Estelle crew were beaten during the attack and by interrogators

Estelle crew were beaten during the attack and by interrogators
23 October 2012, Canadian Boat to Gaza http://www.tahrir.ca

info@canadaboatgaza.org

Canadian Jim Manly still in detention

for immediate release

Montreal; 20121022 - 22h00

As Jim Manly, former Canadian MP (1980-88) and retired United Church Minister, continues to be detained in Israel with many of the other crew members of the Estelle, without any news about when he will be released. This despite freeing the Greek, Italian and Spanish citizens who were on the Estelle and the release of Israeli activists after being detained and charged.

Elik Elhanan, one of the Israelis released, said that excessive force and tasers were used against them and that a Greek MP was beaten by Shabak Security Service interrogators.

"I am now on my way home, but I keep thinking of my shipmates, my fellow activists from abroad who are still imprisoned under harsh conditions and undergo interrogation by the Shabak Security Service, among them Parliament Members from several countries," said Elik Elhanan, one of the Israeli activists who had sailed aboard the Gaza-bound Swedish ship "Estelle". Today, the court ordered his release and that of two other detained Israelis, Yonatan Shapira and Reut Mor. "At first they tried to charge us with all kinds of very serious felonies, such as 'aiding the enemy'. The court rejected this out of hand. Today they tried an article on the law books called "Attempted infiltration into a part of the Land of Israel which is not part of the State of Israel" (sic). But the court threw out this charge, too". The detained activists were represented by Attorney Gaby Lasky and her team, who have considerable experience with Human Rights cases.

The released detainees were cheerfully greeted by peace activists who arrived at the courtroom, among them Elik Elhanan's parents - Rami Elhanan and Nurit Peled-Elhanan, who is the daughter of the late Major General Matti Peled. Smadar Elhanan, Elik's sister, was killed in a suicide bombing at the center of Jerusalem – a harsh experience which made surviving family members all the more determined to strive for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, so as to prevent further casualties on either side.

"They used a completely disproportional amount of force against us" continues Elhanan. "When the Navy arrived to take us over, Yonatan Shapira counted no less than fifteen vessels surrounding us on all sides. Large and small ships and boats, a ship carrying a helicopter, as well as the Zodiacs of the Naval Commandos. Fifteen armed naval vessels against one small civilian boat carrying games for the children of Gaza. We must have disturbed very much the Navy and those who give orders to the Navy."

"These testimonies increase our concern for Jim and continue to raise the question why aren't the Canadian government and the opposition NDP doing more to secure his release?" Said Eva Manly, Jim's wife.

For more information:
Canada:
Ehab Lotayef 514-941-9792
Sandra Ruch 416-716-4010
Nino Pagliccia 604-831-9821

Israel:
Elik Elhanan +972-2-5700112
Nurit Peled-Elhanan +972-547-578703
Gaby Lasky (attorney ) +972-54-4418988

Los pasajeros israelíes son especialmente maltratados tras el asalto al Estelle

23 Octubre 2012, Rumbo a Gaza http://www.rumboagaza.org (España)

info@rumboagaza.org

Tras ser los tres pasajeros israelíes sacados de prisión y llevados a sus casas bajo arresto domiciliario, ahora vuelven a estar en la comisaría de Ashdod. Allí son interrogados y les han tomado una muestra de ADN.

Elik Elhanan, de cuya sobrecogedora historia personal ya hablamos hace unos días, habla desde Israel tras la detención:

“Han usado una fuerza excesiva contra nosotros sin provocación ninguna por nuestra parte. Cargas eléctricas por odio y venganza”

“Los interrogadores del Shabak (servicio de seguridad israelí) han pegado a un diputado griego”

“Ahora estoy camino a casa, pero pienso en mis compañeros de viaje, los demás activistas a bordo, que siguen en prisión, bajo duras condiciones y sufren interrogatorios por el Shabak; entre ellos hay varios diputados de países europeos” dijo Elik Elhanan, uno de los activistas israelíes que navegaron a bordo del Estelle, el barco sueco que se dirigía a Gaza. El tribunal le ha liberado hoy, junto con los otros dos israelíes, Yonatan Shapira y Reut Mor.
“Al principio intentaron a acusarnos de varios delitos graves, como ‘apoyo al enemigo’. El tribunal ha rechazado eso de entrada. Hoy lo han intentado con un artículo de ley llamado ‘intento de infiltración en terra israelí que no forma parte del estado de Israel’, pero el tribunal ha echado para atrás esta acusación también.” Los activistas detenidos fueron representados por la abogada Gaby Lasky y su equipo, que cuentan con amplia experiencia en casos de derechos humanos.

Al ser liberados, los detenidos encontraron los calurosos saludos de los activistas por la paz que se presentaron en el juzgado, entre ellos estaban los padres de Elik Elhanan, Rami Elhanan y Nurit Peled-Elhanan, hija del difunto general Matti Peled. Smadar Elhanan, la hermana de Elik, murió en un ataque suicida en el centro de Jerusalén, una experiencia difícil que resultó en una mayor determinación de los familiares de las víctimas en luchar por la paz entre Israel y los Palestinos, para evitar más víctimas en ambos lados.

“He pasado unos días difíciles, pero de ningún modo me arrepiento de haber navegado en este barco. Sabía muy bien donde me he metido” dice Elik Elhanan. “Durante la travesía he conectado especialmente con Vangelis, un diputado griego que estuvo navegando con nosotros. Cuando los comandos marinos abordaron y nosotros bloqueamos su camino al puente, Vangelis dijo que hemos generado en él un amor por la gente de Israel y le hemos dado esperanza para un futuro mejor en el oriente próximo. Enseguida nos separaron. Ayer tarde, cuando pusieron a Dror Feiler en nuestra celda, él nos contó que Vangelis ha sido golpeado por los interrogadores del Shabak. Los servicios de seguridad han mentido descaradamente a los cónsules y los demás representantes de los países extranjeros, diciendo que sus ciudadanos y diputados han sido bien tratados”. Dror Feiler, nacido en Israel y cuya madre, Pnina, reside en Kibbutz Yad Hana, renunció a su ciudadanía israelí cuando se mudó a Suecia. Por eso fue separado la mayor parte del tiempo de los detenidos israelíes.

“Han usado una fuerza completamente desproporcionada en nuestra contra” sigue Elhanan. “Cuando la armada llegó para raptarnos, Yonatan Shapira contó por lo menos quince buques rodeandonos por todos lados. Buques grandes y pequeños, botes y un porta-helicópteros, además de Zodiacs de los comandos marinos. Quince buques armados de la marina en contra de un solo barco civil que lleva jugetes para los niños de Gaza. Deberíamos molestar mucho a la marina y a los que le dan las órdenes”.

Cuando nos abordaron y les impedimos el paso, los soldados sabían exactamente quien era yo. Me gritaron en hebreo: “Elhanan, vas a pagar por tu izquierdismo!” y útilizaron sus pistolas para dar me cargas eléctricas. Incluso completado su abordaje del barco, continuaron utilizando las pistolas eléctricas y administraron más descargas. Sin embargo, si piensan que podían disuadirnos a mí o a cualquiera de los que navegaron conmigo, están equivocados. El asedio a Gaza es un crimén en marcha que debe ser parado. Nuestra lucha sigue.”

