Israel, Palestinians must restrain Gaza violence, U.K. says: Haaretz
Israel and the Palestinians must show restraint in the wake of a recent bout of violence, a U.K. official said Friday, just hours after Israel war planes struck the Gaza Strip in retaliation of recent rocket fire.
A spokesman for the U.K. Foreign Office said that London was “concerned by today’s strikes and the escalation of violence in Gaza and southern Israel over the past week.”
Talking to the U.K. newspaper The Telegraph, the official called “on all parties to show restraint,” adding that Britain encouraged “Israelis and Palestinians to focus efforts on negotiation and to engage urgently in US-backed proximity talks.”
Earlier Friday, a Qassam rocket was reported to have been fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, a report which the IDF Spokesman’s Office said was the result of a false alarm.
At least 35 rockets were fired at Israel over the course of March.
Also Friday, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called on the international community must intervene in the latest cycle of violence between Gaza and Israel in order to avoid a possible escalation.
Haniyeh urged the world must stop “the escalation and aggression,” according to a Channel 10 report. He was likely referring to the Israel Air Force strikes, which destroyed what an Israel Defense Forces spokesman described as Palestinian munitions sites.
“We are contacting the other factions in order to reach an internal consensus as to the measures we may take in order to protect our people and strengthen our unity,” Haniyeh told reporters in Gaza.
Friday’s IAF air strikes were Israel’s response to a Palestinian short-range rocket that was fired across the border into Israel on Thursday, an IDF spokesman said. The attack, which went unclaimed by any Palestinian faction, caused no damage.
Four air strikes blew up two caravans near the town of Khan Younis, witnesses and Hamas officials said. There were no casualties.
A fifth missile hit a cheese factory in Gaza City, setting it on fire, witnesses and Hamas officials said. Hospital officials said two children were slightly wounded by flying debris.
Helicopters struck twice in the central refugee camp of Nusseirat, destroying a metal foundry. There were no casualties.
An IDF spokesman confirmed the attacks, saying they had targeted two weapons-manufacturing plants and two arms caches.
Last Friday, Major Eliraz Peretz and Staff Sergeant Ilan Sviatkovsky were killed while pursuing a group of Palestinian militants trying to lay mines near the border fence. Two other soldiers were wounded in the incident, and two militants were killed.
Britain calls for peace as violence escalates in Gaza: The Guardian
Three children injured in Israeli air strikes after Palestinian militants step up rocket attack
Israeli jets and helicopters have attacked Gaza, injuring three children and hitting what the Israeli military said were weapons manufacturing and storage sites.
The attacks continue the escalation in violence around Gaza in recent weeks. A day earlier Israeli had dropped leaflets in southern Gaza warning of an attack.
The number of rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinian militants has begun to increase and a week ago two soldiers and two Palestinian gunmen were killed in the most serious clashes on the border for more than a year.
There were at least seven Israeli missile strikes overnight. Two caravans near the southern town of Khan Younis were hit as well as a cheese factory in Gaza City and a metal foundry in the Nuseirat refugee camp, according to reports. Hamas said a complex it built for making movies was damaged, the Associated Press reported.
The Israel defence forces (IDF) said a rocket was fired into southern Israel on Thursday and there were nearly 20 rocket and mortar attacks in March. Two weeks ago a rocket killed a Thai worker in Israel.
“The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm the citizens of the state of Israel and will continue to operate firmly against anyone who uses terror against it. The IDF holds Hamas as solely responsible for maintaining peace and quiet in the Gaza Strip,” the military said.
Britain today called for restraint and urged Israel and the Palestinians to renew talks. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We are concerned by today’s strikes and the escalation of violence in Gaza and southern Israel over the past week. We encourage Israelis and Palestinians to focus efforts on negotiation and to engage urgently in US-backed proximity talks.”
Hamas, the Islamist movement that won Palestinian elections four years ago and controls Gaza, has tried in recent months to curb rocket fire. But it also said its fighters were involved in a gun battle a week ago in which two Israeli soldiers were killed and released video footage apparently taken during the fight.
Today Hamas said it had contacted armed groups in Gaza in an apparent attempt to rein in their attacks.
A statement by the Hamas government accused Israel of an escalation against the territory. But it also said the Hamas government was “making contact with the factions to safeguard internal agreement”.
Israel led a devastating war into Gaza in January last year that killed nearly 1,400 Palestinians. Thirteen Israelis died. For months afterwards the area was quiet, with both sides apparently keen to prevent further fighting.
Israel is continuing a tight economic blockade on Gaza, preventing exports and limiting imports to a small number of aid and food items.
EDITOR: Democracy of Silence
For over three months Israel has silenced this bizarre affair, in which the army and the judges operate illegally, in order to silence two journalist who have found the evidence that the IOF murders Palestinians despite a High Court order to the contrary. In this democracy, you are allowed to say what you want, until you find yourself in jail, at which point even the papers are not allowed to writye about it – the Israeli papers have not yet reported this latest news…
Journalist on the run from Israel is hiding in Britain: The Independent
‘Haaretz’ writer fled to London fearing charges over exposé on Palestinian’s killing
By Kim Sengupta, Diplomatic Correspondent
Friday, 2 April 2010
An Israeli journalist is in hiding in Britain, The Independent can reveal, over fears that he may face charges in the Jewish state in connection with his investigation into the killing of a Palestinian in the West Bank.
