43 years to the Israeli Occupation!
1460 Days to the Israeli Blockade of Gaza:
End Israeli Apartheid Now!
Help to prevent the next war! Support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of the Israeli regime
Support Palestinian universities – spread the BDS campaign – it is what people under the Israeli jackboot ask you to do
Any army fighting against children, has already lost the war!
Israeli War Criminals and Pirates – to the International Criminal Court, NOW!
Make Zionism History!
Demand the destruction of Israeli WMDs NOW!
EDITOR: The Second Flotilla is on the way!
As the Israeli army and navy are preparing for more carnage, a year after the first Flotilla murders on the Mavi Marmara, the second Flotilla is preparing to sail to Gaza. This time US and Canadian activists are also included in great numbers – Alice Walker has also joined the group – and the only cloud on the horizon is the cancellation of the Mavi Marmara’s sailing, as well as the pulling out of the HHI in Turkey, as a result of intense political pressure, especially by the EU, as Turkey prepares for its last attempt to join it.
John Greyson, the Canadian filmmaker, has just published a brilliant call to musicians to boycott Israel – a real gem!
Gaza Island from Albino Squirrel Channel on Vimeo.
The Freedom Flotilla 2, with 12+ boats carrying humanitarian aid and 1000+ peace activists, is sailing to Gaza in late June. Alice Walker, who’s sailing with us, calls this the Freedom Ride of our generation. We want to help open this Palestinian port and end the illegal Israeli blockade, which has caused so much suffering. Meanwhile, the global BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement is calling on Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson and Kiri Te Kanawa to cancel their 2011 Israel concerts and get on the boat!
Note: all songs featured in Gaza Island are parodies of familiar songs, and as such are protected by fair use provisions of copyright law.
Watch: Video shows IDF preparing for next Gaza flotilla: Haaretz
The naval exercise includes intercepting ships of various sizes and handling both non-violent and violent passengers.
The Israeli Defense Forces held a large drill Wednesday in preparation of the flotilla that intends to set sail to the Gaza Strip later this month. The drill focused on different scenarios that might occur at sea and methods to deal with them.
Organizers of the Gaza flotilla said Wednesday that they are determined to set sail even if the heads of the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) do not participate. The flotilla is currently scheduled to depart in one week, marking the anniversary of last year’s raid by Israel on the Gaza-bound flotilla, in which nine Turkish activists died.
The naval exercise included intercepting ships of different sizes and handling both non-violent and violent passengers. The navy also improved the command and control abilities of its forces after boarding the ship. Real-time intelligence collection abilities have also been upgraded in order to enable commanders to make decisions at every stage based on the passenger’s behavior. The navy also upgraded the filming equipment and the methods of transferring them from the ships to the IDF spokesman office. Last year, hours passed before Israel released photographs of the Mavi Marmara takeover, while the IHH activists had sent their version of events to networks worldwide.
The navy does not know when and whether it will need to intercept the flotilla, or how many ships it will include. The organizers have said dozens of ships will take part, but currently they have managed to purchase and equip only four or five ships, which might delay their departure.
Israel warns Palestinians all deals are off if UN vote goes ahead: The Guardian
Foreign minister says past deals such as the Oslo accord will be threatened by efforts towards UN recognition of Palestinian state
Israel will renounce past agreements made with the Palestinians if they press ahead with unilateral plans to seek recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN, foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has said.
“A move like that will be a violation of all the agreements that were signed until today,” Lieberman told the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, in Jerusalem. “Israel will no longer be committed to the agreements signed with the Palestinians in the past 18 years.”
The principal agreement referred to is the Oslo accords, signed in September 1993, under which the Palestinian Authority (PA) was created with responsibility for administering parts of the West Bank and Gaza.
Lieberman’s comments further raise the stakes in the run up to the UN general assembly in September, at which a majority of the 192 countries are expected to back a Palestinian state. Israel and the US are fiercely opposed to such a move and pressure is being applied to the Palestinians to abandon their approach.
Ashton is visiting Jerusalem and the West Bank in an attempt to break the impasse in negotiations between the two sides. Talks collapsed last September after Israel refused to extend a temporary and partial freeze on settlement construction.
In May Barack Obama publicly backed the creation of a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, with agreed land swaps, as an outcome of talks. The US president’s move angered the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who wants to retain the large settlement blocks in the West Bank. Obama’s speech was intended to hold out the prospect of a negotiated alternative to the Palestinians’ unilateral plan.
The Israelis say they are ready to resume negotiations on the basis of the Palestinians recognising Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians reject this on the grounds it pre-empts talks on the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
Lieberman, a hawkish member of the Israeli coalition government, said on Friday: “In light of [PA President Mahmoud] Abbas’s current stance, the chances for negotiations are zero … Israel is prepared to renew negotiations. The ball is in the Palestinians’ court.”
Israel has launched a global campaign through its embassies against the Palestinian move to garner support for its state ahead of the UN meeting. It is particularly worried about the position of European countries.
David Cameron indicated to Netanyahu in London last month that Britain might back a Palestinian state if there was no substantial progress in negotiations.
Germany and Italy have said they will oppose the Palestinians’ move. France’s position is thought to be similar to the UK’s although it is trying to broker a peace conference as an alternative.
The US is expected to vote against the Palestinian move, and to use its veto in the UN security council over a Palestinian application for membership of the UN. It is applying pressure on Abbas and his officials to rethink their strategy.
