On Israel's collective amnesia: 'Could we kill an Arab?'

Al Jazeera

A few years ago, the Israeli Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs unveiled an English-language website with the aim of repairing Israel's image, which was said to be under unfair attack abroad.

A Jerusalem Post article marking the debut of the (now defunct) site noted that it "provide[d] hasbara material related to current events, tips for the 'novice ambassador', myths and facts about Israel and the Arab world, and lists of Israel's most prominent achievements in science, medicine and agriculture".

Among alleged image-improving factoids listed by the ministry was that "[a]n Israeli invention for an electric hair removal device makes women happy all over the world." The catalogue of "myths" included that the West Bank settlements are an obstacle to peace - a notion debunked on the website as follows: "The Palestinian Authority sees the roots of the conflict as being the '1948 settlements', whereas the facts show that the settlements were founded after the 1967 war."

Via this attempted sleight of hand, the ministry endeavoured to dismiss the problematic issue of 1948 by triumphantly "proving" that the post-1967 settlements were indeed established after and not before 1967 -  something that no one argues with anyway.

The real myth, of course, is the one propagated by Israel, whose refusal to atone for, or even acknowledge, that the crimes upon which the nation is founded constitutes the principal obstacle to peace. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA.

Israel's other silent war

Al Jazeera

A recent Jerusalem Post op-ed on "South Africa's obsession with Israel" resurrects complaints regarding the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, which during its 2011 session in Cape Town concludedthat "Israel's rule over the Palestinian people, wherever they reside, collectively amounts to a single integrated regime of apartheid."

The op-ed author reasons that, "[i]f… supporters of the tribunal were honestly concerned with the lives of Palestinians, why then was there not a single word mentioned about the abuse of Palestinians by Arab regimes such as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait, who keep them stateless, refuse them access to higher education and do not allow them the vote?"

This critique conveniently ignores the fact that Palestinian statelessness is a direct result of the establishment of Israel, whose initial crime of ethnic cleansing granted Arab regimes the opportunity to engage in such abuses. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA.

Socialism in One Village

Jacobin

Back in 2003, a friend and I acquired jobs at an avocado packing facility in a village in Andalusia not far from where two of my father’s relatives were executed by Franco. For three and a half euros an hour, we stood by a conveyor belt and alternately clipped avocado stems, arranged the fruit in boxes, and arranged the boxes on wooden pallets.

Each activity was accompanied by unironic reminders from the factory bosses to work como una máquina, although they eventually realized that such rhetoric was less effective in increasing our output than the provision of boxed wine and cognac in plastic cups.

Our spare time was spent consuming the same refreshments in other venues where elderly villagers reminisced about periods of mass regional starvation and counted the number of days remaining until the Christmas lottery. Andalusia appeared permanently and inevitably repressed by the state, the aristocracy, the euro, and a host of related demons. Beyond palliative cognac and lottery ticket purchases, there seemed little that could be done.

Not once did we hear of nearby Marinaleda, star of a new study by Dan Hancox called The Village Against the World. A self-proclaimed “utopia towards peace,” the central Andalusian village currently boasts 2,700 inhabitants and some delusions of grandeur. Hancox notes, “In most parts of the capitalist world, ‘another world is possible’ is just an idealistic rallying cry. In Marinaleda, it’s an observable fact.”  READ MORE AT JACOBIN.

Why migrants die

Al Jazeera

In 2001, a Palestinian friend of mine attempted to go to Europe.

Holding only a travel document for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon - one of the more useless bundles of paper currently in existence - he appealed to a Turkish mafia ring in Istanbul, and was promised passage to Greece in exchange for $1,000. 

Thus began an odyssey of sorts in which my friend was packed onto a series of overcrowded boats. The first broke down off the coast of Turkey, the second sank, and the third deposited its human cargo in the vicinity of the Turkish city of Izmir, which the migrants were told was Greece. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA.