Israel to World: "Suck It."

http://forward.com/news/327466/can-jews-back-black-lives-matter-and-be-pro-israel/

it makes me sad that #blacklivesmatter has so thoroughly [been coopted by/aligned itself with] the pro-palestinian movement bc i'd like to support things like criminal justice reform, better community-police relations, ending the war on drugs, etc. but if they've explicitly decided to foreground their movement w/ hostility towards israel/zionism i'm off-board. they can do w/out me i'm sure but why limit yr message unnecessarily by muddling two v different situations linked in only the most superficial ways.

maybe I'm not paying attention but I have never seen anything from BLM related to Israel

characterizing BLM as "explicitly foregrounding their movement w/hostility towards Israel/Zionism" seems like an overstatement to me, and nothing in that article really suggests otherwise

this just reads like classic left-wing circular firing-squad stuff, different groups with different agendas trying to make ONE BIG AGENDA, cast out apostates etc., albeit on a very small scale

i hope yr right, i don't think BLM has anything to gain from inviting the I/P advocacy shit show into their movement.

yeah do yourselves a favour and leave it alone guys

I feel like there are various "causes" floating around in leftist protest circles that inevitably try to attach themselves to whatever cause-du-jour is making waves and getting press and the anti-Israel contingent is one of those. Those Maoist/Marxist International Workers Party people are another.

or maybe I'm thinking of the International Socialist Organization, I can't keep my crackpot Stalinist apologists straight

I have definitely seen examples of blm x free Palestine, but I also don't know that is say it's "foregrounded." Would probably have to ask
someone who's a little closer to it though.

FFS, Bennett.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.694620

On Monday, Israeli lawyer Amir Ohana was sworn into the Knesset, replacing the recently resigned Likud politician Silvan Shalom. What made the event particularly noteworthy was that Ohana, the chair of Likud’s Pride Caucus, is the party’s first openly gay MK, a fact he emphasized in his inaugural speech to the parliament by referencing his partner and their children.

“I am here as the son of Meir and Esther Ohana, who immigrated from Morocco to build a country,” he opened. “I am here with my other half, Alon, my true love. I am here as the father of the children Ela and David. And like [the biblical] David who defeated Goliath in the Valley of Ela, I am here against all the odds. I am here with all of who I am and what I am, what I’ve chosen and what I haven’t, and am proud of it all: Jewish, Israeli, Mizrahi, gay, Likudnik, a security hawk, a liberal, and a man of the free market.”

x-post-I guess this is not a surprise coming from right-winger Bennett

Israeli writers and politicians roundly criticized the Education Ministry's decision to ban a novel that describes a love story between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man from use by high schools around the country. Israeli author Sami Michael said that the decision constitutes "a dark day for Hebrew literature," while author Haim Be'er called the move "a dizzying and dangerous act."

Among the reasons stated for the disqualification of Dorit Rabinyan’s “Gader Haya” (literally “Hedgerow,” but known in English as “Borderlife”) is the need to maintain what was referred to as “the identity and the heritage of students in every sector,” and the belief that “intimate relations between Jews and non-Jews threatens the separate identity.” The Education Ministry also expressed concern that “young people of adolescent age don’t have the systemic view that includes considerations involving maintaining the national-ethnic identity of the people and the significance of miscegenation.”

"This is none of [Education Minister] Naftali Bennett's business," Be'er said. "Tomorrow he will disqualify 'Behind the Fence' because Bialik's hero falls in love with a Christian and he'll create a committee to monitor relationships in literature. This is a dizzying and dangerous act that he's doing in order to find support in his crowd after he praised the Shin Bet and his stock went down, that's clear."

A.B. Yehoshua, another Israeli novelist, said "The book 'Borderlife' is a great, deep book written in rich and emotional language that has already earned a wide audience and critical acclaim. The book also tells the tragedy of relationships between Israelis and Palestinians.

from wiki

On February 2012, Bennett published a plan for managing the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, called "The Israel Stability Initiative."[17][18] The plan is based in part on parts of earlier initiatives: "Peace on Earth" by Adi Mintz and the "Elon Peace Plan" by Binyamin Elon, and relies on the statements of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud party ministers that spoke in favor of unilateral annexation of the West Bank. Bennett opposes the creation of a Palestinian state: "I will do everything in my power to make sure they never get a state."[26]

Once he annexes the west bank, what does he plan to do with all those Arabs who apparently threaten Jewish identity?

iirc his plan is just to annex area C which is 80% jewish.

Doesn't annexing area C just create a bunch of Palestinian islands? I don't really get that idea, even assuming it was ok.

essentially yeah - it makes islands of Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Salfit, Nablus, Qalqiliya, Tulkarm, Jenin, Tubas and Jericho. if you wanted to give bennett's plan some unearned credit tho (since afaik he never has said this) one could easily annex all the Jewish-majority areas of the WB and leave a contiguous state between those cities w/ v limited settler evacuations. at this point that's actually how i assume the occupation will end: unilateral withdrawal of IDF back to v generous settlement lines. that's assuming the gov does it before israeli demography becomes entirely mizrahi/charedi at which point u kno who the hell knows.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/opinion/the-assassination-in-israel-that-worked.html

dubious argument imo. rabin promoted policies that would be considered to the right of bibi today. you'd have to believe that he'd have evolved on the issue.

