I envy the people who hate Israel

[dreamdancer 0]

from the israeli press...

Quote

There was a time when you could reasonably blame Israel's execrable public relations officials for much of Israel's bad press. No longer. No one can defend this anymore. There's too much that looks bad, and much too much of it is true.

Like so many of Israel's recent actions, the motives for the Dubai assassination are debatable. The negative impact is inarguable.

My heart goes out to the people who care about Israel. My wife, who cares about this country as deeply as anyone, was singing this morning, but with a smile I have come to recognize as a sign of pain. " ... And they call the state Pariah."

All those years of isolation, of quarantine, are coming home to haunt us. Now it turns out that the contempt for the rest of the world that it bred in Israeli Jews, extended to contempt for immigrant Jews as well.

The response of many Israelis to what appears to be officially sanctioned theft, exploitation, and ruin of the identities of immigrants to Israel, was terrifying in its good humor, with morning talk-show hosts making fun of their Hebrew, even as they made light of their plight.

There are times when I envy the people who hate Israel. There is no sense of betrayal, not a tinge of loss. Only simhah la'ed, a vengeful joy in our sorrow.

This is what I have learned about the government of this place, and many of the voters who put it there. Intelligent people who are too smart to be able to see themselves clearly, render themselves stupid.

And countries which cannot bear to look, even if they have good reasons, render themselves dangerous - first of all, to themselves.

This is not the country I first came to. But I still care about it, even if I know it may care much less than I would like, about me.

I have come to envy the people who hate Israel, because they cannot feel the tragedy in the phenomenal possibility, the depth and breadth of humanity that is going to waste here.

Someday soon, if only because Avigdor Lieberman is indicted for money-laundering in countries which hate us, this is going to begin to turn around. I believe that.

I have to.

My father did not flee the Soviet Union just so his son could one day have the chance to live in a place just like it.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1150799.html

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[Skyrad 0]

LONDON - A filmmaker, anthropologist and economic researcher are among those headlining events marking what pro-Palestinian organizers have declared as "Israeli Apartheid Week" - and all three speakers are Israeli.

University campuses in more than 40 cities around the world are marking the week with lectures, films, multimedia events, cultural performances and demonstrations.

Since they were first launched in 2005, the events have become some of "the most important global events in the Palestine solidarity calendar," according to its organizers.
Advertisement


Its aim, they state on their Web site, is to "contribute to this chorus of international opposition to Israeli apartheid and to bolster support for the boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) campaign."

Though many of the details about those events were not being promoted on the Apartheid Week Web site, it did list several events being offered by Israelis.

Among them is Shir Hever, an economic researcher at the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem, who is scheduled to give a series of lectures at the University of Amsterdam entitled "Could the Economic Policies of Israel be Considered a Form of Apartheid?"

In addition, Israeli activist and filmmaker Shai Carmeli-Pollak is screening his 2006 documentary "Bil'in Habibti," about Israel Defense Forces violence, at Boston-area universities.

Jeff Halper, the Israel-based professor of anthropology who is co-founder and coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, was scheduled to speak on "Israeli Apartheid: The Case For BDS" at Glasgow University.

The participation of several Israelis in the anti-Zionist events is "atrocious," said David Katz, a member of Britain's Jewish Board of Deputies who grew up in South Africa and has long fought the comparison between that country's racial segregation and Israel's ethnic divisions.

"They are free to do as they please, but it's atrocious," he said of the participating Israelis. "I think they don't understand the analogy they are making... which is insulting to those who suffered under apartheid."

"It's like calling things 'holocaust' which are not the Holocaust or terming something 'genocide' which is not genocide," said Katz.

As part of efforts to counter the Apartheid Week events, one Jewish charity brought over Benjamin Pogrund, a South African immigrant to Israel who is the former deputy editor of the Johannesburg-based Rand Daily Mail, to speak to British university students about why Israel is not an apartheid state.

"The game plan of those who seek the destruction of Israel is to equate us with South Africa, a pariah state which had to be subjected to international sanctions," Pogrund has said. "Israelis coming to take part in this week should know better."

In Canada, the legislature in the province of Ontario unanimously condemned Israeli Apartheid Week, voting for a resolution that denounced the campus events.

"If you're going to label Israel as Apartheid, then you are also... attacking Canadian values," Conservative legislator Peter Shurman told Shalom Life, a Toronto-based Jewish Web site.

"The use of the phrase 'Israeli Apartheid Week' is about as close to hate speech as one can get without being arrested, and I'm not certain it doesn't actually cross over that line," he said.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1153017.html

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[Skyrad 0]

Its a dilema eh? Israel has to defend itself, to do that it needs to target and kill its enemies. Yet is it better to send 27 people to kill one man in a hotel room or slam a couple of hellcat missiles into a appartment block and kill 200 people just to get to one man?
On the other hand does Israel really want to be a nation that is identified by its use of death squads?
The truth is that there is no easy answer to these questions. Should Caesarea/Kidon units be used? In the film Munich the question is asked 'What is the point of getting rid of these enemy, each one has been replaced by someone just as bad if not worse' The answer 'Why then should I cut my nails? They'll only grow back.'
The truth of the matter is that Israel will only find security through dialouge, but if her enemy is not prepared to talk then they have little option but to cut their nails.
On another note, I'm supprised that if Mossad did this, why did they use so many agents? 27 at last count, in the past allegedly a Kidon team would be around 15 people tops. Also why use passports that are so inflamatory and identies that are directly taken from Jews in Israel? There is sending a message and then there is taking the piss. Did Mossad do this or was it someone else?

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca