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20 hours ago
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
ROCKETS AND PERCEPTIONS OF THEM
Bradley Burston is noticeably further to the left than I. Yet I've often noticed that when such people get angry about the Palestinians, they often express positions to the right of mine. This is the case in his recent column, in which he takes a well-meaning ignorant American Jewish writer to task for totally not understanding what's going on. His thesis, in a sentence: Saddam's missiles in 1991 convinced Israelis they didn't need to control the West Bank; the Hamas ones since 2005 convinced Israelis never to relinquish any more territory to the Palestinians. It's an interesting column, and I recommend it (tho the copy-editing is horrendous. Haaretz is getting ever sloppier).
The American Jewish writer who sent him fuming, by the way, is Anne Roiphe, and an extract of her column is here. He has dealt well with her column, but I'd add a different observation. Let's assume, for sake of the argument, that half of Lieberman's voters grew up in the Soviet Union before coming here in the previous decade, and their appreciation of Ms. Roiphe's sentiments of liberalism and niceness are lacking. Given the choice between leaving them where they were to be lost to the Jewish people but with a "nicer" Israeli electorate, or have them here, rejoined to the Jews but will a lesser "nice" Israeli electorate, my preference is stark. There isn't any wriggle room. Especially as far too many of the "nice" Jews Ms. Roiphe probably prefers are ever less Jewish.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THAT SLOGAN ?
Netanyahu and Lieberman have initialed a coalition agreement. I haven't read the agreement itself, which by law will have to be made public as soon as it comes into effect, but if you believe the report in Haaretz, it seems Lieberman's main pre-election slogan, calling for legislation that would mandate Arab Israelis to swear fealty to the state as precondition for citizenship, has evaporated. What a surprise.
Given that this was practically the only piece of evidence (or better, "evidence") that Lieberman was far-right, far-far-right, and all the other epithets hurled at him and his voters, one wonders if any corrections will now be forthcoming.
Well, actually, no, one doesn't wonder.
And no, I don't support Lieberman. But I dislike him less than I dislike the myriad purveyors of falsehoods about Israel.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
ON ACADEMIC BOYCOTTS
Stanley Fish at the New York Times has a long and convoluted column that eventually gets around to focusing on the question of academic boycotts of Israel. I'm chiefly linking because he's got lots of useful links in his column, rounding up lots of the key spokesmen these past few years, so that's useful. He also has a good summary of the arguments for boycotting Israel:
(1) The academic critics of neoliberalism complain that one effect of the neoliberization of the university has been the retreat by faculty members from public engagement, with the result that intellectual work becomes hermetic and sealed off from political struggle. “We need,” says Henry Giroux, “to link knowing with action, and learning with social engagement, and this requires addressing the responsibilities that come with teaching . . . to fight for an inclusive and radical democracy by recognizing that education in the broadest sense is not just about understanding . . . but also about providing the conditions for assuming the responsibilities we have as citizens to expose human misery and to eliminate the conditions that produce it” (“Against the Terror of Neoliberalism,” 2008)
(2) In the eyes of many academics, a great deal of human misery is being produced by Israel’s policy toward Palestinians. Eliminating it is everybody’s business.
(3) This includes academics who cannot stop at just talking about injustice, but must do something about it, must act.
(4) The political resources of academics are limited, but one way academics can show political solidarity is to put pressure on colleagues who are silent in the face of injustice: “The boycott or the divestment campaign is the mode of political protest that is left after all other forms of struggle have been tried”; it is “the politics of last resort” (Grant Farred, “The Act of Politics Is to Divide,” Works and Days).
(5) Therefore, it is appropriate and even obligatory to boycott Israeli academics and Israeli universities “that have turned a blind eye to the destruction and disruption of Palestinian Schools” (David Lloyd, Daily Trojan). “If, in the midst of oppression, these institutions do not function to analyze and explain the world in a way that promotes justice . . . but rather acquiesce in aggressive neocolonialist practices, then others may legitimately boycott them” (Mona Baker and Lawrence Davidson).
Fish himself then goes on, eventually, to state a position whereby any academic boycott is wrong, including the one on Apartheid South Africa. This is a reasonable approach, of course. I'd add to it that perverse as it was, that regime was no-where near being the world's worst, not even in the Post-WWII world; Cambodia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Nigeria all spring effortlessly to mind, and a systematic list would be far longer. So, contrary to Fish's comment, including Israel on anyone's list is, indeed, perverse; singling it out as uniquely evil is, quite simply, evil itself.
I also think calls to boycott Israel are deeply hypocritical and harmful to the boycotters. Israel is one of the most creative places in the world, compared to size or not. How many of the boycotters will forgoe on taking advantage of scientific or technological advances created by Israelis? Hands, anyone?
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
WHAT'S THE BBC POLICY ?
A while ago I mentioned the clearly antisemitic short play penned by a British woman, Caryl Churchill, titled Seven Jewish Children, though there are no recognizable Jews in it at all. The play doesn't seem to be achieving earth shattering success, but perhaps it doesn't need to. The danger of antisemitism is that it permeates the Zeitgeist, not that one particular event or statement convinces lots of people - and I don't think there's any way to argue that isn't happening, since it clearly is.
The BBC has just decided not to air a radio version of the play. Not because its decision makers disagree with it - they actually think it's a brilliant piece - but because they recognize it's too one-sided for them to be able to balance with a second piece. After all, there's no one out there writing imaginary plays about celebratory tents set up for public commemoration of suicide murderers, say, or skits about women who bless their sons as they go off to die with Jewish teenagers or fathers who announce in the presence of their surviving sons that they hope they, too, will follow the example of their murderous brother. As the BBC chaps recognize, no Jew would write such a play.
I admit, not for the first time, that the BBC puzzles me. They have no compunctions in presenting the Israeli-Arab conflict in deeply slanted ways, but every now and then they balk at doing precisely that. What's their method?
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
HAMAS, TOO...
According to the Jerusalem Post, citing various Palestinian spokesmen converged in Cairo for yet another attempt to forge a Palestinian unity government, the talks are likely to fail, partly because Hamas rejects the Fatah demand that the unity government accept the agreements signed by the Palestinian Authority (PA). In other words, Hamas is not willing to join a unity government that would dramatically enhance the Palestinian's international standing, especially with the Americans, if the price is to recognize Israel's right to exist.
[Salah] Bardaweel [a Hamas spokesman] said that the Hamas negotiators were surprised when their Fatah counterparts told them that there would be no "unity government" unless it accepted the Oslo Accords and recognized Israel's right to exist.
"This is their way of foiling the talks," he charged. "They set impossible conditions."
Don't expect to read this in the Guardian any time soon, of course.
(h.t Powerline)
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
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