EDITOR: The buildup continues…
As Israel is again preparing for its latest habitual war, the pundits in Israel seem divided between an attack on Iran, an attack on Lebanon, and an attack on both… What is clear is that an attack is coming. The first attack might indeed be one on the new, small flotilla now advancing towards Gaza. Israel, as ever, is spoilt for choice. What has changed is the rest of the world, especially after the Gaza and Flotilla massacres; the world is no longer in thrall to Israeli whims and selective atrocities. The BDS movement has popularised the Palestine case, and works to recruit people everywhere against the Zionist barbarities.
Iran: Lebanon has a right to defend itself against Israel’s hostility: Haaretz
Speaking at a joint press conference with Lebanon FM, Mottaki slams UNIFIL performance, saying it was not able to deter ‘Zionist regime’s aggressions.’
Lebanon has a right to defend itself in the face of Israeli aggression, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said to the official ISNA news agency on Sunday, following a recent border clash between Lebanon and Israel which resulted in the death of two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and one Israel Defense Forces officer.
Last week, Israeli officer Dov Harari was killed during clashes between Israel and the Lebanese army along the border. The 45-year-old father of four from Netanya was a reserves battalion commander in the engineering corps. Another Israeli officer, Ezra Lakia, was seriously wounded in the same exchange of fire.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Lebanese Foreign Minister Ali al-Shami on Sunday, Mottaki said the “Lebanese nation and resistance have the right to end any aggression and pursue the issue through international circles to defend their rights.”
The Iranian FM also condemned the performance of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), saying that “negligence and mistakes of these forces should not be disregarded.”
“The forces are based in southern Lebanon to deter such aggressions, if UNIFIL is not able to deter the Zionist regime’s aggressions, what is its duty in southern Lebanon? What is it doing along Lebanese and Palestinian borders?” Mottaki said.
Also speaking to ISNA at the joint press conference was Lebanese Foreign Minister al-Shami, who said that Israel did “not have the right to invade this region, the region is Lebanon’s shared border.”
The Iranian FM also commented on a rare Lebanon joint visit by Syrian President Bashar Assad and Saudi King Abdullah, underscoring the depth of Arab concern over the possibility that the potential indictment against Hezbollah members over the assassination of former Lebanon PM Rafik Harir would stir unwanted chaos.
Mottaki said that he viewed the joint meeting in a favorable light, adding that the “Islamic Republic of Iran’s strategic policy seeks regional convergence and boosting regional cooperation.”
“We regard regional convergence as a necessary element to strengthen bilateral and multilateral engagement and tackle enemies’ conspiracies,” Mottaki said.
On the subject of Iran’s contentious nuclear program, the Lebanese foreign minister said he supported Iran’s right to a peaceful nuclear program, adding that “the recent unfair Security Council resolution that tightened sanctions on Iran is another instance of double standards and we fully support Iran’s legitimate right to civilian nuclear energy.”
Jordanian Prime Minister Samir Rifai also reiterated on Sunday his country’s support for Lebanon against Israeli “violations,” during a meeting with Lebanese Information Minister Tarek Mitri, the official Petra news agency reported.
The report stated that Prime Minister Rifai “renewed Jordan’s backing to the brethren in Lebanon as well as keenness on the unity and sovereignty of Lebanon, rejecting any violations of the Lebanese sovereignty and stressing the need for all parties to abide by the UN Security Council resolution 1705.”
Rallies mark anniversary of Sheikh Jarrah eviction: Jerusalem Post
By BEN HARTMAN 08/08/2010
Thousands took part in solidarity demonstrations across Israel.
Thousands of Jewish and Arab protesters took part in demonstrations held in cities and towns across the country on Friday, to show solidarity with the Arab residents of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and the year-long protest against Israeli housing policies in the district.
The protests, which were held on the hottest weekend of the year, varied in size across Israel, with organizers estimating around 700 participants in Tel Aviv, 100 in Haifa, 60 in Beersheba, 100 in Wadi Ara, 100 in Taibe, 100 in Kfar Yassif and around two dozen in Ra’anana. Another 50 gathered in the Arab neighborhood of Dahmash on the outskirts of Ramle, where at least 13 homes are slated for demolition.
In Tel Aviv, protesters marched down Rothschild Boulevard, accompanied by MKs Haim Oron (Meretz), Ahmed Tibi (Ra’am –Ta’al) and Dov Henin (Hadash), as well as a number of Sheikh Jarrah residents and Israeli cultural and academic figures.
At the end of the march, demonstrators boarded buses for Sheikh Jarrah, where they and hundreds more took part in the weekly protest.
The “Day of Solidarity” was held to mark the one-year anniversary of the eviction of a Palestinian house in August 2009, which came following a 2008 ruling by the Jerusalem District Court which laid down that property in Sheikh Jarrah that was part of the former Jewish neighborhood of “Shimon Hatzadik” belonged to the Sephardi Community Committee. After the evictions, Sheikh Jarrah became the site of weekly protests, which continued to grow as the issue became for many a lightning rod for the battle over the future status of East Jerusalem.
