I think that we are in business again—at least almost. Still have a few quirks to figure out, and to retrain my memory so that my fingers will go to the proper place to do what I want to do. But as a whole, this getting used to a new program is going faster than I’d anticipated. I only hope that you receive the message that I send—that there will be no more blanks. What and how much you read of the message is up to you, but very frustrating to me when after quite a few hours of work, it all gets lost in a blank.
Ok. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Today’s Israeli papers had a good deal of criticism of the present government’s policies—particularly the anti-democratic laws. Not, heaven forbid criticism of Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza. But criticism nevertheless. Perhaps the most unusual one is item 4, in which a young Israeli explains why he intends to leave Israel, and apparently believes that others will accompany him. His reasons do not include settlements or occupation, but do include lack of security. The amazing part is less that an individual feels that way, than that an Israeli newspaper (and not Haaretz) published it.
The 8 items below begin with a report on more expulsion of—of course, Palestinians. In this case Bedouins of the Jahalin tribe. This item appears in the Guardian, not in an Israeli commercial paper. How much more do people have to suffer before the world sits up and takes notice? So it was in WWII with the Jews, the Gypsies, the Communists, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others. So it is in other places and times. But that does not justify what Israel does to the Palestinians. Period!
Item 2 is Hilary Clinton’s criticism of Israel, which you probably have heard or heard of. Just in case not, here it is. The question is, do this and the U.S. Minister of Defense’s not so friendly remarks to Israel a few days ago signal some new U.S. attitude towards Israel? We shall see, I guess. If you want more Israeli criticism check out today’s Haaretz editorial http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/netanyahu-cares-about-power-not-affordable-living-1.399548, Others, as Akiva Eldar, takes the American Jewish reaction to the ad campaign, and the resulting sudden stopping of it by Israel’s PM, as an indication of the power American Jews have, and complains that the power that they have is not put also to bring about change in Israeli incitement http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/u-s-jews-use-your-influence-to-stop-israeli-incitement-1.399549 These and other items are omitted below, because there is a lot of reading without them and other items as well. Have to make a selection.
Item 3 is ‘a message to the McCarthy loving Likud MK’ It would be funny were it not true!
But for those of fundamentalist tendencies, I guess that Joseph McCarthy (that hateful individual) looks good.
Item 4 is, as I mentioned, a young man’s explanation of why he sees no future in Israel. According to him, he is not alone.
Item 5 is about a small stat: according to the OECD the rich in Israel earn 14 times more than the poor. True, there are countries in which the difference is greater. So, does that justify this in Israel?
Though Item 6 is entitled ‘Is Israel guilty of the crime of apartheid,’ the discussion is less about the guilt than about the nature of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine. Richard Falk makes clear that the ‘purpose of the tribunal is not to ascertain guilt but to denounce it.’ The facts, he says, are already known and are public. Yet the crime persists. Really worth reading, as are Falk’s writings generally.
In item 7 Richard Silverstein shows that the ‘Campaign of Death Threats, Stalking and Vandalism Against Anti-Occupation Leaders Continues as Israeli Press Faces More Gag Rules.’ Sure. This is Israel.
Item 8, as you guessed, is ‘Today in Palestine.’ Some of the reports you have had through other postings, but there is also much new. Most are not pleasant. Among items that I’d not seen before is a longish one on Tristan Anderson. It is not the most important item in the compilation, but it will surely interest those of you who know Tristan.
That’s it for today, except to say, thanks for your patience throughout all this computer-mechanics mess.
Dorothy
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1. Guardian Monday 5 December 2011 16.43 GMT
Israel to forcibly remove bedouin communities in settlements push
Relocation of 2,300 people in West Bank to site near Jerusalem rubbish tip would make contiguous Palestinian state impossible
Harriet Sherwood in Khan al-Ahmar guardian.co.uk, larger | smaller Article history
Bedouin go through belongings after the Israeli army allegedly destroyed several homes and sheep pens in East Jerusalem. Photograph: Mahmoud Illean/Demotix
Around 20 bedouin communities between Jerusalem and Jericho are to be forcibly relocated from the land on which they have lived for 60 years under an Israeli plan to expand a huge Jewish settlement.
The removal of around 2,300 members of the bedouin Jahalin tribe, two-thirds of whom are children, is due to begin next month. The Israeli authorities plan to relocate the families from the West Bank to a site close to a municipal rubbish dump on the edge of Jerusalem.
The bedouin say the move would expose them to health hazards, deny them access to land to graze their livestock and endanger their traditional lifestyle. They add that the viability of their existing communities has been seriously eroded by the growth of Jewish settlements, the creation of military zones, demolitions of homes and animal pens, and the building of a highway which cuts through their encampments.
“Because of the [military] closures and the settlements, we are living in a jail which gets smaller every year,” said Eid Hamis Swelem Jahalin, 46, who was born in the encampment of Khan al-Ahmar, and has lived there almost all his life.
The relocation plan is the first phase of a longer term programme to remove around 27,000 bedouin Arabs from area C, the 62% of the West Bank under Israeli military control.
The communities have not been formally notified of the plan, which was disclosed by Israel’s civil administration, the military body governing area C, to a UN agency.
The head of the civil administration visited Khan al-Ahmar three weeks ago to give verbal warning of the impending removal, said Hamis. “He said the land belongs to the government, that we are illegally here. I told him that I lived here before 1967, before you even came to our land.”
