1. Debbie

June 21st, 2007 at 11:53 am

Following this story, I’ve noticed that in the past Israel has already used this tactic with another israeli model, Bar Raphaeli (Leonardo Di Caprio’s girlfriend). But it seems that she was discarded because she “found her way out” of the obligatory military service.

2. Changeseeker

June 21st, 2007 at 1:04 pm

“what is more troubling about this situation is the way in which sex is being used not to promote tourism, but to promote and legitimize Zionism, as well as obscure the realities of Israeli subjugation, apartheid and colonialism. This is a propaganda project to rebrand Israel to shed a positive light on a very negative and destructive situation–a tits and ass diversion.”

This takes the idea that “sex sells” to a whole new level! What’s next? G-8 “beauty” competitions? Gossip blogs “personalizing” Governments-With-The-Power-Through-Violence by running photos showing their representatives being suave with sexy women in clubs? Government “spokeswomen” wearing sexy dresses?

Zionism = Sexy? Pleeeeez! (The scariest part: it’ll work. And they know it.)

3. jp

June 21st, 2007 at 1:23 pm

Firstly… Could you please explain to me in your last paragraph how israel is not a democracy. Every Citizen is allowed to vote. The government changes on a regular basis. The courts and government act as separate entities… So explain how it is not a democracy?

Secondly, every single western country, who has freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom for women to portray their bodies as they wish, uses campaigns like this to portray themselves. Read any maxim, GQ, even some of your more traditional magazines like cosmopolitan, and the like.

Why suddenly when israel does it, because you don’t like their foreign policy, does it become insidious propoganda?

4. Kameelah

June 21st, 2007 at 1:33 pm

good morning jp!

1st: why is israel NOT a democracy?
check this post:

2nd: i don’t read traditional magazine because of the way they portray women. and this is insidious propaganda because that is what it was planned to be. it is an attempt to distract people from the realities in israel and the occupied territories. the 18-35 audience was explicitly chosen.

i didn’t develop the campaign strategy, nor did i speak on behalf on the consulate which made it clear that their intentions were to make israel look less militaristic and more inviting. israel is a militaristic and uninviting place for the palestinians living there and the occupied territories.

you must be careful not to conflate the run of the mill bikini spreads with the fact that a government entity approached a men’s magazine to bolster its image.

5. Walton

June 21st, 2007 at 2:33 pm

Thanks for blogging this.Israel in its desperation has sunk to new lows, essentially pimping its women to buy support. It’s really appalling on so many levels.

I see JP is slithering all over your blog as well.

6. Take Heed

June 21st, 2007 at 3:29 pm

You will note also that the courts have now also given the go ahead to a gay pride parade in Israel as well.
Why should that be offensive?
It all really comes down to the question - what is the fundamental justification for the Jewish State - historical or spiritual.

I say spiritual and for that reason:

Daniel 9:15
15 “Now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong. 16 O Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and the iniquities of our fathers have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us.

Isaiah 63:10
10 Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them.
11 Then his people recalled [a] the days of old,the days of Moses and his people—where is he who brought them through the sea,with the shepherd of his flock?Where is he who set his Holy Spirit among them,

Jeremiah 3:19
19 “I myself said,” ‘How gladly would I treat you like sons and give you a desirable land,the most beautiful inheritance of any nation.’
I thought you would call me ‘Father’and not turn away from following me.
20 But like a woman unfaithful to her husband,so you have been unfaithful to me, O house of Israel,”declares the LORD.

Romans 11:25
25I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
“The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
27And this is[f] my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”[g]

7. Kameelah

June 21st, 2007 at 4:01 pm

What is wrong with the gay pride parade?

I am assuming this spiritual justification lends legitimacy to expelling people from their homes?

8. jp

June 21st, 2007 at 4:30 pm

ignoring walton who likes to dwell in his own ingnorance, I will continue.

