Please do not believe that David Grossamn is the thing itself, as far as activism in Israel is concerned. Grossman is, at bottom (and top) an Israeli, Zionist nationalist. He has even backed the war against Lebanon in 2006, in which his own son, one of the murderous troops, was killed. Only after some time he started thinking that maybe this war was not such an excellent idea. Of course, the death of his sone has given him a saint’s hallow, and one cannot say anything against him in some circles, not just in Israel.
The interview below has all the hallmarks of a naive groupie – Rachel Cook is so loving, admiring, protective, that she manages to get quite a few details wrong, even the name of Grossman’s wife, which she calls “Machal” (her name is Michal). She obviously does not read and speak Hebrew, knows little of the conflict, and is too admiring to ever question Grossman’s positions, not to mention criticising them. She does a good job of selling his new book as the Tolstoy of our time, which makes me doubt that she has actually read Tolstoy… If Grossman is the best there is, then Palestinians can only hope for God’s help…
The Israeli writer discusses his novel To the End of the Land, a memorial to his son who was killed while serving in the army, and why he remains an opponent of his country’s policy towards the Palestinians
Rachel Cooke
Israeli author David Grossman photographed for the Observer in Jerusalem. Photograph: Ahikam Seri/Panos Pictures
In May 2003, David Grossman, one of Israel’s most celebrated novelists, began writing a new book. It was to be about what the Israelis euphemistically call “the Situation”, which was a little odd because, for the past decade, he’d carefully avoided writing about politics, in his stories, if not his journalism. It was not just that he’d long felt that almost anything he could say had already been said by one side or the other. There was the danger that such a story, even in his deft hands, would be creaky and polemical. Now, though, he felt suddenly that he couldn’t not write about it. Grossman’s eldest son, Yonatan, was six months from completing his military service and his younger son, Uri, was 18 months from beginning it. His feelings about this – in Israel, men serve three years – were so acute, it seemed they would push the pen over the paper for him.
The story came quickly. It would be about a middle-aged woman, Ora, whose son, Ofer, only just released from army service, has voluntarily returned to the frontline for an offensive against one of Israel’s many enemies. Ora, having moved from celebration to renewed fearfulness in a matter of hours, is in danger of losing her mind. She has no idea how she will get through the next weeks or months. Then, in a fit of magical thinking, it comes to her. She will mount a pre-emptive strike of her own. She will simply go away, absent herself from her home and her life. That way, she reasons, she will not be there when the army “notifiers” come to tell her of her son’s death. And if she is not there, perhaps he will not die. After all, how can a person be dead if his mother isn’t at home to receive the news of it?
Grossman started writing and as he did, he, too, indulged in a little magical thinking. He had the feeling – or perhaps it was just a fervent hope – that the novel would keep Uri safe. Every time Uri came home on leave, they would discuss the story, what was new in the characters’ lives. “What did you do to them this week?” Uri used to ask. He also fed his father useful military details. This went on for a long time and it seemed for a while as if the charm was working. But on 12 July 2006, following Hezbollah attacks on Israeli soldiers on patrol near the Lebanese border, war broke out. Over the course of the next 34 days, 165 Israelis (121 of them soldiers), an estimated 500 Hezbollah fighters and 1,191 Lebanese civilians were killed.
Grossman was terrified for his son, a tank commander, but he was not, at first, opposed to the war. Though a determined lefty as far as Palestine goes – he is against the occupation of Palestinian territories – he believed that Israel had a right to defend itself against Hezbollah which, unlike the majority of Palestinians, is committed solely to destroying Israel. As the weeks went on, however, he began to think that Israel should show more restraint. At the beginning of August, together with two other great Israeli writers, Amos Oz and AB Yehoshua, Grossman appeared at a press conference in Tel Aviv, demanding that the government negotiate a ceasefire. “We had a right to go to war,” he said. “But things got complicated… I believe that there is more than one course of action available.” He did not mention that his own son was on the frontline. It was not relevant. He would have felt exactly the same had Uri been safely at home.
The Israeli government eventually accepted a UN-brokered ceasefire which came into effect on 14 August. But this was too late for Grossman and his family. On 12 August, in the dying hours of the war, Uri, who was just 20 years old, was killed when his tank was hit by a rocket; he and his crew, who were killed with him, were trying to rescue soldiers from another tank. The notifiers came to Grossman’s house at 2.40am. He heard the voice over the intercom, and he knew what was coming. Between his bedroom and the front door, he decided: “That’s it – life’s over.” But the strange thing is, it was not. The Grossmans buried Uri; his father’s simple but piercing eulogy was reprinted in newspapers around the world, including the Observer; and then the family sat shiva (a period of mourning during which time a Jewish family receives visitors).
The day after the shiva ended, Grossman returned to his book. “I went back to it for an hour,” he says, surprise registering on his face even now. “Then I had to come back home. But the next day, I added 10 minutes, and the day after that, another ten. Yes, it was hard. I was going straight to the place that frightened me most. On the other hand, it was the only possible place for me.” The result – To the End of the Land – was published in Israel in 2008 and arrives here, in the most beautiful translation, this week. What can I tell you about this book? I’m not sure. Only that I loved it. And that it tears at your heart. And that when I heard someone comparing Grossman with Tolstoy, and his novel with War and Peace, I did not scoff.
It is blazing hot in Jerusalem and, as usual, the city is a knot: tight with anger, cinched with frustration. The traffic is so heavy, it takes a taxi 20 minutes or more to move a single kilometre, but walk to your destination, as I’ve just done, and your dress will be sopping wet, the straps of your sandals will have flayed your feet like whips. Forget the holy sites, the bearded priests and the shawled rabbis. On a day like today, the visitor seeks the blessing only air conditioning can bestow: cool, crisp and calming.
I meet Grossman in a coffee shop in Mishkenot Sha’ananim, a venerable Jewish neighbourhood just outside the Old City walls. The view from the window is of a pomegranate tree, the Hagia Maria Sion, formerly known as the Abbey of the Dormition, where the Virgin Mary is said to have fallen into eternal sleep and, following the curve of the next hill, the sombre grey line of the barrier that separates the citizens of Jerusalem from those of the West Bank.
The room is deliciously cold, (goosebumps are already rising on my shins), but the calm I feel, the sense of benediction, is all to do with Grossman. He once said that the effect of regular wars and prolonged uncertainty can be seen in the way Israelis drive (people are prone to honking their horns and yelling out of their windows). But you can no more imagine him going mad at an intersection than you can picture him inviting Binyamin Netanyahu out for beer and pizza.
Grossman radiates wisdom, modesty, kindness and, above all, a sort of stillness: contemplative and tender, but steely, too. This is not to say that the darkness is all behind him. He warns me that there are some things he cannot talk about, will perhaps never be able to talk about, and I cannot look at his heart-shaped face, his big, marsupial eyes, without worrying about manhandling him. Grief, inasmuch as I’m acquainted with it, makes a person feel, among many other things, like an over-ripe peach, prone to bruises and watery leaks.
For his own part, he likens it to exile. “The first feeling you have is one of exile,” he says. “You are being exiled from everything you know. You can take nothing for granted. You don’t recognise yourself. So, going back to the book, it was a solid point in my life. I felt like someone who had experienced an earthquake, whose house had been crushed, and who goes out and takes one brick and puts it on top of another brick. Writing a precise sentence, imagining, infusing life into characters and situations, I felt I was building my home again. It was a way of fighting against the gravity of grief.” The merest flicker of a flinch. “This used to be so hard to express… but now, when I talk about it, I feel able to say that it was a way of choosing life. It was so good that I was in the middle of this novel, rather than any other. A different book might suddenly have seemed irrelevant to me. But this one did not.”
Grossman’s heroine, Ora, whom the American novelist Paul Auster has already likened both to Tolstoy’s Emma, and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, decides to hike in Galilee for the duration of her country’s latest war. She takes with her an old love, Avram, a veteran of the Yom Kippur war and a former PoW. While they walk, they talk. She tells him about Ofer, describing her boy at every stage in his life, carefully bringing him to life (Avram has never met him). Slowly, an absence becomes a presence. The novel, then, works as kind of memorial: not only to Uri, to whom it is dedicated, but to Ofer, who may, or may not, be dead. After Grossman had finished writing it, he handed it to Yonatan, and to his wife, Machal (he also has a daughter, Ruti, but she was too young for this book at the time). “It wasn’t easy for them to read it,” he says. “I think it was only the second time they read it that they understood that it could be a source of comfort to us all. I’m not describing our family, but there are always moments [when the two collide]. And yes, when someone dies, they’re gone and yet they are still so present.”
Four months after Uri’s death, Grossman addressed a crowd of 100,000 Israelis who had gathered to mark the anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. His speech was beautifully controlled, but quietly furious. He denounced Ehud Olmert’s government for a failure of leadership, a failure which would ultimately damage the Jewish state, and he again argued that reaching out to the Palestinians was the only hope. “Of course I am grieving,” he said, anxious that Olmert and his cronies might dismiss his speech as the outpourings only of a bereft father. “But my pain is greater than my anger. I am in pain for this country and for what you and your friends are doing to it.”
I understand that he wants to separate his grief and his politics, but does he think, now, that his loss has changed some people’s opinions of him all the same? “Yes. There were people who stereotyped me, who considered me this naive leftist who would never send his own children into the army, who didn’t know what life was made of. I think those people were forced to realise that you can be very critical of Israel and yet still be an integral part of it; I speak as a reservist in the Israeli army myself.”
His novel provoked a strong reaction in Israel. “Some of my books in the past have aroused hatred [notably his collection of reportage, The Yellow Wind, a sympathetic account of life in the occupied territories]. Not this one. I think this one allowed people to give up on the need to be a fist, to remember the nuances, to ask themselves: what does it mean to be a human being in this situation? Our curse is that all of us become representatives; we congeal. But we need to feel our inner doubts, our contradictions.”
Was it horrible having to grieve in public? He must have feared that his son would be adopted as yet another symbol of the Situation. “I’m not sure it was horrible. One burden is at least taken away [when you are a public figure]: you don’t have to tell people what happened, because they know. We found our way. We’re very private people. We are a close family and we have a wonderful, devoted group of friends. What happens outside that… well, it depends how people approach me. Most approach me with tenderness and sensitivity. There has been a lot of warmth. But I made it clear from the beginning that I don’t ask for special privileges. I don’t want people to say: ah, because he suffered this, his opinions are this. My opinions are not my emotions. I spoke in Rabin Square, but I only do [public] things that I would have done before.
“I’m not a rational, cold person. On the contrary, so much of the politics is emotional here, and the two peoples involved are very emotional, so you must be attuned to emotions very precisely. But the bottom line must be logical. You must not surrender to the primal urges of revenge. I just do not see a better solution than the two-state solution. I’m more sad, and maybe desperate, but not in a way that paralyses me.” He pauses. “Maybe I cannot afford the luxury of despair. Maybe. Or maybe it’s a question of personality: I cannot collaborate with despair because it humiliates me to do so.”
All the same, he cannot feel hopeful at the prospect of more (American-brokered) talks. “I think our prime minister is the only person who can change our destiny for the better. He has a lot of credibility here. The question is: does he really believe in peace with the Palestinians? And I’m afraid that the answer is no. Even if he taught himself to utter the words ‘two-state solution’, he deeply mistrusts the Palestinians.”
To read the rest of the interview, use the link above
Israelis rightly take pride in the existence of the Knesset but they now need to take action to restore its reputation
By Hagai El-Ad, August 26, 2010
In June, Israeli MK Miri Regev (Likud) shouted, in Arabic, at her fellow MK, Haneen Zoabi (Balad): “Go back to Gaza, traitor!” as Zoabi tried in vain to address the Knesset on her return from her participation in the “Free Gaza” flotilla.
In July, the Knesset decided by a 34-16 vote to strip Zoabi of her parliamentary benefits.
In August, the release of a heavily edited video clip by the army led to renewed calls in the Knesset to revoke her citizenship.
These moves in the Israeli parliament meshed well with public opinion: a Facebook group was set up entitled “execute MK Haneen Zoabi”. Security guards were assigned for her protection.
While the MKs may have believed they were shaming Zoabi, the real victim of this public humiliation was Israeli democracy. The removal of Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges simultaneously undermined the hope for full civil equality for all Israeli citizens.
To restate the obvious: in a democracy, members of its parliament must not be punished for fulfilling their roles as representatives of the public – even when their positions clash with the majority view. In a democracy, we are supposed to argue, not silence opposing voices. Democracy gives overriding priority to preserving free political expression, especially by publicly elected officials. As long as MK Zoabi has broken no laws, she has every right to continue expressing her views, however unpopular.
The treatment she received underscores a basic misunderstanding about the nature of democracy. In their haste to label her an “enemy of the state,” Israeli MKs forgot the principles of freedom of expression and the right to dissent. And, sadly, Zoabi’s treatment is just one example within a disturbing trend unfolding before our eyes in the current Knesset. The rules of democracy are crumbling.
The Knesset is passing more anti-democratic laws than ever before — targeting the Arab minority; predicating basic civil rights on declarations of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state; and limiting the ability of citizens to protest against government policies.
McCarthy-style parliamentary committee hearings on academic freedoms have led to panic-driven responses by Israeli universities. Harassment of human rights organisations is now a commonplace in the Knesset, where one black day for democracy seems to follow on the heels of another.
In this extreme atmosphere, the anti-democratic display against Zoabi was regarded merely as a routine performance. The Israeli parliament is no longer an arena in which the struggle for human rights can be advanced; rather, it is a place where democracy itself has become a punch-bag, and defenders of human rights are fighting to hold the defensive line. The rot set in some time between Operation Cast Lead and the openly racist election campaign that followed.
When the supposed stronghold of democracy abuses its role, this is not a matter to be confined within its own sphere. It is the business of all citizens. Israelis who despair as their elected officials pull the democratic rug from under their feet should fight to protect and strengthen the basis of democracy that still exists and to create a space for democracy where it is lacking.
