“The first thing to say is that Israel was not what I expected, at all. ” “There was a discussion about the boycott and it is clear that Palestinians don’t want it – all they want is equal pay and a living. ” Just a flavor of what you’ll read on this remarkable blog - thanks to the redoubtable TULIP and Engage for highlighting it.
Archive for November, 2009
According to The Scientist magazine, which can be considered an authority on such matters, the Weizmann Institute of Science, located in Rehovot, Israel, comes in at number two on a list of the ten leading international academic institutions working in the life sciences. That ranking will doubtless be received with justifiable glee at the venerable Institute, but I wonder how it will be interpreted at another academic institution which didn’t make the list: the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), located in the city of Trondheim.
Continue reading ‘A-ha! Norwegian University is Latest Focus of Academic Boycott’
Two pieces on Iran worth noting. In the New York Times, Robert F. Worth carries a quote from a woman on the streets of Tehran: “’They should get rid of all this ‘death to, death to’ — death to what?’ said a middle-aged woman marching with her two daughters. ‘On the one hand they shout ‘Death to America’ and on the other hand they go and make deals with them.’” On RCW, Meir Javedanfar makes this observation: ”As the demonstrations and the crackdown continues, the loss of faith and credibility has started to permeate to foreign policy as well. It has now become a potent tool in the hands of the opposition. This is yet another crack in an important pillar which Khamenei uses to maintain the balance of his regime.”
At 5PM EST today, you can watch a live debate between Judge Richard Goldstone - of Goldstone Commission fame - and Dore Gold, now of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, formerly the Israeli Ambassador to the UN. Their debate comes one day after the House of Representatives dismissed the Goldstone report as a sham and as the UN General Assembly deliberates over a non-binding resolution to refer the report to the Security Council (bit of a foregone conclusion, that one.)
In the meantime, here is an engaging recent email correspondence between Judge Goldstone and Gregg Mashberg, a leading New York lawyer and prominent Israel advocate.
Adam Holland’s guest post earlier this week examined the growing connections between the far right and Muslim anti-Zionists. One of the photos we published in that piece showed a conference in Kuala Lumpur featuring former Malaysian leader and antisemitic conspiracy theorist Mahathir Mohamed, Holocaust denier Michael Collins Piper and a certain Yvonne Ridley, who will be well-known to Z Word readers in the UK as a loyal sidekick of insidious parliamentarian George Galloway - when she’s not acting as a mouthpiece for Iran’s murderous theocrats on their Press TV propaganda channel. Anyway, Adam has an updated post here which covers all this and is well worth reading.
I’m not a resident of the United States and I have a couple of question for Z Word readers who do live there: are intelligent people in the US who take an interest in such matters generally unaware that there have always been Jews that opposed Jewish nationhood and, in particular, that some 20th century Jewish intellectuals like Hannah Arendt (when she wasn’t busy making excuses for Martin Heidegger) were scathingly critical of Israel? Has this information been excluded from public debate? Does mentioning these facts here make me courageous? By mentioning them now do I risk the wrath of AIPAC?
Continue reading ‘Judith Butler and Anti-Zionist Charlatanry’
This is a crosspost by Adam Holland.
Disgraced former Congressman Jim Traficant was recently freed from federal prison after serving seven years of hard time for corruption and tax evasion. He surprised many people who haven’t followed his case by claiming in subsequent interviews that he had been framed by the “Israel lobby”.
Continue reading ‘Disgraced Ex-Congressman to Testify for Demjanjuk’
This is a guest post by Alex Stein.
I am proud to announce the launch of the new Orr Shalom website, which will be of particular interest to those interested in Israeli social policy.
