Today was
Tisha B’Av, one of the most solemn days of the year for observant Jews.
It marks the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70
CE. It is the day on which the Book of Lamentations, which commemorates
the fall of Jerusalem, is recited in every synagogue in the world.
But in Israel,
the firebrands of Israel’s most right-wing government ever aren’t in mourning.
They’re rejoicing
at the prospect of rebuilding the Temple. They have High Priests in
training who are learning the ancient sacrificial rites at the Ateret Cohanim
yeshiva in occupied East Jerusalem. The Temple Institute, which is
May 20th, 2012 Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com (USA)
Jewish settler terrorist shoots Nemer Fathi of Asiara in cold blood
Yesterday, in the northern West Bank, outside the village of Aserra, a Jewish settler shot a Palestinian boy who was participating in a demonstration. Here is the picture of the assassin aiming his rifle and there is the picture of the boy after the bullet has hit its target.
UPDATE: Sheera Frenkel has spoken to the victim’s family and tweeted to me that the bullet entered by his cheek and exist by his ear. So by the grace of God it didn’t enter his brain, though it easily could have.
Pictures like this enrage me when I think of the inane questions of liberal Zionists like Gershom Gorenberg: “Where’s the Palestinian Gandhi.” Gorenberg makes his living off asking numbskull questions like this when the answer is staring him in the face. The Palestinian Gandhi, Nemer Fathi, age 24, is pictured here soaking in his own blood. The question shouldn’t be where is the Palestinian Gandhi. The question should be what will Gorenberg and the liberal Zionists do to stop the murder of the Palestinian Gandhis. When will they stop blaming the Palestinians? When will they recognize that the blame lies solely with Israel and that the timidity of the liberal Zionists allows their countrymen to continue to live under the illusion that they’ve done enough for peace and that it’s the Palestinians who haven’t.
These settlers are terrorists, but their government will not bring them to justice. That is the crime. That is where the Gorenbergs of the world should focus all their energy. He should identity this settler and demand the police arrest him. He should bring his liberal Zionist friends to the settlement and knock on the man’s door and make a citizen’s arrest (if such a thing is possible). And if the police won’t arrest him he and his liberal Zionist friends should camp outside the police station till they do.
But it’s so much more appealing to blame Palestinians instead of looking in the mirror to see where the real problem lies. It’s also appealing to smear critics like me by calling me an anti-Zionist in the pages of American Prospect instead of dealing seriously with the criticism.
Here is B’Tselem’s report on this incident. It makes clear that not only were police and IDF present at the shooting, that they did nothing to stop it. In fact, one shooter used a military issued rifle and was likely a soldier on leave and another was likely a police officer similarly off duty (or at least not in uniform):
On Saturday, 19.5.2012, around four thirty in the afternoon, a large group of settlers descended on the eastern outskirts of the village ‘Asira al-Qibliya, from the settlement Yitzhar. B’Tselem volunteer photographers filmed the events from two angles. The video shows the settlers, some of whom were masked and armed, throwing stones at Palestinian homes, and fires beginning to burn. One of the masked settlers was armed with a “Tavor” rifle which is only used by infantry soldiers, raising the suspicion that he is a soldier on leave.
Palestinian youths from the village soon arrived and threw stones at the settlers. A few minutes later, soldiers and Border Police officers arrived at the scene. During these moments, the video records the sound of several rounds of live ammunition being fired, but does not show its source.
Around 5pm, a group of three settlers are seen standing with a soldier in front of the Palestinian youths, while all around there is mutual stone throwing. Two of the settlers seen were armed with M4 rifles, and one was armed with a pistol. One of the settlers is wearing what looks like a police cap. The video footage shows the settlers aiming their weapons at the Palestinians and firing.
The firing injured village resident, Fathi ‘Asayira, 24, in the head. He is seen being evacuated from the area by a group of youths. He is hospitalized in a stable condition in Rafidiya hospital in Nablus. About fie other Palestinians were injured by stones.
The video footage raises grave suspicions that the soldiers present did not act to prevent the settlers from throwing stones and firing live ammunition at the Palestinians. The soldiers did not try to remove the settlers and in fact are seen standing by settlers while they are shooting and stone throwing.
B’Tselem wrote urgently to the Judea and Samaria Police requesting that those involved in the violent attack are arrested and prosecuted. Additionally, B’Tselem wrote to the Military Police Investigative Unit (MPIU) requesting that a military police investigation is opened at once into the suspicion that the soldiers did not adhere to their obligation to protect Palestinians from settler violence, and that one of the attackers was a soldier on leave.
B’Tselem additionally requested that the soldiers are instructed to cooperate with the police investigation and identify the suspect in the shooting.
Here (and here) are the B’Tselem videos of the assault on the Palestinians. Though B’Tselem has demanded an investigation, we all know what the result will be–no result. A pro forma investigation in which the case will be dropped for lack of evidence or for lack of interest or for whatever reason the army and police choose. The reason: “injury while Palestinian.” Now, our big, brave pro-Israel readers will come forward and remind us that Palestinians threw rocks and therefore what should they expect. But keep in mind that the settlers, according to B’Tselem’s statement, not only threw rocks first, but had deadly weapons and used them, while the Palestinians had none.
While I do not support violence on either side, can anyone except the pro-Israel flacks not understand how homicidal behavior such as this is one of the single most incendiary elements of the conflict? Put yourself in the shoes of anyone who was at this incident. Or any Palestinian who sees the video. What would you think? What would you do? Ehud Barak already knows what he would do. He’s already said publicly in one of his rare moments of truthfulness and candor that if he were Palestinian he would be a militant. Personally, I know that I wouldn’t be. But I do know that I’d find other ways to resist. I do know that that could be me out there in the line of fire were I Palestinian.
Once again, I say that these settlers are Jewish terrorists and that a State which permits their rampant violence aids and abets terror. The State is an accessory after the fact. I pray that sometime down the line the settler leadership and military and police commanders who stood by and did nothing while this attempted murder happened will be tried before an international criminal court for their reprehensible behavior. Like the militia leaders of Croatia and Serbia during the civil war, who were tried and convicted for their collusion with ethnic killers, these Israelis too are no less guilty.
Know that the world will hold you accountable. That you do not represent Judaism as I and most Jews know it. That Jews with any moral sense renounce you just as most Muslims renounce Al-Qaeda terrorists. Any Jew or Jewish organization that does not explicitly renounce this chilul haShem is not worthy of the support of anyone in the Jewish community.
19 May 2012, The Israeli Communist Party המפלגה הקומוניסטית הישראלית (Israel)
info@maki.org.il
The South African government decided last week to draw attention of consumers that products they buy labeled “Made in Israel” could have been made in illegal settlements mushrooming the occupied Palestinian territories, a press release issued by the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee said on Saturday. It said that after more than a year of joint work between Palestinian and South African organizations, South Africa’s Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies announced he will forbid false and misleading labeling of settlements products.
He said that the South African government will forbid the misleading labeling of products originating in the Jewish settlements in the occupied territory as if they were produced in Israel. According to Wafa Palestinian new agency “Consumers in South Africa should not be misled into believing that products originating from the occupied Palestinian territory are products originating from Israel," said a ministry statement. “The burden of proving where the products originate will lie with traders,” a step that will further trample attempts to obscure the origin or connection to settlements of some Israeli products.
A Palestinian activist confronts heavily armed Israeli soldiers in a weekly demonstration against the separation wall in Al-Masara, West Bank, on May 18, 2012 (Photo: Activestills)
According to the statement, the government of South Africa recognizes the State of Israel only within the 1948 borders, which do not include Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.
Mohammed Khatib, a resident of the West Bank village of Bil'in and the coordinator of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee who was involved in the efforts to promote the notice, said, “The notice is based on the recognition of the injustice done to us Palestinians by the occupation and Israeli settlements. It highlights the fact that the de-facto annexation of our lands as well as the settlements themselves are entirely illegal. The notice is an important first step, which, reason suggests, should be followed by a complete ban on the marketing of these products in South Africa, no matter how they are labeled.”
Denmark had also announced on Friday that all goods produced in the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank should have clear label of origin on them in order to differentiate them from products made in Israel proper. Denmark intended to follow European Union policy of banning settlement products from their markets because they originate from illegal locations.
This is a move that will clearly show consumers that this produce has been produced under conditions that not only the Danish government, but also the European governments have rejected," Danish Foreign Minister Villy Sovndal was quoted as saying by Danish online news-site Politken.
