EDITOR: To Whom the Bells Toll?
Below you can read the publisher and owner of Haaretz, Israel’s only broadsheet, Amos Schocken, writing clearly about Israeli apartheid and a state beholden to a dedicated fascisto-religious organisation and its appendages across the whole society. While others have said those things many times before, for Schocken to say them – he hardly ever publishes any writing in his own paper – is evidence of how deep the cancer has hit.
It is also interesting to read the reporting about Iranian reactions to the developing threat to its nuclear facilities from Israel and its allies – the issue is more or less avoided in the UK and the US, with papers either mentioning it in passing, or avoiding it altogether.
The necessary elimination of Israeli democracy: Haaretz
Haaretz publisher and owner Amos Schocken says there is a difference between the apartheid of South Africa and what is happening in Israel and in the territories, but there are also similarities.
By Amos Schocken
Speaking in the Knesset in January 1993, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said, “Iran is in the initial stages of an effort to acquire nonconventional capability in general, and nuclear capability in particular. Our assessment is that Iran today has the appropriate manpower and sufficient resources to acquire nuclear arms within 10 years. Together with others in the international community, we are monitoring Iran’s nuclear activity. They are not concealing the fact that the possibility that Iran will possess nuclear weapons is worrisome, and this is one of the reasons that we must take advantage of the window of opportunity and advance toward peace.”
At that time, Israel had a strategy – which began to be implemented in the Oslo accords, put an end to the priority granted the settlement project and aimed to improve the treatment of Israel’s Arab citizens.
If things had gone differently, the Iran issue might look different today. However, as it turned out, the Oslo strategy collided with another, stronger ideology: the ideology of Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful ), which since the 1970s, apart from the Oslo period and the time of the withdrawal from Gaza, has established the concrete basis for the actions of Israel’s governments. Even governments that were ostensibly far removed from the Gush Emunim strategy implemented it in practice. Ehud Barak boasted that, in contrast to other prime ministers, he did not return territory to the Palestinians – and there’s no need to point out once again the increase in the number of settlers during his tenure. The government of Ehud Olmert, which declared its intention to move toward a policy of hitkansut (or “convergence,” another name for what Ariel Sharon termed “disengagement” ) in Judea and Samaria, held talks with senior Palestinians on an agreement but did not stop the settlement enterprise, which conflicts with the possibility of any agreement.
The strategy that follows from the ideology of Gush Emunim is clear and simple: It perceives of the Six-Day War as the continuation of the War of Independence, both in terms of seizure of territory, and in its impact on the Palestinian population. According to this strategy, the occupation boundaries of the Six-Day War are the borders that Israel must set for itself. And with regard to the Palestinians living in that territory – those who did not flee or were not expelled – they must be subjected to a harsh regime that will encourage their flight, eventuate in their expulsion, deprive them of their rights, and bring about a situation in which those who remain will not be even second-class citizens, and their fate will be of interest to no one. They will be like the Palestinian refugees of the War of Independence; that is their desired status. As for those who are not refugees, an attempt should be made to turn them into “absentees.” Unlike the Palestinians who remained in Israel after the War of Independence, the Palestinians in the territories should not receive Israeli citizenship, owing to their large number, but then this, too, should be of interest to no one.
The ideology of Gush Emunim springs from religious, not political motivations. It holds that Israel is for the Jews, and it is not only the Palestinians in the territories who are irrelevant: Israel’s Palestinian citizens are also exposed to discrimination with regard to their civil rights and the revocation of their citizenship.
This is a strategy of territorial seizure and apartheid. It ignores judicial aspects of territorial ownership and shuns human rights and the guarantees of equality enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. It is a strategy of unlimited patience; what is important is the unrelenting progress toward the goal. At the same time, it is a strategy that does not pass up any opportunity that comes its way, such as the composition of the present Knesset and the unclear positions of the prime minister.
The term “apartheid” refers to the undemocratic system of discriminating between the rights of the whites and the blacks, which once existed in South Africa. Even though there is a difference between the apartheid that was practiced there and what is happening in the territories, there are also some points of resemblance. There are two population groups in one region, one of which possesses all the rights and protections, while the other is deprived of rights and is ruled by the first group. This is a flagrantly undemocratic situation.
Since the Six-Day War, there has been no other group in Israel with the ideological resilience of Gush Emunim, and it is not surprising that many politicians have viewed that ideology as a means for realizing personal political ambitions. Zevulun Hammer, who identified this ideology as the way to capture the leadership of the National Religious Party, and Ariel Sharon, who identified this ideology as the way to capture the leadership of Likud, were only two of many. Now Avigdor Lieberman, too, is following this path, but there were and are others, such as the late Hanan Porat, for whom the realization of this ideology was and remains the purpose of their political activity.
This ideology views the creation of an Israeli apartheid regime as a necessary tool for its realization. It has no difficulty with illegal actions and with outright criminality, because it rests on mega-laws that it has adopted and that have no connection with the laws of the state, and because it rests on a perverted interpretation of Judaism. It has scored crucial successes. Even when actions inspired by the Gush Emunim ideology conflict with the will of the government, they still quickly win the backing of the government. The fact that the government is effectively a tool of Gush Emunim and its successors is apparent to everyone who has dealings with the settlers, creating a situation of force multiplication.
This ideology has enjoyed immense success in the United States, of all places. President George H.W. Bush was able to block financial guarantees to Israel because of the settlements established by the government of Yitzhak Shamir (who said lying was permissible to realize the Gush Emunim ideology. Was Benjamin Netanyahu’s Bar-Ilan University speech a lie of this kind? ). Now, though, candidates for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination are competing among themselves over which of them supports Israel and the occupation more forcefully. Any of them who adopt the approach of the first President Bush will likely put an end to their candidacy.
Whatever the reason for this state of affairs – the large number of evangelicals affiliated with the Republican party, the problematic nature of the West’s relations with Islam, or the power of the Jewish lobby, which is totally addicted to the Gush Emunim ideology – the result is clear: It is not easy, and may be impossible, for an American president to adopt an activist policy against Israeli apartheid.
Legalizing the illegal
Because of its inherent illegality, at least in democratic terms, an apartheid regime cannot allow opposition and criticism. The Gush Emunim ideology is obliged to eliminate the latter, and to prevent every effort to block its activity, even if that activity is illegal and even criminal, meant to maintain apartheid. The illegal activity needs to be made legal, whether by amending laws or by changing their judicial interpretation – such things have occurred before, in other places and at other times.
Against this background, we are now seeing the campaign of legislation against, and the unbridled slandering of the Supreme Court, against human rights organizations and against the press, as well as the so-called boycott law, which is aimed at preventing the possibility of dealing with Israeli apartheid in the way South African apartheid was dealt with. It is against this same background that legislation has been submitted that is directed against the Arab citizens in Israel, such as the Loyalty Law and the proposal for a “Basic Law of Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People.” It is against this background that a campaign of incitement and intimidation is being waged against the necessary and justified critique being voiced by members of academia.
The Supreme Court, which permitted the settlement project and effectively collaborated with the Gush Emunim ideology, has now become an obstacle that needs to be removed – in the eyes of those who still adhere to that ideology – primarily because the court refuses to recognize the possibility of settling on privately owned Palestinian land and did not overturn the government decision to evacuate the settlements in the Gaza Strip. Because the land belongs to the Jews by divine decree and history (from this perspective, there are similarities between Gush Emunim and Hamas ), there is no choice but to elect to the Supreme Court justices who live on Palestinian land, possibly private land, and those who understand that there is no such thing as “land under private Palestinian ownership.”
Similarly, this line of thinking goes, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of human rights laws also requires its elimination in its present format. Judgments such as those relating to the Kaadan family (allowing an Arab family to build a home in a Jewish community ); the selling of Jewish National Fund land to Arab citizens of Israel; the amendment to the Citizenship Law (no ruling has yet been handed down, but there seems to be a possibility that a majority of justices will rule it illegal ); the opening of a highway to Palestinian traffic – all these rulings conflict with essential elements in Gush Emunim ideology: the discrimination between Jews and Palestinians (in Israel and the territories ) and the deprivation of the Palestinians’ rights, which transform them into second-class people, absentees or, best of all, refugees.
Does an Israel of this kind have a future? Over and beyond the question of whether Jewish morality and the Jewish experience allow such circumstances to exist, it is clear that this is a flagrantly unstable and even dangerous situation. It is a situation that will prevent Israel from fully realizing its vast potential, a situation of living by the sword – a sword that could be a third intifada, the collapse of peace with Egypt and a confrontation with a nuclear Iran. Yitzhak Rabin understood that.
Iran to hit Turkey if nuclear program targeted by Israel, U.S., general says: Haaretz
Threat by senior Revolutionary Guard commander comes after another Iranian general says Tehran would strike Israel’s nuclear facilities if it was attacked.
A senior commander of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard says the country will target NATO’s missile defense shield in Turkey if the U.S.¬ or Israel attacks the Islamic Republic.
Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guards’ aerospace division, is quoted by the semiofficial Mehr news agency as saying the warning is part of a new defense strategy to counter what it sees as an increase in threats from the U.S.¬ and Israel.
He says Iran will now respond to threats with threats rather than a defensive position.
Tehran says NATO’s early warning radar station in Turkey is meant to protect Israel against Iranian missile attacks if a war breaks out with Israel.
Turkey agreed to host the radar in September as part of NATO’s missile defense system.
Earlier Saturday, another Iranian defense official threatened retaliation against Israel if any of its nuclear or security sites are attacked.
“If Israeli missiles hit one of our nuclear facilities or other vital centers, then they should know that any part of Israeli territory would be target of our missiles, including their nuclear sites,” General Yadollah Javani of the Revolutionary Guards told ISNA news agency.
“They (Israel) know that we have the capability to do so.”
Javani, the former head of the military’s political department, was referring to mounting speculation that Israel would strike Iran’s nuclear facilities after the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had tested designs used to make nuclear warheads.
EDITOR: The Unholy Alliance
Trust this bunch of democracies to group together in support of the most devastating munitions, directed at civilians and affecting especially small children, as was the case in Lebanon and elsewhere, after the Israeli IOF left few million bomblets as a parting gift in South Lebanon. May the partners to this nastiness be damned.
Britain unites with smaller countries to block US bid to legalise cluster bombs: Gaurdian
Israel, Russia and China along with America wanted to approve use of ‘bomblets’ that often unintentionally maim and kill civilians
Richard Norton-Taylor
A coalition of countries including Britain on Friday defeated an attempt by the US, Russia, China and Israel to get an international agreement approving the continued use of cluster bombs. The weapons, which have been used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon scatter “bomblets” over a wide area, maiming and killing civilians, notably children, long after they have been dropped and are banned under a 2008 convention which was adopted by the UK and in more than 100 countries. The US, refused to sign and in negotiations in Geneva, over the past two weeks pressed for a protocol to be added to a UN convention to provide legal cover for the continuing use of cluster munitions. But smaller countries, supported by agencies including Amnesty and Oxfam, refused to give way.
Thomas Nash, director of Article 36, a group which coordinated opposition to cluster munitions, said: “The rejection of this attempt to set up a weaker standard on cluster bombs shows that states can act on the basis of humanitarian imperatives and can prevail in the face of cynical pressure from other states”.
He added: “It shows that it is not only the US and other so called major powers that call the shots in international affairs, but that when small and medium sized countries work together with civil society and international organisations we can set the agenda and get results”.
The US was supported in the Geneva talks by other cluster bomb manufacturers – including Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan.
They were backed by countries which had signed the 2008 convention, including France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Australia, conference observers said.
The Foreign Office had said that the British government would not accept the proposed protocol unless it provided clear humanitarian benefits.
The US and its supporters argued that their proposal would allow the use of cluster bombs manufactured after 1980 and that these had a less than 1% failure rate. Opponents said that most bombs produced before 1980 are unusable and that modern cluster munitions have failure rates much higher than the manufacturers claim.
If the US bid had been approved, international legal cover would have been given to such weapons as the BLU-97 “combined effects” bomb which contains bomblets that, as they fall, fragment and can turn into an incendiary weapon.
The unexploded bomblets have the appearance of yellow drink containers and are attractive, often picked up by children who mistake them for toys. However, the consequences are lethal, often resulting in maiming or even fatalities.
Activists call for mass rally against El-Ganzouri cabinet: Ahram online
‘Rally for Revolutionary Legitimacy’ to maintain pressure on ruling junta to step down in favour of national salvation government
The Revolution Youth Coalition and 22 other political movements have called for a million-man protest in Tahrir Square on Sunday, 27 November at 4pm.
The protest has been dubbed the ‘Rally for Revolutionary Legitimacy’ by organisers.
The Revolution Youth Coalition has published the protest’s demands and grievances on its official Facebook page: Swift prosecution of all members of the security forces involved in the killing of protesters; formation of a national salvation government with full political and economic authority to govern the transitional period; rejection of Kamal El-Ganzouri’s government; complete restructuring of the Ministry of Interior, and disbandment of the Central Security Forces.
Among the groups calling for the protest are the Revolution Youth Coalition, the Peaceful Front for Change, the National Association for Change, the April 6 Youth Movement, and the Egyptian Current Party.
Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood’s alliance with generals has put revolution in peril: Guardian
The Islamist party’s marriage of convenience with the army has driven a wedge through Egyptian society
Peter Beaumont
When the first army vehicles trundled along Cairo’s Nile Corniche just after nightfall on 28 January – the first “Friday of Anger” – they were greeted by people as saviours from the brutality of Egypt’s riot police. The days that followed, leading to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, saw a unity in Egypt that the country has struggled to maintain.
Small businessmen had shut up their shops in alliance with trade unionists from the Nile Delta, secularists and Muslim Brotherhood members. Coptic Christians stood with Muslims; Cairo’s feared football “ultras” made common cause with human rights activists; and the middle classes united with the urban poor.
What has happened since Mubarak’s downfall – and the behaviour of the army under the leadership of the supreme council of the armed forces and Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi – has in large measure defined the dangerous crisis unfolding on the eve of parliamentary elections being held tomorrow.
Despite the revolution being largely led by secular forces, the biggest beneficiary from the first round of elections is likely to be the Muslim Brotherhood, the best organised party, and other Islamist parties with support among Egypt’s working classes.
It is for this reason that the Muslim Brotherhood has placed its bet on the generals’ slow timetable of transition to civilian rule, a timetable that has slipped almost as every month has passed. This marriage of convenience between the party and the generals has driven a wedge through Egypt’s revolution. The biggest losers have been the young, more secular-minded revolutionaries. Disappointed by the appearance of business as usual in Egypt’s “deep state”, they have struggled to organise into a political force with broad appeal.
The length of the crisis, and its impact on Egypt’s shaky economy, has also persuaded groups who supported the initial revolution to throw their weight behind the generals in the hope of stability – support only shaken with the murderous assault by security forces on protesters camped in Tahrir Square.
As for the generals themselves, they have lurched from crisis to crisis haemorrhaging public support, trying and jailing civilian protesters and bloggers in military courts and completely failing to reform key institutions including the judiciary, police and media.
While the army has still been able to call on the use of violence against those opposing it, in other ways it appears ever weaker, able only to call on Kamal el-Ganzouri – a 78-year-old former ally of Mubarak – to be interim prime minister, after the cabinet resigned following the lethal crackdown on last week’s protests. No other credible political figure would agree to do it.
Egypt’s young revolution is in a very perilous place.
Egypt’s liberals are squeezed between Islamists and a flawed regime: Guardian
They were a key part of the Arab spring but the country’s secular forces are failing to make political headway
Jack Shenker in Cairo
What now for Egypt’s beleaguered liberals? Ahead of disputed parliamentary elections, the secular forces that featured so prominently during the first months of the revolution are struggling.
With one foot in the sphere of formal politics and the other in the politics of the street, they are failing to make headway in either direction. The liberals are being derided in Tahrir Square as having sold out to the supreme council of the armed forces (Scaf) by agreeing to participate in a flawed “transition” proceeding at a snail’s pace; and outgunned by the organisational firepower of the Islamist parties and remnants of Hosni Mubarak’s old ruling NDP, both of which look set to sweep the board when voting stations open their doors on Monday.
“They are trying, and failing, to appeal to everyone, and as a result find themselves constantly hedging their bets on a revolution that very few of them understand and very few of them are fundamentally committed to,” said Khalid Abdalla, an actor and activist who will not be heading to the polls. “There’s an attempt among this section of the political class to try to find a balance between what the powers-that-be will accept and what the square will accept, but the reality is that those two things are completely irreconcilable.”
That resonates with the feeling on the ground following eight days of bloodshed that have so far failed to bring down military rule, or indeed knock the four-month election timetable off course. As the body count piled up and popular pressure on the junta mounted – culminating on Friday in Cairo’s biggest protest since the toppling of Mubarak, and a call by the White House for Scaf to return to barracks immediately – Egypt’s plethora of liberal parties and independent candidates have flipped and flopped in an effort to respond to the crisis, some temporarily suspending their campaigns, some withdrawing from the race, and others insisting that the show must go on.
One Egyptian, who recently did a straw poll of liberal candidates to see if they were still standing for parliament, said that the most common answer was “lam” – a combination of the Arabic words for no (la) and yes (na’am).
On Thursday, the Social Democratic party – a grouping of prominent intellectuals who believe in a market-based economy, but want to see greater emphasis on social justice – announced that it was withdrawing from the parliamentary election, a decision taken less than 48 hours after its leaders had agreed to meet a number of Scaf senior figures behind closed doors. “We refuse to participate in this gamble of lives and of the future of this nation, and we refuse to partake in this show of elections, which will divert attention away from the legitimate demands of revolutionaries,” it said. Mohamed Abou El-Ghar, the head of the party, added that he was “truly sorry” for sitting down with the generals.
Others insisted, however, that there was no contradiction between support for the revolution and a fight to win representation in parliament – even though the new legislature will be restricted to drawing up a constitutional assembly and have little or no ability to hold Scaf to account.
Mahmoud Salem, 30, a prominent blogger who is running for office under the banner of the Free Egyptians party – a well-funded secular organisation launched by Naguib Sawiris, a billionaire telecoms tycoon – said that he was the first person to freeze electoral activities when violence erupted in Cairo last Saturday, but insisted that participation in the election remained the best way to advance genuine change.
“Yes, we are in a dilemma, because we are criticised no matter what we do,” he said. “I couldn’t go out and canvass for votes while there were people being killed in Tahrir, and I have argued since then that the elections should be delayed by a week. But I can’t withdraw altogether, because if I do someone else will take office and that person will be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or a former member of the NDP.
“Elections are what people want right now, and those in Tahrir who argue otherwise and say no vote should take place as long as Scaf is still in existence simply haven’t managed to communicate that message to the wider population.”
It’s an argument that cuts little ice with young, radical and secular protesters like Abdalla, who might once have been considered part of a natural support base for those lining up against the Islamists in the battle for parliamentary seats.
Walid Kazziha, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo, said: “The liberals are struggling because – given the wider context – elections have become a moot point.
“There is not a liberal environment in which a vote can be held. Instead, you have a serious rift in society between generations, and this ballot will not solve it. The new prime minister is 78 – what can he or any parliament elected under these conditions say to Egypt’s youth?”
Abdalla goes further, arguing that liberals such as Salem have missed the most essential point of the revolution. “We’re not fighting any political party, or the army, or the Muslim Brotherhood – we’re fighting a structure. And that’s what the liberal political elite don’t seem to understand. I’d much rather have the Muslim Brotherhood in place and get rid of Scaf than I would have [liberal figurehead] Mohamed ElBaradei running the government but leave Scaf in power. The revolution against Scaf is now; there will be time later to play the reformist, gradualist game where we sit down and argue over minute policy differences.”
Mona el-Ghobashy, a political expert, recently wrote that “for at least a decade before Mubarak’s ouster, Egyptians were doing their politics outdoors”, with daily rallies in the streets, factory courtyards and public squares.
In the middle of this ongoing revolution, that basic truth remains unchanged; the question that liberals have been struggling to answer is whether, as long as the generals remain entrenched, formal electoral politics can play any part in that outdoor struggle, or whether the two are mutually exclusive. Meanwhile, they remain torn between two worlds and struggling to make a home in either.
ElBaradei ready to lead national salvation government: Ahram online
ElBaradei willing to give up presidential bid to guarantee trust and neutrality during transitional period as political forces united to up the pressure on Egypt’s ruling military junta
Hatem Maher, Sunday 27 Nov 2011
Mohamed ElBaradei has said he is ready to lead a national salvation government after Tahrir protesters rejected the appointment of Kamal El-Ganzouri as prime minister.
In an attempt to appease demonstrators occupying Tahrir Square, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) tasked 78-year-old El-Ganzouri, who served as prime minister under ousted president Hosni Mubarak from 1996 to 1999, with forming a new cabinet.
However, the revolutionary forces have held firm, rejecting the military council’s decision and nominating ElBaradei to succeed former prime minister Essam Sharaf.
“A number of revolutionary movements, parties and the April 6 Movement met Dr ElBaradei to discuss the latest developments and make suggestions to exit the current crisis,” ElBaradei’s campaign team said in a statement.
“The revolutionary movements have reiterated their opposition to El-Ganzouri’s appointment, saying the only way out of the crisis is the formation of a national salvation government with full authority to lead the country during the transitional period until presidential elections.
“Dr ElBaradei has stressed his readiness to fulfil the demands of the revolutionary forces and form a national salvation government.”
It remains to be seen whether Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the SCAF, will accept such demands and dispense with El-Ganzouri, who said he would need several days to form a new cabinet.
Were he to be apppointed interim prime minister, ElBaradei, former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, would have to abandon his hopes of becoming president.
“ElBaradei is ready to give up his right to run for the president in order to guarantee trust and neutrality during the transitional period,” said his campaign team.
Protesters have staged a sit-in in Tahrir Square since police violently cleared the square last Saturday (19 November). The ensuing clashes left more than 40 dead and scores injured and heaped more pressure on the ruling junta.
In response to pressure from demonstrators, the SCAF said it would hold presidential elections by July 2012.
Are the Freedom Rides a detour for the struggle?: The Electronic Intifada
Linah Alsaafin 23 November 2011
Last week, six courageous Palestinians attempted to defy racism, segregation and apartheid by boarding Jewish settler-only buses in the hopes of reaching Jerusalem, a city off limits to Palestinians in the West Bank.
Activists and bloggers, intellectuals and independent journalists all supported the Palestinian Freedom Riders for their US civil rights movement-inspired act. Emotions ran high as it was clearly emphasized that racial supremacy still exists in this day and age, and highlighted were the harrowing parallels between oppression in the Jim Crow US South and in Palestine.
But crucial differences remain — for one thing, the indigenous population of Palestine is occupied by a colonial settler population; for another, there are two separate and completely different systems for Palestinians and Israelis, such as military and civilian courts, respectively, rather than a two-tiered system.
However, the symbolic, media-friendly act — and its debatable relevance to the average Palestinian — begs some important questions.
There is no doubt that what the six Freedom Riders set out to achieve was of significance. They challenged Israel’s arbitrary regime of exclusive settler-only networks that serve the illegal settlements throughout the West Bank; they highlighted the human rights abusing complicity of two companies, Veolia and Egged, which operate dozens of the segregated bus lines; and they fought for an essential basic right: freedom of movement. Apartheid is very much alive in occupied Palestine. It is our reality that we breathe through our congested lungs every minute of our waking lives.
Anti-colonial vs civil rights struggle
The Freedom Rides were intended as an anti-colonial act mirroring a previous and successful civil rights one. But our struggle is not a civil rights one. It is a struggle against a foreign occupation. We must be calling for the liberation of an indigenous population under a devastating settler-colonial rule, one that has continued to ethnically cleanse, commit large scale massacres, impose collective punishment, imprison and restrict the movement of Palestinians for decades.
The intentions of the Freedom Rides were transparent and clear, as stated by the second press release in which they stated that they do not seek to desegregate the settler buses, as the “presence of these colonizers and the infrastructure that serves them is illegal and must be dismantled” (“Palestinian Freedom Riders to ride settler buses to Jerusalem,” 13 November 2011).
But by using a tactic specific to the US civil rights movement, one risks the interpretation that Palestinians are asking for the same rights as settlers.
As one young activist critical of the Freedom Rides commented to me: “Do you obstruct settlements by demanding to get on a bus? What you are demanding when you attempt to ride a bus is the right to ride it, not the right to say I don’t want this bus here to start with. You don’t ask to ride the bus if you don’t want the bus in your neighborhood.”
She added, “There is an illegal railway in Jerusalem constructed on [illegally-occupied] territory that endangers children as [trains] pass by in residential areas … if I were to object to this train’s existence, do I make a protest and ask to ride on the train or do I sleep on the train tracks to stop it from coming to my area?”
Indeed, many Palestinians take issue with settlers factoring in a key role in the Freedom Rides event, saying that it blurs the lines of normalization of occupation and apartheid.
The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement defines normalization as “the participation in any project, initiative or activity, in Palestine or internationally, that aims (implicitly or explicitly) to bring together Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis (people or institutions) without placing as its goal resistance to and exposure of the Israeli occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people” (“ Israel’s Exceptionalism: Normalizing the Abnormal,” the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Boycott of Israel, 31 October 2011).
Although the boycott call has been endorsed by nearly 200 Palestinian civil society organizations and political parties, the working definition of normalization of the boycott movement differs from many Palestinians’ personal definitions of normalization. Some view any association with settlers as normalization, others a bit more nuanced but still don’t like the idea, and still others consider it within the specific context in question. The reactions like that of the young activist I mentioned exemplify this concern.
Honor Palestinian resistance
The positive coverage in the Western corporate media shows that the Freedom Rides action appealed to foreign consumption. But it’s not up to Palestinian resistance to appease the tastes of Western audiences. We have our own lively and proud history of resistance stretching back to the days of British Mandate rule, exemplified by popular strikes, boycotts and demonstrations.
Moreover, tactics tailored to western tastes and reactions distract from mobilizing Palestinians on the ground into an effective popular resistance movement. The first Palestinian intifada was a true popular uprising in every sense. Palestinian society collectively organized strikes and rallied together. The level of cooperation was present in families hiding resistance fighters, and in mosques and private organizations hosting educational studies after the universities and schools were shut down.
Today, activism and popular resistance isn’t centralized but, rather, is scattered throughout particular villages and parts of cities. For an act that carries huge potential and holds meaningful implications by connecting the current reality of Palestinians to the history of other oppressed societies, there should have been more awareness on the Palestinian street of its occurrence.
The Freedom Rides event was very exclusive. This is in stark contrast to the recent Freedom Waves mini flotilla campaign, where activists were directly involved with producing, translating, revising and distributing fact sheets and press releases and statements for the UN and mobilizing people on the street and engaging with the media. It was a microcosm of popular resistance as activists from throughout historic Palestine all worked together efficiently to send the message of ending the blockade on Gaza and demanding protection for the passengers, and this message was directed not only at the West and foreign press but to Palestinians as well.
Any act of civil resistance should be inclusive of many sectors of Palestinians. The same efforts that the Freedom Riders took to coordinate with organizations in the US and elsewhere should have also happened in Palestine.
And while the history of other oppressed peoples unquestionably offers its lessons to us as an occupied population, we should be well aware of our own unique history of resistance, and the need for our movement to encompass all sectors of Palestinian society and the historic demands of our anti-colonial struggle.
Linah Alsaafin is a recent graduate of Birzeit University in the West Bank. She was born in Cardiff, Wales and was raised in England, the United States and Palestine. Her website is http://lifeonbirzeitcampus.blogspot.com/.
EDITOR: Proud supporters of military Zionism
Doesn’t it warm your heart, the kind of people who support Zionism? This kind of nefarious and vile partnership in crime is the stuff which makes anti-semitism prosper.
Liam Fox, Adam Werritty, and the curious case of Our Man in Tel Aviv: Independent
This odd trio met six times – not that the Government wants you to know that, of course. What did they discuss? Did it include Iran? And who exactly is Adam Werritty? Brian Brady investigates a Whitehall mystery which is slowly unravelling
BRIAN BRADY SUNDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2011
They were the Odd Couple: the men with identical morning suits, matching jackets and jeans but from radically different generations. They commanded more column inches than any X Factor wannabe. The Mysterious Case of the Defence Secretary and the Strange Bloke with the Cheap Business Card gripped us all, until it culminated in Liam Fox’s resignation.
What on earth had they been up to, the nation wondered. The plot thickened somewhat when an official inquiry confirmed that the curious duo was in fact, at times, a trio. They had had two meetings with Matthew Gould, Britain’s ambassador to Israel, adding to claims that they were running a pirate (pro-Israel, or anti-Iranian?) foreign policy. Then, before we had got to know Adam Werritty properly, it all went quiet.
He has not been seen in the UK or abroad for several months; no neighbour has reported his presence at any of the various addresses unearthed when he was being sought by every news outlet in the country.
However, the trail has not gone cold because it emerges that Liam Fox and his adviser met Britain’s ambassador at least four times more than was previously admitted. So why were we not told this before? Isn’t this yet more evidence that they were operating outside the control of the Foreign Office?
The fog seems to extend even to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, whose report into the affair, which sealed Dr Fox’s fate, identified just the two meetings between the former minister, Mr Werritty and Mr Gould.
The three men met in Tel Aviv at “a private dinner with senior Israelis” and, before Mr Gould took up the ambassador’s post in Tel Aviv, for “a general discussion of international defence and security matters”. Sir Gus observed that Mr Werritty was invited “as an individual with some experience in these matters”.
Even this was a bit unsatisfactory, said Sir Gus. His report highlighted the September 2010 meeting in the UK with Mr Gould, then the UK ambassador-designate to Israel, ruling that “as a private citizen, with no official locus, it was not appropriate for Mr Werritty to have attended this meeting”.
Yet it has been left to the former UK ambassador Craig Murray to uncover four more similar meetings – although Sir Gus claimed last week that “some of those … took place before the election”.
The suspicion of even more secret meetings, an inquiry which did not cover all the ground and the spectre of a favourite bogeyman is a gift to conspiracy theorists. However there are legitimate questions to be answered. The IoS revealed last month that Mr Werritty had visited Iran on several occasions and was so highly regarded by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad that he was able to arrange meetings at the highest levels of the Israeli government.
The disclosure that he – and Dr Fox – had met Britain’s most senior official in Israel on more occasions than previously thought underlines their interest in the region.
The Labour MP Paul Flynn questioned why the official inquiry into the Fox affair had failed to investigate all the activities of Mr Werritty. He asked the Cabinet Secretary, during his appearance before the Public Administration Select Committee: “Are you satisfied that you missed out on the extra four meetings that took place, and does this not mean that those meetings should have been investigated because of the nature of Mr Werritty’s interests?”
The accusation was not received well. Sir Gus rejected any criticism of his work, noting instead that: “If you look at some of those meetings, some people are referring to meetings that took place before the election.” Mr Murray, however, has established that there have been at least five meetings altogether since the election and one beforehand.
Sir Gus added that “some issues arose where I wanted to be sure that what [Dr Fox] was doing had been discussed with the Foreign Secretary. I felt reassured by what the Foreign Secretary told me.”
Craig Murray submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Foreign Office very late one night last week, asking for all communications between Mr Gould and Mr Werritty; barely an hour later, he received a rejection, explaining that his request was “likely to exceed the cost limit”. Given that Freedom of Information requests normally take at least a fortnight to be answered, the swift, late-night reaction has done nothing to douse suspicions.
“It is plainly nonsense that to gather correspondence between two named individuals would be too expensive,” Mr Murray said. “They could just ask Gould.”
The Foreign Office remains nonplussed by questions about Mr Gould’s conduct. “The FCO has total confidence that Matthew Gould has acted appropriately at all times and at no stage was he acting independently, or out of line with government policy,” a spokesman said yesterday.
Clearly not satisfied with the efforts of Sir Gus and his attempts to question him last week, Paul Flynn is calling for a wider investigation. He said: “Witnesses before a select committee have said that the inquiry into the Werritty affair was rushed and inadequate, and possibly in breach of the ministerial code as it was not conducted by the only person who is the enforcer of the code: the independent adviser on ministerial affairs [Sir Philip Mawer].
“As the inquiry was conducted for reasons of political expediency to avoid embarrassment for the Government, and as new evidence is available, should we not have a full legitimate inquiry conducted by Sir Philip?”
The demand has, so far, received a response that would make Sir Gus’s reaction seem enthusiastic.
The right context: Haaretz
The disingenuity of the government’s international comparisons is evident when one compares politicians’ rhetoric for audiences within Israel with the diplomatic discourse abroad.
By Hassan Jabareen
The government frequently tries to justify its anti-democratic bills by comparing them to laws in democratic states. For example, it contends that the newly proposed bills regarding the nomination procedures for Supreme Court justices reflect the process used in the United States. When the coalition passes anti-Arab legislation like the “Nakba law,” which lets the finance minister cut the budgets of publicly funded institutions that commemorate the Nakba, it argues that we have to defend Israel’s values as a “Jewish and democratic” state, by citing the German legal principle of “militant democracy.” The government also has made similar comparisons to justify bills that would severely limit foreign funding to local human rights organizations.
It is important for governments to compare themselves with other nations. Given the current state of affairs, it is perhaps even a good sign that the Netanyahu coalition still believes it needs international legitimacy to justify these bills. However, when a comparison does not consider the other nations’ social, political and historical circumstances, it can be inaccurate and misleading. It is true that some of the worst crimes against humanity have been committed by “Western” democracies: the Holocaust, slavery, apartheid and segregation. But today, regimes such as those in Germany, South Africa and the U.S., whatever their defects, are based on fundamental civil rights and respect for separation of powers.
The U.S. Supreme Court has a long and distinguished history of constitutional review; it has intervened in numerous laws passed by Congress and in executive political decisions. A decade ago, in Bush v. Gore, it even decided who would be president, based on a majority vote of just one justice. No political leader called for limiting the court’s power in response to this decision, which was fully implemented.
While U.S. citizens elected an African-American president, in Israel the Knesset tries to disqualify the Arab minority’s political parties from every election because those parties advocate full equality and inclusion, “a state for all of its citizens.” When Germans use the term “militant democracy,” they are referring to defending the rights of ethnic minorities from racist politicians. And while the EU wants to promote human rights abroad, the Netanyahu government seems far less committed to these values than it does to limiting the EU’s ability to promulgate them in Israel, by its repeated attempts to restrict NGO funding.
The disingenuity of the government’s international comparisons is evident when one compares politicians’ rhetoric for audiences within Israel with the diplomatic discourse they employ abroad. At home, this government harshly criticizes the Supreme Court; abroad, the Foreign Ministry boasts proudly that Israel has the world’s strongest high court. While officials criticize former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak’s rulings regarding Palestinian cases, the Foreign Ministry hands out a booklet at conferences abroad listing these same cases as evidence that Israel is committed to the rule of law and democratic values. While right-wing lawmakers incite daily against Arab Knesset members, Israeli officials support their argument that Israel is not an apartheid state by raising the fact of Arab Knesset representation.
An American friend reported happily to me how he had heard an Israeli right-wing diplomat praising the NGO I lead, Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, as an example of Israel’s commitment to its Arab citizens’ rights. What my friend did not know is that at home, the foreign minister attacks Adalah and other human rights groups daily.
In the past, we human-rights litigators tended to cite progressive rulings by Western countries’ national courts when we argued before Israel’s Supreme Court. Lately, we have been finding that the most effective comparisons are to Western nations during their darker days. Even during segregation and apartheid, these countries’ national courts sometimes succeeded in defending human rights. For example, to challenge the new anti-boycott law, which prohibits publicly promoting boycotts of Israeli institutions and settlements, a good comparison would be to the U.S. during segregation, when the Supreme Court defended the freedom of expression of black institutions such as the NAACP when they boycotted racist white companies and state services. In making the case against the Israeli citizenship law, which banned family unification in Israel between Palestinian-Israeli citizens and their Palestinian spouses from the West Bank and Gaza, the best comparison is a landmark decision by a South African court that struck down the apartheid-era policy, which banned family unification between blacks in urban cities. During the Supreme Court hearing on the Nakba law last month, the state argued that no country would allow some of its citizens to mark its Independence Day as a day of mourning. We responded that not only do many natives in settler countries such as the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand still perceive the national Independence Day as a tragedy, but those states have in many cases apologized and recognized their historical injustice, and even fund some of the native populations’ commemorative days.
Regarding the NGO funding laws, apartheid South Africa behaved entirely differently than Israel’s government is seeking to do now: There, the regime did not prohibit the U.S. and European countries from funding human rights organizations; rather, the human rights organizations threatened the donor states that they would stop taking funds from them if these states did not boycott the apartheid regime.
Maybe it is better, therefore, when comparing this government’s legislation, to do so in the right context.
Hassan Jabareen is a lawyer and the founder and general director of Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.