From Gush Shalom
This night a crime was perpetrated in the middle of the sea, by order of the government of Israel and the IDF Command. A warlike attack against aid ships and deadly shooting at peace and humanitarian aid activists. It is a crazy thing that only a government that crossed all red lines can do.
A number of AJDS members regularly blog their views and/or links to other sites on Facebook. See facebook posts.
By Steve Brook
[There is increasing evidence that antisemitic feeling is increasing globally. The fact that the Israeli-Palestinian crisis still remains unresolved is probably playing a major role in this…. More than 15 years ago, in its summer 1994 issue, the Australian Jewish Democrat published an article by Steve Brook titled “How Radio Gumleaf Won Through”, about the stormy first three years of Melbourne Community radio station 3CR. The article touched upon the accusations of antisemitism that were levelled at the station almost from its foundation in 1976. This is an extract.]
The South African Jewish community is as Zionist as they come, and its major newspaper, pretty conservative.
But this editorial is devastating for the Israel right or wrong crowd. At last, the message must be getting through–something is really rotten…
“It is now 43 years since the Six Day War, but the military victory has yet to be translated into the peace which seemed so logical: Israel would give back the conquered land, and the Palestinians would make peace – the “Land for Peace” formula. But it was not be. Israel is still in the West Bank and there is no genuine peace.
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.
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.