Its really important to understand the history because that has sown the seeds for the present. All the facts given in this film can be checked and the information from Israeli historians like Ilan Pappe, Benny Morris, Noam Chomsky and others is easily available. If you want a more forensic (analytical) and detailed analysis of the recent and current political breakdown you can read any of the books by Norman Finkelstein such as Beyond Chutzpah, Knowing Too Much and more recently Old Wine, Broken Bottle all of which can be obtained from orbooks Such are the myths and such is the level of propaganda blasted out into the public sphere by Israeli apologists and so called Liberal Zionists (Joan Peters, Ari Shavit, Alan Dershowitz, Jeffrey Goldberg) that it becomes difficult for anyone with a normal attention span and a reasonably busy life to devote the time necessary to properly understand this complex situation. Yet it is vital that we do because, as Paddy Ashdown pointed out today, the Israel/Palestine hypocrisy is the burning coal at the heart of many other Middle Eastern problems. It is essential that it is resolved ... and soon. So how do we cut through the morass of misinformation - Norman Finkelstein has always recommended that we try to ignore the emotive elements, avoid the passion and stick to the unassailable facts. Finkelstein focuses on International Law and maintains that it is essential for the international community to ensure that Israel complies with its obligations under the law. Without the rule of law there is chaos. Gideon Levy, the renowned and respected Haaretz journalist said recently that Israeli politics and, in particular, the brand of right-wing politics espoused by Benjamin Netanyahu, has relied on two main pillars of logic. Firstly, that Israel should ALWAYS be characterised as the victim in any dispute, with the Holocaust as the primary supporting evidence and the threat of existential extinction as the justification for whatever actions Israel chooses to take. Secondly, that overwhelming military force is the only and preferred means of solving any dispute. This can be clearly seen in the use of the Dahiya Doctrine of using massive military force against an unarmed civilian population (first developed in the Lebanon at Dahiya) and most recently used at Shuja’iya in Gaza where more than 100 Palestinians were killed in a single day. The recent failure by Israel to defeat the Palestinians in Gaza has shown these two concepts to be false and Israeli politics is now at a tipping point. It is really important that we put as much pressure on our politicians to bring Israel to justice as we can. This moment may not last long and other events in the Middle East may overtake us otherwise.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 17:30:59 +0000