I’m running off to festivities. It’s a happy new year in the U.S.–but not in Israel and Palestine! Thanks to all my readers, thanks to all the commenters, thanks to all my contributors, thanks to all my friends. Thanks to…
48
Monthly Archives: December 2008
If the article says ‘the war is wrong’ 6 times, why is the headline ‘Darkness in Qassam-land’?
Once again the American press can’t deal with sharp criticism of Israel. Here’s a piece in the Washington Post by Julie Chaitin, an Israeli living in the Negev, who teaches social work. The headline is “Darkness in Qassam-Land.” This war…
re the bombing of Islamic University
The great Jeff Halper and Neve Gordon ask in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, Where’s the outrage over the bombing of Islamic University? What about the 450 university officials who denounced the academic boycott of Israel–why aren’t they speaking out…
American street, and American elite
Here’s Obama’s transition website, where Americans are urged to ask questions. Reports a friend: You will see in the Foreign Policy link, almost all the questions were related to the bombardment of Gaza and in general, asking him to do…
finally, some boycott talk
A british telecommunications firm has severed its Israel contract over Gaza.
Jews are wringing their hands over Madoff–what about Gaza?
Here’s Adam Horowitz on Huffpo, leaping off from the fact that a Connecticut rabbi wants to excommunicate Bernie Madoff for his damage to the Jews. Ok. But where’s the soul searching over Gaza? The occupation? The neocons?
How to think about the missiles that terrorize Sderot, by Adam Horowitz, who’s been there
Adam Horowitz writes: Today the Christian Science Monitor has a piece by Alan Dershowitz defending Israel’s actions. I could respond to his article point by point, but it’s really just the same justifications for collective punishment that he and other…
Is pathetic Durbin statement a harbinger of Obama stance?
Here’s the senior senator from Illinois, a good liberal. Email sent out by aide Max Gleischman. And if you think I’m not noticing the Jews, you’d be wrong. DURBIN STATEMENT ON THE SITUATION IN GAZA Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) released…
Gaza is ‘undoing’ the Jews
Today I got an email from a Jewish friend saying No, no, no, (Amy Winehouse style) Obama should not have let a Jew speak for him on Gaza– David Axelrod making the evasive Gaza statement of Sunday. Didn’t know what…
Gaza shows growing power of internet, and Marty Peretz knows it
Jack Ross sent along this piece attacking Marty Peretz’s rebarbative response to young Jewish online journalists who are enraged by Gaza. Peretz called the kids selfhating Jews, or words to that effect: “hatred of their inheritance.” (Son, here is your…
Rand McNally and Merriam-Webster wipe Gaza off the map
A friend writes: War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography, noted Ambrose Bierce. Unfortunately, Rand McNally is interfering with this grand American tradition. This weekend I purchased a $16 laminated Rand McNally world map for my nephew. After seeing…
Nowhere to run
From the New York Times article “Israel Rejects 48-Hour Cease-Fire Plan”: The Nakhala family, which lives next to the [government] compound [in Gaza City], was inspecting the damage on Tuesday morning and recounting the utter fear and panic they all…
Bromwich: NYT authority Morris sees Palestinians as ‘animals not yet inducted into full humanity’
The true and savage mystery of the New York Times is why the paper of record turned to Benny Morris yesterday to tell people how to think about Gaza. This is one reason why the internet is surpassing newspapers as…
Obama at the crossroads
Sandy Tolan in the CSM says Gaza is the crossroads for Obama, and he’s right. If Obama says the wrong thing, if he fails to condemn Israel’s disproportionate horrifying violence– as Miliband has condemned, in England– then he loses the…
Press advisory for Israel apologists!
Leon Hadar: After reading [Benny] Morris today [“Why Israel Feels Threatened,” a headline that will go down in infamy –Weiss] I recalled the advice that the late Israeli PM Levi Eshkol (who headed the Israeli government in 1967) had given…
The late campaign fraud
Last night on Hardball, Pat Buchanan said that from a foreign-policy standpoint, the presidential election was about whether the neoconservatives were right or not, in their response to 9/11, two wars and an unending war on terror. The country said…
In their own words
An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert talking to Ha’aretz: “Gaza is not undergoing a humanitarian crisis. We’re constantly supplying it with food and medications, and there’s no need for a humanitarian cease-fire.”
It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fabulous)
Just got up, just heard Steve Inskeep of Morning Edition on NPR angrily asking the Israeli Ambassador Sallai Meridor (whom Horowitz dispatched on this site last night) what the goals were, when it was going to be over, aren’t you…
‘Huffpo’ misrepresents Pal protest as another Obama hoop story
Weird. Here’s an article on Huffpo all about the Palestine protesters in Honolulu with the amazing Margaret Brown, 66, in it– “We just gave them a blank check to oppress the Palestinians, and this is the result,” she said. Margaret,…
Just because there’s one president at a time
doesn’t mean we can’t start protesting the next one photo by Kent Nishimura of Bloomberg News
Israel is getting clobbered in p.r.
I have great news tonight: Gaza is exciting the world’s sympathy. Consider the picture above. We never could have imagined such a thing just weeks ago. Consider the heartrending headline and lead of an AP story prominent on Yahoo’s main…
In their own words
Sallai Meridor, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, talking to reporters: In a conference call Tuesday with reporters, Sallai Meridor said criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza as disproportionate is like “telling a lady who had to push a rapist…
‘Tibetan insurgents bear the responsibility for Chinese crackdown’
Can you imagine the Times saying that earlier this year when China crushed Tibet? No, you can’t. The first paragraph of the Times editorial on Gaza (who needs to read more): Israel must defend itself. And Hamas must bear responsibility…
To explain Hamas rockets, Haaretz describes ethnic cleansing of Majdl (Ashkelon) in 1953!!
Skyredoubt translated portions of a piece in Hebrew by Benny Tziper, in Haaretz, only Haaretz, and posted it on his flickr site. […]A nice man was there at the entrance to the museum, an invalid of IDF from the Yom…
Reuters: ‘Jewish lobby’ accounts for Obama’s silence re Gaza
The discourse is changing under our feet. Good piece from Jonathan Wright in Cairo. To wit: “Obama’s position is very precarious. The Jewish lobby warned against his election, so he has chosen to remain silent (on Gaza),” added Hilal Khashan,…