The protest movement began to pick up steam following the arrest of 17 demonstrators at a Friday demonstration in January.
The Jerusalem District Court ruled that the arrest of activists was illegal and the protests lawful, even if they were held without a permit.
Sheikh Jarrah activist Avner Inbar, one of the organizers of Friday’s events, said it had been very successful and that “other than a rally in March that was attended by around 4,000 people, this was our biggest one yet.
Also, all these people took part on a day when there was extreme heat across Israel, when most people don’t even want to leave the house to go to the store.”
Inbar said he hoped the issue of Sheikh Jarrah would continue to grow in the public debate, and advance the cause of Arab and Jewish cooperation.
“We believe the issue of Arab and Jewish solidarity is a very important thing and hope that our efforts will show there is no such thing as a Jewish left wing. The left wing doesn’t need to be exclusively Jewish; it can bring in both Jews and Arabs.”
EDITOR: Is this a war crime or peace crime?…
We are all used to the war crimes committed against Palestinians under occupation. What we sometimes forget is the fact that such crimes are also committed daily against the Palestinian citizens of Israel! The destruction of a Bedouin village, for the second time, makes disturbing reading, and even more disturbing viewing. To see the photographs please use the link below, and view the disturbing video evidence.
The “Summer Camp Of Destruction:” Israeli High Schoolers Assist The Razing Of A Bedouin Town: Max Blumenthal
07.31.10
AL-ARAKIB, ISRAEL — On July 26, Israeli police demolished 45 buildings in the unrecognized Bedouin village of al-Arakib, razing the entire village to the ground to make way for a Jewish National Fund forest. The destruction was part of a larger project to force the Bedouin community of the Negev away from their ancestral lands and into seven Indian reservation-style communities the Israeli government has constructed for them. The land will then be open for Jewish settlers, including young couples in the army and those who may someday be evacuated from the West Bank after a peace treaty is signed. For now, the Israeli government intends to uproot as many villages as possible and erase them from the map by establishing “facts on the ground” in the form of JNF forests. (See video of of al-Arakib’s demolition here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvD-2BsPAQU&feature=player_embedded
Moments before the destruction of the Bedouin village of al-Arakib, Israeli high school age police volunteers lounge on furniture taken from a family’s home. [The following four photos are by Ata Abu Madyam of Arab Negev News.
One of the most troubling aspects of the destruction of al-Arakib was a report by CNN that the hundreds of Israeli riot police who stormed the village were accompanied by “busloads of cheering civilians.” Who were these civilians and why didn’t CNN or any outlet investigate further?
I traveled to al-Arakib yesterday with a delegation from Ta’ayush, an Israeli group that promotes a joint Arab-Jewish struggle against the occupation. The activists spent the day preparing games and activities for the village’s traumatized children, helping the villagers replace their uprooted olive groves, and assisting in the reconstruction of their demolished homes. In a massive makeshift tent where many of al-Arakib’s residents now sleep, I interviewed village leaders about the identity of the cheering civilians. Each one confirmed the presence of the civilians, describing how they celebrated the demolitions. As I compiled details, the story grew increasingly horrific. After interviewing more than a half dozen elders of the village, I was able to finally identify the civilians in question. What I discovered was more disturbing than I had imagined.
Arab Negev News publisher Ata Abu Madyam supplied me with a series of photos he took of the civilians in action. They depicted Israeli high school students who appeared to have volunteered as members of the Israeli police civilian guard (I am working on identifying some participants by name). Prior to the demolitions, the student volunteers were sent into the villagers’ homes to extract their furniture and belongings. A number of villagers including Abu Madyam told me the volunteers smashed windows and mirrors in their homes and defaced family photographs with crude drawings. Then they lounged around on the furniture of al-Arakib residents in plain site of the owners. Finally, according to Abu Matyam, the volunteers celebrated while bulldozers destroyed the homes.
“What we learned from the summer camp of destruction,” Abu Madyam remarked, “is that Israeli youth are not being educated on democracy, they are being raised on racism.” (The cover of the latest issue of Madyam’s Arab Negev News features a photo of Palestinians being expelled to Jordan in 1948 juxtaposed with a photo of a family fleeing al-Arakib last week. The headline reads, “Nakba 2010.”)
The Israeli civilian guard, which incorporates 70,000 citizens including youth as young as 15 (about 15% of Israeli police volunteers are teenagers), is one of many programs designed to incorporate Israeli children into the state’s military apparatus. It is not hard to imagine what lessons the high school students who participated in the leveling of al-Arakib took from their experience, nor is it especially difficult to predict what sort of citizens they will become once they reach adulthood. Not only are they being indoctrinated to swear blind allegiance to the military, they are learning to treat the Arab outclass as less than human. The volunteers’ behavior toward Bedouins, who are citizens of Israel and serve loyally in Israeli army combat units despite widespread racism, was strikingly reminiscent of the behavior of settler youth in Hebron who pelt Palestinian shopkeepers in the old city with eggs, rocks and human waste. If there is a distinction between the two cases, it is that the Hebron settlers act as vigilantes while the teenagers of Israeli civilian guard vandalize Arab property as agents of the state.
