Between Dome of the Rock and a Hard Place
There might have been a window for a two-state solution, which was open for a brief period decades ago. Israelis as a collective chose instead to allow—indeed, to aid—its most extremist elements in destroying the two-state framework. And because we allowed the settlers to do it, because we gave them our money, the lives of [...]
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There exist strong domestic political reasons for Netanyahu to get down on his knees to beg the settlers to allow him to kiss their ass. What brown-nosing do I mean? I mean Netanyahu’s sycophantic efforts to bring his own version of global warming to the very temporary, very partial settlement freeze, all the while extolling [...]
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This is not a deep political point. Its nothing more than a simple comment about militarism and racism. Yesterday, an Israeli mental patient was shot dead by Israeli soldiers near the Erez crossing with Gaza after he tried to climb the fence into Gaza. Yes, the symbolism really is that ironic: a Jewish mental patient [...]
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One would think in the middle of unprecedented criticism of Israel for apartheid practices and ethnic cleansing, it would hold back just a tiny little bit on new, additional measures of anti-democratic repression. You would be wrong. Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, voted at the last minute today to cancel indefinitely the first local council elections [...]
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We have all heard it a million times: Israel does not target civilians; it only attacks military targets. I can barely count the number of times I have heard this argument from my family and friends. When all evidence of the Israeli destruction of Beirut or Gaza or wherever comes to light, this is the [...]
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Israel is such a peace-loving nation that its citizens accept and digest a steady stream—possibly a daily one—of official and journalistic calls to war crimes and crimes against [Arab and Persian] humanity. Every single day we get news of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, the continued colonization of the West Bank even under a [...]
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Ephraim “Effi” Eitam is no marginal figure in Israeli politics, even if he relatively right of mainstream opinion. He is a decorated Brigadier General in the Israel Defense Forces, having won a Medal of Distinguished Service during the Yom Kippur War. He commanded the Givati Brigade during the first intiffada (1988–1993), a unit which was [...]
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How can Israelis argue in public or private that they want peace? They can’t even adhere to their sickeningly weak “partial settlement freeze”, which is already far less than the entire world (and international law) demands. From Haaretz: Defense Ministry officials denied that an announcement on Wednesday that 84 new buildings [492 housing units] would [...]
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There are few influential journalists as arrogant, deceptively violent, and insane as Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. I mean, what other pseudo-journalist could write an editorial about the peace plan he pitched to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah (in the early 2000s), which was nothing more than UN Security Council Resolution 242, which Israel [...]
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I am not sure why I am thinking this thought now, but perhaps its leftovers from my personal thanksgiving. I am extremely thankful for the fact that when I think and debate about peace and justice in the Middle East, Palestinians and Israelis hold—in the deepest places of my mind and soul—precisely the same rights [...]
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