AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS: END THE VIOLENCE AND SECURE A JUST PEACE

November 21, 2012, Shalom Rav http://rabbibrant.com (USA)
A Blog by Rabbi Brant Rosen

Received from my friend and colleague Rabbi Brian Walt:

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

An immediate end to Israel’s assault on Gaza, “Operation Pillar of Defense,”matters. An immediate end to the violence—the onslaught of missiles, rockets, drones, killing, and targeted assassination—matters. An end to Israel’s ongoing blockade of Gaza matters. An end to Israeli’s 45-year occupation of Palestine matters. A resolution of the issue of Palestinian refugees expelled from their homes in 1948, many of whom live in Gaza matters. Equality, security, and human rights for everyone matters.

We write as individuals who recently traveled to the West Bank with the Dorothy Cotton Institute’s 2012 Civil and Human Rights Delegation, organized by Interfaith Peace-Builders. We cannot and will not be silent. We join our voices with people around the world who are calling for an immediate cease-fire. Specifically, we implore President Barack Obama to demand that Israel withdraw its forces from Gaza’s borders; make U.S. aid to Israel conditional upon Israel’s adherence with relevant U.S. and international law; work with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to bring an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and to secure a just peace that ensures everyone’s human rights.

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.” As Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared in 1993, “Enough of blood and tears.” Enough!

We deplore the firing of rockets on civilian areas in Israel. We also deplore and are outraged by the asymmetry, the disproportionality, of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, evidenced by the growing number of Palestinian civilian deaths and casualties. This is not a conflict between equal powers, but between a prosperous occupying nation on one hand, armed and sanctioned by 3 billion dollars in annual U.S. military aid, and on the other, a population of 1.7 million besieged people, trapped within a strip of land only 6 miles by 26 miles, (147 square miles) in what amounts to an open-air prison.

United States military support to Israel is huge. From 2000 to 2009, the US appropriated to Israel $24 billion in military aid, delivering more than 670 million weapons and related military equipment with this money. During these same years, through its illegal military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, Israel killed at least 2,969 Palestinians who took no part in hostilities.

During our trip to the West Bank, we witnessed for ourselves the injustice and violence of the Israeli occupation and the suffering inflicted on the Palestinians, in violation of international law and UN resolutions.

In the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh, for just one example, we observed a weekly nonviolent protest. The neighboring Israeli settlement of Halamish was illegally built on Nabi Saleh’s land. This settlement has also seized control of the Nabi Saleh’s water spring, allowing villagers to access their own spring water for only 7-10 hours a week. Demonstrators of all ages participated in the protest, including several who, in recognition of the civil rights veterans in our delegation, carried posters with quotations from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We watched in horror as heavily armed members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded to this peaceful assembly with violence, strafing the demonstrators with a barrage of tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, gas grenades, and even a round of live ammunition.

The IDF assault in response to these weekly nonviolent demonstrations can be deadly. Rushdi Tamimi, a young adult Nabi Saleh villager, died this past week while he was protesting Israel’s attack on Gaza. The IDF fired rubber bullets into Rushdi’s back and bullets into his gut, and slammed his head with a rifle butt.

Israel’s assault on Gaza is exponentially more violent than what we witnessed in the West Bank, but the context–the oppression of the Palestinian people—is the same. Most of the inhabitants of Gaza are refugees or descendants of refugees expelled from their homes in Israel in 1948. This dispossession of the Palestinians that they call the Nakba (The Catastrophe) continues on the West Bank where Israel has built extensive Jewish settlements on confiscated Palestinian land. We saw with our own eyes how this settlement expansion and the systemic discrimination has further dispossessed the Palestinian people and is creating a “silent transfer” of Palestinians who are either forced or decide to leave because of the oppression. This injustice—Israel’s decades-long oppression of the Palestinian people—has to be addressed by honest and good-faith negotiations and a genuine agreement to share the land. The alternative is a future of endless eruptions of aggression, senseless bloodshed, and more trauma for Palestinians and Israelis. This surely matters to all people of good will.

To President Obama, we say, use the immense power and authority United States citizens have once again entrusted to you, to exercise your courage and moral leadership to preserve lives and protect the dignity and self-determination, to which the Palestinian people and all people are entitled. Israel relies upon the economic, military, and strategic cooperation and support of the United States. You have the power to not only appeal to Israel to show restraint, but to require it.

Feeling ourselves deeply a part of “We the People,” sharing so much of your own tradition of organizing for justice and peace, we believe it is just, moral and in keeping with the best spirit of Dr. King to urge you to:

§ Call for an end to violence by all parties and an immediate cease-fire for the sake of all people in the region.

§ Use your power to demand that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF cease the bombardment of Gaza and withdraw their armed forces immediately.

§ Join with the international community in using all diplomatic, economic, and strategic means to end Israel’s illegal, brutal siege of Gaza.

§ Insist that the United States condition aid to Israel on compliance with U.S. law (specifically the U.S. Arms Export Control Act) and with international law.

§ Work with the leaders of Israel and Palestine to secure an end to Israel’s occupation and to negotiate a just peace.

As citizens of the United States, we are responsible for what our government does in our name, and so we will not be silent. Justice, peace and truth matter. The future of the children of Israel and Palestine matter. We cannot be silent and neither can you.

Members of the The Dorothy Cotton Institute 2012 Civil and Human Rights Delegation:

(List in formation)

Donnie I. Betts, Filmmaker, Denver, CO

Rabbi Joseph Berman, Chair, Boston Chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, Boston, MA

Laura Ward Branca, Senior Fellow, Dorothy Cotton Institute, Ithaca, NY

Prof. Clayborne Carson Director Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA

The Rev. Richard L. Deats, Ph.D. Editor Emeritus, FELLOWSHIP magazine, Nyack, NY

Kirby Edmunds, Coordinator, Dorothy Cotton Institute, Ithaca, NY

Jeff Furman, National Advisor, Dorothy Cotton Institute

Prof. Alan Gilbert, University of Denver, Denver, CO

Dr. Vincent Harding, Historian, Activist, Friend and Colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Denver, CO

Robert. L. Harris, Jr., Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Sara Hess, Ithaca, NY

Rev. Lucas Johnson, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Atlanta, GA

Dr. Marne O’Shae, Ithaca, NY

The Rev. Dr. Allie Perry, Board Member, Interfaith Peace-Builders, New Haven, CT

Dr. Paula M. Rayman, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, Watertown, MA

Dr. Alice Rothchild, American Jews for a Just Peace, Cambridge, MA

Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, Freeman Fellow, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Boston, MA

Dr. James Turner, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Rabbi Brian Walt, Palestinian/Israeli Nonviolence Project Fellow, Dorothy Cotton Institute, Ithaca, NY

ISRAEL Y LA RADICALIZACIÓN MILITARISTA EN MEDIO ORIENTE

21 noviembre 2012, Rebelión http://www.rebelion.org (México)

Ariel Goldstein*

Como una constante que se ha acentuado en Israel de forma posterior a su triunfo en la guerra del ’67 -aquella guerra que según Idith Zertal transformó “lo que debería ser un refugio, un hogar y una patria en un templo y un eterno altar”-, este país se encuentra actualmente reforzando su poder en Medio Oriente a partir de la militarización de las relaciones internacionales. La pretensión israelí de dominio regional por la vía del militarismo se ha expresado en sus últimos ataques a Gaza, que incluyen la operación Plomo Fundido de 2008 y en el actual bombardeo con amenaza de exterminio a partir del ingreso por tierra, que ya ha implicado movilizar a 75.000 reservistas. No ha intentado otra cosa que activar la amenaza del exterminio el canciller israelí Avigdor Lieberman cuando señaló que "si entramos en Gaza por tierra tenemos que ir hasta el final", a pesar de que podría ser solamente una estrategia para amenazar y luego negociar en mejores condiciones.

Sin embargo, la estrategia militarista adoptada por Israel pareciera en cierta medida anacrónica, explicable por una excepcionalidad cultural constituida por el dominio que ejercen las IDF (Israel Defense Forces) en la sociedad israelí y por la heroificación religiosa. Ya lo había percibido Michel Warchawsky ante el inicio de la primavera árabe al señalar que “ cuando escuchamos las declaraciones israelíes sobre la rebelión egipcia, el aspecto más chocante resulta el gran abismo que existe entre estas declaraciones y las del resto del mundo. Se hace evidente que Israel habita un planeta totalmente diferente”.

La complejidad del escenario reside en que, a pesar del interés israelí de recuperar posiciones frente al nuevo escenario geopolítico regional con esta nueva ofensiva militarista [1] , así como a partir del importante resguardo que le brinda su alianza estratégica con EE.UU, el contexto actual ya no es el mismo. Las recientes rebeliones en el Mundo Árabe han expresado la vocación popular por demandas democráticas e igualitarias capitalizadas en ciertos casos por grupos religiosos tradicionales como los Hermanos Musulmanes. Así también, hemos visto últimamente una ronda de hostilidades frente a las autoridades diplomáticas estadounidenses en la región, que incluyeron el asesinato del embajador Chris Steven en Libia, así como las violentas manifestaciones frente a la embajada estadounidense en El Cairo, Túnez, entre otras, que dan cuenta del profundo sentimiento antinorteamericano de ciertas multitudes.

Suman a ello la constatación de que Egipto ya no se encuentra bajo los designios de Hosni Mubarak, sino de Mohamed Morsi, quien pertenece a la cofradía de los Hermanos Musulmanes y que triunfó en las primeras elecciones realizadas de forma posterior a la rebelión egipcia. Éste último, al igual que el primer ministro turco Recep Tayip Erdogan, expresa cierta autonomía frente a los poderes occidentales, mientras que Mubarak era un incondicional aliado de los intereses estadounidenses en la región y garantizaba el bloqueo a la Franja de Gaza.

Las consecuencias de esta nueva radicalización militar israelí posiblemente sean más inciertas actualmente, puesto que Israel actúa como “pez grande” -lo que efectivamente era y sigue siendo- en un escenario en mutación. A pesar de lo incierto del escenario regional, lo que sí parece asegurado con esta escalada de violencia, es la derechización del electorado nacional hacia a las elecciones en enero. Como ha demostrado Idith Zertal, revivir la amenaza del holocausto y el aniquilamiento ha sido una constante en las formas de manipulación de la política israelí instrumentada desde las elites político-militares, y resulta evidente señalar que este contexto a nivel interno favorecerá una vez más a la derecha.

*Ariel Goldstein es Sociólogo (UBA). Becario Conicet en el Instituto de Estudios de América Latina y el Caribe (Iealc).

[1] Agradezco al sociólogo Nicolás Damin por señalarme esta cuestión.

SOBRE EL ANTISEMITISMO COMO CHANTAJE POLÍTICO: A PROPÓSITO DE LA NUEVA AGRESIÓN DE ISRAEL A LA FRANJA DE GAZA

21 noviembre 2012, ADITAL Agência de Informação Frei Tito para América Latina

http://www.adital.com.br (Brasil)

 

Atilio Borón

Doutor em Ciência Política pela Harvard University. Professor titular de Filosofia Política da Universidade de B. Aires, Argentina. Director del PLED, Programa Latinoamericano de Educación a Distancia en Ciencias Sociales

Adital

Quienes condenen la nueva agresión perpetrada por Israel en la Franja de Gaza se exponen a recibir una reiterada descalificación: "antisemita”. Para esos inveterados racistas cualquier crítica a las políticas genocidas del Estado de Israel, cualquier denuncia de sus atrocidades y de su barbarie sólo puede nacer de un intenso odio al pueblo judío. Tamaña confusión entre pueblo y régimen político no es casual ni gratuita. Constituye, en cambio, el absurdo chantaje metódicamente utilizado por la derecha reaccionaria israelí y sus aliados en el imperio para desacreditar cualquier denuncia de los crímenes del estado de Israel y de su suicida curso de acción que, en el largo plazo, tendrá como víctima al propio pueblo judío. Esta postura para nada es exclusiva de los fascistas israelíes: recuerda la que adoptaban sus congéneres argentinos cuando calificaban de "campaña anti-argentina” las críticas que desde dentro y fuera del país se dirigían en contra de la dictadura terrorista cívico-militar que sembró destrucción y muerte en la segunda mitad de los años setentas. Ellos también equiparaban maliciosamente pueblo y gobierno -como hoy lo hacen los racistas judíos- para desvirtuar cualquier ataque contra el Estado terrorista como si fuera una agresión al pueblo argentino. En ambos casos lo que se pretende es defender a un régimen político nefasto que, en el caso de Israel, ha sido denunciado por eminentes personalidades de la comunidad judía, dentro y fuera de ese país. Son conocidas–pese a ser silenciadas oficialmente- las dudas que Albert Einstein y el gran filósofo judío Martin Buber abrigaban en relación a la forma concreta que estaba tomando la creación del estado de Israel ya en sus primeros años de vida. Poco antes del desencadenamiento de la operación "Pilar Defensivo” Noam Chomsky informaba sobre lo que pudo ver en su en su reciente visita a la Franja de Gaza, y sus críticas fueron demoledoras. Puede accederse al video correspondiente en: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/14/noam_chomsky_on_gaza_and_the

La lista de eminentes judíos disconformes con las políticas del estado israelí sería interminable: Daniel Barenboim y su noble cruzada pacifista con el palestino Edward Said se nos viene inmediatamente a la mente, lo mismo que el vibrante testimonio de Norman Finkelstein, un politólogo estadounidense, hijo de sobrevivientes de los campos de concentración del nazismo, quien en una conferencia ofrecida en 2010 en la Universidad de Waterloo (Canadá) dijo que "No hay nada más despreciable que usar el sufrimiento y el martirio de ellos (quienes murieron en campos de concentración) para justificar la tortura, la brutalidad, la destrucción de hogares que Israel comete a diario con los palestinos. Por lo tanto me niego a ser presionado o intimidado por sus lágrimas de cocodrilo (en referencia a una de las asistentes a su conferencia)”. Este pasaje de su presentación en la Universidad de Waterloo puede verse en: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gE8GESi35Yw

A lo anterior podrían agregarse las múltiples organizaciones judías que rechazan esa espuria identificación entre pueblo y régimen. Una de ellas, denominada Jews for Justice for Palestinians. Two peoples-one future, tiene como divisa una cita del Rabino Hillel, del siglo I antes de Cristo, que para horror de los ultraortodoxos de hoy día reza así: "Lo que no quieras para ti no lo hagas a tu vecino. Esto es toda la Torah. El resto son comentarios”. Hillel se anticipó nada menos que en 1800 años al célebre imperativo categórico que popularizara Immanuel Kant: "Actúa sólo de forma tal que la máxima de tu acción pueda convertirse en una ley universal”. Por supuesto que no serán las enseñanzas de aquel sabio judío o las del filósofo prusiano las que vayan a asimilar Netanyahu, su fascista canciller Avigdor Lieberman y los halcones israelíes; escucharán más bien los torpes balbuceos de algunos decrépitos sucesores de Hillel, movidos por un odio inconmensurable hacia el pueblo de cuyas tierras se apoderaron, los palestinos, y de los cuales in pectore se pone en duda su misma condición humana.

