NOVANEWS
Dear Friends,
Again this message omits as much as it includes. Even at that , the 7 items below furnish much reading, especially considering that one of them—Today in Palestine —is a compendium of reports.
Today almost every domestic and international electronic newspaper carried an item not included below : a telephone conversation overheard between Sarkozy and Obama in which Sarkozy called Netanyahu a liar, and Obama responded with something to the effect that ‘you dislike him, but I have to deal with him every day.’ It irks to see that notwithstanding their feelings about Israel ’s PM, they do nothing to stop him.
Now to the 7 items below.
Item 1 reports that death threats have been made to a Peace Now activist , who keeps close tabs on the colonization of the West Bank. Not all Israelis make death threats, but fundamentalism is growing in Israel , and nothing is happening to stop it.
Item 2 reports that Netanyahu backs a bill that will, if passed, seriously cut the funding by governments and international organizations to Israeli human rights organizations, all of which are non profit organizations and depend on funding. Imagine Israel with no human rights organizations to report its crimes.
Item 3 reports on who is backing the threats to sanction Iran . AIPAC turns out to be a prime leader, but is not the only one.
In item 4 Jonathan Cook responds to Michael Neumann ’s arguments for 2 states, and in the process shows why 1 state is preferable and more readily attainable.
Item 5 is about a new website on arms that covers the issue of who is arming Israel . Well worth your time to check out this site called Disarm the Conflict.
Item 6 is Today in Palestine , which has an important section on building in East Jerusalem, contains reports on the Russell tribunal on Palestine , an important section on Israeli settlers/extremists, and a section on Gaza , and more. Truly, this compilation affords a bird’s eye view of what goes on here in Isra/Pal.
Item 7 is not typical of what I normally send. It is a story about 2 women— one a Palestinian , the other an orthodox Jew. I include it not because of its sentimentality but because it symbolizes for me what could be. There is no reason in the world that Jews and Palestinians could not live well here in a single state. In any event, I’m glad that I can leave you on occasion with a sweeter taste in your mouth than the preceding items afford.
All the best,
Dorothy
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1. Haaretz
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Death threats sprayed on home of Peace Now activist , in apparent ‘price tag’ attack
This is the second time in months that Hagit Ofran has been targeted, allegedly by right-wing extremists angry over dismantling of illegal West Bank settlements.
By Oz Rosenberg
Tags: Price tag Israel crime
The home of a top Peace Now activist was vandalized overnight on Monday, for the second time in two months, allegedly by right-wing extremists angry over the Israeli government’s policy of dismantling illegal West Bank outposts.
The vandals painted swastikas and sprayed graffiti on Hagit Ofran’s home, in what police believe to be part of the “price tag” policy adopted by extremists.
The graffiti warned: “Hagit Ogran, Rabin is waiting for you”, referring to the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, by a right wing-activist.
The vandals also sprayed: “Givat Assaf revenge” and “Greetings from Maoz Etzion”, in reference to two West Bank outposts that were recently razed. A parked vehicle nearby adorned with a bumper sticker reading ‘peace’ was also vandalized.
The damage was found by Ofran’s neighbors and reported to police, who subsequently opened an investigation.
The incident is the latest in a string of “price tag” attacks carried out against Ofran and the anti-settlement movement Peace Now over recent months.
The Jerusalem offices of Peace Now were vandalized earlier this week, accompanied by bomb threats. Over the weekend, a Star of David was sprayed on the office gates.
Two months ago, similar graffiti was spray-painted on the door of Ofran’ s home and on the wall of the stairwell of the building she lives in. Some of the graffiti included the words “death to the traitors” and “Migron price tag,” in reference to another dismantled outpost.
“They are trying to scare us, but it will not work,” Ofran told Haaretz on Tuesday. “The discourse in Israel has become truly dangerous. We are having an argument about the future and this discourse has crossed red lines,” she added.
