Some Israelis Count Open Discourse and Dissent Among Gaza War Casualties

By JODI RUDOREN

JERUSALEM — The signs are everywhere.

At a recent demonstration in Tel Aviv against Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip, counterdemonstrators chanted “Death to the left!” along with the more commonly heard “Death to Arabs!” Afterward, some of the right-wingers beat some of the leftists — using large poles that had held Israeli flags.

The Israel Broadcasting Authority blocked B’Tselem, a human rights group, from running a paid radio advertisement reading the names and ages of Palestinian children killed in Gaza.

Bar-Ilan University rebuked a professor who expressed empathy for all the war’s victims in an email to students.

And at a recent screening at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, a fading bastion of liberalism, when some audience members stood for a moment of silence in memory of four Palestinian boys killed as they played soccer on a Gaza beach, others who kept their seats berated them with cries of “Shame on you — what about our boys?” and “You’re raping the audience,” according to several people who were there.

In Israel, open discourse and dissent appear to be among the casualties of the monthlong war in Gaza, according to stalwarts of what is known as the Zionist left — Israelis who want the country to end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and help create a sovereign Palestinian state.

Israeli politics have been drifting rightward for years, and many see that trend sharpening and solidifying now. Several polls find that as many as nine out of 10 Israeli Jews back the prosecution of the war by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. When that support slipped a bit last week, it seemed to be because more people wanted an even more aggressive assault on Hamas, the militant Islamist faction that dominates Gaza. Israelis who question the government or the military on Facebook, or who even share photographs of death and devastation in Gaza, find themselves defriended, often by people they thought were politically like-minded.

“One of the victims of war is any nuance,” said Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman, who emigrated from New York in 1979. “The idea of having a nuanced position that recognizes the suffering on both sides and the complications is almost impossible to maintain.”

Rabbi Weiman-Kelman is the founder of Kol Haneshama, one of Israel’s largest and best-known Reform congregations, where every service ends with an adaptation of a traditional Hebrew prayer for peace that includes a line in Arabic borrowed from a traditional Muslim prayer. (Disclosure: I have occasionally attended those services.)

Read more » The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/world/middleeast/in-israel-open-dissent-is-among-the-gaza-war-casualties.html?_r=0

Why Americans See Israel the Way They Do

By ROGER COHEN, THE NEW YORK TIMES

TO cross the Atlantic to America, as I did recently from London, is to move from one moral universe to its opposite in relation to Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. Fury over Palestinian civilian casualties has risen to a fever pitch in Europe, moving beyond anti-Zionism into anti-Semitism (often a flimsy distinction). Attacks on Jews and synagogues are the work of a rabid fringe, but anger toward an Israel portrayed as indiscriminate in its brutality is widespread. For a growing number of Europeans, not having a negative opinion of Israel is tantamount to not having a conscience. The deaths of hundreds of children in any war, as one editorial in The Guardian put it, is “a special kind of obscenity.”

Gaza and the outrage of millions

By Omar

I do not follow the Palestinian-Israeli conflict very closely, but of course, given the high visibility of this issue, I am not completely ignorant of it either and do have opinions about it. Ever since the current war started, my Facebook and Twitter feeds have been aflame with outrage at Israeli actions and support for the Palestinians. I have posted a post (basically saying there is no end in sight) and a few comments here and there, but generally stayed out of it. This (relative) lack of outrage has outraged some of my friends and forced me to think about it a bit more. So here goes:

