Gabor Maté: Beautiful dream of Israel has become a nightmare

Amid the disheartening sights of well-fed Israelis rejoicing the maiming and murder of hungry Palestinians in Gaza, here comes an immensely insightful opinion piece from Gabor Mante, Vancouver-based author and speaker, Jewish by birth but totally opposed to the less-than-sane Zionist project that today's Israel has become. 

Even though it is not the original content of this blog, this post is intended to guide the readers on the burning issue of the day. Additionally, this article gives the unique opportunity to observe how Judaism as a faith and the Zionist project are becoming increasingly incompatible.  

And what shall we do, we ordinary people? I pray we can listen to our hearts. My heart tells me that “never again” is not a tribal slogan, that the murder of my grandparents in Auschwitz does not justify the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians, that justice, truth, peace are not tribal prerogatives. That Israel’s “right to defend itself,” unarguable in principle, does not validate mass killing.

As a Jewish youngster growing up in Budapest, an infant survivor of the Nazi genocide, I was for years haunted by a question resounding in my brain with such force that sometimes my head would spin: “How was it possible? How could the world have let such horrors happen?”

It was a naïve question, that of a child. I know better now: such is reality. Whether in Vietnam or Rwanda or Syria, humanity stands by either complicitly or unconsciously or helplessly, as it always does. In Gaza today we find ways of justifying the bombing of hospitals, the annihilation of families at dinner, the killing of pre-adolescents playing soccer on a beach.

In Israel-Palestine the powerful party has succeeded in painting itself as the victim, while the ones being killed and maimed become the perpetrators. “They don’t care about life,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, abetted by the Obamas and Harpers of this world, “we do.” Netanyahu, you who with surgical precision slaughter innocents, the young and the old, you who have cruelly blockaded Gaza for years, starving it of necessities, you who deprive Palestinians of more and more of their land, their water, their crops, their trees — you care about life?

Read more in thestar.com

Danny Schechter: Suicide bombers over Gaza?

"Israeli military superiority belongs to the past. There is no future for the Jews-only-State in Palestine; they may have to try somewhere else." - Gilad Altzom, Israeli writer

A war is not a free lunch, after all. Amid the vicious and ghastly damage that the IDF is causing in the Gaza strip, the long term repercussions of the conflict are not going to favor Israel according to an increasing number of analysts.

In this hard-hitting piece, Danny Schechter of News Dissector delves into how exactly the current conflict is exacting its toll on the Israeli side.

More interesting to see, however, will be the long term impact of the conflict. At a time when the ground itself in which both the sides are standing is shifting palpably, the fighting has resumed, as I write these words, after a brief lull.

To gauge the insight from Schechter's article, let's read the statements of Gilad Altzom, an Israeli writer that Schechter quotes in his article:

“In spite of clear Israeli technological superiority and firepower, the Palestinian militants are winning the battle on the ground and they have even managed to move the battle to Israeli territory. In addition, the barrage of rockets on Tel Aviv doesn’t seem to stop.

IDF’s defeat in Gaza leaves the Jewish State with no hope. The moral is simple. If you insist on living on someone else’s land, military might is an essential ingredient to discourage the dispossessed from acting to reclaim their rights. The level of IDF casualties and the number of bodies of Israeli elite soldiers returning home in coffins send a clear message to both Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli military superiority belongs to the past. There is no future for the Jews-only-State in Palestine; they may have to try somewhere else.”

Read more in Outlook Website

Hawking and a brief history of boycotts

By Ramzy Baroud

There is little doubt that the boycott movement is in constant growth and not simply because of the recurring news of artists and academics refusing to visit Israel, or take part in Israeli-sponsored events. Equally significant is the existence of strong layers of support being provided by civil society that makes it possible for artists, academics and others to adhere to the call of boycott, without fearing serious repercussions.

It is an event "of cosmic proportions", said one Palestinian academic, a befitting description regarding Stephen Hawking's decision to boycott an Israeli academic conference slated for next June. It was also a decisive moral call which was communicated on May 8 by Cambridge University, where Hawking is a professor.

Hawking is a world-renowned cosmologist and physicist. His scientific work had the kind of impact that redefined or challenged entire areas of research from the theory of relativity, to quantum mechanics and other fields of study. This towering figure is also wheelchair-bound - suffering from complete physical paralysis caused by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) disease. For Hawking, however, such a painful fact seems like a mere side note in the face of his incredible contributions to science, ones that are comparable to only few men and women throughout history.

What is considered a prestigious scientific conference in Israel is hosted by President Shimon Peres, most remembered by Lebanese and Palestinians for ordering the shelling of a United Nations compound near the village of Qana in South Lebanon in 1996.

Stephen Hawking being presented by his daughter Lucy Hawking at the lecture he gave for NASA's 50th anniversary Source: Wikimedia Commons

The compound was a safe heaven, where civilians often sought shelter during Israeli strikes. Not that time around, however. 106 innocent people that were mostly children and women were killed and 116 wounded, including UN forces. That harrowing event alone would have sent Peres, then Israel's prime minister, to serve his remaining years in jail.

But of course, Israel is above the law, or so the Israeli government believes and thus it has consistently behaved accordingly in the last 65 years with a price tag of uncountable lives, untold destruction and protracted suffering of entire nations.

Hawking's response to the boycott call was immensely important. The man's legendary status aside, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has proved more durable and successful than its detractors - mostly Israel's apologists - want to believe.

Hawking's decision was also a testament that reason and morality should and must go hand in hand. Israel's boasting of its scientific accomplishments should mean zilch if such technology is put to work to advance state violence, tighten military occupation and make killer drones available to other countries, thus exporting violence and mayhem.

"Refuse to finance the occupation – Boycott Israel" – a Swedish poster calls for a boycott of Israel Photo by Jacob Rask, via Wikimedia Commons

The same "science" was used in abundance in Israel's latest two wars on Gaza (2008-09 and 2012) which claimed thousands of lives between the dead and wounded.

'Israel is not going anywhere, but what does the future hold?'; asks Obama

In his just concluded speech in Israel that was live telecast by BBC, Obama has made some interesting remarks.

The speech, though full of cliches about issues ranging from Israel's security concerns to Iran's nuclear program, was a stark reminder of oratory skills of Obama. With his characteristic gesture and choice of words, Obama was able to give an aura of a speech of lasting implications. What comes out of the real dealings with Netanyahu behind the curtains is, however, an altogether different matter.

The top cliche to be cheered enthusiastically by the audience was that 'all options are on table' with regards to dealing with a to-be-nuclear Iran. Another was the Israel's right to 'be free from rockets raining from Gaza'.

Obama meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres, 2009 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Interestingly, the audience appeared nearly equally enthusiastic when Obama offered an olive branch to the beleaguered Palestinians. By no means Obama could term the Israel's behavior to the Palestinians 'apartheid' or sternly call for an end to the expansion of settlements in the Palestinian territory, but he sufficiently emphasized the importance of achieving peace for Israel; thanks to the fact that a talk of peace is always harmless and risk-free.

In a more nuanced statement, Obama followed the apparently clear 'Israel is going nowhere' statement with this: 'But what does the future hold?'

Well, despite the aura of invincibility of the US-Israel alliance in today's world, Israel is at crossroads, as Obama rightly pointed.

What does the future hold really? Obama's reassurance of the continued US support to 'Jewish people of Israel' sounds good and his statement that the 'world's most powerful country' was with Israel is true so far. But it is worthy remembering the predicaments of the executive head of US: just recall what Obama said to a roaring audience in Cairo few years back in his purportedly landmark speech. All that was good about Egypt and the region was then embodied by Mubarak but when the fall of Mubarak became imminent, US could be of no help.