The tiny communities perched on the bleak rocky hills which roll down towards the Dead Sea endure a harsh existence without electricity, running water, sanitation, paved roads and medical facilities. The bedouin homes are makeshift structures of wood, corrugated iron and tarpaulin.
The nearby Jewish settlements, in contrast, are connected to utilities and services. Ma’ale Adumim, home to almost 40,000 people and which overlooks the Jahalin communities, has 21 schools, 80 kindergartens, a public transport network, libraries, swimming pools and shopping malls.
The area on which the Jahalin live has been designated by Israel for the expansion of Ma’ale Adumim. Many Palestinians see this as part of a strategic plan to close a ring of Jewish settlements that would cut East Jerusalem off from the West Bank. By stretching down to the Jordan valley, an expanded Ma’ale Adumim would also bisect the West Bank, making a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.
“They want to empty the bedouin from the whole area, and they will put settlers in our place, and there will be no Palestinian state,” said Hamis. All Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law.
The Jahalin were originally from the Negev desert, from which they fled or were forced out following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Now the extended tribe is scattered across the West Bank. Those threatened with relocation say they rented the land from its Palestinian owners, who live in the nearby village of Anata. But the Israeli authorities say the land now belongs to the state, and their homes, animal pens and small schools are built without permission – which is practically impossible to obtain – and therefore subject to demolition.
All 257 Jahalin families in the five villages straddling the Jerusalem-Dead Sea highway have been issued with demolition orders.
A school serving their young children, built two and a half years ago from old car tyres and mud, is also threatened following pressure from nearby settlers. “Since the beginning they wanted to move us from here, but building the school made it worse,” said Hamis, adding that the settlers saw it as a sign of permanence.
The removal plans are not final, according to the civil administration, whose spokesman has been quoted as saying the Israeli authorities are trying to find an acceptable solution for the bedouin whose communities are “illegally located”.
The proposed relocation site is already home to around 4,000 Jahalin who were evicted from their encampments in the mid-1990s. According to the UN, the site “does not meet minimum standards in terms of distance from the municipal dumping grounds … previously relocated families report negative consequences, including health concerns, loss of livelihood, deteriorated living conditions, loss of tribal cohesion and erosion of traditional lifestyles.”
· BBC Sunday, December 4, 2011
Hillary Clinton ‘concerned over Israeli democracy’
Hillary Clinton’s comments were welcomed by Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni
Israeli ministers have hit back at concern expressed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that democracy is being eroded in the country.
She criticised recent attempts by the centre right-wing coalition to restrict donations to non-government organisations.
And she said attempts in some parts of Jerusalem to separate men and women on buses was “reminiscent of Rosa Parks”.
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said she had “completely exaggerated”.
“Israeli democracy is alive, liberal and breathing… I don’t know many better democracies in the world,” he was quoted by Haaretz newspaper as saying.
Female singers
Mrs Clinton made her comments in a closed session of the Saban Forum in Washington, attended by both Israeli and US decision-makers.
In front of an audience that included Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor and opposition leader Tzipi Livni, she made specific mention of legislation that proposes to limit funding to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), Israeli media reported.
She also expressed her shock at incidents pointing to a growing discrimination against Israeli women.
This included separate seating areas for women on some Jerusalem buses, which she compared with the 1950s era of Rosa Parks, the black American woman who refused to give up her bus seat for white passengers.
She said the case of some IDF soldiers who refused to remain for a performance by female singers was reminiscent of the situation in Iran.
Tzipi Livni welcomed Mrs Clinton’s comments.
“Friends and admirers of Israel from within and without are worried about processes that Israel is undergoing,” she said.
“This concern is coming from those who fight for us in the UN and against our detractors, and who act to preserve Israel’s military advantage in the area.”
Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan said “elected offcials should concentrate on what is happening in their own countries.” However he added that he shared her concern over the rights of women.
· Haaretz Monday, December 05, 2011
Latest update 13:47 05.12.11
Message to McCarthy-loving Likud MK: ‘Good Night and Good Luck’
Israel’s overzealous lawmakers are endangering the very foundations of Israel’s relations with America and its Jews.
MK Ofir Akunis appeared to be letting the proverbial cat out of the bag when he told an Israeli television show on Sunday night that the late and not-so-great U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy “was right in every word he said.”
It was, you must admit, a fitting finale to what has been a tumultuous week in relations between Israel and the U.S., in general, and between Israel and American Jews, in particular. Here was a Likud MK, a deputy chairman of the Knesset and one of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s closest Likud allies, choosing to respond to criticism leveled by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton against the Israeli right’s anti-democratic initiatives by giving a kosher stamp of approval to who? To Joseph “I have here in my hand a list” McCarthy, one of the most discredited American politicians in history, and one whose memory is particularly abhorrent to American Jews.
With a few choice words that we shall generously ascribe to a momentary lapse in concentration, Akunis scored an own goal that was actually a hat-trick, or, if you prefer baseball parlance, stuck himself out with one pitch: he handed his political rivals a powerful petard with which to hoist his own controversial anti-NGO bill; he seemed to be providing proof, if any was lacking, for Clinton’s suggestion that something is rotting in the State of Israel; and he was capping a week of deep divisions between Israelis and American Jews by demonstrating that the two are not only miles away and oceans apart, but actually living on different planets – Israelis are from Venus, and American Jews are from Mars, or vice versa.
