Tag Archive for 'Zionism'

What America loves Israel so much remains unclear

Published on 21 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

The Forward reports on a development in American perceptions of Israel. Washington’s attitude towards the Jewish state is talking tough but still offering billions of dollars every year to fund the worst excesses:

Shoshana Bryen, senior director for security policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, argued that blaming America’s difficulties in its Middle East war zones on Israel’s approach to the Palestinian issue is “a fraud of the largest order.” Arab Gulf countries, she said, are reluctant to cooperate militarily with the United States because of their own internal problems, and they use the Palestinian issue as an excuse. “It is a canard to hang it on Israel,” she added.

Suggestions that Israeli policies might threaten American national security thus far seem not to have gained much traction among lawmakers, said an official with a pro-Israel organization in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said that the prevailing attitude on Capitol Hill is still that Israel is a security asset in the Middle East, not a burden.

Jew running for the US Senate calls for end of Gaza blockade

Published on 20 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Jonathan Tasini is a Jew who grew up in Israel and is a Democrat candidate for the US senate. He calls here for the end of the Gaza blockade.

Yet another small but significant Jewish voice in the US that simply doesn’t believe in the myth of Zionist solidarity:

While America dithers, concerned citizens take action on Palestine

Published on 20 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Two more notable stories in the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli occupation.

First up:

A controversial UC Berkeley student senate bill opposing UC investments in companies providing military support to Israel has once again added a local twist to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Although the bill is labeled “UC Divestment From War Crimes,” it focuses on the conflict in the Middle East and human rights violations by the Israeli Army in Gaza and the West Bank.

The bill’s critics contend that singling out Israel as a perpetrator of war crimes is unfair, given the vast number of human rights violations that go on elsewhere in the world.

…

The Berkeley campus has been rocked by altercations between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine student groups from time to time, some of which were caused by alleged incidents of hate speech, graffiti and vandalism.

“The bill cites facts, such as from the UN’s Goldstone Report, that should be disregarded,” said Cohen, as she boarded a flight Friday to leave for spring break. “It’s blatantly anti-Israel. I was told that the bill is not divesting from Israel, it’s divesting from war crimes. But then we should not have any reference of Israel in it. This is just dividing the community in Berkeley.”

Emiliano Huet-Vaughn, a second-year Economics Ph.D. student who co-authored the bill, said that Israel had been used as a case study to highlight the ethics violations being committed by its government on Palestinian settlements.

“What about the war crimes in other countries—China, Sudan, Afghanistan?” Cohen asked. “They are trying to make it about war crimes but it’s not about war crimes. If they cared about war crimes then the bill would have mentioned other countries. They are trying to dissolve the State of Israel.”

Oatfield said that the ASUC senate has a long history of taking strong action to divest funds from countries involved in war crimes.

“We have singled out Sudan, we have singled out South Africa in the past,” said Huet-Vaughn. “It’s our job to condemn unethical treatment. We want to make a statement about what can be done with student government funds. But the more significant thing is we don’t want our university to support war crimes.”

The bill specifically calls for ASUC and UC to stop investing in two American companies—General Electric and United Technologies—which are providing Israel with weapons.

Oatfield said that although the bill is focused on conflicts in Israel, it also asks the ASUC to create a commission which will investigate war crimes in Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

“The immediate action is pertaining to two companies, but it also has long-term goals,” Oatfield said.

E-mails supporting or denouncing the senate’s action started flying about right after the final vote, with author and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz being one of the first to issue a statement.

“Divesting from Israel is immoral, bigoted and if done by a state university illegal,” Dershowitz said. “It encourages terrorism and discourages peace. Any university that would actually divest from Israel will be subjected to countermeasures—financial, legal, academic and political. We will fight back against this selective bigotry that hurts the good name of the University of California. This misuse of the university’s name does not represent the views of students, faculty, alumni and other constituents of the greater Berkeley community. Instead it represents the hijacking of the university for improper ideological purposes. It must be rejected immediately and categorically.”

BDS leader Omar Barghouti emails and writes: “The South Africa spirit is in the air.”

And this:

H&M is a Swedish store chain planning to open seven stores in Israel. This boycott/divestment campaign is initiated by Swedish solidarity groups with Palestine and they are looking for international endorsement:

This campaign builds on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) call made by the Palestinian civil society in 2005 and the international BDS movement that followed. Inspired by the non-violent struggle against the Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestine, we acted when we heard that H&M were about to open seven stores in Israel. To buy into the occupation and oppression is not fashionable and it shouldn’t be profitable. Make your voice heard – tell H&M not to invest in Israel until Israel respects international law and human rights!

On the 11th of March H&M is opening its first store in the Azrieli Mall in Tel Aviv. The second store will open on the 16th of March in Malcha Mall in Jerusalem. We will keep you updated.

Here’s the Facebook group.

CNN oh so briefly allows debate on US funding for Israel

Published on 20 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

This clip from CNN (via Mondoweiss) is interesting. Highlighting the undoubted anger in America over recent Israeli actions, it’s a small but significant debate over the amount of money Washington gives the Jewish state every year. Let’s have an open and public debate about the rights and wrongs of this or should Israel just be protected from such discussions?

Youtube poster Media Matters Action Network says that CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was “surprised” by Jack Cafferty’s viewer criticisms of Israel, and this is the case. Cafferty takes an atypically-sober tone, cautiously criticizing the Israel-US special relationship, suggesting that we should “start cutting back on the approximately 2.5 billion in aid we give to Israel every year….” and quoting Maureen Dowd saying that the White House is “appalled by Israel’s self-absorption.” Then he polls viewers. The letters Cafferty reads are critical of Israel, 6-1. The 1 is repulsive: “We should be helping Israel occupy as much Arab land as possible.” “You got a lot of emails?” Blitzer asks. “And most of it was anti-Israel, you would say?”

Cafferty then says this was a helluva way to treat Biden, the 1600 new settlements. Blitzer agrees: “I think a lot of people were very, very upset about it, including by the way in Israel.” The former JPost reporter, playing the role of Israel apologist, to the end.

The danger of rampant Zionism catching on in middle America?

Published on 20 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Leading Australian thinker and academic Scott Burchill comments on the recent revelations that American General David Petraeus is publicly linking the Middle East conflict and Washington’s failures in the Muslim world:

Assuming that [Mark] Perry’s report is accurate – and it apparently is – it’s quite a significant development. If the Pentagon decides to flex its muscles, there could be real pressure on Israel to carry out at least cosmetic changes, meeting some if not all of Clinton’s demands.  All Petraeus et al have to do is go public with the charge that these upstart Jews are endangering our brave boys In Iraq and Afghanistan, etc, and the country could be swept by a wave of anti-Semitism. The generals have already taken this message to Congress. The power of the Israel lobby is not as great as the volume of its spruikers. It has nothing on the Pentagon lobby.

The situation is reminiscent of 20 years ago when Yitzak Shamir – arrogant, self-righteous and obnoxious – so irritated James Baker by purposeful humiliation that Bush the First’s administration imposed light sanctions. Israel got the message. Shamir was replaced by the supreme cynic Shimon Peres, who is much better attuned to Western hypocrisy. Things smoothed over. Same policies, but more politely pursued.

It’s not quite as easy this time because the ultra-nationalist and fundamentalist religious right (not identical – Shas is really unworldly) are much stronger now, and Western-oriented sectors in Israel are much weaker.

Interestingly there is apparently a split among elites in the US. The Washington Post seems to be demanding the Obama follow the Joe Lieberman line (“we are all one family”), but the New York Times and other centrist Democrats (like the Boston Globe) are calling for Obama to stand his ground, or there will be trouble.

Israel has decisive power in Congress. Arabs have oil, money and can make life difficult for US expeditions in the Middle East and Central Asia. Flip a coin. Netanyahu isn’t very bright, Obama loathes him but he remains a very resolute reactionary and Washington has a grave dilemma with him. They may try to finesse his coalition but there is no guarantee Kadima would play ball.

Interesting times.

Leading American Rabbi can’t even bring himself to fully condemn colonies

Published on 20 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest synagogue movement in the US, urges Israel to halt building in East Jerusalem (not stop, mind you, merely postpone).

What will it take for the love affair with Israel to cool?

Published on 20 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

With Israel under intense pressure to wind back its colonial project, the role of dissident Jews is vital, to make the wider community knows that we don’t support the actions of the Jewish state. Jews don’t speak with one voice.

It’s important, therefore, that the mainstream media is noticing. Take this piece in today’s Sydney Morning Herald by columnist Hamish McDonald:

The coolness didn’t last long. Along with standing firm on ”border security” and opposing higher taxes, our politicians find it hard to maintain any indignation, let alone anger or rage, against Israel.

This week the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, was buttering up Israel and its local lobbyists again, by staging a special press conference and media opportunity at Parliament House to ”receive” a written report and set of recommendations on boosting relations.

This was handed over by Albert Dadon, the new mover and shaker in Australia’s Jewish community, on behalf of the Australia Israel Leadership Forum, a second-track diplomacy venture started two years ago on the model of businessman Phil Scanlan’s longer-running Australia America Leadership Dialogue.

Kevin Rudd was a regular at Scanlan’s annual talkfest. Julia Gillard was a founder-member of Dadon’s one, joined by the opposition’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Julie Bishop, and various other political, academic, business and media figures.

The Israeli forum seems already to be well into the uncritical boosterism of which Scanlan’s group gets accused in some circles. It has chosen this time to suggest that along with more trade, agricultural and scientific exchanges and so on, Australia develops military-to-military ties with Israel.

Smith said he was ”very happy” to receive this report, which would get ‘’serious consideration” from the Prime Minister, adding: ”The friendship between Australia and Israel is longstanding and it is enduring, and that will continue. Despite recent events, which have been the cause of public commentary between Australia and Israel, that friendship will endure.”

The, ahem, recent events include the use of forged copies of Australian passports in the recent assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai, and the ”insulting” (US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s word) action of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in announcing more Jewish housing in disputed East Jerusalem as the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, arrived in Israel and US-brokered ”proximity talks” between Israel and the Palestinians were about to start.

Australian Federal Police agents have been sent to Israel to inquire about the passports, and ASIO has been put on the case too. But no-one is expecting the AFP to find a link to Mossad, unless the Israeli intelligence agency has been very careless indeed.

Some longer coolness about East Jerusalem would have been in order. Netanyahu, who included a smarmy letter in Dadon’s report, has been trying to weasel his way out of the row with Washington by blaming the timing, but not the substance, on his interior minister and the Jerusalem mayor.

Australia’s rebuke was mildly worded. ”I share the view that this is a bad decision at the wrong time and it’s not a helpful contribution to the peace process,” Smith said, adding that Israel was undoing the ”very hard work” of the US and others to get the two sides working towards a ”two-state” solution.

But the two-state solution that seemed a real prospect at the high water of the Oslo peace process in the 1990s has come to look more and more like a mirage, as power slips away from moderates on both sides.

Netanyahu has backed away from the offer made by his predecessor Ehud Olmert in the dying days of his leadership, when he was a caretaker prime minister under a corruption cloud. His right-wing-religious government pays only lip-service to the two-state goal.

