| Written by Ahmad Jaradat, Alternative Information Center (AIC) | |
| Monday, 30 March 2009 | |
On March 30, 1976, six young Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in mass demonstrations that took place in many towns and villages. Twenty-eight years before, Palestinians lost 78% of their land to the Zionists during the months before and after Israel declared itself a State in 1948. Not until 1966 did Palestinians, who remained in what became Israel, receive citizenship, living under military rule in the 20 year interim, much like Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza live today. These years were marked by continued land theft and the activation of Israel’s policy of “Judeazation” of the Galilee, and other areas where indigenous Palestinians remained on their lands. The State of Israel continues its policies of land theft. But on this day, March 30th 1976, Palestinians took to the streets to protest Israel’s land confiscations orders. They were met by police and soldiers who opened fire on protesters, killing six of them and injuring many others. The brave young men who were killed, and the many others who continue to protest Israel’s policies of land confiscation, have done more than fight for their rights and the rights of all Palestinians. They have revealed the true face of Israel; a racist state whose aim, carried out through its policies of land confiscation, is to ethnically cleanse the land of all Palestinians, including Palestinians who are now citizens of Israel. Palestinians everywhere commemorate Land Day, March 30th. Not only to remember those who were killed in struggle but to unite in their message: Our land is the cornerstone of our struggle, it is the land on which we can exercise our rights and self determination. In the West Bank, Israel’s goal of theft and control plays out through the building of more illegal Jewish-only settlements and “security” infrastructure to support them, including bypass roads and, of course, the monstrous Apartheid Wall. The effect on Palestinian life is crushing. This is the real aim of the occupation. As Palestinians continue standing on their land and resisting against the occupation, they are resisting Israel’s policy of “silent deportation.” In 2009, the commemoration of the Land Day is particularly poignant Suffering Gazans are still being kept under siege as the world continues to watch. 1,400 Gazans were killed during Israel’s 23 day massive assault and another 5,000 were injured. It is estimated that 30% of dead and wounded are children. Tens of thousands have been made homeless. There are reports of Israel having used white phosphorus weapons against the civilians. This year’s land day comes at a time when massive deportation is taking place in east Jerusalem through the demolition of houses. Of course, when we talk about settlers and settlement projects we are talking about a struggle for land. The usurpation and confiscation of Palestinian land involves more constraints and difficulties at all levels. Politically, it is an attempt to create an argument “facts on the ground” used to prevent Palestinians from implementing their rights in a state. It means Palestinians losing the revenues from their own land. Since 2000, one million trees where uprooted to expand settlements and to build the Apartheid wall. Since the Oslo Accords, the supposed peace process signed in 1993, the number of settlers increased from 150,000 to 500,000 and the number of houses in the settlements increased five times. In some Palestinian cities or towns, like Hebron downtown, the number of settlers increased from 150 in 1993 to 500 in 2009. Dozens of villages and towns have become virtual prisons, as they are completely surrounded by settlements. This is the case of Nahhaleen, in the west of Bethlehem. In south hills of Hebron, thousands of citizens were deported from their villages. In the north valleys, more than 6 villages like Aqaba, Madam and Bardallah are facing a displacement policy that includes demolition of their homes or confiscation of their land; such policies are to facilitate the development and expansion of the illegal settlements. Many villages close to the Jerusalem Municipality border were illegally annexed to the city during the eighties. However, the residents still hold West Bank identity cards. This is the case of Al-Walaja, Alkas, and Alon’man, in the Bethlehem district. These towns are now closed off by barrier fences. Their residents are absolutely prevented from building new houses because, as West Bank residents, they cannot request the Jerusalem Municipality for building permits. Land Day 2009, Global day This is a very important step forward towards real solidarity for Palestine. It is provides a way to put real pressure on the International Community to seriously and clearly address creating a real and fair peace in Palestine. The Land Day, and actually the land of Palestinians, has become not only a Palestinian symbol of struggle but also a symbol of solidarity movements and of all powers who work for peace in Palestine. Demonstrations, meetings, exhibitions, conferences, etc. have been prepared around the world to commemorate the Day of Land. From all indications, Land Day 2009 will again focus on the so-called peace process of the Oslo Accords, on the fight of Palestinian people for their rights on their land, and on the creation of real solidarity at an international level. Last year, we wrote an article for the occasion called: “Land Day 2008: Eyewitness on the failure of Oslo Agreement”. In 2009, everybody knows well what happened: War Against Gaza, Settlements Expansion, Displacement Policy, Home Demolishing, Land Confiscation, Assassination policy, Detentions, etc. All of these point to the same conclusion: while the occupation continues its policy of ethnic cleansing, Palestinians will continue to struggle for their land and their rights. |
Posts Tagged ‘Palestinians’
Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing Policy and Land Day: Palestinian Uprising and Resistance
March 31, 2009
land_day_–_list_of_actionsWitness to Israel’s war crimes
March 30, 2009Socialist Worker, March 27, 2009
James Leas is a lawyer and longtime activist in Burlington, Vt. He works with Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine-Israel, and he recently traveled to Gaza with a National Lawyers Guild (NLG) delegation to investigate the impact of Israel’s 22-day offensive against Gaza. He spoke with about what he witnessed there.
A man looks out over the wreckage left by Israeli air strikes in Gaza City (Amir Farshad Ebrahimi)
DID YOUR observations and experiences on the ground in Gaza confirm that Israel committed war crimes during its attack?
WE SAW an enormous amount–with our own eyes. We saw the aftermath of the war, but there were a few bombs that went off during the time we were there, because Israel was bombing the tunnels. When we were crossing into Gaza from Egypt, we heard an explosion.
Most of what we actually saw was the destruction of buildings and rubble–in residential areas as well as government buildings and humanitarian supplies. We also saw the aftermath of the bombing of the UN compound, where we saw residue of white phosphorous [weapons] on the floor. These buildings had been gutted–they had been destroyed by fire.
We saw the rubble of schools and medical facilities that had been attacked. We saw a number of ambulances and United Nations vehicles that had been destroyed.
We also interviewed people who had been victims or whose families had been victims of attacks. In one neighborhood, where many of the houses included people from the same extended family, we interviewed a woman whose two daughters had been killed and whose two sons and husband were wounded severely.
The sons and husband are now receiving medical care in Saudi Arabia. She told us how the Israelis fired tank shells at her house after telling people in all the neighboring houses to come to her house. There were over 100 people in her house, and they stayed there all night.