It’s true that Akunis later tried to correct himself by asserting that he had meant to say that McCarthy was “right” in the sense that Soviet spies indeed existed during the Cold War, but that is like claiming that Ahmadinejad is “right” because there is indeed a Zionist regime in Jerusalem. It remains unclear, however, whether Akunis also realizes that those Soviet spies who were operating in the U.S. were uncovered by other agencies, and not by McCarthy, and that it is the Wisconsin Senator’s name that came to be associated – let’s hope he’s listening – with “reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries” , if one may be forgiven for quoting Wikipedia.
And I assume – indeed, I hope – that Akunis has no idea of just how reviled McCarthy was by most American Jews, of the dark memories that he etched in the minds of an entire Jewish generation with his “reign of terror”: of the traumatic effect of the blacklists and the purges and the countless Jewish lives that were ruined by the unscrupulous red-baiting senator; of the thousands of “Communist” books, an inordinate number of which were written by Jews, that were removed from public libraries at McCarthy’s instigation; and of the relief felt by the Jews when McCarthy was finally disgraced and deposed and, yes, died an early death. “I hope you’ll forgive me, but I could dance on his grave,” says Virginia Snitow, former 1930’s communist turned 1960’s national Jewish women’s leader, in the very pertinent documentary film “Between Two Worlds” produced by her son, Alan, along with Deborah Kaufman (of which I shall write separately).
Akunis’ slip-of-the-mind should serve as a warning signal about the potentially devastating effect of what is being perceived – rightly, in my opinion, but even if wrongly – as Israel’s dangerous departure from its time-honored democratic norms, as it battles its own judiciary, imposes religious restrictions on women or finds legislative loopholes aimed at stifling dissent. It is no coincidence that the most widely-used cliché in any speech lauding the resilience of American-Israeli relations – including Prime Minister Netanyahu’s recent address to Congress – is “common values”, and that any erosion of this slogan by the increasingly zany measures concocted by Israel’s overzealous lawmakers and fundamentalist rabbis can thus be construed as endangering the very foundations of the American-Israel alliance. It is this strategic threat, to which so many Israeli lawmakers appear to be oblivious, that Clinton was addressing in her remarks to the Saban Forum.
And though American Jews could be observed jumping up and down this week in overblown overreaction to Israel’s admittedly ill-advised ads on returning Israeli expats, their reticence to speak out against the reactionary trends in Israel should not be construed as a sign of indifference, quite the contrary. Most Jewish leaders that I have spoken to in recent weeks appear to be in what I can only describe as a state of shock, unable to come to terms with what they perceive as a determined Israeli slide down a dangerous slippery slope, hoping, perhaps, that if they won’t talk about it, it will simply go away, like a bad dream.
But an Israeli MK who has the gall to say anything remotely positive about Joe McCarthy should quickly dispel them of such an illusion. Perhaps, then, this is the right time for Americans to respond to Akunis and others of his ilk by asking Israelis to consider whether they can see themselves between the lines of the following American masterpiece:
“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.”
“This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home”.
“The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
“Good night and good luck.”
Edward R. Murrow, See It Now, March 9, 1954
Follow me on Twitter @ChemiShalev
· Ynet Monday, December 05, 2011
Local Frustration
Liad Magen Photo courtesy of Shai Photography Art
Fed up with life in Israel
Op-ed: Liad Magen explains why he sees no future in Israel, wants to return to the Diaspora
My name is Liad. I work as a programmer and make a decent salary. I try to live my life tranquilly in Tel Aviv, which for me is the only real city in Israel. I’m 32-years-old, and almost half of my life is behind me. Yes, I look at the glass half empty, because I’m not such an optimist. As of late I’m even quite pessimistic and completely despaired over what is going on around me in the State of Israel.
It starts with the prices at the supermarket. Compared to other enlightened nations, this is clearly a robbery. It continues with the housing prices, which rose dramatically and affected rent prices. Then there’s of course the financial elements of the fees on our eroding pensions, not to mention insurance companies who acquired pension funds and abuse the elderly and weak. Then we have the high fees charged by the banking cartel. Everything is disproportionate to our salaries, which refuse to adapt themselves to the state of the economy.
The public sectors suffer too. Medical residents and social workers hit the streets, while on the other side of the ledger we have parties who pull the strings and receive huge wages at our ports and railway company. The state of public transportation is grim as well: Employees of the Israel Railway, which doesn’t function properly as it is, hold strikes or go on “sick leaves” whenever they feel like it. The bus reform achieved nothing with the exception of a substantial rise in the cost of traveling. No solutions are on the horizon.
The global recession and the crisis in Europe threaten all of us, yet while in other enlightened states – in the US and Europe – the cost of living adapts itself to the economic situation, here it appears that everyone tries to benefit at everyone else’s expense.
And I haven’t said a word about the security situation, the constant existential threat we cope with here, and our violent and bloody recent history. Yet this isn’t really new – it was never easy to live here. Even when my mother moved to Israel, as a young, idealist woman, my grandmother attempted to dissuade her: “It’s hard for Jews to live with other Jews, because everyone tries to gain at the expense of the rest,” she said some 30 years ago, and was right. This is exactly the feeling here. Everyone tries to gain at everyone else’s expense.
The solution of returning to the Diaspora and living overseas always captivated us, the wondering Jews; we always heard those amazing stories about the uncle from America, who of course achieved success easily. Especially in my field, as a computer engineer, relocation is not a dirty word. Many of my friends are overseas, in Europe, Australia and the United States. Even friends who served in the army with me, and completed a full combat service, left for the US and opened successful companies there. All of them are doing well.
