Israel’s loyalty oath: Discriminatory by design: The Guardian Editorial
New pledge requires future citizens declare their loyalty to an ideology, one intended to exclude Palestinians
Monday 11 October 2010
There are two narratives at work in Israel that have a bearing on the capacity of its leaders to negotiate the creation of an independent Palestinian state next to it. The first is official and intended for external consumption. It is the one that claims Israel is ready to sit down with the Palestinians in direct talks without preconditions and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, should not have wasted so much of the 10 month partial freeze on settlement building before he did so. On Saturday, America was given another month by the Arab League to persuade Binyamin Netanyahu’s government to halt settlement building, the bare minimum required for talks to continue.
There is however a second narrative, which could be called business as usual, and it has nothing to do with occupation, Iran’s nuclear programme, Hizbullah’s rocket arsenal, or any threat which could be called existential. This was evident in all its inglory yesterday when the Israeli cabinet approved a measure requiring candidates for Israeli citizenship to pledge loyalty to “the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state”. The naturalisation oath would not apply to Jews, who are granted automatic citizenship under the law of return, so it is, by definition, discriminatory. The existing text binds individuals to declare their loyalty to the state of Israel. The new version requires future citizens to declare their loyalty not just to a state but an ideology, one specifically designed to exclude one fifth of its citizens who see themselves as Palestinian.
Palestinian Israeli leaders have described this proposal as racist. Palestinian Israeli citizens do not have to take this oath, but their partners seeking naturalisation do. Neither could agree with Israel’s characterisation of itself as a Jewish state. It could be a state of Jews and all its citizens, but never a Jewish state. Nor is this the only bill around. There are 20 others in the slipstream that have a similar effect: there is a loyalty law for Knesset members and for film crews; there are bills that make it a criminal offence to deny the existence of Israel; that penalise the mourning of Nakba Day; that force any group financed by a foreign nation to report each contribution; and a bill to deny ethnic minorities’ access to Jewish settlements. The authors of these proposals not only intend to create a state ideology but to police it.
The question that lies behind this is why, and why now? Are these the actions of a nation prepared to make a historical compromise, end occupation and live in peace with its neighbourhood? If they are and we are all wildly misinterpreting this, why alienate and incite the very people who could have helped by their example bring a historic settlement about, people who have accepted the existence of Israel, who have never in their history taken up arms against it? This applies to Christian as well as Muslim. The opposite is happening. The Palestinian Israeli experience of inequality and discrimination only promotes the view that being a minority in a state with a Jewish majority is rapidly becoming untenable.
The Labour minorities minister Avishay Braverman described the loyalty oath yesterday as a terrible mistake. But it is surely more that. Mistake implies miscalculation, and there is calculation in this. It seeks to pre-empt negotiation on the third core issue after borders and the division of Jerusalem – the right of return of Palestinian refugees to sovereign Israeli territory. Abbas happens to be one of those refugees. If Netanyahu refuses to extend the settlement freeze, Abbas, the most pliant Palestinian negotiator Israel is likely to encounter, has threatened to resign, dissolve the Palestinian authority or seek US and UN recognition for a future Palestinian state. Netanyahu is only hastening the day when this happens and in one sense, he is doing the world a service. Future citizens will be swearing loyalty to a state that can not make peace.
PLO chief: We will recognize Israel in return for 1967 borders: Haaretz
Yasser Abed Rabbo says that in exchange for accepting Palestinian territorial claims, it will recognize Israel as ‘whatever it wants.’
Tags: Israel news Middle East peace Palestinians PLO
Senior Palestine Liberation Organization official Yasser Abed Rabbo said on Wednesday that the Palestinians will be willing to recognize the State of Israel in any way that it desires, if the Americans would only present a map of the future Palestinian state that includes all of the territories captured in 1967, including East Jerusalem.
In response to U.S. State Department Spokesman Phillip Crowley’s statement on Tuesday night that the Palestinians should respond to the Israeli demand, Abed Rabbo told Haaretz, “We want to receive a map of the State of Israel which Israel wants us to accept.”
“If the map will be based on the 1967 borders and will not include our land, our houses and East Jerusalem, we will be willing to recognize Israel according to the formulation of the government within the hour,” added Rabbo.
Abed Rabbo continued, “It is important for us to know where are the borders of Israel and where are the borders of Palestine. Any formulation the Americans present – even asking us to call Israel the ‘Chinese State’ – we will agree to it, as long as we receive the 1967 borders. We have recognized Israel in the past, but Israel has not recognized the Palestinian state.”
Israeli troops accused of shooting children in Gaza: The Guardian
• Victims were scavenging for rubble, say rights groups
• Attacks allegedly took place outside 300-metre buffer zone
Harriet Sherwood in Beit Lahiya
Monday 11 October 2010
At least 10 Palestinian children have been shot and wounded by Israeli troops in the past three months while collecting rubble in or near the “buffer zone” created by Israel along the Gaza border, in a low-intensity offensive on the fringes of the blockaded Palestinian territory.
Israeli soldiers are routinely shooting at Gazans well beyond the unmarked boundary of the official 300 metre-wide no-go area, rights groups say.
