EDITOR: Gideon Levy at his best
Another simple human story from Levy, but as usual, a story that tells of the maddness and criminality of the Israeli state, one which places it straight up there with apartheid South Africa.
Twilight Zone / An organic bond: Haaretz
Six years ago, Anna Weekes-Majavu donated a kidney to a Palestinian toddler. Since then, the South African-born peace activist has been prevented by the Israeli authorities from seeing the child whose life she saved.
By Gideon Levy
This is a bad story with a happy ending. It’s also a story that makes one happy, but still leaves a bit of a bitter taste in one’s mouth.
It’s the story of a Palestinian baby girl who was born during a period of unrelenting siege and curfew in her village and became ill, so that her parents had to carry her through the hills to a hospital. It’s the story of a Palestinian infant who needed a kidney transplant but for whom no suitable donor was found in the family; finally, a courageous South African woman decided to donate one of her kidneys to the little girl. It’s the story of how the donor got to Israel, after a complicated legal effort involving government authorities and after donations were collected to finance the operation. It’s the story of a successful transplant and the girl’s full and joyful recovery. But it is also a story that has something bad about it: At present, Israel is preventing the donor from visiting the girl whose life she saved.
It was Lina Taamallah’s bad luck to be born on the day Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank, in the late winter of 2002. The delivery was in Rafadiyeh Hospital in Nablus. It was a rainy day, tanks and soldiers were everywhere, and most of the villages and towns were under curfew.
“It was a miracle that we made it to the hospital at all,” recalls her father, Fareed, 37, who holds a master’s degree in journalism and international relations from Birzeit University and works for the Palestinian Authority’s elections commission. His wife, Amina, a housewife, gave birth to Lina by C-section.
A few months later, Lina fell ill. For a week it was impossible to get her out of the house and to a doctor because of the curfew in their village, Qira, near Salfit. Lina, who developed a high fever and had severe diarrhea, was treated according to telephone instructions by a pediatrician, using medicines in her parents’ home.
In an article Fareed Taamallah published in The Los Angeles Times in May 2006, he described how his wife once had to carry Lina five kilometers through the hills of the West Bank to reach a doctor. In the wrenching article, Taamallah drew a connection between Lina’s ordeal at that time and the kidney failure that afflicted her a few months later.
When she was a year old, Lina contracted anemia. At first she was thought to be suffering from thalassemia, a blood disorder, but her parents had undergone genetic testing before the birth so that was ruled out. A few months later, Lina (who has three healthy siblings ) was diagnosed with renal failure. The family endured 16 hard months, in which she underwent dialysis every four hours, 24 hours a day, via a special machine suitable for infants.
Her physical development was arrested and her parents’ life became unendurable. Distraught, they turned their home into a kind of miniature hospital and they themselves became a medical team: It was essential to ensure that Lina did not come down with any infection. “I can’t bring myself to remember that period,” Fareed says now. “It was a nightmare.”
It was urgent to find a kidney donor for Lina, to save her life and then upgrade its quality. Her parents were willing to donate a kidney but were quickly found to be incompatible. Desperate, they looked for another solution. They examined the possibility of obtaining a kidney from Egypt or Pakistan, but discovered there are serious ethical problems about the way kidneys are harvested in those countries. Fareed says he did not know what to do.
Around this time, he met Anna Weekes (whose father is Jewish ), who later went by the name Majavu, from Cape Town; she was born in 1973. They met at a summer camp of Palestinian, Israeli and international peace activists in the West Bank. Anna stayed with the family after the camp disbanded and became a good friend. She knew Lina almost from the day of the girl’s birth. After a time, Anna was put on the Israeli authorities’ blacklist and deported due to her pro-Palestinian activity in the West Bank; she was in Britain at the time Lina fell ill. Fareed informed her about the development by e-mail, and she replied immediately that she would donate a kidney.
“I didn’t believe it. I thought she only wanted to express solidarity and friendship, and that the offer was meant just to make me happy,” Fareed says. He thanked Anna politely and added that at that point, he and his wife were then undergoing tests to see if they could be donors. Two months later, Fareed wrote to Anna that both they were incompatible, and Anna repeated her offer and emphasized that she was perfectly serious.
Anna then suggested that the transplant be done in Britain, however, under British law, organs must be donated by a member of the family. She decided to come to Israel for a compatibility check, and entered using a different passport which she carried legally. She underwent the examination in a private hospital in Nablus, in the meantime taking part in demonstrations against the separation fence in Bil’in and Budrus – and was again deported. She was found to be compatible.
“Now we had a compatible donor but one who could not enter the country,” Fareed recalls, going on to describe the family’s ordeal to save his daughter’s life: They considered having the operation done in South Africa, Egypt, Jordan or Pakistan, but discovered that in all these countries the donor had to be from the family. They found that the most suitable place for the transplant was Israel, where organs can be donated by people who are not family members after a professional committee considers the motives for the donation.
A few devoted friends of Fareed’s – Israeli peace activists who had heard about Lina’s illness – rallied to the cause. “We now faced two battles,” Fareed explains, “the battle to get Anna into the country and the battle to raise $40,000 to pay for the transplant.” They had to choose between Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva and Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Karem, Jerusalem. With the help of local friends, they chose the latter, which offered to do the operation at a discount. After lobbying, the Palestinian Authority agreed to cover half the cost of the transplant, the Peres Center for Peace also contributed and the rest was obtained through private donations. All that remained was to bring in Anna.
Attorney Gabi Lasky, who specializes in human rights cases, conducted negotiations with the Interior Ministry for Anna to be allowed to enter the country because of the special humanitarian situation. The authorities finally relented – on condition that Anna go directly from the airport to the hospital, have the kidney harvested and then return directly to the airport. Fareed himself was (and still is ) barred from entering Israel, and Lina’s mother took her for the preliminary tests at the hospital alone.
In September 2005, Lina entered Hadassah. Anna arrived from South Africa – after she was interrogated for several hours at the airport – and the operation was performed on October 2, 2005. Lina was three years old at the time. Her father also finally received a permit to be with her at the hospital. On the day of the operation, Anna’s fiance, Mandisi Majavu, arrived to be with her at the hospital.
The transplant was successfully performed by Prof. Ahmed Eid, head of the department of surgery at Hadassah in Ein Karem. Anna was discharged after a week and taken to Qira for recovery. She stayed there for about a month and flew home to South Africa on the day Lina was discharged. “We only had a few hours when the two of them were together,” Fareed relates.
On the last night of Anna’s stay in the village, the family held an improvised wedding reception for her and her fiance, who would be married a few weeks later in South Africa. The photos of the party in the family album reflect tremendous joy: Anna in a colorful and traditional embroidered Palestinian dress; Mandisi in a kaffiyeh and galabiya, both pure white, rolling amber beads with his fingers.
A short while later at the airport, Anna was again interrogated for a few hours before being allowed to leave. The security people told her she would never be allowed into Israel again. She did not sign any document, she said this week. Since then, she and Mandisi have become the parents of a daughter in South Africa. Her name: Bil’in Nkwenkwezi.
Lina recovered fully. We met her this week in the family’s second home, in an affluent suburb of El Bireh, next to Ramallah. She is a charming girl, full of life. One cannot see any outward signs of what she went through. She is in the fourth grade in the American School of Palestine, which is near her home.
Every few months she goes to Hadassah for a checkup, and because her father cannot enter Israel, an Israeli volunteer takes her from the checkpoint to the hospital. It’s usually Shraga Gorny, a 76-year-old Jerusalemite. Gorny, an electronics engineer, worked for 41 years at the Hebrew University and for the past 10, did medical research at Hadassah. Gorny regularly volunteers to drive Palestinian children for medical treatment at the hospital, which is how he met Lina and her family and got to know them well. (He is one of a group of Israelis – among them Herzliya-based peace activist Dorothy Naor – involved in such efforts. )
A few weeks ago, Gorny wrote me: “The girl who was like a matchstick before the transplant now looks beautiful and blooming.”
According to Fareed, Lina is not yet able to appreciate what Anna did for her. For her part, Anna told me this week, on the phone from Cape Town: “It was nothing. The body does not need two kidneys. I did not do anything special. I don’t think it was a noble act, as you said. I know the family and I have known Lina since she was born. I know the ordeals the family endured when they had to go through the hills by foot to get her to the hospital during the period of the curfew. It was only logical for me to donate a kidney for her. That was my duty. I just worry that Lina’s kidney will function and that no problems will arise in another few years.”
Anna is now a journalist in South Africa and raising Bil’in. Meanwhile, in a few weeks, the family will celebrate the sixth anniversary of the transplant. They celebrate Lina’s rebirth every year and their dream is for Anna to join them. Lina has never met Anna since the operation, but Anna is still banned from entering Israel.
A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority sent the following response to Haaretz: “An examination of the details shows that there is no request by Mrs. Weekes to enter Israel. The interrogation she underwent when she left the country was not carried out by a representative of the authority, so, accordingly, in the absence of a reason of which we are not aware, there is nothing to prevent her from visiting Israel. “It should be clarified that if she wishes to enter the territories of the Palestinian Authority,” the spokeswoman continues, “she must arrange this with the coordinator of government activities in the territories. It is also desirable to check the question of why she was delayed [at the airport] with the relevant authorities.”
The Shin Bet security service provided this response to Haaretz: “Usually, the person authorized to either permit or deny the entry of Mrs. Weekes into Israel would be the interior minister, or someone associated with him. At this time, it is not his intention to recommend, to any authorized figure, to object to her entry unless negative up-to-date security-related information about her is received which would change his position.”
Military whistleblower tells of ‘indiscriminate’ Israeli attacks: Independent
Troops fired tear gas during a curfew in a West Bank village to stop peaceful demonstrations
By Donald Macintyre
Friday, 16 September 2011
Israeli troops fired tear gas indiscriminately and sometimes dangerously to enforce a daytime curfew inside a West Bank village to stop Palestinians holding a peaceful demonstration on their own land, a military whistleblower has told The Independent.
The soldier’s insight into the methods of troops comes as the Israeli military prepares for demonstrations predicted when the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas submits an application for the recognition of statehood to the UN next week.
The testimony also reinforces a report by the human rights agency B’Tselem which argues that the way Israel deals with protests in the small village of Nabi Saleh is denying the “basic right” to demonstrate in the West Bank. The right to demonstrate is enshrined in international conventions ratified by Israel.
The soldier, a reservist NCO with extensive combat experience, was among more than 20 soldiers sent into the village more than two hours before a planned Friday demonstration in July, to try to quash protests before they began. The protests started in December 2009 after Jewish settlers appropriated a spring on privately-owned Nabi Saleh land.
The reservist, who originally testified to the veterans’ organisation Breaking the Silence, told The Independent that they went into a house in the village and took a position on the roof. “The sun was very hot, but we had to keep our helmets on,” he said. “Then some soldiers start getting bored and start shooting tear gas on people. Every guy who is not in his house or in the mosque is a target.”
He said that 150 rounds of tear gas or stun grenades were fired during the day and one soldier boasted that he had fired a tear gas canister which passed within one centimetre of a resident’s head.
Army rules prohibit firing canisters directly at people because they have caused serious injuries in the past. Another soldier travelling with the whistleblower in a military vehicle out of the village was left with an unfired tear gas canister.
“He should have fired it into an open field but we passed a grocery story with some people outside it with children. After we passed it he just turned round and fired it at them.”
The reservist was given a week’s preparation on the use of stun grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas. He had been impressed by a four to five -hour visit to the trainees by the Binyamin Brigade Commander Sa’ar Tzur who addressed “issues of ethics and human life, not just on our side but on the other side”.
Some soldiers complained about the strictness of prohibitions – not always honoured, according to the leaders of the weekly Nabi Saleh protests – on the use of live ammunition. But Colonel Tzur “was very strict on the fact that these are the rules and that anyone who breaks them will pay for it”.
But the battalion officer, a religious West Bank settler, was “exactly the opposite,” he added. “At the base there was a mission statement signed by the Brigade Commander which said ‘we need to maintain the fabric of life for the civilian population, Israelis and Palestinians.’ The battalion officer crossed out the word ‘Palestinians’ and all the soldiers around started laughing.”
The reservist’s testimony supports B’Tselem’s s main conclusions, including that the military makes “excessive use of crowd control weapons, primarily the firing of tear-gas canisters.”
He said: “It was very difficult for me. I want to be in the army to defend my country. On the other hand I saw that the job I was doing did not have any connection with defending Israel.”
He said that his unit was called to the village square when the battalion officer showed around 40 Palestinians and foreign activists a written order declaring the village a “closed military zone.” The soldiers had earlier heard shouting elsewhere by demonstrators before they were almost immediately dispersed by border police firing tear gas. The reservist said the people in the square “were just standing there. The officer said to the soldiers: ‘Everybody should get out of here. The Palestinians into their homes and the foreigners should get out. Anyone left should be arrested.’ One Palestinian was arrested when a soldier decided that he had ‘looked at him in a way he didn’t like’.”
As well as 35 Palestinian injuries in Nabi Saleh this year, there have been 80 detentions since the protests began, including of 18 minors, and protest leader Bassem Tamimi, currently awaiting military trial based largely on the interrogation of a 14-year-old boy arrested at home at gunpoint at 2am.
The military said it has “clear, detailed, and professional guidelines” for the use of tear gas to disperse “riots”, and that after two years of “dangerous and violent riots” it declared the village a “closed military area” on Fridays to “prevent these riots before they turn into violent ones”.
The military’s tactics have varied. A 13-year-old Palestinian boy was seriously injured by a rubber-coated bullet fired at close range during protracted clashes between armed troops and stone-throwing youths observed last year by The Independent. Those clashes started when troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets on the hitherto peaceful march towards the spring.
The reservist said he had seen no stones thrown on the day he was there. adding: “If they want to stop people throwing stones at the spring, why don’t [the troops] wait at the spring? Why are they coming into the village?” He added: “The headline of the whole Friday, as I see it, if the army won’t be in the village nothing would happen because the demonstration was not violent.”
Negev’s Bedouins: A New Nakba in the Making: Al-Akhbar
By: Firas Khatib
Friday, September 16, 2011
Bedouins in the Negev continue to be targeted by Israeli efforts to displace them. The Israeli government has now approved a plan that would uproot 30,000 Palestinians and place them in “recognized villages.”
The situation of Palestinians inside the green line is bleak, especially when compared to the hopeful atmosphere sparked throughout the region by the Arab Spring. Plans are underway to forcibly relocate tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins to designated towns that are in a deplorable condition.
The relocation scheme was among the recommendations of the Prawer Report, which called for relocating more than 30,000 Arab Bedouins in the Siaj section of the Negev to housing compounds elsewhere in the desert region south of the country.
The Palestinians of the Negev view the plan as a “declaration of war” and are refusing the evacuation orders.
This plan is part of an Israeli settlement policy that targets Arab Bedouins who live in the Negev. The Israeli state has always sought to settle the largest possible number of Arabs on the smallest possible area of land. The Netanyahu government’s relocation plan, however, is much wider in scope because of the sheer number of people involved. The Palestinians of the Negev view the plan as a “declaration of war” and are refusing the evacuation orders.
About 614,000 people live in the Negev desert, including 192,000 Palestinian Bedouins. Over 70,000 of these Bedouins live in what is called “unrecognized villages,” while the rest reside in “recognized towns.” The so-called recognized towns are not much better off than the unrecognized ones. They lack the most basic services and are allocated small budgets by Israeli authorities. Their conditions are similar to, if not worse than, those of other Palestinian villages and towns inside the green line.
Even though unrecognized villages receive no basic services from the state, the Bedouins of the Negev are determined to stay on their land. The Israeli government maintains that the Bedouins do not own the land and are living there illegally. Land and Planning Unit director at the Adalah legal center, attorney Suhad Bishara, tells al-Akhbar that Israeli claims to the land distort the history of the Bedouins in the Negev. Bishara says that most of the villages being discussed existed before the Nakba, i.e, before the creation of Israel. The rest were established after Bedouin tribes were expelled from the western Negev and moved to the Siaj area in the northeast of Beersheba, bordering the West Bank.
On the eve of the Nakba, 90,000 people lived in the Negev desert. The vast majority were uprooted. Only 12 percent managed to remain. They were relocated to an area known as “Siaj” (enclosure in Arabic) and relentlessly harassed by the Israelis in the hope that they would leave altogether. Bishara explains that the current effort to relocate the Negev’s native residents is a continuation of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians over the past 60 years. Bishara adds that in the 1960s and 1980s, a total of seven Arab towns were established in the Negev. Later on, ten more towns were recognized. The total area of these recognized towns constitutes only one percent of the district of Beersheba, whereas Bedouins constitute 31 percent of the population in the Negev.
Successive Israeli governments have tried to blame the Bedouins for the problem in the Negev by claiming that they are encroaching on property they do not own. This began in the 1970s when the Israeli government enacted land ownership registration in the Negev. Bishara explains that Israel used these procedures to claim that there is in fact no Bedouin land ownership in the area.
Under the guise of trying to find a compromise to resolve the matter, Israel then appointed the Goldberg committee, followed by the Prawer committee. They were tasked with developing a governmental plan with a specific time table whose purpose is to remove Bedouins from unrecognized villages. Bishara explains that Israel plans to impose this “compromise” by force, meaning that either the Bedouins accept the deal or the land will be registered as state-owned.
The Israeli policy of settling Bedouins in designated villages and towns, however, has not succeeded, according to Bishara. One reason for this has to with the fact that these towns were built on lands confiscated by Israel from Bedouin tribes. Other tribes refuse to live on these lands because it would be a violation of tribal laws that prohibit one tribe from encroaching on the land of another. Other reasons behind this failure have to do with Bedouin social and cultural traditions. Bishara says that most Israeli efforts to “Judaize” the Negev have failed.
