Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem Chair of West Midland PSC
Dear Friends,
5 items below. They begin with Yonathan Polack’s report about detentions of leaders of village protests against the theft of their lands. If Israel believes that it can stop protests by the use of force (and detentions are a use of force) it will some day learn that it cannot.
Item 2 reports that there is another bds convert: Roger Waters, who cancelled his performance in Tel Aviv, but sang instead in Neve Shalom, a village in which Palestinians (with Israeli citizenship) and Jews live, and the schooling is bilingual. But Waters also saw the wall, and other aspects of the occupation that distressed him. The result is a new convert to bds. Bravo Waters.
In item 3 Amos Gvirtz, a long long time Israeli activist against injustice for Bedouins in the Negev and against the occupation. He titles his piece “Boycott or Terror,” and concludes that non-violent boycott is a better tactic for Palestinian purposes than is terror, and more secure for Israelis.
In item 4 Gideon Levy expands on “Israel’s diplomats are spineless propagandists.”
Finally, item 5 is a commentary by James M. Wall on whether or not the present Arab revolts will bring about change in attitudes towards Israel in the US Congress, and concludes that it will not, due to . . . well, instead of my telling you, I recommend that you read it.
All the best,
Dorothy
1.
Press release
6 March 2011
Army arrests local protest leader in Nabi Saleh last night Naji Tamimi, member of the Nabi Saleh popular committee and one of the leading figures in the struggle against the annexation of village lands by the nearby settlement of Halamish, was arrested last night during an army night raid on the village. The military also searched the home of another popular committee member, Bassem Tamimi, absent at the time. These last few weeks saw the army waging an extensive arrest campaign against village residents, specifically targeting minors.
Naji Tamimi during a demonstration in Nabi Saleh. Picture credit: Nariman Tamimi
At around 1:30 AM last night, dozens of soldiers swarmed the village of Nabi Saleh, north of Ramallah, arresting 47 year old Naji Tamimi. Tamimi, who was sleeping in his home at the time, was taken out blindfolded and handcuffed. Tamimi is one of the village’s leading figures in its struggle against the occupation and for the protection of village lands from a Halamish settler take over.
Simultaneously, another group of soldiers raided the home of Bassem Tamimi, another prominent activist with the village’s popular committee who was absent at the time. Tamimi’s wife, Nariman, was woken up by the violent pounding and opened the door holding a video camera and filming. The soldiers ordered her to stop filming, and when she refused, violently confiscated the camera. After conducting a meticulous, hour long search of the premises, the soldiers left the house.
For more information: Jonathan Pollak +972-54-632-7736
Over the last five weeks the army has arrested sixteen of Nabi Saleh’s residents on suspicion of participation in protests in the village. Half of the arrestees were minors, the youngest of whom merely eleven. The arrests were conducted based on incriminations extracted from a fourteen year-old boy from the village, recently arrested and subjected to verbal and emotional pressure during his interrogation. Prevented from consulting an attorney, he was interrogated in absence of his parents, albeit obliged by law. The interrogators have also never bothered informing the boy of his right to remain silent.
Ever since the beginning of the village’s struggle against settler takeover of their lands, in December of 2009, the army has conducted 63 arrests related to protest in the village. As the entire village numbers just over 500 residents, the number constitutes a gross 10% of its population.
Tamimi’s arrest last night corresponds to the systematic arrest of protest leaders all around the West Bank, as in the case of the villages of Bil’in and Ni’ilin. Only recently the Military Court of Appeals has aggravated the sentence of Abdallah Abu Rahmah from the village of Bilin, sending him to 16 months imprisonment. The arrest and trial of Abu Rahmah has been widely condemned by the international community, most notably by Britain and EU foreign minister, Catherin Ashton. Harsh criticism of the arrest has also been offered by leading human rights organizations in Israel and around the world, among them B’tselem, ACRI, as well as Human Rights Watch, which declared Abu Rahmah’s trial unfair, and Amnesty International, which declared Abu Rahmah a prisoner of conscience.
Former Pink Floyd frontman urges fellow artists to join ban until Israel to ends the occupation, grants full equality to Israeli Arabs, and allows all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
Roger Waters, founding member, vocalist and bassist of the iconic rock band ‘Pink Floyd’ has voiced his support for a cultural boycott of Israel.
The British musician performed in Israel in 2005, ignoring calls from Palestinian rights advocates to cancel. While in Israel, Waters visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem. He was taken to the controversial separation fence in the West Bank, which he called “an appalling edifice to behold.”
