Palestine News

Peace ships break through Israel's blockade of Gaza

2008-08-25T17:31:00.000-07:00

Andra Jackson, The Age, 25 August 2008
Two peace ships organised by a Melbourne man, Michael Shaik, have broken through Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The ships, the SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty, set out from Cyprus on Friday with dozens of human rights activists from around the world, carrying children's hearing aids to the Palestinian territory.

Two years of planning went into running the blockade after Mr Shaik came up with the idea of challenging Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement and access to basic services.

Israel, with US backing and Egyptian help, has controlled entry and exit from Gaza since its withdrawal in 2005, but virtually sealed off its 1.5 million people last summer after the militant Islamists Hamas put down a Fatah coup attempt.

Those on the Greek-flagged ships included Eliza Ernshire, 32, of Newcastle, NSW, Israeli human rights activist Jeff Halper and journalist Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of former British prime minister and current Middle East envoy Tony Blair.

"We will surely try to bring the boats back again," activist Huwaida Arraf said. "The goal is to open a route between Cyprus and Gaza. People here are just ecstatic to see that someone cares."

At one stage on the 30-hour trip the navigation and communications systems on both ships failed. Some activists accused Israel of jamming the systems, which Israel denied.

But despite the Israeli authorities warning it would treat them as pirates, the ships were allowed to enter Gaza's harbour.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Aviv Shiron said: "They wanted provocation at sea, but they won't get it. We know who the passengers are and what they are bringing with them and so we have no problem letting them through."

A 2000-strong crowd turned out to greet the ships as they sailed into Gaza Port on Saturday night.

Speaking to London's Times , Ms Booth challenged Mr Blair to "show some guts" and visit Gaza to witness the suffering of its inhabitants.

Mr Shaik, 39, a former Defence Department employee and now a full-time advocate for the Melbourne-based lobby group Australians for Palestine, yesterday hailed the ships' arrival as "a great victory for human rights and international law".

"Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip is one of the great crimes of the 21st century, which the governments of the West and the Arab League are abetting by their silence," he said.

Thousands of activists from around the world have so far raised $70,000 towards the purchase of the ships, which would be retained to take goods to and from Gaza, Mr Shaik said.

With LOS ANGELES TIMES

Inside Story - The Gaza blockade

2008-08-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

Inside story - The Gaza blockade
Part 1

Part 2

Activists arrive in the Gaza strip to stress the plight of the people in that area. Is this the beginning of a process to end the siege?

Jeff Halper: 'Ordinary people can do something'

2008-08-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

The view from the boat
Ofri Ilani, Ha'aretz, August 25, 2008
Haaretz spoke last night by phone with Jeff Halper, an Israeli professor who was among the activists who sailed to Gaza.

"We proved that ordinary people can do something and succeed," he said. "Even Tony Blair can't go to Gaza, but ordinary people with drive can. The welcome was amazing. There were tens of thousands of people. People came out in boats and on windsurfers to meet us. Children swam out to sea and flashed the victory sign. I feel like we're fresh air entering a prison where a million and half people are living.

"I tell myself: We're in the modern world, the 21st century, and yet such excitement - over what? Over something we take for granted, that two boats arrived. Here it's a national holiday. Their isolation is so complete," he said.

Halper said that Gazans were eager to speak Hebrew with him, and to reminisce about the years they spent working in Israel. "Our impression that Gaza is Hamas, that there is only hatred there, is mistaken," he said, adding that he learned that "we are more of an obstacle to peace than the Palestinians."

Inside Story - Mahmoud Darwish remembered

2008-08-16T00:50:00.000-07:00

August 15, 2008
The life of the Arab world's most celebrated poet is over. We ask: How will all those touched by the work of Mahmoud Darwish remember him? In this day and age, Can the pen mobilize the conscious of the masses to pick up the sword? Mahmoud Darwish was, after all, a poet not a politician.

Part 2

The legacy of Mahmoud Darwish

2008-08-16T00:40:00.000-07:00

August 14, 2008

Mahmoud Darwish composed his first poem at the age of 12, going on to publish more than 20 volumes of poetry throughout his lifetime, penning verse that became embedded into the Palestinian consciousness. He lived a life of resistance, jailed several times by the Israelis.

Part 1

Part 2

Sari Nusseibeh: 'We are running out of time for a two-state solution'

2008-08-16T00:37:00.001-07:00

'We are running out of time for a two-state solution'
Akiva Eldar, Haaretz, 16 August 2008
At the end of my conversation with Sari Nusseibeh at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem, the highly respected president of Al-Quds University - and cosignatory of "The People's Choice," a peace plan that he formulated with former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon - told me he wouldn't be surprised if one of the Palestinian residents of the city ran for mayor in the municipal elections in November. The candidate would not run as a representative of Jerusalem per se, Nusseibeh stressed. Rather, he would be running on behalf of all Palestinians in the occupied territories.

"Why don't you do it?" I blurt out. The 59-year-old son of Anwar Nusseibeh, a Jordanian government minister, does not smile. "It's possible," says the professor of Islamic philosophy, who briefly replaced Faisal Husseini a few years ago as the top Palestinian official in East Jerusalem. "Anything is possible," he adds without batting an eyelid.

Nusseibeh's previous contention that the Oslo "house of cards" had begun to collapse was further confirmed by this week's report in Haaretz regarding Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's latest peace offering (Israel would annex 7 percent of the West Bank and compensate the Palestinians with territory in the Negev, which would be equivalent to 5.5 percent of West Bank land; an agreement on the future of Jerusalem would be postponed to a later date; there would be no right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel; and the entire plan would be implemented after Hamas is removed from power in the Gaza Strip).

Nusseibeh says he knows full well what happens during negotiations - or, to be more specific, what does not happen. For over 20 years the Palestinian leadership has been trying to persuade their people to agree to a state along the June 4, 1967, lines, while Israel has been destroying that option, Nusseibeh explains, adding: "You cannot negotiate anything about final status if you don't talk about Jerusalem. Final status consists primarily, I believe, of Jerusalem and refugees. If you want to postpone Jerusalem, you postpone refugees. Really, you are not dealing with the problem. You have to discuss these issues, and that is exactly where the trade-off has to be made."

Is Sari Nusseibeh, the secular Palestinian, the symbol of moderation, Ayalon's guy, burying the two-state solution?

"I still favor a two-state solution and will continue to do so, but to the extent that you discover it's not practical anymore or that it's not going to happen, you start to think about what the alternatives are. I think that the feeling is there are two courses taking place that are opposed to one another. On one hand, there is what people are saying and thinking, on both sides. There is the sense that we are running out of time, that if we want a two-state solution, we need to implement it quickly.

"But on the other hand, if we are looking at what is happening on the ground, in Israel and the occupied territories, you see things happening in the opposite direction, as if they are not connected to reality. Thought is running in one direction, reality in the other."

Nusseibeh says the struggle for a one-state solution could take a form similar to some of the nonviolent struggles waged by oppressed ethnic groups in other places.

"We can fight for equal rights, rights of existence, return and equality, and we could take it slowly over the years and there could be a peaceful movement - like in South Africa," he notes. "I think one should maybe begin on the Palestinian side, to begin a debate, to reengage in the idea of one state."

'Jerusalem is out'

"We have failed in the last 15 years," Nusseibeh continues, "to create the world we wanted to create. We were supposed to be very clever; we convinced ourselves that we were going to be very democratic and clean, a model for the rest of the Arab world. And Jerusalem was supposed to be our capital. That's what we believed. But then it turned out that all of this was total rubbish. Jerusalem is out, all we have is Ramallah. And we lost Gaza. There is corruption and inefficiency. This is not what we vouched for when we sat back in the early 1980s and ideologized the two-state solution.

"It so happens that Fatah, in particular, the mainstream party and the only viable alternative to extremes on the left or on the right, now needs a strategy, an ideology. Because the ideology that Fatah has adopted over the last 15 years - a two-state solution - seems to be faltering, and with it, Fatah is faltering. So it is time maybe to rethink, to bring Fatah around to a new idea, the old-new idea, of one state. "

The recent "bulldozer terrorism" in Jerusalem did not highlight the difficulties inherent in a binational state model?

"These are isolated incidents, but they do reflect a major sickness in our Jerusalem Arab society. A sickness that has resulted in pressure, schizophrenia, the fact that these people speak Hebrew, and listen to Hebrew songs, go out with Israeli girlfriends while at the same time they live in Arab neighborhoods and under the influence of Muslim culture. There are contradictory forces pulling at them.

"What is the driving force behind a two-state solution? The fact that it seems more acceptable to a majority of people on both sides and therefore more applicable. The primary motivation is to minimize human suffering. This is what we should all be looking at. If there will be a one-state solution, it will not come today or tomorrow. It's a long, protracted thing, not the ideal solution. Unless, in an ideal world, people really want to be together, then it is the ideal solution. The best solution, the one that causes the least pain and that can actually be instrumental to a one-state solution, is to have peace now, and acceptance of one another on the basis of two states."

Is this an ultimatum?

"That's an ultimatum. Unless a major breakthrough happens by the end of this year, in my opinion we should start trying to strive for equality. Back in the 1980s, before the first intifada, I was saying there was schizophrenia in the body politic of the Palestinian people. It was like the head was going in one direction, which was the direction of seeking independence, national identity - but the body was slowly immersed in the Israeli system, and I said it can't last because it looks like it will snap. Either the body will join the head so that there will be a civil disobedience campaign, or the head will have to join the body, so that there will be a civil rights campaign, to become part of the Israeli system.

"Fifty, 100, 200 years down the road there will be some kind of conclusion. Sometime in the future - however far away this future is - I believe we'll be living at peace with one another, in some way or another. I am not sure how, whether in one state or two states, or in a confederation of states, but people finally will come to live at peace. In the meantime, we will simply cause pain to one another. It's tragic. It is very tragic, because we know we can do it now. That today it is possible with some guts, leadership, vision, we can make it happen today, we can reach a peaceful solution today. [The Arab Peace Initiative proposed in 2002] is a fantastic chance. The Palestinians have adopted it, they'll go with it all the way. It is a perfect chance. It doesn't even mention right of return. It is even better than the Ayalon-Nusseibeh plan, but I am willing to accept it."

'Dead money'

Asked why he - who realizes so well how complicated it will be to reach a fair and logical solution regarding Jerusalem - is opposed to Olmert's idea of postponing discussion on that issue, Nusseibeh says he hopes that the prime minister is not repeating the same mistake made by Ehud Barak at Camp David, and that the idea of postponement was broached strictly for public relations purposes.

"Because for Israel, however important Jerusalem may be, the primary factor is the Jewish character [of the state]. And however important the refugees might be, what is more important for the Palestinians and Muslims is Jerusalem. It is the issue over which the most extremist of refugees will be willing to make a sacrifice. Let's hope this is not where [Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] are disagreeing. If that is what they're disagreeing about, then there's no hope. We have to do everything now, we have to put everything on the table.

"The facts on the ground are making [the situation] irreversible," Nusseibeh warns. "Take the Clinton parameters - Palestinian neighborhoods are Palestinian sovereignty, Jewish neighborhoods are Jewish sovereignty. They are acceptable in principle, but with realities on the ground, like the expulsion of Arab families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and the inhabitation of those areas by Jewish settlers, it's going to be unacceptable on a practical level. That's why we don't have time."

You ruffled some feathers among the Palestinian leadership when you recently asked the Europeans to halt financial aid to the Palestinian Authority. Someone even wondered whether you would be willing to give up the aid provided for Al-Quds University.

"Ramallah's reaction was a bit worried. They called me a few times, a bit worried."

Nusseibeh adds that the PA is still dogged by corruption - different from the corruption of which Olmert is accused - whereby donor states subsidize thousands of salaried employees at nonprofit organizations. This creates what he sees as an unhealthy dependency on foreign entities.

"We have a terrible situation. Our political bible, our platform, our moral values - we need to be brought together again. If not for creating a state, then for our own sanity and for own values as a people. Apart from in Ramallah, everybody is living under very bad conditions. The occupation is terrible. The siege is everywhere. Pressure. As it is, the Europeans are financing the occupation. And the Europeans are happy, because they feel they're doing something, it cleans their conscience. And the Israelis are happy because they're not paying for it. And the Palestinians are happy because they are getting their wages paid. It keeps the economy going, and people are getting complacent about it. It's dead money [going] after dead money."

Nusseibeh mentions the recent meeting he had with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the British consulate in Jerusalem, together with four other Palestinians, during which the premier stated he would like to assume a role in the peace process more central than that of a cash register. "I said, I want to tell you what you can do to transform yourself from a payer into a player: Make your money payments conditional on tangible progress in the peace process."

Not long ago, the professor continues, "I was in Brussels. I gave a talk and I said to the Europeans: If you want to pass on money, do it only on the condition we build a state, in which case it makes sense for you to spend money to build us an international airport. But if in the end there isn't going to be an independent Palestinian state, why waste your money? Waste your money, if you need to, on integrating us into Israeli society. Makes more sense. Pay the money for us to become part of Israel, to have equal rights. Raise our level of education, bring our standards of living up. But to have the PA taking all this money, creating all this debt, makes no sense. Maybe the Europeans should link the aid they are giving us to real progress in peace talks, so that both the Israelis and the Palestinians will be shocked out of their complacency, or lack of commitment."

What do you make of the growing support among Palestinians for the dismantlement of the PA?

"The PA has no use. If we fail to reach a peace agreement by the end of this year, I believe it would be best to go back to the period when we were living happily under occupation. We had a small civil administration, they were paying back some $20 million a year to the Israeli treasury, so they were making money off us. Today, we are creating, year after year, bigger deficits. We are spending billions, we have 160,000 employees, half of them are security personnel, who give us no security whatsoever, we are spending masses of money on guns, which we only use against each other and which provide us no security. The whole thing is a mess."

Nusseibeh says that to this day, the Palestinians have opposed taking part in the Jerusalem municipal elections because they feared doing so would sever the link between Jerusalem's Arabs and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Now, given the diminishing likelihood of a two-state solution, perhaps it is time for the Palestinians to reconsider.

"People in Jerusalem - why should they attach themselves to the Muqata, to Ramallah? There is no reason. There's nothing. The municipal election in Jerusalem [could serve as a launching point for seeking equal rights in a binational state]. We begin with Jerusalem, not as a separate part, but as a spearhead of the entire Palestinian body. Why not? Why not turn the weakness into a strength?

Are you disappointed by the Israeli peace camp? Did your partner, Ami Ayalon, who joined the same government you now accuse of distancing itself from your proposal, betray you?

"I respect Ami Ayalon. He is a very honest person, that is something that has always attracted me to him. It is not a betrayal of me personally. I look upon it as the ultimate submission by the individual to the wheels of history. You reach the point where you feel no longer able to do what you want, to steer the wheels in the direction you want them to go. And you submit, and become a part of the machine. So it's not really a betrayal. It's rather an expression of weakness. I am sad more than surprised. I recognize it as part of human weakness.

"I was still hoping because, before he went to the Labor Party, he came and spoke to me. I like this about him. I knew what he was doing. People were pushing him for a long time, trying to get him into the system, and he resisted. But then at one stage, I think he made up his mind: 'Maybe I can lead the Labor Party, and then this is the best place for me to be.' I said, fine, do it. I was unhappy that ... he became marginalized as minister without portfolio."

Nusseibeh says he lost touch with Ayalon since the latter became a minister.

Asked if Abbas would be able to muster Palestinian support for an agreement like "The People's Choice," Nusseibeh says both the Palestinian president and Olmert need to courageously take on their respective opposition camps. For instance, if Abbas "would come to the Palestinian people and say, 'I initialed such a document. I want to dissolve the legislative council and run for election and this is going to be my political platform. Not only for me as a president, but also as leader of Fatah.' Let us assume that he does this and then he creates a debate in our society. It will be a very far-reaching, democratic debate, in which he will be looked upon as presenting his project. [This would] mark the beginning of a process, of a struggle.

"I believe that on Israeli side, Olmert could do the same. We don't know whether both leaders will be reelected, but it's worth doing, even if they're not, because at least we know we've given this peace agreement a chance."

Ami Ayalon says, in response: "I agree with Sari Nusseibeh that time is running out for the two-state solution. He voices the frustration and desperation of the Palestinians, and we have to consider that. If a man like him, a son of a Palestinian refugee who relinquished his right of return and was bodily attacked because of it, comes to the conclusion that the two-state solution is no longer an option, it means that the whole pragmatic Palestinian approach is crumbling.

"I share his view that Olmert missed a chance to get an agreement due to efforts to insure his own political survival. The Labor Party will not succeed in getting back in power by attacking the other parties, but only by raising the common banner of security and political agreements."

Houston Memorial for Mahmoud Darwish

2008-08-16T00:04:00.000-07:00

Sunday, August 10th, 2008 - A memorial service was held in Houston, Texas for the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish at the Islamic Society of Greater Houston.

His body was brought into the mosque for prayers and then carried in a procession on Eastside Street.

Democracy Now : Famous Palestian poet Mahmoud Darwish dies

2008-08-15T23:25:00.000-07:00

Mahmoud Darwish, Poet Laureate of the Palestinians, 1941-2008

Three days of mourning have been declared in the West Bank and Gaza to mark the death of Mahmoud Darwish, the Poet Laureate of the Palestinians. Darwish was considered one of the most important Arab poets, a towering literary figure for over four decades. The poetry of Mahmoud Darwish is well known and loved across the Arab world by people from all walks of life.

Famous Palestian poet dies - Mahmoud Darwish - Part 1

Part 2

Remembering Mahmoud Darwish

2008-08-15T22:56:00.000-07:00

August 10, 2008

Mahmoud Darwish, the award-winning Palestinian poet, has died aged 67, after heart surgery in a Texas hospital.

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland takes a look at a man who widely loved man by Palestinians and poetry-lovers alike.

Top US military officer heads to Israel with Iran on the agenda

2008-06-25T14:43:00.004-07:00

Top US military officer heads to Israel with Iran on the agenda
AFP, 26 June 2008
WASHINGTON (AFP) — US military chief Admiral Michael Mullen was expected in Israel this week for discussions including Iran, the Pentagon said Wednesday, amid speculation Israel is seeking Washington's tacit approval to strike Tehran's nuclear program.

The press office of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that Mullen left the United States on Tuesday "to go overseas to visit counterparts as well as combatant commands, and Israel is not his only stop."

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters the trip had been on the schedule for "months."

"I believe this is a routine opportunity for Chairman Mullen to engage his counterpart in Israel on military-to-military matters, as he does in much of his travels around the world," Morrell said.

"I will say this, though: Obviously, when Chairman Mullen goes to Israel and speaks with the Israelis, they will no doubt discuss the threat posed by Iran, as we discuss it in this building, in other buildings in this town."

Morrell recalled that Washington was committed to resolving the nuclear threat posed by Iran through diplomacy and international sanctions, "while at the same time holding out the option of a military strike, if necessary."

"But the military strike is not our first choice," he said. "Never has been. And we continue to pursue economic and diplomatic pressures as the policy of this government."

US media have reported that more than 100 Israeli fighter jets participated in a training exercise with Greece earlier this month to prepare for a possible long-distance strike -- a maneuver seen as a warning against Iran.

Iran has defied UN sanctions and international demands by pressing on with its disputed uranium enrichment program, which Washington and Israel fear would be used to build a nuclear weapon.

Israeli Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, a former defense chief, said in an interview published in the Russian press Wednesday that Iran would be "annihilated" if it tried to attack Israel.

But, he said, "we are not planning any attack against Iran."

According to the US television network CBS, Israel does not want to wait until the new administration that will succeed US President George W. Bush in January to strike Iranian nuclear sites.

"The Israelis have been assured by the Bush administration that the Bush administration will not allow Iran to nuclearize," CBS consultant Michael Oren said.

"Israelis are uncertain about what would be the policies of the next administration vis-a-vis Iran," said Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based research facility.

Speculation about a possible Israeli strike heated up this week after former UN ambassador John Bolton suggested in an interview with London's Daily Telegraph that Israel could attack Iran between the November 4 election and January.

VIDEO: Is Israel preparing to bomb Iran?

2008-06-25T11:22:00.000-07:00

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
The New York Times reported Friday that Israel recently carried out a major military exercise that Pentagon officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. More than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighter planes took part in the maneuvers over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dfaPrjy3vA

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCHhjaoW3mE

US concern over Israeli bomb 'rehearsal'

2008-06-25T11:15:00.000-07:00

US concern over Israeli bomb 'rehearsal'
Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt, The Age, Washington, June 21, 2008
Israel conducted a major military exercise earlier this month that US officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

US officials said that more than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters took part in manoeuvres over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece during the first week of June.

The exercise also included Israeli helicopters that could be used to rescue downed pilots. The helicopters and refuelling tankers flew more than 1500 kilometres, about the same distance between Israel and Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, US officials said.

A spokesman for the Israeli military would only say that the country's air force "regularly trains for various missions in order to confront and meet the challenges posed by the threats facing Israel".

But the scope of the Israeli exercise virtually guaranteed that it would be noticed by US and other foreign intelligence agencies.

A senior Pentagon official said one Israeli goal was to practise all details of a possible strike against Iran's nuclear installations and its long-range conventional missiles.

A second, the official said, was to send a clear message to the US and other countries that Israel was prepared to act militarily if diplomatic efforts to stop Iran from producing weapons-grade uranium continued to falter.

However, several US officials said they did not believe that such a strike, which would have political and security implications across the region and could complicate the Bush Administration's "war on terror", was imminent.

Shaul Mofaz, a former Israeli defence minister and military chief of staff who is now a deputy prime minister, warned in a recent interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot that Israel might have no choice but to attack.

"If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack," Mr Mofaz said in the interview published on June 6, the day after the unpublicised exercise ended.

Iran has shown signs that it is taking the Israeli warnings seriously, by beefing up its air defences, including increasing air patrols. In one instance, Iran scrambled F-4 jets to double-check an Iraqi civilian flight from Baghdad to Tehran.

"They are clearly nervous about this and have their air defence on guard," a Bush Administration official said.

Many US experts believe that any such attack could only delay and not eliminate Iran's nuclear program. Much of the program's infrastructure is underground, making precise targeting difficult. There is also concern that not all of the facilities have been detected. Many analysts say the sort of multiple attacks that would be required are beyond Israel's present capability.

Iran is also taking steps to better defend its nuclear facilities. Two sets of advanced Russian-made radar systems were recently delivered to Iran. US Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said in February that Iran was close to acquiring Russian-produced SA-20 surface-to-air missiles.

A National Intelligence Estimate issued in December by US intelligence agencies assessed that Iran had suspended work on weapons design in late 2003. The report stated that it was unclear if that work had resumed. It also noted that Iran's work on uranium enrichment and on missiles, two steps that Iran would need to take to field a nuclear weapon, had continued.

In late May, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran's suspected work on nuclear matters was a "matter of serious concern" and that the Iranians owed the agency "substantial explanations".

However, agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei also condemned Israel's September raid on Syria, saying countries undermined global security by taking the law into their own hands. Over the past three decades, Israel has carried out two unilateral attacks against suspected nuclear sites in the Middle East.

Much of the planning appears to reflect a commitment by Israel's military leaders to ensure that its armed forces are adequately trained, an imperative driven home by the difficulties the Israel Defence Forces encountered in their 2006 campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

NEW YORK TIMES

16 year old boy murdered by Israeli soldiers at Huwarra checkpoint

2008-05-21T18:09:00.000-07:00

16 year old boy murdered by Israeli soldiers at Huwarra checkpoint
20 May, 2008
At 7pm on Monday 19th May, a 16 year old boy, Fihme Abdel Jawad Dardouk, was murdered by Israeli soldiers at the Huwarra checkpoint in Nablus.

-------------------------

Death at Hawara - Iqbal Khaldun
I've just been told that a teenage boy was shot dead at Hawara at 7pm yesterday, about 4 hours after I went through there myself. The Israeli news is claiming the soldiers foiled a suicide attack. Eyewitnesses contacted so far say he was not carrying any explosives but had a mobile phone strapped to his belt with headphones in his ears. When told to put his hands in the air he misunderstood and thought the soldiers wanted him to lift his shirt to show he had no explosives around his chest. I've been told the soldiers spoke in Hebrew, a language the boy is unlikely to know owing to the fact that he was Palestinian. More on this soon...

UPDATE: I think one of the soldiers who shot Fehmi was also one of the soldiers trying to give me a hard time yesterday. According to reports she was the soldier in charge of the checkpoint and from what I could gather one of the soldiers I spoke to, the woman, looked like she was the one in charge because she was seated in a booth while others were standing below her. It's like living in an alternate universe over here sometimes.

We're just here to say hi: terror squad

2008-05-21T17:53:00.000-07:00

Arjun Ramachandran, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 13, 2008
With its ceramics classes and preschool storytime sessions, Leichhardt library - like most suburban libraries - is usually a pretty calm place.

But the "fear of god'' was reportedly put into its librarian when counter terrorism officers paid a visit to speak about an upcoming exhibition called "Al-Nakba", which means "catastrophe".

"Al-Nakba", a pictorial exhibition about Palestine and Israel, should have opened at Leichhardt municipal library last Friday.

But after the police visit on Thursday night, it was suddenly cancelled the next morning.

Friends of Hebron, a local activitist group, had been working on the exhibition of photos, poems and articles for eight months after the library agreed to host it last year.

"We set up the exhibition at the library on Thursday night and the librarian ... approved the exhibition, and said that it could be seen by children and other people,'' said Carole Lawson, a Friends of Hebron member.

Felt threatened

"But then that night, the [police] anti-terrorism squad visited the library and told her she had to vet the exhibition.

"They wanted to put the fear of god into the library staff and want the staff to feel threatened.''

On Friday morning, Ms Lawson said she received a call to tell her the exhibition had been pulled down.

"It's the censorship of Palestine - apparently the anti-terrorism squad decides what we can see on the public walls of a library.''

The librarian, Marilyn Taylor, would not speak to smh.com.au.

Leichhardt mayor Carolyn Allen confirmed police had visited the library on Thursday night, but said council, not police, had decided to pull down the exhibition because it hadn't met the council's criteria for such projects, which include not being divisive.

Counter Terrorism police just saying 'Hi!'

A police media spokesman said the officers were from the community contact unit, which falls within its Counter Terrorism operations. They had not visited the the library to to tell it to cancel the exhibition, but only to "say hi'' to Friends of Hebron members, he said.

"They went to introduce themselves to members of the community setting up the display and just to let them know who they are and what they are about. [Speaking with community groups] is part of their charter.

"When they got there the librarian was the only one there ... they just had a quick chat to the librarian.''

There had only been "a couple'' of officers involved, the spokesman said. He could not say what they said to her.

Cr Allen said the council pulled the exhibition down the morning after police visited because it had not had a chance to properly vet it.

Vetting exhibitions

Last year, council decided all projects - like the Al-Nakba exhibition - would first need to be assessed by a panel of councillors to ensure they were not divisive, she said.

This had not been done with Al-Nakba, and she blamed the late realisation of this on "a breakdown of managerial process''.

"I think it's regrettable that [the library] didn't talk about it earlier.

"I accept people might view it as [censorship] but ... I'm just implementing our policy that any exhibition that has our councils name on it needed to go through this process of making sure its not being divisive.

She said the visit by police had not influenced the decision.

"I suppose the librarian may have been a bit alarmed and concerned they had the anti-terrorism squad. I thought it was quite funny that the anti-terrorism squad would come [to a local library] - I found that a bit alarmist at the time.

Nothing disturbing

Ms Lawson said there was nothing alarming or disturbing about the exhibition, and that it merely raised the plight of "Palestinian refugees'' living in Hebron, about 30 kilometres south of Jerusalem.

"The exhibition was taken down because it was about Palestine, the dispossession of Palestinians and what's going on in Hebron," she said.

But Cr Allen said: "The people doing this exhibition clearly knew it wasn't in the general understanding of our agreement."

She objected to some captions, including one that said Palestinian children going to school needed protection from children from Israel who where throwing stones.

"Being in a public library is different to being in an exhibition space. If you're in an exhibition space and someone knows they are going into the exhibition, they expect to be educated and confronted. But most people going into a library just want to return books."

Two people, one state - deal with them together

2008-05-21T17:32:00.010-07:00

Maher Mughrabi, The Age, May 15, 2008
The unique Palestinian-Israeli situation demands a different approach.
In August 2004, the Israeli politician Shulamit Aloni received an invitation to a memorial. The event being commemorated was a massacre of Jews by Arabs in the city of Hebron during British rule of Palestine in 1929. The invitation said that it would be a state occasion, attended by Reuven Rivlin, then speaker of Israel's parliament.

In July 2006, this time in Jerusalem, a ceremony was held to honour the 60th anniversary of the bombing of the King David Hotel by members of the Zionist underground fighting British rule. That attack killed 91 people. The ceremony was not sponsored by the state, but it was attended by Benjamin Netanyahu, a former Israeli prime minister and the country's opposition leader.

