Zionism
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From October, Israel will be able to kill vaccinated children
Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, reports that hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s children – 90% coverage – have received the first of two required polio vaccinations. The second round should take place at the end of September. So, come, say October/November, Israel will find comfort in the knowledge that the Gazan children it will continue… Continue reading
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Cry Justice! A trashed international rules-based system
If ever there were an international rules-based system, it is trashed now. Drained of authority and meaning, it is singularly unable to do what it is supposed to do. The Geneva Conventions, upon which the rule of law is supposedly based, their high-principled intent now made mockery. Even as their courts pass judgment on Israel’s… Continue reading
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Israel knows how to break things, but not how to fix them
According to a Pew survey published in May, based on enquiry undertaken in March and early April, thirty-nine percent of Israelis think that Israel’s military assault on Gaza is ‘about right’. Thirty-four percent, however, believe the military assault has ‘not gone far enough’; and a paltry nineteen percent think it has ‘gone too far’. Might… Continue reading
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It’s Hezbollah. Or is it? Caution required
It hits you first: the grotesque hypocrisy of Prime Minister Netanyahu, responsible for the deaths and maiming of thousands of Palestinian children, expressing sympathy for the twelve Druze children killed at Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israel annexed Golan Heights. His heart, apparently, is broken. He emoted: Among the victims were young children… Continue reading
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What we see should not be possible to do
You’ll have noticed. It’s slipping away. Barely a news item now. A brief clip of the devastation, then reversion to ‘informed’ interviews and comment. Will there, won’t there, be a ceasefire? Who rejects a ceasefire? Who accepts a ceasefire? Like a tennis match, back and forth, the ball soaked in blood and viscera, spraying the… Continue reading
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Hamas: an erroneous silencing. Part two
This is Part two of a two-part article. In Part one I focus on the wrongness and futility of proscribing Hamas. Here, in Part two, I set out in outline Hamas’s position on ceasefires and ultimate objectives. Hamas: from 1988 to now Hamas’s original 1988 Charter prompted accusations of antisemitism, because it characterised the conflict… Continue reading
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Israel does not have a right to exist – nor does any other state
People have the right to exist – not states. States are political formations, born out of the interaction of any number of factors – economic, ethnic, topographical, military, form of governance, and so forth. They are not sentient beings in any meaningful way. It is, therefore, simply a category mistake to assimilate the concept of… Continue reading
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Can Israel change?
In a couple of earlier blog articles I wondered whether Israel has the internal resources – ethical, psychological, imaginative, political – to reflect upon itself critically; to shed its self-imposed, self-defeating burden of maintaining and justifying a state founded on Jewish Supremacism. All the indications are that it has not. This was the case… Continue reading
About Me
This is Bernard Spiegal’s blog.
I write mainly about Palestine/Israel and related issues; sometimes other stuff too
Bernard Spiegal 