Looking for partners
On the other hand, there are quite a few drawbacks to such move. If you put aside the surging anti-Semitism, the most prominent drawback for me is the fact that my family and friends are here. Based on my past experience, it’s hard to be alone in a foreign country. Beyond the need to cope with the language and culture, there is also a need to build a new social life.
As opposed to Tel Aviv, where everyone meets everyone at coffee shop, without planning it, midday Friday, people overseas coordinate meetings weeks in advance sometimes. Hence, I decided to initiate my own quiet protest. I did not go to the Knesset to protest for social justice and proper public transportation solutions for the periphery. I chose a simple, quiet, private protest. I updated my social networks status to the following:
Dear friends,
For a long time now, I’ve been despaired over all the processes taking place in the country. It starts with the housing prices, and rent that grows disproportionately more expensive every year for neglected apartments built before the State’s inception; food prices at the supermarket are much more expensive compared to other states; the horrific public transportation system that prompts everyone to only live in central Israel, purchase a vehicle with 100% tax and contribute to traffic jams; the salaries of medical residents and social workers who don’t get what they deserve; the Bar Association, which is above the law, and deliberately prevents freedom of occupation from the students who try to be accepted; the Light Railway works that prompted contractors to give up and run away from here, and so on and so forth.
For a long time now, I’ve been considering the option of moving to another country; I haven’t decided where yet. I want to move to a place where it will be easier for me to live; a place where I can grow old with dignity and not below the poverty line, while everyone bites into my pension. Yet I know that I don’t want to move alone. Hence, I’m openly asking here: Which one of you, friends and family, is interested in joining me?
The idea is to create an immigration group together, decide where to go, and implement the move with everyone supporting everyone along the way, and especially over there, ranging from language studies to help in finding a job. I know that almost every country today boasts developed Israeli communities, yet it’s always easier to start such move with more people rather than alone.
This status drew quite a few responses. Some of them sympathetic, others sad because of my desire to leave, and yet others trying to dissuade me from doing so, because “this is our country.” Views were divided on our destination as well, yet I believe that ultimately I’ll be able to find the potential partners for a move to a location where one can live well in terms of cost of living, comfort, and peace of mind.
At the end of the day, it’s a bit like looking for a partner for a trip to India or South America, yet this time around we are choosing a destination that is a little more modern, for a period longer than a few months. Much longer.
Report indicates Israeli income inequality gap widening; inequality among highest in the West.
Income inequality in Israel is among the highest in the developed world, according to a report released Monday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The report indicates that the gap continues to widen despite the fact that Israel was already considered a high-inequality country.
Israel was singled out as one of only two OECD countries in which the real income of those at the bottom of the income ladder actually fell in comparison with the mid-1980s.
The richest ten percent in OECD countries earn, on average, nine times that of the poorest ten percent. In Israel, the richest ten percent earn over 14 times that of the poorest 10 percent. The United States and Turkey were in the same income equality bracket. The richest ten percent earn over 27 times more than the poorest ten percent in Mexico and Chile.
Using the Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality that ranges from 0 (where all incomes are identical) to 1 (where all income goes to one individual), Israel measured a 4 percent increase.
The rich-poor divide did not increase in all OECD member states. A number of countries managed to significantly reduce income inequality, including Chile, Mexico, Turkey, Greece, and Hungary.
Student Union Chairman Itzik Shmuli said Monday that “today’s OECD report confirms what Israeli citizens have known for a long time already, and is the reason they began protesting.” Shmuli’s comments were in reference to the 2011 social justice movement, which was launched when 26-year-old Daphni Leef pitched a tent on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard in protest of high housing prices. The move quickly developed into mass protests, a national movement that lasted for months. In response, the government launched the Trajtenberg Committee on Socioeconomic Change and approved some of its recommendations in October.
Shmuli added his call for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to “demand an immediate solution for the situation and to release real proposals for the apartment shortage, the education system, and the welfare system instead of continuing to concentrate on tax exemptions for online shopping and other inconsequential dreams that the Treasury is promoting on the back of the protests.”
Israel joined the OECD in May 2010 after it fulfilled a number of the organization’s recommendations: more efficient supervision of employers’ pension obligations; support for the integration of people with disabilities into the workplace; an increase in Arab representation in the public sector, including support for companies that promote the employment of minorities; creation of a framework for granting foreign workers permanent visas, as is the practice in Europe; and modification of prerequisites for receiving unemployment benefits.
Nadav Shemer contributed to this report
6. Al Jazeera Monday, December 5, 2011
Is Israel guilty of the crime of apartheid?
Richard Falk reflects on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine Session in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine recently found the state of Israel to be guilty of apartheid [EPA]
It is my belief that the recent finding of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) that the state of Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid in relation to the Palestine people should be taken with the utmost seriousness by all those who affirm human solidarity and care about making visible the long ordeal of a suffering and vulnerable people. The finding is conspicuously ignored by Israel and the United States, as well as by most media and by the United Nations. Such neglect is partly a result of Israel’s geopolitical weight and partly the widely shared opinion that if a decision on law and rights is rendered by a procedure that is not constituted by governments or international institutions, it deserves no respect even if it is the most reliable available means to tell the world about some “inconvenient truths”.
