EDITOR: The McArthites are counting their enemies…
Would that it was true… 10% of Israeli academics are proclaimed anti-Zionists by the mad right. While academics are indeed more intelligent than most Israelis, especially members of In Tirzu, this is a most optimistic count of anti-Zionists, unfortunately. I wish it was true, and soon it may well be. In the meantime, the fascists are collecting names and preparing for the great ‘cleansing’ of Israeli society of its leftists.
10 percent of Israeli academics labeled ‘anti-Zionist’ by campus watchdogs: Haaretz
Survey comes up with the names of more than 1,000 Israelis, 800 of whom are academics but also including authors, journalists, public intellectuals, and past and present cabinet ministers.
Three self-proclaimed watchdog organizations have labeled about 10 percent of Israeli academics as anti-Zionist, according to a recent study by a group of academics, artists and university students who aim to counter the categorizations. The organizations, which are open about their activities, are Im Tirtzu, IsraCampus and Israel Academia Monitor.
The group’s survey came up with the names of more than 1,000 Israelis, 800 of whom are academics but also including authors, journalists, public intellectuals, and past and present cabinet ministers, that appear on a list maintained by the trio of organizations.
Members of the group include political scientist Prof. Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Israeli Film Directors Guild chairman Rani Blair; and the chairman of the Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum, Uri Rosenwaks. They recently created the Blacklist website (blacklist.co.il), which invites visitors to check whether they themselves appear on the lists.
“There is a real concern for the future of Israeli democracy and about McCarthyism against anyone who criticizes the government’s policies in the occupied territories or social aspects,” Gordon said. “Every week new names appear on these sites, and we wanted to examine the extent of the phenomenon. The people who will be hurt most are junior faculty members who are trying for university positions and are wary of being ‘marked out,'” Gordon said.
Israel Academia Monitor said in a statement: “We are not a right-wing organization, but rather an organization that is unaffiliated politically and that keeps its distance from politics. Our role is to protect the universities from political forces, and especially from the extreme left, that exploits the institutions for its needs and acts as if they were its private playing field.”
University of Haifa economist Prof. Steven Plaut, one of the founders of IsraCampus, said in a statement: “Our main function is to quote what these teachers say and write ideologically and politically in order to bring it to the attention of the public. The issue is not an ideological argument, but rather publicizing the anti-Israel group that openly supports the enemy,” Plaut said.
Im Tirtzu said: “We are not familiar with the study, but spin and manipulation cannot obscure the gravity of the deeds of the extreme left. Anyone who signs petitions in support of the refusal to perform military service, of Azmi Bishara and of the boycott against Israel, and who silences students, are marking themselves.”
Palestinians protest against negotiations in Ramallah: Ma’an News
22/01/2012 10:48
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Over 100 Palestinians demonstrated Saturday in the occupied West Bank urging their leaders to cease negotiations with Israel, in a second week of protests.
Protesters had gathered a week earlier outside the presidential compound in Ramallah and urged an end to negotiations between Saeb Erekat and Yitzhak Molcho in Jordan.
The PLO “retreated from its earlier position that they will not return to negotiations, until settlement expansion is halted and all the political prisoners were released,” organizers said earlier in the week.
This is the “bare minimum demands of the Palestinian people,” a statement said.
Demonstrators on Saturday held signs urging drivers to honk their horns if they were in favor of ending negotiations with Israel, and many did like the week before.
Protesters at the demonstration said the latest rally ended without incident as participants grouped together and walked toward central Ramallah.
Last Saturday, Palestinian Authority security forces detained one person who was present at the event and interrogated him before releasing him about two hours later, they said.
This week, however, police mostly stuck to controlling traffic.
The protests followed meetings between Israeli and PLO envoys in Jordan, in what Western diplomats had hoped might lead to the resumption of full peace talks.
The discussions began on Jan. 3 and followed a long break in negotiations after President Mahmoud Abbas suspended talks 15 months ago over Israel’s expansion of settlements on Palestinian land.
But activists in Ramallah said the “exploratory” talks contradicted previous demands.
“The PLO’s reneging on their promise to the Palestinian people and their return to negotiations implies that the leadership accepts the continued theft and seizure of Palestinian lands, legitimizes the ever-going attacks of the settlers, and furthermore undermines the Palestinian people in whole,” Palestinians for Dignity said.
EDITOR: Who will pay the hackers?
After months of nasty cyber attacks by the new Cyber-terror unit of the IDF, there seems to be the usual disagreement about budgets. Maybe a collection drive abroad might help?…
Cyber-terror HQ stalled by spat over budget: Haaretz
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the creation of HQ in May, but the Defense Ministry is refusing to transfer money to it, claiming the Finance Ministry has hinted that it won’t be compensated for doing so.
By Guy Grimland
Israeli websites are under attack but the center for fighting cyber terror has no budget or employees because of a dispute between the defense and finance ministries.
In recent weeks hackers have been targeting prominent Israeli websites, paralyzing the homepages of large institutions – including the Stock Exchange – and exposing tens of thousands of credit card details.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the creation of the headquarters in May. It was supposed to receive NIS 500 million from the Defense Ministry.
But the Defense Ministry is refusing to transfer the money, claiming the Finance Ministry has hinted that it won’t be compensated for doing so.
Meanwhile, the headquarters’ founder, Isaac Ben-Israel, is at odds with Netanyahu over the lack of budget and the proposed structure.
Ben-Israel reportedly does not want his institution to be just an advisory body like the National Security Council. Instead, he wants it to oversee all state institutions involved in anti-cyber terror, including the Israel Defense Forces’ unit 8200, the relevant Shin Bet unit and the government’s online services unit.
It’s not clear whether all these entities would agree to having a new boss.
The original plan, announced in May, had included an academic research center alongside measures to protect the country from cyber attacks.
The headquarters’ chief, Dr. Eviatar Matanya, has been in the job for two weeks but is reportedly already looking to leave due to the lack of budget, backing and authority.
The prime minister’s communications staff stated that the unit is still new and like any new entity, it would take time to come together.
Israel’s immigration plan for ‘ethnically pure’ bunker state: Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook, The National, Jan 18, 2012
The wheel is turning full circle. Last week the Israeli parliament updated a 59-year-old law originally intended to prevent hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees from returning to the land from which they had been expelled as Israel was established.
The purpose of the draconian 1954 Prevention of Infiltration Law was to lock up any Palestinian who managed to slip past the snipers guarding the new state’s borders. Israel believed only savage punishment and deterrence could ensure it maintained the overwhelming Jewish majority it had recently created through a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Fast-forward six decades and Israel is relying on the infiltration law again, this time to prevent a supposedly new threat to its existence: the arrival each year of several thousand desperate African asylum seekers.
As it did with the Palestinians many years ago, Israel has criminalised these new refugees – in their case, for fleeing persecution, war or economic collapse. Whole families can now be locked up, without a trial, for three years while a deportation order is sought and enforced, and Israelis who offer them assistance risk jail sentences of up to 15 years.
Israel’s intention is apparently to put as many of these refugees behind bars as possible, and dissuade others from following in their footsteps.
To cope, officials have approved the building of an enormous detention camp, operated by Israel’s prison service, to contain 10,000 of these unwelcome arrivals. That will make it the largest holding facility of its kind in the world – according to Amnesty International, it will be three times bigger than the next largest, in the much more populous state of Texas.
Israeli critics of the law fear their country is failing in its moral duty to help those fleeing persecution, thereby betraying the Jewish people’s own experiences of suffering and oppression.
But the Israeli government and the large majority of legislators who backed the law – like their predecessors in the 1950s – have drawn a very different conclusion from history.
The new infiltration law is the latest in a set of policies fortifying Israel’s status as the world’s first “bunker state”- and one designed to be as ethnically pure as possible. The concept was expressed most famously by an earlier prime minister, Ehud Barak, who called Israel “a villa in the jungle”, relegating the country’s neighbours to the status of wild animals.
Mr Barak and his successors have been turning this metaphor into a physical reality, slowly sealing off their state from the rest of the region at astronomical cost, much of it subsidised by US taxpayers. Their ultimate goal is to make Israel so impervious to outside influence that no concessions for peace, such as agreeing to a Palestinian state, need ever be made with the “beasts” around them.
The most tangible expression of this mentality has been a frenzy of wall-building. The best-known are those erected around the Palestinian territories: first Gaza, then the areas of the West Bank Israel is not intending to annex – or, at least, not yet.
The northern border is already one of the most heavily militarised in the world – as Lebanese and Syrian protesters found to great cost last summer when dozens were shot dead and wounded as they approached or stormed the fences there. And Israel has a proposal in the drawer for another wall along the border with Jordan, much of which is already mined.
The only remaining border, the 260km one with Egypt, is currently being closed with another gargantuan wall. The plans were agreed before last year’s Arab revolutions but have gained fresh impetus with the overthrow of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.
Israel is not only well advanced on the walls of the bunker; it is also working round the clock on the roof. It has three missile-defence systems in various stages of development, including the revealingly named “Iron Dome”, as well as US Patriot batteries stationed on its soil. The interception systems are supposed to neutralise any combination of short and long-range missile attacks Israel’s neighbours might launch.
But there is a flaw in the design of this shelter, one that is apparent even to its architects. Israel is sealing itself in with some of the very “animals” the villa is supposed to exclude: not only the African refugees, but also 1.5 million “Israeli Arabs”, descendants of the small number of Palestinians who avoided expulsion in 1948.
This has been the chief motive for the steady stream of anti-democratic measures by the government and parliament that is rapidly turning into a torrent. It is also the reason for the Israeli leadership’s new-found demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel’s Jewishness; its obsessions with loyalty; and the growing appeal of population exchange schemes.
In the face of the legislative assault, Israel’s Supreme Court has grown ever more complicit. Last week, it sullied its reputation by upholding a law that tears apart families by denying tens of thousands of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship the right to live with a Palestinian spouse in Israel – “ethnic cleansing” by other means, as a leading Israeli commentator noted.
Back in the early 1950s, the Israeli army shot dead thousands of unarmed Palestinians as they tried to reclaim property that had been stolen from them. These many years later, Israel appears no less determined to keep non-Jews out of its precious villa.
The bunker state is almost finished. The question is whether, from the outset, that was the true goal of Israel’s founders.
Israel arrests Palestinian parliament speaker: AL Jazeera English
Abdel Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the defunct parliament and a member of Hamas, was arrested near Ramallah.
”]
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2012 22:35
The speaker of the defunct Palestinian parliament, a member of Hamas who was previously detained in connection with the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, has been arrested.
Abdel Aziz Dweik was arrested on Thursday at a checkpoint near Ramallah, in the West Bank, Hamas said. The Israeli military confirmed Dweik’s arrest.
Hamas accused Israel of arresting Dweik in an attempt to derail talks between Hamas and its rival Palestinian faction, Fatah, which have reportedly been trying to broker a deal that will unite them.
The Palestinian parliament has not functioned since Hamas seized control of Gaza from Fatah in 2007. Since then, the Western-backed Fatah governs the West Bank and Hamas runs Gaza.
Israel has targeted Dweik before. In 2006, after Israeli army soldier Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas during a cross-border raid, Israel arrested Dweik and others and kept him in jail for nearly three years.
Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, won the most seats in the Palestinian election in 2006, but Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas called for new elections, and the conflict slid into a brief war between the two sides.
EDITOR: Gideon Levy in his patriotic mode, again
Every now and then, Gideon claims to be areal patriot, and seems to really believe in this claim. As he is still a Zionist, despite what his detractors on the right are saying, he ends up using this position frequently, trying to save Zion ism from itself. He is bound to fail, of course… As one cannot out-Herod Herod, one cannot be more nationalist than an ultra-fascist, neither should one try…
Israel owes a great debt to Haaretz: Haaretz
I have no idea whether the newspaper is proud of me, but for the information of reader Netanyahu, I am so proud to write for Haaretz and so proud that Israel has Haaretz.
By Gideon Levy
This is the way they express themselves in private conversations and this is what they think. Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman calls Haaretz “Der Sturmer,” the notorious Nazi propaganda tabloid; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considers Haaretz one of Israel’s two greatest enemies, along with The New York Times. Even the denial issued by Netanyahu’s bureau over the remarks by Jerusalem Post editor, Steve Linde, was weak and foggy: “Iran is the greatest enemy,” with nary a word about Haaretz.
That is to be expected: the attack on Israeli democracy will not pass over Haaretz. Netanyahu and Neeman are expressing their worldview. They want Israel without the High Court of Justice, without nonprofit associations, without Haaretz. There is no point in explaining to them and their ilk the task of the press, particularly when the other protective mechanisms of democracy are being increasingly undermined. They will not understand.
A person who excoriates one of the world’s most widely-admired newspapers, The New York Times, attests more to his own character than to that of the object of his assault. But we shall say this to both of these individuals: Your Israel, the one you are shaping now, owes a great debt to Haaretz. No other media outlet gives Israel a better name than the one you attack. No other whisper coming out of Israel engenders so much respect for Israel because Haaretz is one of its newspapers.
Sometimes, it is even misleading. Quite a few people throughout the world mistakenly think Haaretz is Israel. No, Haaretz is not Israel, unfortunately, but it is a different voice – the minority voice, which must be heard. It proved every day, both locally and to the world, that Israel is not only Avigdor Lieberman.
One day of Operation Cast Lead gave Israel a worse name than everything that has ever been written in Haaretz, including articles by this writer. One month of Netanyahu in the prime minister’s office and Neeman as justice minister will do more damage than all the critical articles combined.
A great danger now threatens some of Israel’s media outlets, but the closure of only one of them will change this country’s image unrecognizably. It is not the most popular, far from it, but in certain respects it is the most important. Israel without Haaretz will be a different country. There are no other media outlets about which this can be said with such certainty. If Channel 10 closes – perish the thought – Channel 2 will fill the void; if Maariv shuts down, Yedioth Ahronoth will do the same work. If Haaretz distorts itself or closes, Israel’s image will also be distorted.
To be immodest for a moment, the cultural and artistic life of Israel would look different without Haaretz’s Gallery section and the literary supplement; social protest in Israel would look different without TheMarker; Israeli democracy would look different without the newspaper you are reading at this moment.
Israel’s greatest enemy is now standing guard, perhaps more than any other protective mechanism. Who covers racism like Haaretz does, or legislation, the occupation, corruption, exploitation and discrimination? Imagine Israel only with MK Danny Danon? Who would expose the shameful expulsion of 2,000 Cote d’Ivoire citizens, the lack of Amharic-speaking welfare workers, the role of Arab architects in Israeli life and David Vogel’s just-discovered book, all of which were covered in Friday’s Haaretz? It’s not what you thought it was, and certainly not what the prime minister thinks – and this is what they call “Der Sturmer” and an “enemy of Israel”!
In the spring of 1964, I published my first lines in the weekly children’s publication Our Haaretz. “One day a friend comes over. I want to play with him and who pushes himself in the middle? My brother, of course.” Eighteen years later I joined Haaretz. I have no idea whether the newspaper is proud of me, but for the information of reader Netanyahu, I am so proud to write for Haaretz and so proud that Israel has Haaretz.