Even if the Ramat Shlomo announcement and its aftermath is a salutary reminder of the old Yiddish proverb about not spitting in the well you drink from, that should not be the only lesson we draw from this week’s events.
Continue reading ‘Meanwhile, in Ramallah…’
Archive for the 'Palestinians' Category
This is a guest post by Kenneth Bandler of AJC.
The propensity of some Israeli political leaders to speak publicly or take action before thinking clearly of the consequences hit a new low this week during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit.
If Israelis were looking for reassurance that the United States is genuinely the Jewish state’s number one ally, the vice president couldn’t have been clearer. “The bond between the U.S. and Israel has been and will remain unshakable,” declared Biden. “Progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel.” But, alas, there is a significant gap, on settlements, and it was an Israeli Cabinet Minister who decided to remind all with international media focused on every step of Biden’s visit.
After a week in which the Israeli government displayed its exquisite sense of timing, Vice-President Biden delivered a major speech at Tel Aviv University today. For those who don’t have time to watch the video, here are the bullet points.
Commenting on Human Rights Watch’s criticisms of the Jordanian government for stripping nearly 3,000 Palestinians of their citizenship, Elder of Ziyon makes the following observation: “…every Arab country is equally wrong by refusing to grant citizenship to people of Palestinian origin born in their countries - who now number in the millions. Not only is the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness being violated, but also the Convention on the Rights of the Child.” Read it all.
This article by Richard Landes is cross-posted from Augean Stables.
Judge Richard Goldstone spoke yesterday at Yale in the framework of the George Herbert Walker Bush Jr. Lecture in International Relations. Obviously a most prestigious platform for someone of stature, but inappropriate for a figure who is not only highly controversial, but has done much to marginalize himself, as Noah Pollak and Adam Yoffie pointed out the previous day in the Yale Daily.
Continue reading ‘The Coke-Lite of International Law: Goldstone Speaks at Yale’
This is a guest post by Petra Marquardt-Bigman.
On Thursday, December 10, President Obama will deliver the Nobel Peace Prize Lecture in Oslo. Prominent among the issues that the president may want to bring up is the failed quest for peace that began in Oslo back in 1993, when Israeli and Palestinian negotiators held a series of meetings in the Norwegian capital to formulate the accords that launched the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The feeling that it is time to give up on this process - and perhaps even on peace - is widespread, but claims that everything has been tried are not quite true.
“The next time the terms apartheid or oppression are used with reference to the Middle East, one must remember the intolerable conditions of Palestinians in most of the Arab countries,” writes Khaled Abu Toameh. He says:
Ben Cohen writes: What follows is an in-depth article by Jonathan Hoffman unraveling the tissue of lies that is “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide,” by the anti-Zionist propagandist Ben White. Z Word readers should note that Jonathan has been banned from attending a launch for White’s screed hosted by sham British “charity” War on Want.
In November 2008, Z Word published an important article by Anthony Julius. Entitled “False Confessions: How Anti-Zionists Incriminate Zionism”, it points out that doctored quotations are rife in the Israel bashing world: “We are now in the fifth stage. Incriminatory quotations are a staple of anti-Zionism. These quotations are partly the old ones, mostly updated by substituting “Zionist” for “Jew,” and partly new ones. They are a mix of fabricated quotations (including fictitious endorsements from prominent figures such as Nelson Mandela), and genuine quotations that are given undue weight. These quotations serve as substitutes for reasoned argument.” It seems that Julius had had a preview (premonition, more accurately) of this book.
Continue reading ‘Lies, Damn Lies and the Apartheid Analogy’
This is a guest post by Petra Marquardt-Bigman.
The Quilliam Foundation in London prides itself for being “the world’s first counter-extremism think tank.” The organization’s expertise in this field is clearly unique given that it was founded by “former leading ideologues of UK-based extremist Islamist organizations.” When it comes to Zionism, however, Quilliam’s former Islamists find it hard to really leave behind the ideology they now oppose.
Continue reading ‘Zionism and Islamism: A New False Equivalence’
Much is being made in the public prints about the two conditions set out by Netanyahu for Palestinian statehood in his recent speech at Bar Ilan University. One is a demand for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and the other is that the future Palestinian state be demilitarized. I’ll leave the former for another day and say something about the question of what a demilitarized state might actually mean in practice.
At 6:38 AM Eastern Standard Time, President Obama’s speech hit what the Wall Street Journal’s live bloggers called a “sensitive passage.” This one:
Here is the Palestinian writer and literary critic Hassan Khader on the “Nakba Narrative.”
Despite the fact that the signed agreements shook the foundations of accepted Palestinian norms and expectations, the PLO did not fail to develop rhetoric that emphasized the extent of its continued commitment to, and perhaps even conformity with, the traditional Narrative, despite obvious contradictions.
Max Hastings doesn’t love Israel or Israelis anymore. That’s the general drift of this article in which starts by describing his coverage of the Yom Kippur War as a war correspondent.
News of a very exciting initiative via Eric Lee of Labourstart. Trade Unionists Linking Israel and Palestine - TULIP - has just been launched “to challenge the apologists for Hamas and Hizbollah in the labour movement and to fight for a two-state solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.” Spread the word.
