Madmen for Israel: Selling Zionism

Sherry Wolf

Madmen don’t just pitch beer and toothpaste. Most progressives today agree their credits include the selling of America’s wars, but as Columbia Professor Rashid Khalidi explained the other evening at Brooklyn Law School, even the mythology that dominates most Americans’ thinking about Israel can be traced back to the clever fellows on Madison Avenue.

Below, I’ve transcribed an excerpt of Professor Khalidi’s remarks from September 22nd because the better we understand the true origins of Israel’s mythology about itself, the more effective we can be at stopping the humanitarian nightmare playing out inside the Gaza Strip. For length’s sake, I do not run the entire speech here, but anyone who asks is welcome to my recording file.

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Israel's settlement industry under boycott pressure

Report, The Electronic Intifada, 23 September 2010


Palestinian activists in the occupied West Bank have called for the boycott of the popular Rami Levy Israeli supermarket chain which has several stores inside Israel's illegal settlements. Activists say they will call on fellow Palestinians to "avoid supporting the occupation and settlements' economy by boycotting Israeli goods and settlement stores."

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Negotiations While Ethnic Cleansing Continues

By Mazin Qumsiyeh

Qumsiyeh being arrested in Al-Walaja 6 May 2010

Seven million of the 11 million Palestinians are refugees or displaced people. Israeli war criminals and US officials complicit in ethnic cleansing meet in fancy hotels to claim they are “negotiating” for peace (while in the meantime giving green light to further ethnic cleansing and destruction of Palestinian lives to strengthen the apartheid system.

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Divestment: from the campus to the streets

Mohammad Talaat, The Electronic Intifada, 8 September 2010


Following a sharp increase in divestment efforts across North American college campuses last spring, this academic year promises an even greater number of initiatives. The success and near-success of efforts at several campuses last year, coupled with Israel's attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla this summer, has inspired new efforts among peace and justice activists to target companies that profit from and abet Israel's apartheid regime.

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For a morally consistent boycott of Israel

Statement, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, 7 September 2010
Provoked by the recent announcement of the inauguration of a cultural center in Ariel, the fourth largest Jewish colony in the occupied Palestinian territory, 150 prominent Israeli academics, writers and cultural figures have declared that they "will not take part in any kind of cultural activity beyond the Green Line, take part in discussions and seminars, or lecture in any kind of academic setting in these settlements" ("150 academics, artists back actors' boycott of settlement arts center," Haaretz, 31 August 2010). A few protestors went as far as reiterating the fact that all Israeli colonies built on occupied Palestinian land are in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and thus constitute a war crime.

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Obama's Ridiculous Mid-East Summit

Weekend Edition
September 3 - 5, 2010

CounterPunch Diary

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

It has been impossible to read the agenda for the Oval Office summit between Obama, Netanyahu and Abbas without laughing out loud at the absurdity of its pretensions.  The American plan was that President Obama would inform Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, representing the  Palestinian Authority, that this is make-or -break time for a peaceful settlement. The US wants an agreement within a year, with the stipulations in this agreement to be phased in over a decade.

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50 Ways to act for Peace with Justice in Palestine

http://palestinejn.org/resources/resources-for-activism-

1) Educate yourself via reliable books.  For example books by Ilan Pappe (Ethnic Ceansing of Palestine), Edward Said (The Question of Palestine).

2) Educate yourself and track current information and key historical data via websites (and disseminate it). For example look into http://www.imemc.org/, http://electronicintifada.net/, http://english.aljazeera.net/, Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem, Palestine Remembered, and similar websites.

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Settlers Defy Peace Talks With New Construction Across West Bank

Published on Thursday, September 2, 2010 by Reuters


Hours before peace talks were set to begin in Washington, Jewish settlers defiantly announced plans on Thursday to launch new construction in their West Bank enclaves in a test of strength with Palestinian Islamists.

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Hamas, the I.R.A. and Us

By ALI ABUNIMAH, Op-Ed Contributor

Published in the New York Times: August 28, 2010

GEORGE J. MITCHELL, the United States Middle East envoy, tried to counter low expectations for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations by harking back to his experience as a mediator in Northern Ireland.

At an Aug. 20 news conference with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, announcing the talks that will begin this week, Mr. Mitchell reminded journalists that during difficult negotiations in Northern Ireland, “We had about 700 days of failure and one day of success” — the day in 1998 that the Belfast Agreement instituting power-sharing between pro-British unionists and Irish nationalists was signed.

Mr. Mitchell’s comparison is misleading at best. Success in the Irish talks was the result not just of determination and time, but also a very different United States approach to diplomacy.

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