Contacto:

Elik Elhanan +972-2-5700112

Nurit Peled-Elhanan +972-547-578703
Adv. Gaby Lasky +972-54-4418988

THE GRAND DEFAULT

29 september 2012, Gush Shalom http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english (Israel)

Uri Avnery's Column

I AM sitting here writing this article 39 years to the minute from that moment when the sirens started screaming, announcing the beginning of the war.

A minute before, total quiet reigned, as it does now. No traffic, no activity in the street, except a few children riding bicycles. Yom Kippur, the holiest day for Jews, reigned supreme. And then…

Inevitably, the memory starts to work.

THIS YEAR, many new documents were released for publication. Critical books and articles are abundant.

The universal culprits are Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan.

They have been blamed before, right from the day after the war, but only for superficial military offences, known as The Default. The default was failing to mobilize the reserves, and not moving the tanks to the front in time, in spite of the many signs that Egypt and Syria were about to attack.

Now, for the first time, the real Grand Default is being explored: the political background of the war. The findings have a direct bearing on what is happening now.

IT TRANSPIRES that in February 1973, eight months before the war, Anwar Sadat sent his trusted aide, Hafez Ismail, to the almighty US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. He offered the immediate start of peace negotiations with Israel. There was one condition and one date: all of Sinai, up to the international border, had to be returned to Egypt without any Israeli settlements, and the agreement had to be achieved by September, at the latest.

Kissinger liked the proposal and transmitted it at once to the Israeli ambassador, Yitzhak Rabin, who was just about to finish his term in office. Rabin, of course, immediately informed the Prime Minister, Golda Meir. She rejected the offer out of hand. There ensued a heated conversation between the ambassador and the Prime Minister. Rabin, who was very close to Kissinger, was in favor of accepting the offer.

Golda treated the whole initiative as just another Arab trick to induce her to give up the Sinai Peninsula and remove the settlements built on Egyptian territory.

After all, the real purpose of these settlements – including the shining white new town, Yamit – was precisely to prevent the return of the entire peninsula to Egypt. Neither she nor Dayan dreamed of giving up Sinai. Dayan had already made the (in)famous statement that he preferred “Sharm al-Sheik without peace to peace without Sharm al-Sheik”. (Sharm al-Sheik, which had already been re-baptised with the Hebrew name Ophira, is located near the southern tip of the peninsula, not far from the oil wells, which Dayan was also loath to give up.)

Even before the new disclosures, the fact that Sadat had made several peace overtures was no secret. Sadat had indicated his willingness to reach an agreement in his dealings with the UN mediator Dr. Gunnar Jarring, whose endeavors had already become a joke in Israel.

Before that, the previous Egyptian President, Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, had invited Nahum Goldman, the President of the World Jewish Congress (and for a time President of the World Zionist Organization) to meet him in Cairo. Golda had prevented that meeting, and when the fact became known there was a storm of protest in Israel, including a famous letter from a group of eighth-graders saying that it would be hard for them to serve in the army.

All these Egyptian initiatives could be waved aside as political maneuvers. But an official message by Sadat to the Secretary of State could not. So, remembering the lesson of the Goldman incident, Golda decided to keep the whole thing secret.

THUS AN incredible situation was created. This fateful initiative, which could have effected an historic turning point, was brought to the knowledge of two people only: Moshe Dayan and Israel Galili.

The role of the latter needs explanation. Galili was the eminence grise of Golda, as well as of her predecessor, Levy Eshkol. I knew Galili quite well, and never understood where his renown as a brilliant strategist came from. Already before the founding of the state, he was the leading light of the illegal Haganah military organization. As a member of a kibbutz, he was officially a socialist but in reality a hardline nationalist. It was he who had the brilliant idea of putting the settlements on Egyptian soil, in order to make the return of northern Sinai impossible.

So the Sadat initiative was known only to Golda, Dayan, Galili and Rabin and Rabin’s successor in Washington, Simcha Dinitz, a nobody who was Golda’s lackey.

Incredible as it may sound, the Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, Rabin’s direct boss, was not informed. Nor were all the other ministers, the Chief of Staff and the other leaders of the armed forces, including the Chiefs of Army Intelligence, as well as the chiefs of the Shin Bet and the Mossad. It was a state secret.

There was no debate about it – neither public nor secret. September came and passed, and on October 6th Sadat’s troops struck across the canal and achieved a world-shaking surprise success (as did the Syrians on the Golan Heights.)

As a direct result of Golda’s Grand Default 2693 Israeli soldiers died, 7251 were wounded and 314 were taken prisoner (along with the tens of thousands of Egyptian and Syrian casualties).

THIS WEEK, several Israeli commentators bemoaned the total silence of the media and the politicians at the time.

Well, not quite total. Several months before the war, in a speech in the Knesset, I warned Golda Meir that if the Sinai was not returned very soon, Sadat would start a war to break the impasse.

I knew what I was talking about. I had, of course, no idea about the Ismail mission, but in May 1973 I took part in a peace conference in Bologna. The Egyptian delegation was led by Khalid Muhyi al-Din, a member of the original group of Free Officers who made the 1952 revolution. During the conference, he took me aside and told me in confidence that if the Sinai was not returned by September, Sadat would start a war. Sadat had no illusions of victory, he said, but hoped that a war would compel the US and Israel to start negotiations for the return of Sinai.

My warning was completely ignored by the media. They, like Golda, held the Egyptian army in abysmal contempt and considered Sadat a nincompoop. The idea that the Egyptians would dare to attack the invincible Israeli army seemed ridiculous.

The media adored Golda. So did the whole world, especially feminists. (A famous poster showed her face with the inscription: “But can she type?”) In reality, Golda was a very primitive person, ignorant and obstinate. My magazine, Haolam Hazeh, attacked her practically every week, and so did I in the Knesset. (She paid me the unique compliment of publicly declaring that she was ready to “mount the barricades” to get me out of the Knesset.)

Ours was a voice crying in the wilderness, but at least we fulfilled one function: In her ‘March of Folly”, Barbara Tuchman stipulated that a policy could be branded as folly only if there had been at least one voice warning against it in real time.

Perhaps even Golda would have reconsidered if she had not been surrounded by journalists and politicians singing her praises, celebrating her wisdom and courage and applauding every one of her stupid pronouncements.

THE SAME type of people, even some of the very same people, are now doing the same with Binyamin Netanyahu.

Again, we are staring the same Grand Default in the face.

Again, a group of two or three are deciding the fate of the nation. Netanyahu and Ehud Barak alone make all the decisions, “keeping their cards close to their chest”. Attack Iran or not? Politicians and generals are kept in the dark. Bibi and Ehud know best. No need for any other input.

