NOVANEWS
Dear Friends,
Every time I listen to the news these past days (only three times today, so far) the number of Palestinians killed rises, and also the number of missiles shot into Israel. The government is very proud of its ‘Iron Dome,’ but not only is it very costly, but also it is not all together safe. When it destroys missiles in flight, the pieces of metal from it and the missile that it hits when falling to the ground can, potentially, be as dangerous as the missile exploding on the ground. I hope that by tomorrow all this will be done with.
I don’t understand how it is that there is not a mass exodus from here, what with Bibi’s desire to go to war if not with Iran then with Gaza, and given Ehud Barak’s estimate of ‘only’ 500 Israelis to be killed in a war with Iran,” you would think that people would be making a bee line to the airports to get out. But many apparently don’t believe that Israel will attack Iran. I have heard several people using the barking dogs analogy (they don’t bite, supposedly). But I don’t trust our leaders. No, I don’t. And as for Gaza and missiles flying, I guess that so long as no Israeli is hurt, people won’t see the danger. But I can’t stop thinking about the parents and family of the 12 year old and 7 year old Palestinian boys who were killed by Israeli weapons and soldiers today.
The 8 items below of course include items on Gaza–items 1 and 4 are reports on the situation in Gaza and in Israel.
Item 2 reveals present goals in education (in brief–Zionism first, foremost, and always).
Item 3 argues that “A better understanding of Iran might save us from catastrophe.”
Item 4 is, as I said, about the situation in Gaza and the south of Israel.
In item 5 an angry Gideon Levy states “The cyclical ritual of bloodletting between Israel and Gaza always prompts two questions: ‘Who started it?’ and ‘Whose is bigger?’ “
Item 6 is a Haaretz editorial that insists that ‘Israel-Palestinian peace needed now more than ever.’ Well, I’m not sure that peace is needed now more than before. But am perfectly certain that it, and its predecessor, justice (especially for the Palestinians), are needed now and always.
In item 7 Harriet Sherwood tries to depict Israelis via 5 sketches. I’m not fond of generalizations. Moreover, her sketches do not cover all Israeli types. They do not cover, for instance, Ethiopians, nor do they cover people like myself—that is activists against the occupation. True, activists in support of Palestinians and against the occupation are the fringe of society, but we nevertheless are. Others have also been omitted from the sketch. But so far as it goes, it is interesting.
Item 8 is Today in Palestine. Lots of noteworthy material in it. Please don’t neglect Max Blumenthal’s “Israel’s bogus case for bombing Gaza obscures political motives.” Also special is “A letter from under attack.” And of course you will want to know the latest updates on Hana Shalabi, who is now in her 40th (or more) day of hunger strike. Actually, everything in ‘Today in Palestine’ is worth reading, and I hope that even though it is unlikely that you will read every report in full, I hope that you at least glance through the summaries.
That’s it for today.
Hopefully no more killings, no more injuries, no more destruction, not in Gaza not in Israel. Please.
Dorothy
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| 1PCHR Palestinian Centre for Human Rights Press Release |
Ref: 32/2012
Date: 11 March 2012
Time: 11:30 GMT
7 Palestinians, Including a Child, Killed and 24 Others Wounded, Raising Number of Victims of Ongoing Israeli Military Escalation against the Gaza Strip to 18 Deaths and 35 Injuries
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have continued the military offensive on the Gaza Strip, which they have initiated since Friday evening, 09 March 2012. This morning, two Palestinian civilians, including a child, were killed by an Israeli air strike. Thus, the number of Palestinians killed since the beginning of this offensive has risen to 18 and the number of those wounded has risen to 53.
Subsequent to investigations conducted by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) into crimes committed by IOF from Friday evening, 09 March 2012 until Saturday noon, 10 March 2012, investigations conducted by PCHR into the latest incidents indicate:
At approximately 12:45 on Saturday, 10 March 2012, an Israeli warplane fired two missiles at a motorcycle that was traveling on a branch road in ‘Abassan village, east of Khan Yunis. Two activists of the Nasser Saladin Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, who live in Bani Suhaila village, east of Khan Yunis, were traveling on the motorcycle. The missiles hit the motorcycle, killing the two activists who were identified as:
1- Hussein Saleem Hassan Barham, 52; and
2- Mansour Kamal Abu Nussaira, 21, who died shortly after having been admitted to the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Yunis.
At approximately 14:00 also on Saturday, Israeli soldiers stationed at observation towers at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east of the northern Gaza Strip town of Jabalya opened fire at a number of Palestinian civilians who got close to the border and threw stones, during the funeral procession of a number of victims of Israeli air strikes. Five civilians were wounded by gunshots, including two ones who were in serious conditions.
At approximately 15:10 on the same day, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a training site of the ‘Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, to the west of al-Maqqoussi apartment buildings in the north of Gaza City. A number of nearby houses were damaged, and as a result, 6 Palestinian civilians were injured by fragments of glass.
At approximately 15:50 also on Saturday, an Israeli warplane fired two missiles at Mahdi Ahmed Abu Shawish, 26, from Rafah, an activist of the Nasser Saladin Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, when he was getting ready to ride his motorcycle in Block J in the south of Rafah refugee camp. Abu Shawish was instantly killed by shrapnel throughout the body. Additionally, 5 civilian bystanders, including a 15-year-old child, were wounded.
At approximately 22:15 on the same day, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a space area in the east of al-Zaytoun neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. No casualties were reported.
At approximately 01:20 on Sunday, 11 March 20122, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a number of activists of the Nasser Saladin Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, who were near Doula intersection in the east of al-Zaytoun neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. An activist, Ahmed Nafez Saber Deeb, 23, was killed and two others were wounded.
At approximately 07:10 also on Sunday, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a number of Palestinian civilians, mostly children who were playing near their houses in ‘Assaliya Street in the northern Gaza Strip town of Jabalya. As a result, Ayoub ‘Aamer Mohammed ‘Assaliya, 13, was killed, and two of his relatives, including a 7-year-old child, were wounded.
At approximately 08:20, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a number of Palestinian resistance activists to the east of the Car Market in al-Zaytoun neighborhood in the southeast of Gaza City. Two activists were moderately wounded.
At approximately 11:45, a missile fired by an Israeli warplane landed near an agricultural plot belonging to the al-Wehaidi family in al-Fakhoura area in al-Nafaq Street in the northeast of Gaza City. As a result, the guard of the plot, ‘Aadel Saleh Fares al-Essi, 63, from al-Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City, was killed by shrapnel throughout the body. Additionally, two resistance activists were seriously wounded.
PCHR reiterates condemnation of these crimes and expresses utmost concern over such escalation, and:
1- Stresses that these crimes are part of the escalation of crimes committed by IOF in the occupied Palestinian territory, especially in the Gaza Strip, in which IOF have used excessive and disproportional force in disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians.
2- Calls upon the international community to immediately take an action to stop such crimes and reiterates its call for the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their obligations under Article 1 which stipulates “the High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances,” and their obligations under Article 146 which requires that the Contracting Parties prosecute persons alleged to commit grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and under Protocol I Additional to Geneva Conventions.
Public Document
**************************************
For more information please call PCHR office in Gaza, Gaza Strip, on +972 8 2824776 – 2825893
PCHR, 29 Omer El Mukhtar St., El Remal, PO Box 1328 Gaza, Gaza Strip. E-mail: pchr@pchrgaza.org, Webpage http://www.pchrgaza.org
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2 – March 11 2012
Independent commentary and news from Israel & Palestine
March 11 2012
http://972mag.com/education-goals-for-2012-zionism-first-math-failures-second/37607/
Education goals for 2012: Zionism first, math failures second
The government ministries have set their goals for 2012. It’s good to know the Education Ministry has got its priorities straight.
Minister of Education Gideon Sa’ar (photo: Wikimedia Commons)
With so many people dealing with Iran, it’s a wonder anything actually gets done in this country. But yes, next week the CEOs of all of the Israeli government’s ministries will present the goals they set for the year 2012. Not to be the eternal party-pooper, but shouldn’t this have been done in late 2011? Just a tad before 2012…? Oh well, what do I know about running a country.
But anyway, amidst all the bombs and rockets flying just a few dozen kilometers south of me, I tried to my best to read the goals that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his colleagues have planned for moi, the loyal taxpayer. As someone who has written often on the dire situation of Israeli education (you can read here some very disconcerting data), how happy was I to read Lior Dattel’s item in the financial daily The Marker [Heb]. Finally, it looks like Bibi and Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar have finally got the priorities set straight.
Not.
The first goal that the Ministry of Education has set for the coming year is “strengthening the education of Zionist, Jewish, democratic and social values,” which also includes the struggle against violence. Only after this, second on the list, does the ministry address improving student achievments – by raising the number of those who pass Bagrut (matriculation – A.K.) exams (which is now less than half), improving the results in international tests, and narrowing the gaps of students based on geographic and economic background.
The plan to strengthen values includes raising the number of students who tour Jerusalem this year as part of the “Let’s go up to Jerusalem” plan from 50 thousand children to 550 thousand. The ministry has recieved criticism of this plan, through which some of the students also visited the Templ Mount. Furthermore, the ministry plans to raise to 17 thousand the number of students who will take part in the “Israeli voayge” program – a trip that lasts 7 days going all over Israel and run by an organization called “Genesis”, which was founded by Rabbi Moti Elon, who has been accused of sexual harrassment.
The Ministry of Education also plans to raise the number of schools in which the program to strengthen Jewish-Zionist education from 40 to 142, to raise from 713 to 913 the number of schools that allocate study hours to teaching the topic of Israeli culture and heritage, and to raise the number of schools who run the program that encourage service in the IDF, which is mainly run in schools with low draft numbers.
Something tells me even Theodore Herzl wouldn’t be happy.
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3 The Observer
11 March 2012
A better understanding of Iran might save us from catastrophe
As Israel plays up the country’s nuclear threat, the west should be seeking active dialogue with Tehran
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/11/peter-beaumnont-iran-nuclear-threat
Peter Beaumont
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Photograph: Caren Firouz/Reuters
“Actions,” said Samuel Johnson in his life of the English poet Abraham Cowley, “are visible.” What are secret, Johnson added pointedly, are “motives”.
In the case of Iran’s nuclear programme what we know of Tehran’s actions and motives are the following.
With some degree of “overall credibility” – according to the 2011 board of governors’ report from the International Atomic Energy Agency – we know that Tehran, in all likelihood, made active studies of technologies associated with nuclear weapon design and payload design. By and large, the report believes, that activity ceased in 2003, coincident with the US-led invasion of Iraq.
We know, too, because it has been even more visible, that Iran has come close to mastering the nuclear fuel cycle as well, including enrichment of uranium up to 20%.
The problem with the present dangerous debate, as it has been framed ever-more closely through the exclusive prism of Israel’s security concerns and its ever-louder threats to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, is that far from illuminating what actually motivates Iran in its nuclear ambitions, it has tended to obscure Tehran’s motives instead.
So what does Iran really want?
Writing in 2009, Kayhan Barzegar, an expert on Iran who has taught both in Tehran and in the US, described what he called the “paradox of Iran’s nuclear consensus”. He was attempting to lay bare the complex and competing historical, political and strategic considerations behind the theocratic regime’s nuclear decision-making processes.
Referencing two centuries of internal criticism of Iran’s failure “to acquire substantial power, influence and wealth”, Barzegar cites more recent history that has persuaded many Iranians, not least in the country’s elites, that the west, and Britain and America in particular, have long conspired to throw obstacles in the way of Iran’s development both economically and as a major regional player.
From an Iranian point of view, there is ample evidence of this: from the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh’s government in a CIA and MI6-led coup in 1953, after he nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, to western resistance to the shah’s Esfahan steel manufacturing project to President Clinton’s killing off a $1bn deal for the US energy company Conoco to develop offshore oil fields. It is a suspicion that has been amplified by the country’s post-Islamic revolution politics.
Indeed, one of the bleakest of historical ironies is that the early revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini actually halted the western-supported civil nuclear programme in place under the shah and it was only persuaded that it needed to acquire nuclear weapons technology because of Iran’s massive losses in the war with Iraq, then supported by the US, which saw Iran targeted with chemical weapons.
It is these twin considerations – a combination of desire for deterrence in a neighbourhood where there are five nuclear powers and a sense of frustrated regional ambitions – that have long driven Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technology, summed up in its 20-year strategic plan, ratified by its powerful expediency council, which calls for Iran to “rank first in the region”.
Iran’s decision-making over its nuclear programme, not least its pursuit of weapons technology, is complicated by a number of other factors. Indeed, the 2010 US National Intelligence Estimate, in agreement with other analysts, argued that far from having already concluded it would build a bomb at any cost, Tehran is more flexible on the issue, “guided by a cost-benefit approach”, a judgment recently endorsed by 16 US agencies that have studied the issue and concluded there is no evidence Iran is actively trying to build a bomb.
Indeed, as Barzegar argued: “There are quite a number of reasons why, from the perspective of the Iranian leadership, weaponisation is untenable, unnecessary and unwise.”
If Iran’s deliberate policy of ambiguity is one complicating factor, a second and equally important issue is how the nuclear programme, and the consequent international pressure on Tehran, has become ever more politicised in both the factional wrangling within the regime and the country’s wider politics.
That has meant, counterintuitively perhaps, that as international pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions has increased, it has made it harder, not easier, for the regime to come to an accommodation as even some leading members of the Green opposition have criticised President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for any perceived concessions.
If the motivation of Iran is far more complex than that described by the present, simplistic debate, a question needs to be asked, too, about the motivation of Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and those of his Israeli allies who have been pushing most vigorously for military action.
With not even 20% of Israelis believing that Israel should launch a unilateral attack against Iran, according to one poll, and the country divided over how effective a joint Israeli-US strike would be (Israel is not in a position to act alone), Netanyahu, even as he lectured American supporters, has failed to convince his own public.
More cynically, as a recent column in the Economist argued, Netanyahu’s promotion of the threat posed by Iran, described in evermore apocalyptic terms, has been a convenient piece of “displacement” by an Israeli leader absolutely determined to avoid any meaningful engagement with the Palestinian peace process or bring an end to the occupation of the West Bank.
Because of this, a debate that should be about Iran’s real nuclear ambitions and motives, and about how to engage with the regime constructively to prevent further proliferation, has been hijacked by a largely false premise.
For those of us who were intimate observers of the headlong charge to war against Iraq, it seems nothing more than a dispiriting rerun, not least in David Cameron’s hyperbolic claim – counter to the weight of all current available evidence – that Iran is actively pursuing the construction of a intercontinental ballistic missile that could threaten the west, an assertion eerily reminiscent of Tony Blair’s untrue claim that Iraq could strike British interests within “45 minutes”.
A war with Iran is not inevitable, but it might yet become so if the debate does not become both more honest and realistic. Indeed, the west has misread Iran for the best part of a century and more, not least since the country’s revolution.
To go to war twice in the Gulf within the space of a decade based on rhetoric, lies and misunderstanding would not simply be a tragedy but an utter catastrophe that would shame the west.
