Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

• Bloggers impeach Jennifer Rubin’s ‘Sabbath’ excuse for failing to correct her assertion that Jihadists were behind Norway massacre

• Netanyahu’s big peace overture falls flat in D.C.

• Tahrir comes to… Tel Aviv

• Eyewitness to Judaization (I saw a soldier strike a young boy for walking on a road for Jews)

• Al Qaeda-Iran link comes roaring (right thru 2012)

• Imagine a press conference, in Gaza, appealing for drugs for 75 Palestinian children w/ life-threatening thalassemia

• Gov Christie blasts critics of Judge Mohammed appointment: ‘I’m tired of dealing with the crazies’

• Liberal Zionists can oppose boycott only by blinding themselves to decades of discrimination

• New Basic Law bill would cement the ‘Jewish nature’ of the ‘national homeland’

• 44 weeks of pro-Palestinian protest in Adelaide and not a word in print

Bloggers impeach Jennifer Rubin’s ‘Sabbath’ excuse for failing to correct her assertion that Jihadists were behind Norway massacre

Aug 04, 2011

Philip Weiss

Ron Kampeas has a brilliant post at the JTA on “Jennifer Rubin and Sabbath,” thoroughly undermining the claim published by the Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton that Jennifer Rubin was unable to correct her blaming the Norway massacre on jihadists because it was the Sabbath when she learned the truth. I do wonder: Does Pexton feel that he was lied to by Rubin? Will these discrepancies cost Rubin her job?

[Eric Alterman writes at Think Progress,] “Sunset—the moment that the Jewish Sabbath begins, moreover—occurred on Friday, July 22, 2011, at approximately 8:20 p.m. in Washington, D.C., and hence offered Rubin plenty of time to correct her mistake. I will not speculate as to why she did not take the opportunity to do so. (Rubin, Pexton notes, did manage to post four (four!) additional items to her blog between 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.).”

A friend points out to me that Rubin filed her last post that night at 9:07 pm— 45 minutes after candle lighting. I’m not sure when Breivik’s arrest was reported, but it was certainly earlier than 7:45 PM, when Ackerman filed his post — and before even the 18 minute rabbinical girdle assigned candle-lighting.

The same friend has scoured Rubin’s archives and found Sabbath postings. I’m not so interested in that — we all make Sabbath compromises. Rubin did that Friday night with her 9:07 post about the debt deal. The point is that this does not simply wash as an excuse; Breivik’s arrest was old news by the time Rubin signed off for the night.

And making Jewish observance an excuse when it clearly is not — well, it rankles. There’s way too long a history of Jews having to take risks to observe Shabbat for it to be used as a bad faith out.

Steve Clemons has also weighed in, here and raised the crucial issue of the absence of any pro-Palestinian voice in the MSM stables:

Fred Hiatt suggests that he brought her in to “balance” the progressives on the team.  If balance is an issue, which it might very well be, where is the “Muslim” or Arab voice at the Post that defends as passionately the other side of the argument? Or if having a blog voice on the Arab side of the equation is too much, how about a genuine two-stater from the Israeli side whose love of Israel and commitment to Israel’s long term interests wouldn’t be savaged as traitorous?

Netanyahu’s big peace overture falls flat in D.C.

Aug 04, 2011

Philip Weiss

Israeli P.M. Netanyahu made headlines in Israel this week with a supposed breakthrough on a peace offer. And the White House? It doesn’t really seem to care about the matter. From yesterday’s State Department briefing with spokesperson Mark Toner and a questioner I’m betting is Matt Lee of AP. Why the big yawn? I figure it’s because a, Netanyahu doesn’t care either, it’s pure posturing on Netanyahu’s part to stem the U.N. statehood initiative, b, the Obama administration can’t stand Netanyahu and doesn’t take his overture very seriously, c, they are putting this issue on ice for the next year…

Tahrir comes to… Tel Aviv

Aug 04, 2011

annie

Could it really be?!? The Israeli Awakening!

From jeaunkes, the You Tube poster:

There is something in the air in Israël….
They say i am a dreamer but let’s hope this could be the beginning for more humanity In Israel.
Let’s hope for more justice for the poor.
Let’s hope that the middleclass will claim their rights.
Let’s hope that the politicians and Tycoons come back to earth where they belong, between the people.

And hopefully then people will take a look on the other side off the wall. Palestinians don’t even have the right to Protest Peacefully.

(Hat tip Bumblebye and Citizen)

Eyewitness to Judaization (I saw a soldier strike a young boy for walking on a road for Jews)

Aug 04, 2011

Matt Berkman

Matt Berkman lately returned from a a two-week delegation to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories organized by Interfaith Peace-Builders. The U.S. Middle East Projecthas just published Berkman’s important account of what he saw by email.

JERUSALEM

Jerusalem effectively consists of two cities, one Jewish, one Arab. Whereas these cities were at one point geographically distinct—Jews living in West Jerusalem, Palestinians in East Jerusalem—the Palestinian half of the city has lately seen its ethnic homogeneity rent by the construction of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem, a process ongoing since the city was conquered in 1967. These Jewish settlements—illegal under international law—are clean, affluent-looking housing complexes that are well serviced by the Greater Jerusalem municipality. The Palestinian neighborhoods whose physical and social contiguity the Jewish settlements fragment, on the other hand, are visibly underserviced and neglected. Traveling through them, I found these areas to be overcrowded and littered with trash; the roads were unpaved, the schools few and derelict. A visual staple of the Arab neighborhoods was their black rooftop water tanks, used to offset the insufficient level of water pressure allotted them by the city.

The reason for the overcrowding in these neighborhoods is that it is nearly impossible for Palestinians to procure building permits anywhere in Jerusalem. Permits are arbitrarily denied or left indefinitely in bureaucratic limbo. Palestinian neighborhoods are also forbidden to expand beyond their present boundaries, which have been the same since 1967. The surrounding land (and this goes for all Arab villages and cities in Israel) was nationalized after 1948 and turned over to the dispensation of the Jewish National Fund, which does not sell or lease land to non-Jews. If a Palestinian family wants to expand their home or build a new one on a vacant lot, they must do so illegally, or not at all. If they build illegally, they risk having their homes demolished on short notice (often they are given ten minutes to vacate their possessions before the bulldozers arrive). That is why the landscape of East Jerusalem is riddled with the husks of demolished Arab homes. Jewish neighborhoods and settlements, on the other hand, have no problem purchasing land or receiving expedited permits.

This systematic discrimination, along with discrimination in the provision of municipal services, cannot be seen as other than a calculated policy of slow-motion ethnic cleansing. The goal is evidently to immiserate Arabs until they leave Jerusalem.

Although Israel formally annexed Jerusalem after 1967, the Palestinians that live there, unlike Palestinians residing within Israel’s internationally recognized borders, are not Israeli citizens. They have no citizenship. They are legally “residents” of Jerusalem, which entitles them to certain economic benefits like subsidized healthcare, but they cannot vote in Israel’s parliamentary elections nor do they have passports or other national identity documents. Traveling outside of Israel, except to the West Bank, is an arduous process for them that requires multiple authorizations. Moreover, their residency (and accompanying benefits) can be revoked if they are absent from Jerusalem for a period of three years. On our delegation, we heard reports of Arab Jerusalemites who have studied abroad only to come back and find that their right to live in the city of their birth has been revoked. The same goes for those caught residing in the suburbs beyond Jerusalem’s city limits, something Arab residents are often forced to do due to the overcrowding. The IDF launches periodic night raids in order to prove that these Palestinians are living outside the city, so that their residency can be revoked.

Although the notion of partitioning Jerusalem is likely defunct thanks to the proliferation of Jewish settlements, there do still remain small concentrations of Arab residents around the Old City that could potentially serve as a truncated Palestinian capital in the event of a two-state solution. For this reason, certain radical groups of settlers have been seizing or purchasing buildings in the heart of densely populated Arab neighborhoods in order to create a Jewish demographic foothold in these areas and, in this way, prevent partition. These settler dwellings are prominent for their Israeli flags and razor-wire ramparts. We saw several of them, and attended a weekly protest against one such cluster of settlements in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where using Ottoman-era documents of dubious authenticity a settler group recently secured the legal eviction of several Palestinian families that had been living in homes there since the 1950s. These houses were given to the families by the United Nations and the Jordanian government in compensation for homes in West Jerusalem from which they had been expelled by Zionist militias in 1948. Recently, however, an Israeli court ruled in favor of a settler group that claimed to hold the original deeds to these homes. The state then evicted the Palestinian residents and the settlers moved in. Needless to say, Israeli courts would never entertain the congruent notion that these same evicted Arabs could reclaim the West Jerusalem properties stolen from them in 1948.

GALILEE

The other day we traveled to the Galilee area, which is inside Israel proper. In the not too distant past, the Galilee was majority Arab. Today, due to the success of Judaization policies (which have their own ministry in Israel’s government, the “Ministry of Development of the Negev and Galilee”), the number of Jews in the Galilee has surpassed the number of Arabs. The same discrimination in land and services that I described above applies equally to the Galilee. While Arab-majority cities of the Galilee have indigenous mayors, which should theoretically make the degree of discrimination in municipal services lower, the cities’ budgets are in fact determined by Jewish-controlled “regional councils” in conjunction with relevant state ministries (education, industry, infrastructure). According to an advocacy organization we met with, Israel’s Arab community, which currently stands at 20% of the total population but has needs disproportionate to its size, receives no more than 5% of any given ministry’s annual budget, and often less.

What we saw in the Galilee, however, was far more disturbing than these statistics. Our group toured a number of “unrecognized villages”—Arab and Bedouin shantytowns that existed before 1948 but were never recognized by Israel following the creation of the state. Because they were not recognized (for reasons unspecified), their land was declared state land by the government and their homes were summarily bulldozed. Instead of emigrating, however, many villagers rebuilt their homes after each demolition, evidently using industrial detritus. The situation today is that these villagers (or what remains of them) live in corrugated iron shacks, up to fifteen in a house, without electricity, running water, or indoor plumbing. Because they are unrecognized, the state refuses to hook them up to the electricity grid or sewage system. Meanwhile, many of them are located within clear view of fully-serviced Israeli cities, some built just a few years ago on land that was originally theirs. One village we visited was almost fully encircled by the Russian-Jewish settlement of Karmiel. The villagers live literally feet from this affluent suburb of sparkling white high-rises but lack paved roads, sewage, electricity, and schools (the children must drive or walk to a nearby village to attend class). According to another civil society advocate, there are more than 40 such villages in Israel, all of them Arab, and all of them facing possible demolition. Most notable among these is the village of al-Araqib in the Negev, which has now been demolished more than 20 times.

BI’LIN

So far I have been discussing what happens within what Israel considers to be its legitimate borders (despite East Jerusalem’s status as an occupied territory under international law). But nearly identical strategies of Judaization are also being applied in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. Our delegation spent a night in the village of Bi’lin, which on a clear night is within view of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, but located across the Green Line that demarcates the pre-1967 border. Bi’lin is an agricultural village whose farmers rely on their thousand-year-old olive trees to make ends meet. However, in 2002, under the pretext of security, Israel erected a wall in the West Bank that cut the villagers off from most of their agricultural lands, effectively annexing them for the expansion of nearby Israeli settlements, which at the time of our visit were undergoing further construction. The olive trees in the path of the wall were uprooted.

For the last few years, the residents of Bi’in have mounted weekly non-violent protests against the wall. These protests have been brutally suppressed by Israel’s military. According to videos we screened, it appears that protesters are routinely fired upon with high-velocity tear gas canisters, rubber-coated steel bullets, and live ammunition—all of which can be fatal. We toured the site of the protests and discovered shell casings, spent tear gas grenades and even live bullets littering the ground. One large patch of earth emitted a foul, fecal odor that was the product of Israel’s latest crowd-control method: spraying protesters with what our guides described as “sewage water.” The spray was last deployed a month ago and the stench remains to this day.

There are also midnight kidnappings and imprisonment of protest leaders and participants by the IDF, including children. The twenty-year -old son of the family I stayed with was abducted from his home by soldiers in the middle of the night, dragged to a nearby olive grove, and nearly beaten to death. His brother, Abdullah, was still on the lam after being targeted for abduction. The charge against them was arranging non-violent demonstrations. In addition, several protesters and innocent bystanders have been killed by Israeli soldiers in Bi’lin, including a woman who recently died of respiratory problems after inhaling tear gas and sewage water. Our group screened a video of a soldier firing a tear gas canister directly into the chest of a local protest leader name Bassem, killing him instantly. He was unarmed.

In 2007, an Israeli court ruled that the wall should be moved back 500 meters. That decision was implemented only last month. In the process of moving the wall, the IDF set fire to much of the land being returned to Bi’lin, destroying a number of olive trees. The ground there is visibly charred. Either way, the 500 meter alteration in the wall’s path has not ended the protests, which continue to demand the dismantling of the wall altogether.

There are several others villages like Bi’lin, where the wall annexes agricultural lands and aquifers for the use of nearby settlements. But there are also other cities that have it worse. Qalqiliya, for example, is a West Bank city of 60,000 inhabitants that is entirely encircled by the wall. Gates in the wall open twice a day for two hours; otherwise, its residents are imprisoned. In the area of East Jerusalem, the wall cuts off certain Arab suburbs that once formed an organic part of the city, disrupting family, labor, and religious ties. According to a former IDF soldier, the thousands of Palestinian laborers who penetrate the wall each week in search of work belies its security justification as a bulwark against suicide terrorism. Its only ostensible purpose is land theft.

HEBRON

We also visited Hebron. Hebron is unique among West Bank cities. It has an Arab population of 250,000, and a Jewish population of around 800 armed, highly ideological settlers that have underhandedly purchased or seized homes in the heart of the city. According to locals and the testimony of a former IDF soldier stationed in Hebron, these settlers perpetually antagonize and attack the Arab population. What is more, they do so with near impunity due to the fact that they are protected by 1,200 IDF soldiers whose orders are to arrest or kill any Palestinian that defends him/herself against settler assaults. The Palestinians know this and are forced to passively absorb all measure of abuse. To illustrate this, the soldier we spoke with told the following story. Responding to cries, he entered a marketplace one day to find several settler women violently beating the shopkeepers with rolling pins. When he demanded to know they were doing, one of them replied, “What does it look like? We’re beating the Arabs.” The soldier surmised they were doing this in order to provoke a violent reaction from the shopkeepers, which would oblige him (the soldier) to shoot or arrest them.

