American author Alice Walker (photo: codepinkhq/CC BY-SA 2.0)
Walker: Hello, I’d like to speak to Mr. Ido Aharoni, the Israeli Consul General in New York.
Aharoni: This is him.
Walker: Mr. Aharoni, I read your op-ed in the New York Post, and was wondering if you could help me out.
Aharoni: Yes, Ms. Walker.
Walker: I understand that according to your logic, I must first criticize countries with more harsh human rights violations before I criticize Israel. Is this true?
Aharoni: Yes, ma’am. You’ve said nothing about Syria or North Korea, ma’am.
Walker: May I ask which countries I must go through first?
Aharoni: Yes, ma’am. You can start with China.
Walker: OK. And then?
Aharoni: North Korea.
Walker: Yes.
Aharoni: Syria.
Walker: Yes.
Aharoni: Russia.
Walker: Yes.
Aharoni: Saudi Arabia.
Walker: Yes.
Aharoni: Afghanistan.
Walker: OK. And then I can criticize Israel?
Aharoni: No. Yemen.
Walker: OK.
Aharoni: Egypt.
Walker: Yes.
Aharoni: Sudan.
Walker: OK. Is this in order of severity?
Aharoni: No, but these are all before Israel.
Walker: OK. So, after all these I can?
Aharoni: No. Chad.
Walker: Yes.
Aharoni: Congo.
Walker: Yes.
Aharoni: Zimbabwe.
Walker: Yes.
Aharoni: Uganda.
Walker: Yes.
Aharoni: Sierra Leone.
Walker: Yes.
Aharoni: Are you writing all this down?
Walker: No, actually, I don’t think —
Aharoni: — you should! Otherwise you’re a hypocrite! An anti-Semite!
Walker: But —
Aharoni: — Cambodia.
Walker: —
Aharoni: Uzbekistan.
Walker: —
Aharoni: Hello? Ms. Walker? Vietnam.
Walker: —click —
Aharoni: Libya! Bahrain! Ms. Walker? Are you there?
Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war – the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel and the massive retaliatory Israeli attacks on Gaza. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing violence.
We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed unleashed by these events has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Hamas’ murderous assault in southern Israel has devastated and shocked the country to its core. Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza is wreaking destruction on the already besieged strip and killing a ballooning number of civilians. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to escalate their attacks on Palestinians.
This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 13 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, the entrenched occupation, and an increasingly normalized siege on Gaza.
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