However, Palestinian negotiator Muhammad Shtayeh told journalists on Thursday that the Palestinian Authority would press ahead with seeking recognition and membership of the UN regardless of whether talk resume.
“We are by all means going to the United Nations, whether there are negotiations or no negotiations,” he said. “We think that is not either/or. We think that going to the United Nations and negotiations can go hand in hand and they are complementary to each other.”
Both the Palestinians and the Israelis were focusing on the stance of European countries, he said. “For us and the Israelis the battle is over Europe because the issue is not how many states, the issue is also quality states, with all respect to everybody,” he said.
A spokesman for Ashton said: “It is more urgent than ever to engage in meaningful negotiations and move the peace process forward … What is needed is a clear reference framework to allow both sides to return to the negotiating table.”
Ashton had called for a new meeting of the Middle East quartet, comprising the EU, US, Russia and the UN, to discuss the issues, he added.
If the Palestinian Authority was dismantled Israel would be obliged under international law to assume full responsibility for the administration of all the territory it has occupied since 1967.
Meanwhile the Turkish humanitarian organisation IHH has announced it is pulling out of the flotilla of ships taking aid to Gaza later this month after the Turkish authorities refused to give permission for the Mavi Marmara to sail.
Nine Turkish activists were killed on board the Mavi Marmara a year ago when Israeli commandos stormed on board in an attempt to prevent it breaching Israel’s sea embargo around Gaza.
Other organisations participating in this year’s flotilla have said they will go ahead without the IHH.
A senior Israeli military official has said the navy will stop the flotilla, using force if necessary.
Egypt: Shalit will disappear unless Israel compromises with Hamas: Haaretz
New Israeli negotiator reportedly told Egyptian intelligence officials that if Hamas did not agree to latest deal for prisoner swap, there would be no deal at all.
The fifth anniversary this Saturday of the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has seen a burst of activity on all sides to negotiate his release.
Egyptian security officials involved in the talks told Haaretz over the weekend that the approach by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new envoy to the talks, David Meidan, could scuttle the negotiations and lead to Shalit’s “disappearance.”
The Egyptians said Meidan told Egyptian intelligence officials in Cairo last week that if Hamas did not agree to the latest deal proposed by Israel, there would be no deal at all.
The Egyptians said the Hamas negotiators, headed by the group’s military chief, Ahmed Jabari, had responded to the Israeli approach with a clear threat that the talks would end and a deal for Shalit would be off the table.
Hamas said Israel’s unwillingness to go further than its last offer would lead to Shalit’s disappearance, the Egyptians added.
The Egyptians said that after Meidan arrived in Cairo, it was obvious that Israel had no intention of compromising. In contrast, the officials said, Hamas and Jabari were willing to change their positions.
The officials said they had told Meidan he does not know Hamas and its leadership well enough to understand that an uncompromising position that contains an implicit threat would achieve the opposite result.
The Egyptians explained that it was now necessary to take one more step forward. “The parties can conclude the talks within hours, but at the same time, the talks can get stuck for many months,” one said.
Noam Shalit, the captured soldier’s father, said he knows of no new details or new proposal by Israel, including by Meidan. Shalit said he did not even know that Meidan had been speaking to Hamas.
“The last proposal I know about is the German one,” he said, referring to reports in recent years of a deal brokered by former German mediator Gerhard Conrad in exchange for the release of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Shalit met last week with French officials and President Nicolas Sarkozy to discuss his son’s release in light of developments in Syria and the Palestinian Authority, and French influence in both these arenas.
Shalit also filed a suit in France to open a criminal investigation against the people responsible for his son’s abduction. The family is waiting for the appointment of an investigative judge.
Meanwhile, the family and the Israeli organization working for Shalit’s release is planning a number of events to mark the fifth anniversary of his abduction. Activities are planned for next week, especially on Saturday, to be held in and around the protest tent near the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem.
The officials said there were two key obstacles to clinching a deal. The first is the Israeli demand to expel more than half the 450 senior prisoners on the Hamas list handed to Israel years ago. According to the Egyptians, this figure is unreasonable. They say Hamas would be willing to see a few dozen freed prisoners expelled from the West Bank to Gaza and abroad, but certainly not the 230 prisoners Israel wants to exile.
The second obstacle involves disagreement over the release of the prisoners known as “VIPs” – prisoners who are leaders of Hamas and other organizations such as Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Saadat, the secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The officials warned that time was working against Shalit and said pressure must be applied to see a deal through. But Israeli officials have rejected such criticism and continue to view Egyptian mediation as essential.
Meanwhile, Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for Shalit’s speedy release at a joint press conference Friday in Berlin.
Merkel and especially Sarkozy – Shalit also holds French citizenship – have issued similar calls in the past, but this joint call seems to have greater significance. This is particularly so because it came during the two leaders’ urgent meeting to discuss Greece’s economic crisis.
A senior government official in Jerusalem said Sarkozy and Merkel had consulted with Netanyahu before releasing their statement to make sure they would not jeopardize the talks by placing the main responsibility for the delay in releasing Shalit on Hamas. On Thursday, Netanyahu encouraged them to go ahead with the statement, the official said.
Sarkozy has been very active in recent years vis-a-vis Egypt, Syria and Qatar about Shalit’s relase. He reportedly got the idea for the joint statement with Merkel after meeting with Noam Shalit last week.
