MANY IMPORTANT struggles in Israel are calling out to people of conscience. Among others (in random order):

The struggle for preserving the environment and the future of the planet.

The struggle for democracy against fascist trends.

The struggle for human rights and civil rights.

The feminist struggle.

The struggle for the rights of gays and lesbians.

The struggle for social justice and social solidarity.

The struggle for equal rights for Israel’s Arab citizens.

The struggle against the discrimination of Oriental Jews.

The struggle for the separation of religion and state.

The struggle for animal rights.

Etc. etc. etc.

What do all these causes have in common?

All of them belong to the liberal, “progressive” world view.

Each and every one of them deserves full-hearted devotion, especially of young people.

But after all, all of them serve today as substitutes for the main battle – the struggle for peace with the Palestinian people.

Dr.Meron Benvenisti has recently published a long and detailed update of his views on the Israeli control of the occupied Palestinian territories. MB argues that the current situation must be defined as a “de-facto bi-national regime.” Moreover, MB claims that the refusal of the left to accept his theses on this vital issue is tantamount to co-responsibility for the continued suffering of the Palestinians. MB asserts that the settlements are not any impediment to peace, that Palestinian nationalism is, for all intents and purposes, a thing of the past and to insist that the regime in the territories is clearly one of occupation is an example of bad “linguistic choice.”*

MB argues that by refusing to understand that the conflict must be viewed on the basis of MB’s new paradigm, the “de- facto bi-national regime.” the left is remains without  any program, and even worse, bears responsibility for aiding and abetting the current state of affairs.

I just learned that my friend Howard Zinn died. Earlier this morning, I was being interviewed by the Boston Phoenix, in connection with the release in Boston in February of a documentary in which he is featured prominently. The interviewer asked me who my own heroes were, and I had no hesitation in answering, first, “Howard Zinn.”

Just weeks ago after watching the film on December 7, I woke up the next morning thinking that I had never told him how much he meant to me. For once in my life, I acted on that thought in a timely way. I sent him an e-mail in which I said, among other things, what I had often told others about him: that he was,” in my opinion, the best human being I've ever known. The best example of what a human can be, and can do with their life.”

When Israeli Arab members of the Knesset will declare they have no interest in swearing allegiance to a Jewish State those of us who have long been disgusted with the unholy mélange of politics and religion will be there with them

Always nice to contemplate the part of the glass which is half-full. Israel still has quite a few characteristics of a democratic state. Even these days of alarmingly enhanced erosion of the democratic spirit – never really fully adopted by our legislators – one may still make symbolic gestures of protest against the gallop towards nationalistic totalitarianism, the heart desire of so many in the Israeli corridors of power. 

As is, for example, the case of the law which is supposed to make it obligatory for every member of the Knesset to swear allegiance to a "Jewish Zionist Democratic State", a concept packed with inner contradictions, as no believing Jew could swear in the name of a "democratic" Jewish State and no true democrat could possibly find room in a state which conditions human rights in one's affiliation with a certain religious group.

The announcement of MK Mohammed Barakeh of his intention to join the parliamentary delegation to Auschwitz next week has ignited a heated discussion in Israel's Arabic press.

Many saw this as a positive step, following efforts by other members of the Arab community to reach out to the Jewish community and improve relations between the two groups. Such efforts include the establishment of a small Holocaust museum in Nazareth, and the visit of 260 Israeli Arab and Jewish clerics, municipal leaders and educators to Auschwitz in May 2003, led by Bishop Emile Shoufani. Shoufani's visit sparked controversy, and Barakeh, head of Hadash, one of the largest Arab parties, has now added more fuel to the fire with his decision. Almost half of the responses in the media have been negative - and many are due to political rivalries - with most of the opposition centering on the visit itself, its meaning, timing and framework.

The US-run aid effort for Haiti is beginning to look chillingly similar to the criminally slow and disorganized US government support for New Orleans after it was devastated by hurricane Katrina in 2005. Four years ago President Bush was famously mute and detached when the levies broke in Louisiana. By way of contrast President Obama was promising Haitians that everything would be done for survivors within hours of the calamity.   

The rhetoric from Washington has been very different during these two disasters, but the outcome may be much the same. In both cases very little aid arrived at the time it was most needed and, in the case of Port-au-Prince, when people trapped under collapsed buildings were still alive. When foreign rescue teams with heavy lifting gear does come it will be too late. No wonder enraged Haitians are building roadblocks out of rocks and dead bodies.   

The first decade of the 21st century in the third millennium brought no good tidings to humanity. Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya, genocide in Darfur, millions killed in Congo along with mass rape, terrorism by al-Qaeda and its affiliates, global economic crisis, intolerable gaps between the poor South and the rich North, trade in human beings in general and children for the sex industry in particular, global warming – those are only some of the problems that humanity is contending with.

In my previous article I discussed Jean Bricmont’s book Humanitarian Imperialism where he lucidly and unequivocally explains his rejection of intervention of one country in the affairs of another, allegedly in the name of human rights.. Bricmont does not speak of such aggression in general terms but points his finger directly at the United States of America, the strongest country in the world:

It is the United States, with its military power, which maintains the state of extreme injustice that prevails today. The USA, not Iraq or Yugoslavia, is the country with which the world’s progressive forces are in confrontation and which they will confront in the future, again and again. Every gain for the USA in war or diplomacy is – at least partly – a setback for the forces of progress.

Good evening to all who came to mark the first anniversary of the Gaza carnage, and to protest on the comfortable complacence which inhabitants of this city and this country exhibit in face of the slow annihilation which goes on and on in Gaza and throughout Palestine.

Had Israeli preschoolers been asked "What did you learn at school this year, dear little boy of mine?" there are all kinds of answers which we might have gotten. An enlightened and critical child might have answered: I learned that the sun is still shining, and the almond tree is blooming, and the butcher butchers, and there is nobody to judge him.{1}

And the child who is less used to theorizing might rejoice and say: I learned how to cheat Americans, deceive Palestinians, to kill Arabs, to expel families from their homes, and to curse whoever tells me that I am a nasty brat when I have been a nasty brat. And I learned that the Jewish People lives and that Gilad Shalit also lives. Still. {2}

Congratulations to those refusing to obey the decrees issued by the Israeli government for a construction freeze on the settlements in the Occupied Territories! Congratulations to those who declare that they shall continue building even without a permit !

As an active member of ICAHD, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, which has been dealing for years with allegedly illegal construction of houses which the state of Israel then demolishes in east Jerusalem, I sympathize with the settlers and regard them as our disciples – but in reverse. While we both have adopted the same approach, there is one substantial difference. We rebuild houses of Palestinians who are trying to live on their very own land. Even when they are being charged with illegal construction, no one disputes their rightful ownership of the land, while the settlers, by contrast, build their houses on other people’s land seized in contravention of international law or in accordance with laws legislated by the Israeli government to displace the land’s rightful Arab owners. Only Jews recognize the validity of this law; the whole world strongly condemns these acts and declares that these settlements must be dismantled.