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However, the committee voted to disqualify MK Hanin Zuabi (Balad). The decision was based chiefly on her involvement in the Gaza Freedom Flotillain May 2010.

The committee has yet to decide on petitions to ban the far right-wing party Otzma Leyisrael (‏Strength for Israel‏), headed by Michael Ben Ari and Aryeh Eldad, on the grounds it rejects the concept of Israel as both a Jewish and democratic state; and the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism on the grounds they bar women from running.

As the meeting got under way, MK David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu) presented his petition to bar Zuabi from running: “To say that a member of Knesset was aboard the Mavi Marmara does not constitute the critical mass equaling support for a terrorist organization reflects a lack of understanding of what happened aboard that ship.”

MK Aryeh Eldad (Otzma Leyisrael) said: “I am a doctor and believe in preventive medicine. You don’t have to wait for people to be caught spying or committing treason before barring them from running.”

In a heated moment during the debate, MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta’al) sharply criticized the committee members and its head, Judge Elyakim Rubinstein. “This is a political committee partly comprised of decent people – I am here because of you,” Tibi told Rubinstein. “But it is made up of third-rate politicians and frustrated lawyers looking to make headlines at our expense.”

Rubinstein struggled to contain the members’ angry response to Tibi’s statements. “Shut up for a minute, for God’s sake, you are talking as if you are in the market,” Rubinstein said. “You’re offended? Fine, I’m offended too. Enough!”

Rubinstein protested Tibi’s refusal to apologize, adding that “every person here is first-rate. “He then temporarily adjourned the meeting to let the sides calm down.

Zuabi said in response to the vote that “the decision is a result of political vengeance and a pathetic attempt to harm the representation of the Arab public.” She added that she is convinced that “the struggle for full equality is the only way possible toward a democracy.”

According to Zuabi, “the members of the elections committee blatantly ignored the unequivocal advice of the Attorney General, which said there is no legal basis for the disqualification.”

“It is now clear that the elections committee is a political body meant to harm the representatives of the Arab public, and has nothing to do with democracy,” she said. “Instead of holding a public debate, they wish to silence me and with me a whole demographic, and we will not cooperate with such silencing.”

Minutes before the meeting started, Balad members held a press conference in which chairman Jamal Zahalka announced: “If Zuabi is disqualified, I will not run in this election and will advise the party to boycott it.” Zuabi herself responded:

“Disqualifying me means disqualifying an entire generation of young Arabs.”
Balad representatives announced on Wednesday that they would not appear before the committee, and that their attorneys would present the party’s position in their stead.

Balad members are also saying they have no intention of letting right-wing parties make political hay at the expense of duly elected representatives of the Arab public.

Affidavits submitted to the committee asserted that the petitions were not based on any evidence whatsoever and are part of a racially tainted process of delegitimization the current coalition is leading against Arab citizens.

“The petitions are based on isolated and inaccurate quotations published on various websites and therefore do not justify a serious debate,” said the attorneys representing Adalah – the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

Representatives of the UAL-Ta’al have decided to appear before the committee to present the party’s position. A party spokesperson said they would appear to fight the groundless accusations and ensure their position was documented before the High Court of Justice takes the matter up.

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein earlier this week expressed his opposition to all petitions submitted on the subject on grounds of there being insufficient basis for proving the accusations raised.

Prior to the previous elections in 2009, the committee also voted to ban Balad and the United Arab List (Ra’am)-Ta’al. In the election for the 16th Knesset in 2003, the committee disqualified MKs Tibi and Azmi Bishara.

But the High Court of Justice has time and again overturned such decisions. Of the ten decisions made by the Central Elections Committee to disqualify parties or individuals from the election process, the High Court of Justice upheld only three: The Socialist Party was banned in 1964 and Kach and Kahana Chai were banned in 1988 and 1992.

Shas and United Torah Judaism on Tuesday aroused the ire of the political establishment after they submitted their responses to the petitions seeking to bar their running. “The parties operate on the basis of Jewish religious law, which mandates a clear separation between men and women on the grounds of modesty. Men have one role and women another. This division of labor does not represent marginalization of women, discrimination against women, or a belief that women are inferior to men,” read the statement submitted by the parties’ legal counsel. It went on to say: “A great number of women voters will refuse to vote for our parties should our slates include women.”

Yael German, the mayor of Herzliya and number three on the Yesh Atid slate, condemned the two parties. “The exclusion of women from politics by the ultra-Orthodox parties reflects a thoroughly backward, unenlightened position and is a grave risk to Israeli society,” said German, and added: “The state has the responsibility to prevent the phenomenon of excluding women from rearing its ugly head. This is precisely the reason Yesh Atid will make sure that the exclusion of women becomes a criminal offense.”

Labor and Meretz announced they would not support any petition to disqualify a party. Before the Central Elections Committee convened its meeting, MK Isaac Herzog (Labor faction whip) said:

“We view freedom of expression and freedom of opinion as the very lifeblood of Israel’s democracy and we firmly believe in this principle. Any disqualification, whether from the left or the right, is a slippery slope, especially at a time when we must stand firm to ensure the existence of democracy, despite our disgust with many of the statements and positions expressed by various parties and Knesset members whose banning is under discussion. They may be very far from our own philosophy but barring them would be a dangerous mistake.”

UC Berkeley’s new chancellor endorses the falsehood: criticizing Israel is anti-Semitic: IOA

By Nadia Abu El-Haj, Lila Abu-Lughod, Gil Anidjar, Rashid Khalidi, Brinkley Messick, James Schamus
Jadaliyya – 19 Dec 2012

The following statement was issued on 19 December 2012 by a group of Columbia University professors in response to recent comments by the newly appointed chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, Nicholas Dirks, wherein he equated the criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

A recent interview conducted by UC Berkeley’s Public Relations office and timed with the appointment of the new university Chancellor, Nicholas Dirks, begins, “Floating around the Internet is a claim that at some point in your past… you signed a petition for Columbia to divest in all things Israel.” The interviewer asks the Chancellor-designate to clarify his role. But let us be clear: this is not a question. It is a demand. We live in political climate in which robust and critical speech about the policies of the Israeli state is becoming ever more difficult. Its proponents are subjected to myriad forms of harassment in an effort to shut down such speech. If one wants to be a powerful public figure, the interviewer is effectively saying to Dirks, distance yourself from that petition.

Unfortunately, Dirks responds by doing precisely what is demanded of him. He does not clarify that the Columbia University petition did not call for divestment from “all things Israel,” but instead from companies that manufacture or sell arms or other military hardware utilized by Israel, in violation of US law, against the civilian populations of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. He does not say that he did sign the petition, but, as he might have argued, that once he became an administrator he recognized he had to play a different role, one that protects all political speech on campus, regardless of his own personal convictions, and thus that he chose to withdraw his signature. Instead, he declares that somehow his name appeared on the petition and that he asked for it to be removed.

That is not all: Dirks goes much further. He offers a description of Columbia in 2002 as a time in which broader “controversies” over the question of Israel and Palestine developed. He narrates those controversies in the voice of the off-campus Jewish neo-conservative groups (Campus Watch, the David Project, to name the main provocateurs) who spearheaded a sustained attack against his own colleagues, who were faculty members in the Middle East field. The David Project produced a film, Columbia Unbecoming, that instigated Columbia’s supposedly “internal” investigation. Parroting their perspective in his interview, Dirks notes that it was a climate in which “it seemed very difficult for some [Jewish] students to find safe spaces in which to talk about Israel where they didn’t feel that the basic context in which they found themselves wasn’t hugely not just anti-Israel, but by implication, anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic.” His is a brilliant rhetorical move, an account of how some Jewish students supposedly “felt.” In providing no other perspective on the “controversy,” however, Dirks allows the contention that criticism of Israel’s policies is, “by implication, anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic” to stand as a simple matter of fact.

In purveying this false account, Dirks rewrites the history of the conflict at Columbia. The reality, in contrast, was one in which most members of the faculty and many students argued that baseless accusations of anti-Semitism were being wielded in an effort to curtail academic freedom and free speech. Moreover, Dirks rewrites the “conclusion” to that so-called controversy. No action was taken against any professors precisely because 1) the Committee that he himself appointed, and that he speaks of in the interview, found no evidence that any members of the faculty had ever done or said anything that could be reasonably construed as anti-Semitic, and 2) the Columbia faculty stood overwhelmingly behind the principles of academic freedom that were threatened by these malicious accusations.

Dirks’ response is disturbing not just for how it distorts the past. It is perhaps even more alarming for what it portends for the future. The new Chancellor of UC Berkeley is walking into a situation in which the California State Assembly has passed a non binding resolution that equates defense of Palestinian rights and criticism of the policies of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism (Resolution HR 35). He is walking into an institutional context in which his boss, the president of the University of California system, was apparently involved in commenting on and drafting that very same bill [see Center for Constitutional Rights letter to UC President Yudof]. He is walking into a political reality in which several Title VI cases are pending against schools in the UC system, accusing them of fostering a “hostile” learning environment for Jewish students. He is taking charge of a campus in which Arab, Muslim and other students advocating for Palestinian rights are being targeted by specific Zionist activist groups for creating a “campus climate” that is “anti-Semitic and hostile to Jewish students” (see CCR letter to UC President Yudof).

This was a moment for the incoming Chancellor of UC Berkeley to stand on principle. Criticizing the policies of the state of Israel that violate Palestinian human and political rights, or advocating in favor of a boycott and divestment campaign, he might have said, is political speech, not hate speech. Dirks could have risen to the occasion and said that even if he is personally opposed to the divestment campaign it is nevertheless a matter that we must be able to discuss. For that matter, he could have said that even if he, as the incoming Chancellor of Berkeley, disagrees with critics of Israel’s policies, their speech is nevertheless legitimate, even necessary speech. Dirks should have said that what is at stake are fundamental democratic principles—not just academic freedom but free speech itself.

Nadia Abu El-Haj
Lila Abu-Lughod
Gil Anidjar
Rashid Khalidi
Brinkley Messick
James Schamus

Palestinians flee to Lebanon after jet bombs Syria’s largest refugee camp: Guardian

PLO officials say Assad regime’s attack marks ‘historic moment’ with former ally as 50,000 Palestinians expected from Yarmouk

• , Tuesday 18 December 2012
  

The Sabra-Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, which is bracing for an influx of Syrian-based Palestinians fleeing heavy fighting in Yarmouk camp, Damascus. Photograph: Sam Tarling

Thousands of Palestinians in Syria are fleeing Damascus after an attack on the country’s largest refugee camp, according to survivors who have reached Lebanon.

Some of those who have made it to the relative safety of Beirut claim the attack marks a “historical moment” in the Syrian war that has shattered the regime’s claim to be a patron of resistance against Israel.

The fallout from the attack on the Yarmouk refugee camp in south-west Damascus on Sunday night is now reaching beyond Syria’s borders, with Lebanon and Jordan braced for a fresh refugee crisis.

About 1,000 Palestinians had reached Lebanon less than 48 hours after a Syrian jet bombed a mosque and a school inside Yarmouk camp, the first time the large, sprawling section of the capital had been targeted from the air and only the second time it had been struck since the civil war began. The air strike is believed to have killed about 25 people and wounded several dozen more.

The new arrivals say they fear that authority in the Syrian capital is starting to crumble. They are now openly hostile towards a regime that had long portrayed itself as the protector of the 500,000 Palestinians living in Syria, most of whom had called Yarmouk home until now.

“No Palestinian will trust them anymore after what they did on Sunday,” said Abu Khalil, a father of three who has taken refuge in the infamous Beirut refugee camp Sabra-Shatila. “All of us accept that blood has been drawn between us and the regime. There is a debt to settle. It will never be like it was.”

Abu Khalil and his extended family of 15, now refugees for a second time in a lifetime, say the attack has repulsed Palestinians who had enjoyed the patronage of the Assad regime for more than 40 years but had increasingly been expected to openly align with them.

Abu Khalil offered an account of what took place on Sunday in the hours before the attack and in the frenetic aftermath, which has led to unprecedented criticism of the regime from most Palestinian factions.

“Since the summer, the two intelligence bases in the camp, air force intelligence and political security, were opened as recruitment centres for anyone who wanted to join Ahmed Jibril,” he said. “Anyone who did was given a gun.”

Ahmed Jibril runs the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command, a faction that has remained loyal to the Assad regime and is hostile to the main Palestinian organisational body, the PLO.

“There had been no fighting inside the camp at all until Sunday,” he said. “There were clashes on the outskirts, but the Free Syria Army had not entered the camp at all. They only came in after the air strike.”

About 3,000 members of the Free Syria Army and the al-Qaida-aligned Jabhat al-Nusra are now inside the camp, Abu Khalil said. He claimed only 500 residents remain, with most having sought refuge in homes, schools and mosques elsewhere in Damascus.

Jibril had about 1,000 armed men but only 150 of them were fighting with him on Sunday,” he said. “They fled after a few hours.

“Some of the rebels who came in after the attack spoke with strange dialects. Others had beards, like jihadists. They were all telling us not to worry. It was the first time we had seen any opposition member in Yarmouk.”

Abu Khalil’s mother, who called herself Um Hassan, said warnings broadcast from mosques in Yarmouk early on Sunday had given residents two hours to leave.

Many had done just that, she said. However, others had sought refuge in a mosque and remained behind. Syrians who had fled from battlezones elsewhere in Syria were staying in a nearby school. They also chose to stay. Both groups were hit by bombs dropped from jets.

“We left at 7am on Monday and got to Sabra-Shatila at 3.30am [on Tuesday],” said Abu Khalil. “It was the biggest humiliation I have ever felt. We left with only the clothes on our backs.

“Three weeks ago we watched the ugly scenes as the Israelis bombed Gaza. We know what to expect with them. But I can’t describe the feeling of Muslims attacking Muslims. It was a historical moment.”

Palestinian leaders in Lebanon say they are bracing for the arrival of 50,000 refugees from Yarmouk, an influx that would seriously strain resources inside the country’s 12 established camps. Such numbers could also potentially upset the delicate sectarian balance in the still-brittle country, where sect numbers are bitterly contested and often used as political tools.

Unlike in Lebanon, Syria’s Palestinians had largely enjoyed equal rights as citizens, with access to homes, healthcare and other trappings of state.

Their treatment has often been showcased by regime officials as a sign of Syria’s support for a people who have remained at odds with their sworn enemy, Israel. The regime’s far-reaching support for Hezbollah has been the second dimension of its resistance credentials.

The Yarmouk attack is also being seen as a turning point by senior Palestinian officials in Lebanon. Qassem Hassan, the general secretary of the PLO in Sabra-Shatila, said: “We sense a very bad smell to this. Why this is happening, we can’t understand. The PLO had taken a position not to support the regime or the other side.

“We did not interfere in the affairs of Syria and they shouldn’t have interfered in ours. A volcano has erupted here. Is this part of a plan to reorganise the Middle East? We don’t know. But it is a very big event.”

When Israel‘s routine hostility toward Gaza once again flared into full-on battle last month, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic party leader in the US Congress, sent out a tweet:

That was pretty much the sentiment of just about everyone in the US political establishment, from the president to the unanimous support in both houses of Congress for a resolution giving unconditional backing for Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

So, it was with the solid opposition to the Palestinian request for recognition of a state at the United Nations. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, may have looked isolated in casting the only vote by a major power against Palestinian statehood, but Washington’s political establishment was fully behind her.

On one issue, however, America’s vehemently pro-Israel politicians are much more muted – and it may reveal to Palestinians a chink in Israel’s armour in the US. The prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, decided to punish the Palestinians for the UN vote by announcing the expansion of existing Jewish settlements and advancing a plan, known as E1, to link Jerusalem with one of the biggest Israeli colonies in the West Bank, Maale Adumim. That would eat significantly into any Palestinian state and, more importantly, further seal off occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, as part of the long term Israeli strategy to claim the entire city.

Netanyahu argued that the Palestinians going to the UN was a threat to peace. Almost everyone else regarded the settlement announcement as a far bigger blow to an agreement to end the conflict.

The White House finally spoke up: Barack Obama criticised the E1 plan as “especially damaging”. Congress did not rush to condemn him. Even the pro-Israel lobby, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) did not thrust itself to the forefront of defending Israel. And Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, last year called the settlements “illegitimate”.

Now, the Palestinians are floating the prospect of going to theInternational Criminal Court (ICC) over the settlements. It would be a smart move – if they can resist the inevitable pressure from the west not to do it.

In all the wrangling over recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN, there was much hand-wringing in western capitals over the Palestinians gaining access to the ICC. And the Israelis are more fearful of the court than they let on publicly.

The US and the British tried to get the Palestinians to renounce the right to accede to the ICC, on the grounds it would complicate a nonexistent peace process. However, it is hard to imagine that Washington and London were not also worried about the implications if the court moved on from accusing African despots and warlords to charging soldiers and officials of a close ally, armed by the west, with war crimes in Gaza.

But now, the Palestinians have raised the prospect of a different ICC action, over the settlements, following the E1 announcement. The Palestinian foreign minister, Riad Malki, said this week that if Israel pushes ahead with the settlement construction, his government will look to the court for redress.

“Then we would be able to prosecute Israel for all the war crimes it perpetrated against our people in the past, especially the construction of settlements,” he told Voice of Palestine radio. “It all depends on whether Israel would continue with its settlement plan.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said much the same during a visit to Turkey. Israel’s colonies in the West Bank are a clear breach ofinternational law under Article 49 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which bans on an occupying power from moving its civilian population onto occupied territory – a clause included, in large part, because of Nazi attempts to colonise areas of occupied Poland by planting Germans there.

Israel’s defence is that the West Bank is not strictly occupied territory because it does not belong to another state. But the UN vote has arguably changed that. Israel has also tried to say the settlements fall under the conventions’ allowance of construction as a military necessity. But it’s hard to make a case for defence when the Israeli government’s policy is to funnel Jewish immigrant families into the settlements and to give tax breaks to encourage people to move to them.

In any case, the United Nations security council, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice and the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions all say the Israeli colonies are a breach of Article 49. No government other than Israel, not even the US, regards the settlements as legal.

The Israelis are nervous about legal action. They call it “lawfare”. It is potentially effective because taking on the Jewish settlements does not threaten Israel’s right to exist. It is not violent. It is not terrorism. And there’s not many governments going to rush to Israel’s defence.

A legal fight at the ICC would lay bare the annexation and dispossession behind Israel’s settlement strategy – the theft of land from Palestinians, the practice which sees Jewish colonies enjoy unlimited cheap water, while nearby Arab villages are subject to rationing and higher charges, the policy that says a Jewish immigrant from Russia has a greater claim to the land than a Palestinian born on it. And that’s without even getting into the broader scheme to claim as much territory as possible for Israel and leave a rump Palestinian state.

Israel’s settlement policy has been to act piecemeal and count on the rest of the world not having the stamina for a fight – successfully, as it turns out. What it does not want to have to do is defend the settlements in their entirety before an international court, with the risk of being ruled a rogue state in breach of the laws of war.

There’s also a domestic concern. An ICC case might even prompt a more robust debate in Israel where opinion polls show there is no great support for the settlements. If the ICC were to declare the settlements illegal, it would raise other interesting possibilities for Palestinian legal action. Would foreign banks still be prepared to transfer the millions of dollars donated by Americans to settlement construction, or to buy property in the occupied territories, if they knew it was a breach of international law?

Europe is already moving in that direction. European Union foreign ministers said this week that agreements with Israel do not apply to Jewish settlements in the occupied territories – a move Israel fears is laying the groundwork for economic measures, such as the labelling of exports originating in the colonies. The EU said all of its agreements with Israel “must unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 – namely, the Golan Heights; the West Bank, including east Jerusalem; and the Gaza Strip.”

The EU is also talking about banning violent settlers, responsible for a string of attacks on Palestinians, who are not prosecuted by the Israeli authorities, from within its borders.

An ICC ruling in favour of the Palestinians might have another effect. When Obama first came to power four years ago, he attempted to strong-arm Netanyahu into taking an agreement with the Palestinians seriously. The president began by demanding a total freeze on settlement construction. The Israeli prime minister out-manoeuvred and humiliated Obama, and carried on as before.

If the US president wants to revisit the fight now he’s been re-elected, it would not do any harm to have the ICC hovering in the background.

Demanding equality – how is that illegal?: Al Jazeera English

Ronnie Barkan  Ronnie Barkan is an Israeli human rights activist, conscientious objector and co-founder of Boycott from Within, a group of Israeli citizens and residents which supports the Palestinian call for BDS. RSS

If the anti-boycott law is ever put to the test, the first cases may provide an even greater boost to the BDS movement. Last Modified: 14 Dec 2012 10:17

A number of European countries are expressing outrage with Israel’s latest decision to build a new settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories in the politically and geographically sensitive E-1 area [EPA]

Israeli NGOs have appealed to the Supreme Court of Israel to strike down the July 2011 law for its violations of freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, political expression and the right to organise. The hearing in the West Jerusalem court took place last Wednesday, on December 5, and the court’s decision will be published in the coming days. There is lot of skepticism regarding a sensible outcome among boycott activists.From the moral perspective, the Israeli Supreme Court is a significant vehicle of Israeli occupation and apartheid. It is this court which consistently refuses to deal with Israeli violations of international law while at the same time allowing for the continuation of the ethnic cleansing process both within the Occupied Palestinian Territories and in Israel proper.This process of driving away the native people of the land, which started by sheer force during the creation of the state, is nowadays being carried out by legal means and under the guise of the law. Such is the situation in occupied East Jerusalem and in the unrecognised villages of the Naqab (Negev) desert.The court has also repeatedly defended the illegal siege of Gaza and the criminal policies which are responsible for counting the caloric intake of the civilians of Gaza, and the fact that 95 per cent of Gaza’s water is not fit for human consumption.Consequently, appealing to a court that has legalised torture and euphemisms in the past – making Israel the only country in the world to have legalised the practice – is not to be taken lightly.On the practical level, the appeal may very well have the opposite effect than the one intended. As has happened in the past, the court may invalidate certain clauses of the law while reaffirming the rest; therefore stamping a revised version of the law with a seal of approval. Affected by Israeli policies Most importantly, speaking as an Israeli-Jewish boycott activist who is working to end Israeli apartheid, the law actually serves our struggle. There is a long list of discriminatory laws against non-Jews in Israel or those affected by Israeli policies. Follow the latest developments in the ongoing conflict  Many of these laws were passed during the early days of the state following the forced ethnic cleansing that was meant to create an artificial Jewish majority on that land. Such racist laws were put in place to maintain, as well as institutionalise, that crime. Then came the military occupation of 1967 which introduced a whole slew of repressive military laws aimed specifically against the Palestinians under occupation. Military tribunals, with a whopping 99.7 per cent conviction rate, still stand to this day. In that sense, the anti-boycott law is nothing out of the ordinary. It is only different in one respect – that the target audience includes the privileged group under Israeli apartheid. That is why the anti-boycott law received such a backlash when it was legislated last year, with harsh criticism coming from even staunch Israel defenders like AIPAC. That day, Boycott from Within, a group of Israeli citizens which endorses and supports the Palestinian BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) call, issued a statement titled “We Will Not Be Silent”. In the statement, we reiterate our commitment to the struggle for the three fundamental rights of the Palestinians – right of return, equal rights within Israel and freedom from occupation – as well as to holding Israel accountable for its actions. The law is in fact a sign of success showing the effectiveness of the BDS movement, a Palestinian-led campaign which has managed to gain worldwide recognition and has become a global awareness movement, taking inspiration from the successful global anti-apartheid struggle directed against the South African regime. Such acts of legislation by the Israeli regime only serve to expose the true face of the “Jewish-Democratic” state while garnering support from the global community as well as from world-renowned figures. Rather than detail the technicalities of the anti-boycott law, it is far better to clarify the character of the state that legislates such laws. It is not an “anti-democratic” or an “anti-constitutional” law as many would like us to believe, for the simple reason that the state is not a democracy and has no constitution. The state, in fact, at its very core, is opposed to democratic values such as equality and the rights of minorities. A constitution would not serve as it opposes respecting the rights of all. For that purpose, the state defines me as belonging to the “Jewish” nationality, seeking to give privileges to a select ethnic group over those disenfranchised. If there existed an “Israeli” nationality it would, in theory, not be possible to legally differentiate between citizens. Given Israeli violations of international law, the absolute disrespect of universally recognised human rights and the public outcry against such violations from people all over the world, the question emerges of how governments can carry on with business as usual toward Israel. Israeli anti-boycott legislation The Israeli anti-boycott legislation, which is meant to stifle any attempt to hold it accountable for its violations of international law, is a serious matter. Consequently, it is worrisome that several European governments have recently attempted to protect Israel from holding it legally accountable by conditioning their vote at the UN on denying recourse for Palestinians in front of the International Criminal Court, where they may have access to the protection of international law. “Rather than detail the technicalities of the anti-boycott law, it is far better to clarify the character of the state that legislates such laws.” Since then, however, we are now hearing new voices emerging from a number of European countries. They are expressing outrage with Israel’s latest decision to build a new settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories in the politically and geographically sensitive E-1 area. Such voices, which may be the first signs of change, threaten to recall ambassadors in Israel and even mention the possibility of sanctioning or freezing previous trade agreements with Israel. Such policy actions would mean more than mere criticism of Israeli expansionism. One example of the ongoing complicity of all EU member states can be found in the EU-Israel Association Agreement itself, which carries a binding clause, article 2 of the agreement, stating that: “Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, …and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement”. The legally binding nature of this clause is thoroughly explained in a report by Professor Takis Tridimas claiming that the European governments are obligated to freeze the agreement according to EC laws and regulations, in addition to their other obligations imposed by international law. Roger Waters, who acted on the jury of the fourth Russell Tribunal on Palestine, recently addressed the UN General Assembly to discuss the findings of the tribunal which concluded that Israel is guilty of a long list of violations of international law, including that of the crime of apartheid. Waters also discussed the necessity of a change taking place among international bodies, including the UN itself, in order for such organisations to maintain their legitimacy and be able to sincerely represent the will of the people. If the anti-boycott law is ever put to the test, the first cases may provide an even greater boost to the BDS movement. It will then be incumbent upon the governments of the world to realise what many of their citizens long ago understood – that it is not only legitimate to get on board the BDS train, but it is also expected of them to stand shoulder to shoulder with those of us who are struggling for equality, freedom and justice for all. Ronnie Barkan is an Israeli human rights activist, conscientious objector and co-founder of Boycott from Within, a group of Israeli citizens and residents which supports the Palestinian call for BDS. In 2010, he represented the Palestinian Popular Struggle Coordination Committee at the European Parliament, promoting the rights of human rights defenders as well as stressing the importance of holding Israel accountable for its actions.  Follow him on Twitter: @ronnie_barkan

Let’s set aside values. Are we indeed prepared to reinforce our status as an occupying state that controls another people for a prolonged period? Let’s set aside justice and morals. Are we indeed prepared to turn Zionism into an apartheid movement that denies millions of residents their basic rights? Let’s set aside identity. Are we indeed prepared to exchange a Jewish democratic state for a state of ultra-nationalist zealotry that tramples on its minorities?

Let’s set aside universal values, and Jewish values, and what Israel once aspired to be. In terms of national security, the political map that seems to be shaping up arouses aversion. The sharp right turn that the ruling party and its partners have taken is endangering the Jewish state’s diplomatic, security and economic interests. It is likely to lead to a situation in which, very soon, Israel loses the last few bases of support it has left in the West and becomes a state that weakens itself to death.

Iran? Iran. The government that Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman and Zeev Elkin can set up will have the most limited ability to deal with the Iranian nuclear challenge. Since it will be conceived of in the West as an irrational government, no one will want to listen to its rational claims on the irrationality of Tehran. Since it will be conceived of as an illegitimate government of a country that is gradually becoming illegitimate, it will not have the necessary legitimacy to curb Iran, either diplomatically or militarily. An Israel that is controlled by “ultra-nationalism-is-our-home” parties will be an Israel that is isolated and weakened, whose ability to prevent the nuclearization of Iran is slim.

Deterrence? Deterrence. A government whose values are those of Likud MK Yariv Levin will be conceived of in the international community as if it were a government of Afrikaners. The Afrikaners do not have the right to self-determination and self-defense. Since they do not recognize the natural rights of others, their natural rights too are undermined. That being the case, the ability of the Israeli Afrikaners to use force against Hamas and Hezbollah will be close to nil. Any justifiable act of defense on their part will be seen as a war crime. Any wild settlement project will take them to the international court in The Hague. A Netanyahu painted in the hues of Levin will not enjoy the same umbrella of sympathy and forgiveness that Shimon Peres enjoyed with the Oslo Accords, or Ariel Sharon with the “road map,” or Ehud Olmert with the Annapolis talks. With a backward kind of logic, precisely this ultra-nationalist leadership that strives to be strong will be the weak leadership of a weak country whose strategic situation is in dire straits.

Economics? Economics. The bitter herbs that the European Union is dishing out to us this week are merely the first course. Let’s not get things wrong: Everything was planned in advance and known in advance. While the prime minister and foreign minister were busy celebrating the fact that they had prevented the diplomatic tsunami of 2011, the Palestinians, Europeans and Americans were working diligently to prepare the diplomatic tsunami of 2012 and 2013. All they were waiting for was the reelection of Barack Obama as America’s president. Now, when the Democratic regime in the United States is stable and sure, there is no Sheldon Adelson in the world who can hold back a coalition of progressive forces in the West with zero tolerance for a continuation of the occupation and settlements.

If the wild construction in the territories continues, the diplomatic protest gestures will soon become legal and commercial protest gestures that will badly harm the Israeli economy. Supporters of the Likud will learn the hard way that there is a price tag to electing Moshe Feiglin, and the citizens of Israel will learn the hard way that there is a price tag to electing Feiglin’s devoted supporters.

Thin out your stock portfolio, dear readers. The Israel of Likud Beitenu is an Israel that is going to crash into the wall. In another month and a half, Israelis will go to the polls. To our great regret, they won’t find in the voting booths a worthy and high-quality alternative in the center-left bloc. But whoever votes for the extremist slates of the new right-wing bloc must know exactly what he is voting for – a weak Israel. An Israel that insists on national pride but that is harming national security and eroding national fortitude in a dangerous way.

The UN general assembly has overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling on Israel to open its nuclear programme for inspection.

The resolution, approved by a vote of 174 to six with six abstentions, calls on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) “without further delay” and open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Those voting against were Israel, the US, Canada, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau.

Resolutions adopted by the 193-member general assembly are not legally binding but they do reflect world opinion and carry moral and political weight. And the resolution adds to pressure on Israel as it facescriticism over plans to increase settlement in the West Bank, a move seen as retaliation for the assembly recognising Palestinian statehood.

Israel refuses to confirm or deny possessing nuclear bombs though it is widely believed to have them. It has refused to join the non-proliferation treaty along with three nuclear weapon states: India, Pakistan and North Korea.

Israel insists there must first be a Middle East peace agreement before the establishment of a proposed regional zone free of weapons of mass destruction. Its rivals in the region argue that Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal presents the greatest threat to peace in the region.

While the US voted against the resolution, it voted in favour of two paragraphs in it that were put to separate votes. Both support universal adherence to the NPT and call on those countries that aren’t parties to ratify it “at the earliest date”. The only no votes on those paragraphs were Israel and India.

The vote came as a sequel to the cancellation of a high-level conference aimed at banning nuclear weapons from the Middle East. All the Arab nations and Iran had planned to attend the summit in mid-December in Helsinki, Finland, but the US announced on 23 November that it would not take place, citing political turmoil in the region and Iran’s defiant stance on non-proliferation. Iran and some Arab nations countered that the real reason for the cancellation was Israel’s refusal to attend.

Just before Monday’s vote, the Iranian diplomat Khodadad Seifi told the assembly “the truth is that the Israeli regime is the only party which rejected to conditions for a conference”. He called for “strong pressure on that regime to participate in the conference without any preconditions”.

Israeli diplomat Isi Yanouka told the general assembly his country had continuously pointed to the danger of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, singling out Iran and Syria by name. “All these cases challenge Israel’s security and cast a dark shadow at the prospect of embarking on a meaningful regional security process,” he said.

“The fact that the sponsors include in this anti-Israeli resolution language referring to the 2012 conference proves above all the ill intent of the Arab states with regard to this conference.”

The Syrian diplomat Abdullah Hallak told the assembly his government was angry the conference was not going to take place because of “the whim of just one party, a party with nuclear warheads”.

“We call on the international community to put pressure on Israel to accept the NPT, get rid of its arsenal and delivery systems, in order to allow for peace and stability in our region,” he said.

The conference’s main sponsors are the US, Russia and Britain. The British foreign office minister Alistair Burt has said it is being postponed, not cancelled.

Clinton and Hague attack Israel decision to build new settlements: Observer

US and UK react to Binyamin Netanyahu’s approval of plans for 3,000 new homes on occupied territory in the West Bank

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to build more housing units in the settlements, coming hot on the heels of the United Nations General Assembly’s declaration of Palestine as a non-member observer state, could put Israel on a collision course with the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Following the UN’s decision last Thursday, Palestine may contact the court’s prosecutor once again, asking for a hearing on the crimes that are being committed in its territory. The court’s prosecutor may well rule that in light of Palestine’s recognition as a state, the court has authority to hear the case.

If Palestine should complain to the court, Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the court’s statute may be at the center of the case. This article states, in part: “The transfer, directly or indirectly, by an occupying power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” is a war crime.

This statute is the continuation of a rule in the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel’s past claims that the rule did not apply in the territories may be rejected: The International Court of Justice, also in The Hague, settles legal disputes between countries and gives advisory opinions. When this court gave its advisory opinion over the separation barrier, it ruled that contrary to Israel’s position, the Fourth Geneva Convention applied in the territories, including the prohibition against building settlements in occupied territory. This ruling has even greater force now that Palestine has been recognized as a state.

Israel’s claim that the provision applies only to the forced transfer of a population from an occupying country to the occupied territories, and not to a voluntary move, is likely to be rejected both in light of Israel’s large investment in the settlements and the active establishment of new settlements, and also because the court’s statute includes the phrase “direct or indirect” in its prohibition against such a transfer.

It should be noted that the crime being discussed is the “transfer,” not the “move” of those moving. The ones to be accused are not the settlers themselves, but those responsible for building the settlements. Some believe that the prosecutor and the court will not want to deal with the matter because it does not involve grave war crimes such as the killing of civilians. However, the clause was included in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court over Israel’s objections, with full awareness, and the court cannot ignore it.

It is also possible that the prosecutor and the court will opine that the settlements, no less than the killing of civilians, are at the heart of the occupation regime, the dispossession, the discrimination and the negation of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, and that the case therefore deserves to be heard. It is also a relatively easy case from a legal perspective: In cases of complaints against the killing of civilians, complicated questions may arise regarding the interpretation of the principles of complementarity and proportionality.

According to the principle of complementarity, the court will not hear the case if the relevant country has carried out a genuine investigation of its own. Israel may claim that it has done so.

According to the principle of proportionality, if civilians were killed during an attack on a legitimate military target, it is a crime only if the killing of the civilians was not proportional to the anticipated military advantage. Israel may claim it meets that principle.

As far as the settlements are concerned, the principle of complementarity is not relevant, and no questions of proportionality can be raised. Incidentally, Israel’s High Court of Justice has never ruled on the question of the settlements’ legality.

The Levy Committee’s report on the outposts’ legality, which was published in July 2012, stated that if there were any truth to the approach that the territories were occupied according to the definitions of international law, and the Geneva Convention’s provisions forbidding the settlements applied to them, the committee would have to rule that it could recommend no way to legalize the status of the outposts. Rather, the committee would have to recommend that the outposts be removed.

Instead, the committee chose to rule that Israel was not a “military occupier” of the territories at all. The government was hesitant to adopt this conclusion, which would have been tantamount to defying the entire world, and has maintained its stance that the territories were occupied for some purposes, while arguing that the prohibition against settlements did not apply. Even as far back as 1967, Israel had sought to gain the authority over the territories that an army has over occupied territory, while denying the prohibition of building settlements on such territory.

The recent idea to partially adopt the Levy Committee’s report – legalizing the outposts, without stating that there is no occupation – will only make Israel’s position seem that much more absurd.

From the conclusion that there is no occupation, it must follow that the settlements are indeed illegal under international law.

It will take many stages, together with legal and political decisions, for the International Criminal Court to find Israeli leaders guilty of this crime, and there are many reasons to believe that the political circumstances will keep that from happening. The Palestinians may also not be interested in recognizing the court’s authority for fear that they, too, will be accused of war crimes against Israel, such as firing rockets at civilians.

On the other hand, Israel’s isolation to the point where only nine countries out of the UN’s 193 member states voted in its favor last week shows this scenario is now far from being science fiction.

The United Nations general assembly voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to recognise Palestine as a state, in the face of opposition from Israel and the US.

The 193-member assembly voted 138 in favour of the plan, with only nine against and 41 abstentions. The scale of the defeat represented a strong and public repudiation for Israel and the US, who find themselves out of step with the rest of the world.

Thursday’s vote marked a diplomatic breakthrough for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and could help his standing after weeks in which he has been sidelined by Palestinian rivals Hamas in the Gaza conflict.

Abbas, who flew from Ramallah, on the West Bank, to New York to address the general assembly, said: “The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: enough of aggression, settlements and occupation.”

A Palestinian flag was unfurled on the floor of the general assembly after the vote.

Several hundred people turned out in Yasser Arafat square in Ramallah on the West Bank, waving flags and singing along to nationalist music to mark the occasion.

In his address, Abbas noted the symbolism of the date, the 65th anniversary of the UN partitioning what had been British-ruled Palestine into Jewish and Arab countries. In the decades that followed, the idea of an independent Palestine had often been in danger of disappearing but had been “miraculously” kept alive, he said.

The general assembly resolution had finally given legitimacy to Palestine, he said. “The general assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the state of Palestine.”

Israel and the US immediately condemned the resolution. The office of the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, described Abbas’s speech as incitement and full of lies about Israel.

Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, said: “Because this resolution is so one-sided, it doesn’t advance peace, it pushes it backwards.”

The only way to a Palestinian state was through direct negotiations, he said.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, described the vote as “unfortunate and counterproductive”. She said: “Only through direct negotiations between the parties can the Palestinians and Israelis achieve the peace that both deserve: two states for two people, with a sovereign, viable and independent Palestine living side-by-side in peace and security with a Jewish and democratic Israel.”

Thursday’s resolution raises Palestine from being a “non-member observer entity” to a “non-member observer state”. The key is the final word, which confers UN legitimacy on Palestinian statehood and, while it cannot vote at the general assembly, it will enjoy other benefits, such as the chance to join international bodies such as the International Criminal Court (ICC).

While important, the resolution is limited, elevating Palestine only to the status of the Vatican, which until Thursday had been the only other non-member observer state. For Palestinians, the idea of an independent state bears little reality on the ground, given the degree of Israeli involvement in the West Bank and Gaza.

The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, speaking after the vote, disputed that the resolution conferred statehood on Palestine. “Today’s grand announcements will soon fade and the Palestinians will wake up to realise that little in their lives has changed,” Rice said. “This resolution does not establish Palestine as a state.”

But the coalition against the vote was thin. Apart from Israel and the US, those voting against were Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama.

European countries such as France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Denmark and Switzerland all voted yes. Britain and Germany both abstained, with Britain saying Abbas had failed to promise he would resume peace negotiations with Israel.

Some countries, especially in Europe, switched from abstention to support out of a feeling that Abbas needed to be bolstered after eight days of conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians earlier this month. An estimated 158 Palestinians died in Gaza, and six Israelis were killed.

The Israeli and US governments had put pressure on the Palestinians not to press the issue to a vote and threatened significant retaliation –  mainly in the form of punitive financial measures. They have since largely backtracked over the threats, concerned that withdrawal of major funding might undermine Abbas at a time when he is particularly vulnerable.

The prospect of the Palestinians applying to bodies such as the ICC is one of the main reasons for Israeli opposition, fearful that the Palestinians might try to launch a case over Jewish settlements on the West Bank or over military attacks on the West Bank and Gaza.

Palestinian officials say they have no immediate plans to do so but it remains a new and useful lever for the future.

The Obama administration, in an effort to try to persuade the Palestinians to drop the vote, sent deputy secretary of state Bill Burns to see Abbas on Wednesday. But Abbas turned down his pleas.

The US, Israel and Britain wanted the Palestinians to give explicit pledges they would not seek to join the ICC any time soon and also to resume peace negotiations with the Israelis that were abandoned in 2010 over a settlement expansion.

In Ramallah, hundreds watching on a television in the square cheered enthusiastically for Abbas as he denounced Israel’s most recent assault on Gaza.

When the Israeli ambassador began addressing the UN, the crowd in the square watching on a giant television screen began booing. Prosor’s speech was suddenly cut, and nationalist music fired up.

But the mood of the crowd did not appear to be that of people who thought they were marking a great national moment, or who had hope that the general assembly’s recognition of Palestinian statehood amounted to anything like the birth of a real country.

Israel suffers humiliating defeat at UN: Haaretz

Thursday’s UN vote was the international community’s warning light to Israel, as much as a show of support for the Palestinians. Germany, France, Britain, Italy and other friendly countries delivered messages to Israel with their votes – their patience with the occupation has worn off.

By Barak Ravid | Nov.30, 2012 | 2:17 AM |  79

Barak Ravid

Israel’s leaders competed with each other Thursday over who will utter the most disparaging remark about the Palestinian move in the United Nations. Never have so many press releases been issued over an event that they themselves characterized as meaningless.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon outdid his peers. “This day is the day of the historic rout of the Palestinians,” Ayalon declared in tones reminiscent of Iraq’s propaganda minister’s boasting victory over the Americans as tanks poured through the streets of Bagdad.

Thursday’s UN vote was the international community’s warning light to Israel, as much as a show of support for the Palestinians. Germany, France, Britain, Italy and other friendly countries delivered messages to Israel with their votes – their patience with the occupation of the West Bank has worn off, they have had enough of settlement construction and there’s no faith in Israeli declarations of hands outstretched in peace and a desire to advance toward a Palestinian state.

Israel’s collapse in the UN and humiliating diplomatic rout is the result of a consistent policy led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It began with his refusal to accept the two-state solution. His speech at Bar-Ilan University, to which he was dragged by American pressure, may have voiced his readiness for the establishment of a Palestinian state, but was never brought to the government for approval.

From then on Netanyahu ran away from any diplomatic initiative presented to him, refused to seriously debate the core issues of a permanent settlement, wasted time by raising excuses and preconditions, and avoided presenting the Palestinians and Western friends with an Israeli peace plan. Without a political initiative, Netanyahu was dragged – and with him the whole country – to the UN General Assembly vote like a sack through a market.

Netanyahu, who boasted of his achievements such as conscripting the world against the Iranian nuclear program and U.S. support for the operation in Gaza, failed to convince the Palestinians and international community that he is serious about the peace process. Most Western leaders do not believe him and blame him for the diplomatic deadlock.

Netanyahu’s claims the Palestinian victory in the UN is a symbolic event that will change nothing on the ground convince no one except for the writers at the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom (owned by Sheldon Adelson, Netanyahu’s staunch supporter). Anyone with eyes in his head can see the diplomatic failure from afar. Having sowed wind during the past four years, on Thursday he reaped a storm.

But Netanyahu’s diplomatic failure, as with all failures, will remain an orphan. The prime minister will not take responsibility, and neither will his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, whose incitement campaign against Abbas only pushed more and more countries to support the Palestinian move in the UN.

Lieberman, who presents his travel schedule and meetings as evidence that Israel is not isolated, has revealed that Israel’s standing in the world is not based on the number of frequent flyer points he has amassed.

The Netanyahu government has acted like a frog in a pot on a stove. For four years the water was warm and comfortable. But in a moment – Thursday at the UN General Assembly – the water boiled. By then it was already too late. Sadly, the next government will probably be even more extreme right-wing and cannot be expected to change direction.

Palestinians gather near an Israeli military tower at the Israeli separation barrier at the main entrance of the West Bank city of Bethlehem to watch the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN.AFP