Category: The Middle East

Tourism as terrorism

 I came across this interesting (if dismaying can be interesting) article today:  http://www.shipoffools.com/features/2009/a_visit_from_the_settlers.html  It contains a link to the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI):  http://www.eappi.org/en/about/overview.html  Apparently Baptists in Sweden and the UK are a more enlightened bunch than our local crop of rapture-ready nimrods…

Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/03/21/tourism-as-terrorism/

Haiti: the Lebanese and the bat-crap crazies

 Curious about the origins of Pat Robertson’s outrageous comments about Haiti’s latest agony, my research turned up this interesting nugget in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti):  “In 1912 Syrians residing in Haiti participated in a plot in which the presidential palace was destroyed.”  Syrians in Haiti?  My spider-sense for all things Levantine was tingling, so I digressed from …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/01/16/haiti-the-lebanese-and-the-bat-crap-crazies/

Prez perks in Palestine

 Bush, in a typical display of sensitivity, remarked about his 30-minute trip between Jerusalem and Ramallah yesterday:  “You’ll be happy to know, my whole motorcade of a mere 45 cars was able to make it through without being stopped.  I’m not so exactly sure that’s what happens to the average person.” For an example of how average persons get …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/01/11/prez-perks-in-palestine/

Searching for Zion

 Here’s a fascinating glimpse into Israel’s “Jewish democracy” from the perspective of an American woman: http://www.transitionmagazine.com/articles/zion.htm One of the things that struck me as I read this was how Palestinians are, for the most part, a remote abstraction, as thoroughly cleansed from the cultural landscape of Israel as the American Indian is from ours. PS — …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/01/07/searching-for-zion/

On seeing Palestine as Cuba

 This morning, a friend wrote this: Please don’t misunderstand me, largely because of [others], I now have much greater compassion for the plight of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.  You-all have helped me see the other side of the coin, the one not easily available here because of the apparent pro-Israeli bias in our news …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/12/31/on-seeing-palestine-as-cuba/

Gila Svirsky

 Have you yet read Susan Nathan’s “The Other Side of Israel?”  I must confess that I was a bit disappointed in the short presentation by Gila Svirsky yesterday.  The experience was no doubt influenced by the snubbing (whether real or just perceived I cannot say) of my Palestinian friend who tried repeatedly to ask a question …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/09/22/gila-svirsky/

Book review

 I’m almost finished with Charles Pierce’s “Idiot America — How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free” (Doubleday, June 2009).  Just read the chapter on the 9-11 fiasco and the “sexing up” of the Iraq war and I’m so angry right right now that I feel compelled to share the following links …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/08/30/book-review/