Zionism
Double-dose of Bev’s best reads this week!
BEV GOLDMAN
Opinion and Analysis
As usual, Bev serves up a spread of different media, multiple countries and various opinions of Zionism to choose from. The good, the bad and the ugly!
Bev brings them all. Download what you like for your relaxed Shabbos reading – many users tell us they do.
Opinion & Analysis, week ending 15 May 2014
1. Fighting terror the Israeli way
Special Correspondent, The Star-Kenya, 10 May 2014
No one understands terrorists’ motivations, and knows how to counter them, better than the Israelis. And the sooner Kenya taps into Israeli counter-terror knowhow, big time, the faster this country and region will begin the long journey to becoming a virtually terror-free zone.
2. How Israel’s dusty Zionist bureaucracy survives
Anshel Pfeffer, Jewish Daily Forward, 10 May 2014
Jobs for cronies — and ties to a deep-pocketed generous diaspora
3. Apartheid? Blame the Geneva Convention
Evelyn Gordon, Commentary Magazine, 8 May 2014
All occupying powers have given their own citizens more rights than the occupied noncitizens, from the British in India through the French in Algeria to the Americans in Iraq; yet none of these were ever labelled apartheid. Why should Israel be any different?
4. Palestinian Magical Thinking
The campaign to place pressure on Israel through activism on the international stage is the latest example.
5. UN replaces notorious Richard Falk – don’t expect changes
Anne Bayefsky, Fox News, 7 May 2014
No UN rapporteur on Israel could be independent. The 1993 U.N. job description says the mandate holder must investigate only Israel’s human rights violations. Investigating Palestinians is off limits.
6. BDS movement: Barbarians at the Gate – Part l
Dennis MacEoin, Gatestone Institute, 7 May 2014
The Nazis invented the Jewish boycott — and went on from there to the Holocaust. One might well ask if the boycotters’ real concern is the welfare of the Palestinian or actually, as it clearly appears, the obliteration of Israel. It is the wrong boycott in the wrong place at the wrong time.
7. BDS movement: Barbarians inside the Gates – Part ll
Dennis MacEoin, Gatestone Institute, 8 May 2014
These politically correct activists are all supposed to be anti-racists and multiculturalists. Yet when artists are banned just because they happened to be born in Israel, it tears apart the very basis of both anti-racism and multiculturalism.
8. Happy 66th birthday, Israel!
David Harris, Huffington Post, 6 May 2014
I have enormous admiration for Israel – for its resolve, resilience, courage, and ingenuity. What it has achieved in the past 66 years is breath-taking: the rebirth of a state with a rock-solid democratic foundation; the ingathering of millions of refugees and immigrants from just about every corner of the world; the creation of a world-class economy; the building of a first-rate army; and a determination to overcome one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after another.
9. The right way to press Iran
Kenneth Pollack, New York Times, 6 May 2014
The Obama administration should focus on three factors: conducting intrusive inspections, designing a mechanism to easily re-impose sanctions if Iran cheats, and extending the duration of the agreement.
10. The Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist organisations
Valentina Columbo, Gatestone Institute, 6 May 2014
“[T]he organization of the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization, and anyone who asks either to reconcile with them, to join them or to ally with them is himself a terrorist.” — Refaat Saïd, leader of Egypt’s Socialist party, al-Tagammu’, and previously close friend of former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide, Mahdi Akef.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the motto of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis is also the verse singled out by Hassan al Banna: “Fight them until there is no fitnah [discord], and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah.” [Qur’an, Sura VIII, verse 39]
The link between the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas is clear, and confirmed by Article 2 of the Charter of Hamas, which reads: “The Islamic Resistance movement is one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine”.
11. Why it is hypocritical to boycott Israel
Jake Wallis Simons, UK Telegraph, 5 May 2014
Later this month, I am planning to travel to Israel to appear in the Jerusalem literary festival. As surely as night follows day, I have received an “open letter” from a group of 71 activists calling themselves the British Writers in Support of Palestine (BWIP). They were, I was informed, “extremely disappointed” by my decision, and “respectfully encouraged” me to boycott the event. But I am honoured to have been invited to Israel, and will be proud to attend.
Opinion & Analysis, week ending 6 May 2014
1. Memorial Day in Israel
Friends, I wrote this a few years back, and I can’t think of a single word I’d add. I share it with you again. Every blessing, Naomi
2. Why (Israeli-Palestinian) negotiations collapsed
Alexander Joffe, Middle East Forum, 3 May 2014
Recognizing Israel as a Jewish state is, for Abbas and the Palestinian leadership, if not the majority of Palestinians, a declaration that Jews have historic rights as a nation and a people, not simply a religion. Such a declaration would end the conflict once and for all by mandating that a Jewish nation-state may stand alongside a Palestinian state. And for those reasons it was out of the question.
3. The tragic history of the two-state solution
Jeffrey Goldberg, San Diego Source, 2 May 2014
The Palestinians, and their appointed (or un-appointed) Arab representatives, have passed up numerous opportunities over an almost 80-year period to divide Palestine among its two native peoples, Arabs and Jews.
4. The heavens shine on Israel
David Weinberg, Israel Hayom, 2 May 2014
My net assessment of Israel’s strategic and internal situation is astonishingly optimistic. In overall perspective, Israel is stronger than any of its enemies. Neither the perpetual Palestinian conundrum, nor the acute Iranian threat to Israel, nor the unstable regional situation make me a pessimist. Nor do Kerry’s miserable prophesies
5. Note to the USA: We’re not children
The dispute between the Arabs and the Jews, between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and the story of the return of the Jewish people to their homeland, is unique and unparalleled in human history. The fact that the two sides are finding it difficult to reach a compromise and make the necessary “tough decisions,” to quote the U.S. president, should therefore come as no surprise.
6. Palestinian Unity: An awkward product of Israel’s indifference
Michael Bell, The Globe and Mail, 30 April 2014
My best bet is that the challenges confronting a unity government, lack of any real trust and the ongoing internecine competition for power will torpedo these efforts. We and the antagonists will be stuck with the no war/no peace reality that has perpetually dogged relations between Israelis and Palestinians and from which there seems no way out.
7. Moving beyond the doomed ‘peace process’
Amir Taheri, New York Post, 30 April 2014
The demand for a return to pre-1967 borders is bizarre, to say the least. In 1967, there were no borders, just ceasefire lines drawn in 1948 — lines that symbolized an unstable status quo that led to two wars. Going back to them means returning to a situation that breeds war, not peace.
8. Israel, Kerry is one of your best friends
Jeremy Ben-Ami, CNN, 30 April 2014
Friends of Israel should start by thanking Kerry for his commitment to Israel and supporting him as he seeks to break the present impasse in negotiations.
9. Palestinian-Israeli talks: time for a “time-out”
Shai Feldman, The National Interest, 29 April 2014
Given the importance that the exercise of leverage will assume in any successful recalibration of America’s approach, none of this will succeed without President Obama deciding that this is really a top priority.
The Views expressed here are not
necessarily those of the SAZF
