The first of the 7 items below is an interview of Neve Gordon on Academic Freedom, and the threats to it in Israel. These threats are real. With the loss of Academic Freedom, Israel will be yet less of a democracy than it claims to be. While the people in countries that are Israel’s neighbors are pouring in the streets and are confronting their leaders demanding freedom to (among other things) express their opinions, Israel restricts this right more and more.
Item 2 is on Wiki-Leaks. I don’t normally bring these, supposing that your own newspapers are probably full of them, but this one shows so clearly the means that the United States uses to help Israel in its ways, that I couldn’t resist sharing.
In item 3, Amira Hass rightly states that the Itamar murders do not justify stripping Palestinians of rights. The problem is that the Israeli government and military will use every excuse to do just that. Both (and also many Israelis) see the Palestinians not as human beings but as the ‘enemy.’
Item 4 reports that international activists are joining Gaza fishermen so as to document and report Israeli transgressions with regard to fishing rights in Gaza waters.
Item 5 relates that Israeli luminaries have signed a letter pressing for a Palestinian state. I wonder if underlying this move is not the fear of a single state coming into being? I do not mean to imply that these signatories are not people who do not believe in Palestinian rights. I’m relatively sure that they do, and do regard Palestinians as human beings. Sill, they could have pressed for a single secular state with equal rights for all its citizens. The fact is that they didn’t.
In item 6 Richard Falk claims (with goodly justification) that Goldstone has breathed new life into the Gaza report.
The final item is a report on the first day of the three day 6th Bil’in conference—6 years of weekly demonstrations! They have not brought the land back to the villagers, nor the trees that were uprooted, but they tell the world that Bil’in will not give up, will not leave, will continue to non-violently protest the theft of its land.
All the best,
Dorothy
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1. April 20 2011
[forwarded by Ruth H.]
Independent commentary from Israel & the Palestinian territories
It has been a troubled year for Israeli academia. The rising nationalist sentiment in the government, legislature and civil society has spilled over into bitter struggles on campuses throughout the country. Nationalist groups such as IsraCampus, Israel Academia Monitor, and the ultra-nationalist Im Tirtzu have set their crosshairs on academia, seeking the dismissal of faculty members and control over curricula, and urging foreign donors to withdraw funds unless the faculty they have targeted are removed. They have published blacklists and ranked each university and department according to political legitimacy. Much of the fire has been directed at Ben Gurion University (*).According to an NRG story that appeared after the interview below, one donor threatened to suspend funds if certain political positions were not officially repudiated by Ben Gurion’s administration (Hebrew).
One striking result has been the politicization of very basic social concepts that should be part of the consensus, concepts once considered to be above politics. Thus the term “democracy,” is viewed by the ultra-nationalists as a left-wing political ideology, and it is increasingly de-legitimized in Israeli discourse. The concept of human rights is even more controversial. For the ultra-nationalist students and organizations, the term “human rights” symbolizes one-sided support for the Palestinians and subversive attempts to destroy the state. The liberal universalism that underlies human rights values is anathema to a parochial notion of state, and clashes with the creeping raison d’etat.
Therefore, a human rights conference planned by the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University in early April was a white-hot target for the nationalists. Im Tirtzu launched a well-orchestrated campaign to pressure university president Professor Rivka Carmi to cancel the conference, on the pretense that it was not “balanced.” Dr. Dani Filc, the Department chair, responded that seven right wing speakers had been invited but declined to come. Still the demands continued, reaching University officials, Minister of Education Gideon Saar, the chair of the Knesset’s Education Committee, Alex Miller (Israel Beitenu). The conference was held as planned.
In this charged environment, Professor Neve Gordon agreed to be interviewed for +972. Professor Gordon was Chair of the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University for much of this controversial period. He is the author of Israel’s Occupation and an outspoken critic of Israel’s government policies vis-à-visthe Palestinians. He is very close to the issues, having been the target of no small controversies himself in the past.
BEN GURION UNIVERSITY HAS BEEN IN THE EYE OF THE STORM. WHAT HAS BEEN THE SITUATION AT BEN GURION UNIVERSITY OVER THE LAST YEAR?
There’s an assault on Israeli academia in general. It involves an alliance between forces such as IsraCampus and Israel Academic Monitor on the one hand, who try to convince donors to stop giving money to universities that harbor leftists, and Im Tirzu, which tries to mobilize government Ministers and Members of Knesset to pressure the top university executives to discipline recalcitrant academics. There’s an alliance between elements in civil society, a handful of donors, and the government to stifle academic freedom and criticism of Israeli policy. The phenomenon is not only in the academic sphere…it also includes, for example, the attacks on the human rights organizations in Israel.
As I understand it, the assault has a twofold objective. The idea is to prevent the flow of information from Israel abroad, and because both academics and the Israeli human rights community have strong networks outside of Israel they are the one’s currently targeted. Simultaneously, there is an attempt to stifle internal debate, by reducing the limiting discussions about policies that lead to social wrongs and more violence and aggression.
HAVE THEY SUCCEEDED?
To a certain extent. We are seeing a totally new phenomenon in Israeli academia: students sitting in class, filming the classes and then passing information on to the monitor groups and the media. The recordings are almost always edited, so the information doesn’t reflect what really went on in class.
Such students consider themselves to be class monitors , rather than people who have come to the university in order to study, broaden their horizon and expand their knowledge…not unlike the McCarthy era in the US, some Israeli student see themselves as agents of the state, as spies.
DO YOU MEAN THEY’RE NOT COMING TO CLASS TRULY TO LEARN, BUT RATHER TO GET AFFIRMATION FOR THEIR OPINIONS?
Some are open-minded and some are less so…We are blessed with excellent students; I think the student quaspy is still a small minority. But they definitely exist.
Another issue is foreign donors. Donations are a relatively small percentage of the budget, often 10% or less. Yet the donors wield immense influence…The monitors send information to donors in the US or England and a handful of these donors send letters to university administrations pressuring them to stifle academic freedom.
So there are attacks from Knesset and from foreign donors, and the mechanism of academic monitors feeds both.
WHAT ABOUT ISRAELI DONORS?
There are very few. But I believe they would be less influenced, because the sphere of legitimate discourse is still much broader inside Israel,when it comes to criticizing government policy.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT OF THOSE CIVIL SOCIETY CAMPAIGNS?
It’s hard to judge in the short term, but I believe we’ll see that they’ve succeeded a great deal in the long term.
Up to now, they haven’t managed to get anyone fired from the universities, because we still have a tenure system. But they’ve created gatekeepers. It’s becoming increasingly impossible to hire people who are critical of the Israeli government, or who have signed a [critical] petition…If [potential candidates] know this in advance, they will stop expressing their opinions and if they do decide to speak out, it will be more difficult for them to get hired…Not only the IsraCampus monitors but also politicians, the media and university administrators now agree that it’s OK for students to film professors in class and to monitor what petitions they sign…That’s a great success for those movements.
It’s extremely disturbing, because the student doesn’t understand his or her role in the university, and sees him or herself as an uncritical agent of the state… Ultimately the criticism is internalized, and many professors think twice or fear to speak their opinions.
The right turns the whole notion of academic freedom on its head – they say that people like me are the ones who stifle free speech. I find the implication that we control the discourse in Israel to be ludicrous. All one needs to do is turn on the television or read a newspaper. People who think like me are on the margins and their views are rarely heard in the mainstream media.
WHAT ABOUT THE FREQUENT ACCUSATION OF GROUPS SUCH AS IM TIRTZU, THAT RIGHT WING POLITICAL OPINIONS AREN’T ACCEPTED OR ARE PENALIZED?
The two last editors of Ben Gurion’s Department of Politics and Government student newspaper were [involved with] ImTirzu. The people who protested against the human rights conference were members of our department. I’m proud they feel comfortable doing this, knowing they won’t be penalized. [The idea that their opinions are stifled] is a lie that certain activists are disseminating to the press …The Department and Ben Gurion University has proven itself open to a plethora of viewpoints.
But those who assault academic freedom don’t really want to debate, they want to attack. They don’t want to appear at our conferences – we invited people who represent the other side and they declined to come…Knesset members, donors and protesters demanded that our human rights conference will be “balanced” by including people who are against human rights. The whole notion of “balanced” is now being used as a weapon against the left. If there’s a conference on Darwin we do not need to invite creationists. For a Holocaust conference we should not be inviting Holocaust deniers – although one could claim that in the name of balance we would have to. Why, one might ask, should we invite people who are against human rights? We need to ask ourselves in which countries are HR conferences criticized? Iran, China, Syria..Are these the countries we want to follow?
The radical right wants to create a situation whereby only its views heard. The recent request to suspend me from teaching required courses is extremely telling. [A few weeks ago, Kadima MK Otniel Schneller wrote to Alex Miller (Israel Beitenu), Chair of the Knesset’s Education, Culture and Sports Committee, demanding that “at the very least, Gordon be prevented from teaching required courses that would force students to hear his defamatory views.”] (Hebrew)
HOW HAVE OTHER UNIVERSITIES IN ISRAEL REACTED?
Professors have coordinated to sign petitions [against such attacks], and there have been some discussions. But there isn’t really any organized, strategic or concerted attempt to deal with the phenomenon.
WHY IS THIS HAPPENING NOW?
Universities are not islands, they are part of Israeli society, and the attack on academic freedom merely reflects the more general attack on liberal values. The attacks on human rights organizations, the fact that the Education Minister wants to erase democracy and citizenship studies from the curricula and replace it with Zionism and Judaism and the spate of racist and anti-democratic legislation going on in the Knesset, as well as the recent poll of youth attitudes, are all part of the same trend in Israeli society.
DO YOU FEAR FOR THE FUTURE OF ISRAELI DEMOCRACY?
We don’t need to imagine a dark future, we’re already there. Democracy is severely curtailed, we’re on a dark path, and unless something radical changes, unless a miracle happens, I think that within not so many years, the last remnants of Israeli democracy might be lost. The pattern may still change, but if the youth polls are correct, Knesset legislation in the future will be even worse. Democracy will be destroyed.
WHAT SHOULD ACADEMICS DO ABOUT THIS?
I’m not sure it’s the role of academics to change society. People should speak out in support of democracy and criticize undemocratic elements, but not necessarily through academia. Civil society movements should lead… academics are not only academics, they are also something else, they are also members of civil society. And as members of civil society, academics need to struggle for social justice, locally and nationally.
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITY IN SOCIETY?
I think it has three major roles. One is the search for truth and knowledge. The second is to teach student how to think critically. The third role is to educate the students to be good citizens. Our role is not to try to convince students of our views; when we do that we become didactic, rather than encouraging critical thinking we encourage dogma. We want them to be independent thinkers; not to tell them what to think.
*Proper disclosure: I teach as an adjunct faculty member in the Politics of Conflict program at the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University).
4 comments for ”Academic Freedom Under Attack? Interview with Prof. Neve Gordon“
1. Louis Frankenthaler
Tuesday,
April 19, 2011
9:29 am
What Dr. Gordon describes is part of a calculated and comprehensive effort to end dissent and to attack the dissident community, including NGOs, academics, protesters, etc. At the same time the Monitors and self anointed priests of proper thought seem to have no shame and no inhibitions when it comes to wielding economic pressure on those institutions that espouse opinions with which they disagree…
2. Michael W.
Tuesday,
April 19, 2011
10:46 am
I agree, Dr. Neve Gordon is at the center of a boycott campaign orchestrated and supported by – Dr. Neve Gordon.
The Dr. Neve Gordon is an innocent victim of a vicious campaign advocated by the anti-democratic advocate Dr. Neve Gordon.
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Okay, back to Earth. I don’t understand Why Dr. Gordon is complaining that people are actually following his advice for once, the advice he wrote in the LATimes. Does it really matter who is the first to be targetted? Did he really think the boycott campaign will end when all his political and ideological opponents have been defeated by the international BDS movement? I say he won’t be. He’ll be the first. If he can selectively support aspects of the BDS movement, why can’t other Israelis do the same? As long as he works at an Israeli institution, he’s fair game for the BDS movement, a movement he supports widely.
3. directrob
Tuesday,
April 19, 2011
2:39 pm
No need to write about your opinion, the professor proofs quite capable of explaining the situation.
4. Dorothy Naor
Wednesday,
April 20, 2011
3:17 am
Given the revolutions now taking place in the Middle East, without people as Neve Gordon (and perhaps even with them)Israel is likely to become one of the few non-democratic and fascist countries in the Middle East, similar to Germany in the early and mid 1930s. But this is not unusual for tribal societies.
Dahlia Scheindlin is a leading international public opinion analyst and strategic consultant based in Tel Aviv, specializing in progressive causes, political campaigns in many countries, including new/transitional democracies and peace/ conflict research. In Israel, she works for a wide range of local and international organizations dealing with Israeli-Palestinian conflict issues, peacemaking, democracy, religious identity and internal social issues in Israeli society. Dahlia is currently writing her doctoral dissertation in comparative politics at Tel Aviv University. The focus of her research is unrecognized (de facto) states. In the fall of 2010 she will begin teaching at Ben Gurion University. Dahlia writes a monthly column for the Jerusalem Report magazine and is a regular media commentator and guest lecturer.
In the aftermath of Israel’s 2008-2009 intervention into the Gaza Strip, Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, led a vigorous campaign to stymie an independent U.N. investigation into possible war crimes, while using the prospect of such a probe as leverage to pressure Israel to participate in a U.S.-backed Middle East peace process, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables provided by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
The documents provide a rare glimpse behind the scenes at the U.N. as American diplomats sought to shield Israel’s military from outside scrutiny of its conduct during Operation Cast Lead. Their release comes as the issue is back on the front pages of Israel’s newspapers, following the surprise recent announcement by Richard Goldstone — an eminent South African jurist who led an investigation commissioned by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council — in a Washington Post op-ed that his team had unfairly accused Israel of deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians.
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The new documents, though consistent with public U.S. statements at the time opposing a U.N. investigation into Israeli military operations, reveal in extraordinary detail how America wields its power behind closed doors at the United Nations. They also demonstrate how the United States and Israel were granted privileged access to highly sensitive internal U.N. deliberations on an “independent” U.N. board of inquiry into the Gaza war, raising questions about the independence of the process.
In one pointed cable, Rice repeatedly prodded U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to block a recommendation of the board of inquiry to carry out a sweeping inquiry into alleged war crimes by Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants. In another cable, Rice issued a veiled warning to the president of the International Criminal Court, Sang-Hyun Song, that an investigation into alleged Israeli crimes could damage its standing with the United States at a time when the new administration was moving closer to the tribunal. “How the ICC handles issues concerning the Goldstone Report will be perceived by many in the US as a test for the ICC, as this is a very sensitive matter,” she told him, according to a Nov. 3, 2009, cable from the U.S. mission to the United Nations.
