May 14, 2007: Celebrate the release of Overcoming Zionism and We Begin Here

Salam Alrawi, Alwan for the Arts, Ramsey Clark, Sara Flaunders, Abdeen Jabara, DeeDee Halleck, Ahmed Issawi, Mona Khalidi, Clark Kissinger, Emily Kunstler, Dan Meyers, Ralph Poynter, Michael Ratner, Margaret Ratner Kunstler, Michael Steven Smith, and Lynne Stewart invite you to attend a book party to celebrate the release of:

Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine,
by Joel Kovel

&

We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon,
Edited by Kamal Boullata and Kathy Engel

Monday, May 14, 2007, 5:30PM
Mamlouk
211 East 4th Street

Joel Kovel, Kathy Engel and others will read from their works.

Both books will be available for purchase

Refreshments will be provided by MAMLOUK

In Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine, Kovel confronts the unfortunate confusion between Jews, Judaism, Zionism, and the State of Israel as the basis for systematic manipulation by the imperialist power system. He argues that the inner contradictions of Zionism have led Israel to a “state-sponsored racism” fully as incorrigible as that of apartheid South Africa and deserving the same resolution. Only a path toward a single-state secular democracy can provide the justice essential to healing the wounds of the Middle East.

Joel Kovel is a well-known writer on the Middle East conflict. He has written ten books which include The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World, White Racism a Psychohistory; Red Hunting in the Promised Land: Anti-communism and the Making of America. He is a professor of social science at Bard College and edits Capitalism, Nature and Socialism. He was a candidate for the Green nomination for US President in 2000.

We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon, contains poems written in response to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon together with poems offered in support of the Palestinian and Lebanese people following the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon, and others written about the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq. Following a great tradition of poetry throughout history, this book shows the vast conscience and lyrical spirit of resistance on the part of poets in support of the dignity, rights, and humanity of the Palestinian and Lebanese people.

Kathy Engel is a poet, creative and communications consultant for peace, social justice and human rights groups, and currently an adjunct professor at NYU. Her emphasis is connecting the imagination and art to work for social justice and peace. Her books include Banish The Tentative, 1989 and Ruth's Skirts, 2007. She is co editor of We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon, 2007. She has founded and co founded organizations including MADRE, Riptide Communications, East End Women in Black, Hayground School. She serves on the Advisory Board of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

The Legend of the Removed Checkpoints

Ran HaCohen, The Electronic Intifada, 24 April 2007

Israel's wall in the West Bank village of Al-Ram, north of Jerusalem, 20 February 2007. (Moti Milrod/MaanImages)

Last Monday's paper gave us a small reason to be happy. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for the second time in just a few weeks. Reporting the meeting -- described by Palestinian sources as "fruitless" -- Ha'aretz noted:

"An IDF lieutenant-colonel also attended the meeting. The officer briefed the Palestinians on the plan to remove IDF roadblocks in the West Bank. According to the officer, the IDF has so far removed 44 roadblocks. He added that the IDF was planning to remove an additional 17 in the next stage of the plan. The sources said that the Palestinian delegation requested the removal of more roadblocks, and that Olmert expressed his willingness."

Good News, Isn't It?!

Hear, hear: the IDF removed 44 roadblocks! This may not be much, given the rather extensive list of restrictions imposed on Palestinians, i.e.:

Standing prohibitions

Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are forbidden to stay in the West Bank.

Palestinians are forbidden to enter East Jerusalem.

West Bank Palestinians are forbidden to enter the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing.

Palestinians are forbidden to enter the Jordan Valley.

Palestinians are forbidden to enter villages, lands, towns, and neighborhoods along the 'seam line' between the separation fence and the Green Line (some 10 percent of the West Bank).

Palestinians who are not residents of the villages Beit Furik and Beit Dajan in the Nablus area, and Ramadin, south of Hebron, are forbidden entry.

Palestinians are forbidden to enter the settlements' area (even if their lands are inside the settlements' built area).

Palestinians are forbidden to enter Nablus in a vehicle.

Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are forbidden to enter area A (Palestinian towns in the West Bank).

Gaza Strip residents are forbidden to enter the West Bank via the Allenby crossing.

Palestinians are forbidden to travel abroad via Ben-Gurion Airport.

Children under age 16 are forbidden to leave Nablus without an original birth certificate and parental escort.

Palestinians with permits to enter Israel are forbidden to enter through the crossings used by Israelis and tourists.

Gaza residents are forbidden to establish residency in the West Bank.

West Bank residents are forbidden to establish residency in the Jordan Valley, seam-line communities, or the villages of Beit Furik and Beit Dajan.

Palestinians are forbidden to transfer merchandise and cargo through internal West Bank checkpoints.

Periodic prohibitions

Residents of certain parts of the West Bank are forbidden to travel to the rest of the West Bank.

People of a certain age group -- mainly men from the age of 16 to 30, 35, or 40 -- are forbidden to leave the areas where they reside (usually Nablus and other cities in the northern West Bank).

Private cars may not pass the Swahara-Abu Dis checkpoint (which separates the northern and southern West Bank). This was canceled for the first time two weeks ago under the easing of restrictions.

Travel permits required

A magnetic card (intended for entrance to Israel, but eases the passage through checkpoints within the West Bank).

A work permit for Israel (the employer must come to the civil administration offices and apply for one).

A permit for medical treatment in Israel and Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem (The applicant must produce an invitation from the hospital, his complete medical background, and proof that the treatment he is seeking cannot be provided in the occupied territories).

A travel permit to pass through Jordan Valley checkpoints.

A merchant's permit to transfer goods.

A permit to farm along the seam line requires a form from the land registry office, a title deed, and proof of first-degree relations to the registered property owner.

Entry permit for the seam line (for relatives, medical teams, construction workers, etc. Those with permits must enter and leave via the same crossing even if it is far away or closing early).

Permits to pass from Gaza, through Israel to the West Bank.

A birth certificate for children under 16.

A long-standing resident identity card for those who live in seam-line enclaves.

Checkpoints and barriers

There were 75 manned checkpoints in the West Bank as of January 9, 2007.

There are on average 150 mobile checkpoints a week (as of September 2006).

There are 446 obstacles placed between roads and villages, including concrete cubes, earth ramparts, 88 iron gates, and 74 kilometers of fences along main roads.

There are 83 iron gates along the separation fence, dividing lands from their owners. Only 25 of the gates open occasionally.

Main roads closed to Palestinians, officially or in practice

Road 90 (the Jordan Valley thoroughfare).

Road 60, in the North (from the Shavei Shomron military base, west of Nablus and northward).

Road 585 along the settlements Hermesh and Dotan.

Road 557 west from the Taibeh-Tul Karm junction (the Green Line) to Anabta (excluding the residents of Shufa), and east from south of Nablus (the Hawara checkpoint) to the settlement Elon Moreh.

Road 505, from Zatara (Nablus junction) to Ma'ale Efraim.

Road 5, from the Barkan junction to the Green Line.

Road 446, from Dir Balut junction to Road 5 (by the settlements Alei Zahav and Peduel).

Roads 445 and 463 around the settlement Talmon, Dolev, and Nahliel.

Road 443, from Maccabim-Reut to Givat Ze'ev.

Streets in the Old City of Hebron.

Road 60, from the settlement of Otniel southward.

Road 317, around the south Hebron Hills settlements."

So, given this list, as I was just saying, removing 44 roadblocks may not be much, but nevertheless, it is good news. Isn't it?

Back in December 2006 ...

Let's refresh our memory. It all started last December, when Olmert met Abbas. Olmert promised to remove checkpoints in the West Bank: "I intend to personally supervise it," he told Abbas, "so that the Palestinian society would feel the relief" (Ha'aretz, Dec. 24, 2006). The same day, Ha'aretz reported that Defense Minister Amir Peretz and his deputy Ephraim Sneh were actually working on a plan to facilitate Palestinian movement in the West Bank.

The two must have spent the whole night in their office, devising a plan for dismantling not less than "45 out of approximately 400 checkpoints." At dawn, just as they intended to retire for a short nap, they found Ha'aretz at the doorstep, the top of which headline read: "IDF Opposes Olmert Plan to Dismantle West Bank Checkpoints."

This sounded like a story worth following. In a democracy, the government sets the policy, the army carries it out. In other kinds of regimes, the army sets the policy, the government nods. Which regime is Israel's?

Olmert Withdraws

A few days later (Ha'aretz, Dec. 27, 2006) the prime minister indeed ordered the army to dismantle scores of checkpoints -- but "in a second phase, dependent on an additional decision of the political echelon." So at the first stage, no checkpoints will be removed (and then we'll see). This, as some Israeli sociologists claim, has always been Israel's regime: instead of risking a dispute with the army, the government complies with the army's demands.