The King David ceremony drew a protest from the British ambassador to Israel, who objected to "an act of terrorism" being dignified. Yet for Netanyahu and many other Israelis, that bombing is part of a heroic liberation struggle.

This year, for Israelis and Palestinians, is punctuated by anniversaries from 60 years ago. But as we have seen, who you are can play a big part in what you choose to remember, and how. It can even divide people according to when they remember: Palestinians today mark the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe, using the Gregorian calendar, while Jews mark the same event — Yom Ha'Atzmaut, or independence day — on May 8, using the Hebrew calendar.

That one nation's triumph is another's injury might strike us as obvious — that's history. But what happens when two peoples lay claim to one land?
When she got her invitation to the memorial, Aloni was quick to note that Hebron — which is called al-Khalil in Arabic, in memory of the patriarch Abraham — is not inside the recognised boundaries of the state of Israel. By contrast, Deir Yassin — which in April 1948 was the scene of a massacre of Arabs by Jews — is inside those boundaries.

There is no place in Israel's official memory for those killed at Deir Yassin. The village was razed and a mental health complex built on the site.

Elsewhere in Israel, the Arab village of Ein Houd, near Haifa, still stands, but today is an Israeli artists' colony.

Some of the families driven from its houses can be found two kilometres up the hill, living in "New Ein Houd", a village they built without Israeli government approval.

At the height of the peace process in 1994, the state recognised that village's existence and moved to give its inhabitants — Israeli citizens, lest we forget — mains electricity and roads. Within 18 months, a new government had withdrawn that recognition and funding.

Those who talk about peace between Palestinians and Israelis today frequently talk about separate states for separate peoples, before going on to congratulate Israel on 60 years of statehood.

But as today's armed Jewish settlers in the occupied territories and unrecognised villagers in Israel show, the two peoples do not live in separate spaces but under separate regimes.

It is this separation that affects Palestinians whether they hold Israeli passports, live under occupation in the West Bank or under siege in the Gaza Strip. A Palestinian cannot build a house, plant a tree, buy land, ask someone for their hand in marriage or vote in an election without wondering when Israeli state power might undo their decision.

Israel's supporters often point out that Palestinians suffer discrimination in surrounding Arab countries as well. It is true, and Palestinians haven't forgotten. But there is a crucial difference: when Israel does these things, it does them to Palestinians in the place they come from.

It is the failure to recognise this simple fact — that there is no past and no present between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea without the Palestinian Arabs — that has doomed all talk of peace for more than 80 years.

A few Jewish Israelis have grasped this, forming groups such as Zochrot (Remembrance), dedicated to marking Palestinian presence on the land, or Yesh Gvul (There Is A Limit), which seeks to pull Israeli soldiers back to the Green Line that is the state's only recognised boundary (and which for years has been absent from Israel's school textbooks). There are Israelis fighting alongside Palestinians for equal rights.

But what would it look like if world leaders grasped this principle? Firstly, it would mean no mention of Israel's achievement without connecting it to the facts of Palestinian deprivation and the need for reconciliation.

Reconciliation would require foreign governments to avoid meeting Israeli leaders without democratically elected Palestinian leaders present, and vice versa. Trade and cultural relations would also have to acknowledge that until there are two recognised and sovereign states, Palestinians and Israelis must be engaged with in tandem or not at all.

In modern international relations, this would be a highly unusual arrangement. But to pretend that Palestinians and Jewish Israelis are separate parties on an equal footing, and that the usual approach to peacemaking between states therefore applies, is to condemn both peoples to further years of fruitless photo opportunities in foreign capitals while ordinary people are killed in their streets and homes.

Maher Mughrabi is a staff writer and part of the Palestinian diaspora.

Ali Abunimah in Sydney: May 10 - 15

2008-05-07T07:15:00.000-07:00

http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/topic/Ali-Abunimah

Elite Policy and the "Axis of Evil"

2008-05-05T03:13:00.000-07:00

Noam Chomsky, ZNet, 1 May, 2008
In January, the Hamas-led prison break allowed Gazans for the first time in years to go shopping in nearby Egyptian towns, plainly a serious criminal act because it slightly undermined U.S.-Israeli strangulation of these unpeople. But the powerful quickly recognized that these events too could turn into "good news." Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai "said openly what some senior Israeli officials would only say anonymously," Stephen Erlanger reported in the New York Times: the prison-break might allow Israel to rid itself of any responsibility for Gaza after having reduced it to devastation and misery in 40 years of brutal occupation, keeping it only for target practice and, of course, under full military occupation, its borders sealed by Israeli forces on land, sea, and air, apart from an opening to Egypt (in the unlikely event that Egypt would agree).

That appealing prospect would complement Israel's ongoing criminal actions in the West Bank, carefully designed along the lines already outlined to ensure that there will be no viable future for Palestinians there. At the same time, Israel can turn to solving its
internal "demographic problem," the presence of non-Jews in a Jewish
state. The ultra-nationalist Knesset member Avigdor Lieberman was
harshly condemned as a racist in Israel when he advanced the idea of
forcing Arab citizens of Israel into a derisory "Palestinian state,"
presenting this to the world as a "land swap." His proposal is slowly
being incorporated into the mainstream. Israel National News reported
in April that Knesset member Otniel Schneller of the governing party
Kadima, "considered to be one of the people closest and most loyal to
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert," proposed a plan that "appears very
similar to one touted by Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman,"
though Schneller says his plan would be "more gradual" and the Arabs
affected "will remain citizens of Israel even though their territory
will belong to the [Palestinian Authority and], they will not be
allowed to resettle in other areas of Israel." Of course the unpeople
are not consulted.

In December Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the last hope of many
Israeli doves, adopted the same position. An eventual Palestinian
state, she suggested, would "be the national answer to the
Palestinians" in the territories and those "who live in different
refugee camps or in Israel." With Israeli Arabs dispatched to their
"natural" place, Israel would then achieve the long-sought goal of
freeing itself from the Arab taint, a stand that is familiar enough in
U.S. history, for example in Thomas Jefferson's hope, never achieved,
that the rising empire of liberty would be free of "blot or mixture,"
red or black.

For Israel, this is no small matter. Despite heroic efforts by its
apologists, it is not easy to conceal the fact that a "democratic
Jewish state" is no more acceptable to liberal opinion than a
"democratic Christian state" or a "democratic white state," as long as
the blot or mixture is not removed. Such notions could be tolerated if
the religious/ethnic identification were mostly symbolic, like
selecting an official day of rest. But in the case of Israel, it goes
far beyond that. The most extreme departure from minimal democratic
principles is the complex array of laws and bureaucratic arrangements
designed to vest control of over 90 percent of the land in the hands
of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), an organization committed to using
charitable funds in ways that are "directly or indirectly beneficial
to persons of Jewish religion, race or origin," so its documents
explain: "a public institution recognized by the Government of Israel
and the World Zionist Organization as the exclusive instrument for the
development of Israel's lands," restricted to Jewish use, in
perpetuity (with marginal exceptions), and barred to non-Jewish labor
(though the principle is often ignored for imported cheap labor). This
extreme violation of elementary civil rights, funded by all American
citizens thanks to the tax-free status of the JNF, finally reached
Israel's High Court in 2000, in a case brought by an Arab couple who
had been barred from the town of Katzir. The Court ruled in their
favor, in a narrow decision, which seems to have been barely
implemented. Seven years later, a young Arab couple was barred from
the town of Rakefet, on state land, on grounds of "social
incompatibility" (Scott Peterson, Washington Post, December 20, 2007),
a very rare report. Again, none of this is unfamiliar in the U.S.
After all, it took a century before the 14th Amendment was even
formally recog- nized by the courts and it still is far from
implemented.

For Palestinians, there are now two options. One is that the U.S. and
Israel will abandon their unilateral rejectionism of the past 30 years
and accept the international consensus on a two-state settlement, in
accord with international law—and, incidentally, in accord with the
wishes of a large majority of Americans. That is not impossible,
though the two rejectionist states are working hard to render it so. A
settlement along these lines came close in negotiations in Taba Egypt
in January 2001 and might have been reached, participants reported,
had Israeli Prime Minister Barak not called off the negotiations
prematurely. The framework for these negotiations was Clinton's
"parameters" of December 2000, issued after he recognized that the
Camp David proposals earlier that year were unacceptable. It is
commonly claimed that Arafat rejected the parameters. However, as
Clinton made clear and explicit, both sides had accepted the
parameters, in both cases with reservations, which they sought to
reconcile in Taba a few weeks later—and apparently almost succeeded.
There have been unofficial negotiations since that have produced
similar proposals. Though possibilities diminish as U.S.-Israeli
settlement and infrastructure programs proceed, they have not been
eliminated. By now the international consensus is near universal,
supported by the Arab League, Iran, Hamas, in fact every relevant
actor apart from the U.S. and Israel.

A second possibility is the one that the U.S.-Israel are actually
implementing, along the lines just described. Palestinians will then
be consigned to their Gaza prison and to West Bank cantons, perhaps
joined by Israeli Arab citizens as well if the
Lieberman-Schneller-Livni plans are implemented. For the occupied
territories, that will realize the intentions expressed by Moshe Dayan
to his Labor Party cabinet colleagues in the early years of the
occupation: Israel should tell the Palestinian refugees in the
territories that "we have no solution, you shall continue to live like
dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process
leads." The general conception was articulated by Labor Party leader
Haim Herzog, later president, in 1972: "I do not deny the Palestinians
a place or stand or opinion on every matter.... But certainly I am not
prepared to consider them as partners in any respect in a land that
has been consecrated in the hands of our nation for thousands of
years. For the Jews of this land there cannot be any partner."

A third possibility would be a binational state. That was a feasible
option in the early years of the occupation, perhaps a federal
arrangement leading to eventual closer integration as circumstances
permit. There was even some support for similar ideas within Israeli
military intelligence, but the grant of any political rights to
Palestinians was shot down by the governing Labor Party. Proposals to
that effect were made (by me in particular), but elicited only
hysteria. The opportunity was lost by the mid-1970s when Palestinian
national rights reached the international agenda and the two-state
consensus took shape. The first U.S. veto of a two-state resolution at
the Security Council, advanced by the major Arab states, was in 1976.
Washingon's rejectionist stance continues to the present, with the
exception of Clinton's last month in office. Some form of unitary
state remains a distant possibility through agreement among the
parties, as a later stage in a process that begins with a two-state
settlement. There is no other form of advocacy of such an outcome, if
we understand advocacy to include a process leading from here to
there; mere proposal, in contrast, is free for the asking.

It is of some interest, perhaps, that when advocacy of a unitary
binational state had some prospects, it was anathema, while today,
when it is completely unfeasible, it is greeted with respect and is
advocated in leading journals. The reason, perhaps, is that it serves
to undermine the prospect of a two-state settlement.

Advocates of a binational (one-state) settlement argue that on its
present course, Israel will become a pariah state like apartheid South
Africa, with a large Palestinian population deprived of rights, laying
the basis for a civil rights struggle leading to a unitary democratic
state. There is no reason to believe that the U.S., Israel, or any
other Western state would allow anything like that to happen. Rather,
they will proceed exactly as they are now doing in the territories
today, taking no responsibility for Palestinians who are left to rot
in the various prisons and cantons that may dot the landscape, far
from the eyes of Israelis travelling on their segregated superhighways
to their well-subsidized West Bank towns and suburbs, controlling the
crucial water resources of the region, and benefiting from their ties with U.S. and other international corporations that are evidently pleased to see a loyal military power at the periphery of the crucial Middle East region, with an advanced high tech economy and close links to Washington.

Envisioning the End of Israeli Apartheid: An Interview With Ali Abunimah

2008-05-05T03:12:00.001-07:00

Envisioning the End of Israeli Apartheid: An Interview With Ali Abunimah
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
A Black Agenda Report Interview by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon
Why is Israel an apartheid state? What are the similarities between it and the old South African regime? Is the separate Palestinian state talked about by Bush and the foreign policy elite of both Democrats and Republicans a real solution? Is the separate Palestinian state any different from Indian reservations, or the bantustans South Africa tried to impose on its black citizens? Can the Israeli state as it exists today ever be legitimate? Is there a practical, peaceful way out of the Israel-Palestine dilemma, and if so, what is it?

Chicago-based Palestinian educator Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, took the time to explore these questions with us.

Envisioning the End of Israeli Apartheid: An Interview With Ali Abunimah
by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon

B DIXON:: Tell us how long you have been doing Electronic Intifada, and why you started it.

A. ABUNIMAH: Along with several other collaborators I started
Electronic Intifada about four and a half years ago. We did it for
much the same reason that you started Black Agenda Report, because
there were vibrant and important concerns and conversations going on
among the Palestinian people and their allies, conversations of which
we could find no trace in the mainstream media. In the beginning we
did a lot of political analysis, which we still do, along with some
coverage of Palestinian arts and culture. Lately we have been
emphasizing on first-hand, on-the-ground coverage of life as it is
lived by Palestinians under the occupation and blockade.

The conversation about Israel-Palestine in this country might as well
be about some other universe, it contains so many misconceptions and
outright lies. There has been very little very little attention given
to the context, to the history and daily lives of Palestinians living
under Israeli military occupation, living under apartheid-like laws
and practices in Israel. There's been very little attention given to
Palestinian art, music and culture, to the Palestinian Diaspora, which
is world wide by now, including here in the United States,. These are
all things you very rarely find reflected in the mainstream media, and
when you do it's often from a very distorted perspective. The
so-called experts on Palestine and Palestinians are very often those
who do not wish the best for the people of Palestine. That's why
Electronic Intifada exists.

B. DIXON:: You made a reference to apartheid-like laws in
Israel-Palestine. What should Americans know about that situation, and
if there was one thing that black people in particular needed to know
about these apartheid-like laws and situations in Israel-Palestine,
what would that be?

A. ABUNIMAH: I've been focuses a lot on this in recent years. I
devoted a chapter in my book One Country to the lessons of South
Africa for how we can move forward in Israel-Palestine. Looking at
some of the comparisons between Israel and South Africa, there's so
much to know. One of the things to know is we are not having this
discussion in the United States. But in the rest of the world they are
having it. Some of the key anti-apartheid leaders that are known by
Americans, and known by many black Americans, like Archbishop Desmond
Tutu have been very, very forthright in stating that what is happening
to Palestinians is apartheid. Ronnie Kasrils, a minister in the south
African government who happens to be Jewish. He has been one of the
most outspoken allies of the Palestinians, declaring that Israel is an
apartheid state.

And of course many Israeli leaders say it. For example just today
(April 25, 2008) in Ha'aretz, the newspaper of record in Israel, a
former member of Knesset, Israeli politician Yossi Sarid has an
article entitled "Yes, It's Apartheid". In which he compares Israel to
the apartheid state of south Africa.

The other thing I think is important to know is the history, that
throughout the 1970s and 80s, when black Americans were leading the
struggle against apartheid in this country, when they were the
conscience of this country in terms of putting apartheid South Africa
on the American political agenda, Israel was one of the key supporters
of apartheid South Africa. Israel is the country that systematically
violated the international arms embargo on South Africa. The weapons
used to beat and kill black demonstrators and freedom fighters in
South African townships were made in Israel, right down to the water
cannon used in the townships... the fighter jets, the gunboats, all
the heavy armament of the South African military used were in large
part supplied by Israel.

It's less well known, there is less hard evidence about it, although
some information is in the public domain regarding Israeili-South
African cooperation in their nuclear weapons programs.

B. DIXON::: We've in the midst of a presidential election here. What
difference will it make who gets elected US president to someone
living right now, say, in Gaza and to the Palestinian Diaspora?

A. ABUNIMAH: I am very pessimistic that it makes any difference at
all, because the tone and content of the politics on this issue in the
United States is really a competition to see who can be the most
pro-Israel candidate. That has been the case across the board with the
three candidates who are out there now. All three are competing to be
the most pro-Israeli to the point where Hillary Clinton has threatened
to "totally obliterate Iran" on behalf of Israel.

Barack Obama too has been, from his past and I know some of this
because I knew him hack in his Chicago days, he was much more
sympathetic and much more attuned to the plight of the Palestinians.
He used to be a lot more open minded, and now he is busy denying all
that and trying to portray himself as a stalwart and unconditional
supporter of Israel. So I don't see much change coming from mainstream
politics. I think we have to keep pushing from the grassroots for the
kind of change we want to see, that's where it will have to come from.

That's where it came from with the anti-apartheid struggle. The Reagan
administration didn't want to impose sanctions. Congress didn't want
to impost sanctions. There was a grassroots movement from the civil
rights leaders from the black churches and from others that finally
put pressure on the establishment to begin to do the right thing.

B. DIXON:: Back to Obama, we've got a lot of people who say that he's
just shammin', he's just doing what he has to do to get elected, doing
what he has to do to get in, but once he gets in, he's going to bring
change.

A. ABUNIMAH: None of us can know what's deep down in his heart, we
have to take him ast his word. He says he is going to stand by Israel,
tha he's going to veto any UN resolutions which criticize Israel, the
he thinks Palestinians are largely to blame for their own problems..
We have to take his word for that, and hold him accountable for the
positions which he has stated. As for whether he is going to turn
around and do something different, well, I understand that a lot of
people hope that will be the case. But the reality of politics in this
country is that the things you have to do to get elected are the same
things you have to do to stay in office. I don't see what wold really
push him to change.

B. DIXON:: Tell us what is the Nakbah

A. ABUNIMAH: The Nakbah is an Arabic word, el nakbah. It means the
catastrophe. Palestinians use to to describe the events which took
place in late 1947 and continued into late 1948, when three quarters
of the Palestinan population were ethnically cleansed from their
land.so that the state of Israel could be established upon the ruins
of their society. In that process, 750,000 Palestinian were forced out
of their homes by an organized campaign carried out by the Zionist
movment. It wasn't yet the Israeli state. More than 500 Palestinian
towns, villages and cities were depopulated and destroyed, and the
Palestinians were driven into exile.

We're now in the third or fourth generation of that, though acutally
for many it's still a first generation experience. My parents for
example, lived though that, so this is very much a live and ongoing
catastrophe, not something that is only in the past because thisof
ethnic cleansing is continuing in Palestine against Palestinians who
are still there.

B. DIXON: How is it continuing?

A. ABUNIMAH: It's continuing in many ways. The irony of it is that
although the Zionist leaders very clearly intended, and this is
something that the Israili historian Ilan Pape talks about in his
latest book, The Ethnic Cleansiing of Palestine. They had a very claer
intentiuon to get rid of the Palestinians because you cn't set up a
Jewish state in a place where the majority of the population is not
Jewish.

They had to get rid of that majority population. Despite that, the
Palestinian population today is actually larger, with more
Palestinians living in Palestine than any time before. They have a
very high birth rate, and they have a very strong commitment to their
land, regardless of the obstacles put in their way.

What Israel has been trying to do is exclude or expel the Palestinians
politically and literally. They do it by taking their land to build
fortified Jewish-only settlements which the American media calls
"neighborhoods". They do it by building walls around entire
Palestinian cities and communities, a wall the rest of the world
outside the United States calls "the apartheid wall". We can see that
not only in Gaza, where almost a million and a half Palestinians are
confined to a vast open air prison. We can see it by the other
Palestinian cities and towns that are surrounded by these walls and
barbed wire fences. It's a process of physical expulsion as well, as
every day more and more land is taken, more and more Palestinians are
pushed off it.

Israel has moved this population in exactly the same ways that the
former South African government did when it tried to pen up its black
population in bantustans.

It's exactly the same thing that South Africa did when they said OK,
blacks are physically present on this land but we are going to make
your politically invisible gy creating these fake independent states.
If you want citizenship, if you want the right to vote, go home to one
of your bantustans and exercise your political rights there, but you
don't get to vote for the real government of the country.

B DIXON Exactly what is goiing on in Gaza right now, and what is
collective punishment

A. ABUNIMAH: Imagine that here on my block in Chicago, a kid is
accused of a crime, let's say robbing a store. Instead of the police
looking for the individual, arresting and charging that person with a
crime, they simply surround the block with armored vehicles and tanks,
order everyone out of their houses, arrest all the men, or simply
destroy the entire block. That is an example of the kind of collective
punishments which have been implemented against Palestinians for
decades. Israelis claim that they are defending themselves against the
Palestinians, but that's just like saying the United States was
defending itself against the Native Americans.

So now Gaza is totally cut off from the outside world. There are a
million and a half Palestinians living there, I have friends living
there. We try to stay in touch by email when they have electricity,
but the electricity is frequently cut off by the Israelis who deny
Gaza the fuel to keep the power plants running. The universities have
shut down because there is no power, cancer patients are dying because
they can't get chemotherapy, the lives of dialysis patients are
threatened because they cannot get the treatment they need. People
cannot get to school to work, can't keep their businesses open. Eighty
percent of the population, and these are proud, independent-minded
people, are subsisting on charity, on rations handed out by the UN,
malnutrition is rampant....

B DIXON: And why would the Israeli government do that?

A. ABUNIMAH: We've reprinted the statements of Israeli officials at
Electronic Intifada which appeared in the Israeli press. They say
their objective is to put pressure on the Palestinian populaiton so
they will put pressure on their leaders to submit to what we want.
Palestinians had a democratic election, back in 2006 and they elected
the "wrong leaders"., leaders which Israel and the United States don't
want, so they have to be starved into submission for that crime.

B. DIXON: We hear all the time from the mouths of the US Secretary of
State, from Bush, from the presidential candidates about what they
call an independent Palestinian state, but which you call a bantustan.
What's wrong with an independent Palestinian state?

A. ABUNIMAH: What's wrong with an independent Palestinian state is
that it' is a bantustan, just like the little back country South
African reservations to which the apartheid government proposed to
relocate most of its black population. A so-called independent
Palestinian state is a complete farce, with no possibility of an
independent economy, since Palestinian territory is divided into
dozens of pieces separated by Israeli-only roads and fortified
settlements, by walls, barbed wire and checkpoints.

In the case of South Africa, nobody bought it. The South African
people didn't buy it, and no country in the world acknowledged these
little puppets as real independent states. Most importantly, the South
African leadership, Nelson Mandela and the ANC refused to play this
game. They said we want our whole country, we want our full rights.

The difference, I would say, between the proposed Palestinian state
and the bantustans is that the bantustans actually had more territory,
and more resources than the fake Palestinian state. The Palestinian
state is simply a ruse to hide and to perpetuate the fact of Israeli
apartheid.

B. DIXON: If a separate Palestinian state is no solution, then what
needs to happen in Israel-Palestine?

A. ABUNIMAH: We have to recognize that in Israel-Palestine today there
are 10.8 million people. 48% of them are NOT Israeli Jews. The
majority population right now are Palestinians and others, with the
numbers of Jews and Palestinians being about equal, at just under
half. Another five percent who are neither Palestinians nor Jews make
up the rest. But the trends are very clear. Within five to ten years
at most, Palestinians will be an absolute majority of the population
of the state of Israel-Palestine, just as they were sixty years ago.

What we need to be saying is that this Jewish minority has a right to
live in peace. It has a right to be secure. It has a right to be part
of the country. It cannot have better rights and special rights over
the rest of the population. It must not have the exclusive right to
determine the destiny of the country. What we need to do, and this is
what I have been arguing with other Palestinians, is we need to be
talking not about a separate Palestinian state because that is a pipe
dream. The geography doesn't work, the economy doesn't work.

We should be calling for full civil and economic rights for everyone
who lives within the boundaries of the country, whether they are
Jewish or Palestinian or anything else. And of course we need to be
calling for full decolonization, for reparations and restitution for
the victims of the current regime.

Those are the two things that have to happen; equality and
restitution. Legal equality without restitution is not enough, as we
know from the history of this country. There also has to be active
restitution for the victims. I don't see why Palestinians and Israeli
Jews cannot live together peacefully under such a situation.

B. DIXON: The picture you have painted for us is not a bright and
happy one. What if anything, makes you hopeful?

A. ABUNIMAH: What makes me hopeful is that 60 years of catastrophe
have not dimmed the will of Palestinians to see justice done. 60 years
of brutality, of oppression, by Israel have not succeeded in
establishing the legitimacy of that regime. Each day, the Israelis
have to wake up and prove to the world that their state has a right to
exist as what they call a Jewish state, and what I call an apartheid
state. They have not been able to succeed. There is growing,
nonviolent global political movement to bring justice to Palestinians,
and only that can bring peace to Israelis.

Apartheid and colonialism lasted for 300 years before they were
brought down. The Soviet Union lasted for eighty years, and nobody
anticipated its collapse either. You look at the history of this
country where there is so much further to go, and yet there was change
here as a result of social movements, not from the top down, but from
the bottom up, coming from the efforts of people who decided they were
not going to take this any more, that they would stand up for their
rights. Every single one of these social movements has prevailed
against overwhelming odds, and against enemies determined to hold onto
power at any cost.

So Palestinians are in good company in this struggle, and we are in a
position to put forth a vision of justice that can serve all the
people living in Israel-Palestine.

......................................................................

Mr. Abunimah is the author of One Country, A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, and co-counder of Electronic Intifada. EI publishes news, commentary, analysis, and reference materials about
the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict from a Palestinian perspective. EI is the leading Palestinian portal for information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its depiction in the media.

Bruce Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com

Israel to build 100 settlement homes, including in West Bank

2008-04-20T16:35:00.000-07:00

Israel to build 100 settlement homes, including in West Bank
Laurie Copans in Jerusalem, Associated Press, 18 April 2008
The Israeli government revealed plans Friday to build 100 homes in two Jewish settlements — one of them deep in the West Bank — in violation of its pledge to freeze settlement expansion.

Palestinian officials said the new construction in the settlements of Ariel and Elkana is undermining U.S.-backed efforts to reach a peace deal by the end of 2008.

Since a U.S.-hosted Mideast peace conference in November, Israel has announced several new building projects in areas of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinians for their future state. However, Friday's announcement marked the first time the Israeli government approved construction deep in the West Bank.

An Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the new construction apparently is part of ongoing negotiations between the Israeli government and Jewish settler leaders. Approval for the 100 homes came in return for the recent voluntary evacuation of two small unauthorized settlement outposts, the official said.

The construction bids were published in an advertisement by the Israeli Housing Ministry in the daily Haaretz. Housing Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.

"This undermines our efforts to make 2008 the year of peace," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Under a U.S.-backed peace plan, Israel is required to dismantle dozens of illegal outposts and halt construction in established settlements. Under the same plan, the Palestinians are required to rein in and disarm militants.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper in an interview published Friday that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is aware of Israel's position that it will continue to build in settlement blocs. Several of those blocs are close to Israel, but Ariel and Elkana are deep inside the West Bank.

Recent Israeli construction in Jerusalem prompted Abbas to briefly call off the peace talks. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as a future capital but Israel annexed the sector of the city to its capital after capturing it in 1967.

Also Friday, Israel sealed the West Bank and Gaza for the duration of the weeklong Jewish Passover holiday, which begins at sundown Saturday. Holiday closures are routine, and bar most Palestinians from entering Israel.

In a West Bank raid, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian militant leader, Hani al-Kabi, in the Balata refugee camp next to the city of Nablus.

Al-Kabi had fled a Palestinian jail a month ago, violating the conditions of a deal with Israel that would have granted him amnesty. An Islamic Jihad militant was seriously wounded in the same raid, medics said.

The Palestinian Authority wants Israel to halt such raids in areas where Palestinian security forces are seeking to establish control, particularly around Nablus. The Israeli military says Palestinian forces are not doing enough to rein in militants.

Still, Palestinian security forces will be able to reopen 20 police stations in rural areas of the West Bank for the first time in eight years of fighting. About 500 Palestinian police officers will deploy in West Bank villages, said Peter Lerner, an Israeli military official. Overall security control in these areas will remain in Israeli hands, but Palestinians will have presence to enforce the law.

Also Friday, a Reuters photographer was injured in the leg by a rubber-coated steel pellet fired by Israeli troops trying to break up a weekly protest against the construction of Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank, witnesses said. The Israeli military had no comment.

On Wednesday, a cameraman with Reuters was among 21 Palestinians killed in the bloodiest day in Gaza in more than a month.

Egyptian efforts to mediate a Gaza cease-fire and a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas are bogged down.

A prominent Hamas official said Friday that Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Gaza militants two years ago, will not be released until hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are freed.

"Gilad will not see the light, will not see his mother, will not see his father, God willing, as long as our heroic prisoners do not see their families, in their houses," Mushir al-Masri said in a speech.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai said he wants to meet with Hamas to try to win Shalit's release and has asked former President Jimmy Carter to help arrange an encounter.

Yishai was the only Israeli Cabinet minister to meet Carter when he visited Israel and the Palestinians territories earlier this week. He said Friday if he does meet with Hamas, he would not discuss Israel-Gaza fighting to avoid violating the government ban on negotiating with the militants.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Israel plans 100 houses in West Bank settlements

2008-04-20T16:34:00.003-07:00

Israel plans 100 houses in West Bank settlements
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem, The Guardian, Friday April 18 2008
Israel's housing ministry announced plans today to build 100 new homes in two settlements in the occupied West Bank, drawing swift criticism from Palestinian officials.

