NOVANEWS
Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem
Chair of West Misland Palestine Solidarity Campaign
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Egyptian military arrests gender-law scholar, accredited to NY bar and blogger for ‘NYT,’ at Sinai beach resort
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The three sacred words of US-Israeli rejectionism
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Congressmen threaten to cut off $400 million in US aid to Palestinians if PA cuts deal with Hamas
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American journalists want to see the Arab spring happening everywhere but Palestine
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How about banning Israeli politicians for supporting terrorism?
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‘NYT’ front-pages Egyptian shift in policy re northeastern neighbor
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Klein, Erakat, Travers, Flanders, Ratner to discuss Goldstone in NY
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Tweeting Hedy Epstein
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‘Equal rights for Palestinians’ billboard is deemed offensive in Seattle
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‘So you come to take Amina’ — a loving Syrian father saves his gay blogger daughter from the security services
Egyptian military arrests gender-law scholar, accredited to NY bar and blogger for ‘NYT,’ at Sinai beach resort
Apr 29, 2011
Philip Weiss
Egyptian law scholar Amr Shalakany blogged for the NY Times during the revolution. From theDaily News of Egypt:
Law professor at the American University in Cairo Amr El-Shalakany was arrested two days ago and will be tried in a military court in Suez, according to rights activist and a member of “No for Military Trials for Civilians” campaign, Mona Saif,
El- Shalakany faces a possible sentence of 15 years in prison for “insulting the supreme military council” and causing riots and burning a police station.
Hailing from a family of prominent lawyers, El-Shalakany has not yet been officially charged. He was arrested when he attempted to drive in a restricted area near Neama Bay in Sharm El-Shiekh, one of Egypt’s top beach resorts in South Sinai.
Here’s Shalakany’s page at the American University. It says he’s a member of the New York bar. He studied at Harvard and at Columbia, in the law, gender and sexuality program. Ford Foundation, Carnegie. From one of his posts at the Times before Mubarak stepped down:
I write these lines from a post-Mubarak time zone. I know in my heart that we are experiencing a national revolution that has nothing to do with any political party. This sweet taste of freedom is as undeniably beautiful and true as the surprisingly dignified voice I’ve rediscovered in myself, and in watching ordinary fellow Egyptians turn heroes before my eyes.
He was a board member of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a group that advocated for gays. Here’s his piece, On a Certain Queer Discomfort with Orientalism, in which he refreshingly takes on Joseph Massad’s anti-orientalist response to western ideas of gay rights in the Arab world. (Thanks to Lydda ’48)
The three sacred words of US-Israeli rejectionism
Apr 29, 2011
Tim Haughton
I have a confession. I love the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. I can, and often do, read it for hours. It is a treasure trove, home to some of the best propaganda on the planet.
The MFA website is also home to the three sacred words. Words, which when uttered correctly, underpin decades of US-Israeli rejection of a peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine. With reverence and hushed tone, I will now utter them:
Concession. Intransigence. Precondition.
The first two are usually used together with the correct qualifiers, and become “Israeli concessions” and “Palestinian intransigence”. This is the discursive framework we use to characterise the history of “negotiations” in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Israel will bend over backwards to try to find a solution but the stubborn Palestinians stick to their guns.
“Preconditions” are what the Palestinians use to avoid negotiations. Preconditions like insisting Israel gives up its right to settle in Judea and Samaria. Preconditions like insisting that negotiations be based upon international law.
These words are important, as they represent textbook truth inversions; reality turned on its head, or what Orwell would have termed doublespeak.
When asked, Israel’s supporters are hard pressed to name an actual Israeli concession since 1948. I often get two examples thrown at me:
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We “gave back Gaza” in the interests of peace.
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We “gave back the Sinai” in the interests of peace.
Both examples ignore the obvious point that it is a fundamental principle of international law that it is inadmissible to acquire territory through war, therefore they were never Israeli territory to begin with. You will note that any time Israel observes international law, it is framed as a “concession”.
As for “Palestinian intransigence”, this is the term we use when Palestinian negotiators ask for their legal entitlements under international law. Historically, this is a rare event. We’ve seen from the Palestine Papers the extraordinary concessions offered by the Palestinians, concessions, that were flatly rejected by Israel.
Using the framework of international law renders Israel’s use of these terms ridiculous. The only framework in which they make sense is the framework of Israel’s territorial aspirations.
The sacred word “precondition” is used in even more impressive ways, and again, the use of the term makes sense only if we use Israel’s territorial ambitions as the reference point. If we use international law as our reference point, it becomes plain that it is Israel demanding the preconditions.
Israel’s extreme preconditions were, until recently:
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Israel must be allowed to continue violating international law and international humanitarian law during the negotiations.
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Israel must be allowed to continue stealing Palestinian land during the negotiations.
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Israel must be allowed to continue its policy of ethnic cleansing during the negotiations.
Preconditions so extreme, that no self respecting negotiator could claim to represent his people’s best interests were he to accept them.
To the enormous credit of Israeli propagandists, and to the enormous shame of the corporate media, Israel has managed to successfully portray their extreme preconditions as beingPalestinian preconditions, rather than Israeli.
