Richard Silverstein, Jerry Haber and Verso Books are striving to obtain signatures for an impassioned attack against Israeli behavior in the Gaza Strip. I thought long and hard about whether or not to sign the statement and then post it on Realistic Dove. The rationales for not associating with it were the same rationales that […]
Palestinians
Report: Israel’s assault on Gaza thus far has been “child’s play”
Needless to say, most of what is written by Israeli military reporters includes information that the IDF wants to make public for political or strategic purposes. So while the following piece by Alex Fishman in Yedioth Ahronoth is absolutely TERRIFYING, take it with a grain of salt, as it seems to be a message to […]
Odessa, 1918 and the Gaza Strip, 2008-2009
My maternal grandmother, Pearl Weiner, used to tell me stories about her adolescence in Odessa, where, in 1918, she lived through the Ukrainian Revolution. In one year, Odessa was overrun with a succession of occupying armies and gangs, whom she invariably described as “the Bolsheviks, the Denekinovitches [followers of Anton Denekin, a White Russian General] […]
Philip Weiss picks the wrong enemies
In a recent post, Philip Weiss denounces Americans for Peace Now and J Street for “equivocating” about the assault on Gaza. He believes they have not been emphatic enough in their opposition to Israel’s behavior because they have not come down hard enough against Palestinian civilian casualties. His conclusion: “It is very difficult, nigh impossible, […]
Tearstreaked notes from the news cycle: Gaza assault timing “couldn’t be better”
Happy New Year, information warrriors. I spent half an hour trying to write an angry riff on what follows, as I am still appalled by Israeli behavior. Then my mind wandered. I pictured a junior IDF information officer, staring at a memo sent in advance of the possible ground operation, asking him to answer the […]
Peace Now: While Hebron was heating up, settlers created new facts in Jerusalem
The best, most original summary of important developments in Israel, the territories and the rest of the region is the “Middle East Peace Report,” which is created every few weeks by Noam Shalef of Americans for Peace Now. The latest issue isn’t posted on the APN website yet but you should be able to find […]
Guest Column: What Awaits Obama in the Middle East
Here is an interesting piece by Tom Mitchell, an occasional contributor to Realistic Dove. His analysis of the electoral mess in Israel, in particular, is persuasive. But I find it surprising that he believes Obama should “should look at preparing Israel for negotiations on the Palestinian track by nudging Israel into instituting a much-needed and […]
Kafka, Rabbi Hillel and the Beit Furik checkpoint
“It’s clear that there is no life without freedom of movement. And when there’s no life, there is nothing to be lost. Despair and lack of hope can lead more and more Palestinians into terror — thus there will be no security for us either.” So said Hannah Barag, one of the leaders of Machsom […]
“No thanks. We’d rather sit in the dark.”
There are enemies of everything Israeli who are like the storied Jewish mamas who prefer to suffer in darkness because suffering is more comfortable, suffering –and anger about the past—is what they are used to. That’s the simile that comes to mind as, gasp, good news rears its unexpected head in the West Bank and […]
American Jews at Meretz USA say to Israelis: “The settlements are our business, too!”
A potentially explosive new campaign by Meretz USA has just been launched. It calls upon American Jews to urge Israel’s Housing Minister to stop building settlements, and says they have the right and the obligation to do so because they are AMERICAN CITIZENS, as well as Jews with ties to Israel. It’s the part about […]