Meanwhile, Aluf Benn of Ha'aretz revealed that the "new" plan to dismantle 45 checkpoints was nothing but an old document, prepared by the Israeli army originally in English -- an "export product" for American eyes -- back in 2005. And never implemented, of course. So much for the sleepless night of Olmert's aides: all they did was feed the media with an old army document.

The Army Rewards

Anyway, the prime minister gave the army a green light not to dismantle any checkpoint. The army, for its part, did not leave this ministerial gesture unrewarded. On Jan. 17 Ha'aretz reported that the Israeli army finally complied.

"The Israel Defense Forces announced yesterday that it recently removed 44 dirt barriers that were located near Palestinian villages in the West Bank. In recent years, the army established nearly 400 barriers and permanent roadblocks. The move is one of a series of steps aimed at easing restrictions on the Palestinians that were announced following the December 24 meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas."

So you see: Olmert did keep his solemn promise, and the Israeli army did carry it out and did dismantle 44 checkpoints. At least, that's what the army announced, and the Israeli army always tells the truth. Well, almost always.

Oops ...

In this exceptional case, it took less than a week to expose the dirty deal between the government and the army. Scores and dozens of such deals -- among the government, the army, and the settlers -- are never exposed; the entire Israeli colonial project is based on such deals, made behind the back of all democratic mechanisms. But this was an exception. On Jan. 22, following an embarrassing UN report, the army had to admit:

The Israel Defense Forces admitted yesterday that the 44 dirt obstacles it said had been removed from around West Bank villages did not actually exist.

Last Tuesday, the IDF announced that it had removed 44 dirt obstacles that blocked access roads to West Bank villages, to fulfill promises made by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas during their meeting a month ago. Olmert had pledged measures to ease the lives of Palestinian civilians.

However, a military source admitted yesterday that these obstacles 'had either been removed before the political level decided on the alleviations or had been bypassed by Palestinians earlier, and a decision had been made not to rebuild them.'

So the 44 "removed" checkpoints, or dirt obstacles, didn't exist in the first place. The Israeli lie probably counted on Israel's information superiority: after all, who could count all those checkpoints better than the Israeli army? Alas, the UN turned out as an unexpected party-pooper.

Yesterday's Lie Is Today's Truth

But why bother to tell the truth when a lie is just as good? Three months later, Israel is again counting on our short memory. In an official meeting between the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian president, no less, the army airs once again the legend about the 44 "removed checkpoints." The lie exposed in January is recycled as truth in April, and everybody is happy: Israel can claim it kept its promise, the Americans can claim progress in the "peace process," even President Mahmoud Abbas can claim an achievement.

Who would bother to remind us that all this is nothing but a lie? The abused Palestinians haven't felt any relief whatsoever, but have been cynically cheated once again. And all of us media consumers have been duped along with them.

Remember this next time the Palestinians show their inexplicable ingratitude.

Remember this next time you hear an official Israeli announcement.

Dr. Ran HaCohen was born in the Netherlands in 1964 and grew up in Israel. He has a B.A. in Computer Science, an M.A. in Comparative Literature, and his PhD is in Jewish Studies. He is a university teacher in Israel. He also works as a literary translator (from German, English and Dutch), and as a literary critic for the Israeli daily Yedioth Achronoth. Mr. HaCohen's work has been published widely in Israel. "Letter from Israel" appears occasionally at Antiwar.com. This article, which first appeared on Antiwar.com, is republished with the author's permission.

The American, Israeli, and Palestinian Triangle

4/16/2007

Video link for Amb. Afif Safieh's Harvard Lecture

Zionism its Role in World Politics

Şenay Yeğin

Tuesday , 24 April 2007

Author: Hyman Lumer. New York: International Publishers, 1973. 152 pages. ISBN 0-7118-0383-X

In the 8th Century, after the exile of Jews from Jerusalem by the Romans, the word “Zion” has been uttered by the Jews to emphasize their longing for the Promised Land: Palestine. Today, the word Zion is being used as a modern term, Zionism which is the name given to the movement of the Jews who are in Diaspora to gather on the land of Palestine again. Zion has become an ideology as Zionism; but it did not serve to the civilization development in the Middle East. Instead Middle East came out to be a deadlock. Is it a deadlock because of pure Zionist intentions or imperialist missions? The American Marxist Hyman Lumer in his book “Zionism Its Role in World Politics” answered this question by defining Zionism as a nationalist movement serving to imperialism and US aims over the oil territories.

It is easy to understand the message that Lumer tries to give from the cover of the book on which there is a shape of world circled by “Zionism”. Lumer’s thesis in his book is that Zionism is not only gathering of Jews in the Promised Land but its support to imperialism which is a big actor in world politics. In the first part of his book, Lumer introduces Zionism by explaining its roots and nature, its contribution to the establishment of Israel, and its socialist side. In the second part, his emphasis is on the purpose of Zionism which is being in the service of imperialism. He supports his arguments by questioning how Zionism got support from imperialist powers, what kind of an expansionist policy it had and its imperialist policies over Africa. In the third part, Lumer elaborates on the Zionist organizations in the US and on the role of monopoly capital. In the next part, he emphasizes that Zionism was a nationalist movement and he explains that Zionism’s reaction was the formation of a fascist organization, the Jewish Defense League. In the fifth part, he points to the Soviet Jews in Israel and in the last part; he emphasizes the reaction of Jews in the US and in Israel to Zionism.

In the first part, Lumer defines political Zionism by the creation and perpetuation of a Jewish state and makes a distinction with its religious definition which is the belief in an eventual return to the Holy Land upon the coming of the Messiah. The two most important forerunners of Zionism were Leon Pinsker and Theodor Herzl who wrote books about it after the development of anti-semitism with the upsurge of imperialism and racism in the 19th Century. According to Lumer, as a political ideology Zionism was based on two points which were that the Jews throughout the world form a nation and that anti-semitism is eternal. He emphasized that Zionism is not only an ideology, but it is also an organized movement which is based on the principle of the establishment of a state which is purely Jewish to escape anti-semitism. However while escaping anti-semitism; Lumer emphasizes that Jews treated Israeli Arabs as second-class citizens.

In the first part, Lumer emphasizes that there were also socialist trends in a nationalist movement like Zionism in the beginning of 1900s. The supporters of socialist Zionists in the tsarist Russia had gathered under organizations like Workers of Zion which supported a socialist Jewish state in Palestine. Moreover Lumer emphasizes that today; there are socialist developments in Israel like kibbutz, which is the communal enterprise whose members in return provided only by the necessities of life. He emphasizes that 58.5 percent of Israel’s economy is private sector which belongs mostly to foreign capital.

In the second part of the book, Lumer is supporting his argument that, Zionism is serving to imperialism because of Israel’s will of all of Palestine, its expansionist policies and its relations with Africa. Israel willed not only to possess their homeland but all of Palestine. Herzl wanted Jews to be backed by imperialist countries such as the Ottoman Empire, Germany, Russia and France for possessing the land of Palestine. Other than these countries Britain and the USA supported Jews for their mission, too. By the Balfour Declaration in 1917, with the invasion of Palestine by Britain, Jews were assisted by Britain. Besides Britain a committee in the USA, American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs, was founded for the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth.

Between 1958 and 1966, Israel implemented expansionist policies; forming ties with 39 countries in Africa, 23 in Latin America, 11 in Asia and 8 in Mediterranean. Israel supported French imperialism against the independence movements of Algerians and it joined to Britain’s and France’s invasion of Egypt in 1956. In 1958, after the leadership of an anti-imperialist regime in Iraq, Israel supported Britain and US when their troops landed to protect Jordan and Lebanon from the regime. In 1967, Israel used its expansionist policies by invading Egypt. However its expansionist policies were not only for Arab countries but also for African countries. Israel was basically an associate of South Africa which had an apartheid regime. However, it gave military aid to national liberation fronts in Africa for presenting Israel as a socialist but not communist and more acceptable than imperialist powers.

In the third part, Lumer emphasizes that Zionism is in association with the US by explaining Zionist organizational movements there, US aid to Israel and its dependence on US capital. In the US, Zionism did not have many followers in the beginning of the 19th Century, because the ones who did not support it thought the return to the homeland could only occur by the upcoming of the Messiah. However after the Holocaust and the upsurge of Jewish nationalism, organizations were founded some of which were Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Zionist Organization of America and United Labor Organization of America. Moreover, the US Jews aided Israel’s political parties and the institutions that support their policies since the establishment of Israel, under the umbrella organization called The United Jewish Appeal. Furthermore, Lumer emphasizes that US imperialism shows itself in the Israeli economy, by saying that a vast part of investments are owned by Ford, Motorola and other US companies. Eighty percent of Israel’s foreign debt is also owned by US government which makes Israel dependent on the foreign capital of the US imperialism. Moreover, the main point of the book is given in this part which is that US is trying to use Israel as a weapon against Arab liberation movement and its threat to US oil investments by making it dependent on its capital. Especially after the 1967 war with Egypt Israel became highly dependent on US.