Then, in the morning, the Israelis fired tank shells at the house. They must have known there were civilians in there because they weren’t getting any resistance; they had control of the neighborhood. And then, when people tried to escape from the house, after the tank started shelling, the Israelis shot at the people running away. Many of them did get away.
There were some left in the house who were too wounded to escape. The Israelis didn’t allow humanitarian aid workers or ambulances to come get them for days. One of her sons was left with the dead and wounded for four days until the Israelis finally allowed aid workers to come get him.
The Israelis didn’t even allow the ambulance to come close; the aid workers had to actually walk a couple of kilometers and remove the wounded on donkey carts. And they couldn’t use the donkeys; they had to actually pull the carts themselves. So it was humiliation on top of interference with humanitarian aid. It was just one violation of international law after another.
We also talked to numerous people who had experiences consistent with Israel targeting civilians. In one case, tanks came up to a family’s house, and the family was told to get out of the house. The family was standing outside the house for five or seven minutes, while Israeli soldiers were nearby, eating chips and chocolate–indicating that they couldn’t have been under attack.
But then, another member of the tank unit came out and started firing at the family, killing a young child and wounding other children in the family. We found seven or eight of these types of incidents where civilians were specifically shot at and targeted. We also describe incidents in our report where civilian infrastructures, dwellings, hospitals and schools were attacked.
We actually visited many kinds of these installations. UN Director [of Operations in Gaza] John Ging was actually in telephone contact with the Israelis before they attacked the UN compound, telling them that bombing was coming quite close. Ging told the Israelis that they should avoid hitting the UN compound.
The Israelis knew its coordinates, they knew exactly where it was, they could see it from the air very clearly. Ging told the Israelis that there were hundreds of refugees there, and that there were fuel tanks near the building, which if hit could create a massive explosion.
Ging told them that if they hit it with the white phosphorous bombs that were raining down around the city, there could be an enormous tragedy. But the Israelis went ahead and hit it anyway. Fortunately, there were some very brave people who ran out during the fire bombing and moved the trucks away, so they didn’t have that explosion.
We interviewed Majdi Abd Robo, who lived in the Jabaliya neighborhood. The Israelis “recruited” him and forced him to walk in front of them when they were moving into a neighboring house to search for Palestinian combatants. When they found the combatants, they sent Majdi in.
The Israelis hit him, they threatened him that something would happen to his wife and five kids, who they separated from him, if he didn’t go into the house where the combatants were hiding. So he was forced to go into this house to do an investigation about the status of these combatants.
Majdi found that there were three combatants who had not been injured and who still had their weapons. The combatants told Majdi to go out and tell the Israelis exactly what he had seen. So he did that, and the Israelis bombed the house, and then forced Majdi to go back in to see if the combatants had been killed.
The combatants hadn’t been killed, so they bombed the house again and forced Majdi to go back in. This happened again and again, until after the third time, Majdi refused to go back in. He said this wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing.
In fact, under international law, it is a war crime to force members of one country to serve or do anything against their own country–and certainly to serve in the armed forces of their enemy. That is considered a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
We also interviewed the director of the American International School, which was completely destroyed by Israeli bombing. Fortunately, it was bombed during the night when no students were there, but the bombs did kill a young watchman who was there.
This was a school that got some funding from the U.S. It had Western-style education; there were boys and girls at the school; it was progressive; it was based on the American school model, where you encourage students to ask questions.
So why was that one attacked? Why was any of it attacked? In my mind, it raised the question of why did Israel carry out this attack at all? The Israelis’ main reason for their attack is rocket fire from Hamas and other militant groups in the Gaza Strip. They claim that they had to respond to the rocket fire.
I went on the Israeli Foreign Ministry Web site, and I learned something interesting. Israel had already stopped the rocket fire, and they did it in an interesting way. They negotiated a ceasefire with the Hamas government of Gaza. The ceasefire started on June 19, 2008, and it lasted for four and a half months. It was supposed to last six months.
It was very successful. The Foreign Ministry Web site says that there was calm already by July 27. Very few rockets were being fired only five weeks after the beginning of the ceasefire, and those being fired were from opponents of the Hamas government.
It was the Fatah militias that were doing the firing, and the Israelis actually have good relations with Fatah in the West Bank. The Israeli Foreign Ministry Web site reports that the Hamas government was actually arresting these Fatah combatants and trying to stop them from firing more rockets.
If you look at the monthly figures of rocket fire, it was already in the single digits by the first month of the ceasefire. If you look at the succeeding months it gets lower and lower, until finally in October, there was only one rocket fired for the whole month. Why wasn’t Israel satisfied with that?
On November 4, Israel launched a combined air and ground that killed six Hamas members. That was the end of the ceasefire. There were then a large number of rockets launched immediately after the attack. Israel continued to stage incursions into the Gaza Strip.
According to the Palestine Center for Human Rights, there were nine more incursions between November 4 and December 26. The ceasefire that Israel broke on November 4 was never restored. But Israel used the rocket fire as the reason for their major assault on Gaza that began December 27.
Israel claimed it had to stop the rocket fire once and for all. But Israel had already shown how to stop the rocket fire–the ceasefire. It had worked. Israel didn’t have a requirement to use military force. Israel was the one that broke the ceasefire, and then they claimed they needed to attack Gaza to defend themselves.
John Ging pointed out that during the cease fire Israel actually intensified the closure. The closure policy prohibits the transport of food, medical supplies and other commodities into the Gaza Strip. There had been 600 or 700 truckloads a day going into Gaza, and Israel’s closure, which began about a year and half before the Gaza offensive, reduced that to less than 100.
The UN reported malnutrition, brain damage among children and other very damaging effects of the closure policy on the Palestinian population of Gaza. Again, Israel as the occupying power has responsibilities to provide for the needs of the population, and here Israel was not only not providing for the needs of the population, but not allowing others to do so either.
So there were severe shortages of food and medical supplies even before the large-scale military operation took place. When Israel launched the December 27 attack, it was already a desperate situation. The people of Gaza were not able to handle the number of mass casualties or meet the needs of the population when everything was cut off.
In fact, during the two or three weeks before December 27, Israel actually tightened the closure by not allowing anything in. When the UN had food lined up outside the border between Israel and Gaza, they weren’t allowed to enter.
Just a few days before we got to Gaza, I read in the newspaper that the French government had donated a water treatment plant that was supposed to purify 2,000 cubic meters of water per day, and they were sending this plant, along with 50 technicians to install it in Gaza. It did get to Israel, it got through the port of Israel, and was waiting on the border of Gaza for more than a week.
