Originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer

ARIEL, West Bank - This week witnessed another davka moment in the Israeli government's relationship with the Obama White House.

Davka is Israeli slang for "in your face." And nothing could be more in-your-face than the announcement that Israeli authorities had approved the building of more than 1,800 new homes in Jewish settlements on the West Bank and in suburbs of Jerusalem beyond Israel's 1967 borders - especially since Vice President Biden had just met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu and asked him to renew a freeze on settlement-building.

November 12, 2010

It is interesting that no one noticed that the word "boycott" does not appear anywhere in the petition regarding the Ariel cultural center, which has been signed so far by 51 actors and directors and other artists.  A boycott is a severe and extreme weapon, which evokes harsh echoes in the Jewish collective memory.  I consider this petition a call for abstention: Abstention from any act that obscures the fact that Ariel was established on occupied territory, and that its very existence creates a reality that is liable to bring disaster upon the State of Israel.