Sources close to the talks told Haaretz that Merkel and Sarkozy’s call was very significant because it reflected a broad international effort to move the deal forward.
Sources in Merkel’s office told Reuters Friday that the parties had received the draft of an agreement to release 1,000 prisoners for Shalit and that Hamas’ military wing was delaying the swap. But it is unclear how much is new in that report, since according to earlier reports, the German proposal called for the release of that number – 450 senior prisoners and 550 other Palestinian prisoners.
The current deal, which Hamas rejected the last time the parties were near a decision, in July 2009, was brokered by Conrad.
But Egypt has recently ratcheted up its involvement in the talks after a long period in which is had been playing a secondary role only, according to foreign sources.
Egypt’s renewed involvement in the Shalit swap is closely linked to former President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster and closer ties between the new regime and Hamas. These were evident in the Cairo-brokered reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah, and in the opening of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Egypt, which is seeking to reposition itself vis-a-vis the Arab world following Mubarak’s downfall, would also reap prestige internationally if it played a key role in Shalit’s release.
Jabari has been called to Cairo for consultations three times in an effort to soften his positions. Israeli commentators have accused Jabari of intentionally sabotaging the talks. The Israelis say they have the impression that Jabari and his fellow military leader, Mohammed Deif, will not agree to a swap that is not perceived as deeply humiliating to Israel and total acquiescence to Hamas’ demands.
Israel must say yes to Obama: Haaretz
Obama now needs an Israeli partner who will endorse an approach based on the notion that American support and cooperation are more vital to Israel’s existence than a few settlements on some rocky hills.
By Zvi Bar’el
“What does an American president do when Israel tells him ‘no’?” Dan Kurtzer, former ambassador to Israel, asked during a conference at Brandeis University last week. “Nothing.”
Kurtzer’s statement should come as no surprise. U.S. President Barack Obama didn’t do anything when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly offended him after their White House meeting, or during his speech in Congress; he did nothing when Netanyahu rejected the demand to freeze settlement construction; and he did nothing when Netanyahu rejected his ideas on peace talks and the 1967 borders.
“And when was the last time an American ambassador said anything to upset Israel?” Kurtzer asked. “Never happened.”
Kurtzer’s conclusion is unequivocal: There is no determination by America to play in the Israeli-Palestinian mud. As such, there is no use holding one’s breath in expectation of an American initiative. In fact, Kurtzer said, what’s missing is not initiative but American will and the ability to realize it.
Kurtzer is not alone in his estimates. “Washington right now isn’t available for a significant diplomatic move in the Middle East,” a senior official in the State Department said. “At most, it will make some noise ahead of September. It will even join any European initiative, however useless.”
U.S. diplomats Dennis Ross and David Hale, who both arrived in Jerusalem last week as if they were Olympic runners, knew they were entrusted with an extinguished torch, and without more fuel they can’t bring anything new. Their mission certainly doesn’t represent an innovative and daring approach to diplomacy.
But throwing pebbles at the windows of the State Department or White House is about as effective as a man drowning in a swamp throwing mud at the shore to get attention. Obama and his team are not actors who are waiting, with bated breath, to be scored by juries in Israel or Ramallah. Washington is not here to do favors for either Israel or the Palestinians, but to enhance its own standing in the region. That is because the United States – despite its insistence that it cannot want peace more than the parties involved – has its own interests, and the mediation service it offers Israel is for profit. That is because – when the Middle East is catapulted between civil wars and the sprouting of democracy; when beyond it a contest of influence is growing once more between Russia, the United States and China; and while Europe is polishing its elegant nails in the advent of the next phase of the Middle East – the United States wants and needs to know who is on its side, who the good guys are and who are the bad guys.
U.S. President George Bush had it easy: By definition, Israel was aligned with the United States, while most of the Arab and Muslim states were “against” it. The revolutions of his time were not carried out by the Arab public. The United States carried them out instead, regardless of what the public thought.
Obama – who is trying to extricate himself from the mire of American conquests and, at the same time, preserve America’s clout in the region – now needs an Israeli partner who will endorse an approach based on the notion that American support and cooperation are more vital to Israel’s existence than a few settlements on some rocky hills. He’s not asking Israel for a return on the past, but he is offering a profit in the future. After all, this is not about sentiment or some American-Israeli moral obligation, but about interests.
And what if Israel once again rejects the American business plan and fails to endorse Obama’s definition of profit? At first glance, one might expect the same “nothing” Kurtzer described. The United States won’t place sanctions on Israel, it won’t freeze aid to Israel, and it will even agree to continue hosting Israeli prime ministers. But Israel will then become a client rather than a partner – a client with a debt that it doesn’t even bother to pretend it’s going to pay. The United States has had plenty of clients like that in the Middle East and beyond. They are all sure they are America’s friends. This is the essence of the “nothing” developing in Israel’s relations with its strategic home front. This is not the “nothing” of helplessness, but the “nothing” of the void in the Israeli-American relationship.
The rebellions of our peoples make us stronger: The Electronic Intifada
Ameer Makhoul, Bilboa Prison
The following essay was written shortly after the dawn of the 25 January uprising in Egypt:
Not a single regime in the entire world is immune to collapse when the right time comes. However, as history teaches us, the regime won’t collapse by itself. The Arab rebellions are being created by the social movement — by the people — in all its currents and forces that seek change; in other words, by the great majority of the peoples in revolt.
But the Arab peoples and their rebellions are providing the world with new history lessons regarding how to make a revolution in our globalized era — how immense masses of humans can mobilize to become bigger and greater at an unprecedented rate. The Arab rebellions, though, do work according to the book: they are taking place at a moment in which the oppressed cannot continue to bear the oppression, while the oppressive regime cannot continue employing its oppressive instruments. For in a dictatorship, everything goes well until the last 15 minutes.
During these months we are observing how a ruling, oppressive and tyrannical Arab regime collapses, how the people can create a moment in which the military institution, as in the case of Tunisia and Egypt, has no choice but to let go of the head of the regime to avoid a confrontation with the people. The people have become the legitimate ruler, reaching key positions within the regime itself and occupying a central role in the market, media and the religious and judicial authorities.
As tyranny and oppression intensify — along with the abuse of rights and human and national dignity — the growing sense of humiliation is transformed into an accelerating power that drives the people against the regime, collapsing all of its basic tenants and creating a moment of transformation.
It is hard to believe that the rebellions in Tunisia and Egypt were prepared for by a specific party or body; rather they appear as events that occurred by themselves. The manner in which the Internet, especially Facebook and Twitter, were used by the young generations in Egypt and Tunisia is clear, for it united not only the revolutionary spirit of the people in the respective countries, but that of the Arab people as a whole wherever they are. While the recent period in the Arab world was characterized by the breaking up of this world into small countries, factions and sects, we are now entering a period of reconstruction of the Arab nation on the principals of pluralism and democracy.
I am proud to declare that I do wish to be present at the freedom squares all across the Arab world. This is not a personal note, but a collective one. Each and every one of us wishes to be in the freedom squares of the Arab world, especially in Cairo’s Midan al-Tahrir, the Freedom Square, to be able to take an active part in the popular Arab struggle. For us here in Palestine, where we can follow the rebellions only through television sets and the Internet due to the imposed, irrational borders, these rebellions are not happening in foreign lands. These rebellions are for us, for our struggle, and for the Palestinian inalienable rights that are not separate of those of all Arabs. Not only has our struggle now had a new meaning — charged with the Arab dimension that has been marginalized in the past years — but also the entire Arab nation that is struggling for liberation.
The revolutionary scene in the Arab world is not complete without speaking of the Israeli side, which is facing an unprecedented defeat. For years, Israel’s strength stemmed not only from its military power, but from the weakness and permanence of the Arab world. The Camp David accords with Egypt, as well as the Oslo accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization, were only an expression of this weakness.
The mediator of these accords, the American administration, was seeking the creation of a new Middle East through Israel and the Mubarak regime, but the Egyptian revolution came to the rescue. The collapse of the Egyptian regime and others constitute a turning point in our region. At various times these regimes played the role of the executioner, and at other times, the bystander, of North American schemes. The impotence of these regimes in face of the peoples’ popular force proved that no regime can last while it is built on historic injustice, occupation and ethnic cleansing. The force of the last of apartheid and colonization regimes will not overcome the will of the Palestinian and Arab peoples.
For us Palestinians, the power balance has now been transformed from a conflict between militaries to that between an aggressive, racist and military regime and the will of the people. The new regimes now bear new responsibilities — ones that the counterrevolution, aided by North American imperialism, will attempt to disrupt. However, the revolution can be protected by the peoples’ awareness of its power, sovereignty and legitimacy that are to be granted to the desired form of governance.
Our Palestinian people are in constant rebellion against the Zionist enterprise in our region since 1948. We never had the pleasure of not being under the spotlight, and of living a life without confrontation. We have employed all forms of resistance, which is our right and obligation, in order to achieve our inalienable rights: the refugees’ right of return,ending the occupation, the liberation of our prisoners and our right for self-determination.
On 30 March, our people inside the Green Line — Israel’s armistice line with the occupied West Bank — celebrated Land Day, which since 1976 continues to inspire us, the Arab peoples and all freedom fighters in the world to know that popular resistance, the expression of peoples’ will, can confront any regime. The Arab rebellions make us stronger as we continue to walk the long road towards liberation.
Ameer Makhoul is a civil society leader and political prisoner at Gilboa Prison.
The case for UN recognition of Palestine: The Electronic Intifada
Victor Kattan
Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and President of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, affirmed in The New York Times on 17 May 2011 that “this September, at the United Nations General Assembly, we will request international recognition of the State of Palestine on the 1967 border and that our state be admitted as a full member of the United Nations” (“The Long Overdue Palestinian State,” 16 May 2011).
Although this announcement has provoked a storm of indignation amongst certain constituencies in the United States, it will not come as a complete surprise to those who have been following developments closely. In the past six months several Latin American countries have recognized the state of Palestine, bringing the total number of countries to have done so since 1988 to more than 100. In addition, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom have upgraded the Palestine General Delegations in their capitals to diplomatic missions and embassies — a status normally reserved for states.
From Abbas’s op-ed it would appear that there are two prongs to this strategy: international recognition of Palestine as a state, and membership of the United Nations.
International recognition
Although the Palestinian strategy has not been fully articulated, it appears that the PLO hopes to use the opening plenary of the UN General Assembly in September as a forum to call upon other states to recognize it. In other words, it will seek collective recognition.