In an advertisement in the Ha'aretz newspaper, the ministry invited construction companies to bid for the rights to build 48 homes in Ariel, a major settlement, and 52 homes in a smaller settlement called Elkana.

It was the first time since peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians began last November that the Israeli government had announced construction in settlements so deep inside the West Bank.

The talks are based on the US road map to peace, which requires Israel to freeze all settlement activity and to withdraw from some of its furthest outposts in the West Bank.

However, in a wide-ranging interview with an Israeli newspaper today, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, repeated his plans to continue construction within the major settlement blocs, despite the on-going talks.

Previous construction tenders have been issued for homes in settlements in east Jerusalem since the peace talks started.

More than 400,000 people live in Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, which most of the international community regards as illegal.

"We condemn these plans and resolutions, which really undermine the peace process," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. He said the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, would raise the settlement expansion in talks with the US president, George Bush, in Washington next week.

In an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Olmert insisted the peace talks were "serious negotiations" but he also defended the construction plans.

"It was clear from day one, both to Abu Mazen and to Bush and Rice, that in the population centres, the areas mentioned by Bush in his letter from April 2004, construction would continue," Olmert told the paper. "I didn't do this because someone applied pressure. I say today too: Beitar will be built, the Etzion bloc will be built, they will build in Pisgat Ze'ev and in the Jewish neighbourhoods of Jerusalem. It is completely clear that in any future arrangement, these areas will remain in Israel's hands."

Beitar Illit and the Etzion bloc are major settlements south of Jerusalem and Pisgat Ze'ev is a settlement in north-east Jerusalem. The letter written by Bush to Israel's then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has proved controversial because in it the US president suggested that in a future agreement Israel could hold onto some unnamed major settlements in the West Bank even though this is bitterly disputed by the Palestinians.

Pro-Israel lobby appoints first campus watchdog

2008-04-20T08:42:00.000-07:00

Pro-Israel lobby appoints first campus watchdog
Brendan O'Keefe, The Australian, April 16, 2008
Joel Burnie, 23, the first campus co-ordinator to promote Israel and Jewish culture, doubts there is systematic academic bias against Israel.

"I'd like to do some proper investigation to see if there is a systemic problem but I do not believe there is," said Mr Burnie, a Monash University arts-law student. "(But) we need to make sure that all academic opinions are being expressed equally on campus."

The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council has appointed him inaugural (part-time) student program co-ordinator for universities across the country. It's a joint venture with the US campus movement StandWithUs, which advertises itself as "the next generation of Israel advocacy".

Australian academe was a "rogues' gallery of anti-Zionists", Ted Lapkin, former AIJAC director of policy analysis, wrote in Quadrant magazine in 2006.

Asked if his role had been created to counter anti-Israel bias or anti-Semitic activity, Mr Burnie said: "This position has not been created out of an emergent necessity." Rather, he would be "an on-campus advocate for Israel and Jewish culture". "The role involves promotion of Israeli culture and promotion of Israeli speakers that may come out to Australia. It will give students access to these people so they can listen and be educated."

AIJAC executive director Colin Rubenstein said in a statement that the Burnie appointment represented a "serious effort to increase understanding about the Middle East at Australian universities".

"It demonstrates that AIJAC and SWU appreciate how important campuses are in shaping public opinion," he said.

SWU president Esther Renzer welcomed Mr Burnie's appointment on standwithus.com, saying: "When Jewish and non-Jewish students are presented with a comprehensive and balanced picture of Israel, they understand that what they might read in the newspapers, or hear on radio, or see on television, is not always true or fair."

Last year Mr Burnie was national president of the Australian Union of Jewish Students.

He said would continue the inter-faith work he did through that organisation, talking with Muslim and Christian student groups. In his five years on three campuses, he had found relations between students to be "quite healthy".

"People can interact socially; I don't think there's too much of a problem," he said.

"But we need to help students become better informed about what is a complicated situation (in the Middle East)."

Israeli leaders shun Carter

2008-04-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

Israeli leaders shun Carter
Ed O'Loughlin, The Age, 15 April 2008
Shunned by Israeli political leaders, former US president Jimmy Carter says he will go ahead with plans to meet the leader of Hamas to promote peace in the Middle East.

Mr Carter was speaking in Jerusalem on Sunday after Israel's four most senior politicians — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defence Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu — declined to meet him. Mr Carter has also been criticised by the US State Department and all three US presidential candidates.

According to Israeli media, the leaders are angered by Mr Carter's decision to meet exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Damascus this week. Israelis were also offended by Mr Carter's 2006 book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, in which he compared Israel's military occupation and colonisation of seized Arab territories with the policies of apartheid South Africa.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, who met Mr Carter, reportedly accused him of "causing significant damage to Israel and the peace process in recent years".

In an interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz, Mr Carter said he believed that for peace talks to work all parties had to be engaged.

"Hamas' position is that they are perfectly willing for (Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas) to represent them in all direct negotiations with the Israelis, and they also maintain that they will accept any agreement that he brokers with Israelis provided it will be submitted to the Palestinians in a referendum. Hamas is also willing to accept a mutual ceasefire with Israel," Mr Carter said.

"I do not agree with … the unwillingness to talk to someone who disagrees with you unless he agrees with all your prerequisites."

■Representatives of Lebanon and Iran have pulled out of a conference in Qatar due to Ms Livni's attendance. She is to give a speech calling for Arab support for Mr Abbas against Hamas and unity against Iran.

Reuters cameraman talks to Al Jazeera

2008-04-20T08:05:00.002-07:00

April 17, 2008
Fadl Shanaa, who was killed by an Israeli missile on April 16, spoke to Al Jazeera in February.

He was interviewed as part of a series called 'Shoot the Messenger' that focuses on the increased dangers that journalists are facing in covering the story. He had survived an Israeli air raid in 2006.

Palestinians killed in Israeli raids into Gaza

2008-04-20T07:56:00.000-07:00

April 16, 2008
More than 20 Palestinians have died in the Gaza Strip as Israel unleashed military strikes and troops moved into the centre of the territory.

A journalist was also killed in the attacks.

It makes 16 April one of the deadliest days in Gaza for weeks.

But army leaders say the operations were routine and aimed against fighters suspected of launching rockets into southern Israel.

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland reports from Jerusalem.

VIDEO: Frontline USA - Lobbying for Israel

2008-04-06T06:04:00.001-07:00

April 05, 2008

Avi Lewis examines the powerful Israeli lobby and its affects on Capitol Hill.

Part 1

Part 2

A Settler Attack at Izhar (Burin) Checkpoint

2008-04-05T16:46:00.005-07:00

31st March, 2008
A settler tried to run over and then attacked human rights activist at the Izhar (Burin) checkpoint. The settler gave orders to the soldiers at the checkpoint and ignored a police officer who tried to call him in for questioning. Despite witnessing the entire incidence, the soldiers who were present chose not to intervene.

Filmed by Merav Amir, Machsom Watch
www.machsomwatch.org

Settlers attack Palestinians and Israelis at Kfar Qadum

2008-04-05T16:44:00.001-07:00

2nd April, 2008

Settlers attack Palestinians and Israeli supporters in Kfar Qaddum. The attack took place at a Palestinian house on land which is recognized as private Palestinian land even by the Israeli army. The settlers have invaded the house and renamed the place Shvut Ami. After settlers were evacuated by the army the Palestinian owners of the
land along with Israeli supporters attempted to take hold of the house. In no time, dozens of settlers arrived and soon began attacking the Palestinians and their supporters.

After making a token effort to prevent the settlers from returning to the house the border police stood by and watched as the attacks continued. Only hours earlier the border police had about 100 troops available but when it was time to protect Palestinians from settler attack less than 10 soldiers were assigned to the place. Those present did not even make a serious attempt to carry out the stated goal of evacuating the settlers from the house.

Gaza one of the top ten most dangerous places in the world

2008-03-31T04:12:00.009-07:00

Stories for Monday, 31 March 2008

Produced by Kate Pinnock, THE WIRE

Listen HERE

The Gaza strip and the West Bank are ranked in the top ten of the worlds most unstable and dangerous areas, according to Jane's Information Group. The group does a check on every country recognized as an individual state or territory by the United Nations.

As Kevin Rudd seeks to make Australia a middle power, creative force in international politics, what are they doing about Gaza? This was the critical issue at the weekly forum "Politics in the Pub" held in Sydney's Surrey Hills last Friday night. Featured in story: Ross Burns Australia's former ambassador to Israel and Dr. Izzat Abdulhadi, the Australian representative for the Palestinian Authority.

Hawara Checkpoint - West Bank

2008-03-31T04:11:00.011-07:00

Hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint protesting on the day of Palestinian land day.

Land Day at Sakhnin

2008-03-31T04:11:00.009-07:00

March 30, 2008

Israel has agreed to remove about 50 of its more than 500 checkpoints in the occupied West Bank - a move it says is designed to help the Palestinian economy.

The announcement came on what Palestinians call Land Day, an annual day of protest triggered by the deaths of six Arabs during a demonstration in 1976.

This land was theirs

2008-03-24T03:38:00.001-07:00

The Jewish Advocate

This land was theirs

By Hannah Mermelstein - Sunday March 23 2008

On March 20, 1941, Yosef Weitz of the Jewish National Fund wrote: “The complete evacuation of the country from its other inhabitants and handing it over to the Jewish people is the answer.” On this day in 1948, almost two months before the first "Arab-Israeli war" technically began, the 1,125 inhabitants of the Palestinian village Umm Khalid fled a Haganah military operation. Like their brethren from more than 500 villages, they likely thought they would return to their homes within a few weeks, after the fighting blew over and new political borders were or were not drawn.

Instead, more than 6 million Palestinian people remain refugees to this day, some in refugee camps not far from their original towns, others in established communities in Europe and the US, all forbidden from returning to their homeland for one reason: they are not Jewish.

Yosef Weitz’s wish was granted. In my name, and in the name of Jewish people throughout the world, an indigenous population was almost completely expelled. Village names have been removed from the map, houses blown up, and new forests planted. In Arabic, this is called the Nakba, or catastrophe. In Israel, this is called "independence."

Last month I went with a man from Umm il Fahm (a Palestinian city in Israel) to his original village of Lajun, only a few miles away. Adnan’s land is now a JNF forest “belonging” to Kibbutz Megiddo. As we walk the stone path he points to each side of the road, naming the families that used to live there: Mahamid, Mahajne, Jabrin…. The land there is not naturally rocky; the stones that we walk on are a graveyard of destroyed houses. Adnan was only six years old when the Haganah’s bullets flew over his head and he and his family fled. But he remembers. He tears up as we stop at the site of his destroyed house and says, “Welcome to my home.”

Adnan is an Israeli citizen, yet the land that was stolen from him has been given to a body that refuses to let him live on it. As an American Jew, I could move to Lajun/Megiddo tomorrow, gain full citizenship rights, and live on the land that Adnan’s family has tended for centuries. Adnan, who lives just a few minutes away, is forbidden from doing so.

As we approach the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel, the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, let us remember Adnan. Let us remember the inhabitants of Umm Khalid. Let us remember more than 6 million people whose basic human rights have been deprived for 60 years, and let us, as Jewish people with a history of oppression and a tradition of social justice, work for the right of indigenous people to return to their land. This is our only hope for true peace and security in the region.

Hannah Mermelstein is a co-founder of Birthright Unplugged and lives in Boston, Philadelphia and Ramallah.

FOR MORE INFO ON Birthright Unplugged see: http://www.birthrightunplugged.org/

VIDEO: Al-Jazeera News - March 23, 2008

2008-03-23T23:07:00.007-07:00

Talks between Hamas and Fatah and other news on Western Easter from Al-Jazeera English, recorded at 16:00 hrs on March 23, 2008.

Gaza's lost childhood

2008-03-23T23:07:00.005-07:00

March 23, 2008
Gaza's children are loosing their childhood, according to at least one study that has outline a grim picture of what it is like growing up in there. Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros reports from Gaza.

Israel kills five, kills peace

2008-03-20T06:16:00.007-07:00

Extrajudicial assassinations by Israel set the Palestinian-Israeli arena again aflame
Saleh Al-Naami, Al Ahram Weekly, 20 - 26 March 2008, Issue No. 889
Mohamed Shehada, head of Islamic Jihad's military wing in the West Bank and one of the most prominent men wanted by Israel, returned last Wednesday to the rubble of his family's home in Bethlehem. Bulldozers had destroyed it three days earlier. He went, in the company of four other resistance fighters wanted by Israel, only after feeling reassured by an unannounced truce reached between Israel and Palestinian resistance factions via Egyptian mediation. As the five were preparing to leave the site, they were hit by a hail of bullets shot by 12 members of a special undercover unit that is one of the elite death squads of the Israeli army in the West Bank. All five were killed.

The scene as viewed on television shook the Palestinian public and put an end to seven days of calm in the Palestinian-Israeli arena. During that period, resistance movements had halted operations, particularly in the Gaza Strip where they committed to not firing rockets on Israeli settlements near the Strip. Yet Israeli Minister of Defence Ehud Barak spoke proudly of the assassinations, saying, "Israel is committed to pursuing Palestinian resistance fighters who have been involved in operations that have struck Jews." Official Israeli spokespersons stressed that the truce could not imply halting assassinations of members of the resistance in the West Bank.

There is no dispute among Palestinian and Israeli commentators over
one fact: that through the assassinations in Bethlehem, Israel wanted
to impose new rules in the game with Palestinian resistance factions.
Avi Sekerov and Amos Harel, commentators in Haaretz newspaper,
stressed that the person who ordered the operation realised that it
would lead to an explosion of the security situation in the Gaza Strip
and would take matters back to square one.

Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai announced: "We will not
allow the Palestinians to determine for us the timing, location, or
conditions of security operations we see as serving Israeli
interests." Vilnai added that the most that Israel could commit to was
halting its operations in Gaza in return for an absolute end to the
firing of rockets.

Observers in Israel also point to the role of political and personal
considerations in motivating Israeli leaders to escalate the
situation. Akifa Elder, an Israeli political commentator, holds that
Barak, who heads the Labour Party, intends to compete in the upcoming
legislative elections for the post of prime minister against
right-wing opposition leader Benyamin Netanyahu. "Barak wants to
exploit his position as the minister of defence to display himself to
Israeli public opinion as a decisive political and security leader by
issuing instructions to execute more military operations that catch
attention," he said.

Barak's role in destroying efforts at a truce has been discussion
material for the Israeli media. Israeli writer and intellectual Gideon
Levy says that Barak works with all his might to destroy efforts at a
truce. "Barak hasn't talked about peace for a long time, and he surely
doesn't believe in the peaceful efforts made by Olmert. In fact, he
does all he can to destroy what little remains of them," he wrote in
Haaretz. He added: "Whenever a ray of hope is seen for reaching a
truce agreement, Barak has rushed to issue orders for stupid and
dangerous assassinations, as happened in calm Bethlehem, just to set
the situation aflame again. When the Palestinians stop firing
missiles, Barak does all he can to resume the firing so that he has an
excuse to wage a major invasion in the Gaza Strip."

Levy noted that the security establishment led by Barak was insulting
the authority of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, "as though there
were no negotiations or Israeli commitments... on peace".

In the Palestinian arena, the assassinations were embarrassing for the
leaders of Palestinian factions that had promised Egypt to halt
attacks on settlements in southern Israel so as to allow Cairo to
reach a comprehensive deal. Islamic Jihad, the most compromised before
their popular base, had little alternative but to respond by firing
tens of rockets on settlements near the Gaza Strip. Observers in the
Palestinian arena hold that Israel's violation of the truce is a slap
in the face for Egyptian efforts to reach a mutual truce. Nafidh
Azzam, a prominent leader in Islamic Jihad, considers the
assassinations in Bethlehem an Israeli response to Egyptian efforts.
"Until Israel is convinced about reaching a mutual, concurrent and
comprehensive peace, and lifts the siege on the Palestinian people, we
are free in responding to any aggressive act from Israel with all our
might," he told Al-Ahram Weekly.

Ayman Youssef, professor of international relations at the American
University in Jenin, says that decision- makers in Israel hold that it
is not in their interest to reach a truce at this time. "Israel is
distributing the cards of the game over a large area, and then will
collect them in a manner that serves its interests and benefits from
the internal struggle between Fatah and Hamas and the separation of
the West Bank from the Gaza Strip," he told the Weekly.

Youssef holds that Israel is worried about Egyptian efforts to secure
a comprehensive deal because such a deal would threaten Israel's most
important accomplishments -- internal Palestinian conflict and the
separation of the West Bank from the Gaza Strip. Youssef suggests that
the Israelis realise that any comprehensive agreement between Israel
and the Palestinian factions will not succeed unless a settlement is
reached on the conflict between Fatah and Hamas.

Reopening the Rafah Crossing, for example, will not be possible if
there is no domestic Palestinian accord that allows administration of
the crossing. Youssef also rejects the view that the United States has
changed its position on a truce between Israel and Hamas. He believes,
alternatively, that the position of the US on a truce between Hamas
and Israel is tied to Washington's intentions towards Iran. "If
expectations that President Bush will attack Iran during the final
three months of his term spell true, the American administration will
at that time be interested in a truce on all fronts in the region,
including Palestine; but it will be a temporary truce aiming only to
enhance Washington's ability to execute its plans," he said.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians participated in the funeral of
Mohamed Shehada and his companions, and called on Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas to halt negotiations with Israel and return to
dialogue with Hamas. Fatah's military wing, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades,
also called on Abbas to dismiss his prime minister, Salam Fayyad. In a
statement passed to the Weekly, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades stated that
continued Israeli aggression leaves one option open: "working
faithfully to regain the unity of the Palestinian people since that is
the most important source of strength it has."

Saeb Erekat, director of the Negotiations Department in the Palestine
Liberation Organisation, holds that Israel is persistently working to
weaken Abbas and shame him before the Palestinian people. "Through
escalating the aggression, Israel aims to extricate itself from its
commitments in the roadmap, make negotiations fail before they begin,
and cut off the path for Egyptian efforts to reach a comprehensive
truce," he told the Weekly.

Erekat does not hide his bitterness towards the American position, saying, "at the time when American security coordinator Keith Dayton announced that the Palestinian Authority (PA) was upholding its security commitments as best as possible, and frankly accused Israel of impeding the PA's security efforts, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted on holding the PA and Israel equally responsible for the exploding security situation causing negotiations to stumble. This is injustice and bias."

(c) Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner visits Bethlehem

2008-03-19T02:46:00.009-07:00

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner In Bethlehem
Al-Kull Channel - March 19, 2008

Stop the War demo - London, 15 March 2008

2008-03-19T02:37:00.000-07:00

Stop the War Demonstration - London, March 15th 2008

Troops out of Iraq

Don't attack Iran

Free Gaza / End Israeli Occupation

YNet : Ilan Pappe Interview

2008-03-17T15:21:00.001-07:00

Interview with Ilan Pappe, author of "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" and supporter of academic boycott of Israel
Ayelet Negev, YNet, 15th March, 2008
Controversial historian Ilan Pappe left Israel last year after his endorsement of an academic boycott of Israel exposed him and his family to death threats. Now a professor in England, Pappe maintains that a cultural boycott on his homeland is the only way to end the occupation. Last summer, the Pappe family packed its belongings, rented out its spacious house in Israel and moved to Britain. Ever since his support of an academic boycott on Israel's universities became public, historian Ilan Pappe, 54, has felt like public enemy number one. Pappe says he had received death threats by phone almost on a daily basis.

Did it not occur to you that calling for an academic boycott on Israel might incite the public against you?

"I supported the boycott because I believe that without pressure, Israel will not end the occupation. Even before then I reached the conclusion that the peace process enables Israel to stall for time. When in 2003 several international organizations approached me and asked whether I would support the boycott I replied positively.

"I believe that things would change only if Israel receives a strong message that as long as the occupation continues it would not be a legitimate member of the international community, and that until then its academics, doctors and authors would not be welcome. A similar boycott was imposed on South Africa. It took 21 years, but it eventually led to the end of Apartheid."

Do you also call for an economic boycott of Israel?

"I am currently editing a book that compares the situation in Israel to the situation in South Africa, and I'm becoming convinced that there too, the economic boycott was less effective than the cultural one. As the son of German Jews, I know how important it is for our elites to be a part of Europe."

Did you wholeheartedly support the boycott?

"No, you can't wholeheartedly recommend a boycott of your society, especially when it includes you place of work, the Haifa University? The last thing I enjoy is being the person that holds up a
mirror to his society's face and says, 'Look how ugly you are.' Some people like to challenge and incite their neighbors. I'm not like that, I don't write in order to annoy and I certainly don't hate myself, and I also love many people in Israel. I did not commit treason.

"But, I'm a historian, and this is the truth the way I see it: The story of a victim and a victimizer. And the victim is the Palestinians. Without idealizing the Palestinians - victims are not necessarily nice people, but they are still victims."

Pappe claims that his promotion at Haifa University has been blocked
due to his political activity. "Provincial Haifa was
unwilling to grant me the rank of a professor. I left for England as a
doctor and in two days I climbed two ranks and became
a faculty professor at the University of Exeter," he states.

However, Haifa University President Aharon Ben-Zeev claims that the
university applied only relevant considerations in the
question of Pappe's promotion. "We applied the regular criteria
according to the university's constitution: Not only the list and
quality of publications, but other considerations pertaining to the
contribution to the university, teaching and so on," he explained.

Claims of ethnic cleansing In an article published in the Israeli
Mita'am Review for Literature and Radical Thought this week,
titled "On the destruction of the Palestinian cities, spring 1948,"
Pappe maintains that the claim that the Arab residents
fled or left their homes willingly during the war is false, and that a
policy of "cleansing" the area from Arabs was employed as
part of a plan to establish a Jewish-only state.

Pappe made similar claims in his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, which was published in England in 2006, in which he also presented testimonies of alleged massacres of Palestinians by Jewish soldiers.

These claims have been contested by many historians in Israel and
abroad. Dr. Mordechai Bar-On, a research fellow at the
Yad Ben-Zvi Institute and a former MK, calls Pappe "a propagandist, not
a historian." Bar-On said that "the term ethnic
cleansing is a vicious one, because it has never been used prior to the
wars in former Yugoslavia. Indeed, there were places where
Arab were expelled, but to say that there was an evil plan since the
inception of Zionism for a forceful transfer - this is simply
wrong and vicious."

However, Pappe insists that allowing the Palestinian refugees to return to Israel is the only thing that could secure peace in the region.

Would you be willing to vacate your home when they return to what used to be their villages near your house in Tivon?

"After years of working with refugees around the world and attending conferences on the right of return, I believe that no such notion exists on the Palestinian side. They want to return while understanding that they will live alongside the Jews. They don't want to expel anyone. What turned me into a great lover of the Palestinians is the will of many among them to share the land with us. Even people in Hamas.

"The reason most of my friends in the territories voted for Hamas
wasn't because they didn't want to share the land with the Israelis,
but because they thought Hamas would be more effective in the struggle
against the occupation."

By using terror?

"They don't consider this to be terror. Fatah and Hamas employ the
tools of the weak, because they don't have planes or tanks.
They are as violent as the Israelis, no more or less, with only one
difference: The difference between the violence of the occupier
and the violence of those fighting occupation."

An article you wrote titled "Genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the
West Bank" was published in the Tehran Times about a month
ago. Are you providing the enemy with weapons against us?

"On the contrary, I wish to speak to the people in Iran. A Jordanian
newspaper wrote in its editorial a year ago that absurdly, I am
Israel's best ambassador in the Arab world, because they say, if such
Israelis exist, maybe there's hope for peace with the Jewish state."

Would you like your sons to serve in the army?

"It's their decision, but I preferred it if they didn't. As long as
Israel has an occupying army, a rather cruel army, I wouldn't want them
to be part of it. I don't think there is one moral person in the world
that supports what Israel stands for. And it pains me to say this. I
truly love the country, I would very much like to live in it, but I
very much dislike my state. Everything related to its policy against
the Palestinians makes me very angry."

Pappe denies being more sensitive to the suffering of Palestinians than
to that of Israelis. "I'm shocked when I see the child who lost
his leg in Sderot, and I'm shocked when I see a child killed in Gaza.
But as long as Israel maintains its stance that the Palestinian issue
can be resolved by force, the Palestinian side will respond with force.

"Once we realize that the only way is to relinquish some of our holy
ideas, and once the Palestinians give up the idea of nationalism,
and once they realize that there needs to be one state here that isn't
Jewish nor Palestinian, but a state of all its citizens, like the US,
we will have peace."

Rachel Corrie play debuts in Israel

2008-03-15T03:41:00.000-07:00

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem, The Guardian, March 15, 2008
· Work based on writings of US activist killed in Gaza
· Mixed audiences to see Palestinian interpretation

A play about the US activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed at the age of 23 by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, will be performed for the first time in Israel tomorrow, on the fifth anniversary of her death.

The single-actor play My Name is Rachel Corrie will be performed in Arabic in Haifa, northern Israel, before touring the country and the occupied West Bank.

The play is based on Corrie's diaries and emails edited by the actor Alan Rickman and the Guardian journalist Katharine Viner. It has been translated into Arabic and adapted by the director Riad Masarwi and the actor Lana Zreik, who most recently appeared in the film Lemon Tree, which won the audience award at last month's Berlin Film Festival.

Born in Olympia, Washington, Corrie left a liberal, comfortable life in the US to act as a human shield in the Gaza Strip at a time of intense conflict between the Israeli military and the Palestinians. She wrote about the extraordinary situation she found herself in and the challenges she embraced. She told a reporter: "I feel like I'm witnessing the systematic destruction of a people's ability to survive."
On the day she died, Corrie, dressed in a fluorescent orange vest, was trying to stop the demolition of the home of a Palestinian in Rafah. She was crushed under a military bulldozer and died shortly afterwards. A month later, the military said an investigation found that Israeli troops were not to blame and accused her and the activist group she was with, the International Solidarity Movement, of "illegal, irresponsible and dangerous" behaviour.

Last September, a US federal appeals court ruled that her parents, Craig and Cindy, and four Palestinian families who lost relatives in similar incidents could not sue Caterpillar, the firm that supplied bulldozers to the Israeli military.

Masarwi and Zreik, who are Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, spent more than two months translating My Name is Rachel Corrie into Arabic before they began working on the production.

"We tried to focus more on the human point of view that Rachel tried to talk about," said Zreik. "She could have been in Bosnia or Rwanda or any other place but it was fate that brought her here.

"This will be unique because it is a different Rachel Corrie, it is a Palestinian interpretation. I think her family and the creators, and the public themselves, will feel the difference. It won't be like a production in London or New York because we are so connected to the events here."

The play will be performed before mixed audiences of Palestinians and Jewish Israelis and may at a future stage have Hebrew subtitles.

Masarwi, who sought out the rights to bring the play to that audience, said the greatest challenge was drawing drama and action from the words of her diaries.

"What made Rachel, an American girl, come to Gaza and die here? Why? That is the question," he said. "And at the same time the audience must ask themselves what are they doing now? Not only what are they doing for the Palestinians but what are they doing in their lives?"

Al Jazeera English: Jerusalem's new housing plans

2008-03-15T02:54:00.000-07:00

March 12, 2008
Jerusalem remains a bone of contention between Israelis and Palestinians.

Now, new moves to consolidate the Jewish presence there are increasing tensions.

For the first time since 1967, Jewish owned buildings and properties in the Old City are being officially registered by the state.

Two-state dreamers

2008-03-15T02:31:00.002-07:00

Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 14 March 2008
If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most intractable, much the same can be said of the parallel debate about whether its resolution can best be achieved by a single state embracing the two peoples living there or by a division of the land into two separate states, one for Jews and the other for Palestinians.

The central argument of the two-staters is that the one-state idea is impractical and therefore worthless of consideration. Their rallying cry is that it is at least possible to imagine a consensus emerging behind two states, whereas Israelis will never accept a single state. Thus, the one-state crowd are painted as inveterate dreamers and time-wasters.

This argument is advanced by Israel's only serious peace group, Gush Shalom. Here is the view of the group's indefatigable leader, Uri Avnery: "After 120 years of conflict, after a fifth generation was born into this conflict on both sides, to move from total war to total peace in a single joint state, with a total renunciation of national independence? This is total illusion."

Avnery's high-profile opposition to a single state has inspired many in the international solidarity groups to adopt the same position. They have been joined by an influential American intellectual, the philosopher Michael Neumann, who wrote the no-holds-barred book The Case against Israel. He appears to be waging a campaign to discredit the one-state idea too.

Recently in defense of two states, he wrote: "That Israel would concede a single state is laughable. ... There is no chance at all [Israelis] will accept a single state that gives the Palestinians anything remotely like their rights."

