Tag Archive for 'Haaretz'

Fighting for rights, from indigenous Australians to Palestinians

Published on 29 June 2011 in Israel. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

As the Gaza Flotilla 2 is soon to sail – despite attempts to sabotage the boats and other delays – what makes the attempt so moving are the personal stories of people who speak up for Palestine, despite the (almost) comical moves to smear them. Amira Hass profiles two Australians, both of whom I know and admire:

This is not the first time that Sylvia Hale, 69, has been asked why she is so active for the Palestinian cause. What about the discrimination against the Aborigines in her own country, Australia, for example?

Hale, a former Green Party parliamentarian who is still active in the party, immediately responded: “Undoubtedly, Australia has a very racist history. Aborigines were give the right to vote only in 1967. But whoever asks us ‘what about the Aborigines,’ are not the ones who are interested in their rights, and not the ones fighting for those rights. They are using this as a diversionary tactic for evading the debate over Israel’s policy, or to delegitimize criticism of Israel.”

And yes, for anyone who is interested: She was and remains involved in other struggles. She has rallied against the initiative to limit the rights of the Aborigines, fought the discriminatory attitude toward refugees in Australia and opposed the policy of stopping boat refugees.

Prior to entering parliament, she hid two refugees in her home so that they would not be arrested.

This week Hale and three of her compatriots will climb on board the Tahrir, the Canadian ship that is participating in the flotilla to the Gaza Strip. She and her Australian colleagues traveled the greatest distance of all the participants. Their flight lasted 48 hours, including the stops in various airports.

Hale and her friend, Vivienne Porzsolt, also 69, give the impression of being typical Western tourists, middle class, middle aged, staying at the hotel where the passengers of the Tahrir have gathered.

…

But Porzsolt’s involvement also stems directly from being Jewish, she says. “My activism against the Israeli occupation is linked to my Jewish-secular background, the values of equality and morality in the home of my parents [who were] natives of Prague who managed to escape from it immediately following the Nazi occupation in March, 1939. During the 1990s the Jewish element in my life became stronger and I became more interested in the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Because Israel considers itself the country that represents all the Jews of the world, my participation in this voyage is my way of declaring that Israel is not acting on my behalf.”

The real threat of allowing flotilla boats into Gaza

Published on 28 June 2011 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

A good Haaretz editorial:

The term “flotilla” is understood in Israel as a declaration of war. This is the case with respect to the latest Gaza-bound flotilla, just as it was with the one that set off from Turkey in May 2010. Furthermore, due to unstable relations with Turkey, Israel is still feeling the repercussions of its deadly raid on that maritime convoy.

The latest flotilla, which has already begun heading toward the Gaza Strip and is scheduled to reach its shores Thursday, will apparently be far larger than the previous one. It will include about a dozen ships holding some 500 activists, along with food and medicine that is considered to be humanitarian aid for Gazans.

At first glance, there does not appear to be a practical reason to send the aid, since in the wake of the 2010 flotilla, Israel was compelled to lift many restrictions it had put in place as part of its brutal blockade, and Egypt has decided to open the Rafah crossing to civilians. Moreover, Israel has even offered to transfer the aid shipment to Gaza, as long as the ships don’t dock there.

At best, the flotilla’s contribution to lifting the blockade is symbolic, in that it reminds the world that Israel’s closure policy is still partially in effect, and that the population of Gaza remains under occupation. But the Israeli government imputes far greater significance to symbols than it does to wise policy. The government seems to be as frightened of the flotilla as one would think it would be of an attack by an armed naval fleet. It is preparing to keep the ships from reaching the Gaza coast as though it were preparing to fight an enemy seeking to infringe on Israeli sovereignty.

It appears that even though a year has passed since the first flotilla fiasco, Israel is showing that it has learned just one lesson: the military lesson. As though better military preparation or training for specific scenarios are what will save Israel’s honor. The country is not willing to give up a display of power, thereby no doubt contributing to inflating the flotilla’s importance.

Now trying to find ways to reconcile with Turkey, Israel would do well to avoid simultaneously finding new means to engage in conflict with countries whose activists will be on the Gaza-bound ships. A less fearful country would certainly have offered even to go as far as escorting the flotilla to the Gaza coast.

From Israel, we can at least demand that it let the flotilla get through to the Gaza Strip without once again endangering the country’s position in the world.

Growing numbers of Israelis want second passport

Published on 3 June 2011 in Israel. 5 Comments Tags: , , , .

Because, writes Gideon Levy in Haaretz, the Zionist state is becoming an increasingly intolerant place where Jewish extremism is the mainstream:

Passports? If the Palestinian people already had one real passport, maybe the Israelis wouldn’t need two. If Israel were to try at long last to be accepted in its region, with all that entails, then maybe the region would open to it by means of a single, blue and white passport. If Israel were also to take the advice of its friends in the world, especially in the countries of Europe, then perhaps we wouldn’t need their passports.

Israel is strong and established and ostensibly its passport should be sufficient for its citizens. The fact that it is not sufficient for many of them testifies, more than a thousand passports, that something has gone deeply wrong here. Israel, after all, arose to become a haven for the Jewish people, mainly from the horrors of Europe, yet in an irony of history, Europe is in fact becoming a haven for Israelis.