Firstly Israel, is not a religious state. Admittedly lots of people see jew, and say religion, except israel does not see it in that way. Much like you get ethnic people from all over the world, ie, the zulu’s, xhosa, kurds, etcetera, who are nationalist people, so israel sees jews as members of the nation. They might have been brought into other societies, much like a zulu from south africa can take on british citizenship by going through the processes, so Israel sees jews as native to the land, but stuck in a diaspora around the world.

If it was a religious state, like many of the middle eastern countries, things like a gay pride parade would not be allowed, in fact homosexuality would be persecuted, rather than protected.

Secondly the link for your post about israeli democracy not being a democracy did not seem to come through, though I would like to read it… As I would like some sort of understanding on why it isn’t…

and, as much as you probably wish not to believe it, israel isn’t about military occupation. It is one unfortunate aspect that does need to be sorting out, but to see it llike that and to never look at the other side is like saying Islam is a terrorist institution. Look at the violence, the terrorism, the horrific bombings, decapitations that have happened in its name. So therefore islam = terrorism.

To ask anybody to look at the other side, the moderate side, who denounces these horrific acts, who calls on people to see its beauty, and the fact that it has far more than just an extremist nature, could also be called insiduaous propaganda?

Israel does have another side. It has a flourishing art scene, it has freedom of religion, it has gay rights, it has a court system that is separate from the government, and it is not controlled by religion, and yes it women want to go the the beach with their boyfriend it is allowed.

Believe me, I do not believe through the total and unequivacle media attention, the israeli occupation gets, they are not going to be hiding it through a little launch of a magazine that says there is more to israel than just warfare. But to be able to show another side to a country surely there is nothing wrong with that.

Should South Africa stop all tourism promotion and rather fill the tourist brochures with pictures of the victims of crime?

It doesn’t make sense.

9. Kameelah

June 21st, 2007 at 4:43 pm

no jp, you don’t make sense.

military occupation is not some unfortunate, unforseen byproduct of the formation of the state of israel; rather it was a necessary project of colonialism to keep a hold on the land and power.

i can’t be concerned about the so-called other side when people are being are being detained, women are stopped @ checkpoints and forced to bleed publicly because IDF folks have made them remove sanitary pads. i cannot be concerned about the art scene when an apartheid wall is being built. i cannot be concerned about music culture when palestinian kids are dying of malnutrition. sorry, i cant be concerned. and to ask anyone to look at israel as this flourishing community of artists and such rather than an apartheid state–which it is, is a diversion i do not wat to take part in.

there is nothing beautiful about a country that spends its time and energy trying to convince the rest of the work that it is not the oppressive regime that it is

no democracy link:
http://kameelahwrites.blogspot.com/2007/06/apartheid-israel-speaking-up-out-and.html

10. jp

June 21st, 2007 at 5:30 pm

Ah… Ok I have read your post about the israeli law issues… Highly slanted and highly biased, using highly emotional termanology to get people to believe what you say, much like you believe the bikini shoot is doing.

You state a lot of basic assumptions, of revisionist history as though it was fact.

Do we call the 1947/48 period as you do, a zionist terror campaingn, or do we call it, a dwar of agression by the arab nations against a UN recognised country. A war in which the arab nations called on arabs living in israel to flee their homes, and abandon their land so that the jews could be wiped into the sea? There is not a single mention of arabic violence against the israelis and the multitude of massacres of jews on the land. Nor the mention that the land was home to hundres of thousands of jews at the same time. Conveniently left out I suppose?

Well that depends on the historian you are deciding to read at the moment. To assume one is correct and the other is wrong is nothing more than guess work.

But anyway after you highly emotional intro, it does become hard to see the laws you follow with in a objectie light.

But I will work through some of them, as I am having to go somewhere, and don’t have time to look through them all…

Your first law… the law of return.

Well as I stated in an earlier comment, israel sees judaism as a nationality rather than a religion. So much like a South African who has British ancestry can just go to britain, and through an exceptionally easy process become a citizen, so can a person with jewish ancestry make the same claim on israel.

