עַל-בָּנִים, וּבָנִים לֹא-יוּמְתוּ עַל-אָבוֹת: אִישׁ בְּחֶטְאוֹ, יוּמָתוּ
    "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin."

  • Shmuel May 16, 2012 at 7:41 am

    The fuss is simple Shmuel

    It's obvious why these things bother you, Oleg. The question is why make a fuss about it here or anywhere else, if it's all subjective anyway? What have you got to say to someone whose family is not involved (or is involved on the other side), or believes that your side is the wrong side (in the total sum of things)? Nothing, really.

    BTW, your reaction to Ellen's personal story was remarkably callous, but that's obviously the spirit in which it was intended. You need to read more Hosea (and maybe a little Isaiah as well).

  • Shmuel May 16, 2012 at 7:03 am

    “For they sow the wind
    And they reap the whirlwind.”

    So why all the fuss about rockets and innocent civilians and terrorism? Or are you suggesting that Israel has never sown any wind (entirely justified perhaps, to your mind, but wind nonetheless)?

    And some Hosea (10:13) right back at you:

    "Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity, ye have eaten the fruit of lies; for thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men."

  • Shmuel May 14, 2012 at 11:13 am

    I see there are many such memorials in Germany.

    And in Italy ("Qui abitava ...") and elsewhere in Europe: link to google.it

    They are the work of German artist Gunter Demnig.

• Artifacts of the early Israel lobby: 1917 map for American consumption
  • Shmuel May 14, 2012 at 3:03 pm with 2 replies

    I am surprised that there should have been one or more German colonies in Palestine at that point.

    The reference is undoubtedly to the Templer colonies (I think there were about 7 or 8 of them), much admired (and envied) by the Zionists.

  • Shmuel May 14, 2012 at 10:40 am with 4 replies

    Unfortunately, the quality of the image makes a detailed analysis of the map very difficult. I have a friend who has written extensively on the use of maps to convey political and ideological messages (mostly Italian and German maps, although he's also done a little work on Israeli maps). Maybe I can get him to dip into his research fund and buy a copy :-)

    Just a few points I found interesting (from what I could decipher):
    1. The paranthetical note next to the Hebrew date: "5677 (1848 [years] since the Destruction [of the Temple])".
    2. The use of Turkish administrative terms in the legend: "vilayet", "senjak" and another one I presume is Turkish but couldn't make out .
    3. The designation of other places as either "Arab village" (kefar aravi), "Hebrew colony" (moshavah ivrit) or "German colony" (moshavah germanit).
    4. The sea opposite the southern coast (from Haifa southward) is called the "Philistine Sea".

• Thaer Halahleh, dying, tells the daughter he's never seen why he took a stand for human dignity
  • Shmuel May 13, 2012 at 4:18 pm with 1 replies

    You're right, Annie. Neither Halahleh nor Diab have been charged with anything, let alone convicted. What is "chutzpah" and "obscene" is Norman's presumption that if he is a Palestinian in an Israeli jail, he must be a "convicted terrorist".

    He is not "demanding ... alleviation of his just punishment", but respect for his human rights, as guaranteed by international law.

    Amnesty:

    Under the system of administrative detention, detainees' rights, as guaranteed by Articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Israel is a state party, including their rights to be informed promptly and fully of the reasons for their detention, to be presumed innocent, to examine and have examined the witnesses against them, and to be
    tried in public, are consistently flouted.

    B'tselem:

    The manner in which Israel uses administrative detention is patently illegal. Administrative detainees are not told the reason for their detention or the specific allegations against them. Although detainees are brought before a judge to authorize the detention order, most of the material submitted by the prosecution is classified and not shown to the detainee or his attorney. Since the detainees do not know the evidence against them, they are unable to refute it.

    The detainees also do not know when they will be released. Although the maximum period of administrative detention is six months, it can be renewed indefinitely. In fact, of the administrative detainees held in December, over 60 percent had their detention extended at least once beyond the first detention order...

    Under international law, it is permissible to administratively detain a person only in exceptional cases, as a last resort in order to prevent a grave danger that cannot be prevented through less harmful means. Israel’s use of administrative detention blatantly breaches these rules. The military must release all the administrative detainees or prosecute them, in accordance with due process.

    Moreover, nearly all the detention facilities where Palestinians are held are located inside Israel, a violation of international law. Some of these prisoners are also denied visits from family members, as Israel denies them entry permits into Israel.

    According to B'tselem, Israel is currently (April 2012) holding 308 Palestinians in administrative detention. Israel must try them or release them immediately!

• We're still losing
  • Shmuel May 13, 2012 at 4:03 am

    “Have you been to Haifa University?
    No, I said.”
    No degree of political engagement can replace first-hand experience.

    What's your point, Terry? Would a visit to Haifa U. have changed Phil's perspective in anything but a deceptive, "Brand Israel" sort of way? Would it have contradicted any of the facts that he knows by research and first hand experience (in both Israel and the West Bank)?

    In other words, it was a cheap shot, entirely in the spirit of the "Brand Israel" campaign. What brutality? We're on the Nasdaq! Critical of the "separation fence"? Wait until you see our patents! Your impressions of Israel are all hearsay until you've seen the Intel plant in Kiryat Gat for yourself! The chips, the semiconductors, O rapture! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

  • Shmuel May 13, 2012 at 3:36 am with 1 replies

    Classic article on the subject by Naomi Klein: link to guardian.co.uk

  • Shmuel May 12, 2012 at 12:11 pm with 1 replies

    The Brand Israel people aren't stupid. Our society is taught to worship technology and confuse it with virtue. It sells stuff and keeps people quiet. Tap into that, and talk of human rights and human cost will go in one ear and out the other. Thirty stories and IBM? What's not to like?

• Liberal Zionists are afraid their parents will reject them if they come out
  • Shmuel May 14, 2012 at 9:06 am

    Seems to me Israel haven’t left you…

    You'll have to take that up with Israel.

  • Shmuel May 14, 2012 at 9:05 am

    Why did you leave if i may ask?

    An answer I gave to a former commenter here, when asked a related question:
    link to mondoweiss.net

    And another: link to mondoweiss.net

  • Shmuel May 13, 2012 at 4:44 pm

    i am asking you about your current attitude toward
    Israel ... I am asking in a broader context than just the I/P

    Israel is a country I know intimately, having lived there most of my life. It is also an ethnocracy and serial violator of human rights, which has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. The broader context is and has always been an ethical one.

  • Shmuel May 13, 2012 at 4:27 pm

    I had the impression that Shmuel still lives in Israel and also given the general public opinion he must be feeling pretty lonely.

    I left Israel about nine years ago.

  • Shmuel May 13, 2012 at 12:47 pm

    I did put it as a question.

    Based on a false premise. I addressed the premise.

    If you are asking why I bother with I/P, it is an ongoing travesty to which I am connected in many different ways (not least by familiarity, knowledge and awareness). I suspect you would get a similar answer from just about everyone here.

