Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

 

• Bank, king and God (not necessarily in that order)

• First lady of Palestinian rap features Dead Prez’s official video for ‘The Kufiyyeh is Arabic’

• ‘Commentary’ blames Turkey for starting the insurgency in Iraq

• Emily Henochowicz posts sardonic ‘love poem’ to a country that ‘stole’ her eye and is gripped by fear

• ‘The Debt’ tries to redeem a lost, lying Israel

• We may have lost the Almontaser battle, but we built a respectful coalition across ethnic/religious lines to counter racism

• Isolation may force Israel to depend on anti-Semites

• Hirsh Goodman hints that he will leave Israel if Netanyahu succeeds

Bank, king and God (not necessarily in that order)

Sep 04, 2011

Paul Mutter

With national elections approaching in Egypt, Islamist parties are increasing their public presence through mass demonstrations and media action.  One of them has created an ad — tweeted by the Muslim Brotherhood — that (according to The Arabist) raises the alarms about what secularism will do to Egypt:

* In 2013, the Egyptian parliament outlaws polygamy.
* In 2014, women’s rights organizations celebrate a new law that gives women equal inheritance rights.
* In 2015, women are prohibited from wearing the hijab in public buildings.
* In 2017, the first movie theater “specializing in porno films” opens.
* The Ministry of Higher Education decides all students will learn “Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Baha’ism on an equal footing.”
* In 2019, there is the first gay marriage in Egypt.
* In 2020, all religious references are removed from official documents and government buildings.
* In 2022, the call to prayer is prohibited.
* In 2024, Egypt and Israel sign a joint defense agreement, and an Egyptian soldiers raises an Israeli flag over Gaza.

In the end, “street fighting breaks out between the religious and secularists,” and the streets fill with sexual predators, aggressive women and drunks. The chaos of godlesness ensues.

As disconcerting as this reactionary ad is, don’t a lot of the bugaboos sound familiar to, well, the fears expressed by the 2012 Republican presidential field? Same page, different book, really. As Jeff Sharlet ofThe Revealer writes:

“The movement’s increasingly religious economic conservatism is cast in gender terms, as a quest for the restoration of masculine dignity, a revival of breadwinning in an era of genuinely humiliating economic conditions. What do social conservatives want in 2012? Same thing they’ve always wanted. “One man, one woman,” and a passel of kids. A family, narrowly defined, daddy in charge, with maybe some gentle wisecracks about how the wife is really in control.”

“Daddy” would be in charge, from the household to the halls of government. Gay rights, feminism, pornography, secular education, the separation of church and state – all pernicious, character-destroying concessions to faux-humanitarians (aka liberals). According to Christian Dominionism, “salvation by [secular] law is the rankest form of humanistic paganism.” Government is a “mission field” to be dominated by true believers. Granted, this sounds like fundamentalism, but this is a bit of a misnomer. This isn’t just fundamentalism, this is “dominionism.” It is domination of state and society by a particular set of religious codes, a domain modeled after an ideal kingdom in heaven. It’s no coincidence thatRegent University (motto: “Christian leadership to change the world”) a bastion of far-right Christian education, is called “regent.” The word refers to those whole will rule:

“Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ — to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are after. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after. World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less.”

[Snip]

“Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land — of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ. It is to reinstitute the authority of God’s Word as supreme over all judgments, over all legislation, over all declarations, constitutions, and confederations.”

The above could be applied to any far-right political-religious movement, Christian, Muslim, Jewish or otherwise About the only difference between the Islamist far-right and the Christian (and Jewish) far-right’s is the tone. Such movements, whether branding themselves as Muslim, Christian or Jewish, are all essentially the same: alarmist, anachronistic and most, of all, power-hungry. As Bertrand Russell put it:

“Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one man will think that he is the Governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the King, and yet another will think he is God.”

Still, the U.S. (and Israel) would never reconcile themselves to mainstreaming such thinking at home, right?

Well, you have this. And this. These are not isolated incidents, but indicators of a growing rightward shift. And there was a time when Islamists (including Egyptian Islamists) were here counted among the moral equivalents of the U.S. Founding Fathers.

Theocratic views, as opposed to somewhat more benign evangelical and fundamentalist rhetoric, are becoming more mainstream among all the Abrahamic faiths in the 21st century. Such views been the norm in Iran (and to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia) for decades now, but Iran isn’t so singularly different from other nations where the authorities use religious and ethnocentric rhetoric to justify power plays. Look at Netanhayu and Likud’s governing arrangement with Lieberman and Yisrael Beitenu. Or the way American conservatives have turned Evangelicalism into policy through the seemingly unassailableDefense of Marriage Act and repeated fits of “pro-life” foreign aid. Muslim-baiting in Western countries is a lucrative business (not unlike Copt-baiting in Egypt, or Baha’i-bashing in Iran). So whether the leadership and rank-and-file seriously believe their own press, there’s no denying that it’s good for votes and good for business (and are not commercial and electoral success a sign of divine favor in all of the Abrahamic faiths?).

For deeply religious government types, like former Secretary of States John Foster Dulles, “success” in policymaking (and moneymaking) was religious. The practice of power is part of God’s plan (the Abrahamic faiths are all pretty good at ignoring what Jesus had to say on the matter). No contradictions to worry about! Defend your hold power (and you profit margins), and you defend your God! The business of fundamentalism is booming all over the world (especially if you’re in defense, energy,construction, or finance). And since private enterprise (/corporatism) can function in a theocracy, the capitalists can honestly say that “we are not selling them the rope with which they will hang us.”

And there has been a long history of collusion (though sometimes strained) between the religious right and military-industrial interests in Egypt, Israel and the U.S. (of course, in Iran, this strained collusion is already the norm). Until it became a challenge to his domestic authority, Anwar Sadat grudgingly tolerated the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign policy tool and played up Islamist rhetoric (in place of “Arab nationalism”) against Israel. The IDF, when not evicting settlers, is either bulldozing Palestinian homes for them, heavily subsidizing their lifestyles, or actively arming them to beat back demonstrators.

U.S. officials, as noted above, have not always been so picky about which religious rightists they do business with. Many of of the loudest and most well-placed voices in the American right easily movebetween socially conservative, national security circles in the U.S and Israel. “Homeland Security” is for God and country! Brilliant!

Oh, if only they were all members of the same religion! They’re already members of the same faith after all! Such wonderful theocracy they could make together!

“Moshiach” Qutb feat Santorum. The hit single for 2012. David Yerushalmi does a cover version.

Oddly enough, the supposed porno theater looks like one of my psychology lecture halls from college.

We never got to watch anything good in that class.

First lady of Palestinian rap features Dead Prez’s official video for ‘The Kufiyyeh is Arabic’

Sep 04, 2011

Seham

Shadia Mansour featuring M1 from Dead Prez, Al-Kufiyyeh 3arabeyeh video

Lyrics
Good morning cousins, y’all welcome, come in
What would you like us to serve you, Arab blood or tears from our eyes?
I think that’s how they expected us to receive them
That’s why they got embarrassed when they realized their mistake
That’s why we rocked the kuffiyeh, the white and black
Now these dogs are startin to wear it as a trend
No matter how they design it, no matter how they change its color
The kuffiyeh is Arabic, and it will stay Arabic
The gear we rock, they want it; our culture, they want it
Our dignity, they want it; everything that’s ours, they want it
Half your country, half your home; why, why? No, I tell em
Stealin’ something that ain’t theirs, I can’t allow it
They imitatin us in what we wear, wear; from this land enough, what else do you want?
About Jerusalem, Jerusalem, would they be worried, how can you humans?
Before y’all ever rocked a kuffiyeh, we here to remind em who we are
And whether they like it or not, this is our clothing style
That’s why we rock the kuffiyeh, cuz it’s patriotic
The kuffiyeh, the kuffiyeh is Arabic
That’s why we rock the kuffiyeh, our essential identity
The kuffiyeh, the kuffiyeh is Arabic
Come on, throw up the kuffiyeh (throw that kuffiyeh up for me)
The kuffiyeh, the kuffiyeh is Arabic
Throw it up, come on “Bilad Al Sham” (Greater Syria)
The kuffiyeh is Arabic, and it will stay Arabic
There’s none yet like the Arab people
Show me which other nation in the world was more influential
The picture is clear, we are the cradle of civilization
Our history and cultural heritage testify to our existence
That’s why I rocked the Palestinian gear
From Haifa, Jenin, Jabal al Nar to Ramallah
Let me see the kuffiyeh, the white and red
Let me throw it up in the sky; I’m
Arab, and my tongue creates earthquakes
I shake the words of war
Listen, I’m Shadia Mansour, and the gear I’m rockin is my identity
Since the day I was born raisin people’s awareness been my responsibility
But I was raised between fear and evil; between two areas
Between the grudging and the poor, I seen life from both sides
God bless the kuffiyeh; however you rock me, wherever you see me
I stay true to my origins, Palestinian

and other news from today in Palestine:

Land, property, resources theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing

Construction in Judea and Samaria Up a Whopping 660%
About 75,000 new homes are under construction in all of Israel right now, a government agency said Wednesday.  With the end of the building freeze, construction has started up in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) communities. In fact, said the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), building jumped 660% in Judea and Samaria during the first half of 2011, as compared to the previous year.
link to www.israelnationalnews.com

EU ‘concerned’ by Israel’s separation wall route at Walaja
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — EU representatives said Friday they were “deeply concerned” by the impact of Israel’s separation barrier on the historic West Bank village Al-Walaja. The 2,500-strong community lost an appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court on Aug. 22, requesting the re-route of a portion of the wall they say cuts off the village from vital resources. European Union missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah said in a statement that the barrier “will cut off much of the village’s land, preventing many residents from accessing their land, including agricultural land.”
link to www.maannews.net

Israeli settlement expansion in Ramallah signals isolating Palestinian towns
The Israeli ministry of war has signed a contract with the municipality of Beit Arye settlement to construct an additional 100 units to the settlement, the Israeli Peace Now organization has reported.
link to Palestinian Information Center

U.S. aiding Ethnic Cleansing

How US “charities” break tax laws to fund Israeli settlements, Mike Coogan 
In spite of US government statements about its displeasure with the expansion of Israeli settlements, US based organizations are abusing the 501(C)3 section of US tax codes to provide billions in subsidies to do exactly that.  There are hundreds of these tax-exempt, so-called charities funneling money to illegal Israeli settlements, often with the names no more creative than “American Friends of name an Israeli settlement.”
link to Electronic Intifada

Settlers

Jewish settlers storm Aqsa plaza
Jewish settlers stormed the holy Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem under Israeli police escort at dawn Sunday, eyewitnesses said.
link to Palestinian Information Center

Settlers attack Jalud village as Israeli soldiers stand guard
Armed Jewish settlers attacked in the Palestinian village of Jalud southeast of Nablus city in the West Bank as Israeli soldiers stood guard, Palestinian officials reported.
link to Palestininian Information Center

Settlers beat up child in Al Khalil (Hebron)
In the city itself, Jewish settlers assaulted a 15-year-old child in Shuhada street, downtown Al-Khalil, near his family home, locals said, adding that the child was carried to hospital with minor injuries.
link to Palestinian Information Center

Gaza Siege

Egypt begins destroying border tunnels
Al Masry Al Youm 3 Sept —  Smuggling tunnels at the border with Gaza are likely being destroyed, eyewitnesses have said. Eyewitnesses added that even though there are around 1400 tunnels, only 300 are used. Many of these tunnels have not been affected by machines used to destroy them since they are internally lined with wood. Other tunnels have been dug in a way to resist attempts at destroying them. Some sources have said that the destruction is being carried out in conformance with a deal between Egypt and Gaza to destroy all tunnels which Palestinians have failed to control. An official source said that tunnels accessed from houses in Rafah will be destroyed. These tunnels, he said, have been the hardest to shut due to their location in residential areas.
link to www.almasryalyoum.com

Turkey says it will challenge Gaza blockade (AP)
AP – Turkey is preparing to challenge Israel’s blockade on Gaza at the International Court of Justice, the foreign minister said Saturday, ratcheting up tensions between the once close allies.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110903/ap_on_re_eu/un_israel_turkey

