Labels

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

My letters to the NYTimes & the Guardian RE Boycott by Academic Group Is a Symbolic Sting to Israel & Roger Waters and the antisemitism question

ROGER WATERS Photograph: Torben Christensen/AFP/Getty Images
RE "Roger Waters and the antisemitism question- The Pink Floyd singer is certainly guilty of talking about Israel in a predictable and unhelpful way" by
 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/16/roger-waters-antisemitism-unhelpful

Dear Editor,

KUDOS to Roger Waters for noticing the very real plight of the Palestinians, and stepping up to do what he can to help being peace and justice to the Holy Land by raising awareness.

I do agree with Keith Kahn-Harris that "There is something about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that sucks people in and brings out the worst in them."... but I think it is obvious that the worst of the worst is being done by Islamists and by Israeli politicians and bigots who want the land but not the native non-Jewish population of that land.

A fully secular two state solution in 2014 to once and for all end the Israel-Palestine conflict for everyone's sake won't stop people steeped in stories about the Nazis and the Holocaust from deploying the word Nazi to explain what they mean in various situations (like Seinfeld & the Soup Nazi)... but it might help keep the word "Zionist" from being officially defined as something much much worse than Nazi.

In a post 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights & a post Martin Luther King Jr world with the global information age, history is bound to judge us all in a very different light.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

*****

RE: Boycott by Academic Group Is a Symbolic Sting to Israel
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/education/scholars-group-endorses-an-academic-boycott-of-israel.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131217&_r=0

Dear Editor,

"The American Studies Association resolution bars official collaboration with Israeli institutions but not with Israeli scholars themselves." Sounds more like a semi-boycott, or a partial boycott.... and yes indeed a very "symbolic" sting.

Israel's publicity aware ambassador to the United States firmly objects, claiming that Israel is "the sole democracy in the Middle East, in which academics are free to say what they want, write what they want and research what they want”...  I think it is becoming increasing obvious that there is nothing democratic about Israel's obsession with being Jewish, and that as things are today there is very little freedom or justice for the native non-Jewish people of historic Palestine.

As things are today a one state scenario entrenches sovereign Israel's investments in Jews-preferred housing projects and religious scholars and schemes- further oppressing, displacing and disenfranchising the Palestinians in official as well as unofficial ways. 

A fully secular two state end to the Israel-Palestine conflict would go a long way towards eliminating the religious extremism, bigotry, injustice, corruption, cruelty and refugee crises created by the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

 NOTES

  • All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
The Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

The Office of International Religious Freedom ( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/)   Given the U.S. commitment to religious freedom, and to the international covenants that guarantee it as the inalienable right of every human being, the United States seeks to:
 
Promote freedom of religion and conscience throughout the world as a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries



No comments:

Post a Comment