EDITOR: Breaking News – Peace agreement to be signed next month in Jerusalem!
It would of course be nice to have this headline some time soon, but unfortunately it is only an April Fool’s line… In the meantime, as expected, the whole affair of Netanyahu’s rejection of the US demands seems to have been carefully taken off the headlines. US papers avoid it like the plague, and even in Israel they moved on, as the show seems to have ended, at least this round of it, with Israel getting off scot free, as usual.
Likud MK: Not even ‘Hussein Obama’ will remove us from Hebron: Haaretz
Thousands of Israelis gathered Thursday at the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron to celebrate the addition of the location to Israel’s list of national heritage sites, a move initiated by the Land of Israel caucus in the Knesset.
“The masses that have come here, including the 40 members of the Land of Israel caucus, are a guarantee and proof that no one will move us from the Cave of the Patriarchs, not even Hussein Obama,” MK Ayoob Kara (Likud) told the crowd.
“The Prime minister needs to say ‘no’ to Barack Hussein Obama, and ‘yes’ to the people of Israel, who have come here in their multitudes today. He needs to grant permits to start building in settlements and in all of Israel,” he added.
MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) responded to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent comments comparing construction in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, saying, “We love Tel Aviv, but it is 101 years old, while Jerusalem is 3,000 years old and Hebron is 4,000 years old.”
“On this holiday, which marks our passage from slavery to freedom, we need to maintain our freedom and not let anyone dictate to us where we can and cannot build,” she added.
Bus loads of people arrived at the controversial site in Hebron from the early hours of the morning, including several right-wing members of Knesset.
A U.S. State Department official on Thursday said, “We understand that tensions are high [in Hebron].”
“We continue to urge all parties to act responsibly and do whatever is necessary to maintain calm,” the official added.
MK Gila Gamliel (Likud), who joined in the celebration, said that Jerusalem will forever remain the capital of Israel, and Hebron has always been a part of Israel.
Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli woman was lightly hurt after Palestinians hurled stones at the tour bus she was riding on in Hebron.
The bus, which was bringing the tourists to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, mistakenly entered the Palestinian part of the city and was stoned by school students.
Israel Defense Forces soldiers deployed to the area to disperse the crowd. The injured woman was taken to Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, for treatment.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last month that the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem would both be added to the list of national heritage sites that the government plans to promote.
The move drew protests from the Palestinians, who said it could ignite a religious war, and criticism from the United Nations and United States, who said the designation of the two sites could harm efforts to renew peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
MKs who worked toward having the two shrines declared heritage sites were to receive special certificates of appreciation and a musical program was scheduled for Thursday’s ceremony.
The Cave of the Patriarchs was to be open only to Jews for the day.
When Israel and France Broke Up: N Y Times
IN the face of rising tensions between the United States and Israel over housing construction in East Jerusalem, the Obama administration has rushed to reassert what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently called the “unshakable bond” between the two countries.
No doubt, that relationship rests on enduring foundations, including broad American public sympathy for a besieged democracy, a mutual strategic interest in resisting Arab extremism and a sense of moral duty to preserve the Jewish people after the Holocaust.
But if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tries to push his luck on settlements or the peace process, he would do well to remember an unnerving precedent: Israel’s loss, in 1967, of what had been a robust alliance with France.
The French-Israeli relationship began in the mid-1950s, when Israel became a major customer for the French arms industry. But the bond was not merely commercial: at the time France was trying to quash a rebellion in Algeria, and it shared with Israel a strategic interest in combating radical Arab nationalism. In 1956, France and Israel even fought together against Egypt in the Suez crisis.
The tacit alliance, championed by Israel’s deputy defense minister, Shimon Peres, deepened during the late ’50s and early ’60s through military cooperation and cultural exchanges. French technical assistance helped Israel get nuclear weapons, and France supplied the advanced military aircraft that became the backbone of the Israeli Air Force.
The relationship only grew warmer when Charles de Gaulle, the World War II hero, took over as French president in 1959. He recognized the historic justice of a Jewish “national home,” which he saw “as some compensation for suffering endured through long ages,” and he heaped praise on David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister, as one of the “greatest leaders in the West.”
The bilateral bonds ran outside the government, too, with strongly pro-Israel public opinion, both among French Jews and non-Jews. But with the end of the Algerian war in 1962, de Gaulle began mending France’s ties to the Arab world and the relationship came under strain. For a while, France tried to balance its relationships: Israeli officials were heartily welcomed in Paris, and de Gaulle continued to speak of Israel as “the ally and friend” of France.