But more revealing than the blood-curdling threats on Iran is the total silence about Palestine. Palestinian peace offers are ignored, as were those of Sadat in those days. The ten-year old Arab Peace Initiative, supported by all the Arab and all the Muslim states, does not exist.

Again, settlements are put up and expanded, in order to make the return of the occupied territories impossible. (Let’s remember all those who claimed, in those days, that the occupation of Sinai was “irreversible”. Who would dare to remove Yamit?)

Again, multitudes of flatterers, media stars and politicians compete with each other in adulation of “Bibi, King of Israel”. How smoothly he can talk in American English! How convincing his speeches in the UN and the US Senate!

Well, Golda, with her 200 words of bad Hebrew and primitive American, was much more convincing, and she enjoyed the adulation of the whole Western world. And at least she had the sense not to challenge the incumbent American president (Richard Nixon) during an election campaign.

IN THOSE days, I called our government “the ship of fools”. Our current government is worse, much worse.

Golda and Dayan led us to disaster. After the war, their war, they were kicked out – not by elections, not by any committee of inquiry, but by the grassroots mass protests that racked the country.
Bibi and Ehud are leading us to another, far worse, disaster. Some day, they will be kicked out by the same people who adore them now - if they survive.

“EL ESTADO DE ISRAEL ES UN FRACASO DEL SIONISMO, NO UN ÉXITO”

18 mayo 1012, Latitud 194 http://latitud194.com (España)

Entrevista con Sergio Yahni, periodista y activista israelí.

Ignacio Díaz-Roncero, Madrid

Sergio Yahni, es periodista y activista antisionista en Israel, además de co-director del Alternative Information Center (AIC) de Jerusalén. En el ámbito académico, se ha dedicado al estudio del desarrollo del movimiento comunista en la Palestina histórica.

Sergio Yahni

Fue promotor de la objeción de conciencia contra el servicio militar en los territorios ocupados de Cisjordania y Gaza y en la Guerra del Líbano, siendo encarcelado tres veces por esos motivos. De origen argentino, su familia emigró a Israel en 1979. Yahni creció en un kibbutz y actualmente vive en Jerusalén occidental. Recibe a Latitud194 en la cafetería lavapiesina La Marabunta, en medio de un viaje que le ha traído por España para impartir varias conferencias en torno al conflicto israelo-palestino, con especial énfasis en la búsqueda de alternativas al actual modelo de Estado moldeado por un sionismo que considera ampliamente fracasado y del que es especialmente crítico.

¿Cuantas veces le han llamado “self-hating jew“?
Eso se escucha más fuera de Israel. El “self-hating jew” viene más bien por parte de judios de fuera de Israel que de dentro. Es una expresión muy diaspórica.

Aún así, ¿se sentiría comodo con esta definición?
Si fuera por definición, preferiria la de “non-jewish jew” del libro de Deutscher. Es todo un problema definir qué es el judaismo, algo no resuelto hasta el dia de hoy por nadie, ni siquiera por el propio judaismo. ¿Qué es ser judio, más alla de la religion?.

Las conferencias que va a realizar estos días tratan del tema de la identidad…
“ser israelí acaba siendo estar ahí y no ser palestino; es una negación más que una definición positiva”

La verdad es que yo me meto menos en el tema de la identidad, en el qué es ser israelí. Prefiero aceptar que israelí es el que vive allí, sin entrar en el tema de quién es judío, que es mucho más complejo. Pero lo que yo qusiera discutir es el tema de la lucha conjunta. Desde los últimos 20 años, desde el 92, se ha venido desarrollando la idea del diálogo en el cual los palestinos tendrían que negar su lucha nacional. De pronto ha habido una emergencia de nuevas alternativas y de lo que vengo a hablar es precisamente de esas emergencias de luchas conjuntas israelo-palestinas, alternativas de trabajo conjunto que no solamente no caen dentro del vaso de la “normalización”, sino que intentan crear un espacio diferente.

Creció en un Kibbutz, en un Estado de Israel que parece radicalmente diferente del actual, marcado por el auge de lo religioso. ¿Es posible definir de qué es ser Israelí, más allá de su definición minimalista de “la persona que vive ahí”?
Hay dos cosas. Una es que no existe una definicion inclusiva de qué es ser israelí. Hay diferentes tipos de israelíes: hay israelíes que son judíos, otros que no son judíos pero tampoco son palestinos (como la generación de los hijos de los trabajadores extranjeros, israelíes pero no judíos, cuyo idioma es el hebreo y que ahora los quieren deportar). Hablo también de israelíes de origen ruso, que tampoco son judíos en un 30%, pero sí israelíes, y su lengua es el hebreo. Hay israelíes etiopes… es toda una amalgama de comunidades con muy poco en común. Entonces, ser israelí acaba siendo estar ahí y no ser palestino. Es una negación más que una definición positiva.

Por otro lado, el Estado de Israel hoy, el estado del apartheid, confesional, es mas que nada un fracaso del sionismo, no su éxito. El objetivo del sionismo era el establecimiento de un estado laico y la laicización del judaismo. Establecer el judaismo no como una religión, sino como una nacion.

Entonces, después de 60 años de Estado de Israel, ¿da al proyecto sionismo por muerto?
El sionismo ha fracasado en dos elementos: generar una identidad colectiva que vaya más allá de la religión y establecer un territorio autónomo con mayoria judía. En el estado de Israel hoy los judíos no son ya mayoría: hay una paridad con los palestinos y no judíos, y hasta quizás haya una pequeña mayoría sólo palestina. Por esta razón emerge el apartheid, como un fracaso del proyecto sionista.

¿Qué debería haber hecho para no fracasar?
“el apartheid emeerge como un fracaso del proyecto sionista”
El problema es que el sionismo es un movimiento que lleva su fracaso en su propia definición. Esta obligado a fracasar y a decaer porque no existe una definición laica de qué es ser judío, y porque la única posibilidad que tiene el sionismo de no fracasar, entre comillas, sería llevar adelante una continua y permanente limpieza étnica, algo imposible e insostenible. Lo que ocurre hoy es que la limpieza étnica ha llegado a sus límites e Israel tiene que transformarse en un estado de apartheid donde los judíos son la minoría.

Un argumento frecuente, independientemente del debate sobre el sionismo, es que Israel es “la única democracia en Oriente Medio”…
Eso es mas bien una frase de marketing, de “marca país”: intentar crear un marketing de Israel como algo que no es. Me parece que ha tenido tanto éxito como la “marca España”.

¿Es Israel una democracia?
No. El estado de Israel no es un estado democrático. Es una etnocracia donde se van reduciendo las libertades que existen, sobre todo con este último gobierno. Ahora, las libertades eran para la población judía, no para el colectivo palestino ciudadano de Israel y para el colectivo palestino en Cisjordania y Gaza. Ahora lo que se van reduciendo son también las libertades que tenían los judíos en este espacio.

en los barrios pobres y entre la clase media va surgiendo un movimiento de protesta bastante fuerte

La presidencia de Netanyahu está tomando posturas muy ideologizadas ante una población fragmentada. ¿Goza de un apoyo suficiente?
Los sondeos de opinión le dan una mayoría bastante estable. Esta mayoría en un momento determinado se rompe hacia la derecha. Gran parte de la base social del Likud está más a la derecha que Netanyahu. Por otro lado vemos cómo en los barrios pobres y entre la clase media va surgiendo un movimiento de protesta bastante fuerte. Se ha visto en el extranjero la parte más europeizada de él, pero el movimiento de protesta en los barrios pobres va creciendo. No creo que se pueda romper todavía la hegemonía de la derecha y el Likud (o del centro creado por el laborismo y la derecha), pero sí se van creando grietas en esa hegemonía.

Usted escribió que “el eje del conflicto árabe-israelí define los límites de las identidades políticas dentro de la sociedad israelí”, y que un punto relevante de las protestas del año pasado fue la ruptura de esta inercia. Sin embargo, los manifestantes evitaron toda referencia al conflicto para no romper la unidad. ¿Es posible que ocurra un cambio social autónomo dentro de Israel, o permanece todo ligado irremediablemente al conflicto?.
Existen tres actores para un cambio futuro. Uno son los palestinos y su Movimiento de Liberación Nacional: saber si va a lograr establecer una movilización social suficientemente amplia que rompa la gobernabilidad de Israel. El segundo elemento es el movimiento social internacional. No hablo de la opinión pública internacional, ni la comunidad de naciones, sino los movimientos sociales: hasta qué punto lograrán romper la legitimidad de Israel o mantenerla. En tercer lugar están los movimientos sociales y políticos dentro de Israel. Ninguno de estos factores puede cambiar por sí solo la realidad, sino una combinación de ellos. El Estado está dispuesto a utilizar todos los medios para que el movimiento de liberación nacional no cree una situación de ingobernabilidad. La unica manera de restringir la violencia del Estado y establecer un espacio alternativo es la movilización internacional. Solo se puede romper la impunidad del sistema desde fuera, y entonces es cuando se liberaría la capacidad de la mvoilización interna para hacer sus propuestas.

“muchas veces la gente transforma el número de entidades en la cuestión central. La cuestión es la lógica política del colonialismo sionista”

¿Qué consecuencias tiene la citada autocensura de los “indignados” israelíes respecto al tema de Palestina?
El problema es que las movilizaciones en Israel se crearon sobre un cisma en la sociedad. Existe un ala joven de clase media, de origen occidental, ashkenazi, que no podía continuar reproduciendo su condición de clase media; y otro ala en los barrios pobres y las periferias sociales de Israel. El que se conoció fue el de la avenida Rotschild, que no buscaba salir del consenso nacional israelí: de ahí la autocensura. Se repite aquí una peculiaridad de la clase media israelí, y es que son rebeldes hasta los límites que se les permite, sin salir de eses espacio. Un claro ejemplo son dos de los rostros visibles de este movimiento: una fue financiada por el Ministerio de Exteriores para dar una serie de charlas en Inglaterra, mientras que otra de pronto apareció como diputada del laborismo. Imagino que en cualquier movimiento del tipo “indignado” fuera de Israel, esto hubiera sido polémico.

Lo que no se ha visto fuera es el movimiento de los barrios pobres, que incluye población palestina, beduinos del Negev y más relaciones con lo que pasa en Cisjordania. Esto sí que es un nuevo fenómeno.

¿Tiene visos de continuar en el futuro?
Sí, tiene una base de movilizacion bastante estable. Lo que no sé es hasta qué punto va a poder movilizar masas o no.

¿Podrán los “indignados” israelíes, sean los de los barrios pobres o los de Rotschild, volver a intentar tomar las calles?
Existe la perspectiva, se intentó y la represión fue muy fuerte y va a ser muy fuerte. No hay nigún espacio politico para un movimiento de protesta hoy. La cuestién es si va a ser posible crear un movimiento de protesta en las condiciones actuales. Es mucho más fácil crearlo cuando no te reprimen. Hay una gran diferencia entre lo que pasó el verano pasado y lo de ahora: entonces el tomar la plaza fue bien visto por la policía y la municipalidad de Tel Aviv, sirvió para presentarse como un Estado democrático, para avanzar en la “marca Israel”. Sin embargo, al movimiento pobre se le reprimió mucho más fuertemente, con mucha más gente presa y cargada con multas y fianzas . A mucha gente que salió bajo fianza se le prohibía ir a reuniones, ya no sólo a manifestaciones. Ese movimiento intenta reeditarse, y la represión es mucho mas fuerte.

¿Cuál es su alternativa frente al presente modelo de Estado?
Yo soy miembro de la fundación Tarabot, que es una nueva fundación de izquierda con militantes judíos y árabes. Lo que nosotros habalmos es de “descolonizar” el régimen del Estado de Israel. La cuestión ya no es cuántos estados van a haber en el futuro: hay muchas alternativas, desde los anarquistas que defienden cero al hizb-ut-tahrir con un califato musulmán basado en Jerusalén. El tema no esta en cuántos estados habrán sino cuál es nuestra estrategia para descolonizar, des-sionizar al estado sionista y su transformación en un estado democrático. El número no es la cuestión: muchas veces la gente transforma el número de entidades en la cuestión central. La cuestión es la lógica política del colonialismo sionista.

Además, hay problemas con las propuestas de un Estado y dos Estados. Con la idea de dos Estados, no se responde a la cuestión de los refugiados. Con un estado, queda candente el tema de las colonias. Son dos temas problemáticos si no hablamos del carácter colonial del estado de Israel, que es lo que tiene que ser cambiado.

THE ZIONIST ULTRA-ORTHODOX ARE CASHING IN THEIR I.O.U.

30 November 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)

Those spending their Saturdays having fun rather than defending shepherds and farmers should not be surprised if the day after, Jewish fundamentalism even invades their bedrooms.

By Amira Hass

The Haredim and Hardalim, as the non-Zionist and Zionist ultra-Orthodox are respectively known, are now cashing in their promissory note from Israeli society. Their bitterness at an ungrateful secular-nationalist public is certainly justified. For what is doing without women's singing in comparison to the direct line to God they offer us? And what are advertisements featuring men only compared to the blank check God gave all of us to be the masters of the entire Promised Land?

Haredi and Hardali Judaism sold three assets on credit to the Israel that desecrates the Sabbath and loves the charming, Arab-free views from the Galilee kibbutzim and the West Bank outposts. These are the assets that enable Israel to be indifferent to both the history that was and the history now in the making, and to live as an armed, gilded ghetto, a beloved outpost of the "developed" and "civilized" Christian West in the Muslim East.

We could have clung to the historical, secular explanations for our ingathering in this land (briefly, the "final solution" of that same civilized Christian West, which also expelled us from the countries of the Diaspora ). This would have committed us to the humanitarian and earthly values and perceptions that have emerged from every struggle against ethnic persecution and oppression. But the historical explanation would also have obliged us to admit our similarity to other colonialist movements, and to understand that what was possible in the 18th and 19th centuries in America and Australia is not possible here and now.

