Imran's link to J Street's site does not support the position that he claims. It supports an independent Israeli investigation (as called for by Goldstone himself). Independent commissions have been quite harsh with Israeli government actions before, as when one such investigation forced the resignation of Ariel Sharon as defense minister in the wake of the Sabra and Shatilla massacres. This is from the text of J Street's statement on that link that Imran provides: ... We are urging thoughtful amendment of the Resolution before passage to bring it in line with the principles we articulate in our statement on the …
All 21 comments by...
rseliger
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There is much to be disappointed about in the 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but we need not be overly cynical. This marked the end of a brutally harsh dictatorship and the downfall of the Soviet-Stalinist empire. It is up to progressive (small d) democrats to remind everyone that this was a victory over tyranny and not for world conquest by multi-national corporations.
Posted to The Lessons of the Berlin Wall
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Fleshler's book corrects this mistaken notion that Mearsheimer and Walt advanced about dovish pro-Israel organizations. Americans for Peace Now actually supported US financial sanctions against settlements expansion during the George H. W. Bush administration. APN raises money for Peace Now's "Settlements Watch" program, that monitors settlement activities with the view of ending them. Most of the other dovish Jewish groups did not yet exist when Bush senior was president, but their opposition to settlements is a core principle for all of them.
Posted to The Israel Lobbies: Left, Right and Center
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I appreciate Imran's polite tone. All strategies for peace over the past 40 years have failed. BDS is not likely to work either; it has only marginal political support and it is one-sided. For example, BDS does nothing to address Hamas and other violent Arab groups that have contributed to making the quest for peace so difficult.
Posted to The Israel Lobbies: Left, Right and Center
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That word "balance," is not in the article. It was an editor's choice in summarizing the article at the top. The book's author, Alan Johnston, leans toward the Palestinians in his sympathies. But he is "fair-minded," a quality we generally want in a journalist. He notes with sadness that both sides are flawed in how they relate to the other. This is not a game to him in which there's one team that he roots for and the other side that he hates. He understands the complexities of this conflict, which according to Imran is a bad thing.
Posted to ‘Kidnapped’ in Gaza
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Mr. Atkinson is a talented writer, but this seems to be more of a temper tantrum than a review. Schindler's List, Defiance and Valkyrie are all true stories that are Hollywoodized -- although Schindler's List is by far the most successful and artful as a movie.Yet all three are true and honorable stories. Von Stauffenberg was a genuine hero who died in a noble cause. My understanding is that it was the Holocaust and other crimes of the Reich that drove him into the ranks of the German military conspirators at least a year or two before his famous attempt on …
Posted to Always Look on the Bright Side of Genocide
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I agree with Ken Brociner. Israeli governments can be fairly criticized for not doing enough to ensure a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel. But this conflict is a two-way street. None of us should ignore how Hamas and other terrorist attacks on Israeli civlians over the years-- even after Israel withdrew from most West Bank population centers early in '96 and enirely from Gaza in 2005-- have undermined Israeli good will and reversed political support among Israeli voters for further dovish moves. The point of a constructive left-wing position on this issue would be to examine how bad faith and extremism …
Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left
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There are fanatics on all sides. I've never heard of any advocating Israel's expansion to Damascus, but it proves nothing about Israeli policy that mimsky heard such a notion in 1984. The blockade of Gaza has been overly harsh, but Hamas rocket attacks preceded its election in 2006 and the onset of the blockade. And I agree that the Jewish homeland "should never have come about at the expense of another people." Yet the Palestinian leadership chose to reject the UN parition plan for two states in Palestine and to engage in a war against the Jewish community in late 1947 …
Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left
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Let me try to reason things out with Imran: Palestine was a lightly-populated non-sovereign backwater of the Turkish Ottoman Empire when the Zionist movement began sponsoring Jewish immigration at the dawn of the 20th century. The Jewish National Fund bought land in an entirely legal way. Naturally, the JNF did not buy up the whole country, nor would Imran think it any better if it had. Most such land purchases went into communal and cooperative farming, what came to be known as the kibbutz and moshav, respectively. Most Jews who settled in Palestine were either members of these collectives or renters …
Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left
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I had explained to Imran that the Zionist movement to which members of my family belonged, and whose contemporary successor groups I still feel an affinity for, did not believe in an exclusively Jewish state. Nor were they the only Zionists seeking an accommodation with the Arabs of Palestine. I understand why the Arab population would view the Jews with fear and suspicion. But progressives do not normally sanction nativist hatred and violence against immigrants fleeing oppression and struggling for a livelihood in their new land. True, the Palestinian Arabs were victims of Turkish and then British colonial policies not of …
Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left
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Imran, it's not a question of a simple "land grab." There would have been no land grab if not for the Palestinians' repeated resort to violence. This is something that Imran simply ignores or rationalizes away. While I am sympathetic with many Palestinian claims and most of their concerns, the fact remains that they began the cycle of violence even before Israel was born-- with their attacks in 1920, '21, '29, '36-'39, and '47-'48. And they ended a difficult but promising peace process with a renewal of violence in 2000. Tragically, each spasm of armed conflict leaves the Palestinians worse off …
Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left
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Imran, As I've explained, the Zionist movement was divided as to whether it wanted to pursue a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine or to rebuild the Biblical homeland as a safehaven. You are right that Zionist immigration was not "regular." It was an effort to end centuries of persecution, discrimination and massacre. They were, in a real sense, refugees. Obviously, you and your confreres are good at digging up quotes about how the land was going to be conquered. But these did not reflect the thinking of all Zionists nor did they even necessarily match statements and writings by some of …
Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left
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Imran, The Zionist movement didn't decide upon going for a "Jewish commonwealth" until the Biltmore conference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biltmore_Conference in 1942. As you say, the Palestinians were victimized indirectly by the Nazi genocide against the Jews, but this doesn't excuse their national movement from attempting to add to the enormous Jewish toll by opposing legal Jewish immigration before, during and after WW 2 .
Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left
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This matter is clearly a clash of rights. Left-wing Zionists have always understood this and always worked for a peaceful and negotiated resolution of the conflict. But the right of Jews to escape persecution and genocide is not less than that of "natives." It is a tragedy that these two peoples have not yet found a peaceful path toward coexistence. I say this as a Zionist. It's a pity if Imran is too doctrinaire and rigid to do other than to condemn me and my kin for being Zionist.
Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left
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Imran and I disagree on the historical facts. But however mistaken I regard some of his beliefs to be, I won't insult him by calling them "myths."
Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left
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Actually, Yitzhak Rabin did make apologetic statements of the kind that Imran suggests, when he was prime minister in the early '90s. Ehud Barak even once suggested that if he were a Palestinian Arab, he would likely have turned toward violence against Israelis. I certainly don't blame Palestinians for the "land grab" -- only for some critical episodes and instances of violence which helped the right win elections in Israel. Imran doesn't seem to understand that violent extremism among Palestinians reinforces Israeli political movements and government measures that oppress and dispossess the Palestinians.
Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left
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I should add that it would be great -- a true "paradigm-shift" as Imran suggests -- if both sides were willing to acknowledge the wrongs they've committed toward the other. But Imran only sees rignts on one side in this conflict.
Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left
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Criticisms of Israel's Labor party are well taken. And even from within its own ranks, it can no longer be regarded as a standard bearer for Israel's left. Since I'm not a supporter of the Labor party and never have been, these criticisms do not relate to my politics. Our hope is that the US and the international community will help both sides finally settle upon a resolution to the conflict that insures both Israelis and Palestinians the blessings of peace, security and co-existence.
Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left
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Any reasonable person who follows world events may fairly recognize Chavez as a demagogue. This doesn’t mean that he’s technically a dictator, but he’s clearly been reaching for a level of personal power that’s unhealthy for any society that values democracy. And I understand that it is not wise for Venzuelan workers who value their livelihood to be identified with any opposition to Chavez. Was there not a blacklist that removed workers from government jobs and government-run companies? While Mr. Ellner’s article is not uncritical, his pro-Chavez sympathies are clear. Whether written by him or someone else, a better article would …
Posted to Chávez Wins Again
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Neve Gordon’s articles are difficult reading for Zionists, even a progressive Zionist such as myself. It’s not that he’s wrong in most of his facts regarding inequities in the Jewish State and injustices in the Palestinian territories, but he writes from a gratuitously anti-Zionist perspective. We know of the injustices visited upon the Negev Bedouin, not to mention what’s going on in the territories; we’ve highlighted the shame of the Negev situation in a lead article in the current issue of the Meretz USA publication, ISRAEL HORIZONS. The problem with Prof. Gordon, symbolized in the harsh (albeit catchy) choice of title …
Posted to Outsourcing Zionism
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One doesn’t need a conspiracy theory to account for the many sins of commission and omission by the Bush administration. Salim Muwakkil's "For Israel's Sake" strings together a number of unoriginal, off-the-mark and over-the-top observations. To start with, Israel does not have a "right-wing government." It has a broad (overly broad) and relatively young centrist coalition that is paralyzed and beset by a host of scandals, legal investigations, internal divisions and plummeting public support. Mr. Muwakkil rounds up the usual suspects, a bunch of diabolical Jewish "neocons" -- none of whom named are even in government anymore -- cleverly manipulating their …
Posted to For Israel's Sake
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