Israel to World: "Suck It."

(let alone lead to millions of people protesting, UN actions, etc.)

Maryland woman injured at Jerusalem protest
Art student loses eye, hospital official says

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-woman-loses-eye-20100602,0,1901718.story

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_QZ63j9GySo0/SkUTzNCfC0I/AAAAAAAAAAM/B6hJDnWQP9s/Tentative%20Icon.jpg
Emily Henochowicz
A Visual Adventure!
http://thirstypixels.blogspot.com/

Sorry to interupt the actual debate with dubious lols, but.

10 people dying in Israel *is* more important than 10 people dying in country X

Not really.

Govt forces continuously killing people would be a pretty big deal almost anywhere

Dig that second imprisonment painting. Kinda reminds me of Franz Marc.

re: disproportionate attention - I feel more invested in this because I'm a) Jewish and b) American and both of those are tied up pretty directly with Israel. so that's my excuse.

xp

did we even talk about the Peter Beinert essay? i'm sure it was linked to. since we've moved on from the particular issue of the flotilla to the ideological underpinnings of the state of israel itself (only the biggest fish for ilx as always)...

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/

this Gershom Gorenberg piece on the idea (fantasy?) of a palestinian gandhi was good too

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/329fvswo.asp

I read it this morning on the bus, after it'd sat on my table for a week. It looks correct on the broad strokes, but practically speaking I don't see how worrying about American Jews' disillusion with Israel affects the unsolvable tensions between Palestinians and Israelis.

To be reductive, his argument boils down to: "young American Jews feel detached from the belligerence of the Netanyahu government."

Not really.

Govt forces continuously killing people would be a pretty big deal almost anywhere

right, well, this wasn't my point. my point was that if the government kills 10 people in, I dunno, madagascar, it wouldn't have a political ripple that immediately affects american and european politics, two wars, world terrorism, economics etc. the scope of the darfur massacre had to get GIGANTIC before it became something that affected world politics in the same way that israel does when it takes over a boat.

Govt forces continuously killing people would be a pretty big deal almost anywhere

not really. the sri lankan civil war never got this kind of play.

Beinert essay was brought up somewhere else I think...? I agree with Alfred's take (article seemed kinda obvious to me)

not really. the sri lankan civil war never got this kind of play.

dude, TRUFFLE FRIES

To be reductive, his argument boils down to: "young American Jews feel detached from the belligerence of the Netanyahu government."

― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 2, 2010 10:49 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

it's a little deeper than that, it's about bibi's consituency, which is growing. the demographics of young israel and young american jews are pointed in opposite directions.

right, that's more what I got from it.

the demographics of young israel and young american jews are pointed in opposite directions

this doesn't surprise me either, really

the fact that it doesn't surprise you doesn't mean it's not an interesting article.

xxxp

Well certainly, Govts killing their own people has never been big news.

Not what we're dealing with here.

Also- None of the countries you're listing are white.

why should that matter?

10,000 xposts but

i think people are confusing the IDF with mossad.

If you're patient, this is worth watching: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/28382?in=59:28&out=66:59

Oddly enough, it was posted hours before Monday's incident.

Well certainly, Govts killing their own people has never been big news.

Not what we're dealing with here.

Also- None of the countries you're listing are white.

― May be half naked, but knows a good headline when he sees it (darraghmac), Wednesday, June 2, 2010 4:58 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is hairsplitting -- the tamils didn't consider themselves to be 'their people'

and the reason i raised it, partly, was that, pace hurting, the UK doesn't have a disproportionate number of jews occupying print. and it has a much larger population with roots in the indian subcontinent. but israel is *still* the #1 foreign policy issue for the media, and its treatment is different in kind from that given to (say) sri lanka or pakistan, or, indeed, nigeria, another ex-colony with a large-ish immigrant population here.

I know I said I was taking a break from this thread, but it's really troubling that people keep saying stuff like "but Israel is white," when a) so what? and b) no it isn't. 50% of Israeli Jews are Mizrachi/Sephardic.

yeah the racial aspect is like pretty far down the list behind history, geopolitics, and religion imho

the extremists don't seem to have the upper hand on the west bank, so...

was meaning to ask - I've read one or two throwaway things that give the impression that things are actually pretty good there at the moment, but nobody notices because everyone's looking at gaza. Has anyone been there recently/can verify?

