Oprah is Coming to Israel

May 22, 2007 at 9:22 am | In Advertising & Media, Face to Face, Pop Culture |

O sookie nookie now. This is awesome.

From YNET:
Oprah coming to Israel for solidarity visit

American talk show queen accepts Elie Wiesel proposal to come to Israel, says she sympathizes with Israelis’ suffering

By Itamar Eichner

Oprah Winfrey will be arriving in Israel for a solidarity visit in the near future, the queen of American talk shows announced Monday during an event at Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

In the event, Winfrey was honored by the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity for her contribution to promoting humanitarian issues.

Wiesel called on Winfrey to visit Israel, where “the major war against terror is currently taking place.”

In her speech, Winfrey said she sympathized with the suffering of the people of Israel, and that she intended to accept Wiesel’s invitation and come with him to Israel.

Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Gillerman, who attended the event, said that a visit of a figure with such influence on the international media could help bring an end to the indifference towards the terror threat faced by Israelis.

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Pingback by Global Voices Online » Israel: Oprah Visit Planned — May 22, 2007
I think it’s wonderful that Oprah’s going to Israel. And I urge her to visit the West Bank while she’s there. Surely they would let her through the check points.

Comment by Don Bustany — May 22, 2007
Why couldn’t I find this news in CNN,CBS,ABC,BBC ??

Comment by Osama — May 23, 2007
Perhaps it hasn’t been widely publicised due to fear of Muslim backlash. As a Muslim American, I plan to spread the word about her visit in hopes that my brothers and sisters in Islam will react with only peace and love in their hearts. I hope that they will simply come forward to help bring attention to the plight of the innocent victims be they Jewish, Christian or Muslim. I believe there are three sides to every story: yours, mine and the truth!

p.s. I’ve been out of the US for a while now, but I think I remember my ebonics correctly. Shouldn’t it be “aw sookie sookie now”?!

Comment by KT — May 26, 2007
It is a wonderful part of the world to vist. Unfortunately it is not only the Israelis who suffer. My Palestinian friends will be very happy to receive her for a visit and show her the life under occupation. And I can promiss her she will feel safe with the Palestinians! a very hospitable people!

Comment by Alice — May 27, 2007
ISRAEL LOVES OPRAH!

Comment by etai — May 28, 2007
Hey KT O is for Oprah.

Comment by DD — May 29, 2007
I hope her visit brings some sort of “stability” to the region.

I am not sure where Oprah stands regarding the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but last I checked it was leaning pro-PA.

Hopefully here visit will enlighten everyone (as well as her) to what Israel is really all about, and dispel any of the rumors that have been created via anti-Israel propaganda.

Comment by Darnell Clayton — May 29, 2007
I’m so glad Oprah is coming to Israel. It’s a wonderful country. RE Gillerman’s quote, “a visit of a figure with such influence on the international media could help bring an end to the indifference towards the terror threat faced by Israelis.” Israel doesn’t need Oprah’s visit for that. Normal countries protect their citizens regardless of who visits. And if she actually is more pro-”Palestinian”, I can promise you that shlepping her to Yad Vashem or showing her beautiful communities being built will NOT change that. If the Israeli imbeciles show her that Jews are the indigenous people in Israel and the Arabs are, historically, the newcomers, that might do it. JUST SHOW HER THE TRUTH!

8 Comments »

Comment by David — June 3, 2007
I remember a 4-year old child in the same village
> who was forced to stay
> in one room with all members of his family for 48
> hours while the Israeli
> Army commandeered their home. The child was thirsty
> and the soldier was
> there with his bottle of water, the occupied and the
> occupier in the same
> space. The soldier offered water to the thirsty
> child. The child said
> “no, no, no”. The child’s natural reaction was a
> combination of fear of
> what the soldier represents and the steadfastness in
> the face of the
> occupation. This is what characterizes the
> Palestinian people:
> steadfastness and resistance in the face of all
> adversity; even small
> children can express it with their natural reactions
> more than any words
> or speeches. The soldier on the other hand is a
> human being that has been
> forced by the Israeli occupation machine to lose his
> humanity.
>
> Whenever I think of Palestinian children and their
> lives under occupation,
> I always think of the Israeli children. As adults,
> we have a commitment
> to both sets of children to provide a safe
> environment for them to live
> peacefully. It is not the occupation or the wall or
> the ongoing
> aggression against my people that will bring safety
> or security for
> Israeli children, only peace that is based on
> justice will do so. Justice
> means that the inalienable rights of the Palestinian
> people must be
> considered. Israel must recognize its moral
> responsibility towards the
> Palestinian refugees.
>

Comment by mona el farra — June 11, 2007
From Gaza I came, where the children of my country
> have no safe homes, no
> safe streets, no proper and adequate health
> facilities, no proper food,
> clean water, or regular electrical power, no
> recreational activities and
> no good education. The list of deprivation of their
> basic needs is too
> long to count.
>
> I lived this occupation as a child, and am still
> living it as an adult. I
> can see it in the eyes of my daughter when she is
> afraid, tired, restless
> and exhausted because of the unsafe and
> unpredictable quality of life in
> Gaza under occupation. I saw it as soon as we
> crossed the borders on our
> way to Egypt, where she sensed something new and
> different: freedom,
> safety and space. Gaza is like a big, unsafe
> prison. And it is a very
> small place for 1.4 million people, half of whom are
> children.
>
> I face the occupation every day during my work when
> hundreds of
> Palestinian patients are denied permits and
> accessibility to proper
> medical treatment, outside Gaza. There are a few
> lucky patients who get a
> referral and permit for treatment outside Gaza. The
> majority, however,
> have to wait and wait. Many die while waiting.
>
> What is more heart-breaking than children who do not
> have adequate food
> and a healthy atmosphere to grow up to be well
> rounded adults? According
> to the Health Work Committees Organization, 42 per
> cent of children in
> Gaza under the age of 5 suffer from iron deficiency
> anemia and 45 per cent
> suffer from some form of Post Traumatic Stress
> Disorder, due to the
> experiences that they are subjected to as a result
> of the non-stop
> military actions of the Israeli Occupation Forces,
> which almost always
> affect civilians in one way or another.
>

Comment by mona el farra — June 11, 2007
First of all there has never been a “Palestinian” country or people. Isn’t it strange that Arabs named themselves after a Greek sea people?

It’s sad that Arab children suffer but it’s caused by terrorists like Hamass and the Plo who use women and children as human shields, and use billions of foreign aid money on weapons rather than using it for social services to help Arab children.
The Israeli soldiers have plenty of humanity, it’s the Arabs who have lost theirs. The culture of violence and murder is teaaching the Arab children to become murderers. The horrible abuse of these children has to stop!

Comment by Palestiniansareamyth — June 12, 2007
Oprah has always been a seeker of the truth…
I dont believe that she will visit a conflict area blinding her eyes to the reality of the conflict. As a Palestinian I have always admired Oprah’s point of views, but today I am afraid she will end up just a celebrity paying a touristic solidarity visit without insight to the place,its history and its original people!!!!

Comment by BAYAN SHBIB — June 21, 2007
As a Judeo-Christian myself, one of my dreams to visit Israel, the land of the Bible.Every Christian should visit Israel just as every Muslim aspires to visit Mecca. Israel is an island of freedom, democracy, gender equality and human rights in a sea of tyrannical anti-democratic countries and terrorism.I look forward to Jewish Israel living in safety and peace with a secular democratic Arab Palestine.Oprah is doing the right thing by visiting Isral.

Comment by Emeka Njoku — June 24, 2007
How ironic that one of the preeminent icons of American popular culture would have fallen for the absurd trap of embracing the irrational “plight” of one of the most destabilizing forces in the Middle East.

It pains me to observe this bizarre inversion in roles as I recall the Holocaust and the horrendous atrocities systematically inflicted upon Jewish and (to a lesser extent) other minorities. Observing how Israel has meticulously and effectively promoted an incessant and vicious policy of occupation, oppression and systematic manipulation of the media to camouflage and distort its nefarious role toward the Palestinian territory, I’m reminded of some of the similarities currently reflected in the inhuman and progressively more monstrous policies of segregating, gethoization, cantonization, systematic imprisonment, assassinations, and mass terrorization of an entire people. If this does not qualify as one of the most poignant and disturbing examples of repression, cultural extermination and illegal occupation of modernity, I don’t know what will.

Talk about the paradox of historical flip flops; long forgotten are the days of David and Goliath among the Israeli collective psyche, but Palestinian children live it every single day of their oppressed lives. Unfortunately for the Palestinian children, the Queen of American popular culture has also fallen victim to the propaganda appeal of Goliath’s might.
One day, no doubt, such atrocities as have befallen the Palestinian people, humanity’s children, will ultimately find a vigorous voice within the halls of justice, hopefully sooner than later.
Amen

Comment by Paulo — January 25, 2008