How civil society pushed Turkey to ditch Israel’s war industry: The Electronic Intifada
Jamal Juma’ and Maren Mantovani , 16 September 2011
The world’s eyes are still fixed on the Middle East, and the first half of September has delivered two profound events in Egypt and Turkey that have sent shockwaves through the Israeli establishment.
On 2 September, the Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced the decision to downgrade diplomatic relations with Israel to second secretary level and cut all military relations between the two countries. Then, after weeks of protests, the Egyptian people finally stormed the Israeli embassy in Cairo on 9 September and staged a “citizen’s expulsion” of the Israeli embassy staff (“Egyptian protesters send Israel ambassador and his staff out of country,” AhramOnline, 10 September 2011).
At the cost of three lives and more than a thousand injuries, protesters literally shut down the Israeli embassy and required the Israeli ambassador to be flown directly back to Tel Aviv.
These two events are indicative of a three-fold shift in power relations: the core strength of the people’s movements, which have contributed to the changing governmental power balance in the Middle East, which in turn have begun to assert aspirations within global diplomacy. These slow yet steady shifts have a direct, net-positive effect on the Palestinian struggle for liberation and justice and an overall negative impact on Israeli apartheid.
People power
In Egypt and Tunisia, inspiring victories that have come out of determined struggles have brought to power governments that, if popular mobilization continues, will be obliged to respond, at least in part, to the persistent demands and undying aspirations of the people. Some governments are still brutally combating uprisings, such as Syria and Bahrain. And still other leaders have been keenly reminded that people count and can take control of their destinies.
Unquestionably, Palestine is and always has been on the agendas of the Arab popular uprisings. This has been particularly clear over the last few months in Egypt.
In order to appease at least some popular demands, the interim government tried to steer away from Hosni Mubarak’s pro-Israel policies. Egypt has begun renegotiating the gas contracts, which sold natural gas at below market price to Israel (“Israeli delegation in Egypt to negotiate fixed gas rates,” Al Masry Al Youm, 13 May 2011).
The official Egyptian airline EgyptAir closed down direct Cairo-Tel Aviv flights (“Egypt Air deletes Israel from its destination list,” Middle East Monitor, 23 March 2011).
However, the weak diplomatic response on the part of the post-Mubarak government to Israel’s murder of five Egyptian soldiers in August triggered dramatic popular action. Mohammed el Baradei and Amr Moussa, the two leading presidential candidates, both immediately called for a stronger reaction to Israel (“Egypt-Israel ties strained after border incidents, says analyst,” The Daily News Egypt, 19 August 2011).
The “citizen’s expulsion” of the Israeli embassy staff was a response to the first killing of Egyptian martyrs after the revolutionary weeks in Tahrir Square during the spring.
Likewise, Turkey’s diplomatic boldness can indeed only be viewed as a victory of activists, movements, and organizations that have consistently shown the Ankara government the line of actions to take in order to display its solidarity with Palestine.
Turkey ditches Israeli war industry
Here, the popular mood is similar to Egypt’s. For a long time, the Turkish government has been aware of the unpopularity of its support of the Israeli war industry and the occupation of Palestine. The people in Turkey have consistently shown overwhelming solidarity with Palestine, most notably with their mobilization for the 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which ended in a brutal attack by the Israeli navy. Israel commandos killed eight Turkish citizens and one US citizen of Turkish origin on the Mavi Marmara.
Now, we see the Turkish government taking leads from its citizens, mobilizations in the region, and the Palestinian people. Only two months ago, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) launched its call for a military embargo on Israel (“Impose a mandatory and comprehensive military embargo on Israel,” BDS Movement, 8 July 2011).
This call was supported by organizations and unions representing dozens of millions of people all over the globe.
For civil society in the entire region, beyond just Egyptians and Turks, there can be no question about the power of citizens to affect social and political changes that can undermine Israeli apartheid and neo-colonial policies pursued by neighboring governments.
Meltdown of power structures
Power relations and alliances are changing in the Middle East. The strength of the people’s movements is a driving force in this phenomenon, as well as a result of it.
A short overview of the region reveals the slow meltdown of the power structures on which the US and the EU had cast a stronghold on the region. The wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven to be military and political failures.
