I accidentally hit the 'post' button before I meant to. The following continues my last post:
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"One will never know as most seem to be silent on the appointment of Lieberman as Israel’s new Foreign Minister. It is now an established fact that one does not criticise anything that goes on in Israel for fear of being labeled an anti Semite….. So I guess it’s up to us Israelis ourselves to do the condemning….. WHICH WE WILL!"
This cartoon and comment beneath it were also on this "Desert Peace" blog that I mentioned as the source to the Palestinian poster.
This is related to my post before about the seeming unacceptability of criticizing Israel, at least by a politician. It is interesting to see an Israeli acknowledge this fear of being labeled an Anti-Semite, and scream in its face (at least in this case). I am not sure how common it is, but I certainly haven't seen much of it. Does this come up often/with even more controversial issues? Is a truly open and honest discussion taking place? If not, is this why? If this fear is a roadblock, what is being done to change this?
[note: Although my last couple of posts seem pro-Palestinian, I am not trying to propagandize.]
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I think this is a very important idea to bring up. Today especially in AMerican politics every president has to agree with Israel and Israeli policies. This seems strange to me because maybe AMericans dont agree with eery decision Israelis make. In the past the US has had to support Israel and I think this was to get its foot into the Middle East especially with the Cold war competition with Russia. It seems today though that maybe it isnt the best decision to support Israel so heavily. Even if we do agree with their actions other neighboring countries see us doing this. They see this as a slap in the face, and could furthur anger their feelings of the US. I digress, all that I am saying is I believe more healthy debate should occur in our political system about Israel especially with the type of funding we give.
ReplyDeleteI think the labeling of both sides of this conflict is an important point to discuss. To some, if you are pro-Palestinian, you are a "terrorist-lover" and if you say anything against Israel you're an "anti-Semite." What is hard about discussing Israel, in my opinion, is that it is directly tied to religion. If I am against Israeli violence against Gaza, it does not mean I'm against Judaism nor the existence of Israel as a state. That is a general reaction however, it seems like one cannot be neutral in this conflict or even purely humanistic. It's easy to write off the different sides with fear inducing name-calling, as we've also seen with the Holocaust political cartoons.
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