Today is the 12th day of Israel's murderous attacks on Gaza.
The Palestinian body count is 336, 70 of whom are kids. This has become a murderous spree of killing for the zionist terrorist army, supported by government of this racist colonial entity and by their people , many of whom have been turning increasingly into blood thirsty mobs urging the murder of Palestinian
On the eve of Abu Khudair’s lynching, Member of Knesset (Israel’s parliament) and government faction whip Ayelet Shaked issued a call over Facebook to ethnically cleanse the land, declaring “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy.” She advocated their complete destruction, “including its elderly and its women,” adding that these must be slaughtered, otherwise they might give birth to more “little snakes.”
... Since the beginning of July, raging crowds of Jewish Israelis just like these have marched through Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Nazareth and Beer Sheva, chanting “Death to Arabs” and “Death to Leftists,” swarming and attacking vulnerable victims. While a tiny contingent of radical Israelis have formed a loose “anti-fascist” network that tries to patrol city streets and prevent additional lynchings, they are extremely few in numbers and cannot be everywhere at all times.
While Israeli leaders unleash conscripted soldiers to bombard Gaza, they dispatch ultra-nationalist vigilantes to conquer cities inside Israel. With the incitement to murder Palestinians (and the few Israeli allies they have) continue unabated, it seems to be only a matter of time before the bubbling bloodlust boils overs into a bloodbath.
I am sure that you, the people behind Archinect, are well aware of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, this racist colonial entity that has been described by Moshé Machover as being far worse than the south african apartheid system: "talk of Israeli ‘apartheid’ serves to divert attention from much greater dangers. For, as far as most Palestinians are concerned, the Zionist policy is far worse than apartheid. Apartheid can be reversed. Ethnic cleansing is immeasurably harder to reverse; at least not in the short or medium term."
The global BDS movement is a peaceful movement that has been, in the face of Israeli racist, oppressive and genocidal policies against the Palestinians, garnering great traction around the world as people everywhere are increasingly grasping the nature of the Zionist establishment that is called Israel. Through a deliberate, effective boycotting Israeli products, academics, businesses, items of interest, the movement contributes to the economic and moral isolation of Israel.
“In light of Israel’s persistent violations of international law, and Given that, since 1948, hundreds of UN resolutions have condemned Israel’s colonial and discriminatory policies as illegal and called for immediate, adequate and effective remedies, and Given that all forms of international intervention and peace-making have until now failed to convince or force Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights and to end its occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine, and In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions..."
I notice that there are Israeli businesses being hosted within Archinect's firm listings (for example). As are listings of Israeli universities within the academic section. I highly urge Archinect, the people behind it, Paul, the editors, the writers....to desist from ignoring your responsibilities apropos taking a stand against this racist entity and to remove all Israeli related material from Archinect. You, like everyone else has that responsibility, because you have the knowledge and you have the right of choice. To ignore this is to be complacent and to be regressive.
As a virtual space that spans the social, the professional and the academic, as a gathering of professionals including architects, designers, artists, engineers and others, as a gathering of minds that by implication suggests a progressive humanist endeavor, please instate an anti-zionist, anti-israeli policy (that covers israeli academics, businesses, media, etc) in the spirit of the BDS movement.
Alternative
Oct 7, 14 9:52 am
*Correction - Hamas kills Palestinians whom it suspects to have spied on behalf of Israel.
Orhan Ayyüce
Oct 7, 14 9:52 am
"We, minus Orhan and TAM, are all aware of this Alternative."
Lol!
I guess,
We = catatonic programmed post lobotomy zombies (who) feed others prepackaged arguments based neither on concern for the suffering of people and children or sound logic but on throwing up fust in the face of criticism against Israel.
Whose bombs murdered three thousand of children, women and other innocent people?
I am tired with these lobotomy zombies as well. I might just spend my energy elsewhere. I will leave it to these people go home look in the mirror and hold their own children feeling they accomplished something today defending child killers throwing powerful bombs in places like schools and hospitals miming and dismembering innocent children not too different than their own.
Do they (the "we" people) think they will get away just because they are here posting anonymously in an internet forum? No. You are accountable for all that. It will follow you no matter how many times you change your internet names.
chatter of clouds
Oct 7, 14 9:54 am
Fault? Building a nation on the basis of ethnically cleansing a region from an indigenous people is not a fault, it is a rationalized program centered around an ideology based on oppression and colonialism. Incremental genocide is not a just a fault, its an evil and a colonized and oppressed people have all the right to resist it.
Lets see, these Zionist bots, when faced with the Israeli crimes of mass killing and destruction of Palestinians:
1- Minimize the significance of Israel's massacres and theft of land - the very modus operandi, historically and presentally, of the colonizer and the not-so-incidental adversary of the Palestinian people and their resistance bodies- to the level of "fault" while focusing on secondary, reactive elements....as if this effaces that even this latter is itself a direct consequence of Israel's occupation and colonialism of the Palestinians living under extraordinary conditions.
2- Read those aftereffect elements , obsessively (read here Hamas) seperately from the cotext - Israel`s daily oppression of their people- and as seperate agents of Palestinian misery (and remember, Palestinians voted for them, democratically - would they realyl do that if so was the case?) the instigator and not, overwhelmingly, Israel.
3- Misrepresent Hamas as an entity seperate from Palestinians and not , in fact, a summarily Palestinian response, formulated within the Palestinian body to its own miserable condition dictated by Israel. Thus, the perverted misrepresentation is that there is Hamas on one side and Palestinians on the other, Hamas repressing and killing Palestinians (according to this perverted misrepresentation). Israel, who is just "at a fault", has been virtualy disappeared from this fraudulent formula...when, in fact, it is the the very limit, context and frame of this formula.
4- Use the above false rhetoric, i.e. provoking a moral jugement of Hamas, specifically in a context where Israel is being criticized, not out of compassion for Palestinians but specifically out of the desire to insiduusly `turn the tables`so to speak.
This is a thread about Israel....if Zionist bots truly believe that Israel is "at fault", then, even this small pathetic gesture from their part (compared to the immense magnitude of the tragedy caused by Zionists) should go to justify this thread and its reason of being
However, why do they bring up the issue of Hamas? They're not even countering the mass of information regarding the daily oppressionof Palestinians at the hand of the Zionists/Israel. It doesn't make sense except if we see that these Zionist bots are here for solely demonizing the Palestinian resistance factions, counter criticism of Israel by any means inclsuive of lying and obfuscation-and I mean they are deliberately here for this, notice that they even get weekends off, as if its a paid job for them...and maybe it is!
Where is SeriousQuestion? And the ones before it? Now we have this latter version zionist bot. This thread sure attracts many newbies; one should ask why.
Alternative
Oct 7, 14 10:02 am
I was observing Yom Kippur.
subgenius
Oct 7, 14 10:02 am
@tammuz
you and your ilk are hate mongers. Take your message of hate and intolerance and peddle it elsewhere.
(Anyone who uses the term "Zionist boots" needs to say no more).
History will bear record of the demise of a Palestinian "people" that refused to change and adapt towards peace and instead fell to their demise grasping an ancient philosophy of fear and violence which was a poor veil for "identity".
Alternative
Oct 7, 14 10:06 am
I'm also unclear where I've ever shown that I'm indifferent to the plight of Palestinians.
Hamas manipulated and intimidated the media in Gaza. Why was that kept from us?
We should normally say if our reports are censored or monitored or if we withhold information, and explain, wherever possible, the rules under which we are operating.- Section 11.4.1 of the BBC Editorial Guidelines on accuracy and impartiality in times of War, Terror and Emergencies
The Foreign Press Association (FPA) issued an astonishing protest yesterday about "blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox" intimidation of journalists in the Gaza Strip by Hamas. "In several cases," they complained, "foreign reporters working in Gaza have been harassed, threatened or questioned over stories." The FPA said this amounted to "denying readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground," adding"we are also aware that Hamas is trying to put in place a 'vetting' procedure that would, in effect, allow for the blacklisting of specific journalists. Such a procedure is vehemently opposed by the FPA." The statement raises a lot of questions. Here is one: why have British broadcasters not mentioned any of this to their viewers?
Let's review what we know.
Indian television station NDTV broadcast and posted on its internet site on 5 August a report by Sreenivasan Jain showing rockets fired from a tent next to his hotel. In the accompanying text on NDTV’s website, Jain wrote that it was published "after our team left the Gaza Strip – Hamas has not taken very kindly to any reporting of its rockets being fired. But just as we reported the devastating consequences of Israel’s offensive on Gaza’s civilians, it is equally important to report on how Hamas places those very civilians at risk by firing rockets deep from the heart of civilian zones." Inan article published subsequently, Jain wrote of "the fear which hobbles the reporting such material: fear of reprisals from Hamas against us", asking "how long do we self-censor because of the fear of personal safety in return for not telling a story that exposes how those launching rockets are putting so many more lives at risk, while the rocket-makers themselves are at a safe distance?"
More and more examples of intimidation of journalists by Hamas are seeping out of Gaza:
Israeli filmmaker Michael Grynszpan described on Facebook an exchange he had had with a Spanish journalist who had just left Gaza. "We talked about the situation there. He was very friendly. I asked him how come we never see on television channels reporting from Gaza any Hamas people, no gunmen, no rocket launcher, no policemen. We only see civilians on these reports, mostly women and children. He answered me frankly: 'It's very simple, we did see Hamas people there launching rockets, they were close to our hotel, but if ever we dare pointing our camera on them they would simply shoot at us and kill us.'"
An op-ed in The Australian and other sources including The Jerusalem Postnoted that after Nine Network reporter Peter Stefanovic tweeted that he had seen rockets fired into Israel from near his hotel, he was threatened by pro-Hamas tweeters and warned: "in WWII spies got shot".
The Wall Street Journal's Nick Casey posted a photo of a Hamas spokesman being interviewed from a room in the hospital along with this tweet: "You have to wonder (with) the shelling how patients at Shifa hospital feel as Hamas uses it as a safe place to see media." After "a flood of online threats", the tweet was deleted.
John Reed of TheFinancial Times was reportedly threatened after he tweeted about rockets being fired from the same hospital.
Following his departure from Gaza, Italian journalist Gabriele Barbati tweeted on 29 July. "Out of #Gaza far from #Hamas retaliation: misfired rocket killed children yday in Shati. Witness: militants rushed and cleared debris."
French-Palestinian journalist Radjaa Abou Dagga wrote anarticle for French newspaper Libération, on July 23, detailing how he was "detained and interrogated by members of Hamas's al-Qassam Brigade at a room in Shifa hospital next to the emergency room" and was forced to leave Gaza immediately without his papers. The day after publication, Mr Dagga asked Libération to remove his article from their website.
RT correspondent Harry Fear was told to leave Gaza after he tweeted that Hamas fired rockets into Israel from near his hotel.
Hamas manipulation of the media is not always so crude.
As reported in Times of Israel on 11 July, the Hamas Ministry of Interior in Gaza published a video in Arabic advising on "cautious and effective" social media engagement on Facebook and Twitter during Operation Protective Edge. It contained such directives as "Anyone killed or martyred is to be called a civilian from Gaza or Palestine, before we talk about his status in jihad or his military rank … Don't forget to always add 'innocent civilian' or 'innocent citizen' in your description of those killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza."
Hamas has also actively interfered with bomb sites in order to gain PR advantage. The Washington Post's Sudarsan Raghavandetailed how Hamas staged events and scenes to evoke sympathy. By way of illustration, he was taken to photograph a mosque that had been bombed, and discovered that someone had "prepared" the scene and placed a prayer mat and burnt Quran pages. "The symbolism was obvious, almost too perfect. It was clear that someone had placed them there to attract sympathy for the Palestinian cause. A television crew spotted the pile and filmed it. Mission accomplished."
Hamas ensure reporters are exposed to casualties by insisting that spokesmen could only be interviewed in the courtyard of the Al-Shifa hospital, as described by Ynet News.
The long Hamas record of shutting down news bureaus, arresting reporters and cameramen, confiscating equipment and beating journalists has already been documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists. In the latest conflict Hamas wanted to reduce the reports coming out of Gaza to whatReinhold Niebuhr once called "emotionally potent over-simplifications". Journalists from India, America, Norway, Italy, Spain, Australia, Canada and elsewhere are complaining. Will we now hear from the Brits?
curtkram
Oct 7, 14 10:13 am
nobody is countering the mass of information regarding the daily oppression of palestinians because we understand it's happening. that side of the situation is well documented in this thread. i don't think anyone here is minimizing the actions of the israeli's either, we're just aware that there is more going on and want to understand what's causing the israelis to act in the way they are so we can better understand what problems need to be addressed to help build a real solution and honest understanding of the situation. a faketvist boycott that doesn't do anything but show you feel bad for the plaestinians is not likely to improve their situation. pretending that the environment of south african apartheid is the same environment in gaza isn't going to make life better for the palestinians. switching genocide from one side to the other instead of ending the genocide isn't going to build support.
obviously none of us want to kill babies. trying to turn the discussion to moronic emotional pleas and fake strawmen like that only appeals to morons. sorry, but most people that visit this thread aren't that stupid. i'm sure you can sell it to your local communities though.
an actual solution to the conflict will have to involve a broader understanding of the situation, considering the concerns and fears of the israelis as well as the palestinians. just because you can't accept the actions of the palestinians that don't fit into your biased narrative doesn't make those actions go away.
catatonic programmed post lobotomy zombies is far better than 'zionist bot.' while somewhat insulting, it is descriptive and doesn't use the term 'bot' in a way that makes no sense.
Orhan Ayyüce
Oct 7, 14 10:13 am
History will bear record of the demise of a Palestinian "people" that refused to change and adapt towards peace and instead fell to their demise grasping an ancient philosophy of fear and violence which was a poor veil for "identity".
subgenius (or should i call you subhuman which seems to be more appropriate after your comments and lies here) that is the most Hitler-esque statement so far.
Alternative
Oct 7, 14 10:15 am
I don't agree with what subgenius is writing, for the record.
