Gideon Levy reminds us in Haaretz that only Israel gets away with discrimination on the basis of being Palestinian:
In no other city is access to holy places restricted according to the believer’s age, as Muslims who seek to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque are restricted.
Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People:
There were times in Europe when anyone who argued that all Jews belong to a nation of alien origin would have been classified at once as an anti-Semite. Nowadays, anyone who dares to suggest that the people known in the world as Jews (as distinct from today’s Jewish Israelis) have never been, and are still not, a people or a nation is immediately denounced as a Jewish hater.
Electric and fascinating philosopher Slavoj Zizek (seen here deconstructing The Sound of Music) appears on BBC Hard Talk to explain the failures of capitalism:
The world’s richest nation starts to collapse from within:
With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.
It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.
The New York Times bubble has helped Thomas Friedman for a very long time (like here).
But his latest pronouncement from the mount maybe takes the cake:
Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny — in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving.
Tell the countless Muslims murdered by “liberating” America bombs and missiles that Washington is really out to care for them.
Would the Australian government like to discuss the reality of fundamentalist, Jewish settlers in the West Bank? Of course not:
A West Bank settlement has filed a petition to the High Court of Justice demanding the demolition of a nearly-complete stadium in the Palestinian city of El Bireh, near Ramallah.
The Psagot settlement and the Regavim advocacy group petitioned the court on November 2 to order the defense minister, GOC Central Command, the IDF’s Civil Administration and police to tear down the El Bireh stadium and three apartment buildings being constructed near the settlement. The court ordered the respondents to answer within 30 days.
The petitioners warned of the possibility that “10,000 inflamed Palestinians would rise up after a soccer game and vent their anger and/or frustration and/or frenzy on nearby Psagot. Suffice it for each one to throw 10 stones at the settlement for Psagot to be under an attack of 100,000 ballista balls.”
Words fail me, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Israel can commit war crimes and Australia will welcome its leaders with welcome arms:
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will host a delegation of senior Israeli politicians in Australia this week, including Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom.
Mr Rudd will launch the Australia Israel Leadership Forum at a lunch in Sydney on Thursday.
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard will address the forum in Melbourne next weekend.
The Israeli delegation, comprising 35 prominent political, academic and media figures, will also meet with Australia’s Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens.
Event chairman Albert Dadon – a Melbourne businessman – says the forum aims to foster closer relations between the two countries on matters such as regional security and the environment.
A remarkable British solider in the Second World War, Denis Avey, smuggled himself into Auschwitz so he could tell the world the truth:
Now 91 and living in Derbyshire, he says he wanted to witness what was going on inside and find out the truth about the gas chambers, so he could tell others. He knows he took “a hell of a chance”.
“When you think about it in today’s environment it is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous,” he says.
…
“There were nearly three million human beings worked to death in different factories,” says Mr Avey. “They knew at that rate they’d last about five months.
“They very seldom talk about their civil life. They only talked about the situation, the punishments they were getting, the work they were made to do.”
He says he would ask where people he’d met previously had gone and he would be told they’d “gone up the chimney”.
“It was so impersonal. Auschwitz was evil, everything about it was wrong.”
BBC journalist Alan Johnston, kidnapped in Gaza in 2007, returns to the Palestinian territories for the first time since his release.
But in the West Bank signs of tension are never far away, if you know where to look.
High on the crest of a hill you could make out what seemed to be a caravan.
It was a tiny Israeli outpost. This is how so many settlements began.
First one, and then before long there might be three or four makeshift buildings up there. This is how – metre-by-metre – the settlers have consolidated their hold on the land Israel occupies.
Earlier in the day, up in one of the settlements, I had sat down in the autumn sunshine with David Ha’ivri.
He was a large man with a thick, dark beard, but at times he was almost softly spoken.
There was no mistaking though the depth of his conviction as he explained the connection he felt with the land around us.
“The hills,” he said, “were the heartland of ancient, biblical Israel.”
Here he walked in the footsteps of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, founding figures in the faith that filled his life.
David saw his presence there as part of his people’s near-miraculous redemption of the land that they lost 2,000 years ago.
And to be part of that destiny, he and his eight children had had to risk the threat of attack by armed Palestinians who have targeted settlers.
“The Arabs,” he said, “simply needed to accept the reality of Israel’s control.”
The Obama regime is anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic; it’s the worst.
The organisation Zochrot are a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the 1948 Palestinian catastrophe.
