EDITOR: The BBC starts working at last
The Dubai murder is a story which runs and runs again; the more time passes, the more complexities and incongruities are unravelled. More than a month after the murder in Dubai, the BBC publishes a proper report, for the first time. Until now, they contended themselves with being fed by the other sources: Al Jazeera, Haaretz and the Guardian, in the main. Now at last they have conducted some research on the operation, and the report is comprehensive; it gives one the impression that they were not overkeen to properly discuss the events before – a position closely reflecting that of the UK goverment, at least not on the editorial level.
Dubai killing shines unwelcome spotlight on Mossad: BBC
In 1973, a Moroccan waiter working in the Norwegian town of Lillehammer was shot dead by agents of the Israeli foreign intelligence service, Mossad, who mistook him for Ali Hassan Salameh, a Palestinian behind an attack during the previous year’s Munich Olympics in which 11 Israeli athletes died.
Two members of the hit squad were arrested the next day as they reused a getaway car to travel to the airport.
One of them, an inexperienced Danish-born volunteer, provided police with a paper trail that led to the capture and imprisonment of several of his comrades, and sparked a diplomatic incident.
Wanting to recoup the expenses he had incurred during the operation from his Mossad handlers, he had kept his receipts.
Twenty-seven years later, a paper trail – though this time electronic – has once again exposed the work of a group of assassins, pointed the finger of suspicion at Israel, and raised questions about the future of covert operations in foreign countries.
On Wednesday, the police in Dubai identified a further 15 suspects in the killing last month of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a leader of the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas, raising the number believed to have taken part to at least 26.
As with the previous 11, investigators were able to give the names, nationalities and passport numbers the suspects had used, the photographs inside their fraudulent passports, and provide high-resolution CCTV footage showing what they had done.
Using immigration records and receipts from the credit cards used by 14 of the suspects, the authorities were also able to discover the movements of all 26 into and out of Dubai both during an earlier mission last year and around the time of Mr Mabhouh’s death.
According to officials, the suspects flew into Dubai on board separate flights from Europe on 18 and 19 January. Five of them left after less than 24 hours on 19 January – when the killing took place – while the others departed the next day.
Though the paper trail then appears to end, the names and details on the UK passports used by eight of the 12 suspects have so far turned out to belong to British-Israeli citizens living in Israel. All of them have denied involvement.
Even before the apparent link to Israel emerged, Hamas had blamed Mossad for Mr Mabhouh’s death.
Then on 15 February, Dubai police chief Lt Gen Dhahi Khalfan announced that he was nearly “100%” certain that Israeli agents had masterminded the killing.
The five Western countries whose passports were faked – the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Australia – also reacted angrily and immediately demanded explanations from Israeli diplomats.
The Israeli diplomats replied that there was no proof of Mossad involvement, although they did not deny it, in line with their government’s policy of “ambiguity”.
‘Couldn’t be Israel’
Israel’s media and former Mossad agents initially praised the agency for carrying out another successful assassination abroad, but soon Dubai revealed unprecedented information about the operation and it emerged that Israeli citizens had had their identities stolen.
Some commentators have since gone so far as to question whether it was even a Mossad hit, citing contradictions in the initial reports of Mr Mabhouh’s death, the large number of suspects, their inability to evade detection, and the apparent decision by two of them to travel by boat to Iran last year.
“Twenty-six agents, perhaps even 30, sent to assassinate one person? Granted if they could flee the scene by sea, how could one think that Mossad agents would take cover in Iran? I ask myself. Even if they have unprecedented self-confidence the likes of which are unknown?” wrote Yossi Melman in Haaretz.
A former Mossad agent, Rami Igra, also dismissed its involvement due to the assassins’ failure to disable CCTV cameras at key moments and their use of passports belonging to foreign nationals living in Israel.
“It was so stupid, it couldn’t be Israel,” he said. “You don’t go over the speed limit in a place where there are going to be cameras, because you are going to be photographed.”
“The whole thing shows that whoever did it was very unprofessional.”
‘Long-term operation’
Some details about Mr Mabhouh’s killing do, however, tally with past statements by retired Mossad agents with knowledge of the reprisals for the Munich attack.
They say the assassinations were carried out by large numbers of people, in stages. For instance, an investigation by the Norwegian government found 14 people had been involved in Lillehammer.
Once they knew where the mission would take place, the teams would go through practice runs in Israel and arrive at the location no more than a few days in advance, withdrawing as soon as it was over, they add.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who is now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, says Wednesday’s revelations did not change his opinion that Israel was behind the assassination in Dubai.
“This most likely was a Mossad operation. All the signatures – European passports, the way the team moved quickly to leave the country – cumulatively paint a pretty convincing case,” he told the BBC News website.
Mr Riedel says it would have been highly unusual for the hit squad to have visited Dubai using the stolen identities last year just for reconnaissance, as the police claim, and that this may have been an attempt to eliminate the Hamas leader that had failed.
He also doubted that all of the suspects had been in the Gulf just for one mission.
“What the Dubai authorities are uncovering now is not just the assassination team, but probably the entire Mossad station,” he explains. “Dubai would be a perfect place to carry out not just a one-off operation, but a long-term one against Iran.”
A retired officer for Mossad’s covert-operations division, who writes under the pseudonym Michael Ross, agrees that there may have been more than one operation in motion in Dubai.
“If this is a Mossad operation, this is an unprecedented number of combatants deployed for an operation of any kind,” he told the BBC News website.
“Given the relatively scant operational manpower resources available to Mossad, the general rule of thumb has always been, ‘never send two when one is enough and never send three when two is enough’.”
Mr Ross says the use of a mix of cloned, manufactured and authentic passports by the assassins “do not follow any document protocols that I recall”. The use of credit cards from US bank is also “very odd”, he says, given the co-operation between Israel and the US.
“It would be disingenuous to say Israel wasn’t involved in some fashion, but I think there are more aspects and international players involved in this case than are visible to the naked eye,” he adds.
‘Authentic’ documents
The Dubai killing has also raised questions about the future of covert operations.
With the widespread introduction of CCTV, biometric identification data and interconnected immigration control centres, will agents be able to continue to fake passports and work abroad undetected as they could a decade ago?
Many countries’ new passports have chips that hold easily verified data such as retina scans, which are both unique and unfakeable – though the chips may be faked. The data generated when someone takes a flight, crosses a border, uses a credit card or makes a call makes it increasingly easy to find them even if they change their identity.
“Biometrics pose a real problem for the use of alias identities by intelligence services. Officers travelling and operating under cover will have to make sure their documents are ‘authentic’,” says Mr Ross.
He believes the assassins did not anticipate that the Dubai authorities would be so comprehensive in their investigation or generate so much attention.
Many countries’ new passports have chips that hold easily verified data
“We live in the surveillance era and this is now an integral component of planning for modern intelligence-gathering and covert operations. No top-tier intelligence service conducts operational activity without first gathering all the necessary operational intelligence required – especially concerning existing security measures in place.
“In my view, there was a gross underestimation of the reaction of the Dubai authorities given the UAE’s close relationship with the West and the rather odious past activities of Mr Mabhouh, who used no less than five alias identities himself.”
Mr Riedel says Israel will not necessarily mind the adverse coverage, however, as it sends a clear message to militants that Mossad can target them wherever they are.
Intelligence agencies will simply find something to counter every technological advance, as they have in the past, he adds.
“The game of espionage is not about to go out of business because of CCTV.”
Arab source: Mitchell wanted to quit over U.S. bias for Israel: Haaretz
An Arab political source said Friday that special U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell has requested to resign due to his frustration with the way the Obama administration has been handling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to a Nazareth-based daily.
Hadith a-Nass reported that Mitchell’s request stemmed partly from to his own failure to advance the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and also from his perception that certain elements within the State Department hold biased favor toward Israel.
The White House turned down Mitchell’s request, according to Hadith a-Nass.
No verification of the report was available.
Peace talks were halted more than a year ago over the war in the Gaza Strip and have not resumed, due largely to a Palestinian demand that Israel first impose a complete freeze on building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Israel’s refusal to do so.
A new working paper released by the Palestinian indicates that the Palestinian Authority has warned it may abandon its support of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which outlines a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel.
The Palestinians are instead intending to pursue the creation of a binational state between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, according to a document drafted by the PA’s veteran chief negotiator.
EDITOR: The NYT position on Palestine/Israel
I have pointed out more than once or twice that the NYT is takinga clear position on Palestine: they report good news stories from Israel, but when the news is less auspicious, it seems to be absent from their pages altogether. Jonathan Cook deals here with the NYT Jerusalem bureau chief, and has a unique relationship to Israeli Jewish society, as has been widely reported. The reporting of his son serving in the Israeli army was brushed away by the NYT as some irrelevant pest; let us consider the possibility of a reporter for any of the western media, whose son is a Hamas fighter, for example? Are you joking? Surely, such a person could not be trusted to be objective, with his son in Hamas?
What people do not see or hear can hardly disturb them…
Jonathan Cook: Ethan Bronner and Conflicts of Interest: IOA
A recent assignment of mine covering Israel’s presumed links to the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh provoked some more thoughts about the New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner. He is the Jerusalem bureau chief who has been at the centre of a controversy since it was revealed last month that his son is serving in the Israeli army. Despite mounting pressure to replace Bronner, the NYT’s editors have so far refused to consider that he might be facing a conflict of interest or that it would be wiser to post him elsewhere.
Last week, when suspicion for the assassination in Dubai started to fall on the Mossad, a newspaper editor emailed to ask if I could ring up my “Israeli security contacts” for fresh leads. It was a reminder that Western correspondents in Israel are expected to have such contacts. The point was underlined later the same day when I spoke with a leftwing Israeli academic to get his take on Mabhouh’s killing. I had turned to this Ashkenazi professor because he counts many veterans of the security services as friends. At the end of the interview, I asked him if he had any suggestions for people in the security services I might speak with. He replied: “Talk to Eitan Bronner. He has excellent contacts.” Naively, I asked how I could reach this expert on the veiled world of the Israeli security establishment. Was he employed at the professor’s university? “No, ring the New York Times bureau,” he responded increduously. Oh, that “Eitan”!
A more interesting question than whether Bronner is now facing a conflict of interest over his son serving in the Israeli army is whether the NYT reporter was facing such a conflict long before the latest revelations surfaced. Could it be that it is actually incumbent on Bronner, as the NYT’s bureau chief, to have such a conflict of interest?
Consider this. The NYT has form when it comes to turning a blind eye to reporters with conflicts of interest in Israel — aside, I mean, from the issue of the reporters’ ethnic identification or nationality. For example, I am reminded of a recent predecessor of Bronner’s at the Jerusalem bureau — an Israeli Jew — who managed to do regular service in the Israeli army reserves even while he was covering the second intifada. I am pretty sure his bosses knew of this but, as with Bronner, did not think there were grounds for taking action.
Shortly after I wrote an earlier piece on Bronner, pointing out that most Western coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict is shaped by Jewish and Israeli journalists, and that Palestinian voices are almost entirely excluded, a Jerusalem-based bureau chief asked to meet. Over a coffee he congratulated me, adding: “I’d be fired if I wrote something like that.”
This reporter, who, unlike me, spends lots of time with the main press corps in Jerusalem, then made some interesting points. He wishes to remain anonymous but has agreed to my passing on his observations. He calls Bronner’s situation “the rule, not the exception”, adding: “I can think of a dozen foreign bureau chiefs, responsible for covering both Israel and the Palestinians, who have served in the Israeli army, and another dozen who like Bronner have kids in the Israeli army.”
He added that it is very common to hear Western reporters boasting to one another about their “Zionist” credentials, their service in the Israeli army or the loyal service of their children. “Comments like that are very common at Foreign Press Association gatherings [in Israel] among the senior, agenda-setting, elite journalists.”
My informant is highly critical of what is going on among the Jerusalem press corps, even though he admits the same charges could be levelled against him. “I’m Jewish, married to an Israeli and like almost all Western journalists live in Jewish West Jerusalem. In my free time I hang out in cafes and bars with Jewish Israelis chatting in Hebrew. For the Jewish sabbath and Jewish holidays I often get together with a bunch of Western journalists. While it would be convenient to think otherwise, there is no question that this deep personal integration into Israeli society informs our overall understanding and coverage of the place in a way quite different from a journalist who lived in Ramallah or Gaza and whose personal life was more embedded in Palestinian society.”
And now he gets to the crunch: “The degree to which Bronner’s personal life, like that of most lead journalists here, is integrated into Israeli society, makes him an excellent candidate to cover Israeli political life, cultural shifts and intellectual life. The problem is that Bronner is also expected to be his paper’s lead voice on Palestinian political life, cultural shifts and intellectual life, all in a society he has almost no connection to, deep knowledge of or even the ability to directly communicate with … The presumption that this is possible is neither fair to Bronner nor to his readers, and it’s really a shame that Western media executives don’t see the value in an Arabic-speaking bureau chief living in Ramallah and setting the agenda for the news coming out of the Palestinian territories.”
All true. But I think there is a deeper lesson from the Bronner affair. Editors who prefer to appoint Jews and Israelis to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are probably making a rational choice in news terms — even if they would never dare admit their reasoning. The media assign someone to the Jerusalem bureau because they want as much access as possible to the inner sanctums of power in a self-declared Jewish state. They believe – and they are right – that doors open if their reporter is a Jew, or better still an Israeli Jew, who has proved his or her commitment to Israel by marrying an Israeli, by serving in the army or having a child in the army, and by speaking fluent Hebrew, a language all but useless outside this small state.
Yes, Ethan Bronner is “the rule”, as my informant notes, because any other kind of journalist — the goyim, as many Israelis dismiss non-Jews — will only ever be able to scratch at the surface of Israel’s military-political-industrial edifice. The Bronners have access to power, they can talk to the officials who matter, because those same officials trust that high-powered Jewish and Israeli reporters belong in the Israeli consensus. They may be critical of the occupation, but they can be trusted to pull their punches. If they ever failed to do so, they would be ejected from the inner sanctum and a paper like the NYT would be forced to replace them with someone more cooperative.
When in later years, these Jerusalem bureau chiefs retire from the field of battle and are promoted to the rank of armchair general back at media HQ – when they become a Thomas Friedman paid to pontificate regularly on the conflict — they can be trusted to talk to those same high-placed officials, explaining their viewpoint and defending it. That is why you will not read anything in the NYT questioning the idea that Israel is a democratic state or see coverage suggesting that Israel is acting in bad faith in the peace process.
I do not want here to suggest there is anything unique about this relationship of almost utter dependence. To a degree, this is how most specialists in the mainstream media operate. Think of the local crime reporter. How effective would he be (and it is invariably a he) if he alienated the senior police officers who provide the inside information he needs for his regular supply of stories? Might he not prefer to turn a blind eye to a scoop revealing that one of his main informants is taking bribes, if publishing such a story would lose him his “access” and his posting? This is a simple cost-benefit analysis made both by the reporter and the editors who assign him that almost always favours the powerful over the weak, the interests of the journalist over the reader.
And so it is with Israel. Like the crime reporter, our Jerusalem bureau chief needs his “access” more than he needs the occasional scoop that would sabotage his relationship with official sources. But more so than the crime reporter, many of these bureau chiefs also identify with Israel and its goals because they have an Israeli spouse and children. They not only live on one side of a bitter national conflict but actively participate in defending that side through service in its military.
This is a conflict of interest of the highest order. It is also the reason why they are there in the first place.
The Mossad hit and Israel’s path of self-destruction: The Electronic Intifada
Hasan Abu Nimah, 25 February 2010
The assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas official in Dubai, almost certainly by a death squad dispatched by Israel’s Mossad, is by no means the first such aggression against the sovereignty of another state. While Israel has literally gotten away with murder thousands of times, was this one killing too far?
Israel has a long, bloody history of murder, sabotage and outright terrorism all over Europe, in Beirut, Tunis, Amman, Damascus and now Dubai. And that is just what we know about. All of this is allegedly in “self-defense” against “terrorism” even though the Zionist movement in Palestine invented the sort of modern terrorism for which the Middle East became known. It started with countless Zionist bomb attacks on Palestinian civilians from the 1930s, often in markets and cafes, the bombing of the King David and Semiramis hotels in Jerusalem in the 1940s claiming dozens of innocent lives, and the murder of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte. These crimes, on top of the long history of massacres of Palestinians, Lebanese and other Arabs over the past six decades, were all worn as badges of honor by Zionist leaders including Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir who later became prime ministers.
Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who according to reports personally approved the killing of al-Mabhouh, must have thought it would be a great achievement celebrated by the “civilized” world that is engaged still in a “war on terror.” The so-called “international community,” after all, has helped Israel isolate Hamas and labels it a “terrorist” organization despite Hamas’ diplomatic overtures, repeated offers of truces and ceasefires, and the mandate it won at the ballot box.
Unfortunately it is not working out that way this time. Counting on the usual international complicity was not that unrealistic on Israel’s part. Indeed there has been no clear condemnation of the act of extrajudicial execution of al-Mabhouh, in a hotel room, apparently by electrocution and smothering with a pillow according to The Daily Mail (UK). What has been greeted with indignation is the forging of passports and identity theft.
Meeting in Brussels, EU foreign ministers strongly condemned the abuse of passports, but did not have the courage to publicly name Israel even though several governments including the UK and Ireland had already summoned their Israeli ambassadors. The British and Irish foreign ministers even directly confronted their Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman, who was also in Brussels.
Mossad, the Israeli intelligence and international murder agency, has a long history of using fake and stolen passports of countries including Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany. It notoriously used fake Canadian passports during the attempted murder of Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Amman in 1997. Countries view their passports much like their currencies — their credibility and value must be defended. The lives of their citizens may well depend on it; an Irish, British or German citizen has to be able to travel all over the world without fear that he or she will be suspected of being a Mossad assassin.
Several years ago, New Zealand, a country of three million people, broke off diplomatic relations with Israel over the use of its passports by Mossad. But apart from that example, most countries have been too timid to confront Israel. That Lieberman refused to provide any additional information or even acknowledge an Israeli role in the Dubai attack when he met with the European foreign ministers is a sign that Israel still feels safe displaying arrogance and lawlessness, because it knows the “international community” has never dared to hold it accountable.
This time, however, Israeli arrogance may have exceeded the limits of what has been tolerated so far, and turned what was supposed to be an “heroic” act into a scandal with far-reaching consequences. There are some specific and general factors that contribute to that. First, the crime was committed on the territory of a moderate Arab country whose support for peace with Israel has been practically translated into unofficial bilateral relations. A high-level Israeli delegation had been in the country only days before the Mossad hit squad arrived. Showing so much contempt for a leading moderate Arab state gives a very bad example for any other state that might consider softening its position toward Israel (as the United States had been demanding as “confidence-building measures” for the “peace process”).
A second factor is that Israel mostly used stolen identities of living people, whose very public shock and fear at waking up to find their names splashed over the newspapers and linked to a murder, could not easily be hidden.
A third factor is that the Israeli adventure in Dubai carries the traits of just the kind of terrorist act the world has been mobilizing to fight. Improvements in passport security were introduced in recent years to stop terrorism, but here is a country violating and sabotaging these security measures in order to commit murder.
We cannot assume that the assassination in Dubai will be the straw that breaks the back of Israeli immunity and impunity, but we can be sure that the general erosion of Israel’s standing as a result, particularly of its aggressive recent wars on Lebanon and Gaza, means that what was tolerated by the world more easily five or ten years ago, is less tolerated now. Global public disgust at Israeli actions has reached levels that may require governments who normally prefer complicity and silence to act.
And when there was a “peace process,” Israel’s crimes particularly against Palestinians were ignored in the interests of not damaging relations or slowing momentum toward the hoped-for successful conclusion. But no one today — except the most naive or delusional — believes that there is any peace process. Despite Israel’s efforts to blame the Palestinians, only the most pro-Israel extremists deny that Israel’s aggressive colonization in Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as the siege on Gaza, is what killed any prospect of a negotiated solution for the foreseeable future.
Consider that just days before the passport affair broke out, Israel was once again pressuring the UK to change its laws to protect Israeli officials from arrest for war crimes should they visit London. Although British officials had publicly expressed shameful enthusiasm to tailor UK law to meet Israeli needs, they may now face real public opposition if they attempt to change it. What interest does the UK have to protect the likes of Tzipi Livni from arrest if the facts and evidence make it necessary?
The truth is that as it becomes desperate, Israel is turning ever more wild and dangerous, not only for its neighbors but for world peace, security and prosperity. Without constant pressure from the Israel lobby, there may have been no invasion of Iraq. Today, it is Israel and its apologists who are constantly inciting confrontation and war against Iran when most of this region wants peace and good relations.
Even if the countries harmed by Israel’s latest brazen act do not hold it properly and adequately accountable — as they must and should — it appears that it is on a path of self-destruction. The great fear is how much more harm it will do to others on the way.
Hasan Abu Nimah is the former permanent representative of Jordan at the United Nations. This essay first appeared in The Jordan Times and is republished with the author’s permission.
EDITOR: The Two State dream lost
If the apparachiks of the PNA are now admitting that there is no future for the two state solution, because of what Israel has done over the last 43 years, than it is really dead and buried… the only problem is – who is going to tell this nice President Obama?
Palestinians threaten to adopt one-state solution: Haaretz
By Akiva Eldar
The Palestinian Authority has warned that it may abandon its support of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which outlines a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel, and instead pursue the creation of a binational state between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, according to a document drafted by the PA’s veteran chief negotiator.
The paper, entitled “The Political Situation in Light of Developments with the U.S. Administration and Israeli Government and Hamas’s Continued Coup d’etat,” was written by Saeb Erekat in December 2009.
It cites several methods of nonviolent resistance in light of the continued stagnation of the Mideast peace process. Among them are putting an end to security cooperation with Israel unless negotiations are resumed. This would mean the disbanding of the Palestinian security forces which have been trained by the U.S. security coordinator for the region, Gen. Keith Dayton, and potentially bolstering Hamas’ role in maintaining order in the West Bank.
The document also raises the possibility of announcing the nullification of the Oslo Accords and even the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority. The chaos that would result from such a move, the document states, would force Israel to reassert military control over the entire the West Bank.
The third option proposed in the document – and possibly the most disconcerting from an Israeli perspective – is abandoning the pursuit of a two-state solution with Israel, and instead working toward a binational state that would exist on all the lands of historic Palestine.
Erekat told Haaretz that the third option is not his preferred course of action, but simply the default option based on what he called Israel’s continued refusal to return to the negotiating table on the basis of terms agreed upon between Israel and the PA during the previous U.S. administration.
The 21-page document was sent in recent weeks to several leading policy scholars, the majority of whom work in Europe. In his paper, Erekat outlines the understandings reached during George W. Bush’s administration, including the PA’s willingness to consider compromising on its long-held insistence on the Right of Return.
According to the document’s English translation, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert that his government would be willing to accept the return of 150,000 Palestinian refugees to Israel within the framework of a final-status agreement.
The Palestinians, Erekat wrote, agreed to the return of 15,000 refugees a year over 10 years. Thereafter, refugees would only be permitted to settle in Israel through an agreement between both sides. The document’s original Arabic version does not state how many refugees will be allowed to return to land that is now defined as Israel.
Erekat describes Hamas as an obstacle to reaching an agreement with Israel. His document states that the Fatah leadership is pushing for next month’s Arab League summit in Tripoli, Libya to demand that Hamas state whether it supports a final-status agreement. Such a statement, Erekat said, would determine whether Hamas stands within the Arab consensus, or is more in line with Iranian policy.
Haaretz probe: Dubai assassins’ passport photos were doctored: Haaretz
The passport photographs of the agents who assassinated Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai were doctored so the agents would not be identified, a Haaretz probe has discovered.
The discovery casts doubt on claims that the espionage agency that carried out last month’s hit on the senior Hamas operative committed grave errors.
Various features of the people in the photographs, such as eye color or the line of a lip, were changed – slightly enough so as not arouse suspicion at passport control, but still enough that the real agent could not be recognized.
According to the Dubai police, only a few of the agents were caught on security cameras without their disguises. However, it had been assumed until now that publication of the photos of the 26 agents had blown their cover. Now it appears that the Dubai police still do not have viable information about their real appearance.
Mabhouh was known for his disguises and for using various passports to run weapons into the Gaza Strip, according to an associate who lived in Gaza and later spent two years abroad with Mabhouh. The associate told Reuters on Thursday that Mabhouh had several passports, all from Arab countries, and had even undergone plastic surgery recently to narrow his nose.
The associate also said that Mabhouh never revealed his plans to anyone, not even his wife. He said Mabhouh always ordered his plane tickets by himself, over the web or through a travel agent, and had not visited Iran in the past three years.
Mabhouh’s brother Fayek also told Haaretz that Mabhouh was very cautious, and on his last trip, he did not even tell his family where he was going. But a senior Hamas leader has intimated that Mabhouh was not careful enough. Fayek said his brother flew to Dubai on a Palestinian passport, but under an assumed name.
Mabhouh’s killing has led to a wave of recriminations between Fatah and Hamas and between Hamas and Israel. According to the Dubai police, a senior Hamas official gave Israel information about Mabhouh’s flight. Some in Hamas have also criticized the fact that Mabhouh was not guarded.
Meanwhile, the newspaper The Australian reported on Thursday that Australian authorities had previously warned Israeli intelligence not to use doctored Australian passports in its clandestine activities around the world.
The Australian foreign minister at the time, Alexander Downer, confirmed to The Australian that his government had warned Israel on at least one occasion not to issue fake Australian passports to its intelligence operatives. And a diplomatic official in Canberra told The Australian that back in the 1990s, Australia also sought assurances from Israel that it would not misuse Australian passports.
On Wednesday, the Dubai police announced that they had identified 15 more people suspected of involvement in Mabhouh’s killing, of whom three used forged Australian passports. Haaretz found that at least 10 of the 15 new suspects were carrying passports with the names of Israeli citizens who are also citizens of another country.
In response to the report from Dubai on the forged Australian passports, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith held a clarification meeting Thursday morning with Israel’s ambassador to Canberra, Yuval Rotem. Smith said the Australian government condemned the use of Australian passports. He also informed Rotem that the Australian federal police had opened an investigation and that he expected Israel’s full and transparent cooperation.
At this point, Smith added, there is no evidence that the three Australians whose names were used on the passports, Adam Marcus Korman, Joshua Daniel Bruce and Nicole Sandra McCabe, were implicated in the affair in any way.
EDITOR: Another anti-Obama snide act
This is definitely not nice, not at all; first they promise to President Obama to ‘freeze’ the settlements’ building plan, and immediately afterwards some nasty people do all they can to humiliate him by going on with the bulsing programme, of which this is just the latest example. Don’t they care at all about his feelings?
Israel planning to build 600 more homes in East Jerusalem: Haaretz
Israel has plans to build another 600 homes in East Jerusalem, Haaretz has learned.
The plan approved by a district planning commission could further stymie U.S.-brokered efforts to renew stalled peace talks as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who has insisted on a total settlement freeze including in Jerusalem.
Israeli spokesmen for the Jerusalem municipality and the Interior Ministry that oversees the planning commission were not immediately available for comment.
A similar building plan proposed late last year for elsewhere in the Jerusalem area drew international condemnation.
Palestinian official Ghassan al-Khatib denounced the decision as “another Israeli violation of international law”.
He said it threatened to derail efforts to resume negotiations that have not convened since the war in Gaza in December 2008.
Khatib, a former cabinet minister who heads the Palestinian press office, said Palestinians would pursue what he called a “peaceful, legal, public struggle against Israeli settlement expansion and occupation”.
Israel has also been criticized for court-approved evictions of Palestinians from homes in East Jerusalem and threatened demolitions of other houses it says were built illegally.
More homes are intended to be built near the Pisgat Zeev neighbourhood and the Palestinian area of Shuafat, but that the original plan had been scaled back to 600 from an original 1,100 when it was learned some of the land was owned privately by Palestinians.
More than 200,000 Israelis already live in East Jerusalem and nearby areas of the West Bank that Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War and considers part of the biblical city it sees as its it sees as its
eternal and indivisible capital.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as capital of a future state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu excluded Jerusalem from a 10-month moratorium in settlement building he ordered in November.
The World Court has ruled that all the settlements Israel has built in these territories are illegal.
EDITOR: The debate about the nature of Zionism
Ari Shavit, a typical right wing pundit of the Israeli Zionist left, argues with Netanyahu about the best method to preserve Zionism; It is surprising – only 43 years after the occupation started, and already Shavit is arguing for a retreat… The position is typical of the Zionist left, which is racist and fears the mix with the Palestinian population, and the fact that Israeli apartheid can no longer be covered up. So, if apartheid (‘seperation’ in Africaans) then let us have apartheid – let us separate altogether, in order to save the “Jewish democracy’ and Zionism. Have they not slept for far too long, one wonders? Did they not read the news for all those years?
But the most significant fact here is that the debate now is about saving Zionism, not from its enemies, but from itself. Well, it seems to be doomed.
To preserve Zionism, Netanyahu must end the occupation: Haaretz
By Ari Shavit
Finally there is a vision. Speaking to Haaretz earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defined for the first time his vision of the future: Israel as a global technology leader, grounded in its values and moving toward peace from a position of power. You can like the vision or hate it, accept it or reject it, but now it is clear what Netanyahu is proposing against Peace Now of the left, and how he is dividing those in the center. His overall goal is now apparent.
Two elements in this vision are not new. Netanyahu has always believed that Israel must be an economic power, based on high technology and the free market; he has also always believed that Israel can achieve peace, but only from a position of political, military and economic power. The third part of the vision, however, is new. Unlike in the past, Netanyahu is now positing a national goal related to identity: the need to anchor Israel to national values that will remain valid and appealing through the 21st century.
The prime minister tried to define this third goal during the Herzliya Conference, but it was received with ridicule and contempt. His attempt to address issues that are not political or strategic and to confront questions of identity was perceived as bizarre. But Netanyahu is not giving up. He sees an urgent need to find a balance between economic and technological globalization and the deepening of the Judeo-Israeli identity. For him, the issue of values remains central, serving as the basis for national strength and security. Netanyahu understands that without renewing the Zionist narrative there will be no Zionist future.
At the celebratory cabinet meeting in Tel Hai this week, his government adopted a program for restoring and reinforcing national heritage. Once again, the decision was derided and ridiculed. Secular France invests greatly in commemorating its cultural and national heritage, while democratic United States glorifies its past and speaks incessantly about its uniqueness and greatness, and yet this is forbidden for Israel.
It is forbidden to preserve David Ben-Gurion’s home in Sde Boker, or the Herzl House in Hulda, or Kinneret Farm, or the Ben Shemen Youth Village. It is forbidden to preserve the water tower at Negba, or the homes of the first settlers at Kfar Giladi. It is forbidden to preserve the treasures of Hebrew song, Hebrew dance and Hebrew theater. It is forbidden to preserve the manuscripts, photographs and films documenting the beginning of the Zionist enterprise. It is forbidden because any attempt by Israel to preserve the assets of its past is an anachronism, unenlightened and tainted by flawed nationalism. It is forbidden because any attempt on the part of the Jewish people to tell its story deserves to be condemned and silenced.
The absolute misunderstanding of the Herzliya speech and the mad assault on the effort to preserve national heritage sites suggests that Netanyahu touched a sensitive nerve. The original plan prepared by the cabinet secretary, Zvi Hauser, did not include the Tomb of the Patriarchs or Rachel’s Tomb. This proves unequivocally that the values the government sought to renew are not the values of the settlers in Yitzhar or Itamar; these are the values of the settlers of Ruhama and Revivim, the founders of Gedera and Rosh Pina, and those who established Tel Aviv. These are the values of Bezalel, Habima, the National Library and Neve Tzedek.
The unbridled assault on the plan, therefore, is not an attack on the right and the occupation. It is an attack on the values that have shaped and defined us. An attack on Israel’s core identity.
Something bad has happened to us over the last generation. The struggle against the war in Algeria did not lead the French left to turn against the French Republic. The struggle against the wars in Vietnam and Iraq did not lead the American peace movement to abandon belief in the United States. But in Israel, the drawn out and justified struggle against the occupation has led to us turning our back on Zionism.
Netanyahu is doing something important in trying to revive Zionism, but without confronting the occupation his effort will fail. If Israel is to be a global technological leader, grounded in its values and moving toward peace from a position of power, it must gradually leave the territories. The prime minister deserves a good word this week, but he must know that only if he removes Israel from Yitzhar and Itamar will he have the strength to restore it to what was promised at Ruhama, Kinneret, Hulda and Rosh Pina.
EDITOR: The Israeli Human Rights movement tries to strike back
Now, that the Israeli government treats the NGOs dealing with human rights, as well as a range of other liberal organisations in Israel, almost as enemies, they are rising to defend themselves and their work. Indeed, they are right to do so, but too late. As long at the whole society accepted and overlooked the barbaric way in which Palestinians were treated for decades, and almost 100% of the Israeli public backed the Gaza attack started in December 2008, they have forfeited the right to argue for a liberal, democratic society, and undermined the morality of such claim. By going along with the occupation and its iniquities for so long, they have lost the foundation for their own work. Their work can only be defended if they thenselves defend the full rights of the Palestinians under military occupation. Otherwise, they just serve as the fig leaf of that brutal occupation.
Israel’s NGOs must operate freely: The Guardian CiF
Following attacks on the New Israel Fund, a Knesset bill restricting rights organisations risks eroding democratic culture
Antony Lerman
The vicious, McCarthyite attack on the New Israel Fund (Nif), which uses philanthropic funds to foster and support Israeli non-profit, civil society organisations, did not come out of the blue. The ultra-nationalist group, Im Tirzu, which blamed Nif for the Goldstone report, falsely claiming, as Jonathan Freedland showed, that more than 90% of the report’s information came from groups funded by the Nif, was exploiting a climate of vilification of such groups created by the Netanyahu government since it came to power a year ago.
Following the assault on the Nif, and the personal attack on its president, the civil rights champion Professor Naomi Chazan, the Knesset decided to set up a committee to investigate foreign funding of Israeli civil society organisations. Emerging from the committee was a bill that is supposed “to increase transparency and repair loopholes in legislation in relation to the financing of political activity in Israel by foreign political entities”. Supported by members of the Knesset from both the coalition and the opposition, there is every likelihood that this bill will become law within a month.
By using a very broad definition of “political activity”, in reality, the measure will severely restrict a wide range of civil society organisations from carrying out their work. First, their tax-exempt status would be removed, which means that they would have to pay tax on donations. Even more damaging, government and private donors are generally legally restricted from paying taxes to a foreign government, so losing tax-exempt status would threaten these groups’ ability to receive donations entirely. Second, any representative of one of these groups appearing in public – even for a mere 30 seconds – will be legally bound to state, at the outset, that their organisation receives foreign funding. This would restrict freedom of speech. Third, members of such organisations will face the same legal constraints as the officials, a provision that would almost certainly produce a decline in support.
In fact, the law is unnecessary as not-for-profit organisations already have to be completely transparent about their funding, mission and work. It will affect groups concerned with human rights, women’s rights, the environment, migrants, peace and social change. They will be publicly delegitimised and suffer increased state monitoring. Their employees and members will face arrest, prosecution, fines and up to one year in jail.
The law will legitimise a process that is already under way: a wave of assaults on Palestinian and Israeli activists and organisations opposing the occupation has already taken place. Non-violent Palestinian resistance has been quashed by Israeli security forces and Palestinian organisers and activists have faced night-time raids and arrests.
A recent survey seems to suggest that there is the potential for a high degree of tolerance and approval of these actions, especially where human rights groups are concerned. The War and Peace Index of Tel Aviv University last week published results of a poll of Israel’s Jewish residents, which showed that 57% agreed that, in the case of an external conflict, human rights are less important than the national security crisis. In such a climate, the incitement against human rights groups by rightwing columnists must surely find a receptive audience. Not to mention the reports and op-eds by rightwing NGOs and thinktanks.
For example, Seth T Frantzman brands human rights activists as fifth columnists, by claiming they are taking EU money, constitute a European lobby and pursue the EU’s alleged anti-Israel agenda. Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor bizarrely states that the way they operate is a “grotesque distortion of democracy”. The influential Reut Institute recently issued a report arguing that Israel is in existential danger of delegitimisation by radical groups abroad. The Netanyahu government already seems to have taken this message to heart and will no doubt see foreign-funded civil society groups as contributing to this process.
Israel’s democracy has never been perfect. Nor, for that matter, has the democracy of any other country. But over time, with the liberalisation of politics and the economy, a lively democratic culture began to develop. Nevertheless, the country’s claim to be a beacon of western democratic norms has been fatally undermined by the state continuing to treat its Arab population as second-class citizens and by the absence of democratic rights for the Palestinians under its control in the occupied territories. The development of Israel’s civil society institutions over the last few decades has come about partly as a response to this democratic deficit.
It’s hard to credit that a country that wants to be seen as on a par with EU members doesn’t understand that it’s a sign of democracy in practice to allow civil society organisations to operate freely. Restricting them in the way the new law proposes will thus undermine Israel’s democracy. The political landscape, especially as reflected in the Knesset, is already unreceptive to alternative civil society views. The coalition ranges from pragmatic right to ultra-right; the opposition includes a large pragmatic right; and there are almost no defenders of civil liberties. Laws have been proposed that target minorities, outlaw commemoration of the Naqba and abandon Israel’s commitment to the UN convention on refugees.
The further erosion of democracy in Israel will only make it harder than ever to reach comprehensive peace and guarantee the country’s future security.
EDITOR: The morality of murder
In its editorial today, the Israeli broadsheet Haaretz has tackled the wisdom of the Dubai murder, or so it says. It has no problem with the murder itself, it seems, or with the morality of extrajudicial killing, practced by Israel for so long. The only scuples they discuss are operational:
“The main question pertains to the planning of the operation, or operations, in which the 26 holders of false passports were involved. It seems that the planners did not take into consideration Dubai’s ability to cross-reference information from surveillance cameras in the airport, hotels and malls with computerized information from its passport control.”
So there we have it. It is OK to kill people, but not to caught doing so, or to leave evidence behind. Thank you, Haaretz, for settling this issue once and for all.
Will the Dubai hit increase Israel’s global isolation?: Haaretz Editorial
These are the known facts: The Dubai police claim that 26 visitors entered and exited the emirate over the past year on false British, Irish, Australian, German and French passports. Some or all were involved in the assassination of senior Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who also entered Dubai under a false identity. The Dubai police chief has accused the Mossad of the January 19 hit. He has presented no proof, but more than half of the fake passports in Dubai bore the names of Israelis.
The European Union and the countries whose passports were counterfeited have criticized the misuse of their identity documents without mentioning the names of those responsible. French President Nicolas Sarkozy termed the assassination utterly unjustified – “nothing more than a murder.” Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in Mabhouh’s killing or in falsifying the documents, but former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Dan Halutz said that such actions attributed to Israel “deter terror organizations.”
It is unclear whether terrorist groups are more deterred than in the past. What is clear is that the plot is thickening as more suspects are uncovered. If the claims of Israel’s responsibility are correct, what appears to be cumulative damage is getting worse.
The main question pertains to the planning of the operation, or operations, in which the 26 holders of false passports were involved. It seems that the planners did not take into consideration Dubai’s ability to cross-reference information from surveillance cameras in the airport, hotels and malls with computerized information from its passport control. Even if none of the suspected agents were caught in the act, clearly they will have difficulty taking part in similar actions in the future. It’s also possible that the investigation will lead to the exposure of other suspects or other operations. A week before the hit on Mabhouh, a nuclear scientist was killed in Tehran, and Iranian leaders accused Israel.
The group that took out Mabhouh was exposed due to one weak point: the use of false passports from Western countries bearing the identities of real Israelis with dual citizenship. From now on, it will be much more difficult to use such passports, and all Israelis with dual passports will be suspected of being intelligence agents. There is no doubt that this revelation endangers, or at least complicates, other operations.
Did Mabhouh’s assassination justify taking such a risk? Was there negligence or contempt for the adversary on the part of the planners, the commanders and those who approved the operation (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to foreign reports)? Were other operations compromised, that were even more essential than the killing of a Hamas weapons smuggler? Is criticism by countries whose passports were falsified just for the record, or will it limit operatives’ freedom of action in other hits? Will the affair increase Israel’s international isolation and present it once again as a lawless state?
If foreign reports are true about Israel’s responsibility for the Mabhouh hit and the forged passports, then a thorough clarification is warranted, which can lead to conclusions about both organizations and individuals.
A lover of Israel: Haaretz
By Gideon Levy
It isn’t Purim every day, so I’ll allow myself this madness: to dress up as a lover of Israel. Not the kind I consider myself to be in any case – that is, no less a lover of Israel than my readers – but the sort that is the total opposite of a traitor and an Israel hater. When I was a child, my mother dressed me up as a girl, an Indian and a cowboy, all opposites of the little boy I was. Now I’ll be – if only today, if only in memory of my mother – an Israel lover.
Cry, the beloved country. For one day, I’ll take pleasure in all my country does. I’ll wax enthusiastic over the assassination in Dubai, hang a giant picture of Mossad chief Meir Dagan in my study, paint horns on New Israel Fund president Naomi Chazan, worship Avigdor Lieberman and his ministry of terror and rage. I’ll admire his deputy minister, Danny Ayalon, for how he showed the Turks who’s the boss.
I’ll shed a tear with Israel Defense Forces soldiers being sworn in at the Western Wall, and the blue-haired Hadassah ladies at Masada. I’ll go wild with emotion over our field hospital in Haiti, and count the number of Jews who died in the earthquake, as well as how many there are in Hollywood. I’ll take pride in the salutation “Good evening, Tel Aviv” by any aging visiting singer who loves us. I’ll join public sing-alongs with Einat Sarouf and Yair Lapid at the Ganki Club – what could be more Israeli than that? – and I’ll support the Jewish right of return to homes in Sheikh Jarrah, the shooting of Arab demonstrators and the citizenship law the prevents Palestinians from living with their Israeli spouses in Israel proper.
I’ll take every foreign visitor straight to Sderot to see the collection of rusty pipe bombs, and from there to Yad Vashem. Of course I won’t let him enter Gaza; that goes without saying. I’ll convince him that the entire world is against us and that we are in constant existential danger.
I’ll shake with fear from swine flu, bird flu, the Iranian nuclear bomb, the Pakistani nuclear bomb, weapons smuggled through tunnels from Egypt, the dropping water level of the Kinneret, Hezbollah, Nasrallah and Allah the Great. I’ll believe that the yellow phosphorus bomb smoke that rose over Gaza was from fireworks to entertain children, imagine that efforts to warn Gaza residents that their homes are about to be bombed is a humanitarian gesture by the National Association for the Mentally Handicapped, and that “clearing” olive trees is an Environmental Protection Ministry campaign to improve the Gaza landscape.
I’ll hungrily accept every response by the IDF spokesman, believe every politician and Channel 2 military reporter Roni Daniel, and be convinced beyond doubt that the Israeli army is the most ethical in the world – not third or second but No. 1.
In general, I’ll believe we’re No. 1 in everything, except for soccer. Tel Aviv is New York, the Galilee is Tuscany, and the People of the Book are truly the People of the Book. We are David and they are Goliath, we are Zion and they are Amalek; after all, we among all the nations were chosen.
I’ll count how many Nobel Prizes Jews have produced for humanity. I’ll talk about the Jewish brain, Jewish genius and of course, Jewish ethics. I’ll cry out every time a Jew in Europe is robbed, and shout “anti-Semitism!” I’ll compare Ahmadinejad to Hitler, Arafat to Eichmann, the 1967 borders to Auschwitz – just don’t make any comparisons between IDF soldiers’ behavior and the Holocaust. I’ll believe that the Arabs fled on their own free will in 1948, that the 416 ruined villages never existed, that there was no ethnic cleansing here, no Nakba – all of that is just Arab propaganda.
I’ll think we are forbidden to forgive Arabs for having forced us to kill their children, that now after the Holocaust, Jews may do whatever they like, that all the wars were imposed on us from above, and if there were no terror, there would be no occupation, and that all Israel wants is peace and two states. I’m even ready to believe there are no pre-conditions to negotiations: Let’s build in the territories, oppose the Arab right of return, keep Jerusalem united forever, annex the Golan Heights, demilitarize the Palestinian state, keep Jewish settlement blocs, Ariel and the Bekaa.
What’s wrong with that, just for one day?
I’ll support turning every high school into a pre-army training center, with generals in the teachers’ rooms and master sergeants instead of janitors. I’ll paste a “Combat is coolest, Bro” sticker on my car. I’ll click with disapproval when shoes are thrown at the Supreme Court president, but not comment when the army and the Jerusalem Municipality insult her. I’ll believe that there’s only one Gilad Shalit and not 11,000, and that values and good citizenship mean an ultra-light plane flyover with a banner in support of his release.
I’ll cry at every memorial rally for Yitzhak Rabin, and believe that if he hadn’t been murdered we’d have peace. I’ll spit on Goldstone, boycott J Street, call Rahm Emanuel a self-hating Jew, censure Norway and threaten Sweden for anti-Semitism; of course it’s anti-Semitism. I’ll be proud of pilotless drones, Cast Lead and Iron Domes. And of course, of Bar Refaeli – she’s so ours.
Ultimately, every day is Purim.
Divestment Resolution Passed: Umdunderground
Thursday, 25 February 2010 13:10
University of Michigan – Dearborn Student Government
General Assembly Resolution # 2010-003
Whereas, this wise body has been known to be one of strong moral and social conscience and has in the past supported justice and international law, and
Whereas, U.N General Assembly Resolution 194 resolves that the Holy Places – including Nazareth – religious buildings and sites in Palestine should be protected and free access to them assured, in accordance with existing rights and historical practice, and
Whereas, U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 further resolves that all refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be provided for the destroyed properties of those choosing not to return and for loss of, or damage to property that under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible, and
Whereas, the aforementioned situations prove that Israel clearly and inexcusably is in continued violation of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194, and
Whereas, Israel is further in violation of many related U.N. resolutions, including Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, and 446, and
Whereas, Israel is further in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which calls on all occupying powers to protect the rights and well-being of the occupied population, and
Whereas, the U.N.’s own assessment, the Goldstone Report, found evidence of potential war crimes and crimes against humanity, and
Whereas, University of Michigan Regent policy, as expressed in their meeting of March 16, 1978, states:
“If the Regents shall determine that a particular issue involves serious moral or ethical questions which are of concern to many members of the University community, an advisory committee consisting of members of the University Senate, students, administration and alumni will be appointed to gather information and formulate recommendations for the Regents’ consideration.”; and
Whereas, there are serious moral and ethical questions concerning the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and
Whereas, the University is known to have several million dollars of investment in corporations that sell weapons, goods, and services to Israel—including BAE, Raytheon, Boeing, General Electric, United Technologies, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman, among others–whom in turn uses the weapons, goods, and services inhumanely and
Whereas, any University investments in entities contributing to human rights violations by either Israelis or Palestinians is inappropriate,
THEREFORE be it Resolved, (1) that the University of Michigan-Dearborn Student Government will lead a movement to collect petition signatures calling on the Board of Regents to form such an advisory committee, and
Be it further Resolved, (2) that the University of Michigan-Dearborn Student Government calls on the Board of Regents to create an advisory committee to determine if any University investments are questionable and in need of appropriate corrective actions, and
Be it further Resolved, (3) that on behalf of the students at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, we will urge this committee to recommend immediate divestment from companies that are directly involved in the ongoing illegal occupation, because we deem these investments to be profoundly unethical and in direct conflict with the mission of this University.
Join the Second Global BDS Day of Action 30 March 2010: BNC (BDS National Committee)
Posted by RORCoalition on Wed, 01/13/2010 – 10:00
The BDS National Committee (BNC) is calling on you to unite in your different capacities and struggles for a Global BDS Day of Action on 30 March 2010 in solidarity with the Palestinian people and for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
The BNC calls on people of conscience and their organizations around the globe to mobilize in creative, concrete and visible BDS actions to make this day a historic step in the movement against Israel’s apartheid, colonialism and occupation, for accountability of the oppressor and for the fulfillment of the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people.
The BNC asks you to focus your 30 March BDS actions on:
1.Boycotting and divesting from Israeli and international corporations that sustain Israel’s apartheid, colonialism and occupation;
2.Taking legal action towards ending Israel’s impunity, including by investigating and prosecuting suspected Israeli war criminals in national courts and international tribunals;
3.Promoting and applying pressure to implement arms embargoes against Israel as well as a freeze or cancellation of free trade and other preferential agreements with it, as a crucial and urgent step towards full- fledged sanctions against Israel;
4.Launching academic, cultural and sports boycott actions against Israel and its complicit institutions.
The first Global BDS Day of Action was announced by Palestinian civil society with overwhelming support at the World Social Forum in 2009. The day of action held on March 30 coincides with Palestinian Land Day, which commemorates the day in 1976 when Israeli security forces shot and killed six young Palestinian citizens of Israel. These brave youth were among the thousands protesting expropriation of Palestinian land to build new Jewish colonies and expand existing Jewish cities. Today, Land Day symbolizes Palestinian resistance to Israel’s ongoing land expropriation, colonization, occupation and apartheid.
The announcement of the first Global BDS Day of Action came in the wake of the Israel’s 23 day military offensive “Operation Cast Lead” during which it killed more than 1400 and injured over 5000 Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. One year later, Israel continues its suffocating blockade of the entire Gaza Strip in what has been described by human rights experts and analysts as an act of ‘slow genocide.’ This is but a continuation of Israel’s brutal oppression of the Palestinian people, including their expulsion from their homes during the Nakba in 1948, military rule, occupation and colonization of their land, apartheid, and persistent denial of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands.
In the 2009 BDS Day of Action, numerous NGOs, trade unions, student organizations, political parties and social groups in over 40 cities worldwide took up the call for globally coordinated BDS action coming from the 2009 World Social Forum. BDS activities on that day targeted, among others, companies such as Connex, a subsidiary of the multinational Veolia complicit in building the Jerusalem light rail system connecting Israeli colonies in the occupied West Bank to Jerusalem; Chapters Indigo bookstore, whose profits fund ‘lone’ Israeli soldiers; the supermarket giant Tesco, which stocks an assortment of illegal settlement goods; and Motorola, supplier of telecommunications and electronic systems for the Israeli occupation forces.
Since then, the global BDS campaign has grown. Students, private sector firms, trade unions, and other civil society actors worldwide have come to see that Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people cannot be tolerated any longer and have accordingly adopted diverse forms of BDS against Israel until it ends its oppression of the Palestinian people and fully complies with international law. This past year alone, trade unions, faith-based organizations, student groups, and many other civil society movements and organizations have engaged in BDS campaigns aimed at holding Israel accountable for its violations of international law and fundamental Palestinian rights.
For justice, freedom, peace and self-determination of the Palestinian people: Join the Global BDS Action Day on 30 March 2010!
Implementation of the Palestinian BDS Call is now more urgent than ever.
Our movement is stronger than ever.
The massive growth of the BDS Campaign against Israel and multinational corporations and institutions complicit in its oppression of the Palestinian people is starting to make a serious and tangible impact
Through effective BDS campaigns we can pressure Israel to end its inhumane siege of the occupied Gaza Strip, dismantle the Apartheid Wall, end occupation and colonization of Palestinian land, grant full equality to Palestinian citizens of Israel, and implement the right of return of the Palestinian refugees as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.
Join us NOW!
For more information see: www.bdsmovement.net
For information on how to join the action day and how to develop BDS action in your country, organization and network, please contact the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) at: info@bdsmovement.net
Listen to the Heroes of Israel: ICH
By John Pilger
February 25, 2010 “Information Clearing House” — -I phoned Rami Elhanan the other day. We had not spoken for six years and much has happened in Israel and Palestine. Rami is an Israeli graphic designer who lives with his family in Jerusalem. His father survived Auschwitz. His grandparents and six aunts and uncles perished in the Holocaust. Whenever I am asked about heroes, I say Rami and his wife Nurit without hesitation.
Soon after when we met, Rami gave me a home videotape that was difficult to watch. It shows his daughter Smadar, aged 14, throwing her head back, laughing and playing the piano. “She loved to dance,” he said. On the afternoon of 4 September, 1997, Smadar and her best friend, Sivane, had auditions for admission to a dance school. She had argued that morning with her mother, who was anxious about her going to the centre of Jerusalem. “I didn’t want to row,” said Nurit, “so I let her go.”
Rami was in his car when he turned on the radio to catch the three o’clock news. There had been a suicide bombing in Ben Yehuda shopping precinct. More than 200 hundred people were injured and several were dead. Within minutes, his mobile phone rang. It was Nurit, crying. They searched the hospitals in vain, then the morgue; and so began, as Rami describes it, their “descent into darkness.”
Rami and Nurit are two of the founders of the Parents Circle, or Bereaved Families Forum, which brings together Israelis and Palestinians who have lost loved ones. “It’s painful to acknowledge,” he said. “but there is no basic moral difference between the [Israeli] soldier at the checkpoint who prevents a woman who is having a baby from going through, causing her to lose the baby, and the man who killed my daughter. And just as my daughter was a victim [of the occupation], so was he.” Rami describes the Israeli occupation and the dispossession of Palestinians as a “cancer in our heart.” Nothing changes, he says, until the occupation ends.
Every “Jerusalem Day” – the day Israel celebrates its military conquest of the city – Rami has stood in the street with a photograph of Smadar and crossed Israeli and Palestinian flags, and people spit at him and tell him it was a pity he was not blown up, too. And yet he and Nurit and their comrades have made extraordinary gains. Rami goes to Israeli schools with a Palestinian member of the group, and they show maps of what ought to be Palestine, and they hug each other. “This is like an earthquake to children who have been socialized and manipulated into hating,” he said. “They say to us, ‘You have opened my eyes.’”
In October, Rami and Nurit sat in the Israeli High Court while the state counsel, “stammering, unprepared, and unkempt,” wrote Nurit, “stood like a platoon commander in charge of new recruits and refuted … the allegations.” Salwa and Bassam Aramin, Palestinian parents, were there, too. Tears streaked Salwa’s face. Their ten-year-old daughter Abir Aramin was killed by an Israeli soldier firing a rubber bullet point-blank at her small head while she was standing beside a kiosk buying sweets with her sister. The judges seemed bored and one of them remarked that Israeli soldiers were rarely indicted, so it would be best to forget it. The state counsel laughed. This was normal.
“Our children,” said Nurit at a rally last December to mark the anniversary of the Israeli assault on Gaza, “have learned this year that all the disgusting qualities which anti-Semites attribute to Jews are actually manifested among our leaders: deceit, greed, and the murder of children … What values of beauty and goodness can we squeeze into such a sophisticated apparatus of brainwashing and reality distortion?”
Rami now tells me the High Court has decided to investigate the case of Abir Aramin after all. This is not normal: it is a victory.
“Where are the other victories?” I asked him.
“In America last year, a Palestinian and I spoke five times a day in front of thousands. There is a big shift in American public opinion, and that’s where the hope lies. It’s only pressure from outside Israel – from Jews especially – that will end this nightmare. People in the West must know that while there is a silence, this looking away, this profane abuse of Israel’s critics as anti-Jew, they are no different from those who stood aside during the days of the Holocaust.”
Since Israel’s onslaught on Lebanon in 2006, its devastation of Gaza in 2008-9 and Mossad’s recent political murder in Dubai, the criminality of the Israeli state has been impossible to disguise. On 11 February, the influential Reut Institute in Tel Aviv reported to the Israeli Cabinet, which it advises, that violence had failed to achieve Israel’s ends and had produced worldwide revulsion. “In last year’s Gaza operation,” said the report, “our superior military power was offset by an offensive on Israel’s legitimacy that led to a significant setback in our international standing and will constrain future Israeli military planning and operations …” In other words, proof of the murderous, racist toll of Zionism has been an epiphany for many people; justice for the Palestinians, wrote the expatriate Israeli musician Gilad Altzmon, is now “at the heart of the battle for a better world.”
However, his fellow Jews in Western countries, particularly Britain and Australia, whose influence is critical, are still mostly silent, still looking away, still accepting, as Nurit said, “the brainwashing and reality distortion.” And yet the responsibility to speak out could not be clearer and the lessons of history — family history for many — ensure that it renders them culpable should their silence persist. For inspiration, I recommend the moral courage of Rami and Nurit.
JCPA Taking Direct Aim at Anti-Israel Boycotters: Forward
By Gal Beckerman
With anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions efforts gaining visibility, the Jewish community’s main public-policy coordinating body is for the first time confronting the BDS movement as a specific and stated priority.
At its recent annual plenum, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs passed a resolution stating that BDS should now “be regarded with the utmost seriousness and urgency.”
“This is a very serious matter,” JCPA’s executive director, Rabbi Steve Gutow, told the Forward. “We need to wake up, whether we are on the right, left or center.”
The JCPA, an umbrella body representing Jewish community relations councils across the country and more than a dozen leading national Jewish groups, adopted the anti-BDS resolution at its plenum in Dallas on February 23. Gutow said that JCPA member groups are planning to create a permanent body that would respond to the activities of the BDS movement.
While efforts to promote boycotts, divestment and sanctions targeting Israel are nothing new, an international BDS movement embracing a shared platform emerged only in 2005, in response to a call from Palestinian NGOs. Thus far, the BDS movement has taken various forms in different places, pushed forward by decentralized groups of activists around the world with the aim of branding Israel as an international pariah, drawing inspiration from efforts against apartheid South Africa. In the United States, the movement has launched boisterous public demonstrations, such as those that have greeted the Israel Ballet on its current American tour.
The text of the JCPA’s resolution explained that worries about the BDS movement are rooted not so much in the prospect of near-term successes for the anti-Israel effort — which, at least in America, have been few — but rather that “unless effectively countered, over time it may have the corrosive effect of changing the culture of political discussion and making it harder for people of goodwill to publicly support Israel. If support for Israel begins to be seen as de facto racism, this could provide fertile ground for the growth of anti-Semitism.”
For the BDS movement, negative branding of Israel is precisely the objective. It is the justification offered for targeting of anything related to Israel, even academic institutions or cultural events that are not explicitly political.
Andrew Kadi, a leader of Adalah-New York, a pro-Palestinian group in the BDS coalition, helped organize the protest targeting the Israel Ballet in cities where it appeared on its American tour. Pickets were set up in front of performances in Burlington, Vt., Boston and Brooklyn. Activists dressed as ballerinas, held signs that read, “Pas de deux or arabesque/The occupation is grotesque” and passed out mock programs — tactics echoing those employed by Soviet Jewry activists in the 1970s who protested New York performances of Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet and distributed fake playbills.
The BDS movement has raised its profile with these efforts, as well as with its campaigns targeting companies that the movement says are implicated in Israel’s occupation of what it considers Palestinian territory. Ahava beauty products from the Dead Sea and Caterpillar earth-moving equipment have both been the targets of such campaigns. But Kadi and others connected with BDS make clear that the movement is not limited to targeting Israel’s presence in territory it conquered in 1967.
“It is a boycott of Israel,” Kadi said. “It would be absurd to just boycott one manifestation of the state and not the state itself.”
Kadi said that he saw the reaction of the JCPA and other American Jewish organizations as an indication of the BDS movement’s effectiveness.
The resolution passed at the JCPA plenum lays out few concrete steps for beginning to combat the BDS movement. Along with the commitment to take the BDS threat more seriously, the resolution proposed responding “swiftly to false or distorted media statements about Israel,” educating Jewish professionals and students about the “nature, tactics and dangers of the BDS movement” and countering boycotts with campaigns to encourage the purchase of Israeli goods.
Gutow said that a meeting is planned for March in which the leaders of the various JCPA member groups will discuss how to more fully implement a counter campaign.
“We don’t have anything concrete yet in place,” Gutow said. “But our heads are all thinking in the direction of a coalition throughout North America that will allow us to confront this stuff comprehensively and on the ground.”
A call from Montreal artists to support the international campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid…
Today, a broad spectrum of Montreal artists are standing in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom and supporting the growing international campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli state. Last winter, the Israeli state launched a violent military assault on the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip, leaving over 1400 Palestinians dead, including over 300 children. Despite the official end of military operations, the blockade continues to this day, with devastating consequences for Gaza’s residents.
Over 60 years from the beginning of the ongoing Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) in 1948, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from historic Palestine through Israel’s creation, Montreal artists are united in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice.
500 Artists against Israeli Apartheid: Tadamon
Montreal artists are now joining this international campaign to concretely protest the Israeli state’s ongoing denial of the inalienable rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as stipulated in and protected by international law, as well as Israel’s ongoing occupation and colonization of the West Bank (including Jerusalem) and Gaza, which also constitutes a violation of international law and multiple United Nations resolutions.
Palestinian citizens face an entrenched system of racial discrimination and segregation, resembling the defeated apartheid system in South Africa. A matrix of Israeli-only roads, electrified fences, and over 500 military checkpoints and roadblocks erase freedom of movement for Palestinians. Israel’s apartheid wall, which was condemned by the International Court of Justice in 2004, cuts through Palestinian lands, further annexing Palestinian territory and surrounding Palestinian communities with electrified barbed wire fences and a concrete barrier soaring eight meters high.
Gaza remains under siege. Israel continues to impose collective punishment on the 1.5 million Palestinians of Gaza, who still face chronic shortages of electricity, fuel, food and basic necessities as the campaign of military violence executed by the apartheid state of Israel endures. UN officials recently observed that the “situation has deteriorated into a full-fledged emergency because of the cut-off of vital supplies for Palestinians.” As a result of Israeli actions, Gaza has become a giant prison.
The global movement against Israeli apartheid, supported by a large majority of Palestinian civil society, is not targeted at individual Israelis but at Israeli institutions that are complicit in maintaining the multi-tiered Israeli system of oppression against the Palestinian people.
In fact, the Palestinian civil society BDS call, launched by over 170 Palestinian organisations in 2005, explicitly appeals to conscientious Israelis, urging them to support international efforts to bring about Israel’s compliance with international law and fundamental human rights, essential elements for a justice-based peace in the region. The present appeal is also rooted in an active engagement with many progressive Israeli artists and activists who are working on a daily basis for peace and justice while supporting the growing global movement in opposition to Israeli apartheid.
During the first and second intifadas, Israel invaded, ransacked, and even closed down cinemas, theatres and cultural centers in the occupied territories. These deliberate attempts to stifle the Palestinian cultural voice have failed and will continue to fail. Around the world, the call for BDS is growing and is strongly rooted in the historic international solidarity movement against apartheid in South Africa.
In keeping with Nelson Mandela’s declaration that “our freedom [in South Africa] is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians,” we believe that international solidarity is critical to liberating Palestinians from Israeli colonialism and apartheid. This struggle will continue until all Palestinians are granted their basic human rights, including the right of return for all Palestinian refugees living in the Diaspora.
Today, a diverse array of artists in Montreal, from filmmakers, musicians and dancers to poets, authors and painters, are joining the international movement against Israeli apartheid. On the streets, in concert halls, in words and in song, we commit to fighting against apartheid and call upon all artists and cultural producers across the country and around the world to adopt a similar position in this global struggle.
to add your support to this letter or to present questions or suggestions please write to info@tadamon.ca
To see the full list of signatories, use the link above