Peace Now responded to the incident with s a statement declaring: “The responsibility for price tag attacks is (Prime Minister) Netanyahu’s. The incitement and the harsh words of the coalition members in favor of illegal outposts and against the justice system and left-wing organizations is seeping into the ground and giving support to the price tag vandals.”
2, Haaretz
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Netanyahu backs laws to limit donations to Israeli human rights organizations
Bills seek to harm to human rights groups which relayed information to the Goldstone committee that followed IDF’s Operation Cast Lead on Gaza .
By Jonathan Lis and Nir Hasson
Two bills restricting human rights organizations in Israel that were put on hold are now back on the legislative table. The proposed laws which would significantly curtail the ability of organizations to seek donations overseas will be brought to a vote next Sunday by the ministerial legislative committee.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced this week that he supports legislation of these bills, and will back their handling and approval by the ministerial committee. These are legislative initiatives that were discussed by the ministerial committee last June. Their handling was frozen at the request of Minister Benny Begin (Likud ), so as to avoid international criticism of Israel ahead of the Palestinian attempt to gain statehood recognition at the United Nations in September.
The proposed bills seek to cause economic harm to human rights groups which relayed information to the special UN committee headed by Judge Goldstone following the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead on the Gaza Strip. According to a proposal forwarded by MK Ofir Akunis (Likud ), and backed by Netanyahu, political NP Os in Israel would not be allowed to receive donations exceeding NIS 20,000 provided by foreign governments and international organizations such as the UN and the European Union. According to the bill, “inciting activity undertaken by many organizations, under the cover of human rights work, has the goal of influencing political debates, and the character and the policies of the state of Israel .”
Sources close to the Knesset relay that this is a problematic proposal, and is unlikely to be endorsed by the High Court as it is now formulated. The main problem is the difficulty of fixing a legal definition of an NP O’s “political” activity. Nonetheless, Netanyahu’s backing of Akunis’ proposal is expected to be a decisive factor impinging on the ministerial committee’s deliberations. The coalition is likely to mobilize in favor of the bill, prior to its being brought to a vote in the Knesset.
Akunis told Haaretz on Monday that “this is a just, logical law that eliminates an anomalous situation in which foreign states intervene in Israel ‘s political discourse via the conferral of money given in the form of donations to NP Os that pursue political goals. Incidentally, this pertains entirely to NP Os sponsored by the left.” The MK added that “the fact that a state such as England can donate money to a movement such as Peace Now is blatantly unfair. This is a law which will bring justice.”
The ministerial committee will also decide whether to support another proposal, sponsored by MK Fania Kirshenbaum (Yisrael Beiteinu ), stipulating that an NP O not supported by the state of Israel will have to pay taxes at a rate of 45% on all revenue provided by a foreign government.
“Operating in Israel are organizations which have the goal of denouncing the state of Israel to the world at large, and transforming IDF soldiers and officers into pariah figures, while defaming their reputations. Such organizations receive financing from foreign sources and states, and the goal of these funds is to harm and alter public discourse in Israel ,” claims the preamble to this proposed bill.
Kirshenbaum decided in the past to put legislation of this proposal on hold, as she moved to establish in the Knesset a parliamentary committee to investigate human rights organizations. She explained that her rationale was to allow such a special committee to examine the activities of certain human rights groups and draw conclusions. Working simultaneously on a bill to restrict the activities of these groups would have been an encumbrance, the MK says. The Knesset, however, blocked the establishment of this special parliamentary investigative committee, and so Kirshenbaum has decided to renew legislative work on behalf of the proposal to slap a high tax burden on certain human rights groups. She wants the ministerial committee to discuss her proposal as soon as possible. Sources in the Knesset estimate that her bill is formulated in a way that circumvents legal obstacles, and possibly preempts suspicion that the bill is prejudicial toward human rights organizations associated with the left.
The renewed attempts to legislate the two proposed laws stirred consternation among human rights groups Monday. “We will continue to do what we do even without money,” vowed Sarit Michaeli , spokesperson for the B’Tselem group. “We will continue even if they continue to legislate bills whose goal is to silence us. We might have less financing, but they’ll have to find other ways to stifle the criticism – they’ll have to put us in prison.”
3. Al Jazeera
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Who’s in favour of sanctioning Iran ?
Washington ‘s attempts to isolate Iran might pave the road to a new conflict in the Middle East .
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011118113949260493.html
Jasmin Ramsey
The US alleged that Iran was involved in the plot, despite considerable holes in the evidence presented [EPA]
Not two months after the US ‘ highest-ranking military officer repeated calls for diplomacy with Iran , a key congressional committee approved two bills that would impose the severest sanctions that we’ve seen yet. Among their draconian measures is a last minute revision that would make it illegal for US officials to even speak to Iranian officials unless the president issues a special waiver and provides congress with a 15-day notice.
Obstructions to diplomacy and increasingly harsh moves against Iran recall the lead-up to the Iraq war, which was preceded by waves of sanctions and alarmist rhetoric justifying a pre-emptive strike. Not coincidentally, as the war drums in Israel and the US grow louder, “crippling” sanctions against Iran seem like a peaceful alternative. The mainstreaming of this idea has also resulted in less scrutiny of those who have been pushing for sanctions, resulting in a concealed playing field that continues to tilt in favour of the hawks. Now, as the already muted debate about sanctions is shifting to talk of far more militant measures, the balance of power in this tremendously uneven political landscape must be highlighted.
The players
The loudest, most influential organisations pushing for sanctions against Iran have an open pro-Israel agenda, regardless of their positioning on the political spectrum. The best resourced of all is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), self-described as “the most influential foreign policy lobbying organisation on Capitol Hill”. AIPAC lobbied aggressively for the recent bellicose bill proposals, featuring them and its lead sponsors on the front page of its website. Sanctions are “having an impact” and “more are needed”, the accompanying captions read. AIPAC is also a key backer of the push to sanction Iran ‘s central bank, a move that some Iranian officials consider an act of war.
Supporting Israel ‘s alarmist stance on Iran is a group of hawkish Washington-based think tanks such as the Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD). The FDD features several “experts” who regularly appear in news media and have briefed the US government. Executive director Mark Dubowitz campaigns for “crippling sanctions” on Iran ‘s energy sector and compares sanctions to warfare. “Gasoline sanctions are not a silver bullet”, he said in 2009. “At best they are silver shrapnel.” Inherent in Dubowitz’s language about Iran are frequent allusions to “killing” and other violent imagery. “The Iranian energy industry is now in a slow-motion death spiral,” he wrote in January – while pitching recommendations to “accelerate its demise”. To “punish” the Iranian government, Dubowitz agitates for a complete embargo on Iranian oil, designating the Central Bank of Iran as a terrorist entity and sanctioning China , India and “companies that continue to do business in Iran ‘s energy sector”.
Known to publicise the FDD’s articles is United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), which strives to market itself as a centrist group, but has well-known neoconservatives on its advisory board, including Bush administration hawks James Woolsey, Henry Sokolski and Mike Gerson. UANI takes sanctions enforcement to a new level by bullying and singling out organisations engaging in business ventures even remotely connected to Iran , while organising alarmist media campaigns about the government. But for all its focus on sanctions, UANI has also publicly endorsed warfare. In a recent article written by president Mark D Wallace and board member Frances Townsend from the Bush administration, the authors say that the US should “make clear” that it will respond to the alleged “Iranian plot” to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington with “effective financial and military action”. This, despite the considerable holes in US allegations about official Iranian involvement and the ongoing doubts being raised about the evidence presented so far.
Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Peace (WINEP), a think tank created by former AIPAC research director Martin Indyk, is also a staunch advocate of sanctions, having discussed sanctioning Iran ‘s central bank long before the current debate back in 2007. Levitt was recently featured among a panel of hawkish analysts at a joint subcommittee hearing about the alleged “Iranian plot” where he argued that sanctions have been “tremendously effective” but must be used in tandem with other options including “military options”, “covert actions” and “diplomatic options”.