Uri Blau, a reporter at Israel’s liberal newspaper, Haaretz, left town three months ago for Asia and is now in London. Haaretz is understood to be negotiating the terms of his return to Israel with prosecutors, according to an Israeli source, who declined to be identified, because of the sensitivity of the situation.
The news of Mr Blau’s extended absence comes just days after it emerged that another Israeli journalist, Anat Kam, has been held under house arrest for the last three months on charges that she leaked classified documents to the press while completing her military service.
Although no media outlet or journalist has been specifically named as the recipient of the classified information, there is speculation on Israeli blogs that Ms Kam gave documents to Mr Blau that formed the basis of a story he wrote in November 2008.
In his article for Haaretz, Mr Blau reported that one of two Islamic Jihad militants killed in Jenin in June 2007 had been targeted for assassination in apparent violation of a ruling issued six months earlier by Israel’s supreme court. While not outlawing assassinations in the West Bank altogether, the ruling heavily restricted the circumstances in which they were permissible, effectively saying that they should not take place if arrest was possible.
In an unusual move, Israel has placed a gagging order on national media, preventing them from reporting any aspect of the Kam case. Israel’s Channel Ten and Haaretz are expected to challenge this order on 12 April.
According to the court order, Ms Kam, 23, is being held on “espionage” charges. It alleges that she passed classified documents to a male journalist while working as a clerk in the Israel Defence Forces Central Command during her military service.
She was arrested more than a year after Mr Blau’s report, which was cleared by military censors at the time of publication, when she was working for the news service Walla, until recently owned by Haaretz.
Ms Kam denies all the charges. Her trial has reportedly been set for 14 April and she could face a lengthy prison sentence if convicted. Mr Blau did not respond to requests for comment; his friends and colleagues refused to discuss the case in detail.
Dov Alfon, Haaretz’s editor-in-chief, said in an emailed statement: “Haaretz has a 90-year-long tradition of protecting its reporters from government pressures, and Uri Blau is getting all the help we can provide him with.”
The move to gag Israel-based media has sparked fevered debate on Jewish blogs, which have freely reported the story. Bloggers have railed against the blackout, saying it represents a critical challenge to the freedom of the press.
“I do not believe that a citizen can be arrested and tried for suspected security offences right under our noses without anyone knowing anything about it,” wrote former Haaretz editor Hanoch Marmari in an eloquent cri de coeur on the Seventh Eye website.
“Trials do not take place here in darkened dungeons, nor do we have show trials behind glass or chicken wire. I have no doubt that such a strange, terrible and baseless scenario cannot take place in such a sophisticated democracy as our own.”
Israeli journalist Anat Kam under secret house arrest since December: The Guardian
Woman faces treason trial after allegedly leaking documents that suggest military breached court order on West Bank assassinations
Anat Kam is accused of copying documents while she was a soldier on her national service and passing them on to Ha’aretz.
An Israeli journalist has been under secret house arrest since December on charges that she leaked highly sensitive, classified military documents that suggest the Israeli military breached a court order on assassinations in the occupied West Bank.
Anat Kam, 23, goes on trial in two weeks on treason and espionage charges and could face up to 14 years in jail. A court-imposed gagging order, proposed by the state and more recently by the defence, is preventing media coverage of the arrest and charges in Israel.
Kam is reportedly accused of copying military documents while she was a soldier on national service and then passing them to an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. Kam denies the charges. Her lawyers declined to respond to repeated requests for comment.
A Haaretz journalist, Uri Blau, who has written several stories critical of the Israeli military and who has been linked in internet reports to the case, has left Israel and is now in London, apparently for fear he will be targeted for his reporting. Haaretz and Channel 10, an Israeli television station, will challenge the media gagging order at a hearing on 12 April, two days before Kam’s trial is due to start at the Tel Aviv district court.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which reported the story from New York this week, said the investigation into Kam was jointly conducted by Israeli military intelligence, the police and the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service. The Israeli military declined to comment on the case.
During her military service, Kam reportedly worked in the office of a senior Israeli general and is accused of copying classified documents from the office. After her time in the army she became a journalist, working for the Israeli news website Walla, which was previously partly owned by Haaretz but entirely editorially independent. Reports suggest she is accused of leaking the documents to Haaretz.
Attention has focused on an investigation Haaretz published on the Israeli military’s assassination policy in November 2008, written by Uri Blau and headlined “Licence to Kill”. He reported that the military, the Israel Defence Force, had been carrying out assassinations of Palestinian militants in the West Bank in contravention of an Israeli high court ruling, which said efforts should be made first to arrest suspected militants rather than assassinating them.
