NOVANEWS

Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem

Chair of West Midland PSC

Dear Friends,

Most of the material below is from emails that I received and a bit from our local press.  I barely glanced at the international media today.  No time. Too much came through as it is.  And so we have 9 items below.  But some are quite brief, so it should not be an effort to go through them.  And if you have the time and the will, remember also to glance also through ‘Today in Palestine’ to keep up on events in the West Bank and Gaza  www.theheadlines,org.

Item 1, then, consists of comments on the new Israeli ID card.  Frankly, from the description, it does not appeal to me. Ynet reported today, however, that citizens will have the right to choose to stay with the old one or to take the new one. Let’s hope that the info is correct.

Item 2 is a statement of Principles by the Palestine Trade Union Coalition for bds.  This is an important step.  True that before we can judge its impact, we have to see how it works in actuality.  Yet the move itself, as also the reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, suggests that the Palestinians are getting their act together.  Instead of fighting one another, they are finally working on tactics to get their common enemy—Zionism– off their backs.  Let’s hope that they succeed using non-violent strategies as bds.

Items 3 and 4, the former from Gisha, the latter a Haaretz editorial, both argue that the union between Hamas and Fatah affords an opportunity that Israel should not miss.

Item 5 is less pleasing.  Remember about a month ago I sent a few items from Seattle, where groups opposing Israel’s occupation tried first to have a message on buses, and when that was denied, then on billboards.  Now that too has been denied.  The link to the latter will take you to the story.  Win some. Lose some.  And yet, things as a whole are changing.

Items 6 and 7 are both from CPT—the first is a brief report about settler violence, the second a personal reaction to the killing of Bin Laden.

Item 8 reports that Israeli human rights organizations have taken the recently passed Nakba law to the Israeli High Court.  I will be pleased but surprised if the court tells the Knesset (Israeli parliament) that the law is illegal.  Will update when the verdict is given.

Item 9 is different from the usual fare in my messages, and were it a movie or comedy it might be amusing.  But it being in real life is far from amusing.  Apparently a number of states in the US are contemplating outlawing Sharia law.  This worries quite a few Jews, who fear that if laws outlawing Sharia law pass, the next victim could be Halacha law.  The long and the short of it is that Islamophobia continues to be strong in the US.  When will people learn that racism can be turned against any one, that it is ugly, that it needs to be wiped out?

Nite,

Dorothy

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Thursday, May 5 2011

Independent commentary from Israel & the Palestinian territories

http://972mag.com/new-israeli-id-cards-to-begin-at-6-million/

Wednesday, May 4 2011|Dimi Reider

New Israeli ID card numbers to begin at 6 million

Israel is about to begin issuing its citizens with “smart” ID cards – plastic cards with a chip containing various biometric information, as opposed to the laminated paper cards we carried until now. The debate over the biometric database on which these cards will draw is long and ferocious, but it turns out this is only one controversial thing about the cards. Yedioth Ahronoth reported today (h/t 7th Eye) that the serial numbers of the cards (as opposed to the actual ID numbers, which will remain the same), will begin “at six million up, to commemorate the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust… the new cards will be embedded with six Stars of David, also to commemorate Holocaust victims.”

Three thoughts that come to mind:

1. Not only do we appoint ourselves to representing all living Jews of the world (and then are shocked when non-Israeli Jews are targeted by opponents of the Israeli state), but we now have appointed ourselves to represent the dead ones – not as a group but each and every one, individually. What’s next? Serial Interior Ministry numbers on Jewish headstones in cemeteries around the world?

2. It’s profoundly disrespectful to the Holocaust victims themselves, many if not most of whom weren’t Zionist and saw themselves as Jews and as nationals of their own country.

3. The same ID cards will be given to Jews and Arabs in Israel, which makes the entire shennanigan appear as if the state officially says that the 6 million murdered Jews who never set foot in Israel (certainly never acquired residency or citizenship) were here /before/ the Arab citizens who were born here.

Commemoration of the Holocaust and learning form it is tremendously important. But is the long-term plan here to turn the entire country into Yad Vashem and all citizens into walking exhibits?

[The link to the article on the new Israeli passports Thursday, May 5 2011

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4064490,00.html ]

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2. 

Forwarded by Yael Korin

From: Omar Barghouti2 <omar.barghouti2@gmail.com>

Subject: Fwd: Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS) formed at historic conference

In commemoration of the International Workers’ Day, the Palestinian trade union movement holds its first BDS conference and announces the formation of the:

Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS)*

Statement of Principles & Call for International Trade Union Support for BDS

Occupied Palestine, 4 May 2011 – In commemoration of the first of May – a day of workers struggle and international solidarity – the first Palestinian trade union conference for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel (BDS) was held in Ramallah on 30 April 2011, organized by almost the entirety of the Palestinian trade union movement, including federations, professional unions, and trade union blocks representing the entire spectrum of Palestinian political parties. The conference marked a historic event: the formation of the Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS) as the largest coalition of the Palestinian trade union movement. PTUC-BDS will provide the most representative Palestinian reference for international trade unions, promoting their support for and endorsement of the BDS Call, launched by Palestinian civil society in 2005, guided by the guidelines and principles adopted by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), of which PTUC-BDS has become a key component.

The global trade union movement has always played a key and inspiring role in its courageous commitment to human rights and adoption of concrete, ground-breaking, labor-led sanctions against oppressive regimes in a show of solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world. The trade union boycott of apartheid South Africa stands out as a bright example of this tradition of effective solidarity. Trade unions today are taking the lead in defending the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, justice, freedom, equality and the right of return of our refugees as stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194. Many of them have heeded the call from Palestinian civil society, and its labor movement in particular, to adopt BDS as the most effective form of solidarity with the Palestinians in our struggle to end Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Ending Israel’s multi-tiered system of oppression against the Palestinian people — comprising occupation, colonialism and apartheid — has become a test for humanity. For decades, Israel has enjoyed impunity while continuing its gradual ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, particularly in occupied East Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Naqab (Negev) desert; its 44-year-old occupation; its theft of land and natural resources; its colonization and construction of illegal colonial settlements and walls, its siege of Gaza;  its relentless denial of refugee rights; its endless wars of aggressions and incarceration of political prisoners; and its wanton killings of civilians and demolition of infrastructure. Israel’s systematic destruction of the Palestinian economy, expropriation of the most fertile agricultural land, as well as humiliation of and racist discrimination against Palestinian workers have all become part of its apartheid reality that should never be tolerated by the world today.

Given the complete failure and unwillingness of hegemonic powers to hold Israel accountable to international law, it is up to people of conscience and international civil society, especially the trade union movement, to take concrete action to end international collusion with decades of violations of international law and human rights by Israel, its institutions and international corporations.

The support of the entirety of the Palestinian trade union movement for a full boycott of Israel,[1] as the most effective form of solidarity with the Palestinian people, was the overarching message of this historic gathering.

The Conference was honored to welcome Joâo Felicio, International Relations Secretary of CUT, the Brazilian trade union representing more than 20 million workers, who expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights, and reiterated CUT’s endorsement of BDS. The conference received numerous messages of solidarity from a large number of trade union federations, including the International Federation of Arab Trade Unions, COSATU (South Africa), ICTU (Ireland), and a large number of individual trade unions in Canada, Scotland, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, Australia, USA and other countries. All major Palestinian political parties also enthusiastically supported the conference and the formation of PTUC-BDS.

The Conference decisively condemned the Histadrut and called on international trade unions to sever all links with it due to its historic and current complicity in Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian rights. The Histadrut has always played a key role in perpetuating Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of racial discrimination by:

1. Publicly supporting Israel’s violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and other tenets of international law

2. Maintaining active commercial interests in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise[2]

3. Allowing Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to join the organization[3]

4. Supporting Israel’s war of aggression on besieged Gaza in 2008/9;[4] it has later justified Israel’s massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010[5]

5. Illegally withholding over NIS 8.3 billion (approximately $2.43bn) over decades of occupation from wages earned by Palestinian workers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory,[6] deducted for ‘social and other trade union benefits’ that Palestinian laborers from the OPT have never received.

Recalling the trade union maxim “an injury to one is an injury to all”, and given the global trade union movement’s historic role in effective international solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world, PTUC-BDS:

·         Cordially salutes all global trade unions for their solidarity with the Palestinian people, especially those that have endorsed BDS against Israel,

·         Calls on trade unions around the world to actively show solidarity with the Palestinian people by implementing creative and context-sensitive BDS campaigns as the most effective way to end Israeli impunity. For example by:

o   boycotting Israeli and international companies (such as Elbit, Agrexco, Veolia, Alstom, Caterpillar, Northrop Grumman, etc.) and institutions that are complicit withIsrael’s occupation and violations of international law,

o   reviewing pension fund investments with the purpose of divesting from IsraelBonds and all Israeli and international companies and institutions complicit in Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid,

o   pressuring governments to suspend Free Trade Agreements, end arms trade and military relations with Israel with the intention of eventually cutting all diplomatic ties with it,

·         Calls on port workers around the world to boycott loading/offloading Israeli ships, similar to the heroic step taken by port workers around the world in suspending maritime trade with South Africa in protest against the apartheid regime, and

·         Calls on trade unions around the world to review and sever all ties with the Histadrut.

Such non-violent measures of accountability must continue until Israel fulfils its obligations under international law in acknowledging the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination, and fully complies with international law by:

·         Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied since 1967 (including East Jerusalem), as well as dismantling of the illegal wall and colonies,

·         Recognizing the fundamental right of the Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equity, as well as ending the system of racial discrimination against them, and

·         Respecting, protecting and supporting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UNGA Resolution 194.

* The Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS) is the broadest and most representative body of the Palestinian trade union movement and includes the following organisations: General Union of Palestinian Workers, Federation of Independent Trade Unions (IFU), General Union of Palestinian Women, Union of Palestinian Professional Associations (comprising the professional syndicates of Engineers, Physicians, Pharmacists, AgriculturalEngineers, Lawyers, Dentists and Veterinarians), General Union of Palestinian Teachers, General Union of Palestinian Peasants and Co-ops, General Union of Palestinian Writers, Union of Palestinian Farmers, Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE), Union of Public Employees in Palestine-Civil Sector; and all of the trade union blocks that make up the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU): Central Office for the Workers Movement, Progressive Labor Union Front, Workers Unity block, Progressive Workers Block, Workers solidarity organization, Workers Struggle Block, workers resistance block, Workers Liberation Front, Union of Palestinian Workers Struggle Committees, National Initiative (al-Mubadara) Block.

– Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS)
ptuc-bds@bdsmovement.net
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/ptuc-bds-formed-6912

[1] Despite rumors to the contrary, PGFTU’s recently issued statement explicitly calls for a full boycott of Israel and of all its institutions that are complicit in the occupation: http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/pgftu-clarrification-6559

[2]http://www.whoprofits.org/Company%20Info.php?id=889

[3]http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10379.shtml

[4] http://www.labourstart.org/israel/Histadrut_on_Gaza.pdf

[5] http://www.histadrut.org.il/index.php?page_id=1801

[6] http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/2422-israel-owes-over-nis-83-billion-to-palestinian-workers-from-the-occupied-palestinian-territories

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3.

Gisha  Thursday, May 5, 2011

לקריאת העדכון בשפה העברית

A window of opportunity for Israel

http://www.gazagateway.org/2011/05/a-moment-of-opportunity-for-israel/

The lifting of travel restrictions anywhere, and all the more so when it comes to the Gaza Strip, is good news for us at Gisha. The statement made by the new Egyptian Foreign Minister last week was interpreted in Israel to indicate an intention to fully open the Rafah Crossing. If it proves true, this would significantly ease the closure by allowing Palestinians and others to enter and exit the Gaza Strip, and maybe even import and export goods in the future (and all that above ground, no less!).

It could also be good news for Israel, whose obligations, deriving from its control over movement of people and goods, would be reduced, commensurate with the reduction in the extent of its control. However, as long as Israel continues controlling the territorial waters of the Gaza Strip, its airspace and most of its land borders, its population registry and its tax system, Israel will continue to bear substantial, although not exclusive, responsibility under international humanitarian law for the maintenance of regular and free movement (subject to individual security inspections) into and out of the Gaza Strip. In addition to an obligation to allow people and goods to cross between Gaza and foreign countries, Israel continues to bear almost full responsibility for passage between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which has been restricted since 1991 and which the opening of Rafah Crossing would not resolve.

The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are recognized, including by Israel, as a single territorial unit, which, despite four years of tight closure, still shares one economy, one education system, one healthcare system and countless familial and social ties. Furthermore, if the reconciliation agreement signed yesterday between Fatah and Hamas is implemented, there will soon be a single internal government for both areas.

We at Gisha believe that this moment is an opportunity for the Government of Israel to initiate cooperation with the PA, Egypt and international parties over operation of the border crossings. Such arrangements should guarantee freedom of movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank under reasonable conditions, while addressing Israel’s security interests recognized by international law. This will enable Israel to realize the declarations that it, and its prime minister, have made repeatedly since June 2010, namely that the “civilian” closure of Gaza must be lifted and restrictions should apply only to the transfer of weapons and war materiel.

Goods

Needs Vs. Supply

Building Materials

Needs Vs. Supply

חלון ההזדמנות של ישראל

יום חמישי, 5 במאי 2011

הסרה של הגבלות תנועה באשר הן, ועל אחת כמה וכמה כשמדובר ברצועת עזה, היא חדשה טובה עבורנו ב-‘גישה’. הצהרת שר החוץ החדש של מצרים בשבוע שעבר הובנה בישראל ככוונה לפתוח את מעבר רפיח באופן מלא. צעד כזה, אם יתממש, יקל משמעותית על הסגר בכך שיאפשר לפלסטינים ולאחרים לצאת ולהיכנס לרצועה, ואולי בהמשך אפילו לייבא ולייצא סחורות (וכל זה מעל פני האדמה!).

אלו עשויות להיות גם חדשות טובות עבור ישראל, אשר נטל האחריות המוטל עליה, הנובע משליטתה בתנועת אנשים וסחורות – יפחת, בהתאם להפחתת היקף שליטתה. יחד עם זאת, כל זמן שישראל ממשיכה לשלוט במימיה הטריטוריאליים של רצועת עזה, במרחב האווירי שלה וברוב גבולותיה היבשתיים, במרשם האוכלוסין ובמערכת המיסים, היא ממשיכה לשאת באחריות ניכרת, גם אם לא בלעדית, מכוח המשפט ההומניטרי הבינלאומי, לקיומה של תנועה סדירה וחופשית (בכפוף לבדיקות ביטחוניות פרטניות) מרצועת עזה ולתוכה. בנוסף לאחריותה לאפשר מעבר של אנשים וסחורות בין עזה לחו”ל, ישראל ממשיכה לשאת באחריות על התנועה בין רצועת עזה לבין הגדה המערבית, אותה היא מגבילה באופן גורף זה שנים ארוכות ואשר לגביה פתיחת רפיח אינה מספקת פתרון.

הגדה והרצועה מוכרות מבחינה חוקית, גם על ידי ישראל, כיחידה טריטוריאלית אחת. למרות ארבע שנים של סגר הדוק, הן עדיין חולקות כלכלה אחת, מערכת חינוך אחת, מערכת בריאות אחת, ואינספור קשרים משפחתיים וחברתיים. בנוסף, אם ייושם הסכם הפיוס שנחתם אתמול בין פתח לחמאס, יהיו בקרוב שני האזורים תחת שלטון פנימי אחד.

אנו ב-‘גישה’ מאמינים שברגע הזה טמונה הזדמנות עבור ממשלת ישראל ליזום שיתוף פעולה עם הרשות הפלסטינית, מצרים וגורמים בינלאומיים בנוגע להסדרת פעילות המעברים. יש לוודא שכל הסדר יבטיח את חופש התנועה גם בין עזה לגדה בתנאים סבירים, תוך מתן מענה לאינטרסים הביטחוניים של ישראל, המוכרים במשפט הבינלאומי. כך תוכל ממשלת ישראל לממש את ההצהרות שעליהן היא, והעומד בראשה, חזרו שוב ושוב מאז יוני 2010, ולפיהן יש להסיר את הסגר “האזרחי” מעל עזה ולהותיר אך ורק הגבלות על הכנסת נשק ואמצעי לחימה.

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4.  Haaretz Editorial Thursday, May 05, 2011

Latest update 23:31 04.05.11

Palestinian unity is an opportunity, not a threat

It would be correct for Israel to recognize the Palestinian unity government in order to conduct a dialogue and neighborly relations with the Palestinian state in the future.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/palestinian-unity-is-an-opportunity-not-a-threat-1.359862

Haaretz Editorial

The word “reconciliation” is so distant from the Middle Eastern reality that its use is taken as either a joke or threat. The signing ceremony in Cairo yesterday between Fatah and Hamas is likely to mark a turning point, not only for the concept, but also for the Palestinian and regional situation.

The land mines that threaten to shatter this reconciliation are not buried underground; they are visible. Still, it’s vital to examine whether the rapprochement offers a new opportunity not only for the Palestinians, but also for Israel. The Israeli Foreign Ministry, in contrast to the public positions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, thinks the reconciliation offers Israel a strategic opportunity. A secret ministry report revealed in Haaretz yesterday by Barak Ravid advised the government to view the report as an opportunity and refrain from attacking it.

The reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas depends on a new perception of strategy, born hurriedly in the upheavals that are still taking place in the Middle East. According to this idea, the closing of ranks between the two factions, each controlling a separate Palestinian territory, is the preferred path to achieving international recognition of both a Palestinian state and all elements in the Palestinian leadership.

The Palestinians hope this recognition will advance their liberation from the Israeli occupation after 20 years in which neither they nor their Arab partners have managed to change Israel’s position. Israel, which views the Palestinians’ national aspirations as a strategic threat, has begun an aggressive campaign to destroy the reconciliation, as if a situation in which Hamas quarrels with Fatah provided greater security, or as if Israel had been willing to sign a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority before the two factions reconciled. These two arguments are nothing more than sleight of hand intended to disguise the traditional Israeli view that a union of the two movements is a threat.

The agreement signed yesterday obligates Israel to revisit its positions. Israel cannot and does not have to thwart it. It would also be correct for Israel to recognize the Palestinian unity government in order to conduct a dialogue and neighborly relations with the Palestinian state in the future.

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

5. Forwarded by David

—– Original Message —–

From: Michael Munk

Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 4:36 PM

Subject: Israeli Lobby fears, kills Seattle billboard

Error! Filename not specified.

Seattle billboards on Israel canceled after controversy

By VANESSA HO

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 28, 2011

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Seattle-billboards-on-Israel-cancelled-after-1356868.php#ixzz1LPxaRqdl

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6.  From CPT Hebron <cptheb@palnet.com>

HEBRON/AL-KHALIL: Settlers attack family home on Shuhada Street
5 May 2011 
At 3:15 p.m. on 3 May, CPT Hebron responded to a report of settlers attacking a home above Shuhada Street.  When CPTers arrived at the residence near Qurtuba Girls School, they met local human rights activist Issa Amro.  Together, they spoke with family members, masons and other workers who had been repairing a section of the home when the settlers attacked.  They reported that thirty to forty settlers, male and female, came down the hill behind the home and destroyed a portion of the exterior face of a concrete block wall.  The settlers then attempted, unsuccessfully, to push part of the wall into the courtyard below.  Failing that, they threw stones, dirt and scrap wood into the courtyard before leaving with over $400 worth of construction tools belonging to the workmen.
According to the workers and the family, the Israeli military accompanied the settlers and did nothing to stop the assault on the home.  The police were called, but never came to investigate.
The Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) and the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) also documented the incident.  EAPPI monitors the Qurtuba School area, in which Palestinian families are especially vulnerable to attack by Israeli settlers.
==================================

7. 
From CPT Hebron cptheb@palnet.com

AL-KHALIL/HEBRON: The dayafter Bin Laden died.
5 May 2011

by Kathleen Kern

I was in Hebron on September 11, 2001.  I remember old men approaching me on the street, eyes full of tears, telling me that God would help me and my fellow citizens.  Other Palestinian friends called us, sobbing, as they described what they were watching on TV.  The catastrophe happened at the end of a summer of egregious Israeli settler violence on the street, and we knew we had to prepare ourselves for the worldwide racist backlash against Arabs and Muslims.  I think both of these factors and my grief for the victims contributed to a sense that my head and heart were creating a reaction I had not felt before, and for which I had no name.

Almost ten years later, I felt something similar when I entered our main apartment at 6:30a.m. on May 2, and one of my team members told me that he had been listening to President Obama’s speech on the killing of Osama Bin Laden.  The reactions of people on the street sort of flowed over me, and I examined them with interest, and with that nameless feeling.

Two of my colleagues walking back from monitoring a checkpoint that morning heard an Israeli settler telling a soldier, “It’s great that Bin Laden was killed; CPTers should be next.”  A friendly Israeli border policeman at the mosque checkpoint, who assumed we would be celebrating, told another CPTer and me, “Saddam Hussein is gone; Bin Laden is gone.  When we kill Nasrallah [the Secretary General of Hezbollah], Israel and the U.S. will have peace.”  I told him, “There will be others to take their places.”  “Then we will kill them too!” he said cheerfully.

I asked a Hebronite friend what most Palestinians in Hebron were saying about Bin Laden’s death.  Most, he said, do not care.  A small minority were upset about the killing.  A much larger minority, himself included, thought Bin Laden deserved his fate. The Quran forbids the killing of civilians, he said, and it has an absolute prohibition on Muslims killing other Muslims.  Bin Laden was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Muslims in the U.S., Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Jordan.  “I just wish it had been a Muslim who killed him,” he said.

For years, a Martin Luther King quotation has been taped on the wall of our apartment in Hebron.  Although I am still waiting to understand my feelings, the poster brings me some comfort.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.  Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.  Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie nor establish truth.  Through violence, you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate.  In fact, violence merely increases hate.  Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

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8.  Haaretz Thursday, May 05, 2011

Latest update 12:20 04.05.11

Human rights groups petition High Court to overthrow ‘Nakba Law’

The Nakba Law bars public funding of entities that ‘undermine the foundations of the state’, and will allow the finance minister to fine anyone who marks Israeli Independence Day as a day of mourning.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/human-rights-groups-petition-high-court-to-overthrow-nakba-law-1.359802

By Jack Khoury and Jonathan Lis

Tags: Israel news

Adalah, a legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel submitted a petition to the High Court Wednesday to overturn a law barring public funding of entities that “undermine the foundations of the state and contradict its values”.

The law, referred to as the “Nakba Law,” is specifically directed at Israel’s independence day, when some Israeli-Arabs mourn their Arab ancestors who were expelled from their homes.

According to the law, Arab commemoration of this holiday this goes against the Jewish and democratic nature of the state of Israel.

The Nakba Law will allow the minister of finance to fine anyone who marks Israeli Independence Day as a day of mourning or who holds memorial events for the Palestinian Nakba.

Adalah and the Union for Human rights submitted the petition along with the parents of students from a mixed Arab and Jewish school, a non profit alumni organization for former students at an Arab high school in Haifa and Professor Oren Yiftahel from Ben-Gurion University in Be’er Sheva.

The petition claims that the Nakba Law will unjustly permit Israeli authorities to fine individuals for holding events commemorating the Nakba not only on Israel Independence Day, but throughout the year as well.