  • Shmuel May 13, 2012 at 11:05 am

    So basically you don’t “love” the country anymore.
    Dare i use the word “hate” the country ?
    But why are you here ?Why not just distance yourself from your “hate” object and simply forget about it ?

    Interesting dichotomy, Oleg. Not the way my world works.

  • Shmuel May 12, 2012 at 10:41 am

    What is to be said for Harvey Milk argument? This: “I have it now, it is that until every American knows that they know one of us Palestinians, or at least an Arab, we will never win”?

    In keeping with the subject of the post and the speech, I was thinking more along the lines of "until every American Jew knows that they know one of us anti-Zionist Jews, we will never win".

  • Shmuel May 11, 2012 at 6:11 pm

    Dropping homophobia in a population is harder-look how long Obama had to wait before making his announcement.

    When will he announce that he's dropping his support for Israel?

    Obama's announcement was a good thing, but it didn't really cost him anything. On the contrary, it was a relatively easy way of re-establishing his liberal credentials without actually challenging the power structure of which he is a part. Centre-left (and even far-right) politicians in Europe have been doing it for years.

    During the last elections in Italy, the centre-left candidate made one of the nastiest hard-core neo-liberal speeches you can imagine, but promised gay "partnership". I couldn't believe how many of my lefty friends got taken in.

  • Shmuel May 11, 2012 at 4:29 pm with 8 replies

    Danaa,

    I agree with your analysis. In my case, I try not to be dishonest but also try to avoid confrontation that won't convince anyone anyway and will have severe repercussions within the family. It may sound like a cliché, but I think everyone knows by now and would rather make believe. My mum actually confronted me about it once (on a "personal rejection" level), but seemed perfectly happy with my evasive answers. You're also right that friends are different.

    There is something to be said for the Harvey Milk argument though.

  • Shmuel May 11, 2012 at 4:09 pm with 26 replies

    when you were in your ‘patriotism’ phase, were you simply softening the opinions you express in the 2nd paragraph (so as not to offend, court rejection etc.)? Or did you change internally from critical patriotism to unlove?

    Disloyalty is not a fun charge, especially in Israel. I played the patriotism card with others, but I also needed to believe it about myself (although it was by no means what motivated me in the first place). It took me a while to get over.

  • Shmuel May 11, 2012 at 2:49 pm with 38 replies

    I went through a phase of justifying my criticism of Israeli policies by explaining that it was "from a place" of patriotism - no less and possibly more patriotic than the positions espoused by the warmongers and the land-grabbers. I argued that it was legitimate to talk about Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights because that is what was in Israel's best interest. I was full of crap.

    Coming out is not telling people you're straight but want to write your own vows It's telling people that you don't love Israel, that you have other values, other concerns and other loves, and what's more, you don't believe that all "preferences" are equally legitimate.

    I haven't come out that way to my family (although I no longer argue patriotism), but I don't delude myself that I have.

• US military officers taught to target civilians and wage 'total war' on Islam
  • Shmuel May 11, 2012 at 12:16 pm with 1 replies

    The cartoon is not only Islamophobic; it is also reactionary in a broader sense, inasmuch as it trots out the old stereotype that liberals are unable or unwilling to confront harsh reality.

    It is the approach that justifies Guantanamo and torture and "pre-emptive war" by "our side", because "they" have no respect for human rights. It is the approach that allows Israel to - literally - get away with murder (and apartheid and ethnic cleansing), because Israelis live "in a tough neighbourhood", surrounded by people who "don't share our values".

    The cartoon dehumanises Muslims, but it also dehumanises the rest of us, by rejecting the fundamental principles of human rights and dignity as "soft" and "naive". All in the name of "freedom and democracy", of course.

• Akiva Tor: Arab Spring at fault for blocking a future Palestinian state
  • Shmuel May 10, 2012 at 3:19 pm

    One day the semitic cousins will get back together . It is the only thing that makes sense in the whole stinking mess.

    Inshallah, habibi.

  • Shmuel May 10, 2012 at 1:05 pm

    Were a lot of the regular Ashkenazi names dropped after people moved to Israel?

    If you mean actively changed, not usually (although some traditional Hebrew or Yiddish names were a sure-fire recipe for teasing) , but they sure as hell didn't give their kids those names (except among the religious where trends are a little different). There's also a generation gap between Israel and the Diaspora. My sister, for example, who was 12 when we moved to Israel, was told that her name (a "modern" one) was a "grandmother's name".

    Non-Hebrew names, on the other hand, were changed by the bushel (my Iraqi neighbour, for example, changed her name from Jamila to Yaffa) - sometimes without the consent of the individual immigrants, as in the case of the Ethiopian Beta Yisrael.

  • Shmuel May 10, 2012 at 10:11 am

    I've never thought about the connection between Akiva and Ya'akov, although they do share a common root (ʿaqb) - Akiva in Aramaic and Ya'akov in Hebrew. Akiva is actually a very traditional name (associated with the 1st-2nd cent. Tanna, Rabbi Akiva), and is probably hard to find these days among younger, non-religious Israelis, although some Zionists (particularly religious Zionists) favoured the name as a result of Rabbi Akiva's support for Bar Kochva and thus "muscle Judaism".

    There are various types of first names in Israel - traditional, resurrected (including biblical names that were never or hardly ever used in the Diaspora), invented and equivalents of foreign names - translated or similar in sound (e.g. Tom, Din, Shirli, etc.).

    Yossi (Yosé or José - another Talmudic name) was commonly used among Mizrahim, while Ashkenazim tended more toward Yossef (dim. Yossl, Yoss'le). In Israel today, Yossi is generally a diminutive form of Yossef.

    Some traditional Jewish names are specific to given communities - such as Koresh (Cyrus) among Persian Jews, or Yihyeh among Yemenites - but those seem to be disappearing. Interestingly, the modern, Zionist name Herzl is limited almost exclusively to Mizrahim of a certain generation.

  • Shmuel May 10, 2012 at 5:48 am with 6 replies

    I don't know when the Tor family got its name, but Israeli diplomats (and high-ranking army officers) are generally required to Hebraicise their names. The new names are often translations of the original names, or have a similar sound or beginning (e.g. Persky-Peres, Brug-Barak). I would guess that "Tor" (dove) comes from Taub or Taubmann, or something along those lines.

    As for Akiva, it's a pretty common, traditional Jewish name. I wouldn't be surprised if Tor was named after a grandfather or great-grandfather, who might also have been called Anton or Augustus, but would almost certainly have had a Jewish name as well (used in the synagogue and in religious documents such as marriage contracts, bills of divorce, etc.).

