Please do not believe that David Grossamn is the thing itself, as far as activism in Israel is concerned. Grossman is, at bottom (and top) an Israeli, Zionist nationalist. He has even backed the war against Lebanon in 2006, in which his own son, one of the murderous troops, was killed. Only after some time he started thinking that maybe this war was not such an excellent idea. Of course, the death of his sone has given him a saint’s hallow, and one cannot say anything against him in some circles, not just in Israel.
The interview below has all the hallmarks of a naive groupie – Rachel Cook is so loving, admiring, protective, that she manages to get quite a few details wrong, even the name of Grossman’s wife, which she calls “Machal” (her name is Michal). She obviously does not read and speak Hebrew, knows little of the conflict, and is too admiring to ever question Grossman’s positions, not to mention criticising them. She does a good job of selling his new book as the Tolstoy of our time, which makes me doubt that she has actually read Tolstoy… If Grossman is the best there is, then Palestinians can only hope for God’s help…
The Israeli writer discusses his novel To the End of the Land, a memorial to his son who was killed while serving in the army, and why he remains an opponent of his country’s policy towards the Palestinians
Rachel Cooke
Israeli author David Grossman photographed for the Observer in Jerusalem. Photograph: Ahikam Seri/Panos Pictures
In May 2003, David Grossman, one of Israel’s most celebrated novelists, began writing a new book. It was to be about what the Israelis euphemistically call “the Situation”, which was a little odd because, for the past decade, he’d carefully avoided writing about politics, in his stories, if not his journalism. It was not just that he’d long felt that almost anything he could say had already been said by one side or the other. There was the danger that such a story, even in his deft hands, would be creaky and polemical. Now, though, he felt suddenly that he couldn’t not write about it. Grossman’s eldest son, Yonatan, was six months from completing his military service and his younger son, Uri, was 18 months from beginning it. His feelings about this – in Israel, men serve three years – were so acute, it seemed they would push the pen over the paper for him.
The story came quickly. It would be about a middle-aged woman, Ora, whose son, Ofer, only just released from army service, has voluntarily returned to the frontline for an offensive against one of Israel’s many enemies. Ora, having moved from celebration to renewed fearfulness in a matter of hours, is in danger of losing her mind. She has no idea how she will get through the next weeks or months. Then, in a fit of magical thinking, it comes to her. She will mount a pre-emptive strike of her own. She will simply go away, absent herself from her home and her life. That way, she reasons, she will not be there when the army “notifiers” come to tell her of her son’s death. And if she is not there, perhaps he will not die. After all, how can a person be dead if his mother isn’t at home to receive the news of it?
Grossman started writing and as he did, he, too, indulged in a little magical thinking. He had the feeling – or perhaps it was just a fervent hope – that the novel would keep Uri safe. Every time Uri came home on leave, they would discuss the story, what was new in the characters’ lives. “What did you do to them this week?” Uri used to ask. He also fed his father useful military details. This went on for a long time and it seemed for a while as if the charm was working. But on 12 July 2006, following Hezbollah attacks on Israeli soldiers on patrol near the Lebanese border, war broke out. Over the course of the next 34 days, 165 Israelis (121 of them soldiers), an estimated 500 Hezbollah fighters and 1,191 Lebanese civilians were killed.
Grossman was terrified for his son, a tank commander, but he was not, at first, opposed to the war. Though a determined lefty as far as Palestine goes – he is against the occupation of Palestinian territories – he believed that Israel had a right to defend itself against Hezbollah which, unlike the majority of Palestinians, is committed solely to destroying Israel. As the weeks went on, however, he began to think that Israel should show more restraint. At the beginning of August, together with two other great Israeli writers, Amos Oz and AB Yehoshua, Grossman appeared at a press conference in Tel Aviv, demanding that the government negotiate a ceasefire. “We had a right to go to war,” he said. “But things got complicated… I believe that there is more than one course of action available.” He did not mention that his own son was on the frontline. It was not relevant. He would have felt exactly the same had Uri been safely at home.
The Israeli government eventually accepted a UN-brokered ceasefire which came into effect on 14 August. But this was too late for Grossman and his family. On 12 August, in the dying hours of the war, Uri, who was just 20 years old, was killed when his tank was hit by a rocket; he and his crew, who were killed with him, were trying to rescue soldiers from another tank. The notifiers came to Grossman’s house at 2.40am. He heard the voice over the intercom, and he knew what was coming. Between his bedroom and the front door, he decided: “That’s it – life’s over.” But the strange thing is, it was not. The Grossmans buried Uri; his father’s simple but piercing eulogy was reprinted in newspapers around the world, including the Observer; and then the family sat shiva (a period of mourning during which time a Jewish family receives visitors).
The day after the shiva ended, Grossman returned to his book. “I went back to it for an hour,” he says, surprise registering on his face even now. “Then I had to come back home. But the next day, I added 10 minutes, and the day after that, another ten. Yes, it was hard. I was going straight to the place that frightened me most. On the other hand, it was the only possible place for me.” The result – To the End of the Land – was published in Israel in 2008 and arrives here, in the most beautiful translation, this week. What can I tell you about this book? I’m not sure. Only that I loved it. And that it tears at your heart. And that when I heard someone comparing Grossman with Tolstoy, and his novel with War and Peace, I did not scoff.
It is blazing hot in Jerusalem and, as usual, the city is a knot: tight with anger, cinched with frustration. The traffic is so heavy, it takes a taxi 20 minutes or more to move a single kilometre, but walk to your destination, as I’ve just done, and your dress will be sopping wet, the straps of your sandals will have flayed your feet like whips. Forget the holy sites, the bearded priests and the shawled rabbis. On a day like today, the visitor seeks the blessing only air conditioning can bestow: cool, crisp and calming.
I meet Grossman in a coffee shop in Mishkenot Sha’ananim, a venerable Jewish neighbourhood just outside the Old City walls. The view from the window is of a pomegranate tree, the Hagia Maria Sion, formerly known as the Abbey of the Dormition, where the Virgin Mary is said to have fallen into eternal sleep and, following the curve of the next hill, the sombre grey line of the barrier that separates the citizens of Jerusalem from those of the West Bank.
The room is deliciously cold, (goosebumps are already rising on my shins), but the calm I feel, the sense of benediction, is all to do with Grossman. He once said that the effect of regular wars and prolonged uncertainty can be seen in the way Israelis drive (people are prone to honking their horns and yelling out of their windows). But you can no more imagine him going mad at an intersection than you can picture him inviting Binyamin Netanyahu out for beer and pizza.
Grossman radiates wisdom, modesty, kindness and, above all, a sort of stillness: contemplative and tender, but steely, too. This is not to say that the darkness is all behind him. He warns me that there are some things he cannot talk about, will perhaps never be able to talk about, and I cannot look at his heart-shaped face, his big, marsupial eyes, without worrying about manhandling him. Grief, inasmuch as I’m acquainted with it, makes a person feel, among many other things, like an over-ripe peach, prone to bruises and watery leaks.
For his own part, he likens it to exile. “The first feeling you have is one of exile,” he says. “You are being exiled from everything you know. You can take nothing for granted. You don’t recognise yourself. So, going back to the book, it was a solid point in my life. I felt like someone who had experienced an earthquake, whose house had been crushed, and who goes out and takes one brick and puts it on top of another brick. Writing a precise sentence, imagining, infusing life into characters and situations, I felt I was building my home again. It was a way of fighting against the gravity of grief.” The merest flicker of a flinch. “This used to be so hard to express… but now, when I talk about it, I feel able to say that it was a way of choosing life. It was so good that I was in the middle of this novel, rather than any other. A different book might suddenly have seemed irrelevant to me. But this one did not.”
Grossman’s heroine, Ora, whom the American novelist Paul Auster has already likened both to Tolstoy’s Emma, and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, decides to hike in Galilee for the duration of her country’s latest war. She takes with her an old love, Avram, a veteran of the Yom Kippur war and a former PoW. While they walk, they talk. She tells him about Ofer, describing her boy at every stage in his life, carefully bringing him to life (Avram has never met him). Slowly, an absence becomes a presence. The novel, then, works as kind of memorial: not only to Uri, to whom it is dedicated, but to Ofer, who may, or may not, be dead. After Grossman had finished writing it, he handed it to Yonatan, and to his wife, Machal (he also has a daughter, Ruti, but she was too young for this book at the time). “It wasn’t easy for them to read it,” he says. “I think it was only the second time they read it that they understood that it could be a source of comfort to us all. I’m not describing our family, but there are always moments [when the two collide]. And yes, when someone dies, they’re gone and yet they are still so present.”
Four months after Uri’s death, Grossman addressed a crowd of 100,000 Israelis who had gathered to mark the anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. His speech was beautifully controlled, but quietly furious. He denounced Ehud Olmert’s government for a failure of leadership, a failure which would ultimately damage the Jewish state, and he again argued that reaching out to the Palestinians was the only hope. “Of course I am grieving,” he said, anxious that Olmert and his cronies might dismiss his speech as the outpourings only of a bereft father. “But my pain is greater than my anger. I am in pain for this country and for what you and your friends are doing to it.”
I understand that he wants to separate his grief and his politics, but does he think, now, that his loss has changed some people’s opinions of him all the same? “Yes. There were people who stereotyped me, who considered me this naive leftist who would never send his own children into the army, who didn’t know what life was made of. I think those people were forced to realise that you can be very critical of Israel and yet still be an integral part of it; I speak as a reservist in the Israeli army myself.”
His novel provoked a strong reaction in Israel. “Some of my books in the past have aroused hatred [notably his collection of reportage, The Yellow Wind, a sympathetic account of life in the occupied territories]. Not this one. I think this one allowed people to give up on the need to be a fist, to remember the nuances, to ask themselves: what does it mean to be a human being in this situation? Our curse is that all of us become representatives; we congeal. But we need to feel our inner doubts, our contradictions.”
Was it horrible having to grieve in public? He must have feared that his son would be adopted as yet another symbol of the Situation. “I’m not sure it was horrible. One burden is at least taken away [when you are a public figure]: you don’t have to tell people what happened, because they know. We found our way. We’re very private people. We are a close family and we have a wonderful, devoted group of friends. What happens outside that… well, it depends how people approach me. Most approach me with tenderness and sensitivity. There has been a lot of warmth. But I made it clear from the beginning that I don’t ask for special privileges. I don’t want people to say: ah, because he suffered this, his opinions are this. My opinions are not my emotions. I spoke in Rabin Square, but I only do [public] things that I would have done before.
“I’m not a rational, cold person. On the contrary, so much of the politics is emotional here, and the two peoples involved are very emotional, so you must be attuned to emotions very precisely. But the bottom line must be logical. You must not surrender to the primal urges of revenge. I just do not see a better solution than the two-state solution. I’m more sad, and maybe desperate, but not in a way that paralyses me.” He pauses. “Maybe I cannot afford the luxury of despair. Maybe. Or maybe it’s a question of personality: I cannot collaborate with despair because it humiliates me to do so.”
All the same, he cannot feel hopeful at the prospect of more (American-brokered) talks. “I think our prime minister is the only person who can change our destiny for the better. He has a lot of credibility here. The question is: does he really believe in peace with the Palestinians? And I’m afraid that the answer is no. Even if he taught himself to utter the words ‘two-state solution’, he deeply mistrusts the Palestinians.”
To read the rest of the interview, use the link above
Israelis rightly take pride in the existence of the Knesset but they now need to take action to restore its reputation
By Hagai El-Ad, August 26, 2010
In June, Israeli MK Miri Regev (Likud) shouted, in Arabic, at her fellow MK, Haneen Zoabi (Balad): “Go back to Gaza, traitor!” as Zoabi tried in vain to address the Knesset on her return from her participation in the “Free Gaza” flotilla.
In July, the Knesset decided by a 34-16 vote to strip Zoabi of her parliamentary benefits.
In August, the release of a heavily edited video clip by the army led to renewed calls in the Knesset to revoke her citizenship.
These moves in the Israeli parliament meshed well with public opinion: a Facebook group was set up entitled “execute MK Haneen Zoabi”. Security guards were assigned for her protection.
While the MKs may have believed they were shaming Zoabi, the real victim of this public humiliation was Israeli democracy. The removal of Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges simultaneously undermined the hope for full civil equality for all Israeli citizens.
To restate the obvious: in a democracy, members of its parliament must not be punished for fulfilling their roles as representatives of the public – even when their positions clash with the majority view. In a democracy, we are supposed to argue, not silence opposing voices. Democracy gives overriding priority to preserving free political expression, especially by publicly elected officials. As long as MK Zoabi has broken no laws, she has every right to continue expressing her views, however unpopular.
The treatment she received underscores a basic misunderstanding about the nature of democracy. In their haste to label her an “enemy of the state,” Israeli MKs forgot the principles of freedom of expression and the right to dissent. And, sadly, Zoabi’s treatment is just one example within a disturbing trend unfolding before our eyes in the current Knesset. The rules of democracy are crumbling.
The Knesset is passing more anti-democratic laws than ever before — targeting the Arab minority; predicating basic civil rights on declarations of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state; and limiting the ability of citizens to protest against government policies.
McCarthy-style parliamentary committee hearings on academic freedoms have led to panic-driven responses by Israeli universities. Harassment of human rights organisations is now a commonplace in the Knesset, where one black day for democracy seems to follow on the heels of another.
In this extreme atmosphere, the anti-democratic display against Zoabi was regarded merely as a routine performance. The Israeli parliament is no longer an arena in which the struggle for human rights can be advanced; rather, it is a place where democracy itself has become a punch-bag, and defenders of human rights are fighting to hold the defensive line. The rot set in some time between Operation Cast Lead and the openly racist election campaign that followed.
When the supposed stronghold of democracy abuses its role, this is not a matter to be confined within its own sphere. It is the business of all citizens. Israelis who despair as their elected officials pull the democratic rug from under their feet should fight to protect and strengthen the basis of democracy that still exists and to create a space for democracy where it is lacking.
Concerned citizens should become involved in the struggle for human rights and social justice for all, whether in Tel Aviv, Araqib or Sheikh Jarrah.
There are a number of appropriate avenues – including participation in December’s Human Rights March – where such concerns can be expressed. If enough Israelis want to build together a future of equality, democracy and human rights, then it will become a reality.
To Jews in the UK, and all supporters of Israel who are engaged in passionate discussions about the country’s future, it is surely self-evident that attempts to silence opposition through legislation are catastrophic for any democracy. The only way out of the current impasse is open, respectful debate of all viewpoints.
Israelis who find their own space for debate constricted can draw inspiration from diaspora Jews who understand that what is at stake here is not the prevalence of any single opinion but the right to hold and express an opinion at all.
Hagai El-Ad is the executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel
Speaking at fast-breaking meal in Gaza, Hamas PM Haniyeh says Palestinians worldwide do not support ‘absurd talks with Israel.’
Palestinian negotiators are not mandated to surrender Jerusalem or any part of Palestine, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency quoted Gaza’s Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh as saying on Friday, with the Hamas strongman dubbing upcoming direct peace talks as the latest in a string of Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.
On Tuesday, Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal said that the upcoming U.S.-backed direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority were illegitimate and the result of coercion by Washington.
Talks between the two sides had been were shelved two years ago, but the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is hoping for a breakthrough during the new rounds of negotiations set to begin September 2.
Speaking in Ramadan fast-breaking meal in the Gaza town of Khan Younis late Thursday, Haniyeh claimed that “no negotiator who would give up Jerusalem has a national mandate,” adding that “Palestinians across the globe will not support any movement holding absurd talks with Israel.”
The Hamas prime minister, referring to the Palestinian prisoners’ families present at the meal, said that the “prisoners, the injured and the families of martyrs will not authorize anyone who wants to give up Palestine and Jerusalem after they have sacrificed for years and struggled to keep it.”
“The occupation has failed to break the will of the Palestinian people, not by increasing its attacks or increasing the number of dead, not by injuring prisoners or isolating the resistance from its people,” the Hamas leader said.
“Israel is trying in dozens of ways to achieve its goal, and now it is through negotiations,” Haniyeh added, saying that next upcoming negotiations were the latest in a long list of Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.
On Monday, Haniyeh said the Palestinian people will gain nothing from direct Middle East peace talks with Israel.
Speaking at a Gaza Strip mosque on Monday, Haniyeh said that the scheduled negotiations would not restore Palestinians’ rights or give them control over religious sites, saying that they “should trust God, who will be an ally of the Palestinians.”
According to the Ma’an report, Haniyeh also praised the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, saying the Palestinians were a “model for the Arab nations and Islamic countries.”
EDITOR: Good to know whose side they are on…
The following report has the sound of truth about it… When those US diplomats spenda long time with Israelis, they start speaking and behaving like them. You have to ask yourself: If Israel can destroy everyone around in few hours, why are they so terrified of the smallest thing?
Lebanese paper says US envoy’s advisor threatened Lebanese army chief with Israeli contingency plan following deadly border skirmish
An senior advisor to US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell has threatened Lebanese army commander, Jean Kahwajim that should his army initiate additional fire exchanges with Israel, the IDF would annihilate his military within four hours, Lebanese newspaper al-Liwa reported Friday.
According to the report, Frederick Hof spoke to Kahwaji on August 9, following the deadly border skirmish between Israel and Lebanon and informed him of the IDF contingency plan.
The report further quotes Mitchell’s aide as telling the Lebanese commander that Israel had decided to carry out a plan “which would completely destroy the Lebanese army’s bases, centers and offices within four hours.”
Lieutenant-Colonel (res.) Dov Harari was killed in the border skirmish earlier this month and another officer was seriously injured. Firing began when IDF forces entered a border enclave in order to uproot a tree. Lebanon later blamed Israel for violating UN Resolution 1701.
Hof advised the Lebanese army chief to show restraint in any future border conflict with Israel.
US sources said a UNIFIL report which ruled that the tree was on Israel’s side of the border sheds new light on the possible danger caused by the proximity between the Lebanese army and Hezbollah.
Wikileaks releases a CIA memo titled ‘What if Foreigners See the United States as an Exporter of Terrorism?’ in which American Jews in Israel was one of four groups mentioned.
The Wikileaks website released a CIA document on Wednesday that examines the trend of Americans committing terrorist acts overseas, including American Jews in Israel.
American Jews in Israel were one of four groups mentioned in the classified report, titled “What if Foreigners See the United States as an Exporter of Terrorism?”
“Some American Jews have supported and even engaged in violent acts against perceived enemies of Israel,” the report reads. “In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an American Jewish doctor from New York, emigrated to Israel, joined the extremist group Kach, and killed 29 Palestinians during their prayers in the mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron which helped trigger a wave of bus bombings by Hamas in early 1995.”
Other groups mentioned were Irish-Americans who supported the Irish Republican Army; a group of Muslim-American men who traveled to Pakistan last year to engage in Jihad; and a Pakistani-American man, David Headley, who conducted surveillance for the Lashkar-i-Tayyiba terrorist group ahead of the attack in Mumbai, India in November 2008 that killed more than 160 people.
The leaked report was compiled in February 2010 by the CIA’s Red Cell, which, according to the memorandum, was tasked with “taking a pronounced ‘out-of-the-box’ approach that will provoke thought and offer an alternative viewpoint on the full range of analytic issues.”
Wikileaks, an online whistle-blowing website, recently published tens of thousands of classified military documents related to the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Recent months see sharp rise in number of European companies withdrawing investment from Israeli firms for political reasons. ‘The damage is huge,’ says glass factory owner from Ariel
The decision by Norway’s oil fund to withdraw its investment from Africa-Israel and Danya Cebus citing their involvement in settlement construction is the latest step in an ever expanding list of European private and governmental companies boycotting Israeli firms for political reasons.
Most of the cases pertain to claims of products being manufactured outside the Green Line and therefore in “occupied territory.” Some of the cases serve as political protest against Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians.
Yet, one point is uncontested: Recent months have seen a climb in the scope of the boycott of Israeli products imposed for political reasons.
“Since the Palestinians declared a boycott of settlement goods, there has been a 40% drop in production,” Avi Ben Zvi, owner of the Plastco glass factory in Ariel said. “Export to Europe has ceased in its entirety and traders from the territories have stopped working with us. The damage is huge,” he added.
According to Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman, the region’s factories have taken a massive hit. “We need to initiate a wide-scale governmental campaign threatening the boycotting countries they will not participate in the political process,” he said.
Last March, a large Swedish pension fund decided to boycott Elbit Systems for its part in the construction of the separation fence. The fund declared it had sold its Elbit holdings after its ethics committee recommended pulling out investment from companies involved in a violation of international treaties.
In September, Norway’s governmental pension fund made a similiar move and divested from Elbit.
Last May, Germany’s Deutsche Bank announced it had sold all its Elbit stocks, apparently after being pressured by anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian organizations.
Two years ago, Swedish giant Assa Abloy, owner of the Israeli company Mul-T-Lock Ltd., issued an apology for the fact that its factory in the Barkan Industrial Park was located outside the Green Line. The company promised to move the plant into “Israeli territory” following pressure from a Swedish-Christian human rights group.
Isolated events?
Shraga Brosh, president of the Manufacturers Association, said Tuesday that “from time to time, organizations, mainly Scandinavian, boycott certain Israeli bodies. At the end of the day, these are isolated occurrences which do not affect the whole trade with Israel.”
Soda Club was also hit by boycott: The city of Paris was forced to deny the Israeli company’s participation in a large-scale fair for the promotion of tap water after receiving threats from pro-Palestinian elements.
On July, it was reported that the French transport firm Veolia, which operated the light rail project in Jerusalem had decided to sell its shares in the project without citing any motives. The decision may well be connected to the fact that several months earlier a French court agreed to discuss a lawsuit against Veolia and its involvement in the rail’s construction in east Jerusalem.
By David Gardner, Financial Times – 25 Aug 2010
www.ft.com/
Israeli Peace Plan, by Carlos Latuff
As the caravans of Middle East peace negotiators rumble into Washington next week for the umpteenth time, the pervasive cynicism and sense of deja vu all over again is overwhelming – and with good reason.
The Middle East peace process long ago turned into a tortured charade of pure process while events on the ground – in particular the relentless and strategic Israeli colonisation of occupied Palestinian land – pull in the opposite direction to peace. “We have all been colluding in a gigantic confidence trick,” is how one Arab minister puts it, “and here we go again”.
While many factors had combined to hand veto powers to rejectionists on both sides, the heart of the question remains the continuing Israeli occupation. It is essential to remember that the biggest single increase of Jewish settlers on Arab land – a 50 per cent rise – took place in 1992-96 under the governments of peace-makers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres at the high-water mark of the Oslo peace accords. Many Israelis will point to the perfidy of the late Yassir Arafat, who wanted to talk peace but keep the option of armed resistance dangerously in play. But what killed Oslo was the occupation. The second intifada that erupted a decade ago was essentially the Oslo war.
A decade on, the Israeli settlement enterprise has turned the occupied West Bank into a discontiguous scattering of cantons, walled in by a security barrier built on yet more annexed Arab land and criss-crossed by segregated Israeli roads linking the settlements. Last month, B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, published a study showing Israel has now taken 42 per cent of the West Bank, with 300,000 settlers there and another 200,000 in East Jerusalem. The siege of Gaza has turned that sliver of land into a vast, open-air prison.
The main feature of the present situation is the disconnect between the high politics of the utterly discredited peace process and these – in Israeli parlance – “facts on the ground”.
At last month’s White House summit, where Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu massaged their long estrangement into a political armistice, the US president praised the Israeli prime minister as a leader “willing to take risks for peace”.
But there is no evidence for this whatsoever. True, in June last year, in response to Mr Obama’s Cairo speech denying any legitimacy to Israel’s settlements, Mr Netanyahu forced himself to utter the words “Palestinian state” – but he surrounded them with barbed-wire caveats that voided them of meaning.
Indeed, the words all sides use – peace, resolution, security, and so on – may be the same; but what each side means by them is different.
The mainstream Palestinian leaders, President Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad, the prime minister, and the Quartet made up of the US, the European Union, the UN and Russia, talk of a negotiated resolution. This means two states living in peace and security, and a Palestinian homeland on the 22 per cent of Mandate Palestine taken by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. East Jerusalem would serve as the capital of the West Bank and Gaza, with marginal land swaps to preserve some Israeli settlements near Jerusalem. But what does Mr Netanyahu mean?
He has been most clear on what he does not mean. For a start, he has set his face against any concessions on Jerusalem. He wants to keep most settlements except for the far-flung “ideological” ones and the 100-plus “outposts” established as pawns to be traded once the chess game began. His idea of a demilitarised Palestinian state is more like a sort of supra-municipal administration than a self-determined, independent government.
Will he surprise us, on the hackneyed Nixon and China principle that holds it is politicians of the right who most easily close difficult deals? There is little to suggest that.
The thinking of Mr Netanyahu, son of a celebrated promoter of Greater Israel, has always been profoundly irredentist. While his nationalist Likud faces the constraints of being in coalition with an assortment of ultra-rightist and ultra-orthodox parties as well as Labour, that was plainly his choice; the centrist Kadima party was (and remains) an alternative. To be fair, Israel’s electoral system – with a low threshold for entry into the Knesset that makes multi-party coalitions inevitable – means lobbies such as the settlers can take the national interest hostage. But Mr Netanyahu magnifies this by his choice of partners and by diligently firing up the ultra-hawks in the pro-Israel lobby in the US.
As risks he has taken for peace, Exhibit A is the much-hyped moratorium on settlement-building, which expires next month and has, in any case, been speciously interpreted. While the bulldozers to build settlements have been idling, moreover, the bulldozers demolishing Palestinian homes have been roaring: the rate of demolition in and around Jerusalem has doubled this year, while the army has just razed the village of al-Farisiye in the Jordan Valley, in line with Mr Netanyahu’s strategically obsolete obsession with keeping the valley as Israel’s eastern border.
As diplomacy struggles to keep alive the viability of a two-state solution, three rival systems of control have crystallised in the occupied territories that would make up a future Palestinian homeland: the settlements; the crimped Palestinian Authority of Mr Abbas and Mr Fayyad; and then Hamas, which Israel and its Arab and western allies have tried and failed to marginalise. Time is short for a negotiated outcome; it may even have run out.
The outlines of a deal are clear, in the (Bill) Clinton parameters of 2000 and Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, endorsed by 22 Arab and 57 Muslim countries (as well as Hamas, as part of the 2007 Mecca accord). There has to be an end to the occupation, and the US and Quartet cannot just allude to this; they must demand it. The writer is the Financial Times international affairs editor
These masters of Jewish law act as if they have not heard of Shmaya, and contrary to his recommendations in the Mishna tractate “Avot” (Ethics of our Fathers ), they actually very much like the rabbinate.
By Yossi Sarid
Some 30 years ago, the Hebrew slogan was coined: “Medinat halakha – halkha hamedina,” which means more or less that if Israel becomes a state governed by Jewish law, that will be the end of the state. Is the end near? It is coming.
Something like this has never happened before, even though it seems as if everything possible has already happened – two rabbis being summoned to a police investigation, and announcing that they will not go. Even settlers are kind enough to turn up. True, they are instructed to remain silent, to lead the police astray, but they show up. Rabbis, on the other hand, are even more important people, and if a rabbi is also a settler, there is no one with greater airs than he. Even after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the authorities dealt with the killer but left alone those who had killed wisdom.
Only rabbis permit themselves, with the authority of the Torah, to pass their sacred water in public without fear, and the police keep quiet about this, as do the attorney general and the head of the prosecution, and the legislators and law enforcers.
Not only have they not reported to the police, they are assembling communities of supporters – 250 of their species gathered last week to lend support to their colleagues, Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef, who have approved the book of abomination, “Torat Hamelech” (The King’s Torah ) written by one Yitzhak Shapira from the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in Yitzhar.
This theological treatise is a kind of guide to the perplexed – when it is permitted to kill Gentiles in general and babies in particular, and all of this according to Jewish law. Even the Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Yona Metzger, who does not particularly like police investigations, has declared the rabbis who did not report to the police as being in the right.
At the conclusion of the gathering, rabbis from among the religious Zionists who, as civil servants, get their salaries from the taxpayer, had the following to say: “The moral values of the Torah have to be the moral code for the Israel Defense Forces … Our holy Torah is not a subject for investigation or trial by flesh and blood.” Even their colleagues from the holy city of Qom would have been hard pressed to produce a more enduring manifesto.
With this in mind, let us reexamine the meaning of certain terms:
“Rabbis” – Judaism has never been blessed with so many rabbis; how happy is this generation to have so many. No other country has such a rare and generous ratio of clergymen per capita.
“Find yourself a rabbi” [as the Mishna says] – so they find one, why not? Just so there should be someone. Any good-for-nothing can be a teacher for them and any charlatan who gets a number of students together is called a rabbi. It is not clear who has ordained him, and it is not clear whether the one doing the ordination is ordained to ordain, and according to which principles. It is easier to be a rabbi than a professor, and even that is not very difficult.
“Halakha” – If the Torah has 70 faces then halakha (Jewish religious law ) has 700. The sages said that everything can be understood on different levels and in different ways, and everything is included, and if one person has given an interpretation, another can come and overturn it. After all, there is no religious authority that is recognized and accepted by all in these times, to whom people listen and according to whom people act. The halakha says that any bastard can be a rabbi, and he can even give his own kashrut certificates in return for money. And the Chief Rabbinate in Israel is nothing but a depleted organ in a body that is bruised all over.
These masters of Jewish law act as if they have not heard of Shmaya, and contrary to his recommendations in the Mishna tractate “Avot” (Ethics of our Fathers ), they actually very much like the rabbinate. Their halakha looks the kingdom straight in the eye, and the kingdom is humiliated.
Dave Lordan, 27 August 2010
I am proud to be among the many Irish and Ireland-based artists from across creative disciplines who have chosen to publicly support the growing campaign of boycott against apartheid Israel. Compared to the imprisoned Palestinian people themselves and to those taking part in flotillas and other perilous anti-apartheid activities in Palestine our contribution and risk may be justly considered small. At most we might lose the chance of lucrative invitations to read, perform or display our works in parts of the US where apartheid Israel’s supporters hold the power of censorship. Departments of foreign affairs and ministries of culture may also not include us among those artists they can rely upon to project a lying image of a harmonious, bon vivant and, above all, harmlessly apolitical intelligentsia. We are sure to be slandered and ridiculed by the hired bullies of the global media empires.
