Co-operatives and Liberation, not necessarily in that order
The security check isn’t the worst part. The security check itself, at least for internationals, feels innocuous, even reasonable. But the checkpoint is not about security, at least primarily; it is about waiting. The checkpoint is the place where you experience the Zionist entity’s lack of time for you, whether you are an international coming […]
Read More Waiting at the Check Point (for the end of Zionism)Compromise does not motivate actors, or encourage them to become engaged. No one gets excited about incremental progress – that’s why activist politics is dominated by revolutionary ideologies, if people are going to commit their time to something, they want not just to remedy the thing that they detest, but overturn it and bring about […]
Read More What’s wrong with “Compromise”?On the Eastern side of the Old City of Jerusalem you don’t find many people. There are a few churches, cemeteries, the mount of Olives and the Arab neighborhood of Silwan, but it is rural rather than downtown-it has very much the feel of being the “other side” of the city. Along the valley that separates the Old […]
Read More Behind the Old City of Jerusalem, Reflections on Politically Motivated infrastructureRiding the new tram in Jerusalem shows any tourist with fresh eyes a picture of heart warming co-existence. Arabic and Hebrew spoken across the aisle from each other, liberal muslims sitting next to conservative Jews, and vice versa. Standing here in this air conditioned modernity as you are whisked from Damascus gate up Jaffa street […]
Read More Riding the “Apartheid” TrainJames Mensch argues that the paradox between national solidarity and universal solidarity is solved by recognizing the multiple solidarities in which we are already engaged: Our different situations of race, language, religion, and cultural preference involve us in differing networks of solidarity. These, unless artificially suppressed, provide a natural system of checks and balances within […]
Read More Moving beyond “moving beyond abstract solidarity”, or, A Reply to James MenschThis morning I awoke at 5am to meet a group of Palestinians that go hiking every Friday morning. I was invited by an NGO worker from Gaza who is in Ramallah for the weekend, evacuated due to the dangerous situation there. We took share taxis to Birzeit, and hiked to near Nabi Saleh. We were […]
Read More Hiking in Palestine“How many years before they are no longer refugees?” is the wrong question. It’s a question asked from a perspective of privilege, it interprets time as clock time rather than the time of the dispossessed, which is an ek-static anticipatory awaiting for the redemptive moment. Israelis, because they have restored their empire, live in a fundamentally […]
Read More Boredom: The Israeli perspective on the Palestinian Refugee ProblemThe Crime of Apartheid. I’ve gone to the trouble of bolding portions of the definition that most obviously apply to the persecution of the Palestinians in Israeli controlled territory. International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, Article II[1] For the purpose of the present Convention, the term ‘the crime of […]
Read More Apartheid. Seriously.Yesterday I woke up early to head to jerusalem with a new friend for a tour of the old city and a chat with Itamar Shapira. The tour was excellent, the best I’ve experienced here both in the sense of the best politically and in the sense that I learned the most.
Read More “My Head Hurts”; or, a difficult and thought provoking dayFor those who don’t have facebook, I’ve posted some photos from Palestine on my picasa site here.
Read More Pictures for the non-facebook crowd
Only a Northern Song 