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Tag: Netanyahu

  • Unite, Confuse, and Inspire: Creating a More Inclusive Atmosphere in Israel

    Reflecting on 2010, it’s clear that racism in Israel has reared its ugly head. A recent poll published by the Israel Democracy Institute found that only 51 percent of Israelis support equal rights between Jews and Arabs, while 53 percent think the state should encourage Arabs to emigrate from the country. Thepoll also established that Jewish Israelis find the idea of living next to an Arab more troubling than any other minority, and that in the event of war, 33 percent of Israelis support the idea of putting Arabs into internment camps.

    In the last few months, these findings were given concrete expression in a number of incidents. These include:

    A religious ruling signed and endorsed by 50 state-appointed rabbis forbidding Jews from renting or selling apartments to non-Jews. “Racism originated in the Torah,” said Rabbi Yosef Scheinen, head of the Yeshiva in Ashdod and one of the endorsers …

  • A Toast for Peace: Thoughts from Roi

    Roi Ben-Yehuda, a Ph.D. student at ICAR, is an Israeli writer based in the U.S. He is a regular contributor to Haaretz and France 24. He also writes his own blog, RoiWord. This article of his, which discusses Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announcement to pass a bill banning alcohol from kiosks and gas stations as well as limit its sales and advertisement, was published recently.

    A Toast for Peace
    By Roi Ben-Yehuda

    netanyahu

    A couple of weeks ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced his intention to pass a bill that would ban alcohol from kiosks and gas stations as well as limit its sales and advertisement. The purpose of the bill is to reduce the seemingly rising level of violence and road accidents inside Israel.

    The subject of violence and alcohol has been recently seared into the consciousness of Israelis when a group of inebriated teenagers attacked a family of three at

    …

  • An Israeli Answer to the Jewish Right Wing Attacking Barack

    We stand at a crossroads of Jewish and Israeli attitudes to the United States and especially to its President, and it could lead to an important moral reckoning. Read here this excellent article by Gershom Gorenberg, one of the most insightful voices in Israel. It is one of the best arguments yet that the blind support for settlement expansion is the greatest danger to the Jewish people and to Israel itself. I have always found it ironic that so-called patriots from the United States to China to Russia to Israel to Serbia have always thought that by abusing others they are protecting their country, standing up for their country. But the opposite is true, as Sun Tzu in The Art of War understood over two thousand years ago. The settlements are and always have been an act of theft and abuse. How can they be pro-Jewish? To build a settlement …

  • 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 …

  • Encountering Peace: Bibi or Tzipi, Bibi and Tzipi – what does it really matter?

    Gershon Baskin’s provocative title is absolutely right, it does not appear to matter anymore which coalition will rule Israel next. The fact is that Olmert had a bigger mandate than Livni or Netanyahu to pursue the peace process, freeze the settlements, and uphold all the commitments Israel made in Annapolis. And he failed at all of them, and instead unleashed a horrifying set of wars in Lebanon and Gaza that have left Palestinians utterly shell shocked. So why not add fuel to the fire with a Lieberman-inclusive government that traumatizes the rest of the Palestinian people who have resided in Israel since 1948, who never left the land, and who have been isolated by everyone ever since, despite their absolutely peaceful resistance to injustice? Despite the fact that by a vast majority of 75% the Arabs of Israel would support a democratic constitution for Israel that also kept it a …

  • A Penetrating Analysis of the Israeli Electorate

    Uri Avnery, in his regular column for Gush Shalom, has an important analysis of the Israeli elections that is well worth reading. I will react to his comments in the coming days. Here are excerpts:

    The results of the elections are not as clear as they might seem. The victory of the Right is not so unambiguous.

    Central to the election campaign was the personal competition between the two contenders for the Prime Minister’s office: Livni and Netanyahu (or, as they call themselves, as if they were still at kindergarten, Tzipi and Bibi.)

    Contrary to all expectations and all polls, Livni beat Netanyahu. Several factors were involved in this. Among others: the masses of the Left were terrified by the possibility of Netanyahu winning, and flocked to Livni’s camp in order to “Stop Bibi!” Also, Livni – who was never identified with feminism – remembered at the last

    …

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