Organ theft Israel?

I know it doesn't make sense but organ theft israel was my google search. I heard the rumours about the Israelis farming internal organs from their Palestinian victims but I assumed (actually I was told) that it was Israeli misinformation to wrongfoot the oppo. Well now I've been sent the original article by the Swedish journo, Donald Boström, who has sparked off such a furore over the matter and to my untrained eye it looks like there's a case for Israel to answer - not that Israel ever answers cases:

In the summer of 1992, Ehud Olmert, then minister of health, tried to address the issue of organ shortage by launching a big campaign aimed at having the Israeli public register for post mortem organ donation. Half a million pamphlets were spread in local newspapers. Ehud Olmert himself was the first person to sign up. A couple of weeks later the Jerusalem Post reported that the campaign was a success. No fewer than 35,000 people had signed up. Prior to the campaign it would have been 500 in a normal month. In the same article, however, Judy Siegel, the reporter, wrote that the gap between supply and demand was still large. 500 people were in line for a kidney transplant, but only 124 transplants could be performed. Of 45 people in need of a new liver, only three could be operated on in Israel.

While the campaign was running, young Palestinian men started to disappear from villages in the West Bank and Gaza. After five days Israeli soldiers would bring them back dead, with their bodies ripped open.

Talk of the bodies terrified the population of the occupied territories. There were rumors of a dramatic increase of young men disappearing, with ensuing nightly funerals of autopsied bodies.

I was in the area at the time, working on a book. On several occasions I was approached by UN staff concerned about the developments. The persons contacting me said that organ theft definitely occurred but that they were prevented from doing anything about it. On an assignment from a broadcasting network I then travelled around interviewing a great number of Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza – meeting parents who told of how their sons had been deprived of organs before being killed. One example that I encountered on this eerie trip was the young stone-thrower Bilal Achmed Ghanan.

He then details the story of the young guy, Bilal Achmed Ghanan and makes what looks to me like a convincing case for the idea that he was killed and his internal organs taken.

But what's this in Electronic Intifada?

Bostrom's article lacks credibility for a number of reasons. In the opening paragraph he tells the story of Levy Rosenbaum, a Jewish man in New York linked to illegal trafficking in human organs with counterparts in Israel. While Rosenbaum has admitted to buying organs from destitute Israelis, until now there has been nothing outside Bostrom's article to suggest that this trade involved the organs of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army.

Rosenbaum has also admitted to being involved in the trade for the past ten years which is well after 1992, when Bostrom claims the organ theft may have occurred in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Other than Israel being involved, there is no evidence to make a direct link between these incidents. It is poor journalism on Bostrom's part to use a timely event and try to connect it to something that happened nearly two decades earlier without offering any evidence.

Bostrom also refers to Palestinians disappearing for days at a time and who have in many cases returned dead. This is known to have occurred before, especially Palestinians being arrested and taken to detention centers without the Israeli authorities bothering to inform the families. This is something that has been reported on and documented by numerous Palestinian human rights organizations. Israel may have even performed autopsies on the bodies without the families' consent, as Bostrom reports. He publishes a horrific photograph of one of these bodies alongside the article, but again, this is not proof that organs in that person's body were removed and sold, or given to Israelis in need, as the author implies.

One must also ask why this story was not covered in 1992, when Bostrom claims the organ theft occurred. It seems this would be a more appropriate time to expose such a story when bodies of those killed by Israel could have been autopsied to determine for a fact whether or not organs from those Palestinians killed by Israel were in fact removed. In the Press TV interview, Bostrom claimed that he did approach many Palestinian, Israeli and international organizations but none, minus the UN, heeded his call for further investigation. Yet, he only makes brief mention of this in the article and says the UN staff was prevented from doing anything about his findings.

Unlike Bostrom's reporting, when most Palestinian human rights organizations or other journalists have uncovered Israeli violations, they are sure to provide well-documented evidence to prove beyond a doubt that such violations were in fact committed. Even though Israel has made it very difficult for both Palestinian and international journalists and human rights workers to practice inside the West Bank and Gaza Strip, many have risked their lives to see that evidence of Israel's crimes is uncovered and reported.

Many such well-documented violations committed over recent decades include: willful killing of civilians, including children; torture; extrajudicial executions; depriving a civilian population of food and other necessities; blackmailing patients in need of medical care to try to turn them into informers; wanton and deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure; punitive home demolitions; and illegal use of restricted weapons against civilian targets, including white phosphorus and cluster bombs. The list of UN resolutions and international treaties violated by Israel is far too long to list here, although these violations have been carefully documented over many years by human rights organizations that have worked tirelessly for their enforcement.

I am not trying to argue here that Israel or some Israelis could never have trafficked stolen Palestinian organs. In a place like Palestine, however, where evidence of Israeli war crimes has never been difficult to find -- despite Israel's consistent efforts to block investigations -- those concerned with holding Israel accountable should not level allegations of such seriousness without producing some evidence.

Hmmm? He's right. Israel is making such a big deal out of this it threatens to overshadow its demonstrable atrocities. Israel is having a big whinge about how it's the "victim" of a "blood libel"....again. Now, the headline. Organ theft israel. I put the words into google and as I did it autofilled. I put in the word "organ" followed by the letter t and the word "theft" autofilled. As I finished the word "theft" myself the names of countries appeared. Organ theft brazil, mexico, china. No sign of Israel. Even when I put in the letter i for israel, the autofill was india and only india. Perhaps Israel doth protest too much. And perhaps an inquiry into this stolen organ business is indeed called for.

Partisan Leonard Cohen's "so long" to Amnesty

Amnesty International has withdrawn its support for Leonard Cohen's concert in Tel Aviv. Their reasoning, as Deborah Fink points out on the Just Peace UK list, is just a little bit "mealy mouthed" but this is a victory for BDS in spite of an Amnesty spokesman speaking, ridiculously, of Cohen's "well intentioned" efforts.

Here's the Jewish Chronicle:

Amnesty International says it has withdrawn its support from a concert in Israel because it did not receive sufficiently widespread support from Israelis and Palestinians.

Organisers of the Leonard Cohen concert, which sold out in a day and is due to take place in Tel Aviv next month, approached the US branch of the human rights charity to set up a fund which could distribute the profits of the concert to Israeli and Palestinian charities.

