EDITOR: The turning of the screw
After years of increasing legal oppression under the Netanyahu regime, during which human rights have been systematically undermined and eradicated, one tends to assume that we may already be at the very trough of this grave offensive, but each week proves we will be driven much deeper, and that new inventions will make last week seem so much nicer. Today we are told about a new measure to be imposed against the Palestinian population – a law to forbid calling for prayer by the use of mosque loudspeakers. Nothing serious, really. “There’s no need to be more liberal than Europe”, says Netanyahu, when asked about the planned measure. What is it in comparison to the already existing measures limiting the freedom and activity of most Palestinians?
In the early 1930s, under the Nazi regime in Germany, Jews were becoming habituated to the daily erosion and removal of their rights, by more and more bizarre legislation. When the laws removed their rights to visit cinemas, theatres and sport facilities, to travel in most trains, study or teach at universities, and later, even the use of park benches, none of those laws and regulations seemingly threatened their life directly. So what, if you cannot sit on park benches, thought some of them, and continued with their daily struggle for survival. Actually, when one is not allowed to use park benches, one’s life may already be over – though one just doesn’t know it yet – as history indeed demonstrated so horribly.
So what, indeed, if one cannot use loudspeakers to call for prayer? Surely life can go on? Actually, those who do not learn from the history of the Holocaust and other genocides, may in this instant live to regret this slight against human rights, may live to experience much worse and deadly depredations, exactly because they have not fought against each of these measures as they came. It is clear to anyone with eyes to see, that Israel is doing all it can to make life for Palestinians totally unbearable, for the sake of getting rid of them – of every last one of them. The methods they use are unfortunately not new or original, as we can see.
Some will be really enraged to read such lines as these. What, comparing Israel to Hitler’s Germany? Surely this is wrong? Is Israel not a democracy?
What is wrong, deeply wrong, is not to correctly identify the dangers to life and existence in any given moment, when it may be possible to act against these threats. If Israel is using methods which have been used before by extremely cruel and inhumane regime, it is because it is a cruel and inhumane regime, for millions of Palestinians, prisoners of its illegal and vindictive policies. What is also very wrong, is when a whole society, one defining itself as a ‘Jewish democracy’ (as if democracy has a religious affiliations…) is facing such measures with equanimity and indifference, week after week, as they intensify and multiply. Most Germans in the 1930s reacted in the same manner to the laws and regulations dehumanising Jews, because they did not believe that Jews were their equals, or should have full human rights. Most Israelis, likewise, do not see Palestinians as their equals, or as people who should have full human or political rights. History has showed to us that once dehumanisation is enshrined in law and social practice, the road to greater and more horrific crimes is open, and the likelihood of such crimes occurring is much increased.
So let us mark this day. Let us remember that not only was this weekend another brutal period in which Israel has again killed defenceless civilians in Gaza, and a prominent Palestinian demonstrator, Mustafa Tamimi, standing up for his right to condemn the continued destruction of his country, but also a day on which that small and supposedly insignificant infraction of freedom was announced – the right to call for Muslim prayer by the use of mosque loudspeakers.
Let us also remind European racists, who also believe in such or worse infractions against Moslems in their own lands, and do not for a moment consider this worthy of note, that if a colonial conquest and subjugation of their country came to a point during which church bells were outlawed, that it is most likely they would also rise against an inhuman and unjustified act of cultural and political brutality.
That Israeli Jewish society has been degraded to the point that it seems to need and justify such extreme measures, is certainly not a sign of its great resilience and democratic tradition, but of the very opposite – of the corrosive and toxic takeover by undemocratic, racist and inhumane tendencies which have brought death and destruction to so many Europeans, and more than anybody else, to millions of Europe’s Jews.
Netanyahu backs law to ban loudspeakers at mosques: Haaretz
‘There’s no need to be more liberal than Europe,’ PM says of move that would ban loudspeakers in calls to prayer.
By Barak Ravid
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday voiced support for a law that would ban mosques from using loudspeaker systems to call people to prayer.
The so-called Muezzin Law, propsed by MK Anastassia Michaeli (Yisrael Beiteinu ) applies to all houses of worship but the practice is prevalent only in mosques.
“There’s no need to be more liberal than Europe,” Netanyahu said in reference to the law during a meeting of his Likud ministers.
