Archive for the ‘Social Justice’ Category
Neither Two, Nor States, Nor A Solution
Posted by: Rechavia Berman on: August 3, 2013
- In: apartheid | Israeli politics | Jewish supremacism | Occupation | racism | Social Justice | Uncategorized
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The Holy Mideast Peace Process merry-go-round (the second longest running act on earth, the only one older being the occupation it pretends to be solving) is off for another spin. While the POTUS gets to largely keep his personal distance from the mess, he’s still invested to some degree. since Kerry’s prestige, or what’s left of it, is definitely laid on the line here, some of the White House’s is too. And while the US doesn’t have the ability to shape events that it once did, it still has enough clout that most media that wants to be recognized as “serious” has to take the charade seriously. So, let me break down why not only will these talks go no-where, but even if they did it would not lead to any good.
I’m betting you’ve heard all about how the most Netanyahu will be willing to give is still far from the minimum Abbas will be able to accept. Yet the counter for this argument is that the greatness of the opportunity will be forced upon our Bibi, and he will switch the recalcitrant Jewish Home (Settler-religious) party for Labor in his ruling coalition, and pass a deal that will actually result in something the majority of the world would be willing to call a “Palestinian State” and declare the whole bothersome business dealt with, moving on to other crap that needs attending to around the globe.
Further, intimate some reporters, Netanyahu realizes it’s his only way to keep the PM position (without the entire world letting Israel know it’s closed for business till a change in management happens) is to make some kind of deal happen this time, and he is even willing to do what Sharon did and leave the more right-wing-wing of his own Likud party behind and start a new party.
All this, we’re being told, will combine to align the stars as they were in 1977 and 1991-93, and force a real change in the ground rules. A new reality markedly better than the one preceding it.
Fine. Let’s grant that scenario, not even try to explain why it won’t happen. Not even go into whether residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (get to that in a sec) were really better off before Oslo. Flags, trumpets, ceremony galore and even a nice lil wave of Palestinian ex-pats flooding Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin, saying “It’ll never be my grandfather’s ancestral home in Yaffa, but let’d build some kind of Free Filastin. Yalla.
Remember Gaza?
First, as promised, there’s the pesky lil problem of Gaza. Sure, Israel would love to cement the land-locked “free” West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip being totally and permanently separate, but it ain’t gonna hold. a) there’s too much connection between people in both places and b) Even assuming the “Dafawis” (Palestinians from the WB) give up on their sea-side brethren, anyone thinking the most densely populated place on earth (the Gaza Strip of course) can be kept forever under a boot like that without exploding is ignorant of the basic dynamics of the world.
So as promised not two but three different political entities: Israel, “Free Palestine” and blockaded Hamas-stan. I think that makes three. So the “Palestinian Problem” (remember when it was the Jewish Problem?) isn’t solved, it’s merely sliced a bit thinner and painted different. And in the spirit of “not gonna even”, I’ll forgo a long explanation about why land-locked, mineral-poor “Palestine” in the West Bank will not really be a “State” but always a glorified autonomy, unless and until it merges with Jordan in a post-Hashemite reality. So only one actual sovereign and viable state.
So far, this was easy. The “Solution” part of the promised trifecta takes more words to explain.
Israel’s other Arab problem
You know who gets screwed the most here? Israel’s citizen-Arabs. The “’48 Arabs.”
As we speak of improving relations between Israelis and Palestinians occupied since 1967, Israel is implementing a policy regarding some of its own Palestinian “equal citizens” that is unmatched in its aggression since the rough and tumble martial-law years of Israeli history’s early third so far. I’m referring to the Prawer plan, which calls for the removal of 30-40 thousand Bedouins in Israel’s south, from one part of the Negev to the other, to be packed from dozens of small utterly rural types of dwellings into the 7 shantytowns Israel has created for the Bedouin population in the 1970’s, into which about half of all Bedouin citizens have since chosen to move. The other half prefer a more country style of living, and since they were already herded into a much denser area than their grandparents used to occupy before the establishment of Israel, they figure said state can and should just leave them be and recognize the few dozen little villages they’ve sorted themselves into since said herding by State.
But the State says no. Although the Bedouins are 25-30% of the Negev’s population, and although the number of of villages (places smaller and less urban than a “town”) for Jews in the Negev is well over 50, the government will only tolerate 11 such for the Bedouin population – the eleven recently-recognized villages in the Abu Basme regional council. How recognized are these eleven? Most still don’t have electricity or running water, and in some attempts to build even makeshift schools are met with SWAT teams and tear gas. The other several dozen thousand Bedouin folk live in places slated for destruction and forced removal.