The drafters of the petition claim that the law is an infringement upon citizens’ legal rights, compromising individuals’ political, academic and artistic freedoms. They added that the law detracts from basic human entitlement to equality, education, and employment as well.

The petitioners’ major allegation is that the law will harm the basic rights of Israel’s Arab minority, and may detract from the budgets of many public institutions including cultural and education facilities, as well as Arab municipalities throughout Israel.

They added that the fact the minister of finance is given jurisdiction to determine if and when an institution or individual should be fined, will inevitably lead to discriminatory enforcement of the law. The petition said that this will only encourage political persecution of Israel’s Arab minority, which constitutes roughly 20-percent of the population.

The petitioners have asked the High Court to issue an interim freeze on the minister of finance’s right to fine perpetrators of this law until it rules on the petition.

“This is an ideological law that has been directed against the national identity of Israel’s Arab citizens, and against their collective memory. It detracts from the legitimacy of their standing as citizens entitle to equal rights in the State of Israel,” said Adalah lawyer Saswanzaher Zaher.

Zaher added that the law “punishes the Arab citizens of Israel because of their different, other identity and may lead to increased racism against them.”

In March, the Arab Education Monitoring Committee responded defiantly to the passage of the controversial bill, announcing that it would continue to direct Arab Israeli schools to mark national Israeli Arab commemorations including Nakba Day.

Members of the Knesset have also spoken out against the law. MK Afu Aghbaria (Hadash) said the Arab population will persist in marking the Nakba without the use of government funds, adding: “We will continue activities marking Nakba Day with the aim of presenting the historical facts, which are not subject to interpretation when it comes to a people uprooted from its land, many of whose members were made refugees.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beiteinu party sponsored the bill, stands behind it, saying “there is no other normal country that funds events comparing its establishment to a catastrophe.”

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

9.  [Forwarded by David McReynolds from Scott Kennedy]

Absolutely fascinating, Scott. Will send to the Middle East list, though I’m tempted to send it to the joke list.

David

Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 10:30 PM

Subject: Anti-sharia laws stir concerns that halachah could be next

Anti-sharia laws stir concerns that halachah could be next

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/national/anti_sharia_laws_stir_concerns_halachah_could_be_next [I am not sure that that this is the original source, which Scott did not give, but it is the commentary below.]

By Ron Kampeas · April 28, 2011

Photos 1 out of 1Other Media John Chasnoff of the American Civil Liberties Union and Gail Wechsler of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis join Muslims in Jefferson City, Mo. on April 12, 2011 to protest a proposed law banning sharia. (Missouri News Horizon / Creative Commons)WASHINGTON (JTA) — With conservative lawmakers across the United States trying to outlaw sharia, or Islamic religious law, Jewish organizations are concerned that halachah could be next.

If the state legislative initiatives targeting sharia are successful, they would gut a central tenet of American Jewish religious communal life: The ability under U.S. law to resolve differences according to halachah, or Jewish religious law.

“The laws are not identical, but as a general rule they could be interpreted broadly to prevent two Jewish litigants from going to a beit din,” a Jewish religious court, said Abba Cohen, the Washington director of Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox umbrella group. “That would be a terrible infringement on our religious freedom.”

A number of recent beit din arbitrations that were taken by litigants to civil courts — on whether a batch of etrogim met kosher standards; on whether a teacher at a yeshiva was rightfully dismissed; and on the ownership of Torah scrolls — would have no standing under the proposed laws.

Cohen added that a New York State law requiring parties in a divorce to cut all ties immediately would be affected by the passage of anti-sharia legislation; the law protects divorced Jewish women from becoming “agunot,” chained to a recalcitrant husband through his refusal to grant a religious divorce. Federal laws protecting religious expression in the workplace — for instance, wearing head coverings or asking for certain holidays off — also could be affected, he said.

The threats posed by the anti-sharia laws — passed by referendum in Oklahoma and under consideration in 13 other states, according to a study by the liberal Center for American Progress — led Agudah and the Orthodox Union to join in an American Jewish Committee-spearheaded letter to state legislatures urging them to reject such laws.

“The impact of this legislation goes well beyond prohibiting religious tribunal resolution of monetary or ministerial disputes,” says one of the letters, to the Arizona state Senate. “It would apparently prohibit the courts from looking to key documents of church, synagogue or mosque governance — religious law — to resolve disputes about the ownership of a house of worship, selection and discipline of ministers, and church governance.”

The unlikely combination of signatories, which also include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, signal the breadth of opposition to the legislation targeting Islamic law.

But there are also Jews supportive of the anti-sharia laws, such as David Yerushalmi, an Orthodox lawyer who has written extensively on the topic and testified on the matter as some legislatures consider the proposed laws.

Yerushalmi argues that sharia differs from halachah or Christian canon law because it sanctions jihad, which he says amounts to sedition through seeking the overthrow of governments through nonviolent and violent means.

“Because Jihad necessarily advocates violence and the destruction of our representative, constitution-based government, the advocacy of jihad by a sharia authority presents a real and present danger,” he wrote recently on a conservative website. “This is sedition when advocated from within our borders; an act of war when directed at us from foreign soil.”

Scholars of Islam say such characterizations of sharia are distorted.

And those opposing the legislation say many of the laws as proposed are unconstitutional and likely would not survive their first judicial test.

“It’s violation of the right to free exercise,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, who directs the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center and teaches church-state law at Georgetown University. “It’s a violation of the establishment clause, giving pre-eminence of one religion over another.”

A federal judge cited the establishment clause in her decision to indefinitely hold the Oklahoma law in abeyance while she considers a lawsuit.

Still, the tide of proposed laws has stoked enough concern that the groups are taking action. Cohen, Saperstein and the Orthodox Union’s Nathan Diament all said their organizations are urging constituent synagogues to take up the matter in states where laws are under consideration.

Jewish officials in Nashville, Tenn., have spoken out against a proposed sharia ban that has evolved into a bill that would grant the state attorney general broad powers to name any group a terrorist group.

“I have been on a local morning TV show about the issue,” said Judy Saks, the community relations director for the local federation. “I said, as Jews, we’ve been persecuted throughout the ages, and to stand by and watch this broad brush being used against another community — we really can’t.”

Diament expressed concerns about proposed laws in places like Nebraska and South Dakota that might circumvent constitutional bans by targeting “foreign law” and “religious code” and not naming sharia or Islam.

Such laws “are problematic particularly from the perspective of the Orthodox community — we have a beit din system, Jews have disputes resolved according to halachah,” Diament said. “We don’t have our own police force, and the mechanism for having those decisions enforced if they need to be enforced is the way any private arbitration is enforced” — through contract law in the secular court system.

Marc Stern, the AJC’s associate general counsel who drafted the letter to the state legislatures, said the greatest threat presented by the proposed laws is to America’s delicate relations with Muslims across the world.

“The key point here for us is that it makes all Muslims who take their religion seriously a threat,” he said, adding that the laws could alienate Muslim moderates who otherwise seek accommodation with the West.

“It’s a strategic error of gigantic proportions,” Stern said.

Saks recalled that when she heard that vandals had defaced a mosque in Nashville in February 2010 with crosses and “Muslims go home” graffiti, she joined a clean-up effort — and forged new alliances.

“When they found out I was Jewish, there was a kind of astonishment, and then they were grateful,” she said of the mostly Somali congregation.

Abed Awad, a New Jersey-based lawyer who is an expert on Islamic law, said the application of the proposed laws would have an impact not only on domestic family court agreements and contracts between members of the same religious community, but on contracts made overseas.

Awad noted that a number of Muslim states and Israel use religious law in divorce cases, for example. An American judge addressing the divorce of a couple now must take into account the sums agreed upon in those contracts; the proposed laws would ban such considerations.

Additionally, Awad said, the legislation would affect agreements signed between American companies and counterparts in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where sharia governs business law. How would one side pursue a grievance in an American court should the laws governing the contract be considered null?

In no instance does sharia law prevail over U.S. law, said Awad, who has testified in about 100 cases as a sharia expert. Instead, judges use sharia to understand the underpinnings of a contract.

