NOVANEWS
Dear Friends,
Tonight’s message of 10 items is heavy on Israel’s racism towards Palestinians, and on a bleak future. Most of the writers see the elections as bringing the worst, and for Amira Hass this is merely a continuation of the direction that all Israel’s governments have been driving towards. I agree.
Item 1 is a Haaretz editorial which correctly identifies “Judaization” as racism. Of course. But a strictly Jewish country is from the start racist that fears the ‘other.’ Demography, dear friends, not democracy.
Item 2 reports that Netanyahu ‘rejects a Palestinian state within ’67 lines.’ Actually, since actions speak louder than words, it is quite obvious that he rejects a Palestinian state altogether.
In item 3 Amira Hass states that ‘Palestinian ghettos were always the plan.’ Probably massive ethnic cleansing would have been preferable to ghettos to not a few of Israel’s elected leaders.
Item 4 reports that Israeli troops evict Palestinians from their lands. Do watch the brief video to see how a soldier tries to tear a toddler from its mother’s arms.
In item 5 Gideon Levy argues that ‘whoever believes that the Awad family [the family of the 16 year old the IOF 2 days ago killed] will continue to be denied their rights forever is living a lie’ Perhaps, but not if Israel’s elected leaders have any say.
Item 6 states that with the outpost idea, ‘Palestinians discover the strength of soft power.’ If this means that they have discovered the power of non-violent resistance, then they did not discover that with the encampment of Bab al-Shams nor with the new one. They have been practicing non-violent resistance for years in their weekly demonstrations. True, there is rock throwing in these, but generally after the IOF soldiers start firing one or another ‘crowd dispersion’ means. Had the soldiers left them alone, the Palestinians would have marched peacefully to protest the theft of their land and homes.
After the elections and the formation of the new government, undoubtedly Netanyahu will put IRAN back into circulation. It makes a good smoke screen for his constant building in the OPT and other acts. But apparently he also has plans to do more than just talk. And so we learn in item7 that Israel has contingency plans just in case there will be a war. So far, these relate to Israeli reservists living in England. But undoubtedly the call-up will extend to many other countries.
Item 8, “Toppling Israel’s Ivory Tower” is on a different subject, but is clearly a result of Israel’s march to the right. Academia is feeling the march, and will feel it yet more in the coming period after elections, when the right wing will be in power.
Item 9 is an interview of a rabbi and his path from Zionism to believing in justice and solidarity with Palestinians, that he has written about in his book. Longish, but worth reading, and undoubtedly also worth reading the book.
Item 10 is a deliberation in Spiegel that has been going on in recent weeks, “The Gravest of Allegations Conflating Critique of Israel with Anti-Semitism.” Notwithstanding what Israel’s government says, the 2 are vastly different.
That’s it friends for tonight. Tomorrow I possibly won’t have time to read and put together a message. Not sure yet. But there is enough here to split the reading into 2 days.
All the best,
Dorothy
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1 Haaretz Sunday, January 20, 2013
‘Judaization’ is racism
The term “Judaizing the Galilee” provides allegedly legitimate cover for every benighted racist position that sees the presence of Arabs in the Galilee or anywhere else as a national threat.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/judaization-is-racism.premium-1.494990
Haaretz Editorial | Jan.20, 2013
Upper Nazareth Mayor Shimon Gapso describes his job as a national mission. “Upper Nazareth was founded to make the Galilee Jewish,” he declares. “The city’s residents and I, as their leader, overwhelmingly support the principle that Upper Nazareth must fulfill this mission.”
As part of this “mission,” Gapso has decided to block the opening of an Arab school for around 1,900 Arab pupils, children in a community making up about 20 percent of the city’s population. These children must travel daily to the neighboring Arab city of Nazareth, where the schools are having problems absorbing them all.
Upper Nazareth is a mixed city, which – like Haifa, Acre, Lod and Tel Aviv – is obligated to open schools for its minority communities. This obligation, stemming from the principle of equal rights for all Israelis, means Arabs have the right to their own schools under the Education Ministry’s aegis, not only in Arab cities but also in Arab neighborhoods in mixed cities.
Gapso, who in November asked the Interior Ministry to declare that Arab Nazareth was “hostile to the State of Israel,” doesn’t seem to recognize his obligation to supply separate educational services to his city’s Arab residents. Worse, his opposition to a school for the city’s Arab citizens is a blatant attempt to “cleanse” the city of those citizens, who, he says, “undermine” the Upper Nazareth’s national mission: to Judaize the Galilee.
The term “Judaizing the Galilee” provides allegedly legitimate cover for every benighted racist position that sees the presence of Arabs in the Galilee or anywhere else as a national threat. These positions are apparently backed by some of our national leaders, who still haven’t bothered to condemn Gapso’s remarks.
One might expect Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar to immediately use his authority to order the opening of an Arab school in Upper Nazareth. But when Gapso makes remarks that Sa’ar apparently supports, and when the interior minister, the authority over the municipality, espouses racist views himself, Israelis who oppose racism and discrimination – Arabs and Jews alike – have no choice but to vote for parties that will fight both phenomena.
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2 The Guardian Sunday, January 20, 2013
Binyamin Netanyahu rejects calls for Palestinian state within 1967 lines
Israeli prime minister says border would be impossible to defend and allow ‘Hamas 400 metres from my home’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/20/binyamin-netanyahu-palestinian-state-1967
By Harriet Sherwood
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3 Haaretz
Sunday, January 20, 2012
Palestinian ghettos were always the plan
Right-wing politician Naftali Bennett’s plan to annex Israeli-controlled parts of the West Bank is just the logical next step in Israel’s historic effort to ghettoize the Palestinians.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israeli-elections-2013/israeli-elections-opinion-analysis/palestinian-ghettos-were-always-the-plan.premium-1.495144
By Amira Hass | Jan.20, 2013
Habaiyt Hayehudi’s Naftali Bennett. Photo by Tomer Appelbaum
When Habayit Hayehudi party leader and rising political star Naftali Bennett calls for annexing Area C, the part of the West Bank under full Israeli security and civil control, he is following the logic of every single Israeli government: maximize the territory, minimize the Arabs.
Some may even interpret this as elections propaganda in favor of Habayit Hayehudi and endorse it warmly.
Bennett can propose annexation because every governing coalition since the Six-Day War – whether it was led by the Likud or Labor (or its precursor, Alignment) party, and whether its partners were Mafdal, Shas or Meretz – laid the spiritual and policy groundwork for him.
According to Bennett, about 60 percent of the West Bank – a.k.a. Area C – is annexable. What’s important about Area C is not whether 50,000 Palestinians live there, as democratic, benevolent Bennett claims, while suggesting to naturalize them and grant them Israeli citizenship, or whether the number is around 150,000 (as my colleague Chaim Levinson reminded us earlier this week).
Don’t worry. Even if there are 300,000 Palestinians living in Area C and all of them agree to become citizens, the Israeli bureaucracy will find ways to embitter their lives (the way it does the lives of the Bedouin in the Negev), revoke their citizenship (the way it does the residency status of Palestinians in East Jerusalem) and leave them without the little share of their land they still have (the way it did to the Palestinian citizens of Israel within the 1948 borders). This is why Bennett can allow himself to be munificent.
The true story behind area C is that there aren’t 400,000 Palestinians living there today; the villages have not expanded in accordance with their natural population growth; the number of residents has not grown; the herders can no longer graze their flocks freely; many of the inhabitants lack access to water, electricity, school and medical clinics; Israel has not been taken to the International Criminal Court in the Hague for destroying the cisterns; there are no paved roads in and between villages.
Many of the people have been living in tents and caves for 30 to 40 years – against their will and contrary to their hopes – and the Palestinian towns cannot expand properly and remove old industrial zones a reasonable distance from residential neighborhoods.
As I have said a million times and will say another million times: Area C is a tremendous success of Israeli policy and its implementers, the army and the Civil Administration. It is part of a farsighted, well-executed, perfectly thought-out policy that has succeeded precisely in that there aren’t 400,000 Palestinians living in the area. Bennett is probably decent/honest enough to acknowledge the debt he owes to the previous generations of Israeli politicians and military officials who warmed the country up for his annexation plan, ensuring its acceptance would be as effortless as a knife cutting butter in the sun.
Area C existed even before the Oslo negotiators invented the supposedly temporary division in 1995, distinguishing it from Area B, with full Israeli security control and partial policing authority and full civil authority for the Palestinians; and Area A, with full Palestinian civil and policing authority – albeit, as is often unappreciated, within an envelope of full Israeli security control.
When this division was being implemented, the media emphasized the difference between Area A, where armed members of the various Palestinian security forces could operate openly with license from Israel, and the rest of the Palestinian territories, where Palestinians would not be allowed to carry rifles. But in reality, the importance of Palestinian Authority policing powers is dwarfed in comparison with its lack of civilian authority over most of the land.
Area C, then, is shorthand for all the prohibitions that Israel imposes on Palestinian dignity of life, and it has existed before its invention. Live fire zones, military maneuver zones, security belts, fences, state lands, survey lands (where the state is in the process of declaring them as state lands, i.e. only for Jews), re-surveyed lands and post-surveyed lands and nature reserves. All these were aimed at concentrating them within narrow and meager Pales of Settlement (copyrights reserved for Imperial Russia and its confinement of the Jews). Unlike us, Arabs do not need space, land, resources, water, industrial zones, landscapes or recreational trips.
The Palestinian enclaves are the other side of Area C. Area C, then, is a metaphor for the Israeli ghetto mentality flipped. I usually take care not to use terms like “ghetto” or “concentration camp” to describe the enclaves where Israel has gathered the Palestinians from both sides of the Green Line, or 1948 armistice line, including the Gaza Strip and the slums of East Jerusalem. The 12 years of the Third Reich cemented these terms as links/stations in the conveyor leading to the final goal – a systematic genocide.
In our case, in contrast, ghettoization is itself the aim, having been implemented for the past 65 years. In other words, the aim – unfolded with the advent of time -has been to concentrate the Palestinians in reserves, after most of their land had been robbed of them. And if they desert and move abroad, it’s of their own free will. A direct planning and ideological line stretches between the enclaves in which the Palestinian citizens of Israel live and those of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
This is the real Israeli historical compromise. It is not with the Palestinians, but with the dictates of reality and among the various Zionist ideological currents. The crowded, offensive reservations – the creation of which is violence, pure and simple – are a compromise between the craving to eject the Palestinians from their land and the recognition that regional and international conditions do not permit it.
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4 By Mairav Zonszein
|Published January 19, 2013
IDF evicts Palestinians from their land, arrests 15, including mother with baby
http://972mag.com/idf-evicts-palestinians-from-their-land-arrests-15-including-mother-with-baby/64211/
[Watch the brief video to see how the Israeli soldier tries to grab the toddler from his mother’s arms]
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5 Haaretz Sunday, January 20, 2012
A silent Palestinian voice amid the din of the Israeli election
Whoever believes that the Awad family will continue to be denied their rights forever is living a lie, the most revolting lie of this election campaign.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/a-silent-palestinian-voice-amid-the-din-of-the-israeli-election.premium-1.494991
By Gideon Levy
Samir Awad won’t be voting in Tuesday’s election, not only due to his age (16 ) or his Palestinian nationality. Samir Awad won’t be voting on Tuesday because he was shot dead from close range last week by Israel Defense Forces soldiers: one bullet in his head, one in his back and one in his thigh. The soldiers who shot him will vote on Tuesday, because democracy is like that.
All of the neighbors from the hills opposite Awad’s home will also vote, despite living beyond the sovereign borders of their country. Most of them will vote for those who wish to banish Samir’s family, or continue to make their life hard. His bereaved father, Ahmed, cannot vote in this election despite living next to Israeli citizens, and working for years in Israel, building its houses and renovating its villas.
This is the elephant in the room. The monster at the door, who we try to ignore by saying, “If we won’t look at it, it won’t exist.” This is the worst deception of this election, the sickest lie of Israeli Democracy, promoted by all voters and candidates.
In a true democracy, Samir’s death would have become a campaign issue. Four innocent Palestinians were killed in the week leading up to the election. Nobody really cared, and one doubts if most Israelis were even aware of the deaths. Awad who? A singer or a soccer player?
It’s very easy to imagine the mood if, in the week leading up to the election, four Israelis were to be killed in a similar fashion: their deaths would rock the political establishment. But the Palestinian deaths go by like dust, barely worth a mention. Even their very presence in the backyard of the only democracy in the Middle East is as light as the dust.
No one bothers to inquire any more how the Awad family is prevented from participating in an election that will deeply affect their lives, while their neighbors – in the settlements constructed on their lands – enjoy rights that they can only dream of. Or how their neighbors naturally participate in this election, the ones that preceded it and the ones yet to come. How on earth can Israel be considered a democracy? How can it not be called an apartheid state? Why is nobody even discussing the issue?
Samir was murdered in cold blood. There’s no other way to describe his death. A high school student who wasn’t endangering anyone. The soldiers who shot him in flight will never be brought to justice. I saw their faces last week in a video clip, filmed several minutes after they killed Samir (who was trying to climb the separation barrier that suffocates his village ). They were a group of tough Israelis in uniform. Soon they will complete their service and begin civilian life, taking pride in their military service. After all, they are considered to be those with ‘values,’ those who ‘carry the weight of the burden’ – an issue that actually is present in the debate surrounding the election.
One can suppose that none of them suffer from sleepless nights, haunted by the death of the boy and the sorrow of his family. Israelis in general lose no sleep due to horrendous actions carried out on their behalf. And why should they? There are those who see to it that they shouldn’t be worried. Israel Radio reported that “the IDF prevented an effort to infiltrate Israel.”
Samir was two or three years younger than his killers. He didn’t have much of a future to look forward to, being one of a 17-strong family, supported by his father, who works in Israel. Even in the days of mourning Ahmed sports a “Hava & Adam, the Modi’in Ecological Farm” T-shirt. He still yearningly recalls how, in his broken Hebrew, he would lecture about Palestinian agriculture to Israeli students.
The murderers of his son can expect a different future: studies, entertainment, a career and voting rights. Only because they’re Jewish, not Palestinian. Israelis can vote on Tuesday for whoever they wish. But whoever believes that the Awad family will continue to be denied their rights forever is living a lie, the most revolting lie of this election campaign. Samir is the silent voice of this election, the voice which should have shocked and rocked the campaign.
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6 Haaretz Sunday, January 20, 2013
Palestinians discover the strength of soft power
The Palestinians built a new tent city Friday, a tactic likely to win them much more sympathy than clashing with the IDF at the border or committing clear acts of terror.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/palestinians-discover-the-strength-of-soft-power.premium-1.495002
By Amos Harel
A protester at the Palestinians’ protest camp last week. A new one was built Friday. Photo by Olivier Fitoussi
U.S. President Barack Obama’s carefully timed attack last week on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was apparently the first seed. The disputes will continue after Netanyahu’s expected election victory Tuesday. Obama may have an interest in keeping a low profile on the Iranian threat, but not on the peace process.
In February, the International Atomic Energy Agency will release its latest report documenting Tehran’s progress in enriching uranium for a nuclear bomb. In a report in August, the IAEA said Iran had diverted some of its 20-percent enriched uranium toward medical research.
This information was complemented by heavy American pressure calling on Israel to refrain from attacking Iran before the U.S. presidential election last November. As a result, in his UN speech in September, Netanyahu deferred the Israeli “deadline” for a possible military action until spring or summer 2013.
Meanwhile, despite the stiffening international sanctions on Iran, there is no proof the policy led by the United States is blocking Iran’s nuclear efforts. The IAEA findings are likely to produce even stiffer sanctions in the spring, ahead of Iran’s presidential election in June. Thus, the next confrontation between Washington and Jerusalem is likely to come in the early summer; Netanyahu still sounds committed to a military operation.
Obama seems to lack an incentive to quarrel with Netanyahu on Iran. The president continues to give Israel aid, a fact that led Defense Minister Ehud Barak to take the unusual step of praising Obama on the eve of an election, despite the tensions between the White House and Netanyahu.
The West Bank is a completely different matter. Here Obama has every reason to continue to blast Netanyahu, whether before or after the Israeli election.
The West Bank is not about to break out in a third intifada. But two trends have taken shape over the past two weeks that might put Israel’s next government in an awkward position, particularly because of the hostility in Washington and West Europe toward Netanyahu’s Palestinian policies.
Two trends
The first trend involves the separation fences with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where four unarmed Palestinians were killed in one week. The deaths of two Palestinians who approached the Gaza fence (the Israel Defense Forces denies any link to one of the incidents ) didn’t cause a storm, mainly because Hamas wants to preserve the cease-fire. But the incidents in the West Bank, one in the village of Budrus near Ramallah and the other south of Hebron, are different. In both cases, Israeli soldiers opened fire – and without warrant, according to preliminary investigations.
Such mistakes have been made repeatedly over the years; they usually stem from the overenthusiasm of low-ranking officers who lose control of their soldiers – who are in no real danger anyway. Incidents happen, for example, when IDF troops are running after stone-throwers. To prevent such incidents, the IDF needs to supervise its troops better, launch criminal proceedings when necessary, and clarify the rules of engagement.
Israel has no answer to the second trend. It is linked to the so-called Bab al-Shams outpost, which Palestinian activists and left-wing Israelis and foreigners have put up the in E-1 corridor. The Netanyahu government has designated this area for a neighborhood that will connect Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim. On Wednesday, the police evicted several dozen activists from the site, for the second time in a week. On Friday, some 400 Palestinian and foreign activists set up a new protest camp near the village of Beit Iksa, which they called Al-Karaa.
For the Palestinians, such an outpost is an ideal platform for a popular struggle. Such efforts are nonviolent, so they won’t draw criticism from overseas, especially considering Israel’s intentions to build in the area.
The (first ) rapid evacuation of activists, which Netanyahu boasted about this week, reflects the government’s faulty handling of the outpost issue over the past 15 years (though in recent years, the policy has been to prevent settlers from establishing outposts in the first place ). Such efforts by the Palestinians win much more sympathy than the sometimes violent incidents along the border; they certainly stir more sympathy than clear acts of terror.
A third intifada?
For months now there has been talk in Israel about a third intifada. Even if this happens, it’s not certain events will develop as they did in the past. Before the first intifada broke out in December 1987, Palestinian activists talked about a nonviolent popular revolt. But West Bank residents paid a heavy price for the suicide bombings of the second intifada that erupted in 2000.
There is no doubt: There is much support in the West Bank for another armed struggle. But demonstrations of “soft power” such as the first Palestinian outpost hit Israel’s government in a weak spot, and we can expect more. Palestinian newspapers are already calling the action “the Bab al-Shams intifada.”
Jack Khoury contributed to this report.
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7 THE JEWISH CHRONICLE ONLINE
Sunday, January 20, 2013
The several thousand IDF reservists living in the UK will be given preferential seats on El Al flights in case of war as part of a new contingency plan being prepared by the Defence Ministry and Israel’s national carrier.
http://www.thejc.com/news/israel-news/98723/plan-uk-reservists-case-war-israel
By Anshel Pfeffer
The Israeli government, which privatised El Al in 2004, kept a minority holding in the company and, as part of the sale, required the airline’s new owners to commit capacity during emergencies. This meant the provision of three cargo planes and 1,200 passenger seats daily at times of war.
The Israeli government, which privatised El Al in 2004, kept a minority holding in the company and, as part of the sale, required the airline’s new owners to commit capacity during emergencies. This meant the provision of three cargo planes and 1,200 passenger seats daily at times of war.
One of the priorities would be the return of IDF reservists who belong to crucial combat and specialist units.
In past emergencies, there was chaos at Israeli embassies and El Al ticket offices as thousands of reservists clamoured for seats. Many of them bought tickets out of their own pockets.
In an attempt to make the best use of low capacity and prevent chaos, the IDF in the past has considered setting up enlistment centres at key embassies abroad, but this option was abandoned over sovereignty concerns.
Instead, the Defence Ministry will set up a centre in Tel Aviv which, during an emergency, will co-ordinate with El Al and Israeli embassies and consulates abroad. These include those in Britain, the US, Canada, France, Germany, India and Thailand.
There are no official figures on the number of Israeli citizens living in Britain — by some assessments there are over 50,000 — nor how many of them are IDF reservists, but defence sources believe there are at least a few thousand.
In the case of an emergency, they would be asked to contact the embassy in London. The embassy would pass on their details to the IDF personnel branch, which in turn which would decide which of the reservists are needed as a matter of priority.
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8 Haaretz Sunday, January 20, 2013
Toppling Israel’s ivory tower
Faced with the campaign being waged by the right to reshape reality, academia – as an institution based on values like skepticism, tolerance and pluralism – has barely raised its voice.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/toppling-israel-s-ivory-tower.premium-1.494993
By Or Kashti | Jan.20, 2013
Some 180 law faculty members were invited to sign a petition a month ago, protesting the Central Elections Committee’s decision to disqualify the candidacy of Arab MK Hanin Zuabi (Balad ) in the upcoming election. The petition didn’t contain any radical statements; all the signatories were asked to agree with was that “the right to be elected is a basic freedom in a democratic state.
Nevertheless, only 10 percent of the academics signed the petition, which was published in Haaretz several days before a panel of nine High Court Justices overruled the elections committee and approved Zuabi’s candidacy. After subtracting for a relatively small number of academics who may have disagreed with the petition, it is only possible to assume the rest didn’t sign the petition because they were scared.
This isn’t the only example of the recent silencing of academia. Several days ago, an open letter was published calling upon politicians to commit to combating “manifestations of racism, discrimination, permissible killings, hate crimes and political violence.” The letter was written by education professors Gavriel Salomon (University of Haifa ), Daniel Bar-Tal (Tel Aviv University ) and Nimrod Aloni (Kibbutzim College of Education ). Getting supporters’ signatures was no easy feat. First off, those hesitating to sign mentioned their fear of a recurrence of the incident involving Prof. Rivka Feldhay. (In 2008 Feldhay signed a petition supporting Israeli soldiers who refused to serve in the Palestinian territories; last month the Israeli government disinvited her from a German-Israeli event in Berlin. ) They fear that someone in one of the government ministries will one day dig up their own published protest letter and seek to hurt the signatories.
For example, one of those hesitating had signed petitions in the past against Israel’s occupation, but he also intends to request a research grant from the Education Ministry. Can anyone guarantee that this person’s signature on the petition won’t affect the ministry’s decision regarding his grant request?
The chilling effect of the cancelation of Prof. Feldhay’s participation in the summit between Israel and Germany’s leaders has certainly been felt in Israeli universities and colleges. The commonplace advice the researcher received from his colleagues was to remain silent; not to rock the boat.
This silence isn’t a cold that will disappear in a few days, but a bad case of pneumonia for all intents and purposes. The first symptoms could be seen when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu famously whispered into the ear of the aged kabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri some 15 years ago that the “left has forgotten what it is to be Jewish.”
However, the past four years mark a significant change from the past. During this period, the right has waged a systematic campaign that included delegitimization, open and concealed threats and, at times, actual sanctions against whoever dared to undercut their complacent worldview.
