This week’s postings on JfJfP.com website
The dominant issue in the Israeli press this week, February 9-15, 2014, was undoubtedly PM Netanyahu’s upcoming speech to the US Congress. We have just one comment on the stress this is causing in US / Israeli relations:
Final break. Apart from that we will wait to see what happens.
Apart from that, US relations to Israel on military supply are changing. For decades, the US has been committed to ensuring Israel’s ‘qualitative military edge’ over all its (Arab) neighbours, first by administrative decision, secondly by law. ISIS has changed all that. As the targets of Islamic State are the US and Arab Muslim states / people, the US is seeking new allies in the region. The public initiative comes from the Senate foreign relations committee.
Congress questions special military relationship with Israel
‘Rising antisemitism’ in Britain continues as a front line issue. We will produce a future analysis of the CST’s report on an increase of incidents of antisemitism (their methodology and evidence is not clear). Meanwhile on the subject we have
What world is Maureen Lipman living in? (she says antisemitism in the UK is so bad she may move to Israel – or the US; and, posted before the CST report was published, a post on the poor statistics from both Muslim and Jewish sources:
Calculating antisemitic and anti-Muslim attacks
Israel’s powerful military-industrial complex is evident in both government decisions and the evidence that Israeli military technology has been tried and tested on Palestinians:
Elbit’s USP – we’ve tried it on the Palestinians
Gaza – a laboratory for quashing People Power
However, as Hanan Ashrawi points out, the vested-interest split between Fatah and Hamas continues to hobble Palestinians:
All Palestine suffering because of Fatah-Hamas rift
Israeli Jews think the relationship with Palestinians is the greatest social tension in Israel. But this does not produce pressure to reach an agreement with Palestinians. Rather, all the indications are that Israelis, especially the born-in-Israel young men, are firmly on the right.
Most Israelis think their country cannot be both Jewish and democratic, the results of a survey by the Israeli Democracy Institute which finds that Israelis, like Americans, are progressive on everything except Palestinians.
And much else besides