All Hail the Peace Makers 18

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.

This is my land hebron part 1 of 6

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.

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.

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.)

The
Grand Default

I AM sitting here writing this article 39 years to the minute from that moment when the sirens started screaming, announcing the beginning of the war.

A minute before, total quiet reigned, as it does now. No traffic, no activity in the street, except a few children riding bicycles. Yom Kippur, the holiest day for Jews, reigned supreme. And then…

Jeff Halper in East Jerusalem

http://youtu.be/Us3Nbt7TTUY

Of
Bombs and Comics

MY FIRST reaction to Binyamin Netanyahu’s exhibition of comics at the UN General Assembly was shame.

Shame that the supreme elected representative of my country would stoop to such a primitive rhetorical device, bordering on the childish.

(One Israeli commentator suggested putting him on a rug with a lot of paper and Indian ink, and letting him play to his heart’s content.)

The
Man with the Uzi

THERE WAS this young Israeli who was captured by cannibals. They put him in the cooking pot and were about to light the fire, when he expressed one last wish: “Please box my ears!”

TO A foreigner, like myself, the US election system looks cockeyed.
 
The president is elected by an “electoral college”, which does not necessarily reflect the will of the people. This system, rooted in the realities of the 18th century, has no connection with the conditions of today. It easily leads to the election of a president who has attracted the votes of only a minority, depriving the majority of its democratic rights.

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1351944039/

BINYAMIN NETANYAHU and his patron, Sheldon Adelson, betted on Mitt Romney, with the State of Israel as their chip.

They lost.

For Adelson, the betting tycoon, that doesn’t amount to much. Some you win, some you lose.

For Netanyahu, it’s a different matter altogether. He grew up in the US (where he got to know Romney in 1976) and prides himself as a great expert on America. It was one of his strongest cards, since relations with the US are vital for Israel. Now he stands exposed as a know-nothing, together with his ambassador in Washington DC, who was recommended by Adelson.

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1352471204/

Ilan Pappe on "The Forgotten Palestinians"

THE MANTRA of this round was Once And For All.

“We must put an end to this (the rockets, Hamas, the Palestinians, the Arabs?) Once and For All!” – this cry from the heart was heard dozens of times daily on TV from the harassed inhabitants of Israel’s battered towns and villages in the South.

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1353611132/

Jeff Halper | From Two States to Apartheid to Warehousing: Where Do We Go From Here?

http://youtu.be/Qn-76fE--gE

Cold Revenge

“Revenge is a dish that is best eaten cold,” is a saying attributed to Stalin. I don’t know if he really said that. All the possible witnesses were executed long ago.

Anyhow, a taste for delayed revenge is not an Israeli trait. Israelis are more impulsive. More immediate. They don’t plan. They improvise.

In this respect, too, Avigdor Lieberman is not Israeli. He is Russian.

Israeli committee against House demolitions (ICAHD) Jeff Halper-Part 1

A Person Called Nobody

SUDDENLY, I realized that a new star had appeared on the political firmament of Israel. Until yesterday I did not even know of its existence.

A respected public opinion poll posed a Nixonesque question: From which politician would you buy a used car? The answer was stunning: not a single politician reached the mark of even 10%. Except one who would be trusted by a massive 34% of potential voters: a certain Nobody.

Ali Abunimah speaks at AMP premier in California

Weird Elections

IN A few hundred years, a professor looking for an especially esoteric subject will ask his students to research the Israeli elections of 2013.

The students will come back with a unanimous report: the results of our research are incredible.

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1358511633/

THE ELECTIONS will take place in three days, and they are boring, boring, boring.

So boring, indeed, that even to think about their boringness (if there is such a word) is boring.

For lack of any debate about the issues, media pundits are reduced to discussing the election broadcasts. Some are good, some indifferent, some atrocious. As if this were a contest between spin doctors, copywriters, “strategists” and such, with the public just a bystander.

IT WAS the night of the optimists.

Tuesday at 10.01 pm, a minute after the ballot boxes were sealed, the three TV news programs announced the results of their exit polls.

The dire predictions of the pessimists were scattered to the winds. Israel has not gone crazy.

It has not moved to the right. The fascists have not taken over the Knesset. Binyamin Netanyahu has not been strengthened. Far from it.

Israel has moved to the center.

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1359071590/

“COMPARED TO the Knesset it could have been, this is a very good Knesset!”

I heard this, in so many words, from at least ten former Knesset members and others, as we were drinking orange juice in the Knesset foyer. I could have said it myself (and probably did).

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1360277662/

Listening Post - Spies, secrets and Israeli media

The
Third Intifada?

IS THIS the third intifada? This question was raised this week by a number of Israeli security experts. And not only by them – their Palestinian colleagues were almost as perplexed.

All over the West Bank, Palestinian youth threw stones at Israeli soldiers. All the 4500 Palestinians in Israeli prisons took part in a three-day hunger strike.

1948 - A different story, PART 1/2 Lecture by Prof. Ilian Pappe, nov 30 2012, Bern Switzerland