Orhan Ayyüce
Oct 7, 14 10:16 am
obviously none of us want to kill babies
So why are you defending those who kill them for the last three months you flippant you?
Alternative
Oct 7, 14 10:20 am
Because positing Israel as a "baby killer" is a reductive, willfully blind claim that ignores what's actually unfolding.
A 4-year-old Israeli child was killed by a mortar shell fired into the country from Gaza Friday, the military said, and five other Israelis were wounded in other rocket attacks. The strikes come as gunmen in Gaza executed 18 people it claimed were spies in an apparent attempt to plug security breaches a day after an Israeli airstrike killed three top Hamas military commanders.
The Israel Defense Forces identified the slain boy as Daniel Tregerman. Initially, the IDF said the mortar was fired from near a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school, but it later said the school was maintained as a shelter by Hamas, not the UNRWA. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office expressed his condolences and vowed that Hamas would pay a "heavy price."
Also Friday, gunmen executed 18 people, including some that were lined up against a wall and shot in front of an audience of hundreds, witnesses said. A note pinned on the wall said they had leaked information to Israel that was used to conduct airstrikes. Since the fighting began July 8 at least 2,092 Palestinians have died in the conflict. The boy’s killing brought Israel dead to 68, including 64 soldiers.
chatter of clouds
Oct 7, 14 10:24 am
again...
This is a thread about Israel....if Zionist bots truly believe that Israel is "at fault", then, even this small pathetic gesture from their part (compared to the immense magnitude of the tragedy caused by Zionists) should go to justify this thread and its reason of being
However, why do they bring up the issue of Hamas, obsessively, redundantly -demonizing it ? Why here? Why irrespective of post and specific topic. Does Hamas explain the ethnic cleansing required to facilitate this (which is still ongoing) or is Hamas is explained by this:
Non Sequitur
Oct 7, 14 10:29 am
This tread is about blind ideology masquerading as false intellectualism.
Alternative
Oct 7, 14 10:34 am
How is that map historically accurate? Those borders never existed under the Ottoman Empire.
curtkram
Oct 7, 14 11:49 am
i'm not defending anyone. i just want the situation to be presented in a complete and honest matter. i am certainly not saying israel is doing the right thing, but then i don't think the palestinians who hijacked pan am flight 73 did the right thing either. just because one side is wrong doesn't make the other side right.
both sides have killed babies. lots of people have killed babies. what you consider a defense of baby killers is to attempt to spread the whole truth instead of intentional lies through omission. so why are you defending baby killers?
subgenius
Oct 7, 14 2:26 pm
btw, how is your boycott working out?
chatter of clouds
Oct 7, 14 2:39 pm
Below is an interesting read that echoes that there is no contradiction between Jewish and Arab and no contradiction between being a Jewish Arab (or indeed a Muslim or Christian Arab). The conflict arises with the racist ideology of Zionism that elevates a religious identity to the status of a race and a nationality, necessarily preclusive of other religions (hence the desire to establish a Jewish State - on other people's lands no less:
By Roqayah Chamseddine - Thu, 2014-07-31 13:14- In Homage to the Struggle
The transformation of Zionism as a political ideology to Zionism as a religious ideology begins, in part, with Theodor Herzl’s "infatuation with British imperialism," as noted by literary scholar and cultural historian Eitan Bar-Yosef in his book A Villa In The Jungle: Herzl, Zionist Culture, And The Great African Adventure. “Herzl’s phrase – a ‘miniature England in reverse’ – preserves the imperfect colonial mimicry that stood at the heart of Herzl’s Zionist project, and which was exposed so explicitly...in his decision to align himself with the British Empire.” Herzl would form the Zionist Organization (now The World Zionist Congress) in 1897 and promote the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, while continuing to identify with British colonialism and those who facilitated colonialism – the colonialists themselves. While Herzl, in his book The Jewish State, published in 1895, argued that the ‘Jewish question’ was not social or religious but political, the historical account of the rise of religious Zionism shows that it began to take hold not long before the passing of Herzl in 1904.
In 1902 the Mizrachi organization was founded by Yitzchak Yaacov Reines, an Orthodox Rabbi; the formation of this movement would mark the systematized appearance of religious Zionism. The Mizrachi organization would go on to found a number of religious settlements in Palestine, under the Mizrachi Labor party, using Zionism’s primary call for the occupation of territory to then colonize said territory with a strategic religious backdrop. This would later lead to nationalist and religious claims to Palestinian territory unifying and changing Israeli politics in the process. In Indivisible Territory and the Politics of Legitimacy Stacie E. Goddard expounds on this merger, noting that "under [Menachem] Begin, religious Zionism became the dominant language of territorial claims, so much so that the aims of Gush Emunim and Likud are often now considered inseparable." “[The] Likud's dependence gave the Religious Zionists unparalleled access to the Israeli government."
The framing of the colonization of Palestine as being a religious conflict is a tremendous distortion – it is a myth which has advanced the occupation under the guise of “dialogue” and by way of the so-called “peace process” which asks of indigenous Palestinians to settle the “conflict” by relinquishing their autonomy, their right to self-determination and their homeland.
The tired binary of “Jew vs. Arab” takes the place of instructive awareness and constructive inquiry based on a historical context that precedes even the establishment of the State of Israel, working instead to attenuate the influence of history concerning the occupation of Palestine by manipulating the discourse. Not only does such a categorization dilute the tremendous impact that colonialism continues to have upon the people of Palestine, it does so for the sake of fruitless back and forth counseling sessions where the colonized are likened to the colonizers and are asked to solve an occupation spanning decades with interpersonal exchanges. Social get-togethers, regardless of how well-intentioned they may be, will not resolve the occupation, nor are such exchanges capable of addressing its root causes. Only resistance can straightforwardly confront the structural and systematic violence against the indigenous peoples of Palestine.
A social media campaign using the hashtag #JewsAndArabsRefuseToBeEnemies is one such manipulation, where photographs of Jewish and Arab couples sharing intimate moments and Jewish and Arab children holding hands are shared with comforting messages of peace. These images, though heartwarming, work to exploit emotions and steer the focus away from the occupation, its continuing and extensive consequences and the victims of Zionism, which include Palestine’s Jewish populace whose histories these campaigns unequivocally ignore.
In The Palestine-Israel Conflict: A Basic Introduction independent scholar Gregory Harms notes that before 1880 there was already a Jewish population in Palestine “some of who had been there as long as any of the native Arabs,” and that of this Jewish populace were the Sephardim. From the essay Colonialism and Imperialism: Zionism by Israeli anthropologist and activist Smadar Lavie, found in volume 6 of the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, published in 2007 by the University of California’s department of Anthropology:
The Sephardim were descendants of the Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492, and arrived in Palestine from then on, through the Mediterranean countries… Before 1948, about 450,000 Jews from Yiddish-speaking countries, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe, immigrated to Palestine. Most of them were Zionists, and many arrived as refugees who had survived the Holocaust. The rest, about 150,000 Jews, consisted of the few families who had always lived in Palestine, and the majority of the immigrants who arrived in Palestine during the Yishuv era from the Balkans or from Muslim countries. About 40,000 of them immigrated to Palestine from Yemen.
Presenting the colonization of Palestine as being a religious rivalry, or nothing more than a primordial spat ‘between cousins,’ wipes away the existence of these multidimensional histories as well as their relevant influence on elements of Palestinian society, including the cultural and intellectual dimensions, which coloured life for all those in Palestine. In Sephardim in Israel: Zionism From The Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims Ella Shohat, a self-identified Arab-Jew and Professor of Cultural Studies at New York University, argues that the consequences of Zionism not only extend to the Palestinians but to the Sephardim, who she refers to as Oriental Jews, whose voices have been silenced by Zionism. In the 1988 edition of the academic journal Social Text, published by Duke University Press, Shohat describes that even at the earliest stages of the Arab protest of Zionism there were clear distinctions made by Arabs between Zionists and Jews. An example of this Shohat provides was from the manifesto of the first Palestinian convention of February 1919 and “a Nazareth area petition” distributed during massive protests in 1920 which went on to denounce the Balfour Declaration, stating in part that "the Jews are people of our country who lived with us before the occupation, they are our brothers, people of our country and all the Jews of the world are our brothers."
Shohat notes that not only did Zionism aim to uproot Arab-Jewish communities in Palestine but that the Sephardim were made to choose between what she called an “anti-Zionist "Arabness" and a pro-Zionist "Jewishness", and so “for the first time in Sephardi history”, she writes, "Arabness and Jewishness were posed as antonym”:
An essential feature of colonialism is the distortion and even the denial of the history of the colonized...The Zionist master-narrative has little place for either Palestinians or Sephardim, but while Palestinians possess a clear counter narrative, the Sephardi story is a fractured one embedded in the history of both groups. Distinguishing the "evil" East (the Mosel Arab) from the "good" East (the Jewish Arab), Israel has taken upon itself to cleanse the Sephardim of their Arabness and redeem them from their "primal sin" of belonging to the Orient. Israeli historiography absorbs the Jews of Asia and Africa into the monolithic official memory European Jews...From the perspective of official Zionism, Jews from Arab and Moslem countries appear on the world stage only when they are seen on the map of the Hebrew state, just as the modern history of Palestine is seen as beginning with the Zionist renewal of the Biblical mandate.
Shohat writes that while Israel was expelling the indigenous Palestinians from their homeland the Sephardim were made to undergo “a complimentary trauma, a kind of image in negative, as it were, of the Palestinian experience” where their cultural heritage was erased and they were made to feel ashamed of their Arab identities – from their music, to their Arab countries of origin and even their dark skin tones. “Oriental Jews had to be taught to see the Arabs, and themselves, as Other.”
The struggle in Palestine has long been framed as though it is rooted in a religious discord, or long-held enmity between two peoples, and not only does this erase interconnected histories but it does so at the expense of justice for all victims of Zionism. This justice, and what Shohat describes as being “linked analogies between oppressions,” is what continues to plague Israel – and so, she writes, "the Zionist establishment in Israel has done everything in its power: the fomenting of war and the cult of "national security," the simplistic portrayal of Palestinian resistance as "terrorism;"...the promotion, through the educational system and the media, of "Arab-hatred"...” so as to prevent its victims from perceiving these parallels.
so this is simply about tammuz wanting to destroy a nation and it's people. the history is irrelevant (unless it supports the goal of destroying a nation and it's people).
is that that goal of the bds? is that what you're supporting orhan, rather than a peaceful resolution?
Orhan Ayyüce
Oct 7, 14 4:42 pm
I support boycotting of Israel until they end the siege of Gaza and the West Bank, stop building illegal settlements, share Jerusalem with Palestinians as capitol and agree to a two state solution or end apartheid within one state with equal rights and citizenship to all Arabs. Many options for Israel. Killing Palestinians indiscriminately and continuously taking land from them are not options.
Why are you criminalizing the victims?
These things are wrong, grossly asymmetrical killing and cultural eradication is barbaric and if Israel wants it, lasting peace can be achieved,
Where is hate in this which I am addressed as harboring by the local hasbara here?
I consider myself realistic. Where am I wrong or unreasonable? Wanting justice is wrong?
BDS is not peaceful? It is non violent and doesn't use any arms.
Stop upside downing meanings and the facts on the ground curt. If you go back to the beginning of everything here you will find people sent there from Europe didn't necessarily act friendly to the local ownership of land. Once you understand those, then you would join myself and tammuz here. I don't think of you as hasbara. You just want to argue and win argument. You can win, I don't care. But you must recognize that you are also criminalizing the victims here.
It wasn't Muslim Palestinians who committed the Holocaust or the Spanish Inquisition. In fact in both of those massive acts against Jews by European Christians, Muslims came to the rescue in many occasions, you can read about it.
Alternative
Oct 7, 14 4:51 pm
So, what you're saying is: go back to the proposed two-state arrangement from 1947? before virtually all of Israel's neighbors attacked if? I'm pretty sure your comrade Tammuz is arguing for something different.
curtkram
Oct 7, 14 5:10 pm
orhan, i think if they were to suddenly free all palestinians, open the borders, offer unrestricted trade, open immigration, etc., which i agree is what needs to happen, there would be attacks by palestinians against israeli civilian targets. i think this, because before israel cracked down with asymmetrical killing and discriminatory laws, that's what happened. hijacking an airplane full of civilians is not 'defending yourself.' ignoring the events that led israel to feel the need to pass discriminatory legislation, asymmetrically attack palestinians, and blockade the gaza strip, is unhelpful and disingenuous in my opinion, and it is those events that make this situation different than south africa, and that's why a boycott alone is likely to be unsuccessful unless it can somehow include a call for an end to violence.
all i really know of bds's intent is this forum thread, which tammuz is largely directing. i think tammuz has been clear that he believes israel does not have a right to exist, and he believes he should complain on the internets until that becomes real. while i don't think your posts are necessarily violent, i think tammuz's intent is violent despite his occasional post that we can all live happily together, without explaining how that can happen. i don't think tammuz has called for reconciliation between the palestinians and israelis in a way that would allow them to live together. he just just copies stories in the hopes everyone else will hate them the way he does.
that said, i completely agree with you that ultimately we should all want a free palestine in some form. i hope we will see everything you listed in your first paragraph sometime in my lifetime.
curtkram
Oct 7, 14 7:41 pm
maybe we could both be right if we worked together to try to understand what the real core of the conflict between the israeli's and palestinians is. that would be better, and certainly more academic, that dismissing people for having a different perspective. neither the palestinians or the israelis are inhuman monsters, though they've both done some pretty horrible things. why do you suppose that is? what happened?
More than 5 million Palestinians are denied equal rights by the state of Israel under a system of apartheid, a deliberate policy of racial or ethnic segregation.
Under Israeli military occupation, millions of Palestinians live in conditions which closely resemble the apartheid system that existed in South Africa:
No right of free speech, assembly or movement
Arrest and imprisonment without charge or trial
Torture
House searches without warrant
Assassination, extra-judicial murder
No right to vote for the Israeli government (even though it controls their lives)
Israel controls all Palestinian borders, all imports and exports, and all movement between towns and cities.