Many of the Palestinians, as the Israeli commentator Ehud Yaari notes in the current issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, are starting to think of separate statehood and sovereignty as a new form of imprisonment. Instead, they turn to continued struggle and faith that demographics will eventually yield dominance over the entire former Palestine Mandate. The rocket attacks out of Gaza have started again.

Israel meanwhile is steadily losing the sympathy that it once had as a beleaguered underdog threatened with extinction by hostile neighbours. Now it rains destruction with high-tech American weaponry at little risk to its own personnel (many of its 13 deaths in the Gaza operation were friendly-fire accidents; some 1300 Palestinians died). Its population, swollen by Russian immigrants accustomed to talk of Muslims as ”chyornaya zhopa” (black-arses) is now losing its old interest in the Arabs, with whom older Israelis grew up. They’re now away behind a high wall.

Meanwhile groups like Peace Now in Israel itself, J-Street in Washington, and individuals like Antony Loewenstein try to revive Jewish liberalism, to much vilification as ‘’self-hating Jews”. But even a hard realist like Yaari is worried about the trend: he suggests a short-circuit to endless haggling over the ”final status” agreement by recognition of a Palestinian state now, to take up negotiations, a suggestion that will shock some of the Jewish diaspora organisations that have brought him out on tour.

Behind its profession of undying support for Israel, the Rudd government has put a bit more detachment into our policy, ending our previous lining up with a bunch of tiny American client states in United Nations votes on the Middle East. In November 2008, it supported UN resolutions calling for a halt to settlements in the occupied territories and for adherence to the Geneva Convention in those areas. Last year it switched our vote from abstain to favour on the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. In February it went from oppose to abstain on a resolution calling for both Israel and the Palestinians to investigate possible war crimes in the Gaza conflict.

It doesn’t seem to be having any impact on Netanyahu and has opened Rudd to opposition sniping that he’s selling out Israel to win Arab votes for the UN Security Council seat. Both sides of our politics could do well to adopt the Rudd-Confucian doctrine of the ”zhengyou”, the ”true friend” (in Chinese) who can point out shortcomings.

Remind us who really likes and backs West Bank colonies

Published on 19 March 2010 in Israel. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , .

So:

Almost half of all U.S. voters believe that Israel should be made to cease all settlement construction as part of a future peace deal with the Palestinians, a Rasmussen Reports poll said on Wednesday.

The American institute claimed that a recent poll showed 49% of voters approved of forcing Israel to stop settlement construction, with only 22% of voters disagreeing, saying Israel should not be required to stop building those settlements. Another 29% were not sure.

But Isi Leibler, Zionist and backer of the entire colonial project, thinks America’s current stance is deeply unfair. I can just imagine him fuming and wondering why the poor, little Jews can’t just be allowed to do what they want (which is essentially what’s been happening for decades, even if the latest reports allege that Netanyahu has been “humiliated” by his government’s back-down over settlement expansion):

There are certain red lines which no government of Israel may cross. Netanyahu, on this occasion, must stand firm. The current crisis transcends political or ideological differences between Likud, Labor and Kadima. All mainstream parties should unite and convey to President Obama that Israel is a sovereign state and will not automatically bow to diktats of the US administration. They need to make the US administration and public understand that no government of Israel will agree to freeze construction in Jerusalem, the heart and soul of the Jewish people.

Be careful what critics of Israel are really against

Published on 19 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Edward Said’s wife, Miriam, cautions critics of Israel to be careful what they’re boycotting and why:

On 28 January 2010 the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) issued a statement to the Qatari government calling for a boycott of Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (WEDO) and condemning the Qatari Ministry of Culture for hosting the orchestra in Doha. The statement goes so far as to accuse Daniel Barenboim of being an ardent Zionist. I would like to point out that the PACBI policy is “to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel.” It does not call for a boycott against all Israelis, but those affiliated with institutions that support the Israeli state and its policies and who do not express support for the Palestinian struggle against occupation. Daniel Barenboim and WEDO do not meet any of those criteria.

WEDO is but one of the many educational programs of the Barenboim-Said Foundation (BSF) which was founded by Daniel Barenboim together with my late husband, Edward Said. It is registered in Spain and the regional government of Andalusia is the main partner in this project.

WEDO is not a project for normalization. The yearly workshops in Spain are advanced musical summer courses. When students from Arab countries and Israel attend the same courses at any university around the world where the professor’s competence is the reason for which they enroll, it is considered furthering their education, not normalization.

Anti-democratic moves in the less than Holy Land

Published on 19 March 2010 in Israel. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

An editorial in Haaretz that once again warns Israel to not run off a cliff morally. As ever, the silence of most Jewish groups in the Diaspora is telling:

The Israel Defense Forces decision to declare the Palestinian villages Bil’in and Na’alin closed military zones on Fridays for the next six months is a serious anti-democratic move. The order issued by the GOC Central Command implementing this restriction is an act against the freedom to demonstrate.

The fact that the army issued such a sweeping order, and that it is supposed to be in effect for such a long period, requires an immediate petition to the High Court of Justice asking it to block this dangerous and damaging move, which lacks any justification. The freedom to demonstrate is a basic right and an extension of freedom of expression.

In recent years, the two villages have come to symbolize the struggle against the separation fence that separates the villagers from their lands. The struggle is legitimate. It contributed substantially to the High Court order to alter the route of the fence near Bil’in, a decision that the IDF has yet to implement – which is also a blatant anti-democratic failing.

The residents of the villages and their supporters – Jews, Arabs and foreign activists – must be given the right to protest and fight for their rights.