The spectacle of Israeli youth helping destroy al-Arakib helps explain why 56% of Jewish Israeli high school students do not believe Arabs should be allowed to serve in the Knesset – why the next generation wants apartheid. Indeed, the widespread indoctrination of Israeli youth by the military apparatus is a central factor in Israel’s authoritarian trend. It would be difficult for any adolescent boy to escape from an experience like al-Arakib, where adults in heroic warrior garb encourage him to participate in and gloat over acts of massive destruction, with even a trace of democratic values.
As for the present condition of Israeli democracy, it is essential to consider the way in which the state pits its own citizens against one another, enlisting the Jewish majority as conquerers while targeting the Arab others as, in the words of Zionist founding father Chaim Weizmann, “obstacles that had to be cleared on a difficult path.” Historically, only failing states have encouraged such corrosive dynamics to take hold. That is why the scenes from al-Arakib, from the demolished homes to the uprooted gardens to the grinning teens who joined the mayhem, can be viewed as much more than the destruction of a village. They are snapshots of the phenomenon that is laying Israeli society as a whole to waste.
Israel retreats on flotilla agreement: Jonathan Cook
The National
August 04. 2010
NAZARETH // Israel quickly reined back expectations yesterday over its agreement to co-operate with a UN investigation into the Israeli army’s lethal raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla two months ago.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, had hailed Israel’s backing of the investigation on Monday, after weeks of intense international pressure, as an “unprecedented development”.
It is the first time Tel Aviv has agreed to take part in a UN inquiry involving the country’s military. Last year Israel snubbed a UN investigation led by a respected international jurist, Richard Goldstone, that was highly critical of Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008.
As the panel was announced on Monday, Mr Netanyahu declared: “Israel has nothing to hide. The opposite is true. It is in the national interest of the state of Israel to ensure that the factual truth of the overall flotilla events comes to light throughout the world.”
But faced with stinging rebukes yesterday from Tzipi Livni, the leader of the opposition party Kadima, for agreeing to the inquiry, government officials began to play down the significance of Israel’s concessions to the international community.
Unnamed officials told Ynet, one of Israel’s most popular news websites, that the UN panel’s powers would be limited to reviewing documents available to Israel’s three internal inquiries and a Turkish inquiry, and no military or civilian personnel would be investigated or issued with subpoenas.
If any officials are to be questioned directly, the sources added, they would be senior members of the political leadership – perhaps Mr Netanyahu and his defence minister, Ehud Barak.
That position was confirmed by a terse public statement yesterday defending the government against charges from Ms Livni that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) were being exposed to a damaging UN investigation.
“If they had bothered to check,” a statement from the prime minister’s office read, “they would have found that IDF soldiers and officers will not be investigated by the UN or any other body.”
The details of the review panel’s mandate are to be determined in the next few days and the committee begins work next week. It is expected to present a progress report in the middle of next month followed by the final report in 2011.
Israel and the US appeared to hope that the UN review panel would sideline, or possibly lead to the cancellation of, a parallel inquiry into the flotilla raid already set up by the UN’s Human Rights Council. The council established the Goldstone Commission and is seen as hostile by Israel.
Last week, Mr Netanyahu told his cabinet that he was still deliberating “how much technical material to provide them with, if at all”. Tel Aviv is reported to fear that an inquiry led by the Human Rights Council may end up becoming a “Goldstone Two”.
Susan Rice, the US envoy to the UN, said Israel’s participation with the review panel would eliminate “the need for any overlapping international inquiries”.
Other comments from Ms Rice suggested that the material to be reviewed by the UN would consist of documents made available by the Israeli and Turkish inquiries but not any investigations conducted by the Human Rights Council.
Mr Netanyahu’s office said contacts with the UN over the past few weeks had ensured that the panel would have “a balanced and fairly written mandate”.
Israeli officials were also reported to be making their co-operation conditional on a promise that there would be no subsequent attempts to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court in the Hague for the flotilla raid.
Yesterday, Israeli government ministers defended their decision by stressing the importance of mending the country’s relations with Turkey after weeks of diplomatic crisis between the two.
Mr Netanyahu and Mr Barak said they had “no choice” but to agree to the inquiry. The US was reported to have pushed hard for its two main allies in the Middle East to repair the damage.
Dan Meridor, a deputy prime minister, told Army Radio Israel that co-operation was “primarily meant, to my knowledge, for Turkey and Israel to find a way to bring relations back to a better place”.
Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, told the Anatolia news agency that the establishment of the UN panel showed “every country can be held accountable under international law”.
But Turkish officials also hinted at continuing concerns about how actively Israel would co-operate. A senior Turkish diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “We hope that Israel will be forthcoming with providing access to the panel in gathering information.”
Tensions between Israel and Turkey continued to simmer yesterday. Gaby Levy, Israel’s ambassador in Ankara, was summoned for what was described as a “dressing down” over remarks made by Mr Barak about Hakan Fidan, Turkey’s new intelligence chief.