"Then it is up to consumers whether they are prepared to buy the produce," he added. The Danish FM said that stricter controls and labeling of settlement produce should be seen as part of the European Union's support for a two state solution. Enforcing controls on settlement produce also shows the Palestinians that the world is against illegal settlement building. The move targets illegal settlements and not Israel, the Danish FM added. In April, the Co-operative group, one of the United Kingdom's largest food retailers, decided to boycott four companies that export products from Israeli settlements.
Related: UK food retailer boycotts settlement exports
22 March 2012, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com (USA)
It’s not every day you read an article like this (Hebrew) in the Israeli press. Leading settler Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, one of the most senior of the religious Zionist rabbis, attacks the idea of an Israeli assault on Iran and rejects the notion that a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel. In fact, he says, it is only one of many threats Israel faces and not necessarily the most dangerous. Because of that, the rabbi rejects the notion that a military attack on that nation is warranted.
He calls Ehud Barak and Bibi Netanyahu leaders with “inflated egos” and says ego and other personal motivations are propelling an attack. Melamed recommends that all other ministers voting on this issue should act in a calm, deliberate manner and not get carried away by the defense and prime minister’s fervor for war. He argues that Netanyahu suffers from a “trust gap,” and that the latter believes a successful attack against Iran will transform him into one of the great leaders of Israel on a par with Ben Gurion or Begin. For that reason, Bibi’s desire for personal glory and his motives must be distrusted.
Barak’s career, Melamed argues, is in free fall in contrast to his dreams of being a great leader, security expert, and figure capable of resolving international crises. The defense minister’s only opportunity to return to political leadership and become a winner in the eyes of the populace is through a successful assault on Iran.
Rabbi Melamed argues that while the impulse by nations to gain nuclear capability is undesirable, it appears impossible to prevent. He writes that even if Israel succeeded in destroying Iran’s nuclear program it would only delay that country gaining a weapon. In the rabbi’s view, Israel’s efforts should be directed not at attacking Iran, but at creating anti-missile defenses that could stop any Iranian attack on Israel. He favors deterrence over attack.
What’s especially important here is that Melamed is a settler rabbi, beloved of the nationalist camp. He favors all the things that my readers and I oppose in the Territories. But he carries great sway with those MKs and ministers who share his views. Therefore, he may carry weight in the debate over attacking Iran. As I’ve written before, I don’t care about the motivation for opposing an Iran strike. Taking the right position is more important than ideological purity. We can always oppose Rabbi Melamed on those issues that divide us at a later time.
22 February 2012, Shalom Rav http://rabbibrant.com (USA)
A Blog by Rabbi Brant Rosen
As a Jew, a rabbi and a person of conscience, I am voicing my support of the divestment resolution being brought to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) this June.
This resolution, which has been a point of divisive contention between the PC (USA) and some American Jewish organizations for many years, endorses a recommendation of divestment from Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard. It was put forth by the church's committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment that recommended divestment of companies engaged in "non-peaceful pursuits in Israel/Palestine."
There is a long and tumultuous history to this resolution - here's a basic outline:
- In 1971 and 1976 the Presbyterian Church stated that it had a responsibility to ensure that its funds be invested responsibly and consistent with the church's mission.
- In 1986, the PC (USA) formed the Committee for Mission Responsibility Through Investing (MRTI) in 1986. The MRTI Committee carried out the General Assembly's wish to engage in shareholder activism and as a last resort, divest itself of companies which contravened the GA's position. Divestment would follow a phased process starting with attempted dialogue and shareholder resolutions and ultimately the total sale of and future ban on the church's holdings in a company.
- In June 2004, the PC (USA) General Assembly adopted by a vote of 431-62 a resolution that called on the MRTI Committee "to initiate a process of phased, selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel." The resolution expressed the church's support of the Geneva Accord, said that "the occupation . . . has proven to be at the root of evil acts committed against innocent people on both sides of the conflict," that "the security of Israel and the Israeli people is inexorably dependent on making peace with their Palestinian neighbors", that "horrific acts of violence and deadly attacks on innocent people, whether carried out by Palestinian suicide bombers or by the Israeli military, are abhorrent and inexcusable by all measures, and are a dead-end alternative to a negotiated settlement," and that the United States government needed to be "honest, even-handed broker for peace."
- In 2005, MRTI Committee named five US-based companies - Caterpillar Inc., Citigroup, ITT Industries, Motorola and United Technologies - for initial focus and that it would engage in "progressive engagement" with the companies' management.
- In 2006, following an uproar of criticism from American Jewish organizations, the PC (USA) General Assembly overwhelmingly (483-28) replaced language adopted in 2004 that focused the "phased, selective divestment" specifically on companies working in Israel. It now called for investment in Israel, the Gaza Strip, eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank "in only peaceful pursuits." The new resolution also required the consideration of "practical realities," a "commitment to positive outcomes" and an awareness of the potential impact of strategies on "both the Israeli and Palestinian economies." The 2006 resolution also recognized Israel’s right to build a security barrier along its pre-1967 boundaries. The GA acknowledged the "hurt and misunderstanding among many members of the Jewish community and within our Presbyterian communion" that resulted from the 2004 resolution and stated that the Assembly was "grieved by the pain that this has caused, accept responsibility for the flaws in our process, and ask for a new season of mutual understanding and dialogue."
The most recent resolution is the result of this new process and now focuses on three of the original six companies under consideration. From the PC (USA) website:
The General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC) is recommending that the upcoming 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) divest the church of its stock in three companies “until they have ceased profiting from non-peaceful activities in Israel-Palestine.”
The three companies are Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett-Packard.
At issue are their participation in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the construction of the “security barrier” between Israel and Palestinian territory, and the destruction of Palestinian homes, roads and fields to make way for the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have been declared illegal under international law.
“We have run out of hope that these companies are willing to change their corporate practices [in Israel-Palestine],” said the Rev. Brian Ellison, a Kansas City pastor and chair of the denomination’s Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI). “We have made diligent effort to engage in conversation. We’d like to do more, to make progress, but substantial change does not seem possible.”
As stated above, I support this resolution without reservation and urge other Jewish leaders and community members to do so as well. I am deeply dismayed that along every step of this process, Jewish community organizations (among them, the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs) that purport to speak for the consensus of a diverse constituency have been intimidating and emotionally blackmailing the Presbyterian Church as they attempt to forge their ethical investment strategy in good faith.
It is extremely important to be clear about what is at stake here. First of all, this is not a resolution that seeks to boycott or single out Israel. Divestment does not target countries - it targets companies. In this regard speaking, the PC (USA)'s ethical investment process seeks to divest from specific "military-related companies" it deems are engaged in "non-peaceful" pursuits.
We'd be hard-pressed indeed to make the case that the Israeli government is engaged in "non-peaceful pursuits" in the Occupied Territories and East Jerusalem. I won't go into detail here because I've been writing about this tragic issue for many years: the increasing of illegal Jewish settlements with impunity, the forced evictions and home demolitions, the uprooting of Palestinian orchards, the separation wall that chokes off Palestinians from their lands, the arbitrary administrative detentions, the brutal crushing of non-violent protest, etc, etc.
All of us - Jews and non-Jews alike - have cause for deep moral concern over these issues. Moreover, we have cause for dismay that own government tacitly supports these actions. At the very least, we certainly have the right to make sure that our own investments do not support companies that profit from what we believe to be immoral acts committed in furtherance of Israel's occupation.
As the co-chair of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, I am proud that JVP has initiated its own divestment campaign which targets the TIAA-CREF pension fund, urging it to divest from companies that profit from Israel's occupation. Among these are two of the three companies currently under consideration by PC (USA): Motorola and Caterpillar.
Why the concern over these specific companies? Because they are indisputably and directing aiding and profiting the oppression of Palestinians on the ground. Caterpillar profits from the destruction of Palestinian homes and the uprooting of Palestinian orchards by supplying the armor-plated and weaponized bulldozers that are used for such demolition work. Motorola profits from Israel’s control of the Palestinian population by providing surveillance systems around Israeli settlements, checkpoints, and military camps in the West Bank, as well as communication systems to the Israeli army and West Bank settlers.
