NOVANEWS
Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem
Chair of West Midland PSC
Dear All,
One of the disadvantages of reading on-line media is that one can read a great deal and find nothing worth while forwarding. Of course I mean that there is nothing that would add or detract from the information about what is happening in this small part of the world. True, I could have included a dozen articles on Libya and the other revolts, but today I was more concerned to keep you informed about events in Israel-Palestine. I presume that your local papers have news about the rest of the Middle East these days.
If there are disadvantages there are also advantages of reading on-line media. One such is that sometimes you find the totally unexpected. The SF Chronicle, for instance, informed me that tomorrow people in San Francisco and elsewhere in the SF Bay Area (where I have a good deal of family, including our oldest son and his family) might wake up to snow! Wow! That’s exciting. It’s about equivalent to Tel Aviv having snow. Also, I found an argument in Letters to the Editor of the Seattle Times about ads that were to have been put up in the metro, apparently calling Israel an apartheid state, but were ultimately not allowed. But the fact that the argument made the newspaper is valuable, too, as some readers might derive from it a different view of Israel than the one that they previously had had.
These items are not among the 5 below, though.
Item 1 reveals another demolition of a village (tents and huts) including cisterns. You must be tired of hearing about demolition after demolition. But for the people who experience these, it is a cruel, dastardly act. Israel seems to have forgotten the notion of not doing unto others what it would not want done to itself. Moreover, demolishing cisterns is even more ugly or as ugly as demolishing dwellings. The people in the South Hebron Hills have to trek water in by tankers to fill the cisterns. So demolishing the cisterns is also theft of the water these people need not for themselves and their livestock.
Item 2 expands on the report that I previously sent about the PHR’s Gaza event. Hopefully Israel will continue to allow Israeli medical care to enter Gaza.
In item 3 Neve Gordon argues that ‘Israel’s media presents Egyptian democracy as a threat.’ This is what Israelis hear. Am not so sure, though, that this is brain washing, as I believe that most Israelis from the outset preferred to have Mubarak remain. He served as a so-called safety valve for Israelis. Therefore, the fact that he was a dictator for the Egyptians hardly matters to most Israelis.
Item 4 is on a topic that I don’t usually include, but as a member of New Profile (a feminist movement) I find it suitable and important. Merav Michaeli gives you an inkling of the sexism that exists in Israel. Israel is still much a male-run country. And to make things worse, many of the males in the lead come from the military and bring its values as concerns sex as well as other things to civilian life.
NOVANEWS