Unlike the one-state solution, according to Neumann and Avnery, the means to realizing two states are within our grasp: the removal of the half a million Jewish settlers living in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Both believe that, were Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, it would be possible to create two real states. "A two-state solution will, indeed, leave Palestinians with a sovereign state, because that's what a two-state solution means," argues Neumann. "It doesn't mean one state and another non-state, and no Palestinian proponent of a two-state solution will settle for less than sovereignty."

There is something surprisingly naive about arguing that, just because something is called a two-state solution, it will necessarily result in two sovereign states. What are the minimum requirements for a state to qualify as sovereign, and who decides?

True, the various two-state solutions proposed by Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and George Bush, and supported by most of the international community, would fail according to the two-staters' chief criterion: these divisions are not premised on the removal of all the settlers.

But an alternative two-state solution requiring Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders might still not concede, for example, a Palestinian army -- equipped and trained by Iran -- to guard the borders of the West Bank and Gaza. Would that count? And how likely do the campaigners for two real states think it that Israel and the US would grant that kind of sovereignty to a Palestine state?

Importantly, Neumann and Avnery remind us that those with power are the ones who dictate solutions. In which case we can be sure that, when the time is right, Israel and its sponsor, the United States, will impose their own version of the two-state solution and that it will be far from the genuine article advocated by the two-state camp.

But let us return to the main argument: that the creation of two states is inherently more achievable and practical than the establishment of a single state. Strangely, however, from all the available evidence, this is not how it looks to Israel's current leaders.

Prime minister Ehud Olmert, for example, has expressed in several speeches the fear that, should the Palestinian population under Israeli rule -- both in the occupied territories and inside Israel proper -- reach the point where it outnumbers the Jewish population, as demographers project will be the case in the next few years, Israel will be compared to apartheid South Africa. In his words, Israel is facing an imminent and powerful "struggle for one-man-one-vote" along the lines of the anti-apartheid movement.

According to Olmert, without evasive action, political logic is drifting inexorably toward the creation of one state in Israel and Palestine. This was his sentiment as he addressed delegates to the recent Herzliya conference: "Once we were afraid of the possibility that the reality in Israel would force a bi-national state on us. In 1948, the obstinate policy of all the Arabs, the anti-Israel fanaticism and our strength and the leadership of David Ben-Gurion saved us from such a state. For 60 years, we fought with unparalleled courage in order to avoid living in a reality of bi-nationalism, and in order to ensure that Israel exists as a Jewish and democratic state with a solid Jewish majority. We must act to this end and understand that such a [bi-national] reality is being created, and in a very short while it will be beyond our control."

Olmert's energies are therefore consumed with finding an alternative political program that can be sold to the rest of the world. That is the reason he, and Sharon before him, began talking about a Palestinian state. Strangely, however, neither took up the offer of the ideal two-state solution -- the kind Avnery and Neumann want -- made in 2002. Then Saudi Arabia and the rest Arab world promised Israel peace in return for its withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders. They repeated their offer last year and Israel has steadfastly ignored them.

Instead, an alternative version of two states -- the bogus two-state solution -- has become the default position of Israeli politics. It requires only that Israel and the Palestinians appear to divide the land, while in truth the occupation continues and Jewish sovereignty over all of historic Palestine is not only maintained but rubber-stamped by the international community. In other words, the Gazafication of the West Bank.

When Olmert warns that without two states "Israel is finished," he is thinking primarily about how to stop the emergence of a single state. So, if the real two-state camp is to be believed, Olmert is a dreamer too, because he fears that a one-state solution is not only achievable but dangerously close at hand. Sharon, it seems, suffered from the same delusion, given that demography was the main impulse for his disengaging from Gaza.

Or maybe both of them understood rather better than Neumann and Avnery what is meant by a Jewish state, and what political conditions are incompatible with it.

In fact, the division of the land demanded by the real two-staters, however equitable, would be the very moment when the struggle for Israel to remain a Jewish state would enter its most critical and difficult phase. This is precisely why Israel has blocked any meaningful division of the land so far and will continue to do so.

In the unimaginable event that Israel did divide the land, a Jewish state would not be able to live with the consequences of such a division for long. Eventually, the maintenance of an ethnic Israeli state would (and will) prove unsustainable: environmentally, demographically and ultimately physically. Division of the land simply "fast-forwards" the self-destructiveness inherent in a Jewish state.

Let us examine just a few of the consequences for the Jewish state of a genuine two-state solution.

First, Israel inside its recognized, shrunken borders would face an immediate and very serious water shortage. That is because, in returning the West Bank to the Palestinians, Israel would lose control of the large mountain aquifers that currently supply most of its water, not only to Israel proper but also to the Jewish settlers living illegally in the occupied territories. Israel would no longer be able to steal the water, but would be expected to negotiate for it on the open market.

Given the politics of water in the Middle East that would not be a trivial matter. However impoverished the new sovereign Palestinian state were to be, it would lose all legitimacy in the eyes of its own population were it to sell more than a trickle of water to the Israelis.

We can understand why by examining the current water situation. At the moment Israel drains off almost all of the water provided by the rivers and aquifers inside Israel and in the occupied territories for use by its own population, allowing each Palestinian far less than the minimum amount he or she requires each day, according to the World Health Organization.

In a stark warning last month, Israel's Water Authority reported that over-drilling has polluted with sea water most of the supply from the coastal aquifer -- that is the main fresh water source inside Israel's recognized borders.

Were Palestinians to be allowed a proper water ration from their own mountain aquifer, as well as to build a modern economy, there would not be enough left over to satisfy Israel's first-world thirst. And that is before we consider the extra demand on water resources from all those Palestinians who choose to realize their right to return, not to their homes in Israel, but to the new sovereign Palestinian state.

In addition, for reasons that we will come to, the sovereign Jewish state would have every reason to continue its Judaization policies, trying to attract as many Jews from the rest of the world as possible, thereby further straining the region's water resources.

The environmental unsustainability of both states seeking to absorb large populations would inevitably result in a regional water crisis. In addition, should Israeli Jews, sensing water shortages, start to leave in significant numbers, Israel would have an even more pressing reason to locate water, by fair means or foul.

It can be expected that in a short time Israel, with the fourth most powerful army in the world, would seek to manufacture reasons for war against its weaker neighbors, particularly the Palestinians but possibly also Lebanon, in a bid to steal their water.

Water shortages would, of course, be a problem facing a single state too. But, at least in one state there would be mechanisms in place to reduce such tensions, to manage population growth and economic development, and to divide water resources equitably.

Second, with the labor-intensive occupation at an end, much of the Jewish state's huge citizen army would become surplus to defense requirements. In addition to the massive social and economic disruptions, the dismantling of the country's military complex would fundamentally change Israel's role in the region, damage its relationship with the only global superpower and sever its financial ties to Diaspora Jews.

Israel would no longer have the laboratories of the occupied territories for testing its military hardware, its battlefield strategies and its booming surveillance and crowd control industries. If Israel chose to fight the Palestinians, it would have to do so in a proper war, even if one between very unequal sides. Doubtless the Palestinians, like Hizballah, would quickly find regional sponsors to arm and train their army or militias.

The experience and reputation Israel has acquired -- at least among the US military -- in running an occupation and devising new and supposedly sophisticated ways to control the "Arab mind" would rapidly be lost, and with it Israel's usefulness to the US in managing its own long-term occupation of Iraq.

Also, Israel's vital strategic alliance with the US in dividing the Arab world, over the issue of the occupation and by signing peace treaties with some states and living in a state of permanent war with others, would start to unravel.

With the waning of Israel's special relationship with Washington and the influence of its lobby groups, as well as the loss of billions of dollars in annual subsidies, the Jewish Diaspora would begin to lose interest in Israel. Its money and power ebbing away, Israel might eventually slip into Middle Eastern anonymity, another Jordan. In such circumstances it would rapidly see a large exodus of privileged Ashkenazi Jews, many of whom hold second passports.

Third, the Jewish state would not be as Jewish as some might think: currently one in five Israelis is not Jewish but Palestinian. Although in order to realize a real two-state vision all the Jewish settlers would probably need to leave the occupied territories and return to Israel, what would be done with the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship?

These Palestinians have been citizens for six decades and live legally on land that has belonged to their families for many generations. They are also growing in number at a rate faster than the Jewish population, the reason they are popularly referred to in Israel as a "demographic time-bomb."

Were these 1.3 million citizens to be removed from Israel by force under a two-state arrangement, it would be a violation of international law by a democratic state on a scale unprecedented in the modern era, and an act of ethnic cleansing even larger than the 1948 war that established Israel. The question would be: why even bother advocating two states if it has to be achieved on such appalling terms?

Assuming instead that the new Jewish state is supposed to maintain, as Israel currently does, the pretense of being democratic, these citizens would be entitled to continue living on their land and exercising their rights. Inside a Jewish state that had officially ended its conflict with the Palestinians, demands would grow from Palestinian citizens for equal rights and an end to their second-class status.

Most importantly, they would insist on two rights that challenge the very basis of a Jewish state. They would expect the right, backed by international law, to be able to marry Palestinians from outside Israel and bring them to live with them. And they would want a Right of Return for their exiled relatives on a similar basis to the Law of Return for Jews.

Israel's Jewishness would be at stake, even more so than it is today from its Palestinian minority. It can be assumed that Israel's leaders would react with great ferocity to protect the state's Jewishness. Eventually Israel's democratic pretensions would have to be jettisoned and the full-scale ethnic cleansing of Palestinian citizens implemented.

Still, do these arguments against the genuine two-state arrangement win the day for the one-state solution? Would Israel's leaders not put up an equally vicious fight to protect their ethnic privileges by preventing, as they are doing now, the emergence of a single state?

Yes, they would and they will. But that misses my point. As long as Israel is an ethnic state, it will be forced to deepen the occupation and intensify its ethnic cleansing policies to prevent the emergence of genuine Palestinian political influence -- for the reasons I cite above and for many others I don't. In truth, both a one-state and a genuine two-state arrangement are impossible given Israel's determination to remain a Jewish state.

The obstacle to a solution, then, is not about dividing the land but about Zionism itself, the ideology of ethnic supremacy that is the current orthodoxy in Israel. As long as Israel is a Zionist state, its leaders will allow neither one state nor two real states.

The solution, therefore, reduces to the question of how to defeat Zionism. It just so happens that the best way this can be achieved is by confronting the illusions of the two-state dreamers and explaining why Israel is in permanent bad faith about seeking peace.

In other words, if we stopped distracting ourselves with the Holy Grail of the two-state solution, we might channel our energies into something more useful: discrediting Israel as a Jewish state, and the ideology of Zionism that upholds it. Eventually the respectable facade of Zionism might crumble.

Without Zionism, the obstacle to creating either one or two states will finally be removed. And if that is the case, then why not also campaign for the solution that will best bring justice to both Israelis and Palestinians?

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His new book, Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East is published by Pluto Press. His website is http://www.jkcook.net/

Blinkers off for the other side of story

2008-03-15T02:31:00.001-07:00

Alan Ramsey, Sydney Morning Herald, March 15, 2008
At 11.58am on Wednesday one half of the Australian Parliament "celebrated" the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel. More than a third of that one-half was absent, whatever their reasons. A number of MPs deliberately excluded themselves. Labor's Kevin Rudd, as the host, did not. He spoke for eight minutes. "Celebrate" was the word Rudd used to begin his remarks. "Congratulations" was the word he used to end them. The Liberals' Brendan Nelson spoke for seven minutes in supporting the Prime Minister. He concluded: "Shabat shalom forever."

Nobody else spoke. The whole affair, carefully orchestrated, carefully bi-partisan, lasted just 15 minutes. The press gallery was almost empty.

So, too, were the two public galleries. About 100 invited guests, each wearing a security pass, filled the first three rows of the Speaker's gallery upstairs and spilled into the fourth. These were the people who, after Rudd's seven-part, 191-word motion had been "put and passed" without a vote, applauded enthusiastically. The only other person who spoke - or attempted to - was a middle-aged woman.

She got to her feet, in the seats behind the VIP guests, and held up a T-shirt, exclaiming, "What about UN resolution 242?", as Rudd had begun speaking. Two attendants moved in quickly. Taking her by the arm, they escorted the woman outside, without fuss. Unlike what is still happening in Israel's military occupation, after 41 years, of the Palestinian people of the West Bank and its siege of the Gaza strip, it was a very civilised eviction.

On this day, in the Australian Parliament, normal legislative business resumed at 12.13pm. The VIP guests upstairs in the Speaker's gallery filed out. Most of the MPs downstairs drifted away to their offices. At 4pm the Israeli ambassador hosted a reception in the Parliament's second-floor Mural Hall for invited guests only. Rudd and Nelson reappeared, as suitably Uriah Heepish as their midday speeches had been.

That night, back on the floor of the House of Representatives, the woman MP who took Tim Fischer's southern NSW seat off the Nationals in 2001 and, in two elections, turned it into safe Liberal territory, did an extremely courageous thing.

Her name is Sussan Penelope Ley.

She is the daughter of a British colonial police officer who served in British-mandated Palestine in the 1930s, before the United Nations ceded half of it to become a Jewish state in May 1948. Born in Nigeria in 1961, Ley spent most of the first 13 years of her life in what was then the Trucial States, later the United Arab Emirates. Her family migrated to Australia in 1974. She has lived here ever since, working as an air traffic controller, a commercial pilot, a shearer's cook, a farmer, and a senior taxation department official. She has a bunch of degrees, three children and is now a member of the Nelson shadow ministry.

What Sussan Ley did in Parliament on Wednesday night was speak for the Palestinian people. She was the only MP who did. In fact, the only MHR of the House's 150, apart from the two leaders, to even raise the issue.

When Rudd and Nelson had spoken at midday I counted 53 Government MPs present, including six ministers, and 39 Coalition MPs. When Ley got the call 7½ hours later, at 7.38pm, to speak on the adjournment, there were five people in the public gallery, four Labor MPs and two Coalition MPs in the chamber, and one journalist in the press gallery. She was the fourth-last speaker before Parliament shut down for the day, after 11 hours, and she was allowed five minutes.

Here is an edited version of what she said:

"Today the Parliament passed a motion honouring Israel's 60 years. My purpose tonight is not to diminish Israel's achievements but to note the interests and legitimate aspirations of the people of Palestine.

"Israel has many friends in this country and in this Parliament. The Palestinians, by comparison, have few. Theirs is not a popular cause. But it is one I support, in part out of knowledge that the victors of World War II, including Australia, wrote a 'homeland' cheque to cover the sins of the holocaust and centuries of anti-Semitism in Europe, but it was the Palestinians who had to cash it.

"Israel has much to celebrate after 60 years. It has built a modern, accomplished and intelligent society, one whose scientific and technological expertise offers a great deal to the world. It has a robust democracy, a free press, a secular state with freedom of faith, and an unfettered opposition, regrettably rare in the Middle East. If there were peace between Israelis and Palestinians, one can only imagine the achievements of these two cultures today.

"Israel's 40-year occupation of the Palestinian territories, its continued expansion of [illegal Israeli] settlements [on Palestinian land] and its refusal to allow the return of expelled refugees have caused deep resentment in the Arab world. Palestinian corruption in government and failure to abandon violence against civilians as a political tool have meant Israel does not feel secure behind secure borders. Sixty years have seen a great deal of bloodshed - Arab, Israeli and others, including 34 US soldiers killed by Israeli forces on the USS Liberty during the 1967 war. I do not find it helpful to engage in a forensic apportionment of blame; each side has legitimate grievances.

"The current blockade of Gaza, confiscation of Palestinian land, and the expansion of settlements must be mentioned in the context of today's motion. Gaza is besieged, contained and on the brink of starvation. Rockets are fired into Israel every day, and Israel has a right to self-defence, but the crushing economic embargo feeds fury and resentment both in Gaza and the West Bank. [A total] 2679 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli [military] forces in the Gaza Strip since September 2000, [while] an Israeli human rights organisation reported 1259 of those were not participating in hostilities when they were killed, and 567 were minors …

"We ought not be naive or simplistic about the challenge faced by the Israelis in moving towards peace with a [popularly elected] counterpart, in Hamas, that is funded and supported by a foreign power [Syria] and which retains an explicit commitment to [terrorism] as a political instrument. But may I remind the House of the example of the Northern Ireland peace process [which succeeded] after a more than 40-year struggle.

"There are signs the Israeli people are developing a renewed hunger for peace. A recent Tel Aviv University poll indicates 64 per cent of Israelis believe the [Israeli] Government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza towards a ceasefire. Military occupation, blockades and hostility against civilians in the name of security will result in [more] violence and terror. We must think what we can do [for] ordinary Israelis and Palestinians to give them some faith in the peace process …

"We are the leaders of our generation. We are accountable for results. If the principal protagonists and the rest of the world community hand Palestine on to the next generation as a twisted mess of grievance, hatred and retribution, then we have failed. The last two generations of leaders have failed to produce peace. Let us renew our efforts."

Unlike earlier in the day, nobody applauded - though I wished I could have. Many Australians, too, had they been present, surely would have wanted to acknowledge such a speech of such honesty and sensibility, about the Israelis as much as it was about the Palestinians. Ley put the grovelling Rudd and Nelson to shame. The truth is there is no real debate in this country about the travesty of what is happening in the Middle East, and there are those in the community who, with their money and influence, do all they can to ensure no such open debate occurs, either in the national Parliament, in the media or anywhere else.

So why was the Rudd Government, in its first four months of office, doing what no Australian government or parliament had done, to acknowledge any of the decades of Israeli statehood since the Six-Day War in 1967 saw the Israeli military occupy the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza and ignore 40 years of mutual violence and barbarity as well as 40 years of United Nations resolutions, to withdraw?

The Howard government did not "honour" Israel's 50th anniversary in 1998, nor the Hawke government the 40th anniversary in 1988, nor the Fraser government the 30th anniversary in 1978. Why the 60th in 2008 the instant a Labor Government comes to power?

When the Labor caucus met on Tuesday, as it does every week the Parliament sits, Sydney's Julia Irwin asked Rudd this very question.

Why? Irwin never takes a backward step in her defence of Palestinian rights, but all she got from Rudd this time was waffle. He did not explicitly respond as to why 60 might be different from earlier decades when the Parliament had done nothing and neither had earlier governments. And no Labor MP supported Irwin in pushing it.

She was a lone voice in the Labor caucus as Sussan Ley was in the Parliament. How's that for political ticker?

Leaders vie to ladle on the gush
When our Prime Minister spoke in the Parliament this week before a select audience of 100 VIP guests, including the Israeli ambassador, he was speaking to a 191-word proposal he had drafted, in consultation with a range of people, which read:

"That the House [of Representatives]

"(1) celebrate and commend the achievements of the state of Israel in the 60 years since its inception;

"(2) remember with pride and honour the important role which Australia played in the establishment of the state of Israel as both a member state of the United Nations and as an influential voice in the introduction of Resolution 181 which facilitated Israel's statehood [in 1948], and as the country which proudly became the first to cast a vote in support of Israel's creation;

"(3) acknowledge the unique relationship which exists between Australia and Israel, a bond highlighted by our commitment to the rights and liberty of our citizens and encouragement of cultural diversity;

"(4) commend the state of Israel's commitment to democracy, the rule of law and pluralism;

"(5) reiterate Australia's commitment to Israel's right to exist and our ongoing support to the peaceful establishment of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue;

"(6) reiterate Australia's commitment to the pursuit of peace and stability throughout the Middle East; and

"(7) on this, the 60th anniversary of independence of the state of Israel, pledge our friendship, commitment and enduring support to the people of Israel as we celebrate this important occasion together."

Make of this splendid piece of mutual back scratching what you will, but know that the supposed virtue of Australia "proudly" becoming "the first to cast a vote in support of Israel's creation" at the United Nations in 1948 is sophistry. We were the first for no other reason than, in voting by alphabetical order, Australia was the first country to vote.

Some excerpts from the speeches of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in support of the bipartisan motion make the point that when politicians seek to trowel on the gush, Australia loses nothing now that Rudd and Nelson have replaced Howard and Beazley.

Rudd: "… The 60 years since the establishment of Israel have been full of challenges and full of trials. Similarly, the process for the emergence of a Palestinian state has come along a tortuous path. There has been too much bloodshed. But over those 60 years there has also been cause for hope.

"We think today of prime minister Menachem Begin standing with Jimmy Carter and Egypt's Anwar Sadat at the White House on March 26, 1979 at the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty that followed the Camp David accords. Prime minister Begin used both the Hebrew and Arabic words for peace when he urged: 'No more war, no more bloodshed, no more bereavement. Peace unto you. Shalom, salaam, forever.' "

Nelson: "In a region of the world that is characterised more by theocracies and autocracies, the state of Israel is the custodian of the most fragile yet powerful of human emotions, and that is hopeful belief in the freedom of man, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly. There are many things for which Israel stands and which characterise the modern state of Israel, but included among them is the celebration of knowledge for its own sake and knowledge as the driver of economic development and emancipation from human poverty…

"Israel, like all democracies, is far from perfect, but it is, in every sense of the word, on the front line of the struggle for the things that we hold dear, not only as Australians and free people but as human beings. And it is far too frequently on the front line of the struggle against all the things repugnant to universal human ideals …

"Israel is home to many things that are spiritual, but it is home in the end to the human spirit of resilience, of confidence, of determination and of respect for one another, irrespective of political, religious or other affiliations … No Australian who believes in the dignity of man, in freedom and in democratic principles should ever, through neglectful indifference, allow Israel to be a stranger. To do so would be to diminish ourselves and our own true security …"

How can you top that lot?

Life goes on in Bethlehem in spite of the wall

2008-03-15T02:16:00.000-07:00

A small montage of the lives of Bethlehemites
"Al-Kull" Channel - March 15, 2008

At-Tuwani - Israeli Soldiers and Border Police Assault Palestinian Shepherds

2008-03-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cpthebron/message/1084

14 March 2008

While Palestinian shepherds grazed their sheep and worked in their olive groves in Khoruba valley, near the Palestinian village of At-Tuwani, Israeli police threatened them with arrest and assaulted them. A border police officer twisted the wrist of one shepherd and pushed him to the ground. Police grabbed another by his collar and pushed several other Palestinians. Palestinians were attempting to graze their sheep and repair olives trees damaged by Israeli settlers over the last month. Police also pushed and assaulted international volunteers accompanying the Palestinians, threatening them with arrest. No one was seriously injured.

Around 10 am, two border police jeeps, two army jeeps, and an Israeli civilian police vehicle arrived and spoke with Israeli settlers from the Havot Ma'on settlement outpost. When international volunteers approached the police and invited them to observe the damaged olive trees, an officer of the District Coordinating Office [a branch of the Israeli military that deals with civilian affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories] told them that the area was a closed military zone.

Police threatened to arrest two shepherds and assaulted two more. Police also threatened to arrest international volunteers and shoved and grabbed them as they attempted to leave the area. Police stomped on the feet of five internationals, calling one of them a whore, and twisted the wrists of two volunteers in an attempt to grab their video cameras. They also pushed another international into a rock.

Palestinians and international volunteers left the area and proceeded to the grove of olive trees where the village men prayed. Over the past month, Palestinians have found broken branches on a total of twelve trees. They believe that Israeli settlers are responsible for the damage, as settlers have destroyed trees in the past.

-----------------------------

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical initiative to support violence reduction efforts around the world. To learn more about CPT's peacemaking work, visit our website www.cpt.org Photos of our projects are at www.cpt.org/gallery

A map of the center of Hebron is at http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/fullMaps_Sa.nsf/0/5618737E38C0B3DE8525708C004BA584/$File/ocha_OTS_hebron_oPt010805.pdf?OpenElement

The same map is the last page of this report on closures in Hebron:
www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/ochaHU0705_En.pdf

PM snubbed from all sides over Israeli motion

2008-03-14T04:24:00.005-07:00

13 Mar 2008 MURPHY, Katherine
Praise for Israel draws MPs snub
THE AGE (Read it Here)

13 Mar 2008 EDITORIAL
PM snubbed from all sides over Israeli motion
THE CANBERRA TIMES (Read it Here)

12 Mar 2008
Lib MP speaks up for Palestinians
THE AUSTRALIAN (Read it Here)

12 Mar 2008
PM marks Israeli anniversary
THE AGE (Read it Here)

12 Mar 2008 JENKINS, Melissa
Israel protester ejected from parliament
THE AUSTRALIAN (Read it Here)

12 Mar 2008 EDITORIAL
Bipartisan support for state of Israel
THE AUSTRALIAN (Read it Here)

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Australians for Palestine

Full Text of the Australian Prime Minister's Motion on Israel

2008-03-14T04:24:00.003-07:00

WOMEN FOR PALESTINE / AUSTRALIANS FOR PALESTINE
13 March 2008

Attached is the full text of the motion put forward by the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and also the Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson's statement seconding it, in the Australian Parliament on 12 March 2008.

Both their statements warrant letters pointing out the inappropriateness of even putting such a motion forward. No one could imagine from these statements that Israel is brutally oppressing the Palestinians under its occupation or that Palestinian citizens of Israel are living there as second class citizens.

What a shameful day for Australia!

=========================

60th ANNIVERSARY OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
House of Representatives

Australian Parliament
12 March 2008
Mr RUDD (Griffith—Prime Minister) (11.58 am)—
by leave—I move:
That the House:

(1) celebrate and commend the achievements of the State of
Israel in the 60 years since its inception;

(2) remember with pride and honour the important role which
Australia played in the establishment of the State of Israel as both a
member state of the United Nations and as an influential voice in the
introduction of Resolution 181 which facilitated Israel’s statehood,
and as the country which proudly became the first to cast a vote in
support of Israel’s creation;

(3) acknowledge the unique relationship which exists between
Australia and Israel; a bond highlighted by our commitment to the
rights and liberty of our citizens and encouragement of cultural
diversity;

(4) commend the State of Israel’s commitment to democracy, the Rule of Law and pluralism;

(5) reiterate Australia’s commitment to Israel’s right to exist and our
ongoing support to the peaceful establishment of a two-state solution
to the Israeli-Palestinian issue;

(6) reiterate Australia’s commitment to the pursuit of peace and
stability throughout the Middle East;

(7) on this, the 60th Anniversary of Independence of the State of
Israel, pledge our friendship, commitment and enduring support to
the people of Israel as we celebrate this important occasion together.

Today the parliament of Australia notes the occasion of this year,
being the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel.

The story of the establishment of the state of Israel begins with the
unimaginable tragedy of the Holocaust. At the Holocaust memorial
at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem the words of the Australian delegate to
the 1938 Evian Conference are recorded. He said that Australia could
not encourage refugee immigration because, ‘as we have no real
racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one’. Thankfully,
later in 1938 the Australian government took the decision to admit
15,000 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. But by the time the war
began only 6,500 had reached Australia.

By war’s end, six million Jews had been murdered. By war’s end, the
international community finally began to look again in earnest at the
question of a homeland for the Jewish people. Australia is proud to
have played a significant part in the international process that led to
the foundation of the state of Israel. Australia’s then Minister for
External Affairs, Dr Evatt, was part of the United Nations Special
Committee on Palestine, which recommended in August 1947 the
termination of the Mandate for Palestine. And he was chairman of
the Ad Hoc Committee meeting on the Palestinian Question that
proposed the partition of Palestine. He strongly believed that the
fundamental right of self-determination for the Jewish people and for
Palestinians could only be achieved by each having their own state.

The resolution that the United Nations adopted in November 1947
reflected that. It proposed the establishment of two independent
states—one Arab and one Jewish. And Australia was the first state in
the historic vote of the international community on that resolution to
cast its vote in support of the modern state of Israel. On 14 May 1948
David Ben-Gurion declared the foundation of the modern state of
Israel.

Prime Minister Ben Chifley, too, was closely involved in Australia’s
policy towards Israel. In June 1948 he reinforced Evatt’s strong
support for a two state solution when he cabled British Prime
Minister Clement Attlee and urged early recognition of Israel,
saying that:

Such [a] declaration would properly indicate willingness to agree in
principle to the recognition of the Provisional Government of Israel,
and at the same time willingness to recognise de facto the Arab
authorities in actual control of Arab Sections of Palestine.

On 29 January 1949 he announced that Australia would become one
of the first countries to recognise the new state of Israel, describing it
as ‘a force of special value in the world community’. As President of
the General Assembly ‘Doc’ Evatt then presided over the historic
May 1949 vote admitting Israel as the 59th member of the United
Nations. On 11 May 1949 the Chifley Labor government opened an
embassy in Tel Aviv. Evatt later said that, when working on the
question of Israel, he wanted to ensure that the ‘new State of Israel,
whose people had in the past done so much for humanity, would be
welcomed, not merely formally but with good heart and good
conscience’ into the international community.

The 60 years since the establishment of Israel have been full of
challenges and full of trials. Similarly, the process for the emergence
of a Palestinian state has come along a torturous path. There has been
too much bloodshed. But over those 60 years there has also been
cause for hope.

