Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

• Slouching toward theocracy: Tehran and Tel Aviv may have something in common

• Hillel fears it is being ‘marginalized’ by young Jews because of its fierce support for Israel

• Savage murder of musician Ibrahim Qattush shows Syria’s dictatorship is brutish, uncouth, macabre

• White House edits photo caption, taking Jerusalem out of Israel

• Progressive Jewish congregation will host ‘conversation’ on boycott (a year after it decided issue was too hot)

• The story of Silwan

• Severed cables lead to 12-hour communication blackout in Gaza

• Close Enough to Touch: A view from Ramallah

• Even Washington Post does story on 81 House Reps to Israel. Will network news follow?

• Be careful when you play that Jewish card

Slouching toward theocracy: Tehran and Tel Aviv may have something in common

Aug 10, 2011

Paul Mutter

A friend of mine who graduated from journalism school in Iran several years ago (and is now living and working in the U.S.) recently returned from a trip back there, only to learn this:

Iranian University Drops 13 Humanities Majors

“The Etemaad newspaper reports that the country’s top humanities university will only offer courses in law, Arabic language and literature, Persian language and literature, theology and Islamic studies, ECO insurance and tourism administration.

“Journalism, political science, sociology, history, philosophy, communications, pedagogy, accounting, administration, education administration, pedagogy for special needs, early childhood education and economics have been omitted from the offerings at Allameh Tabatabai University . . . .

“The humanities became a target after Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, blamed the widespread protests that followed the 2009 presidential elections partly on the millions of students enrolled in humanities departments across the country. He said the courses need to be taught by professors committed to Islam, which are lacking in university faculties.

“Minister of Education Kamran Daneshjoo has also announced that the curricula in all humanities department are being reviewed with regard to Islamic values.”

Once again, Iran’s leadership is imposing religious orthodoxy on its people, ostensibly as a moral order in keeping with the “will of the people,” but in actuality as a way to further stifle free-thinking individuals who might contest their grip on power.

Of course, it is impossible we could ever see something like this happening in Israel. Iran onlypretends to be a democracy, while Israel is a democracy! Right?

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

If the Israeli right’s newly proposed Basic Law to define Israel as a Jewish state does become law, they will certainly have the Iranian model to crib off of in making civil society conform to religious orthodoxy. Not that the Israeli right needs any pointers: the Basic Law is a witch’s brew of frightening policy proposals, but its key tenet can be boiled down to this: from this moment on, preserving Israel’s “Jewish character” trumps Democracy. The Basic Law is a witch’s brew of frightening policy proposals, but its key tenet can be boiled down to this: from this moment on, preserving Israel’s “Jewish character” trumps Democracy. Or as MK Ze’ev Elkin (Likud), the bill’s drafter, explained to Haaretz, the law is designed to provide courts with the legal framework to rule in favor of “the state as the Jewish nation state … in situations in which the Jewish character of the state clashes with its democratic character.” It also stipulates that Jewish law — or Jewish-style Sharia, to put a rather sharp point on it — should serve as the the guiding influence for the legislature and the courts in instances where no other law exists. As the bill states: “If the court sees a legal question requiring a ruling, and finds no solution in legislation, custom or clear analogy, it will rule in light of the principles of freedom, justice, integrity and peace in Jewish heritage.”

One of the main groups behind this Basic Law, the neoconservative Institute for Zionist Strategies (IZS), has close ties to the like-minded Hudson Institute think tank in the U.S. and has worked with Im Tirtzu, among other organizations on the right, to demand the removal of “radical leftist” “post-Zionist” content from liberal arts programs (it already is happening, it seems – at Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion Universities, for starters) and allow the Knesset to conductpolitical inquiries against Israeli nonprofit groups whose work has riled the right (B’tselem, for example).

MK Elkin, readers may recall, recently proposed a bill that would give greater conservative oversight of judicial appointments to a committee dominated by Yisrael Beitenu MKs. He was also one of the chief architects of the recently-passed Boycott bill as well as several other legislative stink-bombs (including the bill requiring NGOs to disclose their foreign funding) which are still pending.

With the enshrinement of “Jewishness” in a Basic Law (and so far there’s every indication the bill will pass), Israel is on course to take another giant step toward theocracy.  So what will happen to all those Israelis who would rather not conform to the right’s (and it’s allied rabbinical legal reviewers‘) position, be they Muslims, Christians, Druzes – or even non-orthodox Jews?

Reform Jews have noted (albeit in an entirely different context from this debate) that the Supreme Court of Israel ruled in 1986 that sectarian disputes among Jews cannot be allowed“to drive a wedge into the people who dwell in Zion, and divide it into two peoples, Jews and Israelis,” but this legislation could open the door to such a reality – in addition to perpetuatinginstutional discrimination and disenfranchisement of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.

Fortunately, the bill’s backers have already considered these concerns: “The state is permitted to allow a community, including people of another faith or nation, to maintain a separate community,” reads the legislation. Well, crisis averted! After all, no matter how second-class an Arab (or Jew) might be treated in Israel, flying Israel second-class is better than flying Arabany-class.

But what specific examples of “justice,” “integrity” and “peace” do the bill’s backers have in mind for those who don’t possess sufficient Jewishness in Israel? A general idea might be gained from comments MK Elkin has made in the past: “In the struggle for Gush Etzion in 1948, the Jews fought for a Jewish Jerusalem. In the present struggle for the hills of Judea and Samaria . . . the struggle is for the future of the Jewish state, no more and no less. For there is no room on these hills for two states. It’s either us or them. And so, each hill says ‘We are here’ – and if us, it’s us, and not them.”

Perhaps Foreign Minister Lieberman is looking for sites to locate that “separate community” as we speak?

Postscript: The journalism program at Allameh Tabatabai University is (was) Iran’s oldest collegiate journalism program. A public university, Allameh Tabatabai University is regarded within Iran as the country’s top scientific institution.

Hillel fears it is being ‘marginalized’ by young Jews because of its fierce support for Israel

Aug 10, 2011

Philip Weiss

Inspired by the Israeli tent protests, Hillel, a militantly pro-Israel Jewish campus life organization, is going to put up tents on 20 campuses this fall for students to talk about Israel. The quote in my headline, from Hillel’s president, at the end of excerpt, is another sign that the Jewish mainstream realizes it is losing the young, who want to base their lives on progressive values, and see that Israeli society has intolerant rightwing tendencies. From JTA(and thanks to Magnes Zionist):

 “The purpose of the tent is to grapple with the challenges that Israel is facing and that will play out on college campuses,” said Sharon Ashley, head of the recently formed Center for Israel Engagement, which operates under Hillel’s auspices….

“The tent has got flaps, but at the same time it’s open,” Wayne Firestone, Hillel’s president, said in his plenary address at the conference. “It’s open in the sense that we want to be open and inviting to students that want to engage in conversations about Israel that we are so passionate about, and we refuse to allow ourselves to be marginalized and polarized by those on the edges and outside the tent.”

Savage murder of musician Ibrahim Qattush shows Syria’s dictatorship is brutish, uncouth, macabre

Aug 10, 2011

Philip Weiss

Beautiful piece on Syria by Rana Kabbani in the Guardian. What an amazing transformation Syria is undergoing, and more and more people say, Assad is finished. It is only a matter of how long and how much cruelty he subjects his society to. Makes Mubarak’s “no-mas” look altruistic. Kabbani (thx to Elly Kilroy):

Though all the undemocratic regimes of the Arab world are unremittingly cruel, Assad’s must stand out as the most inventively macabre. Its brutish, uncouth, illiterate and famously greedy Shabbiha death squads are being bussed around the country, with orders to rape, loot, burn, and kill. It is they who pull out the fingernails of young boys, they who torture them to death, castrate their bodies, only to force their grief-crazed parents to recant their accusations on the state’s propaganda television.

It was them who killed Ibrahim Qattush – the amateur musician who became an overnight sensation and the revolution’s youthful voice, when he composed some of its rousing chants and ditties. Qattush’s throat was cut out, as it was where the regime visualised his songs came from. Such literalism in its crimes is very much part of the way this crudest of power structures seeks to present itself.

In the past five months of Syria’s agony some international pundits have made it their business to cheer for Bashar, swallowing his black propaganda line that “aprés moi, le deluge” of the Salafi bogeymen. But facts on the ground are more eloquent: every single minority and ethnicity across Syria has risen in revolt, repelled by the war crimes it has been witness to…

What will the Assads and their extended family be remembered for? Their prisons, mass graves, scorched earth policy; their denaturing of Syrian society into a place of suspicion and fear; and their ugly creation of a North Korea without the bomb? Their illegal enrichment, corruption, arrogance and vindictiveness?

Syrians deserve better and will win their freedom the difficult way, as other peoples have.

White House edits photo caption, taking Jerusalem out of Israel

Aug 10, 2011

Philip Weiss

Good catch by the unreconstructed neocons at the Weekly Standard: two hours after Daniel Halper posted a White House caption from more than a year ago that characterized Jerusalem as part of Israel–

Vice President Joe Biden laughs with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, Israel, March 9, 2010.

–the White House removed the word Israel from the caption.

Halper was posting the photo to argue that even the White House knows that Jerusalem is in Israel (he’s evidently a Zionist, engaged in our politics on matters that are helping to destroy the American image in the Middle East). A bit of spine on the White House’s part, huh? I think Obama hates Netanyahu and can’t wait for a second term to sock it to him.

Progressive Jewish congregation will host ‘conversation’ on boycott (a year after it decided issue was too hot)

Aug 10, 2011

Philip Weiss

This is significant. A year after a very progressive Brooklyn congregation decided to sidestep a boycott debate as too inflammatory, it will have that debate after all. At the time, I remember writing, Why is it that churches have to host these debates? What’s wrong with the Jewish community, why can’t the debate happen in synagogues? Well, now the debate is coming inside.

Below is a letter to the congregation from its highly-regarded rabbi, Ellen Lippmann (announcing the “conversation” on September 15, a big day). Last year Lippmann signed a rabbis’ letter opposing boycott of a beauty store in Brooklyn selling Ahava products– a letter that described boycott as a tool of blacklisting. It appears that Lippmann’s position has shifted somewhat, and she now regards this as a very important discussion. She cites the anti-boycott law in Israel that has upset so many liberal Jews, notably the Forward and Peace Now.

For me, the pain (and revelation) of this incident is the extreme sensitivity that you will see Lippmann bringing to her community, her awareness that absolute opponents of boycott are in her community and she must be kind to them. Which demonstrates the degree to which conservative voices exist even in very progressive Jewish circles; for I am sure that many of the same fears re Israel’s enemies that we generally ascribe to rightwing Jews will be voiced on September 15. I.e., these are matters that transcend traditional political distinctions and are intertwined with Jewish identity questions (how safe are we in the west? who will look out for us?). But I’ll shut up and give the floor to the excellent rabbi:

MESSAGE FROM RABBI LIPPMANN AND AUGUST CALENDAR

Dear Kolot,

I am writing to let you know about an event Kolot’s Executive Committee has agreed we will co-host: a September 15 Open Jewish Conversation about Cultural Boycott of Israel. I am writing now because this week the planners are sending out Save the Date emails and fliers, which you may see, and I therefore want to give a little background:

Last year, we at Kolot decided not to host an evening about boycott because we had a sense from many of you that the issue was very sensitive and might inflame too many passions within our community. At that time, we had a lively email conversation among a large group of members, including many members of Kolot’s Israel-Palestine reading group. The single most repeated comment then was that, regardless of whether a Kolot member thought there should be some organized boycott of Israel or there should not be or was undecided, Kolot should be a place where open conversation about boycott (and many other things) could take place. This felt especially true to some in the group who knew about other Jewish communities or institutions that were shutting down or refusing to open such conversations. “That should not happen at Kolot,” people said. This should be a place where open, respectful conversation is possible.

With your voices much in mind, we therefore thought this fall might be a time to hold an open conversation. So when the independent planners who have organized a couple of other such discussions around the city came to us to ask about us hosting an open conversation, I asked our Executive Committee (the folks at Kolot who help decide about when and how we host, co-sponsor, et al) and they agreed with the understanding that it must be a truly open conversation.

Kolot President Cindy Greenberg and I then met with the planners and told them of our decision, repeating the caveat that this must be a truly open conversation, not just a debate between two clear sides, AND that we hoped Kolot members would be among the speakers. They agreed, and we have planned our open conversation for September 15, 2011, soon after September 11 and before the High Holydays (Erev Rosh HaShanah is Wednesday, September 28). [Separate note: We are trying to hold our 8th annual Children of Abraham Peace Walk on September 11, and will get more information to you.]

Kolot member and expert filmmaker Lynne Sachs will be on the panel, as will Kolot friend and extraordinary saxophonist Roy Nathanson (whom you may know as one of the musicians who play as we carry the Torahs on the Holydays). Neither hold a hard and fast opinion and both have been thinking deeply about the questions about boycott. Other speakers will be listed on the flier that will be going out shortly.

I know it is sometimes tempting to stay away from these kinds of discussions, as any of us may feel afraid of confrontation and escalating tension, or we’d prefer not to hear opinions that are very different from our own. My hope is that this will not be a fearful event, but a time we can all listen and learn and think about where we stand on an issue that is very present in our world. There are many ways to engage with Israel and its issues. This is only one. But it is one that may make each one of us learn something new. At a time when Israeli has passed an anti-boycott law, when the Palestinians are hoping to have a vote at the UN for a Palestinian state, when several Kolot members and families were in Israel and Palestine this summer, I hope many Kolot members will be here for this September 15 discussion.

In hope, Rabbi Ellen Lippmann

The story of Silwan

Aug 10, 2011

Kate

VIDEO: Silwan targeted
AIC 9 Aug — Over 55,000 Palestinians live in Silwan, 50 percent of whom are under the age of 18. In recent years, Jewish-Israeli settlers have gradually moved into the neighborhood, bringing with them private security guards, and an increased Israeli police and military presence. In the last year, major clashes have erupted between Palestinian youth and Israeli forces, children are regularly arrested and taken in for interrogation and community leaders have been under extreme pressure. Ultimately, the entire neighborhood is being targeted.

And more news from Today in Palestine:

PHOTOS: Images reveal the extent of construction violations in Wadi Hilweh
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 9 Aug — The following images reveal the continuing Israeli construction work in Wadi Hilweh, despite a Supreme Court ruling that the work be halted. These photos, obtained by Silwanic, show a newly-drilled set of holes. Another collapse occurred in Wadi Hilweh Street yesterday. Residents have sought to secure the safety of their streets themselves by fitting an iron cover over one of the holes, in the hopes of preventing further personal and vehicle damage. Vast amounts of construction rubble has been left unshifted from the pavement, making the streets impossible for residents to enjoy amidst the dust.
link to silwanic.net
Woman threatened with exile, children held in vendetta against Jerusalem family
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 9 Aug — In an apparent vendetta against Jerusalem native Nasser Abu Sanad, the Israeli occupation authorities have arrested four of his sons and are pursuing banishing his wife to Jordan. His sons, ranging in age from 13 to 18 years, have all been arrested on suspicion of throwing stones at Israeli occupation forces. Abu Sanad himself spent seven years in Israeli custody and was just recently released. With regards to his wife Ala al-Hadira, she is wanted by the occupation authorities for allegedly staying in Jerusalem illegally. They seek to exile her to Jordan. The woman left for Jordan seven years ago to visit her mother but was not allowed to return.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bc
Egyptian ambassador breaks fast with exile-threatened Jerusalem politicians
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 9 Aug — Egyptian ambassador to the Palestinian territories Yasser Othman has broken fast with the exile-threatened Jerusalem politicians as the men mark their 405th day in asylum. Accompanying the ambassador was his deputy Tariq Abdul-Hamid. They joined scores of local Jerusalemites for nighttime prayers … The men, who are sitting in at the Red Cross in the city’s Sheikh Jarrah district, showed appreciation for the visit and expression of concern,
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd
IOF bulldozes Palestinian land east of Al-Khalil to expand settlements
AL-KHALIL (PIC) 9 aug — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) bulldozed 19 dunums of Palestinian land in Baka‘a area to the east of Al-Khalil on Monday in preparation for annexing them to nearby Jewish settlements, local sources said. They said that the IOF soldiers, accompanied by police and border police forces and civil administration officials raided the area and destroyed part of the irrigation network and confiscated it. The sources noted that the act was the second of its kind and targeted lands owned by two Palestinian citizens. They charged that the step was meant to evict the farmers out of their land and to annex it to the nearby settlements of Kharsina and Kiryat Arba. The Baka‘a is the most fertile area in the region and its farmers are constantly harassed by Jewish settlers.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd
Otherwise occupied – the spirit of sacrifice / Amira Hass
Haaretz 8 Aug — Ilana Dayan told her listeners last week that the tent protesters can learn a lot from the settlers; a disturbing new report about dwindling Palestinian population in Area C confirms her remarks, though probably not in the way she intended … These remarks by Dayan offer a good lesson for those seeking social justice: Don’t look at individual matters like the size of the settlers’ mobile homes and villas, or their niceness. Focus on the policy that makes it possible to place mobile homes and build single-story homes and Jewish neighborhoods and housing for Jews and permits individual ranches, and two meters away from them razes Palestinian tents and houses. On both sides of the Green Line, but lack of space obliges us to focus on its eastern side.
link to www.haaretz.com
Settlers
‘Dozens’ of settlers enter West Bank holy site
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma‘an) 9 Aug — Thirty settlers living in the West Bank city of Hebron entered the Tomb of Othniel illegally on Tuesday, Israeli news reports said. Police and military forces evacuated the settlers who entered in protest of an army order rescinding permission to visit, the Israeli news site Ynet reported.
link to www.maannews.net
Extremist Jews invade Al-Aqsa Mosque for the second day
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 9 Aug — Under heavy police protection, Jewish settlers for the second day are provocatively roaming the Islamic Al-Aqsa Mosque as they mark Tisha B’Av, in memory of the destruction of the alleged Temple. Since 7am Tuesday, police have been seeing that Jews enter the mosque through the Mughrabi gate in back-to-back small groups in numbers larger than those who entered the mosque a day earlier. The intruders have been roaming in the mosque’s courtyards and prayer areas as Israeli police have threatened to prosecute and eject any Muslims who approach them. Reports show that Muslims observing I’tikaf at the mosque have even been forced out. Turmoil has enveloped the Muslim worshipers, and they have responded to the provocation by chanting “God is greater” in the faces of the intruders.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcO
Israeli settlers still wary leftist bodies stand behind the social protest / Akiva Eldar
Haaretz 9 Aug — Settler leaders understand levels of government construction in West Bank are controversial in wake of protests over lack of housing; Yeshiva Har Bracha head Rabbi says settlers wary of protests’ socialist trends that will privilege ‘a large and hostile Arab minority.’
link to www.haaretz.com
Israeli forces
Israeli police officers caught taking bribes for permitting smuggling from Palestinian Authority
Haaretz 9 Aug — In most cases, police charge around NIS 1,000 to let a vehicle through a checkpoint without examination, according to indictments; majority of cases are in the Jerusalem area.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-police-officers-caught-taking-bribes-for-permitting-smuggling-from-palestinian-authority-1.377689
IOF troops round up 17 Hamas supporters in Al-Khalil including 5 brothers
AL-KHALIL (PIC) 9 Aug — A big number of Israeli occupation forces (IOF) stormed Al-Khalil city at dawn Tuesday and launched a wide-scale arrest campaign in lines of Hamas cadres and supporters, Palestinian sources said. They said that the invading forces encircled four suburbs then started to break into homes and arrested Hamas leader Ayed Dudeen, who was recently released from prolonged administrative detention, and five brothers from the Qawasmi family … The soldiers arrested Ezzat Al-Natshe and his brother, the brothers Asem and Asy Al-Qawasmi, and Jalal Yaghmur, who was preparing for his wedding, along with his uncle and cousin …
In the village of Sa‘eer, the IOF soldiers broke into the home of Akram Jabarin and wreaked havoc on it before taking away a number of young men in the village.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bc
Israeli military invades Ni‘lin village 7 August 2011
Ni‘lin Sons 8 Aug — On the 7th of August at 2:30am, 13 military jeeps entered the village of Ni‘lin, took control of its southern region, and proceeded towards the nearby village of Qibya to arrest a Palestinian following an aggressive raid the previous night. Locals curious about the raid  have yet to ascertain why the man was arrested. This comes following an incitement to escalate tension by the Israeli military in a raid the previous night at 11:20 pm, when two military jeeps raided the town of Ni‘lin from the opposite side of the illegal Israeli separation wall through the adjacent fields, and began firing loud flares into the air, resulting in brush fires across these fields.
link to www.nilin-village.org
Gaza
Medics: Elderly woman injured by Israeli fire in Gaza
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 9 Aug — A 75-year-old Palestinian woman was injured by Israeli fire on Tuesday in the central Gaza Strip, medics said. Medical officials said the woman sustained moderate injuries after she was fired on by Israeli soldiers east of Juhor Ad-Dik. Witnesses said Israeli army tanks crossed the border into Gaza and clashed with Palestinian fighters before retreating.
link to www.maannews.net
Video: Gaza struggles with electricity crisis
PressTV 9 Aug —  Under Israeli blockade for over five years, Gaza’s electrical crisis continues unabated.  As a result, Gaza experiences outages of up to 12 hours a day, severely disrupting normal functioning of humanitarian infrastructure. The situation is specially hard during the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan. Most Gazans are forced to have their Iftar meals at dark with many unable to even cook a meal due to power outages. According to the Palestinian Non Governmental Organization network (PNGO), it’s incumbent on Israel as the occupying power to provide for the needs of the people, including adequate power, what it hasn’t done in 44 years.
link to www.presstv.ir
Qassam fighters confront Israeli military infiltration
GAZA (PIC) 9 Aug — Palestinian resistance fighters of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, confronted a special Israeli force that was sneaking into Juhr Al-Deek, south east of Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. Local sources told the PIC reporter that a group of the Qassam Brigades detected the infiltrating Israeli army unit near the garbage dump in Juhr Al-Deek. The sources said that the Qassam fighters fired mortar shells and an RPG projectile that directly hit the unit, adding that the unit withdrew after probable casualties. [no way to tell if this last is true, since the Israeli army doesn’t acknowledge such casualties]
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcO
2,000 Palestinians flee Libya violence
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 9 Aug — The Palestinian general consul in Alexandria Jamaal Al-Jamal said Tuesday that over 2,000 Palestinians have returned to the Gaza Strip from Libya as a consequence of the unrest there. President Mahmoud Abbas has given instructions to the relevant authorities to facilitate the return of others, he said, adding that Palestinian embassies in Tripoli, Alexandria and Cairo were coordinating with each other to assist their return … Over 34,000 Palestinian families live in Libya, numbering around 150,000 people.
link to www.maannews.net
Gazans campaign to save the children of Somalia / Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss 7 Aug — If an Israel terrorist sent a bag of potato chips to the starving people of Somalia, the New York Times would have put that on the front page and US TV news networks would have scrambled to interview the guy.  Yet, the people of Gaza (who are still under siege), have been organizing a collective campaign to help the people of Somalia and I did not see anything about it in the Western press.  (The poster above says:  From Gaza…hand in hand:  Let us save the children of Somalia”).
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/08/gazans-campaign-to-save-the-children-of-somalia.html
While in Gaza: the other Gilad Shalits / Johnny Barber
8 Aug — Even in Gaza, Shalit’s name comes up often. I attended the weekly demonstration of prisoners families held outside the ICRC every Monday. Mothers, fathers, wives, and children hold photos or posters of loved ones imprisoned in Israel for months, years, some for decades. A gentleman, recognizing I was from the U.S., said sarcastically, “Don’t these people know there is only one prisoner? His name is Shalit.” Since 1967, 700,000 Palestinians have been “detained” by Israel. Currently 7000 people are imprisoned. 37 of them are women; over 300 of them are children. When I visited the Ministry of Detainees in Gaza City I was challenged by the minister to name another region of the world where such a ministry was needed.
link to palestinechronicle.com
InGaza: Seeking leisure in Gaza under siege / Eva Bartlett
[with photos] 9 Aug — On any given evening, Gaza’s small downtown pedestrian area, the Jundi, is crowded with adults and children. Many are fleeing the heat of their homes during the regular power cuts. The majority are there for want of something to do, even if that means merely sitting on the park’s simple concrete benches to talk and sip tea. Snack vendors sell roasted nuts and seeds, and tea and coffee sellers circulate with flasks of sweet mint tea and spicy Arabic coffee. In recent years, mimicking New York City’s Central Park, three horses and the old-fashioned style carriages they pull, also circulate the park.
link to ingaza.wordpress.com
Detention
Decision to release prisoner who finished sentence rescinded
RAMALLAH (PIC) 9 Aug — Israeli occupation authorities have retracted a decision to release prisoner Alaa Tahir Samar, 28, from Jenin governorate, after his eight-year prison term came to an end a few days ago. Sources among prisoners in the Negev prison said Samar was informed that he would be released on Thursday. The prison administration has yet to give a reason why it has taken back the decision. Prisoners deem the move as part of a psychological warfare in response to a farewell ceremony that prisoners launched ahead of Samar’s release.
In a separate development, an Israeli court sentenced Monday Hamas leader and former Aqaba mayor Mustafa Saeed Abu Arra to six months in administrative detention after the public prosecutor failed to pin an indictment on him … It has been one year since Abu Arra has been released from spending two years in administrative prior to his recent arrest.
Meanwhile, Amjad Beshkar, from the Askar refugee camp east of Nablus, has been sentenced to a second term of six months in administrative detention, the ISFHR added.The Ofer military court has thrown out the extension and is working on preparing an indictment, but it is expected that the Israeli intelligence agency will appeal the court’s decision in the next few days.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcO
Rights group calls for release of Al-Bireh mayor’s daughter
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 9 Aug — A Palestinian prisoners’ rights group on Tuesday called for the release of Bushra Al-Tawil, the daughter of the mayor of Al-Bireh, who has been held by Israeli authorities for a month without charge. Israeli forces arrested Al-Tawil, 18, on July 6, 2011 after a raid on her family home in Al-Bireh. No explanation was given for her arrest, and more than a month later she has not been charged with any crime, human rights network for Palestinian prisoners UFree said.
link to www.maannews.net
Refugees
Ain al Hilweh refugees reeling after latest clashes
SIDON, Lebanon 9 Aug : Residents of the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh are devastated by the extensive damage to their property after hours of armed clashes between local groups in the camp which left six wounded over the weekend, two of whom are said to be in a critical condition. Saturday’s altercation, which was the most violent in a year, pitted gunmen from Fatah against Islamists from Jund al-Sham, which is allied to the Al-Qaeda-inspired group Fatah al-Islam. Thirteen year-old Salah George and youth Ahmad Mubarak are on life support systems.
link to www.paltelegraph.com
Bias / Discrimination
‘Train ticket? We don’t serve women here’
Ynet 9 Aug — Haredi woman seeking to purchase light rail ticket in one of Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods sent to stand located two blocks away. Her husband, on the other hand, receives full-service treatment
link to www.ynetnews.com
Israeli nursing school rescinds ban on speaking Russian and Arabic
Haaretz 9 Aug — The Health Ministry has instructed the School of Nursing in Ashkelon, part of the city’s Barzilai Medical Center, to withdraw an order banning students from speaking any language other than Hebrew on campus.
link to www.haaretz.com
Political / Diplomatic / International
Arab states to head UN in September
WASHINGTON (Ynet) 9 Aug — Two Arab states will head the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly in September, the month which is expected to see a vote on recognition for a Palestinian state. Lebanon will serve as president of the Security Council in September and Qatar will head the General Assembly for one year as of next month.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Erekat denies Palestinian plans to delay bid for UN recognition
Haaretz 9 Aug — Chief Palestinian negotiator tells WAFA that ‘the recognition train has already left for New York’; Al Sharq Al-Awsat reports that the PA wants to delay UN bid, fearing cutoff of U.S. aid to West Bank.
link to www.haaretz.com
Palestinians study UN status options
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) — Permanent Palestinian observer to the United Nations Riyad Mansour said Tuesday that the option of changing Palestine’s status from “observer entity” to a “non-member state” is still being studied. Mansour told the Italian news agency AKI that becoming a non-member state “does not invalidate the right to become a member state as recommended by several UN resolutions such as resolution 181 in 1947.”
link to www.maannews.net
US ‘deeply concerned’ by Israel’s approval of East Jerusalem construction
Haaretz/AP 9 Aug — U.S. criticism comes days after EU’s Catherine Ashton and Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat criticized Israel’s decision to approve the building of 930 homes in Har Homa neighborhood.
link to www.haaretz.com
Barak: Don’t cut funding to defense budget
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma‘an) 9 Aug — Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday said Israel should not cut funding for the military because “security-wise we don’t live in Switzerland of Finland.”
link to www.maannews.net
Israel ‘deploys drones’ over offshore gas fields
JERUSALEM (AFP) 9 Aug — Israel has deployed drones to keep watch on gas fields off its northern coast, fearing attack by the Hezbollah militia from neighboring Lebanon, the Jerusalem Post daily reported on Tuesday. The fields lie in a part of the Mediterranean that is claimed by Israel for gas exploration and production, but Lebanon says the fields lie within its territorial waters.
link to www.maannews.net
Analysis / Opinion / Human interest
‘Recently I was someone, now I’m nobody’ / Mats Svensson
Pal. Chron. 8 Aug — I have visited Muhammad around sixty times. But it is only now that we begin to really talk to each other …  Over a long period of time we came to meet several times each week. We sat on his porch when the dragon passed and lay down heavily in front of his house. The dragon that shut out the light, which meant that the sun set already at three pm, making the view over the old city disappear. For him, it meant that everything died, plans, dreams and a possible future. ”Recently I was someone,” he says again. He says it with heavy and sad eyes. I had just thought about leaving, I had completed my visit, I wanted to return to Jerusalem, I was going to the American Colony in the evening. But I stayed and began to listen to someone who no longer felt that he was somebody … He would like to show me everything he is proud of, his expertise. “But Mats, I cannot show you that. I can’t even show you what I have done. I can’t bring you to the people who are grateful for what I have built. I have no rights left, I cannot even bear the fruit of what I own. Perhaps the most difficult is the fact that I cannot care for my 102 olive trees. Well, I can take care of two. You can see them through the window. The other 100 are a few kilometers from the checkpoint between Abu Dis and Bethlehem. But they are too close to an Israeli settlement. The last time I tried to harvest the trees was eight years ago. I was driven away like a dog…”
link to palestinechronicle.com
Haaretz editorial: Netanyahu must distance himself from Lieberman
9 Aug — …It seems that even Netanyahu is not inclined to listen to the foreign minister’s bizarre suggestion to abandon the West Bank to anarchy, a step that would force Israel itself to bear responsibility for the welfare and fate of all the citizens in the area. But if Netanyahu does not distance himself from the attempt of one the most senior ministers in his government to spread belligerence, he will not be able to fulfill his obligation to ensure peace and security.
link to www.haaretz.com
Focus USA – American idyll / Natasha Mozgovaya
WASHINGTON (Haaretz) 9 Aug —  There are about 500,000 Israelis living in the U.S. and many of them have likely asked themselves in the past few weeks if they would be among those setting up tents on Rothschild Boulevard or pushing a stroller in a protest …Israelis living in the U.S. for years seemed to be as befuddled as Americans seeing reports about the tent cities on CNN. Do the Israelis, with 5.8 percent unemployment, know that in the U.S. unemployment is stuck over 9 percent? Would they try to complain about the rent in Manhattan? What do they expect the government to do? Don’t they want to solve first the Palestinian-Israeli issue? Those who came to the U.S. more recently were divided among those who said they vividly remembered the feeling of helplessness and anger, with both partners working and having no chance to buy an apartment in the middle of Tel Aviv, even if they were natives of the city – and those who said, well, that’s nice, but enough of the mothership’s troubles.
link to www.haaretz.com
groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi (listserv)
www.theheadlines.org (archive)

Severed cables lead to 12-hour communication blackout in Gaza

Aug 10, 2011

annie

Ma’an News

Paltel executive manager Ammar Al-Aker told Ma’an that Israeli bulldozers destroyed a fiber-optics cable near the border that cut mobile, Internet and international landline services for over 12 hours beginning late Tuesday.

Al-Aker said bulldozers struck several cables, the first of which was located eight meters underground. Backup cables 20 meters deep also sustained damage, eventually taking the entire network offline.

Close Enough to Touch: A view from Ramallah

Aug 10, 2011

Sam Kestenbaum

Ramallah’s Al-manara Square in 2007. (Photo: FLIckr)

In the small, dimly lit Archeological Museum of Ramallah, a timeline of the city and its surrounding villages is pasted on the wall. It runs through all of the major periods in ancient and modern history. On display in the three-storey museum are brittle artifacts dug from the nearby hills—bowls, tools and statues.
Firas Aqel, the thin, clean-shaven Palestinian director of the museum, acts as its curator, too. “We’ve been through many stages of history, different people ruling the land, as you can see,” he says and points at the timeline.
“The Crusaders, then the Turks, then the British were here. The Jordanians and now we have Israel,” he says. “Through all of this, the Palestinians have been in this area. People have been living in these hills. We’re in the land.”
There may have been people here, but Ramallah of the past was very different from today’s overcrowded, bustling city; there wasn’t too much here. For most of its history, Ramallah has been a small, pastoral town, nestled in the quiet hills to the north of Jerusalem.
Ramallah’s size, with a municipal population of around 30,000 and a regional population of nearly 300,000 is a recent development. Its principal status, as the cultural and economic center, and political capital of the Palestinian West Bank, is also new. It wasn’t always this way.

A Place of Refuge
To understand the character of the city, we have to go back in time, to the 16th century, when a group of Christians settled in Ramallah from present-day Jordan.
They were fleeing religious strife—sectarian disagreements between Muslims and Christians—and came west looking for peace. They found it here. This is the folktale that is told (in a few different variations) by older residents, and it’s become an important narrative for the city, commemorated by statues in the city’s central square. Ramallah’s first residents were exiles.
They built their new homes on the ruins of old, crumbling crusader castles and worked as farmers, shepherds and blacksmiths. Their town grew, slowly and steadily. Powers shifted, but Ramallah stayed free of regional politics and strife.
In the 19th century, the British came to Ramallah and occupied the city by military force, but also brought electricity, modern infrastructure and jobs to the small city. When the British Mandate ended, Israel declared its statehood and life in Ramallah changed again.
“In 1948, the population of Ramallah doubled,” says Khaldun Bshara. Bshara is the author of a number of books and articles about architectural restoration and cultural preservation in the West Bank, including an essay called “The Palestinian Spaces of Memory’s Role in the Reconstruction of New Collective Narrative in the Nation Building Process.”
“The birth of this city as we know it,” Bshara says, “was a result of the Nakba.” Al-Nakba, or “The Catastrophe,” was the exodus of over 750,000 Palestinians.
Palestinian refugees, many coming from coastal cities like Jaffa and Haifa, Bshara explains, made their way to Ramallah. Refugees set up camps on the outskirts of the town or moved into homes in the city. There are four official refugee camps in the Ramallah area, Ama’ri, eir Amma, Jalazon and Qalandia, formed in ’49.
Following the creation of Israel, the West Bank went under Jordanian rule. That changed in ’67, after the 1967 War, when the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were occupied by Israeli troops.
“In 1971, Israel redefined the borders of Ramallah,” Bshara says “And at the same time there was a strategic limiting of Ramallah’s growth. They defined where and how the city would develop. During occupation, growth of the city came to a halt. You had to apply for building permits and jump through hoops,” he says.
“A lot of other things changed, too,” Bshara continues, “We lost a lot of our fundamental freedoms. Moving from place to place became harder.”
Close Enough to Touch
Ramallah means “God’s Hill,” or “The Heights of God,” and is a mixture of Aramaic and Arabic. Ram is an Aramaic word for hill, and Allah is the Arabic name for God. The city is built on a cluster of small hills, bunched together. The city is at a higher altitude than Jerusalem and the air is always slightly cooler.
If you stand on one of the taller hills, you can see far into the surrounding landscape. Rolling, rocky hills spread in all directions, dotted with low, gnarled trees.
Israel’s seperation wall is nearby, too, and settlements crouch on high lands in the distance. Some days, you can see Jerusalem’s skyline. On clear, crisp nights you can also see all the way to Tel Aviv, where the coastal city’s lights fall away into the expanse of the Mediterranean. Few Palestinians in Ramallah have been to the ocean or Jerusalem, but from here, these places feel close enough to touch.

From al-Manara Square, the central roundabout in downtown Ramallah, Jerusalem is exactly 14.63 kilometers away. This precise distance is printed on a blue ceramic plaque posted in the square, a reminder of how close we are to the old, sacred city.
Every morning, the military checkpoint at Qalandia is a congested mess, as Palestinians with proper Israel-issued identification attempt to pass into Jerusalem to either work or—on Friday—pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque. There are also East Jerusalem Palestinians who have jobs in Ramallah; they’ll attempt to pass through the checkpoint in the afternoons, retuning home after a day’s work. It can take hours to go through the checkpoint.

“Jerusalem is our original city,” Sameeh T. Hammoudeh, a professor of Political Science from Birzeit University, says.
“Israel has encouraged us to forget about Jerusalem and to think of Ramallah as our capital,” he explains. Palestinian institutions and political organizations are barred from East Jerusalem, he notes.
“But if we had any say—if we could choose our capital—of course it would be Jerusalem,” Hammoudeh tells me, “not Ramallah.”
Palestinians in Ramallah cling to their memories of Jerusalem, or Al-Quds in Arabic, “The Holy.” It’s always been a sacred symbol; here, it’s taken on a powerful nationalistic, significance.
There are four official UN refugee camps in Ramallah, and other, unofficial neighborhoods where more refugees live, too. On the walls of a camp to the east of the city center, there are spray-painted Palestinian flags, and one colorful wall-sized mural of the Dome of the Rock.
Handcrafts shops in Ramallah’s teeming city center sell traditional khaffiyehs, hand made dresses and embroidery. One wall hanging depicts Handala—the iconic young, barefoot, cartoon refugee drawn by Naj al-Ali—next to a Palestinian flag. “Home is Where the Heart is,” is embroidered in colorful letters.
“The West Bank was Choked.”
Almost every corner of the city is being developed. In downtown Ramallah, surrounding al-Manara square, shops are stacked on top of each other. Streets are cluttered and bustling. Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank in large part is what caused Ramallah to grow to its now-swollen size.
To some extent during the first and definitely during the second intifada, the West Bank “was strangled,” Dr. Adel Yahya says. Yahya is the author of “Palestinian Refugees: 1948-1998” and director of the Palestinian Association of Cultural Exchange, an organization that leads tours through the occupied West Bank (“We don’t deal with politics on our tours,” he says, “just cultural history. But inevitably we run into soldiers.”)
“Nablus was strangled during the second intifada. Hebron has since been strangled from within. The West Bank was choked. All of the business moved to Ramallah,” Yahya says. Conditions here are easier; there is a relative peace.
The construction of the separation wall in 2002 and the institution of military checkpoints put further strain on the West Bank economy. The regular growth of Israeli settlements—there are now officially 120 settlements in the West Bank, and another 100 unofficial outposts—has put a very real pressure on Palestinian cities. Bypass roads, open only to settlers and Israeli military, isolate the Palestinian West Bank into separate sections and further limit movement and growth.
Ramallah, thanks in part to international aid, quickly recovered from the damage done during the second intifada. There are still some parts of the city where you can tell the city was under military siege, but not many. The city is growing, but it is an uneven, untenable growth.
“When you look at the city, it looks like it’s developing. It looks good. But if you look close, Ramallah’s infrastructure is not suited for this,” Yahya tells me. “It’s crowded. It’s polluted. The economy cannot grow coherently. This isn’t sustainable.”

“Where’s the State?”
Despite U.S. President Barak Obama’s words of warning, and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s rigid, uncompromising position about “indefensible borders,” Mahmoud Abbas, whose offices are located here in Ramallah, will likely go forward with a Palestinian bid for state recognition at September’s U.N. meeting. The State of Palestine, if it will be recognized, will be based on the ’67 borders and East Jerusalem will be the capital.
In Ramallah, some Palestinians remain hopeful, but wary. They have good reason to remain skeptical. They’ve seen this before. “How many times have we declared our statehood?” Bshara asks. Expectations are not high because “there’s a severe imbalance of power,” Hammoudeh explains.
“Israel has the sovereignty,” Hammoudeh goes on. “Even if the whole world acknowledges a Palestinian state, Israel is still occupying us. They have control over our land, our economy, our politics. The U.N. vote is a political move, a moral, ethical gesture—which we need—but that’s all.”
“Maybe they’ll recognize a state,” he shrugs. “But what state? Where’s the state?”
“It’s not likely that we’ll see immediate results,” Yahya adds, “but we’ll corner the U.S. and put pressure on Netanhayu.”
“We don’t have an airport, we pay taxes to Israel, we don’t have our own borders,” Bshara says. “Why announce our independence when we are still occupied? Our land is sliced up into sections; we are limited to our cities. We can’t move freely.”
Ramallah’s Deputy Mayor, Mahmoud Abdullah, wears a neat three-piece suit and is generally optimistic about municipal development. (Sidewalks are being widened in parts of Ramallah; gardens are being planted.) But he is worried that conditions in Ramallah and the West Bank could become worse after September. “Israel could choose to make life harder for us, not easier,” he says. “It’s up to them.”

“The Beacon”
Abu Suffiyan works in a men’s clothing shop near al-Manara Square. He’s lived in Hebron and Jerusalem, but now calls Ramallah home. He came here to work and to raise his family. Business isn’t great, he says, but it’s manageable.
“In al-Khalil, what the Jews call Hebron,” he explains, “the situation is too hard. So I came here.” Abu Suffiyan looks from his shop windows into the swarming al-Manara Square, the heart of Ramallah.
On the edges of the square there are two banks—a Bank of Palestine and an Arab Bank—a fresh juice stand and a popular shawarma shop. There are also a cluster of other stalls selling spices, soap, hats, sponges and sweaters; the goods sprawl onto the sidewalk. Shops are stacked on top of each other; every crevasse and alleyway reveals another storefront or business.
Over the bustle of the square, the call to prayer sounds from the Jamal Abdel Nasser Mosque, one block away. The mosque is one of the biggest in the West Bank, after al-Aqsa.
The six main arteries of the city converge at al-Manara. One block away you can catch buses to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nablus, Jericho, Hebron and all of the villages in between.
During the British Mandate, Ramallah’s electricity was distributed from al-Manara, and this is how the square got its name. There used to be a small iron box sitting in the middle of the square with a light bulb mounted on top “about the size of a watermelon,” Naseen Shahen writes in “A Pictorial History of Ramallah.”
When the light was turned on, the entire square was illuminated. If you were walking in the dark, the light from the square could guide you, from blocks away. People started calling it al-Manara, “The Beacon,” and the name stuck.
A sculpture of lions, said to represent one of Ramallah’s founding Christian families, was put up in the ’50s. It was removed in ’83 when the city was under full Israeli-control, but a new, bigger set of sculptures—again of the same symbolic lions—was put up in ’93.
From Abu Suffiyan’s shop, he has a clear view of the traffic circle around al-Manara, where boys climb on top of the faded, stone lions and pose for pictures. Abu Suffiyan’s looking for better work, he says. His job doesn’t pay too well and the hours are gruelingly long.
“I need a better job. Really. The pay is too small, even here in Ramallah,” he says.
He’s standing in the doorway, on the street, during a lull in the workday. It’s late afternoon, almost dusk. “But it won’t go on forever. Something will come up for me,” he says. “Things will change, little by little.”
Abu Suffiyan lives in sight of Jerusalem—where his brother and sister live—but can’t go there himself. He also spent one year in prison, for defending himself against an attack from extremist, West Bank settlers. His life, like many here, has been directly affected by the conflict.
Ramallah’s citizens, like Abu Suffiyan, share something with the original 16th century refugees. They’re leaving conflict behind, and on top of yesterday’s ruins, hoping to move on and make a new life. And maybe, eventually, a state.
Someone comes into the store and Abu Suffiyan greets them. “Salaam alaykum, tfadal,” Peace be with you, welcome.” It’s Saturday night, and in al-Manara, the stream of traffic is steady.
Lights from coffee shops shine around the square and the smell of argilla wafts through the air. Evening prayer has begun at the mosque and three of four stories above, someone has pushed their windows open wide. Their radio is on, playing an Arabic dance song, and the pulsing melody lifts into the night.

Sam Kestenbaum is an American writer and editor based in the West Bank. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Jerusalem Report and The World of Chinese. He is a regular contributor to The Palestine Monitor and Tikkun Daily.

Even Washington Post does story on 81 House Reps to Israel. Will network news follow?

Aug 10, 2011

Philip Weiss

The news that 81 members of Congress are junketing to Israel and Palestine has hit a nerve. My wife was shocked to hear the number, and she’s a good barometer; the Atlantic wire is on it, and even the Washington Post has done a story, by Al Kamen. Though it is weak in its refusal to ask the question, Why are these people doing this? (We all know why; but is that any excuse for journalistic indifference?) The story emphasizes the fact that the junket is being paid for by AIPAC offshoot, the American Israel Education Foundation.

Also, here is Jonathan Tobin at Commentary, doing an I-am-Israel-lobby-hear-me-roar post. That’s the thing about the lobby. When you attack them, they deny it exists, and then they love to flex their muscles, with the usual laughable disclaimer that the reps are representing American public opinion:

at a time when Israel is confronted by a White House cooler to the Jewish state than any in the last two decades, Congress is the backstop that gives Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu the ability to say “no” to President Obama on security concessions. Far from being a minority point of view imposed on the country, the broad-based nature of the pro-Israel coalition cuts across the deep partisan divide in Washington and is deeply ingrained in the political culture of the United States.

Obama has followed up on his May ambush of Netanyahu with a summer of diplomatic pressure on Jerusalem. But the Congress, which in this case is a good reflection of American public opinion on the Middle East, stands ready to act as a brake on the confused foreign policies put forward by Obama.

Be careful when you play that Jewish card

Aug 10, 2011

Philip Weiss

Jerry Haber is perturbed that a flotilla activist, Gabe Schivone, characterized himself as Jewish in an op-ed and said he was representative of a movement among young Jews of casting off Zionism, and then his Jewishness was questioned (by a friend’s letter), and Schivone admitted that he made the claim because of vague Jewish ancestry in Mexico. I am not sure how much to care about the question. I am a little irritated by anyone putting on airs, and certainly we have seen lots of people deploy their Jewishness, to gain standing in this issue… I’ve seen people claim Arab ancestry with the same goal… In the end, as Haber says, the religious identity of the speaker doesn’t affect the issue. And our goal here is to get more and more people in this conversation, regardless of their origins. Everyone counts. And yet, if you care about identity politics, this is an interesting question. Here is the meat of Haber’s argument:

I don’t know Gabe Schivone, though I have associates who have been impressed with the young man. But his case raises several issues that should be considered separately.

First, playing the Jewish card. Jewish critics of Israel have been accused of cynically exploiting their identity in order to establish “credibility.” This is not a serious criticism because the phenomenon, if it exists, is rare.

On the contrary, most Jewish critics of Israel who emphasize their Jewishness do so because it is part of their identity, and often closely tied to their demand for social justice, their desire to dissociate themselves as Jews from a Jewish ideology that they abhor, etc. Many Jewish critics of Israel — and here I would put many people I know from Jewish Voice for Peace, of which Schivone is an active member — are motivated not only by their concern for human rights, but by their feeling a special responsibility as Jews for the plight of the Palestinians, and because this treatment does not reflect values they consider to be Jewish. Their critics may consider this misguided, but it is not a cynical exploitation of their Jewishness.

In fact, many non-affiliated Jews have become more Jewish because of their association with the struggle for Palestinian rights. I recently heard a talk from Hebrew University demographer Sergio dellaPergola, who acknowledged this phenomenon. Opposition to Israeli policies often increase a sense of Jewish identity.

But with Schivone we are not talking about a nominal Jew who becomes more Jewish through his pro-Palestinian activism. We may be talking about a person whose Jewish ancestry (if he has it) became more significant to him as he began to associate with Jews on campus. I have seen that happen time and time again; students who are not Jewish according to conventional demarcators may feel more and more Jewish if they hang with Jewish crowds, go to Hillel or Chabad (neither of whom excludes non-Jews). I knew one gentile who faithfully attended orthodox services, who had no intention to convert to Judaism, but who felt close to traditional Judaism as a bat Noah (a gentile who has accepted what rabbinic Judaism says is incumbent upon them). Sure, she didn’t claim to be Jewish, but she let Jewish tradition define who she is and what she should do. In America, today, the parameters of Jewish identity are shifting, and demographers count Jews according to multiple criteria (one criterion counts you as a Jew if you live in a household in which there is a Jew).

Had Schivone said, “I am an American of Jewish ancestry who has become more and more attached to Jews and Judaism through my work with JVP” I would see no problem with that. The problem is that he misrepresented himself by calling himself Jewish; he simply is not Jewish according to the most liberal criteria, no more than Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who claims Irish ancestry, is Irish-American. And by not being forthcoming — and then by playing the Jewish card — he has damaged his credibility.