First, about my relative lack of outrage: I plead old age. I am so old, I remember when i was outraged at Nixon’s Christmas bombing of Hanoi (I was a child, but I was a precocious child in that way, in a very politically aware household). I was outraged at the genocide in East Pakistan a few years after it happened (how I missed being outraged at that in 1971 is a long story). I remember being outraged when the CIA sent terrorists to blow up stuff in Nicaragua and when right wing death squads nailed nuns to the table in El-Salvador. I was outraged at the first Iraq war (and marched in Washington to oppose it, then went to a bar and saw zero coverage of that HUGE march on TV) and approaching old age, at the second. If that looks like a leftish list of outrages, its because (like all Westernized Desis) I grew up in a Leftist milieu when it came to being outraged. But I compensated in my old age. I have since become retrospectively outraged at Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, among others. I was even mildly outraged by our (Pakistan’s) close allies the Sri Lankan army, and their tactics in their elimination of the Tamil Tigers. But the point is, I have discovered by now that the outcome of these things is rarely determined by the number of people outraged. In actual wars, especially wars where the opposing parties look at it as a fight to the death, its usually a matter of who can fight better and longer and who has the deadlier weapons.

In short, if there is no middle ground, then the conflict (no matter who is at fault, or who did what to get here) will, NECESSARILY, be settled by the battle-axe. Any settlement by the battle-axe means more Palestinian suffering than Israeli suffering because Israel has the better axes. Supporters of Palestine (and I continue to believe that I am one, since I think a two-state solution on near 1967 borders is the most humane solution and complete defeat of either party involves too much human suffering) should keep this in mind before they valorize an armed resistance in which they themselves take absolutely no bodily risks. Israel must stop bombarding Gaza and killing civilians as collective punishment, but Hamas must also stop firing rockets and getting civilians killed. Even if we believe that the moral burden of those civilian deaths rests on the killers, not on Hamas, the price is too damned high. Moral victory at that price is not worth it.

Cheer leading that victory from 10,000 miles away on Twitter or Facebook is easy. But the price for those dying and suffering is too high. Should Hamas then accept blockade and lack of recognition and x and y?…yes and no. They must not act as if they can FIGHT their way past these restrictions because clearly they cannot. Then they should get out of the way and let more Gandhian alternatives try to improve the life of Palestinians instead of using them as cannon fodder. By not accepting X or Y, what exactly have they achieved? Has the blockade ended? has the suffering stopped? If the tactics you are using are only getting your own kids killed, then the tactics are not working. Honor and admiration from countless millions backslapping each other in their drawing rooms is not enough of a reward or achievement.

Almost all my friends disagree with me on this, but then, like me, they are safely away from the kill zone….also, many of them have had nasty words for Abbas (Abu Mazen). Well, he has not achieved what he wanted, but the West Bank Palestinians are still better off than the ones in Gaza. Their kids are not being slaughtered in the hundreds and they have the chance to resist non-violently and make their case to the world AND TO ISRAEL. Of course it is possible that (as most of my friends claim) Israel  is really not interested in making an honorable peace. But since the Palestinians do not have (and will not have in the foreseeable future) ANY way to militarily defeat Israel, their options are rather limited. Distant cheerleaders with nothing to lose are encouraging them to commit suicide so that we can all have dead heroes to admire. I dont think thats a good idea for Gazans.

Those protest demonstrations in Western capitals? I saw bigger ones before the Gulf war. What happened next is well known.

PS: What about my disproportionate attention to Pakistani Jihadists, ISIS and suchlike? I think its semi-rational. They have killed friends of mine already> they may kill more in the days to come. Their actions affect people I know personally. Its selfish, but its (sort of) rational.

Courtesy: Brown Pundits
http://brownpundits.blogspot.ca/2014/08/gaza-and-outrage-of-millions.html?spref=fb

Meshal to Charlie Rose: Hamas doesn’t fight Jews, it fights the occupiers

WATCH: In interview with CBS, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal manages to avoid directly answering question about recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

By Haaretz

Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal managed to avoid directly answering the question of whether Hamas would recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in an interview with CBS host Charlie Rose.

In the interview, which aired on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Meshal said, “When we have a Palestinian state then the Palestinian state will decide on its policies. You cannot actually ask me about the future.”

Earlier in the interview, the Qatar-based Hamas leader said he was “ready to coexist” with Jews and Christians, but added, “I do not want to live with a state of the occupiers.”

“We are not fanatics; we are not fundamentalists. We do not actually fight the Jews because they are Jews per se. We do not fight any other races. We fight the occupiers,” Meshal told Rose.

