Israel
Top Zionism picks make perfect Shabbos read
BEV GOLDMAN
Bev Goldman is the doyen of South African Zionist communicators – having spent almost a decade at the helm of the SAZF’s communications department, producing the FedSpeak newspaper and running Media Team Israel.
To keep Report readers current, Bev scans dozens of op-ed pieces in SA and the world media on Zionism so that she can offer us her weekly pick of the best and most interesting, challenging and positive Zionist reading. Bev is also deeply involved in Zionist education.
Opinion & Analysis, Week ending 9 April
1. The end of the modern Middle East?
Gabriel Scheinmann, inFocus Quarterly Journal, Spring 2014
Just as the concept of self-determination eventually led to the greatest period of peace in Europe’s history, the Balkanization of the Middle East, while violent at present, could lead to a more peaceful region in the future.
2. Blaming Israel for the collapse of the peace negotiations
Isi Liebler, Candidly Speaking, 6 April 2014
Throughout the entire “negotiating” period, the Palestinians refused to make a single concession. Instead, they intensified incitement against Israel by hailing the released mass murderers as national heroes, providing them with pensions and glorifying their ghoulish murders on PA controlled television.
3. South Africa and Israel: A mandate for more engagement
Arthur Lenk, Daily Maverick, 6 April 2014
Spending eight months in South Africa leaves one observing in wonder the similarity between the extreme and often contradictory ways in which South Africa and Israel are often viewed. While much is obviously different between today’s South Africa and Israel, in many emotional ways there are similarities. In more concrete ways, too, it is clear that we have much to gain from each other in seeking ways to further develop a relationship that is in reality much deeper and meaningful than some people think.
4. Kerry’s wishful thinking killed peace process (Interview)
“The lesson is very clear. The Palestinian war on Israel is not due to Israel’s policy or Israel’s size. It has to do with the existence of the Jewish state, which leads to the most fundamental misperception and error here.”
5. Anti-Zionism: Heir apparent to Nazism?
Steve Apfel, Jerusalem Post, 4 April 2014
How far does anti-ZIonism depart from a political movement? Does it claim to explain the past and present and predict the future? Has it a body of beliefs, of premises and facts that liberate anti-Zionists from reality? Is it taught ad nauseam?
6. Palestine & Israel: two-state, one-state, Jewish state, no state
Abdallah Schleifer, Al-Arabiya, 3 April 2014
Since Israel to date has recognized the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority only as the voice of the Palestinians and not as representatives of a Palestinian State, demanding recognition in return would be a sly move and the responsibility would then fall in Israel.
7. Twelve questions about the “peace process”
Rich Richmond, Commentary, 2 April 2014
The history of the “peace process” is now several stages past tragedy and farce. The side that supposedly wants a state won’t discuss one without compensation to do so; won’t accept a state as an end-of-claims solution but only as a stage in a continuing attempt to “return” to the other one; won’t agree that “two states for two peoples” is the goal of the process, much less explicitly recognize a Jewish state.
8. The real ‘Jewish State’ story
Ben-Dror Yemini, The Times of Israel, 1 April 2014
As long as the Palestinians stubbornly demand the ‘right of return’, which is tantamount to an end to the State of Israel, the insistence on recognition of a Jewish state is basically an insistence on the solution of two states for two peoples.
NOTE: The views expressed in certain articles are
not necessarily those of the SA Zionist Federation