According to Riyad al-Maliki, the PA foreign minister, some 150 countries have said that they will recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in September (“PA: 150 states to recognize Palestine by Sept,” 3 March 2011). If this number is achieved it could be significant, especially if it includes recognition from some of the countries in the European Union. This is because if recognition of a Palestinian state is viewed as constitutive (the argument that statehood is a matter of recognition only) then the number and quality of states that recognize Palestine is important.
If, however, recognition of a Palestinian state is viewed as declaratory (the argument that recognition alone cannot confer statehood but must be accompanied by other factors, independence being particularly important) then there is of course a problem if Israel retains control over the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
UN membership
Phase II of the 2003 Roadmap prepared by the Quartet (the US, the EU, Russia and the UN) and endorsed by the UN Security Council calls for “creating an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty, based on the new constitution, as a way station to a permanent status settlement.” As part of Phase II (June-December 2003), Quartet members were supposed to “promote international recognition of a Palestinian state, including possible UN membership” (“The Performance-Based Roadmap Towards a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israel-Palestine Conflict).
Thus, the Quartet envisaged that a Palestinian state could be established prior to the conclusion of final status negotiations with Israel. In other words, it was accepted that the PLO need not wait until Israel had agreed to completely withdraw from the territory before asserting its claim to statehood with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty by seeking recognition and UN membership.
Abbas also announced in his op-ed that the PLO also intends to seek UN membership in September. According to Article 4 (2) of the UN Charter, admission to membership in the UN is to be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon receiving a recommendation from the Security Council. It is possible that American opposition at the Security Council may not block such a recommendation.
In his address at the State Department on 19 May 2011, US President Barack Obama declared, “Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state” (“Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa19 May 2011). It is worth noting that Obama did not flatly oppose such a Palestinian move and his statement is open to different interpretations, although one must assume that the US would veto Palestinian membership given Washington’s appalling track record of vetoing UN resolutions on the Palestine question.
Nevertheless, US opposition to Palestine’s membership of the UN would not necessarily affect Palestine’s statehood if 150 states do recognize Palestine at the UN in September and assuming that recognition is constitutive. Statehood and membership in international organizations are entirely separate matters. For instance, Taiwan is not a member of the UN but it is a state. The Vatican is considered a state but it is not a member of the UN. Kosovo is considered a state by major powers, including the US and the EU, but it is not a member of the UN. Switzerland only joined the UN in 2002 but it was a state long before then. During the Cold War, many states had their application for membership at the UN vetoed (such as Ireland, Jordan, and some Soviet republics) but this did not mean that they were not states.
Although some scholars have suggested that the PLO and its allies could still turn to the General Assembly and ask it to consider membership under the Uniting for Peace resolution that can be invoked when the Security Council is deadlocked, this is a risky strategy.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the 1950 Admissions case made it clear that the UN Charter does not place the Security Council in a subordinate position to the General Assembly in matters of UN membership (International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion: Competence of the General Assembly for the Admission of a State to the United Nations, 3 March 1950). In the words of the court, “To hold that the General Assembly has power to admit a State to membership in the absence of recommendation of the Security Council would be to deprive the Security Council of an important power which has been entrusted to it by the UN Charter.”
Accordingly, the ICJ was of the opinion that “The admission of a State to membership in the United Nations, pursuant to paragraph 2 of article 4 of the Charter, cannot be effected by a decision of the General Assembly when the Security Council has made no recommendation for admission, by reason of the candidate failing to obtain the requisite majority or of the negative vote of a permanent Member upon a resolution so to recommend.”
Consequently, it is likely that should the US veto Palestine’s application for membership, then Palestine will not become a UN member. Instead its position would be similar to that of Kosovo (whose membership is being blocked by Russia) and Taiwan (whose membership is being blocked by China).
The potential risks and benefits of statehood
Critics have attacked the Palestinian strategy of seeking membership of the UN as a state in September as being futile and a waste of time that will do nothing to change things on the ground.
“The only thing that could be gained from UN recognition,” argues Ali Abunimah, “is for Abbas and his entourage to obtain international recognition for themselves as leaders of an imaginary ‘state’ while nothing changes on the ground for Palestinians.”
In 2009, I also argued that a Palestinian state that is recognized “with its territory partitioned, and subdivided into cantons, surrounded by walls, fences, ditches, watchtowers, and barbed wire, would scarcely be a state worthy of the name” (“UDI won’t mean Palestinian statehood,” Guardian, 19 Novermber 2009).
However, although there are risks involved, and although the PLO’s current leadership lacks credibility given the grievous mistakes of the past two decades, the advantages of this Palestinian strategy could outweigh the disadvantages. Nor, as will be discussed below, would statehood necessarily bring an end of the dream some hold of a democratic state for all its citizens.
Assuming that 150 states, including those from the EU, recognize Palestine as a state, one of the consequences is that this would formally level the playing field between Israel and Palestine on the diplomatic level. In other words, it would become a relationship between states rather than between a state and a non-state actor. Palestine would be able to formally join the international community and to insist upon a relationship based on sovereign equality. Moreover, Palestine’s status will be formally recognized without Palestine having to make any concessions on settlements, the right of return, or Jerusalem, etc. Accordingly, in any future negotiations on these issues Palestine can negotiate with Israel as a state, i.e. as an equal rather than as an occupied people.
