Tag Archive for 'Palestine'

Goldstone threatens the chances of killing civilians, anywhere

Published on 15 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

Surprise, surprise. So the real issue with the UN Goldstone report over Gaza isn’t really the innocents killed, it’s that the recommendations could be used against the West (via the Forward):

In Congress, New York Democrat Gary Ackerman, chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, is one of those leading the new argument against the report. Ackerman stressed, in a February 25 Foreign Affairs Committee hearing with Clinton, “It’s not Israel that I raise the concern about.” He said he was worried about the implications of Goldstone’s report for the United States.

The number of civilians killed by America’s military in Iraq and Afghanistan is “certainly a number multiplied by some huge multiple compared to the number of civilians that were killed as Israel pursued terrorists in Gaza,” Ackerman said. He warned that if Goldstone’s report were to be adopted as an international standard, American officials could be prosecuted for war crimes outside the United States.

The Left is a source of all evil (says extreme rightist)

Published on 15 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Jerusalem Post writer Caroline Glick – there’s nothing like a good bombing to get her out of the bed in the morning – increases her rhetoric to the point of, well, you decide:

Israel is not the only target of the Red-Green alliance. Its operations span the globe. Sometimes, as in the case of the Goldstone Report, the Left leads the charge. Sometimes, as with the Hamas-led missile offensive against Israel that preceded Cast Lead, the jihadists move first.

In general, jihadists are motivated to attack non-Muslims by their religious belief that Islam must dominate the world. And in general, the Left’s justification of jihadist aggression stems from its neo-Marxist faith that the liberal nation-state is the root of all evil. Whether the Left recognizes that if successful, its collusion with jihadists will lead to the destruction of human freedom, is subject to debate. But whether or not the Left understands the consequences of its actions, it has played a key role in abetting this goal.

…

Here it is the Left that leads the jihadists by the hand. Take the Left’s campaign against Jewish property rights in Jerusalem. In the Sheikh Jarrah/Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood, buildings owned by Jews were seized by Jordan in 1948 after its conquest of the city. For the past decade Jewish property owners have been working through the courts to assert their rights to their buildings and remove the Arab squatters who took them over.

Court after court upheld their rights to their property. And, indeed, more than a decade ago, the squatters reached a settlement in which they acknowledged the owners’ property rights and the owners agreed to let the squatters stay so long as they paid rent. But when the squatters stopped paying rent, the Left pushed them to refuse to vacate the premises and to try to re-litigate the old settlement. Finally, the case made it to the Supreme Court, which also recognized the rights of the Jewish owners and ordered the police to enforce its ruling and remove the illegal squatters.

The police removed the squatters last month and within hours, Jewish residents moved in, in accordance with an agreement with the buildings’ lawful owners. Since they moved in, the Jews have been under constant attack from their Arab neighbors. They have been beaten and threatened with murder.

In the meantime, the Left has turned the case of the illegal Arab squatters into a cause celebre. Last week, thousands of leftists staged an anti-Semitic demonstration outside the compound, demanding that the Jews be removed from their homes. The argument, of course, is that allowing Jews to exercise their legal property rights by peacefully residing in a predominantly Arab neighborhood is an unacceptable “provocation.” The Arab squatters attempting to steal the property, on the other hand, are “victims.”

Israel’s Dubai hit continues the country’s moral decline

Published on 14 March 2010 in General and Israel. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

My following article is published on the Huffington Post:

Israel is facing a revolt from the Jewish Diaspora.

“Intifada” is an Arabic word meaning “shaking off”, as one would violently discard a scorpion. Israel is managing its own “intifada” from within.

I write as a 36-year-old Australian Jew who has recently signed, with 37 Australian Jews, a petition in which I renounced my right of return to Israel. I simply couldn’t accept the dispossession of Palestinians while my rights were deemed more important than the indigenous inhabitants.

Following similar initiatives in America and Britain, Australia – a country long-counted as a major supporter of Israel – now sees prominent Jews, including world-renowned ethicist Peter Singer, claim in the statement that the right of return is a “form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians.”

This could not be more different from the atmosphere surrounding last December’s Australia-Israel Leadership Forum, the largest contingent of Israeli politicians and journalists to ever visit Australia. They found a very receptive audience. The Liberal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was effusive: “I’d like to think that nowhere in the world [does Israel] have stauncher friends than us.”

Israel has always found bi-partisan support in Australia. Ever since 1948 – when the United Nations chairmanship was held by the pro-Zionist, Australian Foreign Minister “Doc” Evatt – Israel has taken Australia’s unquestioning friendship as a given. The current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Labor government is no exception. Rudd once said that support for Israel was in his DNA.

This history makes the current strain in diplomatic relations between Israel and Australia all the more unusual. When it emerged in late February that Israel’s Mossad had allegedly forged Australian passports – as well as those of other foreign nationals – for its assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January, the Rudd government was publicly livid.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith called in the Israel Ambassador Yuval Rotem and used uncharacteristically harsh diplomatic language. If evidence was found that directly implicated Israel, Smith averred, “then Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend.”

A headline in the Sydney Morning Herald captured the mood: “Betrayed PM [Prime Minister] should not be taken for granted by Israel“. The Melbourne Age’s Diplomatic Editor Daniel Flitton argued that, “a long friendship is on the line“.

I was saddened to see the leaders of the Australian Jewish community remain either silent or incapable of condemning the abuse of Australian passports. They will defend every Israeli action like a mantra.

