NOVANEWS
Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem
Chair of West Midland PSC
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Netanyahu tells Ban next flotilla must be stopped
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‘Foreign Policy’ runs piece describing Israel’s ‘carnival of hate’ toward Palestinians
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At B.U., a student activist teaches me about Bil’in
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B-D-S
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Former head British spook says Israeli intelligence couldn’t be trusted
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International Crisis Group warns against ‘Cast Lead II’
Netanyahu tells Ban next flotilla must be stopped
Apr 01, 2011
Kate
and other news from Today in Palestine:
Land, property, resources theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Settlers
The judge releases and the police detain — the attack of Jerusalem police against the Palestinian Civil Society continues
31 Mar — The Jerusalem police continue to harass the leadership of the Palestinian Civil Society, especially in Silwan. Jawad Siyam, one of the leaders of the community center of Wadi Hilweh, was arrested on January for an alleged assault of another Palestinian. After three months in house arrest, the Jerusalem court decided yesterday to release him. Today the police tried to raid Siyam’s house looking for him. Later he was called for investigation where he was arrested. It is not the first time that the police tries to bypass the court decision.
http://settlementwatcheastjerusalem.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/jawad2/
Peace Now: East Jerusalem settlement set to grow
JERUSALEM (AFP) 1 Apr — An Israeli landowner is seeking to sell plots for 30 homes in a Palestinian neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, where 117 settler families already live, Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said on Friday. Peace Now spokeswoman Hagit Ofran said that although the landowner has declared himself ready to sell to the highest bidder – Jew or Arab – the outcome is most likely to be an extension of the existing settlement enclave in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al-Amud. “We know the owner…he is a settler himself,” she told AFP.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=374598
A tour of Lifta village: the spring, mosque, and cemetery are living relics of pre-Nakba times
Jerusalem/Misa abu Ghazala/ PNN-Exclusive 31 Mar — From the mountains northwest of Jerusalem, the village of Lifta overlooked the holy city with its mosque, school and houses all built in an artistic architectural style. The agricultural land was cultivated with olive trees, vegetables and grain, which reached the boundary of the Old City at the western gate. Lifta was one of the most important villages surrounding the capital in terms of money and agricultural wealth.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9814&Itemid=56
Beit Ommar: IDF imposing collective punishment
Ynet 31 Mar — A week has passed since the IDF blocked the entrance from Highway 60 to the Palestinian village of Beit Ommar. Residents of the village, which is located between Hebron and Jerusalem, are able to exit it only from the west. They claim this extends their journey to Jerusalem and makes their daily lives more difficult in general. “This is a policy of an army that imposes collective punishment on all the residents,” Biet Ommar council head Nasri Sabarna told Ynet Thursday … “It is true that there is a small group of youngsters who throw stones, and we are vehemently against this,” Sabarna said, “But why do all of Beit Ommar’s residents have to suffer because of it? … “We do not have total control over every resident. We are trying to lower the level of violence, but when a settler throws stones at Palestinians does the army block the entrance to his settlement?”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4050582,00.html
Witnesses: Palestinian child run over by settler
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 1 Apr — An Israeli settler ran over a three-year-old girl and fled the scene in central Hebron on Thursday, locals said. Lana Al-Ja’bari was transferred to hospital with moderate injuries, her relatives said. She was run over near the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in the presence of Israeli soldiers, witnesses said. On Monday, an Israeli settler ran down a Palestinian girl on her way to school south of Hebron. He remained in the area until police arrived. However, in two other incidents in March, Israeli settlers driving in the West Bank struck Palestinians and drove away. [End]
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=374418
Settlers attack shop, home in Hebron
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 1 Apr — Israeli settlers attacked a shop and a home in the West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday, witnesses said. Onlookers said settlers destroyed the contents of a store in Jaber neighborhood and damaged a Palestinian home in Tel Rumeida in central Hebron.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=374413
Jewish settlers attack Palestinian family
BETHLEHEM, (WAFA) 1 Apr — Jewish settlers Friday attacked the Da‘ado family from al-Khader, a town south of Bethlehem, while they were in their agriculture land, said family members. They said that when they entered their property, they were surprised to find a number of settlers farming the land. When the family members tried to stop the settlers, they attacked and beat Yassin Da‘ado, 47, and threatened to shoot him. An Israeli force arrived at the scene to protect the settlers and arrested Yassin. The soldiers also confiscated the family members’ identity papers and notified them not to enter their property for a week claiming it was a closed military zone.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=15744
Army incursions / harassment
Israeli army continues to harass local Palestinian farmers
[with photos] 31 Mar — Yassir and his family (including 8 children) have been living during the spring time in Khirbet Samra, Jordan Valley, since 2006. At 8.30 pm yesterday evening the Israeli army came to his home claiming to be looking for terrorists from Nablus who they said they knew were staying with him. Despite his insistence that only his family were there they made everyone leave the tents and requested to see the ID papers of all of the family, including his terriifed young children. On the request of the army the family produced their ID. All the ID’s showed that they were related and none of the IDs produced were Nablus IDs. The army refused to say why they believed that people from Nablus were staying with the family. For some time the family were made to stand while the army decided what to do.The army then claimed that they believed that the family were hiding guns in their tents. They made their way straight to where the children slept and ransacked their tent emptying all the clothes onto the floor. After failing to find any guns they went to the milk store and poured the contents of the milk vessels onto the floor and mixed it with sugar … Yassir and his family keep goats. They use their milk to drink, to make cheese for them to eat and then sell what is left in Hebron. The milk from the family’s goats is their only form of income. That morning all of the goats had been milked and their full store (60 litres) was destroyed. At no point did the army show any documents which proved the search was legal as well as speaking in Hebrew the whole time so that the family were unable to understand what was happening. After destroying the family’s livelihood they left.
http://topalestineinsolidarity.blogspot.com/2011/03/israeli-army-continue-to-harrass-local.html
Soldiers stop Palestinians from planting olive trees
RAMALLAH, (WAFA) 1 Apr — Israeli soldiers Friday prevented a group of Palestinian youth from planting olive seedlings in Aboud, a village northwest of Ramallah, marking Land Day. A group of 50 participants were planting olive seedlings when they noticed a settler, guarded by Israeli soldiers, taking pictures of them. Soldiers stopped the planting and uprooted some of the seedlings the group had planted.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=15745
Soldiers declare Wadi Qana a closed military zone
SALFIT, (WAFA) 1 Apr — Israeli soldiers Friday declared Wadi Qana, a valley near the West Bank town of Salfit, a closed military zone and prevented residents and farmers from entering or leaving it. Nathmy Salman, mayor of nearby village of Deir Istiya, said that a large number of Israeli soldiers prevented farmers and residents from entering their land in Wadi Qana and locked up the farmers who were in the valley in an old house and warned them from leaving before 2 in the afternoon. Meantime, 13 buses carrying Jewish settlers from Alfe Menashe and Karne Shomron settlements were seen in the valley. Israeli soldiers refused to let farmers and livestock breeders to market their daily production of milk, which jeopardized the only source of living for these farmers. On the other hand, Israeli police issued Mosleh Mansour, a resident of Wadi Qana, an arbitrary fine of around $300 for crossing the road on foot, on the pretext of obstructing traffic.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=15743
Young man arrested in Al Hadidiya
1 Apr — We have just heard that a young man from Al Hadidiya has been arrested whilst walking from Al Hadidiya, near the land that Roi settlement has stolen from the community. His family saw the army take him, but have been given no information about why he’s been arrested, where he is, how long he’ll be held, or what he’s been arrested for … Two days ago we visited the small Palestinian Bedouin community of Al Hadidya, which is situated between the Israeli colonies (settlements) of Roi and Beqa’ot and a large Army training area. The community has faced years of persecution and attempts to force them from the land, including repeated demolitions, arrests and beating of villagers and increasing restrictions on movement to and from the village. Only three days ago two young men from the village were arrested and badly beaten. They were then refused permission to travel to health clinics to get medical care
http://topalestineinsolidarity.blogspot.com/2011/04/we-have-just-heard-that-young-man-from.html
Siege
Netanyahu to UN chief: Upcoming Gaza flotilla must be stopped
Haaretz 1 Apr — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that the flotilla, scheduled to head toward the Gaza Strip in May, is a provocation and goods can easily be transported to the strip via land.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-to-un-chief-upcoming-gaza-flotilla-must-be-stopped-1.353536
Qassam operative killed in tunnel collapse
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 1 Apr — A member of the armed wing of Hamas died Thursday after a tunnel collapsed in the southern Gaza Strip. He was identified as Hasan Abu Jaser from Jabaliya in southern Gaza.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=374430
Activism / Solidarity
Israeli soldiers assault Palestinians near Nablus
NABLUS (WAFA) 1 Apr — Israeli soldiers Friday assaulted Palestinian residents of Qusra, a village southwest of Nablus, who performed Friday prayers on their land near Shilo settlement, illegally constructed on the village’s property. At least 1500 Palestinians performed the prayer on their land, which is threatened to be seized by settlers. Israeli soldiers attacked the worshippers while they prevented others from reaching the area. Jewish settlers previously attacked Palestinians and uprooted olive trees in the same area.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=15742
Three injured as troops attack weekly anti-wall protests in the West Bank
PNN 1 Apr … In the village of Bil‘in, where anti wall protests have been organized for the past six years, three men were injured when Israeli troops fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at protesters….After the midday prayers in the local mosque finished, villagers were joined by international and Israeli peace activists and marched up the gate of the wall separating villagers from their lands. Troops stationed there opened fire at protesters injuring Bassem Yassen, 34 years old, Rani Burnat, 29 and Kamel Al Khateb, 19. The men sustained injuries when soldiers fired tear gas canisters directly at them … The nearby village of Ni‘lin held a similar protest on Friday.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9816&Itemid=56
Running water to Al Farisiya
JV Solidarity — 31 Mar — In the autumn of 2010 Jordan Valley Solidarity ran water to the farming village of Al Farisiya, who have been persistently harassed by the Israeli occupation in recent years in an attempt to confiscate their land and ethnically cleanse the area of Palestinians … And all this work was carried out by Palestinian and international volunteers working together. Over 100 families have access to this water, and the green fields and greenhouses in the area are testament to this. We met a local farmer who showed us his cucumbers, beans, peas, palms and other plants that are being irrigated with the water. He said to us: “The Israeli’s believe they can kick us off the land, but its our land and we won’t go.” … And why does the Israeli Army not simply destroy it? The pipe itself does not count as a fixed structure, and similarly, the reservoirs constructed to store the water are simple, plastic lined constructions. Although this does not make them safe from Israel’s destructive policies, it does give the water system some measure of protection. The only part of the process which does count as a fixed structure – the water pump, is located in Area B and therefore not subject to the same level of military rule.
