I urge people to read Bradley Burston in Haaretz, "This Is
What Is Wrong With The Jewish State." The article is his July
4th assessment of the present moral state of Israel. It appears that
the 42 years of occupation have removed Israel far away from the shell
of what it was supposed to be. These moral horrors that are occurring
at an ever increasing rate, directed at both non-Jews and Jews, are as
great a threat to Israel's survival than any Palestinian bomb.
write about the Palestinians needing a Martin Luther King or Mahatma
Gandhi. After reading this article, one has to wonder when the
Israelis will find theirs!
it is time for U.S. citizens who care about the preservation of
an ethical Israeli state to contact their elected officials, as well as
their President, and demand that they aggressively push Egypt and other
members of the international community to support a fair Palestinian
Unity Government and push the Israelis to get to the negotiating table
without any preconditions as quickly as possible.
Weiss: Burston is animated to examine Israeli racism, as we all are, by the election of Barack Obama, a shock of recognition felt round the world:
…Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose Palestinian recognition of
Israel as a Jewish state – or, in its more recent form, "the national
state of the Jewish People" – as a central tool in efforts to stave off
peace talks and deflect demands for a settlement freeze.Never, thanks to his government, has the concept of a Jewish state looked worse.
The
undercurrent of racism in Israel's election campaign earlier was merely
the herald of a series of ensuing legislative moves and official
declarations which have soiled the concept of a Jewish state to a nadir
that Israel's worst, most energetic enemies have never managed to
approach.But overtly anti-Israeli Arab legislation and bills
aimed at curbing Arab freedom of expression were just the beginning.
The outpouring of hatred has become an equal-opportunity sewer.Unabashed,
despicable racist attitudes directed at a black president of the United
States have spewed forth from such quarters as radical settlers and immigrants from the former Soviet Union…
The election of an African-American to the highest
office of the nation which best embodied human equality – and for much
too long, rebuffed it – is the kind of impossibility which takes minds
and souls and forever alters them.
