29 August 2011, Communist Party of Israel המפלגה הקומוניסטית הישראלית http://maki.org.il
A newly established cooperation between Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol and Arab-Palestinian poet in Israel Taha Muhammad Ali has led to a petition calling on intellectuals on both sides to support the foundation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.
According to Sobol, the petition – distributed by email in recent days – has been signed by more than100 artists and academics, Jews and Arabs. It says that "the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 border, which will live in peace with Israel, is a crucial interest both for Israel and the Palestinians.
(June 4, 2011 demonstration in Tel-Aviv for a Palestinian state. Photo: Al Ittihad)
"All Arab countries and most of the world's countries support this solution for the conflict. According to the Arab Summit Conference in Beirut in 2002, all Arab countries and 60 Muslim countries would recognize the State of Israel and establish diplomatic relations with it if Israel were to recognize the '67 borders as the borders of just, comprehensive and sustainable peace with the future Palestinian state.
"These borders will gain the recognition of the UN and the countries of the world, as well as international guarantees." Sobol and Muhammad Ali warn in the petition that the ongoing political stalemate will create fertile land for extreme forces, who they say seek to drag the region's people into bloodshed and disastrous wars, which "create destruction, perpetuate backwardness and prevent any option of normalization of life and furthering social justice."
Talking about social justice, the two say that the recent popular protests movements in Arab countries and Israel express the aspirations for normalization of life that will exist in the region in times of peace, which will guarantee the fulfillment of the existential interests of the citizens of Israel and the Palestinian state and allow economic prosperity and social justice for all of the region's nations.
"For all these reasons, we the undersigned welcome the establishment of a Palestinian state within the '67 borders, including east Jerusalem, and call on its leadership and on the Israeli leadership to resume – immediately upon the foundation of the Palestinian state – the negotiations for ending the conflict based on UN resolutions and the international legitimization of a sustainable peace settlement between the two countries."
A women's march to be held in Qalandia checkpoint
Thousands of peace and left-wing women, from Israel and Palestine are expected to march through Qalandia checkpoint in east Jerusalem, Saturday, September 17 at 11 am. Among them Hadash, Communist Party of Israel and Tandi (Women's Democratic Movement in Israel) members, in support of an independent Palestinian state ahead of a declaration of statehood at the UN.
The demonstration will call for recognition of the Palestinian right to an independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital. The demonstration will be held in the two sides of the Qalandia checkpoint, with the participation of the General Union of Palestinian Women activists. March organizers were expecting thousands of Israeli and Palestinian women to participate.
On June 4, some 25,000 people marched through the streets of Tel Aviv in a demonstration calling for the creation of a Palestinian state. Setting out from the city’s central Rabin Square, protesters affiliated with the Hadash, Meretz, Peace Now, the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement and the Geneva Initiative slowly made their way along an unusually long route to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where a rally was held. Speakers included MKs from the Hadash, Meretz, Labor and Kadima parties.
Accompanied by a small but loud amateur marching band composed of youths from the Communist Party, activists carrying Israeli, Palestinian and red flags marched past Dizengoff center, making their presence known with amplified chants of: “Israel and Palestine, two states for two peoples”; “Yes we ‘ken’” (the Hebrew word for “yes”); and “Bibi and Barak, peace isn’t a game,” referring to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu by his nickname.
(in Hebrew and Arabic): http://2states.org.il/independent
Mostrando postagens com marcador 1967 borders. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador 1967 borders. Mostrar todas as postagens
terça-feira, 30 de agosto de 2011
sexta-feira, 19 de agosto de 2011
ANTI-ARAB SENTIMENT IN ISRAEL
18 August 2011, The Electronic Intifada http://electronicintifada.net (USA)
Video survey: Racism rampant among Israeli youth
Eli Ungar-Sargon
Over the past three years, my wife Pennie and I have been working on a documentary film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During our second production trip to the region, one of the many remarkable people we encountered was Uri Davis. He is one of a handful of Israelis who has built a life for himself among the Palestinians of the West Bank. This made him a very interesting subject for our film, which examines the practical and moral failings of the two-state solution.
During our interview with Davis, one of the questions we asked was whether he had encountered any anti-Semitism in the West Bank. The question was motivated by a desire on our part to address a narrative — prevalent among American and Israeli Jews — which claims that anti-Semitism is an obvious feature of Palestinian culture.
As these two groups are an important part of our target audience, we felt that it was our responsibility to address this perception. Who better to ask about the veracity of this narrative than a Jew living among Palestinians? Davis answered by saying that although Palestinian anti-Semitism does exist, it is a marginal phenomenon, while anti-Arab sentiment among Israelis is a mainstream phenomenon. Shortly after the interview, it occurred to us that we could either substantiate or disprove Davis’s provocative statement with our cameras.
We began our survey in February 2011 and completed it in early March. On the Israeli side, we interviewed a total of 250 Jewish Israelis in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Jerusalem and Beersheba. For this part of the survey I conducted the interviews myself from behind the camera in Hebrew. On the Palestinian side, we interviewed a total of 250 Palestinians in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron. (Despite multiple attempts, we were unable to procure permission to enter the Gaza Strip.) Here, we collaborated with local journalist Mohammad Jaradat who, using my questions, conducted the interviews in Arabic.
The questions we asked pertained to a number of sensitive political topics and the idea was to get people to talk long enough to detect if there was any racism at play in their answers. In sociological terms, we were engaged in qualitative analysis, but unlike typical qualitative interviews, we spent minutes, not hours with our subjects. Our survey is not exhaustive and our method was very simple. We went to public places and asked people to talk to us on camera. In designing the questions, I set out to distinguish actual racism from conflict-based animosity. That is, to allow for the possibility that Israelis might exhibit animosity towards Palestinians without being racist and to allow the same on the Palestinian side in reverse.
The very first question we asked of Jewish Israelis was the extremely broad “What do you think about Arabs?” It is only reasonable to expect that people who harbor anti-Arab sentiment would mask their feelings when answering such a direct question on camera. Most people responded to this question with some variation of “They are people,” although we were surprised that a sizable minority used the opportunity to launch into anti-Arab diatribes.
One of the most disturbing trends that we noticed was the strong correlation between age and anti-Arab sentiment. The majority of Israeli teenagers that we spoke to expressed unabashed and open racism towards Arabs. Statements like “I hate them,” or “they should all be killed” were common in this age group.
When looking over the data, we divided the respondents into three groups: those who were neutral about Arabs; those who were positive about them; and those who expressed negative attitudes. Amongst the responses, 60 percent were neutral, 25 percent negative and 15 percent positive.
Rights misunderstood
Interestingly, some of the same people who answered the first question by saying that Arabs are people, went on to say that they wouldn’t be willing to live next door to them. Internal inconsistencies of this nature cropped up in many of the interviews and it is for this reason that we reserved our overall judgment on the prevalence of anti-Arab sentiment until all of the answers were tabulated. Our results show that 71 percent were willing to live next door to Arab neighbors, while 24 percent were unwilling. Five percent failed to answer this question with either a “yes” or a “no.”
It should be noted that the Israel Democracy Institute received dramatically different numbers in response to the above question. In its 2010 survey, it found that 46 percent of Jewish Israelis were unwilling to live next door to an Arab. The implication of this discrepancy is that our survey sample was much less anti-Arab than the population at large.
When it came to equal rights, a clear majority of our respondents answered that they felt it was important for Arab citizens of the state of Israel to enjoy equal rights. Upon review of the data, one of the significant trends that emerged in these answers was the recurrent use of the phrase “rights and responsibilities.” Many people openly resented the fact that most Arab citizens of the state don’t perform military service and argued that Arabs should only have equal rights if they are held to the same responsibilities as Jews. This response demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the very concept of rights, but it was prevalent enough that we felt it justified its own category. We called this category “conditional.” Of these responses, 64 percent were in favor of equal rights, 16 percent were opposed and 20 percent were in favor of conditional rights.
Once again, we saw a clear discrepancy from the Israel Democracy Institute numbers, which showed that 46 percent of Israelis were opposed to full and equal rights for Arab citizens of the state.
Democracy for Jews only?
Israel defines itself as a “Jewish democracy” but we were interested in discovering which part of that definition is more important to Jewish Israelis. We went about doing this by asking: “What’s more important: that Israel be a Jewish state or a democratic state?” What we discovered was that a clear majority of the people we spoke to felt that the Jewish character of the state was at least equally if not more important than the democratic character. There was, however, an impressive minority who were clear about the fact that it was more important to them that Israel be a democratic state. This last category represents, by a slim margin, the single largest group of our respondents: 37 percent felt that a democratic character was more important, 36 percent felt that a Jewish character was more important and 27 percent felt that both were equally important.
On the subject of the settlers, we asked a more leading question: “What do you think about the settlers? Are they an impediment to peace?” We broke the responses down into three groups: those who were neutral about the settlers; those who were positive about them; and those who expressed negativity. In this instance, answering “yes” was taken as evidence of negative feelings towards the settlers, answering “no” without qualification was taken as a neutral stance and answering “no” followed by something like “they are the heroes of the Jewish people” — a phrase that we heard a number of times — was taken as evidence of positive feelings. What we discovered was that more than 70 percent of the people we spoke to were either neutral or positive towards the settlers. Of the responses, 45 percent were neutral, 28 percent were positive and 27 percent were negative about the settlers.
Many of the people we spoke to exhibited a deep suspicion and mistrust of the Palestinian people. When asked whether it was possible to make peace with the Palestinians, less than half of our respondents answered “yes.” This is a sobering statistic for anyone invested in the peace process. It would seem that most of the people we spoke to have given up on the prospect of peace. Even among the Israelis who believed that peace is possible, a recurrent theme was “not in this generation.” Another important trend in this part of the survey was blaming the Palestinian leadership for the lack of progress in the peace process. Many of the people who answered “yes” stated that peace was possible with the Palestinian people but not with their leaders. Of the responses, 48 percent believed that peace with the Palestinians is possible, while 40 percent felt that peace is not possible. Thirteen percent failed to answer this question with either a “yes” or a “no.”
Little knowledge of one-state solution
Given the subject of our film, we were very interested in exploring people’s preferences for potential solutions to the conflict. What we noticed almost immediately was that it was very important to clarify to our respondents exactly what we meant by one state or two states. For the purposes of our survey, we defined the one-state solution as a secular democracy with equal rights on all of historic Palestine, while we defined the two-state solution as two states more or less along the lines of the 1967 boundaries, with East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state. It was important that we were able to explain exactly what we meant, because many Israelis answered one way but meant something entirely different.
For example, when asked whether they preferred the one-state solution or the two-state solution, many respondents answered that they preferred the two-state solution. But when we followed up and asked what territorial concessions they would be willing to make, these same people said that they wouldn’t agree to any concessions.
Furthermore, almost no one that we spoke to was familiar with the concept of the one-state solution. Many people even took this to mean one state for Jews only, until we clarified our meaning. When we reviewed the data from this section of the survey, we decided to break down the responses into seven different categories: one state; one state (i.e. a state for Jews only); two states; two states (i.e. without territorial concessions); either one or two states; neither one nor two states; and other. What is really fascinating about our results is that over two thirds of the people we spoke to were actively opposed to the classic two-state solution on the 1967 borders. Furthermore, there were almost as many true one-state solution supporters as there were classic two-state supporters. Amongst those we surveyed, 27 percent were true two-state supporters, 23 percent were true one state supporters, 22 percent supported neither, 16 percent were in favor of two states without territorial concessions, 6 percent were okay with either one or two states, 4 percent were in favor of one state for Jews only, and 2 percent didn’t fit into any of these categories.
Racism highest in Jerusalem
In trying to answer the question of whether anti-Arab sentiment is a mainstream phenomenon among Israelis, we looked at all of the answers and divided the data into three categories: not anti-Arab; mildly anti-Arab; and strongly anti-Arab. Once again, we allowed for the possibility that a person might exhibit animosity towards Palestinians without being anti-Arab and we did not put people into one of the anti-Arab columns simply because he or she expressed right-wing political views. So, for example, if the only evidence in an interview of anti-Arab sentiment was that the respondent said that equal rights for Arabs are conditional upon equal responsibilities, we did not put them in an anti-Arab column. However, if a respondent stated that they wouldn’t live next door to an Arab, this was sufficient to push him or her into the mildly anti-Arab column. To qualify for the strongly anti-Arab category, a respondent needed to exhibit anti-Arab sentiment in two or more answers.
Our results showed that 46 percent of our respondents were either mildly or strongly anti-Arab. When we broke these numbers down according to city, there were obvious regional differences. Jerusalem was by far the most anti-Arab of the five cities we visited, with 58 percent exhibiting some level of anti-Arab sentiment, while Haifa was the least with 32 percent. Interestingly, after Jerusalem, Tel Aviv was the city with the most anti-Arab sentiment (49 percent).
The data we gathered substantiates the idea that anti-Arab sentiment is a mainstream phenomenon in Israel. Almost half of all the Jewish Israelis we spoke to exhibited some level of anti-Arab sentiment. The single most disturbing trend that emerged was the correlation between youth and strong anti-Arab sentiment. We also learned that support for the classic two-state solution along the 1967 lines was very low among the people we spoke to. This data point was reinforced by the strong support that we saw for the settlers. Given our leading question, the fact that less than a third of respondents were willing to characterize the settlers as an impediment to peace, is further evidence that the two-state solution, as it is currently being proposed by the international community, is decidedly unpopular in Israel.
Despite the lack of knowledge about the one-state solution idea, some respondents appeared willing to consider it. Once this solution was explained to them, 22 percent preferred it and around 6 percent did not object to it. Finally, when we asked Jewish Israelis to choose between the Jewish character of the state and the democratic character, 36 percent opted for the latter. All of these results must be taken with a grain of salt.
We can report anecdotally that many of the people who refused to be interviewed told us that they wouldn’t participate, because they felt that we were part of the “leftist media.” For these reasons, we feel that it is likely, if anything, that our data underestimates the actual amount of anti-Arab sentiment in Israel.
Eli Ungar-Sargon is a documentary filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He and his wife Pennie are currently looking for translators to facilitate the data analysis on the Palestinian side of this survey. Anyone interested should email withoutaland A T gmail D O T com. To learn more about the film and see a visual representation of the data discussed in this article, please visit www.withoutaland.com
Video survey: Racism rampant among Israeli youth
Eli Ungar-Sargon
Over the past three years, my wife Pennie and I have been working on a documentary film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During our second production trip to the region, one of the many remarkable people we encountered was Uri Davis. He is one of a handful of Israelis who has built a life for himself among the Palestinians of the West Bank. This made him a very interesting subject for our film, which examines the practical and moral failings of the two-state solution.
During our interview with Davis, one of the questions we asked was whether he had encountered any anti-Semitism in the West Bank. The question was motivated by a desire on our part to address a narrative — prevalent among American and Israeli Jews — which claims that anti-Semitism is an obvious feature of Palestinian culture.
As these two groups are an important part of our target audience, we felt that it was our responsibility to address this perception. Who better to ask about the veracity of this narrative than a Jew living among Palestinians? Davis answered by saying that although Palestinian anti-Semitism does exist, it is a marginal phenomenon, while anti-Arab sentiment among Israelis is a mainstream phenomenon. Shortly after the interview, it occurred to us that we could either substantiate or disprove Davis’s provocative statement with our cameras.
We began our survey in February 2011 and completed it in early March. On the Israeli side, we interviewed a total of 250 Jewish Israelis in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Jerusalem and Beersheba. For this part of the survey I conducted the interviews myself from behind the camera in Hebrew. On the Palestinian side, we interviewed a total of 250 Palestinians in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron. (Despite multiple attempts, we were unable to procure permission to enter the Gaza Strip.) Here, we collaborated with local journalist Mohammad Jaradat who, using my questions, conducted the interviews in Arabic.
The questions we asked pertained to a number of sensitive political topics and the idea was to get people to talk long enough to detect if there was any racism at play in their answers. In sociological terms, we were engaged in qualitative analysis, but unlike typical qualitative interviews, we spent minutes, not hours with our subjects. Our survey is not exhaustive and our method was very simple. We went to public places and asked people to talk to us on camera. In designing the questions, I set out to distinguish actual racism from conflict-based animosity. That is, to allow for the possibility that Israelis might exhibit animosity towards Palestinians without being racist and to allow the same on the Palestinian side in reverse.
The very first question we asked of Jewish Israelis was the extremely broad “What do you think about Arabs?” It is only reasonable to expect that people who harbor anti-Arab sentiment would mask their feelings when answering such a direct question on camera. Most people responded to this question with some variation of “They are people,” although we were surprised that a sizable minority used the opportunity to launch into anti-Arab diatribes.
One of the most disturbing trends that we noticed was the strong correlation between age and anti-Arab sentiment. The majority of Israeli teenagers that we spoke to expressed unabashed and open racism towards Arabs. Statements like “I hate them,” or “they should all be killed” were common in this age group.
When looking over the data, we divided the respondents into three groups: those who were neutral about Arabs; those who were positive about them; and those who expressed negative attitudes. Amongst the responses, 60 percent were neutral, 25 percent negative and 15 percent positive.
Rights misunderstood
Interestingly, some of the same people who answered the first question by saying that Arabs are people, went on to say that they wouldn’t be willing to live next door to them. Internal inconsistencies of this nature cropped up in many of the interviews and it is for this reason that we reserved our overall judgment on the prevalence of anti-Arab sentiment until all of the answers were tabulated. Our results show that 71 percent were willing to live next door to Arab neighbors, while 24 percent were unwilling. Five percent failed to answer this question with either a “yes” or a “no.”
It should be noted that the Israel Democracy Institute received dramatically different numbers in response to the above question. In its 2010 survey, it found that 46 percent of Jewish Israelis were unwilling to live next door to an Arab. The implication of this discrepancy is that our survey sample was much less anti-Arab than the population at large.
When it came to equal rights, a clear majority of our respondents answered that they felt it was important for Arab citizens of the state of Israel to enjoy equal rights. Upon review of the data, one of the significant trends that emerged in these answers was the recurrent use of the phrase “rights and responsibilities.” Many people openly resented the fact that most Arab citizens of the state don’t perform military service and argued that Arabs should only have equal rights if they are held to the same responsibilities as Jews. This response demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the very concept of rights, but it was prevalent enough that we felt it justified its own category. We called this category “conditional.” Of these responses, 64 percent were in favor of equal rights, 16 percent were opposed and 20 percent were in favor of conditional rights.
Once again, we saw a clear discrepancy from the Israel Democracy Institute numbers, which showed that 46 percent of Israelis were opposed to full and equal rights for Arab citizens of the state.
Democracy for Jews only?
Israel defines itself as a “Jewish democracy” but we were interested in discovering which part of that definition is more important to Jewish Israelis. We went about doing this by asking: “What’s more important: that Israel be a Jewish state or a democratic state?” What we discovered was that a clear majority of the people we spoke to felt that the Jewish character of the state was at least equally if not more important than the democratic character. There was, however, an impressive minority who were clear about the fact that it was more important to them that Israel be a democratic state. This last category represents, by a slim margin, the single largest group of our respondents: 37 percent felt that a democratic character was more important, 36 percent felt that a Jewish character was more important and 27 percent felt that both were equally important.
On the subject of the settlers, we asked a more leading question: “What do you think about the settlers? Are they an impediment to peace?” We broke the responses down into three groups: those who were neutral about the settlers; those who were positive about them; and those who expressed negativity. In this instance, answering “yes” was taken as evidence of negative feelings towards the settlers, answering “no” without qualification was taken as a neutral stance and answering “no” followed by something like “they are the heroes of the Jewish people” — a phrase that we heard a number of times — was taken as evidence of positive feelings. What we discovered was that more than 70 percent of the people we spoke to were either neutral or positive towards the settlers. Of the responses, 45 percent were neutral, 28 percent were positive and 27 percent were negative about the settlers.
Many of the people we spoke to exhibited a deep suspicion and mistrust of the Palestinian people. When asked whether it was possible to make peace with the Palestinians, less than half of our respondents answered “yes.” This is a sobering statistic for anyone invested in the peace process. It would seem that most of the people we spoke to have given up on the prospect of peace. Even among the Israelis who believed that peace is possible, a recurrent theme was “not in this generation.” Another important trend in this part of the survey was blaming the Palestinian leadership for the lack of progress in the peace process. Many of the people who answered “yes” stated that peace was possible with the Palestinian people but not with their leaders. Of the responses, 48 percent believed that peace with the Palestinians is possible, while 40 percent felt that peace is not possible. Thirteen percent failed to answer this question with either a “yes” or a “no.”
Little knowledge of one-state solution
Given the subject of our film, we were very interested in exploring people’s preferences for potential solutions to the conflict. What we noticed almost immediately was that it was very important to clarify to our respondents exactly what we meant by one state or two states. For the purposes of our survey, we defined the one-state solution as a secular democracy with equal rights on all of historic Palestine, while we defined the two-state solution as two states more or less along the lines of the 1967 boundaries, with East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state. It was important that we were able to explain exactly what we meant, because many Israelis answered one way but meant something entirely different.
For example, when asked whether they preferred the one-state solution or the two-state solution, many respondents answered that they preferred the two-state solution. But when we followed up and asked what territorial concessions they would be willing to make, these same people said that they wouldn’t agree to any concessions.
Furthermore, almost no one that we spoke to was familiar with the concept of the one-state solution. Many people even took this to mean one state for Jews only, until we clarified our meaning. When we reviewed the data from this section of the survey, we decided to break down the responses into seven different categories: one state; one state (i.e. a state for Jews only); two states; two states (i.e. without territorial concessions); either one or two states; neither one nor two states; and other. What is really fascinating about our results is that over two thirds of the people we spoke to were actively opposed to the classic two-state solution on the 1967 borders. Furthermore, there were almost as many true one-state solution supporters as there were classic two-state supporters. Amongst those we surveyed, 27 percent were true two-state supporters, 23 percent were true one state supporters, 22 percent supported neither, 16 percent were in favor of two states without territorial concessions, 6 percent were okay with either one or two states, 4 percent were in favor of one state for Jews only, and 2 percent didn’t fit into any of these categories.
Racism highest in Jerusalem
In trying to answer the question of whether anti-Arab sentiment is a mainstream phenomenon among Israelis, we looked at all of the answers and divided the data into three categories: not anti-Arab; mildly anti-Arab; and strongly anti-Arab. Once again, we allowed for the possibility that a person might exhibit animosity towards Palestinians without being anti-Arab and we did not put people into one of the anti-Arab columns simply because he or she expressed right-wing political views. So, for example, if the only evidence in an interview of anti-Arab sentiment was that the respondent said that equal rights for Arabs are conditional upon equal responsibilities, we did not put them in an anti-Arab column. However, if a respondent stated that they wouldn’t live next door to an Arab, this was sufficient to push him or her into the mildly anti-Arab column. To qualify for the strongly anti-Arab category, a respondent needed to exhibit anti-Arab sentiment in two or more answers.
Our results showed that 46 percent of our respondents were either mildly or strongly anti-Arab. When we broke these numbers down according to city, there were obvious regional differences. Jerusalem was by far the most anti-Arab of the five cities we visited, with 58 percent exhibiting some level of anti-Arab sentiment, while Haifa was the least with 32 percent. Interestingly, after Jerusalem, Tel Aviv was the city with the most anti-Arab sentiment (49 percent).
The data we gathered substantiates the idea that anti-Arab sentiment is a mainstream phenomenon in Israel. Almost half of all the Jewish Israelis we spoke to exhibited some level of anti-Arab sentiment. The single most disturbing trend that emerged was the correlation between youth and strong anti-Arab sentiment. We also learned that support for the classic two-state solution along the 1967 lines was very low among the people we spoke to. This data point was reinforced by the strong support that we saw for the settlers. Given our leading question, the fact that less than a third of respondents were willing to characterize the settlers as an impediment to peace, is further evidence that the two-state solution, as it is currently being proposed by the international community, is decidedly unpopular in Israel.
Despite the lack of knowledge about the one-state solution idea, some respondents appeared willing to consider it. Once this solution was explained to them, 22 percent preferred it and around 6 percent did not object to it. Finally, when we asked Jewish Israelis to choose between the Jewish character of the state and the democratic character, 36 percent opted for the latter. All of these results must be taken with a grain of salt.
We can report anecdotally that many of the people who refused to be interviewed told us that they wouldn’t participate, because they felt that we were part of the “leftist media.” For these reasons, we feel that it is likely, if anything, that our data underestimates the actual amount of anti-Arab sentiment in Israel.
Eli Ungar-Sargon is a documentary filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He and his wife Pennie are currently looking for translators to facilitate the data analysis on the Palestinian side of this survey. Anyone interested should email withoutaland A T gmail D O T com. To learn more about the film and see a visual representation of the data discussed in this article, please visit www.withoutaland.com
sexta-feira, 17 de junho de 2011
A Brown-haired Young Man
11 june 2011, Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel)
Uri Avnery
MY HERO of the year (for now) is a young brown-haired Palestinian refugee living in Syria called Hassan Hijazi.
He was one of hundreds of refugees who held the demonstration on the Syrian side of the Golan border fence, to commemorate the Naqba – “Disaster” – the exodus of more than half the Palestinian people from the territory conquered by Israel in the war of 1948. Some of the protesters ran down to the fence, crossing a minefield. Luckily, none of the mines exploded – perhaps they were just too old.
They entered the Druze village of Majdal Shams, occupied by Israel since 1967, where they spread out. Israeli soldiers shot, killed and wounded several of them. The rest were caught and immediately deported back to Syria.
Except Hassan. He found a bus carrying Israeli and international peace activists who took him with them – perhaps they guessed where he came from, perhaps not. He does not look obviously Arab.
They dropped him near Tel Aviv. He continued his journey by hitchhiking and eventually reached Jaffa, the town where his grandparents had lived.
There, without money and without knowing anyone, he tried to locate the house of his family. He did not succeed – the place has changed much too much.
Eventually, he succeeded in contacting an Israeli TV correspondent, who helped him give himself up to the police. He was arrested and deported back to Syria.
Quite a remarkable exploit.
THE BORDER crossing of the refugees near Majdal Shams caused near panic in Israel.
First there were the usual recriminations. Why was the army not prepared for this event? Who was to blame – Northern Command or Army Intelligence?
Behind all the excitement was the nightmare that has haunted Israel since 1948: that the 750,000 refugees and their descendents, some five million by now, will one day get up and march to the borders of Israel from North, East and South, breach the fences and flood the country. This nightmare is the mirror-image of the refugees’ dream.
During the first years of Israel, this was a waking nightmare. On the day Israel was founded, it had some 650,000 Jewish inhabitants. The return of the refugees would indeed have swamped the young Israeli state. Lately, with more than 6 million Jewish citizens, this fear has receded into the background – but it is always there. Psychologists might say that it represents repressed feelings of guilt in the national psyche.
THIS WEEK, there was a repeat performance. The Palestinians all around Israel have declared June 5 “Naksa” Day, to commemorate the “Setback” of 1967, when Israel spectacularly defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, reinforced by elements from the Iraqi and Saudi armies.
This time the Israeli army was prepared. The fence was reinforced and an anti-tank ditch dug in front of it. When the demonstrators tried to reach the fence – again near Majdal Shams – they were shot by sharpshooters. Some 22 were killed, many dozens were wounded. The Palestinians report that people trying to rescue the wounded and retrieve the dead were also shot and killed.
No doubt, this was a deliberate tactic decided upon in advance by the army command after the Naqba day fiasco, and approved by Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. As was said quite openly, the Palestinians had to be taught a lesson they would not forget, so as to drive any idea of an unarmed mass action out of their mind.
It is frighteningly reminiscent of events 10 years ago. After the first intifada, in which stone-throwing youngsters and children won a moral victory that led to the Oslo agreement, our army conducted exercises in anticipation of a second intifada. This broke out after the political disaster of Camp David, and the army was ready.
The new intifada started with mass demonstrations of unarmed Palestinians. They were met by specially trained sharpshooters. Next to each sharpshooter stood an officer who pointed out the individuals who were to be shot because they looked like ringleaders: “The guy in the red shirt…Now the boy with the blue trousers…”
The unarmed uprising broke down and was replaced by suicide bombers, roadside bombs and other “terrorist” acts. With those our army was on familiar ground.
I suspect very much that we are witnessing much the same thing once more. Again specially trained sharpshooters are at work, directed by officers.
There is a difference, though. In 2001 we were told that our soldiers were shooting into the air. Now we are told that they aim at the Arabs’ legs. Then the Palestinians had to jump high into the air to get killed, now, it seems, they have to bend down .
THE WHOLE thing is not only murderous, but also incredibly dumb.
For decades now, practically all talk about peace has centered on the territories occupied in the 1967 war. President Mahmoud Abbas, President Barack Obama and the Israeli peace movement all talk about the “1967 borders”. When my friends and I started (in 1949) to talk about the two-state solution, we, too, meant these borders. (The “1967 borders” are, in fact, simply the armistice lines agreed upon after the 1948 war.)
Most people, even in the Israeli peace movement, ignored the refugee problem altogether. They were laboring under the illusion that it had gone away, or would do so after peace had been achieved between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I always warned my friends that this would not happen – five million human beings cannot be simply shut out. It is no use to make peace with half the Palestinian people, and just ignore the other half. It will not mean “the end of the conflict”, whatever might be stated in a peace agreement.
But through years of discussions, mostly behind closed doors, a consensus has been reached. Almost all Palestinian leaders have agreed, either explicitly or implicitly, to the formula of “a just and agreed upon solution of the refugee problem” – so that any solution is subject to Israeli approval. I have spoken about this many times with Yasser Arafat, Faisal al-Husseini and others.
In practice, this means that a symbolic number of refugees will be allowed back into Israel (the exact number to be fixed in negotiations), with the others to be resettled in the State of Palestine (which must be big and viable enough to make this possible) or receive generous compensation that will allow them to start a new life where they are or elsewhere.
TO MAKE this complicated and painful solution easier, everyone agreed that it would be best to deal with this matter near the end of the peace negotiations, after mutual trust and a more relaxed atmosphere had been established.
And here comes our government and tries to solve the problem with sharpshooters – not as the last resort, but as the first. Instead of countering the protesters with effective non-lethal means, they kill people. This will, of course, intensify the protests, mobilize masses of refugees and put the “refugee problem” squarely on the table, in the center of the table, before negotiations have even started.
In other words: the conflict moves back from 1967 to 1948. For Hassan Hijazi, the grandson of a refugee from Jaffa, this is huge achievement.
Nothing could be more stupid than this course of action by Netanyahu and Company.
Unless, of course, they are doing this consciously, in order to make any peace negotiations impossible.
Uri Avnery
MY HERO of the year (for now) is a young brown-haired Palestinian refugee living in Syria called Hassan Hijazi.
He was one of hundreds of refugees who held the demonstration on the Syrian side of the Golan border fence, to commemorate the Naqba – “Disaster” – the exodus of more than half the Palestinian people from the territory conquered by Israel in the war of 1948. Some of the protesters ran down to the fence, crossing a minefield. Luckily, none of the mines exploded – perhaps they were just too old.
They entered the Druze village of Majdal Shams, occupied by Israel since 1967, where they spread out. Israeli soldiers shot, killed and wounded several of them. The rest were caught and immediately deported back to Syria.
Except Hassan. He found a bus carrying Israeli and international peace activists who took him with them – perhaps they guessed where he came from, perhaps not. He does not look obviously Arab.
They dropped him near Tel Aviv. He continued his journey by hitchhiking and eventually reached Jaffa, the town where his grandparents had lived.
There, without money and without knowing anyone, he tried to locate the house of his family. He did not succeed – the place has changed much too much.
Eventually, he succeeded in contacting an Israeli TV correspondent, who helped him give himself up to the police. He was arrested and deported back to Syria.
Quite a remarkable exploit.
THE BORDER crossing of the refugees near Majdal Shams caused near panic in Israel.
First there were the usual recriminations. Why was the army not prepared for this event? Who was to blame – Northern Command or Army Intelligence?
Behind all the excitement was the nightmare that has haunted Israel since 1948: that the 750,000 refugees and their descendents, some five million by now, will one day get up and march to the borders of Israel from North, East and South, breach the fences and flood the country. This nightmare is the mirror-image of the refugees’ dream.
During the first years of Israel, this was a waking nightmare. On the day Israel was founded, it had some 650,000 Jewish inhabitants. The return of the refugees would indeed have swamped the young Israeli state. Lately, with more than 6 million Jewish citizens, this fear has receded into the background – but it is always there. Psychologists might say that it represents repressed feelings of guilt in the national psyche.
THIS WEEK, there was a repeat performance. The Palestinians all around Israel have declared June 5 “Naksa” Day, to commemorate the “Setback” of 1967, when Israel spectacularly defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, reinforced by elements from the Iraqi and Saudi armies.
This time the Israeli army was prepared. The fence was reinforced and an anti-tank ditch dug in front of it. When the demonstrators tried to reach the fence – again near Majdal Shams – they were shot by sharpshooters. Some 22 were killed, many dozens were wounded. The Palestinians report that people trying to rescue the wounded and retrieve the dead were also shot and killed.
No doubt, this was a deliberate tactic decided upon in advance by the army command after the Naqba day fiasco, and approved by Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. As was said quite openly, the Palestinians had to be taught a lesson they would not forget, so as to drive any idea of an unarmed mass action out of their mind.
It is frighteningly reminiscent of events 10 years ago. After the first intifada, in which stone-throwing youngsters and children won a moral victory that led to the Oslo agreement, our army conducted exercises in anticipation of a second intifada. This broke out after the political disaster of Camp David, and the army was ready.
The new intifada started with mass demonstrations of unarmed Palestinians. They were met by specially trained sharpshooters. Next to each sharpshooter stood an officer who pointed out the individuals who were to be shot because they looked like ringleaders: “The guy in the red shirt…Now the boy with the blue trousers…”
The unarmed uprising broke down and was replaced by suicide bombers, roadside bombs and other “terrorist” acts. With those our army was on familiar ground.
I suspect very much that we are witnessing much the same thing once more. Again specially trained sharpshooters are at work, directed by officers.
There is a difference, though. In 2001 we were told that our soldiers were shooting into the air. Now we are told that they aim at the Arabs’ legs. Then the Palestinians had to jump high into the air to get killed, now, it seems, they have to bend down .
THE WHOLE thing is not only murderous, but also incredibly dumb.
For decades now, practically all talk about peace has centered on the territories occupied in the 1967 war. President Mahmoud Abbas, President Barack Obama and the Israeli peace movement all talk about the “1967 borders”. When my friends and I started (in 1949) to talk about the two-state solution, we, too, meant these borders. (The “1967 borders” are, in fact, simply the armistice lines agreed upon after the 1948 war.)
Most people, even in the Israeli peace movement, ignored the refugee problem altogether. They were laboring under the illusion that it had gone away, or would do so after peace had been achieved between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I always warned my friends that this would not happen – five million human beings cannot be simply shut out. It is no use to make peace with half the Palestinian people, and just ignore the other half. It will not mean “the end of the conflict”, whatever might be stated in a peace agreement.
But through years of discussions, mostly behind closed doors, a consensus has been reached. Almost all Palestinian leaders have agreed, either explicitly or implicitly, to the formula of “a just and agreed upon solution of the refugee problem” – so that any solution is subject to Israeli approval. I have spoken about this many times with Yasser Arafat, Faisal al-Husseini and others.
In practice, this means that a symbolic number of refugees will be allowed back into Israel (the exact number to be fixed in negotiations), with the others to be resettled in the State of Palestine (which must be big and viable enough to make this possible) or receive generous compensation that will allow them to start a new life where they are or elsewhere.
TO MAKE this complicated and painful solution easier, everyone agreed that it would be best to deal with this matter near the end of the peace negotiations, after mutual trust and a more relaxed atmosphere had been established.
And here comes our government and tries to solve the problem with sharpshooters – not as the last resort, but as the first. Instead of countering the protesters with effective non-lethal means, they kill people. This will, of course, intensify the protests, mobilize masses of refugees and put the “refugee problem” squarely on the table, in the center of the table, before negotiations have even started.
In other words: the conflict moves back from 1967 to 1948. For Hassan Hijazi, the grandson of a refugee from Jaffa, this is huge achievement.
Nothing could be more stupid than this course of action by Netanyahu and Company.
Unless, of course, they are doing this consciously, in order to make any peace negotiations impossible.
segunda-feira, 13 de junho de 2011
Netanyahu's tidings of destruction
Indeed, the right wing considers recognition of the reality created in 1949 to be the chief enemy of Zionism. The dynamic of a conquering nationalism can never recognize that any situation created at any given time is final.
10 June 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)
By Zeev Sternhell
Of all the tasks that the Israeli right has set for itself, the most important is expunging the foundational status of the War of Independence. For if a war that killed 1 percent of the population and gave rise to the State of Israel was nothing but one more in a long line of wars through which the land has been conquered again and again, from Zionism's early days until today, the two primary results of that war - the concept of citizenship and the new state's borders - truly have no special status.
By contrast, if we see the establishment of the state as a watershed event in Jewish national history - both because it engendered a new political and legal concept in the history of Zionism, that of citizenship, and because geopolitical borders were assigned to the new entity for the first time - then the enterprise of conquering the land has ended. And that, in the eyes of the right wing, is the real existential danger.
Indeed, the right wing considers recognition of the reality created in 1949 to be the chief enemy of Zionism. According to its worldview, Zionism must be a movement in a constant state of formation and creation, one that relies on the Jews' ability to impose their will on their surroundings. The dynamic of a conquering nationalism can never recognize that any situation created at any given time is final.
