EDITOR: Even the right can see this is disastrous…
Yoel Marcus is by no measure one can imagine on Israel’s political left – on the contrary, he has been on the liberal right for some decades; but even he can see that Israel is heading for another bloody war. Where I may differ from him, amongst other things, is his belief that there is a political solution now possible for Netanyahu to sign to. There is no such solution Netanyahu will sign to, no more than Olmert, Sharon and Barak before him would. No Israeli PM has been ready to deal with leaving the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories) and to agree a just peace with the PLO. Netanyahu is the least likely to do so.
Obama will be the one to decide if an extension of the building freeze is essential to direct talks under American sponsorship.
By Yoel Marcus
It’s been a long time since negotiations elicited as many smiles and as positive an atmosphere as the Washington-Sharm-Jerusalem round of talks. The leaders, including two presidents and one king, enter closed sessions and emerge smiling, as though the meetings have turned into joke-telling competitions. Those setting the tone are U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington and his envoy here, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Her figure somewhat fuller now than when she sweat out the contest against Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, she has hardly been photographed without a Sara Netanyahu-type grin from ear to ear.
Quite unusually, at least up until this point, there haven’t been any leaks from the long talks either – only assessments given by veteran political commentators. The optimism is dictated from above, i.e. by Obama, who has decided to take our subject in hand, demonstrating a blatant change in his almost hostile attitude toward Israel.
In light of his eroding status around the world, the impression is that it is very important to the American president, both personally and strategically, to succeed here. And when the secretary of state emerges from a meeting with President Shimon Peres and declares that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are serious in their intentions to renew the peace process, for the time being this represents more a wish of Obama’s than a realistic impression of the round of talks thus far.
Netanyahu demonstrated leadership when he agreed to freeze construction in the territories for 10 months. Nobody believed he would dare to stick to that decision until the end. The fact is, he not only passed the decision in the cabinet, but not one of his ministers – including those from Yisrael Beiteinu – resigned.
Still, we must recall that the prime minister not only made a commitment to the Palestinians and the Americans; he also made a promise to the Israeli public that he meant 10 months, “and not one day more.” While he can be praised for doing something nobody did before him, there will almost certainly be those in his camp who won’t forgive him if he breaks his promise to the Israelis.
In addition, the Palestinians refused to enter direct talks and wasted nine months. Had they conducted negotiations during the freeze, we might now be standing in another place entirely. The talks in Washington also made clear the profundity of the gaps between the two sides. Now that the sides have begun to speak directly under Obama’s sponsorship, the entire issue of the freeze as a condition to talks is passe. It’s possible to talk face to face and not to build at one and the same time in territories that we will evacuate in any case.
Now, when rockets are being launched from Gaza on an almost daily basis and the commander of the Hamas military wing, Ahmed Jabri, is threatening us with war, the question confronting us is whether the time has not come to do everything in our power to reach an agreement with the Palestinian Authority, instead of heading downhill toward a “war for the peace of the settlements Yitzhar and Tapuah.” An extension of the building freeze is not essential to renew the direct talks under American sponsorship, based on an understanding with Obama that it will be “light” construction if any, to avoid creating chaos in the territories before we reach an overall agreement with the Palestinians. In the agreement with Egypt, we also signed first and later removed the Rafah Salient settlements.
The U.S. administration is maintaining a fog of war, but it is clear that Obama will be the one to decide whether white smoke will emerge from the White House chimney. The fact that Israel is starting to distribute gas masks at an accelerated pace implies that both we and the U.S. administration are worriedly keeping track of those same threats with which we will have to deal sooner or later.
Whether the Palestinians want to and can achieve a peace agreement is still up in the air. The same doubts exist regarding Netanyahu as well – does he have the stuff to make major decisions? Most of Likud is standing behind him, despite Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom’s threats. And if Netanyahu managed to pass the freeze, he can pass anything in his cabinet – certainly with massive support from most of the public, which aspires to peace.
On Yom Kippur 37 years ago, we buried 2,700 fallen soldiers too many, in order to reach the conclusion foreign minister Moshe Dayan reached when he signed the peace treaty with Egypt: only a donkey never changes his mind.
EDITOR: The mystery solved at last
For those of us who were wondering and worrying about the disappearance of Al Ahram Weekly from the web-waves, the mystery is at last solved; Read below about their crime and punishment…
Some years ago, a certain American female journalist of the Herald Tribune has made the mistake of telling her readers that the Egyptian Leader, Mr. Hosni Mubarak, is known popularly as La Vache qui rit (Laughing Cow, a French brand of melted cheese, known for the smiling portrait ofa laughing cow, which, incredibly, shares the features of Mubarak’s broad face…). In less than 24 hours, she was escorted to the airport and flown off, never to be allowed in again. He laughs who laughs last…
Altered image in state-run paper shows Egyptian president in lead role at Middle East peace talks
Al-Ahram's doctored image of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and other leaders at the Middle East peace talks in Washington. Photograph: Al-Ahram
Egypt’s oldest newspaper today defended its decision to publish a doctored photograph that appeared to put president Hosni Mubarak at the forefront of key figures at the Middle East peace talks in Washington.
The original photo showed US president Barack Obama walking in the lead on a red carpet, with Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdullah II slightly behind.
But the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper altered the image in its Tuesday edition to show Mubarak in the lead, with Obama slightly behind him to his right, then placed it over a broadsheet article titled “the Road to Sharm El Sheikh”, referring to the Egyptian Red Sea resort that hosted the second round of negotiations.
Egyptian bloggers and activists said the picture was an example of the regime’s deception of its own people. Critics also said the photo was an attempt to distract attention from Egypt’s waning role in the Middle East peace process.
The original photograph of the five leaders. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images
But the newspaper’s editor-in chief, Osama Saraya defended the decision in an editorial today, saying the original photo had been published on the day talks began and the new version was only meant to illustrate Egypt’s leading role in the peace process.
“The expressionist photo is … a brief, live and true expression of the prominent stance of President Mubarak in the Palestinian issue, his unique role in leading it before Washington or any other,” Saraya wrote. The photo is still posted on the newspaper’s website.
Opponents of Mubarak’s near three-decade rule seized on the controversy to criticize the government, which is accused of widespread abuses aimed at suppressing dissent. Wael Khalil, the Egyptian blogger who first called attention to the altered photo, said it was a “snapshot” of what he called daily deception about a number of issues, including democratic change and social justice.
“They lie to us all the time,” he said. “Instead of addressing the real issues, they just Photoshop it.”
Saraya accused critics of launching a smear campaign against Al-Ahram, which was first published in 1876. The newspaper has enjoyed the widest circulation in Egypt but has faced a growing challenge in recent years from a new breed of private publications and the internet.
It is not unusual for Egyptian newspapers to retouch pictures of senior officials to improve their appearance or light.
EDITOR: Creative fiction…
Of course, Israel will refuse to speak to anyone, let alone the EU, about settlements. After all, God in person seems to have sanctioned their torture of Palestine. But what is really novel is the excuse – read below and enjoy:
Jerusalem says EU demand for discussions on eve of Yom Kippur is highly insensitive
Monday, 13 September 2010 Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure to extend a freeze on building Jewish settlements ahead of peace talks with Hillary Clinton and Mahmoud Abbas
Israel has said it will not meet a delegation of European foreign ministers, including William Hague, this week as diplomatic pressure mounts on its government to extend a 10-month settlement freeze that ends next week.
The Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday told Tony Blair, the Middle East envoy, that current restrictions on building West Bank Jewish settlements will not remain, but there would be some limits on construction. “We will not freeze the lives of the residents,” he said.
Israel has bridled at what it calls an “insensitive” European demand to hold meetings on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. The ministers from Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Germany had apparently proposed to hold meetings on Friday morning, hours before the start of the Yom Kippur fast.
“They showed very high insensitivity to this special date. It’s just not done,” said Yigal Palmor, a foreign ministry spokesman. “Everyone is away, no meetings are planned, all agendas are empty. We suggested alternative dates, which were refused.”
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the meetings had been cancelled because the European ministers intended to pressure Israel over the settlements. A British embassy spokeswoman said Mr Hague’s trip was postponed because of scheduling difficulties.
The spat comes amid Israel’s growing irritation that EU countries, excluded from the US-sponsored bilateral peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, are bidding for an eleventh-hour seat at the negotiating table.
Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, Mr Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority President, are to meet for a second round of discussions in Egypt on Tuesday, two weeks after talks were launched amid much fanfare in Washington.
President Barack Obama has made achieving peace in the Middle East a key tenet of his foreign policy, and ahead of mid-term elections has staked his political reputation on bringing the reluctant partners to direct talks.
“They [the Europeans] can’t just barge into the negotiating room when they were not involved in the process that led to these talks,” said an Israeli government official. “Where were they when the process was being laboriously pushed forward?”
Europe’s sense of exclusion was underscored when the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, criticised Baroness Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, after she opted to fly to China rather than join the opening of direct peace talks at the White House two weeks ago.
Baroness Ashton responded on Friday saying she had no wish to be a second-tier participant in Washington when she could bring more influence to bear in discussions in China.
Her view was supported yesterday by at least one European diplomat in Jerusalem, who said that it was not clear what role the Europeans could play at this stage. “It’s not obvious that the EU being in the room for the direct bilateral talks makes much sense when the US has to hold the ring,” the diplomat said.
A beleaguered Mr Netanyahu is likely to come under pressure on the issue of settlements during the second round of talks, an obstacle that has loomed large over the process.
Mr Obama upped the stakes on Friday when he urged Israel to extend the settlement freeze, which expires at the end of September.
“What I’ve said to PM Netanyahu is that given, so far, the talks are moving forward in a constructive way, it makes sense to extend that moratorium,” he said in remarks that he has previously resisted making publicly.
Pushed to respond, Mr Netanyahu appeared to hang back from an extension in an apparent sop to his pro-settler coalition partners, who have threatened to leave the coalition if he calls for a new freeze. But he also said that not all of the “tens of thousands of housing units” in the pipeline would go ahead, remarks aimed at the Palestinians, who have threatened to quit the talks if settlement construction is not stopped.
The Palestinians remained adamant yesterday that they would accept nothing less than a freeze.
“Our position is very clear,” said Husam Zomlo, a Palestinian spokesman. “Should the settlement construction and expansion continue, we are out.” Palestinians, who want a state based on the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, have agreed in principle to limited land swaps, but have insisted that Israel refrain from putting “facts on the ground” before an agreement is reached.
The TUC, the trades Union federation of Britain, has done what a year ago was unimaginable – it has voted today, unanimously, for a BDS campaign to free Palestine! This is the greatest victory the BDS movement had to date, with near 8 million workers represented by this federation, this is an enormously crucial move forward!
To our many friends abroad – it can be done! This is the result of hard work and many years of argument and information, to the point that this was the only move possible for the TUC; you can do this in other countries also! Help to isolate the military Zionist colonial state!
Britain’s unions have thrown their weight behind a campaign of disinvestment and boycott from companies which are profiting from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.
Trade unions voted unanimously today at the TUC’s annual conference for a motion put forward by the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), seconded by the GMB, and supported by UNSION, PCS (the Public and Commercial Services Union) and the FBU (Fire Brigades’ Union).
The motion called for the General Council to work closely with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to actively encourage affiliates, employers and pension funds to disinvest from, and boycott the goods of, companies who profit from illegal settlements, the Occupation and construction of the Apartheid Wall.
It condemned Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian territories, in particular Gaza, and the Israeli military’s deadly assault on aid ships carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza in May. It also called for an immediate end to the siege on Gaza, and a full independent inquiry into the attack on the Turkish aid ship, the Mavi Marmara, which killed nine activists.
A separate General Council statement requires the TUC, which represents 6.5 million workers across the UK, to have a concrete programme for action in place by next month
Hugh Lanning, Chair of PSC, said: ‘This motion builds on that passed at last year’s conference to campaign for a boycott of goods from the illegal West Bank settlements. It is a massive step forward in the movement for justice for the Palestinian people, and reflects growing public anger at Israel’s aggression towards the Palestinians and those, such as the humanitarians on the Gaza aid flotilla, who try to help them.’
Mr Lanning added: ‘Trade unions were pivotal in helping to end Apartheid in South Africa and bring freedom to that country’s people. Today’s vote shows that Britain’s unions are prepared to stand up again in support of an oppressed people – this time the Palestinians – and help them to win their freedom. This is an historic moment for the union movement in the UK, and one that it can be proud of.’
A TUC meeting in the northern city of Manchester agreed to contact supermarkets and other retailers urging them to stop selling goods produced in the settlements, including herbs and beauty products.
Britain’s Trade Unions Congress (TUC) called Tuesday for a boycott of goods produced in West Bank settlements.
A TUC meeting in the northern city of Manchester agreed to contact supermarkets and other retailers urging them to stop selling goods produced in the settlements, including herbs and beauty products.
Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said unions should do more to help Palestinians than simply making speeches and agreeing conference resolutions.
B’Tselem report concludes no IDF soldier has been indicted for such deaths over the last four years.
A new report by the human rights group B’tselem concludes that during the past four years not a single IDF soldier was indicted for killing Palestinian civilians in the territories.
The report claims that between 2006 and2009, 617 Palestinian civilians not involved in combat operations were killed in the territories – a count that does not include those killed during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.
The rights group filed complaints with the IDF in half of the cases, but only 23 cases were deemed justified for investigation by the Military Police. In 42 other cases the Military Advocate General decided not to indict, and in the rest of the cases are still formally under investigation. In none of the cases were charges brought against the soldiers involved.
Prior to the start of the second intifada, the Military Police would investigate every incident in which an innocent Palestinian civilian was killed. However, in 2001 a decision was made to define violent incidents in the territory as “armed conflict,” and subsequently the IDF made do with an operational investigation of the unite involved and did not take the matter further.
B’tselem petitioned the High Court of Justice recently to alter the definition of violent incidents in the territories and set rules that would force the army to investigate cases in which civilians were killed.
The IDF spokesman said in response that “most of the issues and claims raised by the report are pending the petition to the High Court which was filed by the group. The state responded to the petition in detail and it would be appropriate to await the court’s decision.”
Ibrahim Abu Saeed, 91, and his grandson Husam were buried on Monday
The Israeli army has admitted that three Palestinian men it killed in Gaza on Sunday were civilians, and not terrorists, as previously claimed.
Brig Gen Ayal Eisenberg said one of the men had picked up a grenade launcher abandoned in a field, and Israeli troops mistakenly opened fire, thinking they were about to come under attack.
Among those killed were a 91-year-old farm worker and his grandson, aged 17.
Rocket fire from Gaza has increased in the past week. No casualties resulted.
Hours after the general’s statement, at least two Palestinians were wounded in Israeli shelling east of Gaza City, a medic and another witness said.
The two were wounded when Israel fired four tank shells near the village of Juhr al-Dik, close to the heavily-guarded border, the witness said.
The Israeli army said it had returned fire after militants approached the border and fired a rocket propelled grenade at a patrol.
Our soldiers identified a civilian who was picking up a [rocket] and, thinking he was going to fire at them, opened fire”
Brig Gen Ayal Eisenberg
Israeli army’s Gaza division head
Two of those killed were named as Ibrahim Abu Saeed and his grandson Husam. The third victim, a 20-year-old man, has not been named.
At the time, Israeli army radio described the men as “terrorists”, but Gen Ayal Eisenberg now says the soldiers made a mistake.
“The civilians killed by our soldiers’ fire… were not involved in any terrorist operation,” he told army radio.
“Our soldiers identified a civilian who was picking up an RPG [rocket propelled grenade] and, thinking he was going to fire at them, opened fire” in his direction, he added.
The incident occurred shortly after militants in Gaza fired several rockets and mortar rounds across the border into southern Israel. The attacks did not result in any injuries or damage.
‘Trigger-happy attitude’
Separately, a report published by an Israeli human rights group found that Israeli soldiers who kill Palestinians were rarely punished.
The B’Tselem report released on Tuesday said that the military investigated only 22 of 148 cases submitted by the group.
No criminal charges were brought in any of the cases, which involved the killing of 288 Palestinian civilians between 2006 and 2009, it said.
“This policy permits soldiers and officers to act in violation of the law, encourages a trigger-happy attitude and shows a flagrant disregard for human life,” the report said.
One Thai farm worker in Israel has been killed by rocket fire from Gaza in the past 18 months, while scores of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed over the same period.
New report indicates an overall of 13,000 previously authorized West Bank housing units, construction sites could be built after the Sept. 26 freeze expiration date.
2,066 new homes would be ready for continued West Bank construction as soon as a moratorium on settlement building is lifted later this month, a report by the Israeli left-wing NGO Peace Now said Sunday, adding that work on another 11,000 potential units could hypothetically start as well.
The Peace Now reports came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting earlier Sunday that while Israel wouldn’t necessarily continue its freeze on settlement construction, it was possible that a compromise could be reached in which construction would resume at a slower pace.
“I don’t know if there will be a comprehensive freeze,” he said. “But I also don’t know if it is necessary to construct all of the 20,000 housing units waiting to be built. In any case, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”
The Peace Now report released Sunday indicated that work could proceed on 2,066 housing units, spread out over 42 different settlements since those building projects had already received the required permits and have preliminary foundations.
The report’s figures corresponded with previously released data on the subject, which alleged that between 2,000 and 2,500 homes were okayed for continued construction as soon as the settlement freeze expires in September 26.
In July, a Haaretz probe indicated that at least 2,700 new housing units were scheduled to be built in the West Bank as soon as the current settlement freeze ended.
Peace Now, in the report released Sunday, said the units were dispersed over, among other locations, settlements such as Talmon, Modi’in Ilit, Kiryat Arba, Givat Ze’ev, and Kfar Tapuach.
In addition to the 2,066 units, Peace Now also claimed Sunday that there were an additional 11,000 potential houses which could be built, in places where general outlines had been approved.
Those potential units were located in Avnei Hefetz, Karnei Shomron, Ma’ale Efraim, Revava, Tekoa, Talmon, Kedumim, Immanuel, Mevo Dotan, and Beit Aryeh. However the fact that these units can be built doesn’t necessarily mean they will be built in the near future.
Referring to the upcoming expiration date of the settlement building moratorium, Shomron Regional Council head Gershon Mesika warned that “an announcement of a continuation of the building freeze will be considered an announcement of the end of term for the Netanyahu government.”
Netanyahu’s “government… was elected with the votes of the nationalist camp but is trying to implement the policies of Balad,” Mesika added.
EDITOR: A picture is better than a thousand words…
Just look at them. This picture tells the whole story of those doomed ‘talks about talks’. Obama, rising above realities, and disconnected from them, in his olympus of pure projections, is decisive and clear – he has his goal worked out – to raise his flagging standing and miserable poll results, but even his own face tells us he knows that he has lost already.
Netanyahu is smiling his furniture-dealer smile – he has got a customer, and a very good customer indeed, one which will buy whatever is on offer, and at a very high price, so he has all the reasons in the world to be smug and self-contented. He has snared another idiot, and he can go back to Jerusalem content in the knowledge that Israel can continue its occupation, settlement building and periodic massacres here, there and everywhere, without being bothered by the lame-duck President!
Abbas is indeed as miserable as he looks, certain in the knowledge that his betrayal of Palestine is going to weigh down on him in the very near future, as it becomes crystal clear that he has sold his people and his country for even less than a Nobel Prize. He hjas indeed all the reasons to be damn worried and depressed, as indeed he clearly is. To make totally clear which side he is on, he is even wearing a blue and white tie…
And, what’s best, I have only used 216 words to describe this perfect image…
The ongoing buzz in the Israeli media around statements issued by artists and academics against lecturing or performing in the colony of Ariel – built on occupied Palestinian land – betrays a stark contradiction in the positions of the Israeli intelligentsia. While they are now calling for a boycott of settlements, they have remained apathetic or even content regarding the far more significant heavy hand of the military-security-political establishment in society, including in academia and cultural institutions.
Another recent controversy has raged around academic freedom and the autonomy of the university. It was occasioned by attacks by two right-wing organizations, the Institute for Zionist Strategies and Im Tirtzu, on the alleged post-and anti-Zionist bias in social science departments at some Israeli universities.
The connection between the two controversies may not be apparent at first. However, they both demonstrate that the liberal-to-left Israeli intelligentsia’s mindset is fully in line with the reigning orthodoxy that accepts the military as a benign fact of life.
In response to the attacks on the universities, statements defending academic freedom and the autonomy of the university were quickly issued by the heads of Israel’s major universities, the association of academic faculty, and individual academics. Even the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities gave an opinion: “we cannot accept attempts by external and foreign bodies to intervene in appointing faculty members, determining curricula, and the manner in which material is taught.”
Does the Academy consider the military and the defense establishment “foreign bodies?” Apparently not.
The Ariel cultural center controversy was defined by prominent economics professor Ariel Rubinstein as an issue of normalization. He said of the petition signed by 150 academics and artists in support of the boycott of Ariel: “the petition’s objective is to undermine the normalization in the relationship between Israel and the occupied territories.”
It is remarkable that Rubinstein ignores the fact that his own institution, Tel Aviv University, provides a case par excellence of the close partnership between the Israeli academy and the occupation regime. Yet, neither he nor any of the other academics who have enthusiastically endorsed the boycott of a colonial outpost in the occupied Palestinian territory have been willing to examine their own institutions with the same critical eye.
Indeed, Tel Aviv University is among the major academic institutions involved in military R&D activities as well as work with the weapons industry. A recent publication of the university boasts of fifty-five projects there funded by the R&D authority at the ministry of defense.
It is instructive to note that while American academics are up in arms about the collaboration of their colleagues with the army under the Pentagon’s Human Terrain Teams and the Minerva Research Initiative, we find no similar protest from the professional associations of physicists, geographers, mathematicians, political scientists and others in Israel about the moral and professional implications of collaboration with their army.
The rare exceptions prove the rule, as in the case of the ineffective protests that accompanied the appointment of Colonel Pnina Sharvit-Baruch in the law faculty at Tel Aviv University. The protesters asserted that her interpretation of the law during Israel’s Gaza assault allowed the army to act in ways that constitute potential war crimes. The appointment went ahead. This is the same army colonel whose invitation to participate in Harvard’s International Humanitarian Law and Policy Forum last year created an outcry from American human rights activists.
The ease with which academics have weaved in and out of the military, the government – even the Israeli “civil administration” before the establishment of the Palestinian Authority – and the academy is quite natural and normal.
In fact, the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations renewed last week likely involve Israeli soldier-scholars steeped in this academic-military collusion that has for decades undercut Palestinian rights.
It might be claimed that the service of the Arabist professors in the occupation regime is a thing of the past. But their role in colonial governance is not a lone episode in the history of the Israeli academy. In fact, the collaboration of the academy with the military and intelligence services has moved to a new plane with the establishment of strategic studies institutions and think tanks and security studies departments and institutes, many of which are located at or affiliated with universities.
Only as an example, the Institute for National Security Studies, an external institute of Tel Aviv University, was instrumental in developing the doctrine of “disproportionate force” and the targeting of civilian infrastructure, based on the lessons of the war on Lebanon and later applied to deadly use in the war on Gaza in 2008-2009. Needless to say, this doctrine is a gross violation of international humanitarian law. Finally, and closer to home for Palestinians, both incidents show that when Israeli academics and intellectuals will it, they, and even their institutions, can speak in one voice in defense of principles.
In Israel, this voice has been silent for the past four decades in the face of repeated closures of Palestinian universities by military order and the imprisonment of thousands of students and academics for resisting the occupation. Palestinian cultural centers and initiatives have been stifled, from Jerusalem to Gaza. Discrimination against Palestinian students — citizens of Israel – at Israeli universities has hardly caught the attention of the academy.
I do not see universal values at work here.
Lisa Taraki is a sociologist at Birzeit University in Palestine.
EDITOR: Below is the summary of a Testimony by Amnon Neumann – who was a 19 years old soldier during the 1948 war – the Nakba.
It was given at a public hearing organized by Zochrot, on June 17, 2010. The audience consisted of about twenty people. Initiated and organized by Amir Hallel. The testimony was video-recorded by Lia Tarachansky. Miri Barak prepared the transcription. Eitan Bronstein edited, summarized, and added footnotes. Translated to English by Asaf Kedar.
Warning: The testimony is highly distressing at points.
Part of what’s so interesting about this is that the old man who testifies, Amnon Neumann, is having an inner conflict about whether to tell his story, which parts to tell and which parts to withhold, as well as the meaning of his story. He is wracked with feelings of guilt, even as he is certain that what he did, had to be done. At the same time he doesn’t feel that as a 19 year old soldier he had the capacity to understand what he was doing.
This story is one of many collected by Zochrot, and organization working to make information about the Nakba known to Israelis.
Public hearing at Zochrot, 61 Ibn Gvirol St., Tel-Aviv, June 17, 2010. The audience consisted of about twenty people. Initiated and organized by Amir Hallel. The testimony was video-recorded by Lia Tarachansky. Miri Barak prepared the transcription. Eitan Bronstein edited, summarized, and added footnotes. Translated to English by Asaf Kedar.
Amnon Neumann: I was in the Second, Eighth, and Ninth Battalions of the Palmach from February 1948 until my discharge in October 1949. I was there for this whole period, except for a few months after I had been wounded and after my father had passed away.
Amnon Neumann
The most significant period for me in terms of the Nakba was April-May 1948, when the battles or clashes with the locals took place, until the Egyptian Army arrived. At first we escorted convoys traveling on the road from ‘Iraq Suwaydan[1], from Rehovot, [through] ‘Iraq Suwaydan, Kawkaba[2] and Burayr,[3] to Nir-‘Am where our company headquarters were located. Then an armed group of Arabs situated itself in Burayr and didn’t let us through, so we took a different route, from near Ashdod where Isdud was located, through Majdal,[4] Barbara,[5] Bayt Jirja,[6] to Yad Mordechai. From there we drove to Nir-‘Am. Those were the two routes [we used] until the Egyptian army arrived. When the Egyptian army arrived, it was a completely different situation. The Egyptian army arrived when we had wiped out all Arab resistance, which wasn’t that strong. It would be an exaggeration to say we fought against the Palestinians… in fact there were no battles, almost no battles. In Burayr there was a battle, there were battles here and there, further up north. But there were no big battles; why? Because they had no military capabilities, there weren’t organized. The big battles started with the entry of the Egyptian army, and those were very difficult problems, especially from May 15th, when we were still an organized army—the Palmach—semi-military. But their soldiers were organized by British methods, they fought like the British. But they had no leadership and they had no motivation. So when they attacked, it was very lousy, they hardly knew how to attack, but they did know how to defend themselves. They knew they were fighting for their lives. But as far as all the rest, it was a fifth-rate army. They had terrible cannons that killed us like hell. They had all kinds of tanks of different types, and they were a problem for us. We didn’t have anything, we had armored vehicles, those fluttering ones that were impossible to fight with, not against tanks and not even against a halftrack, right? But we more or less managed with them.
The villagers’ flight, and I understand this is the main issue here, happened gradually. I only know about what happened from the ‘Iraq Suwaydan road, [through] Majdal, to ‘Iraq al-Manshiyya[7]. We were to the south of this area, and to its north there was the Givati Brigade. The day the Egyptians entered the war, the Negev was cut off and that was mostly our fault, my platoon’s fault… I’ll say more about it later. But that wasn’t significant. The Egyptians’ attacks were significant. They beat the hell out of us and killed us mercilessly.
The villagers’ flight started when we began cleaning these convoy escort routes. It was then that we started to expel the villagers… and in the end they fled by themselves. There were no special events worth mentioning. No atrocities and no nothing. No civilians can live while there’s a war going on. They didn’t think they were running away for a long period of time, they didn’t think they wouldn’t return. Nor did anyone imagine that a whole people won’t return.
First we expelled those … and then we started expanding sideways. To Najd[8], to Simsim[9], and that was a later stage. There were no battles, except for one battle in Burayr. In the north there were battles, with Givati, but we didn’t have any battles. We did ok with them … (silence). One village was left, between Dorot and Nir-‘Am, that’s Kufr Huj,[10] they didn’t run away and we didn’t expel them. There was probably an agreement at a higher level that Huj is not to be touched.
The first time I entered Kawkaba and Burayr I was amazed by their poverty. There was nothing there. No furniture and no nothing, there were shelves made of straw and mud, the houses were made of mud and straw. They lived there for thousands of years without any changes, and the only thing that happened to them was the disaster of the Nakba in “Tashah” [1948]. Because we didn’t come to collect taxes, we came to inherit the land from foreigners. That was the foundation of our thinking. We drove them out because of the Zionist ideology. Pure and simple. We came to inherit the land. Who do you inherit it from? If the land is empty, you don’t inherit it from anyone. The land wasn’t empty so we inherited it, and whoever inherits the land disinherits others. And that’s why we didn’t bring them back. It was everywhere, in the north and the south, everywhere. That’s the most important point. The land wasn’t empty as I was told when I was a child. I know it, because I lived with Arabs. I remember I was wounded and I went home, after April 1948, after they had expelled the Arabs in Haifa, they had run away. Our villages, Yajur[11] and Balad al-Shaykh[12], didn’t exist anymore either. They were empty. And I came home and my father told me, Come sit, son. Sit. He told me, You know what happened? And I told him, Yes, I passed through Balad Al-Sheikh and there was no one there. And he said, Yes, there was a disaster. That’s not what was intended. That’s not what I intended. He came with the second Aliyah. And he said: that’s not what I intended. So nobody thought in these categories, maybe the Yishuv leaders did. My father was a simple man, a worker his entire life. And then I went back to the Negev and we did the same thing. At that time I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I was educated to it just like everybody else. And I followed through with it faithfully, and if I was told things I don’t want to mention—I did them without the least of a doubt. Without thinking twice. For fifty or sixty years I’ve been torturing myself about this. But what’s done is done. It was done by order. And I won’t go into that, these are not things that … (long silence).
In the north they fought. In the south they didn’t, they didn’t have anything. They were miserable, they didn’t have anywhere to go, or anyone to ask.
Eitan Bronstein: What happened in the village Burayr?
Amnon Neumann: There was a battle, and there was a slaughter…
Eitan Bronstein: Can you say a little bit more about that?
Amnon Neumann: I don’t want to go into these things, leave me alone! It’s … it’s not things we go into. Why? Because I did it. Is that a good reason? (Long silence)
I can tell you about one thing. We received an order to occupy the intersection near ‘Iraq Suwaydan. There was a huge police station there which dominated the whole area. We went out with five jeeps and five armored vehicles. We stood at the intersection, and suddenly we heard the sound of tanks from the direction of Majdal. With our rifles and machine guns we couldn’t stand up to tanks. The moment we saw them we fled to Kawkaba, half a kilometer away, and hid in the village. Then the tanks came, stood there and started rotating their cannons, didn’t shoot or anything.
Dan Yahav: Whose tanks?
Amnon Neumann: The Egyptians’. Only they had tanks (laughing), we didn’t have any tanks back then. A few minutes later they started shooting at us from all directions. We sat in the armored vehicles, the fire wasn’t so… but they were shooting from all directions. Until we decided to find out who was there. We went out, looked around, ran a little. It was the villagers who had run away from Kawkaba that were shooting at us. Then our company commander, a nice guy, suddenly appeared with his pickup truck, took out a pistol and said, You abandoned the intersection, do you realize what that means?! It won’t be possible to pass through to the Negev anymore. So we told him, Moishe, go ahead and drive to the intersection, look closely, can you make it to the intersection? So he relaxed a little and then the Egyptian Spitfires came, bombed us and destroyed his pickup truck. He jumped into the sabra bushes and came out alive.
Eitan Bronstein: So who did the shooting, I didn’t understand who did the shooting.
Amnon Neumann: The Arabs who had lived in Kawkaba, the saw that we were running away, so they revealed themselves.
Eitan Bronstein: And then they shot at you, the Arabs from Kawkaba?
Amnon Neumann: Yes, that’s right they shot at us from the hills, from the wadis.
Lia Tarachansky: In Kawkaba there were no more people left anymore?
Amnon Neumann: There was nothing there. The only thing I remember are the terrible fleas there, they devoured us.
Eitan Bronstein: How many people were you?
Amnon Neumann: We were a platoon, thirty people. I was in the scouting platoon. There were other platoons, in Nir-Am, in Dorot, in those places.
Amir Hallel: Did you get to see the Arab residents?
Amnon Neumann: Yes, I got to see them in one place, in two places, when we expelled them by night.
Dan Yahav: What kind of weapons did you have?
Amnon Neumann: From the 15th or 17th of May, we received the Czech guns. Both that and Bazot[13]. But until then, I had a 1904 English rifle, with a broken butt that I tied with a steel wire.
Eitan Bronstein: When did you join the Palmach?
Amnon Neumann: I joined the Palmach in 1946, at the age of sixteen and a half.
Eitan Bronstein: And since then did you train regularly?
Amnon Neumann: Yes … Should I start telling the details?
Lia Tarachansky and Eitan Bronstein: It’s important.
Amnon Neumann: We were in training in Yagur. After four months in the Palmach, all our commanders were killed in a convoy on Haziv Bridge. We became orphans.
Amnon Neumann: A week later, the British army surrounded us and took us into custody at ‘Atlit. After being two weeks or a month in ‘Atlit, we were released and transferred to Gvat. And from there we were transferred after a while to Heftziba. We were there for about a year, and then one day they called us for roll call and said, Tomorrow you will be discharged from the Palmach (we had been in the Palmach for a year and nine months) and driven to a kibbutz near Rehovot. The next day, trucks came and took us, we got there in the evening, they put us in the dining hall and said, Now we’ll tell you what’s going on. The Haganah’s largest munitions factory is here. You will start working there, you’re no longer Palmachniks or anything, that was the arrangement then. We worked there until the war broke out four months later.
Eitan Bronstein: What did you work at?
Amnon Neumann: I made caps [for guns], nothing could be more boring. It was a huge factory, it’s still there, for example, at Kiryat HaMada in Rehovot, in Givat HaKibbutzim. It was underground. Yes, yes, I was a member of [Kibbutz] Maagan Michael, I had no choice. Nobody asked me. The factory is really impressive, we were also impressed by it at the time. It was in Rehovot next to the train station, very close to the train station, and we worked there until the war broke out. When the war broke out we continued to work there. And then a friend of mine comes to me and says, Look, we are trained soldiers, we’ve been taught and we are knowledgeable soldiers. What are we doing here making caps? So I told him, You know what? Go over to Palmach headquarters and find out, and so it was. He went and then he says, Tomorrow I’m leaving the kibbutz. I said, I can’t leave, and they won’t let you leave here so quickly. And he said, I’m leaving. He left, and a week later I told the Kibbutz I’m leaving too. We thought of going to Jerusalem. They sent us to the Negev. When I got to the train station in Rehovot I heard a terrible explosion, I looked back and saw a train rolling down the slope. I understood what happened. The Etzel (Irgun) or the Lechi (Shtern Gang) did it.
Dan Yahav: The Lechi.
Amnon Neumann: They blew up the trains carrying the English army to Egypt. I ran breathless to Rehovot and then I went to the Negev.
Dan Yahav: You didn’t manufacture only caps, but also 9mm bullets, didn’t you.