Besides, Lumer’s emphasize on Israel’s dependence on the US capital, in the fourth chapter, he raises the point that Zionism became a reactionary movement and that it supported racism by forming an ultra-racist organization which tried to combat Soviet Russia, blacks and Arabs. According to Lumer, if a country is capitalist it uses racial or nationalist oppression to prevail its exploitation. For the Jewish question, there are Marxist and Zionist views. According to the Marxist point of view Jewish question is based on the recognition of the class roots of anti-semitism and working class unity. On the other hand, the Zionists view anti-semitism as everlasting and a distinctive form of repression. Moreover, he gives the example of the Soviet Russia which resolved the Jewish question by eliminating the capitalist roots of racism. According to Lumer, the incline of Jewish nationalism after the 1967 war caused the establishment of Jewish Defense League (JDL) in 1968. The shift to right among Zionists is being criticized by Lumer. He says that racism fosters the exploitation of workers and anti-semitism only occurs in the societies of class exploitation. According to Lumer, it was a reactionary movement that was founded for protecting Jews from blacks in New York. JDL was found guilty because of the bomb attacks. Some of the targets of the attack were against Soviet News Agency, Soviet Embassy, and Palestinian Liberalization Organization. Moreover, Lumer emphasizes that JDL was used as a tool for CIA’s anti-Soviet operations.

In the fifth part, Lumer singles out the point that the difficulties that Jews came across in the Soviet Union are only lies. The Jews in the Soviet Russia came across with Zionist hostility especially after the 1967 war. The Soviets were accused by implementing discriminatory laws to the Jews like not allowing them leave the country or by forcing them to carry domestic passports to expose Jews to discrimination. In the Soviet Russia, Jews’ religious freedom was restricted, too. However, Lumer emphasizes that the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights invoked the Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel. However after the immigration Jews wanted to return to Soviet Russia, because it was hard to live in a capitalist system. Moreover, he points out that there is a big lie which claims that the Jews in the Soviet Russia were treated intolerably by the Russians.

In the last part, Lumer is making emphasize on the point that there is a rising opposition to Zionism in the USA and Israeli policies in Israel. There is an incline of peace movements in Israel which are usually against Israeli imperialist policies. The opposition in the US is generally among the young Jews who have leftist political views. It is not only among Jews but also among non-jews, too.

As far as Lumer has Marxist point of views and that he was one of the editors in the Political Affairs Magazine which is a publication of the Communist Party in the USA, it must be considered that a Marxist point of view can not be neutral for criticizing a nationalist movement of the Jews. It must be noted that this book was published in 1973, while the Soviet Union was still alive. So as a Marxist author in a capitalist country, the longing for a communist regime and also criticizing Zionism as a servant of imperialism are both inevitable. However, when the policies of Israel are compared with its current policies, it is noteworthy that Israel is still making attempts to invade its neighbors and it is still a major ally of the US.

Sami Al-Arian's wife speaks on husband's incarceration

Audio Interview
Audio, Crossing the Line, 23 April 2007

Sami al-Arian (Arab American News)

Professor Sami al-Arian has been incarcerated for over four years in federal custody. Although he was acquitted of all charges to ties with a Palestinian "terrorist" organization, a Federal judge remanded him indefinitely.

EI contributor and producer of the weekly podcast Crossing the Line Christopher Brown interviews Nahla al-Arian, the wife of Sami al-Arian, as she discusses his current situation, and the affect that a recent 60-day hunger strike had on him and his family.

Listen now [MP3 - 8.1 MB, 17:44 min]

Catholic Nobel peace laureate shot in nonviolent West Bank rally

By Judith Sudilovsky

4/23/2007
Catholic News Service

JERUSALEM (CNS) – Northern Ireland's 1976 Noble Peace Prize laureate, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, was injured in the leg by a rubber bullet while taking part in a nonviolent demonstration against the Israeli separation wall.

Maguire, a Catholic, required medical treatment for her injury and also for tear-gas inhalation. She remained in the hospital for a few hours, then returned to the demonstration. She left the country the following day, April 21, as planned.

Maguire had been attending the Second Bil'in International Conference on Nonviolence in the West Bank village of Bil'in, where Palestinians and international and Israeli peace activists have held such protests against the wall since February 2005. The conference was sponsored by the International Solidarity Movement.

Movement activist Jonas Martinez, an American Catholic who said he did not want to give more details about where he was from, said conference participants joined the weekly demonstration against the wall and were met by Israeli soldiers armed with rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons.

Demonstrators, including Maguire, covered their faces with bandannas and onion slices to dilute the tear gas, he said, and after each lob of tear gas they would regroup and continue forward toward the wall. He said demonstrators shouted in various languages: "Don't shoot, we are nonviolent."

In addition to Maguire, eight demonstrators were hit by rubber bullets, he said, and numerous demonstrators were beaten by soldiers. Three demonstrators were arrested but later released, he said. Some of the more than two dozen injuries came from tear gas, he said.

One demonstrator, Tito Kayak of Puerto Rico, managed to climb a nearby military tower and hang a Palestinian flag on the top; he was arrested. He was to remain under house arrest until the end of the Israeli Independence Day holiday, which begins the evening of April 24, said Martinez.

Israel says the separation wall is necessary to prevent suicide attacks against Israeli civilians and notes that the number of attacks has decreased significantly since the wall was built.

At a press conference before being injured, Maguire told about 500 participants in the nonviolence conference that the wall was an "insult to the human family" and must come down.

"Nonviolence will solve the problems here in Israel and Palestine," Maguire said in a statement issued by the International Solidarity Movement. "Often, the world sees only violence. But Palestinians are a good people, working toward nonviolence. This wall must fall."

Israelis, Palestinians discuss final peace accord – report

Palestinian newspaper al-Quds says Israeli, Palestinian officials discussed difficult issues that have been blocking progress in peace talks

Joseph Nasr

Published:

04.24.07, 14:31 / Israel News

Israeli and Palestinian officials discussed a number of thorny issues at an undisclosed European location in preparation for final-status peace talks, the al-Quds newspaper reported Tuesday.

The final borders of the future Palestinian state, the plight of Palestinian refugees, the status of Jerusalem and the future of Jewish settlements built in the West Bank were on the agenda, the Palestinian daily added.

The report quoted a senior Palestinian official as saying that the meeting reflected the willingness of Israeli and Palestinian leaders to fulfill US President George W. Bush will to establish an independent Palestinian state by the end of his presidency next year.

The report also said that Israel initially resisted the meeting but acquiesced to pressure from Washington and the European Union.

Under the Oslo Accord negotiations over final status talks should have ended in May 1999.

The Palestinians insist that all refugees who fled Palestine during the 1948 Israeli-Arab war should be allowed back into their homes according with United Nations Resolution 194.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was ready to make "painful concessions" to achieve peace with the Palestinians, but warned that no Palestinian refugees will be allowed into Israel's sovereign territory.

A Bitter Spat Over Ideas, Israel and Tenure: Finkelstein vs Dershowitz

April 12, 2007

By PATRICIA COHEN

If the longstanding fight between two professors, Alan Dershowitz and Norman Finkelstein, was under the jurisdiction of family court, a judge could issue restraining orders and forbid inflammatory statements. But, alas, this nasty and zealously pursued feud is taking place in scholarly precincts, so each protagonist is continuing his campaign, unhampered, to destroy the other’s professional reputation and career.

In the latest round, first reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Mr. Dershowitz, a law professor at Harvard and a prominent defender of Israel, is trying to derail Mr. Finkelstein’s bid for tenure at DePaul University in Chicago. He has sent a blast of e-mail messages to faculty and administrators there accusing Mr. Finkelstein of shoddy scholarship, lying and anti-Semitism.

Mr. Finkelstein, who is going before a university-wide review panel on Friday, the third and final step of the tenure process, said that so far two committees — one from the political science department and one from the college as a whole — voted in favor of tenure. But the college dean rejected his advisory committee’s vote and recommended against an appointment.

“I am personally confident that had the process been without outside interferences, I would have gotten tenure,” Mr. Finkelstein said. (Tenure decisions will be announced in June, said Denise Mattson, a spokeswoman for DePaul.)

Regardless of the outcome Mr. Dershowitz has managed to irritate many people besides Mr. Finkelstein. “Everyone has been offended by the degree of outside pressure,” said Michael Budde, the chairman of DePaul’s political science department, “which shows no respect for the integrity of our process and institution.” On Tuesday the Middle East Studies Association, which represents scholars, sent a letter to DePaul’s president expressing concern that this tenure decision had been “unduly politicized.”

--MORE--

Related

Zionism vs. Anti-Zionism: Dershowitz Tries To Get Finklestein Fired

Twilight Zone / Village of the Martyrs

Last update - 15:04 12/04/2007

By Gideon Levy

In a square marked by cypress trees, the dead rest. Here are 48 decades-old graves - graves of Qassem Abbas, Awad Jawad, Arif Aqel and many unknown soldiers, who rest beneath the old tombstones. The cemetery of the fallen of the Iraqi Army's Second Battalion, 1948. Until the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, an Iraqi tank that had invaded the area was also kept here. In 1993, Israel hastened to remove the tank, lest the Palestinians make use of the steel junk heap.

Up on the hillside, above this military cemetery located south of Jenin, the "Village of the Martyrs," Al-Shuhada, was founded in 1948, a village of Bedouin refugees. About 2,000 of their descendants live here today; about a third of the men still go to work in Israel, in the fields of Emek Hefer and the surrounding area, exactly where their forefathers' villages once stood. At the end of last week, they dug another grave here.

Ahmed Asasa was buried in the soil of his village. He'd been shot in the neck from afar by an Israeli sniper. Two of his friends, who tried to come to his aid while he was bleeding to death, were also shot and wounded by snipers. Asasa was 15, a 10th-grader in the village high school. There was more than one Ahmed Asasa in this story: One of the friends who tried to help him, and one of the witnesses to the killing, also share the same name. Everyone is Ahmed Asasa, in the Village of the Martyrs.

Our escort to the village hesitates to drive his car into the Jenin refugee camp, where we are waiting for him. Captain Saud, of the Palestinian national security forces, is armed and wearing a fashionable shirt embroidered with the logo of the U.S. Army Special Forces; he knows that the camp's boundaries are a "red line" for PA personnel. Outside the boundaries, his people lie in wait for the owners of the stolen cars from the city and the camp, and they immediately confiscate and destroy the vehicles. "The PA brought an end to the occupation, solved the refugee problem, and now all it has left to do is to confiscate cars stolen from Israel," people in the camp say bitterly.

The government hospital in the city, on the edge of the camp, is shut down again, due to non-payment of wages. The two wounded boys whom we met later had received only first aid at this hospital and then were released. The hospital is deserted. Oh, the international boycott. In both the city and refugee camp of Jenin, people look like the walking dead.

We parked our car outside the house of Rabi'a Asasa, the "bingo" - slang for the wanted man of the village. In order to apprehend him, the soldiers raided this place two weeks ago Thursday at first light; in seeking to catch him, they killed young Ahmed. Rabi'a managed to get away.

We walk to the house of the dead boy. The blue iron gate is wrecked, because of the Jeep that stormed into the yard. The houses here are built on a rocky slope and we climb over the rough terrain to Ahmed's house. The fields of Qabatiyah, carpets of brown and green, are visible in the valley below. Further up the hill, between the houses, is a makeshift monument with a photo of Ahmed. This is where he fell. The sniper, say the residents, stood in the pink window of the house on the slope, under the television satellite dish, more than 100 meters away. The sniper aimed at the neck, fired and Ahmed collapsed.

It was very early in the morning. Only the laborers who go to work in Israel were awake at that hour. The sound of gunfire and stun grenades exploding was heard from the hills and the whole village awoke in a fright. Ahmed also awoke in his house at the top of the hill. The women and children rushed out, toward the slope, in fear of the soldiers who had invaded from above. They didn't know that the soldiers had raided the entire village, and were standing on the roofs of the houses and at the windows, also along the same slope. Only the head of the household, Ibrahim Asasa, remained in the house.

Ibrahim is 69, the father of 11 children; Ahmed was his youngest. Three days after the tragedy, the signs of shock and bereavement are still apparent on this withered man in a kaffiyeh. He was born in a village that is now the site of Moshav Beit Eliezer. Ibrahim still goes out to work in the fields of neighboring communities, between Kfar Monash, Beit Lid and Netanya. Last week, he was working for the Columbia citrus fruit company in Hadera. Now he's afraid that the state will prevent him from going to work in Israel because he has become a bereaved father. It seems like all the men of the village have come to console him in the living room of his home. They sit sipping bitter coffee and eating dried dates.

Ibrahim awoke at five that fateful morning and was getting ready to leave for work in Israel, when he heard gunfire from the hills overlooking the house. The other members of the family woke up and began running for their lives. Ahmed headed toward his cousin's house further down the slope. Ibrahim stayed behind, near the iron gate. A few minutes later he was informed that his son had been hit and was lying wounded on the slope. He was told that the boy was taken to the hospital and, afterward, that he had died. By the time he reached the hospital, he could only see his son's dead body.

The family's neighbor, also named Ahmed Asasa, was also awakened by the gunfire, and soon looked out the window and saw the other Ahmed Asasa lying wounded on the ground, bleeding from the neck, not far from his house. This Ahmed Asasa was afraid to leave the house because of all the shooting. Yet another Ahmed Asasa, an 18-year-old neighbor, decided to make a run for it and try to save his wounded cousin. A few women had tried before to pull the wounded boy out of the way, but then ran off because of the continued shooting. This Ahmed Asasa thought that because he was short, he could get to his bleeding cousin and help him. He started pulling him along the rocky ground, but then he, too, was wounded by bullet fragments, in the head and the waist. He shows us the scars. He says that when he got close to his cousin, Ahmed was still moving parts of his body and his eyes were open.

The Ahmed Asasa who'd tried to come to his aid fell and lost consciousness. He woke up later in the hospital. Neighbors say that the Ahmed who was shot in the neck lay on the ground for close to an hour. The Ahmed Asasa who survived still has trouble getting around.

Another neighbor, Shawki Asasa, a 24-year-old soldier in the PA under Captain Saud, also made his way to the wounded boy. Now he is at home recovering from his own injuries; a sniper's bullet pierced his shoulder and exited his upper back. He heard the women shouting that someone was wounded and rushed to help. After he himself was hit, he managed to drag his body a little before collapsing on the rocks like the two Ahmed Asasas. One of his commanders says that he tried to talk to one of the Israel Defense Forces officers, to persuade him to let them evacuate the wounded, but that the officer told him: "Don't interfere." Shawki's father says: "They don't want the world to help us and they don't want us to help each other, either. A boy lies there wounded and they don't let us help him."

By the time the first Ahmed Asasa arrived at the hospital, having finally been transported in a private car since no ambulance was permitted to get near him, he was already dead. The second Ahmed Asasa survived.

The IDF Spokesperson, this week: "On March 29 an IDF force operated in Shuhada, south of Jenin. During the action, the force was fired upon in a number of different incidents. At 4:47 the force identified a terrorist armed with a long weapon on the roof of a building, fired at him and identified a hit. At 5:24, the force identified two more armed terrorists on the roof of a nearby building and fired at them. Subsequently, a violent riot erupted in the village that included the throwing of explosives, gunfire and rock-throwing. In the course of the action Palestinians blocked the traffic routes with boulders, which prevented the medical forces from reaching the place. The IDF force did not prevent ambulances from entering the village. As noted, IDF fire was directed solely at armed terrorists."

His friends say that Ahmed loved soccer and was a good student. In the last picture taken of him, he's holding a certificate of excellence fr om his school. They laugh at the claim that he was armed, and his father points out that, given the distance between the sniper and his fleeing son, the boy wasn't endangering anyone, in any case. In recent years, six others from the village have been killed, including Hussam Asasa, who was physically and mentally disabled, and young Fadi Asasa, who was run over by a vehicle belonging to an undercover army unit.

All the students from the school came to their friend Ahmed's funeral, which was held in the village cemetery not far from the Iraqi cemetery, in the shadow of the cypresses.

Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist for Ha'aretz, a member of its editorial board and former spokesman for Shimon Peres ^[1] A recurring theme of his articles is what he calls the "moral blindness" of the Israeli society to the effects of its acts of war and occupation, an attitude which he attributes to the systematic dehumanization of Israel's neighbours. During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, he joined a distinct minority of Israeli commentators by rejecting the view that this was a "just war" whose civilian casualties were inevitable and acceptable.

Levy was born in 1955 in Tel Aviv as a child of European immigrants. From 1978 to 1982 he served, along with Yossi Beilin as aide to Shimon Peres. Since 1982 he writes for the Israeli daily Haaretz, where in 1986 he first reported about the occupation and Palestinian life under the occupation.^[2] In 1996 he was awarded the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

Why the Arab peace initiative should not be rejected

13/04/07

BAHIJA RÉGHAÏ

Commenting on the 2002 Arab peace initiative, Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery once remarked, "Every international initiative designed to put an end to the conflict passes through three stages: denial, misrepresentation, liquidation." He said that was how "both Labour and Likud governments have succeeded in scuttling every peace plan put forward." Sure enough, the Saudi initiative put forward that year was quickly liquidated -- and followed by a military buildup in the Palestinian territories.

Today, that same 2002 initiative has made a comeback, endorsed by the Arab League. It calls for Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines; the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.

In return, the Arabs offer Israel a peace agreement and normal relations.

Despite the promise, Israel seems intent on yet another rejection -- not outright, but by demanding conditions that kill the spirit of the offer. So, while publicly welcoming the initiative, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rules out a full withdrawal from the West Bank, and rejects any refugee return. "I don't think that we should accept any kind of responsibility for the creation of this [refugee] problem," he told the Jerusalem Post, in a step-back from Ehud Barak's 2000 position. Mr. Barak allowed that Israel would recognize the Palestinian right to return in principle, but would have the right to determine how many refugees would be allowed to exercise it.

The positive reception the peace initiative received in the United States and Europe has obliged Mr. Olmert to put a positive spin on his reaction. He has now proposed a regional peace conference or a meeting with moderate Arab leaders and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas under Saudi auspices "to hear them [ideas] and be glad to offer our ideas." Neither option is taken seriously.
First, the Arab initiative is not a menu of individual "ideas" that Mr. Olmert can pick and chose from, but a proposal for a comprehensive peace. Second, such a conference would, itself, entail broader normalization of relations with Israel, something many Arab states will confer only once Palestinian rights are achieved, not before.

The incremental process favoured by Israel in dealing with the Palestinians overlooks the asymmetry between the two sides, and puts the onus on Palestinians. What ought to be points to discuss at a negotiating table are made preconditions designed to ensure that no discussions ever take place or else requiring Palestinians to accept Israel's position. The demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel should be matched by Israel's recognition of the Palestinians' own elected government.

Israel's demand that Palestinians renounce violence ignores the continuing settlement expansion, the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure and the turning of their daily life into an Orwellian ordeal. Palestinians deserve respect, security and, above all, freedom. The absence of these is what justifies their moral claim to retaliation.

It's been said Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, suggesting the fault for the failures of past peace initiatives lies on the Arab side. This is not true. The Rogers initiative during the Nixon years and the Reagan plan of 1982 both spoke of a Palestinian state in the territories and a freeze on Israeli settlements. Both were rejected by Israel.

Mr. Barak's offer at Camp David, from which Yasser Arafat "walked away," proposed a Palestinian state broken up by settlements, Israeli security zones and access roads. The West Bank of which Mr. Barak was said to have offered 95 per cent to the Palestinians did not include the suburbs of Jerusalem unilaterally annexed by Israel, or the security areas that would be under Israeli control for 20 years.

Indeed, a viable Palestinian state has not been what successive Israeli governments had in mind. Even Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the Oslo Accords, told the Knesset in 1995 that the permanent solution he envisioned would provide Israel with "most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity." He explained: "We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state," and added: "We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines." It is in Israel's own interest to find a peaceful solution that will satisfy the needs of Palestinians. To this end, Israeli leaders need to abandon the destructive and faulty narrative that all the giving is done by Israel and all the taking by Palestinians. It won't be easy, but just as de Gaulle overcame opposition within his country to end the colonization of Algeria, and South Africa's de Klerk presided over the dismantling of apartheid, Israel's leaders can rise to the moment.

Mr. Olmert can look for ways to liquidate this latest peace initiative or he can turn it into a lasting peace. Canada should encourage him to accept the opportunity.

Bahija Réghaï is president of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations.

Hebron settlement / Born in sin, living in sin

By Yossi Sarid

There is nothing new under the Hebron sun - what has been will be again. Forty years ago, Moshe Levinger took advantage of the government's weakness and blindness, and of the rivalries and intrigues of its ministers. Now Levinger has successors.

The 1967 settlements were established through chicanery, and it is through trickery that they continue to be founded in 2007. To this day, we are forced to swallow the rotten meat they serve at The Settlers' Restaurant.

Haaretz's editorial at the beginning of the week focused on the building known as "the house of dispute."

"It's not a house," the editorial stated, "it's a settlement." It lies on 3,500 square meters and already more than 30 families and 14 singles are inhabiting it - and that is not the end of it.

Now the agents provocateur are citing the law - "the house was bought legally." After all, haven't they always been known for their blind obedience to the law; did they not always march in the darkness with a relevant clause lighting their way? They carefully paid the Palestinians 400 silver shekels, just as our father Abraham paid Efron the Hittite for the Machpela Cave. However, in Kiryat Arba (Hebron), Abraham wished to bury the dead and be buried. These, on the other hand, want only to expel and to rule.

The Jewish settlement in Hebron was born in sin and lives in sin, and the whole enterprise is nothing but a farce. How Abraham's bastards laugh! Laws in a land that isn't yours are meaningless. Their sole purpose is to transform what isn't yours into yours. The essence of occupation is patently illegal. Only its transience makes it acceptable. But for the settlers, "temporary" means "for eternity."

So all of the serious hair-splitting debates into the legal issues make us laugh. But the story of the so-called kosher bone in the throat of the large Arab city will end in tears.

There is no such thing as a kosher deal under occupation. Every purchase and every sale has the stench of foul play sanitized by a law book. Sodom also had a nice book of laws. Clearly, there is no purchase without a sale, and there is no seller free of pressure, threats, trickery or irresistible temptation. There is no free market, nor could one exist. Injustice and greed stand in place of supply and demand.

Therefore the most kosher deal is the one that stinks the most. It should not be examined by legal experts but by odor experts.

The defense minister has no chance of evacuating the house soon. He is weak and exhausted, battered and pecked. His roar is a mouse's squeak. The interior minister was interviewed on the radio yesterday, and it was clear that another Efron-Bar-On-Hebron conspiracy was being concocted, with a devious prime minister once again calling the shots behind the scenes.

All we can do then is quote to those hard-hearted Jews the prophet Isaiah's reproach: Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land! (Isaiah, 5:8).

A boycott by any other name ...

Last update - 07:45 13/04/2007

By James Bowen

In the late 19th century, changes in Ottoman law created a new class of large landholders, including the Sursuq family from Beirut, which acquired large tracts in northern Palestine. A similar situation had long existed in Ireland, where most land was controlled by absentee landlords, many of whom lived in Britain.

The 1880s, however, initiated dynamics that led the two lands in different directions. In 1882, the first Zionist immigrants arrived in Palestine, starting a process that subsequently led to the eviction of indigenous tenant farmers, when magnates like the Sursuqs pulled the land from under their feet, selling it to the Jewish National Fund.

In contrast, in 1880, Irish tenant farmers started a process that turned them into owner-occupiers. A former British army officer played a role in this drama, which introduced his name as a new word into many languages.

Western Ireland was again suffering near-famine conditions. The potato crop had failed for the third successive year. Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott, agent for Lord Erne, the absentee landlord of an estate in County Mayo, refused the request of tenants for a rent reduction and, instead, in September 1880, obtained eviction notices against 11 of them for failure to pay their rent.

Thirty years earlier, evictions had expelled huge numbers of Irish to North America. But times were changing: A nationwide tenants' rights movement, the Land League, had recently been formed, under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, a scion of the landlord class, whose pro-tenant sympathies were inherited from his American mother, a woman whose grandfather had been one of George Washington's bodyguards. Speaking on September 19, 1880, Parnell outlined the strategy of the league:

"When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must shun him on the roadside when you meet him, you must shun him in the streets of the town, you must shun him at the shop-counter, you must shun him at the fair and at the market-place and even in the house of worship, by leaving him severely alone, by putting him into a sort of moral Coventry, by isolating him from the rest of his kind, as if he were a leper of old, you must show him your detestation."

Three days later, court officials attempted to serve Boycott's eviction notices on the tenants, and the Land League policy went into effect. Within two months, Boycott's name had become a synonym for ostracism, he had left the estate, and both landlords and government had discovered the power of ordinary people. Within a year, legislation at Westminster provided government finance for tenants wishing to purchase their farms.

For too long, Israel has been taking land from which Palestinians have been evicted, and detestation is spreading around the world. In Ireland, photos of Israeli bulldozers are placed beside those of landlords' battering rams. Even a former U.S. president has recognized hafrada ("separation" in Hebrew) as apartheid. Disgust has reached such a level that even highly conservative institutions that normally try to avoid politics are driven to express concern.

One such body is Aosdana, the Irish state-sponsored academy of artists. Its annual general assembly on March 28 passed a resolution whose full text is: "Mindful of the August 4, 2006 call from Palestinian filmmakers, artists and cultural workers to end all cooperation with state-sponsored Israeli cultural events and institutions, Aosdana wishes to encourage Irish artists and cultural institutions to reflect deeply before engaging in any such cooperation, always bearing in mind the undeniable courage of those Israeli artists, writers and intellectuals who oppose their own government's illegal policies towards the Palestinians."

