I have found very little about this in the news...even BBC is letting me down this time. But Daily Kos has had some coverage of large scale protests in Israel. The total number of protesters across all cities amounts to 460,000, 300,000 of them in Tel Aviv. That amounts to 5% of the total population of Israel, Jews and Arabs, taking to the streets in protest of failed right wing policies. The Israeli police have stated that it is the largest protest in Israeli history.

And it all started with one woman.

Info and photos are from Daily Kos. Thanks to The Troubadour for this coverage.

Here is the first day of protest in Tel Aviv, with one person in early July:

Here is the protest on August 6th with 350,000 (funny how I didn't hear about it at the time...not in American media...not on BBC...):

And here is Tel Aviv today at the beginning of September:

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There's been a bit of a kerfuffle recently regarding the decision by the New York City Gay and Lesbian Center to cancel an event to be held at the Center by an anti-Israel - or, if you prefer, pro-Palestinian - organization. The group, Siege Busters, is engaged in activism targeting the Jewish state, and specifically the military closure of the Gaza Strip.

Without going into the precise details - my own personal view is one of sympathy to both Israelis and Palestinians, and a desire for both nations to live in peace - this controversy raises some interesting issues.

First, given that gays and lesbians, to say nothing of transgender Americans, still labor under discriminatory laws, are we right to draw lines that cut us off from other oppressed peoples, which both Palestinians and Jews by any objective measure are?

Second, if we consider the passions stirred by this particular debate, which presumably obtain within the LGBT community as they do elsewhere, is it right for the Center to come down firmly on one side of it?

Third, what do we do with and about Palestinian queers, who come to New York City from one of the most extravagantly homophobic societies on earth expecting a safe harbor?

I'm not going to commend the Center on its decision or, for that matter, criticize it either. What's done is done. But it would behoove the Center, and all New Yorkers interested in its work, to give some more thought to the matters raised here.  read more »

I suspect this diary will not be popular, but I didn't start blogging to avoid controversy. Here in America, sentiment on the right almost exclusively supports Israel in the boarding of the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) flotilla and the violence that followed. Sentiment on the left almost exclusively supports the FGM. I have been trying to figure out the rights and wrongs and the legalities of the incident since it happened and it seems ambiguous all around (more on that below). But the incident itself is very simple: two sides (one heavily armed) engaging in brinksmanship with neither side willing to blink. The inevitable result of such brinksmanship will be the better armed side will ultimately succeed through brutal means.  read more »

Dear Sarah Palin, George Bush and other End of Time Believers,

I am sorry to inform you that I will be preventing the second coming of you savior. It's nothing personal, but I just don't intend to move to Israel just to suit your religious beliefs. Let me explain below.

You see, End of Timers, I'm Jewish. Now, I don't actually keep Kosher (I love pulled pork way too much...and bacon cheese burgers are pretty damned good too) and I only occasionally attend synagogue. In fact I think I have visited more Buddhist temples in Japan than I have visited synagogues anywhere in the world. Though I did spend some time and effort a few years ago to help save a synagogue in Latvia, if that counts.  read more »

There is a room 8 diarist of the name "Chaim Yankel" who has a beef with a city council candidate named Brad Lander. Yankel (actually a name that runs through my family as a first or middle name, though I used the more modern form "Jacob" for my son) wrote an article on room 8 about an anti-Israel statement made by Mr. Lander in a book which compiled the views of anti-Israel Jews. Yankel was pretty harshly criticizing Brad Lander, and I came, mildly, to Brad's defense. I made the following comment to Yankel's original article:  read more »