EU rebukes Israel over conviction of West Bank separation barrier protester: The Guardian
Lady Ashton’s support for Palestinian Abdallah Abu Rahmah deemed highly improper by Israeli foreign ministry
Lady Ashton, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, today took the unusual step of publicly criticising the conviction in an Israeli military court of a Palestinian man in connection with protests against the West Bank separation barrier.
Ashton said she was “deeply concerned” the man may be imprisoned as a deterrent to others. The intervention, a week before the start of the first direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians for more than 18 months, is likely to irritate Israeli politicians. A government spokesman described it as “highly improper”.
According to an EU source, Ashton’s statement was intended to show the EU’s support for peaceful opposition to the barrier and to demonstrate to the Israelis that the EU was monitoring events on the ground in the context of next week’s negotiations.
After an eight-month military trial, Abdullah Abu Rahmah, 39, a protest leader in the West Bank village of Bil’in, was convicted yesterday of incitement and organising illegal demonstrations. He was cleared of stone throwing and possession of arms. Abu Rahmah, who has been in custody since his arrest last December, faces a maximum jail term of 10 years when he is sentenced next month.
Bil’in has been at the forefront of largely peaceful protests by Palestinian villagers and Israeli and international activists against the route of the separation barrier in the West Bank.
However, the protests have often included stone-throwing by youths, which the military counter with teargas and rubber bullets . In April 2009 a protester was killed when he was hit by a teargas canister.
Today’s statement by Ashton, the EU high representative, said: “The EU considers Abdallah Abu Rahmah to be a human rights defender committed to non-violent protest against the route of the Israeli separation barrier … The EU considers the route of the barrier where it is built on Palestinian land to be illegal.
“The high representative is deeply concerned that the possible imprisonment of Mr Abu Rahmah is intended to prevent him and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right to protest against the existence of the separation barriers in a non-violent manner.”
The EU attended all court hearings into the case over the past eight months.
Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, said: “It is very unusual for a foreign dignitary to express views on the justice system of another country. If [Ashton] has found a flaw in the system, she should say so. Otherwise it’s unclear why she should interfere in the proceedings. The fact that she has expressed a view and has disregarded the evidence is highly improper.”
Abu Rahmah’s lawyer – “and presumably that lawyer is not Lady Ashton” – was the correct person to the promote the best interests of the accused, Palmor added.
Gaby Lasky, Abu Rahmah’s lawyer, welcomed Ashton’s statement. “Soldiers have killed and injured dozens and hundreds of protesters in the attempt to stop the Palestinian popular struggle, but have failed,” she said. “They are now trying to illegitimately use the courts and the legal system in the same way. The international community must take a tough stand on this issue, and I am happy that the political motivation of the indictment against a human rights defender was clear to the EU from attending the hearings.”
According to the Popular Struggle Co-ordination Committee, the case was the first to use Israeli military law on organising illegal demonstrations since the first intifada, or uprising, which began in 1987.
Abu Rahmah’s conviction, the committee said, was “based only on testimonies of minors who were arrested in the middle of the night and denied their right to legal counsel”. The prosecution had failed to provide documentary evidence against Abu Rahmah despite the filming of all protests by the army.
According to his supporters, Abu Rahmah was arrested at 2am after soldiers broke down the door of his house.
EU ‘concerned’ by conviction of Palestinian anti-separation fence activist: Haartetz
An Israeli military court convicted Abdullah Abu Rahmeh for incitement and organizing illegal demonstrations against Israel’s barrier in the West Bank.
The European Union’s top diplomat criticized Israel on Wednesday over the conviction of a leader of Palestinian protests against Israel’s West Bank separation barrier, calling the activist a human rights defender.
In a strongly worded statement, Catherine Ashton said she was deeply concerned by the guilty verdict against Abdullah Abu Rahmeh, one of the organizers of weekly marches from the Palestinian village of Bil’in to the Israeli-built West Bank barrier nearby.
Israel started taking a harder line against demonstrations in the West Bank late last year, arresting activists and keeping protesters from reaching the barrier. Abu Rahmeh, a 39-year-old schoolteacher, is among the most prominent of those detained in a string of arrests.
Jailed since December, he was convicted in a military court Tuesday of inciting protesters to attack Israeli troops and for participating in protests without a legal permit. The case has drawn international attention, and foreign observers and reporters attended the hearing.
The EU sees the barrier’s route as illegal and views Abu Rahmeh as a human rights defender committed to nonviolent protest, Ashton said.
Ashton suggested the conviction was intended to prevent him and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right to protest against the existence of the separation barriers in a nonviolent manner.
European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton speaking in Brussels on June 17, 2010
Photo by: AP
Ashton’s statement drew a sharp rebuke from Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor, who said Israeli law guarantees freedom to protest and that the EU diplomat’s interference with a transparent legal procedure is highly improper.
The General Delegation of the PLO to the United States also condemned Abu Rahmeh’s conviction “in the strongest possible terms.”
Abu Rahmeh’s lawyer, Gaby Lasky, said the charges could carry a jail sentence of several years. Sentencing is scheduled for next month, after which Abu Rahmeh will appeal the conviction, she added.
Lasky noted that Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the barrier be moved at Bil’in. They try a person who organized protests against a fence that is itself illegal. “This is an unfitting use of legal measures,” she said.