The story described meetings in the spring of 2007 in which senior Israeli generals discussed a mission to assassinate Ziad Subahi Mahmad Malaisha, a senior leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The army chief, General Gabi Ashkenazi, allegedly approved the operation but said Malaisha’s car was not to be attacked if there was “more than one unidentified passenger” in it.
Malaisha and another Islamic Jihad leader were killed by the military in June that year, and the military claimed at the time that the militants had first opened fire at the soldiers.
One of the generals involved in the meetings, Major-General Yair Naveh, was quoted in the story as defending the killings as legal. The AP reported that Kam served in Naveh’s office during her military service.
The Haaretz piece was accompanied by copies of military documents but it was approved by the military censor before publication, the Guardian understands. The story was published more than a year before Kam was arrested and was followed by several other articles by Blau that were similarly critical of the military.
Dov Alfon, editor of Haaretz, said: “Uri Blau is in London. He will be there until his editors decide otherwise. We are ready to continue to keep him in London as long as needed. Uri Blau published a lot of articles in Haaretz. All of them are dynamite stuff and it is clear of course that the authorities are not satisfied with these kind of revelations in a major newspaper.
“We understand this but we also understand that Israel is still a democracy and therefore we intend to continue to publish whatever public interest demands and our reporters can reveal.”
Thirteen Israeli air strikes hit Gaza Strip: BBC
Israeli planes have carried out 13 air strikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources have told the BBC.
Four of the strikes took place near the town of Khan Younis, where two Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Palestinian fighters last week.
Israel says the operation was targeting four weapons factories. Reports say three children were injured.
The latest violence is the most serious since the end of Israel’s assault on Gaza in January 2009.
Palestinians and rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans died in the conflict, while Israel puts the figure at 1,166. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were killed.
Witnesses and Hamas officials said the latest Israeli raids targeted metal workshops, farms, a milk factory and small sites belonging to the military wing of Hamas.
The director of ambulance and emergency, Muawiya Hassanein, said that three children including an infant were slightly injured by flying debris.
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya has called on the international community to intervene in the latest cycle of violence between Gaza and Israel in order to avoid a possible escalation.
“We are contacting the other Palestinian factions in order to reach an internal consensus as to the measures we may take in order to protect our people and strengthen our unity,” Mr Haniya said.
‘Retaliation’
Israel says there have been at least 20 rocket or mortar attacks in the past month that have landed on its territory, one of which killed a farm worker.
The BBC’s Jon Donnison, in Jerusalem, says Israel appears to be sending a signal that whenever there is militant activity inside Gaza it will respond.
ANALYSIS
Tim Franks, BBC News, Jerusalem
The air strikes were not a surprise. Israeli officials say there is an equivalence: if it is quiet within Israel’s borders, then it will be quiet in Gaza.
Among Gaza’s leaders there was a slight difference in emphasis. Ismail Haniya, the top Hamas man in the territory, condemned Israel’s “escalation”. But Ayman Taha, a spokesman, also said that Hamas was “working hard to deter any faction from acting individually”.
So both sides are insisting that they want calm. But it is dangerous – and historically inaccurate – to imagine that violence can be neatly calibrated in and around Gaza.
In any case, the received wisdom among Gazans and Israelis is that another major clash is inevitable at some point: there are just too many sources of tension, too many triggers across the region.
It makes the job of pushing ahead with Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, and a wider resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict all the more difficult, and all the more pressing.
In a statement released to the BBC, the Israeli military said Israel would “not tolerate terroristic activity inside Gaza that threatens Israeli citizens”.
Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom told public radio: “If this rocket fire against Israel does not stop, it seems we will have to raise the level of our activity and step up our actions against Hamas.”
Correspondents say this kind of rhetoric has been heard in the past and should not be taken as a cue for imminent military action.
But tension is growing between Israel and Hamas, and some analysts view wider operations against Hamas as inevitable.
Palestinian news agencies reported that Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over parts of Gaza on Thursday warning residents of retaliation for last Friday’s killings of the soldiers in Khan Younis.
They were the first Israeli soldiers to be killed in hostile fire in Gaza in over a year. The military wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for those attacks.
Over roughly the same period, about 90 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in a mixture of Israeli military operations and border clashes, according to the UN.
Hamas said police stations and training facilities were among the targets of Israel’s overnight raids.
Khimar Abu Sada, professor of political science at al-Azhar university in Gaza City, told the BBC he had heard a number of explosions in the city.
“[On Thursday] the Israeli army distributed a number of leaflets in Gaza City warning the Palestinians to expect some kind of Israeli retaliation for the killing of two Israeli soldiers… so we were expecting something on Friday but not Thursday night,” he said.
Tensions in the region are running high after a recent Israeli government announcement of plans to build 1,600 new homes for Jewish people in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as a capital of a future state.
The US has criticised the Ramat Shlomo project, which prompted the Palestinians to pull out of US-brokered indirect peace talks.