They were asked by Israeli news service Ynet last week to write something on the partition plan from 1947. Below is the translated piece of Ariella Azoulay:
The United Nations partition decision of 29 November 1947 was adopted in complete opposition to the desires of the country’s Arab inhabitants who were at least 70% of the population. A not-insignificant number of Jews also opposed the decision. From the moment that the UN decided, the Zionist leadership counted the country’s inhabitants along to the line dividing Jews from Arabs. The position of the Zionist leadership in support of partition and its unconditional justification of using violence to establish the Jewish regime were presented as the Jewish position. Ultra-orthodox Jews, communists, pacifists and those who supported the creation of civil society had no place in the public discourse, and almost no information is available about their struggle. This erasure is also the outcome of the action of the state apparatus as it took over public discourse, the discourse of female and male citizens, and organized the totality of relationships among the country’s inhabitants according the destructive ethnic division between Jews and Arabs.
The Arabs who lived in Palestine for hundreds of years, occupying more than 90 percent of the territory, opposed from the outset the plan to partition their land, and refused to cooperate with the UN bodies that prepared it. The partition plan, therefore, was designed by the UN and the Zionist leadership, which thereby gained recognition as the leadership of the state-in-formation. The country’s Arab inhabitants had little influence, given the line-up of forces: A-(Jewish)-state-in-formation and an organization of states (the UN) supporting it. The new diplomatic, military and political map that was created transformed them into “stateless persons.” The UN decision was a crucial moment in transforming the Arabs from inhabitants of their country into “stateless persons,” even before they became refugees. The state that came into being in their land did not want them, nor was there any other state which did. The reason and rationale behind the opposition of the majority of the country’s inhabitants to the partition plan received almost no attention. In a situation where there was room for only two competing stories, which were presented as if they both sprang from the same initial conditions, their logic was understood as an example of “irrational policy” or as “their story.” The Palestinians were presented as having missed the opportunity that had been “given to them,” as having made a continuous series of errors – mass flight, hostile action, cooperating with the attack by Arab states. The Jews, on the other hand, were presented as seizing the opportunity presented and knowing how to make the most of it.
Today, 62 years after the Partition Plan divided the residents of the country – Jews and Arabs – from each other, restructuring them into two hostile national entities, the time has come to critically re-examine the calamity to which it led and consider how it might be possible for all the country’s inhabitants – those who immigrated throughout the years and those who were expelled in order to create a state only for some – to create a regime in their own image, the image of a heterogeneous society which will be know how to celebrate its religious and national holidays in private and free the state from the burden of nationality so it can prosper as a civil society.
Ariella Azoulay teaches political philosophy and visual culture at The Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies, Bar Ilan University, the author of Constituent Violence 1947-1950 (Resling, 2009, in hebrew) and The Civil Contract of Photography, Zone Books, 2008.
To anybody who clings to the delusion that the US President is a man of peace and group hugs:
“President (Obama) is on track to spend more on defense, in real dollars, than any other president has in one term of office since World War II,” reports National Journal’s Government Executive magazine.
The New York Times writes a typically soft editorial on the Middle East – Israel, the Palestinians and Washington are all at fault, it claims, ignoring the profound power imbalances in the region – and Haaretz reports on how the Israeli government really views the occupation (more, please):
Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday ordered the IDF to issue a temporary freeze order, but at the same time allowed the construction of 28 new public buildings in settlements.
Following the news that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrived in Australia, I submitted the following (unpublished) letter to the major papers:
It is revealing that Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert swung into Australia virtually unannounced this week and was given a “warm welcome” by the Parliamentary Speaker. Olmert is currently under investigation over serious corruption charges, led his country into the disastrous Lebanon war in 2006 and launched an aerial and ground assault on Gaza in December last year. The UN, under distinguished judge Richard Goldstone, recently released a report that found Israel and Hamas should investigate serious allegations of war crimes during that conflict.
Olmert represents an Israel that understands only one language: violence and occupation against its neighbours.
The crisis in Sri Lanka still demands international attention. Here’s the latest statement by an influential group of people:
The Elders – a group of eminent global leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela – have made a direct appeal to the President of Sri Lanka to protect the rights of civilians displaced after the government’s defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May.
Six months since the end of the war, the Elders have written to President Rajapaksa to say they are “deeply worried” about the humanitarian situation faced by the largely Tamil civilian population who fled fighting in the north of the country, and warn that this could squander hopes for national reconciliation.
Chair of The Elders, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, signed the letter on behalf of his fellow Elders, Martti Ahtisaari, Kofi Annan, Ela Bhatt, Lakhdar Brahimi, Gro Brundtland, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Jimmy Carter, Graça Machel and Mary Robinson.
The Elders say in their letter to the President that the continued confinement of approximately 135, 000 internally displaced people is a “clear violation of international law” and that these people are being denied basic human rights, including the right to liberty and freedom of movement.
The Elders welcome the government’s announcement that those still confined in closed camps will now be given the freedom to move in and out of the camps until they are able to return to their homes. The Elders also call for humanitarian agencies to be granted the unimpeded access to the camps required to conduct critical humanitarian and human rights work such as providing health care, legal aid, and helping to reunite families.
