“If we build all over the place, we lose. Even if we don’t have an agreement [with the Palestinians], we need to have a rational policy.” This proposal, if accepted by the new Bibi-Mofaz coalition would be a major step forward. Certainly a confidence-building measure at the least.
Tags: Bibi Netanyahu, Israel, Jerusalem, Kadima, Likud, Occupation, Palestinians, Peace Process, Settlement freeze, Settlements, Shaul Mofaz, West Bank Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2012/05/12/likud-deputy-pm-meridor-no-settlement-freeze-is-most-damaging-of-all-policies/
This has the opportunity to empower peacemaking. Some will say having both East and West Jerusalem mapped legitimises Israel’s control over parts of the West Bank. To them I say this: Knowledge breeds peace. Being able to see Arab suburbs of East Jerusalem will help understand even just a little more the people who live there, and increase knowledge about their disaffection and the inequality they suffer. The more you know, the more likely you will be part of a solution, and the more likely one will come.
Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2012/04/22/explore-jerusalems-old-city-with-google-street-view/
Great op-ed at the Huffington Post by Jason Boxt: I’ve never been to the Western Wall. [...] I’ve never touched the Wall for a very simple reason: women by law are segregated from men, and cannot pray as I do — as a man — in that space. If the American government should strive as a foreign policy goal to protect the country of Israel from enemies such as Iran [...]
Related reading:Tags: 2012 US Presidential Election, American Jewry, Anti-Israel, Diaspora Jewry, Gender equality, Israel, Jerusalem, Kotel, New Israel Fund, Pro-Israel lobby, Republican Party, USA, Women at the Wall, Women's rights, Zionism Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2012/01/21/calling-out-gender-discrimination-at-the-kotel-makes-you-not-pro-israel-enough/
At a rally in Jerusalem, some ultra-Orthodox have demonstrators have dressed in Nazi-style yellow stars.
Related reading: Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2012/01/03/haredi-protestors-in-israel-dress-up-in-nazi-style-yellow-stars/
Watch this video from Machsom Watch, a group of volunteers that go to checkpoints across Israel and the West Bank and regularly document the experiences and behaviour of Palestinians, settlers and the IDF. It’s a very depressing situation, as you can see.
Related reading: Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/12/26/video-the-depressing-qalandia-checkpoint/
Seth Morrison, former board member of the JNF in Washington D.C., has quit the organisation over its role in the attempted evictions of the Sumarin family in Silwan. He wrote an op-ed in this week’s Jewish Daily Forward saying he feels “a sense of betrayal I have at learning that JNF is a force in preventing long-term peace.” This is a complex issue involving an important organisation in the JNF, and Morrison has taken a very strong, principled stand. Good on him.
Related reading:Tags: Diaspora Jewry, Israel, Jerusalem, JNF, Occupation, Palestinians, Peace Process, Settlers, Silwan, West Bank, Zionism Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/12/14/jnf-board-member-quits-over-sumarin-family-evictions-in-silwan/
Despite living on the same land for sixty years, Israel is forcibly moving a Bedouin tribe to make way for an expanded settlement. Why can’t Israel respect that these people have been living there for sixty years and deserve to be treated with justice and compassion? Indeed, it’s also interesting to reflect on how Diaspora Jewish teenagers interact with Israeli Bedouins while on Birthright-style tours to Israel — they are the charming people of the desert, the nomads that Israel loves and respects as contributors to the wider Israeli culture, integral parts of society, etc. And yet, here they are being shafted so that Ma’ale Adumim can be expanded and the hopes of future Palestinian statehood further diminished. What a shame.
Related reading:Tags: Arab-Israelis, Bedouin, Diaspora Jewry, Israel, Jerusalem, Ma'ale Adumim, Minority rights, Occupation, Palestinian Territories, Settlements, Taglit, West Bank, Young Jews Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/12/07/israel-to-forcibly-relocate-20-bedouin-communities-to-expand-a-settlement/
Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar says of the segregated buses, “people who do it do it for their own sakes … certain people want to delineate a fence, perhaps because they saw a need for it. But it’s not Jewish law.” By my reckoning, if it’s not Jewish law, as Rabbi Amar says, that makes it just regular (rather than divinely ordained) misogyny. Not okay.
Related reading: Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/12/06/israels-sephardi-chief-rabbi-condemns-gender-segregation/
This petition asks that Ahlam Tamimi, the Sbarro restaurant bomber, including Australian Malki Roth, not be released as part of the Gilad Shalit exchange deal. Tamimi committed a heinous act, one of the worst during the Second Intifada, but why should she stay in jail, while others who have committed crimes just as bad, or indeed worse, go free? I don’t think I can sign a petition where there is an exception made for one prisoner from one bombing, because the snowball effect could end up derailing the entire swap deal and Shalit may never come home. Having said that, I don’t begrudge Mr Roth for making the petition or anyone who signs it. These are impossible questions with impossible answers.
Related reading: Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/10/16/petition-to-remove-a-name-from-the-gilad-shalit-prisoner-swap-deal/
Because that didn’t take all that long. Not! Only billions of shekels over budget and years late! Anyone who’s been to Jerusalem in the last decade will certainly find the humour in this from the Guardian: After a decade of disruption, missed deadlines, bust budgets and a clamour of criticism, the first passengers will on Friday step aboard the sleek silver carriages of Jerusalem’s long-awaited light railway. [...] But many exasperated residents [...]
Related reading: Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/08/19/jerusalems-trams-finally-start-running-today/
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