Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem Chair of West Midland PSC
Dear Friends,
First off, thanks to the many of you who wrote to me to assure me that my remarks are not arrogant. I do take criticism seriously, even if it is from someone who wants to be removed from the list-serve possibly because it dislikes my politics rather than the way I express them. I debated with myself for some time before I discussed it with you, because I don’t want to sound as if I’m asking you to pat me on the back. In any event, thanks for the support. If you do have complaints, please do let me know. Ultimately, they can only help improve how and what I produce.
Now to the business at hand. Before I list off the items in tonight’s message, I would like to ask you to in addition to reading some or all of the 8 items below to at least glance through Today in Palestine www.TheHeadlines.org just so that you have some idea of what is happening also in the OPT.
The first item is positive news. “Gaza militant groups agree [to] Israel ceasefire, says Hamas.” Now we only have to see if Israel will also agree to it. Of course all of this missile shooting could be avoided if Israel would only end the siege of Gaza. But that’s not likely to happen even should all the militants suddenly disappear.
Item 2 contains 2 reports about Nabi Saleh—one by Ynet, which feeds readers a lopsided story about who is responsible for what during demonstrations in the village. No mention there of the settlements that are stealing Nabi Saleh land, of the spring that the settlement is taking and disallowing residents of Nabi Saleh to continue to enjoy its waters. No. Instead of reporting what Israel is doing to Nabi Saleh, the Ynet report distorts the truth. The 2nd report is from the Nabi Saleh side. But the Ynet report is what Israelis are fed.
Item 3 tells about the harassment that Dan Rather’s crew faced when they came to Israel to do an interview.
Item 4. Relates opposition to the South African Zionist Federation’s invitation to Alan Dershowitz to speak, mainly by exhibiting Dershowitz’s opinions.
Item 5 relates that European countries (3, actually) want the UN rather than the US to mediate an agreement between Israel and Palestine.
Item 6, “Whose afraid of Julian Schnabel” is less about him or about his film, ‘Mirel,’ than about having differences of opinion about Jewish vs Palestinian points of view. Well worth reading.
Item 7 is a review of a book that I recommend, but only for those who know German, the language in which it is written. The critique, however, is in English, and is worth reading in itself. If you have German friends, please do inform them of ‘Denk Ich An Palastina‘ translated in English ‘Palestine on my Mind.’
Item 8 centers on the Boycott from Within movement (to which I also belong) that is the Israeli counterpart of the Palestinian call for bds. It is less about the movement than about the reasons that brought two of its members to adopt the call and to urge to boycott/divest/sanctions against Israel.
Lots to read, but all is informative and important stuff. So also were many items that I left out. Maybe tomorrow.
All the best, and again thanks for taking time to write to me to respond to my comments. I apologize for not writing each of you personally. But I had to do lots of reading today, so as to help keep you informed.
Dorothy
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1. BBC,
March 26, 2011
Gaza militant groups agree Israel ceasefire, says Hamas
Militant groups in Gaza say they will agree to a ceasefire if Israel stops attacks on the Palestinian territory.
The move was announced by the Hamas group that runs Gaza following a meeting between its leaders and insurgent groups.
In the past week at least 10 Palestinians, including several civilians and children, have been killed by Israeli attacks.
In the same period, militants have fired 80 rockets and mortar shells.
BBC Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison says the past week has seen some of the most serious violence in and around Gaza since the end of Operation Cast Lead – Israel’s major offensive here more than two years ago.
But in a statement released after a meeting with all militant groups in Gaza, Hamas said the insurgents were “committed to calm as long as the occupation (Israel) commits to it”.
Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad leader, told Agence France-Presse that “everybody confirmed that they respect the national consensus by calming things with the Zionist enemy”.
He added that the truce depended “on the nature of Israeli behaviour, and we insist on the need to respond immediately to each escalation by the occupiers”.
‘Anarchy’
Hamas had pledged to try to restore a ceasefire that ended on 16 March when an Israeli air strike killed two Hamas militants in Gaza.
Israel said it had suffered “bouts of terror and rocket attacks”.
Israel has also seen more rocket attacks on its settlements
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would “act with great force and great determination to put a stop to it”.
On Wednesday, a bomb left at a bus stop in Jerusalem killed one person and wounded many others. No group has said it carried out that attack.
There has been no comment yet from Israel on the ceasefire offer.
Earlier, the commander of Israeli troops along the Gaza front, Maj Gen Tal Russo, said there was “anarchy” in Gaza.
“We are prepared for any possibility, the goal is we won’t in the end permit a situation where it is impossible for civilians to live here.”
Our correspondent says that in the past Hamas has not been able to rein in all militant groups in Gaza and its authority will be tested by this move.
Israel’s military power is vastly superior to the Palestinian militants, he says, and if there were another major conflict, Gaza would again come off worse.
More than 1,300 Palestinians died in the war two years ago. Thirteen Israelis were killed.
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2. Ynet,
March 25, 2011
Dan Rather (archives) Photo: AP
Dan Rather’s crew ‘humiliated by Israeli security’
In a letter to Israeli officials, producer says legendary anchorman’s crew held up for hours at security checks, strip-searched before interview with Deputy PM Meridor
A crew for Dan Rather was harassed and humiliated by Israeli security officials, a producer for his show has said, accusing them of forcing the staffers to drop their pants for a strip search before seeing a Cabinet minister.
