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)."
Showing posts with label hasbara. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hasbara. Show all posts
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Saturday, 8 March 2008
How to Become an Israeli Journalist
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.
Friday, 29 February 2008
Australian government continues its love affair with Israel
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.
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.
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
The False Rhetoric of the "True Israelis" Campaign and Counter-Campaign
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
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
Friday, 25 January 2008
Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto
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
....................
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
...................
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)
=====================================
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.
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
....................
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
...................
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)
=====================================
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.
Friday, 4 January 2008
Citizenship, Zionism, and separation of religion
Michael Warschawski, Alternative Information Center (AIC), 31 December 2007
It is customary to say that Haaretz is a progressive newspaper. However, its progressive character is generally no where to be seen when Israel initiates a war against one of its neighbors - its opposition to the previous two wars came only after the newspaper provided support to the policies of the government and the military - or a buses against the Palestinian people. However, when dealing with matters of religion, and particularly hatred of the religious, the progressiveness of Haaretz, its editors and community of readers, isendless.
In the op-ed from 27 December, the writers rail against the "ultra-orthodox blockade" that prevents the conversion of hundreds of thousands of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union: "the ultra-orthodox rabbis are pressuring and threatening the government, and causing intentional difficulties for the rabbinical courts, which are acting under state authority. The ultra-orthodox are truly not interested in additional members joining the chosen people."
This criticism represents a common opinion amongst what is dubbed "the progressive liberal camp" in Israel.
Truly liberal? And indeed progressive?
This same camp accepts the assumption that in a Jewish state, full and real citizenship is possible only for a Jew. And not just for any Jew, but a Jew according to the definition of the religious establishment. It is difficult to perceive in such a definition, any sign of progress or enlightenment. This definition is based on the legitimization of an ethnic state, in contrast to a civil one, as the defining criteria for residency and connection to the land.
Indeed, the religious perception does not always suit national interests, including the need, in a Zionist state, to increase as much as possible the number of non-Arabs in the population registry. This contradiction, between the reliance on religion for the definition of citizenship, and the national need to increase the number of residents defined as Jews, compels the liberals to become analysts and reformers of religion. Members of Knesset who desecrate Shabbat in public, and non-religious newspapers, rely on structures of the religious canon to bolster their ideology and national interests! This is unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of religion, generally characteristic of totalitarian regimes that bend religion to their needs. This has absolutely nothing to do with progress and liberalism.
Of course, there exists another way: to preserve the autonomy of religion through a separation between religion and the needs of thestate. This path prevents the interference of religion in state affairs, but also ensures that the state does not interfere in religious affairs. It protects the citizen from interference of religion in her/his private life, and further preserves the possibility that believers can live their lives as they see fit. This is the meaning of the concept of "secularism," which is one of the foundational characteristics of modern democracy.
The editors of Haaretz and their friends from the liberal camp,however, are not secular at all. The majority loathe religious people with a racist hatred, but do not raise the idea of separating the state from religion, for religion provides them with justification for the claim to exclusive ownership over the territory, in addition to the definition of citizenship that removes the Palestinian from the whole and leaves them, in best case, in the position of second-class citizens.
In order for Israel to be transformed into a democratic state, it must, amongst other things, become a secular state. That is to say, religion needs to be made the private affair of each citizen, with no attempt to determine what is a "reasonable religion," a "progressive religion" or a "modern religion." This is the democratic right of each citizen, to live according to her/his religion. In a secular state, religion does not determine who a citizen is and what the rights of each citizen are, and the state does not determine who has the right to belong to one religious group or another. In a democratic state,the religious community is a private and exclusive club, only the members of which have the right to determine who belongs and who does not.
The attempt to "convince" rabbis to convert hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union is not only a racist act against Palestinians, but also gross injury to religious autonomy and a transformation of religion into a tool in the service of foreign political goals.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Haaretz and the Military Press Bureau - Who Inspires Whom?
It is customary to say that Haaretz is a progressive newspaper. However, its progressive character is generally no where to be seen when Israel initiates a war against one of its neighbors - its opposition to the previous two wars came only after the newspaper provided support to the policies of the government and the military - or a buses against the Palestinian people. However, when dealing with matters of religion, and particularly hatred of the religious, the progressiveness of Haaretz, its editors and community of readers, isendless.
In the op-ed from 27 December, the writers rail against the "ultra-orthodox blockade" that prevents the conversion of hundreds of thousands of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union: "the ultra-orthodox rabbis are pressuring and threatening the government, and causing intentional difficulties for the rabbinical courts, which are acting under state authority. The ultra-orthodox are truly not interested in additional members joining the chosen people."
This criticism represents a common opinion amongst what is dubbed "the progressive liberal camp" in Israel.
Truly liberal? And indeed progressive?
This same camp accepts the assumption that in a Jewish state, full and real citizenship is possible only for a Jew. And not just for any Jew, but a Jew according to the definition of the religious establishment. It is difficult to perceive in such a definition, any sign of progress or enlightenment. This definition is based on the legitimization of an ethnic state, in contrast to a civil one, as the defining criteria for residency and connection to the land.
Indeed, the religious perception does not always suit national interests, including the need, in a Zionist state, to increase as much as possible the number of non-Arabs in the population registry. This contradiction, between the reliance on religion for the definition of citizenship, and the national need to increase the number of residents defined as Jews, compels the liberals to become analysts and reformers of religion. Members of Knesset who desecrate Shabbat in public, and non-religious newspapers, rely on structures of the religious canon to bolster their ideology and national interests! This is unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of religion, generally characteristic of totalitarian regimes that bend religion to their needs. This has absolutely nothing to do with progress and liberalism.
Of course, there exists another way: to preserve the autonomy of religion through a separation between religion and the needs of thestate. This path prevents the interference of religion in state affairs, but also ensures that the state does not interfere in religious affairs. It protects the citizen from interference of religion in her/his private life, and further preserves the possibility that believers can live their lives as they see fit. This is the meaning of the concept of "secularism," which is one of the foundational characteristics of modern democracy.
The editors of Haaretz and their friends from the liberal camp,however, are not secular at all. The majority loathe religious people with a racist hatred, but do not raise the idea of separating the state from religion, for religion provides them with justification for the claim to exclusive ownership over the territory, in addition to the definition of citizenship that removes the Palestinian from the whole and leaves them, in best case, in the position of second-class citizens.
In order for Israel to be transformed into a democratic state, it must, amongst other things, become a secular state. That is to say, religion needs to be made the private affair of each citizen, with no attempt to determine what is a "reasonable religion," a "progressive religion" or a "modern religion." This is the democratic right of each citizen, to live according to her/his religion. In a secular state, religion does not determine who a citizen is and what the rights of each citizen are, and the state does not determine who has the right to belong to one religious group or another. In a democratic state,the religious community is a private and exclusive club, only the members of which have the right to determine who belongs and who does not.
The attempt to "convince" rabbis to convert hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union is not only a racist act against Palestinians, but also gross injury to religious autonomy and a transformation of religion into a tool in the service of foreign political goals.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Haaretz and the Military Press Bureau - Who Inspires Whom?
Thursday, 22 November 2007
Al Jazeera: Is Israel helping Iraq's Kurds?
9th November 2007
Inside Iraq looks at allegations that Israeli intelligence and military experts are training Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq. Inside Iraq investigates the plausibility of such reports. Inside Iraq asks: Is there any historical precedent of an Israeli-Kurdish collaboration? And what interests and implications might be at play here?
Inside Iraq looks at allegations that Israeli intelligence and military experts are training Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq. Inside Iraq investigates the plausibility of such reports. Inside Iraq asks: Is there any historical precedent of an Israeli-Kurdish collaboration? And what interests and implications might be at play here?
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
An Analysis of OneVoice's 10 Pillars
Analysis - Surrender on the Dotted Line - October 21, 2007
Despite OneVoice’s recent efforts to minimize the attention on its “10 Pillars,” especially in the wake of widespread grassroots criticism, the fact remains that OneVoice created these 10 pillars to present as a basis for negotiations, under the guise that they represent the will of the majority of Palestinians and Israelis.
As of October 20, 2007, OneVoice claimed 275,175 Palestinian signatories to “OneVoice Mandate” (where age requirement is only 15). According to OneVoice’s One Million Voices website, 58,000 have been polled as to whether they agree to these pillars. We could not find mention of any efforts to conduct this poll outside of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, so our understanding is that the vast majority of respondents reside in that area. OneVoice is only providing snippets of the results; information on their site indicates that approval rates for each of the pillars ranged from 23% to 85%. Since the sample is not statistically representative, it must be clarified that any findings are not representative of Palestinian opinion, and OneVoice’s use of terminology such as “consensus” is misleading.
=====================================
Open Letter - OneVoice's False Assertions - October 21, 2007
Another Voice: RAISE YOUR VOICE PALESTINE!
October 28, 2007
*** C O N C E R T ***
RAMALLAH - Palestinian grassroots activists and organizations will hold a free outdoor concert on Wednesday, October 31, calling for a just peace based on respect for human rights and international law. The concert will bring Palestinian folklore together with rap, and poetry together with politics, as Palestinians raise their voices for freedom, justice and unity.
Artists who are contributing their talents to this event include Reem Talhami, Jamil Al-Sayeh, DAM, Boikutt (Ramallah Underground), the Al Awda Dabkeh Troupe, Yalalan and more. In addition, words from the Bishop Attallah Hanna, the Refugee Right to Return Coalition, the Bil’in Popular Committee, and the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment Campaign.
On Wednesday, October 31, Palestinian voices will come together to declare that our basic rights will not be compromised. We will not accept normalization while Israel continues to arrest our sons and daughters, steal our land and water resources, build settlements, construct the wall, demolish our homes, and push us into smaller and smaller cantons.