According to Bassam Masri, head of orthopaedics at the Kamal Odwan hospital in Beit Lahiya in the north of Gaza, about 50 people have been treated for gunshot wounds suffered in or near the buffer zone while collecting rubble in the past three months; about five have been killed.
He estimates that 30% of the injured are boys under 18.
Defence for Children International (DCI) has documented 10 cases of children aged 13 to 17 being shot in a three-month period between 50 and 800 metres from the border. Nine were shot in a leg or arm; one was shot in the stomach.
The creation of the no-go area has forced farmers to abandon land and residents to leave homes for fear of coming under fire. Last month a 91-year-old man and two teenage boys were killed while harvesting olives outside the official zone when Israeli troops fired shells. Forty-three goats also died in the attack.
In another case a mother of five was killed by a shell outside her home near the zone in July.
Israel declared the buffer zone inside Gaza after the three-week war in 2008-9, saying it was intended to prevent militants firing rockets. It has dropped leaflets from planes several times warning local people not to venture within 300 metres of the fence that marks the border or risk being shot.
However, the UN, aid agencies and rights groups say that Israel has unofficially and without warning extended the zone to up to 1km from the fence, leaving residents and farmers uncertain whether it is safe to access their land or property.
“The army knows the kids are there to collect. They watch them every day and they know they have no weapons,” said Mohammed Abu Rukbi, a fieldworker with DCI. “They usually fire warning shots but the kids don’t take much notice.”
Mohammed Sobboh, 17, was shot just above the knee on August 25 when he was 800 metres from the border, he said. The 12 people in his family have no other income and are not entitled to aid from the UN as they are not refugees.
Israeli soldiers shot dead a horse and a donkey used by Mohammed and his brothers to carry the rubble, he said.
His brother, Adham, 22, said children as young as eight collect debris from former settlements and demolished buildings for 30-40 shekels (£5.20-£7) a day. “The price has gone down because a lot of people are collecting,” said Adham.
According to Dr Masri, the number of shootings has increased as more impoverished Gazans turn to collecting rubble to sell as construction material, which is still under Israeli embargo. “Every day we have one or two cases. Some kids are facing permanent disability. Most of the injuries are to the legs and feet, suggesting the soldiers did not aim to kill. That means they know that the people aren’t militants.”
Ziad Tamboura, 27, lying in a hospital bed with a heavily bandaged foot, was shot last week while collecting 500 metres from the border. X-rays showed the bones in the foot to be smashed by the bullet. He collected rubble in order to feed his wife and child. “If I am able to walk again, I will go back. There is no other work.”
The Gaza City-based Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights is to mount a legal challenge jointly with the Israeli groups Adalah and Physicians for Human Rights to breaches of the official buffer zone. “The area [the Israelis] announced is not the same as what exists on the ground,” said the centre’s Samir Zaqout.
He criticised the Israelis for shooting and shelling unarmed civilians. “They know everything. They have the technological capacity to monitor the area. They have drones in the sky all the time. They are observing and screening everything.”
According to the UN, about 30% of Gaza’s arable land is contained within 300 metres of the 50km border. The difficulty farmers face in reaching their land had had an impact on the availability of crops in Gaza, Zaqout said. “Tomatoes are now 10 shekels a kilo, whereas the price used to be one or two shekels.”
The Abu Said family, whose land lies outside the buffer zone, felt confident that their faces were well known to Israeli troops monitoring the area. “Every day six or seven members of my family are there [on the land],” said Mohammed Abu Said.
But on 12 September, 91-year-old Ibrahim Abu Said, his 17-year-old grandson, Hussam, and a family friend, Ismail Abu Owda, 16, were killed by a shell fired from a tank on the Israeli side of the border. “This was a very old man taking care of his goats,” said Mohammed, Ibrahim’s son. “Our land used to be like a heaven. Now it’s like a desert.”
He blamed Palestinian militants for firing rockets as well as the Israeli military.
In a statement, the Israeli military said the 300-metre buffer zone was created in response to “many incidents of hostile terrorist activity” close to the security fence, often made “under a civilian disguise”.
It added: “The IDF acts in order to prevent harm to civilian populations in its operations and any complaint expressed regarding its soldiers’ conduct will be … examined according to the existing policy.”
In the firing line
Children shot in “buffer zone” while collecting rubble
Mohammad, 17, shot in left leg, 800m from border, 25 August
Khaled, 16, left thigh, 600m from border, 31 July
Hameed, 13, left arm, 50m from border, 14 July
Nu’man, 14, right leg, 300m from border, 10 July
Arafat, 16, left ankle, 50m from border, 10 July
Mohammad, 16, stomach, 500m from border, 23 June
Abdullah, 16, just above right ankle, 60m from border, 22 June
Ibrahim, 16, right leg, 400m from border, 16 June
Awad, 17, just above his right knee, 350m from border, 7 June
Hasan, 17, just below right knee, 300m from border, 22 May
Source: Defence for Children International
Netanyahu, Barak and Lieberman are turning Israel into a ghetto: Haaretz
The right-wing strategists think they have managed to outwit us, but the true patriots are the cowards, the doubters and the troubled, who see before their eyes the worrisome signs of the beginning of the fall.