Now, Israel’s advocates will tell you that there’s compensation involved for those made to relocate, and some cash (about $100M) even slated for enlarging the seven Bedouin towns to which these Bedouins are to be relocated. True, but without even getting into whether the compensation (and the harsh terms for those who don’t take it within a certain time-frame) are fair, there are still two major problems:
1) As stated above, Bedouins (a term roughly used here as equivalent to any non-Jewish , Arab-speaking citizen living south of the Hebron-Gaza line) make up about a third of the Negev’s population. Despite this, they are already only allowed to live in a small corner of it, and have less than one half their proportionate municipal area. True, in the category “local municipalities” (places smaller than a city but densely populated and urban to suburban in nature) half are Bedouin. But there’s only one Bedouin city to more than ten Jewish ones in that area and only 11 places smaller and more thinly-populated places than a town for Bedouins compared to 70-80 for Jews.
2) These people aren’t being moved because the state needs the land for mining, or office parks, or natural reservations or anything of the sort. The state intends for people to live there – just not Arab-speaking ones. Hebrew-speaking ones. Jews. Some will say: Israel uprooted Jews too! From the Gaza Strip when it disengaged from there! Yes, true. However, that was a place Israel decided to cease to control. At least on land. It is one thing to relinquish a territory, and another to say “No, this is still totally part of my sovereign territory, and I totally intend for people to live here, but only a certain ethnicity. In fact it’s so important to me to that they live here and not them, that I’m willing to go through a massive, divisive, potentially explosive process of shipping them out and shipping them in. Instead of just recognizing them where they already are. Even though they and them are all equal citizens, see.”
So we see that Israel is refusing to create or recognize places for this population (Non-Jewish in the Negev) that are either seriously upwardly-mobile OR seriously back-country (i.e. less influential but living on more land per person). The places it does recognize for this population it under-serves and treats as a problem child at best.
And guess what? Negev Bedouins have it better than most Arabs in Israel. For the Bedouins Israel has created 7 and recognized a further 11 new places to live since its founding. For the other 75-80% of its Arab population (about 15% of the total citizenry of Israel) it hasn’t even done that. Not a single new city, town or village for Arabs has been created by the State of Israel since its founding north of the Negev. There are no current plans to my knowledge to do so.
Therein lies the rub
OK, I hear you saying. That’s f-ed up and all, but where are you going with this and how did we get here from the other Israeli-Arab thing? Glad you asked:
You know how Israel in the past 15 years or so has added a condition to its terms for peace – recognizing it as a “Jewish State”? Israel managed to make peace with two of its four Arab neighbors without that particular language. It was simply recognized. But with the Palestinians, it has to be “recognize us as a Jewish State”. Now, please note that no-where does Israel officially refer to itself internationally as “A Jewish State”. Egypt, for instance, is officially The Arab Republic of Egypt. By recognizing Egypt and agreeing to formal contact and non-hostile relations with it, you’re recognizing it as it presents itself – an Arab country. Israel did not choose to call itself The Jewish Republic of Israel. Nor has the government officially announced plans to do so, despite legislative initiatives on its right flank to define Israel as “The State of the Jewish People.” So what gives?
Answer: “Recognize us as a Jewish State” is code for “In return for us giving up on direct, on-the-ground-control of the land in both the West Bank (with land swaps yada yada yada), you agree to leave us the f— alone about anything we do regarding the remaining Ay-rabs under our control.”
After the “immense sacrifice” of giving up the West Bank (lots of territory, few actual people need to move, cause, settlement blocs and land swaps and so on), the absolute last thing the Israeli electorate (the 75-80% of it that’s non-Arab) will be willing to hear is that it needs to be considerate of any more non-Jews.
If Israel is willing to show this kind of aggression towards the part of the Arab-speaking, non-Druze/Circassian citizenry that’s most willing to coexist with the state, even while dealing with pressure about the occupation and all, just imagine what it will be willing to do to Palestinians in the center and north of the country, who mostly don’t serve in the IDF (unlike most of the Bedouins, including the ones from “unrecognized villages,” who do), with a huge “get off my back, I just made historic, heart-wrenching concessions for these @#$%! people already!” card.
Backlash, not a solution
The development needs of ’48 Arabs, already flagrantly under-served, will worsen severely. The discrimination in everything from employment to government funding per capita to municipal territories will get worse for this minority… To retain even the level of inequality today will require an enthusiastic embrace of the state and all it stands for and forswearing any outstanding grievances or identity issues. And the reflexive response of most in Israel (and many around the world) will be “Let them move to the (“free” and “equal”) State of Palestine if they don’t like it.”
Why do I say this? Again: This is happening even now, as Israel is already dealing with pressure over its treatment of millions of Palestinians who aren’t even enfranchised. About a third of the Jewish electorate (at least) already supports some kind of legislation to make it clear that Jewish citizens are more central to the state. That’s before being forced to make any kind of concessions in the sacred West Bank. How does this trend not intensify tenfold after that? Even if only say a few dozen thousand (put of 600 thousand Jews living beyond the Green Line) need to be resettled, how does that not trump any and all needs of ten times that many Arabs? Defiantly so?
So we see that even if every dream of John Kerry’s comes true within the next year or two, we will only be switching a cessation of the discrimination and usurpation of roughly 60% of the total Palestinian population between the river and the sea, on roughly 20% of the land, for the increased oppression of the other 40%, over 78% of the land (the remaining being the “third state” in the Gaza Strip.)
