Is it just me, or does Israel’s latest political strategy sound more like reality television?
From Haaretz (and I invite you to view the featured image and the equally ridiculous caption):
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office released on Friday a statement regarding Foreign Minister Avidgor Lieberman’s “plan” to take retaliatory steps against Turkey.
According to a report in Yedioth Ahronoth, Lieberman assembled a team in charge of retaliating against Turkey. According to the report, the team recommended to Lieberman that Israel should cooperate with the terrorist organization PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and even consider supplying it with weapons. Another suggestion was to offer assistance to the Armenians and file UN reports against Turkey for violating human rights of Turkey’s minorities.
In other words, Israel and Turkey were once friends, but the relationship hasn’t been the same since Israel not-so-covertly shot and killed nine Turkish nationals during 2010′s Flotilla attempt. With Turkey at the forefront of shifting political leverage in the Middle East, Israel’s government feels compelled to make a stand for itself in what appears to be a dramatically childish attempt to undermine Turkey’s authority. Not that I watch Jersey Shore or anything, but I’m fairly certain The Situation pulled this same move on Snooki in the fourth season. [Read more...]
A brief deconstruction of “Sh*t People Say About Israel”
Pro-Israel students, under the guidance of The David Project, recently joined the “Sh*t [people] say” internet craze on YouTube with their own video, “Sh*t People Say About Israel”. Filmed at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the film clearly takes aim at supporters of the Palestinian cause and patronizes them as ignorant and misinformed. But the video fails on so many levels. Let’s see what kind of “Sh*t” these student hasbarists have to say.
1. Israel doesn’t even want peace.
If it did, it probably wouldn’t be incarcerating children or building concrete barriers through Palestinian villages or preventing Arabs from marrying Israelis or arming fanatical settlers colonizing the West Bank or demolishing homes or tearing through olive tree groves or shooting high velocity tear gas canisters at the faces of unarmed demonstrators.
2. I heard everyone there is in the army.
In Israel, military service is compulsory for all citizens above the age of 18. Recruits serve between two and three years and are given the opportunity to extend their service. Clearly, not everyone in Israel is in the military at any given moment, but the mandatory service means that most adult citizens have, at one point or another, served as an active military unit involved in the maintenance of a condemned and illegal occupation of Palestine.
Mind you, there does exist a refusenik subculture in Israel, but unless these individuals refuse to join the military for religious reasons, they are often stigmatized and prosecuted under Israeli law. Maya Wind, for example, spent forty days in a military prison for refusing to join the Israeli military on the basis that she could not agree with the military’s illegal activity towards the Palestinian people.
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