After more than six decades of warmongering – he was the man behind the 1956 tri-partite invasion of Egypt, the Israeli H Bomb, numerous big and small wars – the famous ‘peacenik’ Shimon Peres is trying to start a new war with Syria, whose territory his government occupied, settled, and refuses to return. What is frightening is that it seems he might even succeed this time in starting a new war.
Speaking at Israel Military Industries factory, president says Israel is interested only in peace, poses not threat to Lebanon or Syria.
President Shimon Peres on Thursday declared that Israel seeks peace and that it poses no threat to Lebanon or Syria, but lamented the fact that Syria keeps arming itself while making claims it is interested in peace with Israel.
Peres, visiting Israel Military Industries factories, was asked about recent remarks made by Syrian President Bashar Assad, who said that Israel wasn’t really interested in peace. In response, Peres replied that “Syria is taking simultaneous opposing actions. They talk peace while simultaneously manufacturing a huge store of 70,000 missiles on [Israel’s] northern border, aimed at Israel.”
The president added that “Israel is not threatening Lebanon, and is not threatening Syria. Our goal is only peace and I regret the fact that since the reign of [former Syrian President Hafez] Assad senior, who declined [Former Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat’s invitation to join him at Camp David, Syria has adopted a hesitant policy and is not taking any real steps toward peace with Israel.”
On Tuesday, Bashar Assad said that Peres had relayed a message announcing that Israel would relinquish the Golan Heights if Syria were to sever its ties to Iran and to known terror organizations.
According to a report in the Lebanese daily Al Safir, Peres relayed the message via Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who was visiting Damascus last week.
Peres’ office denied the report and stressed that the content of the message was taken out of context. The president’s office explained that the intent of the message was to make clear that Israel did not intend to attack Syria or make any moves that could lead to escalation of tension along Israel’s shared border with Syria.
May 19th, 2010
At this point, you could have quite the dinner party with the folks Israel leaves out! How do I get on that guest list?
UPDATE: Eitan Bronner has an article on the dustup inside Israel over whether it was such a great idea to ban Noam Chomsky, after doing likewise to Jewish American journalist Jared Maslin, Falk, and Goldstone as well as my personal favorite, Spain’s most famous clown Ivan Prado. Maybe if Israel didn’t need to hide what it was doing to Palestinians, Elvis Costello wouldn’t need to stay away as well!
The decision Sunday to bar [Chomsky]from entering the West Bank to speak at Birzeit, a Palestinian university, ‘is a foolish act in a frequent series of recent follies,’ remarked Boaz Okun, the legal commentator of the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, in his Monday column. ‘Put together, they may mark the end of Israel as a law-abiding and freedom-loving state, or at least place a large question mark over this notion.’”
As Israel closes its gates to anyone who doesn’t fall in line with our official positions, we are becoming more and more like North Korea.
By Gideon Levy
In the end, we will only be left with Prof. Uriel Reichman. After we sent Prof. Noam Chomsky away, and there was no sharp rebuke by Israeli academics (who in their silence support a boycott of Bir Zeit University ), we will be left with a narrow and frightening intellectual world. It will be the kind of intellectual world shaped by the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya – an institution of army officers and the rich, headed by its president, Reichman.
A law professor, certainly enlightened in his own eyes, a former candidate to become education minister, Reichman says he doesn’t support the human rights group B’Tselem. That’s his right, of course; our right is to state that at the head of an important Israeli college stands a man who doesn’t understand a thing about democracy.
After all, what does B’Tselem do? It gathers reliable testimonies on the sins of the Israel Defense Forces, very few of which, if any, have been proved wrong. Reichman doesn’t support this? In the world according to Reichman, we are left only with statements by the IDF Spokesman’s Office. We will believe that no white phosphorus was used in Gaza, that the “neighbor procedure” is something that tenants’ committees do, and that if they call a family and give them five minutes to leave before their home is bombed, that’s an action by the most ethical army in the world.
Students at the Interdisciplinary Center say they heard their president declare that B’Tselem is “a fifth column” and that it’s “shameful” this group received a place at the school’s Democracy Day. Reichman denies this, and we respect his word. In any case, the spokeswoman for the college said: “B’Tselem’s modus operandi is not acceptable to Reichman.” What, then, is acceptable to Reichman? A society without self-criticism. This then, is Israel’s intellectual elite; these are our intellectuals – without B’Tselem.
A college president and law professor who preaches changing the electoral system and favors an Israeli constitution – one who doesn’t explain to his students the importance of human rights groups – is no more enlightened than the yeshiva heads who don’t teach the core subjects. He is even more dangerous.
But the man of intellect from Herzliya did rally against the yeshiva heads. “All the statistics show we’re on the brink of a catastrophe and on our way to becoming a third-world country if there’s no change in the Haredi community,” Reichman said in backing a petition on teaching core subjects. But the heart of the matter must be the lessons of democracy, well before mathematics and English.
And these things, it turns out, they do not teach at Reichman’s yeshiva, where even Democracy Day is a day of silencing others. If math is not taught at yeshivas, we will lose little. Without genuine civics lessons at the Interdisciplinary Center, which purports to raise the next generation of our leaders, we will receive a generation ignorant of democracy – in the spirit of Reichman. This is the real catastrophe on our doorstep.
Universities around the world serve as a power source for democracy, and lecturers, not only renowned ones like Chomsky, are often prime examples of liberalism for their students. It’s not by chance that at “Reichman’s College,” as it is called, the voice of political involvement has never been heard. Now it’s possible to know why. The school may claim to be interdisciplinary, but one field is missing there. If Reichman takes a look at his history books, he can read about people and movements that fought for human rights. B’Tselem’s founders will certainly be on that list. Maybe someday this will also be taught at the Interdisciplinary Center, after Reichman’s time.
When Otniel Schneller proposes that an intellectual giant like Chomsky “try one of the tunnels connecting Gaza and Egypt,” we can only chuckle. No one expects Schneller to know who or what this is about. But the prime minister, as opposed to Schneller, knows very well who the admired lecturer from MIT is – where he studied. He knows that the crux of Chomsky’s criticism is directed at the United States, not Israel.
When the prime minister doesn’t immediately apologize and invite Chomsky back to the country, we can be sad. When Israel closes its gates to anyone who doesn’t fall in line with our official positions, we are quickly becoming similar to North Korea. When right-wing parties increase their number of anti-democratic bills, and from all sides there are calls to make certain groups illegal, we must worry, of course. But when all this is engulfed in silence, and when even academia is increasingly falling in line with dangerous and dark views like those of Reichman, the situation is apparently far beyond desperate.
May 18th, 2010, by Jesse Bacon
I was a little young to get Elvis Costello, as opposed to the Pixies. He was well on his way to the iconic status, vaguely sterotypical rabbi look, dorky glasses and angst that made him a kind of hipster patriarch and unfortuantely led to a cameo in the hideous would-be 80’s epic 200 Cigarettes. But I was always amazed at how much yearning he worked into pop songs, made them carry an emotional weight more akin to the classical music he also recorded. Well, now he has perfectly demonstrated how one can use eloquence to illuminate, instead of to obscure. In a refreshingly straightforward piece, he has described why he answered the call not to play in Israel. While other musicians such as Gil Scott-Heron, Roger Waters, and Carlos Santana have also honored the boycott I don’t believe anyone has said why so directly or effectively. Here it is.
It is after considerable contemplation that I have lately arrived at the decision that I must withdraw from the two performances scheduled in Israel on the 30th of June and the 1st of July.
One lives in hope that music is more than mere noise, filling up idle time, whether intending to elate or lament.
Then there are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent.
I must believe that the audience for the coming concerts would have contained many people who question the policies of their government on settlement and deplore conditions that visit intimidation, humiliation or much worse on Palestinian civilians in the name of national security.
I am also keenly aware of the sensitivity of these themes in the wake of so many despicable acts of violence perpetrated in the name of liberation.
Some will regard all of this an unknowable without personal experience but if these subjects are actually too grave and complex to be addressed in a concert, then it is also quite impossible to simply look the other way.
I offer my sincere apologies for any disappointment to the advance ticket holders as well as to the organizers.
My thanks also go to the members of the Israeli media with whom I had most rewarding and illuminating conversations. They may regard these exchanges as a waste of their time but they were of great value and help to me in gaining an appreciation of the cultural scene.
I hope it is possible to understand that I am not taking this decision lightly or so I may stand beneath any banner, nor is it one in which I imagine myself to possess any unique or eternal truth.
It is a matter of instinct and conscience.
It has been necessary to dial out the falsehoods of propaganda, the double game and hysterical language of politics, the vanity and self-righteousness of public communiqués from cranks in order to eventually sift through my own conflicted thoughts.
I have come to the following conclusions.
One must at least consider any rational argument that comes before the appeal of more desperate means.
Sometimes a silence in music is better than adding to the static and so an end to it.
I cannot imagine receiving another invitation to perform in Israel, which is a matter of regret but I can imagine a better time when I would not be writing this.
With the hope for peace and understanding. Elvis Costello
EDITOR: Listen to the message of Israelis on the Nakba
For those good souls, who forever hope for a solution brought about by the non-existing left in Israel, an important object lesson is listening to common Israelis in the street. The combination of racism, arrogance, total lack of knowledge as well as of a lack of shame, has to be seen to be believed. Apart from denying any responsibility for the Nakba, they normally combine this sentiment with a wish to repeat it, and get every Palestinian out of their native land. Those colonials are not for turning, and those who put their hope in their transformation, may as well wait for the messiah, as he is likely to come earlier than such an impossible transformation.
Every year on May 15, Palestinians the world over mourn what is known as Nakba Day. The Nakba is Arabic of catastrophe and represents the 1948 ethnic cleansing when nearly 800,000 Palestinians became refugees. In this segment, Lia Tarachansky of The Real News and Yossef(a) Mekyton of Zochrot speak to Israelis about what they know of this history and the war of 1948, the result of which was the establishment of the state of Israel.
Saeb Erekat says Abbas-Mitchell meeting that the PA hopes to achieve a two-state solution within 4 months.
Terrorism will spread if Israel fails to address “fundamental” issues with the Palestinians, Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak warned on Wednesday during talks with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Mubarak criticised Israel’s refusal to address the definitive borders of a future Palestinian state during indirect peace talks with the Palestinians that have been approved by Arab nations.
According to the Egyptian president, Israel’s insistence on discussing only “secondary issues,” such as the environment and the rights to airspace, threatened to stall any peaceful resolution of the conflict.
“Then we will see terrorism increase and spread throughout the world,” Mubarak said.
Berlusconi said Italy, together with its international allies, is “putting pressure” on both the Israelis and Palestinians to resume negotiations.
Earlier Wednesday, top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that U.S. President Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy George Mitchell and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas discussed possible outlines of a future Palestinian state during their Ramallah meeting.
“We are focusing on final-status issues like borders and security,” Saeb Erekat told reporters after the meeting between Abbas and Mitchell, who is mediating indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
“We hope that in the next four months we can achieve the two-state solution on the 1967 borders,” said Erekat, reiterating a Palestinian demand that Israel withdraws from Palestinian territory it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Mitchell will shuttle between Israel and the West Bank for the second substantive sessions since the Palestinians agreed to the indirect “proximity” talks, which have been given a maximum of four months to produce results.
Israeli leaders have said the Palestinians can raise core issues like the status of Jerusalem, final borders and the issue of Palestinian refugees in the indirect talks, but only direct negotiations can resolve them.
Palestinians say they could hold direct talks if Israel halts all settlement activities on occupied land.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week his government “is prepared to do things that are not simple, that are difficult”.
Government sources said Netanyahu is favorably examining a proposal to expropriate land from Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to build a road between Ramallah and a new Palestinian town under construction.
Abbas broke with tradition on Monday by failing to give a speech on the day that Palestinians mourn the creation of Israel, which they call the “nakba”, or catastrophe. Analysts said he wanted to avoid an occasion in which he would be expected to condemn Israel in strong language.
The White House has said it will hold either side accountable for any action that could undermine negotiations.
The pledge appeared in part aimed at satisfying Abbas’ fears that Israel’s right-leaning government might announce further expansion of Jewish housing in and around Jerusalem.
Obama also urged Abbas to do all he can to prevent acts of incitement or delegitimization of Israel.
Israel captured East Jerusalem along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, and considers all of Jerusalem its capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of the state they intend to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Direct peace talks were suspended in late 2008.
