Diaspora Issues « Tikkunista!

4. A Post-Black, Post-Jewish, Post-National World?

Sep-30-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: The bird’s eye does glaze over, we confess, when it encounters “critical theory”, “a form of self-reflective knowledge involving both understanding and theoretical explanation to reduce entrapment in systems of domination or dependence, obeying the emancipatory interest in expanding the scope of autonomy and reducing the scope of domination.”(Thanks, Wikipedia) Here are three pieces, two reviews of a book and an essay. The book reviews focus on arguments it is time to move beyond such divisions as Jewish/non-Jewish or black/non-black; Orwell’s essay argues it’s time to move beyond nationalism. The Atzmon piece is as challenging (intellectually, emotionally, spiritually) to me about what it means to be Jewish as anything I’ve seen. Responses to it are particularly welcomed.

* Interview with Gilad Atzmon, author of The Wandering Who: A study of Jewish Identity Politics Eric Walberg

Gilad Atzmon is a world citizen who calls London his home. He was born a sabra, and served as a paramedic in the Israeli Defense Forces during the 1982 Lebanon War, when he realised that “I was part of a colonial state, the result of plundering and ethnic cleansing.” He has wandered far since then, become a novelist, philosopher, one of the world’s best jazz saxophonists, and at the same time, one of the staunchest supporters of the Palestinian cause, supporting the right of return and the one-state solution…. Atzmon denies that there is even such a concept as “anti-Semitism”, stating that “‘anti-Semite” is an empty signifier. “You are either a racist which I am not, or have an ideological disagreement with Zionism, which I have.” When railed against as an anti-Semite, Gilad quotes the witticism: “While in the past an ‘anti-Semite’ was someone who hated Jews, nowadays it is the other way around, an anti-Semite is someone the Jews hate.”

“Jewish anti-Zionists who criticise Israel for being racist, also operate in Jews-only, racially-exclusive political cells. I realised then that we need a new ideological instrument that would attempt to explain it all. I guess that this is when I started to differentiate between Jews (the people), Judaism (the religion) and Jewish-ness (the ideology). In my work, I avoid the first two categories, I only deal with ideology — the racially-driven supremacist and exclusive philosophy known as Chosen-ness. Zionism is just one face of Jewish-ness. Jewish anti-Zionism is clearly another face. John Zorn and his Jewish Radical Music is another, promoting a racially-driven pseudo-cultural ethos.”

* Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? Touré New York Times

Post-blackness entails a different perspective from earlier generations’, one that takes for granted what they fought for: equal rights, integration, middle-class status, affirmative action and political power. While rooted in blackness, it is not restricted by it, as Michael Eric Dyson says in the book’s foreword; it is an enormously complex and malleable state, Touré says, “a completely liquid shape-shifter that can take any form.” With so many ways of performing blackness, there is now no consensus about what it is or should be. One of his goals, Touré writes in “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now,” is “to attack and destroy the idea that there is a correct or legitimate way of doing blackness.” Post-blackness has no patience with “self-appointed identity cops” and their “cultural bullying.”

* “Notes on Nationalism” George Orwell

By “nationalism” I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled “good” or “bad.” But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseperable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.

2. Fighting with Israel

Sep-02-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: A look at Israel’s friends, and how the current leadership in Israel is forcing major changes with long-standing allies, even those as as basic as the Jewish people. In today’s news, Turkey has had a major split after Israel refused to apologize n the light of the long-awaited United Nations review of the attack on the flotilla. And in Canada, a coup takes over four separate Jewish groups to form a new monolithic voice (“One star of David to rule them all”)… under Stockwell Day. Independent Jewish Voices don’t seem to be welcome here.

* Israel is tearing apart the Jewish people Carlo Strenger Haaretz

In my travels to Europe I speak to predominantly Jewish audiences, but also to non-Jews who care deeply about Israel. They voice their pain and anguish openly: They want to understand what has happened to Israel. They desperately want to stand by it, but they are, increasingly, at a loss of knowing how to do so. Their questions are simple. They know that Israel is located in one of the world’s most difficult neighborhoods; they have no illusions about the Iranian regime or Hezbollah; and they know the Hamas charter. But they don’t understand how any of this is connected with Israel’s settlement policies, the dispossession of Palestinian property in Jerusalem, and the utterly racist talk about the ‘Judaization’ of Jerusalem. They feel that they no longer have arguments, even words, to defend Israel.