The row has caused one of the worst crises in US-Israeli ties for decades, and the US is reportedly considering abstaining from a possible UN Security Council resolution against Israeli settlement expansion. The US usually blocks Security Council resolutions criticising Israel.
Rocket fire
Militants in the Gaza Strip have recently stepped up rocket fire directed at Israel.
On Wednesday, they fired a rocket into an empty field in southern Israel, but there were no reports of casualties or damage, military sources said.
In December 2008, the Israeli armed forces launched a 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip, bombing Palestinian cities before sending in ground troops – in response, Israel said, to Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel.
After this, Hamas launched its rockets in increased numbers at Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip, before agreeing to a ceasefire.
Our correspondent says that Hamas has tried to rein in rocket fire from Gaza, and that there has been a reduction in attacks in the last year.
Israel would say that is a result of its military operations, our correspondent says.
But there are many militant groups in Gaza and Hamas does not control all of them, our correspondent adds.
Four Palestinians injured during Land Day protests in Gaza: The Electronic Intifada
Press release, International Solidarity Movement, 2 April 2010
The following press release was issued by the International Solidarity Movement on 31 March 2010
Four nonviolent demonstrators were shot at close range with live ammunition by Israeli soldiers during six simultaneous protests throughout the Gaza Strip commemorating Land Day [30 March 2010].
Three of those injured come from Khozaa, a village east of Khan Younis in Gaza’s south. The fourth, from Deir al-Balah, was participating in a peaceful demonstration east of Meghazi, central Gaza.
The Khozaa demonstration neared the border shortly after 12 noon. Israeli jeeps stopped along the”green line” border, their number increased quickly. Israeli soldiers exited their jeeps and assumed sniper positions on a raised dirt mound and along the border fence.
Jemah Najjar, 22, was the first to fasten a Palestinian flag to the border fence in today’s demonstration. He was also the first injured in the Khozaa region, roughly 10 minutes after he had placed the flag on the fence, he estimates.
Israeli soldiers repeatedly opened fire on the very visibly unarmed demonstrators, without any verbal warning, nor without warning shots in the air.
Pieces of the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) bullet which struck Jemah Najjar are still lodged in his head. He will require an operation to remove them, if it is possible.
Wallaa Najjar, 18, was shot just above the kneecap by an (IOF) soldier at close range.
“I saw the soldier who shot me. He didn’t give any warning, just shot me right away.”
Wallaa Najjar is fortunate that the bullet did not hit an artery, although as it was he was bleeding heavily. Doctors say his leg has been fractured by the bullet. Palestinian medics confirm that in their experience Israeli soldiers routinely aim for the upper thigh area where an artery lies. If not treated quickly, victims can bleed to death from an artery injury.
Hani Najjar, 17, also has bullet shrapnel in his body. “The Israeli soldier was lying on a dirt mound across from us. He fired at me without warning.”
The bullet, fired from a distance of roughly less than 50 meters, hit below Hani Najjar’s knee. He will need an operation to remove the multiple pieces of shrapnel deeply embedded in his flesh. He had planned on attending the demonstration and continuing on to his nearby high school.
Fellow protestors carried the injured roughly half a kilometer to a place which ambulances could access. The border region is notoriously dangerous for all, including medics who under international law should have unheeded access to the injured. But through experience, medics in Gaza know they cannot reach victims in the border regions. Mohammed Otti, 21, from Deir al-Balah, was in a demonstration further north along the border, east of Meghazi camp, central Gaza.
Otti was the first to place a flag on the fence in his demonstration and was shot immediately after by an Israeli soldier at close range.
“Last time they shouted at us and mostly fired in the air,” Otti said, referring to last week’s demonstration in Waddi Salqqa. “This time, they didn’t say anything or give any warning. They just shot me.”
Like the others, Otti says when he is healed he’ll resume going to the demonstrations.
Mahmoud Az Zaq, co-coordinator of the Committee Against the Buffer Zone, said: “The Israelis should have fired warning shots, but instead they just shot directly at the youths.”
Maan news agency reports that an Israeli military spokesman said an investigation showed “soldiers operated in accordance with accepted dispersal procedures,” in regards to the IOF violence against unarmed protestors.
To commemorate Land day, the Committee Against the Buffer Zone and the Local Initiative from Beit Hanoun organized six protests, in Rafah, Khozaa, Meghazi, Karni, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.
Land Day remembers the murder of six Palestinians 34 years ago who were themselves protesting the Israeli annexation of Palestinian land.
Today’s protests are the latest in demonstrations growing in frequency and numbers, protesting the Israeli-imposed “buffer zone” and calling for the rights of Palestinians to work and live on their land, without threat of being shot or abducted by Israeli soldiers.
In May 2009, Israeli planes leafleted “buffer zone” areas reiterating the Israeli imposition of a 300 meter off-limits area, within which anyone is subject to Israeli fire. In reality, Israeli soldiers shoot up to 2 km on farmers and civilians on their land, including children and women.
