EDITOR: Even the anti-Semites cannot invent this…

In an especially mad episode, a local leader and editor of a Jewish paper in Atlanta, is calling for Israel to assassinate his president… In Israel, this is hardly news – after all, some of Israel’s political leaders have called for Rabin to be killed, just before he was murdered. In the US it might be less normal, and maybe, just maybe, a little illegal? Rest assured, nothing will happen to this maniac, as he is Jewish, and Obama can hardly alienate the Jewish community in an election year. Good to see the stuff those guys are made of…

Uproar after Jewish American newspaper publisher suggests Israel assassinate Barack Obama: Haaretz

Op-ed in Atlanta Jewish Times says the slaying of the president may be an effective way to thwart Iran’s nuclear program.
By Chemi Shalev
NEW YORK – The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, Andrew Adler, has suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu consider ordering a Mossad hit team to assassinate U.S. President Barack Obama so that his successor will defend Israel against Iran.

Adler, who has since apologized for his article, listed three options for Israel to counter Iran’s nuclear weapons in an article published in his newspaper last Friday. The first is to launch a pre-emptive strike against Hamas and Hezbollah, the second is to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and the third is to “give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.”

Adler goes on to write: “Yes, you read “three correctly.” Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If have thought of this Tom-Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?”

Adler apologized yesterday for the article, saying “I very much regret it; I wish I hadn’t made reference to it at all,” Adler told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. And in an interview with Gawker.com, Adler denied that he was advocating an assassination of Obama.

The American Jewish Committee in Atlanta last night issued a harsh condemnation of Adler’s article, saying that his proposals are “shocking beyond belief.”

“While we acknowledge Mr. Adler’s apology, we are flabbergasted that he could ever say such a thing in the first place. How could he even conceive of such a twisted idea?” said Dov Wilker, director of AJC Atlanta. “Mr. Adler surely owes immediate apologies to President Obama, as well as to the State of Israel and his readership, the Atlanta Jewish community.”

Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, also blasted Adler on Friday, saying “There is absolutely no excuse, no justification, no rationalization for this kind of rhetoric. It doesn’t even belong in fiction. These are irresponsible and extremist words. It is outrageous and beyond the pale. An apology cannot possibly repair the damage. Irresponsible rhetoric metastasizes into more dangerous rhetoric. The ideas expressed in Mr. Adler’s column reflect some of the extremist rhetoric that unfortunately exists — even in some segments of our community — that maliciously labels President Obama as an ‘enemy of the Jewish people.’ Mr. Adler’s lack of judgment as a publisher, editor and columnist raises serious questions as to whether he’s fit to run a newspaper.”

 

EDITOR: The Iran war is being prepared, and the western public is asleep again!

Richard Falk excellent analysis is unfortunately not published on the Guardian or Independent, of course. Please help to spread this message by forwarding to all and sundry.

Stop Warmongering in the Middle East: RichardFalk

The public discussion in the West addressing Iran’s nuclear program has mainly relied on threat diplomacy, articulated most clearly by Israeli officials, but enjoying the strong direct and indirect backing of Washington and leading Gulf states.  Israel has also engaged in covert warfare against Iran in recent years, somewhat supported by the United States, that has inflicted violent deaths on civilians in Iran. Many members of the UN Security Council support escalating sanctions against Iran, and have not blinked when Tel Aviv and Washington talk menacingly about leaving all options on the table, which is ‘diplospeak’ for their readiness to launch a military attack. At last, some signs of sanity are beginning to emerge to slow the march over the cliff. For instance, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, commented harshly on this militarist approach: “I have no doubt that it would pour fuel on a fire which is already smoldering, the hidden smoldering fire of Sunni-Shia confrontation, and beyond that [it would cause] a chain reaction. I don’t know where it would stop.” And a few days ago even the normally hawkish Israeli Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, evidently fearful of international panic and a preemptive response by Tehran, declared that any decision to launch a military attack by Israel is ‘very far off,’ words that can be read in a variety of ways, mostly not genuinely reassuring.

It is not only an American insistence, despite pretending from time to time an interest in a diplomatic solution, that only threats and force are relevant to resolve this long incubating political dispute with Iran, but more tellingly, it is the stubborn refusal by Washington to normalize relations with Iran, openly repudiate the Israeli war drums, and finally accept the verdict of history in Iran adverse to its strategic ambitions. The United States has shown no willingness despite the passage of more than 30 years to accept the outcome of Iran’s popular revolution of 1978-79 that nonviolently overthrew the oppressive regime of the Shah. We need also to remember that the Shah had been returned to power in 1953 thanks to the CIA in a coup against the constitutional and democratically elected government of Mohamed Mossadegh, whose main crime was to nationalize the Iranian oil industry. This prolonged unwillingness of Washington to have normal diplomatic contact with Iran has been a sure recipe for international tension and misunderstanding, especially taking into account this historical background of American intervention in Iran, as well as the thinly disguised interest in recovering access to Iran’s high quality oil fields confirmed by its willingness to go along with Israel’s militarist tactics and diplomacy.

This conflict-oriented mentality is so strong in relation to Iran than when others try their best to smooth diplomatic waters, as Brazil and Turkey did in the May 2010, the United States angrily responds that such countries should mind their own business, which is an arrogant reprimand, considering that Turkey is Iran’s next door neighbor, and has the most to lose if a war results from the unresolved dispute involving Iran’s contested nuclear program. It should be recalled that in 2010 Iran formally agreed with leaders from Brazil and Turkey to store half or more of its then stockpile of low enriched uranium in Turkey, materials that would be needed for further enrichment if Iran was truly determined to possess a nuclear bomb as soon as possible. Instead of welcoming this constructive step back from the precipice Washington castigated the agreement as diversionary, contending that it interfered with the mobilization of support in the Security Council for ratcheting up sanctions intended to coerce Iran into giving up its right to a complete nuclear fuel cycle. Such criticism of Turkey and Brazil for its engagement with peace diplomacy contrasts with its tacit endorsement of Israeli recourse to terrorist tactics in its efforts to destabilize Iran, or possibly to provoke Iran to the point that it retaliates, giving Tel Aviv the pretext it seems to seek to begin open warfare.

Iran is being accused of moving toward a ‘breakout’ capability in relation to nuclear weapons, that is, possessing a combination of knowhow and enough properly enriched uranium to produce nuclear bombs within a matter of weeks, or at most months. Tehran has repeatedly denied any intention to become a nuclear weapons state, but has insisted all along that it has the same legal rights under the Nonproliferation Treaty as such other non-nuclear states as Germany and Japan, and this includes the right to have a complete nuclear fuel cycle, which entails enrichment capabilities and does imply a breakout capability. In the background, it should be realized that even the 1968 Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons contains a provision that allows a party to withdraw from the obligations under the treaty if it gives three months notice and ‘decides that extraordinary events..have jeopardized its supreme national interests.’(Article X) Such a provision, in effect, acknowledges the legal right of a country to determine its own security requirements in relation to nuclear weapons, a right that both the United States and Israel in different ways have implicitly exercised for decades with stunning irresponsibility that includes secrecy, a failure to pursue nuclear disarmament that is an obligation of the treaty, and a denial of all forms of international accountability. The real ‘threat’ posed by a hypothetical Iran bomb is to Israel’s regional monopoly over nuclear weapons. As three former Mossad chiefs have stated, even if Iran were to acquire a few nuclear bombs, Israel would still face no significant additional threat to its security or existence, as any attack would be manifestly suicidal, and Iran has shown no such disposition toward recklessness in its foreign policy.

To be objective commentators we must ask ourselves whether Iran’s posture toward its nuclear program is unreasonable under these circumstances. Is not Iran a sovereign state with the same right as other states to uphold its security and political independence when facing threats from its enemies armed with nuclear weapons? When was the last time resorted to force against a hostile neighbor? The surprising answer is over 200 years ago! Can either of Iran’s antagonists claim a comparable record of living within its borders? Why does Iran not have the same right as other states to take full advantage of nuclear technology? And given Israeli hostility, terrorist assaults, and military capabilities that includes sophisticated nuclear warheads, delivery style, and a record of preemptive war making, would it not be reasonable for Iran to seek, and even obtain, a nuclear deterrent? True, the regime in Iran has been oppressive toward its domestic opposition and its president has expressed anti-Israeli views in inflammatory language (although exaggerated in the West), however unlike Israel, without ever threatening or resorting to military action. It should also be appreciated that Iran has consistently denied an intention to develop nuclear weaponry, and claims only an interest in using enriched uranium for medical research and nuclear energy. Even if there are grounds to be somewhat skeptical about such reassurances, given the grounds for suspicion that have been ambiguously and controversially validated by reports from International Atomic Energy Agency, this still does not justify sanctions, much less threats backed up by deployments, war games, projected attack scenarios, and a campaign of terrorist violence.

So far no prominent advocates of confrontation with Iran have been willing to acknowledge the obvious relevance of Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Is not the actuality of nuclear weaponry, not only an Iranian breakout potential but a substantial arsenal of Israeli weaponry secretly acquired (200-300 warheads), continuously upgraded, and coupled with the latest long distance delivery capabilities, the most troublesome threat to regional stability and peace? At minimum, are not Israel’s nuclear weapons stockpile highly relevant both to bring stability and for an appraisal of Iran’s behavior? The United States and Israel behave in the Middle East as if the golden rule of international politics is totally inapplicable, that you can do unto others, what you are unwilling to have them do unto you!

We need, as well, to remember the lessons of recent history bearing on the counter-proliferation tactics relied upon in recent years by the United States. Iraq was attacked in 2003 partly because it did not have any nuclear weapons, while North Korea has been spared such a comparably horrific fate because it possesses a retaliatory capability that would likely be used if attacked, and has the capability to inflict severe harm on neighboring countries. If this experience relating to nuclear weapons is reasonably interpreted it could incline governments that have hostile relations to the West to opt for a nuclear weapons option as necessary step to discourage attacks and interventions. Surely putting such reasoning into practice would not be good for the region, possibly igniting a devastating war, and almost certainly leading to the spread of nuclear weapons to other Middle Eastern countries. Instead of moving to coerce, punish, and frighten Iran in ways that are almost certain to increase the incentives of Iran and others to possess nuclear weaponry, it would seem prudent and in the mutual interest of all to foster a diplomacy of de-escalation, a path that Iran has always signaled its willingness to pursue. And diplomatic alternatives to confrontation and war exist, but require the sort of political imagination that seems totally absent in the capitals of hard power geopolitics.