Last week Mr Barak called Mr Fidan a “friend of Iran” who might leak shared secrets to Tehran.
The UN’s four-person review panel will be headed by Geoffrey Palmer, a former prime minister of New Zealand, with Alvaro Uribe, the outgoing Colombian president, as his deputy. Israel and Turkey will each appoint a representative.
Of Israel’s three inquiries, only the military one has issued a report. The Eiland committee found “errors of judgment” in the planning of the commando raid but held no one accountable. It also blamed the flotilla organisers for instigating the violence.
The Turkel committee is due to begin investigations into the legal ramifications of carrying out a raid in international waters. The third inquiry, whose scope is still unclear, will be conducted by Micha Lindenstrauss, the state comptroller.
EDITOR: Another Obama success…
The unbreakable alliance between the nation which already wiped out the indigenous population of the continent it occupied, and the one who is in the middle of that process, is going from strength to strength… in a payback for the massacres in Gaza and on the high seas, the Washington administration looks after its friends! Killing is good for business.
Israeli defense firms land record deal: Making parts for F-35 Joint Strike jets: Haaretz
Israel would not only like to be involved in the development and manufacture of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter; it would like to buy the jet too.
Israeli defense companies have scored one of the biggest deals in the industry’s history: They will be making about $4 billion worth of parts for the next generation of American fighter jets, industry sources told TheMarker.
While no official announcement has been made, Israeli defense officials have been talking with the U.S. defense companies involved in the development and production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
The main company involved is Lockheed Martin, home of the F-series of fighter jets, which began working on the F-35 in 2003.
The discussions about Israel’s involvement were led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
The Israeli companies that might be involved in supplying parts include Israel Aerospace Industries, which made the wings for a previous generation of Lockheed jet; Elbit Systems, which makes smart helmets for fighter pilots; Rafael Advanced Defense Systems; and Israel Military Industries.
Israel would not only like to be involved in the development and manufacture of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter; it would like to buy the jet too. Twenty of them, actually, at a total cost of about $2.75 billion.
The F-35 will be equipped with the capability for stealth concealment from enemy radar, making it easier to launch a surprise attack over hostile territory. That is one of the main reasons the Israel Air Force decided to buy the F-35 despite criticism over its price, which could reach about $200 million each – more than double the cost of the latest generation of fighter jet being developed by Boeing.
As a compromise, the IAF has ordered 20 F-35s instead of the 75 it had originally intended to procure. The jets will be paid for using U.S. defense aid, which amounts to about $3 billion a year.
The F-35 will be available in three forms: one that takes off and lands as planes normally do, and one with vertical takeoff and landing capacity, like a helicopter. The third will be adapted for use on aircraft carriers.
Israel wants the planes it buys to be equipped with Israeli-made control and monitoring systems, and electronic warfare systems.
Israel was invited to participate in developing the F-35, a process that began in 2003, but declined because of the cost. Development partners include Turkey, Britain, Australia and Canada.
Some believe that the F-35 will be the last manned jet fighter to be developed, ever. The next generation of jet fighters is expected to be completely robotic. Again, Israel could play a major role, given its dominant position in the development of unmanned drones.
Drums of war: Al Ahram Weekly
Is the Lebanese-Israeli border clash the first shot in a new and much-anticipated regional war? Omayma Abdel-Latif seeks answers
Civil defence workers and Lebanese soldiers carry an injured soldier after an exchange of fire between Lebanese and Israeli forces in the village of Adeisseh
When Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad warned last Sunday, “the possibility of war is increasing [in the region],” he did could not have known his prophecy would come true so soon. Although it is too early to know whether or not the deadly clashes that took place Tuesday on Lebanon’s southern borders with Israel was a one-off incident or the start of a conflict that could spread across the region, it served as a grim reminder of the volatile situation in an area described as “exceptionally quiet and uniquely dangerous” in a recent report by International Crisis Group (ICG).
The incident claimed the lives of two soldiers, one journalist from the Lebanese side, and an army colonel from the Israeli side. Israeli army officials described it as “an individual incident”, a move that suggested Israel’s desire to contain the situation. It was, nonetheless, seen by many as a test of the much talked about formula of “the army, the people and the resistance” as the core of Lebanon’s self defence strategy against continued Israeli aggression. And despite modest capabilities in the face of the ruthless Israeli war machine, the Lebanese Army’s performance was much praised, including by Hizbullah.
The incident is particularly being viewed as a provocation against Hizbullah. Hizbullah’s conspicuous absence from the scene of fighting during “those sensitive hours”, in the words of Hassan Nasrallah, suggested that the group was exercising maximal self-restraint.
Addressing a large audience gathered in commemoration, four years on, of Hizbullah’s victory in the July 2006 war, Nasrallah disclosed that the movement’s fighters were on high alert alongside the Lebanese Army when clashes erupted, but “were ordered to stand down to avoid escalation”. He also cited other reasons for Hizbullah’s restraint. “We did not know where this was heading, but we told the army commander that the resistance was at his disposal,” he said.