“The judge will elicit testimony from me, what is the document, what were the expectations of the party when they came into this, what is the culture,” he said. “Then he applies New York contract law — was there an offer, was there acceptance, was there fraud. Sharia law comes into play to explain what this is all about.”

Such a case in a Florida court, where a judge is considering a dispute between the officers of a mosque, already has led to accusations that sharia has infiltrated the U.S. court system. Leading the charge is Adam Hasner, a Jewish Republican and veteran state politician who is mounting a bid for the state’s U.S. Senate seat in 2012.

“We need to speak out,” Hasner said at a recent rally. “We need to make sure that these threats do not continue to grow, do not continue to infiltrate our state and our country.”

Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, said he often encounters Jews concerned about sharia.

“I’ve had questions from Jewish audiences: What is the ADL doing from stopping sharia from taking over the country?” he said.

Foxman said he politely counters that there is no such threat, except perhaps to the American tradition of accommodating religious observance.

“People don’t know what sharia means, it’s a foreign word,” Foxman told JTA. The proposed anti-sharia laws, he said, are “camouflaged bigotry.”

Ron Kampeas is JTA’s Washington bureau chief.

More articles by this author »

NOVANEWS

 
Posted By: Sammi Ibrahem
Chair of West Midland PSC

Dear Friends,

Just 4 items this evening.  Item 4 is very long, but is an important document.  Joseph Masad not only states his own convictions but also contributes valuable information in setting right the issue of ‘Israel’s right to exist.’  Am in a rush this evening, so haven’t time to comment more, but the other 3 items are self-explanatory.

All the best,

Dorothy

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

1. More on the  case of  Tony Kushner

From: “Ed Kent”

Sent: Friday, May 06, 2011 5:58 PM

Subject: A University Trustee Expands on His View of What Is Offensive

[There are two views of those of us who support the existence of Israel:
1. It can do no wrong.
2. It must be criticized for its abuse of the Palestinians which is
little more than the Holocaust in slow motion.  Ed Kent]
About New York
A University Trustee Expands on His View of What Is Offensive
By JIM DWYER
Published: May 5, 2011
“I want to say something,” Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld said. “The question is
offensive. Before you even finish.”

Michael Appleton for The New York Times
Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, a trustee of the City University of New York.
Mr. Wiesenfeld is the City University of New York trustee who rose this
week at a board meeting to block an honorary degree to the playwright
Tony Kushner, declaring him an “extremist” opponent and critic of Israel.
It was a startling development for a board that appeared to be on the
verge of rubber-stamping a bundle of honorary degrees proposed by the
colleges within the university, including one for Mr. Kushner from the
John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Mr. Kushner was not present, and fragments of his views — which are
complicated, passionate, critical — were balled up into a few pellets by
Mr. Wiesenfeld, who gave a 900-word speech that was mostly devoted to
other figures who he felt were radically hostile to Israel. He quoted
about 75 words that he said showed that Mr. Kushner’s thinking was
beyond the pale.
The trustees pulled the playwright’s name from the motion and moved on
to wholesale rubber-stamping of the remaining honorary degrees.
Was this any way for one of the great public universities of the world
to discuss the views of one of the leading dramatists of modern times,
author of the epic “Angels in America”?
“I have no idea who Mr. Kushner is; I don’t know his issues,” said
Valerie Lancaster Beal, a trustee who said she felt the board should not
have singled him out. “To me, it should have been all or none.”
On Thursday afternoon, Mr. Wiesenfeld took a phone call about the events
at the board meeting, and said he was surprised to get enough support
from other trustees to block the Kushner degree. He had thought, he
said, that he was going to register his dissent for the record and move on.
I tried to ask a question about the damage done by a short, one-sided
discussion of vigorously debated aspects of Middle East politics, like
the survival of Israel and the rights of the Palestinians, and which
side was more callous toward human life, and who was most protective of it.
But Mr. Wiesenfeld interrupted and said the question was offensive
because “the comparison sets up a moral equivalence.”
Equivalence between what and what? “Between the Palestinians and
Israelis,” he said. “People who worship death for their children are not
human.”
Did he mean the Palestinians were not human? “They have developed a
culture which is unprecedented in human history,” he said.
But is there no reason to hear from Tony Kushner, or have a more
thorough airing of his views? “Tell you what,” Mr. Wiesenfeld said.
“Your question tells me — and I am saying this not to insult you — tells
me that you don’t know” what you are talking about.
Two years ago, John Jay gave a medal to Mary Robinson, the former
president of Ireland and human rights commissioner with the United
Nations. Many who see the world as Mr. Wiesenfeld does also revile Ms.
Robinson for having presided over a conference on racism in Durban,
South Africa, at which a number of delegates were unabashedly
anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.
Mr. Wiesenfeld said he had confronted Jeremy Travis, the president of
John Jay. “I said, ‘Jeremy, this is crazy. Mary Robinson? The woman who
oversaw this disgrace that the United States pulled out of. You can’t
have a tin ear.’ He said, ‘Well, many people see it differently,’ ” Mr.
Wiesenfeld said. Mr. Travis could not be reached on Thursday, his office
said.
(During the Durban conference, The Jerusalem Post reported that Ms.
Robinson had spoken out at a major dinner when she was presented with a
book of anti-Semitic cartoons. “When I see the racism in this cartoon
booklet, of the Arab Lawyers’ Union, I must say that I am a Jew — for
those victims are hurting,” Ms. Robinson was quoted as saying. “I know
that you people will not understand easily, but you are my friends, so I
tell you that I am a Jew, and I will not accept this fractiousness to
torpedo the conference.”)
Mr. Wiesenfeld was appointed a trustee of City University in the late
1990s by Gov. George E. Pataki, for whom he worked in the 1990s as a
political fixer, an essential and often honorable function that can lead
scrupulous people into a blizzard of trouble. In Mr. Wiesenfeld’s case,
his work, and his actions, put him at the center of a scandal over
paroles that had allegedly been sold to campaign contributors. He was
never charged and said he had done nothing wrong. Nevertheless, a
federal prosecutor described a memo Mr. Wiesenfeld had written urging
leniency for a prisoner as “outrageous.”
Did Mr. Wiesenfeld see no comparison between what had happened to him
and his characterizing of Mr. Kushner’s views without giving his target
a chance for rebuttal?
“That’s absurd,” Mr. Wiesenfeld said.
E-mail: dwyer@nytimes.com
Twitter: @jimdwyernyt
A version of this article appeared in print on May 6, 2011, on page A21
of the New York edition with the headline: A University Trustee Expands
on His View of What Is Offensive.

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

2.

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media@wcc-coe.org

Contact: +41 79 507 6363

Worldwide action for peace in Palestine and Israel coming up

For immediate release: 02 May 2011

As part of a week-long series of events to promote a just peace in Israel and Palestine, Palestinians and Israelis will be praying for peace in front of several Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, the separation wall and in houses of worship in Jerusalem and across Palestine.

They will be part of a worldwide effort to affirm the human dignity and rights of all peoples through the World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel, an initiative of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF) of the World Council of Churches (WCC), taking place from 29 May to 4 June 2011.

The aim of the week for peace is to encourage concerned communities and individuals to make a common witness by participating in worship, educational events, and acts of advocacy in support of a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis.

“With the Palestinian-Israeli peace process at a standstill, people of faith are increasingly searching for ways to express their support for a just and lasting peace for all in Palestine and Israel,” says the Rev. John Calhoun, the convenor of the World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel. “The WCC has set aside this period of seven days to encourage churches and individuals to worship and pray, to educate and be educated, and to take action in support of a peaceful and just end to the occupation of Palestine, in accordance with United Nations resolutions.”

The common focus of this year’s events is Jerusalem. Policies and actions taken by the Israeli government in occupied East Jerusalem continue to threaten the future of Jerusalem as a viable home for two peoples – Palestinians and Israelis – and three faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Furthermore, the restrictions on access by Palestinians to places of worship in Jerusalem, the demolition of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem in order to expand illegal settlement building, and the denial of Palestinians’ right to family reunification in the city, as well as the withdrawal of the residency permits to many Palestinians, as is the case with Bishop Suheil Dawani of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem, constitute grave violations of basic human rights.

The activities planned for the week demonstrate the initiative’s commitment to peaceful action in support of a resolution to this long running conflict. Local church groups and peace activists will advocate with government officials and community leaders through educational seminars, open forums and public demonstrations focusing on the urgent need to bring to an end the ongoing injustices taking place in the region.

The WCC invites member churches, religious and community organizations, and all people of faith to join with peacemakers in the region and around the world by participating in the events of the week.

For more information on the World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel, and to view a list of events being planned by country, please visit the initiative’s website at www.worldweekforpeace.org, or send an email to the convener, Rev. John Calhoun, at calhoun.wwppi@gmail.com

WCC media contact: Michel Nseir, Michel.Nseir@wcc-coe.org (+41-22-7916052) or Ranjan Solomon, ranjan.solomon@wcc-coe.org,

Website of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum:

pief.oikoumene.org.

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.

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4.-Al Jazeera Friday, May 06, 2011

The rights of Israel

Israel’s “lawfare” against the Palestinian people is rooted in a ficticious narrative of having a “right” to exist.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115684218533873.html

Joseph Massad

Israel’s entire basis for beginning negotiations lies in the false premise that it has a “right” to exist [GALLO/GETTY]

The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, now entering their twentieth year had been hailed from the start as historic, having inaugurated a “peace process” that would resolve what is commonly referred to as the “Palestinian-Israeli conflict”. For the Palestinians and the international community, represented by the United Nations and the myriad resolutions its Security Council and General Assembly issued since 1948, what was to be negotiated were the colonisation of land, the occupation of territory and population, and the laws that stipulate ethnic and religious discrimination in Israel, which, among other things, bar Palestinian refugees from returning to their land and confiscate their property. In their struggle against these Israeli practises, Palestinian leaders, whether in Israel, the Occupied Territories, or the diaspora, have always invoked these rights based on international law and UN resolutions, which Israel has consistently refused to implement or abide by since 1948. Thus for the Palestinians, armed by the UN and international law, the negotiations were precisely aimed to end colonisation, occupation, and discrimination.

On the other hand, one of the strongest and persistent arguments that the Zionist movement and Israel have deployed since 1948 in defence of the establishment of Israel and its subsequent policies is the invocation of the rights of Israel, which are not based on international law or UN resolutions. This is a crucial distinction to be made between the Palestinian and Israeli claims to possession of “rights.” While the Palestinians invoke rights that are internationally recognised, Israel invokes rights that are solely recognised at the national level by the Israeli state itself. For Zionism, this was a novel mode of argumentation as, in deploying it, Israel invokes not only juridical principles but also moral ones.

In this realm, Israel has argued over the years that Jews have a right to establish a state in Palestine, that they have a right to establish a “Jewish” state in Palestine, that this state has a “right to exist,” and that it has a “right to defend itself”, which includes its subsidiary right to be the only country in the region to possess nuclear weapons, that it has the “right” to inherit all the biblical land that the Jewish God promised it, and a “right” to enact laws that are racially and religiously discriminatory in order to preserve the Jewish character of the state, otherwise articulated in the more recent formula of “a Jewish and democratic state”. Israel has also insisted that its enemies, including the Palestinian people, whom it dispossesses, colonises, occupies, and discriminates against, must recognise all these rights, foremost among them its “right to exist as a Jewish state”, as a condition for and a precursor to peace.

Rights are non-negotiable

Israel began to invoke this right with vehemence in the last decade after the Palestine Liberation Organisation had satisfied its earlier demand in the 1970s and 80s that the Palestinians recognise its “right to exist”. In international law, countries are recognised as existing de facto and de jure, but there is no notion that any country has a “right to exist”, let alone that other countries should recognise such a right. Nonetheless, the modification by Israel of its claim that others had to recognise its “right to exist” to their having to recognise “its right to exist as Jewish state” is pushed most forcefully at present, as it goes to the heart of the matter of what the Zionist project has been all about since its inception, and addresses itself to the extant discrepancy between Israel’s own understanding of its rights to realise these Zionist aims and the international community’s differing understanding of them. This is a crucial matter, as all these rights that Israel claims to possess, but which are not recognised internationally, translate into its rights to colonise Palestinian land, to occupy it, and to discriminate against the non-Jewish Palestinian people.

Israel insists that these rights are not negotiable and that what it is negotiating about is something entirely different, namely that its enemies must accept all its claimed rights unequivocally as a basis to establish peace in the region and end the state of war. However, the rights that Israel claims for itself are central to what the Palestinians and the international community argue is under negotiation – namely, colonisation, occupation, and racial and religious discrimination. But these three practises, as Israel has made amply clear, are protected as self-arrogated rights and are not up for negotiations. Indeed they are central to the realisation of Israel’s very definition. To negotiate over them would mean to nullify the notion of a “Jewish State”. As this is the case, then what does Israel think the negotiations between it and the Palestinians have been all about since the Madrid peace conference inaugurated them in 1991? Let me revisit the history of these claims in order to understand Israel’s point of view and make clear what the basis of the negotiations are.

Israel’s rights and the historical record

The Zionist movement has often argued that establishing a Jewish State for world Jewry was a moral and historical necessity that must be protected and enshrined in law, something it tirelessly pursued over the decades. However, this did not mean that its foundational texts proceeded from this juridical or moral principle. Indeed in his two foundational texts, The State of the Jews and Old-New Land, Theodor Herzl, the “father” of Zionism, never invoked the notion of Jewish “rights” to argue for a state of and for the Jews, whether in Palestine or Argentina, the other location he proposed. Herzl did speak of a “solution” to the Jewish Question but not of a “right”. And neither did the first Zionist Congress Herzl convened in 1897 and the Basel Program it issued, which did not cite such a “right”. This also applies to the three international foundational texts that Zionism worked hard to bring about. The first such text, the Balfour Declaration, issued on 2 November 1917 by the British government, rather than use the language of rights used the language of affect, promising that the British government “views with favour” the establishment in Palestine of a “Jewish national home”, and that its declaration was a “declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations”. This was followed by the Mandate for Palestine, issued in 1922 by the Council of the League of Nations, which based itself on the Balfour Declaration, and also did not recognise any Jewish rights to a state or even to Palestine. What it did recognise was “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” as “the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country”, again asserting like the Balfour Declaration before it, that this should not prejudice the “rights” of non-Jews. The third and more major text, the November 1947 Partition Plan resolution issued by the UN General Assembly proceeded from a moral preamble, namely, that the General Assembly considered “that the present situation in Palestine is one which is likely to impair the general welfare and friendly relations among nations” and hence the need to provide a “solution” to the “problem of Palestine”.

Israel’s claims

Unlike these Zionist and international foundational documents which did not employ the language of rights, whether internationally recognised or self-arrogated, the Zionist movement insisted on its use in its own foundational document of the state, namely Israel’s so-called “declaration of independence”, formally titled “The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel”. The declaration, which was signed by 37 Jewish leaders, 35 of whom were European colonists, and only one of whom was born in Palestine, misinforms us that “In the year… 1897… at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.” As the documentary record shows, however, neither Herzl nor the Zionist Congress proclaimed such a right at all.  Yet the “Declaration of Independence” proceeds to tell us that:

“This right was recognised in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home… On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.”

As none of these documents has affirmed such a right at all, the imputation to them that they did falls more in the realm of a Zionist investment in the new language of international relations within which the notion of rights became enshrined after World War II, not least in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This also coincided with the emergence of rights discourse in the same period as the hegemonic form of claim-making. Indeed, Israel’s “Declaration of Independence” is so invested in this mode of argumentation that it invokes the European Enlightenment’s notion of “natural” rights when it asserts in its preamble that “This right [to a Jewish State] is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.” The framers of the “declaration” conclude that “By virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of the Jewish State in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.”

