There are only three cases where people can use "apartheid" linked to Israel:
Where they are totally ignorant about South Africa and what apartheid meant and means.
Where they are ignorant about Israel, from the foundation of the state and till today.
Where they are themselves racist anti-Semites (very often, but not always, self-hating guilt-ridden Jewish people) who have a pathological need or desire to delegitimize Israel.
It seems that many former South Africans were so well trained by their racist masters in South Africa that they cannot but remain slaves to the racist ideology inherent in anti-Semitism.
It appears now that the pro-active (and rightly so) Jerusalem Van Leer Institute has given itself over to this racist anti-Semitic ideology by allowing a conference linking Israel to apartheid to take place there soon.
A conference on "Discrimination in Israel" would be welcome, just as would a conference on, say, gun-control in the USA or paedophiles in Belgium or Islamophobia in Holland. The problems exist and must be discussed openly.
But titling the upcoming Van Leer Institute conference "apartheid" in Israel is comparable to smearing all Dutch people as Islamophobes. By giving their imprimatur to the racist title...More >>
It's about time the world woke up from its collective self-induced fantasy that terrorism is something that happens to other people, notes Jonathan Danilowitz.
The kidnapping/hostage episode in Algeria that has grabbed world headlines this past week is apparently over. Hard facts are scarce. The numbers of dead, injured, released, still being held and still missing fluctuate with the wind, and depending on news sources.
One thing though, is clear: Anyone who thinks that Arab terror is aimed exclusively at Israel or Jewish targets (or at Americans and USA targets) – has ignored the writing on the wall. At the remote In Amenas gas plant, Arab terrorists with an axe to grind against Western interests that include France, Britain, USA, Japan (and even Algeria) apparently took hundreds of hostages, and then made various demands for their freedom.
I recently began a computer driven course run by Duke University, for external students. The course subject is basically how to argue, how to use language tools, how to identify false premises, how to respond, what key words to look for – stuff like that. Besides the lectures and exercises, the course also offers students a series of discussion groups, some of which include the lectures, working groups, problem solving and more. One of the discussion “groups” is open to any and every subject, so someone began a discussion on the Arab-Israel conflict.
Yes, the Arab-Israel conflict is being discussed by students in a course on the tools of arguments. At first sight it might even seem logical; use the tools of argument on this thorny issue. The opening premise presented by the ‘someone’ immediately took an anti-Israel slant. I looked forward to a high level intellectual debate, until I saw the level of some of the arguments: “facts” created by thumb sucking, theories based on false premises and biased media reports, and even offerings on the level of “the Jews use the blood of innocent Christians...More >>
When last I heard (about 8 days ago – just before the Gaza/Israel conflict flared up), about 40,000 Syrians had been killed by their own government. About 35,000 are apparently still missing. (Shades of President Assad’s father when the senior Assad was also President, and massacred some 25,000 Syrians at Hama when he brutally put down a Muslim Brotherhood rebellion in 1982. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.) Thousands more Syrians have fled the country seeking refuge in Turkey, Jordan and even Lebanon.
Yet Syria has disappeared completely from the media map. I’ve not heard or seen any TV, newspaper or radio reports that mentioned Syria since the terrorists in Gaza starting firing rockets at Israel in earnest.
Speculation is rife now as to why the Gaza conflict suddenly flared up. “Bibi (Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu) wanted it for vote catching”. “Ditto Ehud Barak” (Israel’s Minister of Defense). “President (of the Palestinian Authority) Abbas needs the war to strengthen his position vis-à-vis Hamas”. “Both the Arabs and Israel see the war as a mechanism to jump-start their economies”. “Hamas needed to revive its image”. Etc. etc. etc.
Last Friday afternoon marked a new watershed in the escalating Arab/Israel conflict surrounding Gaza. For the first time since the 1967 6-Day War, rockets were fired at Jerusalem (or to be exact – a rocket).
My friend Joe Z., a long-time Jerusalem resident, had just taken his little boy out to play in the park when the air-raid sirens began. They took cover and waited for the explosion before going to back to play. (Yes, it sounds, and is, surreal – from bombs to play in less than 10 minutes. Believe me – it isn’t easy, but we do it. Life goes on).
“I couldn’t understand why I kept hearing more ‘rockets’ until I looked over towards the Old City and East Jerusalem," Joe said. "The fireworks display was amazing – and horrifying. The Palestinians were out in force on the rooftops celebrating the possibility that Jews might have been killed, that a bomb might fall on the Holy City. We heard the music, the laughter, the shouts of joy. I was aghast at their unrestrained ecstasy at the tragedy that might have been – that they hoped might still be. My little boy...More >>
Try to imagine this: You’re at home in your airy apartment in Vancouver, Houston, Brisbane or Milan, watching the game on TV, reading the newspaper, rustling up dinner or perhaps helping you kids with their math (ugh!) homework. Suddenly the shrill scream of air raid sirens shatters the peace. A mistake, you think – some idiot pressed the wrong button – until the TV announcer says: “We interrupt thisbroadcast to announce that …”.
The sirens are real. Don’t even try to imagine it.
For the first time in your life you understand the true meaning of “paralyzed with fear”. Thoughts rush by. “This can’t be happening. Where did we put the gas masks dammit? What are we supposed to do now?” And even: “I don’t want to die”.
It happened to me in Tel Aviv on Thursday evening. Tel Aviv! Not Kandahar, not Baghdad, not even Hanoi. All day I’d heard the news broadcasts about the terrorist rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel, but the Israel that is 50, 60 and 70 kilometers away from Tel Aviv. Civilians killed and injured, terrible property damage, daily life completely disrupted. Somehow – somehow – that was in another world, on...More >>
Here in Israel we had been grinding our teeth for days, wondering why the IDF didn’t go in to Gaza and blast the terrorists each to their 72 virgins awaiting them in the next world. Rockets and bombs rained down on our civilian populations, yet the IDF hardly responded. We puzzled at the formidable restraint demonstrated by the army. We were perplexed by the forbearance of our soldiers.
On Wednesday the IDF finally returned fire. But not before the army, the ethical army, distributed thousands of leaflets warning Gazan civilians to stay clear of terrorist centers – the targets of the IDF’s “Pillar of Cloud” campaign.
In a carefully planned and deadly accurate maneuver the army first removed the snake head: Achmed Ja’abri, the Hamas leader with the blood of dozens of Israelis on his hands, was targeted and killed. Then followed aerial attacks on weapons factories, stores and rocket launch sites, including dozens of underground sites. Military reports confirm that as usual, many of the weapons stores are in residential areas. The Arabs know that the IDF will do all...More >>
Here in Israel we had been grinding our teeth for days, wondering why the IDF didn’t go in to Gaza and blast the terrorists each to their 72 virgins awaiting them in the next world. Rockets and bombs rained down on our civilian populations, yet the IDF hardly responded. We puzzled at the formidable restraint demonstrated by the army. We were perplexed by the forbearance of our soldiers.