The allegations, made in a letter to Israeli officials that was obtained by The Associated Press, add to growing complaints about how Israeli security officials treat foreign media.
Andrew Glazer, an Emmy-award winning producer at Dan Rather Reports, wrote that the legendary anchorman came to do a story about improving Israeli-Palestinian relations pitched by Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
Glazer said problems mounted after they arrived. He said they were held up for hours at security checks. Israeli soldiers barred the crew’s veteran Palestinian cameramen — a Jerusalem resident — from accompanying Rather to a West Bank neighborhood. And then came the strip search before an interview with Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor.
“Mr. Rather said that in his career, he had never seen a crew forced to strip prior to an interview — including the one he conducted with Saddam Hussein,” Glazer wrote.
Reached in New York, Glazer acknowledged sending a letter to several people in the Israeli government, but he would not discuss its contents or say when the events took place.
Glazer said in the Jan. 25 letter that the team held advance consultations with government and military officials and had a good experience with Palestinian security officials.
Israel’s relationship with the foreign media is often testy, with some Israeli officials accusing journalists of sympathizing with the Palestinians and disregarding Israel’s legitimate security concerns.
Journalists’ recurring problems with chaotic and intrusive security, at Israel’s international airport and entering government offices, have strained relations even further.
The new director of Israel’s Government Press Office, Oren Helman, has vowed to usher in a new era of cordial relations with the hundreds of foreign journalists based in Israel. His pledges have not filtered down to the security agents who inspect journalists before entering official events with top officials.
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3.a) Ynet,
March 26, 2011
Violent protests at Nabi Saleh Photo: Gil Yohanan
Secrets of Nabi Saleh protests
Organized army of boys following one pied piper: Arrest, indictment of seven youngsters involved in Nabi Saleh demonstrations leads to revelations about inner workings of man who organizes violence with military precision. Ynet offers behind-scenes look at most violent protests around
Violent demonstrations have been held at the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah and the West Bank security fence, every Friday for nearly four years now. The demonstrations which include throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks and setting fire to tires, broke out over a land dispute with settlers from the nearby Neve Tsuf settlement.
And yet it seems that something deeper is involved, and, as stated by the village council chief in December: “We will only stop when the occupation is terminated and the settlers are evicted.”
Protests are also held every Friday near the fence in the villages of Bilin and Naalin, but Nabi Saleh is known as the most violent of the three. Two weeks ago Shai District police in cooperation with Binyamin District police arrested Naji Tamimi, a 48-year-old resident of the village over suspicions that he organized the protests and incited to violence. His remand was extended a number of times and he is now being detained at the Ofer prison.
Charismatic militant
Tamimi is not just another village resident, he serves as the general manager at the department of land and infrastructure in Ramallah which, belongs to the Palestinian Authority coordination and liaison directorate.
Last Sunday, a severe indictment including charges of incitement, supporting a hostile organization, taking part in an illegal procession and entering a closed military area propaganda was served against Hamimi. He refuses to cooperate with his investigators. If convicted, a military court could sentence him to a 14 month prison sentence and thousands of shekels in fines.
The Shai District police believe that Tamimi is a central figure behind the protests and the one who fans the flames of violence. A police official described the semi-military operation run by Tamimi which includes regiments, field commanders and also has a main goal – confronting IDF soldiers.
Violent protests (Photo: AP)
“Tamimi oversees an army of demonstrators divided in an extremely organized fashion into regiments of 14-17 people,” he said, adding: “He is a very charismatic and militant person and is well versed in the rules of the game – what’s allowed and what isn’t. He does nothing by chance. Every action is well planned – not a folksy protest. He excites them and directs them towards confrontations with IDF forces.
“It’s all orchestrated and managed by one man.”
Recruited at mosque
Other than Tamimi, police also arrested several boys aged 14-16 who were documented throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at IDF forces. Indictments were presented against the entire group and they are being detained until the end of the legal proceedings. Even though they are only boys, the findings revealed during their interrogations shed a light on the ‘military’ proceedings behind the protests and Tamimi’s activities.
The boys told their interrogators of how Tamimi recruited them at a mosque and the local council headquarters, gave them masks to cover their faces and told them how to proceed. “The orders were to go to a protest that was calm to begin with. When the procession reached the village center and people would turn back, that was when we were supposed to start throwing rocks,” one of the boys, 14.5 years-old said.
It isn’t just boys from Nabi Saleh who take part in the demonstrations. Tamimi also recruited from nearby Palestinian villages. The whole group is divided into eight regiments, each with 25 ‘soldiers’ led by the commander who keeps in contact with Tamimi who usually stands on the roof of one of the village’s structures. The group of under 15 year-olds is called “the young ones” who are under the command of Basim Tamimi who was also arrested recently.
“The signal was given to the rioters by phone,” the military prosecution detailed in court, “in certain cases the phone rang once and then the caller hung up, and in other cases directions were given via phone call or using megaphone announcements.”
Divided into regiments – Nabi Saleh demonstrators (Photo: Reuters)
According to the prosecution, “after the groups confronted IDF forces in the village, Tamimi and others would meet at his house and examine the orders given to the groups. They would also write reports about the events and things they accomplished.”
The head of the Shai District police investigation team discussed the various roles that each of the regiments carries out during the demonstrations.
