Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

• Bronner lets controversy subside, then cancels 92d St appearance w/ Perle and Bolton

• ‘You lost’ — reporters at State say UNESCO vote isolates U.S. from world opinion (and possibly from intellectual property enforcement)

• Goldstone sugarcoats persecution to try to save Israel

• Caption contest

• South Africans think Israel is practicing apartheid

• Does the UNESCO vote pave the way for broader Palestinian acceptance within the UN system?

• Goldstone contra Goldstone

• 80 year old Palestinian woman stoned by settlers

• Could Goldstone’s logic in defense of Israel have saved apartheid in South Africa?

• What Palestine’s UNESCO membership could mean on the ground

Bronner lets controversy subside, then cancels 92d St appearance w/ Perle and Bolton
Nov 01, 2011 11:34 pm | Philip Weiss

No surprise– New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner has cancelled his scheduled appearance on an Islamophobic panel at the 92d Street Y organized by the Clarion Fund with neocons Richard Perle and John Bolton sharing the stage. The Times tells Politico’s Ben Smith that Bronner didn’t know what Clarion is, or who his stagemates were.

But look for the Islamophobic neocon cirque de soleil to go on, on Lexington Avenue, without the beard! (The 92d Street Y, which cannot have a Palestinian on stage by himself; Zionism is corrupting our intellectual tradition.)

And note the playbook: Bronner let a week or so pass following the controversy over his appearance (set off by Eli Clifton) so that it would not appear that he was leaving under pressure. (Look for the Times to follow the same procedure when it announces, inevitably, during a lull some months from now, that Bronner is leaving the Jerusalem bureau, nothing to do with the criticisms…)

‘You lost’ — reporters at State say UNESCO vote isolates U.S. from world opinion (and possibly from intellectual property enforcement)

Nov 01, 2011

Philip Weiss

Below is the transcript of the amazing interchange yesterday between State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland and AP’s Matt Lee, among other reporters at the daily briefing. The reporters have had it with the emperor’s new clothes.

Matt Lee points out repeatedly how the United States has isolated itself from world opinion on the UNESCO vote, damaging our standing. The claim that the vote upsets the peace process is bull, Lee says; all the UNESCO vote does is “it upsets Israel.” And a nettled Nuland accuses him of engaging in “a polemic.”

Also note the back-and-forth about intellectual property conventions. The Palestinians are now certain to gain membership in the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, another UN body.

When the U.S. deals itself out of UNESCO, the interests of American multinational corps are hurt. As Lee comments, “I used to think that this government, my government, had some intellect itself, but this just seems ridiculous.”

Finally, note the exchange over the Madrid process, which began 20 years ago and has only resulted, a questioner says, in Palestinian land being gobbled up. What does the U.S. have to show for the peace process? At the end Nuland says fretfully, “Moving on, please!”

Excerpts:

Matt Lee: All right. So, this was not particularly a banner day for U.S. diplomacy. If you count the abstentions, you had — 159 countries did not vote the way you did. Only 13 did. That would seem to suggest that these countries don’t agree with you that this is such a big problem. Those countries included the French – France. They included numerous members of the Security Council. What happens to them now that you’re punishing UNESCO? What happens to these countries that voted to, in this regrettable way that is going to undermine the peace process?

MS. NULAND: Well, those countries obviously made their own national decisions on this vote. We disagree with them. We made clear that we disagreed with them before the vote. We make clear that we disagree with them after the vote. We also make clear here today that we want to continue our relationship with UNESCO. But as we said before this vote, and as we have had to say today, legislative restrictions compel us to withhold our funding now. And that will have an impact on UNESCO.

QUESTION: But going back to – you said in your opening you said that this was regrettable, premature, and undermines our shared goal. Who’s shared goal? Who shares this goal, other than the 13 other countries that voted with you, now?

MS. NULAND: Countries all over the international system share the goal of a Palestinian state and secure borders —

QUESTION: Why would the possibly do something – how could they possibly do something that you say is so horrible and detrimental to that process? How can they – how can you still count them – count on them as sharing this goal?

MS. NULAND: You’ll have to speak to them about why they made the decision that they made. We considered that this was, as I said, regrettable, premature, and undermines the prospect of getting where we want to go. And that’s what we’re concerned about.

QUESTION: Okay and then how does it undermine, exactly? How does it undermine the prospect of where you want to go?

MS. NULAND: The concern is that it creates tensions when all of us should be concerting our efforts to get the parties back to the table.

QUESTION: The only tensions that it creates – the only thing it does is it upsets Israel and it triggers this law that will require you to stop funding UNESCO. Is there anything else? There’s nothing that changes on the ground is there?

MS. NULAND: Our concern is that this could exacerbate the environment which we’re trying to work through so that the parties will get back to the table.

QUESTION: How exactly does it exacerbate the environment if it changes nothing on the ground, unlike say, construction of settlements? It changes nothing on the ground. It gives Palestine membership in UNESCO, which is a body that the U.S. didn’t — was so unconcerned about for many years that it just wasn’t even a member.

MS. NULAND: Well, I think you know that this Administration is committed to UNESCO, rejoined UNESCO, wants to see UNESCO’s work go forward —

QUESTION: Well, actually, it was the last Administration that rejoined UNESCO, not this one. But the – I need to have some kind of clarity on how this undermines the peace process other than the fact that it upsets Israel.

MS. NULAND: Again, we are trying to get both of these parties back to the table. That’s what we’ve been doing all along. That was the basis for the President’s speech in May, basis of the diplomacy that the Quartet did through the summer, the basis of the statement that the Quartet came out with in September. So, in that context, we have been trying to improve the relationship between these parties, improve the environment between them, and we are concerned that we exacerbate tensions with this, and it makes it harder to get the parties back to the table.

QUESTION: Since the talks broke off last September until today, how many times have they met together with all your effort?

MS. NULAND: How many times have the parties met?

QUESTION: Yes.

MS. NULAND: I think you know the answer to that question.

QUESTION: Correct.

MS. NULAND: It doesn’t change the fact that we all are committed to trying —

QUESTION: So how can things get worse than they already are?

MS. NULAND: Matt, I think you’re engaged in a polemic here rather than questions.

Said. Please.

QUESTION: You think you’re going to get better from the next person?

MS. NULAND: Go ahead, Said.

QUESTION: Yes, Victoria. On the shared values, does that mean that hundred and seven countries, you do not share values with?

MS. NULAND: A hundred and seven countries made their own decision on this vote.

QUESTION: Right….

QUESTION: And then in terms of the impact on related organizations, several high-tech and pharmaceutical firms are said to be meeting here at State this afternoon to discuss how the lack of financial support from the U.S. might have an impact on their ability to work in the countries where UNESCO and the WIPO have their work being conducted. What more can you tell us about this meeting? How does this affect the Apples, the Googles, the pharmas of the world, when they’re looking at potentially being shut out of potentially lucrative markets?

MS. NULAND: Well, Ros, I think you’re referring to the meeting that Assistant Secretary for International Organizations Esther Brimmer is having today with representatives from some of the U.S. majors around the world to explain what the implications of this vote might be for U.S. business abroad. But my understanding is Assistant Secretary Brimmer is particularly going to call their attention to the potential that the Palestinians may now gain admission to the World Intellectual Property Organization. So – and that might have some implications for our ability to work in that organization. And of course, that’s a very important organization for companies, like the high-tech list that you cited.

QUESTION: And then —

QUESTION: — quick follow-up?

QUESTION: Well, then, what do you do – then what is the U.S. Government then telling these companies, which have been extremely concerned about intellectual piracy, dummy drugs, dummy consumer products? Does – is U.S. business being unfairly impacted because of this legislative restriction, and how can the U.S. Government try to resolve it? Or rather, the Executive Branch, how can it resolve it so that the business community isn’t unduly upset by all this?

MS. NULAND: Well, obviously, she wants to make sure that these companies understand the implications of what has already happened, but also with regard to the intellectual property organization, WIPO, she wants to make sure that companies understand that Palestinian membership in WIPO could trigger – would trigger similar funding restrictions and could diminish U.S. influence in an organization that’s very important to these companies. So we need to make sure that our companies understand the implications of what’s happened and begin that conversation with them.

QUESTION: Would it be fair to suggest that perhaps, with this meeting, the State Department is hoping to induce these companies to lobby for a change, an easing of these restrictions on UNESCO funding?

MS. NULAND: I think the stage that we are at is to make sure that our companies understand what may or may not be happening in this circumstance so that we can open a conversation about how we protect their interests going forward.

..QUESTION: Back on the WIPO, actually, I was just wondering if you’d go a little bit further and explain to us what she’s telling the companies would be the effect of the reduced U.S. funding or an eliminated U.S. funding in WIPO. Does that – what would that – what effect would that practically have on U.S. companies operating overseas? Would it make the whole mechanism less efficient or would it reduce the protection for U.S. companies? What is the threat there to U.S. companies?.

MS. NULAND: Andy, let me see if I can get a little bit more for you on the specifics of the message being given, but certainly to make clear that if there’s an application to WIPO then – and the Palestinians become WIPO members, that it will trigger the same kind of funding cutoff, so already the organization will have less money to work with, but also that it could diminish our influence within WIPO, which has been very important to these companies.

QUESTION: Quite apart from the congressional lot, you’re opposed to the Palestinians having membership in the World Intellectual Property Organization?

MS. NULAND: We are.

QUESTION: You are?

MS. NULAND: Yeah.

QUESTION: Because the Palestinians don’t have any intellectual property, or because their intellectual property, because they’re not a state, is somehow less protectable or less worthy of protection?

MS. NULAND: Because this is a cascade effect of the decision in the UNESCO which we consider —

QUESTION: What does protecting intellectual property have to do – anything to do with statehood?

MS. NULAND: It has to do with the declaration of state status in UNESCO, which cascades into WIPO, that we are opposed to.

QUESTION: I used to think that this government, my government, had some intellect itself, but this just seems ridiculous. You are going to oppose them in some kind of international weather organization as well? The Civil Aviation Organization?

MS. NULAND: Our position on this with regard to all the UN agencies is the same.

QUESTION: You can – you think that there is somewhere – somewhere in this building that someone can draw a intellectually responsible and acceptable argument that membership in the World Intellectual Property Organization should not be granted to the Palestinians because they are not a state, because their intellectual property, because they’re not a state, is somehow less deserving of protection than anyone else’s, including the Syrians, including whoever else?

MS. NULAND: Matt, the move here is not with regard to the aspiration that we all have for the Palestinians to have access to and full rights of all of these UN organizations. The concern here is trying to shortcut the process of statehood, trying to establish statehood through the back door —

QUESTION: But see, that’s the —

MS. NULAND: Can I finish my point, please?

QUESTION: Yeah.

MS. NULAND: Thank you. Rather than establishing true statehood the way it has to be done, which is in direct negotiations with their neighbor. And from that can flow all of the benefits of these organizations.

QUESTION: But not even the Palestinians themselves say that this is a way to statehood. They —

MS. NULAND: Well, but what has been granted here —

QUESTION: They know that this is not – this does not mean statehood.

MS. NULAND: What has been granted here in UNESCO is Palestinian membership and statehood status. That’s what’s of concern.

QUESTION: I’m sorry, and the Palestinian vote on that?

MS. NULAND: Excuse me?

QUESTION: The Palestinians didn’t vote for this. A hundred and seven other countries, including some of your best friends, voted for this. The Palestinians didn’t vote for it; they just simply put it up for – they put it up for a vote. They didn’t have a vote on this.

MS. NULAND: This began —

QUESTION: You lost.

MS. NULAND: Matt —

QUESTION: Why —

MS. NULAND: Are you asking me a question that you’d like me to answer, or are you just going to have an argument with me today?

QUESTION: No, no. I’m – I want to know why you think, and everyone else – which is a position that everyone else disagrees with, that this is somehow – that this hurts the peace process or hurts the ability of the Palestinians to get a state, short of just upsetting the Israelis?

MS. NULAND: Start with the premise this process in UNESCO began with a Palestinian petition for membership, which we thought was ill-advised and ill-considered, and which we so said to the Palestinians at the time. So the Palestinians made a move here that we didn’t think was conducive to the environment for the talks or conducive to getting us back to the table. That is our concern. We want to get the Palestinians their state. It’s only going to happen if we can get these parties back to the table. We have to create an environment that gets them back to the table, and this is not helpful.

QUESTION: Okay. But you accept that 107 countries disagreed with you.

MS. NULAND: A hundred and seven countries made their own decision. We disagree with them.

QUESTION: Right. Exactly. So, I mean, isn’t it maybe – doesn’t that tell you anything, that if you add in the abstentions, which included the Brits, your special ally, who abstained, then 159 countries disagreed with you?

MS. NULAND: It tells us that we are not any closer to a Palestinian state by virtue of this vote today. We are trying to get to that end state that we want, that the Palestinians want, and we don’t think this is helpful.

QUESTION: I’m just curious. Did the Secretary have any personal diplomacy on this subject? Did she make any calls to Brits, French, whoever, in recent days specifically regarding this UNESCO vote?

MS. NULAND: The Secretary has been making the case personally against this move in the UN agencies for weeks and weeks and weeks, and she had many, many conversations about this, particularly when we were in New York.

QUESTION: Do you have any update on your efforts to bring both parties to the table? And what about the meetings that – or the meeting that Under Secretary – Deputy Secretary Nides had today with Tony Blair?

MS. NULAND: I don’t have anything for you on the Tony Blair meeting. If we have anything to report, we’ll get it to you tomorrow.

I think you know where we are, that we had – Quartet had separate meetings with the parties last week. We have encouraged both parties now to go back and start working on concrete proposals for each other on land and on security. We will be working in Quartet format with each of the parties, and our aspiration still is to have them present real, meaty proposals to each other within the 90-day time clock from when this meeting happened last week.

QUESTION: Has the UNESCO vote changed or quickened the pace of lobbying at the UN mission in New York to prevent a vote for statehood in the GA?

MS. NULAND: I think the UNSC process is moving apace. They are still at the stage of analyzing the request, gathering information, et cetera.

Said.

QUESTION: Toria, today marks a milestone: It’s the 20^th anniversary of the Madrid process, the Madrid peace conference, begun exactly 20 years ago. And during that time, there was a great deal of intense negotiations and some stoppages and so on and other processes and many agreements, yet the settlements have gone on throughout all this time, although the United States position was expressed very clearly at the time that settlements must stop, yet they go on. Do you have a position today reflecting on all the settlement processes over the past 20 years?

MS. NULAND: Well, let me first say that we’ve also been working for peace for 20 years, and it remains a challenge. But our position on settlements hasn’t changed, and we continue to make it.

Anything else on this subject, or can we move on?

QUESTION: So what – if we just take it just a bit further, what incentive should the Palestinians have today when they see that a great deal of the land initially allocated for their state has been gobbled up by settlement? What incentive should they have to go back to negotiations?

MS. NULAND: I think the Secretary has said this best when she said that only when borders are settled is it going to be absolutely clear where they are. So if you want all of this to be settled, you have to go back to the negotiating table and you have to, before that, present your own proposals on land and security. So that’s what we’re asking the Palestinians to do. If they are concerned, as we are, by what is going on, then come back to the table and let’s get firm borders.

QUESTION: Okay. So why wouldn’t the United States then take the initiative and call for a peace conference to actually discuss the borders of the Palestinian state, period?

MS. NULAND: Because we don’t think, and our Quartet partners don’t think, and frankly, the parties don’t think, that having a big conference is going to get us any closer. We think that the next step ought to be concrete proposals by each side on borders and on security. This will give the Palestinians an opportunity to present to the Israelis and for the Israelis to present to the Palestinians what they think the right answer are that will allow us to see how close we are, allow us to see how we can move the process forward. That’s the right way to get closer to a state and secure borders.

QUESTION: Sticking to this 90-day process that was worked out last week for both sides to come up with proposals?

MS. NULAND: Correct, correct.

QUESTION: Just on the cascade effect, if it does happen, presumably the votes will be similar to the one in UNESCO, because you are in a distinct minority in pretty much every UN group in which you don’t have a veto – although you’re in a minority there as well – you seem to be admitting that the Palestinians have you over a barrel here. They can, if they continue to go to these various agencies, force the United States to withdraw into almost a shell by – maybe not immediately, but if you get kicked out of UNESCO for having not paid your dues in two years. I expect that the other organizations have similar rules, and so you will have shrunk your international outreach, correct?

MS. NULAND: I’m not going to get too far down the tracks here. We are trying to make clear what the implications for us, what the implications for these organizations, are of the move that the Palestinians started here. And we are hoping that this will end here and we can get back to the peace talks, because that is the place where we’re going to be able to achieve the aspirations of the Palestinian people. I mean, one of the things that’s most distressing about all of this is that not a single thing changes on the ground for a single Palestinian; life does not get better, as a result of what’s happened in UNESCO. And that’s been our concern from the beginning. If you care about quality of life for Palestinians and their having their own state, this is not the way to go.

QUESTION: Well, I didn’t want to get back into this, but the whole fact that nothing changes on the ground is exactly the argument that people make for saying this is not such a big deal and bad deal. But I want to get back to this. The Palestinians seem to have acted shrewdly here, no?

MS. NULAND: We disagree. We disagree.

QUESTION: Why? You’re going to —

MS. NULAND: For the reasons that I —

QUESTION: You’re going to lose your influence in UNESCO because of this, which you —

MS. NULAND: Because it doesn’t get them any closer to the state that they want, that they need, that they deserve. And it does exacerbate tensions in the region, which makes it harder to get back to the table. And it certainly doesn’t help our ability to help them through UNESCO, which does support cultural heritage sites in the Palestinian territories and throughout the Middle East. So we think it’s a mistake.

Other – can we move on? Moving on, please.

Goldstone sugarcoats persecution to try to save Israel

Nov 01, 2011

Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz

Richard Goldstone’s op-ed in the Times today saying that it is “slander” to say that Israel practices “apartheid” is shocking at a number of levels. It is shocking that the eminent judge, who damaged his international reputation last spring by stepping away from a UN report he had co-authored in 2009 that was highly critical of Israel, would now step out as an Israel apologist, employing hackneyed and cookie-cutter arguments about a little democracy contending with hostile neighbors. And it is shocking that a judge with a former reputation for dispassionate examination of the facts would go as far as he has here to misrepresent the reality of the situation to try and make Israel look good.

That is where it is most important to take Goldstone on and do so emphatically—on the facts of the situation. A few of Goldstone’s points:

–Palestinians inside Israel are subject to “some… discrimination” but by and large they are full citizens, getting the identical treatment that Jewish people do, electing members of the Knesset. When they are separate, it is generally because they have separated themselves.

First and foremost this ignores how Israel’s Jewish majority was created in the first place. To say that Palestinians “have separated themselves” is to ignore that they were driven off their land in 1948, and not allowed to return. Those who stayed inside the 1949 armistice lines where kept under martial law for the next 18 years, during which time their homes and land were destroyed and taken by the state. Today, the Israeli government, through the Israel Land Administration and quasi-state organizations like the Jewish National Fund, manages 93% of the land inside the 1967 borders, and that land is reserved for Jews only. So while yes, Jews and Palestinians live very separate lives inside Israel today, it is a gross distortion to claim Palestinians have separated themselves.

And while Goldstone says that the separation of Palestinians is not an official systematic one in Israel, which is highly debatable, he is overlooking a reality, in which Palestinian communities are the last to receive water, in which Bedouin villages are decreed “unrecognized” and then demolished.

The reality today is that there is Jim Crow inside Israel. Yes, Palestinains can vote, but Palestinian parties are never represented in the ruling coalitions–a situation reminiscent of the Democratic Party in our country not seating black delegates to the presidential nominating convention in 1964. The Jewish state requires Jewish leaders; there is no way that a Palestinian Obama would be allowed anywhere near the corridors of policy-making. .

Even in Jim Crow days, America was integrating our armed forces. Palestinians are not required to serve in the army—and with the exception of the Druze, they don’t—because they are officially mistrusted. Another example: when Israeli Yonatan Shapira was asked last year to explain Palestinian status inside Israel, he said that Israel has granted permission to Jewish Israelis to start countless new towns since 1948, but no new Palestinians town has been created.

–Goldstone says that Palestinian conditions in the West Bank are much better than the “cruel” South African apartheid system he was a witness to, where blacks could not go to black beaches, could not marry whites, could not be in white areas without a pass, and yet could bleed to death waiting for a “black” ambulance.

There is no question that the “persecution” of Palestinians as the Goldstone report characterized Palestinian conditions in the West Bank and Gaza, is of a different character than South African persecution of blacks. But this is not to say that it is not as cruel or even crueler.

Palestinians must get permits to travel from the West Bank into occupied Jerusalem and into Israel, and this pass system is the subject of bitter endless discussion—Palestinans will tell you that it is a cruel system, and they are the best judges of that. 1.5 million Gazans cannot get passes to travel outside the boundaries of a strip of land about half the size of New York City due to a policy of collective punishment that the Goldstone Report said was a war crime.

It’s especially ironic that Goldstone uses the example of ambulances in South Africa when there are countless examples of Palestinians suffering under the same conditions. Many Palestinians in the West Bank have bled to death at checkpoints that Goldstone cruelly fails to mention in this op-ed. Millions of Palestinians in the West Bank cannot go to the beach a few miles away, a beach many of their parents grew up going to, because of the pass system. And as for not marrying whites, non-Jews cannot marry Jews under Israeli law, and Palestinian families are legally broken apart by legal classifications that seek to separate West Bank Palestinians from East Jerusalem Palestinians from Gazan Palestinians, all in the name of Israeli security.

It is shocking that Goldstone sugarcoats or fails to mention many conditions that he described as amounting to a crime against humanity—persecution– in his earlier report. For instance, he refers blandly to “disparate treatment on West Bank roads.” But he is talking about Israeli roads built inside occupied Palestine that Palestinians are not allowed to drive on.

The Israeli system of control in the West Bank is all organized around the principle of separation, hafradah in Hebrew, which translates into apartheid in Afrikaans—a principle that the state enforces by granting one group higher legal status than the other. In Israel’s case the separation is enforced so as to preserve a Jewish majority inside non-Palestinian areas. And it is racial: in his recitation of Israeli freedoms, Goldstone fails to mention that more than half a million Jewish settlers who live inside Palestine have the right to vote in Israeli elections, while their non-Jewish neighbors, whose land and water they have taken, are denied the right to vote for representatives of the government that controls their lives. This explicit privileging of 500,000 Jews over the 2.5 million Palestinians they are living alongside is apartheid plain and simple. In the Palestinan case however the borders and governance of the Bantustans have just not yet been established.

People will ask, why did Goldstone shred his reputation? The judge gives a powerful signal about his thinking when he begins his piece by speaking about the threat to the two-state solution from those who would “delegitimize” the state of Israel. The plain truth is that Palestinian are enraged by the conditions we have cited above, and their support for the two-state solution has collapsed after more than 20 years of a ruthless peace process that has only extended the occupation and stolen more of their lands. Few Palestinians see a happy future for them with a Zionist neighbor, and out of solidarity for their suffering, people around the world have undertaken an honest inventory of Zionism’s actions. Many have come to the conclusion that Israel is delegitimizing itself. When Goldstone told the truth in the Gaza report he honored Palestinian voices — and was accused of hurting the peace process and endangering the two-state solution. Now he is denying those same voices, apparently in an effort to revive the two-state solution and save the Jewish state.

But it will be hard to get the toothpaste back in the tube. That is the one good thing about the judge’s latest role. It is so at odds with Goldstone’s earlier statements that it will only draw further attention to the real cause of the end of the two-state solution, the cruel Israeli occupation.

Caption contest
Nov 01, 2011 03:00 pm | Adam Horowitz

(Photo: Thibault Camus/ AP)

Permanent delegate of the US to UNESCO David Killion, center, reacts as delegates vote on the Palestinian membership, during a session of UNESCO’s 36th General Conference, in Paris, Monday Oct. 31, 2011.

(h/t Angry Arab)

South Africans think Israel is practicing apartheid

Nov 01, 2011

Adam Horowitz

Paging Judge Goldstone . . . From the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa:

The HSRC commissioned an international team of scholars and practitioners of international public law from South Africa, the United Kingdom, Israel and the West Bank to conduct the study. The resulting 300-page draft, titled Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid?: A re-assessment of Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law, represents 15 months of research and constitutes an exhaustive review of Israel’s practices in the OPT according to definitions of colonialism and apartheid provided by international law. The project was suggested originally by the January 2007 report by eminent South African jurist John Dugard, in his capacity as Special Rapporteur to the United Nations Human Rights Council, when he indicated that Israel practices had assumed characteristics of colonialism and apartheid . . .

Regarding apartheid, the team found that Israel’s laws and policies in the OPT fit the definition of apartheid in the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Israeli law conveys privileges to Jewish settlers and disadvantages Palestinians in the same territory on the basis of their respective identities, which function in this case as racialised identities in the sense provided by international law. Israel’s practices are corollary to five of the six ‘inhuman acts’ listed by the Convention. A policy of apartheid is especially indicated by Israel’s demarcation of geographic ‘reserves’ in the West Bank, to which Palestinian residence is confined and which Palestinians cannot leave without a permit. The system is very similar to the policy of ‘Grand Apartheid’ in apartheid South Africa, in which black South Africans were confined to black homelands delineated by the South African government, while white South Africans enjoyed freedom of movement and full civil rights in the rest of the country.

The Executive Summary of the report says that the three pillars of apartheid in South Africa are all practiced by Israel in the OPT. In South Africa, the first pillar was to demarcate the population of South Africa into racial groups, and to accord superior rights, privileges and services to the white racial group. The second pillar was to segregate the population into different geographic areas, which were allocated by law to different racial groups, and restrict passage by members of any group into the area allocated to other groups. And the third pillar was “a matrix of draconian ‘security’ laws and policies that were employed to suppress any opposition to the regime and to reinforce the system of racial domination, by providing for administrative detention, torture, censorship, banning, and assassination.”

The Report finds that Israeli practices in the OPT exhibit the same three ‘pillars’ of apartheid:

The first pillar “derives from Israeli laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law and afford a preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews over non-Jews”.

The second pillar is reflected in “Israel’s ‘grand’ policy to fragment the OPT [and] ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them while Israeli Jews are prohibited from entering those reserves but enjoy freedom of movement throughout the rest of the Palestinian territory. This policy is evidenced by Israel’s extensive appropriation of Palestinian land, which continues to shrink the territorial space available to Palestinians; the hermetic closure and isolation of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the OPT; the deliberate severing of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank; and the appropriation and construction policies serving to carve up the West Bank into an intricate and well-serviced network of connected settlements for Jewish-Israelis and an archipelago of besieged and non-contiguous enclaves for Palestinians”.

The third pillar is “Israel’s invocation of ‘security’ to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian freedom of opinion, expression, assembly, association and movement [to] mask a true underlying intent to suppress dissent to its system of domination and thereby maintain control over Palestinians as a group.”

Does the UNESCO vote pave the way for broader Palestinian acceptance within the UN system?

Nov 01, 2011

Adam Horowitz

Phyllis Bennis discusses the fallout of the UNESCO vote on Democracy Now.

Former British Ambassador Craig Murray says the UNESCO also sets a precedent for Palestine to join the International Criminal Court:

The UNESCO membership is crucial recognition of Palestine’s statehood, not an empty gesture. With this evidence of international acceptance, there is now absolutely no reason why Palestine cannot, instantly and without a vote, join the International Criminal Court. Palestine can now become a member of the International Criminal Court simply by submitting an instrument of accession to the Statute of Rome, and joining the list of states parties.

As both the USA and Israel refuse to join the ICC because of their desire to commit war crimes with impunity, acceding to the statute of Rome would not only confirm absolutely that Palestine is a state, it would reinforce the fact that Palestine is a better international citizen with more moral legitimacy than Israel.

There is an extremely crucial point here: if Palestine accedes to the Statute of Rome, underArticle 12 of the Statute of Rome, the International Criminal Court would have jurisdiction over Israelis committing war crimes on Palestinian soil. Other states parties – including the UK – would be obliged by law to hand over indicted Israeli war criminals to the court at the Hague. This would be a massive blow to the Israeli propaganda and lobbying machine.

Of course, this also means the US could end up withholding funding to many more parts of the UN system. The Christian Science Monitor asks – will the UNESCO Palestine vote lead the US to defund nuclear watchdog IAEA, too?

Goldstone contra Goldstone

Nov 01, 2011

Jamie Stern-Weiner

From the New Left Project:

The degeneration of Judge Richard Goldstone continues. In April, you’ll recall, he penned an op-ed for the Washington Post that said essentially nothing, but gave the strong impression of retracting the central conclusions of the Goldstone Report on the 2008-9 Gaza massacre. The key point, documented in Norman Finkelstein‘s comprehensive dissection of the recantation, is that, whatever the reasons for Goldstone’s reversal, it wasn’t based on new evidence.

After months of silence, Goldstone has now resurfaced with more of the same. He has written an op-ed for the New York Times – the paper that turned down his April recantation, forcing him to offer a more sensationalised version to the Post – devoted to refuting those who analogise Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to South African apartheid. It has predictably induced much gloating among those who not long ago were smearing him as an antisemite and a traitor. The thrust of the op-ed argues against the use of the apartheid analogy to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, either within Israel itself or within the West Bank. Goldstone slams the analogy as a “malicious” “slander”. If this is what Goldstone truly believes – something about which there is much cause for doubt – one wonders why he has taken so long to raise his voice. After all, the apartheid analogy is hardly a recent one, nor is it especially controversial. A partial list of Goldstone’s malicious slanderers includes such authorities as the Association for Civil Rights Israel; South African Nobel Leaureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu; former US President Jimmy Carter; former Israeli government ministers Yossi Sarid and Shulamit Aloni; and the “father” of South African human rights law John Dugard[note: some of these references are via Finkelstein, forthcoming]. Here’s the editorial board of Ha’aretz, Israel’s most important newspaper:

“the apartheid regime in the territories remains intact; millions of Palestinians are living without rights, freedom of movement or a livelihood, under the yoke of ongoing Israeli occupation, and in the future they will turn the Jews into a minority between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.”

Here’s the verdict of B’Tselem, Israel’s premier human rights organisation:

“Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa.”

Goldstone devotes two paragraphs of the op-ed to attacking the argument that Israel is practicing apartheid within the Green Line, as distinct from its occupation of Palestinian territories. But this is a straw man. Proponents of the apartheid analogy typically either restrict its application to the occupied territories, or they apply it to the system of control encompassing the entire territory between the river and the sea, on the grounds that Israel possesses de facto control over both its own and occupied Palestinian territory (that is, they reject the distinction between Israeli rule within the Green Line and Israeli rule in the oPt that Goldstone proposes as his starting point).

Goldstone then attempts to prove Israel’s innocence of apartheid in the West Bank by – there is no other way to put it – systematically lying about its conduct there. It is child’s play to show that virtually every substantive statement he makes is not only false, but was pre-emptively refuted by the Goldstone Report (PDF) itself:

Goldstone op-ed: “Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for its self-defense.”

Goldstone Report:

Israel’s restrictions on movement in the West Bank “are disproportionate to any military objective served”. They are intended to “consolidate its permanent hold on the West Bank” and amount to “a deliberate policy of closely controlling a population in order to make use of areas of its land”. [335] Despite “the claim by Israel that restrictions of movement within the West Bank are imposed on Palestinian residents for security purposes, most of these internal restrictions appear to have been designed to guarantee unobstructed travel to the Israeli inhabitants of the settlements.” [54] They therefore constitute “violations of fundamental rights”, including the Palestinians’ “right to self-determination”. [335]

The cumulative effect of the restrictions on movement has been to “effectively split” Palestinians in the West Bank from their families in Israel, from Gaza, and from East Jerusalem. [57]

Goldstone op-ed: “The security barrier was built to stop unrelenting terrorist attacks”.

Goldstone Report:

The route of the wall is “to a great degree determined by the objective of incorporating settlements into the Israeli side” and has “contributed to the fragmentation of the West Bank into a series of enclaves”. [54] Where located on Palestinian territory (as “some 85 per cent” of it is [329fn873]) it is contrary to international law; is part of a policy aimed at (quoting an EU report) “the illegal annexation” of East Jerusalem [53]; and amounts to “the de facto annexation” of 9.5% of the West Bank. It therefore constitutes “acquisition of territory by force”, a violation of the UN Charter. [335]

Goldstone op-ed: Israel has “no intent to maintain ‘an institutonalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group'”. In Israel, “equal rights are the law”.

Goldstone Report:

Israel’s “systematic discrimination, both in law and in practice, against Palestinians” violates international law, and possibly amounts to a crime against humanity [324]. In the West Bank, “a two-tiered road system has been established” with the main roads are reserved for Israelis. [55] Israel’s legal practice in the occupied territories has resulted in “institutionalized discrimination against Palestinians… to the benefit of Jewish settlers”. Domestically Israel’s legal regime is “two-tiered”, granting Jews “superior rights and privileges”; meanwhile Palestinian inhabitants of occupied territories are categorised as “alien persons”. [57] The Report notes the conclusions of a study by the respected Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) that Israel’s “discrimination in planning and building” and other policies in Jerusalem “are concrete expressions of an Israeli policy designed to secure a Jewish majority in Jerusalem and push Palestinian residents outside”. [332]

Needless to say, where the Goldstone Report cites pages of evidence, from the most authoritative human rights organisations and international bodies, to support its conclusions, Goldstone’s op-ed cites nothing. If Goldstone could have cited authoritative sources to support the conclusions of his op-ed, he no doubt would have; he didn’t, because as exhaustively documented in the Goldstone Report, those sources comprehensively refute him.

Jamie Stern-Weiner studies politics at the University of Cambridge, and is particularly interested in the history of political thought, contemporary British foreign policy, and the Israel-Palestine conflict. His articles have been published on New Left Project, Le Monde Diplomatique and Znet. You can follow him on twitter at @jamiesw.

80 year old Palestinian woman stoned by settlers

Nov 01, 2011

Seham

80 year old Palestinian woman stoned by settlers

Settlers stone elderly Palestinian lady
RAMALLAH (WAFA) 31 Oct — A group of Jewish settlers Monday stoned an elderly Palestinian lady as she was picking olives in Mukhmas, a village southeast of Ramallah in the West Bank, according to local sources. The 80-year-old woman was reported to be injured in the head and transferred to hospital for treatment.

And other news from Today in Palestine:

Mufti calls for the protection of Al-Aqsa Mosque from Israeli attacks
The Mufti of Egypt has condemned the “regular and continuous abusive practices” of the Israeli occupation authorities “which violate the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque” in occupied Jerusalem. The mosque is the third holiest place in Islam, said Dr. Ali Gomaa, and he appealed to the world’s Muslims “to protect Al-Aqsa and stop Israel’s violations” there.

Resheq: Deporting Sheikh Salah undermines credibility of the British judiciary
Political bureau member of Hamas Ezzet Al-Resheq has criticized the British judiciary for endorsing the deportation of Sheikh Raed Salah despite his proven innocence of charges leveled against him.

Irrigation Water Cut-off in Ayn al-Beida Village
Mekorot, the Israeli water company has stopped pumping irrigation water to Ayn al-Beida village in the northern Jordan valley yesterday morning. The village still remains without irrigation water today. On the same day the occupation forces attacked the village and raided homes in a search that began under the pretext of theft of surrounding settlers’ property. This property theft pretext has been used many times by the occupation forces even though it has been proven in the past that thefts occur between the settlers themselves.

Four-thousand Acres in al-Negev under Siege by Settlers

After the displacement of almost 30,000 Arabs from their unrecognized villages in the Negev, many facts are coming out of the lands that they are being given to special Jewish farms which have spread in al-Negev. These facts were revealed after the Israeli farmer “Shai Dromi” put a siege around 4,000 acres which related to “his farm”.

Impact on Palestinian Workers under Israeli Occupation
Since the beginning of this Intifada in 2000, Israel has transformed the already harsh conditions under occupation into a nightmare of destruction and imprisonment. Economic life has severely suffered and unemployment has skyrocketed. Since September 2000, over 432 factories and 9,735 small shops and street seller stalls have been destroyed while Gaza’s industry has suffered complete breakdown due the destruction wrecked upon the Strip in the 2008/9 attack by Israel and the ongoing siege.

Israeli MK calls for targeting resistance leaders in Gaza
Member of the Israeli Knesset Shaul Mofaz has called for liquidating commanders of Palestinian resi

weiss 

• Bronner lets controversy subside, then cancels 92d St appearance w/ Perle and Bolton

• ‘You lost’ — reporters at State say UNESCO vote isolates U.S. from world opinion (and possibly from intellectual property enforcement)

• Goldstone sugarcoats persecution to try to save Israel

• Caption contest

• South Africans think Israel is practicing apartheid

• Does the UNESCO vote pave the way for broader Palestinian acceptance within the UN system?

• Goldstone contra Goldstone

• 80 year old Palestinian woman stoned by settlers

• Could Goldstone’s logic in defense of Israel have saved apartheid in South Africa?

• What Palestine’s UNESCO membership could mean on the ground

Bronner lets controversy subside, then cancels 92d St appearance w/ Perle and Bolton

Nov 01, 2011

Philip Weiss

No surprise– New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner has cancelled his scheduled appearance on an Islamophobic panel at the 92d Street Y organized by the Clarion Fund with neocons Richard Perle and John Bolton sharing the stage. The Times tells Politico’s Ben Smith that Bronner didn’t know what Clarion is, or who his stagemates were.

But look for the Islamophobic neocon cirque de soleil to go on, on Lexington Avenue, without the beard! (The 92d Street Y, which cannot have a Palestinian on stage by himself; Zionism is corrupting our intellectual tradition.)

And note the playbook: Bronner let a week or so pass following the controversy over his appearance (set off by Eli Clifton) so that it would not appear that he was leaving under pressure. (Look for the Times to follow the same procedure when it announces, inevitably, during a lull some months from now, that Bronner is leaving the Jerusalem bureau, nothing to do with the criticisms…)

‘You lost’ — reporters at State say UNESCO vote isolates U.S. from world opinion (and possibly from intellectual property enforcement)

Nov 01, 2011

Philip Weiss

Below is the transcript of the amazing interchange yesterday between State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland and AP’s Matt Lee, among other reporters at the daily briefing. The reporters have had it with the emperor’s new clothes.

Matt Lee points out repeatedly how the United States has isolated itself from world opinion on the UNESCO vote, damaging our standing. The claim that the vote upsets the peace process is bull, Lee says; all the UNESCO vote does is “it upsets Israel.” And a nettled Nuland accuses him of engaging in “a polemic.”

Also note the back-and-forth about intellectual property conventions. The Palestinians are now certain to gain membership in the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, another UN body.

When the U.S. deals itself out of UNESCO, the interests of American multinational corps are hurt. As Lee comments, “I used to think that this government, my government, had some intellect itself, but this just seems ridiculous.”

Finally, note the exchange over the Madrid process, which began 20 years ago and has only resulted, a questioner says, in Palestinian land being gobbled up. What does the U.S. have to show for the peace process? At the end Nuland says fretfully, “Moving on, please!”

Excerpts:

Matt Lee: All right. So, this was not particularly a banner day for U.S. diplomacy. If you count the abstentions, you had — 159 countries did not vote the way you did. Only 13 did. That would seem to suggest that these countries don’t agree with you that this is such a big problem. Those countries included the French – France. They included numerous members of the Security Council. What happens to them now that you’re punishing UNESCO? What happens to these countries that voted to, in this regrettable way that is going to undermine the peace process?

MS. NULAND: Well, those countries obviously made their own national decisions on this vote. We disagree with them. We made clear that we disagreed with them before the vote. We make clear that we disagree with them after the vote. We also make clear here today that we want to continue our relationship with UNESCO. But as we said before this vote, and as we have had to say today, legislative restrictions compel us to withhold our funding now. And that will have an impact on UNESCO.

QUESTION: But going back to – you said in your opening you said that this was regrettable, premature, and undermines our shared goal. Who’s shared goal? Who shares this goal, other than the 13 other countries that voted with you, now?

MS. NULAND: Countries all over the international system share the goal of a Palestinian state and secure borders —

QUESTION: Why would the possibly do something – how could they possibly do something that you say is so horrible and detrimental to that process? How can they – how can you still count them – count on them as sharing this goal?

MS. NULAND: You’ll have to speak to them about why they made the decision that they made. We considered that this was, as I said, regrettable, premature, and undermines the prospect of getting where we want to go. And that’s what we’re concerned about.

QUESTION: Okay and then how does it undermine, exactly? How does it undermine the prospect of where you want to go?

MS. NULAND: The concern is that it creates tensions when all of us should be concerting our efforts to get the parties back to the table.

QUESTION: The only tensions that it creates – the only thing it does is it upsets Israel and it triggers this law that will require you to stop funding UNESCO. Is there anything else? There’s nothing that changes on the ground is there?

MS. NULAND: Our concern is that this could exacerbate the environment which we’re trying to work through so that the parties will get back to the table.

QUESTION: How exactly does it exacerbate the environment if it changes nothing on the ground, unlike say, construction of settlements? It changes nothing on the ground. It gives Palestine membership in UNESCO, which is a body that the U.S. didn’t — was so unconcerned about for many years that it just wasn’t even a member.

MS. NULAND: Well, I think you know that this Administration is committed to UNESCO, rejoined UNESCO, wants to see UNESCO’s work go forward —

QUESTION: Well, actually, it was the last Administration that rejoined UNESCO, not this one. But the – I need to have some kind of clarity on how this undermines the peace process other than the fact that it upsets Israel.

MS. NULAND: Again, we are trying to get both of these parties back to the table. That’s what we’ve been doing all along. That was the basis for the President’s speech in May, basis of the diplomacy that the Quartet did through the summer, the basis of the statement that the Quartet came out with in September. So, in that context, we have been trying to improve the relationship between these parties, improve the environment between them, and we are concerned that we exacerbate tensions with this, and it makes it harder to get the parties back to the table.

QUESTION: Since the talks broke off last September until today, how many times have they met together with all your effort?

MS. NULAND: How many times have the parties met?

QUESTION: Yes.

MS. NULAND: I think you know the answer to that question.

QUESTION: Correct.

MS. NULAND: It doesn’t change the fact that we all are committed to trying —

QUESTION: So how can things get worse than they already are?

MS. NULAND: Matt, I think you’re engaged in a polemic here rather than questions.

Said. Please.

QUESTION: You think you’re going to get better from the next person?

MS. NULAND: Go ahead, Said.

QUESTION: Yes, Victoria. On the shared values, does that mean that hundred and seven countries, you do not share values with?

MS. NULAND: A hundred and seven countries made their own decision on this vote.

QUESTION: Right….

QUESTION: And then in terms of the impact on related organizations, several high-tech and pharmaceutical firms are said to be meeting here at State this afternoon to discuss how the lack of financial support from the U.S. might have an impact on their ability to work in the countries where UNESCO and the WIPO have their work being conducted. What more can you tell us about this meeting? How does this affect the Apples, the Googles, the pharmas of the world, when they’re looking at potentially being shut out of potentially lucrative markets?

MS. NULAND: Well, Ros, I think you’re referring to the meeting that Assistant Secretary for International Organizations Esther Brimmer is having today with representatives from some of the U.S. majors around the world to explain what the implications of this vote might be for U.S. business abroad. But my understanding is Assistant Secretary Brimmer is particularly going to call their attention to the potential that the Palestinians may now gain admission to the World Intellectual Property Organization. So – and that might have some implications for our ability to work in that organization. And of course, that’s a very important organization for companies, like the high-tech list that you cited.

QUESTION: And then —

QUESTION: — quick follow-up?

QUESTION: Well, then, what do you do – then what is the U.S. Government then telling these companies, which have been extremely concerned about intellectual piracy, dummy drugs, dummy consumer products? Does – is U.S. business being unfairly impacted because of this legislative restriction, and how can the U.S. Government try to resolve it? Or rather, the Executive Branch, how can it resolve it so that the business community isn’t unduly upset by all this?

MS. NULAND: Well, obviously, she wants to make sure that these companies understand the implications of what has already happened, but also with regard to the intellectual property organization, WIPO, she wants to make sure that companies understand that Palestinian membership in WIPO could trigger – would trigger similar funding restrictions and could diminish U.S. influence in an organization that’s very important to these companies. So we need to make sure that our companies understand the implications of what’s happened and begin that conversation with them.

QUESTION: Would it be fair to suggest that perhaps, with this meeting, the State Department is hoping to induce these companies to lobby for a change, an easing of these restrictions on UNESCO funding?

MS. NULAND: I think the stage that we are at is to make sure that our companies understand what may or may not be happening in this circumstance so that we can open a conversation about how we protect their interests going forward.

..QUESTION: Back on the WIPO, actually, I was just wondering if you’d go a little bit further and explain to us what she’s telling the companies would be the effect of the reduced U.S. funding or an eliminated U.S. funding in WIPO. Does that – what would that – what effect would that practically have on U.S. companies operating overseas? Would it make the whole mechanism less efficient or would it reduce the protection for U.S. companies? What is the threat there to U.S. companies?.

MS. NULAND: Andy, let me see if I can get a little bit more for you on the specifics of the message being given, but certainly to make clear that if there’s an application to WIPO then – and the Palestinians become WIPO members, that it will trigger the same kind of funding cutoff, so already the organization will have less money to work with, but also that it could diminish our influence within WIPO, which has been very important to these companies.

QUESTION: Quite apart from the congressional lot, you’re opposed to the Palestinians having membership in the World Intellectual Property Organization?

MS. NULAND: We are.

QUESTION: You are?

MS. NULAND: Yeah.

QUESTION: Because the Palestinians don’t have any intellectual property, or because their intellectual property, because they’re not a state, is somehow less protectable or less worthy of protection?

MS. NULAND: Because this is a cascade effect of the decision in the UNESCO which we consider —

QUESTION: What does protecting intellectual property have to do – anything to do with statehood?

MS. NULAND: It has to do with the declaration of state status in UNESCO, which cascades into WIPO, that we are opposed to.

QUESTION: I used to think that this government, my government, had some intellect itself, but this just seems ridiculous. You are going to oppose them in some kind of international weather organization as well? The Civil Aviation Organization?

MS. NULAND: Our position on this with regard to all the UN agencies is the same.

QUESTION: You can – you think that there is somewhere – somewhere in this building that someone can draw a intellectually responsible and acceptable argument that membership in the World Intellectual Property Organization should not be granted to the Palestinians because they are not a state, because their intellectual property, because they’re not a state, is somehow less deserving of protection than anyone else’s, including the Syrians, including whoever else?

MS. NULAND: Matt, the move here is not with regard to the aspiration that we all have for the Palestinians to have access to and full rights of all of these UN organizations. The concern here is trying to shortcut the process of statehood, trying to establish statehood through the back door —

QUESTION: But see, that’s the —

MS. NULAND: Can I finish my point, please?

QUESTION: Yeah.

MS. NULAND: Thank you. Rather than establishing true statehood the way it has to be done, which is in direct negotiations with their neighbor. And from that can flow all of the benefits of these organizations.

QUESTION: But not even the Palestinians themselves say that this is a way to statehood. They —

MS. NULAND: Well, but what has been granted here —

QUESTION: They know that this is not – this does not mean statehood.

MS. NULAND: What has been granted here in UNESCO is Palestinian membership and statehood status. That’s what’s of concern.

QUESTION: I’m sorry, and the Palestinian vote on that?

MS. NULAND: Excuse me?

QUESTION: The Palestinians didn’t vote for this. A hundred and seven other countries, including some of your best friends, voted for this. The Palestinians didn’t vote for it; they just simply put it up for – they put it up for a vote. They didn’t have a vote on this.

MS. NULAND: This began —

QUESTION: You lost.

MS. NULAND: Matt —

QUESTION: Why —

MS. NULAND: Are you asking me a question that you’d like me to answer, or are you just going to have an argument with me today?

QUESTION: No, no. I’m – I want to know why you think, and everyone else – which is a position that everyone else disagrees with, that this is somehow – that this hurts the peace process or hurts the ability of the Palestinians to get a state, short of just upsetting the Israelis?

MS. NULAND: Start with the premise this process in UNESCO began with a Palestinian petition for membership, which we thought was ill-advised and ill-considered, and which we so said to the Palestinians at the time. So the Palestinians made a move here that we didn’t think was conducive to the environment for the talks or conducive to getting us back to the table. That is our concern. We want to get the Palestinians their state. It’s only going to happen if we can get these parties back to the table. We have to create an environment that gets them back to the table, and this is not helpful.

QUESTION: Okay. But you accept that 107 countries disagreed with you.

MS. NULAND: A hundred and seven countries made their own decision. We disagree with them.

QUESTION: Right. Exactly. So, I mean, isn’t it maybe – doesn’t that tell you anything, that if you add in the abstentions, which included the Brits, your special ally, who abstained, then 159 countries disagreed with you?

MS. NULAND: It tells us that we are not any closer to a Palestinian state by virtue of this vote today. We are trying to get to that end state that we want, that the Palestinians want, and we don’t think this is helpful.

QUESTION: I’m just curious. Did the Secretary have any personal diplomacy on this subject? Did she make any calls to Brits, French, whoever, in recent days specifically regarding this UNESCO vote?

MS. NULAND: The Secretary has been making the case personally against this move in the UN agencies for weeks and weeks and weeks, and she had many, many conversations about this, particularly when we were in New York.

QUESTION: Do you have any update on your efforts to bring both parties to the table? And what about the meetings that – or the meeting that Under Secretary – Deputy Secretary Nides had today with Tony Blair?

MS. NULAND: I don’t have anything for you on the Tony Blair meeting. If we have anything to report, we’ll get it to you tomorrow.

I think you know where we are, that we had – Quartet had separate meetings with the parties last week. We have encouraged both parties now to go back and start working on concrete proposals for each other on land and on security. We will be working in Quartet format with each of the parties, and our aspiration still is to have them present real, meaty proposals to each other within the 90-day time clock from when this meeting happened last week.

QUESTION: Has the UNESCO vote changed or quickened the pace of lobbying at the UN mission in New York to prevent a vote for statehood in the GA?

MS. NULAND: I think the UNSC process is moving apace. They are still at the stage of analyzing the request, gathering information, et cetera.

Said.

QUESTION: Toria, today marks a milestone: It’s the 20^th anniversary of the Madrid process, the Madrid peace conference, begun exactly 20 years ago. And during that time, there was a great deal of intense negotiations and some stoppages and so on and other processes and many agreements, yet the settlements have gone on throughout all this time, although the United States position was expressed very clearly at the time that settlements must stop, yet they go on. Do you have a position today reflecting on all the settlement processes over the past 20 years?

MS. NULAND: Well, let me first say that we’ve also been working for peace for 20 years, and it remains a challenge. But our position on settlements hasn’t changed, and we continue to make it.

Anything else on this subject, or can we move on?

QUESTION: So what – if we just take it just a bit further, what incentive should the Palestinians have today when they see that a great deal of the land initially allocated for their state has been gobbled up by settlement? What incentive should they have to go back to negotiations?

MS. NULAND: I think the Secretary has said this best when she said that only when borders are settled is it going to be absolutely clear where they are. So if you want all of this to be settled, you have to go back to the negotiating table and you have to, before that, present your own proposals on land and security. So that’s what we’re asking the Palestinians to do. If they are concerned, as we are, by what is going on, then come back to the table and let’s get firm borders.

QUESTION: Okay. So why wouldn’t the United States then take the initiative and call for a peace conference to actually discuss the borders of the Palestinian state, period?

MS. NULAND: Because we don’t think, and our Quartet partners don’t think, and frankly, the parties don’t think, that having a big conference is going to get us any closer. We think that the next step ought to be concrete proposals by each side on borders and on security. This will give the Palestinians an opportunity to present to the Israelis and for the Israelis to present to the Palestinians what they think the right answer are that will allow us to see how close we are, allow us to see how we can move the process forward. That’s the right way to get closer to a state and secure borders.

QUESTION: Sticking to this 90-day process that was worked out last week for both sides to come up with proposals?

MS. NULAND: Correct, correct.

QUESTION: Just on the cascade effect, if it does happen, presumably the votes will be similar to the one in UNESCO, because you are in a distinct minority in pretty much every UN group in which you don’t have a veto – although you’re in a minority there as well – you seem to be admitting that the Palestinians have you over a barrel here. They can, if they continue to go to these various agencies, force the United States to withdraw into almost a shell by – maybe not immediately, but if you get kicked out of UNESCO for having not paid your dues in two years. I expect that the other organizations have similar rules, and so you will have shrunk your international outreach, correct?

MS. NULAND: I’m not going to get too far down the tracks here. We are trying to make clear what the implications for us, what the implications for these organizations, are of the move that the Palestinians started here. And we are hoping that this will end here and we can get back to the peace talks, because that is the place where we’re going to be able to achieve the aspirations of the Palestinian people. I mean, one of the things that’s most distressing about all of this is that not a single thing changes on the ground for a single Palestinian; life does not get better, as a result of what’s happened in UNESCO. And that’s been our concern from the beginning. If you care about quality of life for Palestinians and their having their own state, this is not the way to go.

QUESTION: Well, I didn’t want to get back into this, but the whole fact that nothing changes on the ground is exactly the argument that people make for saying this is not such a big deal and bad deal. But I want to get back to this. The Palestinians seem to have acted shrewdly here, no?

MS. NULAND: We disagree. We disagree.

QUESTION: Why? You’re going to —

MS. NULAND: For the reasons that I —

QUESTION: You’re going to lose your influence in UNESCO because of this, which you —

MS. NULAND: Because it doesn’t get them any closer to the state that they want, that they need, that they deserve. And it does exacerbate tensions in the region, which makes it harder to get back to the table. And it certainly doesn’t help our ability to help them through UNESCO, which does support cultural heritage sites in the Palestinian territories and throughout the Middle East. So we think it’s a mistake.

Other – can we move on? Moving on, please.

Goldstone sugarcoats persecution to try to save Israel
Nov 01, 2011

Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz

Richard Goldstone’s op-ed in the Times today saying that it is “slander” to say that Israel practices “apartheid” is shocking at a number of levels. It is shocking that the eminent judge, who damaged his international reputation last spring by stepping away from a UN report he had co-authored in 2009 that was highly critical of Israel, would now step out as an Israel apologist, employing hackneyed and cookie-cutter arguments about a little democracy contending with hostile neighbors. And it is shocking that a judge with a former reputation for dispassionate examination of the facts would go as far as he has here to misrepresent the reality of the situation to try and make Israel look good.

That is where it is most important to take Goldstone on and do so emphatically—on the facts of the situation. A few of Goldstone’s points:

–Palestinians inside Israel are subject to “some… discrimination” but by and large they are full citizens, getting the identical treatment that Jewish people do, electing members of the Knesset. When they are separate, it is generally because they have separated themselves.

First and foremost this ignores how Israel’s Jewish majority was created in the first place. To say that Palestinians “have separated themselves” is to ignore that they were driven off their land in 1948, and not allowed to return. Those who stayed inside the 1949 armistice lines where kept under martial law for the next 18 years, during which time their homes and land were destroyed and taken by the state. Today, the Israeli government, through the Israel Land Administration and quasi-state organizations like the Jewish National Fund, manages 93% of the land inside the 1967 borders, and that land is reserved for Jews only. So while yes, Jews and Palestinians live very separate lives inside Israel today, it is a gross distortion to claim Palestinians have separated themselves.

And while Goldstone says that the separation of Palestinians is not an official systematic one in Israel, which is highly debatable, he is overlooking a reality, in which Palestinian communities are the last to receive water, in which Bedouin villages are decreed “unrecognized” and then demolished.

The reality today is that there is Jim Crow inside Israel. Yes, Palestinains can vote, but Palestinian parties are never represented in the ruling coalitions–a situation reminiscent of the Democratic Party in our country not seating black delegates to the presidential nominating convention in 1964. The Jewish state requires Jewish leaders; there is no way that a Palestinian Obama would be allowed anywhere near the corridors of policy-making. .

Even in Jim Crow days, America was integrating our armed forces. Palestinians are not required to serve in the army—and with the exception of the Druze, they don’t—because they are officially mistrusted. Another example: when Israeli Yonatan Shapira was asked last year to explain Palestinian status inside Israel, he said that Israel has granted permission to Jewish Israelis to start countless new towns since 1948, but no new Palestinians town has been created.

–Goldstone says that Palestinian conditions in the West Bank are much better than the “cruel” South African apartheid system he was a witness to, where blacks could not go to black beaches, could not marry whites, could not be in white areas without a pass, and yet could bleed to death waiting for a “black” ambulance.

There is no question that the “persecution” of Palestinians as the Goldstone report characterized Palestinian conditions in the West Bank and Gaza, is of a different character than South African persecution of blacks. But this is not to say that it is not as cruel or even crueler.

Palestinians must get permits to travel from the West Bank into occupied Jerusalem and into Israel, and this pass system is the subject of bitter endless discussion—Palestinans will tell you that it is a cruel system, and they are the best judges of that. 1.5 million Gazans cannot get passes to travel outside the boundaries of a strip of land about half the size of New York City due to a policy of collective punishment that the Goldstone Report said was a war crime.

It’s especially ironic that Goldstone uses the example of ambulances in South Africa when there are countless examples of Palestinians suffering under the same conditions. Many Palestinians in the West Bank have bled to death at checkpoints that Goldstone cruelly fails to mention in this op-ed. Millions of Palestinians in the West Bank cannot go to the beach a few miles away, a beach many of their parents grew up going to, because of the pass system. And as for not marrying whites, non-Jews cannot marry Jews under Israeli law, and Palestinian families are legally broken apart by legal classifications that seek to separate West Bank Palestinians from East Jerusalem Palestinians from Gazan Palestinians, all in the name of Israeli security.

It is shocking that Goldstone sugarcoats or fails to mention many conditions that he described as amounting to a crime against humanity—persecution– in his earlier report. For instance, he refers blandly to “disparate treatment on West Bank roads.” But he is talking about Israeli roads built inside occupied Palestine that Palestinians are not allowed to drive on.

The Israeli system of control in the West Bank is all organized around the principle of separation, hafradah in Hebrew, which translates into apartheid in Afrikaans—a principle that the state enforces by granting one group higher legal status than the other. In Israel’s case the separation is enforced so as to preserve a Jewish majority inside non-Palestinian areas. And it is racial: in his recitation of Israeli freedoms, Goldstone fails to mention that more than half a million Jewish settlers who live inside Palestine have the right to vote in Israeli elections, while their non-Jewish neighbors, whose land and water they have taken, are denied the right to vote for representatives of the government that controls their lives. This explicit privileging of 500,000 Jews over the 2.5 million Palestinians they are living alongside is apartheid plain and simple. In the Palestinan case however the borders and governance of the Bantustans have just not yet been established.

People will ask, why did Goldstone shred his reputation? The judge gives a powerful signal about his thinking when he begins his piece by speaking about the threat to the two-state solution from those who would “delegitimize” the state of Israel. The plain truth is that Palestinian are enraged by the conditions we have cited above, and their support for the two-state solution has collapsed after more than 20 years of a ruthless peace process that has only extended the occupation and stolen more of their lands. Few Palestinians see a happy future for them with a Zionist neighbor, and out of solidarity for their suffering, people around the world have undertaken an honest inventory of Zionism’s actions. Many have come to the conclusion that Israel is delegitimizing itself. When Goldstone told the truth in the Gaza report he honored Palestinian voices — and was accused of hurting the peace process and endangering the two-state solution. Now he is denying those same voices, apparently in an effort to revive the two-state solution and save the Jewish state.

But it will be hard to get the toothpaste back in the tube. That is the one good thing about the judge’s latest role. It is so at odds with Goldstone’s earlier statements that it will only draw further attention to the real cause of the end of the two-state solution, the cruel Israeli occupation.

 

Caption contest
Nov 01, 2011

Adam Horowitz

(Photo: Thibault Camus/ AP)

Permanent delegate of the US to UNESCO David Killion, center, reacts as delegates vote on the Palestinian membership, during a session of UNESCO’s 36th General Conference, in Paris, Monday Oct. 31, 2011.

(h/t Angry Arab)

South Africans think Israel is practicing apartheid
Nov 01, 2011

Adam Horowitz

Paging Judge Goldstone . . . From the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa:

The HSRC commissioned an international team of scholars and practitioners of international public law from South Africa, the United Kingdom, Israel and the West Bank to conduct the study. The resulting 300-page draft, titled Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid?: A re-assessment of Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law, represents 15 months of research and constitutes an exhaustive review of Israel’s practices in the OPT according to definitions of colonialism and apartheid provided by international law. The project was suggested originally by the January 2007 report by eminent South African jurist John Dugard, in his capacity as Special Rapporteur to the United Nations Human Rights Council, when he indicated that Israel practices had assumed characteristics of colonialism and apartheid . . .

Regarding apartheid, the team found that Israel’s laws and policies in the OPT fit the definition of apartheid in the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Israeli law conveys privileges to Jewish settlers and disadvantages Palestinians in the same territory on the basis of their respective identities, which function in this case as racialised identities in the sense provided by international law. Israel’s practices are corollary to five of the six ‘inhuman acts’ listed by the Convention. A policy of apartheid is especially indicated by Israel’s demarcation of geographic ‘reserves’ in the West Bank, to which Palestinian residence is confined and which Palestinians cannot leave without a permit. The system is very similar to the policy of ‘Grand Apartheid’ in apartheid South Africa, in which black South Africans were confined to black homelands delineated by the South African government, while white South Africans enjoyed freedom of movement and full civil rights in the rest of the country.

The Executive Summary of the report says that the three pillars of apartheid in South Africa are all practiced by Israel in the OPT. In South Africa, the first pillar was to demarcate the population of South Africa into racial groups, and to accord superior rights, privileges and services to the white racial group. The second pillar was to segregate the population into different geographic areas, which were allocated by law to different racial groups, and restrict passage by members of any group into the area allocated to other groups. And the third pillar was “a matrix of draconian ‘security’ laws and policies that were employed to suppress any opposition to the regime and to reinforce the system of racial domination, by providing for administrative detention, torture, censorship, banning, and assassination.”

The Report finds that Israeli practices in the OPT exhibit the same three ‘pillars’ of apartheid:

The first pillar “derives from Israeli laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law and afford a preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews over non-Jews”.

The second pillar is reflected in “Israel’s ‘grand’ policy to fragment the OPT [and] ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them while Israeli Jews are prohibited from entering those reserves but enjoy freedom of movement throughout the rest of the Palestinian territory. This policy is evidenced by Israel’s extensive appropriation of Palestinian land, which continues to shrink the territorial space available to Palestinians; the hermetic closure and isolation of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the OPT; the deliberate severing of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank; and the appropriation and construction policies serving to carve up the West Bank into an intricate and well-serviced network of connected settlements for Jewish-Israelis and an archipelago of besieged and non-contiguous enclaves for Palestinians”.

The third pillar is “Israel’s invocation of ‘security’ to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian freedom of opinion, expression, assembly, association and movement [to] mask a true underlying intent to suppress dissent to its system of domination and thereby maintain control over Palestinians as a group.”

Does the UNESCO vote pave the way for broader Palestinian acceptance within the UN system?
Nov 01, 2011

Adam Horowitz

Phyllis Bennis discusses the fallout of the UNESCO vote on Democracy Now.

Former British Ambassador Craig Murray says the UNESCO also sets a precedent for Palestine to join the International Criminal Court:

The UNESCO membership is crucial recognition of Palestine’s statehood, not an empty gesture. With this evidence of international acceptance, there is now absolutely no reason why Palestine cannot, instantly and without a vote, join the International Criminal Court. Palestine can now become a member of the International Criminal Court simply by submitting an instrument of accession to the Statute of Rome, and joining the list of states parties.

As both the USA and Israel refuse to join the ICC because of their desire to commit war crimes with impunity, acceding to the statute of Rome would not only confirm absolutely that Palestine is a state, it would reinforce the fact that Palestine is a better international citizen with more moral legitimacy than Israel.

There is an extremely crucial point here: if Palestine accedes to the Statute of Rome, underArticle 12 of the Statute of Rome, the International Criminal Court would have jurisdiction over Israelis committing war crimes on Palestinian soil. Other states parties – including the UK – would be obliged by law to hand over indicted Israeli war criminals to the court at the Hague. This would be a massive blow to the Israeli propaganda and lobbying machine.

Of course, this also means the US could end up withholding funding to many more parts of the UN system. The Christian Science Monitor asks – will the UNESCO Palestine vote lead the US to defund nuclear watchdog IAEA, too?

Goldstone contra Goldstone
Nov 01, 2011

Jamie Stern-Weiner

From the New Left Project:

The degeneration of Judge Richard Goldstone continues. In April, you’ll recall, he penned an op-ed for the Washington Post that said essentially nothing, but gave the strong impression of retracting the central conclusions of the Goldstone Report on the 2008-9 Gaza massacre. The key point, documented in Norman Finkelstein‘s comprehensive dissection of the recantation, is that, whatever the reasons for Goldstone’s reversal, it wasn’t based on new evidence.

After months of silence, Goldstone has now resurfaced with more of the same. He has written an op-ed for the New York Times – the paper that turned down his April recantation, forcing him to offer a more sensationalised version to the Post – devoted to refuting those who analogise Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to South African apartheid. It has predictably induced much gloating among those who not long ago were smearing him as an antisemite and a traitor. The thrust of the op-ed argues against the use of the apartheid analogy to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, either within Israel itself or within the West Bank. Goldstone slams the analogy as a “malicious” “slander”. If this is what Goldstone truly believes – something about which there is much cause for doubt – one wonders why he has taken so long to raise his voice. After all, the apartheid analogy is hardly a recent one, nor is it especially controversial. A partial list of Goldstone’s malicious slanderers includes such authorities as the Association for Civil Rights Israel; South African Nobel Leaureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu; former US President Jimmy Carter; former Israeli government ministers Yossi Sarid and Shulamit Aloni; and the “father” of South African human rights law John Dugard[note: some of these references are via Finkelstein, forthcoming]. Here’s the editorial board of Ha’aretz, Israel’s most important newspaper:

“the apartheid regime in the territories remains intact; millions of Palestinians are living without rights, freedom of movement or a livelihood, under the yoke of ongoing Israeli occupation, and in the future they will turn the Jews into a minority between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.”

Here’s the verdict of B’Tselem, Israel’s premier human rights organisation:

“Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa.”

Goldstone devotes two paragraphs of the op-ed to attacking the argument that Israel is practicing apartheid within the Green Line, as distinct from its occupation of Palestinian territories. But this is a straw man. Proponents of the apartheid analogy typically either restrict its application to the occupied territories, or they apply it to the system of control encompassing the entire territory between the river and the sea, on the grounds that Israel possesses de facto control over both its own and occupied Palestinian territory (that is, they reject the distinction between Israeli rule within the Green Line and Israeli rule in the oPt that Goldstone proposes as his starting point).

Goldstone then attempts to prove Israel’s innocence of apartheid in the West Bank by – there is no other way to put it – systematically lying about its conduct there. It is child’s play to show that virtually every substantive statement he makes is not only false, but was pre-emptively refuted by the Goldstone Report (PDF) itself:

Goldstone op-ed: “Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for its self-defense.”

Goldstone Report:

Israel’s restrictions on movement in the West Bank “are disproportionate to any military objective served”. They are intended to “consolidate its permanent hold on the West Bank” and amount to “a deliberate policy of closely controlling a population in order to make use of areas of its land”. [335] Despite “the claim by Israel that restrictions of movement within the West Bank are imposed on Palestinian residents for security purposes, most of these internal restrictions appear to have been designed to guarantee unobstructed travel to the Israeli inhabitants of the settlements.” [54] They therefore constitute “violations of fundamental rights”, including the Palestinians’ “right to self-determination”. [335]

The cumulative effect of the restrictions on movement has been to “effectively split” Palestinians in the West Bank from their families in Israel, from Gaza, and from East Jerusalem. [57]

Goldstone op-ed: “The security barrier was built to stop unrelenting terrorist attacks”.

Goldstone Report:

The route of the wall is “to a great degree determined by the objective of incorporating settlements into the Israeli side” and has “contributed to the fragmentation of the West Bank into a series of enclaves”. [54] Where located on Palestinian territory (as “some 85 per cent” of it is [329fn873]) it is contrary to international law; is part of a policy aimed at (quoting an EU report) “the illegal annexation” of East Jerusalem [53]; and amounts to “the de facto annexation” of 9.5% of the West Bank. It therefore constitutes “acquisition of territory by force”, a violation of the UN Charter. [335]

Goldstone op-ed: Israel has “no intent to maintain ‘an institutonalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group'”. In Israel, “equal rights are the law”.

Goldstone Report:

Israel’s “systematic discrimination, both in law and in practice, against Palestinians” violates international law, and possibly amounts to a crime against humanity [324]. In the West Bank, “a two-tiered road system has been established” with the main roads are reserved for Israelis. [55] Israel’s legal practice in the occupied territories has resulted in “institutionalized discrimination against Palestinians… to the benefit of Jewish settlers”. Domestically Israel’s legal regime is “two-tiered”, granting Jews “superior rights and privileges”; meanwhile Palestinian inhabitants of occupied territories are categorised as “alien persons”. [57] The Report notes the conclusions of a study by the respected Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) that Israel’s “discrimination in planning and building” and other policies in Jerusalem “are concrete expressions of an Israeli policy designed to secure a Jewish majority in Jerusalem and push Palestinian residents outside”. [332]

Needless to say, where the Goldstone Report cites pages of evidence, from the most authoritative human rights organisations and international bodies, to support its conclusions, Goldstone’s op-ed cites nothing. If Goldstone could have cited authoritative sources to support the conclusions of his op-ed, he no doubt would have; he didn’t, because as exhaustively documented in the Goldstone Report, those sources comprehensively refute him.

Jamie Stern-Weiner studies politics at the University of Cambridge, and is particularly interested in the history of political thought, contemporary British foreign policy, and the Israel-Palestine conflict. His articles have been published on New Left Project, Le Monde Diplomatique and Znet. You can follow him on twitter at @jamiesw.

80 year old Palestinian woman stoned by settlers
Nov 01, 2011

Seham

80 year old Palestinian woman stoned by settlers

Settlers stone elderly Palestinian lady
RAMALLAH (WAFA) 31 Oct — A group of Jewish settlers Monday stoned an elderly Palestinian lady as she was picking olives in Mukhmas, a village southeast of Ramallah in the West Bank, according to local sources. The 80-year-old woman was reported to be injured in the head and transferred to hospital for treatment.

And other news from Today in Palestine:

Mufti calls for the protection of Al-Aqsa Mosque from Israeli attacks
The Mufti of Egypt has condemned the “regular and continuous abusive practices” of the Israeli occupation authorities “which violate the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque” in occupied Jerusalem. The mosque is the third holiest place in Islam, said Dr. Ali Gomaa, and he appealed to the world’s Muslims “to protect Al-Aqsa and stop Israel’s violations” there.

Resheq: Deporting Sheikh Salah undermines credibility of the British judiciary
Political bureau member of Hamas Ezzet Al-Resheq has criticized the British judiciary for endorsing the deportation of Sheikh Raed Salah despite his proven innocence of charges leveled against him.

Irrigation Water Cut-off in Ayn al-Beida Village
Mekorot, the Israeli water company has stopped pumping irrigation water to Ayn al-Beida village in the northern Jordan valley yesterday morning. The village still remains without irrigation water today. On the same day the occupation forces attacked the village and raided homes in a search that began under the pretext of theft of surrounding settlers’ property. This property theft pretext has been used many times by the occupation forces even though it has been proven in the past that thefts occur between the settlers themselves.

Four-thousand Acres in al-Negev under Siege by Settlers

After the displacement of almost 30,000 Arabs from their unrecognized villages in the Negev, many facts are coming out of the lands that they are being given to special Jewish farms which have spread in al-Negev. These facts were revealed after the Israeli farmer “Shai Dromi” put a siege around 4,000 acres which related to “his farm”.

Impact on Palestinian Workers under Israeli Occupation
Since the beginning of this Intifada in 2000, Israel has transformed the already harsh conditions under occupation into a nightmare of destruction and imprisonment. Economic life has severely suffered and unemployment has skyrocketed. Since September 2000, over 432 factories and 9,735 small shops and street seller stalls have been destroyed while Gaza’s industry has suffered complete breakdown due the destruction wrecked upon the Strip in the 2008/9 attack by Israel and the ongoing siege.

Israeli MK calls for targeting resistance leaders in Gaza
Member of the Israeli Knesset Shaul Mofaz has called for liquidating commanders of Palestinian resi