Between Dome of the Rock and a Hard Place
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Ha’aretz runs today a stunning and thoughtful article about how Israel must learn the language of human rights. Written by a media consultant and former adviser to the Interior Ministry, Gilad Heimann, the article manages to cut through Israeli social psychology and government hasbara efforts with admirable efficiency. The core argument is this: Israel doesn’t [...]
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This news story will not be news to anyone bothering to read the Israeli papers as Israel was attacking Gaza last winter. IDF spokespeople made it very clear Israel was going to privilege Jewish soldiers’ lives over any concerns about war crimes. This argument is, in fact, part of the Goldstone report’s case against Israel. [...]
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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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As I mentioned in my earlier post on Haiti and Gaza, Israel sent an IDF search-and-rescue team to Haiti to share “Jewish ethics” with the disaster-stricken locals. This is, of course, entirely unrelated to Israel’s desire to re-earn some of the brownie points lost in the course of, inter alia, its multiple year siege on [...]
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Imagine if the US caught wind of a poll being run in, say, Yemen by that country’s biggest news network, their equivalent of a CNN or MSNBC. The poll asks the following question: “Given the recent attempted terrorist attack on the US and the United States’ threatening statements in response, what do you think is [...]
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Instead of using its power to enforce international law in occupied Palestine, the IDF decides instead to launch a new hasbara (propaganda) unit to combat its ever-deteriorating image in the public mind. Maybe instead of hiring new Tweeters and Facebookers, the IDF could boost its credibility by conducting an honest and far-reaching investigation into its [...]
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Today’s Jerusalem Post carries the type of article that would never be published in a major US media outlet. The article examines Israeli social psychology around Operation Cast Lead and its aftermath. The article is so self-aware and penetrating, its worth an extensive quotation: The kill ratio was 100-to-1 in our favor. The destruction ratio [...]
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The Israeli press is abuzz with reports about the arrest of the Jewish terrorist, Yaakov Teitel, an American Jewish fundamentalist who became a settler (and much else) in the occupied West Bank. In particular, he has murdered at least two Palestinians, sent a bomb to a Jewish family with whom he disagreed ideologically, tried to [...]
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In a recent interview, the brilliant Amira Hass (the only Jewish Israeli journalist to live as a full-time reporter in occupied Palestine) describes the current regime as a mixture of apartheid, military occupation, and classical colonialism. But the form of apartheid that exists in Israel/Palestine is not motivated by racism, she argues, as evidenced by [...]
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