To escape the contradictions created by history and its lessons, we chose to buy the meta-historical explanation of our armed, fortified presence here: no more and no less than God's promise to Abraham, from whom all of us are directly descended. This promise is what permits us, in our view, to do whatever we please to the people that dwells here, the natives of this land: to expel, to concentrate, to divide, to blockade, to impoverish, to dry out, to bomb, to uproot, to dispossess.

This same divine promise grants all Jews everywhere - even those who have never set foot in Israel - more rights in this land than any Palestinian who was born here. This land is ruled by a state that refuses to be a state of its actual citizens and thinks only of potential citizens from the Diaspora.

Ethnic head-counting is second nature to this state. Thus the Haredim and Hardalim know that the second asset they are selling is beyond price: their high birthrate. In the Haredi view, this high birthrate is worth more than any military service or tax payment could ever be.

The Hardalim, in contrast, combine this with a third asset for sale: lust for battle, and for ascending the military ranks, and a willingness to "die for our country" - all of which have been on the wane, relatively speaking, among other sectors of the population. In a state that has done everything in its power over the last several decades to miss any opportunity for peace, this military enthusiasm is a vital asset - especially as good neighborly relations in this region now seem more unachievable than ever before.

Hardalim and Haredim see that most of the Israeli Jewish public has eagerly bought these inexhaustible assets, so now they are continuing down the same consistent path. The Haredim and Hardalim simply long for wholeness: the divine promise and the laws of kashrut. They are offering soldiers in the demographic warfare in exchange for the non-mixing of women and men in the army.

The problem then is not the sellers but the buyers. The secular Jews who allow or even encourage the expulsion of Arab residents of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, Al-Arakib and Safed, should not complain if tomorrow, theaters and concert halls are required to set up separate sections for the female portion of the audience. And those who spend their holy Saturdays having fun rather than going out to defend shepherds and farmers from skullcap-wearing Salafists should not be surprised if the day after, Jewish fundamentalism even invades their bedrooms.

Read this article in Hebrew: לגרש פלסטינים, ולהדיר נשים

THE PROTEST WAVE HAS CHANGED THE FACE OF ISRAEL'S POLITICAL MAP

The protesters don't speak in political terms, but they are highly political and they know what they're doing.

31 July 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)

By Avirama Golan

The detractors and supporters of the protest wave at least agree on one thing. The demonstrations are unfocused. What in the world do the protesters want other than a better life, what's the common denominator other than general dissatisfaction?
Leaving the prime minister's associates aside, most of the critics come from the pro-settlement right wing, and that's no coincidence.

These people portray the protests as coming from the very place the right loves to disparage as a threat: the heart of Tel Aviv with its secular residents who lack values.

The protests break all the rules dictated for so long by the settlers. They don't involve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the occupation, and they're open to like-minded individuals, so the demonstrations have seen voters from Likud, Meretz and Hadash standing shoulder to shoulder; protesters with skullcaps and secular people, Jews and Arabs.

This poses a threat because just when the pro-settlement right thought its delegitimization campaign against the left's remnants had been totally successful, a new political movement has sprung up that is refusing to cooperate with this old dichotomy and is calling for unconventional alliances.

This change is also the proper response to anyone concerned about blurred messages. One might suggest that these concerned people listen to the insults from the right to understand how political the protests are. The major threat, which those same settlers and their associates understood from the beginning, is not necessarily that the rules have been broken, but rather what is hiding under the surface that is just beginning to resonate.

Seemingly faceless activists, graduates of youth movements such as Hamahanot Ha'olim and Hashomer Hatzair, veterans of urban kibbutzim, Koach Laovdim - The Democratic Workers' Organization, and a host of other social activist organizations are beginning to see the fruits of the seeds they sowed over the past 10 years, based on a focused worldview. In addition to work and study, these young people have made supreme efforts for a range of social issues including housing, labor rights and health issues.

Now they are at the heart of the protests, leading and making their influence felt. Their opponents understand who they are very well, so these opponents are scared, because the protesters' worldview sees the settlements and the occupation as a hindrance to democracy and the welfare state. The protesters don't speak in political terms, but they are highly political and they know what they're doing.

ZOHAR, UNA JOVEN JUDÍA A BORDO DEL GERNIKA

29 junio 2011, Comité de Solidaridad con la Causa Árabe http://causaarabeblog.blogspot.com

Zohar, camina con dificultad; sin embargo llega donde todos los demás; para ella no hay obstáculos: no lo son distancias, las pendientes ni el fuerte calor del Mediterráneo; porque precisamente en un lugar del Mediterráneo de cuyo nombre no debo acordarme, los brigadistas del Guernika esperamos el momento oportuno para zarpar rumbo a Gaza.

Zohar es una judía con doble nacionalidad alemana e israelí que dejo de vivir en Israel porque la atmósfera humana y política le resultaba irrespirable. De familia instalada en Palestina antes de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, nació en un kibutz cerca de Nazaret, pasó por la universidad y pronto se incorporó al trabajo como administrativa en Tel Aviv. Sohar habla varios idiomas, incluido el español con un leve acento francés y desde luego el haber perdido una pierna no le ha impedido trabajar.

Le pregunto por cómo y cuándo empieza a tomar conciencia de la situación y a movilizarse en pro de los derechos del pueblo palestino. Con la leve sonrisa de sus ojos profundamente azules comienza a relatarme las situaciones vividas; en determinados momentos de la conversación acelera el ritmo de las palabras según relata con indignación las barbaridades que le ha tocado presenciar. Muy pronto, ya con cuatro o cinco años vivió una experiencia que la marcó, fue con motivo de la destrucción de la casa que una familia palestina había construido en un terreno de su propiedad; el hecho de gozar de la propiedad no impidió que fuera demolida y los dejaron sin techo. Zohar y su familia no entendían la actitud del gobierno y menos aún la de sus vecinos del kibutz que eran los primeros en exigir su demolición porque ponía en peligro su seguridad. A partir de entonces empezaron a tener problemas con sus vecinos judíos por haber ayudado a aquella familia con tiendas de campaña, mantas y alimentos, un recelo que se incrementaba cuando en la fiesta del uno de mayo en lugar de la bandera sionista colocaban la bandera roja.

Poco a poco empezó a corroborar que la sociedad israelí estaba enferma. Así que ya desde la adolescencia comienza a participar como activista contra la construcción de los asentamientos en Hebrón, contra la intervención Israelí en Líbano y a protestar cuando el gobierno de Menagen Begin expulsa a palestinos trasladándolos en camiones hasta la frontera del Líbano.

Trabaja también en un centro de discapacitados; son años en los que toma contacto con la AIC, una organización que trabaja por una paz justa en Palestina y mantiene encuentros entre israelíes y palestinos: son los años de verse con los palestinos en Beit Yala y Beit Sahur, protestar contra los acuerdos de paz y manifestándose por los asesinatos de palestinos durante la Segunda Intifada. Durante estos años se implica también con una ONG que trabaja con los beduinos de Judea. Finalmente los asesinatos de Yenin le colman la paciencia y con su pareja abandona el estado de Israel.

-Allí no quiero ir. Me niego a vivir allí-me dice- solo acudo a ver a mi familia y a votar. Es un estado que me desagrada profundamente; no soporto el apartheid, la discriminación que sufren los palestinos y menos aún el trato vejatorio al que los someten cada día, el robo de sus casas, la ocupación de sus tierras y sus aguas, la destrucción de sus olivos. Pero lo que peor soporto es la indiferencia social ante tantos abusos e injusticias. Eso es fascismo y la sociedad israelí me recuerda a la indiferencia de la población alemana y de los estados europeos durante el holocausto nazi. Por otra parte se incrementa cada vez más las diferencias entre ricos y pobres: gente que vive en la opulencia y otros como los fadacha que ocupan los puestos más miserables en la escala social, hasta el punto de que el ambiente social resulta irrespirable.

Ahora Zohar desde hace siete años vive con su compañero en Alhaja, un pueblo de la Sierra de Aracena, de la explotación de un bar y potenciando experiencias de agricultura ecológica. En España participa en el programa BDS (boikot desinversiones y sanciones) y se integra en el proyecto ”Gaza Libre” no logrando llegar a Gaza desde Egipto, por los impedimentos que les puso el dictador Mubarak. Desde el primer momento se puso en contacto con “Rumbo a Gaza” integrándose en la brigada española.

Zohar ve muchos problemas a la situación actual. Como mal menor se inclina por un estado palestino en lo que son los territorios ocupados aunque hay dificultades como la gran cantidad de asentamientos y vías de comunicación que desarticulan Palestina. Aunque lo ve difícil se inclina por la solución de dos estados, que sería la forma en que los palestinos recuperaran la dignidad. Aunque pensándolo mejor la solución sería un territorio laico donde todos pudieran convivir, pero a corto y medio plazo lo ve inviable porque hay demasiado odio.

Sostiene que la sociedad israelí esta deshumanizada y envilecida. Por ese camino el estado de Israel marcha hacia el suicidio, porque no podrá acabar con los palestinos.

Cuando acabamos la entrevista me dice:

-No vamos a callar, porque eso supondría perder nuestra humanidad.

Finalmente le hago una pregunta ¿Tienes miedo? Su respuesta es contundente y me responde mirándome a los ojos:

-No; aunque por declaraciones del gobierno, si me detienen, pueden condenarme a siete años de cárcel, pero en tal caso podría tener suerte y estar con mi hermano que está en prisión por insumiso. Y concluye con estas palabras:

-Sería un honor para mí ser una prisionera política en mi país.

Hasta luego, Zohar- le digo mostrándole mi total admiración.

Miguel Ángel San Miguel Valduérteles

27 de Junio de 2011. En un lugar del Mediterráneo

Counting the cost of patriotism on the Golan Heights

The Other Occupation
Getting to know the Golan

14 June 2011, Jews for Justice for Palestinians http://jfjfp.com (UK)

Israel’s killing of dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the fence surrounding Majdal Shams has again catapulted the 19,000Druze and 2,000 Muslim Arabs of the Golan Heights to popular attention. Despite being as numerous as Israeli settlers, they lack equal rights and access to resources, as Arthur Neslen discovered in this feature, which was spiked by Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst.

Salman Fakhr al-Din winced as he pointed up at Mount Hermon. “When I was a child, I tried to climb the mountain so that I could touch the sky,” he said, “but now it is filled with mines and soldiers and if you tried you could be killed. This mountain used to be part of our lives but it has become something strange and terrible.” He still lives in its shadow, in the Druze heartland ofMajdal Shams.

Forty years after the war that slid the Golan peninsula into Israel’s hands, the territory under Salman’s feet had changed drastically. Since 1967, mines had killed 42 people and injured more than 80 in the Golan. Forty percent of the victims were children.

No figures exist for the exact locations, number or types of mines planted in the Golan, but they stretch over several kilometres. Reports by landmines NGOs note a lack of warnings and fencing around many minefields. Often they are situated near schools and houses. Residents complain that every year some are washed into their gardens and streets by rain and soil erosion.

Saleh Barah had never had any mines awareness lessons at school when, aged 13, he went to play in a yard beside his local restaurant. “I was with my friend when we saw something that looked like a brown cola bottle,” Saleh said. “I asked ‘What’s that?’ and he started to open it so I shouted ‘Give it to me!’ He threw it over and I caught it and tried to open it. A few seconds later, everything went black”.

When Saleh awoke in a Haifa hospital 20 days later, he had lost a leg, an arm beneath the elbow, and one eye. The authorities offered him no financial compensation, he said. Now 38, and a respected agricultural businessman in Majdal Shams, Saleh blamed the occupation for the mines which still littered nearby roads. “Our lives are not important to the Israelis,” he told me. “It’s the same as what happened in Lebanon.”

In a bid to raise awareness about landmines issue, Saleh refuses to wear prosthetic limbs. “I want others to know me as I am,” he said. “Also, this way when people see me, they ask ‘What happened to him?’ and they start to learn.”

But even knowledge of the risks does not outweigh the economic necessities of life. In June 2001, a 73-year-old shepherd from the village of Buq’ata was killed by a mine near Ain Al-Hamra. One of his sons had died in a mine accident there 14 years before.

Syrian Golanis complain that the authorities turn a blind eye to such phenomena because it depresses their economic development and so helps Israel’s demographic battle. After the 2006 Lebanon War, settler leaders launched a slick $250,000 advertising campaign to double the Jewish population on the Golan within a decade.

The fertile volcanic fields and valleys of the Golan provide much of Israel’s fruit and wine industry but economic competition between the two communities is intense. While Syrian Golanis are said to provide around 30 percent of Israel’s apple crop, for instance, Israeli-Jewish moshavs and kibbutzim are thought to account for 40 percent.

Shahadi Nasrallah, a local agronomist blamed unequal distribution of water resources for the differential. “One dunam (1000 sq metres) of apple trees needs about 700 cubic metres of water a season to grow” he said, “but (the Israeli water company) Mekorot only allows Arab farmers about 200 cubic metres at best, while the Jewish farmers get as much as they need. If you don’t have enough water, your apple crop will be of a lower quality, and you will probably have to harvest it before it is ripe.”

On the macro-political level, Israel’s continued presence in the Golan is intimately tied to control of the region’s water resources. The Sea of Galilee, where Christians believe that Jesus fed the masses with fish and loaves, today accounts for around a third of Israel’s drinking water. Syria controlled its north eastern shore until 1967, but today exclusive access to the freshwater source is viewed as a national security issue in Tel Aviv.

Even the use of smaller local water resources, such as Lake Ram, has proved contentious. “It has seven million cubic metres of water – which Mekorot collects – but they sell four million to the Jews and only three million to us,” Shahadi said. “We are not allowed to pump from it even though it is between our fields and we used the water all the time before 1967.” By contrast, Shahadi’s organisation, Golan for Development claimed that settlers had water from the lake pumped directly into their fields, and paid three times less for it.

Folklore in Israel has it that Syrian Golanis silently benefit from Israeli governance, but Samer Safadi disagrees. A teacher sacked for ‘security reasons’ after marrying an anti-occupation activist, Samer complained of discriminatory allocation of teaching resources, kindergartens, electricity and even garbage disposal.

“We do have more work here,” she admitted, “and politically we have greater freedom because Syria is undemocratic and a one party state. But we are absolutely ready to sacrifice these benefits to return the Golan to Syria. You cannot weigh patriotism against economics. It is the highest value a person can have.”

Such sentiments are common on the streets of Majdal Shams but a less strident tone is increasingly heard among the plateaux’s middle class. According to Shahadi Nasrallah, times changed after the Soviet Union fell. “The world became less ideological,” he said, “and people became more open to Americanisation, to visitors with coloured hair coming here, to Madonna. They started to put themselves first and instead of struggling they earned money, built houses and bought cars.”

Some believe that Israel only allowed five Druze towns to remain in the Golan in 1967 – after destroying over 100 villages and expelling more than 100,000 Arabs – because of a perceived strain of cultural pragmatism. Popular prejudices have, perhaps unfairly, held that Israel exploited this alleged quality among its own Druze population in the years after 1948.

However, pragmatism can cut both ways. Sitting in his comfortable apartment, Shahadi noted wryly: “I have calculated it many times from an economic point of view, and we would be better off in Syria. The prices there are lower and with the same fields we could live better.”

Many local people believe that demilitarisation and a change of sovereignty over the Golan’s settlements, tourist sites, farms and vineyards would create an economic powerhouse for Syria.

It would also address the most emotive issue for the Arabs of the Golan: family reunification. Women, children, and non-religious men in the Heights are forbidden to visit relatives in Syria and those who do are barred from returning.

In a scenario popularised by Eran Riklis’ 2004 film The Syrian Bride, Chazme Rosaini’s daughter Nadia has not been allowed to return to Majdal Shams since she travelled to Damascus in 1983 following her marriage to a Syrian cousin.

Chazme, a great grandmother with bright blue eyes that peep out from behind a traditional Druze head-covering, spoke with pathos about the separation. “Back in ’83, the occupation seemed so temporary and Nadia really thought it would end soon,” she said. “We had a family wedding party here and it snowed heavily the next day. We heard them walk out across the snow on their way to Quneitra and from there, the Red Cross bussed them to Damascus. Since then, we have only met twice in Jordan.”

Until the mid-1990s, even telephone calls to Syria were banned and Chazme and her daughter had to communicate by megaphone at the infamous Majdal Shams ‘shouting fence’, where families and friends once regularly gathered to bellow messages at each other. One local legend has it that some women had heart attacks while trying to make themselves understood to relatives across the wide expanse of no man’s land.

“It was messy and oppressive,” Chazme said. “But this is the ‘Nakba’ [catastrophe] of war, its misery and strangeness – to be separated from your own flesh and blood, unable to touch, see or talk to them for days on end.”

Links between the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Syrians of the Golan are strong. ‘Samir’, an activist who was imprisoned for several years after becoming involved in a Syrian information gathering cell, said he had since taken part in solidarity actions on the West Bank.

“We have a connection to the Palestinian struggle and we support them with whatever materials we can,” he told me. “We had our own Intifada in 1982 when Israel annexed the Golan Heights and tried to force us to become Israeli citizens. But this is not the West Bank and we don’t have the demography to sustain an Intifada every day. Still we will struggle until the Golan is liberated.”

In the mid-1980s, a small minority of activists in the Golan Heights turned to acts of violent resistance. Samir was not one of them and he remained optimistic that the Golan would be returned peacefully to Syria in the next decade. “It is a question of when, not if” he repeated in answer to many questions.

But with two thirds of Israelis telling pollsters they want to hang on to the Heights, and four decades of accumulated grievance bubbling like lava beneath the rocks, the future remains uncertain. When asked what might happen if hope for a peaceful solution faded, Samir frowned and looked up at the mountain. “In this case,” he said gently, “maybe people will take this other way to struggle.”

Deny! Deny!

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

Uri Avnery אורי אבנרי‎

I AM fed up with all this nonsense about recognizing Israel as the “Jewish State”.
It is based on a collection of hollow phrases and vague definitions, devoid of any real content. It serves many different purposes, almost all of them malign.

Binyamin Netanyahu uses it as a trick to obstruct the establishment of the Palestinian state. This week he declared that the conflict just has no solution. Why? Because the Palestinians do not agree to recognize etc. etc.

Four rightist Members of the Knesset have just submitted a bill empowering the government to refuse to register new NGOs and to dissolve existing ones if they “deny the Jewish character of the state”.

This new bill is only one of a series designed to curtail the civil rights of Arab citizens, as well as those of leftists.

If the late Dr. Samuel Johnson were living in present-day Israel, he would phrase his famous dictum about patriotism differently: “Recognition of the Jewish Character of the state is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

IN ISRAELI parlance, denying the “Jewish Character” of the state is tantamount to the worst of all political felonies: to claim that Israel is a “State of all its Citizens”.

To a foreigner, this may sound a bit weird. In a democracy, the state clearly belongs to all its citizens. Mention this in the United States, and you are stating the obvious. Mention this in Israel, and you are treading dangerously close to treason. (So much for our much-vaunted “common” values”.)

As a matter of fact, Israel is indeed a state of all its citizens. All adult Israeli citizens – and only they – have the right to vote for the Knesset. The Knesset appoints the government and determines the laws. It has enacted many laws declaring that Israel is a “Jewish and democratic state”. In ten or in a hundred years, the Knesset could hoist the flag of Catholicism, Buddhism or Islam. In a democracy, it is the citizens who are sovereign, not a verbal formula.

WHAT FORMULA? - one may well ask.

The courts favor the words “Jewish and democratic state”. But that is far from being the only definition around.

The most widely used is just “Jewish State”. But that is not enough for Netanyahu and Co., who speak about “the nation-state of the Jewish people”, which has a nice 19th century ring. The “state of the Jewish people” is also quite popular.

The one thing that all these brand-names have in common is that they are perfectly imprecise. What does “Jewish” mean? A nationality, a religion, a tribe? Who are the “Jewish people”? Or, even more vague, the “Jewish nation”? Does this include the Congressmen who enact the laws of the United States? Or the cohorts of Jews who are in charge of US Middle East policy? Which country does the Jewish ambassador of the UK in Tel Aviv represent?

The courts have been wrestling with the question: where is the border between “Jewish” and “democratic”? What does “democratic” mean in this context? Can a “Jewish” state really be “democratic”, or, for that matter, can a “democratic” state really be “Jewish”? All the answers given by learned judges and renowned professors are contrived, or, as we say in Hebrew, they “stand on chickens’ legs”.

LETS GO back to the beginning: the book written in German by Theodor Herzl, the founding father of Zionism, and published in 1896. He called it “Der Judenstaat”.

