AN ARMY THAT HAS A STATE
In a democratic country,
The Minister of Defense
Represents the civil authority
Vis-à-vis the army.
In Israel, the army
Has vetoed the appointment
Of a Commission of Inquiry
Into the harm done to
Gaza civilians.
Minister of Defense Barak
Saluted and went to deliver
To the government
The Order of the General Staff.
Uri Avneri in Ha’aretz, October 30th, 2009
Academic Boycott of Israel and the Complicity of Israeli Academic Institutions: Alternative Information Centre
The idea of an academic boycott of Israel first emerged in 2002 as part of the growing boycott and divestment campaign
against Israel, itself a part of the struggle against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the violation of Palestinian human and national rights. Compared to other types of boycott, the academic boycott has gathered a relative amount of widespread support amongst academic unions and organizations, primarily in Great Britain. Not surprisingly,
this relative success has stirred a public debate and opposition to the boycott, mostly by pro-Israeli organizations and academics. The campaign for academic boycott has wavered under these pressures and various degrees and measures of boycott have since been approved and then often canceled by academic organizations. The arguments in favor of this kind of boycott have relied largely on the facts of the Israeli occupation and the idea of pressuring Israel through its academic
world; often, they have not utilised details relating to the specific academic institutions that they call to boycott.
Through this report, however, the Alternative Information Center (AIC) aims to inform and empower the debate on an academic boycott by giving information not on Israeli violence and violations of international law and human rights, but on
the part played in the Israeli occupation by the very academic institutions in question. The report demonstrates that Israeli academic institutions have not opted to take a neutral, apolitical position toward the Israeli occupation but to fully support the Israeli security forces and policies toward the Palestinians, despite the serious suspicions of crimes and atrocities hovering
over them. Any who argue either for or against an academic boycott against Israeli institutions, we believe, should.
To read this excellent first proper article in English about Academic complicity in Israel’s occupation, use the link above. This is amust for anyone wondering about the justification for academic boycott! It is 64 pages long, and has more than 180 references!
Six Questions for Desmond Travers on the Goldstone Report: Harper’s Magazine
By Ken Silverstein
Desmond Travers was one of the four members of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which produced the controversial Goldstone Report. Travers is a retired Colonel of the Army of the Irish Defence Forces. His last appointment was as Commandant of its Military College. He also served in command of troops with various UN and EU peace support missions. I recently spoke to Travers by phone about the report. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
1. Were you surprised by the criticism of the report?
There was a lot of criticism even before the report came out, primarily against individuals, especially Justice Richard Goldstone. So we were not unduly surprised by the whinging when the report was released, except for the intensity and viciousness of the personal attacks. Justice Goldstone has publicly invited the critics, especially within the U.S. government, to come forward with substantive evidence of incorrect or inaccurate statements. But there has been no credible criticism of the report itself or of the information elucidated in it.
2. Douglas Griffiths, the American delegate to the Human Rights Council, said, “While Justice Goldstone acknowledged Hamas’s crimes, in examining Israel’s response sufficient weight was not given to the difficulties faced in fighting this kind of enemy in this environment.” Is that a fair criticism?
I was a soldier for 42 years and I reject that criticism, which seems intended to excuse alleged Israeli breaches of the laws of warfare. I retired as a colonel in the Irish army in 2001 having served in war zones in Cyprus, Lebanon, Bosnia and Croatia, and I would not underestimate the challenge of combat in built-up areas. Nonetheless, armies have never had the technological luxury that they do today when it comes to taking out targets without inflicting collateral damage.
3. What’s your opinion of the overall U.S. reaction to the report?
The Obama Administration said that Israel should carry out an investigation into its actions, and that’s an enormously important statement for the U.S. to make. In the view of the fact-finding mission the core message of the report is that there has to be an end to impunity to commit war crimes.
4. Critics have also said that Hamas deliberately inserted its fighters among civilians and that doing so increased the civilian toll. Did you find that to be the case?
We found no evidence that Hamas used civilians as hostages. I had expected to find such evidence but did not. We also found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions. Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion. Gaza is densely populated and has a labyrinth of makeshift shanties and a system of tunnels and bunkers. If I were a Hamas operative the last place I’d store munitions would be in a mosque. It’s not secure, is very visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli surveillance. There are a many better places to store munitions. We investigated two destroyed mosques—one where worshippers were killed—and we found no evidence that either was used as anything but a place of worship.
