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- Plea for help amid Syria slaughter
Tag Archives: Jeff
“Friending” Israel
It’s no secret that most of the world doesn’t want to “friend” Israel. But, Israel isn’t an ordinary unpopular. It is a disproportionate “in your face” angry [singlepic id=426 w=320 h=240 float=right]unpopular. Even Israel’s natural friends — its Diaspora Jewish community — are all over the map. Some love. Some like. But the great majority appear to be increasingly apathetic, if they even care at all.
What else can we call it when less than 10% of American Jews contribute anything to the Jewish Federation, a United Way-type organization that sends a significant portion of its 750 million dollar budget to Israel? Where is the interest if far less than 5% of Jews give to AIPAC, the preeminent pro Israel
The Bomb Israel Should Be Most Worried About
In my last column I wrote about the need for Israel to focus on its Haredi, Arab and ultra-nationalist population bomb, a bomb that threatens Israel’s [singlepic id=425 w=320 h=240 float=right]economy as well as its internal and external Jewish support: ”(Unfortunately, many American Jews) see a Jewish state, yet they recognize their Judaism much more within America’s borders than within Israel’s. Considering Israel’s current demographic trends, this feeling is unlikely to change absent significant internal changes within Israel.
Struggles over terrorism, loyalty oaths, the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) defining who is a Jew, Israeli Arab housing and education deficiencies, separation
Palestine 2011 By Jeff Halper
Struggling as I have for the past decades to grasp the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and find ways to get out of this interminable and [singlepic id=419 w=320 h=240 float=right] absolutely superfluous conflict, I have been two-thirds successful. After many years of activism and analysis, I think I have put my finger on the first third of the equation: What is the problem? My answer, which has withstood the test of time and today is so evident that it elicits the response…“duh”…is that all Israeli governments are unwaveringly determined to maintain complete control of Palestine/Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, frustrating any just and workable solution based on Palestinian claims to self-determination. There will be no negotiated settlement, period.
BREAKING THE VESSELS
Jeff Halper
OK, so the Palestinian Authority will not unilaterally declare an independent Palestinian state. In fact, the whole issue seems a misunderstanding. [singlepic id=74 w=320 h=240 float=right]Concerned that the US has backtracked on a two state solution based on the 1967 borders and that Israel was getting the world used to the “fact” that the settlements and the Wall, rather than ’67 borders, now defined the parameters of a future Palestinian state (on only 15% of historic Palestine), the PA simply wanted the Security Council to reaffirm that principle.
NO PARTNER FOR PEACE: OUR AMERICAN PROBLEM
Jeff Halper
It was as if some official, perhaps one of President Obama’s “czars,” like the Czar for Demolishing American Credibility, had orchestrated a systematic campaign to isolate the US from the rest of the world, make it a political laughing-stock and, finally, render it a second-rate power [singlepic id=74 w=320 h=240 float=right]capable of throwing around tremendous military weight but absolutely incapable of leading us to a better future. The Israel-Palestine conflict, while not the world’s bloodiest, constitutes, for many people of the world, a unique gauge of American interests and intentions. So consider the messages this string of actions sent out to the world:
NETANYAHU CHOOSES WAREHOUSING
By Jeff Halper
May 25, 2009
Would Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu say the magic words “two states” after his meeting with President Obama? All Israel held its breath. (He didn’t). The gap between the two is wider than those words could ever have bridged, however. Obama, I believe, sincerely – perhaps urgently – seeks a resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, a pre-condition, he understands, to getting on with larger, more pressing Middle Eastern issues.