These are tiny punishments indeed compared to the instant annihilation that Israel with its snipers and bombers and jet planes and tanks has visited on a daily basis upon Palestinian men, women and children for the last 62 years. The threat we come under for speaking out at a safe distance is nothing beside the threat apartheid Israel holds constant over every urban civilian in the Middle East with its 200-bomb-strong nuclear arsenal. Besides, to be ostracized and blacklisted by these last remaining friends of apartheid Israel, the gangster governments of west and east and their spies and ideological enablers, is to be reminded of the phrase of that great political artist William Blake, who tells us to “Listen to the fool’s reproach — it is a kingly title.”
The argument that artists should remain aloof from politics does not survive the most cursory of cross examinations. Over the centuries artists have taken every possible political stance both inside and outside their art. They have also performed every possible political action without it having the least negative effect on their own work or on art in general. Indeed, much great art has been produced out of intense engagement with political events and with social movements. One can look up the biographies of the list of Nobel prize winners in literature, or take a stroll around one’s nearest significant gallery if one needs any proof of this.
Artistic aloofness in relation to Israel-Palestine is without doubt a political stance, a signal that one will not stand in the way of the strong as they bear down with all their might upon the weak. But to perform in Israel, or to leave oneself open to performing there, is not simply remaining aloof. It is choosing the side of tyranny. It is a decision to ignore the cry of the oppressed.
Some artists will make this decision out of ignorance, or because they believe in or are confused by apartheid Israel’s untiring propaganda machine, which is so consciously assisted by the western media and politicians. To these artists I say, take a few days to look behind the headlines, give yourself some time to familiarize yourself with the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict in all of its contexts. Inform yourself properly, and then make your decision.
Obviously there are artists, motivated by fame and finance, who will perform in apartheid Israel knowing full well that their actions are an integral part of the war effort against the Palestinians, while of course loudly protesting otherwise. In the long run this may count against them. Their memory will be linked throughout posterity with all those images of rubbled apartment blocks, of old farmers shackled at crossroads, of sad-eyed children dying in makeshift hospitals for lack of basic medicines due to the illegal blockade.
Alongside the financial, political and military support of western rulers, the cultural support of western artists is a crucial link in the chain of oppression that tightens every passing minute around the neck of Palestine. Artists occupy a position of public privilege. What we think and feel as it is expressed through our art is elevated above ordinary discourse and seriously discussed at events, in classrooms, and in all kinds of media. Both individually within our local networks and communities, and collectively at a national and international level, we can and do have a disproportionate effect on opinion. We are, I think, perhaps the last significant body of people to enjoy large-scale public trust in most parts of the globe. Added together, what we say and do publicly in our art and in our lives as citizens is reflected upon by many people in a much more profound way than the utterances of most politicians. Our deeds and words ring louder then, and wider, and longer, then those of many others. But so do our silences, our non-actions. That is why both the tacit and the enthusiastic support of artists have been worth so much to dictators and criminal systems like apartheid over the centuries, and why we have been so brutally persecuted when we have refused to give it.
All an Israeli major has to do to unwind after a day directing the bulldozing of ancestral Palestinian homesteads is to change into her casuals and head out to see a platinum-selling rock group, or to clap along politely like everyone else is doing at the poetry of some prize-glittering western writer. Then she can feel as refined, as hip, and as justified, as any other liberal westerner. The presence of international artists in apartheid Israel normalizes and buttresses the apartheid system, contributing to its self-confidence and smooth functioning.
By performing in Israel, in despite of the clear call of the Palestinian artists and cultural institutions to boycott Israel, an international artist gives — whether or not they are conscious of it — a signal of approval to the settler-pirates and to the racially brainwashed conscripts who take pleasure in having themselves photographed beaming with national joy in front of blindfolded and humiliated Palestinians. Approval for these and countless other abuses and injustices is exactly how the appearance of international artists in apartheid Israel is interpreted by its politico-military leadership and, crucially, by its rank-and-file soldiers, boosting the morale of those who must implement the bloody practicality of apartheid on the ground.
The boycott, if it gained momentum, could have just the opposite effect. It could remove the visage of respectability and normality which the leaders of apartheid Israel so desperately crave in order that they can continue with the dirty work of oppressing the Palestinians unperturbed by the moral opinion of the rest of the world. It could undermine the confidence of the military rank and file and cause significant numbers to question and refuse the implementation of apartheid policies. Above all, it could help to inspire the continuing anti-apartheid resistance of the Palestinian people, and contribute — similarly to how international solidarity with black South Africans did in their case — to the eventual collapse of the apartheid system. To have played even the tiniest of roles in such an outcome would be a greater honor than any prize, review, or invitation is capable of giving us.
Dave Lordan is an Irish writer. His latest collection of poetry is Invitation to a Sacrifice (Salmon Poetry, Cliffs of Moher, 2010).
If Yuval Steinitz and Gideon Sa’ar want Israeli Zhdanovism to be attributed to them, they should continue with their indolent attitude toward Im Tirtzu.
By Zeev Sternhell
The threats and pressures on the universities were to be expected. The struggle in the academic world is an integral part of the cultural struggle started by the right, parallel to its political successes. People on the right understand that, just as in the United States and Europe, to survive for long and strike roots they must exploit the regime’s institutions and destroy the left’s hold on the educated sectors of the population.
The right is correct in its diagnosis – the Israeli cultural world, including the universities, tends toward the left. It has been this way since World War II in the entire Western world. The centers of opposition to the war in Vietnam and the occupation of Iraq were the American universities; the Latin Quarter in Paris was the center of the struggle against the war in Algeria; and the student revolt of 1968 swept across America and Europe from California to the Berlin Wall.
In the West, however, the right began regaining its strength and gaining ascendancy in the form of neoconservatism, not especially in the universities but in the world of finance and the media. This has not been true of Israel, where many supporters of economic neoliberalism have fought against the occupation and the settlements and therefore belong to the “political left.” That is why the right’s grip on the secular cultural elite is close to zero; this is the real reason for the recent campaign of intimidation.
The struggle is taking place on two fronts. The Shalem Center is the academic arm and respected ideological laboratory, even if it is neither innovative nor original. The second arm consists of propagandists and demagogues from the Institute for Zionist Strategies and the Im Tirtzu student movement. The attempt to copy America has failed so far for one major reason – the Israeli neoconservative and nationalist right does not have scholars and cultural figures like its counterparts in the United States and Europe.
This sense of weakness and dissociation from the world of research, literature and art has spawned the current outburst of anger, and it is not the last. The real argument, however, is not with the propagandists but with the heads of the regime. The senior politicians know that there is no research without freedom, and they understand that a researcher’s first commitment is to the truth as he finds it, or believes he has found it, in his work.
They know that academic teaching worth its name relies on research, and that intellectual and cultural life in Israel and its research institutes is the country’s true showcase. But their future depends on the support of the street propagandists, and they will not man the barricades to defend the achievements of science and culture. Moral considerations will not help in this game, only considerations of force and immediate benefit. And as everyone knows, force can only be stopped by counterforce.
Therefore, it must be made clear to the finance minister, who called for the firing of university lecturers who support an academic boycott of Israel (which I strongly oppose), that any attempt to harm a lecturer’s status for political reasons will meet with a firm response from Israel’s academic faculty. The expected reaction from the international community, including the possibility of a boycott, could be no less painful.
It is worth explaining this to the education minister, because his plan to bring back talented researchers to Israel will have to address the following question: What researcher who grew up in an American academic environment will be eager to return to a reality that is starting to resemble the black years of the 1950s in the United States? Who will want to work in an institution that exercises the right of censorship to look into the syllabi of its courses? And how many Israelis pondering their future will decide that this is the straw that broke the camel’s back?
If Yuval Steinitz and Gideon Sa’ar want Israeli Zhdanovism to be attributed to them, they should continue with their indolent attitude toward Im Tirtzu.
After announced delay in departure of women’s flotilla, Defense Minister speaks with foreign ministers of U.S. and France, stresses that flotilla is an “unnecessary provocation.”
Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke on Saturday with U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, U.S. National Security Adviser General Jim Jones, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, and asked them to act to prevent the launch of the Lebanese flotilla setting for Gaza.
The Defense Minister emphasized that Israel permits the import of civilian materials into Gaza after it is checked at the port of Ashdod. Therefore, he said, “The flotilla’s attempt to reach Gaza is a needless provocation.”
Earlier in the day, the organizers of the women’s flotilla from Lebanon to Gaza announced that the ships would not set sail on Sunday. Apparently, the reason for the delay is Cyprus’s refusal to allow the ships to pass through its territorial waters or to drop anchor in one of its ports.
“We will not set sail tomorrow,” Samar Al Haj, one of the flotilla organizers, said to the Reuters news agency. “We have encountered difficulties. We will try to set sail from another port, we won’t give up so easily.”
On Thursday, the Israeli delegation to the United Nations submitted a complaint to the general secretary of the organization and to the head of its security council. The complaint stated that the flotilla is a needless provocation, and that there are acceptable ways of transferring aid to Gaza.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that all of the other states in the region, including those that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel, understand that any such flotilla will only cause damage to the whole region. “We hope that this understanding will lead to cooperation to prevent the provocations,” Lieberman said.
Earlier Friday, Defense Minister Barak said that the women’s flotilla intends to aid terror groups. “The flotilla planning to set sail from Lebanon has nothing to do with humanitarian goals, it is a hostile irritation,” he said in a Defense Ministry statement.
Jewish-American Emily Henochowicz recalls how she lost an eye at a protest in Israel after the storming of the Gaza aid flotilla
Ed Pilkington
Emily Henochowicz lost an eye when she was hit by a tear gas cannister fired by Israeli troops at a pro-Palestinian protest. Photograph: Tim Knox
As a student artist, Emily Henochowicz has always been fascinated by the way the brain processes visual signals to form images of the physical world around us. That has been a theme of her work at the prestigious New York art college, Cooper Union, which she joined three years ago.
In her first term she made a costume out of papier-mache for the inaugural freshman’s parade that neatly expressed that fascination. It was meant to be a monster cyclops, but the way it came out it resembled a giant eyeball with her arms and legs sticking out of it.
For more than a year she has used a photograph of that eyeball as the icon of her art blog, thirsty pixels. It is all too ironic, she laughs now. The irony is that in May Henochowicz became – in her own words – a cyclops. She lost her left eye as she was demonstrating against Israeli government policy in the Palestinian occupied territories.
With her loss, she became yet another casualty of the ongoing Israeli occupation. But what makes Henochowicz’s story singular was that her experiences were filtered through the lens, the eye, of an artist.
It was art that took her to the Middle East in the first place. She signed up to an animation course in Jerusalem that suited her passion for drawing.
Her choice of Jerusalem had little to do with the fact that she was the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, or that her father was born in Israel and that she herself was Jewish and an Israeli citizen. It had even less to do with any political beliefs she might have on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, though she had been disturbed by Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war of 2008-9.
It was all about art. But a month after she arrived in Jerusalem, an Israeli friend and peace activist took her into Palestinian East Jerusalem. That day changed everything.
“It was a little bit shocking,” she says, recalling the event in a Manhattan cafe. “Suddenly a huge group of Hassidim came down the street. These little Palestinian kids – just five or six years old – linked arms and were standing in the middle of the street. The Hassidim were on the other side, singing prayers at them. It was such a powerful image for me: that line of children, so strong and defiant, this huge group of adults in front of them.”
The next day Henochowicz captured the moment in a dramatic painting that shows the children in front of a swirl of black-clad Jewish men. And then she acted on impulse – something that as an artist she says she is wont to do. She went to Ramallah on the West Bank and joined the protest campaign the International Solidarity Movement.
Over the next few weeks Henochowicz threw herself into the fray, protesting outside Israeli settlements in the West Bank and along the separation wall. She was aware of the dangers, not least because it was with the ISM that fellow-American Rachel Corrie had been demonstrating in 2003 when she was crushed to death by a bulldozer.
“I had a fear the whole time I was going to get hit with tear gas,” Henochowicz says. “I knew the way that it was used. Forget UN regulations, this is Israel, the rules don’t apply here – tear gas is fired directly into crowds.”
At first she kept what she was doing from her parents, certain that they would disapprove. But eventually she told them.
“They were incredibly upset, particularly my dad. He had been to Yeshiva, Jewish school, and speaks Hebrew.’ How could you do this to me?’ he said, but I wasn’t doing it to him.”
Paradoxically, shortly before the incident in which she lost her eye, Henochowicz decided, partly out of concern for her parents, that she would avoid demonstrations and dedicate herself instead to teaching art to Palestinian children. But on the morning of 31 May she awoke to the news that a Turkish flotilla attempting to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza had been raided and nine activists killed.
Mayhem and confusion ensued. She was swept along by the reaction, and found herself at a protest rally at the Qaladiya checkpoint, facing Israeli soldiers. “I was scared in a way I’d never been before.”
It was so quick, maybe just a minute from the first stones being thrown to the tear gas canister striking her in the face.
“I remember a weird crunch feeling and thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve been hit!’ Then there was the thought: ‘Hey guys, my brain’s ok! My brain’s ok!”
“And then I remember falling back and being held, and cameras rushing to me and clicking away and me thinking ‘Oh, I’ve become one of those images’.”
She was treated in a hospital in Ramallah and Jerusalem before returning to Maryland in the US. She has had multiple operations for a fractured skull as well as losing the eye.
The Israeli government has refused to pay thousands of dollars in medical costs, on the grounds that Henochowicz chose to put herself at risk and that she was hit by mistake by a ricochet.
“That’s preposterous,” she says. “A ricochet? From what wall? Where? How? This was no ricochet.”
Henochowicz is now preparing for term to start at Cooper Union. She wears a pair of glasses, the left lens of which she has painted with swirls to obscure the empty socket behind it.
She says she has adapted with amazing speed to the loss. “I go through a lot of my days not even thinking that I’m seeing only through one eye. I’m so fine in other ways, I’m perfectly healthy.”
She stresses how unfair she thinks it is that she gets so much attention, while Palestinians who are injured with depressing frequency go without notice. “I’m white, I’m Jewish, I’m an Israeli citizen and American. When I’m hit by tear gas there are articles, the Israeli government gets involved. When Palestinians are hit, who gives a shit?”
She doesn’t know what the longer-term impact will be on her art. She remembers telling the doctor who informed her she had lost an eye: “But I’m an artist, that’s not supposed to happen!”
“I’ve been sad because this is a moment in my life I can never escape, and that’s what gets me more than the loss of my eye,” she says. “Twenty years from now I will still carry this moment, and I desperately don’t want it to be the end of my story.”
Iran begins fueling its first nuclear power plant which it refers to as ‘start-up of the largest symbol of Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities.’
The United States does not see the fueling of Iran’s first nuclear power plant in Bushehr as a “proliferation risk,” State Department spokesman Darby Holladay said Saturday.
