Saturday, June 20, 2009

A Note on the Iranian Protests and on Israel-Palestine

The eyes of the entire world are trained on Iran, as well they should be. One can only watch with envy at the courage of the Iranian men and women who are fighting and dying for their rights to have their voice heard, and to determine their future.

Gideon Levy wrote about this envy in Haaretz. I can't say it any better than he can. In Iran, a nation is galvinized against injustice. Here, only a handful protest.

When an international crisis is going on, nobody pays attention to Israel. How can Youtube videos about Palestinians forcing to slap themselves by Border Police compete with the riveting clips from Teheran? The last Gaza campaign was planned for the Christmas – New Year's season, when American would be busy.

The international crises come and go, but the longest running shown in town – the Israel/Palestinian Follies – looks like it will play forever. It has run even longer than Agatha Christies' play, the Mousetrap, which opened in 1952 and is still running in the West End.

Remember that scene in the movie Clueless, where brother Josh is watching tv footage about Bosnia, and says to a puzzled Cher, "You look confused," to which she responds, "Well, I thought they declared peace in the Middle East." The audience laughed because Cher confused two conflicts. That movie was made in 1996, when the world thought that Oslo was chugging along nicely, and Bosnia looked like a hopeless mess.

Well, where is Bosnia now, and where is Israel/Palestine?

So what do I do when nobody is looking? Well, I just keep collecting the material. I know that when the situation in Iran has stabilized (for the better, I hope), our mess will still be here.

The only thing I can do is keep broadcasting to a distracted world the "low-level" conflict that is over 100 years old.

4 comments:

Avram said...

"the "low-level" conflict that is over 100 years old."

I'm not sure if we were writing about the same thing at the same time (only you'll get the comment) but this conflict is much much older than this ... It's just become solely focused on land to most people who are part of the conflict, or outsiders.

Tamar Orvell said...

Please, keep broadcasting. And thank you!

Anonymous said...

This conflict is not old. Jewish immigrants who are not even genetically as close to the ancient Israelites as the Palestinian Arabs.

So there goes your myth about returning to your homeland.

800,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes by the Jewish terror groups and Israeli army in 48'. That's why there is a Jewish majority in Israel. ANd the 400+ Arab villages were erased and countless other atrocities that continue to the present.

Blah blah blah. Anyone who reads the history of this conflict and doesn't fall for the propaganda about 'terrorism' and 'poor poor Jews' will know that Israel is just a racist colonial State. It will always be that way.

How disgusting it was to look at Tamar Orvell's blog. She has a entry about some Bhutanese refugee or something.

Typical Jewish hypocrisy. You are progressive on everything except Palestine. What about the Palestinian refugees?

Avram said...

"Jewish immigrants who are not even genetically as close to the ancient Israelites as the Palestinian Arabs."

Want to offer solid proof for that? You're essentially saying that Jerry and Ashkenazi Jewry have no ties to the 'Ancient Jews' (or Israelites or whatever you want to call them), which is something I see mostly on sites that are filled with rhetoric I'd rather not repeat on this site.

"Typical Jewish hypocrisy. You are progressive on everything except Palestine. What about the Palestinian refugees?"

Do you care about the Arab Jewish refugees? If not, then I guess you're as hypocritical as those "Typical Jewish hypocrites" eh?