Report: Turkey navy to escort aid ships to Palestinians in Gaza
The Turkish navy will significantly strengthen its presence in the eastern Mediterranean Sea as one of the steps the Turkish government has decided to take following the release of the UN Palmer report on the 2010 Gaza flotilla, Turkish officials told the Hurriyet Daily News.  “The eastern Mediterranean will no longer be a place where Israeli naval forces can freely exercise their bullying practices against civilian vessels,” a Turkish official was quoted as saying.  As part of the plan, the Turkish navy will increase its patrols in the eastern Mediterranean and pursue “a more aggressive strategy”.
link to Haaretz

Gaza: Registration to cross Rafah border opens Sunday
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Gaza residents can register to travel via the Rafah crossing on the Egypt border from Sunday, the Hamas-run Ministry of Interior announced. Registration is only open for students, foreign passport holders and those with referrals for medical treatment abroad, the ministry said in a statement.
link to www.maannews.net

Palestinian protests & Israeli regime attacks on protesters

IOF troops crack down on marchers
Armed Jewish settlers attacked in the Palestinian village of Jalud southeast of Nablus city in the West Bank as Israeli soldiers stood guard, Palestinian officials reported.
link to Palestininian Information Center

Beit Ommar Residents Protest In Solidarity With Majde Za’aqiq
Today in Beit Ommar, around twenty-five demonstrators marched towards the illegal Israeli settlement of Karmei Tsur in protest of the imprisonment of Beit Ommar school teacher Majde Za’aqiq. Demonstrators held signs protesting Majde’s imprisonment, advocating Palestinian membership of the UN, and ending the occupation.
link to palestinesolidarityproject.org

Activism / Solidarity / BDS

The end of civilization: no ‘dignity’ in remaining silent at BBC Proms, Eleanor Kilroy
In a Guardian review of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) at the BBC Proms, and referring to theboycott protests that disrupted their concert in London’s Royal Albert Hall on Thursday, classical music critic Erica Jeal praises IPO conductor, Zubin Mehta, as ‘the model of composure’. In the comment thread she clarifies that ‘the only ones who came out of this with any dignity intact were Mehta, Shaham and the orchestra’. This reverence for Mehta’s physical control is echoed in the right-wing, establishment paper, the Telegraph: the ‘supremely unflappable conductor-for-life Zubin Mehta, kept going… unflappable dignity is clearly his default mode’.
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/09/the-end-of-civilization-no-dignity-in-remaining-silent-at-bbc-proms.html

Apartheid Art Not Welcome
Congratulations to BRICUP, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, and the Boycott Israel Network for disrupting a performance of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra at the London Proms to such an extent that the BBC was forced to take its Radio 3 live broadcast off the air. The IPO has a ‘partnership’ with the murderous Israeli Defence Forces and acts as a key element of ‘Brand Israel’, whitewashing the crimes of the apartheid state. Below, a letter from concerned musicians to the Independent explains why apartheid art is not welcome here.
link to pulsemedia.org

Letter to International Participants of the “Welcome to Palestine” Campaign
Sep 1, 2011– The “Welcome to Palestine” initiative took place July 8-16, 2011. In response to an invitation put forth by Stop the Wall along with 40 other Palestinian civil society organizations, popular resistance committees, and political factions, hundreds of international visitors reserved flights to Israel’s Ben Gurion airport for July 8th, 2011.
link to stopthewall.org

Letter to the Students Protesting for Equal, Affordable Education in Chile
This summer has seen massive protests in Chile on a variety of issues: student movement, Mapuche defense of resources, and demonstrations against damming projects. Tens of thousands of youth have taken to the streets to demand equality in affordable, public education. Our Palestinian youth express their solidarity with the demonstrators, especially because it is often our youth that, because of their courage, face disproportionate repression.
link to stopthewall.org

Video: Keszler Gallery, NYC allegedly removes Banksy’s West Bank stencils for unsanctioned show
HuffPost 1 Sept — An unauthorized Banksy show at the Keszler Gallery in New York City has angered arts commentators for apparently removing original works from their West Bank walls for display in the gallery. Arrest Motion first reported the removal on August 31st, saying that “the Keszler Gallery in association with the Bankrobber Gallery where unnamed individuals traveled to Palestine and boldly removed some of the well known and much beloved work Banksy created for the Santa’s Ghetto event held in the West Bank in 2007.” According to the Keszler Gallery, the show consists of “Unique street works and prints acquired from their original locations in Bethlehem, Brighton, London & Los Angeles.” See some of the works displayed in the controversial exhibition in the video, courtesy of Justin Sutcliffe/Polaris Images NY.
link to www.huffingtonpost.com

Two Banksy pieces from the West Bank are now for sale in the Hamptons
NY Mag 2 Sept — How did a Hamptons art gallery come to show several Banksy works, including two pieces originally stenciled in Palestine? It’s not completely clear, actually, but Wet Dog, which originally appeared on a bus stop, and Stop and Search, which originally appeared on the wall of a butcher shop, are now among the works for sale at the Keszler Gallery. None of the harvested pieces in the show have been certified by Pest Control, Banksy’s authentication office, though the firm does not authenticate works that have been removed from their original locations. According to ArtNet, a rep for the U.K.’s Bankrobber Gallery, which partnered with Keszler to bring the works out of the Middle East, says a Palestinian entrepreneur originally removed the paintings, and that the galleries stepped in only after discovering that the works were sitting in a stone mason’s backyard for years.
link to nymag.com

Artnet News: Galleries defend controversial Banksy show / Rachel Corbettt
Artnet.com 1 Sept — Yesterday, Artnet Magazine reported on the controversy surrounding the decision by Keszler Gallery and Bankrobber Gallery to bring two Banksy stencils from Bethlehem to the Southampton Village Power Plant, where an exhibition of reconstituted street works and prints opened Aug. 20, 2011. Banksy fans argued that the artist intended the works for the West Bank and the galleries had no right to remove them.
link to www.artnet.com

Israeli regime attacks against Palestinians

IOF fires flare bombs in Jenin raids
Israeli occupation forces fired flare bombs and deployed in the plains and open areas in a massive raid operation in the West Bank city of Jenin and its environs.
link to Palestinian Information Center

Detentions

Report: Israel arrested 15, deported 30 pro-Palestinian activists in August
Some 15 activists were arrested and 30 were deported last month in a wave of incitement against pro-Palestinian activists, a French rights group said in a report marking the end of August.
link to Palestinian Information Center

