Posted By: Sammi Ibrahem Chair of West Midland PSC
Dear Friends,
While the Egyptian uprising is hard to ignore, other things are happening in our part of the world, too. The first 4 of 6 items deal with these.
Item one is Knesset Member Haneen Zoabi’s response to the Al Jazeera leaks about supposed PA agreement to concessions. In short, Zoabee argues that Palestinians will not give up their rights, and that the PA has no right to dispense with them.
In item 2 the wife of Ameer Makhoul, Janan Abdu, relates that “My husband and other Palestinian prisoners are being denied basic rights and subjected to harsh treatment in detention” in the name of Israel security. His trial and sentencing (9 years in jail) are reminiscent of Tali Fahima’s and others. Israel will punish anyone who ‘threatens its security’ by showing leadership qualities, or by doing something (as in Tali’s case) that threatens Israel’s lies and propaganda,
Item 3 relates that the PA is denying Palestinians to demonstrate against the Egyptian authority. The PA is, in other words, becoming as repressive as Mubarak.
In item 4 Akiva Eldar depicts a situation that for the present is fictional, but is not impossible, particularly given the news in the previous item. Will the Palestinians follow in the footsteps of the Egyptians and revolt against Israel’s military occupation? It could happen. The question is how Israel will react.
In item 5 Fisk relates what he sees in Egypt and expresses his doubts or reservations.
Item 6 is an invitation from the Interfaith Peace-Builders to join a delegation to Israel and the OPT.
The 7th item contains 3 links to additional articles that might interest you regarding Egypt and Washington, Egypt and the EU.
May it end for the best for the Egyptian people. Israel’s leaders did not prepare for this situation, and are pathetic in recommending to Europe and the United States to prop up Mubarak. But, then, wisdom has never been a shining quality of Israel’s leaders.
All the best,
Dorothy
===========================
1. The Guardian,
31 January 2011
Palestinian negotiators must not take key decisions on our behalf
We Palestinians in Israel will not stand for our rights being given away by so-called representatives
Had the offer made by “representatives” of the Palestinian people to Israel during peace negotiations – revealed this week in the Palestine papers – been accepted, the resulting agreement would have been in conflict with international law. It would also have had a profound impact on all Palestinians: not only those under occupation or refugees in the diaspora, but also Palestinians like myself – the 1.2 million of us who make up 18% of the population of Israel.
First, giving up the refugees’ right of return – as was apparently accepted by the Palestinian negotiators – would mean giving up the demand for the reunification of Palestinian families divided by the nakba, our expulsion from Israel in 1948. At this time some Palestinians remained in Israel, while others were displaced. Israel has since refused to allow hundreds of divided families to be reunited.
Furthermore, Israel currently prevents one Palestinian from marrying another from Gaza, the West Bank, Syria or Lebanon and remaining within the borders of Israel, on the pretext of preventing the right of return. So I, for example, can marry a British citizen and live in Nazareth but cannot do the same with a Palestinian who does not hold Israeli nationality.
Second, the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state – which was also apparently accepted by the negotiator Saeb Erekat – would delegitimise the citizenship of Palestinians in Israel. In practice, Israel has acted as a Jewish state since its founding, and undermined the rights of Palestinian citizens for more than 60 years, with chronic, institutionalised discrimination. International recognition of Israel as a Jewish state would give this discrimination a legal and ethical justification. Arab Israeli citizenship would become conditional, and the inferior status of Palestinian citizens and residents as non-Jews, and thus by definition excluded outsiders, would become entrenched. Indeed, it would call into question their very future in such a state, their homeland.
Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state by concerned international parties would serve to legitimise the series of racist laws and bills currently before the Knesset, and would turn the legal, political struggle of the Palestinian national minority into an illegal and illegitimate struggle – a move that would be fatal to democracy. It would become far easier to criminalise any party, individual or action that sought the establishment of genuine democracy and equality. Ultimately, it would effectively block the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. Israel should be a democratic state, not an ethnic state.
Third, we reject the proposed exchange of populations between Israel and the West Bank, championed, among others, by Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. This proposal has increasingly pervaded Israel’s political culture. According to a recent poll, 53% of the Jewish Israeli public believes that the state is entitled to encourage Palestinian citizens to emigrate. Making our citizenship a subject of negotiations would send out the clear and dangerous message that it is temporary, and open to question. As with residents of the occupied Palestinian territory – whose temporary legal status has become permanent, after 43 years of Israeli occupation – making Palestinian citizenship in Israel temporary totally ignores the basic fact that we are indigenous people living in our homeland, not an immigrant minority.
Moreover, raising this question now carries particular dangers, given the politics of hatred and persecution towards the Palestinian minority. When a letter was published by a group of publicly funded rabbis calling on Israeli Jews not to rent flats and houses to Palestinians, the Israeli political leadership took no practical action against them. A further poll found that 46% of the Jewish public would not want to live next to Arabs.
It has been clearly established by the international community that any decisions that have a direct impact on the future status of a national minority must be taken after full consultation, and with their consent – including through a referendum. We therefore reject any proposal that would involve other parties taking such decisions on our behalf.
We, as Palestinian people living inside Israel and on the basis of our historic right and international law, have full right of veto – not only on matters that affect our lives, such as the return of the refugees, the Jewish identity of the state and population exchange, but also on all matters affecting and infringing the rights of the Palestinian people.
“Israeli security” is the sacred cow of the Israeli street and ruling establishment. Practically all the manifestations of Israeli racism directed at the state’s Palestinian citizens, as well as those living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, fall within this elastic slogan. In the name of this slogan, too, Israeli human rights organisations working to expose the practices of the state and army have recently had restrictions placed upon them.
The case of my husband Ameer Makhoul, which has received considerable media coverage and widespread local and international support, has played out against such a background. His arrest took place on 6 May 2010, but the story goes back to the time of the Israeli attack on Gaza in December 2008 and the death of thousands of Gazans.
At that time, Palestinian streets and the Arab and outside world rose up at the pictures of the killing of children and the terrible destruction. There were demonstrations, marches and protests. It was then that Ameer was summoned by Shabak (GSS), the Israel security service, for questioning on his various activities and political work. After several hours, he was released in the middle of the night with a warning that he was walking a fine line by inciting young people – yet all he was doing was making them aware of their national identity.
He was told that the next time he was summoned for questioning, he would have to bid his family farewell for a long time. On 6 May, the Israel security service carried out its threat. At three in the morning, our home in Haifa was raided by a force of 16 police and armed security personnel. Ameer, our two young daughters, aged 12 and 17, and I were woken up by a violent knocking at the door and he was taken away before our eyes.
Ameer was held in the security service interrogation centre at Petah Tikva for 12 days and his basic legal rights, accorded by international and domestic law, were violated, including the right to see a lawyer and an independent doctor. When he felt unwell, he asked for a blood test but his request was rejected. Only after the legal defence team, in consultation with us, the family, decided to boycott the court, were they allowed to see Ameer. They found him stressed and in poor physical condition. It was clear to them from the statement he made that he had been subjected to cruel and harsh interrogation, coming within the definition of torture.
His confession having been extracted under these conditions, on 27 May 2010 Ameer was charged with spying for Hezbollah. Since then, he has languished in an Israeli prison with more than 7,000 other Palestinian prisoners charged with similar security offences. We await the results of the trial and the verdict of the judges.
It is not only those charged with violating security in Israel who are punished – their family and community are punished too.
Ameer is being tried in the midst of a vicious wave of racism against Palestinians. A recent report by the Israeli organisations B’tselem and HaMoked into human rights abuses in the same interrogation centre in Petah Tikva found that there have been 645 complaints filed by detainees over their treatment in the facility, but none have led to any criminal investigation. In fact, these very Israeli organisations are being targeted by parliament today because of their work in exposing the practices of various state institutions, including the police, security services and army.
The Israeli parliament (the Knesset) took a further step in this direction recently by announcing the establishment of a parliamentary committee to investigate the work of human rights organisations. Furthermore, the Israeli security cabinet decided to extend for a further six months the ban on the reunification of Palestinian families where spouses are Israeli Arabs or inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, West Bank or Arab States. This will mean the continued suffering and fragmentation of these families on the pretext of “Israeli security”.
Under these difficult circumstances, Ameer agreed to strike a plea bargain with the public prosecutor whereby the sentence would be limited to between seven and 10 years. Legal experts told us that, were Ameer not well-known as a political activist who speaks to the world at conferences and international forums, the deal would have been more favourable for him.
Ameer is on trial and the big question remains: can the judiciary and the bench rise above the prevailing atmosphere to deliver a just verdict?
• This article was written before Sunday’s sentencing, at which Ameer Makhoul was jailed for nine years
=========================
3. Forwarded by the JPLO List
January 31, 2011
Is the Palestinian Authority cracking down on Egypt solidarity
demonstrations? (Updated, and yes they are)
<http://maxblumenthal.com/2011/01/is-the-palestinian-authority-cracking-\
down-on-egypt-solidarity-demonstrations/> On 01.30.11, By Max Blumenthal
Update: Human Rights Watch was there and has confirmed
<http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/latest-updates-on-day-6-of-\
egypt-protests/?src=twt&twt=thelede#palestinian-police-block-egyptian-em\
bassy-protest> that the PA crushed the demo.
I received this message from a friend in Ramallah yesterday. For obvious
reasons, he can’t be identified (I hope I’ll have time to follow
up; right now I’m working on a number of fronts. The Angry Arab has
another report
<http://angryarab.net/2011/01/30/the-police-nonstate-in-ramallah/> from
the suppressed demo:
“We, a group of Independent, liberal leaning Palestinian youth,
organized a demonstration near the Egyptian embassy using social media
tools such as Facebook, to our surprise one of the organizers was upheld
unlawfully and threatened by the Police, Intelligence service and
Preventive force on separate basis that if the event takes place he will
be tortured and made to pay a heavy price. According to their
conversations, they claimed that the order came directly from President
Abbas office. We are under constant surveillance and harassment since
saturday.
After forcing one of the members to cancel an event on Facebook sending
a message to thousands of `confirmed attendees’, we still went
near the Egyptian embassy today at 4:00 pm. During the protest the
police violently assaulted several peaceful protesters and threatened
the use of brutal force if anyone raised any slogans.
These and other actions relating to the arrest of Journalists, activists
and not as the PA claims only from the Islamist ranks, but also includes
activists in Liberal and other leftist youth groups. Palestinians who
used to express their opinions freely despite measures of occupation are
now under the tutelage of two occupations suffocating our political,
economic and social rights.”
_,_.___
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===================================
4. Haaretz,
January 31, 2011
Doesn’t the West Bank have Facebook?
Don’t the Al Jazeera on-the-scene reports about the riots in Egypt spark thoughts of uprising among unemployed Palestinians in the West Bank?
The riots began in Silwan, spread to Sheikh Jarrah, moved on to Shuhada Street in Hebron and reached their peak in Ramallah. College students and the jobless, along with former Hamas prisoners and embittered Fatah activists, took over the Muqata. Masses of people bearing placards condemning the occupation marched toward the settlement of Psagot. A small group of soldiers who were stationed along the way took fright and fired live bullets at the protesters. News about the death of 10 youths inflamed the Arab towns in the Galilee and the Triangle region, and the outrage spread to Jaffa and Ramle. The Israel Defense Forces seized control of the territories and restored military rule. Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas announced his resignation and dismantled the PA.
A hallucination? The product of a wild imagination? If only. Just last week, who among us anticipated the earthquake that has since rocked Egypt? Are the residents of Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah and Shuhada Street, who are living under foreign occupation, in a better situation than the Egyptians suffering under a cruel regime? Don’t the students at Birzeit University have Facebook accounts?
Don’t the Al Jazeera on-the-scene reports about the riots in Egypt spark thoughts of uprising among unemployed Palestinians in the West Bank (especially since the unemployment rate in the West Bank is 16.5 percent, compared to 9.7 percent in Egypt )? And don’t the lucky ones, who have permits to stand in a packed line at the roadblock in the wee hours of the morning to get a day of work at a Jewish construction site, understand that even Arabs can revolt against infringement of their basic rights?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced yesterday that he was making an effort to maintain stability and security in the region. How will he do that? For example, is he going to help strengthen the moderate secular coalition in the region by announcing that he accepts the Arab League peace initiative – the same initiative that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been begging us to respond to for eight years – as a basis for negotiations?
Come on, really, how could he? After all, it doesn’t say there that they’ll recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people and a united Jerusalem as our eternal capital.
So maybe, as a gesture to Mubarak, Netanyahu will invite Abbas to his home and present him with a fair proposal for permanent borders?
What does that have to do with it? The Palestinians should be thankful that the prime minister is considering approving an access road to the future Palestinian city of Rawabi.
And what about this idea: Netanyahu convinces members of Congress to increase financial aid to Egypt. He could tell them it’s not fair that Israel gets $3 billion a year from the United States while Egypt, whose population is 11 time bigger and whose per capita gross national product is about one-fifth that of Israel’s ($6,200 vs. $30,000 ), gets less than $2 billion.
What kind of nonsense is that? Where will we get the money to buy more combat planes? What, are we going to take it from the new roads we’re paving for the settlers?
It’s not really reasonable, or even fair, to expect that Netanyahu will really make an effort to maintain regional stability and security; the human rights situation in the territories interests him as much as last year’s heat wave. The option of withdrawal from most of the territories as part of a regional peace, accompanied by security arrangements and the promotion of financial projects, does not sit well with his political agenda. The “Big Brother” contestant who was kicked off the show yesterday interests Israeli voters more than the risk that Abbas will be ousted tomorrow. The turmoil in Tunisia and Egypt serve as further proof for the voters that in our violent part of the world, we have to build up our muscles – and that there isn’t any room for terror collaborators or people who are overly fastidious.
The responsibility for not geting dragged away in the wave of fanaticism and anarchy falls on U.S. President Barack Obama. In June 2009, he pledged that “America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.” At the same time, he called for a total halt to settlement construction, which he said undermines peace efforts. Twenty months later, in his State of the Union address last week, Obama didn’t mention the Palestinians or even imply anything about them, while his representatives in the United Nations are working on holding off a proposal to condemn Israel over continued unrestrained construction in the settlements.
The only thing left is to hope that Obama learned something from what’s going on in Egypt and will not wait until the territories are aflame before muttering something about the need for confidence-building steps.
Robert Fisk reports from Cairo on the protests that refuse to die
The old lady in the red scarf was standing inches from the front of am American-made M1 Abrams tank of the Egyptian Third Army, right on the edge of Tahrir Square. Its soldiers were paratroops, some in red berets, others in helmets, gun barrels pointed across the square, heavy machine guns mounted on the turrets. “If they fire on the Egyptian people, Mubarak is finished,” she said. “And if they don’t fire on the Egyptian people, Mubarak is finished.” Of such wisdom are Egyptians now possessed.
Shortly before dusk, four F-16 Falcons – again, of course, manufactured by President Barack Obama’s country – came screaming over the square, echoes bouncing off the shabby grey buildings and the giant Nasserist block, as the eyes of the tens of thousands of people in the square stared upwards. “They are on our side,” the cry went up from the crowds. Somehow, I didn’t think so. And those tanks, new to the square, 14 in all that arrived with no slogans painted on them, their soldiers sullen and apprehensive, had not come – as the protesters fondly believed – to protect them.
But then, when I talked to an officer on one of the tanks, he burst out with a smile. “We will never fire on our people – even if we are ordered to do so,” he shouted over the roar of his engine. Again, I was not so sure. President Hosni Mubarak – or perhaps we should now say “president” in quotation marks – was at the military headquarters, having appointed his new junta of former military and intelligence officers. The rumour went round the square: the old wolf would try to fight on to the end. Others said it didn’t matter. “Can he kill 80 million Egyptians?”
Anti-American sentiment was growing after Mr Obama’s continued if tepid support for the Mubarak regime. “No, Obama, not Mubarak,” posters read. And Mr Mubarak’s face appeared with a Star of David superimposed over his face. Many of the crowd produced stun-gun cartridge cases fired last week with “Made in the USA” stamped on the bottom. And I noticed the lead tank’s hull bore markings beginning “MFR” – at this point a soldier with a rifle and bayonet fixed was ordered to arrest me so I ran into the crowd and he retreated – but could “MFR” stand for the US Mobile Force Reserve, which keeps its tanks in Egypt? Was this tank column on loan from the Americans? You don’t need to work out what the Egyptians make of all this.
Yet there were extraordinary scenes earlier in the day between protesters and tank crews of another unit (this time, the machines were older American M-60 Pattons of Vietnam vintage), which appeared to be about to protect a unit of water cannons sent to clear the streets. Hundreds of young men overwhelmed one tank, and when a lieutenant in sun glasses began firing into the air, he was pushed back against his armoured vehicle and had to climb on top to avoid the men. Yet the crowd quickly became good natured, posed for pictures on the tank and handed the soldiers fruit and water.
When a long line of troops assembled across the road, a very old, hunch-backed man sought and gained permission to approach them. I followed him as he embraced the lieutenant and kissed him on both cheeks and said: “You are our sons. We are your people.” And then he walked down the row of troops and kissed each one and embraced each one and told each one that he was his son. You need a heart of stone not to be moved by such scenes and yesterday was replete with them.
At one point, a group of protesters brought a man they said was a thief – of which Cairo seems full at the moment – and he was trussed up and handed to the soldiers. “You are here to protect us,” they chanted. When one of the soldiers hit the man in the face, his officer slapped him. Then the soldier sat down, shaking his head in despair. All day, an Egyptian Mi-25 helicopter – this time a relic of Soviet ordnance – circled the crowds, six rockets in the pods, but did nothing. Later a French-built Gazelle of the Egyptian air force flew low over the crowds, and the people waved at the place and the pilot could be seen waving back.