EDITOR: The Pressures Start in Earnest
We all knew that the Jewish Lobby, both in AIPAC and beyond it, will start putting pressure on Obama in good time for the elections in November. Obama cannot afford to avoid them, and they will be as insistent as anything, trying hard to defend the indefensible positions of Israel. That is their job, or at least, that is how they see it. Obama is in for a grueling time, to put it mildly.
Three dozen Jewish Democratic lawmakers met with Obama for an hour on Tuesday night.
Jewish members of Congress urged President Barack Obama in a meeting Tuesday night to discuss his commitment to Israel publicly and travel to the country to demonstrate his support, participants said.
Obama convened the 1-hour meeting with three dozen Jewish Democratic lawmakers, the first such gathering of his presidency, after some members of Congress raised concerns about his administration’s attitudes and positions on Israel, said Rep. Shelley Berkley, one lawmaker present.
The meeting came at a delicate time, with U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians getting under way. It also follows a diplomatic spat between the United States and Israel in March that occurred when construction plans in contested east Jerusalem were announced in the middle of a visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden.
The Obama administration strongly rebuked Israel over the incident, but some, particularly conservatives, criticized the U.S. reaction as too strong and unfair to Israel.
“It was agreed that both the Israelis and the U.S. government probably could have handled that situation a little better,” Rep. Steve Rothman, said after Tuesday night’s meeting, while asserting that from a military and intelligence-sharing perspective, the Obama administration is the best U.S. administration ever for Israel.
He said administration critics were trying to distort that, and Obama and his Jewish supporters in Congress needed to set the record straight.
Berkley, however, said that while she believed the president thought he was doing what was right for Israel and the United States, misgivings remained for those steeped in the issue and highly sensitive to nuances.
“I do want to see the president step up and vocalize his support for Israel far more than he has. He just needs to do that,” Berkley said.
Obama supports a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. Berkley said most lawmakers in the meeting did too, but not at the expense of Israel’s security, and it could not be a U.S.-imposed peace.
Berkley said Obama assured the group he had no intention of imposing an American plan on the two parties.
Obama last visited Israel during his presidential campaign.
PACBI’s Reaction to Elvis Costello’s Cancellation of Two Gigs in Israel
For immediate release
Contact (for media interviews): PACBI@PACBI.org
Occupied Ramallah, 18 May 2010 – The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) warmly welcomes Elvis Costello’s cancellation of his scheduled performances in Israel. Costello’s decision is a great victory for the ethical responsibilities of international cultural figures, a key factor in the cultural boycott of Israel. It comes after similar cancellations by Gil Scott-Heron, Carlos Santana and Bono/U2 upon appeals by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and its international partners, particularly in the UK and U.S.
Referring to Israeli imposed “conditions that visit intimidation, humiliation or much worse on Palestinian civilians in the name of national security,” Costello’s decision not to be complicit in whitewashing these Israeli policies is exceptionally brave and principled. It is deeply appreciated by the Palestinian people and people of conscience everywhere.
US- and UK-based solidarity groups upholding Palestinian rights had urged Costello to cancel his Israel performances in order not to contribute to legitimizing Israel’s occupation and apartheid against the Palestinians.
It is worth noting that, in the last few years, many internationally renowned cultural figures have come out in support of the cultural boycott of Israel. Such a boycott against complicit Israeli institutions is seen as an effective and necessary measure to end its impunity and promote its accountability under international law. A similar cultural boycott against apartheid South Africa is widely credited for isolating it and significantly contributing to the eventual collapse of the racist system there.
No one knows fascism better than Israelis.
By Bradley Burston
SHEIKH JARRAH, East Jerusalem – No one knows fascism better than Israelis. They are schooled, drilled in the history, the mechanics, the horrendous potential of fascist regimes. Israelis know fascism when they see it. In others.
A protest against home demolitions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
Photo by: Daniel Bar-On
They might well have expected when fascism began taking root here, it would arise at a time of a national leadership of galvanizing charisma and sweeping, powerfully orchestrated modes of action.
But that would have been much too obvious to deny. And it would take denial, inertia, selective memory, a sense that things – bad as they are – can go on like this indefinitely, for fascism to be able gain its foothold in a country founded in its very blood trail.
In fact, it has taken the most dysfunctional, the most rudderless government Israel has ever known, to make moderates uncomfortably aware of the countless but largely cosmetized ways in which the right in Israel and its supporters abroad have come to plant and nurture the seeds of fascism.
Wrote Boaz Okun, the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronot’s legal affairs commentator and a retired Israeli judge, of Israel’s ban on Noam Chomsky: “The decision to shut up Professor Chomsky is a decision to shut down freedom in the state of Israel.
“I’m not speaking of the stupidity of supplying ammunition to those who claim that Israel is fascist,” Okun wrote, “rather, of our fear that we may actually be turning that way.”
At the weekend, Israeli police riot troops waded into a thoroughly non-violent sit-in near the entrance to this East Jerusalem settlement zone, where Palestinian residents were expelled by Israeli court order, to allow their homes to be taken over by Jews.
What was curious here was not the neck-wrenching brutality of the Yasam riot police in their gunmetal gray uniforms, bristling with assault rifles, clubs, tear gas and helmets, arrayed against the demonstrators, most of of them Israeli Jews, some of them well past retirement age.
What was surprising was not the fact that several burly officers, seeing a young Reshet Bet (Israel State Radio news) reporter – his microphone clearly and unmistakably marked, interview one of the seated demonstrators – jump him and drag him away in a headlock to a police custody van.
In the end, what was peculiar was that the police seemed so entirely bewildered, so completely lacking in clear orders, left on their own to decide how to proceed in an arena of hair-trigger sensitivity. Fascism with a confused face.
Why should we be concerned by any of this? Perhaps because we have made our peace with a number of factors that can turn a society toward fascism as a solution.
1. Losing a War.
We’ve lost two in the space of less than three years. Our targets, Hezbollah and Hamas, are better armed and entrenched than ever. Our strategic and diplomatic standing is in decline. Iran and Syria are ascendant. And there is abundant reason to suspect that the Gaza War, a major factor in the loss of our international standing, may have been altogether avoidable, the huge civilian death toll indefensible and unconscionable. This has, in turn, led to
2. International quarantine, a sense of being scapegoated, and a search for an internal fifth column.
3. A radical redefinition of positive values.
Look no further than the name of Jerusalem’s obscene Museum of Tolerance project.
4. Olfactory fatigue
We have grown desensitized to the consequences of actively denying basic staples and construction supplies to 1.5 million people in Gaza, many of them still waiting to rebuild homes we destroyed.
We have grown inured to the appropriation of Palestinian-owned West Bank land, to abusive treatment of law-abiding Palestinians at checkpoints, to the ill-treatment and summary expulsion of foreign workers, to racist, anti-democratic and, yes, fascistic rulings by extreme rightist rabbis, especially some of those holding official positions in the West Bank.
5. Fascism by rubber stamp.
“There are a million reasons why someone would be denied entry into Israel,” Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Hadad said Monday, when asked about the ministry’s border policies in the wake of the Chomsky ban.
“There may be a million reasons, but try to find a single criterion for entry refusal and you’ll hit a blank wall,” said Association for Civil Rights in Israel attorney Oded Feller. “The Interior Ministry simply doesn’t publish them, despite a court ruling that ordered them to do so.”
6. The sense that despite everything, all is well.
There will be those who argue that the fact that I, or my Haaretz colleagues, are allowed to publish what we do, is proof that there is no fascism here, nor evidence of a police state.
The fact is that were we not Israeli Jews, and part of an establishment institution, any of us could find ourselves tossed out on the same pavement, and with the same lack of due process and due explanation, as Noam Chomsky.
7. The sense that there is a war on now, when there isn’t.
8. Selective enforcement of court rulings. Routine defiance of same, in particular by radical settlers
9. The 180-degree untruth that officials allow Israeli and Jerusalem Arabs to do what they want, while cracking down on their Jewish neighbors.
10. Equating criticism of the government with favoring the destruction of Israel.
This has become increasingly felt beyond Israel’s borders. In San Francisco, the canary in the coal mine of free discourse within the Jewish community, the Jewish Federation [JCF] recently revised and tightened the terms under which it agrees to grant funds to organizations.
“The JCF does not fund organizations that through their mission, activities or partnerships … advocate for, or endorse, undermining the legitimacy of Israel as a secure independent, democratic Jewish state, including through participation in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in whole or in part.”
The guidelines go on to state that “Presentations by organizations or individuals that are critical of particular Israeli government policies but are supportive of Israel’s right to exist as a secure independent Jewish democratic state” are “generally in accord with the policy statement,” but “early JCRC [Jewish Community Relations Council] consultation is strongly encouraged and the programming should be presented within an overall program strategy that is consistent with JCF’s core values.”
Can all this have spread this far, this fast? Because of Israel, have Bay Area Jews who do not believe in a specifically Jewish state, now forfeited their right to be part of the Jewish community? Have Jews who love Israel but are seen as too critical, or who support a boycott to make their criticisms manifest, been effectively excommunicated?
Chomsky will not try to travel through the Allenby Bridge border crossing a second time, after being turned back on Sunday.
By Danna Harman and Amira Hass
Noam Chomsky has decided not to try to travel through the Allenby Bridge border crossing a second time. Instead, he will hold his scheduled lecture at Birzeit University by video conference from Amman. The lecture will also be broadcast live on Al Jazeera television.
Despite reports in the Israeli media that Israel would allow Chomsky to cross, the linguist discovered yesterday that there was no official guarantee of this. He told his hosts at Birzeit he felt the Israeli authorities were playing games. His daughter and friends, who are traveling with him, also said they prefer not to tire the 81-year-old with another fruitless journey.
Chomsky spoke yesterday to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, whom he was supposed to meet in Ramallah. Fayyad’s office released a statement saying the two men “discussed the political situation and developments in Palestine.” Fayyad said he “strongly condemns the decision of the occupation forces to prevent Chomsky from entering Palestinian land.”
Israel’s refusal to allow Chomsky to travel to the West Bank received considerable coverage in the foreign media and blogosphere. The BBC quoted Chomsky as saying the Israeli officials were very polite, but didn’t let him in because “the government did not like the kinds of things I say and they did not like that I was only talking at Birzeit and not at an Israeli university too.”
Chomsky told Al Jazeera yesterday that nobody likes the things he says, so this puts Israel in the same category as every other government in the world. “I asked them if they can find a government that does like the things I say.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev told the New York Times yesterday that the idea that Israel prevents people critical of the government from entering is “ludicrous,” and “it’s not happening.”
EDITOR: Dr. Frankenstein seems worried about his Creature…
The settlers, a creature of the Israeli government, is supposedly beyond and above the law. Of course, this is exactly what they wee made to be – a extra-judicial force of illegal settlers, in illegal settlements, who torture, oppress and kill Palestinians, steal their lands, and never brought to justice. It is really difficult to now turn round (as if anyone was even trying to do this…) and try to speak of the law, and of controlling the settlers, is really bizarre – the IOF kills Palestinians every week for no reason other than their identity, and now they tell us they cannot control the settlers; this is just another turning of the screw on Palestine: “We would have liked to stop those settlers, but unfortunaely they are above the law”.
GOC Central Command tells Kfir Brigade soldiers the IDF does not know of any Palestinian plans for response, but to prepare for possibility.
Extremist settler activity could set the West Bank ablaze, GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi warned on Monday at a brigade-wide training exercise at the Tze’elim military base in the Negev.
The Kfir Brigade exercise focused on urban warfare – including the capture of a simulated Arab city – and pitted Israeli troops against Palestinian security forces.
Senior officers present at the exercise, the most extensive session the infantry brigade has undergone since it was founded just over four years ago, said Monday there were no indications that Israel would have to fight the security forces.
However, the army said it needs to be prepared for all eventualities.
Mizrahi said he doesn’t expect tensions to rise in the West Bank in the near future.
“I don’t think something will happen anytime soon, unless there’s a very serious incident on the Temple Mount or in the Cave of the Patriarchs,” he said. However, he said he was “very anxious” about an escalation being set off by settler violence.
“Most of the settlement movement is fine, very normal, but a mosque set on fire and another mosque set on fire adds up,” Mizrahi said.
Defense officials are concerned over a series of mosque burnings in the past six months, including a fire that destroyed books and prayer rugs in a mosque near Nablus that firefighters said earlier this month was caused by arson.
Mizrahi said that while the council that officially represents settlers is willing to listen to defense officials, the army is worried about what some of the more radical settlers might do.