Are these british being racist and undemocratic through these policies?

The next law, nationality law, follows immediately on saying those that don’t have the ancestry will have to go through the usual channels. The same sort of channels anybody going to any part of the world would have to go through…

the next few…

In South Africa I have to have an identity card in order to go through my daily life. To prove that I am a South African citizen, to get anything done at a bank, and should really have it on me in case there is any trouble so I can prove who I am.

Well in Israel they have trouble. They have people who like to get on a bus, filled with innocent men, women, and children, and then blow themselves up. To simply ignore that part of the context is plain ignorant. It is in many ways the most important part of the conflict, that palestinian sympathizers seem to conveniently ignore. In fact it the reason many of the occupation policies, that both of us would like to see done awa y with, exist….

Sorry have to go but i will get onto those land a political laws soon…

I just want to make a cor you comment…

Much like you showing absolutely no concern to the other side of israeli society, because you believe them to be an obrutal occupying force, it becomes hard for the israelis, i am sure, to have to look at the other side of palestinian society, when the one that they see is, women strapping bombs under there clothes and trying to kill civilians, when missiles are shot everyday into civilian areas so that children are scared to walk in the streets, when before this wall that you hate existed, there was a suicide bombing, in a bus or a restaurant, full of innocent israelis, being blown to bits, which has indeed stopped since the wall has been built.

I to wish it could be torn down, that the security checkpoints shoved back into a horrible distant memory.

But do you believe that will stop the violence?

Do you believe that Hamas then will say ok, lets stop our violence, change our charter, decide that Islamic supreme rule, and the death of all those who oppose it, is not what they want and things will just be happy and dandy.

Would you call for the palestinians to end there violence? Or do you believe that they should continue until israel gives them everything that they want?

11. Ark

June 22nd, 2007 at 8:35 am

I think jp makes lots of sense. Saying that all Israelis are evil and bad and that noting good comes out of Israel is a lot like when Israeli right wingers portray all Palestinians as violent terrorists. It’s misleading and very selective of what facts one wants to take into account.

After all no group in that part of the world is a saint. It’s just that Israel is the more accountable group because they are the ones with the most power.

12. jp

June 22nd, 2007 at 9:59 am

http://www.meforum.org/article/370

This is not a bad article dealing with those land laws you throw out, but I am sure you most likely won’t be overly concerned with reading it as it does not hold all those beautifully conotative terms, such as, massacre, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, hatred, and victims…

13. Kameelah

June 23rd, 2007 at 5:24 am

Ark: Please read what I wrote. I did not write that Israelis are bad, I wrote that the Israeli state is problematic and its associates in America struck up an uncanny relationship with a men’s magazine in order to improve the perception of Israel. No mention of individual Israelis was made…I only mention the Israeli state. Please make a note of this very nuanced difference. With that said, I do not need to comment on you conclusion that my statements were similar to those demonizing statements made about Palestinians.

JP: I am not sure what to say to you, other than we should just agree to disagree. You accuse me of being emotional, selective and bias…and this accusation is made as if you come from an absolute position of objectivity and stoic control. You write as if you hold the truth, as if you are the discursive checkpoint for all narratives on Israel. The danger of those who protect Israel in spite of its many indiscretions is that such a position is taken as the moderate, common-sense approach which immediately stigmatizes any opinion that diverges from the fallacious point of departure skewed, deceitful and fundamentalist.

Law of Return:

you say:
Well as I stated in an earlier comment, israel sees judaism as a nationality rather than a religion. So much like a South African who has British ancestry can just go to britain, and through an exceptionally easy process become a citizen, so can a person with jewish ancestry make the same claim on israel.

i say:
You are confused. The Law of Return says that as a person of Jewish faith, you have the RIGHT to return to Israel, are granted automatic citizenship and are therefrom given access to land and other resources. This same right to return is not granted to Palestinians who had to flee their homes during al Nakba and live in the occupied territories or elsewhere. There property is not accessible and in many cases is passed onto the state and later redistributed by the Jewish Authority or another entity which has a practice of discriminatory granting land to Jews over non-Jews.