There was almost no precedent for navigating these choppy waters. Australia’s cast-iron backing for Israel in the United Nations began to falter, with the country abstaining from a resolution about the Goldstone Report that demanded Israel and the Palestinians investigate possible war crimes committed during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009. Australia had wholeheartedly backed the original invasion with vigour.

But any short-term troubles in the relationship won’t last. Canberra is too intimately tied to the US alliance to seriously undermine one of Washington’s other key allies. During President Obama’s upcoming Australian visit, the Mossad hit is unlikely to be discussed. Believing in Israeli infallibility is almost a matter of faith within Australia’s governing elites.

One rare example of an ally of Israel pushing back was New Zealand, which suspended diplomatic ties with Israel from two years in 2004 after it was discovered that Israeli citizens were trying to steal the identity of a man with severe physical disabilities. Two Mossad agents were sentenced and imprisoned for conspiring against the country’s sovereignty.

New Zealand until recently had a history of diplomatic freedom. In 1984, then Prime Minister David Lange banned the arrival of American nuclear-armed war-ships, causing a rift with Washington but signalling a world-leading example of fierce independence.

Media coverage of the Dubai scandal has been devastating. London’s Guardian was scathing: “Our government seems to be fine with letting the Israeli secret service wage its war with Hamas under a British flag.”

This incident strikes at the heart of Israel’s declining reputation, benefits the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against individuals and corporations that profit from Israel and highlights frustration over Israel’s intransigence in the West Bank and Gaza.

I am a Jew who feels deeply implicated in Israel’s reckless behaviour and cannot remain silent anymore.

While a recent Gallop poll in America found that for the first time since 1991 more than six in ten respondents said their sympathies in the Middle East lay more with the Israelis than the Palestinians, these figures are deceptive. Studies of young American Jews finds a growing disillusionment with the Jewish state and inter-marriage is contributing to the Zionist brain-drain. The internet has opened my eyes to these trends, a rejection of the post-Holocaust reliance on blind adherence to Israel.

The extra-judicial murder in Dubai merely adds fuel to the growing voices of Jewish dissent. Jewish writers Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv claimed in the Atlantic Monthly that, “Mabhouh’s passing definitely sets Hamas back, at least for a few months.”

I suspect the cost to Israel’s image will last far longer.

Australians demanding our government defend citizens in Palestine

Published on 14 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

The following article by Pip Hinman appears in this week’s Green Left Weekly:

Bridget Chappell, an Australian solidarity worker in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, was arrested by occupying Israeli forces on February 7 and threatened with deportation for simply engaging in peaceful protests alongside Palestinians.

Solidarity activists have asked Australia’s foreign affairs department to intervene in support of Chappell to allow her to continue her work in the West Bank.

Chappell was arrested in a pre-dawn raid for alleged “visa irregularities” — even though she had a valid bridging visa.

At the time, Chappell’s arrest featured prominently in the Australian media. But since the Israeli Supreme Court declared her arrest illegal and released them on bail on February 9 the case has faded from view.

Chappell is fighting to be able to continue her work in the West Bank with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) — a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using non-violent direct action.

She is also fighting attempts by the Israeli government to have her deported — the fate of other ISM volunteers.

Israel’s “war on protest” — as Israeli daily Haaretz put it — is intended to undermine a joint non-violent campaign by international activists and Palestinian villagers challenging a land grab by Israel as it builds the separation wall on farmland in the West Bank.

The arrests are in response to those organising protests against the wall.

The last major confrontation between Israel and the ISM resulted in deaths and injuries of international activists at the hands of the Israeli army. The horrendous case of US ISM volunteer Rachel Corrie, who was run down and killed by an army bulldozer in 2003 as she attempted to stop a home demolition in Gaza, is the most well known.

On March 10, the Haifa District Court began hearing eyewitness testimonies in a civil lawsuit filed by Corrie’s family against the state of Israel for her unlawful killing.

Chappell told Green Left Weekly that she is very worried about being able stay. She said Israel does not want people, like herself, bearing witness to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, and its continued settlement building.

She is concerned that Australia’s consular assistance has been minimal. Given the Australian government’s close relationship with Israel, a number of people have signed a letter, drafted by the Sydney Stop the War Coalition, urging the foreign affairs department to assist Chappell.

The letter states that Chappell was not participating in “illegal riots”, as claimed by the arresting officials, and that she “was certainly not involved in the dirty business of scamming passports to assassinate political leaders – as agents of the Israeli state have allegedly been recently caught out doing”.

The statement concluded: “We would like to know what Australian consular officials are doing to assist Ms Chappell. She should be allowed to return to the West Bank; she should not be deported.”

Signatories include (organisations listed for identification purposes only): John Pilger; Antony Loewenstein; Archdeacon Philip Newman; Dr Jake Lynch (Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sydney University), Peter Slezak (School of History amd Philosophy, UNSW), Vivienne Porzsolt (Jews Against the Occupation), Cathy Peters (Marrickville Greens councillor), Ned Curthoys (Australian National University), Peter Boyle (Socialist Alliance) and Sonja Karkar (Australians for Palestine).

[You can read the full letter, and add your name, at Stopwarcoalition.org. Pip Hinman is an activist in the Sydney Stop the War Coalition.]

The supposed threat of Palestinian kids

Published on 14 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

The London Observer:

With more than 300 Palestinian children being held in Israeli prisons, human rights groups and Palestinian officials are increasingly concerned about the actions of the Israeli military.