This, naturally, leads to the view that there's nothing sacred about the Green Line and that settling the land conquered in 1967 is no less legitimate than settling the Galilee or the Negev. That's the view Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently forgot to expound on in Washington. But it's reasonable to assume that U.S. President Barack Obama is aware of what most members of the U.S. Congress either don't know or don't want to know, whether for electoral reasons or for reasons of convenience.
Members of Congress apparently haven't heard that Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon, who wants to be the leader of the entire Israeli right, has already asserted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be resolved, and could therefore continue for another 100 years. Netanyahu's national security adviser, for his part, has asserted that the 1967 borders are unacceptable because they leave too many Jews outside Israel. But neither of them is perpetuating Netanyahu's big lie: that these borders are indefensible.
Unfortunately for the ruling right, the parameters of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal were set many years ago, and they have been etched deeply into the Israeli and international consciousness. The current French initiative is just an expression of the European consensus, if not the global one. This means that Israel has only two options: willingly accept the finality of the situation as it was the day after the state's establishment, or reach the same point only after being forcibly dragged to it, while becoming a pariah and an object of revulsion along the way.
But the question of borders is only one aspect of the failure to recognize the War of Independence as a fundamental turning point; it also has a civic angle. The anti-democratic legislation that the Knesset has enacted over the past year, which targets basic civic equality and which borders on racism even if it is not actually racist, is a way of declaring that the essence of the state is that it belongs to Jews alone. At bottom, this view stems from seeing Jews as the sole owners of the Land of Israel.
This means the state doesn't exist to guarantee democracy, equality, human rights or even a decent life to all; it exists to guarantee Jewish rule over the Land of Israel and to make sure no additional political entity is established here. Everything is deemed permissible to reach that end, and no price is considered too high. That's essentially what former Mossad chief Meir Dagan was warning us about as well. And for that reason, no previous government has ever posed as great a danger to the public as Netanyahu's government does.
10 June 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)
By Zeev Sternhell
Of all the tasks that the Israeli right has set for itself, the most important is expunging the foundational status of the War of Independence. For if a war that killed 1 percent of the population and gave rise to the State of Israel was nothing but one more in a long line of wars through which the land has been conquered again and again, from Zionism's early days until today, the two primary results of that war - the concept of citizenship and the new state's borders - truly have no special status.
By contrast, if we see the establishment of the state as a watershed event in Jewish national history - both because it engendered a new political and legal concept in the history of Zionism, that of citizenship, and because geopolitical borders were assigned to the new entity for the first time - then the enterprise of conquering the land has ended. And that, in the eyes of the right wing, is the real existential danger.
Indeed, the right wing considers recognition of the reality created in 1949 to be the chief enemy of Zionism. According to its worldview, Zionism must be a movement in a constant state of formation and creation, one that relies on the Jews' ability to impose their will on their surroundings. The dynamic of a conquering nationalism can never recognize that any situation created at any given time is final.
This, naturally, leads to the view that there's nothing sacred about the Green Line and that settling the land conquered in 1967 is no less legitimate than settling the Galilee or the Negev. That's the view Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently forgot to expound on in Washington. But it's reasonable to assume that U.S. President Barack Obama is aware of what most members of the U.S. Congress either don't know or don't want to know, whether for electoral reasons or for reasons of convenience.
Members of Congress apparently haven't heard that Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon, who wants to be the leader of the entire Israeli right, has already asserted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be resolved, and could therefore continue for another 100 years. Netanyahu's national security adviser, for his part, has asserted that the 1967 borders are unacceptable because they leave too many Jews outside Israel. But neither of them is perpetuating Netanyahu's big lie: that these borders are indefensible.
Unfortunately for the ruling right, the parameters of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal were set many years ago, and they have been etched deeply into the Israeli and international consciousness. The current French initiative is just an expression of the European consensus, if not the global one. This means that Israel has only two options: willingly accept the finality of the situation as it was the day after the state's establishment, or reach the same point only after being forcibly dragged to it, while becoming a pariah and an object of revulsion along the way.
But the question of borders is only one aspect of the failure to recognize the War of Independence as a fundamental turning point; it also has a civic angle. The anti-democratic legislation that the Knesset has enacted over the past year, which targets basic civic equality and which borders on racism even if it is not actually racist, is a way of declaring that the essence of the state is that it belongs to Jews alone. At bottom, this view stems from seeing Jews as the sole owners of the Land of Israel.
This means the state doesn't exist to guarantee democracy, equality, human rights or even a decent life to all; it exists to guarantee Jewish rule over the Land of Israel and to make sure no additional political entity is established here. Everything is deemed permissible to reach that end, and no price is considered too high. That's essentially what former Mossad chief Meir Dagan was warning us about as well. And for that reason, no previous government has ever posed as great a danger to the public as Netanyahu's government does.
segunda-feira, 6 de junho de 2011
Calm returns to Israel-Syria border after day of deadly violence
5 june 2011, Haaretz הארץ
Syria TV reports 20 killed, 325 wounded by IDF fire after protesters commemorating 44 years since the Six-Day War attempt to cut through barbed wire on Syrian side of the border.
By Jack Khoury, Eli Ashkenazi, Amos Harel, Anshel Pfeffer and News Agencies
Calm returned to Israel's border with Syria on Sunday night, after a day of demonstrations reportedly left up to 20 Syrian protesters dead.
State run Syria TV reported 20 people killed and 325 wounded by Israel Defense Forces fire along the border in the Golan Heights, in an attempt to prevent border infiltration and break up Naksa Day rallies commemorating 44 years since the Six-Day War. Israel captured Syria's Golan Heights in that conflict, as well as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Despite the calm, there were reports out of Syria that protesters intended to spend the night on the border with Israel.
Protesters within Israel were also injured, after IDF forces fired tear gas at protesters in Majdal Shams, in response to stone throwing demonstrators.
The protests on the Syrian border began on Sunday morning, with a reported 500 Syrian Palestinian protesters arriving at the border. They hid from IDF fire in a ditch dug by the army after the Nakba Day protests on May 15, approximately 20 meters from the border fence.
Protesters cut through strands of barbed wire that Israel placed in an area between the fence, which is located inside Israeli territory, and the Syrian frontier designated by United Nations stone markers.
During the protest, there were reports that at least four anti-tank mines exploded near the Syrian town of Quneitra, injuring many protesters.
According to reports, protesters hurling Molotov cocktails led to a fire in the area, which resulted in triggering the mines' explosions.
IDF spokesman, Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai, said troops had opened fire but he could not confirm any casualties.
"It's a message to anyone who tries to violate Israel's sovereign borders," he said, describing the army's actions as a "measured, focused and proper response".
The IDF called the protests a "clear provocation intended to divert attention from what is happening in Syria."
Israel is concerned that the border protests by unarmed demonstrators are being used by Palestinians, inspired by popular revolts in the Arab world, to draw a violent response and gain more world sympathy for their cause.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Sunday's cabinet meeting accused "radical elements" of seeking provocations.
Hours before the violence flared, Netanyahu said he had ordered Israeli forces to act with restraint, but with determination, to prevent any border breach.
"To my regret, today there are extremists around us trying to breach our borders, and threaten our towns and citizens. We will not allow this," Netanyahu told his cabinet.
"Like any country in the world, Israel has the right and obligation to guard and defend its borders," he said earlier this week.
More on this topic
• Israeli left-wing leader: IDF used 'excessive force' in Naksa Day protests
• Hundreds of Palestinians clash with IDF in West Bank Naksa Day protest
• Report: Up to 20 protesters killed as hundreds of Syrians storm Israel border
Syria TV reports 20 killed, 325 wounded by IDF fire after protesters commemorating 44 years since the Six-Day War attempt to cut through barbed wire on Syrian side of the border.
By Jack Khoury, Eli Ashkenazi, Amos Harel, Anshel Pfeffer and News Agencies
Calm returned to Israel's border with Syria on Sunday night, after a day of demonstrations reportedly left up to 20 Syrian protesters dead.
State run Syria TV reported 20 people killed and 325 wounded by Israel Defense Forces fire along the border in the Golan Heights, in an attempt to prevent border infiltration and break up Naksa Day rallies commemorating 44 years since the Six-Day War. Israel captured Syria's Golan Heights in that conflict, as well as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Despite the calm, there were reports out of Syria that protesters intended to spend the night on the border with Israel.
Protesters within Israel were also injured, after IDF forces fired tear gas at protesters in Majdal Shams, in response to stone throwing demonstrators.
The protests on the Syrian border began on Sunday morning, with a reported 500 Syrian Palestinian protesters arriving at the border. They hid from IDF fire in a ditch dug by the army after the Nakba Day protests on May 15, approximately 20 meters from the border fence.
Protesters cut through strands of barbed wire that Israel placed in an area between the fence, which is located inside Israeli territory, and the Syrian frontier designated by United Nations stone markers.
During the protest, there were reports that at least four anti-tank mines exploded near the Syrian town of Quneitra, injuring many protesters.
According to reports, protesters hurling Molotov cocktails led to a fire in the area, which resulted in triggering the mines' explosions.
IDF spokesman, Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai, said troops had opened fire but he could not confirm any casualties.
"It's a message to anyone who tries to violate Israel's sovereign borders," he said, describing the army's actions as a "measured, focused and proper response".
The IDF called the protests a "clear provocation intended to divert attention from what is happening in Syria."
Israel is concerned that the border protests by unarmed demonstrators are being used by Palestinians, inspired by popular revolts in the Arab world, to draw a violent response and gain more world sympathy for their cause.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Sunday's cabinet meeting accused "radical elements" of seeking provocations.
Hours before the violence flared, Netanyahu said he had ordered Israeli forces to act with restraint, but with determination, to prevent any border breach.
"To my regret, today there are extremists around us trying to breach our borders, and threaten our towns and citizens. We will not allow this," Netanyahu told his cabinet.
"Like any country in the world, Israel has the right and obligation to guard and defend its borders," he said earlier this week.
• Israeli left-wing leader: IDF used 'excessive force' in Naksa Day protests
• Hundreds of Palestinians clash with IDF in West Bank Naksa Day protest
• Report: Up to 20 protesters killed as hundreds of Syrians storm Israel border
sexta-feira, 3 de junho de 2011
DOCUMENT : COURAGE TO REFUSE - COMBATANT'S LETTER (2002)
Courage to Refuse http://seruv.org.il (Israel)
• We, reserve combat officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, who were raised upon the principles of Zionism, sacrifice and giving to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who have always served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any mission, light or heavy, in order to protect the State of Israel and strengthen it.
• We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel for long weeks every year, in spite of the dear cost to our personal lives, have been on reserve duty all over the Occupied Territories, and were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people. We, whose eyes have seen the bloody toll this Occupation exacts from both sides.
• We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Territories, destroy all the values we had absorbed while growing up in this country.
• We, who understand now that the price of Occupation is the loss of IDF’s human character and the corruption of the entire Israeli society.
• We, who know that the Territories are not Israel, and that all settlements are bound to be evacuated in the end.
• We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the Settlements.
• We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.
• We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel’s defense.
• The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose – and we shall take no part in them.
Shalom 1492: This document was signed by 550 combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel in the Occupied Territories
• We, reserve combat officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, who were raised upon the principles of Zionism, sacrifice and giving to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who have always served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any mission, light or heavy, in order to protect the State of Israel and strengthen it.
• We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel for long weeks every year, in spite of the dear cost to our personal lives, have been on reserve duty all over the Occupied Territories, and were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people. We, whose eyes have seen the bloody toll this Occupation exacts from both sides.
• We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Territories, destroy all the values we had absorbed while growing up in this country.
• We, who understand now that the price of Occupation is the loss of IDF’s human character and the corruption of the entire Israeli society.
• We, who know that the Territories are not Israel, and that all settlements are bound to be evacuated in the end.
• We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the Settlements.
• We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.
• We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel’s defense.
• The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose – and we shall take no part in them.
Shalom 1492: This document was signed by 550 combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel in the Occupied Territories
quarta-feira, 25 de maio de 2011
NETANYAHU WASTED HIS CHANCE TO PRESENT A VISION FOR PEACE
Netanyahu is leading Israel and the Palestinians into a new round of violence, along with Israel's isolation and deep disagreement with the American administration.
25 may 2011, Haaretz הארץ Editorial (Israel)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had an outstanding opportunity yesterday to present a vision of a just and sustainable peace for Israel and the Palestinians. Millions watched his speech at the U.S. Congress with bated breath.
They anticipated a momentous address that would break the stalemate in the diplomatic discourse over a final peace agreement and lead to the end of the bloody conflict between the two peoples. Many hoped the new winds blowing in recent months in the Middle East would also sweep the prime minister along a new path.
In recent days, Netanyahu's associates have even given indications that the prime minister would present "new ideas and formulations." Instead, we were witness to the same old messages.