IOF soldiers arrest 3 Palestinians including young woman
Israeli occupation soldiers (IOF) rounded up three Palestinian citizens on Sunday, two young men in Al-Khalil and a young woman in Ramallah.
link to Palestinian Information Center

IOF soldiers arrest 3 Palestinians in Al-Khalil village
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) rounded up three Palestinians in the village of Doura, southwest of Al-Khalil city, at dawn Saturday, local sources said.
link to Palestinian Information Center

Hamas lawmaker sentenced to 6 months in administrative detention
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — An Israeli court Sunday sentenced Hamas-affiliated lawmaker Anwar Zuboun to six months in administrative detention, Hamas officials said. The sentence was condemned by Hamas lawmakers as part of Israel’s “arrogance and systematic crime.”
link to www.maannews.net

Family of MP Yousuf slams Israeli attempts to fabricate charges against him
The family of lawmaker Hasan Yousuf strongly denounced the Israeli intelligence agency for trying to fabricate charges against him and avenge him after failed attempts to undermine his high morale.
link to Palestinian Information Center

Egypt releases 2 Palestinian brothers from Rafah
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Egyptian authorities on Saturday released two Palestinian brothers after two years in detention, relatives told Ma’an. Ammar and Arafat Abu Nima, from Rafah on the Egypt-Gaza border, were detained with their father on the Egyptian side of the city two years ago. They were sentenced to three years on charges of smuggling and entering Egypt illegally.
link to www.maannews.net

Family says Palestinian sheik detained at Cairo airport
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Egyptian authorities detained a Palestinian sheik on Saturday at Cairo International Airport, his family told Ma’an. Abdul Aziz Odeh was detained at the airport as he returned from a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, relatives said. The Palestinian ambassador to Egypt was unable to secure his release. Odeh was one of the first Palestinians to be deported to the Gaza Strip during the first intifada, or uprising, in 1987.
link to www.maannews.net

Turkey & Israel UN Flotilla Report

Turkey to take Israel to UN court
Turkey says it will challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza in a UN court after rejecting a UN report into the killing of nine of its citizens on a ship.
link to www.bbc.co.uk

Turkey talking tough to Tel Aviv, Ira Glunts
The Turks say they plan to challenge Israel over its naval blockade of Gaza.  Turkish officials claim they will take legal, diplomatic, as well as military action to force an Israeli retreat from its refusal to permit ships from bringing aid to the Israeli- occupied territory. The Turks are mad as hell about the Israeli refusal to apologize for the deaths of nine Turkish citizens during the IDF assault on the Mavi Marmara in 2010.  They also are angered by the UN report which characterized the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza as legal and justifiable based on the Israeli right of self-defense.  Ironically, the report was intended to be a vehicle to assist Israel and Turkey in mending their strained relations, but instead has become the immediate cause of a serious diplomatic breach.
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/09/turkey-talking-tough-to-tel-aviv.html

Palestinian Reactions to UN Report

Palestinian Authority criticises UN flotilla report
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — The Palestinian Authority on Saturday condemned a UN report into a deadly Israeli raid on a Turkish-led aid flotilla as a political document not based on international law. “This report is terrible and negative. It’s a purely political report, it’s not legal,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said of the report on the May 2010 raid which killed nine Turkish activists.  “It’s a political report that is not based on international law, but on the contrary, it violates international law, because the Gaza Strip is still under Israeli occupation,” he told AFP.
link to Google News

UN flotilla report provokes angry reactions in Gaza
Gaza resident Jamal Zarra told Ma’an that no people in the world were besieged like the unarmed population of the Gaza Strip. “How can the blockade be legal while we don’t have medicines in hospitals, and our movement is restricted?” He said international law had become subordinate to the permanent member states of the UN Security Council, while the rest of the world was “helpless.” Meanwhile, Popular Committee against the Siege spokesman Ali Nazli asked if international law “would allow besieging and starving 1.7 million people in Gaza, depriving them of medicine and humanitarian needs?” He urged the international community to pressure Israel to end the occupation and to hold Tel Aviv accountable for its aggression on the coastal enclave.
link to www.maannews.net

Radwan: Palmer report ‘biased and illegitimate’
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Senior Hamas leader Ismail Radwan said Sunday that a UN report on Israel’s deadly raid of a Gaza-bound aid boat was illegitimate and biased to Israel. The report, released Friday, was written by a panel headed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer. It found that Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip was legal, but that Israel used “excessive and unreasonable force” when its commandos raided the ship and killed nine Turkish civilians on board.
link to www.maannews.net

Racism / Discrimination

‘State’s discrimination between terror victims unacceptable’
Arab family of east Jerusalem man killed by Yaakov Teitel petitions State to grant family of Jewish teen injured in incident terror victims’ benefits.
link to www.ynetnews.com

Wikileaks Palestine/Israel

WikiLeaks: Israel irked by West Bank protests
Minutes from 2010 meeting between Israeli, US officials reveal IDF commanders frustrated with non-violent Palestinian protests; claim Israel ‘not good at dealing with Gandhi’
link to www.ynetnews.com

Israel favoured brute force against West Bank protesters 
NEW DELHI: “We don’t do Gandhi very well.” The political-military chief of Israel’s ministry of defence, Amos Gilad, had told US interlocutors in February, 2010, that the Israeli forces would be compelled to take more strong-arm methods against protesters in the West Bank.
link to Times of India

WikiLeaks: Avigdor Lieberman
Unlike Beilin, Lieberman was described as a staunch Jewish nationalist who does not trust Israel’s Arab neighbors as well as many of Israel’s Arab citizens. The former ambassador also commented on Lieberman’s legal situation, saying that the Yisrael Beiteinu chairman used the legal proceedings against him to boost his political career by portraying himself as a victim who is being targeted by political opponents.
link to www.ynetnews.com

Wikileaks drip drip drip
All the wikileaks cables have been released and are now accessible. Whether others prove to be ashorrific as the massacre of women and children in Iraq brought to our attention this week, or as drearily predictable as PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY SECURITY OFFICIALS ON COORDINATION WITH ISRAEL  remains to be seen.
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/09/wikileaks-drip-drip-drip.html

Press Freedom

Gaza journalists rally for release of Al Jazeera reporter
Dozens of Palestinian journalists held a non-violent protest Saturday in Gaza City outside the offices of the United Nations. They called on UN officials to pressure Israel to release their colleague, reporter Samer Allawi, who has been held in Israeli detention since August 10.
link to www.imemc.org

Israeli, Palestinian reporters urge Israel to uphold journalists’ rights
The Israeli-Palestinian Journalists’ Forum has called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to uphold the rights of journalists reporting in the region. “The Palestinian Authority is currently working toward the recognition of a Palestinian state by the United Nations. This is a matter of interest to the region and the world, but moreover, to every person living in Israel and the Palestinian Territories,” the press group said. “That is why journalists working for Palestinian and Israeli media must be allowed to do their work without restriction,” the letter added.
link to Haaretz

Statehood Bid

U.S. Appeals to Palestinians to Stall U.N. Vote on Statehood
The Obama administration has initiated a last-ditch diplomatic campaign to avert a confrontation over a plan by Palestinians to seek recognition as a state from the United Nations.
link to www.nytimes.com

U.S. tries to stall Palestinian statehood bid: report (Reuters)
Reuters – Washington has launched an effort to avoid a clash stemming from plans by Palestinians to seek recognition as a state at the United Nations, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing senior U.S. officials and foreign diplomats.
link to Yahoo News

France Warns Against Palestinian UN Bid
French Foreign Minister, Alain Juppe, warned the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank of heading to the United Nations this month, and claimed that “heading to the UN to seek international recognition of statehood, could lead to a serious diplomatic crises”.
link to www.imemc.org

Tony Blair’s key role in Mideast talks
Former British PM plays central but largely unheralded role in reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, perhaps helping to avert Palestinian push for full UN membership.
link to www.ynetnews.com

Other news

Iranian president affirms support for resistance in a call with Mishaal
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has affirmed in a telephone call with Hamas political bureau chairman Khaled Mishaal that Tehran would continue to support the Palestinian people.
link to Palestinian Information Center

Turkey to sign strategic alliance with Egypt
Ankara-Cairo relations receive boost as crisis with Israel worsens: Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan slated to visit Cairo and possibly Gaza soon to sign strategic cooperation agreement with Egypt. Meanwhile, recently expelled Israeli ambassador Gaby Levy says there’s no chance he will return to Ankara.
link to www.ynetnews.com

Barrier erected to secure Israeli embassy in Cairo
A barrier was erected in Cairo’s University Bridge area designed to protect the Israeli embassy against massive protests demanding the embassy’s removal.
link to Palestinian Information Center

Report: Gadhafi offered Israel Shalit, peace for NATO halt
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An Israeli and Austrian politician claiming to be at the center of negotiations with Moammar Gadhafi have gone public to the press, a week after the former strongman’s compound was captured by rebels.  The defeated Libyan leader had offered a peace agreement with Israel, and to secure the release of captured Israeli solider Gilad Shalit, if NATO raids on Libya were halted, they said.
link to www.maannews.net

Lebanon jails ex-general for leaking info to Israel
Military court sentences Fayez Karam to two years in prison for providing Israel with ‘political information’ on Hezbollah, Christian party.
link to www.ynetnews.com

Analysis/Op-ed

Israel objects to Palestinian statehood to avoid war crimes investigations / John Glaser
Antiwar 2 Sept — A secret State Department diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks has revealed that one of the primary reasons behind Israeli objections to Palestinian statehood is that lack of statehood keeps Palestinian territories outside the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which prosecutes war crimes … The dialogue is unusually blunt, since Israel’s public objections to Palestinian statehood at the United Nations, to be voted upon this month, have been mundane and political in nature.
link to news.antiwar.com

Book Review: The Forgotten Palestinians / Khalil Nakhleh
Palestine Chron. 2 Sept — (The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel. Ilan Pappe. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011) No doubt, hundreds if not thousands of articles, reports and books have been written about the Palestinians in Israel, “the forgotten Palestinians”, in Arabic, English and Hebrew, during the last sixty some years.  To my knowledge, this is the first time a major, mainstream, US academic university press publishes a comprehensive and sympathetic narrative of the Palestinians in Israel, with a focus on their evolving Palestinianhood, by a well respected anti-Zionist, Israeli Jewish historian.
link to palestinechronicle.com

U.S. Right Wing and GOP Presidential Candidates Spreading Paranoid Anti-Muslim Hysteria as Part of Take-Over Strategy, Max Blumenthal
The sudden rise of Islamophobia in the United States is alarming while the movement that advances anti-Muslim resentment seems bizarre and filled with eccentric, even dangerous characters. But when viewed in the context of a new, groundbreaking research document by the Center for American Progress and an obscure, decades-old political memorandum by a long-forgotten former Supreme Court Justice, the Islamophobic crusade raging across the country appears perfectly in line with longstanding goals and methods of conservative organizing, and is aimed at much more than demonizing Muslims.
link to Alternet

Frank Gaffney Thinks ‘We Need A New House Anti-American Committee’ For Islam,  Ali Gharib 
One of the featured “experts” in the new CAP “Fear, Inc.” report on Islamophobia, Frank Gaffney, appeared on a religious right program and called for renewed McCarthyism against not just American-Muslims but also those who support them or don’t do enough to stymie what Gaffney considers their pernicious influence.
link to thinkprogress.org

The All-Time 10 Worst Military Contracting Boondoggles
Welfare for warlords: The world’s most expensive road: Rent-a-ripoff: The Kabul bank bust: and more.
link to motherjones.com

CIA or CKA – Central Killing Agency?
The Washington Post published a long article outlining new profile of the Central Intelligence Agency. By analyzing numerous examples from all parts of the world, the paper concludes that instead of collecting intelligence data, now the CIA is mostly engaged in finding and killing suspects without trial.
link to english.ruvr.ru

NYT on WikiLeaks: Move Along, No Atrocity to See Here
Today’s Times includes a story about the WikiLeaks Iraq cable, under the somewhat strange headline “Cable Implicates Americans in Deaths of Iraqi Civilians.” Still very little in the rest of the press– nothing on television, according to a search of the Nexis database).
link to www.fair.org

Time Magazine and the Fake Hezbollah Interview, Asad AbuKhalil
The fake interview by Nicholas Blanford of a supposed Hezbollah member allegedly implicated in Hariri’s killing was a journalistic scandal and a clear intelligence ploy. The interview published in Time Magazine presumably intended to bring the accused out—electronically speaking—in order to locate him. The story reveals a lot about the way in which the Western press operates. This is not the first time that coverage of the Middle East has been associated with scandals and propaganda. Western media have served as government tools since the US war on Iraq in 1990.
link to Al-Akhbar English

