Six Feet Above the Jackboot

Photo by Nayef Hashlamoun

You have seen the walls and chain-link fences, the cold concrete barriers, corralling thousands of tired, angry, desperate, grey-faced, tearful human beings; you’ve seen the ruins where a house stood just some hours, maybe days, before.

You’ve seen the jackboot stamping on the neck.

In Defense of Mahmoud Abbas

The new revelations (if one could call them that) from the so-called “Palestine Papers” have been claimed as proof that Mahmoud Abbas is a corrupt lackey of the Israeli Government. His negotiation team has certainly offered Israel almost unimaginably generous terms, in exchange for, well, nothing very much. It is unclear to me what the Palestinians were supposed to get in return for the now-famous “greatest Yerushalayim in Jewish history,” especially considering that the offer has, incredibly, been rejected. I would like to come to Abbas’ defense, though, because despite his serious failings—failings that without doubt disqualify him from legitimate leadership of the Palestinian people—I feel that his motives were not as sinister as some of his critics say, and he has undoubtedly rendered a great service to the Palestinian cause through these negotiations.

The Zionist Left is Dead

The Zionist Left, which has founded the State of Israel, has run out of answers, and more and more people in Israel realize that. Finally, after more than 60 years, all Jewish Israelis have to choose between Fascism and true Democracy.

Incoming IDF Chief Appointment In Doubt

Galant in Gaza. Photo: Avi Ohayon, GPO

The appointment of a new Chief of Staff to the Israeli Military is frequently an interesting event. The Chief of Staff, who is appointed by the Government according to the recommendation of the Minister of Defence, is the highest commanding officer in the Israeli Military, and as such receives his orders directly from the Minister of Defence, and is in charge of implementing them.

The Image of a Ruined House

I will tear down a house; I will stand before it and mark it; it is mine—to do as I will it: To stand or to fall; to live or to die; to have been or to never have been. I will empty it of its inhabitants; I will tear it down with heavy machines and their treads will grind its stones into the dirt. I will plant many-rooted trees in its foundations so that they are ground into dust.