gdp's Comments

Mondoweiss : many American journalists can tell you the BEST Israeli cab driver, restaurant, neighborhood,

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:19:40 +0000

If you read Norman Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (UK: http://bit.ly/myOIB ; US: http://bit.ly/2g2bJ7 ) you'll find the one instance of disagreement about a single event between Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B'Tselem he was able to find in perusing all their reports. In terms of their reporting and conclusions, there's (mostly) little rational reason to prefer one above the others. (In fact, Finkelstein has directed most of his recent ire towards HRW, for being too pro-Israeli owing to their sources of funding.) In the NYT, I refer you to the two volumes I mentioned in my above comment:

There's also the recent volume from Verso: Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East http://bit.ly/YuKSw .)

I often find reading the NYT a slightly amusing exercise, particularly in areas I'm knowledgeable about (I can give you the citation for an article by some pissed-off musicologists, if you wish...). Addendum: I think I'd recommend most books on Verso's understanding Israel-Palestine list: http://bit.ly/VersoIP (pdf).

Mondoweiss : many American journalists can tell you the BEST Israeli cab driver, restaurant, neighborhood,

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:09:54 +0000

There's also the recent volume from Verso: Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East http://bit.ly/KAGMr . (It's a sequel to The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy http://bit.ly/YuKSw .)

Mondoweiss : Playwright David Zellnik on that 'huge figure,' Theodor Herzl

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 06:28:54 +0000

Well of course Herzl didn't envisage Modern 'Hebrew': all civilised people speak German; - thus that was the only possible language in his Altneuland. And Herzl's 'solution' to the 'Arab problem' has many things in common with what eventually happened; in the words of L.M.C. van der Hoeven Leonhard (my emphasis):

The existing landed property was to be gently expropriated, any subsequent resale to the original owners was prohibited, and all the immovables had to remain in exclusively Jewish hands. The poor population was to be worked across the frontier ‘unbekempert’ (surreptitiously), after having for Jewish benefit rid the country of any existing wild animals, such as snakes. This population was to be refused all employment in the land of its birth.

Indeed, I think Herzl's vision becomes the most clear in the following passage from Altneuland, in which the protagonists meet the members of Herzl's New Society (summarised by Gabriel Piterberg):

Asked by Loewenberg what he is working on, the narrator remarks that ‘the scientist’s eyes grew dreamy’ and he replies: ‘the opening up of Africa’. When the perplexed Kingscourt repeats the statement, the professor explains that it has to do with finding a cure for malaria. ‘We have overcome [malaria] here in Palestine’, he says, ‘thanks to the drainage of swamps, canalization, and the eucalyptus forests. But conditions are different in Africa. The same measures cannot be taken there because the prerequisite — mass immigration — is not present. The white colonist goes under in Africa. That country can be opened up to civilization only after malaria has been subdued. Only then will enormous areas become available for the surplus populations of Europe. And only then will the proletarian masses find a healthy outlet. Understand?’

Mondoweiss : Meet two young Palestinians who cannot leave Gaza to accept scholarships

Sat, 4 Jul 2009 08:06:59 +0000

And people bleat about the evils of an academic boycott of Israel...

Mondoweiss : Meet two young Palestinians who cannot leave Gaza to accept scholarships

Sat, 4 Jul 2009 08:04:33 +0000

[mindless national jingoism] Actually, Norway beats Sweden (according to the UN) - Sweden has had too much of a love affair with neoliberalism lately... [/mindless national jingoism]

Mondoweiss : Israel lobby in action: the 'LA Times' once stifled Hezbollah story out of piety for Israel's founda

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 03:45:18 +0000

Dear me... what I don't like is the horde of ill-educated 'prescriptivists' who think language operates according to the definitions found in abbreviated dictionaries. 'Literally' has been used as an intensifier for figurative or metaphorical speech since the 1760s, and such usage is perfectly correct English. It was only in the 20th century that ignorant grammarians took offence at that and other examples of good English, and started 'correcting' them (and thus, the English language was molested by generations reared on the ramblings of Messrs. Strunk & White...). http://bit.ly/pXqXH

Mondoweiss : The Yes Men say no to the Jerusalem Film Festival

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 02:03:11 +0000

There's, inter alia, the 'Jewish Internet Defense Force' - whose web page is so hilarious I had difficulty at first believing it wasn't a parody. If you've read Glenn Greenwald on the faux warrior delusion one can find among the columnists at Commentary, National Review, &c., you'll recognise the symptoms. (I'm not going to link; you can find them easily enough through Google.)

Mondoweiss : 'I think this is the most emotional event I've ever done' (Naomi Klein in Ramallah)

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:06:07 +0000

Wow. I just listened to her talk and, if possible, I admire her even more. On the intellectual level, she sees the history of colonialism and its underlying economic motivations; on the personal level, she ends with a remarkably forthright statement on, and apology for, why it took her so long to join the call for BDS. Either she's an amazing actor (re the claim of opportunism), or she's a person of unusual integrity. I think it's the latter.

Mondoweiss : 'I think this is the most emotional event I've ever done' (Naomi Klein in Ramallah)

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:56:47 +0000

There's a streaming version here: http://palcast.org/2009/06/705.

Mondoweiss : Naomi Klein in Bil'in: Boycott Israel

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:35:22 +0000

Michael Palin participated in the Palestine Festival of Literature (see, e.g., http://bit.ly/ZoyU2 ), as did a number of well-known European authors (especially British). The highly popular Swedish author Henning Mankell (http://www.henningmankell.com/) was scathing in an article he published afterwards in a major Swedish newspaper. (English translation: http://bit.ly/tIj2t . The original Swedish had a more direct and angrier feel to it.) I suspect him taking such a public stance might have had an effect on his many loyal Swedish readers. So: things are happening, but one might not notice them in the U.S. :)

Mondoweiss : Your lobby at work: Americans helped insert new condition, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 05:20:18 +0000

Oh yes, that perfidious imperialist English plot by which England captured Scotland through James VI of Scotland inheriting the Crown of England from Elizabeth I - the Scottish Parliament even had the cheek to pass an Act of Union! Surely the most evil of all of England's imperial ventures, we can all agree. As for the rest, you missed the point about the Norman Conquest, didn't you? (The Crown Dependencies of the bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey, for example have as their head of state the current British Sovereign because the Norman kings of England were already Dukes of Normandy, and the bailiwicks refused to recognise the French Sovereign's right to strip King John of England of his land and title as Duke of Normandy. English imperialism at its worst, again.) Just to clear up an additional constitutional matter: the title of Fidei Defensor is separate from (and, in its original grant, pre-dates) the Sovereign's position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. I'm sure you're fully aware of the fact that the C of E is separate from the (established) Church of Scotland (the Kirk, among friends) and the (non-established) Church in Wales.

Mondoweiss : Is Obama going wobbly on settlements?

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:16:26 +0000

I once visited Ariel's website, in particular its pages aimed at prospective American olim... Just sickening. It left me with very little sympathy for any of the arguments made in favour of the settlers, to put it mildly.

Mondoweiss : The 'special vocabulary' of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the US media

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:00:21 +0000

As Le Monde diplomatique's interesting map ( http://bit.ly/1a88HK ) illustrated, the situation is much more complex than just West Bank/Gaza. And, of course, the waters between the islands of Hawaii are under its own sovereign control, a rather different situation from Palestine's. There are a few rather amusing instances of two countries having a patchwork of exclaves/enclaves between them - but Israel'Palestine does not equal Belgium/The Netherlands. (And, at least the last time I visited, there are few checkpoints between St. Peter's Square and the other parts of the Holy See in Rome...). As regards the Falklands and Alaska, there is the issue of distance: it is rather more plausible to expect to have to take a plane/cross through the territory of another country when such vast distances are involved. (And, I believe, those Americans insistent on travelling from the lower 48 to Alaska per pedes Apostolorum will probably find that the most significant formal barrier is the re-entry criteria imposed by the U.S.) Furthermore, the Falklands constitute a UK Overseas Territory, a rather different beast from, say, Scotland;)

Mondoweiss : How the sausage is made - a report from the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Oper

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:45:01 +0000

Banana republic with nukes is the usual term, I believe.

Mondoweiss : On a Gaza beach, they smoke the hubble-bubble and yearn for a connection to the world

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:25:01 +0000

You can see the wishlist of (physical) books from Gaza here: http://bit.ly/YoIaD As regards databases, I suspect the basics such as JSTOR (which, incidentally, is non-profit and operates two special 'Access Initiatives'. In my estimation, Gaza should be eligible for the Developing Nations Access Initiative (the West Bank is listed as being in the 50% international fee category, which seems steep to me) - I'd happily join any campaign to have Gaza receive free access). Indeed, the non-profit databases may be where it's most easy to find a solution - many of the commercial databases are ludicrously expensive (you don't even want to know what up-to-date subscriptions to the most famous scientific journals cost)). It seems the point I'm working my way to regarding electronic databases is this: someone should coordinate with the relevant Gazan institutions to construct a prioritised list, and then we should all go shamelessly begging;) - even the big commercial publishers are feeling the pressure these days as regards discounted/free access for needy institutions (I know people who have worked on this in connection with African universities).

Mondoweiss : How the sausage is made - a report from the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Oper

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:53:20 +0000

No transcript? Doesn't that (in conjunction with the other issues) pretty much mean 'meeting in secret'? For that matter, since 2003 the transcripts from the 1953 secret meetings of the McCarthy committee have been available, but the 2009 budget mark-up will apparently never be available. Democracy marches ever on...

Mondoweiss : http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/my-entry-1.html

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:18:26 +0000

Remember that those who died on 9/11 were almost immediately eulogised as 'heroes' - Habermas was famously baffled. See, e.g., David Simpson, 9/11: The Culture of Commemoration, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Mondoweiss : Rep. Donna Edwards, meet Cynthia McKinney

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:08:37 +0000

I don't usually evaluate politicians by what their security guards say (or don't say). As for the substantive part of your post, she sounds like a fantastic politician to me. (And, pray tell, what do school vouchers in D.C. have to do with the Israel/Palestine question? (And what, incidentally, was the position of D.C.'s pseudo-representative on the question?))

Mondoweiss : Report from Gaza: 'We are a human experiment'

Mon, 8 Jun 2009 10:05:37 +0000

That's quite useful - thanks for the link. The book, however, is published by the great left-wing Pluto Press, which we should all support - so go and buy:) (The latest edition also has forewords by Edward Said, Norton Mezvinsky, and Ilan Pappe, which are worth reading.)

Mondoweiss : Report from Gaza: 'We are a human experiment'

Mon, 8 Jun 2009 09:51:48 +0000

You certainly have a point regarding the ongoing nature of the Nakba (it's a point discussed quite cogently in Lila Abu-Lughod and Ahmad Sa'di (eds.), Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). On the other hand, one can note the atrocious manner in which many Holocaust survivors were treated by Israel - one wonders if it really ever ended for many of them. In many ways, it points to a culture in which only vicarious, rather than real, suffering is valued...