If you have the opportunity, don’t miss seeing Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir. Like any true work of art, the film defies being boxed into any genre (“animated documentary” is what many call it). Yet in my mind it is one of the two best anti-war films I have ever seen (the other also being [...]
Question Four: The end justifies the means, so why are you complaining about a few civilians killed if in the long run many more lives will be saved? Question Five: The number would be unnoticed if the victims had died at the hands of an Arab government. Israel is far more moral than its enemies [...]
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Question: Terrorists only understand force and nothing will stop them except their destruction. How can we negotiate with terrorists? Answer: The underlying thinking behind this world-view (now embodied in the US by the neo-cons) is so simplistic, one wonders how otherwise intelligent people can spout such nonsense.
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Nicholas Kristof column today addresses a more sophisticated variant of the first question I raised. Obviously his mild criticism of Israel’s approach made all the “pro-Israel” types flood his mailbox. Here’s how he phrases the question he received from his readers: “What else can a country do when it is subjected to rocket attacks and [...]
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When I was young, one of my favorite magazines was William Gaines’ Mad Magazine. In the tradition of great Jewish subversives, Gaines poked fun at all the pieties of middle class American society, provoking young minds to think differently than their elders. One of my favorite sections of the magazine was called “Snappy Answers to [...]
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Tony Judt, an eminent professor of history at NYU, has appeared in this blog many times. Below is another interesting analysis of his, that recently appeared in Ha’aretz. I have often viewed the conflict between Israel and Palestine as analogous to two little children fighting over a silly toy, each side crying “It’s mine” “It’s [...]
What follows is an article written by Patrick O’Connor, an International Solidarity Movement activist, which records his interrogation by a Shin Bet agent. Based on my own personal knowledge of Israelis who served in the Shin Bet, it strikes me as a 100% accurate characterization of Shin Bet thinking and behavior. I found it particularly [...]
Stephen R. Shalom writes about about the origin of the conflict from it’s inception to the present. A presentation most ardent Zionist will find very challenging. It seems mostly accurate, as far as it goes, but he does leave out some important facts (such as the fascist connections of Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem [...]
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I’m not one who takes much stock in conspiracy theories of the right or left. All such theories presume enormous amounts of intelligence and sophistication on the part of politicians, government agents and corporations. Such a presumption flies in the face of the reality we all experience. But this article presents a pretty cogent case [...]