The bunker mentality or a truly democratic Israel
Peter Beinart’s essay in the New York Review of Books about the demise of liberal Zionism has caused has caused quite a stir.
Moshe Yaroni (a nom de plume) has continued the discussion on his blog, in which he says:
“Whether from a left or right wing Zionist tradition, the dividing line between the bunker mentality and the goal of making Israel a truly democratic society (something it has been much closer to being in the past but never fully attained) is what determines whether one will support Israel’s current suicidal course or work to steer it back toward the vision of its founders…They do not live in fear of a next Holocaust as their parents did, and if it does threaten to come about, they don’t believe Israel is going to be the only option… Israel’s insistence that it just needs better public relations campaigns is a dead-end”
The article is well worth a read.
Author: AJDS
Albie Sachs is one of South Africa’s heroes, a former judge of the Constitutional Court and a victim of a terror attack by agents of the old regime.
He recently made a speech about the Goldstone Affair to the Cape Town Press Club in which he said:
It’s always interesting to be in a country with at least 11 officially recognized African tribal communities, and a number of other ethno-cultural tribes including the Jewish community.
Overland magazine has been attacked by an academic ‘push’ for publishing non-mainstream opinions on the Israel-Palestine issue. Here is the AJDS response.
The Executive of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society is in broad agreement with the views expressed by Jeff Sparrow and the rest of the Overland editorial staff in the final two paragraphs of their 3 May statement titled “Overland and Bias: a response to some critics.” They wrote:
I’ve blogged an opinion piece about a ‘democratic constitution for Israel on the Galusaustralis site. The full version is also available here. I have also tried to address criticisms in the comments to the Galus article, with additional references.
David Hare is a British playwright and performer. His monologue, The Wall, was broadast on the ABC in Australia, but unfortunately, it is not available for streaming. Since he first visited Israel and the Palestinian territories to write Via Dolorosa, which the Royal Court presented over 200 times in the West End and on Broadway, David Hare has regularly been back to the region. Now he offers a searching 40-minute study of the Israel/Palestine separation barrier which will one day stretch 486 miles and be over four times as long as the Berlin Wall – and in places, twice as high (review).
A version of the monologue is available on the NYRB website. It is quite extraordinary, and try to read it aloud.
It’s remarkable that there has been little in the general press about the killing of another Palestinian protester, Ahmed Salem Deeb, by a sniper in the Gaza strip 3 days ago. It’s another case of a protester suffering from ‘overkill’ and the creation of a popular martyr.
Rudd’s backflip on the CPRS and emission trading is of a piece with his underwhelming backpedalling on child care centres, asylum seeker refugee status processing, the development of Australian Human Rights legislation, solar energy rebates and insulation roll-outs.
The following statement was issued by the AJDS’s
official spokesperson Les Rosenblatt.
The 9 April Australian government decision to stop processing the asylum/refugee entitlements of Afghanis and Sri Lankans – predominantly from the persecuted minorities of Hazaras and Tamils – combined with the threat to force their return to their countries of origin – based on completely untenable claims of “durable security” in these countries – is intolerably inhumane.
The Australian Jewish Democratic Society agrees with the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring
[Yasher koah is a traditional Hebrew expression meaning “May your strength be firm”]
Unlike the liberal Haaretz, the English-only Jerusalem Post is way to the right of Centre. These days it has only two progressive columnists left, so often, like others I miss Larry Derfner. And he is good. This one of those rare articles that comes close to a must read. Not only does he expounds on aspects of Richard Goldstone’s decision to the commission named after him that I haven’t seen before it tackles other issues as well.