One of the consequences of this “formal equality” is that new avenues will become available to Palestine to pursue legal remedies against Israel in various international forums. As a state, Palestine will be able to ratify international treaties, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), where an application on the status of Palestine, is currently pending. Even if the US manages to block membership of a Palestinian state, recognition by a large number of states at the UN General Assembly would greatly strengthen Palestine’s claim to statehood and may have a favorable impact on the declaration lodged at the ICC. Should the ICC accept that Palestine is a state for the purposes of its statute, it may commence investigations into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity from any time since July 2002 (the date the ICC Statute entered into force). For the first time in the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Israelis accused of major human rights violations could be held to account for their crimes.
The discourse might also change. Palestine could insist that the settlements and the continued occupation are a breach of its sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence and demand that Israel withdraws from the territory. For instance, Palestine could state that Israel is occupying a foreign state as Iraq did in Kuwait in 1990 and as South Africa did in Namibia for more than 40 years, and demand its immediate withdrawal. Should Israel desist and attack Palestinians on the scale say of its 2008-09 winter invasion of Gaza, then Palestine would be able to insist on its right of self-defense under Article 51 UN Charter (“Speech by PM Netanyahu to a Joint Meeting of the US Congress,” 24 May 2011).
Should Israel continue to reject dismantling the settlements and withdrawing from the territory of Palestine, then the State of Palestine can as an aspect of its sovereignty demand that those persons either accept to become Palestinian citizens and abide by the rule of law in Palestine or leave. Should Israel still refuse to withdraw from the territory or dismantle the settlements then Palestine would be able to ask the UN Security Council to take measure to force Israel’s departure from the territory.
If the Security Council does not do so, then Palestine could seek support elsewhere and ask for a further advisory opinion from the ICJ asking what third states would be obliged to do in the event that Israel fails to bring to an end to the occupation that threatens international peace and security.
If Palestine did become a state, and was recognized as such by other states, this would strengthen its argument that it has sovereign immunity, which could protect it from politically inspired lawsuits in the US for “terrorist offenses” under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Antiterrorism Act, which has caused Palestinian officials a headache in recent years. Palestinian officials, in turn, would be accorded diplomatic immunity, and could demand consular protection for their own nationals when they find themselves in trouble in foreign countries. This would include demanding a legal right to offer consular assistance to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails as well as jails in other countries.
Palestine would also be in a position to join a plethora of international organizations, in addition to the UN, such as the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which would give it extra rights that can only be granted to states. It would be in a better position to boost trade with other countries by for instance concluding a full Association Agreement with the European Union and similar organizations, which might allow it to improve the economic prosperity of its citizens.
If, in addition, Palestine became a member of the UN, it would be able to draft, propose, and table its own resolutions at the UN and vote on them and others. Palestine could also conceivably even be elected as a non-permanent member of the Security Council one day.
Moreover, Palestine’s security forces could insist on no longer being described as “terrorists,” but as the forces of a state whose troops are entitled to prisoner of war status. This would mean that if they are captured in an armed conflict with Israeli soldiers they should not be tried for murder in an Israeli court or any other tribunal if they have lawfully killed members of Israel’s armed forces (as opposed to being involved in deliberate armed attacks against civilians.) Regarding the fear that the PLO’s statehood strategy might preclude the wishes of those Palestinians who strive for a bi-national state or a one-state solution to the conflict, it should be remembered that a state can always merge with another state if they are both interested in such a union (e.g., the union of Egypt and Syria when they established the United Arab Republic in 1958).
Moreover, in its constitution, Palestine could make it clear that recognition of a Palestinian state would be without prejudice to the right of Palestinian refugees to return and compensation or to any other political solution that might arise in the future. In other words it would not necessarily spell the end of a bi-national or one-state solution if such a solution is desired by a majority of Palestinians and Israelis one day. Such a provision for instance exists in the Good Friday Agreement (1998) in Northern Ireland, allowing for the possibility for reunification if a majority of the people of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland concurrently vote in favour of reunification. The Constitution of Ireland was amended to reflect this and a similar provision might be considered for a Palestinian constitution.
Staying the course
Of course, much could change before September. One cannot predict what Israel might do, although it certainly senses that the winds of change are blowing through the region. It is not entirely inconceivable that it may respond with a “dramatic” gesture such as agreeing to withdraw from most of the West Bank and even dismantling one or two outposts in order to portray Israel as being “moderate.” This much can be gleaned from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent speech to the US Congress. Alternatively, Israel could provoke a border conflict with Hamas or Hizballah in order to divide the Palestinians. This much too can be gleaned from Netanyahu’s speech to Congress.
The PLO has undoubtedly lost legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of many Palestinians in Palestine and in the Diaspora. As “The Palestine Papers” leaked to Al Jazeera and the Guardian clearly showed, the Palestinian leadership has been willing to make far too many concessions on Palestinian rights. This might explain why the PLO is taking a tougher stance on the statehood question. It finally realized that it had exhausted the option of negotiations. Israel’s minimum conditions for accepting a Palestinian state (no right of return, a demilitarized state, annexation of settlement blocs, no sovereignty over Jerusalem, no sovereignty over the Jordan Valley, etc.) are far less that what any Palestinian leader can accept.
Netanyahu wants to divide the Palestinians. Before Congress he pointedly called upon Abbas to tear up his unity agreement with Hamas. Netanyahu knows full well that such an action would divide Palestinian society, possibly provoking civil war. Abbas must not fall for any attempts to cajole him away from his current strategy. If he is serious about seeking statehood, then Palestinians must remain steadfast and united and the PLO must secure as much support as it can before the UN vote. Indeed, it should seek support from more than 150 states. For the more states that recognize Palestine as a state, the greater its case for statehood.