* Turkey Downgrades Ties With Israel Over Flotilla Raid New York Times

Turkey said on Friday that it was downgrading its diplomatic and military ties with Israel and expelling its ambassador in a display of anger at Israel’s refusal to apologize for a commando raid last year on a Turkish protest flotilla bound for Gaza in which nine people died.

…Turkey once ranked as Israel’s closest ally in the Muslim world. The latest move stopped just short of a complete breach in diplomatic relations but nonetheless seemed likely to deepen the already profound alienation between the two countries.

*The demise of the CJC Toronto Star

“Effective July 1, the Canadian Jewish Congress is discontinuing its activities,” dryly states CJC’s website. Victim of a restructuring of Canada’s Jewish and Israel advocacy organizations finalized this summer, the once venerable CJC, founded in 1919, has been folded into a new super-agency, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).

… Ottawa-based CIJA will now oversee and coordinate the work of the CJC, the CIC, theQuebec-Israel Committee (QIC), National Jewish Campus Life and the University Outreach Committee…. Critics contend that what the monolithic CIJA eliminates is other voices. As well, say detractors, CIJA’s “top-down” approach scorns the grassroots. Already, there are rumblings that the new name is notable for its lack of any reference to “Canada” or “Canadian.” Women will not be happy to learn that of the 24 high-profile people appointed to CIJA’s board of directors by its founders, just five are female (and curiously, several are non-Jews, including a Catholic priest and former Conservative cabinet minister Stockwell Day).

3. Turning Away from Israel

Jun-17-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: US support for Israel is dropping, as Sherry Wolf explores in her blog. But Israeli support for Israel is dropping too: emigration numbers from Israel are greater than immigration numbers to it, as Counterpunch explores. And in a wonderfully written, and deeply moving story, Allison Benedikt (the film editor of The Village Voice) tells of her experience growing up Zionist, and becoming non-Zionist. We give the opening, and the closing, but you really need to read the whole story.

* Israel: Losing Hearts and Minds Sherry J. Wolf Sherrytalksback

Opinion polls in the United States regarding Israel-Palestine are a mixed bag. On the one hand, they reflect the dominant narrative in the West that at turns defends and denies Israel’s racist policies toward Palestinians. On the other, they show disgust with the periodic mass killings of the virtually imprisoned Palestinians, punctuated in people’s minds by last year’s massacre of 9 humanitarian aid activists—murdered at sea in cold blood—their only weapons of defense: deck chairs and cucumber knives.

Two years ago, according to Zogby, 71 percent of Americans held a favorable opinion of Israelis; by March 2010, 65 percent did. A plurality, 40 percent versus 34 percent, believe Israel’s illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories are wrong. Even before the killings on the Mavi Marmara aid flotilla and the recent uprisings across the Middle East that have popularly humanized Arabs as democracy- and freedom-seeking people, 84 percent believed the Palestinians deserved equal rights, 67 percent supported a Palestinian state.

…Even the Zionist J Street poll shows 53 percent of American Jews are not at all bothered by open criticisms of Israel by other Jews.

* Israel’s Changing Demographics Lawrence Davidson counterpunch

If the historical goal of the state of Israel is to provide the world’s Jews a secure national home, a place of refugee in a world of real or potential anti-Semitism, it seems to have failed….Yerida, or emigration out of Israel, has long been running at higher numbers than aliyah, or immigration into the country. “According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, as of 2005, 650,000 Israelis have left the country for over one year and not returned.” The great majority of these were Jews. In addition, polls show that at least 60% and as high as 80% of remaining Israeli Jews “sympathize with those who leave the country.”

Among those who stay, there is the conviction that the safe thing is to have a second passport issued by the United States or a European country. As the Haaretz reporter Gideon Levy puts it, “if our forefathers dreamt of an Israeli passport, there are those among us who are now dreaming of a foreign passport.” At present the United States has issued over half a million passports to Israelis and a quarter million additional applications are pending. Germany runs second with 100,000 passports given to Israeli Jews and 7,000 new ones issued yearly.

There are two prevailing explanations for this phenomenon….

* Life After Zionist Summer Camp Allison Benedikt The Awl

It starts at a very young age. The summer after third grade, my parents sent me to Jewish sleepaway camp. I was deeply homesick at first and cried a lot in my bunk bed, but by the end of the month I didn’t want to leave. So I went back, summer after summer—boarding the plane with a few other Jewish kids from my hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, and flying to Appleton, Wisconsin, with a stop-over at O’Hare, where a volunteer from Hadassah would meet us at the gate and try to keep us from the moo shu pork at Wok-N-Roll.

