El País is a leading liberal and progressive newspaper in the Spanish, Roman Catholic and Democratic Kingdom of Spain. It has long campaigned to put an end to Jewish self-determination and today’s contribution to that campaign comes in the form of an op-ed from M. Á. Bastenier, one of its most senior journalists.
Continue reading ‘The Latest From The Spanish, Roman Catholic And Democratic Kingdom Of Spain’
Just a line to recommend this conversation between Haim Watzman and his friend Frank (a disciple of Professor Dwight Geist?) in which they compare the state of democracy in Israel and the United States.
Continue reading ‘The Indigent In India And Unemployment In Um al-Fahm’
The government of Iran has today formally rejected the proposal made by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner at the recent UN General Assembly that the fugitives whose extradition Argentina is seeking in connection with its investigation into the AMIA massacre be tried in a mutually agreed third country.
Continue reading ‘Iran Rejects Argentina’s Third Country Trial Proposal’
My Gurvitz-Goldman and Gurvitz posts generated a lot of debate but they’ve now slipped off the first page of the blog so readers would be unlikely to see two valuable comments that arrived last night from Judy. You can follow the links to see them where she submitted them or just read the extracts I copy below. If anyone has anything further to contribute would they please do so here rather than on the original comment threads.
1. Imagine you came across an interview with Pope Benedict XVI in which one of the questions put to him concerned claims that he was a Roman Catholic and practiced the rituals of that church. What would you make of that?
1. The city of Buenos Aires, the nation’s capital and not the vast conurbation that surrounds it, has long had its everyday law enforcement carried out by the Policía Federal Argentina. If you live in the United States imagine ordinary policing in Washington D.C. being carried out by the FBI.
1. If and when Iran acquires nuclear weapons the avoidance of nuclear war between it and Israel, the country it seeks to destroy, will depend on Israel having a second strike capability. That means that it must have the capacity to suffer a nuclear attack and still be able to inflict a terrible retaliatory blow. If it has this capacity then it has less motivation either to mount a conventional attack on Iran designed to prevent or delay its acquisition of nuclear weapons or, once these weapons have been acquired, launch a preemptive nuclear attack designed to prevent them being used and permanently end Iran’s capacity to threaten its security.
Continue reading ‘Norway Favors Israeli Preemptive Attack on Iran’
Our friends over at NIJ report the following:
Many Norwegian media channels are today reporting on how one hundred more or less prominent Norwegians have signed a call for boycott of Israel. Communist football coach Egil Drillo Olsen, who works with the national football team, seems to be the designated leader of the pack this time. This will give prominent Israel-basher Dr. Mads Gilbert more time to manipulate the situation up at the hospital of Tromsø, where he is spearheading the resistance against providing the Norwegian army with doctors for the Norwegian soldiers in Afghanistan.
In Aftenposten today, communist football coach Egil Drillo Olsen claims: This (boycott of Israel) is in line with what 90 percent of the world’s population believes. There cannot be many other opinions then that the occupation is deeply objectionable and illegal.
“Everyone” believes that a boycott is the right strategy? And there “cannot be” many other opinions? This kind of talk sounds familiar.
The boycotters will doubtless the fact the coach of a national soccer team has joined their ranks, but let’s also remember that Norway is hardly a soccer power. Whether it’s the World Cup or the European Championship, they tend not to even qualify. It’s not like Vicente del Bosque has donned a keffiyeh.
At the same time, I have to ask where UEFA, the governing body of European football, is in all this. Israel, which plays soccer at the club and national levels in Europe because of the Arab boycott, is a member of UEFA. Is Olsen saying that he would refuse to field his side in the event that they were drawn against Israel? Sounds to me that’s exactly what he’s saying.
UEFA needs to take disciplinary action. Readers who wish to politely encourage them to do so should contact them here.
I don’t think many will contradict me if I say that the verb “resist” is usually transitive. That means, for example, that it doesn’t make sense for me to praise “Mike’s resistance” unless I am sure that my interlocutor knows about Mike’s attempts to stop his landlord from evicting him.
There’s a school of thought, if I may so dignify it, that holds that there’s nothing racist or fundamentally objectionable about anti-Zionism because opposing Zionism just means being opposed to a political system. The collapse of the Soviet Union is often proferred in this context as an example of one political system being replaced by another. “So what’s the problem?” they say, “After Zionism is defeated all the people currently resident in what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories will be able to live together in peace and equality”.
The purpose of this post is to introduce readers to Dwight Geist, Esteemed O’Donnell Professor of the Creative Arts at the University of Eastern Colorado. Norman Geras reports on a recent conversation with him here. The following extract from their discussion will help readers grasp something of the subtlety and intelligence that are basic characteristics of this increasingly influential thinker’s work:
Continue reading ‘Professor Dwight Geist On Political Causation’
This article is also published on The Propagandist. A shorter version can be read on The Huffington Post.
Watching the direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians fizzle out over the last week, I was reminded of Conor Cruise O’Brien’s observation that “conflicts don’t have solutions - they have outcomes.” For nearly two decades, the contours of a final compromise on territory that would enable the State of Israel to live alongside a new State of Palestine have been known, yet an actual agreement has remained elusive.
Here’s another Argentine “story” for guilt-stricken Israelis like Noam. Today is a public holiday in Argentina. What’s being celebrated is The Day of the Race. No, that’s not race as in human race, it’s race as in the conquerors and colonizers who came here from Europe and wiped out the indigenous population. A day to celebrate the start of a genocide, if you like.
Earlier in the year the government of Ireland expelled an Israeli diplomat because it suspected Israel of using cloned Irish passports in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January. Quite right too, states have to do what they can to defend the integrity of their passports.
You’ll find the laws and decrees governing access to Argentine citizenship by naturalization here. It’s stated on more than one occasion that citizenship can’t be denied to someone for political, ideological or religious reasons. Lovely.
Subscribe to the Z Word blog via RSS - click on the orange button below. For more information on using RSS, please read this helpful guide.
RSS