Although on the surface, this is a mild resolution, it is a boycott call in all but name. Its significance was not lost on Dr. Zion Evrony, the Israeli ambassador in Dublin. The very same day, he issued a press release that was replete with cliches that might have worked several decades ago, when Irish people were still unaware of the horrors that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians.

Possibly, the alacrity of Dr. Evrony's response was due to the fact that the strength of feeling among Irish artists had been rehearsed in the Irish press. Indeed, the proposer of the motion, playwright Margaretta D'Arcy, who is Jewish, had written in The Irish Times on February 16 that, "I was reluctant to advocate a cultural boycott of Israel until I visited the country for the first time last November ... I became convinced that a cultural boycott was necessary, if only as an act of solidarity with those in Israel who seek to remove the inequality, discrimination and segregation of their society."

Continuing, she quoted from "Land Grab," by Yehezkel Lein, published by B'Tselem - the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories: "The settlement enterprise in the occupied territories has created a system of legally sanctioned separation based on discrimination that has, perhaps, no parallel anywhere in the world since the apartheid regime in South Africa."

Ms. D'arcy finished by saying: "My uncle went to live in the Holy Land in the 1920s to help set up the utopian dream of peace, justice and equality between Jew and Arab. It was only when I arrived there that I realized how mistaken he was. He would have done better to have stayed in the East End of London to struggle for peace, justice and equality in England."

Parnell finished his call to action by saying that "there will be no man so full of avarice, so lost to shame, as to dare the public opinion of all right-thinking men."

They were both right.


Prof. James Bowen is the national chairperson of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Israel turning into cruel occupation machine

Haaretz
Last update - 03:08 13/04/2007

The nightmare on the worshippers' route

By Nehemia Shtrasler

If we had a serious defense minister, the house in Hebron would not have turned into such a complicated affair. The minister would not have fallen asleep on the job. He would have intervened on the first night, three weeks ago.

That same night he would have brought in large military forces and acted quickly, before the settlers could bed down at the site and bring in 80 people, before they had transferred even one mattress there. The army would have received one clear order: immediate eviction. Without hesitation. Without delay. Without papers. Without petitions. Without Meni Mazuz. After all, the defense minister is sovereign in the area. He has exclusive authority.

But instead of a serious defense minister there is Amir Peretz. A coward. A hesitator. A manipulator.

And thus the matter is becoming increasingly complicated. The legal experts are sharpening the explanations, the politicians are celebrating, and the attorney general is clouding the situation even further. Mazuz is allowing Peretz to evict, but not immediately. He has time. So do the settlers, and time is on their side.

And then comes the height of absurdity: The same army that should have evicted them on the first night is now allocating large forces to protect them. Without the army they won't last for even one day. The army is in effect their implementations contractor.

And the competition among the ministers in the coalition is beginning: Who will provide more support to the settlers? Rafi Eitan (Pensioners' Party) says the house must be left in Jewish hands. Eli Yishai (Shas) says this is an entirely legal Jewish purchase, and Roni Bar-On (Kadima) says they have a clear right of purchase. It is quite funny to hear the legal chicanery regarding the settlers' legal right of purchase, in the context of acts of occupation that are all illegal. After all, Israel is the occupier. It has the power, and it is the law. Would anyone dream of allowing a Palestinian family to purchase a house "with a clear right of purchase" in Ariel?

The Hebron settlers have a clear plan: to expand the settlement in the heart of Hebron by creating territorial contiguity between Beit Hadassah and Kiryat Arba, and the house is situated right on the main road, the so-called worshippers' route. We are talking about several dozen extremists who have taken control of the heart of the city, thrown out the legal owners, humiliated the neighbors and made them miserable, causing the closing of 1,500 businesses and the desertion of 15,000 people. That is their Judaism, a lunatic and messianist Judaism, which sanctifies the land and causes misery to human beings.

Their plan also has a Stage 2: When the humiliation and the hatred reach the point of explosion, the major war will break out, the war of Armageddon, which will "cleanse" all the territories of Arabs, and thus the entire Palestinian problem will be solved.

Although Peretz has given orders to evict the settlers, it is now already impossible because he didn't act in time. First we must wait 15 days so they will "evacuate voluntarily," and then they have to be given another 15 days. Why? So that during those 30 days they will bring equipment, additional families, volunteers, sympathizers and yeshiva students from all over the country, as well as ministers and MKs who will visit and express support. And thus, in another 30 days, hundreds of people will be living there, the High Court of Justice will be inundated with requests, and it will be impossible to move anything.

All this should not surprise anyone, because this is the same Peretz who promised to evacuate dozens of illegal outposts, but has not evacuated anything. The same will happen to the house in Hebron. There will be talk, arguments and legal advisers; there will be compromise proposals until May 28, the date of the Labor Party primaries. After that all will be forgotten, and the disputed house in Hebron will become another Beit Hadassah.

And the public, which sees how Israel is turning into a cruel occupation machine, has become totally apathetic. It closes its eyes and hopes that this entire nightmare will pass and disappear.

Pelosi's Misguided Middle East Visit

by Dr. Marcy Newman, Electronic Lebanon

This week U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi concluded her visit to the Middle East in Damascus, Syria, to which President George W. Bush's response was that her visit "sends mixed messages." While Pelosi's delegation to the region should be met with applause for refusing to participate in isolating Syria, her visit to Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria should be met with a great deal of caution.

Twice in the last month Pelosi delivered a speech -- of more or less the same message -- before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual policy conference and before the Israeli Knesset. In these speeches, she unequivocally stated: "When Israel is threatened, America's interests in the region are threatened. America's commitment to Israel's security needs is unshakable." Statements such as this have made Pelosi, along with her traveling companion Congressman Tom Lantos, one of the top ten recipients of AIPAC donations. She received a standing ovation for these sentiments in the Knesset where she linked the U.S. and Israel's "common cause": " a safe and secure Israel living in peace with her neighbors."

Perhaps Pelosi genuinely wants to secure peace in the region. If this were the case, however, we would have seen some indication of balance in her fact-finding mission. While in Israel, Pelosi discussed her visits with the families of Israeli soldiers taken last summer in Gaza and Lebanon, naming them and relaying stories about them. Not once was a Palestinian or Lebanese killed or wounded in Israel's wars dignified with any such humanizing gesture. Instead Pelosi focused entirely on Hezbollah's violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 for failing to disarm. Not once did she mention Israel's almost daily violation of that same resolution with military jets invading Lebanese airspace or recent military incursions into the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Moreover, she failed to mention Israel's continued occupation of Shaaba Farms and Ghajar, which are also violations of 1701; nor did she engage with serious discussions of the occupation of the Golan Heights or the Palestinian Territories with leaders in the region.

If Pelosi, Lantos, and the other congressional leaders traveling in their delegation wanted to understand what peace means to all parties they could have spent their time in Lebanon meeting with victims of Israel's war and she could have toured the areas of the country destroyed by Israel. She could have visited with Lebanese families affected by American-made cluster bombs. Such meetings could have helped Pelosi to respond to a report on her desk from the State Department, which states Israel may have violated legal agreements made with the U.S. in the 1970s when it dropped between 2.6 and 4 million American-made cluster munitions on Lebanon last summer in the last 72 hours of the war after the cease fire agreement had been brokered. The report explores Israel's violation of the Arms Export Control Act, which stipulates that American-manufactured weapons must only be used in self-defense, in an open area against two or more invading armies, and never used against civilians.

As Speaker of the House it is Pelosi's job (along with Senator Majority Leader Joseph Biden) to review this report and if the violations are corroborated, which evidence from organizations like Human Rights Watch already substantiated, Israel could be sanctioned. Indeed, in response to Israel's use of American-made cluster bombs in Lebanon last summer, Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch reported, "we've never seen use of cluster munitions that was so extensive and dangerous to civilians ... The issue is not whether Israel used the American cluster munitions lawfully, but what the US is going to do about it." As Speaker, Pelosi can and should do something about it. After all, there is a precedent: Ronald Reagan imposed a six-year ban on the sale of munitions to Israel in 1982 after Congress investigated Israel's use of cluster bombs against civilians.

For all the talk about "peace" before AIPAC and the Knesset, if Pelosi were actually invested in regional peace she could begin by holding Israel accountable for its violations of the Arms Export Control Act by sanctioning Israel. But this option seems rather unlikely given her congressional voting record. For instance, last summer she voted for her colleague Lantos' resolution in Congress (HR 921), entitled "Condemning the recent attacks against the State of Israel, holding terrorists and their state-sponsors accountable for such attacks, supporting Israel's right to defend itself, and for other purposes." That bill, which overwhelmingly passed (410-8), led to "other purposes," namely selling $120 million of oil to re-fuel Israel's American-made fighter jets that bombed and killed civilians in Lebanon as well as an expedited delivery of 1,300 M26 artillery rockets for Israel to use in its war on Lebanon.