http://www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=207:running-water-to-al-farisiya&catid=14:2009&Itemid=21
International abduction
PA ambassador: Gaza engineer not linked to Hamas
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 1 Apr — Palestinian Ambassador to the Ukraine Mohammad Al-As‘ad said Friday that the Gazan engineer held by Israel was not affiliated to Hamas or any other faction … The engineer’s family said he was detained because of innovations he made at the power station, which enabled the Gaza Strip to halt its use of Israeli industrial diesel. Abu Sisi initiated a trial run using purified fuel brought in through tunnels from Egypt. Shortages of fuel imported through Israel have frequently led to mass blackouts in the Gaza Strip, often endangering hospital machinery dependent on electricity … [Sisi’s sister] Suzanne said her brother was “not linked in any way to any political faction, he was working as the head of the operations of the plant before Hamas came to power, and he continues his work as a university professor.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=374532
Politics / Diplomacy / International relations
Israel holds secret talks with Russia in bid to thwart recognition of Palestinian state
Haaretz 1 Apr — Isaac Molho, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior adviser and top negotiator on the Palestinian channel, made a secret trip to Moscow on Wednesday and met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The purpose of the visit was to dissuade Russia from supporting the European Union’s intention to present in two weeks’ time a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-holds-secret-talks-with-russia-in-bid-to-thwart-recognition-of-palestinian-state-1.353404
Abbas to visit Cairo
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 1 Apr — President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to go to Cairo on Wednesday in his first visit since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in February.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=374425
Other news
Israeli, Palestinian launch West Bank venture capital fund
Haaretz 31 Mar — Yadin Kaufmann, who invested in Israeli startups that gave the world the USB flash drive and satellite communications systems, and Palestinian software entrepreneur Saed Nashef recruited an initial $28.7 million from companies like Google Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. They said their aim is to boost the West Bank’s community of software entrepreneurs and build a robust economy for an eventual independent state.
http://english.themarker.com/israeli-palestinian-launch-west-bank-venture-capital-fund-1.353358?localLinksEnabled=false
Court releases Israeli leftist activists, slams police for limiting free speech
Haaretz 1 Apr — The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court released on Sunday leftist activists detained while demonstrating outside a West Bank outpost, stressing specifically that police had no authority to limit their freedom of speech. The activists were detained after a demonstration near the Havat Maon outpost on Saturday to protest the stabbing of a Palestinian days earlier. Police and Army forces presented them with a document declaring the area a closed military zone, leading to an argument in which 15 people were arrested.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/court-releases-israeli-leftist-activists-slams-police-for-limiting-free-speech-1.353402
Analysis / Opinion
In Palestine, curse anything but the land / Mohammed Rabah Suliman
EI 1 Apr — …A state is not what Palestinians would feel worried about having or losing. A state is a meaningless and enigmatic concept. A farmer never knows what “state” stands for, neither does a fisherman. A teacher would possibly know, but he or she would never feel it. All of them, however, know one simple word, one grand concept, one sacred entity. It is a reachable concrete and spiritual one: the land. This is how they raise their children. They raise them to love their land and feel it under each step they take. These children soon start to see this land in the morning sky above, they soon touch it on the seashore, and feel it in the rainfall
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11892.shtml
For the love of Egypt: When besieged Palestinians danced / Ramzy Baroud
Pal Chronicle 31 Mar — A dear friend of mine from Gaza told me that he hadn’t slept for days. “I am so worried about Egypt, I have only been feeding on cigarettes and coffee.” My friend and I talked for hours that day in early February. We talked about Tahrir Square, about the courage of ordinary Egyptians and about Hosni Mubarak’s many attempts to co-opt the people’s revolution. We were so consumed by the turmoil in Egypt that neither of us even mentioned Gaza.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16762
Dominici in Israel: Dispossession by law / Seraj Assi
31 Mar — Imagine you are an Israeli Arab. You receive a graduate fellowship in an American university. You set there in the campus cafeteria, meet with a Syrian or Lebanese colleague or friend, a fellow Arab who happens to share with you the same religion, nationality and language. You then return home for the summer vacation. You are arrested, stripped of your citizenship and expelled out of your homeland. This episode is not taken from a satirical novel. It is what the new Knesset law all about. The law already passed in its second and third reading. “Knesset passes law to strip terrorists of Israeli citizenship” was Haaretz headline. That is, not only does the law make dispossession and transfer of Palestinians legal, but also label the entire people terrorists.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16764
Shin Bet chiefs spearhead the occupation / Gideon Levy