Any negotiations and peace efforts must be premised on equality, respect for human rights, and the implementation of international law. Peace, not Apartheid!
Despite OneVoice’s recent efforts to minimize the attention on its “10 Pillars,” especially in the wake of widespread grassroots criticism, the fact remains that OneVoice created these 10 pillars to present as a basis for negotiations, under the guise that they represent the will of the majority of Palestinians and Israelis.
As of October 20, 2007, OneVoice claimed 275,175 Palestinian signatories to “OneVoice Mandate” (where age requirement is only 15). According to OneVoice’s One Million Voices website, 58,000 have been polled as to whether they agree to these pillars. We could not find mention of any efforts to conduct this poll outside of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, so our understanding is that the vast majority of respondents reside in that area. OneVoice is only providing snippets of the results; information on their site indicates that approval rates for each of the pillars ranged from 23% to 85%. Since the sample is not statistically representative, it must be clarified that any findings are not representative of Palestinian opinion, and OneVoice’s use of terminology such as “consensus” is misleading.
=====================================
Open Letter - OneVoice's False Assertions - October 21, 2007
Another Voice: RAISE YOUR VOICE PALESTINE!
October 28, 2007
*** C O N C E R T ***
RAMALLAH - Palestinian grassroots activists and organizations will hold a free outdoor concert on Wednesday, October 31, calling for a just peace based on respect for human rights and international law. The concert will bring Palestinian folklore together with rap, and poetry together with politics, as Palestinians raise their voices for freedom, justice and unity.
Artists who are contributing their talents to this event include Reem Talhami, Jamil Al-Sayeh, DAM, Boikutt (Ramallah Underground), the Al Awda Dabkeh Troupe, Yalalan and more. In addition, words from the Bishop Attallah Hanna, the Refugee Right to Return Coalition, the Bil’in Popular Committee, and the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment Campaign.
On Wednesday, October 31, Palestinian voices will come together to declare that our basic rights will not be compromised. We will not accept normalization while Israel continues to arrest our sons and daughters, steal our land and water resources, build settlements, construct the wall, demolish our homes, and push us into smaller and smaller cantons.
Any negotiations and peace efforts must be premised on equality, respect for human rights, and the implementation of international law. Peace, not Apartheid!
Another Peace Is Necessary ... Not One That Celebrates Apartheid
Another Voice - Palestine, Press Release - October 11, 2007
We, a group of Palestinians and local and international supporters concerned with OneVoice's "One Million Voices to End the Conflict" campaign, are disturbed by the methods by which they have been collecting signatures, and oppose the upcoming concerts that serve to obscure the reality and illegality of Israel's belligerent occupation.
The OneVoice formula for ending the "conflict," (i.e. occupation), outlined in a 10-point document, is oversimplified and misleading. It fails to mention key elements required for a just and lasting peace. From justifying settlement blocs to avoiding the refugees' right to return, the OneVoice plan avoids the framework of international law, and serves to subordinate Palestinian rights to Israeli interests. Such high profile initiatives serve as a dangerous distraction to the facts that Israel continues to create on the ground and will only obstruct any real solution that is based on justice.
"Like many other diplomatic misadventures, the OneVoice campaign overlooks the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and repackages dangerous concessions into an initiative that looks nice on the surface. It is misleading, and many are starting to realize that," said Another Voice organizer Haithem El-Zabri.
Furthermore, we are disturbed by the manner in which OneVoice has been gathering support for their campaign. We are discovering that many Palestinians and Israelis have signed on without access to the 10 pillars or proper understanding of the OneVoice initiative. Several organizations that have been listed as endorsing OneVoice's campaign have informed us that they had not authorized such endorsement and have contacted OneVoice to have their name removed. Several artists have also withdrawn their participation in the October 18th event, after learning more about it. We are interested in making sure that our people are fully informed about the OneVoice formula and its implications before signing on or attending its public events.
Another Voice opposes any efforts that violate Palestinian national and human rights, and asserts that the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian "conflict" is one based on international law and human rights, references to which are completely absent from OneVoice's campaign and literature. If OneVoice organizers are truly interested in a just and lasting peace, they are called upon to join efforts to demand that Israel comply with international law.
-----------------
OneVoice - "Ours is not a message of peace and love and coexistence"
An Analysis of OneVoice's 10 Pillars - October 21, 2007
We, a group of Palestinians and local and international supporters concerned with OneVoice's "One Million Voices to End the Conflict" campaign, are disturbed by the methods by which they have been collecting signatures, and oppose the upcoming concerts that serve to obscure the reality and illegality of Israel's belligerent occupation.
The OneVoice formula for ending the "conflict," (i.e. occupation), outlined in a 10-point document, is oversimplified and misleading. It fails to mention key elements required for a just and lasting peace. From justifying settlement blocs to avoiding the refugees' right to return, the OneVoice plan avoids the framework of international law, and serves to subordinate Palestinian rights to Israeli interests. Such high profile initiatives serve as a dangerous distraction to the facts that Israel continues to create on the ground and will only obstruct any real solution that is based on justice.
"Like many other diplomatic misadventures, the OneVoice campaign overlooks the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and repackages dangerous concessions into an initiative that looks nice on the surface. It is misleading, and many are starting to realize that," said Another Voice organizer Haithem El-Zabri.
Furthermore, we are disturbed by the manner in which OneVoice has been gathering support for their campaign. We are discovering that many Palestinians and Israelis have signed on without access to the 10 pillars or proper understanding of the OneVoice initiative. Several organizations that have been listed as endorsing OneVoice's campaign have informed us that they had not authorized such endorsement and have contacted OneVoice to have their name removed. Several artists have also withdrawn their participation in the October 18th event, after learning more about it. We are interested in making sure that our people are fully informed about the OneVoice formula and its implications before signing on or attending its public events.
Another Voice opposes any efforts that violate Palestinian national and human rights, and asserts that the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian "conflict" is one based on international law and human rights, references to which are completely absent from OneVoice's campaign and literature. If OneVoice organizers are truly interested in a just and lasting peace, they are called upon to join efforts to demand that Israel comply with international law.
-----------------
OneVoice - "Ours is not a message of peace and love and coexistence"
An Analysis of OneVoice's 10 Pillars - October 21, 2007
OneVoice - "Ours is not a message of peace and love and coexistence"
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
OneVoice but not for peace
Oh please! Only a cynic would say such a thing. So who was the cynic? Well the organiser actually. Here's the Mercury News:
"Ours is not a message of peace and love and coexistence," said Daniel Lubetzky, the 39-year-old Jewish businessman who's behind the OneVoice concerts.
"It's a message of let's not let this get worse," he said. "We are fed up. We don't love each other. You leave us alone and we leave you alone and let's just have a state and get that done before it gets ugly."
=======================
Celebrating Peace or Camouflaging Apartheid?
Boycott the Jericho-Tel Aviv Public Event on October 18th!
PACBI, 4 October, 2007
On October 18th, One Million Voices, an organization led by Israelis and international figures with the support of some Palestinians, is organizing a public event in Jericho and Tel Aviv, simultaneously. The event will include performances by renowned artists Brian Adams and Ilham Madfa'i. As stated on the organization's English webpage, the objective of the event is to “mark the first time that massive numbers of Israelis and Palestinians gather simultaneously to unite against violent extremism.”
According to the widely accepted boycott criteria advocated by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), the event falls under the category of normalization projects and violates the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), endorsed by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations, trade unions, political parties, and grassroots movements, for the following reasons:
1. Participants are required to join the One Voice Movement and sign a mandate -- ostensibly based on a "two-state solution," but without any commitment to international parameters -- which assumes equal responsibility of "both sides" for the "conflict," and suspiciously fails to call for Israel's full compliance with its obligations under international law through ending its illegal military occupation, its denial of Palestinian refugee rights (particularly the right of return), and its system of racial discrimination against its own Palestinian citizens.
2. The event is sponsored by Israeli institutions (mostly from the private sector) and endorsed by mainstream Israeli political figures from parties including the Likud, Labour and Shas. These Israeli "partners" are unquestionably complicit in maintaining Israel 's occupation and other forms of oppression.
We believe this event is being organized to promote a "peace" agreement that is devoid of the minimal requirements of justice, and that will leave the Palestinian people as disenfranchised as previous agreements have. The unfortunate and harmful support of Palestinian businessmen, religious and political figures, among others, for this event indicates either ignorance of the hidden agenda inherent in the whole initiative, deceptively camouflaged as a collective call for peace, or willingness to forfeit the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in return for advancing selfish interests.
We call on the Palestinian public and international supporters of a just peace in Palestine not to take part in this public relations charade that conceals a misleading political program that falls significantly short of international law tenets and the Palestinian national program.
We call on Arab and Palestinian artists, in particular, not to participate in this or any similar event whose real objectives have nothing to do with genuine peace.
We call on Palestinian board members of the One Million Voices to withdraw their support for this movement that only serves to blind the Palestinian public and sidetrack it from struggling, with the solidarity of its international supporters, for its UN-sanctioned rights, for justice, equality and freedom.
* Endorsed by tens of cultural and other civil society organizations in Palestine and the Arab World.
OneVoice but not for peace
Oh please! Only a cynic would say such a thing. So who was the cynic? Well the organiser actually. Here's the Mercury News:
"Ours is not a message of peace and love and coexistence," said Daniel Lubetzky, the 39-year-old Jewish businessman who's behind the OneVoice concerts.
"It's a message of let's not let this get worse," he said. "We are fed up. We don't love each other. You leave us alone and we leave you alone and let's just have a state and get that done before it gets ugly."
=======================
Celebrating Peace or Camouflaging Apartheid?
Boycott the Jericho-Tel Aviv Public Event on October 18th!
