My channel of communicating the Ship to Gaza incident has the last week more and more moved over to Facebook, instead of on this blog. It is easy to post relevant articles on your Facebook wall, and my posts there have provoked a lot of strong reactions and debates, some reasonable and inspiring, others less.
Maybe you noticed that my examples from Swedish media are not persons with typically Swedish names. Well, some of the best perspicaciousness has come from people who themselves, or their families, had to flee from oppressive regimes. Nima grew up under the mullah regime in Iran and both Dilsa and Sakine are first-hand witnesses to how the Turks treat the Kurds. They understand that the Mideast conflict is not merely about some occupied territories and a blockade, and they also realise that "Ship to Gaza" was not merely a peaceful humanitarian project. I do not really know what this says about some of the native Swedes, but I am getting close to a theory where centuries of peace has made people indifferent. When it is not about the Jews of course. Then the rules are different. Then both the musty conservatives and the angry left reveal that they have brown lice in their banners.
With the risk of appearing self-absorbed, I can tell you that most people that I meet, tend to find me pretty wise and sensible - as long as I still lived in Sweden, that is. Now when I report from Israel, the confidence in my judgement has apparently vanished in the haze of the Swedish Israel/Palestine discourse. By Swedish acquaintances, I have repeatedly been accused of bias, subjectivity and even of spreading Israeli propaganda and hate against Muslims!
On the other hand, I have Israeli friends who call me a hippie, for my leftist idealism and optimism. On Facebook I have except for my own blog posts, posted articles in English by people like Bernard-Henri Lévi and Carlo Strenger, as well as sayings in Swedish by Nima Dervish, Dilsa Demirbag-Steen and Sakine Madon. All these persons do direct criticism to where it is valid, no matter whether it is Israeli government, Swedish debate climate, EU, Hamas, IHH, BBP or the Iranian regime.
I cannot get this equation to sum up. I wish that people would rely a bit more to that first impression they had of me. I guess that too often there are forces that are stronger than common sense.
Maybe you noticed that my examples from Swedish media are not persons with typically Swedish names. Well, some of the best perspicaciousness has come from people who themselves, or their families, had to flee from oppressive regimes. Nima grew up under the mullah regime in Iran and both Dilsa and Sakine are first-hand witnesses to how the Turks treat the Kurds. They understand that the Mideast conflict is not merely about some occupied territories and a blockade, and they also realise that "Ship to Gaza" was not merely a peaceful humanitarian project. I do not really know what this says about some of the native Swedes, but I am getting close to a theory where centuries of peace has made people indifferent. When it is not about the Jews of course. Then the rules are different. Then both the musty conservatives and the angry left reveal that they have brown lice in their banners.
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