EDITOR: Israeli methods differ little from those used by Nazi soldiers
Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh has been an incredible source of news on incidents in the West Bank, and on the incredible brutalities meted out to Palestinians daily, and going unreported and uncommented by the western press and media. Every day, hundreds of such local events take place, where illegal occupation impact human life of all Palestinians with the brutality so normalised now by the IOF. Not a single Israeli will be able to stand up in a future session of the ICC and claim they had no idea what was done in the OPT, and yet, they go along with it, they partake in, they defend it in the media, and they attack us for exposing it. The next two clips, one from January, and the second from last week, are both examples of the deep degradation to which Israeli society has fallen. There is NO WAY this society will cleans itself, will see the criminality of its own methods, and will stop this. Only the whole international community, as was the case in South Africa, can do this, and we must mobilise to stop the war criminals now! Thank you, dear Prof. Qumsiyeh, for your courage in the face of those brutes. We stand with you!
Soldiers attack Palestinian family, arrest Shepherd, January 7th 2010
On the morning of Thursday 7 January 2010, Israeli soldiers attacked and injured Palestinian shepherds from the Musa Rabai family, as they grazed their sheep in Humra valley, near the village of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills. Five members of the family were hospitalized. Before leaving the area, the soldiers arrested one of the shepherds, Musab Musa Rabai. Raba’i was interrogated and tortured for four hours.
Undercover police in Jerusalem protests: Lia Tarachansky
Riots took place all over East Jerusalem this week in protest of settlers threatening to force their way into the Al Aqsa Mosque. As a result, Israeli security forces shut down major areas of the Old City, including the mosque compound to Muslim men under 50. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky spoke to Toufic Haddad, journalist and author of Between the Lines: Israel the Palestinians, and the U.S. “war on terror” about the real reason for these protests. Haddad explains that Israeli colonization over East Jerusalem led to home demolitions, confiscations, and the flourishing of settlements all over the Palestinian Territories. Because these protests are supported by the government, Palestinian protests are systemically repressed, leading to mass arrests, injuries, and sometimes death.
Alternative tactics, such as undercover police often lead to the tensions which are expected to rise as the Jerusalem Municipal Police approved
another right-wing settler protest for Sunday through the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.
Actions in Jerusalem against military closures and settler provocations are met with police repression
EDITOR: Meanwhile, on the farm, the pigs are still running the show…
For those who naively believed all the noise, and thought that Netanyahu is a reformed character, or that Obama and his henchmen/women really mean what they say, just read the evidence from the horse’s mouth. Whatever he tells the Americans one day, he contradicts the day after when speaking in Hebrew to the local press:
Netanyahu: Building in Jerusalem is like building in Tel Aviv: Haaretz
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that all Israeli governments have maintained the same policy on building in East Jerusalem, and that he has informed the United States administration of that in writing.
“Construction in Jerusalem is like construction in Tel Aviv and we have clarified that for the American government,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.
Netanyahu added that he informed the Obama administration that the proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians must address concerns from both sides but that “in order for agreements to be reached, there must be serious and direct talks.”
Netanyahu also said that Israeli policy regarding construction in Jerusalem has remained unchanged.
However, Netanyahu has bowed to U.S. demands and promised the Obama administration that Israel will make several goodwill gestures toward the Palestinians ahead of his trip to Washington Sunday night.
For the first time since Operation Cast Lead, Israel has agreed to ease the blockade on the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu has also agreed to discuss all core issues during the proximity talks, with the condition of reaching final conclusions only in direct talks with the PA.
Netanyahu responded to Washington’s demands during his telephone call with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday night. Clinton said on Friday that Netanyahu’s response “was useful and productive, and we’re continuing our discussions with him and his government”.
The prime minister refused to revoke a decision to build 1,600 Jewish homes in Ramat Shlomo in east Jerusalem – the cause of a diplomatic row errupted during a visit to Israel by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden two weeks ago – or freeze construction beyond the Green Line in the city. He did, promise a better oversight system to prevent such embarrassing incidents in the future, however.
Senior officials in Jerusalem said that the prime minister’s gestures enabling the UN to transport construction materials to Gaza to rebuild sewerage systems, a flour mill and 150 apartments in Khan Yunis.
Netanyahu also agreed to release hundreds of Fatah-affiliated prisoners as a gesture to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, a move which the defense establishment believes could prompt the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
The prime minister is scheduled to leave for Washington Sunday night with Defense Minister Ehud Barak to attend the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington. Opposition leader MK Tzipi Livni and Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau will also attend the convention.
Netanyahu is slated to address the convention tomorrow at 7 P.M. Israel time before then meeting Clinton, who is also to speak at the AIPAC gathering.
No meeting has been set yet between Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, but over the weekend Israeli officials were scrambling to arrange one, which they hop will take place at the White House on Tuesday .
Israel’s Washington envoy Michael Oren said on Saturday that outsiders cannot force peace on the Middle East, and any final settlement will have to be initiated by the Israelis and Palestinians themselves.
In an interview with U.S. television station PBS, Oren said Israel was not interested in having the White House present its own peace plan. Any attempt by the United States to impose a peace deal would be like “forcing somebody to fall in love,” Oren said.
Asked if Israel wanted Washington to present its own peace plan, Oren said: “No. I think peace has to be made between two people sitting across a table. America can help facilitate that interaction.”
Meanwhile, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday after visiting settlements in the West Bank that Israeli building anywhere on occupied land – including in east Jerusalem – is illegal and must end.
“The world has condemned Israel’s settlement plans in East Jerusalem,” Ban told a news conference after his brief tour. “Let us be clear. All settlement activity is illegal anywhere in occupied territory and must be stopped.”
Bibi’s Bluster: NEWSWEEK
The Israeli Prime Minister says his nation’s security is his top priority. Too bad he’s undermining it.
By Fareed Zakaria
In international relations, whenever you hear the term “confidence-building measures,” you can be sure that someone is trying to kick a can down the road. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has now promised to offer such measures to the Palestinians. He has also urged that everyone “calm down” about the diplomatic row between his government and the United States.
But this crisis hasn’t been caused by just one event—the announcement, while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel, to approve new Jewish housing units in East Jerusalem. It caps a year of increasingly strained relations between Washington and Tel Aviv. And while he’s apologized for the ill-timed announcement, Netanyahu remains unyielding. In fact, the Israeli press has reported plans to build not merely the 1,600 units announced last week, but 50,000. “We will act according to the vital interests of the state of Israel,” Netanyahu said last week.
What are those vital interests? If you have listened to Bibi Netanyahu over the past few years, it’s clear what tops the list—Iran. In fact, the prime minister has described the Iranian threat as an existential one for Israel, and a grave one for the world. He sees combating it as the central challenge of our times. “We are faced with security challenges that no other country faces, and our need to provide a response to these is critical, and we are answering the call,” Netanyahu told his Likud faction in May 2009. “These are not regular times. The danger is hurtling toward us. My job is first and foremost to ensure the future of the state of Israel.”
But after watching Netanyahu’s government over the past year, I have concluded that he is actually not serious about the Iranian threat. If tackling the rise of Iran were his paramount concern, would he have allowed a collapse in relations with the United States, the country whose military, political, and economic help is indispensable in confronting this challenge? If taking on Iran were his central preoccupation, wouldn’t he have subordinated petty domestic considerations and done everything to bolster ties with the United States? Bibi likes to think of himself as Winston Churchill, warning the world of a gathering storm. But he should bear in mind that Churchill’s single obsession during the late 1930s was to strengthen his alliance with the United States, whatever the costs, concessions, and compromises he had to make.
In a smart piece of analysis in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Anshel Pfeffer, no fan of the Obama administration, writes, “When senior ministers or generals list Israel’s defense priorities, there is always one point on which there exists total consensus: The alliance with the United States as the nation’s greatest strategic asset, way above anything else. It is more crucial than the professionalism of the Israel Defense Forces, than the peace treaty with Egypt and even than the secret doomsday weapons that we may or may not have squirreled away somewhere…But [Netanyahu] has succeeded in one short year in power to plunge Israel’s essential relationship with the United States to unheard of depths.”
Iran’s rise has also placed Israel in the unusual position of being on the same strategic side as the major Arab states, as well as the United States. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan are all deeply worried about the hegemonic ambitions of Iran, particularly if it obtains nuclear weapons. A core Israeli objective should be to strengthen this tacit alliance. What the moderate Arab states ask for, again and again, publicly and privately, is that Israel make some progress—even if only for appearances’ sake—on the peace process. The single biggest challenge for these countries is that Iran has appropriated the Palestinian cause, which makes it difficult for, say, the Egyptian government to take a public stand that is hostile to Tehran. Lowering the temperature on this issue would benefit the Arab states, strengthen their will to stand up against Iran, and contribute directly to Israeli security.
EDITOR: A call to end pretense and posturing by the US
Avi Shlaim, rarely speaking, but never one to mince words, is giving the lie to US noisy nonsense about how they are getting Netanyahu to do their bidding. Will the US follow his advice? Fat chance. Obama knows that Netanyahu controls more Congressmen on Capitol Hill than he does himself, through the nebulous machinery of AIPAC and other, less visible means. Obama has not got it in him, I believe, to face Israel down over this.
Avi Shlaim: Cut off the cash and Israel might behave: The Independent
President Netanyahu is undermining US interests. The sooner President Obama makes his support conditional, the better
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Israelis are not renowned for their good manners, but their treatment of Vice-President Joe Biden during his recent visit to their country went beyond chutzpah. Biden is one of Israel’s staunchest supporters in Washington, and the purpose of his visit was to prepare the ground for the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. An official announcement that Israel planned to build 1,600 new Jewish settler homes in East Jerusalem scuppered the talks, alienated the Palestinians, and infuriated Biden. It was a colossal blunder that is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the special relationship between the two countries.
America subsidises Israel to the tune of $3bn (around £2bn) a year. America is Israel’s principal arms supplier, enabling it to retain the technological edge over all its enemies, near and far. In the diplomatic arena too, America extends to Israel virtually unqualified support, including the use of the veto in the UN Security Council to defeat resolutions critical of Israel. America condemns Iran for its nuclear ambitions, while turning a blind eye to Israel’s possession of a large arsenal of nuclear weapons.
This unparalleled generosity towards a junior partner is largely the result of sentimental attachment and shared values. Israel used to present itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. But its own actions have shredded this image to pieces. It is now well on the way to becoming a pariah state. During the Cold War, Israel also used to promote itself as a “strategic asset” in helping to check Soviet advances in the Middle East. But since the end of the Cold War, Israel has become more of a liability than an asset.
America’s most vital interests lie in the Persian Gulf; to ensure access to oil, the US needs Arab goodwill. Here Israel is a major liability, as a result of its occupation of Palestinian land and its brutal oppression of the Palestinian people.
There is a broad international consensus in favour of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and America is part of this consensus. A previous Democratic administration provided the most realistic blueprint for such a solution. On 23 December 2000, four weeks before leaving the White House, Bill Clinton unveiled his proposals. He called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state over the whole of the Gaza Strip and 94 to 96 per cent of the West Bank, with a capital city in East Jerusalem. Both sides rejected this peace plan.
In May 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the Quartet – America, Russia, the UN, and European Union – issued the “Road Map”, which envisaged the emergence of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel by the end of 2005. This time, the Palestinians accepted the plan with alacrity, whereas Israel tabled 14 reservations that amounted to a rejection. In August 2005, Israel carried out a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza but, far from being a contribution to the Road Map, this was the prelude to further colonisation of the West Bank.
Ever since 1967, Israel has rarely missed a chance to miss an opportunity to make peace with the Palestinians. Its determination to hold on to the West Bank and East Jerusalem translates into rigid diplomatic intransigence. Settlement expansion has been a constant feature of Israeli policy under all governments since 1967, regardless of their political colour. Settlement expansion, however, can only proceed by confiscating more and more Palestinian land. The basic problem is that land-grabbing and peacemaking cannot proceed together: it is one or the other.
The official American position since 1967, except under George W Bush, held that Jewish settlements on occupied Arab land are illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Obama administration upholds this position. One can make the argument that maintaining the occupation of the West Bank is in Israel’s interest, though I utterly reject this argument. But it cannot be argued that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank serves the American national interest. Should America subordinate its own interests to those of its land-hungry ally? A growing number of Americans think not – and some are prepared to say so publicly.
General David Petraeus, the head of Central Command, told the Senate armed services committee last week that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a root cause of instability in the Middle East and Asia, and that it “foments anti-American sentiment due to a perception of US favouritism for Israel”. In private, Joe Biden told the Israelis that their intransigence was undermining America’s credibility with Arab and Muslim nations and endangering American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Small wonder that the announcement of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem provoked such intense anger at all levels of the Obama administration. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s apology related only to the timing and not to the substance of the announcement. Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, demanded the cancellation of the housing project, a substantial confidence-building measure towards the Palestinians, and a pledge to negotiate on all the core issues of the dispute, including the borders of a Palestinian state. Senator George Mitchell’s visit to Israel was postponed.
President Obama correctly identified a total settlement freeze as an essential precondition for restarting the stalled peace talks between Palestinians and Israel, but he allowed Netanyahu to fob him off with a vague promise to exercise restraint for 10 months in building on the West Bank. The promise, however, did not apply to the 3,000 housing units that had already been approved or to East Jerusalem, which Israel had annexed following the June 1967 Six-Day War.
Netanyahu knows that the Palestinians will refuse to resume peace talks unless there is a complete freeze on Jewish house construction there. But he is an aggressive right-wing Jewish nationalist and proponent of the doctrine of permanent conflict. It is because of him and his ultra-nationalist coalition partners that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Obama has backed down once, but he is determined to face Netanyahu down this time. His best bet is to use economic leverage to force Netanyahu into meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians on a two-state solution. Even if the current crisis is resolved and the peace talks are resumed, they will go nowhere slowly unless President Obama makes American money and arms to Israel conditional on its heeding American advice.
Avi Shlaim, professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, is author of ‘Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations’