EDITOR: Dubai murder further revelations
It seems that most of the Mossad agents have had a role in this operation… now, before any new addition, already 26 agents were identified on this murder job. It seems they were quite concerned with the followup movie which Spielberg must be already working on – there is a broad canvas for many characters; indeed, there might be a musical there! What with their tennis shorts and hockey sticks, it will definitely be a hit. Question: How many Israelis do you need to kill a Palestinian? Answer: as many as possible, but more if they hold UK passports.
Dubai police identify 15 more suspects in Mabhouh murder: The Guardian
Six new suspects in killing of Hamas official were carrying British passports
Dubai police today identified 15 more suspects wanted over the murder of a senior Hamas official in the Gulf emirate last month, including another six who used British passports.
The announcement brings to 26 the total number of people suspected of involvement in Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s assassination, which is widely believed to have been the work of Israel’s secret service, the Mossad. Israel has refused to comment on the accusation.
The six new British names are Mark Daniel Sklar, Roy Alan Cannon, Daniel Mark Schnur, Phillip Carr, Stephen Keith Drake and Gabriella Barney.
A Foreign Office spokesman said the government believed their passport details had been fraudulently used in connection with the assassination.
“We can confirm that six more UK passports have been identified. We will seek to make contact with these individuals and offer consular assistance as we have the previous individuals. We continue to work closely with the Emirati authorities. The foreign secretary and others have made clear we expect full Israeli co-operation.”
It was not immediately clear whether the six new individuals were also resident in Israel.
Dubai police say the newly named suspects provided “logistical support” for the operation.
At least three women were involved in the hit, one of whom used a UK passport. Other suspects were travelling on passports issued by Australia and New Zealand.
The total number of UK passports linked to the case has risen to 12, and French passports to five. The suspected hit squad flew in from Munich, Paris, Rome, Milan and Hong Kong.
David Miliband, the foreign secretary, has described as an outrage the alleged abuse of British passports and an investigation is under way by the serious organised crime agency, Soca. The EU has also condemned passport abuse, without mentioning Israel.
The Dubai authorities said some of those named today were believed to have played preparatory roles in the killing. Many of the suspects had credit cards that were issued by the same US bank.
The authorities have been using immigration records and CCTV images of the suspects to try to piece together what happened in the hours before Mabhouh’s murder.
Israel has said Mabhouh played a key role in smuggling Iranian-supplied rockets into the Gaza Strip and was involved in the abduction and killing of two soldiers 20 years ago.
Hamas leader’s son ‘spied for Israel‘: The Independent
The son of one of the founders of the Hamas militant group was exposed today as a top Israeli informant who helped prevent dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks.
Mosab Hassan Yousef, codenamed “the Green Prince” by his handlers, was one of the Shin Bet security service’s most valuable sources, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said.
His reports led to the arrests of several high-ranking Palestinian figures during the violent uprising that began in 2000, the newspaper said.
Yousef’s father, Sheik Hassan Yousef, was a founding member of the Islamic militant group Hamas in the 1980s. He is currently serving a six-year sentence in an Israeli prison for his political activities.
The younger Yousef converted to Christianity and moved to California in 2007.
The revelation deals another setback to Hamas, which is reeling from the assassination of a leading member in Dubai last month. There have been reports that an insider assisted the killers.
Yousef’s memoir, “Son of Hamas,” is being published next week in the US.
Yousef could not be contacted for comment, but an excerpt from the book on his Facebook page plugs it as “a gripping account of terror, betrayal, political intrigue, and unthinkable choices.” It describes Yousef’s journey as one that “jeopardised Hamas, endangered his family, and threatened his life.”
It also says Yousef’s relationship with the Shin Bet helped thwart an Israeli plan to assassinate his father.
Yousef told the paper Shin Bet agents first approached him in prison in 1996 and proposed he infiltrate the upper echelons of Hamas. He did so successfully and is credited by Israel with saving hundreds of Israeli lives.
Yousef said he hoped to send a message of peace to Israelis, though he remained pessimistic about the prospects for ending the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He had particularly sharp comments for Hamas, the Iranian-backed movement that seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 and has been branded a terrorist organisation by Israel and the West.
“Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels,” he said.
Rachel Corrie’s family bring civil suit over human shield’s death in Gaza: The Guardian
Parents want case to highlight events that led to American activist’s death under Israeli army bulldozer
The family of the American activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza seven years ago, is to bring a civil suit over her death against the Israeli defence ministry.
The case, which begins on 10 March in Haifa, northern Israel, is seen by her parents as an opportunity to put on public record the events that led to their daughter’s death in March 2003. Four key witnesses – three Britons and an American – who were at the scene in Rafah when Corrie was killed will give evidence, according the family lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein.
The four were all with the International Solidarity Movement, the activist group to which Corrie belonged. They have since been denied entry to Israel, and the group’s offices in Ramallah have been raided several times in recent weeks by the Israeli military.
Now, under apparent US pressure, the Israeli government has agreed to allow them entry so they can testify. Corrie’s parents, Cindy and Craig, will also fly to Israel for the hearing.
A Palestinian doctor from Gaza, Ahmed Abu Nakira, who treated Corrie after she was injured and later confirmed her death, has not been given permission by the Israeli authorities to leave Gaza to attend.
Abu Hussein, a leading human rights lawyer in Israel, said there was evidence from witnesses that soldiers saw Corrie at the scene, with other activists, well before the incident and could have arrested or removed her from the area before there was any risk of her being killed.
“After her death the military began an investigation but unfortunately, as in most of these cases, it found the activity of the army was legal and there was no intentional killing,” he said. “We would like the court to decide her killing was due to wrong-doing or was intentional.” If the Israeli state is found responsible, the family will press for damages.
Corrie, who was born in Olympia, Washington, travelled to Gaza to act as a human shield at a moment of intense conflict between the Israeli military and the Palestinians. On the day she died, when she was 23, she was dressed in a fluorescent orange vest and was trying to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home. She was crushed under a military Caterpillar bulldozer and died shortly afterwards.
A month after her death the Israeli military said an investigation had determined its troops were not to blame and said the driver of the bulldozer had not seen her and did not intentionally run her over. Instead, it accused her and the International Solidarity Movement of behaviour that was “illegal, irresponsible and dangerous.”
The army report, obtained by the Guardian in April 2003, said she “was struck as she stood behind a mound of earth that was created by an engineering vehicle operating in the area and she was hidden from the view of the vehicle’s operator who continued with his work. Corrie was struck by dirt and a slab of concrete resulting in her death.”
Witnesses presented a strikingly different version of events. Tom Dale, a British activist who was 10m away when Corrie was killed, wrote an account of the incident two days later.
He described how she first knelt in the path of an approaching bulldozer and then stood as it reached her. She climbed on a mound of earth and the crowd nearby shouted at the bulldozer to stop. He said the bulldozer pushed her down and drove over her.
“They pushed Rachel, first beneath the scoop, then beneath the blade, then continued till her body was beneath the cockpit,” Dale wrote.
“They waited over her for a few seconds, before reversing. They reversed with the blade pressed down, so it scraped over her body a second time. Every second I believed they would stop but they never did.”
While she was in the Palestinian territories, Corrie wrote vividly about her experiences. Her diaries were later turned into a play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, which has toured internationally, including to Israel and the West Bank.
Other foreigners killed by Israeli forces
Iain Hook, 54, a British UN official, was shot dead by an Israeli army sniper in Jenin in November 2002. A British inquest found he had been unlawfully killed. The Israeli government paid an undisclosed sum in compensation to Hook’s family.
Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old British photography student, was shot in the head in Rafah, Gaza, in April 2003 while helping to pull Palestinian children to safety. In August 2005 an Israeli soldier was sentenced to eight years for manslaughter.
James Miller, 34, a British cameraman, was shot dead in Gaza in May 2003. He was leaving the home of a Palestinian family in Rafah refugee camp at night, waving a white flag. An inquest in Britain found Miller had been murdered. Last year Israel paid about £1.5m in damages to Miller’s family.
Dubai identifies 15 new suspects in hit on Hamas chief: Haaretz
Dubai has identified 15 new suspects in the assassination last month of a Hamas official at a luxury hotel, bringing the total number of people believed involved in the death to 26, officials said on Wednesday.
Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed last month in his hotel room in what Dubai police have said they are near certain was an Israeli hit. They said the killers travelled to the Gulf Arab emirate using European passports.
Mabhouh was found dead in a Dubai hotel room in January, and the tiny emirate has named 11 people it believes carried out the killing. Charges that Israel’s Mossad spy agency was behind the assassination have been strengthened in recent days by revelations that six of the suspects entered Dubai on British passports bearing the names of British-born Israelis.
Dubai and Hamas have repeatedly accused Israel of being behind the assassination, but Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said there was no proof Jerusalem was behind the killing.
The new suspects were identified as: Daniel Marc Schnur, Gabriella Barney, Roy Allan Cannon, Stephen Keith Drake, Mark Sklur and Philip Carr, traveling on British passports; Ivy Brinton, Anna Shuana Clasby and Chester Halvey, on Irish passports; David Bernard LaPierre, Melenie Heard and Eric Rassineux, on French passports, and Bruce Joshua Daniel, Nicole Sandra Mccabe and Adam Korman on Australian passports.
“Friendly nations who have been assisting in this investigation have indicated to the police in Dubai that the passports were issued in an illegal and fraudulent manner,” the statement said.
Dubai authorities last week released the identities of 11 people whom they said travelled on fraudulent British, Irish, French and German passports to kill Mabhouh. Two Palestinians suspected of providing logistical support were also in custody.
Dubai police also released passport photos and closed-circuit television footage of the suspects, and said two of them had left Dubai by boat for Iran. Police also released credit card details of some of the suspects. Many were issued by the same U.S. bank.
Police believe more people could have been involved, the statement said.
The use of passports from European Union countries by the killers has drawn censure from the bloc.
More Dubai murder suspects named: Al Jazeera TV
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s murder has been blamed on Mossad by the Dubai police [Reuters]
Investigators in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) say they have identified 15 more suspects in the assassination of a Hamas official at a Dubai luxury hotel last month.
Wednesday’s announcement by Dubai police brings the total number of people believed to be involved in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh to 26.
The January 20 killing, allegedly carried out by people who got into UAE using fraudulent passports, has been blamed on the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, by the Dubai police chief.
The latest list included for the first time three passports attributed to Australian citizens.
Fraudulent passports
The new details bring the total number of passports allegedly connected to the hit to 12 British, six Irish, three French, three Australian and one German.
The police said that all the passports had proved to be fraudulent and that the pictures did not match the names.
Authorities have been using immigration records and CCTV-captured images of the suspects to try to piece together what happened in the hours before al-Mabhouh’s murder.
A spokesperson for Britain’s foreign ministry told Al Jazeera: “We can confirm that six more UK passports have been identified, we will seek to make contact with these individuals and offer consular assistance as we have the previous individuals.
“We continue to work closely with the Emirati authorities. The foreign secretary and others have made clear we expect full Israeli co-operation.”
Israeli ‘ambiguity’
The Israeli government has neither confirmed nor denied any role in the incident, saying it has a “policy of ambiguity” on covert operations.
‘To Israel I am stained with blood’ – Al-Mabhouh speaks to Al Jazeera 10 months before his murder
Alleged Israeli involvement could damage UK ties
Suspicions mount over Hamas murder Hamas has acknowledged that al-Mabhouh smuggled weapons for it.
The Palestinian group, which is opposed to Israel’s existence as an independent state, rules the Gaza Strip after seizing control from its rival Fatah in 2007.
A senior Hamas official, meanwhile, dismissed suggestions that someone within the group had leaked information about al-Mabhouh’s whereabouts endangering his life.
“Some people are trying to say that there was leak inside Hamas [but] we don’t accept that,” Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera on Tuesaday.
“We’ve information that we can share with the authorities and that information clarifies how the Israelis got inside but not through a leak inside Hamas.”
EU condemnation
The previously named British suspects have all been found to be UK citizens living in Israel, and each claims their identity was stolen.
The use of stolen or faked passports to carry out extrajudicial killings has drawn heavy criticism from Israel’s European allies, with all four nations involved summoning their respective Israeli ambassadors for answers.
The European Union on Monday issued a short statement saying that al-Mabhouh’s assassination was “profoundly disturbing” and that its citizens’ rights had been violated.
“The EU strongly condemns the fact that those involved in this action used fraudulent EU member states’ passports and credit cards acquired through the theft of EU citizens’ identities,” it said.
However, no direct mention of Israel was made in the statement.
When Palestinians keep Israelis safe: Haaretz
By Amos Harel
The damage felt by the Mossad over the release of footage of the hit on Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is now likely to be suffered by the Shin Bet security service with next week’s publication of Mosab Hassan Yousef’s memoir.
“The Green Prince” was apparently among the highest ranking agents the security service operated among Hamas’ military wing in the West Bank, the most murderous terror network ever known in the Palestinian territories.
In his book, and in his interview with Avi Issacharoff (to be published in full Friday), Yousef exposes the methods by which the Shin Bet almost entirely obliterated the network by which hundreds of Israelis were murdered in terrorist attacks between 2000 and 2005.
Whether the Shin Bet learned of the book when Haaretz filed its article to the military censor earlier this week, or whether it knew of it earlier, Israel’s internal security service had two options: try to prevent the book’s publication or come to terms with it in the hopes of somehow using it to its advantage in the future.
Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin certainly remembers the precedent of Victor Ostrovsky. When in 1990, Ostrovsky, a former Mossad case officer, was preparing to release his memoir in Canada, then-prime minister Yitzhak Shamir and Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit tried to use the court to keep it off bookshelves.
Their efforts had the opposite effect. Not only did the Canadian court refuse to intervene, but the clumsy Israeli reaction seemed to add credibility to the book’s accounts, some of them clearly exaggerated, and catapulted Ostrovsky to the international bestseller list.
This time, Shin Bet decided not to comment on the matter. As far as is known, no significant pressure was applied on him to prevent the book’s release, or even to prevent Yousef’s former handlers from responding.
It’s doubtful such efforts would ever have worked. Yousef is an extraordinary person who for years has lived on the edge, having violated his loyalty to his father, a Hamas leader in the West Bank, and the movement and nation in which he was raised. He unflinchingly put his life in danger to save Israeli lives, and both Yousef and his former handlers maintain money was not his primary motive.
Since fleeing the West Bank in 2007, he has burned every possible bridge, starting with his Haaretz interview the following year in which he denounced Hamas as a bloodthirsty band of terrorists and announced he had converted to Christianity. Now he has taken this betrayal a step further, revealing that for over a decade he worked for the Shin Bet.
To the Israeli reader – on the assumption that most of the book’s contents are accurate – Yousef is an encouraging figure. As with other reports to emerge in recent years, his collaboration reflects the impressive intelligence coverage Israel has attained over its enemies.
It is common to speak of Israel’s aptitude in signal intelligence, particularly the technological achievements of Unit 8200, the central collection unit of Military Intelligence.
But here is a human source who apparently operated for years in the heart of Hamas’ operational apparatus, providing invaluable intelligence without being exposed.
Israel’s success against Palestinian terrorism, obtained with tremendous effort, has restored the feeling of relative security to citizens’ everyday lives.
The case of the “Green Prince” is now proving that this success may be attributed in no small part to Palestinian agents. It’s safe to assume that unlike Yousef, the vast majority would prefer to remain anonymous.
EDITOR: Following is a recent interview with Judith Butler, in which she speaks, among other things, about the Gaza carnage a year ago, and Israeli society’s reactions to it. Though I am far from agreement with Butler on number of points, I feel it is of interest, if somewhat taken with navel-gazing. However, it seems that Butler has followed the call for the academic boycott, and avoided appearing in Israeli universities altogether, and her position on the hackneyed corpse of the two-state solution seems to be progressive. She has definitely changed her position in the last few years, and moved away from left Zionism, but all this is said in a roundabout way, with clarity lacking, and intellectual courage somewhat absent. What does it take for a Jewish American intellectual to say “I am anti-Zionist”? Apparently much more destruction than has happened up to now. Her reaction to the Gaza carnage was to leave Tel Aviv and go to the Galilee… How radical can you get!?
Judith Butler: As a Jew, I was taught it was ethically imperative to speak up: Haaretz
By Udi Aloni
Philosopher, professor and author Judith Butler arrived in Israel this month, en route to the West Bank, where she was to give a seminar at Bir Zeit University, visit the theater in Jenin, and meet privately with friends and students. A leading light in her field, Butler chose not to visit any academic institutions in Israel itself. In the conversation below, conducted in New York several months ago, Butler talks about gender, the dehumanization of Gazans, and how Jewish values drove her to criticize the actions of the State of Israel.
In Israel, people know you well. Your name was even in the popular film Ha-Buah [The Bubble – the tragic tale of a gay relationship between an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Muslim].
[laughs] Although I disagreed with the use of my name in that context. I mean, it was very funny to say, “don’t Judith Butler me,” but “to Judith Butler someone” meant to say something very negative about men and to identify with a form of feminism that was against men. And I’ve never been identified with that form of feminism. That?s not my mode. I’m not known for that. So it seems like it was confusing me with a radical feminist view that one would associate with Catharine MacKinnon or Andrea Dworkin, a completely different feminist modality. I’m not always calling into question who’s a man and who’s not, and am I a man? Maybe I’m a man. [laughs] Call me a man. I am much more open about categories of gender, and my feminism has been about women’s safety from violence, increased literacy, decreased poverty and more equality. I was never against the category of men.
A beautiful Israeli poem asks, “How does one become Avot Yeshurun?” Avot Yeshurun was a poet who caused turmoil in Israeli poetry. I want to ask, how does one become Judith Butler -especially with the issue of Gender Trouble, the book that so troubled the discourse on gender?
You know, I’m not sure that I know how to give an account of it, and I think it troubles gender differently depending on how it is received and translated. For instance, one of the first receptions [of the book] was in Germany, and there, it seemed very clear that young people wanted a politics that emphasized agency, or something affirmative that they could create or produce. The idea of performativity – which involved bringing categories into being or bringing new social realities about – was very exciting, especially for younger people who were tired with old models of oppression – indeed, the very model men oppress women, or straights oppress gays.
It seemed that if you were subjugated, there were also forms of agency that were available to you, and you were not just a victim, or you were not only oppressed, but oppression could become the condition of your agency. Certain kinds of unexpected results can emerge from the situation of oppression if you have the resources and if you have collective support. It’s not an automatic response; it’s not a necessary response. But it’s possible. I think I also probably spoke to something that was already happening in the movement. I put into theoretical language what was already being impressed upon me from elsewhere. So I didn’t bring it into being single-handedly. I received it from several cultural resources and put it into another language.
Once you became “Judith Butler,” we began to hear more about Jews and Jewish texts. People came to hear you speak about gender and suddenly they were faced with Gaza, divine violence. It almost felt like you had some closure on the previous matter. Is there a connection, a continuum, or is this a new phase?
Let’s go back further. I’m sure I’ve told you that I began to be interested in philosophy when I was 14, and I was in trouble in the synagogue. The rabbi said, “You are too talkative in class. You talk back, you are not well behaved. You have to come and have a tutorial with me.” I said “OK, great!” I was thrilled.
He said: “What do you want to study in the tutorial? This is your punishment. Now you have to study something seriously.” I think he thought of me as unserious. I explained that I wanted to read existential theology focusing on Martin Buber. (I’ve never left Martin Buber.) I wanted look at the question of whether German idealism could be linked with National Socialism. Was the tradition of Kant and Hegel responsible in some way for the origins of National Socialism? My third question was why Spinoza was excommunicated from the synagogue. I wanted to know what happened and whether the synagogue was justified.
To read the whole interview, use link above
Joel Beinin: Confronting Settlement Expansion in East Jerusalem: IOA
By Joel Beinin, Middle East Report Online (MERIP) – 14 Feb 2010
The neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, a 20-minute walk up the hill from the Damascus Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem, has become the focal point of the struggle over the expanding project of Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
In the first week of February a settler in Sheikh Jarrah attacked a young boy from an Arab family evicted so that Jewish activists could move in. The al-Ghawis were displaced in August 2009, and since then they have been living in front of their former home in a tent, refusing to move in protest of the eviction. Settlers have gone after them more than once. On this occasion, an older al-Ghawi, Nasir, was beaten and menaced with an M-16 by a settler when he attempted to protect the young boy. Police arrived on the scene and disarmed the settler. But they also served Nasir with a restraining order forbidding him to enter Sheikh Jarrah for 15 days. Then the police destroyed the al-Ghawis’ tent. The makeshift abode was rebuilt, but the next day police and municipal officials came to the site and threatened to dismantle it a second time.
Police Intimidation
Every Friday since December, Israeli, Palestinian and international demonstrators have gathered in Sheikh Jarrah to protest Jewish settlers’ takeover of the homes of the al-Ghawis and two other Palestinian families in the neighborhood, the Hanouns and al-Kurds, who are also living in tents out front. In Hebrew and Arabic, the activists chant, to the beat of rhythmic drumming: “Thou shalt not steal. Get out of Sheikh Jarrah immediately.” “Sheikh Jarrah is Palestine. Evacuate the settlers.”
The protests have been entirely peaceful. But Israeli police have arrested nearly 100 of the activists, beating many in the process. Among those detained on January 15 was the director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Hagai El-Ad. Another form of police intimidation is the intrusive photographing of protesters by undercover agents posing as journalists. One such “journalist,” later identified through his Facebook page, even physically assaulted a demonstrator with impunity.
At the outset, the demonstrators marched to Sheikh Jarrah from downtown West Jerusalem. But the police will not issue permits for such marches if they are larger than 50 people, and they no longer permit demonstrators or journalists to step into the street where the settlers now live. So the rallies convene in a park nearby. While the demonstrations have grown larger, the number of Palestinians participating has shrunk because the consequences of being arrested are much more severe for them than for Israelis or foreigners.
Police harassment of the evicted families, restrictions on peaceable assembly and the arrest and abuse of demonstrators are all aspects of Israel’s escalating efforts to repress non-violent, popular resistance to the settlement project in the occupied West Bank, which is nowhere more aggressive than in East Jerusalem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stridently excluded Jerusalem from the parameters of the ten-month pause in settlement construction he announced in a belated and partial response to President Barack Obama’s now abandoned demand for a freeze on new settlement activity.
In Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Ras al-‘Amud and other Arab neighborhoods surrounding the Old City, the radical, religious settler organizations Ateret Cohanim and Elad are remaking the demography and geography of the city, making it increasingly unlikely that it could serve as the capital of a Palestinian state. Moreover, the expansion of metropolitan Jerusalem to the east threatens to cut the West Bank in half, undermining the possibility of establishing a contiguous Palestinian state of any sort in the West Bank. Ateret Cohanim, Elad and the settlement project in Ras al-‘Amud are funded heavily by the American Jewish bingo and gambling magnate Irving Moskowitz, who is ideologically committed to “judaizing” the eastern precincts of the city.[1]
Court Battles
Israeli courts do not work on the Sabbath. So anyone arrested on a Friday afternoon, no matter how trivial or spurious the charge, must remain incarcerated until Saturday evening. Hagai El-Ad and 16 others were released at the conclusion of the Sabbath after their January 15 arrest because the Jerusalem magistrates’ court rejected police assertions that the demonstration had required prior authorization because the protesters shouted anti-occupation slogans and used a megaphone.
In defense of the right to peaceable assembly, a much larger group of about 350 people — including Muhammad Barakeh, a Member of Knesset and chairman of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, and former MKs Uri Avnery, Avram Burg and Yossi Sarid — gathered in Sheikh Jarrah the following Friday. The police declared the gathering illegal and arrested 22 demonstrators, loading them onto vans along with their placard declaring, “Jews and Arabs Don’t Want To Be Enemies.” Commenting in his weekly column in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, Sarid wrote, “If the police view Friday’s demonstration as a criminal act, then the democratic right to demonstrate has been destroyed, and Jerusalem has begun to resemble Tehran.”[2]
The demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah erupted in response to an August Israeli court decision evicting the Hanouns and the al-Ghawis, who together number 53 people, including 20 children. The families’ clothing and furniture were dumped on the street and their homes were handed over to a settler organization, which immediately occupied them. The al-Kurd family had been kicked out already, in November 2008. All three families are part of a group of 28 Palestinian refugee families (altogether, approximately 450 people) who were settled in Sheikh Jarrah in 1956 based on an agreement between the UN and the government of Jordan, which then ruled the area.
The Sephardic (Jewish) Community Committee and the Knesset Israel Committee maintain that they have deeds to the properties dating to 1875. After Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 the two committees asserted their claims to ownership. A lengthy legal battle ensued. In 1982 the lawyer for the Palestinian residents agreed to an out-of-court settlement granting them the status of “protected tenants.” This status would ordinarily mean they could not be evicted as long as they continued to pay rent. Nonetheless, the Hanoun and al-Ghawi families were removed in 2002.
They returned to their homes after a 2006 Israeli Supreme Court ruling determined that Jewish claims to the properties were not incontrovertibly established. Subsequently, a Palestinian named Sulayman Darwish Hijazi presented documents showing that his family has owned the buildings since at least 1927. Lower courts have not recognized this evidence of Arab ownership. Consequently, the two families were evicted for a second time in August 2009.
Settler organizations have regularly employed claims of prior Jewish ownership to seize properties in East Jerusalem. Some of these claims are legitimate, as thousands of Jews did live in and around the Old City, including in Sheikh Jarrah, until Jerusalem was divided as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Israeli courts have disallowed some settler claims. But the executive authorities rarely evict Jewish settlers, no matter how dubious the documentary evidence of their ownership. Moreover, no Israeli court has recognized the property rights of any of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have resided in East Jerusalem and the West Bank since becoming refugees in 1948 and who owned land and buildings subsequently included in the territory of the state of Israel.
“We’re Just Cleaning”
Another settlement flash point is the Palestinian village of Silwan (pop. 55,000), which lies south of the Dung Gate of the Old City. There, ancient claims of ownership based on archaeology are being used to dispossess the Arab inhabitants. The Elad Association, whose name is a Hebrew acronym for “To the City of David,” has been subsidizing excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in Silwan since the late 1990s.
Elad believes that Silwan is the site of the original Jewish settlement in Jerusalem established by King David, on a slope below where David’s son Solomon built the first Temple. Some Israeli archaeologists contest this biblical version of the area’s history,[3] and to date no archaeological evidence of King David’s presence in the area or of the existence of a Temple on the scale described in the Bible has been found. The excavations funded by Elad are meant to supply the proof for its claim. In the process, they are destroying the evidence of the presence of many other peoples and cultures on the site — from the Canaanites who established the city 5,000 years ago to the Muslims who ruled it from the seventh to the twentieth centuries.
