Sol Salby blogs the following–
In the United States we have had a situation over a long time that opinion polls and elections results reflected a very liberal Jewish opinion while community leadership was dominated by the conservatives especially on Israel/Palestine. The emergence of J-Street and the change of personnel in the White House is changing that situation slowly and as editor of the Forward conclude: “As to the new seating arrangements, our best advice is to get used to it.”
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How many Australian Jews would support a nuclear-free Middle East?
Meaning what? Well, perhaps this, for starters. A regional agreement to be open to frequent and regular inspection, monitoring and public disclosure of research and development, investments, organizational capacity-building, importation and trade, planning and implementation of nuclear explosive/contamination weaponry ( including depleted uranium) by a peak international organization such as the IAEA (international atomic energy agency).
Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech throws a couple of specks of kosher synthetic food freshener on what was always going to be a stale, dry, cold and limp dish he was serving up to his unexpected visitor, Barack Obama. No Palestinians were at the table although they were being offered some drudge-work in the kitchen once they’d passed the indefinite probationary labour test for the pre-breakfast 3AM shift. This was dressed up as economic reconciliation.
****This is an entirely personal viewpoint****
The hysteria surrounding Gilad Shalit in Israel –and passed it on through the Jewish News in Australia–deserves comment. I’ve been thinking about it for some time, and it was only when I read Haaretz (see below), that I thought it was time to comment.
Here`s the cold truth.
Shalit is a prisoner of war.
The recent kerfuffle over the short play Seven Jewish
Children predictably brought out the worst in the rightist organisations which
rule the roost in the Jewish community. They specialise in several
methods of political assasination of views it does not like 1) attack the
messenger and get personal to divert attention from the message or action
being taken 2) take no prisoners (they grew up admiring Daleks).
Obama’s historic speech deserves to be watched in full by all – it pulls no punches but does break many previous taboos or no-go zones – this is especially so for Jews who uncritically support the State of Israel.
I came across this speech–it is still highly relevant.
David Grossman’s speech at the Rabin memorial – November 2006
This is my personal take on Philip Mendes’ recent report for the Anti-Defamation Commission of Bnai Brith. Not only is it an attack on intercommunal dialogue, but a not-so-subtle attempt to discredit the AJDS and the Palestinian intellectual class (who should not be put into the same basket). It is reflective of the type of argument used by many on the right to discredit all critics of Israeli policy
It is intellectually, a flawed and disingenous piece of writing. The blog is my personal opinion.
Tonight I saw a fine documentary about a bicultural school in Kafr Qara, near Haifa. It an attempt to educate young Palestinian Israelis and Jews about each other, and other campuses in the Hand-in Hand Network have opened up in the country, least of all because of the substantial funding that the project has received from abroad.