Feeling hatred in Israel and the world looks away

Published on 30 May 2011 in Israel. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , .

One month ago, David Sheen, an Israeli journalist with Haaretz, filmed an anti-immigrant rally in Tel Aviv and found widespread hatred against anybody who didn’t look white. Racism, pure and simple.

Now Sheen has returned to the same place to see what’s changed, if anything:

Haaretz editorial calls for true freedom of movement for Palestinians

Published on 29 May 2011 in Israel. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Bravo:

Egypt’s decision to open the Rafah crossing to people raised great apprehension in Israel, as expected. The immediate concern is that the opening of the crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt will allow Hamas and other groups to bring in an unlimited supply of weapons.

Ostensibly, that’s a persuasive claim, though four years of closure haven’t prevented the passage of weapons into Gaza or the manufacture of missiles there, nor have they prevented terror attacks on Israel. Reports by defense officials that Hamas has amassed large quantities of advanced missiles are proof of that. Meanwhile, Cairo has hastened to make clear that goods will not be allowed through the crossing, and it may be assumed that Egypt is not encouraging the stockpiling of weapons in Gaza.

Along with security concerns, Israel’s fury seems to stem from the fact that the opening of the crossing scuttles its vengeful and cruel closure policy. That policy did nothing at all to free captured soldier Gilad Shalit, nor has it encouraged a Palestinian uprising against Hamas, as Israel had hoped. Rather, it has turned Gaza into the world’s biggest prison, led to terrible human tragedies and sowed deep desperation among the people.

That policy created the deep divide with Turkey and pulverized Israel’s image worldwide. Egypt’s cooperation with the closure created the false impression that Israel’s policy had Arab support. But Egyptian citizens frequently protested the closure, and the opening of the crossing reflects the new regime’s desire, if only temporarily, to draw a line between itself and the previous ruler, Hosni Mubarak, and to respond positively to the new wind blowing in Egyptian society.

The opening of the Rafah crossing is above all an important humanitarian gesture. As such, Israel should follow suit and open the crossings from the West Bank to Israel. The return of normal life to Gaza might encourage its citizens to put the brakes on terror. More importantly, the opening of the crossing will clearly show that Israel has decided to disengage from Gaza and abandon its all-but-direct occupation. But even without these strategic calculations, it’s the human aspect that should guide the Israeli government.

Israel wants to win Twitter war but not end the occupation

Published on 26 May 2011 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Beyond parody:

Come September, in just three months, the State of Israel is likely to find itself facing a diplomatic onslaught of a totally new kind. If one believes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, that month the representatives of the world’s nations at the United Nations will be discussing whether to recognize Palestine as a state, as a unilateral step without negotiations with Israel.

U.S. President Barack Obama made that scenario all the more likely with his speech to the world supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. Whether Israel is about to encounter a totally new reality or whether it’s just another milestone in the political process that changes nothing, the international and local press are following the issue keenly.

The closer the date of the unilateral declaration approaches, the more the denizens of Internet are coming to life, promoting their opinions with ever-accelerating urgency. Their battle zone is the social media. You can see it in the Facebook statuses – for and against, in Twitter messages and in protest video clips on YouTube. The nearer September approaches, and with it the UN debate, the more this online activity is likely to escalate. But don’t think the State of Israel is leaving the battlefield to the amateurs.

“We are intensively preparing ahead of September,” says Chaim Shacham, head of the information and Internet department at the Foreign Ministry. Think of him as the Israeli government’s tweeter.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor adds: “We all expect something to happen in September. We don’t know what yet, but clearly there’s going to be some sort of diplomatic development. We have our finger on the pulse in terms of the social media too.”

Preparation involves constantly monitoring the blogs, tweets and insofar as possible, Facebook entries too, though many posts are closed to the general public (available only to specific “friends” ) and cannot be monitored.

No wonder this is happening more and more these days:

[Scotland's] First Minister Alex Salmond supported economic sanctions against Israel. He described Israel’s massacre of nine Mavi Marmara passengers as an “atrocity on the high seas” and put Israel firmly beyond the pale. “This has implications for example in trading relationships—you can’t have normal relationships if you believe another country has been involved in what Israel has been involved in.”

On Obama, AIPAC, occupation, revolutions and the status-quo

Published on 23 May 2011 in Israel. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

So much discussion about the latest elaborate dance between the US under Barack Obama and Israel. In many ways, little has changed over the years, as Washington occasionally talks tough with Israel but then never does anything more. Words are cheap in the Middle East, especially as the occupation deepens every day. And, as if most Muslims see America being on the side of the democratic angels in the Arab Spring.

Akiva Eldar in Haaretz:

Appearing before the annual conference of AIPAC, the American pro-Israel lobby, is what all candidates for president of the United States dream about. It’s their big chance to attract the Jewish vote and Jewish contributions. It’s the setting where they can reap the benefits of declarations of loyalty to Israel, elegantly bypassing anything that might rile supporters. That’s where, 16 years ago, Republican candidate Bob Dole announced a legislative initiative, at an inopportune moment, to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in one of the low points in the peace process.

No American president or presidential candidate has ever told this large Jewish audience of supporters of Israel the truth. Until yesterday, that is. Obama did not go to the AIPAC conference to iron out differences between him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He went there to settle misunderstandings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

…

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon used to liken Israel’s participation in negotiations on the future of the territories to cattle being led through the corral to the slaughterhouse. When Netanyahu returns home, he will have to decide once and for all if he is ready to lose the support of an American president who yesterday went into the lion’s den or enter the corral of negotiations that in the end, and perhaps even from the beginning, will threaten him with political slaughter. Netanyahu’s choice not to attend yesterday’s convention session may indicate which direction he will choose.

Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic:

For decades, Israel has been a bipartisan cause on Capitol Hill. It will remain so for a while, but Netanyahu is, through his pedantic and pinched behavior, helping to weaken Israel’s standing among Democrats. Why is this so important? Because Israel has no friends left in the world except for the United States (and in fairer weather, Canada, Australia and Germany). As it moves toward a confrontation with Iran, it needs wall-to-wall support in America. You would think that Netanyahu, who is sincere in his oft-stated belief that Iran poses quite possibly the greatest danger Israel has ever faced, would be working harder than he is to ensure Democratic, and presidential, support, for this cause.

Ahdaf Soueif in the Guardian:

This wasn’t slipping poison into the honey; it was smearing chemical sweeteners on to toxic pellets. Barack Obama listed what he sees as his country’s “core interests” in my country Egypt and my region; his country’s “core principles” governing how it will act towards us, and his policies to promote US interests within the frame of US principles. Let’s translate the US president’s description of his “core interests in the region” into effects on the ground:

“Countering terrorism” has implicated (at least) Egypt, Syria and Jordan in the US’s extraordinary rendition programme, turning our governments into torturers for hire and consolidating a culture of security services supremacy and brutality that is killing Syrian protesters today and manifests itself in Egypt as a serious counter-revolution.

“Stopping the spread of nuclear weapons” highlights consistent US double standards as Arab nuclear scientists are murdered, the US threatens Iran, and Israel happily develops its illicit arsenal.

“Securing the free flow of commerce” has meant shoving crony capitalism down our throats, bribing governments to sell our national assets and blackmailing us into partnerships bad for us.

“Supporting Israel” has led to land, resources and hope being stolen from Palestinians while Egypt becomes their jailer and dishonest broker, losing its credibility and self-respect.

Obama has all the information above; he knows that Hosni Mubarak’s dedication to delivering US “core interests” is why the Egyptian millions demanded his departure, why Tahrir proclaimed him an “agent of America and Israel”, and why he is now under arrest.

The blame is not all with America. We had a regime that was susceptible, that became actively complicit; assiduously finding ways to serve US and Israeli interests – and ruin us. But: we got rid of it. Peaceably, with grace and within the law. We Got Rid of It.

So when Obama says, “We will continue to do” the things described above, it’s a challenge. When he adds, “with the firm belief that America’s interests are not hostile to people’s hopes; they are essential to them” – it’s obfuscation and an insult to every citizen across the world – including Americans – who followed our revolutions with empathy and with hope.

Joseph Massad in Al-Jazeera English:

The problem with US policy in the Arab world is not only its insistence on broadcasting credulous US propaganda – easily fed to Americans, yet with few takers elsewhere in the world – but also that it continues to show a complete lack of familiarity with Arab political culture and insists on insulting the intelligence of most Arabs, whom it claims to address directly with speeches such as Mr Obama’s.

…

Opposition to the United States and Israel in fact is something espoused by the peoples of the Arab world, not by their leaders, who have been insisting for decades that the US and Israel are the friends of Arabs. Indeed the people of the region have been the only party that insisted that US policies and domination in the region and constant Israeli aggressions are what make these two countries enemies of the Arab peoples, while Arab rulers and their propaganda machines insisted on diverting people’s anger toward other imagined enemies, which the US conjured up for the region, while making peace with Israel.

Obama’s attempt to deny the hatred that Arabs feel towards the United States and Israel because of the actions of these two countries is nothing short of the continued refusal of the United States and Israel (not of Arabs) to take responsibility for their own actions by shifting the blame for the horrendous violence they have inflicted on the region onto their very victims. When Obama and Israel call on Arabs to take responsibility for the state of the region and not blame the US and Israel for it, what they are essentially doing is to refuse to take responsibility for what they have inflicted on Arabs.

Arabs have clearly taken responsibility and have been trying to remove the dictators that the US and Israel have supported for decades – and which they continue to support. The only parties refusing to take responsibility here are the United States and Israel. Obama’s speech, sadly, continues this intransigent tradition.

Obama given Zionist history lesson at White House

Published on 22 May 2011 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

Aluf Benn in Haaretz argues that the Israeli Prime Minister frames himself as a saviour of the Jewish people but in fact he only wants to defend occupying the Palestinians forever:

Benjamin Netanyahu’s whole career as a diplomat and politician prepared him for that moment: the moment he, as the Jewish people’s senior lobbyist, stands before the leader of the world and demands him to stop the approaching holocaust.

This is what happened at the meeting with Barack Obama on Friday. The prime minister came to the White House to lecture the U.S. president on 4,000 years of Jewish history, on persecution, expulsions, pogroms and the murder of millions, and to warn him against a peace based on illusions that could lead to another catastrophe. “History will not give the Jewish people another chance,” said Netanyahu, probably imagining himself as a modern-day Moses or Herzl.

…

Obama wants to establish an independent Palestine, in recognized borders and with territorial contiguity. He doesn’t strive to resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict or achieve an overall Middle East peace. He buried the Arab peace initiative, which he mentioned in his Cairo speech two years ago but ignored completely on Thursday. By doing so, he took away one of the Israeli left’s most important banners.

The disagreement between Obama and Netanyahu isn’t a personal quarrel. They clearly can’t stand each other, but this is the smaller problem. What matters isn’t the body language, but the values. Obama is a revolutionary who wants to give power to the masses. Netanyahu is a conservative, sticking to the status quo and fearing change.

To Netanyahu, Israel has a right to rule the territories and settle there as much as it likes, and at most it could throw some bones to the Palestinians to satisfy their supporters in the West, who, like Obama, simply don’t understand what it’s all about and blindly support a bunch of inciters and murderers.

To Obama, the Israeli occupation is an ongoing wrong that should be stopped. He’s not ready for a situation in which the settlers in Psagot enjoy every right possible, while their Palestinian neighbors in Ramallah wait at a checkpoint, lacking self-determination. This is what he is fighting for.

Obama’s grand Middle East vision shafts the Palestinians (as usual)

Published on 21 May 2011 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

Gideon Levy in Haaretz gets it:

Benjamin Netanyahu may as well have canceled his trip to Washington: Barack Obama did the work for him, or most of it. But the prime minister is already on his way, so he should at least send to the White House a big bouquet of flowers.

Netanyahu can sit back and relax. It’s not that Obama didn’t say clear, firm words on the Middle East; it’s just that most, if not all of them could have been said by Netanyahu himself, who would then go on doing as he pleased.

The 1,500 new apartments in Jerusalem will be built, speech or no speech. The real test for that speech, as for any other, is what happens next, and the suspicion is that nothing will happen at all.

Obama didn’t say a word about what will happen if the parties disobey him. This was the king’s speech, but the king already appears a little naked. Considering America’s weakness, and the power of Congress and the Jewish and Christian lobbies working on behalf of the Israeli government, the Israeli right wing can relax and go on doing what it does.

Yesterday, the U.S. president demolished the Palestinian’s only accomplishment so far – the wave of international support for recognition of statehood in September. September died last night. After America, Europe too will have to withdraw its support; hopes have ended for a historically significant declaration at the United Nations.

The Palestinians are left once again with Cuba and Brazil, while we get to keep America. Here’s another reason for a sigh of relief in Jerusalem: No diplomatic tsunami is forthcoming, the United States is sticking with Israel.

Regrettably, the president also voiced reservations about the Palestinian unity government. The United States supports Israel’s demand for the Palestinian state to be demilitarized, it supports postponing discussions on the refugees and Jerusalem, it talks about Israel’s security and Israel’s security alone, saying nothing about security for Palestinians. All these are impressive, even if virtual, achievements for Israel.

The Palestinians yesterday were not listed among the oppressed Arab people of the Middle East who need to be liberated and aided on the way to democracy. Obama spoke impressively about America’s corrupt allies in the region, and provided further enlightened encouragement to the people of the region.

If the first Cairo speech provided the initial inspiration, Cairo 2 provided a more significant push. Obama and his determination on this should be praised. His words were heard not only in Damascus and Benghazi, but also in Jenin and Rafah. Did he mean to praise Majdal Shams as well? Hooray for the unarmed protesters, hoping Obama meant Palestinian ones as well. If he did, it’s a pity he didn’t say so.

When he mentioned the Tunisian vendor who was humiliated by a policewoman who overturned his stall – the vendor who later set himself and the revolution ablaze – was Obama thinking about the hundreds of Palestinian vendors who have suffered the exact same fate at the hands of Israeli soldiers and policemen? When he spoke nobly about the dignity of the oppressed vendors, was he speaking about their Palestinian brethren as well? The speech didn’t show this enough.

The conflict between Israel and the Palestinian was sidelined in Obama’s speech for the most part, more so than it deserved. This conflict still incites great passions in the Arab world, and with all due respect for the new Marshall Plan for Egypt and Tunisia, the Arab masses don’t want to see another Operation Cast Lead and more checkpoints on their TV screens. When it got to us, the tone was different.

Yes, there were stern words about how a Jewish and democratic state is not compatible with an occupation. There was even a proper presidential plan – the ’67 borders with corrections, a Palestinian state and a Jewish state, Israeli security and the demilitarization of Palestine.

But let’s not get too excited. We’ve heard it before, not only from American presidents, but from Israeli prime ministers. And what did we get? Yet another Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

The heart wants to believe that this time it’s different, but the head – wise from bitter experience after years of shelved peace plans and vacuous speeches – is finding it hard to believe.

The optimists will say that yesterday signaled the end of the Israeli occupation. The pessimists, and I, regrettably, among them, will say that it was just another speech. It changed virtually nothing for the better, virtually nothing for the worse.

So much pressure on Israel and yet apartheid deepens

Published on 19 May 2011 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Even New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sounds sick of Israel (though he advocates no course of US action that may place even a little pressure on the Zionist state to end its occupation).

Haaretz is unequivocal and rightly so. Some in Israel see the writing on the wall:

In an op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wrote that the Palestinian initiative to obtain international recognition for an independent state along the 1967 borders is not a stunt.

Approaching the United Nations, he wrote, was aimed at assuring the basic right of the Palestinian people to live freely in an independent state along the June 4, 1967 borders, i.e., in 22% of Mandatory Palestine.

Abbas repeated the Arab League formula for a just and agreed-upon solution to the refugee problem on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 194. He also said that the decision to approach the international community came after years of fruitless negotiations with Israel about permanent arrangements, and Israel’s continuing control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the Knesset plenum on Monday strengthens the Palestinian claim that direct diplomacy with Israel is a dead end, and justifies the Palestinians’ petition to the United Nations.

Only minutes after praising Theodor Herzl, who in fact knew how to adapt his vision to changing realities, Netanyahu sketched out a diplomatic plan devoid of vision and totally detached from the new reality developing in the region.

On the eve of his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama and his address to a joint session of Congress, Netanyahu presented obsolete positions. He refrained from mentioning the 1967 borders as a starting point for a final-status arrangement, and committed to demanding a military presence along the Jordan River, to perpetuating the annexation of East Jerusalem and to demanding Palestinian recognition of Israel as the home of the Jewish people.

The prime minister even made canceling the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas a condition for resuming negotiations.

Government policy, as expressed in Netanyahu’s speech, will end up isolating Israel to a point that it could face economic and cultural sanctions similar to those once imposed on apartheid South Africa. Responsibility for such a crisis will lay squarely on the shoulders of the prime minister and his colleagues at the top of the diplomatic ladder. The price will be paid by the public, partying on a slippery slope.

Rumblings of a third intifada?

Published on 16 May 2011 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Perhaps:

Israeli forces fired two tank shells and several rounds from machine guns as Gazans approached the heavily fortified border with Israel on Sunday, wounding at least 15 youths, a Palestinian health official said. One of the wounded was in a critical condition.

The march near the Gaza-Israel border was part of Palestinian commemorations of their uprooting three generations ago, during the war over Israel’s establishment.

Across the West Bank and Gaza, thousands took to the streets, waving flags and holding old keys to symbolise their dreams of reclaiming property they lost when Israel was created on 15 May 1948.

In Gaza, dozens of marchers approached the border with Israel, and Israeli troops opened fire. The tank shells fell in an empty field several hundred metres from the group.

Haaretz thinks a new intifada is possible in the coming months, due to the complete lack of progress on Palestinian self-determination.

And the news just gets worse:

Violence erupted on Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday, leaving at least eight dead and dozens wounded, as Palestinians marked what they term “the catastrophe” of Israel’s founding in 1948.

Israeli troops shot at protesters in three separate locations to prevent crowds from crossing Israeli frontier lines in the deadliest such confrontation in years.

Israeli and Syrian media reports said Israeli gunfire killed four people after dozens of Palestinian refugees infiltrated the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria, along a disputed border that has been quiet for decades.

Witnesses on the nearby Lebanese frontier said four Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces fired at rock-throwing protesters to prevent them from crossing the border.

The Lebanese army had also earlier fired in the air in an attempt to hold back the crowds.

On Israel’s tense southern border with the Gaza Strip, Israeli gunfire wounded 60 Palestinians as demonstrators approached Israel’s fence with the Hamas Islamist-run enclave, medical workers said.

In Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial hub, a truck driven by an Arab Israeli slammed into vehicles and pedestrians, killing one man and injuring 17 people.

If this is not apartheid, the word has no meaning

Published on 13 May 2011 in Israel. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

The irreplaceable Gideon Levy in Haaretz:

Anyone who says “it’s not apartheid” is invited to reply: Why is an Israeli allowed to leave his country for the rest of his life, and nobody suggests that his citizenship be revoked, while a Palestinian, a native son, is not allowed to do so? Why is an Israeli allowed to marry a foreigner and receive a residency permit for her, while a Palestinian is not allowed to marry his former neighbor who lives in Jordan? Isn’t that apartheid? Over the years I have documented endless pitiful tragedies of families that were torn apart, whose sons and daughters were not permitted to live in the West Bank or Gaza due to draconian rules – for Palestinians only.

Israel either recognises Hamas/Fatah or becomes more of pariah state

Published on 2 May 2011 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz:

Israel’s Pavlovian response to Palestinian reconciliation, which included the usual threats of boycott, is the result of the ingrained anxiety of people who no longer control the process. For five years, Israel has done everything to change the outcome of Hamas’ watershed victory in the elections in the territories. It did not recognize the Hamas government or the unity government, and of course, it did not recognize the Hamas government that arose after that organization’s brutal takeover of the Gaza Strip.

Gaza became a synonym for Hamas; that is, for terror, and the West Bank stood for the land of unlimited possibilities. Israel made an enormous contribution toward building up Hamas into an institution, not only an organization. The cruel closure of Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, turning Gaza into a battle zone and the saga of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, with Israel continuing to negotiate with Hamas while striking out against it – all this has transformed Gaza into a symbol of the occupation and a focus of international empathy.

…

This self-delusion refuses to recognize the changing reality in the Middle East, the changing of the guard among leaders and peoples and the self-interested moves of Western powers that are longing for new partnerships in the Middle East to replace the ones that have disappeared. Israel is not included in that new address list. Its good name is being torn to shreds.

But Israel has a rare opportunity to rewind the film back five years – not only to understand that the two parts of the Palestinian people are one entity, but to correct the mistakes it made in 2006. It must deal with the entire Palestinian government, even if that government includes Hamas representatives. Israel can, of course, repeat its mistakes, but then Israel, and not the Palestinian state, will become a country that threatens its own citizens.

Gideon Levy, Haaretz:

The path to Palestinian reconciliation is still long, and the path to statehood even longer. In the alleys of Jenin and the tunnels of Rafah there is still nothing to celebrate. In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv there is still nothing to worry about, to feel threatened by or even to rejoice about – as if we have been given a public relations “asset.” If a unity government is set up, and if free elections are held, there will be a new possibility. Israel needs to welcome this, with the appropriate reservations.

How depressing was the South African Freedom Day party in Tel Aviv over the weekend. While South African ambassador Ismail Coovadia, a person who knows a thing or two about “terrorist organizations” with which it is “forbidden” to negotiate, and whose representatives have been governing for the past 20 years a free and relatively impressive country, spoke about the chances of Palestinian reconciliation, minister Benny Begin sought to frighten those present about the prospect of democratization in the Arab world, painting as black a picture as possible. That is because we are unchanged. The days go by, a year passes, but the song remains the same.

Australian media incapable of hearing Palestinians

Published on 16 April 2011 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , .

How to define farce?

The Australian media’s coverage of Israel/Palestine and BDS.

Palestinians and Arabs remain largely absent from discussion, lest they infect people’s minds.

Instead, today we have a litany of articles that say nothing about the Middle East apart from craven white people desperate to pray at the altar of Zionist “democracy”.

The Australian:

Right-wing union boss Joe de Bruyn has joined a backlash of trade unionists angry at a decision by Greens councillors to impose a commercial boycott of Israel.

As NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell warned Sydney’s Marrickville Council of possible consequences if it did not rescind the ban, Mr de Bruyn said the proposal was further evidence the Greens were an “extremist party”.

The national secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Union said a boycott of Israel was not in the union’s interest.

“Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East,” Mr de Bruyn said. “To put a boycott on Israel sounds to me to be totally the wrong way around.”

De Bruyn is the enlightened soul who opposes gay marriage.

The Sydney Morning Herald shows that even supposedly principled Greens can sometimes prefer rhetoric to action, especially when it comes to Palestine. Courage is sorely lacking:

Marrickville’s controversial boycott of Israel is on the verge of collapse after a Greens councillor withdrew his support yesterday. Any boycott will now rely on the support of Labor, which is in doubt.

As the Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, joined a growing response of condemnation and the Premier, Barry O’Farrell, threatened to sack the council, the Greens councillor Max Phillips confirmed he would vote against putting the boycott into practice.

It also emerged that the Greens mayor, Fiona Byrne, had received death threats. The NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge said Cr Byrne had received the threats and the council’s stance on Israel had shown courage.

Mr Phillips said that although he supported Palestinian human rights he did not think the boycott was the way to go. ”I had unease initially about the [boycott] when first moved in December, and this unease has grown in listening to the local community,” he said.

”I will not be voting for any kind of boycott at the meeting on Tuesday night. This issue must be put to rest.”

He expected at least one other Greens councillor to join him.

The policy was adopted in principle at a meeting in December with the support of five Greens, one independent and four Labor councillors. Two independents voted against it.

On Tuesday the council will vote on what practical form a boycott would take. Any motion supporting the boycott will now need Labor support to pass.

One Labor councillor, Emanuel Tsardoulias, has already confirmed he will not support it. Yesterday he said he expected his counterparts to join him at a weekend caucus meeting, though they could not be reached to confirm this.

Cr Phillips said local Greens groups had drafted a proposal to the NSW Greens calling for support for the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel to be rescinded, pending a review.

”With the benefit of hindsight there should have been a much more thorough debate on this issue before it was adopted by the NSW Greens and moved on Marrickville Council,” he said.

The Herald’s editorial is seemingly written by a five-year-old child. Advocating for Palestine is a joke, you see, and Zionist occupation will simply disappear by writing countless meaningless articles about a “peace process”:

Marrickville Council is being torn apart by Middle Eastern politics. Should Marrickville, or should it not, punish Israel with a boycott for its alleged human rights violations? The question is, of course, on everyone’s lips across the Middle East. The fate of nations hangs in the balance. Is a mere boycott enough? Should Marrickville send troops?

Other Sydney councils, strangely enough, have not followed Marrickville’s principled example, and its lone voice – although important and widely respected – may not be enough to persuade members of the Israeli government to stop whatever it is they have been doing. Marrickville boots on the ground would certainly show them that Sydney’s inner west is not to be trifled with. On balance, though, we think that in the first phase, diplomacy deserves a chance before Marrickville lives are put in harm’s way. As a back-up, the municipality might show a hint of steel by stationing a taskforce comprising the entire waste disposal department off the Israeli coast, ready to bang Israeli bins together at a moment’s notice. Services in Marrickville may be disrupted, but ratepayers can be confident they will be keeping the Israelis awake at night.

At least a Palestinian is heard, albeit briefly, in today’s Australian:

Instead of trawling the internet to find new ways to demonise Lee Rhiannon, would it not be more prudent to focus on the real issue?

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions call is a non-violent and moral way to advance peace and deliver justice and security.

Its tenets are simple: Recognise the inalienable rights of the Palestinian refugees; end the illegal military occupation; end discrimination of Palestinian citizens within Israel.

The longer Israel obfuscates its responsibilities vis-a-vis the question of Palestine, the longer it will have to defend the indefensible.

Moammar Mashni, Australians for Palestine, Melbourne, Vic

Real issues over Palestine? What a crazy idea. Read this latest Haaretz feature to see why BDS is so essential. Israel runs a racially discriminatory system of apartheid in the occupied territories. But I guess that makes me anti-Semitic.

American Jews starting to speak out against Israel; more, please

Published on 5 April 2011 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

This has been coming for a while and it’s growing.

A fascinating feature in Haaretz that details the growing schisms in the American Jewish community. More and more Jews simply cannot support a Zionist state that oppresses the Palestinians.

Jewish writer Eric Alterman shows indirectly how the only major groups backing Israel in the near future will be Christian fundamentalists, Orthodox Jews, racist Jews who hate Muslims and the right wing who love Israel for oppressing Arabs. Liberal Jewry is turning away:

In the past, you could say to liberal friends who criticized Israel ‘What would you do if you were in their place?. After all, no country would agree to undertake security risks [like] those that are required from Israel. But in recent years it’s more and more difficult to say it. It’s much more complicated to justify the raid on the Turkish flotilla, or the way Israel handled Gaza, or the attacks on human rights organizations. It looks like we we’re reaching a point where liberal American Jews will be forced to choose between their values and their emotional attachment to Israel. And many, alas, are going to stick with their values. There’s a sense of failure of an idea with regards to Israel. This is something very painful for me to say.”

Israel hearts apartheid South Africa (how they miss those glory days)

Published on 5 April 2011 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Daniel Blatman, Haaretz:

The historical background of the Israeli apartheid state-in-the-making that is emerging before our eyes should be sought in 1967. It is part of a process that has been going on for about 44 years: What started as rule over another people has gradually ripened – especially since the latter part of the 1970s – into a colonialism that is nurturing a regime of oppression and discrimination with regard to the Palestinian population. It is robbing that population of its land and of its basic civil rights, and is encouraging a minority group (the settlers ) to develop a crude, violent attitude toward the Arabs in the territories. This was exactly the reality that, after many years, led to the establishment of the apartheid state in South Africa.

In her book “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” Hannah Arendt draws a sharp picture of the process of the development of the society of racial segregation in South Africa, from the start of the Dutch Boer colonialist settlement there. Assumption of racial superiority – the subordination of the black population – was the only way the “whites” could adjust to life in the midst of that race. The nurturance of feelings of racial supremacy, to which were added the belief in cultural superiority and the justification for economic exploitation – these are what, in a decades-long process, gave rise to the need to anchor this situation in proper legislation.

…

Israeli racism, whose natural “hothouse” is the colonialist project in the territories, has long since spilled over into Israeli society and has been legitimized in the series of laws recently passed in the Knesset. Only people who avoid looking at the broad historical context of such a process are still able to believe it is possible to stop the emergence of an Israeli apartheid state without getting rid of the colonialist-racist grip on the territories.

What Israel does to dissidents; smear and damn

Published on 25 March 2011 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Gideon Levy in Haaretz:

About two weeks ago, I was invited to the Jewish Book Week in London, following the publication in English of my book “The Punishment of Gaza.” The Jewish establishment in Britain threatened to boycott the event, the organizers considered hiring security guards, and roughly 500 people, mainly middle-of-the-road Jews, filled the hall, asked questions and mainly, in their modest way, expressed great sympathy. I spoke, as I always do, against the occupation, the injustices and the damage it does to Israel and to the Palestinians, against the attacks on Israeli democracy as I have written in the hundreds of articles that have been published in Haaretz in Hebrew and in English, and as I did at the London School of Economics and Trinity University in Dublin.

As on previous occasions, a “spy” from the Israeli Embassy was sent to Trinity – this one, an Israeli student who was asked to write down what I said and convey it to the embassy. The embassy quickly dispatched a report to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, and the Foreign Ministry quickly leaked it to a well-known newspaper, which published only my harshest statements, without context – and there you have it: the indictment of a dissident.

One can ignore the way the embassy spies on journalists, evoking dark regimes. I would be glad to see a government representative at my lectures who was not under cover, if they have any interest. But one cannot ignore the message conveyed by such conduct – that of a witch hunt against a journalist whose opinions diverge from the party line.

Attacking Libya isn’t about making us feel good

Published on 22 March 2011 in General. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

Bombing Libya is welcomed across the world from so many supposedly well-meaning types who haven’t a clue about what the country is like or what they’re really backing. But hey, Gaddafi is a bad man!

This Haaretz editorial weighs the risks:

While the joint Western and Arab action against Libya’s dictatorial regime has widespread support, it raises a complicated dilemma. Up to now, the populations of Arab states such as Tunisia and Egypt managed on their own to topple their regimes, and set the stage for democratic reform. Furthermore, the revolutionary developments in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and (two years ago in ) Iran won public legitimacy because they were viewed as authentic civil uprisings which were not assisted by foreign elements.

In Libya, however, the Facebook revolution is liable to turn into the Tomahawk revolution: The intervention of forces from Western states is liable to undermine the legitimacy of civilian movements there and perhaps in other states.

The Israel Lobby co-author Steve Walt blogs eloquently about the now default position of the American establishment. As for “liberals” who hear a few Libyan rebels calling for Western air-strikes and don’t recognise the inherent problems with rushing into a military conflict with no true end goals, get real and learn from history:

Last Wednesday I spoke at an event at Hofstra University, on the subject of “Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy.” The other panelists were former DNC chair and 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean and longtime Republican campaign guru Ed Rollins. The organizers at Hofstra were efficient and friendly, the audience asked good questions, and I thought both Dean and Rollins were gracious and insightful in their comments. All in all, it was a very successful session.

During the Q & A, I talked about the narrowness of foreign policy debate in Washington and the close political kinship between the liberal interventionists of the Democratic Party and the neoconservatives that dominate the GOP. At one point, I said that “liberal inteventionists are just ‘kinder, gentler’ neocons, and neocons are just liberal interventionsts on steroids.”

Dean challenged me rather forcefully on this point, declaring that there was simply no similarity whatsoever between a smart and sensible person like U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and a “crazy guy” like Paul Wolfowitz. (I didn’t write down Dean’s exact words, but I am certain that he portrayed Wolfowitz in more-or-less those terms). I responded by listing all the similarites between the two schools of thought, and the discussion went on from there.

I mention this anecdote because I wonder what Dean would say now. In case you hadn’t noticed, over the weekend President Obama took the nation to war against Libya, largely on the advice of liberal interventionists like Ambassador Rice, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and NSC aides Samantha Power and Michael McFaul. According to several news reports I’ve read, he did this despite objections from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon.

The only important intellectual difference between neoconservatives and liberal interventionists is that the former have disdain for international institutions (which they see as constraints on U.S. power), and the latter see them as a useful way to legitimate American dominance. Both groups extol the virtues of democracy, both groups believe that U.S. power — and especially its military power — can be a highly effective tool of statecraft. Both groups are deeply alarmed at the prospect that WMD might be in the hands of anybody but the United States and its closest allies, and both groups think it is America’s right and responsibility to fix lots of problems all over the world. Both groups consistently over-estimate how easy it will be to do this, however, which is why each has a propensity to get us involved in conflicts where our vital interests are not engaged and that end up costing a lot more than they initially expect.

So if you’re baffled by how Mr. “Change You Can Believe In” morphed into Mr. “More of the Same,” you shouldn’t really be surprised. George Bush left in disgrace and Barack Obama took his place, but he brought with him a group of foreign policy advisors whose basic world views were not that different from the people they were replacing. I’m not saying their attitudes were identical, but the similarities are probably more important than the areas of disagreement. Most of the U.S. foreign policy establishment has become addicted to empire, it seems, and it doesn’t really matter which party happens to be occupying Pennsylvania Avenue.

Gideon Levy on Israel’s choice of self-delusion

Published on 11 March 2011 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

One of Israel’s true heroes:

“With the huge dramatic turmoil in the Arab world in the last few weeks . . . finally there is a new spirit in the world and in the Arab world and tyrannies will not last forever. The Israeli occupation is by far one of those tyrannies.”

So ended a talk by Gideon Levy, a columnist with the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz , which was held in Trinity College last night at which he launched his book The Punishment of Gaza.

Levy, a critic of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinian people, spoke of his own upbringing in Israel where he became a “typical product” of the Israeli education system and served in the Israeli army.

However, as a journalist in the Eighties and visiting the occupied territories, he said he realised that the real story of Israel was taking place in the country’s “black back yard” and later dedicated his life to speaking out against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

He said that a “propaganda machine” had for decades systematically dehumanised the Palestinian people and led to a situation where “five million Israelis are deeply convinced today that they are right and seven billion people of the world are wrong”.

Levy said that this was partly to do with the country’s media, which had engaged in “something that is worse than censorship and that is self-censorship only to please the reader.

“The Israeli media is dehumanising the Palestinians systematically year after year, decade after decade and that is, in my view, the best explanation to this unusual phenomena in which the Israelis . . . live so much in peace with themselves.”

Levy’s talk was organised by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign in conjunction with the Trinity College master’s in philosophy in race, ethnicity and conflict as part of Israeli Apartheid Week 2011, which runs until next Saturday.

Israel is doing wonderful job at playing with itself

Published on 10 March 2011 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Bradley Burston in Haaretz:

Former Foreign Ministry director-general Alon Liel told Army Radio last week that at this point, “more than half” of Israel’s career diplomats disagree with the government’s actions, and that many feel that the government’s policies are leading to unprecedented isolation and de-legitimization of Israel.