Israel/Palestine

I just read Shlomo Sand's "The Invention of the Jewish People". It could easily be in my top 20 books. It is really awesome - historically rich, beautifully written, clearly looks at the past, and has a beautiful vision for the future, even though the author is pessimistic (realistic) about the prospects. I might review it - lots of other projects are taking up time right now - but meanwhile I wanted to just put this one long quote down, because it summarizes exactly what I have long thought on the topic. Page 282:

Dan discusses the international aspects of the raid. His website is notesonhypocrisy.com

Overnight, Israeli commandos attacked an aid flotilla in the high seas, some 65km from Israel. The commandos killed at least 10 people and injured dozens of others, mostly Turkish nonviolent activists bound for Gaza who were aiming to break Israel's siege with humanitarian supplies. Israel attacked all of the ships in the flotilla, but the killings seem to have happened on the flagship Mavi Marmari.

Just over a month ago (Oct 14/09) Palestinian geographer and director of the "Center for Global Consciousness" Saed Abu-Hijleh spoke at the University of Toronto. Traveling to the North American continent was no escape: Canadian Border services had put him through the ringer at Pearson airport, the border agent asking him whether he would "say anything against Israel" during his time in Canada. "Why did they give me a visa if they were going to humiliate me? I've had Canadians stay at my house in Nablus, but when I come to Canada I get treated like this."

"And yet, for all my fulminating, one fact is uncontested: I am writing about Naomi Klein. She isn’t writing about me."

--Jonathan Kay, September 12, 2007

I have to admit I stay away from Jonathan Kay's writing as much as I can (a stomach can only take so much, even though I've had two doses of Ducoral now). I can honestly say that I have never encountered a piece of writing of Kay's that doesn't mention Naomi. It's vaguely creepy for me as a reader, and I can only imagine how creepy it must be for her.

Numerous analysts have said that "Israel will not allow a full-blown humanitarian crisis in Gaza". First of all, I am not sure how they would define a "full-blown" crisis. Can the current crisis reach "half-blown" status at least? The place is rubble. Sanitation, electricity, and drinking water facilities are destroyed. Hospitals are destroyed. The systems were brought to the breaking point by blockade and then pushed over the cliff by systematic destruction. If people are starving, how would anyone know?

Whatever the value of this path that I'm on, wherever it leads, Subcomandante Marcos's words were a major part of putting me on it. The Chiapas of the Zapatistas is one of the first places I visited and reported from and worked in and it was not that long a two years from Chiapas to Palestine (my first trip to Colombia in between).

If national media help make a nation, then we all need to stop reading and listening to conventional Canadian media if we want to make a decent Canada. Benedict Anderson, perhaps the leading scholar of nationalism, wrote that the daily newspaper (along with other innovations like novels, maps, censuses, museums) played a key role in creating national consciousness. People in a country like Canada use their own media - public (CBC) and private (CanWest, TorStar, CTVglobemedia) - to know what is happening in their own country. Media are also an important part of forging a national identity.

The Warsaw/Gaza Ghetto