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4 The Guardian
11 March 2012
Gaza strikes leave 18 Palestinians dead
Militants fire rockets into Israel in exchange of fire that Israeli defence minister warns is ‘far from over’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/11/gaza-strikes-18-palestinians-dead
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
A rocket is launched from the Israeli anti-missile system known as Iron Dome in order to intercept a rocket fired by Palestinian militants. Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP
A 12-year-old boy was among those reported to have been killed in Gaza on Sunday amid a spiralling round of militant rocket attacks and Israeli air strikes over the weekend that left at least 18 Palestinians dead and four people in Israel injured.
A further 26 Palestinians were injured, five seriously, in a string of Israeli air strikes, Gaza medical services spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya told the Palestinian news agency Maan. He named the dead child as Ayoub Useila, who was killed in Jabalia refugee camp in an air strike that also injured his seven-year-old cousin.
The weekend death and injury toll was the highest since Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s three-week military assault on Gaza just over three years ago.
As the attacks and counterattacks continued on Sunday morning, the Israeli authorities ordered schools in southern towns to remain closed. More than 130 rockets have been fired from Gaza since Friday. Thousands of Israelis in cities such as Be’er Sheva, Ashdod and Ashkelon spent part of the weekend in bomb shelters.
The cycle began with the targeted assassination by Israel of a Palestinian militant who it says was planning an attack within Israel. Zuhair el Qaisi, 49, the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), was killed along with his son-in-law Mahmoud Hanani, 44, when the car in which they were travelling was hit by a missile. A civilian bystander was seriously injured.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said Qaisi had “led and directed plans to carry out a terror attack within Israel, which was in its final stages of preparation”. The IDF also said Qaisi was behind an attack last August, in which militants crossed the border from the Sinai to kill eight Israelis.
Militants in Gaza responded to Qaisi’s death with a barrage of Qassam and Grad rockets. Israel deployed its Iron Dome missile defence system to intercept at least 28 rockets – 90% of those targeted – since Friday. According to the IDF, 17 separate air strikes had been carried out by Sunday morning. Apart from the 12-year-old, all those killed were militants.
Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, said the hostilities were expected to continue. “This current round … is far from over, and we must remain vigilant and alert in the face of a potential terror attack from the Sinai,” he said while visiting an Iron Dome battery near Ashdod on Saturday. “We will act against anyone who attempts to send rockets or perpetrate terror attacks. Anyone attempting such an attack will pay the full price. Immunity will be granted to nobody.”
Militants from Islamic Jihad and the PRC are believed to have launched the rockets. However, Israel maintains that Hamas, the group which controls Gaza, is responsible for all rocket fire and, according to the IDF, “will bear the consequences of these actions in any future operation embarked upon by the IDF in order to eliminate the terror threat and restore the relative calm to the area”.
However, both Hamas and Israel are thought to be anxious to avoid a major confrontation. Hamas fears that in the event of a sustained military operation, Israel would seek to destroy its infrastructure and arsenal and wipe out its leadership. Israel fears inflaming hostile sentiment in the region, particularly in Egypt, where the politically ascendant Muslim Brotherhood is close to Hamas.
Egypt has mediated between Israel and Hamas in previous confrontations, most notably in the aftermath of last August’s cross-border attack which sparked a similar round of violence.
On Friday, Israel closed Route 12, the scene of last August’s incident, which runs along the Israel-Egypt border, to civilian traffic amid warnings of a possible attack. It had reopened only two weeks ago.
US officials condemned the latest round of rocket fire from Gaza. The secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said Israel had the right to defend itself, and a state department statement called on both sides to restore calm.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the rocket fire from Gaza by terrorists into southern Israel in recent days, which has dramatically and dangerously escalated in the past day,” the statement said. “We call on those responsible to take immediate action to stop these cowardly acts. We regret the loss of life and injuries, and we call on both sides to make every effort to restore calm.”
The EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said the EU was concerned about “the recent escalation of violence in Gaza and in the south of Israel”. “I very much deplore the loss of civilian life,” she said. “It is essential to avoid further escalation and I urge all sides to re-establish calm.”
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, held emergency consultations with the Egyptian leadership, the European Union and the Middle East Quartet, according to his office. Abbas also called on Israel to “stop its aggressive acts, which include assassinations, invasions and destruction of infrastructure”.
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5 Haaretz
March 11, 2012
The cyclical ritual of bloodletting between Israel and Gaza always prompts two questions: ‘Who started it?’ and ‘Whose is bigger?’
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/way-to-go-idf-1.417750
By Gideon Levy
Tags: IDF Likud Palestinians Gaza
Here we go again – a targeted killing; retaliation; retaliation to the retaliation. Here we go again – The reflexive act; the harsh rhetoric; the blindness. The Israel Defense Forces carries out a targeted killing. The Palestinian organizations avenge it – and it’s the Palestinians instigating war and terrorism. MK Danny Danon (Likud) has, of course, already called for “all of those in possession of weapons in the Gaza Strip” to be targeted because of the “million people living under fire.”
Those million people, in case you failed to get it, are the residents of southern Israel. Only they live under fire. By yesterday afternoon, the bodies of 15 Palestinians were already laid out on the other side of the Gaza border. There were eight people injured on this side, and the Iron Dome antimissile system chalked up the successful interception of 25 rockets.