We think today of Prime Minister Menachem Begin standing with
President Jimmy Carter and Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat, at the
White House on March 26 1979 at the signing of the Israel-Egypt
Peace Treaty that followed from the Camp David Accords. Prime
Minister Begin used both the Hebrew and Arabic words for peace
when he urged: ‘No more war, no more bloodshed, no more
bereavement. Peace unto you. Shalom, salaam, forever.’ We can
think, too, of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, shaking hands with his
lifelong enemy Yasser Arafat on the lawns of the White House on
September 13 1993, saying:

We, the soldiers who have returned from battles stained with
blood; we who have seen our relatives and friends killed before our
eyes; we who have attended their funerals and cannot look in the
eyes of their parents; we who have come from a land where parents
bury their children; we who have fought against you, the
Palestinians—we say to you, in a loud and clear voice, enough of
blood and tears. Enough!

All peoples of goodwill yearn for that vision to be realised. It has
not been realised yet. To borrow again from former Yitzhak Rabin,
a man who tragically paid the ultimate price while pursuing peace
‘The risks of peace are preferable by far to the grim certainties of
war’.

We firmly believe the establishment of an independent and
economically viable Palestinian state must remain a key objective in
the Middle East peace process. This is important for the future. It was
important in the vision of 1947. It remains the vision today, just as
our objective must be for Israel to exist within secure and
internationally recognised boundaries.

Today, we in Australia support the ongoing negotiations between
Israel and the Palestinian Authority towards a final status agreement
by the end of 2008, as launched at the Annapolis Conference in

November last year. To support the establishment of a viable and
sustainable Palestinian state Australia pledged a $45 million
assistance package at the donors conference for the Palestinian
territories in Paris on 18 December. Australia remains, as we have in
the past, committed to an effective two-state solution.

Over the past 60 years Israel has preserved its robust parliamentary
democracy and has built a vibrant society and economy. If anyone
wants a dictionary definition of the term ‘robust’ they should spend
an afternoon in the Israeli Knesset. That is where you see the
definition of ‘robust’ at work. By contrast we are a pack of pussycats
in here!

Over the past 60 years governments from both sides of politics in
Australia have supported our strong relationship with Israel. That
relationship is strong and it is deep—and it will remain so. Because
we are both democracies, as democracies sometimes we will agree
and sometimes we will disagree. That is in the nature of strong
relationships. But the underlying friendship between us does not
alter.

Australia offers our congratulations to the government and people of
Israel on this the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the modern
Israeli state. We acknowledge our special history and relationship
and we look forward to its continued strength and development into
the future.

I commend this motion to the House.

Dr NELSON (Bradfield—Leader of the Opposition)
(12.06 pm)—

I rise on behalf of the alternative government to provide our very
strong support for this motion and to support the remarks on the
historical circumstances of the development of the state of Israel, the
role that Australia played in that, the relationship between our two
countries, the initiatives that are being taken by the current
Australian government and indeed those taken by the most recent
government to further the peace process between Israel and the
Palestinians.

Jewish identity over the last 100 years has been shaped by three
things. The first is anti-Semitism, which remains a virulent and
repugnant force still in far too many parts of the world and in the
dark recesses of some people’s hearts. The second is the holocaust,
which saw the systematic extermination of more than six million
Jews through the course of the Second World War. The third is the
continued threats to the very existence of the state of Israel, which is
constantly embattled and, every single day, every week and every
year, needs to struggle to defend its very existence.

In a region of the world that is characterised more by theocracies and
autocracies, the state of Israel is the custodian of the most fragile yet
powerful of human emotions, and that is hopeful belief in the
freedom of man, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom
of assembly. There are many things for which Israel stands and
which characterise the modern state of Israel, but included amongst
them is the celebration of knowledge for its own sake and knowledge
as the driver of economic development and emancipation from
human poverty. Israel also stands for personal independence, a free
parliament and an independent judiciary. It is a nation where
Christians, Baha’is, Muslims and Arabs enjoy equal rights. Israel, like
all democracies, is far from perfect, but it is, in every sense of the
word, on the front line of the struggle for the things that we hold
dear, not only as Australians and free people but as human beings.
And it is far too frequently on the front line of the struggle against all
the things that are repugnant to universal human ideals.

On 14 May 1948, the day that the British mandate expired, the Jewish
People’s Council gathered at Tel Aviv Museum and approved the
Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel. It read, in part:

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration
and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the
development of the country for the benefit of all its
inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as
envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete
equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants
irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom
of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will
safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be
faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

Israel is home to many things that are spiritual, but it is home in the
end to the human spirit of resilience, of confidence, of determination
and of respect for one another irrespective of political, religious or
other affiliations. It is a land that boasts many ancient buildings, but
its people are firmly focused on building the future. That it is difficult
to achieve a peaceful resolution to the tensions surrounding Israel’s
existence should only strengthen our resolve to reach out not only to
Israel but also to Palestinians of good heart who genuinely seek and
should achieve a two-state solution. No Australian who believes in
the dignity of man, in freedom and in democratic principles should
ever, through neglectful indifference, allow Israel to be a stranger. To
do so would be to diminish ourselves and our own true security.

To any Australian who has not done so already and who has the
privilege and the opportunity to visit Washington: I urge you to visit
the Holocaust Memorial Museum. There is a very large sign out the
front of the museum that says: ‘Never forget what you have seen
here’. There are piles of shoes that were worn by Jews exterminated,
photographs of men and women and children looking out into lives
that were never lived, and many other things to remind us of why
our relationship with Israel and our respect for the Israeli cause and
the two-state solution is so important to our own beliefs, our own
values and ultimately our own freedoms and security. Shabbat
shalom forever.

Question agreed to.
Hansard Reference
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/latesthansard/rhansard.pdf

Shadowplays

2008-03-14T04:24:00.001-07:00

Neve Gordon, The Nation: posted March 6, 2008 (March 24, 2008 issue)
Book Reviews: Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration With Zionism, 1917-1948 by Hillel Cohen;Haim Watzman, trans. Aravim Tovim by Hillel Cohen
As dawn broke on March 22, 2004, an Israeli helicopter gunship hovered over the al-Mujama al-Islami mosque in Gaza City. Suddenly, the whoosh of missile rockets was heard, and then explosions. Shouts and screams filled the streets, followed by news bites from all over the world: Hamas's spiritual and political leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, had been killed as he was leaving the mosque to return to his nearby home. About three weeks later, on April 17, Gaza's newly chosen Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, was also assassinated from the air. Rantisi had taken extra precautions to protect himself--surrounding himself with bodyguards, constantly switching hiding places and never traveling in his own car. Still, he could not escape the long arm of Israel's security services either.

Yassin and al-Rantisi are just two of the more prominent Palestinian political leaders and militants assassinated by Israel since the eruption of the second intifada in September 2000. To date, more than 400 people have been killed in similar operations. While the morality and legality of Israel's assassination policy are debated in the Israeli press, little has been said or written about the logistical dimensions of such extrajudicial executions. This is unfortunate, since seemingly mundane questions--such as how Israel manages to ascertain the exact whereabouts of people like Rantisi--can broaden our understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in unexpected and valuable ways.

Although the Israeli military does not reveal its intelligence sources, it's well-known that despite innovations in surveillance technology (a pilotless drone, for instance, aided the helicopter gunship that fired on Yassin), Palestinian collaborators are indispensable to Israel's covert operations in Gaza and the West Bank. Brig. Gen. Yair Golan, who until recently headed Israel's military forces in the West Bank, said as much at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem last year. Moreover, meticulous readers of assassination coverage in Israeli newspapers have long been able to detect the fingerprints of collaborators at the crime scene. Consider a few lines from an article about the murder of Aiman Halaweh, published on October 23, 2001, in the Israeli paper Ma'ariv: "Halaweh, 27 years old, was driving in the middle of Nablus in a new car he had received a few days earlier, when suddenly a forceful bomb detonated inside the vehicle. The car was totally ruined from the blast, while Halaweh was killed on the spot." The careful reader understands that the "new car" was the bomb and that Halaweh must have received the vehicle from a Palestinian collaborator working for Israel.

The recruitment and deployment of Palestinian collaborators is not a new phenomenon. It is a longstanding Zionist practice, almost as old as Zionism itself. Already in the early 1920s, the Zionist Executive's Arab department employed collaborators to establish the Muslim National Associations as a counterweight to the Muslim-Christian Associations, which at the time was the hub of the Palestinian national movement. During the same era the Zionist movement adopted a similar scheme, establishing a loose network of Palestinian political parties, known as the farmers' parties, to challenge and undermine Palestinian urban nationalists. In fact, Zionist institutions employed collaborators throughout the British Mandate period to advance their goals. In 1932 a collaborator relayed information about sermons given by sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam, a Palestinian militant who was killed by British troops in 1935 and is remembered by Palestinians to this day, not least because the military wing of Hamas has appropriated his name.

In his groundbreaking book Army of Shadows, Hillel Cohen, a research fellow at Hebrew University's Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, exposes this particularly nefarious side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Cohen has spent years in numerous Israeli and British archives gathering information that many would prefer to forget, and in Army of Shadows he summons his findings to document the actions of a seemingly endless number of Palestinian mukhtars (village leaders), land merchants, informers, weapons dealers, journalists, businessmen, farmers and teachers who collaborated with the Jews between 1917 and 1948. By focusing on them, Army of Shadows chronicles a tragic chapter in the people's history of Palestine, one that many Arab scholars have refrained from writing because it contradicts the dominant ethos of Palestinian national unity. Zionists have abstained from recording it as well because it undermines their claim that the Palestinians were able to unify and fight against the establishment of a Jewish state after the UN partition resolution of November 29, 1947. Cohen reveals that many Palestinians signed pacts with the Zionists during the 1948 war and that some even fought with the Jews against the Arab armies.

Collaboration is a very thorny issue, primarily because of its corrosive blend of betrayal, exploitation and deceit, so it's not surprising that Army of Shadows created a stir when the Hebrew edition was published in 2004. Both liberal Jews and Palestinians found the book difficult to digest because each group found its side portrayed in unflattering terms. Many Jewish readers were upset by Cohen's revelation that the prestate Zionist intelligence agency, Shai, and the Jewish Agency's Arab bureau exploited almost every honest Jewish and Palestinian relationship to advance narrow Zionist interests. There were, Cohen notes, many Jews who desired only friendship or good business relations with Palestinians but were eventually identified by the Shai, which used them to collect information and enlist Palestinian collaborators. The Jewish Agency even helped establish and finance Neighborly Relations Committees, which initiated mutual visits and Jewish-Palestinian projects, ranging from pest control to the sending of joint petitions to the Mandatory government. The rationale for the creation of these committees was not only to enhance coexistence but also to recruit informers.

Ezra Danin, head of the Shai's Arab department from 1940 to 1948, identified twenty-five occupations and institutions in which Jews and Palestinians mixed company, among them trucking, shipping, train and telecommunications systems, journalism, Jewish-Arab municipalities, prisons and the offices of the British Administration. He proposed that the Jews in these walks of life enlist Arab collaborators, adding that "such activity should be similar to the way the Nazis worked in Denmark, Norway, and Holland--touching on every area of life." Cohen explains that this approach was different from that of British intelligence, which allowed only political and military organizations and subversive bodies to be targeted as pools for potential informers. This revelation, besides shedding light on some of the ruthless tactics employed by the intelligence agencies, helps explain why, from Zionism's very beginnings, it was almost impossible for many Jews to develop loyal relationships with indigenous Palestinians.

Army of Shadows also disturbed Palestinian readers because it reveals for the first time the extent of Palestinian collaboration with the Jews during the Mandate period and the ensuing 1948 war. Some Palestinians were opportunists who collaborated with the Zionists to make money or advance their careers--these were primarily land brokers and people seeking administrative jobs. Others were mukhtars who wished to advance their regional or village interests or, in cases of internal competition, to solidify their leadership with the Zionists. Still others can be characterized as Palestinian patriots who simply disagreed with the dominant national leadership. Finally, there were those who had Jewish friends and did not view Zionist immigration as a catastrophe. The problem, though, as Cohen points out, is that regardless of the motivation, collaboration contributed to the fragmentation of Palestinian society at a time when its very fate was being determined.

Simultaneously, Cohen underscores the Palestinian leadership's failure to cultivate a unified national ethos. While disunity among a people is in no way unique, in this case, as Cohen shows, it was aggravated in two ways. First, a totally different and competing national movement was making claims on the same territory, and this movement knew how to profit from splits within Palestinian society in order to undermine national aspirations. Indeed, the Zionists exploited the fissures to recruit and deploy collaborators, and this ultimately served to deepen internal Palestinian discord and frustrate Palestinian nation building.

Second, and more disturbing for a Palestinian readership, Cohen stresses that instead of capitalizing on the fact that Palestinian Arabs shared a national consciousness and were divided mostly on pragmatic questions about how to achieve their goals, the dominant Palestinian group, led by Hajj Amin al-Husseini and loosely organized under the auspices of the Arab Party (established in 1935), defined all competing nationalist views and actions as treasonous. Collaborators, accordingly, were no longer just those who aided the Zionists' military efforts; they were local and regional leaders, merchants who traded with Jews, journalists who wrote in favor of the Zionist project and, most important, land dealers who helped Jewish institutions locate and purchase Palestinian land. Cohen tells us that

On a clear day in mid-May 1936, an Arab boy set out on a trip from Jerusalem. With him in his car were two Jewish girls. The boy's name was Victor Lulas. To the nationalists he was a criminal two times over. He was driving a car, in violation of the leadership's strike orders, and he had maintained his social ties with Jews. When he reached the turn in the road by the village of Abu-Ghosh, a group of young men stopped him. They dragged him out of the car, beat him, and then sent him on his way.

People like Victor Lulas were the new traitors. Without changing their ways and habits, they found themselves outside the norms of Palestinian society. Patronizing a Jewish doctor, employing a Jewish worker or being employed by a Jew--all became illegitimate. Thus, Husseini's uncompromising maximalist positions, alongside his camp's unwillingness to tolerate the views of its opponents, paradoxically ended up expanding the definition of traitor and collaborator. Simply put, many of those who continued to live as they had in the past were branded as collaborators; collaboration not only became a common occurrence but a defining aspect of Palestinian society and politics.

Army of Shadows joins a growing shelf of books about Mandatory Palestine written by the so-called Israeli New Historians, among them Benny Morris and Tom Segev. (Segev has furnished Cohen's book with a nice blurb.) Like Morris and Segev, Cohen is a positivist: a scrupulous archivist who spends hours poring over files and old newspapers in order to make sense of the past and to bring it, as it were, to light. (Cohen's fluency in Arabic gives him an important advantage over Morris and Segev.) As die-hard positivists, though, these New Historians are uninterested in theory; they refrain from examining the implications of their revelations and claims on our understanding of important concepts such as nationalism, hegemony and collaboration. There is little, if any, abstraction in their writings.

Devotion to the archives hasn't hampered Segev's storytelling talents. In One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (2000), he beautifully and masterfully interweaves remarkable anecdotes to create a gripping and irresistible tale. Yet after reading it, I find myself agreeing with Segev's thesis--that the British were more pro-Zionist than many Israelis have traditionally believed--but unsure about the proof. Segev's great narrative skills are also his Achilles' heel: the fabric of his story is too tightly woven. Where are the messy contradictions and ambiguities that characterize history? This is not the question one is left with after reading Cohen, another great storyteller, whose narratives accommodate the inconsistencies and variations that history is made of. Cohen distinguishes himself even more from Morris, who in Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999 (1999) chronicles the history of national institutions while eliding the people's history of Palestine. The significance of unearthing the people's history is that it often brings to light a story less amenable to hegemonic perceptions and existing paradigms, if only because the people talk in many voices: they contradict the dominant ethos, they resist authority, they tell the truth, they lie.

If, for instance, Morris presents the 1948 war as a conflict between Jews and Arabs, Cohen documents numerous cases of Palestinians refusing to attack Jews. This unwillingness to do battle pervaded the country. In December 1947, Cohen writes, "the inhabitants of Tulkarm refused to attack Jewish towns to their west, to the chagrin of the local Holy Jihad commander, Hasan Salameh. Sources in Ramallah reported at the same time that many were refusing to enlist, and reports from Beit Jibrin indicated that 'Abd al-Rahman al-'Azzi," the head of a very influential family, "was doing all he could to keep his region quiet. The villagers of the Bani-Hassan nahiya southwest of Jerusalem decided not to carry out military actions within their territory, and the people of al-Maliha refused a request from 'Abd al-Qader al-Husseini to attack the Jewish neighborhoods of Mekor Hayyim and Bayyit va-Gan." In these places as well as in many others mentioned in the book, Palestinians did not feel that war with the Jews would advance their interests. In some cases local Palestinian leaders were collaborators; in others, fear of the Jewish forces was the source of reluctance; and in still others it was friendship that had survived many years of national strife. "Palestinian Arab interest in fighting the Jews seems not to have been very high," Cohen concludes.

In the late 1990s, in the midst of writing Army of Shadows, Cohen stumbled on an array of documents in the Israeli State Archives that had been declassified by mistake. Whereas most of these files dealt with thieves, brothels and numerous petty crimes, some relayed sensitive information about the employment of Palestinian informers during the 1950s and '60s. Before the archivists' error was discovered and the material reclassified and sealed, Cohen managed to read and take extensive notes on thousands of files, which provided him with a unique glimpse into the clandestine techniques used to recruit and deploy Palestinian citizens as undercover agents within their own communities. Cohen revealed the guarded secrets of scores of Palestinian collaborators in the sequel to Army of Shadows, Aravim Tovim (Good Arabs), which was published in 2006 and stayed on Ha'aretz's bestseller list for thirteen weeks. Pickups filled to the brim delivered the paperback edition to Palestinian villages throughout Israel, where people waited impatiently to peruse the book. Many of them turned first to the index to see whether family members or acquaintances were implicated, making Aravim Tovim probably the only book written in Hebrew that is read backward--that is, from left to right.

Like Army of Shadows, Aravim Tovim, which covers the years 1948 to 1967, questions pervasive truths. In 1948, during what Israel calls the War of Independence and the Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or "catastrophe," the vast majority of Palestinian leaders and intelligentsia either fled or were expelled from urban centers. The relatively small percentage of Palestinians who stayed put were unorganized rural dwellers who found themselves in a new state that did not want them. They were ultimately granted citizenship but were nonetheless considered a fifth column and forced to live under the Emergency Regulations, which restricted the movement of Palestinian citizens within the Jewish state until 1966. For years, it has been a widely held assumption that the first generation of Palestinian citizens of Israel was timid, afraid to challenge the Israeli government and demand basic rights. Such is the story told in Coffins on Our Shoulders: The Experience of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel (2005), in which Dan Rabinowitz and Khawla Abu-Baker distinguish the 1948 generation of Palestinians from their grandchildren, "the stand-tall generation," which Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker describe as being assertive, confident, determined and possessed with a sense of entitlement.

But is this really the case? The same mistakenly declassified archival files that Cohen used in Army of Shadows to open a window on Palestinian collaboration also reveal the existence of ongoing Palestinian resistance to Israeli rule. I vividly recall my friend Fareed Ghanem, a Palestinian Druse from Mghar, calling to tell me that he had just finished reading Aravim Tovim and that his father, Qassem, who was a schoolteacher in the early 1960s, figures in the book. Qassem Ghanem appears in a chapter about the governmental Committees for Arab Affairs, the major objective of which was to monitor and control the Palestinian minority within Israel. Cohen quotes an Israeli memo about Qassem Ghanem's hometown. Mghar, the memo states, had been "known in the past as outstanding in its loyalty to Israel, [but] recently nationalistic activities and incitement against the government have been exposed. At the center of these activities," the memo continues, "are a group of teachers who in broad daylight oppose the government.... The village notables and collaborators stand helpless in light of these activities and are certain that if the culpable teachers were harmed a bit it would do a great deal towards pacifying the spirits in the village and restoring the calm." Cohen goes on to suggest that the Regional Committee for Arab Affairs invoked the Emergency Laws in order to fire Qassem, together with two other teachers, from the education system.

This relatively minor incident, which takes up no more than seven lines in Cohen's book, conveys a sense of the vast covert world of informers and operators, backed by government offices, responsible for fragmenting the Palestinian minority and cultivating Palestinian Arab support for the Jewish state. While many Israelis--Jews and Palestinians alike--already had a sense that these shadowplays were part of the state's history, Aravim Tovim supplies the evidence. Case after case is summoned to illustrate how collaboration permeated all aspects of Palestinian society. The schools were a major arena for spying. Students squealed on teachers, teachers informed on colleagues and principals reported on their students. Other arenas where collaborators operated included mosques, where an imam might criticize the government; cafes, where friends might discuss recent political events; and even weddings, where Palestinian nationalist songs were at times sung. Big Brother's eyes and ears were always on the alert.

Cohen's riveting chapter about the Jewish-Arab Communist Party illustrates especially well how the mechanisms of control were put to use. During the first two decades of Israel's existence, the Communists were practically the only ones to fight for egalitarian treatment of the Palestinian minority. They also led the campaign against the expropriation of Palestinian land and fought for the right of refugees to return to their villages. Cohen shows how every dirty trick in the game was used to sabotage their efforts. Collaborators were tapped not only to listen and report but also to burn down Communist clubs and offices, to violently attack Communist leaders and to sway votes in municipal councils. Aravim Tovim proves for the first time that allegations voiced by the Communists fifty years ago about the dirty tricks of the government and its agents were true.

The intelligence agencies recognized that it would be easier to control individuals than to manage a politically conscious and organized public. Therefore, they instructed their subordinates to prevent the establishment of municipal councils, sports associations, neighborhood clubs and the like, while simultaneously using an array of methods to create friction and strife among different Palestinian families, neighborhoods and villages. The objective was to create endemic distrust among the indigenous inhabitants, to monitor public opinion and to identify Palestinians who could potentially act against the state. By frightening and silencing the population, the different government agencies hoped to fabricate the Israeli-Arab, a "new Arab" whose first and only loyalty was to the Jewish state.

By chronicling the deep penetration of Israeli collaborators into all pockets of Palestinian life, Aravim Tovim ends up--perhaps necessarily--producing a people's history of Palestinian resistance within Israel, since collaboration is, after all, firmly linked to the existence of resistance. First-generation Palestinians did not keep their heads low, and through their resistance they achieved a number of things. One was their ability to hide and defend thousands of Palestinian refugees who, after the 1948 war, infiltrated back into Israel. Despite clear government injunctions to surrender such "infiltrators" and the ongoing work of hundreds if not thousands of collaborators, about 20,000 refugees, who at the time made up approximately 15 percent of the Palestinian population in Israel, managed to settle down and ultimately received citizenship.

The second achievement involved the establishment of numerous Palestinian municipal councils, despite the Committees for Arab Affairs' stated policy of crushing all efforts to establish such councils. The third has to do with Palestinian collective memory. The Israeli Ministry of Education, together with the Israeli security services, tried to undermine Palestinian nationalism by attempting to prevent the development and dissemination of a national historical narrative. School curriculums were limited to a Zionist interpretation of events, while any form of Palestinian nationalistic expression was vigorously suppressed. Yet despite all the state's efforts, Cohen shows how ongoing grassroots defiance guaranteed that the national history of the people was not erased.

Considering the prominent place of resistance in Aravim Tovim, it's not surprising that those first-generation Palestinians who participated in such activities in the 1950s and '60s are not only proud to read the book but are also insisting that the "stand-tall generation" read it too. This is one reason the book made it to the bestseller list. Another reason has to do with the fact that many Palestinians read the book as a manual for understanding the current situation in Gaza and the West Bank. In this sense too, Aravim Tovim cannot be separated from Army of Shadows. Both books describe the methods and tactics used by Israel's security agencies to penetrate, fragment and control Palestinian society through the production of profound distrust. In turn, they provide the necessary background for understanding how Israel effectively exploits existing conditions in order to recruit collaborators.

Today a request to exit the Gaza Strip to receive medical treatment, visit a dying relative or study in the West Bank or abroad is often contingent upon one's willingness to collaborate. In early January a number of patients were referred from Gaza--where they could not receive medical treatment--to Maqassed Hospital in East Jerusalem, and received permits to leave the region. At the border, though, they were interrogated by Israeli security service officers, who demanded that they become collaborators. According to Hadas Ziv of Physicians for Human Rights, Israel, those patients who refused had their travel permits annulled and were sent back home. While these patients managed to resist the temptation to collaborate, despite their medical ills, others do not. The persistence of collaboration is a result of not only the historical processes Cohen eloquently describes but also the harsh conditions under which Palestinians currently live.

How to Become an Israeli Journalist

2008-03-08T20:49:00.001-08:00

Yonatan Mendel

London Review of Books

6 March 2008

A year ago I applied for the job of Occupied Territories correspondent at Ma’ariv, an Israeli newspaper. I speak Arabic and have taught in Palestinian schools and taken part in many joint Jewish-Palestinian projects. At my interview the boss asked how I could possibly be objective. I had spent too much time with Palestinians; I was bound to be biased in their favour. I didn’t get the job. My next interview was with Walla, Israel’s most popular website. This time I did get the job and I became Walla’s Middle East correspondent. I soon understood what Tamar Liebes, the director of the Smart Institute of Communication at the Hebrew University, meant when she said: ‘Journalists and publishers see themselves as actors within the Zionist movement, not as critical outsiders.’

This is not to say that Israeli journalism is not professional. Corruption, social decay and dishonesty are pursued with commendable determination by newspapers, TV and radio. That Israelis heard exactly what former President Katsav did or didn’t do with his secretaries proves that the media are performing their watchdog role, even at the risk of causing national and international embarrassment. Ehud Olmert’s shady apartment deal, the business of Ariel Sharon’s mysterious Greek island, Binyamin Netanyahu’s secret love affair, Yitzhak Rabin’s secret American bank account: all of these are freely discussed by the Israeli media.

When it comes to ‘security’ there is no such freedom. It’s ‘us’ and ‘them’, the IDF and the ‘enemy’; military discourse, which is the only discourse allowed, trumps any other possible narrative. It’s not that Israeli journalists are following orders, or a written code: just that they’d rather think well of their security forces.

In most of the articles on the conflict two sides battle it out: the Israel Defence Forces, on the one hand, and the Palestinians, on the other. When a violent incident is reported, the IDF confirms or the army says but the Palestinians claim: ‘The Palestinians claimed that a baby was severely injured in IDF shootings.’ Is this a fib? ‘The Palestinians claim that Israeli settlers threatened them’: but who are the Palestinians? Did the entire Palestinian people, citizens of Israel, inhabitants of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, people living in refugee camps in neighbouring Arab states and those living in the diaspora make the claim? Why is it that a serious article is reporting a claim made by the Palestinians? Why is there so rarely a name, a desk, an organisation or a source of this information? Could it be because that would make it seem more reliable?

When the Palestinians aren’t making claims, their viewpoint is simply not heard. Keshev, the Centre for the Protection of Democracy in Israel, studied the way Israel’s leading television channels and newspapers covered Palestinian casualties in a given month – December 2005. They found 48 items covering the deaths of 22 Palestinians. However, in only eight of those accounts was the IDF version followed by a Palestinian reaction; in the other 40 instances the event was reported only from the point of view of the Israeli military.

Another example: in June 2006, four days after the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped from the Israeli side of the Gazan security fence, Israel, according to the Israeli media, arrested some sixty members of Hamas, of whom 30 were elected members of parliament and eight ministers in the Palestinian government. In a well-planned operation Israel captured and jailed the Palestinian minister for Jerusalem, the ministers of finance, education, religious affairs, strategic affairs, domestic affairs, housing and prisons, as well as the mayors of Bethlehem, Jenin and Qalqilya, the head of the Palestinian parliament and one quarter of its members. That these officials were taken from their beds late at night and transferred to Israeli territory probably to serve (like Gilad Shalit) as future bargaining-chips did not make this operation a kidnapping. Israel never kidnaps: it arrests.

The Israeli army never intentionally kills anyone, let alone murders them – a state of affairs any other armed organisation would be envious of. Even when a one-ton bomb is dropped onto a dense residential area in Gaza, killing one gunman and 14 innocent civilians, including nine children, it’s still not an intentional killing or murder: it is a targeted assassination. An Israeli journalist can say that IDF soldiers hit Palestinians, or killed them, or killed them by mistake, and that Palestinians were hit, or were killed or even found their death (as if they were looking for it), but murder is out of the question. The consequence, whatever words are used, has been the death at the hands of the Israeli security forces since the outbreak of the second intifada of 2087 Palestinians who had nothing to do with armed struggle.

