6 items below, which I haven’t time to introduce this evening. Am on my way out the door in 10 minutes. However, I think that you will find them interesting, especially the one about Israel setting dogs on Palestinians who want to look for work, even though they have not been given permits that allow them in. Whatever else, please don’t miss reading the final item. It gives me hope. We sorely need a comparable movement of young people in Israel who will say “enough!” and demand justice for the Palestinians so that all peoples here can enjoy security and peace. Down with demography! Up with democracy!
Enjoy,
Dorothy
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1. Haaretz,
May 12, 2011
Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, or, democratic Israel at work
While we are still desperately concealing, denying and repressing our major ethnic cleansing of 1948 – over 600,000 refugees, some who fled for fear of the Israel Defense Forces and its predecessors, some who were expelled by force – it turns out that 1948 never ended, that its spirit is still with us.
It happened on the day after Independence Day, when Israel was immersed in praise of itself and its democracy almost ad nauseam, and on the eve of (virtually outlawed ) Nakba Day, when the Palestinian people mark the “catastrophe” – the anniversary of the creation of Israel. My colleague Akiva Eldar published what we have always known but for which we lacked the shocking figures he revealed: By the time of the Oslo Accords, Israel had revoked the residency of 140,000 Palestinians from the West Bank. In other words, 14 percent of West Bank residents who dared to go abroad had their right to return to Israel and live here denied forever. In other words, they were expelled from their land and their homes. In other words: ethnic cleansing.
While we are still desperately concealing, denying and repressing our major ethnic cleansing of 1948 – over 600,000 refugees, some who fled for fear of the Israel Defense Forces and its predecessors, some who were expelled by force – it turns out that 1948 never ended, that its spirit is still with us. Also with us is the goal of trying to cleanse this land of its Arab inhabitants as much as possible, and even a bit more. After all, that’s the most covert and desired solution: the Land of Israel for the Jews, for them alone. A few people dared to say it outright – Rabbi Meir Kahane, Minister Rehavam Ze’evi and their disciples, who deserve a certain amount of praise for their integrity. Many aspire to do the same thing without admitting it.
The revelation of the policy of denying residency has proved that this secret dream is in effect the establishment’s secret dream. There one doesn’t talk about transfer, heaven forfend; nobody would think of calling it cleansing. They don’t load Arabs onto trucks as they once did, including after the Six-Day War, and they don’t shoot at them to chase them away – all politically incorrect methods in the new world. But in effect that’s the goal.
Some people think it’s enough if we make the lives of the Palestinians in the territories miserable to get them to leave, and many have in fact left. An Israeli success: According to the Civil Administration, about a quarter of a million Palestinians voluntarily left the West Bank in the bloody years 2000-2007. But that’s not enough, so various and sundry administrative means were added to make the dream come true.
Anyone who says “it’s not apartheid” is invited to reply: Why is an Israeli allowed to leave his country for the rest of his life, and nobody suggests that his citizenship be revoked, while a Palestinian, a native son, is not allowed to do so? Why is an Israeli allowed to marry a foreigner and receive a residency permit for her, while a Palestinian is not allowed to marry his former neighbor who lives in Jordan? Isn’t that apartheid? Over the years I have documented endless pitiful tragedies of families that were torn apart, whose sons and daughters were not permitted to live in the West Bank or Gaza due to draconian rules – for Palestinians only.
Take Dalal Rasras, for example, a toddler with cerebral palsy from Beit Omar, who was recently separated from her mother for months only because her mother was born in Rafah. Only after her case was publicized did Israel let the mother return to her daughter “beyond the letter of the law” – the cruel letter of the law that does not permit residents of Gaza to live in the West Bank, even if they have made their homes there.
The cry of the dispossessed has now been translated into numbers: 140,000, only until the Oslo Accords. Students who went to study at foreign universities, businessmen who tried their luck abroad, scientists who went abroad for professional training, native Jerusalemites who dared to move to the West Bank temporarily – they all met the same fate. All of them were taken by the wind and expelled by Israel. They couldn’t return.
Most amazing of all is the reaction of those responsible for the policy of ethnic cleansing. They didn’t know. Maj. Gen. (res. ) Danny Rothschild, formerly the chief military governor with the euphemistic title “coordinator of government activities in the territories,” said he heard about the procedure for the first time from Haaretz. It turns out that not only is the cleansing continuing, so is the denial. Every Palestinian child knows, and only the general doesn’t. Even today there are still 130,000 Palestinians registered as “NLR,” a heartwarming IDF acronym for “no longer a resident,” as though voluntarily, another euphemism for “expelled.” And the general who is considered relatively enlightened was unaware.
This is an absolute refusal to allow the return of the refugees – something that would “destroy the State of Israel.” It’s also an absolute refusal to allow the return of the people recently expelled. By next Independence Day we’ll probably invent more expulsion regulations, and on the next holiday we’ll talk about “the only democracy.”
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2. Haaretz,
May 12, 2011
IDF confirms sets dogs on illegal Palestinian laborers
Several laborers have been injured by dog attacks; when laborers tried to file complaints with police, they were arrested on suspicion of tearing the fence.
Hundreds of Palestinian day-laborers who enter Israel without a permit have been facing a new threat recently – IDF soldiers at the separation fence are siccing dogs on them.
Since the beginning of last month, soldiers with dogs have been lying in ambush near a breach in the fence, between the Bedouin refugee village Ramadin and Kibbutz Shoval in the Negev.
Every night hundreds of West Bank Palestinians gather at this point to seek work the next day in the nearby Jewish and Bedouin communities.
Several laborers have been injured by dog attacks and some have been hospitalized for treatment. When the laborers tried to file complaints with the Kiryat Arba police, they were arrested on suspicion of tearing the fence and indictments have been filed against them.
Ala Hawarin, 22, of Dahariya, was injured in the arm and thigh when a dog attacked him as he was crossing the fence line. He went to Hebron for treatment, where the doctors told him two of his fingers would remain paralyzed. When he went to file a police complaint the following day he was arrested.
The B’Tselem human rights group has records of seven dog attacks from the last few weeks, all from the same area.
Earlier this week soldiers set dogs on dozens of Palestinians returning home at midday through the fence breach, following the closure Israel had imposed for Independence Day. A number of laborers were injured.
The IDF spokesman admitted, in response to Haaretz’s query, that soldiers were using dogs on Palestinians “taking adequate precautions to prevent unnecessary injury.”
“Every detailed complaint received by the military prosecution is examined and dealt with accordingly,” he said.
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3. Haaretz,
May 12, 2011
Palestinian official: Stalled peace talks would make intifada hard to stop
Speaking with Army Radio ahead of planned Nakba day protests across West Bank, Fatah man Abbas Zaki says the Palestinian street will act according to how hopeful it is of achieving peace.
Tags: Israel news Middle East peace Hamas Gilad Shalit
The Palestinian Authority would not be able to prevent another intifada in the face of stagnant peace talks with Israel, a senior Fatah official told Army Radio on Thursday.
The comment was made as officials in both Jerusalem and Ramallah urged that passions be kept in check during the three days of Palestinian commemoration of the Nakba – the establishment of the state of Israel regarded by Palestinians as a catastrophe.
Leaders on both sides indicated Wednesday that they did not believe that Nakba events and protests would spin out of control during the days of protest declared by Palestinians.
Speaking with Army Radio on Thursday, Abbas Zaki, a senior Fatah official and member of the Fatah delegation to reconciliation talks with Hamas, said that, faced with Mideast uprisings, the Palestinian Authority would not be able to suppress popular unrest.
“The Palestinian leadership facing a [diplomatic] impasse could not quiet the Palestinian street who had watched the achievements of other [Mideast] peoples,” Zaki said.
The Fatah official reiterated the danger of popular unrest in the West Bank faced with stalled peace talks with Israel, saying that the Palestinian people would “plan their efforts according to how hopeful they are.”
The Fatah official said that an upcoming unity government with Hamas would honor any agreements between the PA and Israel, saying: “The government is Abu Mazen’s [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] government and he is committed to reaching peace with Israel and to the Israeli partner, if such a partner be found.”
With regards to future security arrangements following Hamas’ inclusion, Zaki also said that all militant groups would be dismantled of their weapons, adding that the only army would be that of the Palestinian government.
Zaki also spoke to Army Radio concerning the fate of ongoing efforts to reach a prisoner exchange deal that would secure the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit.
“We are against keeping people in prisons,” the Fatah official said, adding that “that is why we shall demand the release of all 5,800 Palestinian prisoners. We will welcome any exchange deal for Shalit since it its not right to make one person pay that price.”