Haaretz 31 Mar — …the Shin Bet, unlike its counterparts in the West, is involved in almost every aspect of our lives: from the granting of a security classifications of a large number of people to carrying out assassinations, from the bloated and ridiculous security detail it gives to our leaders to its operations tracking and pursuing left-wing and settlement activists. It decides who will be allowed to enter the country and who will be allowed to invest here. The Shin Bet state, which philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz prophesied, has already been with us for some time.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/shin-bet-chiefs-spearhead-the-occupation-1.353218
Go ask the Palestinians / Allegra Pacheco
Haaretz 1 Apr — The Imad Mughniyeh Group, affiliated with Hezbollah and Fatah, said it had ‘abandoned many attacks’ due to the presence of children … all the Palestinian people I have spoken with here in the West Bank who heard of the murders shake their heads and say how terrible they were (and none saw the pictures). And in the next breath they add, “and I’m sure it wasn’t a Palestinian who did this.” The murders were condemned by Palestinian militant groups, the political leadership and civil society. And yet the Israeli government has had a field day, accusing the Palestinian collective of incitement to murder and using the incident as a pretext to expand settlements — and to hold hostage the entire village of Awarta (over 5,000 people), adjacent to Itamar
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/go-ask-the-palestinians-1.353458?localLinksEnabled=false
Twilight Zone: Return to Shuk Hatikva / Gideon Levy
Haaretz 1 Apr — A great miracle happened here: Munir Dweik, our devoted taxi driver in Gaza, received a permit to visit Israel, for the first time in 18 years. [He had] spent his teen years working in the Hatikva quarter’s chicken market. This week he paid a return visit … His eyes light up again at the sight of the used taxi lots in south Tel Aviv. In Gaza, their cost is astronomical. If only he could take one of these with him. And if only he had listened to a friend in the market who told him he should get married then, in the 1980s, to an Israeli Arab woman, and get an Israeli ID card and stay here. If only he’d listened. The friend told him the day would come when Gaza would be completely closed off. But Munir couldn’t believe it: They’ll only keep the bad people out, not everyone. If only he’d listened to his friend … See you, Munir. When the madness is over.
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/twilight-zone-return-to-shuk-hatikva-1.353503
Love song for Palestine / Roni Shaked
Ynet 31 Mar — Unlike the square uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, the Palestinian protest in Bethlehem and other West Bank cities is more of a festival, featuring patriotic music, film and street performances. The women, most of whom do not wear the Hijab, dance with men side by side. The festive atmosphere and the lyrical slogans do not scream revolution. “We will pick the flower of unity,” one sigh read. “My homeland, your wonderful smell is dearer than my soul,” another announced. [an odd piece, flawed in many ways, but interesting]
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4049873,00.html
Registering the diaspora to vote / Hugo van Randwyck
31 Mar — Palestinian youth are demanding unity, they have camped out in the squares of the West Bank and taken to the streets in Gaza. A coalition of organizations calling themselves March 15 drove the movements. What they were calling for was the election of a new Palestinian National Council, the supreme body of the PLO, and demanding the participation of Palestinians across the Middle East and in the wider diaspora. Many dismissed the demand as impossible, but I hold that there are mechanisms, and straightforward ones at that, which could make the idea a practical reality.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=373432
Winning entries of first annual Israeli apartheid film contest / Rick Colbath-Hess
EI 1 Apr — A year ago, the Ramallah-based Stop the Wall campaign and itisapartheid.org began to collaborate on the first International Israeli Apartheid Short Film Contest. This contest encouraged the local Palestinian and larger international community to submit short films on the theme of Israeli apartheid. From the videos submitted, the top ten short films were chosen to be showcased on the website (www.itisapartheid.info).
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11889.shtml
Former official bemoans government’s disregard of Supreme Court / Akiva Eldar
Haaretz 1 Apr — Human rights activist Yehudit Karp says discrimination against Arab communities in the field of education is just one example of a failure to enforce court rulings.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/former-official-bemoans-government-s-disregard-of-supreme-court-1.353406
1989: Israel protest song is born of three mothers / Yuval Ben-Ami
[with video clips] 972mag 31 Mar — In the midst of the first intifada, patriotism in Israel was on the rise. It was us (The Israeli military) against them (rioting Palestinians and the hostile international press). Few dared to challenge that axiom … Then, in the midst of 1989, three very different artists went on to redefine the Israeli protest song with great courage. All three of them were female singers, and all three got sharply criticized for taking a stand. Two of the three actually hurt their careers, and while they both recovered, the memory of drama stuck to their names … Listeners did not miss Alberstein’s point. She dared to reference the irony of the occupation being maintained by the nation that suffered the holocaust. That was an absolute first. The Israeli public was shocked.
http://972mag.com/1989-israeli-protest-song-is-born-of-three-mothers/
Book review: Waiting for redemption in “The Hour of Sunlight” / Raymond Deane
EI 30 Mar — The Hour of Sunlight chronicles the life of Sami Al Jundi, former supervisor of the Seeds of Peace Center in Jerusalem. But the book doesn’t deliver on its promise to show readers “the path to a resolution” of the conflict.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11887.shtml
Iraq
Thursday: 5 Iraqis killed, 14 wounded
At least five Iraqis were killed and 14 more were wounded in the latest violence. U.S. forces were involved in one incident that occurred when a bus driver couldn’t understand their commands. U.S. troops fired on a bus in Kirkuk, wounding a female student. A sticky bombwounded two people. In Baghdad, a Katyusha rocket landed in Karrada where it killed one person and wounded three others; other rockets landed in the Green Zone. A university student was wounded when a sticky bomb attached to his car exploded in Ghazaliya. Another sticky bomb was spotted on a car belonging to a B.O.C. member; it blew up a few minutes later without causing casualties….
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2011/03/31/thursday-5-iraqis-killed-14-wounded/
Afghanistan
Two more Afghan civilians killed by NATO as toll mounts / Jason Ditz
AntiWar 31 Mar — Killings become embarrassingly common in recent weeks — …According to reports, NATO troops opened fire into traffic in Kandahar after a civilian car’s brakes failed near a checkpoint, which they assumed was a suicide attack. The hail of NATO bullets killed two teenage boys and wounded at least two others. Such attacks are becoming increasingly common under Gen. David Petraeus’ watch, and hardly a week goes by in which at least one incident of civilian killings by coalition troops is not reported.
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/03/31/two-more-afghan-civilians-killed-by-nato-as-toll-mounts/
What price an Afghan life? / Peter Singer
Guardian 1 Apr — If Nato treated all human life as of equal value when paying compensation it would change the face of the Afghan conflict … Thanks to a freedom of information request from the Guardian, we know how much the MoD has paid families when a member has been killed. Here are some examples: daughter hit by shrapnel from air-strike and later died of injuries, $1,000; mother killed during bombing, $5,000; two brothers and two sons killed by hellfire missile strike, $32,000. The variation in the figures is not explained, but in no case was more than $8,000 (about £5,000), paid for the loss of a single life. Now let’s take a look at the value of a British life.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/01/afghan-life-nato
U.S.
NY court asserts jurisdiction for PLO bombings lawsuit
Ynet 1 Apr — A New York judge has concluded that he has jurisdiction to preside over litigation resulting from a lawsuit filed against the Palestine Liberation Organization by victims of bombings in Israel … The ruling came in a 2004 lawsuit that seeks up to $3 billion in damages as a result of attacks between January 2001 and February 2004.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4050701,00.html
‘Foreign Policy’ runs piece describing Israel’s ‘carnival of hate’ toward Palestinians
Apr 01, 2011
Philip Weiss
Matt Berkman writes about a letter to Hillary Clinton signed by 27 Senators condemning Palestinians for inciting violence and questions the double standard for incitement:
[I]f it is indeed the case that “words matter” -and if the elimination of violent and dehumanizing rhetoric is, as the letter says, “critical to establishing the conditions [for] a secure and lasting peace”-then what can explain the senators’ silence on the veritable carnival of hate and racist incitement against Arabs and Palestinians that has lately engulfed Israeli society?
Anyone who reads Israel’s press these days will find it difficult to do so without chancing upon yet another outrageous example of such incitement. Be it thedeclaration of Rabbi Dov Lior, a senior authority on Jewish law in the Religious Zionism movement, that the offspring of non-Jews possess “genetic traits” of “cruelty and barbarism”; or an open letter signed by dozens of Israel’s municipal chief rabbis calling on Jews “to refrain from renting or selling apartments to non-Jews”; or the wives of those state-sponsored rabbis urging Jewish girls not to date, work with, or perform national service in the company of Arabs; or even news of the publication of “The King’s Torah,” a theological text widely endorsed by settler rabbis that authorizes the killing of non-Jewish children and babies, since “it is clear that they will grow to harm us.”
Could it be that the senators who so rightfully condemn the glorification of violence when it issues from an obscure Palestinian official are simply unaware of the multiple proclamations of such a prominent figure as Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the Shas party (a member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s governing coalition) and a former Chief Rabbi of Israel’s Sephardi Jewish community? “It is forbidden to be merciful to [Arabs],” Yosef was quoted as saying in 2001, “You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable.” More recently, Yosef sermonized that “Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] and all these evil people should perish from this world.” “God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians,” he said.
…Not surprisingly, this rising tide of racism in Israeli society has translated into both discriminatory legislation directed against Israel’s Arab citizens and into violent hate crimes which, while not as gruesome as the massacre in Itamar, are more pervasive, bordering on quotidian..
But it should be made clear that the routine acts of violence against Arabs within Israel – and even the daily pogroms, or “price-tag” attacks, inflicted on West Bank Palestinians by rogue settler bands – are only the tip of the iceberg. The whole wide-ranging system of occupation in the West Bank, and the hardhearted policies that promote the economic asphyxiation of the entire civilian population in Gaza – themselves the most deadly form of “incitement” – are underwritten on the ethical and cultural plain by the growing disdain and racial animus against Arabs in Israeli society.
At B.U., a student activist teaches me about Bil’in
Apr 01, 2011
Philip Weiss
Along with a co-editor of the Goldstone Report, I spoke at two law schools Wednesday, Northeastern and Boston University. Northeastern is a progressive law school and there was an enveloping sense of solidarity, especially when a softspoken young man with an Arab name and a bag with Frieda Kahlo’s image on the side came up to me after and said that he was organizing the undergraduate boycott movement. I was in the right place at the right time.
At Boston University there was more opposition, and it was actually energizing, so I’d like to describe that. There is a strong chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine at BU, and I met several of those students before the event in a regal hall at the law school. One of them in a sweatshirt was leaning back in his chair next to his girlfriend and the others were giving him grief about how long he’d been active and he grinned and said, “Hey I’ve been working on Palestine since I was 15,” and I had the impression I had many times that night, that the young people have a clear understanding of the issue, way ahead of me. The apprehension of the left surrounding Palestine is ending, the issue is The issue if you’re a young leftist. I’m talking about the political territory they’ve taken. Just as South Africa was, or the Freedom Marches in the 60s, or Central America in the 80s– Israel/Palestine is the focus for idealistic activists, and they don’t have any of my generation’s hangups as we used to say (more about the hangups below).
Two of the B.U. students told me about the campus scene. If you’re with Students for Israel, the pro-Israel group, you’re pretty much on the right in campus life. When Israeli Apartheid Week happened in February, the pro-Israel groups mobilized against it and tried to get it off campus as anti-semitic, but Students for Justice in Palestine pointed out to the university president that four of their members were Jewish, so where’s the anti-Semitism? The university let the apartheid week demo stay. Then when David Horowitz tried to jump in gangbusters with the pro-Israel folks, to make an issue about Israeli apartheid week at the school, the Students for Israel said to Horowitz, thanks but no thanks, don’t “push it.” Apparently they were afraid that his blatant Islamophobia would drive Arab students into the ranks of the Justice for Palestine crowd.
Three or four pro-Israel students came to our Goldstone talk and they all asked questions. They were in the second row. Their questions were polite, almost friendly. They didn’t really have numbers, if I were in their crowd I would have been intimidated. The room was against them, young and old. Apparently two of the pro-Israel students were Hasbara fellows. They didn’t denounce us, they just questioned us about Hamas’s tactics and the festering refugee issue and similar matters. I saw them clapping at the end, politely.
Afterward a young Jew came up to me and talked about her Jewish agony about the issue and not wanting to be anti-Israel but also not wanting to endorse what’s going on there. Her father had read the Goldstone Report and confessed to her that it was accurate– which left her in a quandary about what to do about it. I urged this person to explore Jewish Voice for Peace– and J Street too if that’s where she felt more comfortable– and start walking the road. It’s a hard road for young Jews. That wasn’t the only encounter of this nature that we had. It seems that young idealistic Jews who have been raised loving Israel are in a state of agony right now. The facts are so overwhelmingly negative, from the Netanyahu government to the unending peace process to the killings of Palestinian children; and a good part of the Jewish community is opening its eyes to the truth, at last. Ancient orders inside the community, to maintain unity to the outside world, or to see the Diaspora as beneath Eretz Israel, a lot of those religious orders are dissolving. (Noam Sheizaf discusses the growing war inside the official liberal American Jewish community over Israel, here).
A bunch of us went out to dinner after and I learned two things. Tyler Cullis of B.U. told me that the antiwar movement on campus is weak, and in its place the pro-Palestinian movement is growing. You might remember that when the antiwar movement was strong in 2002-2005 or so, there were battles among organizers about giving any place to the Palestinian issue. Well that struggle is over. Tyler said that the students who would be in antiwar groups are working on Palestine, and there are lots of creative actions around it.
The other thing I learned was about life in Bil’in.
A student named Ian Chinich had worked in the West Bank with the popular committees. He is Jewish but unlike so many in my generation of Jews is not burdened by the racism and xenophobia that I grew up with. In a word, he is from a more comfortably empowered, multicultural milieu. So he could get past these cultural issues in an instant– where it has been a tormented struggle for me.
He was not as pitying as I am of the pro-Israel students. He said they’re supporting ethnic cleansing; and he told us stories of two families being ethnically cleansed in East Jerusalem before his eyes. Then he told me about the nighttime raids on Bil’in to take away boys on charges of throwing stones. The Israelis would identify boys who threw stones at the demonstrations and it was a six month sentence for throwing stones and two years if you damaged an Israeli jeep. As soon as the boys were imprisoned they were put under pressure to sign documents in Hebrew, a language they could not read, implicating the leaders of the popular committee for ordering the boys to throw stones. Israel is trying to smash the popular committees of resistance, and Chinich and other activists had slept in Bil’in for a few weeks, to try and help the tiny village resist the raids.
Chinich said he got used to a lot of things in the resistance movement– he got used to tear gas, he got used to the percussion grenades (which scare the shit out of me). But he never got used to the nighttime raids.
They came at 4 in the morning. The soldiers used the stirring for morning prayer to hide their own movements through the village. Then they knocked down the front door, and dragged the 14 year old or 15 year old away. They bound the boy’s hands and carried him off through the village with a phalanx of soldiers. Chinich was there to try and prevent arrests, so he felt a sense of failure every time a boy was dragged off. Because the looks on the boys’ faces, he said, was pure childlike terror. I thought about the honor we granted the stone throwers in Egypt, I thought about Jewish history in Europe, when they broke our doors down.
B-D-S
Apr 01, 2011
Adam Horowitz
From a Palestine Solidarity Group – Chicago press release:
“In the lyrics to our song, we sing ‘apartheid and ethnic cleansing go on in Palestine every day, but without the help of you and your money, the occupation will go away.’ While the struggle to end Israel’s apartheid policies is not an easy one, it’s true that we in the United States can support justice and peace by refusing to support companies and institutions that support Israel and its occupation of Palestine,” said Joy Ellison, an activist with Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago (PSG-Chicago). “We hope that this flash mob empowers our community to stand up against apartheid and challenges Chicago businesses and institutions that are actively supporting the oppression of the Palestinian people.”
Before this performance at “The Bean” in Millennium Park, the flash mob was held outside of Chicago Cultural Center, home of the Chicago Sister Cities International office. For the last two years, activists with PSG-Chicago have pressured the city of Chicago to end its relationship with its Israeli sister city, Petach Tikva. Petach Tikva, an officially segregated city, is the first Jewish-only settlement in historic Palestine and the site of the primary detention center where Israeli forces abuse and torture Palestinian political prisoners. Human Rights group Amnesty International dubbed Petach Tikva “Israel’s Guantanamo.”
You can listen to, and download, the song here.
Former head British spook says Israeli intelligence couldn’t be trusted
Apr 01, 2011
Michael Desch
Here is a very important piece in today’s Ha’aretz quoting former British MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove saying that his service did not trust the Israelis because they “play by different rules.” This sentiment is shared in the U.S. intelligence community too. The Israelis are among the most “aggressive” services operating against us (See this GAO report on foreign intelligence activities in the ’90s; Israel is Country B, right up there with the People’s Republic of China), and they pursue their own agenda. The reason that there is so much opposition to Jonathan Pollard’s release, for example, is that there is a widespread belief in the community that the Israelis transferred some of the Pollard intelligence on the U.S. Navy to the Soviets in exchange for the release of Soviet Jews. (See Seymour Hersh’s piece, “Why Pollard Should Never Be Released (The Traitor)” The New Yorker Magazine, January 18, 1999, pp. 26-33)
International Crisis Group warns against ‘Cast Lead II’
Apr 01, 2011
Kate Gould
The International Crisis Group (ICG) issued a warning that the recent escalation of air strikes on Gaza and rocket attacks into Israel has created “the conditions for a rapid deterioration toward the kind of clash to which neither side aspires, for which both [Israel and Hamas] have carefully prepared, and from which they will not retreat quickly.”
In June of last year, I had a glimpse of the destruction wrought during Israel’s ‘Cast Lead’ military offensive on the Gaza Strip and Palestinian militants’ barrages of rocket fire into Israel. Even back then I met Israelis and Palestinians who were gravely concerned about a renewal of catastrophic hostilities. As the ICG report illustrates, the “combustible context” of the present circumstances necessitates 1) an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire between Israel and Hamas 2) an end to the closure regime on Gaza which constitutes an “assault on normal, dignified life” and 3) Palestinian reconciliation efforts should be supported, which will “require a different approach by international actors, Western countries in particular” to Hamas.
Ashraf Mattar stands in front of Al Jazeera Hotel in Gaza City, destroyed during ‘Cast Lead’
Stage set for Operation Cast Lead II?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened that if the rocket attacks continue—and Islamic Jihad has promised they will—“there will be an even more painful military retaliation.”While the assailants of the bus bombing in Jerusalem—which killed one passenger and wounded dozens—are still unknown, the attack added fuel to a fire already stoked by several months of airstrikes and rocket attacks. Tensions in the West Bank have also been exceptionally volatile in the wake of the murders of five family members in the Israeli settlement of Itamar. According to a UN report, “in the days before the killings in Itamar, there was already a sharp increase in the number of settler incidents” and the number of settler attacks on Palestinians continued to rise in its aftermath.
Israel’s Deputy Minister Silvan Shalom has ominously warned that “the period of restraint is over” adding that “I hope it won’t come to another Operation Cast Lead, but if there is no other choice, we will launch another operation.” Operation Cast Lead was the 22-day Israeli military assault on the Gaza Strip more than two years ago which killed approximately 1,400 Palestinians, a majority of whom were civilians, and wounded 5,300 more. Thirteen Israelis were killed during the hostilities, including three civilians struck by rocket attacks in Israel, and nearly 800 were wounded.
Israel’s air strikes have already killed 14 Palestinians since March 19th, including 5 children, and injured dozens. Rocket attacks have injured a number of Israelis and have reached, for the first time, the outskirts of Tel Aviv. On Tuesday, March 29th, eye-witnesses in Gaza reported seeing Israeli tanks accompany bulldozers leveling more agricultural land in the Strip.
Sderot Bus Stop Converted to Double as Rocket Shelter
The On-going “Assault on a Normal, Dignified Existence”
The ICG points out that the ceasefire must be accompanied by ending “an access regime that is best defined as neither a siege nor blockade, but rather as an assault on a normal dignified existence, and an engine of impoverishment, social isolation, and political disaffection”.
Israel continues to bar Palestinians in Gaza from accessing the construction materials they need to rebuild the war-ravaged Strip. During my visit to Gaza, I saw large areas of the Strip that still looked like a vast moonscape of mounds and craters of rubble, where Israeli air strikes had leveled entire neighborhoods to the ground. Just a few days before my visit, the International Committee of the Red Cross called the closure regime on Gaza “collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law”, noting that “the whole of Gaza’s civilian population is punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility”.
I saw neighborhoods teeming with thousands of makeshift tents, pieced together with tarps and scrap metal, where survivors of Cast Lead lived. These families slept on the rubble of what was once their home before Israeli airstrikes or bulldozers demolished it wholesale. Many Palestinians told me that during Cast Lead, they had taken shelter in schools. With 46% of the schools damaged or destroyed during those three weeks and with Israel’s continuous denial of UN requests to import construction materials to build new schools, it is unclear where civilians could go for any modicum of protection against a full-scale Israeli military offensive.
Survivors of ‘Cast Lead’ Still Living in Tents in Beit Lahiya
Ceasefire Requirements for Hamas
ICG highlights that in any ceasefire agreement Hamas must be committed not only to ending its own rocket and mortar attacks but that Hamas “should continue to enforce the ceasefire on recalcitrant groups”, like the Salafi-Jihadist militants routinely firing rockets into Israel.
On two separate occasions last year I visited Sderot, the Israeli town that bore the brunt of rocket attacks during Cast Lead. I was struck by how the character of the entire town is shaped by these rocket attacks. The bus stops have been transformed to double as rocket shelters, rocket shields have been installed on the roofs of school buildings, and even the playground structures are fortified shelter in the 15 seconds they have between the sounding of the ‘Color Red’ rocket warning siren and when the rocket will land. I met an Israeli named Nomika Zion, who vividly described what it was like to live in Sderot during Cast Lead. She recounted times when the ‘Code Red’ siren would sound 60 times in a single day, while at night her walls would shudder from the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, less than a mile away.
“Israel should refrain from targeting farmers and those collecting rubble”
The ICG points out that “Israel should refrain from targeting farmers and those collecting rubble in the buffer zones that the Israeli army enforces on the Strip’s perimeter”. Remote-controlled Israeli machine guns fire at Palestinians whom Israeli security forces determine to be too close to the Gaza/Israel border. Since Cast Lead, dozens of Palestinians, including children, have been killed and many more have been wounded by Israeli fire while collecting rubble and scrap metal or tending to their farms in these buffer zones.
Seeing some of these rubble and scrap metal collectors at work was the first image I saw upon entering the Gaza Strip. I peered through the openings in Israel’s caged walkway from Erez crossing to see Palestinian boys piling rubble onto donkey-drawn carts in what looked like the aftermath of an earthquake. Later, I learned that they were collecting scrap metal and rubble to sell for production of recycled cement. While notorious for its poor quality and suspected contamination with depleted uranium, recycled cement is still in high demand due to Israel’s ban on construction materials. On my bus ride from Gaza City to its southern border in Rafah, I saw boys collecting rubble or processing rubble collections in at least a dozen different neighborhoods. Gaza has one of the world’s highest rates of unemployment and locals told me that bomb-site scavenging, dangerous though it was, was the only work these boys and young men could find.
Palestinians in Gaza Use Rubble for Recycled Cement
International Community Must Support Palestinian Unity
Finally, ICG notes the imperative for Palestinian unity between the rival factions of Hamas and Fatah. The report emphasizes that Western countries “should pledge to work with any government that adheres to a ceasefire”, rather than boycott a unity government which would, in meaningful reconciliation effort, include Hamas.
Netanyahu has already rejected the negotiation of a peace agreement with any Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, even though the only way to ensure a ceasefire could be effective and fully protect Israeli civilians would be to gain Hamas’s buy-in.
For the Good of All Civilians: Ceasefire, Normalization of Life in Gaza, and Hamas Engagement
The greatest protection for civilians would clearly be an effective ceasefire rather than a renewal of violence as witnessed in Cast Lead—which saw the deadliest 24 hours for Palestinians since 1948 and the greatest number of rocket attacks in Israeli history. The ICG points out that rather than protecting civilians, the primary intentions of Israel and Hamas are to ‘deliver messages’ of deterrence:
“Hamas is seeking to deliver a message to Israel that it will not be intimidated and that it too can control the timing, pace, and scope of the confrontation. The same is true for Israel, intent on demonstrating its continued deterrent power.”