Or will it? Now that we are back to the deja vu period of the conflict, here is an interesting article I read a while back. Freedom of speech and the right to assemble are limited in Egypt, which since 1981 has been ruled by Mubarak’s National Democratic Party under a permanent state-of-emergency law. An [...]
Continue reading about The Revolution will not be Facebooked
A recent article in Ha’aretz: And what is Zionism nowadays? An archaic and outdated concept born in a different reality, a vague and delusive concept marking the difference between the permitted and the proscribed. Does Zionism mean settlement in the territories? Occupation? The legitimization of every act of violence and injustice? The left stammered. Any [...]
In the NY Times for the past few days, there have been articles about a play that may come to New York soon. The first article had this headline “Workshop May Present Play Critical of Israel” which made me blink several times. Is that really newsworthy? Well apparently it is because the Times followed it [...]
Over the years the Israeli “left” felt the need to prove its militant credentials. It essentially became right-lite. The argument for such a move is that to win elections, one needs to appeal to a broader audience (the same argument Democrats in the US always give for their rightward move). In my view, this is [...]
Zadie Smith is a terrific writer. Reading her novels can be exhausting. Her creative mind is hyper-active, running in a thousand directions at once. She always manages to pull it altogether in the end, but sometimes, as a reader, I just can’t keep up. Which is why I prefer her essays. The short format forces [...]
Avrum Burg is the quintessential Israeli insider or as they are called in Israel, “prince.” His father, Yosef, served in every Knesset starting with the first until his retirement. Almost from the start, Yosef also served as a government minister in every coalition his party was a part of. In his time, he was considered one of [...]
The headline of this piece in Ha’aretz, depicting a TV satire on Lieberman, reads: “Israeli TV show depicts Lieberman as Darth Vader-esque dictator.” In my view, the clip depicts Lieberman as more Hitler-esque than akin to Darth Vader, despite the Star Wars music. The author of another article in Ha’aretz also seems to feel Israel [...]
Avirama Golan analyzes the elections within a social and economic context: [B]y every accepted international standard Kadima is moderately right-wing, Likud is the immoderate right and Yisrael Beiteinu is extreme right. All these parties believe in neoliberal capitalism and complete privatization. Kadima just espouses more compassion, as is evident by the safety net it unfurled for [...]
That was Clinton talking about Bibi Netanyahu. More great quotes may be found in this article by Akiva Eldar. Joe Lockhart, who was Clinton’s White House spokesperson, nails Netanyahu with this perfect description: ”[He is] one of the most obnoxious individuals you’re going to come into – just a liar and a cheat. He could open his mouth [...]
Uri Avnery on who to vote for in tomorrow’s elections: We are faced by a sorry lot of politicians, some of them documented failures and some completely free of any past achievements. There is no meaningful discussion between them about the issues. Not one of the main contenders offers real solutions to our basic problems. [...]