While the number of people released from government-run camps has increased in recent weeks, and the government has pledged to release the remaining 135,000 by the end of January, the Elders also relayed their serious concerns about the way in which the Sri Lankan government is attempting to meet its resettlement objectives. They are particularly concerned that the UNHCR, the International Committee of the Red Cross and national and international NGOs have had too limited a role in monitoring the movement of people, and have not had access to all the areas where people have been returned. Equally worrying are reports that some of those released have been placed in new, closed camps in their district of origin by local authorities. Some are reported to be facing further screening to determine whether they have any links to the LTTE.
Donors have vital role to play
The Elders have also written to Sri Lanka’s major donors, regional governments, international financial institutions, the UN Secretary-General and heads of relevant UN agencies, asking them to use their influence with the Sri Lankan government to ensure that basic conditions for equitable, inclusive and “conflict sensitive” development are put in place in the northern and eastern regions of the country.
The international community could also contribute towards the long-term stability of Sri Lanka by encouraging a credible war crimes investigation process; the disbanding of pro-government militias; a reduced role in decision-making by (and spending on) the military; the opening of space for minority parties and opposition parties; allowing the media and NGOs to operate freely; and meaningful consultation with affected populations in the north and east.
With presidential elections expected in January, donors should also use their influence to encourage the government of Sri Lanka to commit to basic democratic governance and prudent economic policy.
Elders’ chair, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said:
“No sustainable peace is possible without trust. Having won a military victory, the Sri Lankan government must not squander its gains. It has an obligation to serve all Sri Lanka’s citizens – including the Tamil and other minority communities.“Sri Lanka needs wise, far-sighted and determined leadership to help end the divisions of the past and achieve genuine reconciliation, peace and dignity, to the benefit of all of Sri Lanka’s people.”
Former UN envoy and member of The Elders, Lakhdar Brahimi, said:
“While we welcome the government’s recent efforts to accelerate the return of displaced people after the end of this brutal war, the returns must be conducted in a way that does not undermine prospects for a durable peace.“Donors have a vital role to play in pressing the Sri Lankan government to not only get people out of the camps, but to do so in a way that will enhance, not undermine, stability.”
Their fellow Elder and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said:
“The basic human right to move freely must be respected. Innocent people should not be detained indefinitely in closed camps. To do so is a violation of international law. The opportunity must not be lost to establish a lasting framework that protects and enhances the human rights of all Sri Lankans.”
Australian-born Zionist Isi Leibler – a believer in ex-communicating ‘dissident” Jews – appears in the Melbourne Age to plead for poor, little Israel. The whole world hates her and it’s just not fair. We’re a thriving democracy, he claims. Oh sure, the Palestinians are “suffering” but it’s their own fault.
But the more spurious claim is about negotiating with Hamas:
Israel is admonished to negotiate with Hamas; would anyone seriously suggest that the US negotiate with al-Qaeda?
In fact, and Leibler knows this damn well, Israel is currently talking to Hamas to bring about a prisoner swap. Gideon Levy wrote this week:
Why is it permissible to talk to Hamas about the fate of one captive soldier and another several hundred prisoners, but forbidden to talk to them about the fate of two nations? Never has Israeli logic been so distorted. Now, when our hearts look forward to the deal’s implementation, when every human heart should look forward to Gilad Shalit’s release – and yes, to the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, some of them political prisoners for all intents and purposes, not just “terrorists with blood on their hands” – now is the time to finally rid ourselves of some of the foolish prohibitions we have imposed on ourselves and the entire international community.
It is now clear that there is someone to talk to. In Gaza and Damascus sit tough but reasonable statesmen. They are also concerned, in their own way, about the fate of their people, they too aspire to bring them freedom and justice. When the deal is implemented we will also discover that they can be taken at their word. Were it not for the fact that Israel is holding tens of thousands of prisoners – some who used base means to achieve a just objective – who are judged differently from Jewish murderers and criminals, perhaps Hamas would not have had to use the weapon of kidnapping.
If Leibler speaks for the mainstream Jewish community, it’s little wonder the world increasingly regards Israel as an irritant, at best.
When former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visits America, he is welcomed as a war criminal.
In Australia, Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan of Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian treats him like a glorious hero:
Ehud Olmert is a giant of contemporary Middle East politics. As Israel’s prime minister he made war – twice – in Lebanon in 2006, and in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. He’s also tried to make peace, offering the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, the most extensive concessions any Israeli leader has ever brought to the table in the search for a settlement.
Now Olmert’s out of office, not because he lost an election but because he is fighting corruption charges in the courts. Previous such charges against him came to nothing and Olmert has always asserted his innocence.