• A portrait of a former Zionist (Part 1)
  • Shmuel May 24, 2012 at 1:07 pm

    as Irish as Elizabeth Windsor

    Funny you should say that, because back in the day, an Irish acquaintance of mine by the name of Paddy (seriously) and his mate Seamus (I kid you not) were nabbed by the bobbies, for the terrible crime of singing some Irish tunes (admittedly somewhat loudly and offkey) in front of Buck House. Have I mentioned that they had previously imbibed copious quantities of a famous beverage consisting almost entirely of pure water from the River Liffey? Now if HRH is in fact an Irish girl, why didn't she invite them up for a cup of tea or something a little more spirited?

  • Shmuel May 17, 2012 at 6:28 am

    BTW, Israeli law does in fact recognise Mandatory Palestine as a precursor to the State of Israel in its Nationality Law (5712-1952), and Israeli citizenship as replacing Palestinian* citizenship:

    3. (a) A person who, immediately before the establishment of the State, was a Palestinian citizen and who does not become a Israel national under section 2, shall become an Israel national with effect from the day of the establishment of the State if -
    (1) he was registered on the 4th Adar, 5712 (1st March 1952) as an inhabitant under the Registration of Inhabitants Ordinance, 5709-1949(2); and
    (2) he is an inhabitant of Israel on the day of the coming into force of this Law; and
    (3) he was in Israel, or in an area which became Israel territory after the establishment of the State, from the day of the establishment of the State to the day of the coming into force of this Law, or entered Israel legally during that period.
    ...
    6. (c) A person who immediately before the establishment of the State was a Palestinian citizen is exempt from the requirement of section 5 (a) (5).
    ...
    13. In this Law -
    ...
    "foreign nationality" includes foreign citizenship, and "foreign national" includes a foreign citizen, but does not include a Palestinian citizen.
    ...
    18. (a) The Palestinian Citizenship Orders, 1925-1942(3), are repealed with effect from the day of the establishment of the State.
    (b) Any reference in any provision of law to Palestinian citizenship or Palestinian citizens shall henceforth be read as a reference to Israel nationality or Israel nationals.
    (c) Any act done in the period between the establishment of the State and the day of the coming into force of this Law shall be deemed to be valid if it were valid had this Law been in force at the time it was done.

    *Yes, Israeli law recognises the existence of "Palestinian citizenship" prior to 1948.

  • Shmuel May 17, 2012 at 2:59 am

    tree,

    Were Israel to have a jus sanguinis like Italy's, one of two things could happen. Either Mandatory Palestine would be recognised as a precursor state (like the Kingdom of Italy that preceded the current Republic of Italy), and then all descendants of citizens of Mandatory Palestine or the Sttae of Israel, regardless of religion or ethnicity would be eligible to apply for citizenship on that basis, or the law would be applied only to the State of Israel, and only descendants of citizens of the State of Israel would be eligible - again, regardless of ethnicity. In either case, the law would not apply to members of the Jewish religion/ethnicity whose forebears were never citizens of Mandatory Palestine or the State of Israel.

  • Shmuel May 17, 2012 at 2:02 am

    PFP,

    Italy's jus sanguinis does not demonstrate that Italy is an "ethnically based state", because it is a function of citizenship not ethnicity, and applies equally to members of all ethnicities (whether native ethnic Albanians, Greeks, Croats, etc. or naturalised citizens of every ethnicity), and does not apply to ethnic Italians (Swiss, Greek, French, etc.) who were never citizens of Italy.

    And no, proving "one in order to make my case" is not sufficient (although so far, you have failed even to do that). You have suggested that Italy, as an "ethnically based state" is analogous to Israel. It needn't correspond exactly, but the similarity would have to be sufficient to make any substantive point. Otherwise you are just playing word games.

  • Shmuel May 16, 2012 at 3:02 am

    We should ask someone from England. That’s fairly close to what you described here. House of Lords and all that.

    Or Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland. And don't forget how the UK doesn't have a written constitution either - just like Israel!

    MHughes, Bumblebye, please explain to PFP exactly how white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant the UK is. You can do it in Urdu or Yoruba, if you like.

  • Shmuel May 16, 2012 at 2:38 am

    why make an analogy that requires some made up ethnic-nationalist form of America when you can use any modern ethnically based state instead? Use Italy or Thailand or wherever.

    Please explain how Italy is an "ethnically based state" in any way resembling the "Jewish state". Does Italy have a charter ethnic group? Is there a non-citizen ethnic Italian diaspora that enjoys more rights than Italian citizens of other ethnicities? Is there a distinction between ethnicities or religions in the repatriation of the descendants of Italian immigrants (note: with real documents proving actual birth in the country, not baptismal certificates or a letter from a parish priest in Buenos Aires or Jersey City). Are there any laws or articles in the constitution guaranteeing the "Italian character" of the state? Is there any official record of the religion or ethnicity of Italian citizens? Are Italians of different faiths/ethnicities barred from marrying one another?

    I could go on and on.

  • Shmuel May 14, 2012 at 10:47 am

    RoHa,

    On the subject of nationality and citizenship, I came across this interesting Australian document the other day: link to naa.gov.au

  • Shmuel May 12, 2012 at 5:04 pm

    It has no legitimacy in lot’s of peoples eyes just like Israel.
    That does not make it illegitimate.

    Not the same thing. My point was that your "future border point" is a bad argument. The Qalandiya checkpoint may or may not serve as an agreed upon border crossing in the future, but that has no bearing on its status now, which is by unilateral Israeli decision (in contravention of international law, but that's another story).

    That’s your conclusion.Given the recent history of negotiations which i am tired of repeating i believe that you are in the wrong about that conclusion.

    Sorry you're tired, Oleg. There may be many reasons for the failure of negotiations, but the ongoing expansion of settlements (or "facts on the ground" or "changing reality" or "actions that preclude a peaceful solution" or whatever you'd like to call it) is in fact a clear indication that Israel is not interested in reaching a negotiated settlement that would create anything resembling a viable Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza. This would be true even if Barak's "no partner" slogan were also true.

  • Shmuel May 12, 2012 at 11:05 am

    If we are to reach 2SS lines will have to be drawn somewhere ... i don’t see any reason to draw these lines in some other place just to satisfy your or somebody else’s sense of justice.

    Will have to be drawn. Future tense. Draw them anywhere you like but don't try to convince yourself or anyone else that it's OK, because that's where a "future border point" will be anyway. The checkpoint is there because Israel has the power to put it there, not because it has any sort of legitimacy.

    Until that time the situation on the ground will keep changing that’s reality for you.

    No, it's a clear indication that Israel is not interested in a negotiated solution.

  • Shmuel May 12, 2012 at 7:52 am

    Moreover Qalandya is a clear entry point into Israel as we see it.
    It will be the future border point between Israel and Palestine.

    But it is arbitrary, and it is within occupied Palestinian territory, and it does divide Palestinians from Palestinians - and even Jerusalemites from Jerusalemites (as Israel has unilaterally defined the city's municipal boundaries).

    Where the "future border point" will be, is a matter for negotiation and has no real bearing on Israel's actions in the present. One of the very worst arguments in the Israeli de facto annexation arsenal is "but it will be a part of Israel after a permanent agreement is reached".

