Posts Tagged ‘Israel’
Meanwhile In Israel.
People across the Middle East are annoyed at their rulers and Israelis are no exception, Dissent explains why:
“WHAT IS happening in Israel? As usual, no one expected, no one predicted, the massive uprising of Israel’s young people—joined last Saturday night by large numbers, amazing numbers, of their parents and grandparents. What started as a demand for affordable housing has turned into something much bigger. I can only watch, and cheer, and try to figure out what’s going on. Here are four “takes” on the uprising.
…”
Update 1: I had, naturally, assumed that the Guardian coverage of these events, which started about three weeks, would be given the expected negative spin, but the coverage is fairly good, that is in between non-stories and piffle like this, Israeli spy claims over Christchurch earthquake and Israeli orchestra to perform Wagner in Germany at Bayreuth opera festival.
All the same rather surprising, given the Guardian’s clear anti-Israeli bias.
Israelis set up tent cities in protest at housing costs.
Israelis take to tents in housing protest – in pictures.
Government alarm at citizens’ revolt as tent protests spread.
Update 2: Lisa Goldman had been following things and saw this:
Update 3: According to the JC, Netanyahu forms panel to tackle tent city unrest.
Politicians across the world are so similar, major problems, form a committee, fob people off. I can’t see that working with younger Israelis.
Paid To Get Shot?
I think anyone that follows the Middle East would appreciate how the despots and dictators in that region have manipulated, exploited and used the Palestinians as a political football, for their own purposes, but even I was surprised at this story in the Guardian:
“Israeli troops have clashed with protesters on the Syrian border for the second time in less than a month, with several dozen reported injured and claims that up to 20 had been killed.
The violence had been widely predicted after organisers called for a symbolic March on Israel to mark 44 years since the beginning of the six day war in 1967.
However, the clashes were smaller in scale than the last time pro-Palestinian activists confronted Israeli soldiers along borders with Syria, the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon.
The Syrian village of Majd al-Shams was again the focal point with an estimated 1,000 Syrians and Palestinians surging to within 20 metres of the fenced off border over six hours. They threw stones and molotov cocktails at Israeli troops as snipers fired rubber-coated bullets and live rounds at some activists,
…
One demonstrator who was wounded that day told the Guardian the Lebanese militia Hezbollah had given him $50 to turn up at the border and $900 to have his gunshot wounds treated by physicians. He said he had been planning to return to Maroun al-Ras yesterday until the rally was cancelled.
…
But as the Syrian government’s brutal crackdown on protests show, protesters are only allowed to gather when the state allows them. The Golan area of Syria is off-limits without state permission.”
Thoughts On The Middle East.
Blake Hounshell looks at events in the Middle East in a critical way, and I think he’s correct, that Netanyahu will do nothing. Any halfway competent statesman would realise this is an opportunity to grasp, but not Netanyahu. The only quality he has an abundance is mediocrity, which will doom Israelis and Palestinians to more misery:
“Even more awkward for the United States, Netanyahu is due to visit Washington in a few days in what will likely be one long exposition of the words, “I told you so.” If he is smart, he will announce a serious plan for peace and get out ahead of the most serious threat to Israel’s security since the 1973 war. If he is true to form, he will use the opportunity to double down on his argument for the status quo.
President Obama has planned two speeches for the coming week: one for Thursday, billed as a disquisition on the Arab Spring, and another an address at the AIPAC conference. With George Mitchell’s resignation, the peace process is officially dead. The Arab street now understands its power — people clearly aren’t going to sit around quietly waiting until September for the U.N. General Assembly to pass a resolution recognizing a Palestinian state. The BDS movement (“boycott, divestment, sanctions”) is gaining steam internationally. There will be more marches, more flotillas, more escalation, more senseless deaths.”
Netanyahu, A Complete Failure.