In Land Day commemorations yesterday and today, Palestinians throughout occupied Palestine tended olive and fruit trees, dressed in traditional Palestinian clothing, danced dabke and showed the Palestinian spirit which until now has now been quashed by Israeli brutality.
Israel deports three Swedish activists with Palestinian roots: Haaretz
By Amira Hass
Israeli authorities on Thursday deported three Swedish citizens who arrived in the country earlier that day in a delegation of seven young people with Jewish and Palestinian roots.
Two of the three women were born in Sweden to Palestinian parents. The third was born in Syria, but immigrated to Sweden at a young age and has never been in either the Occupied Palestinian Territories or in Israel before.
The three were put on a plane back to Sweden after eight hours of questioning at Ben Gurion Airport, by a number of different interrogators whose identities and positions were never clarified.
Four of the Jewish participants in the delegation ? two of whom hold dual Israeli and Swedish citizenship ? were permitted entry.
One of them, Tigren Feiler, was asked to sign a declaration that he would not enter Palestinian territory, and was told to leave collateral of NIS 5,000 with airport authorities. Upon his exit from the country, the money will be returned to the bank account of his grandmother, who lives in Kibbutz Yad Hannah.
At the advice of his lawyer, Feiler added the words “under protest” beside his name when signing the declaration. According to the lawyer, the document he was forced to sign is not legal. The signing took place in a room tagged Interior Ministry. The three women who were deported to Sweden were also taken to that room during questioning.
Feiler told Haaretz that he and the three women had been held in a waiting room for about eight hours, called sporadically in by authorities for questioning and interrogation. He was also asked to provide his interrogators with his father’s name and the names of his grandparents.
His luggage was inspected thoroughly, Feiler said. He also said that he did not ask his interrogators to identify themselves.
Feiler and another member of the group, who had helped organized the trip, showed their interrogators the full schedule planned for their visit. Feiler said that now that the Palestinian contingent of the group was no longer with them, a large portion of their schedule had to be canceled.
The 29-year-old said that in the 25 times he has visited Israel over the course of his life, he had never been subjected to such treatment.
The seven members of the delegation have been active over the last five years in a coexistence education group for Jews and Palestinians. The group’s activity was initiated by the Swedish “Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace” group and the Palestinian Association in Stockholm.
According to Feiler, members of the education group visit schools, tell their personal stories in order to try and show that “Jews and Palestinians were not born to be enemies”.
Though they might have different opinions about proposed solutions, he says, they show that the way to advance is through dialogue and common activities.
The delegation had planned during its visit (which is the second of the kind for the group) to participate in educational sessions with Israelis and Palestinians. The trip was funded by the Olof Palme Foundation in Stockholm.
According to the Right to Enter (RTE) group from Ramallah – which comprises foreigners and Palestinians with foreign passports ? the number of people refused entry into Israel who have family, work and social connections with Palestinians has grown over the last year. The exact number is not known, and the Interior Ministry has still not responded to Haaretz’ request for the statistics.
Let’s talk: Haaretz
By Gideon Levy
The Palestinians do not want peace. Indeed, they do not even agree to
speak with us. While the leaders of the only country in the Middle East (well, not the only country) whose universal greeting is the word “shalom” take every opportunity to shout “let’s talk,” it is the Palestinians who are refusing the outstretched hand of peace and proving themselves stubborn in negotiations. They’re not coming. As such, let us use this space to sound a desperate call to their leaders: Let’s talk.
Let’s talk with an Israeli government that boasts of at least six ministers in its “forum of seven” of top decision-makers who say they do not believe in an agreement with you. Ehud Barak, who represents the “leftist” wing in the group, is the father of the “no partner” doctrine that crushed to smithereens the remnants of the Israeli peace camp. To his right sit Moshe Ya’alon and Avigdor Lieberman, Eli Yishai and Benny Begin, all of whom are led by Benjamin Netanyahu. None of these figures believes in an agreement with you, non-partners that you are. It is only America they wish to appease.
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So come and talk to them. Sit down and talk, without preconditions, with a government that views a temporary cessation of construction in the settlements as an insufferable “edict.” Sit down and talk with those who have long ago decided that Jerusalem and the endless settlement blocs will remain under Israeli sovereignty. Come and talk just like you did with previous governments, those who appeared in photo-ops with you and then settled on your lands, proposed “far-reaching” solutions that fall short of the fair minimum from your standpoint and then kill 1,400 people in Operation Cast Lead.
Come and talk with those who have imposed a brutal siege on your Gaza Strip. Speak with those who are not ready to talk with a movement that captured a majority of votes in a democratic election. Talk with those who imprisoned your founding father in the Muqata, claiming that he is an obstacle to peace, and, after he left the scene, said his successor was “too weak” to make peace. Come and talk with those who claimed that the absence of peace is due to terrorism, and that when there is no terrorism, there is also no peace.
Speak with a society that wants not peace but “separation” from you. Come and talk with those who have jailed 11,000 of your compatriots, some of them without a trial, others of whom are political prisoners, including members of parliament. Talk with those who just recently passed the Nakba Law, the law that denies your tragedy, and the Citizenship Law, which prevents your people, and only your people, the basic right to wed. Come and talk with those who do not recognize your refugee problem and are not ready to even discuss the refugees’ return. Speak to them. Much will come of it for you.
