In A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin’s history of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the making of the modern Middle East, we follow British statesmen and military leaders as they make one foolish miscalculation after another. They persistently misread the Middle East, made major decisions based on false intelligence and crackpot […]
Israeli settlements
Settlers won’t let Palestinians “forget” the past
Conventional wisdom has it that the Palestinians should learn to accept the consequences of the catastrophe that befell them in 1947-1948. They should swallow their bitterness and find a way to move on and stop trying to reclaim property lost 60 years ago, just as other defeated peoples have moved on after war has ravaged […]
Cancel tax-exemptions for U.S. funders of settlements ASAP
U.S. tax-exempt charities are in league with the devil in the occupied territories. Coteret, an increasingly important blog by Didi Remez, tells us: Last Tuesday (December 1 2009) an investigative report in Haaretz revealed that Machanaim a US 501c3 tax exempt charity is funding the Task Force to Save the Nation and the Land (aka […]
Where are the “moderate” settlers?
The Israeli media are filled with dire warnings of escalating, violent resistance to the construction freeze proclaimed by Netanyahu. A recent, on-line headline in Haaretz announced: “Settlers Ready for More Clashes With Police.” Much of the buzz concerns a “Day of Rage” in two days, in which predictable passions will come to a head and […]
Will the Americans drive Bibi “crazy?”
Troll around the Web and you will find many, distinctly different ways of looking at Bibi Netanyahu’s recent announcement of a ten-month settlement freeze. Here are four that interest me: 1) IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE, GREATER ISRAEL FANS. Netanyahu has been telling the right wing that the freeze is only temporary and that construction […]
The gated country
I’ve just returned from Israel. The sense of gloom about the chances of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so widespread and predictable that even mentioning it –or noticing it– seems naive. It is hardly new. But lately something different and probably dangerous has also seeped into the air, a kind of lethargic refusal to care […]
Gilo construction part of larger settlement expansion plan
Netanyahu willfully engineered a confrontation with the U.S. over announced plans to build in the West Bank town of Gilo, according to Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now and Danny Seidemann of Ir Amin. They make a persuasive case that the plans were a deliberate provocation of the U.S., as Netanyahu had many other […]
One state advocates, how do you know two states aren’t possible?
How do you know? What makes you so sure? You say, “It is too late for a two state solution” or “Israel is already one state. It is an apartheid state, and the only way forward is to transform it into a just state.” Where do you get this absolute certainty? With all due respect, […]
Within organized American Jewish community, dovish groups fight back on Jerusalem
American Jewish groups are engaged in another internecine struggle about the ongoing tiff between Obama-Netanyahu. The latest tussle was prompted by a statement about Jerusalem last week from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the most important umbrella group in the community. That statement, addressing the controversy over East Jerusalem housing that […]
If U.S. says talk of sanctions on Israel is “premature,” doesn’t that mean they’re possible?
Am I the only one who finds significance in a new p-word used by the State Department: “premature?” Asked at a press briefing if the U.S. was considering putting financial pressure on Israel to get it to comply with American demands, State Department spokesperson Richard Wood said, “It’s premature to talk about that. What we’re […]