Rice, meanwhile, assured Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman during an Oct. 21, 2009, meeting in Tel Aviv that the United States had done its utmost to “blunt the effects of the Goldstone report” and that she was confident she could “build a blocking coalition” to prevent any push for a probe by the Security Council, according to an Oct. 27, 2009 cable.
Israel launched a three-week-long offensive into Gaza in late 2008 in an effort to prevent Hamas and other Palestinian militants from firing rockets at Israeli towns. The Israel Defense Forces killed as many as 1,400 Palestinians. Thirteen Israel soldiers were also killed during Operation Cast Lead, and a number of U.N. facilities faced repeated attacks. The military campaign raised calls at the U.N. for an investigation into reports of war crimes.
In response, Ban commissioned a top U.N. troubleshooter, Ian Martin, to set up an independent U.N. board of inquiry into nine incidents in which the Israeli Defense Forces had allegedly fired on U.N. personnel or facilities. The U.N. probe — which established Israeli wrongdoing in seven of the nine cases — was the first outside investigation into the war, with a mandate to probe deaths, injuries, and damage caused at U.N. locations.
The board’s 184-page report has never been made public, but a 28-page summary released on May 5 concluded that Israel had shown “reckless disregard for the lives and safety” of civilians in the operation, citing one particularly troubling incident in which it struck a U.N.-run elementary school, killing three young men seeking shelter from the fighting. Israel denounced the findings as “tendentious, patently biased,” saying that an Israeli military inquiry had proved beyond a doubt that Israel had not intentionally attacked civilians.
But the most controversial part of the probe involved recommendations by Martin that the U.N. conduct a far-reaching investigation into violations of international humanitarian law by Israeli forces, Hamas, and other Palestinian militants. On May 4, 2009, the day before Martin’s findings were presented to the media, Rice caught wind of the recommendations and phoned Ban to complain that the inquiry had gone beyond the scope of its mandate by recommending a sweeping investigation.
“Given that those recommendations were outside the scope of the Board’s terms of reference, she asked that those two recommendations not be included in the summary of the report that would be transmitted to the membership,” according to an account contained in the May 4 cable. Ban initially resisted. “The Secretary-General said he was constrained in what he could do since the Board of Inquiry is independent; it was their report and recommendations and he could not alter them, he said,” according to the cable.
But Rice persisted, insisting in a subsequent call that Ban should at least “make clear in his cover letter when he transmits the summary to the Security Council that those recommendations exceeded the scope of the terms of reference and no further action is needed.” Ban offered no initial promise. She subsequently drove the point home again, underlining the “importance of having a strong cover letter that made clear that no further action was needed and would close out this issue.”
Ban began to relent, assuring Rice that “his staff was working with an Israeli delegation on the text of the cover letter.”
After completing the cover letter, Ban phoned back Rice to report that he believed “they had arrived at a satisfactory cover letter. Rice thanked the Secretary-General for his exceptional efforts on such a sensitive issue.”
At the following day’s news conference, Ban flat-out rejected Martin’s recommendation for an investigation. While underscoring the board’s independent nature, he made it clear that “it is not my intention to establish any further inquiry.” Although he acknowledged publicly that he had consulted with Israel on the findings, he did not say it had been involved in the preparation of the cover letter killing off the call for an investigation. Instead, he only made a request to the Israelis to pay the U.N. more than $11 million in financial compensation for the damage done to U.N. facilities.
When contacted about the cable by Turtle Bay, a U.N. spokesman, Farhan Haq, declined to comment on its contents, noting only that the original investigation was designed only to resolve a dispute with Israel over the damage done to its facilities and seek restitution.
But the issue was far from over. The U.N. Human Rights Council, which the United States has long criticized for singling out Israel for censure, had already established its own commission headed by Goldstone. Goldstone agreed to take on the assignment after he revised the terms of reference to allow for investigation into both Israel and Hamas. The Goldstone investigation coincided with U.S. efforts to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process. Israel was livid over the development, warning that it could undermine peace prospects.
In a Sept. 16 meeting with Rice, Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, called the Goldstone Report, which had been released the day before, “outrageous,” according to a diplomatic cable, adding that it would give Hamas a “free pass” to smuggle weapons into Gaza. Rice agreed, calling the report deeply flawed and biased. But she also saw its release as an opportunity to convince Israel to pursue a U.S.-backed peace process. She asked Ayalon to “help me help you” by embracing the peace process and highlighting Israel’s capacity to hold its own troops accountable for possible misconduct. She underscored that the Goldstone Report could be more easily managed if there was positive progress on the peace process, according to the cable. She also advised Israel that it “would be helpful” if it would emphasize its own judicial process and investigations” into the matter.
Rice reinforced that position a month later in a meeting with Lieberman, but the foreign minister was skeptical about the prospects for peace in the Middle East. “Israel and the United States had a responsibility not to foster illusions. A comprehensive peace was impossible,” said Lieberman, who “cited Cyprus as an example that Israel might emulate, claiming that no comprehensive solution was possible, but security, stability and prosperity were.”
The release of the cables comes as Rice is very publicly sticking with her position taking on the Goldstone Report. “The United States was very, very plain at the time and every day since that the Goldstone report was deeply flawed, and we objected to its findings and conclusions,” Rice told the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week. “We didn’t see any evidence at the time that the Israeli government had intentionally targeted civilians or intentionally committed war crimes.”
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3. Haaretz,
April 20, 2011
Itamar murders don’t justify stripping Palestinians’ rights
Our law and order authorities do not protect the Palestinian villages from the thugs who ‘exact a price’ from Palestinians in revenge for the razing of an unauthorized settlers’ hut by authorities. How can we expect them to protect the Palestinians against the avengers of the murder of the Fogel family?
The Israeli settlement enterprise does not need the murder of Jewish families in order to strip Palestinian families of their land and endanger the future of both peoples. But when such a murder “falls into its hands,” the settlement enterprise knows how to make the most out of it, by building new neighborhoods and outposts, blaming Palestinian nature and education, and dropping biblical terms like “bitter enemies” and “Amalek.”
The history of white settlement in other peoples’ countries is full of sickening murders carried out by individuals who belonged to the indigenous peoples or by African slaves. These actions did not prevent the systematic expulsion and near extinction of the original inhabitants. It is not acts of murder that brought an end to slavery or apartheid. At the same time, abominable murders in Algeria did not make French colonialism, or any other colonialism, legitimate.
At the time, the whites attributed the murders to the nature of the savages, their inborn viciousness and their lowly race. The takeover and murderous enslavement were regarded as a divine and courageous mission and as a means of preserving law and order. Now, decades or centuries later, many recognize the brutality that characterized the settlement enterprise of their forefathers.
The attempt to guess what will be in 150 years is best left to soothsayers. We are interested in today and tomorrow. And today we must take seriously the words of the former chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, Brig. Gen. Avichai Ronski, one of the founders of Itamar. Speaking in an interview with the Walla news website, even before the release of the names of the suspects in the murder of the Fogel family, Ronski said: “A village like this, like Awarta, from which the murderers of the Fogel family and of the Shebo family emerged, must suffer as a village. A situation must be created whereby the inhabitants prevent anyone in this village from harming Jews. Yes, it is collective punishment. They must not be allowed to sleep at night, they must not be allowed to go to work, they must not be allowed to drive their cars. There are many ways.”
Not a single word about the two murderers who came from Itamar or about the Authorities of Law and Order which excelled at not finding the murderers of two other Palestinian farmers who had been shot to death near Itamar.
Even before the suspects were caught, the soldiers punished Awarta collectively. After all, in the jargon of Israeli street judgments, a Palestinian is convicted even before he becomes a suspect.
The gag order on the investigation of the murder did not allow us to write what the army did in the village during the past month. But why, in order to collect fingerprints or DNA samples, did soldiers have to break washing machines, refrigerators, televisions and toys? Why should bags of rice, sugar and bottles of oil be emptied on the floor?
But for our former chief military rabbi this is not enough. He is demanding more. Will his former colleagues, still in uniform, not follow orders? Will his spiritual pupils not translate his words into deeds? And whoever protests will be accused of condoning the slaughter of infants.
But even without murder, the Palestinian villages suffer, as do the cities and towns, at the hands of the settlers and the Israeli authorities. There is abuse by individuals and structural and institutional abuse. All are exacting revenge on the Palestinians because this is their land. The individuals are taking over olive groves and water springs, and they expel people from their homes. The authorities are prohibiting construction and planting, confiscating land by the force of decrees, destroying houses and expelling. The water sources have been taken over long time ago. And everything is immersed in a mikveh of court rulings.
Our law and order authorities do not protect the Palestinian villages from the thugs who “exact a price” from Palestinians in revenge for the razing of an unauthorized settlers’ hut by authorities. How can we expect them to protect the Palestinians against the avengers of the murder of the Fogel family? The settlers are sent there by the state. How can we expect the state to prevent them from continuing to do what they have been sent to do? To plunder, abuse and sabotage the future for all of us.
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4. Ynet,
April 20, 2011
Gaza fishermen protest (Archive) Photo: AFP
Pro-Palestinians sail to ‘document IDF aggression’
Foreign activists onboard ‘Oliva’ to escort Palestinian fishermen along Gaza coast, record any international law violations. IDF says will not allow blockade’s breache
A yacht carrying pro-Palestinian activists sailed along the Gaza Strip coast Wednesday, escorting Palestinian fishing boats, with the intention of “documenting Israeli aggression towards Gaza fishermen.”
The tracking boat, “Oliva,” took to sea Wednesday morning carrying activists from the Unites States, Spain, Italy and Belgium belonging to different foreign organizations. One of the organizers of the event was Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, who was killed last week in Gaza by an Al-Qaeda linked organization.
One of the activists said they do not intend to sail outside the known fishing borders, but rather to “supervise and document violations of the international law by photographing and distributing them”.
The activists added that their main concern is to make sure the Palestinian fishermen “enjoy the freedom to fish.”
“Even if the fishermen decide to cross the borders set by the Israeli navy, we’ll document the aggression,” a Belgium activist onboard the boat told Ynet.
Only documenting? (Archive Photo: AFP)
The activist added that the Palestinian fishermen are obedient and do not wish to stir up any provocation.
The Oliva is a 24-foot yacht carrying a flag with the slogan “CPSGAZA” (Civil Peace Service Gaza) and all of the activists onboard are dressed in white.
According to the organizers, ever since Operation Cast Lead Israel has limited the fishing area in Gaza, setting the borders only 3 miles off-shore – what they claim is a breach of the Oslo Accords.
They added that the Israeli navy forces consistently threaten to fire at Palestinian fishermen and confiscate their boats.
Full steam ahead?
Statistics presented by the organizers, which they claim to have come from the Red Cross, indicate great poverty amongst fishermen in Gaza. “Nearly 90% of the fishermen in Gaza are considered poor or have a monthly income of $100 to $190, or are considered very poor, earning less than $100 per month – this compared to only 50% in 2008,” an activist said.
“In a few days we’ll begin our full operation, with every boat carrying at least two activists per sail,” the Belgium activist informed Ynet. “You’re welcome to read up on our mission on our website and you’re invited to show your support. Entering Gaza to join us might be a little hard though.”
An IDF official stated that “the navy will not permit any sea-craft from Gaza Strip to violate the blockade and will operate according to the political echelon’s decision.” Other officials added that the IDF does not intend to act violently or aggressively in any way, but only to make the laws clear.
JERUSALEM — Dozens of Israel’s most honored intellectuals and artists have signed a declaration endorsing a Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 borders and asserting that an end to Israel’s occupation “will liberate the two peoples and open the way to a lasting peace.”
The signers plan to announce their position on Thursday from the same spot in Tel Aviv where the Jewish state declared its independence in the spring of 1948. The page-long declaration is expected to be read there by Hanna Maron, one of the country’s best-known actresses and a winner of the Israel Prize, the country’s most prestigious award, which is granted yearly on Independence Day.
Of the more than 60 who had signed the declaration by Tuesday, about 20 were winners of the Israel Prize and a number of others had been awarded the Emet Prize, given by the prime minister for excellence in science, art and culture. Signatures were still being collected on Tuesday.
“The land of Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people where its identity was shaped,” the statement begins. “The land of Palestine is the birthplace of the Palestinian people where its identity was formed.” It goes on to say that now is the time to live up to the commitment expressed by Israel’s founders in their Declaration of Independence to “extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness.”
Yaron Ezrahi, a political theorist at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem and one of the signers, said the group chose this week to issue its declaration because it was Passover, which marks the freedom of the Jewish people from slavery.
“We don’t want to pass over the Palestinian people,” Mr. Ezrahi said. “This is a holiday of freedom and independence.” He added that given the struggle for freedom across the Arab world today and the Palestinians’ plans to seek international recognition of their statehood by September, it was important for Israeli voices to be added to the call.
Two weeks ago, another group of several dozen prominent Israelis, many of them from the fields of security and business, issued what they called the Israeli Peace Initiative, a more detailed but somewhat similar plan for a two-state solution. Both groups say they are upset by their government’s policies in this regard, which they consider insufficient.
The Palestinian leadership says that unless Israel ends the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it will not return to negotiations with it and will instead seek international recognition of Palestinian statehood by September at the United Nations.
The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the real problem is that the Palestinians refuse to acknowledge that Israel is a Jewish state. Official recognition of that, it says, would revive negotiations, although there are also clear differences over land and Israel’s security needs.
Mr. Netanyahu is expected to announce by the end of May his proposal for moving forward with talks on a two-state solution.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 20, 2011
An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect day for the planned announcement of an endorsement of a Palestinian state by Israeli intellectuals and artists. It is Thursday, not Wednesday.
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6. Al Jazeera,
April 20, 2011
Goldstone breathes new life into Gaza report
The Goldstone Report fails to justly present the facts about Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.
Critics say the Goldstone Report’s emphasis on Hamas violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza unfairly compares war crimes by Palestinians to those of Israel [EPA]
Ever since it first struck the raw nerve of Israeli political consciousness, I thought it misleading to associate the Goldstone Report so exclusively with its chair, Judge Richard Goldstone. After all, despite his deserved prominence as an international jurist, he was the least substantively qualified of the four members of the mission.
Part of the intensely hostile Israeli reaction undoubtedly had to do with the sense that Goldstone – a devoted Zionist – had been guilty of betrayal. Perhaps even the betrayal of ‘a blood libel,’ because he seemed to be elevating his fidelity to the ‘law’ above tribal loyalties; he should never have been mixed up with such a suspect entity as the UN Human Rights Council in the first place.
What should be observed – and what stands out over time – is the degree of importance that even the extremist Israeli leadership attaches to avoiding stains on its reputation as a law-abiding political actor. This seems true even when the assessing organisation is the UN Human Rights Council, which Israel, as well as the US government, never misses a chance to denounce and defame.
Implicit in their fury is a silent acknowledgement that the UN is a major site of struggle in the ongoing war of legitimacy being fought against Palestinian claims of self-determination.
This assessment was embarrassingly confirmed by the US senate’s reaction to the Goldstone retreat. The senate unanimously passed a resolution on April 14 calling on the UN “to reflect the author’s repudiation of the Goldstone report’s central findings, rescind the report, and reconsider further council actions with respect to its findings.” It also called on the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, “to do all in his power to redress the damage to Israel’s reputation.”
This ill-informed and inflammatory wording is quite extraordinary, starting with the reference to Goldstone as ‘the author’ of the report, thereby overlooking the reality that it was a joint effort. His input was probably the smallest, and the other authors have reaffirmed their support for the entire report.
What is revealed by this senate initiative is the degree of partisanship now present in official Washington, which should – at the very least – lead the Palestinian Authority to seek venues for future negotiations with Israel other than those provided by the US government.
It is probably true that, if Goldstone had not been so vilified for his association with the report, it would have experienced the same fate as thousands of other well-documented UN reports on controversial issues. By lending his name to the fact-finding mission and its outcome, Goldstone became the lightning rod – and the target of vicious attacks.
But he was also heralded at the time by fair-minded persons around the world for his integrity in the face of such hostile fire. In this regard, Goldstone became the sacrificial scarecrow; he failed in his appointed role of keeping the birds of prey at a safe distance.
Studies and Israel’s premeditation
There is a double irony present: Goldstone was partly selected to head this sensitive undertaking because, as a known supporter of Israel, he would make it harder for Israel to complain about bias. Yet – precisely because of the difficulty Goldstone’s credibility posed for Israel’s propaganda machine – the level of attack on him reached hysterical heights, and exerted such intense pressure that he eventually retreated.
Two other aspects of the situation are often neglected or misstated. First of all, several other respected international studies had already confirmed most of the conclusions reached before the Goldstone Report was released in September 2009. Other prior reports highlighting the international law issues were published by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Al Haq, and especially the comprehensive report of an earlier detailed and authoritative fact-finding team. The team was composed of internationally respected international law experts under the leadership of John Dugard, a leading South African jurist and former UN special rapporteur for Occupied Palestine; its work was carried out on behalf of the Arab League.
Against such a background, in a substantive sense, the Goldstone Report did not say anything that had not already been established by a community of NGOs, journalists, UN humanitarian workers and civilians who were on the scene during the attacks. Such an overwhelming and informed consensus is what makes mockery of the effort by the US state department and the senate to repudiate the report.
The second element that should be kept in mind, but is rarely ever acknowledged even by those who stand 100 per cent behind the report, is that it was not – as the media claimed – unduly critical of Israel. On the contrary, in my view, the report was one-sided – but to the benefit of Israel.
Let me mention several evidences of leaning toward Israel: the report proceeds on the basis of Israel’s right to self-defense. It does not bother to decide whether, in a situation of continuing occupation, a claim of self-defense is available under international humanitarian law. Furthermore, the report did not examine whether the factual conditions prior to the attacks supported even modest Israeli security claims – considering that a truce had been working until Israel provocatively broke it on November 4, 2008 by conducting a lethal attack within Gaza.
Beyond this, the claimed security justification seemed artificially fashioned to serve as a rationalisation for an aggressive and unlawful all-out military assault against Gaza. The assault sought to destroy Hamas; induce the return of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit; and punish Gazans for voting for Hamas back in 2006.
In addition, there was evidence that the Israeli army had been planning Operation Cast Lead for six months prior to launching the attack on December 27, 2008. There were a variety of justifications aside from securing southern Israel: striking at Gaza before Obama took office; influencing – in Kadima’s favor – the Israeli domestic elections that were about to take place; restoring confidence in the army after its failures in the Lebanon war of 2006; and sending a message to Iran that Israel would not hesitate to use overwhelming force whenever its interests dictated.
Mortalities and scars of war
The Goldstone Report did appropriately emphasise the severe Israeli departures from the law of war by attacking with disproportionate and indiscriminate force against a crowded, mainly urbanised society. But it failed to emphasise a distinctive feature of the attacks: that Israel denied the civilian population of Gaza the option to leave the war zone and become refugees, at least temporarily.
To keep civilians – especially children, the elderly, and the disabled – so confined leaves permanent psychic wounds, as has been reported by many post-attack studies and residents of Gaza. Aside from the psychiatric casualty, the casualty figures that count the dead and the wounded must also be considered: part of the public horror of Operation Cast Lead resulted from the 100:1 ratio of war dead, a measure which further casts light on the defenseless of the Gazan population. At the same time, it dramatically understated the real losses to the Palestinians.
