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ÝÝÝ Midas EarsÝ
By
Israel Shamir 
A new spectre haunts America. It enters the well-protected
boardrooms of newspapers and banks, shakes the deep foundations of its
towers. It is the spectre of glasnost: the dark secret of Jewish power
is out. Just recently it was 'third rail', touch-and-die, deadly dangerous
to mention, certain end to a career. Just recently, Joe Public snapped his
TV from an eminence with an Israeli passport to a member of a Jewish think-tank,
and muttered to himself: Surely it is just a coincidence that so many important
and largely unelected people in our country happen to belong to this small
minority group.
Midas Ears
By
Israel Shamir 
A new spectre haunts America. It enters the well-protected
boardrooms of newspapers and banks, shakes the deep foundations of its
towers. It is the spectre of glasnost: the dark secret of Jewish power
is out. Just recently it was 'third rail', touch-and-die, deadly dangerous
to mention, certain end to a career. Just recently, Joe Public snapped his
TV from an eminence with an Israeli passport to a member of a Jewish think-tank,
and muttered to himself: Surely it is just a coincidence that so many important
and largely unelected people in our country happen to belong to this small
minority group.
The City of
the Great King (A Talk Given
in Istanbul City Concert Hall on 22.02.03)
Heavy snowfall blocks the mountain passes of Anatolia,
lays thick Persian carpets on the streets, paints white the mosque domes,
churches and markets of your City, the eternal capital of great empires.
I came from Jerusalem al-Quds via Moscow, two places intricately connected
to the Second Rome. A few days ago I stood at the formidable walls of Jerusalem
and read the still preserved letters: the city was fortified by Suleiman
the Magnificent, the great Ottoman Sultan. Signs of Ottoman rule are found
everywhere in Palestine, for Ottomans were the Middle East protectors for
400 years. They took over the Byzantine Empire but preserved the rights
and religious freedom of the Orthodox and not-so-Orthodox Christians. Your
ferocious Janissaries gave the Middle East its chance to develop in relative
peace until the modern times.
A Yiddishe Medina
By Israel Shamir
The great slaughter of innocents is imminent. Very
soon, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of our brothers by Adam and
Eve will be strafed, napalmed, and nuked. Boys and girls, unborn babes and
old men will be brought to the altar of Vengeance and ritually slaughtered
by the High Priest of that God, President George W. Bush. The time is aptly
chosen, and it is hardly a coincidence. The ten days after Rosh Hashanah,
the Jewish New Year, are called the Days of Trepidation, all the way to the
tenth day, Yom HaDin, the Doomsday.
The Malaysian
Solution By
Israel Shamir
Take a country populated by diverse communities, the
indigenous and immigrant, of roughly equal size. These communities profess
different religions and ply different trades. The immigrants are better at
business; the natives prefer to till their soil. It could be a description
of Palestine with its native Palestinians and the immigrant Jewish communities.
But here the comparison ends. In Malaysia, the communities live in peace
without UN peacekeepers, they pursue their cultural and religious interests
without submitting to bleaching multiculturalism, their country prospers while
rejecting the IMF recipes, and it is a native son of soil who stands at the
helm of good ship Malaysia.
OMENS By Israel Shamir
Omens, good and bad, are sent to us like beacons to
facilitate our navigation in the sea of troubles, said the renowned Portuguese
writer Paulo Coelho. Wise and successful men constantly watch out for the
telling signs and act accordingly. Silly and arrogant folk disregard omens
and court disaster. Santiago, the main character of his hugely popular Alchemist,
made his decisions by paying close attention to omens, especially those
given by birds, and eventually won love, glory, wisdom and riches. With or
without the bestseller, we also pay heed to the celestial hints of destiny,
but usually we call it 'a hunch'.
The City
of the Beloved By
Israel Shamir
Their names bear a touch of medieval morality plays,
but instead of Hope, Penance and Mercy, the three sisters are called Amal,
Taura, Tahrir, or Hope, Revolution, and Liberation. Dressed like ordinary
college girls they were - they would not stick out at Yale or Tel Aviv
University. Their books and CDs are the same ones I saw this morning on
my son's shelf. But their smiles, their wonderful happy smiles and high
spirits, are quite out of the ordinary, considering their circumstances.
The City of the Moon
By
Israel Shamir
An arch is homage to the moon, as it is formed by two
mirroring crescents. Full moon produces the perfectly round barrel vault
favoured by Romans; the pointed Muslim arches are formed by waxing seventh-day
crescents. In Nablous, there are arches for every day of the lunar month,
even upturned arches composed of waning moons. A diligent student of architecture
could compose a conclusive History of the Arch in this ancient Palestinian
city.
The Green Rain
of Yassouf By Israel Shamir
Most soothing, tender and sensual to the touch, picking
olives is akin to telling beads. Oriental men wear 'mesbaha' beads of wood
or stone on their wrist, reminding of prayer and calming down frayed nerves,
but olives are much better: they are alive. Olives are tender but not fragile,
like peasant girls, and picking them has a touch of comfort: nothing can
go wrong. Olives detach themselves from the branch without fear and remorse,
smoothly enter the palm and roll down into the safety of the ground sheets
stretched to catch them.
Mamilla PoolBy Israel Shamir
Things move really fast nowadays. Just yesterday we
hardly dared to call the Israeli policy of official discrimination against
Palestinians by the harsh word 'apartheid'. Today, as Sharon's tanks and
missiles pound defenceless cities and villages, the word barely suffices.
It has become an unjustified insult to the white supremacists of South
Africa. They, after all, did not use gun-ships and tanks against the natives,
they did not lay siege to Soweto. They did not deny the humanity of their
kaffirs. The Jewish supremacists made it one better. They have returned
us, as if by magic wand, to the world of Joshua and Saul.