Amnon Neumann: Sure, but I made caps.
Eitan Bronstein: What else did they manufacture there?
Amnon Neumann: Sten bullets, and they inspected Sten parts. They would inspect them there, there was a special place for shooting. It was a big factory, something like fifty people worked there. Going down there, seven meters, it was … you can go visit the place to this day.
Amnon Neumann: I did a scouting course so they put me in a scouting platoon and there was another platoon there. When we got there my friend told me, Don’t you have a pit? There are cannons here. I told him, So what if there are cannons? I’d never heard [of] a cannon. So he says, It’s a terrible thing. Go dig yourself a pit and cover it, until midnight. We did it, we covered it. The next morning I see he’s dying of fear. A brave guy, a great guy, but dying of fear. It told him, Ptachia, what’s the matter? He answered, There are cannons! We wanted to go eat at eight o’clock, so he told me, No, we’re not going to eat at eight, we’ll go later. At eight fifteen the terrible cannons of Beit Hanoun, there were something like ten there, opened concentrated fire. Now I understand that what they had done earlier was ranging. But nobody knew what a cannon was, and nobody knew what ranging was. So they ranged them a day earlier, before I even got there, and they saw—they had great observation posts—that everybody is getting into the dining hall, it wasn’t in Nir-Am but in Mekorot, before Nir-Am, and then they opened very heavy fire. We sat there for three hours, until they finished destroying the whole place and it became quiet. We got out, the platoon commander approached me and told me, A friend of mine from Kfar Yehezkel came to visit me, he’s lying in the trench, look, and then I saw all the dead. The whole trench was full of dead people. The whole dining hall was full of dead people. Whoever didn’t have a head cover was either killed or escaped, managed to escape. There were some who managed to escape. That was the Egyptian army’s welcome reception. After that they advanced and got to … The two-week long battle over Be’erot started … near Yad-Mordechai. We tried then to bypass the Egyptians but it didn’t work out. Only in the last night when it was decided that we’re leaving them, that we’re leaving the place, were we able to get the people out.
Question: What years are we talking about?
Amnon Neumann: July 48, until the first break in the fighting. By the time of the first break there were no more Arabs in the area.
Question: I don’t know if you will get back later to the topic I want to ask about. You said “we expelled” the villagers, can you describe an expulsion action for us, how it was done?
Amnon Neumann: Yes, until then some of them fled and some were expelled. We shot and they fled to Gaza. But we expelled systematically in the last day of the break in the fighting. During the break there were also a few battles. They tried to penetrate through the Gaza-Beersheba road and we stopped them. The Egyptians! There was no one else to stop.
Eitan Bronstein: Can you say in this context, do you remember what was the order you received regarding the Arab villages?
Amnon Neumann: I’ll tell you. I don’t like it, but I’ll tell you. In the last day of the break we were told that the Egyptians smuggled 20mm cannons to the villages Kawfakha[14] and al-Muharraqa[15] and tomorrow they would act with them and we need to destroy these villages. We drove there … and the men had fled, that was the usual practice. The men would run away first, leaving the women and the children, and then … (silence) we would expel them, right? And so it was in Kawfakha. I was in Kawfakha, others were in al-Muharraqa. It’s about 15km from Gaza. We surrounded the village, started shooting in the air, and everybody started to scream, yes, and … and we drove them out. The women and the children went to Gaza.
Lia Tarachansky: Were there people who didn’t agree to go?
Amnon Neumann: Nobody dared. I’ll tell you why: their mentality was that whoever dares will be killed anyway. They would do it too, if it were the other way around. These are no saints. It’s in the people’s culture, that this is how it’s always been. Whoever resisted would be killed with a sword or by shooting. It’s not an uncommon thing. By morning no one was there. We burned the houses that had straw roofs.
Eitan Bronstein: Just a second, I don’t understand, what exactly was the order in this context, was there an order in some villages to destroy the whole village and not in others? What exactly was the procedure?
Amnon Neumann: No, no, no. These villages were in our rear, and from a military standpoint it made sense. Nobody knew … we didn’t find any cannon there – that’s clear. But now it became an even surface, an open area that you could maneuver in.
Amir Hallel: Before then, if you had approached that area would it have been dangerous, would it have been disruptive?
Amnon Neumann: Nobody would have dared go into an inhabited village. We never entered villages to stay there but only to expel them. Someone asked earlier how they were expelled. This is how it was. Then the same thing happened with the Tarabin and with the Bedouin tribes. That was half a year later.
Amir Hallel: You said that in the whole area of the villages further to the north—when the Egyptians shot at you from Beit Hanoun in June in the whole area except for Huj—you said there were no Arabs. So what happened to those villagers?
Amnon Neumann: There were no Arabs, either they fled or we expelled them. We had already conquered Burayr in battle. The others, they saw that there’s nothing in Hulayqat[16] so they ran away. The big battle of Hulayqat was between our army and the Egyptians. There were no civilians.
Amir Hallel: And in Burayr, which battalion was that?
Amnon Neumann: That was the Second Battalion of the Palmach.
Amir Hallel: They attacked Burayr?
Amnon Neumann: Yes.
Eitan Bronstein: But who was resisting there, who was the battle against?
Amnon Neumann: The villagers couldn’t do anything against armed units entering the village, we called them gangs. But what does “gangs” mean? Those were groups of local soldiers that weren’t trained at all. The battle in Burayr wasn’t a big battle either, they ran away.
Amir Hallel: The inhabitants of the village?
Amnon Neumann: No, the armed people were foreigners there, they came to defend the village. Qawuqji told them, Fight, fight the Jews—we’ll come help you from Acre. No help and no nothing. At Sumayriyya near Regba it was the same thing. It characterized them in the south too, where I was, and also in the north. With the locals there was almost … in the north there were more battles, even difficult battles.
Eitan Bronstein: You’re saying it was a battle with armed people who were not the inhabitants of the village, in Burayr. But at the same time there were still residents of Burayr in the village?
Amnon Neumann: Yes!
Eitan Bronstein: So, there was a battle?
Amnon Neumann: There was a battle, and there was also a small murder and similar things and then the inhabitants ran away completely.
Eitan Bronstein: Yes, there are testimonies about a massacre having taken place in Burayr.
Amnon Neumann: You’ve heard about it?
Eitan Bronstein: Yes.
Dan Yahav: I wrote about it, it appears in my “Purity of Arms”.
Amnon Neumann: It does?
Dan Yahav: Yes.
Amnon Neumann: I don’t want to deal with it.
Dan Yahav: And in other villages as well.
Amnon Neumann: I know, I don’t want to deal with it!
Dan Yahav: Allow me a minute, I see the topic of the expulsion is a very sensitive topic. You were a soldier, I was also a soldier, and when I fought I wouldn’t know exactly what was happening in the area. But there are wonderful descriptions in the Negba archive. There is a wonderful description of a kibbutz member! He sees the expulsion, he sees the convoy with the children and everything and it reminds him of terrible things the Jewish people has been through. The same thing is available at Shmaria Gutman’s in Na’an, regarding Lud, Lud and Ramle, about the expulsion.
Amnon Neumann: Oh, right, right.
Eitan Bronstein: Today it is sensitive for you to recall it?
Amnon Neumann: (quietly) Yes, it is.
Amir Hallel: You said there was a time when you would pass through Bureir and at some point you stopped.
Amnon Neumann: Yes, we couldn’t pass through them because the shooting was too strong, and our miserable armored vehicles couldn’t handle it. So we drove through Ashkelon, Isdud, Ashkelon, Barbara, Bayt Jirja, down to Nir-‘Am. Part of the route was even a dirt road. I want to note that the people I was with over there, in our platoon everyone were born in this country. In the other platoon there were others, including immigrants and people who hadn’t grown up with the country’s air of decency, an air of people who knew what they were going to do, who gave their lives without thinking twice.
Eitan Bronstein: What was the atmosphere among the people in terms of the feelings they had about what happened then, during that time?
Amnon Neumann: It was a horrible period: we were sure that the Egyptians would wipe us out, especially after they had cut off the Negev. We didn’t know that the Ninth Battalion was getting organized in the north and would come and break the siege, we didn’t know that. That was later on, in Operation “Yoav”.
Eitan Bronstein: So in terms of the feeling, there was a feeling that it was like the end?
Amnon Neumann: That’s what I observed, unpleasantly. There was also a second platoon with us in Burayr. One guy, an Egyptian Jew, came here and said—excuse me—“I fucked her and shot her”.
Eitan Bronstein: Did you hear him say it?
Amnon Neumann: No, I was told about this later, I didn’t see him. And then they ran, the people who were there and saw her, a 17-year-old girl, he had put a bullet through her head. I approached the platoon commander, who was from Tel Yosef, and I told him, I told him, I think he should be killed. So he said, Stop it you! We’re all going to die in a week or two, what are you messing around with here … that was the mood back then. Later on the situation got better. We saw the Egyptians weren’t worth much, and they can be wiped out, and we really did attack the cannons and destroyed them and killed lots of Egyptians there. And after that the situation stabilized.
Amir Hallel: What happened to that guy?
Amnon Neumann: Nothing. What happened to him? Don’t ask! Don’t ask what happened.
Amir Hallel: You told me…
Amnon Neumann: I told you? So why do you need me to say it here? It’s not important. Just as I wasn’t important. He was killed later, but killed in a terrible way. But why is that important? A lot of my friends were killed not in a terrible way.
Eitan Bronstein: Can we get back to that harsh expression you mentioned. From that word you understood that there had been a rape there followed by murder?
Amnon Neumann: I didn’t see it, but people ran and saw it. They saw that girl lying there with a bullet in her head.
Dan Yahav: But they had washed her there, she was clean.
Amnon Neumann: I didn’t see and didn’t ask, how do you know?
Dan Yahav: I’m telling you, I know.
Amnon Neumann: This particular case?
Dan Yahav: Yes.
Amnon Neumann: With this Egyptian?
Dan Yahav: Yes, yes.
Amnon Neumann: I see you’ve done some research.
Dan Yahav: They washed her, prepared her and then did what they did. (Silence)
Amnon Neumann: I didn’t know these details and I never wanted to go into the thick of things.
Dan Yahav: By the way, the IDF archive is unwilling to this day to open documents related to cases of rape. It’s still [a matter of] “Israel’s security”. (Long silence)
Amnon Neumann: After that I was in Beersheba. There was a short battle there. It wasn’t a big battle, four or five hours and that’s it. There was a chain of Egyptian military posts there, 10km after Beersheba, and we attacked them, and it was the first time I encountered, in Beersheba, what we called the “French commando”. It was a unit made up of immigrants from Morocco. They were trained in Beersheba, in the alleys of Beersheba, and they attacked there. It was ok, we drove out the Egyptians, the Egyptians didn’t hold out anywhere for very long. It was the first time I saw soldiers walking around among the dead Egyptians. It turned out they had been looking for gold teeth in the officers’ mouths. I went crazy. My conceptual world was different.
Lia Tarachansky: Were there cases of disobedience to orders? Did anyone get up and leave rather than go all the way through with it?
Amnon Neumann: Where? With us? No. Never. Everyone went all the way through with it and to the bitter end.
Eitan Bronstein: You know, Amnon, we once met a soldier who had fought in Beersheba and he told us they shot people who had fled from Beersheba, people ran away and soldiers shot them, shot civilians.
Amnon Neumann: Yes, yes, yes. They ran away to the east and the south and they were shot. That’s because it was, I saw it… ok, I did that too. Are we done? Why should I go into details?
Eitan Bronstein: But you can describe exactly this thing, how you as a soldier, you’re shooting people who you see aren’t shooting at you, how… how did you understand it back then? Over there? That you had the full right to do it?
Amnon Neumann: I didn’t understand, I was 19.
Eitan Bronstein: So you just did it?
Amnon Neumann: I was a fool and I didn’t know. Yes. That’s why I’m in such despair, because soldiers are always 19-20 years old, and they never sober up until they’ve been through four battles. That’s the main point. And there will always be new 19-year-olds.
Amir Hallel: Was there an order to do it?
Amnon Neumann: Where I was, there was an order in one case. As I said, the horrors of war are more difficult than the battles of war, which are not easy either.
Eitan Bronstein: I heard recently about a testimony given by a Palmachnik, [who had been] I think in Simsim, were you in Simsim?
Amnon Neumann: I was there after the village had been destroyed.
Eitan Bronstein: So maybe you’ve heard soldiers’ testimonies saying they saved the Palestinian women from Palestinian men shooting their wives?
Amnon Neumann: They didn’t save, our soldiers didn’t save anyone. Look, in the heat of battle you don’t save anyone. And save just one person, yourself. Right? You don’t save anyone. After that there was the big battle over Be’erot Yitzhak. Really, a big and terrible battle. Half of the men of Be’erot Yitzhak were killed there. How many were there? There were 100, 40 were killed there, something like that. And we came from the direction of Sa’ad to save them and the platoons of the “Negev Animals” came from the other direction and then there was a battle. We shot and they shot. In the end, they fixed their machine gun and mowed down the Sudanese. It was a lucerne field there. Straight, even. And then I saw from a distance, for the first and only time, how the Egyptian officers walk with pistols with the soldiers ahead of them, shooting, lying down, getting up, shooting. That was one of the elite units of the Sudanese army, which afterwards stayed in ‘Iraq Suwaydan as well, until they conquered ‘Iraq Suwaydan.
Amir Hallel: What do you mean when you say that those officers walked with pistols?
Amnon Neumann: What reason did a poor Sudanese have for going and getting killed? For what? Did he even know? Those were the British methods, that there should be order. But the British didn’t have… it was also that way in World War I, rest assured. No one wants to die just like that. What did the Sudanese have here? They were tall, giant, muscular negroes. After the battle our platoon went to collect the booty and the documents. That was our part.
Eitan Bronstein: What do you mean the documents?
Amnon Neumann: Of the dead! What unit was it, what they did, right? We walked there among… we turned everyone over, and… all that. Back then I didn’t feel anything for these dead people. They were enemies and it’s good that they died, right? I didn’t feel anything special.
Amnon Neumann: In March 1949 the race to conquer Eilat began. We went down as far as Wadi Abiad, where ‘Ovda is. And we would kill poor Egyptians over there too, those who had got cut off from their units and we shot them from the hillside. Right? No one… they were abandoned, no one paid attention to them. After a week we were told, Operation ‘Ovda—going to conquer Eilat. Our platoon split into two, there was a group that led the whole Negev Brigade. And we drove, I was the scout commander, we drove an hour after them. In one of the wadis I suddenly heard a sound that was already familiar to me, a land mine exploded, I looked back and saw the jeep behind us rising into the air and collapsing. And immediately they opened fire on us. Me and my driver… (laughing) we jumped under the jeep. I left the MG machine gun hanging there (laughing). And he told me, his name was Basri, he was from Iraq, he told me, Amnon this is the end. We had been a year together. This is the end. We saw the heads, the kafiyas of the Legion soldiers above us, about twenty meters. So I told him, there’s nothing else to do; here, each one of us has a rifle, let’s shoot five bullets, the whole magazine, and run, whatever happens happens. And so we did. We shot, ran and hid. A few days later our commander said we conquered Eilat and we’re driving down there. We drove until we got to Wadi Paran. They I told him, Listen, let go 10km in here and see what happened to the jeep. He said ok, and then we were all tensed up, maybe there’s an ambush or something. And I followed with the map and said, Here there’s 300m left until we get to the jeep, and so it was. 200m before the jeep I saw a Jordanian lying dead, with his kafiyah. We went down to him, he had gotten a bullet here (point to his head), from the ten bullets we had shot. And then we saw the mines. Our jeep which first went through squeezed it with the wheel and it didn’t go off. The second jeep drove over it. We got to Eilat and the war was over.
Amir Hallel: Just a second Amnon, what about the Bedouins? You started saying something about them.
Amnon Neumann: Right, I forgot. The Azazme, and the Tarabin. We were there for two months, we marked the roads that would later be constructed on the Negev Plateau. We got to every remote corner there, really, to every corner. That was when I saw the Azazme and the Tarabin. They would be hiding in all kinds of places, in narrow wadis. I don’t know what they lived off from. I don’t know where they drank water. It was in the Negev Plateau, there was one well there where we would go once every two weeks to wash. Bir Malihi. The good well. Malihi in Arabic means good. It was then that I saw how they lived there. And they were terribly afraid. When we would appear with the jeeps, the men would mount their horses and run away, leaving the women and the children. We never touched them, right? These are not the people we wanted to hurt.
Question: There were no orders to expel them, to transfer them?
Amnon Neumann: No, no. You are reminding me of the Jahalin. The same week we conquered Eilat, our platoon had only three or four people who were taken to the conquering of ‘Ein-Gedi. When they came back, after two weeks, we all came back so I asked them, What did you do? So they said, Nothing. There were Jahalin there, we shot in the air and they ran away. We didn’t kill anyone, do anything, and Ein-Gedi is occupied. Later I heard about the Jahalin from a number of places. It was a large tribe in the east of the country and part of it was also in Jordan. A year ago, I visited… how do you call this place… where Sima went.
Dan Yahav: Ma’ale Adumim, they are still there.
Amnon Neumann: Yes, yes, Ma’ale Adumim. I visited there and saw the Bedouins. I said, Hannah, I have to approach them. And then I approached them. The youngsters received us, Hannah stayed in the car because it was a very warm day. The youngsters received us with such hatred: Get lost, why should we talk to you, are you a journalist? I told him, No, I’m not a journalist. So he told me again, Are you a journalist? I told him, No. and then I saw an old man standing there, on the side. I approached him and told him, Who are you? So he says, We are from the Jahalin. I told him, Where are you from the Jahalin? So he says, From Arad. I told him, No my friend, you are not from Arad, from the Arad area. So he says to me, How do you know? I said, I know. You were in the Dead Sea. I told him in Arabic. So he says, How do you know? So I said, They expelled you 60 years ago, didn’t they. He said, that’s right, after that we were in Arad. But before that we were in the valley below. There weren’t many to expel there.
