It is a “Rinse, Wash, Repeat” haiku that works in whatever sequence you want to place your emphasis, especially if you don’t care whether you violate the rules of haiku or the rules of stasis.But Israel and its difficulties can’t be condensed to simple English imitations of Japanese haikus.
So let’s try imitation proverbs that nicely align with the imitation Israel-Palestine peace process.
Here’s the first:The enemy of your enemy may still be your enemy. (This is especially true if, like Israel, you have a fairly expansive definition of “enemies,” and a limited qualification standard for friendship.)
And the second: Your real friends may insist you change. (After years of entrenched behavior, they may want you to remember your dreams or imagine your own potential.)
Unfortunately Israel’s expansive definition of”enemies” crosses over into its qualification standards for friendship. Call it Israel’s “if you don’t live here, you have no right to criticize” friendship duty. Your role, should you wish to join the pro-Israel friendship club, is to always support Israel in public.
Should you disagree, that must be done privately or you aren’t a real friend: It’s a hostile world and Israel must, at a minimum, ensure unanimity among its base — the (sometimes literal) Occupy Israel supporters.
by: MJ Rosenberg on November 29th, 2011 | 7 Comments »
The drums of war with Iran will be beating increasingly loudly in the three months leading up to AIPAC’s policy conference early next March. The Republican candidates for president (with the exception of Texas Rep. Ron Paul) will try to outdo each other in professing devotion to Israel coupled with calls to inflict more “crippling sanctions” on Iran, while pledging to keep the war option “on the table.”
The White House will dispatch deputies throughout the country to assure Democratic donors that the president is as hawkish on Iran as any Republican and that the war option is on his table, too.
by: Jeff Pozmantier on November 8th, 2011 | Comments Off
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hold a press conference at the Capitol on May 17, 2009. / Photo Courtesy of Talk Media News
David Harris heads the American Jewish Committee, and in between conducting its affairs, he likes to blog. A lot. Much of what he has to say is well written. Much of what he has to say is topical. Much of what he says is red meat to battle hardened pro-Israel troops.
His latest blog is written in response to concerns he and the Anti-Defamation League share over the issue of civility and bipartisanship among groups, likeThe Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), that claim their primary focus is supporting Israel. ECI published an ad that seemed to position support for Israel as a Republican versus Democratic battle. In ECI’s view, conservatives (read Republicans) are the real Israel supporters.
No, check that.
In ECI’s view, positioning Republicans as the defenders of Israel is good for Republican politics and Israel is just a convenient vehicle to use to accomplish their purpose. That approach is one that gives Harris and Abe Foxman, the head of the ADL, a severe case of shpilkes. As it should.
The last thing the traditional Jewish organizational supporters of Israel want, and this also includes AIPAC, is to wage a battle where Israel becomes a partisan pinata. In their view, that ultimately weakens overall support for Israel.
UC Berkeley’s student senate is set to vote once more this Wednesday, April 28, on a bill to divest from two companies that materially and militarily support the Israeli government’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. Yesterday Michael Lerner posted on the diversity of opinion among peace activists on this issue. Today I want to share a piece submitted to Tikkun Daily by Matthew A. Taylor, a Peace and Conflict Studies student and member of Jewish Voice for Peace who is currently on leave from UC Berkeley. As a member of Students for Justice in Palestine, the group that is promoting the bill on campus, Taylor argues with urgency and deep emotion for the bill and explains what those in support of the divestment effort can do to help before the vote tomorrow evening.
When Will the University of California Stop Funding War Crimes Against Palestinian Civilians?
When will the University of California stop funding war crimes against Palestinian civilians and the occupation of Palestinian land? How much longer will grieving mothers have to wait for justice?
“The soldiers came early on the morning of Sunday January 4th. [My husband] Atiyeh went to the door with his hands raised holding his ID but they shot him in the doorway,” said Zinad. “I shouted ‘children, children’ in Hebrew but they started shooting,” said Zinad’s nephew Faraj.
After the massacre, Israeli soldiers left messages for the dead Samounis on the walls of a neighbor’s house. The graffiti read: “Arabs need 2 die,” “Arabs are pieces of shit,” and “1 is DOWN 999,999 TO GO.”
A Palestinian woman cries in Gaza City's al-Zeitoun neighborhood (AFP).
Israel’s attack on civilians was a “deliberate policy” designed to inflict “humiliation and dehumanization of the Palestinian population,” according to a United Nations report.
Not every moment is as promising for changing the dynamics in Israel/Palestine as the current one.
It is time to support the Obama administration, which momentarily has developed a bit of a backbone in response to the Israeli government, which revealed its total arrogance and lack of respect for the United States and for the possibility of any real concessions for peace by announcing that it was going to build 1,400 more housing units in Palestinian East Jerusalem (not the Old City, where Jews have an historic claim that deserves respect, but in the part of Jerusalem built by and for Arabs in the past 200 years and then conquered by Israel in 1967).
Israel's Gilo Settlement in East Jerusalem
The Obama administration’s new backbone is unlikely to last in the face of the assault already started by AIPAC friends in Congress, unless there is a loud cry of support for his administration’s demand that building new housing in Jerusalem stop during negotiations. The construction of housing must stop because whether Israel has jurisdiction to build or run East Jerusalem is part of what the negotiations are about and therefore shouldn’t be resolved by Israel “creating facts” on the ground which de facto render the negotiations moot.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Israel of increasing its arbitrary repression of Palestinian non-violent activism lately. Abdullah Abu Rahma’s arrest — which I reported on in the second segment of my interview with Starhawk — is part of this crack-down in Bil’in, Nil’in, and Ramallah, where grassroots demonstrations have begun to mobilize Palestinians, Israelis, and international solidarity against the wall being built between the occupied territories and Israel. According to HRW,
Israel is building most of the barrier inside the West Bank rather than along the Green Line, in violation of international humanitarian law. In recent months, Israeli military authorities have arbitrarily arrested and denied due process rights to several dozen Palestinian anti-wall protesters.
Starhawk believes that the Israeli government fears this non-violent resistance more than the violent action they’ve contended with for years. Why? Because the government knows the movement’s power to shift public opinion and mobilize people against Israeli injustice. These grassroots efforts undermine several pillars of Israeli control in the occupied territories, according to Starhawk, and start to shatter the story that Palestinians are all evil terrorists.
