Boycotting Matisyahu is Reasonable, Even if You Don’t Agree with It

Liberal Zionists tolerate uncritical Israel supporters because they are family. But we shouldn’t be surprised when others don’t. To be sure, I doubt this Spanish BDS group would have much sympathy for anybody who didn’t endorse the three goals of the BDS movement. But that is their right. Had Matisyahu, who has made political statements in the past in favor of Israel, endorsed a Palestinian state, or justice for the Palestinians, he would not have been cancelled, even with the protest of the Spanish BDS group. But an artist who has politicized his work should not be surprised if he is called out on it.

Via

The Magnes Zionist: Why Boycotting Matisyahu is Reasonable, Even if You Don’t Agree with It.

I’ve read in many places how antisemitic is Spain. Well…. for being antisemitic, we should have some relevant proportion of Jewish comunities living in Spain, such as, let’s say, Gipsies, Moors or Chinese.

But there aren’t.

And one can’t be racist against some race they don’t even learn to identify.

When we, Spaniards, position ourselves against Zionism, we do the same we did against White, Anglo-Saxon, Christian Supremacists in South Africa during the times of the Apartheid. The same many of us do when we criticise Erdogan and the Turks for the way they treat other minorities, and specially Kurds. The same many of us do when we reject fascists, ultranationalists and supremacists of every kind.

Nothing else.

A young women’s call “To Our Countries”

A new occasion to let us all remember that change in Middle East will come invariably from women. Let them be these women singing in exile from Sweden or the brave fighting women of Kobane.

Let this be a call for ALL OF OUR COUNTRIES… even those not in Middle East. 

Because this is not a tragedy for Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Israelis, Palestinians… and all MIddle Eastern People. 

The oldest remnants of human civilization are found in these lands.

so this is a tragedy in the bethren of HUMAN CULTURE.

A tragedy for all humans.

If Middle East keeps being lost… we will all loose… because it’s not “us and them”.

It’s US ALL.

And as far as we don’t change the way things are happening, this shit will never let the world advance.

So let’s help this voice to spread.

Let’s help  this women voice sound louder than the shots of a doshka in Kobane.

Louder than any invocation to Devil before killing someone in the name of a false concept of God.

Because God does not need our blood, ANY BLOOD, to stain the ground to make His point.

Please share. 

To Our Countries لبلادي

Change must come from women…. in Israel too!

I LOVE these three women, because they show us that in Israel there are young people who obey their conscience.

They make us proud to be Israeli.

As long as we have youngsters like these, ready to stand up for democracy, peace and justice, take risks and make personal sacrifices, Israel has a future.

For me, they are the real Israel.

Three Women – Gush Shalom – Israeli Peace Bloc.

I have always loved Noa’s voice.

She is also a living proof, (same as other yemenites, sefardis, etc….) that judaism is a middle eastern thing, intimately linked to the arab world, to an extent that political-religious integrist twisting (may it be from israelis or from arabs) cannot reject or deny. 

The mere existance of this kind of sensitivities among Israelis gives us hopes of peace for a future. Maybe they are few and discrete…. but actions always speak louder than words. 

Same as Noa’s songs. Same as the arabic singing jews from Yemen Blues… same as many others who had hopes and a voice to express them. 

Because these are the Israelis that deserve that land. The ones who defend the respect for the same human rights, the same democracy, the same acceptnce for religious and ethnic minorities, the same cultural openmind, the same orientalism and the same tolerance … that made the world approve the Statehood for Israel in 1948. Because it was because of that UN assembly support that it happened, nothing else and nothing less.

And as far as it was under that premise and in defending it that Israelis enjoyed respect and comprehension from us for decades, they must understand that once those values and ways of conduct are not respected, they won’t be accepted as they were. 

Israelis must understand that it’s been a long time since 1948.

Their special consideration cannot last forever, so they cannot expect the world to treat them differently than any other mature “democratic” nation of 2014. 

Nowadays they must understand that if they want to call themselves a democracy, they must behave under the same rules as any other 21st century democracy.

If they don’t do… they will only see people, not governments, but common people, expressing their dissent and their opposition against that.

Basically, taking colonial expansionism of 19th century’s democracies as an example to follow in 2014 is not the way, sirs. 

Shalom! Salaam! Peace!

‘We Can Matter’: Young Israeli Addresses Arab Idol Winner (I hope he could read it)

You are 23. I am turning 25 in two weeks. We are young, but we are no longer children. When I was fifteen, I read in an American book that “the mark of the immature man is that he wants to die for a noble cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” Now, a decade later, this idea resonates with me, and not only as an eloquent sentence in a novel. I was a combat soldier. I know what it is like to be ready to give your life for something. Yet, I would much rather live on this land alongside you than die so others can live here alone.

Look at me, because you don’t have a choice. And neither do I. We are stuck together, and we are not going anywhere. But it need not only be bad.

Your voice is beautiful. It can reach Palestinian and Arab youth all over the world. It can even reach us. It can tell a new story, one that wouldn’t conclude with “There’s no partner for peace”. It’s a story that seeks living, even if not loving. I can write it, but you’ll have to sing it.

via ‘We Can Matter’: Young Israeli Addresses Arab Idol Winner

Middle East Perspectives

SHALOM ALEHEM – SALAAM ALEIKUM

… so close, so far… so closed.

Future will demand changes like this.

Many more…

But in the meanwhile, …. welcome!

Gaza’s Gypsies don’t dance anymore.

The Dom are not represented in parliament or in any of the political factions or institutions. They do not benefit from the international aid sent to the Palestinian people of Gaza. It is as if where they live is invisible to the broader community and the government. Some Dom women have, therefore, begun begging in the streets, while the men find work in “fadous,” popular male-only groups who play drums and march during wedding processions.

via Gaza’s Gypsies Face Daily Racism

 Al-Monitor

Gipsies in Gaza… at first I was a bit shocked.. there too!! … then I remembered how these nomadic peoples without nation spreaded all over, exporting their proverbial resistance to fit in any society, from Phillipines to Ecuador, from Ireland to Gaza… from India to the world…

Always wandering the globe to feel eternally out of place, finding troubles or creating them, whoever they shared the land with. 

One can’t avoid asking himself …why?

The day any beardie bans Belly Dancing in Cairo, I’ll be 150% sure that they won’t last in power….

“Belly dancing is one of the most fascinating styles of dance in Egypt. Cairo is known as the global capital of belly dancing. Following the increasing appearance of foreign belly dancers in Egypt’s nightclubs and casinos, the Daily News Egypt looks at the belly dancing industry in Egypt and learns about the different techniques and styles of belly dancing. Considering the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in Egyptian politics, some are concerned that belly dancing might become more restricted in Egypt. Belly dancers, though, have faith that their profession will continue to grow.”

via Belly Dance in Egypt – Daily News Egypt.

In a country where belly dancers are required even in weddings as a core part of their culture, (or at least as one of their most valued traditional ways of liberating from unnatural moral constriction) and an iconic element of their social life, specially for tourists, it’s unconceivable to consider that any mentally balanced politician will attempt to forbid such an art.

Now is when i really hope they make a law proposition, black on white, about the issue… it may have same effect as veiling Um Khaltoum’s statues. Please.

This goes for all the innocent people suffering and dying in Syria, … in Mali, …in Nigeria, …in Iraq, in Afghanistan, Central africa, Myanmar, Pakistan, … and let’s hope not in Korea …

I won’t even comment.

Think by yourselves.

Or feel.

Or both.

Levant woman

on Easter all i can say to Syria that Smile though your heart is aching.. Smile, even though it’s breaking
When there are clouds in the sky
You’ll get by…
A song I recorded in my humble voice and on my humble mobile recorder .. with my sister on the piano.
this song has the most encouraging words but still always makes me cry..
in the time of war there must be a reminder for us to smile
From Syria and to Syria ..

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At least smthg remained confirmed… Oman is a peaceful place… even at protesting.

Susan Al Shahri سوسن الشحري: The ROHM Incident.

Another of those occasions when one reads and thinks “damn… there they go… overacting again”… at least this time they didn’t request anyone’s life as a compensation! And that’s good.

My thought at reading this blog entry was… “C’mon… nobody notices when someone is doing smthg wrong with the best of intentions?”… I remember once that N. Sarkozy travelled to the Gulf and (I think in Bahrain or KSA) he was offered kahwah… and he toasted with the cup before drinking it. People were shocked and started joking abt him for this supposed stupidity, “as if he was drinking wine in a shariah-ruled state”. It was my task to let them know that when we toast, (even if it’s with cola), we express our best wish of good health and prosperity, and that was the main symbolism of that action.

Believe it or not, barely one third of the people I talked with abt the issue changed their minds abt it. The rest had no mercy: Sarkozy was an incult idiot who should have known better the ways and traditions of the place he was visiting.

My counter-attack was obvious.

Here in Spain, when we are presented in an informal way… most invariably women are kissed on the face. Yes, even at first times. If some lady comes to my home, most surely my whole family will shake hand timidly and then kiss on cheks as a proof that she’s one of us…

It was impossible to make them accept the same point of view they had applied to Sarkozy. In this occasion it’s because of a religious rule, they said!

… I guess you can imagine which was my answer… but that’s matter for a new post… some day.