Read more » HAARETZ
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.607621

Why Don’t I Criticize Israel?

By Sam Harris, Neuroscientist and author of the New York Times Bestsellers

Excerpt;

The question I’ve now received in many forms goes something like this: Why is it that you never criticize Israel? Why is it that you never criticize Judaism? Why is it that you always take the side of the Israelis over that of the Palestinians?

Now, this is an incredibly boring and depressing question for a variety of reasons. The first, is that I have criticized both Israel and Judaism. What seems to have upset many people is that I’ve kept some sense of proportion. There are something like 15 million Jews on earth at this moment; there are a hundred times as many Muslims.  I’ve debated rabbis who, when I have assumed that they believe in a God that can hear our prayers, they stop me mid-sentence and say, “Why would you think that I believe in a God who can hear prayers?” So there are rabbis—conservative rabbis—who believe in a God so elastic as to exclude every concrete claim about Him—and therefore, nearly every concrete demand upon human behavior. And there are millions of Jews, literally millions among the few million who exist, for whom Judaism is very important, and yet they are atheists. They don’t believe in God at all. This is actually a position you can hold in Judaism, but it’s a total non sequitur in Islam or Christianity.

So, when we’re talking about the consequences of irrational beliefs based on scripture, the Jews are the least of the least offenders. But I have said many critical things about Judaism. Let me remind you that parts of Hebrew Bible—books like Leviticus and Exodus and Deuteronomy—are the most repellent, the most sickeningly unethical documents to be found in any religion. They’re worse than the —. They’re worse than any part of the New Testament. But the truth is, most Jews recognize this and don’t take these texts seriously. It’s simply a fact that most Jews and most Israelis are not guided by scripture—and that’s a very good thing.

Of course, there are some who are. There are religious extremists among Jews. Now, I consider these people to be truly dangerous, and their religious beliefs are as divisive and as unwarranted as the beliefs of devout Muslims. But there are far fewer such people.

For those of you who worry that I never say anything critical about Israel:  My position on Israel is somewhat paradoxical. There are questions about which I’m genuinely undecided. And there’s something in my position, I think, to offend everyone. So, acknowledging how reckless it is to say anything on this topic, I’m nevertheless going to think out loud about it for a few minutes.

I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state. I think it is obscene, irrational and unjustifiable to have a state organized around a religion. So I don’t celebrate the idea that there’s a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. I certainly don’t support any Jewish claims to real estate based on the Bible. [Note: Read this paragraph again.]

Though I just said that I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state, the justification for such a state is rather easy to find. We need look no further than the fact that the rest of the world has shown itself eager to murder the Jews at almost every opportunity. So, if there were going to be a state organized around protecting members of a single religion, it certainly should be a Jewish state. Now, friends of Israel might consider this a rather tepid defense, but it’s the strongest one I’ve got. I think the idea of a religious state is ultimately untenable.

Needless to say, in defending its territory as a Jewish state, the Israeli government and Israelis themselves have had to do terrible things. They have, as they are now, fought wars against the Palestinians that have caused massive losses of innocent life. More civilians have been killed in Gaza in the last few weeks than militants. That’s not a surprise because Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Occupying it, fighting wars in it, is guaranteed to get woman and children and other noncombatants killed. And there’s probably little question over the course of fighting multiple wars that the Israelis have done things that amount to war crimes. They have been brutalized by this process—that is, made brutal by it. But that is largely the due to the character of their enemies. [Note: I was not giving Israel a pass to commit war crimes. I was making a point about the realities of living under the continuous threat of terrorism and of fighting multiple wars in a confined space.]

Read more: SAM HARRIS
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/why-dont-i-criticize-israel

Madeleine Albright: Israel ‘overdoing’ its response to Hamas

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says focus should be on how to end conflict and implement two-state solution.

By Haaretz

Israel looks like it’s “overdoing” its response to Hamas rocket fire, which is “hurting Israel’s moral authority,” former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Tuesday.