I firmly believe that the Russell Tribunal has credibility as a venue for truth-telling despite being established and funded by ordinary citizens concerned about the denial of Palestinian rights and Israeli defiance of international law. RToP makes no pretense of being “a court” with enforcement powers, but it does deny allegations of “cooking the books” because it knows in advance that there will be a finding of guilt. Indeed it is this knowledge in advance, based on abundant and non-contested evidence, that explains the motivations for mounting the extraordinary effort to raise the funds and handle the logistics required to organise a proceeding of this type. Such a tribunal makes no real effort made to discover the truth, although representatives of those accused were formally invited to present their defence, but rather its calling is to document the truth. Israel has made no secret of the policies, laws and practices that were presented in Cape Town, although it describes them differently, hides and obscures their application, and draws a different set of conclusions.
Russell’s historic initiative
It was the celebrated British philosopher, Bertrand Russell who suggests in his autobiography that he felt that the world needed to know about the Vietnam War in a manner free from self-serving slant and Cold War propaganda, and so he invited leading moral authority figures in the world to take part in an unrestricted inquiry into the alleged criminality associated with the American role in Vietnam.
In Russell’s opening statement at the International War Crimes Tribunal convened in 1966 to investigate the atrocities by the US in Vietnam, he declared that the initiative had no clear precedent but that such openness was helpful as it allowed the tribunal “to conduct a solemn and historic investigation, uncompelled by reasons of State or other such obligations”. He ended his remarks by making clear the distinctive objective of the undertaking: “May this Tribunal prevent the crime of silence”.
In effect, the narration of the criminality is undertaken not primarily to speak truth to power, which is generally deaf to voices from below, but to speak truth to people, awakening public opinion from its apathy to the responsibilities of being human (concern for the victimised other) and duties as citizens of free society to ensure that a government acting in its name upholds the law. Russell expressed this orientation as embodying very grand, some would say grandiose, expectations: “our task is to make mankind bear witness to these crimes and to unite humanity on the side of justice in Vietnam”.
Actually, the outcome of the Russell Tribunal was virtually unreported at the time (except derisively), and later its work was known only to small coteries of anti-war activists and intellectuals, and even they were often confused at the time about whether such a one-sided unauthorised event was helpful to the general cause of peace and justice in the world. With the passage of time, the Russell experience has gained in influence and reputation, but it remains a large exaggeration to claim, as Marvyn Bennum does in an otherwise excellent article, “Understanding the rational, logic and procedures of the Russell Tribunal”, [Cape Argus, October 31, 2011] that the Russell tribunals had “a profound impact on world opinion”, although this historic initiative did set the standard in most respects for subsequent enactments of such an approach, including the RToP.
Unfortunately, although Russell’s words are often invoked as the core justifying claim, the reality after some 45 years is that such undertakings, and there have been many since this first one, are rendered almost mute by a media that thinks and feels like a state, which is especially so when the allegations are directed at the lead constitutional democracy that sits firmly at the pinnacle of geopolitical power and influence. The wall of silence does not crumble easily if sustained by the combined corporate and military muscle at the disposal of Washington.
As Russell said in 1967 at the second session of the Vietnam Tribunal, “[w]e are not judges. We are witnesses”. This witnessing is meant to be politically effective than mere pronouncements of injustice and criminality, and it has gradually in recent years become more so. As the state system has moved to criminalise certain forms of conduct, and even to establish an International Criminal Court, it seems more plausible to demand that the law should be applied to the strong as well as the weak, and less of a usurpation of governmental functions for persons acting on their own to do what institutions of the state are failing to do, that is, assess charges of guilt.
It may seem to be the case that the Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal gave the game away at the outset by putting the words “investigate the atrocities by the United States in Vietnam”. Such provocative language makes us think about the nature of the game, and how it should be played. To deal with the impunity of the powerful in abusing the weak, the supposed uncertainty of outcome in a governmental trial (where some version of the myth of “innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” is in force) is not present in this kind of setting. The very premise of the Russell Tribunal, and the many subsequent replicas, is that there is such certainty present as to generate moral outrage sufficient to give rise to the inquiry.
Frank Barat, the main organiser of RToP put the issue slightly differently, by observing “[o]ur intention has never been to find out if Israel were guilty or not, nor to start a debate about it. This work has already been done by UN bodies, human rights organisations, aid organisations and countless violated UN Security Council resolutions”. And further, “[i]t is our duty to stand with the oppressed in its quest for justice”.
In this respect, those civil society tribunals that try to imitate to the extent a judicial model of inquiry and decision risk generating confusion. They make it more reasonable for critics to point out that if the tribunal purports to be trying to ascertain guilt rather than denounce it on the basis of a preexisting legal consensus, then a pretense of “judicial process” does make itself subject to criticism as a hypocritical fraud. To some extent, the recently concluded Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, while impressive in many respects, fell into this trap by emphasising the legal credentials of its “judges” who were almost all exclusively jurists who were only locally known and by putting forward a kind of token defence on behalf of Bush and Blair who were charged with crimes in connection with the Iraq War. The Russell Vietnam Tribunal, in contrast, had clearly signalled its rejection of this vocational law model by using such a loaded word as “atrocities” in naming itself, by not seeking to appoint individuals with a law background to serve on its panel of judges, and by not mounting any defence on behalf of those accused (although a ritualised invitation was issued to the American president, Lyndon B Johnson, to do so).