  • Shmuel May 12, 2012 at 7:28 am

    Oleg,

    To recap, the situation is complicated, requires proper context and skin in the game ("the right to talk"), and you might agree with some of the criticism but feel that you have to defend your country.

    And you say you come here to challenge and be challenged? That's not what it sounds like to me.

  • Shmuel May 10, 2012 at 8:26 am

    Now you are just evading my point.

    No, I was making my own point. This is Phil's article and Phil's blog. There are any number of other ideas he could have expressed and comparisons he could have made, but didn't. He chose to highlight this aspect of reality. On your blog, you may highlight whatever aspects of reality you choose, and I promise not to complain about what you could have written but didn't.

    it’s quite refreshing not being compared to a Nazi in every other sentence.

    I find most Nazi comparisons pointless, but I'm guessing you don't come here for the Gemütlichkeit ;-)

  • Shmuel May 10, 2012 at 8:06 am

    Why not compare the slums of Beer Sheva or Dimona with the cultural center of Ramallah, that would also make an interesting comparison.

    Yes it would (as would an article comparing the sumptuous villas of Asmara and the slums of Rome). Be sure to send us the link when you've written it and posted it at your blog.

  • Shmuel May 10, 2012 at 7:49 am

    Phil could have mentioned...

    He could also have mentioned that an x-hour drive/sail/flight would have taken him to Al-Araqib or Biram or Khan Yunis - or Famagusta or Crete or Ismailia - but none of those were the subjects of his article.

  • Shmuel May 10, 2012 at 6:37 am

    The opinions of Bill as presented by Phil (no pun intended)
    are very naive and very one sided i am sure you have noticed that.

    Phil and Bill do take a side, but that is not the same as being one-sided, and may or may not be rooted in naivete. From the good deal we know about Phil and the little he has told us about Bill, I don't think that's the case here.

    I remember a TV interview with Gideon Levy, in which he was asked why his reporting is so "one-sided", and whether he does not see that Israelis are also victims of violence and injustice. He answered that his decision to focus on the injustices suffered by Palestinians stemmed both from the fact that these injustices are far greater than those suffered by Israelis, and from the fact that they are severely under-reported in the Israeli media, relative to the problems of Israelis.

    As for your accusation of "orientalism", you misunderstand both the term and Phil's style. He was not romanticising Palestinians, but was using the image of the waitress (not the actual person - who may very well have been a regular at the Bilin protests, as you say) to represent the very real and present dissonance between artsy, sexy Jaffa and brutal, cold Qalandiya. It's very effective writing.

  • Shmuel May 10, 2012 at 5:29 am

    Oleg,

    I'm fully aware of the shades of grey, as are Phil and Bill, I'm sure. I was not so much mocking you as the propagandist's meme that the situation is ever so complicated, and that those who take a contrary position are naive or unfamiliar with the reality on the ground.

    I think my "straw man" is a fair interpretation of some of the things you've written here (including your suggestion that Phil would have felt differently had he been to Nablus in 2002 - in other words, he doesn't really know what the Palestinians are like, and why Israel is "forced" to behave as it does).

    In real life, you may be a reasonable and open-minded person, but the positions you present here are, for the most part, those of a belligerent apologist. So yes, in a sense, I am engaging in dialogue with an imagined opponent.

  • Shmuel May 9, 2012 at 11:52 am with 14 replies

    Yes, it's all so complicated, and westerners are so naive. They mean well, the poor dears, but their grasp of the world is so black-and-white. They just don't understand the myriad shades of grey that make up reality beyond their comfortable existences. Yet they presume to judge us. How dare they! If only they could see the things that we've seen, experience the things that we've experienced. Then they'd know that the Middle East is not "uptown" or even "midtown", that here it's kill or be killed, oppress or be oppressed. How can we possibly hope to compete with romantic notions of occupation and resistance, imperialism and liberation, apartheid and democracy?

    The best we can do is "rebrand" and hope for the best, Oleg. Try to tap into their simple binary minds and make them believe that we wear the white hats on this frontier. They're so gullible, it might just work.

• 'Death of a Salesman' came out of an intermarriage
  • Shmuel May 8, 2012 at 12:25 pm

    "The Avengers"? "Iron Man"?

  • Shmuel May 8, 2012 at 12:05 pm with 9 replies

    Sorry. I stand corrected.

  • Shmuel May 8, 2012 at 11:10 am with 12 replies

    By whatever means, I had somehow arrived at the psychological role of mediator between the Jews and America, and among Americans themselves as well ... I had the wish, if not yet the conviction, that art could express the universality of human beings, their common emotions and ideas.

    I think there is a difference between the "psychological role of mediator", which necessarily demands varying degrees of belonging to both sides of the divide (more on one side if the "mediation" is one-sided, as in Miller's case), and the idea of universality which can be found in all great works of art - as immersed as they may be in a single culture, because ultimately the human experience is one. Is Death of a Salesman itself any less universal because it is a product of American culture of a certain era? Would it have been less universal if the cultural milieu of its characters had been explicitly Jewish? Are the works of Ibsen or Chekhov (or Sophocles or Molière) any less universal for their specific cultural contexts?

• It's Good to be the King: Netanyahu scraps elections, buys off opposition and cements power with new unity gov't
  • Shmuel May 9, 2012 at 3:04 am

    BTW The Knesset passed a bill to suspend the Knesset BEFORE this little fiasco.

    Only the first of three readings. Kadimah requested a postponement of the 2nd and 3rd readings, while negotiations were going on.

• High Court refuses Israeli gov't petition on Ulpana, will the repercussions be felt in the Israeli elections?
  • Shmuel May 8, 2012 at 4:09 pm

    I don’t know that this one does either.

    And another nice try, Fred. It's in the bill (see Haaretz link above). I never implied that it was anything other than a bill. You were the one who said that it is comparable to US law. It's not.

    Legal experts in Israel's own justice ministry have said that the proposed law is "unconstitutional, immoral and impossible". Why do you feel the need to tie yourself into a pretzel to defend it?

  • Shmuel May 8, 2012 at 2:44 pm with 4 replies

    Hold onto your hat, we have those laws in America. It’s called “adverse possession”.

    Wow, Fred. All other things being equal (which they're not of course), I presume US laws don't stipulate the religion of said possessors/squatters (as in "Jewish residential neighbourhood").

    Nice try though.

  • Shmuel May 8, 2012 at 2:48 am

    In other news, the coalition has presented 3 new bills, that would:

    1) Increase benefits for settlements.
    2) Cut social benefits (unemployment, disability, old-age pensions, etc.) for those convicted of "security offences".
    3) Ban the sale of fruit-flavoured tobacco (of the kind used for narghileh) - no more toofah bahreini for you!

  • Shmuel May 8, 2012 at 2:30 am

    You're welcome. Now that the elections have been called off, some sort of HCJ-bypass to pull Netanyahu's chestnuts out of the fire (or keep them in there, depending on your perspective) is far more likely.

    It also said in the article that the Justice Ministry is not happy about the bill:

    Such legislation is strongly opposed by Justice Ministry officials. In all of the discussions so far, the legal experts have said that such a step would be unconstitutional, immoral and impossible. Maybe now, Netanyahu will listen to the State Attorney's Office. Haaretz has discovered that in the three meetings chaired by Netanyahu prior to the formulation of the state's position to be presented to the HCJ, Osnat Mandel, head of the State Attorney's HCJ department, said that the judges would reject the request, based on the ruling on Migron in March and, as we know, that is exactly what happened.

  • Shmuel May 8, 2012 at 1:10 am with 5 replies

    can you link to it shmuel?

    link to haaretz.co.il

  • Shmuel May 7, 2012 at 6:04 pm with 15 replies

    On the High Court bypass legislation favoured by a number of ministers in Netanyahu's government (from Haaretz Hebrew edition):

    According to the bill, if a Jewish residential neighbourhood was established on land the legal owners of which did not demand its removal within four years of its establishment - the homes will not be removed. Rather, the bill allows the court to award the claimant to ownership of the land monetary compensation or nearby land of similar value. In the explanation accompanying the bill, Orlev, Elkin and 18 other MKs noted that the law would only apply to neighbourhoods numbering at least 20 families. They said that "a balance must be struck between the interests of the owner, who should be fully compensated, and the public interest of unnecessarily [sic] avoiding the destruction of communities established in good faith and without the knowledge that the land was privately owned."

    The bill is, of course, as unlawful, immoral and transparent as the government's appeal on the grounds of "broader social implications", with the difference that - if passed into law - the court would be forced to uphold it or to rule it unconstitutional, something that Gronis' High Court is unlikely to do, especially during election season. As the JP points out, it remains to be seen whether there is enough support for the bill to get it passed in special session during the election recess.

• Operation Glass Houses: IDF agent provocateurs admit to throwing stones at the IDF in Bilin
  • Shmuel May 7, 2012 at 11:10 am

    Two related stories involving "mista'arvim" units (Masada and Duvdevan):

    link to haaretz.com

    link to haaretz.com

• Palestinian students at Israeli college say they were forced to stand to honor war dead
  • Shmuel May 7, 2012 at 6:14 pm

    These incident of forcing palestinians to commemorate their own oppressors and the killers of their ancestors, is like asking Indian tribes to commemorate Custer’s “Last stand”.

    Or to recognise the United States as "the nation state of the European People".

  • Shmuel May 7, 2012 at 6:08 pm

    Congratulations, Oleg. That's the slimiest comment I've seen here in a while.

  • Shmuel May 7, 2012 at 10:05 am

    Thanks, Citizen.

  • Shmuel May 7, 2012 at 6:30 am

    No need to apologise, Freddy. The two commemorations are intentionally connected and confounded by the keepers of Jewish Israeli memory.

    My grandfather's entire family was murdered in the Holocaust, but I do not consider the day established by the Knesset or the rituals and ceremonies ostensibly held in their honour on that day an appropriate way of commemorating their lives and deaths. On the contrary, I am deeply offended by the ways in which their memory has been expropriated and exploited by Israel and the Zionist movement.

  • Shmuel May 7, 2012 at 5:04 am with 14 replies

    Freddy and "unverified",

    "Yom Hazikaron" means "memorial day" in Hebrew, and Israel has two separate memorial days - one for the victims of the Holocaust (often simply called "Yom ha-Shoah", although its official name is "Yom ha-zikaron la-Shoah ve-la-gvurah" - "Memorial day for the Holocaust and heroism") and the other for those killed during military service (including pre-state militias, police and fire-fighters) and victims of terrorism (generally "Yom ha-zikaron"; officially "Yom ha-zikaron le-hallalei milhamot Yisrael u-le-nifge'ei pe'ulot ha-eivah" - "Memorial day for the fallen of Israel's wars and victims of hostile actions"). To add to the confusion, the two days are about a week apart.

    The incident Annie describes occurred on the day that commemorates Israel's fallen soldiers - including the Zionist fighters killed while ethnically cleansing the Arab students' own families. The actions of the college are thus reminiscent of efforts to force Palestinian citizens of Israel to recognise Israel Independence Day as a day of celebration, rather than a day of death, destruction and mourning.

    Were the college actually interested in respecting the sensibilities of all students, rather than merely forcing Zionism down the throats of its Palestinian students, there are any number of ways in which it could have marked the day.

  • Shmuel May 7, 2012 at 3:18 am

    Western Galilee College is located just north of Acre, in the vicinity of the ethnically-cleansed village of al-Manshiyya.

    Acre:
    link to palestineremembered.com

    al-Manshiyya:
    link to palestineremembered.com

• Who's the anti-Semite?
  • Shmuel May 18, 2012 at 4:46 am

    Then why do both countries have ANY examples of ethnic-nationalist policies in their law books whatsoever?

    You have failed to give any examples of ethnic-nationalist legislation in Italy (as Hostage and I have explained, Italy's jus sanguinis has no basis whatsoever in ethnicity), let alone demonstrate that Italy is an "ethnically based state". And once again, finding a single example of legislation somehow associated with ethnicity hardly proves that ethnicity is a defining, founding or organising principle - as is clearly the case with the "nation state of the Jewish people".

    So what is your point, beyond a little semantic quibbling?

• I always knew Nana was Jewish, but it only came up once
  • Shmuel May 8, 2012 at 11:27 am

    so the trend that beinart would encourage in Liberal Zionism Crisis is actually one that’s peaked and will fade?

    I don't know whether it's peaked or not. It may still be growing for all I know (Beinart's concerns notwithstanding). My point was that it wasn't always so. Public school attendance used to be the norm for North American Jews of all backgrounds. My parents' generation saw the development of Jewish elementary schools, the generation between theirs and mine Jewish high schools, and my generation almost universal attendance of Jewish schools among the Orthodox and traditional, as well as a growing variety of Jewish educational options.

    There are all sorts of reasons behind these trends - social, economic, religious, political, etc. I wouldn't take statistics regarding Jewish school attendance in the 1930s - whether from Germany or the US - as an indicator, in and of itself, of assimilation.

  • Shmuel May 8, 2012 at 9:54 am

    If the 20% refers to those attending all-Jewish parochial schools, I doubt the statistic was any higher (and it was probably considerably lower) for Jews in the United States during the same period.

    What is now referred to as the "day school" movement is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until at least the 1950s (a little earlier for primary education; a little earlier for boys than for girls), even most Orthodox Jews in the US attended public schools. Jewish education was, for the most part, acquired at the synagogue and at home, from parents or private tutors.