During the years of demonstrations in the two villages, 23 demonstrators have been killed, half of them minors; no Israeli soldiers have been killed.

The demonstrations themselves have mostly been non-violent, and it was the IDF and Border Police that often exercised excessive and unnecessary force. In spite of the inconvenience, the IDF must permit this protest. The alternative could be terrorism.

The IDF decision is grave from another perspective as well: There has never been such a radical move against rightist demonstrations or settlers in the territories. While settlers run amok, burning fields and uprooting trees, damaging property and spreading terror as part of their criminal “price tag” policy, the IDF and the police stand idly by. When the left wants to protest and demonstrate, the IDF declares the area to be a closed military zone.

In this the IDF harms not only one of the basic values of democratic rule, the freedom to demonstrate, but also discriminates in its policy, granting excessive liberty to lawless settlers while being heavy-handed with leftist protesters.

The IDF order is therefore a revolting and ridiculous act, and the defense minister, who commands the IDF, must take immediate action to void it.

Love Herzl or get ignored by the Zionist Right

Published on 19 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

This is how Israel makes friends:

…Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister, said he had boycotted meetings with [Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva] because the Brazilian president did not pay a visit to the grave of Theodor Herzl, one of the founders of Zionism.

Yes, we can talk about Jewish interests and unhealthy love for Israel

Published on 19 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Following the recent coments by American General David Petraeus that linked the lack of progress on the Israel/Palestine conflict with perceptions of American failure in the Middle East, Andrew Bacevich writes in Salon that finally (maybe) we can start talking honestly about which interests the Zionist lobby are pushing:

What are we to make of this?

It seems increasingly clear that a thoroughgoing reappraisal of the U. S.-Israeli strategic partnership is in the offing. Much of the credit (or, if you prefer, blame) for that prospect belongs to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of the famous (or infamous) tract “The Israel Lobby.”

Whatever that book’s shortcomings, its appearance in 2007 injected into discussions of U.S.-Israeli relations a candor that that had been previously absent. Convictions that had been out of bounds now became legitimate subjects for discussion. Prejudices were transformed into mere opinions.

Out of this candor has come a rolling reassessment, with the ultimate outcome by no means clear. That David Petraeus, hitherto not known to be an anti-Semite, has implicitly endorsed one of Mearsheimer and Walt’s core findings — questioning whether the United States should view Israel as a strategic asset — constitutes further evidence that something important is afoot.

FInding a way back to endless talking between Arabs and Israelis

Published on 19 March 2010 in Israel. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Gideon Levy writes in Haaretz that Washington must back its recent comments to Israel with more than words:

Israel – addicted to the occupation, and showing symptoms of overdose and accumulated damage – has finally found a savior to rescue it from its plight. Israel’s redeemer hasn’t just stood idly by for 40 years, but has even facilitated the habit. However, it seems that change may at last be in the air.

It’s still too early to celebrate sobriety, and successful rehabilitation is by no means certain. This is a long, painful process, and the addict and its savior have yet to show adequate determination. The user is still dependent, kicking and screaming so much that the friend is likely to surrender in despair, to simply give in to pressure, having lost both interest and patience in the rehabilitation. But the measures taken by the Obama administration over the past few days prove that change is possible. Now the loyal friend must be encouraged not to give up, not to quit until the junkie is clean.

Bernard Avishai writes similarly in the International Herald Tribune:

The point is, there is a culture war in Israel now, and the only way the liberal side of it can mount an offensive is if America keeps the heat on. It is futile to treat Israel as if it were the embodiment of some big Jewish psyche in need of reassurances to regain trust in the world.

Israel has its enemies, of course, but it is not the fear of extinction that keeps it wedded to the status quo, which is a security nightmare in its own right. Rather, Israeli leaders have resisted plausible peace ideas because a large and hardened minority, perhaps a third of Jewish Israelis, regards peace as an end to the divinely self-enclosed way of life they have established in and around Jerusalem. The squishy, declining, more cosmopolitan and secular majority is unwilling to confront them for the sake of Palestinians — that is, not unless they have to in order to remain joined to the Western world.

Washington court reporter Jackson Diehl writes in the Washington Post that a group hug between the two sides may be on the horizon:

It’s beginning to look as though a week-long confrontation between the Obama administration and Israel over Jewish housing construction in Jerusalem may be winding toward a negotiated settlement. At least, that is what Israeli officials are hoping as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu prepares to reply to a series of demands relayed to him last week by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

If so, that will be a good thing for all sides in the Middle East — including the Palestinians. By seizing on the issue of Jewish settlement in Jerusalem, President Obama has, for the second time in a year, started one of the few fights that the United States cannot win with Israel. In so doing he has forced Palestinian and Arab leaders to toughen their own positions and threatened to create an impasse that would stop the indirect peace talks his diplomats just set up before they can begin.

According to press reports in both countries, Clinton demanded in a phone call last Friday that Netanyahu reverse the decision by a local council to advance the construction of 1,600 new units in a neighborhood called Ramat Shlomo, a Jewish neighborhood outside Israel’s 1967 borders. Fortunately the State Department has not confirmed that position officially — though it has now been adopted by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as a condition for proceeding with the talks.

Netanyahu would never take that step. First, he might be barred from doing so under Israeli law; more importantly, building new Jewish housing in Jerusalem is one of the few issues that virtually all Israelis agree on. No government would formally agree to suspend it — nor is such a suspension necessary to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. Leading Israelis and Palestinians — including Abbas — have repeatedly agreed, beginning a decade ago, that as part of any final settlement Israel will annex the Jewish neighborhoods it has built in Jerusalem since 1967, as well as nearby settlements in the West Bank. In return Palestinians will exercise sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem and receive compensatory land in Israel.

The Israeli hope is that rather than continue to press this self-defeating demand, Obama will accept Israeli assurances that the new neighborhood will not be constructed anytime soon; it is, in fact, two or three years from groundbreaking. Coupled to that would be an Israeli pledge to avoid publicizing further construction decisions in Jerusalem. The result would not be a freeze, but something like a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for settlements.

It’s not clear whether Obama will accept such a fudge. But Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, who has been deeply engaged in back channel talks between the two governments, told me Thursday morning that “the goal of both sides at this point is to put this behind us, and go forward with the proximity talks as quickly as possible.” Tensions had been reduced, he said, as it has become clear that Netanyahu’s government was taking Clinton’s message seriously — it has spent days formulating its response in marathon cabinet meetings. Apart from Jerusalem, it seems the two sides are close to an accord on other U.S. requests, such as how the indirect talks will be structured.

It is, after all, peace talks — and not a settlement freeze — that has been the administration’s main goal. Palestinian and Arab leaders, too, have been quietly frustrated with the debate on settlements — they believe the focus should be on the creation of a Palestinian state, not on the construction of a few more homes in an area they have already tacitly conceded to Israel. Obama reopened this toxic issue in what looked like a fit of pique following the announcement of Ramat Shlomo’s expansion during a visit to Israel last week by Vice President Biden. He would be wise now to quickly settle and move on.

AIPAC is not an independent, pro-Israel body

Published on 19 March 2010 in Israel. 7 Comments Tags: , , , .

Not before time:

The US Department of Justice has been formally asked to begin regulating the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as the foreign agent of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Pressure on Israel grows, but what will be the real response?

Published on 19 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

The latest court gossip about the Israeli/American relationship.

Wake me up when the Jewish state actually reverses any of its occupation.

The Guardian:

King Abdullah of Jordan added to pressure on Israel over its settlements policy today, demanding the international community take firm action over what he called the “red line” of Jerusalem.

Abdullah, a close ally of the US and Britain, demanded “firm, swift, direct and effective action to stop Israel’s provocative measures in Jerusalem that seek to change its identity and threaten holy sites”.

“Jerusalem is a red line and the world should not be silent about Israel’s attempts to get rid of Jerusalem’s Arab residents, Muslims or Christians,” the king told Lady Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, according to a palace statement.

The BBC:

The EU’s new foreign policy chief has arrived in Gaza on one of the highest level visits there by a Western official since Hamas took power.

Baroness Ashton’s trip comes amid a new push by the EU and US to revive stalled Middle East peace talks.

The international quartet of Middle East mediators – the EU, US, UN and Russia – is to meet in Moscow later.

As Lady Ashton arrived, militants in Gaza fired a rocket into Israel, killing a man, Israeli officials said.

The rocket struck the Netiv Ha’assera kibbutz in southern Israel killing a foreign agricultural worker, according to reports.

Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian:

Don’t expect the US to suddenly cancel military and financial aid to Israel, or to stop sharing intelligence. But Washington can display its displeasure in many small but incremental ways, from a critical statement at an international meeting Clinton is attending in Moscow this week to a snub for Netanyahu when he is scheduled to visit DC next week, or an abstention in a United Nations resolution critical of Israel.

Melanie Phillips in the Spectator:

Are we seeing the beginning (heaven forbid) of the Obama intifada?

The escalating Arab rioting today in Jerusalem and the West Bank is undoubtedly being stoked up by the fact that the Obama administration has turned so viciously against Israel. Doubtless as a result the Arabs now smell victory within their grasp and may now unleash another wave of violence against Israelis.

Every single one of their recent ‘grievances’ is not just fabricated but stands history and justice on their heads. The ostensible cause of today’s rioting, the re-opening yesterday of the ancient Hurva synagogue in the heart of the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, is a typical example of this fanatical moral and historical inversion. The Hurva has been under reconstruction for years. The Palestinian campaign of incitement over it carries the message that Jews cannot build places of worship in their own city. And before anyone says any of Jerusalem is ‘occupied Palestinian territory’, it is not and never was ‘Palestinian’. In every single attempt to resolve the Middle East impasse, Jerusalem was always regarded as a special case on its own; and from the mid 19th century onwards it has had uninterruptedly a Jewish majority.

…

Middle America, those millions of mainly Christian souls who are Israel’s staunchest supporters in the world, should be made aware of what their President is doing – turning the United States into a betrayer of democracy, human rights and the Jewish people to become no less than an accessory to terror.

The Daily Beast:

The flare-up between the U.S. and Israel is sorely testing relations between the two countries. It’s also rousing a group of Americans who have been largely out of the headlines in the Obama era: the religious right, which is rallying to the Netanyahu government’s defense.

Gary Bauer, who advised John McCain on outreach to evangelical groups in 2008 and ran for president himself in 2000, just returned from the Jewish state, where he led 700 supporters in a rally for the Israeli government. Bauer, who now leads the advocacy group American Values, is upset that the Obama administration’s decision to take Israel to task over the new settlements. Perhaps no group has been as unflagging in its back of Israel than evangelicals in the U.S.

“I continue to think it’s odd that the U.S. is suggesting to Israel that there are neighborhoods in Jerusalem where more Jews are not allowed to live,” Bauer told The Daily Beast. “This is the first black president, and that is called segregation.”

Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren:

Israel and America enjoy a deep and multi-layered friendship, but even the closest allies can sometimes disagree. Such a disagreement began last week during Vice President Joseph Biden’s visit to Israel, when a mid-level official in the Interior Ministry announced an interim planning phase in the expansion of Ramat Shlomo, a northern Jerusalem neighborhood. While this discord was unfortunate, it was not a historic low point in United States-Israel relations; nor did I ever say that it was, contrary to some reports.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no desire during a vice presidential visit to highlight longstanding differences between the United States and Israel on building on the other side of the 1949 armistice line that once divided Jerusalem. The prime minister repeatedly apologized for the timing of the announcement and pledged to prevent such embarrassing incidents from recurring. In reply, the Obama administration asked Israel to reaffirm its commitment to the peace process and to its bilateral relations with the United States. Israel is dedicated to both.

…

To achieve peace, Israel is asked to take monumental risks, including sacrificing land next to our major industrial areas and cities. Previous withdrawals, from Lebanon and Gaza, brought not peace but rather thousands of rockets raining down on our neighborhoods.

Though Israel will always ultimately rely on the courage of its own defense forces, America’s commitment to Israel’s security is essential to give Israelis the confidence to take risks for peace. Similarly, American-Israeli cooperation is vital to meeting the direst challenge facing both countries and the entire world: denying nuclear weapons to Iran.

Israel appreciates President Obama’s commitment to a comprehensive peace that guarantees Israel’s security and Jewish identity, and provides for a Palestinian state. To ensure that such a state is peaceful, Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that it must be demilitarized and that Palestinians must recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, just as Israel is asked to recognize a future Palestinian state as the nation-state of the Palestinians.

The Independent:

Ask Rabbi Sam White what he thinks of the global political row over plans to expand the community in which he lives, prays and studies, and he answers bluntly: “I don’t see the problem. God gave us the land of Israel.” The notion that the location of Ramat Shlomo, on land occupied after the 1967 Six Day War and officially expropriated six years later, might belong to another people is wholly alien to the 32- year-old Salford-born rabbi. “There’s no question. It’s in the Torah, which says that God gave the land to the Jewish people.”

We are talking in a gabled brown brick house which, incongruously set amid the rows of plain white multi-storey apartment buildings in this hilltop settlement of some 18,000 in the north of Jerusalem, looks as if it might have been transplanted from another country. Which in a sense it was. For this is the Chabad House, the community base of the famous Hasidic sect which still reveres the leadership of the late Lubavicher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, its architecture a replica of the movement’s world headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

And Rabbi White is as opposed to territorial compromise of any part of the greater “land of Israel” – stretching, in his view, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean – as his spiritual leader was throughout his long life. “Look what happened in Gaza, when they took the people from Gush Katif [the main settlement bloc in the territory dismantled by Ariel Sharon in 1995],” he says. “An Israel in pieces is not an Israel at peace.”

Israel is being asked to consider a “settlement freeze” in East Jerusalem, which will in all likelihood be as farcical as the “settlement freeze” in the West Bank. ie. building will continue while the rhetoric will change:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been presented with a new proposal according to which construction in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem that are located behind the Green Line will be reduced, while Jewish construction in Arab neighborhoods will be frozen altogether, Ynet reported Thursday.

A similar proposal was brought before the “forum of seven ministers,” but was apparently rejected by right-wing members of cabinet. President Shimon Peres, who met with EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton on Thursday, supports the proposal.

Jewish construction in east Jerusalem has gained momentum since Mayor Nir Barkat took office.

IDF caught on camera abusing Palestinians (but this is not news)

Published on 18 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The Christian Peacemaker Team have released the following video:

On the morning of Thursday 7 January 2010, Israeli soldiers attacked and injured Palestinian shepherds from the Musa Rabai family, as they grazed their sheep in Humra valley, near the village of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills. Five members of the family were hospitalized. Before leaving the area, the soldiers arrested one of the shepherds, Musab Musa Rabai. Raba’i was interrogated and tortured for four hours.

JNews is a Jewish-led news service

Published on 18 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Just the latest concrete proposal to not allow hardline Zionists the only platform to be heard about the Middle East:

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most destabilising conflicts in the world. Yet consumers of media receive confusing messages about what is happening in the region, who is responsible for the regular outbreaks of violence and what could and should be done to reach a comprehensive and just peace.

All too often, the experiences, concerns and needs of ordinary people on the ground are lost in a fog of partisan rhetoric. And the ubiquitous use of a language of international affairs-speak, which glibly repeats such terms and phrases as “security”, “terrorism”, “peace process”, “honest broker” and “confidence-building”, prevents a deeper understanding of the complex forces at work.

There is therefore an urgent need for reliable, real-time information, authoritative and expert commentary, and deeper and more courageous analysis – all of which must be informed by a primary concern for human rights and social justice. JNews – Alternative Jewish Perspectives on Israel and Palestine is being launched today to answer this need.

An initiative of a group of British Jews, JNews will make its output available to the British and international media through its website. It will feature news and stories focusing on the lives of Israelis and Palestinians and on the work of organisations and individuals struggling to protect and promote human rights and create conditions in Israel and Palestine in which social justice can prevail.

If America was really pissed with Israel, they would take real action

Published on 18 March 2010 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The Daily Show tackles the latest flap between Israel and Washington which is really just a lover’s tiff, likely to be resolved with some relaxing baths and nice walks along the beach:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
The Path From Peace
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Political Humor Health Care Reform

The Israel lobby strikes back

Published on 18 March 2010 in General. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Speaking of “journalists” who love Israel like an old wine; juicy if you know where to lick but corrupt to the core. Over to you, Murdoch columnist Greg Sheridan:

The Australia-Israel relationship, normally a byword for geostrategic stability and enduring human warmth, has had some stormy passages lately.

The use of Australian passports by the agents, presumably from Mossad, who assassinated a Hamas terrorist in Dubai led to unusually strong criticism of Israel from Kevin Rudd and Stephen Smith. Australia changed its vote from oppose to abstain at the UN on a resolution requiring Israel and Hamas to investigate alleged war crimes as demanded in the widely discredited Goldstone report. This was a clear if unstated punishment of Israel for the passports breach.

Then there were needlessly energetic comments by Foreign Minister Smith condemning Israel over the recent announcement of 1600 new housing units to be built in East Jerusalem, on which more later.

This makes it all the more remarkable, and reassuring, that Smith yesterday hosted a bipartisan ceremony to accept a report – prepared by the Australia Israel Leadership Forum, founded by Melbourne businessman Albert Dadon – with recommendations for enhancing the Australia-Israel relationship.

The forum, in which I have participated, brings together a range of Israelis and Australians for annual strategic dialogue in the broadest sense. The Australian delegation in its two meetings has been led by Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote a letter endorsing the work of the forum and saying he will consider its recommendations.

The report makes four important suggestions.

The first is that Australian military staff colleges should host Israeli officers. This is a brilliant idea. Our staff colleges routinely host Arab officers and this is all to the good. We deploy a lot of Australian forces in and around the Middle East and, as a result, we have developed effective working relations with a number of Arab militaries. But we are a strategic and political ally of Israel. The absence of Israelis from these courses is a serious gap and has a small but ongoing effect on our military culture.

Arab and Israeli officers routinely attend US staff colleges together. It’s good for both of them. They have to put up with each other if they want the benefit of American military staff colleges. It helps dialogue all around and it gives expression to the true nature of the US-Israel relationship. There is absolutely no reason Australia should not do this.

I would add a recommendation the report leaves out. Australia should have an annual or biennial full strategic dialogue with Israel. We do have very high level intelligence exchanges but, given the depth of our investment in the Middle East, we should also exchange deep and wide strategic views. We could learn something, and perhaps we could teach something. Our military work in Afghanistan is overwhelmingly among civilian populations, just as is most of Israel’s military involvement. Operationally, ethically, in every way we have things to talk about.

Recommendation No 2 is for a free trade agreement. This is also a brilliant idea. Australian trade with Israel is small, just about $1 billion a year. But Israel is a world leader in innovation and commercialisation. We could and should do much more together.

Third, Israel’s experience with improving Bedouin health and Australia’s struggle to do the same with Aboriginal health ought to be the basis for co-operation, comparison and mutual teaching.

Finally, the report recommends auditing and giving life to the plethora of bilateral agreements that have become moribund through the years. This is a practical and very useful document.

Smith reiterated at its launch that despite recent controversies there has been no change in Australia’s deep friendship with and commitment to Israel.

Smith did the right thing by accepting the report, committing the government to considering it seriously and reiterating Australia’s support for Israel.

And Opposition Deputy Leader Julie Bishop supported him on behalf of the Coalition.

Overall, the Rudd government displays only marginally less solidarity with Israel than the Howard government did. It has changed a couple of Australian votes at the UN, but not many. No one seriously doubts that this is an attempt, almost certainly forlorn, to curry favour with the Arab League in our quixotic and pointless quest for a non-permanent UN Security Council seat. This worthless bid is distorting our foreign policy, but so far mainly at the margins.

Similar considerations probably animate Smith’s overreaction to the 1600 Israeli apartments to be built, in three years, in East Jerusalem. This is in some eerie ways a minor imitation of the Obama administration’s gross overreaction. Whereas the Rudd government is courting votes for a tawdry UN election, Barack Obama plainly sees the quest to redefine the US relationship with the Muslim world as central to his historic mission, and part of this involves dumping on the Israelis.

Thus the Palestinian Authority for 12 months refused to negotiate with Israel; that was fine. It then named a square after a female suicide bomber who killed 37 civilians, including 13 children. No hint of a US rebuke there. But Israel announcing the apartments is apparently the end of Middle East peace as we know it.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the Israeli government was extremely stupid to announce the apartments while US Vice-President Joe Biden was visiting Israel. But Netanyahu’s temporary freeze on building in the West Bank never included East Jerusalem. There are Jewish parts of East Jerusalem that every serious player knows will stay with Israel in any peace deal. They were staying with Israel under the Bill Clinton mandated offer to the Palestinians in 2000, and under the even more generous plan put by Ehud Olmert in 2008.

In other words, as usual, Israel got the public relations and political management wrong but the substance right. The Obama administration was notably unmoved by rape and murder as a political tactic in Iran; is offering endless concessions to Syria, which treats Washington with studied contempt; and will never criticise the Palestinian Authority. It is developing a very bad tendency to constantly flatter its enemies in the fantastical hope of engaging and converting them, while abusing its friends, to show its even-handedness.

Canberra has no need to go down that same road.

This useful report helps it choose a better road instead.

Adhere to the rule of law, says Labor MP to Israel and her backers

Published on 18 March 2010 in Israel. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Senior Australian unionist Paul Howes wrote recently that Israel’s murder of a Hamas operative in Dubai was a wonderful thing to celebrate.

Retiring Labor MP Julia Irwin disagrees and said the following in Federal Parliament on 15 March:

Mrs IRWIN (Fowler) (9.18 pm)—I rise tonight to comment on an article in the Sunday Telegraph on 7 March
2010. The article, by the National Secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Mr Paul Howse, highlights three
things: (1) that Mr Howse is ignorant of the concept of justice; (2) that Mr Howse has little appreciation of the
values that Australians hold dear: and (3) that Mr Howse is completely ignorant of why unionists the world
over abhor extrajudicial killings. Mr Howse’s article celebrates the recent killing in Dubai of Mr Mahmoud al-
Mabhouh, a member of the Palestinian group Hamas, which Mr Howse described as ‘an ugly Islamo-fascist
terrorist organisation’. Paul Howse not only praises the extrajudicial killing of al-Mahbhouh, but happily declares his pride in Australia’s accidental involvement by virtue of the use of forged Australian passports to facilitate the travel of those involved in this murder.

