Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 12 (since 2009-08-08 19:03:26)

soysauce

Palestinian-American activist and contributor to Daily Kos.

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  • Abunimah highlights 'turning point' boycott conference
    • soysauce February 6, 2012 at 12:19 pm with 1 replies

      J Street has no interest in doing anything that will be effective ending injustice against the Palestinians. Its only interest is to save Israel from "the demographic threat" of maintaining the occupation. In their view, BDS and the UPenn conference are "a convenient mantle for thinly disguised anti-Semitism." link to jstreet.org

      Palestinians don't need allies like this. If that makes me a rejectionist, so be it.

  • New additions to the Mondoweiss comments policy
  • Why I’m in favor of going to the UN: A response to Joseph Massad
    • soysauce September 20, 2011 at 10:33 am

      Let's hope they fail well.

    • soysauce September 19, 2011 at 10:43 am with 6 replies

      How is the PLO making this move? Abbas and company are still working with Israel on security, for Christ of Nazareth's sake! The refugees in Lebanon do not have a voice in this process, the activists in Nabi Saleh do not have a say in this process, you in Israel have no say, I in the diaspora have no say. Is this the state we want? One built on authoritarianism and secrecy. You can't convince me that this is going anywhere.

      In 1993, we saw Arafat's moves in signing the Oslo Accords as seeking his own survival against a very powerful grassroots movement in the first intifada. Abbas is doing the same here to reclaim power.

    • soysauce September 19, 2011 at 10:23 am with 9 replies

      Simone, anything that strengthens the Palestinian Authority over civil society is a step backward. I don't trust any move they make.

  • 'Arab Sources' on Mondoweiss
    • soysauce September 13, 2011 at 11:01 am with 2 replies

      Dearest Simone, Very happy that this community will now benefit from the insights and knowledge I have benefited from over the last three years on Daily Kos. Your friendship and support have made me a better and stronger activist. Thanks for everything.

  • EU envoy sticks a fork in 2SS
  • 'It is ethnic cleansing'
  • The handshake on the White House lawn
    • soysauce November 16, 2010 at 2:49 pm

      This is a real possibility. The 1993 handshake stripped Palestinians of the momentum of the first intifada. It took two decades for BDS to rejuvenate the movement. I'm not ready to wait another 20 years for this movement to make progress.

  • Report from Gaza: 'The current situation is much worse than the crisis of 1948'
    • soysauce January 29, 2010 at 3:22 pm

      Thanks for your account of events.

      The situation the morning that the buses left Cairo was confusing. You report the following:

      Hedy Epstein, the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor from St. Louis, was brought out to make a grand speech. She wanted us to know that she was staying and the rest of us should too! In Barnabe Geisweiller’s summary of the trip, Hedy Epstein is quoted as saying: “I’m determined to go to Gaza."

      It was completely confusing. And I don’t know who to blame.

      Hedy was not brought out to make a grand speech. She (along the friends from St. Louis, including me) made a decision not to participate in the sweetheart deal offered by Suzanne Mubarak the night before the buses left Cairo. She drafted a short statement that she read that morning. Code Pink was not happy with her decision.

      Her statement read:

      "As much as I yearn to go to Gaza, I have decided not to join those 100
      of you who are going. Here are my reasons for the most difficult and heart-rending decision I have made in my life. The goal of this March is to break the siege of Gaza, 1400 people died in Gaza last year at this time, 1400 people should be marching to Gaza now. In the last few days, we witnessed the effects of an authoritarian government. This repression transcends the Egyptian government. The U.S. government and the Israeli government are also responsible for the siege of Gaza.

      I will not be complicit.

      My work to free the one and a half million of Gaza continues as before."

      Barnabe Geisweiller's quote from Hedy may have been from an earlier date.

  • Somehow I doubt it's a hatchet job
    • soysauce January 16, 2010 at 8:56 am

      The ignorance of the history of the Jews that I encountered in Cairo while traveling with Hedy Epstein during the Gaza Freedom March astounded me. Egyptians in the hotels, on the street, and journalists interviewing Hedy would ask me: "Is her story true? It is hard to believe that humans would shove other humans into ovens to their death?"

      Other Egyptians asked me out of earshot of Hedy how it was possible to be Jewish and not Zionist. They had never encountered that possibility before.

      Hedy was treated like a star in Egypt. People on the street would stop us to talk to her. A young Egyptian couple yelled "Hedy" to her as they passed in their car. The media calls didn't stop while we were there. Every journalist wanted to know more about this Jewish woman who didn't fear the Arabs and wanted to go to Gaza.

      The curious questions and ignorant perspectives among the Egyptians shocked me because as a Palestinian American who has lived and traveled among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, this was not an attitude I encountered there. When I asked Hedy if she had heard these types of queries in her numerous trips to the West Bank, she answered unequivocally that she had not.

      The wonderful film "Salata Baladi" kept coming to mind while I was in Cairo. The film tells the story of the parents the filmmaker, Nadia Kamal--her mother an Italian Jew whose family had been in Egypt for generations and her tather an unrelenting Egyptian Communist. They grew up in an Egypt that was multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-linguistic. The creation of the state of Israel saw most of the Jews of Egypt leave for Israel. The filmmaker travels to Israel to visit some of these relatives with her mother. It is poignant to hear them reflect on their memories of growing up in Cairo and their great sense of loss for what was. The Egyptian Jews of Israel still dream in Arabic.

      Exposure and multi-culturalism are key to bridging the divides. Let's hope that borders and walls fall so that we may begin the important work of humanizing the other.

  • Self-censorship on this website
    • soysauce August 9, 2009 at 11:48 pm

      I read Rob's piece before it came down and I was blown away. I was preparing to write an appreciation to him for Daily Kos. Please tell him how powerful his story is and I hope he finds a way to share it eventually.

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