One trick of writing on the internet: if you want feedback, leave your email at the bottom of the article, and if you don’t, don’t. Sometimes you forget, as I did with my open letter to Mitch Potter. His reply to me, you’ll recall, was basically to remind me that he has a larger audience than I do (“Enjoy your chorus of one”) thanks to his employer, Torstar, being somewhat larger than ZNet or killingtrain.com, and also to remind me of a further constraint on fair coverage (“those of us on print deadlines”). When you’re on deadlines, it’s easier to go to the sources in the rolodex, and if you’re in Israel/Palestine, those are think-tanks close to the state and military officials.
In any case I forgot to put my email at the bottom which means that people who wanted to write to me had to look it up. Not hard, in my case, at all, but I was very pleasantly surprised by the feedback over the past few days:
I just read your Open Letter. Solid, hard-hitting piece of work.
Impressive. Damn.
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Brilliant. Thank you.
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I just wanted to say that I’ve been keeping up on reading your work, and I’m glad that you’ve been keeping up with writing it. Your open letter to Mitch Potter was particularly strong, and it’s nice to see people on our side sticking to their position like you did.
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I just finished reading an email I received containing a letter you wrote to Mitch Potter. All I can say is well done and more power to you!!
One hopes that the rest of the citizens of the world will play a more active role in an effort to expose the truth… because we (the Palestinians) are not valued as equals when it comes to the dispersal of humanity from the western world, any reports that humanise our cause are all but buried, but those that glorify any act of resistance, thus leading to any harm whatsoever to the Israelis, is plastered across the news bulletins of the world. Keep up the great work!
This is more feedback than I usually get. I think people have been frustrated by subtler and cruder patterns of racism that they take in over long periods of time watching “liberal” media, so the chance to see it named and exposed is vindicating.
A good book I read a year or so ago is called “The Genocide Machine in Canada”. One of the strategic principles the authors advocate is confronting individuals with the consequences of what they do and support. Feelings will get hurt in this process, and the individuals may not change their minds. But it is still an important part of trying to honestly face these problems and our participation in them.
Mitch relies on the
Mitch relies on the reasonable assumption that his readers are not aware that the drive from his almost invariable Jerusalem-dateline to Gaza is shorter than the morning commute into Toronto from the immediate suburbs. He relies on readers not knowing that he has never spent a night under Israeli bombing in Jenin or Rafah. He relies on Israeli think tanks for the simple reason that they always answer the phone when he calls from his desk. Oh, Mitch, you well know it is more than a chorus of one.
Israel and Empire
It seems my first attempt failed so I will reiterate:
Regarding the last paragraph in your article may I suggest a few points:
First, why did the muslim worls slip away from its 10th century glory?
The muslim world should first join the 21st century by adopting democracy (admittedly not at the point of a gun) or a benevolent dictatorship.
It should use its money for the benefit of the masses (see Saudi Arabia) and improve its universities to rise from the dismal state of its scientific publication. A good start will be by quenching fanatic attitudes of the Al-Qaida type.
It should change its barbaric treatment of women – start by aboloshing female circumcision.
And finally, it shoulg get it out of its collective head, that by destroying Israel the world will become a better place for the muslim world. I can write half a dozen scenarios where it won’t be so; ans so can you.
Rest assured we have no plans to conquer the muslim world. We have enough troubles wirth the muslim citizens of Israel. You will be surprised how many Israelis think the same way. An educated muslim world will see the folly of its ways, to the benefit of all. And please don’t tell me that Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan happened because of Israel.
Yours truly
Dr. Azriel Lorber