PACBI, 4 October, 2007
On October 18th, One Million Voices, an organization led by Israelis and international figures with the support of some Palestinians, is organizing a public event in Jericho and Tel Aviv, simultaneously. The event will include performances by renowned artists Brian Adams and Ilham Madfa'i. As stated on the organization's English webpage, the objective of the event is to “mark the first time that massive numbers of Israelis and Palestinians gather simultaneously to unite against violent extremism.”
According to the widely accepted boycott criteria advocated by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), the event falls under the category of normalization projects and violates the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), endorsed by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations, trade unions, political parties, and grassroots movements, for the following reasons:
1. Participants are required to join the One Voice Movement and sign a mandate -- ostensibly based on a "two-state solution," but without any commitment to international parameters -- which assumes equal responsibility of "both sides" for the "conflict," and suspiciously fails to call for Israel's full compliance with its obligations under international law through ending its illegal military occupation, its denial of Palestinian refugee rights (particularly the right of return), and its system of racial discrimination against its own Palestinian citizens.
2. The event is sponsored by Israeli institutions (mostly from the private sector) and endorsed by mainstream Israeli political figures from parties including the Likud, Labour and Shas. These Israeli "partners" are unquestionably complicit in maintaining Israel 's occupation and other forms of oppression.
We believe this event is being organized to promote a "peace" agreement that is devoid of the minimal requirements of justice, and that will leave the Palestinian people as disenfranchised as previous agreements have. The unfortunate and harmful support of Palestinian businessmen, religious and political figures, among others, for this event indicates either ignorance of the hidden agenda inherent in the whole initiative, deceptively camouflaged as a collective call for peace, or willingness to forfeit the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in return for advancing selfish interests.
We call on the Palestinian public and international supporters of a just peace in Palestine not to take part in this public relations charade that conceals a misleading political program that falls significantly short of international law tenets and the Palestinian national program.
We call on Arab and Palestinian artists, in particular, not to participate in this or any similar event whose real objectives have nothing to do with genuine peace.
We call on Palestinian board members of the One Million Voices to withdraw their support for this movement that only serves to blind the Palestinian public and sidetrack it from struggling, with the solidarity of its international supporters, for its UN-sanctioned rights, for justice, equality and freedom.
* Endorsed by tens of cultural and other civil society organizations in Palestine and the Arab World.
Sunday, 30 September 2007
Abdel Bari Atwan at the Brisbane Writers Festival
Al-Qa'ida expert arrives at right time
Rosemary Sorensen, The Australian, September 17, 2007
ABDEL Bari-Atwan has fallen in love with the Australian people, following his highly publicised delayed arrival at the Brisbane Writers Festival on Saturday.
The Palestinian-born, London-based newspaper editor and author of The Secret Life of al-Qa'ida praised the Australian media for their support, and said he had been overwhelmed by the attention he had received when Immigration delayed his visa.
"I am very moved by the reception, and it makes me more in love with this country," Atwan said yesterday.
"I don't want to be a hero, I don't pick a fight. I think letting someone like me, who has a very critical attitude towards the war (in Iraq), works to the Government's advantage to let me speak my mind."
Speaking publicly on Saturday and Sunday, Atwan told jokes about how scared he had been meeting Osama bin Laden in 1996, and warned the audience that the failure to capture or kill the leader of al-Qa'ida had meant the organisation was spreading "like a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise".
"There used to be just one address, like the first cave on the left, but now there are six or seven addresses.
"It's very clear that al-Qa'ida is a Hydra-headed monster."
He said both he and Mohamed Haneef, the Indian doctor working on the Gold Coast whose work visa was cancelled during an investigation into terror-link claims, were victims of Islamophobia. "His case and mine are known because they are publicised but imagine how many cases are not publicised," Atwan said.
His "visa saga" had now become "something to laugh about", and he praised the members of the ABC television satire team, the Chaser, for inviting him to take part in the festival.
We need groups like the Chaser," Atwan said. "We need to laugh at our politicians, and to highlight these kinds of mistakes."
During a panel session on Saturday, chaired by ABC radio's Rachel Kohn, Atwan had defused a situation that had threatened to become unpleasant, when audience members began shouting at Kohn's defence of the Iraq war.
"I was surprised that she entered into the argument when she was supposed to be a neutral moderator," Atwan said.
Instead, she was defending the undefendable."
Festival director Michael Campbell said Atwan's al-Qa'ida book was the best-selling title at the festival. "We had anticipated that there would be questions posed to him by audiences but I hadn't expected it from the Government," Mr Campbell said.
=========================================
AUDIO: Abdel Bari Atwan and the history of al-Qa'ida
Paul Barclay, ABC Radio National, 18 September 2007
Palestinian-born journalist and author Abdel Bari Atwan has finally made it to Australia following a delay with the issuing of his visa. He will be on the program discussing his book The Secret History of al-Qa'ida.
VIDEO: "A Case for War" Iran Debate PBS
Richard Perle and Abdel Bari Atwan discuss the consequences and realities of the U.S. presence in Iraq from the upcoming PBS special, A Case for War.
Rosemary Sorensen, The Australian, September 17, 2007
ABDEL Bari-Atwan has fallen in love with the Australian people, following his highly publicised delayed arrival at the Brisbane Writers Festival on Saturday.
The Palestinian-born, London-based newspaper editor and author of The Secret Life of al-Qa'ida praised the Australian media for their support, and said he had been overwhelmed by the attention he had received when Immigration delayed his visa.
"I am very moved by the reception, and it makes me more in love with this country," Atwan said yesterday.
"I don't want to be a hero, I don't pick a fight. I think letting someone like me, who has a very critical attitude towards the war (in Iraq), works to the Government's advantage to let me speak my mind."
Speaking publicly on Saturday and Sunday, Atwan told jokes about how scared he had been meeting Osama bin Laden in 1996, and warned the audience that the failure to capture or kill the leader of al-Qa'ida had meant the organisation was spreading "like a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise".
"There used to be just one address, like the first cave on the left, but now there are six or seven addresses.
"It's very clear that al-Qa'ida is a Hydra-headed monster."
He said both he and Mohamed Haneef, the Indian doctor working on the Gold Coast whose work visa was cancelled during an investigation into terror-link claims, were victims of Islamophobia. "His case and mine are known because they are publicised but imagine how many cases are not publicised," Atwan said.
His "visa saga" had now become "something to laugh about", and he praised the members of the ABC television satire team, the Chaser, for inviting him to take part in the festival.
We need groups like the Chaser," Atwan said. "We need to laugh at our politicians, and to highlight these kinds of mistakes."
During a panel session on Saturday, chaired by ABC radio's Rachel Kohn, Atwan had defused a situation that had threatened to become unpleasant, when audience members began shouting at Kohn's defence of the Iraq war.
"I was surprised that she entered into the argument when she was supposed to be a neutral moderator," Atwan said.
Instead, she was defending the undefendable."
Festival director Michael Campbell said Atwan's al-Qa'ida book was the best-selling title at the festival. "We had anticipated that there would be questions posed to him by audiences but I hadn't expected it from the Government," Mr Campbell said.
=========================================
AUDIO: Abdel Bari Atwan and the history of al-Qa'ida
Paul Barclay, ABC Radio National, 18 September 2007
Palestinian-born journalist and author Abdel Bari Atwan has finally made it to Australia following a delay with the issuing of his visa. He will be on the program discussing his book The Secret History of al-Qa'ida.
VIDEO: "A Case for War" Iran Debate PBS
Richard Perle and Abdel Bari Atwan discuss the consequences and realities of the U.S. presence in Iraq from the upcoming PBS special, A Case for War.
Saturday, 1 September 2007
Marrickville meets Bethlehem, controversy erupts
Marrickville meets Bethlehem, controversy erupts
Antony Loewenstein August 29th, 2007
Smearing the other
Antony Loewenstein August 31st, 2007
The lengths to which so-called respectable media will go to smear anybody who dares support the Palestinian cause continues unabated.
=============================
Bethlehem Mayor's attack stirs Jewish anger
Steve Creedy, The Australian, August 27, 2007
Response to Steve Creedy's report Bethlehem Mayor's attack stirs Jewish Anger
by Reverend Helen Cox
Response to Steve Creedy's report Bethlehem Mayor's attack stirs Jewish Anger
by Dora McPhee
Response to Steve Creedy's report Bethlehem Mayor's attack stirs Jewish Anger
by Sonja Karkar
Antony Loewenstein August 29th, 2007
Smearing the other
Antony Loewenstein August 31st, 2007
The lengths to which so-called respectable media will go to smear anybody who dares support the Palestinian cause continues unabated.
=============================
Bethlehem Mayor's attack stirs Jewish anger
Steve Creedy, The Australian, August 27, 2007
Response to Steve Creedy's report Bethlehem Mayor's attack stirs Jewish Anger
by Reverend Helen Cox
Response to Steve Creedy's report Bethlehem Mayor's attack stirs Jewish Anger
by Dora McPhee
Response to Steve Creedy's report Bethlehem Mayor's attack stirs Jewish Anger
by Sonja Karkar
Wednesday, 22 August 2007
The Propaganda Machine
Jonathan Cook - The Guardian - August 20, 2007
The goal of hasbara is to disseminate good news about Israel, largely independent of whether the news is true or not.
It is an honour of a kind, I suppose, to briefly have the most active thread on the Comment is free site. But not much of one when 95% of the posts rarely rose above the level of vitriolic name-calling. The posters probably know that by now I am immune to playground taunts of "scum" and "Nazi", but the abuse, I suspect, is meant more as a warning to others who might criticise Israel. Keep quite - or else.
Volcanic outbursts of hatred on Cif greet anyone who objects to Israel's policies: in my case, I sinned by pointing out that its leaders have turned the small community of Jews in Tehran into pawns in a struggle to persuade the world that Iran is a genocidal threat to world Jewry. My point was that Israel's concern is entirely hollow. It simply wants to mobilise support for an attack on Iran, either by itself or the US.
