The failure of the US to move Israel into any negotiated peace in the last few decades is coming to haunt Obama. That the US has so totally accepted Israel’s narrative and positioning, is also the reason why there is no possible just solution. Netanyahu, like his Israeli public, is unable to move towards vacating the territories – having spent every minute of his political life supporting the settlers and the continued stealing of Palestinian land. There is no Two-State solution, and there never was – Israel has started to build the settlements within few months of its victory in 1967, exactly in order to make a Palestinian state impossible. All Israeli government of whatever party have continued with this policy of dispossession of the Palestinians of their land, whether they called themselves right, left of centre. That is why there will not be a Palestinian state as result of the vote: Israel’s acts and Washington’s support and veto, will make even this symbolic state impossible, on 22% of Palestine.
So, we have to think beyond this coming week. Israel is threatening to annul the Oslo Accords as a result of the Palestinian UN resolution. To this we should say, good! Let them do so. Let the occupation stand bare, unmitigated by Palestinian agents. Israel controls all that moves in Palestine, so let this situation be clear and visible. This will make Israel again responsible for all the Palestinians and their rights. So let us start accepting realities and demand a single democratic state in the whole of Palestine, with an immediate end to Zionism.
Now this may sound strange for those who were fooled by the decades of the ‘Peace Process’, a process which made it possible for Israel to settle more people on Palestinian land, but brought neither peace nor justice. There is no longer any reason to be fooled, and most people realise that now. Let us start now fighting fora single democratic state of all its citizens, devoid of Zionist racism. There is no other solution, is there?
In the face of the blind intransigence of Israel and the US, there is no longer any choice. What is wrong with a single, democratic, secular state of all its citizens, living in equality? Who, apart from extreme undemocratic Zionists, is against it?
The unconditional, unquestioning support of the United States towards Israel helps neither country
Henry Porter
Beneath the slogan: “Be on our side – we are on the side of peace and justice”, a couple of nice-looking young men, a Palestinian designer and an Israeli social worker, plus their children, gaze out of the poster that appeared on the New York subway last week. I passed it a few times before registering the message at the bottom of the ad, an appeal to end US military aid to Israel, which is timed for the Palestinian application for statehood at the UN Security Council this week.
To the European eye, the message isn’t particularly alarming, in fact barely worth noting, but in one of the great Jewish cities of the world it is regarded as inflammatory. In no time, local Jewish leaders were on TV claiming that the poster was anti-Israel, possibly even anti-Jewish, regardless of the fact that the campaign was paid for by a group that included many Jews and it raises a legitimate issue.
One of the depressing parts of the intractable Middle East problem is the chill that descends on any discussion in the United States about the future of Palestine or, indeed, US support for Israel. Apart from occasional press comment, notably in the New York Times, the media stay clear of criticising Israel, while politicians live in fear of offending the Jewish vote in a country where elections are never more that two years away.
When John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s book The Israel Lobby came out four years ago, they were firstly pilloried and then the book was buried, so that their proposition that Israel’s supporters distorted American foreign policy to the detriment of both Israel and America was never properly tested. That episode dishonoured America’s tradition of unfettered political debate.
But the chill is amazingly effective. Even in these straitened times, when the US is running an overdraft of $14 trillion, the American taxpayer unquestioningly continues to stump up about $3bn every year to support Israel’s military and ensure the country’s continued regional dominance.
Watching a TV reporter tiptoeing round the story of the subway campaign, which was naturally all about who was going to be offended by the ads, rather than the $3bn, I realised that the problem is not so much American public opinion as the lack of it. Most Americans have decided that it is simply safer to leave Israel out of the discourse. So, unconditional support continues without much review or debate or, for that matter, anyone being able to list the benefits to the American national interest that derive from this alliance.
Supporters of Israel in Europe, among which I count myself, find the terms of this uncritical, one-way relationship bizarre and it is unsustainable after three regimes in North Africa have fallen to a genuinely democratic popular movement and a heroic struggle continues in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. A year ago, the application by the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to the Security Council for full statehood might have seen premature, but today it is the natural and proper outcome of the liberation that is sweeping through the Arab world.
American diplomats and the representative of the Quartet Powers, Tony Blair, fought hard to dissuade Abbas, arguing that the application for statehood, which will be almost certainly vetoed by the US, would dangerously raise expectations in the West Bank and Gaza, when nothing will have changed on the ground. This is true, but there are times when you can’t stand in the way of history. We are at a moment where diplomatic finesse and arguments about timing and convenience count for little, especially after the democratic aspirations of the people in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria have been warmly welcomed by the US.
The inconsistency between the US attitude towards Tunisia, for example, and Palestine seems rank hypocrisy to hundreds of millions of Arabs, whose revolutions, incidentally, were never defined by hatred for Israel or America. The young activists I met on the streets of Tunis and Cairo earlier this year may be wary of both countries but in scores of conversations I had, they talked only about democracy, rights, accountability, jobs and the corruption of their leaders. No one raised Israel or America. That signified an enormous change from the previous generation and provided us with a once-in-a-century opportunity that may be about to be lost.
While many in the State Department and the White House recognised what was vital and new about the Arab Spring, they have allowed the American debate, such as it is, to be dominated by myths that the revolutions inevitably contained an Islamist core and that the Arab peoples were preternaturally disposed to tyranny and sweeping Jews into the sea. True, there has already been an eruption of anti-Israeli sentiment in Egypt with the storming of the embassy 10 days ago, but this is nothing compared with what may ensue if Palestinian aspirations are rejected by America and Israel, both of whom have already accepted the principle of two-state solution. A new Palestinian intifada would be a disaster for the Middle East and Israel and in the current turbulence there is no way of knowing where it would end.
If Susan Rice, American ambassador to the UN, goes against the wishes of more than 120 countries that support the recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and vetoes the move, we can be certain of at least two outcomes: the reduction of American influence in the Middle East and the further isolation of Israel, which this year has already lost two important allies in Egypt and Turkey. A vote against Palestine statehood will also increase Iran’s opportunities to cause mischief and drive a wedge between Saudi Arabia and the US, which some may welcome, though it is probably not in the long-term interests of peace.
The Obama administration has failed to bring Israel and Palestine together in meaningful talks and has absolutely nothing but further Israeli prevarication to offer the Palestinians. Though we may fear the consequences, Abbas is right to press the interests of his people this week.
We should remember that when Israel applied for membership of the UN in 1949, it argued that issues about refugees and the status of Jerusalem stood a better chance of being resolved if Israel was awarded statehood. That is exactly the Palestinian position. Abbas asks only that Palestine should meet Israel in negotiations as an equal.
There is no good reason for a veto and no conceivable upside. It is a tragedy to watch America, compelled by a failure of its national debate and the fear of what Israel’s supporters may do at the next election, to move unerringly towards such a disastrous action.
The case for a Palestinian state is unanswerable and must be supported in the west
For the Zionist movement seeking an independent state of Israel, desire became reality in November 1947, when the General Assembly of the United Nations passed Resolution 181 supporting the establishment of a Jewish state in a partitioned Palestine.
That state was declared on 14 May 1948 by David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish people’s council in a Tel Aviv museum. The state of Israel was recognised that evening by President Truman of United States and by the Soviet Union a few days later.
More than six decades later, Palestinians, who at first refused to accept the partition plan of the newly minted UN, are seeking similar recognition, firstly in front of the Security Council, asking for their own state based on the 1967 borders free from occupation and settlement by half-a-million Israelis, able to determine their own affairs.
The idea of a Palestinian state should be uncontroversial. The United States supports the notion, as does the UK. Indeed, in his 2009 Cairo speech, President Barack Obama insisted: “Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s.”
Yet Obama appears determined to veto the move towards Palestinian statehood, while Britain has hinted it is likely to abstain in a Security Council vote.
Should the Palestinian request fail at the Security Council, it will then go to the General Assembly, where it seems likely that close to 130 states will vote to support a Palestinian resolution which will be able only to grant an enhanced status to become the equivalent of the Vatican – an “observer state”. It will, however, be a deeply symbolic moment providing a political, moral and diplomatic victory for the Palestinian cause that the world will find difficult to ignore.
It will, significantly, also allow Palestine to become a signatory to the International Criminal Court, permitting it to pursue claims against Israel.
While it seems certain that European countries such as France and Spain will support recognition, what is less clear is how the UK will vote in the General Assembly, amid increasing speculation that it might support an enhanced Palestinian status of “observer state” with the right to complain to the International Criminal Court, but only if cases cannot be raised retrospectively.
The objections to a Palestinian state – driven by Israel with the support of the US – are dangerous and transparently self-serving ones, not least in the midst of an Arab Spring where the US and Europe have tried to present themselves as being supporters of democracy, freedom and justice.
The only valid mechanism for the creation of a Palestinian state, this argument goes, is the ongoing peace process, but in fact it is a moribund peace process, which Israel has done its best to smother under the obstructionist leadership of Binyamin Netanyahu.
Equally contentious is the claim by some supporters of Israel that in seeking their own state through the declaration of the international community rather than direct talks, Palestinians are seeking to “delegitimise” Israel.
The reality is that what those opposing the moves at the UN are demanding is that Palestinians adhere to a non-existent peace process in the good faith that at some time it might be revived in the future under American guidance.
They also require Palestinians to refrain from moves that would expose the double standards of the White House and Congress which, while supporting a two-state solution in words, has not only failed to deliver one but now threatens actively to block that outcome.
Palestinians, this newspaper believes, are right to be wary of the vague promise that things might be better in a revived peace process at some unspecified time in the future. Despite Oslo and 20 years of peace negotiations, as comparison of maps makes only too clear, the space available for a Palestinian state has only shrunk with each passing decade as Israel has continued to appropriate more land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The actions of the Israeli army in the occupied territories, as the recent book of a decade’s worth of soldiers’ testimonies by the servicemen’s group Breaking the Silence has recently demonstrated, have not changed in the desire to control and disrupt ordinary Palestinian life on a daily basis.
The truth is that the occupation has become self-sustaining, both for the Israeli army which is implementing the policy, and for a partly militarised society and its politicians, who cannot persuade themselves to bring the occupation to an end.
There are risks, inevitably, in taking the issue of statehood to the UN, even in the end if it is only for the upgrading of its observer status. Moves on statehood threaten the long-fractious relationship between Fatah and Hamas, the latter of which opposes the statehood moves, particularly in its stronghold, Gaza, raising the risk of more political violence between the rival factions.
There is the danger, too, that the tactic will feel like a damp squib on the day after when Palestinians wake up to see nothing in their lives has changed.
But already the strategy has shed important light on a Middle East peace process in which a United States that has long cast itself as an impartial broker (while vetoing every crticism of Israel raised at the UN) is a far from neutral referee, even as its influence in the region has appeared diminished.
That new reality was dramatised last week with the explicit threat by Saudi Arabia that its important relationship with the US will be downgraded should America choose to use its veto. As in November 1947, we stand at a crossroads of history.
As British ministers deliberate how they will vote in the Security Council, they are confronted with the choice between what is morally right – supporting a Palestinian state – and hypocrisy justified in the name of pragmatism.
The state of Israel was founded amid risk and uncertainty, which those who supported it fully recognised. They did not argue that a Jewish homeland was possible only in the most ideal and secure conditions. That argument should not be used to further delay Palestinian statehood.
Another simple human story from Levy, but as usual, a story that tells of the maddness and criminality of the Israeli state, one which places it straight up there with apartheid South Africa.
Six years ago, Anna Weekes-Majavu donated a kidney to a Palestinian toddler. Since then, the South African-born peace activist has been prevented by the Israeli authorities from seeing the child whose life she saved.
By Gideon Levy
This is a bad story with a happy ending. It’s also a story that makes one happy, but still leaves a bit of a bitter taste in one’s mouth.
It’s the story of a Palestinian baby girl who was born during a period of unrelenting siege and curfew in her village and became ill, so that her parents had to carry her through the hills to a hospital. It’s the story of a Palestinian infant who needed a kidney transplant but for whom no suitable donor was found in the family; finally, a courageous South African woman decided to donate one of her kidneys to the little girl. It’s the story of how the donor got to Israel, after a complicated legal effort involving government authorities and after donations were collected to finance the operation. It’s the story of a successful transplant and the girl’s full and joyful recovery. But it is also a story that has something bad about it: At present, Israel is preventing the donor from visiting the girl whose life she saved.
Lina Taamallah Photo by: Miki Kratsman
It was Lina Taamallah’s bad luck to be born on the day Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank, in the late winter of 2002. The delivery was in Rafadiyeh Hospital in Nablus. It was a rainy day, tanks and soldiers were everywhere, and most of the villages and towns were under curfew.
“It was a miracle that we made it to the hospital at all,” recalls her father, Fareed, 37, who holds a master’s degree in journalism and international relations from Birzeit University and works for the Palestinian Authority’s elections commission. His wife, Amina, a housewife, gave birth to Lina by C-section.
A few months later, Lina fell ill. For a week it was impossible to get her out of the house and to a doctor because of the curfew in their village, Qira, near Salfit. Lina, who developed a high fever and had severe diarrhea, was treated according to telephone instructions by a pediatrician, using medicines in her parents’ home.
In an article Fareed Taamallah published in The Los Angeles Times in May 2006, he described how his wife once had to carry Lina five kilometers through the hills of the West Bank to reach a doctor. In the wrenching article, Taamallah drew a connection between Lina’s ordeal at that time and the kidney failure that afflicted her a few months later.
When she was a year old, Lina contracted anemia. At first she was thought to be suffering from thalassemia, a blood disorder, but her parents had undergone genetic testing before the birth so that was ruled out. A few months later, Lina (who has three healthy siblings ) was diagnosed with renal failure. The family endured 16 hard months, in which she underwent dialysis every four hours, 24 hours a day, via a special machine suitable for infants.
Her physical development was arrested and her parents’ life became unendurable. Distraught, they turned their home into a kind of miniature hospital and they themselves became a medical team: It was essential to ensure that Lina did not come down with any infection. “I can’t bring myself to remember that period,” Fareed says now. “It was a nightmare.”
It was urgent to find a kidney donor for Lina, to save her life and then upgrade its quality. Her parents were willing to donate a kidney but were quickly found to be incompatible. Desperate, they looked for another solution. They examined the possibility of obtaining a kidney from Egypt or Pakistan, but discovered there are serious ethical problems about the way kidneys are harvested in those countries. Fareed says he did not know what to do.
Anna Weekes-Majavu Photo by: Miki Kratsman
Around this time, he met Anna Weekes (whose father is Jewish ), who later went by the name Majavu, from Cape Town; she was born in 1973. They met at a summer camp of Palestinian, Israeli and international peace activists in the West Bank. Anna stayed with the family after the camp disbanded and became a good friend. She knew Lina almost from the day of the girl’s birth. After a time, Anna was put on the Israeli authorities’ blacklist and deported due to her pro-Palestinian activity in the West Bank; she was in Britain at the time Lina fell ill. Fareed informed her about the development by e-mail, and she replied immediately that she would donate a kidney.
“I didn’t believe it. I thought she only wanted to express solidarity and friendship, and that the offer was meant just to make me happy,” Fareed says. He thanked Anna politely and added that at that point, he and his wife were then undergoing tests to see if they could be donors. Two months later, Fareed wrote to Anna that both they were incompatible, and Anna repeated her offer and emphasized that she was perfectly serious.
Anna then suggested that the transplant be done in Britain, however, under British law, organs must be donated by a member of the family. She decided to come to Israel for a compatibility check, and entered using a different passport which she carried legally. She underwent the examination in a private hospital in Nablus, in the meantime taking part in demonstrations against the separation fence in Bil’in and Budrus – and was again deported. She was found to be compatible.
“Now we had a compatible donor but one who could not enter the country,” Fareed recalls, going on to describe the family’s ordeal to save his daughter’s life: They considered having the operation done in South Africa, Egypt, Jordan or Pakistan, but discovered that in all these countries the donor had to be from the family. They found that the most suitable place for the transplant was Israel, where organs can be donated by people who are not family members after a professional committee considers the motives for the donation.
A few devoted friends of Fareed’s – Israeli peace activists who had heard about Lina’s illness – rallied to the cause. “We now faced two battles,” Fareed explains, “the battle to get Anna into the country and the battle to raise $40,000 to pay for the transplant.” They had to choose between Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva and Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Karem, Jerusalem. With the help of local friends, they chose the latter, which offered to do the operation at a discount. After lobbying, the Palestinian Authority agreed to cover half the cost of the transplant, the Peres Center for Peace also contributed and the rest was obtained through private donations. All that remained was to bring in Anna.
Attorney Gabi Lasky, who specializes in human rights cases, conducted negotiations with the Interior Ministry for Anna to be allowed to enter the country because of the special humanitarian situation. The authorities finally relented – on condition that Anna go directly from the airport to the hospital, have the kidney harvested and then return directly to the airport. Fareed himself was (and still is ) barred from entering Israel, and Lina’s mother took her for the preliminary tests at the hospital alone.
In September 2005, Lina entered Hadassah. Anna arrived from South Africa – after she was interrogated for several hours at the airport – and the operation was performed on October 2, 2005. Lina was three years old at the time. Her father also finally received a permit to be with her at the hospital. On the day of the operation, Anna’s fiance, Mandisi Majavu, arrived to be with her at the hospital.
The transplant was successfully performed by Prof. Ahmed Eid, head of the department of surgery at Hadassah in Ein Karem. Anna was discharged after a week and taken to Qira for recovery. She stayed there for about a month and flew home to South Africa on the day Lina was discharged. “We only had a few hours when the two of them were together,” Fareed relates.
On the last night of Anna’s stay in the village, the family held an improvised wedding reception for her and her fiance, who would be married a few weeks later in South Africa. The photos of the party in the family album reflect tremendous joy: Anna in a colorful and traditional embroidered Palestinian dress; Mandisi in a kaffiyeh and galabiya, both pure white, rolling amber beads with his fingers.
A short while later at the airport, Anna was again interrogated for a few hours before being allowed to leave. The security people told her she would never be allowed into Israel again. She did not sign any document, she said this week. Since then, she and Mandisi have become the parents of a daughter in South Africa. Her name: Bil’in Nkwenkwezi.
Lina recovered fully. We met her this week in the family’s second home, in an affluent suburb of El Bireh, next to Ramallah. She is a charming girl, full of life. One cannot see any outward signs of what she went through. She is in the fourth grade in the American School of Palestine, which is near her home.
Every few months she goes to Hadassah for a checkup, and because her father cannot enter Israel, an Israeli volunteer takes her from the checkpoint to the hospital. It’s usually Shraga Gorny, a 76-year-old Jerusalemite. Gorny, an electronics engineer, worked for 41 years at the Hebrew University and for the past 10, did medical research at Hadassah. Gorny regularly volunteers to drive Palestinian children for medical treatment at the hospital, which is how he met Lina and her family and got to know them well. (He is one of a group of Israelis – among them Herzliya-based peace activist Dorothy Naor – involved in such efforts. )
A few weeks ago, Gorny wrote me: “The girl who was like a matchstick before the transplant now looks beautiful and blooming.”
According to Fareed, Lina is not yet able to appreciate what Anna did for her. For her part, Anna told me this week, on the phone from Cape Town: “It was nothing. The body does not need two kidneys. I did not do anything special. I don’t think it was a noble act, as you said. I know the family and I have known Lina since she was born. I know the ordeals the family endured when they had to go through the hills by foot to get her to the hospital during the period of the curfew. It was only logical for me to donate a kidney for her. That was my duty. I just worry that Lina’s kidney will function and that no problems will arise in another few years.”
Anna is now a journalist in South Africa and raising Bil’in. Meanwhile, in a few weeks, the family will celebrate the sixth anniversary of the transplant. They celebrate Lina’s rebirth every year and their dream is for Anna to join them. Lina has never met Anna since the operation, but Anna is still banned from entering Israel.
A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority sent the following response to Haaretz: “An examination of the details shows that there is no request by Mrs. Weekes to enter Israel. The interrogation she underwent when she left the country was not carried out by a representative of the authority, so, accordingly, in the absence of a reason of which we are not aware, there is nothing to prevent her from visiting Israel. “It should be clarified that if she wishes to enter the territories of the Palestinian Authority,” the spokeswoman continues, “she must arrange this with the coordinator of government activities in the territories. It is also desirable to check the question of why she was delayed [at the airport] with the relevant authorities.”
The Shin Bet security service provided this response to Haaretz: “Usually, the person authorized to either permit or deny the entry of Mrs. Weekes into Israel would be the interior minister, or someone associated with him. At this time, it is not his intention to recommend, to any authorized figure, to object to her entry unless negative up-to-date security-related information about her is received which would change his position.”
Troops fired tear gas during a curfew in a West Bank village to stop peaceful demonstrations
By Donald Macintyre
Friday, 16 September 2011
Israeli troops fired tear gas indiscriminately and sometimes dangerously to enforce a daytime curfew inside a West Bank village to stop Palestinians holding a peaceful demonstration on their own land, a military whistleblower has told The Independent.
The soldier’s insight into the methods of troops comes as the Israeli military prepares for demonstrations predicted when the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas submits an application for the recognition of statehood to the UN next week.
The testimony also reinforces a report by the human rights agency B’Tselem which argues that the way Israel deals with protests in the small village of Nabi Saleh is denying the “basic right” to demonstrate in the West Bank. The right to demonstrate is enshrined in international conventions ratified by Israel.
The soldier, a reservist NCO with extensive combat experience, was among more than 20 soldiers sent into the village more than two hours before a planned Friday demonstration in July, to try to quash protests before they began. The protests started in December 2009 after Jewish settlers appropriated a spring on privately-owned Nabi Saleh land.
The reservist, who originally testified to the veterans’ organisation Breaking the Silence, told The Independent that they went into a house in the village and took a position on the roof. “The sun was very hot, but we had to keep our helmets on,” he said. “Then some soldiers start getting bored and start shooting tear gas on people. Every guy who is not in his house or in the mosque is a target.”
He said that 150 rounds of tear gas or stun grenades were fired during the day and one soldier boasted that he had fired a tear gas canister which passed within one centimetre of a resident’s head.
Army rules prohibit firing canisters directly at people because they have caused serious injuries in the past. Another soldier travelling with the whistleblower in a military vehicle out of the village was left with an unfired tear gas canister.
“He should have fired it into an open field but we passed a grocery story with some people outside it with children. After we passed it he just turned round and fired it at them.”
The reservist was given a week’s preparation on the use of stun grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas. He had been impressed by a four to five -hour visit to the trainees by the Binyamin Brigade Commander Sa’ar Tzur who addressed “issues of ethics and human life, not just on our side but on the other side”.
Some soldiers complained about the strictness of prohibitions – not always honoured, according to the leaders of the weekly Nabi Saleh protests – on the use of live ammunition. But Colonel Tzur “was very strict on the fact that these are the rules and that anyone who breaks them will pay for it”.
But the battalion officer, a religious West Bank settler, was “exactly the opposite,” he added. “At the base there was a mission statement signed by the Brigade Commander which said ‘we need to maintain the fabric of life for the civilian population, Israelis and Palestinians.’ The battalion officer crossed out the word ‘Palestinians’ and all the soldiers around started laughing.”
The reservist’s testimony supports B’Tselem’s s main conclusions, including that the military makes “excessive use of crowd control weapons, primarily the firing of tear-gas canisters.”
He said: “It was very difficult for me. I want to be in the army to defend my country. On the other hand I saw that the job I was doing did not have any connection with defending Israel.”
He said that his unit was called to the village square when the battalion officer showed around 40 Palestinians and foreign activists a written order declaring the village a “closed military zone.” The soldiers had earlier heard shouting elsewhere by demonstrators before they were almost immediately dispersed by border police firing tear gas. The reservist said the people in the square “were just standing there. The officer said to the soldiers: ‘Everybody should get out of here. The Palestinians into their homes and the foreigners should get out. Anyone left should be arrested.’ One Palestinian was arrested when a soldier decided that he had ‘looked at him in a way he didn’t like’.”
As well as 35 Palestinian injuries in Nabi Saleh this year, there have been 80 detentions since the protests began, including of 18 minors, and protest leader Bassem Tamimi, currently awaiting military trial based largely on the interrogation of a 14-year-old boy arrested at home at gunpoint at 2am.
The military said it has “clear, detailed, and professional guidelines” for the use of tear gas to disperse “riots”, and that after two years of “dangerous and violent riots” it declared the village a “closed military area” on Fridays to “prevent these riots before they turn into violent ones”.
The military’s tactics have varied. A 13-year-old Palestinian boy was seriously injured by a rubber-coated bullet fired at close range during protracted clashes between armed troops and stone-throwing youths observed last year by The Independent. Those clashes started when troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets on the hitherto peaceful march towards the spring.
The reservist said he had seen no stones thrown on the day he was there. adding: “If they want to stop people throwing stones at the spring, why don’t [the troops] wait at the spring? Why are they coming into the village?” He added: “The headline of the whole Friday, as I see it, if the army won’t be in the village nothing would happen because the demonstration was not violent.”
EDITOR: The preparations for Palestine Global week are spreading
It is quite clear that Palestine was never in the news like it is now, not because of a massacre or bombing, but for the simple reason of its future being discussed in a policy connection, through the UN vote preparations. That in itself is already a major acheivment, though the vote may not deliver much change, of course. Major analysis feels the papers, radio and TV channels, and this can only be for the better. Israel’s message of hate and denial was never so exposed as it now is!
Former foreign secretary calls on colleagues to lobby William Hague in support of move at UN general assembly
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
Jack Straw says recognition of the Palestinians at the UN is the best way to get peace talks started again. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters
The former foreign secretary Jack Straw has thrown his weight behind efforts to persuade the British government to support the Palestinian bid to be admitted to the United Nations as a member state.
Straw, who was foreign secretary from 2001 to 2006 in Tony Blair’s government, has written to all 650 members of parliament arguing the case for Palestinian statehood and urging colleagues to stand up and be counted.
The Palestinians are expected to formally submit an application for full membership of the UN – in effect recognition of an independent state – when the world body meets in New York next week. The US has confirmed that it would veto such a bid at the security council.
The UK government is taking a wait and see approach to the question; whether or not the UK backs the Palestinian plan of action will depend on the specific wording of any resolution they put forward.
London recognises that the Palestinian Authority has made significant strides in recent years in reforming itself and reducing corruption. And it acknowledges that a Palestinian state should exist alongside an Israeli state. But Britain believes a meaningful Palestinian state can be the outcome only of a negotiated agreement with Israel. That position sets the UK apart from the nine European states which have already officially recognised the state of Palestine.
Straw’s letter tells MPs: “it is vital … that the UK and other European countries have the courage to point the way forward. I believe the way forward is for the international community to recognise a Palestinian state alongside Israel and admit it to the UN.”
He urges colleagues to sign an early day motion backing the Palestinian bid and to lobby foreign secretary William Hague on the issue. He says it is a matter of “urgency” to make it clear to the government “how important it is that we, as a country, make the right decision on this”.
He reminds MPs that Barack Obama, in his speech to the UN a year ago, looked forward to welcoming “an independent sovereign state of Palestine” as a new member of the world body by September 2011.
He says: “I’m as firm as anyone about Israel’s right to security, as a sovereign state. We all understand the fears that Israelis have for their security, but it will not enhance their security to deny the right of self-determination permanently to the Palestinians. The World Bank, the UN, the EU and the IMF have all assessed the progress of the Palestinian Authority and judged it to be ready for statehood.”
Recognition at the UN, he says, “is the best way to get peace talks started again”.
Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, and Blair, the Middle East Quartet envoy, are visiting Jerusalem and Ramallah this week, along with the US envoys David Hale and Dennis Ross, in an attempt to avoid damaging splits at the UN general assembly, which opens next week.
The EU’s bloc is divided over the Palestinian bid, and Ashton is anxious for a deal that could unite the 27 nations. Of the so-called big three, Britain and France have not explicitly declared their intentions, and Germany is opposed to full membership. France is inclined to back the Palestinians but is trying to come up with a compromise acceptable to Germany in the interests of EU unity.
A poll released this week showed a majority of respondents in the three countries favoured their governments backing the Palestinian approach to the UN.
A former Foreign Office official said Straw as foreign secretary had taken “a very balanced view” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “But he was never in any doubt that there needed to be a Palestinian state, and at times he was very frustrated by some Israeli actions.”
The early day motion, sponsored by Ann Clwyd, calls for recognition of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel and its admission to the UN. Among its backers are the former Conservative defence minister Nicholas Soames.
Envoy to UN Riyad al-Malki says Palestinians will submit request to Security Council next Friday, ending speculation over whether they would risk U.S. veto.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said the Palestinians will submit a bid for full membership at the UN Security Council on September 23.
The remarks by al-Malki put an end to speculation that the Palestinians might avoid a showdown with the United States by sidestepping the Security Council and going directly to the UN General Assembly to seek a lesser status of a non-member observer.
The U.S. does not wield veto power in the General Assembly, and a Palestinian bid there would be expected to win majority approval.
The Palestinians will likely still end up at the General Assembly with scaled-back ambitions, however, if the U.S.¬ exercises its veto power in the Security Council as expected.
The U.S. has been on a furious diplomatic offensive to try to keep the Palestinians from going to the UN in their statehood quest, saying negotiations are the only way to produce a Palestinian state.
Israel also opposes the UN move, which the Palestinians launched after concluding that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations … stalled for nearly three years … were not going to produce any breakthroughs at this time.
Malki said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would present the statehood bid to UN chief Ban Ki-moon after delivering his speech before the General Assembly on Sept. 23.
Malki spoke to foreign journalists in Ramallah, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority.
His comments came as U.S. and other international envoys were shuttling back and forth between Jerusalem and Ramallah in an effort to avert a diplomatic crisis over the Palestinians’ UN bid.
Israeli’s refusal to accept a Palestine within 1967 borders and Hamas’s opposition make a solution unlikely but not hopeless
Ian Black, Middle East editor
A Palestinian worker at a printers in the West Bank inspects a banner supporting the upcoming bid for statehood at the UN. Photograph: Issam Rimawi/Zuma Press/Corbis
The United Nations has staked out landmark positions many times on the question of Palestine, but the current attempt to secure recognition for Palestinian statehood has powerful echoes of one its most significant past decisions – the partition of the country into separate Jewish and Arab states in November 1947.
That vote by the UN general assembly was necessitated by Britain’s desire to shed responsibility for the then mandated territory. Hailed by the Jews but fatefully rejected by the Arabs, the move signalled the start of fighting before the establishment of Israel and the flight of the Palestinian refugees – the “Nakba” – the following year.
Both sides are thus sharply aware of the historical resonance of next week’s UN bid. Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, has warned of a “diplomatic tsunami”. But others predict a damp squib. In this view, the manoeuvring seems unlikely to deliver more than symbolic recognition of an already widely recognised right. But that may be underestimating the impact. And surprises cannot be ruled out.
In a new report, the International Crisis Group describes the path to the UN as “a tale of collective mismanagement”. It blames Palestinian leaders “plagued by ignorance, internal divisions and brinkmanship for overselling what they could achieve and scrambling to avoid further loss of domestic credibility”.
Israel, it warns, is over-dramatising the impact of UN recognition and has threatened to retaliate against the Palestinians. “The US administration, unable to steer events, fed up with both sides, and facing a Congress that will inflict a price for any Palestinian move at the UN, just wants the whole thing to go away. It is pressing instead for a resumption of negotiations which, in the current context, are likely to collapse – making it a cure more hazardous than the ailment.”
On the Palestinian side, the drive for recognition flows from a sense that the moribund “peace process” – never more deserving of those quotation marks than now – helps maintain a status quo that allows the relentless expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Earlier this year the “Palestine papers” published by the Guardian exposed the yawning gap between the two sides.
Supporters of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, argue that even if a threatened US veto means that the effort will produce nothing more than observer status at the UN – akin to that of the Vatican – Palestinians will still gain access to organisations such as the international criminal court at The Hague and be able to use them to fight the occupation and its abuses – “lawfare” rather than warfare.
But a powerful counter-argument on the Palestinian side, where there is growing disillusionment with the two-state solution, is that this is a distraction from the real business of resisting Israel. That strategy envisages a struggle for civil rights on both sides of the old 1967 border with the distant goal of somehow achieving one single democratic state for Arabs and Jews.
The truth is that no solution at all is likely as long as Israel’s Likud-led government refuses to accept the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. And Abbas still faces opposition from Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls Gaza and opposes both negotiations with Israel and the struggle for UN recognition because it believes “that rights are grabbed and not begged for”.
Israeli “doves” see one big positive. “Abbas is effectively agreeing to a partial settlement of his final status claims that could be highly advantageous for the cause of a stable two-state solution,” wrote analyst Yossi Alpher at Bitterlemons.org.
“Abbas is asking the UN for a territorial solution: a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with its capital in Jerusalem. He is not asking the UN to rule on the right of return or the ‘ownership’ of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem – the real ‘dealbreakers’ when the two parties sit down to direct negotiations.” Those advantages are seen as disadvantages by many Palestinians.
With the seismic changes of the Arab spring and Israel’s spats with Egypt and Turkey in the background, this is a potentially significant moment. The two big questions are whether international recognition of a Palestinian state will make substantive and successful negotiations any more likely; and whether a UN decision – like that one back in 1947 and so many others since – will be rendered irrelevant by events and facts on the ground.
PM tells reporters in Jerusalem that Israel does not receive ‘fair hearing’ at UN, but he has ‘decided to tell the truth.’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he will address the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, September 23, the day on which the Palestinians say they will submit their bid for full UN membership.
Netanyahu is due to leave for New York next Wednesday, and will attend the annual General Assembly session. Israel had originally intended to dispatch President Shimon Peres to New York for the General Assembly, but was warned by diplomats that this would only give more weight to the Palestinian move.
Should Netanyahu address the UN General Assembly on September 23? Visit Haaretz.com on Facebook and answer our poll.
“The General Assembly is not a place where Israel usually receives a fair hearing,” Netanyahu told a press conference with the Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas in Jerusalem on Thursday. “But I still decided to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it.”
“I have decided to convey the twin messages of direct negotiations for peace and the quest for peace,” Netanyahu told reporters.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said earlier Thursday that the Palestinians will definitely go ahead with their bid for full membership at the UN Security Council on September 23.
The birth of Israel had an anti-imperialist pedigree. And Palestine is the unfinished business of that process of self-determination
Pankaj Mishra
Next week the Palestinian Authority, stepping away from years of a fruitless “peace process” with Israel, will ask the UN to recognise Palestine as an independent state. It is very likely to be obstructed in the security council by the US, Israel’s long-suffering but faithful friend. There is no question, however, that an overwhelming majority in the general assembly will back the Palestinians.
Israel has never looked more isolated as its embassy in Egypt is attacked, and Turkey, another close ally in the region until recently, leads a resurgent pan-Arab anti-Zionism. Its western supporters, too, have been dwindling fast. Besieged at home by furious masses demanding social justice after years of private wealth creation, Israeli leaders find their most devoted friends abroad among centre-right or extreme rightwing politicians in Canada, Italy, Holland and the Czech Republic, all of which are expected to stifle the Palestinian state at birth.
It was not at all like this in the lead-up to Israel’s creation. In 1945 George Orwell told his American readers that “the left, generally, is very strongly committed to support of the Jews against the Arabs”. The latter had no influential allies when, in November 1947, European and white commonwealth countries helped the UN plan for the partition of Palestine – fiercely resisted by Arabs – pass with a two-thirds majority. During the UN debate Zionists packed the galleries, applauding pro-Israel speakers and hissing at Arab ones. “They created,” a British official wrote, “the atmosphere of a football match, with the Arabs as the away team.”
Like many American gentiles of his generation, President Truman was prone to racist generalisations about the “Jews”: “I fear very much,” he wrote in his diary, “that the Jews are like all underdogs. When they get on top they are just as intolerant and cruel as the people were to them when they were underneath.” Still, the US arm-twisted two former dependencies, the Philippines and Liberia, into supporting the creation of the Jewish state, and managed to get China and Ethiopia to abstain.
The infant nation states of India and Pakistan voted against partition, as did Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey. On the face of it, this seems unconscionable. In 1947, just two years after the full scale of the crimes against European Jews had been exposed, the moral case for the creation of a Jewish state was incontestable. And valiant Zionists outmanoeuvring the exhausted British masters of Palestine had provoked much admiration across Europe and America.
But, as Orwell warned, “few English people realize that the Palestine issue is partly a colour issue and that an Indian nationalist, for instance, would probably side with the Arabs”. The Jewish claim on Palestine may have existed for more than two millennia; but in the eyes of Asian leaders and intellectuals embattled against Western imperialists, it began with the Balfour Declaration, which threatened to implant yet another European people on Asian soil.
As Jawaharlal Nehru acidly remarked about the British promise of a Jewish homeland: “One not unimportant fact seems to have been overlooked. Palestine was not a wilderness, or an empty, uninhabited place. It was already somebody else’s home.” The lack of antisemitic traditions in Asia meant that many Asian leaders could not recognise the need for a separate Jewish state. Cosmopolitan networks of solidarity across Asia ensured that Indian nationalists would take the Arab side, and see Zionism as a form of western imperialism – a perception not challenged by Zionist leaders, who, busy courting European and American politicians, kept a careful distance from anti-colonial nationalist movements in the 1920s and 1930s.
As Jewish immigration to Palestine picked up during the British Mandate, Mahatma Gandhi resisted all entreaties to lend his moral prestige to the Zionist cause. Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle in London in 1931, he said: “I can understand the longing of a Jew to return to Palestine, and he can do so if he can without the help of bayonets, whether his own or those of Britain.” In 1938, during the brutal British suppression of the Arab revolt in Palestine, he reiterated that it was “wrong” of Jews to enter Palestine “under the shadow of the British gun”.
Eventually the Zionists in Palestine turned against their British enablers; and Israel, born during the high noon of decolonisation, could plausibly claim an anti-imperialist pedigree. But its collusion with Britain and France against Egypt in 1956 – a year after the conference of new postcolonial nations in Bandung – did not endear it to Asian and African leaders reflexively hostile to such imperialist skullduggery as the Suez expedition. Nor was the “colour issue” allowed to fade by Israel’s support of France against Algerian anti-colonialists, its occupation of the West Bank in 1967, and its close relations with the apartheid regime in South Africa.
There were many rightwing admirers of Israeli resourcefulness and bravery in India – growing up in a Hindu nationalist family, I came to revere the Israeli general Moshe Dayan – but almost all postcolonial nation states shunned Israel. The latter’s frequent attempts to reach out to Asian countries were met with rebuffs. A placatory cable from Israel’s foreign minister Abba Eban to the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai was sent back with a note: “Undelivered because of non-existent relations”.
Israel’s diplomatic ties with India were established only in 1993, and then deepened by military and political links between Hindu nationalists and radical Zionists. In the 1990s Israel rapidly expanded its diplomatic presence in Asia beyond Burma, the only Asian country where it had an embassy in the 1950s. The end of the cold war, and Israel’s decision to open negotiations with the PLO after the first intifada, brought the country out of its long international isolation.
The peace process had many critics, who saw it as a ploy to buy time for Israeli settlements. With Israel’s security and expansion guaranteed by the US, it held back from the necessary and inevitable reckoning with its Palestinian subjects and Arab neighbours. But now the collapse of staunchly pro-American Arab regimes – amounting to a second round of decolonisation – and the related decline of American authority in the Middle East find Israel exposed to the chill winds of history.
The feelings and desires of Arabs entering mass politics can no longer be ignored; and this democratic opinion turns out to be not much less opposed to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza than were the Arab dictators who made radical anti-Zionism a pillar of their despotism.
In Cairo this week Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, proclaimed that “the world is changing to a system where the will of the people will rule”. This is self-serving rhetoric from a politician with clear authoritarian tendencies. Nevertheless, Erdogan’s assertion that “Israel is the west’s spoiled child” is unlikely to be challenged in the Arab world or, for that matter, a swath of Asian countries, where Palestinians are seen as victims of a western-style and western-aided expansionism.
Palestinian politicians remain hopelessly divided. And an independent Palestine might prove tragically unviable, quickly stumbling into the crowded ranks of “failed” or “failing” nation states. Yet Palestine has long been the unfinished business of decolonisation and national self-determination: the central events of the 20th century. And opposition from a weakened west next week will not prevent the eventual birth of a Palestinian state – just as objections from the fledgling and powerless nations of the east in 1947 did not thwart the creation of a Jewish state.
Reform began after arrest warrant issued in 2009 against opposition leader Tzipi Livni; British Ambassador says change in law means it ‘can no longer be abused for political reasons.’
Britain has amended a law that allowed for issuing arrest warrants against Israeli politicians who visit the country, British Ambassador Matthew Gould announced Thursday. Gould called opposition leader Tzipi Livni, against whom an arrest warrant was issued in 2009, and told her the Queen has signed the amendment “to ensure that the UK’s justice system can no longer be abused for political reasons.”
Lawyers working with Palestinian activists in recent years have sought the arrest of senior Israeli civilian and military figures under terms of universal jurisdiction. This legal concept empowered judges to issue arrest warrants for visiting officials accused of war crimes in a foreign conflict, under the principle of universal jurisdiction which holds that some alleged crimes are so grave that they can be tried anywhere, regardless of where the offences were committed.
After the warrant was issued against Livni in 2009, Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced that Britain would no longer tolerate legal harassment of Israeli officials in that fashion.
Ambassador Gould added Thursday that the change in the law will ensure that people cannot be detained when there is no realistic chance of prosecution, while ensuring that we continue to honour our international obligations.
Livni welcomed the amendment, and told Gould that she is “pleased that the warrant issued against me opened Britain’s eyes and will put a stop to the cynical use of British legislation against IDF commanders and soldiers.”
Livni added that “real justice has been done, and it will distinguish between leaders and commanders who defend their country against terrorism, and real war criminals.”
On Wednesday, a coalition of Israeli peace organizations published a list of 50 reasons for Israel to support a Palestinian state. Assuming that you only accept five of them, isn’t that enough? What exactly is the alternative, now that the heavens are closing in around us?
What will we tell the world next week, at the UN? What could we say? Whether in the General Assembly or the Security Council, we will be exposed in all our nakedness: Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period. And it doesn’t have a single persuasive argument against the establishment and the international recognition of such a state.
So what will we say, that we’re opposed? Four prime ministers, Benjamin Netanyahu among them, have said that they’re in favor, that it must be accomplished through negotiations, so why haven’t we done it yet? Is our argument that we object to it’s being a unilateral measure? What’s more unilateral than the settlements that we insist on continuing to build? Or perhaps we will say that the route to a Palestinian state runs through Ramallah and Jerusalem, not New York, a la the U.S. secretary of state. The State of Israel itself was created, in part, in the United Nations.
Next week will be Israel’s moment of truth, or more precisely the moment in which its deception will be revealed. Be it the president, the prime minister or the ambassador to the UN, even the greatest of public speakers will be incapable of standing before the representatives of the nations of the world and explaining Israeli logic; none of the three will be able to convince them that there is any merit to Israel’s position.
Thirty-two years ago, Israel signed a peace agreement with Egypt in which it undertook “to recognize the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people” and to establish an autonomous authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip within five years. Nothing happened.
Eighteen years ago the prime minister of Israel signed the Oslo Accords, in which Israel undertook to conduct talks in order to achieve a final-status agreement with the Palestinians, including the core issues, within five years. That, too, did not occur. Most of the provisions of the agreement have foundered since then – in the majority of cases because of Israel. What will Israel’s advocate at the UN say about this?
For years, Israel claimed that Yasser Arafat was the sole obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. Arafat died – and once again nothing happened. Israel claimed that if only the terror were to stop, a solution would appear. The terror stopped – and nothing. Israel’s excuses became increasingly empty and the naked truth was increasingly exposed. Israel does not want to reach a peace arrangement that would involve the establishment of a Palestinian state. This can no longer be covered up in the UN. And what did Netanyahu’s Israel expect the Palestinians to do in this case – another round of photo ops, like the ones with Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni that led nowhere?
The truth is that the Palestinians have just three options, not four: to surrender unconditionally and go on living under Israeli occupation for another 42 years at least; to launch a third intifada; or to mobilize the world on their behalf. They picked the third option, the lesser of all evils even from Israel’s perspective. What could Israel say about this – that it’s a unilateral step, as it and the United States have said? But it didn’t agree to stop construction in the settlements, the mother of all unilateral steps. What did the Palestinians have left? The international arena. And if that won’t save them, then another popular uprising in the territories.
The Palestinians in the West Bank, 3.5 million today, will not live without civil rights for another 42 years. We might as well get used to the fact that the world won’t stand for it. Can Netanyahu or Shimon Peres explain why the Palestinians do not deserve their own state? Do they have even the slightest of arguments? Nothing. And why not now? We have already seen, especially of late, that time only reduces the possible alternatives in the region. So even that weak excuse is dead.
Yesterday, a coalition of Israeli peace organizations published a list of 50 reasons for Israel to support a Palestinian state. Assuming that you only accept five of them, isn’t that enough? What exactly is the alternative, now that the heavens are closing in around us? Can anyone, can Peres or Netanyahu, seriously contend that the regional hostility toward us would not have lessened had the occupation already ended and a Palestinian state been established?
The truths are so basic, so banal, that it hurts even to repeat them. But, unfortunately, they’re the only ones we have. And so, a simple question to whoever will be representing us at the UN next week: Why not, for heaven’s sake? Why “no” once again? And to what will we say “yes”?
US fears major diplomatic embarrassment if Israelis and Palestinians collide in New York over looming request at UN for recognition of Palestinian statehood
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem and Chris McGreal in Washington
United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton is leading the talks to avert a clash betwen Israel and the Palestinians at the United Nations. Photograph: Marty Melville/Getty
The United States, Europe and the Middle East quartet are engaged in a last-ditch effort to set up a fresh round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in an attempt to head off a major diplomatic embarrassment over the looming Palestinian request for recognition of statehood at the UN.
The US is leading diplomatic pressure on Israeli and Palestinian leaders in a bid to persuade the parties back to negotiations rather than risk a damaging collision in New York next week. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton is in telephone contact with the three delegations in the region, who are co-ordinating their efforts.
Washington is keen to avoid carrying out a threat to veto a Palestinian request for full membership of the UN, a move likely to further damage America’s already battered reputation in the Middle East, particularly following its strong backing for moves towards self-determination in the region this year.
But some at the heart of the diplomatic manoeuvres believe that it is now too late to stop the Palestinians taking their case to the UN and are concentrating on damage limitation by seeking a clear position for a return to the negotiation table after the world body meets.
The Palestinians insist that they will not be diverted from making a formal request at the security council for full member status, and that diplomatic interventions have come too late. They claim to be resisting pressure, which included President Obama this week describing their move as “counterproductive”.
Washington, fearing isolation in wielding its veto, is seeking support from Britain in particular in its stand against the Palestinian resolution if it comes to a vote. Two other security council members, Russia and China, have openly backed the Palestinian move. France is sympathetic to the Palestinian demand but is seeking a compromise resolution that could be supported by Germany, which is opposed to UN recognition of a Palestinian state, in the hope of forging a common EU position.
Britain has so far not declared how it would vote but diplomatic sources say that it is torn between American pressure to support the US position in the security council and concerns about what such a move would do to the UK’s standing in a changing Middle East, particularly while it is still heavily involved in Libya.
The former British prime minister, Tony Blair, now special envoy of the Middle East quartet, was Wednesday working on a text to put to Israeli and Palestinian leaders outlining a basis on which talks might resume.
He was liaising with EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and US special envoys David Hale and Dennis Ross in the region, and by telephone with Clinton. The former British prime minister expects to remain in the Middle East until flying to New York at the weekend.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has said he will take the request for full recognition as a state to the UN security council next week. But some Arab and European nations are pressuring him to downgrade the request to the general assembly, which can only offer observer status to the Palestinians, to save Washington the embarrassment of having to wield its veto.
The Palestinians insist their approach to the UN does not preclude a return to negotiations later. “We see no contradictions between doing both,” said Dr Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior member of the team heading to New York. The UN bid was “the beginning of the game, not the end. It is a process”.
But diplomatic efforts to secure a breakthrough on a return to talks are constrained by Palestinian demands of guarantees that any future negotiations would be based on the pre-1967 borders plus a total settlement freeze. Israel is unlikely to sign up to that.
The International Crisis Group warned this week that any climbdown by the Palestinians now “could decisively discredit [Mahmoud Abbas’s] leadership, embolden his foes and trigger unrest among his people”. It went on: “Most Palestinians do not strongly support the UN bid; but they would strongly oppose a decision to retract it without suitable compensation.”
Israel was also making last-minute efforts to persuade undeclared countries not to vote for a Palestinian resolution, although it has acknowledged it will lose a vote at the general assembly. The Palestinians claim to have the support of around 130 countries so far, just beyond the two-thirds majority needed for a resolution to succeed.
Israeli ministers have threatened retaliatory measures should the Palestinian bid succeed. They include tearing up the Oslo accords, under which the Palestinian Authority was given control of parts of the West Bank and Gaza, annexing the West Bank settlements and withholding tax revenues that Israel collects on behalf of the PA. The US Congress is also threatening to cut off financial aid to the Palestinians.
Turkish PM says Israel could not do whatever it wants in the eastern Mediterranean.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday Israel could not do whatever it wanted in the eastern Mediterranean and that Turkish warships could be there at any moment.
Erdogan’s comments, made during a visit to Tunisia as part of a tour of Arab countries, were the latest in a war of words between the two regional powers, whose relations have deteriorated since Israel killed nine Turks aboard an aid ship headed for Gaza last year.
“Israel cannot do whatever it wants in the eastern Mediterranean. They will see what our decisions will be on this subject. Our navy attack ships can be there at any moment,” Erdogan told a news conference shortly after arriving in Tunis.
Turkey downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and halted defense-related trade after the Jewish state confirmed last week it would not apologise for the raid on the Mavi Marmara ship which had attempted to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza.
Turkey and Israel had tried to mend fences before the publication two weeks ago of a UN report that deemed the blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip a legal means to stem the flow of arms to Palestinians but also said Israel had used unreasonable force.
Ankara said it was prepared to escort any future Gaza-bound ship with naval ships.
Israel has said it will maintain the blockade and that it wants to ease tensions with its former ally.
But in an interview last week with Al Jazeera television, excerpts of which were released by Turkish state media, Erdogan said he saw the Israeli storming of the ship in May, 2010 as “grounds for war” but that Turkey had acted “with patience”.
The prospect of a showdown at sea with Turkey, a NATO power and, like Israel, an ally of the United States, rattled Israelis already on edge over political upheaval in the Arab world and Iran’s nuclear program. Washington has appealed for restraint.
Erdogan, seeking to expand Turkey’s regional influence, is on a tour of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, where he has so far received an enthusiastic welcome. His criticism of Israeli has helped win him great popularity in Arab countries.
Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Thu, 09/15/2011 – 14:05
Just in time for the big debate on Palestinian “statehood,” an article I wrote challenging prevailing scholarly views on the inevitability of partition in Palestine has been published today by the leading journal Ethnopolitics.
In fact, I have two articles in the issue. First is my original thesis which takes on some the the main figures in the field. This is followed by three responses to my article from academics Sumantra Bose, Heribert Adam, and Anthony Oberschall.
Finally, I close with another article taking on those responses. It all makes for a good rollicking read.
Unfortunately, as is the case with most academic journals, the ability to read the full articles is restricted to those with electronic journal access. Most university students and faculty will have such access through their university libraries, and some public libraries also provide it. Otherwise you can purchase an copy of the articles from the publisher. I am sorry that I am not able to provide copies.
But here’s a brief excerpt from my opening article, “A Curious case of exceptionalism: Non-partitionist approaches to Ethnic Conflict Regulation and the Question of Palestine,” in Ethnopolitics, Vol. 10, Nos. 3-4, September-November 2011:
For decades, but particularly since the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, a consensus encompassing national leaders, international officials, academics, advocates, media and non-governmental organizations has asserted that the partition of historic Palestine into Israeli Jewish and Palestinian states is the only possible solution to an otherwise intractable conflict. Paradoxically, as this assertion has been made with ever greater fervor, there has been growing recognition that the possibility of such an outcome — a two-state solution — seems to be receding as Israeli colonization eats deeply into land expected to form the core of the Palestinian state.
When it comes to other territories, the most widely advocated approaches for the democratic regulation of ethnic conflict are non-partitionist models in all their varieties — ‘integrationist’ or ‘consociational’, federal, binational, unitary or other constitutional forms that accommodate two or more antagonistic groups within a single polity. Consociationalism and integrationism, in particular, ‘have become the focal point of both empirical and theoretical debate’ in this field (Caspersen, 2004, p. 570).
In this literature, Palestine/Israel is recognized as an ‘ethnic conflict’ comparable to others, so one would expect to find significant attention given to whether there are alternatives to the two-state solution in that case, or at least theoretical justifications for the nearly exclusive focus on partition. What emerges, however, is that Palestine/Israel is largely ignored. When it is included in analyses, it is treated as an exception, and scholars allow the sort of partitionist arguments to stand that they effectively refute in other cases.
This article takes the work of Donald L. Horowitz, John McGarry, Brendan O’Leary and Sumantra Bose as representative of this genre. Application of these scholars’ own analytic frames to Palestine/Israel results in the conclusion that Palestine/Israel is not an appropriate case for partition, a finding often contrary to their own assertions.
Which, if any, of the non-partitionist approaches they advocate elsewhere could work in Palestine/Israel is an open question that is beyond the scope of this analysis. This article should be read, above all, as a call for scholars to begin seriously to consider Palestine as a site for non-partitionist approaches, at a moment when it has become patently obvious to all but the most dogmatic that efforts to achieve a ‘two-state solution’ have utterly failed.
And here is one of my key conclusions:
An attempt to bring about a two-state solution along the pre-1967 ‘Green Line’ boundary would not—as many assume—be little more than a formal ratification of an already existing and agreed upon division. There is every likelihood that it would be a repartition as costly, violent and unpredictable as the one that occurred in 1948, and no more likely to ‘resolve’ the conflict. It may be time to recognize that historic Palestine today resembles one giant Northern Ireland, but with a lot more firepower, including, on the Israeli side, nuclear weapons.
In Istanbul, thousands gather outside a soccer stadium where Maccabi Tel Aviv is playing; dozens demonstrate in front of Israeli embassy in Amman.
Thousands of Turkish protesters gathered outside the soccer stadium in Istanbul where Maccabi Tel Aviv was playing against Turkish team Beşiktaş, waving Hezbollah flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans. The protesters yelled “no passage for Zionists” and “Israel is a murderer, get out of Palestine.”
Demonstrators wave Palestinian flags during an anti-Israel protest before the Europa League soccer match between Turkey's Besiktas and Israel's Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer match, Istanbul, Sept. 15, 2011. Photo by: Reuters
Local police were deployed in large numbers around the area, and prevented protesters from reaching dozens of Israeli soccer fans who were seated in an isolated area. There were no violent incidents inside the stadium.
On Wednesday, Turkish police instructed the team to stay within hotel grounds and to leave only on guarded trips to practice and the game itself. Team spokesman Ofer Ronen told the local media “we trust the Turkish police to do their work faithfully.”
Sports and Culture Minister Limor Livnat said she had talked with the authorities to beef up the team’s security and would be continuously in touch with the private security company guarding the team.
Meanwhile, dozens of Muslim Brotherhood activists held a demonstration in front of the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan, demanding the cancellation of peace accords between the two countries and calling for the deportation of the Israeli ambassador.
Jordanian police deployed armored vehicles in the area, fearing a takeover attempt like the one at the Cairo, Egypt, embassy earlier this week.
On Wednesday, the Amman embassy was closed in the evening hours and diplomats were sent home, fearing violent clashes. “Jordan is not Egypt and the king and security forces are determined to keep the peace,” said a source in the foreign ministry, “but it was decided not to take a chance.”
The wolf is more merciful than my brothers – Mahmoud Darwish
People power has opened Rafah crossing before. (Wissam Nassar / MaanImages )
Writing about the Rafah crossing, after the spectacular success of the Egyptian revolution in ousting Hosni Mubarak, brings back the horrific memory of the deposed dictator’s regime. There were high expectations amongst the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza earlier this year after former Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil el-Arabi described the Mubarak government’s complicity with Israel in besieging Gaza as “disgraceful.”
This was followed on 29 May by an official announcement by the Egyptian government that the Rafah crossing would be permanently opened. Palestinians with passports would be allowed to cross into Egypt every day from 9am to 5pm, except for Fridays and holidays. Palestinian women and children would be able to leave Gaza without restrictions, while men between the ages of 18 and 40 would have to obtain visas to enter Egypt. Despite these conditions, and even though the free flow of goods and materials would not be allowed, Palestinians in Gaza welcomed this move.
This decision, however, was implemented for only two days. It was retracted without any formal announcement and the number now allowed to leave Gaza each day has been reduced to 300. No reason has been given for this change.
Ordinary people in Gaza remain the victims of this political about-turn with their right to freedom of movement curtailed yet again, with no indication of when they can expect to travel freely.
No justification for closure
International law is sometimes cited selectively, even by some Palestine solidarity activists, to justify the closure of the Rafah crossing. They argue that Gaza is not an independent state and that since the internationally recognized, Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority signed the 2005 Rafah Agreement on Movement and Access, only that entity has the right to oversee movement through the crossing on the Palestinian side.
Even Israel’s mainstream liberal media is lecturing the Palestinians of Gaza on what is best for them. The Israeli journalist Amira Hass is another critic of calls to open the Rafah crossing, locating herself in opposition to prominent international signatories to the International Campaign to Open the Rafah Crossing, such as South Africans Desmond Tutu and Ronnie Kasrils as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Territories, Richard Falk. World-renowned writers Alaa Al Aswani, Ahdaf Soueif, Tariq Ali, Radwa Ashour, Mike Marqusee and Benjamin Zephania – to mention but a few – and major international solidarity groups and trade unions have also backed the call to open Rafah.
Hass’s argument is that the call to open the crossing permanently and unconditionally is “another self-described militant initiative that is a double-edged sword” because it is not combined with the demand for freedom of movement between Gaza and the West Bank — as if the opening of the crossing necessitates the closure of all other crossings between Gaza and Israel.
Confusing tactic with strategy allows Hass to ignore the simple fact that these six crossings are totally controlled by trigger-happy Israeli soldiers. For her, “the apparently progressive and militant initiative” to open the Rafah crossing turns the cutoff of Gaza from the West Bank into an “unchallenged reality.”
To a supporter of the two-state solution, this conclusion is of course valid. To not be able to see the immense amount of suffering caused by the closure of the crossing, and ignoring that Palestinians in Gaza currently have no other exit, boggles the mind.
Most importantly, Hass seems to even ignore the fact that the call to open the crossing permanently and unconditionally was issued by Gaza-based civil society and grassroots organizations. Meanwhile, Egyptian revolutionaries and grassroots organizations supported the call as soon as it was issued.
Rereading international law
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that:
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own,
and to return to his country.
International law is not against the opening of the Rafah crossing, and even if it was, it would be up to us, ordinary people, civil society and grassroots organizations, to create a new reality on the ground.
But international law is very clear that in cases of emergency, such as during the siege and massacres in Gaza, neighboring countries, such as Egypt, should open their borders. Bosnia is a good recent example where neighboring European countries heeded calls to open their borders for Bosnians in accordance with international law. One can go further and say that any government official imposing, or helping, in the imposition of this deadly siege on Gaza should be tried for war crimes. This question should be addressed to the present Secretary General of the Arab League, Nabil el-Arabi, as an expert on international law, and because his statements on Egypt’s relations with Israel gave unfulfilled hope to the besieged Palestinians in Gaza.
The reality is that Israel, both before and after 2005, is the only power that decides when to open the crossing and how to interpret international law, making sure that its own interests and that of the US and the West in general are secured.
International law and agreements can be used, and defended, as a framework for struggle where Palestinian rights are guaranteed and protected (such as UN Resolution 194, which calls for the Palestinian refugees’ right of return) and if such use supports resistance and national liberation. My understanding is that international law should serve freedom, equality and human rights.
The restriction of Palestinian movement at the Rafah crossing is, however, a political decision since the Palestinian national unity government, which survived for a short period of time in 2007, representing almost all Palestinian political organizations, indicated to both Egypt and the Quartet (the US, European Union, Russia and the UN) that it accepts the 2005 Rafah crossing principles. This Palestinian endorsement of the principles was never accepted by the Egyptian regime or the Quartet, resulting in the current stalemate that has led directly to the deaths of more than 650 Palestinians in Gaza who were unable to access needed medical treatment.
It is worth nothing that prior to 1967, under an Egyptian administration, the Gaza Strip had no controlled borders with Egypt, and Gazans were able to drive through the Sinai up to the Suez Canal without being stopped at all. That freedom of movement was never used as a pretext to deprive Palestinians in Gaza of the right to struggle to return to the villages and towns from which they had been ethnically cleansed. Gaza was still considered part of historic Palestine. The same principle applies today regarding calls to open Rafah; to open Rafah doesn’t mean the acceptance of the rest of Israel’s closure regime.
Ignoring colonization
The problem with the mainstream (mis)interpretation of international law is that it transforms the whole Palestine question into a decontextualized, postmodern language game. The international law referred to is viewed as ahistorical and takes into consideration the interpretation of the powerful party, Israel. This discourse ignores that Israel has colonized not only the land, but also history and the discourse that represents it. As historian Ilan Pappe says in a different context, Israel has employed its powerful apparatus to propagate its official narrative.
We Palestinians are engaged in a national liberation struggle and the context in Gaza, especially during and after the massacre, requires a complete paradigm shift in our understanding of the tools of struggle and the political program that is to be used. It is the time of people power as evidenced on the streets of Cairo, Damascus, Sana’a, Manama and Tunis. The people of Egypt with the Palestinians of Gaza can open the crossing permanently and unconditionally, regardless of what Israel and its backers in the White House and 10 Downing Street think. Their man in Sharm El-Sheikh is behind bars, thanks to the sacrifices and courage of ordinary people like Khaled Said and Ahmed al-Shahat and the men, women and children of Gaza who managed to tear down the cement walls on the Palestinian-Egyptian borders twice.
There are lessons to learn from Gaza 2009. We have lost faith in the so-called international community that claims to uphold international law, as their representatives such as the UN, EU and the Arab League by and large have remained silent in the face of atrocities committed by apartheid Israel. They are therefore on the side of Israel.
So what if Israel declares Gaza a “hostile entity?” The message from officials citing international law to justify the closure of the crossing, and some misinformed activists and journalists, is a mechanical interpretation of the law that does not take human lives into account.
The closing of the Palestinians of Gaza’s only exit to the outside world amounts to a crime against humanity, given the Israeli siege and ongoing bombardment of Gaza. Egypt has a moral and political obligation to open the Rafah crossing permanently and around the clock. Egypt cannot continue to support opportunistic interpretations of international law that justify the ongoing deprivation of medicine, milk, food and other essentials to the population of Gaza.
The sanctity of human lives should take precedence over borders and treaties and solidarity activists need to take the lead in making this point to the Egyptian and other governments.
Under the Geneva Conventions, Palestinians, like all other people, are entitled to freedom of movement and protection from collective punishment such as the arbitrary closure of the crossing.
No misinterpretation of international law can override Palestinians’ right to free movement in and out of Egypt just because they are also at the same time engaged in a struggle against Israeli occupation, colonization and apartheid.
Haidar Eid is an independent political commentator from the Gaza Strip, Palestine.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he’s sympathetic to the frustrations of the Palestinian people who have failed to achieve an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a news conference Thursday that an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “is long overdue” and it’s vital that long-stalled negotiations resume.
He said he’s sympathetic to the frustrations of the Palestinian people who have failed to achieve an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. “I am profoundly troubled by the lack of progress in the peace negotiations,” he said. “Time is not our friend.”
Ban said Israel has a duty to create conditions favorable to resuming negotiations and noted that new settlement activity “has not been helpful.” He said the Palestinians should try to sit down for talks with the Israelis.
On Thursday, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said that the Palestinians will submit a bid for full membership at the United Nations Security Council on September 23, but said that they would be open to other suggestions.
The remarks by Malki put an end to speculation that the Palestinians might avoid a showdown with the United States by sidestepping the Security Council and going directly to the UN General Assembly to seek a lesser status of a non-member observer.
For almost three years, Mr. Obama was resting on his Cairo laurels, doing less than nothing for controlling Israeli atrocities, the building of new settlements, the wall, and now, in one weekend he wishes to achieve all that he has never even started! Diplomats fly like there’s no tomorrow, smoke is coming out of the State Department, all in order to stop the Palestinians from going to the UN… maybe we can get them to speak to Netanyahu for few days, so the UN vote danger will pass… and then we will think of something else… or not.
The extreme poverty of US and EU ‘diplomacy’ is exposed in its disgusting emptiness and lack of principles. The New Policy is NO POLICY! Obama is rattled by the victory of a right wing Republican in Queens, for the first time in 90 years! What else is awaiting him elsewhere, one wonders…
But the Emperor is naked, and no tricks of the last minute will cover up his pudenda. Out of nothing comes nothing. No amount of running around frenetically willl change this.
The UN vote on Palestine may not bring about a solution (it cannot do so) but it already has done some good – it has exposed the empty hypocrisy of western policy on Palestine, and the rest of the world must now watch and react to this continued vacuum in Washington and Europe.
Washington envoys to join EU chief and Tony Blair in negotiations designed to prevent US carrying out veto threat
Chris McGreal in Washington and Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
Catherine Ashton with Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Photograph: Getty Images
The US is attempting to fire up a fresh round of Middle East peace talks in an attempt to head off a major diplomatic embarrassment over a looming Palestinian request for recognition of statehood at the United Nations.
Washington has again dispatched negotiators to meet Palestinian and Israeli leaders as it scrambles to find ways to avoid carrying out a threat to veto a Palestinian request for full membership of the UN, which is expected to be made to the security council or the general assembly next week.
If the request is made to the security council, a US veto of Palestinian demands for statehood – on the grounds that two decades of negotiations has failed to end the occupation – is likely to further damage America’s already battered reputation in the Middle East, particularly when Washington has strongly backed the uprisings in Libya and Syria and broadly welcomed the Arab spring.
The US is working with Tony Blair, special envoy of the quartet of the UN, EU, US and Russia, to come up with a framework for talks that could lure the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. US envoys David Hale and Dennis Ross, the European foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Blair are due to meet Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
But Washington is also seeking support from Britain in particular in its stand against the Palestinian resolution, if it does come to a vote at the UN. Two other security council members, Russia and China, have openly backed the Palestinian move. France is sympathetic to the Palestinian demand but is seeking a compromise resolution that could be supported by Germany, which is opposed to UN recognition of a Palestinian state, in the hope of forging a common EU position.
Britain has so far not declared how it would vote, but diplomatic sources say that it is torn between American pressure to support the US position in the security council and concerns about what such a move would do to the UK’s standing in a changing Middle East, particularly while it is still heavily involved in Libya.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has said he will take the request for full recognition as a state to the UN security council next week. But some Arab and European nations are pressuring him to downgrade the request to the general assembly, which can only offer observer status to the Palestinians, to save Washington the embarrassment of having to wield its veto.
Israel was also making last-minute efforts to persuade undeclared countries not to vote for a Palestinian resolution, amid threats to tear up previous agreements, impose financial penalties and annexe West Bank settlements if the Palestinians go ahead.
Obama confirmed the US would veto any request brought before the security council, describing the Palestinian push as “counterproductive”. But the White House wants to avoid such a step, knowing it will play badly among Arabs whose own moves for self-determination this year Obama has endorsed.
In Washington, the US House of Representatives foreign affairs committee opened a hearing on Wednesday into whether American aid to the Palestinian Authority should be discontinued. Some members of the overwhelmingly pro-Israel US Congress have been pressing for a cut off in aid if the Palestinians submit their request to the UN. However, there is concern among others that such a move would leave Israel to pick up a greater share of the cost of occupation.
The European Union is at the centre of the efforts to avoid diplomatic meltdown. Its belief that only a negotiated settlement can resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is given added force by its desire to avoid a damaging split among its 27 members.
But efforts to secure a breakthrough are constrained by Palestinian demands of guarantees that any talks would be based on the pre-1967 borders, plus a total settlement freeze. Israel is unlikely to sign up to that.
The Palestinians insist their approach to the UN does not preclude a return to negotiations later. “We see no contradictions between doing both,” said Dr Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior member of the team heading to New York.
The UN bid was “the beginning of the game, not the end,” he said. “It is a process.”
In public, Palestinian officials are standing firm in the face of “very serious pressure” to backtrack. Privately, there are suggestions of wavering.
However, the International Crisis Group warned this week that any climbdown now “could decisively discredit [Mahmoud Abbas’s] leadership, embolden his foes and trigger unrest among his people”. It went on: “Most Palestinians do not strongly support the UN bid; but they would strongly oppose a decision to retract it without suitable compensation.”
Israel has engaged in its own diplomatic offensive to try to derail the Palestinian bid, instructing its diplomats around the globe to campaign vigorously for votes and lavishly hosting delegations from undeclared countries.
But Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, acknowledged that the “battle to stem the tide” was lost, and warned that “this unilateral course of action won’t lead to peace and won’t lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state”.
The Palestinians reject the claim that they are acting unilaterally, saying the UN path “is the ultimate expression of multilateralism”. They add that Israel’s apparent opposition to unilateralism has not stopped it acting without agreement, such as building and expanding settlements.
Sallai Meridor, a former Israeli ambassador to the US, said the move “weakens the chances for negotiation and agreement and increases the chances of frustration and violence. For Israelis it will strengthen the voices saying there is no one to talk to. Once you act unilaterally, the chances for negotiations are much lower.”
Israel is also alarmed at the prospect that the Palestinians could bring a case against it at the international criminal court, a possibility that would open up with enhanced UN status for the Palestinians. “No Israeli government could negotiate if it has criminal proceedings hanging over its head,” said a former official.
Retaliatory options raised by Israeli ministers should the Palestinian bid succeed include tearing up the Oslo accords, under which the Palestinian Authority was given control of parts of the West Bank and Gaza, annexing the West Bank settlements and withholding tax revenues that Israel collects on behalf of the PA. The US Congress is also threatening to cut off financial aid to the Palestinians.
Violence in the aftermath of the UN move has been predicted by the Israelis for months, despite Abbas’s insistence that any demonstrations would be peaceful. “Non-violent demonstrations have a high risk of developing into something violent regardless of planning,” said Meridor. “When you take gasoline and play with matches, you run the risk of a big fire.”
The Israeli security forces have restocked with crowd-dispersal equipment, including teargas, rubber bullets and water canon. They are also training and arming settlers, fuelling fears on both sides that hardline elements could provoke violence.
How the bid for Palestinian statehood will work at the UN
• The main session of the 2011 UN general assembly opens in New York with a speech by Barack Obama on Wednesday 21 September.
• The Palestinians say they will submit a formal application for full membership as a state next week. The approval of the 15-member security council is required.
• The US will veto such an application. But it may set up a committee to examine the request in the hope of kicking the issue into the long grass.
• In the event of a veto, the Palestinians say they will request enhanced “observer member status” at the general assembly, which does not require security council approval but needs a two-thirds majority (129 votes).
• The Palestinians claim to have the support of 126 countries, equating to about 75% of the world’s population, including China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Egypt, South Africa, Turkey, Brazil, Ireland and Spain.
• Israel concedes it will lose a vote at the general assembly but hopes to claim the support of a “moral minority” of countries, including the US, Canada and Italy.
• The EU bloc of 27 countries is split. Of the “big three”, Britain and France have not explicitly declared their intentions, and Germany is opposed to full membership. France is inclined to back the Palestinians but is attempting to come up with a compromise acceptable to Germany in the interests of EU unity.
• The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is due to address the general assembly on Friday 23 September.
• Israel’s turn at the podium is also scheduled for 23 September. It has not been decided whether the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, or the president, Shimon Peres, will represent Israel.
Villagers who have often been at the sharp end of Palestinian-Israeli relations are sceptical about the UN route
Harriet Sherwood in al-Walaja
Mohammed Hassan al-Atrash is unconvinced of the merit of the Palestinian push for UN recognition of statehood. Photograph: David Levene
Mohammed Hassan al-Atrash, a man whose life story is a microcosm of all that has befallen the Palestinian people over the past 63 years, smiles ruefully at the prospect of a Palestinian state winning the support of most countries in the world at the United Nations next week.
“I am a simple man,” he says, leaning on his sturdy walking stick. “I don’t know about politics. But from my life experience, I don’t think we will gain anything. What is left, after the settlements, the military zones, the wall, the bypass roads? You think you can build a state on a few scattered villages?
“If the UN is supportive of the Palestinians, they should stop Israel from doing all this. Talk is easy. What’s important is what is happening on the ground.”
It is a view shared by many Palestinians. As world leaders engage in frantic last-minute diplomacy in an attempt to avoid a damaging car crash of competing interests in New York, Palestinians shrug and get on with lives governed by checkpoints, permits, house demolitions, land confiscation and harassment from Jewish settlers. A vote at the UN, they say, will not end Israel’s occupation.
The story of Atrash, 68, and his village, al-Walaja, which perches on terraced hills between the ancient cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, is the history of the Palestinian people over more than six decades.
It starts when the village was captured by advancing Jewish soldiers from the Palmach brigades in the war that followed Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948. Thousands of villagers fled and the armistice line – the Green Line – was drawn through their land, taking 70% of it into the new state of Israel.
For the next few years, five-year-old Atrash and his family lived in a cave, from where they could glimpse their old home, before they moved in with relatives in the part of Walaja on the Palestinian side of the Green Line. The land was dry and difficult: almost all the village’s 30-odd water springs were across the valley in Israel.
In 1967, after the six-day war, triumphant Israeli troops occupied the Palestinian territories, where they remain. The Israeli authorities redrew the boundary of Jerusalem, and half of Walaja’s remaining land was annexed to what Israel claimed as an undivided capital.
A few years later, in 1971, the settlers came. More village land was swallowed up to build the colonies of Gilo, and later Har Gilo, illegal under international law.
In the mid-1980s, the Jerusalem authorities began issuing demolition orders for scores of homes built by the villagers, who until then had not even known they lived inside the city boundaries. They were told they did not have the correct permission, and were billed for the destruction after it was carried out.
And, now, bulldozers and diggers are swallowing up swaths of the village’s last lands for Israel’s separation barrier. When complete, the concrete and steel edifice will encircle Walaja, leaving a single entry and exit point controlled by the Israeli military. Every day, Atrash sees more of his land disappearing under the relentless march of Israel’s giant machines.
The judder of the machinery is also disturbing, possibly fatally, the roots of an ancient olive tree, known as al-Badawi. Thought to have stood for up to 5,000 years, the tree’s knotted trunks and branches would serve well as an emblem of the incipient state of Palestine, whose demand for recognition at the United Nations next week is causing seismic waves in diplomatic and political circles.
But for Walaja’s 2,300-strong population, the perspective is different. Deeply disillusioned after 20 years of negotiations that have failed to produce independence, and through which Israel has relentlessly built and expanded settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, many Palestinians have little faith in their political leaders to effect meaningful change.
“We are suffering from a leadership crisis,” says Ahmad Barghouth, 64, a neighbour of Atrash in Walaja. “Our leaders are either fools or traitors. Throughout history I don’t think independence has been granted to a state with no land.”
Barghouth, whose terraces of fig, plum, walnut and olive trees are also being churned up to make way for the barrier a few metres from his house, is scathing about the suggestion that a positive UN vote may open up recourse for the Palestinians to international legal bodies.
The international court of justice ruled in 2004 that the construction of the West Bank barrier was illegal and should be halted. “Did anyone implement it? You see the wall before your eyes,” says Barghouth. The UN passed resolutions calling on Israel to end its occupation. “Have these been implemented?” asks Barghouth. “We want action on the ground, not votes at the UN. We want an end to it.”
Despite such scepticism, and fears that the move towards a Palestinian state could effectively relinquish the right of refugees to return to their original homes, Palestinian leaders insist their strategy is correct in the context of two decades of failed negotiations.
They say a positive vote on the issue of statehood will strengthen the Palestinians’ hand in negotiations. Such an act of political symbolism, while not immediately altering conditions on the ground, could change the paradigm of relations between Israel and Palestine, they argue.
According to the national campaign, Palestine: State 194, the bid for membership of the UN is a step towards freedom and ending the occupation. “For almost seven decades now, the Palestinian people have been denied their natural and historical right to establish an independent state. The establishment of a sovereign and viable [state] is a debt owed by the international community to the Palestinian people that is long overdue,” it says. “Now it is Palestine’s time.”
Veteran Palestinian politician Hanan Ashwari told western diplomats this week: “September is a historic test for the international community. We have reached a turning point, both in terms of possibilities for peace on the ground and in the light of democratic changes transforming the region as a whole.”
Sheerin al-Araj, a member of Walaja’s village council, concedes that the approach to the UN may be a useful tool to bring pressure to bear on Israel. “But it’s not the end of the road,” she says. “It has to serve a bigger goal … I don’t trust [the Palestinian leadership] to have a back-up plan.”
One option she favours would be for the Palestinian Authority, created under the 1993 Oslo accords, to “hand back the keys”. She says: “We should say to them if you don’t want us to have a state, take responsibility for your occupation.”
Negotiations, she says, are pointless. “You can’t negotiate with someone who’s holding you by the throat.”
Barghouth is also mistrustful of a leadership which, he says, is doing Israel’s dirty work. “The Palestinian security forces prevent any resistance while the settlers are carrying out atrocities against us, taking our trees, burning our mosques, humiliating our people. If we defend ourselves, Abu Mazen [Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas] condemns us to the Israelis.”
More than 50 of Atrash’s olive trees and all of his 18 almond trees have been torn from the ground to make way for the barrier. Soon he will be left with two olive trees, with another 100 beyond reach on the other side. “My trees are like my children,” he says. “They are ripping my heart out when they uproot them.”
He shakes his head at the thought of world leaders gathering in New York next week to discuss the fate of his land. “Doesn’t the UN know the Israelis are building settlements on someone else’s land? That they’re building a wall inside the West Bank?”
What will happen in the coming months? “Only God knows,” he says. “We hope the future is good for the Palestinian cause. But if there’s unrest, the whole world will suffer.”
Violence borne from a combustible mix of frustration and settler provocation is predicted by many, on both sides of the conflict. “The Israelis are closing off other options,” says Araj. “Violence is the last thing I want, but it’s coming.”
Groups demand investigation into protester deaths, criticise continued detention of 150 protesters
Nada Hussein Rashwan, Wednesday 14 Sep 2011
A press conference was held in front of the Journalists Syndicate in Cairo on Wednesday, in response to disturbances at the Israeli embassy and Giza Security Directorate at the weekend.
Participants included groups that called for the protest in Tahrir Square on 9 September: the 6 April Movement, Kefaya, the Socialist Revolutionaries, the Arab-Islamic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Arab Unity Party, and the Nasserist Party.
It was divided into three segments.
In a statement, the participants expressed their pride in raiding the embassy on Friday 9 September after the government had failed to respond to the killing of six Egyptian soldiers by Israel, and claimed forcing the Israeli ambassador to leave the country was a success for the protesters.
They condemned the killing of five protesters at the embassy and demanded an immediate investigation into the deaths. They also criticised the continued detention of 150 protesters arrested near the embassy and security directorate building during the disturbances on 9 and 10 September.
They asked US president Barack Obama to refrain from meddling in Egypt’s internal affairs and giving orders to Egyptian authorities.
In the second segment of the conference, eye witnesses gave their testimony on the incident. The first witness said some protesters were able to reach the embassy by climbing an adjacent building and were helped into the embassy building by local residents.
“By that time, we could see papers flying out of the building, so we wanted to get in to bring more of them” the witness continued. He also said military soldiers were protecting the embassy. “They told us we wouldn’t be able to get through the steel gate.”
He said security forces had already started firing tear gas and rubber bullets at the protest on street level
A second witness, a member of the Nasserist Party, began by saying it was an honour for Egyptian citizens to raid the Zionist embassy. He told how he and four others were able to access the building next to the embassy building from behind one of the army vehicles, where they entered the embassy building through the windows.
“One of us climbed the building and went up to take down the flag, while we broke the iron gate on the first floor”, he added.
Writer Abdel-Hakam Diab gave his testimony on what was described throughout the conference as the concocted incidents at the Giza Security Directorate.
Diab affirmed that the building was heavily secured by a large number of security vehicles. “If the building’s entrances were blocked by that many vehicles, how could it be raided?” he asked, hinting that what was said about protesters raiding the building could not have been true.
He continued, saying there is a plot aimed atdemonisingthe revolution, infavourof the old regime.
Another witness supported Diab’s claim by saying he has video evidence of street children confessing to the protesters after they were captured by them in Tahrir that they were paid by the ministry of interior to infiltrate the protests.
The witness says he saw a group of similarly looking adolescents around the Israeli embassy area running through the protest spreading rumoursto instigate chaos.
The mother of one of the detainees who were arrested at the Israeli embassy protest spoke at the conference. She said her son was investigated (illegally) from inside his prison cell, by a group of men who claimed they were from human rights organizations.
Al-Amniyr villagers in the West Bank face a catch-22: if they obey the law they cannot collect water. But if they fail to water the land, they lose it anyway
David Hearst
Israeli authorities use Israeli army machinery as they destroy a water reservoir used by Palestinian farmers in Hebron, in the West Bank village of Yatta, near the Israeli settlement of Sosia. Photograph: Abed Al Hashlamoun/EPA
The South Hebron Hills, sweltering in 34C heat and in its second consecutive year of drought, is a landscape of brutal contrasts. There is enough water here to support lush greenhouses, big cattle sheds, even ornamental plants. It arrives in large, high-pressure lines. And there appears to be no limit to the bounty it can bring.
Cheek by jowl with the water towers and red roofs of the Israeli settlers in this area of the West Bank is a landscape of stone boulders, tents and caves. The Palestinian village of al-Amniyr looks from afar like a rubbish tip until you realise that the rubbish is people’s dwellings, which have been destroyed in attacks targeting their water cisterns.
The villager Mohammed Ahmad Jabor’s water cistern has been destroyed three times this year. The last time was by the settlers. The settler attacks come generally at night and where they cannot destroy water cisterns they poison them by putting chicken carcasses in them.
The second time Jabor’s cistern was destroyed was by Israeli soldiers who destroyed seven tent dwellings and a sheep pen.
Jabor has gone to the Israeli courts repeatedly, which have upheld his and fellow villagers’ ownership of the land, a title he claims that dates back to Ottoman times.
But the ruling of the court has had no effect either on the determination of soldiers and settlers to stop anyone or any animal living in al-Amniyr. The land has been declared as agricultural, a designation which prohibits residents from constructing structures of any kind, especially cisterns.
Constructions need permits, which are all but impossible to obtain. Where they are obtained, it is in areas such as quarries, which are impossible to exploit. And under another law, if the land is not used for three years, it reverts to Israel.
So the inhabitants of al-Amniyr, at-Tuwani and the other villages that comprise Susiya, are faced with a catch-22. If they comply with the law they cannot build cisterns and collect even the rainwater. But if they fail to use their land agriculturally, they lose it anyway.
“We are without tents and without water, so how can we live here?” Jabor asks. Walking past the roots of a ripped-up olive grove – the replacement seedlings are already planted – Jabor answers his own question. A blue plastic sheet in an entrance to the rock, conceals a heavy, metal door. Beyond lies a cave, complete with a crying kitten, chickens and a metal stove for the winter. This is home for him and his seven children.
Most villagers date the start of their battle over water with Israel to 1982, when Ariel Sharon, then minister of defence, transferred all the West Bank water systems to Mekorot, the Israeli national water company for the nominal price of one shekel.
The Oslo accords created a Joint Water Management Committee, which grants Israel a veto over water resource and infrastructure in the West Bank. The committee issued a joint declaration in 2001 “for keeping water infrastructure out of the cycle of violence”.
The Emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene group (EWASH), a multinational consortium of NGOs funded by the European commission, accuses Israel of breaking this declaration, although there is a long list of other obligations under humanitarian law as an occupying power. In the past two years, it has logged the destruction of 100 water, sanitation and hygiene structures, 44 cisterns, 20 toilets and sinks, 28 wells. This year alone, 20 cisterns have been destroyed. Most of this is happening in Area C, which is under full Israeli military control.
The effect of the water shortage on the Palestinian population is not disputed. The average use of water by Palestininians is 50 litres a person a day for domestic purposes, one-fourth of the Israeli use. Rates of diarrhoea are high, particularly among children in herder communities. One survey found that 44% of children between six months and five years had diarrhoea in the two weeks before. Bodies such as the World Bank, UNRWA, Unicef and the World Food Programme have all carried out studies on it.
Where Palestinian villages are permitted, villagers complain of weak water pressure or the high price of tankered water. In Susiya it comes in at 35 shekels a cubic metre.
The Palestinian Water Authority issued a statement in May this year condemning the demolition of cisterns as a violation of numerous bilateral agreements and declarations between Israel and the PLO as well as between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Israel disputes it is responsible for the unequal distribution of water in the West Bank, and accuses Palestinians of letting untreated sewage flow into the water table and of lowering the level of table with unauthorised wells. It said that under Oslo accords water resources were divided between Israel and the PWA, each side was held responsible for the water it consumes and a bilateral committee was set up as a mechanism to monitor the use of water and approve new projects. The last time the bilateral committee met 65 new water projects were approved, mostly for the Palestinians.
The Israeli embassy in London said: “Unfortunately there is a limited supply of water in the region. This is the fairest system for allocation through a bilateral committee.” He called reports about Israeli settlers poisoning the water supply of palestinians “unacceptable behaviour” and was by no means government policy. Asked about the use of water by Israeli settlers, he said that as they paid for it, it was up to each individual how they used it.
PM Tayyip Erdogan chose to start his Arab cooperation-building tour in Cairo after cutting ties with Israel; a strong statement that the enthusiastic Egyptian crowd at the airport who greeted him were keenly aware of
Nada Hussein Rashwan, Tuesday 13 Sep 2011
Islamists warmly welcomed Erdogan upon his arrival in Cairo (Photo by: Lina Wardani)
Turkey’s prime minister Erdogan arrived in Cairo yesterday evening on his first stop in an “Arab Spring” tour that starts with Egypt and will proceed onto Libya and Tunisia. A few thousand Egyptians awaited Erdogan at the airport, carrying signs of welcome and support.
A few weeks prior to his visit, a Facebook campaign was launched, calling for a welcoming party at the airport to greet the prime minister with roses. The organisers wished to show their support for Turkey’s latest decision to cut ties with Israel following heightened tensions between the two Mediterranean powers.
Ankara recently expelled the Israeli ambassador after Tel Aviv refused to apologise for its raid of a Gaza-bound flotilla last year. During the raid, eight Turks and an American of Turkish descent were killed.
The Turkish leader’s visit has received a lot of attention from people in Egypt and around the world, due to recent border tensions between Egypt and Israel.
Many Egyptians believe Egypt should have emulated Turkey’s resonse to Tel Aviv by also cutting diplomatic relations with Israel as a response to the killing of six Egyptian soldiers on the Egyptian-Israeli border last month.
Turkey’s move to expel the Israeli ambassador and freeze mutual agreements occurred just after mass protests broke out in Cairo in front of the Israeli embassy last week.
Consequently, Erdogan has seen his popularity skyrocket among Egyptians: a factor which could help the leader as he seeks to strengthen Turkey’s relations with post-Mubarak Egypt.
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood comprised a sizeable portion of the airport welcome, as they carried flags emblazoned with the Brotherhood’s logo and chanted in favour of Erdogan – interspersing their chants with praises of God.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been a strong supporter of Turkey’s current government despite differences between the two sides over emphasis on the role of secularism in politics.
A protest in Israel that does not also address the occupation is really no protest at all. (Oren Ziv / ActiveStills )
No one could have ever predicted that a single act of protest — the self-immolation of a desperate Tunisian street vendor — would unleash a tidal wave of collective resistance and rebellion throughout North Africa and the Middle East, threatening to topple regimes that had long been considered permanent political players.
But perhaps the most surprising outcome of this regional groundswell of protest was to be seen in Israel where Jewish protesters held up placards and shouted slogans declaring that the revolutionary spirit of Cairo’s Tahrir Square had come to the streets of Tel Aviv. The Arab Spring, it seems, has turned into the Israeli Summer.
But how do the ongoing protests in Tel Aviv relate to the larger regional turmoil? What do the protests say about the current state of Zionism, and what do they mean for the occupation of Palestine? To answer these questions, one might begin by turning to a rather unexpected source: Israeli pop culture.
Zionism escapes unscathed
In 1984, Israeli rock musician Shalom Hanoch released his bestselling album Waiting for Messiah. Located squarely within the rock tradition of protest, the album was graced by an audacious piece of cover art: an extreme close-up of a filthy ashtray, overflowing with garbage and cigarette butts. It is as appropriate a metaphor as any for the true poverty that resides at the heart of the good life, for the grime undergirding the glamorous.
Further solidifying the album’s protest credentials is its title track which tells the tale of the fabled Jewish Messiah, who at long last arrives on earth. But his appearance in the world does not come as a happy occasion. Upon seeing the sad state of affairs that greets him in modern-day Israel, the intrepid, young Messiah does not fulfill any prophetic dreams. Instead, he throws himself from a rooftop, committing suicide on the pavement of a Tel Aviv street. “The Messiah is not coming,” Hanoch intones, his raspy voice accentuating the guttural sounds of Hebrew. “The Messiah is not even going to phone.”
But is the message of Waiting for Messiah really all that radical? Before embracing the song as a musical manifesto of leftist rebellion and revolt, one should delve a bit deeper. The lyrics suggest that the grievances leading to the Messiah’s suicidal plunge are entirely economic. Specifically cited is the mishandling of the Israeli stock market. One may thus surmise that the Messiah too was an unlucky investor.
Absent entirely from this picture are the Palestinians. They are relegated to the shadows — marginalized, obscured and forgotten. Thus, an image of protest is cultivated even if the thing that clearly demands the most protest — the ethnocentric Zionist state and its accompanying occupation of the Palestinian people — is not mentioned at all. It is as though everything can be criticized except for precisely that which matters most. In this fashion, protest — even that of an angry rock anthem — functions to perpetuate the very status quo it purports to be against. At the end of the day, Zionism escapes unscathed.
Revolt against neoliberalism
The recent protests that have erupted in Israel should be understood in the exact same fashion. Stationed in a makeshift tent city on Tel Aviv’s swanky Rothschild Boulevard, the protesters’ demands are strikingly similar to those voiced by their Arab neighbors: affordable housing, cheaper food and gasoline, higher wages and an end to the deterioration of the country’s health and education systems.
According to prominent Middle East labor historian Joel Beinin, “The Arab awakening is in part a rebellion against the neoliberal development model, even if it is rarely named. The housing crisis in Israel is similarly a symptom of neoliberal policies” (“The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Arab Awakening,” Middle East Report Online, 1 August 2011). But while these economic problems have been exacerbated by Israel’s costly military occupation of Palestine and the government subsidization of illegal settler communities in the West Bank, the overwhelming tendency is to ignore these inconvenient facts and instead to treat the occupation as an entirely unrelated subject, as a “security issue” with no bearing on the protests whatsoever.
Thus, even though Hanoch’s album was released in 1984, it could have been recorded yesterday. Had its titular Messiah postponed his arrival on earth by 27 years and appeared in the hot Israeli summer of 2011, he would have still taken that rooftop dive and splattered his body on the streets below. Once again, the problem is the economy, and once again, the Palestinians are left completely out of view.
There are those who claim that addressing the Israeli occupation at this time would serve only to divide the protesters. Uri Avnery, for instance, has argued that even “bringing up the occupation would provide [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu with an easy weapon, split the tent-dwellers and derail the protests.” Avnery, who is a longtime fixture on the Israeli left, concludes that there is “no need to push the protesters” in this direction and that with patience, the protests will eventually turn against the occupation on their own, as if by magic (“How godly are thy tents? Who are these people? Where will they go from here?,” Counterpunch, 5 August 2011).
This view is not uncommon. However, the desire to delink the call for social justice from the occupation and to simply hope for the best is ill-conceived. The view that the unity of the protests must be maintained at all costs overlooks the crucial fact that a protest in Israel that does not also address the occupation is really no protest at all.
On Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard, the middle class demonstrators are thus attempting to wage an Arab Spring without any Arabs. While the tent city protest has been unusual in its size and in the wide degree of support it has received throughout the country, the urge behind it does not constitute a real challenge to the Israeli state. The protests represent a reaction against the economic injustices exacerbated by the Israeli government’s neoliberal policies, and as such, the broader framework of Zionism is entirely capable of absorbing the protesters’ demands.
Settlers embraced
Indeed, what is the Rothschild Boulevard rebellion but the latest manifestation of an old, Zionist dream? Like the pioneering Zionist settlers before them, the protesters today envision the creation of a welfare state in the land of milk and honey, where life is affordable, food is plentiful and the country’s rightful inhabitants, the Palestinians, are excluded from the discussion. They simply seem not to exist. The protesters do not want to disavow the Zionist dream; to the contrary, they want to implement it.
But a dream for the early Zionists was a living nightmare for the local Palestinians. When freedom for one people is achieved with the occupation of another, there is nothing to be celebrated. The Rothschild Boulevard rebellion departs in no way from this precedent. Without addressing the occupation, the protesters’ demands, at the very best, aim only to make life better for the occupiers, and the welcomed inclusion of members from the Ariel mega-settlement in the revolt, as reported by Max Blumenthal and Joseph Dana, should serve here as a grim warning (“How could the largest social movement in Israel’s history manage to ignore the country’s biggest moral disaster?”, Alternet, 24 August 2011) . It is the occupiers who stand to receive better health care, better education, higher wages, more affordable housing and all around better living conditions, and those living under the occupation receive nothing.
Conservative agenda
Thus, in this case, protest is not at all that radical. Like Hanoch’s earlier rock anthem, the image of radical protest conceals a rather conservative agenda. That is, protest functions within the predetermined parameters of the dominant social order. Rather than posing a threat to the Israeli state, the protests aim only to make life better for its Jewish citizens. They seek to improve the Zionist dream of building a social welfare state in a Palestine without Palestinians. What is really needed is for that dream and its accompanying system of apartheid to be dismantled entirely.
Thus, the various left-leaning supporters of the Rothschild Boulevard rebellion who defend the exclusion of the Palestinian issue in the name of Israeli unity have it all wrong. Unity does not mean coming together with occupation supporters and land-usurping settlers. Rather, real unity would mean crossing that much tabooed Jewish-Arab, Israeli-Palestinian divide. It would mean that the exclusive, ethnocentric dream of Zionism would have to be replaced by a democratic dream without segregation and apartheid. Economic justice predicated on ethnocentric exclusion is hardly a dream worth fighting for. When those Jewish Israeli citizens consigned to the bottom rungs of their government’s ladder of exploitation are ready to recognize that their true enemy is the same as the one terrorizing the occupied Palestinian people, then and only then will there be a unity in protest worth celebrating.
Greg Burris is a former instructor at Istanbul Bilgi University in Turkey and a current graduate student in the Department of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Declaration of Statehood
We, in the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), stand steadfastly against the proposal for Palestinian statehood recognition based on 1967 borders that is to be presented to the United Nations this September by the Palestinian official leadership. We believe and affirm that the statehood declaration only seeks the completion of the normalization process, which began with faulty peace agreements. The initiative does not recognize nor address that our people continue to live within a settler colonial regime premised on the ethnic cleansing of our land and subordination and exploitation of our people.
This declaration serves as a mechanism for rescuing the faulty peace framework and depoliticizing the struggle for Palestine by removing the struggle from its historical colonial context. The attempts to impose a false peace with the normalizing of the colonial regime has only led us to surrender increasing amounts of our land, the rights of our people, and our aspirations by delegitimizing and marginalizing our people’s struggle and deepening the fragmentation and division of our people. This declaration jeopardizes the rights and aspirations of over two-thirds of the Palestinian people who live as refugees in countries of refuge and in exile, to return to their original homes from which they were displaced in the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and subsequently since then. It also jeopardizes the position of the Palestinians residing in the 1948 occupied territories who continue to resist daily against the ethnic cleansing and racial practices from inside the colonial regime. Furthermore, it corroborates and empowers its Palestinian and Arab partners to act as the gatekeepers to the occupation and the colonization of the region within a neo-colonial framework.
The foundation of this process serves as nothing more than to ensure the continuity of negotiations, economic and social normalization, and security cooperation. The state declaration will solidify falsified borders on only a sliver of historic Palestine and still does not address the most fundamental issues: Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, political prisoners, occupation, borders and resource control. We believe such a state declaration will not ensure nor promote justice and freedom for Palestinians, which inherently means there will be no sustainable peace in the region.
Additionally, this state declaration initiative is being presented to the United Nations by a Palestinian leadership that is illegitimate and has not been elected to be in a position of representation of the Palestinian people in its totality through any democratic means by its people. This proposal is a political production designed by them to hide behind their failure to represent the needs and desires of their people. By claiming to fulfill the Palestinian will for self-determination, this leadership is misusing and exploiting the resistance and sacrifices of the Palestinian people, particularly our brothers and sisters in Gaza, and even hijacking the grassroots international solidarity work, such as Boycott Divestment and Sanctions efforts and the flotilla initiatives. This proposal only serves to squander all efforts made to isolate the colonial regime and hold it accountable.
Whether the proposal for statehood recognition is accepted or not, we call on Palestinians inside our occupied homeland and in countries of refuge and exile to remain committed and convicted to the worthiness of our struggle and inspired by their rights and responsibilities to defend it. We call on the free people of the world and the Palestinian people’s allies, to truly practice solidarity with the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle by not taking a position on the state declaration but rather continuing to hold Israel accountable by means of Boycott in all forms economically, academically, and culturally, Divestment and Sanctions.
Until Return and Liberation, International Central Council Palestinian Youth Movement
Report to UN Human Rights Council by five independent UN rights experts contradicts findings of Palmer Report that Israel used ‘unreasonable force’ in 2010 raid on Gaza flotilla, but that naval-blockade of Gaza legal.
Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip violates international law, a panel of human rights experts reporting to a UN body said on Tuesday, disputing a conclusion reached by a separate UN probe into Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship.
The so-called Palmer Report on the Israeli raid of May 2010 that killed nine Turkish activists said earlier this month that Israel had used unreasonable force in last year’s raid, but its naval blockade of the Hamas-ruled strip was legal.
A panel of five independent UN rights experts reporting to the UN Human Rights Council rejected that conclusion, saying the blockade had subjected Gazans to collective punishment in “flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law.”
The four-year blockade deprived 1.6 million Palestinians living in the enclave of fundamental rights, they said.
“In pronouncing itself on the legality of the naval blockade, the Palmer Report does not recognize the naval blockade as an integral part of Israel’s closure policy towards Gaza which has a disproportionate impact on the human rights of civilians,” they said in a joint statement.
An earlier fact-finding mission named by the same UN forum to investigate the flotilla incident also found in a report last September that the blockade violated international law. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says the blockade violates the Geneva Conventions.
Israel says its Gaza blockade is a precaution against arms reaching Hamas and other Palestinian guerrillas by sea.
The four-man panel headed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer found Israel had used unreasonable force in dealing with what it called “organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers.”
Turkey has downgraded ties with Israel over the incident.
Richard Falk, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories and one of the five experts who issued Tuesday’s statement, said the Palmer report’s conclusions were influenced by a desire to salve Turkish-Israeli ties.
“The Palmer report was aimed at political reconciliation between Israel and Turkey. It is unfortunate that in the report politics should trump the law,” he said in the statement.
About one-third of Gaza’s arable land and 85 percent of its fishing waters are totally or partially inaccessible due to Israeli military measures, said Olivier De Schutter, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, another of the five.
At least two-thirds of Gazan households lack secure access to food, he said. “People are forced to make unacceptable trade-offs, often having to choose between food or medicine or water for their families.”
The other three experts were the UN special rapporteurs on physical and mental health, extreme poverty and human rights, and access to water and sanitation.
David Hale and Dennis Ross to try and revive peace talks between Israel and Palestinians; critics say move may be too late.
Senior U.S. envoys will visit the Middle East this week to try to revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and avert a Palestinian bid for UN membership, he United States said on Tuesday.
The mission by U.S. Middle East peace envoy David Hale and senior White House aide Dennis Ross appears to be a last-ditch push to dissuade the Palestinians from seeking to upgrade their UN status this month, a step Israel strongly opposes.
The United States and Israel believe the Palestinians should try to establish a state through direct peace talk, which broke down nearly a year ago, and they that action at the United Nations will make it harder to resume negotiations.
“The only way of getting a lasting solution is through direct negotiations between the parties and the route to that lies in Jerusalem and in Ramallah, not in New York,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters.
“Our hope is that we get the parties back into a frame of mind and a process where they will actually begin negotiating again,” she added.
Her reference to Jerusalem, which Israel regards as its eternal and indivisible capital, may anger Palestinians, who want to establish a state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with its capital in East Jerusalem. Ramallah is the West Bank city where the Palestinian Authority has its headquarters.
Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as its capital has not been recognized internationally and the United States has maintained its embassy in Tel Aviv for years to avoid appearing to prejudge the issue.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration is scrambling to head off a Palestinian plan to seek full United Nations membership during the UN General Assembly session that begins on Monday but critics argue that its push may come too late.
Hale and Ross held talks in the region with both sides last week and appear to make no headway to solve the dispute.
Middle East analysts say there is little chance of this any time soon and some administration critics argued that the United States had left it too late to find a diplomatic solution before the UN General Assembly.
“For all of these months there has been a leadership vacuum from the White House,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Florida Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee and is a frequent critic of the administration.
The last round of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks broke down nearly a year ago with the expiration of a 10-month partial Israeli moratorium on Jewish settlement construction on land the Palestinians want for their state.
Israel sees the Palestinian bid as an effort to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state and to extend the conflict into new arenas such as the International Criminal Court.
Speaking to Reuters after news of the U.S. mission broke, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Mohammed Shtayyeh, said the plan was still to seek full membership for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, lands that Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
Earlier, Shtayyeh said the Palestinian leadership would listen to any proposals but suggested the current U.S. push had come too late.
“We are open-minded to any proposal. And we are ready to engage with any proposal. But this is not a step to really stop us from going to the United Nations,” he added. “If the whole idea of a proposal is to engage peacefully then you don’t really bring it in the last five minutes of the hour.”
The Palestinians are now UN observers without voting rights. To become a full member, their bid would have to be approved by the UN Security Council, where the United States has said it will veto it.
Diplomats have said it is not clear what the Palestinians will do when the UN General Assembly opens.
Rather than seeking full U.N. membership for a state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, they could seek status as a “non-member state,” which would require a simple majority of the 193-nation assembly. The United States, however, said it would not favor this model either.
Another possibility would be to propose a resolution to the General Assembly that might give greater backing to their desire for a state but not actually call for upgrading the Palestinians status at the United Nations.
A no vote at the UN will boost Netanyahu, wound Fatah and discredit the Europeans as useless hypocrites
Jonathan Freedland
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 September 2011
Britain doesn’t usually count for much in the Middle East, but this time it could make all the difference. As the Palestinians seek United Nations recognition as a state, a quirk of diplomatic algebra leaves Britain with a chance to play the decisive role – and to complete some unfinished business dating back more than 60 years.
Illustration by Belle Mellor
Barack Obama has already said the US will vote against any Palestinian move towards statehood at the UN general assembly now gathering in New York. Large swaths of Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East plan to vote for it. Which leaves Europe as the diplomatic battleground. If the leading European powers side with the US, the Palestinian initiative will be seen as a failure. If an EU majority backs recognition in some form, the Palestinians can claim symbolic victory.
Already negotiations are under way, both among the European nations and between the EU and the Palestinians, aimed at reaching a common, compromise position. France and Spain want to say yes, Germany and Italy are wary. Which leaves Britain with something akin to a casting vote in the “quintet” of leading European nations. How David Cameron jumps will be crucial in determining Europe’s stance, and therefore the fate of the Palestinian effort itself. For decades Britain has talked about punching above its weight. Now its weight really counts.
The backroom haggling concentrates on which UN body will make the decision – the general assembly or the security council – and what exactly they’ll be voting on. If the Palestinians aim high, they’ll apply to the security council for full UN membership, where Obama has promised they will be greeted by a US veto. Or they could go before the general assembly, where 140-odd countries are ready to grant the lesser prize of an upgrade in UN status, from observer to “non-member state”, with access to some of the major international institutions. Devil’s in the details and all that, but Britain’s attitude should be clear: we should say yes.
That’s because UN recognition of a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 will breathe fresh life into the ailing idea which, despite everything, remains the last best hope of Israeli-Palestinian peace – a two-state solution. By recognising a state of Palestine alongside Israel, the UN will entrench the notion that the only way to resolve this most stubborn of conflicts is for these two nations to divide the land between them into two states. In so doing it will halt the steady drift, born of despair more than enthusiasm, towards the so-called one-state solution – so-called because while it would bring one state, it offers no solution, just a single entity that would frustrate the yearning for self-determination of both sides.
The two-state solution has been on life support for years now, its health deteriorating since Binyamin Netanyahu returned to the prime minister’s office. Officially he subscribes to two states, yet his every policy action, typified by unceasing settlement building in the West Bank, puts that goal further out of reach. A loud yes vote at the UN would reverse that trend, renewing what has long been the global consensus: that the land of historic Palestine has to be shared between the two peoples who live there.
Here’s where Britain and Europe can give a little extra help. A new and insightful policy document by the European Council on Foreign Relations – titled Why Europeans Should Vote Yes – suggests the new UN resolution could explicitly support the idea of “Israel alongside a Palestinian state, thereby entrenching Israel’s legitimacy and its permanence”. Having the general assembly, including its Arab and Muslim member states, vote for such a resolution would amount to de facto recognition of Israel – and reassure those who fear the country’s “delegitimisation”. The text might even reconfirm UN resolution 181, the original 1947 partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. Renewing 181 would complete two items of unfinished business. First, that Palestinian state promised 64 years ago never materialised: its land was gobbled up, the West Bank taken by Jordan, Gaza by Egypt and much of the rest by Israel. A yes vote next week would finally acknowledge the Palestinian right to lands they were meant to govern decades ago. Second, Britain abstained in 1947; now it has a chance to say yes to the partition of the land it once ruled.
Still, it’s the future we should be imagining, specifically the day after a US- and Europe-led no vote. Palestinian public opinion would surely conclude that the path of nonviolence and diplomacy had failed, shunned by the very countries who had repeatedly urged them to take it. In the ongoing argument within Palestinian society, the advocates of armed resistance would appear vindicated, their opponents humiliated.
Imagine the contrasting scene in Israel, where Netanyahu would be doing a victory dance. As Daniel Levy, co-author of that ECFR paper, told me, a European no vote would reward the Israeli PM’s stubbornness: “He will respect the EU even less, and it would entrench his rejectionism even more.” Bibi would taunt those who had warned of a September diplomatic tsunami as “liberal crybabies”, unable to see that tough intransigence always wins the day. A prime minister who should be on the ropes – assailed for watching as two former allies, Egypt and Turkey, make common cause against Israel – would instead be hailed as a maestro of international power politics.
If the prospect of boosting Bibi and discrediting Fatah does not deter European governments contemplating a no vote, perhaps they should think on their reputations in the region if the Palestinians are thwarted. Having praised those peoples who seized their own destiny through the Arab revolutions, they would have denied, however symbolically, that same path to the Palestinians. Obama is already fated to be condemned as a hypocrite by the Arab world, thanks to his promised veto. If the Europeans make the same mistake, they will lose whatever influence they retain in the Middle East. No one will listen to a word they say.
There are misgivings among Palestinians and their supporters, of course. Some worry that recognition of the Palestinian Authority would diminish the PLO, which represents the wider Palestinian diaspora. The glib answer is that the Palestinians of the occupied territories have been dominant since at least the Oslo accords, signed 18 years ago today, and that a UN vote will only formalise what is already true. More subtly, such a usurping of the PLO would only be in prospect if the Palestinians started implementing practical statehood, declaring interim borders on the West Bank and the like. And no one believes that is likely.
The truth is that, by itself, a positive UN vote will not change the lives of too many Palestinians. But a negative response would be a disaster, boosting Israeli hardliners, weakening Palestinian peacemakers and choking the near-dead two-state solution. All three of those arguments should resonate in European capitals, but the last two should hit home in Israel itself. That is why a wise Britain would vote yes at the UN – and why a shrewd Israeli government, one that understood the best form of security is peace, would vote exactly the same way.
Turkish PM, speaking before Arab League meeting in Cairo, attacks Israeli government’s policies, says recognition of Palestinian state is ‘an obligation.’
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo on Tuesday that the mentality of the Israeli government serves as an obstacle to peace in the Middle East, and stressed the need for recognition of a Palestinian state.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a tour on the Egyptian border that “eventually common sense and logic prevail, both on our side and on the other side.”
“The barrier to peace in the region is the mentality of the Israeli government,” Erdogan said. “The people in Israel are under a blockade (by its government).”
He insisted that Turkey will not return to normal relations with Israel until it apologizes for the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid, compensates the families of the victims, and lifts the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Without directly mentioning Israel, Erdogan added that “every country must pay for the terror acts it carries out.”
Erdogan also stressed that Turkey believes no country is above international law. “Turkey will take every possible step to ensure the freedom of movement in the eastern Mediterranean.”
Moreover, the Turkish premier emphasized that the recognition of a Palestinian state was “not an option but an obligation.”
The Turkish prime minister was visiting Egypt at the start of a North African tour aimed at cementing Turkey’s standing in the region following the “Arab Spring” uprisings.
Forty-six countries arrive to show off latest weapons as Bahrain attends ExCel despite protesters’ deaths
Richard Norton-Taylor
Sharp-suited men and women from more than 1,000 weapons manufacturers are showing off their weapons in London’s docklands this week. Their displays range from guns that can fire shells more than 30 miles within an accuracy, it is said, of three metres, to small, innocent-looking switches designed to make the life of a fighter easier and safer.
Lethal objects were laid out in glass cases, polished and shining under the lights of the ExCel Centre as though they were delicate ornaments, never to be soiled by blood let alone kill anyone. The 46 countries advertising their wares alongside the US giants Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Dynamics included Israel, which had a big stand this year.
It advertised an anti-tank weapon described as good for “wall-breaching” but also “highly accurate” and therefore involving “low collateral damage”. Tucked in behind the Israeli pavilion were the Russians, with the latest Kalashnikov assault rifle. The AK104 is several models up from, and much more expensive than, the ubiquitous AK47, the favoured weapon of insurgents and guerrillas around the world.
Pakistan advertised an “arms for peace” exhibition in Karachi next year and showed “gold-plated” submachine guns – “for collectors”, inquirers were told.
Yet, making the point that life in Pakistan is less than safe at the moment, an enterprising salesman was offering “fashion body armour”: leather jackets and waistcoats with reinforced linings.
Some small exhibitors were there to help save lives. Weatherhaven was launching an “expanding container capability” or “hospitals in a box”: units that fit inside a Chinook to deal with medical emergencies. The Medical Warehouse produces bespoke emergency medical bags and pouches. And it is clear that supplying clean water for troops is a fast-developing growth industry. A German company is supplying British and US troops in Afghanistan with bottled water purified by a small filter system, a less burdensome, and much cheaper, alternative to bringing bottled water by convoy hundreds of miles across the desert.
But Defence and Security Equipment International, as the two-yearly fair is called, is dominated by companies designing weapons that can defeat an enemy as quickly and as efficiently as possible while protecting its own troops. They included MBDA, makers of the Brimstone “precision” missile and Storm Shadow air-to-ground cruise missile, dropped by RAF Tornados throughout the Libyan conflict. Executives on the company stand said they were not allowed to say how many had landed on Libyan targets, but it is likely that more than 100 were dropped, at a cost yet to be revealed. According to some reports, some Nato countries nearly ran out of bombs.
Liam Fox, the defence secretary, praised the role of UK arms firms in Libya. In a speech promoting the cause of weapons exports, he said: “For too long, export potential has been ignored when initiating projects for the UK’s own use. That needs to change … Defence and security exports play a key role in promoting our foreign policy objectives: building relationships and trust, sharing information and spreading values.”
Stung perhaps by criticism, not least by MPs of all parties, that Britain has sold arms to countries with poor human rights records that have used them against their own citizens, Fox said: “Margin, profit, market share – these are not dirty words. But the language of multinational business can sometimes appear values-free.”
He went on: “Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are mandatory considerations for all export licence applications, which we consider on a case-by-case basis.”
In April, MPs accused ministers of misjudging the risk that British arms exports would be used for repression. The government had approved licences to sell equipment – from small arms to armoured personnel carriers – to states such as Bahrain, which was invited to the fair despite its security forces having killed unarmed protesters during recent demonstrations.
Fox noted that Britain was the second largest exporter of arms-related equipment. But his speech contained a stick as well as a carrot: “Industry does not need handouts – nor will it get them.” The government would be a “tougher, more intelligent customer” in future, he said.
Supporters of the Palestinian cause have warned that the UN move could spur a devastating backlash of retaliation, yet there are reason why they may succeed after all.
By Bradley Burston
There’s a certain implied danger in the idea of playing darts in the dark. Particularly when there are numerous players in a crowded room, and not one has a well-defined target.
For Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestine, for Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel, and no less, for the Obama administration, the effort to bring Palestinian statehood to the United Nations for endorsement has raised profound fears, prompting internal debates fully as bitter as they have been largely fruitless, with no dependably favorable outcome in sight – for anyone.
Committed supporters of the Palestinian cause have warned that the UN move could spur a devastating backlash of retaliation, whether by an irate, isolated Israeli government or by an election-minded, Republican dominated U.S. Congress.
Palestinian moderates fear that the statehood move, if mishandled or misapprehended, could set into motion a chain of violent events ultimately spelling the demise of the Palestinian Authority, and dealing a telling blow to any timetable for an independent Palestine.
Abbas has pressed ahead nonetheless, in what may be the last great wager of his career. In the past, as in his 2004 go-it-alone public statements condemning armed Palestinian attacks on Israelis, Abbas has shown himself both a man unafraid to gamble, and, against all odds, one who knows how to turn a crapshoot to advantage. Here are ten reasons that Abu Mazen’s
Hail Mary route at the UN may succeed after all:
1. It restores the issue of Palestine from the back-burner to the world’s biggest stage, without resort to violence.
The UN move has already compelled all relevant parties to the conflict to re-examine long-accustomed and long-stymied tactics and mindsets. From Netanyahu to Khaled Meshal, from the Quartet (the U.S., Russia, the UN and the European Union) to the Palestinian rank and file, from the settlements to Peace Now and J Street,
alternatives to paralysis and permanent conflict are newly under study.
2. It conveys the concept of Palestine as a nation, living alongside Israel as a member of the community of nations, acknowledging the primacy of the UN as a forum for state-to-state airing of disputes.
This stands in stark contrast to the loose-cannon guerrilla band image cultivated by Yasser Arafat in his 1974 address to the General Assembly (“Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat …”), which gave no quarter to the existence of an independent Israel.
3. The timing underscores and leverages Israel’s perfect storm of diplomatic isolation.
It turns the Netanyahu government’s digging in of heels to Palestinian advantage, casting the Palestinian Authority as the side taking diplomatic initiative.
In ruling out a Yes vote from the get-go, Israel conceded immediate defeat in the world body, in the process forgoing a range of tactical advantages it could have gained by signaling qualified support for a resolution and then negotiating to help shape its wording to a text Israel could have profited by backing.
Also, if peace talks do eventually resume, the PA’s position could be strengthened by a state-to-state position vis-a-vis Israel.
4. The UN drive may confer international imprimatur to and raise the profile of Palestinian state-building efforts.
As Mideast scholar Hussein Ibish has
noted, “Palestinians had hoped that a convergence of bottom-up state-building and top-down diplomacy, led by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, would be the key to independence. Left on its own, the state-building plan has been little more than a development project under occupation. This has given the leadership a sense of urgency that has impelled its turn towards possible statehood initiatives at the UN.”
5. If successful, it can lend Abbas and the PA much-needed strength in its withering rivalry with Hamas.
Hamas, betting on Abu Mazen to lose, has disassociated itself from the UN push. If the Palestinian public perceives the UN vote as a success, criticism over repression in Hamas rule in Gaza would be likely to mount.
6. It may prompt and encourage non-violent Palestinian protest in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The prospect of non-violent protest is one that Israeli officials have acknowledged that they are ill-prepared to confront. As a recently released wikileaks cable revealed, “Less violent demonstrations are likely to stymie the IDF. As MOD [Ministry of Defense] Pol-Mil [Political-Military] chief Amos Gilad told USG [U.S. Government] rinterlocutors recently, “we don’t do Gandhi very well.”
This, in turn, coupled with rising Israeli tensions with Egypt, Turkey, and the U.S., could at some point force Netanyahu to consider dropping Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu in favor of Kadima, in order to resume peace talks.
7. The PA could also regain a measure of popular support in Gaza, if as a consequence of the UN move, Israel’s military latitude for enforcing the siege and pursuing attacks in the Strip were limited.
Even if the Palestinians refrain from executing the threat, the shadows of the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and other world bodies will at once loom large over Israeli military decisions.
8. The Palestinians’ secret weapon I: Avigdor Lieberman.
Thus far, the foreign minister is the only senior official scheduled to represent Israel in New York during the deliberations next week. A year ago, in his last appearance before the United Nations, Lieberman effectively contradicted the Israeli line that Israel was ready for peace and that the process had been impeded solely by the Palestinians. Neither side was ready for peace, he told the General Assembly, declaring that an agreement was something that could take “a few decades.”
9. The Palestinians’ secret weapon II: The Settlers.
If any single element is likely to win sympathy for the Palestinian cause, it will be radical settlers, who have vowed to mark the UN resolution with widespread violence. A recent arson attack against a West Bank mosque has sharpened the concerns of both Israeli and PA security authorities.
Any such action may, in turn, restrict the Israeli government’s freedom of action in retaliating against a UN move.
10. The Palestinians’ secret weapon III: Benjamin Netanyahu.
As the UN deliberations near, the prime minister’s statements have grown more defiant. His protestations that Israel’s worsening relations with Egypt and Turkey have nothing to do with the Palestinian issue, have ensured that tensions with all three have become increasingly interrelated, both at home and abroad.
“There are those who think that everything would have been different, if we had only given in to the Palestinians,” Netanyahu told the cabinet this week.
“Enough with the self-flagellation,” he continued. Inverting the liturgy of confession on the imminent Jewish High Holidays, he declared “We have not become guilty, neither have we transgressed.”
So, within one week, Israel has managed to following: Alienate Turkey to the point that it now plans to send its navy to protect boats top Gaza, and work with Egypt to isolate Israel; Too vacate its Cairo embassy after its personnel were saved by the Egyptian commando forces, with three protesters killed and over 1000 wounded by the army; In an Avaaz poll (see below), it became clear that over two thirds of the population of the three most important states in the EU – Uk, France and Germany – support the setting up of a Palestinian state, as well as the UN vote to make Palestine a full member.In the same week, the Israeli Foreign Minister has told the world that Israel plans to support what it hitherto called a terrorist organisation – the PKK – in its armed campaign against Turkey. And I may have left out some further successes…
Indeed, a great week for Israel!
The chickens are coming home to roost, and the Israeli government does not know where to turn. What a rotten summer it has been. First, most of the population of Israel makes clear what it thinks of Netanyahu and his government by building tent cities and mass demonstrations, and now this. Is there no end to antisemitism?… and this is even before next week, when the UN vote is to be taken!
No one should hold their breath about the 20th of September in the UN, of course. Over 125 states will vote to support the PA in its bid for statehood, and then the US will veto it in the Security Council. It is called democracy.
So anyone waiting for good news from that corner, can rest and relax – nothing good will come out of this, apart from the death and burial of the international charade called the “Two State Solution”. The Two State Solution is the solution supported by two states only – the US and Israel: More settlements, higher wall, more apartheid, more Palestinian land confiscated, more brutalities and murders, more hunger in Gaza! It is time that the TSS – the Two State Solution was exposed for what it has always been – a cover for Israel’s continuing aggression and war against Palestine and the Palestinians, and for the continuation of stealing their land while making noises about peace. What this meant is the trebling of the settlements since Oslo, the majoe increase in all measures of occupation iniquities. Israel can do all this because of the Two State Solution – the solution which is built on that other state, the US of A, the great defender of human rights in Chile, Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt and Afghanistan. Yes, and in Palestine, of course.
But, confused as the people of Europe are, in their support of what they think will bring some peace to the region, they are right to sense that Israel is the enemy of peace, of democracy in the Middle East, of normalising relations in the region. Israel thrives on conflict – it is the fourth largest arms exporter – it sells and promotes death and destruction at home and abroad, and benefits from the spread of terror and destruction, so that it can sell its ‘security’ products everywhere.
It seems that this poll by Avaaz is proving one point more than any other – the war Israel has declared on Palestine is also a war on the truth, a vast and expensive propaganda campaign in order to sway more and more people behind its blind alley politics and its offensive strategy of incendiary politics in the region, its anti-Arab, anti-Islamic drive, and its rampant racism. It seems, at last, that this has miserably failed, and that Europeans at least are coming to their senses, and understanding their need and duty to support Palestine. Of course, we cannot expect this of the US of A, a country where intelligence is qouted against one, and the few politicians with some pretence of an IQ are happy to renounce it in order to be reelected. But the rest of the world is turning, at last.
So the Two State Solution is the war of the Two States, US and Israel, against the rest. They may be supported by the fickle leaders of western Europe, who will vote out of fear of the US against the wishes of its own citizens. But this is probably their last stand on this – the public has spoken and will continue top shift towards rights for Palestine.
So, in the absence of a real TSS, which Israel has made impossible every day since 1967, what is left is the simple, old idea, which will win because all else has become impossible – one, secular democratic state in the whole of Palestine. It may sound far off, but it is much nearer than TSS! Anyone who speaks against it has to explain why a secular democratic state of all its citizens is bad, and a racist, ethnic autocracy based on religious exclusivity is good. Let them come forward and say so!
The people of Palestine, Arabs and Israelis – Moslems, Jews and Christians – will win, in the end, against the nationalism, colonialism and racism which Zionism has introduced and fostered for over six decades. The people shall win! They shall also win another place in the Middle East, as anew democracy amongst new democracies.
But let us hope that Zionism does not manage to start another massacre before its downfall.
Polls in France, UK and Germany show the majority of people back recognition of a Palestinian state by the UN
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
Portraits of youths pasted on the West Bank barrier show the flags of countries backing the Palestinian bid for statehood. Photograph: Darren Whiteside/Reuters
The majority of people in the UK, France and Germany want their governments to vote in favour of recognising a Palestinian state if a resolution is brought before the United Nations in the next few weeks, according to an opinion poll.
The three European countries are seen as crucial votes in the battle over the Palestinians’ bid for statehood at the UN, which meets next week. All three are pressing for a return to peace negotiations as an alternative to pursuing the statehood strategy, but they have not declared their intentions if it comes to a UN vote.
In the UK, 59% of those polled said the government should vote in favour of a UN resolution recognising a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In France and Germany, the figures were 69% and 71% respectively. Support for the Palestinians’ right to have their own state, without reference to the UN vote, was even higher: 71% in the UK, 82% in France and 86% in Germany.
The poll was conducted by YouGov on behalf of Avaaz, a global campaigning organisation that is conducting an online petition in support of a Palestinian state. It is planning to deliver more than 913,000 signatories backing what it describes as “this new opportunity for freedom” to the European parliament .
David Cameron must listen to the views of the public, said Ricken Patel of Avaaz. “The prime minister has a clear choice: stand with the British public and 120 other nations to support a Palestinian state and a new path to peace, or side with the US government, which continues to push for a failed status quo.”
The Palestinians appear to be assured of a majority if a resolution is put before the UN general assembly, whose annual session begins in New York next week. However, full membership of the UN requires security council approval, which the US confirmed last week it would veto.
The Palestinians may then seek “observer state” status at the general assembly, which is less than full membership but an advance on their current “observer entity” status.
The US, which is anxious to avoid wielding its veto and potentially incurring the wrath of Arab countries, is pushing for a return to negotiations – a move also supported by the EU, which is keen to avoid a damaging split among its 27 countries.
European foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels on Monday to discuss a common position on Palestinian statehood. Britain and France have said they would prefer to see meaningful negotiations on the basis of the pre-1967 borders with agreed land swaps, but have hinted they may vote for enhanced status for the Palestinians without such a prospect.
Germany is thought to be opposed the Palestinian plan, but on Friday the chancellor, Angela Merkel, said: “I am not going to disclose today our voting intentions, whatever they may be.” She added that Germany was wary of unilateral moves. “We are going to use the days that remain to perhaps achieve a few millimetres of movement,” she said.
The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, backed the idea of a Palestinian state last week. “I support … the statehood of Palestinians, an independent, sovereign state of Palestine. It has been long overdue,” he said in Canberra.
Israel acknowledges that it has almost certainly lost the battle for votes at the general assembly. Ron Prosor, its ambassador to the UN, said last week: “This is a diplomatic endeavour against all odds … It is clear to me that we can’t win the vote.” Instead, Israel was concentrating on securing a “moral minority” of powerful countries, which it hopes will include the EU bloc.
• The Avaaz poll, carried out by YouGov in the UK and Germany, and Ifop in France, was conducted online, with 2,552 respondents in the UK, 1,017 in Germany and 1,011 in France.
September 12, 2011 JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli actor Rami Baruch said he will not perform at a new cultural center in Kiryat Arba, a Jewish suburb of Hebron.
Baruch, who was scheduled to perform his play “Pollard” at the cultural center’s opening Sept. 19, announced his decision Sunday, saying that according to his contract with the Cameri Theater he does not have to perform in the West Bank.
“I made a decision, understanding that it could lead to financial ramifications and counter-boycotts,” Baruch said. “Kiryat Arba is where Baruch Goldstein and Kahane came from, and I asked myself what is my place in this whole story.”
Baruch in the play portrays jailed American spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard. Noam Semel, director of the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv, said the theater would deal with the matter internally.
The center was built with public funds from three Israeli government ministries, as well as from private donations.
Theater professionals signed a petition a year ago stating that they would not perform in a new cultural center in the West Bank city of Ariel that was built with more than $10 million in public funds. The boycott spurred a controversial Israeli boycott law that would allow for civil lawsuits against individuals and groups calling for anti-Israel boycotts.
Meanwhile, opposition members in the Kiryat Arba City Council have called for a committee to approve the productions staged at the theater, including vetting the actors to make sure they have served in the Israeli military and requiring them to sign a loyalty oath to Israel.
Shimon Tzabar: New design for the Israeli flag (2002)
Netanyahu can either prepare for another war or accept that Israel can no longer impose its will on its neighbours
Monday’s visit to Egypt by Turkey’s prime minister, Reccep Tayyip Erdogan, will be watched like no other. It comes just three days after thousands of Egyptians stormed the Israeli embassy in Cairo. Eighty-six Israelis inside fled, and six security guards trapped inside a strong room had to be freed by Egyptian commandos, but only after intervention from the White House. What those diplomats felt was the wrath of an Egyptian people humiliated by the killing of five soldiers at the Israeli border three weeks ago. A sixth soldier died at the weekend. Mr Erdogan will bring with him the support of a regional power and Nato member whose citizens were also killed by Israeli soldiers on the Gaza flotilla last year, and who is now threatening to send warships to protect the next one. If post-revolutionary Egypt and an economically resurgent Turkey make common cause against their former common ally – and there is every indication that they will – Israel’s isolation in the region will be profound.
The pace of events has surprised everyone. The pro-Palestinian sentiment of the thousands who thronged Tahrir Square was latent rather than explicit. Analysts then expected that major foreign policy changes would have to await domestic ones like elections and a new civilian government. Israel on the other hand found itself looking the wrong way, gearing up for protest on the West Bank and on its Syrian and Lebanese borders after the declaration of statehood at the UN later this month. No one expected the forces unleashed by the Arab spring to turn this suddenly on an Israeli flagpole in Cairo.
The popular wrath is a result of two factors. First, seven and a half months after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, the Egyptian street is still the cutting edge of change in the country. Its ruling military council, with elements of the former regime, are playing a double game. Assuring continuity of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty to some, and using the gradual breakdown of that treaty to reassert lost Egyptian pride and sovereignty in the Sinai to others. It may not have been accidental that during the weekend’s drama in Cairo no one in the White House could get the head of Egypt’s ruling military council, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, on the end of a telephone in an effort to rescue the trapped security guards. Second, Israel’s old alliances were with regimes, usually despotic ones, not their people. Now that popular opinion is once again making itself felt in the region, Egypt will never again stand quiet – as it did when Israel launched its military campaign against Gaza in 2008 – if another war breaks out.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu now faces a real choice. He must realise that humiliating Turkey by refusing to apologise for the deaths on the Mavi Marmara was a colossal error. The strategic consequences for Israel of a hostile Turkish-Egyptian alliance could last years. They far outweigh the advantages of a tactical victory in the UN Palmer report, which lasted exactly days. Israel needs to repair relations with Turkey and do it quickly. The price of such a rapprochement will have gone up in the last week, but it is still worth paying. The Israeli premier’s reaction on Saturday to events in Cairo was, by his standards, measured and moderate, so maybe even he now realises this.
The choice he faces is clear. He can either prepare for another war (Avigdor Lieberman’s response to Turkey was to suggest that Israel arm the PKK) or he can accept that Israel can no longer impose its will on hostile and weaker neighbours. For one thing, the neighbours are growing stronger. The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz put it more bluntly. In an editorial about the harassment of Israeli passengers on a Turkish Airlines flight in retaliation for similar treatment Israeli authorities meted out to Turkish passengers, it suggested that Israel needs humiliation in order to respect others. No one needs further humiliation, but respect of its neighbours is in short supply.
This is really good news for all of us! Gaddafi is uncovered as asecret Jew, and invited to make Aliya to Israel, so that his Lybian people can get on and rebuild their country. Can one think of a better solution? The Economist cannot, as you can see below.
This could also be an excellent solution to Israel’s crisis – at last it will also have a candidate for leadership with international credentials, loadsofmoney, and a lot of experience…
Four surviving defendants charged with kidnapping and murder of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni; court proceedings postponed until September 22.
The trial of the four surviving defendants allegedly involved in the kidnapping and murder of Italian journalist and International Solidarity Movement activist Vittorio Arrigoni began on Thursday in a Gaza military court, the ISM website reported.
Arrigoni was abducted earlier this year by members of the Monotheism and Holy War group in Gaza. The group initially claimed in a video that they would free the activist if Hamas would release one of their leaders whom they had arrested.
Italian activist Vittorio Utmpio Arrigoni holds his passport during a protest against the Israeli siege on Gaza, in Gaza City, in this August 29, 2008 file photo.
Photo by: AP
However, Arrigoni’s body was found hanging in the home of a Palestinian militant in the Gaza strip, mere hours after he was reportedly kidnapped.
The hearing began on Thursday morning and was open to the public. The four defendants, Abu Ghoul, age 25, Khader Jram, age 26, Mohammed Salfi, age 23, and Hasanah Tarek, age 25, appeared to be in good health at the hearing, the report said.
Attorneys from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which holds power of attorney for Vittorio’s family in Bulciago, Italy, requested that they be allowed to take part in the trial, the report said.
The presiding military judge Abu Omar Atallah denied the request, saying that Palestinian military law does not allow third-party-participation in criminal trials. However, he said that the case and its files would remain open to PCHR and the public, the website said.
The prosecution reportedly then introduced evidence that the defense counsel claimed had not been previously available to them, and requested that they be given time to revise their legal strategy, the report said.
Prosecutors asked Atallah to postpone the testimony from their witnesses, the report said, requesting further time to prepare, The defense objected to this request, saying that the testimony had been scheduled to begin on Thursday.
The judge took both the prosecution and the defense’s requests into account, scheduling the next hearing for September 22, the report said.
Sameeha Elwan, Gaza Strip 8 September 2011 Here comes September. The long-awaited month has finally arrived and brought with it controversy over the ramifications of the Palestinian Authority’s proposal for statehood at the United Nations.
Will the PA’s statehood bid be a victory or setback for Palestinians’ historic rights? (Ryan Rodrick Beiler )
The following is just a simple attempt from an average Palestinian to reason the justifications behind the PA’s unreasonable step.
To claim that an average Palestinian would take the time to think through the political and legal implications of such a move would be misleading. An average Palestinian might in fact be the least interested in whether a state would be declared in September. Yet he or she will be the one will be the one whose life will be most profoundly impacted by any hasty act of folly by the PA. This has been demonstrated by a long history of disappointing actions by the PA.
This is not to dismiss Palestinian public political awareness. Palestinians are the ones who live with the consequences of any step or measure suggested or implemented by the PA. Therefore, they would definitely have more pressing priorities than to think of the consequences. They would instead be preoccupied with the struggle to survive the consequences of yet another foolish action by their wise government.
I will not claim to be objective. I oppose the PA’s statehood initiative. But despite the debate over the UN bid and despite the PA’s embarrassing record, it dawned on me that maybe this time I was being unjust to the PA, and maybe there’s a shadow of a chance that the PA would do something in the interest of the Palestinians. After all, how unjust and foolish could they be?
I am a refugee. Who will represent me?
Among the debates among the public about whether this bid would endanger the Palestinians was the discussion over representation. Who would represent the Palestinians? And who exactly would this state represent?
Less than half the Palestinian population live in the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the territories to be declared as the Palestinian state. What will happen to the other millions who live outside this terrotiory?
If the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of Palestinians both in historic Palestine and in the diaspora, would be replaced with the Palestinian state contained within the borders of 1967, then what is the destiny of millions of Palestinian refugees living outside those borders? Would they be also part of the State of Palestine? Would this declaration affect their inalienable right of return?
The PLO has been representing the Palestinian people, internationally and within the United Nations since 1965, acting in the name of all Palestinians, whether in Palestine or displaced. The PLO is already recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people at the UN. Why is there a need to replace the PLO with another authority which is not representative of more than half the Palestinian population?
Half of Palestinians “disenfranchised”
According to a recent analysis by Guy Goodwin-Gill, professor of law at Oxford University, the Palestinian refugees “constitute more than half of the people of Palestine and if they are ‘disenfranchised’ and lose their representation in the UN, it will not only prejudice their entitlement to equal representation, contrary to the will of the General Assembly, but also their ability to vocalize their views, to participate in matters of national governance, including the formation and political identity of the state, and to exercise the right of return.”
Let’s assume that the statehood bid would not lead to such a deadlock as Francis Boyle, a former legal advisor to the PLO, predicted in his response to Goodwin’s memorandum.
What would be the destiny of the refugees of 1948 living within the borders of the coming Palestinian state, particularly in the more than twenty refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank?
Going back home would not be a legitimate option considering that what lies beyond the 1967 boundary line would be recognized as a sovereign Jewish state upon which they have no claims of land or ownership. A return to their homes within the Jewish state would be impossible. Their right of return would consequently be dropped.
For those refugees, would the September state offer any compensation? Would it grant them full citizenship? The result of the quest for a new state could be that their “temporary” camps turn into neighborhoods of a new state. They would also have to endure worsening poverty after the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) reduces or even cuts off the aid upon which thousands of refugee families survive.
Who will represent me? I did not vote for the PA
For almost two decades, the PA has been assuming that it represents the Palestinian people based on the Oslo accords.
The PA, however, falls short on the questions of genuine democratic representation.
The last democratic elections for the PA took place more than five years ago. The refusal by the US and Europe to respect the results of that election has led to the severe fragmentation of both Gaza and the West Bank, leaving Palestinians with two governments, neither of which is representative of the total interests and will of the Palestinian people. It is no wonder that young Palestinians, unable to practice their fundamental democratic right to vote, and all too aware of the follies of the PA, are shouting very fiercely against the PA or even calling for its dissolution.
This of course delegitimizes any further step the PA takes on behalf of the Palestinian people, for it is not the real representative of the Palestinian people living in Gaza and the West Bank, let alone the already disenfranchised population of Palestinians outside those territories.
The prospective consequences of the statehood bid are not promising but instead rather risky. Palestinians, of course, are not to blame for distrusting their fragmented leadership after a series of shocking revelations about how the Palestinian cause is being dealt with in negotiation rooms and how much this leadership is ready to offer or concede.
The fact that the new state is offering no reform of the Palestinian leadership tells how unpromising such a move is. One cannot but imagine the forthcoming state as offering nothing more to the Palestinians than further fragmentation. A state that offers no relief from the current situation on the ground, that is led by the same leadership, that fails to uphold the rights of the Palestinians, sounds like the very definition of insanity.
Sameeha Elwan is a 23-year-old Palestinian blogger and an English literature graduate from the Islamic University of Gaza. She will be pursuing my MA in Cultural and Post-colonial studies at Durham University in October and blogs at www.sameeha88.wordpress.com and tweets from Sameeha88.
The colonel has sympathisers in an unexpected place
Sep 10th 2011 IF HE needs a refuge, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi might consider the Israeli town of Netanya. An Israeli family of Libyan origin has recently surfaced saying they are the colonel’s relatives and that he should think of making aliyah (the Jewish voyage of return) and claim Israeli citizenship as any Jew may do under Israeli law. Gita Boaron told Israeli television she shares a great-grandmother with the colonel. “She fled her Jewish husband for a Muslim sheikh,” she says. “Her daughter was the colonel’s mother, making him Jewish under rabbinic law.”
Some jokers suggest that Mrs Boaron’s family want a share of the gold the colonel is said to be carrying. But others say there may be a more solid claim. “Jews from Tripoli remember he attended a Jewish wedding in the 1960s, long before he became leader,” says Pedazur Benattia, founder of Or Shalom, a centre that promotes Libyan-Jewish culture in Israel.
In Netanya, a resort north of Tel Aviv, where many of the 100,000-odd Israeli Jews of Libyan origin have settled, a square has been called Qaddafi Plaza in anticipation of his arrival. “Whatever he’s done, Israel’s his home,” says Rachel, a widow sipping her macchiato, Libya’s beverage of choice, and nibbling abambara, a Libyan-Jewish pastry in one of the square’s Libyan-owned cafés. “After all, he’s a Jew.” With his curls, she says, he would fit into many a Libyan synagogue.
The colonel’s popularity is odd since he chased non-Muslims, Italian Catholics and Jews alike out of Libya and took their property. But Israel’s Libyan Jews say he has sought to atone for his youthful Arab radicalism. In the New York Times in 2009 the Great Leader noted that “Jews and Muslims are cousins descended from Abraham. The Jewish people,” he added understandingly, “want and deserve their homeland.”
Other family members are said to have kept up the tradition. Israeli tabloids make much of reports that Saif al-Islam, the colonel’s son and oft-presumed heir, used to date Orly Weinermann, a sometime scantily clad Israeli soap-opera actress. Quite a few of the colonel’s Libyan foes believe such gossip. Graffiti with Stars of David superimposed on swastikas have spattered the walls of Benghazi, the rebels’ eastern base. “Qaddafi Mossad agent,” reads one of the banners.
Nine Turkish activists were killed in the raid on the Mavi Marmara
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said his country will in future escort aid ships travelling to the Gaza Strip.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mr Erdogan also said Turkey had taken steps to prevent Israel unilaterally exploiting natural resources in the eastern Mediterranean.
He spoke amid a growing row over Israel’s refusal to apologise for a deadly raid on an aid ship last year.
Turkey has already cut military ties and expelled Israel’s ambassador.
It has also said it will challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Relations between Turkey and Israel have worsened since Israeli forces boarded the Mavi Marmara aid ship in May last year as it was heading for Gaza. Nine Turkish activists were killed during the raid.
Israel has refused to apologise and said its troops acted in self-defence.
In his comments to Al-Jazeera, Mr Erdogan said Turkish warships were “authorised to protect our ships that carry humanitarian aid to Gaza”.
Turkey’s diplomatic offensive against Israel has scarcely let up since the release a week ago of the UN report on last year’s Gaza flotilla incident.
The Turkish government feels it was the loser in the UN report. It stated many times that Israel acted illegally in boarding the flotilla in international waters.
The UN report found otherwise. And while it criticised as excessive the use of force by Israeli troops, it did not give the ringing condemnation of the killing of nine Turkish activists that the government had hoped for. Turkey’s responses since then have in part been driven by wounded national pride.
It is worth remembering that three months ago, far from escorting this year’s Gaza flotilla, the Turkish government successfully pressured Turkish non-governmental organisations not to take part. That was when a deal with Israel seemed possible. Policy could change again.
“From now on, we will not let these ships to be attacked by Israel, as what happened with the Freedom Flotilla,” he said, referring to the Mavi Marmara incident.
The BBC’s Jonathan Head in Istanbul says Turkey’s decision to increase its naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean – and not just to deter Israeli operations against Gaza activists – is a serious one.
Turkey is protesting against the exploration of gas reserves by the government of Cyprus, because it does not recognise the area as Cypriot territorial waters.
Israel has recognised them, and hopes to source future natural gas supplies there.
This could spark a conflict that mixes the current Turkish-Israeli friction with the 50-year-old dispute over Cyprus, our correspondent says.
“You know that Israel has begun to declare that it has the right to act in exclusive economic areas in the Mediterranean,” said Mr Erdogan.
“You will see that it will not be the owner of this right, because Turkey, as a guarantor of the Turkish republic of north Cyprus, has taken steps in the area, and it will be decisive and holding fast to the right to monitor international waters in the east Mediterranean.”
In response to Mr Erdogan’s comments, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying: “This is a statement well-worth not commenting on.”
EDITOR: What will Gaddafi do in Israel?
No problem. Read below to find out that there is much oil under the sea, so he could use his great experience making Israel an oil exporting giant as well, on top of the arms it already exports to all and sundry. A little hitch – most of the oil and gas are in Palestinian waters… Well that has never stopped Israel before!
Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the Levant Basin Province, Eastern Mediterranean
Introduction
Levant Margin Reservoirs Assessment Unit
As part of a program aimed at estimating the recov- erable oil and gas resources of priority basins around the world, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated the undiscovered oil and gas resources of the Levant Basin Province. The Levant Basin Province encompasses approximately 83,000 square kilometers (km2) of the eastern 34°N Mediterranean area (fig. 1). The area is bounded to the east by the Levant Transform Zone, to the north by the Tartus Fault (Roberts and Peace, 2007), to 33°N the northwest by the Eratosthe- nes Seamount, to the west and southwest by the Nile Delta Cone Province boundary, and to the south by the limit of compressional structures in the Sinai. This assessment was based on published geologic information and on com- mercial data from oil and gas wells, fields, and field produc- tion. The USGS approach is to define petroleum systems and geologic assessment units and to assess the potential for undiscovered oil and gas resources in each of the three assessment units defined for this study—Plio-Pleistocene Reservoirs, Levant Sub-Salt Reservoirs, and Levant Margin Reservoirs.
EDITOR: What is brewing up in Palestine? Is the Two State solution seen to be dead?
Many are now speculating on the likely outcome of the UN vote on the Palestinian state. One thing which is not likely to emerge from it is a Palestinian state, a real state, unlike the PNA Latifundia in the West Bank. What is likely to happen is the growth of resistance, as a result of the realisation that the current situation only helps Israel to grab more land and disposses more Palestinians.
Intellectuals do not need to prepare the resistance. The resistance is best left as truly popular, not directed from anywhere but the ranks. So far so good. Palestinians must understand by now that the two-state ‘solution’ sold them by Israel and the US leads nowhere, yet they are reluctant to go back to their own better and more principled solution of a secular, democratic state in the whole of Palestine. And what about progressive Israelis? How can they support the continuation of the occupation and settlements, afater four and a half decades? This is question one needs to direct to the so-called Israeli left.
Having come back this week from the Israeli maelstrom, I would like to make this point: There is no constituency for the One-State idea in Israel at the moment, tent protest or not… Israeli society, including its radical edges, is not ready to negotiate the future with Palestinians on any terms which take into account Palestinian aspirations, or the idea of true equality. None of them wishes to even consider changing the rules of the game. Democracy? Yes, they have a “Jewish Democracy” and cannot consider any other kind.
As all of you know, this idea (the One-State solution) not acceptable to many anti-Zionists, most of whom have not signed the current iteration of the one state document. The truth is, whether we like it or not, that none of them is ready to give up Israeli identity, or Israeli self-determination, even while living in exile and sporadically speaking against the occupation. That is at the heart of this problem. If these individuals are unable to make the small leap required towards the democratic state of Palestine, how much less likely are the masses of the occupying power? Shelley Yachmovich, the leading candidate of so-called left-leaning Avoda, has given her warm backing to the settlement project, reminding people it was her party, indeed, which built and strengthened it. This is the left wing of Israel, and not to realise this is a political error, as this directs us towards some arguments and away from others.
So why are progressive Israelis being so reactionary? I think that in the past, progressive Diaspora Jews could find no problem with the the idea of sharing democratically with the indigenous population of Palestine. This was many decades ago, of course. Now, after the normalisation not only of Israel, but mainly of the results of the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 war ( most Israelis have been born after 1967!) then the premise: Israel= No Palestine, has been so powerfully learnt, internalised and forgotten, that the existential prerogative is indeed of denial Read the work of Ilan Pappe and Nur Masalha about the Nakba and its denial in Israel, for example) Denial is stronger than memory – memory, after all, is socially implanted, while denial is much more deeply personal.
I have no better explanation. The connection to history is, for most Israelis, nota connection to the diaspora and 2000 years of life outside Palestine; that is strongly denied (see the work of Amnon Raz Krakotzkin on that, of course). For most Israelis, they have a connection, through implanted memory and invented community, to Bar Kokhva and Yehuda Macabeus, or to Massada, but not to the people living across the apartheid wall… Existentially, they seem to say, especially after the Holocaust, non-Jews cannot be trusted; so their lesson from the Holocaust is the opposite of mine or yours – while we are saying – never again should such racism be allowed to succeed and harm humanity, they are saying – even when they do not know it – “we cannot trust any non-Jews to guarantee our security”. I believe that is why they find it difficult to rethink the solution to the conflict, difficult to feel excited about some real democracy, rather than ‘Jewish democracy’, or about life as human beings, not as occupying soldiers on leave. They are not full human beings in that sense, and therefore they also deny Palestinians their humanity.
What is quite disturbing is that many Palestinians are seeing the logic of the One-State solution, despite the years of enmity and dispossesion – for Palestinians to be less than trusting about their occupiers would be natural. Yet, Israelis on the other hand, do not trust Palestinians as they know they have been harming them (Israelis harming Palestinians) for over six decades! Occupiers never trust the occupied, no more than robbers trust those they have robbed…
So, existentially or politically, not a hopeful scenario. However, I trust the realities created by the situation itself, as these cannot be denied or chucked away. Reality will win in the end, when all other solutions will be seen to have lost credibility.
by PAUL MUTTER, WITH EVA SMAGACZ on SEPTEMBER 5, 2011
Several weeks ago, the renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman gave a stunning interview to the Polish journal, Polityka, on Zionism, the Holocaust, and Israel’s cult of war. In it he charges Israel’s leaders with actively discouraging peace, with seeking war instead of peace, and accuses them of manipulating the Holocaust’s lessons to justify repression. In one of his most charged claims, he says the wall surrounding the Occupied Palestinian Territory is little different than the walls surrounding the Warsaw Ghetto.
Bauman is one of the foremost social theorists in Europe, an alchemist of post-Marxist, post-modernist thought whose work has tackled everything from the Holocaust to globalization to “liquid modernity.” He is also a member of the Holocaust generation, a Polish-born Jew who survived Hitler by escaping to the Soviet Union only to be forced out of Eastern Europe for good during Poland’s 1968 anti-Semitic purges. As such, his words carry enormous influence, and his interview has stirred up a small frenzy.
Bauman’s interview is, at the moment, only available in Polish. Eva Smagacz has been gracious enough to provide to this site with an English translation of some of the highlights of the interview, which you can read below.
I don’t know how people will interpret what is happening today when they will look back at it in 25 years. But the fact of it being an unknown does not mean that we shouldn’t judge what is happening in front of our eyes.
I would use the point made by [Tony] Judt in his memorable article published in the New York Review of Books in 2003, that Israel is becoming a “belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno-state”, that the middle eastern “peace process” is finished – “it did not die – it was killed.”
I was expressing similar sentiments nearly 40 years earlier in “Haaretz” as I was leaving Israel in 1979. My concerns were related to the toxic and corrosive characteristics of the Occupation, its putrefying effect on ethics and the moral scruples of the occupiers. I was concerned at that time that the younger [Israeli] generation was growing in the belief that state of war and military readiness – in 1971 still treated as “state of emergency” – was normal, natural, and probably unavoidable.
I was concerned with a country that was learning to hide its numerous and inevitably growing internal social problems, washing its hands of those problems by inciting and inflaming the sense of external threat, [thus] losing the skill to deal with these problems in the process.
Inside that besieged fortress, arguing – no, even expressing a simple difference of opinion – is [becoming] both criminal and treason.
I was also disconcerted with the inversion of the Clausewitzian doctrine of war, where war is a continuation of policy, and transmogrifying policy into . . . military ventures, the consequence of which has been the remorseless erosion of democratic habits.
I was concerned with the deepening inability of Israel to live in a state of peace and with people’s growing disbelief in the possibility of life without war, and with the political elite’s fear of peace when they would no longer know how to govern [without war].
I also share the fear expressed by Judt as to the use of Holocaust by Israel’s rulers as a get-out-of-jail card for their own depravity and absolution of their sins, both those that they have already committed and those they are going to commit.
I also wrote about it in “Modernity and the Holocaust” (1989), citing Menachem Begin when he calls Palestinians Nazis, and paints having them as neighbors of Israel, of seeking another Auschwitz. Begin was answered – very mildly and in an oblique way – by Abba Eban, who was a minister in the Labor Party, that it was time for Israel to stand on its own feet, rather than standing on the feet of six million murdered victims.
The way of “commemorating” the Holocaust in Israeli politics is one of the main obstacles in realizing the potential of the Shoah as a moral purging [for Jews] – and in a way is a post-mortem triumph for Hitler, who dreamed of creating conflict between Jews and the whole world, and between the whole world and the Jews, in preventing Jews from ever having peaceful coexistence with others.
[My] radically opposite way of “commemorating” the Holocaust can be summarized as follows: It is forbidden to stay silent in the face of Israeli crimes and their persecution of Palestinians exactly because the fate of Jews in Europe had similar beginnings – discrimination, pogroms, ghettoes, concluding with the Shoah.
And there you have it. It is a mission of the survivors of the Shoah to bring salvation to the world and protect it from repeated catastrophe: to expose those hidden from the world, but still suffering – to prevent another disgracing of civilization.
The greatest of historians of the Holocaust, Raul Hilberg, understood that mission when he used to stubbornly repeat that the Shoah machine did not differ in its structure from the “normal” organization of German society. To put it another way: the Shoah was one of the expressions of that society. And again, theologian Richard Rubinstein remembered that just as personal hygiene, subtle philosophical concepts, superb works of art, or sublime music are expressions of civilization, so too is imprisonment, war, exploitation, and the concentration camp. The Shoah – he said in conclusion – “was not an expression of a collapse in civilization but of its progress.”
Unfortunately, this is not the only lesson of the Shoah. Another one is that the one who hits first becomes the top dog, and the more iron the fist, the better chance of getting away with it.
The rulers of Israel are not the only ones that draw on and amplify this sinister lesson, they are not the only ones that should be blamed for the post-mortem triumph of Hitler. Yet when Israel, whose founders took up the mantle of being the custodians of Jewish fate, does these things, then the shock is much greater than in other cases – because this fact also destroys a myth, a myth accepted by us, that is important to us:
That suffering ennobles, that victims come out cleansed, exalted and altogether saintly. And here it turns out how things turn out in reality: As soon as their suffering is over, victims stand waiting for the first opportunity to pay back their persecutors; and if taking revenge on yesterday’s persecutors is somehow unattainable or inconvenient, they rush to erase the dishonor of yesterday’s weakness . . . and show that they also know how to wave the baseball bat and crack the whip – and that they will use whatever is at hand to achieve victory.
What is the wall built around the Occupied Territories if not an attempt to surpass the creators of the wall surrounding the Warsaw Ghetto?
Hurting people debases and morally destroys those who are doing the hurting . . . [Hurting others] does, however, initiate the process that the great anthropologist Gregory Bateson named “schizmogenesis” – a sequence of action and reaction where each consecutive behavior may exaggerate one another, leading to an ever more deepening schism.
Zygmunt Bauman says Israel ‘terrified of peace’ and ‘taking advantage of the Holocaust to legitimize unconscionable acts,’ in interview with Polish weekly ‘Politika.’
By Roman Frister Zygmunt Bauman, the Jewish sociologist and one of the greatest philosophers of our time, castigated Israel harshly this week, saying it did not want peace and was afraid of it.
Bauman said Israel was “taking advantage of the Holocaust to legitimize unconscionable acts,” and compared the separation fence to the walls surrounding the Warsaw Ghetto, in which hundreds of thousands of Jews perished in the Holocaust.
In a long interview to the important Polish weekly “Politika,” Bauman said Israel was not interested in peace. “Israeli politicians are terrified of peace, they tremble with fear from the possibility of peace, because without war and without general mobilization they don’t know how to live,” he said.
“Israel does not see the missiles falling on communities along the border as a bad thing. On the contrary, they would be worried and even alarmed were it not for this fire,” the Polish-British sociologist said.
Bauman, who lived in Israel briefly, referred to an article he wrote in Haaretz, in which he expressed concern that the younger Israeli generation was being raised on the understanding that the state of war and military alert were natural and unavoidable.
The Polish public has not heard such a diatribe against Zionism and Israel since the anti-Semitic propaganda campaign the Communist regime conducted after the Six-Day War.
Not surprisingly, leading Jewish figures came out against it.
“Politika” published the criticism alongside the letter of Israeli ambassador in Warsaw Zvi Bar, who rejected Bauman’s “half truths” and “groundless generalizations.”
Bauman, who was born in Poland in 1925, has been living in England since he left his lecturer’s chair at Tel Aviv University in 1971.
He is seen as one of the greatest sociologists of our time and has dealt extensively with the ties between the Holocaust and modernism, globalization and consumer culture in the postmodern era.
Some of his books have been translated into Hebrew, including “Liquid Love.”
His grandson is attorney Michael Sfard, of the human rights group Yesh Din.