This double game, however, ended when the Six-Day War in 1967 forced France to pick a side. In a shock to its Israeli allies, it chose the Arab states: despite aggressive moves by Egypt, France imposed a temporary arms embargo on the region — which mostly hurt Israel — and warned senior Israeli officials to avoid hostilities.
When Israel launched a pre-emptive strike on June 5, France condemned it — even as Israel’s nearly immediate aerial victory was won largely with French-made aircraft.
A few months later de Gaulle bluntly told reporters that France had “freed itself … from the very special and very close ties” with Israel, nastily adding that Jews were “an elite people, sure of itself, and dominating.”
This was not a sentimental stance: de Gaulle had made a strategic decision to bolster France’s stature in the vast Arab world, which in 1967 meant largely abandoning Israel. France proceeded to make the arms embargo on Israel permanent, sought oil deals with the Arab states and adopted increasingly anti-Israel rhetoric.
Of course, American public support for Israel is even more deeply ingrained than it was in France, and it is hard to imagine that anyone in President Obama’s staunchly pro-Israel White House is contemplating anything like de Gaulle’s sudden reversal.
Still, there are potentially disquieting similarities. Like de Gaulle after Algeria, President Obama understands the strategic importance of improving relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds after years of bloodshed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And so long as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process remains stalled, Washington’s relationships with Israel and the Arab states may look to some in the administration like a zero-sum game.
In the same way that many French officials tried to balance France’s relationships in the Middle East after the end of the Algerian war, Mr. Obama undoubtedly hopes that he can reach out to the Arab world without damaging ties with Israel. But this history suggests that Mr. Netanyahu would be wise to ease the strain on the alliance before any words are uttered that cannot be unsaid.
Gary J. Bass is a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton and the author of “Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention.”
Open Letter to Berkeley Students on their Historic Israeli Divestment Bill: Naomi Klein
By Naomi Klein – March 31st, 2010
On March 18, continuing a long tradition of pioneering human rights campaigns, the Senate of the Associated Students of the University of California, Berkeley (ASUC) passed “A Bill In Support of UC DIVESTMENT FROM WAR CRIMES.” The historic bill resolves to divest ASUC’s assets from two American companies, General Electric and United Technologies, that are “materially and militarily supporting the Israeli government’s occupation of the Palestinian territories”—and to advocate that the UC, with about $135 million invested in companies that profit from Israel’s illegal actions in the Occupied Territories, follow suit.
Although the bill passed by a vote of 16-4 after a packed and intense debate, the President of the Senate vetoed the bill six days later. The Senate is expected to reconsider the bill soon; groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace are asking supporters of the bill to send letters to the Senators, who can overturn the veto with only 14 votes.
Here is the letter I just sent:
Dear members of the ASUC Senate,
I am writing to urge you to reaffirm Senate Bill 118A, despite the recent presidential veto.
It comes as no surprise that you are under intense pressure to reverse your historic and democratic decision to divest from two companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. When a school with a deserved reputation for academic excellence and moral leadership takes such a bold position, it threatens to inspire others to take their own stands.
Indeed, Berkeley—the campus and the wider community—has provided this kind of leadership on many key issues in the past: not only Apartheid in South Africa but also sweatshops in Indonesia, dictatorship in Burma, political killings in Nigeria, and the list goes on. Time and again, when the call for international solidarity has come from people denied a political voice, Berkeley has been among the first to answer. And in virtually every case, what began as a small action in a progressive community quickly spread across the country and around the world.
Your recent divestment bill opposing Israeli war crimes stands to have this same kind of global impact, helping to build a grassroots, non-violent movement to end Israel’s violations of international law. And this is precisely what your opponents—by spreading deliberate lies about your actions—are desperately trying to prevent. They are even going so far as to claim that, in the future, there should be no divestment campaigns that target a specific country, a move that would rob activists of one of the most effective tools in the non-violent arsenal. Please don’t give into this pressure; too much is on the line.
As the world has just witnessed with the Netanyahu government’s refusal to stop its illegal settlement expansion, political pressure is simply not enough to wrench Israel off its current disastrous path. And when our governments fail to apply sanctions for defiant illegality, other forms of pressure must come into play, including targeting those corporations that are profiting directly from human rights abuses.
Whenever we take a political action, we open ourselves up to accusations of hypocrisy and double standards, since the truth is that we can never do enough in the face of pervasive global injustice. Yet to argue that taking a clear stand against Israeli war crimes is somehow to “discriminate unfairly” against Israelis and Jews (as the veto seems to claim) is to grossly pervert the language of human rights. Far from “singling out Israel,” with Senate Bill 118A, you are acting within Berkeley’s commendable and inspiring tradition.
I understand that there is some debate about whether or not your divestment bill was adopted “in haste.” Not having been there, I cannot comment on your process, though I am deeply impressed by the careful research that went into the decision. I also know that in 2005 an extraordinarily broad range of Palestinian civil society groups called on activists around the world to adopt precisely these kinds of peaceful pressure tactics. In the years since that call, we have all watched as Israeli abuses have escalated dramatically: the attack on Lebanon in the summer of 2006, a massive expansion of illegal settlements and walls, an ongoing siege on Gaza that violates all prohibitions on collective punishment, and, worst of all, the 2008/9 attack on Gaza that left approximately 1,400 dead.
I would humbly suggest that when it comes to acting to end Israeli war crimes, the international response has not suffered from too much haste but from far too little. This is a moment of great urgency, and the world is watching.
Be brave.
Yours sincerely,
Naomi Klein
Peace talks: Palestinian views: BBC
With planned indirect Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on hold after a row over settlement building in East Jerusalem, Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank give their views on the prospects for peace.
ADEL HASSAN RASHED, 81, UNEMPLOYED, NABLUS
We should never go back to negotiations. The solution is always in the hands of the US, but we expect nothing from them. They are the only power in the world – and the Israeli have no-one standing against them.
The idea of the two-state solution is like morphine [ie used to anaesthetise the Palestinians]. There is nothing called a solution. They just keep taking the land from us and building for themselves. Israel took everything from us and the Americans are backing them up, even with weapons.
The only option we have is to take back with force what they took from us. When we have the real power to fight, we will – but not now, we have no power.
KHADER SAMARITAN, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH CENTRE, 55, NABLUS
I think it’s better for us to have direct negotiations with Israel, because there is no-one to talk on our behalf in indirect ones.
Face to face talks are better, but the condition for these should be to stop the settlement activity. – and not just for eight months.
East Jerusalem is internationally known as the capital of the future Palestinian state and west Jerusalem is the capital for the Israelis – this should be the two-state solution.
Peace is the key to everything. I’m not convinced about military resistance. The people are already suffering from the economic situation and the first and second intifidas. The people of the world have heard our voices, and all the world is standing behind us – to have a third intifada now would just hurt our own people.
RUBA ZAGHMOURI, 24, ARTS CENTRE WORKER, RAMALLAH
It’s not about whether Mahmoud Abbas should go into talks or not. Whether he does or doesn’t go into them, I don’t think the result will satisfy the Palestinian people.
I don’t want a two state solution. Definitely not. A two-state solution could be done when we have equal grounds, both the Palestinians and Israelis, but without us Palestinians having basic rights, you can’t discuss a two-state solution.
I have never believed in a two-state solution. I want to be free. I want to live in peace. I want to be able to live here in Ramallah without going back and forth to Jerusalem for my ID problems. I don’t want to have to go to Amman just to use an airport. I don’t want anyone to be killed, and I don’t want anything to be stolen from us.
What I want is so confused at the moment. I feel like Palestinian and Israeli leaders are all lying to us. It’s becoming really difficult for the new generation to weigh what’s right and wrong and what we actually want out of all of this. We know we want peace, but how it could be achieved – this is what we don’t know.
AYMAN AL-NAZER, DENTIST, 48, RAMALLAH
I believe that all the negotiations with Israel should be stopped. The Arab street should take a different way. We’ve been negotiating for 20 years now, for nothing.
I still support peaceful resistance, but everyone knows what the other option is, and the other option will happen if the Israelis don’t sit down for real negotiations.
Unfortunately the Jewish people don’t want peace.
You can see the facts on the ground. The whole world can see what’s going on on the ground. There is no way to achieve peace with these people.
AMINA AL-HASANAT, SALES DIRECTOR, 22, GAZA
I believe that negotiations are the only solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, but must be done in the right way.
To take steps to improve the conditions for negotiations, the Arab leaders should maintain pressure on Israel to accept negotiations based on international legitimacy and United Nations resolutions. Israel must stop settlement activity in Jerusalem and the West Bank and recognise the rights of the Palestinian people.