The barrier, which Israel began building in the midst of a wave of attacks by suicide bombers from the West Bank, runs through the village’s farmland. Palestinians view it as an attempt by Israel to seize land in the West Bank.
The Bil’in protests, attended by villagers as well as Israeli and international activists, usually involve a mix of marching, chanting and throwing rocks at Israeli troops. A Bil’in man, and five in the nearby village of Na’alin, have been killed and hundreds wounded by soldiers since the protests began in 2005.
Dozens of Israeli troops and police also have been injured.
The Israeli right’s secret strategy to promote ‘Greater Israel’: Mondoweiss
by SHALOM BOGUSLAVSKY
“I think I will always want to stay behind the scenes. I think that’s where I have the greatest influence. When everyone else is busily thinking about what to say on stage, I’m busily building the stage, [deciding] who actually listens to you. After they start listening, then we can talk about what we’ll say.”
– Moshe Klughaft, in an interview to Israel’s Channel 7 television.
Introducing Moshe Klughaft: Forbes magazine has crowned him the second most influential strategic consultant in Israel, and one of the 300 most influential young adults. He is the man behind the campaigns against the New Israel Fund, both the one by Im Tirzu and the Arab Gas campaign. Obviously, all links between the two campaigns have been denied. Later on we’ll see just why such denial is one of the cornerstones of the system.
Klughaft was also the behind-the-scenes leader of the reserve soldiers’ struggle after the second Lebanon war, a struggle which is already known to have been hiding a separate agenda: preventing the progress of the Gaza disengagement program. Front and center to this effort was Ronen Shoval. After this struggle Shoval, and his number two, Erez Tadmor, took part in an Institute for Zionist Strategy (IZS) young leadership program run by Israel Harel. Last week both organizations (Im Tirzu and the IZS) attacked the academic world, but denied any links between the parent organization and the subsidiary one, claiming that there was merely “a certain degree of ideological congruence” between them. After completing the training program Shoval founded Im Tirzu and Moshe Klughaft became his strategic consultant.
Klughaft is a man of many talents and schemes, but it seems that the thing that most concerns him is how to convey the right wing, religious message to secular people in their own language. Here is a quote, straight from the horse’s mouth:
For religious Zionism and the right, in general, even to penetrate the public, they must move into the colorful, secular rhetoric of the playing field they are in. What you think and how you see the world is nice, but when you get to this specific playing field of politics, of public action, you have to play by the rules that suit the place you are in.
In the two years following the disengagement, which is when planning started for the coordinated attack against everything that bears even the faintest scent of democracy, this point became critical. We are beginning to feel the results on this campaign only now. The leaders of the right wing religious public, the public which sees itself following Rabbi Kook as the ‘vanguard’ and the secular public as the ‘troops’, looked back and saw that the troops were no longer with them. In demonstrations against disengagement, almost all demonstrators wore yarmulkes, which is a hallmark of identification with the religious right.
This led to a strengthening of the separatist, ultra-orthodox wing, which has stopped seeing the Zionist state as “the beginning of redemption” and instead preaches right wing post-Zionism. According to this belief, secular Zionism has finished its job and it is now time for a “faith-based revolution”. The more traditional right wing, represented in the “Yesha council” settler leadership, which believes that secular people have a role in the divine plan as “the ass on which the Messiah shall ride upon” understood that the new trend distances secular people from the right wing. If it were to continue, the right wing would stop leading the country and become a marginal faction, just another one of many religious factions. Israel Harel along with his secular disciple Ronen Shoval have both stated that the rise of the ultra-orthodox nationalist post-Zionism is what called them to action.
It is important to understand how the religious right reads reality. Most of the Israeli public leans to the right, but it is a pragmatic right. In other words, it is a right which could, following various real-world constraints, declare its support for two states for two nations, freeze construction of the settlements, et cetera. In contrast, as far as the religious right is concerned, it is not some constraint of reality that leads to this but rather “a weakness of resolve” on the one hand and subversive elements of impurity that have lodged themselves in powerful focus points: civil society organizations, the academic world, the media, and the courts, on the other hand.
They believe the Jewish nation, which Rabbi Kook portrays as a direct delegation of divine presence onto the world, was contaminated by that riffraff and exchanged Messianic zeal with a passion for the comforts of secular life. They are of the opinion that when the Nation of Israel is committed to their vision the constraints of reality will have no meaning. The leaders of this group came to the understanding that in order to salvage the religious right, secular people must be recruited, ones who are not interested in messianic theology but self-identify as Zionists and are open to the idea that the problems of Israel are not due to stupid policy but rather, to internal subversiveness.
How do you do it? Like this: “You have to make this arena into an exciting one, you just have to. You have to bring in people so that some will say one thing and some will say another. You have to have it be exciting, colorful, to get people to talk about you, to evoke arguments, to have factions leaning this way and that,” said Moshe Klughaft. He has long since developed a theory of “in disunion there is strength.” According to Klughaft, decisions like the Gaza disengagement were made possible because secular people supported parties like Shinui and the Retired Citizens Party, who did not declare a policy in matters of state, and these parties won votes due to other issues, but when it came down to brass tacks, they voted for what he saw as a left-wing policy. The religious right must deploy niche organizations and parties which are attractive to a broad secular public which would, at the moment of truth, vote for the Greater Eretz Yisrael. Pay attention to this: “Do you want to preserve Eretz Yisrael? Wipe it off your map! If it is important, shut up and don’t talk about it.”