And why is Hewlett-Packard under consideration for divestment by the PC (USA)? HP owns Electronic Data Systems, which heads a consortium providing monitoring of checkpoints, including several built inside the West Bank in violation of international law. The Israeli Navy, which regularly attacks Gaza’s fishermen within Gaza’s own territorial waters and has often shelled civilian areas in the Gaza Strip, has chosen HP Israel to implement the outsourcing of its IT infrastructure. In addition, Hewlett Packard subsidiary HP Invent outsources IT services to a company called Matrix, which employs settlers in the illegal settlement of Modi’in Illit to do much of its IT work at low wages.
I repeat: by seeking to divest from these companies the PC (USA) is not singling out Israel as a nation. The Presbyterian has every right to - and in fact does - divest its funds from any number of companies that enable non-peaceful pursuits around the world. In this case specifically, the PC (USA) has reasonably determined it considers these particular "pursuits" aid a highly militarized, brutal and oppressive occupation - and it simply does not want to be complicit in supporting companies that enable it.
I am fully aware that there are several organizations in the Jewish community that are already gearing up a full court press to intimidate the PC (USA) from passing this resolution in June. JCPA President Rabbi Steve Gutow recently accused national Presbyterian leaders of "making the delegitimization of Israel a public witness of their church." The Simon Wiesenthal Center has called the resolution" poisonous," and that by considering it the PC (USA) is "showing its moral bankruptcy."
The sorts of statements do not speak for me nor, I am sure, do they speak for the wide, diverse spectrum of opinion on the issue in the American Jewish community. There is no place for public bullying in interfaith relations - I believe this kind of browbeating is decidedly counter to principles of honest, good faith dialogue. To our Presbyterian friends: please know there are many Jewish leaders who stand with you as you seek the cause of peace and justice in Israel/Palestine.
In a recent open letter to the PC (USA), Rabbi Margaret Holub, my colleague on the JVP Rabbinical Council expressed this sentiment eloquently with the following words:
Your Church has long been active in pursuing justice and peace by nonviolent means, including divestment, in many places around the world. As Christians, you have your own particular stake in the land to which both our traditions have long attachments of faith and history. We particularly acknowledge the oppression of Palestinian Christians under Israeli occupation and the justice of your efforts to relieve the oppression directed against your fellows.
To advocate for an end to an unjust policy is not anti-Semitic. To criticize Israel is not anti-Semitic. To invest your own resources in corporations which pursue your vision of a just and peaceful world, and to withdraw your resources from those which contradict this vision, is not anti-Semitic. There is a terrible history of actual anti-Semitism perpetrated by Christians at different times throughout the millennia and conscientious Christians today do bear a burden of conscience on that account. We can understand that, with your commitment to paths of peace and justice, it must be terribly painful and inhibiting to be accused of anti-Semitism.
In fact, many of us in the Jewish community recognize that the continuing occupation of Palestine itself presents a great danger to the safety of the Jewish people, not to mention oppressing our spirits and diminishing our honor in the world community. We appreciate the solidarity of people of conscience in pursuing conscientious nonviolent strategies, such as phased selective divestment, to end the occupation.
I am proud my name is under this letter, alongside many other members of our Rabbinical Council. If you stand with us, please join us in supporting the PC (USA) divestment resolution at their GA in Pittsburgh this summer.
22 February 2012, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com (USA)
Over the past week or so there have been some strange doings on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. As the lyrics of the old song go:
There’s something happnin’ here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I’ve go to beware
It appears that a growing band of Israeli messianic settlers have banded together to orchestrate a crisis on the Temple Mount. Their ultimate goal seems to be taking Jewish control over the sacred ground, including two of the holiest sites in Islam, the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque.
For many years, there have been radical settler groups preparing for such a day. Ateret Cohanim maintains a yeshiva which is training priests to resume the Temple rituals including animal sacrifice. Dov Hikind’s wife earns $150,000 a year as its U.S. fundraiser. They’re also breeding cattle in the hopes of find that miraculous red heifer which would serve as a sign that God is ready to resume Jewish rites on this sacred ground.
The settlers know that for Jews to rebuild the Temple would mean a holy war in the Holy Land that would likely dwarf the Crusades for passion and bloodletting. For these Jews, such an eventuality would bring the days of the coming of the Messiah closer, thus making the human suffering not just acceptable, but even desirable.
These Temple activists are also fundraising on behalf of their messianic Armageddon. Here, they’re raising $10,000 to preserve “Jewish rights” on the Temple Mount. The website says there is no written budget because the uses to which the funding would be put would be “sensitive.” Therefore such documentation is for “internal” purposes only. You can imagine what this means. They’re likely raising a lot of their funding from the types of American Jews giving to the Hebron Fund and Central Fund of Israel.
There is a political echelon in the radical settler movement which is preparing the ground for such a Jewish takeover. It’s led by Moshe Feiglin, who recently took nearly a quarter of the vote in the Likud leadership primary by running to the right of (!) Bibi Netanyahu. Flyers were publicly posted throughout Jerusalem two weeks ago calling for Jews to make aliyah en masse to the Temple Mount. The term aliyah in the Temple context is a historic term used to denote Jewish pilgrims who went to the sacred spot for worship on Jewish festivals. In other words, it would only be used today by someone who saw himself as commanded to rebuild and renew Jewish worship there. To do this, one must first evict or destroy the Muslim holy sites there as was done by Hindu nationalists to a mosque in Ayodiyah, India.
The extremist site, The Temple Mount is Ours, calls for a mass pilgrimage ”in order to strengthen claim of Jewish sovereignty” to the site. You can see in the video above from February 19th and this one what is the result of such settler provocation. The last time such a thing was attempted, Ariel Sharon instigated the Second Intifada and propelled himself into the prime minister’s chair. Feiglin is smart enough to understand that such political grandstanding can be the making of an Israeli prime minister.
But he’s also smart enough to understand that by identifying himself too explicitly with this movement he could get himself investigated by the police and possibly jailed. So he deftly denied credit for the flyer and made his own visit to the Temple Mount earlier than the time specified in the flyer.
A Feiglin associate in this interview posted by IMRA denies that the founder of the Manhigut Yehudit ["Jewish Leadership"] movement wants to rebuild the Temple. Instead, he claims Feiglin only wants to prepare the Jews for the moment when the Messiah will come and accomplish this task. I’m afraid this sort of nuance is justifiably lost of Muslims who mistake a Jew who wants to lay the groundwork for stealing their holy site from them, with a Jewish Messiah who will actually do this. Feiglin’s representative rather ominously states in the interview that it’s the founders’ dream to “make” all Jews share in his vision, and that this is what will bring the Messiah and a rebuilt Temple.
Strangely, the representative of Feiglin’s group adamantly maintained that it had no obligation to publicly renounce the flyer. Further, he said it had no plans to file a complaint with the police about the document it claims was a fraud. This is generally diametrically opposite from the way most political parties operate in Israel. In similar circumstances, they would file a complaint and ask the police to investigate in order to clarify to the public their rejection of the message and the act of fraud. The fact that Manhifut Yehudit behaved so differently in this case raises major questions about its relationship to the flyer and those who created it.
The settler agitators are camouflaging their covert campaign for Jewish sovereignty, couching it in terms of religious liberty. No one, they seem to think, can reject a call for Jews to have the same access to the Temple Mount that Muslims enjoy. The only problem with this notion is that Muslims for generations have controlled the area. Until the type of agitation initiated by Sharon, access was relatively open. In fact, I can remember visiting both holy mosques during my stays in Israel in 1972-73 and 1979-1980. It was only after Muslims became afraid that Jews wanted to take control from them that relations went bad.
There will be some among you who will say: C’mon. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Feiglin barely has a following. Hardly anyone takes him seriously. He leads a bunch of radical kooks. No Israeli in their right mind would come anywhere near these cockamamie ideas.
That’s all well and good. But I’m not buying. History is full of examples of kooks whose ideas began by being spurned by the mainstream, until they weren’t. While this will agitate some of our friends, remember Hitler’s beer hall putsch in 1923? What did they think of him then? Crackpot, right? Threw him in jail, where he proceeded to write Mein Kampf and plan his takeover of the German state.
OK, so you don’t like that analogy. How about one closer to home? In 1967, Israel conquered the West Bank and reunited Jerusalem after the War. On Passover 1968, Rabbi Moshe Levinger held his first Passover seder in Hebron. There were no settlements then. The Greater Land of Israel was only a gleam in his eye. But every great movement begins with a small spark. And from that spark comes a terrible conflagration.
After that Seder, the messianic nationalists who founded Gush Emunim provoked a crisis. Instead of waiting for government approval, they re-established the Gush Etzion settlement which had been destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948. This had been one of the more traumatic incidents of the war in which a group of Jews had been slaughtered by the Arab army in the battle for Jerusalem. While Levinger’s re-occupation of the Etzion bloc on behalf of Israel was an enormously popular nationalist statement, it also ignited the decades of hate and mistrust that have inflamed relations with the Palestinians ever since.
Later in 1975, Gush Emunim organized the aliyah to Sebastia, where they created a new settlement, Elon Moreh. After numberous attempts were rebuffed by the IDF, the Israeli government in the form of Shimon Peres, signed an agreement legalizing the new settlement, which in turn opened the floodgates for the massive expropriations and settlement growth that followed. This was the first example of government capitulation to the settler movement and was the model the movement used in all its subsequent confrontations.
This is the history of the settler enterprise. They begin with an inch, and within a year or a decade they’ve taken not just a mile, but an entire city or nation. But they recognize that in the case of the Temple Mount they are dealing with an even more sensitive subject. One that has no national consensus as the settlement enterprise perhaps did in 1967.
National polls show that while Israeli Jews overwhelming want to rebuild the Holy Temple, only 30% are willing to see the government take active steps to do so. In other words, while most Israelis harbor vague religious hankerings to restore the glory of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Most realize that to do so would start a religious war the likes of which the region hasn’t seen for centuries. In fact, in this report Jordan, which is nominally responsible for the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem warns Israel not to attempt to change the status quo or risk grave consequences.
So the settlers must mount a carefully calibrated campaign to achieve their goal. It must start with small incremental steps that lead to larger ones. One of these is the call for full Jewish access to the sacred confines of the Temple Mount. To dramatize this, they’ve enlisted the willing help of their U.S. Jewish water carriers, the Zionist Organization of America. ZOA put out a bizarre press release calling for all the mainstream American Jewish groups to take up this cause of religious liberty by criticizing the Israeli government for its supposedly high-handed tactics in denying Jews access:
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) believes that unfettered access and freedom to pray at a holy site is a basic, universally recognized right, which certainly should be accorded to Jews in the Jewish State of Israel…Yet, Israeli police and security personnel, hoping to appease Muslim extremists including the Wakf authority on the Temple Mount, have been engaging in blatantly discriminatory and humiliating behavior toward Jewish visitors.
…The ZOA strongly urges the ADL, AJ Committee, the Orthodox Union, Emunah, AMIT, RZA and other groups to work to end bias and discrimination on the Temple Mount against identified Jews.
The group is playing the role of key interlocutor among American Jews on behalf of settler extremism. They published this press release in coordination with the flyer I mentioned above which called for a mass rally to the Mount:
…[To] purify this place of the enemies of Israel, thieves of [Holy] lands, in order to rebuild the Holy Temple on the ruins of [their] mosques
The flyer was so egregious, so incendiary that police immediately cancelled access to the site for Jews and blamed Moshe Feiglin for provoking the hysteria. As soon as Feiglin denied responsibility for the flyer, ZOA immediately took down its press release, only to republish it four days later, after the incident had blown over.
The press release and accompanying rhetoric pulls out all the guilt-inducing stops in the Jewish conscience. It accuses Israeli police, responsible for determining who and how many Jews will enter the Temple confines, with organizing “selektzias,” (the Nazi term for lining up concentration camp inmates to determine who would live and who would die) in which they line up Jews before entering the Muslim sacred grounds. Note below how the ZOA both inappropriately exploits Holocaust rhetoric and shamelessly excuses the offense at the same time:
Identified Jews are shunted to the side to wait separately in what some have come to cynically call “the selekzia,” alluding to the Nazis’ orderly process of deciding which Jews would live and which Jews would go to their demise. [While ZOA does not condone inappropriate use of Holocaust imagery, especially in matters relating to Israel, it is telling that Jews subjected to systematic abuse on the Temple Mount would even contemplate using this term.]
The ZOA claimed police were looking for “Jewish traits” in determining who could enter and who couldn’t:
Identifiably Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount are singled out for biased treatment…Remarkably, if your appearance or behavior openly shows you are a Muslim you are treated with respect [!]
All of this is meant to conjure up the Holocaust in Jewish consciousness in much the same way that settlers evacuated from Gush Katif wore orange armbands with Jewish stars that denoted they were being treated by the Israeli police and IDF the same as Jews sent to the gas chambers during World War II.
The press release also exhibits historical amnesia by erasing past incidents of Jewish and non-Jewish terror associated with the holy site contested by two major religions:
There is no security basis for targeting Jews on the Temple Mount…
Overall, this is a tremendously effective bit of political-religious theater in an Israel context. The secular government has little response to it other than invoking its own civil authority, which isn’t a very resonant concept when compared with the Holocaust. That is why the settlers have vanquished the secular authorities at every turn and all but dominated the political realm.
The current campaign for the right of Jews to freely access the Temple Mount is two-pronged. There’s a grassroots cadre who agitate on the spot by lining up and demanding physical access. Their efforts have been successful at causing serious rioting over the past few days which involved Israeli police invading the sacred confines of the mosques. This, of course, is a severe breach of the sanctity of the place, all of which the settlers want.
Israeli police official testifies before Knesset committee on Temple Mount Jewish access
The grassroots element is supported by an official political effort backed by far-right Knesset members. Members of the Interior Committee in fact, have dragged before them the senior Israeli police officer responsible for maintaining order on the Mount. They publicly excoriated him for the demeaning treatment he’s allegedly offered Jewish Temple visitors. All this serves as a pincers movement against the civil authorities. They’re beset on the one side by the activists in the street and on the other by the political leaders demanding the government take their hands off these poor Jews doing nothing worse than demanding their God-given right to visit the Holy Temple.
But given the history since 1967, we know where this will lead. The police will eventually back off. The settlers will become more provocative and brazen. Confrontations will become more violent and more frequent. Till there is some sort of defining catastrophic moment.
In 1984, the Jewish Underground attempted to foment such a crisis by bombing the Mount and destroying the mosques. Fortunately, the conspiracy was exposed and the members arrested before they could carry out their plans. Of those arrested, most were eventually pardoned, which again shows the impotence of civil authority in the face of the religious zeal of the settler movement.
We don’t know what the settlers have in mind to provoke such a crisis this time around. But the angrier they can make the Muslims in Jerusalem, the more violence they can provoke, the closer will come the Final Day of Reckoning.
Let any who dismiss this as a far-fetched fantasy beware. Such fantasies have a way of becoming not just reality, but nightmare reality in the pathological hot-house environment of the Middle East.
If approved, the new policy would substantially expand the ability of Jewish settlers in the West Bank to take control of additional land.
By Chaim Levinson
The Israel Defense Force’s Civil Administration in the West Bank is promoting legislation that would allow Jewish settlers to build new dirt roads without planning approval if their purpose is to protect state-owned land.
Currently the creation of any new road or even changing its route requires full approval of the planning authorities, including the National Planning and Building Council, and is followed by the issuance of individual building permits.
If approved, the new policy would substantially expand the ability of Jewish settlers in the West Bank to take control of additional land.
Under the new approach, no permits would be required for the construction of roads designed to “protect state lands” unless the roads were constructed from gravel or asphalt.
Construction of gravel and asphalt thoroughfares would still require the full planning approval process, but dirt roads accommodating all-terrain vehicles would no longer require approval.
Most West Bank settlements are surrounded by fencing, but lying beyond the fences there is often considerable state-owned land, and the shift in policy would enable the Civil Administration to keep Palestinians off this land by giving access to security vehicles from the settlements, in an effort to keep the West Bank’s Arab residents from encroaching on the land.
The proposed change in policy would not be required for dirt roads needed to maintain security in areas around West Bank settlements, as the IDF GOC Central Command already has authority to seize land for the construction of security roads around the settlements without a building permit.
If the change in policy is approved with regard to the protection of state land, as a practical matter it would significantly expand the amount of land around West Bank settlements that is off-limits to Palestinians.
In response, the Civil Administration issued a statement in which it said a question was put to the Justice Ministry, but it was not regarding the creation of roads but simply putting markers on the land itself to indicate where the boundaries of state land are located.
“The request did not deal with the paving of roads for vehicular traffic to preserve this land. Work at the headquarters on the issue has not yet been completed,” the Civil Administration said.
At a hearing last week at the Ofer military court, however, Lt. Col. Zvi Cohen testified regarding land beyond the security fence at the Nili settlement east of the Israeli city of Modi’in.
As the hearing progressed, legal questions were raised about roads on state lands. The Civil Administration advised the court that it would seek to amend the law and would seek approval from Deputy Attorney General Malkiel Balas for roads protecting state lands.
28 November 2011/Gisha http://www.gisha.org גישה (Israel)
• After six months of no export at all, another season of agricultural export to Europe opened yesterday.
• Israel to allow just 1% of the export promised in 2005 US-brokered agreement.
• Since June 2007, not a single truckload has been allowed for sale to Israel or the West Bank – where most of Gaza's goods have traditionally been sold.
• Gaza's factories crippled by restrictions; unemployment high.
Monday, Nov. 28, 2011: At the start of Gaza's winter export season which began yesterday, Gisha raises a question for the Israeli Defense Ministry: Why are residents of Gaza banned from transferring goods to their natural markets in Israel and the West Bank?
A select number of farmers in Gaza are beginning to export flowers, peppers, tomatoes and strawberries to Europe. Two truckloads of strawberries were permitted to leave Gaza today as part of an exception to the ban on export that Israel has imposed since June 2007. Each year since then, Israel has allowed a few truckloads of winter agricultural produce to leave Gaza as part of a project sponsored by the Netherlands. Last year (November 2010-May 2011), Israel allowed farmers to export 290 truckloads in total – despite a promise, in the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access, to allow 400 truckloads of export each day. Even if this year's plan for agricultural export is fully implemented – which is highly unlikely – it would allow fewer than 5 trucks per day for the entire season – just 1% of the promised amount. This exception to the ban is helpful for select growers, but it fails to address the manufacturing shut-down and massive unemployment caused by the export ban. About 83% of Gaza's factories are idle or operating at 50% or less capacity. Unemployment is officially listed at 28%, compared with 15.5% in 2000.
The cause of the problem is Israel's complete ban, since June 2007, on transferring goods from Gaza to Israel or the West Bank. Prior to 2007, 85% of Gaza's outgoing goods were sold in Israel and the West Bank. The profitability of export to Europe is limited, in part due to high shipping costs and low demand.
Profitable deals that Israel is blocking include marketing citrus fruit to West Bank grocers and textiles to Israeli companies. Gisha notes that since all exports from Gaza to Europe via Israel undergo comprehensive security checks and meet all required standards, it is hard to imagine any security rationale behind the ban. In fact, Israeli security officials attribute the ban to a political decision to separate Gaza from the West Bank.
Prior to 2007, Gaza farmer Monthar Alboudi used to export 1,500 tons of strawberries annually. Last year, he was allowed to sell just 7 tons to Europe, and has been prevented from selling anything to his customers in Israel and the West Bank. "Export to Europe is not very profitable, although I think it's important to preserve the European market", says Alboudi. "I hope they will allow us to sell our produce in the West Bank and Israel, our primary markets".
According to Gisha Director Sari Bashi: "It is not clear how preventing producers in Gaza from selling eggplants, school desks, and oranges to the West Bank enhances Israeli security, but the ban is clearly harming Palestinians trying to engage in productive, dignified work".
For up-to-date information on the Gaza closure, see Gisha's Gaza Cheat Sheet.
For graphs detailing outgoing goods from Gaza, click here.
Recent articles:
• Scale of Control – Does Israel Control Gaza?
• Gisha's response to Shalit-Prisoner Deal
• Gisha's response to Palmer Report
5 november 2011/Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel)
Uri Avnery אורי אבנרי
EVERYBODY KNOWS the scene from school: a small boy quarrels with a bigger boy. “Hold me back!” he shouts to his comrades, “Before I break his bones!”
Our government seems to be behaving in this way. Every day, via all channels, it shouts that it is going, any minute now, to break the bones of Iran.
Iran is about to produce a nuclear bomb. We cannot allow this. So we shall bomb them to smithereens.
Binyamin Netanyahu says so in every one of his countless speeches, including his opening speech at the winter session of the Knesset. Ditto Ehud Barak. Every self-respecting commentator (has anyone ever seen a non-self-respecting one?) writes about it. The media amplify the sound and the fury.
“Haaretz” splashed its front page with pictures of the seven most important ministers (the “security septet”) showing three in favor of the attack, four against.
A GERMAN proverb says: “Revolutions that are announced in advance do not take place.” Same goes for wars.
Nuclear affairs are subject to very strict military censorship. Very very strict indeed.
Yet the censor seems to be smiling benignly. Let the boys, including the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense (the censor's ultimate boss) play their games.
The respected former long-serving chief of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, has publicly warned against the attack, describing it as “the most stupid idea” he has ever heard”. He explained that he considers it his duty to warn against it, in view of the plans of Netanyahu and Barak.
On Wednesday, there was a veritable deluge of leaks. Israel tested a missile that can deliver a nuclear bomb more then 5000 km away, beyond you-know-where. And our Air Force has just completed exercises in Sardinia, at a distance larger than you-know-where. And on Thursday, the Home Front Command held training exercises all over Greater Tel Aviv, with sirens screaming away. All this seems to indicate that the whole hullabaloo is a ploy. Perhaps to frighten and deter the Iranians. Perhaps to push the Americans into more extreme actions. Perhaps coordinated with the Americans in advance. (British sources, too, leaked that the Royal Navy is training to support an American attack on Iran.)
It is an old Israeli tactic to act as if we are going crazy (“The boss has gone mad” is a routine cry in our markets, to suggest that the fruit vendor is selling at a loss.) We shall not listen to the US any more. We shall just bomb and bomb and bomb.
Well, let’s be serious for a moment.
ISRAEL WILL not attack Iran. Period.
Some may think that I am going out on a limb. Shouldn’t I add at least “probably” or “almost certainly”?
No, I won’t. I shall repeat categorically: Israel Will NOT Attack Iran.
Since the 1956 Suez adventure, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered an ultimatum that stopped the action, Israel has never undertaken any significant military operation without obtaining American consent in advance.
The US is Israel’s only dependable supporter in the world (besides, perhaps, Fiji, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.) To destroy this relationship means cutting our lifeline. To do that, you have to be more than just a little crazy. You have to be raving mad.
Furthermore, Israel cannot fight a war without unlimited American support, because our planes and our bombs come from the US. During a war, we need supplies, spare parts, many sorts of equipment. During the Yom Kippur war, Henry Kissinger had an “air train” supplying us around the clock. And that war would probably look like a picnic compared to a war with Iran.
LET’S LOOK at the map. That, by the way, is always recommended before starting any war.
The first feature that strikes the eye is the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which every third barrel of the worlds seaborne oil supplies flow. Almost the entire output of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Iraq and Iran has to run the gauntlet through this narrow sea lane.
“Narrow” is an understatement. The entire width of this waterway is some 35 km (or 20 miles). That’s about the distance from Gaza to Beer Sheva, which was crossed last week by the primitive rockets of the Islamic Jihad.
When the first Israeli plane enters Iranian airspace, the strait will be closed. The Iranian navy has plenty of missile boats, but they will not be needed. Land-based missiles are enough.
The world is already teetering on the verge of an abyss. Little Greece is threatening to fall and take major chunks of the world economy with her. The elimination of almost a fifth of the industrial nations’ supply of oil would lead to a catastrophe hard even to imagine.
To open the strait by force would require a major military operation (including “putting boots on the ground”) that would overshadow all the US misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can the US afford that? Can NATO? Israel itself is not in the same league.
BUT ISRAEL would be very much involved in the action, if only on the receiving end.
In a rare show of unity, all of Israel’s service chiefs, including the heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet, are publicly opposing the whole idea. We can only guess why.
I don’t know whether the operation is possible at all. Iran is a very large country, about the size of Alaska, the nuclear installations are widely dispersed and largely underground. Even with the special deep penetration bombs provided by the US, the operation may stall the Iranian efforts – such as they are - only for a few months. The price may be too high for such meager results.
Moreover, it is quite certain that with the beginning of a war, missiles will rain down on Israel – not only from Iran, but also from Hizbollah, and perhaps also from Hamas. We have no adequate defense for our towns. The amount of death and destruction would be prohibitive.
Suddenly, the media are full of stories about our three submarines, soon to grow to five, or even six, if the Germans are understanding and generous. It is openly said that these give us the capabilities of a nuclear “second strike”, if Iran uses its (still non-existent) nuclear warheads against us. But the Iranians may also use chemical and other weapons of mass destruction.
Then there is the political price. There are a lot of tensions in the Islamic world. Iran is far from popular in many parts of it. But an Israeli assault on a major Muslim country would instantly unite Sunnis and Shiites, from Egypt and Turkey to Pakistan and beyond. Israel could become a villa in a burning jungle.
BUT THE talk about the war serves many purposes, including domestic, political ones.
Last Saturday, the social protest movement sprang to life again. After a pause of two months, a mass of people assembled in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. This was quite remarkable, because on that very day rockets were falling on the towns near the Gaza Strip. Until now, in such a situation demonstrations have always been canceled. Security problems trump everything else. Not this time.
Also, many people believed that the euphoria of the Gilad Shalit festival had wiped the protest from the public mind. It didn’t.
By the way, something remarkable has happened: the media, after siding with the protest movement for months, have had a change of heart. Suddenly all of them, including Haaretz, are sticking knives in its back. As if by order, all newspapers wrote the next day that “more than 20,000” took part. Well I was there, and I do have some idea of these things. There were at least 100,000 people there, most of them young. I could hardly move.
The protest has not spent itself, as the media assert. Far from it. But what better means for taking people’s minds off social justice than talk of the “existential danger”?
Moreover, the reforms demanded by the protesters would need money. In view of the worldwide financial crisis, the government strenuously objects to increasing the state budget, for fear of damaging our credit rating.
So where could the money come from? There are only three plausible sources: the settlements (who would dare?), the Orthodox (ditto!) and the huge military budget.
But on the eve of the most crucial war in our history, who would touch the armed forces? We need every shekel to buy more planes, more bombs, more submarines. Schools and hospitals must, alas, wait.
So God bless Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Where would we be without him?
The political crisis has become a reality well before the Palestinians declare their independent state, writes Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn, leaving Israel isolated in facing Iran, Turkey and Egypt.
By Aluf Benn
The anxiety caused by the Arab Spring among the Israeli public became a reality this weekend, when protesters broke into the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, and expelled the Israeli diplomats from their country.
The embassy staff’s urgent evacuation in a special IAF plane in the wake of President Obama’s intervention is a stark reminder of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Seven months after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Egyptian protesters tore to shreds the Israeli flag, a symbol of peace between Egypt and its eastern neighbor, after 31 years. It seems that the flag will not return to the flagstaff anytime soon.
The historians who will write about the collapse of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty will start their stories during the twilight years of the Mubarak regime, when the government gradually lost control over the Sinai Peninsula, turning the desert into an abandoned frontier of weapons smuggling, human trafficking, and African refugees.
The demilitarization agreements, which removed the Egyptian army from Sinai and were slowly eroded following Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip, have accelerated sharply in the last several months. Time after time, Egypt requested and received permission to “temporarily” deploy more troops and weaponry along the border, in order to restore order and security in the region.
For the Egyptians, this was an opportunity to shake off the limitations imposed on them by the peace agreement, and regain their full sovereignty over the buffer zone that lies between the Suez Canal and the Negev.
In the 70s, when the peace accords were signed, the Egyptian military’s presence in Sinai posed a great security threat. Now, Egyptian soldiers seem like the lesser evil and an antidote to the much larger threat of a political and security vacuum across the border.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is concerned that the Sinai Peninsula will turn into a larger version of the Gaza Strip, full of weapons and launching pads aimed at Israeli territory. The fence that Israel is building along the Egyptian border is intended to ensure routine security measures aimed at preventing terrorists and refugees from spilling over the border. Israel will not be able to handle the strategic dangers that are bound to unfold on the other side.
The “embassy crisis” exploded in the wake of the killing of five Egyptian soldiers on August 18 during a border skirmish that came on the heels of a terrorist attack against Israeli civilians on their way to Eilat.
The Tahrir protesters and Egyptian politicians, frustrated with the slow pace of regime change, have directed their anger toward the most hated target in Cairo – the Israeli Embassy. Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s public expression of regret, and the Israeli promises to cooperate with Egypt in investigating the incident did not interest the Egyptian public.
The protests continued, and a week after the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Ankara on similar grounds - anger stemming from the killing of Turkish citizens aboard last year’s Gaza flotilla – the Israeli ambassador was expelled from Cairo. The only difference is that in Turkey, the government initiated the downgrading of ties, while in Egypt the people did so against the will of their rulers.
Netanyahu and his government have prided themselves on their steadfast commitment to national ideals, and the prime minster is convinced that he was right in refusing to apologize to the Turks for killing their citizens. According to his perspective, the Arab world scrutinizes Israel’s actions, and an apology to Turkey would be interpreted as a sign of unforgivable weakness.
But Netanyahu was not content with merely refusing to apologize. Instead of attempting to calm the conflict with Turkey, Israel was dragged into a dangerous battle with Ankara.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to send a Turkish naval fleet to accompany the next flotillas to Gaza, and Netanyahu responded with a widely-covered visit to an Israeli naval base. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who consistently outflanks Netanyahu from the right, suggests, publicly, that Israel aid the PKK Kurdish insurgency, in order to balance out Turkey’s support for Hamas.
Netanyahu and Lieberman are heroes of the media, but when the chips are down, it turns out that Israel has direct influence on Egypt. Thus, Netanyahu must resort to asking for help from Obama, his great opponent, in order to evacuate the embassy employees. Once again, it becomes clear that Israel cannot manage without help from the United States.
Netanyahu now hopes that Israel might be able to get close with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States, who also seek to block the possibility of an Arab Spring in the region. In the West, Netanyahu is hoping to circumvent Turkey by strengthening ties with Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. During his visit to the Balkans, he was shown photos and statues of national heros, sent to their deaths by the Ottoman Empire. A real basis for friendship.
These are but minor comforts. The political tsunami that Ehud Barak foresaw has come true prior to the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state in the UN. Israel is left isolated facing Iran, Turkey and Egypt, which in the past were considered close allies. Netanyahu is convinced that the Arab Spring uprisings are a decree of fate, leaving Israel with little to do but to stand firmly in its place.
Israel cannot prevent the rise of Erdogan or the fall of Mubarak, the same way that it cannot halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The fall of the American superpower is not Netanyahu’s fault. But he has not done a thing to mitigate the fallout from the aforementioned developments. Israel’s political and strategic positions are far worse under his leadership.
More on this topic
• Obama expresses 'great concern' to Netanyahu over Israeli Embassy attack
• Israeli diplomatic staff and families evacuated after Egyptians storm embassy in Cairo
• Arab Spring succeeded, it's Egypt that failed
8 September 2011, Gisha http://www.gisha.org גישה (Israel)
This week we address some common myths and misconceptions which have emerged over the past days following the release of the Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Inquiry on the 31 May 2010 Flotilla Incident (in other words, the Palmer Report). These are myths which we identified in the report itself, in the Israeli and Turkish positions as they are summarized in the report, as well as in public debate (mainly in the media) sparked by the report.
Myth: The commission determined that Israel’s closure of Gaza is legal.
Fact: The commission determined that Israel’s naval blockade is legal. The commission argued that an assessment of the legality of the naval blockade can be conducted independently of the question of the legality of the overall closure policy. We disagree with this assessment and believe that restrictions on movement, whether by land, sea or air, constitute a single policy, the components of which cannot be reviewed independently. The legality of the overall closure policy was left as an open question by the panel, however, a recommendation was made to Israel that it continue easing restrictions on movement “with a view to lifting its closure and to alleviate the unsustainable humanitarian and economic situation of the civilian population” in Gaza (par. 156).
Myth: The Palmer Commission was a formal panel of inquiry, charged with the authority to summon witnesses and whose findings can be considered thorough and binding by law.
Fact: The commission was established by the UN Secretary-General on August 2, 2010, to review the “circumstances and context” related to the May 2010 flotilla incident. The panel stressed in its report that it was not “acting as a Court and was not asked to adjudicate on legal liability” (Summary, par. 1). Moreover, it states that, “its findings and recommendations are therefore not intended to attribute any legal responsibilities” much in the same way as the recommendations of the Goldstone report were not legally binding. The panel did not have a mandate to summon witnesses, it was meant to work by consensus and no live testimony was heard. The panel formed its report drawing from the information supplied from Turkish and Israeli domestic inquiries and representatives chosen by each country.
