Sionismo

The Secrets of ‘The Gatekeepers’

http://consortiumnews.com/2013/02/05/the-secrets-of-the-gatekeepers/

February 5, 2013

“The Gatekeepers,” a new documentary, records the views of the Israeli security officials most responsible for suppressing Palestinian resistance and their growing doubts about the strategy of endless repression. But even this criticism glosses over the depth of the problem, writes Lawrence Davidson.

Norman Finkelstein talk

GREAT TALK, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Norman Finkelstein with Chris Hedges, 6 December 2011 – Audio

Recorded at the James A. Little Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on December 6, 2011

Norman Finkelstein received his doctorate in 1988 from the Department of Politics at Princeton University. For many years he taught political theory and has written and spoken publicly on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Finkelstein is the author of six books that have been translated into more than 40 foreign editions: This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion; Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History; The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering; Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict; A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth (with Ruth Bettina Birn); and The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years. Finkelstein has also published several pamphlets, most recently, Goldstone Recants. He is currently working on a new book entitled Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Love Affair with Israel is Coming to an End.

Finkelstein currently writes and lectures. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website

Right click here to download.
Length: 2:08:14; Size: 61.6 MB

Jewish exodus from Israel

"There have been studies originating both in Israel and abroad that show “as many as half of the Jews living in Israel will consider leaving … if in the next few years the current political and social trends continue.”

Israel’s Jewish Exodus | Consortiumnews

consortiumnews.com

Hard-line Israelis reject the idea of reasonable compromises for peace, arguing that any significant concessions to Palestinian sovereignty would threaten Israel’s security or the Zionist cause, but Lawrence Davidson notes that demographic trends, including a growing Jewish exodus from Israel.

Nation article on the new Israeli activism

http://www.thenation.com/article/159164/new-israeli-left

Jews and Palestinians marching and protesting together in non-violent struggle, the way it should be.

The New Israeli Left | The Nation

www.thenation.com

Activists march side by side with Palestinians against the wall and the occupation.

The story of Sami Al Jundi, truly amazing and inspiring

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/israeli-prison-tahrir-square

From An Israeli Prison to Tahrir Square

Michaelramallah/Flickr

One Palestinian’s odyssey in a Middle East ablaze.

— By Jen Marlowe

As pro-democracy demonstrations sweep across the Middle East, ousting dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, many in the West have expressed surprise that such a strong, sophisticated vision of a democratic future is being articulated by ordinary citizens and grassroots movements in the Arab world.

I have not been surprised. Sophisticated organizing for democratic reform and justice has a rich legacy in the region. In fact, watching anti-Mubarak demonstrators taking to the streets en masse to demand true democracy, freedom from repression, and the right to be stakeholders in their own political and civil systems caused me to reflect on my friend Sami Al Jundi, a Palestinian from the Old City of Jerusalem who has spent the last two decades working for peace and a nonviolent end to Israeli occupation. He is, in many ways, a product of that legacy.

Israeli peace movement targeted by Israel government

Israel Represses Israelis and Congress Approves

By Stephen Zunes, December 28, 2010

It’s been two years since Israel initiated the “Operation Cast Lead” military assault on the besieged Gaza Strip. Since then, the right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has launched an unprecedented wave of intimidation against Israeli peace and human rights groups. These groups say they are “working in an increasingly hostile environment,” according to a New York Times report, and that Israeli government leaders are fostering “an atmosphere of harassment” by turning “human rights criticism into an existential threat.”

Más de diez mil judíos marcharon en Tel Aviv en repudio a la masacre perpetrada contra la flotilla de la paz. Pero los medios- los de la derecha y de la izquierda por igual- no han dicho nada. La derecha presenta a Israel como la víctima mientras que gran parte de la izquierda acude a un anti-semitismo ignorante y peligroso.

Naomi Klein: Oppose The State, Not The People

By Yotam Feldman - July 2nd, 2009

Published in Ha'aretz

NOTE: Ha’aretz made a translation error in a previous version of this article. This is a corrected version [correction in bold].