  • Shmuel May 8, 2012 at 8:33 am

    the greater assimilation of Italian Jews during that period

    My father-in-law was forced into hiding during the German occupation of Rome, but the wound that never healed was his expulsion from school - at the hands of his own government - and being told that he was not an Italian. It is that sense of betrayal and estrangement that led him to become a Zionist and eventually to settle in Israel. The bitter irony is that he was more of a foreigner and an outsider in Israel than he ever was in Italy. When he turned his hand to poetry (after 40 years in Israel), the words flowed in the Roman dialect of the poets Belli, Trilussa and Pascarella.

  • Shmuel May 7, 2012 at 3:02 am

    Charlie Parker turned me into a jazz lover. I was already a human being and an Israeli Jew, as well as a whole lot of other things.

• Feminist scholar Katherine Franke refuses to be pawn in Oren's equality game
  • Shmuel May 5, 2012 at 1:39 pm

    Wow. I didn't think I'd get an opportunity so soon!

    Terry,

    See Katherine Franke's excellent response to the Equality Forum's decision to make Israel this year's featured country, and Michael Oren its keynote speaker:
    Video: link to mondoweiss.net
    Transcript: link to blogs.law.columbia.edu

    What Franke says, in a nutshell, is that
    

    gay rights and human rights more broadly are necessarily connected to one another, and treating one domestic minority well does not excuse or diminish the immorality of the state’s other rights-abridging policies.

    Thanks for bringing it up.

  • Shmuel May 5, 2012 at 12:50 pm

    I agree, David. I know what I'm linking to, the next time the subject comes up (if someone else doesn't beat me to it).

    I especially liked this part:

    While it may seem natural for gays to side with Israel, after all they have such good gay rights laws, this support reflects a major weakness of so many human rights movements that tend to prioritize their own struggles without considering the ways in which all forms of discrimination are linked. In Israel/Palestine gay rights and human rights more broadly are necessarily connected to one another, and treating one domestic minority well does not excuse or diminish the immorality of the state’s other rights-abridging policies. Had South Africa enacted good gay rights laws during the Apartheid era no one would have seen that as excusing their treatment of black and colored people. For this reason I have chosen to honor PQBDS’s request that we boycott the Equality Forum.

• The Methodist conference: Let’s call this victory what it is
  • Shmuel May 5, 2012 at 3:47 am

    but that is out of historical ignorance

    Fred,

    In your triumphalist zeal, you've included one culture that probably never existed (and an individual member who almost certainly never existed), and another that is still going strong, although its attitude to heretics has softened considerably in recent centuries.

    Besides, as Israel's eternal nemesis, Amalek will (by definition) continue to exist for as long as Jewish culture or parts of Jewish culture preserves the concept.

• Michael Sfard: 'The Israeli government has declared war against the rule of law'
  • Shmuel May 5, 2012 at 3:38 am with 1 replies

    Samuel,

    The West Bank is not Texas or Canada; it is defined, according to international law, as occupied territory. The occupation authorities may thus expropriate land for one of two purposes: military use or the benefit of the occupied population. It may not expropriate land for the benefit of its own citizens. Furthermore, the Israeli government has not expropriated the land (it used to care about such "niceties", at least pro forma) on which Ulpana was built , but has merely asked the court to ignore the law and to take (illegal) political considerations into account when reaching its decisions. The government knows full well that this is not a "zoning" issue, and that property "disputes" are (at least in theory) decided by the courts on the basis of law, not "broad social implications" (i.e. the government's coalition concerns and illegal ideological and geopolitical aspirations).

    Your "forwarded argument" ("The rights of the individual must be balanced with the rights of Government to act in the best interests of its Citizens.") displays either complete ignorance of circumstances in the OPT, or complete dishonesty.

• Israel destroys dairy farm in occupied Palestine
  • Shmuel May 4, 2012 at 6:14 am with 1 replies

    Let me guess, farm was built on public land?

    No, let me guess. High radon levels were discovered in the area, and the Israeli occupation authorities decided to demolish the farm (for the owners' own good) and rebuild it at no charge in a safer spot. Or maybe they just wanted to build a nicer barn for these Palestinian families. Or maybe the land was needed to build a school and a hospital for Palestinians in the area - public services on public land for the benefit of the occupied population. Or maybe the family was given double the value of the farm as compensation and a free weekend in Eilat for their trouble. The possibilities are really endless. There are (at least) two sides to every story. Can anyone prove that any of these theories are wrong? There you have it.

• Dershowitz gets booed for warning Israel supporters not to boo Obama
  • Shmuel May 2, 2012 at 11:19 am

    I think this is about hubris

    I agree, and I think it is also what lies at the heart of what Diskin called Netanyahu and Barak's "messianism", and what's been bugging Israel's generals and chief spooks about the country's political leadership for quite some time.

    I don't know whether it's been translated, but there's a good article in today's Haaretz, by Reuven Pedatzur, on Israel's "third generals' rebellion".

• United Methodist Church rejects divestment
  • Shmuel May 3, 2012 at 3:32 am with 3 replies

    The bottom line is, the evil of what’s being done to the Palestinians happens because that’s what the majority of israelis want to see happen.

    A few days ago, Enrico Mentana - one of Italy's leading mainstream media figures (former news director at Berlusconi's main TV channel, current director of news at the relatively independent La7) - said the following, at the Jewish Book Festival in Ferrara:

    The people of a country are responsible for the actions of the government they elect. This was true of the Germans with Nazism, and of the Italians with Fascism. The same goes for Israel.... Israel is a democracy, not the expression of a putschist government. That is why I hold its population responsible, just as I hold the Italian population during Fascism responsible.... In Italy, Fascism was not a matter of a few Avanguardisti*; there was very broad support - just as the Hitlerian dream elicited widespread enthusiasm in Germany.

    At the same event, another mainstream media figure, Sergio Romano (editorialist at the large daily Corriere della Sera, author, former senior diplomat), had a similar but slightly different take:

    Israel is a democracy, like Great Britain in colonial times. Secular Zionism uses religious Zionism in order to attain [its own] geopolitical goals. How long can this contradiction last?

    Mentana also went on to criticise the "monolithic support of many Jewish communities for Israeli policies". Needless to say, the sponsors of the event were not particularly pleased.

    * Members of the Fascist youth organisation.

• Video: #Flagwoman protester raises Palestinian flag on Israeli military vehicle outside Ofer prison
  • Shmuel May 2, 2012 at 3:40 am

    Welcome to the planet Palestine, Samuel, of which we have no prior knowledge, no context and no history. All we have is 1 minute and 41 seconds of edited video, which we can only compare to situations with which we may be familiar from our own worlds, but not our experiences in Palestine itself - of which we have none. The clip is edited; therefore it must be propaganda. There is no other plausible explanation. And all who accept it at face value must be biased, because they could not possibly have the necessary information and cognitive tools to process these images taken in such a distant galaxy.

    Live long and prosper, Samuel T.

• Beinart's Blindspot: Israel has always been a non-democratic apartheid state
  • Shmuel May 1, 2012 at 4:50 pm

    Beinart is imagining undoing the occupation. Since israel existed from 48 to 67 in precisely that state, it is an easier imagination.

    Except for the martial law that Palestinians lived under from 1948 until the end of 1966, highly discriminatory property laws and resource allocation policies, a tightly-controlled Arab education system, military censorship of the Arabic press and lack of independent political representation. In other words: occupation.

    Call it reformist or revolutionary, but what Beinart is trying to imagine (an Israel without occupation) has never existed before, and pretending that it did prior to '67 is extremely unhelpful, and a major obstacle to creating such an entity (see e.g. Yehouda Shenhav, "Time of the Green Line"). Beinart's point of departure is certainly internal, but he needs to listen to fewer Israeli leftists and more Palestinians if he really wants to make a difference.

  • Shmuel April 30, 2012 at 12:36 pm

    It's a brilliant slight of hand to deny the vote to people who aren't present on election day because they've been expelled.

    Another good one is to deny people the rights of natural-born citizens because you expelled them and changed the name of the country - granting the new kind of citizenship only to those physically present in the country on a given day. Except for - and here's the real kicker - all Jews and their relatives, Palestinian citizens or not, previously resident in Palestine or not, born Jewish or converted, who could mosey on down and collect their "Israeli" citizenship any time they liked (and still can).

    But pre-67 Israel (at least after martial law for Palestinian Israelis was lifted on 8 November 1966) did treat all those whom it allowed to become citizens equally (except when it didn't). After all (and liberal Zionists seem to like this bit), it says so in Israel's [non-binding and never-respected] Declaration of Independence.

    When it comes to democratic sleight of hand, Israel is second to none - not like those amateurs who thought that they could fool people by simply calling themselves "democratic republics".

• Major olive producing village ordered to uproot 1,400 trees by May 1
  • Shmuel May 16, 2012 at 2:22 pm

    Really? Huh ... Like what?

    You might want to check out Adalah's latest Inequality Report (March 2011), which refers to "more than 30 main laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel": link to adalah.org

    Also, have a look at Special Report: 10 Discriminatory Laws (June 2010) and
    April and June 2011 updates (2011 was a busy year for anti-democratic legislation):
    link to adalah.org
    link to adalah.org
    link to adalah.org

  • Shmuel May 10, 2012 at 2:56 am

    Actually, that definition won’t work. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians are racial groups.

    "Race" is a tricky concept, and some anthropologists will even tell you that there is no such thing. Fortunately for us, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination has defined "racial discrimination" as pertaining to "race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin". That should cover the differences between Israeli Jews and those eligible to become Israeli citizens according to the law of return on the one hand, and Palestinians on the other.

    The Convention does exclude "citizenship" from its definition, but citing that distinction in Israel's case is rather cynical (beyond the fact that the distinction is in fact between Jews [and their relatives] and non-Jewish Palestinians, rather than citizens and non-ctizens), as the Yishuv ethnically cleansed Palestine and created a new kind of citizenship specifically designed to exclude the ethnically cleansed non-Jewish population.

    Areas under Israeli control basically comprise two systems. Both systems entail elements of colonialism and apartheid, although not to the same degree. As others have pointed out, South Africa was both colonialist and apartheid - both within its sovereign borders and in the territory it occupied in Namibia. There is no inherent contradiction between the two terms.

  • Shmuel May 1, 2012 at 12:11 pm

    Thank you, that info is what I’ve been asking for.

    Your selective reading skills are quite something, Fred. These people have had part of their land stolen and given to settlers, their water supply and valley polluted (by the very same “effective government” so concerned by the effects of traditional agriculture on the local ecosystem) killing more of their trees and forcing them to move, have been the victims of settler harassment, were unilaterally told that they could not plant trees on their own land and ordered to uproot what they had planted (repeat: on their own land) in the name of “nature conservation” - when settlers were allowed to actually build homes (on both “legal” settlements and “outposts”) as well as a road within the very same “nature reserve”, and all you take away from this is “the Palestinians were on notice”?

    Your challenge to the moderators is touching, but what you are doing is dishonest trolling, and deserves to be blocked.

  • Shmuel May 1, 2012 at 12:09 pm

    Or should they just let every random Palestinian build whatever they want, wherever they want without any zoning laws or regulations?

    Yep, just good government at the service of all residents of the OT, settlers and Palestinians alike. Just like any other "civilised country". Yesiree, those Israelis sure know how to keep "random" Palestinians from building "whatever they want".

    After you've finished reading the B'tselem links I provided above (be sure not to miss "Under the Guise of Legality”), here's a little something on zoning and planning in the OT (I know, the title is something of a spoiler):

    "The Prohibited Zone: Israeli planning policy in the Palestinian villages in Area C" (Bimkom, June 2008): link to eng.bimkom.org

  • Shmuel May 1, 2012 at 3:43 am with 35 replies

    It is nature conservation, possibly with some eminent domain thrown in.

    And you would know this how? It seems you've done as much research as asherpat. The only piece of actual information you have comes from an article I provided that you obviously haven't read, but you know that "it is nature conservation" and you feel confident enough to throw around terms like "eminent domain".

    The story is (according to the Hebrew Haaretz article I cited above and other sources) that Israel declared the Wadi Qana area a nature reserve in the 1970s, allowing Palestinian farmers to continue to work their land within the reserve, but not to extend cultivation, regardless of ownership. Israel proceeded to build settlements all around the designated area (on both private and "state" land), polluting most of the springs in the area with untreated sewage, forcing hundreds of Palestinian farmers to leave the valley itself and move to the village of Deir Istiya. The settlements and "outposts" have been allowed to expand unchecked into the reserve, including the paving of a road. Palestinians on the other hand, have been constantly harassed both by settlers and the Civil Administration - prevented from planting, protecting their trees or adequately using the little unpolluted water left in the previously (i.e. before it was declared a "nature reserve" and trashed by the Israeli authorities) pristine valley.

    There is nothing new or exceptional about Israel's selective use of planning and zoning to prevent Palestinian construction (while favouring Jewish construction), agriculture and life. The Shahak Industrial Zone, for example (not far from Wadi Qana) was built inside another "nature reserve", in which any Palestinian construction is met with demolition and fines.

    But don't let reality get in your way. Continue assuming and presuming and throwing the words "possibly" and "some" in from time to time so you never actually have to provide any facts, evidence or links. You know that Israel is always right and "civilised" and besmirched, and that's all that matters.

  • Shmuel April 30, 2012 at 7:59 am

    So come-on, humiliate me with facts, show me how the Zionists are unfair – answers the above questions.

    No thanks, I'm good. But feel free to present any substantial arguments you may have against the facts presented in Allison's report.

  • Shmuel April 30, 2012 at 4:16 am

    Anyone interested to understand the ‘Israel side of the story’ on how Israel uses planning laws to perpetrate and conceal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians should read Israeli activist Jeff Halper’s great book ‘An Israeli in Palestine’.

