Much has been written and broadcast about the nature of the public conversation on Israel. Not much has dealt with a more difficult topic: how to discuss the “Israel lobby” in the U.S. in a manner that: is accurate; is productive; does not provide fuel to the people who are yearning for proof of the […]
Israel
The challenge of talking candidly about Israel
There do seem to be more and more people checking this out every day, and I hope they are not disappointed by the sporadic posts. Very sorry. I need to work for a living. If someone could figure out a way to change that circumstance, I would post every day, several times a day. Within […]
Political horizons and the challenge of Hamas
Various peace plans or proposals are floating around out there, and some of them have found there way to this blog. Peter H points to the idea of a 5-year “hudna,” which, he says, would provide Hamas with “greater freedom & space to explore ways of resolving the conflict with Israel in a lasting way.†[…]
Realistic hope…or magical thinking?
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 […]
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 […]