Posted by middleeast on 8th November 2011
Wed, November 09, 2011 Cheshvan 12, 5772
The right’s reckless driving
In response to “What does ‘Death to Israel’ mean to you?” Week’s End, November 4
There is no more admirable a commentator on the Middle East than Bradley Burston. He is right that Prof. Julio Pino’s expression “Death to Israel” was execrable; and our hearts cry out when Burston says his daughter came home “worried about explosive warheads.”
But Burston knows the big picture – that the Israeli right and “Settlerstan” prefers the status quo and “managed conflict,” the occupation and expansionism, and believes that these are sustainable.
It is the liberal and leftist side – and Burston as part of it – that say they are unsustainable. And in this column Burston, perhaps here inadvertently, vindicates himself and Israeli liberalism.
Burston speaks of the crime of “Driving While Israeli,” but he knows the problem is the Israeli right’s settlement road rage driving into the heart of the only possible Palestinian capital in Arab East Jerusalem and the only possible Palestinian state.
Pino and some other haters on the left may be saying “Death to Israel,” but it is the Israelis on the right who are perpetrating it.
James Adler
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Posted by middleeast on 6th November 2011
31 October, 2011 3 Heshvan, 5772
Taking on Water
Sir,–With Larry Derfner’s understandable departure from The Jerusalem Post, there is no longer a truly outspoken Left-Zionist to balance the regular and outspoken Right-Zionism of Caroline B. Glick, Michael Freund, Isi Leibler, Sarah Honig (in your weekend magazine) and others. Nobody at all is around to say, as would Derfner with conscience and courage, that the West Bank is the world’s last neo-colonialist misadventure, or to expose the transparent fallacies of so much of Israel’s hasbara that are perfectly obvious to most of the world — except to the “converted” who speak only to the converted.
And so, just as with Israel’s isolation in the world, so the Post has become more isolated and poorer, sometimes listing so far over to one side as almost to be taking on water.
JAMES ADLER
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Posted by middleeast on 6th November 2011
Tue, October 25, 2011 Tishrei 27, 5772
Barghouti should be freed
Gilad Shalit’s release shows Israelis as the big family they are, with so many regarding Shalit as if he were their own son. It also shows how achingly they want Jonathan Pollard to go free, and the agony of so many who lost their loved ones to the swapped prisoners. But Haaretz always brings out the complexities of the conflict in both of the sides’ narratives.
And so on the other side, even after the exchange, Israel will hold thousands of Palestinian prisoners (some for as long as 30 years ) in jail.
And yet in order to help bring both sides – with their so profoundly divergent narratives – closer to peace, how calamitous it is to leave in jail Marwan Barghouti, perhaps the one Palestinian leader able to unite the divided Palestinians behind an effective peace agreement.
If only Franz Kafka could still be here he would surely put this in one of his stories.
James Adler
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Posted by middleeast on 6th November 2011
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Posted by middleeast on 6th November 2011
Sun, Oct 16, 2011 18 Tishri, 5772
Sir, – Thank heavens for what we hope will be the release of Gilad Schalit. If only he could be released together with the disgracefully over-punished Jonathan Pollard. And also with Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti. If anyone, it is Barghouti who could unite the polarized Palestinians around a peace deal acceptable to both the Israeli and Palestinian publics.
Egypt’s Anwar Sadat was at first more of a warrior than Barghouti ever was – and how many Israeli youths died in the Yom Kippur War that Sadat launched? But this is precisely what made the Egyptian a credible peacemaker to his people.
JAMES ADLER
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