    Or Akiva Eldar and Idit Zertal's Lords of the Land, or many other excellent and thoroughly researched publications. The information is all there, if one is interested in such "trivial" matters as truth and facts. Even Pliah Albeck, one of the main architects of Israel's "legal" framework for the theft of Palestinian land, admitted that her goal was to secure as much land as possible for Jewish settlement, employing whatever legal excuses and inventions she could devise.

  • Shmuel April 30, 2012 at 4:07 am

    On the subject of "legal" mechanisms employed by Israel to dispossess Palestinians in the OPT, you might also want to have a look at B'tselem's recent report, "Under the Guise of Legality" (March 2012):
    link to btselem.org

    Or not.

  • Shmuel April 30, 2012 at 3:54 am

    Asher,

    You are right that the article should have provided more information, such as the specific reason given by the Civil Administration for the order to uproot trees on privately-owned Palestinian agricultural land, and how it fits into ongoing efforts to reduce the Palestinian presence in Area C and expand the land reserves available for illegal Jewish settlement.

    You are also right that you can (I presume your typo means "can" and not "can't") conduct your own research. I did, when I felt the story was incomplete - going to the IWPS site, looking at the original order posted there, and finding the Hebrew Ha'aretz article I linked to above, the B'tselem report that explains the use of "nature reserves" to keep Palestinians off their land, and a lot of other things I didn't link to. I did all of this before commenting. You could and should have done the same - especially since you wished to challenge the story and call the author of the article and her sources liars. You could also simply have read my links.

    The question of "relative" damage that you find so crucial to the story (despite the fact that an easy search will tell you that 1,400 trees can produce thousands of litres of oil - a significant amount by any but the very largest agribusiness standards), requires a little bit more effort, but can also be worked out based on the information provided in the article regarding cultivated areas, etc. But you didn't need to do any of that, because you were not interested "in the other side of the story", seeking only to cast aspersions on this "side of the story", talking about "lies" and "damn lies" when you had no idea of the truth of the matter, and couldn't even be bothered to click a link to find out.

    I know that propagandists will tell you that it is enough merely to cast aspersions and sow doubt, without any consideration for the truth, but that's not the kind of reputation you want to develop here, is it?

  • Shmuel April 29, 2012 at 3:53 pm

    what about “Amal described them as ancient growth, “1,000 years old,” stemming from the Roman period”?

    No, those were her uncle's trees that have already been uprooted.

    In Amal's family, Israeli authorities uprooted 300 trees of her 83-year old uncle's land. Amal described them as ancient growth, "1,000 years old," stemming from the Roman period.

    The subject of the article - the trees that the villagers have been ordered to uproot by the end of the month are described as follows:

    Most of the trees were planted approximately 5 years ago on privately owned Palestinian property.

    You could at least have read the article properly before casting baseless aspersions. On second thought, why bother?

  • Shmuel April 29, 2012 at 1:25 pm with 15 replies

    Where are the "lies" and the "damn lies" here, asher?

    I assume you read Hebrew. The IWPS link has an image of one of the nine orders, which cites "about 150 young trees", in inspector Amnon's very own hand (said inspector apparently has no surname). Multiply "about 150" by 9, and the number 1,400 sounds about right. Do you have any reason to doubt any of this information? Any specific information to the contrary?

    Oh, and 1,400 trees are a lot.

  • Shmuel April 28, 2012 at 11:53 am with 3 replies

    One wonders, what justification, what authority other than the usual “barrel of a gun”, Israel can have for thus interfering with the economic and traditional lives of these people.

    The justification this time is "illegal presence in a nature reserve" (Nahal Qana Nature Reserve) - one of the many "legal" excuses Israel has used to steal Palestinian land and livelihood. See e.g. "Closing land classified as nature reserves", in "Dispossession and Exploitation: Israel’s Policy in the Jordan Valley and Northern Dead Sea (B'tselem, May 2011), p. 15: link to btselem.org

    Needless to say, the Civil Administration has no interest in the numerous settler incursions into the Nahal Qana Reserve (including construction). In October 2011, Dror Etkes (former researcher for Peace Now's "Settlement Watch") counted nine such incursions by settlements and outposts in the area.

    For background on the ongoing battle over Palestinian-owned agricultural land in Wadi Qana, see link to haaretz.co.il (Hebrew, sorry).

• 'Washington Post' cartoon mocking future Palestinian state signals crumbling of two-state paradigm
  • Shmuel April 27, 2012 at 3:13 pm

    Mr. Abbas, Mr. Netanyahu, could you look this way please. Thank you. Now say "cheese".

• Shades of Birmingham-- Independence Day attacks on African refugees in South Tel Aviv
  • Shmuel April 27, 2012 at 11:50 am

    As long as the police protected "the public" from those dangerous Zochrot people and their nefarious reading.

• Yoffie rallies American Jews to determine 'character of the Jewish state' without a word about our obligations as American citizens
  • Shmuel April 28, 2012 at 3:59 pm with 2 replies

    Reminds me of this recent, Beinart-related post, by Jerry Haber (Magnes Zionist): link to jeremiahhaber.com

    Which brings me to the “place of refuge” dogma: If Israel exists as a physical refuge to ensure the survival of the Jewish people, then it has failed miserably in that respect. We are told by Israel’s leaders that the Jewish state is, or soon will be, under an existential threat from Iran, or from terrorism. If this is true, then will some one please tell me how Israel is a safer refuge for the Jews than, say, the United States, or even, Europe? More Jews have died because of the Israel-Arab conflict since 1945 than as a result of all other anti-Jewish behavior combined since 1945. And since much of the new anti-Semitism is correlated to Israel’s actions, not only is Israel a dangerous place for Jews living within its borders, it isn’t so good for the physical safety of Jews outside it either.

    Haber also rejects the claim that "a nation state and an army" are necessary for the perpetuation of Jewish culture.

  • Shmuel April 28, 2012 at 4:52 am with 5 replies

    Zionism bestows upon Jews everywhere a role in determining the character of the Jewish state. Final authority rests with Israel's citizens, whether Jewish or not. But Israel is not primarily the state of Israelis; it is the state of the Jewish people.

    And I'm sure Yoffie would take umbrage at calling Israel an ethnocracy, yet that is precisely what he has described (despite his parenthetical concession to "final authority"): "Israel is not primarily the state of Israelis [demos]; it is the state of the Jewish people [ethnos]."

• Barak told Clinton about plans to Judaize Jerusalem
  • Shmuel April 26, 2012 at 9:47 am

    And Palestinian negotiators got that, which is why they responded to the "Clinton Parameters" as follows:

    We wish to explain why the latest United States proposals, taken together and as presented without clarification, fail to satisfy the conditions required for a permanent peace. As it stands now, the United States proposal would ... divide Palestinian Jerusalem into a number of unconnected islands separate from each other and from the rest of Palestine ...

    link to nad-plo.org

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