The Israeli group B’Tselem said that security forces had “severely violated” the rights of a number of children, aged between 12 and 15, who had been taken into custody in recent months.

The family of one 13-year-old boy from Hebron who was arrested on 27 February by a military patrol and detained for eight days have brought a legal case against the authorities. The teenager, Al-Hasan Muhtaseb, described how he had been interrogated without a lawyer late into the night, forced to confess to throwing stones, made to sign a confession in Hebrew that he couldn’t read, jailed with adults and brought before a military court. He was only released on bail eight days later, after considerable legal effort by several human rights groups. As he had signed a confession, he still faces a possible indictment for throwing stones – a charge that usually brings several months in jail but carries a maximum penalty of 20 years’ jail.

Although most international attention focuses on diplomatic sparring in the Middle East, it is cases such as this teenager’s arrest that are the reality for Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation. The surprise about the teenager’s experience is not that it is exceptional, but that it is a common occurrence.

Many Israelis Jews don’t believe Arabs should be treated equally

Published on 13 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

While non-violent resistance is growing in the West Bank – a threat to Israel and its backers because the vast majority of its adherents are simply demanding equal rights with Jews – it’s hard not to read this and despair. On the other hand, Israel’s true face is being revealed more every day. And we want to remain close to this country?

Nearly half of Israel’s high school students do not believe that Israeli-Arabs are entitled to the same rights as Jews in Israel, according to the results of a new survey released yesterday. The same poll revealed that more than half the students would deny Arabs the right to be elected to the Knesset.

The survey, which was administered to teenagers at various Israeli high schools, also found that close to half of all respondents – 48 percent – said that they would refuse orders to evacuate outposts and settlements in the Palestinian territories.

Nearly one-third – 31 percent – said they would refuse military service beyond the Green Line.

Slowly realising why the Middle East is on fire

Published on 13 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

Gee, things are tough in the Middle East when Murdoch’s Australian sounds depressed. Maybe, just maybe, more corporate journalists based in Israel will start to write about the reasons for the bleakness; fundamentalist Jews:

The Middle East peace process was in tatters last night and Israel’s coalition government faced crisis after it announced a huge new housing development in the Arab area of East Jerusalem.

Israeli Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon said the Labour Party was considering quitting the coalition government, and Palestinian negotiators said they were pulling out of the US-brokered “proximity talks”.

The crisis erupted during the visit of US Vice-President Joe Biden to Israel to support the talks.

Mr Simhon said: “Members of the Labour Party have more and more difficulty in taking part in a coalition government that they joined with the purpose of relaunching the peace process with the Palestinians.

“The anger of Biden is justified. A grave error has been committed, and there is a price to pay.”

The Arab League, which pressed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to accept renewed talks even though Israel had not agreed to freeze Jewish settlements, withdrew support for the discussions.

…

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Mr Biden had said privately Israel’s decision to build in East Jerusalem was liable “to set the Middle East on fire”.

It said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent three officials to tell the US delegation he did not know the announcement was coming, but “US administration officials didn’t buy the explanation” and “officials in both the White House and the State Department accused Israel of having set Biden up”.

Just one more sign that Washington loves Israel like its only child

Published on 13 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

The predictable Israeli slap to America’s modest demands should surprise nobody.

Besides, the real test of America’s love affair with Israel and contempt for Palestinians is clear:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be the keynote speaker at this month’s annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, The Cable has confirmed.

Clinton will speak on the morning of Monday, March 22, the second day of a conference that will bring together a star-studded roster of American, British, and Israeli leaders in downtown Washington, D.C. Monday is shaping up to be the biggest day of the three-day event, with opposition leader Tzipi Livni giving the next major speech after Clinton and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak Monday night.

A host of U.S. lawmakers will also convene on the conference Monday, including U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as well as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD, and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-VA.

Retiring Indiana Senator Evan Bayh will speak to the group Sunday, March 21, as will Israel’s Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren and the head of Google Israel Meir Brand. An interesting roundtable that day will feature the Foreign Policy Initiative’s Bob Kagan, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Robert Satloff, and former Bush administration spokesman/soon-to-be Senate candidate Dan Senor.

Tuesday morning, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will address the conference, just before the thousands of participants flood the halls of Capitol Hill, making their annual pilgrimage to lobby for strengthened sanctions against Iran and in support of robust foreign aid. The plan is to emphasize the group’s support for proximity talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, “provided they lead to direct negotiations,” our insider said.

One conference speaker who isn’t as famous but should make for a lively discussion is Col. Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, who has disputed that Israel committed any war crimes during 2008 and 2009 operations in Gaza.

“I don’t think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza,” Kemp told the BBC in this video.

New York Times prefers to view the Middle East as a balanced tiff between two old mates

Published on 12 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

The New York Times editorialises about the Middle East with its usual “he said/she said” mentality. Both the Israelis and Palestinians must work towards peace but why the hell should anybody in the Middle East see America and Barack Obama as anything other than a nearly unquestioning friend of Israel?

Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. used rare and decidedly undiplomatic language on Tuesday to upbraid Israel after it announced plans to build 1,600 new housing units in a Jewish neighborhood of East Jerusalem. “I condemn the decision. …,” he said in a statement.

The Obama administration is understandably furious. Mr. Biden was in Israel working to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The word came after he had spent the day vowing the United States’ “absolute, total and unvarnished commitment to Israel’s security.”