Come and talk with leaders who declared war on the few remaining peace
activists left in their society. Talk with those who shoot demonstrators and arrest them in their homes. Come and talk with a society whose peace camp leader, Yitzhak Rabin, was murdered because of his desire for peace with you. Come and talk with a prime minister who once stood at Zion Square in Jerusalem while protesters brandished doctored photographs of Rabin wearing an SS uniform and said nothing. Come and talk with a country that replaces its government at a dizzying pace, a country in which just two of its prime ministers, in the twilight of their terms in office, were ready to offer you semi-reasonable, minimal proposals before their successors disavowed those offers as if they had never existed. It is with them that you should talk.
Talk with a country that needs to enlist an entire division of soldiers just to evacuate a caravan built by land usurpers. You should believe that its leaders will be strong enough to evict tens of thousands of settlers. Talk with the heads of a society that is mired deep in complacency, one that seriously believes that its army is the most moral in the world, one that has been covering its face for years in light of the harm that army causes to you in its name. Talk with those who have never believed you to be human beings equal in stature to them. Talk with those who believe that they are the chosen people and that this land is theirs alone.
Talk with those who pave highways for use by Jews only, who systematically monitor their Arab citizens and who think that anyone who dares criticize them is anti-Semitic. Talk with those who think that the United States is ensconced in their back pocket, which thus far has proven to be accurate. Talk with them through the “fair” American mediator, the one who always tended to adopt an unfavorable position against you and even sent Jewish Zionist emissaries to serve as middlemen in talks. Just keep your fingers crossed as you hope that America is finally on the verge of an about-face.
Palestinians, opponents of peace that you are, come to the negotiating table. Come and talk peace, then watch as your presence at the table suddenly ushers in peace while the occupation is given the kiss of death
Jerusalem Quartet concert in London interrupted by protest: Y Net
Independent newspaper reports BBC live broadcast of Israeli quartet stopped after woman stands up voicing protest against Israeli policy, prompting response from musicians
A lunchtime concert of the Jerusalem Quartet held on Wednesday in London’s Wigmore Hall was interrupted when a woman stood up and began to voice her protest against the “occupation of Jerusalem,” the Independent newspaper reported Thursday.
BBC3’s live recording of the concert was broken off while the quartet members stopped playing and commenced a debate with the woman.
Bloggers who attended the event reported that 10 minutes into the performance a woman stood up in the audience and began shouting “Jerusalem is occupied.” It was also reported that she condemned Israel as an “apartheid state” and commented on the Gaza offensive and the “use of phosphorus” during the war.
According to the Independent, the Quartet members pointed out that only one of their four was a native Israeli, with one living in Portugal and another in Berlin. All four did serve in the army, but as musicians and not in combat roles.
They further noted that two of them were regular performers with Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which brings Arab and Israeli musicians together for classical concerts.
The incident was not the first time in which a Quartet concert became a platform for political protest. During a concert in Edinburgh two years ago five members of the “Scottish-Palestine Solidarity Campaign” interrupted the classical performance.
Who’s Afraid of a One-State Solution?: Foreign Policy
As Israeli-Palestinian peace talks remain at an impasse, a radical solution gains steam.
BY DMITRY REIDER | MARCH 31, 2010
In light of the ongoing deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, leaders such as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni have raised the specter of a one-state solution. Their intention, of course, is to scare some sense into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his intransigent coalition partners. But, as this once-taboo idea becomes a legitimate part of political discussion in the region, some Israeli intellectuals are making the case that this is not something to fear, but a path toward a viable resolution to the region’s long-running crisis.
The two-state solution has presented no shortage of obstacles: Negotiations are mired in talks about talks; the settlement policy is splintering what little territory was envisaged for the Palestinian state; and Israelis are becoming increasingly aware that the conflict doesn’t stop at the Green Line, but emerges in varying shapes, including unprecedented racism and sectarian rioting within Israel proper. It’s little wonder, then, that an increasing number of Israeli voices are beginning to inquire whether the one-state idea is more than just a bogeyman.
The one-state solution has long had advocates among the Palestinian diaspora, from Edward Said to Ghada Karmi and Ali Abunimah. However, there has recently been an exponential rise in mainstream Israeli media of articles that seriously consider the one-state arrangement. Trawling through the online archives of mainstream media, I found just three such articles from 2004 to 2007, but 16 pieces from 2008 to 2010. A 5,000-word essay by former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Meron Benvenisti, arguing that the binational state is all but inevitable at this stage, was published in January and still sits atop Haaretz’s most read and most emailed articles. Now comes the latest installment: sociologist Yehouda Shenhav’s book The Time of the Green Line (or, in its Hebrew title, Trapped by the Green Line), released in February by the impeccably mainstream Am Oved publishing house.