When there was no sign of Israel allowing it in, the French took their water treatment plant back to France. So this was in total violation of humanitarian international law that requires that there be no interference with meeting the humanitarian needs.
CAN YOU talk about why the NLG decided to take this trip?
IMMEDIATELY AFTER the ceasefire on January 18, NLG members circulated e-mails about sending an emergency delegation to Gaza to investigate whether Israel had committed any war crimes during the course of its assault on Gaza.
We had been seeing media accounts that sounded like serious violations of international law, and it seemed that civilians were being targeted and that civilian dwellings and infrastructure, including electricity and water plants, hospitals and schools, had been hit. There were substantial media reports showing that facilities for humanitarian aid, like the UN compound, which included a warehouse for storing food and medicine, had been hit.
So people in the NLG decided that it was important that we quickly go to Gaza to investigate and then write a report about what happened and present it to the public. We wanted to do this so that we could have an examination of not just what happened, but also to look at the situation in respect to what the laws of war require.
There is a substantial body of international law concerning war, going back to the beginning of the 1900s when such laws were established. These laws are very good because they are designed to protect civilians. In recent years, there have been trials of people accused of committing war crimes in various parts of the world.
Israel, as an occupying power in the West Bank, Gaza and of course the Syrian Golan Heights, has a responsibility toward the civilian population. Israel is supposed to provide for their humanitarian needs and is supposed to protect them from violence.
Also if [an occupying power] is engaged in military action, it has additional responsibilities under international law to protect the civilian population. The occupying power has to make sure that targets are really military targets. They are supposed to distinguish between military and civilian targets, and they are supposed to focus exclusively on military targets.
The reports that had been coming out of Gaza showed that this wasn’t really happening. In fact, we saw reports that showed that Israel was using weapons that couldn’t really be directed. We heard that they had been using white phosphorus, that they had been using artillery from ships and other artillery pieces that you really can’t aim precisely.
When you have densely populated areas such as Gaza City, it’s very difficult to distinguish between civilian and military targets. So it’s very dangerous to use weapons that you can’t really be precise with, and it’s very difficult not to hit civilian populations when you can’t aim precisely.
WHAT ROLE do you think the United States has played in this most recent war in Gaza?
THE U.S. has played a very large role. The weapons casings we found had markings that indicated they were from the U.S. One of the things that we heard repeatedly was the word “impunity”–the idea that the Israelis appeared to have no fear of consequences for their violations of international law.
The Israelis feel like they can act with impunity. Israel targets civilians, civilian infrastructure and humanitarian aid workers–some of the most egregious violations of the international conventions–and it really is very difficult to hold them accountable.
In fact, the United States is doing everything it can to help [Israel]. By supplying the weapons, by providing vetoes in the United Nations, and by passing resolutions in Congress by overwhelming numbers saying that they support Israel’s attack on Gaza, the U.S. is helping Israel.
At the same time, the international media is showing that this was an attack on a largely civilian population. Gaza has 1.5 million people, and 55 percent are children under 18. The number of combatants, the number of weapons they have, and the kinds of weapons they use are no match for what Israel has. There is no place for combatants to go that is separate from the civilians.
WHAT DO you think people in the U.S. can do to show solidarity with the Palestinians?
I THINK that is the crucial question. During the war, we saw huge numbers of people around the world participating in demonstrations, protesting Israel’s actions. We need to continue to build a movement that will call for accountability, that calls for Israeli officials to be held accountable, to be subject to the same kinds of war crimes prosecutions that happened in Yugoslavia, that happened in Africa.
We need to build a movement that gives people the opportunity to oppose Israel’s occupation. We need a movement that calls for equal rights, that calls for the return of refugees to their homes and villages, and that calls for an end to U.S. aid to Israel, so that Palestinians can exercise their right to self-determination.
An Army of Extremists
March 26, 2009How some military rabbis are trying to radicalize Israeli soldiers.
March 26, 2009,
Israeli soldiers, just back from Gaza
Recent reports of atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers in the course of the intervention in Gaza have described the incitement of conscripts and reservists by military rabbis who characterized the battle as a holy war for the expulsion of non-Jews from Jewish land. The secular Israeli academic Dany Zamir, who first brought the testimony of shocked Israeli soldiers to light, has been quoted as if the influence of such extremist clerical teachings was something new. This is not the case.
I remember being in Israel in 1986 when the chief army “chaplain” in the occupied territories, Rabbi Shmuel Derlich, issued his troops a 1,000-word pastoral letter enjoining them to apply the biblical commandment to exterminate the Amalekites as “the enemies of Israel.” Nobody has recently encountered any Amalekites, so the chief educational officer of the Israeli Defense Forces asked Rabbi Derlich whether he would care to define his terms and say whom he meant. Rather evasively—if rather alarmingly—the man of God replied, “Germans.” There are no Germans in Judaea and Samaria or, indeed, in the Old Testament, so the rabbi’s exhortation to slay all Germans as well as quite probably all Palestinians was referred to the Judge Advocate General’s Office. Forty military rabbis publicly came to Derlich’s support, and the rather spineless conclusion of the JAG was that he had committed no legal offense but should perhaps refrain in the future from making political statements on the army’s behalf.
The problem here is precisely that the rabbi was not making a “political” statement. Rather, he was doing his religious duty in reminding his readers what the Torah actually says. It’s not at all uncommon in Israel to read discussions, featuring military rabbis, of quite how to interpret the following holy order from Moses, in the Book of Numbers, Chapter 31, Verses 13-18, as quoted from my 1985 translation by the Jewish Publication Society. The Israelites have just done a fairly pitiless job on the Midianites, slaughtering all of the adult males. But, says their stern commander-in-chief, they have still failed him:
Moses and Eleazar the priest go on to issue some complex instructions about the ritual cleansings that must be practiced after this exhausting massacre has been completed.
Now, it’s common to hear people say, when this infamous passage and others like it come up, that it’s not intended to be “taken literally.” One also often hears the excuse that some wicked things are done “in the name of” religion, as if the wicked things were somehow the result of a misinterpretation. But the nationalist rabbis who prepare Israeli soldiers for their mission seem to think that this book might be the word of God, in which case the only misinterpretation would be the failure to take it literally. (I hate to break it to you, but the people who think that God’s will is revealed in scripture are known as “religious.” Those who do not think so must try to find another name for themselves.)