I dream of a two-state solution which is based on a viable independent Palestinian state, side-by-side with Israel. We must find a unified Palestinian strategy to support the position of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, because Israel is taking the division between the Palestinians as an excuse to stop negotiations and continue attacks against the Palestinian people.
MOHAMMED OMAR TAHA, ACCOUNTANT, 32, GAZA
Negotiations would be a waste of time. We have negotiated for more than 15 years, but we got nothing but siege and settlements, killing and destruction.
The Arab leaders should take a decision to stop negotiating and go for the military option against Israel, which knows only the language of force.
The two-state solution is a big lie. We must end the division [between Palestinians] first and then take a clear decision to stop the negotiations and security co-ordination with Israel, and go to the option of resistance by all means – popular resistance and armed resistance if necessary.
Ahmed Tibi: For Israel’s Arabs, Land Day is our narrative and our justice: Haaretz.
1 April 2010, Ahmad Tibi
I remember the events of Land Day 1976 in particular detail. I was taking part in the demonstration in the center of Taibeh, just opposite the taxi station, when police began dispersing us with clubs, then shot and killed one of the demonstrators, Rafat Zohiri, in cold blood.
As on all such days marked by the Arab population of Israel, discussions on Land Day revolve around the question of Arab citizens’ place in Israeli society and also on our insistence on commemorating Nakba Day, Land Day and the riots of October 2000 every year.
These are important symbols of our existence on this land and of our civil rights, but most Jews see in this commemoration signs of the “isolationism” and the “ungratefulness” of the Arab population.
The simple truth that most refuse to recognize is that the root of the problem is not in the commemoration of these events, but rather in Israel’s ongoing discriminatory and exclusionary policies against the Arab population.
On Land Day, we protest against the widening policies of Judaization and the harsh inequalities in land distribution and residential expansion.
The facts speak for themselves. While a majority of the land was owned by Arabs when the country was founded, most property has since been expropriated. Only 2.5 percent remains under Arab ownership – even though Arabs comprise 20 percent of the population.
As time goes on, the amount of land allocated to Arab citizens only shrinks, due to expropriation and Israel’s reticence to expand areas under Arab jurisdiction.
These gaps are evident when comparing neighboring Arab and Jewish towns.
For example, the population of heavily-Arab Nazareth is 1.5 times higher than the population of Upper Nazareth – but the Nazareth jurisdiction itself is almost three times smaller than that of Upper Nazereth.
Another example is a comparison of the towns of Omer and Tel Sheva in the south. In 2004, there were 6,000 residents in Jewish-populated Omer with a territory of 17,000 dunams, while in Arab Tel Sheva there were 10,000 residents in only 4,000 dunams – 2.8 dunams per person compared to 0.4. And this is nothing compared to the difference between Taibeh and Kochav Yair.
Since the founding of the state, more than 1,200 Jewish towns have been established, while no new Arab towns have – save those created by Bedouin in both the North and South.
In 1995, I proposed the creation of a new Arab town, to provide modern-living options and to meet the particular needs of young couples. Despite the turnover in Knesset and in the cabinet since then, the proposal has remained on the back-burner.
In such a reality, it is easy to attack Arabs in Israel with accusations of populism. The least we can do is demonstrate and remember year after year this injustice, because we have a right to this land and we will not surrender that right.
We have rights not just in this land, but also rights over this land. This is a historic axiom. Even if the generation that experienced the events of Land Day in 1976 does not get to see the desired change, our message will be passed to all future generations as they mark Land Day each year.
The rhetoric must change from the theme of perceived ungratefulness to that of justice.
On every March 30, we must ask this question: what has changed since 1976? And what advances (or regressions) has the state made toward our equality?
Our children must learn about these events and all of the others which burden the collective memory and identity of the Arab minority in Israel. This is just the little bit of justice that Israel’s education system should and can do.
But the primeval fear of Palestinian Arabs continues to guide Israel’s policies and an educational system which has been moving toward nationalism and militarism, and power over the Arab “other.”
Dr. Ahmad Tibi is the leader of the Arab nationalist party in Israel, Ta’al (the Arab Movement for Change). He currently serves as Deputy Speaker of the Knesset. A Hebrew version of this opinion piece appeared on Walla.co.il
Qassam hits Israel after Russia urges Hamas to stop rocket fire: Haaretz
A Qassam rocket fired by Palestinian militants on Thursday hit an open area along the coast of Ashkelon. No injuries or damage were reported.
