Trouble Clef

Alison Chabloz is required to attend ‘a 20-day rehabilitation programme.’ In 21st century Britain,  a singer songwriter has been sentenced to ‘re-education’ for singing a few tunes that offended some people. I wonder what this particular rehab program will entail for the revisionist singer? Chabloz was guilty of introducing new lyrics to Ava Nagila, will she have now to learn to sing Ava Nagila in Yiddish, or maybe to try to fit her own  original ‘subversive’ lyrics to the music of Richard Wagner? Who is going to take care of Chabloz’s education, and what happens if the singer insists on continuing to mock the primacy of Jewish suffering or far worse, compare Gaza to Auschwitz?


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Truth, Truthfulness and Palestine

Israel has deployed thousands of snipers in Gaza. They are ordered to kill from afar. Not exactly the early Zionist heroic image of a ‘face to face warrior.’ But the snipers are not alone. Israeli pilots also rocket Gaza from a distance while cruising in safety over the Negev or the Sea.  Both the snipers and the pilots are supported by dozens of drones that are controlled by boys and girls who operate in safety and comfort in air-conditioned units. Otto Weininger’s diagnosis had some merit. Apparently the alpha male transition didn’t work as the early Zionists wished.

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In Memory of Philip Roth

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I wrote the following  book review a decade ago. 10 years later, Israel and its subservient English Speaking Empire are still mounting pressure on Iran,  the Middle East is bleeding and peace looks like a remote fantasy. Pre TSD is the medium in which we operate and a prospect of a better future seems like a delusional dream. A decade ago I concluded this review wiring that "the current plot isn’t just against America. It is a plot against humanity and human dignity." Sadly, nothing really changed.

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Bibi’s Week, The Jewish Perspective

“Nowadays, Netanyahu is perceived by American Republicans as the greatest foreign world leader in history, the only foreign leader who exceeded Netanyahu in terms of world peace was Winston Churchill. And while the Republicans admire Netanyahu, Democrats and other world leaders see him as the most important statesman in the current generation and this is how he is seen even by leaders who do not like him.”

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On Accountability in the Light of Israeli Brutality 

These events in Gaza proved that the nature of Israeli barbarism has no precedent in human history. Israel is not a tyrannical dictatorship deploying death squads against protestors, nor were the killings the result of an outburst by a lone commander on the battlefield. Instead, Israel’s actions resulted from a non-ethical continuum that stretched from the Israeli PM to the last IDF sniper on the Gaza dunes. The Jewish state is a democracy. Its army is a popular army. The events in Gaza were the direct outcome of a policy that remained unchanged for 6 weeks despite the high level of civilian casualties in the Palestinian side.  We are talking about an murderous system that is institutionalised  at all levels of  the state that repeatedly defines itself as ‘The Jewish State.’

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The Israeli Government Role in Promoting Islamophobia Internationally

In early 1993 my family and I were on vacation at a Club Med in France where there were also Israeli intelligence officers and their families.  I got into a discussion with one in particular, who said that with the fall of the Soviet Union, Islam would replace communism as the new enemy.  It sounded a bit far-fetched, but in retrospect he knew what he was talking about, and more important, he was in a position to help make it happen, which of course it did.

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