EDITOR: Israel racist panic is at its height

With Netanyahu behind mass deportations, and with his ministers each vying to to excel in racist behaviour, Israel is gearing up for the largest migrant expulsion of its kind. As in anything else, on this issue also, Israel will do all to be exceptional. Like in the case of the 45 years of occupation, civil society in the country has failed again to protect the weak and vulnerable from the brutal forces of racist extremism. This at a time that Netanyahu’s close advisers are warning him that Israel’s behaviour in the Occupied Territories will bring about a third Intifada. What a model society… while there is much talk of Jewish suffering during the Holocaust, the daily behaviour towards the other is a model of brutal racism.

Israel to house Ulpana evictees in unauthorized outpost buildings: Haaretz

Deputy AG cites ‘urgent military requirements’ to waive the need for any building permit for the mobile homes to which the occupants of the West Bank homes are slated to move.
By Chaim Levinson     Jun.11, 2012

Citing “urgent military requirements,” Deputy Attorney General Mike Balas has waived the need for any building permit for the mobile homes to which the occupants of the Ulpana homes are slated to move by the end of the month.

As previously reported in Haaretz, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein last week approved a plan to move residents of the five apartment buildings in the outpost of the Beit El settlement slated for demolition because they were built on privately owned Palestinian land to a nearby tract of land that was appropriated by the state in 1970 for military use. The plot is now part of an army base.

By law, a Civil Administration committee must approve any such building, and only after allowing 14 days during which the public can submit objections to the proposal. A committee meeting scheduled for May 31 was canceled, presumably for political reasons.

GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon, in consultation with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and in coordination with Balas, agreed to allow the earthworks needed to ready the site for the 35 mobile homes to go ahead without the procedures required by law. Tractors leased by the Defense Ministry began work on the site last week.

In allowing the work to start without the necessary zoning approval process, Balas cited a law permitting construction for military purposes without need of permits. The law is intended to allow for the urgent building of military facilities such as earthwork barriers or positions for guarding roads.

Balas cited the “urgent and immediate military need” to put up the civilian accommodations, adding that they must be erected “quickly and urgently in order to preserve public order and security in the area.”

In so doing, Balas has broken a 33-year tradition of not citing military requirements to justify the construction of civilian housing.

In a response, the Justice Ministry said the construction work “complies with international law and with the desire of the authorities to carry out the Supreme Court ruling in a spirit of peace and cooperation.”

The response of the Israel Defense Forces spokesman’s office was similar.

On a related issues, work on a temporary camp for residents of the Migron outpost is proceeding apace. In April the cabinet approved an allocation of NIS 53 million for the construction of two temporary housing sites for evictees from Migron. One of the temporary sites, known as the Yekev compound, is about two kilometers from Migron, alongside the permanent site selected for the Migron settlers. The Yekev site had originally been zoned as a tourist site, but an extraordinary order expediting the site’s rezoning for housing was issued, and the temporary plan is expected to be approved by June 15.

The Mukhmas local council submitted an objection to the plan. If the proposal is not approved by the deadline, the Migron evictees will be moved to the Adam settlement. Massive earthworks are taking place in both sites, around the clock, in order to complete the temporary camp by August 1, the eviction deadline set by the High Court of Justice.

The warning – and the responsibility: Haaretz Editorial

Everything is out in the open for all to see. One merely has to understand what is happening, and immediately work toward diplomatic progress and stop giving in to the settlers.
Jun.11, 2012

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s problematic attitude toward the National Security Council was at the center of the complaints voiced against him by former NSC head Uzi Arad. This attitude was also discussed in a State Comptroller’s Report that is due to be released shortly.

Perhaps that’s the reason the current NSC head, Yaakov Amidror, took the trouble to invite renowned experts on Middle East affairs to his meetings with Netanyahu, so they could share their information and insights. This is a welcome initiative, a genuine opportunity to make it clear to Netanyahu, using sources outside the regular government channels, how his government’s policies and the regional situation are intertwined.

These scholars, whose joint expertise encompasses the Palestinians, the Arab states, Turkey and Iran, were asked to analyze the regional phenomenon of the past year known as the Arab Spring, but they ended up warning Netanyahu about what might turn into a hot Israeli summer.

According to the accepted count, over the past quarter century, since 1987, there have been two intifadas, the first a popular uprising, and the second, which started in September 2000, a combination of popular uprising and organized terror. The time span between the start of the first and second intifadas is similar to the length of time between the start of the second intifada and today. There are also signs pointing to similarities between the three periods, such as improvised terror attacks stemming from religious and national distress. It could be that a third intifada will erupt shortly.

According to these experts, what could ignite such a conflagration, literally, might be the torching of a large and important mosque, either in the West Bank or Israel proper, by right-wing “price tag” activists responding to either a terror attack or what they would consider undue government capitulation to the Palestinians.

Another catalyst for an explosion could be the massive housing construction that Netanyahu announced last week, which came as compensation to the settler community for his obeying of the High Court of Justice’s order to evacuate several buildings in Beit El’s Givat Ulpana neighborhood. Violent confrontations are likely to be caused either by a declared policy that favors the settlers, or by the weakened position of the Palestinian Authority’s moderate leadership, which may not be able to – and may not even want to – stifle the unrest.

These Middle East experts are not relying on classified information. Everything is out in the open for all to see. One merely has to understand what is happening, and immediately work toward diplomatic progress and stop giving in to the settlers.

Netanyahu has been warned. Now he bears the responsibility.

Stuxnet: the worm that turned Obama into a hypocrite?: Guardian

The president who made a stirring declaration about internet freedom authorised a wave of cyber-attacks on Iran, it has been revealed

‘”Great nations”, said General (and President) de Gaulle, “do not have friends; they merely have interests”. Substitute “ethics” for “friends” and you’d be closer to the mark. In May 2011, the Obama administration published an admirable document setting out the US’s international strategy for cyberspace. It was subtitled “Prosperity, Security, and Openness in a Networked World”, and contained a foreword signed by the president himself.

“Today,” wrote Obama, “as nations and people harness the networks that are all around us, we have a choice. We can either work together to realise their potential for greater prosperity and security, or we can succumb to narrow interests and undue fears that limit progress. Cybersecurity is not an end unto itself; it is instead an obligation that our governments and societies must take on willingly, to ensure that innovation continues to flourish, drive markets, and improve lives.”

Stirring stuff, eh? Obama goes on. “The digital world is no longer the province of a small elite. It is a place where the norms of responsible, just, and peaceful conduct among states and peoples have begun to take hold. It is one of the finest examples of a community self-organising, as civil society, academia, the private sector, and governments work together democratically to ensure its effective management. Most important of all, this space continues to grow, develop, and promote prosperity, security, and openness as it has since its invention. This is what sets the internet apart in the international environment, and why it is so important to protect.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself. But there is a small problem. At the time when he signed that stirring declaration, Obama knew something that the rest of us didn’t – namely that the Stuxnet worm, which caused such havoc at the heart of Iran’s uranium-enrichment process had been written, under his authorisation, by programmers in the US National Security Agency (with some assistance from software engineers working for the Israeli military).

When Stuxnet was first discovered in 2010, it attracted a great deal of attention for several reasons. For one thing it was so remarkably sophisticated and complex that its creation would have required a large software team. This led many of us to suppose that it must be the work of the security services of a major industrial country: it was hard to imagine run-of-the-mill malware authors going to all that trouble when they could be harvesting stolen credit-card numbers without getting out of bed. But the most intriguing thing about Stuxnet was the way it targeted a very specific piece of equipment: the Siemens Simatic programmable logic controller. It is commonplace in industrial operations everywhere – oil refineries, chemical plants, water-treatment facilities and so on. And it is also the device that controlled the centrifuges of the Iranian nuclear programme. Stuxnet could – and did – instruct the Siemens controller to cause the centrifuges to accelerate until they disintegrated.

All this pointed toward one conclusion – that Stuxnet must have been the creation of either the US or Israel. But no one knew for sure. Now, thanks to some fine investigative reporting by David Sanger, we do. The Stuxnet project – codenamed “Olympic Games” – was actually started by the Bush administration and accelerated by Obama in his first months in office. What’s more, Sanger claims that Obama took a detailed, personal interest in the progress of the Stuxnet attack and that there were some agonised discussions in the White House when it was realised that the worm, instead of remaining inside the Natanz nuclear plant, had escaped into the wild, as it were. An error in the code led it to infect an engineer’s computer. When he left the plant and hooked up his laptop elsewhere the software didn’t recognise that its environment had changed. And then the cat was out of the bag – which is how we first got to hear of it.

Sanger’s revelations raise some thorny issues, of which two immediately spring to mind. One: does Obama’s duplicity – publicly espousing the internet as a space that is unpolluted by cyberwar and cyberespionage while covertly sponsoring a cyberweapon like Stuxnet – fatally undermine America’s credibility as a defender of internet freedoms?

Or should it be seen as a defensible exercise in realpolitik – on the grounds that using software to sabotage Iran’s nuclear ambitions would cause less collateral damage than an Israeli airstrike? And two: given that (a) software like Stuxnet could bring our entire industrial infrastructure to a halt, and (b) the likelihood that any piece of malware will escape into the wild, should we treat cyberweapons like biological weapons and ban their use entirely? Discuss, as they say in politics exams.

Why has there been no ‘Palestinian spring’? One word: Oslo: Guardian

The 1993 accords turned the Palestinian struggle from one of resisting Israeli colonialism into occupation management
Ben White

Ever since the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt began a regional earthquake 18 months ago, commentators have wondered about the absence of a “Palestinian spring”. Attempting to explain this is useful, since it also helps to shed light on key problems with the now-comatose peace process.

To some extent, the question “Why no Palestinian spring?” can be answered with one word: Oslo. The Oslo accords, signed in 1993, established a paradigm where the Palestinian struggle for return and decolonisation was turned into a facade of sovereignty, piecemeal concessions and occupation management.

That, in turn, has shaped the behaviour and direction of key political actors in the occupied territories. The Palestinian Authority (PA), for example, marked the shift from a revolutionary focus to that of “interim” autonomy – which in due course became an institutionalised entity maintained for its own sake. Not only unrepresentative of most Palestinians worldwide, the PA leadership is disconnected even from those over whom it governs; VIP passes and diplomatic letter-exchanges are a stark contrast with the needs of prisoners’ families or expelled farmers.

Another consequence of Oslo has been the “professionalisation” of NGOs, and the huge role these organisations have had in encouraging certain types of Palestinian agency while marginalising or delegitimising others. As was pointed out well over a decade ago, “the NGOs’ lack of a mass base and focus on development and governance issues make them incapable of organising at the mass level”. Their professionalisation has created a marketplace that competes for funding (influenced by donors’ priorities) and has meant “the exclusion of a wider public that participates in determining priorities and national agendas”.

The PA and NGOs (both international and local) have contributed to the emergence of a “broad swathe of public opinion and material interests linked to maintaining the status quo, either fearful of what change may bring or simply unbelieving in the possibility of positive change”. These include merchants, those dependent on the PA for their salaries and those who have permits to work for the settlements and/or inside Israel. This large group constitutes “a solid constituency for not altering the status quo”.

There are other problems, too. Palestinians are confronted by physical obstacles to unified resistance and strategising, in the form of Israel’s colonies, checkpoints, road networks and the wall. There is also the bureaucratic regime of “permits” and separation, driving a wedge between Gaza and the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, etc.

The physical fragmentation goes wider, of course, with Palestinians facing different realities – and experiencing a variety of legal regimes – in places as diverse as the Negev, Silwan, the Jordan Valley and Lebanese refugee camps. These create divergent sets of immediate priorities, which make it hard to create a campaign beyond the local.

An additional factor in the West Bank is the PA’s intolerant approach to dissent and public protest. The rulers in Ramallah are not only an obstacle to a “Palestinian spring” – for some, they are the target. Hamas in Gaza, too, has not been immune to the dangers of treating power as an end in itself.

In Amnesty International’s most recent global human rights report, both the PA and Hamas are criticised for mistreating detainees and restricting freedom of expression. Low tolerance for dissent in the media or in public demonstrations has been one example of the human rights violations that the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights says are “motivated by the ongoing state of political division, apparently as mutual reactions by each side towards the other one”.

Add to this the lack of a political programme representing Palestinian national aspirations, as well as the leadership vacuum brought about by the Fatah-Hamas conflict, and it’s no wonder that mobilisation is a tough challenge.

But that’s not to say it isn’t happening. Palestinians are mobilised but their mobilisation is decentralised and disparate – the energy is there but not in a way that may be immediately apparent. Multiple strands of activism are at play, some of which are aimed at directly, or indirectly, challenging the obstacles to resisting Israeli colonialism.

Until now, mass Palestinian action in the occupied territories is inhibited by a number of factors. But that’s not say things are standing still – and as we know from both Palestinian history and more recent events in the region, things can change in an instant.

 

EDITOR: The streets of Israel have become hunting grounds

The army now sent the Border Police, the most brutal of its units, to search for migrants! Another Israel first. All social problems can be resolved by the army, no doubt. These are the units who oppress the Palestinians, both inside Israel and in the Occupied Territories, so now there is a new use for their brutality. Racism has won the day, again. This is also worrying in another way, of course, as it also trials mass expulsion, which is always something they wish to apply to the Palestinians – the so-called Transfer Solution.

Israel begins deportation of South Sudanese migrants: Haaretz

Interior Minister Eli Yishai says arrests are first of many steps, yet cautions much work remains until his vision of migrant-free Israel is fulfilled.
By Dana Weiler-Polak     and Tomer Zarchin     Jun.10, 2012

Israel’s Immigration Authority began rounding up African migrants on Sunday, with eight arrests reported in Eilat and central Israel.

The Jerusalem’s District Court ruled on Thursday that Israel could deport South Sudanese nationals back to their home county.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai said that this was a first  of many steps and that a great deal of work is left until his vision of a migrant-free Israel is fulfilled.

The court decision on Thursday permitting the deportation of the South Sudanese nationals rejected an appeal by migrant worker NGOs against Yishai’s decision to halt Israel’s collective defense of citizens form the war-torn country.

Once the court ruling was handed down, the Immigration Authority announced that it will begin enforcing the law as it applied to the South Sudanese nationals and their employers.

In addition, the authority announced that it will allow the South Sudanese to leave freely during the next week.

It should be mentioned that the authority would like as many of the migrants from South Sudan to leave of their own free will and because of this decided to extend their right to leave freely without legal penalty.

The Foreign Ministry recently outlined its position regarding 700 South Sudan nationals currently in Israel; the government says there are as many as 3,000 here.

The position is based on a report by Ambassador Dan Shaham, who was sent to South Sudan in April to examine the situation and see if it was suitable to return the migrants.

The document says returning the South Sudanese nationals in general would not constitute a breach of international law, which prohibits a state from expelling foreign nationals if returning them to their home country presents a clear and immediate danger to their lives.

“The international law does not oblige giving migrants shelter for socioeconomic reasons, unless the socio-economic situation in the receiving state is so bad it would endanger the asylum seeker’s life, or could be described as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” the opinion says.

Weinstein is expected to say that despite the petitioners’ claims, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has not issued any opinion saying forcible expulsion is contrary to the Refugee Convention and has not stated that it objects to these expulsions.

Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman this week called the illegal migration to Israel a “national plague” and said the state was holding diplomatic talks to return them to their home country or a third state.

The Justice Ministry yesterday released a statement saying the decision to expel the migrants was made on the basis of the Foreign Ministry’s position paper, which said it was possible to return South Sudanese migrants to their home country only after it was established that they are not eligible for asylum.

Reports from the United Nations and human rights groups and testimonies by activists and citizens warn of severe human rights violations in South Sudan, continuous warfare and a critical shortage of food, water and medical care, which are leading to a humanitarian disaster.

The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently ruled that the return of South Sudanese to their country must be done on a voluntary basis, due to the country’s instability.

Israel prepares mass deportation of South Sudanese refugees: Haaretz

Attorney General to seek okay from Jerusalem court to expel as many as 3,000 migrants to country facing humanitarian crisis.
By Tomer Zarchin     May.24, 2012

The government is preparing a mass deportation of refugees back to their South Sudan homeland. Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein next week will argue before the Jerusalem District Court that there is no legal obstacle to the expulsions since individual checks will establish that none of them faces any threat to their lives in South Sudan.

The Jerusalem District Court recently issued a temporary order prohibiting the migrants’ deportation until it rules on a petition filed by five human rights organizations against the state’s intent to deport the refugees.

Weinstein, who has expressed support for sending migrants from South Sudan back home, will ask the court to lift the temporary order preventing their expulsion.

However, attorney Anat Ben-Dor of the Refugee Rights Clinic at Tel Aviv University, who filed the petition for the groups, said: “A humanitarian crisis is developing in South Sudan, which is expected to lead to extreme famine. In addition, the border conflicts with Sudan are continuing, so in these circumstances the decision to return the Sudanese to South Sudan is premature and irresponsible.”

The Foreign Ministry recently outlined its position regarding 700 South Sudan nationals staying in Israel; the government says there are as many as 3,000 here. The position is based on a report by Ambassador Dan Shaham, who was sent to South Sudan in April to examine the situation and see if it was suitable to return the migrants.

The document says returning the South Sudanese nationals in general would not constitute a breach of international law, which prohibits a state from expelling foreign nationals if returning them to their home country presents a clear and immediate danger to their life.

“The international law does not oblige giving migrants shelter for socioeconomic reasons, unless the socio-economic situation in the receiving state is so bad it would endanger the asylum seeker’s life, or could be described as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” the opinion says.

Weinstein is expected to say that despite the petitioners’ claims, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has not issued any opinion saying forcible expulsion is contrary to the Refugee Convention and has not stated it objects to these expulsions.

Weinstein will tell the court the authorities will look into the circumstances of every migrant who expresses fear for his life in South Sudan, due to personal or government conflicts.

Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman this week called the illegal migration to Israel a “national plague” and said the state was holding diplomatic talks to return them to their home country or a third state.

The Justice Ministry yesterday released a statement saying the decision to expell the migrants was made on the basis of the Foreign Ministry’s position paper, which said it was possible to return South Sudanese migrants to their home country only after it was established that they are not eligible for asylum.

Reports from the United Nations and human rights groups and testimonies by activists and citizens warn of severe human rights violations in South Sudan, continuous warfare and a critical shortage of food, water and medical care, which are leading to a humanitarian disaster.

The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently ruled that the return of South Sudanese to their country must be done on a voluntary basis, due to the country’s instability.

The state of Gaza: Five years after Hamas took power in the city, how has life changed for its citizens?: Independent

DONALD MACINTYRE    SUNDAY 10 JUNE 2012
The front office of Kamal Ashour’s small family clothing factory in Gaza City opens on to Izzedine al-Qassam Street, named, like Hamas’s military wing, in honour of the Islamist mujahid who led the anti-Zionist, anti-Mandate, Black Hand gang and was shot dead by British police in 1935.

Which makes it serendipitous to see the mannequins on one of its shelves triumphantly displaying four samples of the 2,000 acrylic cardigans and polo sweaters Ashour has just shipped off to the UK firm of JD Williams in the first clothing exports to leave Gaza for five years. And a lot more so to be talking on Ashour’s landline to a Jewish-Israeli clothier in Tel Aviv about how fast, if he had half a chance, he would revert to buying his goods from here, as he once did.

Having made the call, Ashour, a short, spry septuagenarian who used to export at least 80 per cent of his clothing to Israel, has thrust the phone into my hand to demonstrate just how highly his most favoured customer values his business. Sure enough, the Israeli trader explains that, since the blockade imposed in Gaza by his own government in 2007, he has been forced to find a Chinese supplier instead of Ashour; that, yes, the sweaters may be slightly –though “not much”– cheaper, but that he would still prefer Ashour every time. “Look, I’ve been working with Gaza for 30 years and with this guy for 11 or 12. The overall quality is high, better than China. He’s very, very good to work with. I trust him completely. If he says he will do something, he does it. He never changes his mind.”

Such is his nervousness about discussing a politically sensitive topic that, unlike Mr Ashour, his Israeli client, whose name we know, begs us not to use it. For this is a conversation across enemy lines. Gaza is still officially classified by the Israeli Cabinet as a “hostile entity” and since the turbulent events that unfolded in June 2007 the exports to Israel and the West Bank on which its economy depended have been prohibited.

Five years ago this week, Gaza was in chaos. The BBC correspondent Alan Johnston was being held as a hostage by the criminal jihadists who had kidnapped him in March. The Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, seized by militants on the Gaza border, had already been in captivity for a year. But in the streets outside, a brief but bloody civil war was raging between militants in the two biggest Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah.

Two years earlier, Ariel Sharon had pulled Israeli troops and the 8,000 settlers they had been protecting out of Gaza. Then, in January 2006, Hamas unexpectedly beat Fatah in notably clean parliamentary elections held throughout the occupied territories. The victory was not primarily because of ideology. (Fatah was committed to a two-state solution with Palestine, consisting of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem living side by side with Israel, while Hamas had always refused to recognise Israel.) Rather, it was because Palestinians were fed up with Fatah’s corruption, the failure of negotiations to bring any results, and perhaps because some, at least in Gaza, initially bought into Hamas’s extravagant boasts that its militants had “liberated” the territory from Israel.

Finding itself leading the new Palestinian Authority in uneasy co-habitation with a Fatah president in Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas was faced with a boycott by a US-led international community which effectively refused to recognise the results of the election it had sanctioned in the first place. The outcome was a coalition with Fatah; but it was a shotgun marriage that quickly degenerated into civil conflict.

Hamas, despite partially covert American help for the Fatah forces, was victorious. When the bloodshed ended on 14 June 2007 Hamas was left in charge of Gaza, Fatah of the West Bank. And Israel responded with its blockade of Gaza – central elements of which are still in force today – which the senior UN official Filippo Grandi said 12 days ago had “completely obliterated” the territory’s economy, and which leaves a deeply puzzling question: why is Israel still maintaining an export ban which, in Grandi’s words, has “penalised” the “common people” and the “business community” of Gaza but has left its Hamas rulers intact and unscathed?

Through the past five years, punctuated by Israel’s bloody three-week military offensive in Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009, Ashour has stayed in contact with his old Israeli customer. He explains that he last used his coveted businessman’s permit to visit the Israeli’s premises and drink tea with him, after Benjamin Netanyahu finally agreed the prisoner exchange with Hamas that made headline news with the release of Gilad Shalit last October. Ashour recalls that one of the Israeli’s sons told his father: “‘Look, Shalit’s out. The crossings must open now. Kamal could produce 10,000 pieces for us.'” At which point the clothier thrust a wad of 14,000 shekels (around £2,300) in banknotes into Ashour’s hand as a down-payment for just such an order. The Israeli trader’s optimism after the Shalit prisoner exchange was understandable, because one of the reasons cited by the government for maintaining the blockade in the first place had been the IDF soldier’s continued incarceration.

Stacked in a storeroom are the sweaters the Israeli has paid for, neatly boxed up and waiting for the moment when they are allowed to leave Gaza for Tel Aviv. A moment which still shows no sign of coming, since the Netanyahu government has not lifted its decree that no goods will leave Gaza for destinations in Israel or the West Bank. Which is exactly where 85 per cent of the territory’s exports went before June 2007.

In any case, it hardly compares with the 6,000 garments – two truckloads – Ashour used to send out to his Israeli customers every week. He did all he could to help out his impoverished employees after June 2007, first keeping them on half-pay and then with loans from his own pocket. But whereas he used to employ 35 to 40 workers for three shifts all the year round, in the past year he has employed only 25 for two shifts, and for just three months. Those that could, found jobs as bakers, taxi drivers, street cleaners or more frequently on NGO-sponsored short-term work programmes or as Hamas policemen. Those who he temporarily re-engaged came back – except the policemen. It is a neat illustration of how the slump in private-sector employment since 2007 served to boost the payroll of the Hamas authorities.

Now, the British order completed – and the second batch ready for dispatch – the factory is silent and empty. Ashour believes, not unreasonably, that a resumption of commerce between Israel and Gaza would foster better relations all round, and that, “I never saw a businessman throw a stone.” Breaking into English for his final rhetorical flourish, he adds: “The Jews understand me very good. For business, Tel Aviv is better for me than London or New York.”

The outrage that followed the fatal shooting by Israeli commandos of nine Turks aboard the Mavi Marmara, the flagship of the flotilla that set sail for Gaza in an attempt to break the blockade in May 2010, awakened Western governments to the need to be seen to press Netanyahu to lift the siege. The most immediate result of the subsequent negotiations between Tony Blair, as the international envoy of the “Quartet” (a mediating coalition of the UN, the US, the EU and Russia), and the Israeli Prime Minister was the rapid flow of Israeli goods into Gaza supermarkets as the military lifted it capricious “security” ban on a bizarrely comprehensive selection of commodities, which had ranged from musical instruments and razor blades to coriander, and as an infuriated US Senator John Kerry had discovered on a trip in 2009, pasta.

Blair also secured a resumption of raw-material imports for Gaza’s industry – which allowed Ashour to bring in his acrylic cloth from Turkey through Israel for the first time since 2007 and other manufacturers to start serving local markets again. Netanyahu also – in theory – agreed to allow exports, though in practice this has been mainly confined to dispatches, heavily subsidised by foreign governments, of flowers and fruit to Europe. Even conservative estimates put the total levels of Gaza exports at less than two per cent of pre-June 2007 levels.

It was less painful for Israel to change the policy, of course, because it had so manifestly failed. Indeed, whatever its effects on Gaza’s long-suffering public, it had done nothing to weaken, let alone dislodge, Hamas. Through the long period of international boycott, Israeli blockade and the 2008-2009 war, the Islamic faction has tightened its grip on government. At the end of last month, Gaza was once again alive with hopeful talk that Fatah and Hamas would heal the split that began so bloodily and form a “unity” government – an outcome strongly opposed by Israel.

Gaza, like the West Bank, is a land the Arab Spring forgot; but that does not mean its politics have been unaffected. Hamas has a dual leadership –de facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza and Khaled Meshal outside the territory. The uprising, fast becoming a civil war, in Syria and Bashar Assad’s brutal treatment of it, now condemned by Hamas, forced Meshal to leave his Damascus base, leaving him in need of new allies. And the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – which will be even more marked if its presidential candidate Mohammed Morsi wins this week’s run-off – provided him with the chance to do just that. Deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak—and some of the intelligence chiefs still in post – always favoured Fatah over Hamas. But Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood. And if the West is prepared to talk to the Brotherhood in Egypt, might they not in time, he may have reasoned, do so to Meshal himself, especially if he has a new accord with Abbas?

In the short term, moreover, no new Fatah-Hamas agreement was ever going to mean economic change for the better in Gaza. And the changes negotiated after the Mavi Marmara debacle were as significant for what they did not include as what they did. Not only were exports banned to the very markets in the West Bank and Israel they had overwhelmingly served, but Israel did not lift the ban – other than on imports for strictly identified projects supervised by the UN and other international organisations – on bringing in building materials, including for reconstruction needed after the 2008-2009 war. The latter decision, ostensibly on the grounds that Hamas could divert such materials for is own purposes, including military ones such as underground bunkers, went to the heart of the contradictions in Israeli policy in Gaza.

For both Hamas and the private sector have been importing everything they need from Egypt through the tunnels Gazan entrepreneurs constructed under the Egyptian border to beat the siege after 2007. It is almost impossible to overestimate the impact of the tunnels; “smuggling”, though technically correct, hardly seems an appropriate term to cover the cars, motorcycles and livestock coming under the border. Nor for the bulk building materials such as the truckloads of Egyptian cement from El Arish you can see trundling north along the Gaza Strip’s main Saladin Road.

Indeed something of a construction boom, however temporary, is the main factor behind a fall in unemployment to around one in three of the workforce, according to UN figures; there is even a shortage of skilled workers, such as carpenters and steel-fixers. Building sites abound in Gaza City, many funded with cash from the new breed of Gaza millionaires, many themselves tunnel operators and close to Hamas.

Meanwhile, a 2km stretch of the sandy, potholed Al Rasheed coast road is being proudly transformed into a “corniche”, one of several projects financed by PalTel, the main Palestinian telecommunications company, apparently to avoid the embarrassment of paying taxes directly to Hamas. Huge mounds of earth and roadside pyramid-shaped stacks of steel piping brought in at the beginning of the year testified to the scale of the project – with 5m-wide pavements, a central reservation and a pedestrian tunnel for families to get safely to the beach (a safety that can hardly be guaranteed in the sea itself, still dangerously polluted by the 15,000cm a day of raw sewage long pumped into the Mediterranean). Not only does this traffic fatally undermine the stated “security” goals of the Israeli policy, but it is of huge financial benefit to Hamas, which is levying 10 shekels (£1.65) on every ton of aggregate, 20 on cement, and 50 on steel.

The building boom cannot disguise the huge hole – which only a restoration of exports to the West Bank and Israel would truly start to repair – still left in Gaza’s economy. But the construction industry’s resilience is a reminder that even in the darkest days it has passed through since 2007, up to and including the aftermath of the war, there has always been more to Gaza than its stereotype outside the territory.

At one extreme, of course, the narrow alleys separating the famously overcrowded, zinc-roofed, breeze-block slums of the Jabalya refugee camp testify to a level of poverty in which the UN says more than 70 per cent of Gazans depended on food or cash aid. At the other, the glamorous young women, some daringly without headscarves, smoking narghila on a sociable Thursday evening under a late May new moon on the terrace of the Arabesque Al Deira hotel are a reminder that, for all its problems, Gaza City is the most metropolitan and in many ways sophisticated of all the Palestinian urban centres. It has two universities of its own as well as the offshoots of others in the West Bank, it has its crop of lively bloggers, often fearlessly critical of the Hamas authorities. It has some of the best of all Palestinian painters –and, for that matter, rappers. Its music school has just become part of the prestigious Edward Said Conservatory network…

It is a paradox which bothers Iqbal Qishta, who, like Gaza’s many hundreds of would-be exporters, has fallen victim to what increasingly looks like Israel’s systematic determination to separate Gaza from the West Bank. For the third change Netanyahu refused to make in the negotiations with Blair was to free the movement of people through the Erez Crossing out of Gaza.

The elegant Ms Qishta, who runs a successful Gaza City hair and beauty salon and has decided to take a university degree at a proudly unmarried 37, has been refused permission to attend a hairdressers’ convention in the West Bank city of Tulkarem. In previous times a veteran of such events – evidence that there are no security grounds against her – she argues that her presence and those of her peers in the past was as much the conventions’ gain as those of the Gaza invitees. “They can learn from us; for example some of the ways we dye hair in crazy colours which we get from Egypt and take to the West Bank.”

She is half-irritated and half-amused as she describes how far Palestinians in the West Bank, who now rarely if ever meet Gazans, have internalised an image of them as ingénues at best and barbarians at worst. At a previous convention, she says, “One woman from Jericho asked me: ‘Do you still all live in asbestos shacks?’ They wouldn’t believe we were from Gaza; they thought we were 1948 Palestinians [Arabs living in Israel]. It’s because of the media. They just show bombardments or they go to the Beach [refugee] camp and show kids playing in some sewage puddle, people wearing bad clothes and graffiti. They don’t go to the Mövenpick hotel [actually now the ArcMed, but still called after the Swiss company which originally built it in the more-hopeful 1990s] or the Lighthouse restaurant or the Al Deira.”

Qishta insists she will try again each year to attend the convention – resenting that it is easier for to go to Cairo through the Rafah crossing than to join her fellow Palestinians for a short meeting in the West Bank.

Even more sweeping is the military’s ban on students attending – as it routinely did before the first intifada broke out in 2000 – universities in the West Bank. Last month an unprecedented judgement in Israel’s Supreme Court gave the state 45 days to reconsider the routine application of the ban to four women in their thirties and forties, all of whom have been active in promoting women from attending courses in the West Bank.

But it did not intervene at all on the case of Loujain Alzaeem, 18, a law student with outstanding grades who has long been ambitious to follow in her mother’s footsteps to go to Birzeit University in Ramallah. “My dream since I was a kid was to go to Birzeit. It is one of the best universities in Palestine and the law faculty is very good. The fact my mother went there is a big factor and she has told me a lot about her time there. I can go to London but I can’t go to Birzeit or Jerusalem or anywhere like that. [The Israelis] just don’t want any students from here to go to the West Bank and that’s it.”

Not only has the military made no claim against Loujain – or the four older women – on security grounds, but her father Shaharbeel, one of the most prominent and best-connected lawyers in the country, a well-known advocate of non-violence, with clients in Israel and the West Bank as well as Gaza, is one of the select few with a permit to travel through the Erez Crossing into Israel.

The passage of people, like goods, between Gaza and the West Bank looks very much like a one-way street. Israel has deported Gazan-registered Palestinians living in the West Bank – even when married to West Bankers – for no other reason than that they hold Gaza IDs. And while it has promised under severe pressure from human-rights organisations to legitimise 5,000 Gazans by giving them new West Bank IDs, another 13,000 live under daily threat of deportation. The prisoners released in the exchange for Gilad Shalit whom Israel judged most dangerous were deported to Gaza – Sharharbeel Alzaeem calls it Israel’s “New Australia” policy. But the large majority of the 3,000 Gazans per month allowed to leave Gaza, and then only temporarily, are either medical patients sick enough to meet Israel’s strict criteria for treatment outside the Strip, or traders allowed through Erez to negotiate imports.

In Alzaeem’s view, this is part of a “systematic policy. They are trying to separate Gaza and the West Bank, and to throw Gaza south, towards Egypt.” He argues that an embargo which stimulated the extraordinary growth of the tunnels economy is a “very clear sign that that they want Gaza to be dependent on Egypt and not Israel”. He adds scornfully that if there was to be a state, Israel would prefer it to be Gaza, leaving in the West Bank “a few [Palestinian] islands surrounded by settlers, islands which would need little more than a municipal council to run”.

The student ban may also be more congenial to Hamas than Israel admits. Last year the de facto government refused exit permits to eight outstanding high-school students who had been awarded scholarships to study in the United States, citing “social and cultural reasons”. As Amira Hass, who knows Gaza better than any other Israeli journalist, wrote last month in Haaretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper: “Like the State of Israel, the Hamas education ministry doesn’t like it when Gazan youth go to the West Bank or overseas. And for good reason: political and religious indoctrination ebbs when horizons open up. If Israel genuinely wanted to weaken Hamas rule, it would respect freedom of movement, which has been restricted since 1991.”

It’s hard not to escape the conclusion – heavily denied by Israel – that there have been convenient aspects to a separated and Hamas-controlled Gaza, especially when military officers admit privately that the faction, for now, is often active in preventing smaller groups from firing rockets at Israel. The split between Gaza and the West Bank is, after all, an obstacle to the full two-state solution that many doubt the Netanyahu government really wants.

Sari Bashi, director of Gisha, the Israeli NGO which has done more than any other to highlight the impact of the Gaza closure, says that for decades Israel pursued a policy of economic integration which made Gaza wholly dependent on the West Bank and Israel for its exports, and that no economic recovery is possible without exports to its existing markets there rather than to “non-existent markets” abroad. “The idea of a two-state solution is premised on the integrity of Gaza and the West Bank, where four million Palestinians share economic, education, familial and social ties,” she says. ” Sealing Gaza off from the West Bank means sealing off access to schools, jobs, family unity – and the possibility of a two-state solution.”

Along with Kamal Ashour, Abed Al Rauf Abu Safar is another of the very few Gaza businessman who has managed, albeit with considerable difficulty, to get exports out through Israel – in his case, tomatoes to Saudi Arabia through Jordan. The amounts are nothing like the six or seven trucks he used to send each week through the now-closed Karni crossing, packed with vegetables for Israel and the West Bank; Abu Safar used to pay to equip dozens of farmers in the central and southern Gaza Strip for plantation, and then recoup the cost from his export revenues. He is acutely aware that since his loads passing through Israel on their way to the Allenby Bridge across the Jordan river meet all the stringent checks imposed by the military, it is not security but a policy of separation that stops him exporting similar loads to Israel and the West Bank. Instead, Abu Safar is now keeping his West Bank customers supplied from farms in Jordan – one of dozens of the more successful Gaza businessmen to shift operations abroad in a flight of capital directly triggered by Israeli policy. “It’s a tragic situation,” he says, “for Gaza.”

47 years to the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights!

1930 Days to the Israeli Blockade of Gaza:

End Israeli Apartheid Now!

Support Palestinian universities – it is what people under the Israeli jackboot ask you to do

Any army fighting against children, has already lost the war!

Israeli War Criminals and Pirates – to the International Criminal Court, NOW!

Make Zionism History!

 

Demand the destruction of Israeli WMDs NOW!

EDITOR: London gets an Israeli film festival

One of the results of the boycott seems to be a much larger Israeli investment in London and the UK, in order to counter BDS. This is just one such example – in a way it is clear evidence of the power and success of the boycott.

Reel politics: FT

By Chay Allen
Seret is the first Israeli film festival to launch in London

Otto Preminger’s 1960 epic film Exodus was charged by some with presenting an inaccurate picture of the regional conflict but, none the less, it played a significant role in popularising Israel’s view of events leading to its foundation. That year, the Knesset passed the controversial Lands Law, prohibiting the sale of Israeli land to non-Israeli buyers, and wanted the support of the international community. It was a good moment for a bit of pro-Israeli soft diplomacy.
Exodus demonstrates the power of film to help construct a positive national identity overseas, and its influence has rippled on: New York, Miami and Los Angeles have all held annual Israeli film festivals since 1982. Although London has staged an annual Palestinian film festival since 1999, it has yet to hold an Israeli film festival. But June 14 sees the launch of Seret, a festival of Israeli film and television. The festival’s sponsors include the Israeli Embassy, the British Council and Bi-Arts, a joint initiative of the Israeli and British governments.
Seret has been jointly organised by Tel Aviv-based Patti Hochmann, a member of the Israeli Film Academy; London-based marketing manager Odelia Haroush; and Anat Koren, editor of Alondon, London’s main Hebrew-language magazine. According to Haroush the festival aims “to show the social and cultural diversity, and everyday life in Israel, through the medium of film”.
Screening 14 recent Israeli films and two episodes of current Israeli television series, Seret follows a highly successful year for both industries: Joseph Cedar’s Footnote (2011), included in the festival, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Academy Awards, while Gideon Raff’s Homeland (2011), an adaptation of his Israeli television series Prisoners of War (2009), won two Golden Globes and has been seen in more than 40 countries. Adir Miller’s sitcom Ramzor (2008), also on show at the festival, won the award for best comedy at the 2010 International Emmy Awards and has been adapted in the US as Traffic Light.
The festival line-up features documentaries by Tomer Heymann and Liora Amir Barmatz, Roi Werner’s romantic comedy 2 Night (2011), and psychological, historical and political dramas such as Jonathan Sagall’s Lipstikka (2011) and Ami Levine’s Sharqiya (2012). Explaining the criteria for selection, Koren said “the films had to be recent and have artistic merit. The only film not to have been made in either 2011 or 2012 is The Gift to Stalin, a 2008 co-production between Israel, Kazakhstan, Russia and Poland.”
The Gift to Stalin follows the story of Sashka, a Kazakhstani Jewish boy deported to the Kazakh steppes in 1949. Displacement and migration are recurring themes in much of the work, especially in Werner’s 2 Night and Heymann’s documentaries. In Maya Kenig’s Off White Lies an estranged father and daughter are thrown together, after being made homeless through the father’s fecklessness.
Seret comes in the wake of increasing pressure for a cultural boycott of Israel from campaigners against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Last month protesters denounced the decision to let Habima, Israel’s national theatre company criticised for performing in the West Bank, stage The Merchant of Venice at London’s Globe. The historian Simon Schama suggests that “the Habima row shows just how ignorant much opinion is in the UK of the complications of cultural politics in Israel. I suspect the same sanctimoniousness will hit the film festival.”
Yosefa Loshitzky, author of Identity Politics on the Israeli Screen (2001), maintains that Seret is politically motivated: “The launch of the first Israeli film festival in London, the heart of what Israel likes to see as the new anti-semitic Europe, is part of a strategy of using ‘soft power’ to combat the deteriorating image of Israel in the international, and particularly British, arena.”
This is a notion co-organiser Koren is keen to refute: “I don’t see any political aspect to a film festival; we are talking about a cultural exchange between two countries.”
Many of the films selected are, though, overtly political. Michal Aviad, whose Invisible (2011) is part of the festival, emphasises that “my films are always political and often refer to the Palestinian occupation; my stand against the occupation has been clear and loud for many years.”
Sagall’s Lipstikka and Levine’s Sharqiya also address the suffering of the inhabitants of occupied Palestine, while Dina Zvi-Riklis’s The Fifth Heaven (2011), set in a Jewish Palestinian orphanage in 1944 under British occupation, uses the story of 13-year-old Maya, placed in the orphanage by her father, as an allegory of the struggle and perceived abandonment of the stateless Jewish people.

 

EDITOR: The Boycott is spreading, as is the consciousness

Israel is no longer the object of love and admiration it has been for so long amongst those who were unaware of its brutal activities – the terrifying attack on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 in which more than 1500 Lebanese civilians were killed, the bloody attack on Gaza starting on December 28th, 2008, and continuing for almost a month, with over 1440 civilians murdered, the Flotilla attack in which 9 Turkish volunteers were butchered in cold blood, the many race riots against black refugees which have started last months and are still continuing – all these have brought to public view the brutality, lawlessness and inhumanity of the Israeli occupation regime. To have replaced apartheid South Africa in the public’s mind is indeed an achievement…

Israel is new South Africa as boycott calls increase: Independent

After Madonna began her world tour there last week, campaigners urge cutting of cultural ties
JONATHAN OWEN   SUNDAY 03 JUNE 2012

Some of the world’s biggest stars – from Madonna to the Red Hot Chili Peppers – are being accused of putting profit before principle in a growing backlash against artists performing in Israel.

Campaigners angry at human rights abuses against the Palestinian people – symbolised by Israel’s policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinians and allowing Israeli settlers to take over their land – are demanding a boycott of Israeli venues in a campaign that echoes the 1980s protests against South Africa and the infamous venue Sun City.

Last week Madonna came under fire for her decision to perform in Israel to kick off her world tour last Thursday. “By performing in Israel, Madonna has consciously and shamefully lent her name to fig-leafing Israel’s occupation and apartheid and showed her obliviousness to human rights,” said Omar Barghouti of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

Attempts by Madonna to deflect criticism by offering free tickets to local campaigners backfired, with a number rejecting the offer. Boycott from Within, an Israeli campaign group, accused the singer of “a blatant attempt at whitewashing Israeli crimes”. Mr Barghouti added: “As we’ve learned from the South African struggle for freedom, entertaining Israeli apartheid should never be mislabelled as singing for peace.” The star’s publicist did not respond to requests for comment.

Acts such as alleged war crimes during Israel’s 2008 invasion of Gaza and the 2010 killing of peace activists by Israeli commandos on an aid ship are fuelling the return of an anti-apartheid campaign on a scale not seen in a generation. Saeed Amireh, 21, a peace activist from Nilin in the West Bank, said: “We don’t have freedom of movement. They don’t want peace; they just want us to disappear. They are suppressing our very existence.”

Calls for a boycott are supported by hundreds of artists around the world, from the film director Ken Loach to former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters and the author Alice Walker. Artists such as Carlos Santana and Elvis Costello have cancelled shows after pressure from campaigners in recent years; Coldplay, U2 and Bruce Springsteen have declined invitations to play in Israel without supporting the boycott publicly. Paul McCartney, Elton John, Rihanna and Leonard Cohen are among those to have ignored calls not to appear there.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lenny Kravitz and Guns N’ Roses plan to play in Israel this year, prompting the campaign group Artists Against Apartheid to appeal: “As was done in the case of South African apartheid, please join us now in the cultural boycott of Israel, and help stop entertaining apartheid.” The campaign has rattled the music industry, prompting a group of US-Israel entertainment executives to set up the Creative Community for Peace last year in an effort to counter the cultural boycott.

It is also troubling senior Israeli politicians: a law passed by the Knesset last year means that people who call for a boycott could be sued in court. The Israeli government has also set up a committee to look at how to compensate Israeli promoters in the cases of “politically motivated cancellations”.

Controversy over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has provoked protests among actors, too. Emma Thompson is among more than 30 actors, directors and playwrights who condemned the Globe Theatre for including Israel’s national theatre company in its Shakespeare festival last week.

The Israeli embassy this weekend dismissed criticisms of Israel as “an anti-Israeli movement” and the Board of Deputies of British Jews claimed comparisons with apartheid-era South Africa were “a specious and desperate effort by a failing boycott campaign”. Nevertheless, Israel’s President Shimon Peres admitted earlier this year: “If Israel’s image gets worse, it will begin to suffer boycotts. There is already an artistic boycott against us and signs of an undeclared financial boycott are beginning to emerge.”

The Co-op announced a boycott of goods from West Bank settlements last month.

Far-right Europeans and Israelis: this toxic alliance spells trouble: Guardian

Migrants everywhere need to be wary when European fascists and far-right Israeli nationalists use the same racist rhetoric
Rachel Shabi
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 June 2012

Last month, demonstrations against African refugees in Tel Aviv turned violent. Protesters looted shops, broke windows and firebombed buildings, including a nursery. Days ago, arsonists torched the home of 10 African migrants in Jerusalem, injuring four, and leaving the unequivocal graffiti: “Get out of the neighbourhood.”

On Monday, Israeli TV reported that Haifa’s council had warned local businesses that they risked losing their licences if they employed African refugees, and that shopkeepers in the southern town of Sderot were refusing to serve migrants. Israeli statistics show some 60,000 African migrants have entered the country in the past seven years through the Egyptian Sinai desert – many of them asylum seekers fleeing repression or war in Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea. Israel, much like Europe, seems consumed with worry about being “swamped” by developing-world refugees – although, perhaps in part because of its location, the fears in Israel sound more visceral. So far, Israel’s approach has been to build a steel fence on the Egyptian border and a giant detention centre in the south, and to pass a law that allows the detention of migrants for up to three years. Since its creation, fewer than 150 people have been recognised as refugees in Israel.

The crude response from politicians has been as disturbing as the scenes on the streets. Last week, the interior minister, Eli Yishai, said: “Most of those people arriving here are Muslims who think the country doesn’t belong to us, the white man.” He has also described the refugees as rapists and criminals. Weeks ago, Miri Regev, a Likud member of the Knesset, referred to Sudanese people in Israel as a cancer. Former TV presenter and emerging politician Yair Lapid last month lambasted some Knesset members as “inciters” leading a pogrom, and wrote: “I wonder how they have the nerve to call themselves Jews.”

The sight of Jewish Israelis – sons and daughters of refugees – echoing, pretty much window-smashing act by act and racist line by line, scenes from historic anti-Jewish pogroms in Europe, isn’t an easy one. Nor is the uncomfortable reality that hatred of refugees is so easily stoked in Israel. Having for years practised a policy of separation between Jews and subjugated Palestinians both in the occupied territories and within Israel, the country has incubated a form of casual racism and puritanical appraisal of the “other”, in which anti-migrant sentiments can flourish. Last month, the Israeli historian and commentator Tom Segev told AP: “What disturbs me most is the racist atmosphere. For several years now, Israel society has been moving in that direction.” At one protest against migrants last year, an Israeli demonstrator explained her hostility: “They aren’t Jews. Why should they be here with us?” The language itself is a giveaway: protesters, politicians and reporters alike have labelled African refugees as infiltrators – the same fear-inducing, security-conscious term used to describe Palestinians. No wonder, then, that the Prevention of Infiltration Law, introduced during the 1950s to stop Palestinian refugees returning, has just been amended to apply to Africans.

Meanwhile, gut-level anxiety over demographics are everywhere – rabbis and ministers are warning that migrants, just like Palestinians, will use a sort of birth-rate-bombing tactic in Israel, outnumbering the Jewish population and thereby sinking the nation.

The rhetoric may be ramped up, but far-right Israeli ministers are basically repeating the anti-immigration, anti-Muslim sentiments of rising far-right parties in Europe. That isn’t a coincidence because, perversely, the two have recently found common cause. In the past few years, Israeli ministers have played host to far-right European leaders and made clear the shared values on the supposed menace of Islam and (especially Muslim) migrants. Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, is one of several far-right figures to have visited Israel and met hard-right ministers there. During one trip, Wilders met the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, and spoke of Israel as a front line in the fight to counter Islam. “If Jerusalem falls,” he warned, “Amsterdam and New York will be next.”

This affiliation is great news for Europe’s far-right parties, who seek to sanitise their image, and whose history of antisemitism has been a block to gaining mainstream acceptability. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a research group, has warned that far-right parties in Europe are on the rise in part because they’ve opportunistically buried antisemitism in favour of an apparently more palatable stance against Islam and Muslim migrants. How lucky for them that Jewish Israeli politicians are helping them with that.

No doubt it’s comforting for Israel’s far right to find allies that lip-synch claims of a frontier battle. But when the people who perfectly understand you are also the ones with a history of violently hating you, it’s time to worry about what exactly is in this relationship. Israel’s current attacks on African refugees are bad enough, but if this outbreak even partly signals a dovetailing agenda between European fascists and far-right Israeli nationalists, that’s a toxic arrangement – and trouble for migrants, Muslims and Jews everywhere.

Jerusalem court sanctions deportation of South Sudan nationals from Israel: Haaretz

Some 1,000 South Sudanese are believed to be in Israel, part of a larger influx of African migrants who have poured into the country in recent years; Yishai says court ruling is first of many such steps.
By Oz Rosenberg     and Dana Weiler-Polak     Jun.07, 2012

The Jerusalem’s District Court ruled on Thursday that Israel could deport South Sudanese nationals back to their county, thus rejecting an appeal by migrant worker NGOs against a decision by Interior Minister Eli Yishai to halt Israel’s collective defense of citizens form the war-torn country.

Yishai said in response to the ruling that he “congratulates the court’s decision, one allowing the deportation of about 1,500 infiltrators who had arrived from South Sudan,” adding he “hopes this is the first step in a series of measures allowing us to deport [migrants] from Eritrea and North Sudan.

Some 1,000 South Sudanese are believed to be in Israel, part of a larger influx of African migrants who have poured into the country in recent years. Some are refugees, while others are seeking employment.

Major violence between Sudan and South Sudan has flared recently, pushing the region to the edge of all-out war, according to news reports.

Speaking in response to the court’s ruling, Khaled, a South Sudanese national who has been residing in Israel with two of his children since 2007, said: “I really don’t know what to do.”

“It’s sending people and families to a dangerous place. I’m afraid to go back there with the kids, will they have a future in such place?” he added, saying that he didn’t think he would to hide from authorities. “It isn’t practical, I have two underage kids, I don’t want to do that to them.”

The NGOs who had submitted the court appeal also responded to the decision, saying they “regret the ruling” and “fear for the safety and wellbeing of the deportees, especially the children due to be send to a dangerous place.”

The Jerusalem court’s decision came after, late last month, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein told the court that there is no reason to prevent the deportation of South Sudanese citizens to their country of origin, as South Sudan is safe enough for them to return home.

Weinstein based the remarks on a foreign ministry report on the economic and security conditions in South Sudan, and on the possibility of deporting migrants to the country.

According to Weinstein’s remarks, the situation in South Sudan does not provide grounds to fear for the lives and physical safety of migrants who are returned to the country.

The attorney general also said that asylum applications of South Sudanese citizens will be examined individually, based on the Refugee Convention.

Weinstein’s announcements came amid mounting tensions over the issue of African migrants in Israel.

Last week an anti-migrant protest turned violent, with some 1,000 protesters in Tel Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood calling for the ousting of African asylum seekers from Israel. Demonstrators attacked African passersby while others lit garbage cans on fire and smashed car windows.

A further anti-migrant rally is planned in south Tel Aviv on Wednesday.

At last weeks demonstration, the crowd cried “The people want the Sudanese deported” and “Infiltrators get out of our home,” and a number of MKs addressed the crowd. Likud MK Miri Regev told protesters that “the Sudanese are a cancer in our body.” Regev apologized over the remarks on Sunday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the actions of demonstrators, and MKs who were present at the rally, and promised that his government would address the issue of African migrants in Israel.

Israeli soldiers use Palestinians to train army dogs, activist says: Haaretz

Report claims IDF troops order West Bank residents to exit cars and wait, as dogs seek training explosive devices; army spokesman: Soldiers conduct searches to increase Israelis’ safety.
By Amira Hass     Jun.07, 2012

Soldiers from an elite IDF canine unit have been confiscating Palestinian vehicles in order to train their explosive-detecting dogs, an activist monitoring the conduct of soldiers in checkpoints told Haaretz.

The unit in question is Oketz, directly subordinate to IDF command, and which, among other duties, trains dogs to locate weapons and explosives. Its training base is located in the Adam base west of Ramallah.

According to Tamar Fleischman, Oketz soldiers have been randomly stopping Palestinian vehicles in the last few weeks as they pass through the Jaba checkpoint, near the city of Ramallah.

The soldiers then reportedly order the passengers to exit and display their identification cards, with one soldier positioned with his weapon aimed at the Palestinians.

At that point, Fleischman said, a dog handler places an object inside the vehicle, which the dog is then sent to find, an receiving a treat upon its retrieval. The passengers then receive their IDs, and are allowed to return to the vehicle. The entire process usually takes around ten minutes.

Earlier this week, Fleischman reported that in one such session the dog was unable to locate the hidden object, prompting a soldier to crawl through the vehicle until it was found, with the passengers looking on as another soldier pointed his rifle at them.

According to Breaking the Silence, an NGO, which collects the testimonies of IDF soldiers serving in the occupied territories, the training of Oketz personnel and dogs using Palestinian vehicles has been performed in the past as well.

One testimony, given by a female dog handler, relates to the period from 2007 to 2009. She said that the soldiers were present at the checkpoints “only to train the dogs.”

“We hide something in the case…like a [rifle] magazine. In the unit we use something called a snapir [fin], a stainless steel canister holding explosives held in a net, that keeps material, but allows scent to filter out,” she said, adding that the container holds the blast in case it’s dropped, “so no one can get hurt.”

The past dog handler said that Oketz soldiers take the vessel with them “to the checkpoints, and hide it in Palestinian vehicles and then the dog looks for it…. The justification for the action is ‘deterrent,’ the passengers don’t know we’re really not inspecting the vehicle.”

“This happens all year, even if it’s raining outside,” she said.

According to testimonials, the training isn’t time-bound, with sessions sometimes lasting for an hour, sometime three.

In one instance, three of four dogs were loaded onto a pickup truck, and driven to a checkpoint near the Adam base. At the Na’alin checkpoint, used by both Israelis and Palestinians, soldiers would stop “every Arab passing by, even if his wife was giving birth.”

“Countless settlers pass through there, but you would never inspect those vehicles, she said, adding that the dog handlers made sure to ask the passengers to remove Korans and prayer rugs from the vehicles, as they they  would not be defiled by the dogs.

Speaking to Haaretz, Fleischman said that dog handlers have attempted to prevent her and other activists from filming the process from the other side of the checkpoint. In one instance, they did film, but the soldiers yelled out that they were being put at risk, adding that they had security clearance. They then stopped the training, and put the dog into a special cage, releasing him and resuming the session once Fleischman and the other activists walked away.

The IDF Spokesman’s Office said in response that “following the appeal, the issue will be thoroughly examined. As a rule, the IDF conducts inspections in West Bank checkpoints as part of its routine activity, in an attempt to ensure the safety of Israel’s citizens.”

Continue reading June 7, 2012

EDITOR: Yes, it it 45 years today to the 1967 War…

How time flies… to think that I have spent 45 years of my life demonstrating against this occupation it sobering all right. It is also 45 years to the international lack of action on this occupation, and 45 years of brutal inhumanities by Israel. How long can it go on like this? apparently, for over 3 centuries, like in Northern Ireland. It is a terrible thought.

In the meantime, there are more problems for the Zionist, white and racist entity called Israel, that Jewish democracy for white Jews. As we know, it is difficult to be racist only against the Palestinians, of course. So now the Jewish Ku Klux Klan is all fired up and ready yo go, with Netanyahu preparing to expel 25,000 migrants to Africa any day now, with minister Yisahi saying Israel is for the whites only, with Ethiopian Falashas being attacked ‘by mistake’ as migrants, and with pogroms and arson spreading like wildfire. Hurray to Jewish white democrats in the only democracy in the Middle East.

Israel: It’s called fascism: ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)

TUESDAY, 29 MAY 2012    MICHAEL WARSCHAWSKI,
Our elders used to say that if something looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck – then it’s a duck. Similarly, it is possible to say that if a state acts like a fascist state, legislates fascist laws, its spokespersons speak using fascist terms and some of the population responds in a fascist manner – then such a state is fascist.

For numerous years I warned against use of the word “fascist” in defining the state of Israel. The Israeli regime is first and foremost a colonial regime, moved by colonial considerations of excluding the indigenous population and taking over their country and lands. The use of the term fascism served to soften the colonial character of the Zionist project and of the state of Israel.

There exists no doubt, of course, that the Zionist state did not lose its colonial essence but on the contrary, deepened even further the character traits it shares with states such as Rhodesia, Australia of the 18th and 19th century and the United States in its conquest of the west. However, Israel underwent processes which today justify also defining it as a fascist state. Seemingly, the grandchildren of the victims of German fascism and the project to destroy Jews who lived under its rule were supposed to know how to identify the fascist characteristics which developed as a terminal illness during the last decade.

The use of the word “cancer” in relation to a group of human beings, for example. Knesset Member Miri Regev (Likud) recently used this word to define the African refugees seeking asylum in Israel. Our ancestors were defined as “cancer” by the Nazis, and even today this word stands at the centre of the international fascist discourse when speaking about foreigners…and Jews. Another characteristic is the increase in pogroms: a mob incited by right-wing politicians, but also by the official discourse and the media, which violently attacks a minority group under the slogan “death to…!” So familiar to those who listened to stories of our grandparents! An additional example from the fascist modus operandi: the incitement of one disempowered group against another.

A pogrom always leads to murder and this is just a matter of time. The clock has begun to tick. MK Michael Ben Ari began his path with pogroms in East Jerusalem under the slogan “death to Arabs”, and today he is inciting in south Tel Aviv under the slogan “death to Sudanese”…most of whom, by the way, are not Sudanese but Eritrean.

However, the fascist attack on asylum seekers has an additional aspect related to most of our national and personal histories: the state of Israel was founded as an asylum state for hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled persecution or who survived the genocide of Eastern Europe. This position as asylum state is what led to the 1947 United Nations decision, and it is doubtful whether the international community would have given its support to the establishment of the state of Israel without the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons and survivors of the Nazi project of destruction. Who like us, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those same refugees and survivors, is supposed to feel empathy toward the refugees, whether they are escaping persecution or escaping hunger.

However, the asylum state has become a fascist state in which the discourse of power has completely replaced that of rights, and empathy has given way to hatred of foreigners. Here we have additional proof that the experience of persecution does not necessarily lead to empathy toward other persecuted persons. Last Thursday, on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, we were less than fifty people demonstrating outside the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem, reminding everyone that the Jewish tradition is full of commandments concerning love of the foreigner. Not just to treat someone with dignity, but with actual love! However, for a society built on the dispossession of the indigenous population and its expulsion, it is doubtful whether it possesses the capacity to feel empathy toward a refugee from Africa, and Miri Regev is an example. Regev, more than any other Knesset member, incited against MK Hanin Zoabi and called for her deportation from the country following the May 2010 slaughter conducted by Israel’s navy against the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara. Today the same woman stands and incites using fascist language against asylum seekers from Africa. Indeed, the face of a generation is as the face of its leaders, and these days it is best not to look in the mirror.

Israel turns on its refugees: Guardian

Firebombing of house containing 10 Eritreans is latest example of growing racism stoked by politicians and media
Harriet Sherwood
guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 June 2012
Behind the metal door and up a narrow, blackened stairwell, fear hung in the air along with the smell of smoke. No one wanted to talk. A young woman scrubbing clothes in a plastic basin mutely shook her head. A man sweeping the floor with a toddler clinging to his legs said one word: “No.” Another, bringing bags of food from the nearby market, brushed past without making eye contact.

As for the 10 Eritreans who had been trapped in a ground-floor apartment when the blaze began at 3am, they had gone. Four were in hospital suffering from burns and smoke inhalation; the rest had fled.

The overnight firebombing of a downtown Jerusalem building which houses refugees from sub-Saharan Africa was the latest in a string of attacks set against the backdrop of rising anti-migrant sentiment in Israel, fuelled by inflammatory comments by prominent politicians. Often described as infiltrators by ministers, the media, the army and government officials, migrants have also had labels such as “cancer”, “garbage”, “plague” and “rapists” applied to them by Israeli politicians.

The arsonists who struck the Jerusalem apartment, located in a religious neighbourhood of the city, scrawled “get out of our neighbourhood” on its outside wall. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said: “This was a targeted attack which we believe was racially motivated.” The foreign ministry condemned the “heinous crime”.

But on the street outside the building, the official response had little resonance with a man who arrived in Israel from Eritrea 14 years ago but was too scared to give his name. “People look at you, they curse you. They say, ‘Go back to your country.’ We are very afraid,” he said.

Tensions were inevitable, according to Moshe Cohen, the owner of a nearby jeweller’s shop. “They drink, they fight among themselves, they play African music on shabbat [the Jewish sabbath] when people want to pray. What started in Tel Aviv happens here now.”

He was referring to a series of firebombings of apartments and a nursery over the past month in southern Tel Aviv, an area in which African migrants are concentrated. Shops run by or serving migrants were smashed up and looted in a violent demonstration last month in which Africans were attacked. Many Israelis were shocked at the display of aggressive racism in their most liberal city.

Political leaders did not allow the violence to temper their verbal onslaught against the migrants. Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Israel’s national identity was at risk from the flood of “illegal infiltrators”. Interior minister Eli Yishai suggested that Aids-infected migrants were raping Israeli women, and all, “without exception”, should be locked up pending deportation. They do not believe “this country belongs to us, to the white man”, he said in an interview.

And, while touring the fence that Israel is building along its border with Egypt to deter migrants, MP Aryeh Eldad said: “Anyone that penetrates Israel’s border should be shot – a Swedish tourist, Sudanese from Eritrea, Eritreans from Sudan, Asians from Sinai. Whoever touches Israel’s border – shot.” He later conceded that such a policy may not be feasible “because bleeding hearts groups will immediately begin to shriek and turn to the courts”.

According to the immigration authority, there are 62,000 migrants in Israel, where the population is 7.8m. Over 2,000 migrants entered Israel via Egypt last month, compared with 637 last May. The construction of the 150-mile (240km) southern border fence, due to be completed later this year, is thought to be increasing in the short term the numbers attempting to cross into Israel .

Nearly all are given temporary permits to stay in Israel which must be renewed every three or four months and specifically exclude permission to work. Many end up being employed on a casual basis for a pittance, living in overcrowded, rundown apartments and confined to the fringes of society. In desperation, some turn to petty crime.

On Sunday, a law came into effect allowing the Israeli authorities to jail migrants for up to three years. People helping or sheltering migrants could face prison sentences of between five and 15 years.

Netanyahu also ordered ministers to accelerate efforts to deport 25,000 migrants from countries with which Israel has diplomatic relations, principally South Sudan, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Ethiopia.

He conceded it was not possible to deport around 35,000 migrants from Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia. Eritreans and Sudanese make up more than 90% of those who have illegally crossed the Israel-Egypt border in recent months.

One out of 4,603 applicants was granted asylum status last year.

Although some commentators and community activists have said that Israel, a state founded by and for refugees from persecution, should be sympathetic and welcoming to those fleeing violence and oppression, the prevailing mood is one of intolerance.

“This phenomenon is getting bigger and bigger,” said Poriya Gets of the Hotline for Migrant Workers, based in Tel Aviv. It was being stoked by politicians and rightwing organisations, she added. “We now see hotspots of tension between refugees and local people in many towns.”

Her organisation had also been targeted. “We’ve had phone calls, people cursing and saying ugly things, like, ‘We hope you will be raped and we are coming to burn you.’ The politicians must take responsibility. They are trying to make the fire bigger.”

Continue reading June 5, 2012

Editor: The Habimah clips

After the very successful demonstration in front of the Globe theatre, spome tens of videos were placed on YouTube extending the message of the protest. Below I include some of these.

haim Bresheeth and Mike Cushman – Boycott Habimah

Protesters inside theatre speak out – Boycott Habima @ The Globe #9 [28 May 2012] [inminds]

Deborah Fink, JBIG – Boycott Habima @ The Globe #8 [29 May 2012]

Deborah Fink of Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods performes Palestine songs at protest outside Globe theatre during Habima performance.

Shakespearian style sonnet by Sue Blackwell – Boycott Habima @ The Globe #7 [29 May 2012]

Shakespearian style sonnet written by Sue Blackwell is read out at protest outside Globe theatre during Habima performance.

Maha Rahwanji, PSC – Boycott Habima @ The Globe #6 [28 May 2012]

Maha Rahwanji of the PSC explains why she is protesting Habima @ The Globe

Glyn Secker, JfJfP – Boycott Habima @ The Globe #4 [28 May 2012]

Glyn Secker, captain of the famed boat Irene which broke the Gaza blockade, speaks at protest outside Globe theatre during Habima performance.

Mike Cushman, BRICUP – Boycott Habima @ The Globe #3 [28 May 2012]

Mike Cushman of BRICUP speaks at protest outside Globe theatre during Habima performance.

Boat protest – Boycott Habima @ The Globe #2 [28 May 2012]

Habima boycott boat protest – ‘Israeli Apartheid – Leave the Stage’.
http://youtu.be/nqI4Leq5P70

Why I boycott Habima, by a theatre goer – Boycott Habima @ The Globe #1 [28 May 2012]

EDITOR: Facebook operates political censorship:
In the Hebrew piece below, you can read about political censorship of the worst kind by Facebook! It seems that being anti capitalist or anti Zionist is not on on Facebook! So much for American democracy!

Facebook censors cartoons against racism, capitalism: 972Mag

Wednesday, May 30 2012|Noam Sheizaf
The comic artist Mysh is one of my favorites in Israel. His work is not only conscious and critical, but also brilliantly drawn and at times, extremely funny. Last year I posted here his “Israeli Machine” video, which captured the hope I saw in the J14 movement more than any 1000-word essay I have written on this issue.
Mysh’s drawings have since turned more critical and dark, reflecting the change in the national mood as the summer of hope turned into an Israeli winter. Yet some of those recent works have been incredibly popular on Facebook, shared and liked by thousands of Israelis; other pieces even got some international attention. That’s when Facebook began to censor Mysh.
“A couple of days ago, I got a message that one of my works, titled The Real Superhero, was removed from the site,” Mysh told +972 over the phone today. “I actually suspected it was the nudity – the drawing is showing a naked Clark Kent, with the S carved on his chest – maybe it was too much for some people. But this morning, I couldn’t get into my Facebook account, and I saw that another one of my sketches, titled A Problem of Self Esteem, was also removed.”
Here is The Real Superhero:

And this is the Problem of Self Esteem, a work inspired by the latest race riot in Tel Aviv.

The Hebrew on the back of the muscular man has all kinds of popular racist slogans: “A good Arab is a dead Arab;” “Death to the Sudanese,” “Run over the Dosim (degrading name for Orthodox Jews);”Russians to Russia, Ethiopians to Ethiopia,” and more.
Mysh was also warned by Facebook that further flagging of his work would lead to the removal of his page. He was banned from the site for 24 hours.
“When they removed a third work, titled the Green Sabrah, I understood that there was something systematic here, and that I have to take care of it. I wrote a letter to Facebook, but the reply was that the department that dealing with my problem is on leave until June 6th.”

“My work is critical and provocative, but I don’t think I am violating any of the house rules. My images are not inciting to violence, pornographic or extremely graphic. I really don’t know what to do now. The irony is that I have been praising Facebook recently as this amazing tool for promoting your art. I don’t have a site and I dread the thought that I will have to be a multi-platform person. I am quite bad with technology. I guess this was a kind of a wake up call for me, that this place I trusted is censored too.”
Mysh is 34, lives in Tel Aviv; he also directs films and animation. If you want to support him, join his Facebook page. We will also be featuring his work here on +972 from time to time. And for those who missed it, here is The Israeli Machine:

And below, the Hebrew version:

פייסבוק מצנזרת קריקטורה פוליטית

המאייר הישראלי מיש הופתע הבוקר לגלות שפייסבוק הסירה שתי קריקטורות שהעלה בתגובה למצב הפוליטי ומצב המסתתנים בארץ. האם פייסבוק זה המקום של תכנים שפונים רק למכנה המשותף הרחב ביותר?
ויטה קיירס
עדכון אחרון:     30.05.12, 15:11

המאייר ויוצר סדרת הרשת “מפלצוני הכנסת” העלה בשבועות האחרונים קריקטורות ביקורתיות, יש שיאמרו בוטות, לעמוד הפייסבוק שלו. הקריקטורות, שהתייחסו למצב הפוליטי בארץ, צברו למעלה ממאה אלף כניסות תוך ימים בודדים, והציתו ויכוחים ערים. פייסבוק, שמצהירה על עצמה רשת שמטרתה לחבר בין אנשים – ולא לפלג ביניהם, לא הבינה כנראה את המסרים של מיש, ובחרה להסיר את התמונות מהאתר.

הבוקר,כשמיש נכנס לאתר, קיבלה את פניו הודעה לקונית לפיה התוכן שמיש העלה מפר את כללי הקהילה של פייסבוק, ושאם הדבר ימשיך, חשבונו ייחסם. ראוי לציין שכמות המידע המועלה על ידי גולשים בפייסבוק הוא אינסופי: לרשת החברתית אין באמת יכולת לנטר את כולו ולקבוע מה מותר ומה אסור, וכדי להתריע לפייסבוק על תוכן לא ראוי, אלים או גזעני, יש לדווח על התוכן הזה באופן פרטני.

“האיור הראשון שהוסר היה חלק מפרוייקט בשם ‘The real superpower’, בו עשיתי מעין טוויסט אנטי-קפיטליסטי על גיבורי קומיקס קלאסיים”, מספר מיש ל-ynet מחשבים. “המסר היה, למה להיות גיבור, כשאתה יכול להרשות לעצמך להיות נבל. האיור שהורד הציג עיתונאי דל אמצעים (קלארק קנט) שעובר התעללות בידי איל הנדלן לקס לותור. הורדת האיור הזה היא עוד איכשהו הגיונית לפי “חוקי הקהילה” של פייסבוק, כי קלארק קנט מופיע באיור כפות ועירום”

(איור: מיש)

לאחר יומיים, קרי היום (ד’), פייסבוק הסירו שתי קריקטורות נוספות. הראשונה,”בעיות דימוי עצמי”, פורסמה בסוף השבוע האחרון בתגובה לאלימות שהופגנה נגד פליטים ומסתננים בדרום תל אביב והדיון הסוער שהתפתח לאחר מכן. “בקריקטורה צפו בכמה ימים יותר ממאה אלף גולשים” אומר מיש, ”והיא זכתה ללמעלה מ-1,500 שיתופים. היא הציתה דיונים ארוכים בהם אנשים בעלי השקפות ודעות פוליטיות שונות התעמתו ברחבי הפייסבוק והגיעו למסקנות מעניינות מאד”.

(איור: מיש)

לאחר דקות סופרות, הוסרה קריקטורה נוספת בשם “הצבר הירוק” שמיש העלה לפני כחודש. האיור מציג פארודיה על גיבור העל “הענק הירוק” – דמות של אדם שאינו שולט על כעסו, ובכל פעם שהוא מתעצבן קצת – הופך ליצור ירוק ומפלצתי. “השתמשתי בדמות כאלגוריה לתכונה הישראלית של שימוש בכוח בלתי פרופורציוני כאמצעי הראשון והאחרון לפתרון כל בעיה”.

לפני כשבוע, מיש התארח בתוכנית הטלוויזיה “הינשופים”, בה דיבר, בין היתר, על האפשרות ליצור שיח לא מצונזר באינטרנט, כזה שמאפשר לאנשים שרוב הסיכויים שלא יפגשו בחיים האמיתיים, להתווכח בצורה בריאה. “היום נוכחתי, שגם בעולם הווירטואלי הדבר אינו פשוט כל כך, ויש אנשים שינסו בכל דרך למנוע תקשורת כזאת, כדי להשאיר איש איש בדעותיו”.

(איור: מיש)

האם תמשיך להעלות תכנים? או שאתה חושב על דרך אלטרנטיבית להביע את המחאה שלך?
“אני אמשיך להעלות תכנים,אבל עכשיו אני מבין שהדברים שלי חשופים יותר. אני מרגיש שאני צריך ללמוד יותר לעומק את ההתנהלות של פייסבוק כדי לדעת איך להגן על עצמי. אני לא נהנה מסיכונים ומעדיף לא לקחת אותם, אבל במקרה כזה נראה לי די מגוחך להתקפל בלי לראות מה ניתן לעשות בנדון”.

תגובת פייסבוק לדברים טרם נמסרה.

EDITOR: Last night successful action against Habimah

Below you can read some competing versions of the reporting on the event: Tony Greenstein version is based on what took place inside, while the Haaretz and Ynet report what they wanted to see.

Tony Greenstein’s blog

As Bob Dylan noted, there’s no success like failure, but failure’s no success at all.  So it was with Habimah’s distinctively unimpressive Merchant of Venice.  Indeed it is ironic that the ‘Jewish’ State’s only contribution to the Globe’s Shakespeare Festival was to stage a recreation of Shylock and Shakespeare’s depiction of Venetian anti-Semitism.

After a group of us had met at a secret location in Central London we made our way to the Globe.  We had no illusions that the security in place would make our job difficult but in a sense it didn’t matter.  The very fact that Zionist Theatre can only perform under unprecedented lock-down conditions guaranteed that we had already won.

There was an especially large police presence to ensure that the theatre production could go ahead.

I was convinced that I personally wouldn’t get in, being one of the better known anti-Zionists on the scene.  However the triumph of innocence won out as I strolled passed the intense security and a blind Jonathan Hoffman to take my position in the ‘pit’.

No sooner had the performance begun than the interruptions began.  A group of women in the balcony unfolded a banner and were the object of the attentions of some quite vicious stewarding but to no avail.  One of the women, who shall remain nameless, persisted in her protest throughout the first half, having a large plaster across her mouth to symbolise the silenced voice of the Palestinians.

I was caught by Zionist spotters in the interlude before I could add a harmonious touch but my place was easily filled by others who congregated in the pit.  It was somewhat amusing as Jonathan Hoffman’s even uglier twin, Harvey Garfield and a screaming Martin Sugarman and another Zionist decided to try to detain me.  Unfortunately the overweight Harvey appeared to stumble under his own weight and like all Zionist aggressors started squealing about having been assaulted.  However I had no problem persuading the police that I was lawfully entitled to resist an unprovoked physical attack which was common assault.  The Zionists thought better of trying to have me arrested and I was released without charge.

Given the assaults by the security goons on other protestors, the fact that one protestor has been detained on suspicion of attacking a goon is ludicrous.

When I emerged into the sunshine there was still a healthy Palestinian demonstration and no sign of the Zionists.   Meanwhile the Piza Express opposite functioned as our media centre.  Truth and justice had won out as we made it clear that Brand Israel and the Culture of Genocide will no longer be allowed a free pass.

Israel’s National Theater Company performs in London’s Globe Theater: Haaretz

Pro-Palestinian activists disrupt performance with cries of ‘Free Palestine.’
By Anshel Pfeffer

The performance of Habima’s new Hebrew production of The Merchant of Venice at the Globe Theater in London, goes as planned though repeatedly interrupted by protesters shouting “Free Palestine.” One protester was arrested.

The two Habima performances have been sold out and the organizers believe that some of the tickets were bought by protestors who are planning to heckle and disturb the performers. At the rehearsal this morning at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater on the south bank of the Thames, Habima’s actors decided that if the heckling would get too loud to continue with the play, all the actors, including those behind the scenes, would join hands on the stage and wait for the hecklers to be ejected. Lead actor, Yakov Cohen, playing the role of Shylock said that if Israelis in the audience will try and shout back at the hecklers, he will ask them in Hebrew “not to descend to that level.”

Habima’s artistic director, Ilan Ronnen, who is directing the play, said at the rehearsal that “this is not the first time that there are demonstrations when we are performing abroad. Usually, they are outside the theater. In this case, it is a special situation since the Globe has 700 standing places close up to the actors. As far as I know, most of the people who bought tickets are coming to see a play and express their love for theater, that’s all. We will make every effort that the play will go on.”

The pro-Palestinian activists have targeted Habima for its performances in the new concert hall at the West Bank settlement of Ariel. While the Globe has not cancelled its plans to host Habima, it issued last week an unprecedented list of regulations regarding security and maintenance of order during the two performances, following discussions with London’s Metropolitan Police.

Among other procedures, entrance to the theater will be only allowed through one gate and ticket holders are requested to arrive early since they will have to undergo “extensive checks of bags” and possibly “random body searches.” The Globe management stressed that it “reserves the right to refuse admission to anyone we have reason to believe may cause a disruption to the performance.”

In addition, the theater announced that “the use of any annoying, disruptive or dangerous behavior, foul or abusive language or obscene gestures, the removal of shirts or clothing likely to cause offence and climbing onto any building/wall or other structure is forbidden and may result in ejection.”

Man held at Globe theatre protest: Guardian

One man arrested on suspicion of assault after pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted a performance by Israeli theatre company

A man was arrested after pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted a performance by the Israeli national theatre company at London’s Globe theatre.

Tel Aviv’s Habima company was performing Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice during the Globe to Globe festival when a small number of demonstrators unfurled banners and displayed a Palestinian flag.

One man was arrested on suspicion of assault on a security guard and remains in police custody, Scotland Yard said.

A spokeswoman from the protest group Boycott Israel Network said 15 demonstrators stood up during the performance with Palestinian flags and a banner. Two more protesters were removed shortly after the interval, she added.

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, co-ordinator with the Boycott Israel Network, said: “This campaign is not an attack on individual artists; we are not censoring the content of their work nor are we concerned about their ethnicity or the language they speak.

“As with South African sport in the apartheid era, this is about refusing to allow culture to be used to whitewash oppression.”

Protester Zoe Mars said: “We tried non-violently to convey the message that culture may not be used to give a civilised gloss to a state that perpetrates human rights abuses.”

The Globe to Globe festival features all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays being performed in 37 languages, from Urdu to Swahili, over six weeks.

A Metropolitan police spokesman said: “I can confirm that officers arrested a man at 9.15pm on suspicion of assault on a security guard outside the Globe Theatre. He remains in custody.”

Palestinians disrupt Habima performance in London: Ynet

Pro-Palestinians demonstrating against national company’s performances in the West Bank, disrupt showing of The Merchant of Venice at London’s Globe Theater
Rona Zinman
The show must go on: Pro-Palestinian protestors disrupted the performance of the Habima National Theater Company’s The Merchant of Venice at the Globe Theater in London on Monday, but the actors proved they were true professionals – carrying on with the show.

During the performance, a new Hebrew production of the Merchant of Venice which is part of the “Globe to Globe” festival, some 10 Palestinian demonstrators in the audience suddenly began waving Palestinian flags and signs against Israel.

Security personnel removed them from the theater. Later on, another group stood up with band-aids plastered to their mouths.
The protests began outside the theater with dozens standing with Palestinian flags and signs calling for an end to the “Israeli Apartheid regime” as well as for a boycott on Israeli products.
The Pro-Palestinians were demonstrating against the Habima performance over the fact that Israel’s national theater company previously performed in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, pro-Israeli demonstrators also gathered outside the theater waving Israeli flags with signs that read: Culture unites, Boycotts divide. They also expressed their support for the Israeli actors.

Author of ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’ vents again: Haaretz

The concept of homeland is one of the most amazing and most ruinous of the modern era, says Prof. Shlomo Sand.
By Dalia Karpel     | May.24, 2012 | 12:34 PM |   9

The concept of homeland is one of the most amazing and also, perhaps, one of the most ruinous of the modern era, says Prof. Shlomo Sand. In his new book, “When and How Was the Land of Israel Invented?” ‏(Kineret, Zmora-Bitan Dvir, Hebrew‏), Sand examines the attitude of the Zionist movement toward that territory since its inception. More particularly, he is out to discover how Zionism adopted the idea of the “historic right” to that land, and consolidated an ethos based on the memory of an ancient people whose ancestors were Hebrews who lived in the Kingdom of Judah in the First and Second Temple periods. According to Sand, the Land of Israel was not the historic homeland of the Jewish people.

“Zionism plundered the religious term ‘Land of Israel’ [Eretz Yisrael] and turned it into a geopolitical term,” he says. “The Land of Israel is not the homeland of the Jews. It becomes a homeland at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th − only upon the emergence of the Zionist movement.”

Sand’s previous book, “The Invention of the Jewish People” ‏(Verso, 2009; translated by Yael Lotan‏), stirred a furor. Sand rejected the existence of a Jewish people that was exiled two millennia ago and survived. The majority of the Jews of Eastern Europe, he maintained, are descendants of societies or of individuals who were converted to Judaism on European soil. This concept flagrantly contradicts Israel’s Declaration of Independence, according to which “Eretz-Israel ‏(the Land of Israel, Palestine‏) was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books” [source: Israeli Foreign Ministry]. Sand argues that for 2,000 years the Jews did not constitute a people and that only religion, belief and culture united them.

It was to be expected that “The Invention of the Jewish People” would not be greeted in Israel with great acclaim. However, its author admits that he did not imagine the book “would fall with the impact of a bomb.” The negative reactions have been diverse. Some rejected outright the principal conclusion and the historical facts on which it was based, while others dismissed the research and claimed there was nothing new in the book, that everything was known and accepted, at least by historians. ‏(For a slightly different reason he was also disappointed when the Arabic-language edition of the book was published in Ramallah: Sand was not invited to the book launch, though he was hosted at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem by the institution’s president, Prof. Sari Nusseibeh.‏)

That was about four years ago, but the hostility toward him seems to be intensifying. Recently, he says, he has been receiving more hate mail and getting obscene phone calls. Last week, he received an envelope in the mail that contained a white powder and a letter branding him an “anti-Semite” and a “Jew hater,” together with a promise that his days were numbered.

“The Invention of the Jewish People” was on Israel’s best-seller lists for 19 weeks and has been translated into 16 languages. Editions in Chinese, Korean, Indonesian and Croatian are in the works. In March 2009, he received the Aujourd’hui Award, presented by French journalists for a leading nonfiction political or historical work. Previous winners of the award include renowned scholars such as Raymond Aron and George Steiner.

Sand also racked up a lot of flying time en route to lecture on the book in France, Britain, Canada, the United States, Belgium, Japan, Russia, Germany, Slovenia, Morocco, Bulgaria, Hungary, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Italy. His desk drawer and inbox contain hundreds of letters from around the world, from both Jews and adherents of other religions, taking issue with him.
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