THE GAZA STRIP, still surrounded, besieged and controlled by Israel, has been sealed off and effectively turned into the world’s largest open-air prison.
WHAT IS ISRAELI APARTHEID?
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter was the first prominent figure in this country to apply the term apartheid to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories—East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. Israel’s apartheid system, however, also affects Palestinian Arabs who make up 20 percent of the population within Israel itself. Apartheid is a central feature of the Zionist state that proclaims it is exclusively for Jews.
The word “apartheid” originated to describe the rigid system of legal segregation imposed by the white supremacist South African government against people of color in that country from 1948 to 1990. The word itself is from the Afrikaner language and means “separateness” or “apart.” Afrikaners were Dutch settlers who denied basic democratic and human rights to that nation’s black majority and other people of color. In 1948 they formalized racial segregation by making it the law of the land, a policy they called apartheid.
Israeli apartheid is both like and unlike the system of segregation that existed in South Africa. It is also similar and dissimilar to the system of legal segregation that existed in the American South for many decades. The word apartheid could easily be used to describe the system of legal segregation that existed in nine U.S. Southern states from the end of the Reconstruction Period to the mid-1960s when the civil rights movement achieved some of its greatest victories. It could also describe the de facto segregation that existed outside the U.S. South and resulted in the creation of black ghettoes in nearly all U.S. cities.
Three key features characterize Israeli apartheid:
Four million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories lack the right to vote for the government that controls their lives through a military occupation. In addition to controlling the borders, air space, water, tax revenues, and other vital matters pertaining to the Occupied Territories, Israel alone issues the identity cards that determine the ability of Palestinians to work and their freedom of movement.
About 1.2 million Palestinian Israelis, who make up 20 percent, or one-fifth, of Israel’s population, have second-class citizenship within Israel, which defines itself as a Jewish state rather than a state for all its citizens. More than 20 provisions of Israel’s principal laws discriminate, either directly or indirectly, against non-Jews, according to Adalah: The Legal Center for Minority Rights in Israel.
Millions of Palestinians remain refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere, unable to return to their former homes and land in present-day Israel, even though the right of return for refugees is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In 2008, the South African government commissioned a study by leading legal scholars and human rights experts to determine if Israel was practicing apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories according to the parameters of international law. After a 15-month investigation, the study concluded that “Israel, since 1967, is the belligerent Occupying Power in occupied Palestinian territory, and that its occupation of these territories has become a colonial enterprise which implements a system of apartheid.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end apartheid in South Africa, said of Israeli government policies, “I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.”
Israeli apartheid is a two-tiered system of favoritism and privilege for Jews compared with deprivation and discrimination against Palestinian Arabs. It covers many facets of political, social, and economic life, including standard of living, education, housing and development, access to water and roads, an unequal system of justice, land ownership, and freedom of movement. In addition, it has many special features, such as the absolute control that the Israeli military ultimately exercises over all Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and the recent construction of a Separation Barrier or Apartheid Wall. This wall is meant not only to confiscate land from Palestinians to expand illegal settlements but also to make it impossible for Palestinians to have a contiguous and viable state of their own.
I have no doubt tammuz wants a peaceful solution. So far he created this thread and very clearly illustrated what is wrong with this picture in more ways than one. As you would see in many posts, the information we have been posting come from very credible and intelligent sources. Many of them from Jewish publications and organizations as well as from organizations on the ground.
BDS movement is well underway with thousands of supporters who are advocating these boycotts.Boycotts are boycotts. They are non violent methods of bringing attention to a situation, usually against to a violating party, an entity. In this case, it is Israeli government which has been held responsible for its actions causing thousands of innocent people harmed.
Israel is a 'commercially secular' and politically religious state. Its survival is like an isolationist one of a homogeneous society. No matter how much anybody claims it is an open society, it is a country with a very defined policies clearly benefiting its 'white jewish' populations first and moving down from there. Palestinians at the moment are even below surface (no pun), sieged and methods in place to keep them that way. It is hard not to resist against that if you are a Palestinian. It is hard not to resist that if you are anyone with a civil conscience. There are even supporters of BDS from organizations which BDS is targeting.or on its list.
A personal evidence; only people I know that are Palestinians, some very dear and close friends are Christian Palestinians They are vehemently activists against Israeli occupation of Palestine. So resisting Israeli occupation is not unique to Hamas.
If you ask me, my answer is perhaps absurd but the government most benefits from Hamas' existence is no other than Israeli government. Hamas gives them all the reason to put all their colonialist policies in action. That is why they will knock down Gaza, kill thousands of people but they won't entirely get rid of Hamas. They are the enemy, they represent the people of Gaza and people of Gaza, therefore, are the enemy population. An enemy population Israeli regime can beat up on a moment's notice but gets beaten up morally in return. Netanyahu's picture on American and European media is already representing nuisance without a shot fired at him. How is that for a few non violent but wide based resistive efforts?
Times have changed curtkram. There is no PLO and Yasser Arafat, guerilla wars, Layla Halids anymore. This is 2014, rules of engagement now include world's opinion and criticism of Israel in large numbers. Enough to give big worries to Bibi and his cabinet. Pretty soon the world opinion will "demand" a solution forcefully. I am one of those people demanding a peaceful but clear and loud solution for the plight of Palestinians. I was already an adult when South African fight against apartheid was won. I saw how it went global without internet technology but via television. This time the network is far more reaching and a lot faster.
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Alternative
Oct 8, 14 7:32 am
Orhan, being an activist against Israeli occupation does not mean that you kill Israelis indiscriminately, which is what Hamas has done and continues to do. You're a proponent of a nonviolent solution but Hamas's solution is decidedly violent and Israel has in turn responded with (arguably disproportionate) force. I am not justifying the actions of either side.
Note that Tammuz is silent about a two-state solution.
Alternative
Oct 8, 14 7:34 am
Tammuz, the wall was meant to prevent suicide attacks in Israel and has served its purpose in that regard. Suicide bombings in Israel have dropped dramatically since its construction.
Alternative
Oct 8, 14 8:58 am
Orhan, edit: I'm a proponent of a nonviolent solution.
By As'ad AbuKhalil - Tue, 2014-07-22 14:17- Angry Corner
Yet again another Israeli assault on an Arab country exposes the biases and racism of Western governments, media, and human rights organizations. Human rights organizations, particularly Human Rights Watch, have become the most culpable because they now serve as a media/propaganda arm of the Israeli terrorist army. We know how those things work, as soon as a Western NGO with a Middle East scope is formed, pro-Israeli groups (openly and not conspiratorially) rush in with their funds to control the agenda of the organization. Internal memos that I had revealed on my blog before show that the director of Human Rights Watch was mightily concerned about not offending pro-Israel sources of funding. Thus, think tanks, media groups, and human rights organization fall under the spell of pro-Israeli agendas and money.
The recent ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza is no different. In fact, Zionist groups only become more brazen. But they suffer from a major new disadvantage: no matter how much they control or influence Western governments, establishment media and human rights organizations, they in no way are capable of controlling the agendas of millions of free uncontrollable people on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms. The New York Times had to grudginlgy admit (as of July 21) the obvious: Theodore Herzl never imagined the power of social media, and the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack was used in “nearly four million Twitter posts, compared with 170,000 for #IsraelUnderFire.” But The New York Times did not mention that many pro-Palestinian activists also use the latter hashtag to transmit their message through different avenues.
The loss of free space to enemies of the state of Israel and its continuous terrorism only increase the intensity and feverishness of Israeli propaganda and the efforts by the friends and supporters of Zionism in establishment media, academia, and NGOs.
The agenda of Western governments and media become very clear: they want nothing short of complete surrender by the Palestinian people. They all but said that categorically. The Western agenda (governmental, media, and NGO) is unabashed in its hostility toward the interests and aspirations of the Palestinian people. In Europe there is a dichotomy: public opinion is in opposition – by different percentages and to different degrees – to the stances of the government. In the US, the government and the public are united in their racist endorsement of Israel and its record of war crimes – it sure helps that the American public is the least informed on foreign policy among peoples of the world.
Basically the Palestinians are expected, nay required, to refrain from any kind of resistance to Israeli occupation. The American government and its subservient governments in Europe (and they all stand in line regardless of whether they are conservative or socialist – like in France) want the Palestinians to appreciate their good fortune that their occupier is Israel. Israel is not like other occupiers, by US standards. Yes, it commits war crimes and it bombs various cities around the region at will, and it is based on institutionalized racism and discriminatory policies, and it is founded on the very principle of ethnic cleansing and land theft, but it is a good ally to the US and its leaders remind Americans of their own people (especially when you take into account that Israel keeps its Jews from Arab and African countries largely invisible from US media).
Palestinians can’t engage in armed struggle and can’t engage in non-violent struggle. Palestinians, as is known, foolishly engaged in non-violent struggle from the 1950s to the 1960s and it got them nowhere and the word Palestinian was not even mentionable. UNSCR 242, which used to be the basis of all regional settlement, did not utter the obscenity – to American ears. Even in the 1980s, the Palestinian people engaged in a large-scale non-violent uprising and I remember hearing US officials and media pundits morally judging the Palestinians and hectoring them about the evil of rock throwing against the brutal Israeli terrorist army. One American-Palestinian Quaker also foolishly believed that Israel would welcome his new center for non-violence in Jerusalem but it was soon closed and he was unceremoniously kicked out of Palestine. There was not a single American protest.
People in Africa and Asia were only able to rid themselves of colonialism through the use of different forms of armed struggle. Armed struggle is never clean and Europe fought the Nazis in the most dirty of ways but the West never cast judgment on itself. Acts of resistance against Nazi occupation in Europe is remembered with fondness and admiration and no one questions the methods even when innocent civilians were killed. Even in the struggle against apartheid South Africa, Americans refrain from questioning the methods in which collaborators were dealt with (necklacing, for those who remember).
Yet, the Palestinians are asked by Human Rights Watch to achieve the impossible: to adhere to standards of combat that no armies and no liberation movements have ever adhered to. Human Rights Watch quickly accused Hamas of war crimes while it has been equivocating for years on whether Israel commits war crimes. Its recent ploy was to castigate the Palestinians for not possessing advanced weaponry, presumably like Israel. But the advanced weaponry of Israel – theoretically the more precise ones – have caused far more civilian casualties than the weapons of the Palestinians. They are also expected to live away from their strugglers as if the fighters of the resistance in Gaza hail from another planet. This is like asking the members of the French resistance in WWII to live away from population centers and to concentrate in an open field to facilitate their elimination by German air force. That is how absurd the arguments of American media and human rights organizations are.
Furthermore, the Palestinians are blamed for not warning the Israelis – one by one – about their impending attacks. Yet, Palestinians are considered terrorists regardless of whether they aim their fire at Israeli terrorists or civilians ( or does the principle of collateral damage only apply to the armies of US and Israel?) Fatah was a terrorist organization until it became a tool of the occupation. Then it became qualified to receive US funding and its past “terrorist” deeds were forgiven by the American divinity.
Palestinians, of course, should not pay attention to what their chief enemy, the US government, has to say in terms of its instructions to them. The notion that the US has the best interest of the Palestinians at heart in dispensing advice to them is absurd and not believable to any Palestinian. Palestinians should be able to listen to advice and help from quarters that have records of help and support for the Palestinians. The US hardly qualifies in that category.
Dr. As’ad AbuKhalil is a professor of Political Science at California State University, Stanislaus, a lecturer and the author of The Angry Arab News Service. He tweets @asadabukhalil.
Alternative
Oct 8, 14 10:43 am
You're still not addressing the issue of what solution you'd like to see. Orhan is in the two-state camp. Where do you stand, Tammuz? Do the two of you have a common agenda?
curtkram
Oct 8, 14 10:50 am
does that sound like an advocate for a peaceful solution where israelis and palestinians bridge the gaps that divide them and try to live peacefully next to each other?
is this really a credible and intelligent source? sounds a bit like fox news fodder to me.
maybe times have changed, but from what i've seen from this thread, there are still too many people who just want to empower certain palestinian groups to kill more people. rather than an end to the violence and baby killing, it seems to me tammuz wants to expand and lengthen the fight as long as possible.
someday maybe the world will demand a solution. that will likely be a peaceful solution that includes, in part, some sort of commitment from violent palestinian groups to disarm and offer some sort of assurance they aren't just going to attack more civilian israeli targets. rebuilding palestine just so they go to war against against israel probably isn't going to be seen as in the best interest of the global community, though i agree ending the humanitarian problems in the gaza strip strip and the west bank is in the best interest of the global community. without a renunciation of violence, any solution will be tricky.
Alternative
Oct 8, 14 11:12 am
AbuKhalil calls for Israelis to engage in armed resistance against Israel.
And I quote (he's writing about an anti-occupation, left-wing Israeli musician named Daniel Barenboim):
"Can an Israeli redeem himself/herself?
I am often asked that question since I adhere to boycott of all things Israeli. The answer is yes provided 1) the person refuses to serve in the Army or the intelligence service of the state as part of military service; 2) the person must leave the house he/she occupies and the land on which he/she stands on because chances are the house is occupied, in the literal sense, and the land is occupied, in the literal sense; 3) the person must engage in armed struggle against the terrorist state of Israel. If an Israeli person fulfills those conditions, he/she should be acceptable from a pro-Palestinian point of view. So by my definition, Daniel Barenboim has not met any of those conditions.
PS Playing a musical instrument before a Palestinian audience does not qualify--not even if the instrument is Dirbakka."
This guy is calling for the destruction of the state of Israel through violent means.
Mandela recognised the importance of all forms of struggle against the violent oppression being imposed on his people. In 1980, as the non-violent mass struggle once again began to flourish, both inside South Africa and internationally in the form of the boycott and sanctions anti-apartheid solidarity movement, he wrote in a smuggled message from his prison cell that “between the hammer of armed struggle and the anvil of united mass action, the enemy will be crushed.”
“OUR FREEDOM IS INCOMPLETE WITHOUT THE FREEDOM OF THE PALESTINIANS”: And today, as the revisionist politicians and commentators eulogise Mandela, they also seek to scrub from Mandela’s history his lifelong and steadfast support for the Palestinian people and their struggle. Just as they were complicit in supporting South Africa’s apartheid regime, many of these same revisionist politicians and commentators are today complicit in supporting Israel’s apartheid regime.
In 1948, the same year as the Palestinian Nakba that saw Zionist militia ethnically cleanse more 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland and destroy more than 500 Palestinian villages, South Africa formally adopted the apartheid regime. Throughout the long years of apartheid in South African, as Sasha Polakow-Suransky notes in The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa, there were close military and trade ties between these two colonial oppressors. It is unsurprising, therefore, that there would be a close comradeship between the two struggles, viewing their struggles as one and the same: a struggle against colonialism, oppression and racism. For Mandela and the ANC, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians were “comrades in arms” and they supported their struggle against the Israeli state, both armed and unarmed.
The comradeship between the two struggles was highlighted by Mandela just 16 days after he was released from 27 long years in prison in 1990. In February 1990, Mandela met with Yasser Arafat in Lusaka in Zambia. At Lusaka Airport, Mandela embraced Arafat and reiterated his support for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Palestinian struggle, telling the media that Arafat was “fighting against a unique form of colonialism and we wish him success in his struggle”. He went on to say: “I believe that there are many similarities between our struggle and that of the PLO,” adding: “We live under a unique form of colonialism in South Africa, as well as in Israel, and a lot flows from that.”
The iconic South African leader had an ambivalent relationship with the Jewish state.
As I introduced myself, feeling the strength in his large hand, he smiled and said, “Shalom!” I was dumbstruck by the powerful presence of Nelson Mandela, the legendary leader of the country in which I had grown up, the man credited with ending the brutal apartheid regime.
But there he was, his large frame cutting a regal figure, choosing his words carefully in his distinct African accent, sitting opposite me and several other journalists and photographers around a table at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on October 19, 1999.
Holding hands as he walked out of a meeting with foreign minister David Levy, Mandela agreed to answer a few questions, and – as a reporter for Israel Radio’s English News – I recorded his answers.
Asked why he had finally decided to visit Israel, he replied, “To the many people who have questioned why I came, I say: Israel worked very closely with the apartheid regime. I say: I’ve made peace with many men who slaughtered our people like animals. Israel cooperated with the apartheid regime, but it did not participate in any atrocities.”
Mandela voiced his vehement opposition to Israel’s control of the territories it had “occupied” in the Six Day War, and he urged it to concede land to the Palestinians and Syrians, just as it had done with the Egyptians, for the sake of peace.
“My view is that talk of peace remains hollow if Israel continues to occupy Arab lands,” he said.
“I understand completely well why Israel occupies these lands.
There was a war. But if there is going to be peace, there must be complete withdrawal from all of these areas.”
He did, however, acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security concerns, declaring: “I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel within secure borders.”
One of Mandela’s greatest strengths was his ability to bury, but not forget, the bitterness of the past and actively work for a fairer future.
He did so when, upon his release from 27 years in jail, he emerged without exhibiting any signs of anger, reconciling with president F.W. de Klerk (earning them both Nobel peace prizes) and even sipping tea with Betsie Verwoerd, the 94-year-old widow of apartheid’s architect, Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd.
He did so when he became president of the new democratic South Africa in 1994 and set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, pitting perpetrators of apartheid crimes against its victims and their families.
He did so when he went to watch the Springboks team beat the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup in 1995, depicted in the Clint Eastwood film Invictus.
And he did so when, at the age of 81, he paid what was termed “a private visit” to Israel for two days after completing his five-year term as president and handing over the reins to his deputy, Thabo Mbeki, in June, and choosing to fly first to Iran, Syria and Jordan.
The peace overtures of thenprime minister Ehud Barak had paved the way for Mandela – a devout Christian – to make his first and only pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
After taking a jab at the Jewish state for being the only nation not to invite him when he was appointed president, and then refusing several invitations to travel here, Mandela said this trip was aimed at burying the hatchet – or, in his words, “to heal old wounds” both with Israel and South African Jews.
Mandela had an ambivalent, almost love-hate relationship with Jews and Israel. Like Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi before him, his first job had been with a Jewish law firm in Johannesburg, and some of his closest friends, political advisers and business associates were Jewish.
When he needed advice or money, they were the first people he called upon.
Many South African Jews had supported him, but others had openly backed or implicitly endorsed apartheid. One of his close Jewish friends, Arthur Goldreich, provided refuge to Mandela and other ANC leaders at his farm in Rivonia, later made aliya and became a professor at the Bezalel Art School.
On the other hand, Percy Yutar, the chief prosecutor at the infamous Rivonia treason trial at the end of which Mandela was given a life sentence, was Jewish, too.
Mandela resented Israel’s military relationship with apartheid South Africa and passionately supported the PLO, which he saw as a liberation movement similar to his own ANC.
He supported Israel’s right to exist as a democratic Jewish state, yet felt closer to its enemies: the PLO’s Yasser Arafat, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Iran’s Mohammed Khatami and Syria’s Hafez Assad. Nevertheless, he praised his Israeli hosts for their warm reception and peace-making efforts. Mandela received a red-carpet welcome at the King David Hotel, where South African chief rabbi Cyril Harris, together with leaders of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and Israel’s ambassador to South Africa, Uri Oren, greeted him.
Hugging Harris, a good friend, he quipped: “Now I feel at home – my rabbi is here.”
At a luncheon hosted by president Ezer Weizman and attended by cabinet ministers and other dignitaries, Mandela chose to thank the South African Jewish community. “One of the reasons I am so pleased to be in Israel is as a tribute to the enormous contribution of the Jewish community of South Africa. I am so proud of them,” he said.
After a guided tour of Jerusalem’s Old City and Yad Vashem, he wrote in the Holocaust museum’s visitors’ book: “A painful but enriching experience.”
After an upbeat meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office, he described Ehud Barak as “a man of courage and vision.”
“The people of the world and Israel should support Barak. He has aroused our hopes,” Mandela said. “What has emerged from all my conversations is that the yearning for peace is very intense.”
During the meeting, Mandela was thrilled to see Rabbi Dov Sidelsky, a South African immigrant and the son of Lazar Sidelsky, who had given Mandela his first job as a law clerk.
Whites hiring black professionals was “almost unheard of in those days,” said Mandela, who remembered Dov as a young boy in Johannesburg.
“I have found Jews to be more broad-minded than most whites on issues of race and politics, perhaps because they themselves have historically been victims of prejudice,” he wrote in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.
In his talks with Levy at the Foreign Ministry, Mandela shared his impression during his visit to Iran that the country had become more “moderate” under then-president Khatami.
He said he had received assurances that the trial of 13 Iranians Jews arrested earlier that year on charges of spying for “the Zionist regime,” which was of great concern then, would be “free and fair.”
Levy protested politely against Mandela’s reading of the situation, telling him that Iran, which backed terrorist groups targeting Jews and the Jewish state, was certainly not giving the 13 Jews a fair hearing.
In July 2000, after a closed trial that violated international legal norms, 10 were given harsh sentences, while three others were acquitted. Levy had been right, Mandela wrong.
Following his visit to Israel, Mandela flew to Gaza, where he enthusiastically embraced Arafat and endorsed Palestinian statehood but made a point of urging Arab acceptance of Israel.
“The Arab leaders must make an unequivocal statement that they recognize the existence of Israel with secure borders,” he stressed.
Mandela was undoubtedly one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century and an iconic symbol of hope and freedom in his beloved South Africa.
While he supported Zionism in principle, he believed that if there was to be peace in the Middle East, Israel must negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians and avoid becoming a binational “apartheid state” – or risk becoming an international pariah like apartheid South Africa.
A humble hero, Mandela was the first to acknowledge that he wasn’t always right, but as an advocate of justice for all, he was always ready to stand up and fight for what he believed was right, even when his views were not popular.
During my youth in South Africa, Mandela was portrayed by the “white media” as the enemy, the jailed leader of a terrorist insurrection against the Afrikaner government.
They labelled him “the Black Pimpernel” before he was arrested.
But the seemingly impossible occurred: the Black Pimpernel became the beloved leader of “the Rainbow Nation,” affectionately called “Madiba” (the name of his Xhosa clan) by South Africans of all colors and creeds.
Mandela once said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
May you rest in peace, Madiba. Shalom!
chatter of clouds
Oct 8, 14 12:32 pm
Zionists will argue and lie no matter what, even at the cost of contradicting their own. According to them, sometimes Mandela liked Israel, sometimes he hated it...it depends on the context of their arguments...not on whether Israel is racist colony and on Mandela standing against racism and for struggle against people`s oppression by the means necessary.
n 1990, Mandela likened Israel to a “terrorist state” and declared that “we do not regard the PLO as a terrorist organization. If one has to refer to any parties as a terrorist state, one might refer to the Israeli government because they are the people who are slaughtering defenseless and innocent Arabs in the occupied territories”.
Mandela should have raised Jewish eyebrows when in 1990 he embraced Arafat in Lusaka, Zambia, likening the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to the struggle against South African apartheid. “If the truth alienates the powerful Jewish community in South Africa, that’s too bad”, said Mandela.
During a trip to Libya, Mandela declared that “we consider ourselves to be comrades in arms to the Palestinian Arabs in their struggle for the liberation of Palestine. There is not a single citizen in South Africa who is not ready to stand by his Palestinian brothers in their legitimate fight against the Zionist racists”.
In September 1990, addressing the Reform congregation of Johannesburg, Mandela said: “If Zionism means the right of the Jewish people to seize territory and deny the Palestinian people the right to self-determination, we condemn it”.
In 1999 Mandela supported the Palestinian Arab use of violence. With Arafat seated next to him in Gaza, Mandela declared: “All men and women with vision choose peace rather than confrontation, except in cases where we cannot proceed, where we cannot move forward. Then if the only alternative is violence, we will use violence”.
Alternative
Oct 8, 14 12:36 pm
Whether or not he stood for violence, he acknowledged Israel's right to exist and a two-state solution-- which you reject.
Of course, I support Israeli sovereign rights so you'll just copy and paste a bunch of articles to silence any opposing viewpoints.
Seeing as how you know about Grindr and have stated in the past that you lived and worked in Dubai, I'm going to take a wild guess that you're a homosexual living in an Arab Muslim country. I would think that you'd be equipped to understand that social problems are nuanced and complex, but you summarily reject any alternative viewpoints on the issue.
It's weird that you call your opponents "Zionist mules"; it's clear that there's another stubborn ass in this conversation.
chatter of clouds
Oct 8, 14 12:43 pm
People accuse me of beating a dead horse. Thy do it because of their own (ir)rational fallacies, their irritation at having to encouter a troubling (and very living) topic and sometimes out of petty internet feuding and carrying wounds of having been indignified at points on Archinect owing to criticism. None of that has nothing to do with the run of logic.
However, what is truly beating a dead horse is the 2 state solution.
As Washington’s “peace process” strategy has become harder and harder to sustain, U.S. officials have hid behind pious claims that America can’t want peace more than the parties. In reality, though, Washington is the only party that truly wants the “peace process.”
Certainly Israel has never wanted it; Golda Meir’s “leftwing” Labor government rejected Washington’s first peace plan in 1969. Palestinians, for their part, have never come together to accept a “process” meant to deprive them permanently of genuine sovereignty and self-determination.
The two-state solution’s demise inevitably conditions long-term erosion in the perceived legitimacy of the current Israeli political order. The proposition that Israel cannot continue occupying Palestinians while claiming to be both Zionist and democratic is no longer predictive analysis.
The U.S. government’s own demographic data show that the number of Arabs living under Israeli control — in “Green Line” Israel, Gaza, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the rest of the West Bank — already exceeds the number of Israeli Jews.
In other words, what we call the state of Israel is already a minority regime for the people it governs. In the context of the current Gaza campaign, Israeli officials’ descriptions of Hamas as a foreign threat that must be defended against are disingenuous. Hamas is a homegrown movement, born in 1988 in Gaza under Israeli occupation.
Even with the 2005 closure of Israeli settlements there, Gaza remains under Israeli control. Thus, Hamas is not an “external” threat to Israel — it is an internal challenge to what the movement’s constituents see as an unjust and illegitimate political order still dictating their interactions with the world and exercising harsh and indiscriminate police powers over their daily lives.
This leaves the one-state option — some version of one person, one vote for people living under Israeli control. For the foreseeable future, the one-state model will be opposed by the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews and supporters of Israel.
It will also threaten current regional governments — e.g., in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia — that have bought into Washington’s vision for a U.S.-led political and security order in the Middle East that includes nearly absolute freedom of unilateral military initiative for Israel. But other important actors — Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and any other regional state where government becomes more representative — would support it.
A one-state scenario has profound implications for America’s position in the Middle East. For the United States to “lose” Israel as a proxy for projecting hard power would severely circumscribe Washington’s capacity to keep its Middle East strategy oriented toward regional dominance. It would instead push Washington toward a strategy of stabilizing the regional balance through serious diplomatic engagement with all relevant players (Iran as well as Israel and Saudi Arabia).
This is a radically different approach from the one envisioned by U.S. policymakers during the Cold War and pursued in relatively unconstrained fashion by U.S. administrations after the Cold War’s end, entailing a highly militarized U.S. presence and American micromanagement of regional political outcomes.
Given the deeply counterproductive results of America’s Middle East strategy over the last quarter century, one may hope that Washington will finally stop making policy in defiance of on-the-ground reality.
In the near-to-medium term, though, American politicians and policymakers are more likely to continue doubling down on the sorts of policies — including ever-increasing military assistance for Israel — that have put the United States on a trajectory of ever-declining influence in one of the world’s most strategically vital regions.
