Blogs

A long exchange of correspondence with people who should know better last week in advocating the Palestinian cause concerning their 'crude views about Jews' led to me wasting too many hours looking at a variety of webites that deal with 'the Palestine Israel' problem from the perspective of left organizations and Palestinians organizations. I've also seen more comments of a nutty nature than I'd wish too.

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about a disturbing visit by Australian kids on the Birthright program to Hebron, where they were fed extremist propaganda,in contravention of Birthright's own rules about visiting the occupied territories (and what gives a 'birthright' to Australian citizens over that of local Palestinians?)

I left phone and email messages for the Australian Union of Jewish Students who run the program to get some clarifications. True to form, no one got back to me.

On what's happening in Israel and the influence of Gliad Atzmon some Palestinian advocates.

Some days, you see the influence of nuttiness on both sides of the separation fence.

Antony Loewenstein recently posted an image of Julie Gillard as the leader of Judeo-Nazi Stormtroopers on his website. The poster had the words: "Australians stand firm against Islam and terrorism!...With our Israeli Allies". He accompanied it with the words "a regular reader of this site sent this on, exact source unknown, but certainly speaks for itself". Too ambiguous for words.

Coteret, an Israeli news site, reports that Australian kids have been taken on a tour of Hebron and shown around by Jewish extremists. Coteret has a full report as well as a video (which has now been taken down from the source website).

This is in contradiction with 'Birthright' policy which forbids visits to the occupied territories other than Jerusalem.

Gilad Shalit's treatment by Hamas since his capture on June 25 2006 as a non-declared prisoner of war without rights of visitation--a hostage--is appalling, and should be condemned and the man set free. It's a bit like Hamas' version of Gitmo without any visits and assurances of his well-being. Thus his treatment has been condemned internationally and even the Goldstone Report (yes, the Goldstone report which is otherwise anthematized) said so as well. His cause has become a rallying cry among Jewish communities around the world.

The bunker mentality or a truly democratic Israel

Peter Beinart’s essay in the New York Review of Books about the demise of liberal Zionism has caused has caused quite a stir.

Moshe Yaroni (a nom de plume) has continued the discussion on his blog, in which he says:

"Whether from a left or right wing Zionist tradition, the dividing line between the bunker mentality and the goal of making Israel a truly democratic society (something it has been much closer to being in the past but never fully attained) is what determines whether one will support Israel’s current suicidal course or work to steer it back toward the vision of its founders...They do not live in fear of a next Holocaust as their parents did, and if it does threaten to come about, they don’t believe Israel is going to be the only option... Israel’s insistence that it just needs better public relations campaigns is a dead-end"

The article is well worth a read.

Albie Sachs is one of South Africa's heroes, a former judge of the Constitutional Court and a victim of a terror attack by agents of the old regime.

He recently made a speech about the Goldstone Affair to the Cape Town Press Club in which he said:

I've blogged an opinion piece about a 'democratic constitution for Israel on the Galusaustralis site. The full version is also available here. I have also tried to address criticisms in the comments to the Galus article, with additional references.

It's remarkable that there has been little in the general press about the killing of another Palestinian protester, Ahmed Salem Deeb, by a sniper in the Gaza strip 3 days ago. It's another case of a protester suffering from 'overkill' and the creation of a popular martyr.