This week's postings at JfJfP.com


July 12, 2015
Sarah Benton

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Where power lies: This week, July 6th – 12th, 2015 there is a small cluster – should be larger – on where power lies in Israel. Although obviously the ‘military industrial complex’ is the basic power network there are important agencies within this which deserve attention. One of these is Unit 8200, the elite and now the largest unit within the IDF which, amongst other things, undertakes cyber warfare. It’s where ‘cool mets creepy’ writes the FT’s Jerusalem bureau chief:
Israel’s power base: Unit 8200

Unit 8200 (which baulked at the lowly task of spying on Palestinians) is named by Richard Silverstein as the agency most likely to have transported pop-ups into the computers of Palestinians and sympathisers suggesting it would be worth their while – loadsamoney – to become spies for Israel.
Israeli hackers pop up to recruit Palestinian spies

Then there is the High Level Military Group, anonymous at the time, which Netanyahu produced in June as authoritative experts who judged Israel’s military action then in its early stages – perfectly kosher, ethically speaking. Jerry Haber gives us the biogs of these experts in
The ‘high level’ men who exonerated Israel

Where power doesn’t lie is with women. They may be sentimentally upheld as great wives and mothers but in reality young women are units of exchange (much as they were in Europe before the mid-19thC)
When killing young women is in order

At different times there are different enemies whom Netanyahu et al feel they must fight, Palestinians, the BDS movement, world antisemitism, Iran….Now that Iran and the P5+1 group are nearing an agreement on Iranian nuclear capability, Netanyahu feels he has to fight the world, says Barak Ravid:
Netanyahu prepares to fight world over Iran deal:

But his refusal to engage means
Netanyahu blamed for ‘bad deal’ with Iran

That’s in Israel. In the US, American Jews are apparently in serious trouble: Israel is damning the Iran deal with every utterance; their own President and Secretary of State are evidently putting every effort into making this deal work.

Palestinian resistance requires not just stone-throwers, but also intellectual aid. BRICUP provides an analysis of the limitations on Palestinian universities.
Setting traps for academics

It is the first anniversary of OPE, particularly Israel’s assault on Gaza 2014. It was widely remembered. A particularly imaginative way was found by those who occupied the three Elbit factories in the UK and one in Melbourne:
Protesters close Elbit’s factories in UK

Since 1967 authoritative voices have said ‘this occupation cannot continue’, meaning both ethically and practically – the frightful price Israeli democracy has to pay for subjugating another people. Israelis know it. And at last their American backers know it too.
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough Says the Israeli Occupation ‘Must End’

And if Israelis don’t, they’re ‘committing suicide’
Partying as if there’s no tomorrow

The Tel Aviv party-goers – who could be anywhere where there’s sun, sea, nightclubs and tolerance- are still arriving in droves for one of the international top ten ‘most hedonistic’, stripped of its Judaism, centres in the world. Outside that idiosyncratic beach resort, tourism to Israel has taken a dive. The whole Middle East is under a pall of random violence; Israel in particular is seen, since 2014, as peculiarly subject to random violence. And Israel once, many years ago, regarded as an admirable new nation, now has a new reputation for violence and racial intolerance. Who needs that?
Tourists shun Israel

That appears an apolitical decision.More  political people use BDS as their one means of saying to the Israeli government; stop the occupation!
Hysterical over-reaction is a posting which collects opinions on what the BDS movement can change.

From the other side, Palestine is attacked for many reasons. But the only one – given the acceptance of the right to resistance – which makes headway amongst the left, and is jubilantly trumpeted by anti-Muslims -is the killing of young women in the name of ‘family honour’.

No body outside the Middle East, including British Muslims, UK Muslims condemn honour killings  defends this practice, and Palestinian women themselves have protested loudly. Although in a decree from Mahmoud Abbas the defence of ‘honour’ has been removed from the penal code, there are so many other grounds on which men are allowed to kill independent young women, the legal change makes little difference. Let us all support the women of Palestinian in the right to live their own lives as they wish.
When killing young women is in order

Another killer was Dylann Roof, who shot to death nine African-Americans at a church in Charleston, hoping to start a race war.  What’s this to do with JfJfP? It’s to do with generalisation. A young white man slaughters a group of black people. This is seen as his unique mental instability or possibly – generalise – a reflection of southern racism. Heide Schotten argues that it’s simple prejudice that allows the FBI to designate Roof’s crime as non-political – i.e. not terrorist, while every utterance by Palestinians – verbal or non-verbal – is regarded as terrorist because, in theory, it is political.
White-washing terrorism

Apart from that – there is a journalist who seeks out accord and she is  Hadani Ditmars who finds ‘small acts of kindness’ between Jews and Muslims. See also the inset on the neo-Nazi demo at Golders Green and the opponents.
Know your friends from your enemies

US Trade Bill and BDS

The House of Congress passed the amendment to the Trade Promotion Authority bill “to discourage politically motivated actions to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel and seek the elimination of politically motivated non-tariff barriers on Israeli goods, services, or other commerce imposed on the State of Israel.”

To all appearances this is an American veto on any body which has any dealings with any body colluding with BDS. The State department stepped in quickly to deny this interpretation.
US insists trade bill not aimed at blocking BDS

Because, as Akiva Eldar says, Public criticism of the Obama administration, whether direct or implied, by Israeli government spokesmen, has become practically routine in Israel. There’s not a need to detail the latest round.  The report that the ‘Fast Track’ trade bill is aimed at blocking trade with European countries which accept BDS is a distortion. It comes from an amendment to the bill: see S.619 — United States-Israel Trade Enhancement Act of 2015 (Introduced in Senate – IS)

Such is the hostility between the US and Israel that when it comes to Iran Americans don’t know what to think: US Jews torn between loyalties to Israel and to own country

By chance the Electronic Intifada found a woman who had been injured by shrapnel during OPE: the invading IDF had chosen to force this middle-aged woman and her husband to strip almost naked and lie outside their home for hours. This is an intolerable crime.
Double injury of shame and shrapnel

It should be well-known that personslly, outside Israel-Pal;estine as countries, many Jews and Palestinians get on well for they have a lot in comkon. Still. in some circles, Jewish-Muslim friendship is regarded as noteworthy and unusual, as here;
Know your friends from your enemies

And more besides!

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