World News

More detainees join Bahrain hunger strike
Protest aimed at ongoing trials from the crackdown on demonstrations by the Gulf nation’s Shia majority.
http://english.aljazeera.net//video/middleeast/2011/09/201193161643416929.html

Yemeni capital braced for fresh protests
Security forces limit access to Sanaa amid calls for intensified demonstrations to shake Saleh’s grip on power.
link to english.aljazeera.net

Syria soldiers ‘killed in ambush’
Six Syrian soldiers and three civilians die as gunmen ambush a bus in central Syria, state media reports, while the bloody crackdown on anti-regime protests continues.
link to www.bbc.co.uk

Fresh deaths reported across Syria
Activists say at least 13 people killed as the Red Cross chief visits Damascus to demand access to prisons.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/09/20119483720229354.html

`Anti-`Alawite bigotry, As’ad Abukhalil
I have written this before: I am not surprised to read and hear anti-`Alawite bigotry from Hariri/Saudi media.  Those are Wahhabi outlets, in the final analysis.  But the other day I heard the correspondent of BBC News in Lebanon gives a platform to a guy (he was introduced as Syrian refugee but his accent seemed Lebanese, although it is possible he was Abraham Foxman) who vomited anti-`Alawite bigotry.  It is the season.  If a Palestinian ever expresses his/her views against Israel in a way that referred to his/her enemies as “Jews”, he is instantly rebuked in the media and calls for his/her arrest are heard (although Israel presents itself to the world as the state of all Jews for propaganda purposes).   But then again: why is that surprising?  The Saudi/Hariri tools in the Syrian opposition are fanatical extremists.
link to angryarab.blogspot.com

New Lancet study says 12,000 Iraqis dead from suicide bombings
No one has taken much notice of the report. But as the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 approaches, it’s an important reminder of the failure of Al Qaeda and of the scars that will shape Iraq for decades.
link to Christian Science Monitor

More Afghan soldiers deserting the army
Between January and June, 24,590 soldiers walked off the job, compared with 11,423 who left in the same period last year, according to NATO statistics.
link to Washington Post

US Kills 30 People In Yemen
Thirty “suspected al-Qaeda militants” were killed Thursday in US airstrikes in southern Yemen, broadcaster Al-Arabiya reported quoting Yemeni military officials.
link to Monsters and Critics

CIA shifts focus to killing targets
Behind a nondescript door at CIA headquarters, the agency has assembled a new counterterrorism unit whose job is to find al-Qaeda targets in Yemen.
link to Washington Post

MI5 former chief decries ‘war on terror’
Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller uses BBC lecture to criticise ‘unhelpful’ term, attack Iraq invasion and suggest al-Qaida talks.
link to www.guardian.co.uk

Supreme Court declines to clarify rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees
Although delivered in broad strokes and powerful language, the ruling left the details of how to provide hearings for the detainees up to the (not entirely grateful) judges of the D.C. Circuit. The bottom line is that while Guantanamo’s population has declined from around 270 at the time of the decision to 172 today because of decisions of the executive branch, not a single release has come as the direct result of a judicial order. A string of rulings has gone against the detainees. For instance, the circuit court decided that because of the unusual nature of the hearings, the government may rely on hearsay evidence that would not be allowed in federal court. It has said that a preponderance of evidence, the lowest standard, is enough to make the case for continued detention.
link to Washington Post

Wikileaks

Gaddafi, Britain and US: A secret, special and very cosy relationship
Britain helped to capture one of the leading opponents of the Gaddafi regime before he was sent back to be tortured in Libya, according to a secret document discovered by The Independent on Sunday in the offices of Moussa Koussa, then Muammar Gaddafi’s spymaster.
link to www.independent.co.uk

Qaddafi was a CIA Asset, Juan Cole
Human Rights Watch found documents in Libya after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi that it passed on to the Wall Street Journal, which is analyzing them. The WSJ reported today that the documents show that Qaddafi developed so warm a relationship with George W. Bush that Bush sent people he had kidnapped (“rendition”) to Libya to be “questioned” by Libya’s goons, and almost certainly to be tortured. The formal paperwork asked Libya to observe human rights, but Bush’s office also sent over a list of specific questions it wanted the Libyan interrogators to ask. Qaddafi also gave permission to the CIA from 2004 to establish a formal presence in the country.
link to Juan Cole

Kadhafi’s son got doctoral thesis help from Tony Blair: report
Two of Moamer Kadhafi’s sons were invited to the headquarters of the SAS special forces unit as former prime minister Tony Blair tried to build ties with the Libyan regime, The Sunday Times reported. In the latest revelations from intelligence documents obtained by media and rights groups in Tripoli, the paper said Blair had also helped another of Kadhafi’s sons, Seif al-Islam, with his doctoral thesis.
link to www.rawstory.com

US, Australia ‘schemed against the last IAEA chief’
THE US and Australia schemed unsuccessfully in 2005 to block Mohamed ElBaradei’s election to a third term as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a newly leaked US diplomatic cable shows.
link to www.heraldsun.com.au

www.TheHeadlines.org

‘Commentary’ blames Turkey for starting the insurgency in Iraq

Sep 04, 2011

 Philip Weiss

This is pure Animal Farm. Turkey is now bad for Israel, so Turkey must be demonized in the United States. “Turks Turned Their Backs on America Before Dumping Israel.” From Jonathan Tobin in Commentary:

In 2003, Turkey’s decision not to allow coalition troops to use their territory in the effort to depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq not only was a blow to the U.S.-Turkey alliance but set in motion circumstances that ultimately helped create the insurgency.

Emily Henochowicz posts sardonic ‘love poem’ to a country that ‘stole’ her eye and is gripped by fear

Sep 04, 2011

 annie

Powerful stark theatrical expression coming from Henochowicz. Note the radical-ness of her posture juxtaposed to her natural expression in I Miss You Palestine. There’s no ease here. She’s raw, determined and goes in for the kill-kiss. No victim. Israel stole her eye, not her heart, she’s no jolted lover.

Posted September 2 by Emily Henochowicz, who was shot in the occupied territories during a peaceful protest on May 31, 2010. (Hat tip CigarGod)

‘The Debt’ tries to redeem a lost, lying Israel

Sep 04, 2011

Philip Weiss

I went to “The Debt” last night, the new Miramax thriller based on an Israeli film. I took the film on its own terms, which are very Israeli terms. Culturally-bound, as the anthropologists say. This is a film about Ashkenazi Jews. There are no Palestinians in sight, no Mizrahi Jews either. The characters are Europeans fleeing horror to settle in the Middle East.

On its own terms, the film is kind of great. It’s about Israel’s foundational lies– the lies that Israel’s first militant generation told about the Holocaust and their own heroism in order to create a nationalist warrior myth for the children.

The three Mossad agents at the center of the film are all hard to like. One is a mendacious, ambitious political tool who does very well in Israeli politics. You hate him. The Helen Mirren character is the movie’s hero but she’s also kind of despicable. She sticks with the political tool even though she loves the other male Mossad agent, and as for him, well his character is all about the new paradigm of young Israelis doing military service and then traveling to India or South America to smoke dope and decompress. This guy spends years decompressing. He’s lost. Just like Israel is lost.

The movie makes mordant jokes about Israel’s lostness. When the characters are in East Berlin, capturing the Eichmann/Mengele bad guy, and things go wrong, the political tool Mossad guy says, “The Americans are going to bail us out, don’t worry.” I wanted to vomit.

Then a few minutes later he finds out that the Americans won’t bail them out. “We’re all alone.” That’s about Israel’s new fear…

The larger way Israel is lost, the film acknowledges, is that the Holocaust material doesn’t work anymore. You see how it once did, in the East Berlin chapters. There’s a real Eichmann in Jerusalem feeling to this part of the movie: how Israel used Nazis to constitute its identity far from Europe. The Holocaust material is rendered as parody. The Helen Mirren character, who’s lost her mother in the Holocaust, keeps telling Israeli audiences, “When I was desperate, I thought about my mother”– and you don’t buy it.

Until the end, when you do buy it. At the end, the movie tries to rescue the Holocaust narrative after all. And redeem Israel. So Israel is like Helen Mirren. It tells a lot of lies but it’s really tough, it knows how to kill the way European Jews didn’t; and it staggers forward.

And yet that Israel is imaginary: a European place on the beach in Tel Aviv, hipsters listening to American music. It feels very Raj.

Walking out to my car, I thought about the Tent protests in Tel Aviv. The tent protests reflect a deep spiritual discomfort inside Israel, as this film does. But the Israeli tent protesters won’t talk about the occupation, and many of my friends judge the protests on that basis; if you won’t talk about the oppression of the Palestinians, what good are you? “The Debt” is blindered in the same way. It’s about a neocolonial group and their American pals (the producers) trying to keep the myth going, despite a disquieting sense that it’s built on lies.

We may have lost the Almontaser battle, but we built a respectful coalition across ethnic/religious lines to counter racism

Sep 04, 2011

Donna Nevel

Monthly Review has published two pieces on the Khalil Gibran International Academy affair in New York. One is by the school’s former principal, Debbie Almontaser, and there is a companion piece by Donna Nevel. Go toMonthly Review to read the Almontaser; and meantime, Nevel gave us permission to publish her piece. –Editor.

I did not know Debbie Almontaser and did not know anything about the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), but when I learned that a Muslim and Arab principal of an Arabic Dual Language school was the victim of a racist smear campaign orchestrated mostly by Jewish bigots—it hit me in my gut. A second hit in the gut was reading UFT President Randy Weingarten’s letter, which further fueled the flames of bigotry. It said, “While the city’s teacher’s union initially took an open-minded approach to this school, both parents and teachers have every right to be concerned about children attending a school run by someone who doesn’t instinctively denounce campaigns or ideas tied to violence.” Members of the Center for Immigrant Families (CIF), of which I am part, felt as I did and did not want Weingarten to go unchallenged. CIF immediately wrote a letter to her that included the following: “Aside from everything else that points to the racist nature of this whole incident, do you not know that in most parts of the world, the word intifada connotes resistance to an unethical and illegal and brutal occupation? It is not the word intifada that promotes violence or that should be denounced; rather, what should be denounced is an occupation that promotes violence and that made the intifada necessary.”

Within a day of sending out CIF’s letter on listservs, we heard from Mona Eldahry of Arab Women in the Arts and Media (AWAAM) who asked if we wanted to help plan and participate in a rally, being quickly organized, in support of Debbie and the school. CIF joined individuals and groups that gathered from across the city to denounce anti-Arab racism and anti-Muslim bigotry and to demand that the DOE re-instate Debbie to her position as KGIA’s principal.

After that spirited rally, several organizations came together to create Communities in Support of KGIA (CISKGIA). The steering committee groups included AWAAM, CIF, Brooklyn for Peace, Muslim Consultative Network, Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. The steering committee representatives were Mona Eldahry, Carol Horwitz, Erica Waples, Fatin Jarara, Elly Bulkin, Adem Carroll, Michael Feinberg, Ayla Schoenwald, Ray Wofsy, and myself.

We spoke out in opposition to those who were responsible for the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim attacks on Debbie, on AWAAM, and on the school, but we were particularly committed to holding the DOE accountable for its actions and for the consequences of those actions. We always looked at what happened from a broader lens. This was part of a larger struggle for justice and for self-determination of communities being assaulted and demonized. And, with tremendous implications for the integrity of a public education system, the demonization had been sanctioned by a government institution responsible for the education of our children.

We also reached out to our allies and engaged in outreach within many different communities across the city—low-income and communities of color, immigrant communities, Jewish and Muslim groups, organizations focusing on public education, and other peace and justice groups. Hundreds of groups endorsed this effort, and many participated with us in our organizing.

We held a number of community events with educators, social justice activists, and with Muslim and Jewish leaders from across the country. They all wrote moving statements and letters of support to the Mayor and DOE demanding Debbie’s reinstatement. We were able to garner support from academics, educators, community activists, and interfaith leaders from across the country. We also received support from politicians, but we were clear that they would not dictate our direction. A priority for us at all times was our work with parents and teachers at the school. One of our large community events featured teachers who shared information about how the school was falling apart from the inside, a fact that the DOE refused to acknowledge. Parents expressed feeling marginalized and that their voices were being ignored by school officials, and a number of teachers ended up feeling intimidated by the DOE or felt that they were being pushed out for speaking the truth.