Another reason that kept the resistance movement back was the fear that Hizbullah’s intervention would be interpreted by political rivals as fulfilling Iranian- Syrian instructions to create an explosive situation on Lebanon’s southern border. “It could have been said that our interference proves that we are proxies of Iran and Syria and that it was a response to the sanctions imposed on Iran. I was under a lot of pressure because of those considerations,” Nasrallah told thousands of supporters Tuesday night.
One key motive behind Hizbullah’s restraint, which Nasrallah deliberately refrained from citing, was the fact that Hizbullah does not want to divert attention from what it considers to be a more important battle against Israel — the Hariri Tribunal. The decision to delay military confrontation with Israel until further notice follows from this. Although the ICG report suggested that “fear that the next war would be more destructive” was the main deterrent forcing Hizbullah and Israel to avoid a new round of fighting, according to sources close to Hizbullah is focused on clearing its name after press reports that “undisciplined members” of Hizbullah would be indicted in the Rafik Al-Hariri assassination investigation.
To this end, Nasrallah disclosed that his party conducted a year-and-a-half probe into the Hariri assassination. While he said that Hizbullah was awaiting the results of Arab initiatives, the resistance reserved the right to defend itself against any campaigns vilifying it.
Hizbullah’s probe concluded that Israel assassinated Al-Hariri. Nasrallah has repeatedly criticised the international investigation for ruling out Israel’s involvement. Nasrallah said he would substantiate Hizbullah’s claim at a news conference due Monday. “I accuse the Israeli enemy of the assassination of [former] prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri and … I will prove this by unveiling sensitive information at a press conference on Monday,” Nasrallah said.
The Hizbullah chief added he would present concrete audiovisual evidence showing that Israeli agents had worked to exploit Hizbullah’s “political rivalry” with Hariri, in an attempt to pin the murder on Hizbullah. Nasrallah refrained from giving more details.
About the prospects of a new war in the region, Nasrallah dismissed the possibility, despite saying “there is something worrying going on”. “When there is a deal being cooked for Palestine, those of us who have the experience have the right to worry about what will happen to Lebanon,” he said.
Missing the forest: Haaretz
Does anyone actually know the meaning of the term ‘Jewish state’? Wouldn’t it be better to live in a just democracy?
By Gideon Levy
Sometimes you really can’t see the forest for the trees. The forest of political, governmental and institutional racism in Israel is dark and deep. One particular tree in that forest happens to have Israelis all riled up: The state’s handling of the children of migrant workers. In the shade of a nearby tree is the state’s handling of these children’s parents, but this excites the Israelis somewhat less. And there are many other poisonous trees in the forest: Citizenship laws, loyalty laws, conversion laws, the razing of Bedouin villages in the Negev and even the story of the Arab delivery man who was convicted of rape for pretending to be a Jew. Each one galvanized parts of society into action, and this is well and good; but few see the big picture, and the big picture is several times worse than the sum of its components.
Enlightenment came from an unexpected direction; it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of all people, who accurately defined the problem. In deciding on these children’s future, he said, the cabinet is torn between humanitarian considerations on one hand and Zionist considerations on the other. The prime minister of Israel himself presents them as a contradiction, and this is the story in a nutshell.
Each particular wrong must be fought, of course, but we must not forget that all comes down to one large, fundamental truth: Defining Israel as a Jewish state condemns us to living in a racist state. This is the new definition of Zionism that we have subscribed to, and until we realize that we will not be able to uproot all the wild weeds that have seeded themselves here lately. Were we to not expel the migrant workers’ children but continue to raze Bedouin villages we would not solve a thing. We will continue to move from one injustice to another until we recognize the racist nature of the state.
Israel is not the only place where racism is on the rise. Europe and the United States are awash in a turbid wave of xenophobia; but in Israel, this racism is embedded in the state’s most fundamental values. There is no other state whose immigration laws are blatantly and unequivocally based on the candidates’ bloodlines. Jewish blood, whether authentic or dubious, is kosher. Other blood, from those of other creeds or nationalities, is unacceptable. No country throws its doors wide open to everyone, but while other states take social, economic and cultural considerations into account in Israel bloodline is the name of the game. How else are we to understand the fact that someone who was born here, who speaks the language, cherishes its values and even serves in the military, can be unceremoniously expelled while a member of the Bnei Menashe community in India or the grandson of a half-Jew from Kazakhstan are welcomed with open arms.
In contrast to what we have been told there is no significant argument in the wider world, and of course not in Israel, over the Jews’ right to a state. The argument is about its character. There is also no argument about the justice of the Law of Return: Israel is the place of the Jews who want to live there. The real argument is over the law’s exclusivity, over the fact that it applies only to Jews. That’s where it all begins. One could understand the need after the Holocaust, the necessity in the first years of the state, but 62 years after the founding of the state the time has come to reexamine the long-obsolete concepts.