Those summers blur together, but each day begins and ends at the flagpole, where we raise and lower two flags: the American and the Israeli. We make blue and white lanyard bracelets, carve Israel out of ice cream, and sing “Hatikvah.” Because it’s all Jews, I’m considered cute. The second summer, a boy (Avi, short, red-hair) asks me out (“Will you go with me?” “Go where?”) and I get my first kiss. Other kids from home also go to Jewish camp, but mine is different. It is, I learn, part of a Zionist youth movement. I am in a movement! Weird names like Jabotinsky and Herzl float through the air. I don’t have to know particulars to realize that these guys are (a) important, and (b) connected to me, and I to them.

…John and I have two kids of our own and are raising them as Jews. Most of my Jewish friends are disgusted with Israel. It seems my trajectory is not at all unique. My best memories from childhood are from camp, and I will never, ever send my kids there.

Cross-posted on rabble.ca, Canada’s voice from the left

9. People in Motion

Dec-03-2010 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: a motley collection of links, starting with two marvellous flash videos. The first shows patterns of human movement, emigration and immigration: just mouse over a country and see where its people go to or come from. Then we have the nudemen clock, in which 96 nude men(tiny images: safe for work) form a lovely analog clock (or, if you click on the image, digital clock). We continue with two religious images: people carrying candles through Salisbury cathedral, and Muslims in New Delhi gathered for Eid

* Flight & Expulsion

* Nudemen Clock

* Darkness and Light

* Eid at Jama Masjid

2. The Peace Process is Over. Now What?

Nov-26-2010 | Comments (2)

Bird’s Eye: It’s clear that the US brokered peace process isn’t going anywhere, with Obama hamstrung by his inability (definitely politically, possibly volitionally) to play the only real card the US has and withdraw support from an intransigent Netanyahu. The Palestinians see the increasing support and impact the BDS campaign is drawing, and more than ever are unwilling to settle for non-contiguous territories. So what does the future look like? The truth is that no one has any idea, but we offer some interesting speculations, and one Thanksgiving affirmation of gratitude to those of us who are working to transcend ethnic and religious divides.

* The Endgame For The Peace Process Al Jazeera (Thanks, Gabe)

Future historians will no doubt argue over the precise moment when the Arab-Israeli peace process died, when the last glimmer of hope for a two-state solution was irrevocably extinguished. When all is said and done, and the forensics have been completed, I am sure they will conclude that the last realistic prospect for an agreement expired quite some time before now, even if all the players do not quite realise it yet: anger and denial are always the first stages in the grieving process; acceptance of reality only comes later.

There are growing signs, however, that the realisation is beginning to dawn in Ramallah, Tel Aviv and, most strikingly, Washington, that the peace process, as currently conceived, may finally be dead.

* A Modest Proposal For The Middle East Peace Talks Stephen M. Walt

Here’s my suggestion: assuming direct talks do resume under U.S. auspices, tell the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority that the United States is going to keep a very careful record of who did and said what, and the United States will not hesitate to go public in the event that anybody starts making ridiculous demands, indulging in delaying tactics, or refusing to make reasonable concessions. Unlike Camp David 2000, where nothing was written down and no maps were exchanged (at Israel’s insistence), this time we are going to prevent anybody from doing a lot of spin-control after the fact. In other words, the United States tells everyone we are going to act like an honest broker for a change, and if either side refuses to play ball, we are going to expose their recalcitrance in the eyes of the international community. Most importantly, this declaration can’t be a bluff: if the talks bog down, the administration has to be prepared to go public.

And remember: The goal here is a viable Palestinian state, not a bunch of disarmed and disconnected Bantustans. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama have all made it clear a viable state for the Palestinians is the only alternative that the United States can get behind. It is what the original U.N. partition plan in 1947 called for, and all the other alternatives (binational democracy, ethnic cleansing, or permanent apartheid) are either impractical or directly at odds with U.S. values.

