Hagada Hasmalit

The Harlot�s Grave

Some weeks ago, Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in Rome, was released after serving 28 years in prison.

The motives for his act have never been clarified. But a Palestinian leader once told me his version: God appeared to Agca in a dream and told him: Go to the Holy City and kill that damn Pole. But the Turk misunderstood, so instead of going to Jerusalem and killing Menachem Begin, he went to Rome��

Which just goes to show that holy cities are a pain in the neck.

In Search of the Jewish People

Shlomo Sand�s book The Invention of the Jewish People was published in Hebrew two years ago and was at the top of the best-seller list for weeks. It was subsequently translated into French and became a best-seller in that language as well. Only a few months ago the book was published in English (translated by the lateYael Lotan, a dear friend).

As expected, the book produced critical waves both here in Israel and abroad. Newspapers like The New York Times devoted space to it. While most of the critiques abroad took the book very seriously and some were sympathetic and supportive, the reception in Israel ranged from cool to hostile. This was not unexpected as the book runs counter to Zionist historiography. Indeed, Sand �brushed history against the grain� as enjoined to do so by Walter Benjamin. He shed light on a history that, even if it had not been completely concealed, had been relegated to the margins.

Red Rag - An evil wind is blowing over Israel

A few days ago I was at an event in which a minister in the Israeli government was also present. We got to talking, and he surprised me with statements that were radical by the standards of his party and government. He stated that Israel is in on a slippery slope towards fascism, and the savage attack on the New Israel Fund is one of the signs of that. According to him the generals who hold political office, especially as ministers, constitute a danger and the harm that they have caused is incalculable. I asked whether I could quote him, and he said not right now, but added that if there is no change for the better, he is planning a significant political action in a few months. We shall see.

The media and political storm over the New Israel Fund in general and against human rights organizations that were quoted in the Goldstone Report in particular, is reminiscent of the dark days of the American Senator Joseph McCarthy, who in the 1950s was the head of a committee of inquiry in the US Senate and saw Soviet agents everywhere.

What's between Avigdor Lieberman & Ferenc Sz�lasi?*

Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, Avigdor Lieberman, met last month with the Prime Minister of Hungary Gordon Bajnai, in Budapest. According to Israeli media, the two discussed expanding economic and commercial relations between the countries and noted the good relations between them. I wonder: if Ferenc Sz�lasi was alive would Mr. Bajnai embrace him with such warmth too? Had Nyilaskeresztes P�rt � Hungarista Mozgalom (Arrow Cross Party-Hungarist Movement) existed today, would the Prime Minister join its ranks?

A letter from Ofer Military Prison

Dear Friends and Supporters,

It has been two months now since I was handcuffed, blindfolded and taken from my home. Today news has reached Ofer Military Prison that the apartheid wall on Bil'in's land will finally be moved and construction has begun on the new route. This will return half of the land that was stolen from our village. For those of us in Ofer, imprisoned for our protest against the wall, this victory makes the suffering of being here easier to bear. After actively resisting the theft of our land by the Israeli apartheid wall and settlements every week for five years now, we long to be standing alongside our brothers and sisters to mark this victory and the fifth anniversary of our struggle.

Israel's women soldiers share stories of hate and despair

On the way out of a popular Jerusalem steakhouse last Wednesday, I was introduced to an American-Israeli named Eliza.

A member of the Israel Defence Forces public relations unit, Eliza quickly explained that she was busy hosting a dinner for some foreign journalists. "Whom of course, internally, I despise," she added apologetically, not knowing who I was.

Among the "despised" journalists at her table were Charles Levinson of The Wall Street Journal, and Sheera Frenkel, who writes for The Times of London. Both are American-born Jews, and neither they, nor their Murdoch-owned mastheads, are what you would call typically rabid haters of Israel.

Whether or not the IDF flack actually loathed these two reporters hardly matters. What her comments do reveal is the deep resentment felt by Israel's political elite towards what is perceived to be a biased foreign press corps.

After last year's war in Gaza, and the later report for the United Nations Human Rights Council by Justice Richard Goldstone that accused Israel of war crimes, sensitivity to how Israel is perceived abroad has been more heightened than ever. Yet the most piercing insights into the Israeli-Arab conflict today have nothing to do with the foreign media. They come from within Israeli society itself.

Confronting Settlement Expansion in East Jerusalem

The neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, a 20-minute walk up the hill from the Damascus Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem, has become the focal point of the struggle over the expanding project of Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

In the first week of February a settler in Sheikh Jarrah attacked a young boy from an Arab family evicted so that Jewish activists could move in. The al-Ghawis were displaced in August 2009, and since then they have been living in front of their former home in a tent, refusing to move in protest of the eviction. Settlers have gone after them more than once. On this occasion, an older al-Ghawi, Nasir, was beaten and menaced with an M-16 by a settler when he attempted to protect the young boy. Police arrived on the scene and disarmed the settler. But they also served Nasir with a restraining order forbidding him to enter Sheikh Jarrah for 15 days. Then the police destroyed the al-Ghawis� tent. The makeshift abode was rebuilt, but the next day police and municipal officials came to the site and threatened to dismantle it a second time.

Forgiveness for Haiti? We should be begging theirs

If we are to believe the G7 finance ministers, Haiti is on its way to getting something it has deserved for a very long time: full "forgiveness" of its foreign debt. In Port-au-Prince, Haitian economist Camille Chalmers has been watching these developments with cautious optimism. Debt cancellation is a good start, he told al-Jazeera English, but: "It's time to go much further. We have to talk about reparations and restitution for the devastating consequences of debt." In this telling, the whole idea that Haiti is a debtor needs to be abandoned. Haiti, he argues, is a creditor � and it is we, in the west, who are deeply in arrears.

Our debt to Haiti stems from four main sources: slavery, the US occupation, dictatorship and climate change. These claims are not fantastical, nor merely rhetorical. They rest on multiple violations of legal norms. Here, far too briefly, are highlights of the Haiti case.

A Four-Letter Word

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.

Stability on the Edge of a Volcano

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.

A Memory of Howard Zinn

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.�

Saying No to a Jewish State is still an option

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 m�lange 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.

Have a safe trip, Mohammed Barakeh

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.

Crushing Haiti, Now as Always

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.

Red Rag Column - Still a long way to go

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.