NOVANEWS

Dear Friends,

If you just haven’t time to read more than one or two items, then please read items 3 and 5, and if you can just possibly squeeze in one more, then add item 4.  Of course I have no objections to you reading all 6 items below.

Item 1 Is Aluf Benn’s take on a specific proposed affirmative action measure.

Item 2 says that Palestinians gear for Sunday’s march on Israel’s borders, (or what are thought to be them where there are none).  I only hope that it goes without a massacre of unarmed people trying to tell the world that they are tired of being refugees and want to go home, that is, to Palestine.

Item 3 talks about turning the ROR (Right of Return) into reality.  I’m all for it.

Item 4 tells us that Israel’s PR victory shames news broadcasters.

Item 5 argues (and I agree) that the situation here is ‘all process and no progress’.

And item 6 closes with remarks about Jerusalem on today’s celebrations of Jerusalem Day,  which the writer (Yossi Sarid) feels were superfluous.

Good reading,

Dorothy

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1.  Haaretz,

June 01, 2011

Israel’s Affirmative Action bill is reminiscent of Hungary’s anti-Jewish laws

The spirit of the proposed bill is more important than the language, and everyone is clear on its purpose: to get rid of the ultra-Orthodox and the Arabs.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-s-affirmative-action-bill-is-reminiscent-of-hungary-s-anti-jewish-laws-1.365249

By Aluf Benn

On July 22, the parliament in Budapest met to vote on Law Number 25 which established the entry requirements to universities in Hungary. The bill stated that for higher learning only those of “unblemished ethical standard, who have demonstrated loyalty to the Hungarian nation,” would be let in, and that the university student body must reflect the nations and ethnic groups in the country in accordance to their relative numbers in the overall population.

On the face of it, the bill was meant to ensure fair and equitable representation but everyone realized its real purpose: to dwindle the number of Jews among the student body. Only six percent of the Hungarian population was Jewish at the time, but they made up as much as 30 percent of the student body. When the bill was brought to a vote, most of the parliamentarians from the centrist parties were absent from the plenum. The bill passed with the votes of the extreme right wing and entered history as the Numerus Clausus Law, the first institutional expression of anti-Semitism in Europe during the interwar years.

Among the thousands of Jewish students who abandoned Hungary were John von Neumann and Edward Teller, who went on to develop game theory and the hydrogen bomb. Their skills and those of their colleagues did not interest Hungarian nationalists. They wanted to throw the Jews out, even at the cost of a brain drain. Politicians in Budapest were only concerned about international pressure, which indeed eased the restrictions a few years later. But the damage had already been done: The Jewish geniuses were gone, and Hungary continued its downfall into fascism.

The proposed Affirmative Action bill, which passed last week through the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and is on its way to a preliminary reading, is marching along the same path. The bill proposed by MKs Hamad Amar, David Rotem and Alex Miller of Yisrael Beiteinu seeks to give preference for civil service jobs to those who served in the IDF. On the face of it, justice is being done in favor of “those who lay in ambush and risked their lives,” to quote Amar, preferring them over those who evaded the draft and were able to go to university at age 18.

But like in Hungary of 1920, so too in Israel of 2011, the spirit of the law is more important than the language, and everyone is clear on its purpose: to get rid of the Haredim and the Arabs. The state is the one that exempted them from mandatory military service and now wants to punish them for alleged “evasion.”

MK Rotem, who chairs the Knesset Law Committee, explained his position during discussions: “I hear constantly talk about the right to equality. I think that the military cemeteries should be closed, there is no equality there. They do not bury Arabs there.”

To the Shas representative MK Nissim Zeev, who opposed the bill, Rotem said: “I do not care about your world.”

Rotem responded rudely to the representatives of ministries who expressed reservations at the bill, saying it was redundant and possibly also illegal. “At noon today you will see how legal it is,” Rotem told attorney Tziona Koenig-Yair, Commissioner for Equal Opportunities at the Workplace. “What is your [lawyer’s] license number?”

“19893,” she said.

Rotem then went on to deal with the Justice Ministry’s representative, attorney Dan Oren: “And what is your license number?”

What is the relevance, wondered Oren, and insisted: “It is our function and we have expertise in these matters.”

Koenig-Yair gave in: “I apologize to the chairman if there was something offensive in my statements.”

The government of Benjamin Netanyau, which has sought to oppress the Arab community since it was established, was, of course, in favor of the “Affirmative Action Bill.” Not all committee MKs fell in line: Benny Begin voted against the bill in the preliminary reading, Isaac Herzog petitioned against it, but Rotem said that “he can no longer file a petition.”

During the vote in the Law Committee, it was an opposition MK, Otniel Schneller (Kadima ), who was most ardently in favor: “From a moral point of view, I consider this a most important law,” he said. Schneller joined the two representatives of Yisrael Beiteinu, and against the two Haredi MKs, passed the bill to the next stage.

The nationalists in Israel, like their predecessors in Hungary during the past century, do not care about the loss of talent or exacerbation of domestic tensions. They are interested in harming minorities and pushing them out. And like their predecessors in the parliament in Budapest, the representatives of the center in our Knesset have opted to sit in the cafeteria instead of fighting racist bills.

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

2.  Ynet,

June 01, 2011

March on Lebanon border on ‘Nakba Day’ Photo: Reuters

Palestinians gear for Sunday march on Israel’s borders

Pro-Palestinian pages on social media websites buzzing with calls to rush to all borders on day marking 44th anniversary of Six Day War

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4076728,00.html

Roee Nahmias

Fatah representative in Lebanon, Munir Maqdah, said Tuesday that Palestinians residing in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Gaza were planning to march towards their respective borders with Israel on Sunday, the 44th anniversary of the Six Day War.

“We want our lands in Palestine back,” Maqdah said, noting that the processions aim to remain non-violent. He also urged UNIFIL forces in south Lebanon to “ensure the march’s safety.”

The Fatah official’s statement is the last in a myriad of activities calling on pro-Palestinian activists to march on Israel’s borders.

The highest flurry of activities is noted on Facebook, where various pro-Palestinian group have issued a similar call: “Our Palestinian countrymen, as part of our just pursuit of statehood… and in response to Netanyahu’s speech in Congress and Obama’s hesitant speech, we emphasize that Palestine is our land and the land of our forefathers and that will not accept any division or compromise.

‘Youth of June 5’ Facebook Page

“On this day, June 5, we urge you to take active part in actions meant to empathize with our prisoners,” the “Youth of June 5” page read.

Facebook pages affiliated with Syrian pro-Palestinian groups, called on the masses to “unite and turn June 5 into a day commemorating the fallen and right of return.”

Another group urges masses to “march on Israel’s border this Saturday and free the Golan Heights.”

Still, at this time no concrete plans for any march have been posted on social media

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

3.  Al Jazeera,

31 May 2011

Turning the ‘right of return’ into reality

Myths perpetuated by Israel as to why the “right of return” is impossible are easily debunked when looked at logically.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/2011527131738517819.html

Ben White

The May 15 Nakba protests put the issue of Palestinian refugees back on the table [GALLO/GETTY]

After years of marginalisation in the peace process, the Palestinian refugees are back on centre stage.

On May 15, Nakba day, the refugees forced their way on to the news agenda; in the past two weeks, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have been compelled to comment on what has always been so much more than a “final status issue”.

During his remarks in the Oval Office, and in response to an op-ed in The New York Times by Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli PM Netanyahu dismissed the refugees’ right of return as fatal to “Israel’s future as a Jewish state”. But the permanent expulsion of one people to make way for another is a hard sell, which is why Netanyahu and others rely on oft-repeated myths about the refugees.

One myth is that the “creation” of the Palestinian refugee “problem” (a euphemism for ethnic cleansing) was a consequence of the Arab countries’ war with Israel. This claim was undermined – almost despite himself – by Israeli historian Benny Morris, who though joining the attack on Abbas’ op-ed, noted that 300,000 Palestinians had lost their homes before 15 May 1948.

In fact, as serious historians and research have shown, Palestinians left their homes and villages through a combination of attacks, direct forced removals, and fear of atrocities.

The expulsion of the refugees was ultimately realised by the forcible prevention of their return, the destruction of villages, and the legislative steps taken to expropriate their land and deny them citizenship.

A second myth manipulates the question of the Jews from Arab countries, around 850,000 of whom left between 1948 and the 1970s. Israel’s apologists try and suggest that these “Jewish refugees” somehow “cancel out” the Palestinian refugees, as if the residents of Ramla or Deir Yassin were responsible for events in Baghdad and Cairo.

More than a hint here of “all Arabs are the same”.