While one is tempted to say that if Rabin were alive there would be peace today, this seems uncertain at best. His relationship with Yasser Arafat was never strong. More critically, given Rabin’s policy positions—at least the ones he would publicly articulate—itis far from certain that he could have closed the gaps, especially when it came to security arrangements and Jerusalem. In his last Knesset speech, and at times beforehand, Rabin emphasized that Israel should retain security control of the eastern frontier of a Palestinian entity in the Jordan Valley and said that he did not want to divide Jerusalem. He even said he envisioned the Palestinians having “less than a state” but his views may have evolved had he lived. (The gaps between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who says he supports a two-state solution, and Palestinian President Abbas on these same issues make a grand deal any time soon look very unlikely.)

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/what-would-rabin-do-213324#ixzz3wJgccQZr

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.696313

Footage aired on Channel 2 on Thursday shows a prominent Israeli leftist activist describing how he led to the death of Palestinians who sought to sell West Bank land to Jews.  

The activist, Ezra Nawi, of the Israeli-Palestinian Taayush group, was secretly recorded saying that he had turned in the land brokers to Palestinian security services, who would then kill them.

The report by the program Uvda looked into left-wing groups which operate in the West Bank. The footage was obtained by right-wing activists who infiltrated these groups in attempt to discredit them.

The footage of Nawi was captured by a right-wing activist who reportedly became his close acquaintance. In the footage, Nawi, who is unaware of being recorded, is heard telling of four Palestinian landowners who contacted him, thinking he was also involved in the land trade.

"I give their photos and their phone numbers immediately to the [Palestinian] Preventive Security Force," Nawi says in the recording. "The Authority catches them and kills them. But before they kill them they beat them up."

these fucking people:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/world/middleeast/revolt-network-foments-new-brand-of-jewish-terror-in-israel.html?_r=0

want to read something really wild? from 2011:
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/77378/girls-at-war

Roni Goldberg, the first girl in the slideshow (the 15yo w/ the Meir Kahane shirt reclining on a tree) was the woman whose wedding became infamous a few weeks bc attendees were stabbing photos of the Duma victims and waving guns around.

teenagers are the worst

“Aren’t they beautiful?” a psychiatrist and playwright from Jerusalem asked me, of such girls. “Pure faith mixed with youth. It’s the most erotic thing.”

ew

Criminal justice-washing: http://www.timesofisrael.com/life-sentence-21-years-in-jail-handed-to-minors-for-abu-khdeir-murder/

http://www.timesofisrael.com/pop-goddess-beyonce-to-hold-two-israel-shows-in-august/

https://polarjournal.org/outsized-outrage-american-anthropologists-and-the-gifts-of-bds/

I thought this was very very good, but it sums up what I ultimately find a bit paralyzing about my position in relation to Israel and BDS, and I wonder whether people are really capable of the kind of even handed universalism he suggests.

it is interesting to think about what 'world' in the title of this thread refers to exactly

otm

A question that dovetails nicely with the article, whether intended or not. Because it implies that "the world" observes a series of moral and legal norms, and that Israel is a special case that brazenly violates them.

Boycott everything outside of Berkeley.

It would be absurd for anthropological research to boycott any part of the world, as globalization is erasing distinctive cultures faster than any research program can preserve elements, and conflict and refugee status are perennial parts of the human condition. I think its perfectly fair for anthropologists to hold their own non-research activities to higher standards, even if that means holding all too many conferences in Stockholm, Geneva, Vancouver, or other relatively civilized locales.

@ggreenwald

U of Chicago College Council adopts resolution urging divestment from all companies complicit in Israeli occupation

good thing student governments don't set policy for universities huh

prob not the right thread but whatever: I'm beginning to plan a (primarily academic) trip to Israel & I'm thinking about this fall: but I know the high holy days cover a considerable amount of time in the fall. for a trip of a week or so: when would be good times to go to avoid too much holiday hassle?

rosh hashana starts sept 2nd and simchat torah (the end of the high holidays) is oct 25 so anytime before rh or after st you'll avoid the holidays.

ok so all of sept and oct are out: I can work with that. thanks!

i'm sorry i made a mistake - i was spaced and read my calendar wrong. oct 2 - 25 so sept is okay

oh ok that's even easier then

I'm curious what the definition of "complicit" is xp -- for example I know that Ahava was targeted for having a factory in the settlements, but now is moving its factory, possibly in response to pressure. Does that mean it is no longer "complicit"?

Tell us how you really feel, Moshe Ya'alon!