I really should be blogging on other subjects, the repression in Bahrain, murder in Syria and why does Ed Miliband look like such a weak leader, etc
From the corner of my eye I have been following events in the West Bank and the progress towards Palestinian statehood, which I fully support.
Along with that has been my bemusement at the Israeli government response: incoherent, belligerent and inept.
Fortunately, I find I am not the only one that has noticed Benjamin Netanyahu’s complete failure to tackle these issues politically, in any mature way. Instead Netanyahu stands like a modern King Canute, arguing against the inevitable in a sour and unhelpful fashion.
Snoopy sees the problem as well:
“The last time that the skies smiled at Binyamin Netanyahu was, probably, when Shimon Peres asked him to form the next government, after Tzipi Livni had despaired of her chances to win the support of the Knesset majority.
Since that day it all went downhill for him. Overtaken by the events, outmaneuvered on the right and (less) on the left by his frisky coalition partners, Bibi seems to be continuously surprised by what is happening in the world in general and in the Middle East in particular. Since his Bar Ilan speech, where Bibi announced his support for two state solution, which in fact wasn’t the first time for an Israeli leader (Sharon has already done it) and was made under pressure coming loud and clear from the White House, Bibi is drifting with the flow of the current events, all his moves no more than feeble responses to the outside irritants.
So far the Palestinian leadership appears to be much more adept and sophisticated in manipulating the world’s public opinion as well as in gaining the all around political and diplomatic support. The growing number of the governments that recognized the Palestinian state is the best indication of the failure of Bibi’s “wait and respond” behavior. ” [My emphasis.]
PS: Readers will remember I am no fan of Netanyahu or his racist ministers.
Update 1: Jeff Goldberg ponders the incredibility stupid notion of an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran’s nukes:
“I asked Alon Pinkas, a former diplomat and military correspondent, what he thought of Dagan’s speech. He said: “Dagan believes that high-technology-based covert operations are far more effective and carry significantly less risk in terms of possible ramifications and consequences than an air strike.” He went on, “He is also genuinely warning against what he thinks would be a reckless military action underlined more by political expediency than by a cost-effective analysis.” “
Vittorio Arrigoni And The Need For The Geneva Accords.
No one should sneer or joke about the death of Vittorio Arrigoni, rather our humanity should make us think of why it happened and what the alternatives are.
The continued violence in the Middle East only brutalises people, it desensitises them and makes any settlement harder to achieve.
The on-going conflict in the Middle East is a political problem and requires political solutions, not military gung-honess, attacks on buses or the murder of Vittorio Arrigoni.
Such a political solution is the Geneva Accords.
These accords try to balance the wants and desires of all parties, and endeavour to find reasonable compromises to these seemingly intractable problems.
For peace in the Middle East a degree of realism is needed on all sides, no one is going to vanish or go away, so a modus vivendi must be found.
The Geneva Accords offer an outline of a settlement and should be given greater prominence in light of Vittorio Arrigoni’s death, lest nihilism and the status quo linger on, leading to further killings and the brutalisation of so many more.
Avigdor Lieberman: Fraud, Money Laundering And More.
Mostly, when blogging I try not to concentrate on personalities, but in the case of Avigdor Lieberman I will make an exception.
Lieberman is obnoxious, xenophobic and an authoritarian politician.
The fact that he will be indicted shortly should surprise no one.
Lieberman seems fairly representative of much of the Israeli political class, useless, self absorbed and only interested in short-term personal and political goals.
Certainly it is perfectly possible to blame most of this on the absurd implementation of proportional representation within Israel, where small or extremist parties, such as Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu, have a disproportionate influence, but there is more to it than that.
Nowadays, coalitions in Israel often function by the lowest political common denominator, only what can be pushed through without upsetting minority or extremist parties goes ahead, creating a wider political lethargy and an incredibly conservative approach to running a country.
We can see part of this problem in the continued allegations of corruption against leading Israeli politicians which have come about in the last few decades.
We should not forget that Netanyahu’s first premiership was brought to a close when there was a corruption investigation into him and his wife’s dealings. Subsequently, charges were dropped for the lack of evidence.
A previous PM, Ehud Olmert was under investigation for corruption for years, which led to him stepping down. Readers probably know of many more examples.
Haaretz has more:
“Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein is expected to announce Monday or Tuesday that he intends on filing an indictment against Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on charges of fraud, money laundering, and breach of trust.
A draft indictment will be handed to Lieberman’s attorneys and he will be granted the right to a hearing to try to prevent the indictment.
…Over the past several weeks, Weinstein has been refining the wording of the draft indictment, which was the subject of much debate among those composing the document.
The discussion between the State Prosecution and the Attorney General regarding Lieberman’s case continued for more than a year and a half, since the head of the police investigations and intelligence division, Yoav Segalovich, recommended putting Lieberman on trial.
Segalovich recommended indicting Lieberman on charges of bribery, fraud, money laundering, breach of trust, witness harassment, and obstruction of justice.
Police believe that he received more than NIS 10 million in bribes from businessmen including Martin Schlaff and Michael Chernoy. The money was allegedly laundered via a series of shell companies and fictitious bank accounts overseas.
The police also recommended indicting Lieberman for breach of trust in the case of Israel’s former ambassador to Belarus, Ze’ev Ben Aryeh, who showed Lieberman secret documents from the investigation against Lieberman. “
I do wish that Israelis would follow the example of others in the Middle East and throw out their useless and rotten political leaders.
Twitter, The Middle East And Racism in Italy.
I find Twitter very useful for keeping up with events.
Of course, there is the danger of too much information and keeping track of things is sometimes hard. Still, certain issues deserve scrutiny, so here’s a selection of a few things I came across on Twitter recently.
Racism in Italy, or in any part of Europe is not new but the HRW’s documenting of it makes depressing reading, as if no lessons have been learnt:
“Instances of horrific racist violence in Italy have been widely reported on in the past several years. Some of the more notorious incidents include the October 2008 brutal beating of a Chinese man by a group of youngsters as he waited for a bus in Tor Bella Monaca, a district of Rome that has seen numerous attacks on immigrants. In this case, the attackers shouted racist insults, such as “shitty Chinaman.”[75] Seven teenagers were arrested hours after the incident.[76]
In February 2009, two adults and a 16-year-old attacked an Indian man in Nettuno, near Rome, beating him and then dousing him with gasoline and setting him on fire.[77] All three were convicted without the aggravating circumstance of racial motivation.[78] In May 2009, a Senegalese actor named Mohamed Ba was knifed in the stomach as he waited for the tram in MIlan.[79] Ba’s aggressor has never been identified or apprehended, according to Ba and a close personal friend.[80]
The focus on of immigration issues for political ends in an increasingly diverse society has created an environment for open expression of racist and xenophobic sentiment. “A particular kind of language has been dusted off … making it so that openly racist expressions in everyday conversation don’t provoke any kind of concern,” according to Deputy Jean-Léonard Touadi.[81] Francesca Sorge, a lawyer in a firm that represents victims of discrimination and racist violence, agreed, saying that “phrases like, ‘You foreigners go away,’ are taken as part of the common lexicon of normal urban rudeness.”[82]”
The Disgusting Treatment Of A Palestinian Family.
Thanks to Lisa Goldman for highlighting the disgusting treatment of a Palestinian family in East Jerusalem, Haaretz reports:
“Right-wing Israelis are expected to move into a room in an East Jerusalem Palestinian family’s home on Monday, after a court sided with their claim.
The Hamdallah family and American millionaire and settler patron Irving Moskowitz have been fighting an 11-year court battle over the home. Now, authorities are expected to force the Hamdallahs to evacuate a room and their yard to make way for Israelis, who are likely to encumber their neighbors’ day-to-day routine.
The yard leads to the home’s entrance.
The Hamdallah home abuts Ma’aleh Zeitim, an enclave of 100 Jewish families encircled by a wall deep in the East Jerusalem neighborhood Ras al-Amud. Nearby, a construction project that includes 14 housing units for Jewish families in what was once the West Bank police headquarters is nearly done.
The home and Ma’aleh Zeitim are on land that was purchased by Moskowitz in 1990. The American acquired the property from Chabad and the Volhynia Hassidic dynasty, who proved they owned the land before 1948.
The Palestinian family has lived in the area since 1952. Through his representatives and emissaries in Israel, Moskowitz has waged a multi-year legal battle to evict the family.
…Sixteen Palestinians live in the disputed home. A couple and a child live in the bedroom that the court ordered vacated.
“Three people live in this room,” said Khaled Hamdallah, a family member. “We don’t know what to do. I don’t even care anymore. I feel like dying. They want to throw us out completely. The police is with them, the judges are with them. So what’s the point?”
“The settlers used a trick,” said Lecker. “Geva submitted an affidavit [to the bailiff] that does not match the court’s ruling. They will evacuate the room and bring in a family and two armed guard. I think [the settlers] want to make their lives hell until they finally are forced to leave.” “
Boycott Cancer.
Let’s hope we can all boycott cancer, and if you ever see it up close you wouldn’t wish it on anyone, even your worst enemy.
So the next time someone tells you to boycott a country which has world-class research into anticancer drugs you will know what to say.
That country is, of course, Israel, the JP has more:
“Tel Aviv University researchers claim to have developed an experimental drug used in a polymer delivery system that may make it possible someday to prevent cancer or turn malignant tumors into a chronic disease with which one could live for years.
The basic scientific discovery – which was carried out in mice and would take years to reach patients, if it reaches them at all – was published in the online edition of the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). It is yet another attempt to use drugs to stop angiogenesis – the production of new blood vessels that in this case nourish a tumor – with new a new polymer delivery system that brings drugs directly to the tumor.
Dr. Ronit Satchi-Fainaro and colleagues at TAU’s Sackler Medical Faculty’s department of physiology and pharmacology and in the Free University of Berlin maintain that the experimental drugs do not harm healthy tissue, and that less chemotherapy is needed and fewer side effects are involved because of direct delivery to the cancerous tissue.
“It’s a breakthrough,” said Satchi-Fainaro on Channel 2 Wednesday.
The drugs are claimed to contain gene silencers of the siRNA type that fought the tumor cells by preventing angiogenesis without being toxic to the healthy cells in the mice. Satchi-Fainaro suggested that people who are not ill with cancer but are at high-risk to contract it because they carry mutant genes could eventually receive prophylactic treatment. “
(H/T:Jook Elshout)
Red Mist, Arm Flapping And Its Consequences.
I don’t know what happened in the middle of the night with the flotilla, and until more information comes out I’m reserving judgement.
I hadn’t wanted to post for a few days. I am not really in the mood and I hoped that some concrete facts would emerge, eventually once the recrimination and counter recrimination had died down.
Nevertheless, I feel rather compelled to blog, to record certain attitudes I have recently seen in Europe and Britain which don’t bode well, and to think where they might lead.
Firstly, at any one point there are hundreds of conflict going on in the world, yet what we actually see in the West and how much we are told is rather rationed.
For example, we see very little about Chinese brutality against the Tibetans.
We don’t hear about how Tibet is run and who benefits, nor do we hear much in the mainstream media that would really upset China’s powerful rulers.
There are various reasons for this, the timidity of the media, the fear of consequences, not forgetting the censorship and travel restrictions imposed by the Chinese ruling elite, etc etc.
Equally, we could look at parts of Afghanistan and the aftermath of drones blowing up civilians, or old village men killed in the night, fearing for intruders but instead being shot by American special forces, etc etc.