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4. Haaretz,
May 12, 2011
Israel remaining calm ahead of Nakba Day protests
Top PA officials have evinced irony about the wide-scale preparations now undertaken by the IDF in advance of the days of protest, which will begin on Friday.
Hundreds of stickers were pasted on electricity poles in Ramallah on Wednesday, calling on residents to take part in Nakba parade demonstrations on Sunday. The stickers were written as though they were a letter sent from an exiled Palestinian refugee to the city of Haifa. “My beloved Haifa, I’ll be with you soon,” the stickers declared. Not surprisingly, the announcements were signed neither by Hamas nor Islamic Jihad, but rather by the PLO’s refugee department. In internal Palestinian discourse, the Palestinian Authority still stands by its hard-line ideological stance demanding a right of return for 1948 refugees.
At the same time, voices in Jerusalem and Ramallah urged that passions be kept in check during the three days of Palestinian commemoration of the Nakba – the establishment of the state of Israel regarded by Palestinians as a catastrophe. Despite the media’s inherent tendency to foster dramatic expectations, leaders on both sides do not believe that things will spin out of control during the days of protest declared by Palestinians. Top PA officials have evinced irony about the wide-scale preparations now undertaken by the IDF in advance of the days of protest, which will begin on Friday.
IDF preparations are not being undertaken on the basis of specific intelligence information. Instead, they are precautionary. In the unlikely event of demonstrations slipping out of control of Palestinian security forces, and turning into mass marches on Jewish settlements, or violent clashes at checkpoints, IDF soldiers will be deployed at key points along the West Bank, starting tomorrow.
Orders given to the security forces are clear: Soldiers are to do their utmost to refrain from firing live bullets and causing Palestinian casualties, which would possibly lead to an escalation of violence.
Meanwhile IDF officers are in constant contact with their counterparts in the Palestinian security forces. On Wednesday, coordination meetings were held among some IDF officers and PA counterparts. With regard to some possible flash points, security men from the two sides will try to work out in advance various tactical compromises, with the aim of allowing protestors to vent passion, without being dragged into direct confrontation with IDF soldiers.
Israel’s assumption that the PA will prevent a confrontation is not based entirely on what Palestinian security men are telling IDF officers. Popular protests will serve the Palestinian cause, but a slide toward violence will harm it. As things stand, the international community views the Hamas-Fatah accord with skepticism; outside observers have taken note of recent Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis, at Itamar and Jerusalem. In the build-up toward the Palestinian diplomatic maneuver at the United Nations next September, the PA needs to demonstrate control, not lack thereof.
All these comments apply to circumstances in mid-May, but not to next September. Next fall, if broad international support for a Palestinian statehood declaration is not accompanied by any changes on the ground, things will be very different. The gap between expectations and reality is likely to lead, as outgoing Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin hinted yesterday, to bitter disappointment that could explode into violence. Under such a scenario, the PA might not know how to contain the protest; in fact, it’s not at all clear that it would want to.
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5. Herald Tribune,
May 11, 2011
A Year After Israeli Raid, 2nd Flotilla to Set Sail for Gaza
Riding the ripples of the Golden Horn, the Mavi Marmara tugs at its moorings in the shipyard where it is being readied to head back into troubled waters.
A flotilla of 15 ships carrying humanitarian aid and activists from 100 countries will sail for Gaza next month, in a second attempt to break the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory, organizers announced this week.
Almost a year ago, Israeli naval commandos stormed a previous flotilla sailing to Gaza, killing nine pro-Palestinian activists on the Mavi Marmara, one of six ships in the fleet. The plan to send a new flotilla to Gaza raises the specter of a fresh confrontation between Turkey and Israel.
“Freedom Flotilla II will leave during the third week of June, with ships departing from various European ports,” a coalition of 22 nongovernmental organizations said after a meeting in Paris on Monday.
The Mavi Marmara, which was released by Israel in July, was towed back to Turkey and arrived in Istanbul to a hero’s welcome in December, after which it was taken in for repairs.
Now tied up under the Istanbul skyline for some last preparations, the ship should be seaworthy again by the end of the month, its owners said.
“The Mavi Marmara has become a symbol for the Gaza cause in the whole world,” Gulden Sonmez of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, the Turkish nongovernmental organization that owns the ship, said in an interview this week. “So we are planning to set forth again with the same ship.”
At dawn on May 31 last year, Ms. Sonmez stood on the observation deck of the Mavi Marmara, shouting orders as Israeli helicopters hovered overhead and commandos boarded the ship. Her colleague Cevdet Kiliclar, who managed the relief foundation’s Web site, was shot and killed while taking photographs “just three or four steps away from me,” she recounted.
Now Ms. Sonmez, who is on the board of the foundation, plans to embark on the Mavi Marmara once again and will be one of 150 activists making the trip.
Within 48 hours of application forms being posted on the foundation’s Web site last week, some 2,000 people had volunteered to partake in the journey, she said.
Although Israel has warned that it will continue to enforce its Gaza blockade, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation does not expect another raid on its ship, Ms. Sonmez said.
“I don’t think Israel will make the same mistake again,” she said. “I think Israel knows that it has isolated itself.”
Not everyone agrees with her.
“If the ship sails, it will be a disaster,” said Osman Bahadir Dincer, a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs at the International Strategic Research Organization in Ankara. “In this atmosphere in the Middle East, we do not need a provocation,” Mr. Dincer said by telephone this week. “This would absolutely be a provocation.”
Relations between Turkey and Israel have not yet recovered from the crisis over the last flotilla. “We are waiting for our basic demands to be met, an apology and compensation,” a senior Turkish official, who asked not to be identified, said this week.
“Since Turkey and Israel are not at war, the Israeli Defense Forces killed innocent civilian citizens of a friendly country.”
A report by the U.N. Human Rights Council found that Israeli interception of the ship on the high seas was “clearly unlawful” and that its treatment of passengers “constituted a grave violation of human rights law and international humanitarian law.”
But the report, published in September, also noted “a certain tension between the political objectives of the flotilla and its humanitarian objectives,” finding that the primary motive of the nongovernmental organizations was political.
“We hope to be able to put this behind us and we have the will to do so,” the senior Turkish official said. “But Israel should move forward as well.”
“Turkey would like to preserve its relations with Israel and once our expectations are met, we will start normalizing our relations,” he said.
For the moment, however, there is little prospect of this, said Mr. Dincer, the Middle East expert. Elections on June 12 prevent Turkey from taking a step forward, while Israel has been hampered by its volatile government coalition, Mr. Dincer added. “Both sides cannot go forward,” he said.
The flotilla crisis last year followed a series of conflicts that had soured relations between the two countries.
Turkey and Israel had long prided themselves for being the only Western-style democracies in the Middle East. But ties began to unravel after the Israeli intervention in Gaza, when the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, stormed off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2009 after an angry exchange with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres. A year later, another quarrel erupted when an Israeli official humiliated the Turkish ambassador by seating him on a lower chair and dressing him down in front of TV cameras.
These incidents are the symptoms, not the cause, of fundamental changes in the relationship between the two countries and within Turkey itself, Mr. Dincer said. “Turkey is no longer the country it was in the 1990s or the 2000s,” when relations with Israel were based on “elite relations” between the military and political leaderships, Mr. Dincer said.
“Turkey is more democratic now, and society plays a much more important role in Turkish politics,” he said, arguing that it was no longer possible to maintain bilateral relations from the top down. “Instead, we must build relations between the two societies, involving civil society and the media and nongovernmental organizations.”
Meanwhile, the Mavi Marmara must not sail, Mr. Dincer warned.
“They have to be stopped, somehow, by someone,” he said about the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, asking that the group consider Turkish national interests. Another attack at sea would fuel attempts to “isolate Turkey from the West,” Mr. Dincer argued.
The Turkish government, while at pains to distance itself from the flotilla, has made it clear that it will not intervene to bar the convoy from sailing.
Israeli allegations that Turkey is behind the flotilla do not reflect the truth, the senior Turkish official said. But in a free society, he added, nongovernmental organizations can do as they like, within legal limits.
“We believe that such initiatives as this convoy will cease only when Israel’s unlawful blockade on the Gaza Strip is lifted, as the situation in Gaza disturbs the conscience of all humanity,” the official said. “It doesn’t seem possible for Israel to reach lasting security as long as the unlawful blockade remains in place.”
Turkey has warned Israel not to attack the ship again, the official said. “Last year, we had notified Israel a multitude of times that it should avoid by all means resorting to force, and act responsibly,” he said. “We are reiterating these warnings once again today.”
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6. The Guardian,
12 May 2011
Reinventing the Palestinian struggle
Inspired by the Arab spring, a new generation of Palestinians plan to fight the occupation with mass, nonviolent protest
Fatah supporters take part in a rally celebrating the reconciliation agreement between Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas. Photograph: Ismail Zaydah/Reuters
With the world’s attention focused on the tumultuous changes gripping Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria, one may be excused for thinking that all is quiet on the Palestinian-Israeli front.
So why haven’t Palestinian youth risen up like their counterparts elsewhere in the region to demand their rights?
Well, it is not for want of trying. Inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, and following the date-based example of counterparts elsewhere in the Arab world, a new youth movement dubbed by some as the March 15 movement has emerged in Palestine.
The date refers to the day when organisers employing social media, text messaging and word of mouth managed to draw thousands of protesters on to the streets of Ramallah and other parts of the West Bank, as well as Gaza City.
However, in contrast to other popular uprisings in the region, their demands were not wholesale regime change, despite the undoubted failings of both Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, and the absence of a democratic mandate for both parties.
“Our top priority is to end the divisions within Palestinian society. This is the only way to deal with the occupation,” explained Z, one of the founders of the movement in Ramallah, who wished to conceal his identity for professional reasons.
Some of the others involved in March 15 are also reluctant to reveal their identities, partly as an expression of the decentralised and “leaderless” approach preferred by Middle Eastern protesters tired of authoritarianism, and partly to avoid popping up on the radars of security services run by the PA, Hamas or Israel.
Despite its relative success on 15 March, the movement has not managed to replicate the most successful ingredient of the protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain: constant pressure from the streets. This is partly due to the two-tiered nature of the oppression facing Palestinians, and the restrictions on their movement imposed by the occupation. “Unfortunately, we have two levels of repression in Palestine: Israeli and domestic,” says Z, who is in his early 20s.
In addition, there is the psychological barrier of widespread despair and disillusionment afflicting wide swaths of the population, which the Arab spring is just beginning to chip away at. Most Palestinians I have met since I moved to Jerusalem a few weeks ago speak enthusiastically and excitedly about the Egyptian revolution.
“The problem among Palestinians is that revolutions are nothing new, yet nothing changes or things get worse,” Z observes. “Neither uprisings nor negotiations have worked, Palestinians believe – we’re still under occupation.”
And after two intifadas separated by the Oslo peace process, the net outcome for Palestinians has been to witness the gradual vanishing of their historic homeland and the space for a future nation spliced and diced into ever smaller portions, with many of the choicest cuts going to settlers.
Nevertheless, hope is emerging, Z insists. The surprise recent reconciliation agreement signed by Fatah and Hamas, which many reckon was partly due to youth activism, as well as the rapidly changing regional realities, has been a boost.
Z told me that a new generation of Palestinians, many of whom were born around the time of the first intifada, are ready to reinvent the struggle.
Drawing lessons from the failure of the violent second intifada and the success of the largely peaceful first intifada, as well as the now-proven power of mass, nonviolent protest to instigate change in the region, this generation of upcoming leaders plan to fight the occupation with weapons of mass disobedience. “We want to employ ‘smart’ resistance,” Z says.
“A moderate, peaceful intifada is coming. Can’t say when, but it is inevitable,” he adds confidently. “We’re trying to create a snowball effect. In Egypt, it took a decade to get to this stage.”
Palestinian activists, often in collaboration with the Israeli peace movement, have been quietly laying the groundwork for nonviolent resistance in recent years, as demonstrated, for example, by the constant stream of protests against house demolitions and evictions, and the Israeli separation wall.
Being the dreamer that I am, I cannot shake the vision in my head of the joint Israeli-Palestinian activism infecting the masses, with large-scale joint action as the most effective way to end the occupation and bring about peace.
In my vision, squares in cities across Israel and Palestine would be filled with people rallying around a single goal: “The people demand an end to the occupation.” Protesters on both sides would also pitch tents at checkpoints to demand their removal and, who knows, perhaps one day have their own Berlin wall moment.
But Z doesn’t believe there is much scope for broader joint action. “We have no problems working with Jews and Israelis. We’re against racial discrimination and so shouldn’t discriminate ourselves,” he says. “However, we don’t feel the majority of Israelis care enough or are interested in our plight to do anything about it. Besides, there isn’t enough mutual trust.”
Z and his comrades are busy formulating a post-reconciliation strategy that seeks, first and foremost, to strengthen the Palestinians internally and prepare them for statehood, and employ this greater unity and strength to bring the occupation to an end.
“We need new political faces and parties. We need renewal through youth,” Z says.