By Avirama Golan
The first time Emily Amrousi, a former spokesperson for the Yesha settler council, heard an Israeli ponder the possibility of the state ceasing to exist was last weekend, at a meal in Paris, she says. Their mouths full of stuffed duck, a journalist from the newspaper Israel Hayom and some Israeli leftists announced that the Zionist adventure is coming to an end. Amrousi, of course, has contempt for such defeatism.
This anecdote is nothing new. A stock item in the arsenal of right-wing spokespeople, it is used to depict leftists as indulgent egoists who enjoy life in their Tel Aviv bubble but, notwithstanding their comfortable way of life, lack faith and courage, and disparage their homeland when they are overseas. The policy of betrayal that led from Peace Now and the Oslo peace process to the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip is the direct outgrowth of cowardice and a desire to be popular around the world, goes the refrain; and this leftist outlook is what has brought to Israel all of its woes.
According to this simplistic dichotomy, Israel’s Jewish citizens are divided into proudly erect patriots and self-hating, craven defeatists. Were this foolish Manichean division to remain with the sphere of settler demagoguery, it could be ignored; however, it has managed to permeate Israeli public consciousness, and has come to be seen as almost factual. Worse, the dichotomy monopolizes the way Israel relates to the world, and also the new race legislation it is adopting at home.
In the area of foreign relations, Avigdor Lieberman is playing the role of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak’s crazed watchdog. Under the cover of his seemingly fanatic statements, they can continue to pretend that they are interested in peace negotiations. In fact, both are convinced that only on the foundation of eternal conflict can Israel continue to survive, or at least that their own survival in positions of power depends on the continuation of the conflict (actually, they would be wise to be cautious, because given the current pace of events, Lieberman is liable to claim the fruits of their labors and snatch the premiership ).
What holds for foreign relations holds for domestic affairs too. Since the world, led by the United States, is pressuring Israel to conduct peace talks – and since the world, led by the European Union, believes that it is the Israelis, not the Palestinians, who are obstacles to peace – Netanyahu and Barak have no choice other than to create turbulence in the domestic arena and then blame it for the failure of the negotiations.
It’s no accident that are insisting on blowing up the “problem of Arab citizens of Israel” to monstrous proportions and depicting it as a critical matter in the talks. The ploy seems complex, but is actually quite simple: Israeli Arabs are described as a subversive group and turned into an obstacle impeding a peace agreement with the Palestinians, provoking ultra-nationalist panic. In this way, the government wins public support for toughening its demands and escalating the country’s stance of isolationist self-involvement. The public has been persuaded that it lives under the threat of the Iranian bomb and Hezbollah attacks, along with Palestinian-Muslim encroachment and domination and the proliferation of foreign laborers. In light of the panic, the government has an easy time passing its series of so-called nationalist bills. And we are supposed to think that any citizen who loves his or her country but opposes the government’s policy is nothing but a coward and a traitor.
And so now is the time to praise the cowards, support the worriers, and glorify all those who fear that the revival and independence of the Jewish people in Israel is endangered. There should be no confusion; whereas Zionism aspired to normalcy, to the establishment of a state like all other stable states, Netanyahu, Barak and Lieberman are nurturing an isolationist ethnocracy. Singing hymns to Zionism, they are turning the Jewish citizens of Israel into the residents of a frightening, aggressive ghetto in the Middle East. And they are promising a future that can only be bad.
Happy is the man who is always afraid, but he who hardens his heart will fall into evil, the Book of Proverbs tells us. Right-wing spokespeople, now dizzy with success as a result of the way their regurgitated slogans have taken off, can continue to stigmatize others and take pleasure in their own perceived heroism. But the true patriots are the cowards, the doubters and the troubled, Israel’s heart-stricken lovers who see before their opened eyes the worrisome signs of the beginning of the fall.
Israel proposes Jewish state loyalty oath for new citizens: The Guardian
Loyalty pledge criticised as ‘fascist’ and an affront to country’s Palestinian citizens, who make up 20% of population
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
Sunday 10 October 2010
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister, has campaigned for a loyalty pledge for years. Photograph: Gali Tibbon/AFP
The Israeli cabinet today approved a bill requiring new non-Jewish citizens to swear an oath of allegiance to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state”, in a move that has brought accusations of discrimination against Israel’s Arab minority. One dissenting cabinet minister referred to a “whiff of fascism”.
The bill, originally promoted by the rightwing foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who has made the issue of loyalty a hallmark of his political career, was passed by a big majority despite the opposition of Labour party members.
The loyalty oath will be required of non-Jews seeking to become Israeli citizens, mainly affecting Palestinians from the West Bank who marry Palestinian citizens of Israel.
The latter, who make up 20% of Israel’s population, have vigorously criticised the proposal – which needs approval from the Knesset before becoming law – as provocative and racist. It has also drawn protests from Israeli Jews, including those in the cabinet.
Isaac Herzog, the social affairs minister, told Israel’s army radio: “There is a whiff of fascism on the margins of Israeli society. The overall picture is very disturbing and threatens the democratic character of the state of Israel. There have been a tsunami of measures that limit rights … We will pay a heavy price for this.”
Lieberman campaigned in last year’s election for a loyalty oath to be required of all existing Palestinian citizens of Israel. The bill put to the vote today drew back from that, applying only to future citizens. “I think this is an important step forward. Obviously this is not the end of the issue of loyalty in return for citizenship, but this is a highly important step,” Lieberman said.
At the start of the cabinet meeting, the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said: “The state of Israel is the national state of the Jewish people and is a democratic state in which all its citizens – Jewish and non-Jewish – enjoy full equal rights … Whoever wants to join us, has to recognise us.”
It was suggested that Netanyahu backed the bill as a quid pro quo for support from rightwing parties within his coalition government should he bow to US pressure to extend the freeze on settlement construction. The moratorium, which expired two weeks ago, is threatening to scupper talks on a peace deal with the Palestinians.
Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli-Arab member of the Knesset, condemned the cabinet’s decision. “The government of Israel has become subservient to Yisrael Beiteinu [Lieberman’s party] and its fascist doctrine,” he said. “No other state in the world would force its citizens or those seeking citizenship to pledge allegiance to an ideology.”
The speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, also criticised the proposal. “This law will not assist us as a society and a state,” he said. “On the contrary, it could arm our enemies and opponents in the world in an effort to emphasise the trend for separatism or even racism within Israel.”
Likud cabinet members Dan Meridor, Benny Begin and Michael Eitan opposed the bill along with Labour ministers.
Writing in today’s Haaretz, liberal commentator Gideon Levy said: “Remember this day. It’s the day Israel changes its character … From now on, we will be living in a new, officially approved, ethnocratic, theocratic, nationalistic and racist country.”
A Special Place in Hell / Top 10 worst errors Israel is about to make: Haaretz
Making major mistakes: what they are, why they matter, where they stand, and what you can do about it.
1. The Loyalty Oath.
What it is: A proposed amendment to Israel’s Law of Citizenship, which, if approved by the Knesset, would require non-Jews seeking citizenship to pledge allegiance to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state.” The bill does not require Jews to make the same declaration.
Why it matters: A watershed measure which has been widely condemned as formally racist, passage of the bill, a key demand of Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu party, could also fuel Lieberman’s drive to head the Israeli right, and eventually, run for the premiership.
Where it stands: Approved by the cabinet this week by a 22-8 vote, with all Labor ministers and three Likud MKs opposed. To become law, it must now pass three Knesset votes in the coming months.
What you can do: Add your voice to those working to defeat passage of the law. The law must have the support of the Likud [27 seats] and Labor [13] in order to pass. Write to Prime Minister and Likud Chair Benjamin Netanyahu and to Defense Minister and Labor Chair Ehud Barak to urge them to bar the bill from passage. The individual e-mail addresses of all Likud MKs may be found by clicking their names on the Knesset website. Senior Likud MKs Benny Begin, Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan, as well as Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin have already spoken out strongly against the Loyalty Oath. Others are believed to have serious reservations, and may be persuaded to abstain or work to keep the bill from reaching the Knesset floor.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has compiled an extensive and informative listing of pending legislation with potentially anti-democratic consequences, including bills which could strip citizenship from people having taken part in Gaza aid flotillas and penalties for commemorating Naqba Day, the Palestinian day of mourning for the events of 1948.
2. Deporting Children Who Want to be Israelis
What it is: Interior Minister Eli Yishai, chair of the ultra-Orthodox Shas, has dug in his political heels to demand that the government expel 400 children of foreign nationals working in Israel, who no longer have valid permits to stay. Many of the children were born in Israel. Most say they feel that Israel is their home, and that they want to remain and become citizens.
Why it matters: Yishai has cast the deportations as holding the line against the possibility of millions of workers flooding into Israel, posing threats of disease and demographic dilution of the Jewish character of the state. In practice, however, the deportations come in lieu of a coherent policy on refugees, asylum seekers, and foreign nationals. Beyond this, most of the children know no other home, and like their parents, have demonstrated strikingly good citizenship.
Where it stands: Yishai said this week that the deportations would begin in a few weeks, adding that he could have ordered another 10,000 to leave the country, but did not.
What you can do: Voice your concerns to Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who has led the effort for a cabinet reconsideration of the deportations. Also, support groups working to help vulnerable resident non-citizens, including Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Kav Laoved and Hotline for Migrant Workers.
3. Expanding settlement in East Jerusalem
What it is: Plans to further expel Palestinians in order to install Jews in homes in the flashpoint areas of Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah, and to create a large tourism area to promote the City of David settler tourism enterprise.
Why it matters: Any changes in Jerusalem, in particular operations in which the municipality and the police shield and foster settlement expansion can have devastating consequences.
Where it stands: City officials are watching closely, waiting for protests and U.S. scrutiny to die down, before ordering new expulsions into effect.
What you can do: Support the protests. Attend. Monitor events. Make your concerns known to members of congress, senators, the President.
4. Resuming Construction of the Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance
What it is: A mammoth, contentious project of the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles, built on an ancient Muslim cemetery in the heart of the Holy City’s downtown.
Why it matters: The location of the excavation work, the extravagance of the complex in a poverty-plagued city, and the insensitivity demonstrated by Wiesenthal Center chief Rabbi Marvin Hier have enraged Muslims and moderate Jews in the city and around the world.
Where it stands: The project has been faltering of late, following the resignation of renowned architect Frank Gehry. But SWC has declared its determination to go on, hastily hiring a new architectural team.
What you can do: Contact the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to urge that the project be put to an end.