A videotape of a guided tour of the dig shows that Elad admits it is undermining the structural integrity of the homes of the Arab residents of Silwan. Elad’s founder, David Be’eri, explains, “At a certain point we came to court. The judge approached me and said, ‘You’re digging under their houses.’ I said, ‘I’m digging under their houses? King David dug under their houses. I’m just cleaning.’ He said to me, ‘Clean as much as possible.’ Since then, we’re just cleaning; we’re not digging.”[4]
The epicenter of Elad’s activities in Silwan is a district known to most of its inhabitants as Wadi Hilwa. On January 2, an excavation tunnel dug by Elad caused part of the main road of Wadi Hilwa to collapse, creating an enormous pothole. Although Silwan has been part of what Israeli governments since 1967 have called the “united and eternal capital of the Jewish people,” no police or other municipal authorities were immediately dispatched to the scene. The police arrived only four hours later to help rescue a bus serving the settler population, which had driven into the pothole. Through dubious legal maneuvers and other chicanery, Elad has occupied about 25 percent of Wadi Hilwa.
Be’eri, a former officer in an Israel army unit which specialized in impersonating Arabs, came to Wadi Hilwa in 1986 and, posing as a tour guide, befriended one of the residents, Musa ‘Abbasi. ‘Abbasi unwittingly helped Be’eri collect information on the legal status of houses in the village and which owners were living abroad. Be’eri used this information to petition the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property to have these buildings declared “absentee property.” In October 1991 Be’eri took possession of ‘Abbasi’s house.
Many of the Arab homes in Silwan were built “illegally.” After Israel annexed Arab East Jerusalem in 1967, some villagers who also owned and farmed land in the Hebron area moved back to their property in Silwan and built homes on it in order to maintain their presence. These structures did not appear on the aerial photos of Silwan taken earlier by the Israel Defense Forces and so were declared “illegal.” Others who have lived continually in Silwan expanded their homes or built new ones for their growing families. Since the Jerusalem municipality rarely gives permits for construction by Arabs, they had to build illegally. Demolition orders have been issued for 88 homes sheltering some 3,600 people in the Bustan neighborhood to make room for the expanding settler presence.
Elad has also used fraudulent deeds and purchases conducted through front men to acquire property. In 1992 an Israeli government investigation concluded that Jewish settler organizations had acquired Arab property in East Jerusalem using false affidavits, misapplication of the Absentee Property Law, illegal transfers of public property to private, ideologically motivated associations and illegal transfers of tens of millions of shekels in public monies to settler organizations. Nonetheless, in one recent case that has gained attention, Jerusalem’s right-wing mayor, Nir Barkat, has refused to implement a court order to evacuate “Beit Yonatan” in Silwan, which is occupied by settlers affiliated with Ateret Cohanim.[5]
In 2002 the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority gave Elad a ten-year contract to manage the “City of David National Park” located in Wadi Hilwa. The Israel Antiquities Authority, reflecting the opinions of many professional archaeologists, has expressed reservations about Elad’s excavation methods. But it did not oppose awarding the contract.
Elad also plans to build on the Giv‘ati parking lot, which is used by buses taking tourists to visit the nearby Wailing Wall, the Temple Mount, the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The Israel Antiquities Authorities objected to proceeding with the construction without an archaeological survey of the site. So Elad is now funding salvage excavations aimed at quickly finding and preserving evidence of a Jewish presence in preparation for constructing a large function hall, a commercial center, guest rooms and an underground parking lot. Elad’s presence at the parking lot has taken away the livelihoods of Arab residents of Silwan who formerly worked there, such as Jawad Siyam, who sold souvenirs and refreshments to tourists. Now Elad keeps the tourists away.
Distress and Solidarity
Silwan is one of the poorest parts of East Jerusalem. Its residents pay the same taxes as Israeli citizens but receive few municipal services in return. There are no playgrounds, green parks, public libraries, sports facilities or public medical clinics. The dearth of public services depresses private investment — there are no cafés or cinemas, either. The settler takeover of tourist-related economic activities has further impoverished Silwan. An estimated 75 percent of its children live under the poverty line.
In response to economic distress and settler encroachment, Silwan residents established the Madaa (Horizons) Silwan Community Center in 2007. Danny Felsteiner, an Israeli student in a Dutch musical conservatory, and his wife, Fabienne van Eck, volunteered to teach music in the center during summer visits to Jerusalem. When Danny finished his studies in The Hague, he and Fabienne moved to Jerusalem to teach music at the center on a long-term basis. Danny explains his motivations in an e-mail: “For 42 years the Jerusalem municipality has completely neglected Silwan. Madaa Silwan was the residents’ answer to this neglect and discrimination. I care about this country and this city, and that’s why I put so much effort into giving the children in Silwan what my country, Israel, denies them: the right to be children, to play, to learn, to grow, especially through music. Children are the future of this region, and if we take away their childhood, I’m afraid the future might be darker than the present.”
Danny and Fabienne set up a non-profit foundation in the Netherlands to help fund the center and helped the center’s staff prepare a grant proposal for a ten-month library project. The Dutch legation to Ramallah accepted the proposal and is funding the purchase of books and computers for the library. The grant has allowed the center to hire Muna Hasan, a young Palestinian woman, as librarian. In addition to music instruction, the center now offers classes in art, dance, theater, sports, computer skills and languages. The center promotes non-violent methods to secure the civil and social rights of the residents of Silwan and collaborates with other Palestinian-Israeli organizations like Ta‘ayyush (Coexistence).
The community center has also contributed substantially to transforming Silwan from a center of poverty, drugs and criminal activity into a node in the network of Palestinian grassroots resistance. Riyad, a former drug user, now volunteers at the center and has recently planted a garden in the entryway.
Jawad Siyam, the ex-souvenir vendor and one of the center’s leaders, says, “We are not going to call for freeing Palestine. Each neighborhood has its own problems.” For the residents of Silwan, these local travails are not only the loss of their property and livelihoods, but discrimination in every aspect of their daily lives from the assessment of parking fines to the removal of Arabic street signs and their replacement with Hebrew signs. Wadi Hilwa has become Ma‘alot ‘Ir David, or City of David Heights.
The local character of the struggle in Silwan and the close collaboration between Israelis, many of whom, like Danny Felsteiner, have learned Arabic, and Palestinians are characteristic of popular struggles that have developed throughout the West Bank since Israel began constructing its separation barrier in 2002.[6] The embattled villages of Bil‘in and Budrus, along the route of the wall in the West Bank, are known globally as centers of non-violent resistance to occupation involving Palestinians, Israelis and internationals alike. But it has been more difficult to sustain resistance and establish coordination among Arab residents of East Jerusalem neighborhoods than in villages of the West Bank. Jerusalem is the center of Israel’s power in the West Bank. There are already nearly 200,000 Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem. And the economic dependence of the city on tourism undermines any kind of broad-based militancy.
Silwan is, therefore, exceptional in the Jerusalem area. The Madaa Silwan Community Center has created enough bonding in the community to motivate residents to organize to defend their rights. This strengthened sense of solidarity led to the establishment of the Silwan Information Center, whose mission is “to tell the stories of our forefathers…to all people without reservation, hesitation, intolerance, or racism.” While acknowledging “all the civilizations that have passed through the village,” the Information Center’s website asserts the “historical and humanitarian right” of the Arab residents of Silwan to remain there.
To that end, the Silwan Information Center has effectively used the Israeli civil legal system to challenge some of the property claims of the settlers and succeeded in obtaining the court order to evacuate Beit Yonatan. As Siyam says, “They accuse us of being radicals because we go to court to get our rights. But we don’t go to an Iranian court. We go to an Israeli court.”
As the cases of the al-Ghawis, Hanouns and al-Kurds show, however, Israeli courts have proven unreliable protectors at best of the residency rights of East Jerusalem Arabs. In the face of the settlement’s project’s relentless forward creep, protesters continue to assemble on Fridays to voice their demand: “From Sheikh Jarrah to Silwan, stop [Jewish] colonization.”
Joel Beinin is Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University and a contributing editor of Middle East Report.
Up against the wall: challenging Israel’s impunity: The Electronic Intifada
Jamal Juma’, 24 February 2010
Six years ago, we were busy preparing for the start of the hearings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The world’s highest court was to decide on the legal consequences of Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank, which together with the network of settlements, military zones and Jewish-only roads annexes around 46 percent of Palestinian West Bank land. The court’s decision, months later, was clear: Israel’s wall is illegal, it needs to be torn down and the international community has an obligation to ensure that it is dismantled.
A victory? Not quite. Until today, neither foreign governments nor the UN have joined the Palestinian communities who have been destroyed by Israel’s wall in their efforts to dismantle it. Still, Palestinian villages show incredible perseverance and creativity in protesting the theft of their land and tearing down pieces of the cement blocks or iron fencing. They do so in the face of overwhelming repression.
The year 2004, when the court was deliberating the case, marked the first wave of repression aimed at the grassroots movement mobilizing against the wall. The key features of the Israeli attacks consisted of killings, mass injuries, arrests and collective punishment measures such as curfews, the closing of access to the villages protesting the wall and the denial of permits for farmers and workers to reach their jobs and lands beyond the wall or the “green line,” the internationally-recognized boundary between Israel and the occupied West Bank. The villages in northwest Jerusalem bore the brunt of Israeli violence.
Today the movement against the apartheid wall is once again in the crosshairs of Israeli repression.
A wave of serial arrests of well-known grassroots human rights defenders began this past summer and escalated in September 2009. A vocal advocate of Palestinian rights, Mohammed Othman, youth coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign, was arrested in September when he returned from a speaking tour in Norway. At the beginning of December, Abdullah Abu Rahmah, a key figure in organizing the weekly protests against the wall in the Palestinian village of Bilin, was arrested during a night raid at his home. In mid-December, I was arrested from my home by Israeli forces and taken to an interrogation center where I was kept for one month and then released without charge — a reprisal for my public outcry against Israel’s policies that have reduced Palestine to a number of isolated Bantustans behind cement walls.
We were all interrogated, threatened and intimidated while held in the deplorable conditions of Israeli jails. Othman was released just a day after me, but Abu Rahmah remains in detention.
Similar scenes are playing out in all villages protesting against Israel’s wall across the occupied West Bank. In the Palestinian village of Nilin, to date, Israeli soldiers have shot five persons dead, including a 10-year-old boy, and severely injured almost 500 individuals. Since the beginning of 2010 more than 20 have been arrested.
The arrests do not just focus on active members of the popular committees. Children and minors are particularly targeted because their arrest puts pressure on their families and the community at large. Further, being more vulnerable, Israeli intelligence officers often arrest children to recruit them as collaborators. Lately, in a number of cases, family members of wanted activists have been arrested to pressure those activists to turn themselves in.
Neither I nor other activists in the Stop the Wall Campaign have ever attempted to hide our longtime work as critical voices against Israeli apartheid and the architecture of its occupation. Based on the efforts of the popular committees in each Palestinian village, the Stop the Wall Campaign has been a public and central force of research, analysis and regular news dispatches from our “front line” — our bodies, our voices and our villages up against the wall.
Popular committees have been the basic structure of Palestinian social and political organizing for generations. The creeping criminalization of this social organizing structure therefore not only infringes our right to freedom of expression and association but risks creating a “politicide” and would, if successful, destabilize Palestinian society at its core. During the last six months, this has become Israel’s goal.
In September 2009, at the time when the UN-commissioned Goldstone report was to be officially adopted by the UN Human Rights Council, Palestinian civil society showed its strength in front of Israel and an all-too-compliant Palestinian Authority (PA). The report also contains a chapter describing the sharp increase in Israeli use of force against Palestinians in the West Bank — especially at demonstrations against the wall — during and after the Gaza assault.
The Goldstone report also describes the brutal tactics with which the PA attempted to beat down Palestinian internal dissent at the time. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Ramallah-based PA, attempted to suppress the findings of the Goldstone report, which corroborates Palestinian and international eyewitness testimonies of war crimes committed by Israel during its invasion of Gaza last winter. After the PA’s action at the Human Rights Council in September 2009, Abbas was met by a hefty uproar within Palestinian society and, eventually, pressured by its own constituents, the PA redacted its position on Goldstone.
Especially now that the president’s mandate is expired (since 26 January — which itself was extended for a year under emergency measures), the PA is keenly aware that it is not strong enough to challenge a united Palestinian society, calling for Israel to be held accountable for its crimes. It is clear that Israel also understands this balance of power and has concluded that Palestinian civil society is a force to be reckoned with and therefore should be weakened, if not eliminated.
In a situation where our top leadership is both de jure out of office and de facto too weak to stand up to Israeli and international pressure to defend our interests, such a weakening of civil society would allow Israel even more room to continue its crimes with impunity.
From the bombs dropped in Gaza on an entrapped civilian population, the repression against human rights defenders and the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, to the broad-daylight theft of land and construction of the wall, Israel remains a state that is not held accountable to international law.
Yet there is a window of opportunity opening up in defense of law and Palestinian human rights. In the coming months, the European Union (EU) and its member states will negotiate a new “Action Plan” to implement the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
The fact that this agreement is enacted at all sheds doubts over the acumen of the EU decision-makers: the agreement with Israel seems a contradiction in terms, as article two renders the agreement conditional upon compliance with human rights law and democratic principles. However, to keep a veneer of respect for its own rules and regulations, the EU has started up a “political dialogue” with Israel on its violations of human rights. The result of more than five years of discussions is not only disheartening for Palestinians but also embarrassing for the EU as the only result ever recorded for this “dialogue” is the “willingness” of Israel to talk about the issues.
At last, there seems to be some discontent within EU diplomatic circles about the fact that Israel not only disrespects all human rights and international legal obligations but even imprisons those who try to defend these rights, at a national level and through international advocacy. Yet without sustained civil society pressure, this change in perception will be absorbed into meaningless expressions of “concern,” and no action will be taken.
Member states of the EU have given valuable support to the campaign to release Mohammed Othman and myself. Yet far more decisive pressure from Europe needs to be forthcoming, not just from governments but also from European civil society, to force Israel to change its policies. As long as the EU member states uphold their cooperation agreements with Israel, hide the 2004 International Court of Justice decision against the wall under the carpet, and are unwilling to implement the recommendations of the Goldstone report — even at risk of losing their own credibility — more Palestinian human rights activists will be arrested, detained, tortured, or killed.
An active civil society is a key component of any democratic society and without it justice in Palestine and the rest of the region will remain as elusive as ever.
Jamal Juma’ is a coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign. For more information on the campaign visit stopthewall.org.
Behind Brand Israel: Israel’s recent propaganda efforts: The Electronic Intifada
Ben White, 23 February 2010
“The Delegitimization Challenge” report from the influential Israeli think tank the Reut Institute has put the spotlight on efforts by Israel and the Zionist lobby to counter the growing movement for justice in Palestine, and specifically, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign. The work done by Reut has rightly attracted attention, but it is only one (particularly prominent) example of a wider trend, as the Israeli government and global Zionist groups mobilize to fight the threat to the apartheid system.
It was an issue discussed when Israeli policymakers convened for the recent Herzilya Conference where there was a session called “Winning the Battle of the Narrative: Strategic Communication for Israel.” There was also an associated working paper, prepared by a team that included Ido Aharoni from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), along with senior officials from the prime minister’s office, public relations firms and two key lobby groups — The Israel Project in the US, and Bicom from the UK (“Winning the Battle of the Narrative” (PDF)).
An additional working paper produced for the Herzliya conference was called “The ‘Soft Warfare’ against Israel: Motives and Solution Levers,” produced by a mix of academics and representatives from the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE), the Institute for Policy and Strategy, NGO Monitor and Israel’s MFA (“The ‘Soft Warfare’ against Israel: Motives and Solution Levers” (PDF)).
At the end of last year, another significant conference was convened by Israel’s MFA in Jerusalem, called the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism. Convened by far-right Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Likud Minister of Knesset and settler Yuli Edelstein, included in the program was a working group called Delegitimization of Israel: “Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions.” The aim was to “come up with imaginative, effective and successful solutions to counter this evil [of BDS],” forging strategies of “defense” and “offense.”
Co-chaired by Mitchell Bard and Professor Gil Troy, director of the Jewish Virtual Library and McGill University professor, respectively, the anti-BDS group included figures like Canadian lawmaker Irwin Cotler, the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman, and right-wing pressure group NGO Monitor’s Gerald Steinberg. From North America, there were representatives of the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress and the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism. UK-based participants in the anti-BDS group included members of the Jewish Leadership Council, the Fair Play Campaign Group, the Union of Jewish Students, and the President of the National Union of Students, Wes Streeting.
The participation by key lobby groups outside of Israel is indicative of a growing concern. At the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in November last year, there was a special “forum” on “The International Campaign to Delegitimize Israel,” specifically focusing on BDS. As described on its website, the forum sought to “explore effective strategies that can be utilized by the North American Jewish community, including through the Jewish Federations/JCPA Israel Advocacy Initiative” in response. Speakers at the meeting included senior figures from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA).
Delegates at the assembly passed a motion entitled “Resolution Against Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement.” The resolution declared that “that the BDS movement be regarded with the utmost urgency,” and emphasized “the importance of solid relationships with decision leaders.” It also called for “an effective response and [to] devise a proactive strategy to the BDS movement through appropriate vehicles within the system, especially the Israel Advocacy Initiative, a joint project of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) and The Jewish Federations of North America.” AIPAC’s “Policy Conference” to be held in Washington, DC in March is also going to host sessions on the “delegitimization campaigns” and the pro-Israel student lobby.
There are further, smaller organizations and groupings that have been set up in large part to counter BDS. These include Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Fair Play (UK) and Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine (TULIP). The names of these groups are themselves indicative of a realization that being seen to purely promote Israeli interests is no longer viable — rather, in the words of the UK’s Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI), the key is to stress “co-operation” and “links” in contrast to the “the counter-productive and damaging ‘boycott Israel’ calls.”
The main tactics
In October 2005, the Forward reported that directors from the Israeli foreign ministry, prime minister’s office and finance ministry met to work out “a new plan to improve the country’s image abroad — by downplaying religion and avoiding any discussion of the conflict with the Palestinians.” Although the “Brand Israel” initiative was launched in 2006, its origins can be dated to 2001 when Boaz Mourad, the founder of the Insight Research Group, and Ido Aharoni of the Israeli Foreign Service, “pulled together a branding team for Israel” (including a partner from public relations heavyweight Burson-Marsteller).
During her term as foreign minister, Tzipi Livni appointed Aharoni as head of the “Brand Israel” project, as well as assigning $4 million for the first two years (which is additional to the annual $3 million budget for “hasbara” or propaganda). When it was launched in October 2006, the Israeli MFA promised that Brand Israel would “advance several objectives” including trade, tourism and strengthening “Israel’s positive image” for political reasons.
On 16 March 2008, The Jerusalem Post reported that Brand Israel identified cities like Toronto, Tokyo, London, Boston and New York as locations for “pilot” programs, which could include “organizing film festivals, or food and wine festivals featuring Israel-made products.” Accordingly, by the end of that year billboard advertisements appeared in Toronto promoting Israel as a leader in technological innovation. At the time, Aharoni voiced his expectation that the plan would be rolled out in 2009.
The use of public relations agencies has continued to grow. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, in October 2008, it was the turn of British firm Acanchi, hired by the foreign minister “to craft the new image” (“Foreign Ministry, PR firm rebrand Israel as land of achievements,” 6 October 2008). The firm’s founder toured Israel as part of the mission “to create a brand disconnected from the Arab-Israeli conflict that focuses instead on Israel’s scientific and cultural achievements.” At last month’s Herzliya conference, another leading public relations professional, Martin Kace of Empax, was on stage alongside Aharoni discussing “delegitimization.”
In that session, the Israeli government announced that its central Brand Israel message would be “Creative Energy.” Aharoni presented the concept, described in the “Winning the Battle of the Narrative” paper as repositioning “Israel away from an image of a country in a state of war and conflict to a brand which represents positive values and ideals like ‘building the future,’ ‘vibrant diversity’ and ‘entrepreneurial zeal.'” The idea is to shift the weight “from what Israel wants to say to what audiences abroad are interested in consuming.”
A 21 January 2005 article in The Jewish Week explained that the “Brand Israel” campaign then is all about “fewer stories explaining the rationale for the security fence” and “more attention to scientists doing stem-cell research on the cutting edge or the young computer experts who gave the world Instant Messaging” (“Marketing A New Image, 21 January 2005). Another important group is “Israel21c.” According to its website, Israel21c’s “mission is to focus media and public attention on the 21st century Israel that exists beyond the conflict.” The rationale being that by “promoting positive images of Israel and Israelis, people will come to view Israelis as more like themselves and understand the relevance of Israel to their own lives.” According to a 14 October 2005 article in the Forward, Israel21c was working with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) “on a plan to generate collaborative content” for the lobby group (“Israel Aims To Improve Its Public Image”).
