Tonight’s 6 include a brief report about Dror Feiler, who was refused entry, along with his compatriot, MP Mehmet Kaplan. When I wrote yesterday about Dror, I was unaware of the fact that he was no longer an Israeli citizen, hence deportable. The anticipated happened: entry was denied. Will Dror every recoup his saxophone? Surely Israel has no right to keep personal items as musical instruments. But, then, what foreign government will call Israel on the carpet for that?
The 2nd item is infuriating. Ajami had been a Palestinian neighborhood in Jaffa for eons, and then became a mixed neighborhood, but hence forward, as with so many other areas in Israel, is to be Jewish only, and this with the blessing of Israel’s High Court (leave the justice off!). I, having grown up in the US when discrimination was rife, even against Jews, very much resent living in a country in which Jews discriminate against others. Shame! For an Ajami of happier days, not so long ago, when Jews, Muslims, and Christians enjoyed one another’s company see http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=170166
Item 3 includes a video well worth watching. The main point of the report and the video is that Americans are highly complicit in colonizing the West Bank.
Item 4 consists of an open letter from Gaza students to European students. The latter recently held (according to the letter) their annual conference in Jerusalem this year. Gaza students resent this and openly say so. Why European students and the OECD decided this year to hold their conferences in (of all places) Jerusalem, is totally unclear. Obviously their choices of a place to meet did not take into consideration the present circumstances. Why not?
Item 5, as item 3, reports a case of Israeli racism. Again reasons are given to justify the demolition of a Mosque! Imagine! Imagine that Italy or France or Bulgaria or Washington had demolished a synagogue! Just imagine the hue and cry! But demolishing a Mosque which had no permit (disregarding the fact that permits are almost never given to Palestinians) is no less nauseating than demolishing a synagogue that has a permit.
Item 6 finds that something is working, that Israel is beginning to feel that it is being delegitimized. Well, when Israel’s leaders and population feel this strongly enough, we shall know for a fact that something is working.
All the best,
Dorothy
=======================================
1. Haaretz,
November 07, 2010
Israel refuses entry to Sweden MP and ex-Israeli who sailed on Gaza flotilla
MP Mehmet Kaplan and artist Dror Feiler planned to lodge complaint against IDF for violence, armed robbery, obstruction of freedom and kidnapping.
Israeli authorities on Sunday refused to grant entry to a legislator from the Swedish parliament and an expatriate Israeli artist who sailed on the Turkish-flagged humanitarian aid flotilla to the Gaza Strip earlier this year.
The Turkish-born MP Mehmet Kaplan and artist Dror Feiler were detained at the Ben Gurion International Airport upon landing, on the grounds that they were barred for 10 years due to their participation in the May 2010 flotilla. Both were among the dozens of flotilla passengers taken in to custody following Israel’s deadly raid.
Feiler, who currently lives in Sweden, also took part in the flotilla, though not on the Mavi Marmara ship where nine Turkish activists died in clashes with Israeli naval commandos. He has given up his Israeli citizenship but has been permitted to return to the country dozens of times since. This was the first time he was denied entry.
Kaplan and Feiler had planned to use their trip in Israel to lodge an official complaint with the Israel Police against the Israel Defense Forces. Their complaint accused the IDF of kidnapping, armed robbery, violence and obstruction of freedom.
Feiler claims that Israeli security forces confiscated his saxophone during the raid, and refused to return it to him. Kaplan says the IDF stole his satellite telephone and camera.
Investigators at Ben Gurion airport told them upon arrival that their request to enter had been refused, and transferred them to Interior Ministry authorities.
“Anyone who took part in the flotilla will not be permitted into Israel,” said Sabine Hadad, spokesman for immigration authorities. “They know this. They should have contacted the embassy before arriving.”
=================================================
2. Dorit Beinish says she cannot revoke Land Administration decision to award bid to private construction company planning to sell apartments to national-religious public, but orders future bids prohibit discrimination
Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish rejected an appeal filed by Arab residents of the Jaffa neighborhood of Ajami, in which they inveighed against a decision allowing for the construction of a Jewish-only apartment complex.
Racism in Jaffa
Beinish, however, hinted that the permit for the building constituted “wrongful discrimination”.
The petitioners claimed that the Jewish Emunah movement, which intends to market the apartments to the national-religious sector, was engaging in discriminatory marketing.
Thus, the petition says, the Israel Land Administration was acting unlawfully when they agreed to lease the land to the movement.
Beinish stated that that the appeal is purely “theoretical” because land rights have already been given to Emunah and payments have been made. However, she did add that in future cases similar to this one, such bids must include a stipulation forbidding discrimination regarding housing.
The Administrative Affairs Court in Tel Aviv rejected the appeal by Ajami residents made earlier this year, claiming the petitioners did not validate the stipulations of the bid and did not apply for it, and therefore cannot become involved in the case.
The petitioners appealed to the Supreme Court, but President Beinish and Justices Miriam Naor and Yoram Danziger denied their request, due to the fact that the deal had already been completed.
However, they added that this issue raises important questions, such as the status of public petitioners in cases of construction bids, private corporations’ subordination to anti-discrimination laws, and the extent to which managers may supervise marketing methods of land leased to groups of unique cultural or religious backgrounds.
Beinish wrote that there is a basis to the claim that the Israel Land Administration should oversee the methods of marketing land so it will be fair, even if the company that won the bid is private.
She stated that the Ajami residents were right to criticize the decision to define the national-religious public as a minority group in need of religious and cultural protection, but that in this case, the court can not make a decision because it would not be “practical to provide the petitioners with the assistance they desire”.
Beinish ruled that in future cases, bids must include a stipulation forbidding the winner from discriminating against certain groups while selling housing units.
“This is an important and worthy ruling due the public status of the Israel Land Administration and it being a limited public resource, which must be shared equally,” explained Beinish.
In regards to the rejection the petitioner’s lawyer said: “This decision is disappointing, but it contains important statements which will prevent public land discrimination from now on.”
a foothold in Israel”). And yet, there’s nothing secret about the very mundane way that the Green Line has been erased for the past 30+ years. I approach real estate agents as simply a New York-based reporter, and they are happy to talk my ear off. Just this past June, the Jewish
Agency hosted a real estate expo
<http://mondoweiss.net/2010/06/israeli-expo-in-nyc-markets-settlement-pe\
nthouses.html> in the Times Square Marriott, where property on both sides of the Green
Line was for sale—with no mention of the 1967 borders in sight. Notice how the Anglo-Saxon real estate agent in the video has an American accent? She’s probably from New York.
In reporting a print story, four of the four real estate agents I’ve talked to who sell settlement property to Americans–either immigrants or people buying second homes–have been from New York.
According to the Jewish Agency, 580 New Yorkers (state, not city) made aliyah in 2009.
The aliyah coordinator at Efrat, having moved from Ditmas Park (Brooklyn) herself, told
me that of the 20 *families* that moved to Efrat in 2009, HALF of them were from the NY/NJ area. (In total, 85 North Americans moved to Efrat that year.) She wanted to make sure I knew that Efrat was itself founded in 1983 by New Yorker Shlomo Riskin with members of his Lincoln Square Synagogue http://www.lss.org/> in the Upper West Side (where, not incidentally,
the current <http://www.lss.org/content.php?pg=Clergy&ID=96> head rabbi has studied w/ Riskin in Efrat).
“Since, compared to other places, a large percentage of the residents of Efrat are English-speaking, it is only natural that other Anglo-Saxons would find Efrat to be a comfortable and familiar place in which to make their home,” Oded Revivi, the mayor of Efrat, wrote me
an email. (Efrat’s practice of dumping their sewage
<http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=610
on surrounding Palestinian farmland went unmentioned.) Mayor Revivi added, “In addition, Efrat was planned and continues to be built on a high standard with beautiful homes, gardens, playgrounds, cultural activities, award-winning educational institutions and a warm and caring
community, making it an ideal place to raise a family.” And where does the land for those playgrounds come from? 30% of Efrat is built http://peacenow.org/entries/miami_herald_this_is_israel
on property confiscated from the Palestinian village of al-Khader. Occupation is a
process of expansion, of course. Just one example: in 2008, the IDF’s Civil Administration declared that another 90 dunums of al-Khader’s property was now (Jewish) state land.
It was needed to build a park http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&fld=495&docid=3497 for the residents of Efrat.
At a recent Nefesh B’Nefesh Aliyah expo in October, I picked up a booklet published by the Jerusalem Post, “A Tribute to Western Aliyah:
Building a Stronger Israel, One person at a time.” (With nothing labeled as a “settlement,”
be sure to peruse the NBN Israeli community database http://www.nbn.org.il/communities/jtemplate/community/6 if you want to “live the dream”—and don’t care on which side of the Green Line you realize it.) In the JPost booklet, there’s a
contribution from Dr. Karin Amit of the Institute for Immigration and Social Integration in which she boasts “only 7.3% of [North American immigrants] live in Judea and Samaria.”
That’s a significant number when you consider Amit’s other stat–that 30,500 immigrants have moved to Israel from Canada and the U.S. since 1990. Problem with the math is that I don’t think it’s right. At all. Consider one anglo-concentrated settlement: Hashmonaim, across the Wall from Ni’lin, population 3000, is 40% American (according to the settlement’s aliyah coordinators).
Then, too, there are all the Americans who live in Efrat and elsewhere—both in Israel and “Israel”—who telecommute and actual commute back to their jobs in the U.S. At the Nefesh B’Nefesh aliyah expo, I went to an extremely informative telecommuting presentation by
former New Yorker Eric Guth http://il.linkedin.com/pub/eric-guth/0/9/b2a of Efrat
I needed a solution that would allow me to be on top of my business in New York, even
when I am away from the store. Efrat Networks created a powerful, yet very simple to
use solution for me that allows me to communicate with my clients, vendors, and
employees as if I was in the store every day. The bottom line is that I can spend
more relaxed time with my family in Israel, while keeping the business going at full
steam in New York. Thanks Efrat Networks for taking the time to first understand
my business needs and then come up with a creative set of communication and
computer solutions that not only work, but also fit my budget.
Jeffrey Mark, JMark Interiors <http://www.jmarkinteriors.com/> ,
Cedarhurst, NY. / Efrat, Israel”
Efrat is just a single settlement—and, to be sure, one that draws more Americans than most other settlements. But it should help us remember: when we talk about the Occupation and American Jews’ relationship to it, there’s more to the picture than the U.S. political
leadership not having a spine and caving to the Israel lobby.
bodies from main street Jewish America to the settlements. As the mayor of Efrat,
Oded Revivi, put it to me in an email, the settlement “needed a strong and idealistically motivated population base which Rabbi Riskin’s New Yorkers, NJers and other
economically strong Anglo-Saxons provided.”
==========================
Subject: Open Letter from Gaza Students to the European Students’ Union: Oppose Apartheid and War Crimes (correct version)
To:
Open Letter from Gaza Students to the European Students’ Union: Oppose Apartheid
and War Crimes.
November.06.2010
Besieged Gaza, Palestine
We are writing to you as students from the besieged Gaza Strip whose entire educational system has been crippled as a result of Israel’s four-year long and ongoing blockade. We are deeply distressed that you held your annual conference this year in Jerusalem, a conference organized by the National Union of Israeli Students and the Israeli Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs, in addition to the Prime Minister’s Office. We are saddened that you failed to empathize with us and break through the silence imposed on our voices by the state you visited, to stand against what the United Nations Special Rapporteur John Dugard described as the only remaining case after South Africa, “of a Western-affiliated regime that denies self-determination and human rights to a developing people and that has done so for so long.” [1]
Amidst the ongoing siege and occupation, while we were massacred over the new year of 2009, the world’s governing bodies and judiciaries watched on. For 22 horror stricken days, we were left alone to face the fourth largest army in the world, a state with more than 400 nuclear heads which has frequently used all of its destructive powers on our civilian population.