In any event, the wound of 1948 finds no actual solution. The locus of the inflammation merely shifts. And this time, 25 years of progressively preparing the public opinion of the Jewish majority to accept the need for some sort of compromise will only serve as a backlash – equal force, opposite direction. But that’s OK. That’ll take a few more years to blow up. Neither President Obama nor Secretary Kerry will have to deal with that.
But Where Is Bibi’s Bomb?
Posted by: Rechavia Berman on: October 2, 2012
- In: apartheid | Jewish supremacism | racism | Social Justice
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Once the ripples of laughter had died down from the smash success of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s Road Runner special reboot production, It was only a matter of time till the question begged itself: Why would Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office run the obvious risk of ridicule in order to make its point in this way? By “in this way” I mean that even as we accept the wisdom that says “Hey, he got it talked about”, we must also accept upon further reflection that a less ludicrous choice of prop would still have had a theatrical effect and gotten mentioned – without any of the weakening of one’s message. You know – the weakening that comes from being openly declared ridiculous, and from subconsciously rendering your deathly-serious topic synonymous with cartoon connotations.
Bibi’s staff is stuffed with American backgrounds (in addition to his own). It is utterly impossible that no one there heard “beep-beep! Vrooooom!” in their minds as soon as they saw what the boss was schlepping to the big speech. I know his office is all kindsa dysfunctional, but I doubt it’s to the point where no-one can say anything about something like this. So they knew the risk and decided to go ahead with it.
Then why? What was so important that the Prime Minister’s office was willing to not only endure a shit storm of scorn but purposely create it? Not the Iran thing. We’ve already disproved that. Give up? Look in the Negev, the south of Israel. No, not our own non-NPT-participatin’ nuclear facilities. A bit west of there. A place currently named Umm al-Hiran.
My homie and top notch journalist Noam Sheizaf already cooked the story down to the lean bare nitty, so read that and come back for a sec.
Back? Those of you that are just about facts and analysis have my blessing to bail here and spread the word. For those that want my take as well, I’mma be brief:
Any adult who moves into any sort of settlement built on the ruins of the village of Umm Hiran is a legit target for reprisal by force. Yes I’m talking about the dread, naughty, oh my we must never “take the law into our own hands”. I’m not talking about the law. I’m talking about JUSTICE. It’s the law that’s doing this evil thing. And no, just because the king takes the poor man’s ewe – a second time, for fuck’s sake – doesn’t make it right. All you bible-thumpin’ ardent Zionists should take a note there. (2nd Samuel, 12:3, in case you need it. )
Once again: ANYBODY participating in this theft, whether as propagator, executioner or beneficiary and recipient of stolen goods is a legitimate target for reprisal. Those that want to be angels have my utmost respect, but I’m talking of mere humans here. It’s not a threat, either, but merely a prediction and a statement of simple morals. I wish I could say promise I’d fight alongside the Abu al-Qian clan when the dozers come. Chances are I won’t be there, but I’d argue to exonorate anyone charged with anything less than causing permanent disability or death in reprisal of this.
Yeah, I said it. Charge me with incitement, motherfuckers. I double dare you.
Willard The Dullard and The Glorified Numbers-Runner That Could
Posted by: Rechavia Berman on: August 6, 2012
Oh Mitten, kitten, what ARE we gonna do with ya? More on that in just a sec, but never mind that right now! Kind words were bestowed upon a certain book faithful readers of this irregular fine and friendly feature may have heard of. It may have taken a few weeks for the first review to clear the bowels of a large media organ, but we couldn’t have hoped for a better one.
“Skewering [Israeli] policy with moral clarity and discomfiting honesty”
“[Israeli Dissidents] offers plenty for more keyed-in readers. […] many of the articles are well-researched, magazine-length pieces of hard-hitting journalism — usually providing far more detail than the mainstream media.”
“Idan Landau’s article on the troubling relationship between the US military industrial complex and aid to Israel is a must-read for anyone interested in the international dynamics that fund the violence here.”
“Landau’s articles on Israeli policies in East Jerusalem’s Silwan and the Jordan Valley are illuminating and incisive condemnations of the occupation’s bureaucracy that will surely leave its apologists speechless.”
There’s more, but my readers be quick on the uptake so y’all get the drift by now. Mightily pleased, although I am willing to lay good money that the one about typical snarky blog posts was directed at someone I know from around the way in the mirror… but I don’t care. As long as Idan’s work gets credit, and the rest of the authors are favorably mentioned, I’z a happy trooper.
So read the whole thing, then read the book if ya haven’t already, and see if you agree with the kind Mr. Davis, whom you should follow for informed ME stuff and general intereting-ness (Yeah it’s a word. I just said it.)
Sales spiked, btw, after the review, but we need more coverage. If you work for a media organ with serious reach or have a following of sufficient size and think the book deserves exposure, please do what you can, and the blessings of the Goddess be with you.