* Obama: Getting ‘Poned’ Bibi Style Al Jazeera (Thanks, Gabe)

Called the Parallel States Project, the group, whose roster includes former senior settlement leaders as well as Palestinians with longstanding ties to the PLO leadership, early on concluded that nothing short of a wholesale reimagining of Israeli and Palestinian identities in a manner that moved beyond territorial sovereignty while allowing each community to identify and remain loyal to its own state and identity would lift the impasse that has for so long doomed negotiations.

The core component of a Parallel States solution is the move from a two-dimensional notion of sovereignty based on fixed borders, to parallel, or better, overlapping notions of sovereignty, in which Israeli and Palestinian states could each claim sovereignty over the whole territory in a manner that would not infringe on the rights and claims of the other state, or its citizens.

How to pull off such a seemingly impossible magic trick? The answer is as simple as it is profound: Disassemble the triangle linking the citizen to her or his state through the particular piece of territory – Tel Aviv or Nablus, Ariel or Jaffa – on which he or she lives, and replace it with a direct link between the individual citizen and her or his respective state that would holds firm regardless of whether one is a Palestinian living in Herzliyya or a Jewish Israeli living in Gaza.

* Give Thanks To The Community We Are Building Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss

I give thanks today to my community. We are building it, a diverse community of brave people working across traditional tribal and ethnic and religious lines to try and forge a vision of coexistence in a troubled brutalized place. Let us celebrate our commitment, and learn from one another. I’m trying to learn myself, and overcome my own deeply-engrained prejudice.

We disagree about stuff. OK. But remember what happens when we remain inside our own religious and national communities, how weak we can be.

2. American Jews Starting to Question Israel

Nov-19-2010 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: There was a time when North American Jews unquestionably supported Israel. Then there was a time when they would only question Israel among themselves. Now increasingly, Jews are questioning the Israeli government’s actions (and inaction) publicly. And, most threatening from an Israeli perspective, the young Jews are the ones who most question what Israel is doing.

* Progressive Zionists Are Feeling ‘Battered By Boycott’ Mondoweiss

Julie Wiener’s 7 year old daughter “decided” (are 7 year olds autonomous? I don’t know; but she surely reflected her mother’s love of Israel) to have an Israel-themed birthday party in New York. At least a couple of people boycotted the party. Weiner sees the boycott movement gaining traction all around us. Her piece is “Battered by Boycotts” for the New York Jewish Week.

…for those of us who love Israel yet also worry that right-wing intransigence, settlement building and problematic treatment of Palestinians are major (albeit hardly the only) obstacles to peace, it’s hard to know exactly where to stand. Not to mention that it’s exhausting and frustrating to feel like one has to take a stand every time one sees a blue-and-white flag, let alone goes to the grocery store. It’s dispiriting and depressing to feel as if one can never just relax and celebrate the many positive aspects of Israeli culture, without being constantly reminded of the suffering Palestinians…

* Bibi, Tom Friedman, and U.S. Jews divesting from Israel Bradley Burston Haaretz

Where it comes to questions relating to the complex relations between the U.S. Jewish community and Israel, you can either answer in three hours, or in one sentence. This was hers: “You know what it is – American Jews are divesting from Israel.”

This is what I was to see in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin County, Portland and Seattle. It’s not that they’re getting involved in significant numbers in the divestment movement. It’s that American Jews are divesting emotionally. They are quietly – but in terms of impact, dramatically – withdrawing altogether. Not just Jews. Americans. And the younger they are, that is, the more crucial they are to Israel’s future, the more likely they are to divest.

… The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman… was talking directly to Israelis, and directly to their prime minister. There was an urgency and a passion in his voice, in his gestures, his eyes, that suggested why this was different. This time it was personal.“You are losing the American people,” Friedman warned.

* Just who is misguided? Haaretz Daily Newspaper

Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” In the case of Israel and the tone-deaf American Jewish establishment, one could revise this statement to: First they ignore you, then they call you a self-hating Jew, then they call you a delegitimizer and fight you with $6 million.

What’s next? We young Jews won’t back down, our numbers are growing, and we will win. Israel will change its cruel, self-destructive behavior. We won’t rest until Israelis and Palestinians live together in true equality, safety and mutual respect.

3. The Jewish People

Oct-08-2010 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Rick Sanchez says Jews control the media and gets fired within 12 hours. Joel Stein (yep, he’s Jewish) has a challenging piece about what exactly that proves. Philip Weiss has a brave introspective piece about his own racism, his identification with Jews and the implications of that. And J-Street, the relatively left-wing alternative to AIPAC is in huge political trouble. Never a dull moment.