Some posters to this site seem to be aware of the organised nature of these critic-bashing campaigns. They note that sites like giyus.org rally the faithful to the cause. But most posters are probably not aware that giyus and its ilk are only the tip of a much larger effort called "hasbara" by Israel and its supporters. Usually the word is translated as "advocacy for Israel". I call it by its proper name: propaganda.
The main goal of hasbara is constantly to disseminate good news about Israel, largely independent of whether the news is true or not, in the hope that over time a benevolent image of Israel will be reinforced. Here's an example: in 2000 it was reported that an Israeli court ruling had ended the country's system of land apartheid, a legally enforced territorial separation that keeps Jewish and Arab citizens apart in most of country. To this day apologists cite this ruling as proof of equality in Israel, even though the decision only applied to one Arab family, has yet to be enforced, and the Israeli parliament is currently passing legislation to make sure it never is.
But the charm offensive is only the upside of their work. The downside is, as Cif posters know well, a relentless campaign to target, discredit and silence critics of Israel. It can take many forms, not only name-calling. I was intrigued to see several posters thought I had no right to criticise Israel because my wife is an Israeli citizen, though - and this is presumably her and my offence - she also happens to be a Palestinian. They would have a field day - but fail to see their own double standards - were I to suggest that only non-Jews be allowed to apologise for Israel.
A few posters made what appeared to be a substantive point: why had I failed to note that, while today 25,000 Jews live in Tehran, another 80,000 have fled? But look closer and the case crumbles. The overwhelming majority of those 80,000 Jews left in the wake of the country's Islamic revolution in 1979 - that is, nearly 30 years ago. They are irrelevant to Israel's current claims that the Iranian leadership is preparing to commit a genocide against the Jews. In any case, most of those fleeing Jews left because they were middle class and secular and saw no future in an Islamic state, despite reassurances from Ayatollah Khomeini that they would left in peace. In other words, they left - like many other Iranians - for economic reasons, not political or religious ones.
Other posters simply lied, in the great tradition of hasbara. Several suggested I had written that Rafik Hariri was killed by Israel. I hadn't, and you can check my website to be sure. I had also apparently written that the two Israeli soldiers killed in a Hizbullah operation last year were caught on Lebanese soil. Again a search failed to find the story. No matter. Truth is not what hasbara is about.
And if all this fails to discredit a critic of Israel, simply label him an anti-semite, and the argument can be closed. Game, set and match.
I am not sure if any other country or cause encourages this kind of mainly voluntary propaganda work, but I am sure that no other country or cause has the human resources that Israel can rely on to carry it out. There are thousands of people sitting at their computers ready to pounce. (I know because I have received abusive emails from them, unless it's just a handful with thousands of different email addresses.) They do not need orders or much guidance. They do it because they love Israel and see it as part of their life's work to protect Israel's image.
Doubtless, they believe what they write too. If you have been raised to live in constant fear of anti-semitism, and to see an anti-semitic impulse lurking in the recessses of every non-Jewish mind (an observation that is often publicly made in the Israeli and American media but less often here), then what other motive could someone like me have but anti-semitism for writing what I do? The logic is satisfyingly circular.
But Cif posters may be less aware of how the rest of the Israel lobby works. Giyus is, in fact, the most amateurish part of its operation. These are the "shock troops" on the front line. They overwhelm by force of numbers only. Far more effective are the lobby's "snipers". They pick off anyone the shock troops have failed to frighten off and whose voice might be heard in places where it matters: particularly in the American media and on US campuses. Tony Judt has recently felt their ire, as have Professors Walt and Mearsheimer.
A separate lobby system, particularly Aipac, is dedicated to intimidating elected American representatives. This obsession with preserving Israel's image in the US is not surprising: the country's fate as an occupying, military power in the Middle East will, after all, be decided in Washington. In the main, the professional Israel lobby cares little about what is said in the European media, although as British newspaper websites like the Guardian start to penetrate the other side of the Atlantic that is changing. There may yet come a day when we will miss the abusive giyus crowd.
The professional Israel lobby have respectable names like Camera (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle Reporting in America), Honest Reporting and the Anti-Defamation League.
Camera has a section dedicated to "naming and shaming" some of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East. You'll find a page dedicated to the Guardian's former Jerusalem correspondent, Chris McGreal, after he made the ultimate faux pas of comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa, a country he knows intimately. There are many who share the honour: the Independent's Donald MacIntyre, Tim McGirk of Time magazine, Molly Moore of the Washington Post, Jim Muir and Kylie Morris of the BBC, Greg Myre and Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times. And that's just a fraction of those whose surname begins with M.
=======================================
Israel ups the stakes in the propaganda war
Stewart Purvis, November 20, 2006
Amir Gissin talked last week of plans to get Israeli video onto sites like YouTube which he said were viewed by opinion "shapers". And his cousin Dr Ra'anan Gissin, formerly Ariel Sharon's media adviser, has endorsed the idea of having picture power at the country's disposal ready for future conflicts. Referring to Israel's opponents, he put it in his usual direct way: "You need to shoot a picture before you shoot them."
SourceWatch: Hasbara refers to the propaganda efforts to sell Israel, justify its actions, and defend it in world opinion. The premise of hasbara is that Israel's problems are a matter of better propaganda, and not one of an underlying unjust situation.
The goal of hasbara is to disseminate good news about Israel, largely independent of whether the news is true or not.
It is an honour of a kind, I suppose, to briefly have the most active thread on the Comment is free site. But not much of one when 95% of the posts rarely rose above the level of vitriolic name-calling. The posters probably know that by now I am immune to playground taunts of "scum" and "Nazi", but the abuse, I suspect, is meant more as a warning to others who might criticise Israel. Keep quite - or else.
Volcanic outbursts of hatred on Cif greet anyone who objects to Israel's policies: in my case, I sinned by pointing out that its leaders have turned the small community of Jews in Tehran into pawns in a struggle to persuade the world that Iran is a genocidal threat to world Jewry. My point was that Israel's concern is entirely hollow. It simply wants to mobilise support for an attack on Iran, either by itself or the US.
Some posters to this site seem to be aware of the organised nature of these critic-bashing campaigns. They note that sites like giyus.org rally the faithful to the cause. But most posters are probably not aware that giyus and its ilk are only the tip of a much larger effort called "hasbara" by Israel and its supporters. Usually the word is translated as "advocacy for Israel". I call it by its proper name: propaganda.
The main goal of hasbara is constantly to disseminate good news about Israel, largely independent of whether the news is true or not, in the hope that over time a benevolent image of Israel will be reinforced. Here's an example: in 2000 it was reported that an Israeli court ruling had ended the country's system of land apartheid, a legally enforced territorial separation that keeps Jewish and Arab citizens apart in most of country. To this day apologists cite this ruling as proof of equality in Israel, even though the decision only applied to one Arab family, has yet to be enforced, and the Israeli parliament is currently passing legislation to make sure it never is.
But the charm offensive is only the upside of their work. The downside is, as Cif posters know well, a relentless campaign to target, discredit and silence critics of Israel. It can take many forms, not only name-calling. I was intrigued to see several posters thought I had no right to criticise Israel because my wife is an Israeli citizen, though - and this is presumably her and my offence - she also happens to be a Palestinian. They would have a field day - but fail to see their own double standards - were I to suggest that only non-Jews be allowed to apologise for Israel.
A few posters made what appeared to be a substantive point: why had I failed to note that, while today 25,000 Jews live in Tehran, another 80,000 have fled? But look closer and the case crumbles. The overwhelming majority of those 80,000 Jews left in the wake of the country's Islamic revolution in 1979 - that is, nearly 30 years ago. They are irrelevant to Israel's current claims that the Iranian leadership is preparing to commit a genocide against the Jews. In any case, most of those fleeing Jews left because they were middle class and secular and saw no future in an Islamic state, despite reassurances from Ayatollah Khomeini that they would left in peace. In other words, they left - like many other Iranians - for economic reasons, not political or religious ones.
Other posters simply lied, in the great tradition of hasbara. Several suggested I had written that Rafik Hariri was killed by Israel. I hadn't, and you can check my website to be sure. I had also apparently written that the two Israeli soldiers killed in a Hizbullah operation last year were caught on Lebanese soil. Again a search failed to find the story. No matter. Truth is not what hasbara is about.
And if all this fails to discredit a critic of Israel, simply label him an anti-semite, and the argument can be closed. Game, set and match.
I am not sure if any other country or cause encourages this kind of mainly voluntary propaganda work, but I am sure that no other country or cause has the human resources that Israel can rely on to carry it out. There are thousands of people sitting at their computers ready to pounce. (I know because I have received abusive emails from them, unless it's just a handful with thousands of different email addresses.) They do not need orders or much guidance. They do it because they love Israel and see it as part of their life's work to protect Israel's image.
Doubtless, they believe what they write too. If you have been raised to live in constant fear of anti-semitism, and to see an anti-semitic impulse lurking in the recessses of every non-Jewish mind (an observation that is often publicly made in the Israeli and American media but less often here), then what other motive could someone like me have but anti-semitism for writing what I do? The logic is satisfyingly circular.
But Cif posters may be less aware of how the rest of the Israel lobby works. Giyus is, in fact, the most amateurish part of its operation. These are the "shock troops" on the front line. They overwhelm by force of numbers only. Far more effective are the lobby's "snipers". They pick off anyone the shock troops have failed to frighten off and whose voice might be heard in places where it matters: particularly in the American media and on US campuses. Tony Judt has recently felt their ire, as have Professors Walt and Mearsheimer.
A separate lobby system, particularly Aipac, is dedicated to intimidating elected American representatives. This obsession with preserving Israel's image in the US is not surprising: the country's fate as an occupying, military power in the Middle East will, after all, be decided in Washington. In the main, the professional Israel lobby cares little about what is said in the European media, although as British newspaper websites like the Guardian start to penetrate the other side of the Atlantic that is changing. There may yet come a day when we will miss the abusive giyus crowd.
