Tag: Israel

EDITOR: The buildup continues…

As Israel is again preparing for its latest habitual war, the pundits in Israel seem divided between an attack on Iran, an attack on Lebanon, and an attack on both… What is clear is that an attack is coming. The first attack might indeed be one on the new, small flotilla now advancing towards Gaza. Israel, as ever, is spoilt for choice. What has changed is the rest of the world, especially after the Gaza and Flotilla massacres; the world is no longer in thrall to Israeli whims and selective atrocities. The BDS movement has popularised the Palestine case, and works to recruit people everywhere against the Zionist barbarities.

Iran: Lebanon has a right to defend itself against Israel’s hostility: Haaretz

Speaking at a joint press conference with Lebanon FM, Mottaki slams UNIFIL performance, saying it was not able to deter ‘Zionist regime’s aggressions.’

Lebanon has a right to defend itself in the face of Israeli aggression, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said to the official ISNA news agency on Sunday, following a recent border clash between Lebanon and Israel which resulted in the death of two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and one Israel Defense Forces officer.
Last week, Israeli officer Dov Harari was killed during clashes between Israel and the Lebanese army along the border. The 45-year-old father of four from Netanya was a reserves battalion commander in the engineering corps. Another Israeli officer, Ezra Lakia, was seriously wounded in the same exchange of fire.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Lebanese Foreign Minister Ali al-Shami on Sunday, Mottaki said the “Lebanese nation and resistance have the right to end any aggression and pursue the issue through international circles to defend their rights.”
The Iranian FM also condemned the performance of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), saying that “negligence and mistakes of these forces should not be disregarded.”

“The forces are based in southern Lebanon to deter such aggressions, if UNIFIL is not able to deter the Zionist regime’s aggressions, what is its duty in southern Lebanon? What is it doing along Lebanese and Palestinian borders?” Mottaki said.

Also speaking to ISNA at the joint press conference was Lebanese Foreign Minister al-Shami, who said that Israel did “not have the right to invade this region, the region is Lebanon’s shared border.”

The Iranian FM also commented on a rare Lebanon joint visit by Syrian President Bashar Assad and Saudi King Abdullah, underscoring the depth of Arab concern over the possibility that the potential indictment against Hezbollah members over the assassination of former Lebanon PM Rafik Harir would stir unwanted chaos.

Mottaki said that he viewed the joint meeting in a favorable light, adding that the “Islamic Republic of Iran’s strategic policy seeks regional convergence and boosting regional cooperation.”

“We regard regional convergence as a necessary element to strengthen bilateral and multilateral engagement and tackle enemies’ conspiracies,” Mottaki said.

On the subject of Iran’s contentious nuclear program, the Lebanese foreign minister said he supported Iran’s right to a peaceful nuclear program, adding that “the recent unfair Security Council resolution that tightened sanctions on Iran is another instance of double standards and we fully support Iran’s legitimate right to civilian nuclear energy.”

Jordanian Prime Minister Samir Rifai also reiterated on Sunday his country’s support for Lebanon against Israeli “violations,” during a meeting with Lebanese Information Minister Tarek Mitri, the official Petra news agency reported.

The report stated that Prime Minister Rifai “renewed Jordan’s backing to the brethren in Lebanon as well as keenness on the unity and sovereignty of Lebanon, rejecting any violations of the Lebanese sovereignty and stressing the need for all parties to abide by the UN Security Council resolution 1705.”

Rallies mark anniversary of Sheikh Jarrah eviction: Jerusalem Post

By BEN HARTMAN 08/08/2010
Thousands took part in solidarity demonstrations across Israel.
Thousands of Jewish and Arab protesters took part in demonstrations held in cities and towns across the country on Friday, to show solidarity with the Arab residents of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and the year-long protest against Israeli housing policies in the district.

The protests, which were held on the hottest weekend of the year, varied in size across Israel, with organizers estimating around 700 participants in Tel Aviv, 100 in Haifa, 60 in Beersheba, 100 in Wadi Ara, 100 in Taibe, 100 in Kfar Yassif and around two dozen in Ra’anana. Another 50 gathered in the Arab neighborhood of Dahmash on the outskirts of Ramle, where at least 13 homes are slated for demolition.

In Tel Aviv, protesters marched down Rothschild Boulevard, accompanied by MKs Haim Oron (Meretz), Ahmed Tibi (Ra’am –Ta’al) and Dov Henin (Hadash), as well as a number of Sheikh Jarrah residents and Israeli cultural and academic figures.

At the end of the march, demonstrators boarded buses for Sheikh Jarrah, where they and hundreds more took part in the weekly protest.

The “Day of Solidarity” was held to mark the one-year anniversary of the eviction of a Palestinian house in August 2009, which came following a 2008 ruling by the Jerusalem District Court which laid down that property in Sheikh Jarrah that was part of the former Jewish neighborhood of “Shimon Hatzadik” belonged to the Sephardi Community Committee. After the evictions, Sheikh Jarrah became the site of weekly protests, which continued to grow as the issue became for many a lightning rod for the battle over the future status of East Jerusalem.

The protest movement began to pick up steam following the arrest of 17 demonstrators at a Friday demonstration in January.

The Jerusalem District Court ruled that the arrest of activists was illegal and the protests lawful, even if they were held without a permit.

Sheikh Jarrah activist Avner Inbar, one of the organizers of Friday’s events, said it had been very successful and that “other than a rally in March that was attended by around 4,000 people, this was our biggest one yet.

Also, all these people took part on a day when there was extreme heat across Israel, when most people don’t even want to leave the house to go to the store.”

Inbar said he hoped the issue of Sheikh Jarrah would continue to grow in the public debate, and advance the cause of Arab and Jewish cooperation.

“We believe the issue of Arab and Jewish solidarity is a very important thing and hope that our efforts will show there is no such thing as a Jewish left wing. The left wing doesn’t need to be exclusively Jewish; it can bring in both Jews and Arabs.”

EDITOR: Is this a war crime or peace crime?…

We are all used to the war crimes committed against Palestinians under occupation. What we sometimes forget is the fact that such crimes are also committed daily against the Palestinian citizens of Israel! The destruction of a Bedouin village, for the second time, makes disturbing reading, and even more disturbing viewing. To see the photographs please use the link below, and view the disturbing video evidence.

The “Summer Camp Of Destruction:” Israeli High Schoolers Assist The Razing Of A Bedouin Town: Max Blumenthal

07.31.10
AL-ARAKIB, ISRAEL — On July 26, Israeli police demolished 45 buildings in the unrecognized Bedouin village of al-Arakib, razing the entire village to the ground to make way for a Jewish National Fund forest. The destruction was part of a larger project to force the Bedouin community of the Negev away from their ancestral lands and into seven Indian reservation-style communities the Israeli government has constructed for them. The land will then be open for Jewish settlers, including young couples in the army and those who may someday be evacuated from the West Bank after a peace treaty is signed. For now, the Israeli government intends to uproot as many villages as possible and erase them from the map by establishing “facts on the ground” in the form of JNF forests. (See video of of al-Arakib’s demolition here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvD-2BsPAQU&feature=player_embedded

Moments before the destruction of the Bedouin village of al-Arakib, Israeli high school age police volunteers lounge on furniture taken from a family’s home. [The following four photos are by Ata Abu Madyam of Arab Negev News.
One of the most troubling aspects of the destruction of al-Arakib was a report by CNN that the hundreds of Israeli riot police who stormed the village were accompanied by “busloads of cheering civilians.” Who were these civilians and why didn’t CNN or any outlet investigate further?
I traveled to al-Arakib yesterday with a delegation from Ta’ayush, an Israeli group that promotes a joint Arab-Jewish struggle against the occupation. The activists spent the day preparing games and activities for the village’s traumatized children, helping the villagers replace their uprooted olive groves, and assisting in the reconstruction of their demolished homes. In a massive makeshift tent where many of al-Arakib’s residents now sleep, I interviewed village leaders about the identity of the cheering civilians. Each one confirmed the presence of the civilians, describing how they celebrated the demolitions. As I compiled details, the story grew increasingly horrific. After interviewing more than a half dozen elders of the village, I was able to finally identify the civilians in question. What I discovered was more disturbing than I had imagined.

Arab Negev News publisher Ata Abu Madyam supplied me with a series of photos he took of the civilians in action. They depicted Israeli high school students who appeared to have volunteered as members of the Israeli police civilian guard (I am working on identifying some participants by name). Prior to the demolitions, the student volunteers were sent into the villagers’ homes to extract their furniture and belongings. A number of villagers including Abu Madyam told me the volunteers smashed windows and mirrors in their homes and defaced family photographs with crude drawings. Then they lounged around on the furniture of al-Arakib residents in plain site of the owners. Finally, according to Abu Matyam, the volunteers celebrated while bulldozers destroyed the homes.

“What we learned from the summer camp of destruction,” Abu Madyam remarked, “is that Israeli youth are not being educated on democracy, they are being raised on racism.” (The cover of the latest issue of Madyam’s Arab Negev News features a photo of Palestinians being expelled to Jordan in 1948 juxtaposed with a photo of a family fleeing al-Arakib last week. The headline reads, “Nakba 2010.”)

The Israeli civilian guard, which incorporates 70,000 citizens including youth as young as 15 (about 15% of Israeli police volunteers are teenagers), is one of many programs designed to incorporate Israeli children into the state’s military apparatus. It is not hard to imagine what lessons the high school students who participated in the leveling of al-Arakib took from their experience, nor is it especially difficult to predict what sort of citizens they will become once they reach adulthood. Not only are they being indoctrinated to swear blind allegiance to the military, they are learning to treat the Arab outclass as less than human. The volunteers’ behavior toward Bedouins, who are citizens of Israel and serve loyally in Israeli army combat units despite widespread racism, was strikingly reminiscent of the behavior of settler youth in Hebron who pelt Palestinian shopkeepers in the old city with eggs, rocks and human waste. If there is a distinction between the two cases, it is that the Hebron settlers act as vigilantes while the teenagers of Israeli civilian guard vandalize Arab property as agents of the state.

The spectacle of Israeli youth helping destroy al-Arakib helps explain why 56% of Jewish Israeli high school students do not believe Arabs should be allowed to serve in the Knesset – why the next generation wants apartheid. Indeed, the widespread indoctrination of Israeli youth by the military apparatus is a central factor in Israel’s authoritarian trend. It would be difficult for any adolescent boy to escape from an experience like al-Arakib, where adults in heroic warrior garb encourage him to participate in and gloat over acts of massive destruction, with even a trace of democratic values.

As for the present condition of Israeli democracy, it is essential to consider the way in which the state pits its own citizens against one another, enlisting the Jewish majority as conquerers while targeting the Arab others as, in the words of Zionist founding father Chaim Weizmann, “obstacles that had to be cleared on a difficult path.” Historically, only failing states have encouraged such corrosive dynamics to take hold. That is why the scenes from al-Arakib, from the demolished homes to the uprooted gardens to the grinning teens who joined the mayhem, can be viewed as much more than the destruction of a village. They are snapshots of the phenomenon that is laying Israeli society as a whole to waste.

Israel retreats on flotilla agreement: Jonathan Cook

The National
August 04. 2010

NAZARETH // Israel quickly reined back expectations yesterday over its agreement to co-operate with a UN investigation into the Israeli army’s lethal raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla two months ago.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, had hailed Israel’s backing of the investigation on Monday, after weeks of intense international pressure, as an “unprecedented development”.

It is the first time Tel Aviv has agreed to take part in a UN inquiry involving the country’s military. Last year Israel snubbed a UN investigation led by a respected international jurist, Richard Goldstone, that was highly critical of Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008.

As the panel was announced on Monday, Mr Netanyahu declared: “Israel has nothing to hide. The opposite is true. It is in the national interest of the state of Israel to ensure that the factual truth of the overall flotilla events comes to light throughout the world.”

But faced with stinging rebukes yesterday from Tzipi Livni, the leader of the opposition party Kadima, for agreeing to the inquiry, government officials began to play down the significance of Israel’s concessions to the international community.

Unnamed officials told Ynet, one of Israel’s most popular news websites, that the UN panel’s powers would be limited to reviewing documents available to Israel’s three internal inquiries and a Turkish inquiry, and no military or civilian personnel would be investigated or issued with subpoenas.

If any officials are to be questioned directly, the sources added, they would be senior members of the political leadership – perhaps Mr Netanyahu and his defence minister, Ehud Barak.

That position was confirmed by a terse public statement yesterday defending the government against charges from Ms Livni that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) were being exposed to a damaging UN investigation.

“If they had bothered to check,” a statement from the prime minister’s office read, “they would have found that IDF soldiers and officers will not be investigated by the UN or any other body.”

The details of the review panel’s mandate are to be determined in the next few days and the committee begins work next week. It is expected to present a progress report in the middle of next month followed by the final report in 2011.

Israel and the US appeared to hope that the UN review panel would sideline, or possibly lead to the cancellation of, a parallel inquiry into the flotilla raid already set up by the UN’s Human Rights Council. The council established the Goldstone Commission and is seen as hostile by Israel.

Last week, Mr Netanyahu told his cabinet that he was still deliberating “how much technical material to provide them with, if at all”. Tel Aviv is reported to fear that an inquiry led by the Human Rights Council may end up becoming a “Goldstone Two”.

Susan Rice, the US envoy to the UN, said Israel’s participation with the review panel would eliminate “the need for any overlapping international inquiries”.

Other comments from Ms Rice suggested that the material to be reviewed by the UN would consist of documents made available by the Israeli and Turkish inquiries but not any investigations conducted by the Human Rights Council.

Mr Netanyahu’s office said contacts with the UN over the past few weeks had ensured that the panel would have “a balanced and fairly written mandate”.

Israeli officials were also reported to be making their co-operation conditional on a promise that there would be no subsequent attempts to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court in the Hague for the flotilla raid.

Yesterday, Israeli government ministers defended their decision by stressing the importance of mending the country’s relations with Turkey after weeks of diplomatic crisis between the two.

Mr Netanyahu and Mr Barak said they had “no choice” but to agree to the inquiry. The US was reported to have pushed hard for its two main allies in the Middle East to repair the damage.

Dan Meridor, a deputy prime minister, told Army Radio Israel that co-operation was “primarily meant, to my knowledge, for Turkey and Israel to find a way to bring relations back to a better place”.

Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, told the Anatolia news agency that the establishment of the UN panel showed “every country can be held accountable under international law”.

But Turkish officials also hinted at continuing concerns about how actively Israel would co-operate. A senior Turkish diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “We hope that Israel will be forthcoming with providing access to the panel in gathering information.”

Tensions between Israel and Turkey continued to simmer yesterday. Gaby Levy, Israel’s ambassador in Ankara, was summoned for what was described as a “dressing down” over remarks made by Mr Barak about Hakan Fidan, Turkey’s new intelligence chief.

Last week Mr Barak called Mr Fidan a “friend of Iran” who might leak shared secrets to Tehran.

The UN’s four-person review panel will be headed by Geoffrey Palmer, a former prime minister of New Zealand, with Alvaro Uribe, the outgoing Colombian president, as his deputy. Israel and Turkey will each appoint a representative.

Of Israel’s three inquiries, only the military one has issued a report. The Eiland committee found “errors of judgment” in the planning of the commando raid but held no one accountable. It also blamed the flotilla organisers for instigating the violence.

The Turkel committee is due to begin investigations into the legal ramifications of carrying out a raid in international waters. The third inquiry, whose scope is still unclear, will be conducted by Micha Lindenstrauss, the state comptroller.

Continue reading August 8, 2010

EDITOR: The war on Iran seems closer

For an Israeli government which has run out of options and has managed to alienate its few friends left, and for an USA President with lower than ever polls, and a mountain to climb at the November elections for Congress, it seems mad to invest in another war, just as it becomes clear what disaster the war on Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza really are. Yet, this is what seems to go forward, as the only new policy of the Obama administration. God save us from smart alecs like Barack…

How smart is this in comparison to the Dubya policies, you have to ask yourself?

Gaza aid flotilla to set sail from Lebanon with all-women crew: The Guardian

Arabic singer joins crew of nuns, doctors, lawyers and journalists for humanitarian mission despite Israeli warning
Israel’s deadly assault on a Gaza aid flotilla in June led to anger in the Muslim world and beyond. Photograph: Dita Alangkara/AP
A ship bearing aid for Gaza is preparing to leave Tripoli in Lebanon this weekend in the latest attempt to defy the Israeli blockade – with only women on board.
The Saint Mariam, or Virgin Mary, has a multi-faith international passenger list, including the Lebanese singer May Hariri and a group of nuns from the US. “They are nuns, doctors, lawyers, journalists, Christians and Muslims,” said Mona, one of the participants who, along with the other women, has adopted the ship’s name, Mariam.

The Mariam and its sister ship, Naji Alali, had hoped to set off several weeks ago but faced several delays after Israel launched a diplomatic mission to pressure Lebanon to stop the mission.
The co-ordinator of the voyage, Samar al-Haj, told the Guardian this week the Lebanese government had given permission for the boats to leave for Cyprus, the first leg of the journey, this weekend.
Israel says it is concerned a flotilla from Lebanon, with whom it has ongoing hostility, will smuggle weapons to Gaza. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, has warned that Israel reserves the right to use “necessary measures” in line with international law to stop the ship.

But al-Haj says the mission is purely humanitarian. “Our goal is to arrive in Gaza,” she said. “It is the responsibility of the government to deal with the politics. We are not political.”
She said that once news of the flotilla was out organisers were inundated with requests to join the voyage, with more than 400 from the US alone. At least 10 Americans will be on board.
The boat has been stocked with medical instruments and medicines to take to the Palestinians.
In preparation for the voyage the participants gathered at a hotel in Beirut to discuss their plans. The logistics are many: minimal grooming, strict food rationing, and limited water supply.
“There will be no showers, no skirts and no makeup,” al-Haj told the group.

The participants are aware of the dangers, having followed the fate of another flotilla carrying aid for Gaza that was attacked by Israel in May.
Israeli forces landed on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel, killing nine activists on board. Al-Haj reminded the women to be prepared for a confrontation.
“Have blood tests in case we come under attack from Israel and you need a blood transfusion,” she said. She added that organisers were going out of their way not to provoke Israel.
“We will not even bring cooking knives,” she said.
Serena Shim, who is heavily pregnant, decided to join the voyage because of her belief that the blockade is unjust. “These people need aid,” she said.
Asked how they would react to an Israeli military assault, one activist, Tania al Kayyalisaid: “We are not planning to fight or attack – but we will not leave the St Mariam.”

Academic Boycott on Israel Flexes Its Muscles: The Washington Report

WRMEA, August 2010, Pages 44-45, Southern California Chronicle

WERE IT not for the eagle eyes of Nur Marsalha, a professor of religion and politics in England, perusing the program for the biennial conference of the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS), Israel might have won a small victory in its efforts to legitimize its military occupation of the West Bank.

The May 27-30 conference at the Doubletree Inn in Santa Monica featured 66 panels, but Marsalha questioned the institutional affiliation of one particular participant: Ronen Cohen, who stated he was from Ariel University in Samaria, Israel.

Not only is Ariel University situated in Israel’s fourth largest illegal West Bank settlement, but it originally was a satellite campus of Bar Ilan University—until Israel’s Minister of Defense Ehud Barak rushed through its accreditation, without evaluating its academic qualifications.

As a result, a total of 120 academics registered their objections in a letter to ISIS arguing that the Ariel settlement is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that an occupying power cannot populate a territory it occupies.

ISIS claimed that it was being victimized by the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. In response, ISIS member Vida Samiian, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at Fresno State University, explained: “We tried to present a resolution allowing the general membership to vote on the matter. ISIS leadership blocked this.”

While ISIS did remove “Samaria” as the site of the Ariel institution, it blocked Internet access to Cohen’s paper, titled “The Hojjatiyeh: The Real Bringers of the Islamic Revolution of Iran.” Meanwhile, the chair and three other participants on the “Shi’ism, Clerics and Movements of Revolution and Reform” panel dropped out, leaving Cohen as the sole remaining member.

Finally, days before the conference, three new participants and a chair were announced—too late to review their abstracts for the session renamed “Dialogues and Contentions.”

Incredibly, one of the new panelists was Judea Pearl, a UCLA computer science professor and father of journalist Daniel Pearl, who was murdered by extremists in Pakistan. The title of his paper, “Carving a Dialogue between Muslims and Jews,” was a misleading one for Pearl, who vociferously rants about Islamist violence. He is the polar opposite of Cindy and Craig Corrie, who have responded to Israel’s killing of their daughter Rachel with a message of reconciliation.

On the second day of the conference, when Cohen was scheduled to speak, about 20 concerned academics and activists handed fliers to people arriving at the Doubletree Inn. Many stood behind a cardboard apartheid wall and held signs stating that ISIS approves of apartheid.

“We don’t object to an Israeli participating in the conference,” stated economics professor Sasan Faymazman during the informational May 28 picket. But “why did ISIS include a paper from a settler institution? Why did ISIS block the membership from reading Cohen’s abstract which deals with a so-called nuclear Iran and its ‘threat to the Middle East or maybe to the world?'”

The picketing was a success, as Iranian-American photographers and reporters left the conference to interview dissenting scholars. Dr. Ahmad Karimi, a past ISIS president, confronted the picketers and voiced his objections to their accusations that ISIS supported apartheid. Agreeing that military occupation is wrong, he stated that the controversy will be reviewed at the Middle East Studies Association convention in November.

The incident gives notice to Israel that no trick to gain cultural or academic legitimacy is too small for Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) activists to uncover and expose. For more information, visit <www.usacbi.org>.

MPAC Media Awards

What do best-selling author Dave Eggers, the Emmy-award winning TV series “Grey’s Anatomy,” and feature films “Amreeka” and “My Name Is Khan” have in common? All are recipients of the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s (MPAC) 2010 media awards, presented May 1 at the Westin Bonaventure in Downtown Los Angeles. More than 600 members and guests gathered for the 19th annual event honoring film, TV and literary projects that cast Muslims in realistic roles.

Eggers has been the hero of the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities since July 2009, when he published his best selling book, Zeitoun (available from the AET Book Club), which chronicles the harrowing post-Hurricane Katrina ordeals of Abdulrahman Zeitoun. Accepting the award, Eggers recalled how, when he began to interview them, Abdulrahman and his wife, Kathy, protested “Who will care about our story?” Instead they became the first Muslim family many American readers came to know.

MPAC selected an episode from “Grey’s Anatomy” for its media awards because it focused on the deep faith of a Muslim lab technician (Faran Tahir) who insists on surgery for an inoperable tumor. In the November 2009 episode, entitled “Give Peace a Chance,” the Muslim patient makes du’a, and his faith enlightens the surgeon (Patrick Dempsey).

Accepting the award were Pakistani-American actor Tahir, executive producer Mark Wilding and writer Peter Nowak.

Bollywood director Karan Johar traveled from India to receive his MPAC award for his film, “My Name Is Khan.”Inspired by political events in the U.S., the feature film tells the story of Rizvan Khan, a Muslim afflicted with Asperger’s syndrome who travels to the post-9/11 U.S.

In the U.S., Khan falls in love with and marries a Hindu divorcee, helps a small town in Georgia cope with a Hurricane Katrina-like flood, and launches a mission to tell newly elected President Barack Obama that his name is Khan and he’s not a terrorist.

Cherien Dabis’ film “Amreeka” explores how someone from the West Bank starts life over in the Midwest. The screenwriter and director was applauded by MPAC for her tragicomedic view of a Palestinian divorcee’s rough awakening to life in post-9/11 America.

Dabis used her own experience of coming of age in the Midwest during the first Gulf war to tell the story of her fictional heroine, Munah, and her teenage son, Fadi. Dabis’ Palestinian parents emigrated to Ohio shortly before her birth. Her father was a highly respected physician until the first Gulf war began. Soon, the Arab-American family was treated like a pariah.

SAWA Fetes Syrian Stars

The Syrian American Women’s Association (SAWA) has been providing medical assistance to hearing-impaired children in Syria for a decade. On May 1, it celebrated its 10th anniversary with a gala dinner in the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles.

Dr. Kamal Batniji, who has helped SAWA perform cochlear implants to deaf children in Syria, received the group’s Golden Heart award. Also receiving the award for their assistance were Dr. Hatem and Salwa Chehabi, Dr. Abdallah and Daad Farrukh, and Jim and Pricilla Khoury.

A highlight of the charitable organization’s annual event is the presentation of al-Ataa awards to Syrian stage and screen stars. This year’s recipients were actress Sulaf Fawakheri and producer/director/actor Jamal Soliman. Presenting the awards were Farouk Ubaysi and SAWA president Ilham Kalioundji.

Over the past year, SAWA provided eight cochlear implants to deaf children and donated 250 hearing aids. It also spearheaded the development and implementation of a speech rehabilitation curriculum at Damascus University.

Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles.

MSU Appeals UCI Suspension Recommendation

The showdown for the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), Orange County Jewish Federation and Israel’s Consul General in Los Angeles Jacob Dayan versus the Muslim Students Union (MSU) of the University of California at Irvine (UCI) took place June 14 when the Jewish Federation went public with a confidential UCI recommendation to suspend the MSU for one year.

At UCI, where Muslim and Arab students are equal in number to Jewish undergrads, creative MSU programs have outraged off-campus Zionist leaders. In 2007, the U.S. Department of Education Office on Civil Rights determined ZOA complaints of UCI campus anti-Semitism were unfounded.

The conflict came to a head Feb. 8, when Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren spoke at UCI and his speech was interrupted 10 times by 11 students—two of whom had lost relatives killed during Israel’s 22-day blitzkrieg of Gaza (see May/June 2010 Washington Report, p. 36).

A delegation from the Orange County Jewish Federation traveled to Oakland, CA to present their allegations to UC Chancellor Mark G. Yudorf.

With the June 14 release of the recommendation of the suspension of MSU for one year effective in September, and an additional one year of probation, attorney Reem Salahi filed an appeal on behalf of the MSU. “Even the fraternity at UC San Diego which hosted the racist ‘Compton Cookout’ wasn’t suspended,” she noted. “It appears UCI is applying a different standard of punishment against the MSU than any other campus organization.”

Emphasizing that MSU is primarily a religious organization that provides prayer services on campus, Salahi said as many as 250 Muslim students would be affected by the suspension, leaving them without a voice or means of association.

“UCI is clearly caving into the pressure of these external organizations who seek to silence dissent and criticism of the Israeli state,” Salahi concluded. “Collectively punishing the entire Muslim population is truly chilling.”

Stated UCLA anthropology professor Sondra Hale: “This ruling will be a major setback to activist students everywhere and a blow to academic freedom, not to mention underscoring the degree to which officials of the UC system cater to outside proponents of Israel’s government policy.”—Pat McDonnell Twair

Jonathan Cook: Negev village torn down for second time: IOA

By Jonathan Cook in al-Araqib – 6 Aug 2010
Israel plans mass forced removals of Bedouin
Israeli security forces destroyed a Bedouin village this week for the second time in a matter of days, leaving 300 inhabitants homeless again after they and dozens of Jewish and Arab volunteers had begun rebuilding the 45 homes.
Human rights groups warned that these appeared to be the opening shots in a long-threatened campaign by the Israeli government to begin mass forced removals of tens of thousands of Bedouin from their ancestral lands in the northern Negev.
The High Follow-Up Committee, the main political body for Israel’s Arab minority, vowed this week to help rebuild the village for a second time and said it would call on the UN to investigate Israel’s treatment of the Bedouin.
Al Araqib village, which is a few kilometres north of the Negev’s main city Beersheva, has become a symbol of the struggle by about 90,000 Bedouin to win recognition for dozens of communities the government claims are built on state land.
In a test case before the Israeli courts, an inhabitant of al Araqib has been presenting documents and expert testimony to show his ancestors owned and lived on the village’s lands many decades before Israel’s establishment in 1948. The judge is expected to rule within months.
“Tearing down an entire village and leaving its inhabitants homeless without exhausting all other options for settling longstanding land claims is outrageous,” said Joe Stork, the deputy Middle East director of Human Rights Watch.
A force of 1,500 police, including a special riot squad wearing black balaclavas, entered the village early on Wednesday to pull down a dozen wooden shacks and a half-built concrete home. The local Aturi tribe had been in the process of rebuilding the village after it was razed by bulldozers a week earlier.
The Israeli forces also uprooted 850 olive trees, said Ortal Tzabar, a spokeswoman for the government’s Land Administration.
Yesterday Adalah, a legal group for Israel’s 1.3 million Arab citizens, demanded a criminal investigation into what it called “police brutality” during both demolition operations.
Sawsan Zaher, a lawyer, said assaults on villagers, confiscation of their property and the security forces’ decision to cover their faces and not wear identity tags were all designed to “instil fear” in the residents.
Taleb a-Sanaa, a Bedouin member of the Israeli parliament who was left unconscious on Wednesday after police dragged him from a tent in which he was staging a protest, warned that the government was risking “an uprising in the Negev”.
Six village leaders were arrested shortly afterwards when they refused to sign a paper committing not to return to al Araqib.
Awad Abu Freih, a village spokesman, said they remained defiant. “The authorities want to break our connection to this land so it can be turned over to Jews. They can keep destroying, but we will continue rebuilding. We will not leave.”
The first demolition of the village, late last month, came shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned his cabinet that the growth of the country’s Arab minority, already a fifth of the population, posed a “palpable threat” to the state’s Jewishness.
“The effect could be that different elements will demand national rights within Israel – for example, in the Negev – if we allow for a region without a Jewish majority.”
Last month the government announced a $50 million assistance programme to encourage army personnel to relocate to Jewish communities in the Negev.
The Bedouin’s increasing assertiveness about their indigenous status, which is backed by international groups, has led to a backlash from officials, who regularly refer to the Bedouin as “squatters” and “invaders” of state land.
Nili Baruch of Bimkom, an Israeli planning rights group, said a master plan currently being approved for the metropolitan area of Beersheva required “more house demolitions and more forced removals of the Bedouin population”, such as occurred at al-Araqib.
In addition, she said, the authorities had approved a special operation known as “Hot Wind” to carry out the demolitions.
The government’s conflict with the Bedouin dates back to Israel’s founding, when most of the Negev’s population were driven out of the new state.
With the highest birth rate in Israel, the surviving tribes have grown rapidly and now number 180,000, more than a quarter of the Negev’s population despite waves of state-sponsored Jewish migration.
Israel has refused to recognise most of the Bedouin’s traditional communities and insists they move into seven deprived townships built by the government several decades ago. Only about half have done so, with the rest insisting on their right to continue with their pastoral way of life.
Al-Araqib has become a particular point of friction because most of the Aturi moved into a nearby township, Rahat, in the 1970s, after their lands had been declared a closed military zone.
But faced with severe overcrowding in Rahat and no new land for expansion, many young families began moving back to al-Araqib a decade ago.
Like 45 other unrecognised villages, al Araqib is denied all services, including water and electricity, and its buildings are illegal.
A recent government commission found that tens of thousands of Bedouin buildings are subject to demolition orders, though until now individual buildings have been targeted, not whole communities.
Last month the Beersheva planning committee approved a scheme to recognise 13 Bedouin villages and force the other inhabitants into the townships.
In that plan, al Araqib’s lands are designated for a “peace forest” – funded by an international Zionist organisation, the Jewish National Fund – a move Mr Abu Freih said was designed to prevent the villagers’ return.
Ms Baruch said the authorities were demanding the inhabitants move to Rahat, even though no homes were provided for them.
Mr Abu Freih said other parts of the tribe’s lands nearby had been secretly settled by Jews in 2004. In a night-time operation JNF and government officials set up caravans that subsequently became an exclusively Jewish known as Givat Bar.
From 2002, Israel began a policy of annually spraying herbicide on al-Araqib’s crops, in an attempt to move them off the land, until the supreme court deemed the practice illegal in 2007.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National, published in Abu Dhabi.

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