With Friends Like These

Not many people in Israel still like Gideon Levy, but the Israeli left-winger has a valid point to make:

The amount of support being shown for Israel these days is almost embarrassing. The parade of highly-placed foreign guests and the warm reception received by Israeli statesmen abroad have not been seen for quite some time. Who hasn’t come to visit lately? From the German chancellor to the leading frontrunner for the American presidency. And the secretary-general of the United Nations is on his way. A visit to Israel has become de rigueur for foreign pols. If you haven’t been here, you’re nowhere.

The visitors are taken, of course, to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, the Western Wall and now to Sderot as well – the new national pilgrimage site. A few also pay a perfunctory visit to Ramallah; no one goes to the Gaza Strip, and they all have nothing but praise for Israel. Not a word of criticism on the occupation, on Israel’s violent operations in the territories, on the siege and the starving – with the exception of a few vague remarks on the need for a solution. Israel squeezes the Sderot “informational” lemon for all it’s worth. [source]

4 Comments

  • The writer certainly makes a good point. On the on the other hand, the Palestinians are still on the verge of killing each other, helping Israel in its mission to kill them, and the “moderate” Arab regimes decided that Iran is the threat to the security of the region, rather than Israel, with all its legacy of massacres and all its nuclear weapons!
    With enemies like these, does Israel need friends??

  • Nice ending mohammad “with enemies like these, does Israel need any friends?” I would say yes, to do whatever necessary to keep the enemies at their current dispair.

    on the other hand, as this sounds fair to come from an israeli: the whole left of israel “captured in its communist/marxist parties – beyond liberals -” called so long for a liberated arabia where the jews can claim their minority and separate nationality as a non arab community like the kurds, circassions…

    A marxist movement that identifies its national cause as a jew cause and claiming to be anti-zionist is pure bullshit.

    More rational is to be liberal as an israeli to start considering their existance in harmony and to make up for their aging problems.

  • As Dr. Azmi Bishara has pointed out on several occasions, the “left” in Israel is a zionist left after all, which is virtually hypocratic. We can never count on their positions.

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