5. Perpetuating the siege on Gaza
See Israel’s 10 worst errors of the decade.
6. Using attack dogs against protesters sailing on aid boats to Gaza
Enough said.
What you can do: See contact Defense Minister, above.
7. Barring entry and/or jailing and/or expelling additional Nobel Peace Prize winners, intellectuals, authors, and clowns.
8. Gratuitously and intentionally angering Turkish and other Mideastern neighbors.
9. Gratuitously and intentionally angering the U.S. and E.U., and giving them the impression that Israeli and Diaspora Jews prefer settlements to peace with the Palestinians.
What you can do: Get involved with Americans for Peace Now, J Street, the New Israel Fund, Tikkun, Ameinu, Meretz USA and any of the many other organizations working at the local, national, and international level on behalf of peace, democracy, and social justice in Israel.
10. Failing to indict Avigdor Lieberman for alleged money laundering.
What you can do: Pray.
Settlers learn how to circumvent IDF to strike at Palestinian olive harvest: Haaretz
Settlers settlers are believed to be entering Palestinian olive groves before IDF can send troops to protect the harvesters and in the darkness harvesting the olives themselves.
Settlers from the northern West Bank have reportedly been circumventing attempts by the Israel Defense Forces to protect Palestinian farmers as they harvest their olives. The settlers are believed to be entering Palestinian olive groves before the army can send troops to protect the harvesters – and taking the olives or destroying the trees.
The residents of the village of Burin near the settlement of Yitzhar in the northern West bank said a group of settlers had tried to keep them away from their land and had thrown stones at them. Afterward, the security forces intervened, and there were no injuries.
However, there are apparently far fewer violent clashes between settlers and Palestinian farmers than in years past.
As of last year’s harvest, the Civil Administration contacted Palestinian farmers with lands near settlements with which there had been friction to offer them protection during the harvest. Companies of Border Police and IDF officers are moving gradually from north to south and providing protection to farmers so they can harvest their crops unhindered by settlers.
The number of clashes between settlers and Palestinians dropped off sharply as a result.
This year, the harvest began about 10 days ago, and according to IDF officers, there have been cases where settlers knew ahead of time which days the army was going to be guarding which orchards. It is believed that the settlers arrived before guards could be posted, and under cover of darkness harvested most of the olives themselves.
In the orchards near the outpost of Havat Gilad in the central northern West Bank, an officer said an IDF patrol had seen two settlers coming with two sacks of olives to one of the houses in the outpost.
In two cases, Civil Administration personnel found the thieves, confiscated the stolen olives and returned them to their rightful owners.
However, security sources say it is very difficult to prevent theft and the district police do not treat thieves harshly when they are caught.
According to Sarit Michaeli, spokeswoman for B’Tselem, which is monitoring the olive harvest, said the settlers are believed to have a “new strategy” and that rather than resorting to physical violence, they were taking advantage of the fact that everyone knows the times when the guards are to be posted.
“In a number of places where the Palestinians are not allowed for the rest of the year, when they come on the days allocated to them, they find the olives have disappeared,” Michaeli said. About 100 trees had been bored into and ruined near the village of Turmus Aya north of Ramallah, Michaeli said. “In the village of Deir al-Hatab, south of Eilon Moreh, a B’Tselem field worker found a group of young Jewish men with their teacher, harvesting olives on privately owned Palestinian land” she said.
Also near Turmus Aya, Palestinian farmers found that some 400 trees had been harvested before they could get there.
Itai Zer, the leader of Havat Gilad, denies that anyone at the outpost had been involved in the theft of olives. “One of our guys was harvesting olives on our land,” he said. “Then the Civil Administration came and said it was not sure that was our land. But its a disputed area now before the court,” he said.
The Civil Administration has distributed written instructions to soldiers involved in guarding the orchards, ordering them to act decisively against harassment of Palestinians harvesting their olives. “Soldiers are not permitted to stand idly by and must act within the framework of their function to prevent the offense and to restore order. Soldiers on the scene must also prevent offenders from fleeing and preserve the evidence, if possible,” the instructions say.
Jonathan Cook: Israel’s other ‘peace’ plan: IOA
12 Oct 2010
Arm-twisting Obama
A ghost haunted the meeting of the Arab League in Libya at the weekend, as its foreign ministers decided to give a little more time to the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
That ghost was the Camp David talks of summer 2000, when US President Bill Clinton publicly held Yasser Arafat, the then-Palestinian leader, responsible for the breakdown of the negotiations, despite an earlier promise to blame neither side if they failed.
Mr Clinton’s finger-pointing breathed life into the accusation from Ehud Barak, Israel’s prime minister, that there was “no Palestinian partner for peace”; brought about the collapse of the Israeli peace movement, and ultimately sanctioned the decision of Mr Barak’s successor, Ariel Sharon, to invade the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank.
A decade later, the Arab League ministers did not want to expose Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to a similar charge from Barack Obama.
They therefore played the safest hand possible: they offered Washington another month’s breathing space to persuade Israel to renew a freeze on settlement building, while also supporting Mr Abbas’s decision to break off direct talks until the freeze was back in place.
The decision’s dual purpose was to throw the spotlight squarely back on Israel as the recalcitrant party, and allow the White House to continue to pretend the talks are still on track.