As NATO attempts to control oil reserves in Libya, the West is proving itself to be militarily overstretched, economically depleted, and politically discredited. The failures of its governments’ diplomatic initiatives for peace in the region are due to Israel and its arrogance, its impunity becoming a liability for Western powers. Pillars of colonial power such as the Mubarak regime have fallen, leaving a political void. At least until Egypt’s November elections, Turkey will be the only resource-rich and populous country with an uncontested leadership between the Mediterranean and Iran.
The Turkish realignment is also a reflection of this scenario. Turkey was Israel’s second biggest importer of Israeli weapons and had guaranteed to Israel airspace rights for military training flights. Turkey imported more than double the amount of arms from Israel than any other country in 2009 (“Palestinian civil society welcomes Turkey’s decision to suspend all military ties with Israel and lower diplomatic relations,” BDS Movement, 7 September 2011).
Turkey and Israel also conducted intensive joint military training exercises (“Military cooperation was at the hear of Turkey-Israel ties,” Defence Talk, 1 June 2010).
The freezing of military ties is a dramatic show of force but is part of a long-term shift of policy. In the last few years Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rebuilt relations with the Turkmen neighboring states, Iran, and others in the Global South and decisively shifted Turkey’s areas of interest towards the east and the south. Since the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara, Turkey has not signed any new military contracts with Israel. And just days ahead of the 2 September statement, Turkey reached an agreement with NATO to ensure that Israel would not have access to data collected by a new NATO anti-missile early warning system (“Turks to install NATO radar,” Hurriyet, 2 September 2011).
It’s notable also that the US seems to have conceded to the direction of Turkey’s new policies.
Taking advantage of the governmental power void and political support for Palestine at popular level, Turkey has forcefully put itself on the public and diplomatic map by letting Israel know it is not anymore dominating the region. That is an astute move that has allowed Turkey to assert regional hegemonic aspirations and, contemporaneously, to gain widespread sympathy across the Middle East for challenging Israel. Immediately afterwards, Erdogan extended his hand to Egypt by planning the first presidential visit to Cairo in 15 years. Being aware that Egypt and Turkey together make up more than half of the population of the Middle East and half of the eastern Mediterranean seashore, Erdogan will sign strategic economic and military agreements that could be the basis for a new Middle Eastern alliance (“Egypt, Turkey look to forge stronger ties as Erdogan readies to visit Cairo,” Today’s Zaman, 9 September 2011).
However, regardless of future Egyptian government and Egyptian-Turkish cooperation, one thing is clear: since 2 September, the new Middle East in formation has a leading figure nobody will be able to avoid.
Sham UN investigation
The latest Turkish announcements took on the United Nations as well. The Turkish move was ultimately triggered by what began as a stand-off on the Palmer report, a UN investigation into Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara. The formation of the Palmer Commission was a shield for Israel from condemnation of its violations of international law, to avoid a repeat of the detailed proof in the UN investigative report on the Israeli attack on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009.
After the UN Human Rights Council had already mandated an expert committee to investigate the issue, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon formed an almost parallel committee. Ban appointed none other than Alvaro Uribe, the ex-president of Colombia, as vice-chairman of the Freedom Flotilla investigation.
Only a few months earlier, the UN Human Rights Commissioner had published a scathing report on violations of human rights and repression of human rights defenders committed in Colombia under Uribe (“Report of the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Colombia,” 4 March 2010).
Moreover, Colombia became one of the world’s biggest importers of Israeli weapons during his presidency and the Colombian military continues to hire Israeli military “consultants” to learn from their methods of repression. Unsurprisingly, the outcome of the UN report was taken as an insult to Turkey as well as to international law (“Disappointment at the United Nations: the Palmer report on the flotilla incident of 31 May 2010,” Middle East Monitor, 9 September 2011).
Against the consensus of international law experts, the report argued that the siege on Gaza was legal and recommended that little more than an apology from the Israeli government would be an apt remedy for the killing of nine Turks. Turkey’s response was sharp and functioned on two levels: it stated its intention to refer the of Gaza to the International Court of Justice and promised that it will ensure freedom of navigation in the eastern Mediterranean by the force of its own navy.
These recent announcements by Turkey are therefore a message to the United Nations that it must not guarantee Israel impunity for its crimes. Where the UN fails, other avenues will succeed in holding Israel accountable. US vetoes in the Security Council can shield Israel only insofar as the West willingly permits this fig leaf to obscure its own unwillingness to act.
Turkey’s message is nothing new. Civil society around the world has long promoted a call for accountability through boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), including the call for a military embargo on Israel. Civil society has already gained impressive victories over the last five years through BDS and a call for BDS may soon be heeded by institutions and governments.