Although she expressed support for Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket fire, Albright said in an interview with CNN that the “question of proportionality” was important.

“I do think that it is very hard to watch the number of Palestinians that have been killed – innocents,” Albright said as the current secretary of state, John Kerry, was in the region to attempt to broker a cease-fire.

Read more » Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.606745

Palestine and Israel…no end in sight

Slate columnist William Saletan has a piece about a possible solution to the conflict in Gaza (How to Save Gaza). It is worth a read. It will probably seem overly liberal to many Israeli supporters and will seem totally unfair to many Palestinian supporters. And it does sound a little utopian. Well, a lot utopian. It seems unlikely that it could be attempted and very unlikely that it would work if attempted.

Anyway, it reminded me of a comment I wrote on Facebook. I am not optimistic…

This is a Greek tragedy. Both sides have lost many opportunities to compromise and they will surely manage to lose more in the days to come. When those in power in Israel clearly want to keep all or most of the occupied West Bank (building new settlements is hardly a signal they are leaving) and avoid every opportunity to make a deal, then they are not laying the foundation for durable peace. When those in power in Gaza seem to believe ALL Jewish presence in Palestine should be “reversed” (“Palestine will be free; from the river to sea”), they are not laying such a foundation either.

If Likudniks think Palestinians are incorrigible terrorists and barbarians who can never be trusted, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Hamas (and even more so, their millions of outside cheerleaders with nothing to lose) say the Israelis are worse than Nazis and are committing history’s greatest genocide, then what sane Israeli would consider them a negotiating partner that wants to make peace? Its a lose-lose situation.
Sad.

Why St George is a Palestinian hero

By Yolande Knell, BBC News

As England celebrates the day of its patron saint, many Palestinians are gearing up for their own forthcoming celebrations of the figure they also regard as a hero.

A familiar flag flaps in the wind above a Palestinian church in the West Bank village of al-Khadr.

The red cross on a white background has been associated with Saint George since the time of the Crusades.

It is the national flag of England and is also used as an emblem by other countries and cities that have adopted him as their own patron saint.

However, Palestinians have particular reason to display the symbol and revere the early Christian martyr. For them he is a local hero who opposed the persecution of his fellow Christians in the Holy Land.

“We believe he was a great martyr for his faith who defended the Christian faith and values,” says Greek Orthodox Archbishop Atallah Hanna.

“By making sacrifices for his faith he was able to defeat evil. We take St George as a patron for people living here – and as he was born in historic Palestine, we pray to him to remember us and this holy land.”

St George was a Roman soldier during the Third Century AD, when the Emperor Diocletian was in power. It is said that he once lived in al-Khadr near Bethlehem, on land owned by his mother’s family.

While the saint’s father is usually traced back to Cappadocia, an area in modern Turkey, it is believed his mother was Palestinian from Lydda – now Lod, in Israel.

Read more » BBC
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27048219

 

Times of troubles

By: Shamshad Ahmad

Looking at the dynamics of contemporary international relations, one is reminded of the ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times,” which could perhaps never have been more relevant than to our times at this critical juncture. We are passing through interesting and critical times which according to the so-called predictions of the Nostradamus Code could also be categorised as “time of troubles.” These are indeed times of trouble. More so for the world’s Muslims now representing more than one fourth of humanity.

Creative Destruction!

Egypt’s Revolution-Creative Destruction For A ‘Greater Middle East’?

The G8 Map of Washington’s Greater Middle East extends right to the borders of China and Russia and West to Morocco

by F. William Engdahl

…….. Will it work? At this writing it is unclear what the ultimate upshot of the latest US-led destabilizations across the Islamic world will bring. It is not clear what will result for Washington and the advocates of a US-dominated New World Order. Their agenda is clearly one of creating a Greater Middle East under firm US grip as a major control of the capital flows and energy flows of a future China, Russia and a European Union that might one day entertain thoughts of drifting away from that American order.