“The Yesha Council is sane. Even if they might have become more militant, they understand what’s going on and we can talk to them,” Mizrahi said. “But in Yitzhar, in Maon and in Havat Gilad, they don’t believe in us at all as a state. They want something else, and when someone doesn’t know the limits anymore you don’t know where it will end up.”
Mizrahi said the army and the Palestinian security forces, trained in Jordan by Keith Dayton, an American general, have been cooperating, but that Israeli soldiers still need to know how to fight them if the need should arise.
“This is a trained, equipped, American-educated force,” Mizrahi said. “This means that at the beginning of a battle, we’ll pay a higher price. A force like that can shut down an urban area with four snipers. It’s not the Jenin militants anymore ¬ it’s a proper infantry force facing us and we need to take that into account. They have attack capabilities and we don’t expect them to give up so easily.”
In the training exercise, three battalions went from house to house, where they faced Israel Defense Forces soldiers posing as members of the regular Palestinian security forces, Palestinian civilians or reporters.
Until now, soldiers serving in the brigade have been serving only in the West Bank, but Armored Corps commander Brig. Gen. Agai Yehezkel said the exercises would enable the brigade to fight on the Gaza and Lebanon fronts as well as in the West Bank, if necessary. He said Kfir battalions would be deployed for operational duty within the Green Line as early as next year.
The Kfir Brigade, which was created in December 2005, consists of six battalions whose soldiers man 30 percent of the roadblocks in the West Bank and are responsible for 60 percent of arrests. They have succeeded in decreasing the number of terrorist attacks in the West Bank.
Much of the brigade’s responsibilities have diminished recently, due to the increased activities of the Palestinian security forces.
It should be noted that the main perpetrators of crimes against Palestinians belong to the Kfir Brigade, according to statistics on Military Police investigations, which the Israel Defense Forces provided to the human rights organization Yesh Din.
In 2007 the Military Police opened 351 probes for crimes in the territories, compared to 152 cases in 2006. The Military Police managed to tie the complaints to specific IDF units in only 55 percent of the cases, compared to 78 percent in the previous year.
Sixty-six of the investigations opened in 2007 were against Kfir soldiers, compared to 35 in 2006; 52 were against the paratroopers brigade (19 in 2006); 14 against Nahal (only one in 2006); 10 against Givati (one in 2006); six against the tank corps (none in 2006); and five each against Golani and the West Bank division.
The Kfir brigade is posted in the West Bank permanently, which means it spends several more months a year there than any other brigade. It also has more regiments than other infantry brigades.
The Military Police is investigating a variety of crimes in the territories, from the killing of Palestinians and the illegal use of firearms to abuse and plunder.
By Akiva Eldar
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares that Israel will not be able to restrain itself from responding to Syria’s transfer of long-range missiles to Hezbollah, the Israeli embassy in Madrid goes on the alert. The diplomats there know that by the next day there will be a hysterical directive from Jerusalem to ask Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos to relay a reassuring message to Damascus.
And when Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatens to wipe out the Assad clan, ministry officials assume there must have been a development in the criminal investigation against Lieberman. The problem is that the Arabs just don’t get the Israelis: They take our ministers’ twaddle more seriously than we do.
It seems that Netanyahu and Lieberman want to scare us and put the peace genie back in the bottle. But how to convince the Arabs that their scaremongering is aimed at diverting our attention from the destruction the government is wreaking on Israel’s foreign relations? Barak Ravid reported in Haaretz last week that Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said, on his return from Beirut, that there was total panic in Lebanon over the possibility of an Israeli offensive there. It turns out that when Israeli officials try to scare us about the menace of the Scud missiles that Syria has given Hezbollah, it is the Arabs who get frightened.
According to articles appearing recently in the Arab press, the Syrians think that in the absence of permission from the United States to launch an offensive against Iran’s nuclear installations, Israel will strike in Iran’s front yard by attacking Hezbollah’s missiles and dragging Syria into a confrontation. In an atmosphere of panic, a local incident would be enough to start a major flare-up. Hassan Nasrallah said after the last war that he had not correctly assessed the action Israel would take. The Hezbollah leader implied that he had not been interested in a conflict of such high intensity.
In 2006, it ended with missiles landing on the outskirts of Hadera and 1 million refugees who fled from the north. According to the head of the Military Intelligence research division, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, if the Syrians err in their assessment of Israel’s intentions in 2010, the missiles will land in Tel Aviv and even further south. He recently told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Hezbollah’s military capabilities had developed greatly since the Second Lebanon War and that it now has thousands of rockets of all kinds and ranges, as well as long-range solid-fuel missiles that are highly accurate.
No less important, the “national appraiser” pointed out that Hezbollah is regarded by the Syrians as “part of their own defense entity” – and this comes at a time when the U.S. defense establishment does not see an Israel ruled by a right-wing government as part of the American defense entity. The checks and balances through which the peace process with Syria has contributed to a state of calm have worn thin. Baidatz said the Syrians are still interested in a peace deal with Israel for the return of the Golan Heights and American involvement. Military Intelligence believes that in exchange for this, “Syria will alter its role in the radical axis.” For Syrian President Bashar Assad, however, progress in the diplomatic process with the current Israeli government is of no import.
As long as Israel is not ready to pay the territorial price for peace with Syria, deterrence is a legitimate, and even vital, means of avoiding a military confrontation. Deterrence, according to the accepted definition in the Israel Defense Forces, consists of “an action or process of threatening that prevents the enemy from taking action because of a fear of its repercussions.”
Deterrence creates an atmosphere of the existence of a credible threat that decision makers believe could lead to an outcome that they cannot or do not wish to countenance. What would happen if the decision makers in Damascus decide that Israel is determined this summer to carry out its threat to attack, no matter what? When its life is threatened, even a pet cat unsheathes its claws.
We can only hope that our neighbors begin taking the blathering of Israeli leaders as seriously as most Israelis do. Otherwise, it could end in disaster.
On 11 May the nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu was sentenced to a further three months in prison, to start on 23 May. This latest sentence follows his objection to doing community service in West Jerusalem, where he reasonably feared for his safety. He was quite prepared to work in East Jerusalem, but this compromise was denied him by the supreme court. This most recent court hearing arose because Vanunu had been charged with breaking the draconian restrictions imposed on him ever since his release, in 2004, from his 18-year prison sentence – 11½ of which were spent in solitary confinement. These cruel and arbitrary restrictions forbade Vanunu freedom of movement, expression and association, in complete contravention of international law and his human rights. The continuing and outrageous harassment of Vanunu, for telling the world the truth of Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons, all of 24 years ago, comes right at the start of the 2010 negotiations, at the United Nations in New York, to strengthen not only the international ban on nuclear weapons but also the 1968 non-proliferation treaty. This cynical treatment of Vanunu is a clear indication, once again, that Israel cares nothing for human rights legislation, nor any attempts to limit the possession, development and general spread of nuclear weapons.
Tony Benn, Ben Birnberg, Jeremy Dear, Bruce Kent, Jenny Morgan, Susannah York and Ernest Rodker
By Donald Macintyre
Monday, 17 May 2010
Noam Chomsky, the internationally renowned philosopher and leading dissident US intellectual, was yesterday stopped by Israeli immigration officials from entering the West Bank to deliver a lecture.
The 81-year-old Jewish professor, an often mordant critic of the Israeli government who had been due to lecture at Birzeit University and the Institute for Palestine Studies, was refused entry at the Allenby Bridge across the river Jordan.
The bar was described by Professor Chomsky’s host, the Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti, as a “fascist action, amounting to suppression of freedom of expression”.
Professor Noam Chomsky
Professor Chomsky told Reuters from Amman, where he had returned from the crossing, that officials had refused him permission to enter the West Bank, adding: “They apparently didn’t like the fact that I was due to lecture at a Palestinian university and not in Israel.”
But the Israeli Ministry of Interior said last night that the bar had been a “mistake” by a member of the staff on the spot and that the Ministry had no objection to Professor Chomsky making the crossing if he was travelling directly to Ramallah, as distinct from visiting or passing through Israel.
Asked how a staff member at the crossing could have erred, an official said that the person may have wrongly responded to information held on a computer database.
Professor Chomsky, widely recognised as a giant of 20th-century linguistic philosophy as well as a prominent critic of US and Western foreign policy over decades, said that he was on a speaking tour of the region and that his schedule was too tight to attempt another entry into the West Bank.
Israel says the denial may be a misunderstanding
Renowned US scholar Noam Chomsky has been denied entry to the West Bank by Israeli immigration officials.
Prof Chomsky, renowned for his work on linguistics and philosophy, was planning to deliver a lecture at Birzeit University.
Prof Chomsky, 82, had been trying to enter from Jordan.
An Israeli interior ministry spokeswoman said it was to trying to clear the matter up and allow Prof Chomsky to enter.
Prof Chomsky said the officials were very polite but he was denied entry because “the government did not like the kinds of things I say and they did not like that I was only talking at Birzeit and not at an Israeli university too.”
He added: “I asked them if they could find any government in the world that likes the things I say.”
Prof Chomsky’s Palestinian host for the visit, Mustafa al-Barghouti, told Reuters: “This decision is a fascist action, amounting to suppression of freedom of expression.”
The interior ministry spokeswoman, Sabine Hadad, said: “We are trying to contact the military to clear things up and if they have no objection we see no reason why he should not be allowed in.”
Prof Chomsky has frequently spoken out against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
Linguist Noam Chomsky was scheduled to lecture at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah, meet PA Prime Minister Fayyad.
By Amira Hass
Tags: Israel news West Bank Noam Chomsky
The Interior Ministry refused to let linguist Noam Chomsky into Israel and the West Bank on Sunday. Chomsky, who aligns himself with the radical left, had been scheduled to lecture at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah, and visit Bil’in and Hebron, as well as meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and various Palestinian activists.
In a telephone conversation last night from Amman, Chomsky told Haaretz that he concluded from the questions of the Israeli official that the fact that he came to lecture at a Palestinian and not an Israeli university led to the decision to deny him entry.
“I find it hard to think of a similar case, in which entry to a person is denied because he is not lecturing in Tel Aviv. Perhaps only in Stalinist regimes,” Chomsky told Haaretz.
Sabine Haddad, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, confirmed to Haaretz that the officials at the border were from the ministry.
“Because he entered the Palestinian Authority territory only, his entry is the responsibility of the Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories at the Defense Ministry. There was a misunderstanding on our side, and the matter was not brought to the attention of the COGAT.”
Haddad told Haaretz that “the minute the COGAT says that they do not object, Chomsky’s entry would have been permitted.”
Chomsky, a Jewish professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had spent several months at Kibbutz Hazore’a during the 1950s and had considered a longer stay in Israel. He had been invited by the Department of Philosophy at Bir Zeit.
He planned to spend four days in the West Bank and give two lectures.
On Sunday, at about 1:30 P.M. he came to the Israeli side of the border with Jordan. After three hours of questioning, during which the border officer repeatedly called the Interior Ministry for instructions, Chomsky’s passport was stamped with “Denied Entry.”
With Chomsky, 81, were his daughter Aviva, and a couple of old friends of his and his late wife.
Entry was also denied to his daughter.
Their friends, one of whom is a Palestinian who grew up in Beirut, were allowed in, but they opted to return with Chomsky to Amman.
Chomsky told Haaretz that it was clear that his arrival had been known to the authorities, because the minute he entered the passport control room the official told him that he was honored to see him and that he had read his works.
The professor concluded that the officer was a student, and said he looked embarrassed at the task at hand, especially when he began reading from text the questions that had been dictated to him, and which were also told to him later by telephone.
Chomsky told Haaretz about the questions.
“The official asked me why I was lecturing only at Bir Zeit and not an Israeli university,” Chomsky recalled. “I told him that I have lectured a great deal in Israel. The official read the following statement: ‘Israel does not like what you say.'”
Chomsky replied: “Find one government in the world which does.”
“The young man asked me whether I had ever been denied entry into other countries. I told him that once, to Czechoslovakia, after the Soviet invasion in 1968,” he said, adding that he had gone to visit ousted Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubcek, whose reforms the Soviets crushed.
In response to the official’s question, Chomsky said that the subjects of his lectures were “America and the world,” and “America at home.”
The official asked him whether he would speak on Israel and Chomsky said that because he would talk of U.S. policy he would also comment on Israel and its policies.
He was then told by the official: “You have spoken with [Hassan] Nasrallah.”
“True,” Chomsky told him. “When I was in Lebanon [prior to the war in 2006] I spoke with people from the entire political spectrum there, as in Israel I also spoke with people on the right.”
“At the time I read reports of my visit in the Israeli press, and the articles in the Israeli press had no connection with reality,” Chomsky told the border official.
The official asked Chomsky why he did not have an Israeli passport.
“I replied I am an American citizen,” Chomsky said.
Chomsky said that he asked the man at border control for an official written explanation for the reason his entry was denied and that “it would help the Interior Ministry because this way my version will not be the only one given to the media.”
The official called the ministry and then told Chomsky that he would be able to find the official statement at the U.S. Embassy.
The last time Chomsky visited Israel and the West Bank was in 1997, when he lectured on both sides of the Green Line. He had also planned a visit to the Gaza strip, but because the Palestinian Authority insisted that he be escorted by Palestinian guards, he canceled that part of the visit.
To Haaretz, Chomsky said Sunday that preventing him entry is tantamount to boycotting Bir Zeit University. Chomsky is known to oppose a general boycott on Israel. “I was against a boycott of apartheid South Africa as well. If we are going to boycott, why not the United States, whose record is even worse? I’m in favor of boycotting American companies which collaborate with the occupation,” he said. “But if we are to boycott Tel Aviv University, why not MIT?”
Chomsky told Haaretz that he supports a two-state solution, but not the solution proposed by Jerusalem, “pieces of land that will be called a state.”
He said that Israel’s behavior today reminds him of that of South Africa in the 1960s, when it realized that it was already considered a pariah, but thought that it would resolve the problem with better public relations.
While the international boycott against apartheid South Africa is credited with leading to the regime’s downfall, here it is considered irrelevant and unworthy of comparison.
By Gideon Levy
Most people here are appalled at the notion that anybody beyond Israel’s borders would think to boycott their country, products or universities. Boycotts, after all, are viewed in Israel as illegitimate. Anyone who calls for such a step is perceived as an anti-Semite and Israel-hater who is undermining the state’s very right to exist. In Israel itself, those who call for a boycott are branded as traitors and heretics. The notion that a boycott, limited as it may be, is likely to convince Israel to change its ways – and for its own benefit – is not tolerated here.
Even an obvious, logical step – like the Palestinian Authority’s boycott of products made in the settlements – is viewed by hypocritical Israeli eyes as provocative. Moreover, while the international boycott against apartheid South Africa is credited with leading to the regime’s downfall, here it is considered irrelevant and unworthy of comparison.
It would be possible to identify with these intolerant reactions were it not for the fact that Israel itself is one of the world’s prolific boycotters. Not only does it boycott, it preaches to others, at times even forces others, to follow in tow. Israel has imposed a cultural, academic, political, economic and military boycott on the territories. At the same time, almost no one here utters a dissenting word questioning the legitimacy of these boycotts. Yet the thought of boycotting the boycotter? Now that’s inconceivable.
The most brutal, naked boycott is, of course, the siege on Gaza and the boycott of Hamas. At Israel’s behest, nearly all Western countries signed onto the boycott with inexplicable alacrity. This is not just a siege that has left Gaza in a state of shortage for three years. Nor is it just a complete (and foolish ) boycott of Hamas, save for the discussions over abducted soldier Gilad Shalit. It’s a series of cultural, academic, humanitarian and economic boycotts. Israel threatens nearly every diplomat who seeks to enter Gaza to see firsthand the unbearable sights.
In addition, Israel bars entry to anyone who wishes to lend humanitarian aid. We should note that the boycott isn’t just against Hamas, but against all Gaza, everyone who lives there. The convoy of ships that will soon sail from Europe to try to break the siege will carry thousands of tons of construction material, prefab houses and medicine. Israel has announced that it plans to stop the vessels. A boycott is a boycott.
Doctors, professors, artists, jurists, intellectuals, economists, engineers – none of them are permitted to enter Gaza. This is a complete boycott that bears the tag “Made in Israel.” Those who speak about immoral and ineffective boycotts do so without batting an eye when it comes to Gaza.
Israel is also urging the world to boycott Iran. But it’s not just Gaza and Iran that are at issue here, because entry into Israel and the West Bank is being affected by the recent frenzy of boycotts. Anyone who is suspected of supporting the Palestinians or expressing concern for their lot is boycotted and expelled. This group includes a clown who came to organize a conference; a peace activist who was due to appear at a symposium; and scientists, artists and intellectuals who arouse suspicions that they back the Palestinian cause. This is a cultural and academic boycott on all counts, the type of boycott that we reject when it is used against us.
Yet the anti-boycott country’s list of boycotted parties does not end there. Even a Jewish-American organization like J Street, which defines itself as pro-Israel, has felt the long arm of the Israeli boycott. It is permissible to boycott J Street because it champions peace, but we can’t tolerate a boycott of products made in settlements that were built on usurped land. Denying a visiting professor entry into Gaza for an appearance at a university does not qualify as a boycott, but cutting off ties with Israeli institutions that provide fast-track degree programs for army officers and interrogators in the Shin Bet security service – people who are often viewed around the world as complicit in war crimes – is viewed as verboten.
Yes, an Israeli who lives in Israel will have a hard time preaching to others about the virtues of a boycott when that person does not boycott his or her own country or university. But it is his right to believe that a boycott could compel his government to end the occupation. As long as the Israelis don’t pay any price, there won’t be a change.
This is a legitimate, moral position. It is no less legitimate or moral than those who claim that a boycott is an immoral, ineffective tool while exercising that same option against others. So you oppose a boycott against Israel? Then let’s first do away with all the boycotts we have imposed ourselves.
EDITOR: Denied Entry into Israel?
Chomsky was denied entry into the Occupied Territories by the IOF at the bridge. It is a pity that Haaretz cannot tell the difference between Israel and the OPT, where the meeting Chomsky was invited to took place. It is alsoa pity that Chomsky is still a supporter of Israel and an opponent of the One-State solution. Maybe this experience may change his mind?
Left-wing American linguist, who was scheduled to speak at Bir Zeit University, given no reason by Israeli inspectors at Allenby Bridge.
American linguist Noam Chomsky was denied entry into Israel on May 16, 2010 Photo by: Bloomberg
Left-wing American linguist Professor Noam Chomsky was denied entry into Israel on Sunday, for reasons that were not immediately clear.
Chomsky, who was scheduled to deliver a lecture at Bir Zeit University near Jerusalem, told the Right to Enter activist group by telephone that inspectors had stamped the words “denied entry” onto his passport when he tried to cross from Jordan over Allenby Bridge.
When he asked an Israeli inspector why he had not received permission, he was told that an explanation would be sent in writing to the American embassy.
Chomsky arrived at the Allenby Bridge at around 1:30 in the afternoon and was taken for questioning, before being released back to Amman at 4:30 P.M.
Chomsky is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is considered among the foremost academics in the world. He identifies with the radical left and is often critical of both Israeli and American policies.
Former soldier facing spying charges for leaking army documents sought to ease terms of her house arrest.
Anat Kam in court for a failed appeal over terms of her arrest, May 16, 2010 Photo by: Moti Kimche
A Tel Aviv court on Sunday rejected a plea by Anat Kamm, a former soldier arrested for leaking secret military documents to the press, to ease the terms of her house arrest.
Kamm had sought permission to leave the house for up to two hours each day to “get some fresh air”.
But a judge ruled that the order for house arrest was not subject to appeal, as Kamm’s circumstances had not altered since her detention.
In mid-April a court ruled to toughen the terms of Kamm’s arrest, ordering her to remain under supervision of one of four nominated family members at all times.
In late April police raided Kamm’s rented apartment in Tel Aviv after unauthorized family members visited her there.
Kamm faces trial on espionage charges after giving Uri Blau, a Haaretz correspondent, classifeid miltary papers detailing an allegedly illegal assassinations policy operated by the IDF against Palestinian militants.
Exclusive: IoS shown evidence that suspect in Mabhouh killing had genuine British passport
Within 48 hours of becoming Foreign Secretary, William Hague faces a political crisis over the Middle East. The emirate of Dubai has named a British citizen as a 19th suspect of the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Hamas official murdered in the emirate four months ago, apparently by a group that included holders of forged British passports. According to a source in the United Arab Emirates, the suspect arrived in Dubai under his own name and carrying a genuine British passport.
The document, the details of which are known by The Independent on Sunday but which we have decided not to publish, shows that he holds a real British passport dated 24 October 2007, valid for 11 years, and was born in 1948. It is believed that his father was a Jewish Palestinian who migrated to the UK just after the Second World War. Dubai police have informed Interpol of the name and passport number of the suspect. The man is believed to be hiding in Western Europe.
According to Dubai sources, the British man was identified parking a rental car close to the hotel where Mr Mabhouh was murdered and can be seen parking his car on a videotape that is in the possession of UEA authorities; a copy of the tape has been given to the British police. According to the UEA, the suspect has recently visited both Canada and France.
Mr Mabhouh was smothered to death in his hotel room and the Emirates have named 33 suspects. Investigations revealed that up to 12 of them had used forged British passports. Other suspects used similar counterfeit or stolen Irish, Australian, French and German passports.
Those involved are widely believed to be members of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. British, Irish and French governments have asked Israeli ambassadors to explain the use of their national passports in the killing.
The involvement of a genuine British suspect will not improve diplomatic relations between London and Tel Aviv. The former foreign secretary David Miliband condemned the counterfeiting of British passports as “intolerable” and demanded reassurances from Israel that it would not be repeated. Britain also ordered an Israeli diplomat to leave the UK in March after an investigation by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency showed that there were “compelling reasons” why Israel was believed to be behind the misuse of the passports. The inquiry determined that the documents were cloned when British citizens passed through airports on their way into Israel, with officials taking them away for “checks” that lasted around 20 minutes. Britain’s decision was attacked by angry Israeli MPs who described it as the action of “anti-semitic dogs”.
The diplomat asked to leave the UK was understood to be an intelligence officer who was known to the UK authorities and worked as official liaison with Britain’s MI6. There was no suggestion the officer was personally involved in the passports affair.
Israel has never admitted any role in February’s Dubai assassination of Mr Mabhouh, who was described as a key figure in smuggling Iranian weapons into the Gaza Strip on behalf of Hamas. It has abstained from signing any material that might be construed as a confession.
EDITOR: How many Mossad Agents Does It Take To Murder One Palestinian?
Answer: At least 33, but the number is rising… Say, this is not very efficient, is it?
Dubai police have now identified 33 people suspected of killing Hamas operative, most of them named through forged passports.
The latest suspect in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is a British citizen with a valid passport, according to the Independent, unlike many of the others who were found to have entered the United Arab Emirates using forged identies.
According to the Independent, the 62-year-old suspect is the son a Jew who lived in Palestine until the outbreak of World War II, when he moved to Britain.
The Dubai police have transferred the suspect’s name and passport information to the Interpol agency, said the Independent. The suspect, who is believed to be hiding now in western Africa, was identified by surveillance as having parked a car outside the hotel where Mabhouh was killed.
Dubai police have so far identified another 32 suspects in the murder. Five were identified just a little more than a week ago, as having traveled to the U.A.E with Australian, British and French passports
The Dubai authorities have described al-Mabhouh’s assassination as a mix of clockwork precision and spy novel flare. They have accused Israel’s Mossad spy agency of being behind the killing of al-Mabhouh.
The Dubai police previously released names of 27 suspects who traveled to Dubai on fake identities and forged European and Australian passports. The police also compiled a detailed flow chart-style diagram on the suspects’ alleged roles in the slaying.
At least 15 of the suspected killers share names with Israeli citizens, further fueling suspicions the Mossad was behind the hit. Israel has maintained a policy of ambiguity on the killing, neither confirming nor denying involvement.
EDITOR: The real face of Israeli academia
Uriel Reichman has long pretended to be a liberal, while supporting right wing policies and issues. It is good to se him exposed here, calling the main human rights orgaisation in Israel a ‘fifth column’. Spoken like a Nazi. Those are the people who fight against the BDS, and against Palestine as well as against human rights.
B’Tselem: We welcome the statement made by Professor Reichman, which indicates that although he doesn’t support the organization, he supports the organization’s right to make its positions known.
By Asaf Shtull-Trauring
The president of the Interdisciplinary Center, Uriel Reichman, described the human rights watchdog B’Tselem as a “fifth column” and said that inviting its representatives to speak at the college was “disgraceful,” students who spoke to the president told Haaretz. Reichman denies ever making the statements.
On April 15, the private college based in Herzliya held a “Democracy Day,” during which they invited 40 organizations to set up stalls near the campus cafeteria. However, only the groups B’Tselem, the Movement for Quality Government, Im Tirtzu and the National Left responded.
During the event, one student apparently approached Reichman to protest the presence of B’Tselem on campus. Another student, who witnessed the conversation, said Reichman responded by saying he hadn’t been consulted about inviting B’Tselem, that he found it disgraceful and that the organization was a fifth column.
“Some of the students were angry and protested the presence of B’Tselem at the IDC,” Omri Akunis, one of the event organizers, told Haaretz. He added that he did not think the college would allow the organization to participate in the event next year.
Reichman told Haaretz that he never made the comments. “It’s nonsense,” he said. “B’Tselem was invited to the campus. A student approached me to say he thought that they shouldn’t be there, that they’re a hostile element, a fifth column and so on. I told him that you can’t drive out someone who was invited.
“The same student then sent a letter, which the deputy president for student affairs replied to,” Reichman continued. “She explained to him that the group had been invited by students, but that we do not identify with the organization. In other words, she wrote that the fact the organization was invited by students does not mean we endorse it. I’m not a supporter or admirer of B’Tselem, but I certainly told that young man that we’re not going to kick out any organization we have invited. We’re not going to gag anyone.”
The college spokesman told Haaretz that “Reichman is working under the assumption that his students are truthful, and he doesn’t recall ever making such a statement. He does not agree with B’Tselem’s methods, but he nevertheless maintains and will continue to maintain full pluralism and freedom of speech.”
B’Tselem issued the followed comment on the matter: “We welcome the statement made by Professor Reichman, which indicates that although he doesn’t support the organization, he supports the organization’s right to make its positions known. Defending the right to express an opinion even when one doesn’t agree with it is the very essence of freedom of speech. B’Tselem will continue stating its positions and encouraging public discussion in Israel of human rights in the Occupied Territories.”
On Monday I reported here the arrest of two prominent Palestinian citizens of Israel – Dr. Omar Saeed and Ameer Makhoul – at a time when these news still banned from publication in Israel. The ban was partially lifted a few hours later, crumbling under the pressure of both the Israeli-Palestinian public openly protesting the arrests, and the Israeli blogosphere ignoring the gag.
I suggested that the arrests signify a step up in the ongoing government campaign to criminalize politically legitimate activities of Israeli-Palestinians. Shin Bet secret-police chief Yuval Diskin has repeatedly expressed his eagerness to do this, with respect to leaders supporting the one-state concept (such as the above two). Since Monday, Palestinian and Israeli commentators voiced concerns similar to mine; most prominently perhaps Gideon Levy, whose words appear below the fold.
Also: more details about Dr. Omar Saeed from a close Israeli friend and colleague; the judge who granted the gag order, as Exhibit A for challenges to the independence of Israel’s judiciary; and blogosphere speculations about the charges themselves (whose details are still gagged).
Diskin’s Crusade against Palestinian-Israeli Equality
There has been increasing awareness and acknowledgment of just how thoroughly Palestinian citizens of Israel are being discriminated against. The binational NGO Sikkuy even introduced a few years ago an annual “inequality index” to gauge the nation’s progress or deterioration on the issue.
But as Israeli Palestinians begin lobbying more strongly for their rights, and as successive governments pay lip service regarding their intentions to promote equality, an unexpected wrench was thrown into this from Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet secret police. In May 2007 he sent a chilling memo to Israeli-Paletinian NGOs.
The Shin Bet security service believes it is within its charter to carry out surveillance operations, such as phone taps, on individuals deemed as “conducting subversive activity against the Jewish identity of the state,” even if their actions are not in violation of the law.
In a letter sent on Sunday to the Adalah Arab rights group and written at the behest of Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin outlined the security service’s authority to carry out investigations against Israeli citizens.
The letter is a response to an inquiry by the Arab rights group that asked Shin Bet to define its authorities in the wake of the security services recent statement that it would probe political activities aimed at changing the ‘Jewish identity’ of Israel.
While the political system received Diskin’s manifeto with mixed reactions (at that time there was still a centrist majority in Knesset rather than a right-wing one), the Shin Bet doesn’t play in the political game; rather, it determines the rules of the game in which politicians play. And thus, around the same time (spring 2007), the most charismatic Israeli-Palestinian politician, then-Member-of-Knesset (MK) Dr. Azmi Bishara, was hounded out of the country for fear of being jailed as a traitor. After the details were un-gagged, it turned out that the Shin Bet accused Dr. Bishara of passing to Hibzullah information about strategic targets during the 2006 war, in return to money.
Now, the Shin Bet does have the formal authority to bring forth charges. But consider these teeny bits:
MK’s receive excellent salary and benefits, and Bishara was already guaranteed a very generous state pension having served for 15 years. A philosopher by training and a visionary firebrand speaker by talent, he also doesn’t seem like he type who’d place becoming a millionaire above all else.
The Hizbullah has time and again proven to be an over-performing guerilla force in all respects – logistics, intelligence, preparation, and fighting. Does it really seem serious that after 25 years on the ground, they need information from a big-mouth politician and philosopher, of all people, to understand what are the strategic targets in the part of Israel just south of their border?
After Diskin’s vision about what how his modest little “security” outfit should treat Israeli-Palestinian organizations was made public, and knowing Shin Bet tactics especially w.r.t lying with a straight face, does anyone really think they would mind bending a few rules in order to frame him?
Well, 3 years have passed. Bishara is in exile, neutralized from Israeli politics, but his Balad party actually increased from 2 to 3 Knesset seats. Other Israeli-Palestinian leaders such as Sheikh Raed Saleh have been repeatedly harassed by authorities. And now, since 2009, there is a new government whose tone towards Palestinian citizens of Israel has been set by racist thug Avigdor Lieberman. The minister of police (“internal security”) is from his party. So Diskin has even more encouragement to pursue his pet project.
Here’s what Gideon Levy had to say about this recent assault and the broader picture of our self-congratulatory “tolerance” towards our Palestinian minority:
No one knows yet what exactly they are accused of and on what grounds. Perhaps the Shin Bet security mountain will produce a mole hill, perhaps not, but in the context of another ugly and collective wave of mudslinging against the Arabs of Israel, it’s time to reveal an indictment of a different sort: What can we possibly want from our Arab citizens? The truth is, more than anything, we would like them to disappear, although not their hummous restaurants…
We would like their MKs, if we still agree to let them have MKs, to visit the Jewish communities of the United States, prostrate themselves on the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav and take part in the March of the Living at Auschwitz. Just as long as they don’t visit their brethren in Arab countries…
Let them take Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s loyalty test. Let them obey the Citizenship Law and not marry members of their people from the occupied territories. Let them obey the so-called Nakba Law and not dare mention the events of 1948, even in a whisper, ever. Let them not dare buy an apartment in Upper Nazareth or Carmiel, which were built on their lands, and let them not try to rent an apartment in Tel Aviv. Let them not even think of enjoying themselves at our clubs, though there’s no chance the security guards would let them in. Let them adopt an Israeli accent, preferably Ashkenazi, so security guards at Ben-Gurion International Airport won’t stop them…
And of course, let them not dare meet with “foreign agents,” almost all of whom are citizens of neighboring countries.
If indeed the “minorities” or “Arab Israelis” – we also forced these titles on them, why should we call them Palestinians? – meet all these impossible conditions, maybe we will accept them somehow. Then we will continue to gobble up pita and hummus, coffee and baklava on the house, and let them build our homes – on condition that they don’t listen to Arabic radio while working.
More about Dr. Omar Saeed
Details emerge about Dr. Saeed, the lesser-known of the two arrested leaders. Saeed’s longtime friend and colleague Dr. Stephen Fulder, an Israeli Jew who was born and raised in England, came to his defense, releasing a personal statement in Hebrew and English. Following is the complete statement from Dr. Fulder.
Dr. Omar Saeed, my long time friend, co-worker, peace and ecological activist, and fellow academic, was arrested and accused of spying for Hizbullah. The [Israeli] newspapers have given him all kinds of damaging and untrue labels. I want to correct these impressions.
1. Dr. Omar Saeed is an important international intellectual figure, a scientist, pharmacologist and one of the world’s top experts on traditional Arabic medicine, medical history and medicinal plants. He has written many scientific papers, some of which I have written with him. He is the author of a forthcoming academic text which will be the most authoritative text on Arabic medicine in the world. He is the founder and director of the largest botanical garden of medicinal plants in the Middle East. This subject is his passion and his main activity in life. Many years ago he was active politically, and he has been the deputy head of his village of Kfar Kanna in the Galilee. Now his passion is his professional subject, and his social activity is mostly within an NGO in education, ecology and co-existence.
2. Dr. Saeed has never shown, in the 15 years I have worked closely with him both as a co-worker and as a close friend, any hate or tendency to conflict. He is a peace worker who longs for peaceful co-existence. He has taken many actions in his life to bring healing to his community and to the relationships between Jews and Arabs. He works with and is close to both Jews and Arabs in daily life, in work and in the intellectual community. The herbal projects he is involved with are examples of peace projects in which both Jews and Arabs participate. For example he has invited and given classes to many thousands of Arab and Jewish children at the botanical garden, bringing them together to study something of interest to all communities. All those who have worked with him on a daily basis and know him, including many Jewish colleagues, know him to be a friend, a warm partner, a lover of peace and a great man with a big heart.
3. Dr. Saeed is constantly travelling throughout the world, in particular Jordan, where he buys herbs, carries out research, and meets experts from Arab countries. It is shameful that this activity is the reason for the suspicion of the Israeli security apparatus. I am completely convinced that a great mistake and a serious injustice is happening right now. Omar is still in prison on remand.
Dr. Stephen Fulder (Author, Researcher).
Meanwhile, about the same man Dr. Fulder described here, Foreign Minister Lieberman said today: “There is far more than general suspicions, and I suggest we really understand that there are quite a few people even here among us with the same values and world view as Iran, Hezbollah, and North Korea. They are much closer to the values of these countries that the values of a free democratic state like Israel. These people should be isolated from society.”
A video report produced by The Alternative Information Center – 14 May 2010
On the 12th of May 2010, an Israeli Magistrates Court extended the political detentions of Palestinian civil society activists Dr. Omar Said and Ameer Makhoul by 4 and 5 days, respectively. The extensions were issued in closed door hearings in which Said and Makhoul were not permitted to meet their legal representatives.
Thursday, 13 May 2010
You don’t have to be a fan of Dr Strangelove to recognise that wars can start by accident – that if the tinder is properly laid, a small spark can set off an uncontrollable blaze. First comes the miscalculation, a relatively small aggression that provokes a far larger retaliation. Then the concern not to lose face takes over, the refusal by either side to be seen to be backing down. Before you know it, a skirmish has spiralled into full-scale conflict.
The tinder, and not for the first time, is perfectly in place along Israel’s northern border. The actors are familiar. The protagonists are an Israel determined to defend its territory from attack, and the militant Islamic group Hizbollah, based in Lebanon and also a potent force in that country’s politics. Aligned behind Hizbollah are its two patrons, Syria and Iran, each concerned to advance its own interests in the most combustible region on earth. Israel and Hizbollah went to war four summers ago, and a lot of people now worry that the old script is poised for a repeat. And what makes it even more worrying is that none of the parties involved seems to want a war.
Israel of course would like nothing better than to eliminate the military threat from Hizbollah once and for all. But it well remembers what happened in 2006. In response to Hizbollah rocket attacks, and then the kidnap of two of its soldiers, it invaded southern Lebanon and bombed Beirut. The war lasted a month, a thousand people died and swathes of Lebanon were laid waste. But not only was the Israeli response judged grossly disproportionate, costing it dear in the court of world opinion, the mere fact that, despite the onslaught, Hizbollah lived to fight another day meant that Israel was deemed the loser. Why run the risk of a similar outcome now? To avoid sending the wrong signals, Israel has scaled back recent military exercises in the north and publicly assured Syria that war is the last thing on its mind.
Nor are its adversaries spoiling for a re-match. Certainly not Lebanon, which stands only to be devastated once again. Probably not Hizbollah either, whatever the boost to its prestige in the Arab world for actually daring to take on overwhelmingly powerful Israel. Syria too would seem to have little interest in letting itself be dragged into a hot war with Israel that it is bound to lose – and at a moment when it is trying to mend fences with the US, Israel’s key ally, and re-insert itself into Middle East peace negotiations now flickering back into life with “proximity talks” between Israelis and Palestinians.
And even Iran, for all its belligerent rhetoric, does not look to be spoiling for a real fight. After all, it is doing quite nicely as it is, pushing ahead with its nuclear programme while the West fails to agree on sanctions, and daring Israel and/or the US to attack its nuclear installations, and risk unleashing a regional war in which even the Lebanese front would probably be a sideshow.
But to call the stand-off uneasy is an understatement. Let us hope that the old Roman adage of, “if you want peace, prepare for war” still holds good in the Middle East. Thanks to reported deliveries of Scud missiles as well as nimbler and less detectable M-600 rockets from Syria, Hizbollah is now better armed than in 2006.
Both Israel and the Americans have told Syria to stop, and the US has delayed sending a new ambassador to Damascus to underline its displeasure. But apparently to no avail. The arms flow continues, even though Lebanon says the deliveries are no more real than Saddam Hussein’s imaginary WMDs. So the question becomes, how long will Israel put up with it?
And Hizbollah’s rearmament is just one possible casus belli. Another is a Hizbollah strike against an Israeli target outside Israel, perhaps in revenge for the 2008 killing of its then military commander Imad Mugniyah, which it blames on Israel. Then of course there is the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran. But on one thing Hizbollah and Israel do agree: if war were to come, 2006 would look like a warm-up in comparison. Back then, President Bush (backed by Tony Blair) ignored international calls for a ceasefire for as long as he could, to allow Israel a chance to finish the job, and Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, even described the war as the “birth pangs of the new Middle East”. Next time around, “death throes” might be a better choice of phrase.
No one wants a new war – but then no one wanted the First World War in the form it ultimately took. President Obama is now being urged to present his own comprehensive plan for a Middle East settlement. The tension on Israel’s northern border is one very good reason why.
Will anyone be Obama’s soulmate?
Mention of Barack Obama, and the arrival of David Cameron in the job once held by Tony Blair, prompts a separate thought. For all his global popularity, The Washington Post wondered recently, does the US President have any real mates among other foreign leaders? Gordon Brown wasn’t one. Nor, as far as can be judged, are either Nicolas Sarkozy or Angela Merkel, or China’s President Hu for that matter. Despite the cloying show of amity in Washington yesterday, Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai certainly isn’t one. Nor is Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. The closest thing to an Obama confidant, wrote the Post, might be Dimtri Medvedev – which given Russia was America’s arch foe in the Cold War, would be quite a turnaround.
These are, of course, early days. Obama’s been in office barely 15 months, and he’s had more than enough on his plate at home. But the question is not an idle one. Leadership is a desperately lonely business, which only other leaders can fully understand. Most presidents find a soulmate or two. But not yet, it would seem, Obama. Might this be an opening for our Dave?
EDITOR: Israel prepares for war
And just to prove the point made above, an article from someone quite clearly not on the left, published on the same day, castigating officers who shoot their mouth. “If you are going to shoot, shoot! Don’t talk”, is the motto of Yoel Markus, and it seems, of Israel. This war mongering will not stop at the Middle East; the west, which aided and abetted it, playing a role written in Jerusalem, will suffer the consequences. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
By Yoel Marcus
Many years ago, the incumbent chief of staff spoke at a prestigious club that used to host a prominent government figure every Friday. Mostly, reporters were also invited, and if there were no scoops to be had, at least they got a nice free lunch. I was present at that luncheon, and the CoS spoke such a lot of nonsense that I wrote a critical piece about his speech. Astonishingly, the military censor blue-penciled the whole article. The editor of Haaretz at that time, Gershom Schocken, taken aback at the deletion of an article about a public speech, called the censor, who came up with reasoning that sounded like a joke: The writer depicted the CoS as a fool, and that harmed security. Stunned by this reply, Schocken decided to go ahead and publish the piece, and the next day the paper received a substantial fine.
What has reminded me of this now? Well, Moshe “Bogey” Ya’alon, the deputy prime minister and minister of strategic affairs, and a former CoS himself, has threatened, plain and simple, to attack Iran. “There is no doubt that the technological resources that Israel has developed in recent years have improved the range and capabilities of aerial refueling,” he stated in a speech at the Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies in Herzliya. “From my point of view, all that remains is the best possible form of defense. And our capabilities are applicable in distant wars in such places as Iran.”
It is hard to believe that a man who served as head of Military Intelligence and ended up as CoS (although he did chatter himself into career suicide by saying that the grass around the IDF HQ is full of snakes ) would speak as if he were a lecturer at the university of Timbuktu. Is it conceivable that a deputy premier and a member of the seven-minister inner cabinet, a man who single-handedly can not only damage Israel’s cherished ambiguity policy but also cause the country to come under the inspection of the International Atomic Energy Agency, should let his tongue run free like this?
Moshe Vered, a former Defense Ministry official, has written a research paper, published by Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center, in which he posits that if we were to attack Iran, it would not take it lying down but would respond with all the weaponry at its disposal. Perhaps. But when Ya’alon declares that Israel is warming up its engines, he reminds me of Eli Wallach’s immortal line in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”: “When you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.”
With this kind of threat, we fit well into this part of the world, where everyone threatens everyone else. It’s a pity that we’ve sunk this low. David Ben-Gurion never threatened. The chattering proves that this government is disorderly. It is inconceivable that every minister can threaten to attack Iran or build Jewish housing in East Jerusalem. If we face a strategic threat, Ya’alon himself embodies it with his big mouth. Defense Minister Ehud Barak was right when he told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel was facing erosion in its international standing, but he nevertheless did not think there was a concrete threat to its position of nuclear ambiguity, despite the tension with the American government.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week made it clear that Israel did not intend to attack its neighbors. But it’s a pity that Bibi doesn’t rebuke his deputy. As the old saw goes, seven wise men won’t be able to extricate a stone that an idiot has dropped into a well. Nowadays, when the head of Military Intelligence’s research division, Brig.-Gen Yossi Baidatz, says that Hezbollah has received accurate rockets with half-ton warheads from Syria and Iran, it is clearly advisable to speak less and act to calm the neighborhood down.
The proximity talks are still looking like a bizarre move. They are like a wedding canopy which both the bride and the groom are reluctant to step under. What did the sides speak and agree about in the protracted talks they have had – to start indirect talks now? To start everything from scratch again? After all, the problems are well known, all the transcripts are filed away on the shelves. President Obama’s determined stance is also well known, and if he doesn’t apply pressure now, it’ll come after the mid-term elections at the end of the year. Whether the president takes a body blow in the House of Representatives or wins a victory, he will focus on a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a strategic move toward neutralizing the Axis of Evil, something that is also in our interest. Netanyahu’s cabinet is the biggest ever, and he enjoys optimal conditions for moving toward a solution: both a big government and a solid parliamentary majority with Kadima, which would support a solution. And there is a U.S. government that is committed to Israel’s security.
As prime minister, Bibi has ideal conditions – the best there have ever been, including public opinion – to set Israel’s permanent borders, as well as the support of most of the public for forcible action against the extremist settlers who would lift the banner of rebellion. The law of the secular government is the law, says the Talmud, and it supersedes any religious objections. Listen to what the majority of the nation wants, and not the declarations of the former dairy farmer from Kibbutz Grofit, Lt. Gen. (Res. ) Ya’alon.
While it may be true that Israeli Arabs enjoy more rights than most of the world’s Arabs, hey are worse off than most of the world’s Jews.
By Gideon Levy
Protesters demand the release of Arab-Israeli activist Amir Makhoul, Haifa, May 10, 2010 Photo by: Tomer Neuberg
No, this is not (yet ) a defense of Dr. Omar Sayid and Ameer Makhoul, who were arrested in the dead of night. No one knows yet what exactly they are accused of and on what grounds. Perhaps the Shin Bet security mountain will produce a mole hill, perhaps not, but in the context of another ugly and collective wave of mudslinging against the Arabs of Israel, it’s time to reveal an indictment of a different sort: What can we possibly want from our Arab citizens?
The truth is, more than anything, we would like them to disappear, though not their hummus restaurants. A second choice would be to have them all crowd into their cities and villages – not to say their ghettos. There they’ll soon be standing on top of each other, some unemployed through no fault of their own, outcast and discriminated against. They’ll raise the Israeli flag, preferably two, and sing about the Jewish soul yearning from the national anthem – anything less would be considered a transgression.
We would like their MKs, if we still agree to let them have MKs, to visit the Jewish communities of the United States, prostrate themselves on the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav and take part in the March of the Living at Auschwitz. Just as long as they don’t visit their brethren in Arab countries. Let them stand at attention during the sirens on memorial day for the soldiers who fought against their people. Let them cheer the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces that eats away at them in the territories. Let their young people say thank you for their extensive and generous employment opportunities (1.3 percent of the Prime Minister’s Office staff, 6 out of 469 Knesset employees, 2 percent of the workforce at the transportation and communications ministries, a total of 6 percent in public service ).
Let them take Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s loyalty test. Let them obey the Citizenship Law and not marry members of their people from the occupied territories. Let them obey the so-called Nakba Law and not dare mention the events of 1948, even in a whisper, ever. Let them not dare buy an apartment in Upper Nazareth or Carmiel, which were built on their lands, and let them not try to rent an apartment in Tel Aviv. Let them not even think of enjoying themselves at our clubs, though there’s no chance the security guards would let them in. Let them adopt an Israeli accent, preferably Ashkenazi, so security guards at Ben-Gurion International Airport won’t stop them. Let them continue to arrive at the airport, and without complaining please, four hours before their flight because they are Arabs.
Let their poets continue to need the Supreme Court to accept Arab literary prizes. Let them have fewer children because they are “multiplying too much” and turning into a “demographic problem.” Let them not speak too loudly around Jews because we don’t like hearing Arabic. And of course, let them not dare meet with “foreign agents,” almost all of whom are citizens of neighboring countries.
If indeed the “minorities” or “Arab Israelis” – we also forced these titles on them, why should we call them Palestinians? – meet all these impossible conditions, maybe we will accept them somehow. Then we will continue to gobble up pita and hummus, coffee and baklava on the house, and let them build our homes – on condition that they don’t listen to Arabic radio while working.
The parliamentary inquiry committee headed by MK Ahmed Tibi on hiring more Arabs in the civil service issued its interim report at the beginning of the year. This impressive report should have been an indictment of Israeli society. But the report was met with indifference. It reveals severe state discrimination. But the report is only part of the problem. The other part is political and national: We can’t ignore that the debate about the “Jewish state” excludes Israel’s Arabs by definition, shunting them into a corner from which there is no way out.
True, they may enjoy more rights than most of the world’s Arabs, but that’s irrelevant. After all, we’re a democracy. In contrast, they are worse off than most of the world’s Jews. With the two-state solution rapidly vanishing and the option of one state becoming the only one, the litmus test for the regime to be instituted in a country that is already almost binational will be its treatment of its Arab citizens. Meanwhile, let’s admit it: Even if the suspicions against Sayid and Makhoul turn out to be true, Israel’s Arabs are still loyal to the state, much more than it is loyal to them.
Residents of Rahat detained by police for routinely throwing firebombs at civilian cars on a central Negev highway.
Israeli security forces recently arrested four Bedouin residents of the Negev suspected of plotting and carrying out terrorist acts against civilians, a gag order lifted on Friday revealed.
The four residents of the Bedouin town of Rahat were arrested by the Shin Bet and Israel Police for routinely throwing firebombs at cars on Highway 40. Two of the suspects are minors. They are being held on charges of conspiracy to carry out a terrorist plot.
Nine Bedouin from the North were arrested last year on similar charges, for allegedly blocking a highway between Haifa and Nazareth by burning tires and knocking down a lamppost, throwing stones at passing vehicles.
They were also indicted of conspiracy to commit a crime and disorderly conduct that caused damage and endangered lives.
The charges eventually handed to them were for lesser crimes than the terror offenses they had earlier been suspected of having committed. The nine were initially arrested on suspicion of forming a terrorist cell and planning a variety of attacks against civilians on national highways.
Their defense lawyer, Attorney Fares Abirak, said that as early as the second remand extension it became clear that the allegations had been hugely exaggerated by police.
By Hagai El-Ad
What will they come up with next? The campaign to discredit Judge Richard Goldstone, his fact-finding commission and the report that now bears his name seems to reach new heights every week. The latest installment in this high-drama farce has been the revelations about Goldstone’s record during apartheid-era South Africa, and the implication that his report can therefore be disregarded. The mind reels at the intensity of attempts by Israeli officials and others to do everything to dodge the real questions of accountability, policy and justice that have been lingering inconveniently since Operation Cast Lead. But inconvenient questions do tend to linger, and the attempts to deploy an ever-thicker smokescreen usually only draw more attention to what may be hidden behind it.
And yet, the recent attacks on Goldstone have been helpful in re-introducing into public discourse what is perhaps the most important question of all: moral responsibility. How must individuals behave when faced with injustice? What do we expect from our judges, public servants and elected officials? And what do we expect from ourselves? The focus on Goldstone’s past, far from enabling us to escape the lingering questions of Cast Lead – and other questions that must trouble anyone seeking justice – actually serves to throw them into sharp relief.
So here are some complementary questions about justice and those involved in its disservice. And mind you, these questions were not drawn from a far-away past, but from the here-and-now. It is the present that will determine our future – and to what extent justice will be a part of it.
Consider this: What is the reader’s moral judgment of a law that allows some people to reclaim past ownership rights but denies the same rights to others? This is the question today in Sheikh Jarrah.
How just do we deem the conduct of legal advisers who approve the evacuation of longtime indigenous residents from the center of a thriving city, enforcing almost complete separation between the hundreds who have moved in and the thousands who were displaced? This is the question today in Hebron.
What do we think of military commanders who collectively punish more than a million human beings, systematically answering their nutritional needs with provisions that keep them just above a state-secret “red line”? This is the question today in Gaza.
What do you make of a court of justice that speaks in lofty terms of how wrong segregated roads are, but falls short of connecting principle and practice, and does not simply ban such wrongs outright? This is the question today regarding Route 443.
Morally speaking, how do you feel about a government that orders the arrest of leaders of nonviolent civil protest? This is the question in West Bank villages like Bil’in.
These were not questions about Goldstone’s past. There are questions about our present. Standing knee-deep in moral quicksand may not be the most convincing of postures from which to question someone else’s morality.
But let us not stop here. Let us go further and assume for a moment that Goldstone is indeed guilty as charged of having served an unjust regime. If you will, while at it, let us believe in the fiction that – as was falsely claimed by Im Tirtzu’s extremists – a huge part of Goldstone’s report was based on the work of Israeli human rights NGOs. So what? How does this information affect the real questions about justice and morality that should be concerning us? Do any of these diversions make the real questions about the Israel Defense Forces’ rules of engagement during Cast Lead or about civilian, noncombatant casualties in Gaza during the military operation less urgent or essential?
At the end of the day, after Goldstone is finally exorcised as a witch and Israel’s human rights NGOs shut down, what then? Won’t accountability still be a cornerstone of the rule of law? Putting the diversions aside for a moment – and the author is appreciative of how difficult that is, given the government’s urge to obsess on nothing but diversions – are we not still left with alarming suspicions, partial information, and a very real need for a credible, independent investigation into Cast Lead?
Not only Goldstone, but all of us, are morally responsible for our actions and inactions, for when we choose to speak out for justice and for when we keep our silence and help perpetuate what is unjust. South Africa’s past became a part of its future through the truth and reconciliation process; but here in Israel not only is there no reconciliation process, there is no desire by the government nor among most of the public to confront inconvenient truths. Rather, the focus is on truth-dodging, which only serves to further steer us away from reconciliation or justice.
The growing distance between where the moral compass points and where we as a society are headed is no one’s problem more than our own. We can stick pins in the Goldstone voodoo doll as much as we want to but, when we wake up tomorrow morning, the very same reality will still be right here, exactly as we left it. Morally speaking, it’s high time for our wake-up call, for a sincere look at our own image as reflected in our mirror, for truth-seeking instead of desperately, cynically, self-servingly trying to hide it – and hide from it.
Hagai El-Ad is executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
Recognizing threat of missiles from Hamas, Hezbollah, US president seeks Congress support for Iron Dome after observing efficacy system
Published: 05.14.10, 07:57 / Israel News
President Barack Obama will ask Congress to provide $205 million to Israel to spur production and deployment of a new short-range rocket defense system, administration officials said Thursday.
Produced by Israeli state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., Iron Dome uses small radar-guided missiles to blow up Katyusha-style rockets with ranges of between 5 kilometers (3 miles) and 70 kilometer (45 miles), as well as mortar bombs, in mid-air.
Its development was spurred by the 2006 conflict in Lebanon with Hezbollah and the Gaza Strip war against Hamas a year ago. In both cases, Israeli towns within reach of short-range rockets were in some respects defenseless.
“The president recognizes the threat missiles and rockets fired by Hamas and Hezbollah pose to Israelis, and has therefore decided to seek funding from Congress to support the production of Israel’s short range rocket defense system called Iron Dome,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
Two Iron Dome batteries are under construction, an Israeli defense official said in February. Designed to be towed by vehicle, they will be available for any Israeli front at a few hours’ notice.
Bryan Whitman, Pentagon spokesman, said it was the first direct US investment in the Iron Dome system.
“This funding will expand what they can produce and deploy, and how quickly they’re able to do it,” he said. The decision was made to pour funds into the system after US officials observed tests last fall, officials said.
The money comes on top of annual US assistance to Israel.
According to the State Department, US military aid to Israel in 2009 totaled $2.55 billion. This will increase to $3 billion in 2012, and will total $3.15 billion a year from 2013 to 2018.
Ali Abunimah, 6 May 2010
Former World Bank president and Middle East Quartet envoy James D. Wolfensohn is an investor in an Israeli company that is developing transport infrastructure for Jewish-only settlements built in the occupied West Bank in violation of international law, an investigation by The Electronic Intifada reveals.
Wolfensohn provided some of the start-up capital for Better Place, a company founded by Israeli entrepreneur Shai Agassi. The company owns and operates Better Place Israel (BPI), a division which is establishing a system of charging stations for electric vehicles throughout Israel and for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.
The company has been a poster child for efforts to greenwash Israel — presenting it as a haven for environmental technologies — yet it has close ties to Israel’s military and political establishments and its principal officers express an explicitly anti-Muslim and anti-Arab agenda.
BPI’s chief executive officer is former general Moshe Kaplinsky, who commanded Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank during the second Palestinian intifada, a period of massive, well-documented violations of Palestinian human rights. Kaplinsky was also deputy chief of staff of Israel’s army during its 2006 war on Lebanon when Amnesty International and other human rights groups charged that Israel committed numerous war crimes including widespread use of cluster bombs in residential areas.
Better Place’s goal is to bring fully-electric vehicles and the infrastructure to support them to the mass market — starting with Israel. It also has pilot projects as far afield as Denmark, Canada, California, Australia and Japan.
Specially-built electric cars, due to be available to the public in Israel next year, are manufactured by French-Japanese conglomerate Renault-Nissan under an agreement with Better Place. Better Place had also recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Chinese car manufacturer Chery to jointly develop electric car technology for the Chinese market.
“What we do to make it convenient is we set [a] massive number of charge spots across an entire country or entire region,” Agassi explained to the BBC World Service’s One Planet program in January 2009. “And we set up battery exchange systems so that wherever you drive you don’t need to sit and wait for your battery to charge, you can just swap it and keep on going.”
Building infrastructure in the occupied West Bank
Before BPI sells its first car in Israel it is establishing a network of thousands of charging spots on the country’s entire road system including settler roads and in settlements in the West Bank.
One of the largest investors in BPI is billionaire Idan Ofer, owner of Dor-Alon energy group, Israel’s largest oil refiner. Dor-Alon has signed an agreement to install Better Place charging and battery exchange spots throughout its network of gas stations.
An example of a charging station like the ones being established throughout the occupied West Bank.
Israel’s Hebrew-language financial publication Globes reported on 3 February that “According to estimates, the deployment [of charging stations] will stress the more extensive and popular refueling locations of Dor-Alon, which enjoys a dominance on primary transportation routes, such as its four stations on the Cross Israel road (Highway 6) and the stations on Highway 443 and the Coastal Highway.”
Highway 443, significantly, is a road used by thousands of Israeli commuters daily. Half of the road’s approximately 30-kilometer length runs through the occupied West Bank. Israel has banned Palestinians whose land and villages the road traverses from accessing it, reserving it effectively for Jews only. Prior to Israel’s seizure of the road, it had been a main artery for Palestinian traffic south of Ramallah (“Route 443 — West Bank road for Israelis only,” B’Tselem).
The Electronic Intifada (EI) independently confirmed BPI’s expansion into the West Bank when it sent an undercover reporter to visit the company’s headquarters situated in a massive renovated fuel storage tank in northern Tel Aviv.
During the tour, the EI reporter, along with other visitors, was shown an IMAX-style video presentation which explained that each customer who buys a BPI electric vehicle will also have a charging spot installed at their home — a short post with an outlet that connects to the car via a nozzle-type input, and wirelessly links to the BPI communications network.
When the EI reporter asked a BPI spokesperson if these charging stations could be installed inside settlements in the West Bank, the spokesperson said that they would be installed “anywhere … that you want to live.” On a map shown during the video presentation, charging stations were shown in areas in the Jordan Valley and along major routes going east from Jerusalem — indicating that BPI has already installed charging stations inside the West Bank, and plans to install many more.
Wolfensohn an early booster of Better Place
James Wolfensohn’s investment firm, Wolfensohn & Co., is listed on BPI’s website along with Australia-based firm Macquarie Capital and US-based investment bank Morgan Stanley, among others as investors. Macquarie invests in and operates transport infrastructure all over the world, including the Chicago Skyway toll bridge, the Indiana Toll Road and the M6 Toll motorway in the UK.
Contacted by EI, Wolfensohn & Co. declined to disclose the size of its stake or provide any other comment for this story. Yet as one of the first investors it may have been influential in helping BPI attract additional capital.
BPI recently secured a $350 million equity investment from international bank HSBC, expanding the company’s estimated worth to $1.25 billion.
“Israel is a perfect test tube” for the electric car, Wolfensohn was quoted as saying in the February 2008 issue of Israel High-Tech & Investment Report. “It needs to be tested, and [BPI founder Shai] Agassi is to be commended for testing it and the Israeli government for trying it out.”
While operating as a private company — with its head office nominally in California — Better Place has been dependent on Israeli government support from the start. Initially, Agassi wrote a concept paper for the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders initiative. Agassi shopped it to various world leaders but found no takers, he told the BBC’s One Planet. “Then President [Shimon] Peres of Israel picked up on it,” Agassi recalled. “But the challenge to me was don’t ask us to do it. If you think it’s such a great business, go do it yourself. And that’s how it became a company instead of a government agency.” More recently Agassi told CNN, “I would not be doing this today were it not for [Peres]” (“Shai Agassi: One man’s mission to turn all cars electric,” CNN, 19 April 2010).
Wolfensohn’s investment in and personal endorsement of an Israeli company that is helping to build and solidify the infrastructure of occupation is surprising. Until 2006, Wolfensohn served as envoy for the Quartet, the ad hoc, self-appointed committee of representatives of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the UN Secretary-General that has monopolized the so-called “peace process.” Wolfensohn was tasked with assisting Palestinian economic development in the Gaza Strip after Israel removed its settlers in 2005 and moved its occupation forces from the interior to the perimeter of the besieged territory that imprisons 1.5 million Palestinians, mostly refugees.
Wolfensohn resigned in frustration after the Quartet decided to boycott, and freeze aid to, the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won the January 2006 election. “It would surprise me if one could win by getting all the kids out of school or starving the Palestinians,” Wolfensohn said in a parting shot aimed at Israeli and Quartet policies (“West ‘has to prevent collapse’ of Palestinian Authority,” Financial Times, 3 May 2006).
Wolfensohn had previously been highly critical of severe movement restrictions on Palestinians between and within the occupied territories — such as those along Highway 443 — that have devastated the Palestinian economy. Wolfensohn was succeeded as Quartet envoy by Tony Blair.
Islamophobia under the guise of environmentalism
BPI’s promotional video claimed that the funding of “extreme and unstable regimes … that fund organizations not positive for humanity” is one of the major reasons the firm is interested in getting Israelis out of their gas-guzzling cars and into fully-electric vehicles. Both Israeli President Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are shown extolling the virtues of BPI’s mission, with Netanyahu commenting that this is a part of a “changing world order … shaking off our dependence on oil.”
The canard that proceeds from the gasoline that motorists around the world pump into their cars directly funds terrorism has become popular with liberal environmentalists in recent years. While implicitly racist toward Arabs and Muslims, BPI has made such prejudiced and inflammatory claims an explicit part of its business model.
CEO Moshe Kaplinsky told the BBC’s One Planet, “I was a general in the IDF [Israeli army] and I understand where the money from the oil is going and what it cause to our society in the Western side of the globe [sic].”
When asked why he was an early booster of Better Place, Israeli President Peres told Wired magazine, “I thought that the greatest problem of our time was oil. Oil on one hand is polluting the land, and on the other hand it’s financing terror” (“Drive: Shai Agassi’s Audacious Plan to Put Electric Cars on the Road,” 18 August 2008).
Rebranding Israel
Following the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, Israeli companies selling “security” and “anti-terrorist” expertise became an engine of the country’s exports. In the age of US President Barack Obama, and concern about climate change, there has been a concerted effort to soften Israel’s image, especially in the wake of the UN-commissioned Goldstone report into Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
Better Place has become a flagship for this strategy — the Reut Institute’s Gidi Grinstein, for example, used images of the Better Place logo in his notorious powerpoint presentation at the Herzliya conference, on efforts to rebrand Israel as Earth-friendly while urging its intelligence agencies to “sabotage” and “attack” the growing global Palestine solidarity movement.
The success of Better Place in raising money from Wolfensohn & Co. and other international firms, as well as the positive publicity the company has received, serve as warnings that Palestinians and the growing global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement must be ever more vigilant against Israel’s efforts to disguise its illegal and brutal colonization and apartheid behind a green mask.
Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.
Police earlier alerted by Israeli citizens who saw three men, one armed, get out of the car in the area.
Settlers opened fire and killed a Palestinian teenager who was throwing rocks at Israeli cars near the West Bank city of Ramallah late Thursday, according to Palestinian sources.
The body of 16-year-old Aysar Zaben was found after midnight with gunshot wounds to the back outside the village of Mazra’a al Sharqiya, located northwest of Ramallah and between the settlements of Shiloh and Ofra.
An Israel Police spokesman said an investigation into the incident had been opened and it was not clear exactly what took place or who was responsible.
Two Israeli citizens had earlier alerted police after seeing three men, one armed with a rifle, get out of a car in the area where the shooting then took place. Police who came to the scene found rocks littering the side of the road, but no trace of the three men.
Violent rightists have adopted a “price tag” policy against Palestinians since Israel declared a temporary freeze in West Bank construction last December. Over the course of the last five months, groups of extremists have vandalized mosques destroy Palestinian property as a response to the IDF’s having dismantled illegal outposts.
It was not yet clear whether this incident was related to the “price tag” operation.
A 16-year-old Palestinian boy has been shot dead in the West Bank.
Palestinian witnesses and security sources say the teenager was shot by Jewish settlers after rocks were thrown at their car.
Israeli police are investigating but did not confirm that the boy, named as Ayssar Yasser from the village of Mizra al-Sharqiah, had been shot by settlers.
The Israeli army confirmed there was a shooting in the area, near Ramallah, the West Bank’s administrative capital.
A Palestinian ambulance driver told the Associated Press that the boy died near his village, not far from the West Bank city of Ramallah, on Thursday evening. He had bullet wounds in his back, the ambulance driver said.
Peace talks
Yediot Ahranot, one of Israel’s leading newspapers, reported that some Israelis who were driving by at the time of the incident called the police when they saw a man open fire with an assault rifle.
The death was the first in violence of this kind since Israel and the Palestinians began indirect peace talks on Saturday.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, 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.
Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
EDITOR: The world is full of nutters, but why do I get the impression that many of them are Zionists? The demented are organising against Judge Goldstone, and the US being what it is, it could even happen. All this goes to prove that the underground links between South African apartheid and the Israeli version are strong indeed.
14/05/2010 02:31
NEW YORK – A well-known American Jewish attorney who worked to deport former Nazis from the US is urging American officials to bar former judge Richard Goldstone from entering the country over his rulings during South Africa’s apartheid regime.
In a letter sent to US officials, Neal Sher, a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said that recently disclosed information about Goldstone’s apartheid-era rulings raised questions about whether he was eligible to enter the United States. The letter was sent to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US Attorney-General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
Individuals who admit to acts that constitute a crime of moral turpitude¨are ineligible to enter the US, Sher charged. The recent public revelations, to which Goldstone has reportedly admitted, would appear to fit within this provision. At a minimum, there is ample basis for federal authorities to initiate an investigation into this matter, Sher said.
Goldstone, the author of a report accusing Israel of war crimes during Operation Cast Lead, sat as a judge in South Africa during the apartheid regime. He has faced recent charges that he sent 28 black South Africans to their deaths. Goldstone has defended his rulings, saying he was part of the system and had to respect the laws of the land at the time, including enforcing laws he opposed.
In his judicial position, according to Sher, Goldstone was instrumental in effectuating and legitimizing a regime universally known for its widespread human rights abuses.
Sher, formerly director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, was instrumental in deporting dozens of Nazi war criminals. He played a major role in placing Austrian president Kurt Waldheim on a watch list of people ineligible to enter the US.
Sher had his own brush with trouble later, when he was investigated for misappropriating funds from the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims.
Weekly demonstration in east Jerusalem neighborhood escalates into violent clashes between police, left-wing activists, dozens of whom block entrance to Simeon the Just compound. One protestor lightly injured. MK Khenin: Police using excessive violence, we’re here for democracy
Published: 05.14.10, 18:03
Violent clashes broke out Friday afternoon between left-wing activists and police forces in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
About 30 protestors were arrested and one demonstrator was lightly injured. She was evacuated to the Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital in the capital, suffering from bruises.
Some 350 left-wing activists arrived in the neighborhood for the weekly rally. They chanted, “Fascism won’t come” and “you won’t succeed in killing a popular resistance.”
At one point, about 100 protestors settled on the road leading to the Simeon the Just compound, which was recently inhabited by four Jewish families armed with a court order following the evacuation of Arab residents.
The police declared the protest an illegal gathering and ordered the protestors sitting on the road to evacuate themselves within three minutes. The activists refused to leave and were forcibly evacuated from the area.
About 30 of the protestors were arrested. Israel Radio reporter Shai Zilber, who was covering the event, was also detained. He suffered several blows and was released by the police after they discovered he was a journalist.
One of the protestors, Knesset Member Dov Khenin (Hadash), said that “the police are using excessive violence both against demonstrators and against journalists. A large group sat on the ground without bothering anyone or acting violently, and the police used a lot of force.
“Hundreds of people arrived to protest against the injustice taking place in Sheikh Jarrah, as well as to demonstrate for peace,” he added. “A Jewish settlement in the heart of an Arab neighborhood means preventing a future agreement as part of a two state for two people solution. We are fighting now just for peace, but for democracy in this society.”
‘Law being used for discrimination’
Former Hebrew University President Hanoch Gutfreund, who took part in the rally, said: “I am a Jerusalemite and I love the city. Many of my friends have left, and I am not thinking about leaving, so it’s very important for me to see all of Jerusalem’s residents treated fairly.
“The residents of Sheikh have been living in their houses since the 1950s, and they are subject to injustice. This is the only reason I am here, not for any political reason, to express my solidarity with them and my opinion about what is being done to them.”
Avnet Inbar, one of the rally’s organizers, said: “Today we came to protest in the exact same place where the police allowed hundreds of settlers to protest on Jerusalem Day. We sat on the road in loyalty to the non-violent popular disobedience tradition, which every conscientious civilian turns to when the law is misused by the enforcement authorities for discrimination and theft purposes.”
Meanwhile Friday, left-wing and Palestinian activists held their weekly Friday rallies in the West Bank. A left-wing activist was lightly injured from a stone hurled by Palestinian protestors in the village of Nabi Salih. She was evacuated to a hospital in Jerusalem. one protestor was arrested. Some 100 people took part in the demonstration.
About 80 people demonstrated near the village of Bilin in protest of the separation fence being built in the area. They hurled stones at Israel Defense Forces soldiers, who responded with shock grenades and tear gas. A similar rally was held in Naalin with 50 participants.
What is Needed on the 62nd Anniversary of the 1948 Nakba: Achieve National Unity, Strengthen BDS Campaign; Activate Popular Resistance in all of its Forms; Organize Efforts Internationally; End Public Relations Negotiations
Statement by BADIL, 15 May 2010
At their core, the circumstances surrounding the Palestinian struggle today do not differ from those circumstances that led to the 1948 Nakba and the colonization of Palestine. Today, on the sixty-second anniversary of the Nakba, the nature of the western-backed Zionist-Israeli colonial enterprise appears all the clearer. The indigenous Palestinian people have been denied their most fundamental and inalienable rights of self-determination, including their rights to return to the land from which they were displaced, and continue to suffer from Israel’s grave violations of basic human rights and freedoms. As Israel cruelly blockades the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and denies 7.1 million displaced Palestinians around the globe their rights to return, restitution and compensation, the international community provides a protective shield forged through diplomatic, economic, cultural and security cooperation which perpetuate Israel’s impunity.
In a time when Israel’s true face as a regime of colonization, apartheid and military occupation has been exposed for the world to see, governments and their organizations, have chosen to look the other way. The protective shield preventing effective redress and accountability for Israel’s crimes is no more provided by western states alone, as international organizations have joined the chorus that calls for a “balanced position” and have allowed Israel’s membership and integration into global and regional, civil and official organizations. Israel thus enjoys not only the unlimited support of the United States, but also enjoys preferential status with the European Union under the 1995 Barcelona Declaration and the E.U.-Israel Association Agreement, which have entrenched European relations with Israel in political, military, financial, economic, social and cultural terms, and even in the field of humanitarian aid.
Only recently, on 10 May, no OECD member state felt obliged by international law or found the moral strength to block Israel’s accession to that club of the world’s powerful economies. Israel’s protective shield is no longer composed merely of U.S. veto powers in the Security Council of the United Nations. It has spread to other UN fora, such as the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council where global powers exert coercive pressure on member states, and even to domestic judicial systems and international courts, in order to enable Israel to escape accountability for its grave violations of international law.
It has become painfully clear that Israel and the so-called Quartet view Palestinian demands for the implementation of international law as an obstacle to the peace process, at best, and as a form of unacceptable radical extremism, at worst. This explains why the U.S. has resumed pressure on the Palestinian and Arab representatives to return to the negotiating table despite Israel’s refusal to cease construction and expansion of its settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, and irrespective of the personal commitment given in this regard by President Obama. Thus, so-called proximity talks and indirect negotiations are being relaunched while Israel’s prime minister reassures his coalition government that there will be no limitation on settlement construction and expansion, the forced displacement of Palestinians from Jerusalem and the expansion of the network of apartheid roads and the Wall in the occupied West Bank.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to draft and adopt more racist legislation, including law proposals to outlaw Nakba commemoration, the 2009 Israel Lands Authority Law and a 2010 amendment of the Land Acquisition Law, which allow privatization and confiscation of more land of Palestinian refugees and citizens, as well as new military orders, such as Order No. 1650 arbitrarily defining a large portion of the Palestinian population of the occupied West Bank and foreigners as “infiltrators” subject to arrest and deportation.
In light of the above and the division and weakness which has characterized the performance of the Palestinian leadership, BADIL re-iterates the call of the National Committee for the Commemoration of the Nakba issued this 15 May:
for the Palestinian leadership to:
• Adopt a coherent strategy towards a just and permanent solution for Palestinian refugees and IDPs, based on their right to return and in accordance with international law, universal principles of justice and UN resolutions 194 (1948) and 237 (1967);
• Halt all negotiations, whether direct or indirect, until Israel completely halts settlement expansion, population transfer (“Judaization”), and construction of the Wall and other infrastructure of colonization and apartheid, such as roads and the light train connecting Jewish settlements to West Jerusalem;
• Ensure national reconciliation and unity as a matter of urgency, and rebuild the PLO as a legitimate and credible platform representing the entire Palestinian people and its political organizations;
• Support and activate popular resistance in all forms permitted under international law.
• Establish a consultative mechanism with professional civil society organizations to support the efforts of the PLO in international fora.
To the public in Palestine and abroad to:
Build and expand the civil society-led movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and exert stronger pressure on states to implement sanctions and adopt decisions and resolutions which support the global BDS Campaign;
Redouble efforts for investigation of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity and prosecution and punishment of those responsible, as well as efforts to prevent Israel’s accession and integration into international and regional organizations.
Well, now he has perfectly demonstrated how one can use eloquence to illuminate, instead of to obscure. In a refreshingly straightforward piece, he has described why he answered the call not to play in Israel. While other musicians such as Gil Scott-Heron, Roger Waters, and Carlos Santana have also honored the boycott I don’t believe anyone has said why so directly or effectively. Here it is.
