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The Example of the Crazies : An interview with Neta Golan national |
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news report
 Monday July 22, 2002 04:48 by Neta Golan and Justin Podur
 Israeli society is going through a collective turn to fascism. It is supporting assassinations, extra-judicial executions, openly. These things are really scary. I feel it, I feel like we're in the middle of an unfolding catastrophe and I think, quite often, of those 'crazies' in Germany who resisted. I feel closer to them all the time. Neta Golan has been described as "a legendary figure" and is one of very few Israelis who has been arrested, beaten, and harassed repeatedly for working against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. She lives in the West Bank where she works with the International Solidarity Movement. --- Every Arab civilian in the world knows that their blood is cheap. Iraqis, Afghanis, Palestinians. They are paying a high price for the West's racism, being killed, humiliated. Those things create terrorism. Israeli and US state terror and the reaction in 'retail' terrorism are two sides of the same coin and they can't exist without each other. We're creating that, feeding it, in the Arab world. And one source that feeds it, that tells Arabs their blood is cheap, is what is happening in Palestine. For Westerners to say we refuse to do this, we refuse to believe that our lives are worth any more than Arab lives, is an important message for all of us. It makes everyone safer. Bush, Sharon, they're leading us down a road very dangerous for our future. For our present! The West has already paid a little bit, with the attacks in New York, for the hatred they are creating. There will only be more backlash. So for those of us who want a sane world, for those of us who don't want to live in a world that is at war, resisting this conflict in a just way is in our own interest. --- Interesting that you mentioned 'a sane world'. Here in Israel, and I guess elsewhere, we're the ones who are thought of as 'insane'. I'm sure you've been called 'crazy', no? One problem is the disinformation. Hardly anybody who would call us 'crazy' knows what's going on here and if they did, if they came here, they would be motivated in the same ways that we are. But they would have to get up from behind their televisions. In the Israeli media, the only image of Arabs is violence. The human side, the suffering, is hidden from us. I believe that if they saw people, just like them, suffering the way they are, they would be motivated the same way. I'm a Jewish Israeli. As a Jew, I carry a wound. I know my people suffered a genocide. They tried to tell the world; people didn't come, believe, know, want to know, do anything. Some did. A few did, and they were called 'crazy' at the time. I want to do for the Palestinians what those 'crazies' did for the Jews, I want to take their example, and the truth is that it's easier for us to do what we do now than it was then. There are Israelis who support our work here. Israeli society is going through a collective turn to fascism. It is supporting assassinations, extra-judicial executions, openly. These things are really scary. I feel it, I feel like we're in the middle of an unfolding catastrophe and I think, quite often, of those 'crazies' in Germany who resisted. I feel closer to them all the time. --- Many of the activists who have been coming here are also working on an ongoing basis with the 'anti-globalization' movement. If it's all part of a movement for justice, what do you think the next steps should be? I would love to see the tens of thousands of people who go to a G-8 meeting or a World Bank meeting come here, where the terrible decisions they make are actually being implemented. With several thousand activists we could dismantle checkpoints, break sieges of all kinds, we could make a real difference on the ground where the policies are actually being implemented. I think it would be great to disrupt the implementation of the policies rather than only the planning of them. Politically speaking, a kind of anti-imperialist, anti-neoliberal force could reach out to moderate Muslims. Muslims' choices seem to be imperialism or resistance that takes a fundamentalist form. What about resistance that is anti-imperialist and not fundamentalist? If our ideas could reach, and interest, the Muslim community it would add strength and depth to both movements, and give new avenues and political options to people. |
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Comments (7 of 7)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7http://austria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=13424&group=webcast
See the linked article, BlackPope - the article was "censored", as you put it, because it had been previously posted to the newswire.
We have the exact same policy here. Articles should be submitted once and once only.
I very much appreciate your interest - let me demonstrate that you should not too hastily jump to the defence of the censorious mods at IMC-Austria:
The link I gave you points to the page where people ask why the article was repeatedly censored - they there give the link to the article where it is now located, i.e. *in the censorship bin*.