* Who runs Hollywood? C’mon Joel Stein Los Angeles Times

I have never been so upset by a poll in my life. Only 22% of Americans now believe “the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews,” down from nearly 50% in 1964. The Anti-Defamation League, which released the poll results last month, sees in these numbers a victory against stereotyping. Actually, it just shows how dumb America has gotten. Jews totally run Hollywood.

How deeply Jewish is Hollywood? When the studio chiefs took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago to demand that the Screen Actors Guild settle its contract, the open letter was signed by: News Corp. President Peter Chernin (Jewish), Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey (Jewish), Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger (Jewish), Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton (surprise, Dutch Jew), Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer (Jewish), CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves (so Jewish his great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel), MGM Chairman Harry Sloan (Jewish) and NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker (mega-Jewish). If either of the Weinstein brothers had signed, this group would have not only the power to shut down all film production but to form a minyan with enough Fiji water on hand to fill a mikvah

* Notes on my Racism: ‘My people’ Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss

The other day in a post on atavistic Jewish feeling, I offended some readers by using the words “my people” to describe Jews. I did so because it’s a genuine statement of a persistent tribal allegiance that I feel, even in my mid-50s, in a largely gentile world. But let me try and explain just where the feeling comes from, how many other Jews share it, and to what extent I regard it as defensible, which to some extent I do.

* J Street, Down the Rabbit Hole – Jeffrey Goldberg The Atlantic

The scandal grows from a decision by Jeremy Ben-Ami to cover-up, over a long period of time, something he knew to be true: That George Soros, the billionaire investor and non-friend of Israel, provided J Street with almost $750,000 in funding. James Besser, at The New York Jewish Week, frames the impact of this cover-up in stark and simple terms:

There’s no way this isn’t going to make the politicians supported by J Street and those who may be considering accepting its endorsement incredibly nervous. Instead of providing protection for the politicians they supported, J Street essentially hung them out to dry – not by accepting Soros money, but by lying about their connection to the controversial philanthropist.

And there’s no way this doesn’t sow mistrust among commentators and reporters who write and speak about J Street, and who were repeatedly misled by its officials. J Street sought to create a climate of trust with a press corps that was being spun heavily by its opponents; this news undoes a lot of that effort.

2. Israel Lashes Out

Oct-01-2010 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Lashes out against whom? Remember Marlon Brando as Johnny in “The Wild One”? (Mildred: What’re you rebelling against, Johnny? Johnny: Whaddya got?) This week Israel attacked a largely Jewish gaza-bound flotilla with excessive force (as noted in the Jerusalem Post, no less!); humiliated POTUS Obama by ignoring his pleas to not restart settlement construction; and attacked itself as Lieberman and Netanyahu both explained publicly why the other was wrong. Hareetz sums it all up, brilliantly.

* Jewish Gaza-bound activists: IDF used excessive force in naval raid Haaretz

Earlier Tuesday the IDF reported that Israeli naval commandos peacefully boarded the Jewish aid boat attempting to break a naval blockade on Gaza… However, testimonies by passengers who were released from police questioning later in the day seemed to counter the IDF’s claims, with Israeli activist and former Israel Air Force pilot Yonatan Shapira saying that there were “no words to describe what we went through during the takeover.” Shapira said the activists, who he said displayed no violence, were met with extreme IDF brutality, adding that the soldiers “just jumped us, and hit us. I was hit with a taser gun.”“Some of the soldiers treated us atrociously,” Shapira said, adding that he felt there was a “huge gap between what the IDF spokesman is saying happened and what really happened.” (See Jerusalem Post story here)

* Netanyahu Blows off US Juan Cole Informed Comment

Now Netanyahu has reneged on his pledge to negotiate in good faith, and has let the settlement freeze expire while making no effort to extend it. In other words, he humiliated the United States and let them know who is boss. …Obama pleaded with Netanyahu to extend the settlement freeze for a month or two. If at the end of that period, Obama is said to have pledged, there had been no progress in the peace talks, then the US would not object to the freeze lapsing. Moreover, he was willing to given written assurances of American commitment to Israeli security. Netanyahu declined to accept Obama’s pleading. If this story, sourced to a high administration official in Washington who declined to be named, is true, it bespeaks diplomatic amateurism on Obama’s part….

