Zeitgeist
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Events around date of publication of this item.
Israeli Activists, Intellectuals Recognize Right of Return
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Article/book #: 37416
Title: Israeli Activists, Intellectuals Recognize Right of Return
By: Zalman Amit Meron Benvenisti Shimshon Bichler Avishai Ehrlich Boas (Boaz) Evron Dafna (Daphna) Golan-Agnon Uri Hadar Rachel Leah Jones Baruch Kimmerling Adi Ophir Avraham Oz Nurit Peled-Elhanan Dan Rabinowitz Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin Haim Yacobi Oren Yiftachel Moshe Zuckermann
Date of issue: Saturday, 31 July 2004
Topic(s) addressed:
Commentary
Abstract:
The State of Israel was supposed to provide security for Jews -- It created a death-trap in which residents live in a constant danger unknown to any other Jewish community;
The State of Israel was supposed to knock down the ghetto walls -- It is now constructing the biggest ghetto in Jewish history;
The State of Israel was supposed to be a democracy -- It established a colonial regime, combining unmistakable elements of apartheid with the arbitrariness of a cruel military occupation.
Israel 2004 is a state on the road to nowhere. Fifty six years after its establishment, in spite of its many achievements in agriculture, science, and technology, even as a regional superpower armed with the doomsday weapon, many of its citizens experience terrible existential distress and are fearful for their future.
Since its establishment Israel has lived by its sword. An uninterrupted sequence of endless “retaliatory” actions, military operations, and wars have turned into the life elixir of Israeli Jews. Today, nearly four years since the advent of the second Palestinian Intifada, Israel is up to its neck in the mud of occupation and oppression, persistently expanding settlements and adding outposts, exhaustively persuading itself that “we have no partner for peace.”
Ten years after the Oslo accords we live in a bleak colonial reality--in the heart of darkness. Thirty seven years after Israel occupied the remaining Palestinian territories in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, more than 3.5 million Palestinians under Israel's rule are incarcerated in their cities, towns, and villages. The phrase “Palestinian State”, which for years marked the “option of peace” is employed by many Israeli politicians as a delusion, a spin prop for promoting the reality of occupation: in the future, they mutter and wink, the Palestinian entity in the territories might possibly be called a state. In the meantime, Israel intensifies its destructive operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as if determined to grind the Palestinian people to dust.
The State of Israel was supposed to knock down the ghetto walls -- It is now constructing the biggest ghetto in Jewish history;
The State of Israel was supposed to be a democracy -- It established a colonial regime, combining unmistakable elements of apartheid with the arbitrariness of a cruel military occupation.
Israel 2004 is a state on the road to nowhere. Fifty six years after its establishment, in spite of its many achievements in agriculture, science, and technology, even as a regional superpower armed with the doomsday weapon, many of its citizens experience terrible existential distress and are fearful for their future.
Since its establishment Israel has lived by its sword. An uninterrupted sequence of endless “retaliatory” actions, military operations, and wars have turned into the life elixir of Israeli Jews. Today, nearly four years since the advent of the second Palestinian Intifada, Israel is up to its neck in the mud of occupation and oppression, persistently expanding settlements and adding outposts, exhaustively persuading itself that “we have no partner for peace.”
Ten years after the Oslo accords we live in a bleak colonial reality--in the heart of darkness. Thirty seven years after Israel occupied the remaining Palestinian territories in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, more than 3.5 million Palestinians under Israel's rule are incarcerated in their cities, towns, and villages. The phrase “Palestinian State”, which for years marked the “option of peace” is employed by many Israeli politicians as a delusion, a spin prop for promoting the reality of occupation: in the future, they mutter and wink, the Palestinian entity in the territories might possibly be called a state. In the meantime, Israel intensifies its destructive operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as if determined to grind the Palestinian people to dust.
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