That is why the Institute of Zionist Strategy, who established the Yesha Council, and its subsidiary, Im Tirzu, whose opinions on this matter are also well known, consistently avoid taking a stand on the matter of Greater Eretz Yisrael and object so vociferously when anyone tries to mark them as “right wing” organizations. No, they deal in “Zionist consciousness”, in strengthening the flagging national spirit, and in battling that very same riffraff (which would translate as “post Zionists”, when spoken in secular vernacular) which contaminates them: mainly democratic organizations, the academic world, the media, and the courts.
Over the past two yeas, many of us have felt that the democratic camp in Israel has been under a well-planned, coordinated attack. Factual information that has recently begun surfacing confirms that feeling: during [former Prime Minister] Olmert’s term in office, organizations from the old-style religious right, whose status has eroded continually since the eighties – the Yesha Council, the MAFDAL orthodox party, and the Hatchiya party which may be the clearest expression of this ideology – got together and planned, under the baton of one of the most talented and innovative strategic consultants in Israel, the move that would bring them back to the front of the stage as the hegemonic ideology of Israel.
Elements of the system are “laundering” the ideology of the messianic, religious right into terms which the secular public can more easily swallow, creating the appearance of a spontaneous national movement by evoking various organizations, with apparently-different agendas, led by Im Tirzu, which introduce themselves as grassroots activists while in fact they are nurtured, linked, and subsidized by the religious right and secular old boys network, where the secular messianic perception is shared (such as [Minister of Education] Gideon Sa’ar, who had been a member of Hatchiya Youth). This is all done while denying completely and untruthfully any connection between the various persons and organizations involved, and hiding the Greater Eretz Yisrael ideology, which is not shared by most of the public, until that “moment of truth.” The primary working method is an attack on the democratic forces which could call a halt on them, an attack which relies on the willingness of a besieged society to seek guilty parties and the “left wing traitor” stereotype, which has been successful inserted into public discourse.
The first stage was an attack on the institutions of civil society. The second stage, the one we are currently experiencing, is an attack on the academic world. I wager that as soon as this campaign burns itself out, the media will be attacked, and thereafter, the judiciary system. In other words, anyone who can resist, criticize, and expose the true face of this organization will be slurred, sullied, and named as suspected of subversion and treason – before even raising objections about it.
And then they’ll go into politics. Everyone knows that. It could even happen in the coming elections. Following strategic consultant Moshe Klughaft’s system, I think we can expect more than one party, all of which will run on different versions of the same message, position themselves as “center” and talk about “Zionism”, “education”, “society, and “a struggle against post-Zionism.”
On a personal note, I really don’t feel like writing very much about Im Tirzu and its friends and relations. In fact, I’d much prefer to write less about politics and more about other things. But I sense danger, and my gut feelings about what is going on in this story have – so far – all turned out exactly as I feared. I can only hope that I am wrong about the next steps. What I propose is that we stop responding only after we get slammed on the head with yet another brick. What is being exposed here, and in other places, is only the tip of the iceberg. Storm the Internet, search, dig deep, cross-reference, expose – and tell the story.
Shalom Boguslavsky was born in Russia in 1976, has been living in Jerusalem since 1981, studies history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and makes his living as a group leader, facilitating discussions about Jewish-Israeli identity, dialogue & conflict management. This article originally appeared in Hebrew on the blog Put Down the Scissors And Let’s Talk About It. It was translated with the author’s permission by Dena Shunra.
EDITOR: Don’t just blame Israel, but also the other war-mongers!
Israel always gets others to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. This time it is the great Zionist, Mons. Nicolas Sarkozy, warning Iran of the impending bombing on behalf of Netanyahu and Obama. What a change from the time, in 2003, that the French were standing fiorm (for a time) against the illegal war on Iraq…
Sarkozy warns world powers will mobilize against Iran if nuclear talks fail: Haaretz
Israel and Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbors are concerned about its increasing clout in the region and the prospect of it acquiring nuclear weapons.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Iran on Wednesday that failure to reach a credible agreement over its nuclear program would force world powers to mobilize to protect threatened states in the region.
In an annual address to France’s ambassadors, Sarkozy laid out his foreign policy objectives as the country prepares to take over the chair next year of the Group of 20 powers and the narrower club of rich countries known as the G8.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on August 25, 2010.
“If a credible agreement cannot be reached, Iran’s isolation would only worsen,” Sarkozy said. “And in the face of worsening threat, we would have to organize ourselves to protect and defend states that feel threatened.”
Many of Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbors are concerned about the Shi’ite state’s increasing clout in the region and the prospect that it might acquire nuclear weapons.
“Everybody knows that there are serious consequences to a policy that would allow Iran to follow its nuclear path,” Sarkozy said. “It would see a general proliferation in the region or even military conflict.”
Iran has said it is prepared to return to talks with six world powers but the exact nature of such negotiations has yet to be defined. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Iran would not talk to the United States unless sanctions and
military threats were lifted.
Tehran began loading fuel into its first nuclear power plant in the Gulf city of Bushehr on Saturday, a potent symbol of its growing regional sway and its rejection of international sanctions designed to prevent it building a nuclear bomb.
Sarkozy said he welcomed the new power plant to be operated by the Russians as long as it adhered to international law.
Tehran is already under four rounds of UN sanctions because of fears that its uranium enrichment program, which is separate from Bushehr, is aimed at developing nuclear weapons capability. Tehran insists its enrichment work is for peaceful energy only.
“I hope that we can find a good agreement in the coming months … that Iran respects the law and that the concerns of the international community are lifted,” Sarkozy said.
Iran intensifies search for uranium
Iran said Wednesday that the search for new uranium deposits is the country’s top priority now that it has started up its first nuclear power plant.
With Russian help, Iran began loading uranium fuel into its first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr on Saturday after years of delays.
The head of Iran’s atomic energy agency did not explain why Iran was intensifying the exploration for uranium at home. Tehran has in the past denied its uranium stockpile was running low, as some international nuclear experts have concluded.
UN Security Council sanctions bar countries from selling uranium to Iran in response to its refusal to stop uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to produce fuel for power plants or material for bombs.
“The most important priority, after the Bushehr nuclear power plant, is the exploration and discovery of uranium throughout the country,” the official IRNA news agency quoted nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi as saying.
The United States and other nations have tried to persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium out of concern Tehran is seeking a pathway to weapons production under the cover of its civil nuclear power program. Iran denies such an aim and says it only wants to enrich uranium to fuel a future network of power plants.
Salehi, who is also Iran’s vice president, said only one-third of the country has been explored for uranium deposits. He said the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran will carry out exploration work anywhere it detects a uranium vein.
“With the assistance of President [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] and the allocation of a budget, we hope to survey the whole country as far as uranium exploration is concerned,” Salehi was quoted by IRNA as saying. He didn’t elaborate but said the study and exploration activities throughout Iran may take eight years.
“Anywhere there is a vein of uranium, we will enter into exploration work,” the Iranian government website quoted Salehi as saying.
International experts have said Iran’s stockpile of uranium oxide – used to make the gas that is spun through centrifuges in the enrichment process – appears to be rapidly diminishing.
In December, a confidential intelligence report drawn up by a member of the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency said Iran was trying to secretly import 1,350 tons of uranium oxide from Kazakhstan for $450 million.
Iran at the time called the report a fabrication and completely baseless.
Tehran still has hundreds of tons of the uranium hexafluoride gas used in the enrichment process.
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency believes Iran’s rapidly expanding enrichment program has been built on 600 tons of uranium oxide imported from South Africa during the 1970s as part of plans by the U.S.-backed shah to build a civil nuclear power program.
The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said last year that, based on 2008 IAEA statistics, Iran had already used up close to three-quarters of its South African supply.
Iran’s own principal source of uranium is the Saghand mine in the center of the country, which has the capacity to produce 132,000 tons (120,000 metric tons) of ore per year. Located about 300 miles (480 kilometers) south of Tehran, the mine consists of an open pit with minimal reserves and a deep mine. It has a total estimated uranium ore reserve of 1.73 million tons (1.58 million metric tons).
It also has smaller uranium deposits near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas where a mill is reportedly converting raw uranium into uranium ore concentrate known as yellowcake.
Iran announced discoveries of new uranium deposits in 2006 at three sites in the central Khoshoomi, Charchooleh and Narigan areas.
This isn’t Cyprus: Haaretz
If we are going to hold it up as a model for a Israeli-Palestinian separation plan, we had better understand what it’s really like on the divided island.
By Avirama Golan
LARNACA – As on other occasions when talk of peace negotiations filled the air, examples from around the world are being cited as models for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Cyprus is one of the favorite models of comparison among jurists and political scientists. Proponents of the “Us here, them there” model for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are charmed by the island’s total separation between rival population groups. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman even peddles his own distorted version of Cypriot history, which goes something like this: “There was a conflict, there was a decision to divide the island and since then, it’s been quiet.”
On the other hand, proponents of a binational Israeli-Palestinian state delude themselves that harmony reigns between the Greek and Turkish populations, forgetting that even before the Turkish Army’s 1974 invasion, which led to the island’s division, Cyprus was an ethnic-majority state in which the Turkish minority had civil rights.
Maybe now, as thousands of Israelis descend upon the Larnaca airport en route to the resort town of Ayia Napa or cross the border that runs through the capital of Nicosia to gamble on the Turkish side, we can step back and take an unbiased look at this beautiful island and understand that just like dysfunctional families, national disputes are each characterized by their very own unique and complex dynamics.
Those who cross Cyprus’ own Green Line in Nicosia are mostly Greek speakers heading for the Turkish side – or in Greek, “the occupied territories.” Traffic into the Republic of Cyprus from the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, a polity recognized by Turkey alone, is sparse.
It is not only Israeli gamblers who use the crossing to head for the slot machines. Throngs of Greek Cypriots with wallets bursting with euro notes head north to buy cheap knockoffs of brand-name goods. On the way back, Greek speakers pass through without hindrance, while the rare Turkish speaker is subjected to a meticulous examination.
Here there is no intifada, but there are settlements. Since 1983 the Turkish government, in violation of the Geneva Convention, has sent thousands of immigrants from its mountainous Anatolian countryside into north Cyprus. It promised the migrants free homes and jobs, conveniently omitting the fact that the homes were “abandoned property” of owners who fled or were driven out (some 200,000 Greek speakers fled south in 1974 ).
The number of Turkish “settlers” is estimated today at 50,000 – a full quarter of all inhabitants of the north. In 2004, then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan floated a plan – which the Greeks rejected – to grant 45,000 of them Cypriot citizenship if and when the island is reunited.
In the indigent north, conflicts broke out between settlers and “natives,” because the new arrivals were more religious, more conservative and more tied to Turkey than the veteran residents, who were secular and oriented toward Europe. Many of the veterans would like to migrate south. And while the northern government strives to develop the economy, it does so through real-estate and tourist ventures on land that doesn’t belong to it.
Most of the buyers, incidentally, are Britons, seemingly convinced that colonialism is alive and well, and Israelis, for whom construction in occupied territory is a trivial matter.
In the south, by contrast, the booming economy draws thousands of migrant workers annually from the Balkans.
Both sides have peace camps that support reunification in the spirit of the UN proposal. Leading the campaign on the Greek side is the current president, Dimitris Cristofias, himself born on the northern side. But on the Turkish side, which has grown more radical, this camp is censored.
Confused? This is just the tip of the Cyprus iceberg. Those seeking to present the island as a model for the Mideast are both mistaken and misleading. But the key mistake made by those who favor Cyprus as a model for our conflict is that unlike Israelis and Palestinians, Greeks and Turks each have nation-states beyond the island.
This is not Cyprus. Here, in the Middle East, we need to look inward to see the true picture.
EDITOR: The BDS is spreading far and wide
The next few items are covering examples of the BNDS campaign spread. It may not be spreading as fast as we would like it to, but it is certainly taking hold and growing.
BNC_Norwegian_government_pension_fund_excludes_more_Israeli_companies: BNC
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 23, 2010
Occupied Palestine – The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) has divested from two Israeli companies, Africa Israel Investments and Danya Cebus, over their involvement in construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank1.
A government statement quoted the Norwegian Minister of Finance Sigbjørn Johnsen as saying “these companies are contributing to or are themselves responsible for grossly unethical activity.”2
This decision follows the Norwegian Ministry of Finance’s move one year ago to exclude Israeli military contractor Elbit Systems Ltd. from the Governmental Pension Fund due to the company’s integral involvement in Israel’s construction of the illegal Wall on occupied territory3. That move provoked a domino effect among financial institutions.
“Several United Nations Security Council resolutions and an International Court of Justice advisory opinion have concluded that the construction of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory is prohibited under the [Geneva] Convention. I have therefore accepted the recommendation of the Council on Ethics and am excluding Africa Israel Investments and Danya Cebus from the fund’s investment portfolio,” says Norway’s Minister of Finance Sigbjørn Johnsen4.
These companies have been target of campaigns from Palestine and around the world. The West Bank Palestinian villages of Bil’in and Jayyous and 11 national and international networks from Europe, Palestine, Israel and the US have sent letters calling on Norway to comply with its ethical guidelines and divest from its pension fund holdings in the company Africa-Israel, owned by the controversial diamond magnate Lev Leviev5. A delegation of the GPFG visited Jayyous and witnessed first hand the devastating impacts of the construction of Israeli settlements by Africa-Israel and another Leviev-owned company, Leader Management and Development, on the villages’ agricultural land. Adalah-NY, the New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, regularly protest outside the Leviev’s diamonds shop in Manhattan, named after the chairman of Africa Israel. Last year, the UK Foreign Office dropped plans to move into a building in Tel Aviv owned by Africa-Israel for the same reasons6.
In 2005, Palestinian 171 civil society organisations, including political parties, trade unions and NGOs, issued a call for imposing broad of boycott, divestment and sanctions initiatives against Israel until it complies with international law.7
Hind Awwad, coordinator of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)8, a Palestinian civil society coalition that acts as a reference for the global BDS movement, said, “We welcome this principled decision by the Norwegian Ministry of Finance to divest from two Israeli companies involved in illegal settlement construction. As the international community continues to fail to take the steps needed to end Israeli impunity, it is becoming clearer that the growing movement to isolate Israel is necessary if the state is to be forced to end its violations of international law and Palestinian rights.”
“The Norwegian government has taken a brave step to ensure the primacy of international law, and we call on it to divest funds from all companies profiting from Israeli occupation and apartheid policies.”
“We would like to give special thanks to Adalah-NY, the New York based campaign for the boycott of Israel who played an instrumental role in campaigning for GPFG to make this decision.”
“Following last September’s GPFG divestment from Elbit, 11 financial institutions have announced exclusion of Elbit from their portfolio, including the Danske Bank, the largest bank in Denmark and four out of six Swedish National Pension Funds. In May, Deutsche Bank, the largest bank in Germany announced that Israeli arms company Elbit Systems, a company involved in the construction of the Apartheid Wall in Occupied Palestinian Territory, does not meet its ethical criteria9.
We hope that this Norwegian divestment move will have a similar domino effect and, together with the ongoing campaigns of the global BDS movement, push other financial institutions to withdraw from Africa Israel and Danya Cebus.”
The GPFG owned shares worth NOK 7.2 million in Africa Israel Investments at year end 2009. Africa Israel Investments is the majority shareholder in Danya Cebus.
ENDS
Hind Awaad hind.awwad@bdsmovement.net +972 59983 7796 Michael Deas bnc.europe@bdsmovement.net +44 77946 78535
Activists tell shipping firm Zim — Israeli ships not welcome in Vancouver: Rabble.ca
BY BOYCOTT ISRAELI APARTHEID COALITION | AUGUST 24, 2010
Vancouver – Port truck traffic slowed to a crawl along the Deltaport causeway as a group of about 50 protesters approached drivers with leaflets containing information about the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza. They also offered the drivers coffee and muffins in a gesture of solidarity. The protesters were there to draw attention to the fact that the Israeli container ship Zim Djibouti had landed in Vancouver to unload its containers.
Zim is an Israeli shipping company, one of the largest in the world.
“This action was part of the growing international campaign to pressure Israel to comply with international law and stop killing innocent civilians,” said Gordon Murray, spokesperson for the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Coalition (BIAC).
“Workers in South Africa, Scandinavia, the United States, Turkey and India have already responded to the Palestinian call for action to end the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza and the suffering it is causing,” said Mike Krebs, BIAC’s other spokesperson.
“The international solidarity movement has decided that the best way to change Israel’s behaviour is to take actions against Israeli companies and institutions in order to put pressure on the government there.”
Israelis risk jail to smuggle Palestinians: The National
Jonathan Cook, August 23, 2010
NAZARETH, ISRAEL // Nearly 600 Israelis have signed up for a campaign of civil disobedience, vowing to risk jail to smuggle Palestinian women and children into Israel for a brief taste of life outside the occupied West Bank.
The Israelis say they have been inspired by the example of Ilana Hammerman, a writer who is threatened with prosecution after publishing an article in which she admitted breaking the law to bring three Palestinian teenagers into Israel for a day out.
Ms Hammerman said she wanted to give the young women, who had never left the West Bank, “some fun” and a chance to see the Mediterranean for the first time.
Her story has shocked many Israelis and led to a police investigation after right-wing groups called for her to be tried for security offences.
It is illegal to transport Palestinians through checkpoints into Israel without a permit, which few can obtain. If tried and found guilty, Ms Hammerman could be fined and face up to two years in jail.
But Israelis joining the campaign say they will not be put off by threats of imprisonment.
Last month, a group of 11 Israeli women joined Ms Hammerman in repeating her act of civil disobedience, driving a dozen Palestinian women and four children, including a baby, through a checkpoint into Israel.
The Israeli women say they are planning mass “smugglings” of Palestinians into Israel over the coming weeks.
“The Palestinians who join us are mainly looking to have a good time after years of confinement under the occupation, but for us what is most important is our act of defiance,” said Ofra Lyth, who helped establish an online forum of supporters after attending a speech by Ms Hammerman.
“We want to overturn this immoral law that gives rights to Jews to move freely around while keeping Palestinians imprisoned in their towns and villages,” she said, referring to regulations that bar most Palestinians in the occupied territories from entering Israel, and Israelis from assisting them. Exceptions are made for Palestinians with permits, sometimes issued for a medical emergency or to some labourers with security clearances.
For the Palestinian women, though, it is not about making a statement or defying an unjust law, according to Ms Lyth.
“The Palestinian women tell us: ‘Go ahead and make your political point, but for us we’re breaking the law so that we can enjoy ourselves and remember how life was before the checkpoints and the wall.’ One woman told me: ‘I just want to be able to breathe again’.”
For Palestinians in the West Bank, it is not often easy to breathe. The territory is home to a growing population of 300,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements. The settlers are able to drive into Israel on roads that the army oversees with checkpoints.
It was through one such settler crossing, near Beitar Ilit, south of Jerusalem, that Ms Hammerman took the three Palestinian teenagers this year.
For their protection, she has not identifed the young women or the West Bank village where they live. She refers to the women as Aya, Lin and Yasmin. They, too, could face jail for breaking the law.
In Ms Hammerman’s article, published in Haaretz newspaper in May, she admitted that she was aware her actions were illegal.
She told the women, who were 18 and 19, to take off their hijabs for the day and dress in western-style clothes to avoid attracting attention from soldiers at the checkpoint. She also taught them an easy Hebrew phrase Hakull beseder, or “Everything is okay” – in case a soldier spoke to them.
She then took them on a tour of Tel Aviv, visiting the city’s university, a museum, a shopping mall and the beach, which she noted none of them had ever seen even though it is only about 40km from their village.
Ms Hammerman wrote that the only dangerous moment during the trip was when a plain-clothes policeman stopped them and asked for the women’s identity cards. Ms Hammerman lied to the officer, telling him that the women were Palestinians from East Jerusalem and therefore entitled to enter Israel.
In June, Yehuda Weinstein, the attorney general, was reported to have approved a police investigation of Ms Hammerman after a settler organisation, the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, complained.
The ranks of Ms Hammerman’s supporters have swollen since the group placed an advertisement, titled “We refuse to obey”, in Haaretz this month. The ad said the group was “acting in the spirit of Martin Luther King”, the US civil rights leader, and demanded that Palestinians be treated as “human beings, not terrorists”.
Over the past week, the online forum has attracted more than 590 Israelis signing up to repeat Ms Hammerman’s act of civil disobedience.
“That has really surprised and encouraged me,” she said. “I did not realise there were so many other Israelis who have had enough of this outrageous law.”
Still, the coverage of Ms Hammerman and her supporters in the Israeli media has been largely hostile. During a television interview last week, she was accused of endangering Israelis with her trips. The show’s host, Yaron London, asked whether she had inspected the Palestinian women’s underclothes for explosives before allowing them into her car.
She will will not be deterred, though. She said the group had discussed future trips for Palestinians, including taking them to pray at al-Aqsa, the mosque in Jerusalem that has been inaccessible to most Palestinians for at least a decade, and visits to Palestinian relatives they cannot see in Jerusalem and Israel.