After intense pressure from Likud ministers Limor Livnat, Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan, who harshly criticized the bill, Netanyahu announced that he was postponing the scheduled debate in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation.
Michaeli has said hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens routinely suffer from the noise caused by the muezzin’s calls to prayer.
“The bill comes from a worldview whereby freedom of religion should not be a factor in undermining quality of life,” she said.
Netanyahu made similar comments to the Likud ministers.
“I have received numerous requests from people who are bothered by the noise from the mosques,” he said. “The same problem exists in all European countries, and they know how to deal with it. It’s legitimate in Belgium; it’s legitimate in France. Why isn’t it legitimate here? We don’t need to be more liberal than Europe.”
Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said there was no need for such a law and that it would only escalate tensions.
“None of the ministers came to Netanyahu’s defense or supported his position,” said one minister who participated in the meeting.
Netanyahu realized he would not be able to muster a majority in support of the law among his Likud ministers, and announced that the bill would be removed from the agenda of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, which convened a few hours after the Likud meeting.
Netanyahu added, however, the matter would be debated over the coming days and that the bill would be brought before the ministerial committee next week.
International Society for Justice Research: Working for Social Injustice?: PACBI
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) is deeply disturbed by the decision of the International Society for Justice Research (ISJR) to hold its 14th Biennial Conference at the College of Management Academic Studies (COMAS) in Israel in September 2012. We urge the ISJR to relocate this conference to another country that does not embody injustice through maintaining a regime of occupation, colonialism and apartheid [1], as Israel does. We also appeal to all members of ISJR to refrain from participating in the conference if it is convened in Israel.
As scholars, you are acutely aware that Israel has flouted international law for several decades. Since the hegemonic world powers are actively complicit in enabling and perpetuating Israel’s colonial and oppressive policies, we believe that the only avenue open to achieving justice and upholding international law is sustained work on the part of Palestinian and international civil society to put pressure on Israel and its complicit institutions to end this oppression.
In 2004, inspired by the triumphant cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa, and supported by key Palestinian unions and cultural groups, PACBI issued a call for the academic and cultural boycott of institutions involved in Israel’s occupation and apartheid [2]. We wish, in our letter to you, to stress the importance of this Palestinian call, and underscore the rationale for the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, of which PACBI is a main member.
The 2004 Palestinian call appealed to the international academic community to, among other things, “refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions” [3]. Following this, in 2005, an overwhelming majority in Palestinian civil society called for an all-encompassing BDS campaign based on the principles of human rights, justice, freedom and equality [4]. The BDS movement adopts a nonviolent, morally consistent strategy to hold Israel accountable to the same human rights and international law standards as other nations. It is asking the international academic community to heed the boycott call, as it did in the struggle against South African apartheid, until “Israel withdraws from all the lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem; removes all its colonies in those lands; agrees to United Nations resolutions relevant to the restitution of Palestinian refugees rights; and dismantles its system of apartheid.” [5]
Your decision to hold a conference in Israel will violate the Palestinian call for boycott by specifically contravening clause 1 of the “PACBI Guidelines for the International Academic Boycott of Israel,” in which it calls for a boycott of:
Academic events (such as conferences, symposia, workshops, book and museum exhibits) convened or co-sponsored by Israeli institutions. All academic events, whether held in Israel or abroad, and convened or co-sponsored by Israeli academic institutions or their departments and institutes, deserve to be boycotted on institutional grounds. These boycottable activities include panels and other activities sponsored or organized by Israeli academic bodies or associations at international conferences outside Israel. Importantly, they also include the convening in Israel of meetings of international bodies and associations. [6, emphasis added]
In light of this, convening a conference held at a complicit Israeli institution would constitute a rejection of the appeal from over 170 civil society organizations that comprise thePalestinian BDS movement.
You must be aware of how disingenuous and ironic it is to hold a conference in Israel on social justice while ignoring the demands and voices of people seeking freedom, equality and justice. This is even more pronounced due to the fact that your host institution, COMAS, is not only indirectly complicit in Israel’s violation of international law and human rights, as some Israeli institutions, but is directly so.