If Pelosi's delegation to the Middle East is seriously interested in creating "peace" here, it should begin at home. She should respond to the report on her desk and make the decision to sanction Israel. Moreover, Pelosi and Lantos should both draft legislation that does not focus exclusively on Syria, Lebanon, and Iran for their weapons if only because the U.S. itself provides Israel with extensive military support and political cover. The burden should be shifted to Israel as the occupying power of Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. Further, Pelosi would do well to join her colleagues in the Senate who drafted the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2007 (S 594) and support the effort of forty other nations who have banned cluster munitions.

Dr. Marcy Newman is a Visiting Professor at the Center for American Studies and Research at the American University of Beirut and a Fellow at the Initiative for Middle East Policy Dialogue.

Privileges and Principles in Palestine/Israel

April 13, 2007

" . . . a solution divorced from the context of its problem is a solution built on quicksand" (Khalidi xxiv).

Since many Palestinian-Americans find the "old country" somewhat provincial compared to our adopted homes in Europe and North America, we find it humorous when European and North American Jews, with no previous ties to historic Palestine, wax eloquently about "home" upon first stepping foot on Ben Gurion (Lod) airport soil.

In no time the "olim," (newcomers to Israel) are swapping hummus and falafel recipes, which has been appropriated as "Israeli" food. One Palestinian woman lamented recently that she had to pull out a history book to convince an American friend that falafel was an Arabic dish. In just a matter of time, the recent immigrants, or "transplants," as a Palestinian journalist refers to them, are calling one another "habbibi," Arabic for darling, and filling up comments boxes on their blogs with "yallas," and "ya annis" (other appropriated Arabic sayings).

No one will ever convince me that a privileged American or European Jew has a right to freely immigrate to Israel, or for that matter 1,156,977 Russians since 1948, when people with keys and deeds to their houses, not to mention hundreds, if not thousands, of years of continuous living in historic Palestine, do not. The Palestinians preceded the Jews in Palestine and never left Palestine, until three-quarters of them were ethnically cleansed, to enter again. In addition to preceding both Jew and Muslim in Palestine, the Palestinian-Arab incorporates them (Khalidi xxviii).

In 1897, Theodor Herzl convened a Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland. What must be seeded in one's mind in order to circumvent the baffling charges and countercharges, the diversions and the circular arguments that inform the Palestine/Israel issue are the words of the eminent Palestinian historian, Walid Khalidi:

The Palestine tragedy--of which the current Middle East crisis is but the latest chapter--has, unlike most great upheavals in history, a specific starting point: the year 1897 (Khalidi xxii).

He continues:

All the poignant crises that have rent Palestine and the Middle East since then--the great Palestine Rebellion against the British in 1936-9, the Palestine War and Exodus of the Palestine Arabs of 1948, the Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956, and the Arab-Israeli War since 1967--flow directly or indirectly from the Basle Congress of 1897. Behind the seemingly labyrinthine complexities of the so-called Arab Israeli conflict and the baffling maze of claims and counter-claims, there lies a continuous and continuing dual process. On the one hand, Zionist determination to implement, consolidate and expand the Basle 'vision', irrespective of the Arab character and patrimony in Palestine and its hinterland; on the other a corresponding development of Arab resistance to Zionist encroachment and self-fulfilment at Arab expense (Khalidi xxii).

Principled Palestinians consider the "right of return" as the heart and soul of the issue, even more so than the status of Jerusalem. As a literature teacher, I know that "reconciliation" is a major theme in works of literary merit. Ethnic cleansing is a war crime. Denial of right of return for Palestinians is colluding with a war crime. Dr. Salman Abu Sitta writes:

If a robber destroys a home or builds another floor on it, is he entitled to it? In that case, under what premise did the European Jews recover their homes and property, up to the last painting, from their European fellow citizens after half a century?

In the book of human rights and even in national laws nothing supercedes the sanctity of private property and the right to return to it.

More and more principled Israelis are also calling for a right to return and are also calling attention to Palestinian ethnically cleansed and destroyed and defaced villages. One such Israeli is Uri Zackhem, who has filmed several demolished Palestinian villages. Uri writes:

I'm Israeli, Jewish and live in Kfar Saba.

I like to help documenting the landscape, especially all the things (buildings, roads, railways, ..etc.) which are taken for granted and which are not taught at Israeli schools.
For me gaining knowledge about the past is one important step. Working for equality and justice is the next one.
My wish is one or two states between the sea and the river. I want Israel (or whatever it will be called) to be socialist, multiethnic and multicultural, with equality to all the citizens and religious freedom and freedom from religion if they wish so.

Stopping the law of "return", and the return of all the Palestinian refugees that want to, living among the people already living in Israel.

To these words I will add the words of the poet, Issa Chaccour, who, while speaking of his village, Bir'im, engages the hearts and minds of many Palestinians, who remain steadfast and resolute despite Israeli intransigence on the one hand and the cynical and self-serving compromise of their leaders on the other:

Your people, Bir'im have not died
And will not forsake a grain of sand from you
As long as you have men like these
As long as you have men like these
Who continually strive for justice
they do not care what others may say
And they always say to the oppressor
Our Bir'im is more precious than money.
And the return will never disappear
We will return contented
We will forget the bitter days.

Khalidi, Walid. From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem Until 1948. Washington: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1987.

Israeli in Human Shield Case Suspended

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Israeli soldiers use Palestinian youths as ‘human shield’ (with video)
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Friday April 13, 2007 4:46 PM

By AMY TEIBEL

Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel suspended a commander whose troops ordered two Palestinian youths in the West Bank to stand in front of their vehicle to protect it from stones thrown by locals, the army spokesman's office said Friday.

The incident in Nablus on Wednesday, captured on video, is the latest sign that the army continues to use human shields in violation of international law and a landmark Israeli Supreme Court ruling in 2005 barring the practice.

The army statement Friday said Israeli soldiers ``apparently made prohibited use of civilians'' and that the unit's commander would be suspended ``from all operational activity, in addition to the ongoing investigation into the matter.'' The commander was not named.

The footage was filmed by a foreign peace activist during a raid on the home of a wanted militant, and aired on the Yediot Ahronot newspaper Web site. Troops damaged the house, but the fugitive was not inside.

For years, Palestinians had complained about the army's use of human shields, but proof was elusive. Then in late February, Associated Press Television News captured footage of a Palestinian man forced to lead heavily armed soldiers on a manhunt for militants, in a house-to-house search.

Others, including an 11-year-old girl, have come forward with similar accounts of being compelled to walk ahead of soldiers looking for militants.

International law, including the Geneva Conventions and Hague regulations, prohibits placing civilians in harm's way during military operations.

The APTN video prompted the army to launch a rare criminal investigation into whether its soldiers have broken the law as critics claim. The army has promised a vigorous investigation.

Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said the suspension failed to address the fundamental problem.

``They are treating it as an isolated incident,'' he said. ``The problem is systematic and ... they (troops) continued the practice despite the court order,'' he said.

Human rights groups say the use of civilians in military operations has dropped since the Supreme Court banned it, but the recent cases suggest the practice continues.

The court ruling was prompted by an outcry over the army's widespread practice, in a 2002 West Bank offensive, of forcing Palestinian civilians to approach fugitives' hideouts.

The army, which launched the offensive following a rash of suicide bombings, defended the practice then, saying it kept civilians out of harm's way and encouraged militants to surrender peacefully. And it says it never allowed troops to use civilians for cover during battles.

But in August 2002, a 19-year-old Palestinian student was killed in a gunfight that erupted after he was forced to knock on the door of a building where a fugitive was hiding.

Israeli soldiers use Palestinian youths as ‘human shield’ (with video)

IDF soldiers use Nablus youths as ‘human shield’

(Video) Peace activist films IDF soldiers ordering two Palestinian youths to stand in front of their vehicle to prevent locals from stoning it; military advocate general orders investigation into incident, commanding officer suspended

Ali Waked

Latest Update:

04.12.07, 23:52 / Israel News

VIDEO - Despite repeated promises by the Israel Defense Forces not to make use of Palestinian civilians as ‘human shields’ during its activity in the territories, troops operating in Nablus were filmed ordering two Palestinian youths to stand in front of their vehicle to protect it from stones thrown by locals.

Video: Research Journalism Initiative

The act, which was also in violation of a Supreme Court decision from 2005, was filmed by a foreign activist on Wednesday in Nablus’ Sheikh Munis neighborhood, where the soldiers encircled the home of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades member Abed el-Qadr.