"At this time and in the foreseeable future, there is not an existential threat to Israel,” the former defense minister said. “Israel is the strongest state in the region and there is an enormous gap between it and every country and organization around it. Therefore, it is appropriate for the leadership in Israel to stop scaring the citizens and to stop telling them that we are on the verge of a second Holocaust."

Bibi's weak-sauce response: well how can you say that now when you said the opposite when you were a minister of my government? Hmm, maybe the fact that Ya'alon got sick of mouthing Bibi's official line is why he's no longer in the government.

Note that Ya'alon is not a dove in the slightest. He's a Likudnik who thinks the Oslo accords were a mistake. But even this guy thinks Netanyahu has gone too far.

tbf he's no longer in the gov bc bibi kicked him out but otherwise i agree w/ u

Ya'alon OTM

I just want to believe that even though the liberal Israel of my youth seems to be dwindling there are still a lot of Likud types who agree with Ya'alon and don't want to make common cause with Avigdor freaking Lieberman

http://demandware.edgesuite.net/sits_pod26/dw/image/v2/AAWA_PRD/on/demandware.static/-/Sites-wilton-product-master/default/dw4c115213/images/product/2115-1405/2115-1405-lrg.jpg?sw=502&sh=502&sm=fit

gideon levy + other haaretz staff met with bibi for 4 hours. this is what levy (who if u don't know is one of bibi's staunchest domestic critics) wrote about it:

During a four-hour closed door meeting with members of the Haaretz editorial staff, Netanyahu lectured, preached and demanded. At one point someone saw tears in his eyes.

There’s an agitated man sitting in the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem; a man who’s frenetic, powerful, unbending, convinced of the righteousness of his cause. A man who believes only in force. He has tendencies toward megalomania and narcissism; he is arrogant, boastful and haunted. This man is full of contradictions, as is the impression that he leaves. For better or worse, it is a strong impression.

The man has elements of a biblical or Shakespearean tragic figure, a king or a Caesar, including the dramatic elements – the wife (who isn’t mentioned,) the father’s shadow and the loss of a brother. He is motivated by ideology far more than is commonly ascribed to him, and this ideology is inflexible and extreme. It will never allow him to compromise on matters important to him.

Sitting in the Prime Minister’s Office is a man bringing a major disaster upon Israel, not because of the Zionism commonly attributed to him, but because of ideology. Personally, I prefer rigid ideologues to hollow cynics.
I can only tell you this: Two days ago, Benjamin Netanyahu hosted members of the Haaretz editorial staff for a closed conversation that lasted four hours, during which he spoke without interruption. “Spoke” is a rather restrained understatement; Netanyahu lectured, preached, demanded and overwhelmed; he showed videos, slide presentations, maps, tables, and minutes.

He scribbled a self-portrait, with an elongated nose and beads of sweat; he pounded on the table, raised his voice, lowered it, leaned forward and back in the meeting room, wrote on the board and erased. At one stage, he approached my colleague Odeh Bisharat so angrily that I feared for his safety. At another point someone saw tears in his eyes.

It was a Netanyahu performance, authentic theater, a one-man show by a character actor who so closely identifies with the figure that he plays with such talent that at least some members of the audience believed him some of the time. Perhaps he is an effective Evangelist preacher. It started with the terror tunnels; what followed regarding his economic achievements was more boring, until he got to his diplomatic beliefs. It ended with a crescendo; a final monologue about his dead brother. Curtain. The Energizer remained in his seat, alone and exhausted, naturally.

In the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem there sits a man who believes solely in the power of his country. Weakness devastates him. Morals, values and justice are not within his realm of thought. He portrays his country as a world power in weapons, cyber, water technology and whatnot, and in the same breath lists country as a world power in weapons, cyber, water technology and whatnot, and in the same breath lists the existential threats lurking (“In the air, at sea, on the ground and under it”) from the ragamuffin army in Gaza, from Hezbollah, from Iran and even from forest fires.

There’s no way to resolve this contradiction. He doesn’t believe in any peace with the Palestinians; he will defeat them with the alliances he is weaving with his new friends, the ephemeral heads of corrupt regimes in the Arab world, until they agree to the non-arrangement he proposes, which of course will never happen. The fate of the Palestinians doesn’t interest him in the least.

Netanyahu is not a warmonger – he may be the most antiwar prime minister Israel has ever had – and even the settlements don’t interest him very much, if at all. Only power – military, economic and technological. Peace won’t bring any economic benefits to Israel, he says. Like all veterans of the Sayeret Matkal special forces unit, he’s a kid who’s never grown up; his imagery is stuck back in “the unit,” with touches of MIT.

Based on the colors of his map of the world, it’s almost all in our hands. After meeting with 144 statesmen, all that’s left is a problem with Western Europe. Everyone else is on our side, or almost there (and I believe that he’s quite right.) After we left his office, he passed us on the way to his car, waving at us with a half-cigar in a defiant gesture full of self-deprecating humor.

Netanyahu is here to stay. Given the current proposed alternatives, we may even, God forbid, come to miss him.

:O

intense bit of writing, damn