Dorothy Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem

Chair of West Midland PSC

Dear Friends,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nite,

Dorothy

——————————————–

 

Thursday, May 5 2011

Independent commentary from Israel & the Palestinian territories

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

Wednesday, May 4 2011|Dimi Reider

New Israeli ID card numbers to begin at 6 million

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

Three thoughts that come to mind:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. 

Forwarded by Yael Korin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

---

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3.

Gisha  Thursday, May 5, 2011

לקריאת העדכון בשפה העברית

A window of opportunity for Israel

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

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

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

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

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

Goods

Needs Vs. Supply

Building Materials

Needs Vs. Supply

חלון ההזדמנות של ישראל

יום חמישי, 5 במאי 2011

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

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

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

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

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

4.  Haaretz Editorial Thursday, May 05, 2011

Latest update 23:31 04.05.11

Palestinian unity is an opportunity, not a threat

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

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

Haaretz Editorial

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Forwarded by David

—– Original Message —–

From: Michael Munk

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

Subject: Israeli Lobby fears, kills Seattle billboard

Error! Filename not specified.

Seattle billboards on Israel canceled after controversy

By VANESSA HO

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 28, 2011

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

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

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

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

7. 
From CPT Hebron cptheb@palnet.com

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

by Kathleen Kern

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8.  Haaretz Thursday, May 05, 2011

Latest update 12:20 04.05.11

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

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

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

By Jack Khoury and Jonathan Lis

Tags: Israel news

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9.  [Forwarded by David McReynolds from Scott Kennedy]

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

David

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

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

Anti-sharia laws stir concerns that halachah could be next

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

By Ron Kampeas · April 28, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scholars of Islam say such characterizations of sharia are distorted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ron Kampeas is JTA’s Washington bureau chief.

More articles by this author »