During the operation the IDF forces demolished the house, but it later turned out that el-Qadr was not on the premises.

Meanwhile, a number of Palestinian youths threw stones at an IDF Hummer that was securing the soldiers encircling the house. According to foreign peace activists at the scene, the soldiers then ordered two youths who happened to pass by to stand in front of the vehicle in order to stop the stone-throwing.

The peace activist who filmed the act told Ynet, “The soldier closest to me said they were only asking the youths to tell their friends to stop throwing stones.”

He said he eventually stopped filming so as not top upset the soldiers, but added that the incident continued for “several more minutes.”

The activist said this is the first time he had seen soldiers ordering Palestinians to serve as human shields for army vehicles, but added that in the past few months he had witnessed a number of incidents in which soldiers used Palestinian civilians during their activity.

Following the video’s publication on Ynet, Military Advocate General Avihai Mandelblit ordered an investigation into the incident, and Central Command chief Yair Naveh ordered the suspension of the commanding officer.

First Published:

04.12.07, 21:20

Nakba-deniers; Eyes Wide Shut

By Tariq Shadid


In the West, when advocating the Palestinian cause, we are often told that public perception of the conflict has ‘come a long way’ in the direction of the Palestinians. This usually refers to the shift people made from believing in the Zionist myth of ‘a land without people for a people without land’, to accepting the Oslo-doctrine of the two-state solution.

It is difficult to disagree with this, but what has really been achieved? Basically it only means that Westerners seem to have discovered that Palestine was, after all, not a land without a people. What now seems like a painfully overdue observation, must have been a real eye-opener for them somewhere in the recent past.

I can imagine that recovering any bit of eyesight after having been completely blind, must feel like an absolute revelation. But does it also mean the person who has partially recovered his eyesight is now fit to engage in the busy traffic of rush hour? Even if this person is convinced he can?

As a Palestinian living in the West, I can assure you that there are many here who believe their eyes are already open, while in reality they have deviated much less away from the ‘land without people’ formula than they think. They believe they are sufficiently informed in order to have an opinion. And there we have it: the invisible deadlock that permeates the societies of the West, when it comes to Palestine.

This deadlock is caused for the most part by the fact that people in the West have been conditioned on a large scale to feel deeply guilty about any criticism of Israel. And therein lies the main reason for the attractiveness to Westerners to take the position of blaming both sides equally. The fact that the Zionists are the actual invaders, land confiscators, oppressors and occupiers, is brushed aside, basically because it causes these conflicting loyalties. The media aids this by the skilful dosing of information, and by the use of language, branding all Palestinian violence as terrorism, and all Israeli violence as retaliation.

It is not so difficult anymore these days to convince people that Palestinians are suffering heavily, and unjustly. What seems to be the biggest problem, however, is for these same people to see Israel as the cause of this suffering, despite the overwhelming historical facts that prove this. This, of course, includes those facts provided by the Israeli New Historians in the nineties. They deny none of the 1948 crimes against the Palestinians, but simply assert that they should have been carried out more thoroughly (Benny Morris).

A mistake often made by those who advocate the Palestinian cause in the West, is to fail to exert pressure on these highly essential issues. Nakba-denial is one of the biggest problems that cause the failure of people to perceive the Zionist crime for what it really was, namely a vicious and well-planned act of ethnic cleansing, that displaced around 800,000 Palestinians from their homes and their country in 1948. Also, the over 400 villages they were expelled from, were destroyed, and wiped off the map. The majority of people in the West still don’t know these hard and brutal facts.

What’s the use of having a discussion, for instance about the Israeli Apartheid wall, with a Nakba-denier? The axiom of cause and effect is reversed in his brain. A Nakba-denier sees Israel as the beginning, and the Palestinians as the attackers, and no matter how historically ludicrous this formula is, in the mind of the Nakba-denier it is a reality. The only useful thing to talk to him about, is the Nakba - Arabic for ‘catastrophe’- in order to try and open his eyes, that obviously are ‘wide shut’.

Since the Oslo-period, we also have a new, but quite strong presence of so-called Palestinian rights defenders in the West, who nevertheless hit the brakes when one mentions Zionism. They often have similar ideas to those of many who were active in the Israeli ‘Peace Now’ movement, that rapidly diminished in adherence over the last years – which also says something in itself. As European or American self-proclaimed promoters of the Palestinian cause, these people are of no use to the Palestinians, in fact they even constitute a significant problem, if not one of the main problems faced in creating awareness in the West, since they act as barriers and gatekeepers against progress.

How can a supporter of the Palestinian cause regard anyone who defends Zionist ideology, which is national-socialist in origin (this should ring a bell), and infested with concepts of racial superiority, without suspicion? The presently very active Christian form of Zionism is at least as destructive - and I mean this in the most literal sense - and uncompromising to the Palestinian people as its Jewish counterpart.

It is of great importance, to keep Zionism at the center of the political discourse about Israel, and to mention it in any discussion about the subject. Oslo-style thinking has indeed weakened this practice on a large scale, but there is a simple way to reverse this very rapidly: talk about it. Always talk about the Nakba, and always talk about Zionism, when talking about Palestine in the West. Without these two issues on the table, what are we really talking about? And whose purposes are we serving, by being caught in those fruitless dialogues about the issues that are only symptoms of these other two?

One thing is certain: awareness of the Nakba is at a very low level in the West. Yet I firmly believe that as long as this does not change, the apathy of Westerners will remain exactly as it is, and they will look on while Israel continues to encroach upon Palestine acre by acre, and continues to turn life into a living hell for each and every Palestinian inhabitant, person by person. And all they will do, is shake their heads, and repeat the eternal ‘why on earth can’t these people stop fighting each other?’ A statement of despair, as much as it is one of ignorance.

If only these people knew about the Nakba of 1948, and that it never stopped but is still going on today … Nakba is not a difficult word to educate people about, so let us be wise and make people talk about it, before Israel gets a chance to complete it.


Tariq Shadid is a Dutch-Palestinian activist.

Oxfam calls for end to Palestinian blockade

Ian Black, Middle East editor
Friday April 13, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


Aid to the Palestinian Authority was suspended in April 2006 after Hamas's victory. Photograph: Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are suffering "devastating" humanitarian consequences as incomes plummet, debts mount and essential services face meltdown, Oxfam says in a report that calls for an immediate end to the international financial blockade of the Hamas-led government.

With poverty up by 30% in 2006 and previously unknown levels of factional violence on the streets, the Palestinian territories - occupied by Israel in the 1967 war - risk becoming "a failed state" if the punitive measures are not lifted, the charity warns.

Palestinians were already struggling to make ends meet when key donors, including the US, the EU and Canada, suspended direct aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in April 2006. The move came in response to the victory of the Islamist movement Hamas in parliamentary elections. Israel halted the transfers of tax and customs revenue it owed to the PA shortly afterwards.

Hamas refuses to recognise Israel, to renounce violence or to accept existing peace agreements, but it has hinted recently at a more pragmatic approach and largely observed a ceasefire. Last month, in a deal brokered by Saudi Arabia, it agreed to form a national unity government under President Mahmoud Abbas, triggering new moves to ease the boycott.

The PA is now operating on a quarter of the $160m (£81m) a month it needs to finance its activities. The impact has been so severe because an estimated one million people depend on incomes paid to 160,000 government employees. Oxfam reports that 46% of Palestinians now do not have enough food to meet their needs; that the number of people in deep poverty (defined as those living on less than 50 cents a day) nearly doubled in 2006 to over one million; and that incomes of PA workers had fallen to 40% of their normal levels. A November 2006 poll of government workers showed an increase in poverty from 35% to 71%.

Salam Fayyad, the highly regarded Palestinian finance minister, said in Brussels on Wednesday that the boycott had "devastated" the Palestinian economy.

Norway has agreed to resume financial assistance to the PA , while Russia, France, and other EU governments are considering renewing transfers in order to improve the lives of Palestinians, beyond a "temporary international mechanism" designed to provide direct support to Palestinians without going through the PA.

The US and Israel have showed no sign of changing their positions despite repeated calls to accept that the blockade has proved counter-productive.

Oxfam argues that it is legitimate for donors to attach conditions to how their money is spent, but not to advance a political agenda. Aid could be suspended if money was used corruptly or to fund terrorism. "International aid should be provided impartially on the basis of need, not as a political tool to change the policies of a government," said Oxfam's international executive director, Jeremy Hobbs.

"Oxfam opposes violence against civilians and supports Israel's right to exist alongside a viable and independent Palestinian state. But suspending aid - and withholding tax revenue in violation of international agreements - is not an ethical or effective way to achieve these outcomes. And in this case, it hasn't worked. Instead, parents have been driven into debt, children taken out of classrooms and whole families deprived of access to medicine and healthcare."