Remote controlled
“There were those whose job was to throw rocks from a certain point attempting to distract IDF forces. One regiment burned tires while another blocked IDF jeeps with burning trash cans. Others focused on ambushing the IDF forces patrolling the area during the week. Each weekend a different regiment received vacation time and stayed away from the demonstrations.”
Even though it hasn’t been proven, it seems that sources connected to the Palestinian Authority are directing the activities and that the funds paid out to the youths is coming from donations from organizations registered abroad. Indeed Ynet has learnt that if a boy is injured during the demonstrations, an aid request is sent to those very same organizations, but the money doesn’t go to the injured boy.
Meanwhile, the violent demonstrations at Nabi Saleh continue, most likely via remote control. “Of course someone will be found to take Tamimi’s place and lead the demonstrations,” the police source said, but, he added “it is clear that Tamimi’s arrest has dealt a heavy blow to demonstrators and that is already being felt on the ground.”
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b) I recommend using the link so that you can also see a 4 minute video of some of the action, including the IOF shooting tear gas among the houses, where there may be infants, toddlers, elderly, ill—all whom are in danger from tear gas.
Saturday, March 26 2011Independent commentary from Israel & the Palestinian territoriesCategories
News Analysis Life Images Activism Voices
MairavZonszeinRoiMaorYossiGurvitzLisaGoldmanJosephDanaAmiKaufmanDimiReiderNoamSheizafDahliaScheindlinYuvalBen-Ami972blogAboutSaturday, March 26 2011|Joseph Dana
Waves of arrests in weekly Nabi Saleh Demonstration
A day after the violent arrest of Nabi Saleh Popular Committee leader Bassem Tamimi, one Palestinian, five Israelis and three international activists were arrested in Nabi Saleh on Friday. A Palestinian cameraman and three more Israelis were briefly detained.
Only a day after the arrest of Bassem Tamimi, the coordinator of the village’s popular committee, the IDF has escalated its attempts to suppress protest in Nabi Saleh. During the early hours of the morning, long before the weekly demonstration began, large groups of Israeli soldiers and Border Police deployed on the three roads leading into Nabi Saleh, and in the groves surrounding the village, bringing movement in and out of the village to a standstill. Three Israeli activists were detained in the groves as they tried to march, despite the siege.
At about 10 AM, dozens of soldiers moved from the entrance to the village to its main junction. When the demonstration began, protesters skirted the soldiers by walking between the houses, and managed to reach the road leading to the spring threatened by settler takeover.
When the soldiers noticed the march peacefully heading towards the spring, they immediately opened fire at it, shooting tear-gas projectiles directly at the crowd. Eventually, the soldiers managed to push everyone back into the village. At that stage, dozens of soldiers, some of them masked, were effectively occupying the entire village, patrolling its streets and enforcing an undeclared curfew.
One Israeli activist was arrested from inside a store after soldiers showed him a closed military zone warrant and he refused to leave the village. An American protester was arrested under similar circumstances shortly after.
Soldiers then arrested 19 year-old Udai Tamimi, as he was walking down a street in his hometown, claiming they’ve seen him throw stones in the past. He was cuffed, blindfolded and shoved into a military jeep. Protesters who ran to the place sat in front and under the jeep, trying to prevent the soldiers from taking Tamimi away.
Those sitting in front of the military jeep were beaten, pepper sprayed and tear-gassed. Four Israelis, one Swede and one Danish activist were arrested and Udai was eventually taken, as well.
Shortly after midnight, all Israeli and American activists were released on condition that they do not enter Nabi Saleh for 15 days. The two other internationals are expected to be brought before the Magistrates Court in Jerusalem Saturday evening. Udai Tamimi, in a clear example of racial discrimination, will only be brought in front of a judge in eight days, where his remand hearing will take place in front of a military judge.
The hilltop village of Nabi Saleh is home to approximately 550 residents and is located 30 kilometers northeast of Ramallah along highway 465. Residents have been holding regular demonstrations against the occupation and the creeping confiscation of their lands by the adjacent settlement of Halamish since December 2009. Protest was sparked after settlers, abated by the IDF, forcefully took over a natural spring belonging to the village.
From the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
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4. [Thanks to Terry for forwarding]
Mondoweis
Notable South Africans denounce Dershowitz’s record following campaign to smear Desmond Tutu
The following article was published yesterday in the Cape Times, South Africa. It was signed by Judge Dennis Davis, Gilbert Marcus SC, Geoff Budlender SC, Wim Trengove SC, Rob Petersen SC, Prof John Comaroff, Prof Jean Comaroff, Fatima Hassan, Doron Isaacs, Mark Heywood, Jonathan Berger, Shuaib Manjra, Nathan Geffen, Adila Hassim, Pregs Govender, Daniel Mackintosh and Michael Mbikiwa.
Although it distanced itself officially from the failed campaign to have Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu removed as patron of the Cape Town Holocaust Centre, the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) has now invited the most prominent supporter of that campaign to address meetings in South Africa as its guest. Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz is known internationally for his furious attacks on all those who want effective peaceful measures against Israel to compel the ending of its military occupation of the West Bank and the removal of annexationist settlements.
In support of the petition for Tutu’s removal, Dershowitz penned a vicious personal attack in the New York press, saying that Tutu’s “ever present grin … masks a long history of ugly hatred toward the Jewish people, the Jewish religion and the Jewish state.” According to Dershowitz, Tutu deserves to be “in the dustbin of history”. “The sad reality”, contends Dershowitz, “is that Bishop Tutu’s beneficent look is the new face of the oldest of bigotries.” There is “only one word” to describe Tutu’s motives, he says: “It is called anti-Semitism.” In fact, Dershowitz claims that Tutu’s support for a cultural boycott of Israel “finds its roots in the Nazi ‘Kauft Nicht beim Juden’ campaign of the 1930’s.” Dershowitz asserts that “the decent people of South Africa have become aware of Tutu’s bigotry”.
Our experience of Tutu has been different. All we have known is his bravery, integrity and sense of fairness. One among the many examples of this is his consistent call that Israel ends its military occupation, that both sides cease to attack civilians, and that a Palestinian state should exist alongside Israel in peace.
The SAZF certainly has the right to meet and to invite Dershowitz to express his views. It is necessary however, in order to understand the person whom they have unfortunately chosen to invite, that we examine his political writing and speech.
Dershowitz is an advocate for collective punishment of Palestinians, defending what the respected Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) has called a “policy of mass demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories”. Some of the targets of this policy are the families of those suspected of involvement in terrorist attacks against Israelis. As B’Tselem notes, “This form of punishment is carried out primarily against individuals who are only suspected offenders.” In his recent book The Case for Israel Dershowitz calls this illegal practice “moral and calibrated” but notes that it “plays poorly on television”.
Beyond home demolitions, Dershowitz proposed that Israel should destroy entire Palestinian villages. In a 2002 article in the Jerusalem Post he advised a brief cessation of Israeli retaliations, after which the “first act of terrorism following the moratorium will result in the destruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings. The response will be automatic… and there will be no discretion.”
Dershowitz has stated that the goal of such measures is a peace agreement entailing an end to the Israeli military occupation, and the subsequent creation of a Palestinian state. However, his real commitment to these outcomes is lacking. In his 2008 book The Case Against Israel’s Enemies, he proposes removing only those Israeli settlements “in the heart of the West Bank”, and suggests the need thereafter for “some military presence”. Writing in The Wall Street Journal in January of this year he claimed that the settlements are not illegal and that some of the West Bank “rightfully belongs to Israel.” This view contradicts United Nations Security Council Resolution 465 which clearly states that the settlements, including those in East Jerusalem, “have no legal validity and that Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention” and are a serious obstruction to peace.
Further, Dershowitz has proposed that terrorist attacks be responded to by immediate and permanent grabs of Palestinian land by the state of Israel. “Every act of terrorism will result in an automatic and permanent decrease of a specific portion of the land mass that eventually would constitute the Palestinian state.” This land “would be immediately annexed to Israel and be deemed a permanent part of the Jewish state”.
Terrorist attacks against Israelis are totally unjustifiable, and we oppose them absolutely. Wednesday’s deplorable bus-bombing in Jerusalem is a case in point. This does not change the fact that Dershowitz advocates collective punishment and reprisals expressly prohibited by international conventions.
Dershowitz is an apologist for torture, albeit that he has suggested, in an essay titled ‘Tortured Reasoning’, that it be regulated by “means of a warrant or some other mechanism”.
As a professor of criminal law Dershowitz often uses legal argument to justify Israeli misconduct. His commitment to international law is highly questionable. Speaking in Israel on 22 May 2010 he said, “The judges in the international tribunes are corrupt. They are appointed by political leaders to do their state’s bidding… My job today is to delegitimize international law, to attack it to the core. There must be one standard for all. Until that day happens, I will be its sworn enemy. I prefer no international law to unfair international law.”
His commitment to democracy is similarly conditional. As the Egyptian revolution unfolded Dershowitz, interviewed on CNN, evinced a deep skepticism regarding the pending ouster of the dictator Mubarak, on the grounds that it may not serve Israeli or US interests.
We are pleased to hear that neither the Kaplan Centre at UCT nor the Law Faculty (as was earlier mooted) will now be associating itself with Dershowitz by hosting him.
Dershowitz is an advocate and a propagandist. He has a questionable record of respect for academic freedom. He tried to suppress publication of a book by Norman Finkelstein that critiqued the The Case for Israel. On 22 December 2004 Dershowitz wrote to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger urging him to “do anything to help prevent this impending tragedy”, i.e. the publication of Finkelstein’s book by the University of California Press. Dershowitz initially denied that he wrote a letter to Schwarzenegger but later admitted that he did. Schwarzenegger declined to suppress the book.
In the wake of the publication of Finkelstein’s book Dershowitz waged a campaign to deny Finkelstein tenure at De Paul University. In 2007 Finkelstein was denied tenure. That many find Finkelstein tendentious or do not share his views is beside the point.
Dershowitz has shown particular intolerance for Jewish and Israeli critics of Israeli policy. When he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Tel Aviv University in May 2010, he named and lashed out at Tel Aviv academics who have called for a boycott until Israel ends its military occupation, causing some eighty Tel Aviv academics to accuse him of incitement.
He also grossly misrepresented the judicial record of Judge Richard Goldstone (whom he denounced as “an evil, evil man” and “an absolute traitor”) in retribution for the Goldstone Report on Gaza.
In October 2005 Dershowitz wrote in the Jerusalem Post, “The fault for all civilian casualties in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies exclusively with the Palestinian terrorists”. However, speaking at a symposium two days after his attack on dissenting Israeli academics, he said, “Our greatest enemies are not the Islamic extremists. They help our case in many ways… The problem is Jews. Jews and Israelis.”
These two statements seem contradictory, but taken together they explain Dershowitz’s agenda. It is not the welfare of Israelis and Palestinians. It is the protection of the Israeli government, and its military occupation. In making that case the extremists, who kill people, are very useful to him, as Dershowitz himself insists. The greatest danger to his project is the truth, and those who speak it.
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5. Haaretz,
March 26, 2011
European countries want UN, not U.S., to advance Mideast peace talks
Britain, France and Germany would like the United Nations and European Union to co-author an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, say diplomats.
Britain, France and Germany want the United Nations and the European Union to propose the outlines of a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, UN diplomats said.
The three European countries, all members of the UN Security Council, are pressing for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union to propose a settlement text at a meeting in mid-April of the Quartet of Mideast mediators, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because talks are taking place in private.
The quartet includes the UN, EU, U.S. and Russia. The aim is to get a basis for direct Israeli-Palestinian talks to resume.
Putting the job in the hands of the EU and the UN would sideline the United States, Israel’s closest ally which has tried unsuccessfully for months to get face-to-face negotiations going, as well as Russia, an ally of the Palestinians.
The big question mark is whether the United States would allow the Europeans and UN to take the lead in trying to resolve the standoff, and that is likely to depend on whether the Israelis give a green light, the diplomats said.
The Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to President Barack Obama’s target date of September 2011 for an agreement, but negotiations collapsed weeks after they restarted last September.
The Palestinians insist they will not resume peace talks until Israel halts settlement building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War which the Palestinians want for their future state.
The U.S. veto on February 18 of a Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israeli settlements as illegal and demanded an immediate halt to all settlement building spurred Britain, France and Germany, who supported the measure, to issue a joint statement expressing serious concern about the stalemate in the Middle East peace process.
Since the U.S. efforts have been unsuccessful, diplomats said the three European powers decided to try a new approach in hopes of breaking the deadlock.
The diplomats said the three European countries have delivered the message in key capitals – including Washington and Jerusalem – that if the parameters of a final settlement are endorsed, the Palestinians will return to the negotiating table.
Jews who embrace narratives other than those sanctioned by the pro-Israel community often inflame others.
Director Julian Schnabel’s ‘Miral’ has brought the Israel-Palestine conflict into the mainstream [GALLO/GETTY]
Miral, currently in theatres, portrays the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from an entirely Palestinian perspective. It is nothing earth-shattering (a brief filmography at the end of this article offers other films that do this far more effectively) except that it was made by a Jewish filmmaker.
Several Jewish organisations and the Israeli government have seen fit to protest against the film. They say it does not tell both sides of the story. But that is precisely the point. When director Julian Schnabel – previously lauded for his lavish features Basquiat, Before Night Falls and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – decided to make this film, based on the book by Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal, his intention was to tell the story Rula tells in Miral.
Schnabel is an Academy-Award nominated director, and his film has brought “the conflict” into the mainstream. The fact that he happens to be Jewish while representing the Palestinian perspective inflames some in the Jewish community, who consider his film an act of betrayal.
Conflicting narratives
I saw the film earlier this week in a special screening hosted by Javier Bardem, who starred in Before Night Falls and wanted to support Schnabel’s “brave film”. The director was there with his daughter Stella, who appears in the film, and with his new wife – Rula Jebreal. I could not help but wonder what the Jewish community thinks when a Jew marries a Palestinian.
More to the point, why are some Jews afraid of Jews who embrace narratives other than those officially sanctioned in the Jewish and Israeli community? Why do such narratives when told by Jews – including books by Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky, and Israeli revisionist historians such as Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappé and Tom Segev – cause such ire?
I am one of these contrarian Jews. Why do I strive to see things not only from the Jewish perspective but the Arab one? Because my father’s family lived for centuries in an Arab country, Morocco, and because long ago I recognised that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about nothing else if not conflicting narratives.
Jews see 1948 as the year of Israel’s establishment and a glorious liberation from persecution with the benefit of an independent state for Jews who had no place to live in the Diaspora, or who wanted to join Zionists in their “return” to the Holy Land after nearly 2,000 years of Roman exile (see Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People for an alternative history that suggests the Romans never exiled Jews in 70 AD).
Palestinians experienced 1948 as the year of their defeat, a national catastrophe or Nakba. After centuries of dominance by the Ottoman Empire and then British occupation, Palestinians wanted their own freedom. In fact, the national Palestinian identity movement (as Rashid Khalidi explains in his book Palestinian Identity) was nearly the same age as the Zionist movement. Contrast that fact with the myths propagated for years by David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir and other early Zionists, who made a point of telling us that “there is no Palestinian people” and that Israel was “a land without a people for a people without a land”.
The Arab world began to wake from domination as the Ottoman Empire was crumbling in a renaissance movement known as al-Nahda. People in Palestine were active in their desire for independence from outside control and occupation. Little wonder that the 1947 UN Partition Agreement was almost universally rejected by the Arab world. Why would Palestinians want to lose half of Palestine after living for centuries under foreign rule – particularly when Jewish land ownership at the time was just a fraction of what the UN was awarding to the Jews (see The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939, by Kenneth W. Stein)? Why would Palestinian Arabs embrace Zionist Jews who were primarily European in origin and who trumpeted their culture as decidedly superior to Arab culture?
