I’d promised myself to send not more than 4 items today, but ended up with 6. Each time I went over the materials I’d gathered during the day, I ended up saying ‘I can’t not send this.” And though in the end I omitted far more than I included, have decided to let you choose what to read. It’s after all my business to furnish information, not to tell you what to read. I fully empathize with those of you who think it’s too much. I never manage to read even a quarter of the 100-200 emails that I receive daily, however much I try.
Now to the items. I don’t know whether to classify item one as racist or as a picture of current Israeli ethics. MK Hanin Zuabi was invited by student members of her party, Balad, to come and speak at a conference that they had planned to hold. Knesset members are allowed by law to come to Israeli universities to participate in events, unless (and this is the big big usual ‘unless’) there is a problem with security. Always easy to stir things up, so security can always be a potential problem. That did not stop the right-wing fundamentalist fascists from marching through the Arab village of Um el-Fahm. But this time it wasn’t fascists that were at issue.
It was a member of the Knesset who had been invited by students belonging to her party to come. Of course she was met by Israeli Jews, super duper student nationalists, with name calling and the singing of Hatikva (the Israeli anthem)! Stinking! Would they have treated Jews (Jeff Halper, Neta Golan, Amira Hass, for instance) who sailed to Gaza to break the blockade? Perhaps. Whether they would have or not, the incident today was ugly. Ugly doubly, first that it happened, and second that the student support the blockade rather than censure it.
Item 2 intrigued me. The Ministry of Education has decided to introduce debating into the schools. If they follow the rules, I think it’s wonderful. It surely is one way to get people to think. True, it’s been many a year since I took part in debating (close to 60 years, to be exact). Still, I presume that successful debating still means working on both sides of the question being debated. Each year a single subject is designated for all who participate.
So there is time to work on both sides of the question. During actual meets in my day we did not know until only a few minutes before we met our opponent on which side of the question we would be debating. So we had to be fully prepared. If the rules today are anything like the ones were in my day, then maybe for a change the preparation will get kids thinking for a change. Not a bad habit to acquire.
In item 3 Akiva Eldar tells us that “Jerusalem must be divided” and why. Worth reading. I personally prefer an undivided Israel—one nation with equal rights for all its citizens. Nevertheless, Eldar in this op-ed gives facts worth knowing.
Item 4 reports on Israel’s unsuccessful attempts to convince Norway to stop “exporting multimedia aimed at de-legitimizing Israel.” Am so glad to see that Norway had the decency to say no.
Item 5 Furnishes a glimpse of what some (perhaps most) of Israel’s artists, actors, poets, etc think about the present Minister of Sports and Culture, Limor Livnat—a firm right-winger who should have left her politics at home!
The final item is there primarily because of the last line, that is, the final statement! Don’t jump down to see it in advance. If you have had more than enough reading by the time you get to 6, put it away for another day. But read the article. The end makes much better sense when lead up to.
All the best,
Dorothy
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1. Haaretz,
November 15, 2010
Haifa U. students protest ban on Israeli Arab MK who sailed on Gaza flotilla
Hanin Zuabi claims the university is using ‘Shin Bet tactics’ in order to limit Arab student activity.
Balad party supporters at the University of Haifa will hold a rally there today to protest the university’s refusal to allow MK Hanin Zuabi of Balad to participate in a student political activity on campus.
Zuabi became an object of controversy for taking part in the Turkish flotilla aimed at breaking Israel’s blockade of Gaza in May, which ended with an Israeli naval raid and on-board skirmish that left nine Turkish citizens dead.
The MK had been scheduled to participate Monday in a student activity focusing on the political situation over the past year, and there is a chance she may show up despite the ban.
“No one can prevent me from going to a university and standing together with my constituency,” Zuabi wrote in a letter to Yoav Lavee, the dean of students. “My participation in the event is part of my parliamentary activities, just as my participation in the freedom flotilla constituted a humanitarian, ethical, civic and political obligation of the first order and was part of my parliamentary activities.”
Zuabi said the university was using the same tactics as the Shin Bet security service to keep Arab political activity to a minimum.
“The Shin Bet generally uses the argument of ‘disturbing the public order’ to limit the political and public activity of Arab citizens, and that’s what the university is doing, with the goal of limiting Arab student activity,” she said.
