Israel to World: "Suck It."

- books

Nice

That's kind of sick. My mom certainly didn't realize any of those things were on the list when I spoke to her yesterday, so I imagine most ordinary, news-watching people in America haven't got a clue, and I think AIPAC kind of likes things that way, judging by the hissy fits thrown when anyone tries to bring up even the most basic examples of Israel being shitty bullies. If your weapons are bigger, it's kind of difficult to portray your victimhood with any credibility.

In other exciting developments, my most pro-expansion HS FB friend has just joined 'I <3 IDF' - seriously - unfortunately the group is conducted in Hebrew so I can't follow the conversation at all. It's so weird because she's such a pacifist in every other context. Le sigh.

i'm being a little disingenuous there; there is no published list of disallowed items and i imagine that it changes from time to time, on both an official basis and at the whim of whoever is searching trucks. however those i just listed come up again and again as not being allowed in.

Building materials were the prohibited items I mentioned to my mother.

Is there a state of declared war or not, and does the legal status of piracy wrt to the blockade depend on this, or is all that so much hot air in any case?

Irish aid ship due to make an attempt to breach the blockade on Sat I think, so there's a lot of differing opinions on the actual international legal status of the Israeli actions.

Would that Israel was fielding a World Cup side this year, as we could have had endless LOLs explaining the offside rule.

Israel defence taking no prisoners, etc

iirc its more complex than "building materials". if the building materials are being used by an approved NGO, then it's allowed, otherwise not. not defending the blockade but that's what i heard anyway.

Gaza crying, etc (xp)

OH YHWH WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Are the NGOs complaining that they have trouble getting those building supplies?

Are the NGOs complaining that they have trouble getting those building supplies?

idk. i mean, in this instance, i would imagine so coz hamas is preventing the cargo from coming into gaza, but then i would imagine they wouldn't be complaining too loudly nahmsayin.

Pretty sure concrete is not allowed in at all.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/deprived-of-concrete-gaza-discovers-bricks-1.275054

Those concrete rockets are a danger to Israeli citizens

the UK doesn't have a disproportionate number of jews occupying print

disproportionate to....?

jews are probably 0.5% of the uk population yet somewhat more common than that in print

then there's the whole thing of jewish ppl (even without connections to israel) being asked/expected to opine on/justify israeli govt actions, that happens too often irl and i'd guess probably 10, 20%? of uk broadsheet comment articles on israel are anguished missives of this nature

and then u have melanie philips making dershowitz look like chomsky

Trying to think of a good truffle fry joke in re ban list btw, will get back to you when I do.

disproportionate to....?

it wasn't my phrase, but all in all i think there is more of a "jewish and pro-israeli" thing going on the US media, than there is in the UK

i mean, that doesn't stop various anti-semites (peter oborne, mehdi hasan) making a mountain of what there is.

the british elite has long been (again someone else's phrase i think) philo-arab, or just generally perfidious i guess (h8 israel in 1948; <3 it in 1956), and the left wing of it, at the moment, is on what it calls an "anti-imperialist" trip.

as the gazan woman who mordy linked to says, the bbc is way way way less pro-israeli than, say, cnn.

it wasn't my phrase, but all in all i think there is more of a "jewish and pro-israeli" thing going on the US media, than there is in the UK

They might not be as pro-Israeli, but I'd say Jewish journalists/ commentators etc are pretty healthily represented in the UK media

exactly

In the American media there is almost zero coverage of why Palestinians want what they do, or any sense of proportion in framing the conflict between the two parties. Any chance of that kind of went down the toilet post-9/11 and post-death of Arafat. Rather than ascribe any ant-Semitism to members of the British left at all, I would say their sympathies have been triggered by a reaction to the unfairness of that framing. Besides, most of the cryptic shit people say about Jews in Britain tends to come from right-wing people who don't much care for Muslims either.

the british elite has long been (again someone else's phrase i think) philo-arab

tendentious rly, tho there have been times when it's served immediate ends (ww1, various gulf potentates propping up london property market, buying weapons, £££ contractors)

a sort of mild mannered upper mid antisemitism/sniffiness about israel is a more germane and recurrent element in relations w/ the middle east

do u think modern panarabism is influenced by british coercion in that direction before the downfall of the ottoman empire?

The Foreign Office certainly had a reputation for being "philo-Arab" at one time, whether justified or not. I supsect Nasser did for that.

suzy, my ex-flatmate used to slag off Israel at the slightest hint of anything Jewish coming up in conversation. He would berate me, for example, for buying kosher food products on the spurious ground that I was propping up the Jewish fascist state, or some such claptrap. He and his ilk may not be out-and-out anti-semites but they sometimes sail close to those rocks.

They can make Kosher food just as easily in Finchley so I don't know which is the worse problem, your x-fm being anti-Semitic or just being a basic idiot. Was there an attempt at education.

...on your part?

those ppl will usually reveal themselves to be slow-witted antisemites of the left-paranoid variety

i don't think they're worthy of consideration

Rather than ascribe any ant-Semitism to members of the British left at all, I would say their sympathies have been triggered by a reaction to the unfairness of that framing.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/NewStatesmancover.jpg

xxxpost He was just one of those political pitbull types who had an answer (not always a good one) for everything and was very hard to argue with. Sadly, it's an attitude I've come across plenty of times, albeit not always that extreme, people (of the left, yes) getting all prickly at the mere mention of the J-word or any related topic. Ismael Klata's reply to your comment yesterday about how some people are just heavily invested in anti-zionism really rings true.

