Did it make you angry or sad that I wrote “The Sahara maybe isnt such a place where too many people already try to make their living and will have to be pushed aside.”, because you felt that I judge it wrong how Israel was founded and you want to perceive respect and acceptance for the State of Israel? What did this make you feel, if you allow me to ask?

I was lucky to spend a lifetime in the practice of medicine. I say lucky because medicine allowed me to form meaningful relationships with people of different color, culture, religion, gender, nation and point of view. Our purpose is to engage humanity in a positive way, every moment every day. At this moment in Israeli hospitals, Jews and Arabs are working together to heal Arabs and Jews. The people who make up that human system have checked their individual biases at the door. Permaculture is similar. It not only cultivates the bonds of humanity, it also integrates humanity with the healing tapestry of nature. Therefore, you’ll forgive me Sven, if being sequestered in the Sahara does not appeal to me right now.

I, a religious Israeli Zionist Jew, have the right to feel as welcome and safe in any of your Mideast teaching centers as does my Muslim Arab colleague who is welcome to attend the Israeli Arava Institute of Desert Studies.

We see what we believe, even more so, we see what we are. It is not the world that determines our worldview- it is us. We pick from the world that which reinforces who we are, ignoring that which does not. So, if you feel that Israel was born in sin, then everything you see around you, the opinions you espouse, even the good things you do will all flow back through that lens back to who you are.

By the way, you mentioned you were in Hungary. My mother visited Hungary in 1941 when she escaped the Nazi’s. She was taken to Auschwitz in 1944. She survived; her mother and two sisters did not. That is who I am, and that is how you and I can look at the same human landscape, yet see and feel different things.
Edward Flaschner

Another possibility I see in the work of this man, Marshall B. Rosenberg, the art of nonviolant communication: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgaeHeIL39Y As his name suggest he is of some jewish origin himself. Ive read a book about the NVC and Im going to have a course in it. In the video he describes how he achieved resolution in a typical near east conflict situation.

I for myself am thinking about doing a project in the oasis Figuig, easternmost city of Marocco, on the border to algeria, in the sahara of course. Until now its just a crazy idea, but I can at least tell you from my little research: They will need help, so they might want to accept it and they already use some principles of permaculture in their traditional way of farming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figuig). They have/had a common problem of agriculture in oases, a fungus, called fusarium oxysporum and causing the Bayud disease, that destroys their date palms, which are their most important crop. Maybe someone reading this likes crazy ideas like this? I could never do it alone.. I need people with experience. Contact me if it speaks to you.

I think this could be a good idea for the Bedouin tribes of the Middle East as well, to unite under a common flag.

Further the Lapps of Norway has got their own parliament, called Sametinget, while Stortinget is the name of the Norwegian parliament. This is located in Karasjokk, Finnmark, and in many cases the Lapps now govern them self and their heartlands. And all major tasks regarding their matters must be presented for Sametinget, to hear their opinions, before Stortinget decides.

So what if the Bedouins could have their own parliament in the Negev Desert, like the Lapps have got it in Finnmark: http://gfx.nrk.no/OPvQuqgcLNOOHfrrOp7ENwV2krP02c8T273m4V1g1I5A.jpg

The website of Sametinget is here: http://www.sametinget.no/artikkel.aspx?AId=4267&MId1=3376&back=1

As the main difference between these two nomadic people is that the Lapps have reindeer while the Bedouins have camels, I think they have more in common. So I’m sure Sametinget should like to help the Bedouins of the Negev Desert if they are asked!

http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/news/currentarticle.cfm?id=156

I am unhappy with many policies of many governments. If I’m protesting against U.S. or EU policies – it doesn’t mean I hate Americans or Europeans as a people. There’s a huge difference…

It disturbs me that you conflate criticism of Israeli State policies with anti-Semitism. I am equally critical of my own country (Britain) when it comes to their policy in the Middle East, or the recent disgraceful eviction of the traveller community at Dale Farm in London. Am I now a ’self-hating Brit’?

As is clearly laid out in the article, Israeli government (and I emphasize the word government) policy and attitudes towards the Bedouin have been consistently based on racism and ‘us or them’ attitudes. Only yesterday the Praver Plan (which is an initiative to forcibly relocate between 30 000 and 40 000 Bedouin citizens) was laid out as a Bill, which will very likely soon be passed by the Knesset. This is an outrageous policy (see here for details:http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/02/491863.html) which will decimate Bedouin communities, setting members of families against each other and further dislocating the Bedouin from their land and their traditional culture. It must be opposed. To conflate opposition to this plan with anti-semitism is both dangerous, ignorant and wildly inaccurate.

Furthermore, as is mentioned in the article, elements within Israeli civil society have opposed their own government and there are several NGOs set up by Jewish Israelis to support the Bedouin in realizing their land-rights and opposing eviction. There are also elements within civil society (right-wing Zionist extremists) who have attacked the co-existence forums. Only a month ago, the offices of one such NGO in Beer Sheva were burned to the ground.

In addition, in a worrying trend, the current Israeli government has consistently attacked freedom of speech in Israeli society, bringing in laws to try to shut down voices of opposition from within Israel. First they attacked Israeli NGOs such as Physicians for Human Rights who gave evidence to the Goldstone commission following Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, trying to revoke their charitable status and cut off their funding sources, and then passing a ridiculous law banning boycotts within Israel; a transparent attempt to normalise the illegal settlements in the West Bank and force their integration in Israel as a whole.

These are dangerous and destructive policies that are opposed by many Israelis. The fact that you appear to believe that criticism of these attitudes and policies amounts to ’slander of an entire people’ is, as I mentioned earlier, worrying. You appear to be defensive to the point of obstructing people, such as myself, and indeed many of my Israeli friends, from telling the truth, however painful it may be, and trying to control and damage that is being done. Perhaps you should do a little more research,, and you will see that the article is accurate. If tat makes you sad, perhaps you should get active in trying to change things (Israeli government policy perhaps) instead of throwing stones at the messenger.