But Curt Goering, deputy director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), said this week that it was forced to “cease involvement” after not enough support was shown.

He said: “Representatives of Leonard Cohen approached AIUSA for advice on setting up a fund, using the proceeds of the Tel Aviv concert to benefit Israeli and Palestinian human rights and civil society organisations working for reconciliation, tolerance and peace.

“AIUSA was pleased to offer what help it could, and from the beginning, made clear that its involvement in providing advice was premised on the requirement that there be widespread participation of Israeli and Palestinian groups. That widespread support appears not to have materialised at this point, and is why AIUSA has ceased its involvement.

“We regret this outcome, but still think Leonard Cohen’s efforts are well-intentioned and that the fund is a good initiative.”

I don't know if there's a timeline available on all this but when I first heard that Cohen was planning to entertain in Israel that was all I heard. All this nonsense about Cohen performing for "reconciliation, tolerance and peace" at the same time as ignoring representatives of most of Palestinian civil society together with international solidarity groups wasn't grafted on to the affair until the call for boycott came in.

And now Cohen is on his own until he and his manager can cobble together some face saving sham of a zionist "peace" group. I'm sure the Peres Centre for "Peace" is still right behind him.

Israel's clueless racists claim the right to commit genocide

Some 20 people protested Wednesday outside the American Embassy in Tel Aviv against US pressure on Israel to freeze settlement building. Some of the protesters were dressed as Native Americans in a reminder to the US authorities that their country did not exactly ask the natives where they could live or build.

The protestors carried signs emblazoned with slogans like "Three countries for three races" and "America, we understand you – understand us, too" and "Freeze building west of the Atlantic Ocean. Red-skinned American within 1492 border." (Ynet)

[the sign in Hebrew reads: "give us back Manhattan - the third holiest site for Native-Americans"]

Mubarak pays homage to his liege lord in Washington

I guess Obama's ecstatic demeanor is the result of hearing how $2 billion of U.S. monies every year are used to detain bloggers, arrest and torture political activists (as well as the merely unlucky) and suppress democracy. With the health reform in the U.S. falling under the knives of the insurance industry and his voters slowly realizing that he too is, as Isaiah once called Egypt, a "staff of this broken reed"--a description that is still fitting Egypt as well although in a different context--Obama might consider that Mubarak has much to teach him about keeping a disaffected public under the leash.

Not that we should be surprised:

Obama's choice to address Muslims around the world from a country run by a dictator has not only shown us that he is hypocritical when promoting democracy, but even worse - he has given Mubarak both the assurance and the green light to continue ruling. (Khouloud Khalife)

Inventing the Jews...again?

I don't know why this book's publication keeps re-appearing, in front of me anyway. I'm sure I read about it some time ago. We did a post on it back in March 2008 so why has someone emailed a link to the website http://inventionofthejewishpeople.com now? Ach, never mind, it's upset the zios (though why a movement whose apologists are so keen to deny that they are racists are so upset at the idea that the Jews of today might not be the direct descendants of people that inhabited Palestine in biblical times is beyond me) so it might be worth a post. Actually, I think it is the fact that the book may have recently been published for the first time in English that is news, or at least it was news last month.

Anyway, it's the book by Shlomo Sand called The Invention of the Jewish People and it or he contends that the story of the expulsion of the Jews from Palestine by the Romans 2,000 years ago is just that, a story. He contends that it didn't happen and that the story of it happening is played up to justify zionist claims to a state in Palestine for the world's Jews. As it happens, not having read the book I don't know if it contains anything that is new. As I said in the post on this over a year ago, the Magnes Zionist posted about how the Roman exile didn't actually happen. Maybe if that didn't happen perhaps Sand is saying what then actually did happen. But that too has been said before.

Hmm, this is getting distressing for me. I might have to buy the book.

Leave no Jew behind

Anti-racism on trial

Here's an update on the impending show trial of Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists:

Appeal for support by activists on trial for 'racism'!

An arrest warrant was issued at Friday's court hearing against Sofiah MacLeod, Scottish PSC Secretary currently in Palestine witnessing Israel's racist dispossesion of Palestinians. Sofiah will bring her recent experiences of Israeli state-driven racism when she goes on trial accused of 'racism'. Three of the other four accused will similarly produce evidence from first-hand experience of Israel's programme of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

On trial for ‘racially aggravated conduct’ are five Scots who responded to the Palestinian appeal for boycott of Israel. We protested a visit by the Israeli state-sponsored Jerusalem Quartet to the 2008 Edinburgh International Festival. Next appearance in Edinburgh Sherriff Court is on Thursday October 1st, when our lawyers will argue to dismiss the case against us .

The Scottish legal authorities will attempt to prove that shouting 'End the siege of Gaza', and 'Boycott Israel' equals 'racism'. We five will argue that boycott of Israel is a duty while that State violates every canon of international law.

This is a political show-trial, encouraged by the stated positions of the British Government, and is aimed at intimidating Palestine supporters. We shall certainly not be intimdated: last year we saw off some Zionist rascals from SCoJeC (Scottish Council of Jewish Communities) who were unwise enough to claim in print that Scottish PSC is anti-Semitic. They then had to pulp 6,000 copies of a book, Scotland's Jews, in open admission that the claim was without foundation and libellous.

We will show in our defence/attack that

• we are bound to oppose grave Israeli crimes and British Government complicity in those crimes, including political, diplomatic, economic and military support for Israeli Governments
• the nearest domestic political equivalent in Britain to the factions in the Isaeli Government is the neo-Nazi British National Party (BNP)
• Israel is an apartheid state as defined in international law
• the Palestinian-inspired BDS campaign is a duty for consistent supporters of human rights, i.e. those who repudiate a racist attitude that Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans and others have a lesser entitlement that others
• the Jerusalem Quartet are indeed, as we claim, institutionally linked to the Israeli Army and its State, and thus to be boycotted by human rights supporters

Expert witnesses - Palestinians, Israelis and others - will show that the growing support for the Palestinian BDS appeal is justified by

• the history of ethnic cleansing carried out by the Zionist movement and its State from 1948 to the present
• the conscious determination of the Israeli State to continue with further criminal acts of ethnic cleansing
• the failure of the British Government to honour its international legal obligations to opppose Israeli apartheid, specifically the illegal Wall and settlement building

Witnesses who have agreed to give expert evidence or personal testimonies for the defence include:

• Leila Khaled, Palestinian refugee and resistance fighter, Member of Palestinian National Council
• Dr. Ghada Karmi, Palestinian writer and academic
• Omar Barghouti PACBI (Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott)
• Dr. Hisham Genayem, Palestinian refugee and surgeon
• Dr. Moshe Machover, Israeli academic and anti-Zionist political activist
Dr. Michael Kearney, University of York (t.b.c)
Dr. Keith Hammond, University of Glasgow
Yael Kahn, Israeli human rights activist
• Marion Woolfson, Hon. President of Scottish PSC
• Liz Elkind, ex-President of the STUC, moved successful report and recommendation for BDS at STUC 2009 Perth Conference
• Tony Greenstein, (JBIG) Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods
• Rt. Hon. Peter Hain MP, veteran anti-apartheid campaigner in the 70's, Chair of Stop All Racist Tours (awaiting reply)
• Members of the public who witnessed the protest during the performance
• BBC sound technicians who recorded the entire event (awaiting reply)

We are asking supporters to

• send letters of support to campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk
• invite one of the accused to speak and explain the background and aims of the campaign to your trade union, political party branch, mosque, church or campaign group
• turn up outside, and inside, the Court on October 1st and later sessions
• make a donation to the campaign (Judge Horseburgh criticised the Legal Aid board severely for refusal to provide legal aid to one of the accused.)
• boycott everything Israeli, except those Israelis supporting Palestinian human and national rights
• join the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign to help us build this campaign

I wonder who the prosecution will call as witnessing to "prove" that condemning racism is itself racist. If you can stand the dross, check out this thread where you will see it argued that Israel isn't racist because there are academics that say it isn't, that Israel doesn't check people's DNA before discriminating for or against them and that, wait for it, Israel isn't racist because it only does to the natives of Palestine what white people did to the natives of the Americas and Australasia.

Colonial Settler FC: to boycott or not?

I wouldn't know about Israel's visit to the colonial settler statelet next door if it wasn't for an off topic comment from Splintered Sunrise earlier. Israel is playing Northern Ireland and Splintered Sunrise, despite reservations about sports boycotts, suggests that Israel's football team is a fitting target for a boycott:

tomorrow night there’s a treat on at Windsor. Yes, as part of a bumper round of international friendlies, the north is hosting Israel. Definitely a match in the “can’t they both lose?” category.

This was being discussed on Talk Back earlier, since the good folks of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign were not, it’s fair to say, altogether enamoured with the fixture, and were protesting outside the IFA headquarters. In response to this, we had interviews with a representative from the IFA, and that mad loyalist with ginger hair who’s always being interviewed on behalf of the Norn Iron supporters. Both of them were adamant that they wanted politics kept out of sport. This was, they said, their bedrock principle. But I don’t think it entirely works like that.

As a rule, I’m a bit cautious about sporting boycotts. If athletes don’t want to go to Zimbabwe or China, of course that’s a matter for them and they have every right to follow their conscience. On the other hand, deadbeat politicians are in the habit of calling on sportsmen to take this or that action as a fig leaf for their own inactivity – see the Foreign Office’s antics over England playing cricket with Zimbabwe. Historically, though, South Africa was a different case as sport in South Africa was run on racist lines. Once segregation and white supremacy were removed from SA sport, so too was the boycott.

That was an example of a good reason. There’s a good reason too in this case, which is a good deal more immediate than disapproval of this or that Israeli policy. You see, there is a Palestinian national football team. Via the Palestine Football Federation, it’s a member of FIFA, and has been recognised by the world governing body since 1998. Yet the team faces severe ongoing problems, most notably an inability to play either home or away fixtures as a result of restrictions imposed by the occupying power – surely that counts as bringing politics into sport. That, it seems to me, is a good enough reason to think twice about playing fixtures against Israel. Indeed, Brazil has refused to play Israel on precisely those grounds.

Worth mentioning, also, that we’re not talking here about a World Cup or Euro qualifying fixture, where you have to play whoever you’re drawn against. We’re talking about a friendly, which is taking place because the IFA issued an invitation to its Israeli counterpart.And of course, having done so, the IFA will not want to lose either face or revenue, so the match will go ahead. Well, at least there is a fair stockpile of Israeli flags in loyalist areas of Belfast. Should make the away supporters feel welcome.

Well said, that person!

Keep your womb shut and work, woman!

Col. (res.) Yitzhak ‘Tziki’ Sela, Commander of the Interior Ministry’s ‘Oz’ Unit which arrests illegal immigrants and deports them, gave an interview to Ma’ariv Wednesday in which he slammed the organizations that have been protesting against the government’s intention to crack down on illegal foreign labor.

“These groups, those who protest against us, the ones that call me ‘Goebbels’ and a Nazi, are anarchists who want the destruction of the state of Israel, with three exclamation marks,” Sela said. “They should be condemned. This is criminal behavior, pure and simple.”

“As for the children,” Sela said, “in the end the result will be that with all due sorrow and pain, there is no choice. There is a sizeable group of 1,200 children who do not have a legal permit and that is it. They are just guests here.”

When asked again about the decision to deport foreign workers’ children he asked: “What do you mean children? Where does the line pass, I want to know. This is a painful and complex issue but the public pressure that has been brought to bear here is unbelievable.”

Asked if the deportation of children was ‘inhuman’ Sela answered: “The State of Israel has made a decision. These are people who knew the law that says they cannot have children. They are adult people and they came here of their own free will. Nobody is forcing them to be here. I carry out policy. If every child receives (legal) status, we will find ourselves with a million and a half foreigners in a few years. That is the watershed from our point of view.”

“We mean business,” he stated. “I am telling the illegal migrants, take yourselves from here and go away willingly. We will give you the plane tickets. Get out of here.” (Israel National News)

Shame on these anarchists that haven't got the memo about not comparing Israelis to Nazis!

The Russians are coming!

This is at least partly a mea culpa. I quoted below from Ynet a poll that reveals the horrible attitudes that dominate Israeli public opinion. I did not however offer commentary on what was itself a reactionary Ynet presentation of a racist research project. Our friends at Mondoweiss quoted the same article, but added to it commentary that not only fails to deconstruct but indeed reinforces the reactionary thrust of Ynet.