Possibly you remember Dr. Baruch Goldstein, the man who in February 1994 unslung his weapon and killed more than two dozen worshippers at the mosque in Hebron. He had been a physician in the Israeli army and had first attracted attention by saying that he would refuse to treat non-Jews on the Sabbath. Now read Ethan Bronner’s report in the March 22 New York Times about the preachments of the Israeli army’s latest chief rabbi, a West Bank settler named Avichai Rontzski who also holds the rank of brigadier general. He has “said that the main reason for a Jewish doctor to treat a non-Jew on the Sabbath … is to avoid exposing Diaspora Jews to hatred.” Those of us who follow these things recognize that statement as one of the leading indicators of a truly determined racist and fundamentalist. Yet it comes not this time in the garb of a homicidal lone-wolf nut bag but in the full uniform and accoutrement of a general and a high priest: Moses and Eleazar combined. The latest news, according to Bronner, is that the Israeli Defense Ministry has felt compelled to reprimand Rontzski for “a rabbinal edict against showing the enemy mercy” that was distributed in booklet form to men and women in uniform (see Numbers 31:13-18, above).
Peering over the horrible pile of Palestinian civilian casualties that has immediately resulted, it’s fairly easy to see where this is going in the medium-to-longer term. The zealot settlers and their clerical accomplices are establishing an army within the army so that one day, if it is ever decided to disband or evacuate the colonial settlements, there will be enough officers and soldiers, stiffened by enough rabbis and enough extremist sermons, to refuse to obey the order. Torah verses will also be found that make it permissible to murder secular Jews as well as Arabs. The dress rehearsals for this have already taken place, with the religious excuses given for Baruch Goldstein’s rampage and the Talmudic evasions concerning the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Once considered highly extreme, such biblical exegeses are moving ever closer to the mainstream. It’s high time the United States cut off any financial support for Israel that can be used even indirectly for settler activity, not just because such colonization constitutes a theft of another people’s land but also because our Constitution absolutely forbids us to spend public money on the establishment of any religion.
MIDEAST: Israelis Using ‘Excessive’ Force Against Protesters
March 20, 2009By Mel Frykberg | Inter Press Service
RAMALLAH, Mar 19 (IPS) – The critical wounding of a U.S. activist has highlighted the excessive use of force by Israeli forces.
The activist, Tristan Anderson, 38, was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers during a protest against Israel’s separation barrier in the Palestinian West Bank last week. He remains in intensive care in Tel Hashomer Hospital in Tel Aviv.
Anderson was one of approximately 400 international, Palestinian and Israeli protestors taking part in a demonstration in the village of Ni’ilin, near the central West Bank city Ramallah, when he was hit by a teargas canister.
Since Israel’s devastating three-week war on Gaza, human rights organisations and activists have accused the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) of using indiscriminate violence and testing new weapons on unarmed protestors.
The teargas canister which hit Anderson is a new variety being used by the IDF, and is particularly lethal if fired directly at protestors.
The gas canister can travel over 400 metres. It does not make a noise when fired, or emit a smoke tail, and has a propeller for mid-air acceleration. A combination of velocity and silence increases the danger it poses.
Witnesses gave testimonies to the media and to human rights organisations that they saw Israeli soldiers aiming at Anderson before they shot the canister from a distance of about 60 metres. It hit him directly on the forehead. The impact of the canister caused severe damage to the right eye, and Anderson has had to undergo critical brain surgery.
Israeli soldiers continued to fire teargas canisters towards the wounded man and the people surrounding him as he lay critically injured on the ground and Palestinian medics tried to give him first aid.
Later, a Palestinian ambulance trying to rush Anderson to hospital was blocked at least five minutes by Israeli soldiers. Only after other foreigners engaged the soldiers in heated debate did they allow the ambulance to pass.
Anderson was then delayed another 15 minutes while an Israel ambulance was called, because Palestinian ambulances are not allowed to cross into Israeli territory without special permit.
Jonathan Pollack, an Israeli activist who witnessed the event said that the soldiers had fired unnecessarily. “There was no way that their lives were even remotely in danger or that they might have been injured,” Pollack told IPS.
“Even if the IDF (Israeli defence forces) argument was true that they had been the targets of stones before they shot him, no stone could travel uphill for 60 metres and threaten them, and Anderson had definitely not been involved in any violent activity.”
Pollack said the demonstration had finished and most of the demonstrators had left when the teargas was fired. “At the time of the shooting there were no confrontations, and Anderson was standing amongst about 10 remaining protestors just milling about.”
Sarit Michaeli, spokeswoman for the Israeli rights group B’Tselem says that the IDF has at times used crowd control measures indiscriminately. “The teargas canister is not meant to be used as a weapon or fired directly at protestors but in an arc or at an angle,” she told IPS.
“We have many credible witnesses, and I myself have seen soldiers fire at people who are nowhere near and have nothing to do with any stone- throwing. And even when the soldiers have the right to shoot on grounds of self-defence, they are obliged to use the minimum of force and in a strictly proportionate way.”
B’Tselem is concerned about the even more severe crowd control methods being employed by the IDF.
An Israeli journalist was recently shot in the chest with a rubber-coated steel bullet (marble-sized metal ball covered in 0.5mm of rubber) when the soldiers knew full well the target was a journalist. Towards the end of last year the IDF began once again to use Ruger rifles, which use .22 calibre ammunition, against unarmed protestors.
“We have written a letter to the judge advocate general (JAG) protesting and questioning the use of Ruger rifles,” said Michaeli.
According to B’Tselem, back in 2001 then JAG Major-General Menachem Finkelstein had ordered that use of the Ruger rifle be stopped. The decision followed the killing of several children in the Gaza Strip by Ruger rifle fire, and an order by the Central Command to cease using the rifle. The order came after it was found that soldiers often used the rifle against demonstrators without justification.
Furthermore, Israeli soldiers are using live ammunition against protestors, contrary to IDF laws of engagement.
Although Anderson’s case made international headlines because of his status as a foreigner, four Palestinians were killed by the IDF in the village of Ni’ilin last year.
Ahmed Mousa, 10, was shot dead with live ammunition in July last year. The following day Yousef Amira, 17, was left brain-dead, and died a week later after he too had been shot in the head with rubber-coated steel bullets.
Arafat Rateb Khawaje, 22, was shot in the back with live ammunition in December. The same day Mohammed Khawaje, 20, was also shot in the head with live ammunition. He died three days later.
The villagers of Ni’ilin and their supporters have been protesting weekly against the confiscation of their land by Israeli authorities for expansion of nearby Israeli settlements, and against the separation barrier.
The separation barrier, which slices through the village, divides Palestinian farmers from their land. It was deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004. (END/2009)
Solidarity convoy gets to Gaza Strip
March 10, 2009Monday 09 March 2009
THE Viva Palestina solidarity convoy finally crossed into Gaza on Monday.
After a tense day in which the planned crossing into Gaza was called off by organisers due to wrangling with Egyptian officials, the convoy began entering the besieged territory via the Rafah crossing at 9am local time.
The Viva Palestina volunteer crews brought the vehicles – which include a British fire engine, 12 ambulances and scores of lorries loaded with medical supplies, food, toys and clothes -from London to the occupied territory via a 9,000-mile route that passed through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
But, with just 30 miles standing between the solidarity activists and the Rafah crossing, the convoy was attacked on Sunday night in the Egyptian town of El Arish by unidentified youths hurling stones, bricks and bottles.
Three voluteers were injured, with two of them treated in hospital for their injuries, and several vehicles were daubed with anti-Hamas graffiti.
Respect MP George Galloway was adamant that the thuggery would not detract from the convoy’s message “of hope and friendship.”
Mr Galloway, who headed the convoy, said: “Our convoy, which set out from London on St Valentine’s Day with 100 vehicles, has grown to almost 250 and the mile-long caravan stretched for more than three miles as more vehicles joined us.
“We’ll leave behind more than £1 million in Gaza, but, more than that, the legacy will be a symbolic one of hope and friendship.”
Mr Galloway emphasised that the “message of the convoy is that the majority of British people abhor the Israeli attacks on the densest packed piece of earth on the planet and the blocking of essential supplies to the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
Meanwhile, an Israeli human rights group charged in a court petition on Monday that Tel Aviv is violating international law by exploiting the West Bank’s mineral resources for its own benefit.
In the petition filed to Israel’s Supreme Court, the Yesh Din group charges that 75 per cent of the rock and gravel removed from 11 West Bank rock quarries is transferred to Israel.
Israeli Settlers Terrorise Palestinian Villagers
March 10, 2009By Mel Frykberg | Inter Press Service
AT TUWANI, West Bank, Mar 9 (IPS) – “I couldn’t run. My pregnancy was too far advanced and there was nowhere to hide,” said Amna Salman Rabaye, 31, as she recalled the terrifying incident several months ago.
Rabaye from the Palestinian Bedouin village of At Tuwani in the southern West Bank was grazing her sheep when she was assaulted by a security guard from the adjacent illegal Israeli settlement of Ma’on.
“We saw a group of masked Israeli settlers armed with sticks and chains heading towards us. The younger shepherds ran and managed to escape, leaving me with the flock of sheep,” Rabaye told IPS.
“It was physically impossible for me to run and I also didn’t want the settlers to kill or steal my sheep. The security guard pushed me over but I was not injured,” recalled Rabaye who was then seven months pregnant.
At Tuwani was established over 300 years ago by nomadic tribes of Bedouin who first moved into the area seeking shelter in the nearby caves. However, Israeli settlers built the adjacent Ma’on settlement in 1982. The nearby illegal outpost of Havot Ma’on was built at a later date.
Outposts normally comprise small settlements ranging from a few caravans, which are sometimes connected to water and electricity, to slightly larger settlements. They are referred to as outposts by the media as they are generally not recognised by the Israeli government.
The settlements, however, which are legal under Israeli law can number from several hundred residents to small towns with thousands of inhabitants, and all the associated infrastructure.
There are nearly 300,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and nearly 200,000 in East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli information centre for human rights B’Tselem.
Under international law, including various UN Security Council resolutions, the settlements are built illegally on Palestinian land.
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring citizens from its own territory to the occupied territory (Article 49). The Hague Regulations prohibit an occupying power from undertaking permanent changes in the occupied area unless these are due to military needs in the narrow sense of the term, or unless they are undertaken for the benefit of the local population.
Nevertheless Israeli settlement building on the West Bank has accelerated at an unprecedented rate in the last few years.
This has included the enlargement of already existing settlements and the establishment of new ones, contrary to every understanding and peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israeli human rights group Peace Now released a report several weeks ago stating that the Israeli government is currently building an additional 73,300 illegal housing units in the West Bank. The report added that this would increase the total number of Israeli settlers in the area by 100 percent.
International human rights organisations have argued that the motive behind the accelerated settlement building is to establish facts on the ground and to make the establishment of a viable, contiguous and independent Palestinian state near impossible.
Currently the West Bank is effectively divided into three cantons by military checkpoints and the settlements. Palestinian towns and villages are surrounded by Israeli settlements while swathes of their land has been confiscated to build settlers-only bypass roads.
While Israeli officials are furthering the facts-on-the-ground scenario through official government policies, an unofficial war between Israeli settlers and Palestinian villagers over the continued land expropriation continues unabated.
“The settlers are carrying out a deliberate policy to try and drive us off our land and intimidate us into leaving so that they can take our land,” said Hafez Hreini, 37, one of the villagers. Hreini’s mother, 79-year-old Fatima, was left bleeding after a settler threw a rock at her head in another encounter with the settlers.
“It is very hard not to physically retaliate when you see people attack your elderly mother but I know if I had done anything back, the Israelis would have used this as an excuse to arrest me and a lot worse,” Hreini told IPS. “So we are deliberately applying a policy of non-violence and we are determined to stay here and keep our land.”
In 2006 the villagers lost over 100 sheep after the settlers sprayed pesticides on their grazing land. Several donkeys belonging to the village were stabbed to death. The village’s water wells have also been poisoned on numerous occasions while crops have been set ablaze. The children of the village and the surrounding villages have been regularly attacked by the settlers as they try to make their way to school.
A group of outraged Israeli intellectuals wrote to incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert several years ago requesting action be taken against the settlers. This led former Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz to order the demolition of Havot Ma’on settlement but the demolition never took place.
The Israeli Knesset, or parliament, also ordered the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to escort children to and from school to protect them from the settlers. But according to international members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) who live in the village, the IDF patrols are irregular, unreliable and sometimes sources of hostility towards the children.
The CPT have created their own school escorts for the children, and have themselves been assaulted by the settlers. One member received head injuries severe enough to require hospitalisation.
The Israeli police seem disinterested. “It doesn’t help if we go to the police because they never do anything,” Sreini told IPS.
The Israeli rights group Yesh Din has stated repeatedly that only a very small number of settler attacks against Palestinians are investigated by the Israeli police. These result in even fewer arrests and practically no convictions.
