Tag: Israel

Robert O. Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism

The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton- now out in Hebrew!
The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton- now out in Hebrew!

I just came back from a two-week vacation. (I mention this almost completely irrelevant fact because in the field of activism we don’t seem to talk about the perfectly natural human need for rest.) In the throes of contemplating whether to flip over to my backside, or give my ass a bit more quality sun-time, I managed to complete a task I’ve been working at for months (yes, months! That’s how much I needed a vacation): Reading Robert O. Paxton’s ‘The Anatomy of Fascism.’

The Anatomy of Fascism – Mini Book Review

There’s a lot of historical data in The Anatomy of Fascism. Numbers, names- things I’ll never remember because they’re not much use to me, and frankly, they make for a very boring read (with respect to the author’s obvious hard work, dedication and love of his profession). Another thing that makes The Anatomy of Fascism a boring read is that pitfall of most history books: The empire point of view. I couldn’t care less about the Fuhrer and Duce’s political contortions into power, just like I don’t care about the in-house bickering of the Likud and Kadima. Telling me of the empire without any moral stance (except for some small, simplified statement near the end of the book that all this is something we should be repulsed about) is not only uninteresting, it’s also as unethical as the third monkey.

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The best hasbara: Israeli government to step up front groups in social media sites

Yesterday, Israel’s ‘Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister’ Yuli Edelstein spoke at some length about his country’s ‘PR problem’, including possible plans to create a 24-hr news channel. But further down the article, Edelstein talked about the ways in which Israel’s propaganda effort is being increasingly delegated to volunteers:

“We’ve been working on creating an infrastructure of our friends and allies around the world, in the Jewish and Christian communities, which is not fully ready yet. It’s based on volunteers and professionals [who will coordinate the transmission of accurate information],” the minister said.

Edelstein conceded that the Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Ministry suffered from restrictive budget problems. Nevertheless, he was seeking to implement ambitious initiatives based on volunteers.

“This is the 21st century, and that means things that are not officially called hasbara are the best hasbara. The moment things come from the government, the state, or ministries, they are perceived as being less reliable and as propaganda,” Edelstein said.

”There are many things only volunteers can do. Writing on Facebook, Twitter blogs, and sending e-mails to friends is second to none. The best things people can do are not about money, but about doing things in the right way.”

Edelstein cited an operations center housed in his ministry and staffed by volunteers, as well as a ministry secretary, both aimed at maintaining continuous contact with Diaspora communities.

Continue reading “The best hasbara: Israeli government to step up front groups in social media sites”

Don’t Forget Bassem Abu Rahmeh

Today is the first year’s anniversary of Bassem Abu Rahmeh’s Death. I didn’t know Bassem, but I watched him die. It was only a few months after the Gaza massacre. Nobody cared for a dead Palestinian. Two weeks later I started going to Bil’in. I’ve been going every week ever since. I’ve met people I’ve come to care about. I’ve met Bassem’s friends, who welcome me in their home with a smile and embrace. His family, who have been shot and jailed. His fiance- a beautiful Israeli activist- whom I’ve come to love like a sister. I care about their life and I see them hurt.

Burying Bassem Abu Rahmeh
A couple weeks ago, I stumbled upon an article in the Ha’aretz website, that unsurprisingly never showed up in the English version (I’ve written before about Ha’aretz double standards, when it comes to its international audience). It was titled “The Military Attorney Won’t Investigate the Death of a Demonstrator of IDF Fire in Bil’in a Year Ago”.

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Hasbara goal?

Starting today, and for the next two days, UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) will hold its Congress and Executive Committee meeting in Tel Aviv. The draw for the Euro 2010 qualifying groups will also take place.

From an article in Ha’aretz:

This is the first time that Israel has ever hosted the annual gathering, which is taking place two months before the World Cup kicks off in South Africa.

Congress participants include FIFA President Joseph (Sepp) Blatter, UEFA President Michel Platini, former German footballer Franz Beckenbauer and the heads of international football teams.

Hosting the UEFA Congress is the culmination of a years-long effort by the Israeli Tourism Ministry.

“Israel is an ideal country for training camps and sporting activities and matches, year-round and especially during the European winter,” said Israeli Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov. “I am sure that the combination of the climate and the infrastructure for training and matches, alongside the many tourist sites and entertainment and leisure options, will make our guests choose Israel for both personal and professional visits in the future.”

The Tourism Ministry is working to increase Israel’s cooperation with European countries in order to boost tourism by improving Israel’s international image as a safe and modern country to visit.

Israel’s colonization of East Jerusalem – some context

The first political planning decision in the ‘reunified’ city concerned plans not for construction but for the geopolitical determination of borders…the determining consideration, ‘a maximum of vacant space with a minimum of Arabs,’ laid down as the basic tenet in the delineation of the borders, made possible the planning and implementation of the prinicipal political objective: the creation of physical and demographic faits accomplis.