Typical balanced reporting from Pilger there I expect (xp)

That NS cover made me put my head in my hands at the time. Just astonishing that anyone could be so careless with anti-semitic tropes. "Conspiracy" for fuck's sake. There are times when the left discusses Israel (by no means every time) that I feel distinctly queasy and the usual defence - "we're not anti-semitic, we're anti-Zionist" - gets a little flimsy when you examine some of the language and imagery they use.

"Rather than ascribe any ant-Semitism to members of the British left at all, I would say their sympathies have been triggered by a reaction to the unfairness of that framing"

Not completely true. European Left has certainly a problem with Israel, and a part of it is definitely ideological. Thomas Haury wrote a couple of interesting, even if not always completely accurate, books about it.

anyone else seeing all the social media stuff pop up yet?

www.flotillafacts.com/

i particularly like the picture of the weapons seized, which is two sets of kitchen knives + some penknives + one dagger + a screwdriver.

like Jack Palance in the movie Shane... Throwing the pistol at the sheep herder’s feet: “Pick it up.” “I don’t wanna pick it up mister, you’ll shoot me.” “Pick up the gun”. “Mister, I don’t want no trouble, huh? I just came down town here to get some hard rock candy for my kids, some gingham for my wife. I don’t even know what gingham is, but she goes through about 10 rolls a week of that stuff. I ain’t looking for no trouble, mister.” “Pick up the gun.” BOOM. BOOM. “You all saw him. He had a gun.”

Totally anecdotal, but my sister (who lives in Leeds, which has a pretty big Jewish population) is neither religious nor particularly political, but she has noticed at the least the very awkward treatment of Jews or Judaism in the UK, vis a vis the media or just in everyday life. Like, just weird stuff (not unlike my small town West Virginia roommate one summer in college, who upon hearing I was Jewish responded innocently with "hey, that's cool," as if I needed to be reassured). Not unlike the experience of my SIL in Sydney. Australia may be very secular, and as far as minorities go there are more Muslims than Jews, but come Christmas time everyone is expected to wear red and white and green at schools and participate in the pageants. It's not anti-Semitic so much as blissfully unaware of PC tact re: non-Christians. I mean, as far as The Other goes, Muslims have it much worse throughout Europe, but what some read as latent Euro anti-Semitism is perhaps what my sister sees as just this pervasive awkwardness.

x-post, I suppose.

Legal update for Darragh:

- definitely not piracy. Piracy is private individuals attacking ships. This was a state act. Calling it piracy is just an attempt to attach a very nasty name to a not-quite-so-nasty thing (cf 'apartheid wall', 'zionism = racism', 'harvesting organs'). That shit really pisses me off - it's not like there's nothing to get stuck into, but it just makes sensible argument impossible.

- otherwise, I still think this post is mostly right. When it comes to self-defence, you'll have to watch the videos yourself. I'd say the right question is - at that exact moment, were the protestors/commandos entitled to use the force they did as a necessary way of preventing physical harm? Rights or wrongs of boarding not relevant here.

- An equally valid conclusion would be: boarding was probably illegal - but not very illegal, as the ship was clearly going into territorial waters shortly, and who's going to be policeman here anyway? Turkey have locus to be annoyed as it was their ship and their jurisdiction. Everyone else less so.

Ta, will take more time to digest that later on.

apparently one of the dead activists is an american citizen?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2010060301931.html?hpid=topnews

Why is it taking so long for the dead to be named? Or is ^ that why?

Netanyahu called the criticism "hypocrisy" and described Gaza, where 1.5 million people live in a narrow slice of dunes and refugee camps between southern Israel and the sea, as "a terror state funded by the Iranians."

The fact that Iran funds and arms Hamas is not really in dispute, nor is the fact that Hamas commits acts of terrorism. Does that make Gaza a "terror state"? I don't know. I mean it seems to rationalize collective punishment of Gazans. But it's not like he's just making shit up so much as framing things in a way that allows him to justify Israel's actions more easily.

it's kind of easy to find dickish statements from both sides. grim irony in netanyahu calling gaza a state (debatable) where as hamas doesn't recognize israel as such

has this one been posted yet: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/06/02/eu_gaza_ships_terror_ties/index.html ?

seems a bit tenuous, but the charity was p thick w. hamas already, not big news

Thinking that Turkey is not a great country to fall out with, strikes me that they're the types to hold grudges

three hundred years of bad folk music says they're not the only ones

So now there are reports that HAMAS is refusing to let the aid from the flotilla in - they apparently want all of it or nothing.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/hamas-blocking-entry-of-flotilla-aid-into-gaza-1.293943

Hamas will not allow goods from an aid flotilla raided by Israel to enter the blockaded Gaza Strip, a spokesman for the Islamist organization said Thursday.

Ahmed al-Kurd, Social Welfare Minister in the Hamas government which rules Gaza, said Hamas would block the aid cargo until Israel met all of the group's conditions.

Israel must release all of the activists detained after Israel's interception of the Gaza-bound convoy and transfer all, not just part, of the seized cargo, Kurd said.