The professional Israel lobby have respectable names like Camera (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle Reporting in America), Honest Reporting and the Anti-Defamation League.
Camera has a section dedicated to "naming and shaming" some of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East. You'll find a page dedicated to the Guardian's former Jerusalem correspondent, Chris McGreal, after he made the ultimate faux pas of comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa, a country he knows intimately. There are many who share the honour: the Independent's Donald MacIntyre, Tim McGirk of Time magazine, Molly Moore of the Washington Post, Jim Muir and Kylie Morris of the BBC, Greg Myre and Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times. And that's just a fraction of those whose surname begins with M.
=======================================
Israel ups the stakes in the propaganda war
Stewart Purvis, November 20, 2006
Amir Gissin talked last week of plans to get Israeli video onto sites like YouTube which he said were viewed by opinion "shapers". And his cousin Dr Ra'anan Gissin, formerly Ariel Sharon's media adviser, has endorsed the idea of having picture power at the country's disposal ready for future conflicts. Referring to Israel's opponents, he put it in his usual direct way: "You need to shoot a picture before you shoot them."
SourceWatch: Hasbara refers to the propaganda efforts to sell Israel, justify its actions, and defend it in world opinion. The premise of hasbara is that Israel's problems are a matter of better propaganda, and not one of an underlying unjust situation.
Thursday, 16 August 2007
Hebron store owner: Eviction was a façade
Ali Waked - YNet - 8th August, 2007
Owner of one of stores in city's wholesale market invaded by Jewish families tells Ynet evacuation will not change a thing: 'Everything that took place there was mainly meant for the cameras, but there were no clashes. The army and the settlers have the same goal'
"The so-called clashes between the IDF and the settlers are one big façade," Ziad Sarsur, the owner of one of the two stores taken over by Jewish families in Hebron's wholesale market, told Ynet on Wednesday.
The evacuation of the two families and hundreds of right-wing activists was completed by large police and Border Guard forces on Tuesday morning.
"Yesterday the merchants and I saw the commotion on television and laughed. What a poor and unsuccessful façade," Sarsur said. "Everyone knows that the army and the State of Israel and the settlers all do the same thing.
"One settler walks down the street accompanied by two jeeps, so how will they suddenly clash? The settlers are also much stronger and more influential than the army and I have no doubt that they will reinvade our businesses."
In 1993, after the massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein against Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs, Sarsur and hundreds of other Palestinian merchants were removed from their businesses and stores in the wholesale market.
Now, as far as he is concerned, the evacuation of Jewish families from the areas is meaningless.
"Whether the settlers are inside the market or were evacuated from it – I don't see a difference, because I cannot return to my business and my store. I have been expelled for more than 13 years. In order to enter the street where the business is located – not the business itself, but only the street – I have to coordinate with the Israeli side, and even then they don't give us permits."
According to Sarsur, before the settlers invaded the market he had approached the army and asked to take some of his belongings, but was turned down.
A day after the eviction, Sarsur recalled how he and his friends were evicted after the 1992 massacre.
"I was evacuated from a business which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, from which I would distribute fruit and vegetables to many stores in Hebron," he said.
"No one thought about providing us with an alternative or compensating us. The family lives of dozens of people depended on this business, and in one day we found ourselves on the street without any livelihood."
A number of High Court discussions did not convince the State to let the Palestinian merchants return to their businesses and homes in the wholesale market area.
Months after he was evacuated from his business, Sarsur paid 86,000 Jordanian dinars (about $120,000) and opened a store in the alternative market built by the Hebron municipality. He is still there, waiting for the day he will be allowed to return to the old market.
Soldiers and settlers together, on same road
"The funniest thing is the talks about large army and police forces arriving to prevent the settlers from reaching the confrontation area," Sarsur said, in reference to Tuesday's evacuation. "Whoever says that is either lying or did not see what went on here.
"Soldiers and settlers walked down the same road and street together. Everything that happened there was mainly for the cameras, but in practice there were no clashes. Both the army and the settlers have the same goal, which is to rob the Palestinians of their property.
Abdel Hadi Hantash of the Palestinian Land Defense Committee in Hebron said that disagreement is over the identity of the houses' rightful owners.
"The truth is that all these houses and stores are Palestinian property with documents, and therefore what happened yesterday is ridiculous. Two thieves arguing over who the property belongs to. This is an argument which is a façade, and by no means an evacuation, because the settlers' presence is illegal," he said.
Palestinians sources reported that not far from the scene of Tuesday's clashes there were at least another 10 Jewish families living in stores and houses they had taken over in the area.
"One or two places are enough for a façade. They don't need a set around every 10 stores, although I know there are at least 30 such stores and houses," a local Palestinian activist said.
======================================
Jacky Rowland from Al Jazeera English reports on the eviction of some settlers in Hebron - August 7, 2007
======================================
Hebron: Reflection on Reportage of an Eviction in Hebron
Kathie Uhler, 10 August 2007
What is profoundly unsettling for me is the exaggeration of the need for military and other security personnel, of the numbers of such personnel reputedly present, aswell as of the numbers of activists and protestors, and of their reputed violence.
What is to be gained by all this hype?
What is even more disturbing, however, is the minimizing in the Israeli and other presses of the real violence of Israeli citizens, both settlers and security personnel, against Palestinians and internationals, that I and other CPTers have witnessed and endured each day, and increasingly so in recent days.
Ten masked teenaged Israelis attacked one Palestinian in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron on 5 August, for example. Again, Israeli settlers beat two international volunteers at the Palestinian house illegally occupied by squatters in March 2007 that they named, "Beit Shalom," on 6 August while Israeli soldiers stood and watched.
The ongoing violence of squatting in a Palestinian neighborhood is itself another egregious example of Israeli minimizing and supporting crimes against humanity justified under the banner of self-produced security needs in an occupation that has gone bad.
The reportage of an event, like the eviction of the Israeli settlers in the market place, leads one to believe that the Israeli government staged it for political purposes.
Owner of one of stores in city's wholesale market invaded by Jewish families tells Ynet evacuation will not change a thing: 'Everything that took place there was mainly meant for the cameras, but there were no clashes. The army and the settlers have the same goal'
"The so-called clashes between the IDF and the settlers are one big façade," Ziad Sarsur, the owner of one of the two stores taken over by Jewish families in Hebron's wholesale market, told Ynet on Wednesday.
The evacuation of the two families and hundreds of right-wing activists was completed by large police and Border Guard forces on Tuesday morning.
"Yesterday the merchants and I saw the commotion on television and laughed. What a poor and unsuccessful façade," Sarsur said. "Everyone knows that the army and the State of Israel and the settlers all do the same thing.
"One settler walks down the street accompanied by two jeeps, so how will they suddenly clash? The settlers are also much stronger and more influential than the army and I have no doubt that they will reinvade our businesses."
In 1993, after the massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein against Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs, Sarsur and hundreds of other Palestinian merchants were removed from their businesses and stores in the wholesale market.
Now, as far as he is concerned, the evacuation of Jewish families from the areas is meaningless.
"Whether the settlers are inside the market or were evacuated from it – I don't see a difference, because I cannot return to my business and my store. I have been expelled for more than 13 years. In order to enter the street where the business is located – not the business itself, but only the street – I have to coordinate with the Israeli side, and even then they don't give us permits."
According to Sarsur, before the settlers invaded the market he had approached the army and asked to take some of his belongings, but was turned down.
A day after the eviction, Sarsur recalled how he and his friends were evicted after the 1992 massacre.
"I was evacuated from a business which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, from which I would distribute fruit and vegetables to many stores in Hebron," he said.
"No one thought about providing us with an alternative or compensating us. The family lives of dozens of people depended on this business, and in one day we found ourselves on the street without any livelihood."
A number of High Court discussions did not convince the State to let the Palestinian merchants return to their businesses and homes in the wholesale market area.
Months after he was evacuated from his business, Sarsur paid 86,000 Jordanian dinars (about $120,000) and opened a store in the alternative market built by the Hebron municipality. He is still there, waiting for the day he will be allowed to return to the old market.
Soldiers and settlers together, on same road
"The funniest thing is the talks about large army and police forces arriving to prevent the settlers from reaching the confrontation area," Sarsur said, in reference to Tuesday's evacuation. "Whoever says that is either lying or did not see what went on here.
"Soldiers and settlers walked down the same road and street together. Everything that happened there was mainly for the cameras, but in practice there were no clashes. Both the army and the settlers have the same goal, which is to rob the Palestinians of their property.
Abdel Hadi Hantash of the Palestinian Land Defense Committee in Hebron said that disagreement is over the identity of the houses' rightful owners.
"The truth is that all these houses and stores are Palestinian property with documents, and therefore what happened yesterday is ridiculous. Two thieves arguing over who the property belongs to. This is an argument which is a façade, and by no means an evacuation, because the settlers' presence is illegal," he said.
Palestinians sources reported that not far from the scene of Tuesday's clashes there were at least another 10 Jewish families living in stores and houses they had taken over in the area.
"One or two places are enough for a façade. They don't need a set around every 10 stores, although I know there are at least 30 such stores and houses," a local Palestinian activist said.
======================================
Jacky Rowland from Al Jazeera English reports on the eviction of some settlers in Hebron - August 7, 2007
======================================
Hebron: Reflection on Reportage of an Eviction in Hebron
Kathie Uhler, 10 August 2007
What is profoundly unsettling for me is the exaggeration of the need for military and other security personnel, of the numbers of such personnel reputedly present, aswell as of the numbers of activists and protestors, and of their reputed violence.
What is to be gained by all this hype?
What is even more disturbing, however, is the minimizing in the Israeli and other presses of the real violence of Israeli citizens, both settlers and security personnel, against Palestinians and internationals, that I and other CPTers have witnessed and endured each day, and increasingly so in recent days.
Ten masked teenaged Israelis attacked one Palestinian in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron on 5 August, for example. Again, Israeli settlers beat two international volunteers at the Palestinian house illegally occupied by squatters in March 2007 that they named, "Beit Shalom," on 6 August while Israeli soldiers stood and watched.
The ongoing violence of squatting in a Palestinian neighborhood is itself another egregious example of Israeli minimizing and supporting crimes against humanity justified under the banner of self-produced security needs in an occupation that has gone bad.
The reportage of an event, like the eviction of the Israeli settlers in the market place, leads one to believe that the Israeli government staged it for political purposes.
Wednesday, 15 August 2007
Haaretz Article Ignores Bil’in
Dennis Fox : Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
What stands out most for me in this Haaretz article on the extraordinary growth rate of ultra-orthodox West Bank settlers is that, despite the primary focus on Modi’in Ilit and Beitar Ilit, there is no mention at all of Bil’in and Saffa, the Palestinian villages that have now lost much of their land to the growing Modi’in complex.
==============================
Why Ha'aretz Is A Piece Of Crap
Lawrence of Cyberia : October 22, 2004
Ha’aretz is a lot like the BBC: a news outlet that enjoys a reputation for progressive, liberal reporting, despite the fact that its fundamental bias is not really pro-Right or pro-Left at all, but strongly pro-Establishment.
Ha’aretz is “liberal” in exactly the same way: it gives a platform to outstanding individuals who will challenge conventional wisdom on Israeli affairs in a way that the newspaper as a whole will not.
There is one area of Ha’aretz’ reporting that I doubt I have ever relied on however, and that is their reporting of I.D.F. affairs.
The two faces of Ha'aretz
Jonathan Cook, Electronic Intifada, 5 April 2003
Dear reader, as Israel slides ever deeper into a morass of racism and ethnic solipsism, please do not lean too heavily on Haaretz to understand how or why this "light unto the nations" has grown so dim.
Haaretz and the Military Press Bureau - Who Inspires Whom?
Oznik News, December 10, 2002
Military press releases in English Lack Parts Of Hebrew versions, reports Haaretz - in its Hebrew edition only.
Looking Behind Ha'aretz's Liberal Image
Ran HaCohen, October 2, 2002
In the last two years – which saw both the Intifada and the launching of its English on-line edition – Ha'aretz has taken a sharp turn to the nationalistic right.
What stands out most for me in this Haaretz article on the extraordinary growth rate of ultra-orthodox West Bank settlers is that, despite the primary focus on Modi’in Ilit and Beitar Ilit, there is no mention at all of Bil’in and Saffa, the Palestinian villages that have now lost much of their land to the growing Modi’in complex.
==============================
Why Ha'aretz Is A Piece Of Crap
Lawrence of Cyberia : October 22, 2004
Ha’aretz is a lot like the BBC: a news outlet that enjoys a reputation for progressive, liberal reporting, despite the fact that its fundamental bias is not really pro-Right or pro-Left at all, but strongly pro-Establishment.
Ha’aretz is “liberal” in exactly the same way: it gives a platform to outstanding individuals who will challenge conventional wisdom on Israeli affairs in a way that the newspaper as a whole will not.
There is one area of Ha’aretz’ reporting that I doubt I have ever relied on however, and that is their reporting of I.D.F. affairs.
The two faces of Ha'aretz
Jonathan Cook, Electronic Intifada, 5 April 2003
Dear reader, as Israel slides ever deeper into a morass of racism and ethnic solipsism, please do not lean too heavily on Haaretz to understand how or why this "light unto the nations" has grown so dim.
Haaretz and the Military Press Bureau - Who Inspires Whom?
Oznik News, December 10, 2002
Military press releases in English Lack Parts Of Hebrew versions, reports Haaretz - in its Hebrew edition only.
Looking Behind Ha'aretz's Liberal Image
Ran HaCohen, October 2, 2002
In the last two years – which saw both the Intifada and the launching of its English on-line edition – Ha'aretz has taken a sharp turn to the nationalistic right.
Saturday, 11 August 2007
The Nakba in Israeli textbooks and official discourse
Ben White - The Electronic Intifada - August 2, 2007
As the BBC reported, "for the first time" the "Palestinian denunciation of the creation of Israel in 1948" had been included. This incident afforded a perfect opportunity for seeing how the Nakba -- what Palestinians called their expulsion by Zionist forces from their homes and villages in what is now Israel during 1947-48 -- is viewed by "official" discourse in the West (through the filter of the mainstream media), and within Israel itself.
Most mainstream news stories about the Israeli textbook were infused with a positive tone, and typical headlines described the development as "acknowledging" Palestinian suffering, "adding perspective," or "admitting" the Palestinian view (LA Times-Washington Post, San Francisco Gate, Sydney Morning Herald). Taking the online BBC report as an example, however, we find that this apparent move towards objectivity is deeply problematic.
======================
The story TV news won't tell
The Observer, Sunday June 20, 2004
For 10 years Tim Llewellyn was the BBC's Middle East correspondent. In this passionately argued polemic he accuses British broadcasters, including his former employer, of systematic bias in covering the Arab-Israeli conflict, giving undue prominence to the views of Jerusalem while disregarding the roots of the crisis.
WHY THE BBC DUCKS THE PALESTINIAN STORY - PART 1
By Former BBC Middle East Correspondent, Tim Llewellyn
WHY THE BBC DUCKS THE PALESTINIAN STORY - PART 2
By Former BBC Middle East Correspondent, Tim Llewellyn
As the BBC reported, "for the first time" the "Palestinian denunciation of the creation of Israel in 1948" had been included. This incident afforded a perfect opportunity for seeing how the Nakba -- what Palestinians called their expulsion by Zionist forces from their homes and villages in what is now Israel during 1947-48 -- is viewed by "official" discourse in the West (through the filter of the mainstream media), and within Israel itself.
Most mainstream news stories about the Israeli textbook were infused with a positive tone, and typical headlines described the development as "acknowledging" Palestinian suffering, "adding perspective," or "admitting" the Palestinian view (LA Times-Washington Post, San Francisco Gate, Sydney Morning Herald). Taking the online BBC report as an example, however, we find that this apparent move towards objectivity is deeply problematic.
======================
The story TV news won't tell
The Observer, Sunday June 20, 2004
For 10 years Tim Llewellyn was the BBC's Middle East correspondent. In this passionately argued polemic he accuses British broadcasters, including his former employer, of systematic bias in covering the Arab-Israeli conflict, giving undue prominence to the views of Jerusalem while disregarding the roots of the crisis.
WHY THE BBC DUCKS THE PALESTINIAN STORY - PART 1
By Former BBC Middle East Correspondent, Tim Llewellyn
WHY THE BBC DUCKS THE PALESTINIAN STORY - PART 2
By Former BBC Middle East Correspondent, Tim Llewellyn
Sunday, 29 July 2007
An introduction to Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Reflection, Seán O'Neill, 18 July 2007
When I went to the orientation for international students at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, I expected the ethos to be pro-Israeli. However, I was taken aback by the level of anti-Palestinian propaganda and fear-mongering.
Jerusalem: Hebrew University part II, Seán O'Neill, July 28, 2007
Until I studied at Hebrew University, with mostly American Jewish but alsoIsraeli students, I did not understand just how high the level of fear is amongmany of Israel's Jewish citizens and American visitors. When I tell many of myfellow students that I stay on the Mount of Olives, a Palestinian neighborhoodnear campus, their eyes open wide and their faces tighten, as if I'm eithercrazy or in imminent danger. When I explain that I work in the West Bank, andgo there often to visit friends, their jaws drop.
When I went to the orientation for international students at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, I expected the ethos to be pro-Israeli. However, I was taken aback by the level of anti-Palestinian propaganda and fear-mongering.
Jerusalem: Hebrew University part II, Seán O'Neill, July 28, 2007
Until I studied at Hebrew University, with mostly American Jewish but alsoIsraeli students, I did not understand just how high the level of fear is amongmany of Israel's Jewish citizens and American visitors. When I tell many of myfellow students that I stay on the Mount of Olives, a Palestinian neighborhoodnear campus, their eyes open wide and their faces tighten, as if I'm eithercrazy or in imminent danger. When I explain that I work in the West Bank, andgo there often to visit friends, their jaws drop.
Friday, 20 July 2007
John Pilger: Freedom Next Time
The title of this talk is Freedom Next Time, which is the title of my book, and the book is meant as an antidote to the propaganda that is so often disguised as journalism. So I thought I would talk today about journalism, about war by journalism, propaganda, and silence, and how that silence might be broken. Edward Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, wrote about an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. He was referring to journalism, the media. That was almost 80 years ago, not long after corporate journalism was invented. It is a history few journalist talk about or know about, and it began with the arrival of corporate advertising. As the new corporations began taking over the press, something called "professional journalism" was invented. To attract big advertisers, the new corporate press had to appear respectable, pillars of the establishment—objective, impartial, balanced. The first schools of journalism were set up, and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around the professional journalist. The right to freedom of expression was associated with the new media and with the great corporations, and the whole thing was, as Robert McChesney put it so well, "entirely bogus".
..............................
The BBC began in 1922, just before the corporate press began in America. Its founder was Lord John Reith, who believed that impartiality and objectivity were the essence of professionalism. In the same year the British establishment was under siege. The unions had called a general strike and the Tories were terrified that a revolution was on the way. The new BBC came to their rescue. In high secrecy, Lord Reith wrote anti-union speeches for the Tory Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and broadcast them to the nation, while refusing to allow the labor leaders to put their side until the strike was over.