Lo anterior permite comprender las razones por las que el gobierno de Israel pudo movilizar sin escrúpulo alguno su infernal máquina guerrera contra un pueblo indefenso, sin ejército, sin aviación, sin marina de guerra, sin status internacional reconocido, bloqueado por aire, tierra y mar, imposibilitado de recibir ayuda externa (medicamentos, alimentos, ropa, etc.) y encerrado "como animales en una jaula”, como lo recuerda Chomsky en la entrevista citada más arriba. Pero hay algo más: según informa Walter Goobar el periodista israelí Aluf Benn publicó en el diario Haaretz de este jueves una nota en la que se asegura que Ahmed Yabari –el jefe militar de Hamas cuyo asesinato desencadenó la violencia- era el "responsable del mantenimiento de la seguridad de Israel en la Franja de Gaza”.En un giro por demás siniestro de los acontecimientos Yabari no fue eliminado por ser un jefe terrorista como dijo la propaganda sionista sino porque estaba negociando un acuerdo de paz. Como asegura Goobar, "esta no es una afirmación retórica ni obra de una maniobra de victimización de Hamás, sino que quien lo afirma es nada menos que Gershon Baskin, un mediador israelí que llevaba y traía propuestas entre Yabari y altos cargos israelíes”(1). Tiene sentido: ni el complejo militar-industrial estadounidense ni el fundamentalismo racista israelí están interesados en lo más mínimo en llegar a un acuerdo de paz en esa parte del mundo. La guerra es un gran negocio y, a la vez, un recurso para tratar de estabilizar la tambaleante situación geopolítica que impera en Medio Oriente. Además, en este caso, esta operación casi no tiene costos para Israel porque no son dos ejércitos los que se enfrentan -y que podrían infligirse daños relativamente semejantes- sino una formidable fuerza militar que cuenta con todo el apoyo de la mayor potencia militar en la historia de la humanidad y una población civil acorralada e inerme, que lo único que tiene para repeler el ataque es el voluntarismo de sus milicianos que mal puede equiparar la fenomenal desproporción existente entre los armamentos de ambas partes. El recuento de víctimas de uno y otro lado exime de mayores comentarios.

Con estos antecedentes a la vista es apropiado caracterizar al estado de Israel como un "estado canalla”, que viola flagrantemente, con el incondicional apoyo del amo imperial, la legislación internacional, las resoluciones de las Naciones Unidas y el derecho de gentes. Tal como lo subraya Finkelstein ningún chantaje de "antisemitismo” puede disolver el carácter genocida de estas políticas; ningún ardid extorsivo, cuya eficacia obedece a los imperdonables horrores de la shoah perpetrado por el régimen nazi (y condonado por las potencias imperialistas de la época) puede obrar el milagro de transformar el vicio en virtud o el crimen en bondad. Y ante ello ningún hombre o mujer debe permanecer callado. El cómplice silencio de los años treinta y cuarenta posibilitó el exterminio de los judíos en la Alemania nazi. La comunidad internacional no puede incurrir otra vez en semejante error, sobre todo cuando sabemos que los gobiernos de las principales potencias, bajo la dirección de Estados Unidos, no harán absolutamente nada para detener esta carnicería porque han sido desde 1948 hasta hoy cómplices y partícipes necesarios de cuanto crimen haya cometido el estado de Israel. Si existe eso que algunos llaman la "sociedad civil mundial” debe manifestarse, ahora, antes de que sea demasiado tarde.

Cerramos esta breve reflexión citando las actualísimas palabras de León Rozitchner, un gran filósofo marxista, judío, argentino, fallecido hace poco más de un año. Un maestro en el sentido más integral del término, que en el "Epílogo” de un notable libro de su autoría, Ser Judío, se preguntaba lo siguiente:

"¿Qué extraña inversión se produjo en las entrañas de ese pueblo humillado, perseguido, asesinado, como para humillar, perseguir y asesinar a quienes reclaman lo mismo que los judíos antes habían reclamado para sí mismos? ¿Qué extraña victoria póstuma del nazismo, qué extraña destrucción inseminó la barbarie nazi en el espíritu judío? ¡Qué extraña capacidad vuelve a despertar en este apoderamiento de los territorios ajenos, donde la seguridad que se reclama lo es sobre el fondo de la destrucción y dominación del otro por la fuerza y el terror! Se ve entonces que cuando el estado de Israel enviaba sus armas a los regímenes de América Latina y de África, ya allí era visible la nueva y estúpida coherencia de los que se identifican con sus propios perseguidores. Los judíos latinoamericanos no lo olvidamos. No olvidemos tampoco Chatila y Sabra”.

Notas:

(1)Ver Walter Goobar, "Los verdaderos blancos de Benjamín Netanyahu”, en Miradas al Sur (Buenos Aires) Año 5. Edición número 235. Domingo 18 de noviembre de 2012. http://sur.infonews.com/notas/los-verdaderos-blancos-de-benjamin-netanyahu

THE POWER OF THE SPECTACLE

25 August 2011, Al Ahram Online http://english.ahram.org.eg (Egypt)

Mona Anis

The action of the man who risked his life last week to remove the Israeli flag must be understood against the backdrop of 30 years of indignation

The civil resistance protests that sparked the January revolution and continue to define it have had spectacular moments. Those, it would seem, belong more to the realm of the imaginative or the visionary than to that of the real. One such moment took place last week, in the early hours of Sunday morning, when a young man, Ahmed El-Shahat, scaled the Cairo residential tower housing the Israeli embassy and climbed all the way up to the flagpole on the roof, pulling down the Israeli flag and replacing it with an Egyptian one.

The sheer sensationalism of the act instantly recalled what the cultural theorist Mikhael Bakhtin once said about modern theatrical forms: that they retain some aspects of the medieval communal performance in the public square. Its significance, the emotional energy it unleashed among the spectators – whether they saw it live or on TV and computer screens later – can only be fully understood in the historical context of popular resentment of the flawed Israeli-Egyptian peace treatysigned in 1979.

On 26 February 1980, the day diplomatic relations between the two countries commenced, and as the first Israeli ambassador to Cairo presented his credentials to the then Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, a young man from the Delta province of Qalioubiya, Saad Idris Halawa, staged an armed protest at the local council in his village of Aghour. Demanding the expulsion of the ambassador, he was shot dead and subsequently proclaimed insane.

Ever since then, the sight of the Israeli flag at any official function open to the public in Egypt has always triggered popular anger and a demand for it to be removed. In 1980, when Israel was allowed to participate in the Cairo Book Fair for the first time, the flag hoisted over the Israeli pavilion was pulled down by an angry Lebanese publisher – to the cheering of all present. A few years later in 1985, when Israel sought participation again, angry demonstrators besieged the pavilion, removed the flag and scuffled with police.

But if such spontaneous acts of rejection managed to prevent Israel from participating in most public events in Egypt, the Israeli embassy (occupying the top two floors of a residential tower on the banks of the Nile in Giza) has been an altogether different matter. The place is too heavily guarded to allow for any intervention, and numerous attempts to picket it, many by students of Cairo University whose campus is within walking distance, had always been suppressed with the utmost brutality. I recall one such failed attempt in the summer of 1982, following the Israeli invasion of Beirut and the massacres in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps –events which led former president Hosni Mubarak to recall the Egyptian ambassador from Tel Aviv, but not to allow a demonstration outside the embassy in Cairo.

For the next 30 years, and until May this year, every time Israel waged a war of aggression against the Palestinians or the Lebanese, demonstrators would try to approach the Israeli embassy – and fail. On 14 May this year, while Israel was celebrating its national day, activists emboldened by the revolutionary fervour that had overtaken the country since 25 January, decided to march from Tahrir Square to Giza. They were allowed to reach the location of the embassy, but as soon as they began chanting slogans and demanding the removal of the flag, the army patrolling the area and guarding the embassy dispersed and chased them down side streets using live ammunition. One demonstrator, Atef Yehia, is still lying unconscious in hospital, the result of a bullet in the head. Others were beaten up and humiliated by the military for daring to ask that the flag be removed. Some were even hauled in front of military tribunals.

The action of Ahmed El-Shahat, who risked his life last week to remove the flag, must be understood against this backdrop. On Saturday, El-Shahat had joined the thousands of demonstrators outside the Israeli embassy protesting the killing of five Egyptian security personnel by the Israelis. A construction worker adept at climbing scaffolding, he had seen the demonstrators trying in vain to target the flag with fireworks in order to burn it. He harboured the idea of obtaining the hated object but told nobody.

“I jumped onto the tank outside the building, and began to climb. I was more worried about being arrested by the army before I reached my goal than of falling off and dying,” he told a press conference on Sunday. To his pleasant surprise, he told reporters, while in the middle of his endeavour, he encountered a police officer looking out of the eighth floor who greeted him with the victory sign.

The rest is history that many people, the present writer included, have watched many times over on YouTube: the thousands of protestors holding their breath as El-Shahat scaled the building, the mad cheers as he reached for the flag, and the hero's reception he got as he came down, people insisting that he should have the honour of burning the Israeli flag himself after he had brought down.

One young man, Alaa Abd El-Fatah, an activist who has been on the frontline of most of the dangerous street battles that took place during the revolution, wrote about the occasion on which activists were dispersed with live ammunition outside the embassy, on 14 May: “In front of the Zionist embassy, young people, mostly under 20 years of age, bared their chests for bullets,” Abd El-Fatah wrote. “Did they believe they were going to liberate the land by such an act? No, they were merely taking part in a spectacle, demanding to see the symbolic gesture of pulling down the flag. Like Bouazizi [the Tunisian street vendor whose action sparked off the country's revolution],they knew what we did not know– that the revolution is a battle of ideas. They were there to demonstrate an idea: all power to the people, not to any external or even internal force.”

Discussing the role of the poor and disenfranchised in the Egyptian revolution, in the same insightful and moving article published in Shorouk newspaper last June, Abd El-Fatah wrote, “These people, whom we don’t call intellectuals, may not know the meaning of such words as discourse, narrative or spectacle, but they are nevertheless affected by such tropes. They know that Tahrir Square was a spectacle, and that the Revolution was won in the poor alleyways and the workplaces. They know that the spectacular is an essential part of the battle of ideas, and that the dream would fall once the Square fell. For the Square is the myth auguring the reality we have all wanted for so long.”

Ahmed El-Shahat, who had come from his distant village especially to demonstrate in front of the embassy, is, in his decision to stage this spectacular act for all the world to see, one more proof of the power of the spectacle.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/19678.aspx

EN ISRAËL, ESPOIRS ET LIMITES D’UN MOUVEMENT SOCIAL SANS PRECEDENT

18 août 2011, Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS) http://www.france-palestine.org (France)

Pierre Puchot, Mediapart

La société israélienne est profondément divisée, scindée en petits groupes. Le fait qu’ils se mobilisent ensemble est en soi une donnée très importante et totalement nouvelle. C’est pour cela que le gouvernement est perdu et ne sait comment le digérer.

À Tel-Aviv, les étés se succèdent et se ressemblent : les touristes (et les Français) déambulent mollement vers la plage sous un soleil de plomb, qui n’empêche pas les ouvriers de bâtir en bord de mer de nouveaux immeubles toujours plus massifs. Cette année toutefois, une nouveauté : des dizaines de petites tentes ornent le terre-plein de l’avenue Rothschild, une des avenues les plus cossues de la ville. Depuis un mois, le mouvement de contestation israélien fait beaucoup parler de lui. Après l’avoir ignoré, puis avoir espéré qu’il s’essouffle, le gouvernement israélien a interrompu ses vacances ce mardi 16 août pour tenir une réunion de crise, se rendant à l’évidence : le mouvement ne fait que commencer.

Samedi, la dernière manifestation a rassemblé plusieurs dizaines de milliers de personnes aux quatre coins du pays : le mouvement s’étend et touche aujourd’hui la plupart des grandes agglomérations. Près de 90% des Israéliens le soutiennent, comme le montrent divers sondages successifs parus dans la presse israélienne.

À Tel-Aviv, plusieurs campements ont germé depuis un mois, lorsque la désormais célèbre Daphné Leef, citoyenne israélienne de 25 ans, a décidé de venir planter sa tente sur Rothschild, quand le terre-plein n’était encore que le terrain favori des amoureux en quête d’une balade en bord de mer. Des terrasses des cafés, les estivants peuvent désormais observer les dizaines de tentes qui s’étalent sur plusieurs centaines de mètres, formant un ensemble hétéroclite des mécontents de la société israélienne.

Chaque soir, à la tombée de la nuit, le campement s’anime : le mouvement contre la maltraitance des bêtes côtoie une troupe d’« artistes en colère ». Des médecins urgentistes en blouse s’agitent à côté de DJ post-pubères. Chacun possède son stand, ses banderoles, presque toutes en hébreu. Il y a aussi les particuliers, comme Nathan, venu en famille, avec sa femme et ses deux enfants, motivés par leur incapacité à se loger décemment...

Malgré les apparitions timides d’anciens ministres ou de responsables politiques, comme Tzipi Livni, qui dirige le parti centriste Kadima, aucune organisation politique n’est tolérée. Et c’est en toute quiétude que, dès 19h, pièces de théâtre et concerts se mêlent aux prises de paroles devant quelques dizaines d’auditeurs. Mais dans cet amas improbable de cris, de maquillage et de revendications, tous n’ont pas le profil attendu, entendez bobos de la classe moyenne, habitués à nourrir les scores électoraux (devenus il est vrai faméliques) des partis de gauche.

Assis au milieu du stand de l’union étudiante, Tal Arbeli, grand brun sûr de sa parole, occupe tout l’espace. Un apprentissage, sans doute, forgé au gré des joutes verbales familiales, entre un père proche du Likoud et une mère définitivement travailliste. Le fils a tranché : pour lui, Kadima (parti fondé par Ariel Sharon et dirigé par Tzipi Livni), c’est déjà la gauche. En 2009, il a voté Avigdor Lieberman. Actuel ministre des affaires étrangères et dirigeant du parti d’extrême droite Israel Beitenu, Lieberman milite depuis deux décennies pour un Etat d’Israël 100% juif et a obtenu 15 sièges sur les 120 que compte le parlement israélien. «Lieberman est présenté comme un extrémiste, soupire-t-il. Mais il a simplement dit tout haut ce que souhaitent beaucoup d’Israéliens : deux Etats, les Arabes avec les Arabes, les Juifs avec les Juifs. Moi, j’ai surtout voté pour lui pour son programme touristique, dont ma ville d’origine, Eilat, a besoin. Mais c’est un autre sujet...»

« L’impact des révolutions en Tunisie ou en Egypte est réel »
À 26 ans, Tal Arbeli endosse aujourd’hui le costume de leader étudiant, par pur pragmatisme. Faute de pouvoir payer son loyer, il vit encore chez sa grand-mère, à plusieurs kilomètres du centre-ville : « Nous tentons de mettre la pression sur le gouvernement, parce l’inflation des prix est insupportable, et le problème du logement, une cause nationale, explique-t-il. Les loyers sont plus chers, en proportion du pouvoir d’achat, qu’aux Etats-Unis et en Europe. La classe moyenne n’existe plus. Les médecins, les enseignants, tous ceux qui rendent service au pays, ne parviennent pas à boucler leur fin de mois. C’est inacceptable. C’est notre combat de tenter de faire bouger tout cela.»

Un combat qui rassemble bien au-delà des clivages habituels. Samedi dernier, l’économiste israélien Hagai Katz manifestait dans sa ville de Beer Sheva, capitale du Neguev, qui, comme les principales villes du pays, s’est jointe au mouvement : « J’ai lu dans le journal que je faisais partie, selon les toutes dernières statistiques, des 10% des Israéliens les plus riches... et je ne peux même pas louer un appartement dans le centre de Tel-Aviv ! » Pour lui, ce qui se joue en ce moment en Israël ne doit pas être sous-estimé : « Il n’y a jamais eu quoi que ce soit de semblable dans l’histoire d’Israël, rappelle le professeur Katz, qui enseigne l’économie sociale et solidaire à l’université Ben Gourion de Tel-Aviv. La dernière manifestation de cette ampleur, c’était au début des années 1980, pour les massacres de Sabra et Chatila. Les manifestations importantes ont toujours été motivées par le conflit avec les Palestiniens. Ici, c’est la classe moyenne de Marx, qui la conçoit comme une avant-garde, qui est en mouvement, pour des motifs économiques.»

Une déclinaison locale du «printemps arabe»? «Certains peuvent penser que les gens en Israël ont arrêté d’être naïfs, de rester chez soi sans rien dire, du fait de ce que l’on appelle le printemps arabe ou du mouvement espagnol, admet Tal. Je ne pense pas que ce soit le cas. Certes, les tentes, ce sont les Espagnols qui les ont sorties les premiers. Mais pour ce qui est du monde arabe, eux se battaient contre des dictateurs. Nous avons une démocratie, nous nous battons parce notre quotidien économique est devenu impossible. Ce n’est pas encore ce que nous pourrions appeler “l’été israélien”.» Hagai Katz livre un autre point de vue : « La plupart ne l’admettront pas, mais beaucoup de manifestants, et même dans mon entourage, ont observé les révolutions arabes en se disant : “Comment se fait-il qu’ils puissent changer les choses et pas nous ? Nous sommes une démocratie, cela devrait être plus simple pour nous de sortir dans la rue pour exiger un semblant de justice sociale.” En ce sens, l’impact des révolutions en Tunisie ou en Egypte est réel, on ne peut le nier.»

De fait, le mouvement est né pour partie en ligne, sur Facebook, d’un boycott contre la hausse du prix... d’un fromage. C’était il y a plus d’un mois, et de l’avis de beaucoup de manifestants, la « victoire » qui en a résulté a donné aux Israéliens l’idée qu’ils pouvaient changer les choses en se mobilisant un à un, ensemble et massivement. Au sein du mouvement, la question politique demeure cependant taboue : « Ce n’est pas politique dans le sens où ce n’est pas un mouvement porté par le Likoud ou le parti travailliste, glisse Tal. Mais c’est un problème politique, car nous mettons la pression sur le gouvernement pour obtenir un changement de politique économique. Tout le monde est d’accord là-dessus : nous ne voulons pas le communisme, mais un Etat-providence qui fonctionne.»

L’économiste Hagai Katz décèle deux caractéristiques « encourageantes» dans le processus en cours : «Ce mouvement permet à différents groupes de personnes, mues par des agendas différents, de se rendre compte des intérêts qu’ils partagent, qu’ils ignoraient totalement par le passé, et qui ont tous à voir avec la doctrine libérale économique, structurée par la prédominance du marché et la disparition de l’Etat-providence. Le second point, c’est que ce mouvement social réussisse à mobiliser. La société israélienne est profondément divisée, scindée en petits groupes. Le fait qu’ils se mobilisent ensemble est en soi une donnée très importante et totalement nouvelle. C’est pour cela que le gouvernement est perdu et ne sait comment le digérer. Mais c’est aussi parce que personne ici n’a l’expérience de ce genre de mouvement, qu’il y a des erreurs de faites dans sa gestion et une grande difficulté à formuler des revendications claires et audibles, avec un agenda pertinent.»

La semaine passée, le gouvernement israélien a constitué un comité de dix-huit personnes, chargé de réfléchir aux problèmes posés par les manifestants. Ce qui ne convainc personne ici. Pour répondre à cette annonce du premier ministre Nétanyahou, les « campeurs » organisent leur propre comité, pour tenter d’élaborer une série de revendications représentatives, sans exclure personne. C’est l’une des limites du mouvement...

«L’aspect social est devenu primordial»
À quelques exceptions près, comme un campement à Jaffa, le quartier historique de Tel-Aviv, les Arabes israéliens sont absents du mouvement. « S’ils sont en dehors, c’est qu’ils se sentent toujours en dehors de la société israélienne, parce qu’ils ne bénéficient ni des mêmes droits, ni de la même considération que les Israéliens juifs », analyse Micole Stock, jeune Italienne de 25 ans qui, après plusieurs séjours en Israël, s’est installée à Tel-Aviv pour œuvrer au sein de YaLa, un programme de développement du lien politique, social et culturel entre Arabes du Maghreb et Moyen-Orient et Israéliens. « Il en va de même pour les campeurs qui songent avant tout à éviter toute division. Nos démarches pour tenter de faire le lien entre le conflit et la politique économique ne sont pas bien reçues : la question de l’armée, de la sécurité, c’est encore une question qui divise.»

