israel |

Jan 8

Media distortion by omission

In the second such incident since the 2006 war, two rockets fired from within Lebanon struck Israel Monday night. The news understandably made headlines in Israel, and was featured as a major story by all the major Western news outlets such as CNN and the BBC, coming just before President Bush starts his Middle East tour.

However, completely unreported, or at best featured as a small afterthought, was the fact that Lebanese-Israeli border tensions had been already raised Monday by the Israeli abduction of a Lebanese shepherd. Read more

Dec 8

Christian Palestinians

Until recently, a large proportion of Christians in the West were unaware that Christian Palestinians even existed. While there may now be an increased awareness of the body of Christ in Palestine, when not being ignored (unintentionally or otherwise) by the majority, our Palestinian brothers and sisters are often either co-opted for anti-Islam propaganda or looked on as a community to be pitied.

Christian Palestinians undoubtedly need our support and solidarity. From the shattering of their society with the expulsions of 1948 to the land theft and occupation-induced economic collapse in the West Bank today, many believers have despaired of finding freedom in their homeland and chosen emigration. Read more

Nov 30

Boycott: the backlash

In the UK, the Boycott campaign was launched by PSC six years ago. However, it has been attempts at a boycott of Israeli academic institutions that has really raised the profile of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) — and also provoked a fierce counter-movement.

Various bodies, like BICOM (Britain and Israel Communications & Research
Centre: http://www.stoptheboycott.org) and Engage (engageonline.org.uk), have
set up issue-specific websites; while the former may have deeper pockets,
Engage has proved to be more of a rallying point for the anti-boycotters. Their website includes voluminous attacks on the boycott and plenty of articles condemning what they perceive as an anti-Semitic singling-out of Israel. Read more

Nov 13

The one-state reality

A few weeks ago, the Oxford University Union held a debate on the “one-state solution” in Palestine/Israel. Before the speakers had even taken to the floor, however, the event was the focus of an intense controversy, over allegations that the Union organizers had buckled under pressure to cancel Norman Finkelstein’s appearance. Ghada Karmi, Ilan Pappe, and Avi Shlaim — all scheduled to speak on the opposite side of the floor to Finkelstein — pulled out in solidarity. [1] Read more

Oct 19

The moderate blindfold

We’ve had Live 8 and Live Earth, and this week, albeit on a smaller scale, we almost had One Million Voices. Organised by the OneVoice group, the declared aim was to bring together Palestinians and Israelis in simultaneous events in Tel Aviv, Jericho, London, Washington and Ottawa to voice support for the “moderates” and call for a negotiated two-state solution.

The plans fell through, amid bitter claim and counter-claim, as artists lined up for the Jericho event cancelled, and the Tel Aviv concert followed suit. This followed grassroots pressure by Palestinians who objected to what they see as yet another attempt to promote a false peace that fails to address the structural injustices driving the conflict. Read more

Oct 2

It’s about Palestine

The clinking champagne glasses on Engage’s website said it all. The movement established to oppose the proposed boycott of Israeli academic institutions was celebrating a victory, as the British University and College Union (UCU) announced that to even discuss the boycott risked “infringing discrimination legislation”. The boycott of Israel, it seemed, had suffered a blow. Engage and their fellow-travellers popped open the bubbly at the end of what must have seemed like a rather good week. Days earlier, the UK’s Socialist Worker had published an article in which the boycott was called into question for tactical reasons. Smugly, it was noted that “even” the “Israel-demonising” Socialist Worker’s Party now doubted the boycott. Read more

May 1

The backlash against the UK National Union of Journalists’ boycott motion

There’s nothing quite like a boycott to test the limits of the mainstream ‘liberal’ critique of Israel. This has been demonstrated once again by the reaction to a motion at the recent UK National Union of Journalists (NUJ) conference that gave the union’s support to the campaign to boycott Israeli goods.

An official statement described the successful vote as a “decision of NUJ members as trade unionists and as citizens to try to help put pressure on the Israeli government” to stop the “continued occupation”, as well as referencing the specific issues of Israel’s withholding of PA money, and the refusal to recognise internationally-accredited Palestinian journalists. Read more

Apr 23

Peace plan – minus the Palestinians

Another Israel/Palestine ‘peace plan’ has been added to the long list of diplomatic dances that have come and gone in recent years, and this time it is a reheated version of the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. At an Arab League summit in Riyadh in March, the organisation’s members unanimously offered Israel peaceful, normalised relations, should the land occupied since 1967 be returned.

Yet despite all the fanfare, and self-congratulatory talk of an “historic moment”, this proposal shares the same flaw as those that have come before – it is being offered on behalf of those at the root of the conflict, the Palestinians. The Palestinians, who, from the refugees exiled since 1948 to those living in the Occupied Territories, are still not ‘permitted’ to speak for themselves. Read more

Dec 1

Movement for Academic Boycott of Israel Alive, Well—and Growing

For those in Britain and around the world following the various attempts to pressurize Israel through boycotts and sanctions, recent months have offered signs that an academic boycott, though currently on the backburner, remains a “live” issue—and may well score more successes in the near future.

A quick recap takes us back to April 2005, when the UK’s Association of University Teachers (AUT) voted in favor of a boycott of two specific Israeli universities, in a decision that provoked a storm of debate, and eventually led to the motion being overturned the following month. Despite this apparent defeat, the pro-boycott union members had succeeded in thrusting the issue into the public arena, and for many it felt like the genie now was well and truly out of the bottle. Read more

Aug 1

Not in our shoes

As the war in Lebanon and northern Israel continues to rage, international commentary has tended to divide into two camps, a dichotomy also reflected in the global Church. There are those on the one hand, who, appalled at the civilian loss of life in Lebanon and destruction to civilian infrastructure, are vocal in their demand for a ceasefire, censuring Israel for its offensive. On the other hand, there are those who firmly place responsibility for the conflict on Hezbollah, and support Israel in its efforts to attack the Shi’ite group. Less ink has been spilt about the trends operating on a more profound level amongst the societies involved, despite the fact that it is the will of the people themselves who will ultimately prove decisive for policy decisions. Read more