Middle East Watch

476 Article

• More oddities in the U.S. "debate" over Israel/Gaza

  2 January 2009, by Glenn Greenwald

  This Rasmussen Reports poll — the first to survey American public opinion specifically regarding the Israeli attack on Gaza — strongly bolsters the severe disconnect I documented the other day between (a) American public opinion on U.S. policy towards Israel and (b) the consensus views expressed by America’s political leadership. Not only does Rasmussen find that Americans generally "are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the (…)

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• Marty Peretz and the American political consensus on Israel

  28 December 2008, by Glenn Greenwald

  Opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute are so entrenched that any single outbreak of violence is automatically evaluated through a pre-existing lens, shaped by one’s typically immovable beliefs about which side bears most of the blame for the conflict generally or "who started it." Still, any minimally decent human being — even those who view the world through the most blindingly pro-Israeli lens possible, the ones who justify anything and everything Israel does, and who discuss (…)

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• The History and "Morals" of Ethnic Cleansing

  by Victoria Buch

  I arrived in Israel 40 years ago. It took me many years to understand that the very existence of my country, as it is today, is based on an ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The project started many years ago. Its seed can be traced to the basic fallacy of the Zionist movement, which set out to establish a Jewish-national state in a location already inhabited by another nation. Under these conditions, one has, at most, a moral right to strive for a bi-national state; establishing a (…)

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• Il faudra toujours parler avec le Hamas

  par Esther Benbassa

  La tragédie qui se déroule ces jours-ci à Gaza et les tirs de roquettes incessants vers le sud d’Israël montrent une fois de plus que sous-estimer son ennemi n’aide pas à résoudre les conflits. Ni l’Europe ni les Etats-Unis, et encore moins Israël, n’ont voulu voir dans le Hamas une force élue "démocratiquement", quelles que soient par ailleurs sa nature et ses capacités élevées de nuisance. Frapper Gaza ne revient pas seulement à frapper le Hamas, mais aussi et avant tout des Palestiniens (…)

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• Living on Borrowed Time in a Stolen Land

  2009, by Gilad Atzmon

  Communicating with Israelis may leave one bewildered. Even now when the Israeli Air Force is practicing murder in broad daylight of hundreds of civilians, elderly persons, women and children, the Israeli people manage to convince themselves that they are the real victims in this violent saga. Those who are familiar intimately with Israeli people realise that they are completely uninformed about the roots of the conflict that dominates their lives. Rather often Israelis manage to come up (…)

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• Vivre en sursis sur une terre volée

  par Gilad Atzmon

  Ceux qui sont intimement familiers du peuple israélien réalisent que ce dernier n’est absolument pas informé des racines du conflit qui domine son existence. Assez souvent, les Israéliens en viennent à des arguments d’un genre bizarre qui ont tout leur sens dans le discours israélien, mais sont dénués de toute signification hors la rue juive. Un de ces arguments est le suivant : ’ces Palestiniens, pourquoi insistent-ils pour vivre sur notre terre (Israël), pourquoi ne s’installent-ils pas (…)

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• Logique de purification ethnique à Gaza

  5 janvier 2009, par Dominique Eddé

  Quel est le bénéfice attendu par Israël, au terme de cette énième entreprise de bombardement, "Plomb durci" ? Sécuriser les citoyens israéliens. Anéantir le Hamas. Connaît-on un cas de figure ayant prouvé, par le passé, que la méthode pouvait marcher ?
  L’opération "Raisins de la colère", accompagnée du massacre de Cana, au Liban, en 1996 ? Elle a renforcé le Hezbollah et s’est soldée par le retrait des troupes israéliennes du Liban sud en 2000. L’opération "Rempart à Jénine", au printemps (…)

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• Gaza: the logic of colonial power

  by Nir Rosen

  As so often, the term ’terrorism’ has proved a rhetorical smokescreen under cover of which the strong crush the weak.
  I have spent most of the Bush administration’s tenure reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia and other conflicts. I have been published by most major publications. I have been interviewed by most major networks and I have even testified before the senate foreign relations committee. The Bush administration began its tenure with Palestinians being massacred and (…)

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• غزة

  بقلم المطران جورج خضر

  أرهقتني فلسطين وأرهقها العالم. ولكن بدء المعالجة ان اسرائيل لا توحي الثقة ولا تريد نهاية لقتل أهل فلسطين لأنها غير مقتنعة عميقا بأي حل وغير راغبة في الدولتين. هناك قليل من الواقعيّة اكتسبوها حديثا لكنها بعد ترقب غير بطيء ترتاح اسرائيل الى شراستها لتدخل في عقلية الإبادة وتُطبّق على الناس ما طبّقه هتلر فيها. لا يذهلني أن دولة اسرائيل فقدت كل رحمة، ولكن ما يجرحني ان أحداً لا يؤدّبها او يصرخ في وجهها لعلها ترتدع وتقتنع ان إلغاء شعب آخر سوف يرتدّ عليها. أمنية قلبي أن تدخل اسرائيل في ملكوت الفهم (…)

    تتمة
  

• Israel’s Constant Crisis

  by Justin Raimondo

  As the Israelis continue to pound Gaza, killing Hamas cadre, traffic cops, and civilians alike, Americans shake their heads and wonder: why can’t they all just get along? Why must we be involved? The answer to both questions lies in understanding the peculiar nature of the Israeli state and its "special relationship" to the West, specifically the U.S.
  Defenders of the Israeli government and its policies often complain that Israel just wants to be treated as a "normal country," like any (…)

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