Netanyahu wasted the generous credit he got from his American hosts to cast accusations at the Palestinians and impose endless obstacles in connection with the core issues. Instead of accepting the principle that the border between Israel and the Palestinian state would be based on the 1967 lines, Netanyahu declared that the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in Judea and Samaria.
He couched his readiness to make far-reaching concessions within endless conditions that have no relation to reality.
He demanded that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas forgo reconciliation with Hamas in advance. Netanyahu contended that six Israeli prime ministers tried to come to a final peace agreement with the Palestinians, but failed, purportedly because of the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
He ignored all the positions by two of his predecessors, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, on a fair division of Jerusalem, an agreed upon solution to the refugee problem and particularly on agreement on exchanges of territory that would leave a decisive majority of West Bank territory in the hands of the Palestinians.
The prime minister will return home from the United States without major developments to show for himself. He is leading Israel and the Palestinians into a new round of violence, along with Israel's isolation and deep disagreement with the American administration. The time has come for the large numbers of those in Israel who seek peace to be heard. Israel deserves a different leader.
25 may 2011, Haaretz הארץ Editorial (Israel)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had an outstanding opportunity yesterday to present a vision of a just and sustainable peace for Israel and the Palestinians. Millions watched his speech at the U.S. Congress with bated breath.
They anticipated a momentous address that would break the stalemate in the diplomatic discourse over a final peace agreement and lead to the end of the bloody conflict between the two peoples. Many hoped the new winds blowing in recent months in the Middle East would also sweep the prime minister along a new path.
In recent days, Netanyahu's associates have even given indications that the prime minister would present "new ideas and formulations." Instead, we were witness to the same old messages.
Netanyahu wasted the generous credit he got from his American hosts to cast accusations at the Palestinians and impose endless obstacles in connection with the core issues. Instead of accepting the principle that the border between Israel and the Palestinian state would be based on the 1967 lines, Netanyahu declared that the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in Judea and Samaria.
He couched his readiness to make far-reaching concessions within endless conditions that have no relation to reality.
He demanded that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas forgo reconciliation with Hamas in advance. Netanyahu contended that six Israeli prime ministers tried to come to a final peace agreement with the Palestinians, but failed, purportedly because of the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
He ignored all the positions by two of his predecessors, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, on a fair division of Jerusalem, an agreed upon solution to the refugee problem and particularly on agreement on exchanges of territory that would leave a decisive majority of West Bank territory in the hands of the Palestinians.
The prime minister will return home from the United States without major developments to show for himself. He is leading Israel and the Palestinians into a new round of violence, along with Israel's isolation and deep disagreement with the American administration. The time has come for the large numbers of those in Israel who seek peace to be heard. Israel deserves a different leader.
ISRAELIS SEE NETANYAHU TRIP AS DIPLOMATIC FAILURE
25 may 2011, The New York Times (USA)
by Ethan Bronner
Jerusalem — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel returned from Washington on Wednesday to a nearly unanimous assessment among Israelis that despite his forceful defense of Israel’s security interests, hopes were dashed that his visit might advance Palestinian peace negotiations.
One of the widely articulated goals of his trip, where he met with President Obama and addressed Congress, was to find a way to lure the Palestinians back to direct negotiations, thereby preempting their plan to approach the United Nations in September for recognition of statehood within the pre-1967 lines.
Instead, the Palestinians now say, Mr. Netanyahu’s speeches convinced them that they have no negotiating partner. They plan to intensify their United Nations efforts, leaving Israelis worried about increasing international isolation and pressure, especially in light of the popular uprisings across the Arab world.
A cartoon in the centrist Yediot Aharonot newspaper summarized the concern. It showed Mr. Netanyahu’s returning plane flying near a volcano. Inside the plane someone says, “All in all, it was a very successful visit.” From the volcano, smoke rises that spells out “S-E-P-T-E-M-B-E-R.”
Newspapers and airwaves were filled with similar commentary.
Avi Dichter, a former head of the Shin Bet internal security service and a parliamentarian from the centrist Kadima party, said on Israel Radio, “My fear is that this round of speeches in the United States may leave us and the Palestinians with a closed door.” He added, “It is impossible that in the present reality in the Middle East and here between the sea and the Jordan River we have no next step. I very much hope that the prime minister is returning with a plan.”
The praise here for Mr. Netanyahu’s oratory skill on Wednesday in Congress was overwhelming, even from his enemies. Disputes about his performance were limited to how many times he brought the senators and representatives to their feet (from 26 to 34).
Ben Caspit, a commentator at Maariv Newspaper who spends much of his time attacking the prime minister, wrote, “This was a good speech, brilliantly delivered, with all the tricks and shticks and highlights in the right places.” He said Mr. Netanyahu was “focused, charismatic and self-confident” and called his address to Congress “a sweeping personal victory.”
But Mr. Caspit asked whether it was also a national victory. His reply: “Okay, it depends whom you ask, from what angle you look, and what you’re scared of. Those who are scared of peace yesterday got their wish. Those who are scared of war will be a lot more scared today.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s trip to Washington, at the invitation of the House speaker, John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, had been planned before Fatah, the party that dominates the Palestinian Authority, announced a surprise unity accord with Hamas, the Islamist party that rules in Gaza and that has refused to accept Israel’s right to exist.
The original idea was that he might announce a new way forward for Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza. But once the Palestinian agreement was revealed, Mr. Netanyahu felt less compelled to offer a plan because Hamas is labeled a terrorist group by both Israel and the United States and he believes its affiliation with any government to be dangerous and illegitimate.
The day before Mr. Netanyahu arrived in Washington, he had an additional surprise. President Obama announced that peace should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps. Mr. Netanyahu, who says that formula would render Israel too vulnerable, spent much of his visit shooting down that approach and laying out other elements he considers essential for a lasting peace.
Among those were his contentions that Israel would have to leave certain settlements and would be “generous” in determining the size of the Palestinian state. These angered the right. But he also put forward conditions.
They include a long-term Israeli military presence along the Jordan River to protect Israel’s eastern border from countries like Iran or Iraq; Jerusalem united under Israeli rule; a rejection of any return of Palestinian refugees or their descendants to Israel itself; a rejection of the deal with Hamas; and Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
Nahum Barnea, a widely-read columnist for Yediot Aharonot, who accompanied Mr. Netanyahu to Washington, wrote that while the prime minister spoke well, the visit’s results were worrying. He listed them as “a president whom the Israelis suspect and the Arab world scorns for having yielded to the dictate of the Israelis; negotiations that had a slim chance of being renewed before the visit and now have no chance at all; a Palestinian Authority and an Arab League that are more determined than in the past to reach a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly on a state within the 1967 borders, which is a resolution that has quite dangerous consequences for Israel.”
While Palestinians consider the peace demands by Mr. Netanyahu unacceptable, most are matters of consensus here. The right in Israel is composed of those who oppose giving up the West Bank for a Palestinian state because they consider it the land of the Jews and those who oppose doing so now because they do not trust the Palestinians and fear for Israel’s security.
A poll commissioned by Maariv newspaper found Mr. Netanyahu’s popularity up slightly after his Washington visit. Asked who was best suited to be prime minister of Israel, he took 36.9 percent. Second place went to Tzipi Livni, head of the centrist Kadima party, with 28.3 percent, followed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, head of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, with 9.2 percent.
As many commentators noted, the question is what happens next in the Palestinian areas..
The Palestinian leadership on Wednesday said it would be consulting with Arab foreign ministers this weekend to decide how to proceed. President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority said negotiations were still his preference but not on the conditions enunciated by Mr. Netanyahu. Israelis are looking ahead with worry.
Itamar Rabinovich, a former ambassador to Washington and president of Tel Aviv University, wrote on the online news site Walla that both Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu are fine speakers who gave good speeches. But, “September and the United Nations General Assembly are around the corner, and without a resumption of negotiations or another substantive step, we face a serious challenge.” He summed up his concern this way: “What will we do tomorrow morning?”
by Ethan Bronner
Jerusalem — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel returned from Washington on Wednesday to a nearly unanimous assessment among Israelis that despite his forceful defense of Israel’s security interests, hopes were dashed that his visit might advance Palestinian peace negotiations.
One of the widely articulated goals of his trip, where he met with President Obama and addressed Congress, was to find a way to lure the Palestinians back to direct negotiations, thereby preempting their plan to approach the United Nations in September for recognition of statehood within the pre-1967 lines.
Instead, the Palestinians now say, Mr. Netanyahu’s speeches convinced them that they have no negotiating partner. They plan to intensify their United Nations efforts, leaving Israelis worried about increasing international isolation and pressure, especially in light of the popular uprisings across the Arab world.
A cartoon in the centrist Yediot Aharonot newspaper summarized the concern. It showed Mr. Netanyahu’s returning plane flying near a volcano. Inside the plane someone says, “All in all, it was a very successful visit.” From the volcano, smoke rises that spells out “S-E-P-T-E-M-B-E-R.”
Newspapers and airwaves were filled with similar commentary.
Avi Dichter, a former head of the Shin Bet internal security service and a parliamentarian from the centrist Kadima party, said on Israel Radio, “My fear is that this round of speeches in the United States may leave us and the Palestinians with a closed door.” He added, “It is impossible that in the present reality in the Middle East and here between the sea and the Jordan River we have no next step. I very much hope that the prime minister is returning with a plan.”
The praise here for Mr. Netanyahu’s oratory skill on Wednesday in Congress was overwhelming, even from his enemies. Disputes about his performance were limited to how many times he brought the senators and representatives to their feet (from 26 to 34).
Ben Caspit, a commentator at Maariv Newspaper who spends much of his time attacking the prime minister, wrote, “This was a good speech, brilliantly delivered, with all the tricks and shticks and highlights in the right places.” He said Mr. Netanyahu was “focused, charismatic and self-confident” and called his address to Congress “a sweeping personal victory.”
But Mr. Caspit asked whether it was also a national victory. His reply: “Okay, it depends whom you ask, from what angle you look, and what you’re scared of. Those who are scared of peace yesterday got their wish. Those who are scared of war will be a lot more scared today.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s trip to Washington, at the invitation of the House speaker, John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, had been planned before Fatah, the party that dominates the Palestinian Authority, announced a surprise unity accord with Hamas, the Islamist party that rules in Gaza and that has refused to accept Israel’s right to exist.
The original idea was that he might announce a new way forward for Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza. But once the Palestinian agreement was revealed, Mr. Netanyahu felt less compelled to offer a plan because Hamas is labeled a terrorist group by both Israel and the United States and he believes its affiliation with any government to be dangerous and illegitimate.
The day before Mr. Netanyahu arrived in Washington, he had an additional surprise. President Obama announced that peace should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps. Mr. Netanyahu, who says that formula would render Israel too vulnerable, spent much of his visit shooting down that approach and laying out other elements he considers essential for a lasting peace.
Among those were his contentions that Israel would have to leave certain settlements and would be “generous” in determining the size of the Palestinian state. These angered the right. But he also put forward conditions.
They include a long-term Israeli military presence along the Jordan River to protect Israel’s eastern border from countries like Iran or Iraq; Jerusalem united under Israeli rule; a rejection of any return of Palestinian refugees or their descendants to Israel itself; a rejection of the deal with Hamas; and Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
Nahum Barnea, a widely-read columnist for Yediot Aharonot, who accompanied Mr. Netanyahu to Washington, wrote that while the prime minister spoke well, the visit’s results were worrying. He listed them as “a president whom the Israelis suspect and the Arab world scorns for having yielded to the dictate of the Israelis; negotiations that had a slim chance of being renewed before the visit and now have no chance at all; a Palestinian Authority and an Arab League that are more determined than in the past to reach a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly on a state within the 1967 borders, which is a resolution that has quite dangerous consequences for Israel.”
While Palestinians consider the peace demands by Mr. Netanyahu unacceptable, most are matters of consensus here. The right in Israel is composed of those who oppose giving up the West Bank for a Palestinian state because they consider it the land of the Jews and those who oppose doing so now because they do not trust the Palestinians and fear for Israel’s security.
A poll commissioned by Maariv newspaper found Mr. Netanyahu’s popularity up slightly after his Washington visit. Asked who was best suited to be prime minister of Israel, he took 36.9 percent. Second place went to Tzipi Livni, head of the centrist Kadima party, with 28.3 percent, followed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, head of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, with 9.2 percent.
As many commentators noted, the question is what happens next in the Palestinian areas..
The Palestinian leadership on Wednesday said it would be consulting with Arab foreign ministers this weekend to decide how to proceed. President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority said negotiations were still his preference but not on the conditions enunciated by Mr. Netanyahu. Israelis are looking ahead with worry.
Itamar Rabinovich, a former ambassador to Washington and president of Tel Aviv University, wrote on the online news site Walla that both Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu are fine speakers who gave good speeches. But, “September and the United Nations General Assembly are around the corner, and without a resumption of negotiations or another substantive step, we face a serious challenge.” He summed up his concern this way: “What will we do tomorrow morning?”
terça-feira, 24 de maio de 2011
THROWING A SHOE AT OBAMA’S BETRAYAL
24 May 2011, Electronic Intifada http://electronicintifada.net USA
by Ilan Pappe*
At 4:17pm GMT on Sunday, I threw a shoe at my television screen, aimed at US President Barack Obama, precisely at the moment he began to explain that the reference in his Thursday speech at the State Department to the 1967 borders was in accordance with the Israeli interpretation of these borders.
Not that I was thrilled with that speech either but it was at least as meaningless as his previous speeches on the topic. But at 4:17 he said there will be “no return to the borders of June 4, 1967” and the thousands who attended the AIPAC convention cheered wildly. Annexation of Israeli settlement blocs built illegally in the occupied West Bank and the creation of a small Palestinian bantustan in the spaces in between was the essence of Obama’s real vision for peace.
It was a soft shoe and all it did was to bounce off the screen. Being such a harmless weapon it was also directed at my Palestinian friends who since Friday explained, publicly, how unusual and important was Obama’s speech at the State Department.
It is tough enough to know that in the White House sits someone who betrayed not only the Palestinians, but all the oppressed people in the world and in the US he promised to engage and represent.
But I have turned on my TV set and moved to Puerta del Sol in Madrid — there where thousands of young people were reformulating the powerful message that came from Tahrir Square in Cairo and which was also heard on the borders of Palestine on Nakba Day and in London’s Trafalgar Square during recent student demonstrations.
It was a call of defiance against such political discourse and its poisonous effects. Yes, they say in Madrid as they did on Palestine’s borders, our lives are ruled and affected by smug, cynical and indifferent Western politicians who hold immense power to maintain the unjust world for years to come, but we have had enough of this and will resist it.
Wherever one is affected by this political and economic Western elite, one faces two options. Either to accept fatalistically that the only thing one can do is retire to small, personal gardens of Eden and try to ignore them as much as one can and sustain oneself without them, within the limits of what is possible. Or if one does not possess this inclination or luxury, one can instead join all those who are unwilling to succumb and are telling this elite that its world and agenda is not theirs.
In some places the authorities shoot at massive demonstrations carrying such a message; in others they just ignore them. These are early days to judge the failure or success of such endeavours but it is clear that so far the protest is expanding. It defies the hegemonic political dictates of governments and it displays growing impatience with, and resentment toward, the manipulative corporate games and macro-economic ploys.
The people of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip were a victim of such politics and economics under the guise of the so-called peace process. However, recently, in Palestine, the local politicians have at last heeded the popular demand for unity and assertiveness after years of ignoring it.
As a result, the support for the people’s effort in commencing a new phase in the popular resistance against the Israeli occupation is galvanizing the global Palestine solidarity movement with the similar energy generated before by the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
The regaining of the initiative by the common people in the Arab world and Europe should help us to avoid sinking too deeply into paralysis and inaction in the face of such cynicism. So much can still be done, in total disregard of the hegemonic discourse and inaction of western political elites on Palestine. So much has already been done in the continued resistance against the Israeli destruction of the land and its people.
One can continue to boycott Israeli goods and cultural representatives in France, even if there is a new law against it. If Palestinians in Israel can defy Israeli laws against Nakba commemoration, insidious European laws and regulations should be ignored as well. One can curb any academic institutional connection between British universities and Israel despite the embarrassed Foreign Office’s and official academia’s position on it. And finally, one can continue to spread through the alternative media the truthful and expanded picture despite the shameful way in which “liberal” American and European media is portraying the reality on the ground.
The world after Obama’s two speeches is a bizarre place. The gap between Obama, Berlusconi, Netanyahu, Cameron, Merkel and their ilk has disappeared. For a while there was a danger that one could count some Palestinian leaders within this undignified group of western leaders. But hopefully this danger has waned.
Very much as in the case of Israel, so it is in the case of the western political systems, the option of change from within the political systems is doubtful and vesting too much energy in it may be useless. But everything which is not there — churches, mosques, progressive synagogues, ashrams with a worldview, community centers, social networks and the world of nongovernmental organizations — indicate the existence of an alternative.
A relentless struggle against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine will continue outside the realm of the western corridors of power. What we learned from Egypt and Tunisia, even if we are not sure what would be the endgame there, is that struggles outside corridors of power do not wait for leaders, well-oiled organizations and people who speak in other people’s names.
If you are part of that struggle be counted today and do what you can regardless of the unfortunate Obamafication of our world.
*Ilan Pappe is Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. He is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, and with Noam Chomsky Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians. His most recent book is Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel (Pluto Press, 2010).
by Ilan Pappe*
At 4:17pm GMT on Sunday, I threw a shoe at my television screen, aimed at US President Barack Obama, precisely at the moment he began to explain that the reference in his Thursday speech at the State Department to the 1967 borders was in accordance with the Israeli interpretation of these borders.
Not that I was thrilled with that speech either but it was at least as meaningless as his previous speeches on the topic. But at 4:17 he said there will be “no return to the borders of June 4, 1967” and the thousands who attended the AIPAC convention cheered wildly. Annexation of Israeli settlement blocs built illegally in the occupied West Bank and the creation of a small Palestinian bantustan in the spaces in between was the essence of Obama’s real vision for peace.
It was a soft shoe and all it did was to bounce off the screen. Being such a harmless weapon it was also directed at my Palestinian friends who since Friday explained, publicly, how unusual and important was Obama’s speech at the State Department.
It is tough enough to know that in the White House sits someone who betrayed not only the Palestinians, but all the oppressed people in the world and in the US he promised to engage and represent.
But I have turned on my TV set and moved to Puerta del Sol in Madrid — there where thousands of young people were reformulating the powerful message that came from Tahrir Square in Cairo and which was also heard on the borders of Palestine on Nakba Day and in London’s Trafalgar Square during recent student demonstrations.
It was a call of defiance against such political discourse and its poisonous effects. Yes, they say in Madrid as they did on Palestine’s borders, our lives are ruled and affected by smug, cynical and indifferent Western politicians who hold immense power to maintain the unjust world for years to come, but we have had enough of this and will resist it.
Wherever one is affected by this political and economic Western elite, one faces two options. Either to accept fatalistically that the only thing one can do is retire to small, personal gardens of Eden and try to ignore them as much as one can and sustain oneself without them, within the limits of what is possible. Or if one does not possess this inclination or luxury, one can instead join all those who are unwilling to succumb and are telling this elite that its world and agenda is not theirs.
In some places the authorities shoot at massive demonstrations carrying such a message; in others they just ignore them. These are early days to judge the failure or success of such endeavours but it is clear that so far the protest is expanding. It defies the hegemonic political dictates of governments and it displays growing impatience with, and resentment toward, the manipulative corporate games and macro-economic ploys.
The people of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip were a victim of such politics and economics under the guise of the so-called peace process. However, recently, in Palestine, the local politicians have at last heeded the popular demand for unity and assertiveness after years of ignoring it.
As a result, the support for the people’s effort in commencing a new phase in the popular resistance against the Israeli occupation is galvanizing the global Palestine solidarity movement with the similar energy generated before by the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
The regaining of the initiative by the common people in the Arab world and Europe should help us to avoid sinking too deeply into paralysis and inaction in the face of such cynicism. So much can still be done, in total disregard of the hegemonic discourse and inaction of western political elites on Palestine. So much has already been done in the continued resistance against the Israeli destruction of the land and its people.
One can continue to boycott Israeli goods and cultural representatives in France, even if there is a new law against it. If Palestinians in Israel can defy Israeli laws against Nakba commemoration, insidious European laws and regulations should be ignored as well. One can curb any academic institutional connection between British universities and Israel despite the embarrassed Foreign Office’s and official academia’s position on it. And finally, one can continue to spread through the alternative media the truthful and expanded picture despite the shameful way in which “liberal” American and European media is portraying the reality on the ground.
The world after Obama’s two speeches is a bizarre place. The gap between Obama, Berlusconi, Netanyahu, Cameron, Merkel and their ilk has disappeared. For a while there was a danger that one could count some Palestinian leaders within this undignified group of western leaders. But hopefully this danger has waned.
Very much as in the case of Israel, so it is in the case of the western political systems, the option of change from within the political systems is doubtful and vesting too much energy in it may be useless. But everything which is not there — churches, mosques, progressive synagogues, ashrams with a worldview, community centers, social networks and the world of nongovernmental organizations — indicate the existence of an alternative.
A relentless struggle against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine will continue outside the realm of the western corridors of power. What we learned from Egypt and Tunisia, even if we are not sure what would be the endgame there, is that struggles outside corridors of power do not wait for leaders, well-oiled organizations and people who speak in other people’s names.
If you are part of that struggle be counted today and do what you can regardless of the unfortunate Obamafication of our world.
*Ilan Pappe is Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. He is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, and with Noam Chomsky Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians. His most recent book is Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel (Pluto Press, 2010).
domingo, 22 de maio de 2011
TODAY'S BORDERS ARE THE 'INDEFENSIBLE' ONES
Netanyahu's decision to have Israel clash with Obama is not only a dead end, it could remove the only protective wall Israel has left and sacrifice the country's future on the altar of hollow ideology and unbridled nationalism.
22 May 2011 Haaretz, Editorial (Israel)
Lots of high-sounding words were uttered over the weekend. There was U.S. President Barack Obama's speech, in which he welcomed the civil revolutions in the Middle East and sketched the outlines of the best diplomatic plan to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Then came the unabashed longing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for peace on his terms. But the cascades of verbiage did not produce concord between Israel and the United States - to the point where it's hard to decide which disagreement is greater, between Israel and the Palestinians or between Israel and the United States.
There is no doubt which is more dangerous for Israel. Netanyahu's decision to have Israel clash with Obama is not only a dead end, it could remove the only protective wall Israel has left and sacrifice the country's future on the altar of hollow ideology and unbridled nationalism.
Netanyahu is lying to the Israeli public and leading the U.S. administration astray when he portrays Israel's current borders as defensible. The occupation of the West Bank, the planting of more settlements on the rocky hilltops, control of the Jordan Valley or the construction of thousands of homes in East Jerusalem do not remove the Iranian threat, prevent the firing of Qassam rockets or end Hezbollah's willingness to fire missiles at Israel.
Borders themselves do not guarantee security. But borders that are recognized by the international community give a country the legitimacy to defend its sovereignty. Israel has no such borders, and more and more countries are finding it difficult to defend Israel's position, which seeks to persuade others that occupation is a means of defense.
The real danger for Israel is not only the crisis in relations with the United States and most of Europe, it's the deception Israel is trying to market to the Israeli public. According to that deception, a strong stand based only on nationalist slogans can replace a diplomatic solution; all that's needed to survive Obama's term with the current borders are well-crafted speeches and the right amount of manipulation. This strategy turns Netanyahu into a real threat to Israel's security and future.
22 May 2011 Haaretz, Editorial (Israel)
Lots of high-sounding words were uttered over the weekend. There was U.S. President Barack Obama's speech, in which he welcomed the civil revolutions in the Middle East and sketched the outlines of the best diplomatic plan to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Then came the unabashed longing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for peace on his terms. But the cascades of verbiage did not produce concord between Israel and the United States - to the point where it's hard to decide which disagreement is greater, between Israel and the Palestinians or between Israel and the United States.
There is no doubt which is more dangerous for Israel. Netanyahu's decision to have Israel clash with Obama is not only a dead end, it could remove the only protective wall Israel has left and sacrifice the country's future on the altar of hollow ideology and unbridled nationalism.
Netanyahu is lying to the Israeli public and leading the U.S. administration astray when he portrays Israel's current borders as defensible. The occupation of the West Bank, the planting of more settlements on the rocky hilltops, control of the Jordan Valley or the construction of thousands of homes in East Jerusalem do not remove the Iranian threat, prevent the firing of Qassam rockets or end Hezbollah's willingness to fire missiles at Israel.
Borders themselves do not guarantee security. But borders that are recognized by the international community give a country the legitimacy to defend its sovereignty. Israel has no such borders, and more and more countries are finding it difficult to defend Israel's position, which seeks to persuade others that occupation is a means of defense.
The real danger for Israel is not only the crisis in relations with the United States and most of Europe, it's the deception Israel is trying to market to the Israeli public. According to that deception, a strong stand based only on nationalist slogans can replace a diplomatic solution; all that's needed to survive Obama's term with the current borders are well-crafted speeches and the right amount of manipulation. This strategy turns Netanyahu into a real threat to Israel's security and future.
JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE RESPONSE TO OBAMA’S SPEECH ON THE MIDDLE EAST
19 May 2011, Jewish Voice for Peace http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org (USA)
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) was disappointed by President Obama’s speech today. While President Obama did speak for the first time of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, he did not break new ground in his overall approach to the conflict. His speech did not reflect the reality on the ground and further showed a breathtaking hypocrisy by omission.
When President Obama says, "The United States opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region," we ask, "Will you hold Israel accountable for its violence against Palestinians, both in daily life under occupation and in Israel's brutal response to nonviolent Palestinian protest, like in Nabi Saleh and Bil'in?"
President Obama seems to recognize that the Palestinians are "suffering the humiliation of occupation," but he blatantly ignores the tyranny and violence of over four decades of control, land confiscation and worse. Further, he offered not one concrete step towards ending the occupation, an absence made all the more grotesque because Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu chose to headline today with plans to expand illegal and immoral Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem.
Moreover, Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to President Obama’s speech with an immediate rejection of the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiation, with one of the leading American Jewish organizations – whose leader was named by Newsweek as the most influential rabbi in America – calling the 1967 borders “Auschwitz borders.”
In the face of such intransigence, we need President Obama to match his words with action. We need him to make a commitment to human rights and democracy for all of the Middle East, including all the people of Israel and Palestine.
For further comment, contact Rebecca AT jewishvoiceforpeace.org
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) was disappointed by President Obama’s speech today. While President Obama did speak for the first time of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, he did not break new ground in his overall approach to the conflict. His speech did not reflect the reality on the ground and further showed a breathtaking hypocrisy by omission.
When President Obama says, "The United States opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region," we ask, "Will you hold Israel accountable for its violence against Palestinians, both in daily life under occupation and in Israel's brutal response to nonviolent Palestinian protest, like in Nabi Saleh and Bil'in?"
President Obama seems to recognize that the Palestinians are "suffering the humiliation of occupation," but he blatantly ignores the tyranny and violence of over four decades of control, land confiscation and worse. Further, he offered not one concrete step towards ending the occupation, an absence made all the more grotesque because Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu chose to headline today with plans to expand illegal and immoral Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem.
Moreover, Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to President Obama’s speech with an immediate rejection of the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiation, with one of the leading American Jewish organizations – whose leader was named by Newsweek as the most influential rabbi in America – calling the 1967 borders “Auschwitz borders.”
In the face of such intransigence, we need President Obama to match his words with action. We need him to make a commitment to human rights and democracy for all of the Middle East, including all the people of Israel and Palestine.
For further comment, contact Rebecca AT jewishvoiceforpeace.org
sexta-feira, 20 de maio de 2011
J Street, Israelis run ad urging recognition of a Palestinian state
20 May 2011, Haaretz (Israel) הארץ
New York Times ad signed by Israel Prize laureates, former Knesset members, former diplomats and former defense officials, calls to establish Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 borders.
By Ilan Lior
An advertisement signed by several prominent Israelis that appeared in the New York Times yesterday urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama to work to create a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 armistice lines.
The ad, which largely copied the text of an ad that appeared in Haaretz on Wednesday, was placed in the Times by the left-wing Jewish lobby J Street in advance of Netanyahu's arrival in the United States today.
The Israeli signatories are affiliated with a group that demonstrated in Tel Aviv a month ago in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state. They included Israel Prize laureates, former Knesset members, former diplomats and former defense officials.
The text of the New York Times ad read as follows: "We, the citizens of Israel, call on the public to support the recognition of a democratic Palestinian state as a condition for ending the conflict, and reaching agreed borders on the basis of the 1967 borders. Recognition of such a Palestinian state is vital for Israel's existence. It is the only way to guarantee the resolution of the conflict..."
The advertisement was also published in European newspapers.
New York Times ad signed by Israel Prize laureates, former Knesset members, former diplomats and former defense officials, calls to establish Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 borders.
By Ilan Lior
An advertisement signed by several prominent Israelis that appeared in the New York Times yesterday urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama to work to create a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 armistice lines.
The ad, which largely copied the text of an ad that appeared in Haaretz on Wednesday, was placed in the Times by the left-wing Jewish lobby J Street in advance of Netanyahu's arrival in the United States today.
The Israeli signatories are affiliated with a group that demonstrated in Tel Aviv a month ago in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state. They included Israel Prize laureates, former Knesset members, former diplomats and former defense officials.
The text of the New York Times ad read as follows: "We, the citizens of Israel, call on the public to support the recognition of a democratic Palestinian state as a condition for ending the conflict, and reaching agreed borders on the basis of the 1967 borders. Recognition of such a Palestinian state is vital for Israel's existence. It is the only way to guarantee the resolution of the conflict..."
The advertisement was also published in European newspapers.
quarta-feira, 4 de maio de 2011
ISRAEL MUST CHOOSE BETWEEN PEACE AND A RACIST STATE
4 May 2011, Haaretz
Netanyahu needs to face a simple, clear-cut question: Do you want a democratic state based on the 1967 borders, or not?
By Sefi Rachlevsky
The slogan that brought Benjamin Netanyahu to power was "making a secure peace." That is no accident. "Peace" has maintained the right-wing government to a much greater extent than the right-wing government has maintained peace.
The reason for this is simple. When "peace" is at issue, the domestic debate is diverted to the image of the "other," the one with whom peace should or should not be made. From there, the road is short in Israel to governmental scorn for the weakness of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and for assertions, like those of Netanyahu, that Hamas is a continuation of the Nazis.
But the cyclical Israeli calendar, which moves from "Holocaust" to "Independence," reminds us of what ought to have been self-evident. There is one question that must precede the question of "peace" - a question that constitutes the essence of independence and formed the basis of the Zionist revolution: What does Israel want?
Not for nothing is that question ignored by the government. For when you ask what Israel wants, the requisite answer is clear: a state based on the borders in which it achieved independence, known today as the 1967 borders; a democratic state in which all are equal, as described in the Declaration of Independence.
This answer is dangerous to the right, because most Israelis still support it and it is also accepted internationally. Moreover, it has potency in any situation, even when all eyes are made to look outward, on relations between Fatah and Hamas. If Defense Minister Ehud Barak is right that Hamas capitulated to Fatah, the way is open for a successful implementation of a two-state solution based on the 1967 lines. And if the opposite is true, an Israel that has chosen a democratic state in the 1967 borders has a wealth of available options that would enable it to look out for itself with widespread international support.
But the question of what Israel wants has a second possible answer: Israel wants a racist messianic state, one in which Jews are citizens and non-Jews are subjects. This second answer is not fantastic. In essence, this has been the Israeli reality for 44 years already. In the territories, and also in Jerusalem, Jews are citizens and non-Jews aren't. Just this week, the science minister (! ) presented an award to Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu at a ceremony in which the latter advocated cleansing Safed of Arabs.
Barak, an adherent of the method of verbal misdirection used to enable special-forces operations, dragged "the Third Way" out of storage to be the platform of his Atzmaut party. But Barak knows better than anyone that there is no third way. In special operations, in business and in policy alike, the decision is simple and clear: yes or no. Either Israel wants a state based on the promises of its Declaration of Independence, or it doesn't.
To flee this simple truth, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (Likud ) invented what his staffers termed the "teaspoon" policy at the 1991 Madrid Conference: endless negotiating sessions at which mountains of sugar would be stirred into oceans of tea and coffee, but no agreement would ever be reached. Netanyahu has perfected this method, which enables him to keep stirring sugar into the negotiators' cups forever instead of answering the question of what Israel wants.
But the time for teaspoons has ended. September 2011 is imminent. U.S. President Barack Obama, who came to power on the wings of domestic opposition to racism, has now just scored a victory over racism and messianism abroad. Regardless of whether or not he is personally a fan of Zionism, America's interests and international developments have granted him the ability to help distance Israel from racism and restore its independence.
To do this, it is necessary to end the witch's brew of peace, teaspoons and ambiguity, and bring Netanyahu face to face, both at home and abroad, with this simple, clear-cut question: Do you want a democratic state based on the 1967 borders, or not? There is no other question. But the requisite answer is not a facile breath of air. It requires dismantling the settlements outside Israel's borders, bursting the racist-messianic bubble that is taking over Israel's educational and legal systems, and putting rabbis like Eliyahu on trial instead of granting them awards.
Now is the time to answer that one question, the one that founded Israel 63 years ago: What does Israel want?
Netanyahu needs to face a simple, clear-cut question: Do you want a democratic state based on the 1967 borders, or not?
By Sefi Rachlevsky
The slogan that brought Benjamin Netanyahu to power was "making a secure peace." That is no accident. "Peace" has maintained the right-wing government to a much greater extent than the right-wing government has maintained peace.
The reason for this is simple. When "peace" is at issue, the domestic debate is diverted to the image of the "other," the one with whom peace should or should not be made. From there, the road is short in Israel to governmental scorn for the weakness of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and for assertions, like those of Netanyahu, that Hamas is a continuation of the Nazis.
But the cyclical Israeli calendar, which moves from "Holocaust" to "Independence," reminds us of what ought to have been self-evident. There is one question that must precede the question of "peace" - a question that constitutes the essence of independence and formed the basis of the Zionist revolution: What does Israel want?
Not for nothing is that question ignored by the government. For when you ask what Israel wants, the requisite answer is clear: a state based on the borders in which it achieved independence, known today as the 1967 borders; a democratic state in which all are equal, as described in the Declaration of Independence.
This answer is dangerous to the right, because most Israelis still support it and it is also accepted internationally. Moreover, it has potency in any situation, even when all eyes are made to look outward, on relations between Fatah and Hamas. If Defense Minister Ehud Barak is right that Hamas capitulated to Fatah, the way is open for a successful implementation of a two-state solution based on the 1967 lines. And if the opposite is true, an Israel that has chosen a democratic state in the 1967 borders has a wealth of available options that would enable it to look out for itself with widespread international support.
But the question of what Israel wants has a second possible answer: Israel wants a racist messianic state, one in which Jews are citizens and non-Jews are subjects. This second answer is not fantastic. In essence, this has been the Israeli reality for 44 years already. In the territories, and also in Jerusalem, Jews are citizens and non-Jews aren't. Just this week, the science minister (! ) presented an award to Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu at a ceremony in which the latter advocated cleansing Safed of Arabs.
Barak, an adherent of the method of verbal misdirection used to enable special-forces operations, dragged "the Third Way" out of storage to be the platform of his Atzmaut party. But Barak knows better than anyone that there is no third way. In special operations, in business and in policy alike, the decision is simple and clear: yes or no. Either Israel wants a state based on the promises of its Declaration of Independence, or it doesn't.
To flee this simple truth, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (Likud ) invented what his staffers termed the "teaspoon" policy at the 1991 Madrid Conference: endless negotiating sessions at which mountains of sugar would be stirred into oceans of tea and coffee, but no agreement would ever be reached. Netanyahu has perfected this method, which enables him to keep stirring sugar into the negotiators' cups forever instead of answering the question of what Israel wants.
But the time for teaspoons has ended. September 2011 is imminent. U.S. President Barack Obama, who came to power on the wings of domestic opposition to racism, has now just scored a victory over racism and messianism abroad. Regardless of whether or not he is personally a fan of Zionism, America's interests and international developments have granted him the ability to help distance Israel from racism and restore its independence.
To do this, it is necessary to end the witch's brew of peace, teaspoons and ambiguity, and bring Netanyahu face to face, both at home and abroad, with this simple, clear-cut question: Do you want a democratic state based on the 1967 borders, or not? There is no other question. But the requisite answer is not a facile breath of air. It requires dismantling the settlements outside Israel's borders, bursting the racist-messianic bubble that is taking over Israel's educational and legal systems, and putting rabbis like Eliyahu on trial instead of granting them awards.
Now is the time to answer that one question, the one that founded Israel 63 years ago: What does Israel want?
sexta-feira, 29 de abril de 2011
ONE WORD - BRAVO!
By Uri Avnery*
29 April, 2011, Countercurrents.org
IN ONE word: Bravo!
The news about the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas is good for peace. If the final difficulties are ironed out and a full agreement is signed by the two leaders, it will be a huge step forward for the Palestinians – and for us.
There is no sense in making peace with half a people. Making peace with the entire Palestinian people may be more difficult, but will be infinitely more fruitful.
Therefore: Bravo!
Binyamin Netanyahu also says Bravo. Since the government of Israel has declared Hamas a terrorist organization with whom there will be no dealings whatsoever, Netanyahu can now put an end to any talk about peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. What, peace with a Palestinian government that includes terrorists? Never! End of discussion.
Two bravos, but such a difference.
THE ISRAELI debate about Arab unity goes back a long way. It already started in the early fifties, when the idea of pan-Arab unity raised its head. Gamal Abd-al-Nasser hoisted this banner in Egypt, and the pan-Arab Baath movement became a force in several countries (long before it degenerated into local Mafias in Iraq and Syria).
Nahum Goldman, President of the World Zionist Organization, argued that pan-Arab unity was good for Israel. He believed that peace was necessary for the existence of Israel, and that it would take all the Arab countries together to have the courage to make it.
David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s Prime Minister, thought that peace was bad for Israel, at least until Zionism had achieved all its (publicly undefined) goals. In a state of war, unity among Arabs was a danger that had to be prevented at all costs.
Goldman, the most brilliant coward I ever knew, did not have the courage of his convictions. Ben-Gurion was far less brilliant, but much more determined.
He won.
NOW WE have the same problem all over again.
Netanyahu and his band of peace saboteurs want to prevent Palestinian unity at all costs. They do not want peace, because peace would prevent Israel from achieving the Zionist goals, as they conceive them: a Jewish state in all of historical Palestine, from the sea to the Jordan River (at least). The conflict is going to last for a long, long time to come, and the more divided the enemy, the better.
As a matter of fact, the very emergence of Hamas was influenced by this calculation. The Israeli occupation authorities deliberately encouraged the Islamic movement, which later became Hamas, as a counterweight to the secular nationalist Fatah, which was then conceived as the main enemy.
Later, the Israeli government deliberately fostered the division between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by violating the Oslo agreement and refusing to open the four “safe passages” between the two territories provided for in the agreement. Not one was open for a single day. The geographical separation brought about the political one.
When Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian elections, surprising everybody including itself, the Israeli government declared that it would have no dealings with any Palestinian government in which Hamas was represented. It ordered – there is no other word - the US and EU governments to follow suit. Thus the Palestinian Unity Government was brought down.
The next step was an Israeli-American effort to install a strongman of their choosing as dictator of the Gaza Strip, the bulwark of Hamas. The chosen hero was Muhammad Dahlan, a local chieftain. It was not a very good choice – the Israeli security chief recently disclosed that Dahlan had collapsed sobbing into his arms. After a short battle, Hamas took direct control of the Gaza Strip.
A FRATRICIDAL split in a liberation movement is not an exception. It is almost the rule.
The Irish revolutionary movement was an outstanding example. In this country we had the fight between the Hagana and the Irgun, which at times became violent and very ugly. It was Menachem Begin, then the Irgun commander, who prevented a full-fledged civil war.
The Palestinian people, with all the odds against them, can hardly afford such a disaster. The split has generated intense mutual hatred between comrades who spent time in Israeli prison together. Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority – with some justification – of cooperating with the Israeli government against them, urging the Israelis and the Egyptians to tighten the brutal blockade against the Gaza Strip, even preventing a deal for the release of the Israeli prisoner-of-war, Gilad Shalit, in order to block the release of Hamas activists and their return to the West Bank. Many Hamas activists suffer in Palestinian prisons, and the lot of Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip is no more joyous.
Yet both Fatah and Hamas are minorities in Palestine. The great mass of the Palestinian people desperately want unity and a joint struggle to end the occupation. If the final reconciliation agreement is signed by Mahmoud Abbas and Khalid Meshaal, Palestinians everywhere will be jubilant.
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU is jubilant already. The ink was not yet dry on the preliminary agreement initialed in Cairo, when Netanyahu made a solemn speech on TV, something like an address to the nation after an historic event.
“You have to choose between us and Hamas,” he told the Palestinian Authority. That would not be too difficult – one the one side a brutal occupation regime, on the other Palestinian brothers with a different ideology.
But this stupid threat was not the main point of the statement. What Netanyahu told us was that there would be no dealings with a Palestinian Authority connected in any way with the “terrorist Hamas”.
The whole thing is a huge relief for Netanyahu. He has been invited by the new Republican masters to address the US Congress next month and had nothing to say. Nor had he anything to offer the UN, which is about to recognize the State of Palestine this coming September. Now he has: peace is impossible, all Palestinians are terrorists who want to throw us into the sea. Ergo: no peace, no negotiations, no nothing.
IF ONE really wants peace, the message should of course be quite different.
Hamas is a part of Palestinian reality. Sure, it is extremist, but as the British have taught us many times, it is better to make peace with extremists than with moderates. Make peace with the moderates, and you must still deal with the extremists. Make peace with the extremists, and the business is finished.
Actually, Hamas is not quite as extreme as it likes to present itself. It has declared many times that it will accept a peace agreement based on the 1967 lines and signed by Mahmoud Abbas if it is ratified by the people in a referendum or a vote in parliament. Accepting the Palestinian Authority means accepting the Oslo agreement, on which the PA is based – including the mutual recognition of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. In Islam, as in all other religions, God’s word is definitely final, but it can be “interpreted” any way needed. Don’t we Jews know.
What made both sides more flexible? Both have lost their patrons – Fatah its Egyptian protector, Hosny Mubarak, and Hamas its Syrian protector, Bashar al-Assad, who cannot be relied upon anymore. That has brought both sides to face reality: Palestinians stand alone, so they had better unite.
For peace-oriented Israelis, it will be a great relief to deal with a united Palestinian people and with a united Palestinian territory. Israel can do a lot to help this along: open at long last an exterritorial free passage between the West Bank and Gaza, put an end to the stupid and cruel blockade of the Gaza Strip (which has become even more idiotic with the elimination of the Egyptian collaborator), let the Gazans open their port, airport and borders. Israel must accept the fact that religious elements are now a part of the political scene all over the Arab world. They will become institutionalized and, probably, far more “moderate”. That is part of the new reality in the Arab world.
The emergence of Palestinian unity should be welcomed by Israel, as well as by the European nations and the United States. They should get ready to recognize the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders. They should encourage the holding of free and democratic Palestinian elections and accept their results, whatever they may be.
The wind of the Arab Spring is blowing in Palestine too. Bravo!
*Uri Avnery is a former Knesset member and a co-founder of Israeli peace block Gush Shalom
29 April, 2011, Countercurrents.org
IN ONE word: Bravo!
The news about the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas is good for peace. If the final difficulties are ironed out and a full agreement is signed by the two leaders, it will be a huge step forward for the Palestinians – and for us.
There is no sense in making peace with half a people. Making peace with the entire Palestinian people may be more difficult, but will be infinitely more fruitful.
Therefore: Bravo!
Binyamin Netanyahu also says Bravo. Since the government of Israel has declared Hamas a terrorist organization with whom there will be no dealings whatsoever, Netanyahu can now put an end to any talk about peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. What, peace with a Palestinian government that includes terrorists? Never! End of discussion.
Two bravos, but such a difference.
THE ISRAELI debate about Arab unity goes back a long way. It already started in the early fifties, when the idea of pan-Arab unity raised its head. Gamal Abd-al-Nasser hoisted this banner in Egypt, and the pan-Arab Baath movement became a force in several countries (long before it degenerated into local Mafias in Iraq and Syria).
Nahum Goldman, President of the World Zionist Organization, argued that pan-Arab unity was good for Israel. He believed that peace was necessary for the existence of Israel, and that it would take all the Arab countries together to have the courage to make it.
David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s Prime Minister, thought that peace was bad for Israel, at least until Zionism had achieved all its (publicly undefined) goals. In a state of war, unity among Arabs was a danger that had to be prevented at all costs.
Goldman, the most brilliant coward I ever knew, did not have the courage of his convictions. Ben-Gurion was far less brilliant, but much more determined.
He won.
NOW WE have the same problem all over again.
Netanyahu and his band of peace saboteurs want to prevent Palestinian unity at all costs. They do not want peace, because peace would prevent Israel from achieving the Zionist goals, as they conceive them: a Jewish state in all of historical Palestine, from the sea to the Jordan River (at least). The conflict is going to last for a long, long time to come, and the more divided the enemy, the better.
As a matter of fact, the very emergence of Hamas was influenced by this calculation. The Israeli occupation authorities deliberately encouraged the Islamic movement, which later became Hamas, as a counterweight to the secular nationalist Fatah, which was then conceived as the main enemy.
Later, the Israeli government deliberately fostered the division between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by violating the Oslo agreement and refusing to open the four “safe passages” between the two territories provided for in the agreement. Not one was open for a single day. The geographical separation brought about the political one.
When Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian elections, surprising everybody including itself, the Israeli government declared that it would have no dealings with any Palestinian government in which Hamas was represented. It ordered – there is no other word - the US and EU governments to follow suit. Thus the Palestinian Unity Government was brought down.
The next step was an Israeli-American effort to install a strongman of their choosing as dictator of the Gaza Strip, the bulwark of Hamas. The chosen hero was Muhammad Dahlan, a local chieftain. It was not a very good choice – the Israeli security chief recently disclosed that Dahlan had collapsed sobbing into his arms. After a short battle, Hamas took direct control of the Gaza Strip.
A FRATRICIDAL split in a liberation movement is not an exception. It is almost the rule.
The Irish revolutionary movement was an outstanding example. In this country we had the fight between the Hagana and the Irgun, which at times became violent and very ugly. It was Menachem Begin, then the Irgun commander, who prevented a full-fledged civil war.
The Palestinian people, with all the odds against them, can hardly afford such a disaster. The split has generated intense mutual hatred between comrades who spent time in Israeli prison together. Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority – with some justification – of cooperating with the Israeli government against them, urging the Israelis and the Egyptians to tighten the brutal blockade against the Gaza Strip, even preventing a deal for the release of the Israeli prisoner-of-war, Gilad Shalit, in order to block the release of Hamas activists and their return to the West Bank. Many Hamas activists suffer in Palestinian prisons, and the lot of Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip is no more joyous.
Yet both Fatah and Hamas are minorities in Palestine. The great mass of the Palestinian people desperately want unity and a joint struggle to end the occupation. If the final reconciliation agreement is signed by Mahmoud Abbas and Khalid Meshaal, Palestinians everywhere will be jubilant.
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU is jubilant already. The ink was not yet dry on the preliminary agreement initialed in Cairo, when Netanyahu made a solemn speech on TV, something like an address to the nation after an historic event.
“You have to choose between us and Hamas,” he told the Palestinian Authority. That would not be too difficult – one the one side a brutal occupation regime, on the other Palestinian brothers with a different ideology.
But this stupid threat was not the main point of the statement. What Netanyahu told us was that there would be no dealings with a Palestinian Authority connected in any way with the “terrorist Hamas”.
The whole thing is a huge relief for Netanyahu. He has been invited by the new Republican masters to address the US Congress next month and had nothing to say. Nor had he anything to offer the UN, which is about to recognize the State of Palestine this coming September. Now he has: peace is impossible, all Palestinians are terrorists who want to throw us into the sea. Ergo: no peace, no negotiations, no nothing.
IF ONE really wants peace, the message should of course be quite different.
Hamas is a part of Palestinian reality. Sure, it is extremist, but as the British have taught us many times, it is better to make peace with extremists than with moderates. Make peace with the moderates, and you must still deal with the extremists. Make peace with the extremists, and the business is finished.
Actually, Hamas is not quite as extreme as it likes to present itself. It has declared many times that it will accept a peace agreement based on the 1967 lines and signed by Mahmoud Abbas if it is ratified by the people in a referendum or a vote in parliament. Accepting the Palestinian Authority means accepting the Oslo agreement, on which the PA is based – including the mutual recognition of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. In Islam, as in all other religions, God’s word is definitely final, but it can be “interpreted” any way needed. Don’t we Jews know.
What made both sides more flexible? Both have lost their patrons – Fatah its Egyptian protector, Hosny Mubarak, and Hamas its Syrian protector, Bashar al-Assad, who cannot be relied upon anymore. That has brought both sides to face reality: Palestinians stand alone, so they had better unite.
For peace-oriented Israelis, it will be a great relief to deal with a united Palestinian people and with a united Palestinian territory. Israel can do a lot to help this along: open at long last an exterritorial free passage between the West Bank and Gaza, put an end to the stupid and cruel blockade of the Gaza Strip (which has become even more idiotic with the elimination of the Egyptian collaborator), let the Gazans open their port, airport and borders. Israel must accept the fact that religious elements are now a part of the political scene all over the Arab world. They will become institutionalized and, probably, far more “moderate”. That is part of the new reality in the Arab world.
The emergence of Palestinian unity should be welcomed by Israel, as well as by the European nations and the United States. They should get ready to recognize the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders. They should encourage the holding of free and democratic Palestinian elections and accept their results, whatever they may be.
The wind of the Arab Spring is blowing in Palestine too. Bravo!
*Uri Avnery is a former Knesset member and a co-founder of Israeli peace block Gush Shalom
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