Aides say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was blindsided by the announcement from Israel’s Interior Ministry, led by the leader of right-wing Shas Party. But he didn’t disavow the plan. And it is hard to see the timing as anything but a slap in the face to Washington.

There were conflicting reports on whether the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, would go ahead with “proximity talks” — in which George Mitchell, the Middle East envoy for the United States, is supposed to shuttle between Jerusalem and the West Bank in hopes of making enough progress to revive direct negotiations on a two-state solution. Mr. Abbas should stick with the talks.

President Obama seriously miscalculated last year when he insisted that Israel impose a full stop on all new settlement building, only to have Mr. Netanyahu refuse. The goal was — and is — just. The Palestinians are legitimately fearful that the more Israel builds in the West Bank or East Jerusalem the less likely it is to ever negotiate away any disputed territory. A settlement freeze could well have jump-started serious negotiations.

But one of the basic rules of diplomacy is that American presidents never publicly insist on something they aren’t sure of getting — at least not without a backup plan. By the time Mr. Netanyahu finally acceded to a 10-month partial halt that exempted Jerusalem, the Palestinians felt so burned that the peace effort collapsed.

It must be noted that Mr. Obama and Mr. Mitchell also failed to persuade Arab leaders to agree to make any gestures to Israel in return for a settlement freeze.

The Obama administration worked hard to get Mr. Abbas to agree to renewed talks, arguing that more stalemate was not in the Palestinians’ interest. And it made some rare headway with Arab leaders, persuading them to endorse the American proposal for talks — giving Mr. Abbas needed political cover. Suggestions that Arab leaders might now renege on that support are worrisome.

Mr. Mitchell will have to keep working all sides to move this ahead. He must continue to press Israel on the settlements issue. And if Israel is to make real concessions, it will need more than gestures from the Arab states.

Mr. Biden said on Wednesday that the administration would hold both Israelis and Palestinians “accountable for any statements or actions that inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of talks.” That would be a very important start. We also hope that if progress lags, the administration will be ready to put forward its own proposals on the central issues of borders, refugees, security and the future of Jerusalem.

Mr. Obama has another chance to move the peace process forward. This time he has to get it right.

A speaker at the upcoming Auckland Writer’s Festival

Published on 12 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

The following article by Linda Herrick appears today in the New Zealand Herald:

A Sydney writer who describes himself as “an atheist Jewish-Australian political activist” is coming to Auckland in May as part of the international lineup for the Writers and Readers Festival.

Antony Loewenstein is the author of My Israel Question, a highly critical book on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. It has been the subject of heated debate around the world over Loewenstein’s call for Israel to end the occupation of Gaza.

His latest book is The Blogging Revolution, on the impact of the internet in repressive regimes, and he co-founded the advocacy group Independent Australian Jewish Voices.

Loewenstein joins a diverse lineup in the festival, which this year celebrates its 10th birthday.

Historian and travel writer William Dalrymple, who lives part of each year in India and known for his prize-winning books City of Djinns, The Age of Kali and White Mughals, will be here to discuss his latest book, Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India.

Also appearing will be John Carey, Emeritus Merton Professor of English at Oxford University and chief book reviewer for the Sunday Times, who has won rave reviews for last year’s biography of Lord of the Flies author William Golding.

At the other end of the spectrum, flamboyant DJ Charlie Dark, a member of the hip-hop group Attica Blues, will liven up the festival with his repertoire of spoken word and fast moves. English poet and novelist Jill Dawson will also be at the festival, with popular young adult writer Charlie Higson, who starred in Harry Enfield’s Fast Show. His new zombie adventure series for kids is called The Enemy.

A range of New Zealand writers, including Charlotte Grimshaw, Rachael King, Gordon McLachlan, Lloyd Jones, Anne Salmond and Ian Wedde, will complement the lineup.

Tickets to seven “special events” went on sale this week, and all other tickets will be available from March 29. The festival runs from May 12 to 16 at the Aotea Centre.

Radio Adelaide: Discussing Israel’s right of return and its inherent racism

Published on 12 March 2010 in Audio and Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

I was interviewed yesterday on Radio Adelaide’s BackStory program:

Jewish people throughout the world have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “Law of Return”. In light of more than seven million Palestinian refugees being denied any right of return to Israel the law is being questioned by prominent Australian Jews.

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This is how the US deals with its wild child, Israel

Published on 11 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Take news from the Middle East in the last 24 hours. Despairing, infuriating and tragic.

This:

The Palestinians pulled out of a new round of indirect peace talks last night, even before they had begun, as a protest at Israel’s decision to announce approval for hundreds of new homes in a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.

The decision to pull out, announced in Cairo by Amr Moussa, head of the Arab League, represents a major setback to months of diplomacy by the US administration and comes after the US vice-president, Joe Biden, delivered an unusually strong rebuke to Israel.

And this:

Some 50,000 new housing units in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Green Line are in various stages of planning and approval, planning officials told Haaretz. They said Jerusalem’s construction plans for the next few years, even decades, are expected to focus on East Jerusalem.

Most of the housing units will be built in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods beyond the Green Line, while a smaller number of them will be built in Arab neighborhoods. The plans for some 20,000 of the apartments are already in advanced stages of approval and implementation, while plans for the remainder have yet to be submitted to the planning committees.

The planned construction includes the 1,600 homes in the ultra-Orthodox East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo that were approved Tuesday. Saying the decision undermines peace talks, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has publicly condemned the move, which the Interior Ministry announced during his visit to Israel.

Then this:

The U.S.-Israel bond is unbreakable, but the United States will keep both sides accountable for their actions, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said.

Biden’s address Thursday at Tel Aviv University, meant to have been an expression of friendship, was altered in part by Israel’s announcement this week that it planned to build 1,600 new housing units in disputed eastern Jerusalem.

Biden started by reaffirming the “unbreakable bond” between Israel and the United States, as he had done after his arrival earlier this week. The bond was “impervious to any shifts in either country and in either country’s partisan politics,” Biden said to applause.

He said it was critical for the international community to understand the bond: “Every time progress is made, it’s been made when the rest of the world knows there’s no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security, none — no space.”

Biden was blunt, however, when it came to his anger at being blindsided by the announcement of the housing starts, when he was in the West Bank meeting Palestinian leaders. “That decision undermined the trust required for negotiations,” Biden said, and under instructions from President Obama, “I condemned it immediately and unequivocally.” He added, to applause: “Sometimes only a friend can deliver the hardest truth.”

Biden accepted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s explanation that he too was caught unawares by the announcement and praised Netanyahu for offering to set up a mechanism to prevent future such surprises.

Biden said such actions will have consequences. “The United States will continue to hold both sides accountable for any statements or any actions that inflame tensions and influence these talks,” he said.

And finally this:

Israeli police are improperly arresting Palestinian boys in nighttime raids in Jerusalem that involve assault rifle wielding security forces handcuffing minors and interrogating them without lawyers or parents, an Israeli rights group charged Tuesday.

Most of the youths were accused of hurling rocks at Jewish settlers and damaging their property in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, where tensions are high between settlers and Palestinian residents. Some of them have since been charged. Police say the arrests were legal, and a matter of law and order.

“They are using military-style night raids to extract children as young as 12,” said Sarit Michaeli of rights group B’tselem, which says the raids are an inappropriate method to detain children. They also argue the raids defy Israeli law, which demands children be accompanied by guardians while being arrested.

In affidavits to B’tselem, six boys aged between 12 and 14 years old described arrest raids involving around a dozen heavily armed military police surrounding their homes, handcuffing them and leading them to cells where they were slapped, kicked and told by interrogators to confess if they wanted to go home.

Some 40 boys have been taken into custody over the past year, and around half were 14 or younger, B’tselem said.

One of the boys, Ahmad Saim, 12, was arrested at around 3 a.m. on Jan. 10.

“I was made to kneel and face the wall and every time I moved a man … slapped me across the neck,” said Saim in an affidavit. Saim said an interrogator pushed him into the wall, causing a nose bleed.

When Jews sing sweet songs to an Arab killer

Published on 11 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Jewish extremism in Israel is often dismissed as the rantings of a minority. It is true, only a small percentage of the Israeli population truly hates Arabs, but they receive massive political support and sing songs of praise to mass murderer Baruch Goldstein. Andrew Sullivan is right:

Maybe AIPAC will wake up one of these days and see the reality that less informed and educated observers cannot miss. No, this is not representative of all Israeli opinion, as massive Israeli demonstrations against this latest provocation reveal, and as another brilliant column by Bradley Burston demonstrates. But open your eyes. Something is happening in the soul of Israel. And it carries great foreboding for peace … for the West, and above all, for Israel:

Dershowitz urges, “Middle East Apartheid Education Week”

Published on 10 March 2010 in Israel. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

The growing global effectiveness of Israel Apartheid Week is pleasing.

Suffice to say, this doesn’t please Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz:

Every year at about this time, radical Islamic students—aided by radical anti-Israel professors—hold an event they call “Israel Apartheid Week.” During this week, they try to persuade students on campuses around the world to demonize Israel as an apartheid regime. Most students seem to ignore the rantings of these extremists, but some naïve students seem to take them seriously. Some pro-Israel and Jewish students claim that they are intimidated when they try to respond to these untruths. As one who strongly opposes any censorship, my solution is to fight bad speech with good speech, lies with truth and educational malpractice with real education.

Accordingly, I support a “Middle East Apartheid Education Week” to be held at universities throughout the world. It would be based on the universally accepted human rights principle of “the worst first.” In other words, the worst forms of apartheid being practiced by Middle East nations and entities would be studied and exposed first. Then the apartheid practices of other countries would be studied in order of their seriousness and impact on vulnerable minorities.

Under this principle, the first country studied would be Saudi Arabia. That tyrannical kingdom practices gender apartheid to an extreme, relegating women to an extremely low status. Indeed, a prominent Saudi Imam recently issued a fatwa declaring that anyone who advocates women working alongside men or otherwise compromises with absolute gender apartheid is subject to execution. The Saudis also practice apartheid based on sexual orientation, executing and imprisoning gay and lesbian Saudis. Finally, Saudi Arabia openly practices religious apartheid. It has special roads for “Muslims only.” It discriminates against Christians, refusing them the right to practice their religion openly. And needless to say, it doesn’t allow Jews the right to live in Saudi Arabia, to own property or even (with limited exceptions) to enter the country. Now that’s apartheid with a vengeance.

The second entity on any apartheid list would be Hamas, which is the de facto government of the Gaza Strip. Hamas too discriminates openly against women, gays, Christians. It permits no dissent, no free speech, and no freedom of religion.

Every single Middle East country practices these forms of apartheid to one degree or another. Consider the most “liberal” and pro-American nation in the area, namely Jordan. The Kingdom of Jordan, which the King himself admits is not a democracy, has a law on its books forbidding Jews from becoming citizens or owning land. Despite the efforts of its progressive Queen, women are still de facto subordinate in virtually all aspects of Jordanian life.