But enough about Israeli Dissidents and its glorious march for now, and let us turn our eyes to the pilgrim’s progress. By now you’ve all heard about the Romney camp’s trifecta of gaffes in England, Poland and the Holy Land. But for those of you who rely solely on me for incisive commentary (bad choice btw. Always vary your intel), I will repeat some of the salient points about the erroneous and offensive remarks Dullard made, mention a the leading explanations for them and offer one I haven’t seen elsewhere as of yet.
Willard, as you may recall (that’s his actual name. Mitt is a middle name), unburdened himself of a certain, um, deterministic worldview, if not a an outright bigoted one, when he said that
“I was thinking this morning as I prepared to come into this room of a discussion I had across the country in the United States about my perceptions about differences between countries. And as you come here and you see the GDP per capita for instance in Israel which is about 21,000 dollars and you compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority which is more like 10,000 dollars per capita you notice a dramatic, stark difference in economic vitality. And that is also between other countries that are near or next to each other. Chile and Ecuador, Mexico and the United States. […]
[Romney then alluded to a point made in “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations,” a book by former Harvard professor David S. Landes:]
“Culture makes all the difference. And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things. One, I recognize the hand of providence in selecting this place.”
Let’s parse this, shall we?
The standard bearer of the Republican party, when asked (by himself) to name the two key causes for the economic disparity between Israel and its occupied Paltustanian Authority, names “culture”, and “Providence”
So:
- The reason Israelis enjoy a higher standard of living is that they have the more success-oriented culture, and
- God likes them better.
.
Now, just to set the record straight, and withholding my usual invective, this pitifully simplistic analysis omits a few key elements:1) Israel controls all of the Palestinian territories. The sham of the Oslo-era A, B and C territories notwithstanding. Israel controls everything that goes in or out of “Palestine” and levies a hefty price for allowing things through. Where imports from Arab countries (which don’t have trade with Israel but will gladly sell to Palestinians) might adversely impact sales by Israeli manufacturers, they are seldom allowed. Security, you see. Just an example.
2) Israel controls ALL of the resources of “Palestine” – be they mineral or ethereal. Israel controls the airspace, the frequencies, the bandwith, etc. All that invisible stuff necessary for progress these days.
3) This deserves its own entry: The WATER (which, even when pumped from under Palestinian land, costs a Palestinian 20 times as much as an Israeli.) Israeli and Palestinian have neighboring enterprises, equally dependent on water. Which of them will more easily turn a profit? The one with the superior (kleptocratic) culture, of course! Not even going into the intentional dehydration of entire areas of “Palestine”. Just on the economic competitive level.
4) In fact, Israel controls the very soil. Israel operates almost all the quarries, and 94% of the soil and rock quarried in “Palestine” is used in Israel or in the settlements. (Israel’s vaunted beacon-of-the-rule-of-law High Court ruled this perfectly OK, since the Palestinian economy benefits by Palestinians working in the quarries).I mean, just look at all the construction on this side, and over there (as Jon Stewart’s correspondent put it so well) they just choose to live in rubble! Clear case of culture inferiority. Nothing to be done about it
We’ll stop here, though there is of course much more. It’s amazing how when you control everything and anything a people do, make them pay 20 times more for their own water, systematically displace significant little chunks of them all the time, and don’t even let them use their own rocks and dirt for construction – those people suddenly don’t seem to have the right “culture” to compete.
So no, Governor. It’s not all about culture, unless by “culture” you mean rank, vicious, fanatically-inspired colonialism. In fact, if that 10K GNP number wasn’t inflated by donations, it would represent a WILD success under the circumstances. Just as Israel’s Olympic athletes are mostly HUGELY successful when you factor in how little is invested in them. Israel ranks in the absolute cellar of investment in sports per GDP. In the entire world. Countries as developed as New Zealand and as troubled as Zimbabwe invest more. For an Israeli to make an Olympic swimming final means that had his parents relocated to ANY first world country, he would have undoubtedly (barring seriously bad luck absent from the Israeli iteration) had a medal. For an Israeli to win Bronze is a sure gold for the exact same talent in any OECD country and quite a few more. A GNP/GDP of $10K under the utterly kleptocratic occupation would be astonishing.
Even as it is, there is nothing to worry about the Palestinian “culture” when it comes to making money. Palestinians, and my friends of that nation will forgive me if I mention this, are admiringly / disparagingly known as “The Jews of the Arab World”. Their business acumen built the Gulf countries. Palestinian Hi-Tech, while not as dominant as Israel’s (much of Israel’s Hi-Tech juggernaut is militarily-fueled, btw),is quite nimble, inventive and altogether admirable – especially when it has to operate under uncertain power supplies, at times. Governor Romney would know that had he bothered to make an even perfunctory visit 10 miles away.
So why did Romney – why was he even allowed by his handlers – to say such outrageous, offensive, blatantly ignorant and compromising things? I mean, forget the Israeli issue; Are you REALLY courting the crucial Hispanic vote (Hello, Sunshine State!) by saying that the US’s advantage over Mexico was a sheer result of culture? Aren’t you like half from Mexico or some shit, dipshit? (oops, sorry. I’ll try harder).