Does anyone actually know the meaning of the term “Jewish state” that we bandy about so much? Does it mean a state for Jews only? Is it not a new kind of “racial purity”? Is the “demographic threat” greater than the danger of the state’s becoming a religious enthnocracy or an apartheid state? Wouldn’t it be better to live in a just democracy? And how is it even possible to speak about a state being both Jewish and democratic? But anyone who tries to enter the cauldron of this debate, who tries to think outside the box of tired cliche, is automatically fated to delegitimization and slander. Just ask Avraham Burg, who last week announced his intention to set up a political party along those very lines.
Iran vows to support Lebanon against Israeli ‘aggression’: YNet
Foreign Minister Mottaki says Israel reached dead end, ‘Zionist regime’ desperate in joint press conference with Lebanese counterpart
Published: 08.08.10, 15:02
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Sunday that the Islamic Republic will stand by Lebanon and Syria should Israel attack them.
“The Iranian government and nation are willing to support Lebanon and Syria against any possible Israeli aggression,” Mottaki said in a joint press conference in Tehran with his Lebanese counterpart Ali Al Shami.
Referring to the border incident which killed Brigadier-General Dov Harari and five Lebanese citizens Mottaki stated that the three countries hold ongoing discussions on Israel’s war threats and noted that Iran would offer any help required by Lebanon and Syria.
He condemned the border skirmish and said that “the Zionist regime’s steps and recent aggression show that this regime is desperate more than it seeks to demonstrate its power.”
He further added, “Israel is trying to save itself from the dead end it has reached…Should it forsake the path of war, terror and aggression one day – it will cease to exist.”
Mottaki noted that he does not think a possibility of war in the Middle East is likely but that the region’s states would not allow Israel to continue with its “hit and run policy.”
Meanwhile, Ali Akbar Velayati, the Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s political advisor, met with Syrian President Bashar Assad. The two issued a statement saying: “The Islamist resistance in Palestine and Lebanon is the only way to handle the Zionist regime’s greediness.”
Velayati expressed Iran’s support of Hezbollah. He has already met Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and is slated to meet with the heads of the terror organizations in Damascus.
Displacing the Bedouin: Haaretz Editorial
It’s hard to understand why Israel is pushing a significant sector of its citizens toward extremism and crime.
Twice last week employees of the Israel Lands Administration, with the help of a large police contingent, demolished the homes of around 300 residents in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Al-Arakib in the Negev. Most of them, citizens of the State of Israel, including many children, were left not only without homes, but humiliated, frustrated and shocked. Both times the police were brutal, and neither time did the state offer an alternative, compensation or assistance, either material or psychological, for the people whose village was demolished and world was destroyed. That’s how a country treats its citizens.
Even if there is substance to the state’s claims that the village’s lands belong to the state and not to the inhabitants, it should have offered other solutions besides sending in bulldozers again and again. There is a large cemetery at Al-Arakib and water wells that the residents say denote their possession of the land, along with old ownership documents. They claim they were forced to abandon the area after the War of Independence and that they returned in the 1990s because the land remained empty.
In the eyes of the state they are squatters. After a protracted legal battle, the state destroyed the village. When the residents tried, with the help of volunteers, to rebuild, the bulldozers arrived again on Wednesday. While the state has given sweeping approval to Jewish “individual farms” in the Negev, awarding huge areas to individual citizens, it treats tens of thousands of Bedouin harshly, presenting their settlement in the Negev as a “problem” and a “danger.” This attitude is infuriating.
The Bedouin are the children of the Negev. Most of them were born there and some have lived there for generations. At least some of the inhabitants of Al-Arakib are well integrated into the economy and see Israel as their country. Destroying their homes and pushing them into the crowded and poor Bedouin cities creates a much more severe political and social problem than the danger of the Bedouin living on state lands.
The bulldozer cannot be the state’s only answer, especially not when it is used only against the Bedouin. It’s hard to understand why Israel is pushing a significant sector of its citizens toward extremism and crime. On the ruins of Al-Arakib a new generation of Bedouin will sprout that is alienated from the state, enraged and desperate. Neither they nor the state deserve this.
Don’t search for logic in a dream: Haaretz
There is no rational argument against withdrawing from the West bank. Yet the dream of Greater Israel has never disappeared.
By Zvi Bar’el
It’s hard not to envy the U.S. president, who has the power to get in front of the cameras and announce that by the end of August most soldiers from his country will leave Iraq. And it’s hard to avoid a tinge of envy when the president taps 2011 as the target for the start of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. True, U.S. troops will continue to be deployed in Iraq for the next two years, and Afghanistan will not be devoid of foreign soldiers, but it’s now clear that America’s occupation has an end. American occupation is not Israeli occupation. It begins with a war and ends with some sort of arrangement; thereafter, the liberated country can do whatever it wants, as long as it does not harm American interests.
That’s the difference that stirs envy: The United States did not establish overseas colonies, nor did it send American settlers to live in the occupied lands, so it’s free to halt its occupation whenever it chooses. The United States needed to sway opinion both at home and abroad, exclusively for waging war. For withdrawal, it owes no excuses or explanations.
Israel enjoyed the same luxury many times in the past. It decided when to withdraw from Lebanon. It pulled out of the Sinai Peninsula twice, and even withdrew from parts of the Golan Heights. Israel also accomplished the near impossible by withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. But withdrawal from the West Bank, especially the eastern parts of Jerusalem, is a completely different story.
At first glance there appears to be a significant difference between the territories and Iraq or Afghanistan. The West Bank runs alongside Israel, whereas Iraq is thousands of kilometers from American cities. The West Bank can be used as a launching pad for missile attacks on Tel Aviv or Ben-Gurion International Airport, whereas only oil fields stand to be lost in Iraq.
But it’s not the well-worn security argument that blocks Israeli withdrawal. That’s because Iran poses an existential threat, and terror threats emanate from Lebanon and Gaza. Israel has no withdrawal issue as far as these lands are concerned. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shows concerns about developments on the eastern front, he is referring to Iraq and Iran, not Ramallah, a West Bank town heaving with shopping centers and discotheques. There is no oil in the West Bank, which does not provide us with foreign workers. The West Bank has stopped serving as Israel’s economic hinterland, a role it played in the 1970s and ’80s. So no economic argument is at play here.
Nor can the danger of a collapse of the governing coalition serve as a viable excuse for not withdrawing, because even when center-left coalitions were in power and had the option of withdrawing, a pullout from the West Bank was not on the agenda. In other words, no rational argument is left to block a withdrawal. Israel’s refusal to pull out is rooted in another dimension – the dream of Greater Israel has never disappeared. Two states for two peoples is a pleasing and rational slogan that appears to reflect political realism, but it’s not strong enough to eradicate a psychological complex of power and bury a dream.
This is the core of Israel’s schizophrenia, the reason the country has moments of lucidity during which it sounds reasonable, amenable to direct negotiations, and even eager to engage in peace talks. The prime minister is even convinced he is ready to concede – that’s the phrase, not withdraw – to the Palestinians. He’s aware of American pressure and of the implications of a prolonged occupation on Israel’s future. But most of the time Netanyahu and his government are captive to an illusion; they are kept in thrall by the psychosis of a dream.
The Likud government and extreme right are not the only ones who suffer from this disease. Most of the public succumbs to it. This is not a right-wing public, even if it grants an electoral majority to right-wing parties. This is a public that dreams, or is at least accustomed to, a dream that has persisted for 43 years. As part of this dream, the political right is prepared to annex the territories and the 3 or 4 million Palestinians who live there. That way, the state will not relinquish one holy particle of land.
The right lives with a paradox. On the one hand, it is ready to relinquish land within the State of Israel populated by Israeli Arabs. On the other hand, it wants to annex millions of Palestinians because it covets the precious dowry of land those residents would bring. In the end, it’s useless to search for logic in a dream. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has learned to identify all the dream’s manifestations. He is wary about negotiations until he receives assurances about the dream’s future. The United States remains the only party that can’t fathom why “by 2011 we’ll withdraw” can’t be said here, and why it’s impossible to defeat the dream.
EDITOR: Listening to the opposition
While there are not many points on which I agree with Beilin – he is a devoted and incurable Zionist, and reality will not shift his quasi-religious beliefs in the movement – it is still interesting to examine his language and his anger against the government – not because of its war crimes, mind, but because of the bad name it gives to Zionism – it becomes a slanging match about who is the better Zionist... As long as this is the nature of the Israeli opposition, there is not even the slightest hope for change!
The new ghetto: Jerusalem Post
By YOSSI BEILIN
08/08/2010 21:36
There is little the current government can do to change the world’s attitude toward Israel – except change its policy on peace.
Political Zionism led by Theodor Herzl would not have come into existence were it not for anti-Semitism in Europe, pogroms in Russia and a fear lest the emergence of the Jews from the ghetto and their integration into the economic, political, media and academic systems of the day provoke a sharp and violent reaction. There were alternative Jewish movements aimed at reaching the Land of Israel on the basis of religious motives or in order to build a new society founded on agricultural settlement and social justice. But that was not the Zionist movement as established in 1897.
The real dream of most of those who established Zionism at the end of the nineteenth century was to integrate into Europe. Since they concluded that this was not practical, and considering that a return to religious life in the ghetto was not desirable, they adopted a fallback option whereby the Jewish people would move to a state full of Jews that by definition could not be anti-Semitic.
The awful failure of the Zionist vision was that it was realized after and not before the Holocaust.
The existence of a nascent Jewish “Yishuv” in the Land of Israel saved a few hundred thousand Jews from the Nazis but not the millions for whom the gates of the world were locked. The main importance of Israel in my view is that it is the only place in the world unconditionally open to Jews wishing to come here.
Herzl’s vision described a country with a fully empowered Arab minority living in amity with the Jewish majority, a country living at peace with the world and accepted by it. In the prevailing reality prior to the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, Israel was a foreign implant, living by its sword, boycotted by the entire Arab world – the exact opposite of the original vision.