Alternative
Oct 8, 14 12:46 pm
Maybe you should convene with Orhan about that last point.
chatter of clouds
Oct 8, 14 12:49 pm
A two state solution ensures that there will be one of the states, a Zionist Israel, that will remain undemocratic, racist, based on ethnic disrimination and built on grounds that never belonged to it anyway...and it will enshrine that non-Jewish residents who happen to live in this one-of-the-two-states -and who have more right of belonging historically, than any one of its Ukrainian, German, British,etc, immigrants..in fact, they should have none - will be viewed as citizens of a second class.
chatter of clouds
Oct 8, 14 12:53 pm
Another Zionist bot intention is to seed sedition. Its a sleazy lowlife tacticthat I see as impertinent. Orhan has my respect and regards and we both concur that Israel should be boycotted.
Not boycotting Israel, in this day and age where everyone knows of Israel's persistent policy, history and agenda of ethnic cleansing, incremental genocide, persecution and oppression is itself unethical. Archinect, pay heed.
Alternative
Oct 8, 14 12:54 pm
What would a Palestinian state look like? A liberal utopia?
Alternative
Oct 8, 14 12:54 pm
Orhan voiced his goal of a two-state solution.
curtkram
Oct 8, 14 1:04 pm
what does that have to do with anything? it's like your just trying to have a conversation with yourself, but you're forgetting to post half of it.
from your copy/paste:
He did, however, acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security concerns, declaring: “I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel within secure borders.”
the apartheid in south africa began as a racial separation based on ideas of racial inferiority. i don't think many people in israel or palestine really believe people need to be separated based on race due to 'biological differences' or whatever.
the separation between palestinians and israelis comes from decades of attacks against each other. bus bombings, suicide bombings, airplane hijacking, rocket attacks, assassinations, etc.
if you're going to try to address racism based on ignorance, you should address the ignorance. if you're going to address racism based on fear, you should address the fear. you're not trying to fix the fear, you're trying to make it worse.
Alternative
Oct 8, 14 1:08 pm
Let's review again:
1 - Orhan says he wants a two-state solution.
2 - Tammuz rejects two state solution.
3 - I remind Tammuz that Orhan wants two-state solution.
4 - ZIONIST CONSPIRACY!
Orhan Ayyüce
Oct 8, 14 2:51 pm
Actually, I want what Palestinian people want. One state, two state.., they decide. I am not Palestinian nor living there. They shall decide.
You are talking like a high school kid discussing football teams in the school yard. Not interesting alternative.
Alternative
Oct 8, 14 3:02 pm
Lol nice back pedaling.
Orhan Ayyüce
Oct 8, 14 3:04 pm
What are you doing, writing fiction from your cubicle?
Alternative
Oct 8, 14 3:14 pm
I'm actually enjoying some fresh air and posting from my phone.
How about you? Teaching your little minions? After another gorgeous plaque?
Today is the 12th day of Israel's murderous attacks on Gaza.
The Palestinian body count is 336, 70 of whom are kids. This has become a murderous spree of killing for the zionist terrorist army, supported by government of this racist colonial entity and by their people , many of whom have been turning increasingly into blood thirsty mobs urging the murder of Palestinian
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From Israeli calls for Palestinian blood ring at fever pitch :
On the eve of Abu Khudair’s lynching, Member of Knesset (Israel’s parliament) and government faction whip Ayelet Shaked issued a call over Facebook to ethnically cleanse the land, declaring “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy.” She advocated their complete destruction, “including its elderly and its women,” adding that these must be slaughtered, otherwise they might give birth to more “little snakes.”
... Since the beginning of July, raging crowds of Jewish Israelis just like these have marched through Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Nazareth and Beer Sheva, chanting “Death to Arabs” and “Death to Leftists,” swarming and attacking vulnerable victims. While a tiny contingent of radical Israelis have formed a loose “anti-fascist” network that tries to patrol city streets and prevent additional lynchings, they are extremely few in numbers and cannot be everywhere at all times.
While Israeli leaders unleash conscripted soldiers to bombard Gaza, they dispatch ultra-nationalist vigilantes to conquer cities inside Israel. With the incitement to murder Palestinians (and the few Israeli allies they have) continue unabated, it seems to be only a matter of time before the bubbling bloodlust boils overs into a bloodbath.
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I am sure that you, the people behind Archinect, are well aware of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, this racist colonial entity that has been described by Moshé Machover as being far worse than the south african apartheid system: "talk of Israeli ‘apartheid’ serves to divert attention from much greater dangers. For, as far as most Palestinians are concerned, the Zionist policy is far worse than apartheid. Apartheid can be reversed. Ethnic cleansing is immeasurably harder to reverse; at least not in the short or medium term."
The global BDS movement is a peaceful movement that has been, in the face of Israeli racist, oppressive and genocidal policies against the Palestinians, garnering great traction around the world as people everywhere are increasingly grasping the nature of the Zionist establishment that is called Israel. Through a deliberate, effective boycotting Israeli products, academics, businesses, items of interest, the movement contributes to the economic and moral isolation of Israel.
As you might know, there is also the US Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel , whose mission statement states the following:
“In light of Israel’s persistent violations of international law, and Given that, since 1948, hundreds of UN resolutions have condemned Israel’s colonial and discriminatory policies as illegal and called for immediate, adequate and effective remedies, and Given that all forms of international intervention and peace-making have until now failed to convince or force Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights and to end its occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine, and In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions..."
I notice that there are Israeli businesses being hosted within Archinect's firm listings (for example). As are listings of Israeli universities within the academic section. I highly urge Archinect, the people behind it, Paul, the editors, the writers....to desist from ignoring your responsibilities apropos taking a stand against this racist entity and to remove all Israeli related material from Archinect. You, like everyone else has that responsibility, because you have the knowledge and you have the right of choice. To ignore this is to be complacent and to be regressive.
As a virtual space that spans the social, the professional and the academic, as a gathering of professionals including architects, designers, artists, engineers and others, as a gathering of minds that by implication suggests a progressive humanist endeavor, please instate an anti-zionist, anti-israeli policy (that covers israeli academics, businesses, media, etc) in the spirit of the BDS movement.
*Correction - Hamas kills Palestinians whom it suspects to have spied on behalf of Israel.
"We, minus Orhan and TAM, are all aware of this Alternative."
Lol!
I guess,
We = catatonic programmed post lobotomy zombies (who) feed others prepackaged arguments based neither on concern for the suffering of people and children or sound logic but on throwing up fust in the face of criticism against Israel.
Whose bombs murdered three thousand of children, women and other innocent people?
I am tired with these lobotomy zombies as well. I might just spend my energy elsewhere. I will leave it to these people go home look in the mirror and hold their own children feeling they accomplished something today defending child killers throwing powerful bombs in places like schools and hospitals miming and dismembering innocent children not too different than their own.
Do they (the "we" people) think they will get away just because they are here posting anonymously in an internet forum? No. You are accountable for all that. It will follow you no matter how many times you change your internet names.
Fault? Building a nation on the basis of ethnically cleansing a region from an indigenous people is not a fault, it is a rationalized program centered around an ideology based on oppression and colonialism. Incremental genocide is not a just a fault, its an evil and a colonized and oppressed people have all the right to resist it.
Lets see, these Zionist bots, when faced with the Israeli crimes of mass killing and destruction of Palestinians:
1- Minimize the significance of Israel's massacres and theft of land - the very modus operandi, historically and presentally, of the colonizer and the not-so-incidental adversary of the Palestinian people and their resistance bodies- to the level of "fault" while focusing on secondary, reactive elements....as if this effaces that even this latter is itself a direct consequence of Israel's occupation and colonialism of the Palestinians living under extraordinary conditions.
2- Read those aftereffect elements , obsessively (read here Hamas) seperately from the cotext - Israel`s daily oppression of their people- and as seperate agents of Palestinian misery (and remember, Palestinians voted for them, democratically - would they realyl do that if so was the case?) the instigator and not, overwhelmingly, Israel.
3- Misrepresent Hamas as an entity seperate from Palestinians and not , in fact, a summarily Palestinian response, formulated within the Palestinian body to its own miserable condition dictated by Israel. Thus, the perverted misrepresentation is that there is Hamas on one side and Palestinians on the other, Hamas repressing and killing Palestinians (according to this perverted misrepresentation). Israel, who is just "at a fault", has been virtualy disappeared from this fraudulent formula...when, in fact, it is the the very limit, context and frame of this formula.
4- Use the above false rhetoric, i.e. provoking a moral jugement of Hamas, specifically in a context where Israel is being criticized, not out of compassion for Palestinians but specifically out of the desire to insiduusly `turn the tables`so to speak.
This is a thread about Israel....if Zionist bots truly believe that Israel is "at fault", then, even this small pathetic gesture from their part (compared to the immense magnitude of the tragedy caused by Zionists) should go to justify this thread and its reason of being
However, why do they bring up the issue of Hamas? They're not even countering the mass of information regarding the daily oppressionof Palestinians at the hand of the Zionists/Israel. It doesn't make sense except if we see that these Zionist bots are here for solely demonizing the Palestinian resistance factions, counter criticism of Israel by any means inclsuive of lying and obfuscation-and I mean they are deliberately here for this, notice that they even get weekends off, as if its a paid job for them...and maybe it is!
Where is SeriousQuestion? And the ones before it? Now we have this latter version zionist bot. This thread sure attracts many newbies; one should ask why.
I was observing Yom Kippur.
@tammuz you and your ilk are hate mongers. Take your message of hate and intolerance and peddle it elsewhere. (Anyone who uses the term "Zionist boots" needs to say no more). History will bear record of the demise of a Palestinian "people" that refused to change and adapt towards peace and instead fell to their demise grasping an ancient philosophy of fear and violence which was a poor veil for "identity".
I'm also unclear where I've ever shown that I'm indifferent to the plight of Palestinians.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/alanjohnson/100283063/hamas-manipulated-and-intimidated-the-media-in-gaza-why-was-that-kept-from-us/
Hamas manipulated and intimidated the media in Gaza. Why was that kept from us?
We should normally say if our reports are censored or monitored or if we withhold information, and explain, wherever possible, the rules under which we are operating.- Section 11.4.1 of the BBC Editorial Guidelines on accuracy and impartiality in times of War, Terror and Emergencies
The Foreign Press Association (FPA) issued an astonishing protest yesterday about "blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox" intimidation of journalists in the Gaza Strip by Hamas. "In several cases," they complained, "foreign reporters working in Gaza have been harassed, threatened or questioned over stories." The FPA said this amounted to "denying readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground," adding "we are also aware that Hamas is trying to put in place a 'vetting' procedure that would, in effect, allow for the blacklisting of specific journalists. Such a procedure is vehemently opposed by the FPA." The statement raises a lot of questions. Here is one: why have British broadcasters not mentioned any of this to their viewers?
Let's review what we know.
Indian television station NDTV broadcast and posted on its internet site on 5 August a report by Sreenivasan Jain showing rockets fired from a tent next to his hotel. In the accompanying text on NDTV’s website, Jain wrote that it was published "after our team left the Gaza Strip – Hamas has not taken very kindly to any reporting of its rockets being fired. But just as we reported the devastating consequences of Israel’s offensive on Gaza’s civilians, it is equally important to report on how Hamas places those very civilians at risk by firing rockets deep from the heart of civilian zones." Inan article published subsequently, Jain wrote of "the fear which hobbles the reporting such material: fear of reprisals from Hamas against us", asking "how long do we self-censor because of the fear of personal safety in return for not telling a story that exposes how those launching rockets are putting so many more lives at risk, while the rocket-makers themselves are at a safe distance?"
More and more examples of intimidation of journalists by Hamas are seeping out of Gaza:
Hamas manipulation of the media is not always so crude.
The long Hamas record of shutting down news bureaus, arresting reporters and cameramen, confiscating equipment and beating journalists has already been documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists. In the latest conflict Hamas wanted to reduce the reports coming out of Gaza to what Reinhold Niebuhr once called "emotionally potent over-simplifications". Journalists from India, America, Norway, Italy, Spain, Australia, Canada and elsewhere are complaining. Will we now hear from the Brits?
nobody is countering the mass of information regarding the daily oppression of palestinians because we understand it's happening. that side of the situation is well documented in this thread. i don't think anyone here is minimizing the actions of the israeli's either, we're just aware that there is more going on and want to understand what's causing the israelis to act in the way they are so we can better understand what problems need to be addressed to help build a real solution and honest understanding of the situation. a faketvist boycott that doesn't do anything but show you feel bad for the plaestinians is not likely to improve their situation. pretending that the environment of south african apartheid is the same environment in gaza isn't going to make life better for the palestinians. switching genocide from one side to the other instead of ending the genocide isn't going to build support.
obviously none of us want to kill babies. trying to turn the discussion to moronic emotional pleas and fake strawmen like that only appeals to morons. sorry, but most people that visit this thread aren't that stupid. i'm sure you can sell it to your local communities though.
an actual solution to the conflict will have to involve a broader understanding of the situation, considering the concerns and fears of the israelis as well as the palestinians. just because you can't accept the actions of the palestinians that don't fit into your biased narrative doesn't make those actions go away.
catatonic programmed post lobotomy zombies is far better than 'zionist bot.' while somewhat insulting, it is descriptive and doesn't use the term 'bot' in a way that makes no sense.
History will bear record of the demise of a Palestinian "people" that refused to change and adapt towards peace and instead fell to their demise grasping an ancient philosophy of fear and violence which was a poor veil for "identity".
subgenius (or should i call you subhuman which seems to be more appropriate after your comments and lies here) that is the most Hitler-esque statement so far.
I don't agree with what subgenius is writing, for the record.
obviously none of us want to kill babies
So why are you defending those who kill them for the last three months you flippant you?
Because positing Israel as a "baby killer" is a reductive, willfully blind claim that ignores what's actually unfolding.
Orhan, why isn't Hamas a "baby killer"?
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/middle-east-unrest/israeli-boy-killed-five-wounded-gaza-mortar-strike-n187226
A 4-year-old Israeli child was killed by a mortar shell fired into the country from Gaza Friday, the military said, and five other Israelis were wounded in other rocket attacks. The strikes come as gunmen in Gaza executed 18 people it claimed were spies in an apparent attempt to plug security breaches a day after an Israeli airstrike killed three top Hamas military commanders.
The Israel Defense Forces identified the slain boy as Daniel Tregerman. Initially, the IDF said the mortar was fired from near a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school, but it later said the school was maintained as a shelter by Hamas, not the UNRWA. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office expressed his condolences and vowed that Hamas would pay a "heavy price."
Also Friday, gunmen executed 18 people, including some that were lined up against a wall and shot in front of an audience of hundreds, witnesses said. A note pinned on the wall said they had leaked information to Israel that was used to conduct airstrikes. Since the fighting began July 8 at least 2,092 Palestinians have died in the conflict. The boy’s killing brought Israel dead to 68, including 64 soldiers.
again...
This is a thread about Israel....if Zionist bots truly believe that Israel is "at fault", then, even this small pathetic gesture from their part (compared to the immense magnitude of the tragedy caused by Zionists) should go to justify this thread and its reason of being
However, why do they bring up the issue of Hamas, obsessively, redundantly -demonizing it ? Why here? Why irrespective of post and specific topic. Does Hamas explain the ethnic cleansing required to facilitate this (which is still ongoing) or is Hamas is explained by this:
This tread is about blind ideology masquerading as false intellectualism.
How is that map historically accurate? Those borders never existed under the Ottoman Empire.
i'm not defending anyone. i just want the situation to be presented in a complete and honest matter. i am certainly not saying israel is doing the right thing, but then i don't think the palestinians who hijacked pan am flight 73 did the right thing either. just because one side is wrong doesn't make the other side right.
both sides have killed babies. lots of people have killed babies. what you consider a defense of baby killers is to attempt to spread the whole truth instead of intentional lies through omission. so why are you defending baby killers?
btw, how is your boycott working out?
Below is an interesting read that echoes that there is no contradiction between Jewish and Arab and no contradiction between being a Jewish Arab (or indeed a Muslim or Christian Arab). The conflict arises with the racist ideology of Zionism that elevates a religious identity to the status of a race and a nationality, necessarily preclusive of other religions (hence the desire to establish a Jewish State - on other people's lands no less:
The myth of the ‘Arabs versus Jews’ narrative
By Roqayah Chamseddine - Thu, 2014-07-31 13:14- In Homage to the Struggle
The transformation of Zionism as a political ideology to Zionism as a religious ideology begins, in part, with Theodor Herzl’s "infatuation with British imperialism," as noted by literary scholar and cultural historian Eitan Bar-Yosef in his book A Villa In The Jungle: Herzl, Zionist Culture, And The Great African Adventure. “Herzl’s phrase – a ‘miniature England in reverse’ – preserves the imperfect colonial mimicry that stood at the heart of Herzl’s Zionist project, and which was exposed so explicitly...in his decision to align himself with the British Empire.” Herzl would form the Zionist Organization (now The World Zionist Congress) in 1897 and promote the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, while continuing to identify with British colonialism and those who facilitated colonialism – the colonialists themselves. While Herzl, in his book The Jewish State, published in 1895, argued that the ‘Jewish question’ was not social or religious but political, the historical account of the rise of religious Zionism shows that it began to take hold not long before the passing of Herzl in 1904.
In 1902 the Mizrachi organization was founded by Yitzchak Yaacov Reines, an Orthodox Rabbi; the formation of this movement would mark the systematized appearance of religious Zionism. The Mizrachi organization would go on to found a number of religious settlements in Palestine, under the Mizrachi Labor party, using Zionism’s primary call for the occupation of territory to then colonize said territory with a strategic religious backdrop. This would later lead to nationalist and religious claims to Palestinian territory unifying and changing Israeli politics in the process. In Indivisible Territory and the Politics of Legitimacy Stacie E. Goddard expounds on this merger, noting that "under [Menachem] Begin, religious Zionism became the dominant language of territorial claims, so much so that the aims of Gush Emunim and Likud are often now considered inseparable." “[The] Likud's dependence gave the Religious Zionists unparalleled access to the Israeli government."
The framing of the colonization of Palestine as being a religious conflict is a tremendous distortion – it is a myth which has advanced the occupation under the guise of “dialogue” and by way of the so-called “peace process” which asks of indigenous Palestinians to settle the “conflict” by relinquishing their autonomy, their right to self-determination and their homeland.
The tired binary of “Jew vs. Arab” takes the place of instructive awareness and constructive inquiry based on a historical context that precedes even the establishment of the State of Israel, working instead to attenuate the influence of history concerning the occupation of Palestine by manipulating the discourse. Not only does such a categorization dilute the tremendous impact that colonialism continues to have upon the people of Palestine, it does so for the sake of fruitless back and forth counseling sessions where the colonized are likened to the colonizers and are asked to solve an occupation spanning decades with interpersonal exchanges. Social get-togethers, regardless of how well-intentioned they may be, will not resolve the occupation, nor are such exchanges capable of addressing its root causes. Only resistance can straightforwardly confront the structural and systematic violence against the indigenous peoples of Palestine.
A social media campaign using the hashtag #JewsAndArabsRefuseToBeEnemies is one such manipulation, where photographs of Jewish and Arab couples sharing intimate moments and Jewish and Arab children holding hands are shared with comforting messages of peace. These images, though heartwarming, work to exploit emotions and steer the focus away from the occupation, its continuing and extensive consequences and the victims of Zionism, which include Palestine’s Jewish populace whose histories these campaigns unequivocally ignore.
In The Palestine-Israel Conflict: A Basic Introduction independent scholar Gregory Harms notes that before 1880 there was already a Jewish population in Palestine “some of who had been there as long as any of the native Arabs,” and that of this Jewish populace were the Sephardim. From the essay Colonialism and Imperialism: Zionism by Israeli anthropologist and activist Smadar Lavie, found in volume 6 of the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, published in 2007 by the University of California’s department of Anthropology:
The Sephardim were descendants of the Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492, and arrived in Palestine from then on, through the Mediterranean countries… Before 1948, about 450,000 Jews from Yiddish-speaking countries, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe, immigrated to Palestine. Most of them were Zionists, and many arrived as refugees who had survived the Holocaust. The rest, about 150,000 Jews, consisted of the few families who had always lived in Palestine, and the majority of the immigrants who arrived in Palestine during the Yishuv era from the Balkans or from Muslim countries. About 40,000 of them immigrated to Palestine from Yemen.
Presenting the colonization of Palestine as being a religious rivalry, or nothing more than a primordial spat ‘between cousins,’ wipes away the existence of these multidimensional histories as well as their relevant influence on elements of Palestinian society, including the cultural and intellectual dimensions, which coloured life for all those in Palestine. In Sephardim in Israel: Zionism From The Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims Ella Shohat, a self-identified Arab-Jew and Professor of Cultural Studies at New York University, argues that the consequences of Zionism not only extend to the Palestinians but to the Sephardim, who she refers to as Oriental Jews, whose voices have been silenced by Zionism. In the 1988 edition of the academic journal Social Text, published by Duke University Press, Shohat describes that even at the earliest stages of the Arab protest of Zionism there were clear distinctions made by Arabs between Zionists and Jews. An example of this Shohat provides was from the manifesto of the first Palestinian convention of February 1919 and “a Nazareth area petition” distributed during massive protests in 1920 which went on to denounce the Balfour Declaration, stating in part that "the Jews are people of our country who lived with us before the occupation, they are our brothers, people of our country and all the Jews of the world are our brothers."
Shohat notes that not only did Zionism aim to uproot Arab-Jewish communities in Palestine but that the Sephardim were made to choose between what she called an “anti-Zionist "Arabness" and a pro-Zionist "Jewishness", and so “for the first time in Sephardi history”, she writes, "Arabness and Jewishness were posed as antonym”:
An essential feature of colonialism is the distortion and even the denial of the history of the colonized...The Zionist master-narrative has little place for either Palestinians or Sephardim, but while Palestinians possess a clear counter narrative, the Sephardi story is a fractured one embedded in the history of both groups. Distinguishing the "evil" East (the Mosel Arab) from the "good" East (the Jewish Arab), Israel has taken upon itself to cleanse the Sephardim of their Arabness and redeem them from their "primal sin" of belonging to the Orient. Israeli historiography absorbs the Jews of Asia and Africa into the monolithic official memory European Jews...From the perspective of official Zionism, Jews from Arab and Moslem countries appear on the world stage only when they are seen on the map of the Hebrew state, just as the modern history of Palestine is seen as beginning with the Zionist renewal of the Biblical mandate.
Shohat writes that while Israel was expelling the indigenous Palestinians from their homeland the Sephardim were made to undergo “a complimentary trauma, a kind of image in negative, as it were, of the Palestinian experience” where their cultural heritage was erased and they were made to feel ashamed of their Arab identities – from their music, to their Arab countries of origin and even their dark skin tones. “Oriental Jews had to be taught to see the Arabs, and themselves, as Other.”
The struggle in Palestine has long been framed as though it is rooted in a religious discord, or long-held enmity between two peoples, and not only does this erase interconnected histories but it does so at the expense of justice for all victims of Zionism. This justice, and what Shohat describes as being “linked analogies between oppressions,” is what continues to plague Israel – and so, she writes, "the Zionist establishment in Israel has done everything in its power: the fomenting of war and the cult of "national security," the simplistic portrayal of Palestinian resistance as "terrorism;"...the promotion, through the educational system and the media, of "Arab-hatred"...” so as to prevent its victims from perceiving these parallels.
Roqayah Chamseddine is a Sydney based Lebanese-American journalist and commentator. She tweets @roqchams and writes 'Letters From the Underground.'
so this is simply about tammuz wanting to destroy a nation and it's people. the history is irrelevant (unless it supports the goal of destroying a nation and it's people).
is that that goal of the bds? is that what you're supporting orhan, rather than a peaceful resolution?
I support boycotting of Israel until they end the siege of Gaza and the West Bank, stop building illegal settlements, share Jerusalem with Palestinians as capitol and agree to a two state solution or end apartheid within one state with equal rights and citizenship to all Arabs. Many options for Israel. Killing Palestinians indiscriminately and continuously taking land from them are not options.
Why are you criminalizing the victims?
These things are wrong, grossly asymmetrical killing and cultural eradication is barbaric and if Israel wants it, lasting peace can be achieved,
Where is hate in this which I am addressed as harboring by the local hasbara here?
I consider myself realistic. Where am I wrong or unreasonable? Wanting justice is wrong?
BDS is not peaceful? It is non violent and doesn't use any arms.
Stop upside downing meanings and the facts on the ground curt. If you go back to the beginning of everything here you will find people sent there from Europe didn't necessarily act friendly to the local ownership of land. Once you understand those, then you would join myself and tammuz here. I don't think of you as hasbara. You just want to argue and win argument. You can win, I don't care. But you must recognize that you are also criminalizing the victims here.
It wasn't Muslim Palestinians who committed the Holocaust or the Spanish Inquisition. In fact in both of those massive acts against Jews by European Christians, Muslims came to the rescue in many occasions, you can read about it.
So, what you're saying is: go back to the proposed two-state arrangement from 1947? before virtually all of Israel's neighbors attacked if? I'm pretty sure your comrade Tammuz is arguing for something different.
orhan, i think if they were to suddenly free all palestinians, open the borders, offer unrestricted trade, open immigration, etc., which i agree is what needs to happen, there would be attacks by palestinians against israeli civilian targets. i think this, because before israel cracked down with asymmetrical killing and discriminatory laws, that's what happened. hijacking an airplane full of civilians is not 'defending yourself.' ignoring the events that led israel to feel the need to pass discriminatory legislation, asymmetrically attack palestinians, and blockade the gaza strip, is unhelpful and disingenuous in my opinion, and it is those events that make this situation different than south africa, and that's why a boycott alone is likely to be unsuccessful unless it can somehow include a call for an end to violence.
all i really know of bds's intent is this forum thread, which tammuz is largely directing. i think tammuz has been clear that he believes israel does not have a right to exist, and he believes he should complain on the internets until that becomes real. while i don't think your posts are necessarily violent, i think tammuz's intent is violent despite his occasional post that we can all live happily together, without explaining how that can happen. i don't think tammuz has called for reconciliation between the palestinians and israelis in a way that would allow them to live together. he just just copies stories in the hopes everyone else will hate them the way he does.
that said, i completely agree with you that ultimately we should all want a free palestine in some form. i hope we will see everything you listed in your first paragraph sometime in my lifetime.
maybe we could both be right if we worked together to try to understand what the real core of the conflict between the israeli's and palestinians is. that would be better, and certainly more academic, that dismissing people for having a different perspective. neither the palestinians or the israelis are inhuman monsters, though they've both done some pretty horrible things. why do you suppose that is? what happened?
Equal Rights for Palestinians
APARTHEID AND OCCUPATION
More than 5 million Palestinians are denied equal rights by the state of Israel under a system of apartheid, a deliberate policy of racial or ethnic segregation.
Israel controls all Palestinian borders, all imports and exports, and all movement between towns and cities.
THE GAZA STRIP, still surrounded, besieged and controlled by Israel, has been sealed off and effectively turned into the world’s largest open-air prison.
WHAT IS ISRAELI APARTHEID?
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter was the first prominent figure in this country to apply the term apartheid to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories—East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. Israel’s apartheid system, however, also affects Palestinian Arabs who make up 20 percent of the population within Israel itself. Apartheid is a central feature of the Zionist state that proclaims it is exclusively for Jews.
The word “apartheid” originated to describe the rigid system of legal segregation imposed by the white supremacist South African government against people of color in that country from 1948 to 1990. The word itself is from the Afrikaner language and means “separateness” or “apart.” Afrikaners were Dutch settlers who denied basic democratic and human rights to that nation’s black majority and other people of color. In 1948 they formalized racial segregation by making it the law of the land, a policy they called apartheid.
Israeli apartheid is both like and unlike the system of segregation that existed in South Africa. It is also similar and dissimilar to the system of legal segregation that existed in the American South for many decades. The word apartheid could easily be used to describe the system of legal segregation that existed in nine U.S. Southern states from the end of the Reconstruction Period to the mid-1960s when the civil rights movement achieved some of its greatest victories. It could also describe the de facto segregation that existed outside the U.S. South and resulted in the creation of black ghettoes in nearly all U.S. cities.
Three key features characterize Israeli apartheid:
In 2008, the South African government commissioned a study by leading legal scholars and human rights experts to determine if Israel was practicing apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories according to the parameters of international law. After a 15-month investigation, the study concluded that “Israel, since 1967, is the belligerent Occupying Power in occupied Palestinian territory, and that its occupation of these territories has become a colonial enterprise which implements a system of apartheid.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end apartheid in South Africa, said of Israeli government policies, “I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.”
Israeli apartheid is a two-tiered system of favoritism and privilege for Jews compared with deprivation and discrimination against Palestinian Arabs. It covers many facets of political, social, and economic life, including standard of living, education, housing and development, access to water and roads, an unequal system of justice, land ownership, and freedom of movement. In addition, it has many special features, such as the absolute control that the Israeli military ultimately exercises over all Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and the recent construction of a Separation Barrier or Apartheid Wall. This wall is meant not only to confiscate land from Palestinians to expand illegal settlements but also to make it impossible for Palestinians to have a contiguous and viable state of their own.
(read rest)
I have no doubt tammuz wants a peaceful solution. So far he created this thread and very clearly illustrated what is wrong with this picture in more ways than one. As you would see in many posts, the information we have been posting come from very credible and intelligent sources. Many of them from Jewish publications and organizations as well as from organizations on the ground.
BDS movement is well underway with thousands of supporters who are advocating these boycotts.Boycotts are boycotts. They are non violent methods of bringing attention to a situation, usually against to a violating party, an entity. In this case, it is Israeli government which has been held responsible for its actions causing thousands of innocent people harmed.
Israel is a 'commercially secular' and politically religious state. Its survival is like an isolationist one of a homogeneous society. No matter how much anybody claims it is an open society, it is a country with a very defined policies clearly benefiting its 'white jewish' populations first and moving down from there. Palestinians at the moment are even below surface (no pun), sieged and methods in place to keep them that way. It is hard not to resist against that if you are a Palestinian. It is hard not to resist that if you are anyone with a civil conscience. There are even supporters of BDS from organizations which BDS is targeting.or on its list.
A personal evidence; only people I know that are Palestinians, some very dear and close friends are Christian Palestinians They are vehemently activists against Israeli occupation of Palestine. So resisting Israeli occupation is not unique to Hamas.
If you ask me, my answer is perhaps absurd but the government most benefits from Hamas' existence is no other than Israeli government. Hamas gives them all the reason to put all their colonialist policies in action. That is why they will knock down Gaza, kill thousands of people but they won't entirely get rid of Hamas. They are the enemy, they represent the people of Gaza and people of Gaza, therefore, are the enemy population. An enemy population Israeli regime can beat up on a moment's notice but gets beaten up morally in return. Netanyahu's picture on American and European media is already representing nuisance without a shot fired at him. How is that for a few non violent but wide based resistive efforts?
Times have changed curtkram. There is no PLO and Yasser Arafat, guerilla wars, Layla Halids anymore. This is 2014, rules of engagement now include world's opinion and criticism of Israel in large numbers. Enough to give big worries to Bibi and his cabinet. Pretty soon the world opinion will "demand" a solution forcefully. I am one of those people demanding a peaceful but clear and loud solution for the plight of Palestinians. I was already an adult when South African fight against apartheid was won. I saw how it went global without internet technology but via television. This time the network is far more reaching and a lot faster.
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Orhan, being an activist against Israeli occupation does not mean that you kill Israelis indiscriminately, which is what Hamas has done and continues to do. You're a proponent of a nonviolent solution but Hamas's solution is decidedly violent and Israel has in turn responded with (arguably disproportionate) force. I am not justifying the actions of either side.
Note that Tammuz is silent about a two-state solution.
Tammuz, the wall was meant to prevent suicide attacks in Israel and has served its purpose in that regard. Suicide bombings in Israel have dropped dramatically since its construction.
Orhan, edit: I'm a proponent of a nonviolent solution.
Western standards of Palestinian resistance
By As'ad AbuKhalil - Tue, 2014-07-22 14:17- Angry Corner
Yet again another Israeli assault on an Arab country exposes the biases and racism of Western governments, media, and human rights organizations. Human rights organizations, particularly Human Rights Watch, have become the most culpable because they now serve as a media/propaganda arm of the Israeli terrorist army. We know how those things work, as soon as a Western NGO with a Middle East scope is formed, pro-Israeli groups (openly and not conspiratorially) rush in with their funds to control the agenda of the organization. Internal memos that I had revealed on my blog before show that the director of Human Rights Watch was mightily concerned about not offending pro-Israel sources of funding. Thus, think tanks, media groups, and human rights organization fall under the spell of pro-Israeli agendas and money.
The recent ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza is no different. In fact, Zionist groups only become more brazen. But they suffer from a major new disadvantage: no matter how much they control or influence Western governments, establishment media and human rights organizations, they in no way are capable of controlling the agendas of millions of free uncontrollable people on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms. The New York Times had to grudginlgy admit (as of July 21) the obvious: Theodore Herzl never imagined the power of social media, and the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack was used in “nearly four million Twitter posts, compared with 170,000 for #IsraelUnderFire.” But The New York Times did not mention that many pro-Palestinian activists also use the latter hashtag to transmit their message through different avenues.
The loss of free space to enemies of the state of Israel and its continuous terrorism only increase the intensity and feverishness of Israeli propaganda and the efforts by the friends and supporters of Zionism in establishment media, academia, and NGOs.
The agenda of Western governments and media become very clear: they want nothing short of complete surrender by the Palestinian people. They all but said that categorically. The Western agenda (governmental, media, and NGO) is unabashed in its hostility toward the interests and aspirations of the Palestinian people. In Europe there is a dichotomy: public opinion is in opposition – by different percentages and to different degrees – to the stances of the government. In the US, the government and the public are united in their racist endorsement of Israel and its record of war crimes – it sure helps that the American public is the least informed on foreign policy among peoples of the world.
Basically the Palestinians are expected, nay required, to refrain from any kind of resistance to Israeli occupation. The American government and its subservient governments in Europe (and they all stand in line regardless of whether they are conservative or socialist – like in France) want the Palestinians to appreciate their good fortune that their occupier is Israel. Israel is not like other occupiers, by US standards. Yes, it commits war crimes and it bombs various cities around the region at will, and it is based on institutionalized racism and discriminatory policies, and it is founded on the very principle of ethnic cleansing and land theft, but it is a good ally to the US and its leaders remind Americans of their own people (especially when you take into account that Israel keeps its Jews from Arab and African countries largely invisible from US media).
Palestinians can’t engage in armed struggle and can’t engage in non-violent struggle. Palestinians, as is known, foolishly engaged in non-violent struggle from the 1950s to the 1960s and it got them nowhere and the word Palestinian was not even mentionable. UNSCR 242, which used to be the basis of all regional settlement, did not utter the obscenity – to American ears. Even in the 1980s, the Palestinian people engaged in a large-scale non-violent uprising and I remember hearing US officials and media pundits morally judging the Palestinians and hectoring them about the evil of rock throwing against the brutal Israeli terrorist army. One American-Palestinian Quaker also foolishly believed that Israel would welcome his new center for non-violence in Jerusalem but it was soon closed and he was unceremoniously kicked out of Palestine. There was not a single American protest.
People in Africa and Asia were only able to rid themselves of colonialism through the use of different forms of armed struggle. Armed struggle is never clean and Europe fought the Nazis in the most dirty of ways but the West never cast judgment on itself. Acts of resistance against Nazi occupation in Europe is remembered with fondness and admiration and no one questions the methods even when innocent civilians were killed. Even in the struggle against apartheid South Africa, Americans refrain from questioning the methods in which collaborators were dealt with (necklacing, for those who remember).
Yet, the Palestinians are asked by Human Rights Watch to achieve the impossible: to adhere to standards of combat that no armies and no liberation movements have ever adhered to. Human Rights Watch quickly accused Hamas of war crimes while it has been equivocating for years on whether Israel commits war crimes. Its recent ploy was to castigate the Palestinians for not possessing advanced weaponry, presumably like Israel. But the advanced weaponry of Israel – theoretically the more precise ones – have caused far more civilian casualties than the weapons of the Palestinians. They are also expected to live away from their strugglers as if the fighters of the resistance in Gaza hail from another planet. This is like asking the members of the French resistance in WWII to live away from population centers and to concentrate in an open field to facilitate their elimination by German air force. That is how absurd the arguments of American media and human rights organizations are.
Furthermore, the Palestinians are blamed for not warning the Israelis – one by one – about their impending attacks. Yet, Palestinians are considered terrorists regardless of whether they aim their fire at Israeli terrorists or civilians ( or does the principle of collateral damage only apply to the armies of US and Israel?) Fatah was a terrorist organization until it became a tool of the occupation. Then it became qualified to receive US funding and its past “terrorist” deeds were forgiven by the American divinity.
Palestinians, of course, should not pay attention to what their chief enemy, the US government, has to say in terms of its instructions to them. The notion that the US has the best interest of the Palestinians at heart in dispensing advice to them is absurd and not believable to any Palestinian. Palestinians should be able to listen to advice and help from quarters that have records of help and support for the Palestinians. The US hardly qualifies in that category.
Dr. As’ad AbuKhalil is a professor of Political Science at California State University, Stanislaus, a lecturer and the author of The Angry Arab News Service. He tweets @asadabukhalil.
You're still not addressing the issue of what solution you'd like to see. Orhan is in the two-state camp. Where do you stand, Tammuz? Do the two of you have a common agenda?
does that sound like an advocate for a peaceful solution where israelis and palestinians bridge the gaps that divide them and try to live peacefully next to each other?
is this really a credible and intelligent source? sounds a bit like fox news fodder to me.
maybe times have changed, but from what i've seen from this thread, there are still too many people who just want to empower certain palestinian groups to kill more people. rather than an end to the violence and baby killing, it seems to me tammuz wants to expand and lengthen the fight as long as possible.
someday maybe the world will demand a solution. that will likely be a peaceful solution that includes, in part, some sort of commitment from violent palestinian groups to disarm and offer some sort of assurance they aren't just going to attack more civilian israeli targets. rebuilding palestine just so they go to war against against israel probably isn't going to be seen as in the best interest of the global community, though i agree ending the humanitarian problems in the gaza strip strip and the west bank is in the best interest of the global community. without a renunciation of violence, any solution will be tricky.
AbuKhalil calls for Israelis to engage in armed resistance against Israel.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/can-israeli-redeem-himselfherself.html
And I quote (he's writing about an anti-occupation, left-wing Israeli musician named Daniel Barenboim):
"Can an Israeli redeem himself/herself?
I am often asked that question since I adhere to boycott of all things Israeli. The answer is yes provided 1) the person refuses to serve in the Army or the intelligence service of the state as part of military service; 2) the person must leave the house he/she occupies and the land on which he/she stands on because chances are the house is occupied, in the literal sense, and the land is occupied, in the literal sense; 3) the person must engage in armed struggle against the terrorist state of Israel. If an Israeli person fulfills those conditions, he/she should be acceptable from a pro-Palestinian point of view. So by my definition, Daniel Barenboim has not met any of those conditions.
PS Playing a musical instrument before a Palestinian audience does not qualify--not even if the instrument is Dirbakka."
This guy is calling for the destruction of the state of Israel through violent means.
From Mandela, Palestine and the fight against apartheid
Mandela recognised the importance of all forms of struggle against the violent oppression being imposed on his people. In 1980, as the non-violent mass struggle once again began to flourish, both inside South Africa and internationally in the form of the boycott and sanctions anti-apartheid solidarity movement, he wrote in a smuggled message from his prison cell that “between the hammer of armed struggle and the anvil of united mass action, the enemy will be crushed.”
“OUR FREEDOM IS INCOMPLETE WITHOUT THE FREEDOM OF THE PALESTINIANS”: And today, as the revisionist politicians and commentators eulogise Mandela, they also seek to scrub from Mandela’s history his lifelong and steadfast support for the Palestinian people and their struggle. Just as they were complicit in supporting South Africa’s apartheid regime, many of these same revisionist politicians and commentators are today complicit in supporting Israel’s apartheid regime.
In 1948, the same year as the Palestinian Nakba that saw Zionist militia ethnically cleanse more 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland and destroy more than 500 Palestinian villages, South Africa formally adopted the apartheid regime. Throughout the long years of apartheid in South African, as Sasha Polakow-Suransky notes in The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa, there were close military and trade ties between these two colonial oppressors. It is unsurprising, therefore, that there would be a close comradeship between the two struggles, viewing their struggles as one and the same: a struggle against colonialism, oppression and racism. For Mandela and the ANC, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians were “comrades in arms” and they supported their struggle against the Israeli state, both armed and unarmed.
The comradeship between the two struggles was highlighted by Mandela just 16 days after he was released from 27 long years in prison in 1990. In February 1990, Mandela met with Yasser Arafat in Lusaka in Zambia. At Lusaka Airport, Mandela embraced Arafat and reiterated his support for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Palestinian struggle, telling the media that Arafat was “fighting against a unique form of colonialism and we wish him success in his struggle”. He went on to say: “I believe that there are many similarities between our struggle and that of the PLO,” adding: “We live under a unique form of colonialism in South Africa, as well as in Israel, and a lot flows from that.”
Non-responsive.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Mandela-and-Israel-334174
Mandela and Israel
By STEVE LINDE
12/06/2013
The iconic South African leader had an ambivalent relationship with the Jewish state.
As I introduced myself, feeling the strength in his large hand, he smiled and said, “Shalom!” I was dumbstruck by the powerful presence of Nelson Mandela, the legendary leader of the country in which I had grown up, the man credited with ending the brutal apartheid regime.
But there he was, his large frame cutting a regal figure, choosing his words carefully in his distinct African accent, sitting opposite me and several other journalists and photographers around a table at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on October 19, 1999.