The College has a program of “security studies” whose students have, according to the college’s website, a distinct option of involvement in the Israeli security agencies [7]. Furthermore, COMAS has a “Research and Development Institute for Intelligent Robotic Systems,” which, according to its own testimony, “has set itself the goal of creating robot-powered applications particularly for the military and security forces” [8]. By participating in conferences at such an institution, your Society lends its legitimacy to COMAS, allowing it to conduct business as usual and, worse, whitewash the crimes of the Israeli state by making the state appear like a center of learning and bastion of liberalism and academic freedom. This, of course, is in addition to the primary concern that you would be ignoring the call of an overwhelming majority of Palestinians who face oppression and injustice on a daily basis.
The Israeli academy is not only deeply implicated in providing the ideological rationale and “scientific” basis for Israel’s colonial policies, but, as you can see in the case of COMAS, is also a full partner in maintaining the military and security infrastructure of a state that is practicing forms of colonialism, occupation and apartheid.
Israel subjects Palestinians to a cruel system of dispossession and racial discrimination
Perhaps you are not familiar enough with Israel’s practices, widely acknowledged as violations of international law. If this is the case, then we hope you will reconsider your planned event after thinking through some of Israel’s trespasses. Your conference would function as a whitewash of these practices, making it appear as though business with Israel should go on as usual. Concretely, Israel routinely violates Palestinians’ basic human rights in some of the following ways:
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live under a brutal and unlawful military occupation. Israel restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement and of speech; blocks access to lands, health care, and education; imprisons Palestinian leaders and human rights activists without charge or trial; and inflicts, on a daily basis, humiliation and violence at the more than 600 military checkpoints and roadblocks strangling the West Bank. All the while, Israel continues to build its illegal wall on occupied Palestinian land and to support the ever-expanding network of illegal, Jewish-only settlements that divide the West Bank into Bantustans. The International Court of Justice in its historic 2004 advisory opinion concluded that Israel’s wall and colonies built on occupied Palestinian land are illegal [9].
Palestinian citizens of Israel face a growing system of Apartheid within Israel’s borders, with laws and policies that deny them the rights that their Jewish counterparts enjoy. These laws and policies affect education, land ownership, housing, employment, marriage, and all other aspects of people’s daily lives. In many ways this system strikingly resembles Jim Crow and apartheid South Africa.
Since 1948, when Zionist militias and later Israel dispossessed more than 750,000 Palestinian people in order to form an exclusivist Jewish state, Israel has denied Palestinian refugees their internationally recognized right to return to their homes and their lands. Israel also continues to expel Palestinian communities from their lands in Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Naqab (Negev). Today, there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees still struggling for their right to return to their homes, like all refugees around the world.
In Gaza, Palestinians have been subjected to a criminal and immoral siege since 2006. As part of this siege, Israel has prevented not only various types of medicines, candles, musical instruments, crayons, clothing, shoes, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee and chocolate, but also books from reaching the 1.5 million Palestinians incarcerated in the world’s largest open-air prison [10].
Could you possibly hold a conference in such a state with a clear conscience?
The Necessary and Important Consideration of Academic Freedom
The UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights defines academic freedom to include:
the liberty of individuals to express freely opinions about the institution or system in which they work, to fulfill their functions without discrimination or fear of repression by the state or any other actor, to participate in professional or representative academic bodies, and to enjoy all the internationally recognized human rights applicable to other individuals in the same jurisdiction. The enjoyment of academic freedom carries with it obligations, such as the duty to respect the academic freedom of others, to ensure the fair discussion of contrary views, and to treat all without discrimination on any of the prohibited grounds. [11, emphasis added]
Keeping in mind the validity of this definition, we are keenly aware of the importance of the academic freedom of the individual, but also recognize that such freedoms should not extend automatically to institutions. Judith Butler has called on us to question
the classically liberal conception of academic freedom with a view that grasps the political realities at stake, and see that our struggles for academic freedom must work in concert with the opposition to state violence, ideological surveillance, and the systematic devastation of everyday life. [12]
It is incumbent on academics to develop such a nuanced understanding of academic freedom if we are to call for social justice and work alongside the oppressed in their struggles.
The Israeli academy is not the bastion of dissent and liberalism it is purported to be by those who seek to defend Israel, and, in doing so, attempt to delegitimize the call for academic boycott. The vast majority of the Israeli academic community is oblivious to the oppression of the Palestinian people–both inside Israel and in the occupied territory–and has never fought to oppose the practices and policies of their state. In fact, they duly serve in the reserve forces of the occupation army and as such are either perpetrators of or silent witnesses to the daily brutality of the occupation. They also do not hesitate to partner in their academic research with the security-military establishment that is the chief architect and executor of the occupation and other forms of oppression of the Palestinian people. A petition drafted by four Israeli academics merely calling on the Israeli government “to allow [Palestinian] students and lecturers free access to all the campuses in the [occupied] Territories, and to allow lecturers and students who hold foreign passports to teach and study without being threatened with withdrawal of residence visas,” was endorsed by only 407 out of 9,000 Israeli academics – less than 5% of those who were invited to sign it [13].
This is without mentioning academic collusion in the various institutional structures of oppression, such as support of the military (as in the case of COMAS), building universities on dispossessed Palestinian land, or practicing forms of discrimination against Palestinian students. All this and more, make Israeli academia deeply complicit in the practices and sustenance of occupation, colonialism and apartheid.
We, therefore, call upon members of the ISJR to press for the conference venue to be changed. In the event that this demand is not met, we urge a widespread boycott of this conference. No self-respecting professional body, and especially not one that professes to speak about social justice, should wish to ally itself with a regime of apartheid!
Sincerely,
PACBI
www.pacbi.org
pacbi@pacbi.org
[1] In its most recent session in Cape Town, South Africa, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine concluded that, “Israel’s rule over the Palestinian people, wherever they reside, collectively amounts to a single integrated regime of apartheid,”
http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/sessions/south-africa.
[2] http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869
[3] Ibid
[4] http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52
[5] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=86
[6] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1108
[7] www.bdsmovement.net/files/2011/02/EOO23-24-Web.pdf
[8]
http://www.colman.ac.il/English/TeachingResearch/research_institutes/intelligent_robotic_systems/Pages/default.aspx
[9] http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?pr=71&code=mwp&p1=3&p2=4&p3=6&ca
[10] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7545636.stm
[11] UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “The Right to Education (Art.13),” December 8, 1999, http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/ae1a0b126d068e868025683c003c8b3b?Opendocument.
[12] Judith Butler. “Israel/Palestine and the Paradoxes of Academic Freedom.” in: Radical Philosophy. Vol 135. pp. 8-17, January/February 2006. http://www.egs.edu/faculty/judith-butler/articles/israel-palestine-paradoxes-of-academic-freedom/ (Accessed on December 10, 2011)
[13] http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=792
Likud MK Akunis: Every word Senator Joseph McCarthy said was right: Haaretz
Ofir Akunis, who sponsored the bill to limit foreign funding to human rights groups, says he only meant Senator McCarthy was proven right by exposing Soviet agents in the U.S., but adds he strongly opposes McCarthyism.
Likud MK Ofir Akunis, who sponsored the bill to limit foreign funding to Israeli human rights organization, stood behind Senator Joseph’s McCarthy’s actions in the 1950s. Speaking on Sunday on the “London and Kirshenbaum” television show on Channel 10, Akunis said McCarthy – who in the 1950s presided over a committee that investigated Americans suspected of harboring Communist views – said “was right in every word, the fact is -there were Soviet agents.”
According to the bill, which was proposed by Akunis and has been backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, political NGOs in Israel would not be allowed to receive donations exceeding 20,000 shekels provided by foreign governments and international organizations, such as the UN and the European Union. According to the bill, “inciting activity undertaken by many organizations, under the cover of human rights work, has the goal of influencing political debates, and the character and the policies of the state of Israel.”
Speaking to Haaretz later on Sunday, Akunis said he was referring to McCarthy’s claim that several Soviet agents infiltrated the U.S. “I didn’t say McCarthyism was right, or that every word that McCarthy said was right.” He added that he does not support McCarthyism or political persecution of citizens suspected of being disloyal to the state. “God forbid, absolutely not,” he said.
“I am far less extreme than what some columns say, and I am not part of the legislation against the judiciary. I have one law that is right and just, that says that a foreign country will not transfer money to another country.” Akunis said the bill “is far from being fascist or ant-democratic. It is also not a law that targets the freedom of assembly.”
Akunis referred to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s criticism of the bill, which she voiced on Saturday, and said that “the Foreign Agents Registration Act in the U.S. is much harsher than the (current) bill, especially in light of the amended bill which clearly defines what constitutes a political organization.”
In Israel, the life of a Palestinian is cheap: Haaretz Editorial
When it comes to shooting a Palestinian, pulling the trigger does not come with a real fear of having to answer to the law.
The pictures from Friday’s events in Nabi Saleh are hard to swallow: An Israel Defense Forces soldier opens the back door of an armored military jeep and, from a distance of just a few meters, fires a tear-gas canister directly at a young man who is throwing stones. After the canister is fired, the jeep continues on its way without stopping.
A photographer on the scene relates that the young man “fell to the ground, remained conscious for a few seconds, and then began bleeding profusely from the region of his eye.” He was subsequently evacuated for treatment at Beilinson Hospital, where he was sedated and placed on a respirator. On Saturday, he died from his wounds.
The incident took place during the weekly demonstration held by residents of Nabi Saleh against the expropriation of their land in favor of the nearby settlement of Halamish and the settlers’ takeover of a spring that served the Palestinian residents. The young man who was killed has a name – Mustafa Tamimi, 28, a resident of the village and regular participant in the demonstrations that have been taking place there every Friday for the past two years.
The IDF Spokesman’s Office said in response that “the army is looking into the incident.” But one needs to wonder about the use of the term “looking into.” A report published last week by Yesh Din-Volunteers for Human Rights, which examined 192 complaints – including an analysis of the content of 67 Military Police investigations into various types of severe harm to Palestinian civilians and their property – reveals that 96.5 percent of the total number of complaints are closed without indictments.
The reasons for this are varied – the lack of Military Police bases in the West Bank, professional shortcomings in the Military Police investigations, victims who retract complaints for fear of losing permits or suffering harm at the hands of soldiers they have complained against. But the conclusion is obvious: When it comes to shooting a Palestinian, pulling the trigger does not come with a real fear of having to answer to the law.
On the day Tamimi was killed, Chaim Levinson published a report in Haaretz that dealt with the failings of the Israel Police’s Judea and Samaria District with regard to investigations into harm to Palestinians. Concerning the killing of 10-year-old girl Abir Aramin by the IDF in early 2007, the High Court of Justice ruled that the incident was improperly handled; and to date, no one has been called on to answer for the 2009 killing of demonstrator Bassem Abu Rahme. Will the death of Mustafa Tamimi be added to the statistics that show that in Israel, the life of a Palestinian is cheap?
Newt Gingrich calls Palestinians ‘terrorists’ – video: Guardian
Leading Palestinian officials have rounded on the Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich for his description of Palestinians as an “invented” people and “terrorists”. During a candidate debate the Republican frontrunner insisted that “these people are terrorists. They teach terrorism in their schools. They have textbooks that say, if there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left?”
Democrats: Republicans ‘playing with fire’ by turning Israel into partisan issue: Haaretz
Partisanship over Israel on Capitol Hill reached a new peak after Republicans called on the Obama to remove U.S. ambassador who claimed anti-Semitism a direct result of lack of peace in Middle East.
The current partisan atmosphere concerning Israel is “very dangerous” and “like playing with fire”, according to Democratic Congresswoman Nita Lowey, a veteran pro-Israeli lawmaker who is the ranking Democrat on the House Committee that deals with foreign aid.
“I’ve never seen such partisanship,” she said, declaring that “Israel should not be used in order gain a political foothold.”
Lowey was speaking in New York at a press briefing organized by the Israel Project advocacy group, together with Republican Representative Peter Roskam, the Chief Deputy Majority Whip in the House of Representatives.
“Let’s not act as if people have to agree all the time about Israel,” he responded “and we want to avoid a situation where one party cannot criticize another party. That would be absurd.”
The two were referring to the harsh tone of the attacks on President Obama’s policies towards the Middle East, especially at this week’s Republican Jewish Coalition meeting in Washington.
Roskam said the administration should “remove” U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman, who aroused controversy last week by suggesting that that the lack of peace between Israel and the Palestinians was one of the reasons for Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe. He also chided Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for criticizing Israel in her address to the Saban Forum in Washington last week, as well as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta for voicing his reservations about a military attack on Iran: “Panetta should make clear that ‘all options are one the table really means all options are on the table. There are things that are better not said than said.
Nonetheless, both lawmakers extolled the extraordinary collaboration between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, and Lowey said both parties were strong supporters of tightening sanctions on Iran. She called for the US and other countries to impose sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank “so that it is clear to them that nuclear is unacceptable.”