In fact, most scorn the link, such as Israeli professor Yehouda Shenhav who wrote that “any reasonable person” must acknowledge the analogy to be “unfounded”. When the US house of representatives in 2008 called for linking the issues of Jews from Arab countries and Palestinian refugees, The Economist wrote that the resolution showed “the power of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington”.

Put simply, one right does not cancel out another. Ask those pushing this propaganda if they support restitution and redress for all refugees, Jewish and Palestinian, and they fall strangely silent.

What kind of return?

But it is the exposure of a third myth that is the most explosive: that a literal return is unfeasible. In the words of the excellent arenaofspeculation.org, engaging “in new ways with the spatial, political and social landscapes of Israel-Palestine” means that instead of asking “can we return?” or “when will we return?” Palestinians are suddenly allowed to ask “what kind of return do we want to create for ourselves?”

A discussion on what implementing the right of the return would look like is taking place. There is the long-standing work of Salman Abu Sitta and the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), as well as studies by Badil and Decolonising Architecture Art Residency. Recently, the Israeli group Zochrot published in their journal Sedek a fascinating collection of articles on realising the return.

Many people are familiar with the words of Israeli military chief of staff Moshe Dayan at a funeral in 1956, when he reminded those present that Palestinian refugees in Gaza had been watching the transformation of “the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate.”

Less well known are the thoughts of his father, member of Knesset Shmuel Dayan, who in 1950 admitted: “Maybe [not allowing the refugees back] is not right and not moral, but if we become just and moral, I do not know where we will end up.”

There can be no doubt that the obstacle to a resolution of this central injustice is the insistence on maintaining a regime of ethno-religious privilege and exclusion.

After 63 years of dispossession, the refugees have been once again revealed to be at the heart of the issue, for it is they who best exemplify what it means to create and maintain a Jewish state at the expense of the indigenous Palestinians.

Ben White is a freelance journalist and writer, specialising in Palestine and Israel. His first book, Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide, was published by Pluto Press in 2009, receiving praise from the likes of Desmond Tutu, Nur Masalha and Ghada Karmi.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

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

4.  The Guardian,

31 May 2011

Israel’s PR victory shames news broadcasters

Our latest analysis of news bulletins reveals how Israel continues to spin images of war

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/31/israel-pr-victory-images-war

Greg Philo

Smoke billows from the Gaza Strip following Israeli air strikes in December 2008. Photograph: Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images

The propaganda battle over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a new level of intensity. In 2004 the Glasgow University Media Group published a major study on TV coverage of the Second Intifada and its impact on public understanding. We analysed about 200 programmes and questioned more than 800 people. Our conclusion: reporting was dominated by Israeli accounts. Since then we have been contacted by many journalists, especially from the BBC, and told of the intense pressures they are under that limit criticism of Israel. They asked us to raise the issue in public because they can’t. They speak of “waiting in fear for the phone call from the Israelis” (meaning the embassy or higher), of the BBC’s Jerusalem bureau having been “leant on by the Americans”, of being “guilty of self-censorship” and of “urgently needing an external arbiter”. Yet the public response of the BBC is to avoid reporting our latest findings. Those in control have the power to say what is not going to be the news.

For their part, the Israelis have increased their PR effort. The Arab spring has put demands for democracy and freedom at the heart of Middle East politics, and new technology has created more problems for the spin doctors. The most graphic images of war can now be brought immediately into public view, including the deaths of women and children. When Israel planned its attack on Gaza in December 2008, it developed a new National Information Directorate, and the supply of possible material was limited by stopping reporters from entering Gaza during the fighting. In 2010, when Israel attacked the Gaza aid flotilla, it issued edited footage with its own captions about what was supposed to have happened. This highly contested account was nonetheless largely swallowed by TV news programmes. A UN-sponsored report, which later refuted the account, was barely covered.

These new public relations were designed to co-ordinate specific messages across all information sources, repeated by every Israeli speaker. Each time a grim visual image appeared, the Israeli explanation would be alongside it. In the US, messages were exhaustively analysed by The Israel Project, a US-based group that, according to Shimon Peres, “has given Israel new tools in the battle to win the hearts and minds of the world”. In a document of more than 100 pages (labelled “not for publication or distribution”) an enormous range of possible statements about Israel was sorted into categories of “words that work” and “words that will turn listeners off”. There are strictures about what should be said and how to say it: avoid religion, Israeli messages should focus on security and peace, make sure you distinguish between the Palestinian people and Hamas (even though Hamas was elected). There is a remarkable likeness between these and the content of TV news headlines. Many journalists bought the message. Hamas was being attacked, and somehow not the Palestinians: “The bombardment continues on Hamas targets” (BBC1, 31 December 2008); “The offensive against Hamas enters its second week” (BBC1, 3 January 2009).

There were terrible images of Palestinian casualties but the message from Israel was relentless. Its attack was a necessary “response” to the firing of rockets by Palestinians. It was the Palestinian action that had started the trouble. In a new project, we have analysed more than 4,000 lines of text from the main UK news bulletins of the attack, but there was no coverage in these of the killing by the Israelis of more than 1,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of children, in the three years before it. In the TV news coverage, Israeli statements on the causes of action overwhelmed those of the Palestinians by more than three to one. Palestinian statements tended to be only that they would seek revenge on Israel. The underlying reasons for the conflict were absent, such as being driven from their homes and land when Israel was created.

Journalists tended to stay on the firmest ground in reporting, such as the images of “innocent victims”, and there was little said about why Palestinians were fighting Israel. We interviewed audience groups and found the gaps in their knowledge closely paralleled absences in the news. A majority believed Palestinians broke the ceasefire that existed before the December attack and did not know Israel had attacked Gaza during it, in November 2008, killing six Palestinians. Members of the public expressed sorrow for the plight of Palestinians but, because of the Israeli message so firmly carried by TV, they thought the Palestinians had somehow brought it on themselves. As one put it: “When I saw the pictures of the dead children it was dreadful, I was in tears but it didn’t make me feel that the Palestinians and Hamas were right … I think the Palestinians haven’t taken the chance to work towards a peaceful solution. Hamas called an end to the last ceasefire.” This participant was surprised to hear Hamas was reported to have said it would have stopped the rockets if Israel had agreed to lift its economic siege. The source was Ephraim Halevy, former head of the Mossad intelligence service.

Images of suffering do not now in themselves affect how audiences see the validity of actions in war. People see the images as tragic, but judgments as to who is right and wrong are now firmly in the hands of the spin doctors.

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

5.  The Guardian,

1 June 2011

The Middle East: all process, no progress

The Palestinian UN recognition strategy attempts to circumvent nonexistent negotiations, but it can’t get round a US veto

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/01/middleeast-israel

Carne Ross

US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the White House: a tense meeting did little to raise hopes of a peace deal any time soon. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP

Whenever an international problem starts being called a “process”, one should immediately become suspicious that the problem itself will not be solved. Indeed, the naming of a problem as a “process” is a way to obscure lack of progress with endless anaesthetising conferences, meetings and statesmanlike speeches.

The climate change “process” demonstrates this dismal rule: after years of preparatory meetings, and two major global conferences in Copenhagen and Cancún, this “process” has yet to agree any concrete action to limit carbon emissions. And, of course, the mother of all empty processes is the Middle East “peace process”.

There has been much talk about Israel and the Palestinians in recent days. Speeches by President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu have offered almost mutually exclusive visions of the outlines of a possible Israeli-Palestinian settlement. Virtually the only element common to both was that neither offered any suggestion about how to reach any deal. Netanyahu refused any engagement with a Fatah-Hamas government. Obama’s two speeches said not a word about convening any kind of Israeli-Palestinian negotiation. The US president seems to be despairing of this “process”.

For their part, the Palestinians have concluded some time ago that the “peace process” is a hollow vessel. Hamas chose, instead, the dead end of violence. The Fatah-led government in the West Bank has, by contrast, pursued the project of building a viable Palestinian state in the areas under its control. Internationally, the PLO has been steadily recruiting states around the world to recognise the Palestinian state, an effort planned to culminate in September at the UN general assembly where, the Palestinians hope, the general assembly will adopt a resolution accepting the existence of a Palestinian state.

The PLO has not yet formally adopted this strategy and, in the absence of clarity, misunderstandings about this “UN recognition strategy” have multiplied. Some rightwing commentators have suggested that such a decision at the UN will amount to the “delegitimisation” of Israel, failing to acknowledge that Israel’s current status at the UN would remain unaffected, and a resolution would not alter the fact that no UN member state has ever accepted Israel’s occupation of the West Bank or Gaza, or that Jerusalem’s status is yet to be determined. Meanwhile, Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz called the Palestinian strategy a “UN declaration of a Palestinian state” and the Economist, too, seems to think that the UN can recognise a state. This is not the case. The UN does not recognise states; only other states can. The UN can, however, agree to make a state a member, once it has been recognised by others. But contrary to much commentary, even this is far from straightforward.

As is usual, all the serious decisions at the UN are in the power of the security council, which is required to recommend a state for membership to the general assembly. And here lies one problem with the PLO’s strategy: that recommendation will not be forthcoming thanks to an American veto, as Obama’s speech made clear, with emphasis.

Realising this potential obstacle, the PLO may choose to vest its hopes in various procedural devices to get around the security council, including what is called the “Uniting for Peace” procedure. Under this procedure, first used by the US in 1950 to circumvent a Soviet block on UN intervention in Korea, the general assembly can take on an issue of international peace and security when its members agree that the security council has failed its own responsibility to do so.

The UN has never accepted a new member using procedural devices like this. And it may be a precedent that many member states, including Palestine’s many sympathisers at the UN, do not want established. Russia, for instance, may be loath to open the door to Kosovo’s membership, which it currently refuses to recognise. But worst of all, even if such a resolution were to attract enough supporters (as would be likely), bypass the security council (which is less likely) and become a full member state of the UN or, perhaps, an observer state as a fallback, it would do little to end Israel’s occupation.

The PLO seems to be calculating that UN membership will grant Palestine new legal status with which to fight Israel’s occupation and define the final settlement. These outcomes are by no means guaranteed. In any case, the Palestinians hope that the UN strategy will provide vivid evidence of Israel’s international isolation, compelling Israel to come to the table – or compelling the Americans to make them. As such, the strategy makes sense and the PLO cannot be blamed for trying something, anything, given Netanyahu’s obdurate refusal to contemplate a deal – a two-state solution based more or less on the 1967 borders – that every one else in the world regards both as reasonable and long overdue.

But the putative UN strategy is flawed. Both Israel and the US have endured almost total isolation at the UN for decades, to no palpable effect on their policies except to intensify their rejection of the UN as a place to address the dispute. September’s vote, if it goes through, will doubtless have the same consequence.

Since the 1967 security council resolution (pdf), which demanded Israel’s withdrawal from territories it had occupied during the six day war, reams of international law and countless debates at the UN have promised much to the Palestinians, but delivered nothing. The only time Israel has actually withdrawn from the occupied territories was as a result of a negotiated agreement with the PLO following the 1993 declaration of principles.

In unfortunate resemblance to both the current Israeli and US approaches, the Palestinian UN strategy offers nothing about how to reach a settlement with the one country whose recognition of Palestine really matters: Israel. Instead, September’s looming confrontation at the UN promises an outcome all too familiar to those who follow this ill-fated “process”: argument and antagonism to nil material effect. As Rashid Khalidi has wisely argued, the Palestinians should not rely on traditional routes, including American diplomacy, to achieve their state: the non-violent protests of the “Arab spring” offer a better, if uncertain, prospect.

The endless speechifying and diplomatic manoeuvring of the misnamed “peace process” has occupied statesmen, diplomats and commentators for decades, providing a simulacrum of progress when none, in fact, exists. The next few months will see yet more activity and diplomacy, risking distraction from the reality of continuing settlement building and mounting frustration of ordinary Palestinians living under an occupation that promises no end. With tension rising between Israel and its neighbours, and with it the risk of international conflict, no one can regard this situation as acceptable.

And no one should allow themselves the illusion that more rhetoric and an empty process, at the UN, in Washington or anywhere else, will solve it.

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

6. Haaretz,

June 01, 2011

Jerusalem Day celebrations will not cover up the city’s rot and discrimination

Jerusalem Day is an ‘artificial celebration’; Jerusalem is the most ultra-Orthodox city, the most Arab, plagued by negative migration.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/jerusalem-day-celebrations-will-not-cover-up-the-city-s-rot-and-discrimination-1.365222

By Yossi Sarid

Jerusalem Day is an artificial celebration, which only the religious Zionist movement, settlers, workers on an organized outing, the president, the mayor and Channel 1 bother celebrating in a big way. Most people in Israel don’t even know, and don’t care, why it even exists.

The poet and Jerusalemite Gilad Meiri, who apparently also loves a different Jerusalem, has called in a poem “to liberate Jerusalem from Jerusalem Day.”

Ever since Jerusalem became a city that was compacted together 44 years ago, there have been few reasons to celebrate, and this year, fewer than ever.

Jerusalem 2011 is a sad city pretending to be glad.

Earlier this week, the Central Bureau of Statistics published real data that puts us into a less than party-like mood: Jerusalem is the most ultra-Orthodox city, the most Arab, and plagued by negative migration. Some 8,000 Jerusalemites got fed up with the city over the past year and abandoned it.

The rate of high school students who pass their matriculation exams is low and the city is is not heedful of the children of the poor.

Meanwhile, in the eastern part of the city, more than 1,000 classrooms are lacking; about half the children have no place in a classroom, they are mamzerim.

Even before this, Jerusalem was no bed of roses. But in recent years is has become a bed of thorns.

In the neighborhood of Al-Bustan, at the foot of the City of David, the municipality insists on destroying dozens of inhabited homes to turn a delusional vision into reality – the “Garden of the King.”

In the neighborhood of Silwan, has anyone noticed that a “quiet intifada” is under way? Settlers in Beit Yonatan and Wadi Hilweh have been clashing daily with local residents and lives have been lost. Beit Yonatan should have been evacuated long ago according to the High Court of Justice decisions at which Mayor Nir Barkat thumbs his nose and the attorney general neglects.

The police are arresting local leaders, including Jawad Siyam, who established a community center for children and has fallen victim to false complaints by settlers, his neighbors. The police are also arresting minors; just the other day, Haaretz reported on the illegal arrest of a 7-year-old boy.

In the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, Palestinian families continue to be ejected from their homes. The settlement of Simon the Just is expanding with the open and covert support of the state authorities.

On the ruins of the Shepherd Hotel, which the Custodian of Abandoned Property sold to Irving Moskowitz, a new settlement will soon arise. Quite a few celebrations await Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers, Rivlin and his MKs, ahead of next Jerusalem Day, even before September and mainly thereafter. We can start getting ready for the dedication of the Third Temple.

This year has not been good for Jerusalem’s good name; it is the year the Holy City became synonymous with a building project called Holyland. Something is rotten in this city, many of whose past and present leaders are on trial for their shenanigans. Annual festivals (and not only in churches ), marathons, new restaurants in the market and other pleasantries on its day of joy will not cover up the rot, the discrimination or the deprivation.

NOVANEWS

• America is fed up with the ‘old man’s commiseration club’

• And this is just England

• More on the late Safire, gunnin for Israel

• All star ensemble– ‘We are the people, this is the time– Stand up, sing out for Palestine’

• 2nd class citizens: Palestinian city inside Israel hasn’t had phone or internet access for weeks following accident

• A (half-hearted) defense of the Congressional Democrats

• George Mitchell says, Well, 10 presidents and 19 secretaries of state also failed

• Shame: 9 of 15 signers of intolerant Congressional letter on Goldstone are Jewish

• Obama can’t stop talking about love (and that’s bad news for the Israel lobby)

• Not to be a buzzkill– but what Rafah opening does and doesn’t mean

America is fed up with the ‘old man’s commiseration club’

May 31, 2011

Philip Weiss

Karen Kwiatkowski, former US Air Force lieutenant, is fed up, at Lew Rockwell’s site:

Earlier this week I participated in a panel discussing military aid to Israel, and why it should be reduced drastically….

Far more vulnerable to an imminent pop, with few tears by average Americans, will be foreign financial aid to all countries, including Israel, the largest recipient of such aid. AIPAC is stale and aging, an old man’s commiseration club, sufferable only because it is habitual. Christian Zionists, some of whom I witnessed earlier this week engaged in verbal and physical violence towards a CNIF [Council for the National Interest Foundation] member, are losing their cool in more ways than one. For the first time, I met an infamous supporter of U.S. tax-funded assistance to Israel and its geographical expansion, a retired three star Army general and helpful contributor to our current pro-Israel policy that includes several wars and occupations in the Middle East, and our torture and rendition of detainees. He worked as a second to Stephen Cambone and was part of the neocon cadre so prominent in the Pentagon and Executive corridors in 2002 and afterwards. The portly and emotion-driven Jerry Boykin must have been a weak and angry shadow of his former self, I thought to myself.