Ramallah's intellectual elite, foreigners and curious spectators gathered last Saturday at the Friends School in Ramallah to hear writer and political activist Naomi Klein lecture to a packed auditorium.

Following a musical interlude by a string quintet, one of whose members is blind, Klein took the stage. She chose to speak in Ramallah about her Jewish roots.

"There is a debate among Jews - I'm a Jew by the way," she said. The debate boils down to the question: "Never again to everyone, or never again to us?... [Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free card...There is another strain in the Jewish tradition that say, 'Never again to anyone.'"

It seems that during her brief visit, which began last Thursday night, Klein has not rested for a moment. Straight from the airport, she set out for a tour of Highway 443 that runs through the West Bank between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, connecting them to Modi'in and the adjacent Jewish settlements.

She went on to the demonstration against the separation barrier at Bil'in, where there was a press conference on the civil suit in Quebec against Green Mount and Green Park, two Canadian companies that are providing construction services to the Jewish settlement of Upper Modi'in.

In the evening she attended an event at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem.

At the beginning of this week, Klein went to the Gaza Strip, where she interviewed residents. Wednesday she appeared at the Almidan Theatre in Haifa.

Since her 1999 book "No Logo" become an undisputed textbook of the anti-globalization movement, Klein, 38, has lectured at hundreds of meetings around the world. A celebrity journalist, political activist and commentator, she came to Israel to launch the Hebrew translation of her latest book, "The Shock Doctrine" (Andalus Publishing).

Klein, who supports an economic and cultural boycott of Israel as pressure to end the occupation in the territories, thought long and hard about publishing her book in Hebrew, as well as visiting Israel. She finally decided to issue the book with Andalus Publishing, which specializes in Arabic literature, and to contribute her royalties to the press. Klein and Andalus publisher Yael Lerer carefully planned Klein's itinerary in Israel to avoid the impression that she supports institutions connected to the State of Israel and the Israeli economy.

"It certainly would have been a lot easier not to have come to Israel, and I wouldn't have come had the Palestinian Boycott National Committee asked me not to," said Klein in an interview before her arrival, at her Toronto home. "But I went to them with a proposal for the way I wanted to visit Israel and they were very open to it. It is important to me not to boycott Israelis but rather to boycott the normalization of Israel and the conflict."

READ THE REST:
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/07/naomi-klein-oppose-state-not-people

This wonderful piece about a Palestinian farmer was published two years ago in GRAIN's Seedling magazine. But today it remains every little bit as timely.

Sharif Omar

Sharif Omar is a farmers’ leader in Jayyus, a small Palestinian village in the West Bank. Jayyus is not far from the green line – the border between Israel and the West Bank established in 1948. When the Israeli government began to build a concrete wall to separate Israel from land in the Occupied Territories that might eventually become a Palestinian state, they did not follow the green line. They routed it in such a way as to embrace the illegal Israeli settlements, and in the process hived off a good deal of Palestinian farmland. Jayyus is one of the villages that the wall has cut off from its people’s farms.

It is impossible to say how long we have lived in Jayyus. The farms have been handed down for generations, and there are huge extended families. The farms next to my land belong to my cousins, and the land beyond that to more distant cousins. Jayyus is an old village. Archaeologists have found stones from Roman times and clay and glass pots from Roman or even Greek times. Some of my olive trees are thought to be more than 1,000 years old. So we feel that we’ve always been here. Now, coming forward into my lifetime, as you know, in 1947 UN Resolution 181 gave the Palestinians 51 per cent of historic Palestine, and the Jewish settlers 49 per cent. Palestinians refused this because they possessed 92 per cent of the land at that time and the settlers possessed only 8 per cent. There were 600,000 settlers and 2.5 million Palestinians. The Palestinians were deceived when the Arab armies, led by Glubb Pasha, ordered them to put down their guns, saying they would fight on their behalf. There wasn’t really a battle, and the Israelis got 78 per cent of Palestine and left us 22 per cent. And now, if the Israelis achieve their plans with the wall, they will leave us approximately 13 per cent of Palestine, and it will not be in one place, it will be in five compartments. And Gaza will be separate, so I don’t believe that we will have a state if we have this wall.

