I don’t know Israeli society, and I would like to be wrong about the degree of extremism in it, but it’s hard to explain the endless colonization of the West Bank without concluding that extremists have power in that society….
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Monthly Archives: September 2008
UN: Israel Has Increased Checkpoints and Roadblocks in West Bank
From the Palestinian media: “A report published by the United Nations this week revealed that in spite of Israeli vows to ease restrictions on movement in the West Bank, the Israeli army increased the number of roadblocks and search points.”…
Matthews Calls Bush–and Palin–a ‘Cover’ for Neocon Agenda
Chris Matthews inched up to the line on the neoconservatives tonight in a conversation with Pat Buchanan about the briefing of Sarah Palin. Don’t you think, Matthews said, that McCain’s foreign policy guru Randy Scheunemann is scripting her on this…
‘J Street’ Stopped AIPAC From Getting Congressional Signatures on Anti-Iran Napkin
I just learned that the new Israel lobby, J Street, played a key role in dealing that astonishing defeat to AIPAC in Congress last week–in which a coalition of peace groups and religious groups spearheaded by the National Iranian American…
Did ‘The Sun’ Have Bad Juju?
Well the NY Sun is no more. Today’s its last issue. Seth Lipsky announced that he could not find another partner, for that fearsome front line of Steinhardt, Hertog, Kovner, and Tisch. Israel is everything to Steinhardt and Hertog. “I…
U.N. to Consider Israeli Nukes
The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, begins meeting in Vienna with the focus on Iran. But it has also put Israeli nukes on the agenda, at the request of Israel’s Arab neighbors. You see: Israel is not the only country…
Has Israel Got a Taliban Too?
Two journalists liken Israel’s radical settlers and its orthodox haredim to the Taliban. Antony Loewenstein, Aussie anti-Zio: The aim of these extremists is to establish a Taliban-style, rabbinical state to replace the current “secular” Israel. It may seem like a…
Rosh Hashanah and the Financial Crisis
Drudge had a great headline today, Rush Hashanah. Sorry to be so irreligious, but if it’s the greatest crisis in the financial system in 80 years, shouldn’t some of our Jewish lawmakers get on the stick? And Congress won’t do…
‘Most’ Programming for Young Jews Is ‘Crusade’ Against Intermarriage
Here’s a smart kid, Josh Nathan-Kazis, writing about how fears of intermarriage drove the organized Jewish community into the arms of the Chabad, the Orthodox Lubavitchers who think women should make the home. It’s a poorly kept secret in the…
Happy New Year (Jewish New Year–Apologies to Gentile Readers) to Seliger
Ralph Seliger has responded to my note of yesterday. I’m going to try to do a roundup later of other comments he and Steve F. have made, especially around the Sternhell attack in Israel, which is truly a bellwether event…
Bill Clinton Is Eloquent on America’s Image in Africa
I’ve criticized Bill Clinton forever, today I’m celebrating him. I saw him on Meet the Press yesterday, interviewed by Brokaw, and was stunned by his eloquence re Africa. I saw the statesman for once. I wonder if it has to…
Israeli P.M.’s, Like American Presidents, Wait Till the End to Say Anything Sensible About Palestine
Outgoing P.M. Ehud Olmert is telling a leading Israeli paper that Israel has to withdraw from almost the entire Occupied Territories if it wants to save itself from the crisis it is now in. From the Times’ Ethan Bronner, this…
‘Daily Kos’ Blames McCain’s Team for Attack on Ohio Mosque
Dayton’s newspaper reports a tear gas attack on a mosque there, affecting a lot of children. Dailykos makes the connection between the attack and the distribution of the free DVD of the anti-Muslim film “Obsession” by “McCain supporters” in swing…
Masturbation and Porn
I keep meaning to do this post and have finally found a rainy day. A month back I saw an old friend, my age, 53,who looked great, young. I said, How do you do it? His family was there and…
‘ABC News’ Guilts Baptists for Political Beliefs, Why Not Jews?
Tonight ABC World News did a piece from Kentucky, I think by Dan Harris, that essentially mocked Baptists for accepting Sarah Palin as a possible vice president of the U.S. even as they bar women from the pulpit. There were…
Hilda Silverman’s Finally Getting Her ‘Nakba’ Meeting With Paul Newman
Last spring my friend Hilda Silverman died, a leader on pro-Palestinian issues and a mentor to me on the idea that Jewish identity doesn’t have to be captured by Israel. I think of Hilda now because one of her issues…
Even Mommy’s in the Lobby
Steve F. is accusing me of making wild assertions re the Israel Lobby. Here’s his charge: So now Ralph and I am part of the Lobby, eh? Strange – I haven’t gotten anything in the mail recently about this. This…
Sometimes I Go About and Poison Wells
I thought they were supposed to get rid of settlements. No, here’s a plan to reopen a sewage dump for Israel settlements in the West Bank that Palestinians say poisons artesian wells that serve Nablus and nearby villages. (Thanks to…
Why Don’t You Guys Move to Israel?
Ralph Seliger and Steve F. respond to me re the right of return. Seliger first: It’s simple history that Israel overran its borders in 1948, because the tides of war permitted it to. The Palestinian and external Arab forces made…
The Elite Media Are Siding With Obama (Praise the Lord)
A friend writes, “I was a bit surprised at how pro-Obama last night’s post-debate commentary was. Were they being objective, or has the media already decided that Obama is going to win and they want to be on his good…
Communism Soured in ’56, a Lot Like Zionism Now
I’m reading a magnificent book, The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, and one theme in the 1961 novel is the souring, in 1956, of the promise of Communism even as its chief proponents in the west insist that it hasn’t…
Decline and Fall
Surprise: A resolution for a blockade against Iran, pushed by AIPAC, has been shelved by the House leadership as being too belligerent. Many are calling it a defeat for the Israel lobby; Jim Lobe cites “an unexpectedly strong lobbying effort…
Seliger on the Right of Return
Ralph Seliger has responded to Saif Ammous’s latest response to him re the right of return: Mr. Ammous obviously doesn’t want to come to an understanding with me. The fact that a Zionist like myself does believe in a moral…
‘Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians? What About the Arab Jews?’
And here is my friend Steve F. on the right of return: There is clearly an analogy between the ethnic cleansing of some Palestinians who left Israel in 1948 and the Jews of the Arab world forced out of their…
The War for Israel’s Soul
The NYT has a great piece of reporting by Isabel Kershner on radicalized settlers and the war they promise inside Israeli society over withdrawal from the West Bank. The piece begins with the Sternhell pipebomb attack in Jerusalem. Kershner’s fundamentalist…