I keep thinking, “it can’t get any worse.” Then it gets worse. And then it gets even worse. And then it gets even… If one focuses on the Hamas rockets exploding in Sderot, the return to targeted assasinations by the Israelis, the Fatah-Hamas warfare,..then harboring any hope or even considering the possibility of progress can […]
Author: Dan Fleshler
A choice between the unlikely and the impossible
Apparently this little way station of relatively calm conversation has helped to spark another blog, which will be part of John Sigler’s “For One Democratic/Secular State in Israel-Palestine.” John, who maintains a bibliography project focusing on the one-state solution, has been a welcome contributor here. But apparently he was frustrated by some limitations, indicating that […]
“Jerusalem Day” and the fiction of “unification”
Today is “Yom Yerushalayim,” or “Jerusalem day.” Haaretz has a very powerful editorial about the plight of Palestinian Arabs in East Jerusalem and the Israeli policies that are largely responsible for that plight. What do the advocates of the one-state solution say about Jerusalem? For decades, it has been two cities, not one. The Arabs […]
Near the Dead Sea, a canary in a coal mine
There was a very disturbing, very sad story in Maariv yesterday. It describes a situation that is indefensable and ought to be condemned in the strongest possible terms: (Translation courtesy of Israel News Today). SEPARATE BATHING; IDF BANS PALESTINIAN FROM DEAD SEA by Felix Frisch IDF soldiers in the Jordan Valley this week received an […]
What can American Jews learn from the Winograd Commission?
I am starting to get private and public criticism about this blog from people who believe I am betraying Israel, people who believe I am justifying Israeli war crimes, people who don’t want Israel to exist, people who think the U.S. should provide knee-jerk support for every Israeli decision, and people who believe the U.S. […]
More conversations about one state vs. two states
All right, let’s say you believe everything about Israel is worthy of contempt and insult, and the Jews should never have set foot in Palestine, and the whole Zionist enterprise must be halted. So what do you want to do? Short of throwing out millions of Israeli Jews by force (which, of course, is an […]
The price of demonization
Some wise words from Cecilie Surasky about this little experiment here: I personally find the whole Zionism/anti-Zionism litmus test both distasteful, often offensive, and certainly odd. It’s odd and to me artificial because the definitions are so slippery, the understanding of Zionisms so superficial. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had a discussion about […]
Why advocating a one-state solution does not help the Palestinians
Uri Avnery, a longtime dove and gadfly of the Israeli establishment, is often quoted by people on the anti-Israel far left and Arab intellectuals. There are few Israeli Jews who have fought harder for the Palestinians or have taken a more uncompromising stand against Israel’s treatment of them. So it is worth reading a persuasive […]
Progressive answers to anti-Zionism — Part 2: Alternative visions
Some respondents to my previous post on “What Israel Could Be” were predictably furious that anyone could associate the word “progressive” with the word “Zionism.” They described Zionism as a movement that was, by its very definition, murderous and evil. “Zionism” is one of those elastic words or phrases that have long since lost a […]
Progressive answers to anti-Zionism — Part 1: A vision of what Israel could be
There are perfectly reasonable, articulate, well-meaning people who share many of the values of progressive Zionists but do not believe the Jewish state should exist. It is possible to believe this without being anti-Semitic. It is possible to believe this and still denounce protestors against the Jewish state who treat Palestinians suicide bombers as freedom […]