Iran, of course, practices no discrimination against gays, because its President has assured us that there are no gays in Iran. In Pakistan, Sikhs have been executed for refusing to convert to Islam, and throughout the Middle East, honor killings of women are practiced, often with a wink and a nod from the religious and secular authorities.

Every Muslim country in the Middle East has a single, established religion, namely Islam, and makes no pretense of affording religious equality to members of other faiths. That is a brief review of some, but certainly not all, apartheid practices in the Middle East.

Now let’s turn to Israel. The secular Jewish state of Israel recognizes fully the rights of Christians and Muslims and prohibits any discrimination based on religion (except against Conservative and Reform Jews, but that’s another story!) Muslim and Christian citizens of Israel (of which there are more than a million) have the right to vote and have elected members of the Knesset, some of whom even oppose Israel’s right to exist. There is an Arab member of the Supreme Court, an Arab member of the Cabinet and numerous Israeli Arabs in important positions in businesses, universities and the cultural life of the nation. A couple of years ago I attended a concert at the Jerusalem YMCA at which Daniel Barenboim conducted a mixed orchestra of Israeli and Palestinian musicians. There was a mixed audience of Israelis and Palestinians, and the man sitting next to me was an Israeli Arab, who is the culture minister of the State of Israel. Can anyone imagine that kind of concert having taking place in apartheid South Africa, or in apartheid Saudi Arabia?

There is complete freedom of dissent in Israel and it is practiced vigorously by Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. And Israel is a vibrant democracy.

What is true of Israel proper, including Israeli Arab areas, is not true of the occupied territories. Israel ended its occupation of the Gaza several years ago, only to be attacked by Hamas rockets. Israel maintains its occupation of the West Bank only because the Palestinians walked away from a generous offer of statehood on 97% of the West Bank, with its capital in Jerusalem and with a $35 billion compensation package for refugees. Had it accepted that offer by President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak, there would be a Palestinian state in the West Bank. There would be no separation barrier. There would be no roads restricted to Israeli citizens (Jews, Arabs and Christians.) And there would be no civilian settlements. I have long opposed civilian settlements in the West Bank, as many, perhaps most Israelis, do. But to call an occupation, which continues because of the refusal of the Palestinians to accept the two-state solution, “Apartheid” is to misuse that word. As those of us who fought in the actual struggle of apartheid well understand, there is no comparison between what happened in South Africa and what is now taking place on the West Bank. As Congressman John Conyers, who helped found the congressional Black caucus, well put it:

“[Applying the word “Apartheid” to Israel] does not serve the cause of peace, and the use of it against the Jewish people in particular, who have been victims of the worst kind of discrimination, discrimination resulting in death, is offensive and wrong.”

The current “Israel Apartheid Week” on universities around the world, by focusing only on the imperfections of the Middle East’s sole democracy, is carefully designed to cover up far more serious problems of real apartheid in Arab and Muslim nations. The question is why do so many students identify with regimes that denigrate women, gays, non-Muslims, dissenters, environmentalists and human rights advocates, while demonizing a democratic regime that grants equal rights to women (the chief justice and speaker of the Parliament of Israel are women), gays (there are openly gay generals in the Israeli Army), non-Jews (Muslims and Christians serve in high positions in Israel) and dissenters, (virtually all Israelis dissent about something). Israel has the best environmental record in the Middle East, it exports more life saving medical technology than any country in the region and it has sacrificed more for peace than any country in the Middle East. Yet on many college campuses democratic, egalitarian Israel is a pariah, while sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, terrorist Hamas is a champion. There is something very wrong with this picture.

This is what Palestinian resistance looks like today

Published on 10 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Jamal Juma’ is the coordinator of the Palestinian grass-roots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign and was released from an Israeli prison on January 12. He writes for the Christian Science Monitor:

The Palestinian elected leadership is weak. And even with Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan this week, the renewed Middle East peace process appears to be little more than a charade.

Israel has taken this opportunity to crack down on Palestinians who advocate nonviolent protests against the Israeli West Bank segregation barrier and charged them based on questionable or false evidence.

I know: I was arrested for talking too much. All we Palestinians want is a life free from racial discrimination.

During 2009, 89 peaceful apartheid wall protesters were arrested; since January, more than 40 have been arrested.

The US president’s support for nonviolent protest could go a long way. However, President Obama’s repeated failure to protect the very rights and peace he has called for is a heavy blow to Palestinians. Especially now that Israel has taken to crushing the grass-roots equivalent of Palestinian Gandhis and Martin Luther Kings.

The power and importance of nonviolent protest is close to America’s heart. Decades after African-Americans’ historic sit-in at the Woolworth’s counter,

Palestinians live under a regime strikingly similar to Jim Crow. My Palestinian friends from the West Bank cannot eat dinner with me at my favorite Jerusalem restaurant. They would need to obtain Israeli “permits” to visit me, a privilege given to very few. They would be forced to endure several checkpoints or would have to defy Israeli martial law.

For my friends in Gaza, getting a permit to visit Jerusalem is nothing but a dream. Meanwhile Israeli settlers live illegally on our land, sail through checkpoints, and travel freely.

And it does not end there. One of the world’s strongest armies pounded our cities in Gaza with white phosphorous and encloses us in isolated, shrinking Bantustans almost with impunity.

