I’ve been searching for words to express what I see as a fault in much of the current criticism or campaigning against the occupation and other actions of Israel, because it offers no positive, detailed option for the future that brings all communities forward. This seems to be the case, for example, in the websites and publicity in Australia produced by Palestinian advocates.
Author: AJDS
In a recent report published in the Forward, Nathan Guttman reports that ‘delegitimization’ is being used at the buzz-word against critics of Israel, particularly those involved in the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement such as Naomi Klein. It is a term that has been picked up in the US and the subject of extensive study and promotion by the well-resourced and apparently influential Reut Institute in Israel, which also goes for ‘Brand Israel’ (see Tikkun Olam for Reut’s bizarre world).
The image to the right of this post is taken from the Facebook site of the Melbourne University Jewish Students Society and sent out very recently. Click on it for details. It was sent out to several hundred students. It was forwarded by a concerned member of the society.
[Middle East News Service comments: Australians have been angry at a trial in China where an Australian was tried behind closed doors. Prime Minister Rudd pointed out to China not being a democracy, the law operates differently there. I wonder what he would make of a country in which a journalist has simply disappears and a gag order has been imposed on the whole matter so that nobody knows what happened to her. Even when her trial began a few weeks back, it was still illegal to mention the very existence of the case.
Middle East News Service comments: For a few months now the Israeli Ethernet has been buzzing with mysterious rumours. I am told indirectly that there is a severe gag on mentioning a certain story in Israel. I cannot be told directly as there is a gag on the news of the gag itself. Quite apart from the gag, I have also been approached by someone’s friends with the request not to disclose any further information that I may (or may not) know. It is sufficient to say that former Haaretz Editor Hanoch Marmari probably did not write the item below for the fun of it.
[A version of this was also published in New Matilda 31 March 2010]
When I first saw Greg Sheridan’s op-ed piece , I burst out laughing, because it reminded me of capucchino froth–he sure must have been raging and frothing when he wrote this in today’s Australian:
This all might seem rather obscure in the scheme of things, but what goes on in the US bunkers is pretty relevant to the future of Israel.
Commentators are buzzing because General David Petraues, the US Chief of Staff, offered remarks about Israel as a ‘challenge’ to American interests in recent testimony to the US Senate on March 17 2010.
The remarks, contained as a ‘Posture’ of the US military central command in a document for the Senate Armed forces Commitee were as follows:
Everyday there is a new nuance, and apparently, new facts on the ground. But in fact, a lot of it is an old story, and it’s easy to get jaded and stuck in the rut.
Bitter Lemons has issued of the best 800kb of readings that you can get–readings over the past 5 years from many people with a wide variety of Palestinian and Israeli perspectives.
Everyday there is a new nuance, and apparently, new facts on the ground. But in fact, a lot of it is an old story, and it’s easy to get jaded and stuck in the rut.
Bitter Lemons has issued of the best 800kb of readings that you can get–readings over the past 5 years from many people with a wide variety of Palestinian and Israeli perspectives.
Israelis have one truth, Palestinians have another. It’s time we get to know what the other side thinks.
Gush Shalom have a strong new brochure–read it and pass it on. It takes apart 120 ‘truths’
“The Arabs believed that the Jews had been implanted in Palestine by Western Imperialism, in order to subjugate the Arab world. The Zionists, on the other hand, were convinced that the Arab resistance to the Zionist enterprise was simply the consequence of the murderous nature of the Arabs and of Islam.