Massacre in slow motion
March 10, 2009Socialist Worker, March 9, 2009
More than a month after Israel’s assault on Gaza ended, life for Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians continues to be a daily struggle. Israel maintains a suffocating siege that blocks the flow of basic staples, plunging the vast majority of residents into abject poverty.
But a ray of hope has emerged in the form of a growing international struggle–from Canada and the U.S., to Europe and South Africa–to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law and Palestinian human rights. On March 21, justice for Palestine will be a main slogan at an antiwar demonstration in Washington, D.C. organized to mark the sixth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Haidar Eid, a professor of English, political commentator and longtime activist, is a resident of Gaza City and has provided an ongoing eyewitness account and analysis of Israel’s war for SocialistWorker.org. He spoke with about Israel’s occupation and the Palestinian struggle for justice.
A young boy sits amid the rubble where buildings once stood in Jabalia, a town in the northern Gaza Strip (AFP)
THE SHOOTING part of Israel’s war is now over, according to the media. Yet Israel continues air strikes on targets in Gaza every few days. And in addition to the bombings, Israel’s siege remains firmly in place, stopping all manner of critical goods from getting into Gaza. Can you describe conditions now?
THE COURAGEOUS Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has talked about the hermetic siege of Gaza that has been in place for some three years now. Prior to the war, Pappe called this siege “slow-motion genocide,” and he was absolutely right.
Even before the war, more than 350 terminally ill people died because Israel refused to allow them to leave Gaza for essential medical treatment. Israel refused to issue them travel permits to be treated in Egyptian or Jordanian hospitals. I’m talking about people with kidney failure, heart problems, cancer.
The war transformed the slow-motion genocide into real genocide–I don’t know what else to call it. During the war, more 1,440 people were killed.
Haidar Eid has written an article titled “Sharpeville 1960, Gaza 2009” that recounts his experiences during Israel’s war and adds his voice to call for an international movement to boycott, divest and sanction Israel, modeled on the anti-apartheid movement.
The One Democratic State Group has issued “A Call from Gaza” that asks activists and organizations to demand that their governments sever ties with Israel, and calls for Israel’s war criminals to be brought to justice.
Between the Lines: Readings on Israel, the Palestinians and the U.S. “War on Terror,” by Tikva Honig-Parnass and Toufic Haddad, documents the apartheid-like conditions that Palestinians live under today.
For background on Israel’s war and the Palestinian struggle for freedom, read The Struggle for Palestine, a collection of essays edited by Lance Selfa on the history of the occupation and Palestinian resistance.
We thought that the end of the war would also mean the end of the medieval siege imposed on Gaza. But unfortunately, that hasn’t happened since the end of the Gaza massacre–and I really don’t want to call it the end of the “war,” because the war has continued but in different forms.
Israel failed to achieve any of its three objectives that it declared at the beginning of the war–topping the government of Hamas, putting an end to the launching of rockets, and establishing a new security arrangement in Gaza.
Since they failed at this, they have been trying to achieve politically what they could not militarily–with the help of the U.S., even under the Obama administration, with the complicity of the European Union and with the help of some Arab regimes.
This is why all the proposals to reconstruct the Gaza Strip being discussed at the recent international donors conference at Sharm el Sheik all come with so many strings attached. In fact, these strings make reconstruction impossible.
So when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Tel Aviv and Ramallah, she talked about conditions for reconstruction. Condition number one is for the Hamas government and the resistance groups in general to recognize the state of Israel. Number two is to recognize previously signed agreements between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel, which ultimately means recognizing the state of Israel also.
But there are some big questions that come along with this, which the U.S. and the mainstream media prefer to avoid. In particular, what Israel are the Palestinians supposed to recognize?
Israel is the only member of the UN that does not have recognized borders. Does the apartheid wall represent the border of the state of Israel? Or is it the 1967 border? Recognition of Israel under this situation allows for the ongoing expansion of Israel’s borders.
Number two, Israel is also the only country on the face of the earth that has no constitution. Israel instead has Basic Laws. The first basic law defines Israel as the state of Jews all over the world. You have a theocratic state instead of a state of all of its citizens. This raises the question of what happens to 1.2 million Palestinians who are considered citizens of the state of Israel, but they are not Jews.
Also, what happens to more than 6 million Palestinian refugees living in the diaspora? Not a single agreement by the PLO and Israel, with America as a moderator, mentions the right of return, although UN Resolution 194 calls for the return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland, to their villages, to the cities and towns from which they were expelled. And Resolution 194 calls for compensation for the injustices they have suffered.
But these are things that Israel wants the Palestinians to concede before talks even begin. As Marx said, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Now, we have seen the donors’ conference, and a visit from Hillary Clinton, during which she uttered not one word of sympathy for the plight of Palestinians. This is tragedy and farce.
Palestinians are paying a heavy price. This is the continuation of the genocidal war launched by Israel against Gaza and supported by the international community. And the talks that are supposed to reconstruct are merely further means to carry out Israel’s agenda.
THE U.S. and Israel also call on Hamas to “renounce violence,” but they never recognize the incredible hypocrisy of this demand. Israel consistently uses overwhelming violence against the Palestinians, and the U.S. supplies the weapons that allow Israel to do so.
ABSOLUTELY. WHAT kind of weapons does the resistance movement in Gaza have? Crude homemade rockets, and some Grad rockets smuggled through the tunnels connecting Egypt and Gaza. But now the tunnels can’t be used. Israel has repeatedly bombed them.
Because Israel has enforced its siege of Gaza, these tunnels have also been used to bring essential goods into the Strip. For example, I haven’t been able to drive my car since the war ended, because we can’t receive any gas from Egypt, which had to be smuggled through the tunnels.
We are talking about the fourth-strongest military in the world, with 250 nuclear warheads, F-16s and helicopters, against a largely defenseless population. We are not talking about two equal parties.
According to international law, Israel is illegally occupying the West Bank and Gaza. Israel is illegally prohibiting more than 6 million Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and towns.
What we are calling for–myself as part of Palestinian civil society, as an academic, as an activist–is simply the implementation of UN and Security Council resolutions and international law. Under international law, we are guaranteed a state and the right of return for refugees.
By signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, the official Palestinian leadership made an agreement that violates our rights and international law [by bargaining away these essential national rights]. It has now become a habit for Israel and the U.S. to expect the weaker party, the Palestinians, to give more and more concessions.
One of the biggest mistakes that the Palestinian leadership made was to assume that the U.S. was acting as a fair broker. But in fact, the U.S. has been entirely biased–because of the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S., and because I don’t think you can separate the interests of U.S. imperialism and Zionism in the Middle East.
The U.S. attacked and occupied Iraq and committed genocide against Iraq’s civilians. It killed more than 1.5 million Iraqis–because of oil, in pursuit of its interests in the region, and to protect the state of Israel.
The Americans have failed miserably in Iraq. Israel failed miserably in Lebanon in 2006. And then, they tried to target what they consider to be the weakest pocket of resistance in the Middle East, namely Gaza. Fortunately, that failed. Israel tried for 22 days to bring the resistance to its knees, but could not.
That is why they are trying to achieve politically what they failed to militarily.
US: Criticize Israel and lose your job
March 9, 2009US academic freedom in peril
Paul J. Balles | Redress, March 8, 2009
Paul J. Balles considers how Zionists in positions of authority at academic institutions in the United States are persecuting and defaming anyone who dares to criticize Israel or even mention Palestinian rights.
About the worst thing one can do in America or Europe is to criticize Israel. “Freedom” even in academia doesn’t allow critical comments about Israel or Zionism. Those who risk it can lose their jobs and be labelled anti-Semitic bigots.
Joel Kovel was terminated from Bard College after 20 years of service because of “differences between myself and the Bard administration on the issue of Zionism”. The president of Bard, Leon Botstein, didn’t consider Kovel’s critiques of Zionism to be protected academic freedom.
The worst of the critic bashers is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. He spearheaded a campaign against Norman Finkelstein’s tenure for writing Beyond Chutzpah, documenting in detail the falsifications in Dershowitz’s book The Case for Israel.
After being denied tenure, Finkelstein said: “I met the standards of tenure DePaul required, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the political opposition to my speaking out on the Israel-Palestine conflict.”
In his 2008 book, The Case Against Israel’s Enemies, Dershowitz defamed many who have been critical of Israel, calling them bigots or labelling them anti-Semitic. Dershowitz has led the pack attacking Israel’s critics.
On former President Jimmy Carter, Dershowitz wrote: “Whatever the reason or reasons for Jimmy Carter’s recent descent into the gutter of bigotry, history will not judge him kindly.”
Attacking University of Chicago Professor John J. Mearsheimer and Harvard University Professor Stephen M. Walt, who together authored The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (2007), Dershowitz wrote: “They are hate-mongers who have given up on scholarly debate and the democratic process in order to become rock-star heroes of anti-Israel extremists.”
Writing about the British University and College Union (UCU) boycott of Israeli educators and academic institutions, Dershowitz explained how he and others “wrote an op-ed piece for the Times of London, in which we demonstrated parallels between this boycott and previous anti-Jewish boycotts that were undoubtedly motivated by anti-Semitism”.
On another front, Roosevelt University of Chicago at Illinois fired a philosophy and religion professor for allowing students in his class to ask questions about Judaism and Islam. The chair of the department, Susan Weininger, fired the professor, Douglas Giles, saying that students should not be allowed to ask whatever questions they want in class.
Weininger said that free discussion in world religions could “open up Judaism to criticism”. Any such material, she said, was not permissible to be mentioned in class discussion, textbooks or examinations. Further, she ordered Giles to forbid any and all discussion of the “Palestinian issue”, any mention of Palestinian rights, the Muslim belief in the holiness of Jerusalem, and Zionism. When Professor Giles refused to censor his students, Weininger fired him.
One of the worst types of Zionist harassment involves cases of Muslims generally and Palestinians in particular for speaking out on behalf of their favourite causes. The US government has often been complicit in these cases.
One such case involves Dr Sami Al-Aryan who taught computer engineering at the University of South Florida before his arrest in 2004. Al-Arian was charged with raising money and otherwise assisting Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group the US government declared a terrorist organization in 1995. At trial in 2005, he was acquitted on eight of 17 counts, and the jury deadlocked on the other counts.
All counts were trumped up by Zionist prosecutors who wanted to silence Al-Aryan. If anything could vaguely approach justice in this case, the Israelis who have been slaughtering Palestinians for half a century would have been labelled terrorists and brought to trial for committing much worse deeds than Al-Aryan.
The gravest injustice allows Zionists to silence honest critics for violating the Zionist taboo.
Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.Israel annexing East Jerusalem, says EU
March 7, 2009• Government accused of damaging peace prospects
• Confidential report attacks ‘illegal’ house demolitions
- The Guardian, Saturday 7 March 2009
40-year-old Palestinian Mahmoud al-Abbasi stands amid the rubble of his home after it was demolished by the Jerusalem municipality in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. Photograph: Gali Tibbon
A confidential EU report accuses the Israeli government of using settlement expansion, house demolitions, discriminatory housing policies and the West Bank barrier as a way of “actively pursuing the illegal annexation” of East Jerusalem.
The document says Israel has accelerated its plans for East Jerusalem, and is undermining the Palestinian Authority’s credibility and weakening support for peace talks. “Israel’s actions in and around Jerusalem constitute one of the most acute challenges to Israeli-Palestinian peace-making,” says the document, EU Heads of Mission Report on East Jerusalem.
The report, obtained by the Guardian, is dated 15 December 2008. It acknowledges Israel’s legitimate security concerns in Jerusalem, but adds: “Many of its current illegal actions in and around the city have limited security justifications.”
“Israeli ‘facts on the ground’ – including new settlements, construction of the barrier, discriminatory housing policies, house demolitions, restrictive permit regime and continued closure of Palestinian institutions – increase Jewish Israeli presence in East Jerusalem, weaken the Palestinian community in the city, impede Palestinian urban development and separate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank,” the report says.
The document has emerged at a time of mounting concern over Israeli policies in East Jerusalem. Two houses were demolished on Monday just before the arrival of the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and a further 88 are scheduled for demolition, all for lack of permits. Clinton described the demolitions as “unhelpful”, noting that they violated Israel’s obligations under the US “road map” for peace.
The EU report goes further, saying that the demolitions are “illegal under international law, serve no obvious purpose, have severe humanitarian effects, and fuel bitterness and extremism.” The EU raised its concern in a formal diplomatic representation on December 1, it says.
It notes that although Palestinians in the east represent 34% of the city’s residents, only 5%-10% of the municipal budget is spent in their areas, leaving them with poor services and infrastructure.
Israel issues fewer than 200 permits a year for Palestinian homes and leaves only 12% of East Jerusalem available for Palestinian residential use. As a result many homes are built without Israeli permits. About 400 houses have been demolished since 2004 and a further 1,000 demolition orders have yet to be carried out, it said.
City officials dismissed criticisms of its housing policy as “a disinformation campaign”. “Mayor Nir Barkat continues to promote investments in infrastructure, construction and education in East Jerusalem, while at the same time upholding the law throughout West and East Jerusalem equally without bias,” the mayor’s office said after Clinton’s visit.
However, the EU says the fourth Geneva convention prevents an occupying power extending its jurisdiction to occupied territory. Israel occupied the east of the city in the 1967 six day war and later annexed it. The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
The EU says settlement are being built in the east of the city at a “rapid pace”. Since the Annapolis peace talks began in late 2007, nearly 5,500 new settlement housing units have been submitted for public review, with 3,000 so far approved, the report says. There are now about 470,000 settlers in the occupied territories, including 190,000 in East Jerusalem.
The EU is particularly concerned about settlements inside the Old City, where there were plans to build a Jewish settlement of 35 housing units in the Muslim quarter, as well as expansion plans for Silwan, just outside the Old City walls.
The goal, it says, is to “create territorial contiguity” between East Jerusalem settlements and the Old City and to “sever” East Jerusalem and its settlement blocks from the West Bank.
There are plans for 3,500 housing units, an industrial park, two police stations and other infrastructure in a controversial area known as E1, between East Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, home to 31,000 settlers. Israeli measures in E1 were “one of the most significant challenges to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process”, the report says.
Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said conditions for Palestinians living in East Jerusalem were better than in the West Bank. “East Jerusalem residents are under Israeli law and they were offered full Israeli citizenship after that law was passed in 1967,” he said. “We are committed to the continued development of the city for the benefit of all its population.”
Peace and Justice Post 
Zionism is the problem
March 16, 2009The Zionist ideal of a Jewish state is keeping Israelis and Palestinians from living in peace.
By Ben Ehrenreich | Los Angeles Times, March 15, 2009
It’s hard to imagine now, but in 1944, six years after Kristallnacht, Lessing J. Rosenwald, president of the American Council for Judaism, felt comfortable equating the Zionist ideal of Jewish statehood with “the concept of a racial state — the Hitlerian concept.” For most of the last century, a principled opposition to Zionism was a mainstream stance within American Judaism.
Even after the foundation of Israel, anti-Zionism was not a particularly heretical position. Assimilated Reform Jews like Rosenwald believed that Judaism should remain a matter of religious rather than political allegiance; the ultra-Orthodox saw Jewish statehood as an impious attempt to “push the hand of God”; and Marxist Jews — my grandparents among them — tended to see Zionism, and all nationalisms, as a distraction from the more essential struggle between classes.
To be Jewish, I was raised to believe, meant understanding oneself as a member of a tribe that over and over had been cast out, mistreated, slaughtered. Millenniums of oppression that preceded it did not entitle us to a homeland or a right to self-defense that superseded anyone else’s. If they offered us anything exceptional, it was a perspective on oppression and an obligation born of the prophetic tradition: to act on behalf of the oppressed and to cry out at the oppressor.
For the last several decades, though, it has been all but impossible to cry out against the Israeli state without being smeared as an anti-Semite, or worse. To question not just Israel’s actions, but the Zionist tenets on which the state is founded, has for too long been regarded an almost unspeakable blasphemy.
Yet it is no longer possible to believe with an honest conscience that the deplorable conditions in which Palestinians live and die in Gaza and the West Bank come as the result of specific policies, leaders or parties on either side of the impasse. The problem is fundamental: Founding a modern state on a single ethnic or religious identity in a territory that is ethnically and religiously diverse leads inexorably either to politics of exclusion (think of the 139-square-mile prison camp that Gaza has become) or to wholesale ethnic cleansing. Put simply, the problem is Zionism.
It has been argued that Zionism is an anachronism, a leftover ideology from the era of 19th century romantic nationalisms wedged uncomfortably into 21st century geopolitics. But Zionism is not merely outdated. Even before 1948, one of its basic oversights was readily apparent: the presence of Palestinians in Palestine. That led some of the most prominent Jewish thinkers of the last century, many of them Zionists, to balk at the idea of Jewish statehood. The Brit Shalom movement — founded in 1925 and supported at various times by Martin Buber, Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem — argued for a secular, binational state in Palestine in which Jews and Arabs would be accorded equal status. Their concerns were both moral and pragmatic. The establishment of a Jewish state, Buber feared, would mean “premeditated national suicide.”
The fate Buber foresaw is upon us: a nation that has lived in a state of war for decades, a quarter-million Arab citizens with second-class status and more than 5 million Palestinians deprived of the most basic political and human rights. If two decades ago comparisons to the South African apartheid system felt like hyperbole, they now feel charitable. The white South African regime, for all its crimes, never attacked the Bantustans with anything like the destructive power Israel visited on Gaza in December and January, when nearly1,300 Palestinians were killed, one-third of them children.
Israeli policies have rendered the once apparently inevitable two-state solution less and less feasible. Years of Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have methodically diminished the viability of a Palestinian state. Israel’s new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has even refused to endorse the idea of an independent Palestinian state, which suggests an immediate future of more of the same: more settlements, more punitive assaults.
All of this has led to a revival of the Brit Shalom idea of a single, secular binational state in which Jews and Arabs have equal political rights. The obstacles are, of course, enormous. They include not just a powerful Israeli attachment to the idea of an exclusively Jewish state, but its Palestinian analogue: Hamas’ ideal of Islamic rule. Both sides would have to find assurance that their security was guaranteed. What precise shape such a state would take — a strict, vote-by-vote democracy or a more complex federalist system — would involve years of painful negotiation, wiser leaders than now exist and an uncompromising commitment from the rest of the world, particularly from the United States.
Meanwhile, the characterization of anti-Zionism as an “epidemic” more dangerous than anti-Semitism reveals only the unsustainability of the position into which Israel’s apologists have been forced. Faced with international condemnation, they seek to limit the discourse, to erect walls that delineate what can and can’t be said.
It’s not working. Opposing Zionism is neither anti-Semitic nor particularly radical. It requires only that we take our own values seriously and no longer, as the book of Amos has it, “turn justice into wormwood and hurl righteousness to the ground.”
Establishing a secular, pluralist, democratic government in Israel and Palestine would of course mean the abandonment of the Zionist dream. It might also mean the only salvation for the Jewish ideals of justice that date back to Jeremiah.
Ben Ehrenreich is the author of the novel “The Suitors.”
Share this:
Tags:Israel, Marxist Jews, Palestinians, ultra-Orthodox, Zionism.
Posted in Commentary, Palestine, Uncategorized, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »