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It is taboo in Israel to compare the suffering of the Palestinians with that of the Jews in the holocaust. Anyone who does so is at once ostracized. The latest is film director and producer Yonatan Segal: in a marketing document for his Odem (Lipstick), which is currently being filmed, he wrote that "the occupation is more terrible than Israel has ever admitted, and it is possible to compare it with the holocaust." The Israeli Film Fund, which has been backing the project, responded by freezing the money. The issue even reached the Knesset, to which Segal was summoned to explain. He is only one among many who have been pilloried for the comparison. 
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When Art Breaks Walls:Roni Ben Efrat
nce a year, in January, a meeting point is created between artists and farm workers. The artists are both Jewish and Arab. The workers are Arab women. The contact is made through an art exhibit called Bread and Roses, organized by the Workers Advice Center (WAC-MAAN). This year 250 artists took part, 40 of them Arab. At the opening on January 9, 2010, more than half the works were sold, to the amount of $80,000. More sales are expected. (For a look, go 
here.)
The New Abu Mazen?Yacov Ben Efrat
merican mediator George Mitchell is again en route to the Middle East in a mission to jumpstart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Mitchell is trying to keep his grip on the rope that Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu grudgingly let loose in November 2009, when he announced a ten-month settlement freeze. This was a partial concession to the American demand—eagerly espoused by PA President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas)—for a total freeze as a precondition of renewed peace talks. For 16 years the talks had chugged along in fits and starts, with occasional lurches backward, while Israel smoothly went on building settlements. The American demand came when it was clear to all that talks serve Israel as camouflage for construction: In 1993, the year of the Oslo Accords, there were 264,400 settlers in the West Bank (including the occupied part of Jerusalem), and in 2007: 466, 170. (Source.)
War on Scarecrows: Steinitz at the TreasuryAssaf Adiv
uval Steinitz, Israel's Minister of Finance, takes no rest. We have not yet recovered from his blatant attack on the High Court of Justice (he claims that its "populist" decisions waste public money) and already we hear that he's gearing up for a nationwide program to overcome unemployment. A worthy goal indeed! Who could oppose? Yet to judge from a report in Yediot Aharonot (Financial Supplement, Dec. 13, 2009), the new program misreads the problems and offers, therefore, wrong solutions.
Ajami, the Film: Surmounting Anger and PainAsma Agbarieh-Zahalka
any days have passed since I saw Ajami, the prize-bedecked film of Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani. Its darkness has not left me. Death, the death in the final scene, still stares me down, still threatens. I can still hear the words of the boy at the end, calling on us to open our eyes.
Abu Mazen Throws in the TowelYacov Ben Efrat
ixteen years after signing the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians have concluded that there isn't any point in continuing the peace process with Israel. That is the only way to understand the declaration by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) that he won't run in the next elections for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority (PA). I shall argue that he should have pulled out years ago, but better late than never. The Israeli side refuses to believe him, seeing the announcement as a public relations stunt. Just two months ago his Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, announced his plan "for establishing a Palestinian state within two years," and here comes the boss and shuffles the cards. The Palestinians went astray, it seems, in their attempt to rescue something from the peace process, given a right-wing government that has arisen in Israel and contradictory signals from Washington.
Arab Parties in Israel Avoid the Main Issue: PovertyYacov Ben Efrat
he Monitoring Committee of the Arabs in Israel declared a general strike for October 1, 2009, in memory of those killed in the demonstrations of October 2000. The strike was explained as a response to a series of anti-Arab bills presented to the Knesset, above all the proposed Naqba Law; this would forbid ceremonies commemorating the catastrophe of the Palestinian people in 1948, which culminated in its expulsion from the land. If this bill passes, the State will punish all recipients of government funding that organize Naqba ceremonies.
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11.03.2010, 08:03