Question: You also said they burned houses.
Amnon Neumann: That was in the south.
Eitan Bronstein: So in the south the houses were demolished immediately following the occupation, when the people left them.
Amnon Neumann: It wasn’t a problem to demolish them. These were mud and clay houses, nothing.
Questions from the audience: How did they do it? How did they demolish the houses?
Amnon Neumann: It was enough for an armored vehicle to drive by and give it a blow and the whole building would collapse.
Amir Hallel: What would you do if people tried to return to their village, what did you do?
Amnon Neumann: Oh, yes. People who were in Gaza wanted to return to their villages. They would come back at night and do two things: first, there was special agriculture, in the sand dunes, further up north. The vines would bloom and they would need to be pruned, so they would come there at night. The didn’t know they would never ever come back. And we waited for them, it was impossible to let them walk around there, so we waited for them.
Eitan Bronstein: Wait a minute, what would they come for, you didn’t say.
Amnon Neumann: To take care of the vine, to take all kinds of things from the village, I never looked into their sacks. And we would snipe and kill them. That was part of the horrible things.
A woman from the audience: One of the women-soldiers, the women who served in the Palmach, told about how during the war as well as afterwards throughout her life, the moral paralysis was so strong that it had to be accompanied by aggressiveness, and what she says is that after several decades of repressing so strongly what she had done and the demolition of the villages and the expulsion, that it took decades until she was walking in a certain forest and suddenly she remembered that she was standing in a place where a village had once stood. Have you also had experiences of this kind?
Amnon Neumann: Oh, experiences of this kind? Yes. I did but I wasn’t shocked anymore. I used to be shocked by what I’d been through.
Question: Can you maybe tell us?
Lia Tarachansky: You don’t want to talk?
Amnon Neumann: Come on! Do you want me to tell you that I shot at a pickup truck full of people? (coughing) Nonsense. It didn’t change the essence of the whole Nakba.
From the audience: But if we can understand how you repressed it, maybe we’ll be able to understand how the whole people of Israel still doesn’t know about the Nakba?
Woman in the audience: How come you, members of the battalion, never tried to sit together, to talk, to bring back memories?
Amnon Neumann: No. Uh, no, we had reunions years later.
Woman continuing: To try, after you sobered up didn’t you try…
Amnon Neumann: No, there was no one to do it with. We had company, battalion, brigade, Palmach reunions, right? In the end I stopped going and my wife got very angry. I said, I don’t want to hear them. They are always just telling about themselves. How it was here and how it was there. No one was thinking critically. How did you put it? Morally speaking, moral paralysis. It was moral paralysis.
Eitan Bronstein: But now you said something important. You keep saying all the time that it’s a war and that in a war terrible things happen.
Amnon Neumann: That’s right.
Eitan Bronstein: On the other hand, from your descriptions and from what you are saying and hinting here and there about having participated in horrible things as well, that’s not exactly the description of a war. Is this what you mean by “war”?
Amnon Neumann: As I told you, the horrors of war are as hard as the battles. I said it. These horrors, the horrible things that in a war are often worse than the war. Worse things, that is, when women are killed, when you kill children, all the horrors surrounding war, not surrounding the battle, they are worse than the battles. It’s called “moraot” [horrors] in Hebrew. Not “me’oraot” [events], but “moraot” of the war. The horrible things of war.
Eitan Bronstein: You mean, cases where civilians get killed. Are you referring to these kinds of things?
Amnon Neumann: Exactly.
Question: Amnon, can you perhaps tell us after all, if not about a specific event, at least a little bit in principle about the method? Really the method?
Amnon Neumann: There was no method.
Question continuing: The method of the expulsion, how it was done.
Amnon Neumann: Oh, the method of the expulsion! They would come to a village, shoot in the air, and the villagers had no weapons, they had nothing, they packed their things and fled. Then sometimes they would shoot after them and sometimes they didn’t, and that was all.
Question continuing: And what would you do after that, leave the village? Burn it down?
Amnon Neumann: There was so little in the village, as I said, in certain known cases we burned the village down and in other cases we would leave it. No one… there was nothing to steal. Look, there was nothing to loot there. They were as poor as church mice. There was nothing to steal. Me, the only looting I took, I found this kind of prayer rug, I put it in my pit, where I slept for three months.
Amir Hallel: In the south, in the area where you were in the south, in the Negev, were prisoners taken from among the villagers, or were people allowed to run away?
Amnon Neumann: Yes, yes. They were usually allowed to run away. If there were cases…
From the audience: There weren’t any prisoners or things like that?
Amnon Neumann: Egyptian prisoners?
From the audience: No, villagers.
Amnon Neumann: No. If there were prisoners they would be killed immediately.
From the audience: Can you tell about the occupation of Beersheba?
Amnon Neumann: There wasn’t much of an Egyptian force there, and wherever the Egyptians were attacked they didn’t hold out. I saw it in the cannons, when we conquered the cannons. We killed about 80 Egyptians there. So what? In two hours the cannons were in our hands, we had nothing to do with them. No one among us, even the company commander and battalion commander didn’t know, they had never in their life seen a cannon.
Amir Hallel: From the cannons did you continue into the town?
Amnon Neumann: No, it was enough. From the second company so many were killed, from the “Negev Animals”. You don’t move forward just like that. From Beit Hanoun. It wasn’t Beit Hanoun then.
Woman from the audience: I heard about an expulsion method in which three sides of a village would be closed off and one side left open where they wanted the expulsion to go. Was that a method you also used?
Amnon Neumann: That’s right. They would position one squad here, one squad here, one there, shoot in the air, not even straight at them, and they would run away by themselves, they had nothing to defend themselves with.
Woman in the audience: But they understood that it’s the only direction.
Amnon Neumann: They knew they had to get to Gaza, and they knew the directions better than us.
Eitan Bronstein: Amnon, I want to ask you something after all about those horrors that you find it difficult to talk about, and I understand that, but can you say something about afterward, let’s say, would it come up in conversations among the soldiers, for example? After all, you did do things, and you were adults, you did difficult things. Would you later share your experiences?
Amnon Neumann: It wasn’t difficult. Who was it difficult for? For the squad commander who gave the order, for the soldier who pulled the trigger? It wasn’t difficult. It was completely natural—we had to do it. If not, they would slaughter us. Don’t think that if it were the other way around it would have been better. It would have been much worse. There is no doubt about it.
[1] Between today’s Otzem and Negba
[2] Near today’s Moshav Kochav Michael.
[3] Next to today’s Heletz Intersection.
[4] Today part of Ashkelon.
[5] Today’s Moshav Mavki’im.
[6] Next to today’s Zikim Intersection.
[7] Today part of Kiryat Gat.
[8] Two kilometers north of Sderot.
[9] Between today’s Or HaNer and Gvar’am.
[10] Today “Havat HaShikmim”, between Dorot and Sderot.
[11] Two kilometers northwest of Kibbutz Yagur.
[12] Today part of Nesher.
[13] Medium-size machine gun.
[14] About two kilometers northeast of today’s Moshav Nir ‘Akiva.
Justices Dorit Beinisch, Miriam Naor and Uzi Fogelman this morning (Monday) scolded Adv. Yochi Genessin of the State Prosecution, when it turned out that Interior Minister Eli Yishai did not answer a letter sent to him by Muhammad Abu Tir and three other Palestinian parliamentarians, who had called upon him to revoke the decision to expel them from East Jerusalem. The letter was sent to the minister two and a half months ago.
Yishai was present at the courtroom in earlier stages, but left before the hearing of the appeal by the Palestinian parliamentarians threatened with expulsion.
In their June 27, 2010 letter to the Interior Minister the four – Muhammad Abu Tir, Muhammed Totah, Khaled Abu Arafa, and Ahmed Atoun – noted that they do not regard themselves as representatives of the Hamas movement, but as representatives of the entire Palestinian people, and in particular as representatives of their constituents; the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. They pledged to act only within Israeli law, as well as not to take up any position in the Palestinian Authority if the holding of this position is in contradiction to Israeli law.
Osama Saadi, the four’s attorney, told the judges that the text of this letter was agreed upon in meetings between high-ranking officials in the Palestinian Authority and senior Israeli governmental and security officials.
“The Palestinian Authority had taken a high profile involvement in the issue after the four parliamentarians met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and sought his help,” said Saadi. “Despite all the conflicts and sharp differences of opinion prevailing in the Palestinian system, all factions and parties regard as totally unacceptable the expulsion of Palestinians from anywhere – and all the more so, from Jerusalem in particular; this transcends any disagreements on other issues. At the time we thought that reaching this the formula with the Israeli officials had solved the problem. However, three days after the letter was sent, Jerusalem police arrested Muhammad Abu Tir and began deportation proceedings against him – and he remains in custody up to the present”.
The State Prosecution’s representative argued that the three other parliamentarians, who over the past two months are holding out at the Red Cross headquarters in East Jerusalem, are “holding Israeli Law in contempt” and “challenging the authority of the Israeli courts.” Justice Uzi Fogelman commented, “We have not issued an interim order, so the authorities can take enforcement measures – but this does not mean you must break into the Red Cross Headquarters. There are thousands of other cases of people who failed to adhere to the Interior Ministry’s expulsion orders, and against whom we allowed the authorities to take enforcement measures against them. But this does not mean that you should expect everyone to immediately leave voluntarily.”
At the end of the hearing the court instructed the four parliamentarians’ attorneys to send again send the letter to Interior Minister Yishai, specifying the circumstances which were referred to during the court proceedings. Minister Yishai was told by the judges to respond within 30 days from receipt of this letter, and to convey his response to the court, and the parliamentarians and lawyers will be able to respond within ten days. No date was set for further proceedings, and in the meantime Mohammad Abu Tir will remain in custody at the Jerusalem police.
Among the audience were former Knesset Member Uri Avnery and other Gush Shalom activists, as well as Jerusalemite peace activists who participate in the weekly demonstrations at Sheikh Jarrah. Also present at the hearing was an observer on behalf of the French Lawyers’ Association, who said that he had flown especially from Paris to monitor these proceedings, noting that the case aroused much interest among judicial circles in Europe
According to Uri Avnery, “The Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have an inalienable right to live in their city. Deportation of Palestinians – of political leaders as of ordinary people – is a heinous and stupid act, which causes all of us an immense damage.” He said that in order to achieve a stable peace, such a peace must include all parts of the Palestinian people, including the very significant part represented by the Hamas movement. “We peace seekers came to the courtroom today in order to cry out against an outrageous act of injustice committed by our government does, and at the same time also to offer the government a sober political advice. These two things converge into one call: Tear up the deportation orders, let these four men return to their homes and their constituents, and invite them and their political associates to fully share in negotiations for peace”.
EDITOR: A picture is better than a thousand words…
Just look at them. This picture tells the whole story of those doomed ‘talks about talks’. Obama, rising above realities, and disconnected from them, in his olympus of pure projections, is decisive and clear – he has his goal worked out – to raise his flagging standing and miserable poll results, but even his own face tells us he knows that he has lost already.
Netanyahu is smiling his furniture-dealer smile – he has got a customer, and a very good customer indeed, one which will buy whatever is on offer, and at a very high price, so he has all the reasons in the world to be smug and self-contented. He has snared another idiot, and he can go back to Jerusalem content in the knowledge that Israel can continue its occupation, settlement building and periodic massacres here, there and everywhere, without being bothered by the lame-duck President!
Abbas is indeed as miserable as he looks, certain in the knowledge that his betrayal of Palestine is going to weigh down on him in the very near future, as it becomes crystal clear that he has sold his people and his country for even less than a Nobel Prize. He hjas indeed all the reasons to be damn worried and depressed, as indeed he clearly is.
And, what’s best, I have only used 216 words to describe this perfect image…
Israel warplanes struck a series of targets in the Gaza Strip on Thursday
There have been exchanges of fire near the Israel-Gaza border, wounding five Palestinians and damaging property.
Militants in Gaza have fired at least five rockets or mortar rounds into Israel since Monday.
Israel said it struck two Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip late on Thursday, but Palestinian officials said five people were hurt in four separate air raids.
Hours later, on Friday, Gaza militants again fired a rocket into southern Israel, a military spokeswoman said.
The rocket exploded in the southern Shaar Hanegev area close to Gaza’s north-eastern border with Israel. Two days ago, a mortar shell landed near a kindergarten in the same community.
There were no reports of injuries or damage in either attack.
The Hamas government has vowed to try and rein in the firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip following Israel’s assault on Gaza in the winter of 2008.
The latest exchanges come as Israeli and Palestinian leaders prepare to hold direct peace talks in Egypt on Tuesday.
The talks – which kicked off in Washington last week – are the first direct negotiations between the two sides in almost two years.
Speaking at an Eid el Fitr prayer, Mahmoud Habbash says Palestinians must reject any outside influence on path to achieve statehood.
Iran’s interests run counter to Palestinian statehood, the Palestinians Ma’an news agency quoted a top Palestinian official as saying on Saturday, urging Palestinians to disregard outside interest and focus on the national cause.
Palestinian Authority Minister Mahmoud Habbash made these remarks days after a Palestinian Authority spokesman lashed out at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for criticizing Palestinian negotiations with Israel, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas in particular.
“The one who does not represent the Iranian people, who falsified election results, who oppressed the Iranian people and stole authority has no right to speak about Palestine, its president or its representatives,” Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh said last week, referring to the Iranian president.
Ahmadinejad addressed a rally last week at Teheran University, where he dismissed the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, saying the fate of Palestine would be decided in Palestine and through resistance and not in Washington.
Responding to Ahmadinejad’s comments, Habbash, speaking at an Eid el Fitr prayer on Friday, said that the PA was “committed to the Palestinian national principals,” adding that Iran, on the other hand, was “against the Palestinian national project.”
Iran, the PA minister said, was not “responsible for the Palestinian case,” adding that Ahmadinejad “will not solve” the Palestinian national struggle and that the PA refused “the right of any other to intervene in the internal issues of Palestine.”
Also addressing the long-standing feud between the West Bank-based PA and the Gaza-ruling Hamas, Habbash said Hamas leaders were “preachers of sedition,” urging the Islamist militant group to take responsibility for the “coup in Gaza three years ago.”
The PA minister was referring to the violent coup staged by Hamas in 2007, during which the Islamist group drove Fatah out of the territory and violently seized control.
Key players in place, the region waits to see if anything decisive can emerge from direct Israeli-Palestinian talks this time, Ezzat Ibrahim reports from Washington
In an atmosphere of uncertainty, US President Barack Obama has thrown his whole weight behind re-launching direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians with the hope of reaching a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within one year. Standing by him are Egypt and Jordan, with President Hosni Mubarak sending a clear message to Arabs and Egyptians that despair and anger should not again undermine prospects for peace.
President Mubarak, in a lengthy article published in The New York Times, set out his vision for peace and the hurdles to be surpassed before reaching it. On the endpoint of negotiations, Mubarak said: “The broad parameters of a permanent Palestinian-Israeli settlement are already clear: the creation of a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 with Jerusalem as a capital for both Israel and Palestine.” Among hurdles, Mubarak underlined the psychological factor between Israel and the Palestinians as the biggest obstacle to success of the peace process, adding that peace between the Palestinians and Israelis is linked to a comprehensive regional settlement.
President Mubarak referred to the Arab Peace Initiative that offers Israel comprehensive peace for its full withdrawal from occupied Arab lands and a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue. Mubarak emphasised that the complete cessation of Israeli settlement construction is crucial to the success of talks. Settlements and peace are incompatible, Mubarak said, “as they deepen the occupation that Palestinians seek to end”. Recognising Israeli demands for security, Mubarak responded: “Egypt believes that the presence of an international force in the West Bank, to be stationed for a period to be agreed upon by the parties, could give both sides the confidence and security they seek.” “Security, however, cannot be a justification for Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian land, as it undermines the cardinal principle of land for peace.”
Mubarak also stated that Egypt is ready to resume its efforts to address all issues related to Gaza in order to clear the way for a two state solution. “The Palestinians cannot make peace with a house divided. If Gaza is excluded from the framework of peace, it will remain a source of conflict, undermining any final settlement,” Mubarak said. Egypt has offered to host subsequent rounds of negotiations.
The White House and US State Department have been careful about expressing their expectations of the upcoming talks. Hillary Clinton held a series of bilateral meetings to prepare the stage for the launch of direct negotiations. US State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley said meetings in Washington intend primarily to help the concerned parties understand what is required in order to grasp peace in the designated period. On the possibility of a statement or declaration following the talks today, a US spokesman said that the various parties are still working on the substance of negotiations. He noted that the US sees Egyptian and Jordanian support as necessary for the success of present endeavours. Crowley added that Washington would not simply re-launch negotiations but will stay in close contact with all leaders as well as acting as “a real partner” in the process.