If the psychologically damaged are added to the Palestinian total and the friendly-fire victims are subtracted from the Israeli side, reducing their total deaths from thirteen to six or seven, the ratio becomes more grotesquely one-sided.
In view of this one-sidedness, together with Israel’s initiation of the attacks and its role as the occupying power, the report gave excessive emphasis to Hamas violations of international humanitarian law, which should have been noted, but not treated (as was the case) as virtually symmetrical with those of Israel.
As has been pointed out in the media, including by Goldstone, his retraction was limited to the admittedly important issue of whether Israel intentionally targeted civilians as a matter of policy. Even this limited retraction is unconvincing because it rests so heavily on Israel’s self-investigations, which the post-Goldstone UN fact-finding mission jointly headed by an American judge, Mary McGowan Davis and the Swedish judge, Lennart Aspergen, found in their recent report failed to meet international standards. As mentioned previously, the retraction by Goldstone was also seriously undermined by the joint statement of the three other members of the Goldstone mission who publically reaffirmed the report in its totality.
Only half satirically, I would think that the Goldstone Report might be better rechristened now as the Chinkin Report or blandly become known as the ‘Report on Israeli and Hamas War Crimes during Operation Cast Lead.’
Whatever the name, the main allegations have been confirmed over and over again, and it is now up to the governments making up the UN General Assembly and Security Council to show the world whether international criminal accountability and the International Criminal Court is exclusively reserved for sub-Saharan African wrongdoing!
Goldstone defined
Many have asked whether the Goldstone retraction will doom the future of the report. In my view, rather than performing a funeral rite, Goldstone miscalculated; he has given the report a second life. It may still languish in the UN system, thanks to the geopolitical leverage being exerted by the United States to ensure that Israeli impunity is safeguarded once more. But this new controversy surrounding the report has provided civil society with renewed energy to push harder on the legitimacy agenda which is animating the growing Palestinian solidarity movement.
Never before has the Goldstone Report received such affirming attention even from American mainstream sources. Astonishingly, even the New York Times columnist Roger Cohen chided Goldstone for trying belatedly to distance himself from the report, going so far as to suggest that he is responsible for a new verb: ‘to Goldstone’.
“Its meaning: to make a finding, and then partially retract it for uncertain motive.” Cohen’s formal definition – “to ‘Goldstone’: (Colloq.) To sow confusion, hide a secret, create havoc.”
History has funny ways of reversing expectations. Just as most of the world was ready to forget the allegations against Israel from the ghastly 2008-09 attacks on Gaza and move on, Richard Goldstone inadvertently wakes us all up to a remembrance of those morbid events, and in the process, does irreparable damage to his own reputation.
It is up to persons of conscience to seize this opportunity, and press hard for a more even handed approach to the application of the rule of law in world politics. There is much righteous talk these days at the UN and elsewhere about the ‘responsibility to protect,’ contending that the Qaddafi threats directed at Libyan civilians justified a No Fly Zone and a full-fledged military intervention from the air undertaken with UN blessings and NATO bombs and missiles. But, not even a whisper of support was provided for the still beleaguered people of Gaza with a No Fly Zone, despite a debilitating unlawful blockade that has lasted almost four years – a severe form of collective punishment that directly violates Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
This blockade continues to block the entry of building materials needed in Gaza to recover from the devastation caused more than two years ago.
Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008).
He is currently serving his third year of a six year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.
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. Press release
20 April 2011
Hundreds Celebrated Popular Struggle at the opening of the 6th Bil’in Conference Dozens of diplomats and senior figures from across the Palestinian political spectrum joined hundreds of activists in the opening of the 6th International Bil’in Conference on Popular Resistance. Palestinian PM, Salam Fayyad, called for the international community to promote Palestinian self determination.
The 6th International Bil’in Conference on Popular Resistance opened today in a festive opening session participated by Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, the recently released protest organizer, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, Abbas Zackie of behalf of the PLO, and former Vice President of the European Parliament, Luisa Morgantini.
For more details: Luca Morales +972-595-9110332
During the opening session, Palestinian Prim Minister Fayyad called on the international community to promote Palestinian self determination, saying that “The international community must be committed to promoting a Palestinian state withing the 1967 borders and supporting the planned deceleration of independence coming September”. He also called on the international ommunity to protect and safeguard the Palestinian nonviolent resistance and specifically referred to the recent arrests of Bassem and Naji Tamimi of the Nabi Saleh popular committee.
More than 20 diplomats from around the world attended the opening, including Christian Berger, representative of the European commission and the Consul Generals of Britain, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Romania, Poland and Austria. The US, France, Sweden, Germany, the Czeck Republic, Hungary and Ireland have also sent lower level diplomatic representation.
In a live video feed from the Gaza Port, Jaber Wishah of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, announced the launching the a naval peace team that will accompany Gazan fishermen and report on human rights violations as part of the Civil Peace Service Mission – Gaza. The project is supported by more than 50 international and local organizations, including the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee.
The openinig was followed by a panel on the needs and strategies of the Palestinian popular struggle, including the role of women and the influences of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions.
See here for a complete schedule of the conference.