So, a pattern was set. Impartiality was a principle certainly: a principle to be suspended whenever the establishment was under threat. And that principle has been upheld ever since.
..............................
The enduring tragedy of Palestine is due in great part to the silence and compliance of the so-called liberal left. Hamas is described repeatedly as sworn to the destruction of Israel. The New York Times, the Associated Press, the Boston Globe—take your pick. They all use this line as a standard disclaimer, and it is false. That Hamas has called for a ten-year ceasefire is almost never reported. Even more important, that Hamas has undergone an historic ideological shift in the last few years, which amounts to a recognition of what it calls the reality of Israel, is virtually unknown; and that Israel is sworn to the destruction of Palestine is unspeakable.
There is a pioneering study by Glasgow University on the reporting of Palestine. They interviewed young people who watch TV news in Britain. More than 90 percent thought the illegal settlers were Palestinian. The more they watched, the less they knew—Danny Schecter's famous phrase.
Speech delivered at the Chicago Socialism 2007 Conference on Saturday June 16 2007
View here or :
John Pilger on Al Jazeera:
..............................
The BBC began in 1922, just before the corporate press began in America. Its founder was Lord John Reith, who believed that impartiality and objectivity were the essence of professionalism. In the same year the British establishment was under siege. The unions had called a general strike and the Tories were terrified that a revolution was on the way. The new BBC came to their rescue. In high secrecy, Lord Reith wrote anti-union speeches for the Tory Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and broadcast them to the nation, while refusing to allow the labor leaders to put their side until the strike was over.
So, a pattern was set. Impartiality was a principle certainly: a principle to be suspended whenever the establishment was under threat. And that principle has been upheld ever since.
..............................
The enduring tragedy of Palestine is due in great part to the silence and compliance of the so-called liberal left. Hamas is described repeatedly as sworn to the destruction of Israel. The New York Times, the Associated Press, the Boston Globe—take your pick. They all use this line as a standard disclaimer, and it is false. That Hamas has called for a ten-year ceasefire is almost never reported. Even more important, that Hamas has undergone an historic ideological shift in the last few years, which amounts to a recognition of what it calls the reality of Israel, is virtually unknown; and that Israel is sworn to the destruction of Palestine is unspeakable.
There is a pioneering study by Glasgow University on the reporting of Palestine. They interviewed young people who watch TV news in Britain. More than 90 percent thought the illegal settlers were Palestinian. The more they watched, the less they knew—Danny Schecter's famous phrase.
Speech delivered at the Chicago Socialism 2007 Conference on Saturday June 16 2007
View here or :
John Pilger on Al Jazeera:
Sunday, 22 April 2007
Friday, 22 December 2006
24.11.06
White Sisters?
Paul Heywood - Smith QC, November 20, 2006
The Australian government's silence regarding Mr. Tamir's comments and its rejection of Senator Allison's bill raises some troubling questions regarding Australian foreign policy. To what extent do Mr. Tamir's comments reflect the Australian government's perception of Australia's place in the world?
Two White Sisters in Asia: Israel and Australia
M. Shahid Alam, November 7, 2006
Perhaps, it is this changing global scenario that is causing some Israelis to emphasize their root constituency: white solidarity. Is this why Ambassador Naftali Tamir is advising Israel to forge a deeper partnership with Australia? It is possible that deep down, some Australians too feel beleaguered among a 'sea of Asians,' even though no Asian country threatens Australia. Perhaps, the Ambassador speaks as an insider. Perhaps, that is why he thinks it might be a good idea to exploit these Australian fears.
Israel's white Australia policy!
Mark Elf, Friday, October 13, 2006
Check this out. It's a report in Ha'aretz about how the Israeli ambassador to Australia has suggested that Israel and Australia should unite on the basis of the whiteness of the populations that count in those two states.
As'ad AbuKhalil: The glorious country of Micronesia (which had sent one soldier into Iraq to support the American occupation) is in the news again: "Voting "no" were the United States, Israel, Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau. Abstaining were Canada, Ivory Coast, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu."
U.N. assembly presses Israel to withdraw from Gaza
Saturday November 18, 06:36 AM
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Friday to deplore a deadly Israeli artillery attack in Gaza, six days after the United States vetoed a similar measure in the Security Council.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Iraq war was good for Israel: Olmert
Dan Williams, Wednesday November 22, 3:16 PM ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Iraq war was a boon for Israel's security, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday, voicing fresh endorsement for a Bush administration sapped by the unpopularity at home of its Middle East policies.
WEXNER ANALYSIS: ISRAELI COMMUNICATION PRIORITIES 2003
For a year - a SOLID YEAR - you should be invoking the name of Saddam Hussein and how Israel was always behind American efforts to rid the world of this ruthless dictator and liberate their people. Saddam will remain a powerful symbol of terror to Americans for a long time to come. A pro-Israeli expression of solidarity with the American people in their successful effort to remove Saddam will be appreciated.
Peretz's office admits 'irregularities' in use of cluster bombs during war
Meron Rapoport, Ha'aretz, November 21, 2006
Meanwhile, for the first time yesterday, the IDF admitted targeting populated areas with cluster munitions. In a statement released by the IDF Spokesman's Office, "the use of cluster munitions against built-up areas was done only against military targets where rocket launches against Israel were identified and after taking steps to warn the civilian population." The statements released by the minister's office contradict Israel Defense Forces' claims - made both during and after the war - regarding the use of cluster munitions.
Civilians bear brunt of abuses, UN rights chief says
Report, UN News, November 23, 2006
International court on trial
Ian Black
Israel, another significant non-signatory, fears prosecutions over its behaviour in occupied Palestinian territories - such as the incident in which 18 Gazan civilians were killed by shelling this month. Still, the court's reach is fairly limited. Though the UN security council can ask the ICC to launch investigations, it has no police force or coercive powers of its own.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Swedish human rights worker viciously attacked by Jewish extremists in Hebron
ISM Hebron, November 18, 2006
A 19-year old Swedish human rights worker had her cheekbone broken by a Jewish extremist in Hebron today. Earlier the same day at least five Palestinians, including a 3-year-old child, were injured by the settler-supporting extremists, who rampaged through Tel Rumeida hurling stones and bottles at local residents. Palestinian schoolchildren on their way home were also attacked. The Israeli army, which was intensively deployed in the area, did not intervene to stop the attacks.
Nigel Parry's Hebron Diary
International Solidarity Movement updates
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hollow Visions of Palestine's Future
Jonathan Cook, November 18, 2006
Peace will need more than David Grossman - or Uri Avnery.
A project of dispossession can never be a noble cause
Ahdaf Soueif, November 17, 2006
Israel's liberal intellectuals lament the malaise that grips their country - but refuse to face up to the ethnicide at the heart of it.
Realities of death - November 2006
The value of life has little to do with the value accorded to death and the latter, writes Azmi Bishara, is determined as much by who did the killing as by the identity of the victim.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Israel ups the stakes in the propaganda war
Stewart Purvis, November 20, 2006
Amir Gissin talked last week of plans to get Israeli video onto sites like YouTube which he said were viewed by opinion "shapers". And his cousin Dr Ra'anan Gissin, formerly Ariel Sharon's media adviser, has endorsed the idea of having picture power at the country's disposal ready for future conflicts. Referring to Israel's opponents, he put it in his usual direct way: "You need to shoot a picture before you shoot them."
SourceWatch: Hasbara refers to the propaganda efforts to sell Israel, justify its actions, and defend it in world opinion. The premise of hasbara is that Israel's problems are a matter of better propaganda, and not one of an underlying unjust situation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bright lights and promises
The new Palestinian government of technocrats may bring an end to sanctions, and hope for the peace process reports Khaled Amayreh.
Fatah is likely to take the Foreign Ministry and a number of other service- oriented portfolios. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Palestinian Democratic Initiative headed by Mustafa Barghouti and the Third Way, headed by former minister of finance Salam Fayad, are all expected to take part in the upcoming government.
A committed intellectual - November 2006
Mustafa Barghouti reflects on the work and life of Edward Said.
Propaganda and war
Edward Said, September 2001
Never have the media been so influential in determining the course of war as during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which, as far as the Western media are concerned, has essentially become a battle over images and ideas. Israel has already poured hundreds of millions of dollars into what in Hebrew is called hasbara, or information for the outside world (hence, propaganda).
Perpetual discord - November 2006
Dina Ezzat is shocked by the Arabs' endless ability to accommodate Israeli violations and American arrogance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Killing Hope in Beit Hanoun
Ramzy Baroud, November 18, 2006
The Worst Ramadan
A prayer in paradise
Gideon Levy, Haaretz, November 23, 2006
The kindergarten teacher is lying on a stretcher, covered with blood. The minibus is parked alongside. From somewhere to the left, the army cannon is firing shells. The children are lying on the ground next to one another. That is how one of the children described the morning when they were driving to their kindergarten in Beit Lahia and an Israel Defense Forces shell or missile - the army spokesman refuses to say - exploded several meters away and mortally wounded the teacher before their eyes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Caterpillar Homewrecker's Visit to London
Tom Hayes, November 24, 2006
On Wednesday around 50 protesters including the rhythms of resistance samba band turned out to 'greet' Mike Baunton, the Vice President of Caterpillar, who was due to speak at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers' Annual Dinner.
The message of the bulldozers
Jeff Halper, November 19, 2006
Israel's policy of demolishing Palestinian homes is part and parcel of an overall policy of displacement in which 80% of the Palestinians have been pushed from what has become Israel. Almost half of the entire Palestinian people (those living in the Occupied Territories) are being confined to a truncated Bantustan. Millions of refugees continue to languish in camps and 'Israeli Arabs', Palestinian citizens of Israel, find their own status increasingly threatened.