Concerned citizens should become involved in the struggle for human rights and social justice for all, whether in Tel Aviv, Araqib or Sheikh Jarrah.
There are a number of appropriate avenues – including participation in December’s Human Rights March – where such concerns can be expressed. If enough Israelis want to build together a future of equality, democracy and human rights, then it will become a reality.
To Jews in the UK, and all supporters of Israel who are engaged in passionate discussions about the country’s future, it is surely self-evident that attempts to silence opposition through legislation are catastrophic for any democracy. The only way out of the current impasse is open, respectful debate of all viewpoints.
Israelis who find their own space for debate constricted can draw inspiration from diaspora Jews who understand that what is at stake here is not the prevalence of any single opinion but the right to hold and express an opinion at all.
Hagai El-Ad is the executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel
Speaking at fast-breaking meal in Gaza, Hamas PM Haniyeh says Palestinians worldwide do not support ‘absurd talks with Israel.’
Palestinian negotiators are not mandated to surrender Jerusalem or any part of Palestine, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency quoted Gaza’s Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh as saying on Friday, with the Hamas strongman dubbing upcoming direct peace talks as the latest in a string of Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.
On Tuesday, Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal said that the upcoming U.S.-backed direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority were illegitimate and the result of coercion by Washington.
Talks between the two sides had been were shelved two years ago, but the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is hoping for a breakthrough during the new rounds of negotiations set to begin September 2.
Speaking in Ramadan fast-breaking meal in the Gaza town of Khan Younis late Thursday, Haniyeh claimed that “no negotiator who would give up Jerusalem has a national mandate,” adding that “Palestinians across the globe will not support any movement holding absurd talks with Israel.”
The Hamas prime minister, referring to the Palestinian prisoners’ families present at the meal, said that the “prisoners, the injured and the families of martyrs will not authorize anyone who wants to give up Palestine and Jerusalem after they have sacrificed for years and struggled to keep it.”
“The occupation has failed to break the will of the Palestinian people, not by increasing its attacks or increasing the number of dead, not by injuring prisoners or isolating the resistance from its people,” the Hamas leader said.
“Israel is trying in dozens of ways to achieve its goal, and now it is through negotiations,” Haniyeh added, saying that next upcoming negotiations were the latest in a long list of Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.
On Monday, Haniyeh said the Palestinian people will gain nothing from direct Middle East peace talks with Israel.
Speaking at a Gaza Strip mosque on Monday, Haniyeh said that the scheduled negotiations would not restore Palestinians’ rights or give them control over religious sites, saying that they “should trust God, who will be an ally of the Palestinians.”
According to the Ma’an report, Haniyeh also praised the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, saying the Palestinians were a “model for the Arab nations and Islamic countries.”
EDITOR: Good to know whose side they are on…
The following report has the sound of truth about it… When those US diplomats spenda long time with Israelis, they start speaking and behaving like them. You have to ask yourself: If Israel can destroy everyone around in few hours, why are they so terrified of the smallest thing?
Lebanese paper says US envoy’s advisor threatened Lebanese army chief with Israeli contingency plan following deadly border skirmish
An senior advisor to US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell has threatened Lebanese army commander, Jean Kahwajim that should his army initiate additional fire exchanges with Israel, the IDF would annihilate his military within four hours, Lebanese newspaper al-Liwa reported Friday.
According to the report, Frederick Hof spoke to Kahwaji on August 9, following the deadly border skirmish between Israel and Lebanon and informed him of the IDF contingency plan.
The report further quotes Mitchell’s aide as telling the Lebanese commander that Israel had decided to carry out a plan “which would completely destroy the Lebanese army’s bases, centers and offices within four hours.”
Lieutenant-Colonel (res.) Dov Harari was killed in the border skirmish earlier this month and another officer was seriously injured. Firing began when IDF forces entered a border enclave in order to uproot a tree. Lebanon later blamed Israel for violating UN Resolution 1701.
Hof advised the Lebanese army chief to show restraint in any future border conflict with Israel.
US sources said a UNIFIL report which ruled that the tree was on Israel’s side of the border sheds new light on the possible danger caused by the proximity between the Lebanese army and Hezbollah.
Wikileaks releases a CIA memo titled ‘What if Foreigners See the United States as an Exporter of Terrorism?’ in which American Jews in Israel was one of four groups mentioned.
The Wikileaks website released a CIA document on Wednesday that examines the trend of Americans committing terrorist acts overseas, including American Jews in Israel.
American Jews in Israel were one of four groups mentioned in the classified report, titled “What if Foreigners See the United States as an Exporter of Terrorism?”
“Some American Jews have supported and even engaged in violent acts against perceived enemies of Israel,” the report reads. “In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an American Jewish doctor from New York, emigrated to Israel, joined the extremist group Kach, and killed 29 Palestinians during their prayers in the mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron which helped trigger a wave of bus bombings by Hamas in early 1995.”
Other groups mentioned were Irish-Americans who supported the Irish Republican Army; a group of Muslim-American men who traveled to Pakistan last year to engage in Jihad; and a Pakistani-American man, David Headley, who conducted surveillance for the Lashkar-i-Tayyiba terrorist group ahead of the attack in Mumbai, India in November 2008 that killed more than 160 people.
The leaked report was compiled in February 2010 by the CIA’s Red Cell, which, according to the memorandum, was tasked with “taking a pronounced ‘out-of-the-box’ approach that will provoke thought and offer an alternative viewpoint on the full range of analytic issues.”
Wikileaks, an online whistle-blowing website, recently published tens of thousands of classified military documents related to the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Recent months see sharp rise in number of European companies withdrawing investment from Israeli firms for political reasons. ‘The damage is huge,’ says glass factory owner from Ariel
The decision by Norway’s oil fund to withdraw its investment from Africa-Israel and Danya Cebus citing their involvement in settlement construction is the latest step in an ever expanding list of European private and governmental companies boycotting Israeli firms for political reasons.
Most of the cases pertain to claims of products being manufactured outside the Green Line and therefore in “occupied territory.” Some of the cases serve as political protest against Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians.
Yet, one point is uncontested: Recent months have seen a climb in the scope of the boycott of Israeli products imposed for political reasons.
“Since the Palestinians declared a boycott of settlement goods, there has been a 40% drop in production,” Avi Ben Zvi, owner of the Plastco glass factory in Ariel said. “Export to Europe has ceased in its entirety and traders from the territories have stopped working with us. The damage is huge,” he added.
According to Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman, the region’s factories have taken a massive hit. “We need to initiate a wide-scale governmental campaign threatening the boycotting countries they will not participate in the political process,” he said.
Last March, a large Swedish pension fund decided to boycott Elbit Systems for its part in the construction of the separation fence. The fund declared it had sold its Elbit holdings after its ethics committee recommended pulling out investment from companies involved in a violation of international treaties.
In September, Norway’s governmental pension fund made a similiar move and divested from Elbit.
Last May, Germany’s Deutsche Bank announced it had sold all its Elbit stocks, apparently after being pressured by anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian organizations.
Two years ago, Swedish giant Assa Abloy, owner of the Israeli company Mul-T-Lock Ltd., issued an apology for the fact that its factory in the Barkan Industrial Park was located outside the Green Line. The company promised to move the plant into “Israeli territory” following pressure from a Swedish-Christian human rights group.
Isolated events?
Shraga Brosh, president of the Manufacturers Association, said Tuesday that “from time to time, organizations, mainly Scandinavian, boycott certain Israeli bodies. At the end of the day, these are isolated occurrences which do not affect the whole trade with Israel.”
Soda Club was also hit by boycott: The city of Paris was forced to deny the Israeli company’s participation in a large-scale fair for the promotion of tap water after receiving threats from pro-Palestinian elements.
On July, it was reported that the French transport firm Veolia, which operated the light rail project in Jerusalem had decided to sell its shares in the project without citing any motives. The decision may well be connected to the fact that several months earlier a French court agreed to discuss a lawsuit against Veolia and its involvement in the rail’s construction in east Jerusalem.
By David Gardner, Financial Times – 25 Aug 2010
www.ft.com/
Israeli Peace Plan, by Carlos Latuff
As the caravans of Middle East peace negotiators rumble into Washington next week for the umpteenth time, the pervasive cynicism and sense of deja vu all over again is overwhelming – and with good reason.
The Middle East peace process long ago turned into a tortured charade of pure process while events on the ground – in particular the relentless and strategic Israeli colonisation of occupied Palestinian land – pull in the opposite direction to peace. “We have all been colluding in a gigantic confidence trick,” is how one Arab minister puts it, “and here we go again”.
While many factors had combined to hand veto powers to rejectionists on both sides, the heart of the question remains the continuing Israeli occupation. It is essential to remember that the biggest single increase of Jewish settlers on Arab land – a 50 per cent rise – took place in 1992-96 under the governments of peace-makers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres at the high-water mark of the Oslo peace accords. Many Israelis will point to the perfidy of the late Yassir Arafat, who wanted to talk peace but keep the option of armed resistance dangerously in play. But what killed Oslo was the occupation. The second intifada that erupted a decade ago was essentially the Oslo war.
A decade on, the Israeli settlement enterprise has turned the occupied West Bank into a discontiguous scattering of cantons, walled in by a security barrier built on yet more annexed Arab land and criss-crossed by segregated Israeli roads linking the settlements. Last month, B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, published a study showing Israel has now taken 42 per cent of the West Bank, with 300,000 settlers there and another 200,000 in East Jerusalem. The siege of Gaza has turned that sliver of land into a vast, open-air prison.
The main feature of the present situation is the disconnect between the high politics of the utterly discredited peace process and these – in Israeli parlance – “facts on the ground”.
At last month’s White House summit, where Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu massaged their long estrangement into a political armistice, the US president praised the Israeli prime minister as a leader “willing to take risks for peace”.
But there is no evidence for this whatsoever. True, in June last year, in response to Mr Obama’s Cairo speech denying any legitimacy to Israel’s settlements, Mr Netanyahu forced himself to utter the words “Palestinian state” – but he surrounded them with barbed-wire caveats that voided them of meaning.
Indeed, the words all sides use – peace, resolution, security, and so on – may be the same; but what each side means by them is different.
The mainstream Palestinian leaders, President Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad, the prime minister, and the Quartet made up of the US, the European Union, the UN and Russia, talk of a negotiated resolution. This means two states living in peace and security, and a Palestinian homeland on the 22 per cent of Mandate Palestine taken by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. East Jerusalem would serve as the capital of the West Bank and Gaza, with marginal land swaps to preserve some Israeli settlements near Jerusalem. But what does Mr Netanyahu mean?
He has been most clear on what he does not mean. For a start, he has set his face against any concessions on Jerusalem. He wants to keep most settlements except for the far-flung “ideological” ones and the 100-plus “outposts” established as pawns to be traded once the chess game began. His idea of a demilitarised Palestinian state is more like a sort of supra-municipal administration than a self-determined, independent government.
Will he surprise us, on the hackneyed Nixon and China principle that holds it is politicians of the right who most easily close difficult deals? There is little to suggest that.
The thinking of Mr Netanyahu, son of a celebrated promoter of Greater Israel, has always been profoundly irredentist. While his nationalist Likud faces the constraints of being in coalition with an assortment of ultra-rightist and ultra-orthodox parties as well as Labour, that was plainly his choice; the centrist Kadima party was (and remains) an alternative. To be fair, Israel’s electoral system – with a low threshold for entry into the Knesset that makes multi-party coalitions inevitable – means lobbies such as the settlers can take the national interest hostage. But Mr Netanyahu magnifies this by his choice of partners and by diligently firing up the ultra-hawks in the pro-Israel lobby in the US.
As risks he has taken for peace, Exhibit A is the much-hyped moratorium on settlement-building, which expires next month and has, in any case, been speciously interpreted. While the bulldozers to build settlements have been idling, moreover, the bulldozers demolishing Palestinian homes have been roaring: the rate of demolition in and around Jerusalem has doubled this year, while the army has just razed the village of al-Farisiye in the Jordan Valley, in line with Mr Netanyahu’s strategically obsolete obsession with keeping the valley as Israel’s eastern border.
As diplomacy struggles to keep alive the viability of a two-state solution, three rival systems of control have crystallised in the occupied territories that would make up a future Palestinian homeland: the settlements; the crimped Palestinian Authority of Mr Abbas and Mr Fayyad; and then Hamas, which Israel and its Arab and western allies have tried and failed to marginalise. Time is short for a negotiated outcome; it may even have run out.
The outlines of a deal are clear, in the (Bill) Clinton parameters of 2000 and Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, endorsed by 22 Arab and 57 Muslim countries (as well as Hamas, as part of the 2007 Mecca accord). There has to be an end to the occupation, and the US and Quartet cannot just allude to this; they must demand it. The writer is the Financial Times international affairs editor
These masters of Jewish law act as if they have not heard of Shmaya, and contrary to his recommendations in the Mishna tractate “Avot” (Ethics of our Fathers ), they actually very much like the rabbinate.
By Yossi Sarid
Some 30 years ago, the Hebrew slogan was coined: “Medinat halakha – halkha hamedina,” which means more or less that if Israel becomes a state governed by Jewish law, that will be the end of the state. Is the end near? It is coming.
Something like this has never happened before, even though it seems as if everything possible has already happened – two rabbis being summoned to a police investigation, and announcing that they will not go. Even settlers are kind enough to turn up. True, they are instructed to remain silent, to lead the police astray, but they show up. Rabbis, on the other hand, are even more important people, and if a rabbi is also a settler, there is no one with greater airs than he. Even after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the authorities dealt with the killer but left alone those who had killed wisdom.
Only rabbis permit themselves, with the authority of the Torah, to pass their sacred water in public without fear, and the police keep quiet about this, as do the attorney general and the head of the prosecution, and the legislators and law enforcers.