* U.S. Jews outraged by Lieberman’s UN speech on population exchange Haaretz

Many American Jewish leaders fumed Wednesday when Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman proposed “an exchange of populated territory” as part of a Mideast peace deal in a speech before the UN General Assembly in New York…Lieberman also raised the possibility of aiming for a long-term interim agreement with the Palestinians, rather than a final-status one, but warned that this “could take a few decades.” Many Israelis and U.S. Jews were outraged by the foreign minister’s speech, and several American Jewish leaders demanded Lieberman’s resignation…. The Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement on Wednesday stating that “Lieberman’s address was not coordinated with the prime minister,” adding that “Netanyahu is the one handling the negotiations on Israel’s behalf. The various issues surrounding a peace agreement will be discussed and decided only at the negotiating table, and nowhere else.”

* Political Learnings For Make Benefit Of Understanding Glorious Nation Of Israel Haaretz

Israeli Glorious Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu tells world leaders that a final status agreement with the Palestinians is possible in one year. Unknowledgeable commentators think that this is contradicted, when Glorious Foreign Minister Yvet Lieberman announces at the United Nations there will be no final status agreement in the foreseeable future, and also announces a Glorious New Plan that there will be there will be no more Arabs in Israel, which will become a Jewish ethnocracy.

Commentators do not understand how deep a political revolution Israel is bravely putting into practice. For more than two hundred years the world has lived with a highly unimaginative ideal called democracy. This quaint idea called for one law that to rule all citizens, and allots all citizens equal rights; that there will be a parliament that represents the people and formulates the laws, and then there should be a government that runs the state’s affairs according to one coherent policy.

We declare that in the age of cyberspace, this concept no longer makes any sense….Hence Israel after years of dedicated experimentation has developed the Glorious New Method of Government by Chaos. It is my pleasure to introduce readers to the basics of this method, in the hope other countries will benefit from it as well.

9. Rapid Action Summaries

May-21-2010 | Comments (0)

Bird’s-Eye: Just what you need in your busy life: quick summaries that bring you up to date on what’s been happening. Here you see the past 100 million years of continental drift, and a preview of what’s coming. (Helpful hints: that Mediterranean waterfront you bought is in trouble.) In a few more minutes you can see the 100,000 year spread of humans, from Africa over the planet. And five minutes more give you an update on the past 1000 years of war.

* Dance of the Continents New York Times

* Journey of Mankind: The Peopling of the World

* 1000 Years of War in 5 Minutes youtube

3. Shifting US Middle East Policy

Apr-16-2010 | Comments (0)

Bird’s-Eye: And as everything is linked to everything else in the is modern world, the change in Palestinian actions detailed above is producing a real and measurable change in American attitudes. We start with the numbers, clearly compiled and presented in “Informed Comment”, Juan Cole’s blog, which also has the second piece, a look at what happens if a long term solution isn’t reached. The Christian Science Monitor looks at the new concept of parallel states rather than separate states, Tikkun Magazine offers an excellent smorgasbord of the arguments in the US about BDS, and Nadia Hijab looks at what Petraeus is saying about the US role in the Middle East. Lots of reading…but you’ll be so informed when you’re done….

* US Attitudes, Discourse on Israel Shifting to Realism Juan Cole Informed Comment

More American Jews want a Palestinian state than do not want one according to a just-released survey of American Jewish opinion by the American Jewish Congress (48% to 45%). Admittedly, 67% of the general American public supports a Palestinian state, but that nearly half of American Jews do, as well, shows that this issue is controversial only because a few far rightwing fringe elements are supported by a small number of extremely wealthy Christian Zionists and Wall Street types…. Some 64% of American Jews are also in favor of dismantling ’some’ settlements on the West Bank to get peace, and nearly one in ten want all settlements disbanded. Among Americans in general, only 49% say Israel should be required to stop building settlements as part of a peace deal. It isn’t exactly the same question, but it may be that Jewish Americans are more flexible on this issue than are American gentiles, and they are certainly more flexible than are Republican Christians.

* Obama Hints Two-State Solution May be Impossible Juan Cole Informed Comment

‘ The two sides “may say to themselves, ‘We are not prepared to resolve these issues no matter how much pressure the United States brings to bear,’” Obama said. Obama reiterated that peace is a vital goal, but one that may be beyond reach “even if we are applying all of our political capital.”‘

Obama may well be right. But note the implications of no progress between Israel and the Palestinians on political settlement of their dispute:

1. Iran– the primary rejectionist state in the region, will grow in power and popularity in the Middle East

2. Anger in the Arab world toward Israel and the US will grow in intensity

3. Israeli policy toward East Jerusalem could itself be the cause for a war. Jerusalem is sacred to Muslims and Christians as well as to Jews.