The seeds of delegitimization spread through the air three years ago with the publication, by Im Tirtzu and the Institute for Zionist Strategies, of pseudo-scientific studies of the post-Zionist bias that supposedly prevails in Israeli academia. The seeds were then sown by these groups’ supporters in the government, including Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar. And they were tended to by right-wing organizations like Yisrael Sheli.
Finally, these seeds yielded rotten fruit, like the targeted attacks on Feldhay. There was Adar Cohen, who was dismissed from his job as a civic-studies supervisor at the Education Ministry due to his choice in textbooks. Gilad Natan was transferred from his position as a researcher at the Knesset Research and Information Center due to published opinion pieces he wrote outside his job several years before. Add to this the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, which the Council for Higher Education – under Sa’ar’s leadership – has threatened to close.
Faced with the campaign being waged by the right to reshape reality, academia – as an institution based on values like skepticism, tolerance and pluralism – has barely raised its voice. At least, not in public. The number of academics who see public activism as part of their job description is declining. But even the larger organizations, like faculty groups, the various universities and the Israeli Academy of Humanities and Sciences, are trying to prevent any kind of statement being uttered about the increasingly ugly face of Israeli society. Self-censorship and conformity are more efficient than direct repression.
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9 Truthout | Interview [forwarded by Sam]
A Rabbi’s Path to Palestinian Solidarity
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12009-a-rabbis-path-to-palestinian-solidarity
By Mark Karlin,
(Image: Just World Books)Any discussion of Israel’s political and military actions is likely to evoke emotional reactions among Jews that can split friendships and families. It’s a core issue that drills down deep into tribal and religious identity, the invocation of the Holocaust, ongoing bloodshed between Arabs and Jews, and a fear of re-emergent anti-Semitism. Rabbi Brant Rosen, a congregational rabbi in Evanston, Illinois and co-chair of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, takes on these volatile issues of Jewish faith, values and the traditional homeland narrative of Israel in a new book: “Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi’s Path to Palestinian Solidarity.”
Rosen’s personal journey raises questions about Israel’s current path that go to the heart of the incendiary debate about Israel’s future as a Jewish state: whether it can change course and adopt values toward the Palestinians that reflect Jewish religious and cultural tradition, as well as whether a Jewish state can survive as a democracy without becoming a quasi-apartheid government. You can obtain “Wrestling in the Daylight” directly from Just World Books.
If you are Jewish, upon reading “Wrestling in the Daylight,” you will feel that you have found a kindred spirit in Rabbi Rosen, or you will become angry. But hopefully, you will begin a dialogue, a conversation in the daylight about the future of Israel, one that Rosen hopes is conducted with respect and civility. (Full disclosure: Mark Karlin is a member of Rabbi Rosen’s congregation.)
Mark Karlin: I recall reading your blog, Shalom Rav, during the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) siege of Gaza at the end of 2008. I found your profound condemnation of the massive attack that included countless civilian deaths to be riveting. Operation Cast Lead, as it was called, seemed to be a turning point for you. Why did that particular Israeli military action appear to cause a “coming out,” so to speak, the beginning of a breakaway from sacrosanct liberal Zionism?
Brant Rosen: Looking back, I think my strong reaction to Cast Lead was the final straw of a process that I had been experiencing for some time – dating all the way back to Israel’s first invasion of Lebanon in 1982. In the past, whenever Israel behaved in ways I felt were morally questionable, my concerns would be tempered by a defensive voice in the back of my head telling me: “Calm down. Don’t overreact. It’s complicated.” I’m pretty sure I’m not the only liberal Zionist who’s heard this voice. We’re very good at rationalizing or dismissing actions by Israel that we would never dare to condone if it were any other country.
But in the case of Cast Lead, I just didn’t hear the voice any more. I had already been openly expressing my opposition to Israel’s crushing blockade of Gaza, and when I heard the first news of Israel’s initial military onslaught – reports of Apache helicopters dropping literally tons of bombs on 1.5 million people living in a tiny strip of land with nowhere to run – I just couldn’t rationalize it anymore. I knew in my heart that Israel’s actions had nothing to do with security – this was oppression, pure and simple. This wasn’t about Hamas shooting crude missiles into Southern Israel – this was about bringing the Palestinian people to their knees. And I finally came to accept that it had always been this way.
So in a way, you could say that Cast Lead was the end of one process for me and the beginning of another. Once I publicly broke ranks with liberal Zionism on this score, I felt emboldened to share my feelings about a variety of Zionism’s sacred cows: I wrote openly about the ethnic cleansing that accompanied Israel’s birth and was still continuing, the troubling undercurrents of a system that institutionally privileged one ethnic group over another, the brutal crushing of Palestinian nonviolent resistance. Once I spoke out publicly on Cast Lead, you might say I felt liberated to bring my deepest, darkest concerns out into the light of day.
Mark Karlin: One of your most significant accusations, borne out in many ways by your experience in the West Bank, is that Israel is in the process of becoming an apartheid state – and that this may be the price of remaining a Jewish state. The tragic irony, of course, is that treating Palestinians as a whole as second-class people violates the Jewish tradition and values of embracing diversity and its understanding of the human condition. In essence, is there a risk of Israel only existing as a Jewish state at the price of losing its religious and secular values – its soul, so to speak?
Brant Rosen: It’s not just a potential risk; I think we’re witnessing the cost of this apartheid process every day. Even so, most Zionists are unable or unwilling to admit that this is what inevitably comes of fusing Judaism and political nationalism. But if you really consider it, how could it be otherwise? At the end of the day, how can you have a Jewish state that does not somehow treat non-Jews as “other”? That does not discriminate between Jews and non-Jews? That does not, on some level, create a system of institutional racism that privileges Jews over non-Jews?
So yes, I have personally come to the very painful realization that Jewish nation-statism comes at a very real cost to our Jewish soul – compromising sacred values that teach us that all human beings are created in the image of God, that one law must be extended to all who live on the land, that we must love our neighbors as ourselves.
Mark Karlin: Stereotyping any group of people is dangerous. In polls during peaceful periods, most Palestinians and Israelis appear to support peace. A lot of what Netanyahu appears to do is stir up the pot so that there will never be a long enough period to negotiate a peace. That’s not to excuse those in Hamas and Hezbollah who have their own motives in heating up the conflict now and then, along with other parties who have vested interests in stalling peace. When you talk of your Palestinian solidarity, some critics accuse you of abandoning Jewish solidarity and not sufficiently condemning those Arab extremists who are in the “destroy Israel” industry as much as Netanyahu is in the suppression-of-Palestinian-rights industry. How do you respond?
Brant Rosen: At the end of my book I addressed this issue directly:
As a Jew, I will also say without hesitation that I reject the view that I must choose between standing with Jews or standing with Palestinians. This is a zero-sum outlook that only serves to promote division, enmity and fear.
For me, the bottom line is this: the cornerstone value of my religious tradition commands me to stand in solidarity with all who are oppressed. It would thus be a profound betrayal of my own Jewish heritage if I consciously choose not to stand with the Palestinian people.
In other words, I believe my Jewish liberation to be intrinsically bound up with Palestinian liberation. It’s really that simple.
I’ve come to believe that solidarity should ultimately be driven by values, not tribal allegiances. It should be motivated by the prophetic vision that demands that we stand with the powerless and call out the powerful. Of course, in the case of Israel, this form of solidarity presents a very painful challenge to many Jews. I understand that. But at the very least, shouldn’t we be talking about this challenge and what it represents for us?
Does my solidarity mean that I agree with everything that is done by Palestinians in furtherance of their liberation? Of course not. When you stand in solidarity with a people, it is inevitable that you will find yourself standing next to some people whose actions and beliefs you will find odious. That comes with the territory when you choose to take a stand. And I might add that this is the case for liberal Zionists who stand in solidarity with Israel as well.
Mark Karlin: You state in your book that there is a perspective in which one can frame the founding of the State of Israel in its Middle East location as an injustice, but that being said, were it realistically achievable (and that certainly appears like a long shot at the current moment), do you support a two-state solution?
Brant Rosen: Before I answer, I feel compelled to say I firmly believe the two-state solution – at least as currently defined by the powers that be – is not “realistically achievable,” if it ever was. Israel has been pursuing a West Bank settlement policy – constructing more and more settlements while evicting and resettling more and more Palestinians – with utter impunity. Anyone witnessing the actual facts on the ground has to know that Israel’s actions are making an utter mockery of the notion of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state. I think it’s clear that what Israel calls a “Palestinian state” bears no resemblance to anything you or I would recognize as an actual state. I think “cantons” or “Bantustans” would be more accurate.
Hypothetically speaking, I would support a two-state solution if it afforded equal civil and human rights under the law for all who live on the land. But this discussion is fairly moot at the moment. Under current circumstances, it seems increasingly likely that it’s going to come down to a choice between two one-state solutions – that is, a choice between a Jewish apartheid state or a state of all its citizens. On this score, I would support the latter over the former without hesitation – and I would challenge anyone who purports to cherish liberal values to say they feel otherwise.
Mark Karlin: There is a new book out entitled, “Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying: The Secret WWII Transcripts of German POWs.” It uses recently uncovered research to detail how ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers were generally aware of the mass killing of Jews and were either enthusiastic about it, or, at best, indifferent. What is your response to those who argue that there is no safety for the Jews in the world as long as there is not a Jewish state? This is a position that one of your synagogue’s members, Boris Furman, made in a discussion you both had on WBEZ (NPR) in Chicago.
Brant Rosen: According to classical Zionist ideology, the maintenance of a Jewish state is the only way to safeguard the well-being of the Jewish people. Since the establishment of Israel, however, we’ve witnessed the exact opposite happening: the Jewish state is now the only place in the world where Jewish people feel collectively endangered. Given Theodor Herzl’s original vision, it’s tragic to consider that the Jewish state has become a kind of Jewish ghetto of its own making – an over-militarized garrison state that is literally building higher and higher walls between itself and the outside world.
I don’t discount the threats posed by global anti-Semitism for a second – but when you look at the general well-being of Jewish communities in the Diaspora, it’s hard to deny that we currently live in one of safest times for Jews in Jewish history. Nevertheless, rather than celebrate these newfound freedoms, we’re opting to remain prisoners of our own collective trauma.
While I understand this psychologically, I have to say I’m fairly disgusted by those in Israel or in the American Jewish establishment who regularly invoke the specter of “another Holocaust” at every turn. I believe these kinds of claims are historically inaccurate, politically cynical and frankly, downright dangerous.
Mark Karlin: Can you expand upon your viewpoint toward the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS) in relation to Israel? For so many Jews, this is akin to crossing the line into making Israel into a pariah.
Brant Rosen: I realize that boycotts conjure up hot-button memories for Jews, but once we accept that Israel is the overwhelmingly powerful party in the equation, I think we can see the BDS movement for what it is and what it isn’t. BDS is not a weapon of the powerful against the powerless, a la the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in 1930s Germany. The Palestinian BDS call is more accurately akin to the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the American civil rights movement or the divestment movement against South African apartheid. It is a form of nonviolent direct action directed by an oppressed people who seek popular support for their liberation.
The Palestinian BDS movement was founded in 2005 by a coalition of Palestinian civil society groups motivated by Israel’s continued refusal to comply with international law in any number of instances – and the unwillingness of international political powers to hold them to account. In other words, in the absence of political pressure to change this inequitable equation, Palestinian civil society is seeking to leverage people power.
Yes, it is enormously painful for many Jews to see Israel targeted in this way. But if Israel is becoming a pariah, that’s due largely to its own actions. Defenders of Israel complain that BDS delegitimizes Israel; I’d say that, up until now, Israel has been doing a very good job of delegitimizing itself. Israel simply cannot consider itself to be “the only democracy in the Middle East” if it insists on implementing policies that put it on the road toward apartheid.
Mark Karlin: Playing devil’s advocate, I want to return to the issue of tribalism for a moment. It seems most of us have three basic core affinity groups as humans: family, tribal identity (which is often coincident with religious identity) and nationalism. Other than the United States, which is going through a ferocious political struggle right now over whether we are a white Christian nation or a democracy of many peoples, aren’t most nations built upon one tribal (and/or religious) group or another maintaining power? In some Arab states, one faction of Islam dominates the government. So, why shouldn’t there be a Jewish state as long as we still have a world built upon the nation-state model?
Brant Rosen: I’m not sure Israel can viably claim to be part of the Western family of nations while using Saudi Arabia as a role model. And frankly, I don’t think the majority of Jews throughout would have any interest in supporting a Jewish Saudi Arabia.
I think it’s a bit reductionist to say that the world is “built upon a nation-state model.” There are many peoples throughout the world who are not organized into formal sovereign states. And in the case of the Jewish people, I’d argue that the secret of our survival over the centuries was precisely because we avoided the route of nation-statism and empire. Mighty nations have come and gone, and we’re still here. Why? Because we created a unique kind of model, namely a multicultural, multi-ethnic spiritual peoplehood without borders.
The Zionist idea, however, is a conscious rejection of this Diasporist model. Zionism sought to make the Jewish people “k’chol ha’goyim” – like all the other nations. But now that we’ve seen what Zionism has wrought, I think it’s worth asking whether or not we’ve made something of a Faustian bargain by embracing political nationalism so thoroughly.
Mark Karlin: Israel is a diverse society. The largest population group is secular Jewish. Can one distinguish between the Netenyahu government and the majority of the Israeli people? To what extent is the current Israeli government the US’s Middle East neo-con partner as compared to the population as a whole, which includes Arabs who are Israeli citizens?
Brant Rosen: I think it is always important to distinguish between a nation’s government and its people. Having said this, I think it’s fair to say that Israel’s population has been growing increasingly nationalist and religious over the past two decades or so – and that we’ll be seeing this demographic shift increasingly reflected in Israel’s policies.
Mark Karlin: What you write in “Wrestling in the Daylight” is heartfelt, the product of much anguished self-inquiry, and courageously provocative. Yet, I feel in reading your book what you are most interested in, at this time, is opening a once-forbidden door to conversation and dialogue about Israel. You are, in your own evolution, giving permission to discuss, debate a heretofore unchallengeable narrative. Is this exchange of views by extending the boundary of discussion what you hope will come out of your book?
Brant Rosen: Yes, absolutely. I am a congregational rabbi and the Jewish community is my home. I certainly hope that my writing and my activism, in some small way, might help to widen the boundary on what is considered acceptable discourse in the Jewish community on this issue. Thus far, I’m actually fairly encouraged. It’s to my congregation’s credit that they are able to countenance a rabbi like me, even if there are plenty of members who disagree with my views. And based on the discussions on my blog, I’ve found that it is indeed possible to have an honest and open exchange of views on this subject, which is clearly the most emotional and potentially incendiary issue in our community today.
I’m also old enough to remember when even the mention of a two-state solution was considered heresy in the Jewish community, so I know all too well that what is considered “acceptable discourse” is constantly shifting and evolving. That’s why I’m confident there will always be a place for annoying pests like me who are nipping at the margins of the communal conversation.
Mark Karlin: It is perhaps an impossible challenge to summarize your nuanced, thoughtful journey – your exploration of Jewish humanistic and religious tradition expressed in the book – but let’s say I were given an assignment to write a one-sentence synopsis of “Wrestling in the Daylight.” Let’s return to an earlier question and paraphrase it. Would “If the price of maintaining a Jewish state is the loss of the divine spark of humanity within the Jewish soul, it is not a price worth paying” be anywhere near that one sentence?
Brant Rosen: Wow, that’s pretty lofty. I’d settle for “A rabbi shares his ideological evolution toward Palestinian solidarity – lively conversation ensues.”
“Wrestling in the Daylight” is available from the publisher’s web site.
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10 SPIEGEL ONLINE Thursday,
Jan17, 2013
The Gravest of Allegations
Conflating Critique of Israel with Anti-Semitism
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/ronen-bergman-on-the-conflation-of-criticism-of-israel-with-antisemitism-a-877479-druck.html
By Ronen Bergman
In recent years, Israeli Jews have often confused anti-Israel rhetoric with anti-Semitism, argues journalist Ronen Bergman, who has himself been subjected to verbal attacks for his reporting in SPIEGEL.
“You are part of the anti-Semitic propaganda yourself, and you don’t even know it. You don’t speak German and you don’t understand the nuances of the text, yet you sign it as one of the authors.”
This allegation was hurled at me by Melody Sucharewicz, a communications and strategy consultant in Israel and Germany. I myself am the son of two Holocaust survivors who lost their entire families in the war, and I tried to defend myself against what I thought was a false accusation, but to no avail.
The attack had been triggered by an investigative report published by SPIEGEL last June addressing the German-Israeli cooperation in the building of submarines for the Israeli navy and compiled over several months by a team of journalists that included me. The report revealed that these submarines can carry nuclear missiles that would serve as Israel’s second-strike capability in the event of a nuclear confrontation.
The report stirred up considerable controversy in Germany, where the government came under fire for financing the construction of such vessels in German docks. In Israel, I was criticized by many for taking part in an investigative report that served, in their opinion, as “severe anti-Israeli propaganda” in Germany. Sucharewicz’s attack was one of the harshest and best articulated.
Sucharewicz was born in Munich and moved to Israel at the age of 19. She became a celebrity in Israel in no small part due to her ability to express precisely what many Israelis believe in a polished manner and in a number of different languages.
I asked her to put her indictment down in writing. Here are her main points:
“Given the rising trends of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel resentments in German society, it’s probably helpful to focus on the effects of this new quality and tone of Israel criticism in the public discourse. Even Günter Grass may wholeheartedly believe it’s his life’s last mission to communicate Israel’s danger to the world out of love and friendship for the Jewish people and their state. The effect of this trend on media consumers, however, is more important than the motives of more or less relevant individual authors.”
“Last June’s cover story in SPIEGEL on the German-Israeli submarine deal is an example: ‘Should Germany, the country of the perpetrators, be allowed to assist Israel, the land of the victims, in the development of a nuclear weapons arsenal capable of extinguishing hundreds of thousands of human lives?’ … ‘Should Germany, as its historic obligation stemming from the crimes of the Nazis, assume a responsibility that has become ‘part of Germany’s reason of state?” The subtext is clear: 1. Israel plans to wipe out the Iranian people and thus is equal to the Third Reich. 2. Germany is pressured into this because of the Holocaust.”
“The systematic and subtle manipulation of this sort in reports about Israel — whether skillfully staged or unintentional, to a large extent explains why, according to a study on anti-Semitism in German society recently commissioned by the Bundestag (the federal parliament), almost 40 percent of Germans claim that ‘Jews try to take an advantage out of the Third Reich History;’ why 44 percent say they ‘understand that one dislikes Jews, when looking at Israel’s policies.'”
Sucharewicz makes some tough arguments, and reading through the Simon Weisenthal Center’s list of leading anti-Semites that put Jakob Augstein in 9th place and launched this current debate on modern day anti-Semitism, I feel that it is somehow based on very similar arguments.
‘He Definitely Deserves the No. 9 Spot’
According to Ephraim Zuroff, the Wiesenthal Center’s representative in Israel, “Augstein shouldn’t be placed at No. 1 on the list, but because of various statements that he has made, that could have come straight out of ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ he definitely deserves the No. 9 spot.” In Western Europe, he says, “there are three sources of anti-Semitism: the Muslim communities, the extreme right and the extreme left. In Germany, the authorities clamp down hard on the first two, but they do nothing against the third group, to which Augstein belongs.”
A number of historical processes led to a situation in which people like Augstein, and media like SPIEGEL are labeled “anti-Semites.” Since its founding after World War II, the state of Israel has identified itself completely with the plights of Diaspora Jews. Protecting Jews from persecution has become part of the Jewish state’s official agenda, putting Israeli and Diaspora Jews under one “law.” For example, when anti-Jewish outbreaks in various countries threatened the well-being of local Jewish communities, Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency took the precautionary step of secretly distributing weapons and providing training to assist them in defending themselves. Given that any Jew can become an Israeli citizen, Israel, by doing so, was also defending its potential future citizens.
During the 1970s, when the German left-wing extremists of the Red Army Faction joined forces with Palestinian terrorist groups, the Israelis perceived the development to have derived directly from the legacy of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.
The Israeli “siege mentality” is the product of hundreds of years of anti-Semitism that culminated in the Holocaust. That has very rightfully made Israelis highly sensitive to anything that may sound like anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, this anti-Semitism was never perceived as a serious threat to Israel.
The World Shows Less Patience with Israel
But the last 10 years have brought about a profound change and, since then, many Israelis and Jews have begun conflating anti-Israel politics with anti-Semitism. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, high-tech military technology has gained Israel the upper hand, and battles in densely populated areas are bound to be widely criticized. Indeed, Israel, in its heart forever the David, has never adapted to being the Goliath.
As the world shows less and less patience towards the continuation of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, attempts are made, inter alia, to organize boycotts of Israeli academics, performers and products. This development is known in Israel as “the delegitimization” process, which has been marked by the Israeli government as a central national security challenge — one which could lead to serious damage to the Israeli economy the country’s standing abroad. The country has allocated huge resources, in the diplomatic and intelligence spheres, to thwart what is perceived as a concerted international effort to discredit Israel as a pariah state, similar to South Africa before the end of the apartheid era.
The greater the number of accusations that are hurled at Israel, the more it levels at others, and there is none graver in the Jewish lexicon than “anti-Semitism.” Those who support this approach have little difficulty proving that Israel is unfairly treated in the international arena. Some of their arguments are not without merit. How is it, they ask, that the United Nations Human Rights Council focuses so many of its activities against Israel and devotes almost no attention to other countries? How can it be that tens of thousands of people are massacred in Syria, but the whole world picks only on us? Hamas is a terror organization that has killed hundreds of Israeli civilians, women and children, in suicide attacks and even today calls for the elimination of Israel, but Augstein compares Hamas with some segments of the Orthodox Jewish population, and claims that both have the identical lust for revenge. The explanation for this behavior of the outside world is seen by most Israelis as simple anti-Semitism and an effort to undermine the legitimacy of the continued existence of the Jewish state.
Israelis Fear Delegitimization
The danger that many Israelis perceive in this delegitimization process is also reflected in a number of anti-democratic measures initiated by the right wing inside Israel itself. What in the past had been viewed as legitimate criticism from Israeli left-wing groups, especially those who oppose measures they see as being repressive against the Palestinians, is increasingly viewed today as collaborating with the enemy, namely the “anti-Semites” abroad, the “de-legitimizers”.
The urge to defend Israel, whose international standing is steadily deteriorating, makes people like Sucharewicz and the leaders of the Simon Wiesenthal Center wrongly equate criticism of Israel, however vehement it may be, with anti-Semitism. Like the Wiesenthal Center, Augstein is also an expert when it comes to provocation. As an Israeli reading some of the things that he has written, I also felt wronged at times. Sometimes he gets carried away, tendentious or makes historical errors. But despite all this, there are absolutely no grounds for labeling Augstein as an anti-Semite.
Charges of anti-Semitism often come in order to spare the Israeli leadership and their supporters the need to actually tackle the problems that evoke criticism. If it is true that the gentiles hate Jews, their motto seems to be, why listen to them at all?
Here’s a test study that I propose for the right-wing Israeli leadership: Get the peace process going again and let a Palestinian state declare itself alongside Israel. Then you’ll be able to distinguish at last between those who condemned us for the occupation and the true Jew haters. Identify the latter and turn the Wiesenthal Center loose against them.