Palestinians
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Ameinu forces us to confront the realities of occupation
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
Ameinu is showing clips from a video documentary that got a lot of attention in Israel in 2005 and deserves to get even more attention now. For two years, Haim Yavin, the venerable Israeli anchor for the government-run Channel 1 TV, roamed the territories with a simple video camera, talked to Jewish settlers, soldiers, Palestinians, […]
Newsflash: AIPAC (probably) isn’t pushing for an attack on Iran
Thursday, June 12th, 2008I have read even more drivel than usual about AIPAC in the blogosphere these days, and thought I would explain a few things to those who have never attended an AIPAC Policy Conference.
First of all, AIPAC does not appear to be trying to prod the U.S. to bomb Iran. If it is, I have not […]
Obama, AIPAC and why we need a Middle East peace lobby
Thursday, June 5th, 2008Barack Obama had 7,000+ American Jews and non-Jewish friends of Israel eating out of his hand at the AIPAC Policy Conference yesterday morning. There was no political reason for him to disappoint Palestinians, the Arab world and the pro-Israel left by stating his commitment to an “undivided” Jerusalem. I have the highest hopes for […]
Will the next generation figure out how to deal with the “Right of Return?”
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008Last Monday evening, I decided not to give up hope for peace in the Middle East. Every honest person involved in this issue needs to consciously make that decision from time to time, even when there is almost no rational basis for hope. The Italian communist, Antonio Gramsci, famously wrote of “pessimism of the spirit; […]
Don’t just sit there and complain about American policy. Help J Street
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008At long last, the urgently-needed “J Street” project has been officially launched. It has generated a great deal of media attention, much of it positive, but the most important story by far was in yesterday’s Washington Post:
Some of the country’s most prominent Jewish liberals are forming a political action committee and lobbying group aimed at […]
Free Marwan Barghouti?
Thursday, April 10th, 2008What are the mainstream American Jewish organizations going to say if Israel releases a convicted murderer who is one of the Palestinians’ most powerful advocates of peace and a two-state solution?
o–Haaretz reports that:
“Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer on Saturday said that if Israel were interested in achieving peace, it had no choice but to […]
Israel, human rights and the silence of [most] American Jews
Friday, March 28th, 2008Those who empathize with the plight of Palestinians under occupation are often puzzled by American Jews’ silence in the face of Palestinian suffering, especially when the suffering results from Israeli actions that much of the world deems to be human rights abuses. A whole industry exists to monitor and refute human rights NGOs whenever they […]
Revisiting a checkpoint, and an unexpected message
Monday, March 17th, 2008The Jerusalem Post notes that Ala Abu Dhaim, the gunman who shot up the Merkaz HaRav yeshiva in Jerusalem:
…did not meet the typical profile of Palestinian attackers, police said. “He is not known to the security forces,” Jerusalem Police Chief Cmdr. Aharon Franco told Channel 2. “He was a normal man … who was going […]
Aaron David Miller: The pro-Israel community has won, so stop “geshraying” already
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008Aaron David Miller has a stirring piece in the LA Times that deserves to be quoted in full.
A note on my headline:”geshray” is Yiddish for “wail.” Other than that, believe it or not (is everyone sitting down? Get ready…), I have nothing to add! Nothing more needs to be said, as far as I’m […]
Announcing the “Fleshies”: awards for the best responses to anti-Semitism on the Web
Friday, March 7th, 2008It is hard to convey the amount of bile and reductionist, blame-the-Jews-for-every-sin rhetoric that has taken over much of the blogosphere. Phil Weiss’s blog generally attracts some of the most articulate Jew-bashers, so I tune into the comments from time to time in order to gauge the level of hatred.
I just noticed some great […]