Occupation by the numbers

January 29, 2010

Sometimes numbers are worth a thousand words. And if the numbers aren’t enough, the selection of maps on this website (which can be found under the Resources tab) can provide another couple thousand words worth of images.

Length of the West Bank-Israel border: 196 miles.
Projected length of West Bank wall: 437 miles.
Projected proportion [...]

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Shouldn’t need to be said, but Israelis weren’t the only ones helping in Haiti

January 29, 2010

One terrible consequence of Israeli (and Western) racism toward Arabs is that a number of what should be unnecessary defenses of Arab behavior must be made. I don’t want to be in the position of defending Hamas, for example, and yet the absurd caricature of that complex organization must be countered.
Ditto on the recent [...]

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Palestinian ‘Gandhi’ arrested as his Bil’in movement scores huge success

January 28, 2010

Its a news day full of tension and contradictions. First, the good—and most important—news. The Israeli army is preparing to move the route of the segregation wall in Bil’in village, where it had annexed Palestinian land and sparked weekly, mostly nonviolent protests against the land grab, according to an IDF officer’s pledge disclosed [...]

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Alan Dershowitz’s passionate defense of boycott, divestment, and sanctions

January 28, 2010

Sitting in my hand is Alan Dershowitz’s official critique of the Goldstone Report. I am going to devote time in the near future to rebutting some of the ridiculous claims he makes. To foreshadow my criticisms, Dershowitz’s primary tactic is to exaggerate willfully the claims made by the Goldstone report so he can [...]

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Not satire: IDF as ‘light unto nations’ trains international commandos

January 27, 2010

This is a rather scintillating example of the paradox of modern Israeli nationalism. Published in a right-wing newspaper, Arutz Sheva, the article describes how commandos and mercenaries from around the world come to Israel in order to undergo training by the Israeli Defense Forces, which “exposes foreign soldiers to Israel [and] creates a better [...]

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A short two-step proof of Israeli apartheid

January 26, 2010

Ehud Barak is one the last Labor people standing. He sold out what were the purported values of Israel’s center-left Labor party in order to gain a seat (defense minister) in the most right-wing government Israel has ever had (the current one). By doing so, he helped facilitate the unprecedented collapse of one [...]

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Israel: Where the endless cycle of violence in Israel/Palestine begins

January 25, 2010

From a few thousand miles away, or even from the relative safety of a television image in Tel Aviv living room, it can seem as though the spiral of violence in the Middle East spins ruthlessly with no end and no beginning. In this confusing situation, people then insert their own ideological perspectives: each [...]

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Goldberg and Burnston (and my aunt) misunderstand the criticism of Israel’s Haiti mission

January 21, 2010

In today’s Ha’aretz, Bradley Burnston writes an op-ed in which he fulminates against the critics of Israel’s current mission in Haiti. He starts by saying “thank you” to the IDF medical team, continues by saying “That’s it”, suggesting that’s all he wants to say, and then launches into a tirade against “Israel bashers.” [...]

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Netanyahu’s view of Israel’s special relationship with the US

January 20, 2010

It is a truism that the US and Israel have had an extraordinarily close relationship since the 1960s. This fact makes Israel’s right-wing government’s gloating over Obama’s political troubles all the more. . . . well, troubling.

The Republican upset in the race for the U.S. Senate seat held for nearly half a [...]

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Israel’s conception of peace involves permanent West Bank presence

January 20, 2010

No Israeli leader has ever called for—much less offered—any peace deal to the Palestinians that would be reasonable for the Palestinians to accept. All such proposals have always undermined a number of the most fundamental characteristics of any sovereign state, such as control over borders, airspace, resources, etc, and therefore failed to provide Palestinians [...]

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