The League’s new deadline was chosen precisely to appease Washington. Mr Obama’s most pressing concern is shoring up his Democratic Party’s vote at the congressional midterm elections in early November. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians wants to be seen walking away from the president’s peace initiative before then.
Instead the Palestinians and Israelis concentrated on the blame game, thereby highlighting the fact that both think the talks are doomed. The Camp David talks lasted two weeks before collapsing; these negotiations have been on life support since they began more than a month ago.
“The Israeli government was given the choice between peace and settlements, and it has chosen settlements,” the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said last Friday.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, spun events the other way, arguing implausibly that the Palestinians should have engaged more decisively in talks during the 10-month partial freeze on settlement growth, which expired two weeks ago. “The questions need to be directed to the Palestinians: why are you abandoning the talks?” Mr Netanyhau said last Thursday.
Rather than investing wasted energy in doomed talks, the two sides appear to be adopting the same alternative strategy: cutting a deal directly with Washington that circumvents the other party.
At the weekend it was reported that Mr Abbas had told Arab leaders he was considering asking the US president to recognise a unilaterally declared Palestinian state in the whole of the West Bank.
Mr Erekat told Reuters another option might be a request for a United Nations Security Council resolution calling on member states to “recognise the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders”.
In the past, Washington has greeted such Palestinian proposals unenthusiastically. But threats by Mr Abbas to resign if the Israeli settlement freeze is not renewed – leaving no obvious successor – are intended to add to the pressure on the White House.
Mr Netanyahu, meanwhile, is reported to be working on a counter-offensive he hopes will win Washington’s approval. Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, officially confirmed to The Washington Post last week that the Obama administration had offered Israel a range of generous diplomatic, security and financial “incentives” to secure a few months’ extension of the partial moratorium on settlement building.
Mr Netanyahu is reported to have turned down the offer but only, it appears, because he believes he can win a more valuable concession. His real aim, the Israeli media reported last week, is to persuade the White House to reaffirm a promise made in a 2004 letter from Mr Obama’s predecessor, George W Bush, that Israel will not be required to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders in a peace deal.
Israeli officials understood that to mean the Americans would approve the annexation of the main settlements to Israel, allowing most of the half-million settlers to remain in place. The Obama administration has until now denied the pledge was ever made.
In exchange for Mr Obama’s endorsement of the promise, Mr Netanyahu might be willing to reimpose a short-term settlement freeze, arguing to his ministers that soon it would no longer apply to most of the settlements.
Ari Shavit, a columnist with Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, argued last week that arm-twisting the White House to honour Mr Bush’s commitment was “a win-win formula” for Mr Netanyahu.
Either Washington would be committed to Israel’s key demands in the talks or “US credibility” would be damaged. “Instead of Netanyahu being the dissenter, Obama will be the dissenter,” he wrote.
Mr Netanyahu, however, is stuck unless he can overcome opposition to a deal on a settlement freeze within his own cabinet, led by Avigdor Lieberman, the far-right foreign minister.
According to senior officials in the Labor Party, ostensibly the most dovish of Mr Netanyahu’s coalition partners, that explains the timing of his move to placate Mr Lieberman by backing a loyalty oath for non-Jews applying for citizenship.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National, published in Abu Dhabi.
EU police mission complicit in Israeli, PA rights abuses: The Electronic Intifada
David Cronin, 12 October 2010
Palestinian police officers attend an EU police training course organized in the West Bank city of Qalqiliya, October 2009. (Khaleel Reash/MaanImages)
A bizarre public relations exercise is now underway in the West Bank. Doubtlessly inspired by the enduring popularity of TV drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, the European Union has been trying to glamorize a forensic science course it has been running for Palestinian police since mid-September. As well as being tutored on fingerprinting techniques and the use of chemicals following a murder or armed robbery, officers completing the six-week program will be given CSI vans of their own, “updates” promoting the course tell us.
It is not difficult to see why EU officials are eager to obtain favorable publicity for their police support “mission,” headquartered in Ramallah. For all of its five-year life, the mission has been something of a poor relation to the other major international policing initiative in the occupied West Bank: that run by United States security coordinator US Army Lieutenant General Keith Dayton (replaced by US Air Force General Michael Moeller earlier this month). At a time when the EU’s 27 governments are nominally striving to make a greater collective impact on the world stage, it is logical that they should be highlighting foreign policy work that at first glance appears laudable.
The reality is far from glamorous. Rather than helping to nurture institutions that could prove essential in a future Palestinian state, both the EU and US are acting as proxies for the Israeli occupation. Moreover, they are acquiescent in human rights abuses perpetrated by Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces against the Palestinian people.
Contrary to the impression frequently created by news stories, the PA does not have a police force that can justifiably be viewed as independent of Israel. Under the Oslo accords from the 1990s, the PA was given full responsibility for security in a region dubbed “Area A.” This comprises six West Bank cities — Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Tulkarem and Bethlehem — and part of Hebron. In Area B — other towns and villages, where 68 percent of Palestinian inhabitants in the West Bank lived — the authority was tasked with maintaining public order but Israel was allowed “overriding” responsibility for security. Then in Area C — 62 percent of the West Bank, including Jewish-only settlements and other areas deemed of “strategic importance” to Israel — total control over security remained in Israeli hands. Moreover, under the Oslo accords, the PA police forces only have jurisdiction over the Palestinian population, not over territory; they have no powers to arrest, or intervene with Israeli settlers or other Israeli citizens even when they are present in areas ostensibly under PA control.
For the Palestinians, it has proven impossible to operate a police service that could comply with international norms. Regular incursions by Israeli troops throughout the West Bank has meant that patrols by Palestinian officers cannot be undertaken in any city, apart from Ramallah, between midnight and six o’clock in the morning.
The response from the EU mission (its proper name is the Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support or COPPS) to Israel’s everyday acts of aggression and intimidation has been timid, to say the least. The strongest words that Hendrik Malmquist, the Swedish officer heading the mission, has used on the record to criticize the Israeli incursions is to call them a “public embarrassment” for the Palestinian Authority.
Maybe his nonchalance is best explained by how COPPS is part of what Israeli human rights campaigner Jeff Halper calls the “matrix of control” imposed by Israel on the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Visiting Brussels in May, Malmquist said that Israel is “happy we are there in order to contribute to better security in the [occupied] territories.” Probably the main reason for Israeli satisfaction with his work is that his eighty-strong staff has been assisting the forces of occupation to strengthen their grip over most aspects of Palestinian life.
When I contacted EU officials in Ramallah recently, they sought to downplay the significance of their role in fostering cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian Authority security forces. The officials pointed, for example, to how they have organized joint Israeli-Palestinian training seminars on apparently uncontroversial issues such as traffic management. “We are not in the political game,” one official insisted.
A document published by the Israeli foreign ministry in April however indicates that the cooperation goes deeper. Titled “Measures Taken by Israel in Support of Developing the Palestinian Economy,” it says that COPPS has played a “central role” in encouraging and implementing “capacity-building” in the West Bank. The purpose of this “capacity-building,” the paper makes clear to anyone who reads between its lines, is to stress that the Palestinian Authority forces are subservient to Israel. Last year, the ministry gloats, was a record one for “coordinated actions” between Israeli and PA security forces, with almost 1,300 taking place, a 72 percent rise over 2008.
In its monthly newsletters, COPPS promotes the training offered by its human rights specialist Diane Halley to Palestinian police. This propaganda cannot be allowed to mask how the EU has enabled a situation to develop where gross abuses occur within a culture of impunity. Whereas COPPS’s original mandate allowed it to support police in both the West Bank and Gaza, the European Union’s refusal to engage with the de facto Hamas administration in Gaza has meant that it has been encouraging disunity among Palestinians.
Worse again, the EU has connived in the creation of what an alliance of Palestinian human rights groups recently called “a police state” within the occupied territories. While these groups — including the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Al-Haq and the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counselling — stress that most violations committed by the Palestinian Authority are a “direct result” of tensions between Fatah and Hamas, the EU has been largely silent about the abuses.
During a press briefing in May, Malmquist stated that COPPS wishes to “export core European Union values” such as respect for fundamental rights. A few minutes later, Palestinian police spokesman Yossef Ozreil insisted that there is “no more torture” by his colleagues against political rivals.
Malmquist did not contradict this assurance, yet evidence amassed by the Arab Organization for Human Rights suggests that Ozreil was dishonest. Mohammed Jamil, a spokesman for the organization, said that there is an average of seven arrests in the West Bank each day, with between 700 and 800 rounded up in the Hebron area last month after Hamas gunmen killed four Israeli settlers. Torture of detainees is widespread, he added. Methods found to have been used include tying people to the ceiling and suspending them, aping crucifixions by tying people to doors with their arms and legs outstretched and beatings by sticks. One man was tortured by having a boiled egg placed on his backside, Jamil told me. “They [the security forces] made jokes about him — that he was like a chicken giving birth to eggs.”
On paper, the main distinction between COPPS and the US security coordinator in the West Bank is that the former interacts with the Palestinian Authority civil police and the latter with the more militarized National Security Force. In practice, there is extensive overlap between the two international operations; Dayton has said that one of his objectives was to eliminate any duplication of efforts between aid donors to the Palestinian Authority. As well as employing several British members of staff in his team, Dayton enjoyed close contacts with the two Britons who headed COPPS before Malmquist took up his post in January this year: Colin Smith and Paul Kernaghan.
The extent to which Dayton may have advised forces loyal to Fatah to resort to brutal means in attacking Hamas supporters has not yet been revealed. One thing that is clear, however, is Dayton’s understanding that his job was to underscore the Palestinian Authority’s subordination to Israel. “We don’t provide anything to the Palestinians unless it has been thoroughly coordinated with the state of Israel and they agree to it,” he has said.
Daud Abdullah, director of Middle East Monitor, a research institute in London, says it is inconceivable that Dayton was unaware of the abuses conducted by Palestinian security forces. “There has been no let-up in abuses as far as we know,” Abdullah added. “The fact that money is still flowing and [international] officials are still on the ground makes them culpable for what is happening.”
COPPS has a budget of nearly 7 million euros ($9.7 million) for this year. This sum appears small on its own. Yet it cannot be separated from the wider support that the EU gives to the Palestinian Authority, which amounts to 947 million euros since 2008.
