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 EDITOR: Israel hits again, against its critics in Britain this time

No British senior politician will be allowed to get away with severe criticism of Israel for long. Baroness Jenny Tonge has been getting away with it for longer than most – the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, she has defended the Palestinians for many years, and is a principled and progressive politician even when her own party is being destroyed by Nick Clegg. On Tuesday this week I had the great honour of sharing a platform with her at the Queen Mary University Israeli Apartheid Week meeting, at which also spoke Dr. Azzam Tamimi. The three of us have spoken together before, and this was a very well conducted and lively meeting – with the usual idiotic questions from the Israeli press and the president of the Jewish Society, who claimed his family was ‘expelled’ from Iraq, a ‘fact’ both Dr. Tamimi and myself challenged. The report in Haaretz bears all the signs of an anti-Semitic attack, as did the questioning by the Haaretz corespondent, who should get the Hasbara prize of the year…

I was shocked to get up today to the news that Baroness Tonge was forced to resign the Liberal Democrat whip in the House of Lords by her great leader, Nick Clegg, because yesterday at another similar meeting, she ventured to say the obvious – that “Israel as we know it today” may not be there forever. Clegg has asked her to repent and apologise, but Jenny would of course not do this, and stayed true to her words! Hurrah for her, I say! Clegg is a disgrace to the long liberal tradition in Britain, a lacky of Cameron and a leading member of the most right-wing government in living memory in London. It is he who should be apologising for his collaboration with the enemies of the British working class.

Jenny will not stop supporting Palestine, and speaking the truth on Israel, I am sure. The more such events take place, the clearer is the pressure under which the Israeli narrative is under.

Baroness Tonge: The full statement: The Jewish Chronicle

February 29, 2012
“The comments I made have been taken completely out of context. They followed a very ill tempered meeting in which Zionist campaigners attempted continually to disrupt proceedings. They mouthed obscenities at the panelists, to the extent that University security attempted to remove them from the premises.
“The comments I made were in protest at the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and the treatment of Israeli Arabs.
“I am disappointed the leadership of my party did not consult me before issuing a press release and seems always to abet the request of the pro-Israel lobby. Israel is acting against international law, the Geneva conventions, and Human Rights. They do this with impunity and if our political parties will not take action then individuals must.
“I have been asked to apologise but refuse to do so and resign the whip of my party.”

EDITOR: to listen to Baroness Tonge on the BBC this morning, use the link below:
Baroness Tonge defends Israel comments: BBC

Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Tonge has told the Today programme that Nick Clegg’s decision to withdraw the party whip after her comments on Israel was made “hastily and ill advisedly”.
Baroness Tonge provoked an outcry by saying that Israel “is not going to be there forever in its present form” at an event at Middlesex University and was told to apologise by the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.
But she told the Today programme’s John Humphrys that she had an “enormous amount of support” for her comments and that if Israel continues with its policies and loses more allies, it can not expect to survive.
But Conservative MP Robert Halfon maintained that the problem is that Baroness Tonge “represents an extreme anti-Israel view” in which she is attempting to “delegitimize” Israel.
He dismissed her comments as “conspiracy theories” and “disproportionate” given everything else that is happening in the Middle East.

Lady Tonge bites back after Nick Clegg disowns her over her Israel comments: Guardian

Liberal Democrat leader acted ‘hastily and ill-advisedly’ says peer punished for saying Israel ‘would not be there forever’

Liberal Democrat peer Lady Tonge has expressed disappointment that party leader Nick Clegg “very hastily and ill-advisedly” disowned her after she said Israel “would not be there forever”.

Tonge, a former Lib Dem MP, was forced to give up the party whip this week after the deputy prime minister told her to apologise or resign over her comments, made to students at Middlesex University. Tonge stood by her remarks.

Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if she thought Clegg’s ultimatum had been justified, Tonge said: “I think [he acted] very hastily and I think ill-advisedly. He’s going to have a lot of flak about it, I do know that.

“Of course, I always have an enormous amount of flak and I am quite used to that. But I have also had an enormous amount of support.”

Clegg acted after the Guido Fawkes website ran a video clip of Tonge at a Middlesex University meeting last week, where she said that Israel would not last forever in its present form.

“One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough. Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown,” she said.

Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow, said Clegg was right to demand that Tonge apologise or leave the Lib Dem grouping in the Lords because her comments sought to “delegitimise Israel”.

He told Today: “The problem with Baroness Tonge is that she represents an extreme anti-Israel view.

“She attempts to delegitimise Israel, her criticism is disproportionate and it is also damaging not just to Israel but to her own credibility.

“I agree with free speech and she is welcome to go and say all these conspiracy theories on Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park … but she represents the Liberal Democrats, and it was right for Nick Clegg to ask her to apologise because what she was saying was trying to delegitimise Israel.”

He added: “People like Baroness Tonge have these conspiracy theories but say very little about what goes on in Damascus, in Syria, every day. It is incredibly relevant because no one ever asks if Syria is going to exist or if Syria should not exist.

“But in the case of Baroness Tonge it is conspiracy theories and an attempt to delegitimise Israel.

“What I am trying to say is that the criticism of Israel – and it takes a lot to unite Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and the foreign secretary – her criticism is far more disproportionate and takes little account of what is going on.”

Tonge said “facts on the ground” had inspired her comments.

“I base my comments on what is happening to Palestinians in those areas, let alone what is happening now in East Jerusalem.

“Everywhere you look and go, you see the brutalisation of Palestinians. That is not conspiracy, that is facts on the ground.”

She added: “You know, it has been said by many, many people, to say that if Israel continues with the policies it’s pursuing at the moment towards the Palestinians, let alone in the wider Middle East, if you combine that with the fact that Israel has lost its allies like Turkey and Egypt and is making enemies all over the Middle East, if you add to that the fact it just cannot carry on pursuing the policies, doing the things it’s doing, and expecting to survive.

“At the moment it survives because it has the backing of America but that may not go on forever. The American people may get fed up of backing this state that angers everyone and irritates everyone.”

Tonge was sacked as the Lib Dem children’s spokeswoman in the Commons in 2004 when she suggested she could consider becoming a suicide bomber.

Nick Clegg was too quick to disown me over Israel comments, says Baroness Tonge: Telegraph

Baroness Tonge, a Liberal Democrat peer, has criticised Nick Clegg for his response after she said Israel “is not going to be there forever in its present form”.

By Donna Bowater3:46PM GMT 02 Mar 2012
Mr Clegg asked Lady Tonge to apologise and withdraw her comments earlier this week but the peer refused and has now withdrawn the party whip.
During a talk at Middlesex University, she claimed Israel would “reap what it has sown” if the United States decided to withdraw its support, telling students the country “would not be there forever”.
Asked if Mr Clegg was too quick to disown her on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she replied: “I think very hastily and I think ill-advisedly.
“He’s going to have a lot of flak about it, I do know that.
“Of course, I always have an enormous amount of flak and I am quite used to that. But I have also had an enormous amount of support.”

Lady Tonge refused to back down over the comments and stood by them on the programme.
“I based my comments on what is happening in Palestine,” she said.
Conservative MP Robert Halfon was also on the programme and said Mr Clegg was right to call for an apology.
“I agree with free speech and she is very welcome to say all these conspiracy theories at Speakers’ Corner at Hyde Park,” he said.
“It was right for Nick Clegg to ask her to apologise because what she was saying was trying to delegitimise Israel.”

Lib Dem Baroness Tonge quits over Israel remarks: BBC

Lib Dem health spokeswoman sacked

A Lib Dem peer has resigned from the parliamentary party after saying Israel “is not going to be there forever”.

Baroness Tonge also told a university audience that the country would “reap what it’s sown” in the Middle East – drawing criticism from party leader Nick Clegg and Labour’s Ed Miliband.

She later resigned from the Lib Dem whip, saying the remarks had been taken “out of context”.

A party spokesmen said her words had been “extremely ill-advised”.

It is not the first time Baroness Tonge has had a run-in with the Lib Dem leadership.

She was sacked as a health spokeswoman in 2010 after she claimed Israeli troops sent to Haiti after the earthquake there were trafficking organs.

And, in 2004, when as Jenny Tonge she was still an MP, then Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy asked her to resign as children’s spokeswoman after she said she “might just consider becoming” a suicide bomber if she was a Palestinian.

‘Proud record’
Her resignation from the party follows a speech at an event held at Middlesex University, in which she said: “One day, the United States of America will get sick of giving £70bn a year to Israel to support what I call America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East – that is Israel.

I have been asked to apologise but refuse to do so and resign the whip of my party”

Baroness Tonge
“One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough.

“It will not go on for ever. Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown.”

Labour leader Ed Miliband condemned the remarks, writing on Twitter: “No place in politics for those who question existence of the state of Israel.”

Mr Clegg said: “These remarks were wrong and offensive and do not reflect the values of the Liberal Democrats.

“I asked Baroness Tonge to withdraw her remarks and apologise for the offence she has caused. She has refused to do so and will now be leaving the party.

“The Liberal Democrats have a proud record of campaigning for the rights of Palestinians, and that will continue.

“But we are crystal clear in our support for a two-state solution.”

‘Mouthed obscenities’
Afterwards Baroness Tonge said: “The comments I made have been taken completely out of context. They followed a very ill-tempered meeting in which Zionist campaigners attempted continually to disrupt proceedings.

“They mouthed obscenities at the panellists, to the extent that university security attempted to remove them from the premises.

“The comments I made were in protest at the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and the treatment of Israeli Arabs.”

She added: “I am disappointed the leadership of my party did not consult me before issuing a press release and seems always to abet the request of the pro-Israel lobby.

“Israel is acting against international law, the Geneva Conventions, and human rights. They do this with impunity and if our political parties will not take action then individuals must.

“I have been asked to apologise but refuse to do so and resign the whip of my party.”

The Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine group offered Baroness Tonge its “full support”.

It said: “The condemnation was made before the leadership had heard her side of the story or even spoken to her. That action in itself worries us. She is entitled to an apology.”

This morning Jenny Tonge was interviewed by John Humphries and included Robert Halfon MP, Political Director, of Conservative Friends of Israel

( He is MP for Harlow)

Link to Today Programme listen again http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01cks47

She speaks at about 32 minutes into the clip.

The interview was broadcast at 7.30pm

Move programme time  marker – Pink Line and adjust time to 1.30

Interview lasts 10 minutes

Express your support to John Humphries who kept the interview in order  today@bbc.co.uk

Beware Any Questions is broadcast this evening at 8pm (From Beccles Suffolk)

In case any question relates to Jenny Tonge it will provide an opportunity to respond on Any Answers on Saturday

Tel: 03700 100 444

Email: any.answers@bbc.co.uk

Baroness Tonge stands on the right side of Justice

Baroness Jenny Tonge has served the Liberal Democrats as MP from 1997 -2005. She was recently pressured to leave the Lib Dem Party by leader Nick Clegg after overwhelming criticism by her fellow peers and Zionist supporters for her courageous statement on Israel’s lobby in America. Speaking at a lecture at Middlesex University last week she was quoted,

 

“Israel is not going to be there forever in its present form. One day, the United States of America will get sick of giving £70bn a year to Israel to support what I call America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East – that is Israel. One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough. Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown.”

Baroness Tonge’s statement which has sparked controversy amongst politicians is merely a fair observation of Israel’s on-going policy of settlement expansion and territorial acquisition, ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population, Judaisation of East Jerusalem and settlement buildings in the West Bank as integral territories of a future Palestinian state. Palestinians have suffered grave injustices under Israel’s systematic apartheid policies and occupation for over six decades. Palestinians are expected to live under harsh conditions in war-torn societies, under siege in Gaza, restriction on movement through checkpoints and road-blocks, abuse and torture in Israeli prison cells, daily curfews and raids and countless abuses of human rights. Israel has violated international law and regulations and denied Palestinians the right to live a peaceful and dignified life. This cannot continue. Israel must be exposed and held accountable for its war crimes and illegal measures against the Palestinian population.

Baroness Tonge has stood on the right side of justice and is paying the price for exposing the true face of Israel.

Ambassador Hassassian
5 Galena Road
Hammersmith

www.palestinianmissionuk.com <http://www.palestinianmissionuk.com>

Controversial Palestinian academic hails ‘martyrdom’ U.K. event: Haaretz

Azzam Tamimi, who sparked outrage when he said in 2004 that sacrificing oneself was a ‘noble cause,’ says at Queen Mary’s session: If you’re not prepared to die for your country then you are not a patriot.
By Daniella Peled
British-Palestinian activist Azzam Tamimi reiterated his strong connections to Hamas and his willingness to become a “martyr” at a student event on Tuesday night, which drew controversy due to his advertised appearance.

Tamimi, an academic who lives in London, sparked outrage when he said during a BBC interview in 2004 that sacrificing oneself was a “noble cause,” adding that it was “the straight way to pleasing my God and I would do it if I had the opportunity.”

Student groups and Jewish activists had raised concerns over his appearance at the event One State or Two State Solution, hosted by Queen Mary’s University’s Palestine Solidarity Society.

In response to a question from Haaretz over the opposition to his attendance, he insisted that the reason for the uproar was n attempt to silence his legitimate political views.

“I’d be a martyr for my country, of course,” he said. “If you’re not prepared to die for your country then you are not a patriot.”

Regarding his connections to Hamas, which is banned in the EU over its status as a terror organization, he said: “I have a great honor to be close to Hamas,” adding that it was only unfortunate that he himself did not have a leadership role within the group.

Having described Hamas chief Khaled Meshal as a close childhood friend, and saying that “all the leaders of Hamas are my friends,” Tamimi added: “I am not ashamed of my association with Hamas. Hamas, in my view, is the true representative of the Palestinian people.”

His words were met with a round of applause from the audience of around 30 people.

Earlier, a pro-Israel blogger, Richard Millett, was denied entry to the event, at which U.K. politician Jenny Tonge and academic Haim Bresheeth also spoke. An event organizer said that Millett was well-known as a disruptive influence.

The group Student Rights had previously expressed concerns over the make-up of the panel.

“It is bad enough that Tamimi, a supporter of an anti-Semitic terrorist group like Hamas, should be invited onto a campus to speak, as he was at Loughborough University last November,” the group said in a statement on its website.

“However, what is worse is that not only will there be no balance to his hate filled views, but that the panel he will speak alongside have all declared outspoken opposition to Israel in the past,” it added.

Baroness Tonge, Lib Dem Peer, Criticised For Saying ‘Israel Will Not Last Forever’ (VIDEO): Huffington Post

A Liberal Democrat peer who once said she would consider becoming a suicide bomber if she were Palestinian has been criticised for saying Israel would not “last forever”.

Speaking at an event at Middlesex University last Thursday, Baroness Tonge said Israel would one day lose the support of the United States and would then “reap what they have sown”.

“Beware Israel,” she said. “Israel is not going to be there forever in its present performance. One day the United States of America will get sick of giving £70 billion a year to Israel.”

The Lib Dem peer said she thought of Israel as “America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East” but that one day people in the United States would say “enough is enough”.

“It will not go on forever, it will not go on forever and Israel will lose its support, then they will reap what they have sown,” she added.

In a statement given to the Guido Fawkes website, which first reported the remarks, the Liberal Democrats said Baroness Tonge did “not speak for the party on Israel/Palestine”.

“Her presence and comments at this event were extremely ill-advised and ill judged. The tone of the debate at this event was wholly unacceptable and adds nothing to the peace process. The Liberal Democrats are wholehearted supporters of a peaceful two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine issue,” the statement added.

In 2010 Baroness Tonge was sacked by Nick Clegg as a health spokesperson for the party after she called for an inquiry into allegations Israeli troops were involved in organ trafficking in Haiti. Clegg said her comments were “wrong, distasteful and provocative”.

And she was sacked from the Lib Dem front bench in 2004 after she said she “might just consider” becoming a suicide bomber if she were Palestinian.

Ed Miliband said the Lib Dem leader should condemn the remarks as there was “no place in politics for those who question the existence of the state of Israel”.

No place in politics for those who question existence of the state of Israel. Nick Clegg must condemn Jenny Tonge’s remark & demand apology
February 29, 2012 3:48 pm via web Reply Retweet Favorite
Labour MP Ian Austin told The Guardian that Nick Clegg should make the peer withdraw her comments.

“There is a cross-party consensus that a two-state solution is the only way to bring peace to the Middle East. At the very least, Nick Clegg must make Baroness Tonge withdraw these remarks,” he said.

And Baroness Tonge was dismissed as an “irrelevant, siren and marginal voice” by the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel group.

Israeli envoy to the UK responds to Tonge’s outburst: JewishChronicle

The Israeli ambassador to Britain has described Jenny Tonge’s attack on Israel as “shocking”.
The former peer and longtime Israel critic resigned from the Liberal Democrats on Wednesday after refusing to apologise for stating that Israel would “not last forever”.
Daniel Taub, the British-born Israeli envoy, commented on the matter at the Community Security Trust annual dinner later that evening.
Mr Taub said: “I’m sure I speak for everyone here when I tell Baroness Tonge we have no intention of going anywhere.”
George Osborne, the chancellor and guest of honour at the dinner, added: “I’ve got a message for Jenny Tonge. The State of Israel is going to be around a lot longer than you are.”

Condemn Treatment of Baroness Jenny Tonge by Clegg: FOA

Thursday, 1st March, 2012

Baroness Jenny Tonge was given an ultimatum by Lib Dem Party leader Nick Clegg when she made a fair and accurate statement about the state of Israel – ‘retract the statement or leave the party’

Baroness Tonge, a long time champion of the Palestinian struggle for freedom chose to leave the party rather than be forced to toe the party line where Israel is concerned.

The exact statement she made at Middlesex University last week was:

“Israel is not going to be there forever in its present form. One day, the United States of America will get sick of giving £70bn a year to Israel to support what I call America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East – that is Israel. One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough. Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown.”

Ismail Patel, Chair of Friends of Al-Aqsa stated: “There was nothing in her statement which was unfair or inappropriate. The fact is that Israel in its present form is a racist state which has been occupying Palestinian land for over 44 years. This cannot and will not last forever. Millions of people around the world who form the ‘Free Palestine’ solidarity movement will work hard to ensure that Israel ends its occupation and that Arab Israeli’s are given equal rights within Israel. These aims merely represent international legal standards.”

Party leader Nick Clegg’s ultimatum was unnecessary and reflects the unacceptable sway the pro-Israel lobby appears to have on the party’s policies towards Israel.

ACTION ALERT

1.    Write to Nick Clegg condemning his ultimatum to Jenny Tonge.

Email: leader@libdems.org.uk

2.    Write to Baroness Jenny Tonge expressing support for her brave stand and continued solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Email: tongej@parliament.uk

LADY TONGE : UNE VRAIE “DAME”: Europalestine

vendredi 2 mars 2012

La Baronne Tonge, qui siège à la Chambre des Lords en Grande-Bretagne, a refusé de s’excuser et a préféré quitter le poste de chef du groupe parlementaire du parti “Libéral Démocrate” qui lui demandait de revenir sur la phrase qu’elle avait prononcé : “Israël ne pourra exister indéfiniment sous sa forme actuelle”.

Bien entendu, le lobby israélien est tout de suite monté au créneau, tronquant la phrase prononcée pour la présenter comme une menace.

Eternel chantage à l’antisémitisme

Mais Lady Tonge a envoyé promener Nick Clegg, dirigeant de son parti quand ce dernier a exigé d’elle qu’elle s’excuse. Elle au contraire redit qu’elle “protestait contre le traitement infligé aux Palestiniens à Gaza et en Cisjordanie, de même que celui subi par les Arabes israéliens”.

Lors d’un meeting à l’université du Middlesex la semaine dernière, elle a déclaré très précisément : “Israël ne restera pas indéfiniment dans sa forme actuelle. un jour, les Etats-Unis en auront marre de verser 70 milliards de livres sterling par an à Israël pour soutenir un porte-avions américain au Moyen-orient, c’est à dire Israël. Un jour, le peuple américain dira au lobby israélien aux USA : trop, c’est trop.”

Ajoutant “Israël perdra son soutien et récoltera ce qu’ils ont semé”.

La Baronne Tonge a précisé que ces commentaires étaient en outre prononcés dans un contexte où un groupe de sionistes avait éructé des obscénités pendant toute la réunion à l’égard des intervenants jusqu’au moment où les vigiles avaient dû les faire sortir de la salle.

Elle a exprimé sa ’déception de voir la direction de son parti céder en permanence aux pressions du lobby israélien, en dépit du fait qu’Israël viole le droit international, les Conventions de Genève et les droits de l’homme.’ Et a estimé que “tant que les politiques se conduiront de la sorte, c’est aux citoyens qu’il reviendra de mener ce combat.”

Si vous souhaitez remercier Lady Tonge, vous pouvez lui envoyer un mail à : tongej@parliament.uk

CAPJPO-EuroPalestine

Continue reading March 2, 2012

EDITOR: Anti-Iran hysteria gets to the point of no-return

Israel can be proud of itself this week. Having spent over six years of anti-Iranian propaganda campaign, it now stands at the point of pouncing on Iran, with the support of the world’s most aggressive war-mongers – US and UK. Not only did they kill over 700,000 Iraqis, destroyed Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, but they are now planning an attack on Syria, Iran and Somalis, with the UK also consider another war with Argentina. Can someone please suggest another country to make war on? So a war on Iran is no big deal, is it?

Israel has been extremely successful in selling this anti-Muslim, anti-Arab agenda to its western backers, and we are all likely to pay very much for this criminal madness in decades to come. As you are reading those lines, the attack on Iran is in its final stages of preparation. People acting in our name, being financed by our taxes, are going to attack, or support an attack, on another Muslim land.

An attack on Iran would be an act of criminal stupidity: Guardian

US and Israeli leaders are talking themselves into a disastrous conflict that will make Iranian nuclear weapons a certainty
Seumas Milne

After a decade of calamitous western wars in the wider Middle East, the signs are becoming ever more ominous that we’re heading for another. And, hard as it is to credit, the same discredited arguments used to justify the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan – from weapons of mass destruction to sponsorship of terrorism and fundamentalist fanatics – are now being used to make the case for an attack on Iran.

War talk about Iran and its nuclear programme has been going on for so long it might be tempting to dismiss it as bluster. The mixed messages about Iran coming from the US and Israeli governments in recent weeks have become increasingly contradictory and bewildering. Maybe it’s all a game of bluff and psychological warfare. Perhaps Iran’s offer of new talks or this week’s atomic energy inspectors’ visit might lead to a breakthrough.

But the mood music has become more menacing. US defence secretary Leon Panetta has let it be known there is a “strong likelihood” Israel will attack Iran between April and June, even as Barack Obama says no Israeli decision has yet been taken. US officials told the Guardian last week they believed the administration would be left with “no alternative” but to attack Iran or watch Israel do so later this year.

Meanwhile, a US-Israeli stealth war is already raging on the ground, including covert assassinations of scientists, cyber warfare and attacks on military and missile installations. And Britain and France have successfully dragooned the EU into ramping up sanctions on Iran’s economic life-blood of oil exports as a buildup of western military forces continues in the Gulf.

Any of this could easily be regarded as an act of war against Iran – and Iranian retaliation used as the pretext for a more direct military assault, as the risk of escalation grows. But instead of challenging what is a profoundly dangerous path to full-scale regional conflict – with or without western intervention in Iran’s ally, Syria – the bulk of the western media and political class is busy softening up the public to accept another war as the unfortunate consequence of Iranian intransigence.

When it was reported that British officials expected the Cameron government to take part in a US attack on Iran, it passed with barely a murmur. In a parliamentary debate on Monday, only six votes were mustered to press for the threat of attack on Iran to be withdrawn. The Times claimed yesterday it to be “beyond doubt” that Iran “is trying to develop a nuclear weapon”, even though neither the US nor the IAEA has managed to prove any such thing.

And even when US and British leaders have called for Israeli restraint, as William Hague and US joint chiefs of staff chairman Martin Dempsey have done in recent days, the issue is only one of timing. Military force would, they say, be “premature” and unwise “at this point”.

If an attack is launched by Israel or the US, it would not just be an act of criminal aggression, but of wanton destructive stupidity. As Michael Clarke, director of the British defence establishment’s Royal United Services Institute, points out, such an attack would be entirely illegal: “There is no basis in international law for preventative, rather than pre-emptive, war.”

It would also be guaranteed to trigger a regional conflagration with uncontrollable global consequences. Iran could be expected to retaliate against Israel, the US and its allies, both directly and indirectly, and block the fifth of international oil supplies shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. The trail of death, destruction and economic havoc would be awesome.

But while in the case of Iraq an attack was launched over weapons of mass destruction that didn’t in fact exist, the US isn’t even claiming that Iran is attempting to build a bomb. “Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No,” Panetta said bluntly last month. Israeli intelligence is said to be of the same view. Unlike Israel itself, which has had nuclear weapons for decades, it believes the Iranian leadership has taken no decision to go nuclear.

The issue, instead, is whether Iran – which has always insisted it doesn’t want nuclear weapons – might develop the capability to build them. So Iran – surrounded by US bases and occupation troops, nuclear-armed states from Israel to Pakistan and Gulf autocracies begging the Americans to “cut off the head of the snake” – is threatened with a military onslaught because of a future potential the aggressor states have long ago turned into reality.

Such a capability wouldn’t be the “existential threat” Israeli politicians have claimed. It might, of course, blunt Israel’s strategic edge. Or as Matthew Kroenig, the US defence secretary’s special adviser until last summer, spelled it out recently, a nuclear Iran “would immediately limit US freedom of action in the Middle East”. Which gets to the heart of the matter: freedom of action in the Middle East is the prerogative of the US and its allies, not independent Middle Eastern states.

But if the western powers and Israel are really concerned about the threat of a nuclear arms race in the region, they could throw their weight behind negotiations to acheive a nuclear-free Middle East – which most Israelis favour.

What is clear, as both US and Israeli officials acknowledge, is that neither sanctions nor war are likely to divert Iran from its nuclear programme. Military attack can set it back – along with the prospects for progressive change in Iran – but would offer the strongest incentive possible for Iranian leaders to take the decision they haven’t yet done and develop nuclear weapons.

Obama has every interest in heading off an Israeli attack on Iran that would draw in the US, until at least until after the presidential election. But as the sabre-rattling, crippling sanctions and covert attacks increase, so do the risks of stumbling into an accidental war. A military confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz in the next two or three months is now “quite likely”, Clarke believes: “western policy towards Iran is a slow-motion road accident”.

There is another factor driving towards war. The more they talk up the supposed threat from Iran’s nuclear programme and the military option, the more US and Israeli leaders risk undermining their own credibility if they end up doing nothing. A potentially catastrophic attack isn’t inevitable, but it’s becoming perilously more likely all the time.

Iran’s supreme leader denies Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons: Guardian

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says atomic weapons are ‘useless, harmful and dangerous’ day after IAEA declares visit a failure

Iran’s supreme leader has said the Islamic republic is not seeking nuclear weapons, saying they are “useless, harmful and dangerous”.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was speaking after meetings with Iranian nuclear scientists and officials on Wednesday. He did not mention a visit this week to Iran by the UN nuclear watchdog.

The International Atomic Energy Agency team left Tehran on Tuesday without finding any way forward in attempts to persuade Iran to talk about suspected secret work on atomic arms.

In remarks broadcast on state TV, Khamenei said atomic weapons do not bring power but that Iran’s achievements in nuclear technology, including proficiency in the nuclear fuel cycle from extracting uranium ore to producing nuclear fuel, have brought dignity and pride to the nation.

Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran, also said that western powers know “we are not seeking nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic of Iran considers possession of nuclear weapons a sin … and believes that holding such weapons is useless, harmful and dangerous”.

He added: “The Islamic Republic of Iran wants to prove to the world that possessing nuclear weapons does not bring power and that might doesn’t come from atomic weapons. Might based on nuclear weapons can be defeated and the Iranian nation will do this.”

U.S. ‘closely consulting’ with Israel over Iran nuclear program: Haaretz

State Department says failure of UN nuclear watchdog mission to Tehran a ‘disappointment’; White House spokesman chides Iran over lack of progress in talks.

State Department Deputy spokesman Mark Toner said on Wednesday that the U.S. closely consults with Israel over its policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

Addressing the failure of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s mission to Tehran this week, Toner said, “This is a disappointment. It wasn’t all that surprising, frankly. But, you know, we’re going to look at the totality of the issue here and the letter and what we think is the best course of action moving forward”.

“let’s be very clear that we consult very closely with Israel on these issues,” he added. “We are very clear that we are working on this two-track approach. We believe, and are conveying to our partners, both Israel and elsewhere, that this is having an effect.”

Also on Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney criticized Iran over the failure of the IAEA mission’s failure, saying it again showed Tehran’s refusal to abide by its international obligations over its nuclear program.

“We regret the failure of Iran to reach an agreement this week with the IAEA that would permit the agency to fully investigate the serious allegation raised allegations, rather, raised in its November report,” said Carney.

“Unfortunately this is another demonstration of Iran’s refusal to abide by its international obligations,” he added.

Carney also said the United States was continuing to evaluate Iran’s intentions after it sent a letter to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton last week, raising hopes for the prospects of renewed talks with world powers.

“This particular action by Iran suggest that they have not changed their behavior when it comes to abiding by their international obligations,” Carney told reporters, expressing U.S. regret that the IAEA mission had ended in failure.

Herman Nackaerts of the International Atomic Energy Agency said his team “could not find a way forward” in attempts to persuade Iran to talk about suspected secret work on atomic arms.

Nackaerts said the talks in Tehran were inconclusive, although his mission .approached the talks “in a constructive spirit.”

An IAEA statement published overnight already acknowledged the talks had failed.

Iran denies it has experimented with nuclear arms programs but has refused to cooperate with an IAEA probe on the issue for nearly four years.

Lieberman: U.S., Russian warnings against Iran strike will not affect Israel’s decision: Haaretz

Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, says in TV interview that Israeli decision is ‘not their business’; says security of Israel’s citizens is ‘Israeli government’s responsibility.’
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in an interview on Wednesday that Israel will not bow to U.S. and Russian pressure in deciding whether to attack Iran.

Speaking on Channel 2 news, Avigdor Lieberman rebuffed suggestions that American and Russian warnings against striking Iran would affect Israeli decision making, saying the decision “is not their business.”

He said “the security of the citizens of Israel, the future of the state of Israel, this is the Israeli government’s responsibility.”

Russia warned Israel not to attack Iran over its nuclear program on Wednesday, saying that military action would have catastrophic consequences.

“Of course any possible military scenario against Iran will be catastrophic for the region and for the whole system of international relations,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said.

“Therefore I hope Israel understands all these consequences … and they should also consider the consequences of such action for themselves,” Gatilov said at a news conference.

This week, the U.S.military chief said an Israeli attack would be “not
prudent.”

Meanwhile, a top UN nuclear official said on Wednesday his team could “could not find a way forward” in attempts to persuade Iran to talk about suspected secret work on atomic arms.

Herman Nackaerts of the International Atomic Energy Agency says the talks in Tehran were inconclusive, although his mission approached the talks “in a constructive spirit.”

Nackaerts spoke to reporters at Vienna airport shortly after returning from the Iranian capital.

An IAEA statement published overnight already acknowledged the talks had failed.

Iran denies it has experimented with nuclear arms programs but has refused to cooperate with an IAEA probe on the issue for nearly four years.

Continue reading February 22, 2012

EDITOR: Obama’s problem

Dear Barack has a massive problem. No way can he say NO to Israel’s coming attack on Iran, even if he wanted to; he obviously hopes to get elected, and with the Zionist AIPAC ranged against if he does so, he does not stand a chance. Currently, he and the Republican candidates are all try to outdo each other in supporting Israel’s aggression, and some seem to be even more keen than the Israelis… in this game, he is a dead duck if he says publicly that Israel cannot attack Iran. No doubt this is what the CIA tells him to do, but he cannot do so.

Not only that. Israel has whipped this storm up with their many supporters in the west, and are now ready to attack, though they probably have not got the bombs which can destroy the deep-seated, hidden facilities of Iran. They obviously need the US technology to do so with certainty, but the US is dithering about that; If Israel starts without their go-ahead, they may find themselves moved into taking a part once it starts, and missiles start flying from both sides. So the only proper and legal position – to say no to Israel, is not a practical choice for an American president during an election year. While it is useful for the US to have Israel as a stick to frighten the locals with, it is less than useful when the stick is uncontrollable. So, the US has chosen to put on a show – more American generals and diplomats now visit Israel every week, than in a normal year… whom is going to be fooled by this is unclear.

The Israelis know that after November, Obama will be able to refuse, so must attack before, if they are to satisfy their own madness about this. This means an attack is due any moment, as to wait much longer will be folly, from their point of view, allowing the Iranians more protection. For all these reasons, the world is about to see yet another Israeli-sponsored illegal, immoral and unjustified war, and do nothing about it, like it did nothing when it attacked Lebanon in summer 2006, and Gaza in December 2008, as well as so many times before. Israel is the only country which can and does attack whenever and whoever it chooses, with total impunity. For those in the west who think this is right and justified, there is not much one can say – these are the kind of people who would have justified any colonial and imperialist war in the past. For the rest of us, this is a nightmare waiting to happen.
The blame for this mad war will not reside only with Israel and the US, but with the many western supporters who not in agreement at any atrocity by the deadly duo.This time, Israel is biting more than it can chew. Barak and Barack will bring us all a disaster which can still be stopped, but no one is trying to stop.

U.S. concerned that Barak is pushing for Israeli attack on Iran: Haaretz

The Obama administration believes Netanyahu is still sitting on the fence over a future military strike on Iran.
By Amos Harel
Visits to Jerusalem by senior U.S. officials this week reflect a growing concern in Washington over the possibility that Israel will decide to attack nuclear sites in Iran. The Americans are particularly worried about the hawkish line that Defense Minister Ehud Barak has adopted on the matter. They apparently have the impression, however, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to come to a final stance on the dispute.

The number of visits that have been made here by senior members of President Barack Obama’s administration in recent months is unusual. A delegation headed by U.S. National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon arrived Saturday evening; and later this week, Israel will host James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence. On separate visits this past fall, the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, David Petraeus, paid a visit to Israel, as did U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, whose trip here came shortly after a visit to the United States by Barak.

Last month, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, came to Israel, not long after taking office. In another two weeks, Netanyahu will be in Washington to deliver an address before the policy conference of the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The Israeli premier is also expected to meet with Obama in the course of the visit. Even prior to that, next week, Defense Minister Barak will apparently make his own trip to the U.S. capital to meet with senior administration officials.

This air bridge between Israel and the United States has one primary purpose − to make clear to Israel that the time has not yet come for military action against Iran’s nuclear program, and that any premature assault would disrupt the increasingly stringent process of international sanctions against Iran that Obama has been leading.

In discussions with their Israeli counterparts, senior U.S. administration officials have said the sanctions regime that the Americans have spearheaded is unprecedented in its severity and more time is needed to gauge its impact on the regime in Tehran. Within the Israeli cabinet, there are also ministers who acknowledge that the sanctions exceeded most of the expectations Israel held until a few months ago.

On Saturday, Iran announced an immediate halt to the sale of oil to Britain and France. The move came in response to the tough stance the two European countries have taken on the Iranian nuclear program, and in reaction to
the European embargo on Iranian oil that is due to take effect in July.

In a television interview at the beginning of the month, Obama said it was his understanding that Netanyahu was allowing more time to gauge the success of the sanctions and had not yet decided whether to attack Iran. However, others in the Obama administration have voicing more concerns. Defense Secretary Panetta has been quoted as saying he thinks Israel is close to a decision to attack this spring. In a CNN interview broadcast yesterday, Gen. Dempsey of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said such timing would not be prudent and would undermine the stability of the region.

For his part, British Foreign Secretary William Hague also said an Israeli assault would not be wise.

Washington, like Jerusalem, appears to be under the impression that Barak will play a key role in Netanyahu’s decision-making. According to various assessments, in the constellation of forces within the senior forum of eight capital ministers, Barak represents the hawkish camp, while ministers Moshe Ya’alon, Dan Meridor and Benny Begin are leading the opposition to an assault at this time.

In a report in the New York Times about two weeks ago, U.S. administration officials were critical of Barak, who has warned against the prospect within a few months of Iran entering a “zone of immunity,” after which it would be impossible to destroy its nuclear facilities. Barak defines the “zone of immunity” in accordance with Iran’s progress in installing centrifuges at the Fordow underground site near Qom, the location of which would make an aerial assault much more difficult.

The officials have contended that Israel is placing undue importance on the “zone of immunity” issue and mentioned Netanyahu’s request that his ministers keep quiet about Iran. Since then, other than the Israeli premier, only one senior Israeli continues to constantly make statements on Iran − Defense Minister Barak, who again made expansive comments on the issue in Japan and Singapore last week.
Support for Barak’s position came yesterday from Vienna, where the International Atomic Energy Agency is based.

The Associated Press quoted senior diplomats in the Austrian capital as warning that the Iranians recently carried out significant work at the Fordow site.

Israel joins Hague in raising temperature over Iran: Independent

As Tehran unveils the latest developments in its nuclear programme, the Israeli Defence Minister calls for ‘crippling’ sanctions
BRIAN BRADY    SUNDAY 19 FEBRUARY 2012
Israel joined the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in ratcheting up the pressure on Iran last night, calling for “crippling” sanctions on Tehran to force it to give up its nuclear programme. Israel’s Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, said a nuclear-armed Iran would trigger an arms race in the Middle East and ultimately pose a threat to the entire world.

The warning came hours after Mr Hague had claimed that Iran’s nuclear ambitions could plunge the Middle East into “a new Cold War”. Mr Hague told The Daily Telegraph: “If [the Iranians] obtain nuclear weapons capability, other nations across the Middle East will want to develop nuclear weapons,” leading to “the most serious round of nuclear proliferation since nuclear weapons were invented”.

Tensions in the Middle East are already running high, with Israel accusing Iran of masterminding attacks on its embassies. Iran denies the allegations and blames Israel and the United States for assassinating several Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years.

Mr Barak added to the tensions yesterday, when he expressed frustration that four rounds of UN sanctions had failed to halt Iran’s uranium enrichment programme. On a visit to Tokyo, he said: “We have to [speed up] imposing sanctions and make them crippling to such an extent that the leadership … will be compelled to sit down and ask themselves ‘are we ready to pay the price of isolation from most, if not all, of the world?'”

On Wednesday, Iran unveiled new developments in its nuclear programme, declaring it had used domestically made nuclear fuel in a reactor for the first time. Yesterday, after extensive naval manoeuvres in the region, Iranian warships entered the Mediterranean for only the second time since the 1979 revolution.

But experts urged governments last night to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to lead the investigations. Sir Richard Dalton, a former UK ambassador to Iran, said: “It is wrong to say that Iran is rushing towards having a nuclear weapon.

“But,” he added, “it is right that the IAEA should press Iran on behalf of the international community to answer fully questions about what it has been up to in the past and what it may still be doing in the present.” The shadow Foreign Secretary, Douglas Alexander, said: “Instead of raising the rhetoric, the Government should be focused on redoubling their efforts to increase the diplomatic pressure on Iran and find a peaceful solution to the issue.”

On Friday, US and European Union leaders were optimistic about resuming talks with Iran. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said a letter from Iran to the US and its allies was “one we have been waiting for”.

Talks between Iran and six world powers – the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China – on Tehran’s nuclear programme collapsed a year ago. In recent months, Western countries have stepped up pressure on Iran over the nuclear issue, with the EU and US both introducing wide-ranging sanctions on the country. The US President, Barack Obama, emphasised this month that Israel and the US were working in “unison” to counter Iran.

Mr Hague told the Telegraph that Britain has urged Israel not to strike. He said: “We support a twin-track strategy of sanctions… and negotiations,” adding that a military attack would have “enormous downsides.”

Israel’s Civil Administration promoting legislation to let settlers build dirt roads without planning approval: Haaretz

If approved, the new policy would substantially expand the ability of Jewish settlers in the West Bank to take control of additional land.
By Chaim Levinson
The Israel Defense Force’s Civil Administration in the West Bank is promoting legislation that would allow Jewish settlers to build new dirt roads without planning approval if their purpose is to protect state-owned land.

Currently the creation of any new road or even changing its route requires full approval of the planning authorities, including the National Planning and Building Council, and is followed by the issuance of individual building permits.

If approved, the new policy would substantially expand the ability of Jewish settlers in the West Bank to take control of additional land.

Under the new approach, no permits would be required for the construction of roads designed to “protect state lands” unless the roads were constructed from gravel or asphalt.

Construction of gravel and asphalt thoroughfares would still require the full planning approval process, but dirt roads accommodating all-terrain vehicles would no longer require approval.

Most West Bank settlements are surrounded by fencing, but lying beyond the fences there is often considerable state-owned land, and the shift in policy would enable the Civil Administration to keep Palestinians off this land by giving access to security vehicles from the settlements, in an effort to keep the West Bank’s Arab residents from encroaching on the land.

The proposed change in policy would not be required for dirt roads needed to maintain security in areas around West Bank settlements, as the IDF GOC Central Command already has authority to seize land for the construction of security roads around the settlements without a building permit.

If the change in policy is approved with regard to the protection of state land, as a practical matter it would significantly expand the amount of land around West Bank settlements that is off-limits to Palestinians.

In response, the Civil Administration issued a statement in which it said a question was put to the Justice Ministry, but it was not regarding the creation of roads but simply putting markers on the land itself to indicate where the boundaries of state land are located.

“The request did not deal with the paving of roads for vehicular traffic to preserve this land. Work at the headquarters on the issue has not yet been completed,” the Civil Administration said.

At a hearing last week at the Ofer military court, however, Lt. Col. Zvi Cohen testified regarding land beyond the security fence at the Nili settlement east of the Israeli city of Modi’in.

As the hearing progressed, legal questions were raised about roads on state lands. The Civil Administration advised the court that it would seek to amend the law and would seek approval from Deputy Attorney General Malkiel Balas for roads protecting state lands.

 US military chief cautions against Israeli attack on Iran: Guardian

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, says a strike ‘at this time would be destabilising’

The United States is stepping up efforts to dissuade Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, with a strong public warning by the US military’s most senior figure and the dispatch of two high-ranking officials to Jerusalem.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said in a television interview that it was “not prudent at this point” to attack Iran, and “a strike at this time would be destabilising”.

But in a comment likely to fuel speculation about Israel’s military plans, he added: “I wouldn’t suggest we’ve persuaded them that our view is the correct view.” The two countries were having a “candid, collaborative conversation” which was continuing, he said.

His concerns were echoed by William Hague, the British foreign secretary, who said it was “not a wise thing at this moment” for Israel to launch military action against Iran.

Reiterating comments made in a newspaper interview, Hague told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday: “I think Israel, like everybody else in the world, should be giving a real chance to the approach that we have adopted, of very serious economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure, and the readiness to negotiate with Iran.”

Citing attempted attacks allegedly by Iranian agents against Israeli targets in Delhi, Tbilisi and Bangkok last week, Hague said Iran was increasingly willing to contemplate “utterly illegal activities in other parts of the world”.

On Sunday Iran’s oil ministry announced it had stopped selling crude oil to British and French companies, in apparent retaliation for EU sanctions imposed over Iran’s perceived nuclear ambitions, including an oil embargo set to begin in July.

A spokesman, Alireza Nikzad, was quoted on the Iranian oil ministry’s website as saying: “Exporting crude to British and French companies has been stopped … we will sell our oil to new customers. We have our own customers … The replacements for these companies have been considered by Iran.”

Iran had warned last week that it might cut oil supplies to the Netherlands, Greece, France, Portugal, Spain and Italy.

Officials from the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, are due in Tehran on Monday for another round of talks on Iran’s nuclear activities, after they were denied access to certain nuclear sites and scientists on a visit last month.

Dempsey acknowledged Israel’s sense of urgency that action was needed before Tehran moved its nuclear facilities beyond reach, deep underground. Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, who is believed to favour an early military strike, has termed this the “zone of immunity”.

Dempsey, who visited Israel last month to deliver a message of restraint, said it was premature to “decide that the time for a military option was upon us”. Economic sanctions imposed by the international community and diplomacy were beginning to have an effect.

Asked by the CNN interviewer Fareed Zakaria whether he would bet on Israel not launching an attack, Dempsey replied: “Fortunately I’m not a betting man.”

In Tehran, the Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, dismissed western “propaganda warfare” and said Iran would continue with its nuclear programme “even in the worst-case scenario”.

“Since we believe that we are right, we do not have the slightest doubt in the pursuit of our nuclear programme,” he told reporters, according to Press TV. “Therefore, we plan to move ahead with vigour and confidence and we do not take much heed of [the west’s] propaganda warfare … Even in the worst-case scenario, we remain prepared.”

As part of continuing efforts to restrain Israel, Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, was due to meet prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday, as well as a clutch of senior government, military and intelligence figures during his two-day visit to Israel.

The purpose of the visit was consultations “about a range of issues, including Iran, Syria, and other regional security issues,” the White House said.

Later this week the US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, will arrive for talks with Netanyahu, Barak and the chief of Israel’s intelligence agency.

Both Americans are expected to impress on their interlocutors the need to give time for sanctions against Iran to have an impact. But, as the Guardian reported last week, there is a strong current of opinion within the administration that sanctions are unlikely to deter Iran and that their main purpose is to delay an Israeli strike.

Diplomatic traffic between Washington and Jerusalem has increased over recent weeks as Israel has agitated for tougher action against Iran, and the US has intensified efforts to persuade Israel against a military strike.

As well as a string of US officials travelling to Israel, visitors to Washington have included Barak, Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister, and Tamir Pardo, the Mossad chief.

Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the US next month to attend the annual conference of the pro-Israel lobby group Aipac. He is expected to meet Obama while in Washington.

 EDITOR: Apartheid marches on unhindered in Israel

Well, Israelis seem to say, if we are going to have Apartheid, let us have a proper Apartheid… so a short time after women were allocated the back of the bus, now it is special buses for blacks. “They are smelly”, says the Tel Aviv Shas party councilman, and he should know… Once it was the Jews who were smelly, now they decide who is smelly, so obviously, this is progress in action. It is a Jewish Democracy all right… Ant-Semites will love this, of course. How depressing to think of the distance we traveled in few generations, since my grandparents were destroyed as untermentschen by the Nazis, to Israel having its own untermentschen. Other reports, only in Hebrew, are blaming the African workers for spreading diseases… Are we soon to read they are also poisoning wells and sucking the blood of Jewish children? This is too awful for words, but totally consistent with the racism which is behind daily life in Israel on all levels.

TA councilman calls for separate buses for ‘smelly’ foreigners: +972

Saturday, February 18 2012|Mya Guarnieri

A Tel Aviv city councilman is appealing to the state to allocate separate buses for African refugees and migrant workers, according to an article published on Mynet on Thursday
Last week, Tel Aviv City Councilman Binyamin Babayoff (Shas) sent a letter to Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, Minister of Transportation Israel Katz, and Dr. Moshe Tiomkin, a Tel Aviv councilman and the head of the city’s Transportation, Traffic and Parking Authority. In an excerpt published by Mynet (local online Hebrew news affiliated with Ynet), Babayoff wrote that “illegal foreign workers fill the buses…” leaving no room for Jewish Israeli residents of South Tel Aviv. He added that “foreign workers… give off a bad smell and they might, God forbid, cause all kinds of diseases.”
Reminding of Jim Crow laws, Babayoff proposes that the state introduce separate buses for migrant workers and refugees or limit their access to buses during peak hours of heavy traffic, thus giving preference to Jewish Israeli residents.
Speaking to Mynet, Babayoff claimed that his proposal was not racist. He said that Jewish Israelis in South Tel Aviv “live a life of hell” because of the foreigners in the neighborhood. He added that his letter was a response to the appeals of “scared” residents.
In a comment to Mynet, the Tel Aviv Municipality condemned Babayoff’s proposal and called it “racist,” adding that it is committed to “caring for immigrant workers and their basic health needs, education, and welfare…”
(Though they’re not migrant workers, homeless African refugees might beg to differ with the city’s statement).
After Babayoff embarked on a campaign against migrant workers and refugees in the summer of 2010—calling on South Tel Aviv landlords not to rent to these “infiltrators” and claiming that doing so violates Jewish religious law—25 area rabbis signed an “Edict Forbidding the Rental of Apartments to Infiltrators.” Shortly thereafter, 10 South Tel Aviv real estate agents signed a petition stating they would not rent to illegal residents.
Later that year, hundreds of Israeli rabbis across the country signed a religious edict forbidding the rental or sale of property to Palestinian citizens of the state.
In 2010, Babayoff also participated in a campaign against opening a new kindergarten in the South Tel Aviv neighborhood of Kiryat Shalom. While the school was planned to accommodate migrant workers’ and refugees’ children, it would also provide education to Jewish Israeli students.
In addition to his issues with non-Jews, Babayoff has also publicly voiced homophobic sentiments, referring to Tel Aviv’s Gay Pride Parade as a “shame parade.”

Palestinian hunger striker appeals to Israel’s Supreme Court: Haaretz

Catherine Ashton says EU is following Khader Adnan’s case ‘with great concern’; Adnan has been on hunger strike for 63 days to protest his administrative detention.

A Palestinian waging a hunger strike for an unprecedented 63 days has appealed to Israel’s Supreme Court, demanding to be released from months-long detention without trial, his lawyer said Saturday.

Khader Adnan is fighting a provision that allows Israel to hold detainees for months or even years without trial or formal charges. Israeli officials say they use so-called “administrative detention” to guard against immediate threats to the country’s security.

Adnan, a member of the militant group Islamic Jihad, has continued his hunger strike longer than any Palestinian detainee before him. His doctors warned this week that the 33-year-old might die soon.

“We are hoping … the Supreme Court hears this case urgently,” said Mahmoud Hassan, one of Adnan’s lawyers. “He could die before the court hearing happens.”

The court has not set a date for the hearing. Hassan said in previous cases, the high court at times reduced the sentence of administrative detainees on appeal, but rarely ordered them freed outright.

The hunger strike has transformed Adnan into a Palestinian hero, with thousands protesting in support of the once obscure bearded baker. The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad has vowed revenge if Adnan dies, possibly by firing rockets into Israel from Gaza. The group has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks. Adnan was once a spokesman for the group. It’s unclear if he ever participated in any attacks.

Adnan is under guard in an Israeli hospital, where officials are monitoring his condition.

He is taking liquid infusions of salts, glucose and minerals, said the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights on Wednesday, citing his doctor. The group is overseeing his medical care.

Adnan is still lucid, but he has shed some 66 pounds (30 kilograms), his hair is falling out, his muscles have atrophied and he is in immediate danger of death, said the group’s doctor.

Adnan is serving four months in administrative detention. Israeli military judges can imprison defendants for up to six months at a time, with the possibility of renewing the detention order repeatedly. Defendants and their lawyers are not shown the alleged evidence against them.

An Israeli military judge rejected an appeal by Adnan last week, saying he reviewed the evidence and found the sentence to be fair.

On Saturday, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the bloc was following Adnan’s case with “great concern.”

“Detainees have the right to be informed about the charges underlying any detention and be subject to a fair trial,” Ashton said in a statement.

Israeli military officials generally use administrative detention to hold Palestinians who they believe are an imminent risk to the country’s security. They say if the evidence against the accused was made public, it would expose Israeli intelligence-gathering networks in the Palestinian Territories. They say the process is under full judicial review by Israel’s military and the Supreme Court.

Annan began his hunger strike on Dec. 18, a day after he was seized from his home in the northern West Bank town of Arabeh.

He told his lawyers that he was beaten and humiliated during arrest and interrogation.

Also Saturday, Palestinian militants fired three rockets from Gaza into Israel, officials said.

Israeli police spokesman Shmuel Ben Ruby said the rockets landed in an open area, causing no damage.

A years-old understanding between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers have halted much of the rocket fire from the coastal territory.

Twilight Zone / ‘One man against the state’: Haaretz

Khader Adnan, who is protesting his detention and humiliating treatment, is about to set a record for Israel’s longest hunger strike.
By Gideon Levy
A weak, starving Palestinian man lies in Internal Medicine Department B at Safed’s Rebecca Sieff Hospital. His condition is deteriorating, one of his hands and both his feet are shackled to the bed, and prison wardens guard him day and night. He has been on a hunger strike for months. His life is in danger, and he is at risk of doing irreversible damage to his body and mind.

Khader Adnan, 33, is protesting the abuse and humiliation he says he suffered while being interrogated, as well as his long detention without trial. Next week Adnan, an Islamic Jihad activist from Arabeh, will set a new Israeli record for the country’s longest hunger strike, longer than that of peace activist Abie Nathan (45 days ), and of a group of security prisoners who went 65 days without eating in 1970.

His hunger strike is arousing considerable interest abroad. Solidarity demonstrations have been held in places around the world, as well as in Tel Aviv – but most Israelis have heard almost nothing about this. Daily solidarity protests in the West Bank go mostly unreported in Israel, as does the fact that 14 prisoners and wardens have reportedly joined his strike.

On Monday, the 58th day of Adnan’s strike, we visited his home in Arabeh accompanied by Physicians for Human Rights’s mobile clinic coordinator Saleh Haj Yihyeh. At that moment, Adnan’s wife Randa was updating the tally of days her husband had been not eating, displayed on a poster in the living room. “My honor is more important than my food,” declares the caption at the bottom of the poster, which bears the prisoner’s image. With his thick beard and round glasses, he looks like a settlement rabbi.

Arabeh is surrounded by lush green fields. Randa is raising her two small daughters, 4-year-old Ma’alia and 18-month-old Bissan, in the family home, which spans several stories. Before speaking with us, she dons a white veil that covers her face and black gloves that cover her hands.

Khader Adnan was arrested on December 17. Israeli soldiers came to this house in the middle of the night. This was his seventh detention or arrest by Israel. The first time was in 1999, when he was held for half a year without trial. After that, he spent eight months in detention in 2000; he was arrested again in 2002-2003; detained in 2004; detained for 18 months in 2005-2006 and six months in 2008.

In 2010, the Palestinian Authority arrested him for 12 days. Then, too, he went on a hunger strike, for the first time in his life. Between arrests, he worked at a pita bakery in Qabatiya and was an Islamic Jihad activist. His family says he is a political activist.

After midnight on December 17, Randa heard voices outside. Large groups of soldiers encircled the house for several hours. A bit before 3 A.M., when Adnan’s father left to start his workday as a vegetable merchant, he ran into the soldiers, who burst into the house. Adnan woke up and fled to his parents’ apartment on the second floor. Randa and the little girls remained in their apartment on the ground floor.

The soldiers immediately ran up to the second floor and pulled Adnan from the bathroom. He asked to get dressed, and they let him. Then they bound him and blindfolded him, and took him out from the house. Randa says an officer promised him that this time, his detention would be brief. While previous arrests had included a violently conducted search of the house, this time the soldiers simply arrested Adnan.

He was brought before a judge after being interrogated for 18 days at the Al-Jalama facility. The judge, at the military court in Salem, extended his remand. Randa came to court, where her husband told her the soldiers had beaten and kicked him after they detained him, as he lay on the floor of their Jeep. He told the court how he had been humiliated during interrogation: The interrogators had cursed at him, pulled his beard and told him his daughters were not his own.

The day after his arrest, Adnan launched his hunger strike to protest his lack of trial and the humiliation he suffered. That was two months ago. In the meantime, he has been sent to four months of administrative detention.

After the interrogation, Adnan was transferred to the Israel Prison Service’s medical facility in Ramle. A few days later, when his condition deteriorated, he was taken to a hospital. In recent weeks he has been shuffled through various Israeli hospitals – Bikur Holim in Jerusalem, Mayanei Hayeshua in Bnei Brak and now Sieff Hospital in Safed.

IPS spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said Adnan was being moved due to a shortage of beds. This whole time, he has been bound by one hand and both feet to his bed, and prison wardens have been guarding him around the clock.

His family says he drinks one liter of water a day, without salt. The IPS says he has agreed to accept an intravenous drip. He does not take food in any form. Last week, when his condition deteriorated, the Shin Bet and the IPS agreed to allow his wife and his daughters to visit him at the hospital, hoping they would persuade him to stop his strike. This came after a long campaign by Physicians for Human Rights.

Last week on Tuesday, Randa, Bissan and Ma’alia went to Safed. The wardens kept them from entering Adnan’s room even though the visit had been coordinated in advance. Randa recalls that several wardens were present in the room, and that her husband told her not to come in so long as they were there. Finally they compromised, and allowed two wardens to remain. Adnan hugged his daughters with his free arm and asked what was happening outside.

After 10 minutes, the wardens said the visit was over, but when Randa asked her husband to end his strike, they gave her 10 minutes more.

Adan replied firmly: “God is supporting me. Don’t request that again.”

Ma’alia asked why he was shackled, and Adnan told her to ask the wardens.

Randa says her husband is being neglected. His clothing is filthy, his nails are long and his hair is falling out, she says. He is not being untied even for prayers. He has lost about 40 kilos and is very feeble and weak, she adds.

Before she said good-bye she heard him whisper: “These are my last days. I will never forgive those who did not stand by me.” He was referring to the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli people, she says.

He is psychologically strong, “even when you can see the tears in his eyes,” she says. Her husband will agree to eat only if he is released from prison.

His lawyer, who visited him this week, told her that Adnan is already hooked up to a cardiac monitor.

“His situation is grave and very dangerous. We fear that at any moment he will become a martyr,” she says from behind her veil.

Adnan’s father, Mussa, is 72 and wears a kaffiyeh. For years Israel has been preventing him from visiting his son when he has been in prison.

“Israelis, Arabs, [French President] Nicolas Sarkozy, [British Prime Minister] David Cameron, [U.S. Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton and [U.S. President] Barack Obama – no one who tried to obtain Gilad Shalit’s release is intervening on behalf of my son. This is a power struggle of one man against a whole state, the State of Israel,” says Mussa.

“Are you Israelis in favor of a hunger strike? People are rotting in administrative detention. We fear for his life but we think he is doing the right thing. Every person must defend his honor and his freedom. No man of honor would allow his wife to be cursed the way the interrogators cursed her. The hunger strike is the prisoner’s only weapon.

“Israel is a democracy? Where is its democracy when it arrests people without trial? Gilad Shalit was abducted while fighting as a soldier in Gaza. My husband was arrested alongside his wife and daughters.”

The Israeli nonprofit organization Physicians for Human Rights took up Adnan’s case when he began his hunger strike. PHR is fighting his imprisonment without trial and has filed numerous petitions concerning his case, asking to have a physician from the organization visit him after Adnan refused to let doctors from the hospital or IPS examine him. This request was eventually granted, and a PHR doctor has been checking in on him every day for a week now.

The organization is also calling on the prison authorities to allow him to be unshackled. Chaining down a prisoner in his condition violates the IPS’s own procedures, PHR claims, and the hospitals that allow a patient to be treated this way are violating medical ethics.

“The decision to to use restraints on a patient in custody lies with the law enforcement authority responsible for him,” a Sieff Hospital spokeswoman told Haaretz.

Israel Medical Association ethics committee chairman Prof. Avinoam Reches wrote to PHR that after such a lengthy hunger strike, two wardens and no shackles should be enough. The head of Mayanei Hayeshua, Prof. Mordechai Ravid, also told PHR that he opposed shackling hospitalized prisoners, but that Adnan is no longer at his hospital.

PHR also filed a petition in the Petah Tikva District Court. In response, the IPS said Adnan was being shackled to preserve public safety.

This week, hearings over his release were held in his hospital room, due to his grave condition. For previous hearings, he was brought to the court in a wheelchair.

Dr. Calin Shapira, deputy director of Sieff Hospital, told Haaretz that he could not release details about Adnan’s condition in order to preserve medical confidentiality. Hospital spokeswoman Yael Shavit told Haaretz: “His condition is not good … we fear for his health.”

According to the Israel Medical Association, a person on hunger strike could die after 45 days. What will happen if Adnan loses consciousness and is about to die? Weizman, the IPS spokeswoman, said this week that the hospital’s ethic’s committee is responsible for deciding on treatment.

She added: “Following further examination, the Prison Service decided that the prisoner would be detained without shackles in the hospital. The service conducts frequent appraisals of prisoners’ situations, and makes decisions after reviewing all the circumstances.

“In exceptional cases, for humanitarian reasons, the service allows visits by family members and clerics. In addition, we allow visits by PHR doctors and Red Cross representatives. The hospital where the prisoner is being detained was chosen based on the facilities it offers and the availability of beds in the internal medicine ward.

“For the last two weeks the prisoner has been treated at the Sieff Hospital in Safed, in conjunction with [representatives from] PHR. As far as we know, no treatment has been administered against the prisoner’s wishes.”

EDITOR: The Emperor’s new underpants…

For years, all Palestinian citizens of Israel have been treated like terrorists in both Israeli and foreign airports, en route to Israel, which, as some people know, is in Palestine… Now some nice people in Haaretz Editorial board noticed this, at last. Good, but someone should tell them it is an inseparable part of military colonial occupation – you cannot end one, without ending the other, its reason and context. You never know, one day they might start writing about ending the occupation?… well, not soon, I don’t think.

Airport security can’t treat Arab Israelis like suspicious objects: Haaretz Editorial

Israeli bouncers at airports treat Arab Israelis exactly like a ‘target’ and a fifth column – this must stop.
Yara Mashour wanted to return to her home in Israel. A natural-born citizen and the editor of a popular Israeli weekly, she arrived at an El Al counter in a Milan airport this week, her passport and an airline ticket in hand. What happened next is what happens to almost every Arab Israeli traveler: She was singled out, put through rigorous security checks, asked ridiculous, humiliatingly intimate questions and had her baggage thoroughly searched. But when it reached the stage of a body search, Mashour, a proud citizen, refused, choosing instead to give up her flight.

Her story, reported in Thursday’s Haaretz by Jack Khoury, is familiar to most Arab Israelis who have flown from or to Ben-Gurion International Airport via El Al. Yossi Sarid wrote in Thursday’s Haaretz about an eerily similar incident that happened to Yara and her father, the late journalist Lutfi Mashour, 27 years ago. Nothing has changed since then.

Nobody questions the need for airport security checks. But what happens at Israel’s airports, and at El Al counters overseas, goes way beyond what is necessary to ensure passenger safety: It entails unnecessary humiliation and being singled out on account of one’s ethnic origin.

Every Arab Israeli passenger is greeted with this unwelcome and outrageous reminder: He is a second-class citizen in his own country. All the justifications and excuses offered by El Al and the security services cannot whitewash this intolerable situation. An Arab Israeli is not a suspicious object, and must be treated exactly the same as other Israeli citizens.

Shin Bet security service chief Yoram Cohen recently said Arab Israelis “aren’t Shin Bet targets; they aren’t a fifth column, and we don’t treat them as if they were.” He also noted that Arab Israeli involvement in terrorism has declined. But the behavior of the Israeli bouncers at airports stands in glaring contradiction to his words: They treat Arab Israelis exactly like a “target” and a fifth column.

Promises to introduce high-tech equipment that will obviate the need for such security checks no longer suffice. The same goes for the buck-passing between El Al and the security services. An immediate change is necessary – less one of conduct than of consciousness: Every passenger must be treated respectfully and equally.

EDITOR: Khader Adnan is allowed to die by Israeli judicial system

Israel is intent on making sure that Khader Adnan dies rather than release him from his unjust arrest – this is what Israeli justice means for Palestinians. The man has never been charged with any offence or found guilty of one, unless being a Palestinian is an offence. Adnan is the Palestinian Bobby Sands, and now some three hundred Palestinian prisoners have joined his hunger strike.

February 14, 2012: Press Release: PHRI

Khader Adnan’s Lawyer Files Urgent Appeal Against his Administrative Detention. 

Case to Be Reviewed As Soon As Possible; According to a Medical Opinion Issued by a Physicians for Human Rights-Israel Affiliated Doctor: Adnan’s Life is in Immediate Danger

Today, Wednesday, February 15, 2012, lawyers representing Khader Adnan, a Palestinian Prisoner currently on the 61^st day of a hunger strike, submitted an appeal to the Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ) protesting their client’s continued administrative detention. Adnan, who began his hunger strike on December 18^th, one day after he was detained, is protesting his administrative detention and the harsh and degrading treatment and torture he claims he was subjected to at the hands of Israeli authorities.

Shortly after being filed, the appeal was approved by a High Court Justice. Adnan’s lawyer was also informed that a hearing will be set as soon as possible.

The urgent appeal includes a medical opinion issued by a physician representative of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) who has been overseeing the patient’s care. Adnan has given PHR-Israel exclusive permission to release the following excerpt.

From the medical opinion: 

“I have examined the patient five times over the past week, most recently three hours ago, at Internal Department B at Rebecca Ziv Hospital in Safed. I examined him at the request of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and with the agreement of the Director of the Department, Dr. Raymond Farah.

When I met the patient, he had been on hunger strike for 52 days, shackled to his bed by both legs and one arm, and was refusing to undergo tests and medical treatment. He has lost 30 kgs and weighs 60 kg. He suffers from stomach aches, vomiting, sometimes with blood, and headaches. As of today, he is completely lucid and aware of his medical condition, without confusion or disorders in cognition or perception. His general condition is pale and very weak, his tongue is smooth, he has slight bleeding from the gums, dry skin, loss of hair, and significant muscular atrophy. His pulse is weak, blood pressure 100/75. He is permanently connected to a heart monitor.

On the basis of my promise, and that of the hospital, to maintain absolute medical confidentiality, he agreed to undergo tests and treatment with the infusion of liquids and salts, and subsequently with the addition of glucose and vitamin in accordance with my recommendation. However, he maintains his refusal to end his hunger strike.

In my opinion, his current condition as described above is commensurate with the impact of 60 days’ of fasting. In light of the medical literature, and on the basis of consultation with experts, Mr. [Khader Adnan] Musa is in immediate danger of death. An absolute hunger strike in excess of 50 days causes the decomposition of muscles, including muscle of the heart and stomach, and the creation of toxins in the body. Death may occur suddenly, due to heart failure, or as the result of infection following the collapse of the immune system. Bleeding in the digestive tracts and renal or hepatic failure are possible. A deterioration in his state of consciousness can be expected due to the shortage of vitamins and intracerebral hemorrhage. A fast in excess of 70 days does not permit survival. Infusion of liquids, adjustment of salts, and the addition of glucose and vitamin cannot prevent certain death due to such a protracted hunger strike”.

For further information:

Yael Marom, spokesperson of PHR-I:  052-5563485

Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan ‘near death’ in Israeli detention: Guardian

Medical report warns Israeli court Khader Adnan is in immediate danger after 61 days of protest at his ‘administrative detention’

Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
Thursday 16 February 2012

A Palestinian prisoner on his 61st day of hunger strike while shackled to a bed in an Israeli hospital is in immediate danger of death, according to a medical report submitted to the supreme court in an effort to secure his release.

Khader Adnan, 33, a baker from a village near Jenin, is being held without charge by the Israeli authorities under a four-month term of “administrative detention”. He began his hunger strike on 18 December, the day after being arrested.

Adnan’s lawyers have submitted a petition for his release to Israel’s supreme court, but no date has been set for a hearing. The situation was urgent, lawyer Mahmoud Kassandra told the Guardian. “This is the last chance. The medical report says he could die at any minute. We hope this will succeed but I am not optimistic.”

Adnan’s hunger strike is in protest at his detention without charge or being told of any evidence against him, and over his claims of abuse and degrading treatment during arrest and interrogation. This is his ninth period of detention, according to reports. In the past he has acted as a spokesman for the militant group Islamic Jihad.

He was examined by a doctor from Physicians for Human Rights on Wednesday at the Rebecca Ziv hospital in Safed. Adnan was shackled by both legs and one arm, the doctor reported.

“He has lost 30kg and weighs 60kg. He suffers from stomach aches, vomiting, sometimes with blood, and headaches … His general condition is pale and very weak, his tongue is smooth, he has slight bleeding from the gums, dry skin, loss of hair, and significant muscular atrophy. His pulse is weak, blood pressure 100/75. He is permanently connected to a heart monitor.”

Adnan agreed to be treated with an infusion of liquids and salts, with the addition of glucose and vitamins, the doctor reported. “However, he maintains his refusal to end his hunger strike.” He was lucid and aware.

He was “in immediate danger of death,” the doctor concluded. “An absolute hunger strike in excess of 50 days causes the decomposition of muscles… and the creation of toxins in the body. Death may occur suddenly, due to heart failure or the result of infection following the collapse of the immune system. Bleeding in the digestive tracts and renal or hepatic failure are possible.

“A fast in excess of 70 days does not permit survival. Infusion of liquids, adjustment of salts, and the addition of glucose and vitamin cannot prevent certain death due to such a protracted hunger strike.”

Adnan’s wife, Randa, his two daughters and his father were permitted to visit him on Wednesday, although his mother, sister and brother were refused.

“Randa told me he was very thin and his health was worsening but his mental health is good,” his sister Maali said from the family home in Arrada. “But the whole family is worried, and Randa doesn’t know if she will see him again.”

Adnan’s elder daughter, also called Maali, who is nearly four, understood her father is very sick and was anxious about giving him a hug, the older Maali said. “She is telling her mother, please stop crying.” The younger daugher, Bissan, is 18 months and Randa is six months pregnant with the couple’s third child.

Following the visit, Adnan’s father addressed a demonstration outside the hospital in solidarity with Adnan, reporting that his son’s morale was high. “He does not undertake this hunger strike for its own sake, but he yearns for freedom for his people, for his countrymen, in order to live with heads held up high, without occupation,” Jihad Adnan told protesters.

Thousands of Palestinians and other supporters of Adnan have protested in the West Bank and Gaza, and outside Ofer military prison near Jerusalem. There have been clashes with police, who have fired tear gas and rubber bullets.

According to Addameer, a Palestinian prisoners’ support group, detainees in other prisons have also begun refusing food.

Many protesters say Adnan has become a symbol of Israel’s occupation and its treatment of prisoners. More than 300 Palestinians are held under “administrative detention” orders in Israeli prisons.

The Palestinian Authority has appealed for Adnan’s release. Physicians for Human Rights on Thursday urged to Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, to intervene in the case because of the prisoner’s dire medical condition.

Earlier this week, an Israeli military court rejected an appeal against Adnan’s continued detention. The Israeli prison service has said Adnan was being dealt with in accordance to his “definition as a security-administrative prisoner” and with humanitarian sensitivity.

Adnan’s hunger strike has attracted a big following on Twitter and Facebook. Many of his supporters complain his case is being ignored by the mainstream media. There has been little coverage in the Israeli and international press.

Bobby Sands, the Irish republican prisoner who died on hunger strike in a Northern Ireland prison in 1981, lasted 66 days without food. According to the British Medical Association, death generally occurs between 55 and 75 days of a hunger strike.

 EDITOR: Sow the wind and ye shall reap the storm!

Israel has been killing people using death squads abroad for a number of generations now, so should they really be surprised when they get a dose of their own medicine? Terror breeds terror, killing breeds more killing, and extra-judicial murder is just what pariah states do. The wonder is that Israel got away with it for so long.

Bangkok bombers planned to attack Israeli diplomats, say Thai police: Guardian

Iranians who accidentally set off ‘sticky’ bombs intended to target individuals, according to investigators
Kate Hodal in Bangkok and agencies
Thursday 16 February 2012 05.40 GMT

Thai police have said three Iranians, arrested after accidentally setting off homemade explosives at their rented home in Bangkok, were plotting to attack Israeli diplomats, bolstering claims by Israel that the group was part of an Iranian-backed network of terror.

But Thailand’s deputy prime minister, Chalerm Yubamrung, said the three men were not linked to Hezbollah as the bombs were not designed for large-scale destruction.

“It was not a terrorist act, it was just an act to demonstrate some insignificant symbol,” he told reporters.

Police chief General Prewpan Dhamapong told a Thai television station late on Wednesday that the bombers’ “target was specific and aimed at Israeli diplomatic staff”, hours after a senior official told the Guardian that the men were more likely would-be assassins than terrorists.

Prewpan confirmed that the DIY “sticky” bombs found at the blast site in the leafy Ekkamai neighbourhood of east Bangkok matched the devices that were planted a day earlier on Israeli diplomatic cars in India and Georgia, causing injuries but no deaths.

“The type of improvised explosives they used were the same. The type that was attached to vehicles,” Prewpan said, adding that a magnetic strip found in Bangkok was the same type used in New Delhi.

Bomb squads scouring the two-storey house found two DIY bombs in the form of portable radios, stuffed with C4 explosives whose “kill radius” extends to five metres, the Nation reported. Hand grenades were to be used as the bombs’ detonator.

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has denounced Tuesday’s violence in Bangkok, while Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has called the allegations against Iran baseless and declared Israel is trying to damage his country’s relations with Thailand and fuel conspiracy theories.

Thailand’s government says it is still piecing together what happened when the men accidentally detonated the homemade explosives, blowing off the roof and sending the trio running into the street.

One of the men, Saied Moradi, emerged from the house bloody and disorientated, according to eyewitnesses, then threw an explosive at a taxi, injuring four Thais. He tried to throw another at police but blew his own leg off instead – the other was amputated later in hospital, where he is still in critical condition.

Bomb disposal teams combed the Iranians’ house again on Wednesday looking for more evidence, while security forces were searching for an Iranian woman they said had originally rented it. Local media reported that the woman, named as Rohani Leila, 28, left Thailand on 5 February.

Two of the men who fled the destroyed house on Tuesday have been detained by Thai police, including Moradi, while a third was arrested on Wednesday in neighbouring Malaysia after boarding a flight from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur overnight. Thai authorities have said the men face charges of illegal use of explosives and attempting to kill others including officials on duty, but not terrorism charges.

The travel company that helped facilitate the Thai visas for the four suspects is being investigated by police, the Thai-Asean News Network reported.

Israel has accused Iran of waging a campaign of state terror and has threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran in turn has blamed Israel for the recent killings of Iranian atomic scientists and denied responsibility for this week’s incidents in India, Georgia and Thailand.

A number of countries have issued travel advisories for Thailand, among them the US, UK, Ireland, Australia and Canada, while in Bangkok security has been increased at transportation hubs, shopping malls and popular tourist spots throughout the city, including Khao San road, local media have reported.

The Jewish temple on Sukhumvit 22 has been under 24-hour police watch after a Lebanese-Swedish man with alleged links to pro-Iranian Hezbollah was detained by police at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport last month. Authorities later discovered a warehouse filled with nearly four tonnes of urea fertiliser and several gallons of liquid ammonium nitrate.

Authorities said then that Thailand appeared to be a staging ground but not the target of an attack.

EDITOR: One state in Palestine!

Over the last few years, the interest in real solutions to the Palestine conflict has risen, with the demise of the so-called ‘two state’ solution. Despite the PNA sticking to this toxic formula, which allows Israel to continue stealing more land and building more settlements without any move towards just peace, Abbas has done what the US boss tells him, and continued to supply Israel with a fig leaf. Most Palestinians know this is the case, and understand that there is not, and never was, a ‘two state solution’ as Israel has never meant to allow a Palestinian autonomous  state beside its own colonial occupation state.

In the last seven years, many publications, books, articles and conferences dealt with the concept of the single state of all its citizens in Palestine. In the context of the Arab Spring and the democratisation of the Middle East, a group of Palestinian and Israeli activists and scholars has spent almost a year in shaping the principles behind such a state, and has written a document setting up such principles in Arabic, Hebrew and English. Blow you can read the resulting text.

One State in Palestine: One State

One single, secular, democratic state in Palestine: A Republic of all its citizens!

For 63 years, ever since the fateful UN Resolution 181, Palestinians have lived in terror and fear. In the 1948 Nakba, which followed the UN partition resolution, Israel conquered 78% of Palestine and expelled most of its population, almost 800,000 people, from their homes, villages and towns. It also made the remainder of the Palestinians still under its control second-class citizens and discriminated against Mizrahi (Arab and Sephardic) Jews in what it defined as a Jewish state – not a state of its citizens; today at least 20% of the citizens of Israel are not Jewish. The Palestinian refugees were never allowed to return home, despite UN Resolution 194 of December 1948, and countless UN resolutions since, affirming their right of return. Today over six million Palestinians and their descendants are refugees into the third generation.

In 1967, the remainder of historic Palestine was occupied by Israel. Every Palestinian in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza has lost his/her human and political rights under a brutal settler-colonial military occupation. After 1967 there followed a fast colonisation project, in violation of international law and the 4th Geneva Convention, of settling Israeli Jews in the newly conquered territories, expelling and dispossessing Palestinians even further.

Israel has since disregarded all UN resolutions demanding it withdraws  from the Occupied Territories and has continued to build illegal settlements, roads and army camps. It has continued to suppress brutally and dispossess the Palestinian population under its military rule. Internationally Israel has set up powerful lobbies which have sought to silence the voice of reason among Jews across the world. Domestically it has constructed a highly militarised society, armed-to-teeth with weapons of mass destruction which renders the situation in Palestine-Israel extremely volatile and highly dangerous not only to Palestinians but also Israeli Jews.

The Oslo Accords of 1993, which were the result of secret negotiations between Israel and the PLO, laid the ground for an agreement which in theory would have returned 22% of historic Palestine back to Palestinian rule, along the lines of the 1949 ceasefire boundaries. This agreement was systematically violated by Israel which has continued to confiscate more Palestinian land, build more Israeli settlements and kill more Palestinians. It was clear from the outset that Israel had no intention of withdrawing either the settlements or its army from the West Bank and East Jerusalem – the number of its settlers living illegally in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has in fact trebled since the signing of the Oslo Accords, rendering the two-state solution completely unrealistic. The current policies of the Quartet are aimed at funding (not ending) the occupation.

In fact the two-state solution was never real or fair. It has disregarded justice for most Palestinians; but even this unjust ‘solution’ was systematically undermined by Israel through more land grabs and more illegal settlers in the projected state for Palestinians. Israel made sure the two-state solution based on the 1967 boundaries would never become a reality. Most Palestinians and many Israelis have recognised this fact for decades. They have instead desired an alternative solution, a solution based on justice and non-separation, a solution which will bring an end to the trauma and suffering of the Palestinian refugees, a solution which will end the settler-colonial, military and rule of Zionism over historic Palestine, a solution which will treat all citizens, residents and ‘absentees’ of historic Palestine as equals and fairly. Such a solution is the single secular (in the sense of separating religion from the state), non-sectarian, democratic state in the whole of historic Palestine: A STATE OF ALL ITS CITIZENS.

A group of Palestinians and Israelis has been working on the basics of the one-state vision and foundational principles of a Republic in historic Palestine. They have mapped out the road to peace, reconciliation, equality and coexistence in a democratic state, a state which would bring an end to illegal occupation and the unequal racist and separatist practices of apartheid Zionism. The document presented here outlines the foundations for a future constitution of the Republic of Palestine.

The One-State Vision and Foundational Principles of a Republic in Historic Palestine

Preamble

I. We, the undersigned, Palestinians and Israelis, believe that the historic land of Palestine should be shared by all those who now live in it and its natives who have been expelled or exiled from it since 1948, and their descendants, regardless of religion, ethnicity, national origin or current citizenship status. Cognisant of the great changes in the Middle East including the recent Arab uprisings, we conceive of our movement as part of the drive towards democracy, accountability, transparency, equality and economic and social justice in the region. We intend to build a model state in the region, rooted in equal citizenship, popular democracy and institutional justice.

II. We, Palestinians and Israelis, united and enriched in our diversity, fully recognise the historic injustices inflicted on the indigenous Palestinian population, including the ethnic cleansing of the 1948 Nakba; support all those who are working to build a democratic, pluralistic, secular state (based on the separation of religion and state), that encompasses all of historic Palestine (currently the political entities of the State of Israel and the post-1967 Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territories); and honour all those who suffered for justice, equality and freedom in our land.

III. We reject the tragic 1947 UN Partition Plan, dividing the country into two entities, and the terrible damage it has wrought on the country; this Resolution was used by the Zionist leadership as an excuse for the forced expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in the Nakba of 1948. Since then Israel has prevented the refugees from returning to their homes, and the international community has failed to enable their return.

IV. We recognise that for decades efforts to bring about a two-state solution based on a partition of the land of Palestine into a Palestinian entity in 22 percent of historic Palestine, and an Israeli one in 78 percent, have failed because they fell short of providing elementary justice. Based on a policy of separation, fragmentation and inequality, the two-state solution ignores the physical and political realities on the ground, and presumes a false symmetry of power and moral claims between an indigenous, colonised and occupied people on the one hand, and a colonising state and military occupier on the other. Indeed, ever since 1967, Israel has acted to make a two-state solution impossible by a range of illegal activities, chiefly the building of illegal settlements, confiscation of land, brutal repression of the Palestinian population, and the building of the Apartheid Wall. Moreover, Israel’s ongoing systematic discrimination against Palestinians, which includes practices such as forced transfer, settler-colonialism of the areas occupied in 1967, as well as in areas of Palestine after 1948, segregation, ghettoisation, and the separation wall (declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004), denial of citizenship and basic human rights and freedoms, is consistent with the crime of Apartheid as defined by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid; http://untreaty.un.org/cod/avl/ha/cspca/cspca.html) and the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

V. Seeking and working for a better future of security, equality and justice and equal opportunity for all, we believe in popular, non-violent resistance and support the creation of a movement committed to the establishment of the future Republic of Palestine that can serve and meet the aspirations and hopes of all of its citizens. This will be achieved in conjunction with the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the apartheid Israeli state, and has the potential to bring substantial pressure to bear on Israel and its supporters.

VI. Our new one-state movement brings together Palestinians and Israelis in partnership, supported by a global solidarity movement based on the principles and programme outlined below. We call on all those who cherish freedom, liberty, justice, equality, and democracy and reject racism and segregation to join us in building our movement. We believe this movement will change the face and future of the Middle East, and finally bring peace and security for the people in the Middle East, and for people around the world.

Founding Principles and Political Programme

We call for a Constitution for the Republic of Palestine based on the following principles:

1. Constitution and a Bill of Rights: The people of Palestine, Palestinians and Israelis, through their freely elected representatives, will adopt a Constitution and a Bill of Rights as the supreme law of the Republic of Palestine.

2. Supremacy of Constitution: The Constitution will be the supreme law of the Republic, guaranteeing separation of powers (executive, legislative and judicial), and guaranteeing the rights of citizens vis-a-vis the state. The Constitution will be voted on by the citizens of the Republic of Palestine and adopted by a two-thirds majority, with constitutional amendments meeting the same requirements.

3. Bill of Rights and Citizens’ Charter: The Bill of Rights with its Citizens’ Charter will guarantee the rights and freedoms of all individuals in the state. Basic citizens’ rights include, among others, housing, health, education, employment, social and legal protection, freedom of movement, a ban on racial, religious and gender discrimination, and equal opportunity for all.

4. Truth and Reconciliation Commission: The Constitution will seek to redress the devastating effects of settler-colonial Zionism on the indigenous Palestinians, and other oppressed groups, such as Mizrahi Jews (“Arab Jews”), and to address the structural injustices, inequalities and divisions of the past. Inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of post-apartheid South Africa, it will promote truth and reconciliation between all the diverse peoples of Palestine.

5.  Jerusalem/Al-Quds: The City of Jerusalem will be the Capital of the Republic of Palestine and will be one city, open to and equally shared by all.

6. The Right of Return: The implementation of the Right of Return and reparations for Palestinian refugees in accordance with UN Resolution 194 is a fundamental pillar of peace based on justice and the benchmark of human dignity, liberty and equality. Palestinian self-determination will be addressed through full democratic rights and equality in a unitary state. The Constitution will establish the legal and institutional frameworks for justice, reconciliation and integration of the Palestinian returnees.

7. Fundamental Universal Rights: The Republic of Palestine will be founded on the principles of human dignity, human rights, equality and equal rights, freedoms and equal opportunities; supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law, universal adult suffrage, parliamentary democracy, freedoms of expression, religion, language, movement, residence and assembly, regular elections, democratically structured institutions, a multi-party system of democratic, non-racist, non-sexist government and the fundamental rights and freedoms as articulated and enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and United Nations Covenants.

8. Equality and Citizenship: The Constitution will be founded on the principle that all people who live in historic Palestine as well as Palestinian refugees who realise their right of return will have equality of citizenship and equality of stake. Equal citizenship will have the result that the existing apartheid-based and discriminatory laws and demographic racism will be abrogated, together with the whole institutional system of Zionism. Our Constitution will ensure a state founded on the principles of equality of citizenship, equality between women and men and non-domination and equality in civil, political, social and cultural rights for all citizens and a fully integrated society based on democratic values, economic and social justice and fundamental human rights; lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law. All citizens will be equally entitled to the rights and benefits of citizenship; and equally subject to the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. All organs of the state, including the courts, police and administration of justice shall represent all the people of the land and shall defend, protect, and preserve the principles of equality and democracy. The laws of the state shall provide all citizens with equal access to security, housing, work, welfare, public lands, education, health care, leisure, cultural expression and all the basic requirements for living in dignity and freedom.

9. Cultural Diversity and Multiculturalism: The Constitution will recognise and celebrate the diversity of religion and culture of the new society, and the distinct linguistic and historical traditions of the country, consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

10. Public Land: The public land of the state shall belong to all its citizens, who shall have equal access to it and benefits from its use. The owners of private property expropriated from Palestinian refugees, and Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza shall be given the choice of the restoration of their property or reparations for themselves or their descendants. Consistent with the principles of the Constitution and  international law, the Jewish National Fund shall be disbanded and assets held by this entity or the Israel Land Authority returned to its rightful owners, and what is left will be held in common, or distributed thorough fair and agreed mechanisms.

11. Economic Justice and Affirmative Action: In the new state, economic and social justice requires addressing unfair distribution of resources that resulted from a long history of inequality and racism. Subject to universal equality under the law, remedial economic measures (including affirmative action) shall be undertaken to redress past injustices, remove segregation and allow equal opportunity. Such programmes would ensure social harmony and remove the possibility of maintaining unfair privileges by one group acquired through historical segregation and monopolies on use of land, water and others resources

12. Separation of Religion and State: The Constitution will establish a non-sectarian democratic state based on the principle of separation of religion and state, its governing institutions based on the principle of “one-person, one-vote”. There will be no specific privileges or privileged rights accorded to any ethnic or religious group or individual. Ethnic, religious, cultural or national minorities shall be protected by law, but not assigned any specific rights.

13. Religious Freedom and Religious Sites: The right to religious practice shall be guaranteed by the state. Religious institutions shall be voluntary, totally separate and independent from the state, and shall receive no financial support from it. All residents of the state shall be free to practice their religion and to worship at sacred sites without impediment or discrimination. The state shall ensure that all religions enjoy equal standing before the law, and that no religion impedes or has supremacy over the other.

14. Civil Marriage and Family Law: The civil law of the state shall reign supreme and shall be the ultimate reference in any disputes arising between citizens and between citizens and religious institutions. The state shall require the registration of all religious and civil marriages and civil unions under principles of law that are non-discriminatory as between marriage and civil partners, irrespective of gender, religion, ethnicity, or any other aspect of identity. The state will permit adjudication by religious authorities (including courts) of disputes between partners who agree to such adjudication. The state itself will be guided in matters of family law by the fundamental principles of equality under the Constitution. The state constitutional court shall be the final arbiter for all legal issues arising out of family law, marriages, divorces and inheritance.

15. United Nations Charter: The Constitution will promote the quality of life and welfare of all citizens and free the potential of each person; build a united and democratic Palestine able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations and as a member of the United Nations. The state shall uphold international law, and at all times seek the peaceful resolution of conflicts through negotiation and with regard to collective security in accordance with the United Nations Charter.

16. Official Languages: The Constitution shall recognise the distinct historical, linguistic and cultural traditions of Palestine. The official languages of the Republic will be Arabic, Hebrew and English. Recognising the status of the official languages of our people, the Republic must take practical and positive measures to advance the use of these languages and support a mutli-lingual educational system.

17. State Education: The state shall guarantee free primary and secondary education for all children. Schools and curricula shall teach pupils the historical heritage of their country and region, so that they may grasp, respect and appreciate the origins and historical experience of their fellow citizens, strongly reject racism and doctrines of segregation, honour human rights, protect human freedoms, and guard the peace, rights and security of all the people in the country and the world. Education and vocational training shall not be segregated in any way that impedes equal access of all citizens to employment and other opportunities to fulfil their talents and hopes.

18. Abolition of Capital Punishment and Outlaw of Torture: Within one year of the creation of the new state laws will be passed outlawing capital punishment and prohibiting torture in any form.

19. Immigration Policy: The state shall operate a transparent and non-discriminatory immigration policy, and provide a refuge for those seeking asylum from persecution, especially racial or ethnic persecution.

20. Nuclear-free Zone in the Middle East: The state shall seek and actively contribute to the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East that shall also be free of all weapons of mass destruction. Israel’s weapons of mass destruction, including but not limited to its arsenal of nuclear weapons, inherited by the Republic of Palestine shall be dismantled or destroyed under the auspices of the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) within one year of the creation of the new state. The state through its Constitution shall include and incorporate limitations on the state to engage in wars and conflicts outside its borders.

Drafting Committee (in individual capacity)

1.Dr Oren Ben-Dor, University of Southampton, Southampton
2.Prof. George Bisharat, UC Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco
3.Prof. Haim Bresheeth, University of East London, London
4.Dr Ghada Karmi, European Centre for Palestine Studies, Exeter University, Exeter
5.Mr Sami Jamil Jadallah, International business consultant, Fairfax, VA
6.Prof. Nur Masalha, SOAS, University of London, London
7.Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh, University Bethlehem, Bethlehem

To read the Hebrew and Arabic versions, and to see the list of additional signatories, use the link: One State in Palestine

 

 

EDITOR: While the west prepares for its Iran War, Palestine is forgotten…

So, after Abbas basking in the lights of the UN and feeling important, he is now back in Palestine, and back in the mud of world avoidance of the Palestine question. If it is not one war, it is another, if it is not one election, it is another, everything is a good area to delay talking, not to mention doing anything, about Palestine. The idea that the UN can do anything positive about Palestine is laughable – after all, it is the UN which created the problem in the first place, with its devastating and negative, colonial Resolution 181. The UN has never in its almost seven decades of its history, done ONE positive thing about the rights of the Palestinian people.

So now, even Abbas must have realised this – one hopes.

The second delusion Abbas has, is the idea that the US will help Palestine. Did this ever take place? Did the US ever veer from its total-support-of -Zionist-atrocities position? Is it ever likely to?

So maybe Abbas will also understand this, in his own good time.

Well, there is also a third delusion, the worst of them all – that Israel under Netanyahu will talk to him about anything, and will follow this with actions. All Palestinians must be aware that this assumption is sheer madness, so maybe someone can also tell Abbas?

If the ANC in South Africa waited for US, UK and UN to end apartheid, we would still be waiting today for it. Apartheid was ended by struggle – armed and popular struggle in South Africa, non-violent Direct Action in South Africa by millions of blacks and whites alike, and also by BDS and solidarity movements all over the globe. There was no other way to achieve equality and justice.

There still isn’t today. We all, everywhere, must struggle together to achieve the end of the Zionist colonial project, and the just solution in Palestine, for Jews and Arabs, for Palestinians and Israelis, and for the whole region. Now that Abbas and the Hamas may work together towards getting a just solution in Palestine, they should remember that not a single nation was liberated without struggle, and along and painful one. for two long decades the PLO has lived in a dream time to wake up and face realities! The PLO should follow the example of the ANC – demand justice and equality, and the removal of the colonial project, and direct its call to ALL the people on this earth, as did the ANC.

As long as South Africa had the racist apartheid regime in power, all of us were responsible for its iniquities. As long as Zionism continues to oppress Palestine, we are all responsible. Let us all act to end it, and bring a just peace for all in the Middle East. 

Peace is NOT divisible. Justice is NOT divisible. Either all shall have it, or none.

2,600 Bedouins threatened with displacement as Israeli settlements expand: The Electronic Intifada

Sophie Crowe, Jerusalem 7 February 2012

Women sort through their belongings three days after Israeli forces demolished several homes in Anata, 26 January 2012.(Anne Paq / ActiveStills)
The “E1” area of the West Bank, comprising 12 square kilometers, lies between the Maale Adumim settlement and occupied East Jerusalem, curling around and separating the Palestinian towns of Anata and Abu Dis. While E1 is home to roughly 2,600 Bedouins, Israel has prevented any Palestinian development there so that Maale Adumim might expand and new settlements can go up.

Though the settlement development project was temporarily postponed in 2008 due to disapproval from the United States, Israel has long planned on emptying the space of its Palestinian inhabitants in order to implement the plan. Many of these communities have been displaced several times since the 1970s to make way for Israel’s settlement enterprise.

Two years ago, rumors began circulating among the Bedouins living in the EI area of Israel’s intentions to displace them once more. These rumors have been buttressed by waves of demolition orders in most of the Bedouin encampments.

Twenty communities, in which 2,600 persons live, are facing displacement, stated Abu Suleiman, mukhtar (or leader) of Qeserat, a Bedouin community within E1.

Stealing water resources
Qeserat, home to approximately 200 persons, spreads along the slope of a hill beside a busy highway, close to Anata. Israel moved the community there in the 1970s in order to use their land for Kfar Adumim settlement. The Israeli authorities wanted this site for its valuable water resources, Abu Suleiman noted.

Most of the Bedouins in this area are from the Jahalin tribe, originally from the Naqab (Negev) desert. They became refugees after 1948, when the new authorities forced them from their land, and eventually resettled in the West Bank.

Israeli authorities have suggested moving some of the communities in E1 to a location beside Abu Dis — an East Jerusalem suburb partitioned from the city by Israel’s wall in the West Bank — which borders Jerusalem’s chief garbage dump.

This site is already home to about 2,000 Bedouins, who were moved there in the 1990s from land which is to facilitate the expansion of Maale Adumim.

The Civil Administration (the body overseeing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank), however, may be backing down from its enforcement of this idea. Haaretz reported yesterday that Israeli Major General Eitan Dangot suggested Israel would find another location on which the Bedouin would be permanently settled (“Bedouin community wins reprieve from forcible relocation to Jerusalem garbage dump,” 6 February 2012).

Shlomo Lecker, an Israeli lawyer representing 250 Bedouin families threatened by removal, has advised them to refuse the Abu Dis plan at all costs.

He told Israeli daily Haaretz in November that Israel’s plan “is intended to cut them off from the area … No one wants to move to the Abu Dis village and those living there refuse to accept them” (“Israel cancels plans for new Bedouin neighborhood,” 7 November 2011).

The Bedouins have traditionally lived off rearing animals, but the continuing encroachment on their land has made grazing animals increasingly difficult. The proposed site near Abu Dis would bring a halt to this way of life altogether.

“To raise animals you need space,” Abu Suleiman told The Electronic Intifada. “We don’t want to go to Abu Dis. It is crowded and not a safe place for people to live.”

Land mines
Aside from the proximity to a refuse site, land mines remain on the land near the Abu Dis site from Israeli military training. The Bedouin Protection Committee, a representative body comprising leaders from each community, was formed last summer to discuss ways of dealing with the threat of displacement and to advocate for suitable living conditions.

The committee has asked why Israel should not — if they insist on transferring the Bedouins — let them return to their original home in the Naqab. “In our history we are refugees,” Abu Suleiman stressed.

He would be happy, he said, with a permanent Bedouin town, “away from the cities, near the Dead Sea.” He is not optimistic, however, but acutely aware of Israel’s intransigence: “They will not enlarge the Palestinian areas.”

Abu Rashed, mukhtar of Arara, another Bedouin encampment in E1, believes Israel is trying to coerce the Bedouin into accepting the Abu Dis site by expropriating land the communities may see as an alternative. In the first week of January, Israeli soldiers left a military order near Arara, informing them that Nabi Musa, a neighboring area of 18 dunams used for grazing animals, was now a closed military zone (a dunam is equal to 1,000 square meters).

Abu Rashed recalls how life changed after Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967. “Under the Jordanian government we felt free,” he reflects. The situation began to worsen in the 1980s, by which time Israel’s illegal settlement of the West Bank was in full swing. “Israel was taking land, claiming it to be a military area,” he says. “Since then they have taken 90 percent of Arara’s land.”

Many of the E1 communities made agreements decades ago with the owners of the land, mostly residents of Anata or Abu Dis. “Since the settlements began to appear, people prefer for Bedouins to live on their land rather than use it for farming; it’s like protection,” Abu Rashed explained.

Thousands made homeless
The Bedouins of Abu Hindi, an encampment near Abu Dis that falls just outside E1, have been embroiled in a years-long legal battle for their right to stay on their land.

Abu Hamad, the mukhtar’s brother, explains that the deal with the original landowner was informal, agreed upon without the official documentation of ownership that Israel now demands of them.

Israel’s demolition of homes in Area C, creating 1,000 homeless persons in 2011, has continued unabated into the new year.

On 23 January Israeli forces demolished a home — Beit Arabiya, which houses the Shawamreh family and doubles as a peace center — near Anata, for the fifth time, leaving the family of seven homeless. Three other homes and several animal enclosures in the community were also torn down (“Halper vows to rebuild Palestinian home destroyed five times by Israeli soldiers,” Mondoweiss, 25 January 2012).

Two days later the Israeli military tore down six sheds, home to six Bedouin families, in the War ad-Beik area, also bordering Anata (“Army bulldozer destroys six sheds near Jerusalem,” International Middle East Media Center, 25 January 2012).

Abu Suleiman suspects Israel’s pressure on the Bedouins is part of a wider plan to push all Palestinians out of Area C of the West Bank — where Israel has total control. Israel creates obstacles in each facet of life, he says, taking away communities’ water tanks and tractors and refusing to supply them with electricity.

He does not see much change on the horizon. The state “will try to destroy people step by step,” he predicts.

Sophie Crowe is a journalist based in the West Bank. She can be reached at croweso [at] tcd [dot] ie.

Where is the Palestinian Spring?: AIC

SUNDAY, 05 FEBRUARY 2012 12:41     ELENA VIOLA FOR THE ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER
The Egyptian Revolution recently marked its first anniversary. When is the Arab Spring coming to Palestine?

Revolution has been spreading through a number of North African, Middle Eastern, and Gulf countries since December 2010. The first protests broke out in Tunisia and were soon followed by similar upheavals in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria. These uprisings represent a popular attempt to end undemocratic, oppressive regimes and to move towards representative government.

But, despite shifting regional politics, Palestine remains relatively quiet.

Today, we ask Nassar Ibrahim – Palestinian writer, political activist and co-director of the Alternative Information Center – why the Arab Spring has yet to come to Palestine.

“We have been in ‘Spring’ for 30 years now,” Ibrahim answers. “While the whole Arab world was sleepy, Palestinians had the First Intifada, the Second Intifada and several other different forms of resistance.”

But, Ibrahim, adds the political situation in Palestine is quite different than that in Egypt and Tunisia where uprisings toppled to regimes and led to elections.  There, “popular movements had the concrete power to enact significant changes in the internal, external and even in the economic policy of their country,” Ibrahim explains.

That scenario is unlikely to be played out here for a number of reasons.

“Firstly, we Palestinians live under Israeli occupation and our situation won’t be any better, unless we are backed up by the other Arab countries in our fight against the status quo. The neighbouring Arab countries must understand that we are dealing with a comprehensive Israeli-Arab conflict, not just an Israeli-Palestinian strife.”

“Secondly, even if we bring down the [Palestinian Authority], will anything change? Will a new PA be able to fight the Israeli occupation and improve our bad economic situation? I don’t mean to protect the current political leadership but what I am trying to say is that, to have a real change, the thing that should be overturned in the first place is the PA strategy on the ground.”

Ibrahim continues, explaining that many Palestinians still consider their political parties to be resistance movements. Because these resistance movements have been unable to bring about serious change, there is a feeling of hopelessness. Palestinians are also weary of the unknown, Ibrahim adds, explaining that some are concerned that their lives will only be more difficult with a different leadership.

The first and the second points – the occupation and the need for a new PA strategy—are related.

Reflecting on events in Egypt and Tunisia, Ibrahim points out that after millions went into the streets to protest the authoritarian regimes, and those regimes feel, political parties took the reins of the protest movements. “This shows that there can be no strategy without a political party to put it in action and, thus, we can’t expect Palestinian people to react on their own,” Ibrahim concludes.

He adds, “I don’t think you will find a single Palestinian who doesn’t want to free himself from the Israeli occupation but, at the same time, Palestinians are frustrated by [politicians making use] of their resistance. People would sacrifice themselves to fight the Israeli occupation, if the political parties gave them a specific strategy to be followed.

“But, if Mahmoud Abbas, for example, keeps saying that the only way to stop the occupation is to resume peace negotiations, why would people decide to struggle on the streets?”

“In Palestine it is unrealistic to think of an uprising that, newly born, will wipe out the Israeli occupation and Palestinian political corruption. Here, the situation is much more complex. We have a prolonged occupation, internal fractures, and [increasing] economic pressure to be tackled.”

Ibrahim adds that, after two Intifadas and over 40 years of occupation, Palestinians “are looking for something different… They are seeking a balance between the resistance to the daily injustices they face and the accomplishment of a ‘normal’ life.”

The ground is not ready yet for a third Palestinian uprising, Ibrahim argues, but, “at any time, Palestinians might surprise you.”

“Nobody thought that the First or the Second Intifada would start but, suddenly, they broke out…”

Continue reading February 7, 2012

‘Since the Six-day War, Israel has become a power apparatus, a Jewish power apparatus for ruling over another people’: Gush Shalom

February 4th, 2012

Uri Avnery has been awarded the Leibowitz prize for his life’s work for peace. He recalls the life’s work of   distinguished scientist and religious believeer Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-94) who prophesied that Israel would become a nation of work-gang supervisors and secret agents if it maintained the Occupation.

BBC rules no-one may suggest Palestine is not free: The Electronic Intifada

February 3rd, 2012

Not only may no-one say Palestine is not free on the BBC, in practice no-one may say anything at all about Palestine. Too hot to handle, or too difficult to understand for the BBC’s experienced journalists who have managed to conduct interviews with many Israeli politicians? Ameena Saleem reports on her long period of monitoring BBC output.

EDITOR: More violence by Israeli jackboots is legally ignored

Despite the clear video evidence, Israeli legal system ignores the violence of its Border Police, a unit known for its untrammeled barbarity. This has to be seen to be believed.

Internal Affairs Department Closes Investigation into Shooting of an Israeli Protester Despite Video: Popularstruggle

The Israeli Internal Affairs Devision announced today that it decided to close the investigation into the shooting of Israeli activist, Ben Ronen, due to lack of evidence. The decision was reached despite a video that clearly depicts the unlawful shooting.

Israeli activist, Ben Ronen, was informed today that the investigation into his shooting by last May was closed due to lack of evidence by the Israeli Internal Affairs Devision (IAD), which is responsible for investigating crimes committed by officers of the law. Ronen suffered multiple fractures to his hand, after a Border Police officer shot a tear-gas projectile directly at him from close range during a demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh.

In a letter received today, the IAD informed Ronen of their decision to close the case on grounds of insufficient evidence, saying, “An analysis of the evidence and different versions that arise from the case file brought us to the conclusion that a conviction in the case is improbable”.

The decision to not file indictments in the case was reached despite extensive video footage depicting the events preceding the shooting, the shooting itself and what followed it, as well as the officers’ attempts to prevent the documentation.

The footage clearly shows Border Police officers very violently attacking a group of peaceful protesters who were chanting slogans (at 00:55 into the video), especially targeting the women in the group.

Later in the video, at 03:15, the footage shows a Border Police officer who was indiscriminately shooting tear-gas projectiles directly at protesters and Ronen shouting at him to relax. The officer then steps a few meters back to his commander, who orders him to shoot Ronen, which he does. When reviewed frame-by-frame, the projectile can be seen flying towards Ronen.

Both the footage and medical documents attesting to Ronen’s injuries were handed to the IAD by Ronen’s lawyers, as well as testimonies by himself and other eye-witnesses.

Ronen’s lawyer, Adv. Gaby Lasky, said, “In light of such decisions, despite overwhelming evidence, it is impossible to view the Internal Affairs Devision as anything but a whitewash mechanism to enable the continued use of excessive force against Palestinians and their supporters”.

Israeli security forces regularly use tear-gas canister as projectiles, shooting them directly at protesters – as was done in Ronen’s case – when suppressing Palestinian demonstrations in the West Bank. On December 9th, 2011, Mustafa Tamimi from Nabi Saleh suffered fatal injuries after an Israeli soldier shoot him in the face with a tear-gas projectile from close range while standing in safety inside an armored military jeep. Last Friday, a French citizen was similarly shoot with a tear-gas projectile in the back of her neck by a Border Police officer during a demonstration in the same village.

Israeli right wing blacklists the best and brightest: Tikkun

Please note: this article has been removed from the Tikkun website!

February 3rd, 2012

Three of Israel’s most right-wing organisations, Im Tirtzu, Academic Monitor and Isracampus, have named over 1000 of Israel’s most distinguished thinkers, writers and campaigners as being enemies of Israel and exploiting their positions to defame the country. This carries little weight in Israel – it is primarily for the diaspora in which some depend on believing only their support saves the country from extinction.

What Are the Boundaries of Antisemitism: Australian Jewish Democratic Society

February 3rd, 2012

Last year, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry lodged a complaint of antisemitism with the SBS Ombudsman about the TV series The Promise shown in Australia last December. The Ombudsman for SBS – Special Broadcasting Service, a public broadcasting network– rejected the complaint. Harold Zwier argues that we need a definition of antisemitism which the mainstream can use. SBS adjudication at end.

DOCUMENT – ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: PALESTINIAN HUNGER STRIKER’S LIFE AT RISK: KHADER ADNAN: Amnesty International

February 2nd, 2012

Amnesty (1) and Addameer (2), the prisoners’ rights and support association, are both now campaigning urgently for Khader Adnan, arrested on 17 December 2011 and on hunger strike since then. He is held under military administrative detention, which means without trial or prisoners’ rights. He is associated with Islamic Jihad, the assumed reason for his several arrests, but has not been charged with any crime.

The BDS movement grows in Italy: Mondoweiss

February 2nd, 2012

A statement from BDS Italy about their annual conference reports discussions of strategic thinking on when and how to run an effective campaign and advice from Hind Awwad to ‘work within a broad base of partners and alliances’ . Meanwhile at the grubby end, the American ADL Stand WIth Us and Prof. Gur are pulling out all the stops to smear this week’s BDS conference at The University of Pennsylvania.

Abbas to RT: We want to co-exist with Israel – independently: Russia Today

February 1st, 2012

On the last stage of his European tour, in which he is seeking to increase diplomatic presure on Israel to stop settlement building, the PA President tells Russia’s RT that Israel might withdraw from a few settlements and try to persuade the world that this has changed the status quo of occupier and occupied. Which it won’t. But he remains willing to negotiate on the two things that matter – borders and security.

Uproar at PENN over BDS Conference: Jadaliyya

A Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) conference is set to take place next week at the University of Pennsylvania (PENN). As one would expect, the fact that the conference is taking place has created a furor. The President of the University, Amy Gutmann, released an anodyne statement disavowing any connection with the conference. She released no such statement, however, last year when the faculty and students were incensed about a talk to be delivered on campus by Eric Cantor on the theme of income inequality (Congressman Cantor eventually cancelled his appearance). The goose and gander do not get the same treatment from President Gutmann.

People on campus and in the community who do not want to allow any discussion about Israeli policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the US subvention for the Occupation decided to fight back. They will hold a series of events called Israel Across Penn, including dinners hosted by Penn Hillel, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. Penn Hillel’s Rabbi Mike Uram wants “to mobilize an Israel-friendly community and network on campus.” To counter the BDS conference, the group has also invited Alan Dershowitz to give a lecture on 2 February 2012 entitled “We Are One with Israel: An Evening of Unity and Community Solidarity.” The Political Science Department will be the co-sponsor his lecture, which will be held at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Dershowitz is billed as “Israel’s single-most visible defender.” There will be no balance in his presentation.

It is not easy in the United States to have a real, factual discussion about Israel. The obvious retort is that a critic of Israel is an anti-Semite. This is a lazy argument, at the “D”- level of thought. Beyond this tar-brush, there is little else. When Norman Finklestein came to give a lecture at my college a few years ago, a small minority of faculty and students were enraged. The agitated faculty boycotted the lecture but the students came regardless. After Finkelstein spoke, students put their hands up, and one after another read from a script seemingly authored by a Hasbara agency. Then, as Finkelstein frowned and held his own, one young man stood up and said, “I have a genuine question….” That was sufficient. The firewall had been breached. He was sincerely disturbed by Finkelstein’s narrative of events against Gaza and could not square his ideology with the circles drawn by Finkelstein’s data.

The student’s hesitation provides one more example for the Jewish American philanthropists who turned to the Republican pollster Frank Luntz to find out why Jewish American college students were not more vigorous in their rebuttal of criticism of Israel on campus. One of the moments that worried the philanthropists was the refusal by the Brandeis Student Senate to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of Israel in 2008. Luntz found that the young Jews wanted an “open and frank” discussion of Israel and its policies, that “young Jews desperately want peace,” and “some empathize with the plight of Palestinians.” Luntz recommended that the philanthropists use the word “Arab” (“wealth, oil, and Islam”) rather than “Palestinian” (“refugee camps, victims, and oppression”) to spin youth towards a pro-Israel agenda.

Yet the failure of this public relations spin opens the door to discussion of US and Israeli policy in West Asia. The bromides spilled by the public relations pollsters cannot hold back the doubts about the validity of the idea of Brand Israel, the “start-up nation.” The Arab Spring has clearly disrupted the view of the “Arab as terrorist.” Prime Minister Netanyahu’s assertion that Israel remains the “only democracy in the Middle East” and that this accomplishment should be attributed to culture in the midst of the seismic shifts during the Arab Spring constituted an embarrassment of self-delusion.

Netanyahu came to the US Congress in May 2011 to go mano-a-mano against Obama, pushing the United States to throttle the Palestinian case in the United Nations. Netanyahu’s braggadocio and the servile applause from the members of Congress in the face of the uprising in North Africa and West Asia hollowed out what remained of the idea of the United States as an “honest broker” in the region. The unseemly pressure from Netanyahu and the Israel Lobby had the opposite effect on those who pay attention to West Asian politics, and in particular among young American Jews.

Part of this hysteria is the over-reaction to the BDS campaignk, which began at the margins of political life and has now gradually shuffled to the center. The BDS campaign’s ability to ruffle so many feathers so quickly is a victory for the movement. The defenders of Israel, right or wrong, believe that no opportunity to censure those who criticize Israel must be left unseized. Every article must be challenged; every speaker must be condemned; any criticism of Israel must be suffocated. BDS campaigners have pierced this firewall and broken this formidable taboo. BDS is now taken very seriously because of its impact on our intellectual and political lives.

The BDS campaign emerged in 2002 during one of the more virulent assaults by the Israeli armed forces on the Palestinian people. The next year a group of beleaguered Palestinian academics published a Call for Boycott, and in 2005 the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel issued its well-known appeal. What is to be underscored about these documents is their measured character. For intellectuals whose access to books and ability to travel is severely limited and who are in constant threat of bombardment, their writing in these documents is not vindictive. Consider that I have just returned from a conference in Beirut, which could not be attended by a professor from al-Quds University to whom Israel has not granted a visa in time to attend the conference. His ticket, like those of other Palestinian academics, had to be bought and forfeited. When I tell another professor that I would like to send him Mary Gabriel’s remarkable book, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution, he says not to bother since he will not see it for months. The academic freedom of Palestinian educational institutions has been deeply compromised by the Israeli Occupation. It is in this light that the authors of the 2005 call for BDS proclaimed, with Mahmoud Darwish, “besiege your siege;…there is no other way.”

The point of BDS is not to abjure any contact with Israeli artists or scholars. It is rather to refuse to collaborate with Israeli institutions that benefit from and participate in the Occupation of Palestine. The point is very well developed in the collected essays of Omar Barghouti, Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. It is easy to bowdlerize the BDS position on Israeli institutions, to suggest, for instance, that the BDS adherents are against academic freedom or are anti-Semitic. However, a serious discussion about the condition in Palestine for intellectual, cultural, and academic workers is essential as part of the context for any serious discussion on academic freedoms (or lack thereof) in the region, as is the collusion of Israeli academic institutions with the strong-arm of the military, with its American bursary in hand.

The first BDS-type conference was held at the University of California at Berkeley in 2001, initiated by the Palestine Solidarity Movement. Annual events followed at Ohio State, Duke, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with Students for Justice in Palestine chapters springing up across the country. A three-year gap was broken in 2009, when students at Hampshire College revived the BDS conference once more. It was billed as the first BDS conference, mainly because the link between the Palestine Solidarity Movement and the Hampshire students was not intact, and so the history of the BDS movement was not readily available.

The next BDS conference will be held in the first weekend of February 2012 at PENN. The list of speakers at the conference is impressive: Ali Abunimah, of the Electronic Intifada website, is the keynote speaker. Abuminah will anchor the conference that includes Susan Abulhawa (Playgrounds for Palestine), Max Blumenthal (author, Republican Gomorrah), Noura Erakat (adjunct professor, Georgetown University), Bill Fletcher Jr. (author, Solidarity Divided), Kehaulani Kauanui (professor, Wesleyan University), Nancy Kricorian (Code Pink), Heather Love (professor, University of Pennsylvania), Sarah Schulman (professor, CUNY), Nikhil Singh (professor, New York University), Rebecca Vilkomerson (Jewish Voices for Peace), and Phil Weiss (curator, mondoweiss.net). Participants will also include scholars from Israel such as Dalit Baum (Haifa University). These are all serious people and academics who speak with studious care about the region. The conference website has the full list of panels.

In speaking to several of the panelists and having attended similar BDS events, I can say with some measure of confidence that each and all panels will adhere to protocols of open discussion. This has been the way of the BDS movement: to open a question that has too long remained closed, namely what is the role of the United States in Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its garrisoning of Gaza? The US taxpayer not only underwrites the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, but US power also provides the Israeli government with carte blanche to behave in the region without care for blowback.

If the Occupation creates resentment towards the United States in the Middle East, Israel is confident that the United States will vote in the requisite international chambers to, nevertheless, support it. In turn, the United States will lean heavily on the European governments to fall in line. Financial and diplomatic pressure from the United States are both essential to the Israeli occupation. It is this dual US gift that the BDS movement seeks to challenge, particularly in a context where most people have no idea that the United States pays the down payment and is the insurance policy for Israeli aggression.

The virulent reaction to the BDS conference is to be expected. Such reactions have become commonplace but they are also clichéd. That the Israel First groups turn to Professor Alan Dershowitz to anchor their defense of Israel tells you something about the staleness of their position. In 2003, Dershowitz wrote a tired book, The Case for Israel, whose arguments were upended by Norman Finkelstein in his 2005 Beyond Chutzpah, which additionally showed that Dershowitz is a routine plagiarizer. Dershowitz has attacked the BDS movement as putting forward one of the most “immoral, illegal, and despicable concepts around academic today.” He recycles two of the canards about BDS, that it is anti-Semitic and that it violates academic freedom:

BDS is anti-Semitic. “To single out the Jewish nation for collective punishment has a name,” says Dershowitz, “and it’s called bigotry.” Dershowitz’s complaint that BDS is bigoted or more specifically anti-Semitic, mimics the statement signed by American college presidents against the British BDS campaign of 2007 (this statement, joined by my college’s president, appeared in the New York Times on 8 August 2007). A good response to the anti-Semitism charge is to be found in the philosopher Judith Butler’s essay: No, it’s not anti-Semitic. “It seems that ‘anti-Semitism’ functions as a charge,” writes Butler, “one that does not correspond to a given kind of action or utterance, but one that is unilaterally conferred by those who fear the consequences of overt criticism of Israel.”

BDS violates academic freedom. Those who trot out this specious argument, including the two 286 American university presidents who signed the full-page advertisement in the New York Ttimes, says nothing about the constrained academic freedom of Palestinian academies. PENN English professor Amy Kaplan wrote an honest and moving account about this in a Chronicle of Higher Education piece:

“I spent twelve days driving back and forth between my hotel in East Jerusalem and universities in the West Bank. On each trip I waited at a military checkpoint along Israel’s security wall to have my passport inspected. One thing became immediately clear: Freedom of movement is fundamental to intellectual life. How can ideas and speech circulate freely if teachers and students cannot? In my encounters with Palestinian academics, I was struck both by the obstacles that living in the occupied territories imposes on their mobility, and the creativity that allows Palestinian intellectual life to be so vibrant today.”

BDS has raised several questions about the boycott of Palestinian intellectual and cultural life and more generally about the ongoing occupation of Palestine. Dershowitz asks why we are not as incensed about Syria or Cuba. The answer is that most of us are involved with other countries’ issues and events. However, and more importantly, the question of Israel is manifestly more central because of the annual three to four billion US dollars (conservative figure) subsidy given to the Israeli government by the US taxpayer. That—along with distortions produced by the Israel First attitude in the US State Department with regard to West Asian policy—is what makes Israel first amongst our primary concerns. That the PENN BDS conference has raised so much ire is a simple indicator that the BDS dynamic has made an enormous difference in our conversation about West Asia. As Omar Barghouti puts it, “Our South Africa moment has finally arrived!”

Does helping Palestinians beautify the occupation?: Haaretz

The women of MachsomWatch have helped some 5,000 people through the process of appealing their travel ban to Israel.

By Amira Hass

There is a thorn in the side of the Israeli prohibitions industry, in the guise of several stubborn and persistent women of retirement age. In a word: nudniks. They are the MachsomWatch volunteers, who during the past seven years have been offering their persistence in order to appeal the travel ban that the Shin Bet security service imposes on Palestinians who seek work in Israel.”

The MachsomWatch organization of female volunteers, which began over a decade ago with the monitoring of physical and administrative checkpoints on the West Bank, has developed various areas of expertise: travel bans for security reasons, the military courts, police fines, permits for reasons of health, restrictions in the Jordan Valley and more.

During their shifts at the checkpoints the women have come to know the Palestinian workers and tradesman who depend on Israel for their livelihood, and who one murky day discover that their exit permit has been revoked and a “security prevention” imposed on them. After becoming acquainted and having conversations with hundreds of people, and later with thousands, the women reject the automatic interpretation that the average Israeli attributes to the pair of words “security prevention”: “The Shin Bet knows what it’s doing. If the permit was revoked, that means that the man is dangerous.”

They began waiting for hours with the workers and tradesman who went to appeal the “security prevention” in the offices of the Coordination and Liaison Administration, and afterwards they helped to fill out forms and submit requests to overturn the prevention. They called everyone possible in the Civil Administration to find out why someone waits for hours and never gets to the window of a clerk, why he is not given a receipt for submitting the request, why a reply to a previous request doesn’t arrive, and why there are no forms in Arabic. They wrote letters to the officer of the employment department in the Civil Administration, to the Military Advocate General in Judea and Samaria, to the head of the Shin Bet and to the head of the Civil Administration.

The pestering brings results: To date they have helped some 5,000 people through the appeals process. The “security prevention” evaporated for 35 percent of them already in the initial stage of handling the case. Some go on to judicial institutions, despite the financial outlay. Attorney Tamir Blank is a partner to the women of MachsomWatch, whose volunteer work lowers the cost to the Palestinian worker. The security denial of about 70 percent of the 283 people who turned to the courts via MachsomWatch evaporated, usually before the deliberations stage.

On November 9, 2009 an officer in the Population Registry department of the Military Advocate General in Judea and Samaria wrote to them: “Recently our office has been receiving on a weekly basis a large number of copies of requests to revoke the “security prevention” of residents whose request to enter Israel for employment purposes was denied … Our office is not the authorized administrative institution for handling such requests … [and] complaints about the conduct of the Civil Administration. I ask that the sending of these copies be stopped. [They create] a burden on the fax machine and also waste precious ecological resources.”

The MachsomWatch activists had the fax number of the advocate general because until June 2007 he was, in fact, the address for appealing security prevention. Later the rule was changed and he stopped being the address, and again the rules were changed, then again something changed and there was a wave of cancellation of permits of veteran workers. Then for some reason, from July 2009 until March 2010 there was nobody to turn to in order to appeal.

The women faxed a reply to the officer: “Employers [who under the new procedures were asked to personally request that the security prevention of a Palestinian laborer be revoked] don’t receive replies. Attorneys don’t receive replies … The Coordination and Liaison Office offers no reply regarding the reason for the confiscation of a permit … [The workers] try to meet with a Shin Bet [representative], who makes them wait for hours and sends them away saying: ‘You aren’t needed.’ When a Shin Bet representative consents to meet with the Palestinian resident, the crushing statement is: ‘Help us and we’ll help you, and if not, you’ll never receive a permit.’ And when they appeal the prevention together with their employers there is no reply. There’s a sealed wall ….

“Israel’s control of the area is that of belligerent occupation, and therefore it has obligations toward [its residents], and among other things the obligation to take care of their welfare and their needs. Therefore along with the complaint about the ecological damage that we are causing, we would expect at least a minimal reference to the human damage …”

Kafkaesque sagas

A second report by this group of experts was posted on the MachsomWatch website, which sums up its activity since June 2007 and is called “Invisible Prisoners – Don’t Know Why and There’s Nowhere to Turn.” It was written by Sylvia Piterman, a retired senior economist.

She has reason for beginning the report with a scene from Kafka’s “The Castle.” There is no shortage of Kafkaesque sagas of individual Palestinians in the mazes of the occupation in our newspapers. But the report tells a saga of thousands. That is why throughout the report one can hear the refrain: There’s a method here, there’s a purpose behind the wholesale denial of permits and of restrictions of movement.

“This is a system that is designed to continue and maintain the occupation. And for that purpose the population has to be kept afraid, in a situation of uncertainty and without social solidarity. The method is also designed to maintain a large reservoir of Palestinians … in order to enlist them [as informants to the Shin Bet], while cynically exploiting their most urgent needs,” writes Piterman.

It would have been worthwhile to add: The method is designed to reduce to a minimum the number of Palestinian workers in Israel, on the way to completing the policy of demographic separation that governments have been practicing since the early 1990s.

Another thing that the report outlines – and here, too, more details would have been welcomed – is the gradual inclusion of the Palestinian workers in Israel in the category of “foreign workers.” Israel is establishing many facts on the ground in order to create the false presentation that Areas A and B are a “state” rather than occupied territory. For example, the checkpoints are called “terminals” or “crossings.” Placing Palestinian laborers under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry (rather than the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry, as used to be the case ) and treating them as though they were from Thailand and Colombia, are another such fact.

Doesn’t the assistance to individuals (even when there are thousands ) beautify the system? That is a question that comes up in the report, as in the constant conversations of the activists. This is a dilemma that faces every anti-occupation group in Israel. In the overall battle against a regime of privileges for Jews, Jewish Israelis exploit their superior rights in order to try and help people (usually of those classes which are not wrapped with money and connections ) in their daily dealings with the empire of prohibitions: to go to Israel for medical treatment, to overturn a home demolition order, to prepare a building plan, to dig a water cistern, to file a complaint with the police against settler harassment, to go to study, to visit a sick mother.

The theoretical understanding that this is a repugnant system, and its overall rejection does not weaken their caring and commitment to individuals.

How the Occupation Became Legal: NYbooks.com

Eyal Press

In 1979, a group of Palestinian farmers filed a petition with Israel’s High Court of Justice, claiming their land was being illegally expropriated by Jewish settlers. The farmers were not Israeli citizens, and the settlers appeared to have acted with the state’s support; indeed, army helicopters had escorted them to the land—a hilltop near Nablus—bringing along generators and water tanks. The High Court of Justice nevertheless ordered the outpost dismantled. “The decision of the court… proved that ‘there was justice’ in Jerusalem and that Israel was indeed ruled by Law,” exulted one Israeli columnist.

But the frustration of the settlers did not last very long. As revealed in The Law in These Parts, an engrossing new Israeli documentary making its American debut at the Sundance Film Festival, just hours after the ruling was handed down, Ariel Sharon, a keen supporter of the settlement project who was then Israel’s Minister of Agriculture, organized a meeting to discuss how to circumvent it. Alexander Ramati, then a legal advisor to the West Bank military command, raised his hand to tell Sharon about an Ottoman concept known as “Mawat land.” The Ottomans, who had controlled Palestine until World War I, had used the term to designate land far enough from any neighboring village that a crowing rooster perched on its edge could not be heard. Under Ottoman law, if such land was not cultivated for three years it was “mawat”—dead —and reverted to the empire. “With or without your rooster, be at my office at 8:00 in the morning,” Sharon told Ramati, who was soon crisscrossing the West Bank in the cockpit of a helicopter, identifying tens of thousands of uninhabited acres that could be labeled “state land” and made available to settlers, notwithstanding the Geneva Convention’s prohibition on moving civilians into occupied territory. In the years that followed, a string of new settlements was built on this territory, eventually prompting another challenge before the Israeli High Court. This time, the Court denied the challenge, ruling that settlement construction was permissible while Israel served as the temporary custodian of the territory. This provided a legal basis for land expropriation that has since enabled hundreds of thousands of Israelis to relocate to the West Bank.

Surprisingly little is known about the legal apparatus that has enabled and structured the occupation. Filmed in nine days but based on years of archival research, The Law in These Parts aims to expose it. Even before the 1967 Six-Day War, the film reveals, officers in the army’s legal corps drew up guidelines for a separate system of laws that could be applied to territory under IDF control, rules they were convinced could strike a balance between order and justice. But by the time the first Palestinian Intifada erupted in 1987, detention without trial and convictions based on secret evidence had become standard operating procedure in the military courts entrusted with this task. One reason Israel did not simply extend its own laws to the West Bank and Gaza Strip was that doing so would “imply certain things you may not want,” an official in the film explains – in particular, that Palestinians living in the occupied territories were citizens with the same rights as Israelis. (In contrast, Jewish settlers in places like Hebron were spared the military justice system and granted access to civilian courts in Israel.) Director Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, an Israeli known for his meticulously researched documentaries, initially planned to make these Palestinians the film’s protagonists. Instead, the documentary focuses on the handful of Israeli legal officials who, working largely in the shadows, set the ground rules for an occupation now in its forty-fifth year.

The architects of this parallel justice system believed that what they were designing was enlightened and progressive, a sentiment some viewers of the film may initially be inclined to share. At the insistence of Meir Shamgar, an elderly man with an august bearing who served as Israel’s Military Advocate General from 1963 to 1968, it was agreed soon after the Six-Day War that Palestinians could appeal cases to Israel’s High Court of Justice. Shamgar, who later served as the High Court’s president, notes that international law did not require Israel to grant Palestinians such access and expresses considerable pride in this. “I hope other countries will emulate the practice,” he says.

Like all the people interviewed in the film, Shamgar is seated in a black leather chair set behind a desk that is mounted on a stage, an arrangement that makes it easy to imagine him in court, with the gavel – and the power to mete out judgment – in his hands. In the film, of course, this power actually rests with Alexandrowicz, a deft interviewer who patiently draws out his subjects but is not shy about airing his opinions – as, for example, after an exchange with Shamgar about a High Court case in which a Palestinian living near Hebron challenged the expropriation of so-called “state land.” It was Shamgar who presided over the case and who ruled that while international law barred Israel from assuming ownership of the territory, building temporary outposts was permissible. Half-a-million Israelis now live in these “temporary” settlements, notes Alexandrowicz. “Look, I don’t think this is connected to Supreme Court rulings,” says Shamgar, attributing what happened to politics. But Alexandrowicz points out that international law “clearly forbids transferring population from the occupying state to the occupied area.” He asks Shamgar, “Why didn’t the court see this as something it needed to stand up against?” Shamgar glances to the side, a trace of exasperation ruffling his face. “That is a question after the fact,” he says.

“Justice Shamgar doesn’t see the connection between Supreme Court rulings and our settlements in the occupied territories,” Alexandrowicz then says in a voiceover. “But I, the person documenting, see a connection, and I present the rulings and events as I understand them. Because in the world of the film, I rule on what reality is.” As the statement suggests, The Law in These Parts makes no claim to being objective: as the narrative unfolds, it becomes increasingly apparent that the film is putting its subjects on trial before the audience. In another scene, Alexandrowicz interviews a former military judge about a case involving a Palestinian arrested without being told what he’d done wrong. To protect Israel’s sources in the territories, Palestinians often could be shown only a “paraphrase” of the charges against them, the judge explains. And what if the security forces made unreliable accusations? “As a rule, I didn’t doubt what they said,” says the judge. This revealing admission was extracted from an interview that lasted more than three hours. “The viewer is only hearing a ‘paraphrase’ of my interview,” says Alexandrowicz. Here as elsewhere, he slyly anticipates (and thus potentially defuses) the charge that his view is biased, while implicitly raising the same question about the supposedly neutral officials who held sway in courtrooms where the disparity in power, and the absence of objectivity, was far more glaring.

Alexandrowicz’s unsparing inquiry is targeted at Israelis and foreign observers, who trumpet the achievements of Israel’s democracy and the High Court’s willingness to restrain abuses even at the occasional expense of security. The Law in These Parts does not deny that the High Court has successfully put a stop to some abuses in the territories—most notably in a 1999 ruling that barred various methods of physical interrogation (shaking, hooding, and shackling detainees) practiced for years with impunity. Like the 1979 decision on settlements, it infuriated some Israelis on the right, particularly since it came a few years after a wave of suicide bombings. On other occasions, the High Court has issued rulings—requiring, for example, that Israel re-route its security barrier to expropriate less Palestinian land—that the army has refused to enforce. But the film disquietingly suggests that these occasional displays of independence may only serve to foster the illusion of justice even as separate laws for settlers, house demolitions, restrictions on free movement and a host of other unjust policies obtained “a legal seal of approval,” as Ilan Katz, who served as Deputy Military Advocate General from 2000 to 2003, puts it in the film. The Knesset could easily have passed a law barring Palestinians from petitioning the High Court, notes Katz. Why didn’t it? “Because many times the Supreme Court is convenient for the security forces,” he says.

The Law in These Parts appeared in Israel during a period in which many of the organs of an independent civil society – including the civil court system – have been under attack. The repressive climate may explain why the film has generated enormous interest in Israel, screening in more than 100 locations and receiving the prize for best documentary at the 2011 Jerusalem Film Festival. Of course, the warm reception also underscores a paradox: while many Israelis seem open and even sympathetic to critical examinations of the occupation, no political constituency has emerged to challenge the creeping colonization of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which has continued to advance under the Netanyahu government. The film’s subjects have been more sparing with their praise – with one notable exception, a former military judge named Jonathan Livny who has attended some screenings and spoken admiringly about it. At one point in the film, Livny is openly critical of the military courts: “As a military judge, you don’t just represent justice,” he says. “You represent the authorities of the occupation, vis-à-vis a population that sees you as the enemy… It’s an unnatural situation. As long as it’s only temporary, fine. But when it goes on for 40 years? How can the system function? How can it be just?”

It is the closest any of the film’s subjects come to admitting to a troubled conscience, and it made me wonder whether the experience of being cross-examined in the studio had forced Livny to grapple with the compromises he’d made. “Yes,” he told me when I reached him recently by phone, “it’s become an educational moment in my life. It enabled me to sit for three hours and really look inwardly and go through a process of understanding and come to grips, through the questioning, with my emotions, my feelings, with trying to understand the role I played.” I asked him if he ever looked back and thought he should have followed the lead of the hundreds of Israeli soldiers who refused to serve in the occupied territories. “Never,” he said. “Because I realized that if I wouldn’t do it and somebody else would be in my place, that person would not even have the qualms that I showed.” Many of his colleagues viewed the settlements favorably, he told me. Some even lived in them. Few understood Arabic, which he spoke fluently. Still, he said, he regarded the system in which he’d served as a place where cultivating respect for the rule of law was impossible. “It is a kangaroo court.”

We spoke in early January, a week after Israel’s High Court ruled on a petition challenging the right of Israeli companies to mine in eight quarries situated across the Green Line. The materials are sold overwhelmingly to Israelis —“looting the West Bank,” in the words of Dror Etkes, a researcher formerly with the organization Yesh Din, which submitted the complaint—in seemingly clear violation of a provision of the Hague Convention requiring an occupying power to serve only as the “administrator” of such resources. The High Court rejected the challenge, ruling that the occupation has gone on for so long that the situation has acquired certain “unique characteristics.” About this, at least, Ra’anan Alexandrowicz might agree.

Demanding justice for Yousef, a quiet boy killed by Israeli settlers:The Electronic Intifada

Bekah Wolf , 27 January 2012

On 28 January 2011 at 6:30am, Yousef Ikhlayl, 17, went with his father Fakhri to their farmland on the outskirts of the West Bank village Beit Ommar, where they prepared the land around their grapevines. At approximately 7am, two groups of Israelis from the illegal settlements Bat Ayn and Kiryat Arba were taking a “hike” in the privately-owned Palestinian agricultural land belonging to the residents of Beit Ommar (“Palestinian killed in clashes with settlers near Hebron,” The Jerusalem Post, 29 January 2011).

There was no indication that the settlers were planning on shooting. Yousef’s father reported that the first shot fired by the settlers hit his son in the head. The settlers then began shooting in the air and the surrounding areas to prevent others from approaching, as his father screamed desperately for help.

Yousef was carried to a car that drove him out of the agricultural valley and to the main road, where an ambulance “rushed” him to the hospital in Hebron, passing two Israeli military checkpoints on the way. At the hospital, Yousef was put on a respirator, though he had no brain activity. He passed away soon after.

At his funeral the following day, as is common practice with the Israeli military involving martyr funerals, soldiers numbering in the hundreds invaded Beit Ommar and attacked the funeral with tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and even live ammunition, as the Palestine Solidarity Project reported (“Funeral of Yousef Ikhlayl attacked by Israeli military, dozens injured,” 29 January 2011).

The murder of Yousef Ikhlayl, the impunity with which the settlers acted and the military’s behavior at the funeral are common occurrences in the occupied West Bank. The death of a Palestinian, even a child, is rarely noted and quickly forgotten in much of the world. The killing of Yousef was, however, a profound event for myself, the Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP, the organization I co-founded) and popular resistance in the Hebron district as a whole.

Never safe

PSP began farmer-accompaniment programs in the areas surrounding Beit Ommar — particularly the areas near Bat Ayn settlement — in 2006. We did so because of the extreme violence and the regularity with which settlers from this colony would attack farmers, particularly in the Saffa valley near where Yousef was killed.

Yousef was a regular participant in all of our activities, including demonstrations, farming actions, summer camps, English classes and even a photography workshop we held in 2010. He was a fixture at PSP events, volunteering to set up for conferences and often babysitting my young daughter as we held meetings and tours for international activists. I have vivid memories of Yousef carrying my baby, Rafeef, around the yard of my house, pointing out tree leaves and flowers while my husband, PSP co-founder Mousa Abu Maria, and I met with international delegations and the local popular committee.

Yousef was quite familiar with the Israeli settlers from the area and their potential for violence. Perhaps it was because of this familiarity with them that he did not run when they arrived in the area. He had been with PSP dozens of times as we accompanied other farmers to their land, as settlers watched from the hillside or hurled rocks at us from hundreds of meters away. Perhaps he assumed this time would be no different; but maybe it would have been different if we had been there with his family. I wonder about what he thought when the settlers approached. I have often thought in the last year if things would have been different if international activists had been there; if I had been there.

Our farmer-accompaniment program in the area throughout the years, though it had led to literally dozens of arrests of Israeli and international solidarity activists, was completely successful in deterring settler violence during the accompaniment.

In the end, the settlers roamed the area freely, shooting at residents and youth who began throwing stones for two hours. Two hours before Israeli soldiers, who are responsible for the security of Area C — 60 percent of the West Bank under Israeli military control — could persuade the residents to return to their homes.

The aforementioned Jerusalem Post article adds that twenty settlers were detained at the scene by the military — a highly unusual occurrence, possibly due to the presence of international and Israeli activists who had arrived in the area after the shooting — but were all released the same day.

Israeli impunity

During the two hours that the settlers stayed in the area, PSP activists arrived and began taking pictures of them to provide to the Israeli police responsible for investigating attacks by settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank. Shortly after the murder, Yousef’s father and the activists who took the pictures went to the Israeli police station (located in the settlement Kfar Etzion, next door to Bat Ayn) and filed a formal complaint.

Yousef’s father provided the photographs to the police and even identified a few individuals he saw closest to him and his son when he was shot. In a democracy, one would think this level of evidence, combined with the heinousness of the crime, would lead to a thorough investigation and speedy indictment. But, as we all well know, that is not what happens when settlers attack Palestinians.

In December 2011, Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization that monitors the criminal accountability of Israeli civilians and Israeli military forces in the West Bank, released an updated report on the rate of which Israeli civilians are prosecuted for crimes committed against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Yesh Din discovered, after researching the progress of 700 individual complaints filed with the Israeli police in the West Bank by Palestinians, that 91 percent of all complaints end with the investigation being closed without an indictment, including 85 percent of cases involving violence. The most common reason for closing a case (which can be done either by the police or by the police prosecutor) is “perpetrator unknown,” though a full 2 percent of all cases were closed because of a “lack of public interest,” which begs the question, “which public?” (“Updated data monitoring hundreds of investigations: 91% of cases closed without indictments,” 15 December 2011).

The report reveals that only 7.4 percent of cases involving settler crimes committed against Palestinians from 2005 to 2011 actually ended in an indictment. The statistic regarding crimes committed by Israeli military personnel against Palestinians, which are investigated by a separate entity, is a negligible 3.5 percent ending in indictments.

Yesh Din’s full report shows a series of failures, from the process of filing an initial complaint, to the police investigation, to the process inside the prosecutors’ office for initiating an indictment. In Yousef Ikhlayl’s case, Yesh Din discovered that while an investigation was conducted by the police (which may have only constituted the interview with Yousef’s father) and the file was turned over to the prosecution, the case has inexplicably been stalled for months because the prosecution’s office has refused to assign the case to an individual attorney, a step necessary before a final decision can be made on whether an indictment will be handed down.

It is obvious that individual justice for Palestinian victims of settler crimes — even when the victim is an unarmed child — remains elusive. Perhaps, as was suggested in an op-ed that appeared in Israeli daily Haaretz about the murder of Mustafa Tamimi, knowing the individual perpetrator, and pursuing a case against the individual, only serves to alleviate the responsibility of the system as a whole (“A courageous Palestinian has died, shrouded in stones,” 13 December 2011).

However, violent, ideological settlers, and their counterparts in the Israeli military, will only continue to act with total disregard for the basic human rights of Palestinians if they are assured that they will not face consequences. The death of a civilian, particularly a child, should result both in a black mark on the society that condones it, as well as the prosecution of the individuals responsible.

A call to action

Yousef Ikhlayl’s murder was overshadowed by world events taking place in January 2011. Activists and sympathetic journalists alike were focused on the massive uprising in Egypt that had just erupted, as well as other developments during the Arab uprisings. Beit Ommar, Yousef’s hometown, had fallen into the background as settler violence had decreased in previous months and the demonstrations in Nabi Saleh were gaining attention.

The community of Beit Ommar and the Palestine Solidarity Project have called for an international day of action on Saturday, 28 January, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Yousef’s death and ensure that he will not be forgotten.

People all over the world will hold demonstrations in front of Israeli consulates, and will plaster their cities with posters of with his face (which can be found on the website).

We are calling for an end to Israeli impunity, and the world to remember that behind statistics and policy reports, the victims of Israel’s murderous policies are real, live people. It is imperative that the international community not only hold Israel accountable for its criminal acts, through movements including boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), and solidarity work in Palestine, but also to humanize the victims of these crimes. Yousef Ikhlayl was a goofy, quiet and dedicated boy. He had a sheepish smile and made my daughter laugh. We will not forget him.

Bekah Wolf is a co-founder of the Palestine Solidarity Project, and has worked in the West Bank since 2003.  Further details on the day of action to demand justice for Yousef Ikhlayl can be found on the PSP website, www.palestinesolidarityproject.org. PSP can be followed on Twitter at @PalestinePSP.