Waters said he was extremely affected by his tour of the West Bank, scrawling “We don’t need no thought control”, lyrics from one of Pink Floyd’s most popular songs, on the wall, and cancelling his performance in Tel Aviv. Instead, the British star held the concert in Neve Shalom, a cooperative village founded by Jews and Arabs.
In the letter Waters wrote announcing his support of a cultural boycott of Israel, he said that in his “view, the abhorrent and draconian control that Israel wields over the besieged Palestinians in Gaza, and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, coupled with its denial of the rights of refugees to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair minded people around the world support the Palestinians in their civil, nonviolent resistance.”
He concluded the letter, saying that he is joining the campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, until it satisfies three basic human rights he claims are demanded by international law.
He called on Israel to end the occupation of the West Bank and dismantle the separation fence, recognize the rights of Arab citizens of Israel and granting them full equality and allow all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
Waters stressed in his letter that he is not anti-Semitic, and his solidarity with the Palestinians stems from his belief that all people deserve basic human rights.
Last week, American folk music legend Pete Seeger officially joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign – an international movement to pressure and sanction Israel through economic means.
Seeger, 92, one of the fathers of American folk music, is a veteran political and peace activist. In the 1950s he was interrogated by the McCarthyist House Unamerican Activities Committee and two years ago performed for U.S. President Barack Obama’s inauguration concert.
Artists, academics and celebrities throughout the world have supported and participated in the cultural boycotting of Israel.
Earlier this year, French pop star Vanessa Paradis cancelled her concert in Israel only a month before she was supposed to arrive in the country with her partner, Hollywood actor Johnny Depp, leaving fans and pundits speculating as to the reasons for the cancellation.
Although Paradis’ agent David Stern claimed that the cancellation was due to professional reasons, insiders who organized the concert claim that the singer acceded to calls to cancel the show made by Palestinian solidarity groups.
According to the same sources, it was apparently the planned visit of Paradis’ partner Johnny Depp that drew the attention of the groups that advocate BDS.
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3.Boycott or Terror
by Amos Gwirtz
The Grad missile that fell in Beer Sheva was a reminder of the danger to the security of Israeli citizens, a danger that lies in the violent Palestinian struggle against Israel. Throughout the years of struggle over the land between the Zionist movement and the Arab Palestinian people, we have witnessed different modes of action to which the Palestinians have resorted in their attempt to resist their dispossession: war and terrorism of various kinds have been the main ones. Today we witness a relatively new kind of struggle: a popular struggle, basically non-violent. It takes place in villages whose people demonstrate against the erection of the Separation Barrier that robs them of their lands. It is also manifested in the Palestinian Authority’s attempts to build institutions of a future state while opposing terrorism. We also witness the non-violent struggle of Palesitnian civil society organizations calling for various types of sanctions and boycott of Israel as a means of pressure to put an end to the Occupation and its violations of human rights.
As long as Israel persists in its occupation and reinforces it, the Palestinians will persist in their struggle against it. The question is only what type of struggle they choose: the option of armed struggle, namely suicide attacks, personal assaults, bombings, missiles, bargain abductions etc., or the option of a popular non-violent struggle.
We, citizens of Israel, have a security interest in supporting the popular non-violent struggle. It does not jeopardize our lives and security. It is a struggle that does not risk the lives of soldiers maintaining the Occupation, it does not even jeopardize the settlers’ security. But it is a struggle that clarifies for us and for the world at large who the assailant is in this conflict, and who the victim. It is the type of struggle that shows us and the world who actually wants peace and who opposes it! It is a struggle that sows conflict between the majority of Israeli citizenry and the government of Israel and the radical right-wing! It is a struggle that will show us and the whole world that the Israeli army, rather than defending the people, is busy with Occupation and its enhancement.
Non-violent struggle, unlike armed struggle, enables the party against whom it is launched to recant – then pressure is lifted. It is a struggle that does not create irreversible facts on the ground, unlike killing and destruction that result from violent struggle: the killed cannot be revived. The often wounded cannot retrieve their former state. Boycott, on the other hand, can be lifted at any moment. It is a struggle that invites Israelis and international bodies to participate. No Israeli who opposes Occupation and human rights violations would give a hand to a violent struggle against Israel. However, many of the opponants of Occupation and the violation of human rights it entails would lend their hand to a non-violent struggle against the Occupation and its injustices.
Since there is no chance that Palestinians willingly rescind their claims to their lands and homes, there is no chance that they give up their struggle, as long as Israel continues to push them out. Our own interest, as Israeli citizens, is that the Palestinians resort to non-violent struggle. This includes demonstrations, creating institutions of their state-to-be, protest and support flotillas, non-collaboration, strikes, reconstruction of houses demolished by Israel, planting trees where Israel has uprooted them, various types of boycott etc.
A harsh struggle within Palestinian society revolves around the question what kind of road to choose. The recent Grad missile has reminded us of the violent option, while the calls to boycott Israel are a reminder of the non-violent option. Israelis who support boycott are more concerned with the security of the citizens of Israel than those who attempt to silence them.
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4. Haaretz,
March 06, 2011
Israel’s diplomats are spineless propagandists
Our diplomatic corps today is comprised primarily of spineless propagandists void of values or a conscience. Though some identify with the current government’s policies, a large portion of them oppose the state’s conduct. They are nothing more than puppets in an ugly show window.
This happened long ago: I wanted to get accepted into the Foreign Ministry’s cadets course. Israel was a different country then, my views about the state were not the same as they are today and Israel’s envoys abroad were actually ambassadors. Lots of champagne has flowed since then; and, fortunately, I was not accepted. Of course, it would be impossible for me to ever explain the country’s policies today. Somewhat belatedly, Ilan Baruch, a veteran Israeli diplomat, acknowledged his inability to represent or explain these policies either. Last week he handed in his resignation letter, a resonating and impressive document that ought to be studied in the next cadets course.
His vision may be impaired – Baruch was wounded in one eye during the War of Attrition – but he managed to see something that still remains opaque to his colleagues: Israel’s “malignant dynamic,” as he phrased it. As a result of this dynamic, he summoned the courage to resign – a decision that should be commended. Baruch’s resignation and the cowardly silence of his colleagues exposed the decrepit state of Israel’s choir of ambassadors.
Our diplomatic corps today is comprised primarily of spineless propagandists void of values or a conscience. Certainly there are some diplomats among them who identify with the current government’s policies, and perhaps even the scandalous behavior of its foreign minister. But the truth is apparently more sordid: A large portion of them oppose the conduct of the state they represent. They are nothing more than puppets in an ugly show window, backup singers for Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
Probably better than any other Israelis, the diplomats know what the world thinks of Israel, and why. They know that under Lieberman’s watch the Foreign Ministry has become a vessel of rage toward the entire world. They know that no ambassador is sufficiently adroit to explain the brutality of Operation Cast Lead, or the pointless killing on the Mavi Marmara ship. They know that no country on the planet actually accepts the occupation, the settlements or the indications of Israeli apartheid. They know that no diplomat out there can persuade anyone that Israel is truly aimed toward achieving peace. They know that there is a new world alignment out there – one with no patience for tyranny of the kind enforced by Israel’s occupation.
They know all of this, yet they keep quiet. We already have pilots who refuse to carry out orders, and soldiers who refuse to serve against their conscience; yet until the patriot Ilan Baruch spoke out, Israel did not have a single diplomat who refused to carry out policies that conflict with his or her moral sense.
True, in this new era, an ambassador’s role has lost much of its substance. The connection between a diplomat’s swollen sense of self-importance and his actual task has become tenuous. Virtually all that remains is power, prestige, fancy cars, opulent residences and other relics from the days of great empires, when ambassadors served at great distances from their home countries. Most diplomats stationed around the world today are simply policy advocates. But, as opposed to advocates who represent criminals in court, ambassadors need to identify to a large extent with those who send them on their diplomatic errands.
It can be assumed that a certain portion of Israel’s diplomatic corps lack such an ideological and emotional sense of identification, but simply keep quiet about it. Many simply want to serve their country faithfully, and thus they try to peddle, despite everything, the product of “beautiful Israel.” The result can be pathetic.
I recently caught an interview conducted at one of our consulates in the United States with the Israeli who created the “Zenga Zenga” clip lampooning Muammar Gadhafi (the latest YouTube sensation ); following that, they presented a winning Israeli recipe for an eggplant dish. Excellent! Such ambassadors warrant the disparaging “cocktail-shmocktail” description David Ben-Gurion allotted them.
True, it’s not easy to be an Israeli ambassador in this day and age – not because of the world’s hostility toward us, but because of the country’s policies. What is an ambassador supposed to say about his nation’s “efforts for peace” when his foreign minister states before the United Nations that such efforts have no chance? And what is a diplomat supposed to say about the democratic character of his state at a time when the Palestinians live without rights?
It’s not easy to stand in judgment of others, and demand that they relinquish their careers and their ephemeral glory. But is it excessive to expect that they make their voices heard and show some fortitude? Some integrity? They should look at their colleague, Baruch, the blessed.
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5. Wallwritings [forwarded by Friends of Sabeel–North America friends@fosna.org]
Will The Arab Revolutions Finally Penetrate the US Echo Chamber?
March 5, 2011 · 2:44 pm
Bibi Is On “The Wrong Side of History” When He Opposes Arab Uprisings
Professor Fawaz A. Gerges explained why Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu tried to use his considerable political muscle in a failed effort to keep Hosni Mubarak in power.
Gerges, who teaches Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, described the Arab uprising for BBC New Middle East :
Regionally, Israel is the biggest loser. It has put all its eggs into the basket of Arab dictators and autocrats, like Egypt’s deposed Hosni Mubarak. Israel fought tooth and nail to support Mr Mubarak, who played a key role in tightening the siege of Gaza and the noose around Hamas’s neck.
Few members of the US Congress would agree with Professor Gerges. A large majority of the Congress sees nothing wrong with automatically approving an annual $3 billion contribution to the government of Israel, the responsible party to that “siege of Gaza”.
A recent debate in New York City’s New School featured two Democratic Party antagonists on the Israel/Palestine issue: Brian Baird, the former Washington state congressman, and Brooklyn congressman Anthony Weiner.
Philip Weiss described the debate for Mondoweiss:
The conversation was deftly moderated by Roger Cohen of the New York Times, who was not afraid to call Weiner out when the congressman said there are no Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, or when he said that all the settlements are in Israel.
The chief response to the debate so far (besides the predictable at the National Review) has been shock at Anthony Weiner’s contempt for international law and Palestinian humanity.
A politician who has distinguished himself on healthcare reform and economic justice issues in the US, resorts to “It’s war, and war is hell” arguments when Baird, a clinical psychologist by training, describes the destruction of schools and innocent families and U.N. compounds by Israeli bombing, and the collective punishment of millions of people denied lentils, toothpaste, building materials, and the freedom to move beyond a territory less than the size of New York City.
Weiner’s obvious lack of information about the West Bank and Gaza was in sharp contrast to Baird’s informed passion over the issue. This wide gap between Weiner and Baird illustrates why there is such a desperate need in this country for Egyptian American journalist Mona Eltahawy.
Eltahawy is a columnist based in New York who writes for Canada’s Toronto Star, Israel’s The Jerusalem Report and Denmark’s Politiken. Her opinion pieces have been published in The Washington Post and the International Herald Tribune.
Before moving to the U.S. in 2000, Eltahawy was a news reporter in the Middle East for many years, and worked in Cairo and Jerusalem as a Reuters correspondent. She has also reported for various media from Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia and China.
Eltahawy was all over the media during the Egyptian uprising, on one occasion confronting Alan Dershowitz on CNN.
In an appearance with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, Feb 1, Eltahawy talked about her conversation with Dershowitz, and about her effort to convince American media to stop calling the uprising in Egypt a “crisis”. It was not a crisis, she pointed out. For Egyptians, it was an opportunity.
Two months before the Egyptian uprising the US Congress experienced its own major upheaval. Republicans took over the House while Democrats experienced a reduction in its control of the Senate.
Where Israel is concerned, parties don’t matter much. Both Republicans and Democrats march to the drumbeat of the Israel Lobby. There were, however, a large number of new members elected in 2010.
Which explains why AIPAC was concerned about those Republican first-termers, many of them backed by the Tea Party. AIPAC knew that these tea partiers were extreme fiscal conservatives who were determined to attack the federal budget from top to bottom.
In a recent Huffington Post essay, MJ Rosenberg described how AIPAC dealt with the problem:
Shortly after the election, AIPAC produced a letter for all those new Republican members to sign in which they pledged that, no matter what else they cut, Israel would be exempt. And almost immediately, 65 of the 87 Republican freshmen signed on. (More signed on later).
Among the signatories are some of the most vehement supporters of cutting virtually every domestic program. These are people who support cutting jobs in their own districts and proudly point to their devotion to the principle that shared sacrifice means everyone. But not Israel.
In its lockstep response to AIPAC, Congress appears incapable of grasping the full significance of the Arab uprising. They need to listen to Rashid Khalidi, who calls the uprising a “sea change”.
In a recent Nation column, Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, describes that “sea change” as a major shift in perceptions about Arabs, Muslims and Middle Easterners.
Suddenly, to be an Arab has become a good thing. People all over the Arab world feel a sense of pride in shaking off decades of cowed passivity under dictatorships that ruled with no deference to popular wishes. . . . Before, when anything Muslim or Middle Eastern or Arab was reported on, it was almost always with a heavy negative connotation.
Now, during this Arab spring this has ceased to be the case. An area that was a byword for political stagnation is witnessing a rapid transformation that has caught the attention of the world.
Khalidi writes that this “sea change” shift in perception shows
how superficial, and how false, were most Western media images of this region. Virtually all we heard about were the ubiquitous terrorists, the omnipresent bearded radicals and their veiled companions trying to impose Sharia and the corrupt, brutal despots who were the only option for control of such undesirables.
In US government-speak, faithfully repeated by the mainstream media, most of that corruption and brutality was airbrushed out through the use of mendacious terms like “moderates” (i.e., those who do and say what we want). That locution, and the one used to denigrate the people of the region, “the Arab street,” should now be permanently retired.
Khalidi cautions us to be aware that this shift in perception of the region remains “very fragile”
Even if all the Arab despots are overthrown, there is an enormous investment in the “us versus them” view of the region.
This includes not only entire bureaucratic empires engaged in fighting the “war on terror,” not only the industries that supply this war and the battalions of contractors and consultants so generously rewarded for their services in it; it also includes a large ideological archipelago of faux expertise, with vast shoals of “terrorologists” deeply committed to propagating this caricature of the Middle East. . . .
They are the ones who systematically taught Americans not to see the real Arab world: the unions, those with a commitment to the rule of law, the tech-savvy young people, the feminists, the artists and intellectuals, those with a reasonable knowledge of Western culture and values, the ordinary people who simply want decent opportunities and a voice in how they are governed.
Khalidi concludes with this sober reminder:
Things could easily and very quickly change for the worse in the Arab world, and that could rapidly erode these tender new perceptions. Nothing has yet been resolved in any Arab country, not even in Tunisia or Egypt, where the despots are gone but a real transformation has barely begun.
Who in the region benefits from holding on to the false views of Arabs? First in a long line is the current government of the state of Israel and its many friends in America.,
During the Egyptian uprising Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu put heavy pressure on the US to keep Hosni Muburak in power. Netanyahu instructed his supporters in the US Congress to warn President Obama that Mubarak’s fall would lead to dire consequences for the region.
In an effort to break from the policies of the current right wing Israeli government, many liberals have rallied around the banner of J Street, the “pro Israel, pro peace” alternative to the Israel Lobby.
At this year’s third annual Washington Conference, J Street attracted more than 2000 enthused participants who cheered speakers, some of whom were critical of Israel. However, right on cue, when the final conference statement was released, it cast its vote for an Israel determined to control the region by military power alone.
Just weeks after the start of the Arab uprising toward freedom and justice, J Street repeated the mantra: Nothing must be done to threaten that ten year guarantee of military aid from US taxpayers to Israel.
That guarantee comes from a Bush era contract that runs from 2007 to 2018, a total of $30 billion from the US to Israel, at $3 billion a year. That would be $3 billion a year from a US economy that is woefully cash-strapped.
Many of my liberal friends swear by J Street. They see it as the only hope for peace. I have to agree that J Street is an attractive alternative to AIPAC. Nevertheless, it advocates a militaristic alternative which in the present hopeful climate, is self-defeating.
The Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy rejects that militaristic alternative. The organizers of the J Street conference had to know of Eltahawy’s passionate views about Middle East governments that exercise tight control over the Arab populations. So it is very much to J Street’s credit that it gave Eltahawy a place on its program.
When Eltahawy laid out the history and the significance of the various uprisings by a new generation of Arabs she was greeted enthusiastically by the J Streeters.
Finally, we move from the young prophetic voice of Mona Eltahawy to the wisdom of Israeli activist Uri Avnery, still going at 87, who began his March 5 column:
Of all the memorable phrases uttered by Barack Obama in the last two years, the one that stuck in my mind more than any other appeared in his historic speech in Cairo in the early days of his term. He warned the nations not to place themselves “on the wrong side of history.”
It seems that the Arab nations took heed of this advice more than he might have anticipated. In the last few weeks they jumped from the wrong to the right side of history. And what a jump it was!
The picture at the top shows a sign that depicts in Arabic and English, the day of liberation in Egypt. It was taken in Cairo for Reuters by Peter Andrews. The picture ran in the London Guardian. [If you use the link, it will take you also to the picture. D]