Europe’s representatives rarely miss an opportunity to trumpet their generosity to the Palestinians. Although donors are undoubtedly financing the provision of many essential services in the occupied territories, tough questions need to be asked about a great deal of this aid and how it is being tailored to serve Israel’s interests. Few taxpayers would be pleased to know that their hard-earned euros are subsidizing an illegal occupation and the systematic human rights abuses that go with it.
David Cronin’s book Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation, to be published on 20 November, can be pre-ordered from www.plutobooks.com.
No justice for slain laborer: The Electronic Intifada
Mel Frykberg, 7 October 2010
SHUAFAT, occupied East Jerusalem (IPS) – A peaceful morning is interrupted by the sounds of an Israeli helicopter circling overhead — often a sign of trouble on the ground. Later Sunday the news broke — a Palestinian man was shot dead in the village of Issawiya by Israeli paramilitary border police as he tried to enter Israel in search of work.
Father of five, 38-year-old Ezzidine al-Kawazba from Hebron became the latest Palestinian casualty to die at the hands of the Israeli security forces in disputed circumstances. The policeman who shot al-Kawazba alleged that his weapon went off “accidentally” and that he “didn’t mean to kill the laborer.”
Ahmed Tibi, a Palestinian minister of the Israeli Knesset, condemned the shooting. “Once again Israel’s police officers and border police shoot and kill an Arab in cold blood. This time it was a father to many children who was trying to enter Jerusalem to find work for his livelihood.”
“Again the automatic false claim was made that a Palestinian tried to take a Border Policeman’s weapon. Will the police force, once again, rally behind this murdering officer? Will he, too, gain the status of a hero that killed another Arab?”
Earlier, IPS attended the funeral of Sameh Sarhan from East Jerusalem after he was shot dead by an Israeli security guard, who claimed self-defense, outside the illegal Israeli settlement of King David in occupied East Jerusalem. Video evidence taken at the scene contradicted the security guard’s version of events. Sarhan’s killing sparked a week of protests.
The latest killing in Issawiya came as two Israeli soldiers were convicted by an Israeli military court of using Palestinians as human shields during Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 assault on Gaza dubbed “Operation Cast Lead,” which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, most of them civilians.
The soldiers were convicted of offenses including inappropriate behavior and overstepping authority for ordering an 11-year-old Palestinian boy to search bags suspected to have been booby-trapped.
The Israeli police have said they are investigating the two latest shootings. However, a lack of confidence in the integrity of police investigations when security force members are involved in the killing of unarmed Palestinians has been backed by several Israeli rights groups.
The Israel Democracy Institute is due to release a report accusing the Israeli police of “bias in analyzing evidence” in relation to three Israeli-Arabs shot dead by police during the October 2000 riots (the beginning of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising) in northern Israel. Thirteen Palestinians were shot dead and hundreds were injured.
The study investigates the circumstances which prompted then Israeli attorney general Menachem Mazuz to follow the state prosecutor’s recommendation to close the inquiries into the deaths of three men on the basis of lack of evidence.
Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer and former Haifa district attorney Lina Saba, who conducted the study, examined files containing dozens of pieces of accumulated evidence.
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that according to the investigators, “the study shows that closing these three cases was unjustified and the Department for Investigating Policemen, and the prosecution, did not complete the investigation. The examination also showed the prosecution took a biased approach in analyzing the evidence.”
Several months ago Israeli policeman Shahar Mizrahi, who shot dead an unarmed Palestinian motorist who he claimed was a car thief, was sentenced to an original 15 months imprisonment. This was later doubled to 30 months on appeal when an Israeli court found the killing unnecessary as the officer’s life was not in danger as he had claimed.
Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Israel’s internal security minister, and Dudi Cohen, the police commissioner said they would immediately seek a presidential pardon for Mizrahi. “I won’t merely support a pardon bid, I’ll lead it,” added Aharonovitch.
Israeli police gave Mizrahi more than $42,500 for legal expenses in the initial criminal case, and a further $50,000 for his appeal to the high court.
Israeli rights group Yesh Din reported earlier in the year that only “six percent of investigations yielded indictments against Israeli soldiers who harmed Palestinians.”
Another Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released a report last month “Void of Responsibility: Israel Military Policy not to investigate Killings of Palestinians by Soldiers.”
In the report B’Tselem stated that “at the beginning of the second intifada, the Judge Advocate General’s Office announced that it was defining the situation in the Occupied [Palestinian] Territories as an ‘armed conflict,’ and that investigations would be opened only in exceptional cases, in which there was a suspicion that a criminal offense had been committed.”
“This policy, which led to a significant drop in Military Police investigations of homicide cases, ignored the varying character of the army’s actions in the Occupied [Palestinian] Territories, and treated every act carried out by soldiers as a combat action, even in cases when these acts bear the clear hallmarks of a policing action.” Meanwhile, another Palestinian mosque near Bethlehem was torched and vandalized on Sunday night by Israeli settlers. A number of copies of the Quran were reported destroyed. Clashes then broke out between Palestinians and the settlers. Israeli soldiers subsequently arrived and forced the settlers to retreat, but none were arrested.
Several West Bank mosques have been subjected to settler vandalism and arson attacks since last year. Others have had anti-Arab and anti-Muslim graffiti scrawled on their walls. The Israeli authorities have not charged anyone.