While no-one is rushing to claim responsibility for the killing, there is ample anecdotal supposition that the
state of Israel may be responsible for this extrajudicial killing. Anecdotal evidence and supposition do not stand
up in a court of law. In the absence of a direct admission or direct evidence of the real identities of those involved there may be little that can be done, and that is very much the point. We will now never have the evidence against al-Mabhouh presented to a court. Its veracity will never be tested. There will be no due process. Al-Mabhouh will never face his accusers, and the families of his alleged victims will never have the opportunity to see him face public scrutiny for his alleged crimes, nor will they receive justice. These families will never have the opportunity to see the evidence and know for certain that al-Mabhouh was directly responsible for their tragedies.

In the case of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, he was captured, due process was observed, he was tried in a court of
law, evidence was presented, and he was convicted and sentenced. The families of Saddam Hussein’s victims
received justice. The old adage says: justice must not only be done; it must be seen to be done. Extrajudicial
killings fall far short of this standard and they have no place in a true democracy. Yet Paul Howse is happy for
our laws to be broken, for our sovereignty to be impinged upon and for the Australians whose identities were
stolen to be placed in precarious positions—Australians, I might add, who share Israeli citizenship, Australians
who now face the prospect of being detained whenever they travel because of Interpol alerts. They must now
prove their innocence but even then when they travel their doubts will remain, not to mention the other Israeli
dual nationals from various countries who have also had their identities stolen in the commission of this murder.

I am certain that these individuals would object to their identities being stolen for the commission of a crime.

The term extrajudicial killing is a polite way of referring to state sponsored murder, the execution of individuals
without judicial sanction and without due process. Of course the Dubai killing is not the first time extrajudicial
killings have been used as a tool to eliminate those deemed to be enemies of the state or simply undesirable. It has  long been a tool of totalitarian regimes and military dictatorships around the world. Regimes in Europe, Africa,  Asia, Latin and South America have all used this tool to eliminate opponents. In Latin and South America, for  example, those who were opposed to right-wing regimes or military dictatorships were simply eliminated by right-wing death squads. Many of these were unionists representing the working class and defending workers’  rights and many were identified as left-wingers or communists and deemed opponents of a regime. Thousands disappeared in an orgy of kidnapping, torture and murder. In south-western Sydney today the Latin and South  American communities tell of their stories. Many have told me personally of fleeing from their homelands in  order to escape the extrajudicial punishment and extrajudicial murders meted out at the hands of regime thugs,  often police, military or intelligent operatives acting under a cover with a nudge and a wink from those apparently  in charge. Many lost family and friends without justification, and many victims remain missing even today.

It may be easy for Paul Howse to glorify extrajudicial killings from the sidelines, but if we legitimise this
extrajudicial killing we legitimise them all, because each one is based not on law but on hearsay and a subjective
point of view. But such a view may not always be admissible in a court. It has no legal basis and falls far short
of the judicial and community standard. It would be open slather. What would the reaction have been had the
killers in Dubai been discovered and forced to kill others to effect an escape? A hotel worker, a hotel guest or a
tourist—would they have just been collateral damage? What would the reaction of Paul Howse have been had the

killings taken place on the streets of Sydney or Melbourne? Would the Australian media have been as accepting?
Would we have excused this as an act of a friend?

While professing to share those values that we as Australians hold dear, Mr Howes is ready to compromise
them by terminating a life without judicial warrant or excuse. If it is acceptable for one group to act outside
traditional norms and practices and kill, then it will be open to others to act in a similar way. Civilised societies
do not accept this. Democratic and fair societies certainly do not. Australia does not and would not condone
extrajudicial killings, nor can we accept being a party to them, intentionally or unintentionally. Mr Howes needs  to be reminded that in Australia we no longer have the death penalty. In fact, legislation has just passed in this  parliament to extend the current Commonwealth prohibition on the death penalty to state laws. It ensures that the  death penalty cannot be reintroduced in Australia; and extrajudicial killing, therefore, necessarily cuts against  the grain. To be involved in its commission innocently or otherwise is abhorrent and unacceptable.

The killers of al-Mabhouh, and their supporters, were willing to commit identity fraud and commit passport
and visa fraud to travel to a third country to murder an individual declared an enemy of the state by a small,
unknown and unaccountable group of individuals. In so doing, the perpetrators have trampled on the sovereignty of several nations, including our own—Australia. The reaction of the federal government, the Prime Minister and the foreign minister is entirely appropriate. The use of forged Australian passports is now being investigated by the Australian Federal Police and other agencies. Action will no doubt be taken if the evidence obtained warrants it.

Rest assured that any further action by the Australian government will not involve extrajudicial punishment.
As a society Australians have always championed legal rights. Evidence is collected by the police and assessed
by the state’s legal officers. If that evidence warrants them, charges may be laid against an accused. Due process  is observed. The evidence is presented in a court of law. If the accused is found guilty, punishment is handed out according to law—not according to what I think, not according to what Paul Howes thinks, but according to the law. Justice is not only done; it is seen to be done. It is the foundation of our Australian democracy and it is the foundation of our Australian society. I shudder to think where we might be without it,but I shuddered even more when I read the last paragraph of Paul Howes’s article:
Therefore, it is in our nation’s interest to do whatever we can to remove these vile people from power—by any means  necessary.
Paul Howes—judge, jury and executioner.