Palestinians pressure Europe to shun October conference on sustainable tourism, which normally takes place in Paris.
Britain and Spain will not send delegates to the OECD’s biannual tourism conference on October 20-22, because it will be held in Jerusalem, Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov (Yisrael Beiteinu ) said yesterday.
The Dome of the Rock is seen on the compound known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, and to Jews as Temple Mount, in
This is only the second time in its history that the conference, which this year will deal with sustainable tourism, is being held outside Paris.
“OECD officials demanded that we not bring the delegates to East Jerusalem, or that we move the conference to Tel Aviv,” Misezhnikov said. “If we agreed to that, they promised to send many delegates. We held a meeting with the Foreign Ministry and decided to reject” the Tel Aviv idea.
But even after Israel agreed not to take the delegates to East Jerusalem – and even to eschew any mention of East Jerusalem during the conference – the Palestinians urged OECD members to stay away from it, Misezhnikov charged.
“The Palestinians, who insist they are a reliable negotiating partner, are continuing to cause us damage,” he said. “We exerted intensive pressure via the ambassadors and decided to hold the conference despite certain countries’ decision not to send delegates, including England and Spain.”
“I strongly denounce the states that surrendered to threats,” he added. “But the conference – with the participation of 21 ministers, deputy ministers and organization heads – will take place as planned in Jerusalem. This will be a declaration of intent and a seal of approval on the fact that we have a state whose recognized capital is Jerusalem.”
Delegates from Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, South Africa, The Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Estonia and Turkey, among others, are expected to take part in the conference.
The British Embassy said in response:
“The U.K. won’t be attending this conference, but it is entirely false to suggest that this is due to a boycott of for political reasons. The U.K.’s opposition to boycotts against Israel is well known. The UK will actually be chairing a session at the OECD’s international data protection and privacy commission later this month in Jerusalem. The only reason there’s no U.K. representation at the tourism seminar is because that right delegates simply weren’t available.
Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who tried to break Gaza blockade, loses appeal against deportation
Israel today expelled an Irish Nobel peace laureate and pro-Palestinian activist who was barred from the country for trying to break the naval blockade of Gaza.
The Irish Nobel peace laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire at the Israeli supreme court yesterday. Photograph: Bernat Armangue/AP
Máiread Corrigan Maguire was placed on an early morning flight to Britain, the interior ministry said.
Corrigan Maguire had been banned from Israel for 10 years after trying to sail to Gaza in June, but landed in Tel Aviv last week as part of a delegation meeting Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
She was immediately held at an airport detention facility. She appealed but the supreme court upheld her deportation order yesterday.Adalah, an Arab Israeli advocacy group representing Corrigan Maguire, said she planned to give a news conference in Ireland today
Corrigan Maguire, 66, won the 1976 Nobel peace prize for her work in Northern Ireland. In recent years she has emerged as an outspoken critic of Israel. At yesterday’s court hearing, she called Israel an “apartheid” state, and, in comments to reporters, accused it of committing “ethnic cleansing”.
A supreme court justice told her the courtroom was “no place for propaganda” and cut her off.
Jody Williams, a Nobel laureate and part of the Nobel Women’s Initiative, which sponsored the delegation that included Corrigan Maguire, said she was unaware of the travel ban against the activist. However, Israel’s foreign ministry wrote earlier this year to the group refusing an appeal to let Corrigan Maguire join the delegation.
Corrigan Maguire has also voiced support for the Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, who is seen by many in Israel as a traitor. Before her ban, she attended anti-Israel demonstrations in the West Bank and compared the Jewish state’s nuclear arsenal to Hitler’s gas chambers. In 2007, police shot her in the leg with a rubber bullet at a demonstration against Israel’s West Bank security barrier.
By expelling her, Israel risked doing further damage to an image already tarnished by a perceived lack of tolerance of criticism.
Israel has banned other pro-Palestinian activists from entering the country, including, in May, the 81-year-old Jewish-American linguist Noam Chomsky. The government later said that that was a mistake.
Corrigan Maguire’s attempt to reach Gaza came a week after Israeli naval commandos killed nine Turkish activists on 31 May this year aboard a flotilla that tried to breach the blockade. Hundreds more activists were detained and expelled from the country. An Israeli commission investigating the raid on the flotilla, which included the Turkish-owned ship Mavi Marmara, said today it had summoned an Israeli official to testify on how international activists were treated in detention.
A report by the UN human rights council released last week accused Israel of using “extreme and unprovoked violence” against the detainees at a time when they posed no threat.
Israel refused to co-operate with that investigation, saying the council had a long record of bias. Israel is co-operating with a separate UN investigation commissioned by the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.
The interior ministry official Yossi Edelstein, who was in charge of the detainees’ conditions, will testify to the Israeli commission next week. It will be the first Israeli account of what happened to the activists. “We need to check how the government acted. He was in charge,” said the commission spokesman Ofer Lefler.
It was not clear whether Edelstein was summoned in response to the UN report, or whether the testimony was scheduled in advance.
IDF orders immediate probe after Channel 10 airs clip on national TV.
A video uploaded to YouTube shows an Israel Defense Forces soldier wriggling in a belly dance beside a bound and handcuffed Palestinian woman, to the cheers of his comrades who were documenting the incident.
The IDF’s internal investigation department ordered an immediate probe into the matter after the Ch. 10 television program Tzinor Laila caught wind of the clip on the internet. The full clip and the details behind the incident will be broadcast on the show just before midnight on Monday.
A number of IDF soldiers have over the last year faced investigation and penalty for documenting themselves performing questionable acts in front of Palestinian prisoners or while on patrol.
In August, former soldier Eden Abergil raised controversy by posting pictures of herself beside a bound and blindfolded Palestinian prisoner on her Facebook page.
Days later, three IDF soldiers were arrested taking photographs of themselves alongside cuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainees using their cellphones.
Photographs uploaded by Abergil and labeled “IDF – the best time of my life,” depicted her smiling next to Palestinian prisoners with their hands bound and their eyes covered.
A comment attached to one of the photos of the soldier smiling in front of two blindfold men and posted by one of Abergil’s friends read “That looks really sexy for you,” with Abergil’s response reading: “I wonder if he is on Facebook too – I’ll have to tag him in the photo.”
A comment allegedly added by Abergil to her Facebook page later that wee said that she would “gladly kill Arabs – even slaughter them.”
Screen grab from a video clip uploaded to YouTube of an IDF soldier belly-dancing beside bound Palestinian woman.
“In war there are no rules,” Abergil allegedly wrote on the wall of her profile page.
Other soldiers faced disciplinary action over the last year for uploading video of themselves stopping a patrol in the West Bank to dance to American electro-pop singer Kesha’s hit Tick Tock.
The video “Batallion 50 Rock the Hebron Casbah” shows six dancing Nahal Brigade soldiers, armed and wearing bulletproof vests, patrolling as a Muslim call to prayer is heard. Then the music changes and they break into a Macarena-like dance.
The video was uploaded over the weekend, and quickly spread across Facebook pages and blogs before it was removed by those who uploaded it.
EDITOR: Burning books?…
Now there you have something for Jews to be proud of – burning books and mosques… and we are criticised for comparing Zionism to other political movements, which have greatly developed the burning of books as political discourse…Fascism, Nazism and racism have no boundaries.
Israeli settlers widely blamed and accused of campaign of revenge attacks on Palestinians
A Palestinian with a burnt copy of the Qur’an after the arson attack on a mosque in the West Bank village of Beit Fajar, south of Bethlehem. Photograph: Abed Al Hashlamoun/EPA
The perpetrators of an arson attack on a West Bank mosque in which copies of the Qur’an and prayer mats were burned were tonight described as terrorists by Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak.
Settlers were widely blamed for torching the mosque in the early hours of this morning as part of a “price tag” campaign of revenge attacks on Palestinians to mark their opposition to Israeli government policy on West Bank settlement expansion. Graffiti sprayed on the mosque in the village of Beit Fajar, between Bethlehem and Hebron, included the words “price tag” and “mosques we burn” as well as a Star of David, according to witnesses. It is the fourth attack on a West Bank mosque since December.
Ali Sawabta, the head of the village committee, said six settlers arrived in the village at 2.40am. “Fifteen Qur’an books have been burnt and the building is drenched in smoke,” he told the Ynet website. “It is effectively out of commission.” Villagers, who claimed the attackers came from the nearby settlement of Gush Etzion, rushed to defend the mosque and scuffles broke out which were broken up by Israeli soldiers.
The attack came amid US efforts to persuade the Israeli government to prolong the freeze on settlement construction, which expired just over a week ago, to keep alive talks on a deal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian leadership has said it will walk out of negotiations without an extension.
Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has so far refused US inducements. His rightwing coalition government has a powerful pro-settler element that opposes any extension of the freeze.
Barak, who has been heavily involved in negotiations with the US, was swift to condemn the mosque attack. “Whoever did this is a terrorist in every sense of the word, and intended to hurt the chances for peace and dialogue with the Palestinians,” he said. “This was a shameful act that besmirched the state of Israel and its values.” He ordered the security forces to find and arrest the perpetrators. Army spokeswoman Lt-Col Avital Liebowitz said the attack was “a very serious incident which we view with the utmost gravity”.
The Israeli military has been accused in the past of not pursuing settler attacks on Palestinians with sufficient rigour. “The settlers’ message is: terrorise the Palestinian people,” Mohammad Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who inspected the damage at the mosque, told Reuters. “Such attacks will only embolden the Palestinian people and increase our determination to achieve all of our rights.”
The Palestinian cabinet today warned of an increase in settler attacks, in particular during the olive harvest which has just begun.
Almost 500,000 Jews live in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are illegal under international law. Four settlers were killed last month in a drive-by shooting near Hebron on the eve of direct peace talks. Hamas said its militants carried out that attack. Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar today told a meeting in Gaza City the negotiations were leading nowhere. “We believe in resistance by all means to reach our goal,” he said.
Shaul Goldstein, leader of the Gush Etzion settlers, condemned the attack but added: “Experience has taught us that it is not always Jews who have committed such crimes”.
The University of Johannesburg’s Senate will next week meet to decide whether to end its relationship with an Israeli institution, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, on the grounds of that university’s active support for and involvement in the Israeli military. Archbishop Desmond Tutu supports the move. He explains why
‘The temptation in our situation is to speak in muffled tones about an issue such as the right of the people of Palestine to a state of their own.
We can easily be enticed to read reconciliation and fairness as meaning parity between justice and injustice. Having achieved our own freedom, we can fall into the trap of washing our hands of difficulties that others face. Yet we would be less than human if we did so. It behoves all South Africans, themselves erstwhile beneficiaries of generous international support, to stand up and be counted among those contributing actively to the cause of freedom and justice.” – Nelson Mandela, December 4 1997
Struggles for freedom and justices are fraught with huge moral dilemmas. How can we commit ourselves to virtue – before its political triumph – when such commitment may lead to ostracism from our political allies and even our closest partners and friends? Are we willing to speak out for justice when the moral choice that we make for an oppressed community may invite phone calls from the powerful or when possible research funding will be withdrawn from us? When we say “Never again!” do we mean “Never again!”, or do we mean “Never again to us!”?
Our responses to these questions are an indication of whether we are really interested in human rights and justice or whether our commitment is simply to secure a few deals for ourselves, our communities and our institutions – but in the process walking over our ideals even while we claim we are on our way to achieving them?
The issue of a principled commitment to justice lies at the heart of responses to the suffering of the Palestinian people and it is the absence of such a commitment that enables many to turn a blind eye to it.
Consider for a moment the numerous honorary doctorates that Nelson Mandela and I have received from universities across the globe. During the years of apartheid many of these same universities denied tenure to faculty who were “too political” because of their commitment to the struggle against apartheid. They refused to divest from South Africa because “it will hurt the blacks” (investing in apartheid South Africa was not seen as a political act; divesting was).
Let this inconsistency please not be the case with support for the Palestinians in their struggle against occupation.
I never tire of speaking about the very deep distress in my visits to the Holy Land; they remind me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like we did when young white police officers prevented us from moving about. My heart aches. I say, “Why are our memories so short?” Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their own previous humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?
Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about all the downtrodden?
Together with the peace-loving peoples of this Earth, I condemn any form of violence – but surely we must recognise that people caged in, starved and stripped of their essential material and political rights must resist their Pharaoh? Surely resistance also makes us human? Palestinians have chosen, like we did, the nonviolent tools of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
South African universities with their own long and complex histories of both support for apartheid and resistance to it should know something about the value of this nonviolent option.
The University of Johannesburg has a chance to do the right thing, at a time when it is unsexy. I have time and time again said that we do not want to hurt the Jewish people gratuitously and, despite our deep responsibility to honour the memory of the Holocaust and to ensure it never happens again (to anyone), this must not allow us to turn a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinians today.
I support the petition by some of the most prominent South African academics who call on the University of Johannesburg to terminate its agreement with Ben-Gurion University in Israel (BGU). These petitioners note that: “All scholarly work takes place within larger social contexts – particularly in institutions committed to social transformation. South African institutions are under an obligation to revisit relationships forged during the apartheid era with other institutions that turned a blind eye to racial oppression in the name of ‘purely scholarly’ or ‘scientific work’.” It can never be business as usual.
Israeli Universities are an intimate part of the Israeli regime, by active choice. While Palestinians are not able to access universities and schools, Israeli universities produce the research, technology, arguments and leaders for maintaining the occupation. BGU is no exception. By maintaining links to both the Israeli defence forces and the arms industry, BGU structurally supports and facilitates the Israeli occupation. For example, BGU offers a fast-tracked programme of training to Israeli Air Force pilots.
In the past few years, we have been watching with delight UJ’s transformation from the Rand Afrikaans University, with all its scientific achievements but also ugly ideological commitments. We look forward to an ongoing principled transformation. We don’t want UJ to wait until others’ victories have been achieved before offering honorary doctorates to the Palestinian Mandelas or Tutus in 20 years’ time.
last night, a star-studded BT-sponsored ‘british olympic ball” was targeted for protest by pro-palestinian activists to highlight BT’s partnership with israeli telecommunications firm “bezeq international” who provide military telecommunication infrastructure throughout the occupied west bank and golan heights. here there is a report , some pics and a very short film of the night.
Israel can continue down the path of insular militarism or it can start repairing its credentials as a liberal democracy
Abba Eban, the veteran Israeli diplomat, observed of negotiations with neighbouring states in the1970s that: “The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
Today, the jibe is better suited to Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, whose resistance to serious engagement with the Palestinians has been practised over two decades. His reluctance to extend a freeze on expanding Jewish settlements on the West Bank is only the latest example. The moratorium expires today. If it is not renewed, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, could walk away from direct talks sponsored by the US.
The generous view of Mr Netanyahu’s stance is that his ruling coalition, which relies on the support of far-right MPs, might collapse if he ordered a halt to settlement building. His hands are tied by domestic politics. But pursuing that logic is a recipe for perpetual deadlock. Israel is negotiating from a position of total military superiority. Successive prime ministers have pursued a strategy of dismissing the credentials of Palestinians as “not partners for peace” and using overwhelming force to keep Israel secure. That approach has been accompanied by a rise in xenophobic and religious nationalism, with any discussion of Palestinians’ civil rights confined to a dissident margin. The political mainstream has come to accept high levels of civilian casualties as the necessary cost of antiterror operations. These trends are subverting the character of Israeli democracy, once its greatest claim to moral authority in a region characterised by authoritarian regimes.
Israel stands at a crossroads. It can continue down the path of insular militarism and religious separatism to the point that it becomes an international pariah. Or it can set about repairing its credentials as a liberal democracy sincerely committed to peace. Ultimately, that would require stopping the settlement and withdrawing from land occupied since the war of 1967.
That, say Israeli politicians, is asking too much. The Arab world must first guarantee that Israelis will no longer be targeted by terror. But that argument is wearing thin. The Palestinian Authority has all but exhausted its political capital by clamping down on Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah militants in the West Bank. That no progress is visible towards statehood in return only boosts the standing of fanatics among ordinary Palestinians.
If Israel wants to reduce the influence of the extremists, it needs to reward the efforts of the moderates. If Israeli politicians really want peace, they must start selling compromise to their own electorate instead of using public fear of terrorism as a reason not to make concessions.
Successful negotiations require movement on all sides, but since Israel has the most power on the ground, it also has the greater capacity to move the peace process forwards.
When Mr Netanyahu calls for peace, he means an end to armed attacks on Israel’s borders. That is a legitimate demand to make. But the programme of absorbing occupied territory into the rest of Israel with Jewish settlements amounts to a demographic war being waged against the very idea of a Palestinian state. Only by reversing that policy can Israel get back its moral authority to speak about “partnership for peace”.
Is it the isolation and insulation that Israel has imposed on Gaza, or the cynicism with which the decision makers continue to turn the population of East Jerusalem into welfare clients and slum dwellers, and then pride themselves of the national insurance payments they grant them?
By Amira Hass
Graduates of the Shin Bet security service pride themselves on being able to recite Arabic proverbs, claiming this is the way to win over an Arab interlocutor. If it sounds to you as if I’m a bit envious of the linguistic training they receive, you are not mistaken; in my sort of school – the field – I have been able to memorize only a few Arabic adages.
One I learned from one of the many villagers who was handed an expropriation order for his land. Sitting at the entrance to his home, he looked like he was attending a funeral. “To whom can a grain of wheat complain when the cock is the judge?” he said, in response to my dumb question about what he planned to do.
This saying is useful in situations when all other words fail. For example, in a military tribunal that convicts and detains demonstrators protesting the robbery of their land, like Adib and Abdullah Abu Rahma.
Another adage often quoted goes something like this: “He who lives with a tribe for 40 days will begin to behave like it.” Not exactly, but like the Palestinians, who hold some strange competitions, I have found myself wondering which Palestinians have it the worst under the Israeli rule.
For many years, I thought there was nothing worse than life in Gaza. I even argued my point with a friend, who claimed the absolute worst is to be a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship because “we live in the midst of the Nakba [1948 catastrophe] sites and experience the daily racism masquerading as democracy.”
But for more than a year now, I have been vacillating between Gaza and Jerusalem. That is to say, I have been trying to decide which is worse – the isolation and insulation that Israel has imposed on Gaza (which includes being cut off from water sources and from the cultural, social and family ties those residents have with their People ); or the cynicism with which the decision makers continue to turn the population of East Jerusalem into welfare clients and slum dwellers, and then pride themselves of the national insurance payments they grant them.
A visit to the neighborhood of Isawiyah decided the issue. Heaps of concrete, uncollected garbage, roads that are becoming narrower due to pirate additions to buildings – forced on residents thanks to construction prohibitions and the expropriation of vacant lots – all lies in sight of the Hebrew University campus and the city’s French Hill, which are so green, spacious and civilized.
‘Unsafe space’
And now a report from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel has confirmed my determination. The report, titled “Unsafe space: The Israeli authorities’ failure to protect human rights amid settlements in East Jerusalem,” is based on testimonies, media reports and official documents. It highlights the loss of personal and collective security in Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods, in the heart of which hostile bodies have settled over the past 30 years – settlers supported by millionaires and religious and archeological associations.
Some 2,000 such people live in fortified, well-guarded complexes in Palestinian neighborhoods like Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah and the Muslim Quarter of the Old City – and there are more to come. Life in Palestinian Jerusalem is shaped by these Israeli statics: 65.1 percent of the city’s Palestinian residents live below the poverty line, as compared with 30.8 percent of the city’s Jewish population; and 74.4 percent of the Palestinian children in Jerusalem live below the poverty line, as compared to 45.1 percent of the city’s Jewish children.
The city’s Palestinian neighborhoods have a dearth of 1,000 classrooms; 50 percent of the school children drop out; and 24,500 dunams of private land – more than one third of the area annexed to Jerusalem – have been appropriated from the Arab owners, while more than 50,000 housing units have been built on this land for Jews alone.
The authorities who prevent Palestinians from building and developing their lands allocate vacant plots to the Jews, not only outside of the populated areas but also in their very heart. These spaces are allocated for parking or entertainment, archeological digs or construction.
As these neighbors are the authorities’ darlings, confrontations are unavoidable, so the Housing and Construction Ministry provides hundreds of armed guards for the Jews at the public’s expense (some NIS 54 million in 2010 ). When Palestinians complain to police about harassment, they find themselves treated like suspects. When they call the police, they feel like the officers are in no hurry to get there. And when police investigate cases in which Jews are suspected of causing bodily harm, these cases are closed swiftly. In this way, the Palestinians are left at the mercy of the aggressive, belligerent and officially sanctioned invaders.
The guards, who are employed by a private company, think their position permits them to hit people, to act abusively and even to shoot. The people in whose midst these fortified complexes are sprawling are afraid to get in and out; relatives and friends think twice before coming to visit them. These complexes are also characterized by a great deal of noise – digging at archeological sites that goes on until night, and dancing and religious celebrations accompanied by anti-Arab songs.
The ACRI report was presented to the police and the Housing and Construction Ministry for perusal. The legal adviser to the police, Roni Leibowitz, asked the organization to delay publication of the report so he could examine the specific charges, saying seven days was not enough time to conduct a serious investigation.
Nevertheless, his first impression was that the ACRI report “describes the reality in a partial and sometimes tendentious manner… It relates in a forgiving light to serious violent events that took place in the village of Silwan, that by some miracle did not end in death – such as firing from live weapons by a terrorist cell, mass riots, and the throwing of Molotov cocktails, stones, iron bars and other harmful objects at security forces…”
In addition, Leibowitz says the claims of deficient treatment on the part of the police are based solely on “the testimonies of those who were interrogated as suspects in these events, which obviously can lead to an erroneous portrayal of the way the situation developed.”
Ariel Rosenberg, the ministry’s spokesman, firmly denies any claims that guards harass Palestinians and praises their professionalism and the instructions they receive to show restraint and forbearance.
“In the past year,” he writes, “the situation in the area under discussion has significantly worsened and the guards are witness to extremely hostile activity.”
If the construction of settlements in the West Bank is meant to be on hold, why are Israeli buyers being offered new properties on Palestinian land at knock-down prices?
New housing under construction in Almon: 'Residents do not fit the headline-grabbing stereotypes of fanatical settlers. There is a marked paucity of Israeli flags.' Photograph: Warrick Page
The housing project currently under construction in Almon offers enticingly priced, spacious family homes with a garden and a view. The surrounding neighbourhood, also known as Anatot, sits on a ridge overlooking the Judean hills, near Jerusalem, a blaze of cultivated greenery in the parched landscape. Residents have a relaxed air, and newcomers who have recently relocated from Jerusalem wish they’d made the move years ago. If I were a prospective house-buyer, I’d be charmed. But I would not be looking here – because Almon is in the occupied West Bank.
It is a Jewish settlement with a population of around 1,000, established in the early 80s. Like all Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank, Almon is illegal according to international law. But its residents do not fit the headline-grabbing stereotypes of fanatical settlers, motivated by a national-religious drive to claim land. There is a marked paucity of Israeli flags and no settler-slogan banners bedeck the streets. If the West Bank became part of an autonomous Palestinian state, residents of Almon would be unlikely to put up a fight, as the ideological settler movement has sworn to do. Instead, they would pack up and move back to Israel.
The settlement movement began almost immediately after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, seized as the spoils of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Settlers were initially ideological but, by the 80s, the rightwing government that came to power realised that greater numbers of, perhaps less politically-motivated, Israelis would have to be enticed on to Palestinian land. Israel has always argued that settlements are a strategic and military asset. Former prime minister Ariel Sharon – one of the settler movement’s biggest supporters – summed up Israel’s approach in 1998 when he said of the occupied territories: “Everyone there should move, should run, should grab more hills, expand more territory. Everything that’s grabbed will be in our hands. Everything we don’t grab will be in their hands.”
Yet in 2007, when the Israeli organisation Peace Now polled settlers about their motivations for living where they do, 77% cited “quality of life”, suggesting that economic factors and proximity to Israeli cities were primary considerations. That percentage can be split into two camps: there is the rapidly expanding, low-income, ultra-Orthodox community, which, priced out of Jerusalem, has migrated to nearby settlements such as Modin Illit and Beitar Illit; then there are secular or mixed community settlements, such as Almon. These are often located close to the Green Line, the internationally recognised border between Israel and the Palestinian West Bank. And they exist primarily because the state wants them to.
In Jerusalem – just as in the rest of Israel – decades of state planning has priced people out of the city and into settlements in Palestinian East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Meanwhile, ideologically-motivated budgeting has resulted in enticements and benefits for Israelis who live on occupied Palestinian land.
Settlements, and the resources, infrastructure and military might required to keep them going, are a major impediment to negotiations to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Under international pressure, for the past 10 months, Israel has operated a partial freeze on settlement construction. However, the incentives still offered to Israelis to live on Palestinian land are so considerable that, leaving politics aside, it would be silly not to take advantage of them.
To find out how easy it would be to buy a settlement home on Palestinian land in the midst of this supposed freeze, I pose as an Israeli buyer, looking for a reasonably priced property for myself, my fictitious husband and the family we’re planning. Walking into a Jerusalem estate agency with an imaginary spend of £200,000, a realistic sum for an average Jerusalem couple, it comes as no surprise when the agent says, “With that sort of budget, you need to get beyond the city.”
I’ve already checked the housing market online and seen that the price for a home in West Jerusalem – four bedrooms across around 100 square metres – can start at around £400,000. Jerusalem’s housing problem is blamed variously on its lack of high-rise housing (in part because many observant Jews do not use lifts on Saturdays); on environmentalists, who have prevented the city’s expansion to the west (the only direction within Israel’s borders); and on the “ghost town” effect in well-heeled parts of the city, where foreign Jewish buyers have snapped up second homes, pushing up the prices. The housing market is under such stress that, last year, Jerusalem’s mayor wrote to absentee home-owners, asking them to rent out or sell up.
The agent suggests Pisgat Ze’ev or Neve Yaakov, both in East Jerusalem. Though these areas are defined as settlements by the international community, Israel views them as neighbourhoods of Jerusalem and has prioritised rapid Jewish development here, at the expense of affordable housing in West Jerusalem. However, at £250,000 for around 120 square metres, these houses might still be too pricey.
I certainly can’t afford a decent-sized property in the plusher Ramot or Gilo – also settlements, or “neighbourhoods”, within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries. So the estate agent suggests Givat Ze’ev, a secular settlement a 10-minute drive north-east of Jerusalem. The agent doesn’t currently have homes to view there, but properties in this settlement – and many others – are advertised online under the category “Jerusalem and surrounding area”. A quick call to each settlement’s secretariat would provide me with agents’ phone numbers, and sometimes the numbers of private sellers, too.
Givat Ze’ev is a pretty settlement of 10,000 residents living in semi-detached homes on leafy, winding streets. It is spacious and organised, with shops, schools and health services. Everything about its planning is designed to make you feel as though you’re in a satellite of Jerusalem – there are no demarcation lines, no checkpoints back into the city, and the Palestinian villages, if visible, are behind a wall. Like so many settlements that hug the Green Line, Givat Ze’ev is on the Israeli side of the separation barrier that cuts into the West Bank for around 80% of its path. The barrier route runs, in some places, up to 12 miles deep into the West Bank, but settlements on the Israeli side of it are, broadly speaking, “consensus settlements” – ones that Israelis assume will be conceded to the Jewish state in peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
At Givat Ze’ev there are plenty of large, affordable houses for sale, but the only new properties are on a recently-finished ultra-Orthodox project. I ask residents about new secular housing, but their response is, “Don’t you read the news?” They’re referring to the current 10-month freeze, but in August, Peace Now found that building on at least 600 settlement housing units had begun during that period, in more than 60 different settlements. Of those, it says, at least 492 were in direct violation of the freeze.
My search for affordable, secular housing leads me, eventually, to Almon. It’s a short drive east of Jerusalem, and I’ve had to cross an Israeli checkpoint, but it’s specifically for settler use – a nod, the “right” appearance and Israeli number plates get me waved through. Outside, a billboard advertises the number of the contractor, who confirms that 70 units are under construction at the site. The four-bedroom houses vary in size from 130 to 140 square metres, with gardens of up to 70 square metres, and they are shifting fast. The settlement is not officially exempt from the construction freeze, but Palestinian constructors are currently working on the site and homes could be ready within a year. The starting price is £175,150.
It is staggeringly cheaper than an equivalent property on the Israeli side of the Green Line, because it is on Palestinian land, confiscated by Israel. There are no market forces to dictate land value here, as there would be in Tel Aviv or West Jerusalem. Instead, the Israeli housing ministry regulates prices, keeping them low to attract settlement. Campaigners say the contractor will also have received considerable state subsidies for connecting new settlement buildings to water and electricity mains – another saving that’s passed on to me, the buyer.
Calculating my hypothetical mortgage allowance gives me yet more incentive to live across the Green Line. All Israelis qualify for a state allowance, an add-on to the mortgage lent by the bank, but with more favourable repayment terms. Points are added to your basic state allowance if you have children, have served in the army, or if you are a new Jewish migrant. Then there is a top-up if you live in areas defined as “national priority zones”, which include some under-populated parts of Israel and all settlements.
For a new property in Almon, I’d get almost £11,600 as a special allowance. But the allowances rise sharply for Israeli couples who pick homes in the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Betar Illit, near Jerusalem, or in Ariel, around 25km east of the Green Line, or in Kiryat Arba, a hardline settlement near Hebron. For each of those, I’d get a total allowance of around £40,200. When I ask, the housing ministry says that state subsidies vary according to the “security threat assessments” pertinent to each area, adding that properties on the Israeli border with Lebanon qualify for similar amounts.
Israeli settlements expert Dror Etkes describes how, at times, mortgages given in the West Bank have “included loans which, after a period of time, turned into grants”. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reports that, between 1997 and 2002, the state put 419m shekels (around £72m) into state-subsidised “association mortgages” for 1,800 apartments, most of them in the West Bank. The state comptroller, investigating these payments, found they were not included in the housing ministry’s budget. Responding to queries over this funding, the ministry said it was not intended for “the entire public” and that announcing it would have caused “unnecessary confusion”.
The veteran Israeli journalist and author Danny Rubinstein remembers a time in the late 80s when contractors offered free cars to those who bought settlement homes. Meir Margalit, a Jerusalem council member for the leftwing Meretz party, claims that at around the same time, Israelis invested in settlement property, left uninhabited, in the knowledge that at some point the state would offer compensation to evacuate it. He says the practice was “an open secret among settlers”.
Today, on top of my mortgage incentive, I’d get free nursery care for my children from the age of three, instead of five, as I would in Israel. Settlement schools are better funded, health services are allocated more state funds. I’d no longer get a 7% discount on income tax – that incentive was scrapped in 2003; I’d pay lower local taxes, but my local council would be twice as flush as those inside Israel, because of a central government funding bias. In 2006, the Adva Centre, an Israeli policy analysis organisation, found settlers pay 60% of the national average in local tax.
There are currently more than 200 settlements, including West Bank outposts and neighbourhoods in annexed East Jerusalem, and half a million Israelis live on the Palestinian side of the Green Line. B’Tselem says it is impossible to calculate the total state spend in settlement benefits, because “government ministries obscure documentation of the moneys in their budgets that are directed to the settlements”. But Peace Now estimates that settlements cost Israel $556m (around £355m) a year – and it is clear that this cost is keenly felt by those living within Israel, since the state seems to prioritise settlements at their expense.
Responding to international pressure, in 2008 the Israeli government debated a plan to offer settlers cash to leave the West Bank, a move designed to target economic settlers rather than ideological ones. The proposal – backed by then prime minister Ehud Olmert – couldn’t get through government. Yet there are currently thought to be lists of settlers who have expressed interest in leaving the West Bank, if compensated.
For as long as Israel has occupied Palestinian lands, there has been a dominant force within government that has kept the settlements project going. Driven by a mix of national-religious conviction, expansionist politics and military tactics, the settlements project has wholly controlled state agenda. B’Tselem describes the project as one of Israel’s main national enterprises. State efforts to pull Israelis over the Green Line have been so forceful that, as Rubinstein puts it, “You could say it was a bribe on a national scale.”
Israel has always played up the pain of dismantling the settlements. Yet as Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar writes in Lords Of The Land: The War For Israel’s Settlements In The Occupied Territories, the “elixir of life” for these settlements is their infrastructure: the electricity, water pipes and military forces that guard them. Remove these, “and this project collapses like a house of cards”. Today, Eldar describes Israel’s purported inability to do so as “a myth perpetrated by the government to make us believe that it is impossible”.
How hard would it really be to divert funds from the occupied West Bank back into Israel, thus encouraging settlers to move back – especially from somewhere like Almon, where residents have already said they will relocate if political realities dictate that they should?
One man who has lived there for 20 years says of the settlement, “It is not fanatic in a religious sense and not fanatic politically, either.” Other residents agree. “We came here because we were looking for a nice, peaceful place near Jerusalem,” says one woman, who still votes for the Israeli Labour party. “We didn’t want to annoy anyone, and we are not ideological… The settler movement does not represent us.”
The problem, as Rubinstein points out, is that what starts off as economics can eventually become ideological. “When you move [to the settlements],” he says, “you can’t say, ‘Well, I went there because I’m greedy.’ You change your political opinion.”
Jewish boart for Gaza Press Release – 26 Sept 2010
http://jewishboattogaza.org/
Jewish Boat to Gaza - Irene
At crisis point in peace talks, Jews, Israelis call to lift the siege on Gaza, end the occupation.
A boat carrying aid for Gaza’s population and organized by Jewish groups worldwide has set sail from Cyprus today at 13:32 local time
The boat, Irene, is sailing under a British flag and is carrying ten passengers and crew, including Jews from the US, the UK, Germany and Israel as well as an Israeli journalist.
Passengers on the Jewish Boat to Gaza gather for a group photograph before their departure. (Photo: Vish Vishvanath/Metro)
The boat’s cargo includes symbolic aid in the form of children’s toys and musical instruments, textbooks, fishing nets for Gaza’s fishing communities and prosthetic limbs for orthopaedic medical care in Gaza’s hospitals.
The receiving organization in Gaza is The Palestinian International Campaign to end the siege on Gaza, directed by Dr. Eyad Sarraj and Amjad Shawa, Director of PNGO
The boat will attempt to reach the coast of Gaza and unload its aid cargo in a nonviolent, symbolic act of solidarity and protest – and call for the siege to be lifted to enable free passage of goods and people to and from the Gaza Strip.
The boat will fly multicolored peace flags carrying the names of dozens of Jews who have expressed their support for this action, as a symbol of the widespread support for the boat by Jews worldwide.
Speaking from London, a member of the organizing group, Richard Kuper of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, said today that the Jewish Boat to Gaza is a symbolic act of protest against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the siege of Gaza, and a message of solidarity to Palestinians and Israelis who seek peace and justice.
‘Israeli government policies are not supported by all Jews,’ said Kuper. ‘We call on all governments and people around the world to speak and act against the occupation and the siege.’
Regarding the threat of interception by the Israeli navy, Kuper said ‘This is a nonviolent action. We aim to reach Gaza, but our activists will not engage in any physical confrontation and will therefore not present the Israelis with any reason or excuse to use physical force or assault them.’
Passenger Reuven Moskovitz, 82, said that his life’s mission has been to turn foes into friends. “We are two peoples, but we have one future”, he said.
Passengers aboard the boat
Reuven Moskovitz, from Israel, is a founding member of the Jewish-Arab village Neve Shalom (Oasis of Peace) and a holocaust survivor. Speaks German, Hebrew and English.
Rami Elhanan, from Israel, lost his daughter Smadar to a suicide bombing in 1997 and is a founding member of the Bereaved Families Circle of Israelis and Palestinians who lost their loved ones to the conflict. Speaks Hebrew and English.
Lilian Rosengarten, from the US, is a peace activist and psychotherapist. She was a refugee from Nazi Germany. Speaks English and German.
Yonatan Shapira, from Israel, is an ex-IDF pilot and now an activist for Combatants for Peace. Speaks Hebrew and English.
Carole Angier, from the UK, is the biographer of the renowned author, Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi. Speaks English, French, Italian and German.
Glyn Secker, from the UK, is the boat’s captain and a member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians. Speaks English.
Dr. Edith Lutz, from Germany, is a peace activist and a nurse. She was on the first boat to Gaza in 2008. Speaks German and English.
Alison Prager, from the UK, is a teacher and peace activist. She is media coordinator for the boat. Speaks English.
Itamar Shapira, from Israel, is Yonatan’s brother, and a member of the boat’s crew. Speaks Hebrew, Spanish and English.
Eli Osherov, Israeli reporter from Israel Channel 10 News.
Supporters: Jewish organizations and individuals from UK, Holland, Germany, US, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, France, Austria, Australia and Israel.
Organizers and sponsors: European Jews for a Just Peace, Jews for Justice for Palestinians (UK), Juedische Stimme fuer einen gerechten Frieden in Nahost (Germany), American Jews for a Just Peace (USA), Jewish Voice for Peace (USA), Jews Against the Occupation Sydney.
Israel dismisses report of ‘unnecessary and incredibly violent’ attack as ‘politicised and extremist’
A United Nations panel of human rights experts has accused Israel of war crimes through willful killing, unnecessary brutality and torture in its “clearly unlawful” assault on a ship attempting to break the blockade of Gaza in May in which nine Turkish activists died.
Hands of a detained activist from the Gaza-bound flotilla. Photograph: Alberto Denkberg/AP
The report by three experts appointed by the UN’s Human Rights Council (UNHRC) described the seizure of MV Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel, by Israeli commandos as illegal under international law.
It condemned the treatment of the passengers and crew as brutal and disproportionate. It also said that the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian enclave is illegal because of the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“There is clear evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the terms of article 147 of the fourth Geneva convention: wilful killing; torture or inhuman treatment; wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health,” the report said.
“A series of violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, were committed by the Israeli forces during the interception of the flotilla and during the detention of passengers in Israel prior to deportation.”
Israel swiftly dismissed the accusations as “politicised and extremist”. But the report is likely to be welcomed by Turkey which has dramatically cooled once-close relations with the Jewish state since the attack on the ship.
The 56-page report – compiled by a former UN war crimes prosecutor, Desmond de Silva, a judge from Trinidad, Karl Hudson-Phillips, and a Malaysian women’s rights advocate, Mary Shanthi Dairiam – accuses Israeli forces of various crimes including violating the right to life, liberty and freedom of expression, and of failing to treat the captured crew and passengers with humanity.
“The conduct of the Israeli military and other personnel toward the flotilla passengers was not only disproportionate to the occasion but demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence. It betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality,” the report said.
The UN security council is expected to debate the findings on Monday.
The report does not have any legal force and the UN human rights council, which has been accused of a disproportionate focus on Israel, is viewed with scepticism by many western countries because it is dominated by the developing world.
But the report will be a further severe embarrassment to Israel after the assault on the ships brought widespread international condemnation even by generally sympathetic countries and breached relations with Turkey.
Israel, which refused to co-operate with the inquiry, said the report is biased.
“The Human Rights Council blamed Israel prior to the investigation and it is no surprise that they condemn after,” said Andy David, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry.
Israel has claimed that its troops only resorted to force and opened fire after coming under attack by activists with metal bars, axes and wooden clubs. The pro-Palestinian activists said they were defending the ship from what amounted to a pirate attack on a vessel in international waters.
The raid prompted an international outcry and focused attention on the blockade of Gaza. Israel has since lifted most of the restrictions on the flow of medicines, food and many goods into the territory but still maintains a ban on some items, such as building materials, on the grounds they can be used to manufacture weapons.
Israel is working with another UN inquiry under the former leaders of New Zealand and Colombia, Geoffrey Palmer and Alvaro Uribe, that is still in progress.
The Jewish state is also carrying out its own inquiry into the attack on Mavi Mamara.
Last month, Israel’s military commander, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, defended his forces’ use of live ammunition during the assault on the ship, saying that commandos had not expected to meet such violence from the activists and were forced to defend themselves when they came under attack.
“Israel is a democratic and law-abiding country that carefully observes international law and, when need be, knows how to investigate itself,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “That is how Israel has always acted, and that is the way in which investigations were conducted following Operation Cast Lead, launched to protect the inhabitants of southern Israel from rockets and terror attacks carried out by Hamas from Gaza.”
Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, said that the report is further evidence that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories violates human rights “not only against Palestinian people but against innocent people who came to show their sympathy”.
He said the report should be used as the basis for international prosecutions of Israeli commanders responsible for the attack.
Edward Said, acclaimed for his literary and cultural criticism, is a sought-after commentator on Middle Eastern politics and America’s foremost spokesman for the Palestinian cause. His influential book, “Orientalism,” (1978), is an examination of Western perceptions of the Islamic world. His criticism extends to the United States, which he calls a dishonest broker in the peace process due to its long-standing support for Israel. – ResearchChannel is a nonprofit media and technology organization that connects a global audience with the research and academic institutions whose developments, insights and discoveries affect our lives and futures.
Watch the full one hour and 39 minute lecture HERE
A vague security offence of “contact with a foreign agent” is being used by Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, to lock up Arab political activists in Israel without evidence that a crime has been committed, human rights lawyers alleged this week.
The lawyers said the Shin Bet was exploiting the law to characterise innocent or accidental meetings between members of Israel’s large Arab minority and Arab foreign nationals as criminal activity.
The chances of such contacts have increased rapidly with advances in new technology and opportunities for Israel’s Arab citizens to travel to the wider Arab world, said Hussein Abu Hussein, a lawyer who represents security detainees.
The lawyers’ criticisms come at a particularly sensitive moment, as Israel has been widely accused of hounding two prominent political activists. Both were arrested on the grounds that they spied for the Lebanese militant group Hizbollah.
One, Omar Said, was released last week after a plea bargain in which the Shin Bet reduced a serious security charge of “aggravated espionage” to “contact with a foreign agent”.
The evidence it revealed suggested that Said had attended the meeting in Egypt unaware that his contact was a possible Hizbollah agent and that he had turned down an alleged offer to spy for the organisation.
Amnesty International has termed the continuing prosecution of the other defendant, Ameer Makhoul, as “pure harassment”.
As he was freed, Said, from Kfar Kana, near Nazareth, accused Israel of persecuting activists whose politics it does not like.
Abir Baker, a lawyer with the Adalah legal centre, said cases such as Said’s were intended to have a “chilling effect” on Israel’s Arab community, which comprises one-fifth of the population.
She said his arrest should be seen in the context of efforts by Israel to limit the right of Arab citizens to strengthen cultural and political ties to the rest of the Arab world.
Several of Israel’s Arab political parties, including the one Said belongs to, have been trying to inform the Arab world about the minority’s campaign for democratic reforms to end Israel’s status as a Jewish state.
A 2008 law removed the diplomatic immunity from Arab members of the Israeli parliament to visit Arab countries defined as enemy states.
One MP, Said Nafaa, who is to be tried over a visit to Syria with a party of Druze clerics in 2007, faces charges of contact with a foreign agent for meetings he held with Syrian politicians.
“There are laws to stop us from visiting countries classified as enemy states such as Syria and Lebanon, but Israel uses this particular offence to make us afraid to talk to any Arab national, whether at international conferences or online,” said Baker. “Israel wants to make us invisible.”
Khaled Ghanayim, a law professor at Haifa University, said misuse of the offence of contact with a foreign agent had grown with the right wing’s ascendance in Israel.
“Paradoxically, the Soviet Union advanced a similar policy for decades to prevent Jews in the Eastern bloc from meeting Israeli Jews. Israel and the West denounced that policy as a violation of their human rights, but today Israel is doing the same to its Arab citizens.”
Abu Hussein said the offence was particularly hard to challenge because, uniquely in Israeli criminal law, the onus to prove that the meeting did not harm state security rested with the defendant, not the prosecution.
The Shin Bet was unavailable for comment. But the agency is believed to be concerned that Hizbollah, which fired thousands of rockets into Israel during a month of hostilities in 2006, is trying to recruit spies among Israel’s Arab community.
According to the Shin Bet’s website, Hizbollah is particularly keen to identify the sites of Israeli security facilities in the north that might be targeted in a future confrontation and gauge the Jewish public’s mood.
Gideon Ezra, a former deputy head of the Shin Bet and now a member of parliament, said: “The state of Israel does not seek to put people in jail, but to carry out proper investigations. There is always a gap between what is known at first and the final outcome.”
Baker, who is studying the use of the “contact” offence, said there was a clear pattern in which the Shin Bet started its investigation with a serious security violation, such as transferring information to the enemy, which carries a life sentence, in addition to the allegation of contact.
“That way an impression is created with the public and the media that the suspect was harming state security.”
As the investigation proceeded, she said, the Shin Bet typically dropped the serious charge and sought a plea bargain on contact with a foreign agent. The charge carries a sentence of up to seven years in jail.
Defendants, faced with secret evidence and limited rights as security prisoners, were under pressure to agree, Abu Hussein said.
Baker said it was difficult to be sure exactly how often the law was being used but pointed to several notable recent cases.
In 2005, Sheikh Raed Salah, the head of the main wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel, and Suleiman Aghbaria, mayor of the city of Umm al Fahm, served jail terms of 30 months and 46 months, respectively, after agreeing a plea bargain.
The Shin Bet’s case that the pair belonged to a terrorist organisation, Hamas, and supplied it with weapons, collapsed during the trial.
In the most recent case, both Said and Makhoul claimed they were tortured while they were held without access to a lawyer.
Ghanayim said it was notable that both men were publicly involved in activities to challenge Israeli policies. Makhoul is known to have angered the Shin Bet by leading demonstrations against Israel’s attack on Gaza in winter 2008 and by heading calls for a boycott of Israel.
In the past the Shin Bet has warned that it would use all the powers at its disposal to “thwart” political activities it regarded as a threat to the state’s legitimacy.
Baker said use of the law against contact with a foreign agent had begun shortly after the start of the second intifada in 2000 to prevent Arab citizens meeting Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Last year, in a case that attracted wide attention in Israel, Rawi Sultani, a 24-year-old activist from Tira in central Israel, was sentenced to five and a half years after attending an international Arab summer camp in Morocco at which he was approached by a Hizbollah agent.
Mr Sultani was originally accused of conspiring to assassinate Gabi Ashkenazi, Israel’s chief of staff. The charge was dropped but he was convicted of giving information to the enemy by revealing that he had visited a gym used by Ashkenazi.
World-renowned architect Frank Gehry and the legendary pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim joined Tuesday the international campaign in support of the Israeli actors’ refusal to perform in the new cultural center of Ariel, according to the website of Jewish Voices for Peace.
The boycott statement has been signed by over 200 artists, including Jennifer Tilly, James Schamus, Tony Kushner, Harold Prince and others.
Gehry, the architect of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, recently pulled out of desiging the Museum of Tolerance planned to be built in Jerusalem on the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery.
Cecilie Surasky, Jewish Voice for Peace Deputy Director, commended Gehry for his support.
“It is particularly critical for architects to speak out against the ongoing construction of Jewish-only communities on Palestinian land,” she said, adding that “architects and planners are the key implementers of the Israeli policy of taking and brutally occupying Palestinian land in violation of international law. For Mr. Gehry to take such a moral stand once and for all ends the mythical firewall between architecture, policy, and human rights.”
“We hope Israeli architects will be inspired to launch their own campaign to refuse to work in the settlements,” Surasky added.
The Jewish Voice for Peace website published a statement saying that “as American actors, directors, critics and playwrights, we salute our Israeli counterparts for their courageous decision.”
“They’ve made a wonderful decision,” the statement added, “and they deserve the respect of people everywhere who dream of justice. We stand with them”.
The “artists’ boycott” stirred growing controversy in Israel, with calls to stop the funding to the artists who refuse to perform in Ariel – a city of slightly above 18,000 people, most of whom are not religious.
Shir Hever is an economist at the Alternative Information Center and author of The Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation. In this essay he examines the political, economic and strategic forces driving the continuation of Israel’s occupation.
1. The Cost of the Occupation to Israeli Society
The majority of Israel’s anti-occupation movement, unfortunately, does not focus on the rights of Palestinians to live free, but on the damage that the occupation causes to Israeli society (Sternhell, 2009).
The arguments that the occupation is a major investment of resources that could be useful in alleviating Israel’s many social problems, and that the settlements, or colonies, enjoy exorbitant government subsidies (Swirski, 2008) are well known in Israeli society, and seldom challenged on a factual basis.
Within Israel, the arguments used to support the occupation on the basis of its purported economic benefits to Israel have gone silent. Even Marxist economists who effectively demonstrated the profits derived by Israel from the occupation in its first two decades largely abandoned the notion that Israel occupies the Palestinian territories for economic profit after the First Intifada of 1987, since when Palestinian resistance to the occupation has exacted a heavy economic toll on Israel – although clearly Palestinians paid a much heavier price for daring to challenge Israel’s occupation (Swirski, 2005).
The costs of the occupation to Israeli society can be divided into three. First, the massive subsidies to the illegal colonists in the West Bank are estimated at about US$ 3 billion annually, and growing by 5%-8% annually. Second, the cost of security for the colonies, and the military expenditure to keep the Palestinians under control (both in the West Bank and Gaza) is about double that – at US$ 6 billion annually, and growing at about the same rate as the civilian costs (Hever, 2005). Third, the social costs of the occupation are too numerous and complex to list here, including the collapse of public services, social solidarity and democratic institutions within Israel, and the widening of social gaps to monstrous levels.
Ever since the Israeli economy began to absorb cheap Palestinian labour in 1967, more and more companies adopted a business model dependent upon cheap labour, and so worker’s rights have been eroding, contributing to a spike in inequality (Swirski, 2005). Meanwhile, the dual legal system for Israeli citizens and for Palestinians has strained Israel’s democratic institutions beyond what they could bear (Kretzmer, 2002).
It would therefore seem that the rational course of action for the Israeli government would be to end the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Read the rest of this important article on the link above.
UN Human Rights Council accuses Israel of a ‘disproportionate’ response to Gaza blockade-breakers, nine of whom died
A UN-appointed panel said today that Israeli forces violated international law, “including international humanitarian and human rights law”, during and after their lethal attack on a flotilla of ships attempting to break the blockade of Gaza in May.
The UN Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission judged Israel’s naval blockade of the Palestinian territory to be “unlawful” because there was a humanitarian crisis in Gaza at the time.
The panel’s report, published today, described Israel’s military response to the flotilla as “disproportionate” and said it “betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality”.
Eight Turkish activists and one Turkish-American were killed in the raid, which prompted international criticism of both the attack and Israel’s policy of blockading the Gaza Strip. Israel has since eased its embargo, although still refuses to allow full imports and exports and the free movement of people.
Israel says the soldiers acted in self-defence. But the mission criticised the Israeli government for failing to co-operate with its inquiry. “Regrettably to date, no information has been given to the mission by or on behalf of the government of Israel,” it said.
The panel was led by Karl Hudson-Phillips, a retired judge of the international criminal court and former attorney general of Trinidad and Tobago.
The report said: “The conduct of the Israeli military and other personnel towards the flotilla passengers was not only disproportionate to the occasion but demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence. It betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality. Such conduct cannot be justified or condoned on security or any other grounds. It constituted grave violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law.”
The panel concluded that there was “clear evidence” of wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment and wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health – all crimes under the Geneva Convention.
The panel expressed the hope that there would be “swift action” by the Israeli government to help victims achieve effective remedies. “The mission sincerely hopes that no impediment will be put in the way of those who suffered loss as a result of the unlawful actions of the Israeli military to be compensated adequately and promptly,” it said. It described the blockade of Gaza as “totally intolerable and unacceptable in the 21st century”.
The Israeli government has fiercely resisted demands for an independent international inquiry into the flotilla attacks, establishing three internal investigations to avert pressure from the UN, Europe and Turkey.
There is nothing better for the Israeli leadership than a juicy enemy. They have refused for over 4 decades to negotiate with Syria over the return of the Golan Heights, occupied by force in 1967. Now, they panic over the new arms deal, or at least, they wish the poor citizens to live in panic… Israel, armed to the teeth, and periodically destroying other countries’ and killing their citizens, is now crying wolf…
Netanyahu addresses Russian-Syrian arms deal, says Israel must ‘prepare for new rocket threat.’ We are working to provide a technological response, he tells Likud ministers. Earlier, Israeli official threatens to sell arms to Moscow’s enemies
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said the sale of Russian cruise missiles to Damascus was “a problematic and troubling matter” and that Israel “must prepare for a new rocket and missile threat.”
Speaking at a Likud ministers meeting, Netanyahu said, “The matter is being discussed by us. Unfortunately, the deal is progressing in stages. It’s a problematic and troubling matter.
Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reports Syrian officials commend US move towards peace with Israel, but warn that total withdrawal from territory captured in 1967 is precondition. ‘Peace is strategic choice, but necessitates partner,’ they say
Full story
“We must prepare for a new threat of rockets and missiles and we are working to provide a technological response to this issue through new military supplies,” the prime minister told his party members.
Earlier Sunday, the Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported that Israeli officials were threatening to sell weapons to “areas of strategic importance” to Russia after Moscow announced over the weekend that it would go through with the sale of P-800 missiles to Damascus.
Russia’s announcement came after both Israel and the US implored that it abandon the sale. The cruise missiles discussed, dubbed Yakhont, have a range of 300 km, which puts Israeli ships off of Lebanon’s coast at risk of being hit by missiles fired from Syria’s southern port.
The original deal was signed between Russia and Syria in 2007, but last month Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Russian President Vladimir Putin and requested that he call it off, for fear the missiles will be handed to Hezbollah.
More recently, Defense Minister Ehud Barak visited Moscow on a similar mission. Barak spoke with both Putin and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. During the visit, the statesmen signed agreements of confidentiality aimed at paving the way for the sale of Israeli drones to Russia.
Despite the extensive efforts, the deal was announced Friday to be proceeding as planned. “They’ve gone one step too far,” one Jerusalem official said. “This is not in keeping with our cooperation with them.”
The official said Israel had so far refrained from selling “strategic, tie-breaking weapons” to third-world countries, and that it expected Russia to do the same.
“The supply of advanced weapons to Syria, one of Hezbollah’s two main supporters, especially on the eve of the fateful peace talks with the Palestinians, is not a move encouraging the moderate forces of the Middle East – but rather a prize for extremist states,” the source said.
Dutch Foreign Ministry cancels tour because participant list includes settlement representatives.
The Netherlands on Sunday cancelled a tour of the country by a forum of Israeli mayors because their group included representatives of West Bank settlements.
The professional delegation, funded by the Joint Distribution Committee, a Jewish-American charity, was supposed to fly to the Netherlands next month to study public policy and local governance.
But when the Dutch Foreign Ministry found out that regional council heads from the Judea and Samaria regions – including from the West bank settlements Efrat and Kiryat Arba – were due to participate, they decided to cancel the tour.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry responded in a statement: “This is undoubtedly useless and harmless politics, and we hope that this is not the final word on the topic.”
Aryeh Eldad, a Knesset member from the hard-right National Union party, condemned the decision, saying:
“The Dutch surrender to the Arabs reflects their surrender to the Muslim minority that is growing steadily in Holland, which in itself is an echo to Netanyahu’s surrender to Obama regarding the building freeze.”
Eldad added: “If Netanyahu has in effect defined the borders of the state and placed a extended chokehold on hundreds of thousands of Jews – no one can come to the Netherlands with complaints over its surrender to its large minority – as long as Israel continues to surrender and act as if it is still in the Diaspora.”
Local Council Chairman Shlomo Buchbut spoke with the Dutch ambassador and wrote to the Dutch foreign minister, saying that he regarded the decision “with great severity”.
“The Local Councils are led by mayors from all over the political spectrum for Israel’s citizens. These kinds of actions only hurt the cause of advancing peace. We need to support Israel’s citizens just as they are, and not to ignite political debates,” Buchbut said.
“In the past, we have conducted similar trips to Denmark, France and China. We cooperate with the European Union, Arabs, Jews and Europeans to talk about common professional interests and we advance local councils in general,” Buchbut added.
He concluded: “The decision by the Netherlands puts the [Israeli-Arab] conflict before anything else. I hope that the Dutch will change their minds.”
EDITOR: Antisemites for Zionism…
The most extreme of the evangelicals in the USA, a threat to us all, are also vehemently Zionist… they obviously think this is alsoa way of ridding the US of its Jews.
Some 600 million evangelical Christians help Jews make aliyah, defend Israel’s reputation in the world and set up monuments for Jews. Recent tour of Jewish state helps them campaign for Israel in their own countries
Akiva Novick
They’re Israel’s best unofficial spokespeople around the world, creating monuments for Jews, aiding in bringing Jews to Israel and campaigning to defend Israel’s international reputation after such events as the deadly raid on Gaza-bound flotilla. They are some 600 million evangelical Christians who believe salvation will come only after the Jewish people return to their homeland – Greater Israel.
Recently, some 1,500 tourists visited Israel as part of an annual seminar organized by the Word of Life protestant organization. At first glance their schedule resembles any other tourist timetable: A tour of Jerusalem, a dip in the Sea of Galilee, Shabbat at the Western Wall.
Knesset lobby recruits Christian ‘ambassadors’ to counter pro-Palestinian campaigns against Israel on overseas campuses. ‘When you send a Jewish student, they immediately say he’s not objective,’ explains MK Yoel Hasson
Full story
But the visit is in fact a week-long seminar training the group’s members towards their PR task that awaits them in their 35 countries of origin.
We meet the group at the lobby of a hotel in Jerusalem. “Since its establishment in 1987 the organization’s aim has been to stand by Israel’s side,” Dr. Ulf Ekman, a Swedish Protestant pastor who heads Word of Life says.
“As a Christian, identifying with Israel is a basic tenet. It is part of our culture and commitment. When one reads the Bible it’s simply impossible to be against the Jews. All these reasons make me a Zionist,” he proclaims.
Ekman established the organization after a visit to Israel. It now consists of thousands of members, 12,000 of whom are active in the PR front.
“They come to see the places they defend with their own eyes,” Roar Sörensen, who organized the tour, says in fluent Hebrew. “They study the Bible, hear lectures about the political situation and Israel’s interior affairs. They also do Kabalat Shabbat in the Kotel,” he adds.
The future ambassadors also visit the Dead Sea, Masada and Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.
Sörensen says that he’s addicted to Israeli media and shows us an iPhone application which allows him to tune into Israeli radio stations anywhere in the world. He has also recently completed an official Israeli PR course given by the Foreign Ministry.
“We encourage our members to go out there, send letters to newspapers and generally engage in a Zionist discourse,” Dr. Ekman says.
Encouraging aliyah
The group also helps Jews make aliyah. Since 1992, some 18,000 Jews immigrated to Israel with the help of Word of Life, which for a number of years also operated a ship transporting thousands of Jews and their possessions to Israel.
“In the recent war in Georgia there were 30 Jews who got stranded in the war-torn district of Abkhazia,” Ekman relates. “They contacted us and begged us to help them. We held negotiations with both the Russian and Georgian governments until the Russians yielded and gave us six hours to evacuate them.”
According to the evangelical denomination, Jesus will be revealed to his followers and carry them to heaven after the biblical war of Gog and Magog. Jews, however are not part of the plan. Apart from a small group which will recognize Jesus’ divinity, all humans will be annihilated. The vision can only occur after Jews return to Greater Israel, which explains why they’re so set on helping us.
“Granted, we are mostly evangelicals, but we don’t deal with what the future will bring but with how to help Israel now,” Dr. Ekman explains.
“What I know now is that every Jew has the right to be here and no one has the right to tell you ‘you don’t belong here.’ All Christians are indebted and grateful to Israel in their hearts. Bible-loving Christians are your best friends in the world,” he proclaims.
With the Palestinians refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, negotiations must tackle issue of Israeli-Arab ‘loyalty’, foreign minister says – prompting accusations of ‘apartheid and ethnic cleansing’ from Arab MK.
Israeli Arab politicians responded furiously Sunday to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s suggestion suggesting that “disloyal” members of that sector should take Palestinian citizenship.
The question of Israel’s citizens needs to be one of the central issues on the negotiating table, in light of the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” Lieberman said ahead of Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
Recognizing Israel as uniquely Jewish is one of the key demands by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the latest peace talks with the Palestinians, which began earlier this month.
“We can’t continue to ignore issues like that of Hanin Zuabi, who identifies completely with the other side,” Lieberman said, , referring to an Israeli Arab member of Knesset was stripped of her parliamentary privileges after sailing aboard a pro-Palestinian aid convoy attacked by Israel en route to the Gaza Strip.
“It’s as if someone sells you a flat and then demands that his mother-in-law continues living there,” he said. “Any Israeli you takes pride in his citizenship should be able to serve in any post, but people like Hanin Zuabi should in my opinion be Palestinian citizens elected under Hamas in Gaza.”
In response to Lieberman’s remarks, Zuabi declared: “We [Israeli Arabs] represent the only possible democratic option, while Lieberman represents apartheid and ethnic cleansing.”
“Lieberman bases his claims on a doctrine of racism, while I base mine on the principle of full equality among citizens – but both of us agree that there needs to be a discussion on the question of Palestinians in Israel and how to classify the state in any negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians,” she added.
MK Ahmed Tibi pointedly referred to Lieberman’s status as an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, saying: “We aren’t calling for the expulsion of citizens from within the State of Israel, but if we were, then whoever got here in the last century should leave first.”
“It is very serious that the deputy prime minister is a settler who is constantly concerned with programs pertaining to the expulsion of citizens or the collective expropriation of citizenship,” he said.
“We were here before the fascist immigrant Lieberman and we will stay here even after him,” Tibi declared.
Israeli Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh said his sector just wanted to “live with hםnor and in equality in our own homes.”
Lieberman, whose ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party campaigned under the slogan “no loyalty, no citizenship”, has made national allegiance a central component of his political agenda, demanding all Israelis, swear an oath of loyalty to the state.
The foreign minister’s remarks came just days after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak dismissed as “unnecessary” Israel’s demand to be recognized by the Palestinians as a Jewish.
“I say to Israeli citizens, including Jews, Muslims and others, that there is no such thing as a state in which all the citizens are Jews,” Mubarak said. “In Egypt, we have Muslims, Christians and Jews and there is no problem. When they wanted to establish a Muslim state in Kosovo, the world came out against it because it did not want a Muslim state in central Europe.”
Israeli Arabs make up around a fifth of the country’s population.
The former U.S. president also criticizes Bill Clinton, writing that Israeli settlement building in the West Bank was especially rapid under his administration.
In his new book, former United States president Jimmy Carter criticizes President Barack Obama over his policy on Israel’s settlement freeze, writing that the President has backed away from his initial commitment to a complete halt to building in West Bank settlements.
The Associated Press purchased a copy of Carter’s book, White House Diary, on Friday, ahead of its release Monday.
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter holds his book up at a book signing on Dec. 12, 2006. Photo by: AP
Carter also criticizes fellow Democrat and former president Bill Clinton over his policy on Israel settlement expansion, writing that settlement building was especially rapid during Clinton’s administration.
This past week, the newspaper Asharq Al Awsat reported that the Obama administration has suggested Israel extend the current moratorium on construction in West Bank settlements, which is set to expire on September 26, for an additional three months.
The expiration date for the settlement freeze has loomed over the recently re-launched direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinians have threatened to walk away from the talks if the freeze is not extended.
On Thursday, the European Union called on Israel to extend the settlement freeze in light of the peace talks which began this month.
“The European Union deems it indispensable that both parties observe calm and restraint and refrain from actions that could affect negatively the progress of the negotiation,” the group stated following a meeting in Brussels. “In this regard, it recalls that settlements are illegal under international law and, with a view to ensure that these talks continue in a constructive manner, calls for an extension of the moratorium decided by Israel.”
The former president’s views on Israel have caused controversy in the past, such as when he likened Israeli policy in the West Bank to apartheid South Africa in his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid”.
The goal of the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks should be a comprehensive agreement, not an interim deal.
By Zvi Bar’el
A comprehensive and permanent solution is not possible under the current conditions, Yossi Beilin has said. His argument: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not want peace and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is unable to meet the Israeli conditions for peace. The solution, which has already become a political slogan: a long-term interim agreement.
There is a great deal of appeal to such a proposal, which dresses up as an appropriate and possible solution. What exactly is that interim agreement? To please Israel it will have to include an article allowing it to continue pouring cement and people into the West Bank and Jerusalem, refuse the return of all the Palestinian refugees and prevent the division of Jerusalem. And perhaps, if the two sides agree, it will include an empty statement about the establishment of a Palestinian state in the future. An interim agreement that does not include these elements will not reach the Knesset.
And the Palestinians? What will they gain from an interim agreement? A package of benefits that will include the lifting of checkpoints, freedom to trade and a release of prisoners – always an excellent product that is plentiful in Israeli prisons. They will also get complete control in Area B and the cities in Area C (civilian control to be more precise, since the Israel Defense Forces will retain the right for “hot pursuits” ). And of course, they will get a declaration of support for the Palestinians’ right to an independent state, but in two or three generations.
Anyone who claims that the Oslo Accords were a failure because they did not meet the Palestinians’ demands and threatened the settlements cannot honestly support an interim agreement that will be less than Oslo, or an interim agreement in general. Is it not those same opponents of the Oslo Accords who attribute the outbreak of the intifada to them? And what will be novel in the interim agreement? Another guaranteed intifada?
The supporters of an interim agreement are right in their claim that we have a real difficulty in reaching a comprehensive and final agreement at the moment. But that’s the same difficulty that has accompanied Israel and the Palestinians at least since 1992 and has made every interim agreement very dangerous. Because if an interim agreement fails – and this is certain because it would be empty of substance – a final agreement is pushed even further into the future. Such an agreement’s supporters are essentially saying that there will be an eternal interim agreement.
Of course, it may also be said that we are undergoing a permanent conflict that cannot be resolved, which like an active volcano is expected to erupt at any moment or remain dormant for 40 or 400 years. A natural disaster of sorts. At the same time it’s possible to end the direct talks and tell Abbas: Sorry, we were wrong, we thought we could reach an agreement but there’s no way around it and you’ll have to live under occupation until the end of time. Of course, we will not harm the discos in Ramallah, and we will come to the inaugurations of new factories, but you will not get a country of your own.
On the other hand, it’s possible to examine once more whether a comprehensive agreement is really such an impossibility. If there is an agreement on the principle of swapping territory, and if in principle it is agreed that the large settlement blocs will remain in Israel, why not move ahead and draw Israel’s new borders as Washington is proposing and only then deal with the issue of settlement construction? It’s true that drawing borders will not be able to ignore the question of dividing Jerusalem and will leave Ariel outside Israel, but this is precisely the purpose of the negotiations: to find points of agreement because these will not be easier to achieve in an interim agreement.
The most encouraging element in this round is the coalition of leaders involved. It’s doubtful whether the leader who succeeds Abbas will be able to reach any sort of agreement or enjoy wide support from the Arab world. Abbas is not young and he might retire at any time. Netanyahu may not be what those seeking peace had hoped for, but he still fears the United States and he is not among the blind on the right.
Most important is the U.S. president, who decided to take the matter head on and on the way slap whoever needs it. This may be a coalition that does not know how to reach an agreement, but it will know how to sell such an agreement if one is achieved. This ability should be utilized for the sake of a comprehensive agreement and should not be wasted on an interim deal.
EDITOR: Blood on whose hands – Just remember who is boss here…
In a rude reminder of who holds the power and control in the PNA, as well as the PA held areas, the IOF has again carried out another of its killing-squad operations, in the best tradition of the Mafia. Let us not forget who the terrorists are in Palestine!
Family members say that Shilbaya was shot in his sleep
Israeli forces have shot dead a local Hamas military commander in the north of the occupied West Bank.
Iyad Shilbaya, a commander of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, was killed during a raid to arrest him, the Israeli military said.
Hamas’s military wing said it was responsible for the killing at the end of August of four Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
It is not clear whether Shilbaya was a suspect in these killings.
Since the killing of the four Jewish settlers, Palestinian and Israeli security forces have arrested scores of Hamas supporters across the West Bank.
Twelve other Palestinians were arrested in the overnight operation.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad criticised the killing of Shilbaya as a “dangerous escalation”.
Recent weeks have seen an increase in rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and a series of Israeli air raids on the territory.
Hamas is opposed to the US-sponsored talks, launched in Washington on 2 September, between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas.
Differing accounts of the shooting at the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm are emerging.
According to Palestinian reports, the brother of the Hamas militant was forced to lead the Israeli soldiers to the house Shilbaya was staying in. The brother is reported to have said that the militant was shot three times while asleep and his body taken away by the soldiers.
An Israeli military spokesperson said Shilbaya was shot “during a routine arrest raid”. Soldiers opened fire after Shilbaya came towards them despite being told to halt, the military official said.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements. There are about 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.
EDITOR: Even the right can see this is disastrous…
Yoel Marcus is by no measure one can imagine on Israel’s political left – on the contrary, he has been on the liberal right for some decades; but even he can see that Israel is heading for another bloody war. Where I may differ from him, amongst other things, is his belief that there is a political solution now possible for Netanyahu to sign to. There is no such solution Netanyahu will sign to, no more than Olmert, Sharon and Barak before him would. No Israeli PM has been ready to deal with leaving the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories) and to agree a just peace with the PLO. Netanyahu is the least likely to do so.
Obama will be the one to decide if an extension of the building freeze is essential to direct talks under American sponsorship.
By Yoel Marcus
It’s been a long time since negotiations elicited as many smiles and as positive an atmosphere as the Washington-Sharm-Jerusalem round of talks. The leaders, including two presidents and one king, enter closed sessions and emerge smiling, as though the meetings have turned into joke-telling competitions. Those setting the tone are U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington and his envoy here, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Her figure somewhat fuller now than when she sweat out the contest against Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, she has hardly been photographed without a Sara Netanyahu-type grin from ear to ear.
Quite unusually, at least up until this point, there haven’t been any leaks from the long talks either – only assessments given by veteran political commentators. The optimism is dictated from above, i.e. by Obama, who has decided to take our subject in hand, demonstrating a blatant change in his almost hostile attitude toward Israel.
In light of his eroding status around the world, the impression is that it is very important to the American president, both personally and strategically, to succeed here. And when the secretary of state emerges from a meeting with President Shimon Peres and declares that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are serious in their intentions to renew the peace process, for the time being this represents more a wish of Obama’s than a realistic impression of the round of talks thus far.
Netanyahu demonstrated leadership when he agreed to freeze construction in the territories for 10 months. Nobody believed he would dare to stick to that decision until the end. The fact is, he not only passed the decision in the cabinet, but not one of his ministers – including those from Yisrael Beiteinu – resigned.
Still, we must recall that the prime minister not only made a commitment to the Palestinians and the Americans; he also made a promise to the Israeli public that he meant 10 months, “and not one day more.” While he can be praised for doing something nobody did before him, there will almost certainly be those in his camp who won’t forgive him if he breaks his promise to the Israelis.
In addition, the Palestinians refused to enter direct talks and wasted nine months. Had they conducted negotiations during the freeze, we might now be standing in another place entirely. The talks in Washington also made clear the profundity of the gaps between the two sides. Now that the sides have begun to speak directly under Obama’s sponsorship, the entire issue of the freeze as a condition to talks is passe. It’s possible to talk face to face and not to build at one and the same time in territories that we will evacuate in any case.
Now, when rockets are being launched from Gaza on an almost daily basis and the commander of the Hamas military wing, Ahmed Jabri, is threatening us with war, the question confronting us is whether the time has not come to do everything in our power to reach an agreement with the Palestinian Authority, instead of heading downhill toward a “war for the peace of the settlements Yitzhar and Tapuah.” An extension of the building freeze is not essential to renew the direct talks under American sponsorship, based on an understanding with Obama that it will be “light” construction if any, to avoid creating chaos in the territories before we reach an overall agreement with the Palestinians. In the agreement with Egypt, we also signed first and later removed the Rafah Salient settlements.
The U.S. administration is maintaining a fog of war, but it is clear that Obama will be the one to decide whether white smoke will emerge from the White House chimney. The fact that Israel is starting to distribute gas masks at an accelerated pace implies that both we and the U.S. administration are worriedly keeping track of those same threats with which we will have to deal sooner or later.
Whether the Palestinians want to and can achieve a peace agreement is still up in the air. The same doubts exist regarding Netanyahu as well – does he have the stuff to make major decisions? Most of Likud is standing behind him, despite Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom’s threats. And if Netanyahu managed to pass the freeze, he can pass anything in his cabinet – certainly with massive support from most of the public, which aspires to peace.
On Yom Kippur 37 years ago, we buried 2,700 fallen soldiers too many, in order to reach the conclusion foreign minister Moshe Dayan reached when he signed the peace treaty with Egypt: only a donkey never changes his mind.
EDITOR: The mystery solved at last
For those of us who were wondering and worrying about the disappearance of Al Ahram Weekly from the web-waves, the mystery is at last solved; Read below about their crime and punishment…
Some years ago, a certain American female journalist of the Herald Tribune has made the mistake of telling her readers that the Egyptian Leader, Mr. Hosni Mubarak, is known popularly as La Vache qui rit (Laughing Cow, a French brand of melted cheese, known for the smiling portrait ofa laughing cow, which, incredibly, shares the features of Mubarak’s broad face…). In less than 24 hours, she was escorted to the airport and flown off, never to be allowed in again. He laughs who laughs last…
Altered image in state-run paper shows Egyptian president in lead role at Middle East peace talks
Al-Ahram's doctored image of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and other leaders at the Middle East peace talks in Washington. Photograph: Al-Ahram
Egypt’s oldest newspaper today defended its decision to publish a doctored photograph that appeared to put president Hosni Mubarak at the forefront of key figures at the Middle East peace talks in Washington.
The original photo showed US president Barack Obama walking in the lead on a red carpet, with Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdullah II slightly behind.
But the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper altered the image in its Tuesday edition to show Mubarak in the lead, with Obama slightly behind him to his right, then placed it over a broadsheet article titled “the Road to Sharm El Sheikh”, referring to the Egyptian Red Sea resort that hosted the second round of negotiations.
Egyptian bloggers and activists said the picture was an example of the regime’s deception of its own people. Critics also said the photo was an attempt to distract attention from Egypt’s waning role in the Middle East peace process.
The original photograph of the five leaders. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images
But the newspaper’s editor-in chief, Osama Saraya defended the decision in an editorial today, saying the original photo had been published on the day talks began and the new version was only meant to illustrate Egypt’s leading role in the peace process.
“The expressionist photo is … a brief, live and true expression of the prominent stance of President Mubarak in the Palestinian issue, his unique role in leading it before Washington or any other,” Saraya wrote. The photo is still posted on the newspaper’s website.
Opponents of Mubarak’s near three-decade rule seized on the controversy to criticize the government, which is accused of widespread abuses aimed at suppressing dissent. Wael Khalil, the Egyptian blogger who first called attention to the altered photo, said it was a “snapshot” of what he called daily deception about a number of issues, including democratic change and social justice.
“They lie to us all the time,” he said. “Instead of addressing the real issues, they just Photoshop it.”
Saraya accused critics of launching a smear campaign against Al-Ahram, which was first published in 1876. The newspaper has enjoyed the widest circulation in Egypt but has faced a growing challenge in recent years from a new breed of private publications and the internet.
It is not unusual for Egyptian newspapers to retouch pictures of senior officials to improve their appearance or light.
EDITOR: Creative fiction…
Of course, Israel will refuse to speak to anyone, let alone the EU, about settlements. After all, God in person seems to have sanctioned their torture of Palestine. But what is really novel is the excuse – read below and enjoy:
Jerusalem says EU demand for discussions on eve of Yom Kippur is highly insensitive
Monday, 13 September 2010 Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure to extend a freeze on building Jewish settlements ahead of peace talks with Hillary Clinton and Mahmoud Abbas
Israel has said it will not meet a delegation of European foreign ministers, including William Hague, this week as diplomatic pressure mounts on its government to extend a 10-month settlement freeze that ends next week.
The Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday told Tony Blair, the Middle East envoy, that current restrictions on building West Bank Jewish settlements will not remain, but there would be some limits on construction. “We will not freeze the lives of the residents,” he said.
Israel has bridled at what it calls an “insensitive” European demand to hold meetings on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. The ministers from Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Germany had apparently proposed to hold meetings on Friday morning, hours before the start of the Yom Kippur fast.
“They showed very high insensitivity to this special date. It’s just not done,” said Yigal Palmor, a foreign ministry spokesman. “Everyone is away, no meetings are planned, all agendas are empty. We suggested alternative dates, which were refused.”
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the meetings had been cancelled because the European ministers intended to pressure Israel over the settlements. A British embassy spokeswoman said Mr Hague’s trip was postponed because of scheduling difficulties.
The spat comes amid Israel’s growing irritation that EU countries, excluded from the US-sponsored bilateral peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, are bidding for an eleventh-hour seat at the negotiating table.
Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, Mr Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority President, are to meet for a second round of discussions in Egypt on Tuesday, two weeks after talks were launched amid much fanfare in Washington.
President Barack Obama has made achieving peace in the Middle East a key tenet of his foreign policy, and ahead of mid-term elections has staked his political reputation on bringing the reluctant partners to direct talks.
“They [the Europeans] can’t just barge into the negotiating room when they were not involved in the process that led to these talks,” said an Israeli government official. “Where were they when the process was being laboriously pushed forward?”
Europe’s sense of exclusion was underscored when the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, criticised Baroness Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, after she opted to fly to China rather than join the opening of direct peace talks at the White House two weeks ago.
Baroness Ashton responded on Friday saying she had no wish to be a second-tier participant in Washington when she could bring more influence to bear in discussions in China.
Her view was supported yesterday by at least one European diplomat in Jerusalem, who said that it was not clear what role the Europeans could play at this stage. “It’s not obvious that the EU being in the room for the direct bilateral talks makes much sense when the US has to hold the ring,” the diplomat said.
A beleaguered Mr Netanyahu is likely to come under pressure on the issue of settlements during the second round of talks, an obstacle that has loomed large over the process.
Mr Obama upped the stakes on Friday when he urged Israel to extend the settlement freeze, which expires at the end of September.
“What I’ve said to PM Netanyahu is that given, so far, the talks are moving forward in a constructive way, it makes sense to extend that moratorium,” he said in remarks that he has previously resisted making publicly.
Pushed to respond, Mr Netanyahu appeared to hang back from an extension in an apparent sop to his pro-settler coalition partners, who have threatened to leave the coalition if he calls for a new freeze. But he also said that not all of the “tens of thousands of housing units” in the pipeline would go ahead, remarks aimed at the Palestinians, who have threatened to quit the talks if settlement construction is not stopped.
The Palestinians remained adamant yesterday that they would accept nothing less than a freeze.
“Our position is very clear,” said Husam Zomlo, a Palestinian spokesman. “Should the settlement construction and expansion continue, we are out.” Palestinians, who want a state based on the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, have agreed in principle to limited land swaps, but have insisted that Israel refrain from putting “facts on the ground” before an agreement is reached.
The TUC, the trades Union federation of Britain, has done what a year ago was unimaginable – it has voted today, unanimously, for a BDS campaign to free Palestine! This is the greatest victory the BDS movement had to date, with near 8 million workers represented by this federation, this is an enormously crucial move forward!
To our many friends abroad – it can be done! This is the result of hard work and many years of argument and information, to the point that this was the only move possible for the TUC; you can do this in other countries also! Help to isolate the military Zionist colonial state!
Britain’s unions have thrown their weight behind a campaign of disinvestment and boycott from companies which are profiting from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.
Trade unions voted unanimously today at the TUC’s annual conference for a motion put forward by the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), seconded by the GMB, and supported by UNSION, PCS (the Public and Commercial Services Union) and the FBU (Fire Brigades’ Union).
The motion called for the General Council to work closely with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to actively encourage affiliates, employers and pension funds to disinvest from, and boycott the goods of, companies who profit from illegal settlements, the Occupation and construction of the Apartheid Wall.
It condemned Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian territories, in particular Gaza, and the Israeli military’s deadly assault on aid ships carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza in May. It also called for an immediate end to the siege on Gaza, and a full independent inquiry into the attack on the Turkish aid ship, the Mavi Marmara, which killed nine activists.
A separate General Council statement requires the TUC, which represents 6.5 million workers across the UK, to have a concrete programme for action in place by next month
Hugh Lanning, Chair of PSC, said: ‘This motion builds on that passed at last year’s conference to campaign for a boycott of goods from the illegal West Bank settlements. It is a massive step forward in the movement for justice for the Palestinian people, and reflects growing public anger at Israel’s aggression towards the Palestinians and those, such as the humanitarians on the Gaza aid flotilla, who try to help them.’
Mr Lanning added: ‘Trade unions were pivotal in helping to end Apartheid in South Africa and bring freedom to that country’s people. Today’s vote shows that Britain’s unions are prepared to stand up again in support of an oppressed people – this time the Palestinians – and help them to win their freedom. This is an historic moment for the union movement in the UK, and one that it can be proud of.’
A TUC meeting in the northern city of Manchester agreed to contact supermarkets and other retailers urging them to stop selling goods produced in the settlements, including herbs and beauty products.
Britain’s Trade Unions Congress (TUC) called Tuesday for a boycott of goods produced in West Bank settlements.
A TUC meeting in the northern city of Manchester agreed to contact supermarkets and other retailers urging them to stop selling goods produced in the settlements, including herbs and beauty products.
Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said unions should do more to help Palestinians than simply making speeches and agreeing conference resolutions.
B’Tselem report concludes no IDF soldier has been indicted for such deaths over the last four years.
A new report by the human rights group B’tselem concludes that during the past four years not a single IDF soldier was indicted for killing Palestinian civilians in the territories.
The report claims that between 2006 and2009, 617 Palestinian civilians not involved in combat operations were killed in the territories – a count that does not include those killed during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.
The rights group filed complaints with the IDF in half of the cases, but only 23 cases were deemed justified for investigation by the Military Police. In 42 other cases the Military Advocate General decided not to indict, and in the rest of the cases are still formally under investigation. In none of the cases were charges brought against the soldiers involved.
Prior to the start of the second intifada, the Military Police would investigate every incident in which an innocent Palestinian civilian was killed. However, in 2001 a decision was made to define violent incidents in the territory as “armed conflict,” and subsequently the IDF made do with an operational investigation of the unite involved and did not take the matter further.
B’tselem petitioned the High Court of Justice recently to alter the definition of violent incidents in the territories and set rules that would force the army to investigate cases in which civilians were killed.
The IDF spokesman said in response that “most of the issues and claims raised by the report are pending the petition to the High Court which was filed by the group. The state responded to the petition in detail and it would be appropriate to await the court’s decision.”
Ibrahim Abu Saeed, 91, and his grandson Husam were buried on Monday
The Israeli army has admitted that three Palestinian men it killed in Gaza on Sunday were civilians, and not terrorists, as previously claimed.
Brig Gen Ayal Eisenberg said one of the men had picked up a grenade launcher abandoned in a field, and Israeli troops mistakenly opened fire, thinking they were about to come under attack.
Among those killed were a 91-year-old farm worker and his grandson, aged 17.
Rocket fire from Gaza has increased in the past week. No casualties resulted.
Hours after the general’s statement, at least two Palestinians were wounded in Israeli shelling east of Gaza City, a medic and another witness said.
The two were wounded when Israel fired four tank shells near the village of Juhr al-Dik, close to the heavily-guarded border, the witness said.
The Israeli army said it had returned fire after militants approached the border and fired a rocket propelled grenade at a patrol.
Our soldiers identified a civilian who was picking up a [rocket] and, thinking he was going to fire at them, opened fire”
Brig Gen Ayal Eisenberg
Israeli army’s Gaza division head
Two of those killed were named as Ibrahim Abu Saeed and his grandson Husam. The third victim, a 20-year-old man, has not been named.
At the time, Israeli army radio described the men as “terrorists”, but Gen Ayal Eisenberg now says the soldiers made a mistake.
“The civilians killed by our soldiers’ fire… were not involved in any terrorist operation,” he told army radio.
“Our soldiers identified a civilian who was picking up an RPG [rocket propelled grenade] and, thinking he was going to fire at them, opened fire” in his direction, he added.
The incident occurred shortly after militants in Gaza fired several rockets and mortar rounds across the border into southern Israel. The attacks did not result in any injuries or damage.
‘Trigger-happy attitude’
Separately, a report published by an Israeli human rights group found that Israeli soldiers who kill Palestinians were rarely punished.
The B’Tselem report released on Tuesday said that the military investigated only 22 of 148 cases submitted by the group.
No criminal charges were brought in any of the cases, which involved the killing of 288 Palestinian civilians between 2006 and 2009, it said.
“This policy permits soldiers and officers to act in violation of the law, encourages a trigger-happy attitude and shows a flagrant disregard for human life,” the report said.
One Thai farm worker in Israel has been killed by rocket fire from Gaza in the past 18 months, while scores of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed over the same period.
New report indicates an overall of 13,000 previously authorized West Bank housing units, construction sites could be built after the Sept. 26 freeze expiration date.
2,066 new homes would be ready for continued West Bank construction as soon as a moratorium on settlement building is lifted later this month, a report by the Israeli left-wing NGO Peace Now said Sunday, adding that work on another 11,000 potential units could hypothetically start as well.
The Peace Now reports came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting earlier Sunday that while Israel wouldn’t necessarily continue its freeze on settlement construction, it was possible that a compromise could be reached in which construction would resume at a slower pace.
“I don’t know if there will be a comprehensive freeze,” he said. “But I also don’t know if it is necessary to construct all of the 20,000 housing units waiting to be built. In any case, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”
The Peace Now report released Sunday indicated that work could proceed on 2,066 housing units, spread out over 42 different settlements since those building projects had already received the required permits and have preliminary foundations.
The report’s figures corresponded with previously released data on the subject, which alleged that between 2,000 and 2,500 homes were okayed for continued construction as soon as the settlement freeze expires in September 26.
In July, a Haaretz probe indicated that at least 2,700 new housing units were scheduled to be built in the West Bank as soon as the current settlement freeze ended.
Peace Now, in the report released Sunday, said the units were dispersed over, among other locations, settlements such as Talmon, Modi’in Ilit, Kiryat Arba, Givat Ze’ev, and Kfar Tapuach.
In addition to the 2,066 units, Peace Now also claimed Sunday that there were an additional 11,000 potential houses which could be built, in places where general outlines had been approved.
Those potential units were located in Avnei Hefetz, Karnei Shomron, Ma’ale Efraim, Revava, Tekoa, Talmon, Kedumim, Immanuel, Mevo Dotan, and Beit Aryeh. However the fact that these units can be built doesn’t necessarily mean they will be built in the near future.
Referring to the upcoming expiration date of the settlement building moratorium, Shomron Regional Council head Gershon Mesika warned that “an announcement of a continuation of the building freeze will be considered an announcement of the end of term for the Netanyahu government.”
Netanyahu’s “government… was elected with the votes of the nationalist camp but is trying to implement the policies of Balad,” Mesika added.
Justices Dorit Beinisch, Miriam Naor and Uzi Fogelman this morning (Monday) scolded Adv. Yochi Genessin of the State Prosecution, when it turned out that Interior Minister Eli Yishai did not answer a letter sent to him by Muhammad Abu Tir and three other Palestinian parliamentarians, who had called upon him to revoke the decision to expel them from East Jerusalem. The letter was sent to the minister two and a half months ago.
Yishai was present at the courtroom in earlier stages, but left before the hearing of the appeal by the Palestinian parliamentarians threatened with expulsion.
In their June 27, 2010 letter to the Interior Minister the four – Muhammad Abu Tir, Muhammed Totah, Khaled Abu Arafa, and Ahmed Atoun – noted that they do not regard themselves as representatives of the Hamas movement, but as representatives of the entire Palestinian people, and in particular as representatives of their constituents; the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. They pledged to act only within Israeli law, as well as not to take up any position in the Palestinian Authority if the holding of this position is in contradiction to Israeli law.
Osama Saadi, the four’s attorney, told the judges that the text of this letter was agreed upon in meetings between high-ranking officials in the Palestinian Authority and senior Israeli governmental and security officials.
“The Palestinian Authority had taken a high profile involvement in the issue after the four parliamentarians met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and sought his help,” said Saadi. “Despite all the conflicts and sharp differences of opinion prevailing in the Palestinian system, all factions and parties regard as totally unacceptable the expulsion of Palestinians from anywhere – and all the more so, from Jerusalem in particular; this transcends any disagreements on other issues. At the time we thought that reaching this the formula with the Israeli officials had solved the problem. However, three days after the letter was sent, Jerusalem police arrested Muhammad Abu Tir and began deportation proceedings against him – and he remains in custody up to the present”.
The State Prosecution’s representative argued that the three other parliamentarians, who over the past two months are holding out at the Red Cross headquarters in East Jerusalem, are “holding Israeli Law in contempt” and “challenging the authority of the Israeli courts.” Justice Uzi Fogelman commented, “We have not issued an interim order, so the authorities can take enforcement measures – but this does not mean you must break into the Red Cross Headquarters. There are thousands of other cases of people who failed to adhere to the Interior Ministry’s expulsion orders, and against whom we allowed the authorities to take enforcement measures against them. But this does not mean that you should expect everyone to immediately leave voluntarily.”
At the end of the hearing the court instructed the four parliamentarians’ attorneys to send again send the letter to Interior Minister Yishai, specifying the circumstances which were referred to during the court proceedings. Minister Yishai was told by the judges to respond within 30 days from receipt of this letter, and to convey his response to the court, and the parliamentarians and lawyers will be able to respond within ten days. No date was set for further proceedings, and in the meantime Mohammad Abu Tir will remain in custody at the Jerusalem police.
Among the audience were former Knesset Member Uri Avnery and other Gush Shalom activists, as well as Jerusalemite peace activists who participate in the weekly demonstrations at Sheikh Jarrah. Also present at the hearing was an observer on behalf of the French Lawyers’ Association, who said that he had flown especially from Paris to monitor these proceedings, noting that the case aroused much interest among judicial circles in Europe
According to Uri Avnery, “The Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have an inalienable right to live in their city. Deportation of Palestinians – of political leaders as of ordinary people – is a heinous and stupid act, which causes all of us an immense damage.” He said that in order to achieve a stable peace, such a peace must include all parts of the Palestinian people, including the very significant part represented by the Hamas movement. “We peace seekers came to the courtroom today in order to cry out against an outrageous act of injustice committed by our government does, and at the same time also to offer the government a sober political advice. These two things converge into one call: Tear up the deportation orders, let these four men return to their homes and their constituents, and invite them and their political associates to fully share in negotiations for peace”.
EDITOR: A picture is better than a thousand words…
Just look at them. This picture tells the whole story of those doomed ‘talks about talks’. Obama, rising above realities, and disconnected from them, in his olympus of pure projections, is decisive and clear – he has his goal worked out – to raise his flagging standing and miserable poll results, but even his own face tells us he knows that he has lost already.
Netanyahu is smiling his furniture-dealer smile – he has got a customer, and a very good customer indeed, one which will buy whatever is on offer, and at a very high price, so he has all the reasons in the world to be smug and self-contented. He has snared another idiot, and he can go back to Jerusalem content in the knowledge that Israel can continue its occupation, settlement building and periodic massacres here, there and everywhere, without being bothered by the lame-duck President!
Abbas is indeed as miserable as he looks, certain in the knowledge that his betrayal of Palestine is going to weigh down on him in the very near future, as it becomes crystal clear that he has sold his people and his country for even less than a Nobel Prize. He hjas indeed all the reasons to be damn worried and depressed, as indeed he clearly is.
And, what’s best, I have only used 216 words to describe this perfect image…
Israel warplanes struck a series of targets in the Gaza Strip on Thursday
There have been exchanges of fire near the Israel-Gaza border, wounding five Palestinians and damaging property.
Militants in Gaza have fired at least five rockets or mortar rounds into Israel since Monday.
Israel said it struck two Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip late on Thursday, but Palestinian officials said five people were hurt in four separate air raids.
Hours later, on Friday, Gaza militants again fired a rocket into southern Israel, a military spokeswoman said.
The rocket exploded in the southern Shaar Hanegev area close to Gaza’s north-eastern border with Israel. Two days ago, a mortar shell landed near a kindergarten in the same community.
There were no reports of injuries or damage in either attack.
The Hamas government has vowed to try and rein in the firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip following Israel’s assault on Gaza in the winter of 2008.
The latest exchanges come as Israeli and Palestinian leaders prepare to hold direct peace talks in Egypt on Tuesday.
The talks – which kicked off in Washington last week – are the first direct negotiations between the two sides in almost two years.
Speaking at an Eid el Fitr prayer, Mahmoud Habbash says Palestinians must reject any outside influence on path to achieve statehood.
Iran’s interests run counter to Palestinian statehood, the Palestinians Ma’an news agency quoted a top Palestinian official as saying on Saturday, urging Palestinians to disregard outside interest and focus on the national cause.
Palestinian Authority Minister Mahmoud Habbash made these remarks days after a Palestinian Authority spokesman lashed out at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for criticizing Palestinian negotiations with Israel, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas in particular.
“The one who does not represent the Iranian people, who falsified election results, who oppressed the Iranian people and stole authority has no right to speak about Palestine, its president or its representatives,” Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh said last week, referring to the Iranian president.
Ahmadinejad addressed a rally last week at Teheran University, where he dismissed the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, saying the fate of Palestine would be decided in Palestine and through resistance and not in Washington.
Responding to Ahmadinejad’s comments, Habbash, speaking at an Eid el Fitr prayer on Friday, said that the PA was “committed to the Palestinian national principals,” adding that Iran, on the other hand, was “against the Palestinian national project.”
Iran, the PA minister said, was not “responsible for the Palestinian case,” adding that Ahmadinejad “will not solve” the Palestinian national struggle and that the PA refused “the right of any other to intervene in the internal issues of Palestine.”
Also addressing the long-standing feud between the West Bank-based PA and the Gaza-ruling Hamas, Habbash said Hamas leaders were “preachers of sedition,” urging the Islamist militant group to take responsibility for the “coup in Gaza three years ago.”
The PA minister was referring to the violent coup staged by Hamas in 2007, during which the Islamist group drove Fatah out of the territory and violently seized control.
Key players in place, the region waits to see if anything decisive can emerge from direct Israeli-Palestinian talks this time, Ezzat Ibrahim reports from Washington
In an atmosphere of uncertainty, US President Barack Obama has thrown his whole weight behind re-launching direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians with the hope of reaching a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within one year. Standing by him are Egypt and Jordan, with President Hosni Mubarak sending a clear message to Arabs and Egyptians that despair and anger should not again undermine prospects for peace.
President Mubarak, in a lengthy article published in The New York Times, set out his vision for peace and the hurdles to be surpassed before reaching it. On the endpoint of negotiations, Mubarak said: “The broad parameters of a permanent Palestinian-Israeli settlement are already clear: the creation of a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 with Jerusalem as a capital for both Israel and Palestine.” Among hurdles, Mubarak underlined the psychological factor between Israel and the Palestinians as the biggest obstacle to success of the peace process, adding that peace between the Palestinians and Israelis is linked to a comprehensive regional settlement.
President Mubarak referred to the Arab Peace Initiative that offers Israel comprehensive peace for its full withdrawal from occupied Arab lands and a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue. Mubarak emphasised that the complete cessation of Israeli settlement construction is crucial to the success of talks. Settlements and peace are incompatible, Mubarak said, “as they deepen the occupation that Palestinians seek to end”. Recognising Israeli demands for security, Mubarak responded: “Egypt believes that the presence of an international force in the West Bank, to be stationed for a period to be agreed upon by the parties, could give both sides the confidence and security they seek.” “Security, however, cannot be a justification for Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian land, as it undermines the cardinal principle of land for peace.”
Mubarak also stated that Egypt is ready to resume its efforts to address all issues related to Gaza in order to clear the way for a two state solution. “The Palestinians cannot make peace with a house divided. If Gaza is excluded from the framework of peace, it will remain a source of conflict, undermining any final settlement,” Mubarak said. Egypt has offered to host subsequent rounds of negotiations.
The White House and US State Department have been careful about expressing their expectations of the upcoming talks. Hillary Clinton held a series of bilateral meetings to prepare the stage for the launch of direct negotiations. US State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley said meetings in Washington intend primarily to help the concerned parties understand what is required in order to grasp peace in the designated period. On the possibility of a statement or declaration following the talks today, a US spokesman said that the various parties are still working on the substance of negotiations. He noted that the US sees Egyptian and Jordanian support as necessary for the success of present endeavours. Crowley added that Washington would not simply re-launch negotiations but will stay in close contact with all leaders as well as acting as “a real partner” in the process.
Crowley further said that Washington is focussed in two directions: first, concerned with form and how the negotiations will unfold; second, concerned with substance and the issues at the heart of the process. On the place of regional parties such as Hamas and Iran in a comprehensive peace, the US spokesman said that each party that accepts the Quartet principles could play a role in the Middle East peace process. He added that the US recognises that there are parties in the region that will attempt to reverse steps towards peace, but that Washington is counting on the commitment made by leaders to continue the peace process, calling for a show of political will and creativity in order to overcome the complexities and challenges that impede agreement on solutions to key issues. Above all, concerned parties should realise that they have a common interest in reaching a peace agreement.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit said the Egyptian vision is clear. He said negotiations should last no more than one year, with implementation of an agreement in a year or two years. Abul-Gheit revealed that Egypt has reiterated during talks with the US over recent weeks the importance of a continued Israeli freeze on settlement building as a confidence building measure. He underlined that negotiations should start from where they last left off and acknowledged US intentions as serious and credible, saying that Obama has put improving US relations with the Arab and Islamic worlds as an agenda priority. He said Egypt would continue to play a central role in the Middle East peace process. The foreign minister added that the Palestinian side comes to negotiations on the basis of a statement of the International Quartet affirming the rule of international law; that the basis for a settlement is ending the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and embracing a two-state solution whereby a Palestinian state can emerge.
2 Sept 2010 Israeli-Palestinian talks is under way after a carefully choreographed White House ceremony rich in political pieties and low on substance. No sooner was it over than the questions began.
It is not just that, while both sides employ the same words – peace, two-states solution and so on – they mean different things. It is not just that both camps are split and their leaders may not be able to close a deal, were they to reach one. Nor is it just that Israel, as the occupier, able ultimately to count on unconditional US support, is so much more powerful than the occupied Palestinians.
Within weeks the talks could judder to a halt. On September 26, the partial Israeli moratorium on building settlements on occupied Palestinian land expires – and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu says it will not renew it.
While ways of fudging this are being looked at, the settlers’ lobby, powerful within Mr Netanyahu’s coalition and, indeed, his own Likud party, wants none of it.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is under enormous pressure. He has nothing to show for his strategy of seeking a Palestinian state by negotiation. Israel has expanded the occupation, having taken 42 per cent of the West Bank according to B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group. To retain what little remains of his credibility, Mr Abbas may be forced to withdraw if the moratorium is not renewed.
The standstill was in any case relative. Exclusions of Palestinians from occupied east Jerusalem have increased. Two Arab villages have just been razed, in the Jordan Valley and Negev desert. Segregated, Israelis-only roads have bulldozed ahead. The situation is explosive enough even without the moratorium timebomb under the talks. Mr Abbas called off West Bank municipal elections in July, even though Hamas – which defeated his Fatah party in the 2006 general elections – was not standing.
While every consideration is being given to the delicacy of Mr Netanyahu’s position, little or none is accorded to Mr Abbas.
Yet, it should be perfectly obvious that talks aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state cannot possibly prosper while Israel continues its strategic colonisation of the land on which that state would be built. The US and its international partners must insist on a cessation of settlement-building.
Would this sink the Israeli coalition? Very possibly. But Mr Netanyahu has options, including an alliance with the centrist Kadima party. Mr Abbas has none.
‘The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust,’ former Cuban leader tells U.S. journal The Atlantic.
Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro has urged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stop slandering the Jews, according to an article published on the U.S. website The Atlantic on Tuesday.
The ageing revolutionary devoted much of a five-hour conversation to the issue of anti-Semitism, wrote Jeffrey Goldberg, who interviewed Castro in the Cuban capital Havana.
Castro told The Atlantic that the Iranian government should understand the consequences anti-Semitism.
“This went on for maybe two thousand years,” he said. “I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything.”
He added: “The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.”
Asked by Goldberg if he would repeat his comments to Ahmadinejad, Castro said. “I am saying this so you can communicate it.”
Following the interview, Goldberg spoke with Haaretz about his impression of the thinking behind Castro’s comments.
“I think he [Castro] realizes he’s gone too far in certain criticisms of Israel,” Goldberg said.
“I think he wants to be a player in this issue; and I think he’s genuinely offended by Holocaust denial.”
Ahmadinejad has publicy called the Holocaust “a myth”, claiming Jews exaggerated the Nazi genocide to win sympathy from European governments.
I have often spoken out in opposition to cultural boycotts… but in the political arena, artists make a statement by their presence or their absence.
By Theodore Bikel
I feel compelled to speak out on the controversy surrounding the Israeli artists who have announced their refusal to perform in the territories. For the record, my career as a performer has spanned 68 years. In my 20s, I was a cofounder of the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv (of that group, I am the last one alive). I have resided in America since 1954, and as a concert artist I frequently work in the field of Jewish culture, performing in the languages of our people − Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino and even in English, the language spoken by the largest Jewish community in the world.
As president of the Associated Actors & Artistes of America (the umbrella union covering performers in the United States), I have often spoken out in opposition to cultural boycotts. I have argued that art opens minds and builds bridges, even when carried into the very heart of enemy territory − perhaps especially then. But life, as we know it, often defies simple formulas. In the political arena, artists make a statement by their presence or their absence.
Pablo Casals, the world-famous cellist, who chose life-long exile from his native Spain because of the fascist dictator who ruled the beloved country of his birth, said this: “My cello is my weapon; I choose where I play, when I play, and before whom I play.”
My own choices have often been dictated by similar sentiments. For many years, when apartheid was the law of the land there, I refused official invitations and lucrative offers to perform in South Africa. Indeed, I have always refused to appear in halls that were racially segregated, whether in America or elsewhere in the world. More than two years ago, I refused an invitation by the mayor of Ariel to appear at the opening of the very same cultural facility then under construction and now at the center of the controversy.
There are weighty reasons why I find myself in full support of the artists’ refusal to perform in the territories. And it should be noted that I am not alone in supporting the courageous stand of our Israeli colleagues. There is a growing list of over 150 prominent artists and arts leaders from the U.S. who have expressed similar concerns to mine.
The cause celebre regarding the new performance facility in Ariel has given rise to statements from the leaders of that community as well as from Prime Minister Netanyahu and the culture minister, Limor Livnat. While the latter asserts that “political disputes should be left outside cultural life and art,” both the prime minister and the settlers’ council make it clear that the matter is not about art at all, but about what they call an attack on Israel “from within.”
The declaration of conscience signed by prominent Israeli artists − among them recipients of the Israel Prize, the highest cultural accolade given by the state − is characterized as emanating from “anti-Zionist leftists” and is described by the prime minister as being part of an “international movement of delegitimization.”
Clearly, anything that is connected to the settlers or to the settlements’ presence beyond the Green Line is political. And, if the refusal of the artists to perform in the territories is tantamount to delegitimization, it follows that any agreement to perform there would amount to legitimizing what many of us (in and outside of Israel) believe to be the single most glaring obstacle to peace.
Theodore Bikel is a Tony- and Oscar-nominated actor and musician.
Tasyir Hayb freed from prison with two years remaining on his eight-year sentence for Briton’s manslaughter in Gaza in 2003
Tom Hurndall was shot in the head by Israeli soldier Taysir Hayb in 2003 as he helped Palestinian children cross a street in Gaza. Photograph: Kay Fernandes/Reuters/HO Photograph: Ho/Reuters
The Israeli soldier convicted of killing British activist Tom Hurndall was released from prison today, two years before completing his sentence.
Tasyir Hayb was found guilty of manslaughter in 2005, when a military court found he had violated orders. He was also convicted him of obstruction of justice and false testimony. He has served six years of his eight-year sentence.
Hurndall, then 22, was shot in the head in April 2003 while he was helping Palestinian children cross a street in Rafah, in the Gaza strip. He had been filming with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Hurndall fell into a coma and died the following year.
According to Israeli newspapers, the military prosecution opposed Hayb’s early release, fearing it would damage Israel’s relations with the UK. But a military committee overruled this last month, arguing that Hayb, 27, had been sufficiently rehabilitated.
Tom’s mother, Jocelyn, today said: “From the moment that Tom was shot, we said it wasn’t about the soldier, who is a small part of the machinery, but about the responsibility of the Israeli army and its lack of accountability over civilian killings. To say that the soldier has reformed is to miss the point – the British government needs to hold Israel accountable for its actions.”
Hayb’s release comes as the case against the Israeli state filed by the parents of Rachel Corrie, the American activist killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Rafah the month before Hurndall was shot, is reconvened in Israel.
Week after launching of direct talks, Palestinian negotiator says recognizing Israel as Jewish state would ‘directly threaten Muslims, Christians’ and prevent Palestinian refugees from ‘returning to their homes’
“The Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” Palestinian negotiator Nabil Sha’ath said Wednesday, just a week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas launched direct talks in Washington.
“Such a declaration would directly threaten the Muslims and Christians in Israel and prevent Palestinian refugees, who left their homes and villages a number of decades ago, from being granted the right to return to them,” Sha’ath told reporters in Ramallah.
The senior Palestinian official said he was not opposed to a Jewish majority in Israel, but stressed that “the Palestinian problem is purely political.”
Sha’ath, a member of the Palestinian negotiating team, said Netanyahu planned to raise the issue (recognition of Israel as a Jewish state) at Sharm el-Sheikh, where the direct negotiations are set to resume in mid-August, “but we flatly rejected this demand.”
“We won’t expose our people to security and political threats,” he added.
Earlier this week, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Israel’s demand to be recognized as a Jewish state is worrying.
“If the international community defines Israel as a Jewish state – such a decision should be approved by the UN,” Aboul Gheit said.
