Today’s One-Liner (#135)
The dire state of the Palestinian movement today suggests that there is an inverse relationship between the use of terror and the achievement of freedom. –Susie Linfield, The Return of the Progressive Atrocity
Category: Palestine
Recent Reading
The job of an intellectual is to listen to the history that is being made all around you and to respond in new ways by re-assessing your previous beliefs. This is what the founding generation…
Choosing Guiding Means
A few years ago I read Amos Oz’s trenchant book, How to Cure a Fanatic. His context was the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Therein, Oz noted that “the essence of fanaticism lies in…
On “Useful Idiots”
The last half of 2023 I have shared several posts based on the riveting book by Gary Saul Morson, Wisdom Confronts Certainty. Recently, I noticed he and his colleague Morton Schapiro used their knowledge on…
Problematizing My Faves: Susie Linfield on Noam Chomsky
Dear Max, The following passages are from Susie Linfield’s book, The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky. While the focus is on Middle East matters, you may see some…
I’m Assuming That Elie Wiesel and Noam Chomsky Met at Least Once
Recently, the Persian scholar and poetry translator Matt Miller sent me condolences upon the death of one of my teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh. I mentioned to him that the several of the teachers I first…
Surrealism as a Way of Life
Robert Johnson played last night at that café on Sugar Street. Walt Whitman was detained after chanting “Song of the Open Road” at the Huwarra Checkpoint. Dorothy Day was photographed again just sitting in the…
Righteous, Remorseful Jews
As my 61st birthday approaches, I’ve noticed that I have recently been going back to authors and works I read many years ago. For example, I’ve been reading Thomas Merton’s Asian Journal, William D. Miller’s…
Making an Impression
Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Oneworld Publications, 2007 This is a profound meditation on truth, unpalatable as it will be for many supporters of an expansionist Israel. Pappe cuts through the decades of Nakba…
Prevailing in This Epic Struggle: A Finkelstein Collage
Regarding [Israel’s] methodical breaking of Palestinian bones, Wiesel courageously chose silence: ‘I refuse to see myself in the role of judge over Israel. The role of the Jew is to bear witness; not pass judgment.’ …