The Balad campus group asked the university on October 24 for permission to have Zuabi take part in the activity, but got no response until yesterday.
Lavee told the Balad group, which was expecting between 150 and 200 students at the activity, that Zuabi could not come because various groups on campus were planning to use the event as an excuse for exhibiting violent behavior.
Knesset members are explicitly entitled by law to go to any public place in the country, except for national security-related limitations.
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2. Haaretz,
November 15, 2010
Ministry hoping to tap into the art of argument
High-school debate clubs will face off against each other in early January as part of a new joint venture between the Education Ministry and the nonprofit Citizens’ Empowerment Center in Israel.
High-school debate clubs will face off against each other in early January as part of a new joint venture between the Education Ministry and the nonprofit Citizens’ Empowerment Center in Israel. The finals will be held on March 8, International Women’s Day: The topic for the 2010-2011 school year is gender issues in Israel.
The Education Ministry hopes to expand the project next year to the national level.
Some 30 high-school civics and social science teachers recently completed a six-session seminar on the basics of debating. While there have been local debating activities in the past, the new project is the first to receive ministerial support.
The current initiative, which unlike past efforts focuses on training teachers in debate, has the backing of Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar. This year 20 schools, mostly in the center of the country, are participating, but next year organizers hope there will be more than 100.
The art of formal debate is much less developed in local schools than in European and U.S. ones, where it is taught sometimes in elementary school.
The program is part of the ministry’s “Year of the Hebrew Language” and also ties in with efforts to introduce advanced teaching methods.
“Our students need to improve their rhetorical and oral expression skills,” said the ministry’s national social sciences education coordinator, Dana Friedman. Friedman, who is involved in the project, says it also constitutes “an excellent foundation for encounters between various social groups, cultures and [ethnic] sectors.”
Teachers in the seminar learned about the culture of debate, strategies for introducing and refuting arguments, and gender issues. According to Reut Nadav, who taught the seminar and will continue to guide the project, debating is “a method that seeks to develop students’ thinking abilities and makes the students much more involved.”
Nadav says that while in the classroom girls may compete with boys for the teacher’s attention, “they blossom in debate class. They don’t have to claim their place, it’s ‘guaranteed’ to them, thanks to the rules of debate.”
“The common denominator among many of the world’s leaders, including Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, is that at some point they learned the theories of persuasion and debate,” says CECI executive director Yuval Lipkin. “The program gives teachers the ability to pass on the tools for developing rhetorical abilities so that students can improve their powers of persuasion and their public speaking abilities.”
Teachers will judge the first round of debates between schools. In the finals the panels will be joined by Yoni Cohen-Idov, 2010 champion of the World Universities Debating Championship.
Nadav stresses that the judges base their decisions on the quality of the arguments used “It’s important to be charismatic,” she said, “but more attention is paid to content than style.”
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3. Haaretz,
November 15, 2010
Jerusalem must be divided
Even in Jerusalem, lies that are repeated too often do not become true. The truth has been and remains: either Jerusalem will become the capital of two peoples or Israel will become the state of two peoples.
President Barack Obama does not hand out U.S. graces at half price, for example a temporary freeze in settlement construction. In order to receive the generous package of American incentives put before him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is required to hand over a list of Jewish settlements that will be wiped off the map. This list must include Hebron and Shiloh, the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea, and also East Jerusalem.
On the map hanging in Netanyahu’s office, such broad swaths of territory are labeled “Jerusalem,” and on other maps around the world they are noted as “occupied territories.” No country recognizes the annexation of 70 square kilometers of West Bank territory into the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem (whose area was 6.4 square kilometers under Jordanian rule ). Opposing a withdrawal from East Jerusalem will no doubt lead to a failure in the negotiations and turning our back on a two-state solution.
Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak is credited with making the first attempt to break the taboo over the political division of Jerusalem (in every other way Jerusalem has remained divided ). Ehud Olmert followed in his footsteps and drew a line between the Jewish and Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.
