Between Dome of the Rock and a Hard Place
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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A number of my readers have asked me about the difference between a settlement and an outpost. This distinction is typically made, in the minds of Israelis, as the difference in formal recognition by the government versus the informal establishment of small caravans, often by the most radical fringes of settler society. This distinction, however, [...]
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“They sat [the child] down and put his hand on the chair and simply broke it right there on the chair,” recounted a female IDF soldier. The blogosphere is burning today with the recently published accounts of female soldiers in the IDF, who are expected to compensate for their relative physical weakness with extraordinary violence [...]
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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 suicide [...]
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Dr. King, if only the world listened to your message instead of using you as a cheapened stage prop. That is the dream I have. “A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings [...]
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Dear Haitians, forgive me for using your current and historical suffering to make a political point about a distant land. Nothing I say is intended to diminish your real suffering and remarkable steadfastness in the face of often externally created adversity. Given your history, there is a strong comparison to be made with the currently [...]
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When the pimply-faced Israeli teenager is staring at the computer screens linked to the drones’ cameras, it is far too easy to forget what are the colored pixels on the screen. We must never allow ourselves to disconnect ourselves from the human tragedies associated with the policies we advocate. Hammad, 24, recalls the day two [...]
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“Palestinians are blurry figures,” writes Aluf Benn in a recent Ha’aretz column. “Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh speak, women covered from head to toe mourn in a tent, men run with a stretcher after an ambulance, men concealing their faces fire Qassam rockets. Israelis have no interest in knowing anything further.” Israeli psychology is an [...]
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For decades, the idea that a resolution to the Israel/Palestine conflict ought to be imposed was considered taboo, or at least politically fanciful due to the United States’ ever-ready UN Security Council veto. This diplomatic impediment has protected Israel from the need to accept, for example, a multinational peacekeeping force to prevent suicide attacks and/or [...]
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One year ago, Israel destroyed Gaza. Over 1000 noncombatant human beings, who used to laugh and think and eat and shit and much else besides, were simply eliminated as part of Israeli military action. Was it intentional? I don’t think so, although the more I read about the Dahiya Doctrine the more uncertain I get [...]
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