From the wonderful MFA website, I would like to quote the official Israeli position on preconditions for negotiations:
In Israel’s view, preconditions of this kind are counterproductive to peacemaking…
Peace talks should be used as an opportunity to solve differences, not to create new obstacles. Both the United States and Israel made [it] clear…that Israeli-Palestinian talks would be conducted without preconditions. While it is natural that both parties have complaints about the other’s actions, Israel does not use them as a threat to boycott talks…
Making preconditions is a Palestinian tactic, not used by Israel.
Emphasis mine.
Above, I used the qualifier “until recently” when detailing Israel’s extreme preconditions. While Israel always uses preconditions, it usually maintains the propaganda to keep reality inverted. Following the recent announcement of reconciliation between Hamas and Fateh, and the proposed formation of a unity government, the US-Israel alliance has dropped all pretenses and jumped straight in with a (slightly familiar) set of extra preconditions:
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Hamas must recognise Israel / Israel’s right to exist.
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Hamas must renounce violence.
As well as contradicting their own stated policies, Israel’s new preconditions are feebly asymmetric.
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The US-Israel alliance demands that Hamas renounce violence, but Israel most definitely should be allowed to indulge in routine violence.
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The US-Israel alliance demands that Hamas recognises Israel, but the suggestion that Israel should recognise Palestine is just silly.
There has also been increased reference to Hamas’ notoriously anti-Semitic charter. Conspicuously absent is any reference to Likud’s charter, which commits the party to the destruction of Palestine.
To be fair, the Likud charter has much prettier language, but the intent is clear. It calls for the expansion of settlements in the West Bank of Palestine and flatly rejects the creation of a Palestinian state, at least one West of the River Jordan. In essence, it is the way in which “civilised” states advocate wiping another nation off the map.
Congressmen threaten to cut off $400 million in US aid to Palestinians if PA cuts deal with Hamas
Apr 29, 2011
Kate
and other news from Today in Palestine:
Army violence/raids/incursions
Video: Awarta 27-4-11
[in Arabic, but the pictures tell the story; a few subtitles. The beauty of this valley is amazing…] Wheels of Justice — Two Palestinians from Awarta were killed for coming within 500 meters of the fortified fencing of this colony. This is one of the many reasons why we are very convinced that the whole story about the killing of a settler family by two teenagers from the village of Awarta is a lie. But the killing of these settlers set stage for a ransacking of the village by the colonizing army of the state of Israel. Beating people, massive destruction, torture and more was inflicted on the village of 6000 people as collective punishment. It is hard to describe what we saw and heard. The video just reveals a glimpse of it … I was particularly shocked to hear from Um Adam, a 77 year old grandmother (14 living children, over 75 grandchildren). One of her children still held by the Israelis is the volunteer head of the municipal council. Another child is the only doctor in town. The homes of these two children, her home, and many other homes were ransacked and heavily damaged (the fascist soldiers had clearly come to destroy as an act of collective punishment). The doctor’s room and his medical books and supplies were not spared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kmsI96i618
Gaza civilians wounded in Israeli attack
AJ 29 Apr — At least four people, including children, have been injured in Israeli tank fire in central Gaza, Israeli and Palestinian sources said. Witnesses said the Israeli army fired at least three rounds at an area east of the Al-Bureij refugee camp, wounding several Palestinians. Hamas officials said Israeli forces fired in the direction of a home after darkness fell on Thursday. Medical workers said four people including a woman and two children had been taken to a hospital with slight injuries.The Israeli military confirmed the incident, saying it targeted fighters “identified as planting an explosive near a border security fence” and that “uninvolved civilians were apparently injured in this incident”.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/04/201142911436609267.html
Medics: 3 teens injured by Israeli fire in Bil‘in
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — Three [one more than reported last yesterday] Palestinians were injured Thursday when Israeli troops raided the Bil‘in village in the West Bank, locals said. One Palestinian sustained critical injuries when soldiers fired bullets and stun grenades during clashes around noon, medics said. Jamal Al-Khatib, 15, was injured in the mouth by a rubber-coated bullet. A 16-year-old, Nashmi Abu Rahma, was also hurt by a rubber-coated bullet that struck his foot, and Jaser Yasin, 14, was shot in the leg, medics said … An Israeli army spokeswoman said there was no use of force and no injuries were reported.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383119
B’Tselem demands IDF cease using attack dogs on undocumented Palestinian workers
28 Apr — Calling the IDF practice of siccing K-9 attack dogs on undocumented Palestinian workers (Hebrew) a “terror policy,” the Israeli NGO B’Tselem is appealing against its use to the army senior command. It should be noted that the victims are not security suspects, but rather day laborers seeking to enter Israel to find work and who do not have the proper permits to do so (which are practically non-existent anyway).
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2011/04/28/btselem-appeals-against-use-of-attack-dogs-on-illegal-palestinian-workers/
PCHR weekly report on Israeli human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory Apr 21-27
-A Palestinian worker from Hebron was wounded and arrested by IOF while trying to have access to Israel for work. -IOF continued to target Palestinian workers, farmers and fishermen in border areas in the Gaza Strip -IOF continued to use force against peaceful protests in the West Bank. -IOF conducted 25 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and two incursions into the Gaza Strip … During the reporting period, IOF wounded eight civilians, including a child, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Five of the wounded, including a child and a Spanish human rights defender, were wounded in peaceful protests in the West Bank and a Palestinian worker was wounded in the far southwest of Hebron while trying to have access to Israel for work. In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian farmer was wounded when IOF fired at Palestinian farmers in the northern Gaza Strip.
http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7411
Land theft / Ethnic cleansing / Settlers
Videos: Arab in Israel: Two stories from Lod
28 Apr — These snapshots are excerpts from a reporter’s notebook — scenes encountered on the ground in their most raw form. 1) Resident Yousef Altory, 41, paints the scene in the video below of how raw sewage seeps into the streets — right outside the only school in the neighborhood for all the kids, aged five through 18. 2) When a Palestinian house is demolished, the bill is sent to the family whose home was turned to rubble. The only problem is, there’s no longer any address to which that letter can be sent.
http://www.neontommy.com/news/2011/04/arab-israel-two-stories-lod
Thousands visit Tomb of Joshua
Ynet 29 Apr — Thousands of Jewish worshippers visited the Tomb of Joshua in the Palestinian village of Kifl Hares near Ariel on Friday. The pilgrimage, marking the anniversary to Joshua’s death, was organized by the Shomron Regional Council and coordinated with the Israel Defense Forces, unlike the infiltration to Joseph’s Tomb earlier this week which resulted in the death of Yosef Ben Livnat … Local Palestinian residents were allowed to move freely and some even opened their shops for the worshipers to enjoy … A haredi man who purchased a water pipe in one of the Palestinian shops aroused angry responses by some of the worshipers who shouted “don’t buy in Arab shops.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4062160,00.html
Stormy control in the entrance of Al Hadidiya
JVS 29 Apr — The sky is grey, cloudy, two volunteers from the Jordan Valley Solidarity Campaign, one Palestinian, the other French, are on their way to visit one of the members in Al Hadidiya community. They have programme to meet at the entrance to the area. The French volunteer decided to use the time to record some images of the surroundings. However, as soon as they got out of the car, two colonists from the Ro’i colony arrived in another vehicle and blocked the access door preventing the taxi from moving away. The colonists approached the two visitors and ordered them to stop filming. One of them, the older one, asked for their IDs and telephoned the Israeli authorities.
http://www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=250
Gaza
Gaza govt welcomes new Rafah border measures
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — Gaza government spokesman Taher An-Nunu welcomed Friday the Egyptian foreign minister’s announcement that the Rafah crossing between the Strip and Egypt would be opened permanently [for people, not goods], saying it was for the best of the Palestinians. Reports emerged Thursday that Egypt was planning to open the crossing within ten days
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383197
Rafah smuggling tunnels to continue operating
Ynet 29 Apr — Egypt will open the Rafah crossing in 10 days for the first time since 2007 and will effectively end its siege of Gaza. But Palestinians are also hoping that the passage of goods between Gaza and Egypt will reopen as well. “We prefer trading with Arab and Islamic states rather than with Israel,” a source at the Gaza borders authority said. However, Rafah smuggling tunnels will continue to serve as the main route for the passage of goods into the Strip.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4062279,00.html
Gaza sole crossing closed
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — The sole goods crossing into Gaza was closed on Friday for two days, Israeli authorities informed Palestinian officials. Kerem Shalom … will be shut by Israeli authorities on Friday and Saturday, reopening Sunday
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383173
Video: Gazans suffering from frequent power cuts
Press TV 28 Apr — Blackouts of up to twelve hours have once again become part of life in Gaza since Tuesday night, as Israel doesn’t allow power lines to be repaired. Residents have access to electricity for only six hours before a twelve-hour power outage. This has disrupted life in the coastal enclave in a big way. Blackouts of twelve hours a day in many parts of the impoverished territory, are affecting the provision of essential services, including water supplies, medical treatment and even sewage disposal. In residential buildings, electrical water pumps cannot provide enough water, so people have no choice but to buy water from vendors. Israel says the presence of repair crews poses a security risk. Human rights groups have dismissed the claim as a lame excuse.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/177217.html
Video: Life or Death – medical referrals from Gaza
MAP 11 Mar 2010 — The strict closure of the Gaza Strip has impoverished and restricted medical services in Gaza. This increases the need to refer patients for treatment outside Gaza. The process of obtaining a referral document is not easy, and when a patient manages to obtain it, he or she then has to wait for a hospital appointment to come through, before applying to the Israeli Authorities for permission to leave Gaza. [the whole inhumane system that critically ill people have to go through – delays while their disease progresses beyond hope, very sick children forced to go without their parents, etc., patients only allowed through if they agree to become informers, etc.]
http://www.youtube.com/user/MedicalAidPalestine
Israel prevents return of Gazan to Gaza — Shabak punishing a collaborator who said ‘no’? / Richard Silverstein
Haaretz [Hebrew] reports on the strange case of a mystery Gazan who the Shabak [Shin Bet] has prohibited from returning to his home there. The man has a permit to visit Israel and normally travels back and forth from Gaza to Israel. However, all of a sudden the secret police determined that it would endanger the man for him to return to Gaza. They’re doing two things here: one, they’re substituting their own judgment about his safety for his own which is quite infantilizing; second, they’re implying that he’s an informer so he will definitely be killed if he returns. So much for the kinder, gentler Shabak. The fact that the man has brought a case to the Supreme Court demanding that he be allowed to return to Gaza is a clear repudiation of the stupidity of Shabak’s claim that he is in danger if he returns.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2011/04/27/israel-prevents-return-of-gazan-to-gaza/
Security officials: Egypt soldier killed by smugglers
EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — An Egyptian soldier was killed Friday during a gun battle between forces and smugglers near the Gaza border, officials and medics said. Egyptian security sources and medics told Ma‘an that border guard Muhammad Reda, 22, was shot in the chest during clashes with Egyptian and Palestinian smugglers. Egyptian authorities are investigating the incident, security sources told Ma‘an.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383258
Unity
Masha‘al, Abbas to sign unity deal
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — Hamas chief Khaled Masha‘al will meet President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo on Thursday to sign a unity deal, said representative of independent politicians Yaser Wadeiyah. Fatah official Azzam Al-Ahmad said the signing ceremony would take place at the Arab League headquarters, and that Palestinian factions would also be present.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383248
Haniyeh calls on PLO to withdraw Israel recognition
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Friday called on the Palestinian Liberation Organization to withdraw its recognition of Israel. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the announcement of a reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah by saying the Palestinian Authority must “choose between peace with Israel or peace with Hamas.” Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said Netanyahu “must choose between peace and settlements.” Speaking after the Friday prayer in Gaza City, Haniyeh said that the PLO should not only demand that Israel choose between settlements and peace, but should also withdraw its recognition of the state.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383280
Netanyahu presses for US action over Fatah-Hamas deal
Haaretz 29 Apr — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted Thursday in discussions with a visiting delegation of U.S. Congress members that the United States should consider stopping economic aid to the Palestinian Authority if a Hamas-Fatah unity government did not recognize Israel and renounce terror. Netanyahu also told the seven U.S. lawmakers that Israel would not recognize a Palestinian unity government if it did not meet these conditions. “Israel would not recognize any government in the world that included members from Al-Qa‘ida,” Netanyahu said.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-presses-for-u-s-action-over-fatah-hamas-deal-1.358706
Should the US stop funding the Palestinians?
Yahoo.com New York 29 Apr — The rapprochement between Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel consider a terrorist group, and Fatah is imperiling Washington’s aid to the Palestinian Authority — The reconciliation deal reached by Fatah and Hamas this week could prove costly for the Palestinian Authority. Powerful members of Congress are threatening to cut off the $400 million in annual aid America sends the Palestinians if they form a new government that includes Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization. “U.S. taxpayer funds should not and must not be used to support those who threaten U.S. security, our interests, and our vital ally, Israel,” says Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Is cutting off aid the right thing to do? As things stand, the U.S. has no choice:“There really isn’t much wiggle room here,” says Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post. Congress can’t legally send a dime to any government that doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist, something Hamas refuses to do.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/theweek/20110429/cm_theweek/214776
PA: New unity government to prepare elections and rehabilitate Gaza
Haaretz 29 Apr — Abbas tells delegation representing a group promoting an Israeli peace initiative that Fatah would be in charge of policy and that he would not allow violence.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/pa-new-unity-government-to-prepare-elections-and-rehabilitate-gaza-1.358701
Zahar: Israeli intelligence ‘worthless’
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said Thursday that the Palestinian reconciliation deal signed in Cairo a day earlier came as a total surprise to Israeli intelligence, which he called “worthless.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383138
IDF, PA forces still coordinating despite Fatah-Hamas pact
Haaretz 29 Apr — No decisions have been made by the Israel Defense Forces regarding any changes in security cooperation with Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank following the announcement of a reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. Contacts between IDF officers on the ground and their West Bank Palestinian counterparts are projecting business as usual.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-pa-forces-still-coordinating-despite-fatah-hamas-pact-1.358708
Video: Cairo press conference
Press TV 28 Apr 8:19PM — Following a series of meetings mediated by Egyptian hosts, Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have reached an “understanding” to set up a transitional unity government and hold elections. with Mousa Abu Marzook, Izzat al-Rishq (Hamas), Azzam Al-Ahmad (Fatah)
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/177219.html
Detention / Court action
Israel extends detention of Palestinian writer
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) 29 Apr — Palestinian human rights group Addameer on Thursday condemned the extension of Palestinian writer and intellectual Ahmad Qatamish’s detention by Israeli authorities. Israel’s Ofer military court told Qatamish on Thursday that he would remain behind bars for a further 6 days, after the military judge rejected a request by the police for an 11-day extension, a statement from the rights organization said. The judge said that the evidence was not sufficient to justify the longer period, but he would be held for further investigation, according to Addameer.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383056
Court allows 5 years for Cast Lead claims
Ynet 28 Apr — The High Court of Justice rejected on Thursday a petition by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which represents more than 1,000 residents of the Gaza Strip who demanded compensation for damages exacted by Israel during Operation Cast Lead … Claims for compensation over damage done by security forces in the West Bank and Gaza must be filed within two years, whereas other damages claims can be filed seven years after the fact.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4062105,00.html
Activism / Solidarity / BDS
Three injured, three arrested as troops attack West Bank anti-Wall protests
Ramallah (PNN) 29 Apr — Two children and a youth were injured, three Israeli activists arrested on Friday as Israeli troops attacked the weekly anti-wall protests taking place in Bil‘in, Ni‘lin, al-Nabi Salleh, central West Bank, as well as al-Ma‘ssara village in the south. This week protesters welcomed the National Unity deal signed by Palestinian factions in Cairo on Wednesday.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9971&Itemid=56
Dr. Cornel West’s letter to the University of Arizona
TUCSON AZ (April 28) — In a stunning public move that may draw much criticism, Dr. Cornel West — probably the most well-known and renowned U.S. public intellectual — has called on the University of Arizona (UA) to divest from corporations profiting from Israel’s illegal settlement and occupation of Palestine as well as from the racist practices — particularly attacks on Ethnic Studies — against immigrant and indigenous peoples in AZ and nationwide.
http://nomoredeaths.org/University-of-Arizona-NMD/west-ua-divestment.html
Racism / Discrimination / Attacks on Palestinian identity/history
Safed rabbi boasts that anti-Arab edict worked
Haaretz 29 Apr — Safed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu yesterday boasted that his edict calling for people not to rent apartments to non-Jews was working, while a minster praised his efforts to maintain the Jewish nature of Israel. “The Jewish law is clear,” Eliyahu said at a conference organized by the rightist religious movement Komemiyut. “In Safed the halakhic ruling worked, people don’t sell land or rent or sell apartments to non-Jews.”
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/safed-rabbi-boasts-that-anti-arab-edict-worked-1.358721
Rattling the cage: Beware of flying Arabs! / Larry Derfner
JPost 27 Apr — The whole world has gone crazy with fear of terror in the air, but Israel stands out for its treatment of Arabs at the airport.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=218135
Palestinian identity under attack in Israel / Mya Guarnieri
Ma‘an 29 Apr — Earlier in April, the Israeli Ministry of Education decided to add a question about the Holocaust to the matriculation exam of Arab students. Because the state has banned any study of the Nakba– going so far as to strike the word from the textbooks– the move has drawn sharp criticism in Israel’s Palestinian community. The decision to add a question about the Holocaust comes in the wake of the “Nakba Law,” which was passed by the Knesset last month. The new legislation states that municipalities, public institutions, or organizations that receive public funds will be fined for marking the Nakba or expressing feelings of mourning about Israel’s establishment … Both the Nakba Law and the change to the matriculation exam come just months after a principal of a public school in Yafo, the historically Arab city that was annexed by the Tel Aviv municipality in 1950, forbade students from speaking Arabic. About half of the school’s students are Palestinian citizens of Israel. While all classes are taught in Hebrew, the principal’s decision forbade Palestinian students from speaking Arabic amongst themselves. Russian-speaking students, however, are allowed to use their mother tongue.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383323
Defiance, not denial / Amnon Be’eri Sulitzeanu
Are there any serious educators who believe that by means of a question on an exam it will be possible to arouse identification with the Jews and empathy for them among young Arabs? — In advance of the coming school year, the Education Ministry has decided that the matriculation exam in history in the Arabic-language school system will include a mandatory question about the Holocaust, and that it will be worth 24 points — almost a quarter of the maximum score … In a correct reading of the situation of Arab citizens, the ‘denial’ of the Holocaust should not be understood as a lack of knowledge of the subject or as a failure to recognize its importance for the Jewish people, but as simple defiance: “If you don’t recognize us and our pain, we will retaliate by not recognizing your pain.”
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/defiance-not-denial-1.358759
Other news
Israel’s Egypt gas problem
Pal. Mon. 29 Apr — While leaders in Egypt, Syria, Israel, the EU, the US and Palestine react to the unification of Palestine’s political movements, Egyptians have demanded that their government stop piping natural gas to Israel for its occupation of Palestine. Israel gets nearly 40 percent of its natural gas from Egypt, at bargain prices … Israel’s infrastructure minister Uzi Landau, proponent of Operation Cast Lead II, said the attack was proof the country needed to find alternatives to Egyptian gas – like the gigantic Tamar natural gas field or disputed reserves offshore of Haifa, Tel Aviv and Gaza.
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1782
Abu Shabak seeks political asylum in Belgium
RAMALLAH, (PIC) 28 Apr — Rashid Abu Shabak and Sami Abu Samhadana, two chief figures in the security forces of Mohammed Dahlan, have submitted requests for political asylum in Belgium. The men are wanted by the Palestinian Authority for involvement in a large-scale corruption ring.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2b
Bee-keepers graduate in Hebron
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — The Japanese Representative to the Palestinian Authority gave out awards to women trained under a beekeeping project in Hebron on Thursday, a statement said. The project, funded by the Government of Japan in September 2010, gave one year’s training in beekeeping skills to 120 women without an independent income, in three Hebron villages … the Japanese government gave a total of $1,068,288 for 11 projects in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the Japanese fiscal year 2010.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383167
Israel’s wildlife face extinction as open spaces disappear
Haaretz 29 Apr — A new study on Israeli nature has found that almost 60% of mammals in the country are at risk of extinction, with over 80% of amphibians facing a similar threat. Of the 206 species of birds that nest in Israel, over 20% are also in danger of extinction … Israel has 250 nature reserves and 76 national parks. When combined with forests in the country, 30% of Israel’s total area constitutes protected open space. However, 90% of the area under protection is concentrated in the south, and half of that expanse is used for military exercises
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-s-wildlife-face-extinction-as-open-spaces-disappear-1.358719
The belated battle to revive the dying Dead Sea
Haaretz 28 Apr — Forty years of wandering from bad decisions to neglect have done terrible damage to the lowest place on earth.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/the-belated-battle-to-revive-the-dying-dead-sea-1.358526
Analysis / Opinion
The legal tsunami is on its way / Michael Sfard
Haaretz 29 Apr — Israel’s cautious foreign policy on legal matters over the past 44 years is likely to collapse in September. The mechanisms of legal defense that it built since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to combat the ‘danger’ of international jurisdiction about its conduct toward millions of people who are under its control, are likely to turn into dust at the stroke of the diplomatic moves. If indeed the international community recognizes a Palestinian state, the question whether officers in the Israel Defense Forces who are involved in assassinations, shooting at unarmed demonstrators and using phosphorus bombs will be interrogated and brought to trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and the question of whether international human rights treaties (and other treaties) will obligate Israel during action in the territories, will no longer be decided in the government offices in Jerusalem but rather in the corridors of the Muqata‘a in Ramallah.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-legal-tsunami-is-on-its-way-1.358758
Unprincipled demands: time to treat Hamas and Likud equally / Yousef Munayyer
28 Apr — …I’m not a fan of Hamas’ charter, and I think it has ultimately done them more harm than good, but I also fully understand their reluctance to accept the principles their PLO counterparts accepted at the beginning of the Oslo process which has proved to be a complete failure. What are these three magic principles anyway? 1. Accepting Israel’s right to exist. 2. Renouncing Violence 3. Endorsing Prior Agreements with Israel … But shouldn’t all players at the table have to play by the same rules? While the talking heads will quote you the Hamas Charter, they don’t want you to see the Likud Charter.The Likud is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party. In fact, the Likud charter does not comply with any of the principles. Instead of recognizing Palestine’s right to exist, the Likud Charter states that the party “flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.” West of the Jordan river includes the West Bank and Gaza. In fact, when Likud and Netanyahu talk about a “two-state” solution, their charter indicates they are taking about a Palestinian state in Jordan.
http://blog.thejerusalemfund.org/2011/04/unprincipled-demands-time-to-treat.html
Video: Saree Makdisi interviewed about new Fatah and Hamas unity deal
IMEU 29 Apr — For an analysis on the deal and media coverage, Democracy Now! interviews Saree Makdisi, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA and the author of several books including “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation.”
http://imeu.net/news/article0020821.shtml
The other shoe? Egypt moves to ease Gaza siege / Karl Vick
TIME blog 29 Apr — Egypt’s announcement that it will open its border crossing with the Gaza Strip — loosening the siege of the Palestinian enclave Egypt has helped Israel carry out — has the sound of the other shoe dropping. Coming one day after word that the post-Mubarak government had brokered a tentative unity accord between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah, the announcement was difficult not to read as a reward to Hamas for signing on the dotted line. In fact the agreement Hamas officials initialed on Wednesday turns out to be the same one Fatah signed two years ago. In its decision to finally join its rival, Hamas surely found strong incentive in the inferno engulfing Syria, the nation that for years has given the organization’s top officials refuge from Israeli surveillance and drones (as well common ground for meeting Hamas’ Iranian sponsors). Opening the crossing at Rafah, the poor and dusty town where Gaza abuts Egypt, sweetened the deal while also shoring up the Egyptians’ populist credentials.
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/04/29/the-other-shoe-egypt-moves-to-ease-gaza-seige/
In the absence of leaders, it’s up to Israelis to make peace / Akiva Eldar
Haaretz 29 Apr …the major obstacle [to peace] has been, and remains, Netanyahu’s refusal to utter the words “the borders of June 4, 1967, as a basis for a peace agreement” — wording which leaves open the possibility of exchanges of territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Whoever does not accept this principle by September will probably instead get the recognition, by more than 100 countries, of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders whose capital will be East Jerusalem. Without “on the basis of” and without “settlement blocs,” and without special arrangements in the Holy Basin. There is no third way. The “peace process” as a cover for gradual annexation of the territories is over … Netanyahu’s demand that Fatah concede its peace with Hamas in favor of peace with its neighbor is an indication mainly of hysteria.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/in-the-absence-of-leaders-it-s-up-for-israelis-to-make-peace-1.358755
Iraq
Thursday: 39 Iraqis killed, 51 wounded
At least 39 Iraqis were killed and 51 more were wounded across the country. Seventeen of the dead, however, were from a recently discovered mass grave. A U.S. soldier was also killed. U.S. Major General Bernard Champoux, who is a division commander, confirmed that less than 20,000 employees will continue to work at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, and more Iraqi workers will be hired, after the Dec. 31 withdrawal of troops deadline. Those employees include security officials and diplomats. In Diyala province, meanwhile, a Kurdistan Alliance official has asked U.S. troops remain there. The province is still one of the deadliest in Iraq, and parts of it are contested due to a large number of Kurdish residents.
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2011/04/28/thursday-39-iraqis-killed-51-wounded/
American journalists want to see the Arab spring happening everywhere but Palestine
Apr 29, 2011
Philip Weiss
My theme today is denial, specifically as it involves the Arab revolutions: the failure of American media figures and Jewish leaders to recognize the huge spiritual-political effect of the Arab spring and the inevitability of that spirit coming to bear on the dire human-rights situation in Palestine.
As Issandr El Amrani said the other night at the 92d Street Y, this revolution has the promise of the French revolution, and to seek to diminish it or to caricature it (the Muslim Brotherhood is going to take over Jordan, Yossi Klein Halevi warned at the American Jewish Committee today) is a terrible mistake.
And this denial is most profound inside American liberal Jewish life, in the failure of liberals to understand, Of course Palestinians will also want their spring. And they must have it.
I will give you two instances of this denial. The first was Terry Gross interviewing Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker on Fresh Air the other day, all about the Arab revolutions and Egypt and Obama’s foreign policy. And you will see from the transcript that Israel was mentioned only once, and tangentially. The conceit of this nearly-hour-long exchange was the idea, Well these Arab countries are finally going to try to be democratic, harrumph, and Obama must lend his hand. With no awareness at all that a, American support for Israel has militated against Arab democracy and the idea of Arab self-determination forever, and b, that the thirst for democracy in the Middle East portends revolutionary change in one of the most repressive societies in the world, the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
For journalists not to reckon with this likelihood is a dereliction of the liberal values that I can only explain in Terry Gross’s case by saying that she must regard Israel’s creation as a great and necessary liberal historical advance, and therefore regard any threat to the status quo as concerning and to regard the call for multicultural democracy as so much irredentist, revolutionary murderous claptrap.
Now the second instance of denial was at the 92d Street Y the other night, when my good friend Jake Weisberg moderated a PEN panel on the Arab spring and was generous and celebratory about the revolutions. But because we were in a Jewish space, the meaning of the revolutions was circumscribed: they are unhorsing the tyrants and allowing writers to express themselves at last in Arab countries. The Arab intellectuals went along with this limitation and practiced a self-censorship. They did not refer to Palestine, except glancingly, Weisberg had the tact not to bring up Israel, and when El Amrani spoke movingly about Islamists and Christians and women working side by side in Tahrir to make their revolution, he did not say, And Palestinians and Jews also can build a new polity together.
The Palestine issue was directly addressed only once, by the Palestinian writer Rula Jebreal. Weisberg had introduced her as an “Israeli,” and a half hour into the discussion, Jebreal at last corrected him, when she spoke of anti-Arab prejudice in the west.
The prejudice– it was very hard. It was very hard to talk about our countries after September 11. I am Palestinian. He said Israel but the truth is I am Palestinian. So I remember when I was hired in Italy, as an anchorwoman, the director said, can you please say that you are you Italo-Palestinian. Which I am. I said yes, but what is the problem? He said it will sound less harder on the ear.
And I’m saying this in the 92d Street Y because I know how delicate this subject matter and this issue is. But the truth– the prejudice against us–we have to fight our regimes, but abroad we have to fight the prejudice, the discrimination, and we have to fight something stronger, the idea that is in the head of the majority of the people in this room and in this country before Tahrir square, this idea that most of us, we are not liberal. We beat our women, that we marry more than once, whatever, and we are terrorists. If we are not terrorists, then we are potential terrorists. This idea started changing in Tahrir Square. So I really would like to thank these women and men who stood for three weeks asking for freedom and dignity and asking for a better life. They convinced all of us that we have a right to that, but I ithink they changed somehow the opinion in the western world.
Now this is a very moving statement, and Jebreal was applauded. But I would just like to note how much is under the surface. This prejudice is most strongly directed at Palestinians specifically. As Cecilie Surasky said at a Jewish Voice for Peace function in the city last night, nine years ago when JVP was formed, for many Jews “it was terrifying just to say the word Palestinian.”
And now in the context of the Arab spring, American media are experiencing that same prohibition, and so they are denying the power of this revolution to transform Israel and Palestine, and missing the story.
How about banning Israeli politicians for supporting terrorism?
Apr 29, 2011
David Samel
Israeli leaders have condemned the nascent Palestinian reconciliation, considering the possible participation of Hamas members in any government to be unacceptable because of the party’s history of terrorism. To the great surprise of no one, American politicians have been competing for press attention to parrot the same line. What if Palestinian leaders, and our own Congress, did likewise, and demanded that Israel bar from elective office any member of a political party with a history of engaging in or supporting terrorism?
Of course, a full recital of Israeli attacks on civilians would fill a multi-volume treatise, but let’s content ourselves with a thumbnail sketch. First, consider Labor, the most liberal/left of Israel’s major parties. Anyone who supported the great peacemaker and Nobel laureate Yitzhak Rabin would be barred.
Rabin proudly boasted that as a young army officer in July, 1948, he executed Ben-Gurion’s order to ethnically cleanse the villages of Lydda and Ramle, forcing tens of thousands to march many miles in stifling summer heat to areas Israel did not (yet) claim as its own territory. A significant number did not survive. In 1987-88, as Defense Minister, Rabin ordered his troops to break the bones of children caught hurling stones toward well-protected soldiers who were defending Israel’s “right” to violate international law. In 1993, as Prime Minister, Rabin launched Operation Accountability, indiscriminately bombing civilians in southern Lebanon with the intent of killing enough of them to cause hundreds of thousands to flee northward in panic to send a signal to the Lebanese government.
Co-Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, as Prime Minister in 1996, implemented a very similar operation, Grapes of Wrath. As long time leaders of the Labor Party, Rabin and Peres’s history of attacking civilians disqualifies all of their supporters from public office.
What about Kadima? The party was founded by Ariel Sharon, who commanded the 1953 massacre of scores of innocent civilians in the Jordanian village of Qibya (on the orders of the god-like Ben-Gurion). In 1982, Sharon, as Defense Minister, personally commanded Israeli troops on their rampage through Lebanon, slaughtering up to 20,000 civilians, apparently setting the Israeli record for personal responsibility for mass murder. His role in smiling benignly on the Sabra/Shattila massacres was merely bloody icing on his blood-soaked cake.
Then there’s Likud, whose founding members included Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, unapologetic and unashamed practitioners of terrorism for many decades, rewarded for their efforts with election to the highest office in the land.
How long must we wait before we hear Gary Ackerman or Ileana Ros-Lehtinen articulate their actual position, which is that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East that is free to elect terrorists? If Israel were to implement the same standards of disqualification-for-terrorism on its own politicians that it demands of the Palestinians, there would be virtually no one left to run the government.
Wait a minute, what about MK’s Ahmed Tibi and Hanin Zouabi?
‘NYT’ front-pages Egyptian shift in policy re northeastern neighbor
Apr 29, 2011
Philip Weiss
More about denial. The major denial in U.S. political culture right now is that the Arab spring does not affect Israel. When as Jack Ross wrote in the moment, it will likely end the idea of the Jewish state, and as Norman Finkelstein says, it has placed Egypt in the Turkey camp, no longer holding the bag for Israel.
Well, The New York Times is on the story, on the front page, “In Shift, Egypt Warms to … Israel’s Foes.” David Kirkpatrick:
Egypt’s shifts are likely to alter the balance of power in the region, allowing Iran new access to a previously implacable foe and creating distance between itself and Israel, which has been watching the changes with some alarm. “We are troubled by some of the recent actions coming out of Egypt,” said one senior Israeli official, citing a “rapprochement between Iran and Egypt” as well as “an upgrading of the relationship between Egypt and Hamas.”
Thanks to Irma !
Klein, Erakat, Travers, Flanders, Ratner to discuss Goldstone in NY
Apr 29, 2011
Philip Weiss
Save the date. We’re proud, this is our event, along with the Culture Project. Naomi Klein and Desmond Travers and Noura Erakat will traveling to New York next month to discuss the Goldstone Report and its reverberations. They’ll be joined by our co-editor on the volume, Lizzy Ratner, and moderated by Laura Flanders of Grit-TV. Yes a dazzling crew.
The hall is a big one on East 59th Street and it will cost you $11 to get in. Get over it— proceeds are going to the Palestine Centre for Human Rights, whose director Raji Sourani was a contributor to our Goldstone volume along with Naomi Klein.
Klein has emerged in the last year as a leader on the global warming issue, but she has made a point of keeping her hand in on Gaza and the Israel/Palestine conflict. Erakat is a Palestinian and a leading human-rights attorney in Washington and a spokesperson for the refugee resource center, Badil. Colonel Travers was a member of the UN Factfinding Mission on the Gaza Conflict; lately he and two other commissioners issued their statement standing by the report. I’m going to try and interview him while he’s in the Apple. And Ratner co-edited our volume and has been speaking widely on it, in a manner that defies ideologies, but seeks to replace “frenzy” with “depth,” as she wrote in our introduction.
The Nation, the Nation Institute, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Haymarket Books and CodePink are cosponsors. Please join us!
Tweeting Hedy Epstein
Apr 29, 2011
Philip Weiss
Yesterday we posted a piece by Hedy Epstein about the upcoming anti-AIPAC conference, called “As a Holocaust survivor, AIPAC does not speak for me.” Ali Gharib then tweeted the piece. And look at the responses from some supporters of Israel. Interesting conversation. Real venom toward Epstein’s use of her own history as an explanation of her Palestinian solidarity work. Gharib: “These discussions reminded me of the long David Simon quotehighlighted here the other day. These twitterers seem to be the people that, as Simon put it, are ‘holding the Holocaust experience to be something beyond any possible point of comparison for other collective tragedy.’ But they not only see the Holocaust and its tragedy as solely the provenance of Jewish people, but also only Jewish people who agree with their politics”
‘Equal rights for Palestinians’ billboard is deemed offensive in Seattle
Apr 29, 2011
Philip Weiss
I have only one theme today: the denial. The denial that my country and my community are engaged in, on a core issue of foreign policy. Writes a friend: “This censorship in Seattle is really something. It’s so flagrant you hope people not involved will start wondering what’s going on.” Seattle Times reporter Jim Brunner:
The same group that failed in a bid to place controversial ads alleging Israel “war crimes” on Metro buses is now losing billboards with a softer message decrying U.S. aid to Israel.
The billboard company doesn’t run ads that offend people. What do the ads say?
The ads show a Palestinian boy behind a fence and call for “Equal Rights for Palestinians” and for the U.S. to “stop funding the Israeli military.”
In canceling the ads, Clear Channel [Outdoor] did not object to those slogans. Instead, the company pointed to stronger language on the group’s website,www.stop30billion-seattle.org, which was prominently promoted on the ads. That site calls Israel’s Palestinian policies “war crimes” and “apartheid.”