Yet, every Friday, Palestinian villagers losing precious agricultural land to Israel’s wall turn out to protest peacefully. Unarmed farmers and entire families march to defend their lands. They do so though 16 have been killed, many just kids. They continue to show up though thousands have been injured.

In October, I expressed concern over the arrest of my colleague Mohammed Othman. Shortly before his arrest, Israeli soldiers at a West Bank checkpoint took him aside and warned, “We’re going to arrest you, but it’s difficult with you because all you do is talk.” I wrote then, “If talking is a crime, if urging the international community to hold Israel accountable for theft of our land is a crime, then we all are vulnerable.”

Less than two months later I, too, was sitting in an Israeli prison cell – for talking too much.

As they dragged me from my house, Israeli occupation forces threatened my family’s well-being, saying they would only see me again after a prisoner exchange.

Because we Palestinians are under military occupation, where military decrees sharply limit political activity, the struggle for our most basic human rights is, by default, criminalized. Once arrested, protesters do not face civil courts, but military courts which blatantly violate international standards of fair trial.

Fortunately, individuals around the world, including European diplomats, demanded my release. Amnesty International’s role was vital in suggesting that detained activists such as Abdallah Abu Rahma, Mr. Othman, and I were in fact prisoners of conscience. Othman and I were released within a week of Amnesty’s intervention.

Mr. Abu Rahma from the West Bank village of Bilin, however, is still in prison. He is charged with “illegal possession” of Israeli army equipment; charges which stem from his possession of spent tear gas canisters and bullet casings, which he keeps as evidence of the methods the Israeli army uses against the villagers when they protest the illegal confiscation of their land.

Last month, 40 Israeli soldiers raided our Ramallah office. They spent three hours turning it upside down and confiscating documents, research, computers, and electronic equipment.

More than six months ago, Obama gave a powerful speech in Cairo in which he asserted America’s commitment to promote the right to “speak your mind,” to have “confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice,” all basic elements of democracy.

His speech temporarily gripped a large part of the Palestinian people, especially those of us practicing the nonviolence he advocated. We were cautiously hopeful.

But Obama’s quick and near-total reversal on Israeli settlement activity and his silence in the face of the Israeli onslaught on Palestinian human rights and democratic freedoms came as a shock to those of us who dared to hope.

Because Obama is unwilling to stand up to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and domestic critics, Palestinian civil society leaders are subject to unchecked seizure by Israeli forces in the middle of the night.

Critics in America say the solution is for a Palestinian Gandhi to emerge from within our society. This seems increasingly untenable when unarmed teens and real life Palestinian Gandhis such as Bassem Abu Rahma are killed by an occupying army that regularly meets nonviolence with violence.

What Palestinians want are simple demands: self-determination, the right of our refugees to return, a life free from racial discrimination, an end to the brutal occupation, and the immediate dismantling of the illegal wall.

Just under 50 years ago, the American civil rights movement inspired people worldwide with its many successes in pursuing social change through nonviolent means.

Today, the US vice president doesn’t inspire when he visits Israel and fails to denounce the occupation and clamor in a clear moral voice for Palestinians’ freedom. Instead, America has provided $30 billion over the past 10 years to Israel in military aid. And Obama has fallen silent on the issue of Palestinian nonviolent protests.

By speaking up for communities being ruined by the wall, for protesters being killed or maimed, and for community leaders being hauled away in the middle of the night, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate will not only imbue his Cairo words with meaning, but he will be promoting basic elements of democracy.

Israel warmly embraces Christian Zionists who want them converted

Published on 10 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Christians United for Israel are a fundamentalist organisation that is led by a man, John Hagee, who once said that God sent Hitler to force Jews to Israel.

Very classy.

It therefore makes sense that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed their recent Jerusalem conference. A mutual loathing of Arabs joins them together:

Welcome to Jerusalem, the undivided, eternal capital of the Jewish state and the Jewish people.

Your presence here today represents a profound transformation in the relationship between Christians and Jews.  This transformation has its roots in the 19th century when the early Christian Zionists came to the Land Israel and when they began exploring the land of the Bible, when they began to yearn for the Jewish restoration in this land, the restoration of our numbers, the restoration of our sovereignty.

In fact, Christian Zionism preceded modern Jewish Zionism, and I think enabled it.  But it received a tremendous impetus several decades ago when leading American clergymen, among them most notably, Pastor John Hagee, a dynamic pastor and leader from Texas, began to say to their congregations and to anyone who listened, it’s time to take a stand with Israel.  It was time to take a stand with the sole democracy in the Middle East.  It was time to take a stand against the lies and the slander and the vilifications.  It was time to defend the Jewish state’s right to defend itself.

Today, Christians by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, by the hundreds of thousands, by the millions, by the tens of millions – today they have heard this call, and they stand with Israel.  I salute you, the people of Israel salute you, the Jewish people salute you.

Time after time, through thick and thin, you have stood shoulder to shoulder with our state, and I have come here tonight to thank you for your unwavering friendship.  And today that friendship is more important than ever because Israel faces unprecedented challenges to its security and its legitimacy.

…

I said that we face great challenges to our security, but we also face unprecedented challenges to our legitimacy.  Now this assault on our legitimacy comes in many forms – it comes from the so-called human rights bodies in the UN which would deny Israel its legitimate right of self-defense, it comes by falsely charging Israel’s political and military leaders with imaginary war crimes, and it comes by the outrageous waging campaigns to boycott, divest and sanction Israel.  You are all familiar with that.