Crowley further said that Washington is focussed in two directions: first, concerned with form and how the negotiations will unfold; second, concerned with substance and the issues at the heart of the process. On the place of regional parties such as Hamas and Iran in a comprehensive peace, the US spokesman said that each party that accepts the Quartet principles could play a role in the Middle East peace process. He added that the US recognises that there are parties in the region that will attempt to reverse steps towards peace, but that Washington is counting on the commitment made by leaders to continue the peace process, calling for a show of political will and creativity in order to overcome the complexities and challenges that impede agreement on solutions to key issues. Above all, concerned parties should realise that they have a common interest in reaching a peace agreement.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit said the Egyptian vision is clear. He said negotiations should last no more than one year, with implementation of an agreement in a year or two years. Abul-Gheit revealed that Egypt has reiterated during talks with the US over recent weeks the importance of a continued Israeli freeze on settlement building as a confidence building measure. He underlined that negotiations should start from where they last left off and acknowledged US intentions as serious and credible, saying that Obama has put improving US relations with the Arab and Islamic worlds as an agenda priority. He said Egypt would continue to play a central role in the Middle East peace process. The foreign minister added that the Palestinian side comes to negotiations on the basis of a statement of the International Quartet affirming the rule of international law; that the basis for a settlement is ending the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and embracing a two-state solution whereby a Palestinian state can emerge.
2 Sept 2010 Israeli-Palestinian talks is under way after a carefully choreographed White House ceremony rich in political pieties and low on substance. No sooner was it over than the questions began.
It is not just that, while both sides employ the same words – peace, two-states solution and so on – they mean different things. It is not just that both camps are split and their leaders may not be able to close a deal, were they to reach one. Nor is it just that Israel, as the occupier, able ultimately to count on unconditional US support, is so much more powerful than the occupied Palestinians.
Within weeks the talks could judder to a halt. On September 26, the partial Israeli moratorium on building settlements on occupied Palestinian land expires – and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu says it will not renew it.
While ways of fudging this are being looked at, the settlers’ lobby, powerful within Mr Netanyahu’s coalition and, indeed, his own Likud party, wants none of it.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is under enormous pressure. He has nothing to show for his strategy of seeking a Palestinian state by negotiation. Israel has expanded the occupation, having taken 42 per cent of the West Bank according to B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group. To retain what little remains of his credibility, Mr Abbas may be forced to withdraw if the moratorium is not renewed.
The standstill was in any case relative. Exclusions of Palestinians from occupied east Jerusalem have increased. Two Arab villages have just been razed, in the Jordan Valley and Negev desert. Segregated, Israelis-only roads have bulldozed ahead. The situation is explosive enough even without the moratorium timebomb under the talks. Mr Abbas called off West Bank municipal elections in July, even though Hamas – which defeated his Fatah party in the 2006 general elections – was not standing.
While every consideration is being given to the delicacy of Mr Netanyahu’s position, little or none is accorded to Mr Abbas.
Yet, it should be perfectly obvious that talks aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state cannot possibly prosper while Israel continues its strategic colonisation of the land on which that state would be built. The US and its international partners must insist on a cessation of settlement-building.
Would this sink the Israeli coalition? Very possibly. But Mr Netanyahu has options, including an alliance with the centrist Kadima party. Mr Abbas has none.
‘The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust,’ former Cuban leader tells U.S. journal The Atlantic.
Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro has urged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stop slandering the Jews, according to an article published on the U.S. website The Atlantic on Tuesday.
The ageing revolutionary devoted much of a five-hour conversation to the issue of anti-Semitism, wrote Jeffrey Goldberg, who interviewed Castro in the Cuban capital Havana.
Castro told The Atlantic that the Iranian government should understand the consequences anti-Semitism.
“This went on for maybe two thousand years,” he said. “I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything.”
He added: “The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.”
Asked by Goldberg if he would repeat his comments to Ahmadinejad, Castro said. “I am saying this so you can communicate it.”
Following the interview, Goldberg spoke with Haaretz about his impression of the thinking behind Castro’s comments.
“I think he [Castro] realizes he’s gone too far in certain criticisms of Israel,” Goldberg said.
“I think he wants to be a player in this issue; and I think he’s genuinely offended by Holocaust denial.”
Ahmadinejad has publicy called the Holocaust “a myth”, claiming Jews exaggerated the Nazi genocide to win sympathy from European governments.
I have often spoken out in opposition to cultural boycotts… but in the political arena, artists make a statement by their presence or their absence.
By Theodore Bikel
I feel compelled to speak out on the controversy surrounding the Israeli artists who have announced their refusal to perform in the territories. For the record, my career as a performer has spanned 68 years. In my 20s, I was a cofounder of the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv (of that group, I am the last one alive). I have resided in America since 1954, and as a concert artist I frequently work in the field of Jewish culture, performing in the languages of our people − Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino and even in English, the language spoken by the largest Jewish community in the world.
As president of the Associated Actors & Artistes of America (the umbrella union covering performers in the United States), I have often spoken out in opposition to cultural boycotts. I have argued that art opens minds and builds bridges, even when carried into the very heart of enemy territory − perhaps especially then. But life, as we know it, often defies simple formulas. In the political arena, artists make a statement by their presence or their absence.
Pablo Casals, the world-famous cellist, who chose life-long exile from his native Spain because of the fascist dictator who ruled the beloved country of his birth, said this: “My cello is my weapon; I choose where I play, when I play, and before whom I play.”
My own choices have often been dictated by similar sentiments. For many years, when apartheid was the law of the land there, I refused official invitations and lucrative offers to perform in South Africa. Indeed, I have always refused to appear in halls that were racially segregated, whether in America or elsewhere in the world. More than two years ago, I refused an invitation by the mayor of Ariel to appear at the opening of the very same cultural facility then under construction and now at the center of the controversy.
There are weighty reasons why I find myself in full support of the artists’ refusal to perform in the territories. And it should be noted that I am not alone in supporting the courageous stand of our Israeli colleagues. There is a growing list of over 150 prominent artists and arts leaders from the U.S. who have expressed similar concerns to mine.
The cause celebre regarding the new performance facility in Ariel has given rise to statements from the leaders of that community as well as from Prime Minister Netanyahu and the culture minister, Limor Livnat. While the latter asserts that “political disputes should be left outside cultural life and art,” both the prime minister and the settlers’ council make it clear that the matter is not about art at all, but about what they call an attack on Israel “from within.”
The declaration of conscience signed by prominent Israeli artists − among them recipients of the Israel Prize, the highest cultural accolade given by the state − is characterized as emanating from “anti-Zionist leftists” and is described by the prime minister as being part of an “international movement of delegitimization.”
Clearly, anything that is connected to the settlers or to the settlements’ presence beyond the Green Line is political. And, if the refusal of the artists to perform in the territories is tantamount to delegitimization, it follows that any agreement to perform there would amount to legitimizing what many of us (in and outside of Israel) believe to be the single most glaring obstacle to peace.
Theodore Bikel is a Tony- and Oscar-nominated actor and musician.
Tasyir Hayb freed from prison with two years remaining on his eight-year sentence for Briton’s manslaughter in Gaza in 2003
Tom Hurndall was shot in the head by Israeli soldier Taysir Hayb in 2003 as he helped Palestinian children cross a street in Gaza. Photograph: Kay Fernandes/Reuters/HO Photograph: Ho/Reuters
The Israeli soldier convicted of killing British activist Tom Hurndall was released from prison today, two years before completing his sentence.
Tasyir Hayb was found guilty of manslaughter in 2005, when a military court found he had violated orders. He was also convicted him of obstruction of justice and false testimony. He has served six years of his eight-year sentence.
Hurndall, then 22, was shot in the head in April 2003 while he was helping Palestinian children cross a street in Rafah, in the Gaza strip. He had been filming with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Hurndall fell into a coma and died the following year.
According to Israeli newspapers, the military prosecution opposed Hayb’s early release, fearing it would damage Israel’s relations with the UK. But a military committee overruled this last month, arguing that Hayb, 27, had been sufficiently rehabilitated.
Tom’s mother, Jocelyn, today said: “From the moment that Tom was shot, we said it wasn’t about the soldier, who is a small part of the machinery, but about the responsibility of the Israeli army and its lack of accountability over civilian killings. To say that the soldier has reformed is to miss the point – the British government needs to hold Israel accountable for its actions.”
Hayb’s release comes as the case against the Israeli state filed by the parents of Rachel Corrie, the American activist killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Rafah the month before Hurndall was shot, is reconvened in Israel.
Week after launching of direct talks, Palestinian negotiator says recognizing Israel as Jewish state would ‘directly threaten Muslims, Christians’ and prevent Palestinian refugees from ‘returning to their homes’
“The Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” Palestinian negotiator Nabil Sha’ath said Wednesday, just a week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas launched direct talks in Washington.
“Such a declaration would directly threaten the Muslims and Christians in Israel and prevent Palestinian refugees, who left their homes and villages a number of decades ago, from being granted the right to return to them,” Sha’ath told reporters in Ramallah.
The senior Palestinian official said he was not opposed to a Jewish majority in Israel, but stressed that “the Palestinian problem is purely political.”
Sha’ath, a member of the Palestinian negotiating team, said Netanyahu planned to raise the issue (recognition of Israel as a Jewish state) at Sharm el-Sheikh, where the direct negotiations are set to resume in mid-August, “but we flatly rejected this demand.”
“We won’t expose our people to security and political threats,” he added.
Earlier this week, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Israel’s demand to be recognized as a Jewish state is worrying.
“If the international community defines Israel as a Jewish state – such a decision should be approved by the UN,” Aboul Gheit said.
Even though the boycott suggested here is limited, this is still another nail in the coffin of the occupation and Israeli Apartheid.Despite all this change, we should not forget one simple fact: None of this would ever have happened, if the world did not listen to the Palestinian call for BDS, and numerous boycotts implemented, by the international community and by the Palestinians.
On their own, Israeli intellectuals are quite content with the occupation. For over four decades, we have not had the flurry of activity we are now seeing, in direct reaction to the BDS movement actions. There is no clearer evidence that the action are successful, and should be contiued and strengthened.
When some 60 leading Israeli actors and playwrights signed a letter stating they would refuse to play in the new theatre in Ariel, one of Israel’s largest settlements, the attacks from Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel’s Minister of Culture and Sport and many others were swift and intense. Over 150 leading Israeli academics and writers-including Amos Oz and David Grossman- came to their defense. It was the first time such mainstream figures had drawn a line around normalizing settlements which are illegal according to international law, and which constitute one of the main impediments to a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Inspired by their courage, and responding to a call for international support, Jewish Voice for Peace has developed a statement that has been signed by over 150 theater and film professionals representing some of the most respected and renowned artists in theater, film and television – including Four Pulitzer Prize winners, several recipients of Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship, a National Medal of Honor,and scores of recipients of the highest U.S. acting honors, including Tony Awards, Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards, Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, and the Oscar.
Rebecca Vilkomerson (rebecca@jvp.org), Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace: “The response of American and UK artists to the courageous actions of their Israeli counterparts is just phenomenal. It is especially notable that so many of the signatories are Jewish with long-standing connections to Israel. We hope that the strong show of solidarity by Americans and UK actors in response to these brave Israelis will help spark a new conversation in both countries, one that acknowledges that the Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are illegal by every measure of international law, contribute to the daily violation of human rights of Palestinians, and are a major obstacle to a just peace in the region.”
On August 27th, dozens of Israeli actors, directors, and playwrights made the brave decision not to perform in Ariel, one of the largest of the West Bank settlements, which by all standards of international law are clearly illegal. As American actors, directors, critics and playwrights, we salute our Israeli counterparts for their courageous decision.
Most of us are involved in daily compromises with wrongful acts. When a group of people suddenly have the clarity of mind to see that the next compromise looming up before them is an unbearable one — and when they somehow find the strength to refuse to cross that line — we can’t help but be overjoyed and inspired and grateful.
It’s thrilling to think that these Israeli theatre artists have refused to allow their work to be used to normalize a cruel occupation which they know to be wrong, which violates international law and which is impeding the hope for a just and lasting peace for Israelis an Palestinians alike. They’ve made a wonderful decision, and they deserve the respect of people everywhere who dream of justice. We stand with them.
*Statement organizers and signatories represent a wide range of political opinions and perspectives, but have come together for the sole purpose of making a joint statement on this one critical issue.
**All identifications and affiliations are for identification purposes only and do not imply endorsements by any institutions
To read the full list of signatories, use the link above
Prominent actors, directors, playwrights send letter to boards of Israeli theaters in protest of plans to put on shows in news culture auditorium beyond Green Line. Yesha Council vows harsh response to ‘vile, anti-Zionist’ letter
A long line of actors and artists from all fields of the theater industry sent a letter to the boards of Israel’s repertory theaters announcing they will refuse to perform in the new culture auditorium in Ariel, which is located outside the Green Line. It should be noted that tickets have already been sold to productions that include all of Israel’s theaters.
The letter, addressed to the boards of the Cameri, Habima, Beit Lessin, Khan and the Haifa and Beersheba theatres, read: “We wish to express our disgust with the theater’s board’s plans to perform in the new auditorium in Ariel. The actors among us hereby declare that we will refuse to perform in Ariel, as well as in any other settlement. We urge the boards to hold their activity within the sovereign borders of the State of Israel within the Green Line.”
On Wednesday, the Ometz Lesarev (courage to refuse) organization sent a letter to the theaters’ boards and actors requesting they refrain from performing in Ariel. In response, the city’s mayor, Ron Nachman said, “Culture has nothing to do with politics. If the actors and artists want to deal with politics, let them go to the Knesset. The vileness, baseness and hypocrisy of those who work in culture and call on a boycott of us, is intolerable.”
But it seems many in the industry gave in to the organization’s calls, and Friday’s letter included the signatures of dozens of prominent people in the theater business.
Dramaturgist Vardit Shalfi, one of the letter’s initiators, told Ynet on Friday, “Ariel is not a legitimate community, and as such, is against international law and international treaties that the State of Israel has signed. This means anyone performing there would be considered a criminal according to international law. The theater’s boards should inform their actors that there are apartheid roads for Jews only that lead into the settlement of Ariel. The moment we perform there, we are giving legitimization to this settlement’s existence.”
The long list of signatories includes many prominent actors, which could make it difficult for the theaters to decide which shows to put on in Ariel without having to make serious changes to the cast.
The list includes Israel Prize laureate Renee Yerushalmi, actors Yossi Pollack and Itay Tiran, director Ofira Henig, playwrights Joshua Sobol and Savyon Liebrecht and many more.
Yesha Council vows ‘harsh response’
Liebrecht said in response: “I object to the settlement enterprise and obviously, when it comes to theater, it is my duty not to be silent. Until there is a signed peace agreement, Ariel is not a legitimate community. I haven’t crossed the Green Line in years, and as far as I’m concerned, anyone who has decided to live there and wants to enjoy Israeli culture can come to Kfar Saba or any other Israeli city. I believe that if enough actors and people in the theater business sign the letter, the shows won’t go up there.”
Israel Prize laureate Renee Yerushalmi said, “I am not against, but for the future of the State of Israel. These days talks are being head about the Israeli-Palestinian future, and we must allow them to take place to see if there is hope for future existence here. Ariel today is beyond the Green Line and therefore we must not cross it. This applies to theater productions as well.”
Yesha Council said in response: “Our response to the letter signed by a bunch of anti-Zionist leftists and refusniks will be very harsh. This vile letter, which speaks out against the best of the State’s sons who defend them while they are acting on stage, requires a direct, poignant and clear response from the theaters’ boards, and this is what we expect. We will announce our future steps in the coming days.”
The Habima national theater said in response on Friday: “This is the first time the matter of putting on theater shows beyond the Green Line is raised in Israeli discourse. As a national theater, Habima believes discussing the matter is of the utmost importance, but it also calls for an in-depth examination of all the issues it includes… We are looking into the matter.”
Dror Gerber, of the Haifa Theater said, “If the actors are expressing ethical and moral claims in their letter, I consider this problematic. The way to express protest and objection to the occupation is not via boycotting the residents of Ariel. The Haifa Theater was founded in order to bring the art of theater to all the citizens of the State of Israel.”
Tzipi Pines of Beit Lessin said, “I personally object to the occupation and support peace, but there are people living in Ariel who I respect, and I respect their desire to consume culture.”
The Cameri said in response: “We are against boycotts and will perform anywhere where there are people who desire culture and wish to see Israeli theater.”
EDITOR: Shenanigans in Cairo – a little bird has whispered in my ear…
As aging President Mubarak, recently taken with installing his son (known in Egypt as the ‘Pharaoh-in-waiting’) Gamal as his political heir, has flown to Washington on the orders of the boss, and taken part in the rerun of the old comedy show, “Springtime of Peacetalks in Washington”, revived after many years, then it may be less than surprising that the rather ascerbic Al Ahram Weekly was pulled out of the ether and its website is missing this week’s edition – no doubt due to the many articles which attacked or criticised the ‘talks about talks’, as well as the complicit partners in this charade, in the service of Israel and the US President. We mustn’t upset the boss and paymaster, after all!
So it is with regret that I am writing this, unable to bring you the current thinking in Egypt on this topic, as the press throttling goes on, like so many times before!
The sums involved are not large, but their international significance is huge. Boycotts by governments gives a boost to boycotts by non-government bodies around the world.
By Nehemia Shtrasler
The entire week was marked by boycotts. It began with a few dozen theater people boycotting the new culture center in Ariel, and continued with a group of authors and artists publishing a statement of support on behalf of those theater people. Then a group of 150 lecturers from various universities announced they would not teach at Ariel College or take part in any cultural events in the territories. Naturally, all that spurred a flurry of responses, including threats of counter-sanctions.
That was all at the local level. There’s another boycott, an international one, that’s gaining momentum – an economic boycott. Last week the Chilean parliament decided to adopt the boycott of Israeli products made in the settlements, at the behest of the Palestinian Authority, which imposed a boycott on such products several months ago.
In September 2009, Norway’s finance minister announced that a major government pension fund was selling its shares in Elbit Systems because of that company’s role in building the separation fence. In March, a major Swedish investment fund said it would eschew Elbit Systems shares on the same grounds. Last month the Norwegian pension fund announced that it was selling its holdings in Africa Israel and in its subsidiary Danya Cebus because of their involvement in constructing settlements in the occupied territories.
The sums involved are not large, but their international significance is huge. Boycotts by governments gives a boost to boycotts by non-government bodies around the world.
New world
Human-rights organizations in Europe are essentially running campaigns to boycott Israeli products. They are demonstrating at supermarkets, brandishing signs against Israeli goods. Worker organizations, with millions of members, send circulars to their people calling on them to forgo Israeli products.
Boycotting Israeli products in Ramallah Photo by: A
I talked with farmers who say there are retail chains in Europe no longer prepared to buy Israeli products. The same is true for a chain in Washington.
The world is changing before our eyes. Five years ago the anti-Israel movement may have been marginal. Now it is growing into an economic problem.
Until now boycott organizers had been on the far left. They have a new ally: Islamic organizations that have strengthened greatly throughout Europe in the past two decades. The upshot is a red and green alliance with a significant power base. The red side has a name for championing human rights, while the green side has money. Their union is what led to the success of the Turkish flotilla.
They note that boycott is an especially effective weapon against Israel because Israel is a small country, dependent on exports and imports. They also point to the success of the economic boycott against the apartheid regime of South Africa.
An anti-Israel protestor at Dublin Airport, Ireland, June, 7, 2010. Photo by: A
The anti-Israel tide rose right after Operation Cast Lead, as the world watched Israel pound Gaza with bombs on live television. No public-relations machine in the world could explain the deaths of hundreds of children, the destruction of neighborhoods and the grinding poverty afflicting a people under curfew for years. They weren’t even allowed to bring in screws to build school desks. Then came the flotilla, complete with prominent peace activists, which ended in nine deaths, adding fuel to the fire.
But underlying the anger against Israel lies disappointment. Since the establishment of the state, and before, we demanded special terms of the world. We played on their feelings of guilt, for standing idle while six million Jews were murdered.
David Ben-Gurion called us a light unto the nations and we stood tall and said, we, little David, would stand strong and righteous against the great evil Goliath.
The world appreciated that message and even, according to the foreign press, enabled us to develop the atom bomb in order to prevent a second Holocaust.
But then came the occupation, which turned us into the evil Goliath, the cruel oppressor, a darkness on the nations. And now we are paying the price of presenting ourselves as righteous and causing disappointment: boycott.
EDITOR: BDS good news!
The BDS campaign in Scotland is really taking off! Scotland was one of those places where the campaign hit the ground running; that may well be related to the English UK collaboration with Zionist policies and collusion over war-mongering in the Middle East, but it may well be closely related to the hardly-won struggle for devolution as well, and the higher value placed in Scotland on human and political rights, as well as political solidarity with other nations under the heel of colonial occupation and control.
Anti-Israel boycott by Muslim shops goes Scotland-wide
by Jasper Hamill, Sunday Herald, 5 Sept 2010
Khalid Bashir, owner of the Red Sea Food Store in Nicholson Square, Edinburgh, is already boycotting Israeli goods and has agreed to display a poster. He said: “People ask about it all the time, but I am able to tell them I have been boycotting Israel for years. It should be easier now that I can display this poster.”
In Dundee, protesters targeted shops in the city centre. In Kirkcaldy, the three largest Muslim-owned shops all agreed to take part in the boycott. Shops in Glasgow’s West End are taking part; in Aberdeen, campaigners are preparing to talk to shops in the coming days.
A nationwide boycott of Israeli goods is being launched across Scotland this weekend as activists target Muslim-owned shops in an attempt to stop them selling produce from the Jewish state.
The boycott, which started in the south side of Glasgow last weekend, was deemed so successful that campaigners decided to expand it. Campaigners from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) are now targeting shops run by Muslims in the rest of Glasgow and in Fife, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee.
In Glasgow, the protesters asked shop owners to take Israeli goods off their shelves and warned they would “name and shame” any store that did not do so. The SPSC says every shop it approached on the south side of the city backed the boycott.
However, prominent figures in the Jewish community warn that the “divisive” tactics of campaigners risked driving a wedge between communities instead of fostering dialogue.
Mick Napier, chairman of the SPSC, oversaw a “clean sweep” of all Muslim-owned shops near the Nicholson Street mosque in Edinburgh on Friday. About 40 protesters went door to door, asking store owners to support the campaign.
“All the shops we visited backed the boycott and are now displaying posters to that effect,” he said. “The support we received from customers and passers-by was overwhelming.”
He added: “It’s been 100% successful. We often met with a response immediately, with people saying they would not dream of stocking Israeli goods. The pressure we bring to bear is moral. We use the threat of publicity. There is no threat of strong-arming.
“The reality is that Israel makes it impossible for Palestinian farmers to export almost anything. Palestinians were kicked off their land to make way for the illegal settlements, but the good news is that the boycott is kicking back. It’s great to see small shops in Scotland standing up for human rights.”
Napier also added that every shop visited in Dundee backed the boycott. Shopkeepers backing the boycott have put up a poster in their stores saying: “This shop supports the Palestinians. No Israeli produce sold here.”
Khalid Bashir, owner of the Red Sea Food Store in Nicholson Square, Edinburgh, is already boycotting Israeli goods and has agreed to display a poster. He said: “People ask about it all the time, but I am able to tell them I have been boycotting Israel for years. It should be easier now that I can display this poster.”
In Dundee, protesters targeted shops in the city centre. In Kirkcaldy, the three largest Muslim-owned shops all agreed to take part in the boycott. Shops in Glasgow’s West End are taking part; in Aberdeen, campaigners are preparing to talk to shops in the coming days.
Today, members of all faiths will meet to break the Ramadan fast at the Woodfarm Educational Trust in East Renfrewshire.
Dianna Wolfson, a prominent member of Glasgow’s Jewish community and a former convener of the Interfaith Council, which promotes dialogue between religions, will be attending. She warned that boycotts could derail the relations between communities.
She said: “There are people on both sides who would like to see peaceful settlements. This boycotting is not helpful. More needs to be done to explore how we can have peace with each other, rather than emphasising the warring aspect and divisive aspect of it.”
She added: “If people of different faiths were getting to know each other, they would be more likely to listen and hear the other side of the argument … to emphasis what is good on both sides, and come together.”
Wolfson said she would not consider boycotting goods from a country “that didn’t like Israel. It’s just not my thinking and I find it hurtful.”
Original article at the Sunday Herald, 5 Sept 2010
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Scottish PSC adds:
Boycott is a peaceful, democratic method to make our feelings known at a time when the Government ande Labour opposition are complicit in Israeli crimes and support the charade of the ‘peace process’ at the same time Gaza is under siege, the illegal apartheid Wall remains in place.
The use of boycott to secure Palestinian human rights is the most effective way for British citizens to oppose the British Government’s political, diplomatic, economic and military support of Israel.
Dianna Woolfson of SCoJeC (Scottish Council of Jewish Communities) has a brazen cheek to suggest that peaceful boycott will damage community relations in Scotland when SCoJeC works – in vain – to implicate all Scottish Jews in Israel’s most revolting crimes. The Jewish Chronicle reported recently that “Glasgow Jewish Representative Council president, Edward Isaacs led a four person delegation” to oppose “a motion passed by the council condemning the Israeli action against the flotilla to Gaza, in which nine Turkish activists died.”
SPSC has made clear on earlier occasions that interfaith discussions are irrelevant to the struggle for Palestinian freedom and those that compromise on human rights are tainted.
There is no such thing for decent people as collective guilt; each of us is responsible for our own actions. Jews are no more responsible as a group for Israeli crimes than British citizens as a whole are responsible for the violent invasions and mass killings of Iraqis and Afghans by the British Army (the current as well as the earlier ones).
Equally, we all have a duty to speak out against the crimes of those – the British and Israeli governments – who claim our support for those crimes.
We note the retreat by SCoJeC from its knee-jerk previous failed attempts to smear Scottish PSC as ‘anti-Semitic’ but we condemn this organisation’s claims that Scottish Jews as a whole have an interest in supporting Israel’s mounting criminality.
In a faint echo of the deceit underpinning the so-called “peace process”, Dianna Woolfson claims that “More needs to be done to explore how we can have peace with each other”. But we don’t need to explore anything; he problem is that SCoJeC claims on the one hand to be a representative Jewish community organisation while, on the other hand, it supports Israeli crimes such as the Mavi Marmara massacre.
Stop supporting theft of land, colonisation, murder and kidnapping of Palestinians who resist and embrace human rights equal to your own for those same Palestinians. Then there can be peace in that land brutalised by the Zionism of Liebermann and Netanyahu. Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 5 September 2010
Hillary Clinton said Mr Netanyahu and Mr Abbas “can actually do this”
The US secretary of state has said the current round of Mid-East peace talks may be “the last chance for a very long time” to resolve the conflict.
In a joint interview with Israeli and Palestinian media, Hillary Clinton said failure would embolden “the forces of destruction” on both sides.
Time was “not on the side” of Israeli and Palestinian hopes, she added.
Mrs Clinton spoke after Israeli and Palestinian leaders began their first direct peace talks in nearly two years.
Continue reading the main story
Israel and the Palestinians
Mrs Clinton acknowledged deep scepticism about the talks on both sides but said she was “absolutely convinced” that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas could succeed.
“It’s clear to me that the forces of growth and positive energy are in a conflict with the forces of destruction and negativity,” she said.
Mrs Clinton’s remarks came a day after the US Middle East peace envoy, former Senator George Mitchell, described the initial talks as “constructive”.
President Barack Obama, who opened the negotiations on Wednesday with bilateral meetings with Mr Abbas and Mr Netanyahu and a dinner for them and the Egyptian and Jordanian leaders, has said the goal is a permanent settlement that ends the Israeli occupation of territory captured in 1967, and an independent, democratic Palestinian state existing peacefully beside Israel.
If protesters didn’t exist, Netanyahu, Livnat and Sa’ar would have to invent them. After all, these figures are the last living proof of a democratic regime in Israel.
By Yossi Sarid
Israeli democracy is mainly for decoration, like a tree grown for its beauty, not to bear fruit. Few people actually use it or the rights it affords. Many are merely happy that they can vote in the Knesset elections, and even this number is getting smaller.
Does Israel’s civic passivity stem from laziness or apathy or despair? That feeling that there’s no way they can influence or change anything? And if governments suffice with running countries, this government is adamant about dictating the policies of the opposition – with an opposition comprised of such figures as Tzipi Livni, Shaul Mofaz and Tzachi Hanegbi, this is certainly possible. A democracy that is atrophying, that is not utilized on a daily basis, becomes an unnecessary tool.
But here we find a paradox: Those who fight against democracy in order to destroy it, to set up an alternative state in its place, are the very people who know how to exploit it to the full. The settlers know, as do the rabbis, who teach their students how their “Jewish state” will look. During the past few months it appears as if fascism has already arrived here and is waiting just behind the wall. And even the genius of our times – for whom everything has been turned inside out – knows, judging by his weekly hot-air emissions. They use democracy in order to toss it out.
Here and there a few, the few who were lost in the desert, renounce them, but then immediately pounce on them to scare them and shut them up – the government and the rabble alike. And what can a person who wants to protest do when his soul has despaired of those who kill and those who are killed? When his soul is fed up with the occupation, and all he wants is that it should not manage to occupy his desires? Someone seeking salvation for his soul and ours – what is left for him to do?
If he participates in the popular struggle against the separation fence, he will be buried outside the fence of the cemetery; if he demonstrates in Sheikh Jarrah, he will feel the heavy hand of the police; if he is a university lecturer, they’ll send the watchdogs after him in the name of Zionism; if he belongs to a theater troupe, someone who can still see the Green Line in his mind’s eye, they will threaten the source of his income; if he is a school principal who tries not just to support settlements but to inculcate them, they will look for a different institution for him because that is not how we do things; if he is a judge who dares deny that security is of the utmost importance, they will blame him for bloodshed; if he is a journalist who refuses to join in the chorus, there will be cries to boycott his newspaper; if he is a citizen who wishes to protect a child being threatened with expulsion from the country, he too will be blacklisted as an enemy of the people; and a long list remains.
What a foolish government. If such people hadn’t been around to break through the fences and hold their own, Benjamin Netanyahu, Limor Livnat and Gideon Sa’ar would’ve had to invite them to do so, to find a special clause in the budget to support them. After all, these figures are their alibis and the last living proof of a democratic regime in Israel.
Without them, this government would be left with only the inflated Eli Yishai and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who is constantly letting out hot air but, heaven forbid, should not be denounced as the national skunk. The prime minister pretends he can’t hear and all the ministers keep mum just like him. How simple it is to condemn left-wing artists at the start of the cabinet meeting, to threaten to turn out the lights on their stage.
Next week the president will make his annual pilgrimage to the rabbi, to wish him a happy new year, a year in which all his wishes and desires will be fulfilled.
Militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired a rocket into southern Israel today, two days after the start of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, causing no injuries or damage, the Israeli military said.
The cross-border rocket fire was the first since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Washington to relaunch peace negotiations.
Hamas Islamists routed forces loyal to Abbas to take over the Gaza Strip in 2007. The group rejects Abbas’ peace moves and has vowed to continue attacks against Israel.
Hamas has claimed responsibility for two shooting attacks in the past week in the West Bank, where Abbas holds sway, including one that killed four Israelis.
EDITOR: This needs to be seen in context
This is of course very good – at last Israeli academics have noticed the occupation… After more than four decades, 150 academics, out of more than 10,000, are writing against West Bank settlements. One cannot resist the thought that this would have been even better, has it taken place some four decades ago…
Many of those academics are now boycotting so as not to be boycotted themselves, of course! Still, one mustn’t grumble, let them go forth and multiply…
An arts centre in Ariel, one of the West Bank’s largest settlements, is to open in November
More than 150 Israeli academics say they will no longer lecture or work in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
In a letter, they said they supported the recent decision by a group of actors and others not to take part in cultural activity there.
The academics said that acceptance of the settlements caused “critical” damage to Israel’s chances of achieving peace with the Palestinians.
The actors were criticised for refusing to perform at a new cultural centre.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the last thing Israel needed as it resumed direct peace talks was a boycott from within.
‘Stupid behaviour’
In a letter published on Sunday, the academics said they would no longer take part in any kind of cultural activity, or lecture in any kind of academic setting, in settlements built on land occupied following the Middle East war – demarcated by what is commonly known as the “Green Line”.
They explained that they wanted to show support and solidarity for the 53 actors, writers and directors who last week said they would not take part in performances at the new cultural centre built in Ariel.
“We’d like to remind the Israeli public that, like all settlements, Ariel is also in occupied territory,” the academics said.
“If a future peace agreement with the Palestinian authorities puts Ariel within Israel’s borders, then it will be treated like any other Israeli town.”
“Legitimatisation and acceptance of the settler enterprise cause critical damage to Israel’s chances of achieving a peace accord with its Palestinian neighbours.”
Settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this
Close to 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
A separate letter, signed by a number of well-known Israeli authors and artists, is expected to be published in the coming days.
Yigal Cohen-Orgad, the chancellor of the Ariel University Centre, told Haaretz newspaper on Tuesday that “stupid behaviour seems to attract academic stupidity”.
Several right-wing politicians have criticised the actors, saying they are subsidised by the Israeli state and should have their funds withdrawn if they refuse to work in any settlements.
By Chris McGreal, The Guardian – 1 Sept 2010
An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.
The soldier, who has only been identified as “Captain R”, was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp in Gaza a year ago.
The manner of Iman’s killing, and the revelation of a tape recording in which the captain is warned that she was just a child who was “scared to death”, made the shooting one of the most controversial since the Palestinian intifada erupted five years ago even though hundreds of other children have also died.
After the verdict, Iman’s father, Samir al-Hams, said the army never intended to hold the soldier accountable.
“They did not charge him with Iman’s murder, only with small offences, and now they say he is innocent of those even though he shot my daughter so many times,” he said. “This was the cold-blooded murder of a girl. The soldier murdered her once and the court has murdered her again. What is the message? They are telling their soldiers to kill Palestinian children.”
The military court cleared the soldier of illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and perverting the course of justice by asking soldiers under his command to alter their accounts of the incident.
Capt R’s lawyers argued that the “confirmation of the kill” after a suspect is shot was a standard Israeli military practice to eliminate terrorist threats.
Following the verdict, Capt R burst into tears, turned to the public benches and said: “I told you I was innocent.”
The army’s official account said that Iman was shot for crossing into a security zone carrying her schoolbag which soldiers feared might contain a bomb. It is still not known why the girl ventured into the area but witnesses described her as at least 100 yards from the military post which was in any case well protected.
A recording of radio exchanges between Capt R and his troops obtained by Israeli television revealed that from the beginning soldiers identified Iman as a child.
In the recording, a soldier in a watchtower radioed a colleague in the army post’s operations room and describes Iman as “a little girl” who was “scared to death”. After soldiers first opened fire, she dropped her schoolbag which was then hit by several bullets establishing that it did not contain explosive. At that point she was no longer carrying the bag and, the tape revealed, was heading away from the army post when she was shot.
Although the military speculated that Iman might have been trying to “lure” the soldiers out of their base so they could be attacked by accomplices, Capt R made the decision to lead some of his troops into the open. Shortly afterwards he can be heard on the recording saying that he has shot the girl and, believing her dead, then “confirmed the kill”.
“I and another soldier … are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill … Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her … I also confirmed the kill. Over,” he said.
Palestinian witnesses said they saw the captain shoot Iman twice in the head, walk away, turn back and fire a stream of bullets into her body.
On the tape, Capt R then “clarifies” to the soldiers under his command why he killed Iman: “This is commander. Anything that’s mobile, that moves in the [security] zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed.”
At no point did the Israeli troops come under attack.
The prosecution case was damaged when a soldier who initially said he had seen Capt R point his weapon at the girl’s body and open fire later told the court he had fabricated the story.
Capt R claimed that he had not fired the shots at the girl but near her. However, Dr Mohammed al-Hams, who inspected the child’s body at Rafah hospital, counted numerous wounds. “She has at least 17 bullets in several parts of the body, all along the chest, hands, arms, legs,” he told the Guardian shortly afterwards. “The bullets were large and shot from a close distance. The most serious injuries were to her head. She had three bullets in the head. One bullet was shot from the right side of the face beside the ear. It had a big impact on the whole face.”
The army’s initial investigation concluded that the captain had “not acted unethically”. But after some of the soldiers under his command went to the Israeli press to give a different version, the military police launched a separate investigation after which he was charged.
Capt R claimed that the soldiers under his command were out to get him because they are Jewish and he is Druze.
The transcript
The following is a recording of a three-way conversation that took place between a soldier in a watchtower, an army operations room and Capt R, who shot the girl
From the watchtower [three-way conversation between watchtower soldier, the operations room in another location, and finally, Captain R, the officer on the ground near watchtower “It’s a little girl. She’s running defensively eastward.” “Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?” “A girl about 10, she’s behind the embankment, scared to death.” “I think that one of the positions took her out.” “I and another soldier … are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill … Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her … I also confirmed the kill. Over.”
From the operations room “Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?”
Watchtower “A girl about 10, she’s behind the embankment, scared to death.”
A few minutes later, Iman is shot from one of the army posts
Watchtower “I think that one of the positions took her out.”
Captain R “I and another soldier … are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill … Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her … I also confirmed the kill. Over.”
Capt R then “clarifies” why he killed Iman
“This is commander. Anything that’s mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over.”
• This article was amended on 1 September 2010, to make explicit that the opening watchtower conversation is between three participants.
The right wing’s self-righteousness that flooded the media did not succeed in blurring the clear fact: Ariel is a settlement, not an Israeli community.
By Yitzhak Laor
Here are some characteristics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s theater and the farce called “National Unity.” His government carefully respects the difference between Ariel and Kfar Sava. The winks from the stars of his comedy don’t confuse anyone. This government, just like all its predecessors, has never dared to abolish the difference between Ariel and Kfar Sava. They are there and we are here.
But nobody is forbidding them to get into their cars, start the motor and come to a play in Tel Aviv, just as they come to work here. As opposed to their Palestinian neighbors, whose lands and water they took away, the settlers of Ariel at least have freedom of movement.
Netanyahu is still riding on the wave of the flotilla: Not only is the entire world against us, he tells the players – as if it were not his policies that have set the entire world against us – but now actors Yossi Pollak, Itay Tiran and Anat Gov are also coming and “dividing the nation.” Anyone who reads the prologue to the cabinet meeting carefully will see that since the days when he whispered a jingle into Rabbi Kedouri’s ear against “those leftists,” our leader has not changed much. What has changed is the tragic dimensions of the comedy: namely, the pale supporting actors surrounding the prime minister – Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the other puppets.
And yet, the burst of self-righteousness that flooded the media (and frightened even some of the signers of the manifesto ) did not succeed in blurring the clear fact: Ariel is a settlement, not an Israeli community. Let’s put aside both Israeli law and international law – which is also always against us, and never takes our special needs into account. Let’s make do with this simple fact: If Ariel were not a settlement, its patrons would not have found NIS 40 million in order to build a cultural center for 18,000 settlers. What community within the borders of the State of Israel, of the same size or even larger, has found such sums in order to built a magnificent theater?
So let us sadly regard the marionettes surrounding the prime minister, and listen to the silence that has seized Labor ministers Avishay Braverman and Isaac Herzog. Let’s cast a sorrowful glance at bashful Kadima leader Tzipi Livni at the back of the stage. Was this the opposition leader whom Anat Gov, one of the manifesto’s signers, hoped for when she called on Meretz voters to vote for Livni and Kadima members Tzachi Hanegbi and Shaul Mofaz? In short, this is vaudeville. Maybe not for a cultural center costing NIS 40 million, but certainly a repertory for a traveling troupe.
This government, like all Israeli governments, knows how to remind cultural institutions of who they work for – though this government always does so with its characteristic extra measure of crudeness, whether we’re talking about Shas leader Eli Yishai or Likud MK Limor Livnat. Artistic independence? Don’t make our politicians laugh. Who knows better than they how they are courted? Who didn’t see the fawning tribute to President Shimon Peres at the Cameri Theater? Who in the corridors of power doesn’t know how to buy silence and how to buy consent? Who is not familiar with the ceremonies in which they give out prizes for obedience?
That’s why the theater actors did well to remind the government that artists have to believe in order to act. Acting is not narration. The text of a play is not a teleprompter, and Tel Aviv and Kfar Sava, in order to be Tel Aviv and Kfar Sava, need a border – including a border against swinish behavior.
The border against such behavior is the Green Line. Thus anyone who wants to defend Hebrew culture should stay away from Ariel, in the name of securing this very border.
The Israeli leader is not entering the Mideast peace talks in good faith. If he can derail the talks, he will.
By Ahmad Tibi
September 3, 2010
It is unfortunate that the direct Palestinian-Israeli peace talks that got underway this week are saddled with an Israeli prime minister who has made clear his unwillingness to reach an equitable two-state solution.
Nine years ago, in the West Bank settlement of Ofra, Benjamin Netanyahu was secretly recorded voicing his opinions of the Oslo accords reached during negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians in 1993. “They asked me before the election if I’d honor [the Oslo accords],” he said. “I said I would, but … I’m going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the 1967 borders.” The result according to Netanyahu? “I de facto put an end to the Oslo accords.”
This kind of talk is consistent with Netanyahu’s actions when he was last prime minister during the late 1990s. Challenged by then-President Clinton to make peace, Netanyahu instead upended the Oslo talks by exploiting every loophole he could find.
The prime minister did not enter negotiations then, nor does he enter them now, in good faith. If he can derail the talks, he will. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton surely knows his history.
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I am not alone in being pessimistic. Most Palestinians are. Young people in particular have been betrayed. A whole generation of Palestinians has grown up watching as talks failed. They have seen deepening colonization rather than freedom.
To succeed this time, the international community, and the U.S. most particularly, will have to press Netanyahu. Despite a good start to his presidency, Obama has spent the last few months complying with the demands of right-wing Israelis. His recent rhetoric and actions indicate he lacks the intestinal fortitude to stand up to Netanyahu. And, were he to unexpectedly challenge the prime minister on settlements, as he did early in his administration, he would be excoriated by members of the U.S. Congress who tolerate little opposition to Israeli policy.
The direct talks are likely to falter quickly. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has already written to Obama that a resumption of settlement activity by the Israelis will doom these negotiations. Abbas was very clear: “If Israel resumes settlement activities in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, we cannot continue negotiations.”
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s right flank continues to assert its determination to get back to colonizing the West Bank. A minimal moratorium on new settlement construction is set to end later this month, and National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau has declared his support for new construction. “Everyone will build as he wants to and needs to,” he said in a radio interview.
Unless Netanyahu bucks his base and extends the moratorium, direct talks are likely to be abruptly stopped.
Assuming talks fail, Netanyahu will undoubtedly pin the blame on stubborn Palestinian negotiators, Palestinian rhetoric or violent Palestinian resistance to decades of subjugation. In the short run, he and his expansionist outlook will prevail.
But what comes tomorrow, when the West Bank and East Jerusalem are so filled with entrenched settlements that no Israeli leader will dare to pull settlers out from their illegally established strongholds? Then Israel will rue the day it did not seize the opportunity to negotiate a two-state solution that was honorable and just for Palestinians and Israelis alike. This possibility will not be there forever.
For successful negotiations, Israeli leaders must move away from “divide and conquer” strategies and treat Palestinians, both in Israel and the territories, as equals. Negotiations that split the West Bank from East Jerusalem will fail. So too will negotiations that divide the West Bank from the Gaza Strip. Finally, no Palestinian negotiator I know of will bow before the Israeli demand — put forward only recently, but increasingly adamantly — that Israel be recognized as an exclusively Jewish state.
This is an unreasonable demand, as it requires Palestinian negotiators to relegate more than 1 million Palestinian citizens of Israel to an inferior standing. Already, there are more than 30 Israeli laws that serve to discriminate against Palestinians. Abbas cannot be expected to sign off on such an injustice. Not only would he be consigning Palestinian citizens of Israel to second-class citizenship, he would be stripping away the right of return from Palestinian refugees who long to return to homes and farms stolen from them 62 years ago.
The only way out of the impasse is for Jews to recognize Palestinians as their equals and negotiate with them on that basis. A fair two-state solution requires the abrogation of all laws, both in Israel and the occupied territories, that raise Jews above Palestinians. This is a point the United States, notwithstanding the recent dangerous demagoguery of some of its politicians in seeking to elevate Christian and Jewish religious rights over those held by Muslim Americans, should still understand.
Whether in the United States, Israel or the occupied territories, equal rights before the law is a powerful and crucial concept. And it is one that should be at the forefront of the next round of talks. Obama is a marvelous American choice to deliver the message to an Israeli “democracy” decades late in implementing fundamental legal equality.
Ahmad Tibi is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and is deputy speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
Member of Hamas’ politburo says settlers posses more than half a million automatic weapons, as well as being regularly supported by IDF troops.
Israeli settlers in the West Bank are legitimate targets since they are an army in every sense of the word, a senior Hamas official told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper on Saturday, adding that Palestinians were still committed to an armed struggle against Israel.
The comment by Ezzat al-Rashk, a member of Hamas’s political office, came in the wake of recent attacks against Israeli citizens in the West Bank.
On Tuesday, four Israelis were killed when unknown assailants opened fire at a vehicle they were traveling in near the West Bank city of Hebron. The following night, two Israelis were wounded in a similar shooting attack at the Rimonim Junction near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Earlier Thursday, Palestinian sources told Haaretz that the Palestinian security forces had apprehended two Hamas-affiliated Hebron residents suspected to have been involved in the deadly shooting attack on Tuesday.
The attacks coincided with the launch of U.S.-sponsored direct peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in Washington. The Islamist Palestinian group Hamas has come out vocally against the talks. Claiming responsibility for Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s shootings, Hamas vowed to carry out further attacks.
“Attacking settlers is a natural thing,” al-Rashk told Al-Hayat on Saturday, saying the “Zionist settlers are the occupation’s first reserve military force.”
“They are now a real army in every sense of the word, with more than 500,000 automatic weapons at their disposal, on top of the basic protection by the [Israel Defense Forces],” the Hamas official said.
Al-Rashk also referred to the ongoing attempt to relaunch talks between Israel and the PA, saying they were noting more “than a media circus through which the U.S. administration wants to market its policy.”
Another Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, the organization’s Lebanon spokesperson, told the London-based newspaper that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was willing to forfeit “99 percent of the Palestinians’ rights, saying negotiations were over before they even began.
The comments by the two Hamas strongmen came as a Qassam rocket was fired by militants from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, exploding in an open field in the western Negev. No injuries were reported.
Palestine is synonymous with violence, but politics takes a back seat on this extraordinary new walking route where the people are welcoming and the countryside stunning
Field day … a farmer reaps wheat by hand near Douma, above the Jordan Valley. Photograph: Kevin Rushby for the Guardian
There was a moment of silence. Then the Palestinian youngsters marched in front of us and I thought to myself, this is where they sing about being martyrs and dying glorious deaths. A gentle breeze swayed the mulberry tree. On the far ridges of the mountains around Nablus, the lights of the illegal Israeli settlements twinkled. This village, I knew, had seen 2,000 acres of olive groves taken by those settlers, plus several lives. An older girl called the group to order then, in English, they launched into their chant.
“I’m a red tomato, you’re a green tomato. You’re a little cucumber…”
Everyone started to laugh. A walking holiday in Palestine. You’ve got to laugh really. I laughed a lot on that walk. And this in a part of the world where something horrible is always happening, be it shootings in Hebron, attacks on aid flotillas, or separation walls and rocket attacks. In the middle of such madness, laughter is the most unexpected and valuable pleasure, one that people seize at every opportunity.
It was perhaps appropriate that I started my hike in the far north of the West Bank, within a few miles of a hill called Megiddo, where Pharoah Thutmose III overwhelmed the Canaanite king Durusha in about 1457BC, thus beginning the legend of Armageddon, the site of the Last Battle. With my guide Hejazi, I walked through peaceful fields of wheat past other ancient sites, exploring Roman tombs lost in undergrowth and watching storks circling overhead on their migration north. Our first major stopping point was Jenin, a town whose name is tied inextricably to violence and death. Despite its reputation, however, Jenin turned out to be a friendly market town of Palestinian farmers, a place to gorge on strawberries and almonds, washed down with carob juice sold from huge ornamental brass urns.
I walked around the souk in a bit of a daze. How could reality be so different from expectations? Certainly, the walls were pockmarked with bullet holes from the second intifada, but the martyrdom posters were all faded by the sunshine and people wanted to shake hands. The carob-juice seller adjusted his Ray-Bans and grinned: “Why not join me on Facebook?”
There are several long distance footpaths in Palestine, but the one I was following was the Masar Ibrahim al-Khalil – literally Path of Abraham the Friend of God, simply the Masar for short. This new route stretches across the Middle East, starting at Abraham’s birthplace in Sanliurfa, south-east Turkey, and winds south through Syria, Jordan and Israel. Eventually, it could stretch all the way to Mecca, linking existing paths associated with Abraham, and new routes. Its purpose is to promote understanding between different faiths and cultures; it’s also intended “as a catalyst for sustainable tourism and economic development”. In places the path barely exists yet, in others it is well-worn, but everywhere it needs a guide. Hejazi was my man in Palestine, a person of unending cheerfulness and optimism.
For a Muslim, Hejazi tells me, the idea of a path named after Abraham is attractive since the great patriarch is revered as the “father of hospitality”. To Jews and Christians, he is equally important – the starting point for monotheistic worship. The Masar, I discovered, is not some do-gooder peace initiative, but simply a great way to see the landscape and meet people.
The path makes no attempt to follow Abraham’s original route, even if such a path could be discovered; rather it links sites that bear legends and folk tales about the man. Our first major site was south of Jenin at Jebel Gerazim, a mountain that stands above the ancient town of Nablus and affords astonishing views west to the Mediterranean and east to the hills of Jordan.
On the summit of the mountain is a tower built by Saladin and some fine, if neglected, Byzantine mosaics guarded by a group of Israeli teenage soldiers. Further down the hillside, we could see the houses of that renowned Jewish sect the Samaritans, a group that still has more than 700 followers.
“The reason the Samaritans revere this place,” Hejazi explained, “is because they believe Abraham came here and built his first altar in Canaan.”
It was a well-chosen spot to view what Abraham wanted: territory. “Unto thy seed,” said his God, “will I give this land.” And that was very generous of the Lord, all things considered. Except, of course, that all things had not been considered: previous inhabitants and the sheer fertility of Abraham’s seed, which includes not only the 12 tribes of Israel but the prophet Muhammad via Ishmael, fruit of Abraham’s union with the serving wench Hagar. And what about all those cousins from Noah’s brothers? If Abe’s God had spent a few moments considering, he might have foreseen problems.
That evening we stayed in Awata, a village near Nablus where the children sang about red tomatoes. There were tales of horror and violence too – there is no escaping the bloodied history in this land – but it never became overwhelming, as I’d expected. Hassan, our host, was keen to enthuse about the Masar: “It was like a light coming on here,” he said. “We got connected to the outside world and that makes us feel hope. Everyone in the village is always asking about when the next walkers are coming.”
Like most Palestinian villages, Awata has long since burst out of its ancient walled settlement and sprawled along the hill. But what is fascinating is that, amid the concrete and graffiti, there are sudden glimpses of an ancient world. When we chatted about water resources, Hassan jumped up and hauled open a trapdoor under our feet. Below us was a vast echoing cavern. “It’s a Roman water tank,” he explained. “We’ve got three of them.”
After a huge feast of chicken, freshly made bread, pickles, salads and yoghurt, Hejazi and I bedded down on mattresses in the living room and slept.
Next morning we started out at 8am, meandering through olive groves and wheat fields. Scents of Persian thyme, wild sage and oregano drifted up from beneath our tramping feet. We stopped at a spring to drink delicious clear water, then pressed on, meeting other walkers as we climbed through meadows of scarlet poppies and butterflies to Jabal Aurma, a bronze age fortress. One of the shocks of doing this path is that the countryside is lovely. Travellers have been returning from the Holy Land with scornful appraisals of its beauty for many centuries. Herman Melville is typically bleak: “Bleached-leprosy-encrustations of curses-old cheese-bones of rocks,” he wrote. The image of an ill-fated land has proven hard to budge.
On top of Jabal Aurma we discovered six vast underground storage rooms carved from solid rock, presumably to supply the fort during prolonged sieges. There is never any doubt in Palestine that this land has been a chaotic crossroads for civilisations, armies and tribes for a very long time – that is what makes it fascinating and worth exploring.
Later that day, we emerged on the edge of a grand escarpment looking down to the Jordan Valley, around 800ft below sea level. The wheat fields around us were tiny rocky terraces splashed with the yellow of wild dill. It’s a difficult place to farm, and we came across Shakir Murshid with his wife and six children busily harvesting wheat by hand. On a sage bush nearby was the complete shed skin of a viper.
That night we stayed in Douma, a cluster of old stone dwellings long since overgrown by the straggling concrete of modernity. Rural life, however, was pretty much the same as ever: woodpeckers tapped at the trees, wheat fields surrounded the houses and men rode past on donkeys. We spent the evening by a campfire listening to locals sing and play homemade flutes. The patch of flat ground where we had built our fire turned out to be a Roman wine press, empty sadly. Once again we slept in someone’s living room, under the eyes of family martyrs.
Our third day took us further south near the springs of Ain Samiya, now a water source for Jerusalem. We spotted chameleons in the bushes, whistling rock hyraxes and huge flightless crickets, then clambered up a delightful gorge, taking narrow shepherds’ trails along the cliff face. By evening we approached the village of Kufer Malik, a place that was to hold perhaps the biggest surprises. The first came at a huge hacienda-style house, where the whole family came out to invite us in for coffee. “Do you speak Spanish?” asked the husband. “I learned it in Columbia.”
Kufer Malik, bizarrely, is a little enclave of Latin America in Palestine. When we found our hosts for the night, the old man of the family, Hosni al-Qaq, explained: “In the 30s when times were hard here, my uncle decided to seek his fortune in America. He ended up selling shirts in Columbia, then got a shop and then a supermarket. He became very rich.” Hosni smiled ruefully. “My father on the other hand stayed behind and was killed in the first intifada.”
“And did other men go?”
“Oh yes, lots and lots, and then they spread out into other countries. There are now more than 800 descendants of this village in Brazil alone.”
The effect of this exposure to the outside world on Kufer Malik has been electrifying. The men are hard-working and ambitious; the women assertive and independent-minded. Hiba, our hostess, had been to the Côte d’Azur to see what it was like. “We camped on the beach in Nice,” she said proudly. “It was lovely.”
So was her cooking: roast chicken, rice, vegetables and musahn, a flat bread cooked with sumac and onions.
“What would you do if a Jewish person came to stay?” I asked.
“No problem,” they all said eagerly. “We’ve had one Jewish lady from America already and another from Brazil. Everyone is welcome here.”
After dinner, the men sat out in the yard smoking shisha pipes. When they spoke Spanish, they looked like pure Columbians to me: all macho body language and grand gestures. When they spoke Arabic, they were Palestinian farmers again.
Our fourth day took us to Abu Taybah, home to the West Bank’s only brewery – owned and run by a Palestinian Christian family (there are around 55,000 Palestinian Christians). After a glass of deliciously cold lager we moved on, walking down Wadi Qult to the marvellous fourth-century cliff-side monastery of St George, then on to Jericho.
The end of the Masar comes in Hebron, whose old city has been a dangerous flashpoint over the years. Zionist settlers have seized buildings in the market area – which has to be roofed with netting now to prevent rocks and rubbish raining down on shoppers. All of Abraham’s progeny want a piece of the action here and the mosque has been forcibly divided to create a Muslim and a Jewish section. On one side, I found Indian Muslims praying and taking photos; on the other Jews from New York and Tel Aviv were doing the same. The Tomb of the Patriarchs, of course, looks pretty similar from either angle, though neither community, sadly, ever gets to see that fact.
Out in the street a shopkeeper invited me to have coffee. He was sitting with Micha, a former Israeli soldier turned peace activist, a young freckle-faced man with a friendly smile. What had convinced him to adopt what many Israelis see as a traitorous approach?
“Small things. It started when I was a soldier, talking at checkpoints to Palestinians, seeing what the settlers were doing, and what we were doing to protect them.”
At that moment a Palestinian lady came over. They introduced themselves. “So now you work for peace?” she asked. “But I have to ask: did you kill any Palestinians?”
Around the shopfront where people were taking coffee and chatting, everyone froze. There was a long silence while Micha considered his reply. “I’d rather not say.”
“I think you should,” the woman said. “For any reconciliation, you have to.”
A murmur of agreement passed through the small crowd. Micha thought again. “The truth is, I don’t know. At Abu Sinaina we did shoot, but it was from far away.”
“At Abu Sinaina? Then you killed at least five.”
There was a pause and then Micha nodded. The Palestinian lady smiled. “You are welcome at my house. You must come for lunch.”
They exchanged addresses and Micha promised that he would visit.
What is remarkable about the Masar walk is that religion and politics mostly take a back seat, allowing ordinary people to climb out of the foxholes of prejudice and suspicion. When that happens, Palestine becomes so much more than a brief and violent television news clip. I saw gazelles running on hillsides, tasted the local cuisine and enjoyed conversation on everyday topics. I climbed down inside bronze age burial chambers, tracked hyenas into their lairs inside Roman tombs and lay on the benches in Nablus’s marvellous Turkish baths, discussing the best way to pickle olives. The problems of Israel’s land-grabbing tactics remain: the wall is still standing and unsmiling teenage soldiers at checkpoints demand to see passports.
The Masar is not for those who want private rooms or special treatment. It is intense and sometimes emotionally draining. There were moments when I felt rage about the injuries and injustices. But, more than anything, this was a life-affirming and exhilarating experience that will stay with me like few others.
Op-ed: Boycotts are the Jewish way, so why all the fuss over Ariel theater embargo?
Gideon Eshet
The Ariel boycott announced by artists, authors, and professors provoked great commotion around here. As if a grave crime had been committed. Some argued that boycotts are wholly illegitimate and, heaven forbid, constitute a Diasporic custom. The more cautious ones argued that those who enjoy public funding – theaters and universities, for example – must not boycott other Israelis, whoever they may be.
Boycotts are a legitimate means anywhere in the world and a vital political weapon. The Americans and Indians imposed a boycott on British products when they fought against the English occupier. Anti-slavery Americans boycotted US manufacturers who used slaves. Many states boycotted South African products while the country was under racial segregation.
Elsewhere, the US boycotted the Olympics in Moscow, while the Soviet Union boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics. Labor unions and consumers also boycotted lettuce and grapes in the wake of a labor dispute between American farm workers and farmers. Boycotts are the way of the world.
And also the way of the Jews. Indeed, the Jews imposed a boycott on other Jews, known as Samaritans. This was not done because the latter were sympathetic to the Palestinian struggle, but rather, because these Samaritans believe that Mount Gerizim is a holy site, while Jerusalem is not.
The fact that the Samaritans read and believe in the Torah, while largely discounting the rest of the Bible (which is very common among current-day haredim) made no difference. The fact that they uphold the mitzvahs to a much greater extent than the average secular Jew made no difference. Just because of their political (religious) views, Orthodox Jews imposed a boycott on them, with the State of Israel doing the same. A major boycott.
Not to mention the Jewish boycott against Ford vehicles. Today, there are plenty of Fords in Israel. Yet in the 1920s, the Jews imposed a boycott on Ford. Why? It doesn’t really matter. What’s interesting about the story is that it was one of the more successful boycotts, like the one imposed against South Africa. The car manufacturer eventually shunned the anti-Semitic writings of the corporation’s founder.
Elsewhere, “Zionist” Jews in Eretz Yisrael imposed a boycott on products produced by other Jews, who employed Arab workers.
And what about boycotts imposed by those funded by the State of Israel? There are plenty of those. All Orthodox Jewish institutions, which are state-funded, nonetheless boycott Reform and Conservative Jews. Meanwhile, haredi Jews in Israel impose a boycott on stores that sell non-kosher food next to kosher food – something that haredi Jews in London would never dare do. All of this is done via government-funded bodies, often yeshivas and “Torah” institutions.
Yet when it comes to the politics of religion, Limor Livnat and Benjamin Netanyahu (who are now preaching their views about state-funded boycotts) do not utter a word.
Nonsensical condemnations
The European Union imposed a boycott on settlement products and did not recognize them as Israeli-made, thereby charging customs fees. So what did the Israeli government, which comprised Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Olmert, and Limor Livnat do? It agreed to cooperate with the boycott, and Ariel products are no longer recognized as Israeli-made.
Finally, the Israeli government does not recognize the Ariel College. The Higher Education Council legislation does not apply in Ariel, and when officials tried to apply it, the Council resisted. Hence, the college is recognized via a decree issued by a military governor, Jordan’s replacement at the occupied area. That is, the boycott against Ariel was started by the government, Limor Livnat as head of the Higher Education Council was a full party to it, and she continues with it. Everything was done with public funds.
So why do actor Dror Keren and author David Grossman deserve all the nonsensical condemnations? For acting like Jews and their governments had been acting for many generations? For doing what any freedom fighter who objects to discrimination and oppression would do?
There are few villages in historic Palestine which invoke the memories of the Nakba (the 1948 dispossession of the Palestinian people) as does Lifta. Beautifully built and dressed in crafted Jerusalem stone, Lifta hugs the slopes straddling the highway leading from west Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. Its remaining houses look like jewels of a necklace, neglected by time and polished by the wind of history.
However, Lifta’s architectural legacy is under threat as Israel moves to Judaize the formerly pluralistic Palestinian village.
Lifta dates back about 4,000 years, and overlooks Wadi Salman and Wadi al-Shami which, in their heyday, provided it with its main water supply essential for its agricultural produce. Believed to have been built on the site of Mey Neftoach, a source of water near Jerusalem, Lifta is still blessed today by a running creek and a small peaceful pond in its midst.
Back in 1596, Lifta had a population of 396 residents which by 1945 increased to 2,550 Palestinians the majority of whom were Muslims owning 7,780 dunums (one dunum is approximately 1,000 square meters). Official records indicate that in 1931, the number of houses stood at 410, most of which were built by Lifta’s Palestinian residents using the famous Jerusalem stone from nearby quarries. Some of these houses stand at two and three stories high and display the cubist forms against the rolling hillside. They represent today some of the finest examples of Palestinian craftsmanship and architectural design.
During the 1940s and leading up to the end of the British Mandate in Palestine in 1948, Lifta expanded markedly eastward and northward linking with the buildings of the Rumayma neighborhood just west of Jerusalem. Its economic ties with Jerusalem became strong as nearly half of Lifta’s cultivated land was planted with cereal, wheat, barley, olives and various fruits.
Prior to the tragic events of 1948, Lifta’s ethnic mix was made up predominantly of the Muslims with a colored mix of Christian and Jewish minorities. This resulted in a strong sense of community life with a well-knit social bonding which was particular to Lifta. Documents describe some of the grand houses in Lifta as being shared by Jewish and Muslim families who, on occasions, would exchange local produce such as cheese and milk in addition to other products which would be sold in the local market. Also, the children of Lifta families from different backgrounds frequented the same village schools and enjoyed their time out in the same playgrounds. Lifta enjoyed an intricate web of woven streets, bustling with markets, coffee houses, a bakery and a pharmacy. Lifta residents had free access to the neighboring Jewish eye hospital. Community life in Lifta was, therefore, inclusive rather exclusive.
It is also known that Lifta residents celebrated their religious festivities together in the main square. Local mosques became the hub centers for discussions of social and cultural issues of the day.
The ethnic cleansing of Lifta
Lifta’s tranquility and social harmony were tragically ended when, on the heels of UN Resolution 181 of November 1947, and as part of the Zionist Plan Dalet for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the Jewish armed militia Stern Gang entered Lifta on 28 December 1947, made their way to the local coffee house in the center of the village and gunned down six residents and injured seven others. Within 10 days, Lifta was turned into a ghost town with all 2,960 terrorized inhabitants being driven out and trucked to East Jerusalem where most of them remained. Quite a number of the village houses and the two elementary schools were demolished. Only after last desperate pleas by local dignitaries were most of the houses standing today saved from total destruction.
The uprooting of Lifta was a tragedy for all its mutli-ethnic population. The Nakba of Lifta was a catastrophe for Muslims, Christians and Jews. It has been told that the Jewish Hilo tribe which lived in the upper hills of Lifta were given the option by the advancing Jewish militia, the Stern Gang, to remain in Lifta, but they decided to join the Liftawis in their exodus, and left.
In the years since their expulsion, most of the Lifta refugees and their descendants ended up in Jerusalem, Ramallah, the rest of the West Bank, Jordan and the US where they formed a tightly-knit and active community in Chicago, Illinois.
Lifta’s architectural legacy
Until recently, the remaining houses of Lifta attracted an inquisitive number of locals and professionals mesmerized by the haunting elegance of their design, their original forms and the majesty of their setting. Tourists from abroad would arrive on organized tours led by one of Lifta’s original residents, Yacoub Odeh, who would painfully yet proudly narrate to them the village history and its eventual demise pointing in particular to the house where his family lived and which he himself as a child helped to construct. Until recently, some Liftawis would arrive from Jerusalem to venture down the winding rubble path to the main open square of the village. They would sit by the pool and fill their bottles with the pure spring water while exchanging memorable stories with those willing to listen. Until recently, the magnificent Lifta houses displayed one of the most beautiful forms of Arabic architecture: the dome. The cubic forms of the houses contrasted beautifully with the elegant curves of the domed roofs.
It is told that all the builders of Lifta did not use mortar or cement to bond their stones together. The dry construction process was made possible through the exacting techniques employed by the local stonemasons. They chiseled pristine and fine forms in stone to build their arches, square angles, external corners, quadrants, double and stepped arches. Most of the windows in these houses were sheltered by these fine arches and displayed perfect and well-proportioned rectangles of the type only modern architects can produce on their computers.
Until recently, Lifta’s heart was beating and its heartbeat was sustained by the visits of its original inhabitants. However, extremist Jewish settlers began to move in, while the original Liftawi visitors were blocked out. In a last attempt at architectural rape, and to ensure that the remaining Lifta houses would never be inhabited again, the settlers began to demolish some of the elegant domes thus exposing the living spaces below them to the external elements. Slowly, the tourists stopped coming down the hillside to visit Lifta and their tour guides had to be content with looking down at the village from the main roadside higher up the slopes. Then more Jewish settlers arrived and became the new hippie “squatters.” Occasional “religious seminars” were initiated by them to give their activity a sense of legitimacy.
Lifta today remains a ghost town suspended in time. Yet its elegance remains defiant and a symbol of the destruction of the Palestinian village during the Zionist military sweep in 1948. Lifta has become a symbol of the Palestinian Nakba. In its present state, it shouts at us for recognition and for attention.
Israel’s plans for Lifta
In June 2004, the Jerusalem Municipality Planning Committee, with the help of two architectural offices, G. Kartas/S Grueg and S Ahronson (in collaboration with Ze’ev Temkin of TIK Projects), produced a redevelopment project (Plan No. 6036) to turn Lifta into an exclusively Jewish luxury residential/commercial neighborhood. This plan, originally launched in April 1984 under the name “Plan 2351” but never implemented, had the intriguing title of “The Spring of National.” It was later approved by a regional planning committee. Under the misleading cover title of a preservation project, the plan called for the building of some 245 luxury housing units, a big shopping mall, a tourist resort, a museum and a luxury 120-room hotel. Most of the existing Lifta houses would be destroyed to erase any lingering memory of a once thriving Palestinian community. Even the Palestinian cemetery nearby does not figure in the new plan. Not only have the present Liftawis not been featured or consulted, but the memory and physical presence of their dead ancestors would now be erased.
This attempt at architectural and cultural erasure in the Israeli proposals for reshaping Lifta has its equivalent in the present day work by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center to build a Museum of Tolerance over part of the Muslim Cemetery in Mamilla not far from Lifta. In a shameful acknowledgment of the existing fabric of the village, the redevelopment project for Lifta attempts to “preserve” a few houses which would be renovated but only for use by rich Jews from the Diaspora. A few existing trees would be left and some existing landscaping elements such as the spring and the terracing would be given a makeover in a gesture full of pastiche and borrowed imagery.
The history of the Palestinian community that flourished in Lifta does not feature in the new renovation plans. There is no record of Lifta’s Palestinian history as would normally be required of any renovation/preservation project, to link the present with the past. Even Lifta’s original mosque would be destined for removal to be replaced by a synagogue. If the plan is carried out, it would be nothing but a flagrant attempt to Judaize Lifta.
Saving Lifta
Lifta must be preserved and rebuilt by/for its original owners to raise awareness about the history of 1948. Lifta, in its new image, should pave the way for establishing a determined campaign for truth and reconciliation between two historic peoples. Lifta, in our view, represents the traceable genealogy which gives insight into the origins of the conflict. Peeling the layers of conflict would lead to an acknowledgment of the tragedy and an understanding of its implication on people’s identity.
Placing Lifta on the international architectural agenda has been the first objective and the primary aim of one of the most active professional groups involved on behalf of Lifta. This group is The Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territories (FAST), an architectural and planning group based in Amsterdam. Together with Zochrot (“remembering”), a body of Israeli professionals based in Tel Aviv working to raise awareness of the Nakba, they have argued passionately against the renovation plans submitted by the State of Israel, and have called, like FAST, for the right of return of the Liftawis to their homes. It is crucial that this campaign should lead to a change in the Israeli planning policies which are presently based on segregation and discrimination, and to opt for an alternative vision to achieve equality and long-term sustainability. A vision which promotes the idea of a place for Lifta, a sense of belonging for the Liftawis and reconciliation for the region.
Supplementing this campaign, we, at 1948.Lest.We.Forget, launched last year on our website (www.1948.org.uk) a Petition To Save Lifta which attracted more than 2,400 international signatures by people from all walks of life including high profile personalities in academia, architecture and literature. This petition has now closed and will be included as part of our application to the World Monuments Watch to declare Lifta a place of special character.
Moreover, as we believe that Lifta remains a symbol of reconciliation and hope in a region of continued conflict and tragedy, it is our intention to launch an International Architectural Competition with an open-ended brief, and to invite registered planners and architects from all over the world to contribute ideas and to produce schemes for one of the Lifta houses still standing.
The competition results will be exhibited in major capitals of the world, the first of which will be London where, over a period of four weeks, seminars, films, audio-visual presentations and debates will be held.
Antoine Raffoul is a Palestinian-born chartered architect living and working in London. He is also the coordinator of]the group 1948: Lest We Forget.