[It became] clear that the planners must set their sights on the vacant areas on the outskirts of the city and surrounding it. These areas would have to be expropriated from their Arab owners. The legal instrument at the disposal of the Israelis for this purpose was the Land Ordinance (Expropriation for Public Purposes) of 1943, which grants the treasury minister the authority to expropriate private land when there is a ‘public need’ for such action – with the definition of ‘public need’ left to the minister himself…

But no one was deceived by the designation of these ‘ethnically colorblind’ needs; the expropriated areas were being taken from Arabs and handed over to Jews. This was an extraordinary interpretation of the word public: The only legitimate public was Jewish, and therefore only jews were entitled to benefit from the expropriation.

From Meron Benvenisti, City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996, pp.154-55.

Continue reading “Israel’s colonization of East Jerusalem – some context”

The Seven Laws of Noah

In a recent post on Israel’s PR campaign, Tali Shapiro mentioned an article “about something called the “Jewish Values Lobby” trying to get employers in Zefed to force “Arab” (Palestinians don’t exist in NRG) workers to sign a statement, where they’ll keep the Seven Laws of Noah, as a prerequisite to their employment.”

Here’s more on that story, courtesy of a translated item from Maariv.

Do Arab workers in businesses in Tzefat and the surrounding area need to fulfill commandments from the Tanach? This is the opinion of activists from the “Jewish Values Lobby,” who are starting a campaign to persuade employers to ask their workers to sign a religious statement according to which they will undertake to observe the Seven Noachide Laws. These include prohibitions against eating parts of a live animal, serving idols, desecrating Hashem’s name, immorality, robbery, and violence.

This initiative, which is expected to take Israeli Arabs by storm, was officially launched today. Lobbyists will visit businesses in Tzefat and the surrounding communities, which employ hundreds of Arabs living nearby, and they will ask them to sign their employees on a commitment to observe the Seven Noachide Laws.

“I hereby sign that I will undertake to observe the Seven Noachide Laws and declare my faithfulness to the Jewish nation according to Jewish values,” it is written in the statement. “I know that if I am caught violating any one of these laws, my employer will be allowed to fire me with no prior notice nor compensation.”

The Jewish Values Lobby explained that this campaign does not contradict a directive from one of the Jewish leaders of the generation from two years ago against employing Arab workers in public places. “We recommend that people don’t employ Arab workers,” a spokesman from the lobby explained. “But unfortunately, there are many Jews who employ Arabs in their stores, so we decided to deal with reality.”

BDS: Calling all Geographers

What follows is an open letter in response to the International Geographical Union’s (IGU) refusal to relocate its July 12 – 16, 2010 regional conference outside of Tel Aviv in support of the internationally supported Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign aimed at Israel.  The IGU was initially confronted by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel in November 2009.  This letter was printed on the US Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel’s website today.

Geographers and other academics can sign the letter here.

As geographers, faculty, students, and people of conscience, we are profoundly dismayed by IGU’s decision to hold its July 2010 regional conference in Tel Aviv, in violation of the widely endorsed Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. We are equally troubled by IGU’s response [1] to the open letter issued by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), which urged the Executive Committee to relocate the upcoming regional conference out of Israel [2].

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Israeli kidnapped on Lebanese border

Ok, so relax. It’s not true. I mean, if that had really happened, we would know about it, right? It would be all over the 24hr news, analysts would be wondering what it meant for the region, and whoever was responsible for snatching the civilian would be condemned as carrying out a gross provocation. In the event that the Israeli citizen was quickly released, we would all breathe a sigh of relief.

So let’s be glad that nothing like this has happened.

Israel allegedly snatched Rabih Zahra from an area along the Lebanese border with Israel on Sunday.

According to the source, Zahra’s arrest represents a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon…

A joint Lebanese army and UN team inspected the area from which Zahra was taken and announced he was arrested on Lebanese territory.

Zahra claimed that Israeli soldiers had beaten him and asked him about the activities of the Lebanese Shiite Movement, Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon.

What CNN forgot to mention about ‘the Middle East’s only democracy’

The following extracts are taken from an email update (4 Feb 2010) by Yeela Raanan for the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages in the Negev (they have a website here and a Wikipedia entry here):

On Tuesday this week the Government of Israel destroyed crops in the Bedouin village of Al-Mazraa. “Crops” hardly defines the one inch high wheat that the community has managed to grow in the desert land. The Bedouin farmers do not have water allocations like their Jewish counterparts, and are dependent on rain. The annual average is 2 inches of rain.. This year was a better year, but even on a good year the wheat does not grow tall enough to be harvested and is used as grazing for the sheep of the residents of this village – one of the poorest communities in Israel. But the government officials were not pleased that this year was blessed with rain – and re-plowed the land to make sure the meager crop will be destroyed. The excuse – the land is not owned by the residents of the village (the land is disputed land – historically belonging to the Bedouin, but the government claims it belongs to the state).  But the real reason is – they are Arabs. As Arabs – even though they are citizens of Israel – they are seen as our enemies.

And:

The village of Twail Abu-Jarwal was destroyed completely three times. On October 26th, January 6th and again on January 21st.

In the village of El-Araqib homes have been demolished four times! On October 29th – two tents, on December 7th – 7 huts, on January 6th and 21st two huts each time.

Continue reading “What CNN forgot to mention about ‘the Middle East’s only democracy’”

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