So it is not the same thing as a South African with British ancestry. Making such a comparison is rather convenient and either illustrates a selective reading, or ignorance of the law.

you said:
The next law, nationality law, follows immediately on saying those that don’t have the ancestry will have to go through the usual channels. The same sort of channels anybody going to any part of the world would have to go through…

the next few…

In South Africa I have to have an identity card in order to go through my daily life. To prove that I am a South African citizen, to get anything done at a bank, and should really have it on me in case there is any trouble so I can prove who I am.

i say:
Again, you are attempting to undermine the core of these policies by anchoring them to policies in other nations that seem superficially similar to those in Israel. The significance of the Nationality laws are that in many cases the ID cards are not meant to ease information collection or to improve efficiency when using social services–rather they become a marker to identify bodies and people deemed alien and justifiably mistreated.

I never denied that Israeli Jews are 0..killed–because I did not mention them does not mean that their deaths are not acknowledged, but that the scope of the article was not are Israeli Jews being killed, but is Israel an apartheid state. So, I am not going to apologize about that. If I were to write about this I would still make a point about the differential of power between a state who gets billions of dollars in military and weapon funding from America and a fragmented people with limited resources. This is not to justify violence on either side, but a point that needs to be read.

I can’t support suicide bombing, but I think a point must me made. What does it mean when a people become so desperate that the blow themselves up? What does it mean when it is believed that killing themselves is the only way to be heard? What does it mean when we watch dozens of stories about suicide bombings without any context? Like I said, I am absolutely against suicide bombing, but lets not treat this situation as a bunch of crazy Palestinians blowing themselves up because of boredom.

14. jp

June 23rd, 2007 at 7:25 am

Firstly… I assume you have read the hamas charter, The core beliefs of the people that everyone tells me is the rightful democratic goverment of the middle east…

To read this and believe that violence sponsered by the entities that say they are the voice of the palestinian people, is born out of desperation and and due purely to the israeli created structure is absolutely mad. Is the same as the suicide bombings, that have happened in Iraq, India, and elsewhere in the middle east?

It is based on the ideological structure that Israel needs to be destroyed. That those who don’t believe in living under an islamic state, need to be driven into the sea.

Second, please don’t get me wrong, i do noy believe that I am in the perfect postion of “objectivity and stoic control”, but then again have you read the article that you wrote and directed me towards?

If it not a highly conotative, biased, and emotional, then perhaps i don’t know what is?

You talk about ethnic cleansing, massacres, and pretty much genocide. Something that has no historical fact or proof around it. In fact there are many instances that can be found that the arab nations compelled those arabs, to leave and and many instances, the israelis, pleaded with them to stay.

To ignore the history, or rewrite it, due to your belief that the israeli system today is terrible, and so everything else can be put aside, conviniently left out of your rhetoric, is just plain ignorant of what has caused the system that they have today. I personally do not agree with the system, but i also believe that nothing can change without the stopping of violence on the palestinian side. So when I read an article like you wrote it saddens me as it does not look for any sort of practical solution, but rather tries to develop hatred towards a country that if we viewed it from the perspective that the palestinians view themselves, is the home to over 1 million jewish refugees from the middle east, and if there refuggee status passed from generation to generation, like the only group in the world that has this priveledge or curse depending on how you look at it, well then millions of refugees from the middle east…

I am curious… What is your solution to the problem?? Do you believe that area becomes a single state and that all the problems, with violence and the arab nations will just disappear?

Do you believe like some that I have read, if this gets sorted out then all the problems in the middle East will get sorted out?

hmm….

15. jp

June 23rd, 2007 at 8:38 pm

Well I must admit I do not know, but i would assume the israeli army has killed more people. They are bigger, stronger and have the more sophisticated weapons.