Not forgetting Turkeys’ continued conflict with the Kurds. You would be hard put to find much coverage, of the recent bombings by the Turkish government, there is the piece in the Western media on how Turkey jails children, but overall the coverage is fairly small compared to the true nature of these conflicts.
And so on.
There’s plenty of conflicts, lots of death, in the Congo, the Sudan and elsewhere, however, they don’t hold peoples attention in the West for very long, there might be a fleeting mention but nothing significance.
And the reactions that you find in the West to death in Africa, Turkey, China, or parts of Asia is one of resignation, “almost that nothing can be done and so why bother”?
There are a few activists who valiantly carry on reminding people in the complacent West of the wider world, but it’s an uphill struggle and doesn’t really have any “political sexiness”.
So you don’t see violent reactions when Turkish planes bomb Kurdish villages, killing dozens of civilians. Nor do you see much reaction when China locks up Tibetans, or executes them, etc etc
There’s not much reaction, but should something closer to home pop-up then what you see is completely different.
An attitude of almost hysterical arm flapping takes hold.
You begin to hear demagogic language and political hyperbole which is normally reserved to describe the events in the 1930s and 1940s. Still worse, much of this inflammatory language is dare I say it, borderline racism.
You know what I’m referring to, the indignation which has recently taken on a fever pitch in the West concerning the conflict in the Middle East.
You might even sympathise with one side or the other, but what you will notice if you take the trouble, is how it almost blots out the hundreds of other conflicts which go on in the world and don’t involve Europeans or Brits.
Now I’m not accusing anyone of being Eurocentric or only being concerned with the welfare of British nationals, but the language used recently to describe events I would say is at the very least, unhelpful and much of it seems to embody unconscious racism.
By that I mean, the fevered language which is used at the moment against Israelis, would never be invoked to discuss the French, the Germans, etc.
I have seen otherwise intelligent people throw around the word “Nazi” and “Fascist” as if they had never read a history book, or understood the need to use temperate language when referring to other nations and groups of people, lest bigotry creeps in.
A red mist has descended across the eyes of many Europeans and Brits, normally considerate individuals indulge in inflammatory language towards Israelis, make statements that they wouldn’t even consider using against the Turkish or Chinese governments.
Along with that red mist has been arm flapping.
Such arm flapping is, in some respects, understandable from a very European and British perspective, after all it is their nationals which are involved, and although it is regrettably how it happens, events in the world are often portrayed as having greater significance when Brits or Europeans are involved.
However, the arm flapping and hyperbole that follow often have a more localised consequence, that Jews in Britain and Europe are more liable to be attacked.
Whilst I’m sure that none of the chattering classes or media types, who helped to heighten the political temperature in Europe and Britain, would wish there to be any attacks on Jews, that is what will probably happen.
Such red mist, arm flapping and vocalising of animosity towards Israelis invariably has a more direct consequence, physical attacks on Jews increase.
That’s what happens.
Of course, those carrying out the attacks on synagogues or Jews in the street don’t really care about human rights in the Middle East, etc, nevertheless they feed off of the anti-Israeli frenzy which is currently going on in Britain and Europe.
So the next time you hear the word “Israeli” and a red mist descends before your eyes, just before your arms start flapping, please try to think of the consequences, please try to think of how your actions and words may help someone else justify his attacks on Jews in Britain and Europe.
Still better, try to use the temperate language that you naturally favour when discussing the French, Germans, other nationalities or your own.
Think, before you open your mouth, think of the consequences.
Like Other Countries.
Independence Day was yesterday. Israel’s Independence Day and for once I was at a loss to think of what to write. How do you sum up such a complex country? And such a difficult history in more than one way?
So I was grateful to read, belatedly, a piece by Howard Jacobson, one of my favourite columnists:
“Fanatical and uninformed anti-Zionism of the sort that peppers the letters pages of serious newspapers has much to answer for morally and intellectually, but the most serious charge against it is that while it satisfies the self-righteousness of its propounders, it does little to help those it calls victims, and still less to persuade those it calls oppressors.
