A history of Israel in ten minutes

Counterpoint to:

My play is not anti-Semitic
"I find it extraordinary that, because my play talks about the killing of children in Gaza, I am accused of reviving the medieval blood libel that Jews killed Christian children and consumed their blood."

Caryl Churchill
The Independent (London)
February 21, 2009

Consider the movie Gone with the Wind, the American civil war saga, or Lawrence of Arabia, about the legendary British officer who led the Arab revolt against the Turks. They may be great movies, but they are long - more than three hours. Some people don't have the patience or the desire to sit through hours of storytelling. 

Such was my old friend, Dr. Yossi Shiftan, who had a magnificent video library that contained many of the great classics, several of which were only about ten minutes long. Yossi could show you his edited version of High Noon with just the gunfight so you wouldn't have to watch Garry Cooper and Grace Kelly arguing over whether they should get out of town. In his shortened version of Gone with the Wind you could watch Atlanta burn to the ground without having to follow the events that led to the destruction of the city.

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Understanding the 'war crimes' accusations

Counterpoint to:

Israeli attacks on Gaza are war crimes
"Why is the Israeli cause so exceptional that war crimes, committed every day, are routinely forgiven, and even applauded, in the West? Can the reason be racist? Or religious"

Bob Ellis
The Canberra Times (Australia)
January 15, 2009

Bob Ellis, writing in Australia's Canberra Times, believes that Israel is guilty of war crimes and its leaders should be tried by an international tribunal. Ellis predicts that "Tzipi Livni will stand trial soon on a charge at least of collusive multiple manslaughter and will end her days in a fairly comfortable air-conditioned cell in The Hague." Personally, I very much doubt that that will happen, but Ellis is certainly entitled to unleash his imagination.

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A tough talkback response

Counterpoint to:
 Israel and the family of Nations
"The talk elsewhere is now of boycotts [of Israel], of arms embargos, of revoking trade agreements, withholding financial support and canceling export credit guarantees There is, as we report today, a growing body of authoritative opinion arguing that the manner in which battle is being pursued in Gaza could well merit future investigation as possible war crimes."

Editorial
The Guardian (London)
January 13, 2009

If the war in Gaza has produced a downpour of news reports, opinion pieces, op-eds, editorials, and other commentaries in the world media, the scale of comments cannot compare with the sheer inundation of talkback responses that have appeared on the international media’s websites. A seasoned journalist told me yesterday that he had never seen anything like it in his 22 years in the profession. 

Here is one talkback response from a commenter identified as 'TheVoiceOfIsrael'.He responds to a Guardian editorial that bemoans Israel having "turned its back on global opinion" and which asks:

What actions or arguments can the rest of the world take or make that will have any resonance in a country which now gives every appearance of having turned its back on global opinion?"

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Everybody's wrong (except Turkey)!

Counterpoint to:

 Looking past Gaza
"The short-sighted refusal to talk to the Hamas Islamists encouraged Israel to continue and intensify its blockade, provoked Hamas's subsequent increasingly violent response, victimised the population of Gaza, and has made it much harder to stop the fighting once it started."

Simon Tisdall
The Guardian (London)
December 7, 2008

Anyone who has been following the international press over the past two weeks is undoubtedly familiar with the downpour of news reports, opinion pieces, op-eds, editorials, and other commentaries on the war in Gaza that have been virtually dominating much of the world media. While this is certainly not unexpected in the Arab and Islamic press, it is a surprising phenomenon in the European media where it far surpassed the 2006 Lebanon war.

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Hijacking the United Nations

Counterpoint to:

Nations must unite against racism
"Regrettably, last January Canada announced its intention to withdraw from the Durban review conference. And this month so did Israel. What message does a state boycott send to those who are suffering from racism?"

Navanethem Pillay
The Guardian (London)
December 16, 2008

Israel and Canada have announced that they will stay away from the forthcoming United Nations conference on human rights, dubbed Durban II. The previous World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, from which the United States and Israel withdrew their delegations, was one of the greatest fiascos in the history of UN conferences.

At Durban I, which has since been branded the racist conference on racism, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, declared "I am a Jew", while waving a book of antisemitic cartoons distributed to the delegates.

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Do We Need Tough Love from Hillary?

Counterpoint to:

Try tough love, Hillary
"Nobody's been more solidly pro-Israel than Hillary Clinton. But to be effective, she must become a tough taskmaster. That is in the best long-term interest of Israel."

Roger Cohen
The New York Times
December 1, 2008

Columnist Roger Cohen, writing in the New York Times, believes that the next US secretary of state should apply pressure on Israel, and should do so as a friend. Israel, he implies, is incapable of doing what is good for it and therefore needs a friend, such as Hillary Clinton, to force it into acting in its best interest. She must be "a tough taskmaster", opines Cohen.

To some of us this attitude may sound extremely condescending, yet it is not new. The United States has applied pressure on Israel on numerous occasions in the past, and there are some prominent Israelis who share Cohen's view that this is what we now need. 

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Allowing hostile activists into Israel

In April 2003, a 22 year-old British photography student, Tom Hurndall, a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM), was shot in Gaza by a soldier of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and subsequently died. Simon Block has made a two-hour feature television film about Hurndall, whom he describes as a peace activist. It tells a sad story.

But it is also tells a controversial story, because it exposes the hostile political activism of foreign nationals who come to Israel. 

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Is Israel's democracy slipping?

Nir Eisikovits, writing in the Christian Science Monitor - a daily newspaper that celebrates its centenary this year and whose influence extends way beyond its 50,000 circulation - draws our attention to recent Israel legislation. 

The first (which still awaits final ratification) exempts the state from compensating Palestinians harmed during Israel Defense Force (IDF) operations in the territories.

The second, aimed at curtailing the travel of Arab members of the Kenesset (MK), states that any Israeli who has visited an "enemy country" shall be considered a supporter of armed struggle against the Jewish state (unless proven otherwise), and will be prevented from running for parliament in the seven years following the visit."

Due to this legislation Eisikovits believes that we need to be concerned about democracy in Israel.  In fact he goes even further in suggesting that Israel's democracy is becoming more like the regimes of its neighboring countries.

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No place for political objectors

Counterpoint to:

Father, forgive me, I will not fight for your Israel 
Recently, Omer Goldman refused to serve in the army, was tried and was sent to prison for 21 days. This week she will be tried again - and again, until the army tires or she tires."

Igal Sarna
The Sunday Times (London)
October 12, 2008

Igal Sarna, writing in The Sunday Times, tells the story of Omer Goldman, a political objector, who is refusing to serve in the IDF. She is currently incarcerated in a military prison. Omer is not a pacifist, - she is not against armies in general; rather she holds strong political views in opposition to Israel's occupation of the West Bank. According to the Sunday Times, Omer is the daughter of a former senior member of the Mossad.

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A very one-sided view

Counterpoint to:

A last chance for peace in Israel? 
"It's a sign of how desensitised Israel has become to the violence committed in its name that the potential indictment for war crimes of Livni's main rival, Shaul Mofaz, was barely an issue."

Johann Hari
The Independent (London)
September 22, 2008

Here are four interesting stories. If you bear with me, I will link them later.

The first story is rooted in the Taba negotiations when, in January 2001, the Palestinians rejected peace proposals from President Clinton and from Israel.  Two years later Yasser Arafat lamented his mistake in offhandedly rejecting the offers, but in the intervening time he and his people had launched one of the worst waves of violence and terror Israel had ever witnessed. It became known as the second intifada. 

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