I apologize for not saying anything last night. We had electric outages that impacted on the computer, so that every time it went back on and I went back into what I had been doing I had to reconstruct. By the time I finally got to putting the whole together I was too tired and irritated to write a single word. Lucky you.
I’d really wanted to remark on Amira Hass ’s commentary regarding what suddenly began in 2006—with no announcement, no warning, nothing. Suddenly a policy which had been ongoing for years, stopped. The historical part of Amira’s commentary was one that I and others were active in. Several of us determined to find out what was behind the sudden change in policy and to fight this idiotic new course of action that separated wives from husbands, and mothers or fathers from their children. We formed an ad hoc committee to deal with the issues. There were cases when a mother and 6 or 7 children were not allowed to go home following a brief vacation or visiting family abroad, and another when a father and his children faced the same thing, while in both instances the other parent was waiting at home in the OPT. One woman was not allowed to return for over a year to her home of some 30 odd years in Ramalla where her spouse waited for her, unable (because not allowed) to join her abroad. There were many difficult stories. But despite our endeavors, we did not get far, notwithstanding that we tried. We, for instance, met with the at the time Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), wrote to most of the embassies in Israel asking for meetings, and met with many—sometimes even with an ambassador, mostly with 1stsecretaries—all interested, all seeming to care, but no results. Of course. How could there be. Embassies carry out their governments’ policies. Embassies do not create policies. Sometimes we managed to help an individual. More often not. After about 2 years of working hard but getting nowhere, we disbanded, deciding that our energies could be better placed in other activism, activism that gets to the core, as support for boycott/divestment/sanctions. We’d all been active prior to setting up the committee. And so we remain. But it is painful to know that we just gave up on that issue, even though I think that we did everything that we possibly could have.
Now to the items below, of which there are 7.
Items 1 and 2 have the same theme: freedom to go where one wishes to. Item 1, however, deals with this through fiction, item 2 relates how some Palestinians actually attempted to do this by riding on busses for settlers. Hopefully their dreams will come true. And hopefully this will be sooner than later.
Items 3 through 6 all deal with the present government’s policies and proposed laws. Not a pretty picture. Item 3 reports that Israel refuses to pay the Palestinians moneys that it collects for the PA. Item 4 reports that Israel plans to build more homes in the OPT. Item 5 takes Israel to task for its attitude towards Arabic, and this by an individual who is decidedly right-wing (Moshe Arens). And in item 6 Akiva Eldar claims that with Netanyahu is declaring war on Europe with the proposed new laws. Well, if Europe cares, why doesn’t it do something to stop Netanyahu????
Lastly, item 7 is Today in Palestine . I found the section on Detention/Prisoner Swap very compelling. Then under the section on Israeli Racism/ discrimination there is a commentary by Haggai Matar, a member of New Profile among other organizations. He writes here about media responses towards Jews who are killed vs Palestinians.
Oh yes, in the section on Gaza there is a report that the French consul and his family were hurt when Israel shelled their area. It’s in no way amusing, but my first thought when reading it was ‘this is the way Netanyhu gets back at Sarkozi for calling him a liar.’
Once again, except for the first 2 items which at least look towards a brighter future, the rest is pretty depressing. Sorry. But this is the way things are here. Wish it were different, the way I know that it could be. Oh, how I wish.
Maybe some day it will be. We shall overcome, I hope.
NABLUS, West Bank — Last Saturday, I arrived at the Nablus train station, a low, thick-walled stone structure, in time to board the 3:20 pm to Jerusalem . Some 20 passengers were waiting at the entrance, mostly young men and women, with a few people old enough to remember the days of train travel during the British Mandate over Palestine . The excitement was palpable: It was our chance to take a ride to Jerusalem , a city we are barred from visiting, bypassing the Israeli checkpoints along the way. As I entered the station, a porter in a dark blue uniform issued me a ticket on the Green Line. The journey would take 30 minutes, with stops planned at Hawwarah, Zatara, Uyun al Haramiya, Attarah and Kalandia — all existing checkpoints. I made my way to the waiting room. It was barren, except for low tables with brochures entitled “Palestine Connected” showing local train networks and their destinations. Gaza . Jaffa . Haifa . Beersheba .
Soon there was an announcement in Arabic and English : the train would be arriving in three minutes. I could hear it approach, all whistles and honks. The sounds grew louder and louder until they became deafening. Then, they subsided; the train had arrived. The doors of the waiting room opened, and we were invited to step out onto Platform Number Two. The train was waiting, shrouded in rising smoke. We surged forward toward its doors as they opened for us.
But there was no getting on. The train was an image, an image projected onto a screen mounted on the far side of the wall. It was an art installation entitled “Palestine Connected” by the Palestinian artists Iyad Issa and Sahar Qawasmi, set in the pickle factory that now stands where the Nablus central station once was. This performance, marking the centenary of the station’s opening, was part of “Cities Exhibition” by the Birzeit University Museum , the third edition of an annual show that allows artists to explore the social history of Palestinian cities.
After the train disappeared and the screen went blank, the fictitious passengers on the fictitious Platform Number 2 were overtaken by wistful disappointment. An older man who seemed to be holding back tears lamented the passing of “those days when we could take the train and travel freely from city to city.”
More than one hundred years ago, the Ottomans built a vast train network throughout the Middle East, first connecting Jaffa and Jerusalem and eventually linking the main cities of the Arab Middle East — Amman, Basra, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem and Medina — to Istanbul. Construction on the Nablus-Jerusalem segment was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, and the Nablus train station was largely destroyed during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.
Today, no train crosses the borders of our tiny territory. The only Green Line we know does not connect the capitals of the Middle East ; it divides them. Yet for just one moment last Saturday, the imagination of two young Palestinian artists made it possible to project ourselves beyond this dismal present.
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Raja Shehadeh, a lawyer and writer living in Ramallah, is the author of “A Rift in Time: Travels with my Ottoman Uncle,” “2037: Le Grand Bouleversement” and “Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape,” which won the Orwell Prize in 2008.
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2. Washington Post
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Palestinian activists arrested after Israeli bus protest to highlight travel limits
HIZMA CHECKPOINT, West Bank — Six Palestinian activists, clutching national flags and surrounded by dozens of reporters, were dragged off an Israeli bus they planned to ride into Jerusalem after a standoff with police Tuesday.
The Palestinians boarded the Israeli bus in a widely advertised action hoping to draw attention to what they call discriminatory measures in the West Bank, particularly travel restrictions.
( Nasser Shiyoukhi / Associated Press ) – Surrounded by media, five Palestinian activists, front right, wait to board a bus belonging to the Israeli bus company Egged bound for Jerusalem outside the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kochav Hashakhar,Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011.
Six Palestinian activists, defiantly clutching national flags and surrounded by dozens of reporters, were dragged off an Israeli bus that they were hoping would lead them to Jerusalem, after an hours-long stand off with police on Tuesday. The Palestinians said they boarded the Israeli bus in a widely advertised action, hoping to draw attention what they say are discriminatory measures in the West Bank, particularly travel restrictions.
Tuesday’s action highlighted how some Palestinians are adopting peaceful actions in their struggle for statehood in the West Bank, where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority has a measure of self-rule. Even as the bus protest unfolded in the West Bank, Palestinian militants in Gaza to the south fired rockets at nearby Israeli communities.
“We want to show the system of discrimination that we live in here. My point isn’t go to jail — my point is to have the freedom to get on a bus,” said Badia Dwaik, a 38-year-old civil servant, shortly before he was dragged off the Israeli number 148 Egged bus, which serves Israeli settlements.
Israeli officials say the travel restrictions on Palestinians are needed to prevent militants from entering Israel or West Bank settlements to stage attacks. The restrictions increased during the violent Palestinian uprising of 2000-2005, when buses were frequently blown up by suicide bombers.
The Palestinian activists dubbed themselves “Freedom Riders” after 1960s American civil rights activists who worked in the U.S. South to counter racial discrimination and segregation there, though there were no security elements in the American rights struggle.
Dozens of reporters clustered around the six activists, who wore T-shirts emblazoned with “justice” and “freedom.” Several wore black-and-white checkered headscarves.
After an uneventful 20-minute ride, the bus stopped at the Hizme checkpoint on Jerusalem ’s outskirts. Israeli police boarded, demanding to see their Jerusalem entry permits. Lacking the permits, the Palestinians refused to get off.
“I am not going to obey your discriminatory law,” Dwaik told the policeman, speaking Arabic.
“So you are detained,” the policeman said, also in Arabic.
“Fine. I am not moving.”
About an hour later the six Palestinians were detained, dragged off the bus and taken away in a police car to a nearby station — in Jerusalem, having somewhat reached their destination.
Maggie Amir, 48, from the nearby Jewish settlement of Rimonim, who was waiting to board, said Palestinians shouldn’t be allowed on.
“This is our bus,” she said, adding: “Quite simply, we are afraid of them.”
In the West Bank — home to 2.5 million Palestinians and some 300,000 Jewish settlers — the two sides usually use different bus systems.
Although no specific rule prevents Palestinians from riding the “Israeli” buses — they are generally not allowed into the Jewish settlements these buses serve. The Palestinians also need permits to enter Jerusalem , the terminal station for most buses.
Tuesday’s protest began at a stop near the Jewish settlement of Migron. Posted on the bus stop were posters praising the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, an extremist who argued that Palestinians should be expelled from Israel , the West Bank and Gaza . The first three “number 148” buses — apparently aware of the planned provocation — sped by. But the fourth pulled up.
The Palestinians paid their fares and boarded, as reporters jostled to board. Dwaik sat a row away from Haggai Segal , a 54-year-old Israeli from the settlement of Ofra, once jailed for planting a car bomb that badly wounded a Palestinian mayor. The two did not interact.
Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said the detained Palestinians would “likely” be released soon — back to the West Bank.
Israeli cabinet ministers yesterday refused to hand over $100m in duties it owes to the Palestinian Authority (PA) despite warnings that the punitive withholding of the funds could jeopardise the country’s security.
Despite speculation that Israel would heed international calls to end the freeze it imposed two weeks ago in retaliation for the PA’s securing membership of Unesco, a majority of the ministers decided to keep it in place.
The decision was taken against the clear advice of the Defence Minister Ehud Barak , reflecting the strong concerns of the Israeli military that the freeze will threaten the salaries of Palestinian security personnel whose co-operation with Israel has significantly helped to keep the peace in the West Bank .
But the Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, a hawkish advocate of the freeze, carried the day in ensuring the policy was not changed. The monthly payments of around $100m are of mainly customs revenues Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians under interim agreements.
Republican US Congress representatives are still holding up another $400m of annual funding for the Palestinians, in aid and budget support, though another $200m for security use has been paid after lobbying by the Obama adminstration and the international Quartet envoy Tony Blair.
Yesterday’s Israeli decision followed separate meetings held by Tony Blair with Palestinian and Israeli representatives, which once again failed to resolve the impasse between the two sides.
The Palestinians, sceptical that talks will reach any conclusion, say they will only enter negotiations if there is a freeze on Jewish settlements and agreement that a two state solution will be based on 1967 borders. Israel says it wants negotiations “without preconditions”.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said after the meeting that “Israeli settlements and the two-state solution are mutually exclusive.” An Israeli official said the Palestinians “must understand that there are costs involved in adopting negative policies.”
Without explicitly confirming that the freeze was also being sustained because of the Palestinian stance over negotiations, the official said that Israel was seeking to convince the Palestinians that it was “unsustainable.”
Diplomacy involved “both carrot and stick,” the official said.
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4. LA Times
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Israel announces more housing in West Bank and the Jerusalem area
REPORTING FROM JERUSALEM — Israel announced Tuesday it would soon issue tenders for 5,000 new units of housing nationwide, including about 570 apartments on land it seized during the 1967 Mideast war.
The government said the new housing was needed to address Israel ‘s rising real estate prices, which triggered massive popular demonstrations this summer. But critics objected to the inclusion of 348 units in Har Homa and 18 in Pisgat Zeev, two Jewish developments in the Jerusalem area. An additional 213 units are planned for the West Bank settlement of Efrat.
In August, the government gave the green light to 900 new homes in Har Homa, which Palestinians warned was cutting off access between Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Bethlehem .
Israel has rejected pleas from the U.S. and other countries to refrain from expanding settlements. Palestinians are refusing to return to peace talks until settlement construction is frozen.
Israeli officials defended their right to continue expanding in the Jerusalem area.
“Building in Jerusalem is Israel ‘s policy and it will continue now and into the future,” government spokesman Yoaz Hendel told Israel Radio.
— Edmund Sanders
Photo : A construction worker works on new housing in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa on Nov. 2, 2011. Credit : Sebastian Scheiner / Associated Press
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5. Haaretz
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Israel ‘s shameful attack on Arabic must be stopped
Why demonstrate lack of respect for Arab citizens at a time when the most important challenge facing Israel is to integrate its Arab citizens into Israeli society?
The proposal by some members of the Knesset to strip the Arab language of its current status as one of the official languages of the State of Israel is a senseless move and, what’s more, a sign of disrespect toward the more than one million citizens of Israel whose mother tongue is Arabic.
It is difficult to fathom what got into the heads of some legislators to propose this change. Why demonstrate such lack of respect for our Arab citizens at a time when the most important challenge facing Israel is to integrate its Arab citizens into Israeli society and to make them feel at home in Israel ?
Adopting the language of a minority population as one of the official languages of a country is a common thing in this day and age. It is a demonstration by the majority population of sympathy, consideration and respect for the minority.
Members of Knesset who take the trouble to check the Google search engine on the Internet may be surprised to find that many countries in the world have recognized minority languages as official languages – in some cases, even the languages of very small minorities. For example, Finland , next door to its larger Swedish neighbor, recognizes Swedish as an official language.
The Arab citizens of Israel are not a small minority by any means. Why propose this change in the status of the Arab language in Israel after 63 years in which Arabic has shared an equal status with Hebrew as an official language of the country?
It is true that the majority of Israel ‘s Arab citizens speak Hebrew. And it is unfortunately equally true that a large majority of Israel ‘s Jewish citizens do not speak Arabic. It is this very asymmetry that needs to be corrected.
Jewish school children should be taught to master the Arab language. The fact that this has not been achieved in all these years is a failure of the Israeli educational system. It is no less serious than the relatively low scores that Israeli school children attain in the international scholastic tests.
Considering the vast language teaching experience that Israel has accumulated over the years in teaching new immigrants the Hebrew language, this failure, even though hours are devoted to teaching Arabic in our schools, can only be an indication that the Ministry of Education has never taken this important task seriously.
The study of Arabic should be made compulsory in the school system, and mastery of the language should be a requirement for graduation from high school. The study of Arabic by adults should be encouraged; and for civil servants, knowledge of Arabic should be a factor when being considered for promotion.
Even though Hebrew is being spoken nowadays by almost everybody in Israel – Jews and Arabs – Jewish children need to acquire mastery of the Arab language not only so as to be able to communicate better with Israel’s Arab citizens, but more importantly, as a sign of Israel’s respect and consideration for its Arab minority.
When searching for a motive that spurred members of the Knesset to initiate this legislation, one wonders if it was not their intention to “put Israel ‘s Arab citizens in their place,” to remind them that they are a minority, and that the inferior status to be afforded to their mother tongue in Israel should be a permanent reminder of that. Not only is this not in the best interests of the Arab minority, it is not in the best interests of the Jewish majority either.
One is reminded of another attempt to “put somebody in his place” – when the Turkish ambassador to Israel was placed on a low chair in Israel ‘s Foreign Ministry some months ago. It was a shameful act – regretted by all by now. It is better not to repeat such vain gestures.
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6. Haaretz
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
With controversial bills, Netanyahu is declaring war on Europe
Proposed bills to cap foreign government funding to ‘political’ ngo’s, impose 45% tax on donations, will affect organizations monitoring a key article of the 2002 Israel-EU trade pact.
It is hard to believe that Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, who has also been foreign minister, deputy foreign minister, Israel ‘s ambassador to the United Nations and deputy ambassador to the United States , is taking seriously the recent suicidal legislative proposals aimed at crippling nongovernmental organizations considered to have a political bent.
Netanyahu’s former spokesman, MK Ofir Akunis of Likud, is behind the bill to cap foreign governments’ contributions to “political” nongovernmental organizations at NIS 20,000, and MK Fania Kirshenbaum of Yisrael Beiteinu is seeking to impose a 45 percent tax on foreign governments’ donations to NGOs ineligible for state funding.
What do you think of the proposed legislation? Visit Haaretz.com on Facebook and share your views.
Is it possible that Netanyahu is not familiar with the 2002 trade pact between Israel and the European Union? The pathbreaking agreement granted Israel breaks in customs duties and tightened cooperation between Israel and the EU countries in the fields of economics, science, law, culture and society. In addition, Article 2 of the agreement stipulates: “Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.”
What is Netanyahu thinking? Does he really believe EU leaders will keep silent when the Israeli government silences organizations that are keeping track of, and reporting, violations of this key article in the agreement? It is to be hoped Bibi realizes that only total ignoramuses can make the argument that no country in Europe would be willing to have a foreign country intervene in its domestic affairs; the EU allocates billions of euros to human rights organizations throughout the European continent.
True, the initiators of the bill are allowing the generous European friends to transfer funds to nonprofit associations that enjoy the support of the Israeli government. That is, they are expecting the Europeans to agree that Israel ‘s right-wing government will determine which nonprofits are worthy of benefiting from the European taxpayer’s money. For example, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz wouldn’t hinder the Europeans from donating to settler organizations that are encouraging settlement in illegal outposts. There are also quite a number of nonprofit yeshivas that serve as incubators for Jewish terrorists and would be glad to put their hands into the leaky coffers of Greece and Italy . And maybe Bibi believes in the old Israeli saying that suckers never die – they just get replaced.
It is doubtful the dangerous and anti-democratic bill will pass the test of the High Court of Justice (unless the Knesset passes the bill enabling MK David Rotem of Yisrael Beiteinu, and his friends on the extreme right, to vet nominees for Supreme Court justices ).
What will the attorney general reply to the court’s question about which criteria make a nonprofit “political”? Documentation of testimony from soldiers who have served in the territories (Breaking the Silence )? A report on outposts established on land privately owned by Palestinians (Peace Now )? Supporting civil society (New Israel Fund )? Monitoring human rights violations in the territories (B’Tselem ), fighting discrimination against Israeli Arabs (Adalah )?
And what will the state’s representative reply to the justices’ question about why the law applies only to donations from foreign countries and not from foreign donors? Why is the money of a Christian fundamentalist from the United States more kosher than the money of a Spanish taxpayer? What will the attorney general say about the confession of Samaria regional council spokeswoman Ahuva Shiloh concerning acceptance of donations from evangelicals? “The settlers want to settle the land, in part because of the belief that settling the land will bring the redemption, according to Judaism,” the Hadrei Hadarim website quoted her as saying in January 2005. “The Christians are interested in the Jews settling the land, in order to bring the Christian redemption.”
Many Christians believe that the redemption will begin only after the Jews either convert to Christianity or are wiped out. But that apparently doesn’t make their donations any less kosher.
Netanyahu has to hope that Israel ‘s efforts to keep foreign countries from getting involved in Israeli politics don’t backfire by making those countries realize that Israel is meddling in their business. What will happen if, as a farewell gift on the eve of his defeat in the French presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy decides to close the Jewish Agency offices in Paris ? He could say that luring French citizens to immigrate to Israel is a crude form of meddling in France ‘s internal affairs.
Whenever a claim about foreign meddling comes up, Netanyahu has to hide out in his glass house. There has never been a politician in Israel who has meddled (and is still meddling ) more than him in American politics. True, the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC doesn’t take a cent from Israel . But then, it has more than enough money to encourage politicians to say amen to anything that comes out of the Israeli government.
Journalistic immunity
Herewith is a reconstruction of a conversation last Friday between two journalists whose paths crossed at a demonstration by leftist organizations on the outskirts of the West Bank settlement of Anatot.
Journalist A: “I’ve had a strong story come to me about that judge who is a candidate for the Supreme Court. To my regret, I won’t be able to write about him. He ruled against me in a libel suit filed by settlers and people will say it’s not ethical.”
Journalist B: “I’d be glad to write the report myself, but I’ve also lost in a case pressed by a settler in his court.”
An interesting method. The settlers are inundating the courts with libel suits, the suits are directed to a judge who specializes in libel law, and the judge gets immunity from yet another journalist.
Incidentally, at an earlier demonstration, some six weeks ago, police looked on from the sidelines as settlers – among them uniformed police officers – rained blows on the demonstrators. Dozens of police officers surrounded the holding pen into which they pushed the leftists, filming them from every angle. This is called closing the stable doors after the horses have bolted. To this day, not a single settler has been arrested.