A more interesting question would perhaps , how many innocent civilians has either side INTENDED to kill…
So since you ask for no tricks it is unintentional your question holds a trick within it.

you say, “since israel says hamas is a terrorist organisation, i am expecting that hamas has killed at least double the number of people.”

Why should you be expecting that. Admittedly the UN refuses to create a definition of terrorism. People out there call the americans and britiish terrorist states, and so the word has started to lose its original meaning.

You show that just with that question.

When did terrorism ever have to do with the amount of people killed?

Yes the twin towers thing with a horrific terrorist incident in which a lot of people were killed but that is irrelevent in the nature of terrorism.

Terrorism does exactly what its name states outright. It induces terror. It is not the idea that terrorists, will kill hundreds of people, it is based around the idea that a terrorist can kill you.

It is the fact that somebody, who looks like you or me can get on a bus and blow it up. It is a highly peronal and emotional form of warfare. It’s very nature makes us suspicious of the other person at the busstop, it makes us, not the soldiers, and the politicians and the generals, targets in a random series of attacks. It makes you fearful, to go to the local restaurant, of to use public transport, or to walk in the street. Why? Because YOU could be next. You could be a person who supports, the cause or the ideal, or the structure, or whatever the terrorist is fighting for, but nonetheless, climb into the wrong random bus, at the wrong random time a KABOOM…

It is something that creates mistrust, creates, hatred, creates mistreatment, because, you don’t know who is behind it. Is it the women with a bomb under her dress, the religious figure going to prayer, and in some of the most scary cases, the 14 year old child that has a bomb strapped to their chest, trained to believe it was the right thing to do. To take a bomb, a child, climb onto a bus of men woman and children and blow them away.

How can you trust anybody once a terrorist element starts to attack you and refuses to quit.

People like to throw numbers around. Stats, figures, deaths, etc, but nonetheless it has nothing to do with terrorism. It’s sole purpose has nothing to do with the numbers of the dead, it has to do with the amount of fear and terror you can create.

16. jp

June 23rd, 2007 at 8:42 pm

Jason are you also asking if Egypt and Jordan will move back to their 1967 borders?

And do you believe the violence against israel will stop if they all do?

And just a side question, have you read the hamas charter?

It is very enlightening reading…

17. jason

June 24th, 2007 at 10:43 am

On 30 July 1973 Moshe Dayan said to the Time Magazine:
“There is no more Palestine. Finished . . .” (Iron Wall, p. 316)

and in April 1973 from the peaks of Massada he proclaimed a vision:

“a new State of Israel with broad frontiers, strong and solid, with the authority of the Israel Government extending from the Jordan [river] to the Suez Canal.”
thats very interesting. swap israel with hamas, and it sounds like the hamas charter. lol.

18. jp

June 24th, 2007 at 1:53 pm

It would be funny, if you were actually comaparing things of a similar nature, except, you are comparing one mans out of context opinion, to the ideological makeup of a movement that they say are the true leaders of the palestinian people. Moshe dayan is an irrevlevency today. He is long gone.

Unfortunately Hamas isn’t. And if you think those three lines sound like the hamas charter, well then you need some sort of serious reexamination of your ability to read… May I ask, how the hamas charter will stand against a secular palestinian state? As most of palestinians are actually secular?

19. jp

June 24th, 2007 at 1:54 pm

oh and why have jason’s two previous comments vanished?

20. ted

June 25th, 2007 at 9:58 am

Another look at the Bikini scandal:

http://www.americanhummus.com/2007/06/23/israel-sells-itself-with-sex/

21. jasonic

June 26th, 2007 at 12:55 pm

It appears that my comments are being censored…
jp your very attentive, your right, my previous comments have been removed (maybe im anti-semetic? i dunno, ive got heaps of jewish friends)
furthermore, my comments afterwards have also been blocked. I believe its admin.
we were having an intelligent discussion, what a shame, politics blocking a fair and balanced discussion. I mean i am using fact to argue my case (as are you) and someone just wades in and blocks me. with no reason.

