How Israel lost a friend

Counterpoint to:

The Limits of Force in the Middle East
"Between the late 1970s and 1990s, I was one of those foreigners who progressively fell out of love with Israel."
Max Hastings, former editor of The Daily Telegraph
University of Oxford Lecture

On May 7, Sir Max Hastings, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, went to Oxford University to tell his story of Israel and how he fell out of love with the country and its people.

During more than fifty years, it has been my experience that most of those who fell in love with Israel ultimately fell out of love with the Jewish state.  Among Israel's friends and foes, I have seen admiration and respect for Israel survive the test of time, and occasionally among its friends even affection, but not love.

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Lawfare and media warfare

Counterpoint to:

A step toward ending Israel's impunity

The appointment of Richard Goldstone to head a United Nations fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip represents an important first step toward ending Israel's impunity from international law.

George Bisharat
The Baltimore Sun
April 16, 2009

In 1999, two Chinese military officers, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, wrote a book entitled Unrestricted Warfare. In it, the two authors propose tactics that, in the event of a high-tech war, would compensate developing countries, in particular China, for their military inferiority to the United States.

The authors view the 1991 Gulf War, with all its complex political alliances, battle technology, and global media coverage, as a pivotal point in warfare that has fostered new principles and battlefields unfamiliar to today's professional military people. Among these new battlefields the authors list media warfare (manipulating what people see and hear) and international law warfare (using the law as a weapon - later dubbed 'lawfare').

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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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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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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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Made-to-measure 'collective punishment'

Counterpoint to:

Israeli collective punishment of people of Gaza must be ended

There is little doubt that Israel's economic strangulation of Gaza, constitutes collective punishment and is illegal under international humanitarian law."

Philip O'Conor
The Irish Times (Dublin)
August 21, 2008

Philip O'Conor, writing in The Irish Times, alleges that Israel is guilty of collective punishment. What picture comes to your mind when you think of collective punishment? George Mason University Law Professor Michael Krauss, responds powerfully:

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An irrational neighbor

CounterPoint to:

Palestinians' self-inflicted wounds

"Israeli oppression has helped fracture Palestinian society and turn some of its groups into desperados who fight one another to maintain a modicum of control over their increasingly restricted and empty lives."

Rami Khouri
The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada)
Wednesday, August 6, 2008

"These are grim days for the Palestinians," writes Lebanese political analyst Rami Khouri, "but not unusual ones for the Arab world as a whole. The sight of clan-based political groups in Gaza killing each other is sadly familiar in many parts of the region."

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