I know I said I was taking a break from this thread, but it's really troubling that people keep saying stuff like "but Israel is white," when a) so what? and b) no it isn't. 50% of Israeli Jews are Mizrachi/Sephardic.

Well, I keep saying it but it's more shorthand for democratic, english speaking, modern, ONE OF US, ONE OF US than as a racial description, if you catch me.

democratic eh kinda
english speaking no
modern sure

Has anyone been there recently/can verify?

I got some rosemary the other day at Tesco and the package said it came from the West Bank.

xp yeah well could say the same about the US really

afaik neither Hebrew or Arabic is an official language of the US

it's just that given the history of the Jewish people and the state of Israel, arguing that the West's interest in them is because they are "like US" is very O RLY. Like, pre-Holocaust Jews were never treated as "white" in Europe/US, for the most part. And then there's the 30%+ of the Israeli population who are neither white nor Jewish by any definition...

I take all that on board, but I still think that there's an element of it in both media coverage and the average person's (first world) perspective

well, the Israelis are considered "like us" only in relation to the undeniable "other" of the surrounding Arab populations, if that's what you mean

Not only surrounding Arab populations, but set againt the 'orrible savages in Africa, look at what they're doing to themselves now, etc.

That kind of thing, I guess.

I think Darragh's right btw, that Israel is considered basically part of Europe. It's pretty close, they compete in European cultural events, the religion's half the same, their notable figures show up here dressed like us, acting like us and talking english (I'm thinking the likes of Uri Geller as much as politician types), lots of people have family there and going there is fairly common, and you'd expect to have a similar time to elsewhere on the European med. This mostly isn't true of say Syria or Egypt - though it mostly is of Turkey or South Africa, which also might be described as 'like us' in a similar way.

I don't know, none of those things is a clincher on its own, but together they add up to something that might go a way to explaining the disproportionate interest in these places compared to others.

that stuff is all a drop in the bucket compared to the "the Jews were given the state of Israel because of the Holocaust" narrative that runs really deep in Western culture, and is obviously tied to really eeply ingrained feelings of cultural guilt/responsibility, geopolitics, and religion

deeply ingrained

Ironically, given what I've posted on this thread perhaps, I got into an argument today with an annoying Muslim woman along the lines of "Why is it only Israel you moan about, why aren't you moaning about 93 people getting shot in a mosque in Pakistan, for instance?". It's a confusing business, I tell ya.

Haha - I do generally try my best to avoid being that guy

greenwald owns spitzer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CEEwlebARY

So a photo purporting to be bulletproof vests seized from the Mavi Marmara turns out to be from 2006

http://i.imgur.com/u9Kul.jpg

Not to mention that another photo of "weapons" is mostly kitchen knives and tools.

...

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs really has a flickr photostream?

Oh, but apparently that camera may not have been out yet on that date, so the date on the camera may have just been set wrong?

christ

theres something weird about how the much larger, and more important questions abt the past and future of the region and the relationship btw palestine and israel and the gaza blockade all get subsumed into this legalistic bullshit about who shot who and who was at fault.

or maybe thats totally normal.

Gazans like cream of spinach soup, miss coriander.

That article should be spun off into a sitcom. Oh, wait, it already has.

starring Martin Mull.

horrible op-ed yesterday

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/opinion/03gordis.html?ref=global

http://www.salon.com/news/israel/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/06/02/taghreed_el_khodary_interview

Really OTM, imo.

"that stuff is all a drop in the bucket compared to the "the Jews were given the state of Israel because of the Holocaust" narrative that runs really deep in Western culture, and is obviously tied to really deeply ingrained feelings of cultural guilt/responsibility, geopolitics, and religion"

totally OTM.
Last example: soon after the flotilla news broke, protesters gathered around the old Jewish neighborhood in Rome shouting "Assassins!" and "Fascists!" to the people living there.