EDITOR: Obama rides again, full speed to Nowhere!

Again, like after the Ciro declaration in 2009, Obama the speechmaker is speaking, while Obama the President is silent. All those words mean less than nothing, of course. The record is clear – the one person who has recived a Bobel Prize for Peace before he did anything, proves to also be one who will never earn the prize…

His talk about Israel is empty repetition – he is NOT about to do anything to make Israel do anything – and he is the only person in the position to so do! It is clear that Obama has achieved the impossible: He has done less than George (Dubya) Bush towards just peace in the Middle East!

Many of the pieces below deal with this show of oratory.

Obama to Israel: Take whatever you want: Al Jazeera English

In his latest speech, Obama’s thinly veiled rhetoric proves he will do anything to satisfy his pro-Israel voter base.
Lamis Andoni Last Modified: 23 May 2011 16:02

”]In 2008, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, pandered to pro-Israeli voters and Israel by promising in a speech addressed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), that Jerusalem would forever remain “the undivided capital of Israel”.

 

 

 

 

Three years later, Obama is on another pre-campaign trail in order to improve his chances for re-election in 2012. As part of this campaign, he has made a new round of half-hearted attempts to revive the stalled “peace process” completely under Israel’s terms.

In his latest speech addressed to AIPAC, Obama promised Israel everything short of allegiance by reaffirming America’s commitment to Israel’s political and security goals. His speech denied the right of Palestinians to declare a nation and he even vowed to block any peaceful Palestinian efforts to claim their legal rights at international organisations.

Obama’s lip service to Palestinian “self-determination” is nothing more than vacuous rhetoric – as he clearly implied that Israeli interests, especially its security, remain the top priority for American foreign policy in the region.

He mechanically repeated his commitment to the vision of a two-state solution – establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. However, as expected, he left the borders and terms of the creation of such state subject to Israel’s “security interests”.

His reference to resuming peace negotiations on the basis of the 1967 borders (also known as the Green Line) means neither a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories nor the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state on all of the land within the Green Line, including East Jerusalem.

There is a significant difference in negotiations “lingo” and even legal language between saying that the establishment of a Palestinian state “will be based on” 1967 borders as opposed to saying it “will be established on” the 1967 borders.

The first leaves ample room for Israel to continue occupying and even annexing vast settlement blocs (and perhaps even all of the illegal, Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem) for “security reasons”.

Take whatever you can

Just in case his pro-Israel support base misunderstood the thinly veiled statements from his Middle East speech last Friday, Obama made sure to clarify to his definitively pro-Israeli view that there is no going back to the true 1967 borders:

“[The statement] means that the parties themselves – Israelis and Palestinians – will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 196… It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years, including the new demographic reality.”

In clearer words, the president is effectively, although not explicitly, equating the presence of Palestinians on their own land with the illegal presence of Israeli settlers living on land confiscated forty-four years ago from the Palestinians.

Basically, despite the fact that settlers live on that land illegally under international law, because they are physically there, the land becomes theirs.

This confirms the belief of many in the region that the construction of Israeli settlements and of the Separation Wall inside the 1967 borders is Israel’s way of slowly completing a de facto annexation of Palestinian land.

This latest of Obama’s statements may be the closest the president has come to legitimising illegal Israeli settlements.

Obama’s message to Israel appeared to confirm that he is ready to keep former president George Bush’s 2005 promise that Israel would be able to keep their largest settlements blocs as a result of any negotiated solution for the conflict.

In other words, Obama’s idea of Palestinian self-determination is for Palestinians to accept whatever Israel decides.

In his AIPAC speech, and the previous speech addressed to the Middle East, Obama seemed to have either  been out of touch with, or to have simply ignored, the changes brought about by the Arab Spring. For while he argued that Israel should understand that the Arab Spring has altered the political balance in the region, and that Israel should understand it now has to make peace not with corruptible Arab leaders, but with the Arab people themselves.

So much for hope and change

In fact, when it comes to the Palestinian cause, Obama is speaking and acting as if the Arab Spring has not taken place. He has to remember that even America’s most loyal Arab allies in the region could not openly support the American-Israeli formula for peace with the Palestinians. So, why then would it be acceptable to millions of pro-Palestinian Arabs?

The Arab Spring may have affected the semantics of American discourse on Palestinian rights but it has not created anything close to a real shift in American policies.

Once again, Obama has succumbed to political blackmail by Netanyahu – whose main goal of raising objections to the peace process is to make sure that Israel continues undisturbed with its expansionist polices, and not because of any real fear from the president’s weak demands.

Yes, there is no doubt that Netanyahu wants to see any reference to 1967 borders dropped from the discourse, because Israel is currently busy drawing its own militarily imposed future borders, he could not have misunderstood Obama’s clearly pro-Israeli statements.

As the American president pointed out in his speech, he has made good on his declaration of “full commitment” to Israeli interests and security needs: “That’s why we’ve increased cooperation between our militaries to unprecedented levels. It’s why we’re making our most advanced technologies available to our Israeli allies.”

“And it’s why, despite tough fiscal times, we’ve increased foreign military financing to record levels.”

Obama has not only been consistent in maintaining full US support for Israel but has also articulated a new, more decisive stance which explicitly confirms the long-standing American policy of blocking any peaceful Palestinian efforts through international law and the United Nations.

“…The United States will stand up against efforts to single Israel out at the UN or in any international forum. Because Israel’s legitimacy is not a matter for debate”, he promised the gathering of the staunchest and most influential supporters of Israel.

By siding with Israel against the Palestinian Authority’s plan to seek United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, the US has in effect declared war on all Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority and activists alike.

He will unabashedly thwart any efforts to pursue legal and peaceful means of challenging the continued Israeli colonisation of their land.

But by labeling such campaigns aimed at recognition of a Palestinian state as an attempt “to delegitimise” Israel, the president is inadvertently recognising that those Israeli policies themselves lack legitimacy.

A rights based discourse?

Furthermore, while Obama’s assertion that UN recognition alone cannot create a Palestinian state is technically true, it will restore the topic within a legal rights discourse – which would not be defined by Israel’s security concerns as it has in the past.

Such UN recognition, of course, would work towards the establishment a Palestinian state defined by the 1967 borders – meaning that all Israeli settlements within that border would have to be evacuated. Without this, it would only legitimise and perpetuate the American-Israeli negotiations formula.

But Obama has not taken any risks in order to promote peace.

He fears foiling decades of American policies that have aimed to veto any UN resolution pertaining to Israeli crimes and, starting a new discourse about the conflict that would be rights-based.

It was no surprise either when Obama declared the reconciliation agreement between Fateh and Hamas, signed earlier this month, to be an “obstacle” to peace in the region. After all, in his purely pro-Israeli mindset, any attempt at Palestinian unity – regardless of how feeble – does not serve Israeli interest and its tried and true “divide and conquer” method has prevented any real progress for years.

Obama’s repeated refrain about Hamas being an unacceptable peace partner, sounds not only like a broken record, but also like a lame excuse for Israeli extremism and intransigence.

If he wants to know who the true unacceptable partners for peace are, all he has to do is get an English transcript of discussions from the Israeli Knesset (parliament) and read how members from the political right call Arabs “animals” and make all manner of racist slurs against Palestinians.

But if Obama is willing to encourage Israeli policies such as ‘land transfers’, which aim to displace whole Palestinian communities and refers to them as mere “demographic changes”, then why would he care about racist rhetoric and threats by right-wing Israelis?

In his latest speeches, Obama did not refer once to the events that took place on the May 15 ‘Nakba Day’ protests. During these peaceful demonstrations, the Israeli military responded in a predictable way, in the only way they know – by firing indiscriminately on unarmed protesters. By the end of the shooting spree, more than 20 people were killed at the Syrian and Lebanese borders.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of Obama’s speech is his exaggerated attempt to adopt the Israeli narrative and by default, his complete denial of Palestinian national rights.

In the end of his speech, Obama’s claim that Israel’s history could be characterised by a struggle for freedom (a repeat from his 2008 AIPAC speech) says it all:

The American president refuses to see Israeli oppression and repression. He refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the Palestinian struggle for freedom – because if he did, he just might hurt his chances at winning a second term as US president.

Lamis Andoni is an analyst and commentator on Middle Eastern and Palestinian affairs.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

 

Hamas: Obama will not force Israel recognition: Ma’an News

Published Sunday 22/05/2011 (updated) 23/05/2011

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri on Sunday slammed Barack Obama’s speech to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, saying the US president’s call on the party to recognize Israel would go unanswered.

In Washington, Obama addressed the powerful pro-Israel lobby group and elaborated on statements made Thursday in his Mideast policy speech, urging calls to democracy and reform across the region.

He re-stated his position that the 1967 armistice lines should be the basis of negotiations between Israel and Palestine, saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejection of the call Friday was due to a misunderstanding.

Obama called on Hamas to recognize Israel and renounce violence and also reaffirmed his support for Israel and Washington’s commitment to go “beyond” regular military assistance to Tel Aviv in order to help “maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge.”

The Hamas spokesman said the speech showed the US administration was “not a friend to the people of the region.”

Abu Zuhri said Obama’s continued support of Israel showed the US was biased, and would “support the occupation at the expense of the freedom of the Palestinian people.”

The spokesman called Obama’s statements on the inevitability of the failure of a Palestinian move seeking statehood at the UN an effective denial of the right for Palestinians to have an independent and sovereign state.

Abu Zuhri also spoke out on the widely accepted stance of starting negotiations based on a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders, saying it revealed the mistake that was the “gamble on the American role” in negotiations.

While Hamas has said it would recognize Israel once it withdraws to the 1967 borders, the party holds that negotiations should be based on the borders of historic Palestine, resulting in far fewer concessions for Palestinians who would start out with a much stronger bargaining position.

“The US administration will fail, just as all others have in the past, in forcing Hamas to recognize the occupation,” Abi Zuhri said of the request to recognize Israel ahead of talks.

Netanyahu to Congress: Ready to make painful compromises, but Jerusalem will not be divided: Haaretz

The prime minister was welcomed to the U.S. Congress by a long standing ovation, after which he praised the U.S. for their strong ties and shared values with Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his speech at the United States Congress on Tuesday by reiterating Israel’s strong ties with the U.S., saying “Israel has no better friend than the U.S. and the U.S. has no better friend than Israel.”

The prime minister’s speech was briefly disrupted by a heckler, who was quickly escorted out by security. Netanyahu said about the heckler, “I appreciate that protesting is aloud” adding “this is the real democracy.”

Netanyahu rejected those that call Israel a “foreign occupier”, saying that no one could deny the “4,000 year old bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land.”

“Why has peace eluded us?” the prime minister posed as he began to discuss the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. “Because so far, the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it.”

Reiterating a point he has made several times throughout his official trip to Washington, Netanyahu said that Israel “will not return to the indefensible borders of 1967.”

“Israel will be generous on the size of a Palestinian state, but will be very firm on where we put the border with it,” Netanyahu said.

At the start of his speech, the prime minister congratulated the U.S. on getting Osama Bid Laden, adding “good riddance”.

“I am dearly moved by this warm welcome,” Netanyahu said, after being received in Congress by a long standing ovation. He received another standing ovation after mentioning that he saw many friends in the audience “both Democrats and Republicans.”

As part of his visit to Washington the prime minister had earlier met with U.S. President Barak Obama, after which he reiterated his stance that Israel cannot go back to the “indefensible” borders of 1967.

The two leaders’ meeting came a day after the U.S. president’s Mideast policy speech called for negotiations for a two-state solution based on 1967 lines.

On Monday, Netanyahu spoke at the AIPAC policy conference where he spoke about Obama’s “ironclad commitment” to Israel’s security.

He also reiterated his rejection of Obama’s call for an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on 1967 lines.

Israel has historically enjoyed broad support from the U.S. Congress, a sign of which was seen at the AIPAC dinner when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid challenged Obama’s on the border issue, saying “No one should set premature parameters about borders, about building or about anything else.”

U.S. sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been at a standstill since an Israeli freeze on West Bank settlement building expired in September. Palestinians insist that a building freeze be reinstated before they return to the negotiating table, while Israel has said that they must return to negotiations with no preconditions.

Palestinians have said that they will meet in Ramallah on Wednesday to determine what their next step will be, following Netanyahu’s visit to Washington.

Continue reading May 24, 2011

NAKBA DAY, May 15th 2011

EDITOR: 63 years to the Nakba, and it is still continuing

After more than six decades, the UN resolutions of 1947 and 1949/50 are just the useless paper they were at the time. Israel did now allow the creation of the Arab state in Palestine, has expelled most of the Palestinians from their home and land, and refused to let them back into their country. Following the UN resolution 194, calling for all refugees to be allowed back into their homes, Israel has destroyed more than 500 towns and villages, razing them to the ground, and making a return (Awda) impossible. Not only the houses and villages were destroyed, but even the ground cover was replaced with European fir trees, to remove all signs of the indigenous population and its habitation in Palestine.

Today, hundreds of Nakba events are taking place across Palestine, and many hundreds have already been arrested as these lines are written. Since 2010, the commemoration of the Nakba is illegal in Israel. History is illegal; memory is illegal; reality is illegal, in the state which breaks every law in the book. Until now, Israel has already murdered 12 Palestinian protesters in the Syrian Golan Heights alone, today.

Israel is illegal. It laws are a travesty. They will not defeat memory and history.

Israeli forces open fire at Palestinian protesters: BBC

Israeli forces have fired on groups of protesters at borders with the Palestinian territories, Syria and Lebanon.

Reports say that at least 12 people have died and dozens more have been injured.

In one incident, thousands of Palestinian supporters from Syria entered the Golan Heights, Israel says.

Palestinians are marking the Nakba or Catastrophe, their term for the founding of the Israeli state in 1948.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes in fighting after its creation.

Responding in a televised address to Sunday’s violence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped “calm and quiet will quickly return, but let nobody be mistaken, we are determined to defend our borders and sovereignty”.

Impetus
Clashes have been taking place at four separate borders or crossing points – at Erez in Gaza, near Ramallah in the West Bank, on the Golan Heights and at the border with Lebanon.

The BBC’s Jon Donnison, in the West Bank town of Ramallah, said this year’s Nakba protests have been given impetus by the uprisings in countries across the Middle East and North Africa.

Our correspondent, at the Qalandiya checkpoint there, says there is a stand-off now, but dozens of Palestinians have been injured.

Palestinian protesters have been throwing stones at Israeli security forces, who have been firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

On the occupied Golan Heights, the Israeli military said it had only fired warning shots as a large number of protesters tried to breach a border fence near the village of Majdal Shams.

But reports said at least two people had been killed and dozens injured.

Israel’s army says this is a “serious” incursion. Brig Gen Yoav Mordechai said soldiers were still trying to control the crowds and that dozens of protesters had crossed.

The army has reportedly sealed off Majdal Shams and is carrying out house-to-house searches for “infiltrators”.

Israel seized the strategic territory from Syria in the closing stages of the 1967 Six-Day War.

On the Lebanon-Israel border, a large number of protesters also approached the crossing with Israel.

Dozens of buses had brought protesters to the area under the rally slogan of “March for the return to Palestine”.

Lebanese soldiers had fired in the air to try to disperse the protesters, who were chanting: “By our soul, our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Palestine.”

Gen Mordechai says Israeli troops fired as demonstrators began vandalising the fence.

Lebanese military officials say 10 people have been killed and scores wounded.

“We are seeing here an Iranian provocation, on both the Syrian and the Lebanese frontiers, to try to exploit the Nakba day commemorations,” Gen Mordechai said.

A spokesman for the UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon called on both sides there to show restraint.

Syria denounced Israeli actions in the Golan Heights and Lebanon as “criminal”, Agence France-Presse news agency reported.

“Israel will have to bear full responsibility for its actions,” the foreign ministry said.

However, one Israeli official told AFP: “Syria is a police state. Demonstrators do not randomly approach the border without the prior approval of the central government.”

On the Israel-Gaza frontier, at the Erez border crossing, Israeli troops opened fire with tanks and machine guns, injuring dozens, Palestinian medical officials said.

Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, Israeli police are investigating whether an Arab-Israeli lorry driver deliberately ploughed into pedestrians, killing one Israeli man.

Eight killed as Israeli troops open fire on Nakba Day border protests: The Guardian

Many more wounded in clashes at Israel’s borders with Syria, Gaza and Lebanon, as UN appeals for ‘maximum restraint’

A Palestinian woman and child are helped to safety during Nakba Day violence north of Jerusalem. Photograph: Jim Hollander/EPA
Israeli troops opened fire on pro-Palestinian demonstrators attempting to breach its borders on three fronts, killing at least eight people. Scores more were wounded at Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza.

Clashes also erupted in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as Palestinians commemorated Nakba Day, the anniversary marking the 1948 war in which hundreds of thousands of people became refugees after being forced out of their homes.

Thousands of Palestinian refugees in Syria marched towards the village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967. At least four people were killed by Israeli troops as they crossed the border, Israel Radio reported. Up to 20 were injured, according to the Israeli Magen David Adom ambulance service.

A statement from the Israeli military said: “Thousands of Syrian civilians breached the Israel-Syria border near the Israeli village of Majdal Shams.

“IDF forces opened fire in order to prevent the violent rioters from illegally infiltrating Israeli territory. A number of rioters have infiltrated and are violently rioting in the village. From initial reports there are dozens of injured that are receiving medical care in a nearby hospital.”

Most of the inhabitants of Majdal Shams, a large village close to the border, hold Syrian citizenship and have family on the other side of the border, from whom they are cut off. The Israeli army declared the area, which is heavily mined, a closed military zone on Sunday.

Despite being occupied by Israel for 44 years, the Golan is usually calm. Syria has repeatedly demanded Israel hand back the area.

A similar Nakba Day protest on the Lebanon border led to four people being killed and around 15 wounded, according to Lebanese media reports. Dozens of protesters approached the border from the Lebanese town of Maroun a-Ras.

Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai, an Israeli military spokesman, said soldiers fired when demonstrators began vandalising the border fence. The army was “aware” of casualties on the other side, he said.

Witnesses said that Israeli troops had fired across the border at protesters throwing stones from within Lebanon, a move that could have serious repercussions and prompt further cross-border incidents.

UN peacekeepers on the Lebanese side of the border appealed for “maximum restraint” to prevent casualties.

In Gaza, around 60 people were injured by shelling and machine-gun fire when protesters approached the heavily fortified Erez border crossing, according to Palestinian medical sources. Israelis living near Gaza were advised to stay inside bomb shelters.

The Israeli security forces were braced for wide-scale protests on Nakba Day – the most highly charged day in the Palestinian calendar – and had deployed around 10,000 troops and police along the country’s borders and in the Palestinian territories. The West Bank was subject to a 24-hour closure, with only emergency access permitted.

The Israeli authorities warned that the first Nakba Day following uprisings across the region could herald riots across the Palestinian territories.

In the West Bank, rubber bullets were fired at about 200 Palestinians and supporters who marched towards the Qalandia crossing on the edge of Jerusalem.

There was also unrest in East Jerusalem, fuelled by the death of a 17-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot in the stomach during clashes on Friday. He died in hospital on Saturday.

In Tel Aviv, an Israeli man was killed and 17 injured when a truck ran into vehicles and pedestrians. It was not clear whether the incident was an accident or a deliberate attack. The truck’s 22-year-old Israeli-Arab driver said he lost control of the vehicle due to faulty brakes.

EDITOR: The language of resporting the events is more revealing than the report itself…

In this Haaretz report, the Palestinians who crossed what most reports called the ‘border’ between Israel and Syria (It is no such thing – it is a ceasefire line, as both sides are on Syrian territory) were called ‘infiltrators’. This is an interesting term to use, especially on Nakba day; Israel’s regime and media has used this term for decades, when describing Palestinians returning to their land after 1948 under cover of darkness. Normally they were shot on the spot, like today. People returning to their country are ‘infiltrators’ and those who took their land and killed them are the ‘law’.

Last infiltrators return to Syria after day of bloody clashes on northern borders: Haaretz

IDF sources say Lebanese demonstrators were killed by gunfire from the Lebanese army during Nakba Day protests on the border; Syria foreign ministry condemns Israel.

The last of the protesters who infiltrated across the border into Israel from Syria on Sunday have been returned to Syria by Israel Defense Forces soldiers and Israel police.

At least one demonstrator was killed and around 40 more wounded in the incident near Majdal Shams on the Syrian border, according to the IDF.

The IDF said that the incident clearly bore Iran’s fingerprints and served Syrian interests.

According to Lebanese security sources, at least 10 Palestinian protesters were killed at a demonstration near the Lebanese-Israeli border.

The sources said more than 100 people had been wounded in the shooting incident in the border village of Maroun a-Ras.

The protests were held to mark Nakba Day, which mourns the creation of the State of Israel.

Syria condemned Israel’s “criminal activities” on Sunday.

State news agency SANA quoted the Syrian foreign ministry as saying it called on the international community to hold Israel responsible for the incidents, the deadliest such confrontation along the borders in years.

The IDF had no prior information of the intention of demonstrators to break through the border fence. IDF forces had been deployed at several points along the Syrian and Lebanese borders but there was no expectation that violence would break out in the Majdal Shams area, where numerous demonstrations have occurred in the past that all ended without violence.

Hundreds of demonstrators tried to break through the border fence in the Maroun a-Ras area of Lebanon. IDF and Lebanese forces opened fire to prevent to prevent demonstrators from crossing the border.

According to IDF sources, IDF soldiers fired shots in the air and at the legs of protesters while Lebanese forces opened fire indiscriminately.

The IDF sources said that three to five demonstrators were killed by Lebanese gunfire.

10 IDF soldiers and three IDF officers were injured in the incidents on the Syrian and Lebanese borders.

Palestinians killed in ‘Nakba’ clashes: Al Jazeera English

Several killed and scores wounded in Gaza, Golan Heights, Ras Maroun and West Bank, as Palestinians mark Nakba Day.

”]Several people have been killed and scores of others wounded in the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, Ras Maroun in Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as Palestinians mark the “Nakba”, or day of “catastrophe”.

 

 

 

 

 

The “Nakba” is how Palestinians refer to the 1948 founding of the state of Israel, when an estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled following Israel’s declaration of statehood.

At least one Palestinian was killed and up to 80 others wounded in northern Gaza as Israeli troops opened fire on a march of at least 1,000 people heading towards the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

A group of Palestinians, including children, marching to mark the “Nakba” were shot by the Israeli army after crossing a Hamas checkpoint and entering what Israel calls a “buffer zone” – an empty area between checkpoints where Israeli soldiers generally shoot trespassers, Al Jazeera’s Nicole Johnston reported from Gaza City on Sunday.

“We are just hearing that one person has been killed and about 80 people have been injured,” Johnston said.

“There are about 500-600 Palestinian youth gathered at the Erez border crossing point. They don’t usually march as far as the border. There has been intermittent gunfire from the Israeli side for the last couple of hours.

“Hamas has asked us to leave; they are trying to move people away from the Israeli border. They say seeing so many people at the border indicates a shift in politics in the area.”

Separately in south Tel Aviv, one Israeli man was killed and 17 were injured when a 22-year-old Arab Israeli driver drove his truck into a number of vehicles on one of the city’s main roads.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the driver, from an Arab village called Kfar Qasim in the West Bank, was arrested at the scene and is being questioned.

“Based on the destruction and the damage at the scene, we have reason to believe that it was carried out deliberately,” Rosenfeld said. But he said he did not believe the motive was directly linked to the anniversary of the Nakba.

West Bank clashes

One of the biggest Nakba demonstrations was held near Qalandiya refugee camp and checkpoint, the main secured entry point into the West Bank from Israel, where about 100 protesters marched, Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh reported from Ramallah.

Some injuries were reported from tear gas canisters fired at protesters there, El-Shamayleh said.

Small clashes were reported throughout various neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem and cities in the West Bank, between stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli security forces.

Israeli police said 20 arrests were made in the East Jerusalem area of Issawiyah for throwing stones and petrol bombs at Israeli border police officers.

About 70 arrests have been made in East Jerusalem throughout the Nakba protests that began on Friday, two days ahead of the May 15 anniversary, police spokesman Rosenfeld said.

Tensions had risen a day earlier after a 17-year-old Palestinian boy died of a gunshot wound suffered amid clashes on Friday in Silwan, another East Jerusalem neighbourhood.

Police said the source of the gunfire was unclear and that police were investigating, while local sources told Al Jazeera that the teen was shot in random firing of live ammunition by guards of Jewish settlers living in nearby Beit Yonatan.

‘Palestinians killed’

Meanwhile, Syrian state television reported that Israeli forces killed four Syrian citizens who had been taking part in an anti-Israeli rally on the Syrian side of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights border on Sunday.

Israeli army radio said earlier that dozens were wounded when Palestinian refugees from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border were shot for trying to break through the frontier fence. There was no comment on reports of the injured.

There have also been reports that Israeli gunfire killed up to 10 people and injured scores more in the Lebanese town of Ras Maroun, on the southern border with Israel.

Matthew Cassel, a journalist in the town, told Al Jazeera that he saw at least two dead Palestinian refugees.

“Tens of thousands of refugees marched to the border fence to demand their right to return where they were met by Israeli soldiers,” he said.

“Many were killed. I don’t know how many but I saw with my own eyes a number of unconscious and injured, and at least two dead.

“Now the Lebanese army has moved in, people are running back up the mountain to get away from the army.”

‘End to Zionist project’

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the events of “Nakba Day” in a televised statement on Sunday, particualrly referring to attempts to infiltrate Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, saying “we are determined to defend our borders”.

Netanyahu said that he instructed Israeli forces to act with restraint, but to stop all attempts at infiltration and challenges to Israel’s sovereignty.

He said that the “Nakba Day” protesters were not fighting for the 1967 borders as they claim, but were denying Israel’s right to exist.

“We must understand who and what we are up against,” Netanyahu said.

Earlier on Sunday Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Hamas-controlled Gaza, repeated the group’s call for the end of the state of Israel.

Addressing Muslim worshippers in Gaza City on Sunday, Haniyeh said Palestinians marked this year’s “Nakba” “with great hope of bringing to an end the Zionist project in Palestine”.

“To achieve our goals in the liberation of our occupied land, we should have one leadership,” Haniyeh
said, praising the recent unity deal with its rival, Fatah, the political organisation which controls the West Bank under Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’ leadership.

Meanwhile, a 63 second-long siren rang midday in commemoration of the Nakba’s 63rd anniversary.

Over 760,000 Palestinians – estimated today to number 4.7 million with their descendants – fled or were driven out of their homes in the conflict that followed Israel’s creation.

Many took refuge in neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere. Some continue to live in refugee camps.

About 160,000 Palestinians stayed behind in what is now Israeli territory and are known as Arab Israelis. They now total around 1.3 million, or some 20 percent of Israel’s population.

Clashes erupt as Nakba Day protests sweep Palestinian territories: Haaretz

At least 45 youths hurt by IDF fire along Gaza fence; in West Bank, troops attempt to disperse protesters; firebomb hurled at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem.

There were widespread protests throughout the Palestinian territories on Sunday, as fears that the annual Nakba Day commemorations would spiral into violence seemed to be realized as reports emerged of repeated clashes and arrests. Nakba Day is a Palestinian day to mourn the creation of the State of Israel.

Israel fired two tank shells and several rounds from machine guns as dozens of Palestinian protesters approached the heavily fortified border in the Gaza Strip over the course of the day, wounding at least 45 people, a Palestinian health official said.

On Sunday afternoon, IDF forces fired on a suspect planting an explosive device along the border in the northern Gaza Strip. A hit was identified, the IDF said.

Across the West Bank, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets, waving flags and holding old keys to symbolize their dreams of reclaiming property they lost when Israel was created on May 15, 1948.

In a West Bank refugee camp and on the outskirts of Jerusalem, IDF troops fired tear gas to break up large crowds of stone throwers.

Demonstrators gathered at a gas station near the village of Isawiyah in East Jerusalem early Sunday, hurling rocks at the security forces. One police officer was injured and at least 13 protesters were arrested during those clashes, some of them with the aid of a helicopter team.

Palestinians demonstrating near Mount Scopus in Jerusalem hurled firebombs at the back of the Hadassah University Hospital. No one was wounded in the incident and there were no reports of damage.

In the West Bank city of Qalandiya, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, some 200 protesters began marching toward a local checkpoint. Police attempted to disperse those protesters by firing tear gas canisters. 20 protesters were lightly hurt.

Other protesters gathered near the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the West Bank; Palestinian security forces arrested some rioters, but left other demonstrations to continue unhindered.

Israel had instituted a 24-hour closure on the West Bank and deployed thousands of security forces across the West Bank to stave off potential violence on Nakba Day. Even so, officials had said they expected calm to prevail.

Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch arrived at the Western Wall and said that security forces are mobilized to the maximum in light of the events. “The police are on high alert, so the day can pass quietly,” Aharonovitch said.

Aharonovitch stated that until now there have not been any incidents that were out of the ordinary and estimated that “the situation is under control, but we must keep in mind that everything could change.”

Also Sunday, a resident of the Arab village of Kafr Qasem in northern Israel plowed a truck into vehicles and pedestrians on a busy Tel Aviv road at the tail end of rush hour. One man was killed and at least 16 others were wounded.

Refugees march to return: The Electronic Intifada

Matthew Cassel, 13 May 2011

A Palestinian refugee and Nakba survivor in Lebanon’s Ein al-Helwe refugee camp. (Matthew Cassel / JustImage)
Long before Muhammad Bouazizi there was Muhammad al-Dura. The horrific footage of the 12-year-old Palestinian boy gunned down by Israeli soldiers while seeking refuge alongside his father in September 2000 was one of the sparks that made protests spread across the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The second intifada, like the first intifada (1987-1993) before it, was a popular grassroots uprising against Israeli occupation. It was these intifadas that have made the Arabic word for uprising largely synonymous with the Palestinian liberation struggle — and made the word universally understood all over the world.

Since the wave of recent Arab uprisings began in Tunisia late last year after the self-immolation by Bouazizi, many have asked when the Palestinians will follow suit and lead a revolt of their own.

In the decade after the second intifada began, Palestinians have faced violent Israeli repression — thousands were killed and injured, and tens of thousands have been detained and imprisoned. Entire cities, villages and refugee camps have been subject to invasion and curfew, often for weeks at a time. And in recent years, the Palestinian Authority has become a repressive force of its own, forcefully quelling protests in the occupied territories and working in open coordination with the Israeli army.

Despite this, the spirit of the Palestinian liberation movement has continued unabated. Protests by Palestinians inside the occupied territories, Israel and the diaspora are commonplace, particularly the ongoing weekly protests in West Bank villages like Bilin and Nilin that have gone on for years.

Solidarity with Palestine in the Arab world has always existed. Not only did Arabs protest in support of Palestinians early in the intifada, but more recently, during Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza in the winter of 2008-09, hundreds of thousands protested across the Arab world, from Yemen to Morocco, against the attack that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, the overwhelming majority civilians.

However, Arab despots, many of whom have become the target of popular protests calling for their ouster, have often either suppressed or co-opted protests in solidarity with Palestine. During the various uprisings and protests in the Arab world, other than the flag of the respective nations being waved, the Palestinian flag has also been present in almost every country, a symbol of just how important Palestine and the intifada are in the greater Arab world.

Now, inspired by the recent Arab revolts, Palestinians are planning for their own uprising in a day activists are calling the “third intifada.” What initially started as a call for a protest on Facebook has transformed into a grassroots movement led by Palestinians around the world.

On Sunday, 15 May, Palestinian activists, political factions and non-governmental organizations, are participating in various coordinated actions to protest Israeli occupation and call for the right of return for some six million Palestinian refugees. The significance of this date is that it is Nakba day — the day Palestinians annually commemorate their ethnic cleansing from Palestine as British forces departed in 1948 and Zionist forces took over much of the country to establish Israel.

Protests are planned in Ramallah, Gaza City, Amman, Damascus, Cairo and other cities. Egyptian activists are also planning to go to Gaza and challenge their government’s complicity with Israel in the siege of the territory. Here in Lebanon, organizers are calling for an unprecedented “Right of Return” march to the border that they were forced to cross 63 years ago this week.

Unlike Tunisians, Egyptians and other peoples in revolt, Palestinian refugees don’t have the luxury of living under only one oppressor. In Lebanon, for example, hundreds of thousands of refugees live with few civil rights; many are restricted to refugee camps enclosed by the Lebanese army.

In recent years, activists have waged a campaign demanding civil rights in Lebanon in order to return home to Palestine. In the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, after it was destroyed in 2007, Palestinians had to first demand a return to the camp where they had sought refuge six decades ago before demanding a return home to Palestine. Conditions in Syria and Jordan also restrict refugees’ freedoms and deny them many political rights. While most Palestinian refugees declare only one goal — to return to Palestine — they also admit that getting there is a long and circuitous path.

Sharif Bibi, a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon and one of the organizers of the 15 May Right of Return March, told me, “Palestinians have always dreamed of an Arab revolt since they believe that Palestine won’t be liberated until the Arab world is liberated. The fall of Mubarak in Egypt gave hope to people and made the idea that ‘we can do it’ into something real.”

Bibi says there are already more than 500 buses planned to transport an estimated 35,000 persons — mostly Palestinian refugees — from across Lebanon to the village of Maroun al-Ras on the boundary with Israel. Very few mainstream Lebanese political groups are endorsing the march, except for Hizballah, the Shia Islamic resistance movement celebrated for liberating southern Lebanon from 22 years of Israeli occupation in 2000.

It was soon after that liberation that hundreds of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon traveled to the boundary. Many greeted family members whom they had been separated from for decades or never met before, on the other side of the fence in Israel. Also around this time is when a now-famous photograph of the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said throwing a stone across the border emerged.

According to Bibi, the march this weekend will have a different purpose. Located hundreds of meters away from the border fence, Sunday’s demonstration aims to show that Palestinian refugees have not given up on their inalienable right to return home.

Given their history, it’s easy for one to assume that Palestinians will play a central role in any larger uprising in the Arab world. After this weekend, that role should be clear.

Matthew Cassel, a former editor of The Electronic Intifada, is a journalist and photographer based in the Middle East. His website is justimage.org. Follow him on twitter (@justimage) for live coverage of Sunday’s march in Lebanon.

Breaking news: Palestinians arrested after peaceful protest on Nakba Day, 2011

At 11 AM on al-Nakba remembrance day, 500 residents from the West Bank village of al-Wallajeh and international supporters marched towards
the Israeli Apartheid Wall. The Wall was built to separate the villagers from their original land from which they were expelled in 1948. The demonstration was violently attacked by the Israeli military with rubber coated steal bullets, tear gas and protesters were beaten with batons and rifles. One youth was hospitalized after being injured by a rubber coated steal bullet .

Eight Palestinians including twins aged 11 and 6 internationals (American, Dutch, German and Canadian nationals) were arrested. The army proceeded to raid the village and invade each house, searching for people who had participated in the demonstrations. The raids as well as confrontations between the army and the village youth are ongoing.

The Arrested Palestinians are:
Mazen Qumsiyeh
Basel Al Araj
Ahmed Al Araj
Mohammad Al Araj
Allah And Mohammed Abu Tin 11 year old twins
Tarek Abu Tin
Adel Abu Tin

Al-Walaja is an agrarian village of about 2,000 people, located south of Jerusalem and West of Bethlehem. Following the 1967 Occupation of
the West Bank and the redrawing of the Jerusalem municipal boundaries, roughly half the village was annexed by Israel and included in the
Jerusalem municipal area. The village’s residents, however did not receive Israeli residency or citizenship, and are considered illegal in their own homes.

Once completed, the path of the Wall is designed to encircle the village’s built-up area entirely, separating the residents from Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and almost all their lands – roughly 5,000 dunams. Previously, Israeli authorities have already confiscated approximately half of the village’s lands for the building of the Har Gilo and Gilo settlements, and closed off areas to the south and west of it. The town’s inhabitants have also experienced the cutting down of fruit orchards and house demolition due to the absence of building permits in Area C.

According to a military confiscation order handed to the villagers, the path of the Wall will stretch over 4890 meters between Beit Jala and alWallaja, affecting 35 families, whose homes may be slated for demolition.

For more information call

Mahmud Zawahre 0599586004

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led  non-violent resistance movement committed to ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land.  We call for full compliance with all relevant UN resolutions and international law.

For specific media inquires such as interview requests, photo usage, etc. please email the ISM Media Office at media@palsolidarity.org

Equality or nothing — Edward Said

Stay Human — Vittorio Arigoni

Israel opens its gates to the world, shuts them to Palestinians: Haaretz Editorial

The covert deportation of West Bank residents in order to increase the number of Jews in the West Bank, like the declaration of land as “state land” to build settlements on it, is an example of the occupation’s rotten fruit.

From the occupation beginning in 1967 to the day after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1994, Israel used a covert procedure to banish Palestinians by stripping them of their residency rights. This was revealed in an official document drawn up by the Israel Defense Forces’ West Bank headquarters, published by Haaretz on Wednesday.

A letter sent to the Center for the Defense of the Individual says the procedure, enforced on Palestinian West Bank residents who traveled abroad, led to the stripping of 140,000 of them of their residency rights. Israel registered these people as NLRs − no longer residents − a special status that does not allow them to return to their homes. The document makes no mention of the number of Gaza Strip residents who traveled abroad for studies or work and were permanently banished from the region by the same procedure.

The sweeping denial of residency status from tens of thousands of Palestinians and deporting them from their homeland in this way cannot be anything but an illegitimate demographic policy and a grave violation of international law. It’s a policy whose sole purpose is to thin out the Palestinian population in the territories.

It would be reasonable to assume that many family members of the Palestinians uprooted between 1967 and 1994 joined their relatives in exile and became homeless refugees themselves. The gates of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were also locked to the NLR’s children and descendants who were born outside the territories. After the Oslo Accords, Israel allowed a relatively small number of NLRs to return to the territories. Since the second intifada broke out, the people exiled between 1967 and 1994 have been prohibited from visiting their homes, even as tourists.

The covert deportation of West Bank residents in order to increase the number of Jews in the West Bank, like the declaration of land as “state land” to build settlements on it, is an example of the occupation’s rotten fruit. Israel opens its gates to people from all over the world, who have the right of return. It lets them settle in Hebron and at the entrance to Nablus. It must immediately rectify the ongoing injustice caused to tens of thousands of Palestinians who were born in Hebron and raised children in Nablus.

The government would do well to remove the NLR stigma from these people, restore their residency status as quickly as possible and permit them to return home and unite with their families.

Lia Tarachansky: Israelis defy Nakba Law on Independence Day: The Real news Network

By Lia Tarachansky

At the end of March, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) passed the Nakba Law. The version that passed the third reading states that any body that receives government funding, such as schools, can be fined for commemorating the Nakba on the Israeli Day of Independence. The Nakba means “Catastrophe” in Arabic and refers to the 1948 war, the result of which was the depopulation of two thirds of the Palestinian population, which today numbers millions of refugees. To this day many still hold the keys to their original homes, but are not allowed to return. In defiance of the law, the Israeli organization Zochrot (Hebrew, feminine “we remember”), posted a sign with the law in German throughout the core of Tel Aviv where thousands celebrated. Within minutes, police surrounded the Zochorot office.

Transcript

LIA TARACHANSKY, TRNN: On May 9, Israelis poured onto the streets throughout the country to celebrate the 63rd Day of Independence. At the end of March, the Israeli Parliament passed the controversial Nakba Law, part of numerous laws termed antidemocratic by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. This law states that government-funded bodies such as schools are to be fined for commemorating the Nakba on the Day of Independence. In protest, an Israeli organization named Zochrot decided to do just that, by posting a sign stating the new law in German in the heart of Tel Aviv during the celebrations.

EITAN BRONSTEIN, FOUNDER, ZOCHROT (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): The idea is to have a discussion in public about the danger of the Nakba Law. What’s written here [in German] means it is not allowed to mourn on the day of independence.

TARACHANSKY: The Nakba means catastrophe in Arabic and refers to the war of 1948, when two-thirds of the Palestinian population became refugees. Many still hold the keys to their original homes, but to this day they’re not allowed to return. Today, millions live in refugee camps throughout the Arab world. The Real News spoke to the founder of Zochrot, Eitan Bronstein.

—

TARACHANSKY: It’s often said that the Nakba is the last and biggest taboo in Israeli discourse about the conflict.

BRONSTEIN (ENGLISH): Mainly because it undermines the basic justification for the establishment and the existence of a Jewish state as a place only for Jews. And if you–and for that, to keep those arguments, you must hide–keep in hiding the Nakba, because once you reveal it, it really undermines these justifications.

—

BRONSTEIN (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): The idea for this action came from a remembrance project in Berlin. Maybe some of you have seen it. It’s pretty well known. It’s not meant to commemorate the Holocaust; it commemorates the racist, antidemocratic laws of the early Nazi regime.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): [German] It is not allowed to mourn on the Day of Independence. Israel 2011

—

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): This is really the time, on Independence Day, to come here with the Nakba?

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): But it’s very connected.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): On Independence Day?

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): But it’s very connected.

—

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): Happy holidays! Happy holidays to everyone!

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): Holocaust survivors came from the diaspora to build a home here. You’re against that? And your parents? You have the gall to stand here?

—

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): … a country that’s going in a racist, antidemocratic direction endangers us.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): Me, me, I lost three brothers in the Holocaust. I’m a racist, and I don’t want Arabs here, and I don’t want you. It’s sad people like you are even alive. It’s embarrassing to the country. People gave their lives to this country. You stand here without shame? Judgment? Morals?

—

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): Why did you tear the sign?

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): Before the country was built, there was the old Jewish settlement.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): Palestinians lived here.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): So they can keep living, but not on Independence Day.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): But most of them were expelled.

—

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): The key remains.

—

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): How far [can they go]?

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): That’s the price of democracy.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): The right to vote and freedom of speech, that’s democracy.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): And this is not freedom of speech?

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): That’s not freedom of speech. When a person goes and protests unrealistic things, even if it displaces someone else.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): And what about the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees?

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): What’s the connection?

—

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): I busted my ass off in Gaza for you pieces of shit!

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): Screw your mothers! Sons of bitches! Go fuck Arabs!

TARACHANSKY: After leaving the action, dozens of police officers surrounded the Zochrot office.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): This is the camerawoman who filmed them. They’re in here. She’s filming the Day of Independence, and she filmed their protest. They’re in this building. So if you want to question her–.

—

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): And why did you not notify the police about this? You didn’t think it necessary?

TARACHANSKY (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): Why? I’m a journalist. I film protests, etc.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): You have a responsibility to report actions that have a certain purpose. To disrupt the peace and order.

TARACHANSKY: I don’t.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): You don’t?

TARACHANSKY: Maybe you do.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): As a citizen, you’re responsible.

TARACHANSKY: Maybe if they were doing something illegal.

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): You don’t think it’s illegal, disrupting the peace and order?

TARACHANSKY: The laws in this country do not say it’s illegal to organize.

—

BRONSTEIN (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): When I saw they were talking to you, I ran over. He asked, so I explained we did this action. And he asked if I gave out flyers. I said, if you want to see the flyers, come into our office. So he came, stood and read the flyer a few minutes, and took one with him. He told me it was an illegal action because it’s a provocation and it adds work for the police. I said, okay, but we finished a while ago. What provocation? But “what”, and “this and that”. Anyway, he left.

TARACHANSKY: Do you think there’s a chance your flyer will influence his opinions?

UNIDENTIFIED (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): I think so. He read it with great interest. He took a few of our pamphlets to read. He said he’ll keep in touch, get on the Zochrot newsletter. Yeah, I swear, yeah.

End of Transcript

Israeli Jews should mark Nakba Day, too: Haaretz

It is possible and necessary to teach that this glory that is the establishment of Israel also has a dark side – so we can know our history, and understand the wishes of the Palestinians.
By Gideon Levy
Were Israel a little more confident of the righteousness of its case, and were its government a little more open, then all schools in Israel, Jewish and Arab alike, would today mark Nakba Day. A few days after the celebrations of our own Independence Day, in which we lauded the bravery and the achievements that we are rightly proud of, we could offer a lesson in citizenship. It would be a different heritage lesson, the kind that includes the story of the other side, the one that is denied and repressed. Not a single hair from our head would be lost were we to do this today. Sixty three years later,with the country established and flourishing, we can now begin telling the entire truth, not only the heroic, convenient part of the story.

On that day it would be possible to tell our pupils that next to us lives a nation for whom our day of joy is their day of disaster, for which we and they are to blame. We could tell the pupils of Israel that in the 1948 war, like in every war, there are also some acts of evil and war crimes. We could tell them about the expulsions and the massacres. Yes, there were massacres: All you have to do is ask the veterans of the war to tell you about the towns that were “cleared” and the villages that were razed, and the thousands of residents who were promised that they would be allowed to return in a few days, a promise that was never kept, and about the poor “infiltrators” who tried to return to their homes and their properties in order to collect remnants of their lives, and were killed or expelled by the IDF.

Not only is it possible to permit the Israeli Palestinians to commemorate the day of their heritage and express their national and personal pain, something that should be self-evident, but also to teach us, the Jews, the other narrative.

It is possible to justify everything Israel did during its War of Independence, and it is also possible to ask difficult questions, but it is, first of all, essential to know – everything.

It is necessary to know that there were 418 villages here that were wiped off the face of the earth, and it should be remembered that there were more than 600,000 natives of this land who fled or were expelled not to return to their homes, and that to this day most of them, they and their offspring, live in terrible conditions, carrying keys to their lost homes. It is possible and necessary to teach our pupils that this glory which is the establishment of Israel also has a dark side. This must be taught so that we can know our history, and so that we can understand the wishes of the Palestinians, even if there is no intention of realizing them. We can call this, “know your enemy,” but to know we must.

We must know that under nearly every patch of Jewish National Fund forest rest the ruins that Israel was keen to erase, to ensure that they not serve as evidence of a different heritage. We can know that under our flourishing Canada Park hide the ruins of three villages which Israel razed after the Six Day War, putting its residents on a bus and expelling them. We can now turn our sights to the ruins of the homes that remained on the sides of the roads, from which we turn away, and remember that once there was life there. We can even put up memorial sites, in the land full of memorials, to commemorate the villages that are no longer there. We can ask how is it that along the coast, between Jaffa and Gaza, there is not a single village.

We must also ask why the mosque in the heart of Moshav Zechariya is surrounded by a fence with the sign, “Danger, unsafe structure.” It is not this holy structure of theirs that is dangerous. We can also ask where do the residents of Zechariya live today, on whose ruins the moshav was built (the answer: the poor Deheisheh refugee camp ). This does not constitute a breach of faith. It is not treachery against the Zionist ideal: it is historical and intellectual honesty, perhaps courageous, but certainly something which the circumstances require.

On the day of this Nakba, it is possible to begin telling the entire truth. If we are so proud of it, why hide it? And if we are embarrassed by it, the time has come to expose it and deal with it. Only on the day that the pupils in Israel also learn about the Nakba, will we know that the earth is no longer burning under our feet and that the Zionist enterprise has been completed.

Israel better prepare, for a Palestinian state is on the way: Haaretz

Israel has always tried to convince that it is reaching out for peace into the void. But this policy is about to sustain a shock.
By Zvi Bar’el
Yuval Diskin is right. September always was a lousy month. Take September 1993, the cursed month when the the Oslo Accords were signed. Or 15 years earlier, the signing of the Camp David agreement between Israel and Egypt. The Nazi invasion of Poland took place in September, as did the Al-Qaida bombings in New York and the Second Intifada. James Dean was killed on September 30, and in September 1995 Israel agreed to hand over control of considerable parts of the West Bank to the Palestinians.

Lousiness, it transpires, is a matter of perspective. Whatever happens in September 2011, if anything does happen, will also be a matter of perspective.

Diskin’s text, which adorned the Friends of Tel Aviv University conference, shouldn’t particularly move or astonish anybody. Leaders of the Shin Bet security service and the Mossad, and former generals are not tested by their rhetoric. They are in charge of fear, and fear doesn’t need that many words or poetic phrasing. Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, terrorism, rockets and, of course, an independent Palestinian state – that’s all the vocabulary you need to phrase Israel’s strategy of fear.

The head of the Shin Bet doesn’t have, and apparently did not have, a peace conception. That’s not his job. He doesn’t create policy, he merely takes care of its ramifications. But the “policy” as he understands it is crystal-clear.

“Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayyad and the entire Palestinian Authority,” he ruled, “represent only themselves, and certainly not Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”

In other words, there was no point in talking to them from the outset, most certainly not now after they have reconciled with Hamas. The reconciliation may have shaken Diskin, he may not have expected it – or maybe he did and didn’t say so – but it doesn’t change the general picture. “Hamas did not change its ideas, ideology or policy,” while the reconciliation will be “tested over time.”

As if “time” was an independent factor unaffected by processes, policies, statements. As if neither Palestinians nor Israelis influence the content of this time and the manner in which changes will occur. And how much time are we speaking of, by the way? Are we now doomed to tear pages from a calendar until some deadline? Does the time run out in lousy September? Or maybe a year after the reconciliation agreement, when elections for the Palestinian parliament and presidency are supposed to take place? And when does that time even begin?

Diskin, of course, is but a metaphor. Maybe something will happen to him “over time” as well, and we will yet see him sign petitions or join to one of the peace initiatives. Many senior “security sources” experience such sudden enlightenment. But for now, he is unhesitatingly presenting to the public the fundamental assumptions that have shaped the Israeli government’s policy.

There is no Palestinian partner and now there won’t be, until the end of “time.” The government doesn’t even need to prove it. Reconciliation is an illusion, the Palestinian state will be a mirage, and neither of them obliges the government to change its vision. The government is already hacking away at the reconciliation, assuming that if it fails it will take Abbas with it, and if it survives it doesn’t have room for an Israeli partner anyway.

But it is the debate over the identity of the partner that is illusory. It successfully substitutes the need to determine a policy, to decide the country’s borders, to determine just how far it can reach into the occupied territories. It’s empty babble, leaning on the theory of “confidence-building steps” since exposed as confidence-destroying steps, but still managed to make the question of the Palestinian partner – not the Israeli partner, God forbid – into the main issue in every political discussion.

Netanyahu’s upcoming speech to Congress will spare no words from that absent partner; for this is the heart of a tactic masquerading as a policy. Israel has always tried to convince that it is reaching out for peace into the void. But this policy is about to sustain a shock in September. You can cancel out Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh. But a Palestinian state? One to which presidents and kings will suddenly start to arrive?

EDITOR: The new realities bite hard into Israel’s intransigence

Just the last few days have brought about some very challenging developments for the Israeli defiance of Palestinian rights, and it will be really interesting to see the results of those new elements. The most important ones are of course the opening of the Egyptian side of the Gaza border to Palestinian travelers, which marks the practical end of the stranglehold siege which lasted since 2007.

The second one is the coming together of the PA and Hamas, in a new move for Palestinian unity, and one which looks to be more serious than earlier attempts. That both these developments are originate in Cairo, is just one sign of the new realities, and the Arab Spring dictating the mood and the direction of political change.

Israel, of course, behaves as if it can buck this tide of change. It may well be unable to do so in the new environment which is now shaping itself. Even if Libya stays under US tutelage, as seems likely, most of the other countries’ revolutions in the region are heading the other way. It will certainly will take much more struggle and blood to dislodge Assad in Syria or Yemen’s strongman, but both countries are unlikely to return to the docility which typified them before this January. Even the changes in Palestine would be unthinkable but for the Arab Spring and its centrifugal forces. The US and EU will try all the tricks in the book in order to delay and contain, if not to control these social uprisings, but let us remember they are better at destruction than at building up, so their success will be limited, it seems. It also means that Israel is now going to be seen as the problem that it is – a real stumbling block on the road to democracy, normalisation and just peace in the Middle East.

It may be that the time for change in the Middle East is now knocking on the door, and it will be impossible to delay for long. In Palestine, it means that the time for arguing for the best solution – One democratic, secular state – is now. Let us advance this idea in synchronism with the Arab Spring.

Daniel Barenboim brings ‘solace and pleasure’ to Gaza with Mozart concert: The Guardian

Israeli conductor voices support for non-violence and Palestinian state during performance for schoolchildren and NGO workers

The orchestra arrived with the impact of a presidential motorcade, in armoured cars, with sirens wailing and flanked by dozens of armed men.

It was an unusual overture to a rendition of Mozart. But then, the arrival in Gaza of Daniel Barenboim, the world-famous Israeli conductor and his Orchestra for Gaza – featuring musicians from Paris, Milan, Berlin and Vienna – to play for an audience of schoolchildren and NGO workers was itself far from usual.

The orchestra set off from Berlin on Monday, stopped at Vienna and then landed at El Arish, close to the Egyptian side of the Gaza Strip, on a plane chartered by Barenboim himself.

As an Israeli citizen it is illegal for Barenboim to enter Gaza without a permit, and, as if that wasn’t enough, the recent murder of an Italian peace activist and fears that pro-Osama bin Laden groups in Gaza might seek revenge on western targets meant that the UN security team was on high alert.

Barenboim has previously played in Ramallah and holds an honorary Palestinian passport, and is widely praised for his attempts to reach out across the divide. In Israel, meanwhile, he has been attacked for promoting the work of Wagner.

He told his audience on Tuesday that the people of Gaza “have been blockaded for many years and this blockade has affected all of your lives.”

The aim of his orchestra, he said, was to bring “solace and pleasure” through music to the people of Gaza and to let them know that people all over the world care for them.

Gaza is more accustomed to the sound of explosions, sonic booms and the traditional drums and pipes that accompany its nightly weddings than Mozart. Many religious leaders disapprove of music, and people in general prefer Middle Eastern-style music to Western classical or popular music.

Barenboim drew a burst of applause and then a murmur of appreciation as the orchestra began when he told the audience that they might recognise the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No 40 as it was the basis of one of the celebrated songs of Fairuz, the most famous living singer in the Arab world.

The orchestra first played Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, which was warmly appreciated, but Barenboim’s speech at the end of the performance went down even better.

“I am a Palestinian ..… and an Israeli,” he told the audience, who applauded the second statement only slightly less than the first. “So you see it is possible to be both.”

He said the Israeli and Palestinian conflict was one between two peoples who believe they are entitled to live on a single piece of land rather than a conflict between two nations about borders, adding that the whole world understood that a Palestinian state should be established on the land that Israel occupied in 1967.

“Everyone has to understand that the Palestinian cause is a just cause therefore it can be only given justice if it is achieved without violence. Violence can only weaken the righteousness of the Palestinian cause,” he said.

Referring to the revolutions in the Arab world and the nuclear catastrophe in Japan, he said that everyone should question their past actions. “Every musician here has played these pieces many times, sometimes hundreds of times. Yesterday we looked at this music as if we had seen it for the first time. We never accept that the next note will played the same way it was played before. Thinking anew is our daily activity. I hope all the people of this region can take note of that,” he said.

Diana Rustum, 12, a pupil at a local UN school said she enjoyed the discipline of the musicians and the melody of the music. “I think it was different from Fairuz but just as beautiful,” she said.

Abdul Rahman Abu Hashem, 12, insisted that he did not get bored during the hour-long performance. “It was very good,” he said.

Obama must bring his daring to Israeli-Palestinian peace: Haaretz Editorial

The death of the spiritual leader of Al-Qaida terrorists won’t extinguish the zealotry surging through their murderous activities against Western targets, including Israeli and Jewish ones, in their attempt to impose Islam on the entire world.

The value of yesterday’s assassination of Osama bin Laden is more symbolic than practical. The Al-Qaida leader has influenced events around the world more than anyone else in the past decade. He ordered the attacks of September 11, 2001, which led to the American military intervention in Afghanistan and indirectly led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

But bin Laden-style terrorism has changed shape over the years. Its headquarters and training bases are still in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region, but its terror cells exist independently, or in loose alliance with distant terror networks. The death of the spiritual leader of Al-Qaida terrorists won’t extinguish the zealotry surging through their murderous activities against Western targets, including Israeli and Jewish ones, in their attempt to impose Islam on the entire world.

All the same, even symbols can have practical ramifications. First and foremost, bin Laden’s assassination will have an effect on U.S. domestic politics. The Republican critics of President Barack Obama will find it harder to carp at him than in the past. While they were wrapping themselves in the national flag, he was taking action – convening secret security meetings, weighing intelligence information and diplomatic angles, making a decision and carrying it out.

It’s true that years of effort are needed to build up the ability to surround an isolated compound, and that the president himself wasn’t the one on the ground or in a helicopter above the compound, but the political risk falls on the one who makes the decision. Obama dared, and won.

This doesn’t assure Obama a victory at the polls in 2012 – George H.W. Bush came out of the first Gulf War victorious, but lost to Bill Clinton a year and a half later – but it’s enough for Obama to deter potential candidates by giving them the impression that it would be a lost cause for them to jump into the race. On the foreign affairs and security front, bin Laden’s assassination will make it easier for Obama to gradually pull out of Afghanistan, as a follow-up to its reduced presence in Iraq, and to cut the Pentagon’s budget.

For Israel, which is in Al-Qaida’s sights, news of bin Laden’s death offers some encouragement. If Obama becomes stronger domestically, that could – and should – drive his administration to make a more aggressive effort to bring peace to the Middle East. If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have yet to internalize that, it would be best for them to hear it directly from Obama.

Our freedom is now closer: The Guardian

The popular revolutions across the Arab world have given Palestinians a new sense of hope
Azzam Tamimi
When, at the start of this year, Palestinians around the world marked the anniversary of the 2008-09 Israeli war on Gaza, few could see any hope. The Gaza Strip was still under siege, Palestinian reconciliation seemed out of reach, the Arabs were useless and the US unable, or unwilling, to broker a resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestine National Authority (PNA).

Then came the Arab popular revolutions, and the mood among Palestinians switched from desperation to euphoria. Soon after the fall of Hosni Mubarak I visited my old friend, the Hamas leader Khalid Mish’al, in Damascus. He told me he was sure the change in Egypt, which he expected would be followed by similar changes in other Arab countries, meant that it would not be too long before Palestine was free.

My friends in Gaza would tell me the same thing, and so would my relatives in Hebron and the diaspora. They all believed that the Mubarak regime was an impediment to the Palestinian struggle for freedom; once the Egyptian people were free, a genuine democracy in Egypt would support the Palestinians.

At the very least, in the short term, Palestinians believed that post-Mubarak Egypt would not take part in the siege of Gaza, which would all but collapse if Egypt were to open the Rafah crossing between Sinai and the Gaza Strip. Indeed, last Friday Egyptian foreign minister Nabil al-Arabi told al-Jazeera that, within seven to 10 days, steps will be taken to alleviate the “blockade and suffering of the Palestinian nation”.

Palestinians monitored the Israeli reaction to the collapse of the Mubarak regime. It did not surprise them to see Israel immensely worried. Mubarak was an ally who contributed to Israel’s security in a very hostile Middle East. The neutralisation of Egypt, and the minimisation of its role in the Palestinian cause since President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David peace treaty with Israel in 1978, constituted Zionism’s greatest success since Israel was created 30 years earlier. Rather than spearhead the struggle to liberate Palestine, Mubarak’s Egypt led the so-called Arab moderate camp, an alliance of pro-Israel and pro-US Arab states that included Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, the PNA and the United Arab Emirates.

Palestinians began to imagine what would happen if a popular revolution in Jordan were to bring about a similar change; then one in Saudi Arabia; and perhaps Morocco. Israel would have lost its most important allies in the region and the PNA would be isolated, having been fatally wounded by revelations in al-Jazeera and the Guardian about the concessions its negotiating teams offered in secret to the Israelis.

But although the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions did inspire Arabs to demand political reform or regime change, it was not Jordan, Morocco or Saudi Arabia that saw this the most. There were a few demonstrations, but demands were generally for political reform rather than a change of regime. Instead it was Yemen, Libya and Syria that witnessed the more dramatic protests, which soon escalated into armed struggle in Libya and calls for regime change in Yemen and Syria.

When I saw Khalid Mish’al in February, he did not expect a popular uprising in Syria. He believed the regime was less vulnerable because of its support for resistance in Lebanon and Palestine, as well as its anti-imperialist stance. But solidarity with the Palestinian or Lebanese resistance was not enough to protect any autocratic regime. This worried some Palestinians, and they rushed to express support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime; but Hamas remained silent, to the regime’s displeasure.

While the euphoria created by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions has been dampened by the Libyan experience, seen by many in the Arab region as a revolution gone drastically wrong as a result of armament and western intervention, most Palestinians still believe a new era is coming. The more Arab dictatorships that are replaced by genuine democracies, the closer Palestine will be to liberation. Democracies representing the will of the Arab peoples can only be anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian.

One immediate fruit of Mubarak’s removal and the uprising in Syria has been the revival of Palestinian reconciliation efforts. Responding to grassroots pressure, both Hamas and Fatah met in Cairo and decided to work for the formation of a unity government and the resolution of disputes over security and elections. Fatah is anxious that it may lose favour with Egypt, while Hamas is anxious it may soon lose Syria as a safe haven. Unsurprisingly, Israel threatened to take action against the PNA if Fatah went through with the deal with Hamas.

For many years Israel claimed to be the only democracy in the region. And yet Israeli politicians appealed to the US to intervene in Egypt to prevent Mubarak’s fall, and campaigned for him to remain in power. Israel clearly believes it can count on Arab dictators who are more interested in power and personal wealth than in serving their nations, let alone serving the Palestinian cause.

Despite its claims of superiority, Israel appears to suffer from the same symptoms that plague Arab dictators; the failure to learn that they need to change before it is too late. It’s been too late for Mubarak, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, Assad, Muammar Gaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh. Israel has oppressed the Palestinians for so long, and has incurred the wrath of the Arab masses whose revolutions are bringing hope to Palestinians.

Whichever way one looks at it, the Arab revolutions are the best news the Palestinians have had for decades.

Continue reading May 3, 2011