Larry Stillman's blog

The moral and symbolic stand against being associated with the occupation is gaining traction.

Jewish Voices for Peace in the US has organized a letter from people involved in the creative arts and reports the event as follows:

"When some 60 leading Israeli actors and playwrights signed a letter stating they would refuse to play in the new theatre in Ariel, one of Israel's largest settlements, the attacks from Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel's Minister of Culture and Sport and many others were swift and intense. Over 150 leading Israeli academics and writers-including Amos Oz and David Grossman- came to their defense. It was the first time such mainstream figures had drawn a line around normalizing settlements which are illegal according to international law, and which constitute one of the main impediments to a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Inspired by their courage, and responding to a call for international support, Jewish Voice for Peace has developed a statement that has been signed by over 150 theater and film professionals representing some of the most respected and renowned artists in theater, film and television – including Four Pulitzer Prize winners, several recipients of Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship, a National Medal of Honor,and scores of recipients of the highest U.S. acting honors, including Tony Awards, Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards, Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, and the Oscar.

I've written the case for a limited boycott, based on a moral argument.

The short version (with responses) is at

The long version (which could probably be much longer in fact), is appended below

This information is taken from http://www.israeli-occupation.org/about-us/, and it is very good piece of text for people who wonder 'is it really all that bad'?

It is worth reading and thinking about.

There is an excellent commentary the hysteria being whipped up about Iran in the US (and in the Australian Jewish community)

"Who needs AIPAC when all it takes is a few interviews with Israeli "sources" to scare the hell out of the Jews -- courtesy of Israel's spokespeople in the American media?

Haaretz reports that settlers associated with Kiryat Arba, the Jewish area above Hebron set fire to local Palestinian lands after the Israel authorities removed one of their tiny outposts in the area.

Once again, Palestinians have been victimized and in this case, instead of olive trees being destoyed, arson has been found to be a useful tool. In such dry and hot conditions in mid-summer, this is environmental terrorism as well.

25 rabbis in south Tel Aviv have issued a prohibition forbidding residents to rent apartments to foreign workers. The document (pictured) uses quotations from scripture and commentaries to justify this and is supported by a councillor from the Shas party.

This scandal has nothing to do with Palestinians, nothing to do with terror, though they claim immigrants cause crime (the usual excuse crime, as in Australia, is to blame immigrants). They also don't want ahem, girls associating with them.

There is a petition campaign to the White House to end home demolitions in the Occupied Territories. This is a clearly discriminatory policy and has little do to with security, but lots to do with land grabs.

Since 1967, the Israeli government has demolished over 24,000 Palestinian homes -- which families have built on their own land inside the Occupied Territories -- in order to:

* Make room for Israeli settlements, businesses or governmental offices;

A long exchange of correspondence with people who should know better last week in advocating the Palestinian cause concerning their 'crude views about Jews' led to me wasting too many hours looking at a variety of webites that deal with 'the Palestine Israel' problem from the perspective of left organizations and Palestinians organizations. I've also seen more comments of a nutty nature than I'd wish too.

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about a disturbing visit by Australian kids on the Birthright program to Hebron, where they were fed extremist propaganda,in contravention of Birthright's own rules about visiting the occupied territories (and what gives a 'birthright' to Australian citizens over that of local Palestinians?)

I left phone and email messages for the Australian Union of Jewish Students who run the program to get some clarifications. True to form, no one got back to me.

On what's happening in Israel and the influence of Gliad Atzmon some Palestinian advocates.

Some days, you see the influence of nuttiness on both sides of the separation fence.