This cyclical ritual of bloodletting always prompts two questions: “Who started it?” and “Whose is bigger?” It’s as if both questions were straight from some preschool playground. The response to the first question is always mired in uncertainty, while the answer to the second is always razor-sharp.
Who started it? The IDF and the Shin Bet security service did. The impression is that they carry out the targeted killings whenever they can, and not whenever it is necessary.
When are they necessary? Do you remember the debate on targeted killings sometime in the distant past? Then, it seemed the targets had to be “ticking time bombs” en route to carry out their attacks. In any event, such a vague standard no longer applies. In 2006, in his last court ruling handed down before his retirement, then Supreme Court President Aharon Barak barred such killings when they were meant to be “a deterrent or punishment.”
The latest target killed was Zuhair al-Qaissi, the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza. IDF sources said he was responsible for the terrorist attack on the Egyptian border last August – which would make his killing an act of “deterrence or punishment.” But to be on the safe side, it was also noted that he had “led and directed plans to carry out a terror attack within Israel, which was in its final stages of preparation.”
This convoluted announcement by the IDF spokesman was enough to get the Israeli public to accept this latest regular dose of targeted killing with automatic understanding and sympathy. And who knows what the late al-Qaissi had planned? Only the Shin Bet does, so we accept his death sentence without unnecessary questions.
Did he really lead and direct plans? And what are “the final stages of preparation”? The military reporters said so, and the military reporters know. Even the question of the effectiveness, rather than the legality of the killings, is no longer a subject for debate. What benefit will it bring Israel, other than more people injured, and additional days of fear in the south? Did this targeted killing really head off a terrorist attack? We won’t know. It’s enough for the news presenters to know. (And they don’t. They just obediently spout what they get from the defense establishment. )
The second question – “Whose is bigger?” – is even more ridiculous and superfluous, of course. It’s the best equipped army in the world against a ragtag army of rocket launchers. Nonetheless, this has to be proven to everyone, both to them and us, over and over.
You have the score right here in front of you. As of yesterday afternoon, it was 15-0 in Israel’s favor. If we measure it by the results of the IDF’s Cast Lead operation in Gaza at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 – when it was one Israeli killed per 100 Palestinians – then from a statistical standpoint there’s been backsliding.
And imagine if, God forbid, there were 15 Israelis killed over the weekend? Cast Lead 2 and regional war, with a politically different Egypt as a backdrop. But the killing of 15 Palestinians is allowed, eliciting just a yawn. In another day or two, we should hope that calm will again prevail. And actually, the commentators have been saying that “neither side is interested in a confrontation.” A nameless mediator will handle the negotiations and the weapons will again be locked up.
Until the next round. At that point, the juvenile questions will be asked all over again. Again, Israel will not restrain itself from carrying out additional targeted killings. Again, the Palestinians will not restrain themselves from avenging the killings, both sides locked in their stupidity. Because that’s the routine in this insane asylum.
For those on the inside, everything appears normal and routine – as is always the case among such psychotic patients. So Iran is compared to Auschwitz and, in a blind reflex, a target killing is carried out in Gaza in the middle of a period of calm that had benefited everyone.
The rising star candidate as head of the opposition, Shaul Mofaz (Kadima), who is the winning alternative to the current government, has already welcomed the targeted killing, as did Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already contacted the mayors in the south in a show of support. This, too, is part of the standard ritual. Residents of the south sit in shelters while the rest of the country cluck their tongues and tell themselves “That’s how it is”; “Nothing else can be done”; and “Way to go, IDF!” And then they take an afternoon snooze in the wonderful springtime weather.
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6 Haaretz
March 11, 2012
Israel-Palestinian peace needed now more than ever
Postponing the settlement of Israel-Palestine conflict is bad for Israel. The belief that the leaders of the region and the world have given up and set the issue aside is a dangerous illusion.
Haaretz Editorial
Tags: Gaza IAF IDF Palestinians Benjamin Netanyahu
Get Haaretz on iPhone Get Haaretz on Android The southern front suddenly ignited this weekend. A coordinated terror attack on Israel’s border with Egypt is planned in the Gaza Strip; the militants are attacked, and retaliate by firing rockets at Israeli towns. Israel launches more air strikes. The brief, fragile calm is disturbed. The Iron Dome antimissile system is fairly effective, but most of the population is not protected. Anyway, in the event of war the batteries will be redeployed to intercept rockets aimed at Israel Air Force bases. You couldn’t ask for better proof of last week’s remarks by Gen. James Mattis, head of U.S. Central Command.
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated, with his natural partners in the Israeli right, his imaginary achievement in Washington, D.C. – to replace the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the dangers of a nuclear-capable Iran in the public awareness – Mattis restored to its proper place the importance of ending the conflict.
Mattis is not a politician, campaigning for Congress or a presidential nomination. He does not care about the votes, or the money, of American Jews. He does not conceal his affinity with the Israel Defense Forces and his friendship with Israel, which go back a long way. Any attempt to portray him as hostile to Israel or as kowtowing to the Arabs, who predominate in many of the important countries in his purview, is bogus. Like his predecessors in the post, Mattis refuses to ignore the link between the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and other issues in the Middle East.