In Sydney this week, I conducted, perhaps, the longest interview and discussion Olmert has undertaken with any media since leaving office in March after more than three years as prime minister.
Dressed in jeans and black T-shirt with a Red Bull logo, Olmert looked pretty chipper for a balding lawyer with a modest paunch in his early 60s who’d just flown 24 hours from Israel.
For 90 minutes in the boardroom of Sydney’s Park Hyatt, and then over a relaxed lunch with his wife, Aliza, at Circular Quay, Olmert talked with remarkable frankness about the military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, the historic peace deal he offered the Palestinians, President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy and the options for action against Iran.
Olmert’s role in history is a big one. If he clears his name of the corruption charges he could come back to the centre of Israeli life, as previous prime ministers – like Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu, now PM for the second time – and Labour’s Ehud Barak, who both staged comebacks.
Israel’s “settlement” freeze is causing the radical settlers to revolt. Here’s the latest missive from the notorious Women in Green:
The announcement of the building freeze in Judea and Samaria is proof that Netanyahu, to our shame, is following in the path of Ariel Sharon – betraying the will of the Jewish majority that elected a right-wing government, and betraying Eretz Israel. There is only a single goal to the freeze: to persuade the Arabs to participate in negotiations to advance the establishment of the Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, and thereby relinquish Eretz Israel.
There are those among us who say, “These are only words,” “This is just tactics with the United States,” “Don’t worry, the Arabs won’t agree to any plan.” We cannot make light of words. Netanyahu already failed when he said “two states,” which means surrendering Eretz Israel, just like when he said “freeze,” which means “construction in Eretz Israel is illegal.” Words have power, and they strongly penetrate. If our stance since the Six Day War had been consistent and we had used the suitable words: “This is our land” and had acted accordingly and immediately annexed these portions of the homeland, we would dwell securely in it.
Now we must respond powerfully. If we continue with routine life, we will fall victim to the other planned decrees that apparently aim to eliminate the entire Jewish settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria. in order to establish a Palestinian state here. As is well-known, this would constitute an existential threat to all the small State of Israel.
As long as we thought that the State of Israel is a democratic country, we could make do with demonstrations in order to try and influence the government. For a long time, Israel has not been democratic. The leftist policy rules it, despite the voters’ desire for nationalism and Zionism. Now we must channel all our energy and strength to the cancellation of the decree, by construction, construction, and more construction. We must build throughout Judea and Samaria, within the settlements, in private houses, and outside the settlements, on the surrounding hills.
The call of the hour is therefore to establish a fund for the construction of Eretz Israel, in which millions of dollars will be invested in order to enable continued construction throughout Judea and Samaria. We are convinced that if the left found donors in Israel and abroad who are willing to contribute enormous sums for their slanderous, anti-Israel propaganda activity, that surely there are more donors, friends and lovers of Israel, who will be ready to contribute to the struggle to build the land and materialize the Zionist dream of returning the Jewish people to its land.
All the information for the “Construction of Eretz Israel” project is ready. We are in contact with Jewish contractors who are capable of building a 48 square meter house within five days, at a cost of NIS 100,000, or a 70 square meter structure for NIS 200,000. Many young couples are willing to live in such simple structures, on the hills and/or in the settlements. All that is missing is a flow of budgets.
If we are successful in raising large sums, resulting in the construction of dozens of new structures throughout Judea and Samaria, this will constitute a Zionist response to the Prime Minister’s collapse. They might succeed in destroying one or two structures – we will have to immediately rebuild them, and realize that the building was not for nothing, since the construction of the structure that was later destroyed raised the flag of the struggle and kindled the fervor to continue to build.
A week ago, two houses, each costing NIS 250,000, were destroyed in Negohot. Now, five families are waiting to build their homes on the same hill in Negohot. In Mevo Dotan a sheep pen worth NIS 200,000 was destroyed – that very night they began to build a new sheep pen, within the ruins, of much smaller dimensions. If the Build the Land of Israel Fund had already existed, we could have rebuilt the pen in its previous size, and even added housing units for young couples who are standing in line to populate the hills of Judea and Samaria.
With stubbornness and devotion for each clod of earth in Eretz Israel we will merit possessing it. In this month of Kislev, let us draw strength from the Maccabees, who heroically and fearlessly violated the decrees of the empire. With G-d’s help, we will raise from Israel’s friends in the country and abroad the necessary budgets, and we will set forth on a construction drive all over Judea and Samaria. In place of a freeze – construction. In place of halting – breaking through. In place of fallen spirits – we will raise the people’s spirit. With G-d’s help, this is within our power.
What and who is the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel?
A disturbing British short (via Mondoweiss) that reimagines Israeli checkpoints and the Palestinian experience in a totally different land:
