Residents of al-Faluja flee in 1949.

Lawrence of Cyberia wrote the following essay as a comment to a diary at My Left Wing a few days ago. She reproduced it on her site because it was also a suitable response to readers who email her from time to time with questions along the lines of,

How can criticizing a Jewish state not be anti-Semitic?

Lawrence of Cyberia's response (slightly revised to a generic "you") was: I think this question misses the point entirely about why people can be anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic. And it misses the point because it starts off from a strawman argument (about) why people might be opposed to Zionism. Whether you are a hard Zionist or a soft anti-Zionist, her response is enlightening.

I have never been disappointed by Lawrence's acute logic yet obvious humanism and leanings toward common civil and human rights in government, especially when discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This conflict obviously continues because Israel seems incapable of affording ordinary human rights to Palestinians, the same ones that Jews were deprived of throughout modern history. What we find out is that the oppressed can become oppressors, and that ordinary people have flaws they may be unaware of.

by YouTube.

Yuval Azoulay of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported this story recently, that B'Tselem cameras pay off for victims of settler attacks.

Three months ago, B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization gave 100 video cameras to ordinary Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in order that they might document human rights abuses. One of those cameras recorded an incident in which a nonviolent peace activist in Ni'ilin, while in custody: blindfolded and handcuffed, was shot in the foot by a rubber-coated bullet.

(Holocaust Museum photo not available)

Stuff like this happens everyday in the West Bank as peace activists attempt the most dangerous of all types of protest against Israel's military occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands, in this case, in Ni'ilin.

The nonviolent type.

(13 including a photographer injured in Ni'ilin)

Obama, Michelle, and the late Palestinian-American professor, Edward Said. How can you engage grassroots activism and forget Edward Said?