Amira Hass in Haaretz: At a West Bank University, in a class on the writings of Michel Foucault, one student said that every time she goes through checkpoints, she presents her identity card to the soldiers upside down. She makes use of the little space she can to make the sovereign decision not to be…
Showing all posts tagged Zionism
Beware the saviours of the new atheists
Here’s my weekly Guardian column (from last week): There’s nothing like an internal critic taking on the most powerful force in his religion. Roy Bourgeois is an American Catholic priest. He’s the founder of… School of the Americas Watch, a group dedicated to closing the US Army School of the Americas – a… military training centre for…
What Mandela teaches Israel (but she isn't listening)
The great Gideon Levy in Haaretz (and one of the finest columns on the death of the great South African, though Jonathan Cook’s dissenting view is vital): South African President Nelson Mandela, in his address for International Solidarity Day with the Palestinian People on December 4, 1997, said: “We know too well that our freedom…
Hold the champagne, but nuclear deal with Iran (probably) avoids war
Robert Fisk on the winners and those who are pissed that a war against Tehran may not now happen: It marks a victory for the Shia in their growing conflict with the Sunni Muslim Middle East. It gives substantial hope to Bashar al-Assad that he will be left in power in Syria. It isolates Israel.…
Humiliating Palestinians as Israeli policy
Amira Hass is a leading journalist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Two recent columns show the direct and daily assault on Palestinian lives that too rarely appears in the Western press. The Israeli agency that oppresses Palestinians ‘for their own good’: And this month’s George Orwell Prize for excellence in misleading language, for rose-colored ink…
What a humanist, progressive, pro-Palestinian Jewish Rabbi looks like
Brant Rosen is that rare breed, an American Jewish Rabbi who remains outspoken about Israeli crimes against the Palestinians. He’s been profiled in the New York Jewish Forward newspaper: It was on December 28, 2008, soon after Israel launched its punishing military campaign in Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead, that Rabbi Brant Rosen hit…
Who and what killed Yasser Arafat?
A fascinating, new documentary by Clayton Swisher for Al Jazeera English, Killing Arafat, that examines the murky circumstances around his death. It focuses principally on the Palestinian Authority (rather than the obvious other suspect, Israel) and portrays the US-backed institution as corrupt and utterly untrustworthy. Swisher explains more about this in a recent piece in…
Why it should not be unlawful to offend a person because of their race
Today the Guardian hosts a discussion about the proposed changes to Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act. Writer and academic Alana Lentin argues the laws should remain while I state they need reform: Alana Lentin The right to offend is often held up by liberals everywhere as more important than the right to be offended. But posing…
Why BDS must be supported for justice in the Middle East
My weekly Guardian column is published today: The… boycott, divestment and sanctions… (BDS) movement,… a thriving Palestinian-led initiative… that attacks… institutional links… to Israel’s illegal settlements,… has been… gaining in popularity. In Australia, the movement has been slowly growing… as Israel continues to defy international law – and it now faces one of its greatest opportunities in the court of public opinion. Shurat HaDin…
ABC Radio Perth interview about Profits of Doom and religion/faith
I was interviewed this week by ABC Radio Perth’s Afternoon presenter Russell Woolf about my book Profits of Doom, Israel/Palestine and ethics: