Czech PM: We’ll fight EU calls to freeze Israel ties: Ha’aretz
Czech Prime Minister Mirel Topolanek told President Shimon Peres on Friday that his country, which holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, would fight against calls within Europe to suspend the upgrade of relations with Israel. The visiting Czech premier’s remark came one day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told him that Israel’s relationship with the European Union should not be linked to its relationship with the Palestinians. “Don’t set conditions for us,” Netanyahu told Topolanek during their meeting on Thursday. “Peace is in Israel’s interest no less than it is in Europe’s interest, and there’s no need to make the upgrade in relations with Israel conditional on progress on the peace process.” Topolanek is the first foreign government leader to visit Israel since the Netanyahu cabinet was sworn in three weeks ago. The talks between the two were reportedly conducted in a relaxed atmosphere. But Topolanek brought up the issue of construction in West Bank settlements and European concerns that this could prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. “If Israelis can’t build homes in the West Bank then Palestinians shouldn’t be allowed to either,” Netanyahu said in response. He told the Czech leader he has no intention of halting the expansion of existing settlements. “I have no plans to build new settlements, but if someone wants to build a new home [in an existing one], I don’t think there’s a problem.” He characterized the West Bank as “disputed territory” over which negotiations must be held.
EU not ready to upgrade ties with Israel: Middle East Online
Europe seeks commitment from Israeli government to pursue negotiations with Palestinians. BRUSSELS – Israel must make a clear commitment to pursue peace talks with the Palestinians before it can expect to benefit from a mooted plan to formally upgrade ties with the European Union, an EU official said Thursday. “We believe that good and trustful relations with Israel are essential so in order to make our voice heard,” the EU’s External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told reporters in Brussels. “We do not believe however that indeed the time is ripe to go beyond the current level of relations,” she added. Last year the EU decided to enhance ties with Israel but the idea has been a dead letter since the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. The future of the troubled peace process has become more uncertain with the appointment of Israel’s hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as he is against having an independant Palestinian state — a principle Israel itself committed to under the 2003 international Middle East peace “roadmap.” “Too much remains unclear at this current point in time. And we expect indeed a clear commitment from the new government to pursue the negotiations with the Palestinians,” the EU commissioner said. “We expect a stop of all activities undermining our objective of a two-state solution,” she added, citing the expansion of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories “which is continuing on a daily basis.” “Israel knows what we have to offer and we have shown our very good will and our commitment to reinforce our relations but we think that the ball is now in the court of Israel,” she added. Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that the Israeli army’s investigation of troop conduct during its war on Gaza appeared to be an attempt to cover up “violations of the laws of war.” HRW said its own investigation showed Israeli forces were responsible for “serious violations of the laws of war, including the use of heavy artillery and white phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas, the apparent targeting of people trying to convey their civilian status, and the destruction of civilian objects in excess of military need.” Some of the cases of white-phosphorus use demonstrate evidence of war crimes, the group said in a report last month. Palestinian death toll reached 1,475, including 943 confirmed civilians. Meanwhile, half a dozen lawyers filed a complaint in a Norwegian court Wednesday accusing Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert and nine other top officials of war crimes related to the Gaza offensive.
Banned. Do they offend you?: The Jewish Chronicle
A group of young Israeli entertainers are at the centre of an argument which has forced the relocation of an annual Yom Ha’atzmaut show. The Zionist Federation planned to hold its annual family entertainment night at the Bloomsbury Theatre in central London next Tuesday (April 28), but was forced to move it after the venue refused to host members of the IDF dance troupe. The decision followed complaints from anti-Israel groups about the performance, which was due to be part of the Israel 61 Family Show. It will now take place at a secret location in north London. A promotional poster for the event showed the entertainers in army uniform. It was later redesigned to advertise “young musical talent from Israel”, with pictures of the performers in civilian clothes. But Bloomsbury Theatre, owned by University College London, claimed the use of the original picture constituted a breach of contract. ZF chairman Andrew Balcombe said UCL’s decision was influenced by the complaints and protest threats. “It is a sad day for Britain when ill-informed minority lobbies attempt to limit freedom of expression in a family cultural programme,” he said. Senior ZF figures are furious over the cancellation. However, a second Independence Day celebration, featuring Israeli singer-songwriter Idan Raichel, will still go ahead at the Bloomsbury venue the following day. The ZF say they had no option but to allow it to go on at the theatre as it was too late to cancel it. Jews for Justice for Palestinians was among those lobbying the theatre to cancel the show, saying the inclusion of performances by army members was “massively insensitive”. The Council for Arab-British Understanding called the troupe “sick” and said its performance would be “akin to singing and dancing on the graves of the 400 Palestinian children that the IDF was responsible for killing in January”. A spokesman for UCL said: “Before the booking was confirmed, the Zionist Federation stated that the event would be of a cultural nature, without any political agenda. UCL signed the contract on that basis. “The pictures of performers in military uniform were deemed to be outside the scope of what had been agreed and on that basis the event was cancelled.”
Czech PM: We’ll fight EU calls to freeze Israel ties: Ha’aretz
Czech Prime Minister Mirel Topolanek told President Shimon Peres on Friday that his country, which holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, would fight against calls within Europe to suspend the upgrade of relations with Israel. The visiting Czech premier’s remark came one day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told him that Israel’s relationship with the European Union should not be linked to its relationship with the Palestinians. “Don’t set conditions for us,” Netanyahu told Topolanek during their meeting on Thursday. “Peace is in Israel’s interest no less than it is in Europe’s interest, and there’s no need to make the upgrade in relations with Israel conditional on progress on the peace process.” Topolanek is the first foreign government leader to visit Israel since the Netanyahu cabinet was sworn in three weeks ago. The talks between the two were reportedly conducted in a relaxed atmosphere. But Topolanek brought up the issue of construction in West Bank settlements and European concerns that this could prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. “If Israelis can’t build homes in the West Bank then Palestinians shouldn’t be allowed to either,” Netanyahu said in response. He told the Czech leader he has no intention of halting the expansion of existing settlements. “I have no plans to build new settlements, but if someone wants to build a new home [in an existing one], I don’t think there’s a problem.” He characterized the West Bank as “disputed territory” over which negotiations must be held.
EU not ready to upgrade ties with Israel: Middle East Online
Europe seeks commitment from Israeli government to pursue negotiations with Palestinians. BRUSSELS – Israel must make a clear commitment to pursue peace talks with the Palestinians before it can expect to benefit from a mooted plan to formally upgrade ties with the European Union, an EU official said Thursday. “We believe that good and trustful relations with Israel are essential so in order to make our voice heard,” the EU’s External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told reporters in Brussels. “We do not believe however that indeed the time is ripe to go beyond the current level of relations,” she added. Last year the EU decided to enhance ties with Israel but the idea has been a dead letter since the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. The future of the troubled peace process has become more uncertain with the appointment of Israel’s hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as he is against having an independant Palestinian state — a principle Israel itself committed to under the 2003 international Middle East peace “roadmap.” “Too much remains unclear at this current point in time. And we expect indeed a clear commitment from the new government to pursue the negotiations with the Palestinians,” the EU commissioner said. “We expect a stop of all activities undermining our objective of a two-state solution,” she added, citing the expansion of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories “which is continuing on a daily basis.” “Israel knows what we have to offer and we have shown our very good will and our commitment to reinforce our relations but we think that the ball is now in the court of Israel,” she added. Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that the Israeli army’s investigation of troop conduct during its war on Gaza appeared to be an attempt to cover up “violations of the laws of war.” HRW said its own investigation showed Israeli forces were responsible for “serious violations of the laws of war, including the use of heavy artillery and white phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas, the apparent targeting of people trying to convey their civilian status, and the destruction of civilian objects in excess of military need.” Some of the cases of white-phosphorus use demonstrate evidence of war crimes, the group said in a report last month. Palestinian death toll reached 1,475, including 943 confirmed civilians. Meanwhile, half a dozen lawyers filed a complaint in a Norwegian court Wednesday accusing Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert and nine other top officials of war crimes related to the Gaza offensive.
STUC DEBATES BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL: STUC
22nd April 2009
STUC Congress will today debate whether to support boycott, disinvestments and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international laws and agreed principles of human rights. Following extensive debate and deliberation, the STUC’s General Council will present a report to Congress outlining why it believes that Scottish trade unionists should support a boycott and disinvest from Israeli companies, call for sanctions against Israel, and encourage positive investments in the Occupied Territories. Speaking prior to the debate, STUC General Secretary, Grahame Smith, said: “The STUC General Council is recommending support for boycott and calls for sanctions against Israel because of its attacks on the human rights of Palestinian people and its breaches of international laws. Mr Smith continued: “On our recent visit to Israel and Palestine we witnessed the human rights violations experienced by ordinary Palestinians on a daily basis. We saw how restrictions on movement and checkpoints prevent people from going to work, to school and to visit their families – even when they are sick and dying.” “We heard powerful arguments from the Palestinian Human Rights Organisation, Al-Haq, outlining how Israel is in breach of the Geneva Conventions, and the need for other signatories to international laws to hold Israel to account.” “Our delegation also met with the leadership of Israeli trade union centre, Histadrut, and the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions. The STUC has carefully considered the complex issues involved, and we believe that we have a moral obligation to show solidarity to Palestinian people.”
Jews are aborigines and the Christians love us: Jewish Peace News
Last night I went to a support Israel rally at the Plaza des Nations, the spot with the chair. Unlike the side-events inside organized by the UN Watch and Anne Bayefsky’s Eye on the UN/Hudson Institute, which have each escalated the rhetoric of demonization, this rally is a paragon of “positive messaging”. The message control is tight-no home made signs here. Nothing about Muslim terrorists. It’s all about wanting peace and democracy (versus, you know, them.) But I’m almost grateful. Nobody tries to whip up the crowd, a la Dershowitz, by declaring Palestinians Nazis and terrorists.
Everyone is crowded at the front, but when you stand in the back of the plaza, which isn’t that big, the place looks empty. I actually suddenly share a sense of communal anxiety for the Jews in the crowd (well, at least half the crowd, the others are Christians, it turns out). It’s a etaphor for living in Europe. There really aren’t that many of us left and it is easy to feel threatened and tiny, so we project bigger and scarier. My Jewish friend who lives here has been telling me about the anti-Jewish comments she has heard from the white Swiss- the Jews control this, we do that.
I get there just as former Canadian attorney general Irwin Cotler is speaking. He has been ubiquitous at the conference. I am rather astounded by what he is saying. Jews are aboriginal people. This is the first time I’ve heard this formulation, though it makes sense to try it at a conference where indigenous people are pressing for their rights. But I’m not sure the people in the crowd really go for it. Here is what he has written about the topic:
For Israel, rooted in the Jewish people, as an Abrahamic people, is a prototypical First Nation or aboriginal people, just as the Jewish religion is a prototypical aboriginal religion, the first of the Abrahamic religions. IN A WORD, the Jewish people is the only people that still inhabits the same land, embraces the same religion, studies the same Torah, hearkens to the same prophets, speaks the same aboriginal language – Hebrew – and bears the same aboriginal name, Israel, as it did 3,500 years ago. Israel, then, is the aboriginal homeland of the Jewish people across space and time. It is not just a homeland for the Jewish people, a place of refuge, asylum and protection. It is the homeland of the Jewish people, wherever and whenever it may be; and its birth certificate originates in its inception as a First Nation, and not simply, however important, in its United Nations international birth certificate. The State of Israel, then, as a political and juridical entity, overlaps with the “aboriginal Jewish homeland”; it is, in international legal terms, a successor state to the biblical, or aboriginal, Jewish kingdoms. But that aboriginal homeland is also claimed by another people, the Palestinian/Arab people, who see it as their place and patrimony.
UK campaigners score victory towards arms embargo: The Electronic Intifada
Yasmin Khan
It came as no surprise to campaigners in the United Kingdom to hear the British Foreign Minister David Miliband reveal this week that components supplied by Britain were “almost certainly” used by Israel in its recent military assault on Gaza. Despite Israel’s continued human rights abuses, the UK government has licensed millions of pounds’ worth of military equipment to Israel over the last few years including components for tanks and combat aircraft, in direct conflict with its own arms policy.
The British government’s announcement that it will be reviewing arms sales to Israel in light of the atrocities committed in Gaza earlier this year was, however, surprising. The move represents a real victory for the Stop Arming Israel coalition, which began its campaign for a two-way arms embargo against Israel during its invasion of Lebanon in July 2006 and serves as a potent example of public pressure forcing governments to review their policies towards Israel. The Stop Arming Israel campaign revealed a detailed analysis of export licenses approved from Britain to Israel, including components for: combat aircraft, electronic warfare equipment, helmet mounted display equipment, military aero-engines, naval radars, surface-to-air missiles and equipment for the use of weapon sights and military communication. A significant number of UK components are also used for missile triggering systems for American-made Apache helicopters and “head-up displays” for the similarly US-made F-16s. Israel has repeatedly used F-16 fighter aircraft and Apache combat helicopters to bomb Lebanese and Palestinian towns and villages. In recent years, the UK has licensed arms exports to Israel worth between 10 million and 25 million pounds a year. However, figures available for the first nine months of 2008 show that military equipment worth more than 27 million pounds had been approved.
The campaign in the UK highlighted on exposing how how the licensing of military equipment to Israel contradicts the UK government’s very own arms export policy. Since October 2000, the UK government has used the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria to judge whether arms export licenses should be granted. These set out a series of considerations, including whether the country of destination is in breach of international law or is involved in armed conflicts and respects human rights. On each of these counts Israel is seriously wanting, yet the number of arms licenses applications which have been denied has actually decreased (from 84 in 2002 to 17 in 2007) as the number of Palestinian deaths continue to increase.
Film review: Kindness as vengeance in “Heart of Jenin”: The Electronic Intifada
Maureen Clare Murphy
After his young son Ahmad was shot and killed by Israeli forces in the Jenin refugee camp in 2005, Ismail Khatib was propositioned by the Israeli doctor treating his son: would Ismail wish that his son Ahmad’s organs be donated to children (in Israel) who needed them? After some deliberation — including consulting his wife, the leader of an armed resistance group in the camp, as well as an Islamic authority — Ismail agreed to have his son’s organs donated.
The media manufactured a sensational story (it’s hard to tell how much press, if any, the media-fatigued Khatib family shown in the documentary wanted, or if they got more attention than they bargained for): the father of a slain Palestinian boy reaches out in the name of peace by donating his organs to Israeli kids. What a happy narrative; the legacy of the boy would live on in the bodies of Jewish Israeli children. However, that was not Ismail’s motivation. His was an act of vengeance, of resistance (though it is clear Ismail also genuinely wishes for the well-being of the organ recipients). And as is documented in the film Heart of Jenin, the Muslim-Jewish, Israeli-Palestinian story is much more complicated than that offered by the media looking for a good narrative to sell.
Heart of Jenin draws from well-edited interviews and fly-on-the-wall documentation of the Khatib family and the families of the children who received Ahmad’s organs, as well as Israeli news archive footage. The audience learns that young Ahmad was killed during an arrest “operation” by the Israeli military one morning during the Eid al-Fitr holiday. The Israeli soldier who pulled the trigger (and is interviewed off-camera for the film) was instructed to “shoot to kill any armed person,” and his target was a pre-pubescent boy carrying a toy gun. The film’s climax comes when Ismail finally meets the Orthodox Jewish family whose daughter received one of Ahmad’s organs — after much resistance on their part, and much efforts by the Khatib family.
Canadian musician Leonard Cohen urged to cancel Israel concert: BRICUP
Open letter, British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, 22 April 2009 
The following is an open letter from the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine to Canadian musician Leonard Cohen:
Dear Leonard Cohen:
Your songs have been part of the soundtrack of our lives — like breathing, some of them. But we can’t make sense of why you’ve decided to perform in Israel in September this year. If we understand anything about Buddhism — your practice of which is public knowledge — it’s that Buddhism advocates “right action.” We accept that this precept, like the injunction to “love thy neighbor as thyself,” is probably honored more in the breach than the observance. But we can’t believe you didn’t weigh up performing in Israel in the light of “right action.” And apparently you’ve decided that it’s right to take your unavoidably starry and very newsworthy presence there.
But what does this say to the Palestinians? If you had just emerged from three weeks of unfettered bombing from land, sea and air, with no place to hide and no place to run, your hospitals overwhelmed, sewage running in the streets and white phosphorous burning up your children, what would the news that the great Canadian musician Leonard Cohen had decided to play for your tormentors say to you?
You will perform for a public that by a very large majority had no qualms about its military forces’ onslaught on Gaza (in fact wanted it to continue). You will perform in a state whose propaganda services will extract every ounce of mileage from your presence (they will use it to whitewash their war crimes). As someone who lives in the US, you are saying “yah boo sucks” to the American academics, musicians, filmmakers and others (including poet Adrienne Rich), who earlier this year launched the US Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel. And you are telling the Palestinians — who had nothing whatsoever to do with the Holocaust in Europe but have endured the torments of exile and military occupation ever since they were driven out of their country in 1948 — that their suffering doesn’t matter.
Have you come across an Israeli woman called Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan? She lost her 13-year-old daughter to a Palestinian suicide bomber in 1997, but Dr. Peled — showing the compassionate greatness of which human beings are sometimes capable — didn’t retreat into rage, revenge or depression. Instead she co-founded an Israeli-Palestinian network called “Bereaved Parents for Peace.” When the 10-year-old daughter of a Palestinian colleague was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier, Peled said: “I sit with her mother Salwa and try to say, ‘We are all victims of occupation.’ But my daughter’s murderer had the decency to kill himself. The soldier who killed Abir is probably drinking beer, playing backgammon with his mates and going to discotheques.”
Or going to a Leonard Cohen concert in Ramat Gan. Is this really what you want to be part of?
Yours sincerely,
Professor Haim Bresheeth
Mike Cushman
Professor Hilary Rose
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead
Yediot Acharonot columnist Ariana Melamed’s comments are not particularly original. Others have observed the Israeli attitude to other peoples’ suffering summed up in the saying “after what they have done to us…”. But not only does Melamed puts it better than anyone else that I have read, she does bring it up to date. As the UN Conference on Racism is about to wind down, it is important to remember that the “never again” lesson need to be applied universally and that the ethos of victimhood exempts no one from doing the right thing.
Hebrew original: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3703925,00.html
As victims, we’re allowed: YNet (link to the Hebrew version)
Ariana Melamed
Mistakenly, we continue to believe that being historical victims completely frees us of the need to develop solidarity with humanity and of the duty to consecrate the living, not only the dead.
From one Holocaust Day to the next, one registers a worrisome rise in Israeli racism. Between one compulsory mourning siren and another, the official Israel flatly denies other holocausts and sells arms to countries that use them against civilians. The official daily command to remember those murdered during the Second World War will not prevent the soldier at the checkpoint from then abusing those who aren’t our citizens,. All the tours in Yad Vashem, even now that it is revamped and renovated, have evidently failed to have an impact on our society. We have apparently not learned that being children and relatives of victims does not justify our own injustices. Maybe it is too late for learning.
For too many years now we’ve been living within a false ethos of victimhood. In the name of those victims – those whose opinions were never sought – youths enshroud themselves in blue and white flags in Auschwitz and most of them immediately understand that a strong military is the key to our continued existence, but too few understand or question the benefit of such an army when our conscience is faltering.
For too many years we compelled the world to look at the horrors committed against the Jews. We made a visit to Yad Vashem obligatory for visiting dignitaries. We employed a sophisticated rhetoric that makes a connection between the Nazi and Iranian threats, between the Khmelnytsky-led pogroms and the Intifada, as though all these events – the actuality of which must never be underestimated – granted us a sweeping, almost automatic permit to mimic those nations we accuse of ignoring our victims; as though the Holocaust endowed us with exclusivity over suffering for all time.
As far as official Israel and most of its citizens are concerned, there are no other holocausts, and the arguments are always beautifully constructed: no regime in the history of humanity has made its aim to annihilate a whole people, nor has this ever been done with such monstrous efficiency. Therefore, when the Argentinean military regime wiped out tens of thousands of dissenters, official Israel said nothing; when villains in Cambodia slaughtered millions of their own people, this surely was no holocaust but an internal matter, and what’s happening in Darfur is something between Muslims anyway, while Rwanda – there are no Israelis in Rwanda. So there’s nothing to worry about. If they have an earthquake, we’ll send over crews with blankets.
The Armenian holocaust was not as sophisticated as the Nazi assembly-line of death, hence it is not worthy of attention either, particularly since our relationship with Turkey is more important than our clear conscience. Regarding the Tibetans, we really have nothing to say; this Dalai Lama is nice enough – but our amazing trade with China is much more advantageous than a denunciation, however weak and polite, of what was clearly genocide and the ongoing dispossession of millions of their land.
In the name of the dead
We are victims, so we are allowed: this is the immoral defiant assertion uttered in the Israeli discourse between one Holocaust Day and the next. We are victims of Arabs wherever they may be, so we shall also apply dollops of disgust and fear to Arab citizens of Israel as well. Why not? Such a manoeuvre is worth 15 electoral seats and an honoured place at the Israel government’s table.
We are victims, so when someone speaks of racism within, the horror is never real and is always placed in a totally foolish juxtaposition to the actions of the Nazis. No one remembers that those actions started with words. When no one is punished for calling an Ethiopian a “dirty nigger”; when soldiers can abuse Palestinians uninterrupted, knowing full well that their punishment will be, at worst, a rebuke; when a Jew massacres Arabs and his tombstone is consecrated with no one even contemplating removing the temple blockading his house. When the IDF showers Gazan civilians with molten lead, questions must not be asked in wartime and mistakes must not be admitted to. It is as if we are permitted to do so, because we were killed first.
On 9 May, sixty-four years will have passed since the Allies defeated the Nazis and freed the world. There were those who believed then that it was the last battle against murderous ideologies, but they were wrong. We continue to believe this mistake, and the even worse error, that our historical victimhood completely rids us of the need for human solidarity, of the duty to consecrate the living and not only the dead, and of the lesson that is as important as sovereignty and power: the duty to create a moral society that is sensitive to injustice.
For too many years we told ourselves that we do all this in the name and memory of the dead. This was too easy a lie. Would the dead and the survivors have rejected a more moral stance towards the world and the Other among us? Does the annual siren exempt us of the need to care for the Holocaust survivors, which is surely a more difficult matter than state-sponsored mourning, but no less important? Is the only thing the State can promise its citizens, as a real lesson from the Holocaust, is limitless military power – but not the knowledge that power alone will not be enough on a real day of reckoning?
A few years ago in a CNN broadcast dedicated to one of the periodic holocausts in Africa, a Baptist American priest stood before the camera holding a dead baby’s carrier. He said, “People ask where was God during Auschwitz and I want to know where was man.” And I want to know that this man, the man who possesses sufficient compassion to see the horror of others and know they are just like him, that this man is still among us. Perhaps.
[Translated from Hebrew by Keren Rubinstein.]