Levitt’s inclusion of warfare is unsurprising, considering how many prominent neoconservatives have passed from the sanctions phase to lobbying for military strikes. Case in point, at the hearing Levitt attended was Dubowitz’s FDD colleague, Reuel Marc Gerecht, director of the Project for a New American Century, the now defunct think tank that was instrumental in pushing the US into war with Iraq . In front of a congressional audience, Gerecht repeated his recommendation for the US to strike Iran while echoing the pre-emptive war reasoning used by the Bush administration: “I don’t think that you’re really going to really intimidate these people … unless you shoot someone,” said Gerecht. “I think you have to send a pretty powerful message … or I think down the road you’re asking for it.”
Some Iranian-Americans also tout calls for strangling sanctions. Hossein Askari, a professor at George Washington University , wants the US to sanction Iran ‘s central bank and implement “policies to threaten the stability of the Iranian currency”. According to Askari, the US must also adopt measures “that inflict sufficient direct pain on the Iranian government” while causing “average Iranians sufficient economic distress for them to threaten the regime’s survival”.
Uneven playing field
While Askari considers the suffering imposed upon Iranians by his recommendations “a small price to pay if conditions truly improve”, members of the Green Movement living inside the country oppose them for that reason. In 2009, leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said that sanctions “would not affect the government” but would impose “many hardships upon the people”.
Those who oppose sanctions have nowhere near the same resources to sway congress as hawkish lobbies and pundits do. Still, the National Iranian American Council, which advocates for “strategic engagement”, and prominent media commentators such as Harvard University ‘s Stephen Walt and the National Interest’s Paul Pillar continue to question the aim and effectiveness of sanctioning logic.
Of particular note is CIA veteran Pillar’s scrutiny of the unclear “objective” of those who advocate sanctions. “Far too much of what is said about sanctions … amounts to saying ‘regime X bad – must pressure it,'” he wrote in August, adding that one explanation for this could be the ulterior motive of paving the way for “military force”. Those who favour this direction “have an interest in being vague about [their objective],” he argues, granting them more “flexibility” in the future for when they tell us why sanctions weren’t enough.
Echoes of Iraq
While Obama raised hopes about the US adopting a new approach to Iran after his 2009 Cairo speech, in reality he has continued a policy of mostly sticks with softer rhetoric. Now, when he is least likely to oppose hawkish measures – lest he give leverage to his hard-line presidential opponents, calls for more militant moves are louder than ever. But continuously implementing harsh sanctions is making diplomacy near impossible, while paving the way towards a war that only pro-Israel hawks want. This recalls memories of the lead-up to the Iraq war, which was fought under the false premise that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction with the intent of using them – the very same argument being parroted about Iran . The push for war with Iraq reached its peak when those opposed to military intervention began enabling the hawks with their silence or support , raising an important question about the present: where are the voices of reason in a political arena that considers legislation outlawing diplomacy permissible and allows proponents of war to take the centre stage?
Jasmin Ramsey is an Iranian-born journalist and co-editor of Lobe Log and PULSE Media.
Follow Jasmin on Twitter @JasminRamsey
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
4. Counterpunch
Tuesd\, November 08, 2011
A Response to Michael Neumann
There’s Nothing Idealistic About the One-State Solution
by JONATHAN COOK
This is at least the third time in the past four years that philosophy professor Michael Neumann has used these pages to lambast the supporters of a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. On each occasion he has offered a little more insight into why he so vehemently objects to what he terms the “delusions” of those who oppose – or, at least, gave up on – the two-state solution.
In his most recent essay, Neumann suggests that his previous reluctance to be more forthright was motivated by “politeness”. Well, I for one wish the professor had been franker from the outset. It might have saved us a lot of time and effort.
Even though I have identified myself as a supporter of the one-state solution, I find much to agree with in what Neumann writes on this occasion. Like him, I do not believe that a particular solution, or resolution, will occur simply because the Palestinians or their wellwishers make a good moral case for it. Success for the Palestinians will come when a wide array of regional developments force Israel to conclude that its current behaviour is untenable.
There are plenty of signs that just such a power shift is starting to take place in the Middle East: Iran’s possible development of a nuclear warhead; an awakening of democratic forces in Egypt and elsewhere; the fraying of the long and vital military alliance between Israel and Turkey; the exasperation of Saudi Arabia at Israel’s intransigence; the growing military sophistication of Hizbullah; and the complete discrediting of the US role in the region.
Neumann is wrong to assume that one has to be an idealist – believing in the political equivalent of fairies – to conclude that a one-state solution is on the cards. It does not have to be simply a case of wishful thinking. Rather, I will argue, it is likely to prove a realistic description of the turn of events over the next decade or more.
While Neumann and I agree on the causes of an Israeli change of direction, his and my analyses diverge sharply on what will follow from Israel ’s realisation that its occupation is too costly to maintain.
Neumann proposes that, once cornered by regional forces it can no longer intimidate or bully, Israel will have to concede what he terms the “real” two-state solution.
He does not set out what such a solution would entail, but he is adamant that it – and only it – must take place. So let me help with an outline of the apparent minimal requirements for a real two-state solution:
* Israel agrees to pull out its half a million settlers from the West Bank and East Jerusalem , presumably assisted by lavish compensation from the international community;
* Israel hands over all of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians, while the city’s holy places, including the Western Wall, pass to a caretaker body representing the international community;
* The Palestinians get a state on 22 per cent of historic Palestine , with their capital in East Jerusalem ;
* The Palestinians are free to establish an army – with Iran and Saudi Arabia presumably competing over who gets to sponsor it;
* The Palestinians have control over their airspace and the electro-magnetic spectrum. If they have any sense, they quickly turn to Hizbullah for advice on how to neutralise Israel’s extensive spying operations, its overhead drones and listening posts currently sited all over the West Bank;
* The Palestinians get unfettered access to their new border with Jordan and beyond to other Arab states;
* The Palestinians are entitled to an equitable division of water resources from the main West Bank acquifers, currently supplying Israel with most of its water;
* And the Palestinians have, as promised under the Oslo accords, a passageway through Israel to connect the West Bank and Gaza .
Let us leave aside the social problems for Israel caused by this arrangment : the huge disruption created by an angry and newly homeless half a million settlers returning to Israel, as well as the dramatic aggravation of the already severe housing crisis in Israel and the rapid deterioration in relations with the large Palestinian minority living there.
Let us also not dwell on the problems faced by the Palestinians, including the potentially hundreds of thousands of refugees who will have to be absorbed into the limited space of the resource-poor West Bank and Gaza, or their likely anger at what they will see as betrayal, or the inevitable economic troubles of this micro-state.
Doubtless, all these issues can be addressed in a peace agreement.
In his essays, Neumann only factors in what Israelis are prepared to accept from a solution. So let us ignore too the “idealism” of those critics who are concerned about whether a “real two-state solution” can actually be made to work for ordinary Palestinians.
The assumption by Neumann is that, faced with a rapid escalation in the political and financial costs of holding on to the Palestinian territories, Israel will one day understand that it has no choice but to jettison the occupation.
He offers nine reasons for why the one-state solution is “blatantly nonsensical”. Though numerically impressive, most of his arguments – such as his discussion of the right of return, or the representativeness of a Palestinian government, or the nature of legal and moral rights – appear to have little or no bearing on the practical case either for or against one state. The same can be said of his ascription of the sin of idealism to those he lumps together as one-staters, and his allusion, yet again, to the vague formula of a “real two-state solution”.
His other three arguments – the first he lists – are no more revelatory. In fact, they are variations of the same idea, one that can best be summarised by an analogy he offers in one: “If I’m making 50,000 dollars, I might demand 70,000, but not 70 million. It is not clever to demand the whole of Israel when Israel won’t yield even the half that almost the whole world says it must surrender – the occupied territories.”
I am no professor of logic but something about this analogy rings hollow. Let us try another that seems closer to the reality of our case.
One day you arrive at my home and take over most of the building using force. A short time later you drive me out of the house completely, and, in what you consider a generous concession, allow me to live in the shed at the end of the garden. Over the years we become bitter enemies. The neighbours, my former friends, can no longer turn a blind eye to my miserable condition and decide to side with me against you. One day they come to your door and threaten to use violence against you if you do not let me back into the house.
What happens next?
Well, as Neumann implies, it may all end happily with you agreeing to let me live in the box room. But then again, it might not.
Sensing that the shoe is finally on the other foot, I might decide to make your life unbearable in the main part of the house in order to win more space or to drive you out. Or you might decide that, given your precarious new situation in the neighbourhood, you would be better off abandoning your ill-gotten gains and looking for somewhere else to live.
I am not a fan of such analogies. I resort to it simply to highlight that, if one wants to make use of these kinds of devices, then it is at least preferable to use an apposite one.
(Interestingly, if we pursue this analogy, it also questions Neumann’s preferred comparison of Israel ’s occupation of the Palestinian territories with France ’s occupation of Algeria . In this case, Algeria appears to be the garden rather than the main house.)
The larger point is that there is no reason to assume that, just because the occupation gets too costly, Israel can simply amputate it like a rotting limb.
Part of the weakness in Neumann’s argument can be seen in his repeated references to the settlers as a group of troublesome misfits rather than a substantial chunk both of the Israeli cabinet, including the foreign minister, and of the high command of the Israeli army and security services, including the current head of the National Security Council.
Likewise, he caricatures Western support for Israel as “Zionist hysteria” in the US Congress, backed by “ridiculous” fellow travellers such as the Canadian government. If only the support for Israel among Western governments were this trivial.
Such misrepresentations make his argument that the occupation is vulnerable appear far stronger than it really is. In fact, the occupation is much more than the settlements.
It is the Messianism industry, run by the settlers, that took over Israel decades ago. Its hold extends far beyond the West Bank to the now-dominant religious education stream feeding poison to young minds, as well as to the seminaries where young religious men training to become army officers are tutored daily in their Chosenness and their divine right to exterminate Palestinians.
It is the ultra-Orthodox with their ambivalence to Zionism but their now-savage sense of entitlement to handouts from the state. They have several large urban communities in the West Bank tailor-made for their separatist religious way of life. The people who riot over a parking lot opening on Shabbat will not easily walk away from their homes, schools and synagogues.
It is a large and profitable Israeli real estate industry that has plundered and pillaged Palestinian land for decades, and which seems to implicate every new Israeli prime minister in a fresh corruption scandal.
It is Israel ’s farming industries that depend for their survival on the theft of both Palestinian land and water sources.
It is ordinary Israelis, already spoiling for a fight after an unprecedented summer of social unrest over the exorbitant cost of living in Israel , who have yet to find out the true price of fruit and vegetables – and running water – should they lose these water “subsidies”.
It is Israel ’s extensive and lucrative military hi-tech industries that rely on the occupied territories as a laboratory for developing and testing new weapons systems and surveillance techniques for export both to the global homeland security industries and to tech-hungry modern armies.
It is Israel’s security and intelligence services, abundantly staffed with the same Ashkenazis who will go on to become the country’s political leaders, pursuing careers surveilling and controlling Palestinians under occupation.
And it is the profligate military – Israel ’s version of the West ’s prodigal bankers – whose jobs and lethal toys depend on endless US taxpayers’ munificence.
None of this will be given up lightly, or at a cost that won’t make America ’s current $3 billion annual handouts to Israel look like peanuts. And that is before we factor in the huge payouts needed to compensate the Palestinian refugees and to build a Palestinian state.