It is crucial that activists in Turkey and around the world continue to escalate their mobilization in support of the Palestinian call for BDS and a complete military embargo on Israel in order to ensure that the Turkish government does not resume relations with Israel until Israel complies with international law and human rights and other governments follow suit. Activists will further have to develop and refine methods of monitoring the implementation of BDS pledges by governments, institutions and enterprises.
The people’s movements strengthen Middle Eastern governments against sustained apartheid in Israel. There is hope that the time is coming close when the nations finally unite in effective action against Israeli apartheid, colonialism and occupation.
Jamal Juma’ is coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign.
Maren Mantovani is international outreach coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign.
Israel summons Egyptian Ambassador in response to Sharaf’s statements about Camp David: Ahram online
News sources have reported that Israel denied that amending the Camp David peace treaty is on its agenda
Ahram Online AFP, Friday 16 Sep 2011
Tension rises: Israel slams Egypt PM Sharaf on peace accords statement
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign affairs has summoned the Egyptian ambassador to Israel Yasser Reda today in protest of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf ‘s statements to Turkish TV regarding Camp David accords.
Sharaf said in an interview aired on Egyptian TV last night, “The Camp David treaty is always open to discussion or modification if that is beneficial for the region and for a just peace. The peace treaty is not sacred and there can be changes made to it”.
Today the Israeli foreign ministry met with Reda for 30 minutes to clarify that any amendments to the treatment are “not on the cards”, according to Israeli news sources. The meeting was headed by the foreign ministry’s director general Rafi Barack, who demanded an explanation for Sharaf’s statement as well as making it clear to reda that “from Israel’s perspective, there is no intention whatsoever to reopen the peace treaty and such a step cannot be taken unilaterally.”
Amending the Camp David accords, especially the security arrangements in Sinai’s Zones “B” and “C” was raised in Egypt after the recent killing of Egyptian border guard in Sinai. Many political parties and potential presidential candidates like Amr Moussa expressed an interest in amending the accords, and the secretary general of the Arab League Nabil Al-Araby described the peace treaty in a recent interview as “not holy writ”.
Is Oslo agreement dead?: YNet
Will Israeli-Palestinian accords be annulled in wake of Abbas’ UN bid? Deputy FM Ayalon says PA leader ‘changing the game,’ warns Israel will now be able to respond without limitations stemming from past deals, including Oslo
Ronen Medzini
Diplomatic earthquake in store? The upcoming Palestinian statehood bid constitutes a “new game” that will allow Israel to respond without being constrained by past agreements, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon says.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is “not only changing the rules of the game, but the game itself,” Ayalon told Ynet Friday. “Israel knows how to respond and from now on would be able to realize its interests without any limitations or concessions stemming from previous agreements, including the Oslo Accords.”
The implicit threat was voiced by Ayalon after Abbas delivered a dramatic speech in Ramallah earlier Friday, declaring that the Palestinians will be seeking full UN membership and approaching the Security Council later this month.
The deputy FM’s words may indicate that should the Palestinian go ahead with their UN bid, Israel would view itself as absolved of the obligations of the Oslo Accords, which call for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to bridge their differences through negotiations, rather than unilaterally. Such move would fundamentally change the current relationship between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Bibi slams Fatah-Hamas deal
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office also slammed Abbas’ speech Friday, stressing that peace can only be achieved through talks.
“Peace is not achieved by unilaterally going to the United Nations and not by joining forces with terror group Hamas,” Netanyahu’s statement said: “Peace shall only be achieved via direct negotiations with Israel.”
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman already hinted at the potentially grave consequences of the Palestinian UN bid earlier this week, warning that a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood would have “dire consequences” and also referring to the Oslo deals.
“It’s been 18 years since the Oslo Accords and we’ve tried everything… I accept that I’m the ‘bad guy’ but what have the others done? Barak, in Camp David, agreed to all (Palestinian) demands. What did we get in return? Another intifada and more bloodshed,” he said.
Palestinian leader ignores US warnings on UN statehood bid: Guardian
Mahmoud Abbas says he will go ahead with request to UN security council to recognise independence despite US warnings
Obama, Israel and his Palestinian ‘promise’
Chris McGreal in Washington and Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas speaks about his bid for Palestinian statehood during a speech in Ramallah. Photograph: Darren Whiteside/Reuters
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has said he will go ahead with a request to the United Nations security council to recognise what amounts to a unilateral declaration of independence despite warnings from the US that it will raise “dangerous” false hopes and set back real self-determination.
Abbas said in a televised address the Palestinians will seek recognition next week of an independent Palestinian state on the basis of the borders of 4 June 1967 with East Jerusalem as the capital. He noted that the US president, Barack Obama, said a year ago he hoped to see an independent Palestine join the UN at this time.
“Obama himself said he wanted to see a Palestinian state by September,” said Abbas. He said he would not bow to foreign pressure and what he called attempts to “buy off” the Palestinians.
“We are going to the security council,” he said. “The world is sympathising with the aspirations of the Palestinian people.”
Abbas’s defiant speech came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity by the US, EU and Tony Blair in Jerusalem and Ramallah aimed at trying to avoid a showdown next week at the UN security council, where the Americans say they will veto a Palestinian request for recognition of statehood.
The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said the Palestinians had “miscalculated” if they believed the move will bring them closer to independence. Rice warned that even if the Palestinians were to win a vote in favour of statehood it will not change the situation on the ground.
“There’s no shortcut, there’s no magic wand that can be waved in New York and make everything right. In fact, there’s a risk in that because if you’re an average person in the Palestinian territories and your hopes have been raised that by some action here in New York something will be different, the reality is that nothing is going to change.
“There won’t be any more sovereignty, there won’t be any more food on the table. And this gap between expectation and reality is in itself quite dangerous,” Rice told the BBC.
“The miscalculation here on the part of the Palestinians is that by coming to the United Nations they will be in a better position to negotiate … As tough as it is today to bring the parties to the table, it will be much much tougher after action here in New York. If the aim is to isolate and confront Israel, which is the effect of this action potentially in New York, then that is not going to encourage Israel to come back to the negotiating table any sooner.”
Abbas rejected the assertion that the UN vote will jeopardise talks.
“We will come back to negotiations on other issues. But we need full membership of the UN,” he said. “Over the past year we have expressed our readiness to take part in serious negotiations. Israel has wasted time and imposed facts on the ground [by expanding Jewish settlements].”
Israel, he said, had nothing to fear from the move.
“Israel is there, no one can deprive it of its legal status, it is a recognised country.” But, he added, Palestinian statehood would mean Israel could no longer claim it was colonising “disputed territory. This is occupied territory.”
On Thursday, Rice met Jewish American leaders in New York to assure them the Obama administration will do it all it can to derail the Palestinian move at the UN. But she conceded that Washington was unlikely to be able to prevent the Palestinians from taking a request for recognition of full statehood to the security council, or alternatively turn to the general assembly, which can offer only enhanced observer status.
Washington is instead concentrating on garnering support against the move. It is targeting non-permanent members of the security council, such as Colombia, Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the hope of ensuring they at least abstain if they are not prepared to vote against a Palestinian state, and so lessen the impact of a US veto.
The US is also pressing Britain to back its position. The UK, which has one eye on its standing in the Middle East particularly as it is heavily involved in Libya, says it is undecided and is waiting to see the wording of the Palestinian request.
However, Britain has suggested it is prepared to consider supporting a watered down request in the general assembly where the Palestinians can in any case expected to win with a comfortable margin.
In the Middle East, the Europeans and Tony Blair – envoy of the quartet of the US, UN, EU and Russia – were attempting to engineer a compromise to head off the need for a US veto in the security council.
One effort is to divert the whole issue to the general assembly. Another is for Abbas to submit his request for statehood but for it then to be put on hold while peace talks are revived. The request would then be activated if negotiations fail to reach an agreement within a year.
The Palestinians are resistant to the idea in part because they do not believe the Israelis are serious about talks but also because it would not require a freeze on construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank – an issue that has become a major obstacle to fresh negotiations.
There were reports in Israel that the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is prepared to consider an upgrade in the Palestinian status at the UN through a vote in the general assembly so long as it falls short of full membership.
An Israeli official refused to confirm the reports but he did say that intensive efforts were continuing to find a compromise.
“The goal is to avoid a diplomatic train wreck,” he said. “There are various ideas on the table to find a formula to allow us back to talks.”
According to the Israeli official, there was a “greater understanding on the Palestinian side that the train wreck needs to be avoided”. But there was no certainty a deal could be reached.
“The Palestinians climb up a tree, kick the ladder away, and then say help me get down the tree. It’s not always possible,” he said.
However, there is no public indication the Palestinians are looking for a way to backtrack.
Their team continues to insist they will demand full membership of the UN at the security council and will only seek a lesser status at the general assembly following a US veto.
Netanyahu will address the general assembly next Friday hours after Abbas delivers his speech.