…

Let me tell you how I remind foreign officials of this connection of the Jewish people to our history and to this land.  You see, they visit my office.  And I say, Would you come and look at this little signet ring that I was given on loan from the Department of Antiquities?  It was found next to the Wall of the Second Temple, but it dates back to the First Temple.  It goes back some 2800 years ago, to the period of the Kings.  It is a signet seal of a Jewish official, and it has a name written in ancient Hebrew, which I can read.  The name is: Netanyahu.  Netanyahu Ben-Yoash.  I say, that’s my last name.  My first name, Benjamin, dates back 1000 years earlier, to Benjamin the son of Jacob, who also walked these hills.  That is our connection.  And nobody can deny the connection of the Jewish people to the Jewish land.

Israel faces great challenges.  We must prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.  We must repel the assault on our legitimacy.  We must find a way to achieve peace with our neighbors.  We must all pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

After centuries in exile, I have come here to assure you, the people of Israel have come home and no force on earth will ever make us leave our home again.

The OECD may once again be ignoring Israel’s elephant in the ro

Published on 10 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

Who said brutally occupying another people is a barrier to global acceptance?

An exclusive club of the world’s most developed countries is poised to admit Israel as a member even though, a confidential internal document indicates, doing so will amount to endorsing Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories.

Israel has been told that its accession to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is all but assured when the 30 member states meet in May.

But a draft OECD report concedes that Israel has breached one of the organisation’s key requirements on providing accurate and transparent data on its economic activity.

The information supplied by Israel, the report notes, includes not only the economic activity of its citizens inside its recognised borders but also Jewish settlers who live in the occupied territories of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan in violation of international law.

Murdoch man proves that a few trips to Israel will help him back killing in Dubai

Published on 9 March 2010 in Israel. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

The list of Australian corporate flaks backing Israel’s hit in Dubai is growing. Israel is a state religion. Must support. Must back. Must love. Must not question.

Take Murdoch hack Alan Howe (a man with a long hatred of Arabs), here in Melbourne’s Herald Sun wildly supporting Israeli state terrorism and encouraging more death in the name of fighting terrorism:

Israelis 1, Palestinians 0.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a virtueless scrap of humanity, is dead. All good so far.

…

Just days off turning 50, al-Mabhouh knew he was a worthy target for assassination. Usually, he travelled with a team of bodyguards, but they couldn’t get seats on his flight, which was said to be the first leg of a weapons-buying trip to Thailand.

To help secure the success of this well-thought-out killing, Mossad’s agents travelled on forged passports appearing to have been issued in Germany, France, Ireland, the UK and Australia.

Foreign ministers from these countries, including our own Stephen Smith, have been mildly critical of Israel, at least compared with the excitable Hamas spokesman who told Israel to “prepare to receive the hellfire of our anger”. What, and that’s new?

Our reaction was more subdued; forging Australian passports was not “the act of a friend”.

Yes it was.

We cancelled the screening in Parliament House of an Israeli film called Noodle.

Take that, Tel Aviv!

…

Quietly, over the years, after having breathed a sigh of relief, most of the world came to understand what a favour that little country [Israel] had performed for them.

These days attention has turned towards Iran and its development of a nuclear program. This, too, is to generate power. Then why hide it at terrific expense under the desert?

Gaza is an Iranian proxy state where that country’s hate for the West is played out in fights against Israel.

This is the War on Terror.

Iran is the terror. Its Gaza agents are the terrorists. We must kill them.

And next on the agenda is Iran’s nuclear plant.

Washington approves of Israeli settlements but kind of disapproves, too

Published on 9 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

A classic example of American news-speak:

The United States said on Monday that Israel’s approval of building 112 new Jewish homes in the West Bank did not violate a limited Israeli settlement freeze but was the kind of act both sides should be cautious about as they embark on indirect peace talks.

“On the one hand, it does not violate the moratorium that the Israelis previously announced. On the other hand, this is the kind of thing that both sides have to be cautious as we move ahead with these parallel talks,” U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.

What NGOs know about Palestine and simply don’t say

Published on 9 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

A revealing section from It’s Easier to Reach Heaven Than the End of the Street: A Jerusalem Memoir:

As [English physician] Emma Williams is preparing to leave Jerusalem for Dakar, Senegal, where her husband has been posted by the UN, she reports the following, spoken by an NGO aid worker at a dinner party in Jerusalem.

“One day,” he said, and he had not drunk too much, “we will look back on this charade with shame and ask ‘how in hell was this allowed to happen?’ We dress it up in shades of ’security’–what are we talking about? That’s crap and we all know it. This is not about security. None of this is making anyone secure–the opposite is true, but we’re not going to say so, are we? This is about annexation of territory and slow ethnic cleansing. It’s making Israel less secure and a pariah nation on top of that. And we’re playing along with it,” he said, “pouring billions of Euros and dollars into keeping the occupied going, keeping their heads above water while they’re boxed in like animals. ‘Never mind, never mind,’ we say when the IDF destroys the things we’ve just funded. We’ll just carry on and rebuild it all, pour more money in, waiting obediently for the next round of Israeli bulldozing and bombing. Oh, but don’t let anyone hear you say it. My God, we’re in trouble if we say it like it is. No no, we must toe the line, but why?”

Why indeed?

Those words were spoken in March 2003, on the eve of Bush’s Shock and Awe. And they could have been said, with complete accuracy, on any day since over the course of the subsequent seven years. And similarly for tomorrow and the days after.