Heated Facebook discussions often end badly, sometimes involving a Hitler comparison or two. Recently I had one that ended surprisingly well, with all the parties friending each other. But it was quite heated nonetheless. The subject was some recent comments by Norman Finkelstein. [...]
Archive for the ‘Activism’ Category
Imagining Return
Dedicated to my comrades in Students for Justice in Palestine I should have taken your email! People were all around us at the rally, shouting and singing, I really wanted to talk to someone but I didn’t notice how well you were listening, how you had patience to talk to me and read t[...]
Why Talk of a One-State Solution?
Yesterday, Students for Justice in Palestine held its first event of the year at UC Berkeley. The Multicultural Center at the MLK student building was packed – I had to sit on the floor between the aisles for most of the evening. Our speakers, Israeli refusers Maya Wind and Netta Mishly, gave a h[...]
September 15th, 2009 - 6:39 pm § in Activism, Commentary
MaGav: Thoughts on race and class in Israel’s border police
Whenever I encounter people who have been or continue to serve in the Israel Defense Force in my travels through the Jewish-Israeli community, sooner or later we get to talking about the occupation. I always find myself in an awkward place: it seems that there is a disjuncture between what the soldi[...]
Changing what we can believe in: the ballot box isn’t good enough
How does one move from a condition of rightless-ness to one of entitlement, from a condition of despair to one of empowerment? We are so fixated on representative institutions as the means by which we might effect change, that we forget to ask how one brings about that condition that enables certain[...]
July 24th, 2009 - 3:02 pm § in Activism
Ma’asara 7/24/2009
We hear too little about non-violent Palestinian resistance to the occupation. Today I was in the village of Ma’asara, south of Bethlehem, and this is what happened. A friend from Berkeley arrived in Israel yesterday, and asked if I wanted to hang out. I was looking for someone to come with [...]
Stonewall and the Occupation
Recently dozens of LGBT pride parades were planned in cities around the world to mark the annual pride week. For many people with commitments to LGBT liberation, this time is set aside in reflection on the struggle for the rights of LGBT people, their history and contributions, and on the need to re[...]
July 2nd, 2009 - 6:44 am § in Activism
One Email a Week
Years ago I shared a flat in Tel-Aviv with a guy called Teddy. He didn’t do most of the housework, but I did appreciate his storytelling: he always had hilarious tales of disastrous dates, pompous bosses and army commanders whom he had managed to outsmart (he spent most of his service near the[...]
Nepal: Land of the Landless, Government of Non-Governments
In Hebrew, Nepal is still referred to as a “poor country,” but in English development practitioners have long ago adopted the much nicer sounding term “impoverished.” Progress seems to have come to the very discourse of progress itself. But in my bilingual program Tevel Be’Tzedek (The Eart[...]