Month: December 2011

EDITOR: Ban the truth!

It seems that even in the state department, some people have not lost their marbles under Israeli pressure. To find one is a miracle, to find one who is Jewish is a double miracle! So, now the Israel Lobby is asking for the Ambassador to Belgium’s head. Will Obama relent? Of course, if he does not do what he is told, they might call him an anti-Semite also – quite an electoral disaster if they do!

U.S. won’t dismiss official following anti-Semitism comment: Haaretz

Envoy to Belgium comes under fire after linking Israel’s policies to spread of anti-Semitism in the Mideast; U.S. official: Ambassador was expressing his own views.
By Natasha Mozgovaya
The United States won’t take action against the American envoy to Belgium over his recent and controversial comments on anti-Semitism, a top U.S. official said on Monday.

The statement was made following a demand by some Jewish groups and others that United States President Barak Obama take action against Howard Gutman, after the latter had told a conference on anti-Semitism organized by the European Jewish Union that Israel’s political positions serve as an explanation for anti-Semitism amongst Muslims.

“A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned, and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” Gutman, who is Jewish, reportedly told those gathered, going on to argue that “…an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will significantly diminish Muslim anti-Semitism.”

His remarks drew criticism from several Jewish organizations that called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to rebuke him. On Sunday, two Republican presidential contenders went further, calling for Gutman’s resignation.

On Monday, however, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner indicated that the Administration stood behind Gutman, saying that “the ambassador was expressing his views on an issue. He subsequently issued a statement expressing regret if his remarks were taken out of context. He then said that he does condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms and in fact pointed to his own family history as a testament to that.”

“This administration has consistently stood up against anti-Semitism and efforts to
delegitimize Israel and will continue to do so,” Toner added.

Toner was referring in his comments to a statement released by Gutman on Sunday, in which he stressed that he condemned anti-Semitism “in all its forms”, adding: “I deeply regret if my comments were taken the wrong way. My own personal history and that of my family is testimony to the salience of this issue and my continued commitment to combating anti-Semitism.”

EDITOR: Newt is let out the asylum…

Read the interview below, and watch it on the link, to discover why Newt is sitting in what looks like either a corridor in an asylum, or the way to the airlock on the Internal Jewish Space Station. He is really of his rocker, but do not forget he is also a leading candidate for the US presidency. They said a black man could not become president, and they were wrong, so maybe a lunatic can also become US president?

In his interview, he seems to have improved on Golda Meir, who when asked about the Palestinian people, have answered: “There are no Palestinians”. This intellectual giant goes even further. This may be a way of resolving many of the world’s problems – denying their existence!

“Crisis? What crisis?

Afghanistan? Where is that?

Iraq? Is that a rack for iPods?”

You see, it is all possible if you just try!

Newt Gingrich: Palestinians are an ‘invented’ people: Haaretz

U.S. Republican presidential candidate differs with official U.S. policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel.
By Natasha Mozgovaya
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich thrust himself into controversy on Friday by declaring that the Palestinians are an “invented” people who want to destroy Israel.

The former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives predictably sided with Israel in its decades-old dispute with the Palestinians but took it a step further in an interview with the Jewish Channel.

The cable station posted online its interview with Gingrich, who has risen to the top of Republican polls with voting to start early next year to pick a nominee to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.

Gingrich differed with official U.S. policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel.

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire” until the early 20th century, Gingrich said.

“I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it’s tragic,” he said.

Gingrich along with other Republican candidates are seeking to attract Jewish support by vowing to bolster U.S. ties with Israel if elected.

Gingrich said the Hamas militant group, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinians’ governing body, the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, represent “an enormous desire to destroy Israel.”

The U.S. government has sought to encourage the Palestinian Authority to negotiate with Israel but has labeled Hamas as a terrorist group.

Palestinians tell Gingrich to learn history after ‘invented people’ claim: Guardian

Officials in West Bank and Gaza say Republican presidential hopeful is cheaply trying to win the pro-Israel vote in US

Palestinian officials have reacted with dismay after the Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich said Palestinians were an “invented” people.

The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, said Gingrich was denying “historical truths”.

Gingrich said in an interview with The Jewish Channel that Palestinians were not a race of people because they had never had a state and because they were part of the Ottoman empire before the British mandate and Israel’s creation.

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state, [it was] part of the Ottoman empire,” he said in a video excerpt posted online. “I think we have an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and historically part of the Arab community and they had the chance to go many places.”

Fayyad demanded Gingrich “review history”. He said: “From the beginning, our people have been determined to stay on their land.”

Fayyad’s comments were carried by the Palestinian news agency Wafa. “This, certainly, is denying historical truths,” he said.

Gingrich’s statements struck at the heart of Palestinian sensitivities about their national struggle. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian politician, said Gingrich had “lost touch with reality” and his statements were “a cheap way to win [the] pro-Israel vote”.

A spokesman for Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, called Gingrich’s statements “shameful and disgraceful”. “These statements … show genuine hostility toward Palestinians,” the spokesman said.

Gingrich calls Palestinians ‘invented’ people: Al Jazeera English

Republican presidential hopeful defends Israel and says Palestinians are Arabs who “had a chance to go many places”.
Last Modified: 10 Dec 2011

”]Republican White House hopeful Newt Gingrich has stirred controversy by calling the Palestinians an “invented” people who could have chosen to live elsewhere.

The former House of Representatives speaker, who is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the 2012 presidential race, made the remarks in an interview with the US Jewish Channel broadcaster released on Friday.

Asked whether he considers himself a Zionist, he answered: “I believe that the Jewish people have the right to a state … Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire” until the early 20th century,

“I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab
community.

“And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it’s tragic.”

Most historians mark the start of Palestinian Arab nationalist sentiment in 1834, when Arab residents of the Palestinian region revolted against Ottoman rule.

Israel, founded amid the 1948 Arab-Israel war, took shape along the lines of a 1947 UN plan for ethnic partition of the
then-British ruled territory of Palestine which Arabs rejected.

More than 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their lands by Zionist armed groups in 1948, in an episode Palestinians refer to as the Nakba or “catastrophe”.

‘Irrational hostility’

Gingrich’s comments drew a swift rebuke from a spokesman for the American Task Force on Palestine, Hussein Ibish, who said: “There was no Israel and no such thing as an “Israeli people” before 1948.

“So the idea that Palestinians are ‘an invented people’ while Israelis somehow are not is historically indefensible and inaccurate.

“Such statements seem to merely reflect deep historical ignorance and an irrational hostility towards Palestinian identity and nationalism.”

Sabri Saidam, adviser to the Palestinian president, told Al Jazeera, “This is a manifestation of extreme racism and this is a reflection of where America stands sad, when Palestinians don’t get their rights…this is sad and America should respond with a firm reaction to such comments that, if let go, more of which will come our way,”

“Let me ask Newt Gingrich if he would ever entertain the thought of addressing Indian Americans by saying that they never existed, that they were the invention of a separate nation, would that be tolerated?”