The obvious answer, much discussed, is Sheldon (the glorified little numbers-runner that could) Adelson, the man who is determined to out-Soros everyone for all time and sink a rumored $100M (either total or on top of eight figures he sunk into Newt) in the upcomin’ in order to unseat the sitting President.
We’ll get to Sheldon and his troubling and innovative role in the upcomin’, but first my own angle, offensive as it may sound to some truly decent and interesting acquaintances, as to why Romney found it so easy to say such an unnecessarily damaging thing.
Mormons are Philo-semites. It’s a thing with them to feel affinity and admiration towards the Jewish People. Joe Smith intentionally or impromptu-like modeled the forced immigration of his church on the Exodus, and no Christian sect save the Jesuits stresses learning for learning’s sake like Jews do. This is not accidental (Ken Jennings was not a fluke), nor overlooked by Mormons.
Sometimes this admiration can feel icky to Jews. Not just myself, most thinking Jews I know from a broad spectrum of opinions find it anywhere from tedious and perplexing to downright creepy at times, depending on the variety they ran into. Some of the non-thinkers are happy about it, while some of the non and thinkers alike have enough residual yid/yahudi instincts to politely accept whatever benefit but be internally wary.
Oh, and how could I forget. The mormons claim some kind of genetic or cultural link to ancient proto-Judaism because according to their mythology, around 600 BCE a Judean priest (or Levite??) named Lehi escaped the impending doom (fall of the first temple in 586 BCE) and tumbled all the way to the new world, where… (read the Book of Mormon for the rest).
Just wanted to mention this, because I believe it IS a factor. And now to THE factor:
So Adelson wants to invest as much money as he feels like to unseat the President. This, in itself, is legal and one may argue even legitimate. Odious as some (cough, cough) may find it, “Citizens United” is the law of the land in the US. The desire to unseat a sitting President in itself is most legitimate and needs no excuse. Most of the time I’d like to unseat the current bastid myself, if I could see anyone better to the right of of the sadly long-shottish Bernie Sanders (love ya, you curmudgeonly Yankee geezer).
What makes Adelson – and Willard’s subservience to him – unprecedented (on top of his unprecedented meddling in Israeli politics) is that Adelson’s chief motivation for this largesse is the benefit of a foreign power. Think about it. It’s one thing to say “I’m a businessman, my primary political concern is the benefit of my business, so I’m gonna do my tootin’ darndest to make sure there’s a President whose budgets and policies benefit me and mine”. This is what is called “the pursuit of happiness”. It is quite another to say “My chief concern is the benefit of a single FOREIGN nation and I’m going to pour in amounts that have never been poured on behalf of a single issue, to the benefit of that nation and not even pretend to be motivated by US interests unrelated to the welfare of that nation.
Of course, Adelson apologists would insist that he is the perfect patriot who just happens to see US and Hawkish-Israeli interests perfectly aligned. However, those not emotionally invested in Israel – and, shocking as it may sound, not everyone is or can be expected to be – should see that for what it is. There is no such thing as absolute accord between the interests of any two countries.
There are laws against this, and for good reason. Adelson eludes those laws because he is an American citizen and is serving as a willing, voluntary and (as far as anyone can prove) uncoordinated agent on behalf of the current Israeli administration.
However, Adelson-Romney’s conduct bodes very very ill for the American electoral system and American sovereignty. Even if you like what Adelson is pushing for, you can’t seriously believe that there won’t be an Arab Adelson. A Chinese one. A Russian one. (Yo, Mikhail Prokharov, kagdela?)
It also bodes extremely ill for American Jewry to have Israel used so blatantly as a wedge issue, by a man like Adelson. An entire generation of democrats is learning to despise both. Israel’s greatest success over the years was using its influential American minority to attain true consensus-level in American politics. It was never a wedge-issue before because differences were truly negligible. They still are, so the Republicans are going back to their religious roots and thinking up auto-de-fas.
IN FOUR YEARS, OBAMA HASN’T VISITED ISRAEL ONCE!!! screams the Adelson campaign. In 12 years, neither Reagan (Gipper on the Deck! Atten-shun!) nor Bush Sr. (still, a Republican) visited Israel once. So? Nixon did, but only in his second term, and Ike didn’t, and we weren’t around for Hoover. Mmkay?
WTF? Is Adelson insane? Never mind Romney, who’s nauseatingly willing to parrot whatever his moneybags dictates, pretending that once ensconced he won’t pursue what all first-term presidents do (a second term) by the same means that got him there in the first place – only this time with actual policy and soldiers rather than just words.
Does Adelson, for all his prattling about his Jewish pride (he famously said that he regrets serving in the US military and not the IDF. However, he apparently does not regret living the US lifestyle rather than that of the object of his burning loyalty) – does this man really have so little connection to his Jewish roots to not understand how dangerous this is? That there will be terrible consequences for the most successfully integrated yet proudly distinct Jewish diasporum ever should the slightest thing go wrong, and a fall from that crucial consensual status regardless? Does Adelson see himself or his sock-puppet Bibinocchio as the Messiah, so there will be no consequence?