During our visit I personally witnessed a soldier striking a young boy because he was walking on a road accessible only to Jews and internationals. Our group also saw the mesh canopy that overhangs the Arab marketplace located below the settler houses. The canopy had caught cinder blocks, metal chairs, garbage, eggs, knives, and other objects thrown by the settlers onto the Arabs below. One of the overhangs had been eaten away by battery acid poured from above, and we heard reports of settlers urinating out of their windows onto the marketplace. All this, it appears, takes place in full view of an IDF watchtower. The soldiers do nothing to prevent settler rampages. It’s not part of their orders. On the contrary, many of them are subservient to the settlers. We witnessed one settler command an IDF soldier to arrest our Arab guide for walking on a street where Arabs were forbidden. The soldier, who had been ignoring us hitherto, quickly began to oblige (luckily we eluded him).

In order to hear the widest variety of perspectives on the situation in Hebron, we also met with a spokesperson for the settler community, a man named David Wilder. Wilder described a situation in which Jews, not Arabs, were the party facing ethnic discrimination in Israel and the West Bank. Jews, he said, were confined to 3% of the city, both by agreement with the Palestinian Authority and by the disinclination of local Arabs to sell them property. (In fact, Israel’s security control of Hebron, a city with 800 Jews, ranges over 30% of the city, including its holiest site, the Cave of the Patriarchs). He described what he considered Arab incitement—including the practice of shooting off fireworks to celebrate high school graduations—and cited instances of terrorism directed against Jews in Hebron during the Second Intifada. He denied the existence of premeditated settler violence, describing any attacks on the local population as the work of undisciplined youth reacting to Arab provocations. (Shortly after this meeting, our guide Issa, a local activist, recalled David Wilder holding a loaded pistol to his head as he attempted to videotape a settler pogrom.)

SOUTH HEBRON HILLS

After our delegation concluded, I joined a small group of Israeli activists called Ta’ayyush (“Coexistence”) in the South Hebron Hills, where they gather each Saturday to assist the local population with reconstruction and agricultural projects (at its request). As a group of Israelis and internationals, Ta’ayyush’s very presence also provides these Palestinians with a measure of protection from violent settlers and apathetic military personnel who together conspire to make their lives unlivable.

Upon arrival, we split into two groups. The first was to accompany local shepherds who had lately been assaulted by settlers as they tried to bring their flocks to pasture. The purpose of this activity was not only to protect the shepherds, but also to document settler rampages that would otherwise be ignored by the military. The second group (my group) drove to the encampment of Bir al-Id to help an older man named Hajj Ismail and his family clear rocks and debris from the ruin of their demolished home. Following a fruitless court battle, the military had carried out its demolition order a month earlier on the typical grounds of “illegal construction.”

Hajj Ismail and his family are members of the most neglected substratum of Palestinian society. They are of a class referred to by village- and town-dwelling Palestinians as “cave people,” for the fact that many of them inhabit (and have from time immemorial) relatively well-provisioned caves in the South Hebron Hills. In recent times, however, population growth has forced families like Hajj Ismail’s to leave their caves and establish hilltop encampments like Bir al-Id, which are then declared illegal by the occupation authorities and slated for demolition. Meanwhile, these same authorities actively facilitate the creation of new Jewish settlement outposts in the area (allegedly “illegal” under Israeli law) by provisioning racist bands of Israeli “hilltop youth” with water, electricity and security. One such “illegal” outpost, whose power lines and massive cisterns strike a familiar contrast with the makeshift structures of Bir al-Id, was perched less a kilometer from Hajj Ismail’s ramshackle tent.

After a few hours the two groups reunited to perform a “direct action” at the illegal outpost of Bat Maon, from which settler attacks on Palestinian schoolchildren had recently originated. (According to an Italian NGO worker who has been accompanying the children to class for several months, settlers from Bat Maon had only days earlier beaten two American activists with lead pipes as they attempted to film these attacks.) Camcorders in hand, our group circumnavigated Bat Maon in hopes of drawing the military’s attention to what was going on there. We were immediately encircled by armored vehicles and asked to leave. One of our activists demanded to know why so many soldiers had been dispatched to quell Ta’ayyush’s nonviolent action while none had been tasked with investigating the recent stabbing of a Palestinian by a masked settler. Such attempts to shame the military, he later told me, had in the past succeeded in achieving marginal improvements in the conditions of the local Palestinians.

Driving back to Jerusalem, I asked one long-time member of Ta’ayyush, a mathematician named Danny, how many leftists of his stripe he thought existed in Israel today. He guessed a couple of hundred. (Israel’s Jewish population currently stands at 5.8 million.)

This, in part, is the situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories as I have seen it and heard it described by those who live there. I leave it to the reader to draw from this testimony his/her own conclusions about the nature of the political system under which Israelis and Palestinians live, both within and beyond Israel’s recognized borders.

Al Qaeda-Iran link comes roaring (right thru 2012)

Aug 04, 2011

Philip Weiss

A friend writes:

Here are Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett commenting on some recent storiesthat theorize a link between Iran and Al Qaeda. The stories come from government sources; all the conjectures thus far are unsubstantiated. But last week the government turned up the heat, and formally charged six persons with being agents of an alleged “secret deal” between Iran and Al Qaeda.

Why did this announcement come out of the Treasury Department, of all places? The answer may be traceable in some measure and at some distance to “the point man for the Obama administration’s financial wars on Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda, Stuart Levey” (Laura Rozen Politico story).

On January 23 Levey resigned as Undersecretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence; but this is one of the many areas in which the Obama administration claims rigorous continuity with the Bush-Cheney arrangements; and Levey was succeeded by his chosen deputy and former law partner, David Cohen (see Jennifer Rubin’s adulatory account).

His career (see Wikipedia) is that of an upper-echelon neoconservative; and here the clerking for Judge Laurence Silberman is significant. A close ally of Dick Cheney and a participant in the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign deliberations on the Iran hostage crisis,Judge Silberman was appointed by G.W. Bush as co-chair of the Iraq Intelligence Commission which cleared the Bush-Cheney administration of charges that it had deliberately used flawed intelligence to promote the war, and abridged reports to yield a predigested result.

The Leveretts remark that the heavy but unsubstantiated rumors (now assisted by formal charges) about a link between Iran and Al Qaeda follow the playbook of the run-up to the Iraq war. The Obama administration has been simplifying the explanations of its commitments in South Asia and North Africa, so words like Kashmir and Pashtun and Haqqani Network seldom appear, but “Al Qaeda” has come back roaring at every opportunity, most recently in Obama’s “Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal Speech.“

All the signs indicate a strategy of aggressive posturing on Iran in the long year leading up to the 2012 election.

Imagine a press conference, in Gaza, appealing for drugs for 75 Palestinian children w/ life-threatening thalassemia

Aug 04, 2011

Kate

and other news from Today in Palestine:

Land, property, resources theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Apartheid
West Bank home demolitions up ‘alarmingly’: UN
AFP 2 Aug — Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank rose “alarmingly” in the first half of 2011, in some cases threatening entire communities, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday. The UN Relief and Works Agency, which looks after Palestinian refugees, said 356 structures had been demolished in the first six months of this year, compared with 431 for the whole of 2010. And the agency said 700 people had been displaced by the demolitions in the first six months of 2011, compared with 594 in the whole of 2010 … The demolitions are taking place in Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank that is designated as under full Israeli control, in which Israel has designated just one percent of land for Palestinian development, UNRWA said.
link to news.yahoo.com
Young man released from prison, sentenced to house arrest outside home
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 3 Aug  — A young Palestinian man was sentenced to house arrest outside of his home in Anata camp yesterday by a Jerusalem court. Ammar Zeytoon was arrested on charges of participation in clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces in Anata refugee camp in north Jerusalem, and served two months in prison. He was ordered to be transferred to house arrest yesterday and banned from entering the camp.
link to silwanic.net
Video: Al Araqib marks anniversary of first demolition / Silvia Boarini
Palestine Monitor 3 Aug — The unrecognized village of al Araqib in the Negev desert marked the anniversary of its first demolition by Israeli authorities in July 2010. Since then, al Araqib has been rebuilt by villagers — and demolished again by officials — 25 times. This month, the state of Israel announced they were suing the village NIS 1.8 million for expenses incurred during the demolitions. The annual commemoration lasted a week and featured a series of protests, events, talks and activities involving Jewish and Palestinian Israelis, internationals and Palestinians from the West Bank … Since July 2010, the Jewish National Fund has been working on the village’s land, paving the way for the proposed Ambassador Forest, which aims to displace the village entirely. Hundreds of small earthen mounds, ready to house young trees, now dot the landscape where the al-Turis’ homes used to be. A few hundreds meters away the planting has already begun.
link to www.palestinemonitor.org
Settlers
Settlers attempt to seize more land in Saffa
[photos] PSP 3 Aug — Settlers from Bat Ayin settlement have attempted to seize more land belonging to the village of Saffa. This week, it was discovered that settlers had begun construction of a building foundation on the land of local farmer Thelgy Addy. Stones have been piled on top of one another forming what appears to be the bases of walls, and one of the stones was marked with a green symbol. Around the stones, the settlers had posted stakes at a distance of 500 meters. When this construction was discovered, the stakes were pulled up in order to combat the theft of more land. Settlers will often begin taking over more land by constructing buildings as an outpost, then moving people in. Bat Ayin is a particularly aggressive settlement which has a history of violence towards Palestinians in the area….
link to palestinesolidarityproject.org
Dozens of hilltop youth set up camp in Israel’s biggest tent city
Haaretz 3 Aug — The activists, who belong to the extreme right, claim solution to housing crisis is construction in the West Bank; plan to set up dozens of more tents in coming days — A few dozen hilltop youth joined the tent city on Rothschild Boulevard Wednesday, erecting 15 tents on the corner of Allenby Street in central Tel Aviv.  The hilltop youth, a group of young people who were born in the settlements and who belong to the extreme right, appeared on Rothschild Boulevard wearing shirts with slogans such as “Tel Aviv is Jewish” and “Jews, let us be victorious.” The activists planned to set up dozens of additional tents in the coming days. Meir Butler, one of the hilltop youth leaders, told Haaretz, “We can came here to say ‘yes’ to the social protests, but to also say that there is a solution.” The solution, he said, “is to build in Judea and Samaria.” Earlier on Wednesday, approximately 200 right-wing activistsmarched from Habima Square, shouting, “No to bringing down the government, yes to solving the crisis.”
link to www.haaretz.com
Protesters blast marching rightists
Ynet 3 Aug — Baruch Marzel visits Tel Aviv ‘tent city’, says: When it comes to social issues I’m more Left than Left; but protesters appear annoyed at rightists’ presence. They are not part of us, says organizer as Marzel’s followers chant: Tel Aviv Jewish, Sudanese go to Sudan
link to www.ynetnews.com
Officer who threatened settler to stand trial
Ynet 3 Aug — Disciplinary action taken against Border Guard officer who pulled weapon on Yithar spokesman … The incident took place in January. A Border Guard force came to the West Bank settlement in order to search the homes of students at the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva after a military jeep had its tires slashed at Yitzhar.  A heated argument ensued, and the spokesman alerted one of the officers to the fact that his rifle was loaded. In response, the officer said, “This bullet is for your forehead.”
link to www.ynetnews.com
Israeli forces
IDF soldiers launch attack on photojournalists / Mati Milstein
+972blog 2 Aug — If you seek to obtain a truly comprehensive picture of the state of press freedom and freedom of expression in territories under Israeli control, come watch Israeli soldiers shoot at journalists in the West Bank. On Friday, 29 July, at the start of the weekly Palestinian demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, Israeli army infantry reservists opened fire with riot-control weapons on a group of some 10 press photographers. This attack crossed a red line … The use of firearms in a direct attack on members of the media was preceded slightly earlier in the day by the harassment, arrest and reported beating by Alexandroni Brigade reservists of Muheeb Barghouthi, a Palestinian photographer working for Al-Hayat Al-Jadida newspaper. I did not witness this incident, but I saw the harassment and arrest later on video 
link to 972mag.com
Easing restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza during Ramadan
Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs — Press Release 1 August — (Communicated by the IDF and Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) In honor of the Ramadan period that began on August 1, the IDF and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (CoGAT) will ease restrictions, as recommended by IDF Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz. These policies are intended to improve the welfare of Palestinians in the West Bank and were approved by Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Throughout the Ramadan month, Palestinians will receive permits to visit family members in Israel. Gate 107 leading to Qalqilya will be open every day for the departure Israeli Arabs accommodating these visits. Palestinians will also be able to travel abroad via Ben Gurion Airport. Other Ramadan accommodations include the free travel of supply trucks between the Jordan Valley and the West Bank. Crossings in the northern Jordan Valley will allow passage of Israeli Arabs…. [Aside from the fact that one needs to take this press release with a whole shaker of salt, the question arises: Why are there these restrictions on the lives of Palestinians in the first place?]
link to www.mfa.gov.il
Six Palestinians wounded in IOF incursion
AL-KHALIL, (PIC) 3 Aug — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) raided the village of Beit Ummar, north of Al-Khalil, wounding six citizens in the process including five of one family and arresting a youth. The anti-settlement committee in the village said that the IOF soldiers broke into several homes during the raid and fired live bullets and teargas canisters in the process. It said that the incursion, which occurred on Tuesday, also witnessed clashes with youngsters in the village but no casualties were reported in those confrontations.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Gaza
Israeli minister calls for major Gaza assault
GAZA CITY/ OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (Daily Star) 3 Aug — An Israeli Cabinet minister reportedly called for a major military push into Gaza Tuesday. The call came after Israeli warplanes raided the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, one day after Palestinian militants fired a rocket into Israel, wounding a woman. Israeli public radio and state-run Channel One TV reported Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aaronovitch, of the hawkish Yisrael Beitenu party, as saying: “The steady shower of missiles” from Gaza could not be tolerated and Israel must respond with a “broad military action.”