Not everything is rooted in this conflict. There are other factors in the deadly confrontations between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, between Iran and Gulf states, as well as in the “Arab Awakening,” to use Mattis’ term. But, Mattis said, the absence of a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a “preeminent flame that keeps the pot boiling in the Middle East, particularly as the Arab Awakening causes Arab governments to be more responsive to the sentiments of their populations,” who are hostile to Israel. This affects the Americans’ ability to promote regional cooperation against the threats the moderate Arab states have in common with Israel – the chief one being a nuclear-capable Iran.
Postponing the settlement of the conflict with the Palestinians is bad for Israel. The belief that the leaders of the region and the world have given up and set the issue aside is an illusion; the price of waking up from it grows constantly dearer.
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7 – The Observer
11 March 2012
Israelis–Portrait of a people in tense times
Talk of an existential threat to Israel from the Iranian nuclear programme echoed around Washington last week. Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, described the world’s failure to prevent the Holocaust and Barack Obama spoke of the country’s sovereign right to defend its people. But what is the nature of the state that has become central to global diplomacy? Harriet Sherwood listens to Israelis across this diverse nation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/11/israel-living-in-worlds-spotlight
Harriet Sherwood
‘This could be paradise’: Shay and Sigal Shoshany with three of their sons, Shayzaf, 11, top, Shahaf, 23, bottom left, and Snir, 20, bottom right. Photograph: Gali Tibbon for the Observer
THE KIBBUTZNIK
NAME: Sigal Shoshany
AGE: 45
OCCUPATION: college administrator
LIVES: Degania Alef kibbutz, Galilee
FAMILY: married, four children
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: secular
Sigal Shoshany was born on Israel’s oldest kibbutz, Degania – now 101 years old – and has lived all her life among its banana and avocado trees on the southern shores of the Sea of Galilee.
Degania has changed since she was a child and there is now more individual freedom. “The kibbutz doesn’t tell you how to live your life any more,” she says. It’s a good thing, she adds; the world has changed and Degania has changed with it. “You can’t stay still.”
She and her non-kibbutznik husband, Shay, decided to stay at Degania to raise their family amid the security of kibbutz life. “The community holds you together,” says Sigal.
The kibbutz movement “symbolises what is best about Israel,” says Shay. The family watched last year’s nationwide demonstrations demanding social justice, knowing that “it already exists here”. Both say that national security is the most important issue facing Israel. At the start of the Arab spring, they welcomed the calls for freedom and democracy but now fear the rise of the “fundamental Islamism” in the region – which they describe as a “crazy neighbourhood”.
The Syrian border is not far from Degania, and they are worried about the outcome of the uprising there. But Iran is the biggest threat, says Shay. “[Ahmadinejad] is not a crazy guy – he is very clear about his intention, and very soon he will get the tools to make practical his ideology. The issue of survival should belong to the era of the Holocaust, but now Israel is again talking about it,” he says, adding that the issue is “not only for Israel but for the entire democratic world”.
The couple have four boys, aged from 23 years to 21 months. “Four sons – four soldiers,” Sigal says ruefully. The eldest, Shahaf, has completed his three-year military service; Snir, 20, will start his this month. “It’s not easy for me to send my boys to the army, but it’s something we must do to defend our country,” says Sigal. “It’s not something you want as a mother, that your son will fight, but it has to be done.”
“This is the meaning and the reality of being Israeli,” adds Shay. He points out that 90% of young people living on kibbutzim serve in the army, compared to only 50% living in Tel Aviv. “It’s part of our sense of public duty.”
Snir, who has been accepted into an elite combat unit, says: “I grew up in an environment that gives me the feeling it is an honour to go to the army. My parents and grandparents served their country. I’m very proud to be Israeli, it’s a special country. People outside only see the bad things, but there are many more good things.”
Both he and his older brother insist the Israeli army has strong humanitarian principles, but its first duty is to protect Israeli citizens.
The Shoshanys have encouraged their children and their community to have contact with Palestinians to overcome mutual suspicions and stereotypes. “It’s possible to live here without being connected to the issue of the Palestinians – apart from through the army,” says Sigal. They are in favour of a two-state solution based on 1967 borders.
The couple are proud of what Israel has achieved in almost 64 years. “It’s a kind of miracle – what we have done in the fields of medicine, agriculture and the economy,” says Shay. “If we could be at peace, it could be a paradise.”
THE RABBI
NAME Moshe Weiss
AGE: 52
OCCUPATION: businessman
LIVES: Jerusalem
FAMILY: married, 10 children, seven grandchildren
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: ultra-orthodox Jewish
Rabbi Moshe Weiss, born in New York to Holocaust survivors from Hungary, came to Israel at the age of 18. “I grew up in a home which was haredi [ultra-orthodox] but my father was a passionate Zionist. For us, the state of Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people after thousands of years of exile and a place where Jewish people with all their dimensions finally have a home.”
Weiss originally came to study for a year in a yeshiva, a religious school. “I was going to become a corporate lawyer or an architect, but I fell in love with the country. I wanted to be part of Jewish history.” Now he runs a hi-tech company, Netspark, which filters internet content.
The most important issue facing Israel is, he says, the security threat, especially from Iran which is “threatening to wipe us off the map”. He hopes for peace with the Palestinians, but fears “the extremists among them are fighting against compromise. Nevertheless, our leaders are patiently trying to work things out.”