This, Chief Justice Roberts, is what you have wrought. Find a way to mend it, as you will be Chief for a long time to come. As an American, I cannot believe you approve.
I had lots in store to say about internal-Israeli stuff, which is also fascinating in its unraveling into hell (Remember a few months ago when it was “King Bibi”? Well, now folks be wondering what’s ailing the man and how he screwed up so badly, and in last weekend’s social justice protests there was a wonderful sign: We Don’t Want A King, We Want A Leader. The “king” was transliterated from English, as a contempt intensifier).
However, shit be getting long and I owe that stuff to my long-neglected readers in Hebrew first. So comment, share, make some goddamn noise if you learned anything from the above or think others will, and make me want to do the next one afore it get stale.
Oh yeah, y’all recollect this? Well, seems like we gots ourselves a reader in Shin Bet Chief Yoram Cohen, who decided to stay on my good side and fessed up the ver’ next mornin’. Apparently Mr. Jawahari has been a very naughty and busy boy, allegedly not only being contacted by a Syrian Mukhabarat agent (plausible), but indeed enlisting with great alacrity and performing dazzling feats of espionage on behalf of his dastardly, horrid handlers, collecting data on tank counts, troops counts, locations of secret installations and whatnot.
Now, the Stasi KNOWS he didn’t do all this shit, save possibly being solicited by a Syrian intel agent. Maybe. So either They want to flip him and are pretending to go hard on him, or (more likely), they are punishing him, either for REFUSING to flip, or for simply not reporting that he was approached by the Syrian (which, had he done and had been found out to have done, would condemn his relatives on the Syrian side to a cruel and unusually grisly demise). I think he’s been allowed counsel by now, but not sure. Will endeavor to find out.
As always, Keyboard Radical and the Holyland Update are not responsible for any conceptions, illusions or sympathies misplaced along one of our tours. We thank you for flying the crazy skies. Please share and comment on your way out.
- In: apartheid | Israeli politics | Jewish supremacism | Occupation | racism | Social Justice | Uncategorized
- Comments Off on Israel: The Bamba Nation That Worships Gandhi
Shortly after Purim, Judaism’s ancient costume festival, the masks came off in a frenzy in three completely unrelated incidents – and I’m not even talking about Israel’s calculated decision to throw a match on a dormant gas keg, throwing the lives of a million of its own people into disarray and giving the other side a free calibration test.
First came the ludicrous decision by Israel’s Olympic Committee to throw any shred of self-respect to the wind and not simply accept an ordinary corporate sponsorship, but to make a corporate logo the official Olympic mascot for Israel’s delegation to London 2012. Perhaps so short a time after Israel’s sucker population rose up last summer against “porcine capitalism” wasn’t the best of times to try that one…The collective snort of derision caused the powers that be to about-face in under 24 hours. Pity, tho. The logo in question: (A baby in a diaper with a forelock and a fresh mouth who represents the quintessential Israeli snack “bamba” [a peanut-flavored puff thingy]) is a perfect representation of Israel in its 64th year of sovereignty.
Like the logo, Israel is a rather infantile nation. Like the logo, it has a one-track mind (the bamba baby for bamba, Israel for its occupied territories and its trauma-ridden rationale for choking itself on them). Like the logo, Israel is crassly commercial, mercantile and mercenary. Finally, the choice of the bamba baby is a perfect illustration of so many of Israel’s cherished and misguided narratives. You see, although bamba is indeed an Israeliana-laden word, the sad fact of globalism is that Ossem, the long-time purveyor of said peanut-flavored mush, is no longer a plucky Israeli company. It is, rather, a small division of the Nestle Corporation – a firm which, incidentally, did not escape the 1930’s and 1940’s with an unblemished record. Nuff said? So all in all, a most apt capsule of Israel’s true current essence.
Then came the big story of the week. Haaretz’s crack reporter Gidi Weitz uncovered that the State of Israel is currently funding the “legacy” of former Minister and transfer-advocate Rehav’am “Gandhi” Ze’evi at twice the amount of a bunch of actual fathers of Zionism and founders of the state (Herzl, Jabotinski, Ben Gurion, and Begin) combined.
A bit of background on Ze’evi. First, to dispel confusion, he acquired the moniker after appearing one morning at the Palmach mess wrapped in a bed-sheet, and not due to any pacifistic convictions. He was a long-time military careerist, peaking at Central Command General, where he was known for keeping a pair of chained lions at the entrance to his HQ. Years later a famed actress would claim that as a young soldier she was sexually assaulted by an unnamed famous high-ranking officer, “who thought he could fondle the girls the way he did his lions”.
In 1981, shortly after a notorious gangland double murder, “Gandhi” was recorded speaking on the phone with Tuvia Oshri, one of the two men later convicted of the murders. He was asked “Can you come” and answered “If you need me I’m coming.”
