In London last week I went to a showing at the ICA of a new film, Forgiveness, made by the Israeli director Udi Aloni (son of Shulamit Aloni, for people who like making connections). Aloni was at the showing and discussed the film with the audience afterwards. “Forgiveness” is a tremendous film, about memory and [...]
A follow-up to this post: Mick Napier of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign has written a highly critical article on Atzmon. (At the time I’m writing, the SPSC server isn’t working, but you can get a flavour from an extract here). I can’t resist ungraciously pointing out that Mick doesn’t actually mention anywhere that the [...]
The Palestinian government is constantly being told that it must renounce violence and recognise the state of Israel. Here’s the thing: Hamas has no incentive to renounce violence as long as Israelis aren’t being told to do the same. And what does it mean to recognise the state of Israel? It doesn’t mean “acknowledge Israel” [...]
Gilad Atzmon, the famous saxophonist, played in Edinburgh on Nov. 22nd at the invititation of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Before the gig, he gave a talk entitled “Zionist Control (The Gatekeepers of the Pro-Palestine Discourse)”–it’s no secret that he doesn’t think much of “Jewish leftist groups”. The Jewish Socialist Group wrote to SPSC (it’s [...]
Two of us went on Friday to meet Alyn Smith, the Scottish Nationalist MEP, who has just got back from a European Parliament fact-finding mission to Israel and Palestine. The mission was announced on a Europa website (a link at the bottom leads to the mission’s programme, which was pretty good, but subsequent news about [...]
I went to a meeting today with this rather discouraging title, half-expecting a wild-eyed and disorganised presentation, even though friends had told me that it would be much better than that. (I can’t be the only one who felt that way, though; we have had two people sign off our mailing lists simply because the [...]
I’ve collected together the responses mailed to SJJP during the first couple of days after the letter appeared. The mixture ranges, as you would expect, from “shame on you” to “good on you”. There were replies in the Herald in the several days following (here are the letter pages for 18th August and 21st August [...]
Our letter appeared in full in the Herald today, with no fewer than 20 signatures! It was interesting to see how easy it was to get people’s responses and signatures, compared to previous times. Obviously that’s partly because the Lebanon war has been (and will continue to be) such a sharp crisis, but I think [...]
We only started organising for the demonstration a few days beforehand, so it was very gratifying to have a good turnout, a speaker (Barrie Levine, who gave an excellent speech), a banner, placards and leaflets. People joined the SJJP group from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and the far North. One supporter, in her eighties, made a [...]
So I’ve been putting off posting this, because I couldn’t figure out what to say about it. My first reaction was a sigh, “it goes on.” At some point, I almost stop being surprised. Almost. I cannot grasp what anyone thinks they have to gain from this. All explanations of the Middle Eastern conflict stop [...]
Despite the opposition to NATFHE’s motion on boycotting Israeli academics who do not publicly declare opposition to the occupation of Palestine, the motion passed narrowly at the NATFHE conference this past weekend. The motion has sparked some strong reactions. Technorati tags: NATFHE, academic boycott
The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) has put forward a motion to
…should not threaten to sue Ahmadinejad. ‘A group of Israeli diplomats wants to sue Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for incitement to genocide. Lawyers are preparing to send a file on Mr Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, to the International Court of Justice. … The UN convention defines genocide as the [...]
The Israeli Supreme Court has upheld a racist law that prevents Palestinian Arabs from living with Israeli Arab spouses or family. The Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has said that the ceasefire will be extended if the Israelis withdraw to the 1967 borders. A White House official is quoted as saying that Israel would “be [...]
As Gideon Levy points out yet again, not only has it caused a humanitarian crisis for which the Israeli government and the Quartet are responsible, but because it ultimately attracts support for Hamas and involves the Quartet in a diplomatic farce which it has now lost: ‘Two or three months and the “boycott” party of [...]
Last night I went to a Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) meeting at Euston on the crisis in the Territories. The PSC organised a strong platform, with Tony Benn, Karma Nabulsi, Lindsey German and Tariq Ali amongst others. Plenty of strong feeling, but the big hall in the Friends’ Meeting House was only half full–maybe a [...]
Cutting off aid to the Hamas-controlled PA is having a severe impact on Palestinians. The West Bank economy has been dependent on foreign aid since before the election, and the lack of aid now means that public-sector employees are not receiving wages, crushing the already fragile economy: ‘The World Bank estimates that only 12 per [...]
There’s another excellent editorial by Gideon Levy. ‘Does anyone among our excellent artillery forces think about the great fear they are causing to the children upon whose homes they are launching their shells? Have they been shown pictures of the destruction they sowed, whether deliberately or not? No Qassam rocket justifies this terrible, disproportionate bombing, [...]
Since Pesach, I have been thinking a lot about the ideas central to the seder: liberation of the oppressed, celebration that our basic needs are met and of our freedom, and sharing what we have with those less fortunate. I cannot help thinking about these ideas in the context of current events. There’s a post [...]
I wrote on April 13th and 16th about the human disaster that can be predicted as a result of the EU, American and Israeli policy towards Hamas, and about the resolute silence in the media about it. The silence was broken on Tuesday night by a report on Channel 4 news (you can watch it [...]