Delegitimizing the delegitimizers
There is also an “offensive” element to Israel’s strategy, one that is currently less developed than Brand Israel tactics, yet likely to come increasingly to the fore. In a 14 December 2009 Jerusalem Post article, Shimon Samuels, the director of international relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, suggested that “propagators of deliberate slurs targeting Israel and, by association, world Jewry, must realize that they may incur a price.” He urged that “a consortium of the best Jewish and pro-Israel legal brains should be on call,” and ready, among other things, “to use the courts in ad hominem defamation.”
A key strategy discussed at the Herzilya conference and the MFA’s Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism is “delegitimizing the delegitimizers.” In addition, the “soft warfare” working paper presented at Herzliya included the recommendation that “research to identify all the key players that initiate and generate hate (as compared to those that disseminate it), with a breakdown by country, religion and ethnicity, in order to analyze their motivations and objectives, estimate the threat and consider possible ways of handling each” (“Delegitimization of Israel: ‘Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions'” (Word document)). One of the purposes of this kind of “systematic, ongoing research, of all anti-Israeli publications, including media analyses, reports, boycotts and on campus activities” is to facilitate the “identification and exposure of and levying pressure on the sponsors of the inciters.” The paper also endorsed legal action “by the Israeli government and by independent entities in Israel and abroad, against media networks, publications, NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and individuals that make defamatory reports.”
This aggressive dimension was also included in the Global Forum’s BDS Working Group document, which included in its vision for a five year plan the proposals to “name and shame” nongovernmental organizations, and meeting “lawfare” with “lawfare.” (In that regard, see “The Lawfare Project” and its upcoming conference in March, where neocon and right-wing Zionist lobbyists, academics, and diplomats, will discuss how to shield Israel from the “abuse” of human rights law: http://www.thelawfareproject.org/about/program.) There is also the idea to form “groups of Jewish/pro-Israel professionals within various national and international professional association/organizations/unions,” in order to pass “anti-discrimination bylaws within the organization that are general in nature, and that do not mention Israel per se, but rather oppose discrimination on the basis of race, religion, nationality, etc.”
Students on campus
Unsurprisingly, given the increasing strength of the Palestine solidarity movement amongst students, campuses are a target of the anti-BDS battle plan. One element of this is the role played by Zionist “ambassadors” like the Jewish Agency’s emissaries (or “shlichim”) scheme. In a 16 December 2009 Jerusalem Post article, Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency, expressed his desire to increase “the number of young Israelis sent to communities in the US and especially the more than 100 shlichim based at universities there.” He also raised the possibility of the likes of Irwin Cotler and US lawyer and Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz “teaching the shlichim before they go [to the US].”
The Herzilya “soft warfare” paper also discussed university campuses (and schools) as the subject of a suggested “proactive public relations” drive. It added that “such public relations should cover both the subject of Israel and its history, and the subject of radical Islam and the dangers it unfolds.” Yet as has been evident for a while now, the anti-BDS push on campus is just as — if not more — likely to emphasize “dialogue” and “narrative-sharing,” as opposed to openly pushing an “Israel first” line. In other words, instead of far-right former-MK Effie Eitam we’ll have the dovish pro-Israel advocacy group J Street “Invest, Don’t Divest” campus programming and two-state solution-peddling One Voice tours.
The reported response of campus Zionists in Canada to Israeli Apartheid Week is instructive and encouraging. Apart from promoting Israel’s “global renown in science, medicine, technology, business, humanitarian aid” and culture, public talks are being scheduled (“Students get ready to counter ‘apartheid lie,'” The Canadian Jewish News, 18 February 2010). There are apparently talks scheduled in Toronto by a Sudanese human rights activist, Arab reporter Khaled Abu Toameh of the The Jerusalem Post, and a self-proclaimed “ex-terrorist” whose mission is to “wake up the body of Christ” to the danger of “radical Islam” (“Students get ready to counter ‘apartheid lie.'”
It is also worth noting the Global Forum’s BDS Working Group’s recommendation that “more money needs to be spent on the programs that already exist in countries like Canada to send non-Jewish student leaders (members of student government, campus organizations, campus newspapers etc.) to Israel to learn the facts on the ground.”
A call for coordination
A common theme in the recently intensified discussion by the Zionist lobby is the perceived need for improved, and centralized, organization and coordination. The Reut Institute’s “Delegitimization Challenge” report pointed to the imperative of reorganizing “the foreign policy establishment” in Israel, including “comprehensive reform within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
The “soft warfare” paper urged the creation of “a state-led, integrated capability,” reflecting what they described as a “broad consensus that a sufficiently-funded government agency is required in order to manage the battle against hate incitement.” The two specific options put forward were “a special unit under Israel’s National Security Council” to run a public relations strategy in association with “pro-Israeli organizations and activists abroad,” or “an entity within the Israeli intelligence community, which would collect, analyze and distribute information, and initiate ‘operations’ in areas relevant to Israel’s public relations campaign.” This latter “entity” could cooperate with groups like Middle East Media Research Initiative (MEMRI), as well as “direct the intelligence agencies to thwart anti-Israeli propaganda efforts.”
The Global Forum’s anti-BDS group talked of the “Jewish community” needing “a war room” that would be “tracking this movement, sharing best practices, coaching communities.” It mentioned that “in North America, the Federation system is talking about launching a coordinating body to fight BDS.” One of the group’s co-chairmen, McGill professor Gil Troy, commented on his blog on The Jerusalem Post’s website earlier this month that there was a new initiative “rumored to be in the works in North America and Israel to help galvanize and centralize pro-Israel sentiment.”
For all those involved in some capacity in the international campaign for justice in Palestine/Israel, and the growing BDS movement, these state-backed efforts can appear rather daunting. The Israeli government and its allies in lobby groups are not short of powerful contacts and money, and there is now a concerted effort to think “strategically.” However, for all the research, conferences and working papers, there is a comical ignorance shaping these responses. A great example of this is can be found in the Global Forum’s BDS paper, which includes the idea to “circulate information on Muslims acting contrary to Islam.” This is on the basis that “if the people of countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia knew their ‘pious’ leaders were really alcoholics, gamblers and perverts, they might hasten regime change.” As if the people in the Middle East are not fully aware of the corruption of their autocrats and dictators — many of whom, of course, enjoy US and Israeli support for their antidemocratic “moderation.”
Moreover, all of this strategizing and energy is needed in order to avoid the manifestly unimaginable truth — that Israel is increasingly unable to maintain a regime of ethno-religious exclusion, apartheid separation and colonial violence without paying a price. Its supporters are also unable to see that it will prove to be unsustainable.
Ben White is a freelance journalist and writer whose articles have appeared in the Guardian’s “Comment is free,” The Electronic Intifada, the New Statesman, and many others. He is the author of Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide (Pluto Press). He can be contacted at ben A T benwhite D O T org D O T uk.