Shenhav’s book re-examines the very premises on which Israel and its allies perceive the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He suggests that the dispute’s fundamental problem is that most Israelis and Palestinians are using two different timelines, with conflicting conceptions of the conflict’s “year zero.” For centrist or left-wing Israelis, it is 1967: the year when the West Bank and Gaza were occupied and the hitherto small, democratic, idealistic Israel turned sour. “All that I’m trying to do is allow my grandchildren to live in this country as I lived in it during the quietest, most beautiful decade of its life — 1957 to 1967,” Shenhav quotes Yossi Beilin, an architect of the Oslo Accords and the Geneva Initiative, a private follow-up plan, as saying. For the Palestinians, Shenhav says, year zero remains 1948: the year of the mass expulsion of Arabs and the creation of a regime that systematically excluded them from meaningful participation in political and social life.
Shenhav deconstructs the nostalgic view of a supposedly pure pre-1967 Israel — highlighting its military administration of the Galilee region and of Arab cities, and its rampant discrimination against Arab (“Oriental”) Jews. Moreover, he suggests the elite-oriented left fetishizes this era not due to its objections to Israeli incursion into Arab space, but because of the influx of Arabness, and the religious nationalism it elicited from Jews, into “civilized,” Westernized Israel. For Shenhav, “the ‘new nostalgia’ longs for an Israel ruled by a secular, Jewish Ashkenazi regime,” before the influx of Arabic-speaking Jews into the Israeli political space and that of Palestinian Arabs into Israelis’ day-to-day lives. The fear of growing non-European influence in Israel, Shenhav argues, also motivates centrist, segregationist Israeli political trends, which support the separation wall and even unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories exclusively to defuse Israel’s “demographic time bomb.”
Shenhav suggests that the Israeli consensus over the two-state solution stems from the hope to go back to 1967, without revisiting the original sins of the expulsions and expropriations of 1948. Moreover, he that argues the two-state solution as propagated today will cause lasting damage not just to settlers — most of whom, including the second and third generations, would lose their homes — but to the Palestinian refugees, who will be sidelined, as they were by the Oslo process. The group set to suffer the worst political consequences of this two-state solution are Israeli Arabs, who will be pressured to seek redress for their demands from the new Palestinian state or even, if the views of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman are heeded, have their Israeli citizenship forcibly withdrawn and replaced with a Palestinian one.
‘Marriage to an Arab is national treason’: Y Net
By Roee Nahmias, Ynet – 27 March 2010
Recent poll reveals steep rise in racist views against Arabs in Israel; many participants feel hatred, fear when overhearing Arabic, 75 percent don’t approve of shared apartment buildings
Over half of the Jewish population in Israel believes the marriage of a Jewish woman to an Arab man is equal to national treason, according to a recent survey by the Geocartography Institute.
The survey, which was conducted for the Center Against Racism, also found that over 75 percent of participants did not approve of apartment buildings being shared between Arabs and Jews. Sixty percent of participants said they would not allow an Arab to visit their home.
Five hundred Jewish men and women participated in the poll, which was published Tuesday.
According to the survey, racism against Arabs in Israel has seen a sharp rise since a similar survey was conducted two years ago.
In 2006, 247 racist acts against Arabs were reported, as opposed to 225 one year prior.
About 40 percent of participants agreed that “Arabs should have their right to vote for Knesset revoked”. The number was 55 percent lower in the previous survey. Also, over half of the participants agreed that Israel should encourage its Arab citizens to immigrate from the country.
Over half of the participants said they would not want to work under the direct management of an Arab, and 55 percent said “Arabs and Jews should be separated at entertainment sites”.
‘Arab culture inferior’
Participants were asked what they felt when they overheard someone speaking Arabic. Thirty-one percent said they felt hatred, while 50 percent said they felt fear.
Over 56 percent of participants said they believed that Israel’s Arab citizens posed both a security and a demographic threat to the country.
When asked what they thought of Arab culture, over 37 percent replied, “The Arab culture is inferior.”
“The Center Against Racism has set itself a goal to monitor all racial incidents against Arab citizens, and to fight racism as much as possible under the law through public action,” the center’s annual report said.
Bachar Ouda, the center’s director, said the survey’s findings were worrisome, and urged the government to intervene in the situation.
“We call on the education minister to take the gloves off and deal with the issue seriously, because it is dangerous to coexistence. We call on the state prosecutions office, and the attorney general to take action,” Ouda said.
Israeli behavior unworthy of U.S. friend: Dallas News Editorial
April 1, 2010 – 12:00am
Tensions have eased since the recent clash between the Obama administration and Israel over new expansion plans in East Jerusalem, but the controversy is far from resolved. Unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds a better way to tamp down the expansionist tendencies of his coalition members, a rocky future awaits U.S.-Israeli relations.