We tried to reach inside as many new communities as possible. At one point, a number of people from the Jewish community made clear they would not join the coalition if AWAAM were part of it. We felt they were putting Debbie into the category of the “good” Arab and AWAAM as the “bad” Arab. That is, since AWAAM had put out the intifada t-shirts, they were “tainted” with the anti-Israel brush and were therefore not considered “kosher” partners. We emphatically rejected this proposal, believing it perpetuated the very bias we opposed, and were unanimous in our decision to remain true to who we were, which was a coalition that had AWAAM in its leadership.

In addition to rallies, educational and community programs, ongoing outreach, and letter-writing campaigns, our media strategy was a priority since the media was at the center of the controversy. We worked to reframe the debate, ensuring that the real story was told—by Debbie and by the young women of AWAAM, and not by the media or the racists. We wanted to be sure the voices of those who had been silenced and distorted were out there. We also wanted to be certain that we always framed our comments within the larger context of justice for marginalized communities and of holding our government institutions (in this case, the DOE) accountable.

We held press conferences, put out statements, and “busted” one of the press conferences of our anti-Muslim opponents. In this struggle, we had media on top of us all the time, so we had to be discerning about what types of media we thought were valuable to respond to and pursue. We devoted a lot of time to thinking this through. Fortunately, we benefited from the wisdom of AWAAM members whose work focused on the media, and we also worked together with Riptide Communications, particularly when the media requests became overwhelming.

Several filmmakers also contacted us wanting to do documentaries, but, after much deliberation and meetings with some of them, we only granted interviews to one person who seemed honest and ethical (and who ended up creating a film, Intifada NYC).

We also worked closely with Debbie’s legal team, led by civil rights lawyer Alan Levine. We discussed political strategy together, making certain the voices of the community were front and center, which was always honored by the legal team. Since Alan Levine is my husband, rather than offering more of my own views about our relationship with the legal team, I will quote what Mona Eldahry has said:

Working on the campaign to support KGIA, I’ve learned exactly what a meaningful collaboration between a legal team and community organizers looks like. We at CISKGIA were working to ensure that the DOE would provide the school with the resources it needed to succeed, including the leadership it deserved. Debbie’s legal team was set to ensure that her civil rights and her rights as an employee were protected. Our work together ensured that both paths would lead to justice for students and community-members who saw, as the EEOC later determined, that the Mayor and the DOE ousted a school leader because she was Arab.

Our coalition met as much as was humanly possible. Everyone was passionate and deeply committed.

CISKGIA is the most respectful, collaborative coalition I have ever been part of. We all learned with and from one another. Leadership was shared amongst our groups; there was never a struggle over power. We all understood the importance of AWAAM’s leadership (and I must add that Mona Eldahry and the other AWAAM representatives were extremely inspiring). We worked in sync with the legal team.

How does one gauge success in such an undertaking? While Debbie did not return to KGIA, as we had all hoped would happen, in fact something powerful did happen. Communities and individuals from every background came together and were relentless in demanding that our institutions be held accountable for promoting racism and bigotry. Most importantly, the story of what had actually happened was told and re-told by those who had lived and experienced it. And with the EEOC Determination, the story was also told in the legal arena, which reflected the truth as we knew it to be. All in all, critical relationships were developed, connections were made amongst our many interrelated struggles, and community power was built that reverberates to this day. We all remain personally and politically connected in deep ways and are working closely together—some of us with groups to challenge Islamophobia, racism, and xenophobia; some in groups for justice in Palestine—which I think reflects the power and strength of the community that so many of us built together and the justice of the cause. The struggle definitely continues.

Isolation may force Israel to depend on anti-Semites

Sep 04, 2011

Philip Weiss

Glenn Beck apparently went to South Africa after he visited Israel. Here’s Joseph Dana in the Mail & Guardian online, writing a piece called “Glenn Beck, Fear and the Jewish Community”:

After Beck was fired from Fox News, he set his sights on cultivating a close relationship with the Israeli government. In July, the newly independent radio host addressed a special session of Israeli politicians in Jerusalem. Beck openly endorsed Israel’s controversial policies in the occupied Palestinian territories using deceptive language to describe Israeli courage in the face of overwhelming problems with the Arab world. For Beck, Israel at the centre of a clash of civilisations and a global battle between good and evil.

For some in the Israeli government, worried about the wave of revolution sweeping the Middle East and Palestinian attempts to declare statehood at the United Nations in September, Beck has become a fast friend….

Efforts to protect Israel from international isolation over its treatment of Palestinians, similar to the isolation which South Africa experienced during apartheid, have pushed some of the most vocal pro-Israel supporters into the hands of people with narrow and dangerous political goals. As the international community wakes up to Israeli intransigence regarding international law and the occupation, Israel’s remaining friends might turn out to be anti-Semites.

Hirsh Goodman hints that he will leave Israel if Netanyahu succeeds

Sep 04, 2011

Philip Weiss

Hirsh Goodman (husband of New York Times reporter Isabel Kershner) is a liberal Zionist who moved to Israel from South Africa a long time ago. On Tuesday he has a book coming out called The Anatomy of Israel’s Survival, and in an interview in the Canadian pro-Israel newspaper the National Post, he hints that if things don’t work out the way he hopes they will (two-state solution), he’s outta here (h/t commenter longliveIsrael):

Q Where do you see Israel in 10 years?

A If I look at the trend, I think that Israel will be politically redefined. I think the issue of the ultra-Orthodox, in terms of how they relate to the state, will be in high gear toward resolution. I think in 10 years the IsraeliArabs will be the commercial bridge between the West Bank and Israel – if the issue is resolved – and if it’s not resolved there will be more Jews living on the West Bank than Arabs living in Israel and that will be a point of no return. We are at a tipping point. I am not an alarmist. It is just demography. And maybe that is why [Prime Minister] Netanyahu, and the last of the right wing in this country, are so hesitant about making peace. They want to protract things to this point, and the consequences of reaching that point to Israeli democracy, and to having a xenophobic Israel where Israel is the international pariah country, is a country many of us would not like to live in.