These guys are really getting around. They’re in Syria and Iraq. They’re in Libya and environs. They’re becoming established in Afghanistan. Now they’re engaging Egypt and Israel. Yes, that’s right, Israel. This ISIS outfit is on the move. The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, reports that the Israeli Defence Force is preparing
Continue readingTag: Israel
The Disaffected Lib: Israel’s Real Demographic Nightmare
Israel holds the Palestinian people captive because it believes it has no choice. While no Israeli leader will come right out and say it, there’s no way the country will restore the Occupied Territories to the Palestinians. No Israeli government is prepared to see their country withdrawn to its pre-1967
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Remind me. Why Are We So Obsessed with Iran’s Phantom Nuclear Weapons Programme?
Pretty much any country with a reasonable industrial base is capable of producing nuclear warheads. It’s not that hard once you figure out how to produce weapons-grade uranium or plutonium. Contrary to the dark fantasies rattling around in Benjamin Netanyahu’s mind, even the Mossad knows that Iran has no weapons-grade
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: What Are We Doing Flooding this Place With Arms?
Saudi Arabia has now displaced India to become the largest armaments importer in the world. Saudi imports are reported to have shot up an alarming 54% over just the past year. Among the beneficiaries of the House of Saud’s largesse is Canada, having inked a contract to sell nearly $15-billion
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Can Israelis Save Israel?
Tens of thousands of Israelis flooded Rabin Square in Tel Aviv Saturday night to call for the ouster of Benjamin Netanyahu.Organised under the banner, “Israel wants change” and dubbed an “anti-Netanyahu” event, the rally was headlined by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who told the crowd Israel is facing the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Rise and Fall of America’s Indispensable Ally – Israel
Israel has always been America’s indispensable ally in the Middle East. That may be changing. Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech yesterday to the US Congress might have been less of a bold stroke and more an act of desperation. The Sydney Morning Herald’s international affairs columnist, Paul McGeough, writes that Israel’s influence with
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Real Threat Facing Israel
No one expected Benjamin Netanyahu to win the gushing approval of the editorial board of Israel’s liberal newspaper Haaretz but they were decidedly unimpressed by their prime minister’s speech to part of the US Congress yesterday. Their view is that Netanyahu deliberately avoided any mention of the real existential threat
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Netanyahu’s High-Risk Gambit
What? I Stepped In What? With just three weeks to go, Israel’s national election has turned into a real nail-biter. The governing Likud party of Benjamin Netanyahu is in a dead heat tie with the rival Zionist Union party, each of which stands to collect 24-seats according to the latest
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Jim Stanford highlights the fact that a deficit obsession may have little to do with economic development – and calls out the B.C. Libs for pretending that the former is the same as the latter: I found especially objectionable the article’s uncritical cheerleading
Continue readingOf course Netanyahu "rules in Washington"
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to address the U.S. Congress next month has created quite a stir. President Obama, apparently not informed of the visit beforehand, is fuming. At least a dozen Democrats, including the outspokenly pro-Israel Vice-President Biden, have announced they will not attend. Even many American Jews
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Is Netanyahu Being Targeted for Regime Change – By the White House?
Barack Obama may have had enough of Benjamin Netanyahu’s stunts. It might just be time for Bibi to go. Foreign Policy’s Aaron David Miller writes that Obama is pursuing regime change in the upcoming Israeli elections. Welcome to regime change, Obama-style. There are few opportunities to change the mullahcracy in Tehran.
Continue readingMontreal Simon: John Baird’s Con Clown Tour of the Middle East
Whenever one of Stephen Harper's Con clowns leaves the country I shudder, reach for a paper bag to put over my head, and prepare for the worst.Because I know they will make fools out of themselves, and shame us once again in the eyes of the world.And in that regard
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Israel’s Unanswered Questions
Just like every other US client state (except us, for now), Israel was quick to sign up to buy the Lockheed F-35 light attack bomber. The Israeli air force inked the papers for 19 of Lockheed’s controversial warplanes and then went back to the trough to order another 32. At
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: How a Court Pushed Israel and the United States into Meltdown
What is it about the International Criminal Court that has so inflamed Israel and the United States? It’s a court of law and a pretty good one at that. It’s a venue to prosecute those who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. Who would be bothered by that –
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Double Standard?
Under normal circumstances, a court of last resort would be welcomed in the pursuit of justice, but it is apparently an entirely different story when it involves holding Israel to account Recommend this Post
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Con Stooge John Baird Goes After the Palestinians. Again.
He has always been his master's voice, Stephen Harper's most faithful stooge.A yapping Con pitbull, the absurd Minister of Religious Freedom, a gay Thatcherite in a government full of filthy homophobes.But these days nothing is more obscene than the way John Baird is pandering to the brutish settler regime of Benjamin Netanyahu,
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Stephen Harper’s Hugely Embarrassing Jewish Problem
The fuse has been burning ever since Benjamin Netanyahu set out to make Israel the nation-state of the Jewish people.A controversial bill that officially defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people has been approved by cabinet despite warnings that the move risks undermining the country’s democratic character. Opponents, including
Continue readingLeft Over: So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You, Libby…..
Libby Davies, NDP deputy leader, won’t run in 2015 CBC News Posted: Dec 12, 2014 1:26 PM ET Last Updated: Dec 12, 2014 7:39 PM ET Having watched Ms. Davies for all of the forty years of her political career, starting with her election to Vancouver Council, I am saddened,
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Atlanta billboard features Banksy’s mural of West Bank wall: ‘Christ at the Checkpoint’ conference
This is a two-part post dealing with resistance to the Israeli occupation. The common thread is Christian-related… in one case billboard art with a controversial slant on the the nativity story and in another the growing evangelical resistance to Israeli occupation.
Thanks to ifAmericansknew.org, a billboard in Atlanta is host to the artwork of British mural artist Banksy. It shows Joseph and Mary enroute to Bethlehem, but in this nativity tale the path they are on leads directly to the West Bank wall. In a realistic touch, the rendering of the wall includes a watchtower and graffiti. The disturbing juxtaposition of the Christian nativity story with draconian Israeli security, is underscored by the ironic inscription “O little town of Bethlehem.”
Bethlehem today is a far cry from the biblical version revisited in Christmas pageants. The present day version is ringed with security, not unlike a barricaded fortress.
The motivation behind bringing issues such as the Israeli occupation to the attention of the American public is addressed on the website of ifAmericansknew.org:
The mission of If Americans Knew is to inform and educate the American public on issues of major significance that are unreported, underreported, or misreported in the American media.
It is our belief that when Americans know the facts on a subject, they will, in the final analysis, act in accordance with morality, justice, and the best interests of their nation, and of the world. With insufficient information, or distorted information, they may do the precise opposite.
On ifAmericanslknew.org there is also this commentary about the brutal political and social realities underlying the Banksy mural.
Security structures, even Israeli ones, can’t suppress creativity. The West Bank wall features some impressive artwork. Along with spontaneous graffiti there are murals with themes of resistance… for example this mural of the famous Palestinian freedom fighter Leila Khalid.
The mural of Joseph and Mary beneath the West Bank wall is just one of a number of murals by Banksy that deal with Palestinian themes. During time spent in Palestine, he produced a number of murals including some on or near the West Bank wall. Beneath are a few examples of his work… view others here.
The Atlanta billboard graphically exposes the brutal reality of Israeli occupation. Although there is no publicly stated connection with evangelical activism, the Christian-themed billboard art appears at a time when many American evangelicals have been openly questioning the unconditional allegiance that their churches have traditionally given to Israel. A number of influential evangelical leaders have been looking more critically at the dehumanizing reality of Israeli occupation, with a number stepping up and expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people.
This is a development that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Christian Zionist organizations such as Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Its executive director, David Borg, recently made a statement that acknowledges a profound change in the position taken by increasing numbers of evangelicals on the subject of Israel.
Borg: “With every passing month, more evidence is emerging that these anti-Israel Christians are succeeding in reaching beyond the evangelical left and are influencing the mainstream. In particular, they are penetrating the evangelical world at its soft underbelly: the millennial generation. These young believers (roughly ages 18 to 30) are rebelling against what they perceive as the excessive biblical literalism and political conservatism of their parents. As they strive with a renewed vigor to imitate Jesus’ stand with the oppressed and downtrodden, they want to decide for themselves which party is being oppressed in the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
The term “anti-Israel” used by Borg might be considered misleading. Activists I read and likely those also of Christian evangelical persuasion are challenging the system of occupation and systematized oppression that has evolved from a great historical injustice. This is quite different from an anti-Israel position that for example calls for the destruction of the state.
In March of this year a ‘Christ at the Checkpoint’ conference was held by the Bethlehem Bible College. It was a 5-day event and as Electronic Intifada reported: “… attracted major speakers both from within the Palestinian Christian community as well as international evangelicals, including Tony Campolo, Gary Burge, Stephen Sizer, John Ortberg and Shane Claiborne. Messianic Jewish speakers were also invited.”
More about the goals of the conference here. There is also this in-depth article about the conference posted on the Israeli news website 972 Mag.
The Bethlehem conference raised considerable alarm in Israeli media and government circles. The prospect of one of Israel’s most supportive constituencies – evangelical Christians – showing signs of identifying with the Palestinians has sparked some vitriolic criticism. A number of Israeli media outlets accused the Bethlehem conference of being ‘anti-Semitic.’ An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said: “The attempt to use religious motifs in order to mobilize political propaganda and agitate the feelings of the faithful through the manipulation of religion and politics is an unacceptable and shameful act. Using religion for the purpose of incitement in the service of political interests stains the person who does it with a stain of indelible infamy.”
The increasingly reactionary, racist and militaristic Israeli state presents a moral dilemma – and not only for evangelical Christians. Religious Jews, particularly of the Orthodox persuasion, understand that tying their identity to Israel involves compromise… a compromise many aren’t prepared to make.
The impact of Zionism on Jewish identity is powerfully addressed by Yakov M. Rabkin – Professor of History at the University of Montreal – in his book Threat Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism.
In this passage Rabkin describes the impact of Zionism on pure Torah-based Judaism:
Continue readingWorse than the toll of suffering, exploitation, death, and desecration of the Torah, has been the inner rot that Zionism has injected into the Jewish soul. It has dug deep into the essence of being a Jew … It has wreaked havoc among Jews both in Israel and America, by casting us in the role of Goliath-like oppressors. It has made cruelty and corruption the norm for its followers.
drive-by planet: Atlanta billboard features Banksy’s mural of West Bank wall: ‘Christ at the Checkpoint’ conference
This is a two-part post dealing with resistance to the Israeli occupation. The first part covers news of a controversial Israel-related Banksy mural in the Atlanta area. The second stays with the Christian theme to discuss the growing numbers of American evangelicals who are openly critical of Israel and expressing
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