Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Fan Mail

[Until they put up this interview, if you're new to my blog, check out the previous Hardtalk appearance of mine, here]
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I'm kvelling.

Reaction (hopefully reactions) to the Hardtalk appearance which was blubed thus:

Wednesday 7th March:

Less than a year ago the future of Jewish settlements in the West Bank looked uncertain. When Ehud Olmert became prime minister of Israel last May he planned to close outlying settlements as part of a plan of disengagement from the Palestinians.

However, that plan has since been shelved. Stephen Sackur talks to Yisrael Medad of The Yesha Council, the main settler organisation, about the future of the settlements, the question of their legality under international law and the complex politics of Israel.



Congratulations !

Finally, an Israeli who can express himself and understands Israeli reality !

Sadly, the vast majority of Israeli 'spokesmen' on BBC, CNN, etc have been left wing apologists with no knowledge of English, History, Geography or any other useful subject.

Best regards.

Steve

Prof. Steve Berger
Director, Geographic Medicine
Tel Aviv Medical Center

[also born in the Bronx !]

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you were really good - got in some great points - specially liked the bit about the PM "maybe jail" - seriously proud of you. You looked really "nice" and gentlemanly but gave him a good schlug.

B
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Just watched the HardTalk interview. We commend you, Mr. Medad, for your self-control and presence. Mr. Sakur was incredible prejudiced with his questions and seemed unprepared or unwilling to respond to your statements of truth. Unbelievable.
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Saw you on HardTalk last night at 2:30 AM

1) What happened to Tim Sebastian? He is a better interviewer, even if just as hostile.

2) I think I would have just punched him out-I don't know how you keep your cool with such a bastard. It was obvious from the get go that he was hostile. I am lucky I didn't throw the remote control at the tv when he was on.

3) As to your "performance", it was of course good and restrained. I think, however, that you could have been a little more forceful on some things. For example, when the bastard kept on about you being born in and an immigrant from America, you did not point out that Israel still is in large part a nation of immigrants and the thrust of his questioning was to call into question the validity of your immigration to Israel and all Jewish immigration to Israel-with you pointing out the law of return as a basic value of modern Israel. And of course that with your American background you do not look at immigrants as second class citizens, which he obviously does. And all this ties in of course to the basic right of the Jews to a Jewish state, which if I am not mistaken was not mentioned much in the "repast". I would still bring into discussion that Israel is still the only state regarding which there is still question of its validity, regardless of borders, and many of the critics of a Jewish presence across the green line question the validity of Jewish sovereignty anywhere.

However, you did a far better (and calmer) job than I ever would, and it was good. Whether it serves any purpose is another question.
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From Norway:

You impressed me in the way you stayed calm even if I knew that you probably felt some of the questions were a bit "off the road."
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I think you did very well considering the style and his attitude - now what was Steven Sackur really like on a personal level?

Frank
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hi winkie

saw you the other night on bbc's hardtalk. not that i ever watch that dreck, i just happened to be flicking channels and i thought - hey i know that guy, we were on machon together!

well done, that interviewer was a hostile sh*thead.

gaby
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I WAS AMAZED TO TURN ON THE TELEVISION IN ADDIS ABABA AND SEE SUCH A HANDSOME GENTLEMAN TALKING FROM SHILO.

YOU WERE EXCELLENT. CONGRATULATIONS. SOPHIE.
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

To Yisrael Medad,

I was impressed by your apearence on Hard Talk. I would be happy if you you could send your e-mail addresse to akonnest@online.no

Best Regards
Arve Konnestad, Norway

Anonymous said...

Mr Medad.

I admired Mr Sackur for leading you into questions which show your distaste for anyone not Jewish in the land of Palestine.

Especially the question in which you were asked about how you were able to freely move to Israel and displace Palestinians by settling in the westbank. Your reply was no surprise.

Peace will come when you stop persecuting, oppressing, occupying, murdering, crushing palestinians daily, and you can do this when you dismantle every settlement in the west bank, withdraw to the 1967 borders, cease all military activity and incursions into the territories, and have no more control over Palestine. Let them establish the state that you so vehemently deny them over and over again.

its hypocrital what you do and say.

YMedad said...

Dear Mr. Al-Sayid, I commend you for visiting my blog. I understand your anger but I hope that if you continue to visit my blog and read it carefully, you will eventually come to know the Jewish side of this issue and will even, perhaps, contemplate the possibility that there is a fundamental flaw in the Arab thinking you so well express.

Ask yourself if before 1967 there was no "occupation", no "settlements", or whatever, why was there no peace them between 1948-1967? What bothered Arabs then? And if you say it was the 1947 partition, then I ask you what bothered Arabs prior to the Partition Resolution between 1920 and 1947? And if you say it was the Balfour Declaration and the granting of a Mandate to Britain to reconsitute a Jewish national home in Palestine without even mentioning the term "Arabs" - just noting the "non-Jewish communities", then what bothered Arabs previously, between 1880-1917/20, when Jews established moshavot and other agricultural communities and began increasing their popualtion in the holy cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Tzfat and Tiberias?

Could it be, if you've come this far in your reading, that no amount of compromise will satisfy Arabs?

Anonymous said...

it goes back to the same question Mr Medad, the Palestinians of the land of Palestine have lost their homeland. You should understand that. They have lost it because of the movement you champion, which is to cleanse Palestine of Palestinians to make a home for the Jews, who lost the land almost 2000 years ago.

I admired Mr Sackur for bringing that up, because usually peoples history of 2000 years ago remains that. Palestinians can trace their history back further than that, but take the example of you, who was born in US, displace the palestinians by your 'return' to a country as foreign to you as america is to the palestinians.

1948 - 67:
arabs were bothered by the scenes of their former home first being taken from them, then filled up so fast, looking like no hope for a return. Related of course to the partition which was not honoured by any side.

1920 - 47:
arabs were bothered by increasing violence by the immigrants towards them, and watching villages & land being taken etc etc

<1920
there wasn't much bothering them relative to what is today, so we don't even need to get into that time.

not everyone is satisfied by outcomes of democracy, but Palestinians in their majority just want to have their state, with west bank and gaza not controlled by israel. You cannot expect that to happen when you so champion the cause to settle in those territories. Surely, peace is better than war. compromise is a 2 way street.