“We recognize that the Bushehr reactor is designed to provide civilian nuclear power and do not view it as a proliferation risk,” Holladay said, adding that “It will be under IAEA safeguards and Russia is providing the fuel and talking back the spit nuclear fuel, which would be the principal source of proliferation concerns.”
Iran began fueling its first nuclear power plant on Saturday, a potent symbol of its growing regional sway and rejection of international sanctions designed to prevent it building a nuclear bomb.
“Russia’s support for Bushehr underscores that Iran does not need an indigenous enrichment capability as its intentions are purely peaceful,” Holladay said. “Russia’s supply of fuel to Iran is the model we and our P5+1 partner have offered to Iran. It is important to remember that the IAEA access to Bushehr is separate from and should not be confused with Iran’s broader obligations to the IAEA. On this score as the IAEA has consistently reported Iran remains in serious violation of its obligations.”
Iranian television showed live pictures of Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and his Russian counterpart watching a fuel rod assembly being prepared for insertion into the reactor near the Gulf city of Bushehr.
“Despite all the pressures, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the start-up of the largest symbol of Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities,” Salehi told a news conference afterwards.
Iranian officials said it would take two to three months before the plant starts producing electricity and would generate 1,000 megawatts, a small proportion of the nation’s 41,000 megawatt electricity demand recorded last month.
Russia designed, built and will supply fuel for Bushehr, taking back spent rods which could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium in order to ease nuclear proliferation concerns.
Saturday’s ceremony comes after decades of delays building the plant, work on which was initially started by German company Siemens in the 1970s, before Iran’s Islamic Revolution.
The United States criticized Moscow earlier this year for pushing ahead with Bushehr given persistent Iranian defiance over its nuclear program.
Moscow supported the latest UN Security Council resolution in June which imposed a fourth round of sanctions and called for Iran to stop uranium enrichment which, some countries fear, could lead it to obtain nuclear weapons.
“The construction of the nuclear plant at Bushehr is a clear example showing that any country, if it abides by existing international legislation and provides effective, open interaction with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), should have the opportunity to access peaceful use of the atom,” Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, told the news conference.
The fuelling of Bushehr is a milestone in Iran’s path to harness technology which it says will reduce consumption of its abundant fossil fuels, allowing it to export more oil and gas and to prepare for the day when the minerals riches dry up.
Following the ceremony, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the country’s semi-official Fars news agency that his country would continue to enrich its own uranium.
Iran’s neighbours, some of whom are also seeking nuclear power, are wary of Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and its growing influence in the region, notably in Iraq where fellow Shi’ites now dominate and Lebanon, where it is a backer of Hezbollah.
While most nuclear analysts say Bushehr does not add to any proliferation risk, many countries remain deeply concerned about Iran’s uranium enrichment.
EDITOR: We cannot talk to whoever is representing the Palestinians
Ron Prosor, the typically aggressive Israeli ambassador to the UK, is repeating the age-old argument – the same one Israel has used for decades about the PLO and Arafat. The dominant political force in Palestine is always taboo – this is also why Israel has supported the creation of Hamas , so as to destabilise the PLO. Haven’t they just succeeded beyond their wildest dreams? They must feel a little like Dr. Frankenstein, seeing the Creature tear down the neighbourhood…
Israel always preferred to speak about peace to everyone other than the Palestinians – they would love to have peace with Sweden or Micronesia, for example, and somehow, unfairly, are denied the pleasure of such peace talks…
No missiles means no blockade. When Israelis feel secure, concessions will follow. It’s that simple
Ron Prosor
Groucho Marx famously quipped: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them … well, I have others.” The International Quartet (the US, the UN, Russia and the EU) has long applied three principles Hamas must adopt to take part in negotiations. It must renounce violence, recognise Israel and abide by previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. At no point has Hamas satisfied these conditions – or indicated any intention to do so.
Those who advocate talking to Hamas are urging a Groucho-Marxist policy in a complex, unstable region. If Hamas is too extreme to accept these principles, they argue, we must tailor our principles to match Hamas’s extremism.
The Hamas charter advocates the destruction of the state of Israel, the genocidal slaughter of Jews and the imposition of an Islamic state governed by sharia law. When an organisation’s constitution venerates your murder, it is difficult to know how negotiations should begin – perhaps with a discussion of the flowers for one’s funeral.
This week marks the fifth anniversary of Israel’s disengagement from Gaza. We withdrew every Israeli soldier and citizen, gambling on the formula of land for peace. Instead of peace and progress we received missiles and misery. Hamas made Gaza a terrorist enclave, launching thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians.
In 2006 it kidnapped Gilad Shalit, holding him in isolation for four years without a single visit from the Red Cross. In a bloody coup in 2007 Hamas attacked its own people, chasing Fatah out of Gaza and hurling its Palestinian brothers from the rooftops. It imposed an Islamic penal code along with the routine torture and execution of political opponents. Simultaneously it relentlessly attacked Israelis and, with Iranian support, stockpiled weapons that today can hit Tel Aviv.
After years of missiles, the bombardment became unbearable. We targeted the terrorist infrastructure through Operation Cast Lead. Israel has tried to stop the flood of weapons through a naval blockade. When Hamas supporters attempt to break the blockade, as occurred with the Turkish IHH flotilla, Israel’s defensive measures must be understood in context. Hamas recently fired a Grad missile at Ashkelon and dispatched a terror cell from Gaza into Sinai that fired missiles at Eilat in Israel, and Aqaba in Jordan: Hamas threatens not only Israel but also Egypt and Jordan.
Some in the west fondly refer to Hamas as the elected representatives of the Palestinians. While Hamas won the Palestinian council elections in 2006, it was not a mandate to violently overthrow the Palestinian Authority. Nor does it justify terror against Israel. Hamas’s concept of democracy fits that of all democratically elected dictatorships – “one man, one vote … once”.
Gaza was a golden opportunity tragically missed. Instead of building a Mediterranean Dubai, Hamas diverted every resource to enslaving its people while attacking ours. In contrast, Israel and the PA have made significant progress in the West Bank, reducing roadblocks, easing access and stimulating economic growth of 8%. The PA should be encouraged to build on these developments at the negotiating table.
Israel has offered direct talks, recognised a two-state solution and introduced an unprecedented moratorium on settlement construction. President Abbas has declined talks, preferring to campaign against Israel internationally. In Palestinian classrooms and civil society incitement against Israel continues.
Our experience following the Gaza pull-out has scarred the Israeli public. Hamas’s missiles wounded the concept of land for peace, increasing Israeli fears and scepticism. Of the same voters who elected governments that signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and initiated the Oslo Accords, only 32% believe talks with the Palestinians will lead to peace. More than ever, Israelis require confidence-building measures.
When Israelis feel secure concessions follow. Last weekend Israel dismantled the security barrier in Gilo, a Jerusalem suburb that came under heavy Palestinian sniper fire during the second intifada. If in Gilo no sniper fire means no wall, so in Gaza no missiles would mean no blockade. It is that simple.
Sadly Hamas has always torpedoed peace efforts through suicide bombings, kidnappings and missiles. If further steps towards peace are to win Israeli hearts and minds, the price cannot be missiles and mortars in the heart of Israel.
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Friday, 20 August 2010
The first direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for more than 18 months were in prospect last night after successful diplomatic efforts to find a formula designed to allow the talks to start.
The international Quartet of the US, EU, UN and Russia is expected to issue a statement today paving the way for the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to open political negotiations with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A draft of the statement is understood to say that direct bilateral negotiations which “can be completed within one year” should resolve “all the core issues dividing the two sides and should “lead to a settlement, negotiated between the parties, that ends the occupation… and results in a [Palestinian] state at peace with Israel”.
The Quartet statement is intended to provide Mr Abbas with the internationally endorsed political cover he has been seeking to enter the talks. Mr Abbas had been seeking an affirmation that the talks would be based on Israel’s pre-1967 borders and that it would continue not to build in Jewish West Bank settlements after the present partial freeze on settlement building ends late next month.
The statement will not specifically articulate those points but will make clear its “full commitment to its previous statements” – including those at its meetings in Moscow and Trieste in March and June of this year. The Moscow statement made clear that the negotiations should end “the occupation began in 1967” and repeated earlier calls for Israel to freeze all settlement activity, dismantle settlement outposts erected since March 2001, and refrain from house demolitions and evictions in Arab East Jerusalem.
The delicate construction of the statement is designed to meet Mr Abbas’s demands without making newly explicit what Israel has been arguing would be unacceptable “preconditions” for the negotiations. Neither Israeli nor Palestinian sources commented on the imminent developments yesterday, with an Israeli official simply reiterating that the government had repeatedly called for direct talks to start.
Earlier yesterday the US State Department spokesman P J Crowley said: “We think we are very, very close to a decision by the parties to enter into direct negotiations. We think we’re well positioned to get there.”
Mr Crowley said that the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, had called the Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, late in the day yesterday and also spoken with the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Nasser Judeh, and the former British prime minister Tony Blair, the special representative of the “Quartet”.
While today’s expected move is a breakthrough in the long and tortuous “talks about talks” that have taken place since the indirect “proximity” negotiations mediated by the US Presidential envoy George Mitchell began earlier this year, there remains scepticism in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories that even direct negotiations will have the positive outcome envisaged in the Quartet draft.
There is uncertainty about whether Mr Netanyahu is seriously prepared to make concessions on the core issues – including the future status of Jerusalem, the Eastern sector of which the Palestinians want as the capital of a future state but which Israel regards as under its own sovereignty. However the statement from the Quartet meeting in March of this year explicitly recalled that “the annexation of East Jerusalem is not recognised by the international community”.
Public pessimism appears to be increasingly shared by US voters, according to a new poll for the Israel Project published yesterday. Only 45 per cent of Americans surveyed in the July poll said they felt Mr Netanyahu was committed to the peace process. Only 51 per cent of Americans thought the US needed to support Israel, compared with 63 per cent a year ago.
World powers will invite Israelis and Palestinians to begin direct peace talks on September 2 in Washington, diplomatic source says.
World powers will invite Israelis and Palestinians to begin direct peace talks on Sept. 2 in Washington, a diplomatic source said on Thursday.
Envoys from the so-called Quartet of powers – the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations – agreed to the details on Thursday, the source told Reuters. A formal statement is due to be issued on Friday.
“They’ve got an agreement that the talks will start on September 2 in Washington,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Israelis and Palestinians were expected to agree to attend, and President Barack Obama would be present at the talks, the source said.
Earlier, diplomatic sources said the Quartet was discussing a draft statement inviting Israel and the Palestinians to embark on direct talks intended to conclude a treaty in one year.
The Quartet said in June that peace talks would be expected to conclude in 24 months. The new draft says 12 months. The Palestinian Authority government intends to have established all the attributes of statehood by mid-2011.
Diplomats say the idea that a unilateral declaration of statehood could win support if talks do not start or collapse in the next 12 months is gaining interest.
The peace process resumed in May after a hiatus of 19 months but is stalled over the terms of an upgrade from indirect talks mediated by U.S. envoy George Mitchell to direct negotiations.
Israel insists it is ready for direct talks provided there are no preconditions. The Palestinians are ready provided there is a clear agenda. Israel says an agenda means preconditions.
The White House declined to comment. Obama is currently on vacation in Massachusetts.
As education minister and chairman of the Council for Higher Education, Sa’ar must go beyond his feeble condemnation of the attempt to sabotage the universities’ balance sheets.
Presenting his plan for NIS 7.5 billion in additional funding for higher education on Wednesday, Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar described the reform program as “putting higher education back on the right track.” Sa’ar’s comment came at a critical juncture in relations between civil society and the higher education system: Right-wing groups that presumptuously claim to be defending the Zionist ethos are threatening to derail academia from its proper track.
Haaretz revealed earlier this week that the Council for Higher Education gave university heads the Institute for Zionist Strategies’ report on the “post-Zionist” curricula prevalent in sociology departments. In response, Tel Aviv University’s president asked sociology lecturers to provide him with their course syllabi. Following an uproar from within and without the university, this order was retracted.
Also this week, the president of Ben-Gurion University revealed a letter she had received from the Im Tirtzu organization threatening to urge foreign donors to withhold contributions unless the university took action “to correct the anti-Zionist tilt” of its politics and government department. The education minister, who once praised a report the group had drafted on what it termed the “post-Zionist” bent of political science departments, is now railing against Im Tirtzu’s threat to intimidate donors, “independent of any arguments about pluralism.”
The higher education system is not immune to external criticism over the quality of its academics or the proficiency of its administration. But a pluralistic, democratic society is incompatible with external interference in course curricula or lecturers’ political views.
As education minister and chairman of the Council for Higher Education, Sa’ar must go beyond his feeble condemnation of the attempt to sabotage the universities’ balance sheets. No financial assistance can preserve Israeli academia’s prestige or ensure its excellence if the government, including the prime minister, does not unequivocally censure this attempt to undermine the independence of higher education.
Granting even tacit legitimacy to an internal boycott of institutions and lecturers that espouse “unpatriotic” narratives will merely legitimize a foreign boycott of Israeli academia.
Cyprus Lebanon envoy says ship will not be allowed to dock; crew, passengers will be deported to their country of origin.
A Lebanese ship carrying aid and women activists hoping to break Israel’s Gaza blockade will set sail Sunday from Lebanon despite warnings that they will not be allowed to make it past Cyprus, organizers said Thursday.
The ship cannot travel directly to Gaza from Lebanon because Beirut is still technically at war with Israel, forcing the vessel to pass through a third country – in this case, Cyprus – before heading for the blockaded Palestinian territory.
Lebanese Gaza-bound aid ship 'Julia' awaiting green light to set sail. Photo by: AP
But on Thursday, the Cypriot ambassador to Lebanon told The Associated Press that the boat, the Mariam, will be turned back when it reaches Cyprus.
“We decided that such a ship will not be allowed to enter Cyprus and if such a Gaza-bound ship docks in a Cypriot port the crew and the passengers will be deported to their country of origin,” Kyriacos Kouros said.
Kouros said Cyprus has a moral and legal responsibility to those allowed into its waters, and that a blockade-busting ship could endanger lives along with regional peace and stability.
But organizer Samar al-Hajj was undeterred Thursday, and said the ship, named after the Virgin Mary, will set out with between up to 75 female activists on a mission to deliver cancer medication, books and toys.
“We are not children who can be told to stay home,” al-Hajj told the AP after a chaotic news conference outside the port in Tripoli, where security forces prevented the group from speaking to the media from the ship.
Sending blockade-busting ships has become a highly charged issue since Israeli naval commandos boarded a flotilla of Gaza-bound ships on May 31, killing nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists.
Israel says its troops opened fire after coming under attack by activists wielding clubs, axes and metal rods. The activists said they were defending their ship after it was attacked by Israeli soldiers in international waters.
The raid sparked an international outcry and forced Israel to ease its blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza. Israel, along with Egypt, imposed the embargo in June 2007 after Hamas militants took control of the area.
Israel has lifted virtually all restrictions on food, medicine and consumer goods, but still maintains its naval blockade, saying that Hamas could sneak weapons into Gaza.
Asked whether sending the Mariam is a provocation given that medicine is now allowed into Gaza, al-Hajj said the ship was symbolic with the aim of lifting the blockade entirely.
The Israeli army would not say whether it would intercept the vessel, saying only it is monitoring the situation and preparing accordingly.
Daniel Zonshine, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Israel has no objections to delivering humanitarian aid, but that any shipments must be coordinated through Israel.
Al-Hajj said Lebanon’s president, prime minister and parliament speaker did not respond to her requests to meet, which appeared to signal the government’s lack of support for the venture.
EDITOR: Saving Zionism at any price…
Times are hard. Gadi Taub, not exactly on the left, is trying hard to save Zionism from itself… This is no more than whistling in the dark. Zionism is going through the convulsions of its terminal crisis, and many doctors are prescribing bitter pills…
Op-ed: To save Zionism, we can make do with unilateral withdrawal, long-term truce
Gadi Taub
Israel feels paralyzed. Many people around here understand that the status quo is an express route to Zionism’s demise. We slowly sink into the bi-national swamp, and if we fail to partition the land Israel shall end up sinking in it.
However, it appears that there is no way to partition the land. Israelis’ faith in partition in the framework of a peace deal had been greatly eroded, and that’s no wonder. The Palestinians are unwilling to forego their demand for what they refer to as “the right of return” (in practice, international law recognizes no such right) – this means there will be no deal.
However, Israelis’ faith in unilateral partition is also eroding, in the wake of the Gaza withdrawal experience. Yet this erosion is unjustified: A unilateral move does not have to look like the Gaza withdrawal. Indeed, even a Gaza-style pullout from Judea and Samaria is better than the continuation of the status quo, yet many people believe it would be impossible to evacuate about 70,000 people for anything that is short of comprehensive peace.
So how can we nonetheless partition the land without peace? If you will it, it is certainly no dream. Moreover, even if we do not have a partner for peace, we may have a partner for a unilateral move. The Palestinians are working on their own unilateral maneuver – Salam Fayyad’s pledge to declare independence unilaterally may serve as a complementary move to an Israeli withdrawal, yet even that is not a must.
Seemingly, the key here is to detach the question of partition from the issue of evacuation: There is no need to turn the evacuation into a condition for partition.
Enlist world to the cause
Firstly, Israel can finally pass an evacuation-compensation law for the West Bank. We can assume that such law would drastically minimize the scope of the settlement problem.
Secondly, Israel can declare that “Zionists of land” – as opposed to “Zionists of state” – are permitted to stay at their place of residence and forego their Israeli citizenship. They can continue to live there under Palestinian rule. After all, a large Arab minority lives in Israel, so it’s not unthinkable to have a small Jewish minority living in Palestine. If necessary, we’ll come to rescue them and bring them back home. For that, we have the Law of Return. They would be able to return and get their Israeli citizenship back whenever they want.
Thirdly, also as opposed to the Gaza model, the withdrawal itself can be coordinated with the Palestinian Authority in an orderly and gradual manner. An orderly handover of power is a clear interest for Fatah. They too saw the results of the unilateral Gaza withdrawal and the murder of their people by Hamas; they fear Hamas more than they fear us, and rightfully so.
Fourthly, as opposed to Sharon’s solo style, this time around we can undertake the move under international auspices. The United States, European Union, United Nations, and the Russians – and possibly even the Arab League – can certainly enlist for the cause of ending the occupation, and even grant economic guarantees and possibly military ones too, in the form of an international force.
Red lines that meet nowhere
An unpleasant fact of life in this conflict is that its full resolution hinges on resolving questions of justice that appear absolute to both sides, on top of deeply held convictions and aspirations on both sides.
Hence, the negotiating positions adopted by both parties are characterized by absolute “No’s” and by red lines that meet nowhere.
However, should these questions of eternal justice be separated from the practical problems, we would be able to start with partitioning the land and postpone the end of the conflict to another time.
We’ll be able to deal with questions of justice in the future, and also modify the borders if necessary; for the time being, we shall make do with a ceasefire that would be premised on common interests rather than mutual love.
Most importantly, two nation-states shall prevail, and Zionism will not keep rushing towards the abyss.
5 Nahal Haredi soldiers suspected of taking their photographs alongside bound detainees, as well as two cases of drug use.
Five Israel Defense Forces soldiers were arrested by military police Thursday, following suspicions of mistreatment of Palestinians detainees, which included taking improper photographs.
The soldiers, members of the Nahal Haredi combat unit, were arrested following information received by their battalion commander, which claimed that two of the five soldiers were involved in drug use, while the rest are suspected of taking photographs of themselves alongside cuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainees using their cellphones.
Four of the five IDF soldiers were remanded by military police by four days, with the fifth due to appear before a remand hearing on Friday.
The arrest came after earlier this week a storm erupted over the Facebook images of a former IDF soldier, Eden Abergil, who had taken photographs of herself alongside bound Palestinian detainees.
Photographs uploaded by Abergil and labeled “IDF – the best time of my life,” depicted her smiling next to Palestinian prisoners with their hands bound and their eyes covered.
A comment attached to one of the photos of the soldier smiling in front of two blindfold men and posted by one of Abergil’s friends read “That looks really sexy for you,” with Abergil’s response reading: “I wonder if he is on Facebook too – I’ll have to tag him in the photo.”
On Thursday, a comment allegedly added by Abergil to her Facebook page saying that she would “gladly kill Arabs – even slaughter them.”
“In war there are no rules,” Abergil allegedly wrote on the wall of her profile page on the social network Facebook.
Reacting to Abergil’s initial upload of the controversial images, the IDF spokesman issued its response Thursdays, saying “on the face of it the behavior exhibited by the soldier is base and crude.”
In new bid to defend publishing controversial images, former IDF soldier Eden Abergil writes on Facebook ‘In war there are no rules.’
Eden Abergil, the former Israel Defense Forces soldier who has been criticized for publishing controversial images on Facebook, allegedly wrote on her Facebook page on Thursday that she would “gladly kill Arabs – even slaughter them.”
“In war there are no rules,” Abergil allegedly wrote on the wall of her profile page on the social network Facebook.
Photographs uploaded by Abergil from Ashdod and labeled “IDF – the best time of my life,” depicted her smiling next to Palestinian prisoners with their hands bound and their eyes covered.
A comment attached to one of the photos of the soldier smiling in front of two blindfold men and posted by one of Abergil’s friends read “That looks really sexy for you,” with Abergil’s response reading: “I wonder if he is on Facebook too – I’ll have to tag him in the photo.”
Since the photos were published by blogger Ido Keinan earlier this week, dozens of people have uploaded images on to their own Facebook pages depicting similar situations.
Abergil responded on Facebook to an image in which a women was pasted instead of the Palestinian prisoners in the original images, saying that it was not funny and that she would not let anyone ruin her “perfect life.”
“I can’t allow Arab lovers to ruin the perfect life I lead,” she allegedly wrote. “I am not sorry and I don’t regret it.”
“I am in favor of a Jewish-Zionist State,” she added. “I defend what has been rightfully mine for ages,” she wrote.
During an Army Radio interview on Tuesday, Abergil repeatedly said that it had never occurred to her that “the picture would be problematic,” asking interviewer Ilana Dayan whether the media asked for detainees permission when they film them.
Referring to the possibility that the images could injure Israel’s image in the international arena, Abergil said: “We will always be attacked. Whatever we do, we will always be attacked.”
On Monday, the IDF spokesman issued its response to the photographs, saying that “on the face of it the behavior exhibited by the soldier is base and crude.”
The head of the Public Committee Against Torture, Ishai Menuchin, also commented, saying that “these terrible photographs reflect a norm in the way Palestinians are viewed, as an object and not as humans. It is an attitude that ignores their feelings as humans and their individual rights.”
An academic institution does not belong to the state, but to all of mankind.
By Menachem Mautner
The Institute for Zionist Strategies sent a position paper to the heads of Israel’s universities that examines the degree to which campus activity is Zionist in orientation. Allow me to propose a response.
Your position paper is based on an underlying assumption that is unacceptable to me, one which posits that the level of support for Zionism is the standard by which to judge a university. The university does not belong to the state, nor does it belong to the Zionist movement that created the state. It belongs to mankind, and it pursues three primary goals: generating academic knowledge that is likely to provide human beings with intellectual enrichment and a better understanding of the human condition; preserving the academic knowledge of the past; and disseminating knowledge to mankind.
The university is an institution that the liberal state must fund without taking any interest in the content of the research it produces or the material it teaches, even if this content is unsavory in the eyes of the state’s leaders or even contradicts the foundations on which the state was established. The only criterion by which content should be judged in a university is the humanist one – namely, whether the content is intended to advance the welfare of mankind.
Allow me to discuss the content produced by universities – a question more difficult than another often raised in this context, that of the opinions faculty members express as citizens.
In a university, it is permissible to write, and even to teach, that in the 19th century, the Jewish people had better options than establishing a national movement that aspired to political sovereignty; that at the present moment in history, Israel needs to bring an end to the Zionist worldview that lies at the foundation of its existence; that the founding of Israel dealt a harsh blow to Arab inhabitants of the Land of Israel; that Israel needs to cease viewing itself as a Jewish and democratic state and begin characterizing itself as a state of all its citizens; that Israel needs to be a binational state; or that Israel needs to be incorporated into a Middle Eastern federation.
It is permissible to write and teach all these things, on condition that these ideas are founded upon concern for the welfare of Israel’s citizens and their spiritual enrichment; and on condition that they meet the standards of the university’s relevant research paradigms.
Content that does not meet the humanist criterion has no place in a university. Material that does not meet the standards of the relevant academic paradigms also has no place in a university, but that is because it constitutes shoddy academic work. Universities have institutions that are tasked with ensuring that academic work complies with the relevant academic paradigms and is done at an appropriate academic level.
Based on your mode of thinking, it would be possible to demand that the university teach only material that serves the immediate and practical interests of the state. Such an approach would place departments like business management, law, engineering and medicine at the center of the university. Such an approach would turn the university into a technical school.
Yet the university should give pride of place to the humanities, social science and natural science, fields where knowledge is sought for its own sake, without any considerations of how that knowledge might be put to immediate use. And once this material is produced by a university, it is no longer available solely to the citizens of Israel, but to all human beings the world over.
At the basis of your position paper lies the assumption that the State of Israel has one task: the exercise of political sovereignty and the nurturing of national culture. I disagree. The state is a tool for advancing a diverse set of human interests.
Aside from a national culture, human beings also need effective health services, quality education, housing, art and culture. Thus Israel does not only need to be a Zionist state; it must be a state that works to promote all the different types of well-being its citizens need. The production and dissemination of enriching academic knowledge is one of them.
You must cease judging the universities by the criteria of Zionism. The question of what specific content should be infused into Zionism today is an important one. I suggest that you focus on that instead.
Israeli attacks on Gaza and the Lebanese border in recent weeks, together with increasing repression in the West Bank, may suggest a larger offensive is in the offing, writes Stephen Lendman*
Perhaps suggesting the planning of a larger-scale offensive, violent Israeli attacks have hit Gaza, the West Bank and the Israeli-Lebanese border recently, these being the first at the latter flashpoint since the summer 2006 war.
Like Operation Cast Lead in the 2008 Gaza war, it was Israeli aggression — violent, lawless and unrelenting, a scorched-earth blitzkrieg inflicting vast destruction, causing billions of dollars’ worth of damage, killing over 1,000 Lebanese, injuring thousands more, and displacing around a million others (about one-fourth of the country’s four million- strong population), including over 300,000 children fleeing north for their lives — that characterised the 2006 war.
Yet, in the end, Hizbullah handed Israel a humiliating defeat. Perhaps revenge is now being planned.
On 4 August, the Ma’an News Agency reported that Israeli and Lebanese troops had clashed, killing four Lebanese citizens, including three soldiers. One Israeli soldier was also killed. Reports said the violence had erupted after Israeli soldiers had crossed the border, trying to uproot a tree to install a surveillance camera and equipment in a chain of events that left five dead. An Israeli Defence Force (IDF) spokesman said that Israeli soldiers had not entered Lebanon, but had been operating between the UN-administered Blue Line and Israel’s border fence.
This was contradicted by Lebanese accounts, which described Israeli soldiers in the area removing trees to install surveillance equipment. Israel called this “routine maintenance”. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri condemned what he called Israeli violation of Lebanese sovereignty, and Lebanese parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri called for a complaint against Israel to be filed with the UN Security Council.
Israel may yet file its own complaint in response, its Foreign Ministry saying that, “Israel sees the firing on an IDF force which acted in coordination with UNIFEL [the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] in the border region as a blunt violation of Resolution 1701.” For his part, Al-Hariri wants the UN to demand that Israel implement Resolution 1701, which calls for the demilitarisation of the area within the Blue Line where UNIFEL troops are stationed.
However, throughout its history Israel has spurned all UN resolutions criticising its actions and policies.
On 3 August, commentator Jack Khoury headlined an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz with the words, “Nasrallah: Hizbullah will respond if Israel attacks Lebanon’s army”, writing in the piece that followed that in a speech marking four years since the end of the 2006 war, the Hizbullah leader had said that, “anywhere where the Lebanese army is assaulted, and there’s a place for the resistance and it is capable of doing so, the resistance will not stand silent, quiet or restrained.”
“Israel’s aggression against Lebanon has not stopped, and what happened today only proves that. Since the ceasefire until today, Israel has blatantly violated [the UN Security Council Resolution] more than 7,000 times, and no one has lifted a finger, not even the Security Council.”
Nasrallah praised the Lebanese army and said that Hizbullah has been on a high state of alert during the incident. “I was personally in contact with [Hizbullah] commanders in the area, and I asked them not to act before receiving a direct order. We announced that we would not initiate any activity as long as we had not received authorisation from the highest command of the Lebanese army.”
On 5 August, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy, in an article headlined “Only we’re allowed”, wrote that “after Tuesday’s border clash, Israel will continue to ignore UNIFEL and the Lebanese army… Those bastards, the Lebanese, changed the rules. The scandalous fact is that they have a brigade commander who’s determined to protect his country’s sovereignty.”
In Gaza, Levy wrote, a “fence is a fence”. Getting near it is enough to get killed. In the West Bank, nearly the entire apartheid wall ignores the Green Line, and Palestinians are forbidden to cross it. In Lebanon, however, things are different. There, Israel makes its own rules, ignoring “fences” and crossing the border illegally and invading Lebanese air space, at times aggressively.
“We’re allowed” to be there, Levy wrote. The Palestinians “aren’t allowed” to resist. “We’re allowed” to enter Lebanon. “They’re forbidden” to react. If they do, “Lebanon must be taught a lesson, and we will teach it. And what about us? We don’t have any lessons to learn. We’ll continue to ignore UNIFEL,” UN resolutions and the rule of law, as well as “the Lebanese army and its new brigade commander, who has the nerve to think that his job is to protect his country’s sovereignty.”
In Gaza meanwhile, six days of Israeli air strikes left several people dead and dozens wounded. In addition, IDF shellfire killed one Palestinian and wounded two or more others. The attacks are the latest in a series of provocations that have occurred without warning.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported the air strikes, one against Hamas member Eissa Al-Batran at the Al-Boreij Refugee Camp, the other against the Gaza City Airport, targeting security vehicles near the presidential compound. Neighbouring homes and buildings were damaged and local residents terrified. At the same time, tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border were attacked, though no casualties were reported.
Near the Erez crossing Israeli snipers shot three workers collecting materials from rubble stockpiles without provocation. Israel maintains a 67-km2 “no-go zone” in this agricultural area, regularly shooting Palestinians who enter, including farmers on their own land.
The PCHR called the attacks “part of a series of Israeli war crimes that reflect Israel’s disregard for the lives of Palestinians.”
On 2 August, a massive explosion rocked Gaza’s Deir Al-Balah Refugee Camp, injuring 58, including 13 children and nine women, one suffering a miscarriage as a result of the blast. It also destroyed seven houses and damaged 30 others. The Ezzeddin Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, issued a statement on 3 August, which confirmed “that what happened resulted from a Zionist security operation intended to assassinate field leaders” from the Brigades.
Eyewitnesses said bombs placed in a house belonging to senior Hamas official Alaa Al-Danaf had exploded, contradicting initial reports that Israeli missile strikes had caused the blast in which Al-Danaf himself was unhurt. The PCHR also launched a “serious and comprehensive investigation” in order to determine what had taken place at Deir Al-Balah, with Israeli involvement being suspected as days of air strikes had preceded the blast.
On 4 August, in part of a series of daily attacks, an Israeli air strike killed one Palestinian and wounded another east of Khan Younis, reminding residents of Operation Cast Lead as they again saw the dead and wounded all about them, together with the destruction caused by the attacks, all part of Israel’s traumatisation campaign.
Before the latest attacks, Haaretz reported rockets having been fired at Israel’s southern port city of Eilat. No casualties were reported. Another rocket struck Aqaba in Jordan, killing one civilian and wounding four others. Israel blamed Hamas, but Jordanian security forces claimed that the rocket had come from the Sinai in Egypt, or southern Jordan, and not Gaza. Hamas strongly denied any involvement.
Since Operation Cast Lead ended in January 2009, Hamas has maintained a unilateral ceasefire even as Israel has repeatedly violated it, with its air and ground attacks being countered by Palestinian resistance factions unaffiliated with Hamas firing one or more Grad-type rockets and hitting an area around Ashkelon in Israel. No deaths or injuries have been reported.
On 1 August, the Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights, a Palestinian NGO, condemned the Israeli attacks, warned of the risk of a new escalation, and asked the international community to intervene “to ensure that civilians and their property are protected in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
Among the regular incursions and repression carried out by Israel on the West Bank, the PCHR has reported that Israel has continued to impose restrictions on free movement throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including access to the city. Currently, 630 permanently manned and unmanned checkpoints are maintained, with 60-80 “flying” (temporary) ones being erected each week.
Moreover, the construction of the annexation wall continues, nearly all of it on confiscated Palestinian land, or around 12 per cent of the West Bank when completed. At least 65 per cent of the roads leading to 18 Palestinian communities are closed or fully controlled by Israeli forces, and around 500km of roads are restricted. One third or more of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is inaccessible to Palestinians without hard-to-get permits.
Peaceful demonstrators are regularly assaulted, arrested, and at times killed. Over the course of one week, Israeli forces conducted 25 incursions into West Bank communities and five others in Gaza.
The West Bank incursions included entry into the village of Al-Mazraa Al-Gharbiya near Ramallah, the village of Anata near Jerusalem, the village of Jayous near Qalqilya. the Al-Fawar Refugee Camp near Hebron, the villages of Allar and Baqa Al-Sharqiya near Tulkarm, the villages of Dura, Ethna, Bani Naim, Sair, Nouba and Beit Oula near Hebron, the town of Salfit, the village of Al-Shawawra near Bethlehem, the village of Al-Zawia near Salfit, the villages of Anabta and Kufor Al-Labad near Tulkarm, the city of Tulkarm, the city of Qalqilya, the suburb of Shwaika near Tulkarm, and the villages of Jalbourn and Deir Abu Daif near Jenin.
On 5 August, the Al-Frahen area near Khan Younis in central Gaza was attacked with bulldozers and tanks, which fired on farmers and other civilians. No injuries were reported.
In all of these incursions excessive force was used. Streets were patrolled, homes invaded and searched and their contents damaged or destroyed, arrests made, and civilians shot. One death was reported, together with reports of other civilians being injured. Such events happen regularly throughout the occupied territories in violation of international law, which Israel has neither recognised nor obeyed for over six decades, targeting the people it is supposed to safeguard.
For these reasons the PCHR and other human rights organisations want the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfil “their legal and moral responsibility [to] ensure Israel’s respect for the Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, [and to] take effective steps” to demand compliance.
This must happen with or without the High Contracting Parties’ support as pressure builds, but it will happen neither easily nor quickly.
* The writer is a research associate of the Centre for Research on Globalisation.
Efforts to expel from the Knesset the Arabs who are representing their voters, in addition to racist laws the current Knesset is promoting, are liable to turn Israel into a new model of apartheid state.
By Zuheir Andreus
During the visit by leaders of the Palestinian community to Libya a few months ago, MK Hanin Zuabi (Balad ) stood out in particular – the only woman in the “Arabs of 1948” delegation invited to visit Muammar Gadhafi. When we met with Gadhafi in his tent in the town of Sert, this remarkable woman showed courage that is rare in these parts.
The leader preached to us and advised us to practice one of the tenets of Islam – marry four women and bring many children into the world to fight the Israelis. Zuabi, who is known for her struggle for the rights of Palestinian women in Israel, did not hesitate and pointed out to Gadhafi that his philosophy was not acceptable to her because it oppresses women. The tent went silent. It’s not customary to interrupt the leader, we had been told in the briefing before the meeting. Gadhafi listened and simply went on with his speech.
This story proves that Zuabi is cut from tough and unyielding cloth – an uncompromising fighter for her party’s principles both domestically and abroad.
It’s only natural the targeted assassination campaign led by members of the Knesset, which transcends party lines and opinions and is aimed at expelling Zuabi from the Knesset, would gain momentum. Zuabi, like most Arab MKs, is a nuisance to the various racists, and the delegitimization campaign against her is an inseparable part of the official efforts, with a tailwind from the obsequious Hebrew-language press, to declare Balad illegal.
The remnants of what is called “Israeli democracy” are getting lost in the name of protecting the Jewish State of Israel. It’s the Israelis’ right to think what they want, but it’s our obligation to defend our principles, even if this entails a high individual and collective price. The Palestinians in Israel will not agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians, the authentic owners of the land here, are an inseparable part of the Arab nation. They were here before Israel, they are not transients and they are certainly not guests in their native land.
The efforts to expel from the Knesset the Arabs who are representing their voters, in addition to the racist laws the current Knesset has promoted, are liable to turn Israel into a new model of apartheid state, like the despicable one that once reigned in South Africa.
Most of the anger toward Zuabi stems from her participation in the flotilla to the Gaza Strip. But in a properly run country they would have opened an investigation not against her but against the “anonymous individuals” who set up a Facebook group calling for her execution. Moreover, the Israelis must understand that Zuabi took part in the flotilla for breaking the blockade of Gaza because she believes that no law in the world gives an occupier the right, moral or otherwise, to put 1.5 million people in prison because of a soldier captured by the Palestinian resistance forces.
On the flotilla she represented the Palestinians in Israel, not only herself and her party. The Palestinians’ Higher Monitoring Committee, the only body that faithfully represents them, chose her to represent more than a million Palestinians in Israel. So the campaign against her is a campaign against all the Palestinians in the Jewish state – hence the danger in it.
Astonishingly, Israel’s knights of human rights are not speaking out, which is dangerous for both Israeli and Palestinian society in this country. If you support expelling Zuabi from the Knesset, we are sending you a razor-sharp message: We are all Zuabi.
The writer is editor of the Arabic newspaper Ma-Alhadat, published in Tamra in the Lower Galilee.
Caught between Washington and his own people, the PA president has no meaningful room for manoeuvre, writes Khaled Amayreh from the West Bank
The prevailing disputation over the right of Muslim Americans to build a community centre and mosque a short distance from the site of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks has garnered plenty of headlines in the past few days. The controversy calls for an honest reappraisal of the precise position of Muslim Americans in the United States. The altercation has polarised US public opinion and raised tension in the Arab and Muslim world.
“It saddens me to think that people don’t understand what building this mosque on hallowed ground really represents,” pontificated Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska, infamous running mate of 2008 Republican Party presidential candidate John McCain, and an iconic figure of the war-mongering neoconservatives and discredited Republican far-right.
Another icon of the bellicose right, Newt Gingrich, was quoted in Fox News as lambasting the construction of an Islamic centre “right at the edge of a place where, let’s be clear, thousands of Americans were killed in an attack by radical Islamists.”
The irony, wrote Anthony DiMaggio, author of Permanent War and who taught Middle East politics at Illinois State University, is that the brouhaha is “a manufactured controversy”. DiMaggio dismissed the fracas a “racist uproar” and denounced the right-wing radio and television campaign in America for framing Islam as “radical, fundamentalist and a threat to national security”.
Worse, US President Barack Obama was denigrated as a “closet Muslim terrorist” for publicly lending support to the construction of the Islamic centre so close as it is to Ground Zero in New York. “Obama is a non-citizen,” his detractors contended. This latter accusation strikes at the very heart of the concept of citizenship rights and national identity.
The complexities of belonging cannot be relegated to the realm of academic treatises. The vast majority of Muslim Americans are law- abiding citizens intent on exercising their right to freely exercise the tenants of their own religion. This particular right lies at the heart of the perceiving identity — including religious identity — as a political problem in a nation that prides itself in the secular dispensation of its constitution and raison d’être.
Moreover, this particular fundamental right is in accordance with the First Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights that has constituted the foundation of American freedom for over 200 years. Be that as it may, religion from the inception of the US has been a major marker of identity.
Gender and race have traditionally been the key prerequisites of identity politics in the US. Since 9/11 religion has become the primary focus of political identity in the US. Shifting criterion for eligibility to a notion of “American belonging” is underway.
An African-American candidate has, theoretically at least, as much a chance of winning a presidential election as an Irish American. The possibility of a Muslim American winning a landslide victory in any presidential election in the near future is slim, to say the least.
The pertinent question is why? According to Moataz Abdel-Fattah, associate professor of Middle East Studies at Central Michigan University, Obama’s comments must be viewed in context of the forthcoming congressional elections. The growing schism between conservatives and liberals in the US undermines the political stability of the country, the world’s superpower. “The impediments to the rights of Muslims in the US tend to be cultural rather than political or legal. The curtailment of the freedoms of Muslims is two-fold. First, the theological bias of the Judeo-Christian tradition prevalent in the US perpetuates the myth that Islam is an exotic religion, alien to the American people and culture and there is a widespread belief that Mohamed is not a prophet,” Abdel-Fattah told Al-Ahram Weekly.
“Moreover, Muslims tend to adopt more conservative lifestyles and rarely intermingle with non-Muslims. This insular aspect of Muslim culture in predominantly non-Muslim America, coupled with taboos on preaching Islam has traditionally worked to isolate Muslims in America and perpetrate stereotypes about Islam.”
Abdel-Fattah, however, noted that one positive side effect of 9/11 was the increased curiosity of ordinary Americans about Islam. “I personally meet hundreds of people who ask me about Islam as a religion and there has been an increase in the number of Muslim faculty members at Michigan University. Indeed, Muslim Studies departments in institutions of higher learning have replaced the Black Studies departments as the new novelty in American academia.”
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 the American Muslim community was in disarray. Their reticence was only part of the problem. Into the breach stepped President Obama, the first African-American to hold America’s top job. He was also the first US president whose father was a Muslim and whose sister is a practising Muslim. His middle name is Hussein.
It is not unusual for Americans to speak frankly about their presidents’ foibles. Obama isn’t quite the secular saint of legend. Nor is he a liberal per se. Obama’s defence of building a Muslim community centre in lower Manhattan was applauded as a “brave step”.
It is astonishing to recall how little was known publicly about Islam as a world religion, or about America’s Muslims before 9/11.
Far from undermining the myth of Muslim Americans as fifth columnists, Muslims in America were dismissed as self-serving, conniving and exploitative.
This year, Eid Al-Fitr coincides with the ninth anniversary of 9/11. This brings the story up to date through the post-Bush years when the Obama administration set the tone of the new face of America. An African-American president of partially Muslim familial background led America from the front and championed the rights of the underdog, or so he was celebrated. “We understand that he wants to change the agenda. We also understand the constraints, tremendous pressures and limitations he must labour under,” noted Abdel-Fattah. “Obama’s message that America is not at war with Islam was well-received.”
EDITOR: Name change required in order to bring peace to the Middle East!
Obama has at last worked out what is wrong with Israelis. No, it is not the fact that they feel the need to kill Palestinians and other Arabs, neither their brutal occupation. It is their deep suspicion of his middle name! So as his first name is already a Hebrew one, why not change his middle name to a Hebrew one also? Maybe Benjamin? Shimon? Avigdor? Just think how esteemed a US president will be with a name like Barack Avigdor Obama… on second thoughts, it will not work; he needs also to change Obama, it seems, in order to really increase the appeal. Go for it – Barack Avigdor Peres sounds so much better! Even the pictures look better!
U.S. president tells Channel 2 Israel is unlikely to attack Iran without coordinating with the U.S.
U.S. President Barack Obama told Channel 2 News on Wednesday that he believed Israel would not try to surprise the U.S. with a unilateral attack on Iran.
U.S. President Barack Avigdor Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walking at the White House, on July 6, 2010. Photo by: Reuters
In an interview aired Thursday evening, Obama was asked whether he was concerned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would try to attack Iran without clearing the move with the U.S., to which the president replied “I think the relationship between Israel and the U.S. is sufficiently strong that neither of us try to surprise each other, but we try to coordinate on issues of mutual concern.”
Obama spoke to Channel 2’s Yonit Levy one day after what he described as an “excellent” meeting with Netanyahu at the White House. The two leaders met alone for about 90 minutes Tuesday evening, during which time they discussed the peace process with the Palestinians, the contested Iranian nuclear program, and the strategic understandings between their two countries on Tehran’s efforts to achieve nuclear capabilities.
Netanyahu promised Obama during their meeting that Israel would undertake confidence-building measures toward the Palestinian Authority in the coming days and weeks. These steps are likely to include the transfer of responsibility over more parts of the West Bank over to PA security forces.
During the interview Wednesday, when confronted with the anxiety that some Israelis feel toward him, Obama said that “some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion.”
“Ironically, I’ve got a Chief of Staff named Rahm Israel Emmanuel. My top political advisor is somebody who is a descendent of Holocaust survivors. My closeness to the Jewish American community was probably what propelled me to the U.S. Senate,” Obama said.
“I think that sometimes, particularly in the Middle East, there’s the feeling of the friend of my enemy must be my enemy, and the truth of the matter is that my outreach to the Muslim community is designed precisely to reduce the antagonism and the dangers posed by a hostile Muslim world to Israel and to the West,” Obama went on to say.
Obama added that he believed a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians could be achieved within his current term. “I think [Netanyahu] understands we’ve got a fairly narrow window of opportunity… We probably won’t have a better opportunity than we have right now. And that has to be seized. It’s going to be difficult.”
The American President entirely sidestepped the question of whether the U.S. would pressure Israel to extend a current 10-month moratorium on construction in West Bank settlements, failing to give a clear answer. The moratorium is set to expire in September, and Netanyahu has announced that he would not extend the timeframe. The U.S., however, views continued Israeli settlement construction as a serious obstacle to peace efforts.
When asked whether he thought Netanyahu was the right man to strike a peace deal with the Palestinians, the U.S. President said that “I think Prime Minister Netanyahu may be very well positioned to bring this about,” adding that Israel will have to overcome many hurdles in order to affect the change required to “secure Israel for another 60 years”
In a separate interview with another Israeli media outlet, Obama proclaimed that he was not “blindly optimistic” regarding the chances of a Middle East peace agreement.
Israel is right to be skeptical about the peace process, he said in another yet-to-be-aired interview that was taped on Wednesday. He noted during the interview that many people thought the founding of Israel was impossible, so its very existence should be “a great source of hope.”
Meanwhile on Wednesday, Netanyahu told U.S. Jewish leaders that direct Palestinian-Israeli talks would begin “very soon”, but warned that they would be “very, very tough.”
Netanyahu told his cabinet earlier this week before flying to Washington that the time had come for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to prepare to meet directly with the Israelis, as it was the only way to advance peace.
Israelis and Palestinians have been holding indirect talks mediated by Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. Aides to Obama sounded a hopeful tone regarding the negotiations last week, telling reporters that the shuttle diplomacy between the two sides had paid off and the gaps have narrowed.
At a meeting with representatives of Jewish organizations at the Plaza Hotel late Wednesday, Netanyahu discussed the efforts to promote Middle East peace. “This is going to be a very, very tough negotiation,” he said, adding “the sooner the better.”
“Direct negotiations must begin right away, and we think that they will,” he said.
Case of four men with affiliation to Hamas is first in which Israel has cited political grounds for expulsion from city
Mohammed Abu Tir, of the Palestinian Legislative Council, is in police custody for failing to leave the city by the end of June. Photograph: Stoyan Nenov/Reuters
Israeli authorities have threatened four Palestinian politicians with expulsion from Jerusalem because of their affiliation to Hamas in a case which could have wide ramifications for others deemed undesirable by the Jewish state.
Mohammed Abu Tir, 59, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), is in police custody for failing to leave the city by the end of last month. Instantly recognisable for his dyed orange beard, Abu Tir was released from an Israeli prison in May after almost four years, and was immediately told he must abandon political activity or leave Jerusalem.
Two other members of the PLC and a former Palestinian minister have moved into the grounds of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent in East Jerusalem in protest at the deportation orders.
The men’s cases are to be heard by the supreme court in September. However the court rejected a plea to prohibit deportation in the interim, so the men are at risk of being expelled from the city at any time.
The threatened deportations are part of a wider pattern of revoking the Jerusalem residency permits of Palestinians from the city. In most cases, Israel claims that the people it strips of the right to live in Jerusalem have voluntarily relocated to the West Bank or abroad. This is often contested by the individuals concerned and human rights groups representing them.
In 2008, more than 4,500 Palestinians were excluded from Jerusalem.
However the case of the four Hamas politicians is the first time Israel has cited political grounds for expelling people from the city.
“For the first time Israel is using a claim of disloyalty to revoke residency,” said Hasan Jabarin, director of the Israeli human rights group Adalah. “The consequences for Palestinians in East Jerusalem are dangerous. This case could open a new window to revoking residency on purely political grounds.”
Abu Tir was imprisoned with dozens of Hamas politicians and activists after the Palestinian election in January 2006, which was won by the Islamic militant party.
“The election was legal and transparent. They found themselves in jail simply because they were elected,” said Jabarin.
The men’s case has been raised in the past week in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Labour MP Andrew Slaughter asked whether the British government had raised the issue with the Israeli government.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, urged Israel to “stop these sort of actions”. Ahmad Bahar, the deputy speaker of the Palestinian parliament, described the revocation of residency permits as a “massive ethnic cleansing campaign”.
More than 270,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied and annexed in 1967.
In a separate development, Israel’s supreme court has rejected a petition on behalf of Gazan lawyer Fatima Sharif to be allowed to travel to the West Bank to begin a masters degree in human rights, citing the “current political-security situation”.
The Israel Defence Forces made it clear in the court hearing yesterday that there would be no relaxation of the policy restricting the movement of Palestinians in and out of Gaza except in the most extreme circumstances, despite Israel’s decision to ease its blockade of the territory.
EDITOR: Good news! Fewer war criminal to travel in Europe this year!
Bureau issues travel advisory warning of likely revenge attacks against Israelis by Iran or Hezbollah.
Israel’s Counter Terrorism Bureau on Thursday issued a travel advisory calling for Israelis to keep their wits about them in all parts of the world, suspicious of revenge attacks by Iran and Hezbollah.
According to the warning, Hezbollah continues to blame Israel for the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the Lebanese militia’s former operations officer, and Iran blames Israel for the death of a nuclear scientist in Tehran.
The bureau statement reads “according to our intelligence, there continue to be threats of revenge killings or kidnappings of Israelis traveling outside the country, especially businesspeople and high-ranking ex-government officials.”
The bureau advised Israelis traveling abroad to take precautions, completely avoid visiting countries mentioned in travel advisories and refuse all unexpected or tempting business or social offers and refuse all unexpected invitations to meetings, especially in remote areas and after dark.
The bureau further advised Israelis to refrain from entering a hotel room or place of residence and from receiving suspicious or unexpected visitors.
On extended stays abroad, the bureau advised altering one’s personal habits by varying traffic routes, restaurants, entertainment venues and hotels frequented.
Two statesmen met in Washington on Tuesday who are looking smaller and smaller, who are taking smaller and smaller steps.
By Gideon Levy
It really was an excellent meeting: The chance that a binational state will be established has improved as a result; relations between Israel and the United States are indeed “marvelous.” Israel can continue with the whims of its occupation. The president of the United States proved Tuesday that perhaps there has been change, but not as far as we are concerned.
If there remained any vestiges of hope in the Middle East from Barack Obama, they have dissipated; if some people still expected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lead a courageous move, they now know they made a mistake (and misled others ).
The masked ball is at its peak: Preening each other, Obama and Netanyahu have proved that even their heavy layer of makeup can no longer hide the wrinkles. The worn-out, wizened old face of the longest “peace process” in history has been awarded another surprising and incomprehensible extention. It’s on its way nowhere.
The “warm” and “sympathetic” reception, albeit a little forced, including the presidential dog, Bo, the meeting of the wives, with the U.S. president accompanying the Israeli prime minister to the car in an “unprecedented” way, as the press enthused, cannot obscure reality. The reality is that Israel has again managed to fool not only America, but even its most promising president in years.
It was enough to listen to the joint press conference to understand, or better yet, not understand, where we are headed. Will the freeze continue? Obama and Netanyahu squirmed, formulated and obfuscated, and no clear answer was forthcoming. If there was a time when people marveled at Henry Kissinger’s “constructive ambiguity,” now we have destructive ambiguity. Even when it came to the minimum move of a construction freeze, without which there is no proof of serious intent on Israel’s part, the two leaders threw up a smoke screen. A cowardly yes-and-no by both.
More than anything, the meeting proved that the criminal waste of time will go on. A year and a half has passed since the two took office, and almost nothing has changed except lip service to the freeze. A few lifted roadblocks here, a little less blockade of Gaza there – all relatively marginal matters, a bogus substitute for a bold jump over the abyss, without which nothing will move.
When direct talks become a goal, without anyone having a clue what Israel’s position is – a strange negotiation in which everyone knows what the Palestinians want and no one knows for sure what Israel wants – the wheel not only does not go forward, it goes backward. There are plenty of excuses and explanations: Obama has the congressional elections ahead of him, so he mustn’t make Netanyahu angry.
After that, the footfalls of the presidential elections can be heard, and then he certainly must not anger the Jews. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is pressuring Netanyahu now; tomorrow it might be Likud MK Danny Danon, and after all, you can’t expect Netanyahu to commit political suicide. And there you have it, his term in office is over, with no achievements. Good for you, Obama; bravo Netanyahu. You managed to make a mockery of each other, and together, of us all.
Netanyahu will be coming back to Israel over the weekend, adorned with false accomplishments. The settlers will mark a major achievement. Even if they don’t not admit it – they are never satisfied, after all – they can rejoice secretly. Their project will continue to prosper. If they have doubled their numbers since the Oslo Accords, now they can triple them.
And then what? Here then is a question for Obama and Netanyahu: Where to? No playing for time can blur the question. Where are they headed? What will improve in another year? What will be more promising in another two years? The Syrian president is knocking at the door begging for peace with Israel, and the two leaders are ignoring him. Will he still be knocking in two years? The Arab League’s initiative is still valid; terror has almost ceased. What will the situation be after they have finished compromising over the freeze in construction of balconies and ritual baths?
Two statesmen met in Washington on Tuesday who are looking smaller and smaller, who are taking smaller and smaller steps. They have decided not to decide, which in itself is a decision. When the chance of a two-state solution has long since entered injury time, they have decided on more extra time. Get ready for the binational state, or the next round of bloodletting.
After all the entreaties, demands, threats and sweet-talk, and after the Gaza and Flotilla massacres, a freeze on settlements that never was, and the new huge Jerusalem settlements, you would have thought that Obama has by now found out the basic facts about Israeli occupation, and he might actually DO something, rather than talk about it. Instead, Netanyahu is invited for a grand visit to the White House, which must be the prize for the massacres, or else it is difficult to explain…
After all is said and done, Obabma seems to be even more supportive than those before him, Clinton and Bush the Father and the Son. While talking tough, he has been walking with a big carrot, as far as Israel is concerned. It is now even clearer than before, that we have nothing to expect for from the American administration, whoiever happens to live in the White House at the time.
Why the two politicians have not enjoyed the rapport of their predecessors
Binyamin Netanyahu at a press conference. Photograph: Jim Hollander/EPA
Binyamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama, who took office within a month of each other, have not enjoyed the warm rapport felt between many of their predecessors.
Obama’s early demand for a halt to settlement expansion in the West Bank was met with evasion and foot-dragging by Netanyahu, who clearly believed he had outflanked the new US president.
A temporary freeze was eventually wrung out of Israel. But things went further downhill when a big settlement housing project was announced during vice-president Joe Biden’s visit to Jerusalem in March.
The White House made its displeasure known during Netanyahu’s subsequent visit to Washington when the customary photo opportunity was humiliatingly denied to him.
The US was further angered by Israel’s deadly interception of the flotilla carrying aid to Gaza, followed by its refusal to accept demands for an international inquiry.
Ahead of today’s attempts to publicly paper over the cracks between the two sides, many Israeli commentators have been critical of Netanyahu for endangering the traditionally close and supportive relationship between the two countries.
Ahead of PM Netanyahu’s White House meeting with U.S. President Obama, Americans for Peace Now deliver petition to Obama with nearly 16,000 signatures calling for extension of settlement freeze.
Americans for Peace Now delivered a petition to U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday, calling on him to press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend the freeze on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank, set to expire in late September.
The petition, with 15,962 signatures, arrived ahead of a meeting between Obama and Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday.
“These thousands of voices are expressing what we all know: Peace for Israel is more important than settlement expansion. American leadership toward a two-state solution is essential, and Israel’s future depends on reaching such a solution,” APN’s president and CEO Debra DeLee said.
Last November, Netanyahu declared a 10-month freeze in settlement construction. The upcoming expiration of the freeze is expected to be an issue discussed during Tuesday’s meeting between Obama and Netanyahu at the White House.
Unnamed staff sergeant indicted in connection with killing of two Palestinian women during 2008-09 Israeli Defence Force operation
Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border: A soldier has been charged with manslaughter after the 2008-09 Israeli offensive. Photograph: Baz Ratner/Reuters
An Israeli soldier was today charged with manslaughter during the 2008-09 offensive in Gaza – a move that will bring the military’s conduct during the conflict, in which hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed, into fresh focus.
The unnamed staff sergeant was indicted in connection with the killing of two Palestinian women who were part of a group witnesses said were carrying white flags.
According to reports and testimonies at the time, 35-year-old Majda Abu Hajaj and her mother, Rieyh, 64, were among 30 people, including children, trying to leave a house where they had taken shelter on 4 January 2009. The group was fired on and the two women were killed.
An Israeli military statement issued today said the charge was based on evidence that the soldier, a marksman, “deliberately targeted an individual walking with a group of people waving a white flag without being ordered or authorised to do so”.
In a second case, a battalion commander was disciplined in connection with a claim that a Palestinian man, Majdi Abed-Rabo, had been used as a “human shield”.
An Israeli Defence Force (IDF) investigation found the commander had “authorised the sending of a Palestinian man into a house … sheltering terrorists in order to convince them to exit the house”.
This, according to the IDF statement, was a deviation from “authorised and appropriate IDF behaviour”.
According to a graphic account of the incident given to reporters at the time, Abed-Rabo said he was forced, at gunpoint, to go ahead of Israeli soldiers into buildings suspected of housing Palestinian militants. The use of human shields is prohibited under the fourth Geneva convention.
Disciplinary action has also been taken against a third soldier, a captain, for failing to exercise appropriate judgment in ordering an air strike close to a mosque. The IDF said the strike was targeted at a militant launching rockets at Israel.
According to witnesses, around 200 people were praying in the Ibrahim al-Maqadna mosque at the time and at least 13 people, including six children, were killed.
The IDF today said an investigation had concluded that the attack “did not violate the international laws of warfare because the attack did not target the mosque, rather it targeted a terror operative”. It said “no possibility of harming civilians was identified”.
A criminal investigation has been ordered in a fourth case, an airstrike on a residence in Zaitoun, where around 100 members of one family, the al-Samounis, were staying.
There were two earlier indictments arising out of the three-week military operation in Gaza – one for theft and the other for overstepping authority in a case in which soldiers ordered a Palestinian child to open a suspicious bag.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul says that divisions within Israel’s governing coalition were stopping Israel from repairing relations with Turkey in the wake of the Gaza flotilla affair.
Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul said on Tuesday that divisions within Israel’s governing coalition were stopping Israel from repairing relations ruined by the storming of a Gaza-bound aid ship over a month ago.
Gul said Israel’s apparent readiness to become more isolated by ditching relations with a country that had been its only Muslim ally was irrational.
“They don’t have many friends in the region, ” Gul said. “Now it seems they want to get rid of the relationship with Turkey.”
The United States, a mutual ally of Israel and NATO-member Turkey, has quietly encouraged the two governments to overcome their differences.
But in comments as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to meet President Barack Obama in the United States on Tuesday, Gul said that he believed bitter rivalries within the Israeli coalition were stopping a rapprochement.
“As far as I can see, the internal political strife in Israel is very harsh. They undermine each other… they always block one another,” Gul said.
“It is important that everyone is aware of what kind of politics is going on there,” Gul said. “My own impression is that they don’t have the ability to act rationally.”
Nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists were killed when Israeli marines stormed the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara in international waters on May 31, after which Turkey withdrew its ambassador, suspended joint military exercises and closed Turkish airspace to Israeli military planes.
Turkey has demanded an apology, compensation for victims’ families and an international inquiry into the incident. It doubts the impartiality of an Israeli inquiry begun last month.
Turkey also led calls for an end to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned on Monday that Turkey would not wait forever and without going into specifics he said Turkey would cut off ties if Israel failed to start making amends.
Should the Israeli commission rule that the raid was indeed unfair and the Israeli government apologized in line with those findings, Turkey could be satisfied, Davutoglu added.
On Tuesday, the Turkish foreign minister renewed his demand for an Israeli apology and criticized his Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman’s approach to the issue.
“What Lieberman says has no value for us,” Davutoglu said in an interview with Turkish television network TGRT.
Davutoglu said he did not view his Israeli counterpart as a proper go-between “owing to his rhetoric and attitude.”
Israel maintains the marines fired in self defense after a boarding party was attacked by activists armed with metal clubs and knives.
Israel has partially relaxed its blockade of Gaza following the international outcry over the incident, but argues that a blockade is needed to choke off the supply of arms to Hamas Islamists running the enclave of 1.5 million people.
Gul said a meeting between ministers of the two governments in Brussels last Wednesday was requested by the Israeli side and was supposed to have been secret; but news of the talks was leaked by other factions in Netanyahu’s cabinet who wanted to stop any progress.
“There were those who were not happy with this, and the situation remains frozen.”
The meeting between Davutoglu and Israeli Trade and Industry Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer had been the first face to face contacts between senior officials since the attack on the aid flotilla on May 31.
Lieberman said he had not been informed of the meeting as a row broke out within the Israeli cabinet.
Netanyahu subsequently said that while his government regretted the loss of life and wanted to stop relations deteriorating further there would be no apology as the Israeli soldiers had acted in self-defense. Lieberman also ruled out an apology.
Although Turkey is heading towards an election a year away, and politics are highly charged, there has been cross-party support for the government’s stance towards Israel.
Mohammed Abu Tir, Ahmed Othwan and Mohammed Tutah, in addition to the former minister for Jerusalem affairs, Khalid Abu Arafa, have been issued with notices by the Israeli authorities of eviction to leave their homes in occupied east Jerusalem. On 30 June, the Israelis detained Abu Tir in preparation for his expulsion, whilst Othwan, Tutah and Abu Arafa have sought refuge in the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem. Israel, the occupying power, claims these members of the Palestinian legislature are being served with notices as their participation in the Palestinian legislature proves non-allegiance to Israel. The parliamentarians have been informed that they may only remain if they resign from the Palestinian legislature.
It is without doubt that as elected representatives of the Palestinian Legislative Council they should not be removed from the areas which they have been elected to represent. We call for the British government to support the right of these parliamentarians to live in their home and to uphold the principles of the fourth Geneva convention which prohibits the expulsion of a protected people by an occupying power “regardless of their motive”. Any breach of this convention constitutes a war crime and as such Israel’s political and military leadership should be held accountable.
Caroline Lucas MP (Green)
John McHugo Chair, Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine
Betty Hunter General secretary, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Ismail Patel Chair, Friends of Al-Aqsa
Richard Burden MP and Martin Linton Labour Friends of Palestine
EDITOR: The Lunatic State of the Jewish State
In Israel, as well as abroad, the full lunacy and vileness of this latest Israeli war crime is becoming clear to all who can read. Israeli propaganda has worked overtime, based on the kidnapping of the activists, isolating them from the whole world, confiscating all their material evidence, on top of the brutalities of maiming and murdering many of them. This meant that for the last few days, only the the voice of Israeli propaganda was available to the international media. Fictional narratives, more complex than most Hollywood scripts, were woven and reinforced by what must be the largest propaganda machine anywhere.
Of course, this matter little now. The facts are now coming out, and many inquiries will be conducted and will establish the full horror of this murderous piracy. The world will not be fooled by this anymore. In Israel, however, the public, and the elites are fully behind this latest crime, as they always were behind the ones committed before. They no longer matter, of course. Anyone waiting for internal transformation must be seriously delusional; there shall be no such change ever – the change will come from outside, from the outraged millions, who watch disbelievingly as their own governments, yet again, do nothing to stop mayhem, murder and lawlessness by the Israeli regime. It is interesting to note that the public support of the Israelis for the war crimes committed in their names everywhere – in Beirut, in Gaza, in the rest of Palestine, in Dubai, and now on the high seas, not for the first time – is much higher than that enjoyed by the apartheid regime in its heyday! Israel is a Jewish military democracy, for Jews only, and as such, all its Jewish citizens are responsible for what is done in their name, unless they act against the crimes. Because of this continued unstinting support, there is no hope for change in Israel, and we should not expect it or try to bring it about. It is a waste of time and effort – Israelis are living in a parallel universe, where normal legalities do not exist, and morality is absent, where racism and apartheid are still ruling the day.
The change will come from us, from the enraged and caring millions, angry with the duplicity of their own governments and their collusion with Israeli crimes; the international community is now realising it is up to all of us to do what many did during the apartheid days – to isolate and ostracise and isolate this pariah military and piratical regime, this State of Lunacy and lawlessness. We will all need to stop any relationship with this entity of crime: no products to be purchased, no touring in Israel, no conferences there, no invites and collaboration with Israeli academics and institutions who do not declare their unequivocal opposition to the occupation and its iniquities. The resolution of this conflict will only be reached by the annulling Zionism and its racism, its military and ‘civil’ racist machineries, the total removal of all settler communities, and the return of Palestinian refugees, as well as the payment of full compensation to all those who were hurt by the Zionist enterprise over the last few decades.
The way to achieve this is by the careful and thoughtful but total BDS – Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, that will lead to a Just peace and a stable and long-lasting political order in Palestine. Anything else will just lead to more murder, and to a likely destabilizing of the region, and towards exporting militant radicalism and possibly terrorism to all parts of the globe, as a result of an obvious failure of the west to deal with this colonial and imperialist abscess.
An old Israeli saying describing various less-than-esteemed military leaders says: “He was so stupid that even the other generals noticed.” The same derisive remark could be applied almost without exception to the present generation of Israeli politicians.
Such healthy scepticism among Israelis about the abilities of their military and political leaders has unfortunately ebbed in recent decades. As a result, Israelis are left perplexed as to why their wars, military interventions and armed actions have so often ended in failure since the 1973 war, despite the superiority of their armed forces.
The latest example of this is the assault on the Gaza aid convoy by naval commandos, a confrontation initiated by Israel which thereby ensured that the convoy’s organisers achieved their objectives to a degree beyond their wildest dreams. By using assault troops in a police action against civilians with predictably bloody results Israel managed to focus international attention on its blockade of Gaza, which the world had hitherto largely ignored. The Israeli action infuriated Turkey, once its strongest ally in the region, and strengthened the claim of Hamas to Palestinian leadership.
The capacity of Israel to shoot itself in the foot needs explanation. From the beginning the operation was idiotic, since Israel was always likely to look bad after any confrontation between élite troops and civilian protesters. Even more ludicrous is the Israeli explanation that their élite and heavily armed soldiers were at risk of their lives because they had to use thick gloves to protect their hands when sliding down cables from a helicopter and therefore could not use their weapons.
The nature of the fiasco should cause little surprise because such botched Israeli military actions have been the norm for years. The 1982 invasion of Lebanon was discredited by the massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by Christian militias loosed on them by Israeli army commanders. Syria, not Israel, became the predominant power in Lebanon. In south Lebanon, the Israeli army fought a long and unsuccessful guerrilla war against Hizbollah. The bombardments of Lebanon in 1996 and 2006 left Hizbollah stronger, and a similar attack on Gaza in 2008 failed to weaken Hamas.
The problem is that nobody believes Israeli propaganda as much as Israelis. Pro-Palestinian activists often lament the fluency and mendacity of Israeli spokesmen on the airwaves and the pervasive influence of Israel’s supporters abroad. But, in reality, these PR campaigns are Israel’s greatest weakness, because they distort Israelis’ sense of reality. Defeats and failures are portrayed as victories and successes.
The slaughter of civilians is justified as a military necessity or somehow the fault of the other side. Opponents are demonised as bloodthirsty terrorists. Comforted by such benign accounts of their activities, Israeli leaders are consumed by arrogance because they come to believe they have never made a mistake. Denial that errors have occurred makes it extremely difficult to sack generals or ministers, however gross their incompetence or record of failure.
Many Israelis privately take their own propaganda with a pinch of salt, though the number is diminishing. But abroad, the most third-rate Israeli politicians strut before fawning audiences as heroic defenders of the state. Not surprisingly they return home with a dangerously inflated idea of their own abilities and in a perilously self-important mood.
The Israeli propaganda machine, official and private, has been running full throttle in the last few days justifying the assault on the aid convoy to Gaza. Probably spokesmen feel they are performing well given the weakness of their case. In fact, they do nothing but harm to Israel. The greater their success in denying gross and culpable mistakes, the more likely it is that the perpetrators will hold their jobs – and the more likely it is that the mistakes will be endlessly repeated.
Israel deports 124 pro-Palestinian activists to Jordan and transfers 200 more to Tel Aviv airport amid increasing calls for independent inquiry into deadly assault
Wednesday 2 June 2010 09.15 BST
Israel today started deporting all the detained activists seized during its botched raid on an aid shipment to Gaza, as some of the first to be freed spoke of their mistreatment at the hands of the Israelis.
A group of 124 pro-Palestinian activists from 12 Muslim nations crossed the border in five Jordanian buses. Another 200 activists have been transferred from a holding centre to Israel’s airport near Tel Aviv, a prison service spokesman said. The remaining activists will be released throughout the day, the spokesman said.
Yesterday Israel had indicated it might prosecute some of the activists.
The decision to free the detainees came as more accounts from those on the ships began to emerge.
One Briton who was on one of the boats heading towards Gaza arrived back in Britain last night.
IT professional Hasan Nowarah, from Glasgow, described the moment the aid flotilla was stormed by Israeli troops.
He told Sky News that the Mavi Marmara ship was surrounded by helicopters and Zodiac assault craft.
“All you could see was screaming and bullets. Out of the blue as I looked around our ship, all I could see were hundreds of Zodiacs. Hundreds of Zodiacs full of soldiers, and big ships, lots of ships, and I believe as well submarines in the sea.”
The assault left nine dead and dozens wounded and has led to criticism of Israel and increasing calls for an independent, impartial inquiry.
One of the group deported to Jordan today, Walid al-Tabtabai, a Kuwaiti politician who was on board one of the ships with other activists from Muslim countries, said: “The Israelis roughed up and humiliated all of us, women, men and children.
“They were brutal and arrogant, but our message reached every corner of the world that the blockade on Gaza is unfair and should be lifted immediately.”
Like many passengers on the flotilla he insisted there were no weapons on any of the ships.
Algerian Izzeddine Zahrour said Israeli authorities “deprived us of food, water and sleep and we weren’t allowed to use the toilet”.
“It was an ugly kidnapping and subsequently bad treatment in Israeli jail,” he said. “They handcuffed us, pushed us around and humiliated us.”
Mauritanian Mohammed Gholam said Israel “wanted us to sign documents saying that we entered Israel illegally”.
An Algerian activist, who only gave her first name as Sabrina, accused Israeli commandos of taking a one-year-old child hostage.
“They point a gun to his head in front of his Turkish parents to force the captain of our ship to stop sailing,” she said.
A Jordanian government spokesman said there were 30 Jordanians in the group. Jordan is one of two Arab nations with a signed peace treaty with Israel. Kuwaiti ambassador Sheik Faisal Al Sabah said the group included 16 Kuwaitis. He said the other activists came from Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Yemen, Oman and Bahrain.
Turkey has led criticism of the raid, accusing Israel of committing a “massacre”, and the UN security council demanded an impartial investigation. There were reports in the Israeli media today that Israel had ordered the families of its diplomats in Turkey to leave that country because of Turkish anger at the raid.
Washington blocked an attempt at the UN security council for an international inquiry yesterday, issuing a mild statement regretting the loss of life. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, later called the situation in Gaza “unsustainable”.
“Israel’s legitimate security needs must be met, just as the Palestinians’ legitimate needs for sustained humanitarian assistance and regular access to reconstruction materials must also be assured,” she said.
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said this morning that Israel’s blockade of Gaza was “an absolute humanitarian catastrophe” that was “not in Israel’s own long-term self-interest”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning that Israel had “every right” to protect its people from terrorist threat, but said: “What I ask my Israeli friends and Israeli politicians and officials I meet is: what’s the strategy, where do you go next, how are you going to secure in the long term, not just day to day, the security which you rightly crave?”
Last night, the foreign secretary, William Hague, said 31 British nationals and a further 11 with dual nationality were known to have been detained after the seizure of the vessels as they attempted to breach the Israeli blockade of the territory.
The Foreign Office confirmed that 29 of the Britons had received a visit – with no complaints about their treatment.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, said that the detainees were being treated in line with international practice.
“We are not charging them with anything, we have detained them and we will help them leave our country,” he told the BBC.
There was concern among friends and relatives in the UK who complained that they were unable to establish contact with the detainees.
Rachel Bridgeland, whose partner, Peter Venner, 63, from Ryde, Isle of Wight, was on the Mavi Marmara, said that the government should be putting more pressure on Israel.
“It’s absolutely terrible not knowing what has happened to him and it’s terrible that the British government hasn’t done more, but they don’t want to fall out with Israel,” she said.
UN security council calls for impartial investigation into Israel’s assault on a flotilla carrying aid supplies to the Gaza Strip
Members of the UN security council meet in the wake of the Israeli raid on the Gaza aid flotilla. Photograph: Louis Lanzano/AP
The full text of a formal presidential statement adopted today by the United Nations security council on Israel’s action against an aid flotilla heading for Gaza:
The security council deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries resulting from the use of force during the Israeli military operation in international waters against the convoy sailing to Gaza. The council, in this context, condemns those acts which resulted in the loss of at least 10 civilians and many wounded, and expresses its condolences to their families.
The security council requests the immediate release of the ships as well as the civilians held by Israel. The council urges Israel to permit full consular access, to allow the countries concerned to retrieve their deceased and wounded immediately, and to ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance from the convoy to its destination.
The security council takes note of the statement of the UN secretary-general on the need to have a full investigation into the matter and it calls for a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards.
The security council stresses that the situation in Gaza is not sustainable. The council re-emphasises the importance of the full implementation of Resolutions 1850 and 1860. In that context, it reiterates its grave concern at the humanitarian situation in Gaza and stresses the need for sustained and regular flow of goods and people to Gaza as well as unimpeded provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza.
The security council underscores that the only viable solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an agreement negotiated between the parties and re-emphasises that only a two-state solution, with an independent and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbours, could bring peace to the region.
The security council expresses support for the proximity talks and voices concern that this incident took place while the proximity talks are under way and urges the parties to act with restraint, avoiding any unilateral and provocative actions, and all international partners to promote an atmosphere of cooperation between the parties and throughout the region.