But Israel of the 1990s was the Jewish state closest to the vision of Herzl and his colleagues: the Arabs living in Israel enjoyed relative prosperity and a far higher level of equality, the Arab boycott was partially abandoned and 13 Arab states engaged in discussion with Israel concerning regional development (in the multilateral talks on water, economic cooperation, refugee rehabilitation, environment and arms control).
The peace process encouraged many countries to establish diplomatic relations, and Israelis were proudly welcomed by the world in view of their rapid economic development and scientific and other achievements. The original Zionist dream, which delegated to Israel a global mission in the fields of international law, human rights, aid to developing countries, etc., was very close to realization. Our status in the United Nations and in other international organizations was never better.
THE PAST 10 years were ones of dramatic reversal. Without asking whether this is exclusively Israel’s fault (I don’t think it is), the facts speak for themselves. Against the backdrop of the violent second intifada, the Second Lebanon War, Operation Cast Lead in Gaza and, most recently, the events surrounding the Gaza flotilla, Israel finds itself in a situation reminiscent of the 1970s, when the UN adopted the insane decision (rescinded only 17 years later) to define Zionism as a racist movement.
Today’s Israel has been pushed almost completely out of the Arab world, the Arab boycott has returned, and formerly friendly countries are turning their backs. Various parties in international academia and the trade union movement are passing resolutions to boycott their Israeli colleagues, and representatives of the Israeli government have a hard time completing their prepared remarks even in American universities.
There is little the current Israeli government can do to change the world’s attitude, combat the boycott efforts and neutralize the attempts to turn the country into a new ghetto – one from which it is inconvenient and even embarrassing to depart. The country is led by an extreme right-wing coalition, most of whose spokespersons are busy vindicating the arguments of our international critics. Israel’s number one diplomat, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, is perceived as a fascist-leaning racist. He cannot hold an intimate conversation with a single serious actor anywhere in the world.
In order to extricate itself from this new ghetto, Israel needs to change its policy.
Were the present government to do so, Israel would be forgiven the composition of its leadership. But the likelihood of this happening is slim because Israel’s leaders believe in the path they have chosen: some of them suffice with lip service to peace while others don’t even bother with lip service and state openly that they don’t believe in peace. None are prepared to pay the price for peace.
In this reality, the only possibilities for change are a strong American policy that leads both sides to peace, or waiting for the next elections. Meanwhile, Israel will continue to pay an unbearable price of isolation from the world.
The writer is a former minister of justice who currently chairs the Geneva initiative and is president of Beilink.
From the Horse’s Mouth: The Israeli Unhinged speak again…
EDITOR: Nothing makes the Zionist right happier than a rant about the world, which is ‘all against us’, they keep telling themselves, in an odd version of whistling in the dark. Mr Segal is a long-time contributor to this theme, and to this section of the website. This is always combined with an argument about the ‘unchanging nature’ of the world, of anti-semitism, the ‘Goy’ – history does not exists for this group, and things never change… well, their argument certainly never change…
United by hate for Israel: YNet
Op-ed: Effort to catalogue our enemies needles; they all share anti-Semitic desire to expel us
Hagai Segal
An old routine prompts us, after every hostile act at any hostile front, to invest great efforts in resolving the question of responsibility for the attack: Who did it this time?
The smoke was still billowing Monday morning at the bleeding rocket landing sites in the Gulf of Eilat when radio announcers ruled – based on God-knows-what – that the attacks were the work of Global Jihad, rather than some bored Bedouin in the Sinai or the Gaza-based Hamas.
A day later the fire resumed in the north, prompting our defense establishment to immediately point an accusing finger at some newly appointed division commander in the Lebanese army and explain to us that Nasrallah is currently preoccupied with the findings of the Hariri assassination report and has no time for trivialities.
Simultaneously, we saw the emergence of a fascinating debate on the question of whether Hezbollah is slyly penetrating the Lebanese army, or whether the Lebanese army is growing more radical all by itself.
Meanwhile, the ongoing Qassam attacks targeting the western Negev repeatedly reignite a similar discussion: Was it a Hamas or Islamic Jihad missile? Was it the work of the global al-Qaeda or local terror cells?
Same clenched fist
We are eager to convince ourselves that there is some kind of order and logic in the regional abuse we suffer; we aspire to draft an accurate map of threats, while repressing the rather homogenous makeup of Israel hate in the Middle East.
Yet this is ridiculous. From a military standpoint, it may be important to know exactly who fires at us each time and where he lives. However, in terms of the essence of the issue we can spare ourselves the effort.
The despicable people who bombed Eilat and the archenemies who killed the battalion commander on the northern border are merely different fingers in the same clenched fist. All of them hate us equally.
As result of propaganda constraints, they adopt different pretexts for their attacks, yet the overwhelming majority among them are driven by an anti-Semitic desire to permanently expel us from our country. They don’t want us in Eilat, or in a northern border community, or in Ashkelon, or in Gush Etzion.
The time has come to accord all of them the same treatment, in order to minimize the chances of them ever celebrating our defeat in a jointly organized party.