4. Israel’s status as a de facto Apartheid state will be made permanent and the boycott movement will grow, ultimately affecting the Israeli economy

5. The two-state solution is dead as a doornail, and Israel will either have to give the Palestinians citizenship, or face a long and bitter struggle by the Palestinians to make their state in the teeth of Israeli opposition.

* A Parallel State Structure The Christian Science Monitor

The situation has come to a deadlock. It is time for a rethink.

… Essentially, the idea suggests the creation of two-state structures on the same land, both covering the whole territory, both providing the freedom for their citizens – Israelis and Palestinians – to live between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

The most important innovation of a parallel state structure is that state sovereignty would be linked primarily with the individual citizen, and only in a secondary way with territory. Separating the territorial and citizenship/identity dimensions of sovereignty would allow Israelis and Palestinians to retain their national symbols, have political and legislative bodies that are responsible to their own electorate, and retain a high degree of political independence.

* Voices Heard: The BDS Debate Tikkun Magazine

Rather than charge in with our own position, Tikkun decided that we would be most helpful by respecting the intelligence of our own readers to decide on their own what they think of the current debarte about the Student Senate Bill calling for divestment from two companies that help Israel maintain the Occupation of the West Bank.

As you will see, this is a debate that has strong opponents of the Occuaption on BOTH SIDES of the issue.

* Parsing Petraeus Nadia Hijab Counterpunch

However, less attention has been paid to the second half of this much-quoted sentence from the Petraeus testimony: “The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR” (Area of Responsibility).

Thus, the United States “has substantial strategic interests in, and related to, the region.” Specifically, the security of U.S. citizens and their homeland; regional stability; international access to strategic resources, critical infrastructure, and markets; and the promotion of human rights, the rule of law, responsible and effective governance, and broad-based economic growth and opportunity. The rest of the testimony describes how the U.S. armed forces in Central Command use the taxpayer money allocated by Congress to advance these interests.

3. Israel: Change It or Lose It

Mar-26-2010 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: For the first time significant numbers of Jews are opposing the Israeli government, and doing so because they see the expansionist policy as hugely harmful to any chance of Israeli survival. This is (largely) new, and the most spectacular evidence is the J-Street ad in this week’s New York Times. Robert Wright has a fascinating op-ed in the NYT on what really is pro and antiiIsrael (short version: advocating policies that lead to Israel’s destruction is not being pro-Israel), and a fascinating new UK site, JNews, is formed to “promote understanding and stimulate critical debate about Israel and Palestine among British Jews and the broader public as a contribution to promoting peace with justice for all in the region.” In Israel, Uri Aloni sees an analogous movement joining Israelis and Palestinians.

* J-Street Ad “It’s Time” New York Times

* Against ‘Pro-Israel’ Robert Wright New York Times

So, by my lights, being “pro-Israel” in the sense embraced by Bauer, Boot and Foxman — backing Israel’s current policies, including its settlement policies — is actually anti-Israel. It’s also anti-America (in the sense of ‘bad for American security’), because Biden and Petraeus are right: America’s perceived support of — or at least acquiescence in — Israel’s more inflammatory policies endangers American troops abroad. In the long run, it will also endanger American civilians at home, funneling more terrorism in their direction.

The flip side of this coin is that policies that would be truly good for Israel (e.g., no more settlements) would be good for America. In that sense, there’s good news for Bauer and Boot and Foxman: one of their common refrains — that Israel’s and America’s interests are essentially aligned — is true, if for reasons they don’t appreciate.

* J-News: Alternative Jewish Perspectives on Israel-Palestine

* Israelis Struggling To Peace Uri Aloni Haaretz

As an act of solidarity with the subjugated Palestinian people, a group of Jewish Israelis has decided to join those Palestinians who have chosen the non-violent struggle for civic and national justice.

This act has given politically conscientious Jewish Israelis a golden opportunity to join a campaign against their own government without forsaking their own people. Indeed, this act leads the way towards a broader joint struggle with the oppressed people, through a rebuilding of our fundamental human values, enabling us to do away with the friend/foe dichotomy, which lies at the root of Israeli racism and anxiety.

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