“It’s like a civilian carnage Toyotahon!”
Watch the full episode which has more discussion of Israel throughout.
Thousands rally in Tel Aviv to protest Israel’s siege on Gaza, Saturday, Jan. 3. More photos.
- How-to on using social media tools (like Twitter) to track the Israel-Gaza conflict. [Mashable]
- Wired reports on Israel’s use of social media in the propaganda war. [Wired]
- Israel’s consulate holds a press conference on Twitter. [NY Times]
- “Israel’s assault on Gaza has launched an emotional firestorm on Facebook—including violent threats, Nazi slurs, and pleas for reconciliation.” [Daily Beast]
- Friend-of-the-blog Charles Lenchner examines the use of Nazi/Holocaust comparisons by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. [Change.org]
- In what strikes me as one of the most balanced assessments of the current conflict I’ve read yet, the International Worker’s Tendency denounces ongoing violence by Hamas and Israel. [IWT]
- Are Israel’s actions in the best interest of achieving the peace it so desires? No, says Jonathan Freedland. [Guardian]
- Bernard Avishai: Israel’s tactics only embolden Hamas and its supporters. [Daily Beast]
- Thousands rally in Israel against the Gaza incursion. [Al Jazeera]
- J Street rebuts Reform leader Yoffie’s critical op-ed. [J Street]
- Gideon Levy asks whether the Israeli public’s response to the Gaza incursion is evidence of Israel’s moral collapse. [Haaretz]
- Diaspora Jews are more critical of Israel’s military actions than ever before, says Anshel Pfeffer. [Haaretz]
- Arab American pollster James Zogby says American Jewish dissent against the Gaza incursion “may help open up the policy debate.” [Huffington Post]
- Reza Aslan: “Can the difference between lawful and unlawful war—between a soldier and terrorist—really be a matter of matching uniforms?” [Daily Beast]
gaza, hamas, israel, palestine, social media, terrorism, twitter, war
New York has a great piece in this past week’s issue about Tony Blair’s faith work following his departure from British politics.
The article goes some way in drawing what I see as the distinction between religious progressives and religious fundamentalists: Read the rest of this entry »
Left: An Israeli middle school classroom near Sderot bombed by Hamas. Right: A Palestinian middle school classroom in Gaza bombed by Israel. Do you see a difference?
I am against Israel’s ongoing blockade of Gaza since Hamas’ election and the U.S. and Israel’s isolation of Hamas, which as a policy has backfired and caused a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. I am against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians under occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. And I am against the settlement enterprise which perpetuates the brutality of the occupation by necessitating an Israeli military presence in the West Bank. I am also against Israel’s politicians’ cynical use of this incursion to boost their popularity pre-election. And I am sympathetic to Palestinian civilians who endure endless suffering from this conflict, and wish to never experience myself what must be the horror of their daily lives.
I am also of the belief that Hamas’ refusal to accept the legitimacy of the existence of Israel and as such its refusal to accept existing agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (which equates to the thumbing of its nose at the international system) are signs of a stubbornness rooted in a dangerously ruthless martyrdom ideology. I believe that Hamas is its people’s own worst enemy, and that their refusal to halt their rocket attacks, despite their inefficacy and the lethal retaliation they incur, bespeaks an eagerness to sacrifice the lives and well-being of their people. I believe that Hamas willingly provokes attacks in order to orchestrate photo-ops and mount a body count which they use to manipulate public opinion. And I believe that Hamas is in bed with nefarious Islamic regimes whose human rights records make Israel look saintly, and that if Israel does not tamp down on Hamas’ armament by these powers that it is only a matter of time before Hamas is firing long-range Iranian missiles into Tel Aviv or sneaking dirty bombs into downtown Jerusalem.
“Livni” by Avi Buchbut
In the vein of Drafted Art, a collaboration of Israeli artists opposed to the 2006 Lebanon War (in which I participated), several Israeli artists and poets opposed to the war in Gaza have issued a new collection of work expressing their dissent.
Ronen Eidelman, a co-organizer of both Drafted Art and this new collaboration, writes:
Lazet! (לצאת) A Collection against the war in Gaza and the abandonment of the south, was created in great urgency and anger, immediately with the beginning of the war, as a prompt protest act. The collection is a collaborative project by Maayan, Etgar, Maarav, Daka, Sedek art and poetry journals and Guerrilla culture group. On the third day of the war we sent out the open call. On the fifth day of the war we sat for twelve intense hours of editing to chose material. We received hundreds of poems, drawings, essays, stories and stories, but unfortunately it was only possible to use a small portion for the print. We rushed to have the booklet ready for the big “Against the War” demonstration in Tel Aviv that will take place on Saturday night - a week for the war.
Lazet! Calls to the end of the occupation and denounces the massacres and killings. Lazet! Calls for an immediate seize fire. Lazet! Calls to to emerge (”Lazet”) in a long term and visionary action of living together, dialogue and corporation based on true equality.
Download it here (Hebrew-only PDF).
Props to Kung Fu Jew
Chabad-style Chanukah menorah atop the Agriprocessors facility in Postville, Iowa
When New Voices magazine published its recent issue excoriating the Chabad Lubavitch movement for its regressive practices, some critics said it was inappropriate and unfair of the publishers to hold the renown hasidic sect responsible for the Agriprocessors scandal. Many in the Chabad community claimed — as one friend of mine did in a recent conversation about the unrighteous behavior of a fellow Chabad hasid — that “when an individual acts as an individual, there seems to be little reason to mention their lineage or affiliation.”
Chabad’s defenders can no longer advance this argument, however, whereas yesterday JTA reported that a group of top Chabad officials have started a legal defense committee to aid the Rubashkin family which owns and operates the Agriprocessors facility.
agriprocessors, antisemitism, chabad, ethics, Judaism, orthodoxy, postville, rubashkin
Okay: A fresh Wordpress install and the impetus to write. Let’s see how this goes.
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