But he speaks mainly of divisions within Israeli society. In the past, he says, Israelis were too busy building and protecting their new state to focus on internal differences. In recent months the Israeli haredi community has come under particular scrutiny following calls by some of its more extreme sects for greater gender segregation and female modesty. The ultra-orthodox have also attracted criticism because many men choose religious study over paid work, relying on state benefits and evading compulsory military service.
Weiss is scathing of the extremists within the community. “The vast majority of haredi people are tolerant, respectful, and totally abhor the behaviour of – I wouldn’t call them zealots or fanatics – they are criminals.” But he says the attention given to the minority has been damaging to the community.
“It comes at a time when we see great effort by the new generation of ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel to integrate, to contribute, so that the secular part of society considers the haredi community as an equal partner.” The current hostility to the ultra-orthodox was counter-productive to that effort, he says, encouraging the community to withdraw.
Ultra-orthodox women are not second-class citizens, he insists. Religious women have a different lifestyle to secular women, but it is chosen by them, not forced on them.
Israel is becoming a more religious society, he says, citing a survey showing 80% of respondents believe in God. But he hopes the country will find a “common denominator” both within its own society and with the Palestinians. “But each part of this multi-dimensional nation and people needs to look inward to see how they relate to other parts of society with more appreciation and respect.”
THE UKRAINIAN
NAME: Alex Yamnitzky
AGE: 50
OCCUPATION: mechanical engineer
LIVES: Sderot
FAMILY: married, one child
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: secular Jewish
Alex Yamnitzky came to Israel at the age of 28 from Ukraine. “It wasn’t anything ideological or religious. There was antisemitism, but it wasn’t a major factor. Once the borders began to open, people around us started moving in search of a better life.”
The Jewish National Fund paid for tickets and helped support the new beginnings of Alex and a group of Jewish friends who made aliyah [immigrated to Israel] together. Alex worked in construction while learning Hebrew for a year, before finding a job as a mechanical engineer.
He has lived in Sderot for more than 20 years, a town in southern Israel, close to the border with Gaza, which has a big community of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. “We tend to stick together,” he says.
“Now I think of myself as Israeli, not Ukrainian. Being Israeli is not a religious identity for me but a national one – the fact that I’m in my own country. Religion is not part of our daily lives.”
Alex says his economic hopes have been fulfilled, but that the cost of living in Israel is high. “The economy worries me more than the political situation,” he says, meaning the conflict with the Palestinians. “The economy has to do with our everyday lives, whereas the political situation is much further away.”
This is despite living within the target range of rockets and missiles fired into Israel from Gaza. “Of course the qassams [rockets] are part of our lives, but what can you do about it?” He says things have eased in Sderot as the reach of the missiles has extended – “the rockets fly further now”.
He dismisses the Palestinians’ claim to the land, saying “they didn’t really take care of it, and it only started to develop when the Jews came”.
His 18-year-old daughter, Vika, is about to start her two-year military service, which Alex feels is an important process in helping to cement national identity. “The army is a page in every Israeli’s life and it makes you stronger,” he says.
The family is disillusioned with elected politicians. Alex’s wife, Inessa, says they expected more of Avigdor Lieberman, the hardline rightwing leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, a party which has a strong Russian base, “but he does nothing now”.
“The time when Russians would vote for someone because he is Russian is over,” says Alex. “We’ve been here too long.”
THE SETTLER
NAME: Natalie Hershkowitz
AGE: 49
OCCUPATION: settlement secretary
LIVES: Barkan
FAMILY: married, six children
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: ‘connected to God’ but not traditionally observant
Natalie Hershkowitz moved from Tel Aviv to Barkan 15 years ago because she needed a big house to raise her family in and wanted to live in a “good community”. “The fact that it was across the Green Line [in the West Bank] was a benefit. We come from the right side of the political map, so it was our duty to come here. It was the right thing to do according to our beliefs,” she says.
But the distance – 25 minutes in the car – from Tel Aviv, and the “quality of the air”, helped the decision to move from the city in which she was born and raised. The price of land and property in West Bank settlements was cheap then, she says; now Barkan – which was founded in 1981 – “is very exclusive”.
She describes it as a “village” not a settlement – “although we are not ashamed of the word settlement. But the connotation today of ‘settler’ is someone who came to conquer a foreign land. This is our land. We are not colonialists. God gave us this land.”
Natalie and her husband, Itzhak, say they have a strong connection to and belief in God, but are not conventionally observant Jews. “We go to the synagogue regularly but not every week. We celebrate holy days. We don’t keep a kosher kitchen, but we don’t eat ham or oysters.”
Barkan is a mainly secular settlement. “It’s very important to say that,” says Natalie, “because people think once you cross the Green Line everyone is a religious fanatic. People don’t know that a third of the [Jewish] population across the Green Line is secular.”
The essence of being Israeli, she says, is “to be here on the biblical land of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]”. The Palestinians who were born on the land should have the right to live there, “but to live in peace with us. They can’t make us disappear, we can’t make them disappear.” She points out that 3,000 Palestinians – or “local Arabs” – work in the settlement’s industrial zone. “We are working together, living together. It’s impossible to divide us.”
She believes a separate Palestinian state is not possible “even if the whole world recognises one. You can never draw a border because it’s all too mixed up now. This land has to be one Israeli Jewish state, but with an Arab minority with human rights. This is meant to be ours, we were here before. I don’t want to drive them away, but I want to live with them in peace.”
She includes Iran among the most important issues facing Israel, but says “it’s not only our problem, it’s a problem of the whole western world”.
The settlement movement is getting stronger, she says. “This situation will be for ever. No politician will ever be able to make a peace [with the Palestinians] without leaving us here.”
THE PALESTINIAN
NAME: Youssef Asfour
AGE: 40
OCCUPATION: history teacher
LIVES: Jaffa
FAMILY: married, one child, triplets due in May
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: Muslim
Youssef Asfour’s relatives were displaced in the 1948 war, with some scattering to Lebanon and Gaza and his mother and father ending up in Ajami, an area of Jaffa he describes as a ghetto.
“On both sides, the families lost property and land,” he says. “My grandfather used to be a journalist. He finished his life cleaning at a butcher’s shop in Carmel [the main Tel Aviv market].”
Despite his Israeli citizenship, Youssef does not consider himself as Israeli, but a Palestinian who lives in Israel. He shows his Israeli identity card. Until 2005, it used to categorise him as an “Arab”, but after many court battles ID cards now show a row of asterisks for all Israeli citizens. However, Jews are identified as such by their date of birth, shown according to the Hebrew as well as Gregorian calendar.
“I don’t feel part of Israel,” he says. “I’m a native here. Why is it OK for someone who comes from America or Morocco or Russia to be here, but not me?”
He points to laws passed in the Israeli parliament, including one permitting communities to bar individuals who don’t “fit the social fabric” from buying property and another outlawing the commemoration by public bodies of the Nakba, or catastrophe, suffered by the Palestinians in 1948. “Look at these laws, and you will find the discrimination we suffer,” says Youssef.
As a history teacher, he says he is expected to teach a version of events which is disputed by Palestinians. “I think it’s a duty to teach both [Israeli and Palestinian] narratives. We need to teach that the Palestinians were here [before 1948], and that the Jews were victims of persecution in Europe. It is a mistake for both sides to ignore the other.”
Reaching a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most important issue, he says. “Then all the money that now goes on weapons could be spent on education. If you want real democracy, start by building schools and teaching people how to read and write. This is the real revolution. Violence is never a solution; the solution is in education.”
THE HEDONIST
NAME: Omer Gershon
AGE: 37
OCCUPATION: marketing consultant and events producer
LIVES: Tel Aviv
FAMILY: single
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: none
Omer Gershon is “a true Tel Avivian”, born and raised in the city, unlike many of its transient residents, and is a standard-bearer for its hedonistic, nihilistic, gay-friendly reputation.
He is, he admits, “the epitome of the bubble boy”, referring to the city’s insulation from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and dedication to partying. As a professional party-thrower, networker and partner in several clubs and bars, he says he is known as the king of nightlife.
Tel Aviv, he says, is “a country within a country – it’s so separate from the rest of Israel. Everyone expects Israel to be a country in conflict, and then they come to Tel Aviv and everyone is partying or sitting in cafes and bars. We have a heightened sense of escapism because we’re aware of life’s fragility. The sense of carpe diem is very strong here.”
Gershon says his Jewishness is part of who he is and part of his family history, but not a big deal. He laughs when asked if he considers himself a Zionist. But he concedes he is a patriot, which he defines as loving his country while hating those who run it.
“I’m proud of my heritage and proud to be Israeli, despite its infamous reputation. But I do realise every now and again that Israel is not so good if you’re not Jewish – and if you’re Arab, it’s one of the worst places to be.”
Tel Aviv “divides between activists who give a shit about everything and the rest of us who don’t give a shit about anything”.
As a gay man, he says, Tel Aviv is a “paradise”. “There is no feeling of ghettoisation. The gay scene is very integrated with the straight scene. There are very few gay bars because there are gay people in every bar.”
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has little relevance to his life, but he insists “the majority of people – both us and them – want peace. There’s no reason for hate. But somehow the government fucks it up. That’s how it feels.”
ISRAEL: FACTS AND FIGURES
Population
7.8 million – 75% Jewish; 20% Arab.
About 70% of the Jewish population is Israeli-born; the rest are immigrants, mainly from Europe and the Americas, but also from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Religion
Jewish (75.5%), Muslim (16.8%), Christian (2.1%), Druze (1.7%).
Language
Hebrew, Arabic. English is common; Russian is spoken in areas dominated by immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
Main centres
Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa. About 90% of people live in urban areas. About 325,000 Jews live in West Bank illegal settlements and 200,000 in east Jerusalem.
Compulsory military service
Three years for men; two years for women, beginning at 18. Arabs and most ultra-orthodox Jews are exempt.
Economy
Main industries are electronics, biotech, agriculture, tourism and diamonds.
National anthem
HaTikvah (The Hope) includes the words, “The 2,000-year-old hope will not be lost: To be a free people in our land, The land of Zion and Jerusalem.”
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8 Today in Palestine
March 11, 2012
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi/message/3425