The IDF, as depicted by the Israeli media, has another strange ability: it never initiates, decides to attack or launches an operation. The IDF simply responds. It responds to the Qassam rockets, responds to terror attacks, responds to Palestinian violence. This makes everything so much more sensible and civilised: the IDF is forced to fight, to destroy houses, to shoot Palestinians and to kill 4485 of them in seven years, but none of these events is the responsibility of the soldiers. They are facing a nasty enemy, and they respond dutifully. The fact that their actions – curfews, arrests, naval sieges, shootings and killings – are the main cause of the Palestinian reaction does not seem to interest the media. Because Palestinians cannot respond, Israeli journalists choose another verb from the lexicon that includes revenge, provoke, attack, incite, throw stones or fire Qassams.

Interviewing Abu-Qusay, the spokesman of Al-Aqsa Brigades in Gaza, in June 2007, I asked him about the rationale for firing Qassam missiles at the Israeli town of Sderot. ‘The army might respond,’ I said, not realising that I was already biased. ‘But we are responding here,’ Abu-Qusay said. ‘We are not terrorists, we do not want to kill . . . we are resisting Israel’s continual incursions into the West Bank, its attacks, its siege on our waters and its closure on our lands.’ Abu-Qusay’s words were translated into Hebrew, but Israel continued to enter the West Bank every night and Israelis did not find any harm in it. After all it was only a response.

At a time when there were many Israeli raids on Gaza I asked my colleagues the following question: ‘If an armed Palestinian crosses the border, enters Israel, drives to Tel Aviv and shoots people in the streets, he will be the terrorist and we will be the victims, right? However, if the IDF crosses the border, drives miles into Gaza, and starts shooting their gunmen, who is the terrorist and who is the defender? How come the Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories can never be engaged in self-defence, while the Israeli army is always the defender?’ My friend Shay from the graphics department clarified matters for me: ‘If you go to the Gaza Strip and shoot people, you will be a terrorist. But when the army does it that is an operation to make Israel safer. It’s the implementation of a government decision!’

Another interesting distinction between us and them came up when Hamas demanded the release of 450 of its prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit. Israel announced that it would release prisoners but not those with blood on their hands. It is always the Palestinians – never the Israelis – who have blood on their hands. This is not to say that Jews cannot kill Arabs but they will not have blood on their hands, and if they are arrested they will be released after a few years, not to mention those with blood on their hands who’ve gone on to become prime minister. And we are not only more innocent when we kill but also more susceptible when we are hurt. A regular description of a Qassam missile that hits Sderot will generally look like this: ‘A Qassam fell next to a residential house, three Israelis had slight injuries, and ten others suffered from shock.’ One should not make light of these injuries: a missile hitting a house in the middle of the night could indeed cause great shock. However, one should also remember that shock is for Jews only. Palestinians are apparently a very tough people.

The IDF, again the envy of all other armies, kills only the most important people. ‘A high-ranking member of Hamas was killed’ is almost a chorus in the Israel media. Low-ranking members of Hamas have either never been found or never been killed. Shlomi Eldar, a TV correspondent in the Gaza Strip, bravely wrote about this phenomenon in his book Eyeless in Gaza (2005). When Riyad Abu Zaid was assassinated in 2003, the Israeli press echoed the IDF announcement that the man was the head of the military wing of Hamas in Gaza. Eldar, one of Israel’s few investigative journalists, discovered that the man was merely a secretary in the movement’s prisoner club. ‘It was one of many occasions in which Israel “upgraded” a Palestinian activist,’ Eldar wrote. ‘After every assassination any minor activist is “promoted” to a major one.’

This phenomenon, in which IDF statements are directly translated into media reports – there are no checkpoints between the army and the media – is the result both of a lack of access to information and of the unwillingness of journalists to prove the army wrong or to portray soldiers as criminals. ‘The IDF is acting in Gaza’ (or in Jenin, or in Tulkarm, or in Hebron) is the expression given out by the army and embraced by the media. Why make the listeners’ lives harder? Why tell them what the soldiers do, describing the fear they create, the fact that they come with heavy vehicles and weapons and crush a city’s life, creating a greater hatred, sorrow and a desire for revenge?

Last month, as a measure against Qassam militants, Israel decided to stop Gaza’s electricity for a few hours a day. Despite the fact that this means, for instance, that electricity will fail to reach hospitals, it was said that ‘the Israeli government decided to approve this step, as another non-lethal weapon.’ Another thing the soldiers do is clearing – khisuf. In regular Hebrew, khisuf means to expose something that is hidden, but as used by the IDF it means to clear an area of potential hiding places for Palestinian gunmen. During the last intifada, Israeli D9 bulldozers destroyed thousands of Palestinian houses, uprooted thousands of trees and left behind thousands of smashed greenhouses. It is better to know that the army cleared the place than to face the reality that the army destroys Palestinians’ possessions, pride and hope.

Another useful word is crowning (keter), a euphemism for a siege in which anyone who leaves his house risks being shot at. War zones are places where Palestinians can be killed even if they are children who don’t know they’ve entered a war zone. Palestinian children, by the way, tend to be upgraded to Palestinian teenagers, especially when they are accidentally killed. More examples: isolated Israeli outposts in the West Bank are called illegal outposts, perhaps in contrast to Israeli settlements that are apparently legal. Administrative detention means jailing people who haven’t been put on trial or even formally charged (in April 2003 there were 1119 Palestinians in this situation). The PLO (Ashaf) is always referred to by its acronym and never by its full name: Palestine is a word that is almost never used – there is a Palestinian president but no president of Palestine.

‘A society in crisis forges a new vocabulary for itself,’ David Grossman wrote in The Yellow Wind, ‘and gradually, a new language emerges whose words . . . no longer describe reality, but attempt, instead, to conceal it.’ This ‘new language’ was adopted voluntarily by the media, but if one needs an official set of guidelines it can be found in the Nakdi Report, a paper drafted by the Israeli Broadcasting Authority. First set down in 1972 and since updated three times, the report aimed to ‘clarify some of the professional rules that govern the work of a newsperson’. The prohibition of the term East Jerusalem was one of them.

The restrictions aren’t confined to geography. On 20 May 2006, Israel’s most popular television channel, Channel 2, reported ‘another targeted assassination in Gaza, an assassination that might ease the firing of Qassams’ (up to 376 people have died in targeted assassinations, 150 of them civilians who were not the target of assassinations). Ehud Ya’ari, a well-known Israeli correspondent on Arab affairs, sat in the studio and said: ‘The man who was killed is Muhammad Dahdouh, from Islamic Jihad . . . this is part of the other war, a war to shrink the volume of Qassam activists.’ Neither Ya’ari nor the IDF spokesman bothered to report that four innocent Palestinian civilians were also killed in the operation, and three more severely injured, one a five-year-old girl called Maria, who will remain paralysed from the neck down. This ‘oversight’, revealed by the Israeli journalist Orly Vilnai, only exposed how much we do not know about what we think we know.

Interestingly, since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip one of the new ‘boo’ words in the Israeli media is Hamastan, a word that appears in the ‘hard’ news section, the allegedly sacred part of newspapers that is supposed to give the facts, free from editorialising. The same applies to movements such as Hamas or Hizbullah, which are described in Hebrew as organisations and not as political movements or parties. Intifada is never given its Arabic meaning of ‘revolt’; and Al-Quds, which when used by Palestinian politicians refers only to ‘the holy places in East Jerusalem’ or ‘East Jerusalem’, is always taken by Israeli correspondents to mean Jerusalem, which is effectively to imply a Palestinian determination to take over the entire capital city.

It was curious to watch the newspapers’ responses to the assassination of Imad Moughniyeh in Syria two weeks ago. Everyone tried to outdo everyone else over what to call him: arch-terrorist, master terrorist or the greatest terrorist on earth. It took the Israeli press a few days to stop celebrating Moughniyeh’s assassins and start doing what it should have done in the first place: ask questions about the consequences of the killing. The journalist Gideon Levy thinks it is an Israeli trend: ‘The chain of “terrorist chieftains” liquidated by Israel, from Ali Salameh and Abu Jihad through Abbas Musawi and Yihyeh Ayash to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi (all “operations” that we celebrated with great pomp and circumstance for one sweet and intoxicating moment), have thus far brought only harsh and painful revenge attacks against Israel and Jews throughout the world.’

Israeli correspondents on Arab affairs must of course speak Arabic – many of them indeed studied it in the security establishment’s schools – and they need to know the history and politics of the Middle East. And they have to be Jews. Strikingly, the Israeli-Jewish media prefer to hire journalists with average Arabic rather than native speakers, since they would be Palestinian citizens of Israel. Apparently, Jewish journalists are better equipped than Arab Israelis to explain ‘what Arabs think’, ‘Arab aims’ or ‘what Arabs say’. Maybe this is because the editors know what their audience wants to hear. Or, even more important, what the Israeli audience would rather not hear.

If the words occupation, apartheid and racism (not to mention Palestinian citizens of Israel, bantustans, ethnic cleansing and Nakba) are absent from Israeli discourse, Israeli citizens can spend their whole lives without knowing what they have been living with. Take racism (Giz’anut in Hebrew). If the Israeli parliament legislates that 13 per cent of the country’s lands can be sold only to Jews, then it is a racist parliament. If in 60 years the country has had only one Arab minister, then Israel has had racist governments. If in 60 years of demonstrations rubber bullets and live ammunition have been used only on Arab demonstrators, then Israel has a racist police. If 75 per cent of Israelis admit that they would refuse to have an Arab neighbour, then it is a racist society. By not acknowledging that Israel is a place where racism shapes relations between Jews and Arabs, Israeli Jews render themselves unable to deal with the problem or even with the reality of their own lives.

The same denial of reality is reflected in the avoidance of the term apartheid. Because of its association with white South Africa, Israelis find it very hard to use the word. This is not to say that the exact same kind of regime prevails in the Occupied Territories today, but a country needn’t have benches ‘for whites only’ in order to be an apartheid state. Apartheid, after all, means ‘separation’, and if in the Occupied Territories the settlers have one road and Palestinians need to use alternative roads or tunnels, then it is an apartheid road system. If the separation wall built on thousands of dunams of confiscated West Bank land separates people (including Palestinians on opposite sides of the wall), then it is an apartheid wall. If in the Occupied Territories there are two judicial systems, one for Jewish settlers and the other for Palestinians, then it is an apartheid justice.

And then there are the Occupied Territories themselves. Remarkably, there are no Occupied Territories in Israel. The term is occasionally used by a leftist politician or columnist, but in the hard news section it doesn’t exist. In the past they were called the Administered Territories in order to conceal the actual fact of occupation; they were then called Judea and Samaria; but in Israel’s mass media today they’re called the Territories (Ha-Shtachim). The term helps preserve the notion that the Jews are the victims, the people who act only in self-defence, the moral half of the equation, and the Palestinians are the attackers, the bad guys, the people who fight for no reason. The simplest example explains it: ‘a citizen of the Territories was caught smuggling illegal weapons.’ It might make sense for citizens of an occupied territory to try to resist the occupier, but it doesn’t make sense if they are just from the Territories.

Israeli journalists are not embedded with the security establishment; and they haven’t been asked to make their audience feel good about Israel’s military policy. The restrictions they observe are observed voluntarily, almost unconsciously – which makes their practice all the more dangerous. Yet a majority of Israelis feel that their media are too left-wing, insufficiently patriotric, not on Israel’s side. And the foreign media are worse. During the last intifada, Avraham Hirschson, then the minister of finance, demanded that CNN’s broadcasts from Israel be closed down on the grounds of ‘biased broadcasting and tendentious programmes that are nothing but a campaign of incitement against Israel’. Israeli demonstrators called for an end to ‘CNN’s unreliable and terror-provoking coverage’ in favour of Fox News. Israeli men up to the age of 50 are obliged to do one month’s reserve service every year. ‘The civilian,’ Yigael Yadin, an early Israeli chief of staff, said, ‘is a soldier on 11 months’ annual leave.’ For the Israeli media there is no leave.

Yonatan Mendel was a correspondent for the Israeli news agency Walla. He is currently at Queens’ College, Cambridge working on a PhD that studies the connection between the Arabic language and security in Israel.

Israel, "Guest Of Honour" In Paris And Turin, Does Not Deserve To Be Invited

2008-03-06T14:49:00.000-08:00

An Interview with Aharon Shabtaï
Silvia Cattori, 6 March 2008

When the announcement that Israel would attend the "Fiera del libro" of Turin, (*) came out, an immediate wave of protest arose in Italy; and many personalities supported the boycott call, made by the Palestinian, Jordanian and Egyptian Writers' Associations (**). In France, strangely enough, the same invitation, to the "Salon du livre" of Paris, did not make much noise. Alone, the Israeli poet Aharon Shabtaï has refused to participate in these events, contrary to the 39 Israeli writers who accepted to be part of the Israeli delegation to these two exhibitions. Aharon Shabtaï explains here why these events –which he qualifies as "promotion of propaganda" for Israel -, must be boycotted, as well as any cultural event where this apartheid State is celebrated.

Silvia Cattori: In December 2007, learning that your name was among 40 Israeli writers invited at the "Salon du livre" of Paris where Israel is the "guest of honour", you declared that it is not possible to participate in an event where Israel, which commits daily crimes against civilians, is invited. Apparently, 39 Israeli writers do not see any problem in participating!?

Aharon Shabtaï [1]: This event will be opened by the French president Sarkozy and the Israeli president Shimon Perès. Given this situation, going to the "Salon du livre" of Paris as a writer, with the Israeli delegation, means that you are going dressed with the colour of the Israeli flag. Every day, Israel commits war crimes and imposes collective punishments on the Palestinians. There is no reason to celebrate anything.

Israel violates all international laws. Not only the Geneva Convention. The Hague International Court of justice condemned the illegal wall that Israel has built on confiscated Palestinian land. The book event, or any other kind of exhibition in which the Israeli State is invited, is not a way to promote peace in the Middle East, and not a way to bring justice to the Palestinians, but only propaganda to give Israel an image of being a liberal and democratic society. A State which maintains an occupation and commits daily crimes against civilians does not deserve to be invited to whichever cultural week. We cannot accept to be part of that. Israel is not a democratic State but an apartheid State. We cannot support that State at all.

Silvia Cattori: So, by inviting the Israeli State to celebrate its 60 years of existence, France and the organizers of the Salon are making a big mistake?

Aharon Shabtaï: It is not a mistake! It is a policy. I think that, for Nicolas Sarkozy, it is a way to take part in the Israeli occupation. There is collaboration between the European governments and Israel. The Israeli invitation is part of it. Without the help of the United States, and now the help of France, Israel could not continue such a policy against the Palestinians. This help gives Israel the green light to go on attacking and killing the Palestinians, especially in Gaza. It is very sad to see that France, Germany, European countries -which have a history of persecution against the Jews- are taking part in the persecution of the Palestinian and Muslim peoples by Israel.

Silvia Cattori: What do you answer to those who say that we must separate culture from politics?!

Aharon Shabtaï: Why to separate? In the tradition of Europe, going back to the Greeks, writers like Voltaire, Rousseau, and Thomas Mann, always fought against oppression and for liberty. Liberal intellectuals and writers have always involved themselves in political criticism.

Silvia Cattori: So you condemn those who will participate in the Salon, like Amos Oz, Avraham B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld, David Grossman, Zeruya Shalev, Etgar Keret, Orly Castel-Bloom, and others?

Aharon Shabtaï: Yes of course! I condemn them because, in that way, they promote the Israeli propaganda and collaborate with the Israeli occupiers.

Silvia Cattori: Did you call them to join the boycott [2]?

Aharon Shabtaï: Writers like Amos Oz and David Grossmann, and others, do not want to boycott Israel! I do not expect anything from them. They are the ambassadors of Israel. They usually collaborate with the Israeli government; they are part of the Israeli propaganda. So it is very natural for them to go to any place where Israel is officially invited. They are helping the Israeli government.

Silvia Cattori: Do you consider these Israeli writers as collaborators?

Aharon Shabtaï: Yes, because these invitations are generally organised by a government who support the military occupation of the Palestinian people. I think that any intellectual, any writer has to refuse to participate in any meeting in which the anniversary of Israel is celebrated. Instead of that, they have to help the Palestinians to get their rights, their land and their water back.

What we have to do, is to fight the Israel's discriminatory acts and persecution; to have the same attitude the writers had during the struggle against the South African apartheid regime; the attitude of the radical and liberal writers like Brecht, Aragon, Breton when, during the Nazi period, they organized a Congress and tried to fight against the discrimination and persecution of the Jews.

Silvia Cattori: Is it true that the Israeli government uses the Israelis working in the field of art and literature as part of its public relations network, for its information warfare, as a way to show an attractive face of Israel?

Aharon Shabtaï: Yes, Israel's regime uses them as public relations; like when, in the Soviet Union, the Soviet writers were mobilized by the regime. So, the Israeli writers are now going to Paris like collaborators of an ugly regime, and to be part of the regime.

In such a situation, when such crimes are committed every day by Israel against the Palestinians, anybody who does not cut any link with the Israeli government -this is a matter of fact- is collaborating and doing propaganda for Israel.

Silvia Cattori: In your view, all honest and human people should boycott not only Paris and Turin exhibitions, but all "Israel at 60" celebrations? So,the only way for Israeli writers would be to have the courage to lose some privileges, to respond to the Palestinians who desperately call for a boycott and to apply to Israel the same treatment that was applied to South Africa?

Aharon Shabtaï: Yes exactly. I think that we must work for our common future with the Palestinians, and not to support the militarism of Israel. Continuing occupation and the war is a very big danger for the future of the Jews, the Israelis and our children. We can help to stop this occupation.

Silvia Cattori: One Israeli Arab writer, Sayed Kashua, has apparently accepted to go to the "Salon du livre" in Paris and Turin with the Israeli delegation!

Aharon Shabtaï: He is on the official list by Israel, like the 39 other writers. He is a good person. But, as an Israeli Arab, he is not in a comfortable position. It must be dangerous for him to boycott. He must be afraid. He might lose his work. The life of the Israeli Arabs, living in Israel, is so bad; it is very difficult for them to survive. As all the Israeli Arabs, he is considered by Israel as a second class citizen. This is not my situation. I belong to the class that dominates, I am Jew, I can boycott without any danger for myself, but an Arab has to be very careful.

Silvia Cattori: Outside of Israel also, the intellectuals, who call for the boycott against Israel, are not in an easy position!

Aharon Shabtaï: You, the Europeans, you boycott the occupied people in Palestine because they voted democratically for the Hamas government; and now you are boycotting the people of Gaza and collaborating with Israel against the Palestinian people and their government!

Gaza is a ghetto, a concentration camp! At the same time you, Europeans, are celebrating Israel without any consideration of the plight of nearly four million of Palestinians who are living in a situation similar to that of the Blacks under the apartheid regime of white South Africa.

It is difficult to find the right words to express such an absurdity. The plight of the Palestinians is even much worse than the plight of the Blacks in South Africa.

The Palestinians are starved, are bombed every day, and are killed on a large scale. The situation in Gaza, under Israeli aggressive military operations, is horrific.

When the Sarkozy government invites Israel, it knows that this will encourage Israel to go on with the occupation and its crimes against the Palestinians.

I do not think that the Europeans, with their values, can invite a State like Israel and take part in its 60 years celebrations. Paris and Turin events are purely another occasion for Israel to make propaganda and gain more support for its military occupation.

When Kosovo fought against Serbia, Europe supported Kosovo, and made war against Serbia. Serbia was the right owner of Kosovo but, in spite of that, the world fought against Serbia and bombed it. Here, it is just the opposite. Israel is sitting on an occupied territory. And you, Europeans, you are going on to help the Israeli occupiers and not the Palestinians who are suffering under the occupation? Why this double standard?

Silvia Cattori: It was so far impossible, even within the solidarity movement, to treat Israel with the same severity as the apartheid regime of South Africa. When the Swiss intellectual, Tariq Ramadan [3], simply declared that if we are coherent and respect the dignity of the human being, we must boycott this event, he was vilified and accused of stirring up "anti-Semitism". In the case of Israel, the boycott is often considered by people of Jewish religion, and by representatives of the left parties, as an "anti-Semite" act!

Aharon Shabtaï: The Jews do not want to see that nearly four million of Palestinians are living in concentration camps, in prison camps, like in Gaza.

People in Europe do not know exactly what the reality here is. It is very stupid to use the word "anti-Semite" and to call people, who call for the boycott of Israel, as being "anti-Semitic".

I was born here, I have my children here, and I am also asking for the boycott of Israel, I have the same idea. Recently, Benny Ziffer, the editor of the literary pages of Haaretz newspaper, called for the boycott of the "Salon" too.

These claims of "anti-Semitism" are propaganda claims. Until recently, Israel succeeded in Europeans being in favour of the occupation. But, after the war against Lebanon, and Gaza, European people cannot continue to support Israel. The call for the boycott has nothing to do with any racism.

Silvia Cattori: When, in British universities, it is possible to refuse to invite Israeli writers or scientists, in Continental Europe, the institutional left never gives any answer to the call of the Palestinians for a boycott.

Aharon Shabtaï: I do not know what left means when their representatives do not cut any relation with Israel. I think that many people are afraid of being accused of being "anti-Semitic". Now, the history of the Holocaust is completely falsified. There is a Holocaust industry, privatised by the Israeli propaganda; it is something disgusting.

Silvia Cattori: Do you receive support for your position?

Aharon Shabtaï: Yes I receive many letters from Europe. I know that people are concerned; they have nothing against the Jews but they are critic of Israel's brutal policy. This is something that is not mentioned by the media.

People have supported Israel for so many years! But now, from their reactions, we can see that the sentiments of grassroots people are mostly against the domination and militarism of Israel. But, in the media you cannot find it. As with the Iraq war, the media are on the side of the State which makes war. The media are pro-Israel.

Silvia Cattori

(*) Israel is guest of honour to the « Fiera internazionale del Libro » of Turin (8-12 May 2008) here and here.

(**) here.

[1] Aharon Shabtai, father of six children, he lives in Tel Aviv. He is the foremost Hebrew translator of Greek drama and the author of numerous collections of poetry. Born in 1939 in Tel Aviv, he attended the Tel Nordau School and the Educational Institute at Kibbutz Merhaviya. After his military service, he studied Greek and Philosophy at the Hebrew University, the Sorbonne, and Cambridge, and from 1972 to 1985 he taught Theater Studies in Jerusalem. He was awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for Translation in 1993. http://freshfiction.com/author.php?id=15399

[2] here, here, and here.

[3] here and here.

Gaza man assassinated and run over, baby shot in the head

2008-03-06T14:43:00.000-08:00

Report, Al Mezan, 6 March 2008
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) escalated their aggression against the population of the Gaza Strip. Following its withdrawal from north Gaza on 4 March 2008, the IOF continued air strikes yesterday. IOF penetrated the Wadi al-Salqa village in the central Gaza Strip, assassinated one man, and killed an infant less than one month old. The number of the people killed by the IOF since 28 February 2008 has reached 120, including 72 civilians. Among the civilians were six women and thirty children.

According to Al Mezan's field investigations, at approximately 7:45pm on Tuesday 4 March 2008, five IOF military vehicles and four tanks penetrated one kilometer into eastern Wadi al-Salqa village. They surrounded the home of 40-year-old Yousef Sulaiman al-Smiri, which is located by the Kisufim Road north of the village. Incidentally, 35-year-old Khalid Abu 'Aser, his wife, 30-year-old Nadia, and their 20-day-old baby, Amira, were visiting al-Smiri's family.

After the IOF besieged al-Smiri's house, the IOF opened fire at it intensively under helicopter cover. It ordered the family, through loud speakers, to leave the house. The family and their guests left the house, except for Yousef al-Smiri who fled.

According to affidavits given to Al Mezan by witnesses, the family and the guests left the house as they were instructed by the IOF. The house's outside lights were on and the IOF kept its light on them the entire time. However, the soldiers continued shooting and, consequently, the mother Nadia Abu Aser was hit by a live bullet to her left arm. Her infant daughter, Amira, was injured by a live bullet to her head. Also, the shooting injured four other residents of the house.

After the IOF withdrew from the area at approximately 10:10pm that day, the injured were transferred to Shuhda'a al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Balah town, where the death of the infant was announced. The mother was reported to have sustained moderate injury.

There is reason to believe that Yousef al-Smiri was murdered after being stopped. After he fled his house, his body was found at approximately 10:00am the next day (5 March). Believing that he escaped from the IOF, the neighbors found al-Simiri's lifeless body lying in an open area about 150 meters from his house. When the body was examined at the hospital, a live bullet was found in his chest, and his head was crushed.

The IOF arrested al-Smiri's son, 17-year-old Mu'aath, and Khalid Faraj Abu Asser. The two were released on the morning of 5 March.

An initial examination of al-Smiri's body showed that IOF killed him after he was injured and he was lying on the ground. His head was crushed as a military vehicle ran over it after he was shot. This is not the first reported incident where the IOF run over persons already injured and do not pose a threat. On 18 November 2001, the IOF committed a similar act against two naval force members: Medhat Abu Dalal and Muhammad Ibrahim.

Al Mezan Center for Human Rights condemns the IOF's continuing killings in the Gaza Strip. These acts constitute grave breaches of international humanitarian law. The Center is gravely disturbed by the fact that IOF continued to fire at civilians after ordering them to leave their house, which resulted in the deliberate killing of an infant and injuring of five other civilians.

Al Mezan demands that a serious investigation be conducted into the killings of al-Smiri and the infant without delay. The results of this investigation must be made public and those who perpetrated these crimes must be brought to justice.

Al Mezan is also highly concerned by IOF's frequent perpetration of war crimes against the civilian population of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, especially in the Gaza Strip, and under international silence. These conducts continue as Israeli official statements are inciting a "holocaust" (genocide) and the Israeli government is seriously considering wiping out residential areas. Al Mezan renews its appeal to the international community to uphold its moral and legal obligations to act urgently and effectively to stop the IOF's aggression and provide international protection for the civilian population.

Emergency Gaza demonstration - London, Parliament - 05/03/08

2008-03-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

EMERGENCY ACTION:

End Israel 's killing of Palestinians now!

Lift the siege on Gaza !

Wednesday 5 March 1-2pm Parliament Square - Emergency protest.

Called by PSC, BMI, PFB, supported by Stop the War, Association of the Palestinian Community UK and Friends of Al Aqsa.

http://www.palestinecampaign.org/

Academic freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel

2008-03-05T00:03:00.007-08:00

Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 5 March 2008
In the strange world of Israeli academia, an Arab college lecturer is being dismissed from his job because he refused to declare his "respect for the uniform of the Israeli army." The bizarre demand was made of Nizar Hassan, director of several award-winning films, after he criticized a Jewish student who arrived in his film studies class at Sapir College in the Negev for wearing his uniform and carrying a gun.

The incident raises disturbing questions about the freedom of Israeli academics, sheds light on the veneration of the military in Israeli public life, and exposes the close, verging on incestuous, ties between the army and Israeli academia.

Meanwhile, for many of Israel's 1.2 million Palestinian citizens, who are nearly a fifth of the country's population, Hassan's treatment confirms their fears that decades of discrimination, especially in higher education, are far from over.

Hassan has faced a storm of criticism, including claims that he is anti-Semitic, since the Israeli media mistakenly reported back in November that he had thrown out of class one of his students, Eyal Cohen, over the way he was dressed. Hassan and most of the students present say Cohen was simply warned not to attend class in future wearing his uniform.

The story soon gained a life of its own, becoming the subject of incensed talk shows and newspaper columns. A group of right-wing college staff and students lobbied for Hassan, the only Arab lecturer in the film school, to be dismissed, and the Knesset's Education Committee denounced him.

Critics claim, apparently without irony, that Hassan humiliated the student, abused the concept of academic freedom and impugned the reputation of the Israeli army.

Condemnation has come from surprising quarters, including the journalist Gideon Levy, better known for his articles attacking the the army's treatment of the Palestinians under occupation.

But more predictable has been outrage from the right. Last month two leaders of extremist Jewish settlers in Hebron, Baruch Marzel and Itimar Ben Gvir, announced that they had enrolled on Hassan's course. "I would love for him to ask me about my army service," said Marzel. "I can only assure you that he will be the one walking out of the classroom."

The army added its voice too, with senior officers, including the Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, putting pressure on Sapir College to publicly rebuke the filmmaker and punish him.

A letter from the head of army personnel, General Elazar Stern, accused the college of failing to act with "proper determination" and urged that Hassan face "sharp, public, official condemnation." Stern added that Hassan must be made to apologize or be sacked, otherwise the army would end its funding of places for hundreds of soldiers who attend courses at Sapir.

Most academic institutions in Israel not only depend on such funding but receive special grants and endowments for research in security-related subjects. The Israeli revisionist historian Ilan Pappe, who was forced out of Haifa University last year, estimates that half of lecturers in Israeli universities have ties to the security services.

In Sapir College's case, links to the army have been reinforced by its location in Sderot, a poor development town close to Gaza that is the target of most of the Qassam rockets fired into Israel.

Under growing pressure, the college's Academic Council suspended Hassan without offering him a hearing. It also appointed for the first time in the college's history an academic committee to investigate the incident and report on what disciplinary action should be taken.

The committee published its report late last month, conceding that he is an "outstanding teacher" but offering only a cursory examination the events at the center of the controversy. Instead the members harshly criticized Hassan's behavior and personality and recommended that he apologize to Cohen or face dismissal.

The college's president, Zeev Tzahor, intervened by contributing his own condition. He wrote to Hassan telling him that in his apology "you must refer to your obligation to be respectful to the IDF uniform and the full right of every student to enter your classroom in uniform."

Hassan refused and, according to reports last week, the college has begun proceedings to dismiss him.

"The whole reaction has been hysterical," Hassan, who lives in Nazareth, said. "It really surprised me, as did the lies that were told about what had happened."

His students say the issue has been blown out proportion and that Hassan has never hidden his opposition to militarism, wherever it exists.

Enass Masri, one of two Arab students in Hassan's film class, said: "When he saw Cohen wearing his uniform, he explained that all military uniforms -- of the Israeli army, of Fatah or of Hamas -- are symbols of violence and that he does not allow them into his classroom.

"His concerns about the blurring in Israeli society of the boundaries between the civil and military are well known."

She added that the mistaken reports about Cohen being thrown out of class may have been part of a long-standing campaign to oust Hassan from his job. He had made himself unpopular with some staff and students by speaking his mind, she said. "Some people at the college are not prepared to accept the kind of things he says from an Arab."

Sapir College calls itself "a lighthouse in the Negev," and its film school once had a reputation for encouraging dissenting social and political opinions.

In other Israeli colleges, discussion of "politics" -- a euphemism for views not officially sanctioned -- is rarely allowed.

For example, at Haifa University, which has the largest Arab student body in the country, all protests on campus are banned unless licensed by the vice-chancellor. Unofficial demonstrations, however peaceful, are broken up and usually filmed by security staff. Video evidence is used as grounds for suspending or expelling students.

Sapir's president, Tzahor, recently told the Israeli Haaretz newspaper that his motto is: "Politics -- only as far as the classroom door."

However, the college's definition of "politics" appears selective. In another recent incident at Sapir, lecturer Shlomit Tamari told a Bedouin student to remove her head-covering, telling her it was a sign of her oppression. No disciplinary action was taken against Tamari, who is unrepentant: "I told the college that I have academic freedom, and I can talk about that subject and I am continuing to do so."

Enass Masri said she was also shocked that the college committee did not question the students in Hassan's class about what took place. "We thought we would be able to put the record straight, but we were never invited to testify.

"Almost all of the students are on Hassan's side, and we wrote a letter to the college authorities in protest at his treatment."

Instead, she says, the committee interpreted the "meaning" of what happened, according to their own view of Hassan. "They looked at him not as a human being but as an Arab, and Arabs are not allowed to have an opinion on Israeli militarism."

Hassan takes a slightly different view. Describing his questioning by the committee, he said: "They wanted me to be the Palestinian in the room, and I refused to oblige. They wanted to believe that I object to the army uniform because I am Palestinian. But I reject the uniform because it is opposed to my universal and human values. I acted as I did because I am a teacher and a human being.

"What shocked me was that the committee refused to believe that could be my motivation."

Certainly the committee's report dismisses Hassan's arguments, claiming: "Nizar abused his status and his authority as a teacher to flaunt his opinions, feelings and frustrations as a member of the Arab national minority in Israel, cloaking himself in a 'humane' and 'universal' garb, whereas in fact he demonstrated a stance of brute force bearing a distinctly nationalist character."

Haim Bresheeth, an Israeli filmmaker who was dean of Sapir's film school between 1996 and 2002, until he was hounded out over his anti-Zionist views, wrote to Tzahor, the college president, arguing that he was making an "irrational and immoral demand" in expecting Hassan to respect the army's uniform.

Bresheeth, referring to the reserve duty that most Israeli Jewish men perform well into their forties, added: "You are a soldier first, and only then an academic ... I call on the historian Zeev Tzahor to refuse the orders of Major Zeev Tzahor."

As in most other areas of Israeli life, the country's Palestinian minority faces systematic discrimination in higher education. No public university is located in an Arab community or teaches in Arabic, and, though the minority is a fifth of the population, fewer than one percent of lecturers are Arab.

In addition, the number of Arab students is third of their proportion in the population -- an under-representation that is apparently intentional. In 2003, psychometric tests biased towards Western culture were scrapped in an effort to help "weaker sections" of society gain acceptance to university. However, when the Committee of University Heads learnt that the number of Arabs entering university had risen sharply as a result, the tests were immediately reinstated.

Several leading Israeli academics are outspoken racists, including David Bukay and Arnon Sofer at Haifa University and Raphael Israeli at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The latter was called as an "expert" witness by the state at a trial in 2004 in which he stated that the Arab mentality was composed of "a sense of victimization," "pathological anti-Semitism" and "a tendency to live in a world of illusions."

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His new book, Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East is published by Pluto Press. His website is http://www.jkcook.net/

Related Links
BY TOPIC:
Palestinians in Israel
Film reviews: Nizar Hassan's Istiqlal and Invasion, Maureen Clare Murphy (29 April 2003)

The mega prison of Palestine

2008-03-05T00:03:00.005-08:00

Ilan Pappe, The Electronic Intifada, 5 March 2008
In several articles published by The Electronic Intifada, I claimed that Israel is pursuing a genocidal policy against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, while continuing the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. I asserted that the genocidal policies are a result of a lack of strategy. The argument was that since the Israeli political and military elites do not know how to deal with the Gaza Strip, they opted for a knee-jerk reaction in the form of massive killing of citizens whenever the Palestinians in the Strip dared to protest by force their strangulation and imprisonment. The end result so far is the escalation of the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians -- more than one hundred in the first days of March 2008, unfortunately validating the adjective "genocidal" I and others attached to these policies. But it was not yet a strategy.

However, in recent weeks a clearer Israeli strategy towards the Gaza Strip's future has emerged and it is part of the overall new thinking about the fate of the occupied territories in general. It is in essence, a refinement of the unilateralism adopted by Israel ever since the collapse of the Camp David "peace talks" in the summer of 2000. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, his party Kadima, and his successor Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, delineated very clearly what unilateralism entailed: Israel would annex about 50 percent of the West Bank, not as a homogeneous chunk of it, but as the total space of the settlement blocs, the apartheid roads, the military bases and the "national park reserves" (which are no-go areas for Palestinians). This was more or less implemented in the last eight years. These purely Jewish entities cut the West Bank into 11 small cantons and sub-cantons. They are all separated from each other by this complex colonial Jewish presence. The most important part of this encroachment is the greater Jerusalem wedge that divides the West Bank into two discrete regions with no land connection for the Palestinians.

The wall thus is stretched and reincarnated in various forms all over the West Bank, encircling at times individual villages, neighborhoods or towns. The cartographic picture of this new edifice gives a clue to the new strategy both towards the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The 21st century Jewish state is about to complete the construction of two mega prisons, the largest of their kind in human history.

They are different in shape: the West Bank is made of small ghettos and the one in Gaza is a huge mega ghetto of its own. There is another difference: the Gaza Strip is now, in the twisted perception of the Israelis, the ward where the "most dangerous inmates" are kept. The West Bank, on the other hand, is still run as a huge complex of open air prisons in the form of normal human habitations such as a village or a town interconnected and supervised by a prison authority of immense military and violent power.

As far as the Israelis are concerned, the mega prison of the West Bank can be called a state. Advisor to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Abed Rabbo, in the last days of February 2008, threatened the Israelis with a unilateral declaration of independence, inspired by recent events in Kosovo. However, it seemed that nobody on the Israeli side objected to the idea very much. This is more or less the message a bewildered Ahmed Qurei, the Abbas-appointed Palestinian negotiator, received from Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister, when he phoned to assure her that Abed Rabbo was not speaking in the name of the PA. He got the impression that her main worry was is in fact quite the opposite: that the PA would not agree to call the mega prisons a state in the near future.

This unwillingness, together with Hamas' insistence of resisting the mega prison system by a war of liberation, forced the Israelis to rethink their strategy towards the Gaza Strip. It transpires that not even the most cooperative members of the PA are willing to accept the mega prison reality as "peace" or even as a "two state settlement." And Hamas and Islamic Jihad even translate this unwillingness into Qassam attacks on Israel. So the model of the most dangerous ward developed: the leading strategists in the army and the government embrace themselves for a very long-term "management" of the system they have built, while pledging commitment to a vacuous "peace process," with very little global interest in it, and a continued struggle from within, against it.

The Gaza Strip is now seen as the most dangerous ward in this complex and thus the one against which the most brutal punitive means have to be employed. Killing the "inmates" by aerial or artillery bombing, or by economic strangulation, are not just inevitable results of the punitive action chosen, but also desirable ones. The bombing of Sderot is also the inevitable and in a way desirable consequence of this strategy. Inevitable, as the punitive action cannot destroy the resistance and quite often generates a retaliation. The retaliation in its turn provides the logic and basis for the next punitive action, should someone in domestic public opinion doubt the wisdom of the new strategy.

In the near future, any similar resistance from parts of the West Bank mega prison would be dealt with in a similar way. And these actions are very likely to take place in the very near future. Indeed, the third intifada is on its way and the Israeli response would be a further elaboration of the mega prison system. Downsizing the number of "inmates" in both mega prisons would be still a very high priority in this strategy by means of ethnic cleansing, systematic killings and economic strangulation.

But there are wedges that prevent the destructive machine from rolling. It seems that a growing number of Jews in Israel (a majority according to a recent CNN poll) wish their government to begin negotiations with Hamas. A mega prison is fine, but if the wardens' residential areas are likely to come under fire in the future then the system fails. Alas, I doubt whether the CNN poll represents accurately the present Israeli mood; but it does indicate a hopeful trend that vindicates the Hamas insistence that Israel only understands the language of force. But it may not be enough and the perfection of the mega prison system in the meantime continues unabated and the punitive measures of its authority are claiming the lives of many more children, women and men in the Gaza Strip.

As always it is important to be reminded that the west can put an end to this unprecedented inhumanity and criminality, tomorrow. But so far this is not happening. Although the efforts to make Israel a pariah state continue with full force, they are still limited to civil society. Hopefully, this energy will one day be translated into governmental policies on the ground. We can only pray it will not be too late for the victims of this horrific Zionist invention: the mega prison of Palestine.

Ilan Pappe is chair in the Department of History at the University of Exeter.

Al Jazeera News - March 4, 2008

2008-03-04T14:39:00.000-08:00

Alleged American plot to overthrow the Palestinian government and other news from Al-Jazeera English, recorded at 16:00 hrs UTC on March 4, 2008

===========

The Gaza Bombshell, David Rose, Vanity Fair
After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.

The People of Gaza Resist and Refuse Israel's Operation "Hot Winter"

2008-03-04T14:13:00.000-08:00

Ahmad Jaradat, Alternative Information Center (AIC) : Tuesday, 04 March 2008
The Israeli military announced its redeployment and withdrew from the places in Gaza that it invaded over the last few days. The military noted that the first stage of its big military operation, dubbed “Hot Winter” was finished and that the next stages will be conducted within the framework of the same operation.

In the last five days, at least 117 Palestinians were killed and 300 injured, dozens of them seriously. Sixty percent of the dead and injured were civilians, most of them children, old men and women. Many of the civilians were killed inside their own homes as Israeli warplanes and tanks shelled neighborhoods, particularly in Jabalya and other populated areas of Gaza. Many families lost more than one member, while some lost almost everyone.

Human rights organizations found new demands for human rights about which to speak. In a press conference, human rights activist Jaber Wishah from Gaza Center for Human Rights loudly proclaimed that “we are calling for the right to bury the dead and remove the bodies from under the destroyed houses.” For five days, everything that moves has been a target of the Israeli shells: ambulances, aid officers, animals in the streets and fields and even the birds, especially the peace doves which were killed in the air and over the rooftops. Through our contacts with people in Gaza and our friends there, we know that for five days, 100,000 residents of the Jabalya Camp were unable to sleep or even rest. If such an event occurred in other places, in Europe, for example, how many organizations, experts and specialists in sociology, psychology and education would be deployed, and how much money would be devoted to examining the effects on children?

Yes, the first stage has ended, but the story is not finished. It will be continued according to the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister. Military actions and attacks will go ahead even following the redeployment.

In the last two years, Israel has dubbed the big operations in the Gaza Strip with names that contradict nature. The first operation was called Rainy Summer, the second Angry Autumn. Now it is Hot Winter. However, Gaza stands each time and refuses this change. Of course the price is extremely high, expensive and difficult to grasp. The lives of children and civilians were the price. Childhood was killed in one the most beautiful lands, the land of oranges, palms, roses and water. This important land which is the link point among great historical civilizations. It is the gateway between Africa and Asia. This land must take on the role of sending out peace to the world.

Yet the Israeli occupation wants to change this role, to deepen enmity and hatred, starting from Gaza and using the bodies of children in the streets of the most crowded place in the world.

It is not strange for an occupation power that acts against peace and justice to label its military operations with names contradicting nature. There is a relation between the occupation and those names that go against both the line of history and nature of things. This gives real hope that justice and peace will be victorious and lasting. That the occupation will be defeated.

The matter here is not one of technical power, but of justice. America was defeated in Vietnam, France in Algeria and the classical colonialism of the United Kingdom in Iraq not because of technical reasons, but because those powers fought against the justice and freedom of people.

It is ridiculous to change the nature of things. Summer is hot, winter is cold and sure, spring is green. Justice and peace will be victorious and occupation will be ended.

Oh Gaza, how much you suffered because of these military operations and how much are you going to suffer on the way to justice, victory and defeat of the occupation? It wasn’t merely a nightmare for the al-Attaya family which they can wake up from, that a rocket shelled their house. It actually happened and left people wondering why? Why the children of Gaza, who were sleeping in peace, had to say good bye to the world that they just entered, parting to the melody of rocket shells.

How many tears and bodies of children does the world need to see so that it can feel you, Gaza?

Latest Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report | 27 FEB - 3 MARCH 2008

2008-03-04T14:03:00.011-08:00

http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/Gaza_Situation_Report_2008_02_30_Final2.pdf

KEY OBSERVATIONS

· Israeli air strikes on Gaza and rocket attacks on Israeli towns from Palestinian militants in Gaza continued during the reporting period.

· Between 27 February and 2 March, 107 Palestinians were killed by the IDF and 250 were injured. During the same period two Israeli soldiers and one Israeli civilian were killed and 25 injured, mainly by Qassam rockets and Grad missiles fired by Palestinian militants towards Israel.1 (See chart below)

· The IDF operation exacerbated an already deteriorating humanitarian situation emanating from the near total blockade on Gaza since June 2007. Essential services, including water and sanitation, are close to breakdown. Because of the combined lack of electricity, fuel, spare parts and inability to upgrade networks, the Gaza Coastal Municipality Water Utility is forced to continue dumping daily 20 million litres of raw sewage and 40 million litres of partially treated water into the sea.

· The IDF operation has worsened conditions for an already stretched medical system.

For More information please contact Khulood Badawi 054-448-4632 badawi@un.org

United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Mac House
P.O.Box 38712
Jerusalem
Tel:++ 972-2-5829962/5853
Fax:++972-2-5825841
email:ochaopt@un.org
www.ochaopt.org

==========

We have modified yesterday's Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report, 27 Feb – 3 March 2008 by inserting a few additional important pieces of information. These additions are listed underneath as well as the link to the revised version of the report:
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/Gaza_Situation_Report_2008_02_30_Final4.pdf

- Medical services: Hospitals are still operational but are extremely vulnerable due to shortages of fuel.

- Ambulances: During the ground operations ambulances and medical teams faced difficulties evacuating the wounded. The ambulance services in the Gaza Strip are severely restricted due to fuel shortage; by the end of February 23 out of 56 MOH ambulances and 7 out of 40 PRCS ambulances were forced to stop due to lack of fuel.

- Food: UN food supplies are insufficient to cover Gaza's nutritional needs and a sustained access for commercial supplies is essential.

For more information please contact Khulood Badawi 054 44 84 632 badawi@un.org
Best regards
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Mac House P.O.Box 38712
Jerusalem Tel:++ 972-2-5829962/5853
Fax:++972-2-5825841
email:ochaopt@un.org
www.ochaopt.org

News and Analysis from EI: More than 100 Palestinians killed in Gaza

2008-03-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

WEEKDAY PRESS PICKS FROM THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA AND ELECTRONIC IRAQ

http://electronicintifada.net/
http://electroniclebanon.net/
http://electroniciraq.net/
and hopefully not
http://electroniciran.net/
_______________________________

EI's ongoing coverage of the Gaza siege:
http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/685.shtml

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Palestine : Opinion/Editorial:

THE TIME FOR WORLDWIDE BOYCOTT IS NOW
By Omar Barghouti, The Electronic Intifada, 2 March 2008

On Friday, 29 February 2008, Israel's deputy defense
minister Matan Vilnai threatened Palestinians in Gaza with
a "holocaust." This date will go down in history as the
beginning of a new phase in the colonial conflict between
Israel and the Palestinians, whereby a senior Israeli
leader, a "leftist" for that matter, has publicly revealed
the genocidal plans Israel is considering to implement
against Palestinians under its military occupation, if
they do not cease to resist its dictates. Omar Barghouti
comments for EI.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9358.shtml

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Palestine : Opinion/Editorial:

ISRAEL KEEPING TRUE TO ITS RACIST WORDS
By Rami Almeghari, The Electronic Intifada, 2 March 2008

Dehumanizing the Palestinians has been necessary for
Israel to justify its actions ever since, and even before,
the state was declared on destroyed historic Palestine in
1948 and then in 1967 when Israel occupied the West Bank
and Gaza. Taken together, they indicate the historic
effort to destroy Palestinian national aspirations and
this is what Israel is trying to do in Gaza, which Nobel
prize winner and late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
once wished would be swallowed by the sea. EI
correspondent Rami Almeghari comments from Gaza.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9361.shtml

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Palestine : Human Rights:

GAZA DEATHS SURPASS 100; HUNDREDS INJURED
Report, PCHR, 2 March 2008

During the last 24 hours, another 39 Palestinians were
killed throughout the Gaza Strip. Twenty-two of them were
unarmed civilians, including nine children. Six of the
victims were from one family, including three women and
three men who were killed in an air strike in Gaza City.
The death toll since 27 February currently stands at 101
victims, including 49 unarmed civilians.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9360.shtml

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Palestine : Diaries: Live from Palestine:

THE GAZA GENOCIDE
By Laila El-Haddad, Live from Palestine, 2 March 2008

We celebrated Yousuf's fourth birthday today. We ate cake.
And we counted the bodies. We sang happy birthday. And my
mother sobbed. We watched the fighter jets roar
voraciously on our television screen, pounding street
after street, then heard a train screech outside, and
shuddered. Yousuf tore open his presents, and asked my
mother to make a paper zanana, a drone, for him with
origami; we were torn open from the inside, engulfed by a
feeling of impotence and helplessness, fear and anger and
grief, despondence and confusion. Laila El-Haddad writes
on the "long-term" Gaza genocide.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9359.shtml

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Palestine : Human Rights:

ISRAEL KILLS SOME MORE CHILDREN
By Mohammed Omer, The Electronic Intifada, 1 March 2008

GAZA CITY, 1 March (IPS) - Tamer was nine, and no child
soldier. He did not live in the area from where homemade
rockets are launched into Israeli territory. The day he
was killed, he was at least two kilometers from the place
Israeli troops had entered Gaza, and met with return fire
by Palestinian resistance. His tragedy was that the family
home was near Deir al-Balah in the middle of the Gaza
Strip, close to the area the Israelis have set up as their
Kussfim base.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9356.shtml

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Palestine : Development:

EGYPT BEGINS PUMPING GAS TO ISRAEL DESPITE GAZA SIEGE
By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani, The Electronic Intifada, 29 February 2008

CAIRO, 29 February (IPS) - On Monday, Egypt began pumping
natural gas to Israel in accordance with an energy accord
between Cairo and Tel Aviv. While the Egyptian government
defends the move as being in the country's best interest,
opposition figures decry the notion of economic
cooperation with Israel, especially in light of the
latter's ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9350.shtml

----------------------------------------------------------

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economic, political, legal, and human dimensions of
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VIDEO: Israeli attacks continue in Gaza

2008-03-03T05:03:00.000-08:00

Al Jazeera English : March 03, 2008
Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says further military action is likely against Palestinians firing rockets from Gaza. This, just hours after the Israeli military confirmed its operation in the strip had wound down.

The apparent pause in the assault comes as the European Union and the United States send senior politicians to the region to try to put what is left of the Annapolis peace process back on track.

Al Jazeera English's Ayman Moyheldin has the latest from Jerusalem.

VIDEO: Anger explodes in West Bank over Israeli raids

2008-03-03T05:02:00.001-08:00

March 02, 2008
Nour Odeh now looks at the protest against Israel's use of force and growing demands for Palestinian unity.

VIDEO: Inside Story - Attack on Gaza

2008-03-03T04:48:00.000-08:00

Inside Story, Al Jazeera English : March 02, 2008
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has suspended peace talks with Israel, demanding that it ends its offensive on Gaza.

Israel's five-day offensive on the Gaza Strip has so far killed more than 100 Palestinians, many of them civilians.

Israel claims it is acting in self-defence in response to cross-border rocket attacks by Hamas.

But Israel has been strongly criticized by the European Union and United Nations, who have condemned its use of "excessive" and "disproportionate" force.

Inside Story, with presenter Sami Zeidan, examines the possible outcomes.

Part 1

Part 2

Australian government continues its love affair with Israel

2008-02-29T02:11:00.000-08:00

Sonja Karkar, Women for Palestine, 28 February 2008
Well, so much for our new government taking an even-handed position on Israel/Palestine. Before our politicians even warmed their seats in the new parliamentary sittings, the Australian Prime Minister announced that he will lead a parliamentary motion to honour Israel on 12 March acknowledging Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. The Opposition Leader will second the motion. Then, celebrations will take place at a reception in the Mural Hall of Parliament House.

If Palestinians and their supporters had any hopes of a sympathetic hearing from the new Rudd government on the multiple human rights abuses being perpetrated by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, those hopes are now well and truly dashed.

This year marks 60 years of Palestinian dispossession and displacement and a savage, relentless occupation that is smothering the lifeblood of the Palestinians while Israel celebrates its ill-gotten gains. Palestinians are starving in Gaza. Palestinians are being sold out in the West Bank. Palestinians are dying. Their very existence is under threat. It is as simple and as awful as that.

Every Australian ought to be asking why our Prime Minister and the parliament feel so humiliatingly obligated to Israel that they must go to these lengths to show their friendship with a foreign country that consistently violates international law, United Nations resolutions and human rights conventions? If supporting the Palestinian cause is too much to ask, then refusing to single Israel out for any kind of recognition would at least be sensitive to the Palestinians living here. The Palestinians were never asked if they would agree to the foreign imperial division of their country. Most had their family homes and lands taken from them by Zionist forces ruthlessly pushing for a Greater Israel not intended by the 1947 United Nations Partition of Palestine. All suffer indescribable pain knowing that many of their people live a hellish existence under Israel’s occupation. It is on this human wreckage of Palestinian lives that Israel celebrates its independence, honoured so gratuitously by our government.

Such demonstrations of affection are not new. Our former Prime Minister John Howard had already fostered this extraordinary bond when he declared Australia as Israel’s closest friend. Many of his ministers followed suit and none was more accommodating than former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer when he said that he wore Israel as “a badge of honour” even as Israel’s war planes decimated the Lebanese landscape in 2006

True to form, Israel has rewarded its friends with facile honours. John Howard received two in one year. He was awarded the Jerusalem Prize from the World Zionist Organisation and he had a forest named after him in the Negev by the Jewish National Fund, which specialises in acquiring property for “the purpose of settling Jews on such lands.” These lands are the subject of legal proceedings brought by the now displaced indigenous Bedouins of the Negev who are being “moved out” for the exclusive benefit of Jews worldwide who want to live in Israel. Although these Bedouins live in what is now called Israel, 45 of their villages are not recognised by the Israeli government and have never received even the most basic amenities.

All this falls hard on the heels of the new Prime Minister’s moving apology to our own indigenous people and raises many questions about the sincerity of that momentous gesture. The similarity between the grievous losses suffered by both peoples – the Aborigines and the Palestinians – is not fanciful. Both peoples have been the hapless victims of the great white colonial enterprise and in both cases, it would have succeeded brilliantly, if these people would have just disappeared. But it is not so easy to kill off people and their dreams.

There are some 11 million Palestinians worldwide whose collective memory is seared with the narrative of their people who fled in terror during Israel’s 1948 purge of Palestine. About two-thirds of the Palestinian population never saw their homes again. Many still have the keys to their front doors, the deeds to their properties and lands, the photos of happier moments, and the endless familiar memories of smells and sounds unfaded by time. Around 7.2 million refugees are languishing today in refugee camps waiting to return home and to receive compensation for the calculated decimation of their society – one that had successfully developed culturally and economically over centuries, despite four hundred years under Ottoman rule.

Palestine was not a land without people as Israel’s mythmakers have tried to promote, particularly through the emotive Hollywood film “Exodus”. Palestine was, in fact, populated by successful citizen merchants and officials who added an economically vibrant dimension to the essentially peasant population who were actively engaged in working the land. Not only did Palestinians own land, but even where there was no legal title, the land was considered as belonging to the Palestinians through their history of land use and uninterrupted possession.

All the recent posturings by Israel’s supporters, to show Israel as a first world country in the forefront of science and technology and the cutting edge of the arts in order to gain legitimacy with Western countries, might resonate with our politicians, but it does not with people who know Israel’s atrocious human rights record. More and more people are beginning to wake up as intrepid journalists report a far from rosy picture in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Yet, these are still lone voices in our Australian media and not enough to reach the wider population. For decades, Israel has won the battle for the hearts and minds of people, despite the official reports of every human rights organisation – from Amnesty International to Israel’s B’Tselem – documenting in graphic detail Israel’s litany of human rights abuses. Most are gathering dust, but they provide more than enough evidence to challenge the appropriateness of aligning ourselves with Israel. And there are stirrings in our churches, universities, the legal fraternity, social justice groups and in the consciences of people generally, to reach out to the Palestinians.

In response, Israel has established the Peres Centre for Peace in Australia which is endeavouring to project an image of Israel as peacemaker. Rather than the usual rounds of dialogue and conflict resolution, it is being done on a populist level through sporting activities and culture. The Centre has already persuaded the Australian Football League (AFL) to include a friendly team of Israelis and Palestinians in their 18-team line up for this year’s AFL International Cup. In this way, Israel hopes to normalise its image with the Australian public, and through a handful of players, show its willingness to work towards peace - something it has been unwilling to do at the negotiating table.

However, Israeli tanks and soldiers are still shelling Gaza, and Israel is further tightening its siege on this tiny sliver of land with a population almost at bursting point The recent smashing of the wall with hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians swarming into Egypt to look for food and other basic necessities gave the world a glimpse into the misery of their lives. And, in the West Bank, Israel is increasing – not decreasing as it promised to do in the most recent peace negotiations - the number of checkpoints that totally suffocate the ordinary daily movement of another burgeoning population.

The surest sign though of Israel’s real intentions, is its blatant disregard of international law and all requests to stop its illegal settlement project that is literally turning thousands of Palestinians on to the streets – homeless and stateless and forced to rely on the world’s pitiful humanitarian aid that can never bring them economic or political independence.

As conditions deteriorate for the Palestinians, and the words “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” begin to enter mainstream consciousness after being given voice by former US President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Tutu, Israel is employing new public relations strategies to secure its legitimacy in the global community. In Australia, where sport dominates so much of our cultural life and social interaction, using sport as a vehicle for peace is a powerful image. This latest venture by The Peres Centre - named after one of the more notorious Zionist architects of Palestinian ethnic cleansing – is already bedazzling the AFL administrators with the idea of people crossing all boundaries “for the simple love of the game” - a notion that would never be entertained by a government at war with an enemy state and one that has been rejected when political pressure through sports’ boycotts is deemed necessary to stop countries behaving oppressively. Nowhere else was this so effective than in South Africa’s anti-Apartheid struggle.

There is no excuse for our leaders in politics and business to buy into this scam when they know that some 4 million Palestinians are being denied justice and basic human rights under Israel’s illegal military occupation, with no sign of reprieve. If it were not for the West’s craven politicians indecently rushing to join Israel’s circus, Israel would long ago have had to find a solution to give justice and dignity back to the Palestinians.

Regrettably, our leaders will continue to pursue their self-serving policies until ordinary, decent people force them to accept that our common humanity is worth more than the lucrative deals that bring such enormous profits to the multinational corporations, and from which many governments benefit. It is by no means impossible. Just as people brought down the Apartheid regime in South Africa, the people can bring down the ethnically divisive Zionist regime in Israel as well. This is why the word “apartheid” so rattles Israel’s supporters.

But, we have a long way to go, especially when governments insist on continuing their love affairs with Israel. In the meantime, al-Nakba – the Palestinian catastrophe of dispossession and displacement – is being accelerated. This crime against humanity is what needs to be acknowledged in our Parliament and not a motion honouring Israel. The Australian “fair go” that our Prime Minister so fondly embraces, has never sounded so hollow or sunk so low.

UN Humanitarian Monitor, January 2008

2008-02-29T02:05:00.001-08:00

http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/Humanitarian_Monitor_Jan_08.pdf

This monthly report by UN oPt agencies, monitors the humanitarian situation including access, in various sectors such as health, protection and education using both measurable humanitarian indicators and verified field observations.

For more information please contact Khulood Badawi 054 44 84 632 badawi@un.org

United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Mac House
P.O.Box 38712
Jerusalem
Tel:++ 972-2-5829962/5853
Fax:++972-2-5825841
email:ochaopt@un.org
www.ochaopt.org

A joint UN Agencies Gaza Strip Humanitarian Fact Sheet, January 2008

2008-02-29T02:04:00.001-08:00

http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/GazaFactSheet_Feb08.pdf

Key Observations:

· In January, 80 Palestinians were killed in direct conflict. 82 Palestinians and 9 Israelis were injured

· 1.1 million Gazans receive food assistance from WFP and UNRWA- however, only 84,000 receive 100 per cent of their daily calorific needs. The rest rely on the commercial market to supplement their diet. Fresh and frozen meat, frozen fish and vegetables are not regularly available in shops.

· Ministry of Health (MoH) facilities: 80 of the 416 essential drugs (19.2%) and 186 of the 596 essential medical supplies (31.2%) were at zero availability in January due to the lack of financial resources. These drugs include first-line pediatric antibiotics and oncology drugs needed by 135 patients.

· 829 patients have been denied access to specialized treatment in Egyptian hospitals due to the closure of Rafah border crossing since 9 June

· Four sewage pumping stations in Gaza City and the north of Gaza flooded when pumps failed because of lack of fuel and/or spare parts.

· Similar problems prevented the treatment of sewage which was released into the sea at the rate of 40 million liters per day starting 18 January

For more information please contact Khulood Badawi 054 44 84 632 badawi@un.org

United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Mac House
P.O.Box 38712
Jerusalem
Tel:++ 972-2-5829962/5853
Fax:++972-2-5825841
email:ochaopt@un.org
www.ochaopt.org

Six-month-old baby killed by Israeli attacks

2008-02-29T01:14:00.011-08:00

February 28, 2008

Israel's prime minister is vowing to make Hamas pay what he calls a "heavy price" for Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza.

More than 20 Palestinians have been killed in attacks since Wednesday, including Hamas fighters, civilians and children.

In Gaza City, one of those killed was a six month old baby.

Ashraf Amritti reports on a family grieving for the youngest casualty of Israeli airstrikes.

=============================

Israeli missiles silence baby's laughter in Gaza
Sami Abu Salem writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 28 February 2008
The innocent laughter of six-month-old baby Mohammed al-Bor'i stopped forever on Wednesday night when shrapnel from an Israeli missile and rubble struck the infant in the head, minutes after he enjoyed his last meal.

"The baby sucked milk, he was playing with his mother; I was reading a book when a rocket hit the Ministry of Interior," said Nasser al-Bor'i, the baby's father.

With the first missile, the electricity was cut and darkness filled the ill-fated house. Stones and pieces of the asbestos ceiling fell onto the head of the laughing child. The explosions continued as two other missiles hit the building.

"I looked for my baby in the darkness between the rubble; I did not know where he was. When he cried once I followed the direction of his voice," Nasser al-Bor'i said. "My hands touched my baby who was breathing hard; I felt warm liquid on my two hands and realized that he was wounded."

Al-Bor'i carried his son to the nearby Shifa Hospital as the blood streamed from his tiny head. In the hospital, al-Bor'i became hysterical when he realized that his only child had been killed.

Tears poured from al-Bor'i's eyes when he saw Mohammed's shoes. "After five years of treatment for sterility, [my wife and] I had a baby. I can't imagine that I lost him in a second."

Toys, a plastic bike, a crib and clothes were covered by the heap of rubble inside Mohammed's bedroom. Cutout magazine pictures of laughing babies decorated the walls, a sad reminder of the joy lost in the strike.

Mohammed's mother sufered shock and fell unconscious when she realized that the child had died. She laid on a hospital bed while her baby was in the morgue. On Thursday morning she cried when she returned home from the hospital to see Mohammed's empty crib.

Mohammed al-Bor'i was not the only child to be killed in the series of Israeli air strikes across the Gaza strip on Wednesday. In the northern Gaza Strip town of Jabalia, three other children, Anas al-Manama, 10, Bilal Hijazi, 11, and Mohammed Hamada, 11, were also killed in an Israeli air strike, Palestinian medical sources reported.

At least 19 Palestinian civilians and militants were killed and dozens wounded by the continuing Israeli air strikes on Gaza in the last two days.

Sami Abu Salem lives in Jabalia Refugee Camp and works as an English news and features writer at the Palestine News Agency (WAFA). He has also worked at the International Press Center of the Palestinian Authority State Information Service, and works as a freelance writer for local newspapers, focusing on literature and arts. This article was originally published by Ramattan News Agency and is republished with the author's permission.

Related Links
BY TOPIC: Israel declares Gaza "enemy entity" (19 September 2007)

The False Rhetoric of the "True Israelis" Campaign and Counter-Campaign

2008-02-27T01:14:00.000-08:00

Uri Ya’acobi-Keller - Alternative Information Center (AIC) - Sunday, 24 February 2008
Several months ago, the Israeli media evoked yet another one of its mass panic attacks when publishing “worrying statistics” regarding the high number of “draft-dodgers” — Israelis who evade military service in various ways. A few weeks later I, as a conscientious objector who had been to prison to avoid military service, was invited to the panel of the popular political debate show “Politika” to discuss this. It was clear to me that I was invited simply in order to fill the role of “bad boy” — to say a few unconventional words and then be the target for the attacks of the rest of the panel. I was not wrong in my prediction. The show’s panel, clearly set up in accordance with the Israeli political mainstream, was full of old, male, retired military officers who were simply too detached from the Israeli reality to relate to what I was trying to say in the very little time I was given: that it is a disgrace to expect the young to die for a state that had long ago ceased to give them anything in return. States, I was trying to tell them, are there to serve the people and not vice versa. That was something they dismissed altogether, and my words had no impact; their discussion then focused on what is the best way to force people to serve the state.

Those retired officers were representatives of the generation and rhetoric that still dominate the Israeli political scene, elevating the values of military service and sacrifice for the state. Although they still dominate, they have lost contact with the current Israeli reality. These retired officers could not perceive that times have changed, that people are not going to be content with dying in exchange for the mumbling of a few nationalistic slogans.

That mindset has more recently appeared with the “A True Israeli Doesn’t Evade the Draft” posters that have popped up on buses all around Israel. This campaign for shaming draft-dodgers was initiated by a number of public relations offices, without a doubt determined to get more publicity for themselves by doing something “right” and patriotic. With the CEOs and directors of many companies in Israel coming directly from the Israeli military’s high officer roster, it is even likely they were successful in that. However, this campaign also has the smell of wealthy, detached people who have little to do with what’s happening on the ground and have no understanding of the large part of the public who evade the military draft. If anything, this campaign is a pathetic attempt to win an already lost battle. But then again, its real goal is probably not to influence the public, but gain prestige for a few PR offices.

Accompanying the posters, an “A True Israeli Doesn’t Evade the Draft” video clip has also been released, showing a theoretically typical Israeli situation (although it takes place in India) in which the draft-dodger tries to hide his “problematic” past and is then shamed when discovered.

This campaign was so disconnected from the Israeli reality that it actually succeeded in angering a few people; enough angry people to produce a counter video clip.

The counter clip, “A True Israeli Doesn't Evade the Truth,” describes common reasons for which people choose to evade the draft: “What goes on in Hebron,” the soldiers’ neglect by the military and the state’s neglect of its citizenry. Of these, only the first has the slightest hint that wanting or not wanting to serve in the military may have anything to do with the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. This attempt by the clip’s makers to dodge the sensitive issue of the occupation is regrettable, but is not its biggest problem.

The name of the clip and its slogan, “A True Israeli Doesn’t Evade the Truth,” is a variation on the “A True Israeli Doesn’t Evade the Draft” campaign. Thus, it still refers potential draft dodgers to what, supposedly, is most important to them, their nationality. Being a “true Israeli,” according to this, is the fundamental core of any good citizen’s aspirations. Both video clips use the same logic and the same underlying assumption: You need to be a “True Israeli.”

But “Israeli” is not a definition of which to be proud. “Israeli” is a definition of someone’s contingent place of birth, place of residence or citizenship, and very commonly all three. It is merely a geographical reference point, any reference to it as something that has importance above that stinks of nationalistic rhetoric. From the rightwing mainstream of Israel, which clings to the glorious past, when it sometimes seems as if everyone queued enthusiastically for the chance to die for the glory of Israel and the Jewish state, this is expected. However, coming from left-leaning, self proclaimed “civil society” activists, this is disappointing, even if it is only to mimic the rival campaign’s words.

In the end, “True Israelis” are indeed the patriotic, old-style-pioneer-like creatures who would never even consider evading the draft. “True Israelis” are people willing to conquer and kill for this very definition, for the land, name, flag and prestige of their “True Israel.” I, for one, have no wish to be a “True Israeli.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Uri Ya’acobi-Keller is a conscientious objector and assistant researcher in the “Economy of the Occupation” project of the Alternative Information Center.

======================================

Another counter-clip:
True Israelis Do Not Ask Questions - re: shitty propaganda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLlQCs0iBEQ
True Israelis Do Not Ask Questions about occupation, about sexism, about militarism, about nationalism, about racism, about context, about history - response to shitty propaganda

West Bank farms fall to Israeli bulldozers

2008-02-27T01:12:00.001-08:00

The Age, February 23, 2008
The farmers of Beit Ula spent two years preparing their new groves of fruit, nut and olive trees, clearing rocks, building stone terraces and digging deep cisterns to catch the scarce rain.

The Israeli army destroyed it all in less than a day.

"We heard they were here at 6.30 in the morning, when it was still dark," said Sami al-Adam, one of eight farmers whose terraces were bulldozed on January 15.

"There must have been dozens of soldiers with jeep and bulldozers, and they brought a lot of Filipino workers, or maybe they were Thai, who pulled up the trees and cut them and buried them so we wouldn't be able to plant them again."

When the soldiers and police left the site, in the low hills on the West Bank's border with Israel, 6.4 hectares of trees and terraces had been uprooted and bulldozed. The concrete cisterns were broken open and choked with rubble. Two years' work and an investment of more than 100,000 euros ($160,000) had gone to waste.

The Israeli military department that controls the occupied West Bank, confusingly called "the Civil Administration", said it demolished the terraces because they were built illegally on state land belonging to Israel.

This came as a surprise to the West Bank farmers, who brandish documents with Palestinian, Israeli and even Turkish stamps that, they say, prove their title to the land. It came as an even bigger surprise to the European Union, which provided 64,000 euros to the project as part of a program to improve "food security" for Palestinians.

European Commission spokeswoman Alex de Mauny said: "Obviously it's a disaster in human terms — these are not rich people, they are living very much on the margins — but there's the broader issue of why it happened, and how we can stop it from happening again."

A statement from the Civil Administration maintained, contrary to the EU's statement, that the Europeans had not funded the project.

According to a 2002 report by Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, 40% of the West Bank has been seized by Israeli military tribunals, which declare it to be "state land", re-allocating much of it to Jewish settlements.

In the case of Beit Ula, the Civil Administration says the farmers were officially informed that they were building illegally on state land in 2006 and given the statutory 45 days to appeal before the demolition notice became final.

One of the farmers, Mahmoud al-Adam, shows visitors a military form that he found under a stone on his plot in June 2006, telling him he would be evicted from 2.5 hectares of state land that he was illegally building on, and that he would be charged the demolition cost.

Such forms are the Israeli army's standard notification for house demolitions or land seizures. But there was apparently no warning to the other seven farmers, and 6.4 hectares of terrace and trees were destroyed, not 2.5 hectares.

The Civil Administration has yet to respond to the claim that most of the farmers received no legal warning or due process.

A spokesman said: "It's a routine action. It's nothing special. We do these activities every day in Judea and Samaria," using the biblical Jewish terms for the West Bank.

"We are very strict about these things. If you let one person do it unauthorised, all the others will come after him."

According to Civil Administration figures, in the seven years to September 2007 nearly 5000 demolition orders were issued against unauthorised Palestinian houses, buildings or infrastructure in Area C, the 60% of the West Bank that officially remains under full Israeli rule. Of these, 1663 were executed, or roughly a third.

In the same period, 2900 demolition orders were issued against illegal building by Jewish settlers in the area. Only 7%, or 199, were carried out.

And while the Civil Administration issued permits for 18,472 housing units for Jews in those seven years, the indigenous Palestinians were granted only 91 building permits. According to figures from the Israeli group Peace Now, 94% of the Palestinian applications were rejected, including requests to build or extend houses as well as repair roads, water pipes, wells and other infrastructure.

"The numbers speak for themselves," said Hagit Ofran, a settlement monitor with Peace Now. "Settler lands are being supported by government funds and planners and so on, but often the settlers also build without permits and on state land, and when they do, nothing happens to them … But law enforcement against the Palestinians is very efficient."

The Civil Administration accuses Peace Now of distorting the truth and said the reason so few permits were granted to the 70,000 Palestinians in Area C, and so many demolitions were carried out, was that most did not apply for permits until their projects had already been condemned by military inspectors and their applications must therefore be refused.

"We assume that if they came and asked, we'd give them thousands of permits," a spokesman said.

This week also brought news of the establishment of two more Jewish settlements in the West Bank — one in the Jordan Valley and another a "new neighbourhood" of Eli, an older Jewish settlement near Nablus.

These are illegal under Israeli law and breach Israel's own loose interpretation of its promise to freeze settlements under the 2003 Road Map, and last year's Annapolis process. Yet the new settlements are guarded by the Israel Defence Forces and have already been hooked up to state water, power and road networks.

The Civil Administration told journalists any attempt to evict the settlers or demolish their structures would depend on the political leadership and on Israel's High Court.

VIDEO: Israel's settlement expansion - Making Maskiot

2008-02-20T01:24:00.000-08:00

20 February, 2008

OCHA Special Focus: Tightening Control On Economic Movement | January 2008

2008-02-01T03:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/Commercial%20Crossings%20V5.pdf

The West Bank has limited natural resources and its economy depends on trade and remittances from jobs in Israel.

Since the majority of the West Bank's trade is with Israel, the current closure regime is forcing many West Bankers into reliance on aid and worsening the already deteriorating socio-economic conditions.

Special Focus

For more information please contact Khulood Badawi 0544 484 632 badawi@un.org

United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Mac House
P.O.Box 38712
Jerusalem
Tel:++ 972-2-5829962/5853
Fax:++972-2-5825841
email:ochaopt@un.org
http://www.ochaopt.org/

Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report | 29 January 2008

2008-02-01T03:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/Gaza_SitRep_2008_01_29.pdf

Despite access to Egypt, 1.5 million Gazans still rely on Israel for all their supplies.

Since January 18, a total of 32 truckloads of goods have entered the Gaza Strip from Israel.

Israel is allowing a restricted amount of fuel to enter Gaza.

Due to limited reserves of fuel, the Gaza power plant has reduced its power output to 45 megawatts, causing power cuts of up to eight hours per day everywhere in Gaza except Rafah.

Situation reports

For more information please contact Khulood Badawi 054 44 84 632 badawi@un.org

United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Mac House
P.O.Box 38712
Jerusalem
Tel:++ 972-2-5829962/5853
Fax:++972-2-5825841
email:ochaopt@un.org
www.ochaopt.org

Preparations begin to close Rafah crossing

2008-01-30T08:50:00.000-08:00

January 28, 2008
As preparations begin to close the Egypt-Gaza border, Al Jazeera's John Cookson speaks to Palestinians on both sides of the Rafah crossing.

Protest in Tel Aviv against the Siege in Gaza 24-1-08

2008-01-30T08:16:00.000-08:00

Gazans clash with Egyptian police at Rafah

2008-01-29T04:10:00.001-08:00

January 22, 2008

Shots have been fired at the Rafah crossing where Palestinians have been demanding that the crossing into Egypt be opened to ease the blockade imposed on the territory by Israel.

Several police were injured in the skirmishes, as well as protesters.

Gaza has been under lockdown for five days now, although the blockade was eased earlier when Israel allowed a fuel shipment through.

Palestinians flood Egypt for food

2008-01-29T04:09:00.006-08:00

Democracy Now

Where Do the Presidential Contenders Stand on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?

As the news out of Gaza makes international headlines, we take a look at where the Republican and Democratic presidential contenders stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We speak with the co-founder of the online publication Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah.

Palestinians break out from Gaza seige

2008-01-29T04:09:00.005-08:00

January 23, 2008
Palestinians have poured into the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing through holes blown along the border wall between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland reports from Gaza, where, due to the border breach, she is joined by Amr el-Kahky, Al Jazeera's Cairo correspondent.

Palestinians break out of Gaza

2008-01-29T04:09:00.003-08:00

January 23, 20008
Gaza is often described as the world's largest prison.

If so, then the world is witnessing one of the biggest ever breakouts.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have poured across the border into Egypt, after a series of explosions breached the steel wall which divides the two territories.

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland is on one the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing.

UN security council fails to address Gaza

2008-01-29T04:09:00.001-08:00

January 22, 2008
The UN security council held an emergency meeting on Tuesday to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But with the United States putting the blame on Hamas, the council failed to reach an agreement on a statement. Kristen Saloomey reports for Al Jazeera.

Inside Story - Blackout in Gaza

2008-01-29T04:08:00.000-08:00

Al Jazeera English, January 21, 2008
What is the scale of the crisis and what does it mean for ordinary Palestinians?

==============

Humanitarian impact of Israel's blockade of Gaza

Al Jazeera English, January 21, 2008
Gaza's 1.5 million residents are struggling to cope without electricity and other basic necessities on the fourth day of an Israeli blockade.

Hospitals have begun to run short of fuel for generators, and sewage has spilled out onto the streets.

Jacky Rowland reports.

Palestinians suffer as the world fails Gaza

2008-01-27T15:23:00.000-08:00

Michael Shaik - The Age - January 28, 2008
Talking is not enough to halt the colonisation of the West Bank.
ZIONIST colonisation, wrote the Zionist thinker Ze'ev Jabotinsky in 1923, can develop only "under the protection of a force independent of the local population — an iron wall which the native population cannot break through".

Before its "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army decided to implement Jabotinsky's idea literally by erecting a six-metre-high concrete and steel wall across the Gaza's border with Egypt.

To prevent Palestinians from tunnelling under the wall, about 1800 houses in the Palestinian refugee camps alongside the wall were demolished. When American peace activist Rachel Corrie tried to save one such house, she was crushed under the blade of an Israeli bulldozer.

For the people of Rafah, the wall has been an ever-present reminder of Israeli power and the futility of resistance — a 21st century Berlin Wall amid the rubble of their ruined homes.

For Israel, the wall is the means by which it maintained control over Gaza Strip without having to garrison troops inside it. Since the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in June, Israel has used this control to place Gaza under siege. Imports and exports have been suspended.

The supply of food, medicine and fuel for cooking, transport and electricity generation has been alternately reduced to a trickle or cut off altogether.

According to the UN, 80% of Gaza's population now lives in a state of extreme poverty — 72 Gazans have died because they were unable to leave Gaza for medical treatment.

While cautiously criticising the more draconian aspects of the siege, the West has lent its consent to its underlying premise: that the people of the Gaza Strip would rid themselves of Hamas when they realised how much worse off they were than their compatriots in other parts the occupied territories.

Over the past weeks this premise has collapsed. The Palestinian militants' success in puncturing Israel's blockade of Gaza has underscored the value of armed resistance as a way to improve Palestinian welfare, and contrasts sharply with the Annapolis peace summit's failure to halt Israel's deepening colonisation of the West Bank.

This month the UN reported that, despite its promises, Israel had increased the number of checkpoints and roadblocks throughout the West Bank to 563. Last week Israel announced that it would build 2461 new housing units for Jewish settlers on confiscated Palestinian lands in East Jerusalem.

The collapse of its iron wall in Gaza presents Israel with an embarrassing dilemma. Invading Rafah again to rebuild the wall would belie its claim that it no longer occupies Gaza, and probably prove ineffective unless it leaves behind a permanent garrison. Now it is insisting that the Egyptians close the border, but the Egyptian Government's willingness to abet the collective punishment of Gaza's people is doubtful, to say the least.

Accepting Hamas' offer of a ceasefire to end Palestinian missile attacks on Sderot would seem its most promising alternative, but this is unlikely for a number of reasons.

First, having spent the past two years insisting that Hamas is a terrorist organisation with which it cannot negotiate, Israel's Government would find it difficult to explain the sudden change of policy. Second, the illusion that the intelligent application of punitive measures is the only lasting solution to Arab resistance is so prevalent among both Israel's leadership and public that it is unlikely to be dislodged by the mundane reality of failure.

Finally, diplomatic pressure to moderate its actions in the occupied territories is almost non-existent.

After hesitantly voicing their "concern" over Israel's post-Annapolis decision to expand Jewish settlements throughout East Jerusalem, both the United States and the European Union have lapsed into an embarrassed silence.

All the frontrunners in this year's US presidential campaign — Clinton, Obama, McCain, Giuliani — have expressed their uncritical support for Israel as they compete for Jewish campaign funding.

And Australia? In December 2006, Melbourne mining magnate Rabbi Joe Gutnick declared that members of Australia's Jewish community could not help but support John Howard unless they saw "something amazing from Kevin Rudd".

Over the following months, Rudd ran four pro-Israeli Labor candidates in the federal election, and declared to a private function of Melbourne's Jewish leaders that his support for Israel was "in his DNA".

This month, the Australian Government voted against funding the 2009 Durban Conference to review the UN's progress in combating racism, discrimination and xenophobia. No official reason was given, but the vote follows an Israeli campaign to de-fund the conference, which it expects will criticise what Noble laureates Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu have described as its regime of apartheid in the occupied territories.

"Israel," Henry Kissinger once quipped, "has no foreign policy, only domestic policy." In this respect, as in many others, it is certainly not alone.

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/01/27/1201368941248.html

Michael Shaik is the public advocate for Australians for Palestine

FREE GAZA DEMO - London, 26/01/08 - In support of relief convoy.

2008-01-27T08:13:00.000-08:00

Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto

2008-01-25T02:22:00.000-08:00

Sydney Morning Herald, Letters page : 22-24 January

January 22 2008
Lesson unlearnt
Nearly 70 years ago, in a small eastern European city, an oppressed and occupied people were under siege, living under atrocious and brutal conditions, lacking food, medicine, electricity, water, and slowly being strangled in the hope they would just disappear. Warsaw Ghetto 1941 - Gaza 2008. Israel, you are a disgrace.
Zaid Khan Blakehurst

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January 23 2008
Slight difference
I am not as familiar as Zaid Khan (Letters, January 22) with Europe 70 years ago but, to the best of my knowledge the oppressed minority in Warsaw were not firing Katyusha rockets indiscriminately into the surrounding area and neither were their kids being wrapped in explosives and sent out to blow up the neighbours.
David Calvey Vaucluse

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January 24 2008
Warsaw and Gaza a difference of means and ends
What we can never know, David Calvey (Letters, Jan 23), is whether the oppressed in Warsaw would have retaliated had they been given the means with which to do so.
Rachel Merhebi Turramurra

You're right, David Calvey, the oppressed minority in Warsaw before World War II did not protest with rockets and suicide bombs. But I believe most of them ended up in the Nazi gas chambers.
Paul Sadler Newtown

The reason, David Calvey, that the oppressed minority were not fighting back with weapons and explosives is that they didn't have them. I am sure Polish Jews would have used anything available and done anything possible to disrupt the German war machine. I am sure what Zaid Kahn was getting at is the massive hypocrisy of Israel; it was oppression back then when done to them, but it is somehow OK to do it to someone else now.
Daniel Gardiner Camperdown

Maybe I'm not as familiar as David Calvey with Europe 70 years ago but, if the oppressed minority suffering in Warsaw was subjected to the same oppression for 50 continuous years or more, they, too, would take more extreme measures. Also, to the best of my knowledge, like the people in the occupied territories, the oppressed in Warsaw did eventually revolt against the oppression, and justifiably so.
Brad Spencer Ljubljana (Slovenia)

I don't need to visit Gaza to tell David Calvey that 99 per cent of its population don't have rockets in the back shed and bomb vests in the bedroom.

Like the Jews in Warsaw, most Palestinians in Gaza are being held captive with the barest of essentials purely on the basis that they were "accidentally" born of the wrong blood in the wrong place. How can an average Palestinian Joe hope to stop the actions of a few mad militants? And why should the Israelis or we expect them to do so? The current policy effectively holds every man, women and child responsible for any act of terrorism.

Last thing I heard, there are quite a few unsolved murders in Sydney. I say we lock the whole place down until people there realise that the rest of the country won't tolerate it. After all, if they are prepared to murder their fellow Sydneysiders they might come after the rest of us.
Anura Samara Geneva (Switzerland)

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British MPs compare Gaza to Warsaw ghetto
Press Association
Thursday June 19, 2003
Guardian Unlimited
Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was today compared to the Nazis' creation of the Warsaw ghetto by MPs who recently returned from the region. The controversial comparison, drawn by Oona King and Jenny Tonge, will anger the pro-Israel lobby and the visiting Israeli finance minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, who met Tony Blair at Downing Street this morning.

Labour MP Ms King, who is Jewish, said Gaza was "the same in nature" as the infamous Polish ghetto.

UN Humanitarian Monitor - Occupied Palestinian Territory, December 2007

2008-01-25T01:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/Humanitarian_Monitor_Dec_07.pdf

This monthly UN report monitors of situation and changes using humanitarian indicators in sectors such as health, employment and the protection of civilians. Report uses both measurable humanitarian indicators and verified field observations The Humanitarian Monitor

For more information please contact Khulood Badawi 054 44 84 632 badawi@un.org

United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Mac House
P.O.Box 38712
Jerusalem
Tel:++ 972-2-5829962/5853
Fax:++972-2-5825841
email:ochaopt@un.org
www.ochaopt.org

Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report | 18-24 January 2008

2008-01-25T01:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/Gaza%2001_24.pdf

On Friday 18 January, Israel closed all crossings from Israel into Gaza, cutting it off from all supplies of food, medicine and fuel including humanitarian aid. On 22 Jan, Israel's closure was relaxed but only limited goods were allowed in. Situation reports

KEY OBSERVATIONS

· From 18-21 January, no food, medicine or fuel entered the Gaza Strip

· Power cuts, which were frequent prior to 19 January, were extended in duration to 12 hours per day everywhere in Gaza except Rafah

· The electricity shortage led to at least 40 percent of Gazans being denied access to running water and a breakdown in the sewage system which led to raw sewage being released into the sea at a rate of 30 million liters per day

· Hospitals were forced to rely on emergency generators and reduced their services

· The World Food Programme reported shortages of meat, wheat flour and frozen food in shops. On 23 January, WFP were unable to provide 10,000 of the poorest Gazans with three out of the five foodstuffs they normally receive

· On January 23, more than 100,000 Gazans crossed the border into Egypt after militants blew passages into the steel wall along the border

For more information please call Khulood Badawi 054 44 8 632 badawi@un.org

United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Mac House
P.O.Box 38712
Jerusalem
Tel:++ 972-2-5829962/5853
Fax:++972-2-5825841
email:ochaopt@un.org
www.ochaopt.org

End the Siege on Gaza Demonstration, Downing St, London 12 Jan, 2008

2008-01-22T03:45:00.000-08:00

Approximately 200 protesters, including former Minister Tony Benn, converged opposite Downing Street to call for an end to the siege on Gaza.

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389374.html

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389431.html

VIDEO: Inside Story - Bush wants peace in 2008

2008-01-11T04:33:00.000-08:00

This episode of Inside Story aired on Thursday, January 10, 2008

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Ilan Pappe, 2001 : "Together with the Palestinian Intifada, the issue of the Palestinian right of return has effectively erased the Israeli left from the political map in this election. And this is because of the peculiar character of the left in Israel. For this is not a 'left' in the European sense, in the sense of being socialist or even social democratic in its economic, social or human policies.

"It is 'left' solely vis-à-vis the peace process with the Palestinians. It saw itself as the 'vanguard' of Israeli Jewish society. Its self-appointed task was to be the 'enlightened minority' that would help other Israelis cross the bridge from war to peace. Yet when that decisive moment came, between the failure of the Camp David meeting in July and the Palestinian uprising in October, the left betrayed its promise. And it did so precisely on the issue of the Palestinian right of return.