22. jasonics

June 26th, 2007 at 1:01 pm

well i apologise jp, i was really interested in your counter arguments.
unfortunately do to admin, its become a monologue: only you can talk, i cant.
i wrote quite a few points, with what i regarded as evidence. but i dont think i could retype it. very sad.

anyway, we cant really discuss, a shame.

a quick point: how do past comments by the leaders of israel pan out against a secular (mostly) israel? (dam i just realise, my post with the web address also blocked).
point: if hamas is opposed to israel, comments by israelis are just as strong. the difference is action: hamas charter (not hamas) does not kill or hurt. hamas hurts less people than israelis do.

23. jasonicsi

June 26th, 2007 at 1:31 pm

a quick point:
my pizza man thinks he is the true leader of normans.
ie irrelevant
ie who cares what hamas thinks, its what it does that counts.
my deleted posts list the difference between the actions of hamas and israel, and show that israel causes more harm than hamas. by your definition of terror, israel is more terrorist than hamas, since it causes more deaths and more fear.
I gave examples of jets flying at mach 2 at 3am at night (no military point) missles being fired during the day, tank/troop/artillery raids.
if you know the admin, get him to put up the deleted items. i gave web addresses, and each point i made had 1 bit of evidence (it was in point form).

also you said one man’s quote, taken out of context. however it wasnt one quote, it was many, and it was from many different leaders.
from my memory “we will put fists of settlements that will shatter the palestinian state now and forever” ariel sharon i recall.
40 % of WB is under israeli control.
before, during, and after the oslo peace accord the number of settlers in WB has grown rapidly.
point: the palestinians think: “if you want genuinly dont want the land, why put settlements there? the answer is you do want the land”. together with checkpoints, arbituary demolitions, arrests, abuse, it pisses the palestinians off. makes them want to fight.

24. Sokari

June 26th, 2007 at 7:14 pm

Jason@ You say “it appears my comments are being censored”? In what way are they being censored? Are they being edited, deleted or what? We do not censor comments on this blog unless they are spam or abusive. Either they are or they are not - they cannot “appear” to be.

25. jasonicsis

June 27th, 2007 at 12:28 am

between 14 and 15, jp asks for a possible solution

i basically said a 2 state solution, with details on how it would work.
jp replies in 15.

after 16 jp asks if egypt and jordan move back to their borders.

i replied no, since both countries have already renouced sovereignty over gaza and WB. this was deleted.

To be fair, jp noted this in 19.

point: how could this be accidental? only my comments got deleted?

between 16 and 18, it has one comment. i posted 2/3 brief ones.
i mention observations/facts, and draw conclusions.
point: im not a rabbler, im tryin to show my point of view, using fact rather than emotion.
i got a reply saying “this has been blocked as spam” or something similar.
I tried changing my details but i still got blocked.
its possible that this may be accidental.

26. jasonicses

June 28th, 2007 at 2:07 pm

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/761781.html

jp, whats your opinion of the use of cluster munitions in the final days/hours of the war in lebanon? damage to israel: minimal (all damage/bills paid for in a month of economic growth, growth slow down was minimal). deaths: baout 150 troops

damage to lebanon: 20 years of development, thousands of troops and civilians dead.

why were custer munitions fired? there was no military purpose….would this be a form of terrorism jp?

read a few of the comments, they make me sick/sad. these people (semites) as a people have suffered so much. yet they talk so cruelly, like hitlar (ie racist). A great day for humanity (im being sarcastic).

read comment:3,30, 65 says hezbollah started it by kidnapping and killing, my response is there are 1000+ lebanese prisoners being held (obviously idf have killed more lebanese too), 75 is really racist, 461-466 is racist.

27. Tom

July 10th, 2007 at 1:28 pm

JP is right. Kameelah is wrong. I’d elaborate but there’s no sense in arguing about this, neither side will convince the other.