Holding hands as he walked out of a meeting with foreign minister David Levy, Mandela agreed to answer a few questions, and – as a reporter for Israel Radio’s English News – I recorded his answers.
Asked why he had finally decided to visit Israel, he replied, “To the many people who have questioned why I came, I say: Israel worked very closely with the apartheid regime. I say: I’ve made peace with many men who slaughtered our people like animals. Israel cooperated with the apartheid regime, but it did not participate in any atrocities.”
Mandela voiced his vehement opposition to Israel’s control of the territories it had “occupied” in the Six Day War, and he urged it to concede land to the Palestinians and Syrians, just as it had done with the Egyptians, for the sake of peace.
“My view is that talk of peace remains hollow if Israel continues to occupy Arab lands,” he said.
“I understand completely well why Israel occupies these lands.
There was a war. But if there is going to be peace, there must be complete withdrawal from all of these areas.”
He did, however, acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security concerns, declaring: “I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel within secure borders.”
One of Mandela’s greatest strengths was his ability to bury, but not forget, the bitterness of the past and actively work for a fairer future.
He did so when, upon his release from 27 years in jail, he emerged without exhibiting any signs of anger, reconciling with president F.W. de Klerk (earning them both Nobel peace prizes) and even sipping tea with Betsie Verwoerd, the 94-year-old widow of apartheid’s architect, Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd.
He did so when he became president of the new democratic South Africa in 1994 and set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, pitting perpetrators of apartheid crimes against its victims and their families.
He did so when he went to watch the Springboks team beat the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup in 1995, depicted in the Clint Eastwood film Invictus.
And he did so when, at the age of 81, he paid what was termed “a private visit” to Israel for two days after completing his five-year term as president and handing over the reins to his deputy, Thabo Mbeki, in June, and choosing to fly first to Iran, Syria and Jordan.
The peace overtures of thenprime minister Ehud Barak had paved the way for Mandela – a devout Christian – to make his first and only pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
After taking a jab at the Jewish state for being the only nation not to invite him when he was appointed president, and then refusing several invitations to travel here, Mandela said this trip was aimed at burying the hatchet – or, in his words, “to heal old wounds” both with Israel and South African Jews.
Mandela had an ambivalent, almost love-hate relationship with Jews and Israel. Like Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi before him, his first job had been with a Jewish law firm in Johannesburg, and some of his closest friends, political advisers and business associates were Jewish.
When he needed advice or money, they were the first people he called upon.
Many South African Jews had supported him, but others had openly backed or implicitly endorsed apartheid. One of his close Jewish friends, Arthur Goldreich, provided refuge to Mandela and other ANC leaders at his farm in Rivonia, later made aliya and became a professor at the Bezalel Art School.
On the other hand, Percy Yutar, the chief prosecutor at the infamous Rivonia treason trial at the end of which Mandela was given a life sentence, was Jewish, too.
Mandela resented Israel’s military relationship with apartheid South Africa and passionately supported the PLO, which he saw as a liberation movement similar to his own ANC.
He supported Israel’s right to exist as a democratic Jewish state, yet felt closer to its enemies: the PLO’s Yasser Arafat, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Iran’s Mohammed Khatami and Syria’s Hafez Assad. Nevertheless, he praised his Israeli hosts for their warm reception and peace-making efforts. Mandela received a red-carpet welcome at the King David Hotel, where South African chief rabbi Cyril Harris, together with leaders of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and Israel’s ambassador to South Africa, Uri Oren, greeted him.
Hugging Harris, a good friend, he quipped: “Now I feel at home – my rabbi is here.”
At a luncheon hosted by president Ezer Weizman and attended by cabinet ministers and other dignitaries, Mandela chose to thank the South African Jewish community. “One of the reasons I am so pleased to be in Israel is as a tribute to the enormous contribution of the Jewish community of South Africa. I am so proud of them,” he said.
After a guided tour of Jerusalem’s Old City and Yad Vashem, he wrote in the Holocaust museum’s visitors’ book: “A painful but enriching experience.”
After an upbeat meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office, he described Ehud Barak as “a man of courage and vision.”
“The people of the world and Israel should support Barak. He has aroused our hopes,” Mandela said. “What has emerged from all my conversations is that the yearning for peace is very intense.”
During the meeting, Mandela was thrilled to see Rabbi Dov Sidelsky, a South African immigrant and the son of Lazar Sidelsky, who had given Mandela his first job as a law clerk.
Whites hiring black professionals was “almost unheard of in those days,” said Mandela, who remembered Dov as a young boy in Johannesburg.
“I have found Jews to be more broad-minded than most whites on issues of race and politics, perhaps because they themselves have historically been victims of prejudice,” he wrote in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.
In his talks with Levy at the Foreign Ministry, Mandela shared his impression during his visit to Iran that the country had become more “moderate” under then-president Khatami.
He said he had received assurances that the trial of 13 Iranians Jews arrested earlier that year on charges of spying for “the Zionist regime,” which was of great concern then, would be “free and fair.”
Levy protested politely against Mandela’s reading of the situation, telling him that Iran, which backed terrorist groups targeting Jews and the Jewish state, was certainly not giving the 13 Jews a fair hearing.
In July 2000, after a closed trial that violated international legal norms, 10 were given harsh sentences, while three others were acquitted. Levy had been right, Mandela wrong.
Following his visit to Israel, Mandela flew to Gaza, where he enthusiastically embraced Arafat and endorsed Palestinian statehood but made a point of urging Arab acceptance of Israel.
“The Arab leaders must make an unequivocal statement that they recognize the existence of Israel with secure borders,” he stressed.
Mandela was undoubtedly one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century and an iconic symbol of hope and freedom in his beloved South Africa.
While he supported Zionism in principle, he believed that if there was to be peace in the Middle East, Israel must negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians and avoid becoming a binational “apartheid state” – or risk becoming an international pariah like apartheid South Africa.
A humble hero, Mandela was the first to acknowledge that he wasn’t always right, but as an advocate of justice for all, he was always ready to stand up and fight for what he believed was right, even when his views were not popular.
During my youth in South Africa, Mandela was portrayed by the “white media” as the enemy, the jailed leader of a terrorist insurrection against the Afrikaner government.
They labelled him “the Black Pimpernel” before he was arrested.
But the seemingly impossible occurred: the Black Pimpernel became the beloved leader of “the Rainbow Nation,” affectionately called “Madiba” (the name of his Xhosa clan) by South Africans of all colors and creeds.
Mandela once said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
May you rest in peace, Madiba. Shalom!
Zionists will argue and lie no matter what, even at the cost of contradicting their own. According to them, sometimes Mandela liked Israel, sometimes he hated it...it depends on the context of their arguments...not on whether Israel is racist colony and on Mandela standing against racism and for struggle against people`s oppression by the means necessary.
From the mouth of a Zionist mule:
Op-Ed: Mandela Was an Enemy of Israel
Mandela was an enabler of anti-Semitic terrorism.
n 1990, Mandela likened Israel to a “terrorist state” and declared that “we do not regard the PLO as a terrorist organization. If one has to refer to any parties as a terrorist state, one might refer to the Israeli government because they are the people who are slaughtering defenseless and innocent Arabs in the occupied territories”.
Mandela should have raised Jewish eyebrows when in 1990 he embraced Arafat in Lusaka, Zambia, likening the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to the struggle against South African apartheid. “If the truth alienates the powerful Jewish community in South Africa, that’s too bad”, said Mandela.
During a trip to Libya, Mandela declared that “we consider ourselves to be comrades in arms to the Palestinian Arabs in their struggle for the liberation of Palestine. There is not a single citizen in South Africa who is not ready to stand by his Palestinian brothers in their legitimate fight against the Zionist racists”.
In September 1990, addressing the Reform congregation of Johannesburg, Mandela said: “If Zionism means the right of the Jewish people to seize territory and deny the Palestinian people the right to self-determination, we condemn it”.
In 1999 Mandela supported the Palestinian Arab use of violence. With Arafat seated next to him in Gaza, Mandela declared: “All men and women with vision choose peace rather than confrontation, except in cases where we cannot proceed, where we cannot move forward. Then if the only alternative is violence, we will use violence”.
Whether or not he stood for violence, he acknowledged Israel's right to exist and a two-state solution-- which you reject.
Of course, I support Israeli sovereign rights so you'll just copy and paste a bunch of articles to silence any opposing viewpoints.
Seeing as how you know about Grindr and have stated in the past that you lived and worked in Dubai, I'm going to take a wild guess that you're a homosexual living in an Arab Muslim country. I would think that you'd be equipped to understand that social problems are nuanced and complex, but you summarily reject any alternative viewpoints on the issue.
It's weird that you call your opponents "Zionist mules"; it's clear that there's another stubborn ass in this conversation.
People accuse me of beating a dead horse. Thy do it because of their own (ir)rational fallacies, their irritation at having to encouter a troubling (and very living) topic and sometimes out of petty internet feuding and carrying wounds of having been indignified at points on Archinect owing to criticism. None of that has nothing to do with the run of logic.
However, what is truly beating a dead horse is the 2 state solution.
............................
From Why the Two-State Solution Is Dead
As Washington’s “peace process” strategy has become harder and harder to sustain, U.S. officials have hid behind pious claims that America can’t want peace more than the parties. In reality, though, Washington is the only party that truly wants the “peace process.”
Certainly Israel has never wanted it; Golda Meir’s “leftwing” Labor government rejected Washington’s first peace plan in 1969. Palestinians, for their part, have never come together to accept a “process” meant to deprive them permanently of genuine sovereignty and self-determination.
The two-state solution’s demise inevitably conditions long-term erosion in the perceived legitimacy of the current Israeli political order. The proposition that Israel cannot continue occupying Palestinians while claiming to be both Zionist and democratic is no longer predictive analysis.
The U.S. government’s own demographic data show that the number of Arabs living under Israeli control — in “Green Line” Israel, Gaza, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the rest of the West Bank — already exceeds the number of Israeli Jews.
In other words, what we call the state of Israel is already a minority regime for the people it governs. In the context of the current Gaza campaign, Israeli officials’ descriptions of Hamas as a foreign threat that must be defended against are disingenuous. Hamas is a homegrown movement, born in 1988 in Gaza under Israeli occupation.
Even with the 2005 closure of Israeli settlements there, Gaza remains under Israeli control. Thus, Hamas is not an “external” threat to Israel — it is an internal challenge to what the movement’s constituents see as an unjust and illegitimate political order still dictating their interactions with the world and exercising harsh and indiscriminate police powers over their daily lives.
This leaves the one-state option — some version of one person, one vote for people living under Israeli control. For the foreseeable future, the one-state model will be opposed by the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews and supporters of Israel.
It will also threaten current regional governments — e.g., in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia — that have bought into Washington’s vision for a U.S.-led political and security order in the Middle East that includes nearly absolute freedom of unilateral military initiative for Israel. But other important actors — Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and any other regional state where government becomes more representative — would support it.
A one-state scenario has profound implications for America’s position in the Middle East. For the United States to “lose” Israel as a proxy for projecting hard power would severely circumscribe Washington’s capacity to keep its Middle East strategy oriented toward regional dominance. It would instead push Washington toward a strategy of stabilizing the regional balance through serious diplomatic engagement with all relevant players (Iran as well as Israel and Saudi Arabia).
This is a radically different approach from the one envisioned by U.S. policymakers during the Cold War and pursued in relatively unconstrained fashion by U.S. administrations after the Cold War’s end, entailing a highly militarized U.S. presence and American micromanagement of regional political outcomes.
Given the deeply counterproductive results of America’s Middle East strategy over the last quarter century, one may hope that Washington will finally stop making policy in defiance of on-the-ground reality.
In the near-to-medium term, though, American politicians and policymakers are more likely to continue doubling down on the sorts of policies — including ever-increasing military assistance for Israel — that have put the United States on a trajectory of ever-declining influence in one of the world’s most strategically vital regions.
Maybe you should convene with Orhan about that last point.
A two state solution ensures that there will be one of the states, a Zionist Israel, that will remain undemocratic, racist, based on ethnic disrimination and built on grounds that never belonged to it anyway...and it will enshrine that non-Jewish residents who happen to live in this one-of-the-two-states -and who have more right of belonging historically, than any one of its Ukrainian, German, British,etc, immigrants..in fact, they should have none - will be viewed as citizens of a second class.
Another Zionist bot intention is to seed sedition. Its a sleazy lowlife tacticthat I see as impertinent. Orhan has my respect and regards and we both concur that Israel should be boycotted.
Not boycotting Israel, in this day and age where everyone knows of Israel's persistent policy, history and agenda of ethnic cleansing, incremental genocide, persecution and oppression is itself unethical. Archinect, pay heed.
What would a Palestinian state look like? A liberal utopia?
Orhan voiced his goal of a two-state solution.
what does that have to do with anything? it's like your just trying to have a conversation with yourself, but you're forgetting to post half of it.
from your copy/paste:
He did, however, acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security concerns, declaring: “I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel within secure borders.”
the apartheid in south africa began as a racial separation based on ideas of racial inferiority. i don't think many people in israel or palestine really believe people need to be separated based on race due to 'biological differences' or whatever.
the separation between palestinians and israelis comes from decades of attacks against each other. bus bombings, suicide bombings, airplane hijacking, rocket attacks, assassinations, etc.
if you're going to try to address racism based on ignorance, you should address the ignorance. if you're going to address racism based on fear, you should address the fear. you're not trying to fix the fear, you're trying to make it worse.
Let's review again:
1 - Orhan says he wants a two-state solution.
2 - Tammuz rejects two state solution.
3 - I remind Tammuz that Orhan wants two-state solution.
4 - ZIONIST CONSPIRACY!
Actually, I want what Palestinian people want. One state, two state.., they decide. I am not Palestinian nor living there. They shall decide.
You are talking like a high school kid discussing football teams in the school yard. Not interesting alternative.
Lol nice back pedaling.
What are you doing, writing fiction from your cubicle?
I'm actually enjoying some fresh air and posting from my phone.
How about you? Teaching your little minions? After another gorgeous plaque?