Opinion polls have shown that the Jewish-Israeli public began shaking off false cliches that have been used to cover up the failure to do anything about the poorest city in Israel. Many have grown accustomed to the idea that they will have to give up on the Shuafat refugee camp and a quarter million Palestinians. Since the dispute broke over the settlement freeze, hardly a day has gone by without Netanyahu or his spokesmen issuing another legend glorifying the myth of “the eternal capital that will never be divided.”
Netanyahu: “Israel sees no relationship between the peace process and the policy of planning and construction in Jerusalem, which has not changed for 40 years… Construction in Jerusalem will never disrupt the peace process.”
The Facts: Following Netanyahu’s decision in early 1997 (when he first served as prime minister ) to build the neighborhood of Har Homa in East Jerusalem, the Arab League held a special emergency session. Secretary General Ismat Abdel Magid condemned the “policy of Judaizing Jerusalem, which aims to create facts on the ground on the eve of negotiations for a permanent settlement.”
Jordan’s King Hussein dispatched a sharply worded message to Netanyahu, warning that the plan would lead to an outburst of emotions. Egypt expressed concern about the damage the project would inflict on the peace process. U.S. President Bill Clinton promised Palestinian Authority head Yasser Arafat that he would press Netanyahu to freeze the plans. But the Israeli leader rejected all appeals and Hamas won another victory against the peace process.
Netanyahu: “Jerusalem is united, the capital of the Jewish people and its sovereignty is incontrovertible.”
The Facts: According to the road map, approved in May 2003 by the Sharon government (and in which Netanyahu served as a senior minister ), the permanent agreement that was meant to be signed in 2005 would include “an agreed, just, fair, and realistic solution to the refugee issue, and a negotiated resolution on the status of Jerusalem.” It also said that in the first phase the government of Israel would reopen the Palestinian trade office and other Palestinian institutions closed in East Jerusalem. Moreover, two Israeli prime ministers have already set the precedent that Israel’s sovereignty over East Jerusalem is disputed.
Netanyahu: “All Jerusalem residents can acquire homes in every part of the city.”
The Facts: There is a clause in the Israel Lands Administration leasing agreements that enables them to void the purchase of a home if the buyer is not an Israeli citizen or not entitled to make aliyah on the basis of the Right of Return (in other words, is not a Jew ). An investigative report published by Nir Hasson on November 5 (“State gave East Jerusalem lands to rightist groups without tenders” ), exposed the symbiotic relationship between the government and elements on the right, who aim to push the Arabs out of East Jerusalem. The Netanyahu government is the first to have given over to the Elad NGO the City of David national park, without a tender. One of the directors of the NGO has said in the past that the group’s aim is “to take hold of areas of East Jerusalem in order to create unalterable conditions in the Holy Basin around the Old City.”
Even in Jerusalem, lies that are repeated too often do not become true. The truth has been and remains: either Jerusalem will become the capital of two peoples or Israel will become the state of two peoples.
Serious diplomatic conflict: Israel is accusing the Norwegian government of funding and encouraging blatant anti-Israel incitement.
According to reports received by the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, the Trondheim Municipality is funding a trip to New York for students taking part in the “Gaza Monologues” play, which “deals with the suffering of children in Gaza as a result of the Israeli occupation.”
The play, written by a Palestinian from Gaza, will be presented at the United Nations headquarters. It joins an exhibition by a Norwegian artists displayed in Damascus, Beirut, and Amman, with the help of Norway’s embassies in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.
The exhibition shows killed Palestinian babies next to Israel Defense Forces helmets, which are reminiscent of Nazi soldiers’ helmets, and an Israeli flag drenched in blood.
The Norwegians are also helping the distribution of a documentary film called “Tears of Gaza” to festivals across the world. According to the Foreign Ministry, the film deals with the suffering of Gaza’s children as well, without mentioning Hamas, the rockets fired at Israel, and Israel’s right to defend itself.
The film shows Gazans chanting, “Itbah al-Yahud,” but the Norwegian translation says “slaughter the Israelis” instead of “slaughter the Jews”.
In addition, a book written by two Norwegian doctors who were the only foreigners in Gaza to give interviews during Operation Cast Lead was published recently. The book, which accuses IDF soldiers of deliberately killing women and children, is a bestseller in Norway and has been warmly recommended by none other than Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.
The Israeli Embassy in Norway strongly protested the authorities’ involvement in Israel’s demonization. “The open and official Norwegian policy talks about understanding and reconciliation,” a senior Israeli official said Sunday evening, “but ever since the war in Gaza, Norway has become a superpower in terms of exporting multimedia aimed at de-legitimizing Israel, while using the Norwegian taxpayer funds for creating and transporting this multimedia.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon said in a meeting with Norwegian parliament members that “such activity pushes away the chance for reconciliation and encourages a radicalization in the Palestinian stand which prevents them from compromising.”
The Norwegians responded to the Israeli criticism by saying that the government supports the freedom of expressions and will not intervene in artistic content.
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5. Haaretz,
November 15, 2010
There you have it: culture
Demonstrations over the issue of occupation have been raging here for 30 years , and majority of those who were first to write, protest and demonstrate were academics and creative artists.
A person who loves books, music, theater, art and film wakes up one day to find Limor Livnat his minister of culture. The appointment does not please him. But, he reminds himself, that’s how things go in a coalition democracy: The cabinet table must sometimes be as flexible as Nadia Comaneci.
After a few months, it becomes clear that her term of office will not evoke comparisons with those of Andre Malraux or Melina Mercouri. What happens in France is reserved for the French, and ditto for what happens in Greece. We, the Israelis, will have to adorn ourselves with Livnat’s regime of criteria: changing the criteria for supporting theaters and creating new criteria for a prize for Zionist creative work.
There is more than a little hypocrisy in the story of the dedication of a new cultural center in Ariel and the artists’ call to other artists not to perform there. After all, this is not the first time there have been arguments in this country over the future of the occupied territories. Demonstrations over the question of whether to divide the land and what its borders should be have been raging here for 30 years already. Uncountable numbers of words have been written on the subject of Zionism and the occupation. A prime minister has been murdered over this issue. And no, my memory is not mistaken: A majority of those who were first to write, protest and demonstrate over these issues were academics and creative artists.
The public did not always scorn them. Once, they were even called “intellectuals.” Prime ministers, including the current one, used to pursue them and listen attentively to their words. Sometimes, when it suited them, they even enjoyed these interactions.
But to Livnat and Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman, the artists’ names and numbers are not important. They were and will remain a “handful” of “lunatics.” There you have it: the culture of our culture minister.
Contrary to the minister’s claim, the heart of the matter is neither culture nor the cultural center, but the occupation and the fact that we are an occupying nation. Nor do we need Livnat to decide who is a Zionist. Her work has been done by others. Those who oppose the idea generally proclaim their post-Zionism publicly.
Let’s go back to the prize for a Zionist creative work. First, we are a country of prizes. Last Friday, the Culture and Sports Ministry ran an advertisement announcing the award of the minister’s prize for this year’s best literary works – seven prizes in all. The prime minister awards prizes for literary and musical works (Levi Eshkol gave out the first ones ) to 12, and sometimes even 14, creative artists every year. Then we have the Israel Prize in various fields – the Bialik, Brenner, Tchernichovsky, ACUM, Ophir, Sapir and other prizes. Altogether, I’ve counted 25 prizes well-known to the public that are granted to 100 or more winners every year.
And now there will be one more, a Zionist prize. Yet rereading the writings of some past prize winners raises a question: Is there any chance those writers could win a prize today? Take Yosef Haim Brenner, for instance. Just open “From Here and There” and decide for yourself whether this is a Zionist work. Nor am I convinced that Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s “Samson” could pass Livnat’s test.
And then there’s the person who wrote, “Zionism, as I perceive it, includes not only the yearning for a plot of promised land legally acquired for our weary people, but also the yearning for moral and spiritual fulfillment.” Oops, Herzl is also out.
The mother of Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg was the author Natalia Ginzburg. Perhaps it was his mother’s influence that prompted Ginzburg to ask and answer (in an interview with Sefy Hendler in Haaretz’s Hebrew edition on November 1 ): “What is my country? The country of which I am ashamed.” We’re lucky that at least a “handful” still have a pinch of shame for all of us.
LONDON — I like the look of President Barack Obama’s new Middle East envoy, a person with broad experience, the trust of Israelis, growing support among West Bank Palestinians and a fierce personal conviction that a peace accord is essential not only for the parties but for United States national security.
The surprise appointment reflects the need to bring maximum heft to U.S. mediation efforts at a time when Obama himself, major international powers and the Palestinian government led by Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad have all set a target of achieving Palestinian statehood by the second half of 2011.
You missed the announcement? Well it was made so quietly, more through osmosis than anything, that overlooking the change was easy. So here’s the administration’s Middle East shift: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken charge.
Oh, I know, George Mitchell, the special envoy who has labored since early 2009, endures. But the heavy lifting is now in Clinton’s hands. Officials in Washington, Jerusalem and Ramallah tell me that the secretary of state will lead what her husband recently called the attempt to “finish Rabin’s work.”
“She’s not insecure about Israel, she will call the shots as she sees them,” a senior U.S. official said. “And she would not be engaged if she did not feel there was a way to get there.”
Clinton’s new role was evident last week. During a video conference with Fayyad, she announced $150 million in direct U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority (and said America was “deeply disappointed” by “counterproductive” Israeli housing plans in East Jerusalem). The next day she went into nearly eight hours of talk with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that opened the negotiations door a crack.
Before I get to that, some background. The Clinton of today is not the Clinton of a decade ago. Compare that sharp criticism of Israel’s East Jerusalem building with her 1999 position that Jerusalem is “the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel.” Somewhere in the past decade her conviction hardened that the state of Palestine is achievable, inevitable and compatible with Israeli security.
“A bit of an epiphany,” in the words of one aide, came in March 2009 on the road to Ramallah. “We drove in a motorcade and you could see the settlements high up, and the brutality of it was so stark,” this aide said. “Everyone got quite silent and as we approached Ramallah there were these troops in berets. They were so professional, we thought at first they were Israel Defense Forces. But, no, they were Palestinians, this completely professional outfit, and it was clear this was something new.”
That “something” is fundamental: the transition from a self-pitying, self-dramatizing Palestinian psyche, with all the cloying accoutrements of victimhood, to a self-affirming culture of pragmatism and institution-building. The shift is incomplete. But it has won Clinton over. And it’s powerful enough to pose a whole new set of challenges to Israel: Palestine is serious now.
Another moment came in September 2010 when Clinton held a meeting with Fayyad that threw her schedule off because it ran so long. Fayyad is Mr. Self-Empowerment, the Palestinian who, at last, has put facts before “narrative,” growth before grumbling, roads before ranting, and security before everything. Clinton, I was told, has “strong views” on Fayyad. She said last week she had “great confidence” in him.
Clinton has been a darling of Israelis since she her early days as a senator for New York. That distinguishes her from Obama, who is mistrusted in Israel, and it gives her leverage. Her Palestinian convictions are more recent but intense. She gets how negotiations must move in tandem with Palestinian change on the ground.
If anyone can persuade Israel that its self-interest involves self-criticism, that occupation is corrosive, that its long-term security demands compromise, and that a new Palestine is emerging, it’s Clinton. If anyone can persuade Palestinians that self-pitying unilateralism (“Help us! Recognize an occupied state!”) is the way of the past and a road to nowhere, it’s Clinton.
I haven’t talked about the 90-day extension of Israel’s moratorium on settlement building that Clinton seems to have engineered. It’s positive but a detail. Some looming big issues are obvious: borders, Jerusalem, refugees. Others are less predictable but potentially explosive.
First: The latest Fatah-Hamas reconciliation efforts in Damascus have failed, defeated by differences on security. Fatah itself is beset by sharp divisions — over President Mahmoud Abbas’s leadership and the peace effort. Can Palestinians keep their eye on the prize this time?
Second: New U.S. security guarantees provided to Israel include 20 fighter jets. But what of Iran? Netanyahu wants Obama to build a credible military threat. Ascendant Republicans bay for war. Clinton has to persuade Israel the best way to disarm Iran is by removing the core of Tehran’s propaganda — the plight of stateless Palestinians.
Third: Netanyahu is tight with the Republicans who now control the House. He feels stronger vis-à-vis Obama. His temptation to play for time will grow as 2012 draws closer.
But time is not in Israel’s favor: Just look what happened to Hillary Clinton over the past decade and extrapolate from that.