link to www.dailystar.com.lb
Gaza ministry: Rafah crossing open for July applicants after delays
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 3 Aug — The Ministry of Interior in Gaza said Wednesday that passengers who had registered to travel to Egypt via the Rafah crossing on July 24 and 25 could now undertake their journey after lengthy delays … priority will be given to medical patients, students and those holding residency visas to other countries.
link to www.maannews.net
Rights group urges inquiry after Gaza death
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 3 Aug — A Palestinian human rights group expressed concern Wednesday following the shooting death of a police officer in the Gaza Strip while enforcing a court ruling.  Majed Karam, 23, a policeman from Gaza City, died Sundayafter gunmen opened fire on a police unit that was enforcing a court ruling in the Juhor Ad-Dik village, authorities in Gaza said. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights called the incident the latest in an ongoing “state of security chaos and misuse of weapons” that has plagued the Gaza Strip in recent years … Three families lived in the houses which were bulldozed following a court ruling that determined the structures were built on land owned by the religious affairs ministry in Gaza. As the force started bulldozing the three houses, members of the Abu Thaher family and members of the Abu Hein family intervened to stop the demolition, according to the rights group.
link to www.maannews.net
Army: Projectile report ‘false alarm’
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 3 Aug — The Israeli army said reports that a projectile had landed in southern Israel on Wednesday morning were a ‘false alarm’. The Israeli news site Ynet reported Wednesday that a rocket fired from Gaza landed in the southern Ashkelon district causing no damage or injuries but an Israeli military spokeswoman later said the reported explosion was a false alarm.
link to www.maannews.net
2 rockets fired from Gaza
Ynet 3 Aug — Two Grad rockets were fired from Gaza late Wednesday evening after a period of relative calm in the south. The first exploded at around 10:30 pm in open spaces between Sderot and Kiryat Gat, near a town in the Lakhish region. No injuries or damage were reported. The second exploded some two hours later at the entrance to the southern city of Ashkelon, near a gas station. No injuries or damage were reported in this case, either.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Gazan thalassemic children plead for life
Gaza Strip (Bernama) 3 Aug — Palestinian children infected with thalassemia have called on the international community and human rights organisations to exert pressure on Israel to end its blockade imposed on Gaza since 2007. The Gaza-based ministry of health reported that 75 children are facing a death risk due to shortage of 25 items of drugs needed for thalassemic patients …Some of the thalassemic children held a press conference with the ministry officials to highlight their deteriorating health. See article on thalassemia, a disease affecting mainly Mediterranean ethnic groups
link to www.bernama.com.my
Miles of Smiles 5 to land in Strip marking Eid al-Fitr
GAZA (PIC) 3 Aug —  A humanitarian aid convoy, dubbed Miles of Smiles 5, is set to land in the Gaza Strip on Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting.
In addition, organizers say participants are preparing a ‘’sea demonstration’’ in international waters protesting Israel’s five-year siege on the Gaza Strip … With regards to the protest at sea, Yusuf said the convoy is not planning on delivering the much needed aid directly to Gaza’s port but wants only to demonstrate against Israel’s siege and ‘pirating’ of siege-breaking ships, such as the French Dignité (Al-Karama).
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Smuggling drives Gaza’s building boom
BBC 3 Aug — …Parts of Rafah, the southern Gazan town right on the border with Egypt, have the feel of a major industrial zone or port. It is dusty, hot and noisy with the smell of diesel in the air. Hundreds of white tents line the border with Egypt. Under each tent is a tunnel. They are barely hidden. This is not a secret smuggling operation. It is big business, out in the open … Mr Shaban says the tunnels are creating a mafia-style economy, from which a few people in Gaza are getting very rich. He also says Hamas are making money too because they regulate the tunnel trade. “They benefit in two ways – from imposing taxes and tariffs on everything that comes through, and also through trading directly themselves.” For Mr Shaban, this shows the stupidity of Israel’s blockade  Listen
link to www.bbc.co.uk
Detention
PPS: Bethlehem saw 13 arrests in July
BETHLEHEM (PIC) 3 Aug — The Palestinian Prisoner Society in the West Bank governorate of Bethlehem has said that the Israeli occupation forces apprehended 13 Palestinians in the governorate in July 2011, with most of the arrests taking place in the Doheisheh and Husan refugee camps … The PPS said IOF search and arrest operations, which continue despite a calm that has prevailed in the area, are designed to provoke locals and create a state of fear, instability, and insecurity among them.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
PA: Israel refused extra food in jails for Ramadan
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 3 Aug — …The Ramallah-based ministry requested upping the food allocation from 300 shekels ($86) to 400 shekels ($115) per prisoner to purchase special foods consumed by Muslims to break the daily fast, Qaraqe said in a statement. Israeli authorities declined, telling the ministry that they had offered their own special food package for Ramadan to detainees, who turned down the offer, the minister added. Prisoners consider the Israeli offer “humiliation and disrespect” … Qaraqe added that the Israeli prison administration had recently decreased quantities of food per prisoner.  In June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the prison service to toughen conditions for Palestinian detainees in an effort to pressure Hamas to release captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
link to www.maannews.net
74 Palestinian detainees to be released [late]
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 3 Aug — The Head of the Prisoners Society in Hebron Amjad An-Najjar told Ma’an that 74 detainees are to be released from Israeli jail on Thursday morning. The Negev prison administration in southern Israel informed the prisoners of their decision on Wednesday, An-Najjar said.
The detainees were due for release at an earlier date, he added, but a change in prison policy by the Israeli government delayed their discharge. In June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the prison service to toughen conditions for Palestinian detainees in an effort to pressure Hamas to release captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
link to www.maannews.net
Knesset approves new restrictions on Palestinian prisoners
NAZARETH (PIC) 3 Aug — The Israeli Knesset has approved in its first reading a law empowering all prison administrations with the right to prevent Palestinian prisoners from meeting with their lawyers for three days. Right group sources say the move comes to pressure prisoner bodies into meeting the demands of the Israeli prison authority.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Negev prison infested with snakes, wild cats
NABLUS (PIC) 3 Aug — Prisoners say they live in fear as the Negev prison has become infested with snakes and wild cats. This was learnt through Palestinian Prison Society attorney Lu’a Akka who visited the prison recently. Prisoners have been taking turns holding watch at night as snakes have been sighted spread across the prison’s walls. Prisoners also say that wild cats that spend the daytime picking through garbage intermingle with prisoners at night, raising fears of disease spreading. [in the south of the country, there are not only poisonous vipers, but also adders, ringed snakes, black cobras, and several other poisonous snakes, according to this Ynet article]
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Hamas media: Shalit ‘fasting’ during holy month
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 3 Aug — The Hamas-affiliated Ar-Risala website reported Wednesday that captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has decided to fast during Ramadan … “A popular proverb goes that if one lives in a community for more 40 days, he becomes one of them. This saying seems to have come true in the Gaza Strip, namely with captured Israeli soldier in Gaza Gilad Shalit who has been living with Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades for more than five years. As a result, it seems he was embarrassed to ask for food during Ramadan despite the fact that his captors do not deny him that right,” the report, in Arabic, read.
link to www.maannews.net
Activism / Solidarity / BDS
Palestinian Americans know their heritage
Bethlehem – PNN/Exclusive – 3 Aug — Yesterday morning a group of young Palestinian Americans returned home to the United States after taking part in the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation’s ‘Know Your Heritage’ program.  It was an emotional moment. But everyone felt determined, more determined than ever, that they honour their Palestinian identity, no matter how much the Israeli government might try to keep them away. Karima Moussa was one of those young people. A student of Photojournalism at an American university, she holds an American passport – but she’s sure that her true loyalty, her deeper identity, is Palestinian … She felt pride about what she and the program had achieved. In fact, so profound was her experience, so much had she come to love Palestine and its people, she was even considering moving to live there in the near future. For her, she explained, Palestine is the land of her fathers and her grandfathers, it is the soul which moves her and which guides her.
link to english.pnn.ps
Palestinian Gandhis Part VII – Young filmmakers
In the final post of our “Palestinian Gandhis” series, we come across two young artists, “Arab” and “Tarzan,” whose peaceful resistance mainly takes the form of film, though their voices are also heard throughout Gaza in murals and street art. In this installment, they discuss their influences, their intentions, and their work. Filmmaker Pam Bailey had this to say about them: The power of art as a tool of resistance, cutting right to the heart of oppression and betrayal, is unleashed in the work of Mohamed (“Arab”) and Ahmed (“Tarzan”) Abu Nasser. The identical twin brothers are true “renaissance men” – they play the guitar, paint, sketch, write screenplays, direct and act. However, filmmaking is their favorite form of expression, despite the fact that Gaza has no film school, and no cinemas.
link to blog.thejerusalemfund.org
BDS organization writes Total Produce to not buy Agrexco
IMEMC 3 Aug — The Palestinian Boycott Divest Sanction organization has written a letter to the Irish company, Total Produce, to not purchase the Israeli produce company, Agrexco. The letter charged that Agrexco has been involved with ‘Israeli war crimes’. Sixty to seventy percent of the produce sold by Agrexco comes from confiscated Palestinian land in the West Bank. The BDS warned Total Produce that if they purchase Agrexco, Total Produce would be boycotted as well.
link to www.imemc.org
Political / Diplomatic / International news
Al-Malki: UN bid is the right path
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 3 Aug — Palestinian Authority Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al-Malki said Thursday that Palestine’s bid for membership in the United Nations was the right path to take even if the leadership was presented with a reformulated framework for negotiations. In an interview, Al-Malki warned of the consequences of not going to the UN. He said that without the UN campaign, Palestinians would be left with no land on which to establish a state … In response to fears of violence in September, the minister said there would not be a third intifada, or uprising. “There is no fear of launching a third intifada … We will not return to the era of intifadas. We will depend on peaceful demonstrations in all forms.”
link to www.maannews.net
Intel officials don’t foresee Sept. violence
AP 3 Aug — Report drafted for Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee says Palestinians believe violence will be counterproductive, will stage only peaceful demonstrations, but recommends calling up reserves for safety
link to www.ynetnews.com
Palestinian envoy urges US not to veto UN bid
AFP 3 Aug — A top Palestinian envoy said she has tried in vain to persuade the Obama administration not to veto a Palestinian bid next month for UN membership of a state on the 1967 lines. Hanan Ashrawi, who was sent to Washington by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told AFP on Tuesday she had urged US officials here this week to support, or at least not block, such a bid at the UN General Assembly in September.
link to www.gulf-times.com
Beilin: Abbas is a man of peace
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 3 Aug — President Mahmoud Abbas is a man who believes in peace but Israel disappointed him by leaving him without a peace partner, said Yossi Beilin, former Israeli minister of justice and co-architect of the Geneva Initiative.  In an interview on Ma‘an TV, Beilin urged both the Palestinians and the Israelis to commit to peace because it was the only vision that would remain “despite the fact that the right wing won elections both in Palestine and Israel.” … Asked about settlements, Beilin said most settlers were extremists living in the West Bank for ideological reasons. The settlers who were attracted by economic incentives and cheap housing were in the minority, Beilin added.
link to www.maannews.net
Netanyahu aide denies Israel offered Egypt’s Mubarak asylum
AP 3 Aug — Roni Sofer responds to claim by Labor MK Binyamin Ben-Eliezer that he and the PM made the offer to Mubarak while he was still president.
link to www.haaretz.com
Other news
In Pictures: The start of Ramadan
Al Jazeera 2 Aug — Ramadan is the ninth month on the Islamic calendar when millions of Muslims worldwide fast from dawn to sunset. Ramadan, which changes each year depending on the moon, began this year on August 1. The breaking of the fast each day is called the Iftar, when families and communities gather to feast together. The meal starts with the eating of a single date, a tradition that originated with the Prophet Muhammad. [three of the photos are from Palestine]
link to english.aljazeera.net
Israel prevents call for prayer 52 times in Hebron in July
HEBRON (WAFA) 3 Aug — The Israeli authorities prevented Muslim calls for prayer 52 times during July in the Ibrahimi mosque (Cave of the Patriarchs) in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, according to a Palestinian official. Zaid Al-Jabari, director of the Muslim Waqf in Hebron, told WAFA that the Israeli occupation authorities did not allow the call for prayers, which is done five times a day, from the Ibrahimi mosque minaret on claims that it annoys the Israeli settlers who live in the area. Jabari denounced what he described as “arbitrary measures that affect houses of worship,” considering them “an encroachment on religion and freedom of worship guaranteed by international law.”
link to english.wafa.ps
Israel ‘uprising’ activists enraged by housing bill
JERUSALEM (AFP) 3 Aug — Activists from Israel’s social protest movement reacted furiously on Wednesday after parliament passed a housing bill that they say will favor the rich and endanger the environment. Israeli news site Ynet said that hundreds of demonstrators blocked intersections in cities across the country, ranging from the southern desert city of Beersheba to Kiryat Shmona in the far north. Others stopped traffic in downtown Tel Aviv.
link to www.maannews.net
There must be 50 WAZE to erase the Green Line / Ami Kaufman
+972mag 31 July — After a long day walking in the hot sun with the kids in the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo in Malcha, our next destination was Bet Shemesh. Him: Hun, can you find on WAZE (Israeli-made “social-GPS” system) the quickest way to Bet Shemesh?Her: Sure Hun. Let’s see… OK, it says to go through route 375. Him: OK. Let’s go… Driving… suddenly we’re on our way to the Tunnels Road, which leads to Gush Etzion.HIM: Hun, doesn’t this go past the Green Line? Shouldn’t WAZE tell you that? Her: You’re right. Let me check. Hmmm.. this is what it says in the settings. I’ve ticked the box ‘Avoid areas under Palestinian Authority supervision’. So, I guess technically, the program is working. We’re not in the PA. Him: Hmmm… does the Orange GPS have the same wording? Or warning? Her: Lemme check. Hmmm, nope. The Orange one let’s you avoid passing the Green Line totally.‘ [Setting: ‘Stay in Green Line area’] Him: HmmmmHer: Yup.
link to 972mag.com
Analysis / Opinion
West Bank murder smashed the lie of ‘honor killings’
HEBRON (AFP) 2 Aug — Aya’s remains were found bound, decomposed at the bottom of a well more than a year after she vanished without a trace, leaving her family beside themselves with worry. The university student’s disappearance in April 2010 left her relatives increasingly ostracized in their southern West Bank village, an area known for its deeply conservative traditions and morals. Neighbors assumed the worst — that their daughter had run away with a lover. But the mystery was solved in May when police found her bones several miles from the family home in Surif, northwest of the city of Hebron — and triggered an unprecedented public outcry … The motive behind the crime is still unclear. Some reports suggested Aya was killed because she refused a proposal from her uncle’s son, while security sources said the uncle held ultra-conservative views and was dead set against her quest for education. As details of Aya’s murder became public, it sparked a wave of outrage that spread across the southern West Bank, with people taking to the streets to demand changes to the law.
link to www.maannews.net
groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi (listserv)
www.theheadlines.org (archive)

Gov Christie blasts critics of Judge Mohammed appointment: ‘I’m tired of dealing with the crazies’

Aug 04, 2011

annie

Sohail Mohammed was a lawyer for Muslims detained during the FBI roundups after 9/11; last week he became the second Muslim judge in New Jersey when he was sworn in by his mentor.

His swearing in and nomination came amidst intense criticism from conservative Islamophobes. Below is a video of Governor Chris Christie harshly responding to critics of his nomination, and citing Judge Sohail Mohammed as “An outstanding human being”.

WSJ

Sitting behind the bench in a packed courtroom in the Passaic County Courthouse, Mr. Mohammed told of how his journey to that spot in many ways centered around that very room.

It was in that courthouse where he took his oath of citizenship and where he served jury duty, which is what led him to abandon an engineering career and become a lawyer.

He spoke of how he is an example of the American dream, how he came to the country in 1980, and how his mother worked two jobs to support the family. He thanked Mr. Christie for being a friend.

“It’s all part of the process,” Mr. Mohammed said when asked about the criticism of his nomination.

Asaad Siddiqi, president of the New Jersey Muslim Lawyers Association, said there was a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of Sharia law for Muslims in America—that it is cultural, rather than something that would subvert a judge’s duty to uphold the law, constitution and precedents.

He said the criticism was similar to that levied at judicial nominations in other policy areas by opposition groups.

Mr. Siddiqi, who once worked opposite Mr. Mohammed in a dispute involving parents and a school board, described him as an intelligent and respected lawyer.

“We’re a diverse state, and it’s important to have a judiciary that reflects the members, the citizens of the state,” Mr. Siddiqi said. “It’s an important step forward for the state.”

(hat tip Helena Cobban)

Initial publication of this piece included editor’s error. Since corrected; apologies.

Liberal Zionists can oppose boycott only by blinding themselves to decades of discrimination

Aug 04, 2011

Samah Sabawi

Samah Sabawi recently published here opposing the New Israel Fund’s stance on boycott. Naomi Paiss of the New Israel Fund then responded here.

Naomi Paiss, director of communication for the New Israel Fund offered no new ideas in her response to my article debunking Naomi Chazan’s talking points against the Boycott Divestments and Sanctions campaign. Paiss simply repeated Chazan’s words “BDS is a counter-productive and inflammatory strategy” without trying to persuade the readers as to why this may be the case. It is clear the NIF does not appreciate the gravity nor time-sensitivity of the Palestinian situation. Like many Jewish Israeli citizens who live comfortable lives with preferential treatment, their faith in Israel’s democratic liberal values is exaggerated.

Israel’s left continues to have a blind spot when it comes to Israel’s foundations – a state built on the ruins of a people’s rights and freedoms. This blind spot is evident in the Israeli left’s insistence that boycotts against the settlements are justified but a general boycott of Israel demonizes and delegitimizes the state. Are Israelis not aware that the settlements do not exist in a vacuum and that if it were not for state funding and protection they would not be there? Do they not see that it is their 18-year-old children dressed in soldier uniforms carrying big guns paid for by the state who are protecting these settlements? This pattern of selective vision that plagues Israel’s left hampers the process of change in Israel.

Consider Chazan’s statement in Haaretz regarding the passing of the Boycott Law: “We view it as one of the most antidemocratic, if not the most antidemocratic, to be enacted in Israel.” An astounding example of selective vision that ignores a history of far more devastating and anti-democratic bills passed by the state of Israel targeting Palestinians which have separated families and destroyed lives.

Take for example the Nationality Citizenship Law passed in 1952, which grants automatic citizenship to Jews who immigrate to Israel, while excluding non-Jewish native-born Palestinians who under this law must prove residency and pass other tests. Or the “family unification” laws passed in 2002, which in essence is a discriminatory system that prevents the applications for residency or citizenship from Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens. These are only two of many examples of undemocratic laws passed by the Israeli Knesset which favor one group of people in Israel – the Jewish population – and strip another group – non Jewish Palestinians of fundamental rights and freedoms.

Israel’s left refuses to acknowledge that by their silence and lack of innovation they are responsible for Israel’s actions. They reject BDS and insist on “peace building” projects and “joint Palestinian-Israeli” initiatives as if they have just discovered the kryptonite for the conflict. They have not. There is nothing new about joint peace initiatives or peace building projects. Such initiatives have existed since the 1970s and increased in 1993 and throughout the Oslo years.

A study by Everett Mendelsohn that examined the impact of peace projects[1] concluded that such efforts were not successful at making peace and that most breakdowns took place in 2000 when the Oslo process negotiations broke down. During this time it was Palestinians, as individuals as well as organized groups, who began to withdraw and to postpone such initiatives.

Since the 2000 break down, Palestinians have shifted their focus to grassroots movements that aim to change policies and effect change. Even though so-called peace initiatives continue to attract some people on both sides, there is a consensus amongst most Palestinians that such efforts do more harm than good by normalizing oppression and prolonging Palestinian suffering.

These efforts have allowed Israel to evade international pressure by projecting a façade of normalcy and an illusion of progress while providing Israel’s left with a fig leaf allowing them to believe they were working on peace when in truth, their efforts should have been aimed at ending the occupation. The reality is that decades of such projects have not changed Israeli policies: settlements have grown at rapid rate, Palestinians have been walled in losing more rights, land and water than ever before.

In 2005, Palestinian civil society embraced a call for boycotts divestments and sanctions against Israel. For Chazan and others in Israel’s left to dismiss it as “counter productive” and “inflammatory” while only offering more joint Palestinian Israeli initiatives as the only option on the table is disingenuous and ignores the recent history of the conflict and the realities of the occupation.

The BDS campaign appeals to the intellect. It is an idea that is being embraced by the masses because it is one that makes sense. Naomi Chazan and others on Israel’s left, need to understand that the only way to defeat this idea is by presenting the Palestinians with a better one that can bring an end to their suffering. So far, all I hear from them is the same tired old rhetoric.

Samah Sabawi is a Palestinian writer from Gaza. She is the Public Advocate of Australians for Palestine.

[1] The Peace Makers: NGO Efforts in the Middle East 1948 – 2001 http://www.cdainc.com/cdawww/pdf/casestudy/rpp_mideast_case_study_set_1_Pdf.pdf

New Basic Law bill would cement the ‘Jewish nature’ of the ‘national homeland’

Aug 04, 2011

Paul Mutter

From Ynet, “Knesset mulls ‘Jewish state’ bill: Members of Knesset Dichter, Elkin present House with bill which aims to cement Israel’s Jewish nature in Basic Laws.” MK Elkin toldYnet:

“It is high time we cemented Israel’s Jewish nature and symbols by law, especially given the constant attempts by anti-Zionist elements to disavow the country’s Jewish and Zionist elements, which were once a given.”

“This is the time to clearly declare that the State of Israel is the national homeland of the Jewish people and this is our basic right.”

Of the 61 votes neccesary to make the legislation a Basic Law of Israel, 42 votes have already reportedly been secured through the efforts of Likud and Kadima MPs who sponsored the bill.

The bills’ sponsors are saying that in giving “constitutional status to State symbols,” the bill “will cement an existing situation by law.”

The “existing situation” of Israel’s fundamental character is anything but cemented – but with this bill, the right hopes to not merely defend Israel from her detractors, but to make criticizing Israel’s “Jewish character” a matter of state security (such a law would presumably make it impossible for anyone to seriously advocate a bi-national solution, as that would impugn the “Jewish character” of Israel).

And, regarding the question of dissent, this Knesset has already passed an anti-BDS law to criminalize “delegitimizers” and proposed legislation that would have further criminalized dissent by subjecting nonprofit groups to political inquiries regarding the security implications of their work.

This nonprofit “political inquiry” bill has since been defeated in the Knesset, but the right-wing party behind it, Yisrael Beitenu, says they will keep reintroducing the bill until it gets through.

The success of this bill, though, could make such a political inquiry unnecessary. There simply would be no questioning of any of these matters, or any alternative to the present one-state-and-two-quarantined-dependencies solution.

Alarmist? Possibly. But with this Knesset, is it wise to brush this bill off as “just” a codification of the status quo?

JPost reports that the bill affirms “the State of Israel has a democratic government.” Presumably, as part of this affirmation, the bill will legally “cement” the existing situation of democratic governance in the West Bank.

44 weeks of pro-Palestinian protest in Adelaide and not a word in print

Aug 04, 2011

Margaret Cassar

Adelaide is the capital of South Australia. It’s a sprawling city; Adelaide’s metropolitan region is more than twice the size of Gaza but with a smaller population. Gaza has 1.7 million people compared with Adelaide’s 1.2 million. However there are much more significant differences. Here we move freely in and out of our city and country, trade with everyone, have ready access to water, food, medicines, hospitals, medical care and education. No-one has ever imprisoned our whole population and then bombed us. Yet in spite of our differences and the vast 13,000 km distance between our cities a growing number of people in Adelaide are developing a sense of solidarity with the people of Palestine.

As part of our contribution to the international BDS movement, over 10 months ago the Australian Friends of Palestine Association held the first Adelaide Seacret (Israeli cosmetic company) protest. Each week an ever increasing number of pro-Palestinian protesters have demonstrated in front of the Myer Centre shopping complex which hosts the Seacret kiosk. Our latest You Tube shows that despite strong opposition and varying intimidating tactics from Zionist sympathizers, we are determined to continue to educate the people of Adelaide about Palestine and encourage them to boycott Israeli products. Our first action was held on October 8th 2010 and we were fortunate to have Tariq Ali present. The next few weeks saw numbers drop but our persistence paid off as people shopping in the Mall started to ask if they could join the protesters. The word spread. From the initial dozen protesters there are now consistently approximately three dozen protesters in the Mall every week with the average numbers for every month increasing. The following You Tube shows a not uncommon scenario where a group of young teenage boys just passing by were inspired to join in. Our aim with these protests was to educate Adelaide shoppers about the human rights violations inflicted every day upon the Palestinian and to inform them about the current boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement plus show shoppers in the Mall how they could boycott Israeli goods. Every week we see more and more evidence that a city like Adelaide not only needs to hear the truth about Palestine but in general wants to hear factual information about the conflict in the Middle East.

Hundreds of people have stopped to talk to us about the situation in Palestine. Most are genuinely interested, some want to argue the point and some want to abuse us. However it is obvious that, particularly since “Operation Cast Lead”, there are many people in Adelaide who feel compassion for the people of Palestine. These Seacret protests are tapping into a growing disquiet among Australians about the human rights abuses in Palestine and the complicity of our government in supporting a military occupation that causes so much suffering. An interesting aspect to these 44 weeks of protesting in the Mall has been the amount of intimidating behaviour from all manner of groups. Probably the easiest to deal with has been our apparent interest to photographers as most weeks we are filmed both openly and covertly by at least 5 people. Occasionally we are told the photographs would be used in a court case against us. A common comment was that we were being photographed so that photos could be sent back to “friends in Israel”.

Abusive behaviour towards the protesters from seemingly random people passing by is becoming more threatening and plumbing new depths in sexist and racist remarks. I use the words “seemingly random” because most weeks there seems to be a common theme behind the abuse, eg just recently all commentary mentioned that we were Australians and not interested in other people’s problems. It all starts to look a bit scripted and rehearsed. Initially words like “misguided” were yelled at us now it’s more likely to include an expletive and the attractive female protesters have been subject to objectionable comments ranging from the patronizing (“Go home to your husband”) to the sleazy (“You can lick my Zionist balls”). None of this reflects well on our detractors.

Most worrying has been the revelation that Christian Zionists play a powerful role on the ground in countries like Australia in stifling debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Our Christian Zionist counter-protesters have used an arsenal of techniques to scare us away from the Mall. They turn up in groups and loudly proclaim a most un-Christian hatred and condemnation of the protesters and many other sections of the Australian community. This particular group usually arrives with Israeli flags, soap boxes, a full size cross on wheels and loud speakers to stridently broadcast their repugnant views to hapless shoppers in the Mall. Some verbally abuse the protesters and all promote a similar message, “You are doing the devil’s work and you need to repent or you will end up in hell.” Protesters have been called murderers and we have witnessed certain protesters being targeted in an attempt to provoke violent reactions.

Residents of Adelaide are not surprised by this but it would appear that peaceful pro-Palestinian protests have zero interest for our media. As you saw in the earlier You Tube of our actions for Weeks 41 and 42 the Seacret protest group is highly visible as the protesters wear bright green T-shirts, hold large placards, banners and Palestinian flags. Though we have attracted the attention of tens of thousands of passers-by, engaged hundreds of people in discussion about Palestine and given out over 20,000 leaflets, we are apparently invisible to local mainstream media. In 10 months not one word has been printed in our only local daily newspaper, News Limited’s The Advertiser. Apple growers from the Adelaide Hills rightly received considerable space for one of their protests. Ditto for teachers and truck drivers. For me the interesting story is why nearly a year of peaceful protests is not worth one word of print. It would seem pro-Palestinian activists may only be seen in the media if they can be portrayed as violent and in conflict with the police.

It has also been interesting to see that while Adelaide’s mainstream media has deliberately ignored the protests other elements of society have paid us lots of attention. For example when the protests first started there would be approximately 15 management and security personnel watching a dozen protesters hold placards and hand out leaflets. Members of SAPOL (South Australian Police) quickly realized we were law-abiding and at all times the police have treated protesters with courtesy.

Australian politicians in the main are stridently pro-Israel and as we saw in the recent Marrickville council elections it is a brave politician indeed who dares endorse the BDS movement. However if they attended one of our protests they may be surprised to see that the issue of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians does resonate with Australian voters and that they could safely take a more principled stand on this issue.

Margaret Cassar is Executive Member, Australian Friends of Palestine Association.