Discussion
of anti-Semitism The
Good Men's Crime
At the height of the Great Cultural Revolution, the
Chinese had the temerity to embark upon a monumental, nature-changing enterprise:
they decided to exterminate ALL flies. The spirit of their solidarity was
so powerful that they succeeded. For a while, they enjoyed peaceful summer
evenings without this great annoyance. No buzz, no fuss: life was great
without flies!
The Martial Arts of Discourse
(Response to the article `In the Same Camp as Hamsun?'
by Haakon Kolmanskog in the Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen. His article
can be found below). Usually, newspaper polemic is akin to epee fencing:
one tries to keep the opponent at arm's length, avoid his thrusts and draw
his blood. The thoughtful and friendly query of Haakon Kolmanskog deserves
a quite different attitude and a most sincere reply. Haakon poses a question:
We can't be indifferent if friends of the Palestinians are branded anti-Semites.
Who will benefit in allowing the Zionists to have a free go playing the
anti-Semite card against anyone who criticise them?
Yom Kippur Blessings
to My Brothers in Zion By Israel Shamir
Our teachers of blessed memory forbade us to enter
the Land of Israel until we shall see the light of Messiah. We thought
we were wiser and rejected this commandment with contempt. But they knew
what they meant and they knew harshness of our hearts. We came into this
sweet Land and we are locking ourselves in a high-rise ghetto surrounded
by the double ring of barbed wire and endless hostility. Inevitably we re-create
the way of life of our ancestors in a Polish schtetl. One can not escape
oneself. We carry Exile in our hearts and that is why we create Exile.
The State Of Mind
By Israel Shamir
The steep slopes of Wadi Keziv in Western Galilee are
walled by squat local oaks and thorny bush. On the streambed, oleanders
and cypresses look into shallow ponds formed by its springs. I like this
secluded canyon. On hot summer days, one can hide in an intricate deep cave
and laze in its cool, clear waters, waiting for deer and hoping for a nymph.
On cooler days, you can climb up a steep spur that rises from the depths
of the gorge. It is called Qurain, the 'Horn' in Arabic, hence the Arab name
of the valley, Wadi Qurain. Astride the spur, the Crusader castle of Monfort
raises its donjon high and gazes towards the distant Mediterranean Sea.
Our Lady of Sorrow
By Israel Shamir
[It was written after another Israeli invasion of Bethlehem,
in March 2002]. In the Upper church of Annunciation in Nazareth, there
is a striking collection of images, homage of artists to Mary. A dainty
Virgin in colourful kimono holds her child dressed in ceremonial Japanese
royal robes among blue and golden flowers; a naive Gothic face of Madonna
transferred from French Cluniac illuminations; the Chinese Queen of Heaven
cut in precious wood by Formosa devotees; the Cuban richly inlaid statue
of Virgen del Cobre, the Polish Black Madonna, the tender face of Byzantine
Mother of God, a modernist steely Madonna from the United States look from
the walls of the church, uniting us in one human family. There is hardly
an image in the world as universal and poignant as that of the Virgin and
the Child.
Christ and Jews
Apocalypse Now
On the green lawns of Hyde Park an old tramp walks
about and carries a scruffy cardboard poster, 'The End is Nigh'. He has
been doing it for years, if he is still the same tramp I spotted some thirty
years ago. But a broken clock will sooner or later show the right time.
Could it be that this ominous moment has arrived?
Review of Review, Part II Offensive or Defensive?
(Second Part of discussion with www.jewishtribalreview.org
. Chad Powers' response to the first part can be found on that site) It
is good we agree on many points, and it is equally good we differ on others.
Probably the greatest difference in our reading emerges from your words:
"Being Jewish" ÷ manifests itself as primarily a defensive allegiance against
the non-Jewish Other.
ÝFour
Blind Men By
Israel Shamir
The Author of the Critique is worried that he will be
considered 'anti-Semitic', but my main objection is quite an opposite one,
namely, The Critique is too 'Jewish' by its outlook.
Galilee
Flowers (The Collected Essays of Israel Shamir)
by
Israel
Shamir
The essays collected in the this book were written during
the years 2001-2002, in the old Palestinian port-town of Jaffa, on the
shore of the Eastern Mediterranean, during the Second Intifada, or Intifada
al-Aqsa, but they are not limited to events in Palestine. The war in the
Holy Land is presented as the centre-stage of the world-wide struggle
of ideas, against a backdrop of such momentous modern developments as the
growing influence of American Jewry ("the Rise of the Jews"), the decline
of the Left, the ascent of Globalisation, the first steps of the anti-Globalisation
movement, and the outbreak of World War Three with America against the Third
World. It is a daring attempt to tie together various political, theological,
military and social threads, and to formulate fresh concepts that provide
people with new tools for analysis and action. While seeking the Liberation
of Palestine, the author pursues another, more broad goal as well: that
of the Liberation of Public Discourse.
FULL TEXT - GALILEE FLOWERS (in HTML
and PDF)
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Israel Shamir
Israel Shamir is a critically acclaimed and respected Russian
Israeli Writer and Journalist. He wrote for Haaretz, BBC,
Pravda and translated Agnon, Joyce and Homer into Russian.
He lives in Jaffa and has become a leading champion of the
'One Man, One Vote, One State' solution in all of Palestine/Israel.
His writings are mostly in English but you can also read some
of his articles translated into Arabic, French, Hungarian, Italian,
Norwegian, Polish, Turkish, Russian and Spanish. A Site Map
lists all pages on the website. Search for a specific article
or topic using the Search link. Read articles and visit websites
relevant to this subject at the Friends and Adversaries link.
Comment on any article at the Discussion Board. Submit your
own articles at the Feedback Page. Visit the Picture Gallery
for graphic illustrations of Palestine/Israel.
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