This week's postings on JfJfP.com

This week’s postings, Monday March 2nd – Sunday March 8th, 2015

No two ways about it, the speech by PM Netanyahu was the dominant issue of the week (coldly ignored by the small Palestinian press).

Huge speculation before it happened is recorded in Back from the brink or into the abyss?

In two illuminating articles, Foreign Policy journal brings us two new terms – Bibipalooza (the showmanship and hysteria of Bibi’s visit) and ‘STFU, one of the most important tenets of all foreign policy, …It posits that if what you are going to say does nothing to advance the interests of the country you represent, then, no matter how good it may make you feel to say it, shut the fuck up.’ Both are in Diplomats invoke the STFU rule to Bibi.

Immediate verdicts on the speech were not kind: Hollow, an insult, no rhyme or reason… , and more consdered judgments were little more appreciative. It was only in the arena where Israel and Iran vie to be the hegemon that the Sunni Arab regimes were pleased to hear Bibi putting the boot in.

More considered judgments were not much more appreciative – although the commentary was extensive and verbose. A small selection of it is posted in ‘Never be the first one to stop clapping’. That’s a quote from Rolling Stone magazine, an indication of how compelling the Bibipalooza was for commentators.

Just why this was is not obvious. It appears to be the chutzpah of the PM, the bizarre disproportion between what the Prime Minister of a small far-away country had to say and the size and power of the people to whom he said it – as if they had never heard the rumours that Iran might be making nuclear weapons (discounted by Mossad several years earlier as Bibi, and Congress, knew). There is a distinct anti-Obama undercurrent to it all, and it fitted both Bibi’s and the Republicans’ agenda to stage an event which was, in effect, a pledge to disparage the American President and get a more hawkish one next time.

The invention of an imminent threat is within an Israeli tradition. As is revealed in a recently released film, Censored, and Marjorie Cohn in Counterpunch, Israelis – and thus Americans – knew in 1967 that Arab nations were NOT gearing up to invade Israel. The 1967 six-day war was launched by Israel on the claim that they were (though they knew they weren’t) and all the subsequent events, notably the illegal occupation of Palestinians, followed this monstrous, knowing lie by, amongst others, PM Levi Eshkol and Menachem Begin.
The big lie of the six-day war

This widely publicised information, and last week’s revelations about the Netanyahus’ exorbitant expenses, seem to be slowly having an effect. Or at least, a revived Left wing organised an impressively large rally in Tel Aviv demanding a change to Netanyahu’s policies – which at the moment seem to be complete inaction on Israeli people’s welfare coupled with showmanship on ‘existential threats’. Again, retired generals gave impressive testimony to the crowd (what happens before they retire?)
Rally for change – no more Bibi

Occupying the Signatories’ blog space this week is the link to a fascinating half-hour conversation between Moshe Machover and Tariq Ali – it’s really an interview. True to his Marxist ideas, the meat of the interview is in Moshe’s analysis of how egalitarian Israel became a ‘nasty’, deeply unequal and racist society, and the connection of that to the overriding structural bond with the USA – the military-industrial complex.
Why is the US’s Israel lobby allowed to function?

Commentary on Palestine is, as usual dismal (though the paucity of good analysis of Palestine is much regretted.)
As various agencies feared, the huge amount of money raised by donors after the devastation of Gaza by the IDF has so far been commandeered by Hamas for rebuilding tunnels. The product of war is that the military commanders supersede the political ones – to the devastating loss of Gazan people who remain homeless.
Military wing gains supremacy in Gaza

From the co-founder of Military Court Watch, Gerard Horton, we learn that, despite the flow of highly reputable investigations into Israeli treatment of Palestinian children (including UNICEF and Defence for Children International) , there has been little change in the summary martial law that IDF and border police exert over the occupied territories, where children are the easiest targets for bullying, arrest and detention:
No let-up in military abuse of children

However, there are charming reports on the border-crossing power of football (well, for the boys). Two different publications have picked up the story of ‘low football’, played by Jews and Arabs on whatever pitches they can find.
Pitching it right

Another piece of good news: an unnamed person complained about an advertising brochure from the Israeli Tourist Office (a frequent offender) which showed a panorama of the walled Old City with the text “Israel has it all”. No it doesn’t, said the ASA and peremptorily demanded that the ITO stop using this false claim. How much of Israel’s tourist industry is based on la-la land?
UK Ad Agency forbids false claim that all Jerusalem is Israel’s

And much else besides.