Not only have they not reported to the police, they are assembling communities of supporters – 250 of their species gathered last week to lend support to their colleagues, Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef, who have approved the book of abomination, “Torat Hamelech” (The King’s Torah ) written by one Yitzhak Shapira from the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in Yitzhar.
This theological treatise is a kind of guide to the perplexed – when it is permitted to kill Gentiles in general and babies in particular, and all of this according to Jewish law. Even the Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Yona Metzger, who does not particularly like police investigations, has declared the rabbis who did not report to the police as being in the right.
At the conclusion of the gathering, rabbis from among the religious Zionists who, as civil servants, get their salaries from the taxpayer, had the following to say: “The moral values of the Torah have to be the moral code for the Israel Defense Forces … Our holy Torah is not a subject for investigation or trial by flesh and blood.” Even their colleagues from the holy city of Qom would have been hard pressed to produce a more enduring manifesto.
With this in mind, let us reexamine the meaning of certain terms:
“Rabbis” – Judaism has never been blessed with so many rabbis; how happy is this generation to have so many. No other country has such a rare and generous ratio of clergymen per capita.
“Find yourself a rabbi” [as the Mishna says] – so they find one, why not? Just so there should be someone. Any good-for-nothing can be a teacher for them and any charlatan who gets a number of students together is called a rabbi. It is not clear who has ordained him, and it is not clear whether the one doing the ordination is ordained to ordain, and according to which principles. It is easier to be a rabbi than a professor, and even that is not very difficult.
“Halakha” – If the Torah has 70 faces then halakha (Jewish religious law ) has 700. The sages said that everything can be understood on different levels and in different ways, and everything is included, and if one person has given an interpretation, another can come and overturn it. After all, there is no religious authority that is recognized and accepted by all in these times, to whom people listen and according to whom people act. The halakha says that any bastard can be a rabbi, and he can even give his own kashrut certificates in return for money. And the Chief Rabbinate in Israel is nothing but a depleted organ in a body that is bruised all over.
These masters of Jewish law act as if they have not heard of Shmaya, and contrary to his recommendations in the Mishna tractate “Avot” (Ethics of our Fathers ), they actually very much like the rabbinate. Their halakha looks the kingdom straight in the eye, and the kingdom is humiliated.
Dave Lordan, 27 August 2010
I am proud to be among the many Irish and Ireland-based artists from across creative disciplines who have chosen to publicly support the growing campaign of boycott against apartheid Israel. Compared to the imprisoned Palestinian people themselves and to those taking part in flotillas and other perilous anti-apartheid activities in Palestine our contribution and risk may be justly considered small. At most we might lose the chance of lucrative invitations to read, perform or display our works in parts of the US where apartheid Israel’s supporters hold the power of censorship. Departments of foreign affairs and ministries of culture may also not include us among those artists they can rely upon to project a lying image of a harmonious, bon vivant and, above all, harmlessly apolitical intelligentsia. We are sure to be slandered and ridiculed by the hired bullies of the global media empires.
These are tiny punishments indeed compared to the instant annihilation that Israel with its snipers and bombers and jet planes and tanks has visited on a daily basis upon Palestinian men, women and children for the last 62 years. The threat we come under for speaking out at a safe distance is nothing beside the threat apartheid Israel holds constant over every urban civilian in the Middle East with its 200-bomb-strong nuclear arsenal. Besides, to be ostracized and blacklisted by these last remaining friends of apartheid Israel, the gangster governments of west and east and their spies and ideological enablers, is to be reminded of the phrase of that great political artist William Blake, who tells us to “Listen to the fool’s reproach — it is a kingly title.”
The argument that artists should remain aloof from politics does not survive the most cursory of cross examinations. Over the centuries artists have taken every possible political stance both inside and outside their art. They have also performed every possible political action without it having the least negative effect on their own work or on art in general. Indeed, much great art has been produced out of intense engagement with political events and with social movements. One can look up the biographies of the list of Nobel prize winners in literature, or take a stroll around one’s nearest significant gallery if one needs any proof of this.
Artistic aloofness in relation to Israel-Palestine is without doubt a political stance, a signal that one will not stand in the way of the strong as they bear down with all their might upon the weak. But to perform in Israel, or to leave oneself open to performing there, is not simply remaining aloof. It is choosing the side of tyranny. It is a decision to ignore the cry of the oppressed.
Some artists will make this decision out of ignorance, or because they believe in or are confused by apartheid Israel’s untiring propaganda machine, which is so consciously assisted by the western media and politicians. To these artists I say, take a few days to look behind the headlines, give yourself some time to familiarize yourself with the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict in all of its contexts. Inform yourself properly, and then make your decision.
Obviously there are artists, motivated by fame and finance, who will perform in apartheid Israel knowing full well that their actions are an integral part of the war effort against the Palestinians, while of course loudly protesting otherwise. In the long run this may count against them. Their memory will be linked throughout posterity with all those images of rubbled apartment blocks, of old farmers shackled at crossroads, of sad-eyed children dying in makeshift hospitals for lack of basic medicines due to the illegal blockade.
Alongside the financial, political and military support of western rulers, the cultural support of western artists is a crucial link in the chain of oppression that tightens every passing minute around the neck of Palestine. Artists occupy a position of public privilege. What we think and feel as it is expressed through our art is elevated above ordinary discourse and seriously discussed at events, in classrooms, and in all kinds of media. Both individually within our local networks and communities, and collectively at a national and international level, we can and do have a disproportionate effect on opinion. We are, I think, perhaps the last significant body of people to enjoy large-scale public trust in most parts of the globe. Added together, what we say and do publicly in our art and in our lives as citizens is reflected upon by many people in a much more profound way than the utterances of most politicians. Our deeds and words ring louder then, and wider, and longer, then those of many others. But so do our silences, our non-actions. That is why both the tacit and the enthusiastic support of artists have been worth so much to dictators and criminal systems like apartheid over the centuries, and why we have been so brutally persecuted when we have refused to give it.
All an Israeli major has to do to unwind after a day directing the bulldozing of ancestral Palestinian homesteads is to change into her casuals and head out to see a platinum-selling rock group, or to clap along politely like everyone else is doing at the poetry of some prize-glittering western writer. Then she can feel as refined, as hip, and as justified, as any other liberal westerner. The presence of international artists in apartheid Israel normalizes and buttresses the apartheid system, contributing to its self-confidence and smooth functioning.
By performing in Israel, in despite of the clear call of the Palestinian artists and cultural institutions to boycott Israel, an international artist gives — whether or not they are conscious of it — a signal of approval to the settler-pirates and to the racially brainwashed conscripts who take pleasure in having themselves photographed beaming with national joy in front of blindfolded and humiliated Palestinians. Approval for these and countless other abuses and injustices is exactly how the appearance of international artists in apartheid Israel is interpreted by its politico-military leadership and, crucially, by its rank-and-file soldiers, boosting the morale of those who must implement the bloody practicality of apartheid on the ground.
The boycott, if it gained momentum, could have just the opposite effect. It could remove the visage of respectability and normality which the leaders of apartheid Israel so desperately crave in order that they can continue with the dirty work of oppressing the Palestinians unperturbed by the moral opinion of the rest of the world. It could undermine the confidence of the military rank and file and cause significant numbers to question and refuse the implementation of apartheid policies. Above all, it could help to inspire the continuing anti-apartheid resistance of the Palestinian people, and contribute — similarly to how international solidarity with black South Africans did in their case — to the eventual collapse of the apartheid system. To have played even the tiniest of roles in such an outcome would be a greater honor than any prize, review, or invitation is capable of giving us.
Dave Lordan is an Irish writer. His latest collection of poetry is Invitation to a Sacrifice (Salmon Poetry, Cliffs of Moher, 2010).
If Yuval Steinitz and Gideon Sa’ar want Israeli Zhdanovism to be attributed to them, they should continue with their indolent attitude toward Im Tirtzu.
By Zeev Sternhell
The threats and pressures on the universities were to be expected. The struggle in the academic world is an integral part of the cultural struggle started by the right, parallel to its political successes. People on the right understand that, just as in the United States and Europe, to survive for long and strike roots they must exploit the regime’s institutions and destroy the left’s hold on the educated sectors of the population.
The right is correct in its diagnosis – the Israeli cultural world, including the universities, tends toward the left. It has been this way since World War II in the entire Western world. The centers of opposition to the war in Vietnam and the occupation of Iraq were the American universities; the Latin Quarter in Paris was the center of the struggle against the war in Algeria; and the student revolt of 1968 swept across America and Europe from California to the Berlin Wall.
In the West, however, the right began regaining its strength and gaining ascendancy in the form of neoconservatism, not especially in the universities but in the world of finance and the media. This has not been true of Israel, where many supporters of economic neoliberalism have fought against the occupation and the settlements and therefore belong to the “political left.” That is why the right’s grip on the secular cultural elite is close to zero; this is the real reason for the recent campaign of intimidation.
The struggle is taking place on two fronts. The Shalem Center is the academic arm and respected ideological laboratory, even if it is neither innovative nor original. The second arm consists of propagandists and demagogues from the Institute for Zionist Strategies and the Im Tirtzu student movement. The attempt to copy America has failed so far for one major reason – the Israeli neoconservative and nationalist right does not have scholars and cultural figures like its counterparts in the United States and Europe.
This sense of weakness and dissociation from the world of research, literature and art has spawned the current outburst of anger, and it is not the last. The real argument, however, is not with the propagandists but with the heads of the regime. The senior politicians know that there is no research without freedom, and they understand that a researcher’s first commitment is to the truth as he finds it, or believes he has found it, in his work.
They know that academic teaching worth its name relies on research, and that intellectual and cultural life in Israel and its research institutes is the country’s true showcase. But their future depends on the support of the street propagandists, and they will not man the barricades to defend the achievements of science and culture. Moral considerations will not help in this game, only considerations of force and immediate benefit. And as everyone knows, force can only be stopped by counterforce.
Therefore, it must be made clear to the finance minister, who called for the firing of university lecturers who support an academic boycott of Israel (which I strongly oppose), that any attempt to harm a lecturer’s status for political reasons will meet with a firm response from Israel’s academic faculty. The expected reaction from the international community, including the possibility of a boycott, could be no less painful.
It is worth explaining this to the education minister, because his plan to bring back talented researchers to Israel will have to address the following question: What researcher who grew up in an American academic environment will be eager to return to a reality that is starting to resemble the black years of the 1950s in the United States? Who will want to work in an institution that exercises the right of censorship to look into the syllabi of its courses? And how many Israelis pondering their future will decide that this is the straw that broke the camel’s back?
If Yuval Steinitz and Gideon Sa’ar want Israeli Zhdanovism to be attributed to them, they should continue with their indolent attitude toward Im Tirtzu.
PM on upcoming talks with Palestinians: If we get security ensuring no missiles will fall on Tel Aviv, we will be able to move quickly toward a comprehensive arrangement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to lead the direct negotiations with the Palestinians due to be inaugurated in Washington on September 2. Netanyahu says he plans to focus on security arrangements before addressing final borders.
Speaking behind closed doors, Netanyahu said the success of the talks will hinge on understandings between the leaders. “I will want to reach agreed principles with the Palestinian leadership and there will be no need for many teams [of negotiators] and hundreds of meetings …. If I get the security that will ensure that no missiles will fall on Tel Aviv, it will be possible to move quickly toward a comprehensive arrangement,” he was quoted as saying.
Netanyahu said during his meetings he wants to discuss security issues with the Palestinians first; only then would the two sides focus on borders of a future Palestinian state.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had announced Friday that Israel and the Palestinian Authority would resume direct negotiations for the establishment of a Palestinian state. The talks will be inaugurated at a two-day summit in Washington, which will follow an 18-month lull in the negotiations.
In addition to Netanyahu and PA President Mahmoud Abbas, U.S. President Barack Obama has invited to the summit Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, and the head of the Quartet, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Obama will hold separate meetings with each of the leaders at the White House on September 1, and will then host a joint dinner. The inauguration ceremony will take place a day later under Clinton’s auspices. The event will probably include speeches by the leaders and initial negotiations about the first round of talks, which are likely to take place shortly after.
Sources close to Netanyahu said on Saturday that most of the negotiations will take place in Israel or the region and not in the United States.
Both Clinton and U.S. special envoy George Mitchell said over the weekend that the negotiations will aim to reach a permanent settlement and the establishment of a Palestinian state in a year. They said the negotiations will focus on all core issues: Jerusalem, borders, refugees, security, settlements and water.
Clinton noted that there will be no preconditions – this is considered a major achievement for Netanyahu, who insisted that the direct talks take place unconditionally.
In her announcement over the weekend, Clinton also did not mention the September 26 expiry of the freeze on settlement construction.
The Quartet’s announcement also made no mention of the construction freeze or building in East Jerusalem. It just referred to its previous statement on the subject, which calls for a construction freeze.
The Quartet issued a statement calling for talks that “lead to a settlement … that ends the occupation which began in 1967 and results in the emergence of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors.”
The Americans offered few details at the press conference that followed, but Clinton recognized that there would be obstacles and warned that the enemies of peace would try to foil the talks.
“As we move forward, it is important that actions by all sides help to advance our effort, not hinder it. There have been difficulties in the past, there will be difficulties ahead. Without a doubt, we will hit more obstacles,” Clinton said.
“But I ask the parties to persevere, to keep moving forward even through difficult times and to continue working to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region.”
The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said the Israelis “have a choice now whether to choose settlements or peace. I hope they choose peace. I hope that Mr. Netanyahu will be our partner in peace … and we can do it.”
The Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, dismissed the direct talks as a U.S. attempt to “fool the Palestinian people.” But U.S. officials said Hamas would have no role in them.
Facebook images of an Israeli servicewoman posing with blindfolded Palestinians have caused a storm. Now two former female conscripts have spoken out about their own experiences
Israeli servicewomen train to become army instructors. Some former recruits have spoken out against the military action in the occupied territories. Photograph: IDF/Polaris Images
It was a single word scrawled on a wall at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that unlocked something deep inside Inbar Michelzon, two years after she had completed compulsory military service in the Israeli Defence Force.
The word was “occupation”. “I really felt like someone was speaking the unspoken,” she recalled last week in a Tel Aviv cafe. “It was really shocking to me. There was graffiti saying, ‘end the occupation’. And I felt like, OK, now I can talk about what I saw.”
Michelzon became one of a handful of former Israeli servicewomen who have spoken out about their military experiences, a move that has brought accusations of betrayal and disloyalty. It is impossible to know how representative their testimonies are, but they provide an alternative picture of the “most moral army in the world”, as the IDF describes itself.
Concerns about Israeli army culture were raised last week following the publication on Facebook of photographs of a servicewoman posing alongside blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinians. The images were reminiscent of the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq. But the former soldier, Eden Abergil, said she didn’t understand what was wrong with the pictures, which were described by the IDF as “ugly and callous”.
Israel is unique in enlisting women at the age of 18 into two years of compulsory military service. The experience can be brutalising for the 10% who serve in the occupied territories, as Michelzon did.
“I left the army with a ticking bomb in my belly,” she said. “I felt I saw the backyard of Israel. I saw something that people don’t speak about. It’s almost like I know a dirty secret of a nation and I need to speak out.”
Michelzon, now 29, began her military service in September 2000, just when the second intifada was breaking out. “I joined the army with a very idealistic point of view – I really wanted to serve my country.” She was posted to Erez, the crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, to work in the radio control room.
“There was a lot of tension, a lot of shootings and suicide bombings,” she said. “Little by little you understand the rules of the game. You need to make it hard for the Arabs – that’s the main rule – because they are the enemy.”
She cited a routine example of a Palestinian woman waiting at the crossing. Michelzon called her officer, asking permission to allow the woman through. She was told to make such a request once the woman had been kept waiting for hours. “I felt very alone in the army. I couldn’t talk about the things I felt were misplaced,” she said. “I didn’t have strong views but I felt uncomfortable about the talk, about soldiers hitting Arabs and laughing. I thought everyone else was normal and I was the one who wasn’t. I felt an outsider to the group experience.”
At the end of her service, in June 2002, Michelzon said she felt the need to escape and took off to India. “I went through a breakdown little by little,” she said. It was only when she returned to enrol in university, and two years of therapy, that she began to consider her “duty” to speak out. She also came across Breaking the Silence, an organisation of army veterans who publish testimonies from former soldiers on life in the occupied territories to stimulate debate about the “moral price” of the occupation.
Michelzon gave evidence to the group and two years ago appeared in a documentary, To See If I’m Smiling, about the experiences of young women in the army. The film, she said, was criticised by all sides. The left focused on “the bad things we did and not on the fact that we wanted to start a discussion. We wanted to put up a mirror and tell Israeli society to look itself in the eyes.
“From the right, the reaction was, why are you doing this to your own people? Do you hate your country? But I did it because I love my country. We had to fight to say we want to talk about the political situation.”
The psychological impact of military service on women is undeniable, according to the testimonies of Michelzon and others, particularly those who serve in the occupied territories. “If you want to survive as a woman in the army, you have to be manly,” she said. “There is no room for feeling. It’s like a competition to see who can be tougher. A lot of the time girls are trying to be more aggressive than the guys.”
Her experience is echoed by that of Dana Golan, who served in the West Bank city of Hebron in 2001-02 as one of about 25 women among 300 male soldiers. Like Michelzon, Golan only spoke out after finishing her service. “If I had raised my anxieties, it would have been seen as a weakness,” she said.
Golan, now 27, said the “most shaky moment” of her military service came during a search for weapons in a Palestinian home. The family were awoken at 2am by soldiers who “turned their whole house inside out”. No weapons were found. The small children of the house were terrified, she recalled. “I thought, what would I feel if I was this four-year-old kid? How would I grow up? At that moment it occurred to me that sometimes we’re doing things that just create victims. To be a good occupier, we have to create conflict.”
On a separate occasion she witnessed soldiers stealing from a Palestinian electronics shop. She tried to report it, only to be told “there were things I shouldn’t interfere with”.
She said that she also saw elderly Palestinians being humiliated on the streets, “and I thought these could be my parents or grandparents”.
Israel is discomfited by these testimonies, she said, partly because of the universality of military service. “We grew up believing the IDF is the most moral army in the world. Everyone knows people serving in the army. Now when I say we are doing immoral things, I am talking about your sister or your daughter. People do not want to hear.”
The IDF is proud that 90% of its roles are open equally to men and women. “Serving in a combat unit where you have daily contact with people who might do you harm is not easy – you have to be tough,” said Captain Arye Shalicar, an army spokesman. “It’s not only a female thing, it’s the same for everyone. In the end, a combat unit is a combat unit. Sometimes things happen, not every deed is 100% correct or fair.” The army, he said, has procedures for reporting misdeeds which soldiers are encouraged to follow.
Both Michelzon and Golan have no regrets about speaking out. “For two years I saw people suffering and I didn’t do anything – and that’s really scary,” said Michelzon. “At the end, it felt like the army betrayed me – they used me, I couldn’t recognise myself. What we call protecting our country is destroying lives.”
Fundamentalist rabbis have approved murder, attacks on Arabs, illegal land seizures and racist segregation, and have ignored the murder of a prime minister.
By Zvi Bar’el
First, the daily lesson: “A soldier who takes part in the war against us, but does so only because he is forced to by threats, is an absolute villain …. We are referring to any sort of participation in the war: a combat soldier, a support soldier, civilian assistance or any form of encouragement and support.” And: “Even if civilians are tied up or imprisoned and have no choice but to stay and serve as hostages, it is possible to kill them.”
Also: “In discussions on the killing of infants and children … it is reasonable to harm children if it is clear they will grow up to harm us. Under such circumstances they should be the ones targeted.” And finally: “There is no need to discuss the question of who is and is not innocent, just as when we are defending against evil we do not hesitate to strike at limbs that were not actually used in actions against us.”
These are quotes from the book “The King’s Torah” (“Torat Hamelech” ) by rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur; it was published by Hamercaz Hatorani, near Od Yosef Hai Yeshiva. Many important rabbis have supported the two rabbis, and these quotes are part of the reason they are being investigated for suspected incitement and racism. Their refusal to be questioned allegedly was based on the fact that no one should be questioned or tried for his opinion.
In essence, their refusal places the law of the Torah above the law of the state. Rabbi Dov Lior, who backed the book, explained his opposition to their being interrogated as follows: “The harassment of the rabbis because of their halakhic views stands in direct opposition to the principles of freedom of religion and expression that are accepted by the state.” Indeed, is it possible to accuse someone of hating gentiles? In a Jewish state?
Nothing new, so far. Fundamentalist rabbis have approved murder, attacks on Arabs and their property, the illegal takeover of land, racist segregation between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi female pupils, and have ignored (at least ) the murder of a prime minister. After all, the source of authority of those same rabbis, the book of books, is full of hair-raising descriptions of the vengeance exacted by the Children of Israel on the peoples of this land.
As for the humanity of “the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate Me,” killer of the Egyptian firstborn, we can hold a seminar or two. Thumbing their noses at the law of the state is not an invention by Lior or similar rabbis. As far as disrespecting the law is concerned, Lior is an excellent pupil of Rabbi Moshe Levinger. Only naivete or pretending can explain the surprise at the spitting in the face of the police as they try to investigate the rabbis who provided a wall of defense to abomination.
What is new is that these are no longer “hilltop rabbis,” “wild weeds” or “fence hoppers” who are turning their backs on the instructions of great rabbinical figures and the law. They and their supporters are transforming zealous fundamentalism and the shameful “The King’s Torah “into the mainstream.
After all, what were the critics upset about? Not the content of the book some say they oppose (“of course I don’t support it” ), but rather the state’s audacity to undermine the freedom of expression of the source. No religious protest movement stood against the content; no one wrote a text to counter this Jewish Wahhabism. Suddenly, that same community that sanctifies rabbinical hierarchy, the absolute obedience to the rabbis, is shocked by this affront to freedom of expression.
But these fundamentalists, responsible for the training of tens of thousands of yeshiva students who become soldiers, wash their hands when their followers and students carry out the rabbis’ orders. No rabbi has been tried for an illegal act by a civilian or soldier because of his teachings. After all, they are only tutors, and then “permission has been granted.” In “properly functioning” states like Saudi Arabia or Egypt it has long been understood that the responsibility of a religious figure is no less than that of a terrorist. They arrest and imprison, exile or silence in different ways the preachers who raised generations of murderous zealots. Turkey removes from the military anyone who expresses excessive religious fervor.
In Israel, on the other hand, former chief military rabbi Avihai Rontzki initiated a meeting of intelligence soldiers with Rabbi Lior, the backbone of “The King’s Torah.” The following was said about the Israel Defense Forces’ ethics code: “When there is a conflict between orders based on the ethics code and a halakhic instruction, of course one must follow halakha” – Jewish law. It’s not incitement that’s dangerous, but rather its transformation into the accepted and central form of discourse.
Saturday, 31 July 2010
There was a Nato-Israeli exercise in progress. Well, that’s OK then. Now imagine the death of five Hamas fighters in a helicopter crash in Romania this week. We’d still be investigating this extraordinary phenomenon. Now mark you, I’m not comparing Israel and Hamas. Israel is the country that justifiably slaughtered more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza 19 months ago – more than 300 of them children – while the vicious, blood-sucking and terrorist Hamas killed 13 Israelis (three of them soldiers who actually shot each other by mistake).
But there is one parallel. Judge Richard Goldstone, the eminent Jewish South African judge, decided in his 575-page UN inquiry into the Gaza bloodbath that both sides had committed war crimes – he was, of course, quite rightly called “evil” by all kinds of justifiably outraged supporters of Israel in the US, his excellent report rejected by seven EU governments – and so a question presents itself. What is Nato doing when it plays war games with an army accused of war crimes?
Or, more to the point, what on earth is the EU doing when it cosies up to the Israelis? In a remarkable, detailed – if slightly over-infuriated – book to be published in November, the indefatigable David Cronin is going to present a microscopic analysis of “our” relations with Israel. I have just finished reading the manuscript. It leaves me breathless. As he says in his preface, “Israel has developed such strong political and economic ties to the EU over the past decade that it has become a member state of the union in all but name.” Indeed, it was Javier Solana, the grubby top dog of the EU’s foreign policy (formerly Nato secretary general), who actually said last year that “Israel, allow me to say, is a member of the European Union without being a member of the institution”.
Pardon me? Did we know this? Did we vote for this? Who allowed this to happen? Does David Cameron – now so forcefully marketing Turkish entry to the EU – agree with this? Probably yes, since he goes on calling himself a “friend of Israel” after that country produced an excellent set of forged British passports for its murderers in Dubai. As Cronin says, “the EU’s cowardice towards Israel is in stark contrast to the robust position it has taken when major atrocities have occurred in other conflicts”. After the Russia-Georgia war in 2008, for example, the EU tasked an independent mission to find out if international law had been flouted, and demanded an international inquiry into human rights abuses after Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil Tigers. Cronin does not duck Europe’s responsibility for the Jewish Holocaust and agrees that there will always be a “moral duty” on our governments to ensure it never happens again – though I did notice that Cameron forgot to mention the 1915 Armenian Holocaust when he was sucking up to the Turks this week.
But that’s not quite the point. In 1999, Britain’s arms sales to Israel – a country occupying the West Bank (and Gaza, too) and building illegal colonies for Jews and Jews only on Arab land – were worth £11.5m; within two years, this had almost doubled to £22.5m. This included small arms, grenade-making kits and equipment for fighter jets and tanks. There were a few refusals after Israel used modified Centurion tanks against the Palestinians in 2002, but in 2006, the year in which Israel slaughtered another 1,300 Lebanese, almost all of them civilians, in another crusade against Hizbollah’s “world terror”, Britain granted over 200 weapons licences.
Some British equipment, of course, heads for Israel via the US. In 2002, Britain gave “head-up displays” manufactured by BAE Systems for Lockheed Martin which promptly installed them in F-16 fighter-bombers destined for Israel. The EU did not object. In the same year, it should be added, the British admitted to training 13 members of the Israeli military. US planes transporting weapons to Israel at the time of the 2006 Lebanon war were refuelled at British airports (and, alas, it appears at Irish airports too). In the first three months of 2008, we gave licenses for another £20m of weapons for Israel – just in time for Israel’s onslaught on Gaza. Apache helicopters used against Palestinians, says Cronin, contain parts made by SPS Aerostructures in Nottinghamshire, Smiths Industries in Cheltenham, Page Aerospace in Middlesex and Meggit Avionics in Hampshire.
Need I go on? Israel, by the way, has been praised for its “logistics” help to Nato in Afghanistan – where we are annually killing even more Afghans than the Israelis usually kill Palestinians – which is not surprising since Israel military boss Gabi Ashkenazi has visited Nato headquarters in Brussels to argue for closer ties with Nato. And Cronin convincingly argues an extraordinary – almost obscenely beautiful – financial arrangement in “Palestine”. The EU funds millions of pounds’ worth of projects in Gaza. These are regularly destroyed by Israel’s American-made weaponry. So it goes like this. European taxpayers fork out for the projects. US taxpayers fork out for the weapons which Israel uses to destroy them. Then EU taxpayers fork out for the whole lot to be rebuilt. And then US taxpayers… Well, you’ve got the point. Israel, by the way, already has an “individual co-operation programme” with Nato, locking Israel into Nato’s computer networks.
All in all, it’s good to have such a stout ally as Israel on our side, even if its army is a rabble and some of its men war criminals. Come to that, why don’t we ask Hizbollah to join Nato as well – just imagine how its guerrilla tactics would benefit our chaps in Helmand. And since Israel’s Apache helicopters often kill Lebanese civilians – a whole ambulance of women and children in 1996, for example, blown to pieces by a Boeing Hellfire AGM 114C air-to-ground missile – let’s hope the Lebanese can still send a friendly greeting to the people of Nottinghamshire, Middlesex, Hampshire and, of course, Cheltenham.
Chief PA negotiator says peace proposal is more generous to Israel than the demands presented by Mahmoud Abbas to former prime minister Ehud Olmert.
The Palestinian Authority has submitted a far-reaching peace proposal to the Obama administration that is more generous to Israel than the demands presented by Mahmoud Abbas to former prime minister Ehud Olmert, the chief PA negotiator told Haaretz on Saturday.
“I presented Senator George Mitchell with a series of official documents,” Erekat said, referring to the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East. “We gave him maps and papers that clearly state our positions on all the final-status issues: borders, Jerusalem, refugees, water and security. Thus far we have not received any answer from the Israeli side.”
When asked if the Palestinian positions were similar to those presented during talks with Olmert, Erekat replied: “It’s more than that. I cannot go into details on what exactly was proposed, but Abu Mazen [PA President Mahmoud Abbas] offered more in these documents than what he proposed to Olmert in the past. Abu Mazen took bigger steps to reach peace.”
Earlier this year Erekat distributed a document to European diplomats saying the PA had offered Olmert a swap that would let Israel annex 1.9 percent of the West Bank. The document also claimed that the PA had expressed a willingness to accept an Israeli proposal to allow 15,000 Palestinian refugees to return to the country every year over 10 years.
International media outlets reported earlier this year that the PA had agreed to land swaps equaling 2.3 percent, while another report said it had accepted a swap of 3.8 percent. Erekat confirmed to Haaretz that the Palestinians have become more flexible on this issue.
He denied reports in the Arab media over the weekend that the Obama administration had threatened sanctions against the PA – perhaps even the severing of ties – if Abbas did not agree to enter direct talks with Israel over a final-status agreement.
Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian lawmaker and a member of the PLO central committee, told the pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi that Washington “applied tremendous pressures on the Palestinian Authority so that it would move to direct talks.”
Ashrawi said the United States threatened to downgrade or even sever ties with Ramallah.
Another Arab language newspaper, Al-Hayat, reported that Obama had sent a special communique to Abbas last month that said Washington would not work to extend the Israeli construction freeze in West Bank settlements if the Palestinian leader continued to oppose direct negotiations. According to the report, Obama made clear to Abbas that the United States would reject any Palestinian efforts to appeal to the Security Council in lieu of direct talks with Israel.
During an Arab League meeting in Cairo on Thursday, Abbas said he had been subject to intense pressure to agree to direct talks. Erekat confirmed that many Arab leaders sought to persuade the Palestinian leader to reconsider his position, but he denied any suggestions that Washington had threatened the PA.
“[The communique] stated that if the Palestinians do not enter direct discussions, reaching a two-state solution will be even more difficult and the Americans’ ability to help in that regard will be even more limited,” Erekat said. “There were no threats.”
Erekat also denied a report by Israel Radio that Haim Ramon, a former minister and lawmaker from the opposition Kadima party, had urged the PA not to enter into direct negotiations with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I am astounded at times to see how low these stories can go,” Erekat said. “Ramon didn’t tell me to enter direct talks or not to enter them. Such a thing never happened, and no Israeli will tell us anything along those lines.”
Erekat also denied that Ramon had been sent at the behest of President Shimon Peres. “Do not drag us into your internal politics,” he added.
“Shimon himself tells me every time we meet, ‘Go into direct talks,'” Erekat said. “I meet with many Israelis but I do not accept instructions from them or from Ramon.”
Peres is scheduled to depart for Cairo Sunday for a meeting with President Hosni Mubarak. The two leaders will discuss the latest efforts to renew direct talks between Israel and the PA.
Peres is expected to urge Mubarak to continue to press Abbas to begin direct discussions with Israel. He is expected to say Israel is serious in its intentions to advance the peace process.
Eleven others wounded as warplanes target five sites across terrirory in biggest attack since three-week offensive in 2009
A man carries a wounded young Palestinian to al-Shifa hospital after Israeli air strikes in Gaza City. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed a Hamas commander and wounded 11 other people.
Warplanes fired missiles at five targets across Gaza, including Gaza City, last night for the first time since Israel’s three-week offensive in the territory ended 18 months ago.
Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the territory, said the man killed was Issa Batran, 42, a commander of its military wing in central Gaza and a rocket maker. Eight of its supporters and three civilians were also injured.
The air raids came after a Palestinian rocket attack struck the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon on Friday, causing no casualties but damaging buildings and cars in the city.
The city’s mayor said the attack was the most serious since the end of Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli offensive that left around 1,400 Palestinians dead, in January last year. Renegade militant groups have fired dozens of rockets and mortars into southern Israel since then, although most of those attack have been ineffective, with rockets mostly landing in open fields.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, earlier said he took the rocket attack on Ashkelon, which lies seven miles north of Gaza, “very seriously”. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The cross-border violence has raised concerns of further escalation.
A Hamas spokesman said the group would avenge Batran’s killing.
“Hamas will not be quiet over the blood of its martyrs,” said Hamad al-Rakabi. “Israel is opening all the gates of fire. This blood will cascade into rage and fire.”
The targets hit in last night’s air strike included a military training camp in Gaza City, smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border and Batran’s shack, on the outskirts of the Nusseirat refugee camp, according to Hamas security officials.
With Lieberman as prime minister, extremism would no longer need to hide. The right would be a genuine right – fascist, racist, supporting the transfer of Arabs and giving the peace process no chance.
By Zvi Bar’el
As long as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not agree to hold direct talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s situation was excellent. The refusenik was on the other side, as usual. The fact that Israel has refused to commit to the 1967 borders and agree to extend the freeze on settlement construction, while continuing to build in East Jerusalem, did not change Abbas’ status as a refusenik.
But Abbas is not refusing to hold direct talks, he is only refusing to accept what Netanyahu told Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos: Continuing the settlement freeze after September 26 is impossible from a political point of view and will break up the government, as will Abbas’ other demands, which Netanyahu described as “unrealistic.” So with whom exactly does Netanyahu want Abbas to hold direct talks? With a phantom prime minister? With the man afraid of his own coalition’s shadow?
On Thursday the Arab League’s Monitoring Committee decided to “permit” Abbas to hold direct negotiations. Everything, of course, based on terms Abbas has set. Nothing has changed in principle – neither the position of the Arab League nor of Abbas. What has changed is the commitment that Abbas received from Washington, the kind that will let the Arab League give a green light to direct negotiations.
The result is that the negotiations with the Palestinians are being conducted over Netanyahu’s head, on the Washington-Ramallah-Cairo-Riyadh axis. While Netanyahu is promising not to extend the settlement freeze as he approves the continued “Judaization” of Jerusalem, someone is holding genuine negotiations. While Netanyahu is dealing with the details of the show – direct or indirect negotiations – Washington and its allies are dealing with the content.
When the prime minister finds it hard to comprehend the change in the position of Abbas and the Arab League, when he says he can’t meet the conditions because of coalition problems, we can question why this government should continue. Why not go to elections and try to establish a new Israeli leadership that can really lead?
The answer so oft repeated is that elections will produce an extreme right-wing government and halt the peace process. Really? And what kind of government is currently in power? Is it really the coalition that is threatening to bring down the government if its head makes a move toward the Palestinians? Isn’t it the people furthest to the right, the more nationalist, who are setting this government’s character and policy?
Anyone who believes in Netanyahu’s good intentions cannot ignore that he has become a front – not to say a cartoon – that the extreme right is hiding behind. This impressive man, who speaks English so well, is at the receiving end of blows, not the real warmongers. Anyone who does not believe Netanyahu believes that it’s a show and that there is no difference between Lieberman’s right-wing and Bibi’s right-wing. In both cases, this prime minister cannot achieve peace and will not advance the negotiations, and because of him relations between Israel and the United States may collapse.
And what if Lieberman wins the elections? First of all we will be rid of his bluffing, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. With Lieberman as prime minister, the process could turn out faster. Pressure from the United States would be less hesitant, and the public response less ambivalent. With Lieberman as prime minister, extremism would no longer need to hide. The right would be a genuine right – fascist, racist, supporting the transfer of Arabs and giving the peace process no chance.
But then the left will somehow be able to revive, because anyone who is not from Habayit Hayehudi or Yisrael Beiteinu will be able to set up his own hostel and not be a guest at the shack set up by the right. People today in the center will not be shy about embracing their leftist leanings.
Anyone who fears elections wants to continue living a lie in which the extreme right does not dictate policy, in which Abbas, Haim Ramon or Shimon Peres are the enemies of peace, and in which salvation is possible only with direct talks. Idiocy. Until we have leaders who understand how dangerous the slope is on which Israel is racing, the slope will not disappear. Sometimes, when it’s impossible to stop the fall, it’s best to speed it up.
By Catrina Stewart In Jerusalem
Saturday, 17 July 2010 New Israeli citizens may soon be required to swear an oath of loyalty to a “Jewish and democratic” state, a step that has drawn harsh criticism from human rights groups.
Israel’s Cabinet, which meets tomorrow, is expected to approve this and extend a raft of existing measures that make it harder for Palestinians to achieve citizenship.
The wording of the oath, which would apply to new applicants for citizenship, was slammed by Arab advocacy groups, who accused Israel of “racist” policies that attempt to link citizenship to ideology.
“It’s another step in the direction of getting the Arabs out of Israel,” said Uri Avnery, a former MP and founder of the Israeli Gush Shalom peace movement. “Parliament has become a lynching mob.”
The move comes on the back on a series of strikes against Palestinians seeking citizenship and Israeli Arabs who already have it. The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, voted this week to strip Hanin Zuabi, an Israeli Arab politician, of her parliamentary privileges for taking part in the Gaza flotilla aimed at breaching Israel’s sea blockade.
The new oath of allegiance, which would replace an existing oath to the “State of Israel,” appears to represent a watered-down version of legislation enthusiastically promoted by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s Foreign Minister. His law, which failed to clear parliament, was aimed at stripping Israeli Arabs of their citizenship if they failed to swear allegiance to the Jewish state.
Yisrael Beitenu, Lieberman’s ultra-nationalist party, vaulted to third place in last year’s elections on a platform that played on the electorate’s distrust of Israeli Arabs and their perceived disloyalty to Israel.
Israeli Arabs, who comprise 20 percent of the population and live in some of the country’s most under-privileged communities, have resisted such a loyalty oath on the grounds that only a state defined by all its different ethnic groups would make them feel equal.
Adalah, a prominent Israeli Arab advocacy group, said the new policy “requires all non-Jews to identify with Zionism and imposes a political ideology and loyalty to the principles of Judaism and Zionism”.
In recent months, the Knesset has introduced a number of bills that have drawn criticism from liberals, not least legislation that would ban anyone from promoting or even supporting boycotts against Israel.
“There’s a steady deterioration of Israeli democracy and a steady rise of right-wing ideologies in the Knesset,” said Avnery. “Parliament is turning into a danger for Israeli democracy.”
The time has come that all of us, irrespective of whether we are Jews or Muslims, ultra-Orthodox or secular, declare our loyalty to the only Jewish democracy in the world. On one condition: the declaration ceremony would take place in the courtyard of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, following a tour of the center of Hebron.
By Akiva Eldar
HEBRON – Why is the government requiring only those seeking citizenship to have to declare their loyalty to a Jewish and democratic state? I want to do it too!
The time has come that all of us, irrespective of whether we are Jews or Muslims, ultra-Orthodox or secular, declare our loyalty to the only Jewish democracy in the world. On one condition: the declaration ceremony would take place in the courtyard of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, following a tour of the center of Hebron.
Every Israeli citizen will then know what his country is doing in his name in the city of the patriarchs. Every Hebrew mother will know “where the only democracy in the Middle East” is sending its sons. Those who like what they see will sign the declaration. Those who will not find in Hebron proof of Jewish values and principles of democracy will refuse.
Before embarking on an educational tour in the center of Hebron, we should take a refresher course: the Hebron Agreement, which was signed in 1997 between the Netanyahu government and the Palestinian Authority, divided Hebron into an Arab area controlled by the PA (H1 ), and a Jewish area controlled by the IDF (H2 ). In the Arab area live 120,000 Palestinians, and in the Jewish area, which includes the old city and the city’s commercial center, there are 500 Jews and 30,000 Arabs. In order to prevent friction, Israel has imposed tough rules of physical separation between the two populations and harsh limits on the movement of the Palestinian population in most of H2.
A pack of panting dogs met us at the beginning of Shuhada Street, which cuts through the old quarter of Hebron toward the Tomb of the Patriarchs. The doors of the shops were shut and the market was empty.
Someone covered racist graffiti with smiling faces on a pink background.
A survey of the area around Jewish settlement in the city conducted by B’Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel in late 2006 found that 1,829 Palestinian businesses (more than 75 percent of all businesses in the area surveyed ) had been closed in recent years. More than 1,000 housing units (42 percent ) in the area surveyed were abandoned.
Yehuda Shaul, founder of Breaking the Silence, says that more than 40 percent of the Palestinian residents have left the area.
Bored soldiers peered at the visitors, and once they were sure that they were “ours” they moved on (perhaps for dance practice ). Even though the IDF told the High Court of Justice two years ago that the ban on Palestinians movement in the streets was lifted, they do not dare come close to this area.
They know that at every street corner they will be asked to show their identity cards and they will be searched. Eran Efrati, who served at the Abu Snuneh post in 2007, says that instructions in the briefing room contained an order to make the residents “feel persecuted.”
In the Breaking the Silence database there are testimonies of soldiers who describe creative ways for creating such a feeling. For example, holding a population survey in the middle of the night (the IDF calls it “mapping” ), or banging on pots.
A skinny youth, fringes hanging from under his shirt, is galloping through a field on a white horse. At the bottom of Beit Hadassah, Shaul fixes his black kippa and points to the Palestinian girls’ school.
He says that he has a video clip in his office which shows the customary way the neighboring Jewish kids kill their boredom over Shabbat, by throwing stones at the girls.
In an alley leading to the wholesale market, closed following the massacre at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in early 1994, a group of young Jews pushes a cart loaded with building materials. Behind the barred doors of the shops, under the noses of the soldiers, another small settlement is staring.
At the entrance to the Tomb of the Patriarchs our path was blocked by six Border Policemen. Their commander, who was rushed to meet us says that we had been barred from entering the site with Yehuda Shaul, because he belongs to a group with a “political character.” The officer confirmed that one or two days earlier, Noam Arnon, the spokesman for the Jewish community in Hebron, accompanied a group of visitors into the Tomb of the Patriarchs on behalf of the Foreign Ministry. The settlers in Hebron, as is well known, are a group without “political character.”
The actions of the state in the city where the Patriarchs of the nation are buried, in Sheikh Jarrah, in the Jordan Valley and in the Gaza Strip, have nothing to do with Judaism or democracy. So long as this is the face of the Jewish democratic State, I refuse to declare my loyalty to it.
Cynthia McKinney, 19 July 2010
In response to Israel’s deadly attack on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla, more than 800 labor and community activists picketed America’s sixth largest port in Oakland last month. The result was a historic blockade of a large Israeli cargo ship for 24 hours. Across the world, dockworkers and activists engaged in similar actions. In Sweden, the Dockworkers Union completed a week-long boycott of Israeli ships and containers, resulting in the blocking of 500 tons of goods to and from Israel.
Turkish dockworkers’ union Liman-Is also announced that their workers would refuse to handle Israeli ships. In South Africa, Durban dockworkers blocked Israeli ships in February 2009 in response to Israel’s 22-day war of aggression on the Gaza Strip. The Union of South African Municipal workers announced last month their intention to declare all South African municipalities as “Israeli Apartheid-Free Zones.” The message behind all these courageous actions worldwide was clear: Israel should no longer be allowed to act with impunity. Israel should be held accountable to universal principles of human rights.
The worldwide wave of protests against Israel’s assault in international waters and the killing of at least nine activists, including one Turkish American, is accompanied with a growing sense of revulsion at the double standards the US government and its allies apply to Israel. Its persistent lawless actions are jeopardizing America’s public image, where it is becoming more difficult than ever to justify Israeli crimes without harming our relationships with other ally countries. More importantly, this blind support for Israel’s policies is creating vigorous grassroots opposition, largely expressed through the global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
This movement is taking upon itself what governments have failed to do: to hold Israel accountable for its crimes. The dockworkers’ refusal to deal with Israeli ships is part of this vibrant movement and comes in response to the appeal in 2005 from Palestinian civil society. Other initiatives include campaigns for the boycott of Israeli products, divestment from companies aiding Israeli war crimes, and cultural isolation, so as to not entertain Israeli apartheid, demonstrated by the cancellation of concerts in Israel by renowned artists like Elvis Costello and Gil Scott-Heron.
Israel’s latest massacre, sadly, does not come as a surprise, but rather constitutes a progression of Israel’s continued abuse of power as the world turns a blind eye to its aggression. In 2003, and again in 2007, I was ejected from the US Congress after being targeted by the pro-Israel lobby in this country for daring to veer from standard political operating practice by actually believing that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies to all human beings, including Palestinians. It was this first experience that gave me a true picture of the ruthlessness of Israel’s supporters in this country and the silence of those in a position to object.
In December 2008, I joined activists aboard the pleasure boat, Dignity, in an attempt to break the siege of Gaza. We left Cyprus heading for Gaza, carrying with us badly needed medical supplies among other necessities. It was when we got to what Israel deemed a “closed military zone” that the Israeli navy attacked us. Our boat was rammed, disabled and forced to dock in Lebanon rather than deliver aid to those in need because of Israel’s violent onslaught against Gaza, the 22-day Operation Cast Lead. In late June 2009, I again attempted to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza by boat and the Israeli navy, in international waters, commandeered the boat, kidnapped 21 of us onboard and imprisoned us in an Israeli prison for seven days. Despite the parallels with the recent Freedom Flotilla attack, my own government completely disregarded these illegal actions, and the media deliberately misled the public, as is too often the case.
All of this has an undeniable historical parallel with the South African anti-apartheid struggle — one that we must all learn from. The apartheid regime enjoyed wide support from Western governments, and it was only in 2008 that the US begrudgingly removed travel restrictions on Nelson Mandela. He, too, had been vilified for standing up for the rights of black people. In 1963, just four years after the anti-apartheid movement was formed, Danish dockworkers refused to offload a ship with South African goods, and Swedish workers followed suit. Dockworkers in the San Francisco Bay Area and, later, in Liverpool also refused to offload South African goods.
The Palestinian BDS movement, which seeks to end discrimination in Palestine, is inspired by the South African anti-apartheid struggle. The Palestinian civil society call for BDS has been answered by thousands of people of conscience around the world. The Oakland dockworkers’ boycott brings back memories of a time when we dared not to be silent and refused to be complicit with US human rights crimes in Vietnam, the segregated US south, and in apartheid South Africa.
The struggle for freedom and justice for the Palestinian people has become the litmus test of our time (Gaza today has become the test of our universal morality and our common humanity). The US Congress in 1986 imposed a comprehensive boycott of apartheid South Africa, at a time when the citizen-led boycott movement deemed US government collaboration with the racist regime impossible to sustain. As Israel continues to commit massacres, and citizens of conscience respond vigorously to isolate what is now a pariah state, the US government will be forced into a similar position.
I was targeted and kicked out of the Congress because I believe in justice and peace. It is only a matter of time before voters of conscience turn what happened to me on its head by making it clear that elected policy-makers who collaborate in America’s unconditional partnership with Israel will be exposed as shameful; and by making it clear to policy-makers that such shameful behavior is unsustainable because collaborators in injustice will be ejected from office by the people. When this moment comes, Palestinians will finally see justice and be allowed to live freely in their homeland.
Cynthia McKinney is a former member of the United States House of Representatives, 2008 Green Party presidential nominee, and a human rights activist.
EDITOR: BDS is taking a hold and dictating the new agenda
Not a day passes without some major news on the BDS issue, from all parts of the globe. This rising movement, with supporters in most countries, and with growing effect, is now assisting the isolation of the Israeli regime of militarised, brutal colonial settlement. While Israel’s universities and colleges do all they can to support the coniued occupoation, there are many academics who are increasingly voicing their opposition to the regime and its war crimes. This struggle is likely to intensify, as the regime is moving to stop all crticism by using the legal machinery to silence academics. This vert act is a proof on the increasing efficacy of the BDS campaign.
Backlash over threat to outlaw supporters of boycott movement aimed at ending the continued occupation of the West Bank
An academic backlash has erupted in Israel over proposed new laws, backed by the government of Binyamin Netanyahu, to criminalise a handful of Israeli professors who openly support a campaign against the continuing occupation of the West Bank.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel has gained rapid international support since Israeli troops stormed a Gaza-bound flotilla of aid ships in May, killing nine activists. Israeli attention has focused on the small number of activists, particularly in the country’s universities, who have openly supported an academic boycott of Israeli institutions.
A protest petition has been signed by 500 academics, including two former education ministers, following recent comments by Israel’s education minister, Gideon Saar, that the government intends to take action against the boycott’s supporters. A proposed bill introduced into the Israeli parliament – the Knesset – would outlaw boycotts and penalise their supporters. Individuals who initiated, encouraged or provided support or information for any boycott or divestment action would be made to pay damages to the companies affected. Foreign nationals involved in boycott activity would be banned from entering Israel for 10 years, and any “foreign state entity” engaged in such activity would be liable to pay damages.
Saar last week described the petition as hysterical and an attempt to silence contrary opinions. While the vast majority of the signatories do not support an academic boycott of Israel, they have joined forces over what they regard as the latest assault on freedom of expression in Israel. The petition states: “We have different and varied opinions about solving the difficult problems facing Israel, but there is one thing we are agreed on – freedom of expression and academic freedom are the very lifeblood of the academic system.”
Daniel Gutwein, a history professor at Haifa University who is one of the signatories, described the minister’s intervention as an attempt “to make Israeli academia docile, frightened and silent”.
Although the BDS campaign – in various forms – has been running for over half a decade, it has become an increasingly fraught issue inside Israel in the past year since a small number of academics publicly declared support for a boycott, including Neve Gordon, author of Israel’s Occupation and a former paratrooper who was badly injured while serving with the Israeli Defence Force.
Speaking to the Observer last week, Gordon said that many Israelis saw support for the BDS as “crossing a red line”. Adding that he had received recent death threats, he said: “I am worried about what is happening to the space for debate in Israel. I find that there is a proto-fascist mindset developing. One of the slogans you hear a lot now is no citizenship without loyalty. It is an inversion of the republican idea that the state should be loyal to the citizen.”
Israeli campaigners believe the Gaza flotilla incident represents a tipping point in raising support for boycotts. Musicians including Elvis Costello, Gil Scott Heron and the Pixies have cancelled shows in Israel. Hollywood actors also snubbed Jerusalem’s international film festival and internationally acclaimed writers have supported the BDS movement, which is gaining support in dozens of countries.
“It’s a different world to what it was even a month ago,” says Kobi Snitz, member of an Israeli BDS group. “Suddenly, all sorts of people are supporting it – people that you wouldn’t expect.”
What is most interesting, however, has been the impact in Israel itself. Israeli journalist and blogger Noam Sheizaf wrote recently that such actions are now forcing Israelis “to think about the political issues and about their consequences… For a country in a constant state of denial regarding the occupation, this is no small thing.” Sheizaf does not promote the boycott, but says: “I will gladly return concert tickets if that is the price for making Israelis understand that the occupation cannot go on.”
Adi Oz, culture editor on the Tel Aviv weekly Ha’ir, appeared on Israeli national radio explaining her support for recent boycott activity. “When the Pixies cancelled their concert here I was disappointed,” she says. “But I was not critical of the Pixies, I was critical of our government, because they are responsible for Israel’s isolation.” She adds that, post-flotilla, the cultural boycott is “something that everyone has a stand on – and some people are realising that they are in favour of it, without having thought about it before.” There has also been a spate of boycott-related discussion in the financial press. The daily business newspaper Calcalist ran an uncritical profile of the Israeli campaigners behind Who Profits, an online database of Israeli and international companies involved in the occupation of the West Bank.
The project’s co-ordinator, Dalit Baum, of the Coalition of Women for Peace, says: “Every day there is an article about this issue in the Israeli media, which creates a discussion about the economy of the occupation and raises the fact that there’s a problem.”
The head of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon has appealed for calm, following recent incidents in which villagers attacked soldiers.
Locals were angered by what they saw as plans by the UN force to undermine the Hezbollah militant group in the event of a renewed conflict with Israel.
The area is a Hezbollah stronghold.
In an open letter to residents, Maj Gen Alberto Asarta Cuevas said the best way to deal with any concerns was through dialogue, not by beating peacekeepers.
In the latest of the clashes, villagers on Saturday disarmed a French patrol of UN peacekeepers in the village of Tuline and attacked them with sticks, rocks and eggs before the army intervened.
Residents have complained that Unifil has stepped up its patrols in southern Lebanon, which has been under the de facto control of Hezbollah since the withdrawal of Israeli forces in 2000.
Open letter
“As you all know, some recent incidents have cast a shadow on the positive environment in which Unifil peacekeepers have been working, in close co-ordination with the Lebanese army, for your safety and security,” Maj Gen Cuevas said in a rare open letter released on Thursday.
The UN commander said Unifil respected the privacy and property of the villagers in the south, and that problems should be resolved by discussion “not by obstructing the work of the peacekeepers or by beating them”.
Tensions in southern Lebanon have increased after recent Israeli claims that weapons were flowing in to Hezbollah fighters.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military published an aerial photograph purporting to show Hezbollah weapons caches in the southern Lebanese village of al-Khiam.
Following the recent clashes, Hezbollah – which fought a devastating 2006 war with Israel – urged the peacekeepers to stick to their mandate.
“Unifil should always carry out its role… in a way so as not to arouse mistrust and worry of citizens as was the case during the latest exercises,” Hezbollah’s number two, Naim Qassem, said in a newspaper interview.
The UN Security Council is due to meet later on Friday, at France’s request, to discuss the confrontations and reaffirm the peacekeeping force’s right to free movement.
The UN force was originally formed in 1978 after Israeli troops entered southern Lebanon and began a 22-year occupation.
Security Council Resolution 1701, that ended the 2006 war, expanded the mandate of Unifil and paved the way for the Lebanese army to deploy in the sensitive border area.
Rabbis are exploiting fears and inflaming emotions under pretense of enforcing Jewish religious law.
The letter circulated by three rabbis in south Tel Aviv in which they direct residents not to rent their apartments to migrants and refugees trying to settle in the city makes a pretense of concern for the welfare of the residents and compassion for asylum seekers. But it hardly manages to conceal the blatant racism lurking between the lines.
The rabbis warn residents not to give access to their homes to “illegal workers,” but it is clear that maintaining the rule of law is not their concern, inasmuch as they are not demanding similar treatment for Israeli citizens. As for the argument that the presence of the foreigners is causing a rise in crime and intermarriage, the rabbis are even taking the law into their own hands and bypassing city hall and the police.
The weaker population groups living in south Tel Aviv find themselves pressed to take in refugees, migrant workers and collaborators. This situation creates troubling friction that aggravates the residents’ sense of unfair treatment and alienation. It’s hard to ask the inhabitants of these deprived neighborhoods to take in the outcasts of the world with open arms without feeling threatened. In this complex reality, the role of religious and secular leaders is to try to bridge the gaps and find creative ways of living together.
The rabbis who signed the letter are not civil servants. However, the public is greatly influenced by their opinions. The Tel Aviv municipality has expended more than a little effort in taking care of migrant workers and could have used the rabbis’ help in making contact with the migrants and their leaders and attempting to integrate the newcomers into the neighborhood in the ways that have been done in many other countries. The rabbis, however, prefer to exploit residents’ fears and inflame emotions in the name of halakha, Jewish religious law.
Over the weekend, a courageous leader, Rabbi Yehuda Amital, who founded the Meimad political movement, passed away. His party carried the banner of tolerance, humanism and the search for peace in the name of religious faith, and though the members of his movement were always a minority, they provided an important alternative to ultra-Orthodox-nationalist radicalization.
In recent years, Rabbi Amital’s students and followers have fallen silent, and the status of rabbis such as those who wrote the letter about the migrants has grown stronger. It can be hoped that the municipality will understand the damage they are doing and will publicly disassociate the city from their questionable activities and instead provide the option of an alternative, one of coexistence for all of the city’s residents – both temporary and permanent – a coexistence free of fear and racism.
What more can Assad say that he hasn’t already? How long must he knock in vain on Israel’s locked door?
By Gideon Levy
It couldn’t have been spelled out more explicitly, clearly and emphatically. Read and judge for yourselves: “Our position is clear: When Israel returns the entire Golan Heights, of course we will sign a peace agreement with it …. What’s the point of peace if the embassy is surrounded by security, if there is no trade and tourism between the two countries? That’s not peace. That’s a permanent cease-fire agreement. This is what I say to whoever comes to us to talk about the Syrian track: We are interested in a comprehensive peace, i.e., normal relations.”
Who said this to whom? Syrian President Bashar Assad to the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir last week. These astounding things were said to Arab, not Western ears, and they went virtually unnoticed here. Can you believe it?
What more can Assad say that he hasn’t already? How many more times does he have to declare his peaceful intentions before someone wakes up here? How long must he knock in vain on Israel’s locked door? And if that were not enough, he also called on Turkey to work to calm the crisis with Israel so it can mediate between Israel and Syria.
Assad’s words should have been headline news last week and in the coming weeks. Anwar Sadat said less before he came to Israel. In those days we were excited by his words, today we brazenly disregard such statements. This leads to only one conclusion: Israel does not want peace with Syria. Period. It prefers the Golan over peace with one of its biggest and most dangerous enemies. It prefers real estate, bed and breakfasts, mineral water, trendy wine and a few thousand settlers over a strategic change in its status.
Just imagine what would happen if we emerged from the ruins of our international status to sign a peace agreement with Syria – how the international climate regarding us would suddenly change, how the “axis of evil” would crack and Iran’s strongholds weaken, how Hezbollah would get a black eye, more than in all the Lebanon wars. And maybe even Gilad Shalit, held by the Damascus-based Hamas, would be freed. Sound too good to be true? Maybe, but Israel is not even trying. A prime minister who ignores this chance is no less than a peace criminal.
Instead of the Shalit march that has just ended, a different march should have set out this week, one more massive and determined, calling on the Israeli government, the peace refuser, to do something. Hoarse shouts should have gone up: Peace with Syria now. But this march will not go forward this week. Apparently it will never happen. Singer-songwriter Shlomo Artzi, Zubin Mehta and the respectable demonstrators who marched on behalf of one soldier will not do so to support a move that could save the lives of many soldiers and civilians. Why? Because that takes courage. Why? Because Assad was right when he told La Repubblica in Italy: “Israeli society has tilted too far to the right, and it is not capable of making peace with Syria.”
True, they say the Mossad chief thinks that Assad will never make peace because the whole justification for his regime is based on hostility toward Israel. Our experts are never wrong, but similar things were said about Sadat. True, Assad also said other things. Other? Not really. He said that if he does not succeed through peace, he will try to liberate the Golan through resistance. Illogical? Illegitimate? Not a reason to try to challenge him? What do we have to lose but the chance? Even the latest fig leaf a few prime ministers have used here – the assessment that the U.S. opposes peace with Syria – is absurd. Does anyone see U.S. President Barack Obama opposing a peace move with Syria? What a pity that he is not pressing Israel to move ahead with it.
And then there is the old refrain: “Assad doesn’t mean it.” When Arab leaders make threats, they mean it; when they talk peace, they don’t. And also: “We’ll return the Golan and end up with a piece of paper and missiles.” Remember how that was said about Egypt? But we persist: The prime minister is criminally missing a historic chance for peace, and we yawn apathetically. Sounds logical, right?
Foreign Ministry announced earlier that organizers of Gaza-bound mission agreed to dock in Egypt rather than violate Gaza naval blockade.
A Libyan aid ship will head to Gaza’s port and will not be diverted, Palestinian Legislative Council member Jamal Al-Khudari and Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi told the Palestinian news agency Ma’an on Saturday.
Al-Khudari, head of the Popular Committee Against the Siege, told Ma’an that he had been in constant contact with the organizers of the ship, who are expected to bring 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza despite an Israeli naval blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory.
Earlier Saturday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that the Moldavian-flagged ship would not dock in Gaza, but would instead dock in Egypt’s el-Arish on the coast of the Sinai Peninsula.
According to the ministry, the change in destination was agreed to by the ship’s captain. It reportedly followed talks between Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his Greek and Moldavian counterparts.
A spokesman at the Greek Foreign Ministry said the ship would head for El Arish. An official from ACA Shipping, which owns the ship, told Reuters ahead of the ship’s departure that “the ship will leave in a few minutes for Gaza. If they don’t let us reach there [Gaza] we will head to El Arish harbor in Egypt.”
The ship – named the “Amalthia” – was set to depart Saturday from the Greek port of Lavrio with 12 crew and 15 activists and supporters on board, and about 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid supplied by the Gadhafi International Charity and Development Association, headed by Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, the second-born son of the Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi.
Tibi, of Israel’s Ra’am Ta’al party, confirmed that the ship had set sail and would arrive in Gaza some 40 hours after the departure. The Israeli Arab MK had told Israel Radio earlier that “sailing to Gaza is a political and humane act. I don’t know what Israel will do, because it has vowed to stop the ship, but Gaza remains the destination.”
“Sailing [the aid ship] is a form of passive resistance, which is preferable to any other form of resistance,” Tibi added.
Tibi had assisted the ship’s Libyan organizers, providing them with a list of items needed by residents of the Gaza Strip.
In an interview with Army Radio, Tibi confirmed a report in the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper that the list included medicines, generators for hospitals and a type of children’s milk not available in Gaza.
On Friday, Israel launched a diplomatic move at the United Nations in efforts to enlist the international community to help prevent the Libyan aid ship from sailing to Gaza.
In an official letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Israeli ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev wrote that “Israel calls upon the international community to exert its influence on the government of Libya to demonstrate responsibility and prevent the ship from departing to the Gaza Strip.”
Shalev’s letter to Ban went on to clarify that “Israel reserves the right under international law to prevent this ship from violating the existing naval blockade on the Gaza Strip.”
Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza in 2007 following a bloody Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. Israel recently eased the terms of the land blockade on the territory, following a deadly raid of a Turkish aid ship, but the naval blockade has so far remained in place.
In the letter, Shalev further urged the international community “to discourage their nationals from taking part in such action,” adding that Israel “expects the international community to ensure that this ship does not sail.”
“The declared intentions of this mission are even more questionable and provocative given the recent measures taken by Israel to ensure the increase of humanitarian aid flowing into the Gaza Strip,” the letter went on to say, adding that Israel has taken upon itself the responsibility of ensuring the transfer of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory.
Copies of the letter were also submitted to the current president of the UN Security Council as well as the president of the General Assembly, a Libyan national who previously served as Libya’s foreign minister.
E-mail this to a friendPrintable version The Amalthea is carrying 2,000 tonnes of food, medicine and other items
A ship with supplies for Gaza will dock at el-Arish in Egypt, officials say, after Israeli pressure to stop the vessel breaking its Gaza blockade.
The Moldovan-flagged ship chartered by a charity run by the son of Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi, left a Greek port on Saturday.
Israel asked for help from the UN, and had talks with Greece and Moldova. But organisers insist they will go to Gaza.
An Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound ship in May killed nine Turkish activists.
Israel insisted its troops were defending themselves but the raid sparked international condemnation.
Israel recently eased its blockade, allowing in almost all consumer goods but maintaining a “blacklist” of some items.
Israel says its blockade of the Palestinian territory is needed to prevent the supply of weapons to the Hamas militant group which controls Gaza.
Diplomatic drive
The Amalthea, renamed Hope for the mission, set off from the Greek port of Lavrio, loaded with about 2,000 tonnes of food, cooking oil, medicines and pre-fabricated houses.
It has been chartered by the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation. Its chairman is Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.
The organisation said the 92m (302ft) vessel would also carry “a number of supporters who are keen on expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people”.
The BBC’s Malcolm Brabant in Lavrio says the Libyans clearly believe the time is right to test Israel’s resolve to maintain the naval blockade.
We are heading to Gaza for purely humanitarian reasons, we are not out to provoke anyone or to seek media attention
Youssef Sawwan
Director, Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation
Israel carried out intense diplomatic activity to prevent the Amalthea reaching Gaza.
A foreign ministry statement said that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had spoken with his Greek and Moldovan counterparts on the issue.
The statement said: “The foreign ministry believes that due to these talks, the ship will not reach Gaza.”
And Libya has now told the Greek government that the ship will now dock in Egypt’s el-Arish on the coast of the Sinai Peninsula.
“We confirmed their destination in talks with the Libyan ambassador and the ship’s agent,” foreign ministry spokesman Grigoris Delavekouras told Associated Press news agency.
Israel also lobbied the UN to take action.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gabriela Shalev said in a letter: “Israel calls upon the international community to exert its influence on the government of Libya to demonstrate responsibility and prevent the ship from departing to the Gaza Strip.”
Ms Shalev also warned: “Israel reserves the right under international law to prevent this ship from violating the existing naval blockade on the Gaza Strip.”
She said the motives of the operators were “questionable and provocative”.
However, the director of the Libyan charity told the BBC the vessel was heading for Gaza.
“We have not cut deals with anyone,” Youssef Sawwan, told the BBC Arabic service.
“We are heading to Gaza for purely humanitarian reasons, we are not out to provoke anyone or to seek media attention,” Mr Sawwan said.
Israel offered evidence of what it says is a growing threat from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon; Hezbollah says wants to avoid confrontation, Asharq al-Awsat reports.
Hezbollah warned on Saturday that Israel was preparing “something” in Lebanon and that the organization has been on high alert since Israel released aerial images to highlight the militant group’s activities close to the Israeli border earlier this week, the London-based Arabic language daily Asharq al-Awsat reported.
On Wednesday, Israel offered evidence of what it says is a growing threat from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
In a briefing to journalists, Israel Defense Forces Colonel Ronen Marley revealed previously classified photographs to show what he said was a unit of 90 Hezbollah militants operating in the village of Al-Hiyam, where they were storing weapons close to hospitals and schools.
The Hezbollah official told Asharq al-Awsat that they were concerned that Israel was “preparing something for us” and added that they would act with restraint.
“We want to avoid heated political debates because we want the summer season to be perfect for the Lebanese despite Israeli attempts to execute what it failed to achieve in 2006,” Asharq al-Awsat quoted the Hezbollah official.
“We are sensing suspicious international activity, especially after Israeli chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi’s recent statements, all aimed at pressuring the Resistance,” the sources stressed.
As President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet, a report reveals 42 per cent of territory is controlled by settlers
By Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem and David Usborne
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Jewish settlers, who claim a divine right to the whole of Israel, now control more than 42 per cent of the occupied West Bank, representing a powerful obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state, a new report has revealed.
The jurisdiction of some 200 settlements, illegal under international law, cover much more of the occupied Palestinian territory than previously thought. And a large section of the land has been seized from private Palestinian landowners in defiance even of an Israeli supreme court ruling, the report said, a finding which sits uncomfortably with Israeli claims that it builds only on state land.
Drawing on official Israeli military maps and population statistics, the leading Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, compiled the new findings, which were released just as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, arrived in Washington to try to heal a gaping rift with US President Barack Obama over the issue of settlements.
“The settlement enterprise has been characterised, since its inception, by an instrumental, cynical, and even criminal approach to international law, local legislation, Israeli military orders, and Israeli law, which has enabled the continuous pilfering of land from Palestinians in the West Bank,” the report concluded.
Mr Obama’s demand for a freeze on illegal building has caused months of friction between his administration and the Israeli government. But the US president, facing mid-term elections in November, appeared eager to end the dispute with Israel yesterday.
He said the country was making “real progress” on improving conditions in the Gaza Strip and was serious about achieving peace.
The two men made a joint public appearance, carefully choreographed to convey mutual ease and friendship.
When Mr Netanyahu last visited the White House, in March, US anger at his refusal to end construction meant the Israeli premier was denied a joint appearance with Mr Obama before the cameras. This time the photo-op was granted and the two men afterwards shared a meal – although not a state dinner but a working lunch.
“Reports about the demise of the special US-Israel relationship aren’t premature, there are just flat wrong,” Mr Netanyahu said, in response to a reporter’s question about the perceived tensions. Playing to the same script, Mr Obama said that the “bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable”.
But the revelations in the B’Tselem report suggest that despite Mr Netanyahu’s stated desire for peace, his policy on settlements remains a dangerous obstacle to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and therefore to a durable peace.
They cast an uncompromising spotlight on Israeli practices in the Palestinian territories that have long drawn international criticism for establishing “facts on the ground” hampering the creation of a viable Palestinian state.
While most of the Jewish settlement activity is concentrated in 1 per cent of the West Bank, settler councils have in fact fenced off or earmarked massive tracts of land, comprising some 42 per cent of the West Bank, B’Tselem said.
And despite the outlawing by Israel of settlement expansion on private Palestinian land, settlers have seized 21 per cent of land that Israel recognises is privately-owned.
B’Tselem alleged that Israel had devised an extensive system of loopholes to requisition Palestinian land.
At the same time, Israel has built bypass roads, erected new checkpoints, and taken control of scarce water resources to the benefit of the settlers. The measures have effectively created Palestinian enclaves within the West Bank, the report said.
Under international law, any Jewish settlements built on occupied territory are illegal. These include all the settlements in the West Bank, and thousands of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, the Arab-dominated sector of the city annexed by Israel after the 1967 Six Day War. The international community still regards East Jerusalem as occupied territory. Despite firm commitments from successive Israeli governments to dismantle illegal outposts built after 2001 and to cease expansion of the settlements, Israel has provided millions of dollars worth of incentives to encourage poorer families to move into the West Bank. Some 300,000 settlers live in the West Bank.
Settlers immediately attacked the report, claiming it was timed as a spoiler to the Washington meeting.
In Washington, no concrete breakthroughs were announced but Mr Obama said that he believed the Israeli leader was ready to move towards direct talks with the Palestinians. Indirect talks began earlier this year, mediated by special US envoy George Mitchell.
Mr Netanyahu showed signs of responding to the pressure. “Peace is the best option for all of us and I think we have a unique opportunity to do it,” he said. “If we work together with [Palestinian] President [Mahmoud] Abbas then we can bring a great message of hope to our peoples, to the region and to the world.”
The Palestinians continue to refuse direct talks with Israel while new settlement construction is allowed. Settlement activity continues in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians aim to include in a new state.
With US-Israel ties already frayed, Mr Netanyahu postponed a visit to the White House last month in the aftermath of Israel’s deadly raid on a Turkish-led flotilla trying to deliver humanitarian goods to Gaza.
For Mr Obama, the danger is clear that any long-lasting record of animosity towards Israel could translate into lost votes at the mid-term elections.
EDITOR: Name change required in order to bring peace to the Middle East!
Obama has at last worked out what is wrong with Israelis. No, it is not the fact that they feel the need to kill Palestinians and other Arabs, neither their brutal occupation. It is their deep suspicion of his middle name! So as his first name is already a Hebrew one, why not change his middle name to a Hebrew one also? Maybe Benjamin? Shimon? Avigdor? Just think how esteemed a US president will be with a name like Barack Avigdor Obama… on second thoughts, it will not work; he needs also to change Obama, it seems, in order to really increase the appeal. Go for it – Barack Avigdor Peres sounds so much better! Even the pictures look better!
U.S. president tells Channel 2 Israel is unlikely to attack Iran without coordinating with the U.S.
U.S. President Barack Obama told Channel 2 News on Wednesday that he believed Israel would not try to surprise the U.S. with a unilateral attack on Iran.
U.S. President Barack Avigdor Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walking at the White House, on July 6, 2010. Photo by: Reuters
In an interview aired Thursday evening, Obama was asked whether he was concerned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would try to attack Iran without clearing the move with the U.S., to which the president replied “I think the relationship between Israel and the U.S. is sufficiently strong that neither of us try to surprise each other, but we try to coordinate on issues of mutual concern.”
Obama spoke to Channel 2’s Yonit Levy one day after what he described as an “excellent” meeting with Netanyahu at the White House. The two leaders met alone for about 90 minutes Tuesday evening, during which time they discussed the peace process with the Palestinians, the contested Iranian nuclear program, and the strategic understandings between their two countries on Tehran’s efforts to achieve nuclear capabilities.
Netanyahu promised Obama during their meeting that Israel would undertake confidence-building measures toward the Palestinian Authority in the coming days and weeks. These steps are likely to include the transfer of responsibility over more parts of the West Bank over to PA security forces.
During the interview Wednesday, when confronted with the anxiety that some Israelis feel toward him, Obama said that “some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion.”
“Ironically, I’ve got a Chief of Staff named Rahm Israel Emmanuel. My top political advisor is somebody who is a descendent of Holocaust survivors. My closeness to the Jewish American community was probably what propelled me to the U.S. Senate,” Obama said.
“I think that sometimes, particularly in the Middle East, there’s the feeling of the friend of my enemy must be my enemy, and the truth of the matter is that my outreach to the Muslim community is designed precisely to reduce the antagonism and the dangers posed by a hostile Muslim world to Israel and to the West,” Obama went on to say.
Obama added that he believed a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians could be achieved within his current term. “I think [Netanyahu] understands we’ve got a fairly narrow window of opportunity… We probably won’t have a better opportunity than we have right now. And that has to be seized. It’s going to be difficult.”
The American President entirely sidestepped the question of whether the U.S. would pressure Israel to extend a current 10-month moratorium on construction in West Bank settlements, failing to give a clear answer. The moratorium is set to expire in September, and Netanyahu has announced that he would not extend the timeframe. The U.S., however, views continued Israeli settlement construction as a serious obstacle to peace efforts.
When asked whether he thought Netanyahu was the right man to strike a peace deal with the Palestinians, the U.S. President said that “I think Prime Minister Netanyahu may be very well positioned to bring this about,” adding that Israel will have to overcome many hurdles in order to affect the change required to “secure Israel for another 60 years”
In a separate interview with another Israeli media outlet, Obama proclaimed that he was not “blindly optimistic” regarding the chances of a Middle East peace agreement.
Israel is right to be skeptical about the peace process, he said in another yet-to-be-aired interview that was taped on Wednesday. He noted during the interview that many people thought the founding of Israel was impossible, so its very existence should be “a great source of hope.”
Meanwhile on Wednesday, Netanyahu told U.S. Jewish leaders that direct Palestinian-Israeli talks would begin “very soon”, but warned that they would be “very, very tough.”
Netanyahu told his cabinet earlier this week before flying to Washington that the time had come for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to prepare to meet directly with the Israelis, as it was the only way to advance peace.
Israelis and Palestinians have been holding indirect talks mediated by Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. Aides to Obama sounded a hopeful tone regarding the negotiations last week, telling reporters that the shuttle diplomacy between the two sides had paid off and the gaps have narrowed.
At a meeting with representatives of Jewish organizations at the Plaza Hotel late Wednesday, Netanyahu discussed the efforts to promote Middle East peace. “This is going to be a very, very tough negotiation,” he said, adding “the sooner the better.”
“Direct negotiations must begin right away, and we think that they will,” he said.
Case of four men with affiliation to Hamas is first in which Israel has cited political grounds for expulsion from city
Mohammed Abu Tir, of the Palestinian Legislative Council, is in police custody for failing to leave the city by the end of June. Photograph: Stoyan Nenov/Reuters
Israeli authorities have threatened four Palestinian politicians with expulsion from Jerusalem because of their affiliation to Hamas in a case which could have wide ramifications for others deemed undesirable by the Jewish state.
Mohammed Abu Tir, 59, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), is in police custody for failing to leave the city by the end of last month. Instantly recognisable for his dyed orange beard, Abu Tir was released from an Israeli prison in May after almost four years, and was immediately told he must abandon political activity or leave Jerusalem.
Two other members of the PLC and a former Palestinian minister have moved into the grounds of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent in East Jerusalem in protest at the deportation orders.
The men’s cases are to be heard by the supreme court in September. However the court rejected a plea to prohibit deportation in the interim, so the men are at risk of being expelled from the city at any time.
The threatened deportations are part of a wider pattern of revoking the Jerusalem residency permits of Palestinians from the city. In most cases, Israel claims that the people it strips of the right to live in Jerusalem have voluntarily relocated to the West Bank or abroad. This is often contested by the individuals concerned and human rights groups representing them.
In 2008, more than 4,500 Palestinians were excluded from Jerusalem.
However the case of the four Hamas politicians is the first time Israel has cited political grounds for expelling people from the city.
“For the first time Israel is using a claim of disloyalty to revoke residency,” said Hasan Jabarin, director of the Israeli human rights group Adalah. “The consequences for Palestinians in East Jerusalem are dangerous. This case could open a new window to revoking residency on purely political grounds.”
Abu Tir was imprisoned with dozens of Hamas politicians and activists after the Palestinian election in January 2006, which was won by the Islamic militant party.
“The election was legal and transparent. They found themselves in jail simply because they were elected,” said Jabarin.
The men’s case has been raised in the past week in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Labour MP Andrew Slaughter asked whether the British government had raised the issue with the Israeli government.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, urged Israel to “stop these sort of actions”. Ahmad Bahar, the deputy speaker of the Palestinian parliament, described the revocation of residency permits as a “massive ethnic cleansing campaign”.
More than 270,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied and annexed in 1967.
In a separate development, Israel’s supreme court has rejected a petition on behalf of Gazan lawyer Fatima Sharif to be allowed to travel to the West Bank to begin a masters degree in human rights, citing the “current political-security situation”.
The Israel Defence Forces made it clear in the court hearing yesterday that there would be no relaxation of the policy restricting the movement of Palestinians in and out of Gaza except in the most extreme circumstances, despite Israel’s decision to ease its blockade of the territory.
EDITOR: Good news! Fewer war criminal to travel in Europe this year!
Bureau issues travel advisory warning of likely revenge attacks against Israelis by Iran or Hezbollah.
Israel’s Counter Terrorism Bureau on Thursday issued a travel advisory calling for Israelis to keep their wits about them in all parts of the world, suspicious of revenge attacks by Iran and Hezbollah.
According to the warning, Hezbollah continues to blame Israel for the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the Lebanese militia’s former operations officer, and Iran blames Israel for the death of a nuclear scientist in Tehran.
The bureau statement reads “according to our intelligence, there continue to be threats of revenge killings or kidnappings of Israelis traveling outside the country, especially businesspeople and high-ranking ex-government officials.”
The bureau advised Israelis traveling abroad to take precautions, completely avoid visiting countries mentioned in travel advisories and refuse all unexpected or tempting business or social offers and refuse all unexpected invitations to meetings, especially in remote areas and after dark.
The bureau further advised Israelis to refrain from entering a hotel room or place of residence and from receiving suspicious or unexpected visitors.
On extended stays abroad, the bureau advised altering one’s personal habits by varying traffic routes, restaurants, entertainment venues and hotels frequented.
Two statesmen met in Washington on Tuesday who are looking smaller and smaller, who are taking smaller and smaller steps.
By Gideon Levy
It really was an excellent meeting: The chance that a binational state will be established has improved as a result; relations between Israel and the United States are indeed “marvelous.” Israel can continue with the whims of its occupation. The president of the United States proved Tuesday that perhaps there has been change, but not as far as we are concerned.
If there remained any vestiges of hope in the Middle East from Barack Obama, they have dissipated; if some people still expected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lead a courageous move, they now know they made a mistake (and misled others ).
The masked ball is at its peak: Preening each other, Obama and Netanyahu have proved that even their heavy layer of makeup can no longer hide the wrinkles. The worn-out, wizened old face of the longest “peace process” in history has been awarded another surprising and incomprehensible extention. It’s on its way nowhere.
The “warm” and “sympathetic” reception, albeit a little forced, including the presidential dog, Bo, the meeting of the wives, with the U.S. president accompanying the Israeli prime minister to the car in an “unprecedented” way, as the press enthused, cannot obscure reality. The reality is that Israel has again managed to fool not only America, but even its most promising president in years.
It was enough to listen to the joint press conference to understand, or better yet, not understand, where we are headed. Will the freeze continue? Obama and Netanyahu squirmed, formulated and obfuscated, and no clear answer was forthcoming. If there was a time when people marveled at Henry Kissinger’s “constructive ambiguity,” now we have destructive ambiguity. Even when it came to the minimum move of a construction freeze, without which there is no proof of serious intent on Israel’s part, the two leaders threw up a smoke screen. A cowardly yes-and-no by both.
More than anything, the meeting proved that the criminal waste of time will go on. A year and a half has passed since the two took office, and almost nothing has changed except lip service to the freeze. A few lifted roadblocks here, a little less blockade of Gaza there – all relatively marginal matters, a bogus substitute for a bold jump over the abyss, without which nothing will move.
When direct talks become a goal, without anyone having a clue what Israel’s position is – a strange negotiation in which everyone knows what the Palestinians want and no one knows for sure what Israel wants – the wheel not only does not go forward, it goes backward. There are plenty of excuses and explanations: Obama has the congressional elections ahead of him, so he mustn’t make Netanyahu angry.
After that, the footfalls of the presidential elections can be heard, and then he certainly must not anger the Jews. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is pressuring Netanyahu now; tomorrow it might be Likud MK Danny Danon, and after all, you can’t expect Netanyahu to commit political suicide. And there you have it, his term in office is over, with no achievements. Good for you, Obama; bravo Netanyahu. You managed to make a mockery of each other, and together, of us all.
Netanyahu will be coming back to Israel over the weekend, adorned with false accomplishments. The settlers will mark a major achievement. Even if they don’t not admit it – they are never satisfied, after all – they can rejoice secretly. Their project will continue to prosper. If they have doubled their numbers since the Oslo Accords, now they can triple them.
And then what? Here then is a question for Obama and Netanyahu: Where to? No playing for time can blur the question. Where are they headed? What will improve in another year? What will be more promising in another two years? The Syrian president is knocking at the door begging for peace with Israel, and the two leaders are ignoring him. Will he still be knocking in two years? The Arab League’s initiative is still valid; terror has almost ceased. What will the situation be after they have finished compromising over the freeze in construction of balconies and ritual baths?
Two statesmen met in Washington on Tuesday who are looking smaller and smaller, who are taking smaller and smaller steps. They have decided not to decide, which in itself is a decision. When the chance of a two-state solution has long since entered injury time, they have decided on more extra time. Get ready for the binational state, or the next round of bloodletting.