“We need to get Israelis meeting Palestinians again, having fun with them and seeing that they are human beings with the same rights as us.”
She said her immediate goal was to kick-start a discussion among Israelis about the legality and morality of Israel’s laws and challenge the public’s “blind obedience” to authority.
Ms Lyth added that the Palestinian women “who have gone on our trips are the heroes of their village. They and their families know they are taking a big risk in breaking the law, but harassment is part of their daily lives anyway”.
Iran prepared to arm Lebanon ‘if it seeks military assistance’: Haaretz
Hezbollah leader Nasrallah vowed on Tuesday that his Iranian-backed group could help secure aid for Lebanon’s poorly equipped army.
Iran is prepared to sell weapons to Lebanon if Beirut asks for help in equipping its military, the Islamic Republic’s defense minister said Wednesday.
Gen. Ahmad Vahidi’s comments come one day after the leader of Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, called on the Lebanese government to formally seek military assistance from Iran.
“Lebanon is our friend,” Vahidi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency. “If there is a demand in this respect, we are ready to help that country and conduct weapons transactions with it.”
In a televised speech on Tuesday, Nasrallah vowed that his Iranian-backed group could help secure the aid for Lebanon’s poorly equipped army.
The Hezbollah leader made his suggestion after a U.S. congressman suspended $100 million of American military aid to Lebanon earlier this month over concerns the weapons could be used against Israel and that Hezbollah may have influence over the Lebanese army.
Lebanon’s government has since opened an account at the central bank to receive donations to help it purchase weapons for the military.
But Beirut is not entirely dependent on U.S. military assistance, and has turned to other countries, including Russia and Arab nations, for assistance in the past.
Iran is a key supporter of Hezbollah, believed to funnel it weapons and millions of dollars in funding, though Tehran denies arming the Shiite group.
Hezbollah, also closely allied to Syria, boasts a heavy arsenal of rockets capable of reaching deep inside Israel.
Bil’in’s Abdallah Abu Rahmah Cleared of Stone-Throwing; Convicted of Incitement: IOA
By the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee – 24 Aug 2010
Protest organizer Abdallah Abu Rhamah from Bil’in was convicted of incitement and organizing illegal demonstrations today, after an eight months long military trial, during which he was kept behind bars. He was acquitted of a stone-throwing charge and a vindictive arms-possession charge.
Abdallah Abu Rahmah’s verdict was read today in a packed military court room, concluding an eight months long politically motivated show-trial. Diplomats from France, Malta, Germany, Spain and the UK, as well as a representative of the European Union were in attendance to observe the trial. Many of his friends, supporters and family members showed up to send their support.
Abu Rahmah, the coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, was acquitted of two out of the four charges brought against him in the indictment – stone-throwing and a ridiculous and vindictive arms possession charge. According to the indictment, Abu Rahmah collected used tear-gas projectiles and bullet cases shot at demonstrators, with the intention of exhibiting them to show the violence used against demonstrators. This absurd charge is a clear example of how eager the military prosecution is to use legal procedures as a tool to silence and smear unarmed dissent.
The court did, however, find Abu Rahmah guilty of two of the most draconian anti-free speech articles in military legislation: incitement, and organizing and participating in illegal demonstrations. It did so based only on testimonies of minors who were arrested in the middle of the night and denied their right to legal counsel, and despite acknowledging significant ills in their questioning.
The court was also undeterred by the fact that the prosecution failed to provide any concrete evidence implicating Abu Rahmah in any way, despite the fact that all demonstrations in Bil’in are systematically filmed by the army.
Under military law, incitement is defined as “The attempt, verbally or otherwise, to influence public opinion in the Area in a way that may disturb the public peace or public order” (section 7(a) of the Order Concerning Prohibition of Activities of Incitement and Hostile Propaganda (no.101), 1967), and carries a 10 years maximal sentence.
Abu Rahmah’s case was the first time the prosecution had used the organizing and participating in illegal demonstrations since the first Intifada. Military law defines illegal assembly in a much stricter way than Israeli law does, and in practice forbids any assembly of more than 10 people without receiving a permit from the military commander.
Abu Rahmah’s sentencing will take place next month, and the prosecution is expected to ask for a sentence exceeding two years.
Background
Last year, on the night of International Human Right Day, Thursday December 10th, at 2am, Abdallah Abu Rahmah was arrested from his home in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Seven military jeeps surrounded his house, and Israeli soldiers broke the door, took Abdallah from his bed and, after briefly allowing him to say goodbye to his wife Majida and their three children — seven year-old Luma, five year-old Lian and eight month-old baby Laith — they blindfolded him and took him into custody.
Abu Rahmah did not find himself behind bars because he is a dangerous man. Abdallah, who is amongst the leaders of the Palestinian village of Bil’in, is viewed as a threat for his work in the five-year unarmed struggle to save the village’s land from Israel’s wall and expanding settlements.
As a member of the Popular Committee and its coordinator since it was formed in 2004, Abdallah has represented the village of Bil’in around the world. In June 2009, he attended the village’s precedent-setting legal case in Montreal against two Canadian companies illegally building settlements on Bil’in’s land; in December of 2008, he participated in a speaking tour in France, and on 10 December 2008, exactly a year before his arrest, Abdallah received the Carl Von Ossietzky Medal for Outstanding Service in the Realization of Basic Human Rights, awarded by the International League for Human Rights in Berlin.