The rocket struck Israel just hours after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged Hamas political chief Khaled Meshal this week to stop militants in the Gaza Strip from firing rockets against Israel.
The foreign minister made his request on Wednesday in a telephone meeting, which according to Russian news agencies covered a variety of issues regarding the Middle East.
Lavrov told Meshal that the recent increase in rocket fire was unacceptable. Meshal responded to the call by reiterating Hamas’ declared stance that it was not interested in an escalation of tensions with Israel and would continue to try to maintain calm in the area.
Lavrov briefed Meshal during their conversation about last week’s meeting of the Quartet Middle East peace-brokers in Geneva, which comprises Russia, the EU, the United Nations and the United States.
The Russian foreign minister also stressed to Meshal the importance with which he viewed a reconciliation between Hamas and its rival Palestinian faction, Fatah.
Ramallah is not Palestine: IOA
Posted by admin on Apr 1st, 2010 and filed under FEATURED NEWS STORIES, Occupation, Palestine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
By Sandy Toalan, Le Monde Diplomatique – 31 March 2010
Despite condemnation over Jerusalem and Gaza, Israel has boasted of improved conditions in parts of the West Bank. Yet Ramallah, with its coffee bars and restaurants, is far away from Area C, with its refugee camps, roadblocks, military patrols and harassment, where nothing much has changed
In Ramallah, on a sliver of land inside the occupied West Bank, it’s possible to imagine what Palestinian freedom might feel like. Major Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints are down or unmanned, allowing drivers who used to be stalled, fuming, to travel nearly unimpeded from Jericho, up the ancient hills to Ramallah, and on to Nablus in northern Palestine. Inside this fragment of a fragment of land, the economy is picking up, as shipments of soap, olive oil, vegetables, soft drinks and even local beer move smoothly to their West Bank destinations. Bloomberg has noticed that the area shows an annual growth rate of 7%.
Here, in the political and commercial centre of the West Bank, a relative sense of ease and prosperity has emerged as new shops and bars serve well-educated and discerning customers. “World-class vibrant beats in the evenings and fine-dining at all times,” reads the Facebook page for Orjuwan, a popular Ramallah lounge. “Preserving essential ingredients of traditional Mediterranean cuisine from Palestine and Italy, our classic dishes are reinvented to gourmet standard in a fine dining experience…”
Welcome to Liberty Enclave, where residents experience a taste of prosperity and rising quality of life in this small but significant part of Palestinian West Bank society. Unencumbered by scores of roadblocks, or by delays caused by the arbitrary decisions of teenaged soldiers, these Palestinians can now enjoy a modicum of freedom to move about and do business. The partial lifting of the West Bank occupation, helped partly by the US training and professionalisation of Palestinian security forces, allows the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to cite measurable improvements in the lives of some of his people – and gives Israel a rare chance to appear magnanimous despite the condemnation over the Gaza war and the Jerusalem settlements.
Yet the improved conditions in this part of the West Bank – known as Area A, a creation of the Oslo process in which Palestinians have been given civil autonomy – deepen the resentment of other Palestinians who remain locked down in Area C – where Israel retains full control. (Area C accounts for 60% of the West Bank.) There is also anger at the Palestinian leadership. This is not new. Nor is class-based intra-Palestinian fury. In 1994, Gazans who had sacrificed in the first intifada were furious when their “liberators” arrived from Tunis to govern from their villas and the back seats of their black sedans (1). Now the resentment is worsened by the disconnection between the enclaves of Israeli-controlled liberation and isolation, and few Palestinians bridge the gap.
Schizophrenia
“I feel like I have schizophrenia,” said Naela Khalil, a journalist who lives at weekends with her family in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, but works in the Ramallah office of the daily Al Ayyam. Khalil, who recently documented PA human rights abuses against Hamas activists in Palestinian jails, was sipping a latte at Café de la Paix, another addition to Ramallah’s comfortable café culture. “The biggest problems among my friends in Ramallah is how to lose weight,” she said. “Biggest problem at Balata camp is how to stay alive.” Khalil marvels at all the glass buildings in Ramallah, built with a naïve confidence that they will remain unshattered. “People in the camps don’t even build a second storey on their homes. Because they know what it’s like to lose their house in one black night.”
Anger boiled over during the early days of Israel’s war on Gaza at the end of 2008. “At New Year here in Ramallah, people were partying in restaurants and drinking, but in Gaza they were celebrating under Israeli bombing,” Khalil remembered. “Only 50 or 60 came to the demonstration. There were two security officers per demonstrator. So you feel very important! VIP! This kind of sarcasm is the last step before the anger comes.”
More demonstrations were organised at Ramallah’s Manara Square, and Khalil covered them. “Every time people went to the Manara for a demonstration, security forces prevented them. They beat them and threw tear gas. Prevented people from going to the checkpoints. We are normal people and they came to beat us. These things slowly add up.”
A shrugging indifference
In the farther reaches of Area C, the reaction is less anger at the PA, more indifference. In the South Hebron Hills, 30 miles away, yet light years from the “world-class vibrant beat” of Ramallah, reality is an urgent, inch-by-inch struggle with Israeli settlers and soldiers over land, and access to the hilly paths that connect villagers to their homes and schools.
“The settlers used to come with dogs – they would send the dogs out to attack us,” said Manar, a schoolgirl from the South Hebron Hills, which is firmly embedded in Area C. She is 13, but looks 10. Like many Palestinians in the area, Manar lives in a village of tents and cave dwellings in the South Hebron Hills. From there she walks two hours to her school. A report by Christian Peacemakers Teams, based in al-Tuwani village, documents many incidents in which settlers, often wearing hoods or masks, have stoned children, beaten them, and stolen their backpacks. (Stoning attacks have also been documented by videos taken by villagers in the area.) Besides the dogs, settlers have fired eggs at Manar with slingshots. Because of the attacks, the Israeli army is required to escort the Palestinian children, but “sometimes they don’t come on time” and Manar misses school for fear of the settlers. “Sometimes they have black hoods covering their faces. So it’s really scary.”
As in much of Area C, daily life for villagers is full of travel restrictions, housing demolitions and confiscations of land. Some now live full-time in their sheep camps, since they fear that abandoning them will result in permanent loss of their lands. “If they lose any of their land, they suffer – they need every bit of land to graze their flocks,” said Joshua Hough, an American activist walking toward the school. He lives part-time in al-Tuwani as part of Christian Peacemaker Teams. “The land is continuously being taken in little chunks. The amount of land Palestinians have available to them is becoming less and less every year.”
The school was three steel frames built on cement slabs, draped with canvas. Local leaders spoke through a megaphone, arguing for freedom of movement and access to education. After the speeches, schoolteachers began handing out free pencils. Manar and her fellow students quickly crowded around, reaching out their hands.
“Members of the Palestinian Authority hardly ever come here,” said Na’im al-Adarah, driving us back in a battered pickup which has served as a makeshift school bus. Once, he said, a man from the Palestinian ministry of local affairs came from Ramallah but refused to come in a PA vehicle. “So we took him from Ramallah in our cars, at our own expense.” The official was appalled at the conditions he witnessed. “He said this is the first time he knew that this land [within the West Bank] is ours. A minister like him is surprised that we have these areas? I asked him ‘how can a minister like you not know this? You’re the minister of local government!’ It was like he didn’t know what was happening in his own country.” Al-Adarah squinted at the broken road through a cracked windshield. “We’re forgotten, unfortunately.”
For these Palestinians, the semi-liberated enclave centred in Ramallah is part of another country.
“Ramallah is not Palestine,” said Muhammad Abdullah Ahmad Wahdan. “It’s 5%. But 95% of Palestine suffers.” We sat in the living room of his concrete block home in Qalandia refugee camp north of Jerusalem. Just a few minutes away lay Ramallah, another country. Outside, Israel’s separation barrier loomed above the camp like a prison wall. There is talk that Israel will reroute the wall through the middle of the camp, and Wahdan says, given that this is Area C, the Palestinian Authority (PA) would be powerless to stop it. “This leadership has given us nothing,” he said. “No work, no homeland, no stability, no security.”
Benefits for the bourgeoisie
Wahdan long ago dismissed the dream that the PA could help him recover the lands of citrus and olives that his family were driven from during the creation of Israel six decades ago. Now, after losing a son to the struggle – the young man was 19, and his wife was pregnant; when a baby girl was born, the family called her Palestine – he is wary of any more sacrifice for the Palestinian leadership. As she served us refreshments, Wahdan’s wife said that these are the people who “put our kids under the cannon fire”.
Wahdan said: “This particular class of the bourgeoisie exploited the people who fought the struggle. We did this for their benefit. They were the ones who got something out of it.” Wahdan’s 15-year-old grandson, Anas, sitting under a large portrait of his martyred uncle, added: “They wanted us, with no weapons, to [make the] sacrifice. Their kids have cars and villas, they own phone companies. There’s no equality between someone like that and someone like me, who lives in a house that’s falling apart, and whose father may or may not have enough money to bring bread or have clothes.”
And if he and his friends should voice their displeasure? “We’ll be told, ‘Well, you’re just refugee camp kids’,” said Anas’s friend Munir. He wants to become an eye doctor. “There’s nothing to do here, maybe play games on the internet. There’s a military base next to me here, and the checkpoint crossing there, and the Israeli army comes in at night. And maybe if you go and play games at the internet place, you’re happy that you did something for the day.” Refugee-camp teenagers like these once fuelled the resistance to occupation. Not now, said Munir: “All that anger has been absorbed by depression.” Perhaps some day, that anger will again rises. But for now, said Anas: “People say ‘I’m exhausted, and rocks will not liberate me’.”
Activists burst AIPAC conference’s bubble: The Electronic Intifada
Stephanie Westbrook, 1 April 2010
The theme of this year’s annual policy conference for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby group was “Israel: Tell the Story.” And it was quite a story that AIPAC wanted to tell. The conference aimed at imparting to the more than 7,000 attendees “an intimate understanding of the many ways that Israel is making the world a better place,” with a focus on peacemaking and innovation.
Outside the Washington Convention Center, together with activists from CodePink, Veterans for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Avaaz, Jewish Voice for Peace and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, we tried to bring a little reality to the AIPAC bubble. We carried signs and banners calling for respect for international law and human rights, an end to the siege of Gaza, Israeli apartheid and US taxpayer funding of war crimes.
Using street theatre, we set up a checkpoint to greet the participants, and I, in the role of a Palestinian woman, tried in vain to get through. I pleaded with the sometimes startled conference-goers to help me get to a hospital, but Tighe Barry, playing an Israeli soldier at the checkpoint, pushed me away, telling the AIPAC supporters, “You can pass. This is a Jewish-only road.”
During our presence outside the conference, I got an earful of everything from thoughtful debate to the most vulgar of insults to outright ignorance on the issues: “There is already a settlement freeze!” “Gaza isn’t under siege, Israel is!” “AIPAC has nothing to do with policy!” This last remark was made while standing under the enormous sign reading “AIPAC Policy Conference.”
We were outnumbered roughly 100 to 1, yet the very site of us literally sent some people over the edge. A few people even resorted to violence, shoving and hitting the activists. During a press conference held outside the Convention Center, we were constantly interrupted, with people shouting and walking in front of the cameras. Josh Ruebner of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation rightly judged this as a classic example of the AIPAC crowd trying to completely control the debate so that no other voices can be heard.
The second day of protests outside the conference made use of satire to try to get the message through. CodePink issued a fake press release announcing AIPAC’s support for a settlement freeze in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The phony release was picked up by several news outlets prompting AIPAC to issue a statement refuting the claim, and thereby confirming that they are not in line with US policy on the issue or the majority of US citizens. Some conference participants were then questioning why AIPAC was not supporting a settlement freeze.
Later that morning, “Netanyahu and the Settlements” arrived at the conference. Activists with the global online advocacy group Avaaz.org showed up wearing cardboard boxes shaped like settlement housing along with someone wearing a mask of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a Caterpillar hardhat, chanting, “Build settlements, not peace.” Later that afternoon, nicely dressed activists escorted the conference participants, instructing, “right this way to the Apartheid Conference.”
The main attraction of the three-day event was, of course, the gala dinner where Netanyahu himself spoke. Rae Abileah of CodePink, who had purchased a ticket to the conference but then received a certified letter saying that her registration had been cancelled, was nonetheless inside the dinner waiting for her moment. After the traditional Roll Call, the interminable reading of the names of the Congress members present — some 59 senators and 269 members of the House of Representatives — Netanyahu finally took the stage. “When the prime minister announced Israel’s commitment to defense, I could no longer remain silent,” Abileah said. She jumped up on AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr’s private table right next to the stage and unfurled a banner reading, “Build Peace Not Settlements” while shouting, “Lift the siege of Gaza! No illegal settlements!”
Following former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s speech the morning of the third and last day of the conference, the AIPAC lobbyists made their way to Capitol Hill, where a reported 500 meetings with Congress had been set. We arrived early to beat the crowd and delivered thank you letters to the 36 members of the House who had voted “no” on the resolution condemning the UN-commissioned Goldstone report.
“Netanyahu and the Settlements” had arrived by the time we finished and were there to greet the AIPAC lobbyists as they lined up to enter the Rayburn building. Holding a gigantic check made out for “Endless Illegal Settlements” signed by US President Barack Obama, we called out on the megaphone, “Bank of Israel, otherwise known as the United States Congress. Nothing is too much for Israel.” There were a number of groups of young people on the Hill the same day lobbying for education and jobs programs. As we passed, I told them, “Sorry, no money left for your school or jobs. Congress wants to give it to Israel.”
We then paid visits to the offices of Senators Graham and Schumer, who had both spoken at the conference, as well as those of Senators Lieberman and Kyl. Donning tunics that read “Settler” and waving a flag that read “Mine,” we moved in, occupied the office, set up a roadblock and began moving the furniture around to our pleasing. Again playing the part of a Palestinian woman, I pleaded with the staff, who were, not surprisingly, alarmed at what was happening, for their help in removing the settlers from my family’s land. In three out of four cases we managed to secure a meeting with a member of the staff; at Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) office Capitol Police arrived and promptly removed us.
As much as AIPAC appears to be living in a bubble, it unfortunately seems unlikely that the US government, or the so-called “international community” for that matter, will take a courageous stance and do what many Israelis have been asking, save Israel from itself. That’s why so many activists are now taking it upon themselves to lead the way by supporting the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Right outside the AIPAC conference the newly formed BDS group of the greater Washington, DC area called on local residents to not buy Israeli products as a way to make a meaningful contribution to ending the Israeli occupation. And on 30 March, the second Global BDS Day, actions took place around the world, calling for an investment in peace and a boycott of Israel.
Stephanie Westbrook is a US citizen who has been living in Rome, Italy since 1991. She is active in the peace and social justice movements in Italy and traveled to Gaza in June 2009. She can be reached at steph A T webfabbrica D O T com
Police probing Land Day protesters carrying Nasrallah poster: Haaretz
Police on Thursday opened an investigation into several unidentified men who waved posters of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the organization’s terrorist mastermind, Imad Mughniyeh, at this week’s Land Day protests, police officials said.
More than 10,000 protesters participated in an annual procession on Tuesday to mark the events of Land Day in Sakhnin in 1976, when six demonstrators lost their lives in clashes with Israeli security forces.
At the end of Tuesday’s procession, two masked youths raised the photographs of Hezbollah’s Nasrallah and Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in Damascus in 2008. Hezbollah has on many occasions blamed Israel for Mughniyeh’s assassination.
Police on Thursday said that they know the identities of the suspects, but a decision regarding possible legal action against them has not yet been made. No suspects have been arrested.
Police added that the State Prosecutor’s office and the State Comptroller are currently considering whether the act could be considered support of a terrorist organization, which would warrant legal proceedings against the suspects.
Witnesses at the Land Day event, including the procession organizers, have been summoned to the Galilee region police headquarters for questioning.
Sakhnin political officials responded to the police investigation, calling it an attempt to divert the public’s attention from the fact that the annual demonstration was orderly.
They accused police of trying to portray the activists’ actions as a central event.
The Land Day procession, as has been customary in recent years, began in the city center and ended at the memorial for those who died in the clashes during the first Land Day 34 years ago.
Many participating in the demonstration expressed their opposition to the incorporation of posters of Hezbollah leaders, saying it could divert attention from the main goals of the ceremony and the significance of Land Day for Israeli Arabs.
Egypt discovers massive arms cache destined for Gaza: Haaretz
Egyptian security forces uncovered a massive arms cache in the central Sinai Peninsula before dawn on Thursday allegedly intended for smuggling into the Gaza Strip, according to the Egyptian daily Al-Yum a-Saba.
The cache included 100 anti-aircraft missiles, 40 RPG missiles and 40 other explosive devices.
The commander of Egypt’s security forces in Sinai, General Mohammed Najib, was tipped off to the cache after he was notified that suspected arms smugglers had succeeded in stashing their weapons in the area.
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Security forces and sappers have cleared the ammunition from the storage sites, many of them places which have served in the past as battle zones.
The Egyptian forces suspect the smugglers to be Sinai Bedouin who collected weapons found following battles with the goal of sneaking weapons into the Gaza Strip.