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Artist Suzanne Klotz's Indispensable Guide to the Holy Land
Mulham Assir, November 24, 2006
Her commitment to the Palestinian cause is above all else spiritual. A deeply compassionate and genuine humanist, Klotz believes that the spiritual teachings of all major religions are the same. She also believes that Zionism has not only perverted and misrepresented Judaism to both Jews and Christians but is also misrepresenting and demonizing Muslims and Islam to the world. Her current work is a collection of 99 books she is creating, each representing one of God's attributes.
Karen Armstrong: How Religious Movements Prolong the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Carlton Cobb, CNI, November 20, 2006
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Peace never - November 2006
In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Dina Ezzat seeks out the Israeli drive for peace.
Nine Israeli human rights organizations speak out about Gaza
Statement, Israeli human rights organizations, November 17, 2006
Israel/Palestine: Violence Hasn't Worked
Vivienne Porzsolt, November 22, 2006
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Palestinians hail Irish academics' support of Palestine
David Lundy, Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, November 21, 2006
Irish academics were thanked this week in an open letter, signed by over 100 academics and 1,000 students of Birzeit University near Ramallah, Palestine. The thanks were addressed to the 61 Irish academics who wrote a public letter in September calling for a moratorium on EU aid to Israeli universities, until Israel abides by international law and basic human rights norms.
Why The Academic Boycott Is Necessary
Lawrence Davidson, November 2006
Paul Heywood - Smith QC, November 20, 2006
The Australian government's silence regarding Mr. Tamir's comments and its rejection of Senator Allison's bill raises some troubling questions regarding Australian foreign policy. To what extent do Mr. Tamir's comments reflect the Australian government's perception of Australia's place in the world?
Two White Sisters in Asia: Israel and Australia
M. Shahid Alam, November 7, 2006
Perhaps, it is this changing global scenario that is causing some Israelis to emphasize their root constituency: white solidarity. Is this why Ambassador Naftali Tamir is advising Israel to forge a deeper partnership with Australia? It is possible that deep down, some Australians too feel beleaguered among a 'sea of Asians,' even though no Asian country threatens Australia. Perhaps, the Ambassador speaks as an insider. Perhaps, that is why he thinks it might be a good idea to exploit these Australian fears.
Israel's white Australia policy!
Mark Elf, Friday, October 13, 2006
Check this out. It's a report in Ha'aretz about how the Israeli ambassador to Australia has suggested that Israel and Australia should unite on the basis of the whiteness of the populations that count in those two states.
As'ad AbuKhalil: The glorious country of Micronesia (which had sent one soldier into Iraq to support the American occupation) is in the news again: "Voting "no" were the United States, Israel, Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau. Abstaining were Canada, Ivory Coast, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu."
U.N. assembly presses Israel to withdraw from Gaza
Saturday November 18, 06:36 AM
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Friday to deplore a deadly Israeli artillery attack in Gaza, six days after the United States vetoed a similar measure in the Security Council.
The assembly voted 156-7 with six abstentions to approve a resolution put forward by Arab states that also urged the Jewish state to immediately withdraw its troops from Gaza.
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Iraq war was good for Israel: Olmert
Dan Williams, Wednesday November 22, 3:16 PM ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Iraq war was a boon for Israel's security, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday, voicing fresh endorsement for a Bush administration sapped by the unpopularity at home of its Middle East policies.
WEXNER ANALYSIS: ISRAELI COMMUNICATION PRIORITIES 2003
For a year - a SOLID YEAR - you should be invoking the name of Saddam Hussein and how Israel was always behind American efforts to rid the world of this ruthless dictator and liberate their people. Saddam will remain a powerful symbol of terror to Americans for a long time to come. A pro-Israeli expression of solidarity with the American people in their successful effort to remove Saddam will be appreciated.
Peretz's office admits 'irregularities' in use of cluster bombs during war
Meron Rapoport, Ha'aretz, November 21, 2006
Meanwhile, for the first time yesterday, the IDF admitted targeting populated areas with cluster munitions. In a statement released by the IDF Spokesman's Office, "the use of cluster munitions against built-up areas was done only against military targets where rocket launches against Israel were identified and after taking steps to warn the civilian population." The statements released by the minister's office contradict Israel Defense Forces' claims - made both during and after the war - regarding the use of cluster munitions.
Civilians bear brunt of abuses, UN rights chief says
Report, UN News, November 23, 2006
International court on trial
Ian Black
Israel, another significant non-signatory, fears prosecutions over its behaviour in occupied Palestinian territories - such as the incident in which 18 Gazan civilians were killed by shelling this month. Still, the court's reach is fairly limited. Though the UN security council can ask the ICC to launch investigations, it has no police force or coercive powers of its own.
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Swedish human rights worker viciously attacked by Jewish extremists in Hebron
ISM Hebron, November 18, 2006
A 19-year old Swedish human rights worker had her cheekbone broken by a Jewish extremist in Hebron today. Earlier the same day at least five Palestinians, including a 3-year-old child, were injured by the settler-supporting extremists, who rampaged through Tel Rumeida hurling stones and bottles at local residents. Palestinian schoolchildren on their way home were also attacked. The Israeli army, which was intensively deployed in the area, did not intervene to stop the attacks.
Nigel Parry's Hebron Diary
International Solidarity Movement updates
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Hollow Visions of Palestine's Future
Jonathan Cook, November 18, 2006
Peace will need more than David Grossman - or Uri Avnery.
A project of dispossession can never be a noble cause
Ahdaf Soueif, November 17, 2006
Israel's liberal intellectuals lament the malaise that grips their country - but refuse to face up to the ethnicide at the heart of it.
Realities of death - November 2006
The value of life has little to do with the value accorded to death and the latter, writes Azmi Bishara, is determined as much by who did the killing as by the identity of the victim.
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Israel ups the stakes in the propaganda war
Stewart Purvis, November 20, 2006
Amir Gissin talked last week of plans to get Israeli video onto sites like YouTube which he said were viewed by opinion "shapers". And his cousin Dr Ra'anan Gissin, formerly Ariel Sharon's media adviser, has endorsed the idea of having picture power at the country's disposal ready for future conflicts. Referring to Israel's opponents, he put it in his usual direct way: "You need to shoot a picture before you shoot them."
SourceWatch: Hasbara refers to the propaganda efforts to sell Israel, justify its actions, and defend it in world opinion. The premise of hasbara is that Israel's problems are a matter of better propaganda, and not one of an underlying unjust situation.
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Bright lights and promises
The new Palestinian government of technocrats may bring an end to sanctions, and hope for the peace process reports Khaled Amayreh.
Fatah is likely to take the Foreign Ministry and a number of other service- oriented portfolios. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Palestinian Democratic Initiative headed by Mustafa Barghouti and the Third Way, headed by former minister of finance Salam Fayad, are all expected to take part in the upcoming government.
A committed intellectual - November 2006
Mustafa Barghouti reflects on the work and life of Edward Said.
Propaganda and war
Edward Said, September 2001
Never have the media been so influential in determining the course of war as during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which, as far as the Western media are concerned, has essentially become a battle over images and ideas. Israel has already poured hundreds of millions of dollars into what in Hebrew is called hasbara, or information for the outside world (hence, propaganda).
Perpetual discord - November 2006
Dina Ezzat is shocked by the Arabs' endless ability to accommodate Israeli violations and American arrogance.
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Killing Hope in Beit Hanoun
Ramzy Baroud, November 18, 2006
The Worst Ramadan
A prayer in paradise
Gideon Levy, Haaretz, November 23, 2006
The kindergarten teacher is lying on a stretcher, covered with blood. The minibus is parked alongside. From somewhere to the left, the army cannon is firing shells. The children are lying on the ground next to one another. That is how one of the children described the morning when they were driving to their kindergarten in Beit Lahia and an Israel Defense Forces shell or missile - the army spokesman refuses to say - exploded several meters away and mortally wounded the teacher before their eyes.
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Caterpillar Homewrecker's Visit to London
Tom Hayes, November 24, 2006
On Wednesday around 50 protesters including the rhythms of resistance samba band turned out to 'greet' Mike Baunton, the Vice President of Caterpillar, who was due to speak at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers' Annual Dinner.
The message of the bulldozers
Jeff Halper, November 19, 2006
Israel's policy of demolishing Palestinian homes is part and parcel of an overall policy of displacement in which 80% of the Palestinians have been pushed from what has become Israel. Almost half of the entire Palestinian people (those living in the Occupied Territories) are being confined to a truncated Bantustan. Millions of refugees continue to languish in camps and 'Israeli Arabs', Palestinian citizens of Israel, find their own status increasingly threatened.
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Artist Suzanne Klotz's Indispensable Guide to the Holy Land
Mulham Assir, November 24, 2006
Her commitment to the Palestinian cause is above all else spiritual. A deeply compassionate and genuine humanist, Klotz believes that the spiritual teachings of all major religions are the same. She also believes that Zionism has not only perverted and misrepresented Judaism to both Jews and Christians but is also misrepresenting and demonizing Muslims and Islam to the world. Her current work is a collection of 99 books she is creating, each representing one of God's attributes.
Karen Armstrong: How Religious Movements Prolong the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Carlton Cobb, CNI, November 20, 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peace never - November 2006
In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Dina Ezzat seeks out the Israeli drive for peace.
Nine Israeli human rights organizations speak out about Gaza
Statement, Israeli human rights organizations, November 17, 2006
Israel/Palestine: Violence Hasn't Worked
Vivienne Porzsolt, November 22, 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Palestinians hail Irish academics' support of Palestine
David Lundy, Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, November 21, 2006
Irish academics were thanked this week in an open letter, signed by over 100 academics and 1,000 students of Birzeit University near Ramallah, Palestine. The thanks were addressed to the 61 Irish academics who wrote a public letter in September calling for a moratorium on EU aid to Israeli universities, until Israel abides by international law and basic human rights norms.
Why The Academic Boycott Is Necessary
Lawrence Davidson, November 2006
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