There is a sinister and foolish notion among certain proponents of insurgency warfare that to fight an insurgency means that civilians will inevitably be killed. But if you give the state authority to be indiscriminate with the lives of civilians in pursuing insurgents, it plays into the hands of the insurgents. Dead bodies are grist to the insurgents’ mill: if the dead are on your side they represent insurgent victories and if the dead are on their side then they have martyrs.
5. What is your view of the claim by Israeli officials that the IDF is the most “moral” army in the world?
Given the tactics, the weapons used, and the indiscriminate targeting, I think this is a dubious claim.
6. What other issues do you think need to be addressed?
We were disturbed by the lethality and toxicity of weapons used in Gaza, some of which have been in Western arsenals since the Cold War, such as white phosphorous, which incinerated 14 people, including several children in one attack; flechettes, small darts that are designed to tumble upon entering human flesh in order to cause maximum damage, strictly in breach of the Geneva Convention; and highly carcinogenic tungsten shrapnel and dime munitions, which contain tungsten in powder form. There is also a whole cocktail of other problematic munitions suspected to have been used.
There are a number of other post-conflict issues in Gaza that need to be addressed. The land is dying. There are toxic deposits from all the munitions that have been dropped. There are serious issues with water—its depletion and its contamination. There is a high instance of nitrates in the soil that is especially dangerous to children. If these issues are not addressed, Gaza may not even be habitable by World Health Organization norms.
Rattling the Cage: Some victims we are: Jerusalem Post
The kill ratio was 100-to-1 in our favor. The destruction ratio was much, much greater than that. To this day, thousands of Gazans are living in tents because we won’t let them import cement to rebuild the homes we destroyed. We turned the Gaza Strip into a disaster area, a humanitarian case, and we’re keeping it that way with our blockade.
Meanwhile, here on the Israeli side of the border, it’s hard to remember when life was so safe and secure.
So let’s decide: Who was the victim of Operation Cast Lead, them or us?
No question – us. We Israelis were the victims and we still are. In fact, our victimhood is getting worse by the day. The Goldstone report was the real war crime. The Goldstone report, the UN debates, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, B’Tselem, the traitorous soldiers of Breaking the Silence and the Rabin Academy – those were the true crimes against humanity. This is what’s meant by “war is hell.”
It is we who’ve been going through hell from the war in Gaza. It is we who’ve been suffering.
Gazans? Suffering? What’s everybody talking about?
We let them eat, don’t we?
This imaginary monologue is how we actually see ourselves today. We initiated the war in Gaza, we waged one of the most one-sided military campaigns anyone’s ever seen – and we’re the victims.
We’re fighting off the world with the Holocaust; witness Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the UN with his Auschwitz props. “We won’t go like lambs to the slaughter again,” vowed his protégé, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, in a cabinet discussion of the Goldstone report.
Auschwitz, lambs to the slaughter, Operation Cast Lead. To Israelis today, it’s all of a piece, it’s one story, one unbroken legacy of righteous victimhood.
The truth is that the State of Israel has never been a victim, and our likening of ourselves to the 6 million has been embarrassing from the beginning – but now? After what we did in Gaza? With the stranglehold we have on that society, while we over here live free and easy?
Victims? Lambs to the slaughter? Us?
No, this has gone beyond embarrassing; this is out-and-out shameful.
And, despite our excuses, it’s not that we’re “traumatized” by the past into believing that we’re still weak, still the frightened, powerless Jews about to be led to the gas chambers. Many Holocaust survivors still believe this, and to some very limited extent, this vestigial fear still takes up space in the Israeli mind.
But by now, 64 years after the Holocaust, 42 years after seeing in the Six Day War how strong we’d become, we know, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, that we aren’t the victims anymore. We know we aren’t a continuation of the 6 million but rather a deliberate and stark departure from them.
THE REASON we tell ourselves and the world that we are victims is because we know, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, that victimhood is power. Victimhood is freedom. A victim can’t be told to restrain himself. A victim fighting for survival can’t be accused of abusing his power because, after all, his back is to the wall, he’s desperate.
On the facts, it’s very hard to convince ourselves, let alone the world, that Gaza and its Kassams have pushed Fortress Israel’s back to the wall, that we’re desperate, that we’re struggling to survive. So, to convince ourselves and the world that this really is so, we do two things.
One, we refuse to acknowledge any facts that mar this image of ourselves as victims, and instead go over and over and over only the facts that fit the picture.
We talk only about the thousands of Kassams fired at Sderot; we never mention the thousands of Gazans we killed at the same time.
We talk only about Gilad Schalit; we never mention the 8,000 Palestinian prisoners we’re holding.