Unfortunately, this is a typical German word that is untranslatable. It is generally rendered in English as “The Jewish State” or “The State of the Jews”. Both are quite false. The nearest approximation would be “The Jewstate”.

If this sounds slightly anti-Semitic, this is not by accident. It may come as a shock to many, but the word was not invented by Herzl. It was first used by a Prussian nobleman with an impressive name - Friedrich August Ludwig von der Marwitz, - who died 23 years before Herzl was even born. He was a dedicated anti-Semite long before another German invented the term “anti-Semitism” as an expression of the healthy German spirit.

Marwitz, an ultra-conservative general, objected to the liberal reforms proposed at the time. In 1811 he warned that these reforms would turn Prussia into a “Judenstaat”, a Jewstate. He did not mean that Jews were about to become a majority in Prussia, God forbid, but that moneylenders and other shady Jewish dealers would corrupt the character of the country and wipe out the good old Prussian virtues.

Herzl himself did not dream of a state that belongs to all the Jews in the world. Quite the contrary - his vision was that all real Jews would go to the Judenstaat (whether in Argentina or Palestine, he had not yet decided). They – and only they - would thenceforth remain “Jews”. All the others would become assimilated in their host nations and cease altogether to be Jews.

Far, far indeed from the notion of a “nation-state of the Jewish people” as envisioned by many of today’s Zionists, including those millions who do not dream of immigrating to Israel.

WHEN I was a boy, I took part in dozens of demonstrations against the British government of Palestine. In all of them, we chanted in unison “Free immigration! Hebrew State!” I don’t remember a single demonstration with the slogan “Jewish State”.

That was quite natural. Without anyone decreeing it, we made a clear distinction between us Hebrew-speaking people in Palestine and the Jews in the Diaspora. Some of us turned this into an ideology, but for most people it was just a natural expression of reality: Hebrew agriculture and Jewish tradition, Hebrew underground and Jewish Religion, Hebrew kibbutz and Jewish Shtetl. Hebrew Yishuv (the new community in the country) and Jewish Diaspora. To be called a “Diaspora Jew” was the ultimate insult.

For us this was not anti-Zionist by any means. Quite the contrary: Zionism wanted to create an old-new nation in Eretz Israel (as Palestine is called in Hebrew), and this nation was of course quite distinct from the Jews elsewhere. It was only the Holocaust, with its huge emotional impact, which changed the verbal rules.

So how did the formula “Jewish State” creep in? In 1917, in the middle of World War I, the British government issued the so-called Balfour Declaration, which proclaimed that “His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…”

Every word was carefully chosen, after months of negotiations with Zionist leaders. One of the main British objects was to win American and Russian Jews for the Allied cause. Revolutionary Russia was about to get out of the war, and the entry of isolationist America was essential.

(By the way, the British rejected the words “the turning of Palestine into a national home for the Jewish people”, insisting on “in Palestine” – thus foreshadowing the partition of the country.)

IN 1947 the UN did decide to partition Palestine between its Arab and Jewish populations. This said nothing about the character of the two future states – it just used the current definitions of the two warring parties. About 40% of the population in the territory allocated to the “Jewish” state was Arab.

The advocates of the “Jewish state” make much of the sentence in the “Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel” (generally called the “Declaration of Independence”) which indeed includes the words “Jewish State”. After quoting the UN resolution which called for a Jewish and an Arab state, the declaration continues: “Accordingly we … on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.”

This sentence says nothing at all about the character of the new state, and the context is purely formal.

One of the paragraphs of the declaration (in its original Hebrew version) speaks about the “Hebrew people”: “We extend our hands to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the independent Hebrew people in its land.” This sentence is blatantly falsified in the official English translation, which changed the last words into “the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land.”

As a matter of fact, it would have been quite impossible to reach agreement on any ideological formula, since the declaration was signed by the leaders of all factions, from the anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox to the Moscow-oriented Communist Party.

ANY TALK about the Jewish State leads inevitably to the question: What are the Jews – a nation or a religion?

Official Israeli doctrine says that “Jewish” is both a national and a religious definition. The Jewish collective, unlike any other, is both national and religious. With us, nation and religion are one and the same.

The only door of entry to this collective is religious. There is no national door.

Hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish Russian immigrants have come to Israel under the Law of Return with their Jewish relatives. This law is very broad. In order to attract the Jews, it allows even distant non-Jewish relatives to come with them, including the spouse of the grandchild of a Jew. Many of these non-Jews want to be Jews in order to be considered full Israelis, but have tried in vain to be accepted. Under Israeli law, a Jew is a person “born to a Jewish mother or converted, who has not adopted another religion”. This is a purely religious definition. Jewish religious law says that for this purpose, only the mother, not the father, counts.

It is extremely difficult to be converted in Israel. The rabbis demand that the convert fulfill all 613 commandments of the Jewish religion – which only very few recognized Israelis do. But one cannot become an official member of the stipulated Jewish “nation” by any other door. One becomes a part of the American nation by accepting US citizenship. Nothing like that exists here.

We have an ongoing battle about this in Israel. Some of us want Israel to be an Israeli state, belonging to the Israeli people, indeed a “State of all its Citizens”. Some want to impose on us the religious law supposedly fixed by God for all times on Mount Sinai some 3200 years ago, and abolish all contrary laws of the democratically elected Knesset. Many don’t want any change at all.

But how, in God’s name (sorry), does this concern the Palestinians? Or the Icelanders, for that matter?

THE DEMAND that the Palestinians recognize Israel as “the Jewish State” or as “the Nation-State of the Jewish people” is preposterous.

As the British would put it, it’s none of their bloody business. It would be tantamount to an intervention in the internal affairs of another country.

But a friend of mine has suggested a simple way out: the Knesset can simply resolve to change the name of the state into something like “The Jewish Republic of Israel”, so that any peace agreement between Israel and the Arab State of Palestine will automatically include the demanded recognition.

This would also bring Israel into line with the state it most resembles: “The Islamic Republic of Pakistan”, which came into being almost at the same time, after the partition of India, after a gruesome mutual massacre, after the creation of a huge refugee problem and with a perpetual border war in Kashmir. And the nuclear bomb, of course.

Many Israelis would be shocked by the comparison. What, us? Similar to a theocratic state? Are we getting closer to the Pakistani model and further from the American one?

What the hell, let’s simply deny it!


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From WIKIPEDIA
Uri Avnery (Hebrew: אורי אבנרי‎, also transliterated Uri Avneri, born 10 September 1923) is an Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the Irgun as a teenager, Avnery sat in the Knesset from 1965–74 and 1979–81.[1] He was also the owner of HaOlam HaZeh, an Israeli news magazine, from 1950 until it closed in 1993.

He is famous for crossing the lines during the Battle of Beirut to meet Yassir Arafat on 3 July 1982, the first time the Palestinian leader ever met with an Israeli. Avnery is the author of several books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including 1948: A Soldier’s Tale, the Bloody Road to Jerusalem (2008); Israel’s Vicious Circle (2008); and My Friend, the Enemy (1986).