Obviously, this issue raises a question for the future. Is it better to mimic the state-centric model of judicial process in a criminal case to the extent possible or is it preferable to produce a morality pageant in which a true story is told with as much passion, reasoning, and proof as possible? Of course, international law can be invoked in the pageant model as explained by Barat when he writes that the RToP “by using international law as its basis, proposes a no-nonsense way forward. The law is on the side of the Palestinians, so let’s make good use of it. The Tribunal intends to assist the people working on a just peace for all with the legal means they have crucially been lacking for too long”. [Frank Barat, “What is the point of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine?”] The pro-Palestinian claim here seems to correspond with a fair reading of relevant international law on all crucial dividing issues: settlements, Jerusalem, refugees, occupation, land, water, and the utmost issue, self-determination. So stacked it reinforces the moral condemnation.
Goldstone’s charm
Realising that the objective is to overcome “silence”, the RToP was greatly helped by the publication of a slanderous attack on the prospective undertaking in the pages of the New York Times by the notable South African public figure Richard Goldstone. [Goldstone, “Israel and the Apartheid Slander”, NY Times, October 31, 2011] Never before in the more than four decades of such proceedings had an influential media venue in the West stooped to take notice of such happenings prior to their occurrence. Not only did Goldstone call global attention to RToP, but he created a platform for response that was used by John Dugard, another South African of global stature with special expert credentials as to conditions in Palestine as well as to the experience of apartheid in South Africa. The Goldstone attack suggests that it sometimes better to have enemies than friends!
“The Goldstone attack suggests that it’s sometimes better to have enemies than friends!”
– Richard Falk
In the article almost ludicrously Goldstone wrote, “In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute. ‘Inhumane acts… committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and discrimination’…” Really! The list of discriminatory laws, the dual administration of settlements and Palestinians, the checkpoint treatment of Palestinians, the settler only roads, the non-protection of Palestinians living under occupation, the midnight abusive arrests of children certainly suggest a pattern of inhuman acts even to an uninformed mind!
Without naming the participants, among whom were a death camp survivor, Stephane Hessel, a former member of Mandela’s cabinet – Ronnie Kasrils, a world renowned author – Alice Walker, a distinguished English barrister – Michael Mansfield, QC, and a former American congresswoman – Cynthia McKinney, Goldstone calls them “critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known”. The question, of course, is not whether these outstanding personalities have strong opinions on the matter at issue, but whether they have credibility based on their reputation for bearing witness truthfully and effectively. [For insightful interviews by Hanan Chehata with these leading RToP participants see the Middle East Monitor website].
RToP in South Africa
The RToP chose South Africa as the site for this session on apartheid quite obviously to claim continuity with the universally condemned racist regime that governed the country until 1994. This continuity was reinforced by having Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, renowned opponent of apartheid in South Africa and someone who early drew the analogy to Israeli treatment of Palestinians, deliver an opening address at the session in Cape Town.
This lineage was further reinforced by the presence of Ronnie Kastrils, a Jewish member of the RToP panel, as well as receiving testimony from the world respected South African jurist, John Dugard, who was prominent both for his opposition at home to apartheid and because in his role as UN HRC Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine he called the occupation as an instance of the international crime of apartheid.
But there was also some cost paid for emphasising this link to South Africa, which was the only real basis for Goldstone’s rant directed at RToP. Goldstone called the comparison “an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations”. In effect, it allows the misleading argument to be made that since there are significant dissimilarities between Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and the South African racist regime the allegation would seem to rest on the credibility of the comparison.
As should be understood by people of good will by now, the apartheid experience in South Africa gave rise to the formulation of an international crime of apartheid as specified in the 1973 International Convention and included in the 2002 Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, but it does not delimit future occurrences of the crime of apartheid. In this latter legal instrument, apartheid is set forth as one of eleven types of “crimes against humanity” in Article 7(1)(j) of the treaty.
The crime of apartheid
The most controversial, and at the same time far reaching feature, of the RToP finding was to conclude that Israeli responsibility for establishing an apartheid regime applied not only to Palestinians living under occupation, but also to the Palestinians minority living with discriminatory regulations in Israel and to the Palestinian diaspora consisting of 4-5 million refugees and exiles.
Seen in isolation, it seems like an unconvincing extension of the meaning of apartheid, even if separated from its South African connection, to consider Palestinian citizens of Israel, even if victims of severe and humbling discrimination, as living under an apartheid regime or even more so to view diaspora Palestinians in this manner. But there is moral and psycho-political weight to the unanimous view of the RToP jurors that the core right of self-determination applies to the Palestinian people as a whole, including not living under direct Israeli military control.
The RToP divides its rationale for finding guilty of committing the crime of apartheid into three main parts: (1) race as defining identity in Israel/Palestine relations (tribunal agrees that race in the international definition of the crime should be interpreted broadly to include ethnic and national character); (2) inhuman acts (specified in relation to Israeli treatment of Palestinians, as integral to the crime, particularly “colonisation and appropriation of Palestinian land” and coercive fragmentation of the Palestinian community in “different physical spaces”; (3) a systematic and institutionalised regime as pervading the subjugation of the Palestinian people (preferential treatment of Jews, dual legal arrangements, restrictions on residence and mobility, deportations and house demolitions are elements in what the tribunal calls “Israel’s institutionalised regime of domination”. [See Victor Kattan’s excellent detailed analysis of the RToP finding of apartheid in his “The Russell Tribunal on Palestine and the Question of Apartheid”, al-shabaka brief, November 23, 2011].
Assessing RToP
The importance of the RToP session is to strengthen the civil society case against the Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people. As such, it adds a certain quality of gravitas to such international initiatives as the Freedom Flotilla and the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaign. Thanks to Goldstone, and to the organisational skills of the tribunal, there has also been a certain media visibility for RToP that has been absent in most comparable undertakings, including the recent Kuala Lumpur proceedings against George W. Bush and Tony Blair. In this sense, the crime of silence that disturbed Bertrand Russell during the Vietnam War is still being committed, but it has been to a degree mitigated by the legacy he continues to inspire.
Indirectly, also, the very existence of RToP should encourage states to be more active in exerting their own authority to implement individual accountability under international criminal law via reliance on universal jurisdiction. At present, the impulse to reassert such national agency to supplement weak international enforcement mechanisms has been set back by a geopolitical backlash led by the US in the aftermath of the Spanish indictment and British detention of Augusto Pinochet a little more than a decade ago. This struggle between the vitalisation of international criminal law and geopolitical actors demanding impunity will help determine whether global governance is primarily a regime of power or a regime of just law.
Finally, we notice that the jurisprudence of conscience, that is, applications of law without punitive capacity in relation to alleged violators, is maturing in two parallel directions. The first illustrated by the Russell legacy, including at this recently concluded inquiry into Israeli apartheid, rests its methodology on law established by testimony of legal experts and findings of individuals whose credibility depends primarily on their moral authority and cultural stature, a jury of conscience. The second illustrated to a degree by the Kuala Lumpur proceedings, seeking to replicate the behaviour of courts under the informal auspices of civil society, and seeks to base its credibility on a pervasive legal framework, including the makeup of the panel making findings and recommendations and extending to providing a defence on behalf of the government and individuals charged with criminal behavior. Hopefully, the fourth and final session of RToP, to be held in 2012 in the US, will in addition to providing an overview of the allegations against Israel, will also offer guidance to those who see a continuing need for a jurisprudence of conscience as a critical arena of struggle in the ongoing quest for humane global governance.
Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume, International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008).
He is currently serving his third year of a six year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
7, Campaign of Death Threats, Stalking and Vandalism Against Anti-Occupation Leaders Continues as Israeli Press Faces More Gag Rules
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the world body at the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 23, 2011. (Photo: Damon Winter / The New York Times)
Israel today faces one of the greatest threats to its existence. No, I’m not referring to Iran, nor the Palestinians, Egypt or Syria. The threat comes from within.
The Israeli Knesset has either approved or is considering a raft of legislation that would fundamentally change the democratic character of the state of Israel. It has already passed a law which would criminalize public support for the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement. Other bills would prohibit foreign funding of Israeli nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), declare Israel to be a Jewish state, remove Arabic as one of the country’s national languages, dramatically increase penalties in libel suits and allow plaintiffs to recover without having to prove damages, make online publishers liable for comments published at their blogs or web sites, and force Internet service providers (ISPs) to reveal personal information about such commenters to the police.
The Israeli media and press freedom are under threat as never before. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, after Channel 10 aired two highly critical exposés about the business practices of gambling tycoon Sheldon Adelson and the ethical improprieties of then-Member of the Knesset (MK) Netanyahu, threatened to withdraw the station’s license unless it fired the reporter responsible for the latter program. In fact, Israeli media sources report that Netanyahu has already negotiated a deal and the station’s fate is sealed.
Recently, the Israeli police detained the station manager of All for Peace Radio and threatened him with arrest if he didn’t take the station off the air. It had tried unsuccessfully for years to obtain a license and Israeli authorities refused to grant one. Its ultimate offense was apparently that it broadcast programming to both Israel and the Palestinian territories that advocated tolerance and peaceful coexistence between the two peoples (including a two-state solution, which the current government claims to support). The station has been silenced.
Add to this a massive increase in violence against Israeli Jewish and Palestinian peace activists, including an organized assault at the Anatot settlement in which human rights activists were sexually assaulted, bones were broken and there was an attempted stabbing. Add arson attacks against mosques and death threats against leaders of the anti-occupation NGO Peace Now, and you have a perfect storm of Israeli authoritarian assault on the foundations of democracy.
There are a host of reasons why this assault is happening now. First is the sense of external threat foisted upon Israelis by their leaders. Israel has turned Iran into its primary existential threat and threatens war regularly in order to destroy that nation’s nuclear program. The BDS movement, the international efforts to break the Gaza siege (the Gaza flotilla), the Palestinian statehood campaign before the United Nations (UN) – all have combined to impose a sense of communal threat upon Israel’s citizens.
When threatened, it’s only natural for a group to retreat into survival mode and embrace behavior it might reject in normal circumstances. Here in the United States, we saw this after 9/11, as the Bush-Cheney campaign against terror morphed into a systematic assault on civil liberties and constitutional rights. Something like that is playing out in Israel.
There is an additional factor at work: Israel has elected right-wing governments consistently over the past 35 years, with the exception of Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak, who ruled for a total of six years during the late 1990s. Now, with the essential disintegration of the Labor party and any force to its left, there is no liberal opposition (the second party, Kadima is center-right). This has allowed the Israeli nationalist right to dominate political discourse, frustrate any attempt to negotiate peace agreements, and pursue a hawkish foreign policy regarding Iran and other frontline states.
The legislative agenda I outlined is, I believe, part of an overall strategy aimed at creating a permanent right-wing majority which will replace Israel’s democratic system with one that will be, at best, authoritarian – or perhaps worse. Amos Schocken, publisher of Haaretz, wrote a moving column recently in which he outlined the mechanisms of such a transformation:
According to the Gush Emunim [Israeli nationalist] ideology, Israel is for Jews. Not just the Palestinians of the Territories are irrelevant, but Palestinian citizens of Israel too are subject to the same oppression and denial of their citizenship. This is a strategy involving seizure of territory and apartheid.
…
This ideology sees in the creation of an Israeli apartheid regime something that is necessary to realizing its goals. It has no problem with using illegal, even criminal acts, because its sacred mission is seen as above the law and having no real relation to the laws of Israel. Rather, it depends on a perverted interpretation of Judaism…
It cannot permit opposition or criticism. It must eliminate the latter and frustrate any effort to restrain its actions … Any actions which are illegal must be made legal by rewriting the law or by reinterpreting existing law so that what was illegal is now redefined as legal. Similar things happened before in other times and places [a distinct reference to Nazi Germany].
The Netanyahu government is grasping an opportunity to radically remake the Israeli political system by removing safeguards for freedom of speech and the press and by weakening the power of civil society initiatives and NGOs to act as a check on violations.
No recent event exemplifies all of these qualities better than a series of settler-inspired price-tag attacks against Peace Now. Several individuals have stalked leaders of the group for years, phoning death and bomb threats to their homes and the group’s offices. Death threat graffiti has been sprayed in the apartment building of one leader and vehicles were vandalized. Several years ago, a $300,000 reward was offered to anyone who killed Peace Now’s director. The individual thought responsible for this act, Jack Teitel, was later arrested and accused of planting bombs which seriously injured two Israelis, an attack on a Tel Aviv gay community center that killed two and attack on a police vehicle that killed two officers.
In a result all too common in cases involving Jewish terrorism, Teitel was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and consigned to a mental hospital. This allows the Israeli justice system to declare that terrorists are aberrations who do not represent the state or its citizens at all.
The police arrested one suspect in the latter price-tag graffiti attacks (but believe at least one other remains at large) and claim he confessed to committing a series of the attacks. But when he appeared in court, the suspect’s father menaced press photographers, demanding they delete the photos they’d taken. He threatened them: “Do you know who I am? I’ll take you to jail!”
No one in Israel can publish either the identity of the suspect, his father or the reason for the latter’s threat. But I will. He is a Shin Bet official, and publication of the names of intelligence agents is prohibited. In this particular case, a judge has shielded not just the father, but the son as well – though there is no law stating that the children of intelligence agents deserve the same treatment as their parents.
Police detained the 21-year-old suspect for two weeks and then released him to house arrest. As soon as he returned home, he began sending multiple-recipient email death threats to Peace Now employees and members in his own name, using his personal email address. An activist not affiliated with the group sent this to me: (Editor’s note: brackets indicate missing Hebrew characters, which could not be translated onto the web page.)
From: : [] <doroved@gmail.com>
Date: 27 []2011
To:
Subject: []”[]
[]
“Subject: E. RIP
I will kill you the end is near”
Despite the fact that the recipients and their friends were prohibited from revealing this within Israel, they could tell me. With their help and a lot of other sleuthing by Israelis and Americans across the globe using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, I’ve exposed a great deal about the criminal suspect.
His name is Dor Oved. He lives with his family in Mevasseret Zion (within the Green Line). His father, Shachar Oved, is a mid-level Shin Bet official and his mother, Aliza, is a police officer.
Until very recently, Dor Oved maintained a Facebook account which featured a profile image of him pointing a gun at the camera. He sports what resembles an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) tattoo on his arm. Though there are a number of Dor Oveds in Israel, he is the only one whose Facebook account notes that he attended high school in Mevasseret Zion.
Though he deleted this account, he now has another Facebook account that doesn’t feature his name (though it does contain his personal email address) and which sports a “Kahane was right” logo. [Meir Kahane was an Israeli-American extremist who called for Arab people to be expelled from Israel.] Oved is an ardent supporter of the settler movement and ultranationalism. Israeli TV also featured video surveillance tapes of Oved spray-painting anti-Arab graffiti in the Israeli Palestinian village of Shuafat.
There are a number of reasons I break such gag orders and violate Israeli secrecy rules. First, I believe they are deeply pernicious to good government and the public’s right to know. They allow the elite to maintain their hold on the reins of power and sources of information and deprive citizens of the information they need to make informed judgments about who leads them and how they lead.
I broke another gag order earlier in the case of Anat Kamm, a young IDF soldier working in a general’s office who leaked 2,000 top-secret documents to a Haaretz reporter documenting targeted killings against unarmed Palestinian militants in violation of Supreme Court rulings. Recently, Kamm was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for her trouble.
The reporter, Uri Blau, still faces the threat of prosecution. He has already lived under such a threat for several years. Anything he publishes is being examined with a fine-toothed comb by state prosecutors to determine whether he violates any further laws that could be used against him.
I only succeeded in breaking the gag order in this case because Judith Miller took an interest in it and publicized it in a post at the Daily Beast and, ironically, on FoxNews.
Such things should not happen in a country that understands and values a free press. While it is true that Bradley Manning faces similar prosecution, as does Julian Assange, who published his material, luckily we haven’t prosecuted The New York Times or its reporters for publishing the documents. That is what Israel threatens to do.
In the current case of Oved, neither Miller nor any other mainstream journalist I contacted felt the story justified the attention of their publication and readers. I’m hoping that, just as an earlier story I wrote here about the kidnapping of Gaza civil engineer Dirar Abu Sisi by the Mossad led to a BBC documentary by Gabriel Gatehouse, perhaps this new report will lead to wider coverage of the outrageous affront committed by the Oved family in collusion with the Israeli justice system.
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.