We faced F16s, F15s, F35s, Merkava tanks, Apache helicopters, naval gunboats and illegal, flesh burning white phosphorous which resulted in more than 1400 casualties, including 413 children. On the first day of the massacre, over 500 Israeli warplanes set about bombing the entire Gaza Strip. It was 11:23 am, the time that students left their schools and universities, after the winter term examination period. According to main-stream Human Rights Organizations, including B’tselem, the majority of casualties were children below the age of 18.
In the course of the assault 37 primary and secondary schools were hit, including 18 that were operating as shelters for those fleeing their homes. The American International School was destroyed, and four buildings of the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) demolished.[2] The United Nations Goldstone investigation reported that, “the Gaza military operations were directed by Israel at the people of Gaza as a whole, in furtherance of an overall policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population, and in a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population.”[3] Yet no action has been taken by the international community
Since it was founded on the ruins of Palestinian refugees, Israel has violated more United Nations resolutions than any other, including article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights pertaining to education and the respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Our right to education is continually denied, in breach of article 50 of the Fourth Geneva Convention relating to the protection of civilians in times of war which demands that all institutions, “devoted to the care and education of children” have their work facilitated by the occupying power
In Gaza, Israel’s four year long blockade has prevented even the most basic student necessities such as stationary, paper, books, school bags—students frequently don’t have the candles to study under in light of the enforced shortage of electricity. The resulting poverty has required many aspiring students to drop out early to work for their family and except for a tiny few, pursuing scholarships abroad is next to impossible.
This is not to mention Israel’s ruthless occupation of the West Bank, its expansion of illegal Jewish-only settlements, the construction of the illegal Apartheid Separation Wall, the restriction of Palestinian movement and humiliations at the over 600 West Bank checkpoints and the illegal annexation of Jerusalem, the location of your annual conference.
The 1948 Palestinians, who had Israeli citizenship imposed on them, suffer greatly from discriminatory laws and policies that Jewish citizens of Israel enjoy. Our only fault is that of belonging to the ‘wrong religion’. The words of many Israeli policy makers suggest even more of our people could soon be violently expelled to accompany the ‘slow motion ethnic cleansing’ that has been taking place since 1948.
We call on you not to yield to this merciless Israeli propaganda machine that aims to whitewash Israeli crimes, and join the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, to isolate Israel until it complies with International Law, ends its illegal siege on Gaza, its 53 year military occupation of the West Bank, its racially motivated discriminatory policies against the 1.4 million indigenous arab population in Israel and the denial the right of return to the millions of victims of Israel’s ethnic cleansing.
The Palestinian call for the academic boycott of Israel has been supported by academics and students around the world. Universities and colleges such as UC, Berkeley, University of Michigan (Dearborne), Hampshire College and Sussex University and others have all launched efforts to boycott and divest from companies that support Israeli apartheid and occupation. After visiting the Holy Land, Archbishop and BDS activist Desmund Tutu said:
I never tire of speaking about the very deep distress in my visits to the Holy Land; they remind me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like we did when young white police officers prevented us from moving about. My heart aches. I say, “Why are our memories so short?”
When the European Students’ Union began life in 1982 as the ‘Western European Students Information Bureau’ Students and their Unions were leading the way in opposition to the racist Apartheid South African regime. There was no negotiating with such oppression based on race – there was only one word: BOYCOTT. People no longer believed the Afrikaner rhetoric just like many around the world are now not falling for the ‘Rebrand Israel’ campaign. Like now, the support of Western Governments for the decades-long oppression resulted in the failure to apply justice through the traditional means of holding human rights violators and war criminals to account.
Just as students throughout the 80s were banning Barclays bank from campuses for their investment in Apartheid, we had hopes of similar solidarity given the unique savagery and imprisonment we Palestinians are subjected to. You failed to remember such times when it wasn’t easy to stand on the right side of history, and take a stand as only student movements can. Instead, you decided to normalize with an Apartheid regime by attending the European Students’ Union meeting in Jerusalem. Moreover, you failed to stand up for those the tour did not show you, those whose voices are strangled, whose hopes are permanently shot down and whose loved ones are still grieving.
Besieged Gaza,
The Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI)
by: Clare Solomon, President, University of London Union
Arfah Farooq, Black and Ethnic Officer, Goldsmiths Students’ Union
Mark Bergfeld, National Union Students, National Executive Committee
Hanif Leylabi National Union Students, LGBT Committee
James Haywood, Campaigns and Communications Officer, Goldsmiths Students’ Union
Ashok Kumar, Education Officer, LSE Students’ Union
One Democratic State Group
The state said that Marti and Chappell belong to the International Solidarity Movement, an organization “that supports an ideology that is anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian and universally revolutionary.” Haaretz 24/03/10
Equality or nothing. — Edward Said
================================================
5. Haaretz
Police, Bedouin clash as state demolishes condemned Rahat mosque
Mosque, which police say was funded by the Islamic Movement’s Northern
Branch, had been marked for demolition as a result of it being illegally constructed;
residents begin rebuilding demolished mosque Sunday.
Riots broke out at the Bedouin city of Rahat late Saturday night as a massive evacuation force arrived at the Negev town and demolished a condemned city mosque.
Police sources said the mosque had been marked for demolition months ago as a result of it being illegally constructed, adding that the structur’s construction was funded by the Islamic Movement’s Northern Branch during the Gaza war, in late 2008 and early 2009.
A massive evacuation force, comprising over 5,000 policemen, tractors, and ambulances, descended on the town late Saturday, with initial reports claiming riots broke out between police and thousands of locals.
Thousands of the city’s residents reportedly hurled stones at the police officers securing the demolition, with police returning tear gas fire. A few protestors were arrested.
Police forces then moved to demolish the structure as soon as the mosque had been
emptied of scripture and ritual objects. An order for the mosque’s demolition was
issued by the southern district’s planning committee in April of this year, with the
Be’er Sheva District Court rejecting an appeal against the decision three months later.
According to Rahat mayor Faiz Abu Sahiban claimed the act was a direct offense
against all Muslims, saying that the “police should act responsibly and use its discretion.”
“They should at least postpone the demolition until after the holiday,” Sahiban said,
adding that the act was a “flagrant violation” of Rahat’s jurisdiction. “
We have four mosques that were built without due permit, so they can demolish them all.”
The Rahat municipality decaled a general strike in wake of the demolition.
Israel Police released a statement following the demolition, saying its actions
demonstrated the police “would not turn a blind eye and would protect the rule
of law, all the while acting with the utmost consideration of Muslim sentiment.”
Rahat residents on Sunday began rebuilding the demolisehed mosque.
“If they continue to destroy it, we will rebuild the mosque over and over again,”
said Yusuf Abu Jama, leader of the northern branch of the Isalmic Movement in Rahat.
“No we are unified, the northern branch and the southern branch [of the Islamic movement]. Today, Arab people from all over the country will come to show their solidarity.”
Abu Jam’a added that the mosque was built to deter drug dealing activity that took
place in the area.
Rahat, situated just north of Be’er Sheva, is the Negev’s only Bedouin city, with over
We can learn much from the Israeli government’s decision this week to suspend a
special strategic dialog with the United Kingdom because of concerns that Israeli
officials could be arrested and indicted with crimes against humanity in the UK,
according to a British law that provides for “universal jurisdiction” in such cases,
i.e., a suspect of any country can be charged, detained and tried in a British court
even if the alleged crimes occurred in a third country and did not include British
citizens among the victims. Israel’s Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni recently cancelled
a trip to London as did Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor this week, because he was
advised that he risked being arrested.
Palestinians in the UK in recent years have filed charges against Israeli officials and British courts have issued arrest warrants for some Israeli officials, though none have actually been taken intocustody. The important dimension of this is the concern among many Israelis – justified, in my view – that Israel is being subjected to a “de-legitimization” campaign. This is exactly what is happening, and it scares Israelis more than anything else in the
world.
The one most-coveted thing that Israel lacks in the eyes of its Palestinian foes and other Arab and international critics is legitimacy and acceptance. It’s one thing if Yemen, Algeria or Somalia do not recognize Israel, but it is another and much more significant thing entirely if the UK government – the historical midwife of Zionism and the Israeli state – issues arrest warrants charging Israeli officials with crimes against humanity.
Exactly 93 years ago this week the British government issued the Balfour Declaration that pledged support for the creation of “a national home for the Jewish people.” Now, London
joins others in the world who seek to hold accountable to the international rule of law those Israeli leaders at the helm of that “Jewish national home” that is the sovereign state of Israel – sovereign, but still largely unaccepted in its present configuration.
Israel is not particularly worried about its military security, given its known conventional and nuclear capabilities. It has been in a constant state of war with its neighbors for the past 62 years because it has never been fully and formally acknowledged as legitimate by its Arab neighbors. Israel is strong militarily, politically, economically, culturally, and technologically – but it remains vulnerable and uneasy because it is not accepted in the Middle East as a normal,
legitimate country.
This is primarily because it has refused to come to terms with the national and territorial
rights of the Palestinian people whom it largely dispossessed, ethnically cleansed, displaced
and exiled in the process of creating the Jewish-majority state of Israel.
All the Arab states have formally offered to coexist in peace with Israel on he basis of the 2002 Arab peace plan which Israel has steadfastly ignored, so this is not about destroying Israel, as Zionist zealots and other howlers claim. The de-legitimization campaign aims to point out that Israeli official actions are often criminal in nature when Israel uses massive and disproportionate force, siege tactics, collective punishment, mass incarceration, torture, assassination, colonization, land theft and other such illegal and criminal behavior in
its routine dealings with Palestinians and other Arabs.
The reason Israel reacted so vehemently and almost irrationally last year to the Goldstone Commission report on both Israel’s and Hamas’ conduct of the 2008-09 Gaza war was
because this represented a frightening new form of formally sanctioned global criticism of
Israel’s excessive use of violence, and, more importantly, sought international follow-up to
hold Israel and Hamas accountable for their behavior. It’s one thing if Yemen, Algeria
or Somalia accuse Israel of war crimes, but it is another thing altogether when the organs
of the UN do this through a commission headed by one of the world’s most respected jurists.
Israel has predicated its entire foreign policy since its inception on being able to use any force
it deems necessary to protect and assert itself. The criticisms it is receiving, and legal moves such as the Goldstone Commission or the British indictments, are much more frightening to Israel than any missiles it might face from its surroundings, because they chip away at the one indispensable element that Israel has always relied on for its security, wellbeing and Zionist
self-assertion: impunity in military actions across the entire Middle East, its colonization of Arab lands, and its structural dispossession and subjugation of the Palestinian people.
This is Israel’s Achilles Heel, which is why this movement to challenge Israeli impunity is so significant, and will continue to grow until it achieves a political resolution that is fair to both
Palestinians and Israelis, who can enjoy equal rights in a configuration of mutually satisfying statehood, and affirms rather than tramples on the dictates of the global rule of law.
Israel is right to be worried, because its criminal behavior is finally being subjected to formal global scrutiny.
