Observations, articles, opinions etc. in Dutch and English. The author, Bert de Bruin (Yonathan Dror Bar-On), is a Dutch-Jewish historian, who has specialized in modern Jewish history and in the history of the Middle East, and who in 1995 emigrated from the Netherlands to Israel. In July 2008 his first book, Israel en ik - Vijftien bekende Nederlanders over hun verhouding met een zestigjarige (Israel and I - Fifteen well-known Dutchmen and -women on their relationship with a 60-year-old), was published. He also edited Een veilig Israel in een vreedzaam Midden-Oosten (A Safe Israel in a Peaceful Middle-East), which contains speeches (by Paul Bremer, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Dan Meridor, Mark Rutte, Maxime Verhagen and others) held at an international conference in the Peace Palace in The Hague in March 2010. For feedback please post a comment, or send this blog's author an email.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Goldstone & (Ben-)Israel

Once again, a very good analysis by Isaac Ben-Israel. This time about judge Goldstone'sUN report. Ben-Israel reveals the many faults of that report, without ignoring the mistakes that Israel makes when it 'interprets' some of the criticism aimed at us. His conclusion: "...we too are party to this blindness. Many in the enlightened world hate us (or are at least not empathic towards us) not because they are anti-Semitic (and there are those people too) and not because they are economically and politically motivated by Arab oil (and there are those people as well.) Rather, they feel that way because we rule over another people. It is possible that we understand the complex reasons that prompted the occupation, yet we would do well to also try to understand the intentions of our enlightened global peers. Then we may be able to truly understand how we are perceived by the world, and why so. However, we, just like them, refuse to see and understand. "
Posted by Bert at 9:12 AM

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