Laith Marouf - The Electronic Intifada - September 14, 2007
In the past few months, Palestinians in the Diaspora have watched with horror the latest developments in their homeland. There has been a flurry of articles about what to do, but overall there is a feeling that they are helpless to affect the situation on the ground. What has been missing is an understanding that Palestinians in the Diaspora must undertake a clear assessment of their own situation if they are to have any impact at all.
The recent events have cast light on dark deeds: the collaboration between Mahmoud Abbas and associates like Mohammed Dahlan on the one hand, and Israel on the other; the transfer of weapons and training by the US and other countries to certain Palestinian militias whose mission was to overthrow the result of the January 2006 election. Palestinians see clearly that Abbas -- who embraces Israeli leaders while refusing to talk to other Palestinian factions -- was the author of the Oslo agreement that never even mentioned the word "occupation," and is now discussing a new "agreement of principles" that will cancel the right of return, legitimize Israeli settlements and threaten other basic rights.
In short, what we have now is a clique of collaborators in control of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority "presidency" and much of what is left of the PLO.
Showing posts with label right of return. Show all posts
Showing posts with label right of return. Show all posts
Sunday, 16 September 2007
Sunday, 29 April 2007
Antony Loewenstein's Ha'aretz interview
Shmuel Rosner, the Chief U.S. Correspondent of Ha'aretz interviews Antony Loewenstein.
Dear Antony,
Your book is a harsh criticism of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but also of the American and Australian Jewish community. So let's start with this general question: What is it that bothers you about the support Jewish Diaspora gives to Israel - or maybe you think that no support is needed?
Thank you,
Rosner
Thanks Shmuel,
Although it's not unique to the Jewish community, an unhealthy tendency has developed within many Jewish Diaspora communities since the birth of Israel. An ethno-centric and racially superior mentality has flourished that places the lives and concerns of Israel and Jews above all others. In this worldview, Israeli lives are always more precious than Palestinian ones. Israel's "security" is far more important than the existence or safety of a future Palestinian state. Such thinking, in my home country of Australia and elsewhere, has long troubled me. Is this what Zionism was destined to become?
When it relates to Israel, far too many Jews are able to defend, justify and explain the Jewish state's behavior, no matter how illegal or immoral. A recent letter published in the Australian Jewish News succinctly articulated the problem: "I have always believed that whatever Israel does is always right for the Jews." This uncritical and anti-intellectual stance completely contradicts the noble Judaic tradition of rigorous thought and dissent.
Since I started writing extensively on the Israel/Palestine conflict in the last years, I've been astounded by the reactionary response of some Jews to the idea of justice for all. Hate-mail and death-threats, by fellow Jews, has sadly become a fact of life. It is as if the overwhelming evidence of Israel's crimes in the occupied territories is always issued by "biased" media, NGOs or governments. Are only Israeli foreign ministry press releases worth respecting?
I have long thought that it is not the duty of all Jews to support Israel. If they want to engage with the Jewish state and improve its international standing, so be it. If Jews want nothing to do with a state that has no direct impact on their daily lives, this position should be respected. If they want to become unofficial spokespeople for the Israeli cause, good for them.
Personally speaking, I may be a harsh critic of Israel's policies (and Palestinian intransigence) but I still call myself a true friend of Israel, the kind the country needs to survive in the long-term, not "yes-men" only concerned with even-greater military reprisals against the Palestinians. After decades of these failed policies, why do many Jews still think that the Jewish state can thrive through force alone?
In my experience, Diaspora Jewish communities regularly prefer to ignore the true reality of the now 40-year occupation and the myriad of ways in which their beloved homeland has persecuted another people for generations. Is this something Jews should really be proud of?
These Diaspora communities need to ask themselves some tough questions, namely how their complicity in the current morass can be reversed. It's never too late to expect an Israeli government of any political stripe to behave morally and legally and rediscover the true Jewish soul.
Dear Antony,
Your book is a harsh criticism of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but also of the American and Australian Jewish community. So let's start with this general question: What is it that bothers you about the support Jewish Diaspora gives to Israel - or maybe you think that no support is needed?
Thank you,
Rosner
Thanks Shmuel,
Although it's not unique to the Jewish community, an unhealthy tendency has developed within many Jewish Diaspora communities since the birth of Israel. An ethno-centric and racially superior mentality has flourished that places the lives and concerns of Israel and Jews above all others. In this worldview, Israeli lives are always more precious than Palestinian ones. Israel's "security" is far more important than the existence or safety of a future Palestinian state. Such thinking, in my home country of Australia and elsewhere, has long troubled me. Is this what Zionism was destined to become?
