Readers of international media may be forgiven for thinking that Israel and the conflict dropped off the map. From ‘intensive’ peace talk- about-talks, we have moved to total silence, and the great ship launched by President Obama, that nice man with really slick phrases, seem to have drowned without trace. Of course, this was always the most likely outcome, as this website has told you at the time, but the collaboration of international media with sinking the ship and keeping quiet about it is, to say the least, embarassing.
So it is interesting that it is the Labour Party in Israel that has noticed that the Good Ship Peace Talks is no longer sailing, and they seem quite unconfused about the reasons for it sinking…
Labour party will walk out of Israel’s coalition government unless negotiations with the Palestinians get under way
Israel’s Labour party will walk out of the rightwing-dominated coalition government unless serious negotiations with the Palestinians get under way in the coming weeks, according to cabinet minister Avishay Braverman, an expected challenger to Ehud Barak for his party’s leadership.
“We need to move as soon as possible. The only way to guarantee the state of the Jewish people is to move boldly after the US election,” Braverman, the minister for minorities, said in an interview.
If Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu missed the opportunity, “Labor will not be in the coalition government. If there are the beginnings of serious negotiations, Labor stays; if not, Labor leaves.”
He also urged Barack Obama to apply himself to the issue of a Middle East peace settlement with renewed determination after Tuesday’smidterm elections. “The world needs a strong president of the US,” he said.
Labor’s departure from Netanyahu’s government could trigger its collapse unless the centre-right Kadima party could be persuaded to join. But Kadima has said it would not enter a coalition which included the rightwing Yisrael Beiteinu party led by foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman.
“Netanyahu has to make a very tough choice, but leadership is about tough choices, making tough decisions,” said Braverman. “For Netanyahu the game is now. He has to choose between sustaining political equilibrium to survive, or changing it to make history … It’s an act of bravery.”
Braverman said he had proposed, to both Netanyahu and Barak, an extension to the freeze on settlement construction for a further four to five months to give time for negotiations. The basis of talks should be the 2002 Arab peace initiative, he said – principally:
• Accepting the 1967 borders with land swaps to compensate for Israel retaining the major settlement blocs in the West Bank. Residents of settlements that would become part of Palestine would get full compensation to relocate, and “for a few thousand zealots, we’d have to apply the law”.
• Agreement on Palestinian refugees with the “total consent” of Israel and Palestine. “There would be some union of families but it won’t alter the equilibrium.”
• Jerusalem: “it can be solved”, he said without offering details.
A deal on this basis would result in “normalisation with the Arab countries and an end to the conflict”. The aim was a state of the Jewish people, with equality for all its people, and ensuring a Jewish majority for “hundreds of years”.
Netanyahu, he said, “intellectually understands everything” but must stop appeasing Lieberman, who was harming Israel’s reputation in the world and damaging the state. “I don’t know a country in the world where the foreign minister speaks against [government policy]. He should not be in the government.”
Braverman declined to confirm that he would challenge Barak for the leadership of the Labor party next year, although his name has been widely touted. But he criticised his party, which has haemorrhaged support in recent years, saying it was in the “worst position ever” and needed strong leadership and fundamental change.
“My belief is that the Labor party should not any more be the party of marginal changes … I believe in creating a party of major changes or it will become irrelevant. It can be transformed.” It must be a party of the centre, he said.
Fellow minister Isaac Herzog has already declared he intends to challenge Barak for the Labour leadership, and there are likely to be other candidates. Braverman reiterated his opposition to Netanyahu’s proposal that new citizens of Israel should swear a “loyalty oath” to Israel as a Jewish state, describing it as “stupid suggestion.” It was meaningless, he said. “Why raise this issue? To antagonise Arabs, to appease Lieberman.”
Two months after Washington, the PM is still using excuses to justify political inactivity, all the while playing the blame game with the Palestinians.
Today marks two months since the Washington Summit, during which the resumption of the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians was announced. Expectations for the success of the process were low, but the pathetic result has surprised even the pessimists. The refusal of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend the settlement freeze has led the Palestinians to manifest their threat to pull out of the talks. Netanyahu also rejected the U.S. president’s proposal to extend the freeze for an additional 60 days in return for American security and diplomatic guarantees to Israel.
Netanyahu has reverted to the well-known behavior of using excuses to justify political inactivity, all the while playing the blame game with the Palestinians. His refusal to extend the freeze he justified as “preserving his credibility” and blamed it on coalition pressures. He claimed that “building in Judea and Samaria will not affect the peace map,” as if the settlements were not meant to establish facts which will foil the division of the land. His public proposal of a temporary freeze in exchange for a Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish State appears to be a populist maneuver, and as expected, was rejected.
Netanyahu is in no rush. He is waiting for the mid-term elections in the United States tomorrow, and then to the passing of the budget in Israel. Meanwhile, he will continue wasting time with empty calls to the Palestinians to return to the negotiations, without putting forth any political initiative or showing willingness for compromise, while continuing construction beyond the Green Line. His decision to reject Barack Obama’s proposal suggests that he is preparing for a confrontation with the U.S. administration in which he will try to rally to his side the President’s rivals in Congress. His stance has already led to significant disagreement with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is among the most important supporters of Israel in the international community.
At the Washington Summit, Netanyahu declared that he came to make peace and not to quarrel, because “in the blame game you win but you also lose”. He is now obliged to prove himself. Instead of looking for successful excuses Netanyahu needs to freeze settlement construction and enter serious discussions on the core issues, with the borders topping the list, in an effort to reach a settlement. Otherwise, even if he wins the blame game, Israel will be the one who will lose.
Jonathan Freedland (Comment, 27 October) is a good man fallen among Zionists. He believes in a Jewish state. He also believes in a Palestinian state. The two beliefs are irreconcilable. His perspective on the conflict is 20 years out of date. Israel now stretches from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. In one area of that state, the Palestinians, the indigenous people, are treated as unwelcome immigrants and a demographic threat, and hedged in by discriminatory practices; in the other, they are locked into ghettos by walls, checkpoints, settlements and roads they are barred from using. In that context, the so-called peace process is nothing but a cover for entrenching the status quo. In any case, the mandate – and the credibility – of President Abbas ran out long ago. Freedland’s tangled arguments show only that, when it comes to resolving the conflict, Zionist thinking has nothing to contribute. Obama is not the only one who needs “to change course”.
Leon Rosselson
Wembley, Middlesex
EDITOR: Even better reason to boycott Israeli academia…
Those academics collaborating with Israel by going there to give presentations and deliver papers, are risking more than just their human-rights reputation, it seems…
Heather Bradshaw, a neuroscience professor invited to a conference at Hebrew University, says she was asked to remove clothing, board the aircraft with no luggage.
An American professor who was invited to a conference in Israel claims she was humiliated by Israeli security personnel at London’s Luton airport on Thursday.
Professor Heather Bradshaw, who researches neuroscience at Indiana University, was at Cambridge University when she was invited to Hebrew University in Jerusalem for a conference.
“Our guest arrived at Luton airport on Thursday in order to fly to Israel using [Israeli airline] El Al, and she was shocked to discover that straight away, the security personnel treated her as a terror suspect,” said Haifa University professor Arik Rimmerman who submitted a complaint to El Al in her name.
“She presented numerous documents indicating the purpose of her visit and her passport – which shows she has already been to Israel several times,” said Rimmerman. “The security personnel treated her and the documents she presented with utter disrespect.”
Bradshaw told Haaretz that no one told her what she was suspected of and she wasn’t explained anything. She said that security took her to a separate room and confiscated all of her belongings. She told Haaretz that she sat and waited as every few minutes a different security official came in to question her about the items in her suitcase – which were mostly books.
After the questioning, she underwent a physical examination in which she was asked to remove her bra. The exam lasted nearly an hour, and at the end of it, she was reprimanded for holding up the flight.
Bradshaw was not allowed to bring any carry-on luggage on to the flight and was only permitted her passport and three credit cards.
When she arrived in Israel, she expected someone from the airline to wait for her and update her regarding her luggage and belongings that were left behind, but no one knew anything, Bradshaw told Haaretz. She said she felt helpless and was holding back tears.
Moreover, Bradshaw’s Israeli colleagues said that the flight attendant that was tending to her reproached her for coming to Israel without anything and without the proper permit for her luggage.
Bradshaw said it was the fourth time she had traveled to Israel and that this was the first time she was treated this way by security personnel. She told Haaretz that she had no idea why they decided to treat her differently this time.
El Al airline responded to the case by saying that “the airline acts according to the instructions of the defense authorities.”
Public Security Minister Aharonovitch issues warrant forbidding the participation of Palestinian PM Fayyad in ceremony marking PA-sponsored school renovations.
Israel is banning Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad from attending a Palestinian Authority-sponsored event in East Jerusalem, Haaretz learned on Monday.
Last week, Haaretz reported that the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel asked Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch to prevent the planned visit with the organization’s website saying it was “committed to protecting human rights in Israel, ensuring sound government, and preserving the national integrity of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.”
Fayyad was scheduled to make an appearance on Tuesday at two East Jerusalem schools to mark the PA-sponsored renovation of 15 educational institutions in the city. The reception and ceremony was to take place in the Dahyat al-Salam neighborhood.
On Monday, however, Jerusalem policemen arrived at the Dahyat al-Salam reception hall, handing over a warrant signed by Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, according to which PA-sponsored events were forbidden on Israeli soil.
In the warrant, the Yisrael Beiteinu minister stated that “under the powers vested in me by section 3 of the law, I order the prevention of such an event from taking place in Jerusalem, or anywhere in Israel…as well as order anyone related to the event to prevent it from taking place.”
Palestinian eyewitnesses reported that the Jerusalem policemen told the owner of the Dahyat al-Salam hall that his place of business would be closed for a year if he went ahead with the event.
In response to Aharonovitch’s warrant, Fayyad’s office assured the event would indeed take place, only outside of the said Dahyat al-Salam hall.
According to the published schedule, the Palestinian PM is to arrive at Dahyat al-Salam at 10:00 A.M, later continuing to a another school at the Dahyat al-Barid neighborhood, situated just north of Neve Yaakov.
While both schools are located north of the West Bank separation fence, on he “Palestinian side,” they are considered part of the Jerusalem municipality, with the PA-sponsored renovations being the second such effort in recent weeks.
Recently, the PA had also sponsored the renovation of East Jerusalem roads after residents claimed repeated appeals to the Jerusalem municipality were left unanswered.
The left-leaning NGO Ir Amim said in response to the warrant that “the Palestinain Authority would not have invested in the renovation of schools and roads if it wasn’t for the neglect by the State of Israel.”
“It is regrettable that the Israeli government insists to continue its hostile attitude toward the Palestinian Authority, even at the price of collapsing East Jerusalem into poverty and neglect,” Ir Amim said.
There is now “no chance” for a two-state solution in Palestine. So said Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian member of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, in an interview with The Electronic Intifada (EI) on 29 October in Chicago (video).
“The reality goes more toward the one state solution,” Zoabi said, “whether a democratic one-state solution, or a binational one-state solution.”
Elected in 2009, Zoabi represents the National Democratic Alliance, and is the first woman to be elected on the list of an Arab party in Israel.
“We are struggling for a normal state,” Zoabi explained, “which is a state for all of its citizens, [in] which the Palestinians and the Israeli Jews can have full equality. I recognize religious, cultural and national group rights for the Israelis, but inside a democratic and neutral state.”
Zoabi spoke to EI just before she addressed 120 students, faculty and community members in an event organized by Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Chicago. During her lecture, and in the interview with EI, Zoabi described the systematic legal, social and cultural discrimination Israel’s 1.2 million Palestinian citizens face. Zoabi said she strongly opposes Israel’s demand to be recognized as a “Jewish state” as this would legitimize and deepen these forms of discrimination.
Zoabi was among dozens of Palestinian citizens injured by Israeli police just two days before her interview with EI. On 27 October, Israeli extremists affiliated with the outlawed Kach movement, founded by the late Meir Kahane, marched through Umm al-Fahm, a Palestinian city within Israel. Kahane believed that all Palestinians should be expelled from Israel and the occupied territories. Zoabi described how police attacked Palestinian demonstrators and protected the Israeli extremists.
She arrived in Chicago on Thursday evening, 28 October, directly from Israel with bandages on the back of her neck and lower back, where she had been struck by projectiles fired at close range. She said Israeli police used a kind of weapon which she had not seen before, which caused an intense burning sensation, and showed EI the welts beneath the bandage on her neck.
In May, Zoabi participated in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and was aboard the Mavi Marmara when the ship was attacked by Israeli commandos in international waters. Nine activists were killed and dozens injured in the Israeli attack.
Zoabi strongly criticized Israel’s official inquiry into the incident. Although a member of Israel’s parliament and an eyewitness, Zoabi has not been asked to testify before the inquiry — called the Turkel Committee — but has attended its sessions with other witnesses. She told EI of the open bias and political statements of the committee members, stating “They do not look for the facts. They are just looking for a way to justify the Israeli attack.”
Asked about the prospects for the current US-brokered “peace process,” Zoabi said Israeli society and parliament “doesn’t feel the need for peace. They don’t perceive occupation as a problem. They don’t perceive the siege as a problem. They don’t perceive oppressing the Palestinians as a problem, and they don’t pay the price of occupation or the price of [the] siege [of Gaza].”
While Palestinians suffer intensely, Israel, Zoabi said, viewed its relationship with the Palestinians primarily as a “security problem,” which it has largely resolved through the siege of Gaza, the separation wall in the West Bank, and by “security coordination” with the Palestinian Authority.
Zoabi spoke about the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement which aims to pressure Israel to end its occupation and other human rights abuses against Palestinians, and to respect international law.
While she said the effect of BDS within Israel was still marginal, “this kind of campaign has the power raise the debate inside the Israeli society and inside the Knesset.” Israel, she said, “is so sensitive to international criticism and a situation of isolation.”
Even if BDS did not yet have much impact on Israel’s economy, it “can send a political message to the Israelis that we cannot just continue with the occupation, and continue with the siege and with oppressing the Palestinian people without the Israeli society paying a price.”
During her visit to the United States, Zoabi addressed the US Palestinian Community Network’s second Popular Conference for Arabs and Palestinians in the US and is scheduled to speak in the San Francisco Bay Area before returning home.
The head of the Forum for the Land of Israel, Noci Eyal, applauded the move to block Fayyad’s participation, saying the organization was happy “that our appeal regarding this issue was accepted by the minister.”
“Now it must be checked how the PA was allowed to renovate schools in the capital, and whether it is taking other illegal steps,” Eyal said, adding that the PA “mustn’t be allowed to intervene in the renovation of roads and public structures – it is against the law and an injury to Israel’s sovereignty.”
The October 24 English Defence League march to the Israeli embassy “in solidarity with Israel” was virtually ignored by Unite Against Fascism. Maciej Zurowski reports
“Palestinians stink,” I heard a female voice shout, as I made my way from the October 23 anti-cuts march in central London to Covent Garden, the day before the English Defence League’s pro-Israel demonstration. Why, it was Roberta Moore, the lovely lady of the EDL’s ‘Jewish Division’, who had decided to brighten up our Saturday afternoon with a bit of racism.
Roberta is a person of many interests: the Brazilian born, ex-Israeli businesswoman counts the Zionist Federation as well as the British National Party among her ‘likes’ on Facebook.[1] The target of her hatred? A small group of Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists handing out leaflets in Monmouth Street about the machinations of Ahava, an Israeli beauty product company with a factory in the Palestinian West Bank and a local outlet.[2] As Roberta stood there grinning vacuously like the reactionary in Ugg boots that she is, the EDL’s entire Jewish Division stood firmly behind her – ie, the other two members.[3]
One of them, a middle-aged woman wrapped in an Israeli flag, interfered whenever pro-Palestine protesters engaged in conversation with passers-by. She was routinely told to get lost. The EDL Jewish Division was completed by a third woman, who periodically shouted, “You’re all Hamas” with a voice so gravelly it would make Lemmy of Motorhead blush.
Also present: a hapless bearded man who waved the LGBT movement’s rainbow flag, while repeatedly shouting, “Hamas kills homos”; and a completely fanaticised silver-haired Zionist who kept exclaiming, “Buy Israeli products here”.[4] With a forceful gesture that verged on assault, he passed me a leaflet appealing to the public to “help the shops in Monmouth Street survive” despite the “disruptive protests”, while casually remarking that “the protesters claim that Israel oppresses the Palestinians – a lie”. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Britain’s new far right. A real motley crew, not like the jack-booted stormtrooper battalions we read about in Socialist Worker at all – and only inadequately preparing us for what we would encounter the following day.
“If those barriers break one day and our lads get through they will murder them all,” said a senior EDL activist in Matthew Taylor’s undercover documentary.[5] On Sunday around 2pm, I suddenly remembered this sentence very vividly, as we faced a 200-strong mob of angry hooligans, with only seven or eight metres and a line of nervous bobbies separating us from them. The stewards had trouble keeping “their lads” from breaking through the shaky fence that delineated the EDL mosh pit. Kensington High Street reverberated with chants of “Scum! Scum! Scum!”, as high-on-hate thugs waved placards such as “UAF = united anarchist fools” at a crowd of no more than 30 counter-protesters.
Given that the SWP had virtually conjured up a Nazi apocalypse in Bolton not too long ago, bussing in hundreds of protesters from all across the UK, Sunday’s ridiculously low anti-fascist turnout did not seem to make any sense. Why was this EDL rally less important than those in Bolton and Dudley? The bulk of counter-protesters was made up of Palestinian youths, who were joined by a small handful of Socialist Workers Party, Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Revolutionary Communist Group comrades, as well as a couple of orthodox Jews from the Rabbis for Palestinian Justice campaign. Anarchists, the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and other ‘militant’ big mouths were all absent. There was a sense that the left had abandoned the Muslims, and EDL members were not slow to post on its discussion forum that “this proves UAF is finished”.[6]
“It’s hard for us to get a good turnout even if we mobilise,” explained a disappointed UAF activist to us. Had the ‘boy who cried wolf’ effect we had predicted already set in? (see ‘Leftist dogma and exaggerated threats’ (Weekly Worker August 26) More likely, the SWP was too busy with its Right to Work front in response to Osborne’s spending review to really give a hoot about the EDL this time. On October 19, the SWP’s Martin Smith posted an article criticising Searchlight’s “non-confrontational” bourgeois anti-fascism on the Socialist Worker website,[7] while not saying a word about the upcoming EDL event in central London. Instead, UAF banged the drums for the ‘national demonstration against racism, fascism and Islamophobia’ on Saturday November 6, expressing its “deep concern” about the EDL. This event – obviously not “non-confrontational at all – is backed by the TUC and the rightwing Muslim Council of Britain.
The EDL, meanwhile, was alive and well outside the Israeli embassy. Kevin Caroll, a prominent organiser whose active support for BNP candidates was revealed earlier this year,[8] gave the opening speech, a tedious pot pourri of ‘common sense’ nationalism and Islamophobic clichés. The Muslims want to force-feed us halal meat, he claimed. “Boo,” bleated the crowd, as if prompted by an X Factor studio assistant. Caroll read out violent bits from the Qur’an with a gravitas that suggested he had made some ground-breaking discovery, but it only earned him the same duteous response. The assembled patriots’ attention span was limited when it came to speeches. Again and again, they ran off to push to the front line and confront counter-protesters – that is when their hatred seemed real and uncontrollable.
“We pay your benefits,” they chanted at the anti-fascists. To be honest, it is more likely that the opposite was true. Despite the presence of some petty bourgeois elements in the EDL ranks, here was a dead-end mob largely recruited from the poorest and least employed elements of British society. This did not keep them from mentally inhabiting a parallel universe: in their minds, radical Muslims and politically correct Marxists were about to take over Britain. Meanwhile, back in the real world, a fundamentalist rightwing government is about to undercut the very means that keep these people alive – unchallenged.
Our good friend Roberta Moore made an appearance and gave a fairly toned-down speech. She lectured some Muslims watching from a safe distance that they could “stay here”, but “You will assimilate, and you will follow British law.” The star of the day, though, was no doubt Nachum Shifren, also known as the ‘surfing rabbi’, whom Roberta had especially flown in from the US at EDL expense. A far-right Republican, frequent agitator at Tea Party rallies and candidate for the California state legislature, Shifren is your man if you consider governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to be too much of a bleeding heart liberal.
The rabbi, who is considered an embarrassment by more moderate Zionists, assured the EDL mob that “you won’t understand my words, but you will feel my meaning” before shouting slogans in Hebrew at the Israeli embassy. The crowd reacted with bewilderment and some laughter until the Rabbi started to speak the language they truly understood, agitating against “liberals who preach multiculturalism” and especially the “damn communists” behind the police line. The mob cheered violently, and we felt a little less safe for a minute or two.
Later, the police escorted the EDL to Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, where the surfing rabbi spewed more venom, while EDL casuals destroyed an Islamic info stall, throwing the Muslims’ table across a fence. “When we get control of this country, I’ll make sure your ass is out of here,” shouted the rabbi. Scuffles erupted and if you were a Muslim you certainly would not want to run into these lads on their way home.
But make no mistake, comrades: the left is now officially established as the EDL’s other main target – a development the organisation’s leaders counted on from day one. “Persecuted for being English by the UAF”, goes the official EDL anthem,[9] and in a sense we are all UAF now, whether we like it or not. More random attacks against leftists have been reported, the most recent incident taking place in front of the University of London Union, where an EDL casual beat up a member of the Stalinist CPGB-ML – though not without receiving a few good punches himself. The EDL has also been preparing files on journalists and photographers who report their activities, while issuing death threats to others.[10]
While the bulk of the left stylised the EDL into the BNP’s own SA, our own ‘let’s wait and see what happens’ attitude may have been a little too laid back at times. True, we analysed the EDL carefully, without hysterical exaggeration, and without the SWP’s desire to paint it as the coming of the Fourth Reich at all costs. We were correctly agitating for the only long-term solution, a Communist Party, instead of alliances with the liberal bourgeoisie. We also looked to the 1920s German KPD and its tactically flexible approach to countering fascism. But despite its flexibility – which included Querfront cooperation with the far right through national Bolshevik, anti-Semitic and “After Hitler, us” slogans in the Rote Fahne paper[11] – the KPD tactics ultimately proved disastrous. Obediently, the rank and file waited forever for the leadership to declare it was the “right time” to strike.
As the pro-imperialist EDL is forging links with the reactionary American Tea Party movement, which in all likelihood will increase its financial and organisational resources, we must continue to observe and analyse this very organically British, embryonic fascist movement arising before our eyes. But cool-headed analysis and a correct long-term strategy does not mean inactivity, lack of solidarity, the absence of short-term self-defence tactics and avoiding confrontation at all costs.
Notes
1. Israel’s liberal daily, Ha’aretz, suggests that Roberta is a follower of the late Rabbi Kahane, founder of far-right American terrorist group, the Jewish Defence League, and Israel’s neo-fascist Kach party: www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/what-are-israeli-flags-and-jewish-activists-doing-at-demonstrations-sponsored-by-the-english-defence-league-1.307803 . The Jewish Socialist Group’s Charlie Pottins thinks so too: randompottins.blogspot.com/2010/08/snap-what-united-david-and-roberta.html
2. For more information on the Free Palestine fortnightly demo go to freepalestinefortnightlydemo.wordpress.com
3. A Ha’aretz reader comments that the EDL Jewish Division consists of Roberta Moore (aka Morrigan Elemeth), Shoshanna/Cassandra Victoria and Stella Solomons (EDL forum user name ‘getonwithit’), who is apparently “also a BNP activist”: www.haaretz.com/misc/comment-page/roberta-moore-19.1198229 . According to her Facebook profile, Solomons holds a media studies degree from Birkbeck University – see what identity politics can do for you!
4. I believe it was Jonathan Hoffman, vice chair of the Zionist Federation, who frequently appears alongside the EDL Jewish Division’s trio infernal.
5. Watch the documentary at www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/28/english-defence-league-guardian-investigation
6. This did not stop the Iranian-owned Press TV channel from fantasising about “hundreds of protesters”: www.presstv.ir/detail/148122.html
7. ‘Anti-fascism – do we confront or comply’? at socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=22786
8. See www.bristolred.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/young-british-and-confused
9. The song is played by a band called Arthur and the Bandits and sounds like a cross between bad Oasis and Skrewdriver without a guitar tuner. It can be found on Youtube.
10. See www.zimbio.com/Orly+Taitz/articles/_q9Hi7GBIQ9/EDL+prepare+files+journalists+photographers
11. For more on the Querfront, read the paragraph on ‘National Bolshevism’ at www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Newint/Kessler.html
The government is trying to build a protected autonomy for the Jewish majority and a stunted autonomy for the Arab minority.
By Zvi Bar’el
How could the Israeli public allow a few dozen racists go down into the lion’s den of Umm al-Fahm on their own? Do Michael Ben-Ari, Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben Gvir represent only themselves or just the fringes of the extreme right? After all, thousands of Israeli citizens agreed when they heard the thugs’ explanations of the reasons for their march.
Hundreds of thousands in Israel are pleased with the Citizenship Law, glad that the bill will, when it passes – and it will pass – allow discrimination against Arabs who will want to buy a home in a Jewish community, and the majority of the public considers MK Hanin Zuabi a traitor.
Where were all these people while the fascists marched through Umm al-Fahm? Suddenly they are not comfortable being seen with those who reflect precisely the zeitgeist?
Participating in this march should have been Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, MKs Anastassia Michaeli and David Rotem, the settler leadership, the followers of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the heads and residents of Jewish communities in the Galilee, as well as the owners of homes in Tel Aviv and Ra’anana who refuse to rent apartments to Arabs. This march should have carried the banner “[National] Pride Parade.” Alas, only 1,300 participants showed up, along with the police force that protected them.
But they are certainly not alone. They simply do not need yet another demonstration. Israel’s apartheid movement is coming out of the woodwork and is taking on a formal, legal shape. It is moving from voluntary apartheid, which hides its ugliness through justifications of “cultural differences” and “historic neglect” which only requires a little funding and a couple of more sewage pipes to make everything right – to a purposeful, open, obligatory apartheid, which no longer requires any justification.
In South Africa of the 1950s, the whites were afraid even of the white immigrants, lest they bring with them liberal ideas that would affect the local volk.
But mostly they feared the blacks. In a short period of time the insular white community adopted a series of laws that were meant to preserve their purity. In 1949, the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act was passed; in 1950 and 1957 the Immorality Act and amendment made interracial sexual relations a criminal offense carrying a seven year prison sentence. In 1950, in the Population Registration Act, each citizen was categorized racially. In 1953 the Bantu Education Act was passed which established that the blacks will receive a different and lesser education than the whites, and in 1950 the Group Areas Act was passed which determined “group regions,” establishing where each racial group could live and which led to the expulsion of 3.5 million blacks from their homes.
This listing is presented here as a service to the racists in the Knesset, in case they did not know what kind of legislation to propose in order to complete their plan. This is also a public service for those who did not participate in the Umm al-Fahm march, so that they will know what they should require of their representatives.
With considerable delay, the South African Group Areas Act is now being copied into Israel’s book of laws. An individual can no longer purchase land, build a home or even rent an apartment in small communities in which the absorption committee opposes their presence. According to Adalah – the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the law will “protect” 68.3 percent of all communities in Israel from being “stained.”
The remainder of communities, and especially the large cities, will have to continue, for the mean time, to make do with voluntary apartheid. But the days will also come, as they did in South Africa, when an appropriate solution was found for its cities. It will be possible, for example, to grant homeowners committees the authority to determine who can buy or rent an apartment in a building. After all, what is good about a small community should also be good in an even smaller building. And of course a law which encourages snitching will also be passed.
So, while the government of Israel is trying to gain Palestinian recognition for its Jewish identity, it is building within it the double identity of the state. A protected autonomy for the Jewish majority and a stunted autonomy for the Arab minority.
Israel is quickly defining the borders of the Arab autonomy and through apartheid legislation it is granting the Arab minority a legal standing of enclaves with lesser rights; of a cultural-ethnic region which, because it is being expelled from the broader who, can also demand international recognition for its unique standing.
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.
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. To make totally clear which side he is on, he is even wearing a blue and white tie…
And, what’s best, I have only used 216 words to describe this perfect image…
The ongoing buzz in the Israeli media around statements issued by artists and academics against lecturing or performing in the colony of Ariel – built on occupied Palestinian land – betrays a stark contradiction in the positions of the Israeli intelligentsia. While they are now calling for a boycott of settlements, they have remained apathetic or even content regarding the far more significant heavy hand of the military-security-political establishment in society, including in academia and cultural institutions.
Another recent controversy has raged around academic freedom and the autonomy of the university. It was occasioned by attacks by two right-wing organizations, the Institute for Zionist Strategies and Im Tirtzu, on the alleged post-and anti-Zionist bias in social science departments at some Israeli universities.
The connection between the two controversies may not be apparent at first. However, they both demonstrate that the liberal-to-left Israeli intelligentsia’s mindset is fully in line with the reigning orthodoxy that accepts the military as a benign fact of life.
In response to the attacks on the universities, statements defending academic freedom and the autonomy of the university were quickly issued by the heads of Israel’s major universities, the association of academic faculty, and individual academics. Even the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities gave an opinion: “we cannot accept attempts by external and foreign bodies to intervene in appointing faculty members, determining curricula, and the manner in which material is taught.”
Does the Academy consider the military and the defense establishment “foreign bodies?” Apparently not.
The Ariel cultural center controversy was defined by prominent economics professor Ariel Rubinstein as an issue of normalization. He said of the petition signed by 150 academics and artists in support of the boycott of Ariel: “the petition’s objective is to undermine the normalization in the relationship between Israel and the occupied territories.”
It is remarkable that Rubinstein ignores the fact that his own institution, Tel Aviv University, provides a case par excellence of the close partnership between the Israeli academy and the occupation regime. Yet, neither he nor any of the other academics who have enthusiastically endorsed the boycott of a colonial outpost in the occupied Palestinian territory have been willing to examine their own institutions with the same critical eye.
Indeed, Tel Aviv University is among the major academic institutions involved in military R&D activities as well as work with the weapons industry. A recent publication of the university boasts of fifty-five projects there funded by the R&D authority at the ministry of defense.
It is instructive to note that while American academics are up in arms about the collaboration of their colleagues with the army under the Pentagon’s Human Terrain Teams and the Minerva Research Initiative, we find no similar protest from the professional associations of physicists, geographers, mathematicians, political scientists and others in Israel about the moral and professional implications of collaboration with their army.
The rare exceptions prove the rule, as in the case of the ineffective protests that accompanied the appointment of Colonel Pnina Sharvit-Baruch in the law faculty at Tel Aviv University. The protesters asserted that her interpretation of the law during Israel’s Gaza assault allowed the army to act in ways that constitute potential war crimes. The appointment went ahead. This is the same army colonel whose invitation to participate in Harvard’s International Humanitarian Law and Policy Forum last year created an outcry from American human rights activists.
The ease with which academics have weaved in and out of the military, the government – even the Israeli “civil administration” before the establishment of the Palestinian Authority – and the academy is quite natural and normal.
In fact, the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations renewed last week likely involve Israeli soldier-scholars steeped in this academic-military collusion that has for decades undercut Palestinian rights.
It might be claimed that the service of the Arabist professors in the occupation regime is a thing of the past. But their role in colonial governance is not a lone episode in the history of the Israeli academy. In fact, the collaboration of the academy with the military and intelligence services has moved to a new plane with the establishment of strategic studies institutions and think tanks and security studies departments and institutes, many of which are located at or affiliated with universities.
Only as an example, the Institute for National Security Studies, an external institute of Tel Aviv University, was instrumental in developing the doctrine of “disproportionate force” and the targeting of civilian infrastructure, based on the lessons of the war on Lebanon and later applied to deadly use in the war on Gaza in 2008-2009. Needless to say, this doctrine is a gross violation of international humanitarian law. Finally, and closer to home for Palestinians, both incidents show that when Israeli academics and intellectuals will it, they, and even their institutions, can speak in one voice in defense of principles.
In Israel, this voice has been silent for the past four decades in the face of repeated closures of Palestinian universities by military order and the imprisonment of thousands of students and academics for resisting the occupation. Palestinian cultural centers and initiatives have been stifled, from Jerusalem to Gaza. Discrimination against Palestinian students — citizens of Israel – at Israeli universities has hardly caught the attention of the academy.
I do not see universal values at work here.
Lisa Taraki is a sociologist at Birzeit University in Palestine.
EDITOR: Below is the summary of a Testimony by Amnon Neumann – who was a 19 years old soldier during the 1948 war – the Nakba.
It was given at a public hearing organized by Zochrot, on June 17, 2010. The audience consisted of about twenty people. Initiated and organized by Amir Hallel. The testimony was video-recorded by Lia Tarachansky. Miri Barak prepared the transcription. Eitan Bronstein edited, summarized, and added footnotes. Translated to English by Asaf Kedar.
Warning: The testimony is highly distressing at points.
Part of what’s so interesting about this is that the old man who testifies, Amnon Neumann, is having an inner conflict about whether to tell his story, which parts to tell and which parts to withhold, as well as the meaning of his story. He is wracked with feelings of guilt, even as he is certain that what he did, had to be done. At the same time he doesn’t feel that as a 19 year old soldier he had the capacity to understand what he was doing.
This story is one of many collected by Zochrot, and organization working to make information about the Nakba known to Israelis.
Public hearing at Zochrot, 61 Ibn Gvirol St., Tel-Aviv, June 17, 2010. The audience consisted of about twenty people. Initiated and organized by Amir Hallel. The testimony was video-recorded by Lia Tarachansky. Miri Barak prepared the transcription. Eitan Bronstein edited, summarized, and added footnotes. Translated to English by Asaf Kedar.
Amnon Neumann: I was in the Second, Eighth, and Ninth Battalions of the Palmach from February 1948 until my discharge in October 1949. I was there for this whole period, except for a few months after I had been wounded and after my father had passed away.
Amnon Neumann
The most significant period for me in terms of the Nakba was April-May 1948, when the battles or clashes with the locals took place, until the Egyptian Army arrived. At first we escorted convoys traveling on the road from ‘Iraq Suwaydan[1], from Rehovot, [through] ‘Iraq Suwaydan, Kawkaba[2] and Burayr,[3] to Nir-‘Am where our company headquarters were located. Then an armed group of Arabs situated itself in Burayr and didn’t let us through, so we took a different route, from near Ashdod where Isdud was located, through Majdal,[4] Barbara,[5] Bayt Jirja,[6] to Yad Mordechai. From there we drove to Nir-‘Am. Those were the two routes [we used] until the Egyptian army arrived. When the Egyptian army arrived, it was a completely different situation. The Egyptian army arrived when we had wiped out all Arab resistance, which wasn’t that strong. It would be an exaggeration to say we fought against the Palestinians… in fact there were no battles, almost no battles. In Burayr there was a battle, there were battles here and there, further up north. But there were no big battles; why? Because they had no military capabilities, there weren’t organized. The big battles started with the entry of the Egyptian army, and those were very difficult problems, especially from May 15th, when we were still an organized army—the Palmach—semi-military. But their soldiers were organized by British methods, they fought like the British. But they had no leadership and they had no motivation. So when they attacked, it was very lousy, they hardly knew how to attack, but they did know how to defend themselves. They knew they were fighting for their lives. But as far as all the rest, it was a fifth-rate army. They had terrible cannons that killed us like hell. They had all kinds of tanks of different types, and they were a problem for us. We didn’t have anything, we had armored vehicles, those fluttering ones that were impossible to fight with, not against tanks and not even against a halftrack, right? But we more or less managed with them.
The villagers’ flight, and I understand this is the main issue here, happened gradually. I only know about what happened from the ‘Iraq Suwaydan road, [through] Majdal, to ‘Iraq al-Manshiyya[7]. We were to the south of this area, and to its north there was the Givati Brigade. The day the Egyptians entered the war, the Negev was cut off and that was mostly our fault, my platoon’s fault… I’ll say more about it later. But that wasn’t significant. The Egyptians’ attacks were significant. They beat the hell out of us and killed us mercilessly.
The villagers’ flight started when we began cleaning these convoy escort routes. It was then that we started to expel the villagers… and in the end they fled by themselves. There were no special events worth mentioning. No atrocities and no nothing. No civilians can live while there’s a war going on. They didn’t think they were running away for a long period of time, they didn’t think they wouldn’t return. Nor did anyone imagine that a whole people won’t return.
First we expelled those … and then we started expanding sideways. To Najd[8], to Simsim[9], and that was a later stage. There were no battles, except for one battle in Burayr. In the north there were battles, with Givati, but we didn’t have any battles. We did ok with them … (silence). One village was left, between Dorot and Nir-‘Am, that’s Kufr Huj,[10] they didn’t run away and we didn’t expel them. There was probably an agreement at a higher level that Huj is not to be touched.
The first time I entered Kawkaba and Burayr I was amazed by their poverty. There was nothing there. No furniture and no nothing, there were shelves made of straw and mud, the houses were made of mud and straw. They lived there for thousands of years without any changes, and the only thing that happened to them was the disaster of the Nakba in “Tashah” [1948]. Because we didn’t come to collect taxes, we came to inherit the land from foreigners. That was the foundation of our thinking. We drove them out because of the Zionist ideology. Pure and simple. We came to inherit the land. Who do you inherit it from? If the land is empty, you don’t inherit it from anyone. The land wasn’t empty so we inherited it, and whoever inherits the land disinherits others. And that’s why we didn’t bring them back. It was everywhere, in the north and the south, everywhere. That’s the most important point. The land wasn’t empty as I was told when I was a child. I know it, because I lived with Arabs. I remember I was wounded and I went home, after April 1948, after they had expelled the Arabs in Haifa, they had run away. Our villages, Yajur[11] and Balad al-Shaykh[12], didn’t exist anymore either. They were empty. And I came home and my father told me, Come sit, son. Sit. He told me, You know what happened? And I told him, Yes, I passed through Balad Al-Sheikh and there was no one there. And he said, Yes, there was a disaster. That’s not what was intended. That’s not what I intended. He came with the second Aliyah. And he said: that’s not what I intended. So nobody thought in these categories, maybe the Yishuv leaders did. My father was a simple man, a worker his entire life. And then I went back to the Negev and we did the same thing. At that time I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I was educated to it just like everybody else. And I followed through with it faithfully, and if I was told things I don’t want to mention—I did them without the least of a doubt. Without thinking twice. For fifty or sixty years I’ve been torturing myself about this. But what’s done is done. It was done by order. And I won’t go into that, these are not things that … (long silence).
In the north they fought. In the south they didn’t, they didn’t have anything. They were miserable, they didn’t have anywhere to go, or anyone to ask.
Eitan Bronstein: What happened in the village Burayr?
Amnon Neumann: There was a battle, and there was a slaughter…
Eitan Bronstein: Can you say a little bit more about that?
Amnon Neumann: I don’t want to go into these things, leave me alone! It’s … it’s not things we go into. Why? Because I did it. Is that a good reason? (Long silence)
I can tell you about one thing. We received an order to occupy the intersection near ‘Iraq Suwaydan. There was a huge police station there which dominated the whole area. We went out with five jeeps and five armored vehicles. We stood at the intersection, and suddenly we heard the sound of tanks from the direction of Majdal. With our rifles and machine guns we couldn’t stand up to tanks. The moment we saw them we fled to Kawkaba, half a kilometer away, and hid in the village. Then the tanks came, stood there and started rotating their cannons, didn’t shoot or anything.
Dan Yahav: Whose tanks?
Amnon Neumann: The Egyptians’. Only they had tanks (laughing), we didn’t have any tanks back then. A few minutes later they started shooting at us from all directions. We sat in the armored vehicles, the fire wasn’t so… but they were shooting from all directions. Until we decided to find out who was there. We went out, looked around, ran a little. It was the villagers who had run away from Kawkaba that were shooting at us. Then our company commander, a nice guy, suddenly appeared with his pickup truck, took out a pistol and said, You abandoned the intersection, do you realize what that means?! It won’t be possible to pass through to the Negev anymore. So we told him, Moishe, go ahead and drive to the intersection, look closely, can you make it to the intersection? So he relaxed a little and then the Egyptian Spitfires came, bombed us and destroyed his pickup truck. He jumped into the sabra bushes and came out alive.
Eitan Bronstein: So who did the shooting, I didn’t understand who did the shooting.
Amnon Neumann: The Arabs who had lived in Kawkaba, the saw that we were running away, so they revealed themselves.
Eitan Bronstein: And then they shot at you, the Arabs from Kawkaba?
Amnon Neumann: Yes, that’s right they shot at us from the hills, from the wadis.
Lia Tarachansky: In Kawkaba there were no more people left anymore?
Amnon Neumann: There was nothing there. The only thing I remember are the terrible fleas there, they devoured us.
Eitan Bronstein: How many people were you?
Amnon Neumann: We were a platoon, thirty people. I was in the scouting platoon. There were other platoons, in Nir-Am, in Dorot, in those places.
Amir Hallel: Did you get to see the Arab residents?
Amnon Neumann: Yes, I got to see them in one place, in two places, when we expelled them by night.
Dan Yahav: What kind of weapons did you have?
Amnon Neumann: From the 15th or 17th of May, we received the Czech guns. Both that and Bazot[13]. But until then, I had a 1904 English rifle, with a broken butt that I tied with a steel wire.
Eitan Bronstein: When did you join the Palmach?
Amnon Neumann: I joined the Palmach in 1946, at the age of sixteen and a half.
Eitan Bronstein: And since then did you train regularly?
Amnon Neumann: Yes … Should I start telling the details?
Lia Tarachansky and Eitan Bronstein: It’s important.
Amnon Neumann: We were in training in Yagur. After four months in the Palmach, all our commanders were killed in a convoy on Haziv Bridge. We became orphans.
Amnon Neumann: A week later, the British army surrounded us and took us into custody at ‘Atlit. After being two weeks or a month in ‘Atlit, we were released and transferred to Gvat. And from there we were transferred after a while to Heftziba. We were there for about a year, and then one day they called us for roll call and said, Tomorrow you will be discharged from the Palmach (we had been in the Palmach for a year and nine months) and driven to a kibbutz near Rehovot. The next day, trucks came and took us, we got there in the evening, they put us in the dining hall and said, Now we’ll tell you what’s going on. The Haganah’s largest munitions factory is here. You will start working there, you’re no longer Palmachniks or anything, that was the arrangement then. We worked there until the war broke out four months later.
Eitan Bronstein: What did you work at?
Amnon Neumann: I made caps [for guns], nothing could be more boring. It was a huge factory, it’s still there, for example, at Kiryat HaMada in Rehovot, in Givat HaKibbutzim. It was underground. Yes, yes, I was a member of [Kibbutz] Maagan Michael, I had no choice. Nobody asked me. The factory is really impressive, we were also impressed by it at the time. It was in Rehovot next to the train station, very close to the train station, and we worked there until the war broke out. When the war broke out we continued to work there. And then a friend of mine comes to me and says, Look, we are trained soldiers, we’ve been taught and we are knowledgeable soldiers. What are we doing here making caps? So I told him, You know what? Go over to Palmach headquarters and find out, and so it was. He went and then he says, Tomorrow I’m leaving the kibbutz. I said, I can’t leave, and they won’t let you leave here so quickly. And he said, I’m leaving. He left, and a week later I told the Kibbutz I’m leaving too. We thought of going to Jerusalem. They sent us to the Negev. When I got to the train station in Rehovot I heard a terrible explosion, I looked back and saw a train rolling down the slope. I understood what happened. The Etzel (Irgun) or the Lechi (Shtern Gang) did it.
Dan Yahav: The Lechi.
Amnon Neumann: They blew up the trains carrying the English army to Egypt. I ran breathless to Rehovot and then I went to the Negev.
Dan Yahav: You didn’t manufacture only caps, but also 9mm bullets, didn’t you.
Amnon Neumann: Sure, but I made caps.
Eitan Bronstein: What else did they manufacture there?
Amnon Neumann: Sten bullets, and they inspected Sten parts. They would inspect them there, there was a special place for shooting. It was a big factory, something like fifty people worked there. Going down there, seven meters, it was … you can go visit the place to this day.
Amnon Neumann: I did a scouting course so they put me in a scouting platoon and there was another platoon there. When we got there my friend told me, Don’t you have a pit? There are cannons here. I told him, So what if there are cannons? I’d never heard [of] a cannon. So he says, It’s a terrible thing. Go dig yourself a pit and cover it, until midnight. We did it, we covered it. The next morning I see he’s dying of fear. A brave guy, a great guy, but dying of fear. It told him, Ptachia, what’s the matter? He answered, There are cannons! We wanted to go eat at eight o’clock, so he told me, No, we’re not going to eat at eight, we’ll go later. At eight fifteen the terrible cannons of Beit Hanoun, there were something like ten there, opened concentrated fire. Now I understand that what they had done earlier was ranging. But nobody knew what a cannon was, and nobody knew what ranging was. So they ranged them a day earlier, before I even got there, and they saw—they had great observation posts—that everybody is getting into the dining hall, it wasn’t in Nir-Am but in Mekorot, before Nir-Am, and then they opened very heavy fire. We sat there for three hours, until they finished destroying the whole place and it became quiet. We got out, the platoon commander approached me and told me, A friend of mine from Kfar Yehezkel came to visit me, he’s lying in the trench, look, and then I saw all the dead. The whole trench was full of dead people. The whole dining hall was full of dead people. Whoever didn’t have a head cover was either killed or escaped, managed to escape. There were some who managed to escape. That was the Egyptian army’s welcome reception. After that they advanced and got to … The two-week long battle over Be’erot started … near Yad-Mordechai. We tried then to bypass the Egyptians but it didn’t work out. Only in the last night when it was decided that we’re leaving them, that we’re leaving the place, were we able to get the people out.
Question: What years are we talking about?
Amnon Neumann: July 48, until the first break in the fighting. By the time of the first break there were no more Arabs in the area.
Question: I don’t know if you will get back later to the topic I want to ask about. You said “we expelled” the villagers, can you describe an expulsion action for us, how it was done?
Amnon Neumann: Yes, until then some of them fled and some were expelled. We shot and they fled to Gaza. But we expelled systematically in the last day of the break in the fighting. During the break there were also a few battles. They tried to penetrate through the Gaza-Beersheba road and we stopped them. The Egyptians! There was no one else to stop.
Eitan Bronstein: Can you say in this context, do you remember what was the order you received regarding the Arab villages?
Amnon Neumann: I’ll tell you. I don’t like it, but I’ll tell you. In the last day of the break we were told that the Egyptians smuggled 20mm cannons to the villages Kawfakha[14] and al-Muharraqa[15] and tomorrow they would act with them and we need to destroy these villages. We drove there … and the men had fled, that was the usual practice. The men would run away first, leaving the women and the children, and then … (silence) we would expel them, right? And so it was in Kawfakha. I was in Kawfakha, others were in al-Muharraqa. It’s about 15km from Gaza. We surrounded the village, started shooting in the air, and everybody started to scream, yes, and … and we drove them out. The women and the children went to Gaza.
Lia Tarachansky: Were there people who didn’t agree to go?
Amnon Neumann: Nobody dared. I’ll tell you why: their mentality was that whoever dares will be killed anyway. They would do it too, if it were the other way around. These are no saints. It’s in the people’s culture, that this is how it’s always been. Whoever resisted would be killed with a sword or by shooting. It’s not an uncommon thing. By morning no one was there. We burned the houses that had straw roofs.
Eitan Bronstein: Just a second, I don’t understand, what exactly was the order in this context, was there an order in some villages to destroy the whole village and not in others? What exactly was the procedure?
Amnon Neumann: No, no, no. These villages were in our rear, and from a military standpoint it made sense. Nobody knew … we didn’t find any cannon there – that’s clear. But now it became an even surface, an open area that you could maneuver in.
Amir Hallel: Before then, if you had approached that area would it have been dangerous, would it have been disruptive?
Amnon Neumann: Nobody would have dared go into an inhabited village. We never entered villages to stay there but only to expel them. Someone asked earlier how they were expelled. This is how it was. Then the same thing happened with the Tarabin and with the Bedouin tribes. That was half a year later.
Amir Hallel: You said that in the whole area of the villages further to the north—when the Egyptians shot at you from Beit Hanoun in June in the whole area except for Huj—you said there were no Arabs. So what happened to those villagers?
Amnon Neumann: There were no Arabs, either they fled or we expelled them. We had already conquered Burayr in battle. The others, they saw that there’s nothing in Hulayqat[16] so they ran away. The big battle of Hulayqat was between our army and the Egyptians. There were no civilians.
Amir Hallel: And in Burayr, which battalion was that?
Amnon Neumann: That was the Second Battalion of the Palmach.
Amir Hallel: They attacked Burayr?
Amnon Neumann: Yes.
Eitan Bronstein: But who was resisting there, who was the battle against?
Amnon Neumann: The villagers couldn’t do anything against armed units entering the village, we called them gangs. But what does “gangs” mean? Those were groups of local soldiers that weren’t trained at all. The battle in Burayr wasn’t a big battle either, they ran away.
Amir Hallel: The inhabitants of the village?
Amnon Neumann: No, the armed people were foreigners there, they came to defend the village. Qawuqji told them, Fight, fight the Jews—we’ll come help you from Acre. No help and no nothing. At Sumayriyya near Regba it was the same thing. It characterized them in the south too, where I was, and also in the north. With the locals there was almost … in the north there were more battles, even difficult battles.
Eitan Bronstein: You’re saying it was a battle with armed people who were not the inhabitants of the village, in Burayr. But at the same time there were still residents of Burayr in the village?
Amnon Neumann: Yes!
Eitan Bronstein: So, there was a battle?
Amnon Neumann: There was a battle, and there was also a small murder and similar things and then the inhabitants ran away completely.
Eitan Bronstein: Yes, there are testimonies about a massacre having taken place in Burayr.
Amnon Neumann: You’ve heard about it?
Eitan Bronstein: Yes.
Dan Yahav: I wrote about it, it appears in my “Purity of Arms”.
Amnon Neumann: It does?
Dan Yahav: Yes.
Amnon Neumann: I don’t want to deal with it.
Dan Yahav: And in other villages as well.
Amnon Neumann: I know, I don’t want to deal with it!
Dan Yahav: Allow me a minute, I see the topic of the expulsion is a very sensitive topic. You were a soldier, I was also a soldier, and when I fought I wouldn’t know exactly what was happening in the area. But there are wonderful descriptions in the Negba archive. There is a wonderful description of a kibbutz member! He sees the expulsion, he sees the convoy with the children and everything and it reminds him of terrible things the Jewish people has been through. The same thing is available at Shmaria Gutman’s in Na’an, regarding Lud, Lud and Ramle, about the expulsion.
Amnon Neumann: Oh, right, right.
Eitan Bronstein: Today it is sensitive for you to recall it?
Amnon Neumann: (quietly) Yes, it is.
Amir Hallel: You said there was a time when you would pass through Bureir and at some point you stopped.
Amnon Neumann: Yes, we couldn’t pass through them because the shooting was too strong, and our miserable armored vehicles couldn’t handle it. So we drove through Ashkelon, Isdud, Ashkelon, Barbara, Bayt Jirja, down to Nir-‘Am. Part of the route was even a dirt road. I want to note that the people I was with over there, in our platoon everyone were born in this country. In the other platoon there were others, including immigrants and people who hadn’t grown up with the country’s air of decency, an air of people who knew what they were going to do, who gave their lives without thinking twice.
Eitan Bronstein: What was the atmosphere among the people in terms of the feelings they had about what happened then, during that time?
Amnon Neumann: It was a horrible period: we were sure that the Egyptians would wipe us out, especially after they had cut off the Negev. We didn’t know that the Ninth Battalion was getting organized in the north and would come and break the siege, we didn’t know that. That was later on, in Operation “Yoav”.
Eitan Bronstein: So in terms of the feeling, there was a feeling that it was like the end?
Amnon Neumann: That’s what I observed, unpleasantly. There was also a second platoon with us in Burayr. One guy, an Egyptian Jew, came here and said—excuse me—“I fucked her and shot her”.
Eitan Bronstein: Did you hear him say it?
Amnon Neumann: No, I was told about this later, I didn’t see him. And then they ran, the people who were there and saw her, a 17-year-old girl, he had put a bullet through her head. I approached the platoon commander, who was from Tel Yosef, and I told him, I told him, I think he should be killed. So he said, Stop it you! We’re all going to die in a week or two, what are you messing around with here … that was the mood back then. Later on the situation got better. We saw the Egyptians weren’t worth much, and they can be wiped out, and we really did attack the cannons and destroyed them and killed lots of Egyptians there. And after that the situation stabilized.
Amir Hallel: What happened to that guy?
Amnon Neumann: Nothing. What happened to him? Don’t ask! Don’t ask what happened.
Amir Hallel: You told me…
Amnon Neumann: I told you? So why do you need me to say it here? It’s not important. Just as I wasn’t important. He was killed later, but killed in a terrible way. But why is that important? A lot of my friends were killed not in a terrible way.
Eitan Bronstein: Can we get back to that harsh expression you mentioned. From that word you understood that there had been a rape there followed by murder?
Amnon Neumann: I didn’t see it, but people ran and saw it. They saw that girl lying there with a bullet in her head.
Dan Yahav: But they had washed her there, she was clean.
Amnon Neumann: I didn’t see and didn’t ask, how do you know?
Dan Yahav: I’m telling you, I know.
Amnon Neumann: This particular case?
Dan Yahav: Yes.
Amnon Neumann: With this Egyptian?
Dan Yahav: Yes, yes.
Amnon Neumann: I see you’ve done some research.
Dan Yahav: They washed her, prepared her and then did what they did. (Silence)
Amnon Neumann: I didn’t know these details and I never wanted to go into the thick of things.
Dan Yahav: By the way, the IDF archive is unwilling to this day to open documents related to cases of rape. It’s still [a matter of] “Israel’s security”. (Long silence)
Amnon Neumann: After that I was in Beersheba. There was a short battle there. It wasn’t a big battle, four or five hours and that’s it. There was a chain of Egyptian military posts there, 10km after Beersheba, and we attacked them, and it was the first time I encountered, in Beersheba, what we called the “French commando”. It was a unit made up of immigrants from Morocco. They were trained in Beersheba, in the alleys of Beersheba, and they attacked there. It was ok, we drove out the Egyptians, the Egyptians didn’t hold out anywhere for very long. It was the first time I saw soldiers walking around among the dead Egyptians. It turned out they had been looking for gold teeth in the officers’ mouths. I went crazy. My conceptual world was different.
Lia Tarachansky: Were there cases of disobedience to orders? Did anyone get up and leave rather than go all the way through with it?
Amnon Neumann: Where? With us? No. Never. Everyone went all the way through with it and to the bitter end.
Eitan Bronstein: You know, Amnon, we once met a soldier who had fought in Beersheba and he told us they shot people who had fled from Beersheba, people ran away and soldiers shot them, shot civilians.
Amnon Neumann: Yes, yes, yes. They ran away to the east and the south and they were shot. That’s because it was, I saw it… ok, I did that too. Are we done? Why should I go into details?
Eitan Bronstein: But you can describe exactly this thing, how you as a soldier, you’re shooting people who you see aren’t shooting at you, how… how did you understand it back then? Over there? That you had the full right to do it?
Amnon Neumann: I didn’t understand, I was 19.
Eitan Bronstein: So you just did it?
Amnon Neumann: I was a fool and I didn’t know. Yes. That’s why I’m in such despair, because soldiers are always 19-20 years old, and they never sober up until they’ve been through four battles. That’s the main point. And there will always be new 19-year-olds.
Amir Hallel: Was there an order to do it?
Amnon Neumann: Where I was, there was an order in one case. As I said, the horrors of war are more difficult than the battles of war, which are not easy either.
Eitan Bronstein: I heard recently about a testimony given by a Palmachnik, [who had been] I think in Simsim, were you in Simsim?
Amnon Neumann: I was there after the village had been destroyed.
Eitan Bronstein: So maybe you’ve heard soldiers’ testimonies saying they saved the Palestinian women from Palestinian men shooting their wives?
Amnon Neumann: They didn’t save, our soldiers didn’t save anyone. Look, in the heat of battle you don’t save anyone. And save just one person, yourself. Right? You don’t save anyone. After that there was the big battle over Be’erot Yitzhak. Really, a big and terrible battle. Half of the men of Be’erot Yitzhak were killed there. How many were there? There were 100, 40 were killed there, something like that. And we came from the direction of Sa’ad to save them and the platoons of the “Negev Animals” came from the other direction and then there was a battle. We shot and they shot. In the end, they fixed their machine gun and mowed down the Sudanese. It was a lucerne field there. Straight, even. And then I saw from a distance, for the first and only time, how the Egyptian officers walk with pistols with the soldiers ahead of them, shooting, lying down, getting up, shooting. That was one of the elite units of the Sudanese army, which afterwards stayed in ‘Iraq Suwaydan as well, until they conquered ‘Iraq Suwaydan.
Amir Hallel: What do you mean when you say that those officers walked with pistols?
Amnon Neumann: What reason did a poor Sudanese have for going and getting killed? For what? Did he even know? Those were the British methods, that there should be order. But the British didn’t have… it was also that way in World War I, rest assured. No one wants to die just like that. What did the Sudanese have here? They were tall, giant, muscular negroes. After the battle our platoon went to collect the booty and the documents. That was our part.
Eitan Bronstein: What do you mean the documents?
Amnon Neumann: Of the dead! What unit was it, what they did, right? We walked there among… we turned everyone over, and… all that. Back then I didn’t feel anything for these dead people. They were enemies and it’s good that they died, right? I didn’t feel anything special.
Amnon Neumann: In March 1949 the race to conquer Eilat began. We went down as far as Wadi Abiad, where ‘Ovda is. And we would kill poor Egyptians over there too, those who had got cut off from their units and we shot them from the hillside. Right? No one… they were abandoned, no one paid attention to them. After a week we were told, Operation ‘Ovda—going to conquer Eilat. Our platoon split into two, there was a group that led the whole Negev Brigade. And we drove, I was the scout commander, we drove an hour after them. In one of the wadis I suddenly heard a sound that was already familiar to me, a land mine exploded, I looked back and saw the jeep behind us rising into the air and collapsing. And immediately they opened fire on us. Me and my driver… (laughing) we jumped under the jeep. I left the MG machine gun hanging there (laughing). And he told me, his name was Basri, he was from Iraq, he told me, Amnon this is the end. We had been a year together. This is the end. We saw the heads, the kafiyas of the Legion soldiers above us, about twenty meters. So I told him, there’s nothing else to do; here, each one of us has a rifle, let’s shoot five bullets, the whole magazine, and run, whatever happens happens. And so we did. We shot, ran and hid. A few days later our commander said we conquered Eilat and we’re driving down there. We drove until we got to Wadi Paran. They I told him, Listen, let go 10km in here and see what happened to the jeep. He said ok, and then we were all tensed up, maybe there’s an ambush or something. And I followed with the map and said, Here there’s 300m left until we get to the jeep, and so it was. 200m before the jeep I saw a Jordanian lying dead, with his kafiyah. We went down to him, he had gotten a bullet here (point to his head), from the ten bullets we had shot. And then we saw the mines. Our jeep which first went through squeezed it with the wheel and it didn’t go off. The second jeep drove over it. We got to Eilat and the war was over.
Amir Hallel: Just a second Amnon, what about the Bedouins? You started saying something about them.
Amnon Neumann: Right, I forgot. The Azazme, and the Tarabin. We were there for two months, we marked the roads that would later be constructed on the Negev Plateau. We got to every remote corner there, really, to every corner. That was when I saw the Azazme and the Tarabin. They would be hiding in all kinds of places, in narrow wadis. I don’t know what they lived off from. I don’t know where they drank water. It was in the Negev Plateau, there was one well there where we would go once every two weeks to wash. Bir Malihi. The good well. Malihi in Arabic means good. It was then that I saw how they lived there. And they were terribly afraid. When we would appear with the jeeps, the men would mount their horses and run away, leaving the women and the children. We never touched them, right? These are not the people we wanted to hurt.
Question: There were no orders to expel them, to transfer them?
Amnon Neumann: No, no. You are reminding me of the Jahalin. The same week we conquered Eilat, our platoon had only three or four people who were taken to the conquering of ‘Ein-Gedi. When they came back, after two weeks, we all came back so I asked them, What did you do? So they said, Nothing. There were Jahalin there, we shot in the air and they ran away. We didn’t kill anyone, do anything, and Ein-Gedi is occupied. Later I heard about the Jahalin from a number of places. It was a large tribe in the east of the country and part of it was also in Jordan. A year ago, I visited… how do you call this place… where Sima went.
Dan Yahav: Ma’ale Adumim, they are still there.
Amnon Neumann: Yes, yes, Ma’ale Adumim. I visited there and saw the Bedouins. I said, Hannah, I have to approach them. And then I approached them. The youngsters received us, Hannah stayed in the car because it was a very warm day. The youngsters received us with such hatred: Get lost, why should we talk to you, are you a journalist? I told him, No, I’m not a journalist. So he told me again, Are you a journalist? I told him, No. and then I saw an old man standing there, on the side. I approached him and told him, Who are you? So he says, We are from the Jahalin. I told him, Where are you from the Jahalin? So he says, From Arad. I told him, No my friend, you are not from Arad, from the Arad area. So he says to me, How do you know? I said, I know. You were in the Dead Sea. I told him in Arabic. So he says, How do you know? So I said, They expelled you 60 years ago, didn’t they. He said, that’s right, after that we were in Arad. But before that we were in the valley below. There weren’t many to expel there.
Question: You also said they burned houses.
Amnon Neumann: That was in the south.
Eitan Bronstein: So in the south the houses were demolished immediately following the occupation, when the people left them.
Amnon Neumann: It wasn’t a problem to demolish them. These were mud and clay houses, nothing.
Questions from the audience: How did they do it? How did they demolish the houses?
Amnon Neumann: It was enough for an armored vehicle to drive by and give it a blow and the whole building would collapse.
Amir Hallel: What would you do if people tried to return to their village, what did you do?
Amnon Neumann: Oh, yes. People who were in Gaza wanted to return to their villages. They would come back at night and do two things: first, there was special agriculture, in the sand dunes, further up north. The vines would bloom and they would need to be pruned, so they would come there at night. The didn’t know they would never ever come back. And we waited for them, it was impossible to let them walk around there, so we waited for them.
Eitan Bronstein: Wait a minute, what would they come for, you didn’t say.
Amnon Neumann: To take care of the vine, to take all kinds of things from the village, I never looked into their sacks. And we would snipe and kill them. That was part of the horrible things.
A woman from the audience: One of the women-soldiers, the women who served in the Palmach, told about how during the war as well as afterwards throughout her life, the moral paralysis was so strong that it had to be accompanied by aggressiveness, and what she says is that after several decades of repressing so strongly what she had done and the demolition of the villages and the expulsion, that it took decades until she was walking in a certain forest and suddenly she remembered that she was standing in a place where a village had once stood. Have you also had experiences of this kind?
Amnon Neumann: Oh, experiences of this kind? Yes. I did but I wasn’t shocked anymore. I used to be shocked by what I’d been through.
Question: Can you maybe tell us?
Lia Tarachansky: You don’t want to talk?
Amnon Neumann: Come on! Do you want me to tell you that I shot at a pickup truck full of people? (coughing) Nonsense. It didn’t change the essence of the whole Nakba.
From the audience: But if we can understand how you repressed it, maybe we’ll be able to understand how the whole people of Israel still doesn’t know about the Nakba?
Woman in the audience: How come you, members of the battalion, never tried to sit together, to talk, to bring back memories?
Amnon Neumann: No. Uh, no, we had reunions years later.
Woman continuing: To try, after you sobered up didn’t you try…
Amnon Neumann: No, there was no one to do it with. We had company, battalion, brigade, Palmach reunions, right? In the end I stopped going and my wife got very angry. I said, I don’t want to hear them. They are always just telling about themselves. How it was here and how it was there. No one was thinking critically. How did you put it? Morally speaking, moral paralysis. It was moral paralysis.
Eitan Bronstein: But now you said something important. You keep saying all the time that it’s a war and that in a war terrible things happen.
Amnon Neumann: That’s right.
Eitan Bronstein: On the other hand, from your descriptions and from what you are saying and hinting here and there about having participated in horrible things as well, that’s not exactly the description of a war. Is this what you mean by “war”?
Amnon Neumann: As I told you, the horrors of war are as hard as the battles. I said it. These horrors, the horrible things that in a war are often worse than the war. Worse things, that is, when women are killed, when you kill children, all the horrors surrounding war, not surrounding the battle, they are worse than the battles. It’s called “moraot” [horrors] in Hebrew. Not “me’oraot” [events], but “moraot” of the war. The horrible things of war.
Eitan Bronstein: You mean, cases where civilians get killed. Are you referring to these kinds of things?
Amnon Neumann: Exactly.
Question: Amnon, can you perhaps tell us after all, if not about a specific event, at least a little bit in principle about the method? Really the method?
Amnon Neumann: There was no method.
Question continuing: The method of the expulsion, how it was done.
Amnon Neumann: Oh, the method of the expulsion! They would come to a village, shoot in the air, and the villagers had no weapons, they had nothing, they packed their things and fled. Then sometimes they would shoot after them and sometimes they didn’t, and that was all.
Question continuing: And what would you do after that, leave the village? Burn it down?
Amnon Neumann: There was so little in the village, as I said, in certain known cases we burned the village down and in other cases we would leave it. No one… there was nothing to steal. Look, there was nothing to loot there. They were as poor as church mice. There was nothing to steal. Me, the only looting I took, I found this kind of prayer rug, I put it in my pit, where I slept for three months.
Amir Hallel: In the south, in the area where you were in the south, in the Negev, were prisoners taken from among the villagers, or were people allowed to run away?
Amnon Neumann: Yes, yes. They were usually allowed to run away. If there were cases…
From the audience: There weren’t any prisoners or things like that?
Amnon Neumann: Egyptian prisoners?
From the audience: No, villagers.
Amnon Neumann: No. If there were prisoners they would be killed immediately.
From the audience: Can you tell about the occupation of Beersheba?
Amnon Neumann: There wasn’t much of an Egyptian force there, and wherever the Egyptians were attacked they didn’t hold out. I saw it in the cannons, when we conquered the cannons. We killed about 80 Egyptians there. So what? In two hours the cannons were in our hands, we had nothing to do with them. No one among us, even the company commander and battalion commander didn’t know, they had never in their life seen a cannon.
Amir Hallel: From the cannons did you continue into the town?
Amnon Neumann: No, it was enough. From the second company so many were killed, from the “Negev Animals”. You don’t move forward just like that. From Beit Hanoun. It wasn’t Beit Hanoun then.
Woman from the audience: I heard about an expulsion method in which three sides of a village would be closed off and one side left open where they wanted the expulsion to go. Was that a method you also used?
Amnon Neumann: That’s right. They would position one squad here, one squad here, one there, shoot in the air, not even straight at them, and they would run away by themselves, they had nothing to defend themselves with.
Woman in the audience: But they understood that it’s the only direction.
Amnon Neumann: They knew they had to get to Gaza, and they knew the directions better than us.
Eitan Bronstein: Amnon, I want to ask you something after all about those horrors that you find it difficult to talk about, and I understand that, but can you say something about afterward, let’s say, would it come up in conversations among the soldiers, for example? After all, you did do things, and you were adults, you did difficult things. Would you later share your experiences?
Amnon Neumann: It wasn’t difficult. Who was it difficult for? For the squad commander who gave the order, for the soldier who pulled the trigger? It wasn’t difficult. It was completely natural—we had to do it. If not, they would slaughter us. Don’t think that if it were the other way around it would have been better. It would have been much worse. There is no doubt about it.
[1] Between today’s Otzem and Negba
[2] Near today’s Moshav Kochav Michael.
[3] Next to today’s Heletz Intersection.
[4] Today part of Ashkelon.
[5] Today’s Moshav Mavki’im.
[6] Next to today’s Zikim Intersection.
[7] Today part of Kiryat Gat.
[8] Two kilometers north of Sderot.
[9] Between today’s Or HaNer and Gvar’am.
[10] Today “Havat HaShikmim”, between Dorot and Sderot.
[11] Two kilometers northwest of Kibbutz Yagur.
[12] Today part of Nesher.
[13] Medium-size machine gun.
[14] About two kilometers northeast of today’s Moshav Nir ‘Akiva.
