Middle East
Palestinian Mufti to Pope: Let's Unite Against the Jews
Published May 12, 2009 @ 06:20AM PT
Ack! I meant to write, Palestinian Mufti Sheikh Tamimi interrupted an interfaith dialogue meeting with the Pope and other dignitaries to denounce the occupation and Israeli policy. The New York Times reports that he urged Muslims and Christians to unite against Israel.
(Let's play fill in the blank: Muslims, Christians, ___________. What word fits? Israel, or Jews?)
Regionalize the Conflict
Published May 12, 2009 @ 05:49AM PT
Guest post by Ben Murane
Naomi Chazan, a leading Israeli peacenik and former Meretz MK, made an American tour recently to bolster support among American Jews for progressive causes in Israel. (She's presently President of the New Israel Fund.)
Fiery, witty and on the offensive, Chazan leapt immediately into the speculation about Bibi, Obama and a two state solution and made strict recommendations to Americans: regionalize the solution to the conflict.
Stupidity, she said, is repeating a failure while expecting different results. The Olso process failed and to simply hope that Israel and Palestine can be sweet talked back to the table may have worked eight years ago. But now with Iran influencing Hamas and Hezbollah, the conflict at home is tangled in wider problems. Obama, she says, has done the intelligent thing in dealing with Iran, Syria and the Palestinians together with Israel.
The hypocrisy of Israel's nuclear program existing unacknowledged alongside the battle against Iranian nuclear proliferation stings in the Arab world. Iran's funding of Hamas -- more hardline than the average Palestinian -- by outsiders scuttles diplomacy. Syria's complicity with Hezbollah (also aided by fundamentalists further afield than Lebanon) is the same. The interwoven influences demand addressing all of it or none of it.
It is also no longer reasonable to expect that Israel and Palestine will reach an amiable final status agreement. Not with Bibi Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman at the Israeli helm. Not with a neutered Abbas and recalcitrant Hamas divided on the Palestinian side. It may be time, Chazan suggested, for a serious non-military intervention by the international community. Meaning, America and the Quartet should force a settlement agreeable to both populaces upon their politicians. The is even a silver lining for politicians answering to outraged hardliners: "Hey, it's not my fault," they can claim, "the Americans made me do it!"
Furthermore, she said that such an imposed agreement (she didn't like that word and preferred -- "non-military diplomatic intervention") would necessarily be two states for two peoples. "I don't care what is said by otherwise very smart people in the pages of the New York Review of Books," she said with a smirk. "I am a real person, my country is real. The alternative to a two state solution is not a one state solution, it's more of what we have now, wars on the backs of civilians."
That said, she demanded an answer of American Jews: "You voted Obama by 78%...It's as if there's a total disconnect between the liberal values of American Jews and their attitude to Israel...Israel's existence is totally dependent on Israel's soul. An end to the discomfort." An end to the occupation of another people.
We need more progressive voices like Naomi Chazan. But we need there here, home grown in the U.S. of A. Be one.
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Video: Uri Avnery - Should the US Arm Israel?
Published April 22, 2009 @ 09:24AM PT
Solidarity activists claiming that the US should stop giving weapons to Israel are easy to find. Careful, cautious, realistic policy analysis on the topic is not so common.
Enjoy.
Durban II: Pro-Israel Group Trots Out Anti-Libyan Palestinian
Published April 20, 2009 @ 04:24AM PT
Israel and the United States are among the countries boycotting the UN conference against racism, known as Durban II. Palestinian Israeli parliamentarians were present:
Balad chairman MK Jamal Zahalka, who will attend Durban II, addressed the crowd at the NGO Civil Society Forum March in Geneva on Sunday, presenting himself as a Palestinian victim of "Israeli racist apartheid" and concluding his speech by proclaiming: "No peace without justice."
Tel-Aviv Celebrates 100 Years
Published April 17, 2009 @ 05:07AM PT
The first modern Hebrew city was founded 100 years ago on some sand dunes north of Jaffa. Today Tel-Aviv plays host to the largest gay pride march in the Middle East and calls itself 'a city without interruption,' the Hebrew version of 'the city that never sleeps.'
For Israeli Palestinians living in Jaffa, the narrative is just a little bit different. Not to mention the Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere still calling themselves 'Jaffans' because that is where they actually come from.
Here is a great clip that pulls together different narratives and juxtaposes them side by side. (Thanks Jewschool!) It's a visual technique that does a real service to helping us experience the 'issues' of the region as 'stories' of real people. Check it out:
Can the Zionist Left and Palestinian-Israeli Parties Unite?
Published April 14, 2009 @ 07:37PM PT
Daniel Gavron, a veteran leftist in Israel, has made a brave proposal. Calmly analyzing the current (miserable) political situation in Israel, he arrives at a simple conclusion: the Jewish left should unite with the Arab parties in the Knesset.
...the Jewish left must not be afraid to join up with the Arab citizens of Israel. There are currently 11 members of the Arab parties in the Knesset, but there could be as many as 17 if the Arabs bothered to vote in general elections at the same rate that they vote in local elections. The Jewish left should invite the Arabs into an equal partnership, forming an inclusive social democratic party that could be an alternative to the Netanyahu regime. If the approach is made in the right way, the response would surely be positive.
Easter Roundup for Palestine
Published April 12, 2009 @ 08:54AM PT
The Pope:“Reconciliation, difficult, but indispensable, is a precondition for a future of overall security and peaceful co-existence, and it can only be achieved through renewed, persevering and sincere efforts to resolve the Israeli- Palestinian conflict,” Pope Benedict said today in front of the loggia of the 16th century St. Peter’s Basilica in his Easter message.