But indeed, he is what he is, and what he always was. What changed was my perception of him, my new and concrete awareness that he was a fraud, a walking sale pitch for more war and war spending when, in fact, none was or is necessary. Oil will be pumped, processed and traded, and Israel will survive and prosper, even as the United States withdraws financial aid and symbols of military might from the region. The great build-up of bases in the region, from Saudi Arabia to Iraq, in Bahrain and Kuwait, in North Africa and Afghanistan – all without a serious defensive debate or justification is amazingly typical of a bubble in the months and years before it decisively collapses. It’s the hurry up and get on board phase of the Ponzi scheme, the mad rush to get in on the deal, because it is almost too good to be true.

Americans are beginning to ask questions, and the answers they are getting from the U.S. Government, the Israel lobby and Israel’s political leadership amount to “…move along, nothing to see here, folks.” When pressed for details, Americans are getting congressional obsfucation, bumper sticker-style labels, and a bit of self-righteous anger.

And this is just England

May 31, 2011

annie

Following a major study on television coverage of the Second Intifada by Glasgow University Media Group, several journalists from the BBC continued to stay in touch with the media group. Greg Philo, research director of the group reports in the Guardian Israel’s PR victory shames news broadcasters: “The propaganda battle over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a new level of intensity.”

Since then we have been contacted by many journalists, especially from the BBC, and told of the intense pressures they are under that limit criticism of Israel. They asked us to raise the issue in public because they can’t. They speak of “waiting in fear for the phone call from the Israelis” (meaning the embassy or higher), of the BBC’s Jerusalem bureau having been “leant on by the Americans”, of being “guilty of self-censorship” and of “urgently needing an external arbiter”. Yet the public response of the BBC is to avoid reporting our latest findings. Those in control have the power to say what is not going to be the news.

Exposing a “relentless” barrage of coordinated messaging from Israel endured by broadcasters and journalist alike, the toll it has taken on both the coverage and  public impression of the conflict is predictable.

In a new project , we have analysed more than 4,000 lines of text from the main UK news bulletins of the attack, but there was no coverage in these of the killing by the Israelis of more than 1,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of children, in the three years before it. In the TV news coverage, Israeli statements on the causes of action overwhelmed those of the Palestinians by more than three to one. Palestinian statements tended to be only that they would seek revenge on Israel. The underlying reasons for the conflict were absent, such as being driven from their homes and land when Israel was created…….We interviewed audience groups and found the gaps in their knowledge closely paralleled absences in the news. A majority believed Palestinians broke the ceasefire that existed before the December attack and did not knowIsrael had attacked Gaza during it, in November 2008, killing six Palestinians. Members of the public expressed sorrow for the plight of Palestinians but, because of the Israeli message so firmly carried by TV, they thought the Palestinians had somehow brought it on themselves. As one put it: “When I saw the pictures of the dead children it was dreadful, I was in tears but it didn’t make me feel that the Palestinians and Hamas were right … I think the Palestinians haven’t taken the chance to work towards a peaceful solution. Hamas called an end to the last ceasefire.” This participant was surprised to hear Hamas was reported to have said it would have stopped the rockets if Israel had agreed to lift its economic siege. The source was Ephraim Halevy, former head of the Mossad intelligence service.

(my bold)

We have to keep the pressure up, this is a crucial period. I am reminded of the thrill I experienced the other night reviewing the amazing evening Blueprint for Accountability when Naomi Klein called Mondoweiss a ‘lifeline’ (@ 28 minutes). This is what the internet means to Palestine and Israel. This is what we mean for justice and freedom, all of us. We have to keep the pressure up because we can win this. They can’t fool everyone forever and it is up to us to balance out this constant onslaught of propaganda by exposing the truth.

(hat tip seafoid)

More on the late Safire, gunnin for Israel

May 31, 2011

Philip Weiss

Last week I did a post in which John Mearsheimer said that the late William Safire of the New York Times pushed for an independent Kurdistan because he had an agenda, to break up Israel’s enemies. Well here is MJ Rosenberg at Media Matters describing how Safire became an attack dog for Benjamin Netanyahu in 1988 when Rosenberg’s boss, Senator Carl Levin, was calling for the United States to enforce the UN Resolution that barred Israel from colonizing the occupied territories.

The tale of Levin’s congressional letter is a vivid example of the Israel lobby at work, though I gather that Jonathan Chait at the New Republic has dissed the story with the usual analysis that the lobby is just like big pharma or something. Here’s the problem with that analysis. Senator Levin was taking on colonization. Ronald Reagan was opposed to that colonization. So was every other president. And still the colonization went on unabated for 44 years in defiance of a country that has given Israel billions every year, and why? Because of the lobby. And now when the existence of Israel is in the balance, you’d think that more supporters might be questioning the tactics of its American host. I’m stepping on Rosenberg’s story. Here it is:

In the meantime, Levin heard from President Ronald Reagan, who thanked him for organizing support for the administration’s position. Meanhile, [Israeli P.M. Yitzhak] Shamir began calling senators to express “astonishment” that his policies had been criticized.

Then came a moment that was, for me, the most shocking experience I ever had during my years working for the United States government.

William Safire, the most influential New York Times columnist, phoned me in a rage. He told me that he knew for a fact that neither Levin nor I had drafted the letter. He said that he knew that the letter was written by an aide to the leader of the Labor Party opposition in Israel, Shimon Peres. He said that aide, one Yossi Beilin, had hand-delivered the text to me, and that I had convinced Levin to circulate it. He said that my goal was to unseat Shamir and replace him with Peres.

I almost laughed. The very idea that a Senate aide had such power was astounding. But then Safire asked if I thought it was appropriate for a Senate aide to be the agent of a foreign political party, and what would Levin think when he read about that in Safire’s column.

That was scary. As a Senate aide, I had sworn allegiance to the United States and the Constitution. I also had a security clearance. This could be serious.

I told Safire that I had written the draft and that Levin had (as is his wont) extensively edited it. I told him I had no idea who Beilin was (which was the truth). Safire then got really nasty and told me that he knew I was lying because he had the story on good authority (Israeli U.N. ambassador Binyamin Netanyahu and AIPAC’s number two guy, Steve Rosen, who was subsequently indicted for espionage). I said I didn’t care who he heard it from, it was a lie. Additionally, Levin had undertaken the initiative to help Israel because he thought that if Israel ruled out territorial withdrawal, the conflict would never end.

The call concluded with Safire backing down after warning me that if he ever found out I was lying, I would be “finished.” He said he would not write the column because — get this — in the end he believed me more than his sources.

All star ensemble– ‘We are the people, this is the time– Stand up, sing out for Palestine’

May 31, 2011

annie

UPDATE: 6/1 12:07 PST, we are up to 8,657 hits and going viral. PUSH IT PEOPLE if you twitter, if your mother belongs to a knitting bee.. SHARE IT. 😉

I love this! My heart is pounding the chorus is so beautiful. OneWorld has produced a fantastic hit, all proceeds supporting projects in Palestine. The song features an all star ensemble of musicians from around the world including Randall, Jamie Catto (1 Giant Leap), Maxi Jazz (Faithless), LSK, Harry Collier (Kubb), Andrea Britton, Sudha (Faithless), Andy Treacy (Faithless/Moby/Groove Armada), Attab Haddad and Joelle Barker plus over the top  Durban Gospel Choir and members of the London Community Gospel Choir and comedian Mark Thomas, rapper Lowkey and poet Michael Rosen.

Check out Disco Nutter mix by Yasen Velchev and the Drum&Bass mix by Dan BirchWILD!

The songs will be released July 3rd but are available for pre-order now from iTunes and HMVdigital. Let’s celebrate this kick off, it’s history in the making!

Supported by War on Want, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, A Just Peace for Palestine, Friends of Al Aqsa, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions UK, Stop the War Coalition, Trust Greenbelt and the A.M.Qattan Foundation. Proceeds from the single will go to UK Charity War on Want for projects in Palestine.

2nd class citizens: Palestinian city inside Israel hasn’t had phone or internet access for weeks following accident

May 31, 2011

Kate

and other news from Today in Palestine:

Land, property, resources theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Settlers
Mayor: Settlement activity in Jerusalem will continue
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 31 May — Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barakat on Tuesday said the municipality would continue to build Jewish-only housing in the occupied city. Barakat told Israel Radio that all construction plans would be completed regardless of “political issues.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392500
Solidarity protest on Jerusalem Day, Wednesday 6 June
SJS 30 May — In the past few weeks we have witnessed the attempts of the Israeli Government to annex East Jerusalem, being intensified. These growing attempts are seriously jeopardizing any possibility for future agreement … As if this is not enough, Jerusalem Municipal authority, together with Jerusalem’s police and the settlers, decided to move, for the first time, the traditional Jerusalem day’s march of the settlers to the East part of the city. The March will take part mostly in Sheikh Jarrah. Tens of thousands of settlers will arrive, this Wednesday to the Palestinian neighborhood — an act of pure provocation. We will be there standing in protest — ‘Solidarity’ activists and residents of East Jerusalem — as we did in Ras El-Amud!
http://www.en.justjlm.org/485
Israeli national parks policy used to dispossess Palestinians
MEMO 31 May — An Israeli organization has warned against the dangerous repercussions of the implementation of a new Israeli plan to establish a national garden in the East Jerusalem towns of Issawiya and Al Tur. The Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement has said that if the plan to establish the Mount Scopus Slopes National Park is implemented, it will cause great damage to land reserves intended for the future development of Issawiya and Al Tur and their 30,000 residents. In a press release from the Movement, it stated that the town of Issawiya which is fenced in by Israeli settlements and institutions from most directions, “is able to develop only southward, onto the land approved for the national park. Without this important land, Issawiya will be forced to build inward and onto itself until it becomes another poverty-stricken slum… 
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2417-israeli-national-parks-policy-used-to-dispossess-palestinians
IOF tears down 13 structures in Jordan Valley
JENIN, (PIC) 31 May — The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) led military bulldozers into the Al-Farisiyya and Al-Meita areas in the Salt Valley in the northern Jordan Valley, and destroyed 13 structures owned by Arab Bedouins. The force crushed eight homes in Al-Meita in the upper Salt Valley where Bedouins have been residing for many years, although the homes were remote from Israeli military camps. It destroyed six more buildings in neighboring Al-Farisiyya … Locals say Israeli forces seek to restrict shepherds in the area in order to curtail their usage of the land for grazing and it also seeks to push them out. The Salt Valley is characterized by warm and plentiful water resources. It is also an agricultural and pastoral area valuable to many farmers in the provinces of Tubas and Tamoun. There are five Bedouin hamlets and communities that live there.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcO
Prayer, politics collide on midnight pilgrimage
NABLUS, West Bank (AP) 31 May — A modest stone building holy to Jews in the midst of this Arab city is becoming an increasingly volatile friction point, drawing growing numbers of pilgrims on nighttime prayer visits, unnerving Palestinian residents and putting Israel’s military into conflict with some of the worshippers it is meant to protect … Organizers, members of the hard core of Israel’s settlement movement, see the visits to the traditional gravesite of the biblical Joseph as a mix of religious duty, assertion of ownership and show of force … Palestinians view them as a provocation and an attempt by Israeli extremists to create a political foothold inside their city, which is one of the main autonomous zones established by the interim peace accords of the 1990s … To secure the Jewish worshippers, the military takes up positions in nearby buildings. Sahar Mussa, 38, lives on the top floor of an apartment building overlooking the tomb, making it both a potential threat to the worshippers and a useful position for troops, who typically take it over before the buses come in, she said. The soldiers usually arrive before midnight, move Mussa, her husband and her children into one room and take up posts at the windows until the last worshippers leave, she said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110531/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_joseph_s_tomb
VIDEO — Going back to Lifta: a Palestinian exile returns / Mat Heywood
Guardian 30 May — Yacoub Odeh, a Palestinian who fled from Lifta, west Jerusalem in 1948, shows film-maker Mat Heywood around his deserted home village, now under threat from Israeli plans to build a luxury resort
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/may/30/palestinian-israel-back-to-lifta-video
Israeli forces
East Jerusalem residents face police violence: study
JERUSALEM (AFP) 31 May — An Israeli rights group on Tuesday called on Jerusalem’s new police chief to “fundamentally change” what it said was his officers’ violent treatment towards the city’s Palestinian residents. In a report timed to coincide with the anniversary of Israel’s 1967 occupation of east Jerusalem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel said that over the past two years it had received a rising number of complaints and mounting evidence of abuses suffered by Palestinian residents … It called on police chief Nisso Shaham, appointed in April, to curb what it called “excessive” riot-control methods, to scrupulously observe regulations on the treatment of minors and to protect Palestinians from Jewish settlers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110531/wl_mideast_afp/israelpalestiniansjerusalemrightspolice
Israeli forces raid village near Tulkarem
TULKAREM (Ma‘an) 31 May — Israeli forces raided Tuesday the Kafr Al-Labad village in Tulkarem. Forces toured the village and raided a school that is still under construction. There were no reports of clashes or arrests.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392677
Israeli tanks invade central Gaza Strip
Gaza Strip, (Pal Telegraph) 31 May — Israeli military vehicles invaded Tuesday morning limited areas in the east of al-Buriage refugee camp in central Gaza Strip. No causalities were reported. According to SAFA News agency, eight Israeli bulldozers accompanied by three tanks stationed at the east of al-Buriage refugee camp and started razing operation to the agricultural lands, terrifying many citizens in fear of being hurt by Israeli fire.Gaza borders regularly witnessed brutal attacks since Israel targets every moving object got near the border fence, causing great damage to several farmlands that supported hundreds of families.
http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/gaza-strip/9312-israeli-tanks-invade-central-gaza-strip.html
Soldiers play loud music, porn to disturb Palestinians
PSP 31 May — During the day of Wednesday, May 25, Israeli forces stationed at the entrance of Beit Ommar played music and audio from pornographic media over speakers at high volumes. The audio assault was intended to disturb and repulse Palestinian villagers.
http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2011/05/31/soldiers-play-loud-music-porn-to-disturb-palestinians/
Gaza – under siege for 1448 days
OPT: Freedom of movement in Gaza gets a boost
RAFAH, 31 May 2011 (IRIN) – The opening of Rafah on 28 May, the only official border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, has created a lifeline for Palestinians living in Gaza, but some, mostly refugees, will still be restricted to their localities because they lack identification papers … There are also hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza, mostly refugees, without identification documents who cannot leave. While it officially withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel retains control of its maritime, air and most of its land borders. It also retains control of its population registry, including the issuance of Palestinian ID numbers without which it is impossible to travel. Sana Easa, 39, has not seen her family in Cairo since she moved to Gaza to marry her husband Salah 12 years ago. Both need medical treatment unavailable in Gaza’s hospitals, but even with the new policy at Rafah, they are stuck. Sana is a Palestinian but was born in Cairo and lived there most of her life. Her parents left Gaza as refugees in 1967. Her Egyptian passport expired in April 2004 but in order to renew it, she must go to Cairo in person. She is still waiting for the Palestinian ID number she applied for 12 years ago.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=92848
Hamas urges Gazans not to jeopardize Rafah reopening
GAZA CITY (AFP) 31 May — …Ismail Haniyeh welcomed Egypt’s decision to fully reopen the crossing last week, and warned Palestinians “to refrain from any breach of Egypt’s security.” “Don’t do anything that could compromise the reopening of the terminal,” he said. “We assure our Egyptian brothers: ‘Your security is ours and your stability is ours.'”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392683
All quiet in Rafah: Egypt’s Gaza border opens not with a bang but a whisper
TIME 31 May — …opening day marked one of the slowest business days that Rafah Crossing had seen in years. Egyptian officials reported that roughly 400 people crossed into Egypt at Rafah on Saturday, and 153 into Gaza … Indeed, the atmosphere inside the arrivals terminal was mysteriously subdued for much of the day … And only several dozen travellers seemed to populate the hall at any given time …  others suggested: not a whole lot has changed. A huge proportion of Gaza’s population (those men ages 18 to 40) are still largely banned from travel … At Rafah, at least thirty angry men were turned away on Saturday, deposited on buses and sent back to Gaza after their names showed up on an Egyptian security blacklist. It’s a blacklist that dates to well before Mubarak’s departure …  Indeed, much to Palestinians’ dismay – and perhaps, to Israel’s comfort – Egypt’s feared intelligence service, the mukhabarat, continues to wield control over the border terminal, just as it always has.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20110531/wl_time/08599207464200
Health ministry says Gaza hospitals still suffering from lack of medicine
GAZA, (PIC) 31 May — The Gaza health ministry said Monday that hospitals in the besieged Gaza Strip are still suffering from lack of medicines and medical supplies as 310 medicines and consumables are completely out of stock …It pointed out that the Norwegian health mission recently made a four-day visit to Gaza and was briefed on the severe medical deficit and subsequently released a report about it in the Lancet health magazine distributed worldwide. The mission called the situation in the Gaza Strip heart-breaking and called on the world community to help supply the region with its medical needs.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2b
Israel allows 280 trucks into Gaza
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 31 May — Israel on Tuesday allowed 280 trucks of goods and aid into Gaza through the sole operating supplies terminal Kerem Shalom, Palestinian officials said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392464
Flotillas
Flotilla Gaza-bound again, as anniversary is remembered / Roee Ruttenberg
972mag 31 May — Tuesday marks the one year anniversary of an Israeli raid on a group of ships in the Mediterranean that left nine Turkish nationals dead. The ships, known as the Freedom Flotilla, were bound for Gaza and said to be containing $20 million dollars worth of aid for the Palestinian territory. But with Gaza’s shores blocked by Israel, many predicted – correctly – that a confrontation was inevitable. On this one year anniversary, organizers say they are still determined to break what they call an illegal blockade … and they have more ships are ready to set sail.
http://972mag.com/flotilla-gaza-bound-once-again-as-anniversary-is-remembered/
Hamas opens memorial to dead flotilla activists
GAZA CITY (AP) 31 May — The Islamic militant group Hamas has unveiled a memorial for nine activists killed last year in an Israeli raid on an international flotilla seeking to break a blockade of the Gaza Strip. The memorial at Gaza’s harbor includes nine 12-yard-(meter)-high metal statues shaped as sails, and a new public park. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Tuesday the memorial commemorates “the heroes who drew the world’s attention to the siege of Gaza.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110531/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_gaza_blockade
Photos of flotilla monument and ceremony
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.225637677448162.68861.173475609331036&l=ac0306cf73
Israeli prepping to block next Gaza flotilla
Haaretz 31 May — While Israel says it prefers a diplomatic move to thwart the flotilla, Netanyahu has indicated that, if necessary, force would be used against anyone who tries to disobey the navy orders.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-prepping-to-block-next-gaza-flotilla-1.365036
Activism / Solidarity
Palestinian youth movement plans 5 June march on Jerusalem