And we never mention our ongoing blockade of Gaza or the devastation it does to those people.
The second thing we do to convince ourselves and the world that we’re still victims is to never, ever, ever let go of the Holocaust – because that’s when we really were victims. Victims like nobody’s ever known, victims a million times worse than the Gazans.
Auschwitz, lambs to the slaughter. Remember us, the people of the Holocaust? That wasn’t the Middle East’s superpower you saw fighting in Gaza.
That was the 6 million.
So you can’t blame us. We’re immune from your criticism. We’re the biggest victims the world has ever known. We’re desperate, so don’t tell us about kill ratios and disproportionate use of force and collective punishment. We’re fighting for our survival.
This is what we tell ourselves and the world, and, in the face of what we did and are still doing in Gaza, it has become intolerable. We are not the 6 million. The 6 million were powerless Jews three generations ago; we cannot wrap our abuses of power in their tragedy.
Instead, let’s take a good, hard look at what we did and what we’re doing in Gaza. Then let’s take a good, hard look in the mirror. And then let’s admit who’s the true victim here and now, and, more importantly, who isn’t.
Israeli blockade strangling Gaza agriculture: The Electronic Intifada
Mya Guarnieri, 29 October 2009
Recently, Israel announced that it would import palm fronds from the Gaza Strip for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The move came at the behest of Minister of Religious Services, Yakov Margi, who feared that a shortage of palm fronds and a local monopoly on the item would send prices skyrocketing for the Jewish holiday, which came in early October this year.
Before the holiday, palm fronds are in high demand as religiously observant Jews build thatched huts that commemorate the 40 years that, according to Biblical tradition, the ancient Hebrews wandered the desert. Once Sukkot begins, however, palm fronds are no longer needed.
Initially, the decision to allow Gaza to export palm fronds seemed like an easing, however small, of the Israeli siege. But according to Gaza’s farmers, exporters and the Israeli non-governmental organization Gisha, it wasn’t.
The announcement came just three days prior to Sukkot. Because palm frond farmers in Gaza have not been able to export their crop since the blockade began in 2007, they were surprised by the decision and were left with insufficient time to harvest, dry and sell their product.
Kamel Aklook is a 43-year-old trader from Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. “In the beginning, I was happy to hear [Israel’s decision to import palm fronds from Gaza],” Aklook said, explaining that he heard about it on Al-Jazeera. “I called my clients in Israel. And then I realized there was no time.”
Aklook believes that the announcement was only intended to bring the prices of palm fronds down. “It was a political decision, just for show,” he said, pointing out that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was under pressure from rabbis to break the local monopoly and lower the cost for Jewish consumers.
Before the siege, Aklook exported palm fronds from Gaza to Israel for more than 20 years. Aklook, his wife and their 12 children enjoyed the fruits of a brisk business with Jewish partners.
The first year of the blockade, Aklook suffered a $55,000 dollar loss and he was forced to throw the unsold palm fronds away. Now he is not working and relies on the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) to feed his family, something he finds humiliating. “To ask for help from anyone, except for God, is dishonorable,” Aklook says.
Jibreel Baraka, a 40-year-old palm frond farmer from Deir al-Balah, told a similar story. “In 2007,” he said, “I prepared 4,000 units for delivery but I didn’t get a permit and they went to waste.”
When palm frond season came this year, Baraka didn’t bother harvesting as he had no expectations of selling it. And the Israeli move to import palm fronds from Gaza didn’t offer any hope, Baraka explained, as it would have taken him at least a week to prepare the crop for export.
Though business was good before the blockade, Baraka is now a subsistence farmer. Still, he worries about his ability to feed his wife and their 13 children. The vegetables they live off of aren’t growing well, he said.
The troubles facing palm frond farmers and exporters underscore the devastating effects of the blockade on the whole of the Gaza Strip’s agriculture industry. In 2008, the second season impacted by the Israeli closure, Oxfam estimated that Gaza’s farmers alone took a $6.5 million hit.
Zachary Hijazi, a carnation farmer, says that he has lost between $9,000 to $10,000 dollars per dunam (the equivalent of 1,000 square meters) of land annually since the siege began.
In 2007, he cultivated and harvested his flowers in hopes of exporting them to Holland, as he had in years past. But in the end, Hijazi couldn’t get his product to market. Like other farmers, he was forced to throw the flowers away or feed them to livestock.
In 2009, with assistance from the Dutch government, Gaza’s carnation farmers, Hijazi included, managed to export just more than half a million flowers to Holland. While Hijazi appreciated the help of the Dutch, he pointed out that before the blockade Gaza’s carnation farmers exported 60 million flowers annually. The trickle of flowers that made it out wasn’t enough.
Israel’s attacks on Gaza last winter made an additional impact on Hijazi’s business; the irrigation pipes were damaged and he was forced to repair them. This is a serious problem facing many of Gaza’s farmers; the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reports that the Israeli incursion inflicted $170 million of damages to the Gaza Strip’s agricultural infrastructure and land. The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture predicts that the agricultural industry will be impacted by an additional $88 million of indirect losses attributable to the bombardment.
Hijazi is now deep in debt due to three failed seasons. And he believes that the world has forgotten about the people in the Strip.
Ahmed Surani, spokesperson for the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee in Gaza, is not only concerned about the economic impact of the blockade. The widespread feelings of hopelessness are worrisome, too. “We feel like we are in a jail,” he said. “We are compressed from all sides.”
Fishermen can’t access the Israeli-controlled Mediterranean Sea. And Israel has stepped up its patrol of the buffer zone, which eats up approximately 25 percent of Gaza’s agricultural land.
Surani points out that this tight control of Gaza’s borders hinders more than exports; it also poses an obstacle to subsistence farming and fishing. Due to the buffer zone, farmers who ordinarily would be able to grow food for their families are severed from their land and must rely on international aid instead, said Surani. Meanwhile, their fields lie fallow.
The total devastation of Gaza’s agricultural sector, which prior to the blockade generated nearly 10 percent of the Strip’s GDP, has serious implications for the future. “It affects the possibility for a viable Palestinian state,” Surani said.
Rehabilitation and reconstruction of the agricultural industry is crucial, according to Surani. Borders must be opened so palm fronds, carnations and Gaza’s other agricultural goods can be exported. The buffer zones must be dissolved so farmers can access their land.
Creating jobs and sustainable activity, Surani said, “gives hope to the people.”
Sari Bashi, director of Gisha, remarked, “The palm fronds are just one example of the potential for mutual benefit — currently stymied — in allowing farmers in Gaza to import raw materials and to export their produce to Israel, the West Bank and third[-party] countries. It is not clear how Israeli security is enhanced by preventing Gaza residents from exercising their right to engage in dignified work.”
Mya Guarnieri is a Tel Aviv-based journalist and writer and a regular contributor to The Jerusalem Post. Her work has also appeared in Outlook India — India’s equivalent to and subsidiary of Newsweek — as well as The National, The Forward, Maan News Agency, Common Ground News Service, Zeek, The Khaleej Times, Daily News Egypt and other international publications.
Norway university to vote next month on boycott of Israel: Israeli Occupation Archive
By Cnaan Liphshiz, Haaretz – 30 Oct 2009
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1124667.html
The university of Trondheim in Norway may become the first university in the West to adopt an academic boycott of Israel, if a majority of its board votes in favor of the move at a meeting on the subject next month.
Three days prior to the November 12 vote by the board of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the institution will host a lecture on Israel’s alleged use of anti-Semitism as a political tool.
The lecture, by Prof. Moshe Zuckermann of Tel Aviv University, is part of a controversial six-session seminar on Israel that is comprised entirely of Norwegians and Israelis known for highly critical attitudes toward Israel.
Prof. Morten Levin, an NTNU lecturer and member of the seminar’s organizing committee, set up the series of lectures – which also featured Ilan Pappe and Stephen Walt – with Ann Rudinow Saetnan and Rune Skarstein. All have signed a call for an academic boycott of Israel.
In a letter this week to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations, Shimon Samuels, called the seminar “a new stage in Norwegian incitement to Jew-hatred” and “outrageously anti-Israel bigotry.”
According to a scientist working at NTNU who spoke to Haaretz on condition of anonymity, the idea of holding a vote on boycotting Israel was modeled on the campaign run by Sue Blackwell, a leading proponent of an academic boycott of Israel in the United Kingdom.
A group of pro-Israel employees of NTNU are currently looking for ways to prevent the boycott from being adopted, drawing on the legal reasoning that in 2007 prompted Britain’s University and College Union – of which Blackwell is a prominent member – to nix plans for a boycott of Israel.
According to people who fought the U.K. boycott motion, it was dropped after legal consultants told UCU officials that a boycott of Israel would violate anti-discrimination laws. “We have to see how similar the laws in Norway are,” the Trondheim scientist said.
“If this were the U.K., [a boycott] would be illegal. But this is Norway, where these things may fly,” said Manfred Gerstenfeld, chairman of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, who has published a book on anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism in the Nordic countries.