And all the time Egyptians walked up to foreigners – and a grey-haired Englishman doesn’t look very Egyptian – and insisted that a people who had lost their fear could never be reinjected with fear.
“We will never be afraid again,” a young woman shouted at me as the jets screamed over again. And a former cop now claiming to be a liaison man between the demonstrators and the army said that “the army will be with us because they know Mubarak must go”. Again, I am not so sure.
And the looting and burning go on. The former policeman – who should know – told me that many of the looters are members of a group which belonged to the Mr Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, whose previous role had been to bully Egyptians to go to polling stations and vote for their beloved leader. So why, we all wonder now, are these men trying to loot and burn, crimes which are being blamed on all those who demand that Mr Mubarak leave the country? Those demands, incidentally, now include the expulsion of Omar Suleiman, his former top spy, who is Vice-President.
Across Egypt, and on almost every street in Cairo, there are now vigilantes – not Mubarak men, but ordinary civilians who are tired of the semi-official gangs who are robbing their own people at night-time. To get back to my hotel last night, I had to pass through eight checkpoints of men, young and old – one was stooped, with a walking stick in one hand and an old British .303 Lee Enfield rifle in the other – who are now attacking thieves and handing them to the army. But this is no Dad’s Army.
In the early hours of yesterday morning, a group of armed men turned up at the Children’s Cancer Hospital near the old Roman aqueduct. They wanted to take the medical equipment, but within minutes, local people ran down the road and threatened the men with knives. They retreated at once. Dr Khaled el-Noury, the chief operating officer at the hospital, told me that the armed visitors were disorganised and apparently frightened of being harmed.
They were right. The reception clerk at the children’s hospital showed me the kitchen knife he kept on his desk for protection. Further proof of fighting power lay outside the gate where men appeared holding clubs and sticks and pokers. A boy – perhaps eight years old – appeared brandishing an 18-inch butcher’s knife, slightly more than half his height. Other men holding knives of equal length came to shake hands with the foreign journalist.
They are no third force. And they believe in the army. Will the soldiers go into the square? And does it matter if Mr Mubarak goes anyway?
Since 2000, Interfaith Peace-Builders has sent over 550 people (students, educators, working professionals, activists, retirees) on 35 fact-finding delegations to Israel/Palestine. We started the program when Israelis and Palestinians first invited us into their homes, offices, and places of worship to learn from them about their lives and their work for justice.
Today, our delegations continue as a testament to the transformative power of learning directly from those living in Israel/Palestine. Travel with us in May or July to learn more, gain skills for advocacy on this issue, and meet and network with organizations and individuals working in Israel/Palestine.
Also, spend time with Interfaith Peace-Builders, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and many dedicated activists in DC for the Grassroots Advocacy Training, March 6-7, 2011.
Delegation Details
May 2011 Delegation ~ A Few Spaces Left!
Voices of the Peacemakers: From Roots to Reconciliation
May 21 – June 3, 2011
Delegation Leaders: Huwaida Arraf & Adam Horowitz
This delegation will explore Palestinian and Israeli efforts to achieve peace and a resolution to their conflict based on justice. The delegation will feature meetings with Palestinian and Israeli peacemakers – leaders of civil society groups, grassroots organizers, religious leaders and more. IFPB’s May-June delegation also traditionally focuses on the annual commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) and the founding of the State of Israel.
Leaders:
Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian with American and Israeli citizenship. She received her Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Michigan, and her Juris Doctor from the American University Washington College of Law, where she focused her studies on international human rights and humanitarian law. In 2001 Huwaida co- founded the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Huwaida is co- author of the book “Peace Under Fire: Israel, Palestine, and the International Solidarity Movement.” She previously taught in a human rights law clinic at Al- Quds University in Jerusalem, the first legal clinic in the Arab World, and is currently the Chairperson of the Free Gaza Movement. Since August 2008, she has led 5 successful sea voyages to the Gaza Strip.
Adam Horowitz is a writer and co-editor of the website Mondoweiss, a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective. Prior to Mondoweiss, Horowitz was Director of the Israel/Palestine Program for the American Friends Service Committee. He is the co-editor (along with Philip Weiss and Lizzy Ratner) of The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict (Nation Books) and his work has appeared in The Nation, Alternet, The Huffington Post, and The Hill.com. Horowitz has a master’s degree in Near Eastern Studies from New York University.
Mindful of other allies in the region, U.S. officials have been careful not to abandon the Egyptian leader, urging him to implement a transition to democracy. But they are also preparing for the possibility of his ouster.