On the other hand, he was a very well-read man who spoke fabulous Hebrew and did much for the study and disciplines of history and archaeology in Israel. Politically, he is chiefly known as the first and primary advocate of “transfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing, although of course called for “in peaceful ways”) as a solution to Israel’s dreaded “demographic problem.” He ended up being shot to death by a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, while staying at an East Jerusalem hotel AND blowing off his security detail.
In numbers, Gandhi’s legacy gets about 4.9 million ILS a year. Rabin, who was actually PM and was murdered and alla that, gets around 2 million, as does the iconic Likud PM of the 70’S and 80’s, Menachem Begin. The father of political Zionism Theodore Herzl and the father of the Israeli right-wing Ze’ev Jabotinski get 250K each. So these are the express preferences of Israel today, as written in the most indelible ink there is: cash.
The third mask-shedding event of the week is still categorized as unproven, despite the first-hand nature of the source. Hosni Mubarak, the deposed tyrant of Egypt, states flatly in his memoirs that he used to pay Israeli politician Binyamin “Fouad” Ben Eliezer a cool $25K/month retainer as an “advisor”.
Now it was never a secret that Fouad was a close personal friend of Mubarak’s and an undisguised friend and advocate of Egypt within the various Israeli governments in which he served as Trade, Infrastructure, and Defense Minister. It’s also not exactly news that the guy is not completely free of any rumors of improprieties, so to speak. Still, if this is true it does set a new mark in Israeli decay, I think.
Finally, while all this was happening, and while the world gives itself a good close fingernail check as Syrians are slaughtered by their supposedly anachronistic villain dictator, the Israeli occupation of Palestine (the West Bank part of it) continues in full and innovative swing.
First to the tried-and-true methods of thuggery. You know how the IDF like to invade homes in villages all over the West Bank at 1, 2, 3 in the morning, pull everyone (including babies) from bed for a lineup, take pictures and often arrest someone for a few hours of friendly interrogation? (if you don’t know about it, you should).
So this week on March 11, at 01:45, our brave, brave troops raid the dangerous terror nest of Nabi Saleh – a village that’s only any trouble because settlers stole their spring with active IDF aid – and hit the home of the nefarious mastermind Anan Naji al-Tamimi. 11.
The resolute Israeli DEFENSE forces took Anan, blindfolded him and bound his arms, and loaded him onto a jeep. They drove a bit out of the village and proceeded to interrogate him with some “mild violence” (slaps to the back of the head) about his involvement in the use of WMP (Weapons of Mass Petrification, dismissed by the enemies of Israel as mere rocks) in the weekly demonstrations against the theft of the spring at the village.
After this time they drove back, stopped about 1 km from the village, removed the blindfold but left Anan’s arms bound, and dropped him off, leaving him to negotiate the 15-minute walk with arms bound in pitch darkness. His wrists were swollen upon his return home.
An official response from IDF spokesman has yet to arrive. Unofficial back-channels have yielded this claim: You got the wrong name, he’s 15 and not 11 (plausible from the photo too btw), he was questioned for one hour and not two and was dropped off unbound 300 meters from the village rather than 3 times that far, and this only to avoid re-igniting the village.
So according to the IDF, if he was 15 it’s ok to roust him and all his family from bed at 2 in the morning and interrogate him with no guardian or legal counsel present out in the open and then drop him off somewhere other than the front door. Gotcha.
Here’s the thing: You do that to ME? To MY boy? Police, IDF, Navy fucking SEALS of the invisible New World Order? Rocks will be the least of your worries from my side. And that’s if the unofficial version is true. If the al-Tamimi version is true? And the IDF don’t lock up the guy that was in charge of it? For his own protection, like? I find him and use a 10 pound tin can to turn his face to mush. But don’t listen to me. Remember Gilad Shalit? Yeah, he’s doin’ it right. Travelling a lot. Getting laid I do hope. Anyway, his dad’s running for Knesset in the Labor party. He said that if he was a Palestinian, he’d be trying to capture soldiers too.
Oh, I promised an innovation. Those who survived the holocaust remember with dread the German use of dogs to instill terror in their prey. Those of them still struggling to make ends meet, in the state that uses their name and traumas daily but leaves them less than table scraps are no doubt smiling in the knowledge that their own country has finally learned from those canine-related lessons as well.
And on that woof-woof note, we will now return you to you locally scheduled bullshit, which I seriously hope is tame in comparison or you should be looking into relocation. This has been a visit to the precipice of demise, brought to you by The Weekend Holyland Update, in conjunction with Brown Acid Bad Trips Inc. This excursion didn’t cost you a dime, but there’s a collection plate button thingy, if you have a mind. Also, you can buy my book: Jewcy Story: How the Jews blew redemption the last time around.
Talkin’ Bout A Revolution
Posted by: Rechavia Berman on: July 31, 2011
Welcome one and all, to an unusually optimistic edition of the your weekend holyland update. Get your camping gear out, ’cause we’re taking to the streets to fight for our rights.
