Welcome to Israel 2012

Welcome to Palestine 2012 is already a huge success. Israel has already set up a welcoming committee, the only way a military regime meeting opposition knows how: As in last year’s Fly-in, hundreds of border patrol personnel and police officers will await the delegation. Detention facilities are already ready for 1500 children, women and men, expected to arrive in Ben Gurion Airport. But why tell when I can show? Here’s your typical, run of the mill article on Channel 1:

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Why Academic Boycott?

Last week I thoroughly dealt with the not-so-scholarly and o-so-fallacious Nobel Laureates’ statement on BDS.  In almost pure cosmic irony I just got a link from a friend to a Prime Minister’s Office “non-tender”: Request for information about improving Israel’s image on U.S.A campuses.

Now that those talkback-esque arguments are out of the way, let’s get into the direct cynical use the Israeli government makes of the academia, in order to further its propaganda.

[Limited by my translation]:

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So How Do I Look? – Zionist Self-Righteousness in the Face of Delegitimization

Sabra and Shatila / Gaza 2009

In 1982 Ariel Sharon enabled the massacres in refugee camps, Sabra and Shatila. To Israel, this was a disaster. Not because innocent human beings, already victims of a mass ethnic cleansing, were brutally murdered, but because, for the first time, Israel was suffering a major wave of criticism from the international community. How does one untangle from such a nasty debacle? No! One does not apologize, compensate, and bring the guilty parties to justice! Instead, one creates one of the most successful and unscrupulous PR systems in the 20th century.

Lately, however, it seems there are cracks in the system. One might conclude, that Hasbara isn’t as airtight as it used to be, and maybe it needs a bit of a facelift. Either that, or we could say, one may be overlooking some facts. Continue reading “So How Do I Look? – Zionist Self-Righteousness in the Face of Delegitimization”

Defamation: In Search of Antisemitism

From "Defamation"

Last month, PULSE published Yoav Shamir’s film, Defamation. I’ve finally gotten around to  watching it, and just couldn’t help writing as I watched. Aside from the comical Nancy Drew music, I found it at times very hard to watch. Looking in the mirror is never easy.

The Easy Part – The Adults
There’s something pathetic about a grown man living in unsubstantiated fear. Probably the most pathetic statement in the movie is made by the security guy at Crown Heights:

When a black guy sees two people walking down the street, a black person and a jewish person, his choice to attack someone will not be a black person. With a black person, you never know, does he carry a knife, does he carry a gun?..

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The So-Called “Concessions” of the Settlement Freeze

Palestinian reduced to biulding settler homes.

Remember the dramatics of the 2005 “disengagement” from Gaza? The emotional open letters, the stories of martyrdom, the binary of “good” and “evil”. This propaganda is standard procedure, in Israel, when it comes to the illegal settlements. It wasn’t enough that Obama caved from “We want to see a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth – any kind of settlement activity” to a 10-month construction freeze, not including “East Jerusalem”, or construction that is “already underway”, or schools, kindergartens, synagogues, or “public buildings essential for normal life in the settlements”. The Israeli government must make sure that this is seen as a “a far-reaching step toward peace”.

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The Buycott Campaign

Do you support Israel? Are you fed up with calls to boycott Israeli goods and services? Want to do something about it? NOW YOU CAN. Sign up for BUYCOTT ALERTS today.We’ll alert you when a boycott initiative needs to be countered, and we’ll let you know the results of every BUYCOTT action.

In a twilight zone, where an established state needs protection from grassroot communities, we have the Buycott campaign. Who are these people and how have they sprung up over night?

Encouraging Consumerism and Faking Tolerance
I got to the official Buycott page through Wikipedia, where two lines and two links were thrown together in haste, in order to give the campaign more Google juice. The site has a clean Getty Image-esque design, and considering how quickly this whole campaign was erected, I say touché to my opponents- you may not be worthy, but you know your shit.

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