Victor Kattan is the author of From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1891-1949 (London: Pluto Books, 2009) and The Palestine Question in International Law (London: British Institute of International and Comparative Law, 2008). Victor was a Teaching Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London from 2008-2011 where he is presently completing his PhD. Previously Victor worked for the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (2006-2008), Arab Media Watch (2004-2006), and the BADIL Resource Centre for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights as a UNDP TOKTEN consultant (2003-2004).
A version of this essay was originally published by Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian policy network.
Whither the Arab Spring?: Ahram Online
Ahram Online publishes below a study by Egypt’s internationally renowned political theorist and author
Samir Amin
The year 2011 began with a series of shattering, wrathful explosions from the Arab peoples. Is this springtime the inception of a second ‘awakening of the Arab world?’ Or will these revolts bog down and finally prove abortive – as was the case with the first episode of that awakening, which was evoked in my book L’Eveil du Sud (Paris: Le temps des cerises, 2008). If the first hypothesis is confirmed, the forward movement of the Arab world will necessarily become part of the movement to go beyond imperialist capitalism on the world scale. Failure would keep the Arab world in its current status as a submissive periphery, prohibiting its elevation to the rank of an active participant in shaping the world.
It is always dangerous to generalize about the ‘Arab world,’ thus ignoring the diversity of objective conditions characterizing each country of that world. So I will concentrate the following reflections on Egypt, which is easily recognized as playing and having always played a major role in the general evolution of its region.
Egypt was the first country in the periphery of globalized capitalism that tried to ‘emerge.’ Even at the start of the 19th century, well before Japan and China, the Viceroy Mohammed Ali had conceived and undertaken a program of renovation for Egypt and its near neighbours in the Arab Mashreq [Mashreq means ‘East,’ i.e., eastern North Africa and the Levant, ed.]. That vigorous experiment took up two-thirds of the 19th century and only belatedly ran out of breath in the 1870′s, during the second half of the reign of the Khedive Ismail. The analysis of its failure cannot ignore the violence of the foreign aggression by Great Britain, the foremost power of industrial capitalism during that period. Twice, in [the naval campaign of] 1840 and then by taking control of the Khedive’s finances during the 1870′s, and then finally by military occupation in 1882, England fiercely pursued its objective: to make sure that a modern Egypt would fail to emerge. Certainly the Egyptian project was subject to the limitations of its time since it manifestly envisaged emergence within and through capitalism, unlike Egypt’s second attempt at emergence – which we will discuss further on. That project’s own social contradictions, like its underlying political, cultural, and ideological presuppositions, undoubtedly had their share of responsibility for its failure. The fact remains that without imperialist aggression those contradictions would probably have been overcome, as they were in Japan.
Beaten, emergent Egypt was forced to undergo nearly forty years (1880-1920) as a servile periphery, whose institutions were refashioned in service to that period’s model of capitalist/imperialist accumulation. That imposed retrogression struck, over and beyond its productive system, the country’s political and social institutions. It operated systematically to reinforce all the reactionary and medievalistical cultural and ideological conceptions that were useful for keeping the country in its subordinate position.
The Egyptian nation – its people, its elites – never accepted that position. This stubborn refusal in turn gave rise to a second wave of rising movements which unfolded during the next half-century (1919-1967). Indeed, I see that period as a continuous series of struggles and major forward movements. It had a triple objective: democracy, national independence, social progress. Three objectives – however limited and sometimes confused were their formulations – inseparable one from the other. An inseparability identical to the expression of the effects of modern Egypt’s integration into the globalized capitalist/imperialist system of that period. In this reading, the chapter (1955-1967) of Nasserist systematization is nothing but the final chapter of that long series of advancing struggles, which began with the revolution of 1919-1920.
The first moment of that half-century of rising emancipation struggles in Egypt had put its emphasis – with the formation of the Wafd in 1919 – on political modernization through adoption (in 1923) of a bourgeois form of constitutional democracy (limited monarchy) and on the reconquest of independence. The form of democracy envisaged allowed progressive secularization – if not secularism in the radical sense of that term – whose symbol was the flag linking cross and crescent (a flag that reappeared in the demonstrations of January and February 2011). ‘Normal’ elections then allowed, without the least problem, not merely for Copts to be elected by Muslim majorities but for those very Copts to hold high positions in the State.
The British put their full power, supported actively by the reactionary bloc comprising the monarchy, the great landlords, and the rich peasants, into undoing the democratic progress made by Egypt under Wafdist leadership. In the 1930′s the dictatorship of Sedki Pasha, abolishing the democratic 1923 constitution, clashed with the student movement then spearheading the democratic anti-imperialist struggles. It was not by chance that, to counter this threat, the British Embassy and the Royal Palace actively supported the formation in 1927 of the Muslim Brotherhood, inspired by ‘Islamist’ thought in its most backward ‘Salafist’ version of Wahhabism as formulated by Rachid Reda – the most reactionary version, antidemocratic and against social progress, of the newborn ‘political Islam.’