AIC 31 May — Next week, on the 5th of June, the Palestinian people commemorate the 44th anniversary of the Naksa, the beginning of the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and Syrian Golan. The Palestinian youth movement is organising a large demonstration in the village of Qalandiya, located between Ramallah and Jerusalem, after which thousands of Palestinians, Muslims and Christians, will pray together at the Qalandiya checkpoint before heading toward Jerusalem. Since the first demonstration for Palestinian unity on 15 March, thePalestinian youth movement has grown and become increasingly organized on a grassroots level.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/3632-palestinian-youth-movement-plans-5-june-march-on-jerusalem
Refugees to march from Lebanon on June 5
LEBANON (Ma‘an) — Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will march toward borders between Lebanon and the occupied territories on Sunday commemorating the mass dispossession of Palestinians in 1967. In Lebanon, two rallies will be held in Maron Ar-Ras and Naqoura near the country’s borders with Israel, a top Fatah official said. Muneer Maqdah, a Fatah leader in Ein El-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon, said over 50,000 people would join the “return” rally. Refugees will try to erect tents along the borders and barricade themselves there until they can return to Palestine, Maqdah said. The march is being described as a follow-up to the May 15 protest, Maqdah added. He said “the flame which was created will get brighter and brighter until return is achieved.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392565
Detention
Israeli army targets Islamic Jihad in Jenin raids
JENIN (Ma‘an) 31 May — Israeli forces detained 12 Islamic Jihad supporters overnight Sunday during raids on six villages around Jenin in the northern West Bank, Palestinian security sources said. The Israeli military said 12 “senior activists” in the movement were detained … Palestinian security officials said ‘Arraba, Kafr Ra‘i, Jaba‘, Az-Zababida, ‘Anin and Silat Al-Harithiya villages were raided between 3 a.m. and 4.30 a.m. The officials said Israeli forces also stormed Kufeirit, west of Jenin, and erected a checkpoint in the center of the village ransacking several homes. No detentions were reported.
Palestinian security officials said Israeli forces sealed off a charitable society known as “The Muslim girl,” run by Muna Qi‘dan who was detained in Arraba. They said soldiers broke the main gate and confiscated the society’s documents and computers. Qi‘dan is a lecturer at Al-Quds University in Jenin and has been detained several times by Israeli forces. The Israeli military said Qi‘dan’s association, also known as El Bara’a, or Honesty, was closed and its property was taken because of “its associations with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Gaza-based organization ‘The Soul of Jerusalem.'”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392472
Lawmakers held at West Bank checkpoint
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 31 May — Israeli forces stopped a car carrying four Palestinian lawmakers Tuesday in the occupied West Bank. Aziz Dweik, Nizar Ramadan, Bassem Zaareer, and Anwar Zboun were held at a checkpoint near Bethlehem, Hamas officials said. Nizar Ramadan was taken to an undisclosed location and Dweik was freed, Hamas officials and the Israeli military said. All four lawmakers represent Hamas in the Palestinian parliament.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392728
Qalqiliya man released after 7-year detention
QALQILIYA (Ma‘an) 31 May — Israel on Monday released Shadi Abu Shareb after detaining him for seven years. Abu Shareb, from Qaliqilya, was held at the Negev desert prison in southern Israel. He was accused of affiliation to Fatah’s armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Brigades.
Crowds of Palestinians and Fatah representatives waited at the entrance to Qalqiliya to congratulate Abu Shareb on his release.
Meanwhile, 22-year-old Abdullah Ameer was released from Israel’s Ramon prison. Ameer, from from Bal‘a village in Tulkarem, completed a five-year sentence two weeks ago, but Israel’s prison administration kept postponing his release.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392443
Detainee marks 21 years in prison
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 30 May — The Detainees Center in Gaza City marked the 21st year in prison for a local man accused of stabbing an Israeli man in East Jerusalem.  According to the center, 41-year-old Yasser Daoud 41 from Jerusalem, serving a 60-year sentence, has been held in isolation for the past eight months, and has repeatedly reported being questioned and tortured.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392404
Racism / Discrimination
Israeli Arab town claims discrimination behind severed phone access
Haaretz 31 May — Hundreds of homes in Tira have not had landline telephone and Internet service since early April, when Bezeq trunk lines were damaged in a traffic accident. Residents of the Arab city in the center of the country accuse the telecommunications company of discrimination, and some say they are considering legal action. Bezeq has said that city authorities were hindering its repair of the problem. “If this was [the nearby Jewish communities of] Kfar Sava or Kochav Yair, they would have fixed the lines immediately. They wouldn’t have fobbed off the residents with evasive and wrong answers, either,” Mayor Mamon Abd al-Hay said yesterday.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-arab-town-claims-discrimination-behind-severed-phone-access-1.365050
A female general without female soldiers
Haaretz 31 May — The exclusion of women from field units serves the interests of conservative forces within the army who see the integration of women as a threat to the army’s capabilities … It should be stated clearly that the status of women in the IDF has been in retreat in recent years.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/a-female-general-without-female-soldiers-1.365072
Court orders Filipina mom and baby out of airport jail
Haaretz 31 May — The Central District Court last week ordered a Filipino woman and her 7-month-old son released from the lock-up at Ben-Gurion International Airport, on grounds she was being deported under a policy that was declared illegal last month by the High Court of Justice. Flordeliza Barganta, a nursing care worker, had been arrested by the Interior Ministry’s Oz unit workers last week and told she was being deported. Barganta had lost her work visa upon giving birth, in accordance with a previous Interior Ministry policy under which a foreign worker who gave birth lost her visa for 90 days, during which she was meant to leave the country and could only return without her child.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/court-orders-filipina-mom-and-baby-out-of-airport-jail-1.365047
Politics / Diplomacy / International
Fayyad: State will be on 1967 borders
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 31 May — Ramallah Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Monday that the Palestinian state would be established on all territories occupied in 1967. “On 1967 territories, there are no disputed areas. There is no A, B, or C area, nor are there H1 or H2 zones. It is all Palestinian territory that has been occupied since 1967,” Fayyad said. “The independent Palestinian state will be on all these territories including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Palestine.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392456
Palestinians plan to approach UN Security Council about statehood in July
Haaretz 31 May — The Palestinian Authority plans to approach the United Nations Security Council in July to begin the process of getting Palestine recognized as a full member of the United Nations and to assure a vote on the matter by the General Assembly in September, Haaretz has learned. The UN General Assembly is authorized to accept Palestine as a member state, but can do so only after it receives a recommendation to this effect from the Security Council.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/palestinians-plan-to-approach-un-security-council-about-statehood-in-july-1.365035
Abbas in Egypt for talks with military leader
CAIRO (AFP) 30 May — Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was in Egypt on Monday for talks with the country’s de facto head of state on efforts to seek UN recognition for a Palestinian state, a military source said. Abbas briefed Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi — who heads the military council in power since president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February — on his recent trip to Doha.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110530/wl_mideast_afp/egyptpalestinianspolitics
Promised donor aid not arriving: Palestinian PM
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP)  31 May — The Palestinian Authority is facing a financial crisis because funds pledged by donor nations are not arriving on time, Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad said Tuesday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110531/wl_mideast_afp/palestiniansaidfinancegovernmentfayyad
Other news
Majority of both Israelis and Palestinians expect new intifada / Harriet Sherwood
Guardian 31 May — Polls show around 70% foresee uprising among Palestinians if no progress in peace talks and following declaration of state
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/view-from-jerusalem-with-harriet-sherwood/2011/may/31/israel-palestinian-territories
Knesset speaker working to boost recognition of Armenian genocide
Haaretz 31 May — Reuven Rivlin says it is his duty as a Jew and Israeli to recognize the ‘tragedies of other peoples.” [no comment]
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/knesset-speaker-working-to-boost-recognition-of-armenian-genocide-1.365034
Analysis / Opinion
Israel’s PR victory shames news broadcasters
Guardian 31 May — Our latest analysis of news bulletins reveals how Israel continues to spin images of war — The propaganda battle over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a new level of intensity. In 2004 the Glasgow University Media Group published a major study on TV coverage of the Second Intifada and its impact on public understanding. We analysed about 200 programmes and questioned more than 800 people. Our conclusion: reporting was dominated by Israeli accounts. Since then we have been contacted by many journalists, especially from the BBC, and told of the intense pressures they are under that limit criticism of Israel. They asked us to raise the issue in public because they can’t. They speak of “waiting in fear for the phone call from the Israelis” (meaning the embassy or higher), of the BBC’s Jerusalem bureau having been “leant on by the Americans”, of being “guilty of self-censorship” and of “urgently needing an external arbiter”. Yet the public response of the BBC is to avoid reporting our latest findings. Those in control have the power to say what is not going to be the news.For their part, the Israelis have increased their PR effort …  In 2010, when Israel attacked the Gaza aid flotilla, it issued edited footage with its own captions about what was supposed to have happened. This highly contested account was nonetheless largely swallowed by TV news programmes. A UN-sponsored report, which later refuted the account, was barely covered.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/31/israel-pr-victory-images-war
Poll: US Social media users favor Israel
Washington (Ynet) 31 May – A recent survey of numerous blogs, Facebook posts and Twitter tweets, conducted in the week following US President Barack Obama’s Mideast policy speech, revealed overwhelming support for Israel. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that every anti-Israel post in the social media world in the US was trumped by an average of three pro-Israel posts. [hasbara posts? or the result of hasbara?]
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4076648,00.html
Cultural dimensions of the Palestinian right of return / Marta Fortunato
AIC 31 May — On 15 May, thousands of Palestinian refugees attempted to return to Palestine. What pushed thousands of young Palestinians, born and raised as refugees outside of Palestine, to such actions? What does being a Palestinian refugee mean? What does the right of return mean for refugees both inside and outside of Palestine? … The Palestinian right of return is not simply a problem of Palestinian refugees but is a wider political, human and global issue. Every day in Palestine there are new refugees, Palestinians expelled from their homes, their villages, due to construction of the Separation Wall and expansion of the settlements. The right of return is also a human and international issue because Palestinians are the population with the largest number of refugees, some 7.5 million scattered throughout the world.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/3634-cultural-dimensions-of-the-palestinian-right-of-return
Obama is letting Netanyahu off the hook / Akiva Eldar
Haaretz 30 May — …The prime minister is no longer the man Ehud Barak designated “Mr. No.” We are now dealing with a new leader, a much more sophisticated and dangerous one. Meet “Bibi I’ll Have It Both Ways.”  … When there is a leader in the White House who is willing to take political risks and makes it clear that there is a cost to trying to have it both ways, Israelis know to distinguish between the good and the bad. But Obama enabled Netanyahu to return home from Washington without paying any political price for trying to have it both ways. Moreover, he allowed the prime minister to laugh all the way to Jerusalem over the statement that the 1967 borders, with agreed territorial exchange, should serve as the basis for negotiations.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/obama-is-letting-netanyahu-off-the-hook-1.364880
Video: Song – Freedom for Palestine / OneWorld
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V28HnPTYz-I&feature=share

groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi (listserv)
www.theheadlines.org (archive)

A (half-hearted) defense of the Congressional Democrats

May 31, 2011

Jerome Slater

Like almost all serious critics of Israel and of U.S. policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, my initial reaction to the Congressional fawning over Netanyahu and the apparently unanimous standing ovations awarded to Netanyahu’s latest demagogic lies was one of outrage. It’s one thing for the Republicans to participate in this charade—nothing good on almost any issue can be expected from the current Republican party—but from the Democrats, the only rational political party in America, as well?

Yet, on further cold reflection, if I had been in Congress, I might have done the same thing, on the basis of the following premises:

1. Israel today is hopeless, beyond rational or elementary moral calculation. In the current circumstances, there is no chance that it will agree to a fair two-state settlement of the conflict and a less-than-zero chance it will agree—ever–to a one-state “solution,” a binational democratic Israeli-Palestinian state.

2. The only possible change in U.S. policies that would force Israel to negotiate a settlement with the Palestinians would be for the U.S. to end all of its military, economic, and diplomatic support of Israel until it agreed to such a settlement.

3. However, even if Obama would like to adopt such a policy—itself hard to imagine—there is not the slightest possibility that Congress would go along.

4. Moreover, it is by no means obvious that serious U.S. pressures on Israel would result in serious changes in Israeli policies. Given the state of mind in Israel today, it might be equally possible that Israel would spurn even the United States, retreat even further into defiant isolationism and belligerency, and tell “the goyim”—that is, the US and the rest of the world–to go to hell.

5. Indeed, strong US pressures could even prove to be dangerous. An Israel armed with hundreds of nuclear weapons cannot be trusted not to resort to the Samson option if it felt itself alone, abandoned, and increasingly militarily vulnerable. In such a state of mind, it cannot be ruled out that Israel might quickly resort to nuclear weapons in any war with its Arab neighbors—or maybe even “preemptively,” especially if Iran should develop nuclear weapons and Israel decides that it can’t destroy hardened nuclear sites without using tactical nuclear weapons.

Given these premises, I am driven to the reluctant conclusion that the Democratic party stands to gain nothing but to lose a great deal if it even hints at pressuring Israel. It would lose a considerable amount of Jewish financial support and possibly enough Jewish votes to lose close elections—and not only in Congress but even in the 2012 presidential election, where Jewish defections could tip some states into the Republican column.

It is likely that Obama has reached this same conclusion, for much the same reasons. Even if his recent mild criticism of Israeli policies suggested that meaningful—or even meaningless—changes in U.S. policy might be in the offing, one of the safest bets you can make is that as the election approaches Obama and the Democratic party as a whole will flee from the suggestion—perish the thought—that it might apply even the mildest pressure on Israeli. In Obama’s shoes, I’d probably be driven–however reluctantly and with gritted teeth–to the same behavior.

This argument will not impress those who think that I am referring to mere “partisan politics.” In my view, however, what is at stake in America are liberal values and even rationality: I would go very far to avoid the risk that the next congress or president could be Republican.

In short, given the unlikelihood that any U.S. action could save Israel from itself, I would give priority to saving America from itself–which, the facts of life being what they are, means that the Obama and the Democratic party can’t abandon its near-unconditional support of Israel. At least, not until after the 2012 elections.

This is a crosspost from Jerome Slater’s blog.

George Mitchell says, Well, 10 presidents and 19 secretaries of state also failed

May 31, 2011

Philip Weiss

Charlie Rose [at 21:00]: When this president came to office, one of his earliest appointments was you… a serious person who helped bring peace to Northern Ireland… We’re involved. And off you went to the Middle East. It’s now two years later. Did you fail?

George Mitchell: Well I failed to get a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. But so has everyone else who has ever tried. Since Israel was created, we’ve had ten presidents and 19 secretaries of state. There have been many Israeli prime ministers, and everyone has tried to do it, and no one’s succeeded. So in that sense you can say, yes, we failed to get a peace agreement, and the consequence is a serious one…

Shame: 9 of 15 signers of intolerant Congressional letter on Goldstone are Jewish

May 31, 2011

Philip Weiss

A challenge to Hendrik Hertzberg. This morning in the New Yorker he writes that Obama has been held hostage by “the political salience, actual and perceived, of certain Jewish and evangelical constituencies.” Well, here is a congressional letter of a month back to UN Ambassador Susan Rice, calling on the United States to “introduce a resolution expunging the Goldstone Report from the official record of the United Nations.” And who is signing this defamation of human rights and international law? 9 of the 15 signers are Jewish– Weiner, Berman, Israel, Engel, Berkley, Schakowsky, Schiff, Nadler, Deutch. Several are very “progressive” ones at that. Yes there are conservative Republicans like Dan Burton, but if there is a problem, and we all know there is, shouldn’t the New Yorker be taking on the intolerance in its own community? Don’t east coast liberals have more influence over their own community than over that perennial bugaboo– the community of evangelicals?

(Note that in the accompanying letter, liberal Weiner brags on debating Brian Baird at the New School– a debate we set up, in which Weiner said there’s no such thing as the occupied territories.)

Obama can’t stop talking about love (and that’s bad news for the Israel lobby)

May 31, 2011

Philip Weiss

Obama’s got the love drug. He used the word six times yesterday in his Memorial Day speech. At times it came out of the blue:

I love my daughters more than anything in the world…

He used the word love 14 times in Joplin, Missouri the day before.

the actions of these individuals were driven by love — love for a family member, love for a friend, or just love for a fellow human being.

Love isn’t just love between two people, it has a political social dimension. Obama talked about that love in Ireland last week:

as President McAleese has written, “For all the apparent intractability of our problems, the irrepressible human impulse to love kept nagging and nudging us towards reconciliation.”

Obama is a deep, thoughtful man, and he carried that idea of love that can heal a formerly intractable conflict– the words we all use about Israel and Palestine– to England a day or two later. He spoke about the Arab spring in hopeful terms, and about Ireland too. And lest there was any doubt about the lesson to Israelis, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron said at his joint press conference with Obama that intractable Ireland is an example for the Middle East, and Obama picked up the analogy and ran with it, expressing impatience:

Let me just pick up on what David said about Ireland.  It was inspiring to see, after hundreds of years of conflict, people so rapidly reorienting how they thought about themselves, how they thought about those who they thought once were enemies.  Her Majesty’s visit had a profound effect on the entire country.  And so it was an enormous source of hope.  And I think it’s a reminder that as tough as these things are, if you stick to it, if people of goodwill remain engaged, that ultimately even the worst of conflicts can be resolved.

But it [now referring to Israel/Palestine– the original question] is going to take time.  And I remain optimistic, but not naively so, that this is going to be hard work and each side is going to have to look inward to determine what is in their long-term interests, and not just what are in their short-term tactical interests, which tends to perpetuate a conflict as opposed to solving it.

All this love talk is bad news for the Israel lobby, which loves itself. Obama’s speech toAIPAC last Sunday was filled with obeisance, yes, but sand and scorn: “The world is moving too fast.  The world is moving too fast.  The extraordinary challenges facing Israel will only grow.”

And when he went before the British Parliament last week, Obama mentioned Israel only once. And he did not include it in his list of American interests in the region. No, that list included energy, and implicitly support for “minority rights” in a democracy.

The United States and United Kingdom stand squarely on the side of those who long to be free.  And now, we must show that we will back up those words with deeds.  That means investing in the future of those nations that transition to democracy, starting with Tunisia and Egypt -– by deepening ties of trade and commerce; by helping them demonstrate that freedom brings prosperity.  And that means standing up for universal rights -– by sanctioning those who pursue repression, strengthening civil society, supporting the rights of minorities.
We do this knowing that the West must overcome suspicion and mistrust among many in the Middle East and North Africa -– a mistrust that is rooted in a difficult past.  For years, we’ve faced charges of hypocrisy from those who do not enjoy the freedoms that they hear us espouse.  And so to them, we must squarely acknowledge that, yes, we have enduring interests in the region -– to fight terror, sometimes with partners who may not be perfect; to protect against disruptions of the world’s energy supply.  But we must also insist that we reject as false the choice between our interests and our ideals; between stability and democracy.

I say that these last two weeks have angered Obama. He is reserved and protean, he sees a mainstream American discourse, urged on by the Arab spring, opening about Israel, and he wants to lead it, and secretly he hates the selfishness of the Israel lobby.

Because love isn’t just social, it’s personal. And Barack Obama is the son of a freethinking midwestern woman who overcame differences to love a Kenyan man. The values he celebrated in Joplin:

As the governor said, you have shown the world what it means to love thy neighbor….And in the face of winds that showed no mercy, no regard for human life, that did not discriminate by race or faith or background, it was ordinary people, swiftly tested, who said, “I’m willing to die right now so that someone else might live.”

Not to be a buzzkill– but what Rafah opening does and doesn’t mean

May 31, 2011

Laila El-Haddad

The big story of the week has been the much-acclaimed re-opening of the torturous Rafah Crossing.  It had been operating intermittently, if at all, and for limited categories of people for more than 4 years now.  For what seemed like eternity, the Mubarak regime- الله لا يردهم -, colluding with the United States and Israel to keep Gaza closed, had “conditioned” the re-opening of the crossing on a Fateh-Hamas reconciliation agreement, the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and a return to the much-maligned US-brokered AMA (Agreement on Movement and Access),  in which European monitors and live-video streams acted as proxies for Israel, who ultimately retained control over the crossing.

There were some dark, dark times over the course of those four miserable years, and beyond, during which I and tens of thousands of others were prevented from entering our own homes over and over again, during which we were beaten and detained, humiliated and abandoned, when I wondered how would it ever end? How on earth could we as Palestinians find a way out of even this smallest and seemingly inconsequential dimension of our struggle, Rafah, this sole gateway, this portal, in and out of tortured little Gaza? How could such a routine aspect of life, movement, have become so impossible, yet made to seem so threatening, its stifling designed to seem so ordinary and justified? And why could no understand we we were mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, lovers, students and teachers…and we were tired like ordinary human beings get tired, of this miserable, hell. How could the status quo finally change? I can honestly tell you the last thing I expected was for an epic overthrow of Mubarak.

But back to Rafah.  Not to be a buzzkill or anything, but I think its time to break down the facts here. It’s true that the crossing has been open on a more regular basis (6 days a week) and to a greater number of Gaza residents for visa-free travel (unless you happen to fall into the dreaded 18-40 “male security threat” age-range), and as anyone who has suffered long hours (or days or weeks or months) in the punishing heat or bone-numbing cold of this little corner of the world awaiting entry or exit can attest, this news should be celebrated.

But with access STILL limited to Palestinians in Israeli-controlled population registry, the so-called re-opening of Rafah Crossing is simply return to status quo of years past.   Only Palestinians listed in the Israeli-controlled Palestinian population registry, carrying an Israeli-approved Gaza ID card, or hawia, can use Rafah Crossing. And those who do cross are still subject to arbitrary security screenings and possible denial of entry-or exit.

Translation:  Palestinians from the West Bank or East Jerusalem-even those with hawiat, Palestinians in refugees camps outside the Occupied Palestinian territories, “Filisteeniyit il-dakhil” aka 1948 Palestinians, or Palestinians abroad, are all still not allowed passage to Gaza through Rafah. This includes Palestinian families where one spouse possesses an ID, but the other does not, such as my own family, OR internally displaced Palestinians who live in Gaza but whose IDs were never approved by Israeli authorities (who are not allowed to exit). They number in the tens of thousands.

Additionally, according to the NGO Gisha, the expansion does not appear to include passage of goods, which are restricted to the Israeli-controlled crossings and subject to prohibitions on construction materials and export.

It also warrants reminding that while one border has been open, Gaza remains under tight maritime and aerial siege, and continues to be closed off to the rest of the Occupied Palestinians territories in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Palestinian’s cultural, economic, and academic capitals. Israel has a legal obligation to permit passage of people and goods between Gaza and the West Bank, recognized as a single territorial unit.

In addition, the deadly buffer zone along Gaza’s coastal borders, which juts up to 2km inland, preventing farmer’s from accessing their farm land, 1/3 of which exists in this zone, is still in place.

The collective result: development, prosperity, and possibility are stifled, as aid dependence rises. We should be under no illusions to the contrary. Gaza is still occupied, is still besieged.

Should be be thankful Rafah’s closure has eased? Absolutely. Should we be complacent, or simply settle for what we have? Absolutely not.

For more, check out GISHA’s “Gaza cheat sheet“, which breaks down the facts and figures and helps you understand what’s really behind the siege.

This is a crosspost from Laila El-Haddad’s Gaza Mom site.