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Syndicate
In the midst of his reflections, Uri Avnery wrote this: "The moral of the story: even in the middle of a completely desperate situation, one does not know enough of the facts to lose hope."
It is not unreasonable, then, to be hopeful even in situations in which one is not optimistic.
As William Sloane Coffin wrote: "If your heart's full of hope, you can be persistent when you can't be optimistic. You can keep the faith despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. So while I'm not [always] optimistic, I'm always very hopeful."
Babble is a community of (more or less) hopeful people.
They also raise a universal question: which is preferable - an honest fanatic or a corrupt pragmatist?
WHATEVER IS happening to the Israeli social protest movement?
Good question. It is not only being asked abroad, but in Israel, too.
Last year the movement reached its peak in a giant demonstration. Hundreds of thousands marched in Tel Aviv.
The government did what governments do in such situations: it appointed a commission, headed by a respected professor named Manuel Trajtenberg. The commission made some good but limited recommendations, a tiny fraction of which were actually implemented.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1342783990/
“HE TALKS Zionism,” used to be a very derogatory comment when I was young. It meant that some elderly functionary had come to waste our time with a boring speech consisting largely of empty phrases.
That was before the foundation of the State of Israel. Since then, the term Zionism has been elevated to the status of a state ideology, if not state religion. Everything the state does is justified by the use of this word. Some would say that Zionism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1343412021
The
Greatest Show on Earth
TO SUM up the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in one word: kitsch.
To sum up the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in two words: wonderful kitsch.
HONEST DISCLOSURE: I am an Anglophile.
At the age of 15 I started working for an Oxford-educated lawyer. At the office only English was spoken. So I had to learn it, and immediately fell hopelessly in love with the English language and British culture in general.
Bloody
Spring
ON A flight to London in 1961, I had a unique experience.
On the way, the plane made a stop in Athens and a group of Arabs joined us. That by itself was an experience. In those days, Israelis hardly ever met people from Arab countries.
This is my land hebron part 1 of 6
Mad or
Crazy?
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU may be crazy, but he is not mad.
Ehud Barak may be mad, but he is not crazy.
Ergo: Israel will not attack Iran.
I HAVE said so before, and I shall say so again, even after the endless talk about it. Indeed no war has been talked about so much before it happened. To quote the classic movie line: “If you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk!”
The
Fountainhead
WAS not interested in Paul Ryan, the man about to be nominated by the Republican party for the office of Vice President, until the name Ayn Rand popped up.
Ayn Rand, it was said, was one of the main inspirations for his particular philosophy. Since Ryan is being represented not as an ordinary, run-of-the-mill politician, like Mitt Romney, but as a profound political and economic thinker, the inspiration deserves some scrutiny.
Master
of Mischief
AVIGDOR LIEBERMAN has a restless nature. From time to time he has to do something, anything.
As Minister of Foreign Affairs he should be doing something about, well, foreign affairs. Trouble is, Israel’s foreign affairs are managed by others.
The most important sector of our foreign affairs concerns the relationship with the United States. Indeed, this is so important that Binyamin Netanyahu keeps it entirely to himself. Our ambassador in Washington reports to him personally, after being handpicked by Sheldon Adelson, the casino billionaire
The
March of Folly
NOTHING COULD be more scary than the thought that this duo – Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak – is in a position to start a war, the dimensions and outcome of which are incalculable.
It’s scary not only because of their ideological fixations and mental outlook, but also because of the level of their intelligence.
Young Israelis Fight for Social Justice (Part 1/3)
http://youtu.be/GKzdVCYXx-Y
Protest
in Ramallah
VISITING RAMALLAH after an absence of several months, I was again amazed by the ongoing building activity. Everywhere new high-rise buildings are going up, and many of them are beautiful. (Arabs seem to have an innate talent for architecture, as any world anthology of architecture affirms.)