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A new site from the producers of "Palestine Think Tank" by Jay Knott (02/19/11)       ⇌ (Israel and the US)       

http://wewritewhatwelike.com/

I hope to contribute to it. Still, I may not agree with everything it says:

"We reject any orientalist approach where the “Western expert” or pundit seeks to be a leader or to set the discourse, as often they do have a hidden or different agenda. Westerners (like some of us here including this author) do have a place in the struggle, and it is on the side and in a supporting role"...

but...

"we want nothing but FRANK TALK".

http://wewritewhatwelike.com/about/

I don't see how you can have it both ways. What you are allowed to say is dictated by the ethnic group you happen to have been born into, and if you are white, you have to constantly worry about your 'orientalism', but at the same time, you are expected to contribute FRANK TALK.

A concrete example of why this approach may not be helpful is this recent discussion on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/alisonsweir/posts/133137640084704 (sorry, you have to sign up and log in)

A Palestinian woman attacks the director of If Americans Knew, the leading pro-Palestinian campaigner in the most powerful country in the world, slandering her and the left-liberal website Counterpunch on which she writes, claiming it publishes the views of an ex-Klansman. The fact that she is Palestinian has no bearing on the falsehood, and dangerousness, of her wild accusations, which are classic crypto-Zionist disinformation. She is a useful idiot, rather than a bad person, but my point is that the ethnicity of the person doesn't matter, it's what they say and do.

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Comments
Comment on the previous comment (02/21/11) by JonC: Jay, because of its guilt trauma, still unhealed after sixty years."This is rubbish. He's trying to unpick ideology, and long may he do so, but he should look at how he's got distracted from the facts. Either he wasn't...

The best ever comment on my articles for "Palestine Think Tank" (02/20/11) by Jay Knott:

http://pacificaforum.org/palestinethinktank-masspsychology.html