Tag: Settlements

May 13, 2010

EDITOR: The Dangers of Human Rights Activism in Israel The Israeli regime is using the weapon of gagging the press and media more than ever before, and on the whole the legal system is serving the government ends. However, all truth outs in the end, and despite the gag, now partially lifted, the bizarre case of Mr Makhoul and Dr. Omar Sayid has now come to light. Like the earlier campaign against the political leader of Balad, Azmi Bishara, this is a case of trumped-up charges of ‘espionage’ against human rights activists. It is not going to be the last one either. Israel has now waging war on human righs organisations, on media and political activists, on international peace and human rights supporters… the real struggle is only starting now to expose Israel’s daily crimes and atrocities. From Rachel Corrie to Tom Hurndell, Azmi Bishara to Anat Kamm, the many activists killed, maimed, jailed and abused, and to Mr Makhoul and Dr. Omar Sayid – they are all non-violent fighters for rights, equality and justice. Much of today’s blog is given over to this latest case of trying to snuffle protest and silence opposition to the growing Israeli repression.

Ameer Makhoul’s Gag Order: IOA

Posted by admin on May 11th, 2010 and filed under FEATURED NEWS STORIES, Israel, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. Image of the original gag order (Hebrew) was first published by Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam blog – 11 May 2010 www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/05/11/makhoul-secret-court-documents-gag-order-and-ruling-partially-lifting-it/ Ameer Makhoul’s gag order IOA Editor: In order to avoid misinterpretations, the following English translation was purposefully done on the literal side. It is factually accurate, even if the translator would have written it somewhat differently had the original text been written in English. [See notes in square brackets.] Police of Israel In Closed Doors Magistrate Court of Petach Tikva 22 April 2010 The Appellant – The State of Israel via the Israeli Police [Yakhbal-unit], Officer [rank] Sa’ar Shapira A request for a discussion in closed-doors and for the issuance of an order prohibiting publication – a security affair A request is hereby made to hold the discussion in closed-doors, in order to protect the security of the state and in order not to harm the investigation, in accordance with Section 68(b)(1)+(7) and also Section 68(c) of the Court Houses Law (combined version) 1984, and also a request to prohibit publication in accordance with Section 70(a) and (e) of the above law, and that for the following reasons: 1. The Israeli Police is conducting an investigation in which suspicions of security violations of contact with foreign agent and espionage, violations of Sections 114(a), 112(a) of the Penal Code of 1977, are being investigated. 2. Any publication about the investigation, or any detail of the investigation, may harm the security of the state, the investigation, obstruct or prevent evidence discovery to prove criminal violations and to investigate the truth. In view of the above, we are requesting that the honorable court will instruct to hold the discussion in closed-doors and for the issuance of an order prohibiting publication for 90 days, that will prohibit any publication on the matter of the investigation of file 151787/10 Yakhbal [unit], and any detail of the investigation, or its very existence, and all court discussions and decisions that took place or will take place in connection with the subject under investigation. Also, we are requesting that the order will instruct to prohibit any publication of the very filing of this request, its content, the very existence of the order, and any other publication that may result in the identification of the respondent, witnesses, suspects, and additional involved [parties] connected to the subject of the investigation, to the publication of their photographs, their addresses, and any other identifying detail. In order to effectuate the order, approval is requested to disseminate the fact of its existence to various media outlets, as necessary. For their information only (without publication by the media outlets that an order to prohibit publication of a security affair exists). [Rank] Sa’ar SHapira Yakhbal [unit] DECISION [Handwritten, at bottom, by Judge Einat Ron] After I heard the representatives of the appellant – and I was convinced that publication of this affair at this stage may harm the security of the state and the investigation in an actual manner, I found to accept the request as requested. An order to prohibit publication of this affair is hereby issued, on all that concerns the investigation on the matter of this affair, its content, [those] involved in it, and every detail related to them and could bring to their identification, as well as on request itself and its content – except the [annex?] to the request, in accordance with the judgment of the appellant. This order is for 30 days from today. Einat Ron, Judge Petach Tikva Magitrate Court 22 April 2010

Israel bows to pressure and admits arrest of rights activist: The Independent

By Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem Tuesday, 11 May 2010 The Israeli authorities finally revealed yesterday that they had been holding a prominent Israeli-Arab human rights activist for several days and had accused him of spying for Lebanon’s Hizbollah guerrillas.

Amir Makhoul, the head of the Palestinian NGO Ittijah, was arrested in a dawn raid on his home last Thursday

Israel appeared to buckle under intense domestic pressure to release details of the case against Amir Makhoul after a gagging order issued by the courts had prevented the media from reporting details of the case. The order, which covered details including his identity, riled democracy advocates in Israel after a similar case last month involving the secret house arrest of an Israeli journalist. Mr Makhoul, the director of Palestinian non-governmental organisation (NGO) Ittijah, was arrested in a dawn raid on his home in the Israeli town of Haifa on Thursday last week. Israeli police said yesterday that they suspected Mr Makhoul and Omar Sayid, a member of the Arab political party Balad who was arrested on April 24, of spying for Hizbollah. Israel views Lebanon as an enemy state and fought a devastating month-long war against Hizbollah in 2006. In recent weeks, Israel has accused Hizbollah of obtaining Scud missiles from Syria. A lawyer acting for the two men said the charges had “no basis” and were merely a tool to clamp down on outspoken Israeli-Arabs, Palestinians who have taken Israeli citizenship. “Contacts with foreign agents has become a serious [tool] for criminalising Arabs in Israel,” said Hasan Jabareen, general director of the Adalah human rights organisation, and part of Mr Makhoul’s legal defence team. “Any contact, whether it is with human rights organisations or just social contacts, can be perceived by Israel as contact with foreign agents,” Mr Jabareen said, adding that lawyers had not been allowed to meet with Mr Makhoul. Mr Makhoul, whose brother Assam is a former member of Israel’s parliament, is a leading advocate on Palestinian rights issues, particularly within the Israeli-Arab community. Assam Makhoul told Ha’aretz newspaper that the family believed that Mr Makhoul had angered the Israeli authorities with his campaigns that fought the government’s “racist and discriminatory policies” towards Israeli-Arabs. Israel’s 1.5 million Arabs who took citizenship in 1948 when the country was formed remain a minority among the 7.5 million population, and have long claimed that they are treated as second-class citizens compared to Jewish Israelis; economic and educational standards for Arabs are much lower than in Jewish communities. Israeli police entered Mr Makhoul’s home at around 3am on 6 May. They searched his home, confiscating the family’s mobile phones, laptops and cameras, before taking him away for questioning. The family was given no explanation for the arrest, beyond unspecified “security” reasons. Ittijah’s offices were also searched. Prior to his arrest, Israel’s Interior Ministry issued an order banning Mr Makhoul from travelling abroad for two months because of security concerns. The arrest of the two men has inflamed tensions amongst the Arab-Israeli community. A demonstration was planned in Haifa to protest against the detentions. Several Palestinian and international rights bodies condemned the arrest, and said that Israel had “escalated” a sustained campaign against Arab rights groups. “In addition to arbitrary arrest and detention, Israeli authorities have met Palestinian human rights activism in recent months with a variety of measures, including raids, deportations, travel bans, visa denials and media attacks against nongovernmental organisations,” the groups said in a joint statement. Israeli NGOs have complained that they are witnessing a growing state-backed campaign to curb their freedom of operation, including a proposed new law that would strip many activist bodies of their NGO status. Right-wing activists have also stepped up their efforts to discredit organisations perceived as anti-Israeli. Because of the gagging order, Mr Sayid and Mr Makhoul’s arrest was initially only reported on blogs, while Israeli reporters made cryptic references to the case. The affair carried particular resonance in Israel, coming so soon after the case of Anat Kam, an Israeli whistle-blower who was placed under secret house arrest in December, but news of her detention was only made public at the end of March after Israeli newspapers dropped hints about the case.

About the Secret Empire that has decided to Criminalize Minority Dissent in Israel: The Only Democracy?

May 12th, 2010, by Assaf Oron No, this story does not come from the Occupied Territories, where residents are under a 43-year military rule and where wee-hour arrest raids are a routine occurrence. This comes from right inside Israel. Dr. Omar Sa’id, A Palestinian citizen of Israel and resident of Kafr Kana near Nazareth, was arrested by Israel’s secret police (known in English as Shin Bet and in Israel as Shabaak) two weeks ago. He is still in custody without access to a lawyer. Per Shin Bet request, the courts issued a gag order, with which the Israeli MSM complied. The Hebrew blogosphere has learned of the story a few days ago and ignores the gag. The gag was partially lifted Monday. This joins the better-known story of Ameer Makhoul, director of the Ittijah human rights group. The Shin Bet raided his Haifa home in the wee hours of May 6, kidnapped him, wreaked havoc and confiscated the family’s computers. He, too, is held incommunicado. That story, as well, has been gagged and the Israeli MSM doggedly obeys. Only on Monday, after a blogosphere frenzy led by the indomitable Richard Silverstein, did the Israeli press release oblique stories. A few hours later, shortly before a demonstration against the arrest took place in Haifa, the court partially lifted the gag and admitted that the two arrests are related. WTF?? More about the Arrested Men Dr. Omar Sa’id, A Palestinian citizen of Israel and resident of Kafr Kana near Nazareth, is a pharmacologist and entreprenur, co-founder and CEO of Antaki Center for Herbal Medicine. On April 25, en route to Jordan, he was arrested by Shin Bet. After interrogation he was transferred to police custody, where he is still held without access to a lawyer. Ameer Makhoul is director of the Ittijah organization, a coalition of Israeli-Palestinian civil society groups. Apparently he is also the brother of current Knesset Member Issam Makhoul (who survived a right-wing assassination attempt in 2004). Ameer Makhoul has been recently involved with the boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) movement, attempting to bring an end to the Occupation via nonviolent means. 2010: A Slew of Israeli Spook Scandals What’s up with Israel’s Secret Empire this year – and how much lower can Israel’s “Free press” sink? In January, the Mossad liquidates Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai. As world media place Mossad atop the suspect list, the Israeli media, that doggy-watch-dog of our “only democracy”, celebrates the feat. But – without saying Mossad did it. Only “the foreign press reports…”, a common refrain in Israeli MSM whenever they really want to gossip about something, but don’t want to get in trouble with the Secret Empire. So they sucked up to the immaculate execution and speculated wildly (and optimistically) about the great benefits to Israel and its fabled “deterrence power” that this assassination had restored. A few days pass, and the Dubai police rolls out pictures of 11 suspects, all with ties to Israel, and places them on the Interpol list. Friendly governments learn their passports have been forged. Israeli dual citizens learn their personal passports have been abused, placing them under direct threat of revenge. Then another 15 pictures released, with additional damaging details. The media celebration in Israel turns into a scapegoat-seeking and CYA exercise (“whose fault is this? We said it was a sloppy job from the start” etc.) Yet, I’ve heard several credible reports that on Purim this year, the most popular costume among Israeli teens and college gals was “Gail”, the assassin-assistant whose pretty passport picture circulated around the world. This brings us to March, when a new spook affair surfaces: rumors circulate in the Israeli blogosphere that Anat Kamm, a young journalist, is under house arrest with a gag order. I hear about it from fellow Seattelite and fellow progressive I-P blogger Richard Silverstein, who calls to seek my advice. He explains that Kamm is being indicted for stealing secret documents during her military service, and passing some of them after her discharge to an Israeli investigative journalist (for no payment). Silverstein feels she is a whistleblower who is being framed as a traitor via the way the Secret Empire treats her, including the gag order. The Israeli MSM obey the gag order; progressive bloggers post about it here and there, but here’s the catch: Kamm herself contacts them personally asking them to respect the order! The bloggers initially oblige, and one by one remove the story. At this point (mid-March) Richard feels that 1. Contrary to the perceptions of Kamm and her lawyer, respecting the gag actually makes her court prospects worse not better, and 2. The story itself – and the question whether Kamm is a whistleblower or a traitor – is a public issue, and the public should know about it. He calls me asking for my advice. Given that most of the details were total news to me, and that I was packing up to go to Israel on a Bar-Mitzva-laden visit, I couldn’t do much more than mumble lamely. Fortunately, Richard did what his heart told him, which was the right thing: he went out with the story and ultimately led to the gag’s implosion within a few weeks, even inside Israel. Right now, Kamm’s prospects still seem dim; the Shin Bet successfully framed her as a “traitor”, even though the documents she leaked were of the whistleblower kind: they showed how the IDF in the West Bank pissed all over Israel’s High Court ruling and continued to assassinate Palestinian targets even when a bloodless arrest was possible. The Israeli MSM, which towards the end of the gag complained loudly about it even as they obeyed, immediately turned to collaborate with the framing of Kamm, rather than open a debate about the true scandal. To be precise, the electronic media collaborated, while the printed press was split with two right-wing tabloids inciting against her, against the journalist (Uri Blau, arguably Israel’s top investigative journalist with a special knack for embarrassing the “security” Establishment) and even against his newspaper Haaretz, and with the centrist tabloid Yediot taking a more ambivalent stand. Blau himself is now in London; the Shin Bet will arrest him if he lands in Israel, an arrest that would violate a deal they struck with him and Kamm during the latter’s interrogation. Many speculate that Kamm herself was really the small fry, and that neutralizing the perennial scandal-finder Blau was the main goal. Anyway, in the aftermath of the Kamm story, one unanimous conclusion in the Israeli MSM conventional-wisdom was that gag orders on arrests have proven futile and only an idiot would try them again. Well, whadayaknow. A few weeks pass by, and not one, but two simultaneous arrests (not house arrest, real arrest) and gag orders. And not against a young person who prima facie did engage in wrongdoing (making illegal copies of secret documents) – but of well-known figures, an economic leader and a civic leader of the Palestinian-Israeli public. And the media obey yet again. What is this? A deliberate campaign by Shin Bet, to prove that indeed Israel is an Apartheid police state as its worst critics claim? I thought we Jews were supposed to be smart. I mean, forget for a second the human-rights, democracy and free-press teeny details. In many ways, it’s DAH STUPID that is scary here. What part of “Rebrand Israel” do these arrests fall under? And more importantly: Who the crap runs Israel nowadays? The Secret Empire that Snuggles Israel Israel is a pretty tiny nation, with a h-u-g-e secret apparatus: The Shin Bet, which runs the show in the West Bank and (to a lesser degree, but still more than you’d think) in Gaza – while keeping a friendly open eye on Israelis as well. The world-famous Mossad, whose “long hand” was what the Israeli MSM celebrated during these short happy days between the Dubai hit job and the appearance of pretty-Gail-passport-pics. The list doesn’t end there: The IDF toys with its own Shin-Bet-like operation in the West Bank (and formerly also in Lebanon). Known as Unit 504, its officers go around in civvies, recruit collaborators, etc. I escorted some of these creeps while serving in Lebanon in 1986. Our nuclear arsenal is of course, secret and off-limits, off-scrutiny to the common Israeli citizen or Israeli media. Under whose control? The military? A special unit directly reporting to the PM? I don’t know. But here are two agencies related to our little nuclear thingie one way or another: The Israeli outfit that recruited Jonathan Pollard was neither Shin Bet, nor Mossad. It was the “Bureau for Science Contacts”, a spook agency hardly anyone heard of till the Pollard affair broke out. Another less-known, but still notorious and extremely powerful secret agency, is known in Hebrew as MLMB (“Director of Security of the Defense Establishment”). This is essentially a one-man fiefdom, with the first director serving for nearly 40 years, and setting the agency’s trademark vindictive style. The MLMB played a key role in the Vanunu affair, and especially in Vanunu’s persecution since serving his “espionage” sentence. …and I bet there are more… A democracy cannot have such a disproportionate outsized Secret Empire. This in itself is mathematical proof, if you will, that Israel is not a democracy in the post-World-War-II sense. Add to this the lack of a constitution (mistakenly seen by some pro-status-quo commenters as a “triviality”), the inter-connectedness of the executive and legislative due to the parliamentary system (a mixed blessing: the check-and-balance becomes the power of coalition members to break it, but increasingly parties are bought off with ridiculously large numbers of ministerial posts), and last but not least, the fact that much of the judiciary began its career as military prosecutors and military judges – and the “democracy or not” debate is pretty much over. The Secret Empire wants an operation, it will get its operation regardless of what the government thinks. The Secret Empire wants a gag order, it will get its gag order no matter how outrageous. At least in the Kamm case, both judges who approved the gag and its extension were products of the military “justice” system. Consider also this: while, say, the CIA is under some sort of scrutiny however limited, and a large chunk of the CIA are publicly-known and publicly-accessible bureaus – the Israeli spooks are above the law and beyond reach. Until the late 1990’s we didn’t even know the name of the heads of Shin Bet and Mossad, let alone anyone else (unless you knew them personally; I personally know at least one Mossad agent, and a few more who seriously considered . The 1995 assassination of PM Rabin, a huge Shin Bet flop, led to the practice of making the heads’ names public and (supposedly) a bit more accountable. But they still take no one’s orders. Rather, as the years go by and our politicians become lamer and more corrupt, the head of Shin Bet is often the one dictating policy to the government rather than vice versa. A case in point is Yuval Diskin, the current Shin Bet chief. A few years ago he started a campaign framing civil-society groups of Israeli Palestinians as the enemy within. Going as far as stating that even actions which are considered legitimate in a democracy (lobbying for equality on a communal basis and not just a personal one; in truth our Arabs get neither), even such actions undermine the state. The arrests of Dr. Sa’id and Mr. Makhoul are a direct manifestation of Diskin’s world-view. Please make sure to contact your nearest Israeli embassy or consulate, and give them an earful of what you think about this. Oh, and join the Facebook group for Makhoul’s and Sa’id’s release. The gag and the MSM’s cowardice, though issues to deal with as well, pale in comparison to this escalating campaign to criminalize the leadership of Israel’s Palestinian citizens. Watch a video of Real News Network coverage of Makhoul and Sa’id’s case. (adapted from this Monday post on Daily Kos. Since then, the gag has been partially lifted, most probably due to the combined pressure of bloggers ignoring the gag and the Israeli-Palestinian community openly protesting the arrests.) Continue reading May 13, 2010

May 9, 2010

HEY ELTON

by John Greyson

HEY ELTON from John Greyson on Vimeo.

Palestinian civil society has called on Elton John to respect its boycott call and cancel his June 17th concert in Tel Aviv. If he does so, he’ll be joining Santana and Gil-Scott Heron, who recently cancelled their spring concerts in Israel. This video suggests six reasons why Elton should join the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement.

For more info, please visit:

bdsmovement.net

BNC (Palestinian BDS National Commitee)

pacbi.org

PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel)

bricup.org.uk

BRICUP (British Committee for Universities for Palestine)

quaia.org

QUAIA (Queers Against Israeli Apartheid)

EDITOR: New Heights of Israeli Chuzpah

After refusing to meet with the Elected (and unelected) representatives of Palestine for over a decade, Israel now discovered that indirect talks, that US invention on which they counted to delay a resolution forever, may not be successful after all, and the pressure may be too much for them to bear. So now they demand what they vetoed all along – direct talks. You couldn’t make it up!
The next demand will be that the talks be held in Yiddish, no doubt.

When the direct talks will fail, then Netanyahu can demand a return to indirect talks, and the cycle can start again.

Netanyahu: Mideast peace deal impossible without direct talks: Haaretz

PM echoes U.S. call to see proximity negotiations lead to direct contacts as soon as possible.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel expected the upcoming indirect negotiations with the Palestinians to lead to direct talks.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. envoy George Mitchell and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are preparing to enter indirect Middle East negotiations.
Senior U.S. officials have told their Palestinian counterparts that Washington also believes direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians must begin as soon as possible.

The Obama administration has informed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that it will not unveil mediation proposals or a Middle East peace plan before the start of direct, substantive talks between the two sides on final-status issues, a high-level Israeli official said.

On Saturday, the PLO Executive Committee announced that it had given the green light to Abbas to begin indirect negotiations with Israel. Abbas also met with U.S. special envoy George Mitchell to discuss the manner in which the so-called proximity talks would be conducted.
The United States welcomed the PLO’s decision as an important step in the peace process. “It is an important and welcome step,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. Mitchell will meet with Abbas again Sunday in Ramallah before returning to Washington.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Saturday after a meeting in Ramallah between Abbas and Mitchell that the discussions would be held over the four months allotted to address final-status issues such as borders and security arrangements. “The issues of Jerusalem and the settlements are part of the 1967 borders, so they will be discussed and negotiated,” Erekat said.

Erekat said that during their meeting, Abbas gave Mitchell a letter outlining the Palestinian Authority’s position on proximity talks and the issues it wants to discuss. Abbas would head the Palestinian negotiating team himself, Erekat said, adding that the Palestinians view the talks as aimed at “The end of the occupation and creation of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel along the 1967 borders.”

The talks appear to represent a U.S.-brokered compromise that meets both the Palestinian demand to address the issue of borders, and Israel’s condition to discuss security arrangements. Both Palestinian and Israeli negotiators recognize that the two issues are intimately linked, and that any proposal or statement on either matter is likely to significantly influence any resolution on the other.

Israel welcomes PLO decision
Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomed the decision to resume peace talks, urging that they be held unconditionally and lead swiftly to direct negotiations between the two sides.

A statement from Netanyahu spokesman Nir Hefetz said the prime minister “welcomes the resumption of peace talks.”
Quoting Netanyahu, Hefetz added that “Israel’s position was and remains that the talks ought to be conducted without preconditions and should quickly lead to direct negotiations.”

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that the U.S. administration expects Israel to do its part in facilitating U.S. efforts to advance the stalled peace process. “An essential condition for improving relations with the U.S. is taking steps that prove Israel is seriously committed to making decisions on the Palestinian issue once they reach the negotiating table,” Barak said at a conference at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.

“That will be judged by deeds, not by how much we smile at the White House. A comprehensive peace plan is needed, one that Israel stands behind. I’m not sure that that is possible with the current government,” Barak said.

