For One Democratic State
in the whole of Palestine (Israel)

FOR FULL EQUALITY OF NATIVE AND ADOPTIVE PALESTINIANS

FOR One Man, One Vote

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Masters of Discourse is a collection of insightful, delightful and often brilliant short essays written over a number of years by Israel Shamir. Like a growing number of people around the world who are furious at the mistreatment of Palestinians by the government of Israel, I have been reading these essays of Shamir as they have arrived in my email inbox for years. They have forced me to re-think my own views: Jews who swear they are for "equality" but who defend the opposite when it comes to Palestinians seemed to me to be a paradox; Shamir's explanation was an eye-opener--that words like "equality" for such Jews really just mean "what's good for the Jews."  Shamir's essays develop his "all humans are equal" philosophy with an unrelenting, take-no-prisoners attack on Jewish tribal thinking, which I find wonderfully inspiring and clarifying. Whether the essays are about topical events or diverse historical events about which Shamir seems to have encyclopaedic knowledge, it is always a refreshingly jolting experience to read them because they clash so violently with the unprincipled Newspeak garbage that rains down on us 24/7 from our mass media. And yet, for all the aggressiveness and logic of his message, Shamir's language is sometimes close to poetry.  Even when I disagree with his message, as I sometimes do, I feel enriched just from my delight at the manner of his expressing it. Here, for example, is how Shamir recently explained his negative attitude towards the "9-11 was an inside job" view: "Thus a man who has spent a passionate night with a mysterious blonde, may be reluctant to admit that she was sent by the CIA." Masters of Discourse is a great read.

 

John Spritzler

 

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