Myth: The maritime closure began in January 2009.
Fact: Israel did indeed declare a naval blockade in 2009, but it has blocked sea access to Gaza since 1967 by virtue of its authority as an occupying power. Gisha’s position is that the laws of occupation continue to apply to the Gaza Strip following the implementation of Israel’s Disengagement Plan in 2005, since Israel still controls key aspects of life in the area. The laws of occupation permit Israel to decide through which channels goods and people will enter and leave the Gaza Strip, however they also impose upon Israel an obligation to allow movement, subject to specific security inspections, and to facilitate normal life in the occupied territory.
Myth: “Israel is the Occupying Power in Gaza, and cannot blockade the borders of the territory it occupies” (Summary of the Interim and Final Reports of Turkey’s National Investigation, par. 23e).
Fact: Gisha’s position is that Israel has the authority (under the law of occupation and not the law of naval blockade!) to determine by which routes goods and people enter and leave the occupied territory, while at the same time bearing an obligation to allow movement and access in such a way that facilitates normal life.
Myth: Bringing in goods via the sea isn’t possible anyway because there is no deep sea port in Gaza, and therefore the naval blockade is not related to the restrictions on movement of civilians and civilian goods (see par.78).
Fact: While it’s true that there is currently no deep sea port, the report fails to note that Israel bombed the site of a planned seaport in September 2001, where construction had already begun. Since that time, and despite a promise made in the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access, Israel has refused to provide guarantees to the international donors who wish to fund construction of a port that it will not bomb the site again, thus preventing it from being built. Blocking access via the sea is an inherent part of Israel’s overall closure policy.
Myth: “The blockade did not constitute collective punishment of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip: there is no evidence that Israel deliberately imposed restrictions on bringing goods into Gaza with the sole or main purpose of denying them to the civilian population” (from the Summary of the Report of Israel’s National Investigation, par. 47e).
Fact: Sweeping restrictions on movement of people and goods to and from Gaza were imposed in June 2007 and articulated in a September 2007 decision by the Israeli Security Cabinet. The cabinet decision refers to a need to restrict movement in order to respond to Hamas’ rise to power in Gaza and the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel, however the restrictions are not imposed in order to confront a concrete security threat but rather as a means to exert pressure on the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. The concept of using “economic warfare” as a means of pressure has been confirmed on numerous occasions in statements made by public officials, as well as by the Israeli Justice Ministry in a statement to the Israeli Supreme Court.
Israel’s closure of the Gaza Strip impacts each and every one of its residents, more than half of whom are children, regardless of whether they are personally involved in violent acts against Israel or not. For this reason, the closure constitutes collective punishment, in violation of international law.
Myth: Israel ended its closure of Gaza after the 2010 flotilla incident.
Fact: Some key aspects of Israel’s closure policy have been eased. In July 2010, Israel removed a ban on the entrance of consumer goods and raw materials, however, it continues to restrict export, entrance of construction materials and movement of people between Gaza and the West Bank. These restrictions continue to paralyze the economy of Gaza and cause substantial damage to key aspects of civilian life. In so doing, Israel continues to violate its obligations under international law, rendering its policy of closure – including the maritime closure – unlawful. In order to bring its policy into compliance with international law – meaning that security interests are protected while obligations to civilians in Gaza are maintained – Israel must allow export, entrance of construction materials, and travel between Gaza and the West Bank, subject only to individual security checks.
When we look back on this period in Israeli history, I don’t want to wonder: “why didn’t Israelis fight for their democracy? Why did they stand by and let themselves be taken over by sham leaders representing repressions that belonged to the dark days of the last century? What was the birth of our state worth if it failed to guarantee us a democracy? I learned the Israeli national anthem as a child, and when I was very young, I used to choke up at the part that says “l’hiyot am hofshi b’artzenu” (to be a free people in our country).
I’m not alone. I wish there were more people flooding the streets in protest, following the passage of the boycott law last week, but I am encouraged by important voices of protest that continue to appear daily ever since last week. Here’s just a sampling:
1. One of Israel’s most talented authors, Etgar Keret, wrote a powerfully worded column in the largest mass-circulating daily Yedioth Ahronot, in the weekend edition. Keret shows how obvious and easy it is to do what 47 MKs and about half of the Israeli public were unable to do – separate feelings about the act of boycotts from the principle of democracy.
I never liked boycotts…when a friend called me about a year ago asking me to sign a petition calling for a boycott against Ariel, it was easy for me to say no…[but] When elected officials enact violent legislation which violates the individual’s basic rights, it is nothing less than a civic duty to break it. Had my country enacted a law prohibiting men from kissing in public, I would look on the street for the first man who does not reek of cigarettes or garlic and give him a passionate kiss. When our country chooses to prosecute and persecute people because they are trying to influence in democratic ways the future of the country where they live, then I must use this forum to call for a boycott of the settlements. ” [Thanks to Adam Keller for part of the translation - note, various other writers and intellectuals have written similar calls.]
2. The Israel Democracy Institute, which used to take moderate, upset-no-one positions in the past and preferred to hold a seminar on a controversial issues rather than make a statement, came out with a desperate call in an ad in Ha’aretz. In four years of working there, from 2006-2010, I don’t remember anything so emotional and unequivocal as this coming from the IDI. The large headline read: “Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky are turning over in their graves”
The founding fathers and the people of all movements and all streams – from Jabotinsky to Berl Katznelson, from Ben Gurion to Begin – entrusted us with a cherished endowment, one that commands us to protect it fearlessly: Israeli democracy. Those who signed the Declaration of Independence gave it its authority through their declaration that the state of Israel rests on the foundations of liberty, justice and peace…will provide equality of social and political rights for all citizens without distinction between religion, race, gender…To this day, we have not completed the promulgation of a Constitution that defines human and civil rights in Israel in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. Worse, short-sighted legislation is eating away at the glorious Israeli democracy…Would the current Knesset members who vote for these laws sign the Declaration of Independence today? Don’t they see that their vote does not square with the values of the Declaration?…An unprecedented stack of bills have piled up on the floor of the Knesset, and from them blow the winds of anti-democracy…they subvert the foundation of Israeli democracy and endanger its existence.
3. A petition has been published in Haaretz, under the title “Boycott Law – No more!” The first 120 signatories appear in the paper and most of them are academics, lawyers, architects, engineers, social workers, social activists, writers, designers, psychologists and organizational consultants, environmentalists and Israel Prize winning physicists and private investigators. Within the text, it says “36 professors of law determined that “the law is unconstitutional, it is a mortal blow to freedom of political expression and the right to protest in Israel, sufficient to damage human dignity [a human right protected under Israel's Basic Law of Human Dignity and Freedom, one of several such laws that stand in for a constitution - drs]
4. A demonstration is being organized on Saturday night – in proper 2011 fashion, invitations are being disseminated on a Facebook page with the title: “Democracy takes to the streets: The government against the people – the people against the government.” At this moment, 1,359 say they’ll be attending – and it’s only Wednesday.
I want, I believe, I hope and I pray that thousands of people, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands – 7.75 million – will unite in support of our freedoms – all of them, for all of us.
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*Dahlia Scheindlin is a leading international public opinion analyst and strategic consultant based in Tel Aviv, specializing in progressive causes, political campaigns in many countries, including new/transitional democracies and peace/ conflict research. In Israel, she works for a wide range of local and international organizations dealing with Israeli-Palestinian conflict issues, peacemaking, democracy, religious identity and internal social issues in Israeli society. Dahlia is currently writing her doctoral dissertation in comparative politics at Tel Aviv University. The focus of her research is unrecognized (de facto) states. In the fall of 2010 she will begin teaching at Ben Gurion University. Dahlia writes a monthly column for the Jerusalem Report magazine and is a regular media commentator and guest lecturer.
15 July 2011, Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel)
Uri Avnery אורי אבנרי
YEARS AGO I said that there are but two miracles in Israel: the Hebrew language and democracy.
Hebrew had been a dead language for many generations, more or less like Latin, when it was still used in the Catholic church. Then, suddenly, concurrent with the emergence of Zionism (but independently) it sprang back to life. This never happened to any other language.
Theodor Herzl laughed at the idea that Jews in Palestine would speak Hebrew. He wanted us to speak German. “Are they going to ask for a railway ticket in Hebrew?” he scoffed.
Well, we now buy airline tickets in Hebrew. We read the Bible in its Hebrew original and enjoy it tremendously. As Abba Eban once said, if King David were to come to life in Jerusalem today, he could understand the language spoken in the street. Though with some difficulty, because our language gets corrupted, like most other languages.
Anyhow, the position of Hebrew is secure. Babies and Nobel Prize laureates speak it.
The fate of the other miracle is far less assured.
THE FUTURE – indeed, the present – of Israeli democracy is shrouded in doubt.
It is a miracle, because it did not grow slowly over generations, like Anglo-Saxon democracy. There was no democracy in the Jewish shtetl. Neither is there anything like it in Jewish religious tradition. But the Zionist Founding Fathers, mostly West and Central European Jews, aspired to the highest social ideals of their time.
I have always warned that our democracy has very shallow and tender roots, and needs our constant care. Where did the Jews who founded Israel, and who came here thereafter, grow up? Under the dictatorship of the British High Commissioner, the Russian Czar, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the king of Morocco, Pilsudsky’s Poland and similar regimes. Those of us who came from democratic countries like Weimar Germany or the US were a tiny minority.
Yet the founders of Israel succeeded in establishing a vibrant democracy that – at least until 1967 – was in no way inferior, and in some ways superior, to the British or American models. We were proud of it, and the world admired it. The appellation “the Only Democracy in the Middle East” was not a hollow propaganda slogan.
Some claim that with the occupation of the Palestinian territories, which have lived since 1967 under a harsh military regime without the slightest trace of democracy and human rights, this situation already came to an end. Whatever one thinks about that, in fact Israel in its pre-1967 borders maintained a reasonable record until recently. For the ordinary citizen, democracy was still a fact of life. Even Arab citizens enjoyed democratic rights far superior to anything in the Arab world.
This week, all this was put in doubt. Some say that this doubt has now been dispersed, and that a stark reality is being exposed.
CHARLES BOYCOTT, the agent of a British landowner in Ireland, could never have imagined that he would play a role in a country called Israel 130 years after his name had become a world-wide symbol.
Captain Boycott evicted Irish tenants, who defaulted on their rent because of desperate economic straits. The Irish reacted with a new weapon: no one would speak with him, work for him, buy from him. His name became synonymous with this kind of non-violent action.
The method itself was born even earlier. The list is long. Among others: in 1830 the “negroes” in the US declared a “boycott” of slave-produced products. The later Civil Rights movement started with a boycott of the Montgomery bus company that seated blacks and whites separately. During the American Revolution, the insurgents declared a boycott on British goods. So did Mahatma Gandhi in India.
American Jews boycotted the cars of the infamous anti-Semite Henry Ford. Jews in many countries took part in a boycott of German goods immediately after the Nazis came to power in 1933.
The Chinese boycotted Japan after the invasion of their country. The US boycotted the Olympic Games in Moscow. People of conscience all over the world boycotted the products and the athletes of Apartheid South Africa and helped to bring it to its knees.
All these campaigns used a basic democratic right: every person is entitled to refuse to buy from people he detests. Everyone can refuse to support with his money causes which contradict his innermost moral convictions.
It is this right that has been put to the test in Israel this week.
IN 1997, Gush Shalom declared a boycott of the products of the settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. We believe that these settlements, which are being set up with the express purpose of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, are endangering the future of Israel.
The press conference, in which we announced this step, was not attended by a single Israeli journalist. But the boycott gathered momentum. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis do not buy settlement products. The European Union, which has a trade agreement that practically treats Israel as a member of the union, was induced to enforce the clause that excludes products of the settlements from these privileges.
There are now hundreds of factories in the settlements. They were literally compelled, or seduced, to go there, because the (stolen) land there is far cheaper than in Israel proper. They enjoy generous government subsidies and tax exemptions, and they can exploit Palestinian workers for ridiculous wages. The Palestinians have no other way of supporting their families than to toil for their oppressors.
Our boycott was designed, among other things, to counter these advantages. And indeed, several big enterprises have already given in and moved out, under pressure from foreign investors and buyers. Alarmed, the settlers instructed their lackeys in the Knesset to draft a law that would counter this boycott.
Last Monday, the “Boycott Law” was enacted, setting off an unprecedented storm in the country. Already Tuesday morning, Gush Shalom submitted to the Supreme Court a 22 page application to annul this law.
THE “BOYCOTT LAW” is a very clever piece of work. Obviously, it was not drafted by the parliamentary simpletons who introduced it, but by some very sophisticated legal minds, probably financed by the Casino barons and Evangelical crazies who support the extreme Right in Israel.
First of all, the law is disguised as a means to fight the de-legitimization of the State of Israel throughout the world. The law bans all calls for the boycott of the State of Israel, “including the areas under Israeli control”. Since there are not a dozen Israelis who call for the boycott of the state, it is clear that the real and sole purpose is to outlaw the boycott of the settlements.
In its initial draft, the law made this a criminal offense. That would have suited us fine: we were quite willing to go to prison for this cause. But the law, in its final form, imposes sanctions that are another thing.
According to the law, any settler who feels that he has been harmed by the boycott can demand unlimited compensation from any person or organization calling for the boycott – without having to prove any actual damage. This means that each of the 300,000 settlers can claim millions from every single peace activist associated with the call for boycott, thus destroying the peace movement altogether.
AS WE point out in our application to the Supreme Court, the law is clearly unconstitutional. True, Israel has no formal constitution, but several “basic laws” are considered by the Supreme Court to function effectively as such.
First, the law clearly contravenes the basic right to freedom of expression. A call for a boycott is a legitimate political action, much as a street demonstration, a manifesto or a mass petition.
Second, the law contravenes the principle of equality. The law does not apply to any other boycott that is now being implemented in Israel: from the religious boycott of stores that sell non-kosher meat (posters calling for this cover the walls of the religious quarters in Jerusalem and elsewhere), to the recent very successful call to boycott the producers of cottage cheese because of their high price. The call of right-wing groups to boycott artists who have not served in the army will be legal, the declaration by left-wing artists that they will not appear in the settlements will be illegal.
Since these and other provisions of the law clearly violate the Basic Laws, the Legal Advisor of the Knesset, in a highly unusual step, published his opinion that the law is unconstitutional and undermines “the core of democracy”. Even the supreme governmental legal authority, the “legal advisor of the government”, has published a statement saying that the law in “on the border” of unconstitutionality. Being mortally afraid of the settlers, he added that he will defend it in court nevertheless. The opportunity for this is not far off: the Supreme Court has given him 60 days to respond to our petition.
A SMALL group of minor parliamentarians is terrorizing the Knesset majority and can pass any law at all. The power of the settlers is immense, and moderate right-wing members are rightly afraid that, if they are not radical enough, they will not be re-elected by the Likud Central Council, which selects the candidates for the party list. This creates a dynamic of competition: who can appear the most radical.
No wonder that one anti-democratic law follows another: a law that practically bars Arab citizens from living in localities of less than 400 families. A law that takes away the pension rights of former Knesset members who do not show up for police investigations (like Azmi Bishara.) A law that abolishes the citizenship of people convicted of “assisting terrorism”. A law that obliges NGOs to disclose donations by foreign governmental institutions. A law that gives preference for civil service positions to people who have served in the army (thus automatically excluding almost all Arab citizens). A law that outlaws any commemoration of the 1948 Naqba (the expulsion of Arab inhabitants from areas conquered by Israel). An extension of the law that prohibits (almost exclusively) Arab citizens, who marry spouses from the Palestinian territories, to live with them in Israel.
Soon to be enacted is a bill that forbids NGOs to accept donations of more than 5000 dollars from abroad, a bill that will impose an income tax of 45% on any NGO that is not specifically exempted by the government, a bill to compel universities to sing the national anthem on every possible occasion, the appointment of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry to investigate the financial resources of left-wing [sic] organizations.
Looming over everything else is the explicit threat of right-wing factions to attack the hated “liberal” Supreme Court directly, shear it of its ability to overrule unconstitutional laws and control the appointment of the Supreme Court judges.
FIFTY-ONE YEARS ago, on the eve of the Eichmann trial, I wrote a book about Nazi Germany. In the last chapter, I asked: “Can It Happen Here?”
My answer still stands: yes, it can.