Pour l’heure, ce sont les colons de Cisjordanie qui ont fini par se mêler aux manifestants – telle Einat, qui habite Eli, au nord de la Cisjordanie, et rencontrée à Tel-Aviv sur Rothschild – pour tenter de convaincre que les maux des Israéliens ne viennent pas d’eux, malgré les exonérations dont ils bénéficient, et le coût de construction des bâtiments, estimé à plus de 17 milliards de dollars. Un message qui a du mal à passer auprès des campeurs, qui fustigent aussi volontiers la communauté orthodoxe (un cinquième de la population), qui « ne travaille pas » et «reçoit quantité de subventions pour étudier le livre».

Quel impact ce mouvement aura-t-il sur les futures élections, prévues en 2013 ? Peut-il contribuer à reconstituer une gauche sans idées, totalement désunie, et minée par ce que les Israéliens appellent la «politique de la chaise», sous-entendu, la chaise octroyée au député élu à la Knesset, à laquelle il s’accroche coûte que coûte ? «S’il aboutit à un changement de culture politique, moins consumériste et résignée, alors ce sera déjà une victoire précieuse pour l’avenir de ce pays, juge l’économiste Hagai Katz. C’est un changement drastique dans l’histoire politique individuelle et collective des Israéliens, qui traditionnellement sont très passifs, et dont l’engagement politique (nombre de votants, de militants de partis et d’organisations) n’a cessé de décliner depuis 30 ans.»

À écouter Tal, passé de l’extrême droite au militantisme étudiant, un espoir subsiste : «Je soutenais activement la droite israélienne, explique le jeune homme de 26 ans. Mais c’est terminé, je ne voterai plus pour eux. J’étais de ces gens qui considéraient la sécurité comme le plus important. Et quelque part, je le pense toujours. Mais l’aspect social est devenu primordial à mes yeux. Car nous ne pouvons plus vivre ainsi, sans aucun horizon, comme des animaux, avec en permanence ces préoccupations matérielles en tête, parce que les besoins de base sont impossibles à satisfaire. Depuis vingt ans, la gauche a rejoint la droite et ne parle que de sécuritaire. Tout cela doit s’arrêter, aujourd’hui, maintenant.»
Ultime point d’accord qui réunit campeurs, militants politiques confirmés et analystes : la longévité du mouvement dépendra de sa capacité à faire plier le gouvernement sur des points concrets, pour que les Israéliens s’aperçoivent, enfin, qu’ils peuvent encore avoir une influence positive sur l’avenir de leur pays.

http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/int...

DICHTER'S LAW

13 August 2011, Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel)

Uri Avnery אורי אבנרי

“THE PEOPLE Demand Social Justice!” 250 thousand protesters chanted in unison in Tel Aviv last Saturday. But what they need – to quote an American artist - is “more unemployed politicians”.

Fortunately, the Knesset has gone on a prolonged vacation, three months. For as Mark Twain quipped: “No man’s life or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”

As if to prove this point, MK Avi Dichter submitted, on the very last day of the outgoing session, a bill so outrageous that it easily trumps all the many other racist laws lately adopted by this Knesset.

“DICHTER” IS A German name and means “poet”. But no poet he. He is the former chief of the secret police, the “General Security Service” (Shin-Bet or Shabak).

(“Dichter also means “more dense”, but let’s not dwell on that.)

He proudly announced that he had spent a year and a half smoothening and sharpening this particular project, turning it into a legislative masterpiece.

And a masterpiece it is. No colleague in yesterday’s Germany or present-day Iran could have produced a more illustrious piece. The other members of the Knesset seem to feel so, too – no less than 20 of the 28 members of the Kadima faction, as well as all the other dyed-in-the-wool racist members of this august body, have proudly put their name to this bill as co-authors.

The very name - “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People” - shows that this Dichter is neither a poet nor much of an intellectual. Secret police chiefs seldom are.

“Nation” and “People” are two different concepts. It is generally accepted that a people is an ethnic entity, and a nation is a political community. They exist on two different levels. But never mind.

It is the content of the bill that counts.

WHAT DICHTER proposes is to put an end to the official definition of Israel as a “Jewish and Democratic State”.

He proposes instead to set clear priorities: Israel is first and foremost the nation-state of the Jewish people, and only as a far second a democratic state. Wherever democracy clashes with the Jewishness of the state, Jewishness wins, democracy loses.

This makes him, by the way, the first right-wing Zionist (apart from Meir Kahane) who openly admits that there is a basic contradiction between a “Jewish” state and a “democratic” state. Since 1948, this has been strenuously denied by all Zionist factions, their phalanx of intellectuals and the Supreme Court.

What the new definition means is that the State of Israel belongs to all the Jews in the world – including Senators in Washington, drug-dealers in Mexico, oligarchs in Moscow and casino-owners in Macao, but not to the Arab citizens of Israel, who have been here for at least 1300 years since the Muslims entered Jerusalem. Christian Arabs trace their ancestry back to the crucifixion 1980 years ago, Samaritans were here 2500 years ago and many villagers are probably the descendents of the Canaanites, who were already here some 5000 years ago.

All these will become, once this bill is law, second-class citizens, not only in practice, as now, but also in official doctrine. Whenever their rights clash with what the majority of the Jews considers necessary for the preservation of the interests of the “nation-state of the Jewish people” – which may include everything from land ownership to criminal legislation –their rights will be ignored.

THE BILL itself does not leave much room for speculation. It spells things out.

The Arabic language will lose its status as an “official language” – a status it enjoyed in the Ottoman Empire, under the British Mandate and in Israel until now. The only official language in the Nation-State etc will be Hebrew.

No less typical is the paragraph that says that whenever there is a hole in Israeli law (called “lacuna”’ or lagoon), Jewish law will apply.

“Jewish law” is the Talmud and the Halakha, the Jewish equivalent of the Muslim Sharia. It means in practice that legal norms adopted 1500 years ago and more will trump the legal norms evolved over recent centuries in Britain and other European countries. Similar clauses exist in the laws of countries like Pakistan and Egypt. The similarity between Jewish and Islamic law is not accidental - Arabic-speaking Jewish sages, like Moses Maimonides (“the Rambam”) and their contemporary Muslim legal experts influenced each other.

The Halakha and the Sharia have much in common. They ban pork, practice circumcision, keep women in servitude, condemn homosexuals and fornicators to death and deny equality for infidels. (In practice, both religions have modified many of the harsher penalties. In the Jewish religion, for example, “an eye for an eye” now means compensation. Otherwise, as Gandhi so aptly said, we would all be blind by now.)

After enacting this law, Israel will be much nearer to Iran than to the USA. The “Only Democracy in the Middle East” will cease to be a democracy, but be very close in its character to some of the worst regimes in this region. “At long last, Israel is integrating itself in the region,” as an Arab writer mocked - alluding to a slogan I coined 65 years ago: “Integration in the Semitic Region”.

MOST OF the Knesset members who signed this bill fervently believe in “the Whole of Eretz-Israel” – meaning the official annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

They don’t mean the “One-State solution” that so many well-intentioned idealists dream about. In practice, the only One State that is feasible is one governed by Dichter’s law - the “Nation-State of the Jewish People” - with the Arabs relegated to the status of the Biblical “hewers of wood and drawers of water”.

Sure, the Arabs will be a majority in this state – but who cares? Since the Jewishness of the state will override democracy, their numbers will be irrelevant. Much as the number of blacks was in Apartheid South Africa.

LET’S HAVE a look at the party to which this poet of racism belongs: Kadima.

When I was in the army, I was always amused by the order: “the squad will retreat to the rear – forward march!”

This may sound absurd, but is really quite logical. The first part of the order relates to its direction, the second to its execution.

“Kadima” means “forward”, but Its direction is backward.

Dichter is a prominent leader of Kadima. Since his only claim to distinction is his former role as chief of the secret police, this must be why he was elected. But he has been joined in this racist project by more than 80% of the Kadima Knesset faction – the largest in the present parliament.

What does this say about Kadima?

Kadima has been a dismal failure in practically every respect. As an opposition faction in parliament it is a sad joke – indeed, I dare say that when I was a one-man faction in the Knesset, I generated more opposition activity than this 28-headed colossus. It has not formulated any meaningful stand on peace and the occupation, not to mention social justice.

Its leader, Tzipi Livni, has proved herself a total failure. Her only achievement has been her ability to keep her party together – no mean feat, though, considering that it consists of refugees (some would say traitors) from other parties, who hitched their cart to Ariel Sharon’s surging horses when he left the Likud. Most Kadima leaders left the Likud with him, and – like Livni herself – are deeply steeped in Likud ideology. Some others came from the Labor Party, arm in arm with that unsavory political prostitute, Shimon Peres.

This haphazard collection of frustrated politicians has tried several times to outflank Binyamin Netanyahu on the right. Its members have co-signed almost all the racist bills introduced in recent months, including the infamous “Boycott Law” (though when public opinion rebelled, they withdrew their signature, and some of them even voted against.)

How did this party get to be the largest in the Knesset, with one more seat than Likud? For left-wing voters, who were disgusted by Ehud Barak’s Labor Party and who dismissed the tiny Meretz, it seemed the only chance to stop Netanyahu and Lieberman. But that may change very soon.

LAST SATURDAY’s huge protest demonstration was the largest in Israel’s history (including the legendary “400,000 demo” after the Sabra-Shatilah massacre, whose real numbers were slightly lower). It may be the beginning of a new era.

It is impossible to describe the sheer energy emanating from this crowd, consisting mostly of 20-30-year-olds. History, like a gigantic eagle, could be felt beating its wings above. It was a jubilant mass, conscious of its immense power.

The protesters were eager to shun “politics” – reminding me of the words of Pericles, some 2500 years ago, that “just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean that politics won’t take an interest in you!”

The demonstration was, of course, highly political – directed against Netanyahu, the government and the entire social order. Marching in the dense crowd, I looked around for kippa-wearing protesters and could not spot a single one. The whole religious sector, the right-wing support group of the settlers and Dichter’s Law, was conspicuously absent, while the Oriental Jewish sector, the traditional base of Likud, was amply represented.

This mass protest is changing the agenda of Israel. I hope that it will result in due course in the emergence of a new party, which will change the face of the Knesset beyond recognition. Even a new war or another “security emergency” may not avert this.

That will surely be the end of Kadima, and few will mourn it. It would also mean bye-bye to Dichter, the Secret Police poet.

WHAT TO MAKE OF THE ISRAELI MOVEMENT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

12 August 2011, Jerome Slater http://www.jeromeslater.com (USA)

It is very hard for an outsider to know what to make of the current wave of populist protest in Israel which, though advocating “social justice” in Israel has nothing to say about the occupation and repression of the Palestinians.

Over 300,000 people have come out into the streets in support of the goals of the movement, which were initially motivated by the unavailability or unaffordability of adequate housing but which have broadened to include the crippling overall cost of living, the growing inequality of wealth within Israeli society, and what the Israeli journalist Dimi Reider has described as “the parenting costs, the free-fall in the quality of public education, the overworked, unsustainable healthcare system, the complete and utter detachment of most politicians, on most levels, from most of the nation.”

Remarkably, polls show that up to 90% of the Israeli general public support the demands for economic reform, including many working-class hardline nationalists and Likud activists. In its broadest form, as the Israeli activist Jeff Halper writes, “the demonstrations currently roiling Israel constitute a grassroots challenge to Israel’s neo-liberal regime. Beginning as an uprising of the middle classes….it has spread to the working class, the poor and the Arab communities as well.”

Last Monday the leaders of the protest movement, as well as student leaders and representatives of various social organizations, issued a joint statement setting forth the movement’s goals in more detail. “For a number of decades, the various governments of Israel have opted for an economic policy of privatization that leaves the free market without reins…making our daily existence a war for survival to subsist with dignity,” the document begins. It goes on to demand that social inequalities be minimized; that the cost of living be lowered; that full employment be achieved; that action be taken to meet “the essential needs of the weaker population in the country, with an emphasis on the handicapped, the elderly and the sick;” and that the state invest in public education, health, transportation, and public infrastructures.

A most admirable set of demands. Indeed, they could be transplanted to this country with very few modifications—which is not at all surprising, since the triumph of the right in Israel and its Likudist “neo-liberal” economics is closely modeled on the greed-is-good and the devil-take-the-hindmost raw plutocracy of the Republican party hereabouts.

The problem is that the leaders of the protest movement have made a conscious decision not to include the demand that the occupation and repression of the Palestinians be brought to an end; indeed, even the demand that the various forms of discrimination against the Arab citizens of Israel be ended has the potential to badly split the movement. As the Haaretz columnist Akiva Eldar has recently caustically observed: “social justice, and justice in general, ends for a considerable number of the demonstrators at the outskirts of Umm al-Fahm [the largest Israeli Arab city]. Never mind the gates of Nablus.”

As might be expected, the decision to focus only on social justice for Israelis rather than on justice for the Palestinians has caused some division within the Israeli left, as illustrated by the contrasting positions taken by two of Israel’s most astute, outspoken, and morally admirable young analysts and journalists, Dimi Reider and Joseph Dana. Reider has made a powerful case:

“It should be admitted…that the Israeli left has utterly and abjectly failed to [persuade] Israelis in the project of ending the occupation. There was never a choice between a social struggle focused on the occupation and a social struggle temporarily putting the conflict aside, because the first attempt would have flopped. There was nothing to be gained by trying the same thing again for the Nth time.”

Dana concedes that “The sad reality is that if Israelis discuss Palestinian rights and specifically the rights of Palestinians under Israeli occupation they very quickly lose public support.…Had protesters connected their struggle for social justice to the occupation, many fewer Israelis would have joined the protests.” Even so, he is very uneasy about the strategy chosen by the protest leaders: “The protesters’ working definition of ‘social justice’ is unclear and full of contradictions. The rights of Israelis are inextricably tied with the rights of Palestinians, both inside the 1967 borders and in the Occupied Territories. The protesters, like most of Israeli society, are operating under the assumption that they are disconnected from the Palestinians who live under Israeli military occupation. But the fact is that one regime rules the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and any discussion of the allocation of resources, not to mention social justice, must take into account the rights of everyone who lives under the regime.”

