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Month: March 2009

  • Israel’s New Government

    Here is the new government linuep, and here is Avnery’s analysis of Israel’s new government. Quotable quotes by Lieberman proposing nuking Gaza and drowning Palestinian prisoners in the Dead Sea, here, and here. Records on Lieberman’s conviction for beating up a boy who fought with his son can be found here.
    This will be interesting. Everything has consequences, and the scientific laws of causality, the literary insight of poetic justice, and the religious ideas of karma, or poked avon avot, the sins of one generation visited on the next, all have their place here. The sins of suicide bombing in Jerusalem gave rise to Netanyahu the first time, which in turn destroyed the peace process and caused the Intifada of 2000, which in turn gave rise to the Wall and the imprisonment of the West Bank and Gaza, which in turn gave us the rocket …

  • BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS: Women Cleaning the Mess Men Have Made of the Holy City of Hebron

    THIS LETTER FROM ELANA ROZENMAN:

    February 26th, 2009
    TRUST- WIN visit to “Cordoba” school, Hebron

    The ongoing conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians in the aftermath
    of the violence in Gaza and southern Israel has put a strain on the ability
    and willingness of many Israelis and Palestinians to engage in
    peace-building activities. In that context last Thursday morning a group of
    Israeli women (Jewish and Christian) set out from Jerusalem with enthusiasm
    and some trepidation to meet with Reem Alshareef who is the Muslim director
    of the Cordoba school in the H2 area of Hebron which is under Israeli
    control. For pictures, press here and search under ‘Women Hebron’.
    The Israeli women were from the left, the right, and the center politically.
    All of them are in our wonderful book “Sixty Years, Sixty Voices: Israeli
    and Palestinian Women” (www.sixtyvoices.org) One was an Armenian Orthodox
    woman who is a …

  • Nonviolent Noncooperation in Palestine and Israel: The Time Has Come for Arabs and Jews

    I just published this essay in the Common Ground News Service:

    Non-cooperation can bring a revolution to the Holy Land
    by Marc Gopin
    26 March 2009

    WASHINGTON, DC – It is time for a mass movement of nonviolent non-cooperation and resistance amongst Palestinians-because everything else has failed. I have hopes that the Obama Administration will be the best yet in moving the parties toward resolution, but in my heart I have always felt that there is one path to peace that has never been adopted, and that is the path of nonviolent non-cooperation – but with love – the way of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

    This is something that a number of Palestinians within Israel and Palestine have tried through nonviolent marches, protests, and food boycotts, but it has never received full backing because it only works when it is adopted as the only means of resistance.

    This …

  • Jewish Confessions of Atrocities Hit the Israeli Press

    Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques – IDF fashion 2009

    Testimonies on IDF misconduct in Gaza keep rolling in

    ‘Shooting and crying’

    Israeli journalists are reporting on the stories out of Gaza becoming more and more horrible as Israeli troops confess more in the public. Of course what is amazing to the rest of the world is that what they saw with their own eyes through Al Jazeera and other news outlets, Israelis and Jewish reactionaries did not see on their Fox-exclusive television sets–nor believe. Furthermore, if anyone in the world had Palestinian friends and actually believed them then the revelations now come as no surprise. I and my friends were in mourning and shock as it was happening, because we have seen the deterioration in the Israeli psyche and feared the worst. And also some of us in this world actually have Palestinian friends. It is rare in the …

  • TURKEY’S RETURN TO GLORY

    This article just appeared in Today’s Zaman and in Zaman which is Turkey’s preeminent journal. As you can see this has been part of my ongoing efforts to introduce and encourage far more intermediaries in the Middle Eastern conflict who can be effective, trustworthy and more even handed that Western intervention. This is meant also to encourage the United States, Hilary Clinton, and others to follow the lead of where the most moderate voices of the Islamic world are going. This is also a development of my work in Syria which has encouraged cultural revival that is peace-oriented, practical and visionary at once.

    Turkey’s return to glory
    by
    Marc Gopin
    For reasons of history, culture and geography, there is a surprising opportunity for Turkey to assume a position of central global leadership in the 21st century and thereby further all of its legitimate national interests.

    This is shocking considering the

    …

  • Gaza, Recognition of Hamas, and Peace: A Discussion at the Wilson Center

    We held a good discussion, heavily attended, at the Wilson Center, together with Dr. Robert Pastor and Mr. Leo Kramer on Gaza and Hamas. Here is the video of the event. All of us were in agreement about the need for serious engagement with whoever is in charge of Gaza. This was decidedly different than other opinions also expressed at the Wilson Center by Robert Satloff and Ephraim Inbar.

    It is hard to know what is really going on right now behind the scenes in relations between the United States, Israel, the PA/Fatah and Hamas. Whatever can lead to breakthroughs in my mind is the path forward. Whether it be on prisoner exchange, release of Barghouti who by all statistics could become a unifying leader of Palestine, or a way to break the inhumane blockade. I remain dubious about forcing Hamas to concede to conditions in advance rather …

  • U.S. Shuns Hamas Representatives; Another Attack in Jerusalem; Round and Round the Cycle Goes

    Al Jazeera English interviewed me the other day on American intervention so far in Gaza. Here is the story:

    The United States is set to pledge $900m for the Palestinians at a donors’ conference in Egypt, but only a third of that will go towards reconstruction in the Gaza Strip and none of the money will go to Hamas, who rule the territory.

    Robert Wood, a spokesman for the US state department, said the US would pledge $300m at Monday’s conference on reconstructing Gaza, to meet “urgent” humanitarian needs in the territory after Israel’s military onslaught in December.

    Wood said the $300m would be funnelled through the UN and other organisations.

    “Hamas is not getting any of this money,” Wood told reporters in the Egyptian coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheik, where Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, arrived on Sunday on the first leg of a week-long trip to

    …

  • Resistance with Love: The Only Hope for Palestine

    Everything has failed in terms of Israeli and Palestinian relations for almost a hundred years. There will be more and more negotiations, and I have hopes that the Obama Administration will be the best yet in really moving the parties toward resolution. But in my heart I have always felt that there is one path to peace that has never been trod and fully adopted, that is the path of nonviolent noncooperation and resistance but with love, the way of Gandhi and King. I will develop this idea more in the coming months, but this is something that a number of Palestinians inside Israel and inside Palestine have tried, but it has never received the backing of the Palestinian National Movement. On the contrary it was suppressed because it only works when it is adopted completely as the only means of resistance.

    This is not about fairness or whether Palestinians …

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