Weary of the one-sidedness of international condemnation, successive Israeli administrations have turned away and pursued their own course, confident at least that America will go on winking at the obduracy into which it has been backed. With every misattribution of motive, with every lazy libel, that obduracy has grown stronger. As an observer one can feel it hardening one’s own heart. Malign misrepresentation leaves no room for subtle dialogue. Thus, many who would have been critical of the occupation in their own terms – which does not mean seeing it as Hamas or Ahmadinejad see it – are deflected from the real conversation and must expend their energies confuting the prejudices of scoundrels.
…
Allowing that tomorrow is a terrifying place, we can take some hope from this. An Israel treated like other countries, held accountable for its political, not its supposed aetiological or genetic failings, is a country from which much might be expected, including peace.”
[My emphasis.]
A Kassam Rocket.
Kassam (or Qassam if you prefer) rockets are still being fired at Israeli civilians from Gaza, one has just killed an immigrant worker in Israel, the Jpost has more:
“Israel warned of a harsh response on Thursday afternoon after a Thai greenhouse worker was killed when a Kassam rocket fired by Gaza terrorists hit the Netiv Ha’asara area.
The man, in his 30s, was evacuated to Ashkelon’s Barzilai Hospital, where doctors were forces to pronounce him dead.
A small Islamist faction calling itself Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack.
In a statement e-mailed to reporters in Gaza, the al-Qaida-inspired faction said the attack was a response to Israel’s “Judaization” of Islamic holy places in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the West Bank.
Vice Premier Silvan Shalom warned that the attack would lead to a strong reaction, and said that Hamas was ultimately responsible.
“It is severe escalation,” said Shalom. “Israel will not return to the situation of before Operation Cast Lead. The response will be particulate fierce…I hope Hamas will learn a lesson.”
The attack came on the same day as a visit to Gaza by Europe’s top diplomat, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who had just crossed into the territory when the rocket was fired.
…
On Wednesday, two Kassam rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip, landing not far from Sderot.Two people suffered from shock as a result of the blast, one of them a girl. They were treated by an MDA team and evacuated to a shock treatment center.”
The Guardian: ‘Brits harvest organs’.
Yes, that is a sensationalist title and although the Guardian did not use it, it might have, had Brits been Israelis.
In another example of dodgy journalism coming out of the Guardian, they originally chose to run a by-line of “Israel admits harvesting Palestinian organs.”.
It was subsequently changed, but the Guardian’s original headline was rather revealing of the prejudices found at that newspaper. In the article you will notice that the pathologists took organs from nearly everyone.
But that alone would not make a sufficiently dramatic headline, nor does it point out that the Israelis themselves brought up this issue and investigated it in a TV programme. The evidence is a bit obvious as the sources are written in Hebrew, and I am sure that even Guardian journalists realise which nation has that as its language?
The problem is, that the Guardian did not make any effort to give this story any context because that would require a degree of objectivity and journalistic competence from the Guardian, which it does not have around the subject of Israel or Israelis, so instead the article is used to slate Israelis.
It could have simply said, that there were insensitive and clumsy pathologists extracting organs from dead bodies that crossed their paths, including Israelis, IDF soldiers, etc.
However, that would not have been enough to make it into an issue for a national paper, so it was dressed up to have a quick swipe at Israelis along the way.
This is territory where we have been before.
Older readers will remember that British doctors did this very same thing, but with children.
Even though the activities at Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool caused outrage, I doubt the Guardian would have run an article entitled “British harvest organs of young children”.
That is the type of headline more suitable for tabloids or other rags.
In fact, the Guardian has a section dealing with the Alder Hey issue, but contrast their carefully considered language there, as opposed to the startling by-line that sought to indict Israelis and only Israelis for this practice.
Rather than merely criticise pathologists involved the Guardian attempted to widen the accusation against all Israelis.