“Without an agreement, we will be subject to international isolation, and we will suffer a fate similar to that of Belfast or Bosnia, or a gradual transition from a paradigm of two states for two peoples to one of one state for two peoples, and some people will try to label us as similar to South Africa. That’s why we must act,” Barak said. If both sides are willing to make brave decisions, he said, “it will be possible to get to direct negotiations and a breakthrough toward an agreement.”

In talks last week with Netanyahu and Barak, Mitchell asked that Israel make confidence-building measures over the next few weeks, both to build up PA institutions and encourage the Palestinians to shift more quickly to direct talks.

A senior official in Jerusalem said Israel would take such steps in the coming weeks, probably including the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, the removal of additional checkpoints and the transfer of certain West Bank areas to PA security control.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of the PLO Executive Committee and veteran peace negotiator, said the Palestinians had received assurances from the U.S. concerning “settlement activities and the necessity to halt them.” He said the Obama administration had also promised to be tough in the event of “any provocations,” and guaranteed that all core issues would be put on the table.

The PLO decision came despite warnings from the rival Palestinian group Hamas, which said Friday that the move would only legitimize Israel’s occupation, Palestinian media reported.

“Absurd proximity talks” would only “give the Israeli occupation an umbrella to commit more crimes against the Palestinians,” Hamas reportedly said. “Hamas calls on the PLO to stop selling illusions to the Palestinian people and announce the failure of their gambling on absurd talks.”

Mid-East indirect peace talks ‘under way’: BBC

Indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have begun, the Palestinian chief negotiator has said.
Saeb Erekat spoke after a meeting between US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr Mitchell will mediate in the talks between the two sides.
The start of so-called “proximity talks” in March was halted after a row over the building of new Israeli homes in East Jerusalem.
Palestinians broke off direct peace talks after Israel launched a military offensive on Gaza in late 2008.
“The proximity talks have started,” Mr Erakat said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The talks went ahead a day after receiving the backing of leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
The PLO’s Executive Committee decided to back the talks after a three-hour meeting in the West Bank.

Has the IDF become an army of settlers?: Haaretz

When the time comes for disengagement, perhaps the state may decide to temporarily redeploy regular troops to the Border Police. It is doubtful whether it will be possible once again to rely on the IDF for that job.
By Amos Harel
Israel’s left may have already missed the opportunity to reach a permanent agreement with the Palestinians. A considerable part of the blame for the failure falls with the Palestinians, but during the missed years – the critical years since the Oslo Accords – something important happened on the Israeli side: The Israel Defense Forces underwent a change.

The army plays a critical role in carrying out an agreement (in withdrawing from territory and evacuating settlers ), but also in ensuring security stability after the agreement is reached. The trouble is that the IDF of 1993 is not the IDF of 2010. Here is what happened in the officers’ course for the infantry corps, the spearhead of the combat units, during that period: In 1990, 2 percent of the cadets enrolled in the course were religious; by 2007, that figure had shot up to 30 percent. And this is how the intermediate generation of combat officers looks today: six out of seven lieutenant colonels in the Golani Brigade are religious and, beginning in the summer, the brigade commander will be as well. In the Kfir Brigade, three out of seven lieutenant colonels wear skullcaps, and in the Givati Brigade and the paratroopers, two out of six. In some of the infantry brigades, the number of religious company commanders has passed the 50 percent mark – more than three times the percentage of the national religious community in the overall population.

This is a generation of commanders committed to its missions, the IDF and the state. It simply has roots in different areas than previous generations. If you glanced at the lists in the company commanders’ offices 20 years ago, you could have seen considerable numbers of fighters from the greater Tel Aviv area and coastal plain. This is of course a generalization that unfairly overlooks the exceptions, but the number of such soldiers today is negligible. A few years ago, a Golani battalion commander found that only one of his soldiers was a resident of Tel Aviv. Today, in a different capacity, a number of Tel Aviv residents serve with him – but all of them live “south of the Dolphinarium line,” referring to the city’s lower-income neighborhoods.

In terms of manpower, long-term processes have been set in motion. The decision by left-wingers and members of kibbutzim to abandon Training Base 1 (where officers’ courses take place ) in the wake of the first Lebanon war and the first intifada can be felt today among the brigadier generals, who are knocking at the doors of the General Staff in 2010. Many complain about how colorless the senior brass is today, something that can be partially explained by the fact that in the mid-1980s many recruits with potential waived their assignation to officers’ courses.

It is an open secret that in the IDF a certain sector of the population is divided mainly between Unit 8200 of Military Intelligence, the pilots’ course, the reconnaissance units and sometimes – with a world of difference – those who get a psychiatric exemption from service. These people will hardly ever go to Golani or Kfir. The abandonment of the combat infantry units will also be noticeable in the next 15 years in the General Staff.

The IDF has made mistakes in the territories and continues to do so, especially in the silent assistance it has given the illegal outposts over the years. But describing it as an army of occupation troops is foolish and overlooks the truth. The secular left-wing fell asleep on the job. The empty ranks it left in its wake have been filled by others. Even those who believe there is no choice other than a massive evacuation of the settlements should know that it will be extremely difficult to do this after the disengagement from Gush Katif.

In 2005, the evacuation was carried out because Ariel Sharon did not bat an eyelid and the military acted accordingly. The battalion commanders, for the most part, will obey orders next time as well, but it is hard to see how the company commanders who come from the settlements of Tapuah and Kedumim will answer the call to remove Jews from their homes. It is no surprise that the top IDF brass is so fearful of such a scenario.

When the time comes for disengagement, perhaps the state may decide to temporarily redeploy regular troops to the Border Police. It is doubtful whether it will be possible once again to rely on the IDF for that job.

Continue reading May 9, 2010

May 8, 2010

New film by Rachel Leah Jones, for Adalah

The film “Targeted Citizen” (15 minutes), produced by filmmaker Rachel Leah Jones for Adalah, surveys discrimination against the Palestinian citizens of Israel. With the participation of experts Dr. Yousef Jabareen of the Technion and Dr. Khaled Abu Asbeh of the Van Leer Institute, as well as Adalah attorneys Sawsan Zaher, Abeer Baker and Hassan Jabareen, inequality in land and housing, employment, education and civil and political rights are eloquently addressed. These interviews are reinforced by the contrasting informality of on-the-street conversations conducted by Palestinian comic duo Shammas-Nahas and punctuated by the hard-hitting rhymes of Palestinian rap trio DAM. The film’s theme song “Targeted Citizen,” written and recorded by DAM especially for Adalah, tells it like it is without missing a beat.

US envoy George Mitchell in Mid-East talks push: BBC

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has met Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in an attempt to restart indirect talks.
The meetings come one day before the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) decides whether to proceed with talks.
Talks in March were delayed by a row over building in East Jerusalem. Washington has said it expects the so-called proximity talks within days.
Mr Abbas is to advise Mr Mitchell of the PLO decision later on Saturday.
Middle East peace talks have been stalled since 2008.
Shuttle diplomacy
In Jerusalem, President Peres told Mr Mitchell that Israel was committed to reaching a Middle East settlement, but stressed that the country’s security must be at the top of the agenda of any possible indirect talks.
Later on Friday, Mr Mitchell met Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and also Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni.
He then went to the West Bank to hold separate talks with Mr Abbas. No statements were made after the meeting.
The US envoy, who arrived in the region on Wednesday, has already seen Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu twice.
Mr Abbas has said he wants the backing of the PLO, due to meet on Saturday, before committing to the indirect talks.
After the Arab League backed Palestinian participation in the talks last Saturday, Mr Abbas said he did not “want to lose hope”.
The Palestinians pulled out of talks in March after an announcement that Israel had approved plans for new homes in the East Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo during a visit to Israel by US Vice-President Joe Biden.
The move caused deep strain in Israeli-US relations.
The Palestinian Authority’s formal position is that it will not enter direct talks unless Israel completely halts building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
In November, Israel announced a 10-month suspension of new building in the West Bank, under heavy US pressure.
But it considers areas within the Jerusalem municipality as its territory and thus not subject to the restrictions.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. It insists Jerusalem will remain its undivided capital, although Palestinians want to establish their capital in the east of the city.
Nearly half a million Jews live in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, among a Palestinian population of about 2.5 million.
The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

Israel needs a new nuclear policy: Haaretz Editorial

The expanse between excessive weaponry and disarmament is not a slippery slope. Israel should enter it.
The Security Council’s permanent members this week reiterated an old call to establish a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East. The Arab states have no nuclear weapons – and when Iraq and Syria started developing them, the Israel Defense Forces attacked them. Therefore, this call is clearly directed at Israel, which is believed to possess such weapons, though its official position is that it only has a “nuclear option.”

The call was issued at a five-year Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, on the 40th anniversary of the treaty’s inauguration. It’s a sad celebration. North Korea has been making a mockery of the treaty for a decade and a half. Another member of the club, Iran, is developing nuclear weapons and challenging the council. Three states – India, Pakistan and Israel – are still refusing to join the NPT, which affords few privileges (such as using foreign nuclear material for domestic needs ) and numerous obligations (refraining from nuclear weapons, agreeing to supervision ).

India and Pakistan have even conducted nuclear tests and make no secret of possessing nuclear weapons. It may be for mutual deterrence, but there is no guarantee that the safety catch will remain on forever.

Egypt, which has always spearheaded demands for the region’s total nuclear disarmament, decided in the 1970s that it was incapable of taking Israel on in the nuclear arena. Anwar Sadat, who indicated when he came to Jerusalem that he chose peace with Israel in part because of the nuclear issue, took the “if we don’t have it, neither shall you” approach.

The peace agreement with Israel has not stopped Egypt from consistently demanding, for more than 30 years now, that Israel be disarmed of its alleged nuclear weapons. This demand is raised every autumn at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s annual conference in Vienna, and frequently in other international forums.

The Arab demand, and the world’s support for it, are nothing new. Nor is Israel’s response. Ever since the days of foreign minister Yigal Allon’s appearances at the UN General Assembly on behalf of Yitzhak Rabin’s first government, Israel has preferred saying “yes, but” to outright rejection. Yes, certainly, Israel would be pleased if a nuclear-free zone were established, but on condition that the region’s borders be defined so that it includes Iran (and Libya, and what about the nuclear weapons that may creep in from Pakistan? ), and that the region no longer be hostile.

In brief, if the Egyptians say that without disarmament there will be no peace, Israel says peace now, disarmament later. What Israel is prepared to give for peace is already a different issue.

However, the periodic demand for regional disarmament is different this time, on two counts: Israel describes the nuclear weapons Iran is expected to acquire as a threat to its survival, and U.S. President Barack Obama is passionately striving for a nuclear-free world, not merely region. In this situation, Israel must adopt a new policy – one that does not go as far as total and immediate disarmament, but does agree to freeze new nuclear activities.

The expanse between excessive weaponry and disarmament is not a slippery slope. Israel should enter it.

PLO convenes to discuss peace talks with Israel: The Independent

By Tom Perry, Reuters, Saturday, 8 May 2010
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) convened today and was expected to approve indirect peace talks with Israel, clearing the way for the first negotiations in 18 months.

The PLO executive committee, meeting in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would approve a US proposal for indirect talks which will be mediated by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, committee members said.
The United States has sought to revive the peace process, calling the Middle East conflict a “vital national security interest”. However many doubt whether the latest US effort can succeed where years of diplomacy have failed.
The United States proposed the indirect talks as a way to break an impasse over Jewish settlement construction on Israeli-occupied land where the Palestinians aim to establish a state alongside Israel.

The United States said last week it expected the indirect negotiations, known as “proximity talks”, to move forward before Mitchell’s departure from the region, scheduled for tomorrow.
Mitchell is set to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas later today.
“The (PLO) executive committee will approve proximity talks but we are against it,” said committee member Bassem al-Salhi of the People’s Party. The PLO is dominated by the Fatah faction led by Abbas. The Arab League last week approved four months of indirect negotiations.

Continue reading May 8, 2010

May 5, 2010

Obama and Iran, by Carlos Latuff

EDITOR: The Success of the BDS campaign is getting to Israel’s guts!

The following hysterical article is evidence not just of the state of irrationality that Israeli society and its elites are now in, but also very clear evidence of the success of the campaign, and all those who tols us for years that it cannot succeed (including our great friend Chomsky) should now seriously rethink their positions and join the BDS camp!

Break the Palestinian boycott: Haaretz

By Karni Eldad
The Mishor Adumim industrial zone in the West Bank is home to a cosmetics plant that sells 70 percent of its products to Palestinians. Recently, however, there has been a slight turnaround in relations between the factory and its customers. The Palestinian Authority ruled − in a presidential order, not the small-scale campaign of a few − to stop buying Israeli products manufactured east of the Green Line.

How is such an order enforced? Simple. The life of the factory sales manager is threatened, and he is then given an offer he can’t refuse: sell the factory at a ludicrous price, and we’ll transfer it to PA control, because we won’t be buying your products in any case.
Those who silently stood by as Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad burned Israeli goods made in the West Bank simply accepted the presidential decree. Moreover, the PA recently established a “National Honor Fund” to finance its boycott activities, to which it injects $150,000 a month. Whence the money? International donations meant to support political institutions.

Israel remained silent last month when the so-called “committee against distributing settlement goods” confiscated and destroyed 7.5 tons of watermelons grown in West Bank fields. Israel stays mum when the Arabs work to impose an economic embargo on settlement products, and when the PA imposes the same on Israeli mobile phone companies, which are not centered in the West Bank. It is indeed remarkable that the cellular boycott has been put in place exactly when the son of a high-ranking PA official is launching a company that will distribute the same services.

Amid the presidential order on settlement-made goods, Palestinians have been forbidden to work in the factories producing these goods or in construction in settlements. For now, the order applies only to new workers, but veteran employees have been offered one month’s pay from the PA as an incentive to quit.

In the wake of the accursed Oslo Accords, the 1994 Paris Protocol was signed, establishing interim economic ties between Israel and the PA. The boycott against settlement merchandise is a clear violation of this agreement, by which both sides pledged not to undermine the other’s economy.

The same agreement also determined customs and tax issues between Israel and the Palestinians. When a Palestinian individual or company imports merchandise from abroad, Israel collects customs taxes and transfers them to PA coffers. In total, more than $1 billion is collected annually. Reason dictates that in the case of such a flagrant violation of the Paris Protocol by the Palestinians, we should collect the money lost by Israeli companies due to the boycott by recouping it from customs money we transferred to the Palestinians. Such a move requires no law, only a modicum of national honor − and it’s a step that could bring the economic embargo to an immediate end. At a recent meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee, Manufacturers Association President Shraga Brosh − hardly viewed as a staunch rightist − proposed another solution: barring the export of Palestinian goods from Israeli ports.

With Israeli manufacturers facing closure in the face of a Palestinian presidential order, I would expect to hear an outcry from lawmakers from every hue of the political spectrum. The Palestinians’ blatant violation of the Paris Protocol is an affront, but silence in the face of it is a crime.

UK ‘blocking’ Mossad return to London: The Guardian

Official reportedly prevented from taking up embassy post after Israel refuses to commit itself not to misuse British passports

The father of Palestinian militant Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was assassinated in Dubai, with his photograph. Israel has never admitted any role in the killing Photograph: Hatem Moussa/AP

Britain has refused to allow Israel’s Mossad secret service to send a representative back to the country’s London embassy following the row over the killing of a Hamas operative by agents using forged UK passports.

Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper reported yesterday that the Foreign Office is digging in its heels because Israel is refusing to commit itself not to misuse British passports in future clandestine operations.

Neither Britain nor Israel gave any details of the embassy official who was ordered to leave the country in March after an investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency showed that the Mossad was behind the passport theft.

But the official was understood to be an intelligence officer who was known to the UK authorities and worked as official liaison with Britain’s MI6. There was no suggestion the officer was personally involved in the passports affair.

Israel has never admitted any role in February’s Dubai assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was described as a key figure in smuggling Iranian weapons into the Gaza Strip on behalf of the Palestinian Islamist movement. It has abstained from signing any material that might be construed as a confession.

Britain had made clear in public statements and private meetings with the Israelis that it expected formal guarantees that there would be no repeat of the passport cloning. The real documents belonged to Britons living in Israel.

Forged or stolen Irish, Australian, French and German passports were also used by the hit squad, whose operation – including the use of elaborate disguises – was extensively recorded by CCTV cameras in the emirate.

Israel conspicuously refrained from retaliating for the expulsion of the Mossad officer, apparently accepting that it was no more than a slap on the wrist before a return to business as usual.

The Mossad and MI6 are known to have a close working relationship especially over terrorism – despite political differences over the peace process, settlements and the Palestinians between the UK and Israeli governments. Iran’s nuclear programme is likely to be another high-priority issue of common concern.

Yediot reported that Israeli security officials were concerned about the breakdown in relations between the two agencies. “It is estimated that the affair will only be resolved, if at all, after this week’s UK general elections,” the paper said.

The Foreign Office said it had not been approached by the Israelis about a replacement for the expelled official. “However we look to Israel to rebuild the trust we believe is required for the full and open relationship we would like,” said a spokesman. “We have asked for specific assurances from Israel, which would clearly be a positive step towards rebuilding that trust. Any Israeli request for the diplomat to be replaced would be considered against the context of these UK requests.”

Israel yet to replace diplomat expelled in passport row: BBC

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in his hotel room in Dubai on 19 January
Israel is yet to replace a diplomat expelled after forged British passports were used in the killing of a Hamas leader, it has emerged.
The Foreign Office said no request had been made to replace the official, but added that “specific assurances” would be sought from Israel if one was made.
The Israeli Embassy in London refused to comment on the situation.
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in Dubai in January, allegedly by Israeli agents using forged foreign passports.
It is believed the fake passports – 12 of them British – were used in the plot to murder Mr Mabhouh, the founder of Hamas’s military wing, in his hotel room in Dubai on 19 January.
Dubai officials said they were “99% certain” that agents from Mossad, the Israeli secret service, were behind the killing.

We look to Israel to rebuild the trust we believe is required for the full and open relationship we would like
Foreign Office
The names and details on the UK passports used by eight of the 12 suspects belonged to British-Israeli citizens living in Israel – all of whom have denied involvement in Mr Mabhouh’s murder.
Their passports had been copied and new photographs inserted.
During the ensuing diplomatic row, in March, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said there were “compelling reasons” to believe Israel was responsible for the forgeries.
He said the misuse of British passports was “intolerable”.
Israel’s ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, said he was “disappointed”, but Israel confirmed there would be no tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsion.
Israel has previously said there is no proof it was behind the killing at a Dubai hotel.
The name of the expelled diplomat has not been released.
‘Specific assurances’
Several newspapers have reported that the person expelled was a Mossad representative and claimed that UK authorities are now preventing Israel from replacing the individual until it agrees not to use British passports in the same way again.
The Foreign Office said: “We have had no approach from the Israelis about a replacement. However we look to Israel to rebuild the trust we believe is required for the full and open relationship we would like.
“We have asked for specific assurances from Israel, which would clearly be a positive step towards rebuilding that trust. Any Israeli request for the diplomat to be replaced would be considered against the context of these UK requests.”
Dubai police said forensic tests showed Mabhouh was drugged with a quick-acting muscle relaxant and then suffocated.
Earlier reports had said he may have been strangled or killed by a massive electric shock.

US envoy George Mitchell meets Israel PM Netanyahu: BBC

“Proximity talks” were meant to have begun, but the start has been delayed
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the start of indirect talks with the Palestinians.
The three-hour meeting in Jerusalem was described as “good and productive” by the US state department.
But no announcements were made and Israeli officials have said the two are to meet again on Thursday.
Mr Mitchell is due to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday in Ramallah.
The meeting with Mr Netanyahu had been planned as the start of “proximity talks” but the Palestine Liberation Organisation has still to agree to them.
The PLO said it would meet on Saturday to finally decide if talks can proceed.
Mr Abbas has said the talks need to immediately grapple with the toughest issues at the heart of the conflict.
He said first on the agenda should be the borders of a future Palestinian state.
But the issue, connected to the building of Jewish-only neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, has been a stumbling block.
The talks were delayed in March by a row which strained Israeli-US relations.
The Palestinians pulled out after an announcement that Israel had approved plans for new homes in the East Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo during a visit to Israel by US Vice-President Joe Biden.
Earlier Obama administration adviser David Axelrod said the issue of Jerusalem would come at the end of the programme for talks.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. It insists Jerusalem will remain its undivided capital, although Palestinians want to establish their capital in the east of the city.
Nearly half a million Jews live in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, among a Palestinian population of about 2.5 million.
The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

Continue reading May 5, 2010

May 4, 2010

Targeting Iran nuclear program, by Carlos Latuff

US envoy visits Israel for ‘indirect’ negotiations: The Independent

By Jeffrey Heller, Reuters, in Jerusalem
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
President Barack Obama’s Middle East peace envoy arrived in Tel Aviv yesterday for expected indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks but Israel voiced doubt about any breakthrough without direct negotiations.

Hours before the US envoy, George Mitchell, flew into Israel, the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, conferred in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh about the upcoming US-mediated negotiations. Mr Obama’s peace efforts received a boost on Saturday when Arab states approved four months of “proximity talks”, whose expected start in March was delayed by Israel’s announcement of a settlement project on occupied land near Jerusalem.
An Israeli Defence Ministry strategist Amos Gilad said on Israel Radio that the indirect negotiations would begin on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear when the envoy would hold talks with the Palestinian side. The executive committee of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was scheduled to meet only on Saturday to give the formal nod to start the negotiations.

The Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor described indirect talks as “a strange affair” after face-to-face peace negotiations stretching back 16 years.
There have been no direct talks for the past 18 months, a period that has included Israel’s Gaza war, the election of a right-wing Israeli government and entrenched rule in the Gaza Strip by Hamas Islamists opposed to the US peace efforts.

“I think it is clear to everyone that real talks are direct talks, and I don’t think there is a chance of a significant breakthrough until the direct talks begin,” Mr Meridor said.
“The talks will be held. The envoy, Mr Mitchell, will talk to us, to them. But the more we hasten to arrive at direct talks, the more we will be able to address the heart of the matter.”

Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Mr Abbas, said the negotiations would show whether the Israeli government was serious about peace and “test the sincerity” of the Obama administration in pursuing Palestinian statehood.
“The truth is we are not in need of negotiations. We are in need of decisions by the Israeli government. This is the time for decisions more than it is the time for negotiations,” Mr Rdainah said.

In an interview published on Sunday in the Palestinian newspaper al-Ayyam, Mr Abbas said Mr Obama had given a commitment he would not allow “any provocative measures” by either side. Mr Abbas has long insisted Israel freeze Jewish settlement building before any negotiations resume, and he had rejected as insufficient a temporary construction moratorium that Mr Netanyahu ordered in the occupied West Bank last November.

EDITOR: Even the Right has noticed…

Moshe Arens might be right-wing, but stupid he is not. He admits some of the facts that others in the Israeli elite seems to be denying at all cost.

Let’s stop pretending: Haaretz

The administration in Washington is trying to force on Israel a peace settlement with the Palestinians.
By Moshe Arens
Tags: Israel US Israel news Middle East peace
It is almost a year now that a certain ritual has marked the public discourse between Washington and Jerusalem. Israel gets a good slap in the face and a few days later someone in Washington announces that the U.S.-Israeli relationship is rock-solid. The Israeli prime minister is demeaned in Washington and a day later he declares that the U.S.-Israeli relationship is firm as ever.

Anybody who has been involved in fostering the U.S.-Israeli relationship over the years, so important to both countries, knows that things are not as they have been for the past 50 years. The relationship, which on occasion is being described in Washington as “unshakable and unbreakable,” has for the past year been shaken up quite a bit. The administration in Washington is trying to force on Israel a peace settlement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a settlement that would involve Israel withdrawing to the 1949 armistice lines that were established after it repelled the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, which were attempting to destroy the newborn state.

They want to set the clock back, seemingly oblivious of the many wars and acts of terror that were launched against Israel in the years since then, the serious threats that are being directed against Israel at present, the dramatic changes that have taken place in the past 61 years, and the Jewish people’s internationally recognized rights to their ancient homeland. This bitter medicine needs to be taken by the people of Israel, it is argued, because it serves the interests of the United States, and in addition, the administration in Washington believes that it is also good for Israel.

For many years the differences between the United States and Israel were discussed in intimate forums and not taken public, in the common realization that venting in public the inevitable differences even among the best of friends would only harm the interests of both countries and give comfort and encouragement to their common enemies. Not since Dwight Eisenhower demanded that David Ben-Gurion withdraw the Israel Defense Forces from the Sinai and the Gaza Strip in 1957 has the White House openly challenged Israel. Now, the administration in Washington has no compunction about publicly airing its displeasure with Israel.

The recent visit of the U.S. vice president and the routine approval during his stay by a local planning body of construction plans in a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem was turned into an “insult to the United States.” It was followed by an angry telephone call by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a subsequent attack on Israel in Clinton’s appearance on U.S. television.

In the interim, soothing words were heard from Washington until Netanyahu’s visit to the White House, where he was duly humiliated. Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist close to the White House, reminded Israel in a recent interview of the generosity of the United States in granting Israel $3 billion annually for military assistance while America contends with a severe economic crisis. What for years was seen in Washington and Jerusalem as assistance that served the interests of both countries is now being depicted as largesse for which Israel needs to express its gratitude by accepting American demands.

The Netanyahu government has chosen to act as if nothing has changed, and that the occasional signs of displeasure coming from Washington can be appeased by minor or temporary Israeli concessions. The result seems to be the opposite. The Israeli government is seen in Washington as disingenuous and attempting to outsmart the White House.

The time has come to stop pretending. Whatever chance that may exist to conduct productive negotiations with Abbas is being hampered by the demands being made on Israel by Washington. They only provide excuses for Abbas to refuse to enter serious negotiations until these demands are met. He cannot be expected to be less of a Palestinian than U.S. President Barack Obama. While objective difficulties exist in any case because of Hamas’ control of Gaza and Abbas’ tenuous position in Judea and Samaria, outside pressure only makes things more difficult. Peace cannot be imposed. There is little doubt that the administration in Washington will learn this lesson sooner or later.

US envoy Mitchell returns to Middle East: BBC

George Mitchell is back in the region but it is not clear when talks will start
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has returned to the region, attempting to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Israeli media say the proximity talks will resume on Wednesday.
However, Palestinian leaders are said to require the backing of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which will not meet until Saturday.
The Palestinian Authority has refused to attend the indirect proximity talks mediated by Mr Mitchell since March.
These were knocked off course by an announcement that Israel had approved plans for new homes in the East Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo during a visit to Israel by US Vice-President Joe Biden. The move caused deep strain in Israeli-US relations. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been stalled since 2008.
Constructive talks
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak.
They spoke for 90 minutes in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
An Israeli government statement said the talks had been “constructive” and had taken place “in a good atmosphere”.
During their meeting, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Mubarak “reviewed Egyptian and international efforts to prepare the ground for the indirect talks aimed at a two-state solution,” the Egyptian news agency Mena said.
The Israeli prime minister’s office said they had discussed “renewing the peace process and other regional and bilateral issues”.
Mr Netanyahu later discussed the peace efforts with US President Barack Obama in a telephone call, officials said.
According to the White House Mr Obama stressed the importance of “substantive” proximity talks and the need for direct contacts to start soon.
Mending ties
The Palestinian Authority’s formal position is that it will not enter direct talks unless Israel completely halts building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
In November, Israel announced a 10-month suspension of new building in the West Bank, under heavy US pressure. But it considers areas within the Jerusalem municipality as its territory and thus not subject to the restrictions.
But reports suggest that an unofficial slowdown of approvals for major projects in East Jerusalem may have been instigated by Mr Netanyahu in an attempt to help mend relations with the US strained by March’s announcement.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. It insists Jerusalem will remain its undivided capital, although Palestinians want to establish their capital in the east of the city.
Nearly half a million Jews live in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, among a Palestinian population of about 2.5 million.
The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

Continue reading May 4, 2010

May 3, 2010

EDITOR: The Pot Calling the Kettle Black…

The report below speaks of the amazing pervasiveness of abuse of Israeli soldiers by their officers. I tend to believe this report, and one can only wonder how much more pervasive is the abuse and torture of the Palestinian population, who do not have an Ombudsman to go to, and whose complaints are, as a matter of course, always dismissed. An army, a country, a culture based on abuse, torture, theft and barbarity.

IDF report reveals serious abuse of soldiers by commanding officers: Haaretz

Annual report of the IDF Ombudsman reveals the army received 6,100 complaints from soldiers, 60% of which were justified.
The annual report of the IDF Ombudsman, which was served to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, has revealed serious cases of mistreatment of soldiers inside the Israel Defense Forces.

The report included cases of abuse and humiliation of IDF soldiers by their commanders and inadequate medical treatment in IDF medical clinics.
The Ombudsman report revealed that 6,100 complaints were lodged by soldiers against their commanders in 2009, a decrease of 400 complaints from 2008. Of the 6,100 complaints lodged, 60 percent of the complaints were found to have merit by the IDF Ombudsman

In one incident cited in the report, a commander in one of the IDF’s combat units attacked a soldier who wasn’t feeling well by forcefully kicking him in the chest. The IDF Ombudsman found that the battalion commander knew of the incident but responded apathetically and only chose to investigate the incident two months after the fact, following inquiries by the IDF Ombudsman.

“Unfortunately, the regiment commander did not take any steps to correct the situation until the office of the Ombudsman intervened. This type of response shows his soldiers weakness and disinterest, and surely isn’t conducive to trusting relations between soldiers and their commanders,” the report read.

Another case revealed a suicidal soldier who told the deputy commander of his company that he was having a hard time in his post, and threatened to harm himself if he wasn’t transferred to a different post. The deputy commander then handed him a knife and said: “Come on, let’s see if you are able to hurt yourself.” The soldier then proceeded to cut his hand with the knife. The Ombudsman condemned the mistreatment of the soldier and said that several other similar incidents occurred.

The report also revealed defective medical services offered to soldiers.  “Unfortunately, the reality on the ground shows that soldiers are made to wait for lengthy periods of time for general and expert doctor appointments,” the report read.

The report found that soldiers typically waited between two to three weeks for a routine checkup, and in cases of emergency, soldiers would wait for many hours.

One combat soldier with a viral infection had to wait three months to see a doctor and four months to receive medication for his infection.

In another incident, a soldier was brought to the military clinic after getting bitten by a yellow scorpion. Even though orders obligate the doctor to refer the patient to the nearest hospital, the doctor instructed the paramedic to give the soldier an infusion and painkillers because the doctor was sleeping and didn’t want to get out of bed.

An IDF spokesperson said in a response that the IDF had received the report and is committed to studying its contents carefully, learning the necessary lessons and to making up for wrongdoings.

Closed Zone: New Animation film

Despite declarations that it has “disengaged” from the Gaza Strip, Israel maintains control of the Strip’s overland border crossings, territorial waters, and air space. This includes substantial, albeit indirect, control of the Rafah Crossing.

During the past 18 months, Israel tightened its closure of Gaza, almost completely restricting the passage of goods and people both to and from the Strip.

These policies punish innocent civilians with the goal of exerting pressure on the Hamas government, violating the rights of 1.5 million people who seek only to live ordinary lives – to be reunited with family, to pursue higher education, to receive quality medical treatment, and to earn a living.

The effects of the closure were particularly harsh during the military operation of Dec. 2008 – Jan. 2009. For three weeks, Gaza residents had nowhere to flee to escape the bombing.

Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement calls on the State of Israel to fully open Gaza’s crossings and to allow the real victims of the closure – 1.5 million human beings – the freedom of movement necessary to realize their dreams and aspirations.

EDITOR: Haaretz and JCall

I have reported few days ago here about JCall, and it is interesting to read Haaretz enthusiastic reception of their call. This is even more interesting in the light of the unstinting support many of those signatories have given Israel over many decades… that many now relaise that the Occupation game is up, and that it is their civic duty to say so, is a measure of the crisis Israel is finding itself in, though it hardly seems to realise this fully.

A welcome Jewish voice: Haaretz Editorial

Like the members of the American Jewish lobby J Street, the people behind JCall don’t believe that automatic support of Israeli policy serves Israel’s true interests.
JCall, a new leftist European Jewish group, released over the weekend a petition signed by more than 3,000 Jews calling for an end to the occupation and Israeli expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The signatories, including important French philosophers Bernard-Henri Levy and Alain Finkielkraut, say the settlement policy undermines prospects for peace with the Palestinians based on a two-state solution. They express fear for the future of Israel as a Jewish, democratic and ethical state and are concerned by the global delegitimization campaign against Israel.

Like the members of the American Jewish lobby J Street, the people behind JCall don’t believe that automatic support of Israeli policy – which advocates, for instance, Jewish construction in East Jerusalem – serves Israel’s true interests.
Just as there was criticism of J Street in the United States, the veteran Jewish organizations in Europe have borne down on the new initiative, arguing that the petition will serve Israel’s enemies. And just as Israel’s Information and Diaspora Ministry expects Israeli tourists to defend the government’s settlement policy on their trips abroad, the critics are demanding that intellectuals and ethical people in the Diaspora should be disingenuous.

It is to be hoped that the Israeli government does not join the attack on JCall. During the latest crisis with the U.S. administration, Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu spared no effort in getting Jewish public figures like Elie Wiesel to join the battle against pressure for a construction freeze in East Jerusalem.

Those who recruit Jews from the right to support their policies must honor the right of the Jewish left to express its views. The contribution of Jewish peace activists in Europe is a suitable response to the damage that members of the Netanyahu government, mainly Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, are doing to Israel’s interests there.

The violent conflict between Israel and its neighbors and the suspension of peace talks have contributed to Diaspora Jewish communities’ increasing alienation from Israel. That trend is particularly noticeable among the youth.

The fact that thousands of Jews around the world, including prominent intellectuals, are advocating an end to nearly 43 years of malignant occupation is welcome news. Let’s hope that the voices of Israel’s friends in Paris, London and Brussels will be heard in Jerusalem.

Strenger than Fiction / Jewish liberals from all nations, unite: Haaretz

Diaspora Jews around the world are realizing the time has come to reject the right’s dictate that being pro-Israel means that you need to support the policies of Israeli governments, no matter what they do.
By Carlo Strenger
The failure of the Camp David summit in 2000 and the onset of the Second Intifada have in stages swung the pendulum of Israeli politics to the right to the current government that includes Avigdor Lieberman – one of the most anti-democratic ministers Israel has ever had, who is moving Israel ever closer to the brink of total international isolation – and the Shas Party whose main impact is to push construction in East Jerusalem and the settlements.

This has been reflected in an amazing distortion in the Jewish voice from the Diaspora, primarily the U.S., in the last decade. Judging from the media presence, you might think that most Jews are right-leaning and support Israel’s settlement policy and foot-dragging over ending the occupation. But this has never been true: most Diaspora Jews, including most of American Jewry, is committed to liberalism.

Now the pendulum is swinging back. Diaspora Jews around the world are beginning to realize that the time has come to reject the right’s dictate that being pro-Israel means that you need to support the policies of Israeli governments, no matter what they do; that the Jewish right represents a small minority of the Jewish people. Caring about friends and family doesn’t mean that we do not criticize them, when we believe that they are harming themselves. In caring for somebody’s wellbeing, we are often required to make clear that they are going the wrong way. Hence Liberal Jews in the Diaspora firmly stand by Israel while trenchantly criticizing the occupation and settlements.

This week a delegation of J Street representatives visited Israel. They were hosted by President Shimon Peres, and they heard from central Israeli politicians like Labor MK Matan Vilnai and from opposition leader Tzipi Livni that ending the occupation is Israel’s most urgent task to safeguard it as the democratic state of the Jewish people. The Netanyahu government’s attempt to brand J Street as outside the legitimate Jewish discourse has failed, and finally, after refusing to attend J Street’s first convention, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren met them a few weeks ago.

The movement initiated by J Street is now joined by the European JCall, which includes leading Jewish intellectuals like Bernard-Henri Levy and Alain Finkielkraut, and which will present its message to the European Parliament today. Their name is short for the Jewish European Call to Reason. This development is doubly important: first, because it gives a voice to the majority of European Jews, who, while caring for Israel, are liberal in orientation. Second: because its leaders are severely critical of Europe’s anti-Israeli left, as shown in Bernard-Henri Levy’s Left in Dark Times and Alain Finkielkraut’s The Defeat of Reason.

There are those on the European (and sometimes on the American) left that have moved into a simplistic, black-and-white worldview governed by what I call SLES, short for “Standard Left Explanatory System.” SLES is a remainder of the guilt that many Europeans feel about their colonial past. Its algorithm is very simple: always support the underdog, particularly if non-Western. If the underdog behaves immorally (9/11; 7/7; Hamas hiding weaponry and fighters in civilian buildings), always accuse the West, and preferably Jews, for having pushed them to do this. Never demand non-Western groups to take responsibility for their actions, but instead masochistically look for ways to make the West responsible.

The new Jewish Liberal voice refuses to give in to the pressures of the Jewish right to support Israel’s actions when if they are wrong-headed, immoral and destructive. It is critical of Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestinians territories after 43 years, and condemns the ongoing settlement construction.

At the same time it refuses, adamantly, to cave in to the masochistic tendency of SLES to look for Western culprits only, and systematically exposes anti-Semitic undercurrents in some of the anti-Israeli rhetoric. It strongly supports Palestinians’ right to a state of their own in which they can live in dignity and freedom, but it doesn’t let them off the hook for their dreadful mistakes, starting with the rejection of the UN partition agreement in 1947 and ending with electing the explicitly anti-Semitic Hamas into power in 2005.

It firmly believes that respecting Palestinians means to hold them responsible for their actions and consistently unmasks the tendency of the Arab world to accuse Israel of its own shortcomings and backwardness; and it never loses sight of the dangers in radical Islam, while seeking cooperation with moderate and progressive Arabs and Muslims.

The new Jewish Liberals are characterized by what philosopher Susan Neiman, in a wonderful book has called Moral Clarity: a combination of moral principles that are not to be compromised combined with insistence that reason rather than religious belief or dogmatic ideology must be the guide in making up our minds on questions of fact.

I predict the new Jewish liberal voice will become the predominant presence in Jewish discourse and politics of the Diaspora. Having suffered from irrational and evil persecution, prejudice and hatred, we Jews know how important the principles of Liberalism are, and it is time for us to apply them everywhere, and of course, first and foremost, in Israel.

It is now time for Israel’s liberals, who all but disappeared politically and have left public space except for a few enclaves to the right, to pick up the lead of the Diaspora, to make our voices forcefully heard. While being intransigent in opposing Israel’s occupation, the expansion of settlement and the disenfranchisement of Israeli Arabs, we must not fall into the trap of SLES. We must make clear to the electorate, that we do not just see Palestinians as victims, but as partners to be held responsible for their actions.

We must no longer let the likes of Avigdor Lieberman, whose worldview is illiberal, be the face of our country to the world. While holding the memory of the Holocaust sacred, we must refuse its politicization by Lieberman and Benjamin Netanyahu. While not blinding ourselves to the dangers of Islamic radicalism and Iran’s striving for hegemony, we must reject the fear-mongering of the right that has no positive message and no vision for Israel’s future.

Netanyahu has said to his Likud Party that they are supposed to be liberal and democratic. We must hold him to his word and demand that he drop his illiberal coalition partners, and form a government truly committed to liberal principles, with Kadima and Labor as his main partners. And we must demand of the Labor party to finally live up to its values, and pressure Netanyahu to move Israel towards moral clarity that is at the core of the Jewish Liberal vision.

Continue reading May 3, 2010

May 2, 2010

EDITOR: Storm Clouds Gather Around Continuous Israeli Intransigence

More and more are now declaring their stand against Israeli atrocities: countries, organisations, companies and individual artists and intellectuals, with many more under moral and political pressure to join the movement to end Israeli Apartheid, occupation and injustice. This week, Gil Scott-Heron was only the latest artist to announce that he will not play in Israel. Now Volvo and Caterpillar are under intense pressure to stop trading with Israel. 3000 European Jewish intellectuals called today on the European Parliament to stop supporting Israel automatically, and UC student Governors have called upon the university to disinvest from Israeli companies and other trading or supporting the occupation. The international pressure is building up against Israeli atrocities, and is likely to further intensify; the US is reportedly acting towards passing a UN resolution towards a nuclear-free Middle East, something Israel will fight tooth and nail against, as they would against any of Obama’s limp attempts to bring about the defunct two-state solution.

While this is all excellent news, it is really a very dangerous moment; Israel is now preparing its response to this pressure, and it is the normative one – a military strike of enormous damage and destruction, against the ‘usual suspects’. Currently, the targets discussed are Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and now also Iran. While such a reaction to political pressure sounds (and is) criminally misguided, it is the only type of reaction Israel is used to, and is apt at, or feels secure with. The time of great danger is upon us.

Caterpillar equipment used in extrajudicial killing near Hebron: The Electronic Intifada

Press release, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 29 April 2010

The following press release was issued by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights on 26 April 2010:

On Monday 26 April 2010, Israeli occupation forces killed a Palestinian man, Ali Ismael Ali Swaiti, 45, in Beit Awwa in the West Bank district of Hebron, after demolishing a house while he was inside. Israeli occupation forces claim that Ali Swaiti had been wanted for several years. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns this crime — which constitutes an extrajudicial execution — and calls upon the international community to work towards bringing to trial those Israeli politicians and commanders suspected of committing war crimes.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR and eyewitness testimony, Israeli occupation forces entered Beit Awwa town in the far south of Hebron at approximately 3:00am on Monday 26 April 2010, supported by military armored vehicles, a bulldozer and a Caterpillar digging vehicle. Israeli forces surrounded the house in which Ali Swaiti was located, using sound bombs. The home belongs to Mahmoud Abdul Aziz Swaiti and is located in Khellet al-Foulah, in the north of the town. During the operation, Israeli soldiers broke into numerous other houses in the area and turned them into observation points and firing posts.

After some minutes, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) evacuated at gunpoint the family living in the targeted one-story house as well as a family living in another two-story house, which belongs to the family of Ahmed Abdul Aziz Swaiti. The two families were detained outdoors for some time before they were taken to an adjacent house belonging to Abdul Jalil Swaiti. They were detained there with other families, all of whom were interrogated regarding the whereabouts of the targeted person.

At approximately 5:40am, an Israeli bulldozer began to destroy the fences surrounding the targeted house. It progressed towards the house and started to demolish it, but it retreated as it was fired at from inside the house. Israeli forces stationed in the neighboring houses opened fire at the house for 15 minutes from all sides before an explosion took place inside the house. Residents of the area reported that the explosion resulted from the shelling of the house.

At approximately 6:00am, the Caterpillar vehicle began to drive into and destroy the fences of the targeted house. After that, a digging vehicle continued demolishing the house, and then retreated to allow the renewed advance of the bulldozer and the search for the body of Swaiti.

At approximately 7:00am, the bulldozer lifted the body of Swaiti out of the rubble and dropped it onto a road close to the demolished house before moving it another 10 meters away. At approximately 7:30am, an Israeli soldier fired at least two shots at the body of Swaiti from a distance of three meters. At approximately 8:00am, Israeli occupation forces left the homes in which they had taken position.

In the meantime, Palestinian civilians had left their homes and many of them hurried towards the area of the attack. They carried Swaiti’s body to take it indoors. However, some people clashed with Israeli forces as they withdrew. Israeli occupation forces fired at those people using rubber-coated metal bullets, wounding five Palestinians including a boy and a young woman. The wounded are as follows:

1. Mohammed Mahmoud Masalmah, 23, wounded by a bullet to the head;
2. Baha Mohammed Akimi al-Amareen, 20, wounded by two bullets to the legs;
3. Hussein Yusuf Swaiti, 18, wounded by a bullet to the leg;
4. Hammam Ismael Masalmah, 17, wounded by two bullets to the legs; and
5. Asma Murshed Swaiti, 19, wounded by a bullet to the right shoulder.

The IOF spokesperson said that Swaiti had been wanted by the Israeli Security Service for eight years, as he was held responsible for carrying out a number of shooting attacks against Israeli targets near Hebron, including opening fire near the Ethna-Tarqumiya intersection on 26 April 2004, i.e. exactly six years prior to yesterday’s killing of Swaiti. The said attack resulted in the death of an Israeli soldier and the injury of two others.

PCHR reiterates its condemnation of such acts and:

1. Confirms that this act constitutes part of a pattern of Israeli war crimes perpetrated in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), which reflect Israeli occupation forces disregard for the lives of Palestinians and for the requirements of international law.

2. Reiterates its condemnation of the illegal policy of extrajudicial executions carried out by IOF against Palestinian activists. It also confirms that this policy raises tension in the area and increases the likelihood of civilian victims among the Palestinian population.

3. Calls upon the international community to immediately intervene to stop these crimes which constitute violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.

4. Calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to fulfill their obligations under Article 1 of the Convention to ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances, and their obligation under Article 146 to search for and prosecute those responsible for committing grave breaches of the Convention. PCHR also calls on the High Contracting Parties to uphold their responsibilities as signatories to the protocol Additional to the Convention, such as breaches, which constitute war crimes according to Article 147 of the convention.

3,000 European Jewish intellectuals urge end to Israeli settlements: Haaretz

A new leftist European Jewish group, JCall, has written a letter to be delivered Sunday to the European Parliament calling for a cessation of what it calls systematic support for Israeli government decisions.
JCall, which describes itself as “the European J Street” and is to be officially launched Sunday with the presentation of the letter, has raised a storm with its call to stop construction in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem.
The letter is signed by some 3,000 Jewish intellectuals, among them philosophers Bernard Henri-Levy and Alain Finkielkraut, considered some of Israel’s strongest defenders among French intellectuals. Signatories also include Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the student protests in the 1960s and now a member of the European Parliament, as well as other Jewish members of the European Parliament.

The letter calls occupation and settlements “morally and politically wrong,” noting that they “feed the unacceptable delegitimization process that Israel currently faces abroad.”
According to Prof. Zeev Sternhell, “The French Jewish left has decided that the official institutions do not represent most French Jews, and following the example of J Street, have decided that the time has come to do the same thing in Europe.” He supports the letter but hasn’t signed it.

Richard Prasquier, the chairman of CRIF, the committee representing French Jewish organizations, harshly criticized the document, saying that the petition will serve Israel’s enemies.
The document calls on the European Union and the United States to pressure both parties “and help them achieve a reasonable and rapid solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict.”
It says that systematic support of Israeli government policy is dangerous.

Meanwhile, Israel has repeatedly protested that the PA is using money from donor countries to promote a ban on products from the settlements.
A second meeting of the Knesset Economics Committee on the matter is to take place today. In the first meeting, Foreign Ministry official Yael Rabia-Tzadok told the MKs that the campaign to confiscate goods manufactured in settlements has moved ahead since the new economics minister in the PA government has taken office, Hassan Abu-Labda. She said PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad supports the campaign

Volvo equipment: Israel’s weapons to destroy al-Walaja homes: The Electronic Intifada

Adri Nieuwhof, 29 April 2010

Palestinians in al-Walaja demonstrate against Israel's wall.

On 16 April, approximately 100 Palestinian villagers and internationals walked towards the construction site of Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank village of al-Walaja, four kilometers northwest of Bethlehem. When the protesters were leaving the village, four Israeli army jeeps and one police vehicle entered and surrounded a Palestinian home. At least 40 persons, including women and children, were trapped for two hours.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces raided several other homes, detaining three young men for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli forces. During the raids al-Walaja was closed off, and soldiers prevented the media from entering the area.

Six days later, Israeli bulldozers were working full speed deeper inside the village’s lands, leaving destruction in their wake. Ma’an news agency reported that border guards and soldiers had imposed a curfew early in the morning. A cameraman was denied entry to the village by the army, according to representatives of the village’s Popular Committee.

The following day approximately 200 villagers, together with a few internationals, came together for yet another demonstration. They walked from the mosque, which has an Israeli-imposed demolition order against it, to the lands which were bulldozed the previous day. Standing on the bulldozed lands, representatives of the village held speeches calling for more demonstrations. Youths used boulders to block the road used by the Israeli bulldozer operators.

A day later, approximately 50 Palestinians and internationals managed to stop the work of the bulldozers for several hours. The Israeli soldiers had to violently drag the villagers away one by one.

History of injustices
The residents of al-Walaja have protested the confiscation and demolition of their property for many years. The Israeli settlements of Har Gilo and Gilo, established in the 1970s, are built on land confiscated from the village. While Israeli forces try to silence the protesters with harsh measures, Volvo and Caterpillar equipment is used by the Israeli forces in the illegal construction of the wall on the village’s land.

The old village of al-Walaja was occupied and destroyed by Zionist forces in October 1948 and its 1,200 Palestinian residents expelled. The 1948 Armistice line passed through the southern lands of the village and while most of the villagers fled to Jordan and Bethlehem, some villagers stayed on the lands of the village that were unoccupied at the time and eventually rebuilt a new town.

The remains of the old village of al-Walaja are two kilometers outside the new town, on the western side of the armistice line between Israel and the West Bank. According to Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, a few stone houses still stand on the old village site. Today the old village of al-Walaja is used by Israeli settlers for picnicking and bathing.

Following the June 1967 war, Israel annexed the rest of al-Walaja’s lands, bringing them under the authority of the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality. The villagers did not receive the right to live in Jerusalem, however, and they live under constant threat of expulsion. And while the villagers of al-Walaja are not allowed to build on their own lands, the settlement of Har Gilo is expanding.

After the Oslo accords of 1993, al-Walaja was designated “Area C,” giving Israel full military and administrative control. As a consequence, villagers who want to build a house on their own land have to ask permission from Israel. Israel denied 94 percent of the building permit requests of Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank from 2000 to 2007, according to Peace Now.

Villagers are facing increased pressure from the Israeli occupation forces to leave their land. The wall which is currently under construction will surround the village from all sides, isolating the villagers completely from their land, East Jerusalem and the old village.

Volvo equipment destroying homes
At the end of the 1980s Israel started to demolish Palestinian homes in al-Walaja and residents had to pay fines for their “illegally”-built homes. Since the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada, Israeli forces demolished more than 24 houses in the village, according to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem.

On 18 March two house owners in al-Walaja found military orders in Hebrew on the front doors of their homes. The orders concern the demolition of the two houses because they are located too close to the path along which the wall will be built. The following day, volunteers from the Stop the Wall Campaign, the YMCA and other international volunteers gathered with the owners of the houses under demolition in order to show their solidarity.

ActiveStills photographer Anne Paq witnessed Volvo equipment being used to destroy a home in the nearby village of al-Khader. Two days earlier she had taken pictures of Volvo and Caterpillar equipment working between the road and the fence of Har Gilo settlement, just a few meters away from Palestinian houses in al-Walaja. There was an Israeli police car parked next to the works. When Paq asked what they were building, they refused to answer.

Two years ago The Electronic Intifada first reported the use of Volvo equipment in Israel’s violations of international law in the occupied West Bank. So far the company has taken no action to investigate the use of its equipment in Israeli violations of Palestinian rights.
Volvo Group’s vice president of media relations and corporate news, Marten Wikforss, wrote in response to The Electronic Intifada’s report: “we do not have any control over the use of our products, other than to affirm in our business activities a Code of Conduct that decries unethical behavior.”

While the villagers of al-Walaja steadfastly continue their protest against the construction of the wall, the confiscation of their land and the destruction of their property, Israeli forces are increasing the oppression. Some houses have been rebuilt three or four times. Director of the Joint Advocacy Initiative of the East Jerusalem YMCA and YWCA, Nidal Abu Zuluf, explained: “Israel’s current repressive policies aim to prevent acts of popular resistance. They don’t want the media and internationals to be around.”
Perhaps neither does Volvo, as its equipment continues to be photographed destroying Palestinian homes and violating Palestinian rights.

Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland.

Continue reading May 2, 2010

May 1, 2010

Aprtheid, by Carlos Latuff

Ran HaCohen, Israel, a New Decade: Antiwar

By Ran HaCohen, Antiwar.com – 10 April 2010

I turn on the television just before dinner. Prime-time. An Israeli series: “The Pilots’ Wives” (“Meet the Women behind Our Heroes”, said the promo), interrupted occasionally by a commercial depicting a soldier missing his mother’s soup (“disclaimer: the actor is not a soldier”). After the series, a short public service broadcast showing a group of young men, each in turn boasting his military service, until they notice one of them – a violent zoom-in – keeps quiet; the message is clear. Then the news, with at least one public relations item pushed by the military: “teen-age girls eager to become fighters”, “a remote-control watch-and-shoot system on the Gaza fence”, “a unique glimpse into a top-secret air-force base” or the like. Not to mention the real news, be it about the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Iran, or even the billions of terrorists disguised as miserable African refugees allegedly waiting on the Egyptian border to inundate Israel: all these issues, and many more, are predominantly managed and framed by the military.
The military service has been made a major issue in Israeli public discourse. Not that the army is short of soldiers: on the contrary, the number of recruits requesting “to serve their country” in combat units is at record level. Nevertheless, uniting the nation around the military as the ultimate good is a goal in itself, especially when it implicitly excludes the Israeli-Palestinians, who are not conscripted. Thus the stage and screen actor Itay Tiran was removed from Israel’s official propaganda website when someone noticed he had not served; And, following the Zeitgeist, “national left-wing” playwright Shmuel Hasfari said he would refuse to work with Tiran “just like with any murderer or rapist.”
Most Israeli artists are careful not to express themselves critically about Israel’s policies, definitely not to say a word against the country’s deep militarism and racism; Scander Kobti, co-director of Ajami, nominated for an Academy Award in Best Foreign Language Film, caused a scandal just for saying he didn’t “represent Israel” in Hollywood (“I cannot represent a state that doesn’t represent me”, the Israeli-Palestinian claimed) – even that is more than the selectively sensitive Israeli ear can bear. Every Israeli is expected to be an ambassador abroad – no wonder that in a highly popular Israeli reality show just a few years ago, candidates competed on who would best represent Israeli propaganda abroad (a former Israeli army spokesman was among the judges). Remember it next time you talk to an Israeli: especially outside Israel, you might hear not the truth, but the official state propaganda. Though many Israelis sincerely believe the two are identical.
The deep racism of the Israeli psyche is on the rise. The 1990s, at least in hindsight, marked some liberalization of the public discourse; the first decade of this century crushed it, and now the mildly critical, left-liberal discourse hardly exists in the mainstream. No wonder the liberal left has just 3 seats out of 120 in the Knesset; all the other parties are various shades of right-wing, far right, or fascism (except the small outcast “Arab” parties). The racist mindset can be observed in the most trivial daily situations, like my elderly neighbor, when told I saw someone peeping at my window the other night, instinctively reacting with a single question: “Have you seen whether it was a Jew or an Arab?”
Ever more often, when I mention the Netherlands, I am told that all the Dutch were anti-Semitic and collaborated with the Nazis; my already ritualized reaction – that my grandparents and my mother owe their lives to Dutch Christians who risked their own lives to save them – is met with a shrug, expressing something like “don’t challenge my precious prejudice” or “don’t be so naïve, we all know everybody hates us.” And this is not just the case of Holland: from Sweden to Ethiopia, from Turkey to Argentina, no matter how Jewish-friendly (and Israel-friendly) a nation has been historically, Israelis are encouraged to view all non-Jews (“Goyim” is the pejorative term used uncritically by most Hebrew speakers) as inherently anti-Semitic and therefore anti-Israeli. Every criticism of Israel’s policy is automatically dismissed as yet another incarnation of an endemic, incurable hatred of Jews. Just like anti-communism was the national religion of the USA during the Cold War, the fanatic belief in an eternal world-wide anti-Semitic conspiracy is the true national cult of Israel. The voices portraying even President Obama as anti-Semitic are just one undertone in an ear-deafening choir of incitement against every dissenting voice, within or without.
The younger generation knows little else. How could it? As the Jerusalem Prof. Nurit Peled-Elhanan shows, Israeli schoolbooks – their text, maps, and pictures – are inherently racist, especially against Arabs; but whereas the racism was sophisticatedly disguised in the 1990s schoolbooks, in the last decade it’s overt and explicit. Arabs are consistently represented as primitive, threatening, and untrustworthy; the Palestinian narrative is either distorted and denied, or simply ignored. The Occupation, says Peled-Elhanan, is never mentioned, the Green Line does not exist; many Israelis no longer know what it means, let alone where it is.
Even the language retreats: if the term “occupied territories” sounded rather neutral just a few years ago, when even Ariel Sharon used the term “occupation”, now the sickening euphemism “liberated territories” has made a comeback. At the same time, hypocrisy and double-standards are cultivated: right-wing parties outside Israel are regularly termed “extremist”, “xenophobic” or “racist”, terms never applied to much more extreme Israeli parties. Official Israel is shocked and outraged by naming a street in Ramallah after a Palestinian terrorist Ayyash (assassinated by Israel in 1996); At the same time, the Israeli far-right leader Ze’evi (assassinated by Palestinians in 2001), whose main political platform was ethnic cleansing (“transfer”) of all Palestinians, has several streets, three promenades, two settlements, a highway, a bridge, and an army base named after him, and a law to commemorate him and even educate future generations with his “legacy.”
Is It Too Late?
This is the present atmosphere in Israel – one of a rising, violent nationalist self-righteousness, especially among the younger generation. A recent poll shows that while 35% of Israelis over the age of 30 said they would vote for right-wing parties, this number almost doubled for youths up to the age of 29, and stood at 61%.
Does this mean there is no chance for peace? A difficult question. Despite all of the above, polls also show 60% support among the general public for removing the majority of settlements. As always, this 60% majority of Israeli Jews overwhelmingly believes it is a minority – only a third of respondents said such an evacuation had the support of the Israeli majority. This last figure – the majority being persuaded it is actually a minority – is one of the greatest achievements of the official Israeli brain-wash, and has been consistent for many years.
One can therefore understand Zeev Sternhell’s call on Obama’s Washington to implement an imposed solution: “Were Israeli society prepared to pay the price for peace, its government would not be fanning the flames of conflict […] The conclusion is that […] the only solution is an imposed one”, writes the prominent Israeli political scientist. This is no rosy scenario either, needless to say. In clear imitation of Nazi calls to try the German politicians who signed the “humiliating” Treaty of Versailles (1919), the Israeli right-wing has already demanded to “put Oslo criminals on trial” for signing the Oslo Accords. One can recall European history and imagine how Israeli fascists would react to an “imposed peace.” Luckily, they are just a minority; but given the current atmosphere in Israel, as well as the demographic advantage of the right-wing (Orthodox Jews have much more children), it might not remain a minority for long. Time, if there still is any, is running out.

EDITOR: Another success for the BDS camp!

Gil Scott-Heron has at last joined those who boycott Israel, and refuses to go and sing there. He joins tens of committed artists, who, unlike Paul McCartney and Leonard Cohen, have chosen to takea moral, political stand on Israel and its barbaric occupation of Palestine.

Gil Scott-Heron boycotts Tel Aviv, sends powerful message to Israelis: The Only Democracy?

April 30th, 2010, by Jesse Bacon
By Noam Sheizaf
This is a translation of my article regarding the cancellation of spoken words artist Gil-Scott Heron’s gig in Tel Aviv. His show was scheduled for late May, but it was later removed from Scot-Heron’s site and though there was no official statement yet, it seems to have been canceled for political reasons.
The original Hebrew version of the article was posted Wednesday on the web magazine The Other.
A small commotion erupted this week among the public that appreciates black music in Israel upon learning that ground-breaking artist, poet and musician, Gil Scott-Heron apparently canceled his Tel Aviv show for political reasons. There was no official statement; However, following protests of some of his pro-Palestinian fans during a show in London on the weekend, Scott-Heron announced from the stage that he would not be coming to Israel. The show, planed for May 25, was removed from the line up on his site.
Scott-Heron is a political man. He came out against US presidents, preached against nuclear energy, and asked the new generation of Hip-Hop artists to write meaningful lyrics rather than merely attach words to music. His most famous piece, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” is considered the anthem of alternative culture. I assume these and similar reasons made Scott-Heron appeal to a couple of hundred Israelis. The only surprise is their ability to make a U-turn the moment that protest was directed at us.
In the last few days, Israelis who awaited the show in Tel Aviv filled Scott Heron’s website and Facebook pages dedicated to the issue with angry comments. The arguments were of the type common to such occurrences: one shouldn’t mix music and politics (”music brings people together; politics pulls them apart”); one must distinguish between the government of Israel and the citizens; it is hypocrisy and double standards to boycott Israel when there are so many more horrible governments and deadlier regimes in the world.
But beyond the usual arguments, an offended tone sneaked in: “Why should we, music lovers, who love GSH also because of the place we live in, should be blamed for the occupation or apartheid?” writes one Israeli on Facebook, and added elsewhere, “to cancel the show, it is to spit in the face of the leftists in the crowd.”
“In Israel there is a true music scene,” comments another Israeli on Scott Heron’s site. “For me, music represents peace and love, not war and hate. If you come to Israel you will see it with your own eyes”. Avi Pitshon wrote in Haaretz in relation to a similar incident, in which a few Israelis joined a call to the Pixies and Metallica to skip playing in Israel, “the radical left cannot hurt the powerful, those who shape policy, and is therefore trying to hit whoever is under the spotlight: music loving citizens.”
It seems that what hurts Pitshon and the other Israelis most is not the anti-Israeli stance of Scott Heron and others like him, but the choice to specifically boycott them, the public who is for peace, loves Soul and Hip-Hop, and sees itself more in touch with Detroit and Chicago than the Tomb of Rachel and Elkana. After all, the voice of these embittered music lovers didn’t rise when a pretty effective boycott was organized in the EU against produce from the settlements: the settlers are the bad guys in this story. But to boycott us, us who took part in three Peace Now demonstrations and two events commemorating Rabin? What is the world coming to?
The Israeli left (and yours truly included) is deeply longing to be part of some global communion. People here imagine themselves through American culture, Italian cuisine and French novels, as if we were born to a bourgeois family on Paris’ Left Bank and our life project is to confront the feelings of alienation inherent in human existence. Tel Aviv and its suburbs are arranged with their face towards the West and a wall separating their back from all the turmoil in the East: the settlers in the territories, the Ultra-Orthodox in Jerusalem, and also these Palestinians. The occupation is such a boring and tedious story, the making of a stupid government and wicked right-wingers. Clearly, we are not part of this madness.
A worldview so detached leads to many disappointments. So we are shocked to discover that the Palestinians hate us just as much as the hate the right-wingers, we are insulted when the reception clerk in a Spanish hotel lets a curse out behind our back, and cannot understand why an old rapper, who has seen a few things in his life, would tell us that, on second thought, Tel Aviv doesn’t suit him right now. What the hell? We blow a fuse. What’s the connection between the Barbie Club [a Tel Aviv nightclub] and the territories? After all, they are at least a 20 minutes car ride away!
To the credit of the Israeli Right one should say that it is much more consistent and well argued. From the Right’s perspective, these conflicts with the world are the price for our clinging to parts of our historical homeland and our survival in a hostile region. The Right doesn’t try to evade taking responsibility for sitting on top of Palestinians, and if someone, whether Obama or Scott Heron, doesn’t like it, there is no choice but to bite the bullet.
In contrast, “the enlightened camp” is busy with the endless theatrical performance of their moral difficulties, whose real purpose is to create a barrier between them and all those action for which they refuse to take responsibility. Thus, when the order arrives, the leftist climbs into the tank without a second thought, but later he will do an anguished film about it for the Cannes festival. Thus the obsessive persecution of settlers. Thus Tel Aviv behaves as if it were a Mediterranean suburb of London while in a spitting distance from it eastward and southward lies an immense jail holding millions of people without rights for over half a century.
The self-pity tops itself with the absurd claim that such cancellations will benefit the occupation, because they would discourage those most in favor of two states solution. As if the role the world is to caress Tel Aviv’s residents’ back until they draw the courage and convince the right, to please stop building villas on the hills of Samaria and abstain from kicking Palestinians out of their houses in East Jerusalem. Beyond the fact that this method has been completely discredited by history–the Israeli Left doesn’t even convince itself anymore–the theory doesn’t hold water: excited or depressed, these thousands of peace and love and music lovers do not show up in Bil’in or Sheikh Jarrah, whereas the few dozens of human rights activists who do go there are begging the world for a little international pressure to save Israel from itself.
A few years ago, the dynamics surrounding Roger Waters (ex Pink Floyd) visit’s to Israel recalls somewhat the current case. Waters didn’t boycott, but he said a few words about peace and ending the occupation. Immediately, a few of the “enlightened camp” ordered him to focus on the guitar and stop lecturing us. There is something really bizarre with our ability to sing about another brick in the wall while forgetting about the miserable Farmers whose fields are behind our wall. (As it is hard to understand Israelis who return from Berlin with “an original stone from the wall” when the improved local version stands for free in our living room.) Considering the deep disconnect between the Israelis and the protest anthems that they are humming, it seems that Scott-Heron did us a favor by reminding us that in a place where pregnant women give birth at checkpoints and people are locked in their houses, even music doesn’t cross borders.

Continue reading May 1, 2010