“Let’s also reverse the statement; let’s put ourselves in “the shoe of Jews who are listening now. Would they ever accept such statements being made about them?”

Saidam said, “I think it’s time that America rejects such statements and closes the door to such horrendous and unacceptable statements.”

Gingrich also sharply criticised US President Barack Obama’s approach to Middle East diplomacy, saying that it was “so out of touch with reality that it would be like taking your child to the zoo and explaining that a lion was a bunny rabbit.”

He said Obama’s effort to treat the Palestinians the same as the Israelis is actually “favouring the terrorists”.

“If I’m even-handed between a civilian democracy that obeys the rule of law and a group of terrorists that are firing missiles every day, that’s not even-handed, that’s favouring the terrorists,” he said.

He also said the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, share an “enormous desire to destroy Israel”.

The Palestinian Authority, which rules the occupied West Bank, formally recognises Israel’s right to exist.

President Mahmoud Abbas has long forsworn violence against Israel as a means to secure an independent state, pinning his hopes first on negotiations and more recently on a unilateral bid for statehood via the UN.

Gingrich, along with other Republican candidates, are seeking to attract Jewish in the US support by vowing to bolster Washington’s ties with Israel if elected.

He declared his world view was “pretty close” to that of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and vowed to take “a much more tougher-minded, and much more honest approach to the Middle East” if elected.

PA officials dismayed by Gingrich comment on ‘invented’ Palestinians: Haaretz

Saeb Erekat says comment by U.S. Republican presidential candidate is ‘despicable’; Hanan Ashrawi says Gingrich’s ‘very racist comments’ show he was ‘incapable of holding public office.’

Palestinian leaders said on Saturday U.S. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich had invited more conflict in the Middle East by calling the Palestinians an “invented” people who want to destroy Israel.

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, described his comments in an interview as “despicable”. Hanan Ashrawi, another top official, said Gingrich’s “very racist comments” showed he was “incapable of holding public office.”

What do you think about Gingrich’s comment on ‘invented’ Palestinians? Visit Haaretz.com on Facebook and share your views.

“This is the lowest point of thinking anyone can reach,” Erekat, a close advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told Reuters. Such comments served only to “increase the cycle of violence”, he added.

“What is the cause of violence, war in this region? Denial, denying people their religion, their existence, and now he is denying our existence,” said Erekat, for years a leading figure in peace talks aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

In an interview on Friday with the Jewish Channel, Gingrich predictably sided with Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians, who are seeking a state of their own on land occupied by Israel in a 1967 war.

But the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives departed from official U.S. policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel.

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire” until the early 20th century, said Gingrich, who has risen to the top of Republican polls with voting to start early next year to pick a nominee to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.

No “contribution to peace”

“I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it’s tragic,” he said.

There are around 11 million Palestinians around the world, Palestinian officials say. They include refugees and their descendants who left or were forced to flee their homes during the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel. More than 4 million of them live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The 1948 war erupted after Arab states rejected a UN plan that would have divided British mandate-ruled Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.

Gingrich along with other Republican candidates are seeking to attract Jewish support by vowing to bolster U.S. ties with Israel if elected.

He said both the Hamas militant group, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority, which receives financial backing from the United States, represent “an enormous desire to destroy Israel.”

While Hamas remains committed to armed “resistance” and will not recognize Israel, the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah states that only peaceful means can deliver Palestinian statehood and its security forces cooperate with Israel

Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee, said Gingrich’s remarks harked back to days when the Palestinians’ existence as a people was denied by Israelis such as Golda Meir, prime minister from 1969 to 1974.

“It is certainly regressive,” she said. “This is certainly an invitation to further conflict rather than any contribution to peace.”

“This proves that in the hysterical atmosphere of American elections, people lose all touch with reality and make not just irresponsible and dangerous statements, but also very racist comments that betray not just their own ignorance but an unforgivable bias,” she said.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said the Gingrich remarks “were grave comments that represented an incitement for ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has long forsworn violence against Israel as a means to secure an independent state, pinning his hopes first on negotiations and more recently on a unilateral bid for statehood via the United Nations.

Gingrich said he would be willing to consider granting clemency to Jonathan Jay Pollard, who has been serving a life prison term since 1987 for passing U.S. secrets to Israel. Successive U.S. presidents have refused Israeli entreaties to free him.

“If we can get to a point where I’m satisfied that there’s no national security threat, and if he’s in fact served within the range of people who’ve had a similar problem, then I’d be inclined to consider clemency,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich sharply criticized the Obama administration’s approach to Middle East diplomacy, saying it is “so out of touch with reality that it would be like taking your child to the zoo and explaining that a lion was a bunny rabbit.”

Israel must refrain from launching Gaza offensive: Haaretz Editorial

Before the Israel’s air force and the tanks rush once more toward Gaza, carrying out an operation whose beginning is known but not its end, it is essential to examine the possibility of establishing a cease-fire in different ways.
The counting of rockets and missiles being fired at the south and close to central Israel has become a permanent ritual, a sort of scale on which the degree of calm is measured. But the suffering and difficulties experienced by the residents in the areas where the missiles strike cannot be quantified.

The mini war in which the IDF kills “senior” figures in Gaza’s terrorist groups and the residents of the south receive a predetermined dose of missiles in response, has become an inseparable part of the routine reality which, we are told, is unavoidable.

If we are to judge by the statements of IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, the solution lies in an extensive military operation that would ensure another period of calm, like the one which followed Operation Cast Lead.

It appears some have forgotten the fact that Cast Lead failed to destroy terrorism, and that the pinpoint assassinations of “senior” figures on the Palestinian side leads to their immediate replacement.

Indeed, the frustration and the suffering in the south reinforce the tendency to act in great force in the Gaza Strip. However, when the government imposes, justifiably, responsibility on Hamas for what happens in the Strip, theres is no reason not to channel that power assignment into an avenue for a solution.

Israel and Hamas already have indirect negotiations, mostly through Egypt, on a number of issues. The Shalit deal is clear proof that it is possible to reach specific agreements with Hamas, but it is not the only one.

In the past Israel has managed to achieve unofficial agreements with the group on cease-fires, and set the terms for their implementation. It is fair to say that Hamas, too, has much interest in maintaining calm. The negotiations on unity with Fatah, the Palestinian aspiration to gain international recognition, and the possibility that the leadership of Hamas will have to find an alternative to Damascus for refuge, may serve as serious motives for reaching a tacit understanding with Israel.

Before the Israel’s air force and the tanks rush once more toward Gaza, carrying out an operation whose beginning is known but not its end, it is essential to examine the possibility of establishing a cease-fire in different ways.

The residents of the south shouldn’t pay the price of a military operation in Gaza.

 

EDITOR: JNF stinks even for Zionists!

Read and enjoy – not only is the JNF acting illegally for many decades, stealing land from the Palestinians, but it also is rotten to the core, as you would expect. This organisation, the heart of the Zionist project, is the dragon’s teeth – it is more pernicious than the army and the police together, and has committed crimes even before the Balfour declaration!

Seeing the forest and the trees: The untold story of the Jewish National Fund: Haaretz

Revelations from JNF minutes: billions of shekels hoarded in its coffers, millions wasted on legal conflicts, trees planted on disputed land. Not to mention the fate of Holocaust victims’ assets.
By Uri Blau
A Jew purchased an apartment in Carmiel, on Jewish National Fund ‏(JNF‏) land. No problem. Twenty years go by and Mohammed who lives in Dir al-Assad … comes to buy an apartment.”

This may sound like the some sort of ethnic joke, but that’s how JNF world chairman, Effie Stenzler, a member of the Labor Party, chose to speak recently before the members of his board.

“The Jews sells him the apartment for a tidy sum,” Stenzler continues. “He goes to the Israel Lands Administration ‏(ILA‏) and says, ‘I’m Mohammed. I want you to register this apartment in the Tabu [Government Lands Registry Office] in my name.’ They say to him, ‘Wait a minute − you’re an Arab, we can’t do that because it’s written that JNF doesn’t sell to Arabs, doesn’t lease to Arabs.’ And then there was the trick that worked until 2004, and according to this trick the ILA, without telling anyone … took land registered in the name of JNF, transferred it to another building and then registered that building in JNF’s name … But then an Arab came to that building and then they had to do it again …”
The tale of “Mohammed and the Apartment” is quoted from the minutes of the JNF board meeting in July. The organization claims that the quote “is part of a description of a very complicated bureaucratic problem created by the ILA in regard to the registration of apartments. After discussions with the attorney general and the court, the solution to the problem was found and JNF has been acting accordingly.”

Thus, JNF transfers to the ILA property on which there are buildings where Arabs have purchased apartments, and receive other land in return. Specifically, the records of that July meeting show that each year, three or four such property exchanges are carried out, and that some 25 have been made since the arrangement was formulated in 2008.
Lately, JNF has been busy dealing with numerous legal and personal disputes.

Founded 110 years ago following a decision by the fifth Zionist Congress, with the aim of acquiring lands for Jews in Palestine, the organization has in recent times been identified more with forests and forestation − to the point where many see it as a “green” organization.

Hundreds of pages of court records, a flood of correspondence between lawyers and arguments involving JNF board members have been devoted in the last two years to deciding who will control this body, which oversees 13 percent of state lands ‏(2.5 million dunams, or 625,000 acres‏) and is not subject to oversight by the state comptroller or the treasury.

Battling over ‘treasure’

Following a delay that was agreed upon last Thursday among all parties involved, the JNF General Assembly ‏(whose composition is identical to that of the Zionist General Council, with 192 members‏) will on January 4, 2012 elect 37 members of the organization’s board, from which the chairman will be selected. After that, perhaps, the legal sagas that have overshadowed JNF’s operations for the past year and a half will come to an end, and it will become clear whether chairman Stenzler ‏(who has served for the past five and a half years‏) will be reelected or if he will be replaced by former Laborite Prof. Shimon Sheetrit, now affiliated with Ehud Barak’s Atzmaut faction.

In an earlier legal round between the two in October, Stenzler earned a victory − on points, at least − when Judge Avraham Yaakov of the Petah Tikva District Court ruled that Sheetrit and other Atzmaut representatives, including Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Shalom Simhon, had to resign from their faction-related positions in the World Zionist Congress ‏(the body above JNF‏) because they had originally been appointed to these positions as representatives of Labor.

For his part, Sheetrit has been concerned that Stenzler’s reelection as JNF chair is assured, and that he, Sheetrit, will not be eligible to run at all.

In any event, to understand what sort of “treasure” this battle has revolved around, it is instructive to return to the July 2010 and February 2011 JNF board meetings, at which David Lazarus, director of the organization’s financial division, spoke of JNF’s general financial situation. In recent years, JNF has had an annual budget of NIS 650 million; half of that is designated to pay salaries, administrative expenses and so on, and the rest is for other activities. The data indicate that even though in 2009 there was a decrease in donations to JNF ‏(NIS 96 million, compared to NIS 112 million the previous year‏), its financial situation was excellent, since its income far exceeds its expenditures.

Thus, for instance, in 2009, JNF had income totaling NIS 1.133 billion, the vast majority from land holdings, compared to NIS 972 million in 2008 − meaning a surplus in the organization’s coffers of hundreds of millions of shekels per year. The total value of JNF lands is estimated at NIS 6.2 billion; the ILA administers more than half of these properties; its subsidiary, Himanuta, administers the rest.

“The income and moderate expenses have created what JNF calls a ‘budget reserve.’ The reserve should amount to something like NIS 2 billion,” said Avraham Duvdevani, then co-chairman and currently chairman of the WZO, said in September 2010. “This is a well-kept secret,” he told the members of the JNF board, “and it must be preserved with maximum secrecy, otherwise the government will covet this money and we have experience with this already from the past.” ‏(The secret leaked out shortly afterward nonetheless, and was reported upon by Shuki Sadeh in a January 2011 report in TheMarker‏).

Board member Moshe Yogev proposed at that meeting that JNF “take [the reserve], before it’s taken from us, to build the fence with Egypt.”

Among the organization’s fears were the ability to fulfill future financial commitments: In 2008, these commitments totaled NIS 1.971 billion, and a year later they had crossed the NIS 2-billion mark. Stenzler sought to reassure the board and promised to guard the coffers.

“The subject of the reserve is something that needs to be closely watched, that’s true,” he said, “but we also must remember that we promised employees their pension rights with what we called a ‘floating charge’ ‏(shi’abud tzaf‏). This ensures both the JNF’s future and the future of the workers’ pensions, because this is insured and secure money.”

Indeed, it appears that JNF has trouble parting with funds that have accumulated in its coffers, even if these are assets that belong to Holocaust victims and their descendants.

‘JNF foot-dragging’

“I am writing to request that you personally intervene immediately and put an end to JNF’s foot-dragging in regard to complying with the directives of the Law on Holocaust Victims’ Assets.”

These words were written by Yaron Jacobs, head of the Company for the Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims’ Assets ‏(known by the Hebrew name Hashava‏), in January to Stenzler, whose organization holds tens of millions of shekels worth of such assets. Later in the letter, Jacobs’ language was more pointed: Since 2006, he wrote, “Hashava has systematically maintained contact with JNF on various matters with the aim of upholding the law and obtaining the Holocaust victims’ assets currently held by JNF … Unfortunately, despite the pleasant atmosphere at most of the meetings … satisfactory progress was not made in solving these problems and in returning all of the assets to the company.”

Jacobs stressed also that “JNF is holding a lot of funds that belong to victims, in a manner that runs counter to the law’s instructions. This situation is intolerable and requires an immediate solution.”

Unfortunately, he added, “JNF is not in any hurry. The restoration of the assets is occurring very slowly, with various obstacles being placed in the company’s way, in an appropriate manner.”

By contrast, he explained, for the victims’ descendants, time is racing by, as many of them are elderly themselves. Jacobs also explained that assets for which descendants are not found are supposed to be used to help Holocaust survivors, and “if we are unable to obtain the assets in the near future, there will no longer be anyone to help.”
Jacobs was complaining about the failure to transfer NIS 67 million, equivalent to the value of 57 plots of land belonging to victims, which JNF transferred to the ILA in the past. He noted that some in the JNF wanted to transfer the value of the lands according to their worth at the time of purchase − i.e., before the founding of the state − and not according to their present value, which is 10 times higher. He said the company finds itself receiving from the JNF “offers that are low and inexplicable.”

Jacobs also wrote that the JNF had a debt of NIS 12 million to the company, and that “on this subject too all kinds of unworthy ‘compromise’ or bargaining proposals have been made.”

His letter said that JNF had been seeking to charge handling fees for the transferred funds, and to receive from the company and victims’ descendants a commitment not to sue JNF for assets that it would be transferring.

Stenzler reported on the letter at the JNF board meeting in February, according to the minutes. “So far, JNF has transferred NIS 99 million to Hashava,” he said. “In addition, JNF has transferred another 141 plots of land to the company.”

Stenzler noted that Hashava had a new director general at that time, and that the latter had sent a letter “in which he says that JNF still has to transfer funds and so on, in a tone that I didn’t like very much, to put it mildly, because JNF, the members of the board − we were the first ones to say that the funds should be transferred. Moreover, all of the directors general who dealt with him always noted the fact that JNF was ready to go above and beyond the letter of the law with them … Therefore I did not like the style of this letter.”

The fact that only about half of JNF’s annual budget is designated for its activities did not deter board member Nissan Chilik from cynically remarking, “We have to understand [Hashava]: They need the money because they waste four times as much in administration than they actually return.”

However, not everyone present liked this attitude. Board member Reuven Shalom proposed “making a distinction between what we need to give, and their [Hashava’s conduct. We need to give what the Holocaust survivors deserve, and they need to behave properly.”

Chilik: “But they should have used more delicate language.”

Shalom: “We are not a commercial body or something like that. We are a body of the Jewish people … the approach has to be a ‘public’ one.”

Avraham Roth, a founder of Hashava and its chairman until 2008, says JNF was among the first to cooperate with the company, and he describes the transfer of funds and assets on its part since then as “reasonable.” When asked if its conduct went beyond the letter of the law, as Stenzler said, he says: “No, in accordance with it.”

Still, Roth adds, “The fact that things still aren’t settled with the JNF six years after the law was passed is quite unbelievable. It’s inconceivable that the JNF is still holding property of Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. The survivors are dying, the heirs are getting to the end of their lives, and they have all the time in the world.”

A source that is knowledgeable about the issue says Jacobs’ letter in January appears to have “done the job,” because in recent months the parties have returned to negotiations and “significant progress toward a solution” has begun.

JNF says in response that, “As soon as the matter [concerning Hashava] reached the desk of the JNF chairman, Effie Stenzler personally got involved in handling it, in full cooperation with the company and with the company director general, Yaron Jacobs. JNF was a leader in this realm, and deserves a medal for the way it acted with the company … when, for example, it transferred close to NIS 100 million in funds and property for survivors and over 100 assets worth a lot of money. This massive process is now nearing its end.”

On transparency

Stenzler declared firmly at the September 2010 meeting: “It is incumbent upon us for the organization to be completely transparent,”

However, it seems that when it comes to internal organizational affairs as well, this transparency is not always total. For example, at the February meeting, board member Yigal Yasinov, who is considered Stenzler’s rival, said: “I do not regularly receive emails … [or regular] mail. I didn’t even receive an invitation to the last board meeting, I didn’t get the agenda for today’s meeting and I know there are other letters that didn’t go out … I want to get all the material from the past four months, because I did not receive it. I did not receive protocols, or any other mail at all. Invitations to ceremonies I do receive … I get only mail which is unimportant, all the junk mail.”

It seems that Stenzler himself is not always keen on media transparency − as regards, for example, one of the more sensitive JNF activities: planting trees on lands in the south, whose ownership is a matter of dispute with the Bedouin population. This mostly concerns land in the area of Al-Arakib, a village north of Be’er Sheva that has been destroyed numerous times in clashes with police and property inspectors, because its inhabitants refuse to be evicted and claim ownership of the land.

In May, after telling the board about the extensive media coverage of the affair abroad and the number of emails he receives as a result, Stenzler added: “I must thank the spokespeople, our media people, our public relations people, who are doing everything to see that this matter doesn’t develop in the local media … In the media in Israel it hasn’t [yet] made any waves, thank goodness.”

About the matter itself, he said: “This is an area that we are taking so that others, neither Jews nor non-Jews, will take it − not Bedouin or anyone else.”

In August last year, according to minutes of a meeting, he explained: “We have learned from our experience in recent years that wherever there is a tree planted it is almost impossible to seize control of the land … Not for nothing did the ILA agree to increase the budget, because it understands that JNF helps to keep property.”

At the same meeting, board member Yitzhak Krichevsky offered another idea for how to deal with the problem: “Go to Sinai and see how Egypt took over the Bedouin,” he suggested. “There is no democracy there. We’re playing in the courts, with democracy. Go to Sinai. You won’t see a single Bedouin around there.”

But there are other voices making themselves heard in JNF as well. At the meeting in May, board member Alon Tal said that the affair is “a very serious public relations failure by the JNF … The pictures of JNF foresters and other pictures that were publicized of tractors demolishing buildings are what stick with people, and the JNF appears to be a partner to a crime. Our representatives abroad didn’t know how to answer these charges and lost the battle over our reputation in Australia, the United States and other places.”

Another member, Or Karsin, spoke in even stronger terms: “I will say what I think, even if it might sound like Don Quixote,” she said, explaining that she didn’t feel right that “people are being put up against trees … Placing trees in a position of war versus an Israeli population, citizens of the State of Israel, is a very serious thing, and it is very difficult to see these pictures and hear these voices.”

JNF said in response that this article has been based on “a collection of partial documents and partial truths that present a distorted and false picture. In regard to Al-Arakib, JNF is acting solely in accordance with the court decisions, and what the chairman meant by his remarks is that it is good that the media in Israel is not influenced by the world campaign that is fed by lies against Israel and against JNF, and that the media in Israel is behaving responsibly, and sees and knows that not a single tree was planted in the area in question.”