That is the problem, the Guardian can write considered and thoughtful articles on the Alder Hey scandal, but when a similar situation arises in Israel it is used as a political stick to beat Israelis with, and any notion of thoughtful journalism is thrown out of the window.
I do wish the Guardian would ditch these prejudices and go back to quality journalism.
Anyone interested in the history of Alder Hey children’s hospital and the organs removed from children, without permission, should read the Royal Liverpool Children’s Inquiry Report summary of key findings and the main recommendations, with the fuller findings here.
Update 1: Organ removal and the illegal storage of the body parts are still an issue in Britain, as the Torygraph reports:
“More than 200 hospitals have been instructed to account for all the organs and human tissue being held in mortuaries and pathology labs, because of concerns that body parts are being stored illegally, without the consent of bereaved relatives.
The HTA has ordered the probe after finding five cases in which bodies which had been examined for post-mortem were released for burial or cremation without their brains.”
Update 2: A section at the Scotsman newspaper shows how important this issue is as an on-going problem and the natural distress that it causes parents and families.
Update 3: The BBC news site has a piece from 1999 concerning Bristol hospital:
“The Bristol Childrens’ Heart Action Group, a parents’ campaign group, says the hospital removed and retained the hearts of at least 170 hearts from children who died in operations over a 12-year period.”
Also, Organ removal: the legal background from 1999 too.
Update 4: I came across a version of this story on msnbc, but it seems that the feed could have come directly from AP. It is possible that the Guardian “tidied” it up before publishing. Astute readers will notice the wording here, compared with the AP story:
“Israel has admitted pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians, and others, without the consent of their families – a practice it said ended in the 1990s – it emerged at the weekend.”
The Guardian could have written “a practice that ended in the 1990s”, but rather they chose “…a practice it said ended in the 1990s…”. Insinuating that it is not a fact, just that it was “said”. Same old tricks.
Update 5: If you want to see how the racists come out and use this topic you need to look no further than this Anthony Lerman article.
Update 6: Yaacov Lozowick has more:
“Antisemitic allegations almost always start from some grain of fact. What makes them antisemitic (or even merely slander) isn’t the original grain of truth but the edifice built on it. In the Rostom blood libel earlier this year the slander was that IDF forces were regularly killing Palestinians so as to harvest their organs. The grain of truth uncovered here (which actually isn’t news at all, it has been known in Israel for years, which is one reason Hiss no longer heads the Abu Kabir institute) has nothing to do with those allegations, and doesn’t substantiate them in any way.
Actually, what we’ve got here is a fine litmus test to discover antisemites. Anyone who spins the true story in the direction Rostom took it are essentially setting themselves up. They need to be asked why they took that particular grain of truth in that particular direction.”
Will They Boycott Antibiotics?
The onward march of science must be an eternal frustration to the anti-Israeli, pro-boycotter crowd.
No sooner have they tried to demonize or attack some Israelis, than one of those smart Israelis produces a major scientific development.
So it is with Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. She has just won the Nobel prize for chemistry, shared with two other academics who have made a breakthrough in the study of DNA and ribosome.
As the Times puts it:
“The research is also helping the design of antibiotics to treat people who are infected with a bacterium that has developed antibiotic resistance, for example, some of the strains of bacteria that cause tuberculosis.”
I wonder if anti-Israeli types will be boycotting the medical treatments that come out of Professor Yonath’s work? I seriously doubt it.
In other news, that anti-Israeli fanatic,Vanessa Redgrave, shows just how lazy bigots like her truly are? She argues ‘ “Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages.” True. ‘, little realizing how false that statement is. Tel Aviv was build in 1909 on sand dunes.
It takes a certain mentality to be so ill informed on the Middle East and in particular Tel Aviv, founded under Ottoman rule, long before 1948, but then again anti-Israeli types are often not too concerned with facts, science or basic history.
ModernityBlog 