Final status issues
Israeli and Palestinian leaders were able to conclude a landmark interim peace deal in 1993 by agreeing to delay the most contentious issues dividing the two sides. Nearly 17 years later, these “final status” issues remain unresolved:
•Jerusalem: the possibility that both sides could share it as their respective capitals
•Settlements: which ones should be dismantled or absorbed into Israel proper
•Borders: establishment of distinct, sovereign and secure borders
•Refugees: whether Palestinian refugees should have a “right of return” or receive displacement compensation
Netanyahu appeared to have been taken by surprise when a ministry run by one of his coalition partners announced construction approval for 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967. The announcement came just as Vice President Joe Biden had arrived to inaugurate renewed talks between Israelis and Palestinians. The peace process is once again smoldering.
Biden was furious. The Obama administration issued a strong rebuke to Israel. But rather than try to mend fences or hint at contrition, Netanyahu flew to Washington for a March 22 speech noteworthy for its lack of restraint. “Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital,” he declared defiantly.
Netanyahu is no neophyte. He knows well that four major “final status” issues remain to be resolved before any lasting peace deal can be reached with the Palestinians, and the status of Jerusalem is one of them. Announcing expansion of Jewish housing in East Jerusalem just as the talks were starting was a provocation unworthy of any serious peace partner.
Worse can be said of the Palestinians, whose extremists in Gaza shattered earlier peace prospects with unrelenting rocket attacks and suicide bombings against Israelis. No one can take Palestinian leaders seriously – especially not their Israeli counterparts – if the leadership can’t exercise minimal control over their population.
Israel’s action by no means compares with the violence Palestinians have perpetrated. Still, the Obama administration was justified in expecting a quick and heartfelt repudiation from Netanyahu. You don’t treat a visiting American vice president that way.
“Pratfalls happen. But it was also the responsibility of the prime minister to demonstrate more clearly than he did that this was unacceptable to him,” Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg told us last week. “We can disagree about the question of housing in Jerusalem. We know their position. But … just because they insist on the right to build in Jerusalem doesn’t mean they have to build.”
There’s a clear reason why, despite Israel’s claim of Jerusalem as its capital, that no country maintains an embassy there. East Jerusalem is disputed territory and a focal point of the peace efforts.
Instead of creating a space for those efforts to advance, the Israelis shut the door and angered their staunchest ally in the process. Testing American patience is a bad strategy for a country that can use all the friends it can get.
Israel warns of new Gaza assault after air strikes: Associated Press
April 2, 2010 – 12:00am
Israel on Friday threatened a widescale military operation against the Gaza Strip after a string of air strikes which injured three Palestinian children following rocket attacks from the enclave.
Israel’s deputy prime minister, Silvan Shalom, warned that the military would soon launch a new offensive on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip unless the rocket fire was halted.
“If this rocket fire against Israel does not stop, it seems we will have to raise the level of our activity and step up our actions against Hamas,” Shalom told public radio.
“We won’t allow frightened children to again be raised in bomb shelters and so, in the end, it will force us to launch another military operation,” said the deputy premier.
“I hope we can avoid it, but it is one of the options we have, and if we don’t have a choice, we will use it in the near future,” he said.
Three Palestinian children — aged two, four and 11 — were hit by flying glass in one of the six overnight raids, said Moawiya Hassanein, head of the Palestinian emergency services in Gaza.
There were no other reports of casualties.
The head of the Islamist Hamas movement’s government in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniya, reacted by blaming the Jewish state for the increase in tensions.
“We call on the international community to intervene to stop this escalation and Israeli aggression,” Haniya said in a statement.
The strikes came after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants landed near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon late on Thursday, causing damage but no casualties, the army said.
Nearly 20 rockets have been fired into Israel in the past month, including one that killed a Thai farm worker, in the worst spate of violence since the end of Israel’s 22-day assault on the territory launched in December 2008.
Since the war, which killed some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, Israel has routinely responded to sporadic rocket fire with air raids against smuggling tunnels and workshops which Israel says are used to make rockets.
Three of the Israeli strikes overnight targeted an area near Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza. Two of the missiles hit a guard post of Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades.
A fourth raid destroyed a workshop in the refugee camp of Nusseirat, in central Gaza, according to Hamas and witnesses.
In two other air raids, Israeli fighter planes targeted points in the west of Gaza City, destroying a small dairy factory in the Sabra district, according to witnesses.
The military said it hit “a weapons manufacturing site in the northern Gaza Strip, a weapons manufacturing site in the central Gaza Strip and two weapons storage facilities in the southern Gaza Strip.”
“The (army) holds Hamas as solely responsible for maintaining peace and quiet in the Gaza Strip,” it said.
The rise in rocket fire comes amid mounting tensions in the region sparked by Arab fears that Israel has been moving to deepen its hold on annexed, mainly Arab east Jerusalem.
It has also been accompanied by fresh clashes along the Gaza-Israel border.
On Tuesday, a Palestinian teenager was killed and several others were wounded as Israeli troops fired on protesters near the border of the blockaded territory.
And two Israeli soldiers, including an officer, were killed along with two Palestinian gunmen during fierce clashes last weekend when Israeli tanks carried out a brief incursion into Gaza.