To see the rest of the story:
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=474

URI AVNERY, A HERO FOR PEACE

Put quite simply, Uri Avnery is my hero. This former israeli paramilitary terrorist turned peace activist bravely stands up to religious extremism and zionist fanaticism. I read his book "Israel Sin Sionistas" twenty years ago and made me deeply inspired and hopeful. The fearless activism of Avnery and many other progressive jews in Israel show that the Israeli government does not speak for all jews, as it claims to.

Read his latest article:
http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/index.html
Here is his Wikipedia bio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Avnery
In 2001 he won the Right Livelihood Award:
http://www.rightlivelihood.org/gush_shalom.html

Protesting the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon:

On the Question of One-Sided Boycotts

January 21st, 2009

Read a letter exchange between Robert Pollin, co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, and Naomi on the question of one-sided boycotts.

Robert Pollin:
I strongly oppose Naomi Klein’s proposal to begin boycotts and divestment initiatives against Israel, similar to the approach used against South Africa in the apartheid era [“Lookout,” Jan. 26]. Klein anticipates four objections to her proposal and offers responses. But her list ignores the most important and obvious objection: it is entirely one-sided both in blaming Israel for the horrible cycle of violence in the region and in meting out punishment.

******

Naomi Klein Replies:

Robert Pollin believes that the biggest problem with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) strategy is that it targets only one side in the conflict. For Pollin, this is a conflict between equally guilty parties deserving of equal punishment. It is not. Israel is the party that displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, annexed more of their land in 1967 and continues to occupy the land today. Occupiers and occupied people do not share the same responsibilities, which is why the duties and responsibilities of an occupying power are laid out in the Geneva Conventions—laws Israel violates with impunity.

Even if I were to accept Pollin’s argument that any sanction should punish both sides equally, we face a rather large problem. How does Professor Pollin propose that we punish Gazans more than they are being punished already? In case he has failed to notice, there is already a fierce campaign of boycotts and sanctions under way, and it is completely one-sided. I am referring, of course, to Israel’s brutal eighteen-month siege of Gaza, launched to teach Gazans a lesson for voting for Hamas in US-backed elections. As a direct result of this siege, Gazans have been deprived of lifesaving medicines, cooking fuel and paper—not to mention food. This is far more than a mere boycott; it’s “collective punishment,” as described by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. By contrast, the kind of legal boycott being called for by the BDS campaign would deprive Tel Aviv of some international concerts and, if it really got going, would cost Israel some foreign investment. It would not starve and sicken an entire people. In this context of actual one-sided punishment inflicted on Palestinians, sanctioned by the so-called civilized world, to complain of one-sided boycotts against Israel is, frankly, obscene.

Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction

By Naomi Klein - January 8th, 2009

It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.

In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era." The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions—BDS for short—was born.

Anti-War Protests Grow in Israel

By TheRealNews.com
January 9, 2009

Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip has prompted public opposition from anti-war elements of the Israeli public – and counter-measures from right-wing groups and Israeli domestic intelligence agencies.

Protesters across the country have turned out in larger numbers than opposed the 2006 war with Lebanon and some have clashed with police in both Arab-Israeli and Jewish cities.

(The story summary continues below.)

Jesse Rissin Rosenfeld, a freelance journalist based in Tel Aviv and Ramallah, reports that the Israeli intelligence agency, Shabak/Shin-Bet, has been cracking down on dissenters.

TheRealNews.com is an independent news network that produces stories of global interest.