These are the questions you ask when you want to see things from the other side of the story. Jews have always been good devil’s advocates – so why can’t we also advocate from the Palestinian/Arab narrative? Every attorney, every judge and everyone who has ever sat in a courtroom realises that there are at least two sides to every story. As we like to say, if you have two Jews in a room, you have three opinions.
Embracing the ‘other’
My challenge to Jewish readers of this and my other columns is to see if you can embrace the other. Try Kant’s “enlarged mentality” – the ability to exercise empathy, to “stand up in the mind of others”. What is it like to be a Palestinian today, living under Israeli occupation? What is it like to be an Arab citizen of Israel? Do Arabs enjoy equal rights under the law? How can we have a Jewish state that is also a democracy – isn’t that an oxymoron?
Why doesn’t Israel have a constitution that equally protects the rights of all its citizens? Why do we insist on besieging Gaza, prohibiting Gazans from having a functioning airport, seaport and international highways, so that it can grow its economy (all of this was in place before Hamas won elections in 2006)? Why does Israel continue to build settlements in the West Bank, when it tells the world that it wants peace, and has invested so much publicity and time in negotiations, starting with Oslo?
I enjoyed Miral, but the film should not be particularly upsetting to anyone who has even a passing familiarity with the history of the conflict. As reviewer Omar El-Khairy writes in his Electric Intifada review: “In Schnabel’s film, the violence of the occupation is never dealt with explicitly and ends up being either aestheticized … or completely occluded.”
He adds: “Much has been made of the film’s supposedly pro-Palestinian stance and what has been presented as Schnabel’s bold position on the Israel-Palestine conflict. People will point to its depiction of everyday Israeli abuses and the interrogation scene in which Miral is whipped by Israeli security forces, but the calculated script lacks the political engagement and personal imagination necessary to rupture the dominant discourse on Israel and the Palestinians.”
That is how Miral looks to at least one Arab observer. See it yourself and make up your own mind just how much it challenges what you know about the conflict.
Features and documentaries on Israel-Palestine from the Palestinian perspective include:
Chronicle of a Disappearance, director Elia Suleiman
Life in Occupied Palestine, director Anna Baltzer
Occupation 101 – Voices of the Silenced Majority, directors Abdallah and Sufyan Omeish
Paradise Now, director Hany Abu-Assad
The Time That Remains, director Elia Suleiman
Tragedy in the Holy Land: The Second Uprising, director Denis Mueller
Jordan Elgrably is the executive director of the Levantine Cultural Center in Los Angeles. His views are his own and do not reflect that centre’s policies.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
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7. Pro-Palestinian Peace Activists in Germany
Against Political Pigeonholing
In the anthology “Palestine on my mind” 26 peace activists explain why they are committed to the human rights of Palestinians. The authors are Germans and non-Germans, Jews and non-Jews. Martina Sabra reviews this remarkable publication
“Neither racists nor useful idiots”: The book’s most important message, writes Martina Sabra, is that it is possible to campaign for the rights of Palestinians without being labelled anti-Semitic
| Campaigning for the protection of human rights is not a subject that should be up for discussion. But in Germany, anyone fighting for the greater recognition of the rights of Palestinians often has to go to some lengths to justify his or her stance, as more often than not they will stand accused, if silently, of anti-Semitism.
The Middle East conflict, or more specifically the relationship between Israel and Palestine, is a subject that triggers ferocious debate in Germany like no other. Key players in the debate are often self-styled specialists talking over the heads of those who are directly involved.
Why the rights of Palestinians?
German peace activist Günter Schenk, who lives in France, decided to do something to counter this tendency and allow some of the actors in this conflict to speak for themselves. He invited a total of 26 people to explain why they are committed to the human rights of Palestinians in the face of such vehement opposition.
The results of his field research can now be seen in an anthology published by the German-Jewish publisher Abraham Melzer under the evocative title “Palestine on my mind”.
Schenk invited Germans and non-Germans, Jews and non-Jews to express their views. The spectrum of political viewpoints ranges from arguing the case for a two-state solution right through to radical anti-Zionism.
Especially riveting are the contributions from activists with a Jewish background, among them Ruth Fruchtman, Evelyn Hecht-Galinski and Abraham Melzer. Jews who are critical of Zionism are subjected to bitter attack in Germany, although the hostility does not just come from Neo-Nazis, but also from right-wing Jewish communities.
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Entangled destinies: For most of the non-Jewish, German activists the path for Palestinian solidarity leads via solidarity with Israel
| The spectrum of attacks ranges from insults such as “alibi Jew” through smear campaigns to death threats. But the activists campaigning for a just solution in the Middle East do not allow themselves to be silenced and set out clear demands in their essays: a democratic state for Jews and non-Jews and an end to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
The Jewish activists are not naïve. They reject political pigeonholing and openly outline the Palestinians’ political weaknesses. “I’m not ‘pro-Palestinian’,” writes the French commentator Claire Paque. “That is a false notion. We are simply defending the application of international law in this case.”
Most of the contributions to the anthology are made by German, non-Jewish human rights campaigners, the majority of whom were born between 1920 and 1950. Despite the differences in age they all share an important common denominator: For the most part, their political consciousness and values were developed against a backdrop of German National Socialism and the mass murder of Jews in Europe.
“My involvement in the Palestinian problem is significantly influenced by my confrontation with Nazism,” says Ingrid Rumpf, who apart from her work with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon also curated a highly-publicised exhibition on the 1948 expulsion of the Palestinians, which is being shown across Germany.
Various paths to Palestinian solidarity
For most of the non-Jewish, German activists the path for Palestinian solidarity leads via solidarity with Israel. Older contributors were still directly under the influence of Nazi terror and the gruesome images from the concentration camps after liberation in 1945.
Younger contributors experienced the denial of the Nazi era in “economic miracle Germany”. Against this backdrop, expressing solidarity with surviving Jews and with Israel become for some a way to rebel against their parents and German post-war society.
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Lessons from history: As a reaction to the gruesome crimes for many Germans, the declaration of allegiance with Israel became part of their personal identity
| For these young people, this declaration of allegiance with Israel became part of their personal identity. Doubts over the official version of history and the founding myth of Israel represented an existential threat to their laboriously constructed new system of values. Logically, anything that challenged this world view was suppressed: the displacement and dispossession of the Palestinians, the obliteration of a centuries-old Middle Eastern culture.
This tendency was strengthened when the Palestinians increasingly sought international attention with terrorist attacks in the late 1960s. The Palestinians made people afraid. No thought was spared for the fact that with the Holocaust and the subsequent founding of Israel, Germany might perhaps have contributed to the Palestinians’ misery and the armed resistance.
A deep insight into internal strife
This also applied to Anne Köhl, who reflects in the book upon her first encounter with a Palestinian fellow student in the 1970s. The young man had given her a book about Palestine, asked her to read it and discuss it with him. At the time, she indignantly refused and pushed the book far to the back of her bookshelf.
It was more than 30 years later, when her own son announced plans to set off for Palestine and was not to be dissuaded, Anne Köhl suddenly saw herself forced to forget her reservations and at last appreciate the other side’s version of events. It heralded the start of a period marked with conflict and rife with debate. Today, Köhl is an active campaigner for Israel AND the Palestinian people: “Because their fate is inextinguishably linked with mine, with my identity and my country – just like the fate of the Jews.”
Many of the contributions to this anthology grapple with internal strife in this way. Publisher Günter Schenk also says that he was plagued with guilt when he realised that he had not listened to his Palestinian friends, and simply not acknowledged their suffering.
Nevertheless, activist Ingrid Rumpf stresses that one must repeatedly examine any hint of personal anti-Semitic resentment. “One must always put oneself under scrutiny. Better too much than too little. But I won’t allow myself to be silenced,” she says.
The anthology “Palestine on My Mind” does leave open certain questions that might perhaps have been addressed – for example the debate over left-wing anti-Semitism or the suicide attacks of the 1990s. But the book’s key message is that it is possible to campaign for the rights of the Palestinians, even to reject Zionism, without being an anti-Semite.
The individuals expressing their views here are neither racists nor useful idiots, but consistently intelligent, clear-sighted and honest. They share the view that human rights are indivisible and that Israel must be measured with the same yardstick as all the world’s nations.
Their views offer a soothing antidote to those self-appointed “Friends of Israel” and “anti-Germans” who, with their pompous ideologies and awry arguments, still have a strong influence on public discourse in Germany today.
“Denk ich an Palästina – Palestine on my mind. Günter Schenk presents 26 testimonials from our time”, published by Melzer, Neu-Isenburg 2010, 232 pages
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8. Al Jazeera,
March 26, 2011
Boycotting Israel … from within
Israelis explain why they joined the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement.
A Palestinian activist holds Israeli bread products being sold in a shop in the West Bank town of Ramallah [EPA]
It was Egypt that got me thinking about the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement in a serious way. I was already conducting a quiet targeted boycott of settlement goods – silently reading labels at the grocery store to make sure I was not buying anything that came from over the Green Line.
I had been doing this for a long time. But, at some point, I realised that my private targeted boycott was a bit naïve. And I understood that it was not enough.
It is not just the settlements and the occupation, two sides of the same coin, which pose a serious obstacle to peace and infringe on the Palestinians’ human rights. It is everything that supports them – the government and its institutions. It is the bubble that many Israelis live in, the illusion of normality. It is the Israeli feeling that the status quo is sustainable.
And the settlements are a bit of a red herring, a convenient target for anger. Israelis must also face one of the major injustices that have resulted from their state – the nakba, the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
While BDS addresses that, among other concerns – the three principles of the movement are respect for the Palestinians’ right of return, as outlined in UN resolution 194, an end to the occupation and equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel – I remained reluctant to get involved.
I have to admit that I was frightened by the movement. I did not think it would help. I was sure that BDS would only encourage Israel to dig its heels in deeper. It will only make things worse for everyone, I reasoned.
Egypt was the tipping point for me. I was exhilarated by the images of people taking to the streets to demand change. And while the Palestine Papers prove that the government seems intent on maintaining the status quo, I know plenty of Israelis who are fed up with it.
There are mothers who do not want to send their children to the army; soldiers who resent guarding settlers. I recently spoke with a 44-year-old man – a normal guy, a father of two – who told me he wants to burn something he is so frustrated with the government and so worried about the future.
And Egypt is on many Israeli lips right now. So, what can be done to help bring it to Israeli feet? What can be done to encourage Israelis to fight for change, to fight for peace, to liberate themselves from a conflict that undermines their self-determination, their freedom?
BDS has stacked up a number of successes, which is one reason the Israeli Knesset is trying to pass a bill, known as the Boycott Law, that would effectively criminalise Israelis who join the movement, subjecting them to huge fines.
And some of those involved with BDS are already feeling an immense amount of pressure from the state.
‘Israel’s mask of democracy’
Leehee Rothschild, 26, is one of the scores of Israelis who have answered the 2005 Palestinian call for BDS. Recently her Tel Aviv apartment was raided. While the police did this under the pretense of searching for drugs, she was taken to the station for a brief interrogation that focused entirely on politics.
“The person who came to release me [from interrogation] was an intelligence officer who said that he is in charge of monitoring political activity in the Tel Aviv area,” Rothschild says. It was this officer who had requested the search warrant.
Since Operation Cast Lead, Israeli activists have reported increasing pressure from the police as well as General Security Services – known by their Hebrew acronym, Shabak.
The latter’s mandate includes, among other things, the goal of maintaining Israel as a Jewish state, making those who advocate for democracy a target.
House raids, such as the one Rothschild was subjected to, are not uncommon, nor are phone calls from the Shabak.
“Obviously [the pressure] is nothing compared to what Palestinians are going through,” Rothschild says. “But I think we’re touching a nerve.”
When asked about the proposed Boycott Law, Rothschild comments: “If the bill goes through, it will peel off, a little more, Israel’s mask of democracy.”
Tough love
As for her involvement in BDS, Rothschild remarks that she was not aware of the movement until it became a serious topic of discussion within Israel’s radical left, which she was already active in. And even after she heard about it, she did not jump onboard right away.
“I had reservations about [BDS],” Rothschild recalls. “I thought about it for a very long time and I debated it with myself and my friends.
“The main reservation I had was that the economic [aspects] would first harm the weak people in the society – the poor people – the people who have the least effect on what’s going on. But I think that the occupation is harming these people much more than the divestments can.”
Rothschild points out that state funds that are poured into “security and defence and oppressing the Palestinian people” could be better used in Israel to help those in the low socioeconomic strata.
“Another reservation I have had is that it might make the Israeli public more extremist, more fundamentalist,” Rothschild adds. “But I have to say that the road it has to go to be more extreme is very short right now.”
As an Israeli, Rothschild considers joining the BDS movement to be an act of caring. It is tough love for the country she was born and raised in.
“I hope that, for some people, it will be a slap in their face and they will wake up and see what’s going on,” Rothschild says, adding that the oppressor is oppressed, as well.
“The Israeli people are also oppressed by the occupation – they are living inside a society that is militant; that is violent; that is racist.”
‘Renouncing my privileges’
Ronnie Barkan, 34, explains that he took his first step towards the boycott 15 years ago, when he refused to complete his mandatory military service.
“There’s a lot of social pressure [in Israel],” Barkan says. “We’re raised to be soldiers from kindergarten. We’re taught that it’s our duty [to serve in the army] and you’re a parasite or traitor if you don’t want to serve.”
“What is even worse is that people are raised to be deeply racist,” he adds. “Everything is targeted at supporting [Jewish] privilege as the masters of the land. Supporting BDS means renouncing my privileges in this land and insisting on equality for all.”
Barkan likens his joining of the boycott movement to the “whites who denounced their apartheid privileges and joined the black struggle in South Africa”.
When I cringe at the “a-word,” apartheid, Barkan counters: “Israel clearly falls under the legal definition of the ‘crime of apartheid’ as defined in the Rome Statute.”
‘Never again to anybody’
Some oppose BDS because it includes recognition of the Palestinian right of return. These critics say that the demographic shift would impinge on Jewish self-determination. But Barkan argues that “the underlying foundation [of the movement] is universally recognised human rights and international law”.
He emphasises that BDS respects human rights for both Palestinians and Jews and includes proponents of a bi-national, democratic state as well as those who believe a two-state solution is the best answer to the conflict.
He also stresses that BDS is not anti-Semitic. Nor is it anti-Israeli.
“The boycott campaign is not targeting Israelis; it is targeting the criminal policies of Israel and the institutions that are complicit, not individuals,” he says.
“So let’s say an Israeli academic or musician goes abroad and he is turned away from a conference or a venue just because he’s Israeli … ” I begin to ask.
“No, no, this doesn’t fall under the [boycott guidelines],” Barkan says.
“Because that’s not a boycott. It’s racism,” I say.
“Exactly,” Barkan responds, adding that the Palestinian call for BDS is “a very responsible call” that “makes a differentiation between institutions and individuals and it is clearly a boycott of criminal institutions and their representatives”.
“Whenever there is a grey area,” he adds, “we take the gentler approach.”
Still, Barkan has faced criticism for his role in the boycott movement.
“My grandmother who went to Auschwitz tells me, ‘You can think whatever you want but don’t speak up about your politics because it’s not nice,’ I tell her, ‘You know who didn’t speak up 70 years ago.'”
Barkan adds: “I think that the main lesson to be learned from the Holocaust is ‘never again to anybody’ not ‘never again to the Jews.'”
Mya Guarnieri is a Tel Aviv-based journalist and writer.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