Doncha know, talkin’ bout a revolution? Sounds like a whisper… Actually, it’s quite louder than that. At least 150 thousand people took to the streets from Kiryat Shmona in the north to Beer-Sheba in the south, crying out that “The People Demand Social Justice”, and calling on PM Binyamin Netanyahu to resign. Over 100 thousand demonstrated in Tel Aviv, dwarfing the already huge demonstration from last week. And to conclusively put the lie to the claim by Bibi apologists, that this was merely a leftist provocation by a few stoned and unemployed spoiled brats from Tel Aviv, this time they were joined by another 50 thousand people all around the country, with Haifa, Jerusalem and Beer-Sheba adding over 10,000 protesters each.
This was the culmination of a week in which the housing and cost of living protests defied predictions and gathered steam. Earlier in the week Ofer Eini, head of the powerful umbrella labor union the Histadrut, decided that he had spent enough time with a wet finger in the air, and jumped on the bandwagon, threatening that if by the end of the Sabbath (last night) the government would not open negotiations with him regarding the demands of the protesters, he would…do stuff.
Problem is that although Eini was greeted warmly by the naïve kids running the Tel Aviv encampment, truth is he’s not at all on their side. He’s a creature of the powerful unions, the ones where a winch operator at the Ashdod harbor makes $15,000 a month (yes, that’s US dollars. 51,000 shekels), and some of his colleagues make even more. He doesn’t represent those who have trouble making ends meet. All he wants is a photo-op, followed by a quick sellout, just like he did to the strike of the social workers a couple of months back. This, after all, is the man who opposed the strike at Haifa Chemicals, where already low wages have been stagnant for years, and where tenured workers have been steadily replaced by temps with no rights. So he won’t help any.
Eini isn’t the only bandwagon jumper. MIA opposition leader Tzipi Livni was finally sighted saying something about the protests late this week and calling on Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin to postpone the parliament’s summer break so that a solution to the crisis can be found. Even Judy Mozes, whose husband is the Deputy Prime Minister and whose own family owns the country’s largest media conglomerate, is fronting like a woman of the people and tweeting that “so great to see the power with the people.” At said conglomerate, in which she owns an 8% stake, workers have no right to unionize and not much rights at all, for that matter.
Meanwhile, and regardless of Eini’s posing, Netanyahu is seriously stressing (check this out). He’s secretly talking about replacing his sock puppet of a treasury minister, Yuval Steinitz, with someone of a more “social” bend. So far there seem to be takers for the job, whose description is apparently “wanted: second sacrificial lamb. Ingratitude guaranteed.” The leading candidate, Moshe Cachlon, pointedly rejected the talk of him taking over the treasury job, but did say that Bibi must heed the calls of the people.
Likud members, fearing that this uprising will cost them at the ballot, are sweating as well. MK Miri Regev, who got one of the first headlines of this protest by clashing with the tent-dwellers, calling them “daft” and getting doused with a glass of water for her trouble, is now demanding that the party convention be called into session, to discuss the means of heading off this electoral menace. Meanwhile, even the insufficient suggestions on how to deliver relief to the masses are being blocked by ministers such as Uzi Landau, holder of the Infrastructure portfolio, who is from the racist Israel Beiteinu party and figures the uprising won’t sway any of his party’s voters.
And just this morning, the director-general of the Ministry of Finance, Haim Shani, resigned, due to unspecified “differences of opinion” with his minister – meaning with Netanyahu, whose haphazard knee-jerk reactions to the crisis managed to get on Mr. Shani’s professional nerves.
But Bibi still has one supporter he can count on – dubious gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his free rag “Israel HaYom.” The Bibiton, as it is nicknamed in Israel, correctly realized that ignoring or downplaying last night’s show of strength was not an option, so instead they went for plan B: First, they cut the number of protesters by a full third, copping to only 100 thousand protesters country-wide. Second, they ominously intoned: “The protest is social but most of the signs are political”. I’m sorry, who do YOU go to when demanding redress, if not the political establishment? However, this is still more subtle than what most in the pro-protest camp jokingly envisioned, which was the Bibiton’s leading on the front page with the whacking of a notorious organized crime boss late last night.
Far away from the tent encampments, in the occupied territories, the Israeli Occupation Force finds itself at liberty to step up the oppression of the natives. Arrests were carried out deep in Area A, a well providing water to a Palestinian business was slated to be destroyed in the Jordan Valley, and demonstrations against the larcenous separation wall are being suppressed with even greater brutality than usual, as evidenced by the picture of this Palestinian press photographer, beaten over the head with a club for violating the “closed military zone” (which accredited journalists – he is one – are exempt from), and for “unfairly depicting the security forces.”
Ah, the unfairness of reality – a reality which says that until the elephant in the room is addressed and the connection is made between the immense resources being poured down the occupation drain, replete with subsidies for housing, education and public transport, and the lack of resources for the welfare of people who choose not to subsist on the pauper’s lamb, no real progress will be achieved.
And on that grim reality note, we shall wrap it up. The Weekly Holyland Update is not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours. Please collect your senses and check your comments where appropriate. Thank you for flying the crazy skies.
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My book, “Jewcy Story”, a popular history of the 2nd Temple Era, can be bought for Amazon Kindle, for cell phone or for PC here.
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