Ynet picked on the categorization of the poll respondents by a very ideosyncretic categorization: recent immigrants from Russia, Veteran Israeli Jews, and Arabs. It then notes some noteworthy differences of attitude between the groups. Most importantly, it notes, and mondoweiss quotes, that "77 percent of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) support the transfer of Arabs out of the Jewish State."

This is a hard statistical fact. Facts, however, only carry social meaning when they are embedded in narratives and value laden social categories and measured against other facts that are left unsaid. The Ynet article, following the research, acts here as an agent of racialization, implicitly (but under cover of scientific objectivity) producing the social category of Russian immigrants as the carriers of a social pathology, nationalist extremism. The ploy of scientific objectivity is revealed by the fact that the Russian immigrants are labeled with an antiseptic, faux non-ethnic label, "immigrants from the Former Soviet Union." The same scientific detachment is left out in relation to Arabs, who are labeled simply "Arabs," a value laden ethnic category in Israel ( distinct form Palestinian, non-Jewish, indigenous, etc.). Thus, the racialization of "Arabs" is taken for granted. In contrast, the racialization of Russians, which is, as we shall soon see, the very object of the study, has to be camouflaged and ushered with pseudo-scientific decorum.

The NGO behind the poll, the Democracy Institute, a creature of the so called post-Zionist moment in Israel (1991), is a white Zionist think-tank, committed to a liberal capitalist "Jewish state." Its cadres consider extreme nationalistic attitudes pathological and incompatible with liberal capitalism. They are not opposed to racism as such, since they support maintaining, through the liberal and "moderate" nationalist mechanisms of the Jewish state, the material and institutional privileges acquired by veteran Israelis through ethnic cleansing and segregation. Rather, they promote a liberal strategy of whiteness that naturalizes, "normal", correct nationalistic attitudes, those associated with the preservation of the existing Israeli political and economic hierarchy, while pathologizing and when useful racializing attitudes that threaten their hegemonic power.

Extreme nationalist attitudes in Israel are directed against "Arabs", but Palestinians function within it as a convenient scapegoat and punchbag. As elsewhere, extreme nationalism in Israel is also a disavowed class challenge. The target in this case is the hegemonic control of a white, European, veteran elite, whose class rule no longer needs strong national solidarity and is therefore easy to tar with the aspiration for peace and "co-existence" with Arabs. This general dynamic is inflected and made more vicious by the typical tendencies of colonial ethnocratic states, in which immigrant groups find it particularly useful to use violence against indigenous people because it allows them to valorize their status by appealing to the racist ideology of the founders against the founders themselves. The dominant group, veteran Ashkenazi Israelis, has of course itself used a variety of racialization strategies in order to defend its dominance, including manufacturing racialized social/geographic "buffer-zones" between itself and the indigenous Palestinians, first by settling Jews from Arab countries to border colonies in the Negev and Galilee, and more recently by directing Russian immigrants to settlements in the OPT such as Ariel.

This is an important part of the necessary context for evaluating the fact that "77 percent of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) support the transfer of Arabs out of the Jewish State." But before we go on, let us ask a few questions about the presentation. In what way can this fact be perceived as particularly deviant in Israel when the baseline of normalcy is "47% percent for the general public"? Why are Russians compared here to the "general public" in this particular case but not in others? If we were to take the "Arab" component out of the general public, the Jewish baseline for support for ethnic cleansing would surely be closer to 60%. How can three quarters of Russian immigrants adopting an attitude common to a strong majority of Israelis Jews be labeled as a racial pathology specific to Russians? Another question, why disaggregation along these categories and not others? What about other ethnic categories? Ashkenazi, Druze, Mizrahi, Ethiopian? What about geography? Class? Education? Income? Religious identification? What about degree of being a veteran? Pre-48, post-48? What about country of Origin? Are recent immigrants from the U.S. less prone to extreme nationalism than Russians?

Fear not that I am reading too much into this it, for the introduction to the study is quite explicit about the racist purpose of the presentation:

Now, after 20 years of immigration from the Former Soviet Union, the 2009 Democracy Index focuses on an assessment of the way in which the immigrants have integrated politically, socially and economically into Israeli society. The data, researched and compiled by IDI’s Prof. Asher Arian, Michael Philipov and Anna Kanfelman, shows that despite the prevailing view that, at least politically, the “Russians” have integrated into Israeli society, they feel that they have little influence over their environment, even 20 years after the start of the Russian aliya. Many immigrants continue to express opinions that are reminiscent of political attitudes and behavior under the Soviet regime, which testifies to minimal absorption of the substance of Israeli democracy and poor political integration. It also appears that immigrants from the FSU are generally in lower spirits, the problems they face are more acute, and their reactions are sharper. By comparison with the veteran Jewish sector, the immigrant sector expresses greater concern with security problems, is less sure of its desire to live in Israel, and is not certain that it wants to raise children in Israel (The Democracy Institute, my red).

(in parenthesis: "integrating" into Israeli societies means integrating in Jewish society. Russian attitudes, depending of convenience, are measured relative to the general public or relative to veteran Jews. Within the logic of "integration," asking why Russians are not more like Palestinians in their attitudes cannot even be posed. To integrate is to vanish into the white center. That Russians are already doing better economically than the indigenous groups doesn't count as "integration".)

Let's get to the money line. The extreme nationalist attitudes of Russians, despite being in fact shared by majorities or large minorities of veteran Israeli Jews, is described as a pathology associated with their country of origin, and then doubly pathologized by associating it with the (derogatory) "Soviet regime".

Why this racialization? Consider first the weakness of seeing the higher level of nationalist racism among Russian immigrants as proof of their "poor political integration." Russians have integrated politically only too well, to the extent that the party that represents them is the third largest party in the Knesset and a FSU immigrant is Israel's Foreign Minister. Furthermore they have integrated by repeating the very political patterns of challenging Ashkenazi veteran power previously tried by religious and Mizrahi Jews: support for ultra-nationalist parties. It is not the lack of integration that threatens, but the non-docile form that challenges veteran domination.

But now comes also the opportunity. We are in a new international context. That Russian Foreign Minister is an embarrassment. He openly expresses fascist opinions (that a majority of Israelis share). The new chill between Obama and Netanyahu brings increasing U.S. media attention to some unpleasant facts about Israel. For example, the fact that Israel's past actions and current ambitions make even the "two state solution" favored by the U.S. inoperable. The dominant sections in Israel, i.e., mostly secular, veteran Ashkenazi Jews, who are by and large the greatest beneficiaries from the U.S. Israeli imperial alliance and the occupation that was made possible by this alliance, can use a scapegoat. Just as Russians were induced by the authorities of the state to settle in places like Ariel, to be put in direct, visible competition over resources with the indigenous Palestinians and to serve as a buffer zone that absorbs the violence of Palestinian resistance, they are needed now as another type of buffer zone, to be symbolically paraded internationally (and internally) as an excuse that exculpates the veterans in Tel-Aviv and Herzelyia from responsibility to the occupation. Nor is the issue purely or even primarily one of symbols and foreign image. Racializing Russians as carriers of "Soviet Regime" pathologies helps re-asserting white "Western-European" power. With international pressure for a political re-alignment in Israel growing, the racialization of Russians as "anti-Western" who need to be educated and "absorbed" into the dominant ideology could help justify re-building the hegemonic power of veteran elites.

This is particularly ironic when one considers the history of the Russian "Aliyah." Although at least 30% of them were not Jews in their county of origin, they were enthusiastically welcomed by the Israeli establishment. Loopholes and shortcuts were found to fast-track them into Jewishness, in stark contrast to the unwelcoming bureaucracy and accusations of not being properly Jewish that were deployed against (the far more clearly Jewish) immigrants from Ethiopia. The reason for this enthusiasm was race--the white skin and European culture of the immigrants. They started coming at the beginning of the nineties, a time when the challenge to the white Ashkenazi secular Israeli establishment posed by Mizrahi/religious parties, associated with the rise of Likud and later by Shas, reached a boiling point. Far from being only about the demographic balance between Jews and Palestinians, the Russian immigration kindled hopes of reasserting the demographic predominance (and voting patterns) of European, secular Jews, making Palestine not only more Jewish, but crucially, whiter/more European. To a certain extent this worked as intended, as the class challengers within Jewish society are no longer united by religion and culture. But the Russian immigrants, perhaps unsurprisingly, adopted the very racist political attitudes that gave them social currency and legitimacy, thus replicating the same dynamic oppositional model as did before them Mizrahi and religious groups.

We should always remember and repeat that Palestinians are the first and foremost victims of Israeli racism. But the racism of the state manifests itself well beyond that, in the dominance, legitimacy and recurrence of strategies of racialization at all levels and against any group when the dominant classes considers it useful. It is particularly difficult to grasp that even "excessive" racism against Palestinians (as opposed to what is supposedly the correct dose of racism!) can become the basis for racialization. Recognizing this does not mean forgiving or excusing racists. Whoever told the pollsters that the state should encourage Arabs to emigrate should be held accountable for his or her execrable politics. Yet these racializations, even when they masquerade as political moderation and opposition to racism, are still racist, and moreover, they serve the specific purpose of defending and maintaining the racist apartheid regime in Israel, with white, secular Ashkenazi Jews at the top and Palestinians interred in camps at the bottom. Therefore echoing and supporting these subsidiary forms of racism, however gratifying it may momentarily feel, is in fact counterproductive.

Ha'aretz demands right of return for Palestinians

Well not all Palestinians, just the ones whose ethnic cleansing

paints Israel in the world's eyes as a country that maintains a cruel regime of occupation, oppresses the weak and strives to create political facts in the disputed city under the guise of the "rule of law."

The Ha'aretz editorial really shows the cleft stick that liberal/left zionists find themselves in.

Israel has evicted thousands of times more than just two Palestinian families. Ethnic cleansing is one of the pillars on which the State of Israel stands. Whoever writes for Ha'aretz knows this. Look:

A democratic state that strives for peace and justice simply has no right to uproot families who became refugees in 1948.

Where was the writer in 1967? Does he or she not know that the 67 war was accompanied by another bout of ethnic cleansing by Israel. Many of the victims of that round were refugees from 1948. And when did Israel ever strive for peace?

But there's more:

No thinking person will be persuaded that Jews have a sweeping right to return to their homes in East Jerusalem as long as Israeli law not only bars Palestinians from returning to their homes in West Jerusalem, but even evicts them from the houses where they have lived for the last 60 years. The Israel Lands Administration's regulations do not even allow Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to buy land and houses in many parts of the city.

Are they saying that the average Israeli is unthinking? Or are they saying that Gideon Levy is an average Israeli?

It is impossible to ignore the injustices of 1948 while hundreds of thousands of refugees rot in the camps. No agreement will hold water without a solution to their plight, which is more feasible than Israel's strident scaremongers suggest. But rulings like the current one make it harder to distinguish clearly between Sheikh Jarrah and Sheikh Munis, between the conquest of 1948 and the conquests of 1967. My house stands on land stolen by force, and it is the obligation of Israel and the world to redress the injustice without creating injustice and new dislocation. My house stands on land that was stolen, but the whole world has recognized the Jews' right to establish their state there. At the same time, no country in the world has recognized Israel's right to conquer Sheikh Jarrah as well.

The world? Was it really the whole world?

In my morning musings on the way to the pool, I sometimes think about the land's original owners. I long for the day when Israel takes moral and material responsibility for the injustice done to them. Now, because of the court ruling, my right to continue to swim here may also be in doubt.

The world can always change its mind, can't it?

Oxfam shows Amnesty how to behave when it comes to celebs & settlements

From the NY Post:

'SEX' STAR, OXFAM PART WAYS

August 6, 2009 --

"SEX and the City" star Kristin Davis is caught in the crossfire of Mideast politics.

The stunning actress is no longer working as a spokeswoman for human rights/relief organization Oxfam International because she also endorses the Ahava cosmetics line -- which is manfactured in what Oxfam regards as "disputed" territory.

Because Ahava is made by Dead Sea Cosmetics in the Mitzhe Shalem Jewish settlement in the West Bank, it's been controversial -- the leftist women's peace group Code Pink, which accuses America of "war crimes," has called for a boycott, saying Ahava uses Palestinian natural resources in what it calls "Occupied Palestine."

"This has been a huge thing," one source told us. "Ahava has factories on disputed land. From Ahava's perspective, they are not doing anything wrong. From an Oxfam perspective, Ahava is a polarizing company and Kristin shouldn't be involved with it."

Our source said Davis "has been very active with both Oxfam and Ahava, and is very passionate about the causes of Oxfam. She was completely unaware of this conflict of interest and is saddened to be on public pause from a group she has devoted so much time, money, and support to."

In a statement, Oxfam said, "Kristin Davis has done great work for Oxfam and we highly value her commitment as a supporter . . . Oxfam remains opposed to settlement trade, in which Ahava is engaged. Both Kristin and Oxfam do not want this issue to detract from the great work we have done in the past and plan to do in the future."

A spokeswoman for Davis told Page Six, "Kristin is passionate about her relationship with Oxfam, and she intends to work with them and other humanitarian causes for years to come." Ahava had no comment.

Bully for Oxfam. Meanwhile, Amnesty is partnering up with Leonard Cohen's Sept. 24 benefit concert in Tel Aviv, sponsored by the settlement-funding Israel Discount Bank. Tell Amnesty to follow Oxfam's fine example -- Action Alert: Tell Amnesty International - No Amnesty for Apartheid Israel!

Honduras resistance call for international solidarity and boycott

Call from the National Front against the Coup d'Etat in Honduras to the Worldwide Working Class

This comes from the

..."National Front against the Coup d'Etat" which unites all of the social and political expressions of the popular movement and is driving the national movement towards the defeat of the dictatorship. This front is made up of worker, peasant and other peoples organizations, as well as by the left and center parties and movements who have declared themselves against the coup d'etat.

A few quotes (with my emphasis):

Behind the coup is the business leadership, the four political parties of the bourgeoisie, (Liberal Party, National Party, Christian Democratic Party and Party of Social Democratic Innovation and Unity), the leadership of the Catholic and Evangelical churches, as well as the main owners of the media. All of them made a counter-revolutionary alliance for fear that the popular poll of the 28th of June would give power to the people and especially to the working class and poor peasantry to start the construction of a new society, where the privileges of the bourgeois class and the landowners would be eliminated.

It is also necessary to say that behind this coup d'etat is the hand of North American imperialism and the Latin American ultra-right, who are seeing it as an opportunity to stop the advance of the left in the Central American region and the influence of the Venezuelan revolution, after the recent electoral triumphs of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador and the Sandinista Front in Nicaragua.

The international reaction was forceful from a diplomatic point of view: Except for the Zionist regime of Israel, no other country in the world dared to recognize the military-business dictatorship imposed in Honduras.

The only government that always had an ambiguous policy towards the usurping government was the North American government led by Barack Obama.

The Honduran working class, which since the beginning actively responded to the popular resistance, organized in the third week a unified mobilization through its own methods of struggle: la general strike and the takeover of work centers, starting with a 48 hour stoppage by the three central unions of the country (CUTH, CGT and CTH) this past 23rd and 24th of July, which was repeated again the 30th and 31st of the same month. In solidarity with them friends from the popular organizations of El Salvador and Nicaragua cut of the customs to stop the entrance of exit of merchandise from Honduras. Immediately the business associations of Honduras and Central America, who are in solidarity with the usurpers, screamed to the sky because that boycott implied losses of millions for their companies. This means that the strike and the commercial boycott are effective weapons to wear out the economic base of the coup-makers, more than formal declarations

Because of all of this, the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat makes a call to working class organizations world wide to organize and carry out militant solidarity with the working class and the people of Honduras, carrying out boycott actions of all products that enter or come out of Honduran ports, with the goal of economically asphyxiating the dictatorship; do protests in repudiation of the dictatorship in front of the U.S. and Honduran embassies, do political and cultural actions in solidarity with the struggle of the Honduran people, and in general carry out action that strengthens the struggle of the Honduran people and its working class to get us out of this oppressive regime and reach a new society.

Securitize your dissent!

Boycott on trial or Israel on trial in Scotland?

Here's a note from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign:

Scottish boycott in political show trial for 'racism' (Fri 7th Aug)

Five SPSC members are facing trial on Friday for boycotting Israeli state-sponsored cultural ambassadors, the Jerusalem Quartet. The Israeli musicians, in the words of their admirers, believe that 'a rifle in one hand and a violin in the other is the ultimate Zionist statement.'

In the wake of the Israeli massacres in Gaza early this year, the original Breach of the Peace charge was dropped and new charges of “racially aggravated conduct” were issued.

Boycott helped end South African Apartheid, and can do likewise with Israel. The STUC is pushing the boycott, as are countless other organisations and individuals.

Help us fight the move to criminalise boycott of criminal Israel. The same British authorities who support the siege of Gaza are working to stifle Israel's critics here. The five accused are confident this trial will see the Israeli State and its British allies in the dock of the supreme court: the court of public opinion.

Even if you can only be there for 10 minutes to show your support, please meet outside the court at 9.30am on Friday, and stay for as little or as long as you can.

Fri 7th Aug 9.30am

Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Chambers Street,

Edinburgh, EH1 1LB

Map: http://tinyurl.com/EdinburghSheriff-Court

Take action against suppression of Palestinian non-violent resistance in Bil’in

From Adalah-NY:

Please find below an action alert in support of the West Bank village of Bil'in, a leader in popular resistance to Israeli apartheid, that Adalah-NY has received from Palestinian and Israeli activists. For years, the Israeli military has taken fierce measures in an effort to try to crush Bil'in's campaign of nonviolent resistance to save its land, but in the past months the Israeli assault on Bil'in has escalated.

Adalah-NY has worked closely with the village of Bil'in in the campaign to boycott the companies of Lev Leviev. Leviev's companies are building settlements on the land of Bil'in, Jayyous and other Palestinian villages. Bil'in has also taken the innovative step of suing two Canadian companies [identified with Leviev's sometime partner Shaya Boymelgreen] for war crimes in Canadian court for their involvement in building the settlements on the villages' land, with June hearings held in Montreal. The Bil'in community leader who testified in Montreal, Mohammed Khatib, was among those arrested last night in Bil'in.

Adalah-NY urges all of you to take the steps recommended below in support of Bil'in:



At around 3am on Monday morning, a large military force wearing combat paint and masks invaded the West Bank village of Bil’in. Israeli soldiers raided several homes, arresting 2 Palestinian children, 5 Palestinian adults including Mohammad Khatib of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements. The home of another member of the Popular Committee was raided, but soldiers could not arrest him because he was not present at home.

Also arrested were the three brothers Khaled Shawkat Abd-Alrazic al Khateeb (age 23), Mustafa Shawkat Abd-Alrazic al- Khateeb (age18), and Mohammed Show gut Abd-Alrazic al-Khateeb (age 16); Abdullah Ahmad Yassen (age 18); Abdullah Mohammed Ali Yassen (age 16); Issa Mahmoud Issa Abu Rahma (age 40); This brings to 19 the number of Biliner’s currently in custody.

Monday’s raid is another in a series of many that Israeli forces have carried out in Bil’in since June 29 June 2009, Israeli forces have arrested 25 people (most are under 18). Israeli forces have been using interrogation techniques to pressure the arrested youth to give statements against Bil’in community leaders.

Abdullah Abu Rahme, coordinator of the popular committee stated, “Mohmmad Khatib and Adib Abu Rahme along with other leaders of the Palestinian popular struggle are being targeted because the mobilize Palestinians to resist non- violently. The fact is that the Apartheid Wall and the settlements built on Palestinian land are illegal under international law, in the case of our village even the biased Israeli court declared the route illegal. Yet Israel is prosecuting us as criminals because we struggle nonviolently for our freedom.”

What you can do?

Attempts to criminalize the leadership of non-violent protests where curbed in the past with the help of an outpouring of support from people committed to justice from all over the world.

1. Many of you have met Mohammad Khatib and perhaps one of the others mentioned above. We need you now to personally testify about your knowledge of them and their commitment to non-violence. Write a letter to the Israeli military judge and please send to bilinlegal [@] gmail.com.

2. Please Protest by contacting your political representatives, as well as your consuls and ambassadors to Israel to demand the release of Mohammad Khatib, Adib Abu Rahme and all Bil’in prisoners.

3. The Popular committee of Bil’in is in desperate need for legal funds in order to pay legal fees and Bail. Please donate to the Bil’in legal fund by paypal click http://tinyurl.com/lcr6rg . If you would like to make a tax deductible donation in the US or Canada contact: bilinlegal [@] gmail.com.

- The Bil’in Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements

Background:

The Palestinian village of Bil’in has become an international symbol of the Palestinian popular struggle. For almost 5 years, its residents have been continuously struggling against the de facto annexation of more then 50% of their farmlands the construction of the apartheid wall on it. In a celebrated decision, the Israeli Supreme court ruled on the 4 September 2007 that the current route of the wall in Bil’in was illegal and needs to be dismantled; the ruling however has not been implemented. The struggle of the village to liberate its lands and stop the illegal settlements has been internationally recognized and has earned the popular committee in Bil’in the Carl von Ossietzky Medal. http://tinyurl.com/nfmsvm

On 21 July 2009, a military judge decided to hold Adeeb Abu Rahma, a leading non-violent activist that was arrested from a demonstration against the barrier that took place in Bil’in village on 10 of July (see video at: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/07/7652), until the end of proceedings against him. This could mean months or a year in military prison for Adeeb, who is being charged with incitement to violence and rioting. He is the sole provider for his family of 9 children, wife and mother.

One demonstrator, Basem Abu Rahma, was killed at a demonstration as he
was attempting to speak with the soldiers.

Not all Israelis are racist, violent and fascist, indeed a significant minority isn't

The 2009 Democracy Index, published by the Israel Democracy Institute on Sunday[:]... 

The Israeli public believes in freedom of expression as a general value, but for the most part refuses to allow harsh criticism to be expressed against the state. 74% support “Freedom of expression for everyone, regardless of their opinions.” However, 58% agree that “political speech should not be permitted to express harsh criticism of the state of Israel.” This is a significant increase as compared to 48% in 2003.
 
Growing support for denying Arabs' rights

53% of the Jewish public supports encouraging Arabs to emigrate from Israel. 77% of immigrants support this idea, compared with 47% of the veteran public. 33% of veteran Jews are accepting of the inclusion of Arab parties in the government, by comparison with 23% of immigrants.
 
Only 27% of respondents objected to the statement that there should be “a Jewish majority in decisions relating to the fate of the country,” by comparison with 2003, when 38% objected to this statement. These figures indicate relatively broad support for decreasing the political rights of Israel’s Arab minority.
 
54% of the general public (Jews and Arabs) agrees that “only citizens who are loyal to the state are entitled to benefit from civil rights” (56% of the veterans, 67% of immigrants and 30% of the Arabs). 38% of the entire Jewish public believe that Jewish citizens should have more rights than non-Jewish citizens (43% of the veterans hold this belief, versus 23% of immigrants). In addition, 41% of veteran Jews are of the opinion that “Israeli Arabs face greater discrimination than Jewish Israelis,” compared to 28% of immigrants holding this view.
 
FSU immigrants more hawkish

The use of violence: 33% of immigrants from the FSU think that political violence is legitimate, as compared to 35% of Israeli Arabs and 22% of veteran Israelis. Among the general public, the greatest legitimacy is given to the use of political violence by young people aged 18 to 30, at 27%.
 
Evacuating settlements: 48% of Israelis are not prepared to evacuate any settlements within the framework of a permanent agreement; 37% are prepared for the evacuation of isolated settlements; and 15% are prepared to evacuate all the settlements over the green line.
 
The position of the immigrants from the FSU is more hawkish than that of the general Jewish public: 64% are not prepared for settlements to be evacuated in the framework of a permanent agreement; 30% are prepared for the evacuation of isolated settlements; and 6% are prepared to evacuate all the settlements. (Ynet, August 3rd, 2009)

I am trying to be positive.

Harry's Place links to fascists go viral!

This is very rushed because I need to go out but I must put a marker on this before the toads at Harry's Place start tampering with their post. I'll provide more links later.

A few weeks ago David T ran a post at Harry's Place pretending that my co-blogger, Gabriel Ash, had linked approvingly to an antisemitic site called ziopedia. He had done no such thing. He had linked to ziopedia in order to condemn an article at the only site where it could be found. It was a typical smear originating with an anonymous ultra-zionist blogger calling himself Modernity Blog and making its way to Engage. As I recall Engage picked up on the smear and much fun was had by the on-line zionist-in-denial community until a chap calling himself Bob from Brockley realised that Engage and HP were stooping pretty low by even their own appalling standards and so he pointed out what they all knew anyway, which was that Gabriel was condemning not approving of an article and that they too provide links for sites they disapprove of.