It is important here to point out that the logic of this document is its insistence that its invocation of the Jews’ right to establish a Jewish state in Palestine has a clear legal and moral genealogy, of which it is merely the conclusion, and that such a right was finally granted “irrevocabl[y]” by the Partition Plan. That none of this was true did not deter the framers, who, in asserting a right they arrogated to themselves, were now instituting a mode of argumentation that would be the most powerful rhetoric in establishing Israeli facts on the ground.

The meaning of the “Jewish State”

The United Nation’s Partition Plan was a non-binding proposal that was never ratified or adopted by the Security Council, and therefore never acquired legal standing, as UN regulations require (although as far as the Palestinian people are concerned the United Nations had no right at any rate to partition what was not theirs to partition, much less to do so without the consultation of the Palestinian people themselves, thus denying them the right to self-determination). Nonetheless, it is important to consider what the Plan meant by “Jewish State” and “Arab State” due to the fact that the Israeli government uses this document as authorising its very establishment and subsequent policies. For Israel to rely on the Plan for its establishment and its policies, it would need to establish if the Plan proposed that the two states that would result from partition be exclusively Jewish and Arab demographically, or that their laws should grant rights to Jews or Arabs differentially and discriminate against non-Jews or non-Arabs. Expectedly, this was not the case. Even though Israel proceeded to institute a battery of racially and religiously discriminatory laws against its Palestinian Arab citizens (about 30 such laws exist at present), and set on to expropriate the large majority of lands in the country owned by Palestinian Arabs, the Partition Plan never proposed or authorised it to do so. The plan rather stated clearly that “No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants on the ground of race, religion, language or sex” (Chapter 2, Article 2) and that  “No expropriation of land owned by an Arab in the Jewish State (by a Jew in the Arab State)… shall be allowed except for public purposes. In all cases of expropriation full compensation as fixed by the Supreme Court shall be said previous to dispossession.” (Chapter 2, Article 8). When the Israeli “Declaration of Independence” was issued on May 14 1948, the Zionist forces had already expelled about 400,000 Palestinians from their lands and they would expel another 350,000 in the coming months. From this it follows clearly that not only is Israel’s claim to establish a Jewish State that established demographic majority by ethnic cleansing was not authorised by the Partition Plan, but neither was its claim to be a Jewish state, in the sense of a state that privileges Jewish citizens over non-Jewish citizens legally and institutionally.

The proposed Partition Plan on which Israel bases its establishment initially envisioned a Jewish State with an Arab majority, which it later modified slightly to include 45 per cent Arab population and therefore it never envisioned it as free of Arabs or “Arabrein”, as the Israeli state had hoped it would be and as many contemporary Israeli Jews contemplate today. Indeed as Palestine was divided into 16 districts, 9 of which were located in the proposed Jewish State, Palestinian Arabs were a majority in 8 of the 9 districts. Nowhere does the Partition Plan’s use of the term “Jewish State” authorise ethnic cleansing or the colonisation of one ethnic group of the confiscated lands of another, especially as the Plan envisioned Arabs in the Jewish state to be a perpetual large “minority” and thus stipulated the rights that should be accorded to minorities in each state. But the fact that Arabs were a large minority and could conceivably, within a few years, have overtaken the Jewish population in the Jewish State remained uncontemplated by the Plan. For example, the Plan did not consider the consequences of the fact that if Jewish nationalism would define the Jewish State, how then could it accommodate almost half its population who had a different notion of nationalism and whom its excludes from its state nationalism a priori? And were the Palestinian Arabs in the Jewish State not adherents to Palestinian nationalism, they could not become, even if they so wished, Jewish nationalists, as they are excluded from Jewish nationalism ipso facto? How then could the Jewish State not discriminate against them?

This demographic situation would not have been a problem for the Arab State, as the Partition Plan envisioned that the Arab State would have a mere 1.36 per cent Jewish population. While the Zionist movement understood the contradictions of the Partition Plan and based on that understanding it set out to expel the majority of the Arab population of the projected Jewish State, they were unable to make the state Arabrein, which has complicated matters for them as time passed. Today over 22 per cent of Israel’s population are Palestinian Arabs who are barred from inclusion in Jewish nationalism and suffer from institutionalised discrimination against them as non-Jews. Of course, had the state been Arabrein, there would not be a need for Israeli laws that discriminate between Jews and non-Jews, including the Law of Return (1950), the Law of Absentee Property (1950), the Law of the State’s Property (1951), the Law of Citizenship (1952), the Status Law (1952), the Israel Lands Administration Law (1960), the Construction and Building Law (1965), and the 2002 temporary law banning marriage between Israelis and Palestinians of the Occupied Territories. Here Zionists, including prominent Israeli historian Benny Morris, have argued that it is the very presence of Arabs in the Jewish State that propels the Jewish State to enshrine its racism in all these laws. Otherwise, had Israel succeeded in expelling all Palestinians, the only law it would have needed to preserve its Arabrein Jewish status would have been an immigration law stipulating it.

Ultimately then Israel’s claimed right to set up a Jewish State translates immediately into the right of Jews to colonise the lands of the Palestinians, which necessitates the prior confiscation of their lands so that they can be colonised by Jews, the reduction of the number of Palestinians through expulsion and the enactment of laws that prevent their repatriation, and the neutralisation of the rights of those not expelled through institutional and legal discrimination.

Here it is important to stress that for the architects of the Partition Plan, a “Jewish State” meant a state ruled by Jewish nationalists who adhere to Zionism but whose population is almost half Palestinian Arabs whose lands cannot be confiscated for Jewish colonisation and who would have equal rights to Jews and not suffer any racial or religious discrimination. For Israel, the meaning of a “Jewish State” is quite different as it seems to mean the expulsion of a majority of the Arab population, a refusal to repatriate them, the confiscation of their land for the exclusive colonisation of Jews, and the enactment of discriminatory laws against those Palestinian Arabs who remained in the country. When Israel insists today that the Palestinian Authority and other Arab states recognise its right to be a Jewish state, they do not mean that they should recognise its Jewishness in the way the Partition Plan envisioned, but rather in the way Israel understands and exercises this definition on the ground. It is important to note in this regard that it remains unclear which meaning of “Jewish” president Obama (and president Bush before him) has in mind when he demands that Arabs and Palestinians must recognise Israel’s right to be a Jewish state – the Partition Plan’s sense or Israel’s.

The rights of the Palestinians

In contrast to Israel’s invocation of rights that are not internationally sanctioned, the Palestinians invoke a number of internationally recognised rights that challenge Israel’s self-arrogated rights. For example, Palestinians affirm their right to live in the Jewish State from which they were expelled, a right upheld by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which stated unequivocally that “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country” -Article 13(2), and in the Fourth Geneva Conventions passed in 1949. Furthermore, the United Nations General Assembly resolution 194 resolved in 1949 “that the [Palestinian] refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.” In 1974, UN General Assembly Resolution 3236, passed on 22 November 1974, declared the Palestinian right of return to be an “inalienable right”. The right of refugees to return was also enshrined in 1976 in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights when it stated that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country” (Article 12).  Moreover, Palestinians cite the Partition Plan against Israel’s confiscation of their lands for the exclusive use of Jewish colonisation as well as resolution 194 among other UN provisions against a state’s confiscation of the land of a people based on ethnicity. Indeed, many Palestinians invoke the same legal instruments that Israel uses to reclaim the stolen and confiscated property of European Jews before World War II. Moreover, Palestinian civil society groups in Israel continue to challenge persistently Israel’s racially discriminatory laws in Israeli courts, so far with little success.

The rights that Israel claims do not only affect Israel’s Palestinian population and the Palestinian refugees living in the diaspora. Even though Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinian Authority are said to address the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip only (and not East Jerusalem), it seems that these Israeli claimed rights also apply there. To begin with, Israel has insisted since 1967 that Jews have the right to colonise the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, and that this is not a negotiable right. Indeed, to get its point across and to make sure it is not misunderstood, since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, Israel has more than tripled its Jewish colonial settler population in the West Bank and more than doubled it across the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem, totalling approximately half a million colonists. Israel continues to confiscate West Bank Palestinian lands for colonising purposes and suppresses all Palestinian resistance to its colonisation. Moreover, and in addition to the continuing confiscation of Palestinian lands inside Israel, in East Jerusalem, and in the West Bank, Israel has extended it discriminatory laws and enacted new ones to privilege the colonising Jewish population of the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the Palestinian Arabs. This includes an apartheid-style separation between Arabs and Jews, including the construction of the Apartheid Wall, the construction of Jewish-only roads across the West Bank, and the differential access to water resources, never mind confiscated land, to Jewish colonists. The United Nations has invoked the fourth Geneva conventions and passed numerous resolutions (the most famous being UN Security Council resolution 446 passed in March 1979) calling on Israel to dismantle its Jewish colonial settlements and nullify its confiscation of lands to no avail.

Israeli leaders have maintained that their colonisation efforts did not detract from their moral commitment to peace. On the contrary, Israel is clear that it was the Palestinian Authority who is to blame for the cessation of negotiations. Current Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu is not only committed to negotiations, but he, like his predecessors, insists that the Palestinian Authority’s protests that Jewish colonisation must stop for negotiations to begin is nothing short of an infringement on the rights of Israel, and an imposition of “pre-conditions” for negotiations, which he cannot accept.

On the question of the occupation and whether the negotiations are supposed to end it, Israel has maintained that its occupation of East Jerusalem, which it initially expanded twelve-fold (from 6 to 70 square kilometres) at the expense of West Bank lands (and which was more recently expanded to 300 square kilometres, encompassing a full 10 per cent of the West Bank) is permanent and that its occupation of the Jordan Valley and of another ten per cent of the West Bank that now lies to the west of the Apartheid Wall are also permanent. Israel insists that the negotiations are about a rearrangement of the nature of the occupation of what remains of the West Bank that could facilitate a form of autonomy for the Palestinians that would not include sovereignty but which it might be willing to call a “Palestinian State.”

The recently Al Jazeera leaked Palestine Papers have shown that Palestinian Authority negotiators offered more concessions on all these fronts and, that despite such “flexibility”, Israeli negotiators rejected all such offers. Indeed, Netanyahu has since the late 1990s insisted that the basis of the negotiations should no longer be the formula of “land for peace” but rather “peace for peace”, affirming Israel’s refusal to end its colonisation, occupation, or discrimination. More recently, he proposed that the negotiations be over “economic peace”, wherein his commitment to peace is offered as a moral stance that safeguards Israel’s self-arrogated juridical rights from being subject to negotiations.

As I have argued before, Zionism and Israel are careful not to generalise the principles that justify Israel’s rights to colonise, occupy, and discriminate, but are rather vehement in upholding them as subsets of an exceptional moral principle. It is not that no other people has been oppressed historically, it is that Jews have been oppressed more. It is not that no other people’s cultural and physical existence has been threatened; it is that the Jews’ cultural and physical existence is threatened more. This quantitative equation is key to why the world, and especially Palestinians, should recognise that Israel needs and deserves to have the rights to colonise, occupy, and discriminate. If the Palestinians, or anyone else, reject this, then they must be committed to the annihilation of the Jewish people physically and culturally, not to mention that they would be standing against the Jewish God.

Negotiating the non-negotiable

Israel’s right to defend itself means its right to safeguard its rights (to colonise Palestinian lands, occupy them, and discriminate against non-Jews) against any threats that could endanger these rights, foremost among them the threat of negotiations. Its right to defend itself is a right to uphold these rights and is therefore a subsidiary, if essential, right deriving from its right to be a Jewish state. The logic goes as follows: Israel has the right to colonise and occupy Palestinian land and to discriminate against Palestinians whether in Israel within its pre-1967 boundaries or in the additional territories it occupied in 1967, and if this population resists these measures and Israel responds with military violence causing massive civilian casualties, Israel would simply be “defending” itself as it must and should.

Informed by the European Enlightenment understanding of rights, especially John Locke’s discussion of alienable versus inalienable rights, wherein, according to him, indigenous populations, in contrast with European colonists, lack such rights given that they live parasitically on the land and do not improve it, Israel’s arrogation of these rights to itself entails its insistence that Palestinians, in line with Locke’s assertions, possess no right to resist it. Thus, Israel’s moral and juridical defence of itself are combined in this context, wherein Israel has the right to colonise and occupy the lands of the Palestinians, and to discriminate against them based on the principle of exceptionalism and European colonial supremacy, but wherein the Palestinians do not have the right to defend themselves against Israel’s exercise of these self-arrogated rights, and were they to do so, Israel would then have the right to defend itself against their illegitimate defence of themselves against its legitimate and moral exercise of its own rights.

But if Israel has no internationally recognised juridical rights to colonise, occupy, or discriminate nor does it have a universally-sanctioned moral or juridical right to exceptionalism, then the only mechanism by which it is able to make such claims is the absence of international accountability, or more precisely its refusal to be accountable to international law and legal conventions. This refusal to be accountable is protected by its alliance with the United States, which vetoes all UN Security Council resolutions that call on Israel to be accountable to international law, thus rendering international law unenforceable. The most recent such veto was on February 11, 2011 when the Obama administration vetoed the resolution, supported by the other 14 members of the Security Council, calling on Israel to cease its colonisation of West Bank and East Jerusalem lands.

It is in this context that Israel and the US State Department (under Bush and Obama) have gone into high gear in recent years characterising Palestinians’ resorting to legal mechanisms and international law to challenge Israel’s so-called rights as “lawfare”, which they are demanding be immediately stopped. These include a rejection by Israel of the 2002 decision by the International Court of Justice of the illegality of the Apartheid Wall it built in the West Bank, or the war crimes accusations that the UN-issued Goldstone Report levelled against Israel in its war on Gaza in 2008-2009. It is significant that the term “lawfare”, which emerged a decade ago, is usually used to mean “the effort to conquer and control indigenous peoples by the coercive use of legal means.” That Israel and the US equate the colonised Palestinians with a conquering power and the colonising Israeli Jews as indigenous testify to the serious concern over the danger that legal mechanisms of challenge constitute to Israel’s so-called rights.

The discourse of rights, itself various and hardly agreed upon, ultimately has no jurisdiction, and takes place, or does not, in the negotiation (or non-negotiation) of political power. This is clearly manifested in Israel’s continued insistence that its “rights” are non-negotiable. With the recent fall of the Egyptian regime and the more recent reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, it remains unclear how the Palestinian Authority (PA) will proceed. The PA plan to get one more recognition of a Palestinian State from the General Assembly next September, even if successful, will have very little substantial positive results and could very well have negative ones. Unless the PA suspends all negotiations and seeks international legal redress by mounting diplomatic pressure (especially from European and Arab states) on the US government to join the international consensus and stop vetoing international decisions, the rights of Israel will continue to be safeguarded.

What Israel has been negotiating over with the Palestinians is the form, the terms, and the extent to which Palestinians must recognise its rights without equivocation. It is this reality that has characterised the last two decades of negotiations with the Palestinians. Negotiations will never restore the internationally-recognised rights of the Palestinians; on the contrary, the negotiations that the Palestinians entered with Israel two decades ago are ones wherein one party, the Palestinians, must surrender all their internationally recognised rights and recognise instead Israel’s self-arrogated rights, which are not recognised by international law or any other country for that matter. Sixty-three years after the establishment of the Jewish settler-colony, this Palestinian act will not only lend the first international legitimacy to Israeli claims, it will constitute in effect nothing less than the first international recognition of Israel’s self-arrogated rights. Israel need give up nothing in return.

Joseph Massad is Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University in New York.

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

Source: Al Jazeera