The conquest of Ethiopia undertaken by Mussolini, with world war looming, forced London to make some concessions to the democratic forces. In 1936 the Wafd, having learned its lesson, was allowed to return to power and a new Anglo-Egyptian treaty was signed. The Second World War necessarily constituted a sort of parenthesis. But a rising tide of struggles resumed already on February 21, 1946 with the formation of the ‘worker-student bloc,’ reinforced in its radicalization by the entry on stage of the communists and of the working-class movement. Once again the Egyptian reactionaries, supported by London, responded with violence and to this end mobilized the Muslim Brotherhood behind a second dictatorship by Sedki Pasha – without, however, being able to silence the protest movement. Elections had to be held in 1950 and the Wafd returned to power. Its repudiation of the 1936 Treaty and the inception of guerrilla actions in the Suez Canal Zone were defeated only by setting fire to Cairo (January 1952), an operation in which the Muslim Brotherhood was deeply involved.
A first coup d’ tat in 1952 by the ‘Free Officers,’ and above all a second coup in 1954 by which Nasser took control, was taken by some to ‘crown’ the continual flow of struggles and by others to put it to an end. Rejecting the view of the Egyptian awakening advanced above, Nasserism put forth an ideological discourse that wiped out the whole history of the years from 1919 to 1952 in order to push the start of the ‘Egyptian Revolution’ to July 1952. At that time many among the communists had denounced this discourse and analyzed the coups d’état of 1952 and 1954 as aimed at putting an end to the radicalization of the democratic movement. They were not wrong, since Nasserism only took the shape of an anti-imperialist project after the Bandung Conference of April 1955. Nasserism then contributed all it had to give: a resolutely anti-imperialist international posture (in association with the pan-Arab and pan-African movements) and some progressive (but not ‘socialist’) social reforms. The whole thing done from above, not only ‘without democracy’ (the popular masses being denied any right to organize by and for themselves) but even by ‘abolishing’ any form of political life. This was an invitation to political Islam to fill the vacuum thus created. In only ten short years (1955-1965) the Nasserist project used up its progressive potential. Its exhaustion offered imperialism, henceforward led by the United States, the chance to break the movement by mobilizing to that end its regional military instrument: Israel. The 1967 defeat marked the end of the tide that had flowed for a half-century. Its reflux was initiated by Nasser himself who chose the path of concessions to the Right (the infitah or ‘opening,’ an opening to capitalist globalization of course) rather than the radicalization called for by, among others, the student movement (which held the stage briefly in 1970, shortly before and then after the death of Nasser). His successor, Sadat, intensified and extended the rightward turn and integrated the Muslim Brotherhood into his new autocratic system. Mubarak continued along the same path.
The following period of retreat lasted, in its turn, almost another half-century. Egypt, submissive to the demands of globalized liberalism and to US strategy, simply ceased to exist as an active factor in regional or global politics. In its region the major US allies – Saudi Arabia and Israel – occupied the foreground. Israel was then able to pursue the course of expanding its colonization of occupied Palestine with the tacit complicity of Egypt and the Gulf countries.
Under Nasser Egypt had set up an economic and social system that, though subject to criticism, was at least coherent. Nasser wagered on industrialization as the way out of the colonial international specialization which was confining the country in the role of cotton exporter. His system maintained a division of incomes that favoured the expanding middle classes without impoverishing the popular masses. Sadat and Mubarak dismantled the Egyptian productive system, putting in its place a completely incoherent system based exclusively on the profitability of firms most of which were mere subcontractors for the imperialist monopolies. Supposed high rates of economic growth, much praised for thirty years by the World Bank, were completely meaningless. Egyptian growth was extremely vulnerable. Moreover, such growth was accompanied by an incredible rise in inequality and by unemployment afflicting the majority of the country’s youth. This was an explosive situation. It exploded.
The apparent ‘stability of the regime,’ boasted of by successive US officials like Hillary Clinton, was based on a monstrous police apparatus counting 1,200,000 men (the army numbering a mere 500,000) free to carry out daily acts of criminal abuse. The imperialist powers claimed that this regime was ‘protecting’ Egypt from the threat of Islamism. This was nothing but a clumsy lie. In reality the regime had perfectly integrated reactionary political Islam (on the Wahhabite model of the Gulf) into its power structure by giving it control of education, of the courts, and of the major media (especially television). The sole permitted public speech was that of the Salafist mosques, allowing the Islamists, to boot, to pretend to make up ‘the opposition.’ The cynical duplicity of the US establishment’s speeches (Obama no less than Bush) was perfectly adapted to its aims. The de facto support for political Islam destroyed the capacity of Egyptian society to confront the challenges of the modern world (bringing about a catastrophic decline in education and research), while by occasionally denouncing its ‘abuses’ (like assassinations of Copts) Washington could legitimize its military interventions as actions in its self-styled ‘war against terrorism.’ The regime could still appear ‘tolerable’ as long as it had the safety valve provided by mass emigration of poor and middle-class workers to the oil-producing countries. The exhaustion of that system (Asian immigrants replacing those from Arabic countries) brought with it the rebirth of opposition movements. The workers’ strikes in 2007 (the strongest strikes on the African continent in the past fifty years), the stubborn resistance of small farmers threatened with expropriation by agrarian capital, and the formation of democratic protest groups among the middle classes (like the ‘Kefaya’ and ‘April 6″ movements) foretold the inevitable explosion – expected by Egyptians but startling to ‘foreign observers.’ And thus began a new phase in the tide of emancipation struggles, whose directions and opportunities for development we are now called on to analyze.