Last summer Abdallah was standing shoulder to shoulder with Nobel Peace laureates and internationally renowned human rights activists, discussing Bil’in’s grassroots campaign for justice when The Elders visited his village. This summer, he may be sent to years in prison, exactly for his involvement in this campaign.
After the Middle East peace talks fail: The Guardian CoF
A unilaterally declared Palestinian state, run for a time without major security incident, offers the only possible path to peace
Carlo Strenger
Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad (left) and Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak at a conference on security and policy in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, earlier this year. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
Binyamin Netanyahu has scored a diplomatic victory, as many pundits have pointed out, because the US administration has shifted pressure from Israel to the Palestinians and coaxed them into direct talks with Israel. He probably assumes that the talks will fail because the Palestinians will walk out at some point, and then he will have a case for maintaining the status quo. But such a victory would be hollow.
Netanyahu’s world view has consistently been that Israel, as the west’s outpost in the Middle East, is likely to face threats for a very long time to come, and that any peace agreement must address all realistic threats. Netanyahu does not believe that betting on the positive dynamics of a peace agreement is sufficient to guarantee Israel’s survival and the last decade, starting with the second intifada, has pushed most of Israel’s electorate to endorse Netanyahu’s views.
Hence there are good reasons to believe detailed proposals published this year by the hawkish Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs more or less reflect Netanyahu’s position, particularly because the centre is associated with Moshe Ya’alon, his vice-prime minister and minister of strategic affairs, and Uzi Arad, his security adviser.
Their claims are as follows: the international consensus that the foundations for any peace agreement are the 1967 borders is unacceptable because it violates Israel’s security needs. Hence Israel needs to return to a security-based diplomacy in which the parameters of any peace agreement must be defined by Israel’s security needs. Israel must have enough time for reserves to be mobilised in case of a ground attack from the east; hence Israel must retain control of the Jordan valley as well as of critical areas inside the territories. Israel is extremely vulnerable to air terrorism, whether through rockets or 9/11-style suicide attacks; hence it needs complete control over the whole airspace west of the Jordan and the electromagnetic spectrum.
None of the claimed security threats can be dismissed as paranoid fantasies: all the scenarios have precedents, ranging from ground attacks from the east through rocket attacks on Israel to attempts to shoot down Israelis civilian airliners. The latter scenario is particularly chilling, as the downing of single airliner would effectively shut down Israel’s main physical connection to the outside world.
Let us now look at the pressures on Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas: a sizable part of his constituency has not given up on the Palestinian right of return to all of historical Palestine. As many pundits have pointed out, many Palestinians prefer the scenario in which the peace process is pronounced dead. The Palestinian Authority would announce its own dissolution, and Palestinians would demand Israeli citizenship, thus effectively implementing the one-state solution in which Palestinians would soon have a demographic majority.
For Abbas to gain support for a final status agreement, he needs some sizable gains with high symbolic value. The most important would be Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem, and at least some form of international sovereignty over the Holy Basin, the area containing the Old City and surrounding holy sites. Even under these conditions, it would be an uphill battle for him to sell the final agreement to Palestinians.
If Abbas has to make concessions about borders, his task becomes well-nigh impossible. This is why he insisted that the talks need to presume some understanding about borders. Abbas has good reason to be wary, because if Netanyahu’s views are more or less reflected in the presentation of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, his best offer falls far short of the 1967 borders.
Ergo, the distance between the parties is so enormous that the talks are headed for certain failure, and we had better take a clearheaded look at the likely consequences.
The most likely scenario is that failure of the talks will significantly weaken Abbas and the Palestinian Authority prime minister, Salam Fayyad. Palestinians will no longer have any horizon for attaining sovereignty in peaceful ways, and terrorist attacks will resume. Israel will react forcefully, possibly along the lines of Operation Cast Lead. This will not only create outrage in the world, but may mobilise Israeli Arabs to start terrorist attacks inside Israel. This in turn will force Israel to restrict freedom of movement of its Arab citizens and it might start censoring internal criticism of its policies, which would endanger Israel’s democracy.
The scenario in which the Palestinian Authority dissolves itself and asks the international community to force Israel into the one-state solution is no more palatable. Israel will be forced to resume full control over the West Bank, but to safeguard Israel’s Jewish character will not grant citizenship to Palestinians. It will then be accused of being a de facto apartheid regime, which will deepen Israel’s current bunker mentality, particularly if much of the world calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions.
The only scenario that could conceivably lead to positive results is the option that Fayyad has been working towards in recent years by improving enormously on Palestinian governance and creating a viable Palestinian security force. After the talks fail, Palestinians will unilaterally declare a state along the 1967 borders next year, and seek international recognition while implementing de facto sovereignty over the territories currently under Palestinian control.
Even Fayyad’s option will only bear fruit if he succeeds in the difficult task of running Palestine without major security incidents for a few years. The question is whether this will change the state of mind of Israelis sufficiently to regain the lost belief that they will see peace in their lifetime.
Despite these caveats, Fayyad’s option is the only one that offers a glimmer of hope. His success might wake up Israel’s disempowered liberals to restate the case for peace. But both Israel’s liberals and Fayyad must be aware that such a turnaround may take the better part of the coming decade. And in the Middle East, a decade is more than enough for further catastrophe.