WAR OF CHOICE: How Israel Manufactured the Gaza Escalation

Steve Niva

Israel has repeatedly claimed that it had "no choice" but to wage war on Gaza on December 27 because Hamas had broken a ceasefire, was firing rockets at Israeli civilians, and had "tried everything in order to avoid this military operation," as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni put it.

This claim, however, is widely at odds with the fact that Israel's military and political leadership took many aggressive steps during the ceasefire that escalated a crisis with Hamas, and possibly even provoked Hamas to create a pretext for the assault. This wasn't a war of "no choice," but rather a very avoidable war in which Israeli actions played the major role in instigating.

Israel has a long history of deliberately using violence and other provocative measures to trigger reactions in order to create a pretext for military action, and to portray its opponents as the aggressors and Israel as the victim. According to the respected Israeli military historian Zeev Maoz in his recent book, Defending the Holy Land, Israel most notably used this policy of "strategic escalation" in 1955-1956, when it launched deadly raids on Egyptian army positions to provoke Egypt's President Nasser into violent reprisals preceding its ill-fated invasion of Egypt; in 1981-1982, when it launched violent raids on Lebanon in order to provoke Palestinian escalation preceding the Israeli invasion of Lebanon; and between 2001-2004, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon repeatedly ordered assassinations of high-level Palestinian militants during declared ceasefires, provoking violent attacks that enabled Israel's virtual reoccupation of the West Bank.

Israel's current assault on Gaza bears many trademark elements of Israel's long history of employing "strategic escalation" to manufacture a major crisis, if not a war.

READ THE REST AT http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5776

Mil Voces, Edición Número 38

Descargar (63:52 minutos, 29.24 MB)
Esta es la última edición de Mil Voces de 2008 y la primera de 2009. En ella compartimos una desgarradora crónica desde la franja de Gaza, sobre los impactos de los bombardeos de Israel, que al momento han dejado más de 2000 víctimas entre muertos y heridos graves. También repasamos algunas de las manifestaciones de solidaridad en diferentes partes del mundo. Desde Brasil testimonios y denuncias sobre el "genocidio" del pueblo kaiowá guaraní. Desde Argentina, balances y proyecciones sobre las posibilidades en el campo popular y las perspectivas de la lucha campesina con protagonistas de los movimientos y organizaciones populares.
» leer más

Day to day coverage of Gaza by World War 4 Report

http://ww4report.com/node/6621

In Tel Aviv, some 10,000 protesters gathered outside the residence of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to demand an immediate ceasefire. Ofer Neiman, one of the organizers, said, "Our main message is—'Children in Gaza and Sderot want to live.' We call not only for a ceasefire with Hamas, but for a comprehensive truce with our neighbors in order to resolve the core issues and find a way out of the cycle of bloodshed."

Among participants were also several residents of Sderot, a town which has been hit by Hamas rockets, who are members of the "Different Voice" organization, calling for dialogue with the Palestinians of Gaza. Some 500 Sderot residents have signed a petition calling to for Israel to halt the military campaign and renew the truce with Hamas. Sderot resident Arik Yalin said over 1,800 Israelis and Palestinians have already joined the petition. "About a month ago we realized that the situation was about to deteriorate into total chaos," he said. "It's important for us to voice an opinion that represents quite a few residents who live within the rocket range but who believe that we can, and should try to resolve this ongoing conflict in a peaceful manner."

Some 100,000 people also marched in Sakhnin, an Arab city within Israel's borders, led by Arab members of the Israeli Knesset Ahmed Tibi and Mohammad Barakeh. Barakeh told PNN, "This is the largest march in the history of Palestinians" within Israeli boundaries.

