"Are you watching MSNBC?!? Donny Deutsch is hosting (I guess he's in for the suspended David Shuster) and he's doing a segment on Israel/Iran. Sole guest: Alan Dershowitz, who calls Israel "the perfect ally" and suggests Obama is another Neville Chamberlain. Deutsch laps it all up. His first follow-up:
"Alan, as a Jewish-American, I don' t think there's any disagreement that we need to stand together against Iran. I just want to war-game it a little..."
[P.S. Alan Dershowitz, in Chutzpah:
My generation of Jews was too young to fight against Nazism or for Israeli independence, too American to make aliyah (emigrate to Israel), too comfortable to put our bodies on the line for anything Jewish. Instead, we observed, contributed... We became part of what is perhaps the most effective lobbying and fund-raising effort in the history of democracy.]
Mondoweiss
http://www.urgence-gaza.net/
ReplyDelete<span>Israel Defense Forces officers have lashed out at rioters who clashed with soldiers at the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar on Tuesday.</span> <span>
ReplyDelete“These people are scum,” one senior officer told Haaretz after three soldiers were wounded by stones thrown near the hilltop settlement, known for its hard-line yeshiva, or Jewish seminary.
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It was seminary students who had instigated the violence, the officer said.
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http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/israeli-soldiers-finally-clash-with-the-real-enemy/
<span>I told you so! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, vza, I'll post it.</span>
Thanks v..I'll take the time to read.. It looks like naming a street after Ben-Gurion is angering a lot of people.
ReplyDeleteV
ReplyDeleteIn your link I found a letter Ilan Pappe send to the Mayor of Paris Bernard de Lanoue..I'll post it thanks.
Dear Mr. Delanoé !
On the face of it one can understand the wish of the Counsel of Paris to honour David Ben Gurion with a boulevard. He was the founding father of the state of Israel and its prime minister for many years. And indeed as mentioned in the communique he was responsible for the development of good relationship with France in the attempt to topple President Gamal Abdul Nasser in 1956 and oversaw the improvement of the military and strategic ties between the two countries up to 1967. And one can see how the supporters of Israel in the Jewish community and beyond would welcome such a move. But I am writing to you today to consider the other side of the argument. One which to my mind outweighs the positive reasons for such a decision. David Ben Gurion was the architect of, and the mastermind behind, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948. An operation that begot the Palestinian problem as we know it today and dragged not only Arabs and Jews into an endless and bloody conflict, but the Middle East as a whole.
ReplyDeleteHe was not alone but he was the most important figure in the systematic expulsion of almost one million Palestinians from their houses, fields and homeland. He also oversaw the demolition of thundreds of their villages and dozens of their towns and personally ordered their transformation into either Jewish settlements or recreational parks.
He then oversaw the imposition of a ruthless and cruel military rule over the Palestinian minority left in Israel, which included the expropriation of their lands, the exile of many and the Kafar Qassim massacre of November 1956 in which dozens of innocent Palestinian were killled by the Israeli border police.
Had contemporary Israel come to terms with the criminal side of his policies and strategies, as did the White community in Apartheid South Africa, then one could consider some sort of a more comprehensive commemoration of the man and his achievements. But as this crime, the Palestinian Nakbah, is still denied today by official Israel, that act of calling an avenue after him would mean accepting and legitimizing the denial. This would undoubtedly seem as an offensive and insensitive act to the vast majority of your citizens, regardless of their ethnicity, religion or cultural affiliation.
I beseech you as an activist and as a historian of the Nakbah, born in Israel and teaching today in the United Kingdom rethink that decision and leave it until both Palestinians and Israelis would be able to face the unpleasant past and reconcile. Any other decision would alas contribute to the continuation of the conflict and cast a doubt on French politicians’ sincere commitment to peace.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Ilan Pappe
Director
The European Centre for Palestine Studies
Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies
University of Exeter
United Kingdom
http://www.urgence-gaza.net/index.php/site/lire/lettre_ouverte_a_bertrand_delanoe_par_lhistorien_israelien_ilan_pappe/