Continue reading December 9, 2011

EDITOR: Countdown to war continues

Seumas Milne in the Guardian never misses. His piece today is aimed at the immoral and illegal war against Iran, which has already started covertly, and is about to become a major military campaign by Israel, Us and UK, the unholy alliance of western aggressives.

War on Iran has already begun. Act before it threatens all of us: Guardian

Escalation of the covert US-Israeli campaign against Tehran risks a global storm. Opposition has to get more serious

Iranians carry honorary coffins and pictures of a Revolutionary Guards commander killed in an explosion at the Alghadir missile base. Photograph: Reuters
They don’t give up. After a decade of blood-drenched failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, violent destabilisation of Pakistan and Yemen, the devastation of Lebanon and slaughter in Libya, you might hope the US and its friends had had their fill of invasion and intervention in the Muslim world.

It seems not. For months the evidence has been growing that a US-Israeli stealth war against Iran has already begun, backed by Britain and France. Covert support for armed opposition groups has spread into a campaign of assassinations of Iranian scientists, cyber warfare, attacks on military and missile installations, and the killing of an Iranian general, among others.

The attacks are not directly acknowledged, but accompanied by intelligence-steered nods and winks as the media are fed a stream of hostile tales – the most outlandish so far being an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US – and the western powers ratchet up pressure for yet more sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme.

The British government’s decision to take the lead in imposing sanctions on all Iranian banks and pressing for an EU boycott of Iranian oil triggered the trashing of its embassy in Tehran by demonstrators last week and subsequent expulsion of Iranian diplomats from London.

It’s a taste of how the conflict can quickly escalate, as was the downing of a US spyplane over Iranian territory at the weekend. What one Israeli official has called a “new kind of war” has the potential to become a much more old-fashioned one that would threaten us all.

Last month the Guardian was told by British defence ministry officials that if the US brought forward plans to attack Iran (as they believed it might), it would “seek, and receive, UK military help”, including sea and air support and permission to use the ethnically cleansed British island colony of Diego Garcia.

Whether the officials’ motive was to soften up public opinion for war or warn against it, this was an extraordinary admission: the Britain military establishment fully expects to take part in an unprovoked US attack on Iran – just as it did against Iraq eight years ago.

What was dismissed by the former foreign secretary Jack Straw as “unthinkable”, and for David Cameron became an option not to be taken “off the table”, now turns out to be as good as a done deal if the US decides to launch a war that no one can seriously doubt would have disastrous consequences. But there has been no debate in parliament and no mainstream political challenge to what Straw’s successor, David Miliband, this week called the danger of “sleepwalking into a war with Iran”. That’s all the more shocking because the case against Iran is so spectacularly flimsy.

There is in fact no reliable evidence that Iran is engaged in a nuclear weapons programme. The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report once again failed to produce a smoking gun, despite the best efforts of its new director general, Yukiya Amano – described in a WikiLeaks cable as “solidly in the US court on every strategic decision”.

As in the runup to the invasion of Iraq, the strongest allegations are based on “secret intelligence” from western governments. But even the US national intelligence director, James Clapper, has accepted that the evidence suggests Iran suspended any weapons programme in 2003 and has not reactivated it.

The whole campaign has an Alice in Wonderland quality about it. Iran, which says it doesn’t want nuclear weapons, is surrounded by nuclear-weapon states: the US – which also has forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as military bases across the region – Israel, Russia, Pakistan and India.

Iran is of course an authoritarian state, though not as repressive as western allies such as Saudi Arabia. But it has invaded no one in 200 years. It was itself invaded by Iraq with western support in the 1980s, while the US and Israel have attacked 10 countries or territories between them in the past decade. Britain exploited, occupied and overthrew governments in Iran for over a century. So who threatens who exactly?

As Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, said recently, if he were an Iranian leader he would “probably” want nuclear weapons. Claims that Iran poses an “existential threat” to Israel because President Ahmadinejad said the state “must vanish from the page of time” bear no relation to reality. Even if Iran were to achieve a nuclear threshold, as some suspect is its real ambition, it would be in no position to attack a state with upwards of 300 nuclear warheads, backed to the hilt by the world’s most powerful military force.

The real challenge posed by Iran to the US and Israel has been as an independent regional power, allied to Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas movements. As US troops withdraw from Iraq, Saudi Arabia fans sectarianism, and Syrian opposition leaders promise a break with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the threat of proxy wars is growing across the region.

A US or Israeli attack on Iran would turn that regional maelstrom into a global firestorm. Iran would certainly retaliate directly and through allies against Israel, the US and US Gulf client states, and block the 20% of global oil supplies shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Quite apart from death and destruction, the global economic impact would be incalculable.

All reason and common sense militate against such an act of aggression. Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel’s Mossad, said last week it would be a “catastrophe”. Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, warned that it could “consume the Middle East in confrontation and conflict that we would regret”.

There seems little doubt that the US administration is deeply wary of a direct attack on Iran. But in Israel, Barak has spoken of having less than a year to act; Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has talked about making the “right decision at the right moment”; and the prospects of drawing the US in behind an Israeli attack have been widely debated in the media.

Maybe it won’t happen. Maybe the war talk is more about destabilisation than a full-scale attack. But there are undoubtedly those in the US, Israel and Britain who think otherwise. And the threat of miscalculation and the logic of escalation could tip the balance decisively. Unless opposition to an attack on Iran gets serious, this could become the most devastating Middle East war of all.

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 Iran state television displays ‘downed U.S. surveillance drone’: Haaretz

WATCH: Revolutionary Guard top officer tells Fars news agency that military experts are ‘well aware how precious the technological information of this drone is.’

Iraninan state television displayed what it said was a downed U.S. surveillance drone on Thursday, days after U.S. officials expressed concern that Tehran would be able to glean information about a classified military program.

According to the semi-official Fars news agency, in the televised segment, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Aerospace Forces Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Iranian forces uncovered the aircraft as it was about “to infiltrate our country’s airspace for spying missions.”

“[A]fter it entered the Eastern parts of the country, this aircraft fell into the trap of our armed forces and was downed in Iran with minimum damage,” Hajizadeh told Fars.

According to the Iraninan military official, the drone was “equipped with highly advanced surveillance, data gathering, electronic communication and radar systems,” saying that “this kind of plane has been designed to evade radar systems and from the view point of technology it is amongst the most recent types of advanced aircraft used by the U.S.”

“The technology used in this aircraft had already been used in B2 and F35 planes,” Hajizadeh added, saying the “aircraft is controlled and guided through satellite link and land stations in Afghanistan and the United States.”

“Military experts are well aware how precious the technological information of this drone is,” Fars quoted Hajizadeh as saying.

U.S. envoy: Washington closely coordinating with Israel on Iran: Haaretz

Ambassador Dan Shapiro rebuffs previous claims by U.S. officials that Israel would not alert Washington ahead of a strike on Iran.

U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said Thursday that Washington has been fully cooperating with Israel when it comes to the Iran and its nuclear program.

“There is no issue that we coordinate more closely than on Iran,” Shapiro said during a briefing to reporters in Tel Aviv.

Shapiro’s comments come against the backdrop of uncertainty regarding the U.S.-Israeli coordination on a possible strike on Iran.

General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month that he did not know whether Israel would alert the United States ahead of time if it decided to take military action against Iran.

Shapiro, however, discounted these claims and asserted the close cooperation between Israel and the U.S.

“We believe Iran is pursuing a military nuclear capability and we are determined to stop it,” he added.

He also noted that Quartet envoys are due to arrive in Jerusalem next week and meet Israeli and Palestinian officials.

“We emphasize that the parties need to talk directly,” he urged.

Commenting on the recent elections in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood’s significant gains, Shapiro said that the U.S. expects that the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty will be respected after elections in Egypt as well.

The RQ-170 has been used in Afghanistan for several years. U.S. officials acknowledge that the military lost control of one of the stealthy drones while it was flying a mission over western Afghanistan. The official IRNA news agency has said that Iran’s armed forces shot it down.

On Monday, U.S. military officials said that they were concerned that a stealthy surveillance drone that crashed in Iran could give Tehran the opportunity to glean information about the classified program.

But experts said Monday that even if the Iranians found parts of the unmanned spy plane, they will likely get little from it. And since it probably fell from a high altitude, there may be very few large pieces to examine.

U.S. officials have rejected that claim.

EDITOR: Not good enough…

You have been forgiven for thinking that it is not possible to be more supportive of Israel than President Obama was. Well, you were wrong… read below to enjoy yourself with what Americans call politics. This is the annual festival “who is more extreme in support of mad Israel”, which is celebrated every year around this time, in the US Congress. It isa lot of fun.

U.S. presidential candidates slam Obama’s Israel, Iran policy at Republican Jewish Coalition: Haaretz

GOP presidential hopefuls accuse Obama administration of being soft on Iran and hard on Israel; Gingrich, Bachmann say would move U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Republican presidential candidates took to the stage at the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Candidates Forum in Washington on Wednesday, criticizing U.S. President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy, particularly his record on Israel and Iran.

Presidential hopefuls addressed the audience one by one at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington DC, presenting their views on the economy, health care, foreign policy in general and the Middle East in particular, and then answered questions from the audience.

Republican Ron Paul, not known as a supporter of Israel, was not invited.

Since the departure of Herman Cain from the race, most of the attention has been focused on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Romney seemed much more focused and concise in his responses – but Gingrich got much more applause from the audience.

Most of the responses were familiar to the audience from the earlier debates, and the rhetoric almost seemed to be taken from Obama administration officials’ speeches with “unshakeable commitment to Israel.” Indeed, this time, the Jewish audience got a concentrated dose of support for Israel.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who recently lost some points in polls to Newt Gingrich, took time to criticize Obama’s Middle East policies.

“He visited Egypt, Syria – no, not Syria – Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey. He even offered to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Yet in three years in office, he hasn’t found the time or interest to visit Israel, our ally, our friend,” to which the audience replied with enthusiastic booing.

“Over the last three years President Obama has instead chastened Israel,” Romney continued.

“In his inaugural address to the United Nations, the president chastised Israel but had almost nothing to say about Hamas launching thousands of rockets into Israel’s skies. He’s publicly proposed that Israel adopt indefensible borders. He’s insulted Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. And he’s been timid and weak in the face of the existential threat that Israel faces from Iran. These actions have emboldened Palestinian hard-liners, and they’re now poised to form a unity government with terrorist Hamas. And they feel they can bypass Israel at the bargaining table,” he said.

“President Obama has immeasurably set back the prospect of peace in the Middle East,” he added.

Romney declared that his future policies “could not be more different. I will travel to Israel on my first foreign trip. I will reaffirm, as a vital national interest, Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. And I want the world to know that the bonds that exist between Israel and the United States are unshakable. I want every country in the region that harbors aggressive designs against Israel to understand that their ambition is futile and that pursuing it will cost them very dearly.”

Referring to Iran, Romney said, “I would not meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He should be excluded from diplomatic society. In fact, he should be indicted for the crime of incitement to genocide under Article III of the genocide convention. And on my watch, Iran’s ayatollahs will not be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons. A nuclear-armed Iran is not only a threat to Israel; it’s a threat to the entire world. Our friends must never fear that we will not stand by them in an hour of need, and our enemies should never doubt our resolve.”

Romney went on to say that the U.S., “Should treat the Iranian diplomats, business people, and leaders like the pariah they are as long as they’re pursuing nuclear weaponry.”

He asserted that the U.S. should engage in covert and overt activities to encourage voices of dissent, in Iran, adding that, “Ultimately regime change is what’s going to be necessary.” He also expressed his support for both military action and sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich discussed the recent controversial speech given by the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium on anti-Semitism.

“This is an administration which, frankly, should be firing the ambassador to Belgium, who gave a stunningly anti-Semitic speech,” Gingrich said. “This is an administration which, frankly, should be reprimanding the Secretary of Defense for an insulting performance the other day.”

He also criticized Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s speech at the Saban forum last week, where he called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to “get to the damn table.” Gingrich described the speech as “outrageous.”

“Panetta is a fine domestic politician, but his speech was outrageous. How about saying to Hamas, give up violence and come to the table? How about saying to the PLO, recognize Israel and come to the table? This one-sided continuing pressure that says it’s always Israel’s fault, no matter how bad the other side is, has to stop. The fact that Secretary Clinton would talk about discrimination against women in Israel, and then meet with Saudis? ” he said.

Gingrich also said that “in a Gingrich administration, on the opening day, there will be an executive order about two hours after the inaugural address. We will send the Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as of that day.”

On Iran, Gingrich promised to fund “every dissident group” and to sabotage Iran’s oil supply, to promote the regime change which, he argued, in the long run is the only rational policy.

Texas Governor Rick Perry accused the Obama Administration of a “torrent of hostility” toward Israel. “It seems to be a natural expression of this administration’s attitude toward Israel”, he said. Perry also tried to modify his remarks in one of the previous debates on “zeroing out” foreign aid, including aid to Israel”. “Strategic defensive aid to Israel under a Perry administration will increase,” he said.

Former Pennsylvania
Senator Rick Santorum said, “We have to make it very clear to Iran that the United States – the United States, I didn’t say Israel, because it’s in our security interest – will stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, period. We cannot sit and hope to contain Iran. We need to say very clearly that we will be conducting covert activity to do everything we can to stop their nuclear program.”

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman said that, for him, “All options are on the table. And it means that when Israel strikes up that conversation, as I believe they will, you better be prepared to remember and put in place what that relationship and what that alliance actually means.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann who spoke last concentrated mostly on criticizing Obama, saying he’s been “ambiguous with Iran,” mentioning his weakness and appeasement policies “emboldened Palestinians to seek statehood at the UN,” which she called ‘the most overrated organization in the world.”

She also promised, if elected, to move the Embassy to Jerusalem, and recognize annexation of any settlements Israel would chose to annex.

“President has delegitimized Israel by describing Israel as a 60 year old occupation”, she said. “He abandoned prior U.S. policy that Israel is entitled to defensible borders, the former Administration’s commitments who said no right of return for the Palestinian so-called ‘refugees.’ He calls them to return to the indefensible borders. I guarantee you without any reservation: I will never call for dividable Jerusalem.”

On Iran, Bachmann said “our options are diminishing by the day. The President will stand with Occupy Wall Street – but he won’t stand with Israel. We have to accelerate covert operations and cyber operations in Iran. We must order the CIA director to do every effort necessary to stop the Iranian bomb. The Pentagon must prepare a war plan.”

Republican Jewish coalition CEO Matt Brooks concluded the event saying “you’ve witnessed history today: the next president of the U.S. was on this stage.”.

The Democratic National Council quickly arranged a response call with Robert Wexler, former member of Congress from the Democratic Party and the president of the Washington-based S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East, who called the Republican presidential hopeful attacks on President Obama a “theater of the absurd,”, listing joint military joint exercises, military assistance, and help with the Israeli Embassy in Cairo crisis as examples of cooperation between the current U.S.administration and Israel.

Wexler responded also to what seemed to be the leitmotif of the Republican attacks – weak leadership of President Obama. Mentioning the killing of Osama Bin-Laden, Wexler said this and others are “examples of solid presidential leadership.”

Continue reading December 8, 2011

EDITOR: Dangerous Vacuum Threatens the Middle East

In few weeks we shall be marking three years to the barbarous invasion and destruction of Israel in Gaza, on December 28, 2008. The 22 day attack has caused the death of over 1400 Palestinians, over 440 of them children, and the mass eradication of Gazan infrastructure. Since then, Israel has continued its blockade of Gaza, and life there is at its lowest ebb ever. Despite the removal of Mubarak after the January 25 revolution, the SCAF junta have continued to support the Israeli blockade, though on slightly easier terms. Movement in and out of Gaza is still not possible, and this illegal imposition on the human rights of the almost two million residents makes Gaza the largest open-air prison on earth, as well the one of densest population centres everywhere.Gaza is a massive war crime continuously perpetrated by Israel.

Israel could not have done this without the criminal collaboration of the western governments: US, UK, the EU, Canada and Australia. This group has not only backed Israel in its crimes in Gaza, but made sure that Israel is well provided financially and militarily, as well as diplomatically, and can continue to break international law as it pleases. The illegal apartheid wall, the continued piratical behaviour in the Mediterranean, the covert attacks against the Iranian nuclear installations and personnel, and the preparation for massive bombing in Iran, not to mention the daily iniquities imposed on the Palestinians in their own country, and the continued illegal settlements and land theft on massive scale – all these infractions of international law have been protected by the most powerful bloc in history, against the people of Palestine, as well as the Arab world, part of the west’s unwise and immoral support of the forces of reaction in the region, forces installed by western intrigue and covert as well open action, and serving its interests, mainly those of energy consumption and strategic control.

This is hardly secret or unknown. Every one in the Arab world understands this, as well as everyone in the developing world. For the population in the west, the situation has been normalised for such a long time, by media and politicians friendly to Israel and doing its bidding, that most people do not even notice the iniquity, not to mention illegality of such policies, and consider them to be ‘the order of things’. This situation, however, may well be at an end, and about to change.

Most people in the west have also not questioned Capitalism, the banks, and their governments financial stability until the latest crisis has ended all certainties, has transferred most of the value produced by the many into the hands of the very richest few, and has enslaved the western populations, and those elsewhere, for decades to come. The Great Provider, western Capitalism, is seen to be the tool enslaving huge populations, making tens of millions homeless and jobless, and wiping out the future prospects of billions of human beings. The decline of western Capitalism is also the decline and fall of the west, the demise of its stranglehold over the planet and its resources, the criminally-insane raping of earth, a by-product of centuries of imperialism and colonialism. It may take a long time to replace, a long time to develop a system which is more humane and planet friendly, but this painful process has started. The Arab Spring, a stunning social process of social and political liberation, is part of the series of changes we are now facing, struggling to understand and internalise. The west has not given up on its control, despite (and because of) such changes, and fights to reverse and derail them, with limited success. A complicated world has turned even more complex. Capitalism has lost its grip and its power base in the population.

Within Israel itself, the summer of 2011 has brought about a most interesting development – the so-called ‘tents protest movement’, demanding ‘social justice’, in a timely connection to the Arab Spring as well as to the global anti-capitalist protest movement now growing. Unfortunately, the movement seems to have come to an early and quiet death, as it so carefully avoided the issues of Palestine and justice for the Palestinians, as well as any peaceful resolution of the conflict in Palestine between the Zionist colonial project and the indigenous population. So much for political protest which tries very hard to depoliticise itself… A grand opportunity not seized by the Israeli population of connecting to the people of the Middle East, rather than shooting at them.

This is a dangerous time. Israel and its fascist leaders are sensing the change and are freaking out, preparing for more grabs and bolder infringements, nastier attacks against the people of Palestine, always hoping for the chance to bring about the second Nakba, and the completion of removing the people of Palestine from their country, and making it  Arabrein. The latest spate of anti-democratic, fascist and racist legislation in Israel is part of this change, pointing towards the direction in which Israel is headed. This is a period in which they feel they can get away with more crimes, as the world focuses its gaze on the coming decades of economic gloom. This is the most dangerous period for the Middle East and for Palestine, but also for the people of Israel.

Protesters in Israel and West Bank face increasing restrictions, report finds: Haaretz

Annual assessment released by Association for Civil Rights in Israel cites various means employed to silence participants in social protests, as well as in anti-occupation demonstrations.
By Gili Cohen
In its annual assessment of human rights in Israel and the territories, scheduled for release today, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel points to increasing efforts to restrict freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

Among other issues, the State of Human Rights Report 2011 cites various means employed to silence participants in the social protest movement that began in the summer and claims that democratic debate in the country has been increasingly restricted in the face of the protest.

According to the report, some protesters were arrested and released only after promising “not to attend demonstrations in the near future,” while others were summoned to conversations with police officers or Shin Bet security service agents, who warned them about the possible consequences of their behavior. The report’s authors noted that despite regulations requiring police officers to wear a uniform with an identification badge at all times, increasingly officers confronted protesters without wearing badges and sometimes even with their faces concealed (for example, while dispersing a demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah, during the demolition of homes in al-Araqib and also in Lod, while serving eviction notices in Silwan and while evacuating Havat Gilad ). The authors point out that part of the reason for the obligation of police officers to identify themselves is to deter the abuse of authority.

According to ACRI, the Israeli authorities deprive Palestinians living in the territories of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly by declaring all demonstrations, even nonviolent ones, as illegal gatherings. As such they are dispersed by security forces using means such as tear gas, water jets, a sonic device known as “the scream” that emits an intolerably loud, high-pitched sound and “the skunk,” with its payload of foul-smelling liquid, in addition to the use of force.

The report documents several instances of political activists in Israel and the West Bank being summoned by security officials to “warning talks.” They include an Israeli Arab who is active in Tarabut-Hithabrut, An Arab-Jewish Movement for Social & Political Change. He was called in for a police interview but was instead questioned by a Shin Bet agent about his political views and in connection to a demonstration he attended. In another case, an Israeli Arab university student was questioned about his political activities after taking part in a protest against Operation Cast Lead. A third example involved two activists from Anarchists Against the Wall who after their arrest were visited by a female Shin Bet agent who told them the agency was aware of their activities and would step in if they broke the law.

The report was critical of recent bills that have been submitted to the Knesset that the authors characterized as jeopardizing the basic freedoms that are the core of democracy, including the freedom of expression, assembly, thought and opinion. These draft laws include the “boycott law,” which permits sanctions against supporters of an anti-Israel boycott and “discriminates against people holding certain political views and greatly hurts a legal, legitimate and nonviolent means of protest”; the Naqba Law, which makes it possible to deprive organizations that oppose the core principles of the State of Israel of funding and “does great damage to the freedom of political expression, to artistic freedom and to the right to demonstrate,” according to the report.

The report also addresses issues including human rights violations against minors and foreign nationals being held in detention facilities in Israel and the territories, and the silencing of social rights in Israel.

Jewish settlers attack Salem village in Nablus: OCCUPIEDPALESTINE

DECEMBER 3, 2011
NABLUS, (PIC)– Dozens of Jewish settlers under military protection savagely attacked Saturday morning Salem village east of Nablus city and assaulted its Palestinian farmers.
Eyewitnesses said that settlers from Elon Moreh and Gideon settlements opened fire at the village’s famers and attempted to steal herds of cattle from them.
They added that a large group of the village’s young men rushed to the area and bravely fended off the settlers who retreated amid the protection of Israeli soldiers.
Dozens of Palestinian young men are still guarding their village’s borders while the fleeing settlers are standing along a bypass around the village in an attempt to launch another attack.

Egyptian election results ‘disturbing’ says Israel’s defence minister: Guardian

Early successes for Muslim Brotherhood prompt Ehud Barak to voice fears that international treaties will not be respected

Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, has said that initial results from Egypt’s parliamentary elections are “very, very disturbing”.

Few official results have been released from the first round vote, but leaked counts point to a clear majority for Islamist parties led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Barak said he hopes Egypt’s first parliament to be seated after the ousting of Hosni Mubarak will respect international treaties, including its shaky 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

Israel’s main fear is the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been cool to the peace treaty and has close ties with the ruling Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip. The election is being held in stages and the final outcome won’t be known until next year.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Lior Ben Dor, said Israel is not surprised by the Muslim Brotherhood’s initial election gains and is convinced the Israel-Egypt peace treaty will remain intact.

“We respect the election results in Egypt. This is the Egyptian people’s choice,” Ben Dor said.

In a statement on a Hamas website, top Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said that “the Egyptian people have voiced their confidence in the Islamists … We do believe that Egyptian support in the future will be more for our cause.”

Israeli journalists are censoring themselves: Haaretz

Israeli journalism’s dereliction of duty began long before now, and before we declare war on those outside who would do us harm, we should first look deep within.
By Gideon Levy
Hundreds of Israeli journalists will gather in Eilat today for their annual professional conference. They have little to be proud of. It’s true that threats hangs over this conference, the threat of politicians to injure journalistic freedom, the threat of the economic crisis to harm the media and the threat of technology to eliminate print journalism, but Israeli journalism’s dereliction of duty began long before this frightening twilight hour. And what they face today is entirely their own fault.

Before we declare war on those outside who would do us harm, we should first look deep within.

For many years, until just recently, Israeli journalism enjoyed great liberty. Military censorship contracted significantly; unacceptable institutions like the Editors’ Committee effectively ceased to exist and the pressures placed on journalists were negligible.

In addition, most branches of the media were in good shape economically. It is ironic that Israeli journalism is falling down on the job precisely in such excellent circumstances. Come the day of reckoning it will be found wanting for these years of blindness, complacency and extreme nationalism.

Israeli journalism censors itself to the point of harm. Part of it has become a means of entertainment while inciting our more base passions. Part of it now appeals to emotions, not reason, and deals with trivial rather than important issues, taking part in the campaigns of denial and obfuscation. No one asked this of it, it did so on its own. It often turned propagandist, too. Journalism hasn’t been conscripted. It signed up itself.

The journalistic tom-toms were beating before the most recent wars, calling in unison for another ferocious assault. The media lined up in support of every war, offering no criticism. That came only afterward, when it was too late to repair the damage. Israeli journalists authorized nearly every transgression, and many forgot the difference between public diplomacy and journalism.

The images the world saw of Operation Cast Lead, for example, were not the ones shown to Israelis. Some of the military correspondents liken themselves to spokesmen. Nowhere else in Israeli journalism is criticism of the establishment so lax.

The version of events offered by the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Office is always victorious and often the only version available. Its delegitimization campaigns against such organizations as Breaking the Silence and Anarchists Against the Wall received full cooperation from the media. No Israeli journalists have been allowed into the Gaza Strip for five years, and no one utters a word in protest.

Israeli journalism is the senior partner to the delegitimization campaign against the Palestinians; it is the most important tool for maintaining the occupation. It isn’t an issue of right and left, it is a betrayal of its purpose. It broadcasts false fears, from “all of Gaza is booby-trapped” on the eve of Operation Cast Lead to “Iranian weapons are smuggled through the tunnels” to the lie of calling that one-sided assault a war.

Israeli journalism adopts every military euphemism in the book and collaborates with the distortion of reality. There’s nothing like Israeli journalism when it comes to saving people from moral qualms over what is being done in their name.

Journalists serve unholy goals with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, too: When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas presented his borders proposal to the Quartet last week, it was barely reported. Israeli journalism swallows whole the government’s claim of there being “no partner” for talks, and to hell with the truth.

It called the Mavi Marmara activists “terrorists” and labeled the Gaza-bound aid flotilla a “threat.” Any justified criticism of Israel is immediately branded as anti-Israeli, not to mention anti-Semitic.

Any “friend of Israel” is a friend of wars and the occupation. Israeli journalism practices the religion of the military and sanctifies the ritual of death. The same is true for social issues: It practices the rites of the rich (until recently) and turns away from need.

The list goes on. The media can also claim many accomplishments, such as courageously investigating numerous scandals and fighting steadfastly against corruption and the threats to democracy. But at the end of the day, at the end of the years of darkness, we are at least partly responsible for more than a few of the ills that are now rising against us to silence us.