But these problems only hint at the argument for a one-state solution. The reality is that the elites that run Israel have everything to lose should the occupation fall. That is why they have invested every effort in integrating the occupied territories into Israel and making a “real” peace deal impossible. The occupation and its related industries are the source of their moral legitimacy, their political survival and their daily enrichment.
That is also why they are twisting in agony at the prospect of Iran acquiring a nuclear arsenal to rival their own. At that point, the occupation begins to expire and their rule is finished.
Were the regional conditions to come about that Neumann believes necessary to evict Israel from the occupied territories, these elites and their Ashkenazi hangers-on will face a stark choice: bring down the house or scatter to whatever countries their second passports entitle them to.
They may go for the doomsday scenario, as some currently predict. But my guess is that, once the money-laundering opportunities enjoyed by the politicians and generals are over, it will simply be easier – and safer – for them to export their skills elsewhere.
Left behind will be ordinary Israelis – the Russians, the Palestinian minority, the ultra-Orthodox, the Mizrahim – who never tasted the real fruits of the occupation and whose commitment to Zionism has no real depth.
These groups – isolated, largely antagonistic and without a diaspora occupying the US Congress to assist them – have not the experience, desire or legitimacy to run the military fortress that Israel has become. With the glue gone that holds the Zionist project together, both the Palestinians and the Israelis who remain will have every interest to come up with real solutions to the problem of living as neighbours.
The strangest aspect to Neumann’s claims against the one-staters – repeated in all his essays on this subject – is the argument that they are not only deluded but propagating an idea that is somehow dangerous, though quite how is never explained.
If as Neumann argues, correctly in my view , Israel will only change course when faced with significant pressure from its neighbours, then the worst crime the one-staters can be accused of committing is an abiding attachment to an irrelevant idealism.
Iran will not discard its supposed nuclear ambitions simply because the one-state crowd start to make a compelling moral case for their cause, any more than Hizbullah will stop amassing its rockets. So why should Neumann get so exercised by the one-state argument? By his reckoning, it should have zero impact on progress towards a resolution of the conflict.
Nonetheless, even on Neumann’s limited terms, one can also make a serious case that advocacy of a single state might produce benefits for the Palestinians.
If nothing else, were a growing number of Palestinians and international supporters persuaded that demanding an absolutely just solution ( one state ) was the best path, would this not add an additional pressure to the other, material ones facing Israel to concede a real two-state solution – if only to avoid the worse fate of a single state being imposed by its neighbours?
But I think we can go futher in making the practical case for a one-state solution.
Although the main cause of Israel changing tack will be the alignment of regional forces against it, an additional but important factor will be the emergence of a political climate in which western states and their publics are increasingly disillusioned with Israel ’s bad faith. Congress’ support is not paid in the currency of hysteria but in hard cash. And that support won’t dry up until Israel and its “mad dog” policies are widely seen as illegitimate or a liability.
One of the key ways Israel will discredit itself, following it and Washington ’s recent decision to block any Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations, is by cracking down – probably violently – on any political aspirations expressed by ordinary Palestinians under occupation.
History, including Palestinian history, suggests that populations denied their rights rarely remain passive indefinitely. Palestinians who see no hope that their leaders can secure for them a state will be increasingly motivated to claim back their cause.
Ordinary Palestinians have no power, as Neumann notes, to force Israel to establish a state for them. But they do have the power to demand from Israel a say in their future, and press for it through civil disobedience, campaigns for voting rights, and the establishment of an anti-apartheid movement. Such a struggle will take place within – and implicitly accept – the one-state reality already created by Israel . If Palestinians march for the vote, it will be for a vote in Knesset elections.
None of this will win them either a state or the vote, of course. But the repression needed from Israel to contain these forces will serve to rapidly erode whatever international sympathy remains and to further galvanise the regional forces lining up against Israel into action.
In short, however one assesses it, the promotion of a one-state solution can serve only to hasten the demise of the Israeli elites who oppress the Palestinians. So why waste so much breath opposing it?
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “ Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq , Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine : Israel ’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
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6. Today in Palestine
Monday, November 7, 2011
http://www.theheadlines.org/11/07-11-11.shtml
7. Independent
Tuesday, 08 November 2011
The ballad of Rasha and Devorah
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-ballad-of-rasha-and-devorah-6258718.html#
Catrina Stewart
Hunched over the piano, Rasha Hamad starts rocking on her chair, her teeth bared in a pained grimace, her eyes squeezed shut. “I want to go the zoo, I want to go to the zoo,” she mumbles in English as she launches into a Chopin mazurka.
The music is beautiful, her performance is reminiscent of Geoffrey Rush in the film , Shine. As she moves onto a piece that is unfamiliar, less harmonious, somebody touches her shoulder signalling that she should stop. She runs her fingers fast down the keyboard and lifts them off in a theatrical flourish.
Abruptly she stands up and, briefly disorientated, walks into the wall. She is gently guided back to the door.
Ms Hamad, a 36-year-old Palestinian from the northern West Bank , is blind, mentally disabled and severely autistic. That she is able to play at all is thanks to an unlikely pairing with Devorah Schramm, an Orthodox Jew, which began when Ms Hamad was 11.
Mrs Schramm, who lives in Gilo, a Jewish settlement on the outskirts of Jerusalem, was unfazed by taking on an Arab student, even though some of her regular Jewish students would say, “You’re teaching her?” But the American-born teacher, who wears a heavy, brown wig as her religion dictates, describes herself as apolitical, and says that she hates to put people in “boxes”.
Yet without a medium such as music to bring them together, examples of such friendships between Arabs and Israelis are still rare. Under her tutelage, Ms Hamad has blossomed from a girl unable to express herself into an accomplished concert pianist. As her musical expression has flourished, so, too, have her verbal skills. She can hold a conversation in Arabic, Dutch or English.
Mrs Schramm had just had her third child when she received the call from the Jerusalem Conservatory of Music and Arts asking her if she would take on a blind student. “Of course, they didn’t tell me she was in her own world, and that I wouldn’t really have a language with her,” the piano teacher recalls. “She spoke very little and sometimes she didn’t speak at all.”
At her first lesson, Ms Hamad sat down and started to play. “I heard something that told me that the music speaks to her at a very deep level. The depth of this makes the musician,” she says. “Music to me isn’t just correctly moving your fingers, music is something very deep within the human spirit.”
Ms Hamad is one of the fortunate ones. At the age of four, she was brought along with her blind, deaf and mute sister to the Vollbehrs, a Dutch missionary couple who would later establish Beit Yemima, a school and orphanage for handicapped children near Bethlehem .
The two girls were badly malnourished, constantly banging their heads and poking their eyes, forcing the missionaries to sew up the ends of their sleeves.
The Vollbehrs first discovered Ms Hamad’s musical talent when she started to sing along in harmony to hymns, prompting the couple to buy her an old piano on which the late Helena Vollbehr taught her to play. As she progressed, the Vollbehrs brought her to the Conservatory, where she was paired up with Mrs Schramm.
“Her playing was quite peculiar. She used to bunch her fingers together,” the teacher recalls. “I was fascinated that she was using sophisticated harmony. You’d expect somebody mentally disabled to do something quite rudimentary. From the first lesson, I said this is very striking.”
Even more striking was Ms Hamad’s extraordinary memory, something that has become more apparent as the relationship between the two women developed. “She can hear something on the radio – it could be 20 years ago – and she will start playing it,” Mrs Schramm says. “She’ll say it was a Chopin concerto, but I know it’s not a Chopin concerto, but it sounds like Chopin… I’ll spend time in the music library, and then … [I’ll say] ‘ By George , that’s what she played!'”