Here you can see the delectable contents of the bin:
http://austria.indymedia.org/display.php3?group=webcast&led=y&sort=&rate=none&filter=hidden
- and validate that the addresses coincide.
You can see two copies of the same article there:
http://austria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=13367&group=webcast
http://austria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=13362&group=webcast
- both censored on the same day without any comment.
If you can show me another link on IMC-Austria where this piece was already published, I will stand you a beer - otherwise, you will owe me one, OK?
Schalom, BlackPope
BP -
Confusion reigns, in part due to my poor knowledge of German (or at least German as used by the Austrian IMC crew!). The article that was a duplicate posting was another one, "What is Anti-Semitism" (Neumann), and it appears as if two conversations were in progress on the Austria site, one about the anti-semitism article and one about the article that's displayed above.
So in short, the Neumann article was hidden on Aus IMC because it has been posted previously, but I don't know why the Golan article was hidden.
No pints for me so!
D.
You are big enough to admit an honest mistake - congratulations! And congrats. to me on winning that delicious pint of Truth-Syrup!!
I'm not sure, though, that your German (or lack of it?) is to blame for the error - as there is wild confusion over at IMC-Austria, with articles and comments being censored at frenetic speed, even *after* disposal in the *censored*-bin!!
So I don't blame you for not seeing through it all clearly at the first look. I would, however, be very amenable to sitting down over that pint and giving you a full briefing on the absolutely run-amok censorship for political expediency at IMC-Austria - if such detail or meeting would interest you, please mail me today or tomorrow with a ph.no. and we can arrange something.
Schalom, BP
I am the culprit that was responsible sending the 5 posts to that site that were hidden recently, oooh, aren't I bad!!!
In short, I sent the Neta Golan interview, it was hidden, sent it again, hidden again.
I then sent a post asking why it was hidden and that was hidden as well.
I then sent Michael Neumann's article 'What is Antisemitism" and it was hidden, sent a message asking why, that was hidden too....
(AND it's NOT a duplicate - do a search and you'll
find a different article there by him...)
If you want to read the details of this tedious/outrageous ordeal go to the link here and from there to the article's first comment's link.
(I've just sent in an article by Tim Wise. If they hide it I'll scream...)
Oh, and somewhere in this ordeal BlackPope stepped in (Thank you) posting a reply to one of my posts where I asked the moderators why my articles were hidden with quite a lengthy post explaining. I copied it and yes, sure enough, it soon disappeared. (Before I posted, I noticed there were only 6 comments attached to that article though it said 8 comments, so if you posted another one, I missed it.)
What can I say, I am eagerly awaiting a reply from the moderators....
My 2 censored comments have recently been re-posted at the "Neumann - What is Antisemitism" page for you. (It is very noticible, and, I think, downright malicious, that the second post, requesting you to mail me for an uncensored exchange, was *also* censored!)
The Tim Wise article has been censored in the meantime, with the traditional one-word salute of 'antisemitic'. I posted some comments, but they can surely not survive longer than about 20 minutes. Link:
http://austria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=13471&group=webcast
I know exactly how this makes you feel, Ellinida, as I have been censored there in the same systematic fashion, apparently for the same reasons of political expediency but do not despair - we will just have to come up with a strategy to defeat this censorious stranglehold on IMC-Austria.
Publication and discussion of the issues raised on IMC_ie would be a very good start, as this is the english-speaking IMC least prone to censorship. I hope to raise awareness and interest among the mods here and at IMC_uk (more prone!) prior to making a case for discussions with IMC_org.
It genuinely appears that IMC_Austria is beyond help, the mods being absolutely impervious to appeals to rationality, logic or fair-play.
If either yourself or Daithi would care to assist me in taking further steps to end the abusive situation there, I would urgently welcome e-mails from you!
Solidarity and Schalom, BlackPope