It has huge potential implications for the future of Israel as well. As one US commentator put it, “The Israeli calculation today is that if ‘Mubarak goes’ (which is usually stated as ‘If America lets Mubarak go’), Egypt goes. If Tunisia goes (same elaboration), Morocco and Algeria go. Turkey has already gone (for which the Israelis have only themselves to blame). Syria is gone (in part because Israel wanted to cut it off from Sea of Galilee water access). Gaza has gone to Hamas, and the Palestine Authority might soon be gone too (to Hamas?). That leaves Israel amid the ruins of a policy of military domination of the region.” [28]

The Washington strategy of “creative destruction” is clearly causing sleepless nights not only in the Islamic world but also reportedly in Tel Aviv, and ultimately by now also in Beijing and Moscow and across Central Asia.

Read more : GlobalResearch.Ca

– F. William Engdahl is author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order. His book, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order has just been reissued in a new edition. He may be contacted via his website, http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

Leftist and rightist Israelis clash at Gaza flotilla protest in Tel Aviv

Smoke grenade hurled at left wing protesters from unknown source; demonstrators carry banners saying ‘the government is drowning us all.’

By Chaim Levinson

– Haaretz

Leftist and rightist demonstrators clashed Saturday night in Tel Aviv as more than 6,000 Israelis gathered to protest the Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship earlier this week, in which nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed.

RETHINKING THE BLOCKADE : International outrage prompts change of heart

Israel now exploring New ways to supply Gaza

JERUSALEM – After insisting all week that it s blockade of Gaza was essential to its security, the Israeli government is now exploring new ways of supplying the coastal enclave, an official said Thursday….

June 04, 2010

DETAINED CANADIANS SHARE STORIES OF ISRAELI TREATMENT

VANCOUVER – A Canadian activist who was take into Israeli custody in a raid on a flotilla of ships off the Gaza coast says even though he was beaten up by his captors, the harshest treatment was reserved for Turkish nationals. Kevin Neish, 53, was one of three Canadians detained in Israel after a violent confrontation at sea early Monday left nine activists dead. Neish, Farooq Burney and Rifat Audeh were on the Mavi Marmara as it ferried humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip. All three were taken into custody but have since been released and left Israe. Neish, of Victoria, contacted friend Zoe Blunt shortly after being flown to Istanbul late Wednesday. Blunt said Neish told her he’d suffered deep bruises on his arms after being bound for up to 25 hours by plastic handcuffs and was repeatedly threatened with death by soldiers carrying assault rifles…

Courtesy: The Canadian Press

Blackened

by Nadeem F. Paracha

Kudos to television journalist, Talat Hussain, for surviving the audacious Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla, and returning home to tell the tale.

Now, if only our brave media personalities could exhibit exactly the same kind of commitment and guts in condemning all the gore and tragedies that take place in the name of faith in our own country …

That would be asking for a bit too much, wouldn’t it? After all, they know that if they were to do so, not only would they suffer labels of being ‘liberal extremists,’ or ‘western/Indian/Zionist agents,’ but no prominent government functionary would dare or bother receive them as heroes either.

The way certain frontline members of the present government received Talat (as if he had just returned after liberating Palestine from the clutches of the aggressive Zionist state), the question arose (at least in some cynical minds), where exactly were the same ministers and elected politicians (from both the PPP and PML-N), when the Ahmadi community was picking up the bodies and limbs of their dead ones slaughtered by extremists on the May 28?

TO READ FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE

Courtesy: http://blog.dawn.com/2010/06/04/blackened/

June 4, 2010

Ex-Mossad Officer Criticizes Israel’s Handling of Flotilla Raid with Alex Jones – Must watch all parts

Ex-Mossad Officer Victor Ostrovsky Criticizes Israel’s Handling of Flotilla Raid with Alex Jones

Source – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itk02YXuAZM&feature=player_embedded

via – http://www.siasat.pk/forum/showthread.php?36986-Ex-Mossad-Agent-Victor-Ostrovsky-Criticizes-Israel-s-Handling-of-Flotilla-Raid-on-Alex-Jones

What Really Happened: Witnesses shed light on Israeli raid

Source – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU1EAFshLv0&feature=player_embedded#!

