reed writes

The first 2 weeks of March are designated as Israel Apartheid Week.

It’s a harsh term, but those who support honesty, equality and above all justice – and that includes lots of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, even some Rosicrucians and Freemasons – recognize that colonialism, occupation and yes – Apartheid – is alive and functioning in the Middle East.

To recognize that Israel is in the process of implementing full-blown Apartheid is not to be anti-Semitic.

It is, however, a mark of a person’s ability to separate fact from fiction…something that most of our leading politicians seem unable to do.

This appeared in a recent edition of “The Tyee” one of Canada’s most prestigious online publications:

“Even members of the Israeli political elite use the term apartheid to describe the system they administer — the latest being the current defence minister (and former prime minister) Ehud Barak who stated: “If there is only one political entity, named Israel, it will end up being either non-Jewish or non-democratic… If the Palestinians vote in elections, it is a binational state, and if they don’t, it is an apartheid state.”

Shulamit Aloni, who once served as Minister of Education under Yitzhak Rabin, wrote: “The state of Israel practises its own, quite violent form of apartheid with the native Palestinian population.” And in November of 2007, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: “If the day comes when the two state solution collapses, and we face a South African style struggle for equal voting rights, then as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.”

Michael Ben-Yair, Israel’s attorney general from 1993 to 1996, described Israel’s approach to the Palestinian territories captured in 1967 as apartheid in 2002:

“We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities… We developed two judicial systems: one — progressive, liberal in Israel. The other — cruel, injurious in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture.”"

The above quote is the core of the Tyee piece by Murray Dobbin. The rest can be seen here.

Dear Mr. Lobb,

I wrote to you weeks ago with some thoughts and a few concerns.

You sent me back a form letter, which I thought was quite rude, since you were on vacation, you are a backbencher and you had time to reply if you wanted to or if you cared.

But you didn’t.

Well – Wednesday is “Speech-from-the-throne” Day…and I am sure you’ll be in your seat, listening closely.

I’m hoping that sooner or later you will send me a real reply to this letter.

Sincerely,

Jim.

____________________________________________________________

Letter to My Member of Parliament,
Mr. Ben Lobb,
Member of Parliament,
Riding of Huron Bruce,
Ontario, Canada.

Dear Mr. Lobb,

(more…)

Ehud Barak

According to Ehud Barak – Apartheid is standing in Israel’s doorway, and if it hasn’t already, it is about to take a seat at the table.

Ehud Barak, is Israel’s Defence Minister.

Is he too an anti Semite…?

Stephen Harper might Think so. You can read his remarks here.

Yesterday I wrote about Dr. Carlo Sprenger’s theory (pt. 1)on how to bring about peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Dr. Carlo Strenger

The good professor advocates what he calls “therapeutic diplomacy”, which would presumably put the two “patients” on a “couch”; they’d confess all of their past mistakes. Then they’d come to their senses, reach a consensus individually on what transgressions they may have committed in the past and then hug one another and get on with their lives.

Easier said than done. (more…)

Carlo Strenger, the chairman of the clinical graduate psychology programme at Tel Aviv University, is the author of “The Designed Self.”

Dr. Carlo Strenger

Professor Strenger advises U.S. Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, to pursue what he (Strenger) calls “therapeutic diplomacy” to reach some sort of compromise solution to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse.

It’s a long shot and it might worth trying…but how to proceed? The challenge is daunting.

( You can see professor Strenger’s thesis here.  My variation will follow).

In the meantime, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is of the opinion that Israeli policies in the Occupied Territory of The West Bank and the blockaded territory of The Gaza Strip amount to a form of Apartheid.

His allegation is, of course rejected by most Jewish groups and by Israel’s allies, including Canada. The Province of Ontario legislature, for example, has passed a resolution condemning what has come to be called “Apartheid Week”, an anti-Israel protest movement, supported by students and faculty at The University of Michigan in the U.S.

This one-sided movement is doomed to failure, if for no other reason than it divides rather than unites. The very name evokes anger and outrage.

The foundational problem of what is, by any stretch, a profound and ongoing crisis, is the inability of both Palestinians and Israelis to come to terms with their own history either separately or together, a point made by the professor from Tel Aviv.

Professor Strenger maintains that neither side has had the moral strength to admit its respective mistakes and shortcomings. Until that happens he suggests, no road to a lasting peace can be opened.

At this increasingly crucial point in time, there is tremendous suffering, fear and anger on both sides. And both are in desperate need of assistance…and… perhaps a measure of what psychologists call “tough love.”

In the case of nations, the “tough love” should originate with the world body known as The United Nations. But the U.N. seems paralyzed when it comes to the Mideast.

Professor’s Strenger contends that all efforts at peacemaking will undoubtedly fail, because those who are in a position to help, assume that there is some rationality on both sides.

But as we have seen from very recent history…

• the firing of Palestinian rockets into Israel,
• the Israeli assault on Gaza,
• the Hamas refusal to recognize The Jewish State,
• the assasination of a Palestinian leader in a foreign country by Israeli Secret Agents,
• the assasination of a peacemaking Israeli Prime Minister by an Israeli Jew,
• the ongoing expansion of illegal Israeli settlements,
• the failure of the U.N. to implement its own resolutions,
• the angry rhetoric from both sides and much much more…

there is no rationality and the dearly-hoped-for peace settlement appears to be more elusive than ever.

As this untenable situation wears on – and wears down the patience of those on both sides of the divide – the situation becomes much more volatile day by day.

While professor Strenger’s suggestion is apt, there is little precedent for the application of “therapeutic diplomacy” by any of those who wish to help bring about peace, with the exception of George Mitchell’s successful negotiations between two enemies in Northern Ireland.

Clearly, when it comes to the Middle East, the parties cannot solve this problem by themselves. So the solution must come from outside the region and from outside government…at least to begin with.

Tomorrow: In an attempt to pick up where Dr. Stenger leaves off, I propose a place to start.