Maybe I should be the first guy to wear that around here. But while I'd be happy to piss off the right wing Zionists, I'd feel kind of bad about the liberals at my congregation. Here's a compromise: Zionism and apartheid--Together They Expelled and Made the Bomb! One down, one to go.
andrew r | 05.11.08 - 7:40 am | #

I marched yesterday as well. I was a little disappointed by the speeches given by the speakers. There was nothing inspirational. Mustafa Barghouti spoke of breaking world records re: flags and length of letters- empty gestures in my opinion. I also don't like how they gave Hamas such a prominent place in the speaker list. This march/demo should be about the Palestinian people and the Nakba and not about political parties.

All-in-all, it was nice to see support from such a varied group of people; Jews, Muslims, Christians, Communists, Socialists, choir singers(!), young, old, Europeans, Arabs, Africans, South Americans and even Chinese!

I just hope that next year, it will be bigger, louder and more inspirational.

Tony M
Tony Montana | 05.11.08 - 11:26 am | #

Speaking about Palestinians, Prof. Shlomo Sand in his book, "When and How the Jewish People Was Invented" apparently comes to the conclusion that the real Jews in the neighborhood are the Palestinians, who later converted to Christiantiy and Islam.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spa...ges/ 966952.html
kassandra | 05.11.08 - 10:10 pm | #

Sorry to be picky here Kassandra but I'd say the orginal rather than real Jews. I think that after the Babylonian exile Judaism went from being the law of a land to the religion of a people. That religion had various centres of gravity and like other religions spread from people to people, that is it left some and joined others. At some point and I'd have to study a lot more to know which point, whether it was the completion of the Talmud or the rise of Islam (I think the latter) Judaism reverted to being an ethnicity, albeit a multi-ethnic ethnicity. That is to say that being a Jew became a matter of birthright and belief and not simply a matter of belief. By this time there were Jewish communities throughout the world who were not simply the descendants of wandering Israelites.

Of course none of this should have any bearing on people's rights today. Even if all Jews today could trace their origins back to biblical Israel/Judah that wouldn't justify the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and it ill behoves Jews living in such places as the US, France and the UK today to suggest that it should.
Mark Elf (aka levi9909) | Homepage | 05.12.08 - 10:07 am | #

Mark, I think of the Israelis as like the Puritans who emigrated to Massachusetts to escape religious persecution and promptly institutionalized it. There's a joke, what do you call someone who refused to toe the Puritan party line? A Rhode Islander. Any Puritan dissenters soon made themselves scarce in Massachusetts.

Will Rodgers made a joke, "Even during Pilgrim times when all you had to do to get an acre of land was to shoot an Indian you can bet they were complaining about the price of gunpowder."
Montag | 05.12.08 - 4:40 pm | #

If I were smart, no really, I would buy up that domain "realjews.com" in a heartbeat.
mooser42001 | Homepage | 05.12.08 - 11:19 pm | #

Yes Mooser, then you'd truly be "master of your domain."
Montag | 05.13.08 - 8:34 am | #

More photos of the demo (link below) plus (will I get away with this?) a plug for my website ...

http://tinyurl.com/5bhkc7

Photographs from National Demonstration for Palestine London, 10th May 2008
with link to Exhibition Another Israel which was also in Trafalgar Square (photos of this)

----------------
BMJ 2008;336:1039 (10 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39574.396088.DB [10 May 2008]
News
Number of patients from Gaza getting travel permits for medical treatment falls by 90%, says charity
Owen Dyer

Plus: Update to PHR-I meeting (with photos of slides) and a few notes by me leading to my decision to support BRICUP
---------------

Report: Shin Bet uses relatives to pressure detainees
YNet news.com
Report compiled by Public Committee Against Torture in Israel reveals Shin
Bet unlawfully arrests family members of Palestinian prisoners in bid to
exert psychological pressure on suspects, extract confessions
Aviram Zino

Rights group: Shin Bet uses relatives to extract prisoners' confessions
By Shahar Ilan, Haaretz Correspondent

Knesset to discuss Shin Bet methods
Dan Izenberg , THE JERUSALEM POST http://tinyurl.com/6guylu

YNet: Shin Bet admits to using relatives to pressure detainees
'Interrogation method flawed and inconsistent with the agency's regulations,' top security official tells Knesset committee. MK Gal-On: In a democratic state, noteverything is allowed even during times of war
-------------
Brian Robinson | Homepage | 05.14.08 - 12:35 pm | #