USrael: The Awakening ?

"It's good to be home." A crazy thing for an American to say outside America. But in the context of our relations to Israel over the past thirty years such a remark is almost par-for-the course. It shows how reckless American mainstream opinion has grown in its indulgence of all things relating to Israel. It had reached the point where a reflex avowal of false nostalgia was taken as the simplicity of good manners. An American politician in Israel is routinely expected to show more piety for Tel Aviv than for Plymouth Rock.

The sentiment of "home" dished up by the vice president and the graceless insult with which it was met by the Israeli prime minister also reflect a political background. The United States has lately assisted Israel in its attempt to suppress the facts and discredit the findings of the Goldstone Report..Barack Obama abetted the Israeli drive to bury the Goldstone report by allowing his government tosay it was "one-sided and deeply flawed" and also the subject of "grave concerns." Obama had already shown his loyalty by his silence regarding the actions of Israel in Gaza in January 2009. It all stopped, by apparent arrangement, just before inauguration day. Given that history, what reason had Netanyahu to suppose that Obama would discover the end of his patience last week? There seemed no jerk of the leash to which this American president, like so many others, would not respond obediently. Besides, as Obama knows and as Netanyahu knows he knows, American Jewish liberals who are loyal to Israel are the stamina of the Democratic Party.

''The Best Settlement Argument'': Really ?

The Israel Project, with an advisory board that includes 20 members of Congress from both parties, issued the confidential document to its supporters at about the time Obama came to power in January.

The report, marked as "not for distribution or publication" but since widely disseminated outside of the organisation, says that those who back the removal of the settlements should be told they are supporting ethnic cleansing and antisemitism. The guide offers what it describes as "the best settlement argument".

"The idea that anywhere that you have Palestinians there can't be Jews, that some areas have to be Jew-free, is a racist idea. We don't say that we have to cleanse out Arabs from Israel. They are citizens of Israel. They enjoy equal rights. We cannot see why it is that peace requires that any Palestinian area would require a kind of ethnic cleansing to remove all Jews," the guide says.

I am all for it. But when proponents of a one state solution advance the idea of one state for Jews and Palestinians, the defenders of Zionism, the same ones who label settlement freezing activity as ethnic cleansing, suggest that Palestinians may outnumber Jews and threaten the idea of Israel as a Jewish state.

I want a clear answer from zionists who often visit this blog as to what to do with population growth for Israeli Arabs; what to do with Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, and what to do with Palestinian refugees ? They really have no viable solution, neither a viable answer. Zionism is short on arguments because it does not want to choose between the Jewish identity of Israel and its expansionnist policies. It is a great cognitive dissonance that will lead to greater catastrophes as all cognitive dissonances, which are per essence irrational, do

Sderot, Najd, and Western Political and Humanitarian Selective Amnesia

And to President Obama we say: the wave of hope that met your election was heavily dampened by your silence on the Gaza massacre. This was compounded by your pre-election statement siding with the Israeli settlers of Sderot. You would do well to know the history of the places of which you speak. Sderot, which may be known to some as an Israeli town, lies on the ruins of Najd, a Palestinian village ransacked in May 1948 by Zionist terrorist gangs. Villagers were forced from their beds and homes with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, rendering them refugees for the next 61 years. That is the story of Sderot. It is never a good start to get your tyrant and victims mixed up, but there is still room for a revival of passionate optimism. Only if you decide to fairly address the issue of the 6 million Palestinian refugees and the ending of occupation of Palestinian lands, including Jerusalem, will you be able to start a new relationship with the Muslim world.

The Red Phone in Black and White

A powerful analysis of Clinton's 3 a.m. ad.

A US Story: white woman meets black man

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for the US primaries, I am interested in public reactions to race and gender in the democratic party primary.
Well I was surprised today that unconsciously, and in matters of subliminal perceptions not analysed rationally, it is race that is still a problem in the US. Probably more than the gender issue, more than the Islam issue. I thought that the media were pretty soft on Hillary, probably afraid of being accused of gender bias. After all, they would have called the elections for Barack Obama after yesterday's results if he was facing someone else than Hillary because there is no way Hillary can win the nomination arithmetically in what remains of the primaries. Instead they are celebrating her comeback.
I am not for either candidates but I was surprised today to read that the Hillary campaign, after having used the ethnic religious issue against Barack Obama, is now using the race issue in a very ugly manner, much more uglier than early Bill Clinton's insinuations about Obama. They are betting on the public negative subliminal perception of a black man. Look for yourself.