Tuesday, February 14, 2012

My letter to the New York Times RE The Dilemmas of Jewish Power by Roger Cohen

RE: The Dilemmas of Jewish Power by Roger Cohen
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/opinion/cohen-the-dilemmas-of-jewish-power.html?_r=1&ref=global

Dear Editor,

I applaud and very much appreciate Cohen's willingness to notice the fact that " the manipulation of Jewish victimhood in the name of Israel’s domination of the Palestinians" is wrong and that "the real issue for Jews today is not the challenge of weakness but the demands of power."

However while his approach might appear helpful and compassionate, is it really helpful and compassionate to coerce us all into endorsing and empowering Zionism for Israel in order to grant Palestinians a glimpse of freedom and a temporary reprieve from harsh oppression.

Israel is a state, a modern nation state whereas Zionism is an ideology that happened to help propel that state into being strong. That does not make Zionism's trajectory sane or safe. The demographic argument might appear reasonable, and it certainly is very appealing to people who want to feel good about Israel, but it can not help but continue to lay the ground work for Islamists to convince the naive and the most vulnerable that large families and tribal loyalty are the best way to gain security and power. It also ensures that there will be Israelis who fervently believe that demographics trump justice and equality. Real democracy can't get very far when citizens are motivated to hire and promote their co-religionists rather than the best candidate for the job.

A fully secular two state solution ASAP to once and for all end the cruel insanities, the violence, the bigotry and the religious extremism created by the Israel-Palestine conflict really is the best way forward.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
American Homemaker & Poet

NOTES
The Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Preempting fragmentation by Walid M. Sadi

UNRWA to stop financial aid to impoverished families in Gaza

Israeli demolition 'displaces 120' [Palestinian men, women & children] in Hebron village

VOA News: Palestinian Hunger Striker Stirs Emotions

Taking Care of His Adopted Country, One Emergency at a Time

Springs - Arab and otherwise

A U.S. author's book, an Iranian translator's peril

NBC NEWS: Gazans break(dance)ing boundaries

[Palestinian] Neighborhood pays price of being on wrong side of Israel's wall

MOST RECENT POLL: A majority of Palestinian youth express their support for a two-state solution (Israel and Palestine within the 1967 boarders).

The Middle East's "invisible refugees"

Time Magazine: “The People Are Suffocating”: West Bank Economy Struggles Under Pressure From U.S. Congress

This Week in Palestine: Palestinian Women in Resistance

UNWRA NEWS: Refusal to grant travel documents traps family in Gaza for 10 years


"Religious conservatism invariably focuses on social and sexual control. Women are the most immediate targets and primary focus of the authoritarianism of the religious right, wherever they may be. As Islamists seem to be finally getting their chance at gaining a share of power in the Arab world, the greatest and most immediate danger they pose is to women’s rights. That is why it is up to everyone else, including both secularists and religious moderates, to insist on the introduction of inviolable constitutional principles protecting the rights of individuals, women and minorities." Hussein Ibish: Islamism and misogyny

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."Eleanor Roosevelt

Executive director of Oxfam International Jeremy Hobbs: "The increasing rate of settlement expansion and house demolitions is pushing Palestinians to the brink, destroying their livelihoods and prospects for a just and durable peace," Record number of Palestinians displaced in 2011

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