While having a bit of a read of the new-look Ha’aretz Israeli online newspaper (which, by the way, is much better and faster than the old site) it occurred to me that, not only had Ha’aretz changed their website look, but they have also taken a considerable step to the left away from their usual more centrist position.
Of course, this hasn’t happened overnight. The trend has been developing slowly over some time now and, if I were asked to put a finger on when this leftward trend began, in retrospect I would probably think about such events as the 2006 Israeli war which started out being against Hezbollah but ended up being against the Lebanese people. Later, that pace of leftward movement was compounded by Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip but which, like the war against Lebanon, ended being against the Gazan people.
And it’s not just the newspaper that’s taken a leftward turn; the readership too has followed suit and this is reflected in the comments that are left at many of Ha’aretz’s articles. In the new-look Ha’aretz this has now been enhanced by the addition of a facility that allows commenters and readers to rate other reader’s comments. The result shows that there seems to be a distinct turn in attitude among Jews both in Israel and throughout the Diaspora away from the blind hatred propagated by Zionists against Palestinians, particularly those in the Gaza Strip. More and more people throughout the Jewish world are beginning to reject the confrontational posture that has been the way of the Zionists for more than sixty years and those old confrontational attitudes are now being replaced by an emerging need to seek peace.
There is still a long, long way to go but this is a very positive start. Let us hope it stays positive and builds up. There is no place for the old extreme right-wing Zionism in a region whose inhabitants are displaying a growing and ever louder demand for peace.
AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.
2 comments:
Does "peace" equal "coexistence" in this context, Damian? Equality before the law for all citizens regardless of race, for instance?
A curly one, Trad. One would hope ideally that peace did go hand in hand with coexistence and that there would be equality for all regardless of race but I think that may be something that will happen only in stages and even then only if all agree that that is to be the ultimate goal. It's certainly something worth going for. The alternative is more of the same for another sixty years. I doubt the world would tolerate that.
The OneState solution ultimately is the ONLY answer. The entire world needs to help them toward that solution.
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