Despite the wishes of many -- if not most -- of the people in the streets, the masses who identify with the 'social protest' are callous to those whose complaints are so much more urgent than theirs.   Even though I've always agreed with the stated goal of the "social protest" - to redistribute Israel's wealth more equitably - I can no longer sympathize with it. While many if not most of the people in the streets would like to turn the movement against the occupation and not only against "swinish capitalism," this hasn't happened after two years of protest.…

It's not what the Jewish majority likes to believe.  A common Jewish Israeli criticism of Arab Knesset members is that they do a disservice to their constituents by focusing on high politics, mainly the Palestinian issue, instead of dealing with bread-and-butter economic issues that would really help them. (There may be something self-serving about this line of criticism, but who knows?) Last week I went to Jedeida-Makker, an Israeli Arab village a couple of miles inland from Acre, to hear Balad MK Haneen Zoabi give a campaign speech. The residents, including the local council head, indeed told her that she…

Despite what Israeli Jews believe, on Nakba Day, this country's Arab citizens aren't mourning Israel's creation, but rather what it cost them.  When left-leaning Haaretz explains in a news story that the Nakba Day events are "commemorating the 'disaster' of Israel's formation," this country has got a problem. If Haaretz doesn't understand that Israeli Arabs are mourning what they and the other Palestinians lost in the 1948 war, not the state the Jews gained by winning it, then the attitude here toward the Nakba is worse than I thought. It's not just that right-wingers are deliberately distorting the Nakba's meaning into something malevolent and traitorous, it's that even well-meaning liberals have come by the same…

By Fady Khoury In an earlier post, I argued that the expectation for Palestinian citizens of Israel to serve in the army or in any alternative service lacks moral justification. I will elaborate on this argument here. It goes as follows: If (1) national service is an alternative to military service; And (2) there is no moral basis upon which Palestinians can be expected to serve in the army; Then (3) there is no moral basis upon which Palestinians can be expected to serve in national service. Going forward, I will attempt to prove the first two statements of my…

Racked by guilt for having exposed a modicum of the truth regarding Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians, Judge Richard Goldstone does an about-face and becomes a spokesperson for the Israeli right wing. Is Goldstone the new Benny Morris? By Omar Rahman and Abir Kopty Richard Goldstone could give those guys at AIPAC a run for their money. So misleading was his recent whitewash in the New York Times on the apparent slander “Israeli Apartheid,” that hasbara peddlers everywhere were taking his picture off their dartboards and putting them on their mantles. It was incredibly telling that the words "settlement" and…

The recent Peace Index shows that when it comes to peace talks and social spending, not much has changed, despite diplomatic developments and a tumultuous summer The following are highlights from the September 2011 “Peace Index,”  a long-running monthly index of peace and conflict related topics, mixed with other topical questions.  The survey was run by phone from 2-3 October, 2011, among a representative sample of 600 Israeli adults. Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Remarkably stable dynamics. Despite a month that was supposed to be momentous, the central tenet of Israeli public opinion regarding the conflict remains exactly as it has been for years now: The…