So the zios in denial (they mostly claim to be non or even anti-zionists) back peddled and settled on the idea that he still shouldn't have linked to ziopedia. Ok fine.

But what's this? The top post right now at Harry's Place is a smear of Hugo Chavez by trying to link him the UK neo-nazi outfit, the British National Party. I won't link to their site but it's easy to find and it often bears more than a passing resemblance to Harry's Place. Well, a leading light (or should that be leading white?) at the BNP is a chap called Lee Barnes and he had a post on his blog (again I won't link) about how Hugo Chavez gets a bad press and how the BNP gets a bad press so Mr Barnes approves of the way that Chavez takes on the press. So according to the loons at Harrys Place this means that Chavez and the BNP are some kind of bedfellows. It apparently doesn't occur to them that islamophobia and militarism give HP more in common with the BNP than anything Chavez might have in common with either.

But that's not the point of the post. HP monitors its guest posts closely for departure from the party line. Hasbara Buster did a post there spoofing South African history and they panicked and ran a denunciatory post straight after it (actually it was two). The Chavez/BNP thing is a guest post by an Edmund Standing and it links to the blog of Brit neo-nazi Lee Barnes. Now where is David T to denounce the guest? Where is David Hirsh? Where is Modernity Blog? Where is Bob from Brockley to calm them down when they get carried away?

Nowhere, it seems. Now is it a big deal to link to neo-nazis? Gabriel had to provide the link to the only place where the article he was criticising could be found. But according to the HP faithful that wasn't good enough. But it is different in the case of Harry's Place. It really is different because if you look at the post very soon and check the right hand side margin you might just see the following advert:

Sir Oswald Mosley
[I broke the link - unlike HP. I don't want to promote Oswald Moseleyabilia]

Mosley Books, CDs, T-Shirts, Mugs Huge range of Right Wing books DVDs

So not only has Harry's Place linked to a neo-nazi website whilst condemning others for the same thing, they have also managed to generate publicity for the original Brit nazi group the British Union of Fascists and its leader, Sir Oswald Moseley and possibly income for fascists.

Now see what being a bunch of hypocritical liars does for a blogging team. Again I ask, where is Modernity Blog? where is David T? where is Shachtman? where is Alf Green? I won't ask where is Bob from Brockley again. I'm sure his voice of calm reason will be heard just as soon as the apoplexy breaks out among his friends.

There are various lessons here about hypocrisy and dishonesty and why both should be avoided but more specifically, if you are clumsy with links you shouldn't run google ads because your links to fascists might just go viral.

Is it fair to compare Dershowitz to a Nazi crackpot?

I know I'm going to hurt the feelings of Jonathan Freedland. But I can live with that.

This is from Alan Dershowitz:

The truth is that the Palestinian leadership, supported by the Palestinian masses, played a significant role in Hitler's Holocaust....Husseini's significant contributions to the Holocaust were multi-fold: first, he pleaded with Hitler to exterminate European Jewry and advised the Nazis on how to do so; second, he visited Auschwitz and urged Eichmann and Himmler to accelerate the pace of the mass murder; third, he personally stopped 4,000 children, accompanied by 500 adults, from leaving Europe and had them sent to Auschwitz and gassed; fourth, he prevented another two thousand Jews from leaving Romania for Palestine and one thousand from leaving Hungary for Palestine, who were subsequently sent to death camps; fifth, he organized the killing of 12,600 Bosnian Jews by Muslims, whom he recruited to the Waffen-SS Nazi-Bosnian division. (Dershowitz in Der Jerusalem Stuermer)

This is from a "racist, white supremacist and anti-Jewish" Adolf-worshipping website:

Jews were responsible for getting the US to enter WWI on the side of Britain, which they did in exchange for the promise of a "Jewish homeland" in Palestine, which Britain then controlled. This promise was rendered in the form of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, supposedly written by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to the chief representative of the Jewish community in Britain and head of the famous banking family, Lord Rothschild, but actually written collectively by major Jewish world leaders. ... Beyond this, the Jews may have had a hand in actually beginning WWI, inasmuch as the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, which set off the war, was carried out by men which two sources I am now unable to locate claimed were Jews..(The Birdman)

Similar arguments, similar racist agenda, similar playing fast and loose with evidence (see also this and this Tom Segev Times article and especially this chez Lenin (including the fabulous comments section which makes up for the graduate seminar about the Mufti that Dershowitz never attended)). But the Nazi at least qualifies his filth with phrases such as "may have a hand," whereas the Zionist presents substance-free allegations as solid facts. And the Nazi, unlike the Zionist, doesn't have the nerve to say explicitly that his grotesquely exaggerated villains were "supported by the masses." It is an indictment of the moment we're in that a respectable Zionist apologist with a Harvard chair would pay even less heed to accurate sourcing and rules of evidence than a white supremacist crackpot. The final difference, the Nazi fabulist is an object of scorn and ridicule, as he should be. The equally vile Dershowitz, as the sycophantic letter of Hampshire College President Ralph Hexter describes him, is in "high esteem."

Major Jewish organizations invited Dershowitz to speak at the U.N. in may 2009, about antisemitism and in commemoration of the holocaust, no less. He delivered a hatefest based on his stock in trade fabrications and insinuations. Then these very Jewish organizations lose their marbles because some dare see a similarity between Zionists and Nazis. Here's an idea. If you don't want to be likened to Nazis, don't invite an advocate of Nazi-like policies and a purveyor of Nazi-like scholarshit to speak at your events! If you don't want to legitimize abusing the memory of the Jewish victims of the holocaust, don't be the first in line to piss on their graves! Have some decency!

The Black-Jewish alliance from hell

Charles Murray's ["African-Americans are stupid" Charles Murray, G.A.] talk last night — he's this year's recipient of the Irving Kristol award — was by far my favorite. Accessible, but deep, sweeping yet focused, it was just a wonderful piece of work. Charles made the large case against America following Europe's socio-economic model, while at the same time refraining from bashing Europe or social democracy. ( Jonah Goldberg, The National Review)

"The Case for Israel" [by "Palestinians are Nazis" Alan Dershowitz, G.A.] is indispensable reading for those of us who are deeply disturbed by the rise of anti-Semitism in American society, even on college campuses. ( Henry Louis Gates, book blurb, JTA)