When it relates to Israel, far too many Jews are able to defend, justify and explain the Jewish state's behavior, no matter how illegal or immoral. A recent letter published in the Australian Jewish News succinctly articulated the problem: "I have always believed that whatever Israel does is always right for the Jews." This uncritical and anti-intellectual stance completely contradicts the noble Judaic tradition of rigorous thought and dissent.
Since I started writing extensively on the Israel/Palestine conflict in the last years, I've been astounded by the reactionary response of some Jews to the idea of justice for all. Hate-mail and death-threats, by fellow Jews, has sadly become a fact of life. It is as if the overwhelming evidence of Israel's crimes in the occupied territories is always issued by "biased" media, NGOs or governments. Are only Israeli foreign ministry press releases worth respecting?
I have long thought that it is not the duty of all Jews to support Israel. If they want to engage with the Jewish state and improve its international standing, so be it. If Jews want nothing to do with a state that has no direct impact on their daily lives, this position should be respected. If they want to become unofficial spokespeople for the Israeli cause, good for them.
Personally speaking, I may be a harsh critic of Israel's policies (and Palestinian intransigence) but I still call myself a true friend of Israel, the kind the country needs to survive in the long-term, not "yes-men" only concerned with even-greater military reprisals against the Palestinians. After decades of these failed policies, why do many Jews still think that the Jewish state can thrive through force alone?
In my experience, Diaspora Jewish communities regularly prefer to ignore the true reality of the now 40-year occupation and the myriad of ways in which their beloved homeland has persecuted another people for generations. Is this something Jews should really be proud of?
These Diaspora communities need to ask themselves some tough questions, namely how their complicity in the current morass can be reversed. It's never too late to expect an Israeli government of any political stripe to behave morally and legally and rediscover the true Jewish soul.
Looking for alternatives to failure: An answer to Uri Avnery
Looking for alternatives to failure: An answer to Uri Avnery
Ilan Pappe, The Electronic Intifada, 26 April 2007
We need to wake up. The day Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush declared their loyal support for the two-state solution, this formula became a cynical means by which Israel can maintain its discriminatory regime inside the 1967 borders, its occupation in the West Bank and the ghettoization of the Gaza Strip. Anyone who blocks a debate over alternative political models allows the discourse of two states to shield the criminal Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories.
Moreover, not only are there no stones left in the occupied territories with which to build a state after Israel ruined the infrastructure there in the last six years, a reasonable partition is not offering the Palestinian a mere 20 percent of their homeland. The basis should be at least half of the homeland, on the basis of the 181 partition route, or a similar idea. Here is another useful avenue to explore, instead of embroiling forever inside the Sodom and Gomorrah stew that the two-state solution has produced so far on the ground.
And finally, there will be no solution to this conflict with a settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem. These refugees cannot return to their homeland for the same reason that their brothers and sisters are being expelled from greater Jerusalem and alongside the wall and their relatives are discriminated against in Israel. They cannot return for the same reason that every Palestinian is under the potential danger of occupation and expulsion as long as the Zionist project has not been completed in the eyes of its captains.
They are entitled to opt for return because it is their full human and political right. They can return because the international community had already promised them that they could. We as the Jews should want them to return because otherwise we will continue to live in a state where the value of ethnic superiority and supremacy overrides any other human and civil value. And we cannot promise ourselves, as well as the refugees, such a fair and just solution within the framework of the two-state formula.
Ilan Pappe, The Electronic Intifada, 26 April 2007
We need to wake up. The day Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush declared their loyal support for the two-state solution, this formula became a cynical means by which Israel can maintain its discriminatory regime inside the 1967 borders, its occupation in the West Bank and the ghettoization of the Gaza Strip. Anyone who blocks a debate over alternative political models allows the discourse of two states to shield the criminal Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories.
Moreover, not only are there no stones left in the occupied territories with which to build a state after Israel ruined the infrastructure there in the last six years, a reasonable partition is not offering the Palestinian a mere 20 percent of their homeland. The basis should be at least half of the homeland, on the basis of the 181 partition route, or a similar idea. Here is another useful avenue to explore, instead of embroiling forever inside the Sodom and Gomorrah stew that the two-state solution has produced so far on the ground.
And finally, there will be no solution to this conflict with a settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem. These refugees cannot return to their homeland for the same reason that their brothers and sisters are being expelled from greater Jerusalem and alongside the wall and their relatives are discriminated against in Israel. They cannot return for the same reason that every Palestinian is under the potential danger of occupation and expulsion as long as the Zionist project has not been completed in the eyes of its captains.
They are entitled to opt for return because it is their full human and political right. They can return because the international community had already promised them that they could. We as the Jews should want them to return because otherwise we will continue to live in a state where the value of ethnic superiority and supremacy overrides any other human and civil value. And we cannot promise ourselves, as well as the refugees, such a fair and just solution within the framework of the two-state formula.
Friday, 29 December 2006
Brookings hosts an ethnic cleanser
Brookings Hosts an Ethnic Cleanser
Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington
Will Youmans, December 8, 2006
When far-right leader Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party joined the Israeli government, pro-peace Israelis expressed outrage. The Brookings Institution extended an invitation.
MK Avigdor Lieberman's visit to US
Michael F. Brown, December 14, 2006
Israel's most notorious anti-Arab politician and provocateur, Avigdor Lieberman, spoke at Brookings' Saban Center Forum in Washington, DC this past weekend.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Robert Fisk Criticizes 'Experts' Cited in Iraq Study Group Report
Wednesday, December 20th, 2006
This past weekend Robert Fisk was invited to deliver the keynote address before hundreds of Muslim Americans gathered in Long Beach, California for the sixth annual convention of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. At the convention, Fisk - who was the keynote speaker - participated in a roundtable discussion on the Iraq Study Group's implications. He took to the podium with a copy of the report in his hand.
The problem, I'm afraid, is that we have grown used to a kind of mild, temperate reporting out of the Middle East in the US media, which is incomprehensible unless you happen to know the region. The "wall" becomes a "security barrier," like the Berlin security barrier, which some of you may remember. "Occupied territory" is "disputed territory." A "colony" becomes a "neighborhood." And thus, of course, the Palestinians, generically violent for opposing this by throwing stones, or worse.
I think, you know, you see the same thing happen with Mearsheimer-Walt report. I interviewed poor old Walt up in Harvard just after he produced his famous report on the Israeli lobby and the power of the Israel lobby, and he was in a state of near catatonic shock. And I said, "Calm down, you know. Join the club. We've been through this before." Anybody who has a reasonable decent criticism of Israel, including Israelis, will be called anti-Semitic. And we respond to this very clearly. In Britain, we threaten to sue when anyone calls us that, because it's a lie. John Malkovich, the actor, who said at the Cambridge Union he wanted to shoot me, followed this up in the Observer by saying he hated me because of my, quote, "vicious anti-Semitism." Our lawyers went into action immediately. The Observer withdrew the story and apologized. You've got to stand up. And journalists have got to stand up when they are falsely accused of racism.
Banality and barefaced lies
Robert Fisk, 23 December 2006
At Detroit airport, I picked up an even slimmer volume, the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group Report - which doesn't really study Iraq at all but offers a few bleak ways in which George Bush can run away from this disaster without too much blood on his shirt. After chatting to the Iraqis in the green zone of Baghdad - dream zone would be a more accurate title - there are a few worthy suggestions (already predictably rejected by the Israelis): a resumption of serious Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, an Israeli withdrawal from Golan, etc. But it's written in the same tired semantics of right-wing think tanks - the language, in fact, of the discredited Brookings Institution and of my old mate, the messianic New York Times columnist Tom Friedman - full of "porous" borders and admonitions that "time is running out".
The clue to all this nonsense, I discovered, comes at the back of the report where it lists the "experts" consulted by Messrs Baker, Hamilton and the rest. Many of them are pillars of the Brookings Institution and there is Thomas Friedman of The New York Times.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As'ad Abukhalil : A sample from the language of the Iraq Study Group report: "U.S. military and civilian personnel, and our coalition partners, are making exceptional and dedicated efforts—and sacrifices—to help Iraq." I mean, look how nice. This reminds me of the efforts and sacrifices of the France in Algeria and Belgium in the Congo. Very nice.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Baker panel's mention of Palestinian "right of return" raises eyebrows
Dec 06 3:43 PM US/Eastern
A reference to Palestinians' "right of return" in the report issued by the high-level Iraq Study Group broke a diplomatic taboo which sparked immediate concern in Israel and surprise among Middle East policy experts. The reference was buried deep inside a 160-page report that urged US President George W. Bush to renew efforts to revive Israel-Palestinian peace talks as part of a region-wide bid to end the chaos in Iraq.
"This report is worrisome for Israel particularly because, for the first time, it mentions the question of the 'right of return' for the Palestinian refugees of 1948," said a senior Israeli official, who was reacting to the US policy report on condition he not be identified.
A Middle East analyst who was involved in the Iraq Study Group discussions but did not participate in drafting the report expressed surprise when the reference was pointed out to him by a reporter.
"It's hard to know whether that language got in there because of carelessness -- I know there were many revisions up to the very last minute -- or whether it was a deliberate attempt to fuse something to the Bush rhetoric which wasn't there before," the analyst said.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Full text: the Iraq Study Group Report
Executive Summary of the Iraq Study Group report
Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington
Will Youmans, December 8, 2006
When far-right leader Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party joined the Israeli government, pro-peace Israelis expressed outrage. The Brookings Institution extended an invitation.
MK Avigdor Lieberman's visit to US
Michael F. Brown, December 14, 2006
Israel's most notorious anti-Arab politician and provocateur, Avigdor Lieberman, spoke at Brookings' Saban Center Forum in Washington, DC this past weekend.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Robert Fisk Criticizes 'Experts' Cited in Iraq Study Group Report
Wednesday, December 20th, 2006
This past weekend Robert Fisk was invited to deliver the keynote address before hundreds of Muslim Americans gathered in Long Beach, California for the sixth annual convention of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. At the convention, Fisk - who was the keynote speaker - participated in a roundtable discussion on the Iraq Study Group's implications. He took to the podium with a copy of the report in his hand.
The problem, I'm afraid, is that we have grown used to a kind of mild, temperate reporting out of the Middle East in the US media, which is incomprehensible unless you happen to know the region. The "wall" becomes a "security barrier," like the Berlin security barrier, which some of you may remember. "Occupied territory" is "disputed territory." A "colony" becomes a "neighborhood." And thus, of course, the Palestinians, generically violent for opposing this by throwing stones, or worse.
I think, you know, you see the same thing happen with Mearsheimer-Walt report. I interviewed poor old Walt up in Harvard just after he produced his famous report on the Israeli lobby and the power of the Israel lobby, and he was in a state of near catatonic shock. And I said, "Calm down, you know. Join the club. We've been through this before." Anybody who has a reasonable decent criticism of Israel, including Israelis, will be called anti-Semitic. And we respond to this very clearly. In Britain, we threaten to sue when anyone calls us that, because it's a lie. John Malkovich, the actor, who said at the Cambridge Union he wanted to shoot me, followed this up in the Observer by saying he hated me because of my, quote, "vicious anti-Semitism." Our lawyers went into action immediately. The Observer withdrew the story and apologized. You've got to stand up. And journalists have got to stand up when they are falsely accused of racism.
Banality and barefaced lies
Robert Fisk, 23 December 2006
At Detroit airport, I picked up an even slimmer volume, the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group Report - which doesn't really study Iraq at all but offers a few bleak ways in which George Bush can run away from this disaster without too much blood on his shirt. After chatting to the Iraqis in the green zone of Baghdad - dream zone would be a more accurate title - there are a few worthy suggestions (already predictably rejected by the Israelis): a resumption of serious Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, an Israeli withdrawal from Golan, etc. But it's written in the same tired semantics of right-wing think tanks - the language, in fact, of the discredited Brookings Institution and of my old mate, the messianic New York Times columnist Tom Friedman - full of "porous" borders and admonitions that "time is running out".
The clue to all this nonsense, I discovered, comes at the back of the report where it lists the "experts" consulted by Messrs Baker, Hamilton and the rest. Many of them are pillars of the Brookings Institution and there is Thomas Friedman of The New York Times.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As'ad Abukhalil : A sample from the language of the Iraq Study Group report: "U.S. military and civilian personnel, and our coalition partners, are making exceptional and dedicated efforts—and sacrifices—to help Iraq." I mean, look how nice. This reminds me of the efforts and sacrifices of the France in Algeria and Belgium in the Congo. Very nice.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Baker panel's mention of Palestinian "right of return" raises eyebrows
Dec 06 3:43 PM US/Eastern
A reference to Palestinians' "right of return" in the report issued by the high-level Iraq Study Group broke a diplomatic taboo which sparked immediate concern in Israel and surprise among Middle East policy experts. The reference was buried deep inside a 160-page report that urged US President George W. Bush to renew efforts to revive Israel-Palestinian peace talks as part of a region-wide bid to end the chaos in Iraq.
"This report is worrisome for Israel particularly because, for the first time, it mentions the question of the 'right of return' for the Palestinian refugees of 1948," said a senior Israeli official, who was reacting to the US policy report on condition he not be identified.
A Middle East analyst who was involved in the Iraq Study Group discussions but did not participate in drafting the report expressed surprise when the reference was pointed out to him by a reporter.
"It's hard to know whether that language got in there because of carelessness -- I know there were many revisions up to the very last minute -- or whether it was a deliberate attempt to fuse something to the Bush rhetoric which wasn't there before," the analyst said.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Full text: the Iraq Study Group Report
Executive Summary of the Iraq Study Group report
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
