The map Martha stewart is using to plan her Israel trip. See the green line? neither do we. (h/t Maureen Murphy) “Despite the horrible hurricane, a life must go on. Planning a wonderful trip to Israel!” Martha Stewart’s tweet. Haaretz says it could be soon. The Israeli Ministry of Tourism is organizing and funding the […]
and other news from Today in Palestine:
Last year, Shimon Peres famously dubbed Salaam Fayyad “the Palestinian Ben-Gurion.” Yesterday, Knesset Member Einat Wilf of the Haatzmaut, or ‘Independence’ party gushed about Fayyad during a press briefing organized by the Israel Project in Washington D.C. to derail the Palestinian push for state recognition at the UN. Wilf said the UN effort is “a […]
Reporting from Tripoli, The Wall Street Journal’s Paul Sonne and Margaret Coker reveal the depths of collusion between Colonel Qaddafi’s spooks and their foreign tech support: The recently abandoned room is lined with posters and English-language training manuals stamped with the name Amesys, a unit of French technology firm Bull SA, which installed the monitoring […]
Florida congressman Allen West just returned from a visit to Israel. He sent out a long letter to his constituents. These are extended excerpts, and boy are they wild. (Photos here. In the first one, titled The Wall, West is accompanied by a man I believe is Dan Senor.) Paragraphing below is mine. My headline […]
What is not as important as Rashid Khalidi’s restrained, but nonetheless perceptive critique of Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s trip to Israel, courtesy of AIPAC, is the fact that the Chicago Tribune elected to run it. Jackson Jr. has been one of the most unabashed supporters of Israel within the Congressional Black Caucus, at one point […]
Joseph Dana and Max Blumenthal published their promised article on the J14 protest movement, and it is disappointing. The only part of Israel they see is the Ashkenazi middle class of Tel Aviv. That, the protest of that sector, which started the #J14 events, they dismiss as nothing more than an attempt to return to the Zionism of […]
I was asked about my stance on the Israeli protest movement that has been taking place for over two weeks, and the effect of the so-called Arab Spring on these protests, and most importantly: what the role of Palestinians living in the colonial state of Israel should be in these protests. Should they join these […]
Jewish Ideas Daily has run a critical review, by Lawrence Grossman, of Jack Ross’s important new book, Rabbi Outcast. Ross responds: The review itself begins with a very intellectually dishonest premise. In the context of negotiations with Palestinian Arabs at a minimum, the demand that Israel be recognized as a “Jewish state” is entirely new […]
Writes a friend: Did you see Isabel Kershner, in this New York Times story about Israel training Jewish settlers to suppress Palestinian demonstrators, was unable to bring herself to refer to the occupied Golan Heights but instead called them disputed?
Next week the 92d Street Y will honor Donald Rumsfeld by hosting him at a panel on 9/11 10 years after, admission fee $29. Back during the Vietnam war, it would have been impossible to imagine a liberal Jewish group hosting Rob’t McNamara, but times have changed, and neoconservative support for a war against a […]
After posting Jdledell’s comment, “What I’ve Witnessed on the West Bank,” to a large response, Weiss asked Jdledell why he calls himself a Zionist and why he believes in the two state solution. His response: My posting of Israeli abuse in the Palestinian territories generated lots of commentary for and against what I wrote. Some […]
Have we started a mini-earthquake that’s headed straight for the Grey Lady’s department of propaganda? Adbusters ran my piece critiquing Bronner and Kershner’s pro-Israel bias (also in print, Aug/Sept. issue): In June of 2010, a year and a half after the Israeli military launched what a United Nations investigation described as “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed […]
Larry Derfner grew up in the U.S. and was prompted by a spirit of idealism to move to Israel. That’s my sense. Gershom Gorenberg found American society too materialistic, wanted more meaning from life; he moved to Israel too. Joel Greenberg is also a liberal writer who was called by Israel. Bradley Burston too. Bernard […]
Gary Wexler, owner of Way Beyond Branding, writing in the Forward: Yet, as strange as it may sound coming from a marketer with an advertising background, who has represented hundreds of Jewish organizations worldwide, I have arrived at the conclusion that the solution will not be found in branding, marketing, public relations or the writings of […]
Where is Israel going? Two items from the Israeli Press Review, a daily email service with translations from the Israeli press, say–more right wing and more intolerant. The items: Young Israelis hold ‘extremely rightwing’ positions, per poll; and women are tossed from artillery unit to make way for Orthodox men. (Where’s Yerushalmi, with his investigations […]
I wonder if I am being uncharitable in thinking that Larry Derfner got himself into this predicament by failing to apply moral standards consistently. Any such ethical position would, of course, have got him fired from JPost, but at least he’d have fallen more firmly on the side of human rights and international law. Derfner’s […]
From Haaretz: “According to a document acquired by Haaretz, the main working assumption of the defense establishment is that a Palestinian declaration of independence will cause a public uprising “which will mainly include mass disorder.” “The document states the disorder will include “marches toward main junctions, Israeli communities, and education centers; efforts at damaging symbols […]
Dimi Reider @+972 skewers JPost over Derfner firing stating “ultra-right writers enjoy complete unaccountability.” So the Post maintains an “egregious double-standard…in regard to conservative versus liberal opinion”. By contrast, the writings of Jerusalem Post deputy-editor Caroline Glick were cited in the manic manifesto of Norwegian terrorist Anders Brevik in justification of the bloodbath he executed […]
The Jewish Chronicle reported last week that a video made by Alan Duncan, UK minister for international development, infuriated the Israeli lobby so much that it was withdrawn from the ministry’s website. In the video Duncan said that, “The wall is a land grab. It hasn’t just gone along the lines of the proper Israel […]
From Larry Derfner’s Facebook page this morning: To everyone who’s sent me amazing support, I’m a little overwhelmed w/gratitude – I’m a little overwhelmed otherwise, too, but I’ll write more very soon. I can definitely say I’m having a better day than I was yesterday, tho that ain’t saying much. I appreciate your support more […]
Video: Daily life in Hebron: Lost two babies due to closure of Shuhada Street Uploaded by HebronVoices on Aug 27, 2011 –This video is the second part of “Visiting Our Neighbours. We published the first part earlier this month. It is an interview of a Palestinian woman living at Shohada Street in Hebron. She explains […]
More than once I’ve said that Jews need non-Jews to help us out of the mess that we made with Zionism. We need the hand of the other to overcome Bill Kristol’s bleat, Is it good for the Jews? And along with that I’ve called for American Jews to begin to have a giant foodfight […]
Last year I went on a tour of Palestinian communities inside Israel and our tour-leader Hannah Mermelstein said she would show us apartheid inside Israel. Well, here’s an article in Haaretz about a little Palestinian town outside Haifa that is so overcrowded it wants some land on which to expand. And the regional planning council […]