Jewish Voices of Dissent on Gaza
Excellent article by my friend, the prolific social commentator César Chelala: Jewish Voices of Dissent on Gaza in Middle East Times.
The revolutionaries have only changed the world. The point, however, is to understand it.
Excellent article by my friend, the prolific social commentator César Chelala: Jewish Voices of Dissent on Gaza in Middle East Times.
No answers today, just a question. Today's El País is dominated by two "stories", as journalists call them, though neither one has a clear narrative yet. One is the massive bombardment and now invasion of Gaza by the Israelis. The other is the gobal financial crisis. My question: How will these two huge events affect each other? Because in our closely interconnected world, the vibrations of any major shock are felt throughout the network.
Labels: globalization, Israel, Palestine
Happy new year -- I mean, let's all work to make this year happier than the way it is starting out.
Labels: Israel, Palestine, US politics
Read Mark Engler (link below) on "The World after Bush" before you listen to Barack Obama on U.S. foreign policy. The best we can say is that Obama wants to get us out of Iraq sooner than McCain (though it's still not clear how). But otherwise he's completely vague (what about relations with Europe? China? Korea? and so on -- has he even thought about them?). And on Hamas and Israel he comes out on the right of Bush, saying not only that he would refuse to negotiate with Hamas, but even criticizing Bush for insisting on holding elections in Gaza, because the wrong guys -- Hamas -- won. What kind of democratic vision is that? As Israeli war veteran and peace activist Uri Avnery never tires of pointing out, it is precisely with your enemy that you need to negotiate, if you want to end a conflict. (Here's Avnery's latest column.) And why not negotiate with Hamas? They won the election in Gaza and are the only ones with potential of controlling the civil population there.
Labels: Israel, Palestine, US politics
And do you think this isn't happening to our boys (and even our girls -- remember Abu Ghraib) in uniform in Iraq? Not to mention the un-uniformed Blackwater guys and their kin. Israel shaken by troops' tales of brutality against Palestinians
This piece by John Whitbeck may help clear up some rhetorical confusion. What 'Israel's right to exist' means to Palestinians | csmonitor.com
Here is a 15-minute talk by Ilan Pappe, an Israeli and professor at Haifa University, delivered at Northeastern University in Boston, November 19, 2006: The Cleansing of Palestinians. Pappe traces the Israeli campaign to expel Palestinians from Palestine to the very origins of the Jewish state. Zionism's two founding impulses were, first, to find a safe haven for the Jews (quite necessary and urgent in an era of pogroms in the late 19th century), and second, to redefine Judaism as a national movement. It is this second impulse that, according to Pappe, is used by the entire Israeli political elite to justify any action -- including individual and mass killing, rape and destruction of property -- in its ethnic-cleansing campaign; Pappe hopes to stir a movement to end this policy.
Miko Peled provides arguments for what I too think is the only reasonable, humane and sustainable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A single state, with equal rights for all regardless of ethnicity or religion, and a democracy embracing all and guaranteeing basic civil rights, could be the model for transformation of the entire Middle East. (Thanks to Khalil Nakhleh for signaling this article.) ZNet |Israel/Palestine | The Answers Have Changed
"Let me be serious now because this is a serious time that calls for serious reflection,"says Zbigniew Brzezinski in an address in Washington, .
I hate to say this but I will say it. I think what the Israelis are doing today for example in Lebanon is in effect, in effect--maybe not in intent--the killing of hostages. The killing of hostages. Because when you kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the provocations Hezbollah staged, but you do it in effect deliberately by being indifferent to the scale of collateral damage, you’re killing hostages in the hope of intimidating those that you want to intimidate. And more likely than not you will not intimidate them. You’ll simply outrage them and make them into permanent enemies with the number of such enemies increasing.
Happy new year! Reasons for optimism in 2003:
Labels: Africa, Brazil, globalization, Palestine, Venezuela, world politics, writing