In another move, Israeli scholars and authors, including Amos Oz, Eli Amir and Avraham Yehoshua, issued a public statement calling on Israeli leaders for an immediate ceasefire. (Press TV, Iran, YNet, Israel, Gush Shalom, Israel, Palestine News Network, Jan. 3)

See our last post on Gaza

ZIONIST CENSORSHIP

PLEASE FORWARD TO YOUR MAILING LISTS & CONTACTS / FRIENDS

A Message from Howard Zinn
on behalf of the Committee for an Open Discussion of Zionism

Dear Friend:

As you may have heard, in late August of this
year, The University of Michigan Press, after
receiving a series of complaining and threatening
emails and letters from an ultra-Zionist group
called StandWithUs, an offshoot of Campus Watch,
withdrew from distribution Prof. Joel Kovel’s
book Overcoming Zionism, published by Pluto Press
in London, United Kingdom. Since then, following
numerous protests by fellow academics and
scholars, The U. of M. Press Executive Board has
restored the book to its distribution listings.
But, ominously, the Board has indicated its
intention to reconsider its contract with Pluto Press in mid October.

Overcoming Zionism is a serious, well researched
work espousing a humanistic resolution. It is a
valuable addition to the growing debate, in and
out of American academia, that is re-examining
long held assumptions about the sources of
conflict in the Middle East. It should be
discussed - supported or refuted – but not suppressed.

But even more serious is the University’s threat
to cancel its distribution contract with Pluto
Press. Pluto is a valuable and unique
intellectual resource, publishing progressive
books of a consistently high quality. It provides
an alternative viewpoint essential to discussion
and debate of important social issues, such as
those concerning Israel/Palestine and the Middle
East. The cancellation of Pluto’s contract with
the University would be a serious blow to the
principles of pluralism, academic freedom and free speech.

We urge you to add your voice to those of the
many professors and authors that have vigorously
protested these actions. We ask that you send a
letter or an email to U. of M. Press Executive
Board Chair Peggy McCracken with copies to
University of Michigan President Mary Sue
Coleman, Dean Janet A Weiss; and Provost Teresa
Sullivan, demanding that the University of
Michigan Press continue its contract with Pluto
Press. Further, we ask that you forward this
request for support and suggested support letter
to those on any list that you may maintain or have access to.

We have prepared a sample letter together with
email and postal addressees of University of
Michigan Press committee members below. Please
send this immediately, or feel free to compose
your own. Time is of the essence so please act quickly.

Thank you for your kind support.

Sincerely,
Howard Zinn
For the Committee for an Open Discussion of Zionism
www.CODZ.org


Please send your letters and emails to:

Professor Peggy McCracken
Executive Board Chair
University of Michigan Press
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
peggymcc@umich.edu

President Susan Coleman
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
presoff@umich.edu

Janet A. Weiss
Dean of the Rackham Graduate School and Vice Provost
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1070
janetw@umich.edu

Teresa A. Sullivan
Provost and Executive Vice-President for Academic Affairs
3074 Fleming Building
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1340
tsull@umich.edu

SAMPLE LETTER:

Dear Professor McCracken:

It has come to my attention that The University
of Michigan Press has recently withdrawn its
distribution of Prof. Joel Kovel’s book,
Overcoming Zionism and has indicated its
intention to review, and perhaps cancel, its
distribution contract with the publisher of Prof.
Kovel’s book, Pluto Press. It is my understanding
that these steps were taken immediately following
a barrage of complaints from a group called
StandWithUs Michgan, an offshoot of the notorious
Campus Watch censorship organization. I have
heard that distribution of Prof. Kovel’s book has
been resumed but that the Pluto Press contract
remains under a cloud.

Pluto is a valuable intellectual resource,
publishing critical and progressive books of
consistently high quality. It is a highly
respected alternative academic press. Its
discontinuation by the U.of M. Press would
directly inhibit people’s access to
non-mainstream material and would impede critical
thought, discussion and debate on important
issues, especially those concerning Israel/Palestine and the Middle East.

Further, the University’s suspension of its
distribution contract with Pluto Press under
these circumstances would constitute a flagrant
violation of the principles of academic freedom
and freedom of speech. I strongly protest against
any such move. My high regard for the University
of Michigan would be seriously diminished if such
a suspension took place and it would affect any
future relationship I might have with the University.

Sincerely,

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