///Other side opinion///

Source – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOGG_osOoVg&feature=player_embedded#!

///-///-///

The language of Live with Talat show is Urdu/ Hindi

Source – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxqwe-V7jw0&feature=player_embedded

Source – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6g4U6iI4Lc&feature=player_embedded

Source – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xYZWppvP8g&feature=player_embedded

Courtesy: Aaj News, Live with Talat

Via- http://www.siasat.pk/forum/showthread.php?36980-Live-With-Talat-4th-June-2010-Special-Program&s=b13468ed55d820a9adcfbd7b297f7848

The Global Peace Institute condemned the Israeli attack on a refugee cargo ship.

Press Release (May 31, 2010) – Delaware USA : The Chairman of The Global Peace Institute Masood Zakria Choudhary in a press statement strongly condemned the Israeli army attack on a refugee cargo ship proceeding to Ghaza, Palestine in which twenty innocent persons are killed and fifty wounded. Masood Zakria Choudhary regarded it an open aggression of the Israeli government mirroring its’ aggressive and hegemonic designs. By performing such a hideous bloody act Israel has tarnished its’ image in the world community. Israel has breached international law and trampled human rights. The constant Israeli aggression is pushing the peaceful world to war. It is the democratic, moral and human duty of America to harness and bridle the steed and direct it to the right path of peace. Masood Zakria Choudhary said that the secretary general of the UNO Mr. Ban Ki Moon, the U.S.A State Department, the government of France and other countries have condemned the aggression of Israel that shows the sanity still prevails in the world and no nation has supported the inhuman act of Israel. The detainees in Israel must be safely returned to their countries and International Court of Justice should take suo moto action and ask Israel to apologize and pay the ransom to the affected families. The middle east crisis can only be resolved under Oslo Pact agreed by both the nations. Masood Zakria Choudhary appealed to the world powers to intervene for world peace and resolve the middle east issue amicably. He also appreciated the courage of the journalists who put their lives at stake and proceeded on the mission of human rights. He expressed deep grief of the killing of the human rights’ activists. At the same time he paid homage to three Pakistani journalists and human rights activists Talat Hussain, Raza Agha and Nadeem Khan or their courage and conviction.

Middle East : Israel – Palestine issue

by Omar Ali

… expecting the US and Europe to get up on their own and solve this problem (or any other problem they helped to create) you are being foolish.

On the other hand, it is equally foolish to assume that one can ignore the existence of US, Europe, public opinion, etc and decide “we” (meaning the exalted Ummah) will solve it on our own, thank you.

The facts on the ground are that Israel is the more developed power (with a huge advantage over its Arab neighbors, though not as much as it used to enjoy in the past when the camel jockeys were still stuck in the 18th century). The Palestinians are the weaker party. The weaker party has to use more of its brain than the stronger party (and in the best case, they use Judo: they turn the enemy’s strength against them).

The Palestinians have to work long and hard to get public opinion in Europe and the US to turn adjacent to Israel (and they have done a lot of that work and managed to get Europe especially to move further apart from Israeli hardliner positions, with patient hard work they will get the American public to move the same way, it can be done), they have to resist them on the ground, they have to organize enough to be able to sustain the struggle and they have to eventually offer the Israeli public an “out”…a way to settle this without being annihilated.

The last is important because it is important to remember that the Israeli public also consists of human beings, in this case organized in a rather sophisticated and capable culture. If their only option is annihilation or victory, they will fight tooth and nail. If they have a reasonable option short of annihilation, they too can be split between moderates and hardliners.

..read the voluminous literature about Mahatma Gandhi….

Or check out Hussein Ibish on the internet:

http://wws.princeton.edu/event_rep/HusseinIbish03_31/

Courtesy: crdp@yahoogroups.com, Mar 22, 2010