It should be obvious to all but the most dogmatic warmongers that the path to peace and greater stability in the region depends on taking two steps long overdue, and if not taken, at least widely debated in public: first, establishing a nuclear free Middle East by a negotiated and monitored agreement that includes all states in the region, including Israel and Iran; secondly, an initiative promoted by the United Nations and backed by a consensus of its leading members to outline a just solution for the Israel/Palestine conflict that is consistent with Palestinian rights under international law, including the Palestinian right of self-determination, which if not accepted by Israel (and endorsed by the Palestinian people) within twelve months would result in the imposition of severe sanctions. Not only would such initiatives promote peace and prosperity for the Middle East, but this turn to diplomacy and law would serve the cause of justice both by putting an end to the warmongering of recent years and to the intolerable denial of rights to the Palestinian people that goes back to at least 1947, and was later intensified by the oppressive occupation of East Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza that resulted from the outcome of the 1967 War.

These manifestly beneficial alternatives to sanctions and war is neither selected, nor even considered in the most influential corridors of opinion-making. It is simple to explain why: world order continues to be largely shaped by the rule of power rather than the rule of law, or by recourse to the realm of rights, and no where more so than in the Middle East where the majority of the world’s oil reserves are located, and where an expansionist Israel refuses to make real peace with its neighbors while subjugating the Palestinian people to an unendurable ordeal. Unfortunately, a geopolitical logic prevails in world politics, which means that inequality, hierarchy, and hard power control the thought and action of powerful governments whenever toward strategic interests are at stake. Perhaps, a glance at recent history offers the most convincing demonstration of the validity of this assessment: Western military interventions in Iraq and Libya, as well as the intimidating threats of attacks on Iran, three states in the region with oil and regimes unfriendly to the West. Egypt and Tunisia, the first-born children of the Arab Spring, were undoubtedly politically advantaged by not being major oil producing states, although Egypt is not as lucky as Tunisia because Israel and the United States worry that a more democratic Egyptian government might abandon the 1978 Peace Treaty and show greater solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, and are doing what they can to prevent Cairo from moving in such directions.

Fortunately, there is a growing, although still marginal, recognition that despite all the macho diplomacy of recent years, a military option is not really viable. It would not achieve its objective of destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and it would in all likelihood confirm the opinions among Iranian hawkish factions that only the possession of nuclear weapons will keep their country from facing the catastrophe brought on by a military attack. Beyond this, attacking Iran would almost certainly unleash retaliatory responses, possibly blocking the Straits of Hormuz, which carry 20% of the world’s traded oil, and possibly leading to direct missile strikes directed at Israel and some of the Gulf countries. Given this prospect, there is beginning to be some indication that the West is at last beginning to consider alternatives to hot war in responding to Iran.

But so far this realization is leading not to the peaceful initiatives mentioned earlier, but to a reliance on ‘war’ by other means. The long confrontation with Iran has developed its own momentum that makes any fundamental adjustment seem politically unacceptable to the United States and Israel, a sign of weakness and geopolitical defeat. And so as the prospect of a military attacked is temporarily deferred for reasons of prudence, as Barak confirmed, but in its place is put this intensified and escalating campaign of violent disruption, economic coercion, and outright terrorism. Such an ongoing effort to challenge Iran has produced a series of ugly and dangerous incidents that might at some point in the near future provoke a hostile Iranian reaction, generating a sequence of action and reaction that could plunge the region into a disastrous war and bring on a worldwide economic collapse.

The main features of this disturbing pattern of covert warfare are becoming clear, and are even being endorsed in liberal circles because such a course of action is seen as less harmful to Western interests than an overt military attack, proceeding on the assumptions that are no better alternatives than confrontation in some form.  Israel, with apparent American collaboration, assassinates Iranian nuclear scientists, infects Iranian nuclear centrifuges used to enrich uranium with a disabling Stuxnet virus, and recruits Iranians to join Jundallah, an anti-regime terrorist organization in Iran, to commit acts of violence against civilian targets, such as the 2009 attack on the mosque in Zahedan that killed 25 worshippers and wounded many others. The New York Times in an editorial  (January 13, 2012) describes these tactics dispassionately without ever taking note of their objectionable moral or legal character: “An accelerating covert campaign of assassinations, bombings, cyber attacks and defections—carried out mainly by Israel, according to The Times—is slowing..[Iran’s nuclear] program, but whether that is enough is unclear.” The editorial observes that “a military strike would be a disaster,” yet this respected, supposedly moderate, editorial voice only questions whether such a pattern of covert warfare will get the necessary job done of preventing Iran from possessing a nuclear option sometime in the future.

It should be obvious that if it was Iran that was engaging in similar tactics to disrupt Israeli military planning or to sabotage Israel’s nuclear establishment liberal opinion makers in the West would be screaming their denunciations of Iran’s barbaric lawlessness. Such violations of Israel sovereignty and international law would be certainly regarded by the West as unacceptable forms of provocation that would fully justify a major Israeli military response, and make the outbreak of war seem inevitable and unavoidable.

And when Iran did recently react to the prospect of new international sanctions making its sale of oil far more difficult by threatening to block passage through the Straights of Hormuz, the United States reacted by sending additional naval vessels to the area and warning Tehran that any interference with international shipping would be ‘a red line’ leading to U.S. military action. It should be incredible to appreciate that assassinating nuclear scientists in Iran is okay with the arbiters of international behavior while interfering with the global oil market crosses a war-provoking red line. These self-serving distinctions illustrate the dirty work of geopolitics in the early 21st century.

There are some lonely voices calling for a nuclear free Middle East and a just settlement of the Israeli/Palestine conflict, but even with credentials like long service in the CIA or U.S. State Department, these calls are almost totally absent in the mainstream discourse that controls debate in the United States and Israel. When some peaceful alternatives are entertained at all it is always within the framework of preventing Iran doing what it seems entitled to do from the perspectives of law and prudence. I am afraid that only when and if a yet non-existent Global Occupy Movement turns its attention to geopolitics will the peoples of the Middle East have some reason to hope for a peaceful and promising future for their region.

Continue reading Jauary 21, 2012

EDITOR: Even Haaretz is a willing participant in the settlers campaign against civil rights activists!

Read the shocking evidence below, about the fake ad published in Haaretz. This was really silenced in Israel, of course.

HAARETZ PUBLISHES FRAUDULENT AD SUPPORTING SETTLER PRICE TAG ATTACKS WITH FORGED PEACE ACTIVIST NAMES: Tikun_Olam

There is a brewing media scandal in Israel that has received scant attention.  Let’s try to change that.  Earlier this week, a fictitious settler group published an ad in Haaretz supporting price tag attacks.  One point they made in their support was the claim that price tag attacks are civil disobedience in the same sense that Ilana Hammerman’s group, We Do Not Obey, is.  She is the activist who began a protest movement by driving Palestinian mothers and children from the West Bank into Israel in order to take them to the beach, amusement parks, zoos, etc.  For her efforts, she’s been rewarded by three police summonses for questioning including a warning of criminal prosecution.  It is illegal both for Palestinians to enter Israel without proper permits and it is illegal for Israeli citizens to bring such individuals into Israel.
We Do Not Obey acts in ways that are totally non-violent and designed to promote tolerance and peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians while price tag is a violent, abusive and illegal form, not of civil disobedience, but of hooliganism and even terror.  The very comparison of the two is an act of outrageous chutzpah.

What is even more shocking about the ad than the bogus logic of the argument offered in it, is the fact that the ad purported to be signed by settler women who support the price tag acts of vandalism and defacement of Palestinian mosques, cemeteries, etc.  It also listed the purported settlements in which each endorser lived.  In reality, every woman’s name included in the ad is a member of Ilana Hammerman’s group of peace activists.  In other words, the individual who created the ad engaged in an act of fraud and Haaretz abetted the fraud by accepting the ad and asking no questions to verify the authenticity of those names.  Nor did it verify the authenticity of the fake group which purported to sponsor the ad.
CORRECTION: The information in the following paragraph was provided by sources close to this story.  But it was incomplete.  Haaretz’s weekend supplement editor had told Ilana before the ad was published that she would not be asked further to write about her activism in that section, which is the most popular and widely read.  This decision was independent of the ad controversy and did not effect her publishing for other sections of the paper, which are still open to her.
Further, after Haaretz discovered it had been duped, it notified Hammerman that it would no longer accept any op-ed pieces by her about her work with We Do Not Obey (as it had in the past).  It appears that Haaretz, instead of blaming the person who perpetrated the fraud, is washing its hands of Hammerman and her entire movement.  A clear case if there ever was one of blaming the victim.  Instead of showing respect for fairness and freedom of speech, and apologizing for their error in helping defame these women, Haaretz takes a typically liberal approach and absconds from the entire controversy.

We now know who is the author of the fraud.  He is Benny Katzover, a notorious settler activist.  Here is the audio transcript of the interview in which he took credit for the ad.  Among his recent claims to fame (or better yet, infamy) is an interview he published in a Chabad journal, claiming the Israeli democracy had outlived its usefulness and should give way to a state governed by Jewish law (“We didn’t come here to establish a democratic state”).  Does anyone besides me find it ironic (or possibly sociopathic) that a radical settler who rejects Israeli democracy defends price tag attacks as legitimate forms of civil disobedience?
We don’t know who paid for the $1,000-1,500 cost of the ad.  Haaretz knows, but I doubt they’re going to tell.  A source I’ve consulted who is knowledgeable about the story believes that the funding came from either a settlement or a settler agency, which may mean that the State itself paid for the ad (either directly or indirectly).  In fact, a statement on the group’s Facebook page declares the ad was likely paid for through public funds.  This would mean that this act of fraud was actually endorsed and paid for by a government entity and the taxpayers of Israel.  Further, it would mean that public funds were used to endorse the acts of hooliganism and lawlessness represented by the price tag movement.  In the event that this claim is true, it would mean that while Israel’s leaders are publicly decrying price tag pogromism, other parts of the Israeli government or its public agencies are actually endorsing it.  Does this surprise anyone?
It also shouldn’t surprise anyone the government would smear Hammerman since her activism is considered a prime example of delegitimization, the right-wing concept du jour.  Yuli Edelstein’s Hasbara ministry is charged with combatting delegitimization and Edelstein himself is a prominent settler leader.  It wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility that his agency could’ve played some role in the attack, though I’m still exploring this angle of the story.
The women of We Do Not Obey have been consulting an attorney to decide how to proceed.  It’s ironic that the draconian proposed defamation law that may shortly pass the Knesset and become law would greatly aid these women in their pursuit of justice.  It would allow them to personally win substantial financial compensation of up to $75,000 each (for 40 women) from Katzover without having to prove any financial damage to them.  The Israeli far-right devised this cockamamie law to use against the Israeli NGO and peace activist community.  It never occurred to them that it could be used against them as well by the Israeli left.  That’s how smart these dullards are.

EDITOR: Israeli racism and discrimination – no longer possible to hide under the carpet…

Racism against black Jews in Israel, and even more against black non-Jews, has become so intense that it inhabits much of the media output this week. I have gathered a range of articles, all dealing with this growing alienation of blacks in Israel. If that is how Israeli society, this Jewish Democracy, treats black Jews, one can easily imagine how they treat the Palestinians.

If anything, the article below is infuriating in its insistence of denial – in the name of liberal values, it continues to deny the racist basis of Zionism and Israeli policies. If only they just continued to apply racism to the Palestinians, that would be OK, supposedly… The idea of a Jewish state, racist in itself, does not bother him. On the contrary, he is claiming that in that name he wished racism against Jews to cease… Racism and discrimination on the basis of religion are so normalised into the ideology and state structure and practice, that to dislodge them is an impossible task.

Israeli society is tainted by racism: Haartez

Our muted reaction to the treatment of Ethiopian-Israelis in Kiryat Malakhi is a silence that damns us all.
By Anshel Pfeffer
I hate writing about racism. It is such a heavy and deadening word, though people seem to glibly toss it around. I feel that accusing a person of being a racist, or ascribing racism to entire groups and societies, is such a terrible charge that it does not allow us to carry on a rational debate once it has been made. It just taints everything and everyone, and the moment it is out there, we can’t trust ourselves to say or even think freely, lest we be associated and tarred by the same brush.

We don’t think of ourselves or the ones we love as racists. If a friend or family member lets slip an ethnic slur or bigoted remark, we make up some kind of excuse in our mind. It was just a careless utterance, we say to ourselves; she’s a bit old-fashioned and not entirely aware of today’s sensibilities; he just expressed himself badly, that wasn’t actually what he meant.

Of course we can’t be close to a racist. Even when it’s not people we personally know, if they resemble us at all – not members of a closed and blinkered community or citizens of some other backward country, but just ordinary people – we don’t want to believe they are racists. Racism is a heinous crime, like being a murderer. Only twisted and depraved individuals are capable of it, not people like you and me.

The very idea that 120 homeowners in Kiryat Malakhi, ordinary mainstream Israelis, signed a secret undertaking not to sell or rent their apartments to Israeli-Ethiopian families – as reported by Channel 2 last week – is so awful that I really want to believe the denials, as faint as they are. A few residents who were prepared to voice crude and vulgar opinions on screen can be explained away as ill-educated misfits, but 120 of them? But the fact remains, not one Israeli-Ethiopian lives in those four new apartment towers, though some have tried to rent there. And this in a town with a sizable Ethiopian community that suffers housing shortages.

What makes this story even more awful is that, since I can’t fathom every one of those 120 owners being racist, I start making excuses for them in my mind. They are not to be blamed for the housing market, after all. Is it their fault that when large numbers of Israeli-Ethiopian families move into a neighborhood, the apartment prices are driven down? After all, these apartments are their main asset: If the value goes down by ten or twenty percent, or even more, is it their responsibility to suffer a severe financial penalty for the cold real-estate realities?

How many of us can say without hesitation that we would jeopardize our property and fortunes so as not to be part of a racist agreement? Most of us live in neighborhoods where we will not be confronted with that dilemma. But does a racial current running through the property business mean that an entire society is racist? That depends on our definition of a racist. Does remaining silent qualify? What about the fact that hundreds of thousands of middle-class Israelis took to the streets last summer to protest against the tax burden and the high prices, but last week in Kiryat Malakhi only a couple of thousand protestors, mainly Israeli-Ethiopians, turned up. That doesn’t make those who marched on Rothschild Boulevard racist, but they did not make the short drive down to support the protest in Kiryat Malakhi.

Israelis are extremely sensitive to having their society branded as racist. And in many ways that sensitivity is justified. The state was founded by the survivors of the worst racist crime in history, and many of those who arrived from Arab lands were also the victims of a racist forced expulsion. The countries around us are much more sectarian, while many other western societies suffer from similar ills, yet the international media does single Israel out to a disproportionate degree.

Israel frequently gets called an apartheid state, a comparison that is not only historically erroneous but also counterproductive when used to describe the situation of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians under occupation. Arabs are discriminated in Israel and the Palestinians should have their own state, instead of being occupied, but the racist tendencies on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are symptoms, not root causes. A state for the Jews in the historical land of Israel was a necessary creation and can still be a noble enterprise, not a racist concept.

But while you can oppose the two-state solution for legitimate and nonracist reasons, discrimination of Israeli-Ethiopians has no political or national basis. It can stem only from racist feelings. And since almost none of us do anything about this, we are all at least tainted by racism.

Tenuous connection
There are different theories and opinions regarding the actual historical connection of the Beta Israel to the Jewish people. From what I have read and seen, I think this was tenuous at best. After covering this issue closely, I don’t think the Falashmura still in Ethiopia have any claim to Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return. And on a totally different level, after eating at Ethiopian restaurants in Israel, the United States and Ethiopia, I have to say that it is one of my least favorite cuisines.

But while these opinions and culinary dislikes are based on my research and personal palate, I write them with trepidation because they resemble racist tropes that you can hear today around Israel. What if I am unwittingly giving succor to racists? And looking within myself, can I be totally certain that I am writing without a gram of racism of my own? It is, after all, a human emotion.

Israel has adequate legislation against racist discrimination, and occasionally this is implemented effectively. But we must acknowledge that racism is prevalent on a local level – and not only in the low-income areas, where access to education, employment, decent housing and social services is relatively limited and Israeli-Ethiopians lose out to other communities with better connections and more resources. The indifference of ordinary Israelis to this situation may not make them racists themselves. But by hiding our heads in the utopian sand, we are willing accomplices to racism.

Continue reading January 20, 2012

EDITOR: BDS is getting stronger across America

One of the signs of the growing strength of the BDS movement across the US, is the growing opposition to it by the leaders of American Zionism, ironically. The more widespread and ubiquitous BDS becomes, the more action is required from Zionists to try and defeat it. In the article below, you can read about the great power wielded by Zionist Jews in the US academic sector, and how they use their power to advance aggressive and militarist Zionist colonialism. They will be defeated, nonetheless, like the similar action was defeated in South Africa.

College Leaders Balance Israel and Speech: Forward

Jewish Presidents Often Find They Must Leave Loyalty Behind
By Naomi Zeveloff
Published January 17, 2012, issue of January 20, 2012.

As the debate about Israel rages on college campuses across America, there is one figure for whom the conversation takes on strikingly personal dimensions: the Jewish college president.
About 20 Jewish men and women hold the highest positions at universities across the country, including campuses that have become hotbeds of political activism on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For these individuals, the role of president entails a constant balancing act between encouraging free speech on campus and honoring their personal, often supportive, views of Israel.

In a series of interviews with the Forward, 10 current and former Jewish college presidents held forth on what the University of California’s Mark Yudof described as the “schizophrenia” of the Jewish college president — the moments when one’s Jewish identity bumps up against the interests of the institution. For many college presidents, the movement to boycott, divest from and implement sanctions against Israel — commonly known as BDS — represented a red line: Presidents who were previously disinclined to speak out against anti-Israel activity on campus in the name of preserving open dialogue found themselves publicly opposing the movement.
But going public on Israel had its limits. Several presidents voiced exasperation with the Jewish community’s scrutiny of campus events, preferring to mediate the Israel-Palestine debate internally. Still others described their efforts to extinguish sparks before they flared into small fires, by coaching Jewish and Muslim students in civil dialogue.
Yudof, who has run the 10-college U.C. system since 2008, is one president for whom the topic of BDS merited not only public condemnation, but also action. A self-described “strong defender of Israel” who oversees some of the most combustive campuses in America, Yudof has been alternately portrayed as a First Amendment wonk out of step with Jewish interests and an unblinking Zionist beholden to them.
In 2010, when U.C. Berkeley and U.C. San Diego students introduced bills in their student governments calling for divestment from General Electric Co. and United Technologies — two companies that manufacture Israeli military gear — Yudof felt compelled to take a decisive step. That May, he issued a statement saying that the Board of Regents would not consider BDS, since it was the board’s policy to take up divestment only if America’s government said that the regime in question was committing genocide. But for Yudof, there was a secondary reason.

click here to see the map

“I thought there was a double standard with Israel,” he said. “It was unimaginable. Other countries were given a pass, and they were going to enforce this boycott against a tiny country in the Middle East. In my judgment, but for it being the Jewish state, it would not be on their list for a boycott.”
In the end, neither school adopted the bills.
Judith Shapiro, who served as president of Barnard College from 1994 to 2008, cited similar reasons for publicly opposing the BDS movement at Columbia University and Barnard in 2002. Her term at Barnard saw a major flare-up on the topic of Israel when Jewish alumni and community members vociferously opposed the tenure of professor Nadia Abu El Haj, contending that her book, “Facts on the Ground,” called into question the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. Shapiro took a hands-off approach in this instance, reassuring alumni that the tenure process would examine El Haj — who was eventually hired — fairly and vigorously.
But in the case of a faculty and student call for BDS, Shapiro went public. She issued a statement with Columbia President Lee Bollinger, saying that the two opposed BDS in part because it squelched public debate about the conflict on campus. The university’s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing took up the question of divesting from companies that benefit from the Israeli occupation, but the proposal was ultimately rejected.
“I felt that I needed to make a statement, because just as I don’t like making Israel so sacred that it can’t be criticized — and by the way, there is way more freedom and diversity of political views in Israel than in the American Jewish community — I don’t like Israel being singled out as a great evil that we have to focus on,” Shapiro said. “When I make a statement about something, I am not expecting everyone to agree with me, but I think presidents need to take a stand on a variety of issues.”
But for one college president, his commitment to open dialogue on campus trumped his desire to speak out against BDS. Former University of Vermont president Daniel Fogel, who served from 2002 until last July, said that his personal aversion to a divestment campaign on campus in spring 2011 was so strong that he would have stepped down if it had been implemented. “I think divestment from Israel would have been a travesty. To me it would have been an expression of anti-Semitism,” he said. “Had the university gone in that direction, I don’t think I would have continued as president.”
But Fogel said that his personal feelings on BDS should not have gotten in the way of the university’s procedures for dealing with thorny questions. When the BDS proposal made its way to UVM’s Socially Responsible Investing Working Group, Fogel began to field calls from Jewish alumni and donors who were concerned, he said, that the university was going to take an anti-Semitic position that “would have ended their relationship with the community and their support for it.” Fogel held his ground, privately reassuring donors that the university would give the BDS question a thorough review. The working group ended up tabling the proposal.
“I feel myself to be a strong supporter of Israel. And I am personally deeply offended by the idea that the State of Israel should be held to markedly higher standards than any other nation state when its survival is at issue,” Fogel said. “But that is a personal view. I don’t indulge myself in expressing my personal view at the expense of building the political capital of the university to achieve the highest possible levels of public support consistent with my fiduciary responsibility as the leader of the institution.”
Fogel wasn’t the only president to describe pressure from alumni and community members to quash perceived anti-Israel activity on campus. But not every Jewish college president welcomed such community input. Some presidents said that outsiders looking in held distorted views of the Israel discussion on campus, often seeing fires where there weren’t any.
A prime example of this phenomenon is at Brandeis University; its historic ties with the Jewish community make it the subject of special attention from Jewish organizations and individuals.
As noted in a recent Anti-Defamation League report, in the past academic year, the campus’s Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace chapters hosted Israeli Occupation Awareness Week, featuring speeches by Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguist and noted Israel critic, and Diana Buttu, a former Palestinian negotiator. President Frederick Lawrence — who is widely considered a moderate on Israel in comparison with his predecessor, Jehuda Reinharz — said he was unsurprised by the Israel conversation on campus.
“If anything surprised me, and maybe it shouldn’t surprise me, it is the way in which the world and specifically the Jewish world will blow some things that happen here out of proportion,” he said. “If a group of students decide to distribute leaflets on a certain position, some people will think that the university supports that position. What it means is that the university has supported the right of students to have that point of view.
“I think we have an obligation to have a fact-based and reasonable discussion of Middle East issues that has to take place within the context of civility. I don’t feel that for Israel to come out well in a discussion, certain viewpoints have to be taken off the table. In a full and reasonable and civil discussion of the Middle East, Israel will come out fine.”
At Rice University, in Houston, President David Leebron echoed this viewpoint, saying that the Israeli-Palestinian debate on campus is the subject of outsized, critical attention in the community, particularly in the local Jewish newspaper, which often prints negative articles about biased events at Rice. For instance, the local community made a fuss about the presence of Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator, on Rice’s campus. But soon after, Rice hosted Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, a favorite target of pro-Palestinian groups.
“Sometimes what happens is that off-campus people who are very issue oriented take that one event out of context and try to draw conclusions about the institution, and that is just not the way you can judge an academic institution,” Leebron said. “The idea that every time there is a speaker you don’t like you should register outrage is foreign to the concept of an academic institution. This is where a lot of the tension comes from.”
Perhaps the starkest example of outside groups involving themselves in campus life is in the use of federal civil rights law to protect Jewish students from anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity. In 2010, more than a dozen major Jewish organizations banded together to lobby the Department of Education to expand its definition of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to cover Jewish students, among other groups. Since then, there have been a handful of complaints filed with the Office for Civil Rights. Many of them originated with outside Jewish organizations.
While several college presidents expressed support for the inclusion of Jewish students under Title VI, others seemed skeptical of both the need for and the implementation of the law. University of Hartford President Walter Harrison said that while his campus is rather apolitical on the topic of Israel, he is well aware of the bitter debates at other schools — and he’s unsure of the value of Title VI.
“I prefer people at the university to try to work things out themselves,” he said.
When asked about the recent filing of a Title VI complaint at Columbia, Shapiro also questioned the need for federal protection. “The issues around blacks and Latinos are very different from the issues around Jews,” she said. “I don’t think that unless you are a serious victim, this whole victim stuff — even among groups like Latinos or African Americans, or women — is a strengthening thing to do. As far as Columbia is concerned, I hardly think that is a place where Jews should be fearful and disempowered.”
And at the University of California, where there are two outstanding Title VI complaints at U.C. Berkeley and U.C. Santa Cruz, Yudof said that while he felt “good” about the extension of Title VI, it would be difficult to prove that the students and faculty in question faced a pervasive, hostile atmosphere. “These cases have to be carefully crafted with a fact pattern that is compelling. I don’t think in either of these cases these fact patterns exist,” he said. “I think it is about people engaged in abhorrent speech on our campuses. But I am skeptical at the end of the day that with those two instances we will be found to be in violation of Title VI.”
But if some Jewish college presidents felt the need to protect their campuses from outside interference, they also expressed the desire to bolster their campuses from the inside out, taking preventative steps to avoid flare-ups. Stephen Trachtenberg, who served as president of George Washington University from 1988 to 2007, said that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the source of lively, civil discussion on campus.
“My way of dealing with these issues — and we did have a significant Islamic population, both domestic and international — was to be proactive,” he said. “I initiated programs before there were any issues.”
Midway into his tenure, Trachtenberg asked the campus Hillel if it would volunteer to host an Iftar, or evening meal, during Ramadan. The dinner has since become a quasi-diplomatic event in Washington each year, with representatives from the Israeli and Arab embassies, kosher and halal food, and Arab and Israeli music. The only tensions that have arisen have been cultural, when some religious Muslim students preferred to sit separately, based on gender. “What we did is, we said to the students: ‘If you want to sit at an all-male table, sit at an all-male table. The only thing you can’t do is sit with just Muslims or Jews.”
Across the country, at San Diego State University, President Elliot Hirshman said he hopes to avoid the clashes that have rippled across other California schools.
“If on campus we simply leave a group of 19- to 20-year-olds to sort things out amongst themselves, I don’t anticipate things ending well,” he said. “Often what you see is that the first interactions that students have is that they are discussing the historical conflict from their personal perspectives. But what we are working on at San Diego State is to have ongoing positive relationships from students of different groups.”
If there is one common thread in the experiences of Jewish college presidents today, it is their unanimous subscription to the maxim that the remedy for hate speech is more speech. “Censorship is not the way of the People of the Book,” Yudof told Hadassah at its national conference in 2008. “If there has ever been a people in the history of humankind that have benefited from the First Amendment protections of free exercise of religion and of limits on an established state religion, which obviously wouldn’t include Jews, and have ever benefited from freedom of the press and freedom of speech, it is the Jewish people in this country. This is not a principle that we should take lightly and should seek to undo lightly.”

Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/149684/?p=all#ixzz1jtL08MS7

 

 EDITOR: Read our letter in the Independent!

Ahava is an Israeli concern which steals minerals from the Palestinian Occupied Territories and sells them at great price abroad – only one of many companies which thrive on the military illegal occupation. The campaign against them is picking up in Europe and the US. The current iteration is an action we are developing against Ahava’s inclusion in a research project funded by the EU, with the Natural History Museum, Kings College London and the Imperial College. Please read the letter and send it to all and sundry.

Letters: Museum must drop West Bank link: Independent letters

TUESDAY 17 JANUARY 2012

It is extraordinary, but true, that one of our great national museums is co-ordinating an activity that breaks international law. That museum is the Natural History Museum, which is collaborating in research with an Israeli commercial firm located in an illegal settlement in the Palestinian West Bank.

The firm is Ahava/Dead Sea Laboratories, whose business is manufacturing cosmetics out of mud, which it excavates from the banks of the Dead Sea. Ahava/DSL is located at Mitzpe Shalem, a settlement 10km beyond the Green Line. The collaboration with the Museum is through an EU-funded project called Nanoretox, in which Kings College London, Imperial College and a number of foreign institutions are also involved. The museum is the coordinating partner for this project.

Ahava/DSL is based on occupied territory. It extracts, processes and exports Palestinian resources to generate profits that fund an illegal settlement. Israel’s settlement project has been held by the International Court of Justice to break international law. Organisations which aid and abet this process may well themselves be found to be in violation. We find it almost inconceivable that a national institution of the status of the Natural History Museum should have put itself in this position.

We call on the museum to take immediate steps to terminate its involvement in Nanoretox and to establish safeguards that protect against any comparable entanglement.

Professor Sir Patrick Bateson FRS
University of Cambridge

Professor Malcolm Levitt FRS
University of Southampton

Professor Tim Shallice FRS
SISSA, Trieste

Mike Leigh

Ken Loach

Jonathan Miller

Victoria Brittain

Baroness Tonge

Dr Gillian Yudkin

Professor Laurence Dreyfus FBA
University of Oxford

Professor Jacqueline Rose FBA
Queen Mary University of London

Professor Jonathan Rosenhead
London School of Economics

Professor John Armitage
University of Bristol

Professor Haim Bresheeth
University of East London

Professor Barry Fuller
University College London

Professor Colin Green
University College, London

Dr Ghada Karmi
University of Exeter

Professor Adah Kay
City University

Professor David Pegg
University of York

Professor Steven Rose
Open University

Professor Lynne Segal
Birkbeck College

Natural History Museum attacked over links to ‘illegal’ Israeli company: Indpendent

The Natural History Museum is today accused by a coalition of prominent academics and cultural figures of helping to break international law by leading a research project which involves an Israeli cosmetics company based in an “illegal” settlement in the occupied West Bank.

In a letter to The Independent, leading scientists and the film directors Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, condemn the London museum – which is the fourth most visited in Britain – for its research collaboration with Ahava – Dead Sea Laboratories (DSL), which sells beauty products based on minerals extracted from the Dead Sea.

The museum, which has a substantial academic research team, is co-ordinating NANORETOX, a European Union-funded project looking at any risks to human health and the environment posed by so-called nanoparticles – microscopic engineered materials which scientists are developing for multiple uses from cancer treatment to double glazing.

Ahava-DSL, which is one of a dozen institutions and companies involved in the project including two University of London colleges, has its registered headquarters listed in Israel but most of its activities are carried out in Mitzpe Shalem, a Jewish settlement on the edge of the Dead Sea in the West Bank.

Settlements in the Occupied Territories have been declared illegal under international law by the United Nations and the International Court of Justice. But despite international condemnation, the Israeli government insists that a large number of the settlements, including more than 120 on the West Bank, are not illegal.

In their letter, the 21 signatories, who include the eminent biologist Sir Patrick Bateson, president of the Zoological Society of London, and leading intellectual Sir Jonathan Miller, claim that the Natural History Museum’s connection with Ahava-DSL means that it is “co-ordinating an activity that breaks international law”.

They said: “[Ahava-DSL] extracts, processes and exports Palestinian resources to generate profits that fund an illegal settlement. Israel’s settlement project  has been held… to break international law. Organisations which aid and abet this process may well themselves be found to be in violation.

“We find it almost inconceivable that a national institution of the status of the Natural History Museum should have put itself in this position. We call on the museum to take immediate steps to terminate its involvement in [the project] and to establish safeguards that protect against any comparable entanglement.”

The NANORETOX project began in December 2008 and is due to conclude at the end of this year, although campaigners say the involvement of Ahava-DSL has only now come to their attention. The company, which has conducted extensive research on nanoparticles for its products, was appointed to the project to supply materials and carry out toxicity tests.

The Natural History Museum yesterday defended its role in the research, saying that Ahava-DSL was chosen from a listed of scientific partners approved by the European Commission and suggested that any decision to boycott the project could be a challenge to “academic freedom”.

In a statement, Professor Ian Owens, the musuem’s director of science, said: “We work within the legal and policy boundaries established by politicians and policy makers, and would not participate in any academic or educational boycotts that could restrict academic freedom.”

Ahava-DSL, which has been the subject of a boycott campaign targeting its shops in Europe and America, did not respond to requests for a comment. The company has previously said that the Dead Sea mud and materials used in its products are excavated from Israeli land outside the occupied territories and that Mitzpe Shalem is not an illegal settlement.

U.K. museum lambasted over links to Israeli Dead Sea firm: Haaretz

Open letter to U.K.’s Independent newspaper urges London’s Natural History Museum to quit project with Israeli skincare product firm Ahava.
By Reuters
Experts at a leading British museum should pull out of a European-funded study into tiny particles because one of their partners is an Israeli company that operates in the West Bank, British scientists and public figures said on Tuesday.

More than a dozen scientists, some from leading British universities, wrote an open letter with film-makers Mike Leigh and Ken Loach calling on the Natural History Museum in London to stop working with the Israeli company Ahava, which makes skincare products from Dead Sea minerals.

The group said Ahava works on land in the West Bank, “where it extracts, processes and exports Palestinian resources to generate profits that fund an illegal settlement.”

The company denies that claim and says it takes minerals from Israeli waters.

Ahava is based in Israel but has a center in Mitzpe Shalem, a settlement close to the shores of the Dead Sea.

“It is extraordinary, but true, that one of our great national museums is co-ordinating an activity that breaks international law,” the group wrote in the letter published in the U.K’s Independent newspaper.

“We find it almost inconceivable that a national institution of the status of the Natural History Museum should have put itself in this position. We call on the museum to take immediate steps to terminate its involvement. ”

No one at Ahava could immediately be reached for comment. Company executives have previously disputed campaigners’ claims about their products, saying they are produced from minerals taken from undisputed Israeli parts of the Dead Sea. The company also says Mitzpe Shalem is not an illegal settlement.

London’s Natural History Museum is a lead partner in the four-year study, funded by the European Commission, into nanomaterials, substances at the atomic scale which are used in a range of industries.

The project, called NanoReTox, aims to identify potential risks to the environment and human health posed by the tiny man-made materials.
Ahava and nine other research bodies are also taking part, including the United States Geological Survey, Kings College London and Imperial College London.

Pro-Palestinian campaigners have previously targeted shops around the world that sell Ahava’s skin products.

The Natural History Museum’s Director of Science Professor Ian Owens said Ahava were experts in the analysis of nano-particles and had been approved as a partner by the European Commission.

“We work within the legal and policy boundaries established by politicians and policymakers, and would not participate in any academic or educational boycotts that could restrict academic freedom,” Owens said in a statement.

Robert Fisk: The ‘invented people’ stand little chance: Independent

SATURDAY 14 JANUARY 2012

His statement that the Palestinians were an “invented people” marked about the lowest point in the Republican-Christian Right-Likudist/Israel relationship. So deep has this pact now become that you can deny the existence of an entire people if you want to become US president. It’s time, surely, to take a look at this extraordinary movement, to remind ourselves – since US “statesmen” cannot – just what its implications really are.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly in New York on 23 September, few noticed a quite remarkable reference in his speech. In refusing Newt’s “invented” people’s request for statehood, he made an extremely unpleasant remark about “the insatiable crocodile of militant Islam”. But far more disturbing was this: “In 1984, when I was appointed Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, I visited the great rabbi of Lubovich. He said to me … you’ll be serving in a house of many lies … remember that even in the darkest place, the light of a single candle can be seen far and wide.”

Did Obama and Clinton or anyone else pick up on this reverent memoir, indeed the only quotation from any of Netanyahu’s meetings which he chose to mention at the UN? For this is the rabbi who viewed himself as a messiah and whose followers stood behind Netanyahu in his successful 1996 election campaign. Only Sefi Rachlevsky in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz appeared to spot the significance of Netanyahu’s remark.

“The Lubavitcher Rebbe [sic] was famous for his vehement opposition to even the tiniest withdrawal from any territory ever held by the Israel Defence Forces, even in the framework of full peace,” Rachlevsky wrote. “The most prominent emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe – the great rabbi, as Netanyahu termed him at the United Nations – included Baruch Goldstein, perpetrator of the 1994 Hebron massacre, and Yitzhak Ginsburg, the rabbi of Yitzhar, he of the radical book Baruch the Man (which celebrates the massacre).” The rabbi, Rachlevsky continued, believed that in the land of the messiah, there is no room for Arabs. Newt was right on track, it seems. “Thus racism entered Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations – not ‘merely’ against Islam, but also against Arabs.”

And so the ghost of Goldstein slid into the UN, the doctor who put on his IDF uniform to enter the mosque of Abraham and slay 29 praying Arabs before being almost torn to pieces. His grave, in the neighbouring settlement of Kiryat Arba, is today treated by his admirers as a shrine. But, for the Prime Minister of Israel, the “crocodile” was militant Islam. Of course, Netanyahu can lavish praise on whatever oddball he wants – his predecessors, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin, officially received a Lebanese militiaman called Etienne Saqr whose civil war “Guardians of the Cedars” routinely mutilated Palestinian prisoners before putting them to death, and whose motto was “it is the duty of each Lebanese to kill one Palestinian” – but something very dark was getting loose here. The Israel of socialist kibbutzim and phoenix-like power, of honour and renewal that the world believed in after the Second World War, had vanished.

What came in its place? The Arab Awakening has allowed us to avoid this all-consuming question. That Israel has “veered to the right” (as if it might soon “veer” back to the left) has long been a sop phrase for American journalists – though it’s not long ago that one of them was instructed to refrain from referring to a Netanyahu cabinet as “right wing” on the grounds that this upset his paper’s Jewish readers. The presence of Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister – Nicolas Sarkozy has many times beseeched Netanyahu to get rid of him – is proof of that; it would be difficult to find a better Israeli “match” for the crackpot president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But something far more worrying is taking place.

In the United States, where Netanyahu received so many standing ovations from a Congress that apparently thought it was the Knesset – far more ovations than he would ever have received in the real Knesset in Jerusalem – Israel is increasingly relying on the support of Christian fundamentalists.

This support has now coalesced with the Republican Party against Obama – whose grovelling to Netanyahu has won him no new friends – so that over recent years, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is routinely used to attack the Democrats. Having once been sustained by the progressive left, Israel now draws its principal support from right-wing conservatism of a particularly unpleasant kind. Christian evangelicals believe that all Jews will die if they do not convert to Christianity on the coming of the Messiah. And right-wing racists in Europe – the most prominent of them being Dutch – are welcome in Israel, while the likes of Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein are not.

Not a word about this from the would-be Republican candidates and their followers these past few days. Governor Rick Perry has long accused Obama of “appeasement” in the Middle East, and former New York mayor Ed Koch has never withdrawn his claim that Obama “threw Israel under the bus”. Mitt Romney has said that he wants “to increase military and intelligence co-ordination with Israel” – as if the US hasn’t been handing out aircraft and billions of dollars to Israel for decades. What chance do an “invented people” have against this?

Knesset panel bans Israeli Arab MK for reciting controversial poem: Haaretz

Ahmed Tibi will not be able to participate in parliament sessions for one week following a verbal attack on Yisrael Beiteinu’s Anastasia Michaeli after she spilled a glass of water on a fellow MK.

The Knesset’s Ethics Committee baned Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi participating in sessions in any of the Israeli parliaments’ sessions on Tuesday, following a controversial poem he recited following an incident involving Yisrael Beiteinu MK Anastasia Michaeli.

Last week, Michaeli was banned from the Knesset after she poured a glass of water on Israeli Arab MK Raleb Majadele (Labor) during a committee session last week.

Tibi reciting his poem: in Hebrew – no translation yet

Following the incident, Tibi read a short poem poking fun at Michaeli, the words of which were: “Anastasia, who has a problem with her plumbing / who grew there in the garbage pile of Yisrael Beiteinu [Israel our Home], / Or should we say, Russia our Home, / From which the road was short for the bill called muezzin, now a joint Bibi- Anastasia venture / As well as her unwise use of water, during a dry spell in which every drop counts / For, Israel may be drying [mityabeshet], but it is far from being ashamed [mitbayeshet], / Anastasia, who has run amok, / Poured water on her colleague / And thus I will call the baby by its name: Kos Amok [literally, a ‘glass of madness’, but a play on words on an Arabic profanity].

Michaeli spilling water on Majadele:

The Knesset Ethics Committee ruling, which allows Tibi vote, came after earlier this week the United Arab List – Ta’al MK lodged an official complaint with Knesset security after a number of death threats were posted to his Facebook page following his recitation.

Knesset authorities have transferred the complaint to Israel Police.

“The ethics committee has no Arab members and I am treated by some of its members as enemy, thus its decision is tainted prejudice,” Tibi responded to the decision.

 

 

Israeli Arabs have never been equal before the law: Haaretz

The looming expulsion of thousands will be carried out with the silent agreement of enlightened members of society, because maintaining a Jewish majority is an ideological common denominator for the overwhelming majority of Israelis.

By Yitzhak Laor
Last week’s decision by the High Court of Justice to uphold the amendment to the Citizenship Law that keeps Palestinians apart from their Israeli spouses has closed a chapter in the life of Israeli democracy. The Supreme Court no longer wants to protect Israel’s Arab citizens.

Racists sitting in the stands at soccer games who yell “Death to Arabs” have never ripped a mother away from her children. But Justice Asher Dan Grunis and his friends have rendered such expulsions kosher, and the representatives of Israel’s Arab citizens will now have to bring the issue to the international community.

Of the amendment upheld by the High Court, Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken wrote in this paper in May 2005: “Ostensibly the amendment to the Citizenship Law is equitable. It prevents a man from Haifa from marrying a woman from Ramallah and living with her in Haifa, and does not distinguish between Jews and Arabs. But it’s clear that it isn’t equitable: Jews rarely marry Palestinians.”

For three days afterward, in a hysterical response, Maariv’s entire opinion page was devoted to wild attacks on Schocken and his piece. Only one of the opinion pieces is even worth quoting: that of Prof. Amnon Rubinstein, author of “The Constitutional Law of the State of Israel.”

“Every state, even if not by law, has the right to prevent immigration of any kind from an enemy state or enemy territory,” Rubinstein wrote at the time. “Must Israel permit immigration from Syria? Of course not. Was England, during World War II, obligated to permit immigration from Germany, or even from German protectorates? Of course not. So why doesn’t this rule apply to Israel?

“It’s true, the Palestinian Authority is not a state, but if a ban on immigration applies to an enemy state, it applies even more so to an enemy territory.”

Afterward, Rubinstein published statements to this effect as part of a scholarly academic article, which expanded the argument with the help of numerous references and citations. He later chaired a government committee that justified this wrongdoing.

Why is Rubinstein worth quoting? Because before leaving the Knesset in 2002, he was an MK representing Meretz, the last significant political party of the Zionist left; because his words are cited by Grunis in his ruling; and because Rubinstein is considered a veteran analyst, a member of a select group of legal commentators who sat quietly for eight years, since the amendment came into force as a “temporary emergency measure.”

Even now, these legal commentators are not commenting. The looming expulsion of thousands will be carried out with the silent agreement of enlightened members of society. This silence does not stem from their deep respect for the High Court of Justice. Its cause is that maintaining a Jewish majority is an ideological common denominator for the overwhelming majority of Israelis, and this ruling is a symptom of the demographic arguments made on their behalf.

But in effect, Rubinstein was lying. In order to discriminate against the Arab citizens of Israel, Rubinstein wrote about residents of the territories, who do not live in an enemy state. They live in an Israeli ghetto, a bantustan, without the right, as blacks had in apartheid South Africa, to earn a living from their masters.

The State of Israel is officially in its 64th year. But it can be more accurately seen as an imaginary entity that existed in reality only for the 19 years between 1948 and 1967.

Temporariness is an illusion. For jurists it’s also a cynical trick.

The expulsion of women and children from their homes will be carried out by a state that has never held Arabs to be equal before the law. That’s the real reason an Israeli constitution was never written. That inequality was the wound. Now it’s just pus.

EDITOR: The Empire Strikes Back…

So now Israel is not only bombing whoever and whatever it likes, but also hacks just anybody. The IDF has set upa specialist unit for this pupose, just over three years ago, with some 800 hackers in it. This is another way in which Israel will contribute to world peace and harmony, no doubt.

Israeli hackers bring down Saudi, UAE stock exchange websites: Haaretz

In fresh round of cyber warfare, Israel hackers, who go by the name IDF-TEAM, retaliate against Saudi attack on Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, El Al websites.

Israeli hackers brought down the websites of both the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) Monday, in the latest episode of a continuing cyber war between hackers in the two countries.

The Israeli hackers, who go by the name IDF-Team, were able to paralyze the Tadawul website, while causing significant delays to the ADX exchange site.

The hackers wrote that the attack came in response to the “pathetic” hacking of Israeli sites on Monday. The hackers warned that if the attacks continue, they will “move to the next stage and paralyze websites for a period of two weeks to a month.”

Earlier Tuesday, a pro-Israel hacker published a list of 30,000 e-mail addresses and Facebook passwords of “helpless Arabs” on a popular hacking site. The hacker, who goes by Hannibal, wrote that his actions – which began Friday – are a “counter-attack” following the publication of Israeli credit card details on the Internet by a reportedly Saudi hacker.

“I noticed that poor intelligence of 0x omar and his friends [sic],” he wrote on pastebin.com, the same site used by the Saudi hacker. “State of Israel, not to worry, you’re in the hands of the world’s best hacker that I am [sic],” Hannibal reassured. “I will continue to support the government of Israel will continue to attack the Arab countries,” he wrote.

Hannibal claims to have 30 million e-mail addresses of Arabs, complete with passwords, and to have fielded e-mails not only from potential victims but from officials in France and other countries asking him to desist. But if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares a cyber war, he’s ready to publish the details of 10 million bank accounts, Hannibal wrote, adding that he also had information on 4 million Arab credit cards.

EDITOR: The Countdown has now started!

As US and UK warships are congregating in the Gulf, ready to start the war on Iran, and US troops are collecting in Israel and the Gulf, Israel is ready to start the war, with the support of its criminal partners. Three nuclear powers are attacking a nations without nuclear weapons, under the pretext od protecting Israel, the country which has introduced the nuclear weapons into the Middle East, and refuses to allow any inspections of the IAEA, as opposed to Iran, which opened its facilities for inspection. This is supposed to be a balanced policy… Israel has managed to manoeuvre the west again into an imperialist war, exactly as it did in 1956 during the Suez Canal imbroglio. The result, one suspects, is likely to be similar. Nonetheless, the absence of democratic opposition to this coming destructive war is amazing in the so-called democracies which initiated this war. The great crisis of capital seems to be no problem for the war-mongers, either.

BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS!

‘Israel and U.S. postpone massive defense drill in fear of escalation with Iran’: Haaretz

Israeli defense officials tell Channel 2 that Washington wants to avoid causing further tensions in region after various foreign reports of U.S. and Israeli preparations for strike on Iran.

Israel and the United States have postponed a massive joint defense exercise, which was expected to be carried out in the coming weeks, in order to avoid an escalation with Iran, Channel 2 reported on Sunday.

According to an Israeli defense official, Washington wants to avoid causing further tensions in the region, especially in light of the sensitive situation that has been generated after various reports in the international media that the U.S. and Israel are preparing to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The drill, codenamed Austere Challenge 12, was supposed to simulate the missiles fired by Iran or other antagonistic states toward Israel. Defense officials told Channel 2 on Sunday that the drill is now scheduled to take place in the summer.

Both Israeli and U.S. officials said the exercise would be the largest-ever joint drill by the two countries, involving thousands of U.S. soldiers.

News of it came amid heightened tensions between U.S. allies and Iran, after Tehran threatened it could close the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil supply route.

But the IDF said the drill was planned long ago and is not tied to recent events. The drill “is not in response to any real-world event,” the IDF wrote in a statement last week.

The Defense Ministry said in an official statement that the postponement of the drill has not yet been announced, and that the subject is currently being discussed between Israeli and U.S. officials.

They did note, however, that the drill was not canceled due to budget considerations.

In late 2009, Israel and the United States also held a huge joint missile defense exercise, involving about 1,000 U.S. troops, alongside an equal number of Israeli military personnel.

U.S. army chief heads to Israel as fears over attack on Iran mount: Haaretz

Visit comes as U.S. attempts to determine Israel’s intentions with regard to a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Thursday for talks with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, and other senior defense and intelligence officials.

The visit comes as the United States attempts to coordinate with Israel on the issue of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and to determine Israel’s intentions with regard to a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Dempsey may also meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ahead of Dempsey’s visit, the Wall Street Journal published statements by senior American officers who said the United States had increased preparations for a possible Israeli attack on Iran. They also said the United States has refreshed plans for defending American installations in the Middle East in the event of a retaliation by Iran.

One senior officer told the Wall Street Journal that the United States’ concerns regarding a possible Israeli attack on Iran were increasing.

In November, following a visit to Israel by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Haaretz reported that Netanyahu and Barak had refused to vow against attacking Iran without first coordinating with the United States.

According to the Wall Street Journal, both U.S. President Barack Obama and Panetta have conveyed messages through quiet channels to senior Israeli officials regarding the serious implications of an Israeli attack on Iran. They also reportedly told Israel it should allow more time for sanctions on Iran to take effect.

In the meantime, the United States is preparing for various scenarios following an Israeli attack on Iran, senior American officials reportedly told the Wall Street Journal. These include an attack by Shi’ites in Iraq on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. There are currently 15,000 U.S. citizens in Iraq.

Dempsey’s visit to Israel also comes against the backdrop of increased tension between Iran and the West over Tehran’s threats to close the Straits of Hormuz, which would compromise oil shipments to the West, and threats to avenge the recent assassination of an Iraqi nuclear scientist on Wednesday. The regime is accusing Israel, the United States and Britain of the assassination.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has denied responsibility for the attack. Israeli President Shimon Peres said Israel had no role in the attack, to the best of his knowledge.

The spokesman for Iran’s Joint Armed Forces Staff, Massoud Jazayeri, said: “Our enemies, especially America, Britain and the Zionist regime [Israel], have to be held responsible for their actions.” According to a report in the New York Times on Friday, senior American officials said Obama recently told the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khameneii, via a secret channel that closing the Straits of Hormuz would constitute crossing a “red line.” Obama reportedly said such an action would draw a severe American response.

Also this weekend, Netanyahu said in an interview with the Weekend Australian that he believed the strong sanctions against Iran were damaging the regime in Tehran. He said he thought a combination of the sanctions and the threat of U.S. military action against its nuclear facilities could force Iran to back down.

Netanyahu said the Iranian economy was “showing clear signs of stress.”

“For the first time,” he said, “I see Iran wobble under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank.”

Netanyahu’s remarks notwithstanding, a senior Israeli official told Haaretz yesterday that there was disappointment in Jerusalem over the fact that harsher sanctions have not been imposed on Iran.

“Without sanctions on Iran’s central bank and on its oil exports, the regime will not back down and will not stop its nuclear program,” the official said.

Iran: Paranoid or under siege?: AL Jazeera English

What is motivating Iran’s tough talk of enriching uranium and shutting down a major global oil chokepoint?
D. Parvaz

With tighter sanctions, talk of Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and the assassination of yet another nuclear scientist in Iran, tensions are building on multiple fronts as a coalition of countries tries to stop Iran’s nuclear programme.

Ali Larijani, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, told the IRNA news agency on Thursday that UN nuclear inspectors would be welcome in the country and that issues with the nuclear programme can be resolved via negotiations. The path to diplomacy is, however, obscured by decades of ill will between Iran and the West.

The problems go as far back as the US and UK-led coup that unseated Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953 and reinstated the unpopular Shah. But even if historical baggage could be left in the past, today’s issues alone are enough to pose major diplomatic stumbling blocks.

The Iranian government insists that its nuclear programme is peaceful and not aimed at weaponisation, while the US and some EU countries suspect otherwise. The West has upped the ante with harsh sanctions and embargoes since a November report from the International Atomic Energy Agency warned that it was “increasingly concerned” about the nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.

As if to emphasise a point, Iran followed up talk of blocking the Strait of Hormuz with ten days of military exercises in the Gulf and an announcement that it has begun nuclear enrichment at one of its facilities.

“The Iranian threat has been blown out of proportion not because of Iran’s impressive military might, but because people are unclear whether the Iranian regime is led by rational actors,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an associate in the Middle East Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He put things in perspective by adding that Iran’s military budget is less than two per cent of that of the US, and less than a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s.

But it’s not just the West that is blowing things out of proportion.

“The Iranian government’s paranoia is to some extent a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Sadjadpour.

Defiant stance

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a solid history of tough talk, but it has escalated its provocative rhetoric in recent months. Sardar Mohamad Reza Naghdi, the commander of the Basij armed group, has said his organisation is “counting the moments” and waiting for an excuse to “put an end to the Zionist agenda”.

Who is targeting Iran’s scientists?
January 2012: Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, supervisor at Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility, is killed by car bomb in Tehran. Iran blames Israel and US for the attack.
July 2011: Darioush Rezai, a physicist and university lecturer, is shot in Tehran.
November 2010: Two car bombs target two physicists, both reportedly involved in Iran’s nuclear programme – Majid Shahriyari is killed while MaFereydoun Abbasi-Davani is wounded. Iran blames Israel and the US.
January 2010: Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, a nuclear scientist, is killed by a car bomb in Tehran. Anti-state activists say he was targeted because he supported opposition figure Mirhossein Mousavi, but the government only said the Tehran University lecturer did not work for its nuclear programme.
June 2009: Shahram Amiri, a lecturer at Malek Ashtar University (closely connected to the Revolutionary Guard) said he was kidnapped in Saudi Arabia. He claims he was transferred to the US and enticed “to spread lies” about Iran’s nuclear programme. The US denies this, claiming that Amiri was in the US of his own free will. Amiri returned to Iran in July 2010.
February 2007: Although not a scientist, the disappearance of Ali Reza Asgari in Turkey was reported by the UK’s Guardian to have been the result of a CIA plot targeting Iran’s nuclear programme. Asgari, who some say was a US spy, had held a number of high-profile posts, including general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and a deputy cabinet minister of former President Mohammad Khatami.

In December, a high-altitude stealth reconnaissance drone was downed in Iran, and images of the drone were broadcast on Iranian TV with banners hanging off of its wings which read: “We’ll crush America underfoot” and “US can’t mess with us”.

But Iran has been messed with. There was the Stuxnet computer virus, which in September 2010 attacked Iran’s nuclear power plant in Bushehr.

There have also been several mysterious explosions at key locations  in Iran. In October 2010, a blast at a military base in the western province of Lorestan killed “several” and was dubbed “an accident” by the government.

Another explosion in November killed 17 at an arms depot west of Tehran. Later that month, a blast was heard near the city of Isfahan, although the government denied that an explosion had happened, emergency services had initially confirmed it.

Although the US navy has twice in the past week rescued Iranian crews in Gulf waters – once from Somali pirates, once from a wrecked vessel – its presence in the Gulf is nonetheless unwelcome and seen as a threat by Tehran.

Strings of deaths, disappearances, and, in one case -reappearance – of Iranian physicists continues to deepen the acrimony and mistrust between Iran and the US and Israel.

Iran, for its part, retaliates mostly by arresting and charging foreigners with spying, as it most recently has with Amir Hekmati, a US-born Iranian. Hekmati, a former US marine, has become the first US citizen to be sentenced to death in Iran after being charged (in closed court) with espionage, corruption and being an enemy of God (mohareb).

Faraz Sanei, a researcher at the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said Hekmati’s case “may very well be politically motivated”.

“By detaining Mr. Hekmati for months without providing him access to a lawyer or visits by his family and Swiss consular officials who represent American interests in Iran, Iranian authorities have deprived him of his fundamental right to be free from arbitrary arrest and detention, and to have access to a fair trial,” Sanei said.

Surrounded by troops and weapons

Reza Marashi, research director of the National Iranian American Council, thinks two issues dominate the geopolitical map in the Middle East.

“One, you literally see Iran surrounded by US military bases – not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but everywhere else. They are flanked by no less than 15, possibly 17 bases in the region … so Iran’s not unreasonable to have that threat perception,” said Marashi.

“But more importantly, the United States and Iran have very different views on what the security architecture of the region should look like. Iran refuses to become a compliant US ally in the mold of Saudi Arabia, or Jordan, or Mubarak’s Egypt. And the United States has an unfortunate track record of relations in the region – there’s no example of a country that’s on equal footing with the United States, right? And Iran refuses to enter into that relationship.”

There are still troops and military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and three US allies in the region – India, Pakistan and Israel – possess nuclear weapons.

Then there are the massive US weapons sales made to Iran’s neighbouring countries – recent ones include $3.38bn worth of missiles to the UAE, $11bn in jets, tanks and more to Iraq and $30bn worth of hardware, including F-15 fighter jets, to Saudi Arabia.

The US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have failed to deliver key strategic outcomes for Washington and have raised the stakes between the US and Iran because they “empowered the latter arguably at the expense of Washington”, said Sabahat Khan, an analyst specialising in maritime security issues at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

A divide as deep as the gulf

Tensions in the region have profound consequences for oil markets. Sadek Zibakalam, professor of politics at Tehran University told Al Jazeera’s Inside Story the question isn’t whether other countries can make up the gap Iran’s oil should leave in the global market.

“The point is that the United States, by putting the embargo on Iranian oil is forcing the Islamic regime to take a drastic action, drastic decision, such as blocking the Strait of Hormuz.”

The sanctions, said Zibakalam, are tantamount to asking for regime change.

“If you prevent Iran from selling its oil on the international oil market, you are really saying that ‘We are going to overthrow the Islamic regime.'”

And that, Sadjadpour told Al Jazeera, is Iran’s primary concern – that “cultural and political subversion meant to inspire a ‘velvet revolution’ – something against which no nuclear weapon would guard.

Furthermore, Khan told Al Jazeera that Iran’s perceptions of threats aren’t just rooted in its poor relationship with Israel, but also in mistrust of the states in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

“Put crudely, Iran’s threat perceptions are defined by regional military competition, primarily with the United States, and a level of political competition with Saudi Arabia and the GCC.”

Would nukes help Iran?

From the perspective of security, Khan said that “historically, nuclear weapons have been used defensively,” as a deterrent from attacks, but that with a nuclear arsenal, Iran might become more aggressive, threaten the stability of the region and even prompt other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, to pursue nuclear weapons.

Also, in a way, the more foreign governments pressure Iran to back away from weapons via sanctions, the less chance they have of winning hearts and minds in Iran.

“More than anything else, what does help garner support for the Iranian government amongst the Iranian people is the sanctions and the secret assassinations and the killings that are going on,” said Marashi.  “Iranians are fiercely nationalistic and they’re politically savvy and they’re capable of thinking two thoughts simultaneously, meaning, ‘We don’t like it [that] our government beats, kills and imprisons us.'”

“‘But we also don’t like it when foreign countries do that to our nuclear scientists, we also don’t like it when the United States says that the target of these sanctions is the government, not the people,’ when ten out of ten times, it’s the people who end up getting hurt the most, and it’s the political elites who get to skirt the sanctions and continue to live lavishly.”

Continue reading January 15, 2012

EDITOR: They admit it is Apartheid, at last!

When we in the BDS movement have typified the Israeli racist regime as an Apartheid regime, many Israeli intellectuals have protested. “What? Israeli apartheid?” they just could not possibly see their own hump. But now, the word Apartheid is used daily by Israeli commentators to describe their own government and its racist acts and appendages. Below, in Haaretz editorial, they go almost the whole way to admitting this, but somehow blame the current government as excessive, as if the very idea of Zionism, and its racist practices, are anything else. As long as they do not see where the problem lies, they cannot do anything about resolving it. Zionism is a mock democracy, for Jews only; in that sense, it totally resembles the Apartheid South Africa – democracy for whites only.

Supreme Court thrusts Israel down the slope of apartheid: Haaretz Editorial

The High Court of Justice’s ruling touches on the balance between security needs and individual rights, but the public will understand it as a demographic ruling that protects Jews while harming Arab citizens.
The High Court of Justice’s ruling Wednesday on the legality of the Citizenship Law proves the erosion of this institution’s role as Israel’s guardian of civil rights. Let’s look at how the justices voted at the moment of truth on the law, which bans Palestinians from living in Israel with spouses who are Israeli citizens.

In a 2006 ruling, 6 out of 11 justices said the law was unconstitutional, and in the current ruling, 6 out of 11 justices said the law, which was made more strict after the first ruling, was constitutional. That’s a disappointing outcome, in part because the first ruling was made not long after the terror attacks of the second intifada, while the current ruling was made during a period of calm, due in part to coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The title that Justice Asher Grunis gave his opinion – “Human rights are not a prescription for national suicide” – is also disappointing. No one disagrees with this, but Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, who arrived at the same judicial conclusion, recognizes that “a small group – those men and women in Israel’s Arab minority who want to marry residents of the region – must pay a heavy price for greater security for all Israelis, including their own.”

Justice Grunis apparently would not agree to this wording; as he put it, he’s not someone who gives the “constitutional rights that are mentioned in the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty the most expanded and comprehensive interpretation.”

Justice Miriam Naor’s opinion is disappointing – that the constitutional right to family life means everything, but establishing a family with a foreign spouse in Israel should not receive constitutional protection. It’s hard to accept this contradiction, which imposes on other countries a burden that Israel is unwilling to bear and hurts Israeli citizens’ right to family life.

The dissenting opinion properly balances the security needs of all citizens and the rights of individuals; the law should be annulled and replaced with security checks of any candidate for residence in Israel when family unification is involved.

The ruling touches on the balance between security needs and individual rights, but the public will understand it as a demographic ruling – one that protects the Jewish majority while harming the rights of Arab citizens. And thus the ruling pushes Israel down the slope of apartheid.

Israeli-Palestinian couples on Citizenship Law: Supreme Court guided by Israeli racism: Haaretz

Supreme Court ruling to uphold law banning family reunification, ending hope for a normal life for thousands of families in Israel.
By Jack Khoury
Thousands of families of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians have been waiting for years for a Supreme Court decision rejecting Israel’s Citizenship Law. Wednesday’s ruling to uphold the law puts an end to their hope of obtaining citizenship for their spouses and receiving permanent status in Israel.

Taysar Hatib and his wife Lana of Acre married six years ago. Up to this day Lana, originally from Nablus, has been denied an Israeli citizenship. She receives a temporary permit to live with her husband in Acre annually, but doesn’t hold the legal rights extended to permanent Israeli residents.

Taysar, who is writing his anthropology doctorate at Haifa University and is employed as a lecturer at the Western Galilee College, wasn’t surprised by the court ruling. “The decision is proof that one shouldn’t have any faith in the Israeli judicial system. It is clear that the Supreme Court is influenced by the wave of fascism and racism sweeping Israel and the judges weren’t expected to act in any other way.”

Hatib explained that though his wife holds a permit of temporary residence, the court ruling puts an end to any hope for advancement or a normal life. “She can’t develop a career – She can’t even drive a car, though she holds a Palestinian driver’s license.”

Hatam Ataya, a lawyer from Kfar Qara, married his wife Jasmine, 12 years ago. Since the two wed, they have been trying to obtain a citizenship for Jasmine, who was born in Nablus, but have faced the repeated refusal from Israeli authorities.

Hatam heard about the court ruling from Haaretz, late on Wednesday night and had a hard time swallowing the bitter news. According to him: “If Michaeli spilled water on Majadele and people said that it wasn’t racist or offensive, then the Supreme Court spilled a large bucket of water on Israel’s Arab citizens.”

The Citizenship Law is temporary legislation that only allows reunification in Israel of Palestinians with an Israeli spouse if it involves a Palestinian husband who is at least 36 years of age or if it involves a Palestinian wife who is at least 26.

The decision to refuse to allow couples to live together in Israel was initially taken by the government in May 2002. The Knesset affirmed the policy the following year and has since extended its initial expiration date twice. The extensions came despite petitions filed in the High Court of Justice challenging the provision.

 Obama secretly warns Iran against closing Strait of Hormuz, report says: Haaretz

New York Times cites administration officials as saying that the U.S. President chose clandestine communication to express to Iran’s Supreme Leader that an Iranian move in the strategic waterway would trigger an American response.

The administration of President Barack Obama used secret channels to warn Iran against closing the Strait of Hormuz, the New York Times reported on Friday, amid recent tensions over the possible closing of the strategic waterway.

Get up-to-date news on Iran’s nulcear standoff with the West on Haaretz.com’s official Facebook page

Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that the U.S. would act if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon or close the Strait of Hormuz.

Also referring to recent tensions over the waterway, through which passes a fifth of the world’s supply of crude oil, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said on Sunday that that Iran has the military power to block the Strait of Hormuz “for a period of time” if it decides to do so, but that the U.S. would take action to reopen waterway. “We can defeat that,” he said.

Panetta said closing the strait would draw a U.S. military response. “We made very clear that the United States will not tolerate the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. “That’s another red line for us and … we will respond to them.”

On Friday, the New York Times reported that Obama used secret channels to warn Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against closing the strategic waterway, saying that such a move was a “red line” that would prompt a U.S. response.

According to the report, U.S. officials indicated that the clandestine communication was chosen to privately stress to what extent Washington was concerned over the Strait of Hormuz.

The New York Times cited Navy officials as indicating that the U.S.’s greatest fear was that an Iranian military official would undertake a provocation of his own, a move that would spark a larger confrontation.

This most recent report regarding Iran’s standoff with the West came after a confidant of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia feared Israel would push the United States into a military conflict with Iran which could retaliate by blocking oil shipments from the Gulf.

“There is a likelihood of military escalation of the conflict, towards which Israel is pushing the Americans,” Nikolai Patrushev, who heads the Kremlin’s Security Council, told Interfax news agency.

He also said he believes Western countries are getting close to launching a military intervention in Syria, in an attempt to undermine Iran’s regional standing.

Patrushev, a former head of the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said Tehran could respond by blocking the Strait of Hormuz between Oman and Iran, through which 35 percent of the world’s seaborne traded oil passes.

“It cannot be ruled out that the Iranians will be able to carry out their threat to shut exports of Saudi oil through the Strait of Hormuz if faced with military actions against them,” Patrushev said in an interview published on Thursday.

 US did not kill Iranian nuclear scientist, claims Leon Panetta – video: Guardian

The US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, denies his country was behind the assassination of a nuclear scientist in Tehran. Iran blames the US and Israel for the murder of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, 32, but says the killing will not derail its nuclear programme, which has raised fears of war and threatened world oil supplies

Palestinian graffiti artists hit West Jerusalem streets: Ma’an News

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Palestinian graffiti artists took to the streets of West Jerusalem overnight Wednesday, spraying symbols of resistance in the city center.

Activists told Ma’an the artwork was the start of a campaign which will target other locations in the city and may spread across Israel.

Most Israelis will not have seen the messages of resistance, poetry and art sprayed along one side of the concrete wall Israel has been building since 2002, which runs deep inside the West Bank and confiscates Palestinian land.

But Palestinian images can now be seen in around 20 places in West Jerusalem. The street art includes an image of a woman wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian scarf, with the word “Intifada” or uprising. Another image shows a map of Palestine with “ana” – meaning “I” or “me” — on it.

It is a message “to both our occupiers and our people here in Palestine and around the world, we are still here and our voice is still loud,” one activist said on condition of anonymity.

While the Arab Spring has been chronicled in graffiti across the region, the activists say they are inspired by Palestine’s First Intifada, or uprising, which started in 1987.

“Street art has been always a way of expression for Palestinians. We are inspired by the First Intifada when graffiti was a prominent tool used to make our voices heard,” an activist explained.

He added: “This is part of our struggle for our freedom. We use different tools, and art is one of them.”

The activists hope to mobilize the Palestinian youth by showing that protests can take many forms.

“This is a message to the youth that you don’t need numbers or big actions to be involved in your own struggle. You can do it with whatever tool or capabilities are at your disposal.

“We want to break the fear and recklessness among our people and mobilize them to rise.”

The art is also aimed at to the refugees expelled from their homes when the state of Israel was created in 1948.

“It’s a message to them that our struggle is one and the right of return will not be given away by anyone.”

EU report: Israel policy in West Bank endangers two-state solution: Haaretz

Survey by European Heads of Mission in Jerusalem, Ramallah criticizes Israel for the ‘forced transfer’ Palestinians from Area C, defined by the Oslo Accords as those parts of the West Bank under full Israeli control.
By Amira Hass
The European Union will direct its activities towards supporting the West Bank’s Palestinian population, a report by the European Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah said on Thursday, over what the survey said was Israeli efforts to muscle out Palestinians from Area C.

Area C noted in the report is part of a division of the West Bank stipulated by the Oslo Accords: Area A, where the Palestinian Authority has full civilian and security control; Area B, which is those parts of the West Bank that come under Israeli security control and Palestinian civilian control; and Area C, which is territories under full Israeli civilian and security control.

A newly approved internal report of European Heads of Mission, titled “Area C and Palestinian State Building,” cautioned that the chances for a two-state solution on 1967 borders will be lost if Israel does not change its policies in Area C.

“What’s special about this report is that we are all partners in it and agree on the wording of it,” a European diplomat told Haaretz.

“The European governments hold a variety of stances regarding the situation – with Holland representing one very pro-Israel side, and Ireland on the other side. But everyone agreed on this documents,” the diplomat said, adding: “Israel always says it has both enemies and friends in Europe and we say: the friends think this way too about the situation in Area C.”

While copies of the original report were obtained by several journalists in the last few days, the final wording adopted in Brussels introduced changes which were not yet published.

In the factual section of the original, the report stated that Israeli policy in Area C “result in forced transfer of the native population.”

According to the report, 5.8% of the West Bank’s Palestinian population – about 150,000 people – lives on Area C, which constitutes 62 % of the West Bank.

In the Jordan Valley, 90% of which is Area C, is home to 56,000 Palestinians, 70% of which reside in Jericho, a city designated as Area A. The report also stated that anywhere between 200,000 and 320,000 Palestinians resided in the Jordan Valley before 1967.

It was in 2011 that the European Heads of Mission made a collective decision to follow the situation in Area C as opposed to an exclusive focus on East Jerusalem, which has been their custom in recent years. Consequently, the newly released report is the group’s first collective report concerning the Area C, one which the European diplomat said was borne out of a “sense of urgency and meant to represent that urgency.”

According to the diplomat, this is an urgency understood at the EU headquarters in Brussels.

Along with a discussion of the role of Israeli policymakers in shaping Area C realities, the report also urges European involvement through aid programs that would bolster Palestinian staying power in face of Israeli policies.

The manner and speed of the report’s recommendations is now up to Brussels, but another European diplomat estimated that these actions will be gradual and measures as opposed to drastic and immediate.

However, the document doesn’t direct criticism only at Israel but also at the Palestinian Authority, for failing to give enough attention to Area C in its national strategies.

“The Palestinian Reform and Development Plan 2008-2010 did not take area C into full consideration, nor gave recommendations on how to deal with the needs of its residents. Similarly, the new Palestinian National Development Plan 2011-2013 does not give clear guidance on how the Palestinians would like to deal with area C, seam zones and east Jerusalem,” the EU report said.

Despite this criticism of PA policies, the report does indicate that the bi-annual national plan composed by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad included infrastructure-development projects in Area C.

Many of those ventures never came to fruition, despite efforts by Quartet and EU officials, among others, as a result of what the report said was Israeli efforts to block them.

Continue reading January 13, 2012