The moral as well as practical dilemma for the Israeli left is acute. Many of Israel’s bravest and most admirable opponents of the occupation—people like Halper, Bernie Avishai, Gideon Levy, Yitzhak Laor, and others—are enthusiastic about the protest movement. Others, like Akiva Eldar, Amira Hass, and Uri Avnery, while of course strongly supporting the social justice goals, are uneasy about the decision to exclude the occupation or skeptical about the likely outcome. For example, Hass writes: “In the coming months, as the movement grows, it will split. Some will continue to think and demand ‘justice’ within the borders of one nation, always at the expense of the other nation that lives in this land. Others, however, will understand that this will never be a country of justice and welfare if it is not a state of all its citizens.”

In light of divisions within the Israeli left and the persuasive arguments on both sides of the debate, an outsider is in no position to reach a confident assessment about the issue. Yet, I can’t help feeling uncomfortable about the current strategy of the protest leaders. First, there is an important difference between the social justice protests and the last mass protests in Israel, which were over Israel’s complicity in the 1982 Sabra and Shatilla massacres in Lebanon. The latter was unambiguously driven by moral considerations; the former, while certainly containing a moral component, is also driven simply by economic self-interest, especially since it has become a populist movement linking the Israeli right with the left. For that reason, there is little reason to be hopeful that the movement signals a moral transformation of Israeli society.

Social injustice in Israel is inextricably linked to the occupation. In the first instance, as a number of the protest leaders and their supporters have pointed out, the enormous public resources devoted to the settlements and the armed forces necessary to protect them are resources that are not available for the rest of society. Even more fundamentally, the occupation and repression of the Palestinians is so morally poisonous that it is impossible to imagine that a truly just society can be created –even if only for the Jews themselves—until it has ended.

'A NOITE EM QUE TIVE ORGULHO DE SER ISRAELENSE'

1 agosto 2011, Carta Maior http://www.cartamaior.com.br (Brasil)

Fonte: Haaretz הארץ (Israel)

Nunca houve uma manifestação como essa antes em Israel – todo mundo junto, jovens e velhos, direita e esquerda, árabes e judeus. Esqueçam o protesto sobre moradia, não se trata mais somente disso. Aqueles que temiam que os protestos fossem muito restritos, comezinhos, ontem assistiram à sua expansão. Seus objetivos já ultrapassaram o aluguel de um pequeno apartamento. Na noite de sábado, Benjamin Netanyahu recebeu sua carta de demissão, quando dezenas de milhares de israelenses ao longo do país gritaram “Bibi, vá para casa”. O artigo é de Gideon Levy.

Gideon Levy

Foi a noite em que Benjamin Netanyahu foi expulso do gabinete de Primeiro Ministro em desonra.

Netanyahu permanecerá no gabinete por um tempo, mas esse tempo está aí. Acabou. Ele vai se contorcer e fazer promessas, dar declarações e virar as costas, ele vai pregar mais algumas peças, mas isso não vai ajudá-lo nem um pouco.

Assim como o foi ontem, ele é um pato manco. Na noite de sábado, o 17° primeiro ministro de Israel recebeu sua carta de demissão. Quando dezenas de milhares de israelenses ao longo do país gritaram “Bibi, vá para casa”, Bibi irá de fato para casa. Bye bye, Bibi, adeus para sempre.

Essa foi a noite de que todo israelense pode se sentir orgulhoso de ser israelense, como nunca antes o foi. A verdadeira marcha do orgulho de Israel ocorreu ontem. Não pode haver melhor campanha de relações públicas para um país desprezado e evitado, do que a manifestação de ontem à noite, deste novo Israel. O ministro do Exterior deveria transmitir as imagens para o mundo todo: a democracia de Israel celebrada sábado à noite, como não o era em anos, levantando-se contra todos os que a queriam morta. Sem violência, sem apoios políticos supérfluos, nem Cairo, nem mesmo Atenas, mas algo muito mais bonito – uma luz genuína para as nações.

O povo, digamos, falou com uma voz alta; sem medo e sem causar medo – Tahrir, liberdade, mas não tiroteio. Falar? Não, gritar. Sim, na noite passada eu estava muito orgulhoso de ser um israelense. Só me senti embaraçado diante de minha inabilidade em assobiar com dois dedos, como a massa que marchava pela rua Ibn Gvirol assobiava, em deboche, num volume de doer os ouvidos, ecoando pelos muros do [restaurante] Goocha, para onde os clientes tinham ido comer frutos do mar como se nada fora do comum estivesse se passando. Se soubesse, eu também teria assobiado.

Nunca houve uma manifestação como essa antes em Israel – todo mundo junto, jovens e velhos, direita e esquerda, árabes e judeus. O estado que foi criado no (velho) Museu de Tel Aviv demonstrou na noite passada sua robusteza e maturidade diante do atual Museu de Arte de Tel Aviv.

Entre esses museus repousam 63 anos de altos e baixos. A noite passada foi a mais alta marca d’água recente. Foi também, aparentemente, a maior demonstração da história, a maior depois da de Sabra e Shatila.

Os manifestantes mandaram ver ontem à noite. Palavras de ordem contra os altos preços dos alugueis eram raras. “O povo quer justiça social” era a mais comum, seguida por “Hoo, há, mi zeh ba”? Medinat harevaha (“O que é isso que vem aí? É o Estado de Bem Estar Social”). Socialismo, hoje? Sim, com a garganta engasgada e tons emocionais. O protesto ganhou asas ontem à noite. Esqueçam o protesto sobre moradia, não se trata mais somente disso. Aqueles que temiam que os protestos fossem muito restritos, comezinhos, ontem assistiram à sua expansão. Seus objetivos já ultrapassaram o aluguel de um pequeno apartamento.

Aqueles que fizeram caretas para o mini-Woodstock no Boulevard Rothschild devem reconhecer, agora, que o que ocorreu nesse boulevard é apenas o ponto de partida para a explosão de um movimento, o mais impressionante movimento da história de Israel.

Os cínicos deveriam ter vergonha de si mesmos. Qualquer um que estivesse nas ruas na noite passada só poderia se comover – e, se não, então deveria ter vergonha. Quando pisei no pé de um inocente transeunte, um homem religioso, ele encrespou: “Isso não é justiça social”. Alguém tinha ouvido essa expressão antes de tudo isso começar?

A trilha sonora da semana passada incluiu John Lennon, mas na noite passada Janis Joplin foi acrescentada – outra maneira de tornar tudo mais legal. Corinne Alal’s “Zan Nadir” também tocou na noite passada. “Estamos com medo de nossa própria sombra, presos dentre os muros dos edifícios, e a maior parte do tempo com vergonha de nossos corpos, espremidos em abrigos antiaéreos... Somos espécies raras, um pássaro estranho, sonhos no ar e cabeça no chão”. Na noite passada, os sonhos estavam no ar, e que ar! Na noite passada eu tive muito orgulho de ser um israelense.

Tradução: Katarina Peixoto